E-text prepared by David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
from page images generously made available by
the Kentuckiana Digital Library

"Don't stand and cry; press forward and remove the difficulty."—Dickens.

TRACY PARK.

A Novel.

BY

MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,

AUTHOR OF BESSIE'S FORTUNE, QUEENIE HETHERTON, EDITH LYSLE'S SECRET, HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE, ETC., ETC., ETC.

Toronto:
Rose Publishing Company.
Hunter Rose & Co.
Printers & Book Binders
Toronto
25 Wellington St

1886

CONTENTS

TRACEY PARK.

CHAPTER I.

THE TELEGRAM.

'BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, Oct. 6th, 18—.

'To Mr. Frank Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale.

'I arrived in the Scotia this morning, and shall take the train for Shannondale at 3 p.m. Send someone to the station to meet us.

'ARTHUR TRACEY.'

This was the telegram which the clerk in the Shannonville office wrote out one October morning, and despatched to the Hon. Frank Tracy, of Tracy Park, in the quiet town of Shannondale, where our story opens.

Mr. Frank Tracy, who, since his election to the State Legislature for two successive terms, had done nothing except to attend political meetings and make speeches on all public occasions, had an office in town, where he usually spent his mornings, smoking, reading the papers and talking to Mr. Colvin, his business agent and lawyer, for, though born in one of the humblest of New England houses, where the slanting roof almost touched the ground in the rear, and he could scarcely stand upright in the chamber where he slept, Mr. Frank Tracy was a great man now, and as he dashed along the turnpike behind his blooded bays, with his driver beside him, people looked admiringly after him, and pointed him out to strangers as the Hon. Mr. Tracy, of Tracy Park, one of the finest places in the county. It is true it did not belong to him, but he had lived there so long that he had come to look upon it as his, while his neighbors, too, seemed to have forgotten that there was across the ocean a Mr. Arthur Tracy, who might at any time come home to claim his own, and demand an account of his brother's stewardship. And it was this very Arthur Tracy, whose telegram announcing his return from Europe was read by his brother with mingled feelings of surprise and consternation.

'Not that everything isn't fair and above-board, and he is welcome to look into matters as much as he likes,' Frank said over and over to himself, as he sat stating blankly at the telegram, while the cold chills ran up and down his back and arms. 'Yes, he can examine all Colvin's books and he will find them straight as a string, for didn't he tell me to use what I needed as remuneration for looking after his property while he was gallivanting over the world; and if he objects that I have paid myself too much, why, I can at once transfer those investments in my name to him. No, it is not that which affects me so, it is the suddenness of the thing, coming without warning and to-night of all nights, when the house will be full of carousing and champagne. What will Dolly say! Hysterics of course, if not a sick headache. I don't believe I can face her till she has had a little time to get over it. Here, boy, I want, you!' and he rapped at the window at a young lad who happened to be passing with a basket on his arm. 'I want you to do an errand for me,' he continued, as the boy entered the office, and, removing his cap, stood respectfully before him 'Take this telegram to Mrs. Tracy, and here is a dime for you.'

'Thank you, but I don't care for the money,' the boy said 'I was going to the park anyway to tell Mrs. Tracy that grandma is sick and can't go there to-night.'

'Cannot go! Sick! What is the matter?' Mr. Tracy asked, in some dismay, feeling that here was a fresh cause of trouble and worry for Dolly, as he designated his wife when off his guard and not on show before his fashionable friends, to whom she was Dora, or Mrs. Tracy.

'She catched cold yesterday fixing up mother's grave,' the boy replied; and, as if the mention of that grave had sent Mr. Tracy's thoughts straying backward to the past, he looked thoughtfully at the child a moment, and then said:

'How old are you, Harold?'

'Ten, last August,' was the reply; and Mr. Tracy continued:

'You do not remember your mother?'

'No, sir, only a great crowd, and grandma crying so hard,' was Harold's reply.

'You look like her,' Mr. Tracy said.

'Yes, sir,' Harold answered, while into his frank, open face there came an expression of regret for the mother who had died when he was three years old, and whose life had been so short and sad.

'Now, hurry off with the telegram, and mind you don't lose it. It is from my brother. He is coming to-night.'

'Mr. Arthur Tracy, who sent the monument for my mother—is he coming home? Oh, I am so glad!' Harold exclaimed, and his handsome face lighted up with childish joy, as he put the telegram in his pocket and started For Tracy Park, wondering if he should encounter Tom, and thinking that if he did, and Tom gave him any chaff, he should lick him, or try to.

'Darn him!' he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom Tracy, a boy of his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and coarse clothes. 'Darn him! he ain't any better than I am, if he does wear velvet trousers and live in a big house. 'Taint his'n; it's Mr. Arthur's, and I'm glad he is coming home. I wonder if he will bring grandma anything. I wish he'd I bring me a pyramid. He's seen 'em, they say.'

Meantime, Mr. Frank Tracy had resumed his seat, and, with his hands clasped together over his head, was wondering what effect his brother's return would have upon him. Would he be obliged to leave the park, and the luxury he had enjoyed so long, and go back to the old life which he hated so much.

'No; Arthur will never be so mean,' he said. 'He has always shown himself generous, and will continue to do so. Besides that, he will want somebody to keep his house for him, unless—' and here the perspiration started from every pore, as Frank Tracy thought: 'What if he is married, and the us in his telegram means a wife, instead of a friend or servant, as I imagined!'

This would indeed be a calamity, for then his own and Dolly's reign was over at Tracy Park, and the party they were to give that night to at least three hundred people would be their last grand blow-out.

'Confound the party!' he thought, as he arose from his chair and began to pace the room. 'Arthur won't like that as a greeting after eleven years' absence. He never fancied being cheek by jowl with Tom, Dick and Harry; and that is just what the smash is to-night. Dolly wants to please everybody, thinking to get me votes for Congress, and so she has invited all creation and his wife. There's old Peterkin, the roughest kind of a canal bummer when Arthur went away. Think of my fastidious brother shaking hands with him and Widow Shipley, who kept a low tavern on the tow-path! She'll be there; in her silks and long gold chain, for she has four boys, all voters, who call me Frank and slap me on the shoulder. Ugh! even I hate it all; and in a most perturbed state of mind, the Hon. Frank and would-be Congressman continued to walk the room lamenting the party which must be, and wondering what his aristocratic brother would say to such a crowd in his house on the night of his return.

And if there should be a Mrs. Arthur Tracy, with possibly some little Tracys! But that idea was too horrible to contemplate, and so he tried to put it from his mind, and to be as calm and quiet as possible until lunch-time, when, with no very great amount of alacrity and cheerfulness, he started for home, where, as he had been warned by his wife when he left her in the morning, 'he was to lunch standing up or anyhow, as she had no time for parade that day.'

CHAPTER II.

ARTHUR TRACY.

Although it was a morning in October, the grass in the park was as green as in early June, while the flowers in the beds and borders, the geraniums, the phlox, the stocks, and verbenas were handsomer, if possible, than they had been in the summer-time: for the rain, which had fallen almost continually during the month of September, had kept them fresh and bright. Here and there the scarlet and golden tints of autumn were beginning to show on the trees; but this only added a new charm to a place which was noted for its beauty, and was the pride and admiration of the town.

And yet Mrs. Frank Tracy, who stood on the wide piazza, looking after a carriage which was moving down the avenue which led through the park to the highway, did not seem as happy as the mistress of that house ought to have been, standing there in the clear, crisp morning, with a silken wrapper trailing behind her, a coquettish French cap on her head, and costly jewels on her short, fat hands, which once were not as white and soft as they were now. For Mrs. Frank Tracy, as Dorothy Smith, had known what hard labor and poverty meant, and slights, too, because of the poverty and labor. Her mother was a widow, sickly and lame, and Dorothy in her girlhood had worked in the cotton mills at Langley, and bound shoes for the firm of Newell & Brothers, and had taught a district school, 'by way of elevating herself,' but the elevation did not pay, and she went back to the mills in the day-time and her shoes at night, and rebelled at the fate which had made her so poor and seemed likely to keep her so.

But there was something better in store for her than binding shoes, or even teaching a district school, and, from the time when young Frank Tracy came to Langley as clerk in the Newell firm, Dorothy's life was changed and her star began to rise. They both sang in the choir, standing side by side, and sometimes using the same book, and once or twice their hands met as both tried to turn the leaves together. Dorothy's were red and rough, and not nearly as delicate as those of Frank, who had been in a store all his life: and still there was a magnetism in their touch which sent a thrill through the young man's veins, and made him for the first time look critically at his companion.

She was very pretty, he thought, with bright black eyes, a healthful bloom, and a smile and blush which went straight to his heart and made him her slave at once. In three months' time they were married and commenced housekeeping in a very unostentatious way, for Frank had nothing but his salary to depend upon. But he was well connected, and boasted some blue blood, which, in Dorothy's estimation, made amends for lack of money. The Tracys of Boston were his distant relatives, and he had a rich bachelor uncle who spent his winters in New Orleans and his summers in Shannondale, at Tracy Park, on which he had lavished fabulous sums of money. From this uncle Frank had expectations, though naturally the greater part of his fortune would go to his god-son and name-sake, Arthur Tracy, who was Frank's elder brother, and as unlike him as one brother could well be unlike another.

Arthur was scholarly in his tastes, quiet and gentlemanly in his manners, with a musical voice which won him friends at once, while in his soft black eyes there was a peculiar look of sadness, as if he were brooding over something which filled him with regret. Frank was very proud of his brother, and with Dorothy felt that he was honored when, six months after their marriage, he came for a day or so to visit them, and with him his intimate friend Harold Hastings, an Englishman by birth, but so thoroughly Americanized as to pass unchallenged for a native. There was a band of crape on Arthur's hat, and his manner was like one trying to be sorry, while conscious of a great inward feeling of resignation, if not content. The rich uncle was dead. He had died suddenly in Paris, where he had gone on business, and the whole of his vast fortune was left to his nephew Arthur—not a farthing to Frank, not even the mention of his name in the will: and when Dorothy heard it she put her white apron over her face, and cried as if her heart would break. They were so poor, she and Frank, and they wanted so many things, and the man who could have helped them was dead and had left them nothing. It was hard, and she might not have made the young heir very welcome if he had not ensured her that he should do something for her husband. And he kept his word, and in course of time bought out a grocery in Langley and put Frank in it, and paid the mortgage on his house, and gave him a thousand dollars, and invited them for a few days to visit him; and then it would seem as if he forgot them entirely; for with his friend Harold he settled himself at Tracy Park, and played the role of the grand gentleman to perfection.

Dinner parties and card parties, where it was said the play was for money, and where Arthur always allowed himself to lose and his friends to win; races and hunts were of frequent occurrence at Tracy Park, where matters generally were managed on a magnificent scale, and created a great deal of talk among the plain folks of Shannondale, whose only dissipation then was going to church twice on Sunday and to the cattle show once each year.

Few ladies ever graced these festivities, for Arthur was very aristocratic in his feelings, and with two or three exceptions, held himself aloof from the people of Shannondale. It was said, however, that sometimes, when he and his friend were alone, there was the sweep of a white dress and the gleam of golden hair in the parlor, where sweet Amy Crawford, daughter of the housekeeper, played and sang her simple ballads to the two gentlemen, who always treated her with as much deference as if she had been a queen, instead of a poor young girl dependent for her bread upon her own and her mother's exertions. But beyond the singing in the twilight Amy never advanced, and so far as her mother knew she had never for a single instant been alone with either of the gentlemen. How, then, was the household electrified one morning when it was found that Amy had fled, and that Harold Hastings was the companion of her flight?

'I wanted to tell you,' Amy wrote to her mother in the note left on her dressing table. 'I wanted to tell you and be married at home, but Mr. Hastings would not allow it. It would create trouble, he said, between himself and Mr. Tracy, who I may confess to you in confidence, asked me twice to be his wife, and when I refused, without giving him a reason, for I dared not tell him of my love for his friend, he was so angry and behaved so strangely, and there was such a look in his eyes, that I was afraid of him, and it was this fear, I think, which made me willing to go away secretly with Harold and be married in New York. We are going to Europe; shall sail to-morrow morning at nine o'clock in the Scotia. The marriage ceremony will be performed before we go on board. I shall write as soon as we reach Liverpool. You must forgive me, mother, and I am sure you would not blame me, if you knew how much I love Mr. Hastings. I know he is poor, and that I might be mistress of Tracy Park, but I love Harold best. It is ten o'clock, and the train, you know, passes at eleven; so I must say good-bye.

'Yours lovingly,

'Amy Crawford, now, but when you read this,

'Amy Hastings.'

This was Amy's letter which her mother found upon entering her room after waiting more than an hour for her daughter's appearance at the breakfast, which they always took by themselves. To say that she was shocked and astonished would but faintly portray the state of her mind as she read that her beautiful young daughter had gone with Harold Hastings, whom she had never liked, for though he was handsome, and agreeable, and gentlemanly as a rule, she knew him to be thoroughly selfish and indolent, and she trembled for her daughter's happiness when a little time had quenched the ardor of his passion. Added to this was another thought which made her brain reel for a moment an she thought what might have been. Arthur Tracy had wished to make Amy his wife, and mistress of Tracy Park, which she would have graced so well, for in all the town there was not a fairer, sweeter girl than Amy Crawford, or one better beloved.

It did not matter that she was poor, and her mother was only a housekeeper. She had never felt a slight on that account, and had been reared as carefully and tenderly as the daughters of the rich, and if away down, in her mother's heart there had been a half defined hope that some time the master of Tracy Park might turn his attention to her, it had been hidden so closely that Mrs. Crawford scarcely knew of it herself until she learned what her daughter was and what she might have been. But it was too late now. There was no turning back the wheels of fate.

Forcing herself to be as calm as possible, she took the note to Arthur, who had breakfasted alone, and was waiting impatiently in the library for the appearance of his friend.

'Lazy dog!' Mrs. Crawford heard him say, as she approached the open door. 'Does he think he has nothing to do but to sleep? We were to start by this time, and he in bed yet!'

'Are you speaking of Mr. Hastings?' Mrs. Crawford asked, as she stepped into the room.

'Yes,' was his crisp and haughty reply, as if he resented the question, and her presence there.

He could be very proud and stern when he felt like it, and one of these moods was on him now, but Mrs. Crawford did not heed it, and sinking into a chair, for she felt that she could not stand and face him, she began:

'I came to tell you of Mr. Hastings and—Amy. She did not come to breakfast, and I found this note in her room. She has gone to New York with him. They took the eleven o'clock train last night. They are to be married this morning, and sail in the Scotia for Europe.'

She had told her story, and paused for the result, which was worse than she had expected.

For a moment Arthur Tracy stood staring at her, while his face grew white as ashes, and into his dark eyes, usually so soft and mild, there came a fiery gleam like that of a madman, as he seemed for a time to be.

'Amy gone with Harold, my friend!' he said at last. 'Gone to New York! Gone to be married! Traitors! Vipers! Both of them. Curse them! If he were here I'd shoot him like a dog; and she—I believe I would kill her.'

He was walking the floor rapidly, and to Mrs. Crawford it seemed as if he really were unsettled in his mind, he talked so incoherently and acted so strangely.

'What else did she say?' he asked, suddenly, stopping and confronting her. 'You have not told me all. Did she speak of me? Let me see the note,' and he held his hand for it.

For a moment Mrs. Crawford hesitated, but as he grew more and more persistent she suffered him to take it, and then watched him as he read it, white the veins on his forehead began to swell until they stood out like a dark blue net-work against his otherwise pallid face.

'Yes,' he snapped between his white teeth. 'I did ask her to be my wife, and she refused, and with her soft, kittenish ways made me more in love with her than ever, and more her dupe. I never suspected Harold, and when I told him of my disappointment, for I never kept a thing from him—traitor that he was—he laughed at me for losing my heart to my housekeeper's daughter! I, who, he said, might marry the greatest lady in the land. I could have knocked him down for his sneer at Amy, and I wish now I had, the wretch! He will not marry your daughter, madam; and if he does not I will kill him!'

He was certainly mad, and Mrs. Crawford shrank away from him an from something dangerous, and going to her room took her bed in a fit of frightful hysterics. This was followed by a state of nervous prostration, and for a few days she neither saw, nor heard of, nor inquired for Mr. Tracy. At the end of the fourth day, however, she was told by the house-maid that he had that morning packed his valise and, without a word to any one, had taken the train for New York. A week went by, and then there came a letter from him, which ran as follows:

'New York, May ——, 18—.

'Mrs. Crawford:—I am off for Europe to-morrow, and when I shall return is a matter of uncertainty. They are married; or at least I suppose so, for I found a list of the passengers who sailed in the Scotia, and the names, Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, were in it. So that saves me from breaking the sixth commandment, as I should have done if he hid played Amy false. I may not make myself known to them, but I shall follow them, and if he harms a hair of her head I shall shoot him yet. My brother Frank is to live at Tracy Park. That will suit his wife, and as you will not care to stay with her, I send you a deed of that cottage in the lane by the wood where the gardener now lives. It is a pretty little place, and Amy liked it well. We used to meet there sometimes, and more than once I have sat with her on that seat under the elm tree, and it was there I asked her to be my wife. Alas! I loved her so much, and I love her still as I can never love another woman, and I could have made her so happy; but that is past, and I can only watch her at a distance. When I have anything to communicate, I will write again.

'Yours truly, 'Arthur Tracy.'

'P.S.—Take all the furniture in your room and Amy's, and whatever else is needful for your house. I shall tell Colvin to give you a thousand dollars, and when you want more let him know, I shall never forget that you are Amy's mother.

This was Arthur's letter to Mrs. Crawford, while to his brother he wrote:

'Dear Frank:—I am going to Europe for an indefinite length of time. Why I go it matters not to you or any one. I go to suit myself, and I want you to sell out your business at Langley and live at Tracy Park, where you can see to things as if they were your own. You will find everything straight and square, for Colvin is honest and methodical. He knows all about the bonds, and mortgages, and stocks, so you cannot do better than to retain him in your service, overseeing matters yourself, of course, and drawing for your salary what you think right and necessary for your support and for keeping up the place as it ought to be kept up. I enclose a power of attorney. When I want money I shall call upon Colvin. I may be gone for years and perhaps forever.

'I shall never marry, and when I die, what I have will naturally go to you. We have not been to each other much like brothers for the past few years, but I do not forget the old home in the mountains where we were boys together, and played, and quarreled, and slept up under the roof, where the blankets were hung to keep the snow from sifting through the rafters upon our bed.

'And, Frank, do you remember the bitter mornings, when the thermometer was below zero, and we performed our ablutions in the wood-shed, and the black-eye you gave me once for telling mother that you had not washed yourself at all, it was so cold? She sent you from the table, and made you go without your breakfast, and we had ham and johnny-cake toast that morning, too. That was long ago, and our lives are different now. There are marble basins, with silver chains and stoppers, at Tracy Pack, and you can have a hot bath every day if you like, in a room which would not shame Caracalla himself. And I know you will like it all, and Dolly, too; but don't make fools of yourselves. Nothing stamps a person as a come-up from the scum so soon as airs and ostentation. Be quiet and modest, as if you had always lived at Tracy Park. Imitate Squire Harrington and Mr. St. Claire. They are the true gentlemen, and were to the manner born. Be kind to Mrs. Crawford. She is a lady in every sense of the word, for she comes of good New England stock.

'And now, good-bye. I shall write sometimes, but not often.

'Your brother,

'Arthur Tracy.'

CHAPTER III.

MR. AND MRS. FRANK TRACY.

Mr. Frank, in his small grocery store at Langley, was weighing out a pound of butter for the Widow Simpson, who was haggling with him about the price, when his brother's letter was brought to him by the boy who swept his store and did errands for him. But Frank was too busy just then to read it. There was a circus in the village that day, and it brought the country people into the town in larger numbers than usual. Naturally, many of them paid Frank a visit in the course of the morning, so that it was not until he went home to his dinner that be even thought of the letter, which was finally brought to his mind by his wife's asking if there was any news.

Mrs. Frank was always inquiring for and expecting news, but she was not prepared for what this day brought her. Neither was her husband, and when he read his brother's letter, which he did twice to assure himself that he was not mistaken, he sat for a moment perfectly bewildered, and staring at his wife, who was putting his dinner upon the table.

'Dolly,' he gasped at last, when he could speak at all—'Dolly, what do you think? Just listen. Arthur is going to Europe, to stay forever, perhaps, and has left us Tracy Park. We are going there to live, and you will be as grand a lady as Mrs. Atherton, of Brier Hill; or that young girl at Collingwood.'

Dolly had a platter of ham and eggs in her hand, and she never could tell, though she often tried to do so, what prevented her from dropping the whole upon the floor. She did spill some of the fat upon her clean tablecloth, she put the dish down so suddenly, and sinking into a chair, demanded what her husband meant. Was he crazy, or what?

'Not a bit of it,' he replied, recovering himself and beginning to realize the good fortune which had come to him. 'We are rich people, Dolly. Read for yourself;' and he passed her the letter, which she seemed to understand better than he had done.

'Why, yes,' she said. 'We are going to Tracy Park to live; but that doesn't make us rich. It is not ours.'

'I know that,' her husband replied. 'But we shall enjoy it all the same, and hold our heads with the best of them. Besides, don't you see, Arthur gives me carte blanche as to pay for my services, and, though I shall do right, it is not in human nature that I should not feather my nest when I have a chance. Some of that money ought to have been mine. I shall sell out at once if I can find a purchaser, and if I cannot, I shall rent the grocery and move out of this hole double quick.'

His ideas were growing faster than those of his wife, who was attached to Langley and its people, and shrank a little from the grander opening before her. She had once spent a few days at Tracy Park, as Arthur's guest, and had felt great restraint even in the presence of Mrs. Crawford and Amy, whom she recognized as ladies notwithstanding their position in the house. On that occasion she had, with her brother-in-law, been invited to dine at Brier Hill, the country-seat of Mrs. Grace Atherton, a gay widow, whose dash and style had completely overawed the plain, matter-of-fact Dolly, who did not know what half the dishes were, or what she was expected to do. But, by watching Arthur, and declining some things which she felt sure were beyond her comprehension, she managed tolerably well, though when the dinner was over, and she could breathe freely again, she found that the back of her new silk gown was wet with perspiration, which had oozed from every pore during the hour and a half she had sat at the table. And even then her troubles were not ended, for coffee was served in the drawing-room, and as Arthur took his clear, she did not know whether she was expected to do the same or not, but finally ventured to say she would have hers with 'trimmin's.' There was a mischievous twinkle in Mrs. Atherton's eyes which disconcerted her so much that she spilled her coffee in her lap, and felt, as she afterward told a friend to whom she was describing the dinner, as if she could have been knocked down with a feather.

'Such folderol!' she said. 'Changing your plates all the time—eating peas in the winter greener than grass, with nothing under the sun with them, and drinking coffee out of a cup about as big as a thimble. Give me the good old-fashioned way, I say, with peas and potatoes, and meat, and things, and cups that will hold half a pint and have some thickness that you can feel in your mouth.'

And now she was to exchange the good, old-fashioned way for what she termed 'folderol,' and for a time she did not like it. But her husband was so delighted and eager that he succeeded in impressing her with some of his enthusiasm, and after he had returned to his grocery, and her dishes were washed, she removed her large kitchen apron, and pulling down the sleeves of her dress, went and stood before the mirror, where she examined herself critically and not without some degree of complacency.

Her hair was black and glossy, or would be if she had time to care for it as it ought to be cared for; her eyes were bright, and perhaps in time she might learn to use them as Mrs. Atherton used hers.

Mrs. Atherton stood as the criterion for everything elegant and fashionable, and naturally it was with her that she compared herself.

'She is older than I am,' she said to herself; 'there are crow-tracks around her eyes, and her complexion is not a bit better than mine was before I spoiled it with soap-suds, and stove heat, and everything else.'

Then she looked at her hands, but they were red and rough, and the nails were broken and not at all like the nails which an expert has polished for an hour or more. Mrs. Atherton's diamond rings would be sadly out of place on Dolly's fingers, but time and abstinence from work would do much for them, she reflected, and after all it would be nice to live in a grand house, ride in a handsome carriage, and keep a hired girl to do the heavy work. So, on the whole, she began to feel quite reconciled to her change of situation, and to wonder how she ought to conduct herself in view of her future position. She had intended going to the circus that night, but she gave that up, telling her husband that it was a second-class amusement any way, and she did not believe that either Mrs. Atherton or the young lady at Collingwood patronized such places. So they staid at home and talked together of what they should do at Tracy Park, and wondered if it was their duty to ask all their Langley friends to visit them. Mrs. Frank, as the more democratic of the two, decided that it was. She was not going to begin by being stuck up, she said, and when at last she left Langley four weeks later, every man, woman, and child of her familiar acquaintance in town had been heartily invited to call upon her at Tracy Park if ever they came that way.

Frank had disposed of his business at a reasonable price, and had rented his house with all the furniture, except such articles as his wife insisted upon taking with her. The bureau, and bedstead, and chairs which she and Frank had bought together in Springfield just before their marriage, the Boston rocker her mother had given her, and in which the old mother had sat until the day she died, the cradle in which she had rocked her first baby boy who was lying in the Langley grave-yard, were dear to the wife and mother, and though her husband told her she could have no use for them at Tracy Park, where the furniture was of the costliest kind, and that she would probably put them in the servants' rooms or attic, there was enough of sentiment in her nature to make her cling to them as something of the past, and so they were boxed up and forwarded by freight to Tracy Park, whither Mr. and Mrs. Tracy followed them a week later.

The best dressmaker in Langley had been employed upon the wardrobe of Mrs. Frank, who, in her travelling dress of some stuff goods of a plaided pattern, too large and too bright to be quite in good taste, felt herself perfectly au fait as the mistress of Tracy Park, until she reached Springfield, where Mrs. Grace Atherton, accompanied by a tall, elegant looking young lady, entered the car and took a seat in front of her. Neither of the ladies noticed her, but she recognized Mrs. Atherton at once and guessed that her companion was the young lady from Collingwood, who, rumor said, was soon to marry her guardian, Mr. Richard Harrington, although he was old enough to be her father.

Dolly scanned both the ladies very closely, noting every article of their costumes from their plain linen collars and cuffs to their quiet dresses of gray, which seemed so much more in keeping with the dusty cars than her buff and purple plaid.

'I ain't like them, and never shall be,' she said to herself, with a bitter sense of her inferiority pressing upon her. 'I ain't like them, and never shall be, if I live to be a hundred. I wish we were not going to be grand. I shall never get used to it,' and the hot tears sprang to her eyes as she longed to be back in the kitchen where she had worked so hard.

But Dolly did not know then how readily people can forget the life of toil behind them and adapt themselves to one of luxury and ease; and with her the adaptability commenced in some degree the moment Shannondale station was reached, and she saw the handsome carriage waiting for them. A carriage finer far and more modern than the one from Collingwood, in which Mrs. Atherton and the young lady took their seats, laughing and chatting so gayly that they did not see the woman in the big plaid who stood watching them with a rising feeling of jealousy and resentment as she thought of Mrs. Atherton, 'She does not even notice me.'

But when the Tracy carriage drew up, Grace Atherton saw and recognized her, and whispered, in an aside to her companion:

'For goodness' sake, Edith, look! There are the Tracys, our new neighbors.' Then she bowed to Mrs. Tracy, and said: 'Ah, I did not know you were on the train.'

'I sat right behind you,' was Mrs. Tracy's rather ungracious reply: and then, not knowing whether she ought to do it or not, she introduced her husband.

'Yes, Mr. Tracy—how do you do?' was Mrs. Atherton's response; but she did not in return introduce the young girl, whose dark eyes were scanning the strangers so curiously, and this Dolly took as a slight and inwardly resented it.

But Mrs. Atherton had spoken to her and that was something, and helped to keep her spirits up as she was driven along the turnpike to the entrance of the park.

On the occasion of Mrs. Frank's first and only visit to her brother-in-law it was winter, and everything was covered with snow. But it was summer now, the month of roses, and fragrance, and beauty, and as the carriage passed up the broad, smooth avenue which led to the house, Dolly's eyes wandered over the well-kept lawn, sweet with the scent of newly-mown grass, the parteries of flowers and shrubs, the winding walks and clumps of evergreens here and there formed into fancy rooms, with rustic seats and tables under the over-hanging boughs; and when she reflected that all this was hers to enjoy for many years, and perhaps for her life-time, she felt the first stirring of that pride, and satisfaction, and self-assertion which was to grow upon her so rapidly and transform her from the plain, unpretentious woman who had washed, and ironed, and baked, and mended in the small house in Langley into the arrogant, haughty lady of fashion, who courted only the rich and looked down upon her less fortunate neighbors. Now, however, she was very meek and humble, and trembled as she alighted from the carriage before the great stone house which was to be her home.

'Isn't this grand, Dolly?' her husband said, rubbing his hands together and looking about him complacently.

'Yes, very grand,' Dolly answered him; but somehow it makes me feel weaker than water. I suppose, though, I shall get accustomed to it.'

CHAPTER IV.

GETTING ACCUSTOMED TO IT.

In the absence of Mrs. Crawford, who for a week or more had been domesticated in the cottage in the lane, as the house was designated which Arthur had given her, there was no one to receive the strangers except the cook and the house-maid, and as Mrs. Tracy entered the hall the two came forward, bristling with criticism, and ready to resent anything like interference in the new-comers.

The servants at the park had not been pleased with the change of administration. That Mr. Arthur was a gentleman whom it was an honor to serve, they all conceded; but with regard to the new master and mistress, they had grave doubts. Although none of them had been at the park on the occasion of Mrs. Tracy's first visit there, many rumors concerning her had reached them, and she would scarcely have recognized herself could she have heard the remarks of which she was the subject. That she had worked in a factory—which was true—was her least offence, for it was whispered that once, when the winter was unusually severe, and work scarce, she had gone to a soup-house, and even asked and procured coal from the poor-master for herself and her mother.

This was not true, and would have argued nothing against her as a woman if it had been, but the cook and the house-maid believed it, and passed sundry jokes together while preparing to meet 'the pauper,' as they designated her.

In this state of things their welcome could not be very cordial, but Mrs. Tracy was too tired and too much excited, to observe their demeanor particularly. They were civil, and the house was in perfect order, and so much larger and handsomer than she had thought it to be, that she felt bewildered and embarrassed, and said 'Yes 'em,' and 'No, ma'am,' to Martha, the cook, and told Sarah, who was waiting at dinner, that she 'might as well sit down in a chair as to stand all the time; she presumed she was tired with so many extra steps to take.'

But Sarah knew her business, and persisted in standing, and inflicting upon the poor woman as much ceremony as possible, and then, in the kitchen, she repeated to the cook and the coachman, with sundry embellishments of her own, the particulars of the dinner, amid peals of laughter at the expense of the would-be lady, who had said 'she could just as soon have her salad with her other things, and save washing go many dishes.'

It was hardly possible that mistress and maids would stay together long, especially as Mrs. Tracy, when a little more assured, and a little less in awe of her servants, began to show a disposition to know by personal observation what was going on in the kitchen, and to hint broadly that there was too much waste here and expenditure there, and quite too much company at all hours of the day.

'She didn't propose to keep a boarding-house,' she said, 'or to support families outside, and the old woman who came so often to the basement door with a big basket under her cloak must discontinue her calls.'

Then there occurred one of those Hibernian cyclones which sweep everything before them, and which in this instance swept Mrs. Tracy out of the kitchen for the time being, and the cook out of the house. Her self-respect, she said, would not allow her to stay with a woman who knew just how much coal was burned, how much butter was used, and how much bread was thrown away, and who objected to giving a bite now and then to a poor old woman, who, poor as she was, had never yet been helped by the poor-master, or gone to a soup-house like my lady!

Martha's departure was followed by that of Sarah, and then Mrs. Tracy was alone, and for a few days enjoyed herself immensely, doing her own work, cooking her own dinner, and eating it when and where she liked—in the kitchen mostly, as that kept the flies from the dining-room, and saved her many steps, for Dolly was beginning to find that there was a vast difference between keeping a house with six rooms and one with twenty or more.

Her husband urged her to try a new servant, saying there was no necessity for her to make a slave of herself: but she refused to listen. Economy was a part of her nature, and besides that she meant to show them that she was perfectly independent of the whole tribe; the tribe and them referring to the hired girls alone, for she knew no one else in town.

Nobody had called except the clergyman, not even Mrs. Crawford, whose friendship and possible advice Mrs. Tracy had counted upon, and with whom she knew she should feel more at ease than with Mrs. Atherton from Brier Hill, or Miss Hastings from Collingwood. She had seen both the last named ladies at church and had a nod from Mrs. Atherton, and that was all the recognition she had received from her neighbors up to the hot July morning, a week or more after the house-maid's departure, when she was busy in the kitchen canning black raspberries, of which the garden was full.

Like many housekeepers who do their own work, Dolly was not very particular with regard to her dress in the morning, and on this occasion her hair was drawn from her rather high forehead, and twisted into a hard knot at the back of her head; her calico dress hung straight dawn, for she was minus hoops, which in those days were worn quite large; her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and, as a protection against the juice of the berries, she wore a huge apron made of sacking. In this garb, and with no thought of being interrupted, she kept on with her work until the last kettle of fruit, was boiling and bubbling on the stove, and she was just glancing at the clock to see if it were time to put over the peas for dinner, when there came a quick, decisive ring at the front door.

'Who can that be?' she said to herself, as she wiped her hands upon her apron. 'Some peddler or agent, I dare say. Why couldn't he come round to the kitchen, door, I'd like to know?'

She had been frequently troubled with peddlers and agents of all kinds, and feeling certain that this was one—ringing the bell a second time, as if in a hurry—she started for' the door in no very amiable frame of mind, for peddlers were her abomination. Something ailed the lock or key, which resisted all her efforts to turn it; and at last, putting her mouth to the keyhole, she called out, rather sharply:

'Go to the back door: I cannot open this,'

Then, as she caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen, where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she did not see the person who stood on the threshold of the door until a voice wholly unlike that of any peddler or agent said to her;

'Good morning, Mrs. Tracy. I hope I am not intruding.'

Then she turned, and to her horror and surprise, saw Grace Atherton, attired in the coolest and daintiest of morning costumes, with a jaunty French bonnet set coquettishly upon her head, and a silver card-case in her hand.

For the moment Dolly's wits forsook her and she stood staring at her visitor, who, perfectly at her ease, advanced into the room and said:

'I hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Tracy, for this morning call I came—'

But she did not finish the sentence, for by this time Dolly had recovered herself a little, and throwing off her apron, she replied, nervously:

'Not at all—not at all, I supposed you were some peddler or agent when I sent you to this door. They are the plague of my life, and think I'll buy everything and give to everything because Arthur did. I am doing my own work, you see. Come into the parlor;' and she led the way into the dark drawing-room, and where the chairs and sofas were surrounded in white linen, looking like so many ghosts in the dim, uncertain light.

But Dolly opened one of the windows, and pushing back the blinds, let in a flood of sunshine, so strong and bright that she at once closed the shutters, saying, apologetically, that she did not believe in fading the carpets, if they were not her own. Then she sat down upon an ottoman and faced her visitor, who was regarding her with a mixture of amusement and wonder.

Grace Atherton was an aristocrat to her very finger-tips, and shrank from contact with anything vulgar and unsightly, and, to her mind, Mrs. Tracy represented both, and seemed sadly out of place in that handsome room, with her sleeves rolled up and the berry stains on her hands and face. Grace knew nothing by actual experience of canning berries, or of aprons made of sacking, or of bare arms, except it were of an evening when they showed white and fair against her satin gown, with bands of gold and precious stones upon them, and she felt that there was an immeasurable distance between herself and this woman, whom she had come to see partly on business and partly because she thought she must call upon her for the sake of Arthur Tracy, the former occupant of the park.

Grace and Arthur had been fast friends, and Brier Hill was almost the only place where he had visited on anything like terms of intimacy. Indeed, it was rumored by the busy knowing ones of Shannondale that, had the pretty widow been six years his junior instead of his senior, she would have left no art untried to win him. But here the wise ones were in fault, for though Grace Atherton's heart was not buried in her husband's grave, and, in fact, had never been her husband's at all, it was given to one who, though he cared for it once, did not prize it now, for, with all the intensity of his noble nature, Richard Harrington, of Collingwood; loved the beautiful girl whom, years ago, he had taken to his home as his child, and whom, it was said, he was to marry. But if the belief that the love she once refused and which she would fain recover was lost to her forever rankled in her breast, Grace never made a sign, and laughed as gayly and looked almost as young and handsome as in the days when Richard was wooing her in the pleasant old English town across the sea. She had loved Richard then, but, alas! loved money more, and she chose a richer man, old enough to be her father, who had died when she was twenty-one and left her the possessor of nearly half a million, every dollar of which she would have given to have recalled the days which were gone forever.

Grace had been intending to call upon Mrs. Tracy ever since she came to the park. 'Not,' as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, 'for the woman's sake, for she knew her to be vulgar: but because she was a neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy,' And so at last she came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last she plunged at once. She was going to the mountains with Mr. Harrington and Miss Hastings: her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone to attend a sick mother, and had recommended as a fit person to take her place the woman who had just left Tracy Park.

'I do not like to take a servant without first knowing something of her from her last employer,' she said: 'and, if you do not mind, I should like to ask if Martha left for anything very bad.'

Mrs. Tracy colored scarlet, and for a moment was silent. She could not tell that fine lady in the white muslin dress, with seas of lace and embroidery, that Martha had called her second classy, and stingy and strooping, and mean, because she objected to the amount of coal burned, and bread thrown away, and time consumed at the table, besides turning down the gas in the kitchen when she thought it too light, to say nothing of turning it off at the meter at ten o'clock, just when the servants were beginning to enjoy themselves. All this she felt would scarcely interest a person like Mrs. Atherton, who might sympathize with Martha more than with herself, so she finally said:

'Martha was saucy to me, and on the whole it was better for them all to go; and so I am doing my own work.'

'Doing your own work!' and Grace gave a little cry of surprise, while her shoulders shrugged meaningly, and made Mrs. Tracy almost as angry as she had been with Martha when she called her mean and second-class. 'It cannot be possible that you cook, and wash, and iron, and do everything,' Mrs. Atherton continued. 'My dear Mrs. Tracy, you can never stand it in a house like this, and Mr. Arthur would not like it if he knew. Why he kept as many as six servants, and sometimes more. Pray let me advise you, and commend to you a good girl; who lived with me three years, and can do everything, from dressing my hair to making a blanc-mange. I only parted with her because she was sick, and now that she is well, her place is filled. Try her, and do not make a servant of yourself. It is not fitting that you should.'

Grace was fond of giving advice, and had said more than she intended saying when she began, but Mrs. Tracy, though annoyed, was not angry, and consented to receive the girl who had lived at Brier Hill three years, and who, she reflected, could be of use to her in many ways.

While sitting there in her soiled working dress talking to the elegant Mrs. Atherton she had felt her inferiority more keenly than she had ever done before, while at the same time she was conscious that a new set of ideas and thoughts had taken possession of her, reawaking in her the germ of that ambition to be somebody which she had felt so often when a girl, and which now was to bud and blossom, and bear fruit a hundred fold. She would take the girl, and from her learn the ways of the world as presented at Brier Hill. She would no longer wear sacking aprons, and open the door herself. She would be more like Grace Atherton, whom she watched admiringly as she went down the walk to the handsome carriage waiting for her, with driver and footman in tall hats and long coats on the box.

This was the beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which that lady had found her.

'Served you right, Dolly,' Frank said, laughing till the tears ran. 'You have no business to be digging round like a slave when we are able to have what we like. Arthur said we were to keep up the place us he had done, and that does not mean that you should be a scullion. No, Dolly; have all the girls you want, and hold up your head with the best of them. Get a new silk gown, and return Mrs. Atherton's call at once, and take a card and turn down one corner or the other, I don't know which, but this girl of hers can tell you. Pump her dry as a powder horn; find out what the quality do, and then do it, and not bother about the expense. I am going in for a good time, and don't mean to work either. I told Colvin this morning that I thought I ought to draw a salary of about four thousand a year, besides our living expenses, and though he looked at me pretty sharp over his spectacles he said nothing. Arthur is worth half a million, if he is worth a cent. So, go it, Dolly, while you are young,' and in the exuberance of his joy Frank kissed his wife on both cheeks, and then hurried back to his office, where he spent most of his time trying to be a gentleman.

That day they dined in the kitchen with a leaf of the table turned up as they had done in Langley, but the next day they had dinner in the dining-room, and were waited upon by the new girl as well as it was possible for her to do with her mistress' interference.

'Never mind; Mr. Tracy's in a hurry. Give him his pie at once,' she said, as Susan was about to clear the table preparatory to the dessert, but she repented the speech when she saw the look of surprise which the girl gave her and which expressed more than words could have done.

'Better let her run herself,' Frank said, when Susan had left the room, 'and if she wants to take every darned thing off the table and tip it over to boot, let her do it. If she has lived three years with Mrs. Atherton, she knows what is what better than we do.'

'But it takes so long, and I have much to see to in this great house,' Dolly objected, and her husband replied:

'Get another girl, then; three of them if you like. What matter how many girls we have so long as Arthur pays for them, and he is bound to do that. He said so in his letter. You are altogether too economical. I've told you so a hundred times, and now there is no need of saving. I want to see you a lady of silks and satins like Mrs. Atherton. Pump that girl. I tell you, and find out what ladies do!'

This was Frank's advice to his wife, and as far as in her lay she acted upon it, and whatever Susan told her was done by Mrs. Atherton at Brier Hill, she tried to do at Tracy Park: all except staying out of the kitchen. That, from her nature, she could not and would not do. Consequently she was constantly changing cooks, and frequently took the helm herself, to the great disgust of her husband, who managed at last to imbue her with his own ideas of things.

In course of time most of the neighbors who had any claim to society called at the park, and among them Mrs. Crawford. But Mrs. Tracy had then reached a point from which she looked down upon one who had been housekeeper where she was now mistress, and whose daughter's good name was under a cloud, as there were some who did not believe that Harold Hastings had ever made her his wife. When told that Mrs. Crawford had asked for her Mrs. Tracy sent word that she was engaged, and that if Mrs. Crawford pleased she would give her errand to the girl.

'I have no errand. I came to call,' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, and she never crossed the threshold of her old home again until the March winds were blowing and there was a little boy in the nursery at the park.

At the last moment the expected nurse had fallen sick, and in his perplexity Mr. Tracy went to the cottage in the lane and begged of Mrs. Crawford to come and care for his wife. Mrs. Crawford was very proud, but she was poor, too, and as the price per week which Frank offered her was four times as much as she could earn by sewing, she consented at last and went as nurse to the sick-room, and the baby, Tom, on whose little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter who was coming home in June, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear was hanging.

Dolly Tracy's growth after it fairly commenced, was very rapid, and when Mrs. Crawford went to her as nurse she had three servants in her employ, besides the coachman, and was imitating Mrs. Atherton to the best of her ability; and when, early in the summer, she received the wedding cards of Edith Hastings, the young lady from Collingwood, who had married a Mr. St. Claire instead of her guardian, she felt that her position was assured, and from that time her progress was onward and upward until the October morning, ten years later, when our story proper opens, and we see her standing upon the piazza of her handsome house, with every sign of wealth and luxury about her person, from the silken robe to the jewels upon her soft, white hands, which once had washed her own dishes, and canned berries in her own kitchen, where she had received Grace Atherton, with her sleeves above her elbows.

There were five servants in the house now, and they ran over and against each other, and quarrelled, and gossipped, and worried her life nearly out of her, until she was sometimes tempted to send them away and do the work herself. But she was far too great a lady for that. She dressed in silk and satin every day, and drove in her handsome carriage, with her driver and footman in tall hats and long coats. She was thoroughly up in etiquette, and did not need Susan to tell her what to do. She knew all about visiting cards, and dinner cards, and cards of acceptance, and regret, and condolence, and she read much oftener than she did her Bible a book entitled 'Habits of Good Society.'

Three children played in the nursery now, Tom, and Jack, and baby Maude, and she kept a nurse constantly for them, and strove with all her might to instil into their infant minds that they were the Tracys of Tracy Park, and entitled to due respect from their inferiors; and Tom, the boy of ten and a half, had profited by her teaching, and was the veriest little braggart in all Shannondale, boasting of his father's house, and his father's money, without a word of the Uncle Arthur wandering no one knew where, or cared particularly for that matter.

Arthur had never been home since the day he quitted it to look after Amy Crawford, now lying in the grave-yard of Shannondale, under the shadow of the tall monument which Arthur's money had bought. At first he had written frequently to Mrs. Crawford, and occasionally to his brother, and his agent, Mr. Colvin; then his letters came very irregularly, and sometimes a year would intervene between them. Then he would write every week, and he once told them not to be anxious if they did not hear from him in a long time, as in case of his death he had arranged to have the news communicated to his friends at once. After this letter nothing had been heard from him for more than two years, until the morning when his telegram came and so greatly disturbed the mental equilibrium of Mr. Frank Tracy that for an hour or more he sat staring into the street in a bewildered kind of way, wondering what would be the result of his brother's return, and if he should be required to give up the investments he had made from the exorbitant sum he had charged for looking after the place. Once he thought he would ask Colvin's opinion; but he was a little afraid of the old man, who had sometimes hinted that his salary was far greater than the services rendered, but as Mr. Arthur, to whom he made reports of the expenditures, had never objected, it was not for him to do so, he said. And still Frank distrusted him, and decided that, on the whole, his better plan was to wait, or at least to consult no one but his wife, and he was glad when lunch-time came, and he started home, where preparations were going forward for the first large party they had ever given.

CHAPTER V.

AT THE PARK.

Frank Tracy had at first grown faster than his wife, and the change in his manner had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his services were worth it, and that two thousand more or less was nothing to Arthur; and when he was a candidate for the Legislature she had protested loudly against his inviting to the house and giving beer and cider to the men whose votes he wanted, and for whom as men he did not care a farthing; but when he came up for Congress she forgot all her scruples, and was as anxious as himself to please those who could help him secure the nomination and afterward the election. It was she who had proposed the party, to which nearly everybody was to be invited, from old Peterkin, with his powerful influence among a certain class, and Widow Shipleigh with her four sons, to Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire, from Grassy Spring, Squire Harrington, from Collingwood, and Grace Atherton, from Brier Hill. Very few who could in any way help Frank to a seat in Congress were omitted from the list, whether Republican or Democrat, for Frank was popular with both parties and expected help from both. Over three hundred cards had been issued for the party, which was the absorbing topic of conversation in the whole town, and which brought white kids and white muslins into great requisition, while swallow-tails and non swallow-tails were discussed in the privacy of households, and discarded or decided upon according to the length of the masculine purse or the strength of the masculine resistance, for dress coats were not then the rule in Shannondale. It was said that Mr. St. Claire and Squire Harrington always wore them to dinner, but they were the nobility par excellence of the town, and were expected to do things differently from the middle class, who had their bread to earn. Old Peterkin, however, whom Frank in his soliloquy, had designated a canal bummer, had become a rich man, and was resolved to show that he knew what was au fait for the occasion; a new suit throughout, in the very latest style, was in progress of making for him, and he had been heard to say that 'Tracy should have his vote and that of fifty more of the boys to pay for his ticket to the doin's'. This speech, which was reported to Mrs. Tracy, reconciled her to the prospect of receiving as a guest the coarsest, roughest man in town, whose only recommendation was his money and the brute influence he exercised over a certain class.

Dolly has scarcely slept for excitement since the party had been decided upon, and everything seemed to be moving on very smoothly and in order. They were to have music, and flowers, and a caterer from Springfield, where a lovely party-dress for herself of peach-blow satin was making, and nothing occurred of any importance to disturb her until the morning of the day appointed for the party, when it seemed as if every evil culminated at once. First, the colored boy who was to wait in the upper hall came down with measles. Then Grace Atherton drove round in her carriage to say that it would be impossible for her to be present, as she had received news from New York which made it necessary for her to go there by the next train. She was exceedingly sorry, she said, and for once in her life Grace was sincere. She was anxious to attend the party, for, as she said to Edith St. Claire in confidence, she wanted to see old Peterkin in his swallow-tail and white vest, with a shirt-front as big as a platter. There was a great deal of sarcasm and ridicule in Grace Atherton's nature, but at heart she was kind and meant to be just, and after a fashion really liked Mrs. Tracy, to whom she had been of service in various ways, helping her to fill her new position more gracefully than she could otherwise have done, and enlightening her without seeming to do so on many points which puzzled her sorely; on the whole they were good friends, and, after expressing her regret that she could not be present in the evening, Grace stood a few moments chatting familiarly and offering to send over flowers from her greenhouse, and her own maid to arrange Mrs. Tracy's hair and assist her in dressing. Then she took her leave, and it was her carriage Mrs. Tracy was watching as it went down the avenue, when little Harold Hastings appeared around the corner of the house, and, coming up the steps, took off his cap respectfully as he said:

'Grandma sends you her compliments, and is very sorry that she has rheumatism this morning and cannot come to-night to help you. She thinks, perhaps, you can get Mrs. Mosher.'

'Your grandmother can't come, when I depended so much upon her, and she thinks I can get Mrs. Mosher, that termagant, who would raise a mutiny in the kitchen in an hour!' Mrs. Tracy said this so sharply that a flush mounted to the handsome face of the boy, who felt as if he were in some way a culprit and being reprimanded. 'She must come, if she does nothing but sit in the kitchen and keep order,' was Mrs. Tracy's next remark.

'She can't,' Harold replied; 'her foot and ankle is all swelled and aches so she almost cries. She is awful sorry, and so am I, for I was coming with her to see the show.'

This speech put a new idea into Mrs. Tracy's mind, and she said to the boy:

'How would you like to come anyway, and stay in the upper hall, and tell the people where to go? The boy I engaged has disappointed me. You are rather small for the place, but I guess you'll do, and I will give you fifty cents.'

'I'd like it first-rate,' Harold said, his face brightening at the thought of earning fifty cents and seeing the show at the same time.

Half-dollars were not very plentiful with Harold, and he was trying to save enough to buy his grandmother a pair of spectacles, for he had heard her say that she could not thread her needle as readily as she once did, and must have glasses as soon as she had the money to spare. Harold had seen a pair at the drug-store for one dollar, and, without knowing at all whether they would fit his grandmother's eyes or not, had asked the druggist to keep them until he had the required amount. Fifty cents would just make it, and he promised at once that he would come; but in an instant there fell a shadow upon his face as he thought of Tom, his tormentor, who worried him so much.

'What is it?' Mrs. Tracy asked, as she detected in him a disposition to reconsider.

'Will Tom be up in the hall?' Harold asked.

'Of course not,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'He will be in the parlors until ten o'clock, and then he will go to bed. Why do you ask?'

'Because,' Harold answered fearlessly, 'if he was to be there I could not come; he chaffs me so and twits me with being poor and living in a house his uncle gave us.'

'That is very naughty in him, and I will see that he behaves better in future,' said Mrs. Tracy, rather amused than other wise at the boy's frankness.

As the mention of the uncle reminded Harold of the telegram, he took it from his pocket and handed it to her.

'Mr. Tracy said I was to bring you this. It's from Mr. Arthur, and he's coming to-night. I'm so glad, and grandma will be, too!'

If Mrs. Tracy heard the last of Harold's speech she did not heed it, for she had caught the words that Arthur was coming that night, and, for a moment, she felt giddy and faint, and her hand shook so she could scarcely open the telegram.

Arthur had been gone so long and left them in undisputed possession of the park, that she had come to feel as if it belonged to them by right, and she had grown so into a life of ease and luxury, that to give it up now and go back to Langley seemed impossible to her. She could see it all so plainly—the old life of obscurity and toil in the little kitchen where she had eaten her breakfast on winter mornings so near the stove that she could cook her buckwheats on the griddle and transfer them to her own and her husband's plates without leaving her seat. She had been happy, or comparatively so there, she said to herself, because she knew no better. But now she did know better, and she ate her breakfast in an oak-paneled dining-room, with a waitress at her elbow, and her buckwheats hot from a silver dish instead of the smoking griddle. She had a governess for her two boys, Tom and Jack, and a nurse for her little Maude, who, in her ambitious heart, she hoped would one day marry Dick St. Clair, the young heir of Grassy Spring.

It never occurred to Dolly that they might possibly remain at the park if Arthur did come home. She felt sure they could not, for Arthur would hardly approve of his brother's stewardship when he came to realize how much it had cost him. They would have to leave, and this party she was giving would be her first and last at Tracy Park. How she wished she had never thought of it, or, having thought of it, that she had omitted from the list those who, she knew, would be obnoxious to the foreign brother, and who had only been invited for the sake of their political influence, which would now be useless, for Frank Tracy as a nobody, with very little money to spend, would not run as well, even in his own party, as Frank Tracy of Tracy Park, with thousands at his command if he chose to take them.

'It is too bad, and I wish we could give up the party,' she said aloud, forgetting in her excitement that Harold was still standing there, gazing curiously at her. 'You here yet? I thought you had gone!' she said, half angrily, as she recovered herself a little and met the boy's wondering eyes.

'Yes'm; but you ain't going to give the party up?' he said, afraid of losing his half-dollar.

'Of course not. How can I, with all the people invited?' she asked, questioningly, and a little less sharply.

'I don't know, unless I get a pony and go round and tell 'em not to come,' Harold suggested, thinking he might earn his fifty cents as easily that way as any other.

But, much as Mrs. Tracy wished the party had never been thought of, she could not now abandon it, and declining the services of Harold and his pony, she again bade him go home, with a charge that he should be on time in the evening, adding, as she surveyed him critically:

'If you have no clothes suitable, you can wear some of Tom's. You are about his size.'

'Thank you; I have my meetin' clothes, and do not want Tom's,' was Harold's reply, as he walked away, thinking he would go in rags before he would wear anything which belonged to his enemy, Tom Tracy.

The rest of the morning was passed by Mrs. Frank in a most unhappy frame of mind, and she was glad when, at an hour earlier than she had reason to expect him, her husband came home.

'Well, Dolly,' he said, the moment they were alone, 'this is awfully unlucky, the whole business. If Arthur must come home, why couldn't he have written in advance, and not take us by surprise? Looks as if he meant to spring a trap on us, don't it? And if he did, by Jove, he has caught us nicely. It will be somewhat like the prodigal son, who heard the sound of music and dancing, only I don't suppose Arthur has spent his substance in riotous living, with not over nice people; but there is no telling what he has been up to all these years that he has not written to us. Perhaps he is married. He said in his telegram, "Send to meet us." What does that mean, if not a wife?'

'A wife! Oh, Frank!' and with a great gasp Dolly sank down upon the lounge near where she was standing, and actually went into the hysterics her husband had prophesied.

In reading the telegram she had not noticed the little monosyllable 'us,' which was now affecting her so powerfully. Of course it meant a wife and possibly children, and her day was surely over at Tracy Park. It was in vain that her husband tried to comfort her, saying that they knew nothing positively, except that Arthur was coming home and somebody was coming with him; it might be a friend, or, what was more likely, it might be a valet; and at all events he was not going to cross Fox River till he reached it, when he might find a bridge across it.

But Frank's reasoning did not console his wife, whose hysterical fit was succeeded by a racking headache, which by night was almost unbearable. Strong coffee, aconite, brandy, and belladonna, were all tried without effect. Nothing helped her until she commenced her toilet, when in the excitement of dressing she partly forgot her disquietude, and the pain in her head grew leas. Still she was conscious of a feeling of wretchedness and regret as she sat in her handsome boudoir and felt that it might be for the last time—that on the morrow another would be mistress where she had reigned so long.

It was known in the house that Arthur was expected, and some one with him, but no hint had been given of a wife, and Mrs. Tracy had ordered separate rooms prepared for the strangers, who were to arrive on the half-past ten train. How she should manage to keep up and appear natural until that time Mrs. Tracy did not know, and her face and eyes wore an anxious, frightened look, which all her finery could not hide. And still she was really very handsome and striking in her dress of peach blow satin, and the bare arms which had once been more familiar with soap-suds and dishwater than lace and gold bracelets, looked very fair and girlish when at last she descended to the drawing-room and stood waiting for the first ring which would open the party.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COTTAGE IN THE LANE.

It was called thus because it stood at the end of a broad, grassy avenue or lane, which led from the park to the entrance of the grounds of Collingwood, whose chimneys and gables were distinctly visible in the winter when the trees were stripped of their foliage. At the time when Mrs. Crawford took possession of it its color was red, but the storms and rains of eleven summers and winters had washed nearly all the red away; and as Mrs. Crawford had never had the money to spare for its repainting, it would have presented a brown and dingy appearance outwardly, but for the luxurious woodbine, which she had trained with so much care and skill that it covered nearly three sides of the cottage, and made a gorgeous display in the autumn, when the leaves had turned a bright scarlet.

Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Arthur Tracy, the cottage was furnished comfortably and even prettily when Mrs. Crawford entered it, and it was from the same kind friend that her resources mostly had come up to the day when, three years after her marriage, Amy Hastings came home to die, bringing with her a little two-year-old boy, whom, she called Harold, for his father. Just where the father was, if indeed he were living, she did not know. He had left her in London six months before, saying he was going over to Paris for a few days, and should be back almost before she had time to miss him. Just before he left her he said to her, playfully:

'Cheer up, petite. I have not been quite as regular in my habits as I ought to have been, but London is not the place for a man of my tastes—too many temptations for a fellow like me. When I come back we will go into the country, where you can have a garden, with flowers and chickens, and grow fat and pretty again. You are not much like the girl I married. Good-bye.'

He kissed her and the baby, and went whistling down the stairs. She never saw him again, and only heard from him once. Then he was in Paris, and had decided to go for a week to Pau, where he said they were having such fine fox hunts. Weeks went by and he never wrote nor came, and Amy would have been utterly destitute and friendless but for Arthur Tracy, who, when her need was greatest, went to her, telling her that he had never been far from her, but had watched over her vigilantly to see that no harm came to her. When her husband went to Paris he knew it through a detective, and from the same source knew when he went to Pau, where all trace of him had been lost.

'But we are sure to find him again,' he said, encouragingly; 'and meantime I shall see that you do not suffer. As an old friend of your husband, you will allow me to care for you until he is found.'

And Amy, who had no alternative, accepted his care, and tried to seem cheerful and brave while waiting for the husband who never came back.

At last when all hope of seeing him again was gone, Arthur sent her home to the cottage in the lane, where her mother received her gladly, thanking Heaven that she had her daughter back again. But not for long. Poor Amy's heart was broken. She loved her husband devotedly, and his cruel desertion of her—for she knew now it was that—hurt her more than years of suffering with him could have done. Occasionally she heard from Arthur, who was still busy in search of the delinquent, and who always sent in his letter a substantial proof of his friendship and generosity.

And so the weeks and months went by; and then, one day, there came a letter in the well-known handwriting. But it was Mrs. Crawford who opened it and read that Harold Hastings was dead: that Amy was free, and that Arthur Tracy, who through all had loved her just as well as when he first asked her to be his wife, now put the question again, offering to make her the mistress of Tracy Park and surround her with every possible comfort.

'Say yes, darling Amy,' he wrote, 'and we may yet be very happy. I will be a good husband to you and a father to your child, who shall share my fortune as if he were my own. Answer at once, telling me to come, and, before you know it I shall be there to claim you for my wife.'

With a low moan, Mrs. Crawford hid her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, for the Amy who might have been the honored wife of Arthur Tracy lay dead in her coffin; and that day they buried her under the November snow, which was falling in great sheets upon the frozen ground. What Arthur felt when he heard the news no one ever knew, for he made no sign to any one, but at once gave orders to Colvin that a costly monument should be placed at her grave, with only this inscription upon it:

AMY
Aged 23.

Of course the low-minded people talked, and Mrs. Crawford knew they did; but her heart was too full of sorrow to care what was said. Her beautiful daughter was dead, and she was alone with the little boy, the child Harold, who had inherited his mother's beauty, with all her lovely traits of character. Had Mrs. Crawford consented, Arthur would have supported him entirely; but she was too proud for that. She would take care of him herself as long as possible, she wrote him, but if, when Harold was older, he chose to educate him, she would offer no objection.

And there the matter dropped, and Mrs. Crawford struggled on as best she could, sometimes going out to do plain sewing, sometimes taking it home, sometimes going to people's houses to superintend when they had company, and sometimes selling fruit and flowers from the garden attached to the cottage. But whatever she did, she was always the same quiet, lady-like woman, who commanded the respect of all, and who, poor as she was, was held in high esteem by the better class in Shannondale. Grace Atherton's carriage and that of Edith St. Claire stood oftener before her door than that at Tracy Park; and though the ladies came mostly on business, they found themselves lingering after the business was over to talk with one who, in everything save money, was their equal.

Harold was his grandmother's idol. For him she toiled and worked, feeling more than repaid for all she did by his love and devotion to her. And Harold was a noble little fellow, full of manly instincts, and always ready to deny himself for the sake of others. That he and his grandmother were poor he knew, but he had never felt the effects of their poverty, save when Tom Tracy had jeered at him for it, and called him a pauper. There had been one square fight between the two boys, in which Harold had been the victor, with only a torn jacket, while Tom's eye had been black for a week, and Mrs. Tracy had gone to the cottage to complain and insist that Harold should be punished. But when she heard that Dick St. Claire had assisted in the fray, taking Harold's part, and himself dealing Tom the blow which blackened his eye, she changed her tactics, for she did not care to quarrel with Mrs. Arthur St. Claire, of Grassy Spring.

Harold and Richard St. Claire, or Dick, as he was familiarly called, were great friends, and if the latter knew there was a difference between himself and the child of poverty he never manifested it, and played far oftener with Harold than with Tom, whose domineering disposition and rough manners were distasteful to him. That Harold would one day be obliged to earn his living, Mrs. Crawford knew, but he was still too young for anything of that kind; and when Grace Atherton, or Mrs. St. Claire offered him money for the errands he sometimes did for them, she steadily refused to let him take it. Had she known of Mrs. Tracy's proposition that he should be present at the party as hall-boy, she would have declined, for though she could go there herself as an employee, she shrank from suffering Harold to do so. That Mrs. Tracy was not a lady, she knew, and in her heart there was always a feeling of superiority to the woman even while she served her, and she was not as sorry, perhaps, as she ought to have been, for the attack of rheumatism which would prevent her from going to the park to take charge of the kitchen during the evening.

'I am sorry to disappoint her, but I am glad not to be there,' she was thinking to herself as she sat in her bright, cheerful kitchen, waiting for Harold, when he burst in upon her, exclaiming:

'Oh, grandma, only think! I am invited to the party, and I told her I'd go, and I am to be there at half-past seven sharp, and to wear my meetin' clothes.'

'Invited to the party! What do you mean? Only grown up people are to be there,' Mrs. Crawford said.

'Yes, I know;' replied Harold, 'but I'm not to be with the grown-ups. I'm to stay in the upper hall and tell 'em where to go.'

'Oh, you are to be a waiter,' was Mrs. Crawford's rather contemptuous remark, which Harold did not heed in his excitement.

'Yes, I'm to be at the head of the stairs, and somebody else at the bottom; and they are to have fiddlin and dancin'; I've never seen anybody dance; and ice-cream and cake, with something like plaster all over it, and oranges and grapes, and, oh, everything! Dick St. Claire told me; he knows; his mother has had parties, and she's going to-night, and her gown is crimson velvet, with black and white fur in it like our cat, only they don't call it that; and—oh, I forgot—they have had a telegraph, and I took it to Mrs. Tracy, who looked mad and almost cried when she read it, Mr. Arthur Tracy is coming home to-night.'

Harold had talked so fast that his grandmother could hardly follow him, but she understood what he said last, and started as if he had struck her a blow.

'Arthur Tracy! Coming home to-night!' she exclaimed. 'Oh, I am so glad, so glad.'

'But Mrs. Tracy did not seem to be, and I guess she wanted to stop the party,' Harold said, repeating as nearly as he could what had passed between him and the lady.

Harold was full of the party to which he believed he had been invited, and when in the afternoon Dick St. Claire came to the cottage to play with him, he felt a kind of patronizing pity for his friend who was not to share his honor.

'Perhaps mother will let me come over and help you,' Dick said, 'I know how they do it. You mustn't talk to the people as they come up the stairs, nor even say good-evening, only;

'"Ladies will please walk this way, and gentlemen that!"

And Dick went through with a pantomime performance for the benefit of Harold, who, when the drill was over, felt himself competent to receive the Queen's guests at the head of the great staircase in Windsor Castle.

'Yes, I know,' he said, '"Ladies this way, and gentlemen that;" but when am I to go down and see the dancing and get some ice-cream?'

On this point Dick was doubtful. He did not believe, he said, that waiters ever went down to see the dancing, or to get ice cream, until the party was over, and then they ate it in the kitchen, if there was any left.

This was not a cheerful outlook for Harold, whose thoughts were more intent upon cream and dancing than upon showing the people where to go, and it was also the second time the word waiter had been used in connection with what he was expected to do. But Harold was too young to understand that he was not of the party itself. Later on it would come to him fast enough, that he was only a part of the machinery which moved the social engine. Now, he felt like the engine itself, and long before six o'clock he was dressed, and waiting anxiously for his grandmother's permission to start.'

'I'll tell you all about it,' he said to her. 'What they do, and what they say, and what they wear, and if I can, I'll speak to Mr. Arthur Tracy and thank him for mother's grave-stone.'

By seven o'clock he was on his way to the park, walking rapidly, and occasionally saying aloud with a gesture of his hand to the right and the left, and a bow almost to the ground.

'Ladies this way,' and 'gentlemen that.'

When he reached the house the gas-jets had just been turned up, and every window was ablaze with light from the attic to the basement.

'My eye! ain't it swell!' Harold said to himself, as he stood a moment, looking at the brilliantly lighted rooms. 'Don't I wish I was rich and could burn all that gas, and maybe I shall be. Grandma says Mr. Arthur Tracy was once a poor boy like me; only he had an uncle and I haven't. I've got do earn my money, and I mean to, and sometimes, maybe, I'll have a house us big as this, and just such a party, with a boy up stairs to tell 'em where to go. I wonder now if I'm expected to go into the kitchen door. Of course not, I've got on my Sunday clothes, and am invited to the party. I shall ring,'

And he did ring—a sharp, loud ring, which made Mrs. Tracy, who had not yet left her room, start nervously as she wondered who had come so early.

'Old Peterkin, of course. Those whom you care for least always come first.'

Peering over the banister Tom Tracy saw Harold when the door was opened, and screaming to his mother at the top of his voice, 'It ain't old Peterkin, mother; it's Hall Hastings, come to the front door,' he ran down the stairs, and confronting the intruder just as he was crossing the threshold, exclaimed:

'Go 'long; go back. You hain't no business ringin' the bell as if you was a gentleman. Go to the kitchen door with the other servants!'

With a thrust of the hand he pushed Harold back and was about to shut the door upon him when, with a quick, dextrous movement, Harold darted past him into the hall, saying, as he did so:

'Darn you, Tom Tracy, I won't go to the back kitchen door, and I'm not a servant, and if you call me so again I'll lick you!'

How the matter would have ended is doubtful, if Mrs. Tracy had not called from the head of the stairs:

'Thomas! Thomas Tracy! I am ashamed of you! Come to me this minute! And you, boy, go to the kitchen; or, no—now you are here, come up stairs, and I'll tell you what you are to do.'

Her directions were much like those of Dick St. Claire, except that she laid more stress upon the fact that he was not to speak to any one familiarly, but was to be in all respects a machine. Just what she meant by that Harold did not know; but he hung his cap on a bracket, and taking his place where she told him to stand, watched her admiringly as she went down the staircase, with her peach-blow satin trailing behind her, and followed, by her husband, who looked and felt anxious and ill at ease.

Tom had disappeared, but his younger brother, Jack, who was wholly unlike him, came to Harold's side, and began telling him what quantities of good things there were in the dining-room and pantry, and that his Uncle Arthur was coming home that night, and his mother was so glad, she cried; then, with a spring he mounted upon the banister of the long staircase and slipped swiftly to the bottom. Ascending the stairs almost as quickly as he had gone down, he bade Harold try it with him.

'It's such fun! and mother won't care. I've done it forty times,' he said, as Harold demurred; and then, as the temptation became too strong to be resisted, two boys instead of one rode down the banister and landed in the lower hall, and two pairs of little legs ran nimbly up the stairs just as the door opened and admitted the first arrival.

CHAPTER VII

THE PARTY.

The invitations had been for half-past seven, and precisely at that hour Peterkin arrived, magnificent in his swallow-tail and white shirt front, where an enormous diamond shone conspicuously. With him came the second Mrs. Peterkin, whose name was Mary Jane, but whom her husband always called May Jane. She was a frail, pale faced little woman, and had once been Grace Atherton's maid, but had married Peterkin for his money. This was her first appearance at a grand party, and in her excitement and timidity she did not hear Harold's thrice repeated words, 'Ladies go that way,' but followed her husband into the gentlemen's dressing-room, where she deposited her wraps, and then, shaking in every limb, descended to the drawing-room, where Peterkin's boisterous laugh was soon heard, as he slapped his host on the shoulder, and said:

'You see, we are here on time, though May Jane said it was too early. But I s'posed half-past seven meant half-past seven and then I wanted a little time to talk up the ropes with you. We are going to run you in, you bet!' and again his coarse laugh thrilled every nerve in Mrs. Tracy's body, and she longed for fresh arrivals to help quiet this vulgar man.

Soon they began to come by twos, and threes, and sixes, and Harold was kept busy with his 'Ladies this way, and gentlemen that.'

After Mrs. Peterkin had gone down stairs, leaving her wraps in the gentlemen's rooms, Harold, who knew they did not belong there, had carried them to the ladies' room and deposited them upon the bed, just as the girl who was to be in attendance appeared at her post, asked him sharply why he was in there rummaging the ladies' things.

'I'm not rummaging. They are Mrs. Peterkin's. She left them in the other room, and I brought them here,' Harold said, as he returned to the hall, never dreaming that this little circumstance, trivial as it seemed, would be one of the links in the chain of evidence which must for a time overshadow him so darkly.

Now, he was eager and excited, and interested in watching the people as they came up the stairs and went down again. With the quick instinct of a bright, intelligent boy, he decided who was accustomed to society and who was not, and leaning over the banister when not on duty, watched them when they entered the drawing-room and were received by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy. Unconsciously he began to imitate them, bowing when they bowed, and saying softly to himself:

'Oh, how do you do? Good evening. Happy to see you. Pleasant to-night. Walk in. Ye-as!'

This was the monosyllable with which he finished every sentence, and was the affirmation to the thought in his mind that he, too, would some day go down those stairs and into those parlors as a guest, while some other boy in the upper hall bade the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that.

It was after nine when Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire arrived, with Squire Harrington, from Collingwood. Harold had been looking for them, anxious to see the crimson satin trimmed with ermine, of which Dick had told him. Many of the guests he had mentally criticised unsparingly, but Mrs. St. Claire, he knew, was genuine, and his face beamed, when in passing him, she smiled upon him with her sweet, gracious manner, and said, pleasantly:

'Good evening, Harold. I knew you were to be here. Dick told me, and he wanted to come and assist you, but I thought he'd better stay home with Nina.'

Up to this time no one had spoken to Harold, and he had spoken to no one except to tell them where to go, but had, as far as possible, followed Mrs. Tracy's injunction to be a machine. But the machine was getting a little tired. It was hard work to stand for two hours or more, and Mrs. Tracy had impressed it upon him that he was not to sit down. But when Mrs. St. Claire came from the dressing-room and stood before him a moment in her crimson satin and pearls, he forgot his weariness and forgot that he was not to talk, and said to her, involuntarily:

'Oh, Mrs. St. Claire, how handsome you look! Handsomer than anybody yet, and different, too, somehow.'

Edith knew the compliment was genuine, and she replied:

'Thank you, Harold,' then, laying her hand on the boy's head and parting his soft, brown hair, she said, as she noticed a look of fatigue in his eyes, 'are you not tired, standing so long? Why don't you bring a chair from one of the rooms and sit when you can?'

'She told me to stand,' Harold replied, nodding toward the parlors, from which a strain of music then issued.

The dancing had commenced, and Harold's feet and hands beat time to the lively strains of the piano and violin, until he could contain himself no longer. The dancing he must see at all hazards and know what it was like, and when the last guests came up the stairs there was no hall boy there to tell them, 'Ladies this way, gentlemen that,' for Harold was in the thickest of the crowd, standing on a chair so as to look over the heads of those in front of him and see the dancers. But, alas, for poor Harold! He was soon discovered by Mrs. Tracy, who, asking him if he did not know his place better than that, ordered him back to his post, where he was told to stay until the party was over.

Wholly unconscious of the nature of his offence, but very sorry that he had offended, Harold went up the stairs, wondering why he could not see the dancing, and how long the party would last. His head was beginning to ache with the glare and gas; his little legs were tired, and he was growing sleepy. Surely he might sit down now, particularly as Mrs. St. Claire had suggested it, and bringing himself a chair from one of the rooms he sat down in a corner of the hall and was soon in a sound sleep, from which, however, he was roused by the sound of Mr. Tracy's voice, as he came up the stairs, followed by a tall, distinguished-looking man, who wore a Spanish cloak wrapped gracefully around him, and a large, broad-brimmed hat drawn down so closely, as to hide his features from view.

As he reached the upper landing he raised his head, and Harold, who was now wide awake and standing up, caught a glimpse of a thin, pale face and a pair of keen, black eyes, which seemed for an instant to take everything in; than the head was dropped, and the two men disappeared in a room at the far end of the hall.

'I'll bet that's Mr. Arthur. How grand he is! looks just like a pirate in that cloak and hat,' was Harold's mental comment.

Before he had time for further thought, Frank Tracy came from the room and hurried down the stairs to rejoin his guests.

Five minutes later and the door at the end of the long hall which communicated with the back staircase and the rear of the house, opened, and a man whom Harold recognized as the expressman from the station appeared with a huge trunk on his shoulder and a large valise in his hand. These he deposited in the stranger's room and then went back for more, until four had been carried in. But when he came with the fifth and largest of all, a hand, white and delicate as a woman's, was thrust from the door-way with an imperative gesture, and a voice with a decided foreign accent exclaimed:

'For heaven's sake, don't bring any more boxes in here. Why, I am positively stumbling over them now. Surely there must be some place in the house for my luggage besides my private apartment.'

Then the door was shut with a bang, and Harold heard the sliding of the bolt as Arthur Tracy fastened himself in his room.

CHAPTER VIII

ARTHUR.

All the time that Frank Tracy had been receiving his guests and trying to seem happy and at his ease, his thoughts had been dwelling upon his brother's telegram and the ominous words, 'Send some one to meet us.' How slowly the minutes dragged until it was ten o'clock, and he knew that John had started for the station to meet the dreaded 'us.' He had told everybody that he was expecting his long-absent brother, and had tried to seem glad on account of it.

'You and he were great friends, I believe,' he said to Squire Harrington.

'Yes, we were friends,' the latter replied; 'but when he lived here my health was such that I did not mingle much in society. I met him, however, in Paris four years ago, and found him very companionable and quite Europeanized in his manner and tastes. He spoke French or German altogether, and might easily have passed for a foreigner. I shall be glad to see him.'

'And so shall I,' chimed in Peterkin, whose voice was like a trumpet and could be heard everywhere. 'A first-rate chap, though we didn't use to hitch very well together. He was all-fired big feelin', and them days Peterkin was nowhere; but circumstances alter cases. He'll be glad to see me now, no doubt;' and with the most satisfied air the half millionaire put his hand as if by accident to his immense diamond pin, and pulling down his swallow-tail, walked away.

Frank saw the faint smile of contempt which showed itself in Squire Harrington's face, and his own grew red with shame, but paled almost instantly as the outer door was opened by some one who did not seem to think it necessary to ring; and a stranger, in Spanish cloak and broad-brimmed hat, stepped into the hall.

Arthur had come, and was alone. The train had been on time, and at just half-past ten the long line of cars stopped before the Shannondale station, where John, the coachman from Tracy Park, was waiting. The night was dark, but by the light from the engine and the office John saw the foreign-looking stranger, who stepped upon the platform, and felt sure it was his man. But there was no one with him, though it seemed as if he were expecting some one to follow him from the car as he stood for a moment waiting. Then, as the train moved on, he turned with a puzzled look upon his face to meet John, who said to him, respectfully:

'Are you Mr. Arthur Tracy?'

'Yes; who are you?' was the not very cordial response.

'Mr. Frank Tracy sent me from the park to fetch you,' John replied. 'I think he expected some one with you. Are you alone?'

'Yes—no, no!' and Arthur's voice indicated growing alarm and uneasiness as he looked rapidly around him, 'Where is she? Didn't you see her? She was with me all the way. Surely she got off when I did. Where can she have gone?'

He was greatly excited, and kept peering through the darkness as he talked; while John, a good deal puzzled, looked curiously at him, as if uncertain whether he were in his right mind or not.

'Was there some one with you in the car?' he asked.

'Yes, in the car, and in New York, and on the ship. She was with me all the way,' Mr. Tracy replied. 'It is strange where she is now. Did no one alight from the train when I did?'

'No one,' John answered, more puzzled than ever.... 'I was looking for you, and there was no one else. She may have fallen asleep and been carried by.'

'Yes, probably that is it,' Mr. Tracy said, more cheerfully, 'she was asleep and carried by. She will come back to-morrow.'

He seemed quite content with this solution of the mystery, and began to talk of his luggage, which lay upon the platform—a pile so immense that John looked at it in some alarm, knowing that the carriage could never take it all.

'Eight trunks, two portmanteaus, and a hat-box!' he said, aloud, counting the pieces.

'Yes, and a nice sum those rascally agents in New York made me pay for having them come with me,' Arthur rejoined. 'They weighed them all, and charged me a little fortune. I might as well have sent them by express; but I wanted them with me, and here they are. What will you do with them? This is hers,' and he designated a black trunk or box, longer and larger than two ordinary trunks ought to be.

'I can take one of them with the box and portmanteau, and the expressman will take the rest. He is here. Hallo, Brown,' John said, calling to a man in the distance, who came forward, and, on learning what was wanted, begun piling the trunks into his wagon, while Arthur followed John, to the carriage, which he entered, and, sinking into a seat, pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his face and eyes, and sat as motionless as if he had been a stone.

For a moment John stood looking at him, wondering what manner of man he was, and thinking, too, of the woman who, he said, had been with him in the train, and who should have alighted with him. At last, remembering suddenly a message his master had given him, he began:

'If you please, sir, Mr. Tracy told me to tell you he was very sorry that he could not come himself to meet you. If he had known that you were coming sooner, he would have done different; but he did not get your telegram till this morning, and then it was too late to stop it. We are having a great break-down to-night.'

During the first of these remarks Arthur had given no sign that he heard, but when John spoke of a break-down, he lifted his head quickly, and the great black eyes, which Harold noticed later as peculiar, flashed a look of inquiry upon John, as he said:

'Break-down? What is that!'

'A party—a smasher! Mr. Tracy is running for Congress.' was John's reply.

And then over the thin face there crept a ghost of a smile, which, faint as it was, changed the expression wonderfully.

'Oh, a party!' he said. 'Well, I will be a guest, too. I have my dress-suit in some of those trunks. Frank is going to Congress, is he? That's a good joke! Drive on. What are you standing there for?'

The carriage door was shut, and, mounting the box, John drove as rapidly toward Tracy Park as the darkness of the night would admit, while the passenger inside sat with his hat over his eyes, and his chin almost touching his breast, as if absorbed in thought, or else not thinking at all. Once, however, he spoke to himself, and said:

'Poor little Gretchen! I wonder how I could have forgotten and left her in the train. What will she do alone in a strange place? But perhaps Heaven will take care of her. She always said so. I wish I had her faith and could believe as she does. Poor little Gretchen!'

They had turned into the park by this time, and very soon draw up before the house, from every window of which lights were flashing, while the sounds of music and dancing could be distinctly heard.

Something like Frank's idea came into Arthur's mind at the sight.

'It makes me think of the return of the prodigal, only I have not wasted my substance and my father does not come to meet me,' he said, as he descended from the carriage and went up the broad steps to the piazza, on which a few young people were walking, unmindful of the chill night air.

'I need not ring at my own house,' Arthur thought, as he opened the door and stepped into the hall; and thus it was that the first intimation which Frank had of his arrival was when he saw him standing in the midst of a crowd of people, who were gazing curiously at him.

'Arthur!' he exclaimed, rushing forward and taking his brother's hand. 'Welcome home again! I did not hear the carriage, though I was listening for it. I am so glad to see you! Come with me to your room;' and he led the way up stairs to the apartment prepared for the stranger.

He had seen at a glance that Arthur was alone, unless, indeed, he had brought a servant who had gone to the side door; and thus relieved from a load of anxiety, he was very cordial in his manner, and began at once to make excuses for the party, repeating in substance what John had already said.

'Yes, I know; that fellow who drove me here told me,' Arthur said, throwing off his coat and hat, and beginning to lave his face, and neck, and hands in the cold water which he turned into the bowl until it was full to the brim, and splashed over the sides as he dashed it upon himself.

All this time Frank had not seen his face distinctly, nor did he have an opportunity to do so until the ablutions were ended and Arthur had rubbed himself with, not one towel, but two, until it seemed as if he must have taken off the skin in places. Then he turned, and running his fingers through his luxuriant hair, which had a habit of curling around his forehead as in his boyhood, looked full at his brother, who saw that he was very pale and thin, and that his eyes were unnaturally large and bright, while there was about him an indescribable something which puzzled Frank a little. It was not altogether the air of foreign travel and cultivation which was so perceptible, but a something else—a restlessness and nervousness of speech and manner as he moved about the room, walking rapidly and gesticulating as he walked.

'You are looking thin and tired. Are you not well?' Frank asked.

'Oh, yes, perfectly well,' Arthur replied: 'only this infernal heat in my blood, which keeps me up to fever pitch all the time. I shall have to bathe my face again,' and, turning a second time to the bowl, he began to throw water over his face and hands as he had done before.

'I'd like a bath in ice water,' he said, as he began drying himself with a fresh towel. 'If I remember right, there is no bath-room on this floor, but I can soon have one built. I intend to throw down the wall between this room and the next, and perhaps the next, so as to have a suite.'

He was asserting the ownership at once, and Frank had nothing to say, for his brother was master there, and had a right to tear the house down if he chose. The second washing must have cooled him, for there came a change in his manner, and he moved more slowly and spoke with greater deliberation, as he asked some questions about the people below.

'Will you come down by-and-bye,' Frank said, after having made some explanations with regard to his guests.

'No, you will have to excuse me,' Arthur replied. 'I am too tired to encounter old acquaintances or make new. I do not believe I could stand old Peterkin, who you say is a millionaire. I suppose you want his influence; your coachman told me you were running for Congress,' and Arthur laughed the old merry musical laugh which Frank remembered so well: then, suddenly changing his tune, he said: 'When does the next train from the East pass the station?'

Frank told him at seven the next morning, and he continued:

'Please send the carriage to meet it. Gretchen will probably be there. She was in the train with me, and should have gotten out when I did, but she must have been asleep and carried by.'

'Gr-gr-gretchen! Who is she?' Frank stammered, while the cold sweat began to run down his back.

The 'us' in the telegram did mean something, and mischief, too, to his interests, he felt intuitively.

Instantly into Arthur's eyes there stole a look of cunning, and a peculiar smile played round his mouth as he replied:

'She is Gretchen. See that the carriage goes for her, will you?'

His voice and manner indicated that he wished the conference ended, and with a great sinking at his heart Frank left the room and returned to his guests and his wife, who had not seen the stranger when he entered the hall, and thus did not know of Arthur's arrival until her husband rejoined her.

'He has come,' he whispered to her, while she whispered back:

'Is he alone?'

'Yes, but somebody is coming to-morrow; I do not know who; Gretchen, he calls her,' was Frank's reply.

'Gretchen!' Mrs. Tracy repeated, in a trembling voice. 'Who is she?'

'I don't know. He merely said she was Gretchen; his daughter, perhaps,' was Frank's answer, which sent the color from his wife's cheeks, and made her so faint and sick that she would have given much to be alone and think over this evil coming upon her the next day in the shape of the mysterious Gretchen.

Meantime when left to himself, Arthur changed his mind with regard to going down into the parlors to see his brother's guests, and, unlocking the trunk which held his own wardrobe he took out an evening suit fresh from the hands of a London tailor, and, arraying himself in it, stood for a moment before the glass to see the effect. Everything was faultless, from his neck-tie to his boots; and, opening the door, he went out into the hall, which was empty, except for Harold, who was sitting near the stairs, half asleep again. Most of the guests were in the supper-room, but a few of the younger portion were dancing, and the strains of music were heard with great distinctness in the upper hall.

'Ugh!' Arthur said, with a shiver, as he stopped a moment to listen, while his quick eye took in every detail of the furniture and its arrangement in the hall. 'That violinist ought to be hung—the pianist, too! Don't they know what horrid discord they are making? It brings that heat back. I believe, upon my soul, I shall have to bathe my face again.'

Suiting the action to the word, he went back and washed his face for the third time; then returning to the hall, he advanced toward Harold, who was now wide awake and stood up to meet him. As Arthur met the clear-brown eyes fixed so curiously upon him, he stopped suddenly, and put his hand to his head as if trying to recall something; then going a step or two nearer to Harold, he said:

'Well, my little boy, what are you doing up here?'

'Telling the folks which way to go,' was Harold's answer.

'Who are you?' Arthur continued. 'What is your name?'

'Harold Hastings,' was the reply; and instantly there came over the white, thin face, and into the large, bright eyes, an expression which made the boy stand back a little as the tall man came up to him and, laying a hand on his shoulder, said, excitedly:

'Harold Hastings! He was once my friend, or, I thought he was; but I hate him now. And he was your father, and Amy Crawford was your mother? N'est ce pas? Answer me!'

'Yes, sir—yes, sir; but I don't know what you mean by "na-se par,"' Harold said, in a frightened voice; and Arthur continued, as he tightened his grasp on his shoulder:

'Don't you know you ought to have been my son, instead of his?'

'Yes, sir—yes, sir; I'll never do so again,' Harold stammered, too much alarmed now to know what he was saying, or of what he was accused.

'No, you never will do it again. I hated your father, and I hate you, and I am going to throw you over the stair railing!' Arthur said, and seizing Harold's coat-collar, he swung him over the banister as if he had been a feather, while the boy struggled and fought, and held onto the rails, until help appeared in the person of Frank Tracy, who came swiftly up the stairs, demanding the cause of what he saw.

He had been standing near the drawing-room door, and had caught the sound of his brother's voice and Harold's as if in altercation. Excusing himself from those around him, he hastened to the scene of action in time to save Harold from a broken limb, if not a broken neck.

'What is it? What have you been doing?' he asked the boy, who replied, amid his tears:

'I hain't been doing anything, only minding my business, and he came and asked me who I was, and when I told him, he was going to chuck me over the railing—darn him! I wish I was big; I'd lick him!'

Harold's cheeks were flushed, and the great tears glittered in his eyes, as he stood up, brave and defiant, and resentful of the injustice done him.

'Are you mad, Arthur?' Frank said.

And whether it was the tone of his voice, or the words he uttered, something produced a wonderful effect upon his brother, whose mood changed at once, and who advanced toward Harold with outstretched hand, saying to him:

'Forgive me, my little man. I think I must have been mad for the instant; there is such a heat in my head, and the crash of that music almost drives me wild. Shall it be peace between us, my boy?'

It was next to impossible to resist the influence of Arthur Tracy's smile, and Harold took the offered hand and said, between a sob and a laugh:

'I don't know now why you wanted to throw me down stairs.'

'Nor I, and I will make it up to you some time,' was Arthur's reply, as he took his brother's arm and said: 'Now introduce me to your guests.'

The moment the gentlemen disappeared from view Harold's resolution was taken. He was of no use there any longer, as he could see. It was nearly midnight. He was very tired and sleepy, and his head was aching terribly. He could not see the dancing. He had had nothing to eat; he had stood until his legs were ready to drop off, and to crown all a lunatic had tried to throw him over the banister.

'I won't stay here another minute,' he said.

And leaving the hall by the rear entrance, and slipping down a back stairway, he was soon in the open air, and running swiftly through the park toward the cottage in the lane.

Meanwhile the two brothers had descended to the drawing-room, where Arthur was soon surrounded by his friends and old acquaintances, whom he greeted with that cordiality and friendliness of manner which had made him so popular with those who knew him best. Every trace of excitement had disappeared, and had he been master of ceremonies himself, at whose bidding the guests were there, he could not have been more gracious or affable. Even old Peterkin, when he came into notice, was treated with a consideration which put that worthy man at ease, and set his tongue again in motion. At first he had felt a little overawed by Arthur's elegant appearance, and had whispered to his neighbor:

'That's a swell, and no mistake. I s'pose that's what you call foreign get up. Well, me and ma is goin' to Europe some time, and hang me if I don't put on style when I come home. I'd kind of like to speak to the feller. I wonder if he remember that I was runnin' a boat when he went away?'

If Arthur did remember it he showed no sign when Peterkin at last pressed up to him, claiming his attention, as Captain Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann, the fastest boat on the canal, and by George, the all-tiredest meanest, too, I guess, he said: 'but them days is past, and the old captain is past with them. I dabbled a little in ile, and if I do say it, I could about buy up the whole canal if I wanted to; but I ain't an atom proud, and I don't forget the old boatin' days, and I've got the old 'Liza Ann hauled up inter my back yard as a relict. The children use it for a play-house, but to me it is a—a—what do you call it? a—gol darn it, what is it?'

'Souvenir,' suggested Arthur, vastly amused at this tirade, which had assumed the form of a speech, and drawn a crowd around him.

'Wall, yes; I s'pose that's it, though 'taint exactly what I was trying to think of,' he said. It's a reminder, and keeps down my pride, for when I get to feelin' pretty big, after hearin' myself pointed out as Peterkin the millionaire, I go out to that old boat in the back yard, and says I, ''Liza Ann,' says I, 'you and me has took many a trip up and down the canal, with about the wust crew, and the wust hosses, and the wust boys that was ever created, and though you've got a new coat of paint onto you, and can set still all day and do nothing while I can wear the finest broadcloth and set still, too, it won't do for us to forget the pit from which we was dug, and I don't forget it neither, no more than I forgit favors shown when I was not fust cut. You, sir, rode on the 'Liza Ann with that crony of yours—Hastings was his name—and you paid me han'some, though I didn't ask nothin'; and ther's your brother—Frank, I call him. I don't forgit that he used to speak to me civil when I was nobody, and now, though I'm a Dimocrat, as everybody knows me knows, and everybody most does know me, for Shannondale allus was my native town, I'm goin' to run him into Congress, if it takes my bottom dollar, and anybody, Republican or Dimocrat; who don't vote him ain't my friend, and must expect to feel the full heft of my—my—'

'Powerful disapprobation,' Arthur said, softly, and Peterkin continued:

'Thank you, sir, that's the word—powerful, sir, powerful, powerful,' and he glowered threateningly at two or three young men in white kids and high shirt collars, who were known to prefer the opposing candidate.

Peterkin had finished his harrangue, and was wiping his wet face with his handkerchief, when Arthur, who had listened to him with well-bred attention, said:

'I thank you, Captain Peterkin, for your interest in my brother, who, if he succeeds, will, I am sure, owe his success to your influence, and be grateful in proportion. Perhaps you have a bill you would like him to bring before the House?'

'No,' Peterkin said, with a shake of the head. 'My Bill is a little shaver, eight or nine years old; too young to go from home, but'—and he lowered his voice: a little—'I don't mind saying that if there should be a chance, I'd like the post-office fust-rate. It would be a kind of hist, you know, to see my name in print, Captain Joseph Peterkin, P.M.'

Here the conversation ended, and the aspirant for the post-office, who had tired himself out, stepped aside and gave place to others who were anxious to renew their acquaintance with Arthur. It was between one and two o'clock in the morning when the party finally broke up, and, as the Peterkins had been the first to arrive, so they were the last to leave, and Mrs. Peterkin found herself again in the gentlemen's dressing-room, looking after her wraps. But they were not there, and after a vain and anxious search she said to her husband:

'Joe, somebody has stole my things, and 'twas my Indian shawl, too, and gold-headed pin, with the little diamond.'

Mrs. Tracy was at once summoned to the scene, and the missing wraps were found in the ladies' room, where Harold had carried them, but the gold-headed shawl-pin was gone and could not be found.

Lucy, the girl in attendance, said, when questioned, that she knew nothing of the pin or Mrs. Peterkin's wraps either, except that on first going up to the room after the lady's arrival, she found Harold Hastings fumbling them over, and that she sent him out with a sharp reprimand. Harold was then looked for and could not be found, for he had been at home and in bed for a good two hours. Clearly, then, he knew something of the pin; and Peterkin and his wife said good-night, resolving to see the boy the first thing in the morning, and demand their property.

When the Peterkins were gone, Arthur started at once for his room, but stopped at the foot of the stairs and said to his brother:

'Don't forget to have the carriage at the station at seven o'clock. Gretchen is sure to be there.'

'All right,' was Frank's reply.

While Mrs. Tracy asked:

'Who is Gretchen?'

If Arthur heard her he made no reply, but kept on up the stairs to his room, where they heard him for a long time walking about, opening and shutting windows, locking and unlocking trunks, and occasionally splashing water over his face and hands.

'Your brother is a very elegant-looking man,' Mrs. Tracy said to her husband as she was preparing to retire. 'Quite like a foreigner, but how bright his eyes are, and they look at you sometimes as if they would see through you and know what you were thinking. They almost make me afraid of him.'

Frank made no direct reply. In his heart there was an undefined fear which he then could not put into words, and with the remark that he was very tired, he stepped into bed, and was just falling into a quiet sleep when there came a knock upon his door loud enough, it seemed to him, to waken the dead. Starting up he demanded who was there and what was wanted.

'It is I,' Arthur said. 'I thought I smelled gas, and I have been hunting round for it. There is nothing worse to breathe than gas, whether from the furnace, the pipes, or the drain. I hope that is all right.'

'Yes,' Frank answered, a little crossly. 'Had a new one put in two weeks ago.'

'If there's gas in the main sewer it will come up just the same, and I am sure I smell it,' Arthur said. 'I think I shall have all the waste-pipes which connect with the drain cut off. Good-night. Am sorry I disturbed you.'

They heard him as he went across the hall to his room, and Frank was settling down again to sleep when there came a second knock, and Arthur said, in a whisper:

'I hope I do not trouble you, but I have decided to go myself to the station to meet Gretchen. She is very timid, and does not speak much English. Good-night once more, and pleasant dreams.'

To sleep now was impossible, and both husband and wife turned restlessly on their pillows, Frank wondering what ailed his brother, and Dolly wondering who Gretchen was and how her coming would affect them.

CHAPTER IX.

WHO IS GRETCHEN?

This was the question which Mr. and Mrs. Tracy asked of themselves and each other many times during the hours which intervened between their retiring and rising. But speculate as they might they could reach no satisfactory conclusion, and were obliged to wait for what the morning and the train might bring. The party had been a success, and Frank felt that his election to Congress was almost certain; but of what avail would all this be if he lost his foothold at Tracy Park, as he was sure to do if a woman appeared upon the scene. Both he and his wife had outgrown the life of eleven years ago, and could not go back to it without a struggle, and it is not strange if both wished that the troublesome brother had remained abroad instead of coming home so suddenly and disturbing all their plans. They heard him moving in his room before the clock struck six, and knew he was getting himself in readiness to meet the dreaded Gretchen. Then, long before the carriage came round they heard him in the hall opening the windows and admitting a gust of wind which blew their door open, and when Frank arose to shut it he saw the top of Arthur's broad-brimmed hat disappearing down the stairs.

'I believe he is going to walk to the station; he certainly is crazy,' Frank said to his wife, as they dressed themselves and waited with feverish impatience for the return of the carriage.

Arthur did walk to the station, which he reached just as the ticket agent was unlocking the door, and there, with his Spanish cloak wrapped around him, he stalked up and down the long platform for more than an hour, for the train was late, and it was nearer eight than seven when it finally came in sight.

Standing side by side Arthur and John looked anxiously for some one to alight, but nobody appeared and the expression of Arthur's face was pitiable as he turned it to John, and said:

'Gretchen did not come. Where do you suppose she is?'

'I am sure I don't know. On the next train, may be,' was John's reply, at which Arthur caught eagerly.

'Yes, the next train, most likely. We will come and meet it; and now drive home as fast as you can. This disappointment has brought that heat to my head, and I must have a bath. But, stop a bit; who is the best carpenter in town?'

John told him that Belknap was the best, and Burchard the highest priced.

'I'll see them both,' Arthur said. 'Take me to their houses;' and in the course of half an hour he had interviewed both Burchard and Belknap, and made an appointment with both for the afternoon.

Then he was driven back to Tracy Park, where breakfast had been waiting until it was spoiled, and the cook's temper was spoiled, too, and when Frank and Dolly met him at the door, both asked in the same breath:

'Where is she?'

'She was not on this train. She will come on the next. We must go and meet her,' was Arthur's reply, as he passed up the stairs, while Frank and his wife looked wonderingly at each other.

The spoiled breakfast was eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy alone, for the children had had theirs and gone to their lessons, and Arthur had said that he never took anything in the morning except a cup of coffee and a roll, and these he wished sent to his room, together with a time-table.

After breakfast Mrs. Tracy, who was suffering from a sick headache, declared her inability to sit up a moment longer and returned to her bed, leaving her husband and the servants to bring what order they could out of the confusion reigning everywhere, and nowhere to a greater extent than in Arthur's room, or rather the rooms which he had appropriated to himself, and into which he had had all his numerous boxes and trunks brought, so that he could open them at his leisure. There were more coming by express, he said, boxes which came through the custom-house, for he had brought many valuable things, such as pictures, and statuary, and rugs and inlaid tables and chinas, with which to adorn his home.

The house, which was very large, had a wing on either side, while the main building was divided by a wide hall, with three rooms on each side, the middle one being a little smaller than the other two, with each of which it communicated by a door. And it was into this middle room on the second floor Arthur had been put, and which he found quite too small for his use. So he ordered both the doors to be opened and took possession of the suite, pacing them several times, and then measuring their length, and breadth, and height, and the distance between the windows. Then he inspected the wing on that side of the house, and, going into the yard, looked the building over from all points, occasionally marking a few lines on the paper he held in his hand. Before noon every room in the house, except the one where Dolly lay sick with a headache had been visited and examined minutely, while Frank watched him nervously, wondering if he would think they had greatly injured anything, or had expended too much money on furniture. But Arthur was thinking of none of these things, and found fault with nothing except the drain and the gas fixtures, all of which he declared bad, saying that the latter must be changed at once, and that ten pounds of copperas must be bought immediately and put down the drain, and that quantities of chloride of lime and carbolic acid must be placed where there was the least danger of vegetable decomposition.

'I am very sensitive to smells, and afraid of them, too, for they breed malaria and disease of all kinds,' he said to the cook, whose nose and chin both were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she should give notice to quit.

But when, half an hour later, some boxes and trunks which had come by express were deposited in the back hall, and Arthur, who was superintending them, said to her, as he pointed to a large black trunk, 'I think this has the dress patterns and shawls I brought for you, girls; for though I did not know you personally, I knew that women were always pleased with anything from Paris' her feelings underwent a radical change, and Arthur was free to smell the drain and the gas fixtures as much as he liked.

He was very busy, and though always pleasant, and even familiar at times, there was in all he said and did an air of ownership, as if he had assumed the mastership. And he had. Everything was his, and he knew it, and Frank knew it, too, and gave no sign of rebelling when the reins were taken from him by one who seemed to be driving at a break-neck speed.

At lunch, while the brothers were together, Arthur announced his intentions in part, but not until Frank, who was anxious to get it off his mind, said to him:

'By the way, I suppose you will be going to the office this afternoon, to see Colvin and look over the books. I believe you will find them straight, and hope you will not think I have spent too much, or drawn too large a salary. It you do, I will—'

'Nonsense!' was Arthur's reply, with a graceful shrug of his shoulders. 'Don't bother about that there is money enough for us both. What I invested in Europe has trebled itself, and more too, and would make me a rich man if I had nothing else. I am always lucky. I played but once at Monte Carlo, just before I came home, and won ten thousand dollars, which I invested in—But no matter; that is a surprise—something for your wife and Gretchen. I have come home to stay. I do not think I am quite what I used to be. I was sick all that time when you heard from me so seldom, and I am not strong yet. I need quite a rest. I have seen the world, and am tired of it, and now I want a house for Gretchen and myself, and you too. I expect you to stay with me as long as we pull together pleasantly and you do not interfere with my plans. I am going to take the three south rooms on the second floor for my own. I shall put folding-doors, or rather a wide arch between two of them, making them almost like one, and these I shall fit up to suit my own taste. In the smaller and middle room, where I slept last night, I shall have a large bow window, with shelves for books in the spaces between and beneath, and by the sides of the windows. I got the idea in a villa a little way out of Florence. Opposite this bow window, on the other side of the room, I shall have niches in the wall and corners for statuary, with shelves for books above and below. I have some beautiful pieces of marble from Florence and Rome. The Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvidere, Nydra and Psyche, and Ruth at the Well. But the crowning glory of this room will be the upper half of the middle window of the bow. This is to be of stained glass, bright but soft colors which harmonize perfectly, two rows on the four sides, and in the centre a lovely picture of Gretchen, also of cathedral glass, and so like her that it seems to speak to me in her soft German tongue. I had it made from a photograph I have of her, and it is very natural—the same sad, sweet smile around the lips which never said an unkind word to any one—the same bright, wavy hair, and eyes of blue, innocent as a child—and Gretchen is little more than that. She is only twenty-one—poor little Gretchen!' and, leaning back in his chair, Arthur seemed to be lost in recollections of the past.

Not pleasant, all of them, it would seem, for there was a moisture in his eyes when he at last looked up in response to his brother's questioning.

'Who did you say Gretchen was?'

Instantly the expression of the eye changed to one of weariness and caution, as Arthur replied:

'I did not say who she was, but you will soon know. I saw by the time-table that the train which passes here at eleven does not stop, but the three o'clock does, and you will please see that John goes with the carriage. I may be occupied with the carpenters, Burchard and Belknap, who were coming to talk with me about the changes I purpose to make, and which I wish commenced immediately. It is a rule of mine that when I am to do a thing, to do it at once. So I shall employ at least twenty men, and before Christmas everything will be finished, and I will show you rooms worthy of a palace. It is of Gretchen I am thinking, more than of myself. Poor little Gretchen!'

Arthur's voice was inexpressibly sad and pitiful as he said 'Poor Gretchen,' while his eyes again grew soft and tender, with a far-away look in them, as if they were seeing things in the past rather than in the future.

There was not a particle of sentiment in Frank's nature, and Gretchen was to him an object of dread rather than a romance. So far as he could judge, his brother had no intention of routing him; but a woman in the field would be different, and he should at once lose his vantage-ground.

'You seem to be very fond of Gretchen,' he said, at last.

'Fond!' Arthur replied, 'I should say I am, though the poor child has not much cause to think so. But I am going to atone, and this suite of rooms is for her. I mean to make her a very queen, and dress her in satin and diamonds every day. She has the diamonds. I sent them to her when I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool.'

'And she did join you, I suppose?' Frank said, determined by adroit questioning to learn something of the mysterious Gretchen.

'Yes, she joined me,' was the reply.

'Was she very seasick?' Frank continued.

'Not a minute. She sat by me all the time while I lay in my berth, but she would not let me hold her hand, and if I tried to touch even her hair, she always moved away to the other side of the state-room, where she sat looking at me reproachfully with those soft blue eyes of hers.'

'And she was with you at the Brevoort in New York!' Frank said.

'Yes, with me at Brevoort.'

'And in the train?'

'Yes, and in the train.'

'And you left her there?'

'No; she left herself. She did not follow me out. She went on by mistake, but is sure to come back this afternoon,' Arthur replied, rather excitedly, just as a sharp ring at the bell announced the arrival of Burchard and Belknap, the leading carpenters of the town, with whom he was closeted for the next two hours, and both of whom he finally hired in order to expedite the work he had in hand.

At precisely three o'clock the carriage from Tracy Park drew up before the station, awaiting the arrival of the train and Gretchen, but though the former came, the latter did not, and John returned alone, mentally avowing to himself that he would not be sent on a fool's errand a third time; but five o'clock found him there again with the same result. Gretchen did not come, and Arthur's face wore a sad, troubled expression, and looked pale and worn, notwithstanding the many times he bathed it in the coldest water and rubbed it with the coarsest towels.

He had unpacked several of his trunks and boxes, and made friends of all she servants by the presents, curious and rare, which he gave them, while Dolly's headache had been wholly cured at sight of the exquisite diamonds which her husband brought to her room and told her were hers, the gift of Arthur, who had bought them in Paris, and who begged her to accept them with his love.

The box itself, which was of tortoise shell, lined with blue velvet, was a marvel of beauty, while the pin was a cluster of five diamonds with a larger one in the center, but the ear-rings were solitaires, large and brilliant, and Dolly's delight knew no bounds as she took the dazzling stones in her hands and examined them carefully. Diamond were the jewels of all others which she coveted, but which Frank never felt warranted in buying, and now they were hers, and for a time she forgot even Gretchen, whose arrival, or rather non-arrival, troubled her as much as it did her brother-in-law.

Arthur had been very quiet and gentle all the afternoon, showing no sign of the temper he had exhibited the previous night at sight of Harold until about six o'clock, when Tom, his ten-year-old nephew, came rushing into the library, followed by Peterkin, very hot and very red in the face, which he mopped with his yellow silk handkerchief.

'Oh, mother,' Tom began, 'what do you think Harold Hastings has done? He stole Mrs. Peterkin's gold pin last night. It was stuck in her shawl, and she couldn't find it, and Lucy saw him fumbling with the things, and he denies it up hill and down, and Mr. Peterkin is going to arrest him. I guess Dick St. Claire won't think him the nicest boy in town now. The thief! I'd like—

But what he would like was never known, for with a spring Arthur bounded toward him, and seizing him by the coat collar, shook him vigorously, while he exclaimed:

'Coward and liar! Harold Hastings is not a thief! No child of Amy Crawford could ever be a thief, and if you say that again, or even insinuate it to any living being, I'll break every bone in your body. Do you understand?'

'Yes, sir; no sir, I won't; I won't,' Tom gasped, as well as he could, with his head bobbing forward and back so rapidly that his teeth cut into his under lip.

'But I shall,' Peterkin roared. 'I'll have the young dog arrested, too, if he don't own up and give up.'

There was a wicked look in Arthur's black eyes, which he fastened upon Peterkin, as he said;

'What does it all mean, sir? Will you please explain?'

'Yes, in double quick time,' replied Peterkin, a little nettled by Arthur's manner, which he could not understand. 'You see, me and Mary Jane was early to the doin's; fust ones, in fact, for when your invite says half past seven it means it, I take it. Wall, we was here on time, and Mary Jane has been on a tear ever since, and says Miss St. Claire nor none of the big bugs didn't come till nine, which I take is imperlite, don't you?'

'Never mind, we are not discussing etiquette. Go on with the pin and the boy,' Arthur said haughtily.

'Mary Jane,' Peterkin continued, 'had a gold-headed shawl pin, with a small diamond in the head—real, too, for I don't b'lieve in shams, and haint sense the day I quit boatin' and hauled ther 'Liza Ann up inter my back yard. Well, she left this pin stickin' in her shawl, and no one up there but this boy of that Crawford gal's, and nobody knows who else.'

Something in Arthur's face and manner made Frank think of a tiger about to pounce upon its prey, and he felt himself growing cold with suspense and dread as he watched his brother, while Peterkin continued:

'When Mary Jane came to go home, her things wa'n't there, and the pin was missin'; and Lucy, the girl, said she found the boy pullin' them over by himself, when he had no call to be in there; and, sir, there ain't a lawyer in the United States that would refuse a writ on that evidence, and I'll get one of St. Claire afore to-morrow night. I told 'em so, the widder and the boy, who was as brassy as you please, and faced me down and said he never seen the pin, nor knowed there was one; while she—wall, I swow, if she didn't start round lively for a woman with her leg bandaged up in vinegar and flannel. When I called the brat a thief and said I'd have him arrested, she made for the door and ordered me out—me, Joe Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann! I'll make her smart, though, wus than the rheumatiz. I'll make her feel the heft—'

He did not have time to finish the sentence, for the tiger in Arthur was fully roused, and with a bound toward Peterkin he opened the door, and, in a voice which seemed to fill the room, although it was only a whisper, he said:

'Clown! loafer! puff-ball! Leave my house instantly, and never enter it again until you have apologized to Mrs. Crawford and her grandson for the insult offered them by your vile accusations. If it were not for soiling my hands, I would throw you down the steps,' he continued, as he stood holding the door open, and looking with his flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, as if he were fully equal to anything.

Like most men of the boasting sort, Peterkin was a coward, and though he probably had twice the strength of Arthur, he went through the door-way out upon the piazza, where he stopped, and, with a flourish of his fist, denounced the whole Tracy tribe, declaring them but a race of upstarts, no better than he was, and saying he would yet be even with them, and make them feel the heft of his powerful disapprobation. Whatever else he said was not heard, for Arthur shut the door upon him, and returning to the library, where his brother stood, pale, trembling, and anxious for the votes he felt he had lost, he became on the instant as quiet and gentle as a child, and, consulting his watch, said in his natural tone:

'Quarter of seven, and the train is due at half-past. Please tell John to have the carriage ready. I am going myself this time.'

Frank opened his lips to protest against it, but something in his brother's manner kept him quiet and submissive. He was no longer master there—unless—unless—he scarcely dared whisper to himself what; but when the carriage went for the fourth time to the station after Gretchen and returned without her, he said to his wife:

'I think Arthur is crazy, and possibly we shall have to shut him up.'

'Yes, I wish you would,' was Dolly's reply, in a tone of relief, for, thus far, Arthur's presence in the house had not added to her comfort. 'Of course he is crazy, and ought to be taken care of before he tears the house down over our heads, or does some dreadful thing.'

'That's so, and I will see St. Claire to-morrow and find out the proper steps to be taken,' said Frank.

That night he dreamed of windows with iron bars across them, and strait-jackets, into which he was thrusting his brother, while a face, the loveliest he had ever seen, looked reproachfully at him, with tears in the soft blue eyes, and a pleading pathos in the voice which said words he could not understand, for the language was a strange one to him who only knew his own.

With a start Frank awoke, and found his wife sitting up in bed, listening intently to sounds which came from the hall, where some one was evidently moving around.

'Hark!' she said, in a whisper. 'Do you hear that? There's a burglar in the house after my diamonds. What shall I do?'

But Frank knew that no burglar ever made the noise this disturber of their rest was making and stepping out of bed he opened the door cautiously, and looking out, saw his brother, wrapped in a long dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, opening one window after another until the hall was filled with the cold night wind, which swept down the long corridor banging a door at the farther end and setting all the rest to rattling.

'Oh! Frank, is that you?' Arthur said. 'I am sorry I woke you, but I smelled an awful smell somewhere, and traced it to the hall, which you see I am airing; better shut the door or you will take cold. The house is full of malaria.'

He was certainly crazy; there could be no doubt of it; and next morning, when Mr. St. Claire entered his office, he found Frank Tracy waiting there to consult him with regard to the legal steps necessary to procure his brother's incarceration in a lunatic asylum.

Arthur St. Claire's face wore a grave, troubled look as he listened, for he remembered a time, years before, when he, too, had been interested in the lunatic asylum at Worcester, where a beautiful young girl, his wife, had been confined. She was dead now, and the Florida roses were growing over her grave, but there were many sad, regretful memories connected with her short life, and not the least sad of these were those connected with the asylum.

'If it were to do over again I would not put her there, unless she became dangerous,' he had often said to himself, and he said much the same thing to Frank Tracy with regard to his brother.

'Keep him at home, if possible. Do not place him with a lot of lunatics if you can help it. No proof he is crazy because he smells everything. My wife does the same. Her nose is over the registers half the time in winter to see if any gas is escaping from the furnace. And as to this Gretchen, it is possible there was some woman with him on the ship, or in New York, and he may be a little muddled there. You can inquire at the hotel where he stopped.'

This was Mr. St. Claire's advice, and Frank acted upon it, and took immediate steps to ascertain if there had been a lady in company with his brother at the Brevoort House, where he had stopped, or if there had been any one in his company on the ship, which was still lying in the dock at New York. But there no one had been with him. Arthur Tracy alone was registered among the list of passengers, and only Arthur Tracy was on the books at the hotel. He had come alone, and been alone on the sea and at the hotel.

Gretchen was a myth, or at least a mystery, though he still persisted that she would arrive with every train from Boston; and for nearly a week they humored him, and the carriage went to meet her, until at last there seemed to dawn upon his mind the possibility of a mistake, and when the carriage had made its twentieth trip for nothing, and Mr. St. Claire, who was standing by him on the platform when the train came up and brought no Gretchen, said to him:

'She did not come.'

'I am afraid she will never come,' he answered, sadly. 'No, she will never come. There has been some mistake. She will never come. Poor little Gretchen!' Then, after a moment he added, but there is a Gretchen, and I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool, and I thought she did and was with me on the ship and in the train, but sometimes, when my head is so hot, I get things mixed, and am not sure but—' and he looked wistfully in his companion's face, while his voice trembled a little. 'Don't let them shut me up; I have a suspicion that they will try it, but it will do no good. I was in an asylum nearly three years near Vienna; went of my own accord, because of that heat in my head.'

'Been in an asylum?' Mr. St. Claire said, wonderingly.

'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'I was only out three months ago. I wrote occasionally to Frank and Gretchen, but did not tell them where I was. They called it a maison de santé, and treated me well because I paid well, but the sight of so many crazy people made me worse, and if I had staid I should have been mad as the maddest of them. As it was, I forgot almost everything that ever happened, and fancied I was an Austrian. As soon as I came out I was better, though I was not quite myself till I got to Liverpool. Then things came back to me. Stand by me, St. Claire. I can see I am in the way, and Frank would like to be rid of me; but stand by me, and don't let them do it.'

His manner was very pleading, and like one who was in fear of something, and remembering the past when a golden-haired girl had begged him to save her from iron bars and bolts, Mr. St. Claire assured him of his support against any steps which might be taken to prove him mad enough for the asylum.

'But I would not come for Gretchen any more,' he said. 'I would give her a rest. Who is she?'

Instantly the old look of cunning came into Arthur's eyes, as he replied:

'She is Gretchen;' and then he walked toward the carriage, while Mr. St. Claire looked curiously after him, and said to himself:

'That fellow is not right, but he is not a subject for a mad house, and I should oppose his being sent there. I do not believe, however, that they will try it on.'

CHAPTER X.

ARTHUR SETTLES HIMSELF.

They did try it on, but not until after the November election, at which Frank was defeated by a large majority, for Peterkin worked against him and brought all the 'heft of his powerful disapprobation' to bear upon him. Although Frank had had no part in turning him from the door that morning after the party, he had not tried to prevent it by a word, and this the low, brutal man resented, and swearing vengeance upon the whole Tracy tribe, declared his intention to defeat Frank if it cost him half his fortune to do so. And it did cost him at least two thousand dollars, for Frank Tracy was popular with both parties; many of the Democrats voted for him, but the rabble, the scum, those who could be bought on both sides, went against him, even to the Widow Shipley's four sons; and when all was over, Frank found himself defeated by just as many votes as old Peterkin had paid for, not only in Shannondale, but in the adjoining towns, where his money carried 'heft,' as he expressed it.

It was a terrible disappointment to Frank and his wife, who had looked forward to enjoying a winter in Washington, where they intended to take a house and enjoy all society had to offer them in the national metropolis. Particularly were they anxious for the change now that Arthur had come home, for it was not altogether pleasant to be ruled where they had so long been rulers, and to see the house turned upside down without the right to protest.

'I can't stand it, and I won't,' Frank said to his wife in the first flush of his bitter disappointment. 'Ever since he came home he has raised Cain generally, with his carpenters, and masons, and painters, and stewing about water-pipes, and sewer-gas, and smells. He's mad as a March hare, and if I can't get rid of him by going to Washington, I'll do it in some other way. You know he is crazy, and so do I, and I'll swear to it on a stack of Bibles as high as the house.'

And Frank did swear to it, not on a stack of Bibles, but before two or three physicians and Mr. St. Claire, who, at his solicitation, came to Tracy Park, and were closeted with him for an hour or more, while he related his grievances, asserting finally that he considered his brother dangerous, and did not think his family safe with him, citing as proof that he had on one occasion threatened to kill his son Tom for accusing Harold Hastings of theft.

How the matter would have terminated is doubtful, if Arthur himself had not appeared upon the scene, calm, dignified, and courtly in his manner, which insensibly won upon his hearers, as in a few well-chosen and eloquent words, he proceeded to prove that though he might be peculiar in some respects, he was not mad, and that a man might repair his own house, and cut off his own water-pipes, and take up his sewer, and detect a bad smell, and still not be a subject for a lunatic asylum.

'And,' he continued, addressing his brother, 'it ill becomes you to take this course against me—you, who have enriched yourself at my expense, while I have held my peace. Suppose I require you to give an account of all the money which you have considered necessary for your support and salary—would you like to do it? Would the world consider you strictly honorable, or would they call you a lunatic on the subject of money and not responsible for your acts? But I have no wish to harm you. I have money enough, and cannot forget that you are my brother. But molest me, and I shall molest you. If I go to the asylum you will leave Tracy Park. If I am allowed to stay here in peace, you can do so, too—at least, until Gretchen comes, when it will, perhaps, be better for us to separate. Two masters may manage to scramble along in the same house, but two mistresses never can, and Dora and Gretchen would not be congenial. Good morning, gentlemen!' and he bowed himself from the room, leaving Frank covered with confusion and shame as he felt that he was beaten.

The physicians did not think it a case in which they were warranted to interfere. Neither could conscientiously sign a certificate which should declare Arthur a lunatic, and their advice to Frank was that he should suffer his brother to have his own way in his own house, and when he felt that he could not bear with his idiosyncracies he could go elsewhere. But it was this going elsewhere which Frank did not fancy; and, after a consultation with his wife, he decided to let matters take their course for a time at least, or until Gretchen came, if she ever did.

Arthur's allusion to the sums of money his brother had appropriated to his own use had warned Frank that he was not quite so indifferent or ignorant of his business affairs as he had seemed, and this of itself served to keep him quiet and patient during the confusion which ensued, as walls were torn down, and doors and windows cut, while the house was filled with workmen, and the sound of the hammer and saw was heard from morning till night.

It was in the middle of October when Arthur fairly commenced his repairs, but so many men did he employ, and so rapidly was the work pushed on, that the first of January found everything finished and Arthur installed in his suite of rooms, which a prince might have envied, so richly and tastefully were they fitted up. Beautiful pictures and rich tapestry covered the walls in the first room, where the floor was inlaid with colored woods in lovely Mosaic designs, and the centre was covered with a costly Oriental rug, which Arthur had bought at a fabulous price in Paris, where it had once adorned a room in the Tuileries. But the gem of the whole was the library, where the statuary stood in the niches, and where, from the large bow-window at the south, a young girl's face looked upon the scene with an expression of shy surprise and half regret in the soft blue eyes, as if their owner wondered how she came there, and was always thinking of the fields and forests of far-away Germany. For it was decidedly a German face of the higher type, and such as is seldom found among the lower or even middle classes. And yet you instinctively felt that it belonged to the latter, notwithstanding the richness of the dress, from the pearl-embroidered cap set jauntily on the reddish golden hair to the velvet bodice and the satin peasant waist. The hands, small and dimpled like those of a child, were clasped around a prayer-book and a bunch of wild flowers which had evidently just been gathered. It was a marvelously beautiful face, pure and sweet as that of a Madonna, and the workmen involuntarily bowed their heads before it, calling it, not without some reason, a memorial window, for the name Gretchen was under the picture, and one unconsciously found himself looking for the date of birth and death. But only the one word 'Gretchen' was there, with no sign to tell who she was, or where, if living, she was now, or what relation she bore to the strange man who often stood before her whispering to himself:

'Poor little Gretchen! Will you never come?'

For a few days after the rooms were completed, they were thrown open to such of Arthur's friends as cared to see them, and the question 'Who is Gretchen?' was often asked, but the answer was always the same: 'She is Gretchen. I am expecting her every day.'

But if he were expecting her, he no longer asked that the carriage be sent to meet her. That had been one of the proofs of his insanity as alleged by his brother, and Arthur was sane enough and cunning enough to avoid a repetition of that offence, but he often went himself to the station, when the New York trains were due, for it was from the west rather than the east that he was now looking for her.

Frank, who watched him nervously, with all his senses sharpened, guessed what had caused the change and grew more nervous and morbid on the subject of Gretchen than ever. At first his brother, who was greatly averse to going out, had asked him to post his letters; business letters they seemed to be, for they were addressed to business firms in New York, London, and Paris, with all of which Arthur had relations. But one morning when Frank went as usual to his brother's room asking if there was any mail to be taken to the office, Arthur, who was just finishing a letter, replied:

'No, thank you, I will post this myself. I have been writing to Gretchen.'

'Yes, to Gretchen?' Frank said, quickly, as he advanced nearer to the writing desk, hoping to see the address on the envelope.

But Arthur must have suspected his motive, for he at once turned over the envelope and kept his hand upon it, while Frank said to him:

'Is she in London now?'

'No; she was never in London,' was the curt reply, and then, turning suddenly, Arthur faced his brother and said: 'Why are you so curious about Gretchen? It is enough for you to know that the is the sweetest, truest little girl that ever lived. When she comes I shall tell you everything, but not before. You have tried to prove me crazy; have said I was full of cranks; perhaps I am, and Gretchen is one of them, but it does not harm you, so leave me in peace, if you wish for peace yourself.'

There was a menacing look in Arthur's eyes which Frank did not like, and he retreated from the room, resolved to say no more to him of Gretchen, whose arrival he again began to look for and dread. But Gretchen did not come, or any tidings of her, and Christmas came and went, and the lovely bracelets which Arthur brought from the trunk he said was hers, and into which no one had ever looked but himself, remained unclaimed upon his table, as did the costly inlaid work-box, and the cut-glass bottles with the gold stoppers. All these were to have been Gretchen's Christmas presents; but when she did not come they disappeared from view and were not seen again, while Arthur seemed to be settling into a state of great depression, caring nothing for the outside world, but spending all his time in the lovely rooms he had prepared for himself and one who never came.

As far as was possible he continued his foreign habits, having his coffee and rolls at eight in the morning, his breakfast, as he called it, at half-past twelve, and his dinner at half-past six. All these meals were served in his room as elaborately, and with as much ceremony, as if lords and ladies sat at the table instead of one lone man, who never let himself down a particle, but required the utmost subservience and care in the waiting. The finest of linen, and china, and glass, and silver adorned his table, with bits of fanciful crockery gathered here and there in his extended wanderings, and always flowers for a centre-piece—roses mostly, if he could get them—tea roses and Marshal Neils, for Gretchen, he said, was fond of these, and, as she might surprise him at any moment, he wished to be ready for her, and show that he was expecting her.

Opposite him, at the end of the table, was always an empty plate with its surroundings, and the curiously-carved chair, which had seen the lion at Lucerne. But no one ever sat in it. No one ever used the decorated plate, or the glass mug at its side, with its twisted handle and the letter 'G.' on the silver cover. Just what this mug was for none of the household knew until Grace Atherton, who had travelled in Europe, and to whom Mrs. Tracy showed it one day when Arthur was out, said:

'Why, it is a beer-mug, such as is used in Germany, though more particularly among the Bavarian Alps and in the Tyrol. This Gretchen is probably a tippler, with a red nose and a double chin. I wish to goodness she would come and satisfy our curiosity.'

This wish of Grace's was not shared by Mrs. Tracy, who felt an uneasy sense of relief as the days went on, and the beer-drinking Gretchen did not appear, while Arthur became more and more depressed and remained altogether in his room, seeing no one and holding no intercourse with the outside world. He had returned no calls, and had been but once to the cottage in the lane to see Mrs. Crawford. That interview had been a long and sad one, and when they talked of Amy, whose grave Arthur had visited on his way to the cottage, both had cried together, and Gretchen seemed for the time forgotten. They talked of Amy's husband, who, Arthur said, had died at Monte Carlo; and then he spoke of Amy's son, who was not present, and whom he seemed to have forgotten entirely, for when Mrs. Crawford said to him, 'You saw him on the night of your return home,' he looked at her in a perplexed kind of way, and if trying to recall something which had gone almost entirely from his mind. It was this utter forgetfulness of people and events which was a marked feature of his insanity, if insane he were, and he knew it and struggled against it; and when Mrs. Crawford told him he had seen Harold he tried to recall him, and could not until the boy came in, flushed and excited from a race with Dick St. Claire through the crisp November wind, which had brought a bright color to his cheek and a sparkle to his eye. Then Arthur remembered everything, and something of his old prejudice came back to him, and his manner was a little constrained as he talked to the boy, whose only fault was that Harold Hastings had been his father and that he bore his name.

Arthur did not stay long after Harold came in, but said good-morning to Mrs. Crawford and walked slowly away, going again to Amy's grave, and taking from it a few leaves of the ivy which was growing around the monument. And this was all the intercourse he held with Mrs. Crawford, except to send her at Christmas a hundred dollars, which he said was for the boy Harold, to whom he had done an injustice.

After this he seldom went out, but gave himself heart and soul to the completion of his rooms, and when they were finished he settled down into the life of a recluse, seeing very few and talking but little, except occasionally to himself, when he seemed to be carrying on a conversation with some unseen visitant, who must have spoken in a foreign tongue or tongues, for sometimes it was French, sometimes Italian, and oftener German, in which he addressed his fancied guest, and neither Frank nor Dolly could understand a word of the strange jargon. On the whole, however, he was very quiet and undemonstrative, and but for the habit of talking to himself and smelling odors where there were none, he would not have seemed very different from many peculiar people who are never suspected of being crazy.

If he were still expecting Gretchen, he gave no sign of it, except the place at his table always laid for her, and Frank was beginning to breathe freely, and to look upon his brother's presence in the house as not altogether unbearable, when an event occurred which excited all Shannondale, and for a time made Frank almost as crazy as his brother.

CHAPTER XI.

THE STORM.

The winter since Christmas had been unusually severe, and the oldest inhabitant, of whom there are always many in every town, pronounced the days as they came and went the coldest they had ever known. Ten, twelve, and even fourteen degrees below zero the thermometers marked more than once, while old Peterkin's, which was hung inside the Lizy Ann and always took the lead, went down one morning to seventeen, and all the water-pipes and pumps in town either froze or burst, and Arthur Tracy, who, with his absorption of self, never forgot the poor, sent tons and tons of coal to them, and whispered to himself:

'Poor Gretchen! It is hard for her if she is on the sea in such weather as this. Heaven protect her, poor little Gretchen!'

That night when Frank went, as his custom was, to sit a few moments with his brother, he found him on his knees, with his face toward the picture, repeating the prayer for those upon the sea.

The next day there was a change for the better, and the next, and the next, until when the last day of February dawned Peterkin's thermometer registered only two, and people began to show themselves in the streets, while the sun tried to break through the grey clouds which shrouded the wintry sky. But this was only temporary, for before noon the mercury fell again to eight below, the wind began to rise, and when the New York train came panting to the station at half-past six, clouds of snow so dense and dark were driving over the hills and along the line of track that nothing could be distinctly seen.

It was not until the train had moved on that the station-master, who, half blinded with the sleet, was gathering up the mail-bag, which had been unceremoniously dropped, saw across the track at a little distance from him the figure of a woman who seemed to be trying to examine a paper she held in her hand, while clinging to her skirts and crying piteously was a little child, but whether boy or girl, he could not tell.

'Can I do anything for you?' he said advancing toward the stranger, who, thrusting the paper from sight, caught up the child in her arms, and without word of answer, hurried away in the storm and rapidly-increasing darkness.

'Curis! She must have got off t'other side of the cars. I wonder who she is and where she is goin'. Not fur, I hope, such a night as this. Ugh! the wind is like so many screech owls and almost takes a feller off his feet, the agent said to himself, as he looked after the stranger, and then went back to the light and warmth of his office, where he soon forgot the woman, who, with the child held closely in her arms, walked rapidly on, her eyes strained to their utmost tension as they peered through the darkness and the storm until she reached a gate opening into a grassy road which led through the fields in a straight line to Tracy Park and Collingwood beyond.

Carriages seldom traversed this road, but in the summer time the people from Collingwood and Tracy Park frequently walked that way, as it was a much nearer route to town than the main highway. Here the woman stopped, and looking up at the tall arch over the gate, said aloud, as if repeating a lesson learned by heart, 'Leave the car on your right hand; take the road to the right, as I have drawn it on paper; go straight on for a quarter of a mile until you come to a wide iron gate with a tall arch over it. This gate is also at your right. You cannot mistake it.'

'No,' she continued, 'I cannot mistake it. This is the place. We are almost there,' and putting down the child, she tugged with all her strength at the ponderous gate, which she at last succeeded in opening, and resuming her burden, passed through into the field where the snow lay on the ground in great white drifts, while the blinding flakes and cutting sleet from the leaden clouds above, beat pitilessly upon her as she struggled on the wearisome way.

And while she toiled on, fighting bravely with the storm, and occasionally speaking a word of encouragement to the little child nestled in her bosom, Arthur Tracy stood at one of the windows in his library, with his white face pressed close against the pane, as he looked anxiously out into the gathering darkness, shuddering involuntarily as the wind came screaming round a corner of the house, bending the tall evergreens until their slender tops almost touched the ground, and then rushing on down the carriage-drive with a shriek like so many demons let loose from the ice-caves of the north, where the winds are supposed to hold high carnival.

They were surely holding carnival to-night, and their king was out with all his legions, and as Arthur listened to the roar of the tempest he whispered to himself:

'A wild, wild night for Gretchen to arrive, and her dear little feet and hands will be so cold; but there is warmth and comfort here, and love such as she never dreamed of, poor Gretchen! I will hold her in my arms and chafe her cold fingers and kiss her tired face until she feels that her home-coming is a happy one. It must be almost time,' and he glanced at a small cathedral clock which stood upon the mantel.

In the adjoining room the dinner table was as usual laid for two, but one could see that more care than usual had been given to its arrangement, while the roses in the centre were the largest and finest of their kind. In the low, wide grate a bright fire was burning, and Arthur placed a large easy chair before it, and then brought from the library a covered footstool, with a delicate covering of blue and gold. No foot had ever yet profaned this stool with a touch, for it was one of Arthur's specialties, bought at a great price in Algiers; but he brought it now for Gretchen and saw in fancy resting upon it the cold little feet his hands were to rub and warm and caress until life came back to them, and Gretchen's blue eyes smiled upon him and Gretchen's sweet voice said:

'Thank you, Arthur. It is pleasant coming home.'

For the last two or three weeks, Arthur had been very quiet and taciturn, but on the morning of this day he had seemed restless and nervous, and his nervousness and excitability increased until a violent headache came on, and Charles, the servant, who attended him, reported to Mrs. Tracy that his midday meal had been untouched and that he really seemed quite ill. Then Frank went to him, and sitting down beside him as he lay upon a couch in the room with Gretchen's picture, said to him, not unkindly:

'Are you sick to-day? What is the matter?'

For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as if he had not heard. Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out, vehemently:

'Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen. And so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have never ceased to look for her arrival, since—since—well, I may as well tell you the truth. I know now that she could not have been with me on the ship and in the train, although I thought she was. I wrote her to join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did. But my brain must have been a little mixed. She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago, telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her. She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you. But to-day, Frank, to-day'—and Arthur's voice grew softer and pleading, and trembled as he went on. 'I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch her. Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to me. And you will send for her. You will let John go again. Think if she should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her. You will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you again.'

There was something in Arthur's white face which Frank could not resist, and though he had no idea that anything would come of it, he promised that John should go.

'Oh, Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress herself if she wished to do so.

'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know the contents.

This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained. Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold, and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself:

'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car; but they will never be cold when once I have them here.'

He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him, but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly toward the open door, exclaiming:

'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose—?'

But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and had closed the door, saying as he did so:

'It is Gretchen's. I had it made at Worth's. She is coming to-night, you know.'

Dolly had heard from her husband of Arthur's fancy, and though she had no faith in it, she replied:

'Yes, Frank told me you were expecting her again, and I came to say that we cannot get the fish you ordered, for no one can go to town in this storm, and I doubt if we could find it if we did. You will have to skip the fish.'

'All right; all right. Gretchen will be too much excited to care,' Arthur replied, standing with his hand upon the door-knob until Dolly left the room and went to this kitchen, where Frank was interviewing the coachman.

He had found that important personage before the fire, bending nearly double and complaining bitterly of a fall he had just had on his way from the stable to the house. According to his statement, the wind had taken him up bodily, and carrying him a dozen rods or so, had set him down heavily upon a stone flowerpot which was left outside in the winter, nearly breaking his back, as he declared. This did not look very promising for the drive to the station, and Frank opened the business hesitatingly, and asked John what he thought of it.

'I think I would not go out in such a storm as this with my back if Queen Victoria was to be there,' John answered gruffly. 'And what would be the use?' he continued. 'I have been to meet that woman, if she is a woman, with the outlandish name, more than fifty times, I'll bet; he don't know what he is talking about when he gets on her track. And s'posin' she does come, she can find somebody to fetch her. She ain't going to walk.'

This seemed reasonable; and as Frank's sympathies were with his coachman and horses rather than with Gretchen and his brother, he decided with John that he need not go, but added, laughingly, as he saw the man walk across the floor as well as he ever did on his way to the woodshed:

'Seems to me your broken back has recovered its elasticity very soon.'

To this John made no reply except an inaudible growl, and Frank returned to the library, resolving not to go near his brother until after train time, but to let him think that John had gone to the station.

At half-past five, however, Arthur sent for him, and said:

'Has he gone? It must be time.'

'Not quite; it is only half-past five. The train does not come until half-past six, and is likely to be late,' was Frank's reply.

'Yes, I know,' Arthur continued, 'but he should be there on time. Tell him to start at once, and take an extra robe with him, and say to Charles that I will have sherry to-night, and champagne, too, and Hamburg grapes, and—'

The remainder of his speech was lost on Frank, who was hurrying down the stairs with a guilty feeling in his heart, although he felt that the end justified the means, and that under the circumstances he was justified in deceiving his half-crazy brother. Still he was ill at ease. He had no faith in Arthur's presentiments, and no idea that any one bound for Tracy Park would be on the train that night, but he could not shake off a feeling of anxiety, amounting almost to a dread of some impending calamity, which possibly the sending of John to the station might have averted, and going to a window in the library, he, too, stood looking out into the night, trying not to believe that he was watching for some possible arrival, when, above the storm, he heard the shrill scream of the locomotive as it stopped for a moment and then dashed on into the white snow clouds; trying to believe, too, that he was not glad, as the minutes became a quarter, the quarter a half, and the half three-quarters, until at last he heard the clock strike the half-hour past seven, and nobody had come.

'I shall have to tell Arthur,' he thought, and, with something like hesitancy, he started for his brother's room.

Arthur was standing before the fire, with his arm thrown caressingly across the chair where Gretchen was to sit, when Frank opened the door and advanced a step or two across the threshold.

'Has she come? I did not see the carriage. Where is she?' Arthur cried, springing swiftly forward, while his bright, eager eyes darted past his brother to the open door-way and out into the hall.

'No, she has not come. I knew she wouldn't; and it was nonsense to send the horses out such a night as this,' Frank said, sternly, with a mistaken notion that he must speak sharply to the unfortunate man, who, if rightly managed, was gentle as a child.

'Not come! Gretchen not come! There must be some mistake!' Arthur said, all the brightness fading from his face, which seemed to grow pinched and pallid as he turned it piteously toward his brother and continued: 'Not come! Oh, Frank! did John say so? Was no one there? Let me go and question him—there must be a mistake.'

He was hurrying toward the door, when Frank caught his arm and detained him, while he said, decidedly:

'No use to see John. Can't you believe me when I tell you no one was there—and I knew there would not be. It was folly to send.'

For a moment a pale, haggard face, which looked still more haggard and pale with the firelight flickering over it, confronted Frank steadily; then the lips began to quiver, and the eyelids to twitch, while great tears gathered in Arthur's eyes, until at last, covering his face with his hands, he staggered to the couch, and throwing himself upon it, sobbed convulsively.

'Oh, Gretchen, my darling!' he said. 'I was so sure, and now everything is swept away, and I am left so desolate.'

Frank had never seen grief just like this, and, with his conscience pricking him a little for the deception he had practised, he found himself pitying his brother as he had never done before; and when at last the latter cried out loud, he went to him, and laying his hand gently upon his bowed head, said to him, soothingly:

'Don't, Arthur; don't feel so badly. It is terrible to see a man cry as you are crying.'

'No, no; let me cry,' Arthur replied. 'The tears do me good, and my brain would burst without them. It is all on fire, and my head is aching so hard again.'

At this moment Charles appeared, asking if his master would have dinner served. But Arthur could not eat, and the table which had been arranged with so much care for Gretchen was cleared away, while Gretchen's chair was moved back from the fire and Gretchen's footstool put in its place, and nothing remained to show that she had been expected except the pretty dress, with its accessories, which lay upon Arthur's bed. These he took care of himself, folding them with trembling hands and tear-wet eyes, as a fond mother folds the clothes her dead child has worn, sorrowing most over the half-worn shoes, so like the dear little feet which will never wear them again. So Arthur sorrowed over the high-heeled slippers, with the blue rosettes and pointed toes, fashionable in Paris at that time. Gretchen had never worn them, it is true, but they seemed so much like her that his tears fell fast as he held them in his hands, and, dropping upon the pure white satin, left a stain upon it.

When everything was put away and the long trunk locked again, Arthur went back to the couch and said to his brother, who was still in the room:

'Don't leave me, Frank; at least not yet, till I am more composed. My nerves are dreadfully shaken to-night, and I feel afraid of something, I don't know what. How the wind howls and moans! I never heard it like that but once before, and that was years ago, among the Alps in Switzerland. Then it blew off the roof of the chalet where I was staying, and I heard afterward that Amy died that night. You remember Amy, the girl I loved so well, though not as I love Gretchen. If she had come, I should have told you all about her, but now it does not matter who she is, or where I saw her first, knitting in the sunshine, with the halo on her hair and the blue of the summer skies reflected in her eyes. Oh, Gretchen, my love, my love!'

He was talking more to himself than to Frank, who sat beside him until far into the night, while the wild storm raged on and shook the solid house to its very foundations. A tall tree in the yard was uprooted, and a chimney-top came crushing down with a force which threatened to break through the roof. For a moment there was a lull in the tempest, and, raising himself upon his elbow, Arthur listened intently, while he said, in a whisper which made Frank's blood curdle in his veins:

'Hark! there's more abroad to-night than the storm! Something is happening or has happened which affects me. I have heard voices in the wind—Gretchen calling me from far away. Frank, Frank, did you hear that? It was a woman's cry; her voice—Gretchen's. Yes, Gretchen, I am coming!'

And with a bound he was at the window, which he opened wide, and leaning far out of it, listened to hear repeated a sound which Frank, too, had heard—a cry like the voice of one in mortal peril calling for help.

It might have been the wind, which on the instant swept round the corner in a great gust, driving the snow and sleet into Arthur's face, and making him draw in his body, nearly half of which was leaning from the window as he waited for the strange cry to be repeated. But it did not come again, though Frank, whose nerves were strung to almost as high a tension as his brother's, thought he heard it once above the roar of the tempest, and a vague feeling of disquiet took possession of him as he sat for an hour longer watching his brother and listening to the noise without.

Gradually the storm subsided, and when the clock struck one the wind had gone down, the snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling feebly through a rift of dark clouds in the west. After persuading his brother to go to bed, Frank retired to his own room and was soon asleep, unmindful of the tragedy which was being enacted not very far away, where a little child was smiling in its dreams, while the woman beside it was praying for life until her mission should be accomplished.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TRAMP HOUSE.

About midway between the entrance to the park and the Collingwood grounds, and fifty rods or more from the cross-road which the strange woman had taken on the night of the storm, stood a small stone building, which had been used as a school-house until the Shannondale turnpike was built and the cross-road abandoned. After that it was occupied by one poor family after another, until the property of which it was a part came into the hands of the elder Mr. Tracy, who, with his English ideas, thought to make it a lodge and bring the gates of his park down to it. But this he did not do, and the house was left to the mercy of the winds, and the storms, and the boys, until Arthur became master there, and with his artistic taste thought to beautify it a little and turn it to some use.

'I would tear it down,' he said to his neighbor, Mr. St. Claire, who stood with him one day looking at it, 'I would tear it down, and have once or twice given orders to that effect, but as often countermanded them. I do not know that I am exactly superstitious, but I am subject to fancies, or presentiments, or whatever you choose to call those moods which take possession of you and which you cannot shake off, and, singularly enough, one of these fancies is connected with this old hut, and as often as I decide to remove it something tells me not to; and once I actually dreamed that a dead woman's hand clutched me by the arm and bade me leave it alone. A case of "Woodman spare that tree," you see.'

And Arthur laughed lightly at his own morbid fancies, but he left the house and planted around it quantities of woodbine, which soon crept up its sides to the chimney-top and made it look like the ivy-covered cottages so common in Ireland. It was the nicest kind of rendezvous for lovers, who frequently availed themselves of its seclusion to whisper their secrets to each other, and it was sometimes used as a dining-room by the people of Shannondale, where in summer they held picnics in the pretty pine grove not far away. But during Arthur's absence it had been suffered to go to decay, for Frank cared little for lovers or picnics, and less for the tramps who often slept there at night, and for whom it came at last to be called the Tramp House. So the winds, and the storms, and the boys did their work upon it unmolested, and when Arthur returned, the door hung upon one hinge, and there was scarcely a whole light of glass in the six windows.

'Better tear the old rookery down. It is of no earthly use except to harbor rats and tramps. I've known two or three to spend the night in it at a time, and once a lot of gipsies quartered themselves here for a week and nearly scared Dolly to death,' Frank said to his brother as they were walking past it a few days after his return, and Arthur was commenting upon its dilapidated appearance.

'Oh, the tramps sleep here, do they?' Arthur said. 'Well, let them. If any poor, homeless wretches want to stay here nights they are very welcome, I am sure, and I will see that the door is rehung and glass put in the windows. May as well make them comfortable.'

'Do as you like,' Frank replied, and there, so far as he was concerned, the matter ended.

But while the carpenters were at work at the Park Arthur sent one of them to the old stone house and had the door fixed and glass put in two of the windows, while rude but close shutters were nailed before the others, and then Arthur went himself into the room and pushed a long table which the picnic people had used for their refreshments and the tramps for a bed into a corner, where one sleeping upon it would be more sheltered from the draught. All this seemed nonsense to Frank, who laughingly suggested that Arthur should place in it a stove and a ton of coal for the benefit of his lodgers. But Arthur cared little for his brother's jokes. His natural kindness of heart, which was always seeking another's good, had prompted him to this care for the Tramp House, in which he felt a strange interest, never dreaming that what he was doing would reach forward to the future and influence not only his life but that of many others.

The storm which had raged so fiercely around the house in the park had not spared the cottage in the lane, which rocked like a cradle as gust after gust of wind struck it with a force which made every timber quiver, and sent the boy Harold close to his grandmother's side as he asked, tremblingly:

'Do you think we shall be blown away?'

The rheumatism from which Mrs. Crawford had been suffering in the fall had troubled her more or less during the entire winter, and now, aggravated by a cold, it was worse than it had ever been before, and on the night of the storm she was suffering intense pain, which was only relieved by the hot poultices which Harold made under her direction and applied to the swollen limb. This kept him up later than usual, and the clock was striking eleven when his grandmother declared herself easier, and bade him go to bed.

It was at this hour that Arthur Tracy had fancied he heard the cry for help, and the snow was sweeping past the cottage in great billows of white when Harold went to the window and looked out into the night. In the summer when the leaves were upon the trees the old stone house could not he seen from the cottage, from which it was distant a quarter of a mile or more, but in the winter when the trees were stripped of their foliage it was plainly discernible, and as Harold glanced that way a gleam of light appeared suddenly, as if the door had been opened and the flickering rays of a candle had for a moment shone out into the darkness. Then it disappeared, but not until Harold had cried out:

'Oh, grandma, there's a light in the Tramp House; I saw it plain as day. Somebody is in there.'

'God pity them.' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, though she did not quite credit Harold's statement, or think of it again that night.

It was late next morning when Harold awoke to find the sun shining into the room, and without any sign of the terrible storm, except the snow, which lay in great piles everywhere and came almost to the window's edge. But Harold was not afraid of snow, and soon had the walks cleared around the cottage, and when, after breakfast, which he prepared himself, for his grandmother could not step, he was told that a doctor must be had and he must go for him, he did not demur at all, but commenced his preparations at once for the long and wearisome walk.

'Better go through the park,' his grandmother said to him, as he was tying his warm comforter about his ears and putting on his mittens. 'It is a little farther that way, but somebody has broken a path by this time, and the cross-road, which is nearer, must be impassable.'

Harold made no reply, but remembering the light he had seen in the Tramp House, resolved within himself to take the cross-road and investigate the mystery. Bidding his grandmother good-by, and telling her he should be back before she had time to miss him, he started on his journey, and was soon plunging through the snow, which, in some places, was up to his armpits, so that his progress was very slow, but by kicking with his feet and throwing out his arms like the paddles of a boat, he managed to get on until he was opposite the Tramp House, which looked like an immense snow-heap, so completely was it covered. Only the chimney and the slanting roof showed any semblance to a house as Harold made his way toward it, still beating the snow with his arms, and thinking it was not quite the fun he had fancied it might be.

He was close to the house at last, and stood for a moment looking at it, while a faint thrill of fear stirred in his veins as he remembered to have heard that burglars and thieves sometimes made it their rendezvous after a night's marauding. What if they were there now, and should rush upon him if he ventured to disturb them!

'I don't believe I will try it,' he thought, as he glanced nervously at the door, which was blockaded by a great bank of snow; and he was about to retrace his steps, when a sound met his ear which made him stand still and listen until it was repeated a second time.

Then forgetting both burglar and thief, he started forward quickly, and was soon at the door, from which he dug away the snow with a desperate energy, as if working for his life. For the sound was the cry of a little child, frightened and pleading.

'Mah-nee! mah-nee!' it seemed to say; and Harold, thinking it was mamma, answered, cheerily:

'I am coming as fast I can.'

Then the crying ceased, and all was still inside, while Harold worked on until enough snow was cleared away to allow of his opening the door about a foot, and through this narrow opening he forced his way into the cold, damp room, where for a moment he could see nothing distinctly, for the sunlight outside had blinded him, and there was but little light inside, owing to the barred and snow-bound windows.

Gradually, however, as he became accustomed to the place, he saw upon the long table in the corner where Arthur Tracy had moved it months before, what looked like a human form stretched at full length and lying upon its back, with its white, stony face upturned to the rafters above, and no sound or motion to tell that it still lived.

With an exclamation of surprise, Harold sprang forward and laid his hand upon the pale forehead of the woman, but started back as quickly with a cry of horror, for by the touch of the ice-cold flesh he knew the woman was dead.

'Frozen to death!' he whispered, with ashen lips; and then, as something stirred under the gray cloak which partly covered the woman, he conquered his terror and went forward again to the table, over which he bent curiously.

Again the cry, which was more like 'mah-nee' now than 'mamma,' met his ear, and, stooping lower, he saw a curly head nestle close to the bosom of the woman, while a little fat white hand was clasping the neck as if for warmth and protection.

At this sight all Harold's fear vanished, and, bending down so that his lips almost touched the bright, wavy hair, he said:

'Poor little girl!'—he felt instinctively that it was a girl—'poor little girl! come with me away from this dreadful place!' and he tried to lift up her head, but she drew it away from him, and repeated the piteous cry of 'Mah-nee, mah-nee!'

At last, however, as Harold continued to talk to her, the cries ceased, and, cautiously lifting her head, she turned toward him a fat, chubby face and a pair of soft, blue eyes in which the great tears were standing. Then her lips began to quiver in a grieved kind of way, as if the horror of the previous night had stamped itself upon her tender mind and she were asking for sympathy.

'Mah-nee!' she said again, placing one hand on the cold, dead face, and stretching the other toward Harold, who put out his arms to take her.

But something resisted all his efforts, and a closer inspection showed him a long, old-fashioned carpet-bag, which enveloped her body from her neck to her feet, and into which she had evidently been put to protect her from the cold.

'Not a bad idea either,' Harold said, as he comprehended the situation; 'and your poor mother gave you the most of her cloak, too, and her shawl,' he continued, as he saw how carefully the child had been wrapped, while the mother, if it were her mother, had paid for her unselfishness with her life.

'What is your name, little girl?' he asked.

The child, who had been staring at him while he talked as if he were a lunatic, made no reply until he had her in his arms, when she, too, began to talk in a half-frightened way. Then he looked at her as if she were the lunatic, for never had he heard such speech as hers.

'I do believe you are a Dutchman,' he said, as he wrapped both shawl and cloak around her and started for the door, which he kicked against some time in order to make an opening wide enough to allow of his egress with his burden.

When at last they emerged from the cold, dark room into the bright sunshine, the child gave a great cry of delight, and the blue eyes fairly danced with joy as they fell upon the dazzling snow. Then she put both arms around Harold's neck, and nestling her face close to his, kissed him as fondly as if she had known him all her life, while the boy paid her back kiss after kiss as he proceeded slowly toward home.

The child was heavy, and the bag and shawl made such an unwieldy bundle that his progress was very slow, and he stopped more than once to rest and take breath, and as often as he stopped the blue eyes would look up enquiringly at him with an expression which made his boyish heart beat faster as he thought what pretty eyes they were and wondered who she was. Once he fell down, and bag and baby rolled in the snow; but only the vigorous kicking of a pair of little legs inside the bag showed that the child disapproved of the proceeding, for she made no sound, and when he picked her up she brushed the snow from his hair, and laughed as if the thing had been done for fun.

He reached the cottage at last, and bursting into the room where his grandmother was sitting with her foot in a chair, exclaimed, as he put down the child, who, as she was still enveloped in the bag, stood with difficulty:

'Oh grandma, what do you think? I did see a light in the Tramp House, and there is somebody there—a woman—dead—frozen to death, with nothing over her, for she had given her cloak and shawl to her little girl. I went there. I found her, and brought the baby home in the carpet-bag, and now I must go back to the woman. Oh, it was dreadful to see her white face, and it is so cold there and dark;' and if the horror of what he had seen had just impressed itself upon him, the boy turned pale and faint, and, staggering to a chair, burst into tears.

Too much astonished to utter a word, Mrs. Crawford stared at him a moment in a bewildered kind of way, and then when the child, seeing him cry, began also to cry for "Mah-nee," and struggle in the bag, she forgot her lame foot, on which she had not stepped for a week, and going to the little girl, released her from the bag, and taking her upon her lap, began to untie the soft woollen cloak and to chafe the cold fingers, while she questioned her grandson.

Having recovered himself somewhat, Harold repeated his story, and asked with a shudder:

'Must I go for her alone? I can't, I can't. I was not afraid with the baby there, but it is so awful, and I never saw any one dead before.'

'Go back alone! Of course not!' his grandmother replied. 'But you must go to the park at once and tell them; go as fast as you can. She may not be dead.'

'Yes, she is,' Harold answered, decidedly. 'I touched her face, and nothing alive could feel like that.'

He was buttoning his overcoat preparatory to a fresh start, but before he went he kissed the little girl who was sitting on his grandmother's lap, and who, as she saw him leaving her, began to cry for him and to utter curious sounds unintelligible to them both. But Harold brought her a piece of bread, which she began to devour ravenously, and then he stepped quietly out and was soon breaking through the drifts which lay between the cottage and the park.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WOMAN.

They slept later than usual at the park house that morning, and Frank and his family were just sitting down to breakfast, and Arthur was taking his rolls and coffee in his own room, when John, with a white, scared face, looked in and said:

'Excuse me, Mr. Tracy, but—but something dreadful has happened. There's a woman frozen to death in the Tramp House, with a baby, and Harold Hastings found them, and—but he is here, sir; he will tell you himself;' and he went for the boy, who soon entered the room, followed by every servant in the house.

Harold had come upon John first in the stable, and sinking down exhausted upon the hay, had told his story, while the man, John, listened terror-stricken and open-mouthed. Then seeing how weak and tired Harold seemed, and how he sank back upon the hay when he attempted to rise, he took him in his arms, and carrying him to the kitchen, left him there while he went with the news to his master.

'A woman dead in the Tramp House, and a baby!' Frank exclaimed, and for an instant he felt as if he were dying, for there flashed over him a conviction that the woman had come in the train the previous night, and that it was her cry for help which had been borne to him on the winds, and to which he had paid no heed.

'Are you sick? Are you going to faint?' his wife said to him, as she saw how white he grew, and how heavily he leaned back in his chair as Harold related the particulars of his finding the woman and the child.

'I am not going to faint; but it makes me sick and shaky to think of a woman freezing to death so near us that if she had cried for help we might perhaps have heard her,' Frank replied.

Then turning to Harold, he continued:

'How did she look? Was she young? Was she pretty? Was she dark or fair?'

He almost gasped the last word, as if it choked him, and no one guessed how anxiously he waited for Harold's answer, which did not afford him much relief.

'I don't know; it was so dark in there, and cold, and I was afraid some of the time, and in a hurry. I only know that her nose was long and large, for I touched it when I was trying to get at the little girl, and it was so cold—oh, oh!'

And Harold shuddered as if he still felt the icy touch of the dead.

'A long nose and a large one,' Frank said, involuntarily, while a sigh of relief escaped him as he remembered that the nose of the picture in his brother's room was neither long nor large.

Still Harold might be mistaken, and though he had no good cause for believing that the woman lying dead in the Tramp House was Gretchen, there was a horrible feeling in his heart, while a lump came into his throat and affected his speech, which was thick and indistinct, as he rose from his chair at last and said to John:

'We have no time to lose. Hitch up the horses to the long sleigh as quick as you can. We must go to the Tramp House after the woman, and send to the village for a doctor, and telegraph to Springfield for the coroner. I suppose there must be an inquest; and, Dolly, see that a room is prepared for the body.'

'Oh, Frank, must it come here? Why not take it to the cottage? The child is there,' Mrs. Tracy said, not because she cared so much for the trouble, but because of her aversion to having the corpse of a stranger in the house, with all that it involved.

'I tell you that woman must come here,' was Frank's decided reply, as he began to make himself ready for the ride.

'Don't tell Arthur yet,' he said, as he left the house and took his seat in the sleigh, which was soon ploughing its way through the snow banks in the direction of the Tramp House.

It was Harold who acted as master of ceremonies, for John was nervous and hung back from the half open door, while Frank was too much unstrung to know just what he was doing or saying, as he squeezed through the narrow space and then stood for a moment, snow-blind and dizzy, in the cheerless room.

Harold was not afraid now. He had been there before alone, had seen and touched the white face of the corpse, and now, with companionship in its presence, he went fearlessly up to it, followed by Frank, who could scarcely stand, and who laid his hand for support on Harold's shoulder, and then turned curiously and eagerly toward the woman.

John had lingered outside, shovelling the snow from the door which he succeeded in opening wide, so that the full, broad sunlight fell upon the face, which was neither young, nor pretty, nor fair, while the hair was black as night.

Frank noted all these points at a glance, and could have shouted aloud for joy, so great was the revulsion of his feelings. It was not Gretchen lying there before him, and he was not a murderer, as he had accused himself of being, for she did not come by the train; she had no connection with Tracy Park; she was going somewhere else—to Collingwood, perhaps—when, overcome by the storm and the cold, she had sought shelter for the night in this wretched place.

'I suppose the proper thing to do is to leave her here till the coroner can see her,' he said to John; 'but no train can get through from Springfield to-day, I am sure, and I shall have her taken to the park. Bring me the blankets from the sleigh.'

He was very collected now, for a great load was lifted from his mind.

'Had she nothing with her? nothing to cover her?' he asked, as they proceeded to wrap her in the warm blankets, which, had they sooner come, would have saved her life.

Harold told him again of the carpet-bag and the cloak and the shawl, which had covered the child, and added, 'That's all; there don't seem to be anything else. Oh, what's this?' and stooping down, he picked up some hard substance which he had kicked against the table.

It proved to be one of those olive wood candle sticks, so convenient in travelling, as when not in use, they can be made into a small round box or ball, and take but little room. It contained but the remains of a wax candle, which had burned down into the socket and then gone out. Near by, upon the floor, was a tiny box of matches, with two or three charred ones among them.

'The poor woman must have had a light for at least a portion of the time,' Frank said, as he picked up the box.

'She had, I know she had,' Harold cried, excitedly; 'for I saw it and told grandma so. It was like she had opened the door and let out a big blaze, and then everything was dark, as if the door was shut or the wind had blown the candle out.'

'What time was that, do you think?' Frank asked.

'It must have been about eleven,' Harold replied, 'for I remember hearing the clock strike and grandma's saying I must go to bed, it was so late. I was up with her because her foot was so bad, and I warmed the poultices.'

Frank groaned aloud, unmindful of the boy looking so curiously at him, for that was the time when he had heard the sound like a human voice is distress. He had thought it a fancy then communicated to him by his brother's nervousness, but now he was certain it must have been the stranger calling through the storm, in the vain hope that somebody would hear and come. Somebody had heard, but no one had come; and so in the cold and the darkness, with the snow sifting through every crevice and blowing down the wide chimney to the hearth where it made a drift like a grave, she had battled for her own life and that of the child beside her, saving the latter but losing her own.

'If I had only believed it was a cry,' Frank thought, and as he wrapped the body in the blankets and buffalo robe as tenderly and reverently as if the stiffened limbs had belonged to his mother, he saw distinctly before him as if painted upon canvas the driving gale, the inky sky, the half-opened door, through which the sleet was driving, the light behind, and the frantic, freezing woman, screaming for help, while only the winds made answer, and the pitiless storm raged on.

This was the picture which Frank was destined to see in his dreams for many and many a night, until the mystery was solved concerning the woman whom they carried to the sleigh, which was driven back to the park house, where, within fifteen or twenty minutes a crowd of anxious, curious people gathered. The messenger sent to town had done his work rapidly and thoroughly, and half the villagers who heard of the tragedy enacted at their very door started at once for Tracy Park. The boy had stopped at the station and told his story there, making the baggage-master feel as if he, too, were a murderer, or at least an accessory.

'If I had only gone after that woman,' he said, as he told of the stranger who had come on the train and gotten off on the side of the car farthest from the depot—'if I had gone after her and made her take a conveyance to where she was going, this would not have happened; but it was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off so fast, as if she knew her own business. So I just minded mine, or rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered up with snow. It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over there, as it may tell who the poor critter was.'

This trunk, which was little more than a strong wooden box with two double locks upon it, was still further secured by a bit of rope wound twice around it and tied in a hard knot. There was no name upon it to tell whose it was, or whence it came, except the name of a German steamer, on which its owner had probably crossed the ocean, and the significant word 'Hold,' showing that it had not been used in the state-room. It had been checked at the Grand Central depot in New York for Shannondale, and the check was still attached to the iron handle when it was put down in the kitchen at Tracy Park, where the utmost excitement prevailed, the servants huddling together with scared faces, and talking in whispers of the terrible thing which had happened, while Mrs. Tracy and the housekeeper, scarcely less excited than the servants, gave their attention to the dead.

At the end of the rear hall was a small room, where Frank sometimes received business calls when at home, and there they laid the body, after the physician, who had arrived, declared that life had been extinct for many hours.

Seen in the full daylight, she seemed to be at least thirty-five years of age, and her features, though not unpleasing, were coarse and large, especially the nose. Her hair was black, her complexion dark, and the hands, which lay folded upon her bosom, showed marks of toil, for they were rough and unshapely, though smaller in proportion than the other members of her body. Her woollen dress of grayish blue was short and scant; her knit stockings were black and thick, and her leather shoes were designed fur use rather than ornament. A wide white apron was tied around her waist, and she wore a small black and white plaided shawl pinned about her neck.

And there she lay, not a pleasant picture to contemplate, helpless and defenceless against the curious eyes bent upon her and the remarks concerning her, as one after another of the villagers came in to look at her and speculate as to who she was or how she came in the Tramp House.

Among the crowd was Mr. St. Claire, who gave it as his opinion that she was a Frenchwoman of the lower class, and asked if nothing had been found with her except the clothes she wore. Harold told him of the shawl, and cloak, and carpet-bag which he had carried with the child to the cottage.

'Yes, there is something more—her trunk,' chimed in the baggage-master, who had just entered the room, trembling and breathless.

'Her trunk! Did she come in the cars?' Frank asked, his hands dropping helplessly at his side, and his lips growing pale, as the man replied:

'Yes; last night, on the quarter-past-six from New York; and what is curi's, she got out on the side away from the depot, and I never seen her till the cars went on, when she was lookin' at a paper, and the child cryin' at her feet. I spoke to her, but she did not answer, and snatching up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run. It was storming so I did not see her trunk till this mornin', when I found it on the platform. I wish I had gone after her and made her take a sleigh. If I had she wouldn't now have been dead, and, I swow, I feel as if I had killed her. I wonder why under the sun she turned into the lots, unless she was goin' to Collingwood—'

'Or Tracy Park,' Frank said, involuntarily.

'Were you expecting any one?' Mr. St. Claire asked.

Sinking into a chair, Frank replied:

'No, I was not, but Arthur, who has been worse than usual for a few days, has again a fancy that Gretchen is coming. He says now that she was not in the ship with him, but that he has written her to join him here, and yesterday he took it into his head that she would be here last night, and insisted that the carriage be sent to meet her; but John had hurt his back, and as I had no faith in her coming, he did not go. I wish he had; it might have saved this woman's life, although she is not Gretchen.'

Frank had made his confession, except so far as deceiving his brother was concerned, and he felt his mind eased a little, though there was still a lump in his throat, and a feeling of disquiet in his heart, with a wish that the dead woman had never crossed his path, and a conviction that he had not yet seen the worst of it.

Mr. St. Claire looked at him thoughtfully a moment, and then said:

'I should not accuse myself too much. You could not know that any one would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom your brother talks so much, and whose picture is in his room. Has he seen her? Does he know of the accident?'

'I have not told him yet. He is not feeling well to-day. Charles says he is still in bed,' was Frank's reply.

'We may find something in her trunk,' Mr. St. Claire continued, 'which will give us a clue to her history. Where do you suppose she kept her key?'

No one volunteered an answer, until Harold suggested that if she had a pocket it was probably there, when half a dozen hands or more at once felt for the pocket, which was found at last, and proved to be one of great capacity, and to contain a heterogeneous mass of contents: A purse, in which were two or three small German coins, an English sovereign, and a five dollar green-back; two handkerchiefs, one soiled and coarse, bearing in German text the initials 'N.B.' the other small and fine, bearing the initial 'J.,' also in German text: a pair of scissors, a thimble, a small needle-case, a child's toy, a worn picture-book, printed in Leipsic, a box of pills, some peanuts, some cloves, a piece of candy, a seed cake, a pocket comb, half a biscuit; and at the very bottom, the brass check whose number corresponded with that upon the trunk; also a ring to which were attached three keys, one belonging to the trunk, another evidently to the carpet-bag, while the third, which was very small and straight, must have been used for fastening some box or dressing-case.

It was Mr. St. Claire who opened the trunk, from which one of the servants had removed the rope, while Frank sat near still trembling in every limb, and watching anxiously as article after article was taken out and examined, but afforded no satisfaction whatever, or gave any sign by which the stranger might be traced.

There was a black alpaca dress and a few coarse garments which must have belonged to the woman. Some of them bore the initials 'N.B.,' some were without a mark, and all were cheap and plain, like the clothes of a servant before her head is turned and she apes her mistress' wardrobe. The child's dresses were of a better quality, and one embroidered petticoat bore the name 'Jerrine,' while the letter 'J.' was upon them all, except a towel of the finest linen, on one corner of which was the letter 'M.' worked with colored floss.

'Jerrine!' Mr. St. Claire repeated, pronouncing it 'Jerreen.' 'That is a French name, and a pretty one. It is the child's, of course.'

To this no one replied, and he continued his examination of the trunk until it was quite empty.

'That is all,' he said in a tone of disappointment; and Frank, who had been sitting by and holding some of the things in his lap as they were taken from the trunk, answered, faintly:

'No, here is a book. It was done up in a handkerchief,' and he held up what proved to be a German Bible; but he did not tell that he had found something else, which he had thrust into his pocket when no one was looking at him.

What he had found was a photograph, which had slipped from the leaves of the Bible, and at sight of the face, of which he only had a glimpse, every drop of blood seemed to leave his heart and came surging to his brain, making him so giddy and wild that he did not realise what he was doing when he hid away the picture until he could examine it by himself. Once in his pocket he dared not take it out, although he raised his hand two or three times to do so, but was as often deterred by the thought that everybody would think that he had intended to hide it and suspect his motive. So he kept quiet and saw them examine the book, the blank page of which had been torn half off, leaving only the last three letters of what must have been the owner's name, '——ich'—that was all, and might as well not have been there, for any light it shed upon the matter.

Opening the book by chance at 1st Corinthians, 2nd chapter, Mr. St. Claire, who could read German much better than he could speak it, saw pencil-marks around the ninth verse, and read aloud:

'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.'

On the margin opposite this verse was written, in a girlish hand:

'Think of me as there when you read this, and do not be sorry.'

A lock of soft, golden hair, which might have been cut from a baby's head, and a few faded flowers, which still gave forth a faint perfume like heliotrope, were tied with a bit of thread, and lying between the leaves. And except that the book was full of marked passages, chiefly comforting and conciliatory, there was nothing more to indicate the character of the owner.

'If this Bible were hers, she was a good woman,' Mr. St. Claire said, laying his hand reverently upon the forehead of the dead, while Frank, who saw another meaning between the lines, shook like one in an ague fit, for he did not believe that those hands, so pulseless and cold, had ever traced the words, 'Think of me as there when you read this, and do not be sorry.' She who wrote them might be, and probably was dead, but her grave was far away, and the fact did not at all change the duty which he owed to her and him for whom the message was intended.

'What shall I say to Arthur, and how shall I tell him,' he was wondering to himself, when Mr. St. Claire roused him by saying:

'You seem greatly unstrung by what has happened. I never saw you look so ill.'

'Yes, I feel as if I had murdered her by not sending John to the station,' Frank stammered, glad to offer this as an excuse for his manner, which he knew must seem strange and unnatural.

'You are too sensitive altogether. John might not have seen her, she hurried off so fast, and you have no particular reason to think she was coming here,' Mr. St. Claire said, adding: 'We'd better leave her now. We can do nothing more until the coroner comes, which will hardly be to-day. I hear the roads are all blocked and impassable. Let everything remain in the trunk where he can see them.'

Mechanically Mrs. Tracy, who was present, put the different articles into the trunk, leaving the Bible on the top, and then followed her husband from the room. She knew there was more affecting him than the fact that a dead woman was in the house, or that he had not sent John to the station. But what it was she could not guess, unless, and she, too, felt faint and giddy for a moment, as a new idea entered her mind.

'Frank,' she said to him when they were alone for a few moments, 'Arthur had a fancy that Gretchen was coming last night. You do not think this woman is she?'

'Gretchen? No. Don't be a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and the woman is old and black as the ace of spades. Gretchen! No, indeed!'

He did not show her the picture he had secreted; he knew she would not approve of the act, and if she had no suspicion with regard to the woman and the child he did not care to share his with her, particularly as it was only a suspicion, and so far as he could judge in his perturbed state of mind, nothing he could do would ever make things sure. His wife seemed to have forgotten the child at the cottage, and he would not bring it to her mind until it was necessary to do so. Just then Charles came to the room and said that his master was very much excited and wished to know the reason for so much commotion in the house, and why so many people were coming and going down and up the avenue.

'I thought it better that you should tell him,' Charles added, and with a sinking heart Frank started for his brother's room.

He had not seen him before that day, and now as he looked at him it seemed to him that he had grown older since the previous night, for there were lines about his mouth, and his face was very thin and pale. But his eyes were unusually bright, and his voice rang out clear as a bell as he said:

'What is it, Frank? What has happened that so many people are coming here, banging doors and talking so loud that I heard them here in my room, but I could not distinguish what they said. What's the matter? Any one hurt or dead?'

He put the question direct, and Frank gave a direct reply.

'Yes, a woman was found frozen to death in the Tramp House this morning, and was brought here. She is lying in the office at the end of the back hall.'

'A women frozen to death in the Tramp House!' Arthur repeated. 'Then I did hear a cry. Oh, Frank, who is she? Where did she come from?'

'We do not know who she is, or where she came from!' Frank replied, 'Mr. St. Claire thinks she is French. There is nothing about her person to identify her, but I would like you to see her, and—and—'

'I see her! Why should I see her, and shock my nerves more than they are already shocked?' Arthur said, with a decided shake of his head.

'But you must see her,' Frank continued. 'Perhaps you know her. She came last night. She—'

Before he could utter another word Arthur was at his side, Frank seizing him by the shoulder with the grip of a giant, demanded, fiercely:

'What do you mean by her coming last night? How did she come? Not by train, for John was there. Frank, there is something you are keeping back. I know it by your face. Tell me the truth. Is it Gretchen dead in this house?'

'No,' Frank answered huskily. 'It is not Gretchen, if that picture is like her, for this woman is very dark and old, and, besides that, has Gretchen a child?'

For an instant Arthur stood staring at him, or rather at the space beyond him, as if trying to recall something too distant or too shadowy to assume any tangible form; then bursting into a laugh he said:

'Gretchen a child! That is the best joke I have heard. How should Gretchen have a child? She is little more than one herself, or was when I saw her last. No, Gretchen has no child. Why do you ask?'

'Because,' Frank replied, 'there was a little girl found in the Tramp House with this woman, a girl three or four years old, I judge. She is at the cottage now, where Harold carried her. He found the woman this morning. Will you see her now?'

Arthur answered 'no,' decidedly, and then Frank, who knew that he should never again know peace of mind if his brother did not see her, summoned all his courage and said:

'Arthur, you must. I have not told you all. This woman did come by train from New York.'

'Then why did not John see her?' interrupted Arthur.

'He was not there,' Frank replied. 'Forgive me, Arthur, I did not send him as you thought. It was so cold and stormy, and I had no faith in your presentiments, and so—so—'

'And so you lied to me, and I will never trust you again as long as I live, and if this had been Gretchen, I would kill you, where I stand!' Arthur hissed in a whisper, more terrible to hear than louder tones would have been, 'Yes, I will see this woman whose death lies at your door,' he continued, with a gesture that Frank should precede him.

Arthur was very calm, and collected, and stern, as he followed to the office where the body lay, covered now from view, but showing terribly distinct through the linen sheet folded over it.

'Remove the covering,' he said, in the tone of a master to his slave, and Frank obeyed.

Then bending close to the stiffened form, Arthur examined the face minutely, while Frank looked on alternately between hope and dread, the former of which triumphed as his brother said, quietly:

'Yes, she is French: but I do not know her. I never saw her before. Had she nothing with her to tell who she was?'

His mood had passed, and Frank did not hear him now.

'She had a trunk,' he replied. 'Here it is, with her clothes, and the child's, and—a Bible.'

'He said the last slowly, and, taking up the book, opened it as far as possible from the writing on the margin, which might or might not be dangerous.

'It is a German Bible,' he continued, and then Arthur took it quickly from him as if it had been a long-lost friend, turning the worn pages rapidly, but failing to discover the marked passage and the message for some one.

The lock of baby hair and the faded flowers caught his attention, and his breath came hard and pantingly, as for a moment he held the little golden tress which seemed almost to twine itself lovingly around his fingers.

'That must be her child's hair. You know I told you there was a little girl found with her. Would you like to see her?' Frank said.

'No, no!' Arthur answered, hastily. 'Let her stay where she is, I don't like children as a rule. You know I can't abide the noise yours sometimes make.'

He was leaving the room with the Bible in his hand, but Frank could not suffer that, and he said:

'I suppose all these things must stay here till the coroner sees them; so I will put the Bible where I found it.

Arthur gave it up readily enough, and then, as he reached the door, looked back, and said:

'If forty coroners and undertakers come on this business, don't bother me any more. My head buzzes like a bee-hive. See that everything is done decently for the poor woman, and don't let the town bury her. Do it yourself, and send the bill to me. There is room enough on the Tracy lot; put her in a corner.'

'Yes,' Frank answered, standing in the open door and watching him as he went slowly down the long hall and until he heard him going up stairs.

Then locking the door, which shut him in with the dead, he took the photograph from his pocket and examined it minutely, feeling no shadow of doubt in his heart that it was Gretchen—if the picture in the window was like her. It was the same face, the same sweet mouth and sunny blue eyes, with curls of reddish-golden hair shading the low brow. The dress was different and more in accordance with that of a girl who belonged to the middle class, but this counted for nothing, and Frank felt himself a thief, and a liar, and a murderer as he stood looking at the lovely face; and debating what he should do.

Turning it over he saw on the back a word traced in English letters, in a very uncertain scrawling hand, as if it were the writer's first attempt at English. Spelling it letter by letter he made out what he called 'Wiesbaden,' and knew it was some German town. Did Gretchen live there, he wondered, and how could he find out, and what should he do? He had not yet seen the child at the cottage, but from some things Harold said, he knew she was more like this picture than like the dead woman found with her, and in his heart he felt almost sure who she was, and that his course of duty was plain. He ought to show Arthur the photograph, and tell him his suspicions, and take every possible step to ascertain who the woman was and where she came from.

Frank was not a bad man, nor a hard-hearted man, but he was ambitious and weak. He had enjoyed money, and ease, and position long enough to make him unwilling to part with them now, while for his children he was more ambitious than for himself. To see Tom master of Tracy Park was the great desire of his life, and this could not be, if what he feared were proved true. If Arthur had no wife, no child, no will adverse to him, why, then his interest was safe, for no will his brother could now make would be held as valid, and when he died everything would naturally go to him. Of all this Frank thought during the few minutes he staid in the silent room. Then he said to himself:

'I will see the child first. After all I know nothing for certain—can never know anything for certain, and I should be a fool to give up all my children's interests for a fancy, an idea, which may have no foundation. Arthur does not know half the time what he is saying, and might not tell the truth about Gretchen. She may not have been his wife. On the whole, I do not believe she was. He would never have left her if she had been, and if so, this child, if she is Gretchen's, has no right to come between me and mine. No, I shall wait a little while and think, though in the end I mean to do right.'

With these specious arguments Frank tried to quiet his conscience, but he could not help feeling that Satan had possession of him, and as he hurried through the hall he said aloud, as if speaking to something seen:

'Go away—go away! I shall do right if I only know what right is.

He did not see his brother again that day, or go to the cottage either, but as he was dressing himself next morning he said to his wife:

'That little girl ought to see her mother before she is buried. I shall send for her to-day. The coroner will be here, too. Did I tell you I had a telegram last night? He is coming on the early train.'

Mrs. Tracy passed the allusion to the coroner in silence, but of the little girl she said:

'I suppose the child must come to the funeral, but you surely do not mean to keep her? We are not bound to do that because her mother froze to death on our premises.'

'Would you let her go to the poor-house?' Frank asked, but Dolly did not reply.

As the breakfast-bell just then rang, no more was said of the little waif until the sleigh was brought to the door, and Frank announced his intention of stopping for the child on his way back from the station, where he was going to meet the coroner.

CHAPTER XIV.

LITTLE JERRY.

It was nearly noon when Harold left Tracy Park the previous day and started for home, eager and anxious with regard to the child whom he claimed as his own. He had found her. She was his and he should keep her, he said to himself, and then he wondered how his grandmother had managed with her, and if she had cried for him or for her mother, and as he reached the house he stood still a moment, to listen. But the sounds which met his ear were peals of laughter, mingled with mild, and, as it would seem, unavailing expostulations from his grandmother.

Opening the door suddenly he found the child seated at the table in the high chair he used to occupy, and which Mrs. Crawford had brought from the attic, where it was stored. Standing before the child was a dish of bread and milk, of which she had evidently eaten enough, for she was playing with it now, and amusing herself by striking the spoon into the milk, which was splashed over the table, while three or four drops of it were standing on the forehead and nose of the distressed woman, who was vainly trying to take the spoon from the little hand clenching it so firmly.

Mrs. Crawford had had a busy and exciting day with her charge, who, active and restless, and playful, kept her on the alert and made her forget in part how lame she was. As she could not put her foot to the floor without great pain, and as she must move about, she adopted the expedient of placing her knee on a chair to the back of which she held, while she hobbled around the room, followed by the child, who, delighted with this novel method of locomotion, put her knee in a low chair, and holding to Mrs. Crawford's skirts, limped after her, imitating her perfectly, even to the groans she sometimes uttered when a twinge sharper than usual ran up her swollen limb. It was fun for the child, but almost death to the woman, who, when she could endure it no longer, sank into a chair, and tried by speaking sharply, to make the little girl understand that she must keep quiet. But when she scolded, baby scolded back, in a language wholly unintelligible, shaking her curly head, and sometimes stamping her foot by way of emphasizing her words.

When Mrs. Crawford laughed the child laughed, and when once a pang severer than usual wrung the tears from her eyes, baby looked at her compassionately a moment, while her little face puckered itself into wrinkles as if she too were going to cry; then, putting up her soft hand she wiped the tears from Mrs. Crawford's cheeks, and, climbing into her lap, became as quiet as a kitten. But a touch sufficed to start her up, for she was full of fun and frolic, and her laughing blue eyes, which were of that wide-open kind which see everything, were brimming over with mischief. Once or twice she called out 'Mahnee,' and going to the window, stood on tip-toe looking out, to see if she were coming. But on the whole she seemed happy and content, exploring every nook and corner of the kitchen and examining curiously every article of furniture as if it were quite new to her.

Once when Mrs. Crawford was talking earnestly to her, trying to make her understand, she stood for a moment watching and imitating the motion of the lady's lips and the expression of her face; then going up to her she began to examine her mouth and her teeth, as if she would know what manner of machinery it was which produced sounds so new and strange to her. She certainly was a remarkable child for her age, though Mrs. Crawford was puzzled to know just how old she was. She was very small, and, judging from her size, one would have said she was hardly three; but the expression of her face was so mature, and she saw things so quickly and understood so readily, that she must have been older. She was certainly very precocious, with a most inquiring turn of mind, and Mrs. Crawford felt herself greatly interested in her as she watched her active movements and listened to the musical prattle she could not understand.

She had examined the carpet-bag, in which were found the articles necessary for an ocean voyage, and little else. Most of these were soiled from use, but there was among them a little clean, white apron, and this Mrs. Crawford put upon the child, after having washed her face and hands and brushed her wavy hair, which had a trick of coiling itself into soft, fluffy curls all over her head.

The bread and milk had been given her about twelve o'clock, and the laugh she gave when she saw it showed her appreciation of it quite as much as the eagerness with which she ate it. Her appetite appeased, however, she began to play with it and throw the milk over the table and into Mrs. Crawford's face, just as Harold came in, full of what he had seen at the park, and anxious to see his baby, as he called her.

Taking her on his lap and kissing her rosy cheeks, he began to narrate to his grandmother all that had been done, and told her that Mr. St. Claire had given it as his opinion that the woman was French.

'And if so,' he continued, 'baby must be French, too, though she does not look a bit like her mother, who is very dark and not—well, not at all like you or Mrs. St. Claire.'

Then he told of the trunk which the baggage-master had taken to the park, and of what it contained.

'The woman's clothes were marked "N.B."' he said, 'and some of the baby's—such a funny name. Mr. St. Claire said it was French, and pronounced "Jerreen," though it is spelled "Jerrine."'

'That is the name of the child's things in the bag,' Mrs. Crawford said.

'Of course it is baby's, then,' Harold replied; 'but, I shall call her Jerry for short, even if it is a boy's name, and so my little lady, I christen you Jerry;' and kissing the forehead, the eyes, the nose, and the chin, he marked the shape of the cross upon the face upturned to his, and named his baby 'Jerry.'

Later, when he knew more of the world, he would change the 'y' into 'ie,' but now she was simply Jerry, and when he called her that she laughed and nodded as if the sound were not new to her. She was a beautiful child, with complexion as pure as wax, and eyes which might have borrowed their color from the blue lakes of Italy, or from the skies of England when they are at their brightest.

'I wish she could talk to me. I suppose she must speak French,' he said, as he was trying in vain to make her understand him. 'Don't you know a word I say?' he asked her, and her reply was what sounded to him like 'We, we.'

'That's English,' he cried, delighted with her progress, but when he spoke to her again, her answer was, 'Yah, yah,' which seemed to him so nonsensical that after a few attempts to make her say 'yes,' and to teach her what it meant, he gave up his lesson for the remainder of the day and talked to her by signs and gestures which she seemed to understand.

Whatever he did she did, and he saw her more than once imitating his grandmother's motions as well as his own, to the life.

Late in the afternoon Mr. St. Claire came to the cottage, curious to see the child, who, at sight of him, retreated behind Harold, and then peered shyly up at him, with a look in her great blue eyes which puzzled him on the instant, as one is frequently puzzled with a likeness to something or somebody he tries in vain to recall. In this instance it was hardly the eyes themselves, but rather the way they looked at him, and the sweep of the long lashes, together with a firm shutting together of the lips, which struck Mr. St. Claire as familiar, and when with a swift movement of her little hand, she swept the mass of golden hair back from her forehead, he would have sworn that he had seen that trick a thousand times, and yet he could not place it. That she was the child of the dead woman he believed, and as the mother was French, so also was she. He had once passed two years in France, and was master of the language; so he spoke to the child in French, but though she seemed to understand him she made no reply, until he said to her:

'Where is your mother, little one?'

'Then she answered, promptly, 'Dead,' but the language was German, not French.

'Ho-ho! You are a little Dutchman,' Mr. St. Claire said, with some surprise in his voice.

Then as he noted the purity of her complexion, her fair hair and blue eyes, he said to himself:

'Her father was a German, and probably they lived in Germany, but the mother was certainly French.'

His own knowledge of German was very limited, but he could speak it a little, and turning again to the child he managed to say:

'What is your name!'

'Der-ree,' was the reply, and Harold exclaimed:

'That's it; she means Jerry; that's short for the name on her clothes, which you said was pronounced Jereen. I have christened her Jerry, and she is my little girl, ain't you, Jerry!'

'Yah—oui—'ess,' was the answer, and there was a gleam of triumph in the blue eyes which flashed up to Harold for approbation.

She had not, of course, understood a word he said, except, indeed her name; but the tone of his voice was interrogatory, and seemed to expect an affirmative answer, which she gave in three languages, emphasizing the ''ess' with a nod of her head, as if greatly pleased with herself.

'Bravo!' Harold shouted. 'She can say yes. I taught her, and I shall have her talking English in a few days as well as I do, shan't I, Jerry?'

'Yah—'ess,' was the reply.

Then Mr. St. Claire tried to question her further with regard to herself and her home, but his phraseology was probably at fault, for no satisfactory result was reached beyond the fact that her mother was dead, that her name was Jerry, or Derree, as she called it, and that she had been on a ship with Mah-nee, who did so—and she imitated perfectly the motions and contortions of one who is deathly sea-sick.

'I suppose she means her mother by Mah-nee,' said Mr. St. Claire; and when he asked her if it were not so, she answered 'yah,' and ''ess,' as she did to everything, adopting finally the latter word altogether because she saw it pleased Harold.

No matter what was the question put to her, her reply was ''ess,' which she repeated quickly, with a prolonged sound on the 's.'

When at last Mr. St. Claire took his leave, it was with a strange feeling of interest for the child, whose antecedents must always be shrouded in mystery, and whose future he could not predict.

It seemed impossible for Mrs. Crawford to keep her, poor as she was, and as he had no idea that the Tracys would take her, there was no alternative but the poor-house, unless he took her himself and brought her up with his own little five-year-old Nina. He would wait until after the funeral and see, he decided, as he went back to his home at Brier Hill, where his children, Dick and Nina, were eager to hear all he had to tell them of the poor little girl whose mother had been frozen to death.

The next morning the sleigh from Tracy Park stopped before the cottage door, and Frank, who had been to meet the coroner, alighted from it. He was pale and haggard as he entered the room where Jerry was playing on the floor with Harold's Maltese kitten. As he came in she looked up at him, and, lifting her hand, swept the hair back from her forehead just as she had done the day before when Mr. St. Claire was there. The peculiar motion had struck the latter as something familiar, though he could not define it; but Frank did, or in his nervous condition he thought he did, and his knees shook so he could hardly stand as he talked with Mrs. Crawford and told her he had come for the child, who ought to be where her mother was until after the funeral.'

'Then she will come back again. You will not keep her. She is mine, ain't you, Jerry?' Harold exclaimed, eagerly; while Jerry, who, with a child's instinct scented danger from Harold's manner and associated that danger with the strange man looking so curiously at her, sprang to her feet, which she stamped vigorously, while she cried, ''ess, 'ess, 'ess,' with her face all in wrinkles, and her blue eyes anything but soft and sunny, as they usually were.

In this mood she was not much like Gretchen in the picture, but she was like some one else whom Frank had seen in excited moods, and he grew faint and sick as he watched her, and saw the varying expression of her face and eyes. The way she shook her head at him and flourished her hands was a way he had seen many times and remembered so well, and he felt as if his heart would leap from his throat as he tried to speak to her. A turn of the head, a gesture of the hands, a curve of the eyelashes, a tone in the voice, seemed slight actions on which to base a certainty; but Frank did feel certain, and his brain reeled for a second as his thoughts leaped forward years and years until he was an old man, and he wondered if he could bear it and make no sign.

Then, just as he had decided that he could not, the tempter suggested a plan which seemed so feasible and fair that the future, with a secret to guard, did not look so formidable, and to himself he said:

'It is not likely I can ever be positive; and so long as there is a doubt, however small, it would be preposterous to give up what otherwise must come to my children, if not to me; but I will not wrong her more than I can help.'

'Come, little girl, go with me,' he said, in his kindest tones, as he advanced toward her, while Harold went for her cloak and hood.

Jerry knew then that she was expected to go with the stranger, and without Harold, and resisted with all her might. Standing behind him, as if safe there, and clinging to his coat, she sobbed piteously, intermingling her sobs with 'Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' the only English word she knew, and which she seemed to think would avail in every emergency.

And it did help her now, for Harold pleaded that he might go, too, and when Jerry saw him with his coat and hat, and understood that he was to be her escort, she ceased to sob, and allowing herself to be made ready, was soon in the sleigh, and on her way to Tracy Park.

CHAPTER XV.

JERRY AT THE PARK.

And so this is the poor little girl. We'll take her right to the kitchen, where she can get warm,' Mrs. Tracy said, as she met her husband in the hall, with Harold and the mite of a creature wrapped in the foreign looking cloak and hood.

'No, Dolly!' and Frank spoke very decidedly, as Harold was turning in the direction of the kitchen. 'She is going to the nursery, with the other children, and when they have their dinner she shall have hers with them.'

'Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry said, as if she comprehended that there was a difference of opinion between the man and woman, and that she was on the affirmative side.

'Take her to the nursery! Oh, Frank! she may have something about her which the children will catch,' Mrs. Tracy said, blocking the way as she spoke.

But Jerry, who through the half-open door had caught sight of the pretty sitting-room, with its warm carpet and curtains, and cheerful fire, shook her head defiantly at the lady, and brushing past her, went boldly into the room, whose brightness had attracted her.

Marching up to the fire, she stood upon the rug and looked about her with evident satisfaction; then glancing at the three who were watching her, she nodded complacently, and said, ''ess, 'ess, 'ess,' while she held her little cold hands to the fire.

'Acts as if she belonged here, doesn't she?' Frank said to his wife, who did not reply, so intent was she upon watching the strange child, who deliberately took off her cloak and hood and tossing them upon the floor, drew a small low chair to the fire, and climbing into it, sat down as composedly as if she were mistress there instead of an intruder.

Once she swept the hair back from her forehead with the motion Frank knew so well, and then the lump came into his throat again, and he steadied himself against the mantel, while he looked curiously at the young girl, making herself so much at home and seeming so well pleased with her surroundings.

'Take her to the nursery now. I must see to that coroner,' he said to his wife, adding: 'Harold must go too, or there will be the Old Harry to pay.'

''Ess, 'ess,' came decidedly from the child, who went willingly with Harold, and was soon ushered into the large upper room, which was used as both nursery and school-room, for Mrs. Tracy could not allow her two sons, Tom and Jack, to come in contact with the boys at school; so she kept a governess, a middle-aged spinster, who, glad of a home, and the rather liberal compensation, sat all day in the nursery and bore patiently with Tom's freaks and Jack's dullness: to say nothing of the trouble it was to have the three-year-old Maude toddling about and interfering with everything.

'Hallo!' Tom cried, as his mother came in, followed by Harold and Jerry. 'Hallo, what's up?' And throwing aside the slate on which he had been trying to master the difficulties of a sum in long division, he went toward them, and said: 'Has the coroner come, and can't I go and see the inquest? You said maybe I could if I behaved, and I do, don't I, Miss Howard?'

Just then he caught sight of Jerry, and stopping short, exclaimed:

'By Jingo! ain't she pretty! I mean to kiss her.'

And he made a movement toward the little face, which looked up so shyly at him. But his mother caught his arm and held him back, as she said, sharply:

'Don't touch her, there is no tolling what you may catch. I wanted her to go to the kitchen, the proper place for her, but your father insisted that she should be brought here. I hope, Miss Howard, you will see that she does not go near the children.'

'Yes, Madam,' Miss Howard replied, 'but I am sure there can be no danger. She looks as clean and sweet as a rose.'

Miss Howard was fond of children, and she held out her hand to the little girl, who seemed to have a most wonderful faculty for discriminating between friends and enemies, and who went to her readily, and leaning against her arm, looked curiously at the group of children—at Tom, and Jack, and Maude, the latter of whom wished to go to her, but was restrained by the nurse. The moment the door closed on Mrs. Tracy, Tom walked up to the child, and said:

'I shall kiss her now, anyhow.'

But Jerry hid her face, and could not be induced to look up until he had moved away from her.

'Catty as well as pretty,' Tom said. 'I wonder who she is anyway, and how she will like the poor-house?'

'Who said she was going to the poor-house?' Harold exclaimed indignantly.

'Mother said so,' Tom replied. 'I heard her talking to the cook. Where would she go if she did not go to the poor-house? Who would take care of her?'

'I!' Harold answered, and to Miss Howard he seemed to grow older a dozen years, as he stood there with his arms folded and the light of a brave manhood in his brown eyes. 'I shall take care of her. She will live with grandmother and me. I found her, and she is mine.'

''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' came from Jerry, as she swung one little foot back and forth and looked confidingly at her champion.

'You take care of her!' Tom sneered, with that supercilious air he always assumed toward those he considered his inferiors. Why, you and your grandmother can't take care of yourselves, or you couldn't if it wasn't for Uncle Arthur. Mother says so. You wouldn't have any house to live in if he hadn't given it to you,'

Harold's arms were unfolded now and the doubled fists were in his pockets clenching themselves tighter and tighter as he advanced to Tom, who, remembering his black eye, began to back towards the nurse for safety.

'It's a lie, Tom Tracy,' Harold said. 'Mr. Arthur does not take care of us. We do it ourselves, and have for ever so long. He did give us the house, but it ain't for you to twit me of that. Whose house is this, I'd like to know? It isn't yours, nor your father's, and there isn't a thing in it yours. It is all Mr. Arthur's.'

'Wall, we are to be his hares—Jack, and Maude, and me. Mother says so,' Tom stammered out, while Jerry, who had been looking intently, first at one boy, and then at the other, called out in her own language:

'Nein, nein, nein,' and struck her hand toward Tom.

'What does she mean by her "Nine, nine, nine,'" he asked of Miss Howard, who replied that she thought it was the German for 'No, no, no,' and that the child probably did not approve of him.

Tom knew she did not, and though she was only a baby, be felt chagrined and irritable. Had he dared, he would have struck Harold, who asked him what he meant by being his uncle's hare. But he was afraid of Miss Howard, and remembering it must be time for the inquest, he slipped from the room, whispering fiercely to Harold as he passed him:

'Darn you, Hal Hastings, I'll thrash you yet.'

'Let me know when you are ready, and also when you get to be your uncle's hare,' was Harold's taunting reply, as the door closed upon the discomfited Tom.

The inquest was a mere matter of form, for there was no doubt in any one's mind that the woman had been frozen to death, and she had no friends to complain that due attention had not been paid her. So after a few questions put to Mr. Tracy, and more to Harold, who was summoned from the nursery to tell what he knew, and a look at the cold rigid face, a verdict was rendered of 'Frozen to death.'

Then came the question of burial, as to when, and where, and at whose expense. Quite a number of people had assembled and the little room was full. Conspicuous among them was Peterkin, who, having been elected to an office, which necessitated a care for the expenditures of the village, was swelled with importance, and dying for a chance to be heard.

When Harold came into the room Jerry was with him. She had refused to let him leave her, and he led her by the hand into the midst of the men, who grew as silent and respectful the moment she appeared as if she had been a woman instead of a little child, who could speak no word of their language, or understand what was said to her. It was her mother lying there dead, and they made way for her as, catching sight of the white face, she uttered a cry of joy, and running up to the body, patted the cold cheeks, while she kept calling 'Mah-nee, Mah-nee,' and saying words unintelligible to all, but full of pathos and love, and child-like coaxing for the inanimate form to rouse itself, and speak to her again.

'Poor little thing,' was said by more than one, and hands went up to eyes unused to tears, for the sight was a touching one—that lovely child bending over the dead face, and imprinting kisses upon it.

Harold took her away from the body, and lifting her into a chair, kept by her, as with her arm around his neck, she stood listening to, and watching, and sometimes imitating the gestures of the men around her.

It was Peterkin who spoke first; standing back so straight that his immense stomach, with the heavy gold watch-chain hanging across it, seemed to fill the room, he gave his opinion before any one had a chance to express theirs.

It was the first time he had been in the house since the morning after the party, when Arthur had turned him from the door. He had vowed vengeance against the Tracys then, and kept his vow by spending two thousand dollars in order to defeat Frank as member of Congress and to get himself elected as one of the village trustees, and now he had come, partly out of curiosity to see the woman, and partly to oppose her being buried by the town, if such a thing were suggested.

'Let them Tracys bury their own dead,' he said to his wife before he left home, and he said it again in substance now, as with a tremendous 'ahem!' he commenced his speech standing close to little Jerry, who never took her eyes from him, but watched him with a face which varied in its expression with every variation in his voice and manner, and reached its climax when he said: 'I don't b'lieve in saddlin' the town with a debt we don't orto pay. Let the Tracys bury their own dead, I say!'

''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry chimed in with an emphatic shake of her head with each ''ess,' and a flourish of her hand more threatening than approving toward the speaker, who glanced at her and went on:

'Do you see, gentlemen of the jury, who this cub looks like. I do! and so can you with half an eye. She looks like Arthur Tracy!'

Just then Jerry swept back her golden hair, and, opening her eyes, flashed them around the room until they rested by accident upon Frank, who, pale, and faint, and terrified, was leaning against the door-way trying to seem only amused at the tirade which was concluded as follows:

'Yes, Arthur Tracy! Not her skin, perhaps, nor hair, nor her eyes, leastwise not the color, but something I can't describe; and this woman, her mother, you say is a furriner; that may be, but I've seen her afore, or I'm mistaken. She took passage once on the 'Liza Ann, I'm sure on't, and Arthur look passage same day as far as Chester and was as chipper as you please with her. I don't say nothin', nor insinerate nothin', but I won't consent to have the town pay what belongs to the Tracys. Let 'em run their own canoes and funerals, too, I say; and as for this young one with the yaller hair—though where she got that the lord only knows; 'tain't her's,' pointing to the corpse; 'nor 'tain't his'n,' pointing in the direction of Arthur's rooms; 'as for her, I'm opposed to sendin' to the poor-house another pauper.'

'She is not a pauper, and she is not going to the poor-house either,' Harold exclaimed, while Jerry came in with her nein, nein, nein, which made the bystanders laugh, as Peterkin went on, addressing himself to Harold:

'You are her champion, hey, and intend to take care of her. Mighty fine, I'm sure, but hadn't you better fetch back May Jane's pin that you took at the party.'

'It is false,' Harold cried. 'I never saw the pin, never!' and the hot tears sprang to his eyes at this unmanly assault.

By this time Peterkin, who felt that everybody was against him, was swelling with rage, and seizing Harold by the collar, roared out:

'Do you tell me I lie! You rascal! I'll teach you what belongs to manners!' and he would have struck the boy but for Jerry, who had been watching him as a cat watches a mouse, and who, raising her war-cry of 'nein, nein, nein,' sprang at him like a little tiger, and by the fierceness of her gestures and the volubility of her German jargon actually compelled him to retreat step by step until she had him outside the door, which she barred with her diminutive person. No one could help laughing at the discomfited giant and the mite of a child facing him so bravely, while she scolded at the top of her voice.

Peterkin saw that he was beaten and left the house, vowing vengeance against both Harold and Jerry, if he should ever have it in his power to harm them.

When he was gone, Frank, who had recovered his composure during the ludicrous scene, said to those present:

'I would not explain to that brute, but it is not my intention to trouble the town. I have no more idea who this woman is than you have, and I'll swear that Peterkin's vile insinuations with regard to her are false. My brother says he never saw her in his life, and he speaks the truth. She may have been on Peterkin's boat, but I doubt it. She has every appearance of a foreigner, and her child'—here Frank's tongue felt a little thick, but he cleared his throat and went on—'her child speaks a foreign language—German, they tell me. This poor woman died on my—or rather my brother's premises. I have consulted with him, and he thinks as I do, that she should be cared for at our expense. He says, further, that there is room on the Tracy lot; she is to be buried there. I shall attend to it at once, and the funeral will take place to-morrow morning at ten o'clock from this house. What disposition will be made of the child I have not yet decided, but she will not go to the poor-house.'

'Oh, Mr. Tracy,' Harold burst out, 'she is mine. She is to live with grandma and me. You will not take her from me—say you will not?'

'Vill not,' Jerry reiterated, imitating as well as she could Harold's last words.

For a moment Mr. Tracy looked fixedly at the boy, pleading for a burden which would necessitate toil, and self-denial, and patience of no ordinary kind and never had he despised himself more than he did then, when, believing what he did believe, he said at last:

'I will talk with your grandmother, and see what arrangements we can make. I rather think you have the best right to her. But she must stay here to-night and until after the funeral, when she can go with you, if you like.'

To this Harold did not object, and as Jerry seemed very happy and content, he left her, while she was exploring the long drawing-room, and examining curiously the different articles of furniture. As she did not seem disposed to touch anything, she was allowed to go where she liked, although Mrs. Frank remonstrated against her roaming all over the house as if she belonged there, and suggested again that she be sent to the kitchen. But Frank said 'no,' decidedly, and Jerry was left to herself, except as the nurse-girl and Charles looked after her a little.

And so it came about that towards evening she found herself in the upper hall, and after making a tour of the rooms, whose doors were open, she came to one whose door was shut—nor could she turn the knob, although she tried with all her might. Doubling her tiny fist, she knocked upon the door, and then, as no one came, kicked against it with her foot, but still with no result.

Inside the room, with Gretchen's picture, Arthur sat in his dressing-gown, very nervous and a little inclined to be irritable and captious. He knew there had been an inquest, and that many people had come and gone that day, for he had seen them from his window, and had seen, too, the sleigh, with Frank, and the coroner, and Harold, and a blue hood, drive into the yard. But to the blue hood he never gave a thought, as he was only intent upon the dead woman, whose presence in the house made him so nervous and restless.

'I shall be glad when she is buried. I have been so cold and shaky ever since they brought her here,' he said to Charles, as, with a shiver, he drew his chair nearer to the fire and leaning back wearily in it fixed his eyes upon Gretchen's picture smiling at him from the window, 'Dear little Gretchen,' he said in a whisper, 'you seem so near to me now that I can almost hear your feet at the door, and your voice asking to come in. Hush!' and he started suddenly, as Jerry's kicks made themselves heard even to the room where he sat. 'Hush! Charles, who is that banging at the door? Surely not Maude? They would not let her come up here. Go and see, and send her away.'

He had forgotten that he was listening for Gretchen, and when Charles, who had opened the door cautiously and described the intruder, said to him. 'It is that woman's child. Shall I let her in? She is a pretty little thing,' he replied, 'Let her in? No; why should you and why is she allowed to prowl around the house? Tell her to go away.'

So Jerry was sent away with a troubled disappointed look in her little face, and as the chill March night came on and the dark shades crept into the room and Gretchen's picture gradually faded from sight in the gathering gloom until it seemed only a confused mixture of lead and glass, Arthur felt colder, and drearier, and more wretched than he had ever felt before. It was a genuine case of homesickness, if one can be homesick who is in his own house, surrounded by every possible comfort and luxury. He was tired, and sick, and disappointed, and his head was aching terribly, while thoughts of the past were crowding his brain where the light of reason seemed struggling to reinstate itself. He was thinking of Gretchen, and longing for her so intensely that once he groaned aloud and whispered to himself:

'Poor Gretchen! I am so sorry for it all. I can see it clearer now, how I left her and did not write, and I don't know where she is, or if she will ever come; and yet, I feel as if she had come, or tidings of her. Perhaps my letter reached her. Perhaps she is on her way. God grant it, and forgive me for all I have made her suffer.'

It was very still in the room where Arthur sat, for Charles had gone out, and only the occasional crackling of the coal in the grate and ticking of the clock broke the silence which reigned around him; and at last, soothed into quiet, he fell asleep and dreamed that on his door he heard again the thud of baby feet, while Gretchen's voice was calling to him to let the baby in.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FUNERAL AND AFTER.

Long before ten o'clock, the hour appointed for the funeral, the next morning, people began to gather at the Park House, and the avenue seemed full of them. The news that an unknown woman had been frozen to death in the Tramp House had spread far and wide, awakening in many a curiosity to see the stranger, and discover, if possible, a likeness to some one they might have known.

It was strange how many reminiscences were brought to mind by this circumstance of girls who had disappeared years before and were supposed to be dead—or worse. And this woman might be one of them; indeed, Peterkin had said that she was, and they came in crowds to see her, and to see, as well, the inside of the handsome house, of which they had heard so much, especially since Mr. Arthur's return. But in this they were disappointed, for all the front rooms were locked against them, and only the large dining-room, the breakfast-room, the servants' hall, and the little back office were thrown open to the public. In the first of these the corpse was lying in a substantial, handsome coffin, for Frank, who ordered it, would have no other; and when the undertaker suggested a cheaper one would answer just as well, had said, decidedly:

'I mean to bury her decently. Give me this one, and send the bill to me, not to Arthur.'

It was his funeral, and, judging from his face, he was burying all his friends, instead of a poor, unknown woman, whose large, coarse features and plain woollen dress looked out of place in that handsome black coffin, with its silver-plated trimmings. Frank had suggested that she should have a white merino shroud, but his wife had overruled him. It was not her funeral, and she had no interest in it, except that it should be over as soon as possible, and the house cleansed from the atmosphere of death. So when her husband asked if the child ought not to have a mourning-dress, she scoffed at him for the suggestion saying she did not like to see children in black anyway, and even if she died herself she should not wish hers to wear it.

'I cannot imagine,' she continued, 'why you have taken so unaccountable a fancy to and interest in these people, especially the child. One would think she belonged to royalty, the fuss you make over her. What are we to do with her to-night? Where is she to sleep?'

'In the nursery,' was his reply; and he saw his wishes carried out and ordered in a crib, which used to be Jack's, and bade the nurse see that she was comfortable.

So Jerry was put to bed in the nursery and slept very quietly until about, ten o'clock when she awoke and cried piteously for both 'Man-nee' and 'Ha-roll.' Frank, who was sitting alone in the library, heard the cry, and knew it was not Maude's. Had it been he would not have minded it, for he knew that she would be cared for without his interference. But something in the crying of this little foreign girl stirred him strangely, and after listening to it a few moments he arose, and going softly to the door of the nursery, stood listening until a sharp hush from the nurse girl decided him to enter, and going to the crib he bent over the sobbing child and tried to comfort her. She could not understand him, but the tone of his voice was kind, and when he put his hand on her hot head she took it in hers and held it fast, as if she recognized in him a friend. And Frank as he felt the clasp of the soft, warm fingers, and saw the confiding look in the wide-open eyes, grew faint and cold, and asked himself again, as he had many times that day, if he could do it.

Jerry was asleep at last, but she sobbed occasionally in her sleep, and there were great tears on her eyelashes, while her fingers clutched Frank's hand tightly as if fearing to let it go. But he managed to disengage it and stealing cautiously from the room went back to the library where he sat late into the night, facing the future and wondering if he could meet it.

He had Jerry at the table next morning and saw that she was helped to everything she wanted without any regard to its suitability for her, and when his wife said rather curtly that she never knew that he was so fond of children before, he answered her:

'I am only doing as I would wish some one to do to Maude if she were like this poor little girl.'

When, at last, the hour for the funeral arrived he placed her himself upon the high chair close to the coffin, where she sat through the short service, conspicuous in her gray cloak and blue hood, with her golden hair falling on her neck and piled in wavy masses on her forehead, while her bright eyes scanned the crowd curiously as if asking why they were there and why they were all looking so intently at her. More than one kind-hearted woman went up and kissed her, and when, at the close of the services, Mr. Tracy held her in his arms for a last look at her mother, their tears fell fast for the child, so unconscious of the meaning of what was passing around her.

'Isn't she beautiful! Such lovely hair, and eyes, and dazzling complexion!' was said by more than one; and then they speculated as to her future.

Would she go to the poor-house? Would Frank Tracy keep her with all his children, or was it true, as they had heard, that Mr. Arthur Tracy was to adopt her at his own? And where was Mr. Arthur? He might, at least, have shown enough respect for the dead woman to come into the room, and they wanted so much to see him, for there was a great deal of curiosity with regard to the lunatic of Tracy Park among the lower class of people who had come to Shannondale during the eleven years of his absence.

But Arthur was sick in bed, suffering alternately from chills and a raging fever, which set his brain on fire and made him wilder than usual. He had not slept well during the night. Indeed, he said, he had not slept at all. But this was a common assertion of his, and one to which Charles now paid little heed.

'A man can't snore and not sleep,' was the unanswerable argument with which he refuted the sleepless nights of his master.

On this occasion, however, he had heard no snoring, and Arthur's face, seen by the morning light, was a sufficient proof of the wakeful hours he had passed. He, too, had heard the distant crying, and felt instinctively that it was not Maude's. Starting up in bed to listen, he said:

'What's that? Is that child here yet?'

'Yes sir: she is to stay till after the funeral,' was Charles' reply, and Arthur continued:

'Bring me some cotton for my ears. I never can stand that noise. It is a peculiar cry.'

The cotton was brought. A window in the hall which had a habit of rattling with every breath of wind was made fast with a bit of shingle whittled out for that purpose, and then Arthur became tolerably quiet until morning, when he began to talk to himself in the German language, which Charles could not understand. But he caught the name Gretchen, and knew she was the subject of the sick man's thoughts. Suddenly turning to his attendant, to whom he always spoke in English, Arthur said:

'The funeral is to-day?'

'Yes, sir, at ten o'clock.'

'Well, lock every door leading up this way, and shut out the gossipping blockheads who will come by hundreds, and, if we would let them, swarm into my room as thick as the frogs were in the houses of the Egyptians. Shut the doors, Charles, and keep them out.'

So the doors were shut and bolted, and then Arthur lay listening with that intensity which so quickens one's hearing, that the faintest sounds are distinct at great distances. He heard the trampling footsteps as the people came crowding in, and the tread of horses' feet as sleigh after sleigh drove up the avenue, and once, with a shudder, he said:

'That is the hearse. I am sure of it.'

Then all was still, and listen as he might he could not distinguish the faintest sound until the services were over and the people began to leave the house.

'There,' he said, with a sigh of relief; 'it will soon be over. Bring me my clothes, Charles. I am going to get up and see the last of this poor woman. God help her, whoever she was.'

He was beginning to feel a great pity for the woman whose coffin they were putting in the hearse, which moved off a few rods, and then stopped until the open sleigh came up, the sleigh in which Frank Tracy sat, muffled in his heavy overcoat, for the day, though bright and sunny, was cold, and a chill March wind was blowing. Dolly had taken refuge in a headache which had prevented her from being present at the funeral and kept her from going to the grave as her husband had wished her to do. So only Harold and Jerry occupied the sleigh with Frank, and these sat opposite him, with their backs to the horses, Jerry in her gray cloak and blue hood showing conspicuously as she came into full view of the window where Arthur stood looking at the procession with a feeling at his heart, as if in some way he were interested in the sad funeral, where there was no mourner, no one who had ever seen or known the deceased, save the little helpless girl, looking around her in perfect unconcern save as she rather liked the stir and all that was going on.

They had tied a thin veil over her head to shield her from the cold, and thus her face was not visible to Arthur. But he saw the blue hood and the golden hair on the old gray cloak, and the sight of it moved him mightily, making him hold fast to the window-casing for support, while he stood watching it. Just as far as he could see it his eye followed that hood, and when it disappeared from view, he turned from the window, deathly sick, and tottering back to his bedroom, vomited from sheer nervous excitement.

'Thank Heaven it is over and the rabble gone,' he said, when he became easier. 'Go now and open all the doors and windows to let in the fresh air and out the smell they are sure to have left. Ugh! I get a whiff of it now. Burn some of that aromatic paper; but open the hall windows first.'

Charles did as he was ordered, and the wind was soon sweeping through the wide hall, while Arthur's rooms were filled with an odor like the sweet incense burned in the old cathedrals.

'I am very giddy and faint,' Arthur said, when Charles came back to him after his ventilating operation. 'I have looked at the bright snow too long, and there are a thousand rings of fire dancing before my eyes, and in every ring I see a blue hood and veil, with waves of hair like Gretchen's, when she was a child. There is a redder tinge now on Gretchen's hair, because she is older. Wheel me out there, Charles, where I can see her.'

Charles obeyed, and moved the light bed-lounge into the library, where his master could feast his eyes upon the sweet face which knew no change, but which always, night and day, smiled upon him the same. The picture had a soothing effect upon Arthur, and he gazed at it now until it began to fade away and lose itself in the blue hood and veil he had seen in the sleigh far down the avenue; and when, a few minutes later, Charles came in to look at him, he found him fast asleep.

Meantime the funeral train had reached the cemetery, where the snow was piled in great drifts, and where, in a corner of the Tracy lot, they buried the stranger, with no tear to hallow her grave, and no pang of regret save that she had ever come there, with the mystery and the doubt which must always cling to her memory. Frank Tracy's face was very pale and stern as he held little Jerry in his arms during the committal of the body to the grave, and then bade her take one last look at the box which held her mother. But Jerry, who was growing cold and tired, began to cry, and so Frank took her back to the sleigh, which was driven to the cottage in the lane. Here she felt at home, and drawing to the fire the low rocking chair she had appropriated to herself, was soon supremely happy devouring the ginger cookie which Mrs. Crawford had given her, and in trying to pronounce English words under Harold's teaching.

While the children were thus employed, Mr. Tracy was divulging to Mrs. Crawford the object of his visit. He could hardly explain, he said, why he was so deeply interested in the child, except it were that her mother had died on his premises and she seemed to be thrown upon his care.

'I cannot see her go to the poor-house,' he continued, with a trembling in his voice which made Mrs. Crawford wonder a little, as she had never credited him with much sympathy for anything outside his own family. 'I cannot see her go to the poor-house, and I cannot well take her into my family, as we have three children of our own. But I have made up my mind to care for her, and I have come to ask if, for a compensation, you will keep her here?'

'Yes, grandma—say yes!' Harold cried; while Jerry, with her mouth full of cookie, repeated, 'ay 'ess.'

'You see, the children plead for me,' Mr. Tracy said, with a smile at the little girl, whose hand just then swept back the hair from her eyes, which looked steadily at him as he went on: 'While she is young—say, until she is ten years old—I will pay you three dollars a week, and after that more, if necessary. I know you will be kind to her, and that she will be happy here and well brought up. Is it a bargain?'

Mrs. Crawford had never seen him so interested in anything and felt somewhat surprised and puzzled, but she expressed her willingness to take the child and do what she could for her.

'It will be a good thing for Harold,' she said, 'as he is in danger of growing selfish here alone with me.'

And so Jerry's future was settled, and counting out twelve dollars, Frank handed them to Mrs. Crawford, saying:

'I will pay you for four weeks in advance, as you may need the money, and—and—perhaps—' His face grew very red as he stammered on, 'perhaps it may be as well not to tell how much I pay you. People—or rather—well, Mrs. Tracy might think it strange, and not understand why I feel such an interest in the child. I don't understand it myself.'

But he did understand, and his knees were shaking under him as, when the transaction was over, and he was on his way to the Park, he felt that he had sold himself to Satan.

'And yet I know nothing for sure,' he kept repeating to himself. 'Arthur is expecting Gretchen, whoever she may be. He says he has written to her, and he has one of his presentiments that she is coming on the night when this woman arrives, who is no more like the Gretchen he raves about than I am. This woman has a child. He says Gretchen has none, and that he never saw this woman. And yet I find among the things a photograph exactly like the picture in the window, and also like the child, who certainly bears a resemblance to my brother, though no one else, perhaps, would see it. Now, sir,' he appeared to be addressing himself to some person unseen, from whom he shrank, for he drew himself as far as was possible to his side of the sleigh and shivered as he went on: 'Now, sir, is that sufficient proof to warrant me in turning everything topsy-turvy, and making Arthur crazier than he is?'

'Certainly not,' he seemed to hear in reply, either from within or without, he hardly knew which, and he went on:

'I shall try to find out who the woman was, and where she came from; but how am I to do it? how begin? Arthur will not tell me a word about Gretchen, who she is, or what she is to him. Still, I mean to be on the safe side, and do right by the child. Arthur cannot live many years. His nerves will wear him out, if nothing else, and when he does, his money will naturally come to me.'

'Naturally,' his spectral companion replied, and he continued:

'Well, what I intend doing is this: I shall make my will, in which Jerry will share equally with my children, and I shall further draw up a written request that in case I die before my brother, any money which may fall to my children from him shall be shared equally with her. I shall, out of my own private funds, provide for her support and education, until she comes of age, or marries, and if possible, I shall bring about a marriage between her and Tom, who will probably one day be master of Tracy Park. Can anything more be required of me?'

'Nothing,' was the consoling reply; and as the sleigh just then drew up before his door, Frank alighted from it, and said to himself as he ran up the steps:

'I believe I have been riding with the devil, and have made a league with him!'

He found the house thoroughly aired and cleansed from all signs of the recent funeral; and when, at one o'clock, he sat down to lunch in the handsome dining-room, and sipped his favorite claret, and ate his foreign preserves, and thought how much comfort and luxury money could buy, he was sure he had done well for himself and his children after him. But, like Bishop Hatto, of Mouse-Tower memory, Frank Tracy never knew real peace of mind from the day he deliberately sold himself to the Evil One for filthy lucre, until the day, years after, when full restitution was made, and, with the sin confessed, he held his head up again, free from the shadow which he did not leave in the sleigh, but which followed him day and night, walking by him when he walked, sitting by him when he sat, and watching by him when he slept, so as to be ready when he woke with the specious argument that he was acting justly and even generously by the little waif, who was like a sunbeam in the cottage in the lane, whom many people went to see, marvelling at her beauty and wondering in vain whose likeness they sometimes saw in her as she frolicked around the house, full of life, and fun, and laughter.

Frank made his will, as he promised his shadow he would, but he went to Springfield to have it drawn up, for he knew that Colvin, or any lawyer whom he might employ in Shannondale, would wonder at it. He also wrote out himself what he called his dying request to his children, in case he should die before his brother. In this he stated emphatically his wish that Jerry should have her share of whatever might come to them from the Tracy estate, the same as if she were his own child.

'I have a good and sufficient reason for this,' he wrote in conclusion, 'and I enjoin it upon you to carry out my wishes as readily as you would were I to speak to you from my grave,'

This done, Frank felt a little better, and the shadow at his side was not quite as real as it had been before. He put his will and his dying request together in a private drawer with Gretchen's photograph, and the testament with the handwriting in it. He had kept this back when the stranger's trunk was sent to the cottage, thinking that if it were missed and inquired for, he could easily produce it as having been mislaid. At the suggestion of Mr. St. Claire he went to New York, to the office of the German line of steamers, and made inquiries with regard to the passengers who had come on a certain ship at such a time. But nothing could be learned of any woman with a child, and after inserting in several of the New York papers a description of the woman, with a request for any information concerning her which could be given, he returned home, with a feeling that he had done all that could be required of him, and that he might now enjoy himself.

He was accordingly kind and even tender to his brother, who for several weeks suffered from low nervous depression, which kept him altogether in his room, to which he refused to admit any one except his attendant and Frank. He had ceased for the time being, to talk of Gretchen, or to expect her, and he never inquired for the child, whose blue hood had so affected him. Once Frank spoke of her to him and told him where she was, and that she was learning to speak English very rapidly, and growing prettier every day. But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only said:

'How can Mrs. Crawford afford to keep the child?'

Others than Arthur asked that question, and among them Dolly, who with a woman's quick wit, sharpened by something she accidentally saw, divined the truth, which she wrung at last from her husband. There was a fierce quarrel—almost their first—a sick headache which lasted three days, and a month or more of coldness between the married pair, and then, finding she could accomplish nothing, for Frank was as firm as a rock, Dolly gave up the contest, and tried by economizing in various ways, to save the money which she felt was taken from her children by the little girl, who had become so dear to Mrs. Crawford, that she would not have parted with her had nothing been paid for her keeping.

CHAPTER XVII.

"MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?"

More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her history was still shrouded in mystery. Not a word had been heard concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was buried.

As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she seemed much older, for there was about her a precocity only found in children who have always associated with people much older than themselves, or into whose lives strange experiences have come. In stature she was very short, though round and plump as a partridge. 'Dutchy,' Mr. Tracy called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and took no pains to conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing except the money which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for the child's maintenance.

There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better, judging from appearances, unless, indeed—and then she told what old Peterkin had said more than once, to the effect that Jerry Crawford, as she was called, was growing to be the image of the Tracys, especially Arthur.

'And if so,' she added, 'you'd better let Arthur take care of her, and save your money for your own children,'

To this Frank never replied. He knew better than old Peterkin that Jerry was like the Tracys, or, rather, like his brother, and that it was not so much in the features as in the expression and certain movements of the head and hands, and tones of the voice when she was very much in earnest, and raised it to a higher pitch than usual. She could speak English very well now, and sometimes, when Frank, who was a frequent visitor at the cottage, sat watching her at her play, and listening to her as she talked to herself, as was her constant habit, he could have shut his eyes and sworn it was his brother's voice calling to him from the hay-loft or apple tree where they had played together when boys.

Jerry's favorite amusement when alone was to make believe that either herself, or a figure she had made out of a shawl, was a sick woman, lying on a settee which she converted into a bed. Sometimes she was the nurse and took care of the sick woman to whom she always spoke in German, bending fondly over her, and occasionally holding up before her a doll which Mrs. St. Claire had given her, and which she played was the woman's baby. Then she would be the sick woman herself, and trying on the broad frilled cap which had been found in the trunk, would slip under the covering, and laying her head upon the pillow, go through with all the actions of some one very sick, occasionally hugging to her bosom and kissing the doll.

Once she enacted the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together and closing her eyes, her lips moved as if in prayer, for a moment, then stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set expression in the little face which looked so comical under the broad frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which she knelt, and covering her face with her hands imitated perfectly the sobs and moans of a middle-aged person, mingled occasionally with the clearer, softer notes of a child's crying.

The first time Frank witnessed this piece of acting was on a Saturday afternoon, when he had come to the cottage as usual to pay his weekly due. Both Mrs. Crawford and Harold were gone, but knowing they would soon return, as it was not their habit to leave Jerry long alone he sat down to wait, while she went back to the corner in the kitchen, which she used as her play-house.

'Somebody is sick and I am taking care of her,' she said to Mr. Tracy, who watched her through the pantomime of the death scene with a feeling, when it was over, that he had seen Gretchen die.

There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that the sick woman was Gretchen, the nurse the stranger found in the Tramp House, and the doll baby the little girl upon whose memory that scene had been indelibly stamped, and who, with her wonderful powers of imitation, could rehearse it in every particular. To herself she always spoke in German, which no one could understand sufficiently to make out what she meant. Once Mr. St. Claire suggested to Frank that he take her to his brother, to whom German was as natural as English, and who might be able to learn something of her antecedents. And Frank had answered that he would do so, knowing the while that nothing could tempt him to bring her and his brother together until all the recollections of her babyhood, if she had any, were obliterated, and she had in part forgotten her own language.

His first step in evil doing had to be followed by others until he was so far committed that he could not retrace his steps, and two shadows were with him constantly now, one always reproaching him for what he had done, and the other telling him it was now too late to turn back.

He was very fond of Jerry, and on the Saturday afternoon when he sat watching her strange play, noticing how graceful was every movement, and how lovely the constantly varying expression of her face—from concern and anxiety when she was the nurse to distress and pain and then resignation and quietude in death when she took the role of the sick woman—he felt himself moved by some mighty influence to right her at once and put her in her proper place.

'It is more than I can bear. I can't even look Dolly straight in the eye,' he said to his evil shadow, which answered back.

'You know nothing sure. Will you give up your prospects for a photograph and a likeness which may be accidental?'

So his conscience was smothered again; but he would question the child, and after her play was over he called her to him and taking her in his lap, kissed the little grave face upon which the shadow of the scene she had been enacting had left its impress.

'Jerry,' he said, 'that lady who just died in the bed with the cap on was your mamma, was it not?'

''Ess,' was Jerry's reply, for she still adhered to her first pronunciation of the word.

'And the other was the nurse?'

''Ess,' Jerry said again; 'Mah-nee.'

This was puzzling, for he had always supposed that by 'mah-nee' the child meant 'mam-ma;' but he went on:

'Try to understand me, Jerry; try to think away back before you came in the ship.'

''Ess, I vill,' she said, with a very wise look on her face, while Mr. Tracy continued:

'Had you a papa? Was he there with you?'

'Nein,' was the prompt reply, and Mr. Tracy continued:

'Where did your mamma live? Was it in Wiesbaden?'

He knew he did not pronounce the word right, and was surprised at the sudden lighting up of the child's eyes as she tried to repeat the name. 'Oo-oo-ee,' she began, with a tremendous effort, but the W mastered her, and she gave it up with a shake of her head.

'I not say dat oo-oo-ee,' she said, and he put the question in another form:

'Where did your mamma die?'

'Tamp House; f'oze to deff,' was now the ready answer, a natural one, too, for she had been taught by Harold that such was the case, and had often gone with him to the house where he found her, and where the old table still stood against the wall.

No one picnicked there now, for the place was said to be haunted, and the superstitious ones told each other that on stormy nights, when the wild winds were abroad, lights had been seen in the Tramp House, where a pale-faced woman, with her long, black hair streaming down her back, stood in the door-way, shrieking for help, while the cry of a child mingled with her call. But Harold shared none of these fancies. He was not afraid of the building, and often went there with Jerry, and sitting with her on the table, told her again and again how he had found her mother that wintry morning, and how funny she herself had looked in the old carpet-bag, and so it is not strange that when Mr. Tracy asked her where her mother died, she should answer, 'In the Tramp House,' although she had acted a pantomime whose reality must have taken place under very different circumstances.

'Of course your mother died in the Tramp House, and I have nothing with which to reproach myself. I am altogether too morbid on the subject,' Frank said, and he had decided that he was a pretty good sort of fellow, after all, when at last Mrs. Crawford came in and he paid her for Jerry's board.

It was a part of Frank's plan to save the money out of his own personal expenses, so he smoked two cigars less each day and went without claret for dinner, except on Sunday, and never touched champagne, and wore his hats and coats until his wife said they were shabby and insisted upon new ones. In this way he saved more than three dollars a week, but the overplus was laid aside for the time when Jerry must necessarily cost him more because she would be older. In some respects he was doing his duty by the child, who, next to Harold and Mrs. Crawford, whom she called grandma, loved him better than any one else. She always ran to meet him when he came, and sometimes, when he went away, accompanied him down the lane, holding his hand and asking him numberless questions about Tracy Park and about his little girl, and why she never came to see her.

Frank could not tell Jerry of his wife's bitter prejudice against her, and that this was the reason why Maude had never been to the cottage or Jerry to the park. But if Jerry had not visited it in person, she was greatly interested in the handsome house and grounds, and the lovely rooms where the crazy man lived. This was Harold's designation of Mr. Arthur—the crazy man—and perhaps of all the things at Tracy Park, Jerry was most desirous to see him and his rooms. Harold, who, on one of the rare occasions when Arthur was out to dine, had been sent to the house on an errand, had gone with Jack into these rooms, which he described minutely to his grandmother and Jerry, dwelling longest upon the beautiful picture in the window. 'Gretchen, he calls it,' he said; and then Jerry, who was listening intently, gave a sudden upward and sidewise turn to her Lead, just as she had done when Mr. Tracy spoke to her of Wiesbaden.

'Detchen,' she repeated, with a little hesitancy. 'Vat the name vas? Say again.'

He said it again, and over the child's face there came a puzzled expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all her efforts. But she did not forget the name, and that evening Mrs. Crawford heard her singing to herself,

'Detchen, Detchen, who are you? Detchen, Detchen, where are you?' and she noticed that the doll baby with which Jerry played the most was ever after called 'Detchen,' instead of Maude, as it had been christened when first given to her.

Jerry had seen Maude Tracy many times and had admired her greatly, with her pretty white dresses and costly embroideries; and once, at church, when Maude passed near where she was standing, she stood back as far as possible out of the way and held her plain gingham dress aside, as if neither it nor herself had any right to come in close contact with so superior a being. Of the house in the park she knew nothing, except what Harold had told her, and that it was a place to be admired and gazed at breathlessly at a respectful distance. She had never been there since the day of the funeral But she was going at last with Harold, who had permission to gather cherries for his grandmother from some of the many trees which grew upon the place.

It was a hot morning in July, and the air seemed thunderous and heavy when she set off on what to her was as important an expedition as is a trip to Europe to an older person. She had wanted to wear her pink gingham dress, the one kept sacred for Sunday, and had even hoped that she might be allowed to display her best straw hat with the blue ribbons and cluster of apple blossoms. She had no doubt that she should go into the house and see the crazy man, and Mrs. Tracy, who she had heard wore silk stockings every day, and she wished to be suitably attired for such honor.

But Mrs. Crawford dispelled her air castles by telling her that she was only to go into the side yard where the cherry trees were, and that she must be very quiet, so as not to disturb Mr. Arthur, whose windows looked that way. To wear her pink dress was impossible, as she would get it stained with the juice of the cherries, while the best hat was not for a moment to be thought of.

So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked, long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her to wear on a cherry expedition. A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide cape covered her head and concealed her face when she started from the cottage, with her quart tin pail on her arm; but no sooner was she on the path which led to the park that the obnoxious bonnet was removed and was swinging on her arm, while she was admiring the shadow which, her long, bright curls made in the sunshine as she shook her head from side to side.

To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain. Passionately fond of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in Mrs. Crawford's old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was 'awful handsome,' she had felt a pride in it and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford's asseverations that 'Handsome is that handsome does' could not destroy. Maude Tracy's hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the advantage over her.

'I do hope we shall see her,' she said to Harold, as she danced along, swaying her bonnet and shaking her hair. 'Do you think we shall?'

Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she would speak to them, he said.

'Why not?' Jerry asked, and he replied:

'Oh, I suppose they feel big because they are rich and we are poor.'

'But why ain't I rich, too? Why don't I live at the park like Maude, and wear low-necked aprons instead of this old high one?' Jerry asked; but Harold could not tell, and only said:

'Would you rather live at the park than with me?'

'No,' Jerry answered, promptly, stopping short and digging her heel into the soft loam of the path. 'I would not stay anywhere without you; and when I live at the park you will live there, too, and have codfish and tatoe every day.'

Strangely enough this was Harold's favorite dish, and, as it was not his grandmother's, his taste was not gratified in that respect as often as he would have liked, hence Jerry's promise of the luxury.

Just here, at a sudden turn in the path, they came upon Jack and Maude Tracy playing on a bench under a tree, while the nurse was at a distance either reading or asleep. Harold would have passed them at once, as he knew his grandmother was in a hurry for the cherries, but Jerry had no such intention.

Stopping short in front of Maude, she inspected her carefully, from her white dress and bright plaid sash to the string of amber beads around her neck; while, side by side with this picture, she saw herself in her dark calico frock and high-necked apron, with her sun-bonnet and tin pail on her arm. Jerry did not like the contrast, and a lump began to swell in her throat. Then, as a happy thought struck her, she said, with something like exultation in her tone:

'My hair curls and yours don't.'

'No,' Maude answered, slowly—'no it don't curl, but it's black, and yours is yaller.'

This was a set back to Jerry, who hated everything yellow, and who had never dreamed of applying that color to her hair. She only knew that Dick St. Claire had called it pretty, but in this new light thrown upon it all her pride vanished, for she recognized like a flash that it might be 'yaller,' and stood there silent and vanquished, until Maude, who in turn had been regarding her attentively, said to her:

'Ain't you Jerry Crawford?'

That broke the ice of reserve, and the two little girls were soon talking together familiarly, and Jerry was asking Maude if she wore beads and her best clothes every day.

'Phoo! These ain't my best clothes. I have one gown all brawdery and lace,' was Maude's reply, while Jack, who was standing near, chimed in:

'My father's got lots of money, and so has Uncle Arthur, and when he dies we are going to have it; Tom says so.'

Slowly the shadows gathered on Jerry's brow as she said, sadly;

'I wish I had an Uncle Arthur, and could wear beads and a sash every day' Then, as she looked at Harold, her face brightened immediately and she exclaimed.

'But I have Harold and a grandma, and you hain't,' and running up to Harold, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him lovingly, as if to make amends for the momentary repining.

'We must go now,' Harold said, and taking her hand in his, he led her away toward the house, which impressed her with so much awe that as she drew near to it, she held her breath and walked on tiptoe, as if afraid that any sound from her would be sacrilege in that aristocratic atmosphere.

'Oh, isn't it grand, Harold?' Isn't it grand!' she kept repeating, with her mouth full of cherries, after they had reached the trees on which the ripe, red fruit hung so thickly. 'Do you s'pose we shall see the crazy man?' she asked, and Harold replied:

'I don't know. I guess not, unless he comes to the window. Those are his rooms, and that window which looks so ugly outside, is the one with the picture in it,' and he pointed to the south wing, most of the windows of which were open, while against one a long ladder was standing.

It had been left there by a workman who had been up on it to fix the hinge of a blind, and who had gone to the village in quest of something he needed, Jerry saw the ladder and its close proximity to the open window, and she thought to herself.

'I mean to fill my pail with cherries, and go up that ladder and take them to him, I wonder if he would bite me?'

Suiting the action to the word she stopped eating; and began to pick from the lower limbs as rapidly as possible until her pail was full.

'Pour them into the basket,' Harold called to her from the top of the tree, but Jerry did not heed him. She had seen the tall figure of a man pass before the window, and a pale, thin face had for a moment, looked out, apparently to discover whence the talking came.

'I'm going to take the crazyman some cherries,' she tried, and almost before Harold could protest, she was half way up the ladder, which she climbed with the agility of a little cat.

'Jerry, Jerry! What are you doing!' Harold exclaimed, 'Come back this minute. He doesn't like children; he tried to throw me over the banister once; he will knock you off the ladder; oh, Jerry!' and Harold's voice was almost a sob as he watched the girl going up round after round until the top was reached, and she stood with her flushed, eager face, just on a level with the window so that by standing on tiptoe, she could look into the room.

It was Arthur's bedroom, and there was no one in it, but she heard the sound of footsteps in the adjoining apartment, and raising herself as far as possible, and holding up her pail, she called out in a clear, shrill voice;

'Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?'

CHAPTER XVIII.

ARTHUR AND JERRY.

Arthur had passed a restless night. Indeed all his nights were restless, but this one had been especially so. Thoughts of Gretchen had troubled him in his dreams, and two or three times he had started up to listen, thinking that he heard her calling to him from a distance. He had dreamed also of the blue hood seen that day of the funereal, now more than two years ago, and of the child who had come knocking at his door, first with her hands and then with her feet, but whom he had refused to admit. He had never seen her since, and had never inquired for her of his own accord. Two or three times his brother had spoken of her in a casual way, telling him once that she was with Mrs. Crawford. Arthur had then asked how she could afford to keep her, and Frank had made no reply. But the second time when he spoke of Jerry, and Arthur, more interested in Mrs. Crawford than in her, had asked the same question, Frank had said:

'She cannot afford it, I pay her three dollars a week.'

For a moment Arthur looked inquiringly at him; then he said:

'You are a good fellow after all, even if you did deceive me about sending John for Gretchen. Tell Colvin, when Christmas comes, to give Mrs. Crawford a hundred dollars for me.'

After this Mrs. Crawford and her affairs passed completely out of Arthur's mind. He never went to the cottage, or near it. He never went anywhere, in fact, but lived the life of a recluse, growing thinner, and paler, and more reticent every day, talking now but seldom of Gretchen, though he never arose in the morning or retired at night without kissing her picture and murmuring to it some words of tenderness in German.

He had measured the length of his three rooms and dressing-room, and found them to be nearly one hundred feet, or six rods do that by passing back and forth twenty-five times he would walk almost a mile.

Regularly each morning, when it was not too cold or stormy, he would throw open his windows and take his daily exercise, which was but a poor substitute for what might be had in the fresh air outside, but was nevertheless much better than nothing.

On this particular morning, when Harold and Jerry were at the park, he was taking his walk as usual, though very slowly, for he felt weak and sick, and, oh, so inexpressibly lonely and desolate that it seemed to him he would gladly lie down and die.

'If I thought Gretchen were dead, nothing would seem so desirable to me as the grave, for then there would be nothing to live for,' he was saying to himself, when the sound of voices outside attracted his attention, and going to the window, he saw the children, Harold in the top of the tree, and Jerry at the foot, with her white sun-bonnet shading her face.

Recognizing Harold, he guessed who the little girl was, and a strange feeling of interest stirred in his heart for her, as he said: