[Illustration: Miss CAROLINE AND BECKY.]
Since the time of Cinderella the First there have been many similar
instances in real life of the persecution of youth by family injustice
and cruelty, and no case more strikingly similar than that of Miss
Caroline Brandenburg Gann, whose youthful career was one of monotonous
hardship and injustice until the arrival of her fairy prince.
The story is a short one to relate, but to live through the days and
months of sixteen unhappy years seemed an eternal process to the young
heart beating high with hopes which must constantly be stifled, and give
place to bitter disappointment.
But to go back for a moment to the time when Louis XVIII. was restored a
second time to the throne of his father, and all the English who had
money or leisure rushed over to the Continent. At that time there lived
in a certain boarding-house at Brussels a lady who was called Mrs. Crabb;
and her daughter, a genteel young widow, who bore the name of Mrs.
Wellesley McCarty. Previous to this Mrs. McCarty, who was then Miss
Crabb, had run off one day with a young Ensign, who possessed not a
shilling, and who speedily died, leaving his widow without property, but
with a remarkably fine pair of twins, named Rosalind Clancy and Isabella
Finigan Wellesley McCarty.
The young widow being left penniless, her mother, who had disowned the
runaway couple, was obliged to become reconciled to her daughter and to
share her small income of one hundred and twenty pounds a year with her.
Upon this at the boarding-house in Brussels the two managed to live. The
twins were put out, after the foreign fashion, to nurse, and a village in
the neighbourhood, and the widow and her mother maintained a very good
appearance despite their small income; and it was not long before the
Widow McCarty married a young Englishman, James Gann, Esq.--of the great
oil-house of Gann, Blubbery, and Gann,--who was boarding in the same
house with Mrs. Crabb and her daughter. These ladies, who had their full
share of common sense, took care to keep the twins in the background
until such time as the Widow McCarty had become Mrs. Gann. Then on the
day after the wedding, in the presence of many friends who had come to
offer their congratulations, a stout nurse, bearing the two chubby little
ones, made her appearance; and these rosy urchins, springing forward,
shouted affectionately, "_Maman! Maman_!" to the great astonishment and
bewilderment of James Gann, who well-nigh fainted at this sudden
paternity so put upon him. However, being a good-humoured, soft-hearted
man, he kissed his lady hurriedly, and vowed that he would take care of
the poor little things, whom he would also have kissed, but the darlings
refused his caress with many roars.
Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. James Gann returned to England and
occupied a house in Thames Street, City, until the death of Gann, Sr.,
when his son, becoming head of the firm, mounted higher on the social
ladder and went to live in the neighbourhood of Putney, where a neat box,
a couple of spare bedrooms, a good cellar, and a smart gig made a real
gentleman of him. About this period, a daughter was born to him, called
Caroline Blandenburg Gann, so named after a large mansion near
Hammersmith, and an injured queen who lived there at the time of the
little girl's birth.
At this time Mrs. James Gann sent the twins, Rosalind Clancy and Isabella
Finigan Wellesley McCarty, to a boarding-school for young ladies, and
grumbled much at the amount of the bills which her husband was obliged to
pay for them; for, although James discharged them with perfect
good-humour, his lady began to entertain a mean opinion indeed of her
pretty young children. They could expect no fortune, she said, from Mr.
Gann, and she wondered that he should think of bringing them up
expensively, when he had a darling child of his own for whom to save all
the money that he could lay by.
Grandmamma, too, doted on the little Caroline Brandenburg, and vowed
that she would leave her three thousand pounds to this dear infant; for
in this way does the world show its respect for that most respectable
thing, prosperity, and little Caroline was the daughter of prosperous
James Gann.
Little Caroline, then, had her maid, her airy nursery, her little
carriage to drive in, the promise of her grandmamma's money, and her
mamma's undivided affection. Gann, too, loved her sincerely in his
careless good-humoured way; but he determined, notwithstanding, that his
step-daughters should have something handsome at his death, but--but for
a great But.
Gann and Blubbery were in the oil line; their profits arose from
contracts for lighting a great number of streets in London; and about
this period gas came into use. The firm of Gann and Blubbery had been so
badly managed, I am sorry to say, and so great had been the extravagance
of both partners and their ladies, that they only paid their creditors
fourteen-pence halfpenny in the pound.
When Mrs. Crabb heard of this dreadful accident she at once proclaimed
James Gann to be a swindler, a villain, a disreputable, vulgar man, and
made over her money to the Misses Rosalind Clancy and Isabella Finigan
McCarty, leaving poor little Caroline without a cent of legacy. Half of
one thousand five hundred pounds allotted to each twin was to be paid at
marriage, the other half on the death of Mrs. James Gann, who was to
enjoy the interest thereof. Thus did the fortunes of little Caroline
alter in a single night! Thus did Cinderella enter upon the period of her
loneliness!
After James Gann's failure his family lived in various uncomfortable
ways, until at length Mrs. Gann opened a lodging-house in a certain back
street in the town of Margate, on the door of which house might be read
in gleaming brass the name of MR. GANN. It was the work of a single
smutty servant-maid to clean this brass plate every morning, and to
attend to the wants of Mr. Gann, his family, and lodgers. In this same
house Mr. Gann had his office, though if truth be told he had nothing to
do from morning until night. He was very much changed, poor fellow! He
was now a fat, bald-headed man of fifty whose tastes were no longer
aristocratic, and who loved public-house jokes and company.
As for Mrs. Gann, she had changed, too, under the pressure of
misfortune. Her chief occupation was bragging of her former
acquaintances, taking medicine, and mending and altering her gowns. She
had a huge taste for cheap finery, loved raffles, tea-parties, and walks
on the pier, where she flaunted herself and daughters as gay as
butterflies. She stood upon her rank, did not fail to tell her lodgers
that she was "a gentlewoman," and was mighty sharp with Becky, the
maid, and Carrie, her youngest child.
For the tide of affection had turned now, and the Misses Wellesley
McCarty were the darlings of their mother's heart, as Caroline had been
in the early days of Putney prosperity. Mrs. Gann respected and loved her
elder daughters, the stately heiresses of £1500, and scorned poor
Caroline, who was likewise scorned, like Cinderella, by her brace of
haughty, thoughtless sisters. These young women were tall, well-grown,
black-browed girls, fond of fun, and having great health and spirits.
They had pink cheeks, white shoulders, and many glossy curls about their
shining foreheads. Such charms cannot fail of having their effect, and it
was very lucky for Caroline that she did not possess them, or she might
have been as vain, frivolous, and vulgar as these young ladies were. As
it was, Caroline was pale and thin, with fair hair and neat grey eyes;
nobody thought her a beauty in her moping cotton gown, and while her
sisters enjoyed their pleasures and tea-parties abroad, it was Carrie's
usual fate to remain at home and help the servant in the many duties
which were required in Mrs. Gann's establishment. She dressed her mamma
and her sisters, brought her papa his tea in bed, kept the lodgers'
bills, bore their scoldings, and sometimes gave a hand in the kitchen if
any extra cookery was required. At two she made a little toilette for
dinner, and was employed on numberless household darnings and mendings in
the long evenings while her sisters giggled over the jingling piano.
Mamma lay on the sofa, and Gann was at the club. A weary lot, in sooth,
was yours,--poor little Caroline. Since the days of your infancy, not one
hour of sunshine, no friendship, no cheery playfellows, no mother's love!
Only James Gann, of all the household, had a good-natured look for her,
and a coarse word of kindness, but Caroline did not complain, nor shed
any tears. Her misery was dumb and patient; she felt that she was
ill-treated, and had no companion; but was not on that account envious,
only humble and depressed, not desiring so much to resist as to bear
injustice, and hardly venturing to think for herself. This tyranny and
humility served her in place of education and formed her manners, which
were wonderfully gentle and calm. It was strange to see such a person
growing up in such a family, and the neighbours spoke of her with much
scornful compassion. "A poor half-witted, thing," they said, "who could
not say bo! to a goose." And I think it is one good test of gentility to
be thus looked down on by vulgar people.
I have said that Miss Caroline had no friend in the world except her
father, but one friend she most certainly had, and that was honest Becky,
the smutty maid, whose name has been mentioned before. A great comfort it
was for Caroline to descend to the calm kitchen from the stormy
back-parlour, and there vent some of her little woes to the compassionate
servant of all work.
When Mrs. Gann went out with her daughters Becky would take her work and
come and keep Miss Caroline company; and, if the truth must be told, the
greatest enjoyment the pair used to have was in these afternoons, when
they read together out of the precious, greasy, marble-covered volumes
that Mrs. Gann was in the habit of fetching from the library. Many and
many a tale had the pair so gone through. I can see them over "Manfrone;
or the One-handed Monk," the room dark, the street silent, the hour ten,
the tall, red, lurid candlewick waggling down, the flame flickering pale
upon Miss Caroline's pale face as she read out, and lighting up honest
Becky's goggling eyes, who sat silent, her work in her lap; she had not
done a stitch of it for an hour. As the trapdoor slowly opens, and the
scowling Alonzo, bending over the sleeping Imoinda, draws his pistol,
cocks it, looks well if the priming be right, places it then to the
sleeper's ear, and--_thunder under-under_--down fall the snuffers! Becky
has had them in her hand for ten minutes, afraid to use them. Up starts
Caroline and flings the book back into mamma's basket. It is only that
lady returned with her daughters from a tea-party, where they have been
enjoying themselves.
For the sentimental, too, as well as the terrible, Miss Caroline and the
cook had a strong predilection, and had wept their poor eyes out over
"Thaddeus of Warsaw" and the "Scottish Chiefs." Fortified by the examples
drawn from those instructive volumes, Becky was firmly convinced that her
young mistress would meet with a great lord some day or other, or be
carried off, like Cinderella, by a brilliant prince, to the mortification
of her elder sisters, whom Becky hated.
When, therefore, a new lodger came, lonely, mysterious, melancholy,
elegant, with the romantic name of George Brandon--when he actually wrote
a letter directed to a lord, and Miss Caroline and Becky together
examined the superscription, Becky's eyes were lighted up with a
preternatural look of wondering wisdom; whereas, after an instant,
Caroline dropped hers, and blushed and said, "Nonsense, Becky!"
"Is it nonsense?" said Becky, grinning, and snapping her fingers with a
triumphant air; "the cards come true; I knew they would. Didn't you have
a king and queen of hearts three deals running? What did you dream about
last Tuesday, tell me that?"
But Miss Caroline never did tell, for just then her sisters came bouncing
down the stairs, and examined the lodger's letter. Caroline, however,
went away musing much upon these points; and she began to think Mr.
Brandon more wonderful and beautiful every day, whereas he was remarkable
for nothing except very black eyes, a sallow face, and a habit of smoking
cigars in bed till noon. His name of George Brandon was only an assumed
one. He was really the son of a half-pay Colonel, of good family, who had
been sent to Eton to acquire an education. From Eton he went to Oxford,
took honours there, but ran up bills amounting to two thousand pounds.
Then there came fury on the part of his stern old "governor"; and final
payment of the debt, but while this settlement was pending Master George
had contracted many more debts and was glad to fly to the Continent as
tutor to young Lord Cinqbars, and afterwards went into retirement at
Margate until his father's wrath should be appeased. For that reason we
find him a member of the Gann establishment, flirting when occasion
seemed to demand it with mother and daughters, and taking occasional
notice of little Caroline, who frequently broiled his cutlets.
Mrs. Gann's other lodger was a fantastic youth, Andrea Fitch, to whom his
art, and his beard and whiskers, were the darlings of his heart. He was a
youth of poetic temperament, whose long pale hair fell over a high
polished brow, which looked wonderfully thoughtful; and yet no man was
more guiltless of thinking. He was always putting himself into attitudes,
and his stock-in-trade were various theatrical properties, which when
arranged in his apartments on the second floor made a tremendous show.
The Misses Wellesley McCarty voted this Mr. Fitch an elegant young
fellow, and before long the intimacy between the young people was
considerable, for Mr. Fitch insisted upon drawing the portraits of the
whole family.
"I suppose you will do my Carrie next?" said Mr. Gann, one day,
expressing his approbation of a portrait just finished, wherein the
Misses McCarty were represented embracing one another.
"Law, sir," exclaimed Miss Linda, "Carrie, with her red hair!--"
"Mr. Fitch might as well paint Becky, our maid!" cried Miss Bella.
"Carrie is quite impossible, Gann," said Mrs. Gann; "she hasn't a gown
fit to be seen in. She's not been at church for thirteen Sundays in
consequence."
"And more shame for you, ma'am," said Mr. Gann, who liked his child;
"Carrie shall have a gown, and the best of gowns;" and jingling three and
twenty shillings in his pocket, Mr. Gann determined to spend them all in
the purchase of a robe for Carrie. But, alas, the gown never came; half
the money was spent that very evening at the tavern.
"Is that--that young lady your daughter?" asked Mr. Fitch, surprised, for
he fancied Carrie was a humble companion of the family.
"Yes, she is, and a very good daughter, too, sir," answered Mr. Gann.
"_Fetch_ and Carrie I call her, or else Carry-van; she is so useful.
Ain't you, Carrie?"
"I'm very glad if I am, Papa," said the young lady, blushing violently.
"Hold your tongue, Miss!" said her mother; "you are, very expensive to
us, that you are, and need not brag about the work you do, and if your
sisters and me starve to keep you, and some other folks" (looking
fiercely at Mr. Gann), "I presume you are bound to make some return."
Poor Caroline was obliged to listen to this harangue on her own
ill-conduct in silence. As it was the first lecture Mr. Fitch had heard
on the subject, he naturally set down Caroline for a monster. Was she not
idle, sulky, scornful, and a sloven? For these and many more of her
daughter's vices Mrs. Gann vouched, declaring that Caroline's behaviour
was hastening her own death; and she finished by a fainting fit. In the
presence of all these charges, there stood Miss Caroline, dumb, stupid
and careless; nay, when the fainting-fit came on, and Mrs. Gann fell back
on the sofa, the unfeeling girl took the opportunity to retire, and never
offered to rub her mamma's hands, to give her the smelling bottle, or to
restore her with a glass of water.
Mr. Fitch stood close at hand, for at the time he was painting Mrs.
Gann's portrait--and he was hastily making towards her with his tumbler,
when Miss Linda cried out, "Stop! the water is full of paint!" and
straightway burst out laughing. Mrs. Gann jumped up at this, cured
suddenly, and left the room, looking somewhat foolish.
"You don't know Ma," said Miss Linda, still giggling; "she's always
fainting."
"Poor dear lady!" said the artist; "I pity her from my inmost soul.
Doesn't the himmortal bard observe how sharper than a serpent's tooth it
is to have a thankless child? And is it true, ma'am, that that young
woman has been the ruin of her family?"
"Ruin of her fiddlestick!" replied Miss Bella. "Law, Mr. Fitch, you don't
know Ma yet; she is in one of her tantrums."
"What, then, it _isn't_ true!" cried simple-minded Fitch. To which
neither of the young ladies made any answer in words, nor could the
little artist comprehend why they looked at each other and burst out
laughing. But he retired pondering on what he had seen and heard, and
being a very soft young fellow, most implicitly believed the accusations
of poor dear Mrs. Gann for a time.
Presently, however, those opinions changed, and the change was brought
about by watching closely the trend of domestic affairs in the Gann
establishment. After a fortnight of close observation the artist, though
by no means quick of comprehension, began to see that the nightly charges
brought against poor Caroline could not be founded upon truth.
"Let's see," mused he to himself. "Tuesday the old lady said her daughter
was bringing her grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, because the cook
had not boiled the potatoes. Wednesday she said Caroline was an assassin,
because she could not find her own thimble. Thursday she vowed Caroline
had no religion, because that old pair of silk stockings were not darned;
and this can't be," reasoned Fitch. "A gal ain't a murderess, because her
ma can't find her thimble. A woman that goes to slap her grown-up
daughter on the back, and before company too, for such a paltry thing as
an old pair of stockings, can't be surely speaking the truth." And thus
gradually his first impression against Caroline wore away, and pity took
possession of his soul, pity for the meek little girl, who, though
trampled upon, was now springing up to womanhood; and though pale,
freckled, thin, meanly dressed, had a certain charm about her which some
people preferred to the cheap splendours and rude red and white of the
Misses McCarty, and which was calculated to touch the heart of anyone who
watched her carefully.
On account of Mr. Brandon's correspondence with the aristocracy that
young gentleman was highly esteemed by the family with whom he lodged for
a time. Then, however, he bragged so much, and assumed such airs of
superiority, that he perfectly disgusted Mrs. Gann and the Misses
McCarty, who did not at all like his way of telling them that he was
their better. But James Gann looked up to Mr. Brandon with deepest
wonder as a superior being. And poor little Caroline followed her
father's faith and in six weeks after Mr. Brandon's arrival had grown to
believe him the most perfect, polished, agreeable of mankind. Indeed, the
poor girl had never seen a gentleman before, and towards such her gentle
heart turned instinctively. Brandon never offended her by hard words; or
insulted her by cruel scorn such as she met with from her mother and
sisters; and so Caroline felt that he was their superior, and as such
admired and respected him.
Consequently one day when he condescended to dine with the family at
three o'clock, there being another guest as well, one Mr. Swigby,
Caroline felt it to be one of the greatest occasions of her life, and was
fairly trembling with pleasure, when, dinner being half over, she stole
gently into the room and took her ordinary place near her father. I do
believe she would have been starved, but Gann was much too good-natured
to allow any difference to be made between her and her sisters in the
matter of food. An old rickety wooden stool was placed for her, instead
of that elegant and comfortable Windsor chair which supported every other
person at table; by the side of the plate stood a curious old battered
tin mug bearing the inscription "Caroline." These, in truth, were poor
Caroline's mug and stool, having been appropriated to her from childhood
upwards; and here it was her custom meekly to sit and eat her daily meal.
Caroline's pale face was very red; for she had been in the kitchen
helping Becky, and had been showing her respect for the great Mr. Brandon
by cooking in her best manner a certain dish for which her papa had often
praised her. She took her place, blushing violently when she saw him, and
if Mr. Gann had not been making a violent clattering with his knife and
fork, it is possible that he might have heard Miss Caroline's heart
thump, which it did violently. Her dress was somehow a little smarter
than usual, and Becky, who brought in the hashed mutton, looked at her
young lady complacently, as, loaded with plates, she quitted the room.
Indeed, the poor girl deserved to be looked at: there was an air of
gentleness and innocence about her which was very touching, and which the
two young men did not fail to remark.
"You are very late, miss!" cried Mrs. Gann, who affected not to know what
had caused her daughter's delay. "You are always late!" and the elder
girls stared and grinned at each other knowingly, as they always did when
mamma made such attacks upon Caroline, who only kept her eyes down upon
the table-cloth, and began to eat her dinner without saying a word.
"Come, come, my dear," cried honest Gann, "if she _is_ late, you know
why! Our Carrie has been downstairs making the pudding for her old pappy;
and a good pudding she makes, I can tell you!"
Miss Caroline blushed more deeply than ever; Mr. Fitch stared her full in
the face; Mrs. Gann said "Nonsense!" and "Stuff!" very majestically; Mr.
Brandon alone interposed in Caroline's favour; and the words that he said
were so kindly, so inspiring to Caroline that she cared not a straw
whatever else might be said about her. "Mamma may say what she pleases
to-day," thought Caroline. "I am too happy to be made angry by her."
But poor little mistaken Caroline did not know how soon her feelings were
to be harassed again beyond endurance. The dinner had not advanced much
further, when Miss Isabella, who had been examining Caroline curiously
for some time, telegraphed across the table to Miss Linda, and nodded
and winked, and pointed to her own neck, on which was a smart necklace of
the lightest blue glass beads finishing in a neat tassel. Linda had a
similar ornament of a vermilion colour, whereas Caroline wore a handsome
new collar and a brooch, which looked all the smarter for the shabby
frock over which they were placed. As soon as she saw her sister's
signals the poor little thing blushed deeply again; down went her eyes
once more, and her face and neck lighted up to the colour of Miss Linda's
sham cornelian.
"What's the gals giggling and oggling about?" asked Mr. Gann innocently.
"What is it, my darling love?" asked stately Mrs. Gann.
"Why, don't you see, Ma?" said Linda. "Look at Miss Carrie! I'm blessed
if she hasn't got on Becky's collar and brooch, that Sims the pilot
gave her!"
The young ladies fell back in uproarious fits of laughter, and laughed
all the time that their mamma was declaring her daughter's conduct
unworthy a gentlewoman, and bidding her leave the room and take off those
disgraceful ornaments.
There was no need to tell her; the poor little thing gave one piteous
look at her father, who was whistling, and seemed indeed to think the
matter a good joke; and after she had managed to open the door down she
went to the kitchen, and when she reached that humble place of refuge
first pulled off Becky's collar and brooch, and then flung herself into
the arms of that honest maid, where she cried and cried till she brought
on the first fit of hysterics that ever she had had.
This crying could not at first be heard in the parlour, where the company
were roaring at the excellence of the joke, but presently the laughter
died away, and the sound of weeping came from the kitchen below. This the
young artist could not bear, but bounced up from his chair and rushed
out of the room, exclaiming, "By Jove, it's too bad!"
From the scene of merriment he rushed forth and out of the house into the
dark, wet streets, fired with one impulse, inspired by one purpose:--to
resist the tyranny of Mrs. Gann towards poor Caroline; to protect the
gentle girl from the injustice of which she was the victim. All his
sympathies from that moment were awakened in Caroline's favour.
As for Mr. Brandon, whom Caroline in the depths of her little silly heart
had set down for the wondrous fairy prince who was to deliver her from
her present miserable condition, he was a man to whom opposition acted
ever as a spur. Up to this time he had given little or no thought to the
young girl with the pale face and quiet manner, but now he was amused,
and his interest was awakened by the indignation of Mr. Fitch. He was
piqued also by the system of indifference to his charms indulged in by
Caroline's older sisters, and determined to revenge himself upon them for
their hardness of heart by devotion to Caroline. As he wrote in a letter
that very day: "I am determined through a third daughter, a family
Cinderella, to make her sisters _quiver_ with envy. I merely mean fun,
for Cinderella is but a little child.... I wish I had paper enough to
write you an account of a Gann dinner at which I have just assisted, and
of a scene which there took place; and how Cinderella was dressed out,
not by a fairy, but by a charitable kitchen maid, and was turned out of
the room by her indignant mamma for appearing in the maid's finery...."
This, and much more, Mr. Brandon, who at once turned his attention to
being excessively kind and polite to our humble Cinderella. Caroline,
being a most romantic little girl, and having read many novels, depicted
Brandon in a fancy costume such as her favourite hero wore, or fancied
herself as the heroine, watching her knight go forth to battle. Silly
fancies, no doubt; but consider the poor girl's age and education; the
only instruction she had ever received was from these tender,
kind-hearted, silly books; the only happiness which fate had allowed her
was in this little silent world of fancy. It would be hard to grudge the
poor thing her dreams; and many such did she have, and tell blushingly to
honest Becky as they sat by the kitchen fire, while indignation was
growing apace in the breasts of her mother and sisters at the sight of so
much interest centred on so poor an object. And even so did the haughty
sisters of Cinderella the First feel and act.
But Cinderella's kitchen days were fast drawing to an end, even as she, a
pale slip of a girl, was budding into womanhood.
One evening Mrs. Gann and the Misses McCarty had the honour of
entertaining Mr. Swigby at tea, and that gentleman, in return for the
courtesy shown him by Mrs. Gann, invited the young ladies and their mamma
to drive with him the next day into the country; for which excursion he
had hired a very smart barouche. The invitation was not declined, and Mr.
Fitch, too, was asked, and accepted with the utmost delight. "Me and
Swigby will go on the box," said Gann. "You four ladies and Mr. Fitch
shall go inside. Carrie must go between; but she ain't very big."
"Carrie, indeed, will stop at home!" said her mamma. At this poor Fitch's
jaw fell; he had agreed to accompany the party only for the pleasure of
being in the company of little Caroline, nor could he escape now, having
just accepted so eagerly.
"Oh, don't let's have that proud Brandon!" exclaimed the young ladies, in
consequence of which that gentleman was not invited to join the
excursion.
The day was bright and sunshiny. Poor Caroline, watching the barouche
and its load drive off, felt that it would have been pleasant to have
been a lady for once, and to have driven along in a carriage with
prancing horses. The girl's heart was heavy with disappointment and
loneliness as she stood at the parlour window, watching the vehicle
disappear from sight.
Oh, mighty Fate, that over us miserable mortals rulest supreme, with
what small means are thy ends effected! With what scornful ease and
mean instruments does it please thee to govern mankind! Mr. Fitch
accompanied the Gann family on their drive to the country; Mr. Brandon
remained behind.
Caroline, too, the Cinderella of this little tale, was left at home; and
thereby were placed in the hand of Fate all necessary instruments of
revenge to be used in the punishment of Mrs. Gann and the Misses McCarty
for their ill-treatment of our little Cinderella.
The story of Caroline Brandenburg Gann's youth is told. The fairy prince
is at hand, and the short chapter of girlhood and misery is finished.