Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

“He has four thousand more we can have.”
Frontispiece—Page [77].

The Merivale Banks

BY

MARY J. HOLMES

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1900, 1903.

By MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.

[All rights reserved.]

The Merivale Banks.      Issued September, 1903.

CONTENTS

The Merivale Banks

CHAPTER I
THE BANKS

There were two of them: the First National, familiarly known as the White Bank, and a private bank, known as the Grey Bank, and they stood side by side in the same imposing block, with marble front and massive doors of oak, and broad granite steps. High up in the cornice was an inscription telling that the building had been erected in 1875 by Robert White, Esq. He would like to have had Judge Robert White, instead of Robert White, Esq., so proud was he of the title held for a year only, and for which he was indebted to the resignation of an intimate friend and the influence of money. But his wife dissuaded him from it, but could not keep off the “Esq.” He was both a judge and a ‘squire, he said, having held the office of Justice of the Peace for two terms, and being called ‘squire before he became a judge, and one of the titles should go down to posterity.

He was a weak man, and a proud man; weak in judgment and common sense, and very proud of his birth as son of a General and grandson of a Governor, with a line of ancestry dating back nearly to the flood. He was proud, too, of his money, and his house, the finest in Merivale, and his handsome grounds, and of his marble block, the third floor of which was occupied by a Masonic lodge, the second by law offices and club-rooms, and the first by the two banks. Of one of them—the National—he was president, and that fact added to his high opinion of himself as the first man in Merivale.

“Yes, my boy—the first man in Merivale, and don’t you forget it, or that you are my son—the grandson of a General and the great grandson of a Governor, with all sorts of high blood behind them,” he said to his only son and heir, Herbert. “Pick the best there is in society or none,” was his injunction, and by the best he meant those with the most money, without reference to character or morals.

In some respects Herbert was a son worthy of his father, and when a lad, had built a wall of reserve between himself and the boys whom he thought second-class in the Merivale High School.

With the girls, however, it was different, and when Louie Grey’s bright brown eyes looked fearlessly at him, and when Louie called him a blockhead because he failed to work out a simple problem in algebra upon the blackboard, and then, to make amends, whispered to him the answer to a question in history over which he was hopelessly floundering, he forgot the White blood of which his father had taught him to be so proud—forgot his pedigree, and went over the wall to meet the young girl with the brown eyes and hair, who had no pedigree, so far as he knew, and who certainly had no money.

The Greys were new-comers in Merivale, and no one knew anything about them, except that they had come from Denver and seemed to be very poor. But both Mr. Grey and his wife were so affable and had about them an air of so much good breeding and refinement that it won them friends at once, and a place in the best society of the town—always excepting, of course, Judge White, who held aloof from strangers until he knew the length of their purse, or their pedigree, both of which he considered indispensable if he were to take them up. The Greys had neither, he was sure, for they rented one of his cheap cottages in what was known as White Row; and Louie, when questioned by Herbert as to her pedigree, said at first that she didn’t think they had one; or if they had, they didn’t call it by that name; and when he explained to her what he meant, citing his grandfather and great-grandfather as examples of his meaning, she answered at once:

“Oh, yes, I have, or did have, a grandfather and great-grandfather, like you—captains of ships, which sailed from Nantucket out upon the seas, and were called either smugglers or pirates, I don’t know which. I’ll ask father.”

She did ask him, and, with his fondness for humor and jokes, Mr. Grey replied, “Tell him both, by all means, and that you have quite as blooded a pedigree as he can boast.”

How much of this Herbert believed, it were difficult to tell. Smugglers and pirates had an ugly sound, and for a time he kept aloof from the girl whose ancestry was so questionable; then her sunny face and saucy eyes prevailed over prejudice, and they became inseparable. She was no end of fun, he said, and followed fearlessly where he led her. She was not afraid of snakes, nor bugs, nor beetles, nor worms, for he had tried them all upon her, and she had neither screeched nor flinched, but paid him in his own coin, and made him more afraid of her than she was of him. She could climb a fence or a tree as fast as he could, and faster, too, as he knew by experience; for once, when he started up an elm in which there was a robin’s nest, with four blue eggs in it, she went after him like a little cat, and, seizing him by the coat collar, nearly threw him to the ground and made him give up the nest, to which the father and mother robins, who had been uttering cries of distress, returned in peace, finding their eggs unmolested.

“I’ll never speak to you again,” she said to him when she had him safe on the ground, with her hand still holding to his collar, while he made frantic efforts to get away from her.

She didn’t speak to him for two days; but when, on the third, she found an orange in her desk, with a few words scrawled on a piece of paper, “Haven’t you been mean long enough, and ain’t you never going to give in?” she gave in, and allowed him to walk home with her after school, past his own handsome house, with its grounds sloping down to the river, and on to the narrow back street where she lived in one of his father’s tenement houses. It was not a very attractive house, and Herbert always shuddered when he saw it and thought that Louie lived there. There were six cottages in a row, all of the same size and architecture, except one at the north end, where the only shade tree on the street was growing. This was a little larger and had in front a double bay window, which gave it an air of superiority over its humbler neighbors. When Mr. Grey came to Merivale houses were scarce and rents high. In White Row, Bay Cottage, as it was called on account of its window, chanced to be vacant, and after searching in vain for a house in a more desirable neighborhood, Mr. Grey took it and became one of the White Row tenants.

“My tenants,” Judge White was wont to say, with a strong emphasis on the my, as if they belonged to him, body and soul, while to the tenants, when he came in contact with them, he had an air as if they were as far beneath him in the social scale as it was possible for them to be. “A wretched lot,” he said, “who never seem to think it as incumbent upon them to pay their rent as their grocer’s bill; act as if I or’to give it to ’em. In fact, old Nancy Sharp once told me I or’to, because I was rich and she poor.”

To this, however, Mr. Grey was an exception. His rent was always ready, and he paid it with a manner which made his landlord feel that if there were any superiority, it was not on his side.

On the afternoon when Herbert accompanied Louie home, carrying her books and her umbrella, for the day had been showery, he found his father in the cottage, receiving his money for the quarter’s rent, and looking puzzled and disconcerted.

“I’ll think about it, and let you know; but I warn you now that I don’t believe it will work. It takes experience and a pile of money. No, sir; I don’t believe it will work,” he said, as he placed his rent in a pocketbook bulging with bills, for this was the day when he went the rounds among his tenants himself, instead of sending an agent.

What wouldn’t work, he didn’t explain to Herbert, whom he took away with him, questioning him closely as to the frequency of his visits to the Greys, and telling him to remember who he was and what his ancestry.

At dinner that night he was more communicative, and said to his wife, “What do you suppose Tom Grey wants to do?”

Mrs. White could not guess, and her husband continued: “In the first place, he has given notice that he will quit my tenement for a larger house at the end of the next quarter; and I don’t like it. No, sir! I don’t like it. I never fancied the fellow. Puts on the fine gentleman too much for a chap as poor as I suppose he is. But he’s a good tenant—one of the very best; pays up to the hour, and never asks for repairs, papering nor nothing; while the rest of ’em in White Row hound me, spring and fall, for paper or paint, but mostly paper, which I believe they tear off as fast as it is put on. Old Nancy Sharp had the impudence to ask me for screens to keep the flies out! Lord Harry! they’ll want gas or electric lights next! But what beats me is Tom Grey’s setting up so high. Says he has lately come into possession of quite a little money. He has been West for some weeks, and has just got home, and is going to take a better house, and wants to rent the vacant rooms next to the Bank; and for what, do you suppose? You’d never guess.”

Mrs. White didn’t try, and he went on: “For a bank! A private bank! To be known as Grey’s Bank! Think of it—a one-horse bank, side by side with mine! It’s a piece of impertinence, and I would have refused outright, if the place had not been vacant so long, and I hadn’t had such pesky work with the last man, who went off leaving me in the lurch to the tune of three hundred dollars.”

Here the judge stopped to take breath, while his wife asked, “Where did he get the money to start a bank with?”

“The Lord only knows,” her husband replied. “Was poor as Job’s turkey when he came here. Why, didn’t his wife do some sewing for you?”

Mrs. White nodded, and the judge went on: “And now he has money for a bank! Gambled for it, maybe, when he was gone. He is just the quiet, sly sort of a fellow to do that thing.”

“Mr. Grey never gambled, I know he didn’t,” Herbert spoke up. “He’s a gentleman, if he is poor, and he has been through college. Louie told me so, and you have only been to common schools!”

Herbert was quite eloquent in his defense of Mr. Grey, but his father frowned him down by saying, “You seem to be posted in Mr. Grey’s affairs—too much so—and I want you to keep away from there—carrying home that girl’s books and umbrella! Remember who you are.”

Herbert’s answer was to leave the room and slam the door behind him, while his father continued: “That boy is too thick with the Grey girl, and if her father gets into a bank, it will be worse yet. I think I’ll not let him have it.”

“But,” his wife rejoined, “if you do not rent to him some one else will, and your rooms will stay vacant. Don’t be foolish. It isn’t likely he can run more than a year.”

“No, nor half that, before he bursts up. Who is going to deposit with him, when there is the First National? Nobody; but I’ll have the lease drawn for a year, and he’ll have to pay whether or no, half down anyway! Said he had had some experience in a bank, and liked it. Well, let him try. I’ll give him six months before he closes up.”

As a result of this conversation, the rooms next to the National Bank were leased for a year to Mr. Grey, who also hired and moved into a more fashionable part of the town than White’s Row, where he had at first lived. There was some speculation as to where he got the money so suddenly for so great an expenditure when he was not in any business. But on this point he was non-committal, as he was on most subjects. He never talked much, but his pleasant, genial manners had made him popular, and people were glad to see him prosper, and glad to have a second bank in town. They needed it, they said, for Bob White was getting so bigheaded and overbearing, that it was well to take him down a bit, and they hoped Tom Grey would succeed.

He had no fear of it himself, and entered heart and soul into the fitting up of the new bank, and never asked patronage from any one. He knew he should get it, and he did. Slowly at first, as people were a little timid, and those who had money in the National did not care to draw it out and place it elsewhere. As time went on, however, and there was no sign of the blow-up Judge White had predicted, confidence increased. There were more deposits and larger, and by the end of the year the Grey Bank was doing a good business—small, of course, compared with the White Bank, but good, and constantly increasing.

“Can’t go on long. Mark my words. Can’t go on,” Judge White would say, shaking his head warningly to some customer who, he knew, was taking a part of his funds from his bank to place it with his rival. “There goes Widow Brown now with five dollars, I dare say, and old maid Smith with ten, maybe. What is that to what we have? A drop in the bucket. You’ll see, you will, where he’ll land with his washerwomen’s and servant girls’ deposits.”

This was Judge White’s opinion of the Grey Bank, and when the first lease expired, he would have liked some good reason for refusing to renew it. But there was none. The rent was paid as regularly as it had been in the little tenement in White’s Row. There was no other applicant for the premises, and he contented himself with raising the rent a hundred dollars, to which Mr. Grey made no demur. He was satisfied and happy, and an ideal banker, greeting every one with a pleasant smile and word, and making loans in small amounts where the risk was so great that the White Bank would never have taken it. To all human appearance he was on the top wave of prosperity and enjoyed it to the full.

He was building a new house now, on a lot a little out of the town, and on the same street with Judge White. It was to be first-class in every respect, and people watched it as it progressed, and were glad for Tom Grey. He was a good fellow every way, and a good citizen, giving freely of his means and working for the public good, and they rejoiced in his good fortune, and made him one of the Village Board and School Board, and would have made him a vestryman if he had not declined that office, saying he was not worthy of it. That Judge White should be a little jealous of him was natural, but he was too proud to own it, and only shook his head ominously whenever he was mentioned.

“Let him run,” he would say to himself. “Yes, let him run. He will soon reach the end of his rope, if my surmises are correct. Then we’ll hear howling from those washerwomen who are putting their weeks’ earnings in his bank. Yes, let him run!”

CHAPTER II
HERBERT AND LOUIE

Four years passed, and the Grey Bank had not come to the end of its rope. Many besides Widow Brown and old maid Smith, and washerwomen generally, deposited in it, and Mr. Grey seemed to be increasing in wealth and prosperity.

The new house had long been finished and occupied, and was a model of simple elegance, outside and in. The Greys had good taste, and whatever they touched fell into the right place, and harmonized with whatever was nearest to it. Louie’s artistic eye detected an incongruity at once, and as she directed the most of her surroundings, people said of the grounds and the house that they were like pictures in which the outline and coloring were perfect, while Louie was the fairest picture of all.

She was nearly seventeen, with a face of rare beauty, especially her eyes, which Herbert White thought the handsomest he had ever seen. She did not climb fences or trees with him now. She was getting too old for that, but she went rowing with him on the river, after the white lilies, and took long rambles in the woods, searching for the early spring flowers, and later on for ferns and the red sumach berries. Sometimes she drove with him in the fancy turn-out which his father had given him on his birthday. But this did not occur often, for such drives were highly disapproved by Judge White, who read his son many a lecture on his bad taste in admiring a girl in Louie’s low estate.

“Good thunder, father,” Herbert said to him one morning when the lecture had been longer than usual, “isn’t Louie Grey as good as I am, if her father hasn’t quite as much money as you? He is a banker and a gentleman, and folks like him, and put him in office. Why, he is President of the village now, and—and—I never told you—but that time Mr. Smith, our church warden, died and we had to have a new one, they offered it to Mr. Grey, who refused it, just as he refused being vestryman, saying he was not good enough. So they took you, because you had a lot of money, I know; I heard about it. They said you were proud and overbearing, but on the whole a good man, and if Mr. Grey wouldn’t take it, there was no one else, so they elected you. I wanted to tell you then, but you seemed so pleased I didn’t.”

The judge was very pale by the time Herbert finished this statement, and for a church warden very angry, too. He didn’t swear, but he wanted to, and did say some things not very complimentary to the church generally and Mr. Grey in particular. He was proud of being church warden, and that Tom Grey should have been mentioned in preference to himself was galling to his pride, and increased his dislike for the man and everything pertaining to him, while Herbert was again told in strong terms to let the Grey girl alone.

“Nobody knows what her father was before he came here, or how he lived either. No business till he opened a bank, I’ve heard it hinted—but I ain’t going to slander anybody; this I’ll say, though, I don’t believe Tom Grey’s record is the cleanest that ever was. Needn’t tell me that one-horse bank of his can pay for the big swath he is cutting. Stands to reason he has some other way of getting money, and always has had. Time will tell. Warden of the church! I’d laugh. He had sense enough to decline, and I’ll resign, too, by the Lord Harry! Took me because I had money and there was nobody else! Yes, sir! I’ll resign, and let ’em have Tom Grey if they want him.”

The judge was very red in the face by the time he had finished this tirade, to which Herbert had listened impatiently. He had seen a plaid skirt and red waist down the street, and was anxious to get away; but his father was not yet through, and, after mopping his face and taking breath, he went on:

“The girl is all right in her place, but my son should look higher, and remember the kind of family he belongs to. Do you think your cousin, Fred Lansing, would go scampering round the country with Tom Grey’s girl? No, sir! There’s a young man who knows how to demean himself, and it would be well for you to imitate him. He is coming here, too. I’ve just got a letter from his mother, my sister and your aunt, Mrs. George Lansing. They will visit us this summer and bring that young lady who lives with them. There’s a chance for you. What is her name? Blanche—Blanche—?”

“Blanche Percy—old enough to be my grandmother,” Herbert answered contemptuously, as he turned on his heel and walked away, declaring he didn’t care for a hundred Blanche Percys and Fred Lansings. “I have had him dinged into my ears as a model to imitate ever since I can remember,” he said to himself as he went rapidly down the street in the direction of the plaid dress and red jacket.

And yet in his heart he had a great admiration for his cousin Fred, who was six years his senior, and every way his equal in money and position and pedigree, if indeed he was not his superior. His mother was a White, with all the prestige of the White lineage, while on the Lansing side was a long line of judges and governors and bishops, and two generals, both in the Confederate army. One of them was Fred’s father, who was a Virginian, and had been killed at Gettysburg. Judge White was very proud of his connection with the Lansings and very proud of his nephew Fred, who had been to college, and travelled round the world, and carried himself as if he had in his veins the blood of a hundred kings. He had not been often in Merivale, and it was two or three years since Herbert last saw him, in Washington, where his mother had lived for some time, and where her house was a resort for the best society in that cosmopolitan city. But he was coming now, and Herbert felt a thrill of pride as he thought of showing off his distinguished relatives to the plain people of Merivale.

“I wonder what he will think of Louie, and what she will think of him, and what father meant about Mr. Grey’s record,” he said to himself, as he turned a corner and met the girl face to face.

“Hallo,” he said, and she replied, “Hallo,” as if they were talking through a telephone; and then, unmindful of his father’s orders that he should let the Grey girl alone, Herbert continued: “Come on down to the river. I have a lot to tell you.”

It did not take them long to reach the river, and the boat which Herbert had named for Louie was soon floating out upon the water, with the two young people in it.

“Well, what is the lot you have to tell me?” Louie asked, removing her hat with one hand, and letting the other hang over the side of the boat in the river.

Once or twice Herbert had heard insinuations from his father and a few others with regard to Mr. Grey’s career before he came to Merivale, and of the possible way in which he was running his bank and having so much money to spend, and had always been very angry.

“I’ll ask Louie some time,” he had thought, but had never brought himself to do it until now, when his father’s hints were fresh in his mind. It was rather an awkward thing to do, and he hesitated a moment before he began:

“What did your father do before he came to Merivale?”

It was a strange question, and Louie looked her surprise as she replied, “Do you mean, how did he get his living?”

“Why, yes, I guess that is what I mean. Was he a banker, or merchant, or what?”

Louie’s brown eyes looked steadily at him, and her face flushed as she replied very frankly:

“I hardly know what he did; there were so many things, and he did not stay long in any. Got tired and tried another. He was in a bank for a while, and in a store and insurance office, and I don’t know what else; a rolling stone, mother used to call him, but he managed at times to make a lot of money, which he spent very freely, and then didn’t have much till he made some more. He is doing a great deal better now. Why do you ask me? Have you any particular reason?”

Louie’s eyes were very bright, and Herbert felt his own droop beneath them. He had not realized all his question might lead to, and was wondering how to answer her, when she again said to him:

“What is it? Tell me!”

“Oh, nothing much,” he began. “There are a heap of liars in the world—jealous pates—who hint that your father is—a—or was—a—”

Here he came to a dead stop, for Louie’s eyes were getting dangerous.

“Is—er—was—er—what? Speak out, or I’ll get up and go straight home.”

“I’d like to see you do it,” Herbert answered laughingly. “Don’t bounce about so. You’ll upset the boat, and I can’t swim.”

“I can,” she said, contemptuously; “and what is it? What do the liars say of father? That he is a thief, or murderer, or gambler, or what?”

“Why, no—or, yes—er—you’ve hit it partly,” Herbert stammered, but got no farther, for Louie sprang to her feet with a movement as if she were going to jump overboard, and did nearly upset the boat.

“Sit down, Louie. Sit down. Don’t be so peppery, and I’ll tell you. Some folks do say that he gambled before he came here, and speculates now.”

“It’s false!” Louie exclaimed. “It’s false!” and she struck her hand in the river with such force that great splashes of water were thrown into the boat.

“Of course it’s a lie, I know that,” Herbert said, trying to quiet her. “I don’t know why I told you, only I wanted to contradict it.”

“You may. You can. He never gambled, and as to speculating, lots do that all the time in New York and Chicago and everywhere. You would do it if you could make money by it. But I don’t believe father does. I know he never gambled; that’s different,” Louie answered vehemently; then, suddenly, as if some wave of memory had swept over her, there came a hard look into her eyes, and drops of sweat stood around her lips, which were very white, as was the rest of her face.

Herbert thought she was going to cry, but she only said very low:

“Let’s go home.”

“No, no—not yet. It is so nice out here,” Herbert replied. “There is more I want to tell you.”

“If it is about father, I do not wish to hear it,” Louie said.

“It isn’t,” Herbert replied. “It is about my cousin, Fred Lansing. You have heard of him?”

Louie had heard of him, as a relation of whom Herbert was very proud, but in her excitement she cared to hear nothing more. She wanted to go home, she said; but Herbert pulled farther up the river toward a bed of white lilies, and kept talking to her of Fred and his Aunt Esther, who were coming, with a Miss Blanche Percy, to whom his Uncle Lansing had been guardian, and who lived with his aunt. This Miss Percy, he said, was born in Richmond, where his aunt lived before the war. She once had a twin brother, he had heard, who killed himself, or was killed, or something. They never talked about it. She was a great heiress, and his father would like him to marry her.

At this point Louie began to show a little interest, and looked up quickly, while he continued:

“But that’s absurd. She is as old as Fred, if not older. Boys don’t marry their grandmothers, do they?”

“I should think not,” Louie replied, and her head went up a little more squarely on her shoulders. “When are these fine folks coming?” she asked.

“Before long, I guess, and then there’ll be some grand times in town, you bet. I heard mother say once that if the Lansings ever came here she’d give a party which would astonish the natives. She’d have a brass band and a string band and a caterer and everything O. K., and have people from Worcester and Springfield, and only the very first in town.”

“Then I shall not be invited,” Louie said, with a snap in her voice corresponding to the snap in her eyes.

“Why not?” Herbert asked in surprise.

“Because you would not invite the daughter of a gambler to meet your fine friends, and that is what you said my father was,” Louie answered.

“I said nothing of the sort,” Herbert responded hotly. “I told of some hints I wanted to contradict. I am sorry I told you, and I know it isn’t true.”

To this Louie made no reply, but there came into her eyes a second time the same hard look which had been there once before as she talked of her father. Ordinarily she would have been greatly interested in the party, of which there were never many in Merivale, but she was too anxious to get home and confront her father with what she had heard, to care much for Fred Lansing, or Blanche Percy, or the party to which she probably would not be bidden.

Herbert was now rowing back to the boathouse, and almost before the landing was reached Louie sprang on shore, and, without a word, sped away like a deer in the direction of her home.

Her mother was out, but she found her father in the little room he called his den, where he spent a good deal of his leisure time smoking and reading, and looking over papers and letters, of which he had a great many.

Louie never hesitated when a thing was to be done, and, rushing in upon him, she startled him with the question:

“Father, are you a gambler?”

If she had knocked him down, Mr. Grey could not have been more surprised.

“A gambler!” he repeated, the pen with which he was writing dropping from his hands and his face white as a corpse. “What do you mean? Who has said this of me?”

“It does not matter. I have heard that it was hinted. I said it was a lie, and it is. You are not a gambler. If I thought you were and that the money you give us so freely was obtained that way, I’d—I’d—burn my dresses! I’d smash the furniture! I believe I’d set fire to the house!”

She looked like a little fury, with her flashing eyes and flushed, eager face, and Mr. Grey drew his chair back from her as if afraid she might do him bodily harm.

Two or three times he tried to speak, but the words he wanted to say were difficult to utter and his lips twitched nervously.

“Say, father,” she continued, “are you a gambler?”

He was glad she put the question that way, and answered her clearly and distinctly:

“No, daughter, I am not.”

“I knew it, and I’m so glad,” and Louie’s arms were around his neck, and she was smothering him with kisses, each of which seemed to burn the spot it touched, as he tried to disengage himself from her, and asked her to tell him what she had heard.

She told him all at last, and although it was not much, it was the first breath of suspicion which had reached him in his prosperous career, and it struck him harder than Louie ever dreamed.

“Don’t tell your mother,” he said. “It is not necessary to trouble her.”

“Of course not,” Louie answered, “but what are you going to do? Won’t you arrest ’em? Sue ’em for slander, or something?”

Mr. Grey laughed and answered: “Sue whom? That boy, or his father, from whom, I think, the whole story started, because he is jealous of my success? No, Louie, that is not my nature, and it is the wiser plan to pay no attention to a story which will die of itself if it is given nothing to feed upon. I am not a gambler. Perhaps I speculate a little now and then in a safe, legitimate way, but that is very common. And now go.”

He was quite himself again, and, with a load lifted from her mind, Louie went out to meet her mother, who had just come in.

She did not see Herbert again, to speak with him, that day or the next, although he passed the house two or three times very slowly, and she knew he was hoping to get a sight of her. The next day a new wheel came to her, and, anxious to show it and try it, she started out for a spin, going past the White house, at which she looked almost as anxiously as Herbert had looked for her the day before, and with better success, for she had scarcely turned from that street into the Boulevard when she heard the whir of a wheel behind her, and Herbert came scorching to her side, nearly running her down in his headlong haste.

“I say, Louie,” he began, “where have you kept yourself? It’s an age since I saw you. I hope you are not mad at what I told you. I wish my tongue had been cut out before I did it; and isn’t your wheel a dandy? Don’t ride so fast. I want to see it. Are you mad?”

“No,” Louie answered curtly, stopping short. “I told father what you said, and it isn’t true, and if you ever hint it again, I’ll have you arrested, and your father, too. I know he is at the bottom of it, because he is jealous of father, and I’ll never speak to you again if you don’t contradict it every time you hear it. My father a gambler! Not much!”

She had said what she had to say, and was ready to forgive and be forgiven, and to talk of her wheel, which, she said, had cost seventy-five or a hundred dollars, she didn’t know which.

“It was not bought with gambling money, either,” she continued with a toss of her head. “Father gave a check on his bank.”

Herbert thought of some things he had heard with regard to the management of the bank, but wisely forebore any comment. He was too glad to have Louie back on any terms, and the two were soon bowling far out into the country, Louie keeping a little in advance, but near enough to Herbert to hear what he was telling her of the Lansings, who, he said, were coming the next day on the two o’clock train from New York. The party was a sure thing, for his father and mother had settled it that morning at breakfast. They decided, too, that no one in Merivale should be invited except those to whom his mother was indebted and those who called upon Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy. “So you be sure and call with your mother,” he added.

Louie laughed, and said she shouldn’t trouble herself to call upon such old people, nor would they expect it, but she would tell her mother. Then she made a long, rapid sweep, and turned towards home, followed by Herbert, who with all his scorching could scarcely keep up with her, for she seemed to fly, and her wheel was proving worthy of its name, “The Flyer,” stamped upon it in silver letters, with the date of its gift to her.

“I don’t suppose I shall see you while your grand folks are here,” she said as she dismounted at her gate.

“Oh, but you must see Fred,” Herbert replied, and the last thing she heard from him as he went down the road was something about Fred, the best fellow in the world.

The next day, when Louie heard the New York train, she took a book, and seating herself upon the piazza, waited for the White carriage. She had seen it go by with Herbert in it, and in the course of half an hour it came back, with Herbert and a young man on the front seat, and two ladies behind them, presumably Mrs. Lansing and Blanche Percy. The former was short and fat and sat very erect, looking curiously about her through a gold-handled lorgnette.

“Dumpy and Frumpy and Proud,” was Louie’s mental verdict of her; then she scanned the lady beside her, who was tall and slender and fair, and dressed in mourning, with a look of care or fatigue, or both, on her face, which was very pale and very sweet: “Rather pretty, with an air about her,” Louie thought, and turned next to the young man, Fred Lansing, who was sitting on the side of the open carriage nearest to her.

As he was looking another way, she could not see his face until, from something Herbert said to him, he turned quickly and she saw a pale, refined face, with perfectly regular features and a pair of large, dark eyes, which met hers, while his hat was lifted for a moment, as she bowed to Herbert, who had removed his cap and was waving it towards her.

“I believe he is a gentleman, but proud, of course. I wonder if Herbert will tell him what people say of my father,” she thought, and grew hot and dizzy as she recalled the insult.

“The Lansings are here,” she said to her father when he came home to lunch.

“The Lansings? Who are they?” he answered abstractedly.

“Why, the grand relations of Judge White,” Louie replied; “his sister, Mrs. Lansing, and her son Fred. They live in Washington now, but they did live in Richmond before the war, and there’s a Miss Blanche Percy with them, a great heiress and Mr. Lansing’s ward before he died. She had a brother who was killed, or something, and I guess that is why her face is so sad. I saw her just a minute as she went by,” Louie added, too intent upon her strawberries and cream to notice the change in her father as she talked, from one of indifference to absorbing interest.

The Lansings made no impression upon him, but when Blanche Percy was mentioned, he became all attention, and had Louie been observing him, she would have seen a pallor about his lips as he listened.

“Blanche Percy—from where?” he asked, and Louie replied, “From Washington now—from Richmond formerly, where I told you the Lansings lived. They are Southerners, and big swells, Herbert says.”

To this her father made no comment, but asked, “What was it about the brother? What did you say his name was?”

“I didn’t say. I don’t know—Percy, most likely,” Louie replied. “Herbert told me she had a twin brother who killed himself, or was killed—the latter probably; those Southerners are so hot-headed.”

As Mr. Grey made no reply, Louie branched off upon the big party the Whites were to have in honor of their guests, and to which no one was to be invited from the town except those to whom Mrs. White was indebted, and those who called upon Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy.

“You’ll call, mother, won’t you? I want you and father to attend the party, and tell me about it,” she said.

There was a sudden movement as of dissent from Mr. Grey, but before he could speak his wife replied:

“I don’t think I shall trouble myself. I was here five years before Mrs. White called upon me, and then she came when I am certain she knew I was out. When I returned it, she was engaged, and she has never been near me since. I shall not call on her or the Lansings.”

“Of course not,” Mr. Grey rejoined, with an asperity of manner unusual with him.

He did not seem himself at all. He had a headache, he said, and, declining the strawberries Louie urged upon him, left the table and went to his room, where his wife found him lying upon the couch, either asleep or pretending to be, for he neither spoke nor moved when she entered the room. He was subject to headaches, and they had increased in frequency within the last few years. This one seemed harder than usual, and it was not till the next day that he went to the bank, before which the White carriage was standing, with two ladies in it, Mrs. Lansing and Blanche Percy, while Judge White was just coming down the steps to join them.

Mr. Grey would rather have passed them unnoticed, but he never forgot to be a gentleman, and in response to the judge’s rather gruff “good morning, Grey,” he answered pleasantly and lifted his hat politely to the two ladies.

“Who is that splendid-looking man?” Blanche asked as the judge entered the carriage.

“That? Oh, that’s Tom Grey, the one-horse banker who has set up business right under my nose; but he can’t run long, you’ll see,” the judge replied, as they drove away, while the one-horse banker looked after them till they were out of sight, with thoughts from which Louie would have shrunk aghast if she could have known them.

CHAPTER III
INVITATIONS FOR THE PARTY

Merivale was one of those quiet New England towns where, compared with larger places, the people seemed more asleep than awake, there was so little to interest or excite them outside the routine of daily life. There were no very poor people, for work of some sort was plenty, and there were no very rich people, except Judge White, whose walk, as he put down his heavy gold-headed cane, indicated money and the self-importance he felt on account of it. There were four churches—Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and Roman Catholic—two banks, a weekly paper, a high school, a book club, a struggling literary society, three dry goods stores, six groceries, and ten saloons, which the W. C. T. U.’s were vainly trying to suppress. Once in two weeks the Presbyterians and Methodists had a sewing society, which few attended, as it closed at five and every one went home to supper. Once a month the Episcopalians had a meeting of the Guild, with supper and a large attendance, especially at supper time, when the young people came in, glad of any break in their rather monotonous lives. For a time Mrs. White was president of the Guild, but when at an annual meeting Mrs. Grey was made vice-president she resigned, giving as a reason that it made her nervous to read the prayers with which the meetings were opened. Mrs. Grey was elected to fill her place, and made a most popular president. Under her jurisdiction, with Louie as coadjutor, entertainments of various kinds were instituted, and the little town put on quite an air of hilarity compared with what it had worn.

The Grey house was the centre of many gatherings where hospitality was dispensed with a liberal hand, and all who chose to come were welcome. But there were few parties or receptions, and when it was rumored that Mrs. White was intending to give one, the town awoke to great activity of speculation as to who would be invited and who slighted. Somehow the news got abroad that only those who called upon the guests were to be honored, and at once the tide set in toward the White house, where there were more calls made and more cards left than had been left and made in a year. Mrs. White was very reserved in manner and had no intimate friends. She had her days when she was at home to those who chose to call. Sometimes three or four came, and sometimes none, and she was equally pleased either way, as she preferred the quiet of her own room to society, if she were expected to exert herself. On the two occasions when as president she had felt obliged to entertain the Guild, and Herbert, who was socially inclined, had invited everybody, she had been greatly bored and scandalized by the crowd which came, glad of a chance to see the inside of the grand house and say they had been there. She did not suppose there were so many common people in the Episcopal Church, she said. She thought they belonged somewhere else, and after she resigned her office as president of the Guild she withdrew from it and thus freed herself from the obligation to entertain it again. And still she liked the bustle and excitement of watering places and fashionable life—if she could be in it and not of it—could see it go on, and not feel obliged to talk to anyone unless she chose to do so.

People called her proud, and Herbert called her indolent, and she was both. Now, however, with the advent of the Lansings she roused up and opened all her treasures. They dined in the state dining-room. The best silver and glass and linen were brought out. The carriage and horses stood at the door at all hours. She went to Worcester and interviewed the best caterer and the best florist there, and then with Herbert sat down to address the invitations for the party which was to astonish the people in Merivale, and so far eclipse a little party which Mrs. Grey had given the previous winter that people who attended it would never know they had been there. To this gathering Mrs. White had not been bidden, as Mrs. Grey had confined her invitations to those to whom she was indebted, or who had been polite to her. Mrs. White would have scorned to acknowledge that she cared for being left out. “Why should I be invited?” she had said to Herbert, who was expressing his surprise and saying he knew there was a mistake, “Why should I be, when I scarcely know Mrs. Grey?”

“It is your fault and loss, too,” Herbert replied, while his father, who was present, chimed in, “Invited by the Greys, who used to live in White’s Row with Nancy Sharp! I’d laugh! They have come up like mushrooms, the Lord only knows how, but I can guess. I consider it a compliment not to be invited to their blow-out. Music from Springfield, with a caterer and flowers by the bushel! Must have cost him a pretty sum, decorator and all!”

“They did not have a decorator,” Herbert had said. “Louie did it herself. She has more taste than half the decorators in the country, and they say the party was elegant every way, and Mr. and Mrs. Grey were ideal host and hostess. I wish I had been there, but young folks like me were not in it.”

“Glad you wasn’t. I believe you are Grey mad, and everybody else, but I tell you I won’t have it! No, sir, I won’t have it!” The judge growled as he left the house.

This was in the winter, and not long after the Grey party, which had been much talked of as recherché in every respect. Notwithstanding what the judge and Mrs. White had said, their slight had secretly rankled and increased their prejudice against the Greys. And now that the White party was in progress, there was a chance not only to retaliate, but to outdo all the Greys had done.

“If we are to have a blow-out we’ll do it brown and beat the Greys. The idea! That one-horse banker riding over my head!” the judge said to his wife when discussing the matter with her. “If the Greys had their truck from Springfield, do you go to Boston or Worcester, and get the best there is to be had. Don’t stop at prices. Did the Grey’s have a brass band? No, only a string for dancing? Then we will have a brass—two if you like. Beat the Greys anyhow! That’s all I ask. Judge White is good for any amount. We haven’t had a party for years, and the Lansings don’t come every day.”

This was the judge’s attitude, with which his wife sympathized to a certain extent. She really had more good sense than her husband, but she was largely dominated by his opinion, and when she at last sat down with Herbert to direct the cards of invitation, two facts were prominent to her mind. Her party was to surpass that of the Greys, and the Greys were not to be invited. “We will take the townspeople first,” she said, and began to read the names upon her list, hesitating over some and crossing some out as not quite worthy to meet the Lansings.

Herbert had jotted down several names, which he submitted to his mother, and among them were those of two Sheldon girls in the country, who, he said, were good dancers and ought to be invited. Mrs. White shook her head. She did not know the Sheldons. She had already exceeded the limit set at first to her invitations, and had drawn the line on all country people except the Gibsons, whose son had called on Fred, with whom he had been in college. The Sheldons were thrown into the wastepaper basket, with others who had preceded them, and Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Grey were next suggested.

“Certainly not,” his mother said, more decidedly than she had to the Sheldons. “I scarcely know Mrs. Grey, and have never been in her house, nor has she been here, and your father has a strong dislike to Mr. Grey.”

“Better say ‘unreasonable prejudice.’ It’s nothing but that,” Herbert answered hotly. “Father has treated them like dogs, and people know it. Why, Mr. Grey is by far the finest-looking man in town, and Mrs. Grey is a lady, and Louie is a——”

Here he stopped, for Fred Lansing just then entered the room, and hearing the last words and seeing Herbert’s flushed face, said laughingly:

“Louie is a what? and who is Louie? Oh, I know; she is that pretty, bright-eyed girl I have seen two or three times riding her wheel like the wind. Is she to be one of the guests? I hope so.”

“Yes, she is,” Herbert answered emphatically, “and she has a wonderful voice. Maybe we can get a song from her. I am writing the names now—Mr. and Mrs. Grey. He is in the bank, you know, next to ours. You can help put the cards in the envelopes, if you want to do something.”

Herbert was in a hurry to get the Greys settled before any further demur from his mother. They should be invited anyway, and he wrote the addresses and passed the envelopes to his cousin, who put in the cards of invitation and dropped them into the basket with others ready to be delivered.

Mrs. White did not care for a controversy before Fred, and said nothing, thinking she would remove the envelopes before the basket went out. But she forgot it; and when, next morning, David went his rounds with the invitations, two were left at Mr. Grey’s.

“Oh, mamma! Look! Invitations for us all, and you have not called, either,” Louie cried, taking out one of the cards and reading that Mr. and Mrs. White would be at home Thursday evening, June —, from eight to twelve.

She was greatly excited, for she had thought a good deal of the party, of which so much was being said in town, but her mother’s decided “We shall decline” dampened her spirits at once. There was a storm of tears, under which Mrs. Grey might have given way but for her husband, who, when consulted, was more decided than his wife, and the regrets of the three were sent to the White house on the day preceding the party, bringing Herbert at once to the Greys with inquiries as to the reason why Louie, at least, could not come, even if her parents stayed away.

“I’ve told Fred so much about you,” he said, “and he wants to see you, and I was going to have mother get you to sing; Miss Percy is so fond of singing, and such a good judge; and now everything is going wrong. The head caterer cannot come, and will send some one in his place, and most likely the crew will be drunk and serve ice cream first, and leave the sandwiches in the pantry, as they did at Alice Rogers’; and now you are not to be there, and I wish we were not to have the blow-out, and I don’t care if it rains cats and dogs to-morrow. I hope it will.”

Having delivered this speech, which did not at all move either Mr. or Mrs. Grey, Herbert flung himself out of the house, with a feeling that he was a much-abused young man, and that without Louie the party would be a failure.

CHAPTER IV
THE MORNING OF THE PARTY

“Yes, I hope it will rain,” Herbert said to himself as he went tearing along the road towards home.

Just why he wished it to rain he did not know, except to spite somebody—his father, perhaps, who was so unreasonably bitter against the Greys, “the very nicest people in town, while Louie was certainly the prettiest girl, and would cast in the shade anyone, whether from Springfield or Worcester or Boston,” and he wanted Fred Lansing to see her. It was a decided shame that she was not coming. Yes, he hoped it would rain so hard nobody would come.

It did not rain, but there was a shower in the night, which laid the dust and made the morning fresher and more delightful.

“Just the time for a drive,” the judge said to his guests after breakfast was over. “We want to get away from this clatter, with things generally upside down and Susan so rattled she don’t know what she is about.”

A part of the waiters from Worcester had come to look over the premises and make suggestions, and they were already in the kitchen and butler’s pantry and rousing the ire of the cook and housemaids with their criticisms. A florist was there with his assistants, and the rooms were full of palms and flowers and potted plants. Crash was being laid down for the dancing on a very broad and long piazza, which was screened from public view by wide awnings, which could be rolled up if the night proved hot, as it bade fair to do. At one end of the piazza the orchestra was to sit, and the piano had to be moved into its place, with chairs and rugs and divans for the lookers-on.

In the grounds preparations were making for the band which was to play between the dances. Chinese lanterns were being suspended in fanciful lines from the trees and from the house to the entrance of the grounds, and everywhere were the hurry and bustle attending preparations for a large entertainment, both outdoors and in. Not accustomed to giving companies, Mrs. White was threatened with a nervous headache, and was in a state of wild excitement, giving the most contradictory orders and bewildering her assistants generally. Taken as a whole, the house was topsy-turvy, with sixteen people at work, and none of them seemingly level-headed except Fred Lansing, who, if allowed to do it, would have brought order out of confusion, so quiet and systematic were all his plans and movements. But the judge insisted upon taking him for a drive, saying they would go to the bank first, as he wanted to see his cashier, who had sent him a note early that morning, telling him that Godfrey Sheldon, a farmer, who lived in the country and was his heaviest depositor, had told him the night before that he was coming the next day to draw out his five thousand dollars.

“Of course, we can stand a great deal more than that,” the cashier wrote, “but wouldn’t it be safe to ask Sheldon to leave a part for a day or two, until we receive that loan due to-morrow?”

“No, sir!” the judge said, as he read the note. “I’ll never ask any man to wait for a dollar. My bank asking time! I’d laugh. Let Sheldon have his money. He is an old curmudgeon, anyway, and has to be handled with gloves. I wonder if he was invited to our party. It is like him to take a miff if he isn’t; he feels himself of so much importance because he was sent to the Legislature one winter and had Hon. before his name. Susan, where are you?”

Susan came with a big white apron on, her mouth full of pins and a ball of twine in her hands.

“Susan, were the Godfrey Sheldons invited?”

“Godfrey Sheldons—who are they?” Mrs. White replied, spitting the pins from her mouth.

“Why, that red-headed chap in the country who went to the Legislature and thinks he knows all creation; biggest depositor in my bank, with two red-headed girls like himself. You must know ’em. They sit three pews from us in church, across the aisle, and wear infernal big hats, while he reads the loudest of anybody, as if the Lord was deaf, and looks round to see who is listening to him. You must know him.”

Mrs. White did remember the big hats and the pompous man, who read scarcely louder than her husband. “But I have no acquaintance with them,” she said. “I believe Herbert did suggest that they be invited, with a lot of others, who went into the waste basket. I asked the Gibsons from the Corners. Their son was in Yale with Fred, and their daughter has been to Vassar, but I didn’t suppose you wanted all the country people invited who deposit with you, or I would have taken your bank list.”

“Of course not,” the judge replied. “That would have included Nancy Sharp and a lot more like her. Maybe that is what ails Sheldon, who is drawing all his money at one lick, five thousand dollars, without giving us notice. Not that it will burst the bank, but it looks queer when he has always been so friendly with me.”

There was a call for Mrs. White, and she hurried away, giving no more thought to Godfrey Sheldon and his red-headed daughters.

The carriage was at the door by this time, and the judge, with his sister, Miss Percy, and Fred Lansing, were soon driving in the direction of the bank. As they turned into a cross street they passed Louie, resting on her wheel and talking with a young man, also on a wheel, who seemed to have come from the opposite direction, and was evidently telling something which excited them both. As the carriage came up their voices dropped, but Fred Lansing was sure he caught the word “bank,” and remembered afterward the peculiar look both gave to the judge.

“That’s an awfully pretty girl,” Fred said to Miss Percy. “A Miss Grey, isn’t it?” and he turned to the judge, who answered, rather coldly:

“I didn’t notice particularly. There is a Grey girl in town some people think pretty. She is generally on the street—quite a gadder. She is Tom Grey’s daughter. He is running a little one-horse bank beside mine. But he can’t hold out, with no capital that anybody knows of. I gave him six months when he started, and he’s been at it four years, but he’ll come to the end of his rope. Yes, sir! you’ll see. Hallo! what under the heavens are those women running like that for? Is there a fire?” he added, as on passing a corner he saw several women running rapidly in the direction of Main Street, headed by Nancy Sharp, the washerwoman from White’s Row, a part of whose small savings were deposited in his bank, and who worked for his wife at intervals by way of paying her rent.

Two of the women had on sun-bonnets, but Nancy was bareheaded, with her sleeves rolled up and her big apron on, showing she had just come from her washtub.

“What has happened?” he continued, as a woman came from another door and ran bareheaded down the street, where she was joined by three more, all evidently greatly excited, and talking loudly as they ran.

They had now reached a point from which they could see the white marble walls of his bank in the distance. In front of it quite a crowd was gathered, while it seemed to be the point toward which the women were running. David, the coachman, called the judge’s attention to it, and the latter was standing up to look when Louie Grey darted by on her wheel.

“Hallo, girl! what’s your name? Louisa, ain’t it? What’s up? What’s that mob about? Stop, can’t you?” the judge called, with a feeling that Louie was bound for the mob, and could tell him what it meant.

His voice was like a trumpet, and the “Louisa” reached Louie, who turned quickly, and, coming back to meet the carriage, replied in some surprise, “Why, it’s a run on the bank. Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?”

With a slight inclination of her head to the ladies and to Fred Lansing, who had lifted his hat, she was off like the wind, while the judge sank down upon the seat, and, rubbing his fat hands complacently together, said:

“A run on Grey’s bank! I told you so. I knew he couldn’t go on much longer. No, sir! He’s come to the end of his rope; speculated a little too often. I knew he would. Drive faster, Dave; I want to get there.”

Dave touched the spirited blacks, which sprang forward at so rapid a rate that they came near running into a van full of household goods before it could turn aside.

“Hallo, there, Dave! Stop a minute,” the judge said to the driver, who pulled up suddenly. Then to the truckman, whom he knew, the judge continued, “I say, Pete, when did the run on Grey’s Bank begin, and what started it?”

There was a look of immense surprise on Peter’s face as he stared at the judge for a moment; then a broad grin spread over his features as he replied:

“For the Lord’s sake, jedge, don’t you know ’tain’t Grey’s Bank the runs on. Hain’t you heard? It’s your’n, and looks as if they meant to clean you out, and I guess they’ll do it, too, if you hain’t a pile on hand. The whole town is up in arms. See ’em runnin’ like ants when their nest is broke up.”

He was not a depositor, and he did not like the judge, and with another grin, he chirruped to his horses and passed on, while the judge fell back in his seat again, gasping for breath and pulling at his collar as if it were too tight and choked him.

CHAPTER V
THE RUN

As the judge was a warden, he seldom swore. He didn’t think “the Devil” was a swear word, and he said it now very emphatically, as he clutched his collar.

“A run on my bank! On the First National! That’s as firm as a rock. Inspectors here only a month ago. Why should anybody run, and what for? I can pay every dollar—give me time,” he said.

Then, as he remembered the five thousand dollars Godfrey Sheldon was to draw that morning, and probably had drawn by that time, he gave a little groan, for in case of a prolonged run that might cripple him, he had so much money loaned out.

“Drive on, Dave. Drive like thunder—right into the midst of ’em, an’ run ’em down if they don’t get out of the way,” he shouted, standing up again and gesticulating with the hand which was not fumbling at his throat, in which his heart seemed swelling.

There was no need to urge Dave to drive on. He was as anxious to reach the place as his master, and in a few minutes the black horses were reined up at the door of the bank, the crowd dividing right and left to give them way, and staring at the figure the judge presented, standing now on the seat and shaking his fist at the faces confronting him.

There were at least one hundred people there—men, women and children, especially boys, some frantically pushing and elbowing each other in their efforts to get to the door, from which two or three were emerging with a satisfied look on their faces and something held tight in their hands. Others were spectators drawn there from curiosity, but all filling the walk and the street, and making Fred Lansing think of a mob he once saw in Paris. He had sprung to the ground and said to his uncle:

“David had better take the ladies home at once. This is no place for them.”

“Yes, yes,” the judge replied, and when his sister asked if she should tell his wife to stop the party, he answered: “Stop the party! Thunder! No; why should she? That would be confessing I was broke. I ain’t by a long shot. I’ve money enough to pay these cattle a hundred times over. Not in the bank this minute, of course. But I can get it. The cusses! What do they mean? Running me! Me!”

He shook his fist threateningly at the crowd, one of whom, a ragged boy, called out derisively:

“Shake away, old money bags; nobody’s afraid of you, but my mother wants her fifty dollars, and she’s goin’ to have it. She put ten dollars in Saturday, and nobody told her you was busted.”

The judge did not hear him. He was struggling up the steps, assisted by Fred to the door, where he was met by Herbert, who was white as a corpse, with a scared look on his face.

“Oh, father,” he cried, “I’m so glad you have come. I should have sent for you, but thought you were off in the country driving. There’s the old Harry to pay.”

“Pay him then! There’s money enough,” the judge roared, going behind the screens and facing the two women presenting their claims and demanding their money, which they promptly received.

It was a genuine run, such as small places like Merivale seldom see, and just how it commenced, or why, no one could tell, unless it were Godfrey Sheldon, who was a weak-brained, pig-headed, jealous man, thinking far too much of himself since his one term in the Legislature. He was very proud of his friendship with Judge White, whom he would sometimes slap on the shoulder and call “old boy,” by way of showing his familiarity with the great man of the town. He knew he was the heaviest depositor in the White Bank, and presumed a good deal on that account, and sometimes chafed because no attention was ever paid his family by Mrs. White and not much by Herbert.

“My girls are as good as anybody,” he was wont to say of his two red-headed daughters, who fully concurred with him in his opinion of themselves.

They certainly were as good as the Gibsons, they thought; and when the grand party came to the front and the Gibsons were invited and they were not, their jealousy was at once excited, but did not reach the boiling point, which meant mischief, until a report reached them that Mrs. White had been heard to say that, aside from the Gibsons, she drew the line on all country bumpkins, and especially the Sheldons. This, of course, was an exaggeration of what she did say, but, passing through the many lips it did, it is strange it had not assumed greater proportions by the time it reached and fired the Sheldon household.

The girls were furious, and their father was not far behind them. For him, an Honorable, to be classed with country bumpkins was an insult not to be borne meekly; and, like most small natures, revenge of some sort was his first thought.

But how should he take it? What could he do that a man like Judge White would feel? Suddenly he remembered his money, which he had always kept in the White Bank, and as he was needing a small part of it soon, he would take it all out and deposit it with Tom Grey. There was a man who did not feel so all-fired big, and whose daughter was nice to his girls and had once spent a day at his house and had Sarah and May at a musicale the winter before. Yes, he’d withdraw his money from Bob White and give it to Tom Grey, he decided, without any thought of creating a panic which might result in a run; nor had he any such idea when he spoke to two or three of his neighbors and told them what he was going to do, giving no reason, when asked for one, except that he knew what he was about and accompanying the words with a gesture which was more suggestive than words.

Some people are always suspicious of the soundness of a bank, and the few to whom Mr. Sheldon told his intentions were of this class, and all had money in White’s Bank.

If Godfrey Sheldon, who was hand in glove with the judge, was going to take out his money, there must be something wrong. They would go to the village and see.

Accordingly, that night there was quite a number of people from the country in town, talking low and confidentially to others; and before bedtime there was scarcely a depositor who had not heard it hinted that the White Bank was shaky. A few disbelieved it, while others thought it well to be on the safe side and take out what money they had before it was too late. The country depositors were specially cautious, and on hand early. Before nine o’clock many vehicles were in town. Some were at the hotel; others were under shade trees and in the shed behind the church, while the owners were congregated near the banks, waiting for them to open. These were joined at intervals by some of the villagers, and as the news spread the number increased and more were coming, until the street was black with them.

Herbert, who was downtown on an errand for his mother, had stepped into the bank to speak to the cashier, with whom he was talking for some time, unconscious of what was taking place outside. Hearing the sound of many voices, followed at last by a vigorous shaking of the heavy doors, which had not yet been opened to the public, he looked from the window and, seeing the crowd, exclaimed to the cashier:

“Harry, Harry, what is all this? and why are there so many people in front of the bank acting as if they meant to get in?”

One glance at the crowd, and it flashed upon the cashier like a presentiment that here was a run. He had been in one before, when the bank, which if left to its ordinary business, was safe, went down under the overwhelming tide, and his voice shook as he said:

“It looks like a run!”

“A run!” Herbert repeated. “Not on father’s bank, sure. It must be on Grey’s.”

“No, it is this one,” the cashier replied. “They are all looking at our windows, and don’t you hear the pounds on the door; and see, there are more coming—a lot of women, headed by old Nancy Sharp, with her arms akimbo and her hair down her back. It is a regular run, and no mistake!”

“Well, let them run. There’s money enough to pay all their demands, isn’t there?” Herbert asked.

The cashier shook his head doubtfully.

“If we had on hand all we have loaned out we could stand it. But no bank has that. The loans are greater, of course, than the amount kept for emergencies, and if all the depositors spring upon us, as most are likely to do if one does, we may be swamped for a time. There’s Sheldon gave notice last night that he must have his five thousand to-day. If he would wait till to-morrow, when a heavy loan we have out will be paid, we shall be all right. But he won’t; he is a kind of a dog in the manger, and something has gone wrong. He’ll draw his money, and others will follow. Men are like sheep, and women are worse. There is Sheldon now talking to some men and pointing this way.”

The pounding on the door was loud by this time, mingled with calls:

“Let us in! It’s time! It’s after nine. You have no business to keep us out, and we mean to come in.”

“Shall we keep them out till father comes?” Herbert asked, his teeth chattering with the cold chill which had come over him and increased with the sounds outside. It was a kind of roar now, as the cries, “Open the door!” became louder—cries of more women than men, as the former were more excited. “Say, shall we keep them out till father comes?” Herbert asked again.

“By no means,” the cashier replied. “That would confess our fear. Possibly we can persuade Sheldon to leave a part of his till to-morrow. Open the door, Charlie,” and he turned to the office boy, whose eyes were like saucers as he shot back the bolts and threw open the doors so suddenly that two or three of the foremost ones, pushed by those behind, fell headlong across the threshold.

Mr. Sheldon, who was in advance, was the first on his feet and inside the bank.

He knew by this time what the crowd meant, and he had explained, as far as he could, that he was only drawing his money because he wanted it, and not because he was afraid. He might as well have talked to the wind. Their minds were made up. If he wanted his money, they wanted theirs, and meant to have it.

When Mr. Sheldon presented himself before the cashier and said to him, “You know I told you I was coming for my money. I suppose it’s ready?” the cashier replied very blandly, “Certainly it is.”

At this point Herbert, who was standing by the cashier, with a face white as marble, interposed and said:

“Of course, you can have it, but it seems to me it is a large sum to draw out without a moment’s warning. Can’t you wait for a part of it till to-morrow? Suppose those fellows behind you should all demand their money at once, what should we do?”

This was like a red flag to a maddened bull. Herbert was the son of the house, and it was undoubtedly his doings that the Gibsons were invited and his daughters slighted. Any regret Sheldon might have had for what he was doing vanished, and he replied:

“Hanged if I care what you do,” while the cashier, who was counting out the bills, kicked Herbert with his foot trying to stop him, as he saw he was making matters worse by showing fear.

The cashier, however, tried what he could do by saying very cheerfully:

“You can have more if you wish, but it would be a convenience if you could wait till to-morrow, when a heavy loan is to be paid.”

He had half the money counted, and paused for a reply, which was, “I shan’t wait an hour. I want my money now!” the words accompanied by a nod to emphasize each word.

“All right,” the cashier answered, going on with his work, while one or two standing behind Mr. Sheldon said:

“What’s that he says? Wants us to wait till to-morrow? Not much! We will have it now.”

The words were caught up by those outside, and ran through the crowd like wildfire, gaining strength as they ran, until by the time they reached the outer circle it was affirmed that the bank could pay no more that day.

Those who have witnessed a run on a bank know how the excitement grows until people, ordinarily cool and sane, grow wild and mad, and howl sometimes like beasts at the prospect of losing their money. And so it was now at the White Bank, where the excitement was intense, especially among the small depositors—the women, whose little was all in the bank. These were furious, and made their way to the door just as Mr. Sheldon came out, with a half sheepish look on his face, as if he had done a mean thing, and was half sorry for it.

“But Bob White can stand it,” he thought, as he walked into Grey’s Bank, where the consternation and excitement was nearly as great as in the other bank, and where Louie on her wheel had just arrived, breathless and panting.

When Mr. Grey first saw the crowd gathering in the street he had no suspicion of the cause until he heard the pounds upon the door and the cries to be let in. Then he said to Mr. Wilson, his cashier:

“What upon earth is the matter? Looks like a run?”

“’Tis a run,” Mr. Wilson answered dryly, opening their own door and stepping outside, where he stood, occasionally exchanging a word with some one asking if he thought the bank could stand the pressure.

Wilson didn’t know. All depended upon how much ready cash it had on hand. No bank expected to be called on any minute for every dollar, he said. Bob White could pay all he owed twice over, give him time, and his advice was that the howling idiots disperse and go home.

The howling idiots had no thought of going home. Some of those who at first had no intention to draw out their money concluded to do so now, if they could get a chance. And there lay a trouble. It took some time to pay off the applicants who were first in, and some time for them to get out, so thickly were the people packed upon the steps, and so unwilling were they to yield an inch of ground, and the excitement was increasing when the judge’s carriage dashed down the street and up to the door.

The sight of the judge standing on the seat and flourishing his hands brought a slight lull in the storm of voices, and the people watched him curiously and wondered what he was going to do. He did not know himself—the whole thing was so appalling and unexpected that he trembled with fear as he went up the steps, anxious to get inside, where he felt he should be safer than outside in the midst of that cyclone. When at last he was in the bank and stood inside the screen facing the two women, he felt better, and glaring at them savagely, asked:

“How much do you want?”

“Twenty-five dollars that I earned with my eggs and chickens,” and “Thirty dollars I earned by washing,” were the replies, as two pairs of brown, hard hands were stretched out eagerly toward Harry Groves, the cashier.

“Twenty-five dollars and thirty dollars! A big sum to make such a row about. Pay ’em, Groves; and now get out of here,” the judge said angrily; then, to the office boy, “Shut those doors a minute, and keep that infernal rabble out till I can think and hear what you’ve done and how much money there is left.”

It was not so easy a matter to shut the doors with that human wall pressing against them, and only the tact of Fred Lansing availed to do it. He was very cool and calm and reassuring, asking the people to stand aside a moment, and telling them the doors should certainly be opened again.

“The judge has just come,” he said, “and this is a great surprise. He wants to hear something about it from his clerks, and can’t very well with so much noise in the street, if the door is open. So, my good lady, if you will please step out, I am sure others will follow you. That’s right; thank you.”

This was to Nancy Sharp, who had fought her way into the vestibule and was holding aloft her bank-book and flourishing her bare, red arms, which showed frequent acquaintance with soapsuds. She had money in both banks, and, although she had not much in White’s, she didn’t propose to lose it, she said, and she at first looked defiantly at Fred Lansing, when he tried to clear the vestibule. But when he beamed upon her a smile which few women ever resisted and called her “my good lady,” she was vanquished at once, and walked out, saying to her companions, who were all women, “Come on, gals, but stick close to the door, so’s to get in the minit it is opened. It will be opened?” and she looked at Fred, who answered:

“Certainly, madam. I give you my word of honor. It will be opened and you will be paid.”

“All right,” and Nancy nodded familiarly to him as she took her place on the steps outside and stood very near to Louie, who had entered her father’s bank at the rear and had come to the front door, where she stared astounded at the scene and thankful that it was not her father’s bank on which the run was made.

There was a brass railing in the centre of the stone steps leading to the entrance of the two banks, and as Louie leaned against it her arm was seized by Nancy, who began to talk loud and volubly of the failure, as she called it, and the loss to her if the judge did not pay.

“I was a fool to put any with him,” she said, “but I thought two places safer than one, and now see what I’ve got by it. Twenty good, round silver dollars in the bank, and every one means a hard day’s work a-washin’—two for the Whites, two for your folks, one for Miss Smith, one for Mrs. Dr. Adams, and one for——”

She would probably have enumerated every family represented by her twenty round silver dollars if Louie had not stopped her with a “Hush-h! Look up there. He is going to speak,” and she pointed to a balcony in the second story, where Judge White stood, waving his hands to enforce silence. He had inquired into matters a little, and learned from his cashier how much had already been drawn from the bank, and about how much currency there was left.

“Godfrey Sheldon’s five thousand was a blow,” the cashier said. “There are three more who have each a thousand deposited. They haven’t appeared yet, and I hope they won’t. It is the small depositors who are making the biggest row, and there is a pile of ’em.”

The judge knew this, and knew, too, that within the last year or two, when his rival had seemed to prosper, he had tried in underhand ways, by sly insinuations and sneers against the Grey Bank, to secure the patronage of these very people, who in a panic lose all sense and reason, and now he was reaping his reward.

“If those big fellows keep quiet, and I think they will—they are a different class—we may pull through; or if you could persuade them that everything is sound and square and there is no need for this run. But I doubt if you can. They keep coming from every quarter, like bees round a honeypot. There’s a whole load of fresh ones!” the cashier said, pointing to a democrat wagon full of men and women from the country, driving up in hot haste, either to see what was going on or to get what was due them, the latter most likely, as the moment they alighted they pushed through the crowd, asking eagerly, “Are we too late? Has it bust?”

The judge groaned, and thought a moment. He was perspiring at every pore, and had removed his coat and necktie and collar, so as to breathe more freely.

“I’ll speak to ’em,” he said. “I’ll tell ’em to go home. By the Lord, I wish I had a shotgun! I’d fire into ’em. It’s like a strike, and against me—me!”

He was purple in the face, and shaking with rage, and Fred Lansing doubted the expediency of his speaking to the crowd in his present mood. But he was determined, and nothing could stop him. The idiots would listen to him, Judge White, and going up the stairs which led from his rear office to the hall of the second floor, he entered a law office along whose windows a narrow balcony ran. This was filled with the occupants of the second floor, but they made room for the judge, whose voice, always strong and powerful, rang out like a great horn, and attracted every eye to him as he stood, coatless and hatless, with collar and necktie gone, his face purple, except his nose and lips, which were ghastly white. He was not much like the faultlessly attired man the people had been accustomed to see driving in his handsome carriage behind his black horses and his coachman in brown-coated and brass-buttoned livery, a thing some had ridiculed as airs, and others had resented as a badge of servitude not fitted to a small place like Merivale. The judge was not popular, and had never tried to make himself so, except when there was something to be gained by it. As a rule, he was haughty and arrogant, ignoring the common people entirely, or noticing them with a nod which told the distance he thought there was between them and himself.

At sight of him and the sound of his voice shouting, “Order, you fellows! Order, I say! Don’t you hear me?” a hush fell for a moment on the crowd; then, a group of boys, some of whom had felt the weight of his gold-headed cane when he caught them in his melon patch, set up a caterwauling, with cries of:

“There he is! There’s old money bags! Isn’t he a beauty? He’s going to make a speech. Better give us what you owe us than your gab.”

But for Fred Lansing, Herbert would have rushed into the street and collared the boys insulting his father, who tottered as if about to fall and leaned heavily on his cane, as the cries came up to him, louder and more vociferous.

“Silence, you ragamuffins, you villains, you fools!” he roared, flourishing his cane in the air, and in his backward sweep almost hitting Fred Lansing, who had hurried up the stairs and stood at his side, with an arm on his shoulder to steady him, and something in his manner which commanded attention and respect.

“My dear friends, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “Please keep quiet and let the judge speak and explain matters, which he can do to your entire satisfaction.”

Cries of “Go on, go on; hear, hear!” now came from the boys, one of whom was knocked down by a sympathizer with the judge, who saw the act and called out, “Yes, that’s it; knock ’em all down; wring their necks; send for the police and have ’em arrested, every mother’s son of ’em.”

“Hush! Hush!” Fred Lansing said in a whisper. “Go it mild, or you are lost.”

It was not in the judge’s nature to “go it mild,” but he made an effort and began to explain that there was no earthly reason for this outrage, and he didn’t know how it happened or who started it. Whoever did was an infernal fool, and ought to be tarred and feathered. “Running on me! Me! who has inspectors reg’lar. Now, if ’twas t’other bank, that runs itself, with nobody to oversee what was going on, there might be some sense in getting up this hullabaloo! But to spring it on me—me! It’s an outrage. Lord Harry, don’t you know who I am!”

“Oh, rot, rot. We know who you be, so come to business and tell us how many cents on a dollar you can pay,” came from the boys, who belonged to the worst class in town, and were glad for this opportunity to scoff at a big bug without fear.

“Hush! Go a little easier,” Fred Lansing said, and the judge replied, “‘Tain’t so easy goin’ easy with such dirt.” Then, to the dirt, he continued:

“Look here and listen. I can pay every red cent and a hundred times more—only give me time. I’m an honest man, I am. Nobody ever said I wasn’t, but no bank wants a thing sprung on it like this, and few can stand it if everybody calls for their deposit and wants every dollar taken out at once. Heavens and earth,” he continued, warming up to the subject and growing more and more excited as he warmed, “are you fools enough to suppose that all your deposits are lying just where I put ’em when you brought ’em in? Where, I’d like to know, would I get my pay for my trouble, if I didn’t loan ’em out, keeping enough on hand to satisfy all reasonable demands, though not enough to meet a general run sprung on me unawares. It’s something like this: Suppose you owed somebody, and somebody else owed you enough to pay the somebody you owed, and the somebody you owed should come up and insist on being paid, the day before the somebody who owed you was going to pay what he owed, what would you do?”

He was getting rather hazy with “the somebody who owed him” and “the somebody whom he owed,” but his audience followed him pretty clearly as he went on: “Just so with me. You come howling for your money, set on by the Lord only knows who; but I can guess pretty well,” and he glanced toward Grey’s Bank, while a low murmur of dissent began to run through the crowd, and one or two voices called out, “You are off the track, old chap.”

To this the judge paid no attention, and went on:

“Yes, I say you come howling like dogs, as if you thought every cent of your money was lying loose in the bank, ready to be called out in a minute. I tell you ’tain’t so; but to-morrow a big loan is coming in and you shall have every d——”

He paused a moment, thinking to use a swear word, then changed his mind, and added, “every darned dollar. Are you satisfied? If you are, go home about your business, and be ashamed for the way you have treated me—me! If not, do your worst, and be——” he did use a swear word then, and added: “What are you going to do with your money when you get it? Keep it in your houses till it is stolen by burglars, or what?”

The majority of his audience had seen the truth in his remarks, and a few, who had intended to withdraw their money, if they could get a chance, slipped to the opposite side of the street, where they stood watching, what one of them said was “as good as a circus.” In response to the judge’s question, “What are you going to do with your money when you get it?” an answer came from a dozen throats: “Put it in Grey’s Bank, where Sheldon has put his’n. It’s safe there. Grey is the man for us. Grey is all right!”

“Put it there and be ——,” the judge swore again, while from the boys, whose numbers had considerably increased, there went up “Three cheers and a tiger for Grey, the honest banker, and a groan for “money bags.””

The cheers and tiger were given, but before the groan for “money bags” the fence on which the boys were seated went down with a crash, diverting the interest for a moment from the judge, who left the balcony and returned to the bank, where he sank exhausted into a chair, looking so white that Herbert was alarmed, and asked if they should not send for a doctor.

“Thunder, no!” his father said. “What do we want of a doctor? More like send for the police. Hear that thundering on the door, will you! Open, and let ’em in; the sooner the farce is over the better. I b’lieve we can stand it.”

CHAPTER VI
LOUIE COMES TO THE RESCUE

When she heard the cry, “Put it in Grey’s Bank, where Sheldon has put his,” she started quickly, struck with a thought of something she had read about. Going into the bank, where two or three were already depositing their money, she drew her father aside and said:

“Do you think the White Bank can stand the run?”

“Doubtful, if the most of them pitch in as they seem likely to do. They are just crazy, and one excites the other.”

“Then we must help him,” Louie said.

“Help him? We can’t disperse that rabble, and the entire scum of the town is here. Every depositor may ask for his money. No bank can stand that,” her father answered.

“I don’t mean to disperse the rabble,” Louie replied. “Many of them are bringing their money to you, and as fast as they bring it we can take it through our back door into the back door of the other bank and keep it circulating.”

Mr. Grey knew what she meant, and remembered having heard of one bank helping another in such an emergency and had thought it a big joke, and now the idea struck his sense of humor, and made him laugh.

“By George, Lou,” he said, “that would be heaping coals of fire on the old reprobate’s head. He has never let a chance slip for a fling at me when he could get it. Why, on the balcony when making his speech he hinted that I was the instigator of the run. Yes, I’ll help him—but how, and keep it dark?”

“I know. I’ll manage it,” Louie said. “As the money comes in at the front door and is recorded, I’ll take it through the rear door to the other bank. I’ll go now and tell Herbert.”

She was off in a flash through the back door of her father’s bank, and into the rear office of the White Bank, where she found both Fred Lansing and Herbert conferring together. The latter was pale and trembling with anger and excitement, and looked perfectly dazed when she told why she was there.

“I don’t quite understand. I’m all used up and could be knocked down with a feather,” he said.

Louie saw he was no good, and, turning to Fred Lansing, she continued:

“You know what I mean. I will bring the money in here. Somebody must be ready to take it and write down how much there is and whose it is, as it will have to go back to us when the run is over.”

She had not been formally presented to Mr. Lansing, but it didn’t matter. He knew who she was, and looked at her in unbounded admiration for her forethought and bravery as well as for her beauty, which blazed with unwonted brilliancy in her excitement and earnestness.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll keep tally, while Herbert gets the money quietly into the cashier’s hands.”

“All right,” Louie responded, and was off before Herbert fully realized what she meant to do.

When Fred explained to him, he brightened at once, and hurrying into the front room told the cashier, who, having heard of something like it, nodded that he understood and would do his part to hoodwink the crowd again trying to get in.

“Open the door, I tell you,” the judge said feebly, fanning himself with a newspaper and wiping the sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve.

He had been wet with perspiration when he went out upon the balcony, and now there was scarcely a dry thread on him, and he hardly knew what he was about. His head ached. His heart was beating with great thuds, which he could hear above the noise outside, and a spasm of fear seized him when a face appeared at the window. Some one had climbed up the water-pipe and was looking at him threateningly.

“Oh,” he gasped, “this is terrible. I shall have to go home. I b’lieve I am dying. Herbert! Herbert! Come here!”

Herbert came quickly, and said to him: “Brace up and put on your coat. We are going through. They can run till doomsday, and we’ll hold out.”

The judge did not know what he meant, but he felt cheered in some way, and put on his coat, and was standing up when the door swung open a second time and four women came in, headed by Nancy Sharp, who thrust her great bare red arm through the opening in the screen and said to the cashier, “I want my money—twenty good round silver dollars, honestly earned by washing.”

She might have told for whom she had washed, as she did to Louie, if the woman behind her had not struck her in the back and bidden her “hold her yap and hurry up,” while the clerk replied, “You shall have it,” and he counted it out in bills.

“No you don’t,” Nancy said, drawing back. “I put in round silver dollars, and I want ’em.”

She had reasoned that a bank which was shaky might pass spurious bills, and she would have none of them. She wanted silver dollars, and she meant to have them.

“Very well,” the clerk said, taking back the bills and counting out twenty silver dollars. “Was there a private mark on them, by which you can know if these are the same?” he asked, with a merry twinkle in his eyes.

“No,” she answered, “but I’ll put one on ’em, so if they are not good I can bring them back. Give me a pencil.”

He gave her one, and, wetting it with her lips, she made a little cross on each of her twenty dollars, and stood aside for the women crowding against her. Within ten or fifteen minutes her account in the Grey Bank was increased by twenty dollars, and rather reluctantly she went back to her washing, finding the fire out and her water cold. But she did not mind it. She was safe, and cared but little how the tide of battle ebbed and flowed, although she would like to have stayed and seen it out.

It was moving briskly now and very satisfactorily on both sides, although for a few moments there had been a tremendous panic when a rumor went through the crowd that the cashier had deserted his post and the bank had stopped paying. This arose from the fact that Herbert had asked the cashier to step into the rear office, while they explained more fully to him what was being done, and how they were doing it.

Seeing his place vacant, and no one in the room but the office boy and the judge, who, having got his coat on, was sitting quietly by himself, the whispered words “The bank has bust” went from lip to lip, eliciting something like an angry growl from those who fancied themselves left out in the run. But this ceased as soon as the cashier returned, more bland, more smiling than ever, and business began again, while Herbert and the boy made frequent trips to the rear office without any one suspecting what they were doing, or that their money was scarcely deposited in the Grey Bank before it was carried out by Louie, who was entering heart and soul into the matter.

It was fortunate that the rear doors of the banks opened into the same yard, which was shut in from the street by a close high fence over which no one could look. And thus no one saw Louie hurrying back and forth with flushed cheeks and eyes like stars as they confronted Fred Lansing, who, in watching her, sometimes came near forgetting what he was doing, until her voice, asking if he understood and had it down all right, made him pull himself together and go on with his business of keeping account of all the money which passed through his hands into the bank beyond, with the names of the owners.

“Tom Carson, one hundred dollars,” she would say to him, and he would write it down and report “Tom Carson, one hundred dollars.” “John Brown, two hundred dollars;” “John Brown, two hundred dollars;” “Sarah Jones, fifty dollars;” “Sarah Jones, fifty dollars;” “Joel Carpenter, twenty-five dollars;” “Joel Carpenter, twenty-five dollars;” “Nancy Sharp, twenty dollars;” “Nancy Sharp, twenty dollars—all in silver, too,” Fred said, as he received and recorded the amount.

Louie had said to her father’s cashier, “Give me silver when you can. Some of the women ask for it;” so Nancy’s twenty dollars, with the pencil cross upon them went through four times, till they were as familiar to Fred as an old friend. At last, “Godfrey Sheldon, one thousand dollars,” was reported to him, with the whispered words, “He has four thousand more we can have, but father thought he’d better start with one. Aren’t they nearly through?”

She was very tired—not so much with fatigue as with the pitch of excitement, to which she was strung up, and she wondered if it would never end, and the last depositor depart.

The end came at last, as the town clock struck twelve, and the crowd began to disperse rapidly—some with their money in their hands, while others left it in the Grey Bank, and others still, when they saw how readily the payments were made, had concluded to leave what they had in the White Bank, which had shown no signs of giving out.

Not so many had demanded their money as would seem from this written account, but the withdrawal and transfer had all taken time, and three hours had elapsed between the opening of the doors and the closing of them upon the last claimant for forty dollars. Quiet was restored. The run was over, and Judge White was listening with wonder to the cashier’s account of the manner in which the bank had been saved.

“The Grey girl did it! Where is she?” he asked, and the cashier motioned him toward the outer room, where Louie lay fainting in Fred Lansing’s arms.

The day was hot and sultry, and, overcome by the heat and the excitement, she had felt her strength giving way for some little time before. Herbert said to her, “Don’t bring any more. The people are going home.”

Then everything began to turn dark; the floor came up to meet her, and with a cry she fell forward, while Fred Lansing, who had seen how white she was growing, sprang forward and caught her.

When she came to herself her head was lying on his shoulder. His arm was round her, and her hair and shirtwaist were as wet as if she had been in a bathtub. Her father and Wilson, his cashier, the judge and his cashier, with Herbert were fanning her and calling her by name. They could think of nothing else to do except to drench her with water, which they did effectually, while Fred, with his handkerchief, tried to wipe some of it from her face and hair.

With a long gasp she came back to consciousness, but did not try to lift up her head. It seemed to her she could never lift it again, she was so tired and exhausted. Raising her eyes she saw who was holding her so carefully, and for a moment a hot flush stained her face, then faded and left it as pale as before. She did not at first realize that quiet was restored, and said:

“I must have fainted. I am so sorry, but there are piles of money yet. Mr. Sheldon’s three thousand, and Nancy Sharp’s twenty dollars ready to circulate again, if they must have silver.”

Then Fred laughed and said, “We are through with Nancy Sharp’s twenty dollars, though I confess I’d like to see them once more. The run is over and you are the heroine of the day. You saved the bank!”

“Yes, by George, you did,” the judge exclaimed in a shaky voice. “You are a plucky girl and I shan’t forget it. No, sir; I shan’t forget it. Not but we could have pulled through, but you were plucky just the same. And now, as soon as things are straightened and everything made right with ‘tother bank—the accounts, I mean—and the money returned which we didn’t use, we ought to go home. Susan has telephoned two or three times. Lunch is early to-day, because of the party.”

“Yes, it is time Louie was home,” Mr. Grey said, asking if she felt equal to mounting her wheel.

Up to this time the judge had paid no attention to Mr. Grey, but now he turned to him and said, “I must say, Grey, that girl of yours has a head on her. Yes, sir, a head on her to think of such a plan, though ’tain’t original. Such things have been done before, but all the same I’m obliged to you, I am sure. I guess, though, we could have pulled through.”

“No we couldn’t,” Herbert exclaimed, chagrined that his father evinced so little gratitude for Mr. Grey’s help. “I was in it—was behind the scenes and I know we would have gone to the wall if the other bank hadn’t helped us, and we ought to be eternally grateful.”

The judge frowned, straightened himself up, threw out his stomach, and said, “Certainly, of course, we are grateful and glad the thing is over. I was never so insulted in my life. Yes, sir, we are grateful.”

He bowed rather stiffly to Mr. Grey, on whose face there was an amused smile as he replied, “You are quite welcome to any service we rendered you. I am very glad your bank stood the test.”

“Stood! of course it stood,” the judge answered testily, unwilling, in his small soul, to acknowledge, as he ought, the great favor which had been shown him, or that his bank, the First National, could possibly have been in any real danger.

At this moment the White carriage with the black horses drew up before the door, and Fred suggested that Louie be sent home in that. She was too dazed to object to anything, and was soon seated, with the judge beside her, and Fred and Herbert in front of her, and was driven in state through the village, where knots of men were still congregated at the corners of the streets, talking the matter over and feeling ashamed of the part they had had in it.

“Stood like a rock!” they said, referring to the bank; “and it almost seemed as if the more we took out the more there was to take.” And not one of them had a suspicion of the truth, so well had it been managed.

As the White carriage passed them a few turned their faces away, while others nodded hesitatingly, and one, bolder than the rest, called out, “Hello, Judge, I congratulate you. Yes, I do. The old bank stood fire well.”

The judge neither looked at the men, nor answered the salutation, but his face was like a thunder cloud as he muttered to himself, “Go to the d—— with your congratulations. Nobody wants them.”

Fred Lansing, on the contrary, touched his hat, and his example was followed by Herbert, who, however, felt more like fighting than being civil to the men who had made them so much trouble. When Mr. Grey’s gate was reached both Fred and Herbert accompanied Louie to the house, one on either side of her, and each with a hand on her arm as if she needed support.

“I trust your fatigue will not prevent you from coming to-night. You will be the star of the evening,” Fred said, as they reached the door.

Louie looked at him half bewildered at first; then she replied:

“Oh, no, we have sent our regrets. Didn’t you know it? I shall not be there.”

“Not be there!” Fred repeated, feeling that the party, for which he did not particularly care, would lose all interest for him if this girl, to whom he had never spoken until this morning, were not there.

There was no time for further remark or expostulation, for Mrs. Grey had come to meet her daughter, whose long absence had made her very anxious, and whom she took at once into the house, asking in much concern what had happened and why her dress was so wet.

Herbert tried to explain, but he was too much excited and fatigued himself to make it very clear, and as his father was growing impatient, he said good-by, and with Fred returned to the carriage, which was driven rapidly away.

CHAPTER VII
THE JUDGE

Lunch had waited a long time at the White’s, where the ladies were in a state of great anxiety, which deepened into alarm, as no attention was paid to the message sent to the bank, asking how matters were progressing. Mrs. White had heard of the run from Mrs. Lansing and Miss Percy, without much emotion. It seemed absurd that such a thing could happen to them.

“It can’t amount to much. The judge will soon stop it. There must be money enough to meet every claim,” she said, and turned her attention to the upheaval in her house, where workmen of different kinds were constantly consulting her.

Lunch was ready promptly at twelve, but before that they had ‘phoned to the bank twice in quick succession. The first time there was no response. The second time the judge’s voice came back like a fog horn:

“Quit telephoning. Nobody can pay attention in this infernal racket. There’s the very old boy to pay!”

Alarmed now and almost hysterical, Mrs. White sent a boy to the scene of action, and as he did not at once return, she sent another, with injunctions to come back immediately, which he did with the news that the run was over and things quieting down, but there had been a great row and the street was full of people. Then a third message was sent to the judge to hurry, as lunch was waiting.

At the bank the judge had thought himself hungry, and during the drive he had sat up straight and proud, holding his head high, not deigning to look at anyone, but the moment he reached home he collapsed entirely, and it was a very crushed and trembling man who crept up to his room, and, lying down upon the couch, said to his wife with quivering lips and a shaky voice:

“Cover me up, Susan. I’m cold, and don’t speak to me of victuals. My stomach is all in a broil, and my head feels as if it was full of bumble-bees. I’ve had an awful time! Yes, an awful time!”

He was almost crying, and held his wife’s hand tightly while in broken sentences he tried to tell her what he had been through.

He seemed perfectly humiliated, and could not realize why he should have been thus maltreated. He, Judge White, with a pedigree going back to William the Conqueror, had been set on by dogs who had run on his bank! His bank! The White Bank! The First National Bank, of whose stability he had been so proud; and worse even than this, if anything could be worse, he had heard himself called “Old Money Bags” and derided with groans and caterwaulings from boys; and men, too, he believed, had joined in the howls, he could still hear as he lay upon his couch with his hands to his ears. He could see, too, with closed eyes the scowling faces which had looked up at him when he stood upon the balcony, trying to bring order out of confusion, and the threatening face which had looked in at him from the window. It was dreadful, and the proud man writhed under his load of mortification, made worse by the fact that his friends in Worcester and Springfield, who were coming to the party, would hear of it, and naturally have a little less faith in his solidity as a banker. How he wished they were not coming; and that the party was in perdition; and he consigned his wife there with it, when she tried to make him take something to eat, saying he would not be able to appear in the evening if he kept on in this way.

He didn’t much think he should appear in the evening, to be talked to and sympathized with by people who, all the time, were wondering if his bank were safe.

“Go away about your business,” he said at last, crossly, “and shut the door to keep out that confounded clatter which makes me think of the noise the mob made when they came tearing in—Nancy Sharp with the rest. Think of that? Nancy Sharp! Didn’t I give her half a ton of coal that winter she had the rheumatism, and hasn’t she cleaned the floor and windows of the bank every month for the last year, and wasn’t she among the first to stretch her great red, soapy arm for her ‘twenty silver dollars?’ Must have silver, as if we had kept her dirty money intact, and didn’t she say to the cashier, as she turned to go out, ‘I kinder pity the poor old man after all,’ meaning me! Susan, me! and I not yet sixty! I wonder I’m alive. Yes, I do. A run on my bank! If it had been Grey’s nobody would have wondered, but mine—mine! The First National! and me, pitied by Nancy Sharp and called a poor old man! Me! Susan, me!”

The poor old man was wounded in more points than one. He had held himself so high, and in his foolishness had taken the people’s deference to him as real, and had believed himself as popular as he was rich, and in a moment the cobweb film had been torn away, and he saw himself as he really was in the estimation of the people. “And I am not as nice a man as Grey,” he thought bitterly, as he reviewed the events of the morning, and wondered again and again how it happened. “That was a plucky girl,” he said to himself, thinking of Louie, “and I can’t say but what Grey acted a friend’s part; but I believe there was something behind it. He had some axe to grind, and what he did was perfectly safe so long as the money did not come from him, but was just what we’d paid out.”

When lunch was over, Fred Lansing came in to see the judge, and succeeded in soothing him somewhat, telling him that his bank was not the first on which there had been a run, nor the first to be helped through in the way he had been; and that the fact it had stood the run would insure it greater prestige in the future. Then he spoke of Louie, and said: “I am sorry she is not to be here to-night. I think she ought to come. Everybody will want to see her.”

“Wasn’t invited,” the judge said quickly, his old feeling against the Greys beginning to return upon him, now that Richard was somewhat himself again.

“Oh, yes she was. I saw the invitation myself,” Fred answered. “They have sent their regrets. Miss Grey told me so.”

“Knew they wasn’t wanted, and showed their good sense in declining,” the judge answered gruffly, while Fred looked at him in surprise.

“Not wanted! What is the matter with the Greys?” he asked, and the judge replied, “Prejudice, I suppose; all prejudice, most likely; but I don’t like the man, and never have.”

“Do you know anything against him?” Fred asked.

“Not a blessed thing, for sure. It’s all a surmise that there is something behind that smooth tongue and manner of his which takes the crowd. Nobody knows what he was before he came here, so poor that he lived in one of my tenements in White’s Row—cheapest place in town, where Nancy Sharp lives. Think of it!” and the judge looked at Fred as if White’s Row, and the tenement house and Nancy Sharp would settle the matter.

But Fred did not seem at all disconcerted. He was seeing all the time the face which had rested on his arm and the light in the beautiful eyes when they first opened and looked up at him.

“Nobody knows where the fellow got his money, so sudden, to start a bank with,” the judge went on. “Poor as Job’s turkey when he came here; clerked a little while in a grocery, I believe. Susan didn’t call on ’em. Then he went west, and after being away a spell came back rich enough to open a bank and build a fine house with a five hundred dollar piano and things to match, they say. I’ve never been inside, nor Susan either. Somehow or other a breath of something did get here about him, and I shall always believe him a gambler, though he did do the fair thing to-day, that’s a fact.”

The word gambler had a bad sound to Fred, for it recalled the dead face of one of his dearest friends, who, after a night’s debauch in some gambling den in the West, had taken his own life. But Mr. Grey was not proven to be a gambler because Judge White surmised it, and certainly Louie was not one, and, he said:

“The young lady is not to blame for what her father may be, and I wish very much for her to be here to-night, and so does my mother and Blanche and Herbert.”

At the mention of his son’s name the judge frowned gloomily.

“That’s it,” he said. “Herbert is daft on that girl. That is the trouble, and if she came this evening he wouldn’t see another blessed woman here.”

“I don’t think him so far gone as that,” Fred answered, laughingly. “I’ll take her off his hands part of the time; and I wish Aunt Susan would send a note asking her to reconsider her regret. I’ll take the note myself, if there is no one else at leisure to do it.”

Fred was getting quite in earnest, with the result that his uncle finally said:

“Don’t bother Susan. Her hands are full now and she don’t know what she’s about or whether she is on her head or her feet. I’ll write a line or two, myself.”

Going to his desk, he sat down and wrote.

“Miss Grey: We want you to come to-night, even if you have regretted. I hope you will not disappoint us.

“Yours,

“Judge White.”

“That’ll fetch her,” he said, passing the note to Fred, with a feeling that he had only to express his wish, for her to comply at once. “Isn’t it right?” he asked, as he saw Fred looking at the note doubtfully.

“Why, yes—so far as it goes,” Fred answered; “but ought you not to have included Mr. and Mrs. Grey?”

“Oh, thunderation, maybe so! Give it back,” the judge replied, taking the note and adding as a P. S.: “Bring your father and mother, of course.”

“I don’t know what Susan will say when the three walk in. She didn’t s’pose they were invited. She don’t fancy ’em any more than I do,” he said; but Fred didn’t hear him.

He was half way down the stairs with the note, which seemed to him almost an insult, it was so crisp and short. But if any one could smooth it over, he could, and he meant to do it. He did not care a picayune whether Mr. and Mrs. Grey accepted or not. He wanted Louie, and he meant to have her, and he wouldn’t tell Herbert where he was going, for fear he would insist upon going himself. “I’ll tell him afterwards that I was doing him a favor and giving him a surprise,” he thought, as he walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Grey’s house.

CHAPTER VIII
LOUIE AND FRED

Louie was very tired, and after telling her mother what had taken place at the bank, she went to bed, for her head was aching slightly and she wished, if possible, to forget the exciting scene through which she had passed. A quiet sleep, followed by a bath, refreshed her, and in a pretty white wrapper she was sitting at the end of the piazza, covered with woodbine, which sheltered it from the sun. Her eyes were closed, and she was nearly asleep again when Fred’s step, coming rapidly up the walk and on to the piazza, roused her. Before he touched the bell he saw her and went toward her, offering his hand and hoping she was not suffering any bad effects from her efforts of the morning.

“Only tired, that’s all,” she said, feeling chagrined at being caught by Fred Lansing en deshabille, as she fancied her loose wrapper to be.

She did not guess how the young man was admiring her in it, and thinking it the most becoming dress she could have worn, with its flowing sleeves, which showed her arms every time she moved them.

Bringing a chair to her side, he told her why he had come, giving her the judge’s note, and drawing a good deal upon his imagination as he dwelt upon the pleasure it would give them all to have her present. Mrs. White, he said, was very busy; and the judge had written for her—a little formal, to be sure, but she knew the judge and would make allowance. He was very grateful, very, for what she had done, or been the means of doing. They were all very grateful and wanted to see her and thank her personally. The party would not be a success unless she were present. They would send the carriage for her, and send her home.

This last was said as he fancied he saw in her signs of declining, and it did not occur to him that it sounded as if she alone were expected to go. She understood it, however, and believed the P. S. an afterthought, and resented it. Her father and mother were not wanted, and for a moment she resolved not to go. But something in Fred Lansing’s eyes and the tone of his voice, as he talked to her, won upon her and made her change her mind.

“I must ask mother,” she said at last; and just then her mother appeared, a good deal surprised at the sight of this elegant young man sitting close to her daughter, with his hand on the arm of her chair.

She had seen Fred in the morning, when Louie was brought home, and bowed pleasantly to him now, while wondering what his errand could be. Louie told her and gave her the judge’s note, while Fred again began to apologize and explain why his aunt did not write it, and said he hoped Mrs. Grey would waive every consideration and accept. They must have Louie. The party without her would be like a play with the star actor left out.

Mrs. Grey was very polite, but very firm in declining for herself, but said at last, that Louie could go if she liked and her father approved, and that probably Mr. Grey might accompany her. She couldn’t tell until she saw him.

The brightening of Fred’s face and the assurance with which he assumed that Louie would go, and asked what time the carriage should call for her, was conclusive proof that it was Louie alone who was specially wanted. Mrs. Grey understood, and smiled at the enthusiasm of the young man whose magnetism she felt, as did everyone with whom he came in contact.

For half an hour or more he stayed, talking to Louie of the events of the morning, which she would have liked to forget. It seemed to her like some horrid dream rather than a reality, and she would gladly have shut from her mind, the memory of some of the faces of which she had a glimpse, and to have forgotten the hum of angry, excited voices which she had heard as she passed from one bank to the other.

“What if it had happened to father?” she had often asked herself, with a feeling that it would have been ruin to him, for the National Bank would never have helped him out.

As it was, he had profited by the run, for thousands of dollars were deposited with him which had been drawn from the other bank. She did not understand the business very well, but she had fancied a certain exultation in her father’s manner after all was over which she did not quite like, and which she knew he was trying to conceal. There was no trace of it when he came home, an hour or so after Fred’s departure. On the contrary, he seemed rather depressed, and when told of the second invitation for the evening, answered quickly:

“Nothing could tempt me to go. I have had all of Judge White’s society I care to have. I wonder how many times he will tell his guests that his bank could have stood the pressure without help. Stood! It would have gone down in a crash. Couldn’t have helped it. No small bank could have stood against that mob. It nearly took the life out of me. I feel more like going to bed than to a party.”

He did not, however, object to Louie’s going, if she liked; but regretted that he had not a carriage of his own in which to send her.

“I mean to have one very soon,” he said; his spirits beginning to rise as he talked of the handsome turn-out which had been offered him, and which now, with the increase of funds in his bank, was made possible for his means.

“But, father,” Louie said, “you can’t take that money—Mr. Sheldon’s, for instance—and use it for yourself, can you? I supposed it was given you in trust.”

“Certainly,” Mr. Grey replied, his usually pale face flushing a little. “It is in trust, but I can loan it out on good interest, which will be mine. You don’t suppose, do you, as some of those loggerheads seemed to think, that their money lies in the vault untouched and ready to be called for at any moment, even to the identical bills or silver, like Nancy Sharp’s?”

Louie confessed herself rather hazy with regard to banking affairs, and only answered that she hoped there would never be a run on her father’s bank.

“It will be teetotal failure when it comes, and not a run,” her father answered, while a shadow passed over his face and he seemed to be thinking of something far away from his surroundings.

Meanwhile Louie was wondering what she should wear.

“If I had accepted in the first place I could have had a new dress. Now, I must go in an old one,” she thought; her choice falling at last upon a simple white muslin, with knots of crimson ribbon, very becoming to her style of beauty. At least Fred Lansing thought so when about half-past eight he came himself, faultlessly attired in his evening dress and bringing a cluster of hot-house roses for Louie.

“Oh, awfully sorry you are not going,” he said to Mr. Grey, while waiting for Louie, “and—er—well, you see, I was not quite sure about your going, and so I came myself as a chaperone. I did suggest to Miss Percy that she come—that is my father’s ward, you know—Blanche Percy—but she couldn’t, and so I came,” he added in an explanatory way, as he saw an expression, he could not understand, pass over Mr. Grey’s face at the mention of Miss Percy.

In the excitement at the bank, after the run was over, Fred had not observed Mr. Grey particularly, but now, as he sat talking with him, he began at once to feel the charm of his manner and personality.

“He may have been a gambler or a highwayman for aught I know, but he is every whit a gentleman,” he thought, and involuntarily contrasted him with the pompous judge, of whom he felt a little ashamed, and for whom he felt he must apologize. “My uncle is greatly upset by the humility put upon him,” he said, “and is not himself at all. He is, of course, deeply grateful to you, although his manner is rather unfortunate. But you know him well and can understand how terribly he was hurt.”

With a wave of his hand Mr. Grey silenced Fred, and replied, “Don’t speak of it, please. I have lived by the side of the judge four years. I know him and his peculiarities, which only amuse me. I was glad to help him, but should not have thought of that way except for Louie. Oh, here she comes,” and he turned towards the door where Louie stood with her white evening cloak on her arm.

“Ready, I see,” Fred said, springing up and putting her cloak around her and pulling the hood over her head, for the night had set in a little chilly.

“You are looking charming,” he said, as she lifted her eyes and thanked him.

“Oh, no,” she answered gayly. “I have only my old gown to wear; but it does not matter. Nobody will look at me, among all those young ladies from Worcester and Springfield. They say the hotel is filled with them. Cynthia, our maid, saw several carriage loads coming from the station.”

Fred gave a little shrug as he replied: “I have not seen them yet, but you need have no fears of eclipse.”

It was strange, how he, who was usually so grave and dignified, unbent to this little girl, whose fan and flowers he held as he escorted her to the carriage, which was driven rapidly away.

The White house stood at a little distance from the street, and the avenue leading to it was lined with lanterns suspended from the trees, whose branches met in graceful arches here and there across the road. Overhead the summer moon was sailing through a rift of feathery clouds, which broke occasionally and left the grounds flooded with light. Nearer the house there was a soft plash of water falling into the deep basins of the fountains, and the odors of many flowers—roses, hundreds of them—trained on trellises and twining around the Corinthian pillars of the handsome, stately house. From every window lights were gleaming, and before some of them in the upper rooms, airy forms were flitting, showing where the guests were laying aside their wraps before descending to the drawingroom, where the judge stood, in all the pride and dignity befitting a man, with a William the Conqueror pedigree behind him.

He had felt a little abashed when he met the first of his city friends, but their congratulations upon the solidity of his bank and the firmness with which it had withstood the attack, reassured him, until he began to look upon himself as a man of more consequence than he had been before, inasmuch as he had been a kind of martyr and had passed unscathed through the fire. The scowling faces of the crowds, the jeers of the boys, calling him old Money Bags, and Nancy Sharp’s sympathy for the poor old man, were for the time forgotten. He was himself again—proud, conceited, arrogant and showing it in every expression of his face as he received his guests.

Louie’s story had somehow been circulated among the strangers who had arrived, and great was the curiosity to see her. Herbert had, with his father, heard with some surprise Fred’s assertion that he was going for her in the brougham, taking it for granted that every carriage in the White stable was at her disposal. Such heroic conduct as hers could not be too highly appreciated, Fred thought, and was a little disgusted with his uncle’s reply:

“Why, yes; take the carriage if she isn’t able to walk. I wonder her father hasn’t set up a turn-out by this time. He will soon, you’ll see. He has a lot of fresh depositors in his bank. Five thousand from Godfrey Sheldon, who very likely will come sneaking back, but I shall tell him better stay where he is. Yes, sir! I don’t ask no odds of him.”

This answer would have decided Fred to go for Louie himself, if he had not already made up his mind to do so. If attention from him could repay her in part, she should have it. It was not difficult, either, to be attentive to her. She was so pretty, with the white hood on her head and the eager light of expected enjoyment in her bright eyes, that he found himself wishing the drive from the Greys’ to the Whites’ longer than it was, and was not sorry when they found the avenue blocked with carriages. With the exception of the Greys, not many had sent regrets, either from Springfield or Worcester, or the adjoining towns, or Merivale. Of those invited in the latter place, a few had been so fearful of losing their money that they had demanded it with the rest, and now were repenting their haste. To face Judge White so soon was not to be thought of, and they stayed at home, but were scarcely missed in the crowd which, as early as eight, began filling the house. From Springfield a private car had been chartered, bringing fifty or more, and it was the carriages taking these from the station which were keeping the White carriage back.

“There will be a great crush; here’s a regular block, such as is sometimes seen at the White House in Washington,” Fred said. “I hope you do not mind the waiting?”

“Not in the least. Do you?” Louie replied.

“Indeed, I don’t. I’d rather be here, where it is cool, than in rooms as hot as those must be, with all the people, to say nothing of the gas,” Fred answered, leaning back in the carriage, with a feeling that he could stay there for hours watching Louie’s face, on which the lights of the lanterns and the moonbeams fell, bringing out every point of beauty and making it very fair and sweet.

Fred Lansing, as a rule, did not care particularly for women—that is, he did not care for any particular woman. He knew that if he chose he could have his choice among the best of his acquaintances, and possibly this was a reason why he had no choice. He did not like to feel that every girl he talked with was thinking of him as a possible husband, and that every mother to whom he was polite was hoping he might be her son-in-law. As Fred Lansing, with a large fortune already at his disposal, and a larger one when his mother died, and as the scion of one of the oldest and best families in the South on his father’s side, to say nothing of the White pedigree on his mother’s side, he was not insensible to his value as a desirable parti, but he never presumed upon it. To be a man whom every one could respect, independent of his money or position, was his object, and if he at times seemed cold and reserved, it was not from pride or a sense of his superiority, but rather from indifference, if not from contempt for the deference amounting sometimes to toadyism, paid to him because he was Fred Lansing. Louie had not seemed at all overawed or impressed, even when she found herself in his arms on her return to consciousness in the bank. She had only turned her face away with a flush, as a timid child might have done if caught in some questionable act, and had said: “Oh, I didn’t mean it! I am sorry.”

Some girls whom he knew would have affected a vast amount of modesty and self-consciousness, but Louie was sensible, and he didn’t believe she thought half as much of lying in his arms as he had of having her there. He could feel the pressure of her small head yet, with its mass of crumpled hair, and see the death-white face, which had looked so pathetic in its unconsciousness, and which, had he been of a different temperament, he might have wanted to kiss. As it was, he had had no thought of it. In her helplessness she was sacred in his eyes; and even now, when she sat beside him in the moonlight, her eyes as bright as the stars overhead and her face glowing with excitement, he did not know that there was any thought of love in his mind. He only felt that she attracted him as no other girl had ever done. She was so natural and innocent, and so filled with anticipation of what was in store for her if they ever reached the house. Near it a large platform had been erected for the band, which, when the White carriage came up, had just struck up a lively strain, to which Louie kept time with her head and feet and hands.

“Oh, I could dance till morning and not feel tired a bit,” she said. “I like it so much, and I hope somebody will ask me.”

Fred was not very fond of dancing; it was too hard work, he thought, and he was prudish enough not to fancy the way some girls had of “making a pillow out of a fellow’s arm or bosom,” as he had expressed it to some of his acquaintances who had rallied him for refusing to join in a waltz, and who enjoyed being made pillows for the heads of their fair partners. Now, however, he suddenly changed his mind. He wanted to dance, and be not only a pillow, but bolster, too, if necessary; and to what seemed like a challenge, although he knew it was not meant for that, he responded at once.

“I will ask you now. What shall it be—round or square, or both?”

“Oh, the two-step, if you know it,” she answered, with a laugh. “I could dance that forever. If you don’t like that, the lancers.”

“We’ll have both,” Fred said, with a shiver, as he knew he might not be able to acquit himself creditably in the two-step, which he had never tried but once, and had then failed miserably. “But she will keep me going,” he thought, as he lifted her from the carriage and led her into the house.

CHAPTER IX
THE PARTY

The most of the guests had arrived by this time, and the dressing-room was full when Louie entered it. Nearly all were strangers from out of town, and few paid any attention to her. Those who did glance at her saw a very pretty girl, whose bright face and eyes made them wonder who she was.

In the midst of silks and satins and laces and diamonds and city-made toilets, Louie felt herself quite out of place, and was beginning to wish she had not come or could see some one she knew, when among the men in the room opposite she caught sight of Fred near the door, and felt sure he was waiting for her. Not till then had she realized how awkward it would be to go down to the drawingroom alone, and she felt a thrill of gratitude that she was not to be subjected to this ordeal. This gratitude was augmented with something like pride when she heard one of the city girls say in a low voice:

“There’s Mr. Lansing talking to Rob. I wonder if he can be waiting for any one.”

Instantly a dozen heads were turned in the direction where Fred stood, his fine face in profile, with a look upon it which most people called pride, but which really arose from his indifference to what was passing around him, and a half feeling of boredom that he was obliged to be a part of it.

“Oh, is that Mr. Lansing?” “Isn’t he handsome?” “Isn’t he proud-looking?” “I hope I shall be introduced.” “They say he has two or three millions, and is the greatest catch in Washington, but does not care a straw for ladies.”

These and similar remarks Louie heard, and then, being human, she accelerated her movements a little, gave another look at her hair, fastened her own gloves, as she saw there was no prospect of immediate help from the two maids in attendance, and walked into the hall, where the gentlemen, who were now filling it, stood back as she came, wondering who was to claim this dainty bit of white muslin, brilliant color, and beautiful eyes, which flashed on them for an instant and were then cast down.

They did not have long to wait, for at sight of her all Fred’s indifference vanished, and, stepping forward, he said:

“Oh, here you are. I was waiting for you. Shall we go down?”

He offered her his arm, and the two descended the stairs, while the men looked curiously at each other, and some of the ladies from the dressing-room came and leaned over the stair railing for a better sight of the young girl who had suddenly acquired a new interest for them, and must be somebody, possibly a visitor, they thought. At all events Mr. Lansing seemed to know her well.

In the large drawingroom the receiving party were standing, Judge and Mrs. White, Mrs. Lansing, Blanche Percy, and Herbert, the latter of whom was very impatient for Louie to arrive. His impatience was in a measure shared by Miss Percy, who had evinced a great interest in the young girl and a desire to meet her.

“I am so glad she is coming,” she said. “I hoped she might be early so I could talk with her before the rooms are filled.”

“She ought to be here. Fred went for her more than an hour ago. It can’t be she has changed her mind and is not coming after all,” Herbert replied, going into the hall once or twice and looking from the door for a sight of his father’s carriage. “There she is at last,” he said, going forward to meet her as she came in, and running his eye rapidly over her from her head to her feet, with a feeling that she was on exhibition, and he wanted her to pass muster with the city girls present in so large numbers. She was not dressed like them, he knew, and he at first felt a little pang of disappointment at the plainness of her attire, but Blanche Percy’s exclamation, “What a lovely face!” reassured him, and he felt very proud as he presented her to his mother, saying, “Mother, this is Louie—Miss Grey—the girl who saved our bank.”

Mrs. White had seen Louie many times, and had once had her to tea when she invited the choir and teachers in the Sunday school, as a matter of duty. She knew Herbert’s partiality for her, and had felt annoyed by it; but she was very gracious now, and kept Louie’s hand in hers, while she expressed her gratitude, and then passed her on to the judge, who was rather more demonstrative, although there was in his manner an air of superiority and patronage which Louie felt and resented. She did not like the judge, and she held her head high while she said she was glad if she had been of service, and had only done what she should wish a friend to do for her father if he were in a similar strait.

“Not a strait,” the judge said, a little testily. “That means a tight place; and I believe in my soul we should have pulled through somehow without any help; but I thank you just the same.”

With the trouble over and in the past, he was not as grateful as he had been at first, and it annoyed him that he had been beholden to Tom Grey of all other men. But he could not help himself. He had been helped, and the girl instrumental in helping him was there, and being made much of by Fred and Mrs. Lansing and Blanche Percy, the last of whom could hardly wait to tell her what she thought of her heroism. There was something about Louie which fascinated Miss Percy—a feeling that she had known her always, or that there was a tie between them of some kind, which would have drawn her to the girl if there had been no bank episode in the morning. She could not, however, keep her long to herself, for the people from upstairs were coming down and filling the space around the receiving party.

Fred had now taken his place at a point where he could easily receive or stand aloof, as he chose. He preferred the latter, for meeting strangers was not to his taste. He had had a surfeit of it in Washington, and would far rather be a spectator and watch the different guests as they came. Then his mind was considerably distracted with thoughts of a white muslin gown, with baby waist and red ribbons, and a pair of brown eyes which had looked at him just as no other eyes had ever looked, with no shade of coquetry in them, or sign of elation because of notice from him. He saw the muslin gown and red ribbons at last in the distance near the piazza, and when the dancing commenced he saw one or two young men making their way toward it and knew they were asking Louie for the dance.

Herbert saw it, too, and leaving Blanche Percy, he went to the dancing room and waited while Louie was whirled around by a Merivale boy, who knew no more of time than a cow, Herbert said to Fred, who was standing beside him, watching the pair.

“Is knowledge of time necessary to a good dancer?” Fred asked.

“Certainly,” Herbert replied. “Otherwise you bob around like a cork in hot water and make yourself ridiculous, besides jerking your partner awfully. Look at Jim Carter, will you, holding Louie’s arm up like a pump-handle and hopping like a toad. Louie is splendid, give her half a chance, but what can she do with such a clown? Look at his knees bent nearly double!”

Herbert was pretty severe in his criticisms on Jim Carter’s waltzing, while Fred laughed and said, “I am afraid I shall bob like a cork and hop like a toad with my knees bent, for I have no idea of time.”

Herbert, who knew his cousin’s habits pretty well, rejoined in some surprise:

“Are you going to dance? I thought you detested it.”

“Of course I am going to, and I have already engaged Miss Grey for the lancers and the two-step. I am waiting for her now,” was Fred’s answer; and, as just then Louie was led to a seat near him, he pushed past Herbert to her side and said, “Shall we try it next time, and what is it? Oh, I see—a two-step. I am not very good at that, and shall depend on you to keep me going.”

Louie looked at him a moment with a troubled expression on her face, and when he continued “You remember you promised me,” she said. “Yes, I know; but, Mr. Lansing, I have been thinking about it, and it seems to me I made you ask me by my foolish remark that I hoped somebody would. You couldn’t very well help it after that, you know, and I release you from all obligations to me. I have danced once, and am promised to Will Travers and one or two more, and shall do very well if I stand the rest of the evening. There are so many city girls here for you.”

“Bother the city girls,” Fred thought; but, he said, “I have no intention to be released, although you may wish I had before we get through with it, for I have no more idea of time than a cow, as Herb said of your late partner.”

“That’s so; he didn’t have much time in him, and he jerked me around terribly. I hope he won’t ask me again. He will, though; he always does, when we are where they dance. I guess I can manage you if you really like to try,” Louie answered with a laugh. “It is very simple when you once get into it.”

With a long breath, and a hope that he should not fall down, or step on some one’s dress, Fred was soon struggling with the two-step, of which he knew very little; but Louie kept him going, and infused so much of her own enjoyment of the dance into him that he began to like it himself, provided always that Louie could be his partner.

Emboldened by his success, he tried a spirited waltz with her, in which she neither made of him a pillow nor a bolster; and he did not quite believe he bobbed like a cork, although he saw Herbert’s eyes fixed disapprovingly upon him whenever he passed near him, and felt sure he was not acquitting himself very creditably. Louie told him he did splendidly, and promised one or two more dances beside the lancers.

“Now, go and ask some of the other young ladies. They are all waiting for you, I know,” she said.

But Fred shook his head. He was tired with the exertion he had made. He was beginning to sweat. He had had enough dancing unless Louie were his partner, and handing her over to his successor he went out for a breath of cool air, but came back very soon and watched the white muslin dress and red ribbons as they floated up and down the broad piazza, while Louie’s face told how she was enjoying it all.

“She is airy and graceful as a bird, and by far the best dancer here, if I am any judge,” he thought, and was glad that she had no lack of partners.

Every young man who did not know her asked to be presented, and invited her to dance, until she had a surfeit of it and began to feel tired, and was glad when Herbert came to her with a request from Miss Percy that she would sing something for those who did not dance.

“I have told Blanche about your voice, and she is anxious to hear it,” he said.

Louie was nearly as ready to sing as to dance, and her voice had that bird-like quality which too much training sometimes spoils by taking away its naturalness. All her life she had been in the habit of imitating the birds, succeeding so well that it was sometimes difficult to tell whether it were herself trilling the roundelay or the robin, sitting on a high branch of a tree, with his head bent in a listening attitude as if trying to decide whether the sounds he heard were human or came from some new-comer in the field. She had had several months of instruction in vocal music, but her best teachers had been the birds, and especially her canary, whose notes she imitated so closely that he often stopped in his song for an instant, and then, as if reassured, began again with her, the two voices blending together without a discord on her part, so accurately did she follow him. One song, whose music she had changed to suit her voice, she called her bird-song, as it gave scope to her especial talent, and ended with a medley of sounds—the twitter of the sparrow, the robin’s whistle, the oriole’s notes, and the tones of her canary when in its happiest mood.

“Give us the bird-song, by all means,” Herbert said, when she asked what she should sing, and in a moment Louie was standing in the music-room, facing as large an audience as she had left in the dancing-hall.

They were mostly elderly people from the city, who, tired of watching the dancers, were glad of any new diversion, although a few yawned behind their fans when told that the girl in white muslin, who stood by the piano, was to sing for them.

The Worcester people, who were accustomed to hear the finest singers, and looked upon their city as the head centre for all that was best in music, wondered what this little country girl could do in that line to interest them. It would probably be some simple ditty, sung either in a nasal or loud, harsh strain, with contortions of the body; but they were well bred, and must listen and affect to be pleased.

Some were still talking in low tones when Louie struck a few notes upon the piano and began, quietly, without contortions of body or face, and without any apparent effort, except that the cords of her throat expanded and stood out full and round, when, in the chorus, her voice rose higher and clearer and was more and more like a bird’s, or many birds’, making some of the audience look around to see if a stray robin or canary had not alighted near them and was joining in the song. The music-room was so far from the dancing-room that one did not interfere with the other, but not so far that the clear, ringing notes were not heard by the dancers above the sounds of violin and horn; and, before she was through, half of those not dancing were crowding around the music-room to catch a sight of the singer.

“It’s the girl who saved the bank. She must be a marvel,” they said, as they saw her bowing in acknowledgment of the storm of applause which greeted her when the song was finished.

Among them was Fred Lansing, whose hands were nearly blistered, so loud and long-continued were his encores as he made his way to the front until he stood very near to her. He had been persuaded to waltz with a girl from Boston, who tried to make him a pillow, but he drew back from her and was so awkward every way besides getting his feet entangled in her dress that she was quite as glad as he when it was over. He knew Louie was singing and was impatient to get to her.

“Sing it again. I never heard anything like it,” he said as he at last reached her side.

“Yes, sing it again,” Miss Percy said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

Louie sang it again, better than at first, it seemed to those who heard her, and this time she had for her audience the whole party, for the dancing had ceased, and musicians and all were listening to her. There were cheers and clapping of hands and bravoes heard on all sides when she was through, with a call for more. But Louie had done enough. Her brain was reeling with the vociferous applause, and a pallor was setting about her mouth, which Miss Percy was quick to see.

“Come with me. You need some fresh air after this,” she said, and taking Louie’s hand she led her out upon the veranda, where she made her sit down, while she stood over her and asked, “Where did you learn all this?”

“From the birds,” Louie answered. “I am always imitating them. I cannot help it. I began when I was a child, first with the crows and bobolinks and then with the robins. I liked them best, and I’ve kept on till I guess I can sing like them all. Did I do well?”

She looked up at Miss Percy, who stooped and kissed her as she replied:

“Do well? I should think you did. Why, every musician and dancer stopped to listen to you. Do you know, you have a fortune in your voice—hundreds of dollars a night, perhaps.”

“Oh!” Louie gasped; “I couldn’t do it; it tires me so, and makes my heart beat so fast when the people cheer—not the singing, but the cheering. If I were all alone, I could sing on and on forever, but I could never sing on the stage.”

“Who is talking of the stage for Louie? You, Fred?”

It was Herbert who spoke, and who had come out upon the veranda, preceded by Fred Lansing.

“I am talking of Miss Grey’s voice,” Miss Percy said. “I told her there is a fortune in it.”

“But not for the stage. Louie on the stage, with footlights and green rooms and powder and paint, and all sorts of people! I should not like it. Ugh!” and Herbert gave a whistle indicative of his opinion of all sorts of people with powder and paint and footlights. “Would you like to see her there?” he continued, turning to Fred, who answered:

“I can scarcely imagine it, although I believe she might be a second Patti.”

“But she won’t—she shan’t! I could never respect a girl who sang on the stage,” Herbert rejoined, with so much spirit that Louie burst into a merry laugh and said:

“What are you so excited about? I am not on the stage and never shall be. I am here on the veranda, and awfully hot and thirsty. I wish you would bring me some water.”

Both Herbert and Fred started for the water, but Herbert was first, and Fred returned to Louie and told her what a wonderful voice she had, and that it ought to be cultivated to the utmost, while Miss Percy said she could undoubtedly make a great success as a public singer, if circumstances required.

“Oh, don’t,” Louie answered, closing her eyes wearily. “I have a presentiment that I may have to sing, and sometimes feel as if I were living in the future instead of thousands of years ago, as some say we did, and that I am before the footlights—real footlights—and there are seas of faces looking at me and thunders of applause, and I hate it all, but must do it for something, or some one. I wonder who it is?”

She seemed to be talking to herself rather than to Miss Percy and Fred, both of whom looked curiously at her, while Fred suggested:

“Doing it for fame, perhaps.”

Louie shook her head. “Never for that. Only duty, or love for some one, could make me do in reality what I have so often done in fancy.”

Herbert had brought her the water by this time, and she drank it eagerly.

“Now I am all right,” she said, “but think I’d better go home. What time is it?”

Against this there was a quiet protest from Fred, and a louder one from Herbert, who resolved to be ahead of his cousin, and said:

“Fred brought you here, but I am to see you home, and must wait till the people from Springfield and Worcester leave, at twelve o’clock. That is not late, and I want you for the next dance.”

He looked a little defiantly at Fred, and there was an air of ownership in his manner as he took her on his arm and went back to the piazza, where the awnings were now rolled up to admit the cool night air, and showed nearly as many spectators gathered outside as there were dancers within.

It was a brilliant scene, with the lanterns and moonlight, and flowers and music, and gayly dressed people, and Louie was the star around which everything revolved. There was no lack of partners for her, and except when she was singing, she danced every set but one, which she sat through with Herbert, who kept close to her as if she were his particular property.

Fred had relinquished the field, and only came near her once when she was sitting with Herbert. There was a sudden lighting up of Louie’s eyes at sight of him, for she had missed him, and, without knowing why, was glad to have him near her, although he said nothing except to ask if she were too tired to give them another song.

“Yes, she is,” Herbert answered for her. “We are to have one dance more before the thing breaks up, and then I am to take her home. The walk will do us both good.”

“Walk!” Fred repeated, in some surprise. “Walk, and she so tired?”

Herbert’s countenance fell, but brightened again when Louie rejoined:

“Oh, I’d rather walk; but it is not necessary for you to go with me. The Adams live next to us. I can go with them.”

“I’d laugh,” was Herbert’s answer, while Fred turned away without a word, and Louie did not see him again until the party was over and the carriages taking the city guests to the station were rolling down the avenue, and the other people were saying good-night.

As the son of the house, Herbert felt obliged to wait until the last guest was gone, so that it was after twelve o’clock when Louie was making her adieus, with Herbert at her side, ready to accompany her home.

“I thought you came in my carriage. Why don’t it take you home?” the judge asked, not quite pleased that his son should be the escort, on a half-mile walk, to this girl, who, if she had been instrumental in saving his bank, was still the daughter of Tom Grey, and far beneath him in the social scale.

“She prefers to walk, and so do I,” Herbert replied, taking Louie’s arm and leading her to the door, where they found Fred Lansing.

Offering his hand to Louie, he said: “I hope you will feel no bad effects from all the excitement and dissipation. If I may, I will call in the afternoon to inquire how you are. Good-by, and pleasant dreams. I rather envy you the walk. It is what one needs after hours of heat and exertion.”

“Why don’t you come, too?” sprang to Louie’s lips, but she repressed it as something unmaidenly; but her eyes had in them a wistful look as she raised them to Fred, who did not quite understand the expression, or know why he stood outside, watching the little figure in the white dress and cloak until it disappeared among the trees in the avenue.

CHAPTER X
ON THE GREY PIAZZA

When Herbert left the house for that moonlight walk with Louie, he had no idea of doing what he finally did do. He felt elated that he had outwitted Fred, who he was sure had intended seeing Louie home, in the carriage, most likely, if he did say the walk was what one needed after so much heat and excitement. He might have added dancing, too, and such dancing—more like a bear than a man, Herbert thought, and wondered how Louie liked it.

She was very silent, while he, too, did not care to talk much at first. He was satisfied to have Louie to himself, away from all the cads who had dangled after her, and, more than all, away from Fred, who, he believed, had shown her more attention than he had shown in his life to all the girls he had known.

What if he should really fall in love with her, and propose? She would of course accept him. No girl in her right mind would refuse Fred Lansing. The thought was like wormwood, and he found himself growing more and more jealous of Fred, who was going to call on Louie that afternoon, and his jealousy increased her value tenfold. He had always liked her better than any girl he knew. In fact, she was the only girl he had ever cared for at all. But, then, his knowledge of girls was rather limited. Those from the city who had been at the party had about them a different air from Louie, it was true, but were not half as pretty and winsome, nor had the whole of them received as much attention as she had, especially from Fred—confound him! He was never known to notice a girl before, or scarcely look at one, and he would have appropriated Louie entirely if he had not interfered and asserted his rights.

These and similar thoughts ran swiftly through Herbert’s mind. Then they took another turn. There was some of his father’s nature in him, and he began to wish she was not Mr. Grey’s daughter. True, neither he nor anyone knew anything against Mr. Grey, but his father disliked him and suspected him, and looked down upon him. He had once been their tenant in White’s Row, where Nancy Sharp lived, and he had heard that Mrs. Grey had done plain sewing for his mother, and that Louie had helped her. All this was pretty bad, and Herbert felt himself grow hot as he thought of taking for his wife a girl who had lived in White’s Row and whose mother had sewed for his mother.

“But I love her. I couldn’t give her to anyone else, and Fred Lansing is quite too attentive to her. Such cold-blooded chaps as he go off quick when they go at all,” he kept saying to himself, and jealousy of Fred Lansing had a good deal to do with his final decision.

The village clock was striking one when they at last reached the Grey house. The moon was now a little past the zenith, and pouring a flood of light over everything. The piazza under the vines, with its rugs and chairs and table, where Louie kept her books and work when sitting there, looked very inviting, but Louie made no movement toward it. She was going into the house, when Herbert said to her:

“Hold on a minute. Let’s sit here a while and talk. There’s a lot I want to say to you, and the night is too fine to go indoors.”

He led her to a chair at the end of the piazza, where she sat down, and, leaning back in a reclining position, said:

“I shall not stay here long, for I am half asleep and dead tired, so say what you have to say, quickly, and excuse me if I shut my eyes, my lids are so heavy. Don’t be too long and prosy. What is it? Nothing about that bank affair, I hope. I am sick and tired hearing of it.”

Herbert would rather have looked into Louie’s eyes, which always inspired him, but he made no protest against her closing them, and thought how lovely she was with her long, dark lashes, resting on her cheeks and the light which came in patches through the vines making her face like a piece of marble. He wanted to kiss her, but the time had not come yet. She was queer about some things, and would resent it unless he had a right, which he meant to have before he left her.

It was a little difficult to begin, and he was not quite sure whether he wanted to commit himself or not, but after sitting a few moments in silence, watching her and gloating over her beauty, which was sure to be his own if he chose, he put his hand on hers, which lay on the arm of the chair. She did not move or try to take it away, and, emboldened by this, he bent down and whispered:

“Louie, I love you.”

There was no sign that she heard, but of course she did, and he went on to say, that he had loved her ever since she was a little girl and chased him up the tree, when he was about to rob a bird’s nest. It was a boy’s love then, but now that he was nearly twenty, it was a man’s love he offered her. He laid great emphasis on the “man,” and told her that he wanted to be engaged—not openly at first, because his father (he called him the governor) had some unreasonable prejudices which must be overcome.

“Thinks the Queen’s daughter none too high up for me; but a fellow marries for himself and not for his father,” he said, adding that he was going to college in the autumn and it would be four years before he could be graduated. By that time she would be nearly twenty-one and he twenty-four, and old enough to act for himself, independent of his father; in the meantime it would be just as well not to announce the engagement. It would save him some unpleasantness, and her, too; as his father would be very uncivil to her, and his mother was nearly as proud as his father, and would be influenced by him—not because Mr. Grey had not always been as well off as he was now, but—er— Herbert hesitated, feeling that he could not speak of his father’s suspicions of Mr. Grey. He had done so once and Louie had nearly torn his eyes out. He could not risk it again, especially after all the Grey Bank had done for them. So he continued to speak of the necessity for secrecy. She would be sure of him and he sure of her. Of course, she would not allow attentions from anyone, no matter who he was. There were plenty of cads who would like to hang round her, but as his promised wife she must keep them at a distance, even if Fred Lansing were of the number, as he might be. He had seemed a good deal impressed at the party, but he was not a marrying man—was as cold as marble—a terrible iceberg where women were concerned, and his attentions would mean no more than that he was pleased for the time.

Having had his fling at Fred, Herbert waited for some sign of assent to what he had said. But there was none. Louie still lay with her eyes closed, and perfectly motionless. Nothing had moved her, neither his words of love nor the honor he felt he was conferring upon her, nor what he had said of her father’s not having always been as rich as he was now. She was breathing very regularly, and something in the sound made him bend close to her with a suspicion of the truth.

“Louie,” he said. “Louie, do you hear me?”

There was no answer, and, starting up, he exclaimed, not in a whisper, but aloud, as he grasped her shoulder, and shook her:

“Thunderation! I believe you are asleep.”

That roused her, and, opening her eyes, she stared at him for a moment vacantly, as if wondering why he was there. Then as he said again, “I do believe you have been asleep,” she answered, with a yawn:

“I think I have, and I don’t know at all what you have been saying. I heard in a confused way something about that robin’s nest you tried to break up years ago, and I half thought I had you by the collar again; then your voice began to sound like bees humming, and I was so tired and sleepy, I went off. I beg your pardon. It was not very polite. What have you said to me? Anything important?”

“Great guns!” Herbert replied, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry. “Don’t you know I have asked you to be my wife?”

She was wide awake now, with every faculty alert, and the hot blood was staining her face, as she sat up erect and looked at him wonderingly. She had half expected that something of this sort might happen sometime, but not so soon. Herbert seemed more like a lover than a friend, and she certainly cared more for him than for anyone she had ever met, if indeed, she did not already love him. Still, it was very sudden, being roused from a sound sleep with an offer of marriage at one o’clock in the morning, and, besides that, a thought of Fred Lansing crossed her mind unpleasantly, and the light faded a little from her eyes, which drooped under Herbert’s ardent gaze.

“Asked me to be your wife?” she said at last. “Oh, no, you can’t mean it. I am too young, not quite seventeen; and your father would not like it. He looks upon us as dirt, I know, and has said mean things of my father, and made insinuations worse than lies, which can be met and contradicted.”

She was growing warm in her defence of her father, and as her warmth increased so did Herbert’s.

“I don’t care for a hundred fathers when you are in the scale,” he said. “I know he has acted mean at times, but after yesterday he will do better, and if he don’t, I want you and am going to have you!”

Then very rapidly he repeated in substance and with some additions what he had said to her when she was asleep. She was listening attentively, and managing to get a tolerably clear idea of his meaning and wishes, although they were somewhat confusing. She was to promise to marry him as soon as he was graduated, when they would go abroad for a year or more, and see everything there was to see in the Old World. In the meantime she was to persuade her father to send her to some finishing school, either in Boston or New York, where she would be rooted and grounded in everything his wife ought to know of the society into which she would be introduced. He did not say this in so many words, but that was what he meant, and he went on to say that the engagement must be kept a secret, partly because his father would make it unpleasant for him and for her if he knew it, and partly because if either he or she changed her or his mind, it would be better not to have a prior engagement known; not that he could change—that was impossible; and it was equally impossible that she could; but it was well to guard against contingencies.

He further intimated that during the years of their engagement she was to receive but little attention from the other sex, but keep herself wholly for him. Just what he was to do in that respect was not quite plain, and it struck Louie as a kind of one-sided affair. A secret engagement did not commend itself to her, and she said so at once, and that she did not like the way Herbert talked, as if she were not quite his equal and must be polished to become so.

“You had better leave me and take some city girl, who is up to your standard and your father’s,” she said hotly, with a flash in her eyes which Herbert knew was dangerous.

He had blundered somehow and must commence again. “I say, Lou,” he began, “don’t be so peppery. I mean all right, but am awkward telling it. I love you. I want you to be my wife. I don’t care for father, nor anything. Listen to me,” he continued, as she made a movement to get up. He put her back in her chair and urged his cause, until her scruples began to give way. He seemed a part of her life. He was young, and handsome, and masterful in his pleading. He was Judge White’s son, and that went for something. The trip to Europe was very alluring, although four long years in the distance, and she was at last overcome by his eloquence, and by the fatigue which made her weak to resist or to reason clearly.

“Then it is settled,” he said, triumphantly. “You are to be my wife, and for the present no one is to know it but ourselves. We are to appear to the world as we always have, the best of friends—lovers, if they choose to call us so; they have done that, you know, but the secret is ours.”

He stooped to kiss her, as a seal to their betrothal, but she drew her head back quickly and put up her hands, with a warning gesture.

“No, Herbert,” she said. “You cannot kiss me till the world knows we are engaged. I do not consider myself fully pledged till then, although I shall keep my promise.”

Herbert knew she was in earnest, and stood a moment aghast at being denied what he felt he had a right to claim. He was not accustomed to opposition, and a frown settled on his face, as she said in the tone in which she used to command him when they were children:

“Now you must really go, or I shall fall asleep again, and hark! the clock is striking two, and I do believe I hear father coming. Yes, there he is,”—she continued, as the front door opened and her father appeared, calling to her:

“Daughter, come in. Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes, father, I’m coming,” Louie replied, waving her hand to Herbert, who went down the steps farthest from Mr. Grey, so as not to speak to him in passing.

He was not in a mood to talk to anyone, and wanted to be alone, and think over what he had done, and decide if he had acted wisely in being so precipitate.

Meanwhile Louie went to her father, who said:

“Was that young White, hurrying down the walk as if he had been stealing sheep? or was it a lamb he was after?” he added, facetiously, his love of humor coming to the surface.

He had always been proud of Herbert’s evident liking for Louie, and nothing would have pleased him better than to know there was an engagement between them. This Louie suspected, and wanted to tell him what had passed between herself and Herbert, but her promise restrained her, and she answered:

“He brought a lamb back to the fold, and waited a little till the shepherd appeared.”

Then with a good-night she hurried to her room and tried to sleep. But the excitement of the day and evening had driven her drowsiness away, and the twitter of birds was heard outside her window, and the early sun was stealing into her room before she fell into a troubled sleep, in which she dreamed, sometimes of Herbert, sometimes of Fred Lansing, but oftener of the scene of the morning, which she seemed to be living over again, with this difference: that now it was her father’s bank the mob surrounded, with darker, angrier faces than she had ever seen before, while she stood in their midst alone, vainly trying to stem the tide, which bore her at last off her feet and away into darkness and unconsciousness, from which she at last awoke bathed in perspiration, with a cry upon her lips for Herbert to help her.

CHAPTER XI
KEEPING THE SECRET

It took Herbert some time to reach home, the night was so fine and he had so much to think about. The run on his father’s bank was a mortification which, now that he had time to think, smarted more than it had before. That his father should have been treated thus was an outrage, and that he should have been helped by a bank so much smaller than his own, was something of a humiliation. And still he was glad that help had come from Mr. Grey, and at Louie’s instigation. It might make matters easier for him when his engagement became known.

Then there crossed his mind a thought that possibly he had been rash in proposing to Louie just as he had done; not that he did not love her, for he did, and always should, but he had about him enough honor to feel that it was wrong to bind her to secrecy because he feared his father’s displeasure, and then suddenly he felt his face grow very red when the ugly thought presented itself that in four years he might change his mind, with all the advantages he should have of seeing the world.

“I am a villain to think that. I shall never change,” he said, as he came in sight of the veranda on which Fred Lansing was sitting, enjoying the moonlight and wondering why Herbert was gone so long.

At sight of him Herbert’s thought took another turn. Fred was evidently pleased with Louie—“mashed” Herbert called it. He was going to see her that afternoon. He was cold-blooded, it was true, but then he might warm up under the spell of Louie’s beauty, and make things awkward by proposing to her himself.

“I believe I’ll tell him. I can trust him,” he thought, and in response to Fred’s “Hallo! old fellow, what have you been doing all this time?” he went half way up the steps and seating himself on one of them, replied, “Been offering myself to the prettiest girl in the world!”

“You have!” Fred exclaimed, his feet dropping suddenly from the railing where they had been resting, while he straightened himself in his chair and looked his surprise at Herbert, who answered:

“Yes, I have, and was accepted, too; but you are not to speak of it. I shall tell no one but you. It is to be kept a secret at present.”

“Why?” Fred asked in a hard tone which roused Herbert to defend what he had done.

“Why, you see, we are both young, I twenty and she seventeen, or thereabouts, and we cannot think of marrying for a long time—four years at least.”

“Well?” Fred said in the same tone, while Herbert went on:

“I must go to college and Louie must go to school and get polished up in the ways of the world, different from Merivale—a one-horse town, you know.”

The hardness of Fred’s voice seemed to have passed to his face, but Herbert was not looking at him, as he continued:

“It is better to keep quiet if I want any peace. Father would row it awfully, if he knew, and I might not be able to stand four years of blowing.”

“Not for Louie?” Fred asked.

“Why, yes,” Herbert replied, “for her, if for anybody, but continual dropping wears the stone and father is terrible at a nag. He has a great antipathy to Mr. Grey, although he doesn’t know a thing against him, for sure, except that he came here poor, and lived in the White Row, as our tenant, and Mrs. Grey took in sewing.”

“That does not hurt Louie any,” was Fred’s prompt response.

“Certainly not,” Herbert said very cheerfully, glad that Fred saw it in the right light. “But it hurts her with father, who might get so furious as to disinherit me. It is in him. You don’t know father.”

“And if he did, would you give up Louie?” Fred asked, and something in his voice made Herbert look at him quickly.

“By George!” he exclaimed, “I believe you are half in love with her, yourself.”

The cigar Fred had been smoking when Herbert came up had gone out, and, brushing the ashes from it, he stood up and said:

“It would be absurd to be in love with a girl to whom I never spoke until yesterday. I think her the prettiest girl I have ever seen, and the pluckiest; and congratulate you upon having won her. But don’t keep it a secret. It is unjust to her and a harm to yourself. Better stand the storm at once, if there is to be one. Good-night, or rather morning—for see, the sky is brightening in the east.”

He walked away, while Herbert looked after him and said, “I am glad I got ahead of him, for if he isn’t in love with her now, he soon would be,” and that thought went a long way toward reconciling the young man to White’s Row and the plain sewing done for his mother.

Breakfast was very late at the White house that morning, and partly for this reason, and partly because he was still smarting under the indignity put upon him the day before, the judge was not in the best of humor, and did not try to conceal it. He had not slept, and he was cross. The coffee tasted as if it were warmed over from the night previous, and he had no doubt it was; one of his eggs was too hard, the other too soft; his toast was cold, and his napkin— “Well, this is a nice thing for a gentleman’s table,” he said, and he held up a small, thin bit of linen, which had evidently seen much service.

“Can’t you do better than this?” and he turned to his wife, who replied:

“Not this morning. Every large napkin was used last night, as the caterer did not bring enough, and I have only this half-dozen that are fresh. I don’t know how long I have had them. Mrs. Grey hemmed them for me, when they first came to town, or rather her daughter did. She was a little girl then, and I remember her bringing them home and looking so pleased as she told me she hemmed them, because her mother was ill. I thought her very pretty in her white sun-bonnet and bib apron. She looked pretty last night. Yes, they are very thin, and I do believe there’s a hole in yours, Fred. Let me change with you.”

It was Mrs. White’s habit to stick to a subject when once she was upon it, and she rambled on about the napkins Louie Grey had hemmed years before, while Herbert’s face grew crimson, and his eyes sought those of Fred, who looked at him with no change of expression whatever until the judge, roused by the name of Grey, began:

“Strange how things work. The world is one big teeter; sometimes your end of the board is up plumb, sometimes down. That’s the way with Grey. End of the teeter was on the ground when he came here, and hadn’t anything that anybody knew of; and now, my land! he thinks himself at the top of the heap. Did me a good turn yesterday, to be sure; but, upon my soul, I mistrust the man just the same. Can’t help it. There was something behind. Girl is well enough, but is a chip of the old block, or I am mistaken. Looks like him; has his ways, purring and soft. By the way, Herbert, it took you a good while to walk home with her. I heard you when you come in, and the roosters were crowing, and I b’lieve the sun was rising. Where were you?”

Before Herbert could reply, Fred spoke for him and said:

“He sat with me on the piazza after he came back. It was late when we came in. I hope we did not greatly disturb you.”

The judge was always suave to Fred Lansing, who represented a large fortune and a lineage as good and long as his own.

“Oh, no,” he said, with a wave of his hand, “I couldn’t sleep, thinking of that infernal row at the bank. I wonder I did not lose my mind with all that howling Babel. I don’t want Herbert bamboozled by the Grey girl. She is all right in her place, and did grand work yesterday. My wife will write her a note of thanks, and I shall make her a present at Christmas, if somebody will remind me of it. She sings well. How would it do to give her one of those things, you know, that pull out with a bellus!”

He looked at Herbert, who had gulped down his coffee and was clenching his fists under the table. At his father’s last words he sprang up and exclaimed:

“Oh, heavens, father! don’t insult Louie with an accordion; better give her a jew’s-harp!” and left the room, banging the door behind him.

The judge gave a knowing nod to his wife and said:

“I told you so. He is half gone with that Grey girl. Better get him out of town as soon as possible. Can’t you take him with you to Newport? I’ll trust you to cure him.”

He turned to Fred, who was also leaving the table in something of a hurry, and affected not to hear him.

“I don’t know but Bert is right. His father would make it rather hot for him, if he knew; but it is hard on the girl. I wonder how much she really cares for him, and if there will not come an awakening,” Fred was thinking as he went to his room and busied himself for a time with his portmanteau, putting something very carefully away in it. “I ought to know all the commandments. I have said them at Sunday school often enough, and hear them in church. One of them is, ‘Thou shalt not steal!’” he said. “I reckon I have broken it, and the worst of it is, I don’t care,” he continued, as he locked his valise and went downstairs to join his mother and Blanche Percy on the piazza.

There were fresh napkins for lunch that day, but only five of the six used at breakfast were put into the basket for soiled linen by the maid, who, with her mind on many duties, did not notice the absence of the sixth. Nor was it missed for a long time, and when search was made it was not to be found. Nancy Sharp, who sometimes worked for the White house was accredited with taking it home and forgetting to return it, but as it was very thin, nothing was said to her about it and it was finally forgotten.

“I want you at the bank to help straighten matters,” the judge said, after lunch, to Herbert, who made a wry face, for he was intending to call on Louie and forestall Fred, if possible, and keep him from being alone with Louie.

But there was no help for it, and in rather a bad humor he accompanied his father to the bank, where they found a few people re-depositing what they had drawn out the day before, and looking ashamed as they did it. Godfrey Sheldon was not among the number. His grievance at not having received an invitation to the party was not at all diminished, but rather increased by the Gibsons, who had lost no time in reporting the grand affair to their less fortunate neighbors. “Such a perfectly lovely time, with everybody there but you,” they said. “Strange you were not invited. There must have been a mistake.”

The Sheldon girls knew there was no mistake, and their resentment grew as they talked of the affair at dinner, and asked their father if he was going to return his money to the “White Bank.

“Not if I know myself,” was his reply, as he went out to harness his horse preparatory to driving into town, where his first call was at Grey’s Bank. “No, sir! Not a red of my money shall ever see the inside of White’s Bank again,” he said to Mr. Grey, who asked if he wished to return it. “If my girls are not good enough for an invite, my money is not good enough for his bank, and I shall leave it here. It is a big sum not to be drawing interest, but my wife has got it into her head that savings banks are going to burst, and if it wasn’t here she’d be hidin’ it all over the house. So I shall leave it here till I get a good investment on bond and mortgage for part of it, anyway. She hain’t no fear of your bank, and I hadn’t none of White’s. ’TwanO’t for that I took it out, and I’d no idea of a run. But the old thing was game, wasn’t it? I don’t see how it stood so square, do you?”

Mr. Grey only smiled and said he was glad it did stand, and thanked Mr. Sheldon for his confidence and big deposit, and hoped it would be safe with him. The story of Louie’s part in the run had not yet become known, and Mr. Grey did not wish to be the first to tell it. He was satisfied and pleased with the large amount of money left with him, and the trust reposed in him, and once when alone in his rear office, he buried his face in his hands and whispered:

“Keep me from temptation and sin!”

He had not yet seen the judge, but when a little later the latter appeared, and with his old pomposity ascended the steps, he went to the door with a cheery good-afternoon, which was returned civilly, but hastily. The judge was in a hurry to know how he stood, and how many “dumb fools” had left their money in Grey’s Bank. There were more than he supposed, and his face grew cloudy as he said to his cashier:

“We couldn’t stand much of a run without help to-day, could we? But that money from New York, due to come on the next train, will fix us up straight. Here, you, Herbert, look over the books and see just how much has gone to that man Grey.”

Herbert was not in a very good mood to look over books. He had greeted his prospective fatherin-law very cordially, but had felt a little twinge of conscience, knowing he ought to be honest and outspoken and say to him: “I have asked Louie to be my wife, and she has consented.”

He was in a great hurry to get to Louie, and while looking over the books kept wondering if Fred were there with her, or would he give up the call after what had been told him.

Fred was there, and Blanche Percy was with him. She had signified a wish to see Louie again, and Fred had asked her to accompany him. But for his knowledge of the engagement he would have preferred going alone, but now it didn’t matter; nothing mattered much, and he wondered why he felt so dull and depressed, scarcely hearing what Blanche was saying to him as they drove to the Grey’s, where they found Louie just as he had found her the previous day, sitting alone on the piazza.

She had not been as happy that day as newly engaged girls are wont to be. The secret weighed upon her, and she wondered how she could keep it four years, and why she must keep it at all. She would do a good deal to save Herbert from unpleasant relations with his father, but wouldn’t they be just as unpleasant at the last, when the truth was known? Would four years lessen them at all? She doubted it, and was sorry she had given the promise.

Then, in spite of all she could do to prevent it, thoughts of Fred Lansing would obtrude themselves into her mind, with a feeling that he would never have required so hard a thing of her if a hundred fathers had stood in the way. He had said he should call that afternoon, and it was partly in anticipation of his call that she had taken a seat upon the piazza, just where she had met him the day before. There was nothing of the coquette about Louie. She had promised to be Herbert’s wife and would be true to him as steel; but just what her feeling was with regard to Fred Lansing, she did not know. Comparatively he was a stranger, and yet he did not seem so. He had been so kind and thoughtful, and was so wholly a gentleman in every act, and his voice had been so pleasant and winsome when he spoke to her, and his eyes had looked so kindly at her that her pulse throbbed with a delicious kind of exultation whenever she thought of him, and she was glad he was to be her cousin. The possibility that he might have been anything nearer to her did not enter her mind. He was far above her and above Herbert, who was more on her plane and suited her better. Then she wondered why Herbert had not been to see her, and was feeling a little piqued at his neglect, when the White carriage drew up and Miss Percy and Fred alighted.

It was scarcely possible that there should not be an air of consciousness in Louie’s manner as she went forward to meet the people with whom she expected to be allied. Fred saw it, and felt a little pang he could not define as he looked at her bright face, suffused with a flush of joy, as she greeted them. Herbert had asked if he were in love with her, and he had not answered except to say, that it was absurd, but the bit of linen hidden so carefully in his valise, for the sake of a little girl in a bib apron and white sun-bonnet, seemed to tell a different story and to prove that love is not always of slow growth. Herbert’s announcement of his engagement had taken him by surprise, and the secrecy attending it offended his sense of openness and honor. Then he knew Herbert pretty well, and had detected in him a drawing away from Louie’s father and mother, as if they were inferior to the White’s. Had he been in Herbert’s place he would not have cared who Louie’s parents were, or what they were. Louie was just as sweet as if she had never lived in White’s Row, or hemmed the napkin he had purloined.

“I shouldn’t wonder if I were more than half in love,” he thought, but there was nothing in his manner to show his real feelings, as he offered her his hand and said laughingly that she did not look at all as if she had danced all night till broad daylight.

“Oh, I didn’t,” Louie answered in the same strain. “You forget that I sat through one dance, and then sang that ridiculous bird-song twice, which nearly split my throat. It aches now.”

“And it is about that throat I have come to talk,” Miss Percy said, entering at once upon the principal object of her call. “You have the most wonderful voice I ever heard in one so young. You must cultivate it. You ought to go abroad—to Marchesi, in Paris. Don’t you believe your father would let you go with me in the autumn? I have a great desire to see what can be made of your voice.”

Louie’s eyes were like stars as she thought of Paris, but a shadow fell on her face when she remembered Herbert, who at that moment came bowling up the street on his wheel, looking flushed and not altogether pleased when he saw who Louie’s visitors were. He knew Fred was watching him, and felt annoyed at the seeming indifference with which Louie received him. She merely bowed to him and gave him her hand, and then kept talking to Miss Percy as if he were not there. She was only carrying out his instructions, he knew, but he would have liked more warmth in her manner, and was not at all pleased when Miss Percy began to speak again of Paris and Marchesi, and taking Louie abroad.

“Not with a view to the stage?” he said, and he laid his hand heavily on Louie’s shoulder, as if to protect her from a threatened danger.

Miss Percy looked curiously at him, wondering why he should be so excited, or why he should care whether Louie sang on the stage or not. Neither could she define her own interest in a young girl she had known so short a time. She was passionately fond of music, and Louie’s voice had impressed her greatly. She was also rather fond of attending to other people’s business and having her own way about it. When once her mind was made up, she held on with a firm grip, and usually carried her point. With nothing in particular to do and plenty of money to spend, she would like to have a girl like Louie under her wing; it would help to divert her mind from a horror which was ever present with her when she was unoccupied, and she talked on of Paris and Marchesi and Europe generally as if it were settled that Louie was to go abroad with her in the autumn.

“Consult your father and mother. I will see them another time, and remember, it is to be at my own expense. You will be my companion,” she said at last, as she arose to go.

She had done the most of the talking, leaving Fred and Herbert quite out of the question; but the latter bided his time, knowing he should have a chance to express his opinion of Paris and Marchesi after the lady and Fred were gone. Fred was in no hurry to leave, but as he came with Miss Percy, he felt obliged to go when she did, and rather reluctantly said good-by, and left the field to Herbert, who began to air his opinion of the stage rather hotly and of Miss Percy meddling with what didn’t concern her. Foreign travel would be a good education in many respects, he said, and help to fit Louie for the position she would occupy as his wife, and on that account he would like to have her go abroad with Miss Percy, who knew a great many nice people both in London, Paris and Geneva, but he would not have her sing in public, and it would come to that if Miss Percy had her way. As it was, his father would be angry enough when he heard of the engagement, and if the stage were added, it might mean disinheritance. Then, what would they do? Stay in hum-drum Merivale and work for a living, he a clerk in her father’s bank, perhaps, and she on the road half the time with a troupe, leaving him to be spoken of, if he were mentioned at all, as Mrs. White’s husband; if, indeed, she did not take a stage name, and his identity be lost entirely. A good deal more he said of the same nature, with sundry suggestions with regard to Louie’s conduct as his promised wife, until she began to think that being engaged was not the state of bliss she had fancied it might be.

From a joking, teasing boy, Herbert seemed to have changed suddenly into an exacting master, who was to exercise his will over all her actions, while he was to be as free as ever. She was not to receive the attentions of any young man, but maintain a dignified reserve towards them all. They might think her proud, but no matter. When she was his wife they would understand. As to Paris and Marchesi, they were not to be thought of. She must go to some finishing school either in Boston or New York. He would himself make some inquiries as to where it was better for her to go.

For a time Louie listened in silence, but as Herbert’s restrictions continued, her temper got the ascendant, and a smart quarrel ensued, which threatened to end affairs between them. Louie said they were ended, and she would do as she pleased. She was not a child to be dictated to in that way. If she chose to be civil to a young man she should do so. She should not shut herself up like a nun, while he was having his freedom. As to the stage, she did not believe Miss Percy had thought of such a thing in connection with her going abroad. For herself—she certainly had no desire, but if she had, she would sing on a hundred stages if she chose.

Then Herbert grew angry, and told her to sing and make a spectacle of herself if she wanted to, but he hoped she would remember what she was giving up, when she threw him over, with all he could do for her and the position he could give her.

To this Louie retorted that she did not think him of as much consequence as he thought himself. She considered a daughter of Thomas Grey quite as good as a son of Robert White, and others thought so, too. He needn’t trouble himself to look up a finishing school for her. If she cared to go to one, her father was capable of finding it.

And so, boy- and girl-like, they quarrelled on until Herbert’s love triumphed over every other feeling, and the quarrel was made up as such quarrels usually are, each taking upon himself the most blame. Louie, however, held out the longest. Her pride was sorely wounded. She resented Herbert’s assumption of superiority over her and her family, and refused for a long time to listen to his conciliatory words. But he prevailed at last, and peace was restored. Herbert had called her a little cat during the quarrel, but she was a kitten now, gentle, purring and submissive, and he left her at last, in a very complacent state of mind, thinking as he walked home that he had commenced right, that though he had quarrelled, he had conquered, as he ought to do; that the man should be the master, and if he didn’t assert himself on the start, Louie, who was a little hot-headed, would get the upperhand, which would never do, and he a White.

Three days after this the Lansings left Merivale, but not until Miss Percy had seen Louie again with regard to her voice, and had also interviewed Mr. Grey, after two or three ineffectual attempts to see him. Evidently he tried to shun her, but she captured him at last in his bank, when he could not get away. When he found that the ordeal must be met, he made the best of it, and nothing could have been more polite or courteous than his manner as he took her into his rear office, and listened to her proposition to take his daughter abroad and give her the benefit of a musical training in Paris or Berlin, or both.

Nothing was said of the stage as a future possibility, and it is doubtful if Miss Percy had a thought of it. She wanted Louie, and meant to have her, and had planned many things she would do when once the young girl was with her.

Accustomed to have her own way, she was not prepared for Mr. Grey’s decided refusal. He thanked her for her interest in Louie, but said he could not part with her. Later, when she was through school, he meant to take her abroad himself and possibly give her some instructions in music, although he doubted if it would help her much. Her voice suited him; training might spoil it. He was very firm, and Miss Percy left him with a feeling that he was a very obstinate man and a very peculiar man, whom she could not understand. He was a gentleman in every respect, but he impressed her as being very shy for one who had seen much of the world. Evidently he was under restraint in her presence, and was relieved when she arose to go, after exhausting every possible argument in favor of taking Louie with her to Europe. He was certainly standing in his own light, or rather in Louie’s, and when she bade the latter good-by she said to her:

“If anything ever happens and your father changes his mind, let me know at once.”

Nothing ever could happen, Louie was sure, and, although Paris and Marchesi seemed very alluring, she was happy to stay at home with Herbert, who, since their first quarrel, had been very lover-like in his attentions to her when alone with her, but quite indifferent when in public. He did this, he said, to blind his father, who would give him Hail Columbia if he had a suspicion of their relations to each other. Still the secret weighed heavily on Louie, nor was it made easier because of the exquisite diamond ring Herbert put upon her finger the night before he started for college. She could only wear it in her room, or when alone, and it seemed to her a mockery to call it an engagement ring. Her nature was open as the day, and she rebelled against the secrecy imposed upon her, and told Herbert so in every letter she wrote him. These were not many, for here again his caution came in play. If too many letters passed, the post-office clerks might comment, and the gossip reach his father, of whom he seemed more in fear than when he was a boy.

“If he knew the truth, he would either remove me from college or cut my allowance, and I should not be pleased with either,” he wrote.

He was posing at Yale as a young man of unbounded wealth, and spending money freely, and his father paid the bills without a protest, rather proud than otherwise that they were so large, so long as Herbert was involved in no disgrace. It was his son, and he was glad to have him hand in glove with the high bucks, he said, and glad he was seeing the world. He managed to see a good deal of it in one way and another, and at the close of his first year came home, with a great sense of his own importance, and a still greater sense of the dullness of Merivale.

“A one-horse town every way, and a century behind the times, with nothing going on—nothing to interest a fellow. Everybody at work as if his life depended upon the amount accomplished from sunrise to sunset. Nobody with any leisure—no ball-game, no hops, no anything!” he said to Louie, who did not think him improved by his first year in Yale, and resented his criticisms upon the town generally and her father in particular, because he had refused to send her to a school in New York, where Herbert could see her often and could occasionally show her to his classmates. All this and much more he had written to Louie, who spoke to her father of New York, and expressed a desire to go there. After some inquiries with regard to different schools, Mr. Grey said to her, “Which do you care for most, a thorough education, or knowing how to walk and stand and sit and enter a room?”

Louie laughed, and replied that she would like both—the accomplishments and a thorough education.

“I think, then, Bryn Mawr is the place, rather than a large city, where there are so many attractions and distractions. They turn out splendid scholars there.”

For a moment Louie’s brow was puckered with a frown. New York represented to her everything that was desirable. But with her usual docility she yielded to her father’s judgment, and Bryn Mawr was decided upon greatly to the disgust of Herbert, who said several things not very complimentary to that institution as compared with the New York school which he had in mind.

“Why, if you take the whole course at Bryn Mawr you will be an old maid before you get through, with your head crammed full of musty stuff, which, as my wife, will be of no earthly use to you,” he said.

She ought to see the girls he had met, and whose brothers were in his class—tip-top girls, and up-to-date; wore big hats and tailor gowns and smoked cigarettes, some of them. He didn’t quite like that, of course, but then—well—a lot of girls did it, and one must keep in the swim. The Merivale boys called him a snob, and he mentally called them country clowns and kept mostly to himself so far as they were concerned. He saw Louie often, but did not hesitate to criticise her whenever she failed to come up to the standard of the tip-top girls with tailor gowns and big hats. Sometimes Louie took his criticisms meekly, and sometimes turned upon him furiously, telling him to go to his tip-top girls, who smoked cigarettes, and leave her alone. On the whole, however, she was very happy and very proud of him, and longed to have it known that he belonged to her. But at any suggestion of this kind Herbert resolutely shook his head. One year had passed quickly, he said, and three more would pass quicker, when, if she had had enough of Bryn Mawr and Greek and Latin, she would be his, and his arguments prevailed to quiet Louie, if not to convince her.

CHAPTER XII
MR. GREY

It was now nearly a year since the great run, as it was called. The story of the part Louie had in it had gotten abroad, and at first the people had some misgivings with regard to the solidity of a bank which, but for the novel help given it, might have toppled over. But this feeling gradually died out, and the National came up like a strong ship out of a storm which had scarred, but not weakened it. Many of its patrons returned to it, and others didn’t. Godfrey Sheldon still held his grudge, and two thousand dollars of his money still reposed, or were supposed to repose, in the Grey Bank, which gave no sign of bursting up, as the judge had predicted it would. To all human appearances, Mr. Grey was more prosperous than ever, and no one in Merivale spent money as freely as he did. He gave to everything; he drove a finer carriage than Judge White, and his bays were far handsomer than the judge’s blacks. His coachman wore a dark grey livery and tall hat. He had made his wife a Christmas present of an exquisite set of diamonds; Louie had a new Steinway, which cost seven hundred dollars, and a diamond ring whose value was estimated anywhere from three hundred to five hundred dollars. There were frequent visits to Boston and New York, where the family stopped at the Touraine and the Waldorf. There was to be a trip to Narragansett Pier for the month of August, and a suite of rooms was engaged at one of the most expensive hotels. For this trip several costumes were being made in Boston and Worcester for Mrs. Grey and Louie, who, Mr. Grey said, should not be behind anyone in dress, if money could buy it.

In the midst of her prosperity Louie did not lose her head at all, but was the same bright, friendly girl, with a pleasant, familiar word for every one. She was too familiar, Herbert thought, trying to repress her. But here he failed. It did not hurt her, she told him, to talk with Nancy Sharp and people like her, and she should do it for all of him! In this respect she was like her father, who never forgot to be polite to every one, and his good-morning to Nancy Sharp was just as cordial as to Judge White.

But gradually a change had come over Mr. Grey; a feeling of depression which he could not shake off, and which was more perceptible at home than when mixing with people outside. There was nothing much the matter, he said to his wife and Louie when questioned as to what ailed him. He had some indigestion and was tired of business and wanted to get away from it awhile, that was all.

“There is nothing the matter with the business, is there? No trouble, I mean?” Louie asked.

“Trouble!” he repeated quickly, with a sharp glance at her. “Of course not. What trouble can there be? I am having deposits all the time; not large ones, but every little helps.”

Louie had learned a good deal of the workings of a bank since the White run, and she continued:

“And these deposits are loaned on good securities? They are safe?”

“Safe! Of course they are safe! Did you think they were not?” her father replied.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I only wanted to be sure, and if these securities should fail you still have enough to pay the depositors if they should run on you as they did on Judge White?”

What ailed the girl? She was certainly a little disagreeable in her questioning, and for almost the first time in his life her father answered crossly, “Pay! Of course I could! What are you worrying about? I can manage the bank.”

After that he tried to seem more natural and cheerful, but it was at last a dismal failure. His headaches were more frequent. He could not sleep; he ate scarcely anything, and would sometimes sit for an hour without speaking, with his eyes closed, as if thinking intently. His trips to New York were more frequent. He was consulting a physician for nervous dyspepsia, he said, but he usually returned worse than when he went. To his wife’s and Louie’s inquiries he would answer lightly that he would be all right with a change of air. Narragansett Pier and sea baths would bring him up at once, and days came and went, and in the social atmosphere of Merivale there was no sign of the impending storm which would make the great run seem like a bubble.

The beginning of the end came one Saturday afternoon when the bank was to close earlier than usual. Knowing this, Nancy Sharp hurried to get in a few dollars she had been laying by, and which she thought too large a sum to be quite safe in her house over Sunday. Her example was followed by Widow Brown and two or three more, one of whom made a deposit of a hundred dollars which he said he should want on Monday.

There was a strange look in Mr. Grey’s eyes, and he seemed half uncertain whether to take the money, but as he could give no good reason why he should not, he took it, but put Nancy’s five dollars in the box where he had kept her twenty marked dollars. The rest went into the common fund, and then the work of the day was done.

Wilson, who had been in the bank since it started, closed the doors, put up the shutters and went out for his few hours’ holiday, leaving both keys with Mr. Grey, who was alone but not idle. Every account was gone over again and again, every dollar counted, and some of it transferred from the safe to his pocket.

“I shall put it back on Monday, of course,” he said to himself; “but I must have something to pay bills to-night and for church to-morrow. I have never failed to put a dollar on the plate. I shall pay it Monday.” He kept repeating this, “I shall pay it Monday. Help will surely come then, or to-morrow.”

Many a time during the last few weeks he had said, “Help will come to-morrow,” and he had waited with feverish impatience for the morrow and the help which did not come. He was usually among the first at the post-office, his pulse throbbing and his heart beating, as he waited for his mail. As he took his letters from his drawer, and glancing at the addresses, knew that the one he wanted was not among them, there always came over him a feeling of nausea and blackness for a moment, and he stumbled against the people jostling him as the eager crowd came in. Then with a mighty effort which made every nerve quiver, he recovered himself, bowed to every one he knew, and with a pleasant word passed out into the fresh air where he could breathe more freely. This had been repeated for days and days, and the strain was becoming unbearable.

“Better know the worst than endure this suspense any longer,” he said on the Saturday when matters were reaching a crisis.

A few small depositors who wanted their money, took it out in the morning, and he could have shouted for joy when they did so.

“There will be less to consign me to perdition when the crash comes,” he thought, and was sorry for any fresh deposit made that day.

Nothing could help him now but the aid so long looked for. Why had fortune turned against him so persistently when she had once been so lavish with her favors that he had only to try his luck and win. Now it was constant loss until this last venture, which had promised so much and must bring success, or he be ruined with many who had trusted him and looked upon him as a soul of honor and integrity. No one stood higher in Merivale than he did, or would fall lower if he fell. He thought of the mob which had surrounded White’s Bank during the run, and said to himself, “That was a ripple compared to the storm which will beat against me when all is known. Then there was a chance to get something, for it was a run; with me it will be a total failure, with no hope of payment, and so many of them are my personal friends.”

He almost knew the list of depositors by heart, but he went over it again, and, strong man that he was, his tears fell like rain as he saw the names of those whose little all, which meant so much hard work, had been trusted to him. Among the names was Louie’s. She had thought it a fine thing to have a bank account, and from the liberal allowance paid to her weekly she had saved and deposited one hundred and fifty dollars, and had nearly tormented his life out with asking where it was invested and what per cent. it was paying him.

“Poor little Louie! She shall not lose,” he said, and going again to his safe he took out one hundred and fifty dollars, and putting it in the box with Nancy Sharp’s marked silver, charged it to Louie as withdrawn, and then his work was done and he sat down in his rear office, conscious of a great weakness and throbbing of his heart in his throat, giving him a sensation of smothering.

He had felt this before when returning from New York, or waiting for news from that city. But the feeling had never been quite as intense as it was now, nor quite as painful, making him gasp and put his hands to his throat, which felt as if swelling to twice its usual size. The room was dark with the heavy shutters drawn, and the gas extinguished, but the future outlook was darker still, with no ray to lighten it unless it came in the morrow’s mail, or Monday’s. He had reason to expect it on the morrow.

“And it will come; it must,” he said, his natural hopefulness beginning to assert itself. “To-morrow will put things right, and then, as I hope for heaven, I’ll do business on the square. I’m not naturally a bad man, nor a dishonest one. It is this infernal disease born in me, which has mastered me.”

He heard the town clock strike five, and started up quickly. They were expecting him home to drive, but it was so late now he might as well be later, and pay the weekly bills. There was the butcher and baker and grocer and fruit-stall, and very likely there was something at the candy store, for Louie was fond of candy, and never bought an inferior kind. Then he remembered with a start that his quarter’s rent was due on Monday. Should he pay that, or let it take its chance?

“I’ll risk it,” he said. “Judge White can stand a loss better than the trades-people.”

Once he thought of going to the judge for a loan. But he put that aside with a laugh which sounded strangely in the silent, shadowy room.

“I could not bear his exultant sneer as he refused. I’d rather face the mob,” he said, and began to put on his coat which he had laid aside.

Very slowly he went around the rooms, sitting a moment in his chair near the window, standing next where he had so often stood to receive or pay out money, and then where the depositors stood when they paid it in or received it. Thousands and thousands had passed through that opening. Where was it now?

“Gone like the dew,” he whispered, involuntarily stretching out his hands as if to take something from an unseen presence.

Then, relighting the gas, he went a second time to the safe, counting what was there to see if he had not made a mistake, and feeling the tears in his eyes again because there was so little.

“I must go now,” he said. “Good-by, old bank! I shall know the worst or best perhaps when I am here again.”

He shut the safe, put out the gas, and went out into the sunshine, with a feeling that he had closed the door on all that was respectable in Thomas Grey. Every one he met had for him a cheery good-afternoon, which he returned, as cheerily, but with a feeling that he ought not to be spoken to in this way. Once, as he walked, he found himself stooping from sheer humility, as he thought what he was and what the world would know him to be erelong if help did not come. He paid the butcher and the baker and the grocer and the confectioner, and a small bill at his tailor’s, which he remembered had been owing for some little time. Then he started for home, where he found his wife anxious to know what had detained him, and Louie absorbed in the contents of two express boxes which had just arrived from Boston and contained the finery intended for Narragansett Pier.

“Isn’t this be-u-tiful!” she said to him, holding up an evening dress of silk and lace and chiffon. “Only it cost twice as much as I thought it would. Look,” and she handed her father a bundle of bills, which had come with the express packages, and which made Mr. Grey gasp for a moment.

Then he smiled and said: “Nearly a thousand dollars for gewgaws! That is pretty steep. But never mind; they will be paid like the rest. And now give me some strong, clear coffee. My head is splitting.”

He looked very pale, and said he could not go to dinner, but would lie on the couch in his den. Headaches were very frequent with him now, but this seemed worse than usual, and at an early hour he retired to his room, saying sleep would do him good, and he should be all right in the morning.

He was all right, or seemed so, when he went down to breakfast, and to Louie’s question, “How did you sleep?” he replied:

“Sleep? Why, there was not a single break from the time I put my head upon the pillow until I heard Jane open the blinds.”

He did not explain that the “no break” was in wakefulness rather than in sleep, for he had not closed his eyes. Once, when he knew by his wife’s breathing that she was sleeping soundly, he arose, and going to the drawer where he kept his revolver, took it out and examined it carefully, holding it once to his head, and thinking how easy it would be to end everything in this world so far as he was concerned.

Then there came before him the picture of a ghastly face he had once seen with a bullet-hole in the temple. He could not subject his wife and Louie to that horrid sight, and, returning the revolver to its place, he crept back to bed, shivering with cold, although the night was hot and sultry and a storm was coming up. He could hear the faint mutterings of thunder, and listened as it grew nearer and nearer, until the house shook with the terrific peals and every corner of the room was ablaze with electricity.

“If it would only strike me!” he thought; and, going to the window, he watched the storm with a wish that the forked flame darting so viciously through the sky and seeming so near would take him with it—somewhere, he cared not where, so that he escaped what by some premonition he felt sure awaited him on the morrow.

It was to-morrow now, for as the storm passed, the early summer morning broke in all its fresh loveliness, and he thought how beautiful were the grounds around his house, with the raindrops on flower and shrub and grass. When he built the house he had deeded it to his wife, and was glad he had done so. The law could not touch that—nor his horses, nor carriage, nor piano. All were his wife’s and Louie’s, unless they gave them up, as perhaps they would. Well, it didn’t matter. Nothing would matter much if things went wrong. It was Sunday, and in a few hours he would know what that day would bring him. He should go to church, of course, he said, and sit once more in his pew, for which he paid nearly as much as Judge White paid for his.

He went to church behind his handsome bays, and never stood straighter, or read louder, or seemed more devout, or paid stricter attention to the sermon, although during the last of it his ears were strained to catch the first rumble of the train which was to bring him heaven or hell.

He heard the scream of the engine as it stopped at the station, heard it as it went on, heard the ‘bus as it passed the church with the mail, which he saw in fancy opened in the office, and saw the letters put into his drawer—four of them—he could have sworn there were four, but only one had any interest for him, and that lay on the top. He did not know whether he were in a trance or not, with a gift for far-seeing. He only knew he was at the office and at the church, too. He was very conscious of that last fact, and conducted himself becomingly—stood when he ought to stand, bowed his head when he ought to bow it, and dropped his silver dollar on the plate with a thud, which made the judge, who was passing it, frown disapprovingly.

“Blowing his own trumpet—thinks, maybe, he is setting me an example,” he thought, as he placed his quarter more quietly upon the plate.

Church was out at last, and Mr. Grey was among the first to reach the door.

“Take us to the post-office,” he said to his coachman, who, with the smart carriage and prancing bays, was waiting for him.

Joe touched his hat and drove to the post-office where the mail was distributing. Mrs. Grey and Louie did not alight, but waited while Mr. Grey went in, unlocked his drawer, and found, as he had expected, four letters, the one on the top bearing the New York postmark and directed in the handwriting he knew so well.

He could not wait till he reached home before knowing the truth, and, tearing open the envelope, he read that his worst fears were fulfilled. There was no hope from any quarter. He was absolutely ruined, and for a moment everything turned black, and he felt blindly for something to lean upon. There was a deadly nausea at his stomach, and the people’s voices sounded like the hum of a swarm of bees which once settled on a tree over his head when he was a boy. Then he rallied, and wondered that he could be so calm—that he didn’t feel anything. Something had benumbed him completely, so that his head was just as erect and his smile as pleasant as of old, as he made his way through the crowd and out to the street, where his high-mettled horses were pawing the road, anxious to be off. Two or three times he stopped to speak to people—to Godfrey Sheldon, and Nancy Sharp. She went to the office for the excitement, rather than because she expected anything. The sight of Mr. Sheldon gave him a twinge, but Nancy’s money was safe and his “Hallo, Nancy!” was more hearty than usual.

“Hallo, Mr. Grey! Will you be wantin’ your bank cleaned this week?” was Nancy’s rejoinder.

“Perhaps so. I’ll let you know,” Mr. Grey replied, as he walked past her to his brougham, where Herbert White stood talking to Louie of a moonlight sail on the river the next night, and saying he should call for her at half-past seven.

Mr. Grey had suspected that there was, or might be something serious between the young man and his daughter, and he found himself wondering if the trouble would end it.

“Probably,” he said to himself, but greeted Herbert cordially and invited him to go home with them to dinner.

Herbert might have accepted but for his father, who came puffing from the post-office, his hands full of letters, one of which he handed to his son, saying:

“It’s from Fred, and I have one from Esther. They sailed yesterday for Europe, where they are to join Miss Percy. Come, hurry; I want to get home out of this heat. How are you, Grey?”

This last was in response to Mr. Grey’s cordial, “Good-afternoon, judge. Hot day, isn’t it?”

Herbert bowed to Mrs. Grey and Louie, and walked toward his carriage, but the Grey brougham was ahead of it, sending back clouds of dust which made the judge sneeze and choke and wipe his eyes as he wondered “Why in thunder Grey wanted to drive so fast and raise such an infernal dust!”

“Don’t he know it’s blowing right in my face, or don’t he care?—the upstart, with livery!”

No dust could have been so bad as the Grey dust, and the judge went on grumbling until the obnoxious carriage turned into a by-street, leaving the road unobstructed.

Arrived at home, Mr. Grey tried to seem natural, and joked Louie about her new dresses, which she could not help looking at, if it were Sunday; but there was a glitter in his eyes and a drawn look about his mouth which his wife remembered afterward and understood. When dinner was over he said he was going for a walk, to see if it would not clear his head, which felt a little heavy. Taking a circuitous route, he came at last to the house of Lawyer Blake, a personal friend whom he could trust, and who had done business for him. There was no hesitancy now on his part, and his manner was cool and collected as he began:

“I am totally ruined! Bank will be closed to-morrow, and I have come to you for advice.”

Mr. Blake looked at him in astonishment, as he went on; “I don’t know much about such matters, but I suppose there must be an assignee, and I want you for that and want you to see to things generally. There’ll be a terrible row—worse than the White’s—and I feel as if I were losing my mind.”

The lawyer asked no questions as to how it had happened. He thought he knew, and promised to do whatever he could.

“Have you thought of preferred creditors? Are there none whom you wish to have paid in full?” he asked.

“It is a farce to name any,” Mr. Grey replied. “There is so little that to select a big depositor would be wrong. But, yes”—and in his eyes there was a laugh as he saw the absurdity of what he was about to suggest—“I will name one—old Nancy Sharp.”

“Nancy Sharp!” the lawyer repeated in surprise. “Are you crazy?”

“Very nearly so,” Mr. Grey replied; “but Nancy shall be the one. She took twenty dollars from White’s Bank, and put them into mine, where she already had a small sum. I have them intact yet, with her private mark upon them, and I want you to pay her back the same dollars. She has added small sums from time to time—put in five dollars yesterday—and now has in all some seventy-five dollars. I have quite a regard for Nancy. She’ll lead the mob, if there is one, and show fight, too!”

Nothing the lawyer said could dissuade Mr. Grey from his purpose, and he gave it up, and Nancy’s name went in as the sole preferred creditor.

For an hour or more the interview lasted, and at its close the preliminary steps for the closing of the bank had been decided; the assignment was drawn ready for execution the next morning, and Mr. Grey went home in quite a cheerful state of mind.

Now that he had made a beginning, and the burden was in a way shifted from his shoulders to another’s, he felt better. It was not often that Mrs. Grey attended service in the evening, and as it was so warm, Louie decided to remain at home. Mr. Grey, however, went, and shook hands with a good many people, and appeared so affable and friendly and talked and laughed so much that it was commented upon by his friends and remembered afterwards as a sign that he was a little off in his brain. When service was over, he walked part way home with a neighbor, then saying good-night, he went to his bank, and, locking the door and lighting the gas, took a sheet of foolscap, and with a blue crayon wrote upon it in letters which could be read across the street: “THIS BANK CLOSED FOR THE PRESENT.”

He made two or three copies before he was suited. “I want it so plain that he who runs may read,” he said, holding the paper off to get the effect. “This will do. This will catch their eyes the first thing in the morning,” he said, and pinning the paper on the wall sat staring at it until the letters were like blue tongues before his eyes. Many times he repeated the words, “THIS BANK IS CLOSED FOR THE PRESENT,” until they burned like fire in his brain, and he laughed aloud as he thought of the consternation they would produce and the rapidity with which the news would spread, and the crowd it would bring to the spot. He could not put the paper outside that night, for the moonlight would betray him. It must be done in the early morning, before anyone was up.

“And I shall be here at the opening of the play,” he said, as with a last glance at the blue letters he put out the gas, locked the door and started for home, wondering why his legs trembled so and why he felt so weak.

Once he sat down on a bench by the side of the road near his home with a feeling that his strength was gone.

“This will never do. If I die, I’ll die game,” he said at last, and rousing up and pulling himself together he walked very steadily to his house, finding both his wife and Louie waiting for him with a tempting little lunch on the dining-room table.

“Service was either very long, or you have been somewhere. It is nearly ten o’clock,” Louie said, as she gave him the cup of cocoa which he usually had on Sunday nights after church.

“I’ve been somewhere,” he said, taking the cocoa and compelling himself to eat and to talk and seem natural, and when lunch was over, he asked Louie to sing him something before she retired.

“What shall it be?” she said, seating herself at the piano.

“Oh, anything,” he answered. “Or, yes, I think I’d like

‘Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.’

That will suit my case.”

Louie did not hear the last remark, and her sweet, clear voice rang out in the evening air with the song her father had chosen. Sometimes he sang with her, but now he only whispered to himself, “Yes, the darkness deepens, and it is so dark, and I don’t believe the Lord would abide with me if I asked him to. It’s too late for that.”

It was almost a prayer, and whether God heard or not there stole over the wretched man a sense of quiet and rest. The tension of his nerves relaxed. His head drooped, and when Louie finished singing and turned towards him, she saw that he was asleep.

“Poor, tired father,” she said, rousing him very gently, while he looked at her in a bewildered kind of way and asked, “Is it to-morrow yet, and has the mail come?”

“Almost to-morrow, as it is nearly eleven, and time you were in bed. Mother went long ago,” Louie replied.

He was fully awake now, and getting up from his chair he stooped over Louie to give her the good-night kiss which he never omitted.

“God bless you, daughter,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking her steadily in the face; “God bless you, and whatever happens, remember I thought only of your happiness and your mother’s. Good-night.”

He kissed her again, and went slowly to his room, while Louie looked after him wonderingly.

“Something is the matter. He is not well. I must speak to mother in the morning and have him see a doctor,” she thought, as she, too, went to her room and was soon asleep, with no suspicion of what the morrow was to bring.

Mr. Grey could not sleep. There was work for him to do, and it must be done early, before the town was awake.

Fortunately his wife slept very soundly, and did not hear him when, just as the day was dawning, he rose stealthily and made his way to the bank, meeting no one but a half-drunken man reeling home after a night’s debauch. He recognized Mr. Grey, and half staggering against him hiccoughed out, “Evenin’, Mr. Grey. Been on a lark same’s I have. Wall, all right. I ‘low, and everybody ‘lows you are a good feller” (the man prefixed an adjective to the good, which made it sound like an oath); “good, honest feller. Yes, sir. My wife Sally has some money in your bank and knows it’s safe. Yes, sir, she does. Wall, good-night. I must be goin’, or Sally will lam me for bein’ late; but if I tell her I met Mr. Grey it’ll be all right. Yes, sir, all right. Sally swears by you, she does. By-by.”

The man moved on a few rods and then fell sprawling upon the walk, where he lay like a log. For an instant Mr. Grey looked at him, half resolving to go to his aid. But time was passing, and he had work to do before the sun was up. The man’s words of commendation and assurance of Sally’s trust in him stung him to the quick. Everybody trusted him, but that trust was soon to be destroyed, and Sally, who he knew was a hard-working woman, would lose her little hoard.

“It is such people I am most sorry for,” he said, clenching his fists in an agony of remorse and trembling so that he could hardly unlock the door of the bank. It was dark inside, but he did not need a light. He knew where the blue words were. There were tacks and a hammer in one of the drawers, and the paper which was to fire the town was soon fastened upon one of the outside doors.

“I’ll stay and see it begin,” he said, and, returning to the office and locking the door, he took out the revolver he had brought with him, and again asked himself if he should end it all, as he could do in a second.

When before he had been thus tempted it was a dead face which stopped him. Now it was Louie’s, his fair, sweet daughter. What would she say to find him there, with his brains bespattering the floor, and where would he be when she found him?

“No, I can’t do it,” he said. “Better State’s prison than hell, where suicides go. Maybe I can repent and be forgiven, and maybe it won’t be State prison. I’ll risk it, anyway.”

He returned the pistol to his pocket and lay down upon the couch, wondering who would be the first to see the words which danced before his eyes like the blue flames of perdition.

He had not slept well for weeks, and for two nights he had not slept at all except the few minutes when Louie was singing to him. Nature could endure no longer, and he fell at last into a sleep so heavy that he did not waken until there was the sound of many voices outside, and he knew the mob was there, clamoring to get in. Sick with fear, he thought again of his revolver, when he heard Louie calling to him:

“Father, father! are you here? Let me in. It is Louie.”

CHAPTER XIII
THE CRASH

The first to see the blue letters was a milkman driving his wagon into town. At first he thought it some advertisement such as was often posted in conspicuous places, and wondered a little to see it where it was. Then, as he drew near enough to read it, he nearly fell over among his cans, while his hair seemed rising on his head. He was one of those who had taken his money from the National and deposited it in Grey’s Bank, where there were now nearly one hundred and fifty dollars. Not a large sum, but representing a great deal to him—a new range his wife had set her heart upon, and his winter’s coal; a new overcoat for Johnny, and one for himself, and so on. The whole list came up before him as his lips formed the words, “This bank closed,” but gave no sound. Men have lost their thousands and never felt it more keenly than the milkman, who did not notice that his horse had started on, thinking he had been long enough in one place. The first stop was near by, and as the maid came out with her bowl the milkman said to her with long-drawn breaths:

“Grey’s Bank has busted! Got anything in it?”

In a moment the bowl, milk and all, were on the walk, and the girl was staring open-mouthed across the street at the placard on the door.

“Failed! Burst! and my money gone! It can’t be,” and she began to cry, while the milkman drove on, carrying the news with him, until every house on his beat knew it, and half-dressed men, and women, too, were in the street, hurrying towards the bank, as they had done on the morning of the great run.

The cashier, who boarded near by and had just risen, was pounced upon to tell what he knew. He knew nothing, except that funds were rather low, as they had been several times when the bank had righted again.

“Good heavens! I ain’t to blame,” he said to the excited crowd, which looked as if about to lay violent hands on him. “I can’t help it. I didn’t know it,” and he started for the street, putting on his coat as he ran.

By this time there was quite a crowd of people around the bank, reading the notice and giving vent to their feelings as they read.

“Let us in,” some said to the cashier; but he knew better than that, and shook his head.

“I haven’t the key. Wait for the boss,” he said.

“Where is he? Where’s Grey? Call him up. We want to know what he has to say for himself,” was heard on every side, while two or three rushed to a store near by, where there was a telephone, each trying to reach it first.

“Leave it to me,” the cashier said, and the Central was rung up and “Grey at his house” called for, while “Halloo!” soon came in response, in Louie’s voice.

“I want your father,” the cashier screamed in his excitement, and Louie replied:

“He is not here. We don’t know where he is. What is the matter?”

“The bank is closed—failed! Where can he be?” was shouted, but Louie didn’t answer.

She had dropped insensible upon the floor, where the housemaid found her a few minutes later. Her mother had missed her father, and was making inquiries for him when the message came through the ‘phone, bringing alarm and dismay and an insight into some things which had seemed strange of late.

It did not take long to restore Louie to consciousness, and in a few minutes she was on her wheel, speeding away to the bank, where she felt her father was.

On her way she passed the White House, and glanced towards it with a thought of Herbert, and what he would say and do, and with a thought, too, of Fred Lansing on the ocean that summer day, with no suspicion of what was transpiring in Merivale. This she did not know, as she had not heard what the judge said to Herbert when he gave him Fred’s letter the day before.

The village was thoroughly roused by this time, and the country, too. No one could tell who carried it, but the news had reached Godfrey Sheldon, as he was washing himself in a tin basin by the well, and thinking what a hot day it was going to be for him to drive to an adjoining town to pay for some oxen and a Jersey cow, the money for which he must get from Grey’s Bank. To say that he swore is putting it mildly, and between his swearing and excitement he emptied the tin basin into the well and finished his ablutions in the pail of water drawn for the house. He called himself a fool for leaving so much in the bank as he ran his horse into town, hoping against hope, and finding that the worst had happened when he saw the notice on the door and the crowd in the street.

“Heavens and earth!” he exclaimed, clutching first one and then another. “How much do you s’pose he’ll pay on the dollar? or be we tee-totally swamped?”

Nobody answered him. Nobody knew. Each was intent upon himself, and Nancy Sharp was the most intent of all. She had heard the news in White’s Row, where as usual on Monday morning she was busy over her washtub. For a moment she seemed paralyzed, and stood with her mouth wide open and a wet towel dangling high in the air and dripping up her arms and down to the floor. Then she started for the scene of action, outrunning every one who joined her. If she was excited at the great run, she was now a howling hyena, threatening to tear out Grey’s heart if she could get at him.

“All my savings in hard, round silver dollars gone, and wasn’t it only Saturday I put in the last, and he took it—the wretch, knowin’ he was busted!” she said, and this was the plaint of three or four more who had hurried to place their money with the man they trusted, and for whom now there were not names bad enough.

Even Louie, the favorite of the town, was greeted with a low hiss from some quarter as she rode into their midst and, dismounting, said:

“Hasn’t father appeared? He must be in the bank. Open the door, somebody.”

She looked helplessly round, while many voices cried:

“Yes, open the door, and bring him out and make him tell us what he has done with our money, or we’ll hang him up on a tree,” one brutal fellow, who had only twenty dollars in the bank, said.

“Easy enough to tell. Spent it in fine carriages, and horses, and diamonds, and pianos, and party gowns,” some one replied.

“And hundred-dollar bicycles!” was added, with a glance at Louie, who was leaning on her wheel, sick at heart as she heard what was said, and thought how soon the loss of money would transform seeming friends into cruel foes.

She had beckoned the cashier to her, and asked for a key. On being told that her father had both, she said:

“I am sure he is here. He is not at home. We must get to him somehow.”

She did not think of suicide, or that he was asleep. He was there, and afraid to come out, and she kept calling to him, “Father, let me in! It is Louie!” while there fell a kind of hush upon the people waiting for the answer, and pressing into the rear yard near the door.

“Oh, keep back, please,” she said, as she heard her father trying to unlock the door.

“Not much back. I’m going to have my silver dollars—seventy-five of ’em! He can’t have spent ’em all since Saturday night,” Nancy Sharp screamed, crowding up to the door, which was opened slowly, disclosing a face before which the crowd recoiled, it was so corpse-like and haggard, with a wild look in the bloodshot eyes, and a tremor about the lips which tried to smile as Mr. Grey said:

“Good-morning, friends. Excuse me for not coming to you before. I must have overslept. Please let my daughter in a moment, and I’ll come out and explain, or Lawyer Blake will do it for me. Isn’t he here?”

He had listened for the muttering of the storm, and when it came and increased in violence and he knew that a crowd was gathering in the street and would soon be clamoring for him, all his courage left him, and as the angry voices grew louder and there were kicks and thumps on the door, with cries for Grey to show himself, he cowered in a corner in abject fear of what awaited him beyond the heavy doors of his bank. Was there no friend outside? No one to stand between him and bodily harm? he was asking himself, when Louie’s voice came to him like a pæan of safety. No one would touch him with her at his side, and summoning all his courage he unlocked the door, greeted the people with his old-time courtesy, and asked for Lawyer Blake, who had just arrived, and with the cashier and Louie entered the room, the door of which was closed.

“Good-morning, Blake,” Mr. Grey said, as if it were an ordinary meeting. “I suppose you have brought that paper. Get at it, please, while I have my wits. That noise outside drives me half crazy.”

The paper was hastily produced, signed by Mr. Grey, and acknowledged before the cashier as notary and delivered to Mr. Blake.

“There, that’s over,” Mr. Grey said, “and now please step into the front room. I must speak to Louie.”

They left him alone with his daughter, who stood gazing at him in horror, he was so changed. Alone with her he broke down entirely, and covering his face with his hands, sobbed like a child, while she regarded him fixedly and almost sternly.

“Oh, Louie,” he began feebly and in a whisper, “I dreaded you more than any one else—more than your mother. She is my wife and must stand by me and will not feel it as keenly as you, who have thought me so perfect. Oh, Louie, when I kissed you last night, I thought it might be for the last time. Let me sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”

He tottered to the couch, and she came and stood beside him, listening while he told her of his speculations, first with his own money and then with the depositors’; and how, when funds were needed for the house, he had drawn from the bank, when he had none there which lawfully belonged to him.

“And that isn’t the worst,” he said, as if resolved to make a clean breast of it; “it was not always stocks. It was regular gambling at the last. You asked me once if I were a gambler. I told you no. I wasn’t then. I have been since. I had a friend in New York who for a percentage did it for me with money I sent him—sometimes my own but oftener other people’s. Sometimes he won; sometimes he lost, and latterly it was more loss than gain. Everything was loss. I expected a big sum yesterday which would have put me on my feet, and had sworn to be an honest man if it came. I did, Louie, and I prayed in church all the time that it might come, and I’d begin new. The news came, and it was ruin. Your money is safe. I couldn’t let you lose that, and I took one hundred and fifty dollars from the funds and put away for you.”

There were little spots of red in the eyes which flashed angrily as Louie exclaimed, “I shall not touch it! I shall share with the rest! I can afford to lose far better than many of them!”

To this Mr. Grey made no reply, but continued: “I’ve made Blake my assignee. I saw him yesterday, and I made Nancy Sharp a preferred creditor. It’s a big joke,” and he laughed as he thought of the joke. Then he went on: “Stand by me, Louie. No matter how bad I am, I am your father, and love you so much. Don’t let them send me to prison. They can do it if they want to. And don’t look so at me,” he added, as Louie’s face grew paler and her eyes darker with a look she had never given him before, and from which he shrank. “I thought to end my life last night, and again this morning, but a thought of you restrained me. I have the means—see!” and held up the revolver, while Louie drew back from him a moment.

Then, with a quick movement she took it from him, and said:

“Father, would you kill yourself? Shame on you! Better State’s prison than that. I would rather think of you a felon than a suicide. How many balls are there in it?”

“Three,” he answered, and in rapid succession three reports rang through the room, the balls entering the floor, at which they were aimed.

Outside there was comparative quiet, for Mr. Blake had left the bank by the front door, and was explaining as well as he could, and advising the people to go home. Everything would be settled in time, and matters might not be as bad as they seemed. Mr. Grey would do everything he could for them, and they could do no good hanging round the bank.

“But we want to see Grey, and give him a piece of our mind,” several said.

These were mostly the small depositors who, like the milkman, had lost their all. One woman had laid by thirty dollars for some teeth to be made that week and she wrung her hands in despair over her loss.

Nancy Sharp was worst of all, and tore round like a wild beast, shaking her fists and threatening all sorts of harm if once “she got that Grey in her clutches.” At last she grew so violent and noisy that Mr. Blake whispered to her,

“Be quiet, Nancy! you are the preferred creditor!”

Just what a preferred creditor meant, Nancy did not know, until Mr. Blake explained what it was, and that she would be paid in full. She understood that, and from a tigress, ready to tear Mr. Grey in pieces, she became at once a lamb so far as he was concerned, and ready to do battle with all who were censuring him.

It was at this point that the pistol shots were heard, sending consternation through the crowd, which could not be kept back any longer. The cashier, who had been standing guard at the door outside, opened it, and a few of those nearest to him rushed in, expecting at least to find Mr. Grey dead and possibly his daughter. What they found was Louie with the smoking revolver in her hand, and her father lying upon the couch, white and still as a corpse.

“Go back,” she said, advancing towards them. “No one is hurt. I have made that impossible. See!” and she pointed to the three bullet holes in the floor.

“Yes, go back, you spalpeens, and mind your business,” Nancy Sharp cried, plunging into the crowd, which she shoved right and left until the room was cleared of all but Mr. Blake and the cashier, who had re-entered it.

“You must get your father home. I have telephoned to have the carriage sent. It will soon be here,” the latter said.

Louie scarcely heard him. Her ears were strained to catch a voice she did not hear, and her eyes were looking through the open door for a face she did not see. Where was Herbert in this her hour of trouble, and would he not come to her?

This was a question she had asked herself many times during the terrible ordeal through which she had passed. He must have heard the news. Everybody had, it seemed, and why did he not come to her. Of course all was over between them now that this disgrace had come upon her. Her father was a gambler, and remembering what Herbert had once said to her on that subject, she could not expect him to be loyal to her.

“But he might come and speak to me for the sake of what has been,” she thought, and her lip quivered and she had hard work to keep back her tears.

“’Tother bank is open. Maybe the judge will help out as Mr. Grey helped him,” she heard someone saying.

But she knew better than to expect that. Judge White would not help her father, and could not now if he would. It was too late for that. The crash had come. Failure was declared. The mob was there howling for their money, and she was left alone to battle with the wild storm without a sympathetic face or word to cheer her. If the White Bank was open Herbert was probably there, or would be soon, and then he will come, she said to herself over and over again as the minutes passed and still he did not come. Where was he?

Breakfast at the White House was always late, and the family were at the table when the news reached them, brought by the servant, who, after passing the coffee, said:

“The Grey Bank has burst and the street is full of people.”

“What!” both the Judge and Herbert exclaimed together, the former putting his coffee down so quickly that some of it was spilled on the cloth.

The girl repeated her news with additions and told how she knew it. There could be no mistake, and although he would not like to acknowledge it, the Judge was only conscious of a stir of exultation, such as mean natures feel when misfortune has befallen a rival. He certainly did not seem greatly disturbed as he said:

“Bust at last, has he? I told you so. I knew he couldn’t go on cutting such a swell and kicking up such a dust as he did yesterday. I haven’t got it out of my eyes and throat yet.”

The dust of the Grey carriage was the last grievance, and the Judge dwelt upon it, while Herbert looked at him in surprise.

“Father,” he said, at last, “never mind the dust. Think of the trouble Mr. Grey is in; can’t you help him?”

“Can’t I help him?” the Judge repeated. “Help him—how? Pay his debts? No, sir! He has made his bed and must lie on it!”

“But he helped us,” Herbert continued.

“I know he did,” his father replied, “but played right into his own pocket. We were honest, and not to blame for the run, while I’ll be hanged if I think he is honest. I wonder how Sheldon feels now. Serves him right, and the rest of ’em. I don’t believe he’ll pay ten cents on a dollar. He can’t, spending as he has—dressing up his wife and that girl. I am sorry for her; but s’posin’ your tomfooling with her had amounted to something, where’d you be now.”

“Just where I’m going,” Herbert said, leaving the room and going for his wheel, on which he rode rapidly to Mr. Grey’s house, expecting to find Louie there.

The maid told him she was at the bank, and that Mrs. Grey was in hysterics, with two physicians attending her.

Herbert started at once for the bank, where he heard a wonderful story.

Louie had stayed there all night with her father, who had tried to kill himself, and would have done so if Louie had not snatched the revolver from him and fired it off, wounding him, it was said. She was with him now, and the lawyer and cashier were with her and no one else was allowed to go in.

Herbert did not believe the first of the story, but was glad of the last, for if no one was allowed in the bank, he would not be expected to go in. He was sorry for Louie, but too cowardly to identify himself very prominently with her in the face of this trouble and before the curious world. Fear of his father restrained him, and although he expressed himself strongly as sorry for Mr. Grey, and even asserted his belief that he would pay every indebtedness in time, he made no effort to enter the bank, but hovered near the door, hoping to get a sight of Louie, and hearing her voice once as she said:

“I wish the carriage would come. Will they molest father, do you think, when they see him?”

Then all his manhood rose to the surface. Molest Louie’s father! He guessed not, when he was there, and he waited for the carriage and talked to the crowd, which, in some respects, was different from that on the day of the run. Then there had at first been fierce anger, which had resolved itself into excitement and haste when it was known that the money was forthcoming. Here the anger was more intense because more quiet. The case was probably a hopeless one—they would never get their money—and some of the men had a dangerous look as they spoke together in low tones and watched the entrance to the rear yard to the bank.

When the Grey carriage came up, there was a murmur like the low muttering of distant thunder, and Herbert drew near to the gate, around which some of the most angry men were standing.

But whatever the people felt was kept down by the sight of the man, who had aged ten years since they saw him. All his elasticity and erectness of figure was gone, and he stooped as he walked, with Louie and the cashier on either side of him.

The crowd was very quiet as it watched him with something like pity in their hearts. Then suddenly a stone crashed against the side of the carriage and bounded off upon the walk. Then a second followed, hitting one of the horses and making him rear upon his hind feet. The stones came from the same group of boys who, during the run, had shouted themselves hoarse for Grey, the honest banker, and given three groans for Old Money Bags. Now Grey was down, and Money Bags was up, and the boys were carrying out the brutal instincts of their class.

“It’s a shame!” Herbert said, starting for the boys; but Nancy Sharp was there before him, her brawny arms scattering the boys right and left, and her big hand seizing one by the hair and holding him fast while she shook him vigorously.

The preferred creditor business was bearing fruit and the volubility of her tongue was something wonderful. She was sure of her money—Mr. Blake had said so—and Mr. Grey was a “misfortunate man whom she would not see insulted.”

Something in her attitude shamed Herbert, who went at once to Louie’s side and said to her:

“I cannot tell you how sorry I am. Let me help your father.”

“Oh, Herbert,” Louie cried, “I am so glad you have come. I wanted you so badly—wanted somebody to help me bear it. No one has said a kind word but Nancy Sharp.”

“I came as soon as I heard of it. I went to your house first,” Herbert said, offering again to help her father.

But she did not relinquish her hold. She only put her hand on Herbert’s arm to steady herself, she felt so faint.

Not until he was in the carriage did Mr. Grey seem conscious of the crowd. Then he lifted his hat and bowed, while a smile broke over his pallid features and his lips moved as if he would speak. Louie saw it and whispered, “Don’t father. Don’t say anything now. It can do no good.”

Then she turned to Herbert, who helped her in and held her hand a moment with a warm pressure which she felt during all the rapid drive home—past stores and shops, and houses, from which curious faces were looking, as if Mr. Grey were some new species of the genus homo which they had never seen before.

Louie had half hoped Herbert would go with her, and for a moment he had thought to do so. But his father had just come up, puffing and blowing with heat and impatience, and glad that the thing was over and Grey going quietly home.

“This must seem kinder nateral to you, seein’ ’tain’t long sence you was in the same boat,” Nancy Sharp said, as she elbowed her way up to him.

The Judge glared at her, but made no reply. He had never forgotten the poor old man whom she pitied, and had raised her rent a dollar a month in consequence of the part she had played in the run. He knew her twenty silver dollars were in Grey’s bank, and did not feel particularly sorry for her. She had lost it, of course, and after he passed her something impelled him to turn and say, “How much are you out?”

“Not a red cent,” she answered. “I’m a preferred creditor, I be. Mr. Grey done the square thing by me, same as he did by you, and here in his trouble you stalk away without a word to these folks thet they’d better go home. I’ve been advisin’ ’em, but they won’t hear me.”

For a moment the judge hesitated. He did not want them standing around in front of his bank. It reminded him too much of a day he would like to forget, and he finally said, “What are you waiting for? You can’t get your money to-day, if you ever do. You’d better go home. There’s no good standing here, gaping at the bank!”

Most of them took his advice, and went home with heavy hearts as they thought of their hard earnings gone through the recklessness of a man they had trusted implicitly, and who was lying in his own house, white and still as the dead, speaking to no one and only answering in monosyllables when spoken to.

He had not seen his wife. The physicians did not think it best, as she was growing quiet when he came, and the sight of him would set her off again with hysterics, which, complicated with heart trouble, might prove serious.

Louie had a double task, caring for her father and mother, and she faced it bravely. She saw Mr. Blake when he came in the afternoon and heard from him how little there was left of the wreck, and asked for a list of the depositors, especially the smaller ones—the working women and men to whom their loss meant more than to Godfrey Sheldon. She called the four servants together—the coachman and cook and laundress and housemaid—and said to them:

“We can pay you up to Saturday night. After that we can’t afford it, and you must go.”

“What will you do?” they asked, and she replied:

“I am young and strong. I can get along somehow.”

The coachman and laundress knew they were not necessary, but the cook and housemaid felt that they were, and said:

“We will stay a few days, and matters may brighten.”

Louie thanked them, but knew that things would not brighten. She had talked with her mother, and made her understand how poor they were, and won her consent to sell everything which belonged to them, and pay the small depositors as far as possible. She was reckoning on paper how much the house and furniture and horses and carriage and diamonds and piano and plate would probably bring, when Herbert was announced. The moment she was alone with him Louie began to cry. Then, repressing her tears, she said, “It was kind in you to come. I knew you would, but you know everything is ended now.”

“What do you mean?” Herbert asked, pretending not to understand her.

“I mean,” she said, with a catch between every breath, “I cannot expect you to think of me as you have done, after what has happened. You asked me once if father was a gambler, and I was very angry. Now, I am too hurt to be angry at anyone. I feel as if every nerve was bruised with a sudden blow. We shall never rise above this disgrace, and you must not share it. You cannot. You are free, except as a friend. I do want you for that. Oh, Herbert!”

She broke down a little, then rallied, and her eyes bright with tears looked at the young man, who was silent a moment; then he said, “You mistake me if you think I wish to be free. I do not, but am so hedged in that I cannot do what I ought to do—come out openly as your future husband and stand by you. Father is like a raging lion. I must give him time to cool, and then I’ll tell him the truth, but give you up—never!”

He meant what he said, but he seemed depressed, and his visit was on the whole unsatisfactory, as he had no comfort to offer, except that others had failed besides Mr. Grey and come out all right, and that in any event he should love her always. He had not passed a very happy day, but he did not tell her so, or of the wild stories afloat with regard to the failure and its cause. Speculation and gambling were words freely used, and from being the most popular man in town, Mr. Grey was dragged so low that Louie would have shuddered had she heard all that was said of him. Herbert had heard, but what affected him most was his father’s attitude.

“Sorry? Of course I am. I am always sorry for the dog that is under, and Grey is so far under that he’ll never get up again,” he said to some men who were discussing the failure. “I always guessed he wasn’t square, and now I know it. There’s a family come to town, who lived in Denver. Quiet folks, who mind their own business. They didn’t know Grey personally, but they heard of him as a gambler. Yes, sir—a gambler, who kept a room on purpose for it, where young men went and old ones, too. They weren’t going to blab, but they’ve told it now he’s burst. Yes, sir—a gambler, and has kept it up with other folks’ money, I’ll bet you, and see what he’s got by it.”

This was told in the bank, while to Herbert, when alone, he said:

“See what your fooling with that girl would have come to if you had gone on. I haven’t been so blind as you think, and I know you’ve been with her a sight. Nice enough girl, but Tom Grey’s daughter—a man who may go to State’s prison. There’s that in the air, already, headed by Sheldon, who is madder’n a March hare. Serves him right, and Blake don’t give much hope of a dividend. I tell you, if things between you and that girl had amounted to anything, you’d been in a hole; and if you’d stuck to her, by the Lord Harry, I’d cut you off! Yes, sir!”

Had Herbert been Fred Lansing, he would have said to his father: “Louie Grey is my promised wife, and I shall stand by her.”

But he was not Fred Lansing, and he made no reply, although tempted to blurt out the truth. He had no thought of giving Louie up, but he had not the moral courage to face the storm by her side, and she was left to stem the tide alone.

CHAPTER XIV
LOUIE’S COURAGE

A week passed, and the town was full of rumors of every description. That the assets could not begin to meet the liabilities was a certainty, and the losers were furious. Mr. Grey was called a liar, a cheat, a spendthrift and gambler, who had used the money of the poor to enrich himself.

A little lull occurred when it was known that his house was for sale, with his horses and carriage, his wife’s and Louie’s diamonds, the grand piano, and Louie’s wheel, and that the proceeds were to go toward liquidating the debts.

“That’s fair, and they or’to pay me first,” Godfrey Sheldon said, when he heard of it. “All them gimcracks without the house, will bring more’n two thousand dollars, the sum I have in the bank now. Fool that I didn’t take it all out. I’ll go at once and see ’em.”

Harnessing his horse, he drove to the Greys’ residence and asked to see Mr. Grey. It was Louie who met him and told him her father was ill, and saw no one but Mr. Blake and the doctor.

“Then I’ll see your mother,” Mr. Sheldon said.

“She is ill, too,” was Louie’s reply.

“Well, who in thunder can I see?” was the next question, roughly spoken.

“Me!” Louie answered, with quiet dignity. “What can I do for you?”

“Pay me my two thousand dollars,” was the rude reply, which brought the hot blood to Louie’s face; but she answered calmly:

“I wish we might, but it is impossible at present.”

“Why impossible? I hear your house, with its fixin’s, is for sale. Is that so?” Mr. Sheldon asked.

“Yes, that is so.”

“And they belong to your mother, or you?”

“Yes, to mother.”

“Horses, and carriages, and all?”

“Yes.”

“And the pianner, and wheel, and diamonds?”

“Yes—the piano and wheel were mine, and are already sold, the diamonds are in Boston, to be disposed of.”

“Jess so. I call that honest on your part. They all or’to fetch a nice sum, and don’t you think that, as the biggest creditor, I or’to be paid out of it? I do.”

It seemed to Mr. Sheldon that Louie grew two inches in height as she replied:

“The money will belong to mother and me, to do with as we please, and we shall pay the small depositors first—the poor people, who worked hard for their money, and cannot afford to lose it. What is left will go in with the assets, and you will have your share.”

“Heavens and earth! Do you think I can afford to lose two thousand dollars? No, sir!” Mr. Sheldon exclaimed, beginning to get angry. “Assets! There won’t be any, if the truth is told; the way you’ve lived—four servants, and two bath-rooms, with porcelain tubs. I s’pose you keep ’em still—the hired help, I mean.”

“I don’t know that you have any business to ask me that question,” Louie said, with a gleam in her eyes which warned the rude man that he was going too far.

“Mebby I hain’t,” he replied, “but when a man has lost two thousand dollars, he don’t feel very fine, I tell you. Look a here, girl,” he continued, as Louie showed signs of leaving him, “I want them horses and carriage. Name a fair price, and I’ll take ’em, turnin’ it toward my debt, and mebby I’ll take the house if the figger ain’t too high.”

Louie shook her head. “The poor men and women must be paid first. I have already paid some with my piano and wheel money,” she said.

Finding that he could not move her, and must take his chance with the rest, Mr. Sheldon left the house in a very angry state of mind. When Judge White slighted him he had taken his revenge by withdrawing his money from the bank and creating a panic. Now he had no money to withdraw. It was gone—lost—and he had no redress, unless he took it on Grey himself.

“And he deserves it,” he said, as he drove into the village. “He or’to be made to tell what he did with the money, and then sent to prison. I’ll do my best to get him there, too.”

It did not take long for Mr. Sheldon to bring others beside himself into his state of mind. Something should be done to Grey, who was probably shamming sickness to keep out of sight. They’d call a meeting, anyway, and decide what to do.

The meeting was called for the next night, and, as it was not kept secret, the news reached Louie in the morning, brought by Nancy Sharp, who, having espoused the cause of the Greys, was taking the place of the cook, who had left, and kept them posted with whatever was being said or done in town, thinking it a kindness to do so. On this occasion her report was, of course, exaggerated. There was to be a meeting of the creditors in the village hall that night at half-past eight, she said, and they were going to decide when to arrest Mr. Grey and take him to prison; probably it would be the next day, or two days later at the farthest.

Lottie was white as death when she heard it. She had just come from her father’s room, where, since the day of the failure, he had lain, with his hands folded on his breast, his eyes closed, and seldom moving or speaking, except to Louie and his wife, who had insisted upon being with him, and was lying in the same room, almost as white and still as her husband. The blow had struck her hard, for her love for and faith in her husband had been great, and no suspicion whatever of his integrity had ever entered her mind. Now, in the light of recent revelations, she had begun to look backward, understanding some things which, in her confiding and rather weak nature, she had scarcely thought of before. Her love was the same for the erring man, but her faith in him was gone, and when, with outstretched hands, he had said to her when they first met, “Fanny! oh, Fanny, I am so sorry,” she had answered him, “Thomas, how could you, when we trusted you so?” Then she had collapsed entirely and gone into by hysterics, as she had done when she first heard the news. Now, however, she was more calm, and stayed in the room with him, while Louie ministered to them both.

On this morning, as if something had told him what was in the air, or else because he was delirious, her father had roused a little and said to her:

“Don’t let them, Louie. I shan’t last long, and it will do no good. It will not bring back their money.”

Louie had returned from her interview with Nancy, and her face grew whiter as she asked:

“Do what, father?”

“Oh-h, I don’t know. I think I was dreaming of prison and that they were taking me there; but you will save me,” he moaned.

“Yes, father,” she said, kissing his pallid face. “I will save you. But how?” she asked herself, while a thought of Herbert crossed her mind.

He had been there every day, or, rather, evening—for, like Nicodemus, he chose the night for his visits, and it seemed to her that every time he came he appeared more and more under constraint. Still, he was very kind, and had said to her more than once:

“I am so sorry; and I wish I could help you. Command me if I can.”

Remembering this, there came into Louie’s mind the thought: “He can help me. They will listen to him.”

She did not expect him till evening, and then it might be too late. She could not go for him, but she could telephone, and she did, first to the house, and then to the bank, from which the judge’s voice, asking, “Who are you?” came back so loud that it made her start.

“Louie Grey,” was the response.

“What do you want?”

“I want Herbert.”

“The devil you do!” the judge said, in an aside; then, through the ‘phone, “He is in the street. What shall I tell him?”

“Please say that I want to see him at once. I am in great trouble,” Louie answered, frankly and fearlessly, with no thought of the storm she was provoking.

Taking his son into the rear office when he came in, the judge said to him:

“Don’t you call it pretty brassy for a girl to send word to a young man that she wants to see him at once?”

“What do you mean?” Herbert asked, with a thought of Louie.

“I mean that Grey girl has ‘phoned that she wants you at once. That looks as if she had a claim, or thinks she has; and, by the Lord Harry, if that is so, you are no son of mine. I’ve told you that a dozen times, and I mean it, too. You must choose between me and that Grey girl.”

He did not ask direct questions, and Herbert was glad, for he could not tell a square lie, and he dared not acknowledge his engagement. So he listened in silence until his father paused a moment, and then replied:

“It is hardly worth your while to expend so much breath on me. I know enough to study my own interest. But if Louie has sent for me, it certainly would be very unmanly in me not to go to her. Remember what she did for us.”

“I do remember, and if I didn’t it has been thrown in my face often enough; but that is no reason why she should be my daughter-in-law, and I tell you I won’t have it. No, sir; I won’t have it; and if you’ve got entangled with the daughter of a gambler and a thief, and maybe a State-prison bird, get disentangled, for I tell you I won’t have it!” the judge answered, angrily, going from the room and leaving Herbert alone.

It was very indiscreet in Louie to telephone, but he must go to her, he thought, and he was soon at the house, asking why she had sent for him, and why she was looking so terrified.

She was white as marble, and trembling like a leaf, for Nancy Sharp had come with more news of the excitement in town, and of Godfrey Sheldon’s threat to leave no stone unturned till Grey was punished.

“Oh, Herbert,” she said, bursting into tears and leaning her head on his arm, “have you heard they are to meet to-night to talk about arresting father?”

Herbert said he had heard something of the kind, but did not think it was true.

“It is true,” Louie cried, in a tremor of distress, “and you must stop it!”

“I stop it! How?” Herbert asked, and Louie replied:

“Go to the meeting, and plead for him. Tell them how sorry and broken he is. Tell them it will all be paid in time, if I live. I can do it, and I will. Tell them everything we have will be sold, if they will only leave father alone. You will do this for me?”

She was looking at him now, with the tears running down her cheeks, and her lips quivering with the pain it gave her to ask this of her lover, whose hesitancy she saw before he spoke. If she had asked him to walk through a fire he could have done it more readily than to attend the meeting of angry citizens and plead for Mr. Grey. It would be too marked, and life would be intolerable with his father when he heard it, as he was sure to.

This he tried to explain, and Louie understood him, and knew she must stand alone. There was no one to help her, and in her eyes, dry now, and very bright, there was a look, which Herbert would never forget, and in coming years he would give much if he could recall the words which had brought it there.

“Father will be wanting me, and I must go to him,” she said, when he tried to detain her while he explained, further why it would be of no use for him to do her bidding. “I shall only be one against many, and I am sorry to say some of the creditors have lost their good sense with their money, and they would only laugh at me if I told them you would pay the debts. How can you do it?”

“I know,” was Louie’s reply, as she drew away from him.

He did not try to caress her. She would not have permitted it had he tried. In her mind there was fast forming the idea that he was a weak reed to lean upon—that her idol was falling from its pedestal, and there was a constraint in her voice and manner as she bade him good-by and went to her father, who was growing delirious and talking of stocks, and prison, and a dead face with a bullet in the brain. This she did not understand, unless it referred to his thought to kill himself. The prison she understood, and tried to soothe and quiet him by saying he would never go there—that she would save him from it. How she could do it she scarcely knew. There seemed to be but one way. She must face that night session alone, and beg them to spare her father. It was a terrible ordeal, and she shrank from it with inexpressible dread, for she must do it, and her resolution was kept up by the news Nancy Sharp brought her at intervals during the day of the arrangements making for the session and the intensity of feeling among the people as the sense of their losses grew upon them.

“Don’t tell me any more, or I shall go crazy, and I need all my wits about me,” Louie cried at last when Nancy came late in the afternoon with more harassing details of what was being done in town.

“I done my best to shet ’em up,” Nancy said, “but land’s sake, ’tain’t no use. They are jest ravin’. But I’d like to see ’em try to take your father, sick as he is. They’d walk over my body fust, and I told ’em so, but they jest laughed in my face, and that sneak of a Sheldon said it was all very well for me, a preferred creditor, to feel that way, but if I’d lost all he had I’d talk out of ‘tother side of my mouth. The hound! He’s settin’ ’em on.”

Nancy was doing her duty religiously, and had been in two or three fights with boys and innumerable quarrels with others in her zeal to defend the Greys. And Louie knew it, and while she felt grateful for the old woman’s kindness, she grew sick at heart and more and more nervous as she thought of what she must do, and wondered how she could face a set of men as excited and determined as Nancy represented them to be. She had known them all as friends, and to meet them now as enemies was hard to do, but she must do it.

As the sun went down a heavy rain began to fall, and the night closed in dark and stormy, with gusts of wind which shook the house and bent the trees and shrubs in the yard, breaking some of the smaller limbs and scattering the leaves in showers. It was a wild night for any woman to be out, and much less for a young girl like Louie. Her wheel was sold, and, though the horses were still in the stable, she dared not take them out, for Nancy Sharp had brought her rumors of stones and eggs laid up for the carriage, should it appear in the street. She must walk and go alone, for the one servant who had not left them must stay with her father and mother, and she would not take Nancy with her.

Nancy had said the meeting was to be at half-past eight, and at quarter-past she started in her waterproof cloak, the hood of which was drawn over her head the better to shield her from the rain, and from observation, too, as she did not care to be recognized by any she chanced to meet.

There was little danger of her meeting anyone, for few were abroad that night except the men who had the appointment at the village hall, and no one noticed the slight figure moving rapidly through the street and keeping as much as possible in the shadow until the hall was reached.

There was a light shining from the windows and streaming down upon the walk where Louie stood for a moment, trying to gather courage for the trial.

“God help me, and give me strength and success,” she said, and then ascended the stairs to the upper hall, which was dimly lighted by a defective gas jet.

In a little recess, where he was unobserved, a young man was standing, or, rather, sitting, on a dry-goods box, motionless as a statue, and with a curse in his heart for his own cowardice. He had been there a long time, watching the men as they came up, now half resolving to join them and do Louie’s bidding, and now held back by the fear of his father, with whom there had been a second interview stormier than any which had preceded it. At lunch the judge, who seemed unusually irritable, had said to him:

“Did you go to see that Grey girl?”

“Yes, sir; I did,” was Herbert’s answer, and his father continued:

“More fool you! What did she want?”

He hesitated a moment and then replied, “She thought, perhaps, I could do something to quiet the men who are to meet to-night to take steps with regard to her father.”

For a moment the judge could not speak. His anger was so great that it brought on a fit of coughing, and the big gulp of claret he had taken was thrown out upon the napkin tucked under his chin.

“Strike me on the back, can’t you! and not sit staring at me while I choke to death,” he gasped.

Herbert struck him on the back with so good effect that the paroxysm was soon passed, and after two or three sneezes, he began:

“Great Peter! Why did you hit me so hard. You nearly broke my spine. Mad, I s’pose, because I asked you about the Grey girl—a pretty kind of modest piece, too, I must say, to think you’d appear as her advocate. I like that! Yes, I do! Did you tell her you’d go? If you did and do go, I’ve told you what’s what, and I mean it, too. Asked you to plead for that wretch, who deserves State’s prison—if ever a feller did!”

“So do a great many who are not there,” Herbert answered, adding, “I did not tell her I’d go. It would do no good, but it would be different with you. They would listen to you if you advised them not to arrest Mr. Grey. They would have to take him on a stretcher, he is so ill. I wish you’d go, I know Fred Lansing would if he were here.”

Herbert was growing courageous as he talked, with a thought of Louie’s face as it had looked at him an hour before. Something had brought Fred Lansing to his mind with a wish that he were there. Fred would not hesitate to brave the whole town, and, knowing the esteem in which he was held by his father, Herbert had used his name as an argument. But Fred was promptly consigned to perdition, and Herbert was sent after him in very emphatic language, and the interview was closed by Herbert’s leaving the table. He had intended going to Worcester that afternoon to attend a concert in the evening, but he gave that up and went instead into the town, dropping into three or four places of business, ostensibly to look at something, or make some little purchase, but really to hear if anything was said of the expected investigation. Only once was allusion made to it or the failure, and then a dry-goods merchant asked if he had heard there was to be a meeting of Mr. Grey’s creditors that night?

“Yes,” he replied, “and I am sorry, and hope they will decide not to molest him. It can do no good, and I suppose you know he is very ill. They would never attempt to touch him in his present state. Give him time if he lives, and I dare say he will try to pay every thing he owes.”

This was quite a speech for Herbert in Mr. Grey’s behalf, and after he had made it he felt that he had done a good thing for Louie, especially as the merchant to whom he was talking and who was not a heavy loser by the failure, replied, “That’s so. Grey is a good sort, and I don’t s’pose he has done worse than hundreds of bankers are doing all the time. He had bad luck and was caught, that’s all the difference. I had only fifty in the bank, and I’d rather lose that than see him dragged to prison as a few hot-heads seem to want to do; but I guess they won’t.”

There was comfort in this. Others might feel like this man. Matters were not so threatening as Louie feared. There might not be a meeting after all, and if there were nothing rash would be done. His presence was not needed, even if he were willing to go, and reasoning thus Herbert went home in a comparatively quiet state of mind. When dinner was over he started again for the main street of the town. If there was to be a meeting he would like to know it and see who attended it himself unseen. He accordingly took his post in the dark alcove and watched to see who came, wondering that there were so many and fearing a little for the result. He heard Louie’s step as she came up the stairs, but did not suspect who it was until as she stopped under the gas jet to shake the water from her dripping cloak and push her damp hair from her forehead, he saw her face, and nearly fell off the box in his surprise.

He knew why she was there, and his first impulse was to go to her and stand by her and make her cause his own. Then, thinking that perhaps he would go in later, and that she would produce a better effect at first without him, he let her go alone, and felt himself growing cold and dizzy, when the door opened and the light streamed for a moment out into the hall, showing him several men inside, with Louie in their midst; then the door was closed, and he was in darkness again.

CHAPTER XV
THE SESSION

Judge White had been consulted with regard to the meeting and asked to attend it, but had declined, inasmuch as Mr. Grey only owed him for a quarter’s rent. But he made no effort to restrain the people.

“The dog deserves it, for, of course, he’s been dishonest,” he said. “I have been in the business long enough to know how it can be done, and I always mistrusted he was up to it.”

This did not help matters, and, stormy as was the night, a dozen men or more were in the hall by half-past eight, some of them hardly knowing why they were there, or what they were going to do.

Godfrey Sheldon knew. He had come early, and meant to have Tom Grey punished; and when the meeting was called to order he made an opening speech, in which he went over the ground, dwelling upon Mr. Grey’s extravagance and the money he had spent, and which he could not have come honestly by.

“No, sir,” he said: “He has used our money unlawfully for his own purposes, and it’s all gone—every sumarkee of it gambled away and used for his fine house, and horses, and diamonds, and the Lord knows what. At the very best we shan’t get more than ten cents on a dollar, and what is that? Where have my two thousand dollars gone to? I ask you, and echo answers, Where?”

He was getting quite eloquent, and gesticulating wildly, calling Mr. Grey an embezzler, a gambler, a cheat and a villain, who should be made to feel the weight of the law.

As he said this he brought his fist down upon a shaky little table with such force that it fell with a crash to the floor. Two or three sprang forward to pick it up, and in their excitement they did not hear the door open or see the drooping figure which came in time to hear “feel the weight of the law,” and see the blow which emphasized it.

When they did see her, every man rose to his feet and stared at her as she advanced into their midst and stood with the water falling from her cloak and hood, her face very pale and her eyes unnaturally bright. Had a ghost appeared to them they could scarcely have been more startled, and they began to be sorry for what Sheldon had said, and to hope she had not heard it.

“Miss Grey,” one of them began, going toward her and offering her a chair, “we did not expect you here. What can we do for you?”

Louie had been buffeted by the wind and drenched with the rain. The stairs were long, and she was breathless with climbing them and with excitement. Her heart was beating rapidly, her tongue felt thick, and for a moment she could not speak.

Turning back her hood and undoing her cloak, which seemed to be choking her, she threw it off with such force that the drops of water upon it were shaken over the man who had brought her a chair and stood close to her. He was their nearest neighbor, who had sat often at their table and shared their hospitality, and “et tu Brute” came to Louie’s mind, as she looked up at him.

Drawing two or three long breaths, she said:

“I heard you were to meet to-night, to see what you would do with my father. Is that so?”

She turned to Mr. Sheldon, who answered:

“That’s about the size of it, but we didn’t expect you.”

“No,” and her lips quivered. “But, you see, I had to come; there was no one else,” and her voice shook a little as she thought of Herbert, who was still sitting on the dry-goods box and cursing himself for a coward.

“Did your father send you?” Mr. Sheldon asked, and Louie’s voice was very steady as she replied:

“My father? No. He knows nothing of the meeting. He does not know me all the time. Haven’t you heard how bad he is?”

There was no reply, and she went on:

“He is completely crushed, and so sorry. Why, he is an old man in looks. I know he has done wrong, and I am so sorry, and mother is, too. Neither of us had any suspicion of the truth. If we had had, do you think we would have allowed so much expenditure? Never. I don’t know why he did it, but it is done, and I have come to ask you not to proceed against him; not to have him arrested, as I have heard you mean to do. It will do no good. It will not restore your money, and it cannot add to your happiness to know that my father, whom you have professed to like so much, is in prison. He may die,” here her voice broke, but she steadied herself and went on, “but, whether he lives or dies, his debts shall be paid. It will take time—years, maybe—but I am young, only eighteen, and I know how I can pay them. I have thought it all out, and feel sure I can do it.”

“Have you an idee how much they be?” Godfrey Sheldon asked.

“Yes,” she replied; “but, much or little, if God spares my life, I’ll pay them. Believe me, I will. Our house is for sale, with the horses and carriage and diamonds. The piano is sold, and my wheel, and with part of the money they brought I have paid some of the smaller debts. We shall give up everything, and we shall take a small, cheap house by and by; but I want father to stay where he is till he is better, or worse, and perhaps you won’t mind if we keep enough to live on a while. We must have something.”

Her voice broke again, but she had said all she came to say, and, covering her face with her hands, the tears trickled through her fingers and dropped into her lap. For a moment there was perfect silence, and more than one wiped his eyes at sight of this young girl, pleading for her father, and promising to pay a debt which would stagger many a strong man, and which they felt sure she could never do. But that did not matter. They were, most of them, men with kind hearts, and Louie had done more for her father than Herbert could ever have done. It was a little awkward, not knowing who should speak first, or what he should say, or how his companions were feeling. The neighbor of the Greys finally took the initiative.

He had hesitated about coming, for he knew Mr. Grey was ill, he said. The doctor had told him so. All broke up, he understood, which proved he was not a hardened wretch. Nothing could bring back the money, and why not let him alone? His own thoughts would be punishment enough, and he did not believe in kicking a fellow when he was down. Better give him a chance to get up again.

Louie’s eyes were very bright as she smiled upon him and turned to the others for their decision.

“Yes, let him go,” every one said, except Godfrey Sheldon, who was silent.

His two thousand dollars weighed heavily upon him, and Louie’s refusal to turn the horses and carriage toward his debt weighed heavier.

He wanted those bays—the finest in town—and he wanted the carriage and his daughters wanted it, and at last he said:

“Girl, what’ll you take for them horses and kerridge, anyway? I don’t mean a turnin’ but a square sale. You’d as lief sell ’em to me as anybody, I s’pose. I’m good to my dum critters, I be.”

Louie looked bewildered a moment, and then replied: “I don’t know. Mr. Blake will see to that. We shall sell them to someone”; then to the men: “It is settled, then, that you will not trouble father. I thank you so much, and I promise again that you shall be paid if I live.”

It was a great deal to promise, and not one of her hearers believed she could do it, but she did, and looked very brave and hopeful as she put on her cloak and started to leave. The neighbor, Mr. Clark, asked her to wait and he would go with her. But she said: “No, thanks; I came alone, and can go alone. I would rather. Father is wanting me by this time.”

She pulled her hood over her head and left the room, hearing, as she closed the door, Mr. Sheldon’s saying:

“Don’t promise them horses to anybody till you hear from me.”

Herbert was still sitting on the dry-goods box in the dark recess when she came out, and he knew by her face that she had been successful.

“Louie,” he said, coming forward with a suddenness which made her start. “Louie, I am here.”

She did not cry out, but she stopped quickly and looked at him in amazement. He had declined going there to speak for her father, and yet here he was waiting for her, and for an instant she felt something like gratitude that he should thus think of her. But his answer to her question, “How did you know I was coming here?” dispelled that illusion.

“I didn’t know,” he said. “I came, hoping to find out what they meant to do. I never dreamed of your venturing out in this storm, and was astonished when I saw you come up the stairs.”

“Where were you?” Louie asked next, and he answered her truthfully:

“In that recess. Confound it, I am a coward and a sneak, that’s a fact, and I didn’t care to have you or anyone see me.”

“So you kept in the dark, and let me go in alone,” Louie replied, in a tone Herbert did not like.

He could not see her face, as they were going down the stairs, but he could feel that something had come between them, and was very uncomfortable.

The wind had gone down, but the rain still fell heavily, and he drew her cloak around her and her arm closely in his, and held her umbrella over her, and tried to talk naturally, asking what the men had said, and if they were civil to her.

“If they hadn’t been, I’d—” he began, then stopped suddenly as he thought of himself on the dry-goods box in the recess, wondering how he was to know whether they were civil or not.

He made light of the idea that they ever thought seriously of molesting her father. Godfrey Sheldon might, for he was a revengeful dog; but no one would follow him, and if they had, his father would have spoken to them. In fact, he had been asked to attend the meeting, and had declined. He was drawing a good deal upon his imagination as to what his father would do, for he knew very well what he would not do. But he wanted to reassure Louie and talked on in the same strain, but Louie did not answer, and with every word he said it seemed to her he was cutting the tie which bound them. She had pledged herself to her father’s creditors, and meant to keep the pledge, although she knew it would in all human probability separate Herbert from her.

“And why not do it at once?” she kept asking herself, and by the time she reached home her resolution was taken.

There was a moment of blindness, when she did not even see the light from the hall, as she went up the steps—a long breath, which was something like a sob, and then she said: “Come in a moment; I want to speak to you.”

CHAPTER XVI
SEVERING THE TIE

Herbert went in, with a presentiment that something was going to happen deleterious to himself.

Leaving him a moment, Louie went to her father’s room. Both he and her mother were asleep; and, assured of that, she returned to Herbert and told him very briefly what was in her mind. She did not say that anything in his conduct had influenced her. She spoke at first only of her own changed position, and her wish to shield him from what he would regret.

“They call my father bad names,” she said, “and perhaps he deserves them; but he is my father, and I shall stand by him. With you it is different, and you must not be bound to the daughter of a speculator—a thief—a gambler—and they say my father is all three, and they have threatened to tar and feather him if he appeared in the street, and have talked of arrest and State’s prison. I cannot expect you to bear that disgrace, together with your father’s anger, when he knows, as he must know some time. I told you you were free when the crash first came, and you would not accept your freedom, but you must now, I am in earnest. And then—” She hesitated, breathing hard before she continued, “I have promised to pay his debts, and if I live I shall keep my word.”

“How?” Herbert asked.

“By my voice,” she answered. “You remember what Miss Percy said of it. She may be right—she may be wrong. I believe she was right. At all events I shall try. She has not forgotten me. I had a letter from her to-day after you left me. God moved her to write, I am sure, when my need was greatest, for she has never written before since she went abroad last fall. She is in Paris, and still has Marchesi in mind for me, and offered to bear the expense of my lessons if father would send me there. I think, if we sell everything, the creditors will not care if I keep enough for us to live on, and take me to Paris, when father and mother get well.”

She paused and Herbert said, “You mean the stage, of course; opera, perhaps?”

“Yes, if that brings the most money,” Louie answered. “It will take years to pay the debts, and I may be old—thirty perhaps—before it is done. You cannot wait all that time, and it is better to end the relations between us now. They have always been rather peculiar, and I have never liked the secrecy which put me in a false position. Hush!” she continued, as she saw how white Herbert turned as he tried to speak. “I do not say you have not loved me, but the chain has fretted you at times, and fettered your actions, as it has mine; and it is better for us both to be free—friends always, but free. There will then be no more fear of your father; and if you wish to call upon me sometimes, you will not have to come by stealth as if afraid some one would know it. Don’t interrupt me, please,” she continued, warming up to the subject. “I have seen it, and felt it, and it has hurt me a little; and only the belief that you really loved me has kept me from telling you that I must be one thing or the other—either acknowledged as your promised wife, or nothing more to you than a friend. Father’s failure has precipitated matters, and I give you your freedom, and your ring. I will get it.”

She left the room, while Herbert sat unable to realize what had befallen him, or that Louie could mean what she said. He could hear her moving in the chamber overhead, but he could not see her holding the ring to the light, and kissing it once as she had never kissed him.

She did not cry, but was dangerously near it when she at last returned to the room where Herbert was walking up and down, nervous and excited, and shaking as if he were cold.

“Here it is,” she said, offering it to him. “I have never worn it except in my room, where it seemed a mockery rather than a symbol of the tie between us. Take it,” she persisted, as he made no sign that he heard her.