He pointed out the tops of the Blue Ridge in the distance, the valley

through which the river ran, and the opening in the woods through which

the first Federal soldiers who appeared in our midst came marching,

years ago, throwing our little town into wild excitement and alarm.

“I heard you were so frightened that you ran to the attic and hid behind

the chimney, while Fan armed herself with the poker and went into the

street ready to fight, if necessary,” he said.

He frequently made comparisons between Fan and myself, and usually to my

disadvantage. But I did not care, and now I laughed merrily as I

recalled the day when I first heard the Yankees were coming and crawled

behind the chimney, half expecting to be shot. I had not then learned

that there was very little difference between the conduct of the Yankees

and the rebels, and not much to be feared from either. After the view

was exhausted I was taken to see the bit of sodding which had been done

where the ground was torn up,—the shrubs which had been planted and the

flower beds which had been marked out ready for spring. Noticing at last

that I shivered as a gust of wind, damp with coming rain, swept across

The Plateau, Jack said, “Why, you are cold, aren’t you? I do believe

it’s going to rain right away. Go into the house where there is a fire.

I will be there in a few minutes.”

He went whistling to the stable with his horse, while I made my way

alone into the house. Passing through the kitchen I came first to the

dining-room, with its crimson carpet and curtains, its polished oak

table and carved chairs of the same wood, upholstered in dark-green

leather,—its handsome sideboard standing in the niche made for it,—its

china and glass and fancy cups hanging on hooks,—a fashion beginning to

prevail at the north and which Jack had seen in Richmond. There was no

grate in this room, but a deep fireplace, ornamented with the brass

andirons and fender which had belonged to Jack’s mother. On the hearth

some pine knots were laid ready for a fire on the morrow, when the real

mistress came to see her new home. On one side of the room was a pretty

conservatory half full of plants with a hanging basket before two of the

windows. Fanny was fond of flowers and Jack had remembered everything.

“Well, what do you think of it? Have I been too extravagant to suit my

little economical Annie-mother?” he said, coming in just as I had

finished inspecting the room.

I told him it was lovely, but said nothing about extravagance, although

I did wonder where all the money came from. I kept on wondering as I

went from room to room, stopping next in the square hall with its broad

landing, in an angle of which the tall clock was ticking, with a stained

glass window on one side of it and Mrs. Fullerton’s portrait on the

other. The polished floor in this room was bare with the exception of a

few rugs here and there. The deep window seats were cushioned, and a

bright fire was burning in the grate. This had been my favorite room

from the first, it was so unlike in its construction any room I had then

seen, and I was disposed to linger there in the easy chair before the

warm fire. But Jack hurried me on to the parlor,—_the great room_ he

laughingly called it, as he threw open the door. The moquette carpet was

down and so thick and soft that my feet nearly went out of sight as I

trod upon it. Nothing could have been in better taste than the whole

arrangement of the room, from the lace draperies at the windows to the

Steinway in the corner. I had not seen it since it was unpacked, and

anxious to hear its tone I stepped up to open it when Jack laid his hand

on my shoulder and said, “Excuse me, please, but it is a fad of mine

that Fanny’s fingers must be the first to touch the keys. I’ve had it

tuned and know it is in good shape, and to-morrow afternoon, when I

bring Fanny up here, I am going to have her sing and play Home, Sweet

Home, and Bonny Doon, and then, little woman, you may drum away on it

all you please. Of course the room is not quite finished. It looks a

little stiff yet,” he continued, glancing around. “It wants some

jim-cracks and things, which Fanny will see to. An old shawl of hers,

thrown on the back of a chair will change it wonderfully. By George, it

begins to rain. I didn’t think it would come so soon. I am glad I put

Robin in the stable,” he exclaimed, as a few drops pattered against the

windows, “Let’s go now to our room.”

This I knew was the _pièce de résistance_, the grand reserve kept for

the last, and it seemed to me as I followed Jack up the stairs as if he

stepped softly, reverently, as we go to look at the dead. But it was not

much like a death chamber,—that bright room, with its wide bay window,

from which fluted muslin curtains were artistically draped back so as

not to obstruct the view. By the centre window a pretty work-table

stood, with an inlaid work-box on the top ready for use. On one side of

the table a large easy chair, with head and foot rest. On the other side

a low rocker, where Fan was to sit and watch for Jack, and later on sew

and listen while, in the chair opposite, he talked or read to her, or

smoked a little, if she would let him, and he reckoned she would. All

this he explained to me, making me try first Fanny’s chair to get the

view on one side; then his to get the view on the other side, and then

calling my attention to the carpet, a light, pretty ingrain, with a

delicate pattern of roses.

“I wanted to get Brussels,” he said, “but couldn’t quite afford it yet.

We can put down some matting in the summer. Mrs. Maney of Richmond says

that is the correct thing. She helped me a lot. Couldn’t have got along

without her. What do you think of the furniture?”

I said it was prettier than anything I had ever seen, especially the

bedstead, with the medallion and the young girl in the crimson cloak and

hood, looking at me with Fanny’s eyes and Fanny’s smile as I remembered

it when she was a child.

“It is very much like Fanny, and looks as if it could speak to us,” I

said, and Jack, who was regarding it with all his heart in his eyes

replied, “She _is_ speaking to me, and saying, ‘I am coming. I shall be

with you to-morrow,’ God bless her.”

He was almost childish in his happiness, and more like an expectant boy

than a man, and I am glad to remember that for a brief space of time he

was as perfectly happy as it is often given us to be; glad, too, that in

that supreme moment, when all his mighty love was showing in his face

and voice, I had no pang of regret or pain because it was another and

not myself to whom his love was given. Was there, I wonder, no influence

emanating from that room strong enough to reach the girl of whom we both

were thinking so intently, and tell her that this was _her hour_,—the

last in which she would ever be loved by a man as good and true as Jack

Fullerton?

For a moment we stood looking at the picture, and then Jack, who had

spied a bit of dust on a table, took his handkerchief from his pocket to

wipe it off. In doing so his hand came in contact with a letter for me

which he had found in the office and forgotten until this moment.

“I don’t know why I was so stupid. If it had been from Fanny I should

have remembered it, but it is from New York,” he said, as he handed me

the rather bulky letter, which was postmarked New York and directed in a

handwriting I did not at first recognize.

“Who is writing me from New York?” I said, examining the writing

minutely, with a feeling that I had seen it before. Suddenly it came to

me, and I exclaimed “Col. Errington. He was to sail Saturday and this is

mailed Saturday. What can he have written to me, and so much, too?”

Just then word came up that the new range had arrived, and Mr. Fullerton

was wanted to superintend the placing it.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be there directly;” then to me, “you will

excuse me a moment.”

Then he was gone, and I sat looking at the letter and hesitating to

break the seal.

CHAPTER IX.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.

THE LETTER.

There certainly are times in one’s life when there comes a presentiment

of impending evil, and such a time was that when something told me that

the reading of the letter in my lap would not leave me just as it found

me. But there was no thought of Fanny in my mind until I opened it, and

saw that it contained a note directed to Jack in her handwriting, a

little unsteady and crooked, but unmistakably hers. There was a

trembling in my hands, a weakness in my wrists and back, and I felt my

eyes growing hot and dim, as, putting the note on the table, I

resolutely turned to the beginning of the letter and read:

“WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 21ST, 18—. Thursday

Evening, after 11 o’clock, with my

trunk packed for the journey, and everybody

in the house asleep but myself, who

feel as if I should never sleep again.

“DEAR ANNIE,

“I am writing to you for the last time as Fanny Hathern. When this

reaches you I shall be on the sea,—going to Europe with Col. Errington

as his wife!”

If some one had written to me that Fanny was dead, the shock would not

have been so great, although different. Consciousness did not forsake

me, but for a brief space hearing and seeing did, except that rings of

fire danced before my eyes, and in my ears there was a roaring, far-off

noise, as if some one were repeating over and over again “with Col.

Errington as his wife.” I have been told that when one is near drowning,

all the incidents of his life are unrolled before him. I was neither

drowning, nor dying, but I seemed to see at a glance all Fan’s past as

connected with Jack, and her present as connected with Col. Errington,

and I scarcely needed to read her letter to know how it had happened.

When sight and sound came back, I was conscious of a feeling of intense

heat as if I was smothering. I must have air, and dragging myself to the

window I opened it, and with the rain beating upon me, although I did

not feel it, I read the letter through. It was written half in badinage,

half in extenuation, and had in it a ring of pain which told me that

there was enough of the old Fan left to torture the new one with remorse

when she had time to realize what she had done, and to learn the

difference between a heart which beat for her alone, and one which cared

for her only as she ministered to its selfishness and pride.

“Don’t condemn me utterly,” she wrote, “until you read my letter and

know how it has come about, if indeed I can tell you. I believe it has

been coming ever since that day when Col. Errington came to The Elms

with his sister and found us picking grapes. He says it began when he

raided our house with his troops and I talked so saucily to him. I could

have killed him then in my hatred of everything wearing the Federal

uniform. I have at times almost wished I had done so, when I have felt

his meshes closing round me until I had no power to resist. Do you

remember the old geography we studied years ago, when Mr. Allen from the

north was our teacher? There was in it a picture of the so-called

Maelstrom on the coast of Norway, with a ship which had got into the

whirl going down, the faces and hands of the ill-fated passengers

upturned and imploring help, which could not reach them. That picture

had a great fascination for me, especially after Mr. Allen explained it

to us so vividly that I felt my hair prickle at the roots, and could see

it all so distinctly. The pleasure boat full of giddy young people

skirting around the edge of the whirlpool into whose circle they were

being gradually drawn;—sailing pleasantly and smoothly round and round,

each time swifter than before until at last the line was crossed over

which there was no return. Human skill was of no avail. Human aid could

not reach them, and they were drawn on and on, nearer and nearer to the

roaring mass of angry waters into which they entered at last and went

down to the depths below, where, according to his statement the sea

floor is strewed with the wrecks of boats and white with human bones.

This picture was bad enough, but it was worse still when he drew a moral

lesson from it and told us how our little faults, if not overcome would

grow until we could not control them and they would drag us on to the

great Maelstrom of sin into which we would plunge, head first, I think

he said, and go _down_, _down_, _down_,—not to the bottom of the

sea,—but to _hell_,—and he emphasized the last word with a blow on the

table with his big ruler which made me nearly jump out of my skin. I was

scared almost to death, and began to think of all the bad things I had

done, putting beech nuts in Charlie’s bed, and a little mud-turtle in

the pocket of Phyllis’s Sunday gown, calling you a fool, and spitting at

Jack, when he tried to kiss me. I could not sleep for thinking about it,

and finally made Phyllis my confessor and told her of my fear of the

Maelstrom of sin.

“‘Laws, honey,’ she said, stroking my hair, ‘don’t you worry. What’s you

got to do any way with Moll Stroon’s sin? Let her take keer of it

herself. You’se nothin’ to do with it. What was it any way? And who was

Moll Stroon?’

“I laughed till I cried at her mistake, and called her an old idiot, and

didn’t worry any more about Moll Stroon’s sin. I have since read that

the Maelstrom, as we regarded it, is a myth, or at the most a very

narrow strait on the coast of Norway through which the sea pours rapidly

four times a day with the ebb and flow of the tide,—that when it meets a

strong wind from the opposite direction, the water bubbles and boils and

seethes like a cauldron, but nothing is ever drawn into it except

foolish whales who are too big to turn round and go back. Why have I

dwelt so long on this Maelstrom? I don’t know, unless it is to show you

how, ever since I left home, I have been hanging on the verge of a moral

whirlpool, sliding over one circular wave after another until I grew

dizzy and have finally tumbled in. To use a slang phrase, ‘that is about

the size of it.’ Col. Errington says that he never forgot me for a day

after the first time he saw me, and I stood up so bravely and told him

what I thought of him; that when he saw me the second time on the ladder

with grape stains on my face and I as unconcerned about my personal

appearance as if I had been a queen and he my subject, he registered a

vow that if possible he would make me his wife. You know he did write,

offering me his hand. I never answered his letter, and that cooled his

ardor, until he came the third time and found us at The Plateau. The

knowledge that I was engaged to Jack dampened him a little, but he did

not despair, and when he succeeded in getting me to Washington and under

his influence he felt tolerably sure of success, seeing as he did how

fond I was of everything which riches can give. He has never said a word

against Jack. That would have defeated his plan, but in a thousand ways

I cannot describe he has made me feel how wholly unfitted I am to be the

wife of a poor man, and how eminently fitted to shine in a society

different from anything in Lovering. He has made me feel, too, that Jack

is countrified and that after a while I should grow away from him and

perhaps be ashamed of him,—a state of things which would make me

wretched. I know there is more real goodness in Jack’s little finger

than in the Colonel’s whole body and told him so. He only laughed and

said he had no doubt of it, but he believed I would be happier with his

whole body bad as it was than with Jack’s good little finger. If he has

never said anything derogatory of Jack he has of Lovering, which seen

with his eyes and my recent experience of something better seems to me

the dullest place on earth, and one in which I couldn’t possibly live

again. You don’t know anything about it Annie; you who have never been

anywhere except to Boston. Then it was a funeral at which you could not

be very gay. You only saw the usual sights of the city with Carl. You

know nothing of grand hotels, with suites of rooms and obsequious

waiters, who come at your nod, because you belong to the Errington

party,—of fine turnouts with coachmen and footmen in livery, and people

looking admiringly after you;—of elegant houses, such as there are in

New York and Washington, and especially Col. Errington’s, where

everything is the most expensive kind, with hosts of servants to do your

bidding;—of splendid dresses and jewels such as ladies wear to dinners

and receptions; boxes at the opera, and all the pleasant gossip, a

knowledge of these things brings to those who are in the swim. This is

society, and I like it and it has been offered me a good many times in

return for myself, and a good many times I have refused it, but when I

thought the matter settled the Colonel has changed his base of

operations and commenced the siege again. His love-making has never been

open and impetuous like Jack’s, but done persistently and in that

delicate, persuasive way so hard to resist. Neither Miss Errington nor

Katy have a suspicion of it. Indeed, his sister expects to go with him

to New York to-morrow and see him off on Saturday, and she has asked

Katy and me to accompany her. I declined, but I believe Katy intends to

go. I hardly think she will, and I dread the scene in the morning when

they must know the truth.

“I did not decide until this afternoon. I drove with the Colonel this

morning far out into the country. We were gone two or three hours, and

he improved his opportunity, urging every possible reason why I should

not marry Jack and should marry him. In Lovering I would be a nonentity,

darning my husband’s socks and looking after the kitchen to see things

were not wasted. In Washington I would be a leader in society, quoted

and admired, with every wish gratified, and the finest establishment in

the city. He would build a house for me, he said, much handsomer than

the one he now occupies, and he took me around to see the site on one of

the pleasantest and most fashionable avenues. He would have two or three

plans sent to us for approval in Europe, and it could be commenced at

once. As soon as we had the measurements of the rooms I could, if I

liked, order the carpets and rugs, together with the furniture. There

were to be draperies from Paris, pictures and statuary from Rome and

Florence, china and linen from Dresden and England, and bric-a-brac from

everywhere. There was to be a cottage at Newport in the summer,—trips to

Florida in the winter, where, if I liked, he would build a pretty villa

near some one of the many lakes which abound in the southern part of the

state. He knows a spot which will just suit me in Orange County. I think

it was this villa, which he described so vividly, with its broad

piazza,—vine covered and cool,—its palms and magnolias and orange trees

and roses, and fanciful rowboat on the lake, which moved me the most. I

can have you and Paul there. The place will suit you better than the

gayeties of Washington, or Newport, and in imagination I have already

filled the wide piazza of Palmetto Villa with chairs and stools, and a

little round table for books or work, or afternoon tea, and I have put

Paul into a hammock and you into an easy chair, and have with you looked

across the road to Lake Hathern sparkling in the sunlight, and have

inhaled the perfume of orange blossoms and the delicious Florida air,

freighted with the odor of many flowers. And by and by carriages come

out from Orlando, a pretty town close by, with people to call upon us,

English and Americans, and our grounds are bright with the flutter of

gay dresses, and the house is filled with the chatter of small

talk,—admiration of the place, and implied compliments of the beautiful

hostess,—that is I, who carries herself like a duchess, and says to

herself, ‘This is life; I did well not to refuse it.’ Isn’t that a

charming picture? I thought so and began to waver.

“On our return to the house the Colonel found a telegram from the White

Star office, asking if he still wished them to reserve the staterooms he

had looked at when in the city last week. If so, he must let them know

at once, as another party wanted them. He had been so sure that I would

go with him, he said, that he had partially engaged the rooms, and now I

must decide.

“‘Give me an hour,’ I said, and after my lunch I went directly to my

room, pleading a headache, which would keep me from going out with Miss

Errington and Katy, who were to make some purchases for Lovering. I

locked the door, took off my dress, put on a wrapper, let down my hair,

unbuttoned my boots, looked in the glass, and then sat down to weigh the

pro’s and con’s of the situation.

“Do you remember that queer little thing which I once recited at school,

‘The Philosopher’s Scales,’ which were not made to weigh sugar and tea,

but qualities, feelings, thoughts and sense. The first thing he tried,

we are told, was the head of Voltaire pitted against the prayer of the

penitent thief, with the result that the head flew up and the prayer

down. Then

‘A lord and a lady went up at full sail,

When a bee chanced to light in the opposite scale.’

Then at last,

‘The whole world was bowled in at the grate,

With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight,

When the scale with the soul in’t so mightily fell,

That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell!’

“All this recurred to me so vividly this afternoon and keeps repeating

itself over and over in my brain as I sit writing this to you. I am a

little girl again in the old school-house at Lovering. It is Wednesday

afternoon, and outside under the trees several horses are tied, with

here and there a negro in attendance. Inside, the western sun comes

through the windows and lies in great splashes of light on the floor. On

his little perch of a platform Mr. Allen, of Maelstrom notoriety, sits

calling the names of those who are to recite or declaim, his voice

sounding like thunder when he says ‘Fanny Hathern: The Philosopher’s

Scales.’ In her red merino gown and white apron _Fanny Hathern_ walks

from her seat to the platform, the distance seeming a mile, and her

heart thumping like a trip-hammer, as she tries to remember whether it

was the _prayer_ of Voltaire and the _skull_ of the thief, or _vice

versa_. There is company in school that afternoon, the Trustees, of whom

the girl’s father is one, and hence her anxiety to acquit herself

creditably with her scales. You are there and Charlie, and Jack is in

the corner just where the little girl can see him, as she curtsies

straight down and begins, with her eyes fixed on him, for she knows his

lips will try to form the words if she wavers. He has helped her learn

the piece and heard her rehearse it many times, telling her how to

manage her voice, for Jack is a natural orator. The little girl acquits

herself very creditably and goes back to her seat, passing so near to

Jack that she hears distinctly his whispered words, ‘You did it

tip-top.’

“Dear old Jack, who always thought I did everything ‘tip-top,’ and who

brought me the biggest apples he could find in the bin, who put so many

sugar hearts and raisins into my desk, and carried me in his arms across

the puddles of water, when I was afraid of spoiling my new shoes. What

will he think of me now, I wonder? Believe me, Annie, my face is wet

with tears as I recall those far-off days and think of Jack, who would

never serve me as I am serving him. It is raining heavily to-night and

the wind howls at my window with a sound in it like a human sob or

moan,—like Jack’s voice calling to me through the storm, and saying it

is not too late to draw back. There it comes again, the moan,—making me

creep all over, there is something so uncanny in the sound at this hour

of the night. It is _not_ too late to draw back, and I’ll do it, too. If

the Colonel is still up,—if there is a light over or under his door, I

will knock and tell him I have changed my mind, that I cannot break

Jack’s heart—I have been out into the hall and the whole length of it,

treading very cautiously lest Miss Errington or Katy should hear me.

There was no light over or under the Colonel’s door. He was fast asleep,

snoring horribly at intervals, and it was these snores which I mistook

for Jack’s moaning in the wind. I cannot draw back. It is too late. I

believe I am half crazed and don’t know what I am writing, or have

written. I remember I had reached the ‘Philosopher’s Scales’ when I

digressed so widely, so I will return to that point and the time this

afternoon when I sat down to weigh the pro’s and con’s,—the _pro’s_ for

my marrying the Colonel, and the _con’s_ against it. Into the _con_ I

put Jack, young, handsome, true as steel, good every way, with no fault

whatever except that he is poor, knows but little of fashionable society

and cares less, wears old-fashioned coats and slouch hats, with his

trousers in his boots when the roads are muddy. That was Jack, and of

course the _con_ went down with a whack as there was nothing to balance

it. Then I took the Colonel, years older than I am, growing bald on the

top of his head and a little deaf in one ear, with some grey in his hair

and whiskers, and no power to thrill or quicken my pulse when he touches

my hand, as Jack has. Good habits, distinguished looking, remarkably

well preserved, polished manners, perfect knowledge of the world and

every shade of etiquette, and always habited in the last style from his

collar to his boots. That was the Colonel, and I put him into the _pro_

scale, which was up in the air and swung and teetered, but did not make

Jack, who was down, budge an inch. The _con_ was ahead, and I was glad,

but I meant to be fair, and took up Lovering next, asking what besides

Jack and you and Paul it had to offer me in exchange for the world of

society I liked so much. Two or three picnics in the summer when the

people eat their lunch on the ground in the woods, with bugs and ants

crawling over them, and pretend they like it. A few tea parties, where

the talk is mostly of the good times before the war and the bad times

since. Possibly a circus. (By the way, I hear Buffalo Bill is going to

Richmond next spring. If he does, sell your best bonnet and go and see

him and take Paul.) So much for summer dissipation. In the winter it is

a little better. A singing school, amateur theatricals for the churches,

or Y. M. C. A.’s, or W. C. T. U.’s, of which half the people approve and

the other half disapprove. Occasionally a lecture and concert and

travelling play actors, who are second class, or they would not come to

Lovering. The negro revival, which is lively, and the Sewing Society or

Guild once a month, with tea, one kind of cake, no napkins, and gossip.

As Mrs. Jack Fullerton I might in time become President of the Guild and

walk miles to find a place for it to meet; that would perhaps be some

compensation for the dullness of the place, and relieve the ennui of

living alone at The Plateau, with you at the other end of the town.

Think how bored I should be after the novelty of counting my silver and

dishes had worn off. There would be nothing left me to do but to

hob-a-nob with the cook and watch for Jack, who would in time be as

bored as I. That is Lovering life and I put it in the scale with Jack,

expecting that, like the lord and the lady, he would go up at full sail.

He only stirred a very little and looked at me so steadfastly with his

honest, trusting eyes, that I still hoped he would win.

“I must, however, be fair to the Colonel, and I piled on top of him the

trip to Europe, jewels and dresses and travel and a French maid. The new

house and grounds in Washington, the cottage at Newport, Palmetto Villa

in Florida, a box at the opera, horses and carriages, and all the money

I want to spend, with nothing to do except to enjoy it. This settled the

matter and the _pro’s_ went down so fast and the _con_ went up so

swiftly, that Jack and Lovering were thrown out and vanished entirely.

The die was cast, and without a moment’s hesitation I made myself

presentable and went to the library, where I found the Colonel, calm and

cool and polishing his thumb nail with one of those little brushes which

come for that purpose: He has a full set. Rather effeminate, I think. I

did not stop a minute lest my courage should fail, for something was

tugging at my heart, which felt like a lump of ice.

“‘I am going with you to Europe,’ I said, the words half choking me.

“He stopped polishing his thumb nail, and drawing me to him——Well, no

matter what he did, except that it was all very dignified and

circumspect, and not at all like Jack, who nearly ate me up when I

promised to marry him. Poor Jack! I have said that to myself many times

since my interview with the Colonel, which did not last long. I was in a

hurry to get away from him, his hands were so cold and clammy, not at

all like Jack’s. But then he is a man of an entirely different

temperament, and may be just as kind. He was very glad for my decision,

he said, and he trusted I would never regret it; he should certainly try

to make me happy. I didn’t tell him I was regretting it even then.

Disengaging myself from him I went to my room and cried as if my heart

would break. I heard him go out and knew that in a few moments there

would flash across the electric wires to the White Star office in New

York the message ‘Keep the staterooms, Nos. —— and —— for me. G.

Errington.’ The deed was done, and when about five o’clock Miss

Errington and Katy came in from their shopping I was lying on the couch

in my room with a headache which was not feigned. Katy was full of

purchases made for you and Paul and Phyllis and Jack, while Miss

Errington had been busy collecting a few things for her brother’s

comfort on the sea. You know she was intending to go with him to New

York and take Katy with her, and my conscience smote me as I heard her

talking about it and planning that I should not be lonely during her

absence. The Colonel told me to have my trunk packed to-night, taking as

little as possible. I was to say nothing to anyone, but leave it for him

to tell his sister in the morning before I came down to breakfast. Ah

me, how I dread the scorn in her eyes and the surprise in Katy’s when

they know all. Miss Errington is a splendid woman; rather peculiar in

some respects and nearly as determined as her brother when once her mind

is made up. She has been most kind and generous to me and seems to like

me very much. But Katy is her favorite. She has spoken of taking her

abroad. If she is still of this mind, don’t oppose it, although it will

leave you very lonely. Let Katy see the world. She is exceedingly

beautiful, with a face and voice like an angel. She ought to make a

brilliant match, and with Miss Errington to chaperone her, I think she

will, and forget her foolishness about the stage. There is no one in

Lovering for her, but with Miss Errington her chances are many. I

suspect she has a fancy for Carl, but that will never amount to

anything. He scatters too much. I hear of him here and there and

everywhere, sipping sweets from many flowers and caring particularly for

none.

“It is one o’clock in the morning. I have still my note to write to

Jack, a harder task than writing to you, so I will leave this letter and

finish it in New York after the deed is done and I can tell you of the

manner with which the news was received by Miss Errington and Katy.

“Saturday, Nov. 23d, 5th Avenue Hotel,

10 o’clock in the morning.

“DEAR ANNIE,

“I have on my traveling gown and jacket,—the tailor-made one, which is

very becoming, with gilt buttons and braid. On the table is a fur

lined cloak, with shawls and wraps enough to have warmed even Harry

Gill, if anything could have thawed that chattering wretch. I feel

some like him, for my hands and feet are icy cold. But I must finish

my letter commenced in Washington and tell you of the row we had when

it was known that I was to marry the Colonel. He told his sister in

the library before breakfast, when she came in ready for the journey

she expected to take. At first she refused to believe it, and I was

sent for to confirm the news. I went with my knees shaking under me

and in a condition more like Harry Gill than ever. She was white to

her lips, and her eyes burned like coals of fire as she demanded if

what she had heard was true.

“‘Answer her, Fanny. She does not believe me,’ the Colonel said.

“I was never afraid to speak before, but something in Miss Errington’s

manner and attitude cowed me completely and I hesitated before

stammering out that it was true, and I was going to marry her brother.

“‘If you will excuse me I will leave you to settle it between

yourselves, as I have something to see to. But don’t be long, there is

not much time to lose,’ the Colonel said, in his usual suave manner.

“Bowing politely he disappeared, while his sister stood clutching the

back of a chair, tall and erect and confronting me like some dreadful

Nemesis. I knew I deserved the worst that she could say or think of

me, and cowered before her while she regarded me with unutterable

disdain.

“‘Miss Hathern,’ she began, ‘If there were no reason why it should not

be, I might be glad to receive you as my brother’s wife, but to break

your engagement with another man so suddenly is monstrous. Have you

weighed the subject well?’

“I thought of the Scales, but knew she would not understand that, or

the Maelstrom either. She was matter of fact and I must answer her in

the same spirit. As well as I could I tried to explain till she had a

tolerably fair insight as to the real motives which actuated me.

“‘I see,’ she said, sarcastically. ‘Because the man is poor you are

throwing him over and selling yourself for money and freedom. I pity

you when you waken to know what you have done. My brother is dear to

me, of course, but I know him, and he will not be a pleasant man for a

woman of your spirit to live with. Everything in his power must bend

to his will or break. He may not beat you, although he does his horses

and dogs, when they disobey, but he will bend you until you have no

free will of your own, and the time will come when you will long with

inexpressible longing for the love and tenderness and consideration of

the man you are discarding.’

“At this moment Katy came rushing in. She had heard the news from the

Colonel, and throwing her arms around my neck sobbed hysterically,

begging me to give it up for all our sakes,—Jack’s, your’s, Paul’s,

Phyllis’s, father’s and Charlie’s, and I think she mentioned The Boy,

but am not sure. It was a sin to Jack, she said, and a disgrace to our

family, and would make me a by-word with every decent person in

Lovering.

“Between Katy’s tears and Miss Errington’s scorn I was so limp and

crushed that I might have given it up if the Colonel had not come to

my rescue.

“‘There has been enough of this,’ he said, sternly, ‘come to

breakfast, time is passing.’

“He put his arm around me and led me to the dining-room, where we

breakfasted alone. Katy was upstairs crying and Miss Errington was

ordering her valise to be taken to her room, as she would not need it

now. Her brother, who had recovered his composure and was as quiet and

calm and cool as ever, suggested that she still go with us and take

Katy. But she declined. Katy, I think, wished to go, and clung to me

at parting in a way which wholly upset me.

“‘Remember Jack,’ she whispered to me, ‘have pity on him and give it

up. It is not too late, and will not be till the very last.’

“Was there ever a girl more wretched on her wedding day than I was, I

wonder? Of the journey to New York I can recall very little, except

that the Colonel was unremitting in his care for my comfort, and that

once when he spread his rug across my lap I smiled on him and said

‘You are very kind.’ Aside from that I hardly spoke, but sat leaning

back in my chair with my eyes closed, sometimes asleep, for I was

perfectly exhausted, and sometimes thinking, always the same thought,

‘It is not too late yet.’ The words were whispered into my ears

continually by something which seemed to be sitting on my shoulder and

croaking, until I was nearly mad. There was, however, a comfort in

knowing that I could still draw back, and I counted how many hours

probation were left me before it would be too late. Jack will hardly

suffer more than I did during that rapid journey, when to everything

else, was added homesickness for The Elms, and you and the dear old

life I was throwing away. It was a kind of nightmare, I think, and by

the time our train was nearing Jersey City I had made up my mind to

jump from the car the moment we stopped and lose myself in the crowd;

in short, to run away! The bustle and excitement at the station and

the hurrying to the boat revived me. The thing on my shoulder stopped

its croaking, and the Colonel had my arm in his and held my hand

tightly as if he divined my thoughts. So the newspapers lost an

exciting paragraph headed ‘Strange disappearance of a bride on her

wedding day.’

“When we reached the hotel and were ushered into the suite of rooms

the Colonel had ordered for us I felt better, and when Mr. and Mrs.

Darcy, friends of the Colonel, who board at the hotel and whom I had

met when I stopped there with Miss Errington, came in to see me and

made much of me as the future Mrs. Errington, I was quite myself, and

all through dinner, which they took with us and which was served in

our private parlor, I was in high spirits, too high, I fear, as I saw

them look curiously at me once or twice, as if wondering whether I

were quite sane. After dinner the three conferred in low tones, while

I stood with my back to them looking into the busy street below and

vaguely wondering if it would break one’s neck to jump from the second

story to the sidewalk, and if one could so manage as not to land on

the head of some pedestrian. I heard the Colonel say, ‘As soon as

possible now. I have dispatched a messenger boy.’ I knew what he meant

and grew hot and cold again in a minute, while the creature on my

shoulder began its warning cry, ‘Not too late yet,’ and pressed so

close to my ears that I fancied it touched my hair with its wings. In

the car I had thought of Poe’s raven, but now I said to myself, ‘It is

a bat.’ I have a mortal terror of bats and put up my hand to brush it

away. But it stayed and clamored louder and louder, while I kept

trying to brush it off, until Mrs. Darcy came to me and said, ‘There

is a lock of hair loose on your neck. I think that is what annoys you.

Let me fix it.’

“She took out a hairpin and fastened the refractory lock, while I

wondered if she would see the thing on my shoulder. She didn’t, and I

began to fear I was losing my mind, and made a great effort to pull

myself together. There was a knock at the door and the Rev. Mr.

Gillson came in, book in hand, ready for business. I was presented to

him, and the Colonel explained as a reason for this seemingly sudden

marriage that I could not decide to brave the ocean in the winter

until the night before. The clergyman bowed and looked very

searchingly at me as I stood in the corner with a face white as a

corpse. If Mr. and Mrs. Darcy had not been his parishioners he might

have questioned me, thinking me an unwilling bride. But they were my

vouchers and Col. Errington was well known to him by reputation. It

was all right and the ceremony began, while the bat, if bat it were,

shrieked and fluttered and flapped, until it seemed to me they must

all hear it. But when the Colonel took the ring, it gave one

despairing cry, ‘Too late, too late!’ and flew away, leaving me calm

and quiet, with a strange hallucination of the brain. It was Jack

putting the ring on my finger,—Jack’s voice, which said, ‘With this

ring I thee wed, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’ I smiled as

I thought how few were his worldly goods, compared to what might have

been mine, but I was glad that the nightmare was over, the horrid

dream passed, and I awake again in the old spare room at home with

Jack at my side. I was very much awake when Mr. and Mrs. Darcy kissed

me and called me ‘Mrs. Errington,’ while somebody, who was not Jack,

kissed me and called me his wife. The room at The Elms resolved itself

into the parlor at the hotel, and Jack was lost to me forever by my

own act, and I felt like a block of stone as I received the

congratulations of the clergyman and felt that the Colonel’s eyes were

upon me.

“I have read somewhere that in the great crises of one’s life the most

ridiculous thoughts will sometimes intrude, and there came to me a

saying I have heard father use so often when I was fretting over some

disaster, ‘Never cry for spilled milk!’ It helped me wonderfully. I

had spilled all mine,—a brimming pail, and drowned my heart in doing

it. I could never undo what I had done, but I could make the best of

it, and I mean to. I have written you thus fully because I wanted you

to know that I am not altogether callous, and that I did struggle

against my fate. A stronger will than mine conquered me. I am Col.

Errington’s wife and shall be faithful to him, and however my heart

may ache for the might have been, no one, not even you, shall know it.

My husband——. I have written the word, and feel better,—is very kind

and generous. He knows I did not marry him for love, and I think he

means me to have my price,—_all the money I want_. His wedding present

is $10,000, to do with as I please. Half of it I shall send to you, as

I know how low our finances are. He does not object. He thought I

would do it, he said, and has made arrangements to send it before we

sail. He has bought me a lovely fur cloak for the voyage, and given me

two one hundred dollar bills for pin money. More than I ever had in

all my life. One of the bills I am sending to Jack in payment for what

he sent me on the pretense of buying Black Beauty. I bought the

tailor-made gown with it, my wedding gown, which I am wearing now, and

which I can not bear to think was bought with Jack’s money. Make him

take it. Tell him it is to buy Black Beauty back, and don’t let him

hate me. Tell him I did love him dearly and am afraid I do now when to

do so is a sin. I am another man’s wife, and my husband has come in

and says I have but little more time, as he wishes to get settled in

our staterooms before the ship sails. I wonder if I shall throw myself

into the sea. Perhaps. If you hear of an ‘accidental drowning of the

lovely young bride of the Hon. George W. Errington,’—that’s the way

they will word it,—you will know it was not accidental, but keep it to

yourself.

“I have not time to read what I have written. If I had I probably

should not send it. I think I have told you everything in a wild,

disconnected and perhaps contradictory way, and I have felt

disconnected and wild as I told it. You may show this letter to Miss

Errington, who still intends going to The Elms with Katy. Perhaps she

will feel less hard towards me. You may also tell Jack some things

that are in it and which I could not write to him. Oh, Jack, oh Annie!

Good-bye, Good-bye! I put my arms around your necks and kiss you both.

God bless you. Write to me and tell me about Jack. The Colonel will

cable from Queenstown. He is getting impatient and to save time has

directed the envelope for me. Good-bye, again.

“FANNY HATHERN ERRINGTON. Ah me!”

CHAPTER X.—ANNIE’S STORY CONTINUED.

THE EFFECT.

Fanny’s handwriting was never very legible, and now it was worse than

usual, while her letter was so long and my eyes so blurred with tears

that it took me a long time to read it, and after it was read I leaned

back in my chair shaking from head to foot, with a sense of loss and

shame and pity for us all who must bear the disgrace, for such I felt

Fan’s conduct to be. I pitied her, but not as I did Jack, who was so

full of anticipations of the morrow and so little prepared for the blow

awaiting him. I heard him come whistling up the stairs, two at a time,

and involuntarily put up my hands to ward him off,—to keep him a little

longer from what I knew would be worse than death.

“Hallo!” he said, as he came in. “I didn’t expect to be gone so long,

but those stupid men didn’t seem to understand the range at all, and

I’ll be hanged if I know much more than they do. Mother always used a

fireplace, you know. But I reckon we have got it into shipshape. If not,

Norah can fix it when she comes. Why, Annie, Annie!” he exclaimed

suddenly, struck by my attitude and the expression of my face, “Are you

ill? What has happened? You are as white as a ghost, and the rain

beating in upon you, too.”

He shut the window and continued, as the letter in my lap rustled a

little. “You have had bad news. Is it Carl? Is he ill? Is he dead?”

I shook my head, and he went on: “What is it then? What has happened?”

As he stepped back his eye fell upon the note directed to him, which lay

upon the table. He recognized his name, and the handwriting, and

catching it up, he said, “From Fanny; how did it get here? Did it come

in that letter from New York, which you said was from Col. Errington?”

I nodded and managed to gasp, “Oh Jack, oh Jack! How will you bear it!”

“Bear what?” he asked. “Tell me; the suspense is torture to me. Has

anything happened to Fanny? She isn’t dead or she could not write to

me.”

Summoning all my strength, I answered. “No, Jack, Fanny is not dead. It

is worse than that. She is married to Col. Errington and gone with him

to Europe.”

I have heard Jack tell with a shudder of men at his side in battle

dropping instantly when a ball struck them, but surely no man in the

fiercest battle which ever raged could have fallen more suddenly than

Jack did into the chair nearest to him, where he sat huddled together

like an old man, his mouth open and his glazed eyes looking at me in

dumb despair.

“N-n-no, Annie,” he began at last, with quivering lips and chin and

in a voice I would never have known as his. “N-n-no, Annie. Say it

again. I didn’t hear you right. There’s a roaring in my ears.

Fanny—isn’t—married! My—Fanny, who was to have this room, and watch

for me. N-n-no, Annie, N-no.”

There was a huskiness in his voice which frightened me, and a moan like

one in mortal pain, which made me forget myself in my desire to comfort

him.

“Don’t Jack,” I said, going up to him and rubbing his cold hands and

face, which was not pale but of a greenish hue. “Don’t take it so hard.

She is my sister, but if she were ten times that I should say she is not

worth the anguish you are enduring. She has sold herself for money. She

was married Friday evening in New York and sailed in the Celtic Saturday

afternoon. She had a hard struggle before she decided to do what she has

done. I think she loves you still.”

As I talked the greenish hue left his face and was succeeded by a

deathly pallor, as, reaching out his hand, he said, “Give me her

letter.”

“Yours, you mean,” I said, offering him the note addressed to him.

“No,—yours. I have a right to know all she can say,” he answered, and

his voice was not like the Jack of an hour ago. There was a ring in it

like one who would be obeyed. “I don’t care what she has written to

_me_; to _you_ she would tell the truth. Give me her letter,” he

continued.

I gave it to him and then watched him as he read it rapidly in the

waning light of that dreary November afternoon, with the rain beating

against the windows, and the wind which was beginning to rise howling

around the house, as Fanny said it howled the night she wrote the

letter. It was curious to watch the different expressions of Jack’s face

as his eyes went over the pages. Sometimes his breath came heavily, his

teeth shut tightly together and there were great ridges in his forehead

between his eyes. Again his face softened and his lips quivered and I

knew he was reading the parts where Fan spoke of him. I knew, too, when

he reached the Scales and the weighing process by the throwing up of his

head and the flaring of his nostrils like one under strong excitement.

Once he brought his hand down heavily upon the arm of his chair, and if

I had ever heard him swear I should have suspected that something like

an oath escaped him. Then he read on until he came to the marriage scene

in the hotel, when his whole aspect changed. The hardness was gone and

he shook like one in a chill, although he asked me to open the window

again, saying he could not breathe.

“Oh, Fanny; Fanny, how could you do this to me, who loved and trusted

you so!” he said, and letting the letter drop to the floor and covering

his face with his hands he rocked to and fro and cried as I had never

seen any one cry before, and pray I never may again. And yet he shed no

tears, but sobbed and moaned so pitifully that I went to him again and

laying my arm across his shoulder drew his hot head down upon it as I

would if he had been my brother.

There was then no thought of the love I had borne him so long; it was

only intense pity for the man whose heart I knew was breaking, and whom

I tried to comfort.

“Don’t, Jack; don’t,” I said, brushing back his hair, which was wet with

the great drops of sweat which stood under it and upon his forehead. “I

wish I could comfort you. Oh, I wish I could, but only God can do that.”

Then he started, and looking at me fiercely exclaimed, “Don’t speak to

me of God. I have lost all faith in everything. Didn’t I trust Him, and

wasn’t my heart so full of gratitude this morning for all the good I

thought He had given me! And didn’t I make resolutions for a better

life? Tell me that. And what has come of it? When I was on my knees

thanking Him for Fanny and asking that I might be worthy, she was

another man’s wife, and He gave me no sign, but let me go on in my

fool’s paradise. How could God do that? How could Fanny do it? Oh,

Fanny, Fanny! If you were lying dead here in what was to have been our

bridal chamber it would be happiness compared to this. Don’t speak to

me, Annie. Don’t touch me,” and he pushed me from him. “It seems to

bring Fanny near to me, and I can’t bear it now, when my love for her is

dying so hard. Shut the window, please. I am shivering again.”

I closed the window and then stood looking at him writhing in pain, as

if he were indeed enduring the throes of death. It was growing late and

I roused him at last, pointing to the darkness outside and telling him

that Paul and Phyllis would be waiting anxiously for us.

“Can you get your horse, or shall I?” I asked.

“I’ll go,” he said, getting up and tottering as if he were an old man.

On the table where he had lain it without reading was Fanny’s note to

him, and I put it in my purse with the bill which had been in my letter

and which I had not given him. I heard the buggy at the door, and going

out got in beside him and we started down the hill. It was raining fast

and had grown very dark. If the horse had not been perfectly gentle and

known every turn of the road, we might have met with some disaster, for

the reins hung loosely in Jack’s hands and he seemed to notice nothing.

Once we met a carriage which passed so close to us that the wheels

grazed each other, but Jack paid no attention. Then I took the lines

from him and drove myself, while he sat with his head bent so low that

his chin must have rested upon his chest. Once I spoke to him, but he

did not answer, and when we reached the town I called to a boy on the

walk bidding him to go for a physician and tell him to come at once to

The Elms, adding that Mr. Fullerton had been taken suddenly ill. I had

no intention of having Jack in his present condition go to his

boardinghouse that night. He would be better at The Elms, and after

speaking to the boy I drove rapidly home. There was a bright light in

the dining-room and Paul’s face was pressed against the window pane

watching for me. At the sound of wheels Phyllis hurried to the door,

peering out into the darkness and shading her eyes with her hand.

“For de Lord’s sake, Miss Annie and Mas’r Jack,” she began. “Whar has

you been, and what has happened you? De muffins is all fell flat, an’ de

coffee biled till it’s spiled.”

“Sh-sh,” I said warningly. “Bring a light, and come and help me; Mr.

Fullerton is ill,—very ill, I am afraid.”

She had a candle at the door in a minute and was at my side, as I sprang

to the ground after giving Jack a vigorous shake which roused him a

little.

“Yes. Where are we? At home? All right. I’ll see you to-morrow before

she comes,” he said, putting out his hand and feeling for the lines.

“Jack, you are to stay at The Elms with me,” I said, wondering how I was

to make him get out if he were disposed not to do so.

Just then I heard the tramp of horses’ feet in the avenue and the doctor

came riding up rapidly. He was just starting to visit a patient in the

country when he received my message and came at once to know what had

happened. Between him and Phyllis Jack was gotten into the house, his

weakness and silence so alarming that I was relieved when, as he felt

the warmth of the dining-room, he stretched his hands toward the

light-wood fire and said, “Ah-h, that feels good. I think I must have

taken cold. I am so chilly. I wish somebody would cover up Robin,”

referring to his horse, of which he was very fond. Sinking into the

chair which Phyllis drew close to the hearth, he gave a long sigh,

leaned his head back and closed his eyes, while the doctor looked

curiously at him and then at me.

“He is in a high fever,” he said, “although he seems so cold. How did

the attack come on and what caused it?”

I could not explain then, and answered evasively. “He must stay here

to-night, in father’s room, and the sooner you get him in there the

better,” I said, telling Phyllis to kindle a fire and get the bed ready.

I knew the condition of things better than the doctor, who, for a time,

acted under my orders. At first Jack resisted, saying he must go home as

his landlady would not like it if he kept supper waiting. Then he began

to talk of Scales and Maelstroms, and Fanny, who was coming to-morrow.

We got him quiet at last and into bed where he lay perfectly still, with

his hands folded, his eyes closed and his face white as the pillow it

rested upon.

“I can’t make it out,” the doctor said. “It is not often a young and

strong man like him comes down so suddenly and so fast. Why, there is no

more life in him than in a piece of paper. Looks to me as if he had

received some great mental shock. Can’t account for it in any other

way.”

Reflecting that on the morrow when Miss Errington and Katy came without

Fanny the truth must be told, I replied, “He has had a shock. You know

he was to have been married on Christmas day.”

The doctor nodded, and I went on slowly, with a feeling that my tongue

was very thick.

“This evening I had a letter from Fanny, who has married Col. Errington

and gone to Europe with him.”

The doctor dropped into the chair nearest him almost as quickly as Jack

had dropped when I told the news to him. But he did not speak, for Fanny

was my sister and he would not say what was in his mind. I, however,

relieved him from all embarrassment by saying, “It has quite unnerved

me. It came like a thunderclap. I had no suspicion of it. I think it a

cruel, wicked act.”

“Yes, yes, all of that,” he answered, “and may have serious results.

There are symptoms about Mr. Fullerton which I do not like. He is strong

in everything pertaining to his manhood, but in his nature gentle and

tender and trustful as a woman. The blow has struck him hard. See that

he has his medicine regularly. I will be here early in the morning. Now,

I must go, as I have a patient waiting for me three miles in the

country.”

He went out and I followed him, meeting in the hall with Phyllis, who

was eager in her inquiries for Mas’r Jack and what had “done took him so

suddently.” I told her the truth, and if a negro can turn pale she

certainly did. Throwing up her hands and dropping the cup of milk she

was taking to Paul, who was clamoring for his supper, she staggered

against the door, exclaiming, “Lor’ a ’mighty! What for has Miss Fanny

gone done dat ar mean trick to Mas’r Jack, an’ a disgracin’ de whole of

us. No weddin’,—no nothin’,—an’ sich gossip in de town. Gone to Europe

has she in de big ship?” I nodded and she continued, “May de Lord s——.”

She was going to say “sink de ship,” but changed her mind and added,

“may he make her so sick she’ll heave up Jonah an’ that Cunnel too. I

’members him well fust time he was here, orderin’ dem soldiers roun’ as

if dey was dirt. Jess so he’ll done order Miss Fanny, and sarve her

right.”

A moan from Jack and an imperative call from Paul brought the interview

to an end, and while Phyllis went to the one I hastened to the other,

who was talking rather wildly. This did not greatly surprise me as I

remembered having heard his mother say that whenever anything ailed him,

if it were only the earache, to which as a boy he was subject, it made

him delirious. It was more than earache now, and I tried to quiet him as

he talked disconnectedly of several things, but mostly of Fanny and the

house on The Plateau, and _our room_, wondering if she would like it,

and the medallion on the bedstead which looked so much like her.

“I love her so! I love her so! How can I give her up!” he suddenly

exclaimed, throwing his arms down with great force upon the spread,

while the perspiration rolled down his face, and his eyes glared at me

questioningly and then wandered swiftly around the room.

He wanted to go home, he said; this was no place for him, and Fanny

coming to-morrow. Once he tried to get up, but I kept him back, telling

him to wait till to-morrow, when I hoped he would be better.

“What little dark-faced woman are you, I’d like to know, trying to boss

me?” he said, looking curiously at me, as I kept my arm across his

chest. “You can’t hold a candle to Fanny. Where is she? You go away and

send her here.”

I knew he was not conscious of what he was saying, but in my nervous

condition his words hurt me, and my voice shook as I replied, “Fanny has

not come yet. You didn’t expect her till to-morrow. I am Annie. Don’t

you know me Jack?”

Something in my voice arrested his attention, and looking fixedly at me

he said, “You want to cry, don’t you? Put your head down here and have

it out.” With one hand he drew my head down upon his other hand and kept

it there, while I cried like a child. It was his part to comfort me now,

and he tried to do so, asking why I cried and what had happened.

“Something has, I know; but I can’t remember what it is,” he said. “But

never mind. We’ll meet it bravely together, little Annie-mother, and

Fanny will be here to-morrow.”

That thought comforted him, and many times during the night as I sat by

him he asked if it were to-morrow yet.

“The to-morrow, you know, when _she_ is coming,” he would add, and to

this I could truthfully answer no, even when it was the dawn of the

to-morrow he had anticipated so much and the grey morning was looking in

at the windows.

At an early hour Phyllis came to relieve me, and shivering in every limb

and with my head aching as if it would burst, I crept up to my bed,

where I fell at once into a heavy sleep which lasted for hours. When I

awoke both Phyllis and the doctor were with me. The latter held a

telegram from Katy, saying that she and Miss Errington would come that

day as they had arranged. My first inquiry was for Jack.

“I am afraid he is in for brain fever,” the doctor said. “He has been

working very hard lately, and this, with the wetting he got last night

and the terrible blow have proved more than he can bear. He is apt to be

flighty from pain anyway and is crazy as a loon this morning and is

asking first if it is to-morrow, then for Fanny and then for

Annie-mother. That I reckon is you, but you are better where you are for

a day or so, or I shall have two on my hands, and I fancy Jack will be

about as much as I can manage.”

“Oh, I must get up,” I said, trying to rise, when a sharp pain in the

back of my head pulled me back.

“I told you so,” the doctor said. “You’ve got neuralgia in your neck.

You never changed your wet clothes at all last night, Phyllis says, and

if you don’t look out you’ll have pneumonia and the Lord knows what

else. You must keep quiet.”

I had no choice but to obey, the pain in my neck was so severe, and were

I to try I could not narrate what came with and followed that to-morrow

of which Jack had talked so much and which was ushered in so sadly. This

task devolves upon another.

PART III.

FAN-AND-ANN AND JACK.

CHAPTER I.—AUTHOR’S STORY.

HOW LOVERING RECEIVED THE NEWS.

The news that Fanny Hathern had jilted Jack Fullerton and married Col.

Errington flew like wild-fire and set the little town of Lovering ablaze

with excitement and indignation. The doctor had told it to his wife the

night after his return from The Elms, adding that she’d better keep dark

until she heard it from some other source. But whether she kept dark or

not everybody knew it by ten o’clock the next morning. Women who had not

called upon their neighbors for weeks remembered suddenly that they had

an errand, and were seen hurrying through the streets talking to

everyone they met and then hastening on to other listeners, who in turn

told it to all whom they saw. By twelve o’clock the story had received

the addition that Jack Fullerton was at The Elms raving with brain fever

and likely to die as the result of Col. Errington’s perfidy. Usually it

is the woman who gets the most censure; in this case it was the man,

whom all remembered as the haughty officer who had come into their midst

with his troops and levied upon them for whatever he wished to have. And

now he had put the crowning act to his other misdeeds by running off

with Fanny Hathern and possibly causing Jack Fullerton’s death. There

had hardly been more excitement in town when the news first came that

Sumter had fallen than there was now. Even the men stopped each other to

discuss it, and nowhere were there louder or more indignant voices heard

than just outside a small corner grocery which bore the sign, “Sam

Slayton, dealer in the finest groceries and freshest vegetables this

side of the Potomac.”

Sam was a character. A long, lean, light-haired Yankee from Vermont,

who, three or four years before had come to Lovering and opened a

grocery, with the boast that he was “goin’ to show them Southerners a

thing or two.” He had been in the Federal army and had passed through

Lovering with some of his company, spending the night there and

“painting the town red,” as he expressed it, in the confession he made

when he came back a second time with the intention of settling. He was

young then and out on a big lark and he had it, and stole a hen from

“widder” Simmons’s roost, and some “aigs” from another, and threw a

stone at a boy who called him a mud-sill. It missed the boy and broke a

window light in a tin-shop.

“But lan sakes,” he added, “I was a boy then. I’m a man now, and

different. I’m converted, and have brought money to pay for the hen and

the aigs and the pane of glass. I liked the looks of your pretty little

town among the Virginny hills and thought I’d like to live here, and

when Mirandy,—that’s the girl I’m engaged to, she’s weakly, and

coughs,—and when she said she’d live longer in a milder climate than

Vermont, I thought of Lovering, and here I am, and as soon as I get a

little forehanded, with a house to live in, I shall fetch Mirandy down,

and a better woman you never seen.”

This was what Sam said to the people with whom he had come to live,

never doubting in his simple heart that he should be received into favor

at once. But war prejudices died hard, especially at the south where the

feeling of having been conquered rankled the most and longest. No one

who looked in Sam’s honest face doubted his integrity or good feeling,

but he was from the north,—he had fought against them, and although they

took his cash for the stolen property, and knew that his store was

brighter and cleaner and his groceries better than any in Lovering,

their patronage was slow in coming. For four years he had held his

ground valiantly, with but little more hope of making Mirandy his wife

than when he first started in business. Once when a knot of men were

seated upon the comfortable seats he had himself built on two sides of

his grocery so that “tired folks could rest themselves and see all that

was going on around the four corners,” he held forth feelingly on the

subject, asking why under the sun and moon they didn’t trade with him as

well as to _sit_ on his benches.

“Is it because I fit you? Bless your souls, I buried the ax, handle and

all, the minute the last gun was fired, and I gin the shirt on my back

for a piller for one of your fellows I found dyin’ in the Wilderness,

and I hear his God bless you, just before he died, now. I didn’t blame

him an atom, nor you nuther. If I’d been born south I’d of jined you of

course. As I was from the north I jined the Federal army and would do it

agin; not that I had any spite agin you personally, but for the

flag,—the principle,—not the nigger. Da——! I beg pardon, I don’t swear

now. I took my chances and got stuck into Libby prison, where I didn’t

lead the most luxurious life. But lan, sakes, ’twas the fate of war, and

I never complained, nor said a word but once, and that when a chap

brought me some beef no human could eat. Says I, ‘No you don’t get that

stuff into my stomach. I’m fond of fresh meat, but darned if I’ll eat

maggits.’ He smiled and said low: ‘I don’t blame you. It’s the best I

can do. Our boys up to Chicago are eatin’ _rat_ pies.’ ‘Rats,’ I said,

‘Lord of heavens, give me rats, by the million. They’re dainties to this

vermin.’ ‘You bet,’ he said, and pulled a cracker out of his pocket and

handed me on the sly. I guess he had some tobacker in with it by the

flavor, but I never tasted a better cracker than that. The first

greenback I got after I left Libby I sent to him. He’s up north now, the

best reconstructed reb you ever see,—married my sister and got twin

boys; calls ’em Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. That’s the way to

do things.”

This speech of Sam’s was received with shouts of laughter and three

cheers for the twins, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, while one man

ordered half of a codfish and another bought a cigar. Here their

patronage stopped, but it is a long lane which never turns and Sam’s was

destined to turn at last by a few chance words spoken at the right time.

On their way home a knot of men met and seated themselves upon Sam’s

benches, eagerly discussing the news of the morning which was in

everyone’s mouth and greatly exaggerated by this time. Jack was going to

die, and the Colonel had run off with Fanny Hathern against her will.

Whether he had married her or not was a question. Probably not, and dire

was the vengeance declared against him by the workmen gathered near

Sam’s door. Among them sat Sam, a big knife in his hand, and sticking to

it a thin slice of rich cream cheese, which he passed from one to

another, asking if they ever tasted anything better than that, and

telling them Mirandy made it on her father’s farm in Vermont. Among

those who denounced Col. Errington no one was louder than Sam.

“I know him, root and branch,” he said, with a flourish of his cheese

knife. “I was in his regiment part of the time till I got took and shut

up in Libby, and a meaner man never rode a hoss into battle. Brave

enough, but has a temper hard and cruel, and no more feelin’ than a

stun. Cap’n Fullerton is wuth a thousand such men as Col. Errington, and

so Miss Hathern will find to her sorrer. I b’lieve he merried her

though. She ain’t the stuff as would go with him without the ceremony,

but I tell you agin she’s flung overboard a gentleman for as mean and

unprincipled a _cuss_ as ever walked. Smooth and polished outside with

his equals, but inwardly,—what’s that the scripter says about

_inwardly_, I or’to know, but my mem’ry fails me.”

The memories of all the audience failed them, if they had any, and,

besides, they were rather actively dodging the cheese knife which was

flourishing at a great rate as Sam waxed eloquent on the subject of Col.

Errington. They knew Sam had been in his regiment and half expected he

would try to defend him, but he denounced him more hotly than they had

done, and every shred of prejudice, if they really had any, against the

kind-hearted man slipped away. He was a good sort after all, and one of

them remembered that he wanted some plug tobacco and asked if he had any

good.

“Tons of it. Want some?” Sam replied, entering his store and bringing

out the tobacco.

Another man suddenly bethought him that his wife had told him not to

come home without coffee. He had intended getting it at the Red Cross

grocery, where he always traded, but he ordered it of Sam, who, when the

scale showed just a pound, put in a little more.

“Good weight is my rule,” he said, as he tied up the package and

hastened to weigh out another.

The aroma of his Mocha and Java mixed had filled the store, and his

coffee was in great demand, as well as his cheese. Sugar and eggs

followed next, and never had he done so thriving a business in any two

hours as in the half hour which followed his vituperation against Col.

Errington.

“If I keep on this way, I can have Mirandy down next fall,” he thought,

as he counted his gains that night and carried his tin box to the little

room over his grocery where he had slept for the last four years.

While the men talked the matter over in the streets and the post-office

and hotel, and in front of Sam’s store, the women were just as busy. The

friends of the Hatherns,—the upper crust, as they were called by those

who felt themselves to be the _under crust_,—gathered in each other’s

parlors and discussed it quietly, while another class of women and

children, twenty or more, felt irresistibly drawn to the house on The

Plateau. They had seen it a hundred times and some of them had been over

it when it was open to the public, but now that the bride for whom it

was built would never occupy it, it was invested with a new interest,

and after dinner they walked up the hill and around the house, staring

at the windows and roofs and chimneys and wishing they could get in and

see the fine fixings they had heard were there. When they reached the

rear door they saw in it the key which Jack in his excitement had

forgotten to remove. This they looked upon as a special interposition of

Providence in their behalf and one of which they immediately availed

themselves. Wiping their muddy feet carefully upon the mat they filed

into the house which, with no one to restrain them, they examined

curiously and minutely, commenting freely as they went, but for the most

part favorably, upon what they saw, wondering what it all cost and if

Jack could afford it. His mother, they knew, did not leave him much, and

they never supposed he had a great deal laid up. Consequently, he must

have borrowed the money for all this finery, the like of which they did

not believe was to be found in Richmond, no, nor in Washington either.

The bridal chamber attracted them most. Into this they entered very

quietly, speaking as low and stepping as softly as we do when we go into

the chamber of death. It had been the scene of the death of all Jack’s

hopes, and they sat in the chair where he had sat when he read the fatal

letter, and tried the chair in the bay window where Fanny was to sit and

watch for him, and admired the dainty white spread and pillow-shams and

medallion which they mistook for Fanny’s portrait, and some of the more

curious lifted the bedclothes to see what was under them.

“A hair mattress a foot thick, as I live. I reckon that cost a heap,”

one said, while another pronounced it a piece of extravagance, knowing

as she did that “old Miss Fullerton had left five or six good

feather-beds,—geese feathers, too!”

Next to the bridal chamber, the upright Steinway in the parlor below

attracted their attention most, and as they found it unlocked several

fingers were soon drumming on the keys, which Jack had said no hands

should touch until Fanny had played him his favorite airs. Poor Jack!

When the house had been thoroughly inspected and pronounced good enough

for a queen to live in, it was nearly time for the Richmond train. It

was generally known in town that Miss Errington and Katy Hathern were

expected, and the women decided to go round to the station and see if

they came. They had known Katy all her life, and ordinarily would

scarcely have walked half a block out of their way just to see her.

Recent events, however, had made a change, and then they were anxious to

see Miss Errington, who, as sister of the man who had married Fanny

Hathern so hurriedly, was an object of greater curiosity than Katy

herself. Others in Lovering were of the same mind, and at least fifty

people, black and white, of both sexes and all ages, were assembled upon

the platform when the 4 o’clock train came in, stopping farther down

than usual so that the ladies who were in the rear car did not alight in

the midst of the crowd, jostling and pushing each other for a sight of

them.

“There they be; that’s Miss Katy. How tall and pale she looks, and how

becoming that gown is to her, and, yes, that must be Miss Errington. How

proud she looks; stylish, though,” were the remarks which passed from

lip to lip as Katy and her friend stopped for a moment, half bewildered

by the number of people who did not attempt to come nearer, but stood

staring at them.

“There’s Dr. Carter,” Katy exclaimed joyfully, as she saw the doctor

elbowing his way to her.

He had expected something of the kind which had happened, and had come

to meet the ladies in a close carriage which was standing in the rear of

the station.

“Oh, I am so glad, and why are all these people here? What has

happened?” Katy said, as she gave both hands to the doctor.

“Nothing; nothing. Just out for an airing; you know you are a traveled

individual, and they want to see if you have changed,” the doctor said

laughingly, as he took off his hat to Miss Errington, whose satchel his

servant was taking.

Katy understood and her face was scarlet. She was sharing in Fanny’s

notoriety and paying in part the penalty of her wrong-doing. Had Fanny

been there she would have held her head high and walked over the crowd

without seeing it. Katy was of different fibre and shrank from the

curious eyes. But when, as she passed through their midst so many

greeted her with “How d’ye, Miss Katy, glad to see you home again,” she

began to lose the feeling that some blame or disgrace was attaching to

her, and smiled upon them through the tears she could not repress. A

moment more and she, with Miss Errington, was in the carriage and

driving rapidly toward The Elms.

CHAPTER II.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.

AT THE ELMS.

All day Jack had been flighty and talked continually. Sometimes he was

in the war, ready for battle, and was pointing out Col. Errington to his

men. “That’s he,” he would say; “that tall, straight officer on the big

black horse, holding himself as loftily as if he owned every foot of the

south. Spot him, and fire at him and at no one else until you see him

fall.” Again, he was at The Plateau, reading the cruel letter, parts of

which had burned themselves into his brain. “It took Errington and his

money, and the dreary life at Lovering she so much dreaded to tip the

scale and send me flying, after all;” he said to Phyllis, who, half

beside herself, was kept going from the kitchen to him, from him to

Annie, and from Annie back to the kitchen and Paul, who, neglected and

feeling vaguely that something was wrong, was crying for Fan-er-nan to

come and bring him the horse she had promised him in one of her letters.

Fanny’s name Jack never mentioned. It was “she,” or “her,” or, “the

little girl on the headboard,” who, he said, was laughing at his coarse

clothes and country ways, and he asked Phyllis to take her away before

he split the headboard in pieces. He did make an attempt at it, but

Phyllis restrained him, telling him “there wan’t any gal there laughing

at him.” Jack insisted there was, and was threatening to split poor old

Phyllis’s head open if she didn’t put her out, when the doctor came in

for the second time and with him a neighbor who was to stay that day at

least, and longer if necessary. To him Jack at once appealed with regard

to the mocking girl on the headboard, growing so wild and unmanageable

that the bedstead was finally exchanged for a cot which had no

headboard. Then Jack grew quiet, but asked for the little woman,

Annie-mother, who had cried with him and helped him drive home. Where

was she? Had she gone back on him, too, and was it to-morrow, yet? If

so, he must get up, for _she_ was coming and he must go to meet her. On

his flushed face there was an eager look as he said _she_ is coming, but

it faded almost as soon as it came, and was succeeded by one of

inexplicable pain as some wave of memory brought the truth in part to

him.

“What is it I am trying to remember?” he asked. “What was it that

swooped down so suddenly upon me, blotting out everything and making me

doubt even God himself? Annie-mother knows; call her. Tell her _I_ want

her,—Jack Fullerton, late of the —— Regiment of Volunteers.”

But Annie-mother was too ill to go to him. Two or three times she had

tried to rise, and as often had given it up, mastered by the cutting

pain in her right temple and behind her ear. The long time she had sat

by the open window with the cold November rain and wind beating upon

her, had borne fruit in a severe attack of neuralgia, which made it

impossible for her to rise, and she lay listening intently to every

sound below and wondering how Phyllis would get through the day without

her, and wishing that Miss Errington were not coming. Friend after

friend came in offering their services, which seemed to be needed in the

kitchen quite as much as elsewhere, for Phyllis had lost her head with

worriment, as she expressed it.

“I kin woller through with the work,” she said, while the tears rolled

down her black face. “It’s the disgrace to the family I feel the

wust,—the dido Miss Fanny done cut up, and broke Mas’r Jack’s heart

smack in two. I hearn it snap myself. An’ Miss Annie feels een ’most as

bad as if she done it herself, bein’ she’s Miss Fanny’s twin, an’ they

two were boun together like dem ar Simon twins, what you call ’em. Oh,

dat I had died in de wah, or runned away, afore I done got so I dunno my

dish cloth from de han’-towel, an’ uses ’em promiscous, an’ Miss Katy

comin’ to-night, an’ dat ar Miss Errin’ton. I wish to de Lord she’d

staid away.”

This was said to some ladies who were interviewing Phyllis in her

kitchen, which was in wild disorder, while the old woman herself was

wilder, and once as she talked came near seating herself on the range

instead of the stool she was looking for. As a result three or four

negroes were sent to The Elms from as many different houses, and when

the carriage containing Miss Errington and Katy drove up there was a

group of dusky faces peering from the windows of the kitchen, where none

of them knew what to do, and each one was so much in the others’ way and

in Phyllis’s that she had more than once been on the point of sending

them home.

“Oh, de good Lord, thar they is,” she exclaimed, rushing to open the

side door, and throwing her arms around Katy with a force which lifted

her from her feet and nearly squeezed the breath from her body. “Bress

de dear lamb. Who’d of b’lieved you’d ever comed home like dis yer, an’

Mas’r Jack a dyin’, an’ Miss Annie mos’ as bad, an’ me so upsot I do’

know what to do wid company,” she said, with a side glance at Miss

Errington, who understood her at once.

“Don’t call me company,” she said, laying her hand kindly on Phyllis’s

shoulder. “I have come to help; not to be in the way. Show me my room,

and after that I shall wait upon myself, and you, too, if necessary.”

Wholly disarmed and mollified, Phyllis conducted the lady to her room,

and after standing irresolute a while mustered courage to say, “Has you

done hearn from her?”

For a moment Miss Errington’s dark eyes flashed; then she answered

quietly, “I had a line from my brother written on the ship just before

it sailed. She was well then, and happy, he wrote.”

“Happy! May the Lord forgive her. I shouldn’t s’pose she’d sleep o’

nights,” was Phyllis’s retort, as she bounced from the room.

Meanwhile Katy had been busy with Paul, who was asking for Fan-er-nan,

and the horse on wheels with saddle and bridle she was to bring him.

“Fanny won’t come to-day, nor to-morrow, nor for many to-morrows,” Katy

said to him. “She has gone off in a big ship, but I have brought you the

horse, and a heap more toys in my trunk, which the expressman will soon

bring to the house.”

Thus quieted Paul drew his high chair to the window to watch for the

express wagon, while Katy went up to her sister’s room.

“Oh, Katy, Katy,” Annie exclaimed, springing up, unmindful of the pain

which cut her like a knife. Throwing her arms around her sister’s neck,

she sobbed, “I am so glad to have you back, and so sorry, too, for the

sad home coming. We meant to have it so different.”

“I know,” Katy replied, sitting down upon the bed, and passing her hand

soothingly over the right temple where the veins were standing out large

and full.

There was healing in the touch of Katy’s fingers, or excitement had

driven the pain away for the time being, and Annie lay down upon her

pillow quiet and easy.

“Have you heard from her?” she asked, in a whisper, and Katy answered,

“Just a few lines from New York saying she was married Friday night at

the hotel, and had written you full particulars. Miss Errington also had

a note from her brother, written on the Celtic, and brought back in the

tug which accompanied it down the bay. There were notices of the

marriage in the Washington papers and in New York. He sent them, of

course.”

“Tell me what you know, and if you had any suspicion,” Annie said, still

in a whisper, as if the subject were one of she could not speak aloud.

“Not the slightest, and that seems so strange,” Katy replied. “I knew he

admired her; everybody did, and his attentions were rather marked, both

in Saratoga and Washington. She, however, seemed wholly indifferent,

even snubbed him at times, I thought, and made fun of him to me, calling

him Uncle George and bald head, and all that. Still she was not happy,

or at least she was nervous and restless and discontented, and talked of

Lovering as a place one hundred years behind the times, and wondered how

she was ever to be contented here after having seen the world. When

buying her trousseau she was always wishing for more money that it might

be more elaborate. Then she would laugh and say ‘What’s the use of

clothes with nobody to see them but Lovering people,—nowhere to wear

them except to church and the sewing society.’ She never talked this way

before Miss Errington, but was always amiable and seemingly in good

spirits, talking to her of the house on The Plateau and the pleasure it

would be to entertain her there. Toward the last, however, there was a

change. Twice I found her crying, and once she wished herself dead. When

I asked her if she didn’t love Jack, she turned to me fiercely and

replied, ‘Love Jack? Yes, far more than I wish I did. He is the best man

that ever lived, or ever will live. I wish he were not so good.’ I know

now what she meant, but had no suspicion then. Thursday we were to do

our last shopping, but she excused herself, saying her head ached, and

Miss Errington and I went without her. When we came home her head still

ached, but she was in high spirits. I believe she sat up half that night

writing to you and packing her trunk. She only took her best clothes.

The others I have brought home. The Colonel was to leave the next

morning for New York, and his sister and I were going with him. To her

it was a thunderbolt when he said, in his cold, decided way, as if from

what he said there could be no demur, ‘Miss Hathern has at last

consented to be my wife and go with me to Europe. She will accompany me

to New York and we shall be married this evening at the Fifth Avenue

Hotel. You can still go with me if you like, and take Miss Katy, too.’

It was Miss Errington who told me, and I hardly knew her she was so

transformed with surprise and indignation. She couldn’t stand she shook

so, and her face was white as marble as she said ‘It is not that I

object to seeing your sister, my brother’s wife under different

circumstances. It is the sin,—the cruelty to Mr. Fullerton, which I

deplore.’ Nothing could move Fanny from her purpose. She had made up her

mind, and could not unmake it. Oh, Annie, it was terrible when we said

good-bye and I knew she would go. And she looked so beautiful, too,—but

as if carved in stone, as Miss Errington freed her mind. ‘You will

repent this to your dying day,’ she said, and I wish you could have seen

the hard, sneering look in the Colonel’s eyes as he listened. Such a

look would have made me turn back if I were already at the altar. Fanny

may have won a bed of gold, but it will not be one of roses. She loves

Jack. She does not love Col. Errington, and he knows it, and by and by,

when the novelty is gone and the freshness of her beauty begins to wane,

God pity her,—and Jack, poor Jack, tell me about him and how he took

it.”

It was Annie’s turn now to take up the story and tell what the reader

already knows of the scene in the house on The Plateau when Jack learned

the truth and read the letter which Katy now read with streaming eyes.

“Oh, Annie,” she said, when she had finished it. “This is dreadful. How

could she write it, and how could you let Jack see it?”

“He would; I had no choice in the matter,” Annie said, adding that she

still had the note written to him and the hundred dollars sent in her

letter. “I took his note from the table where he had left it unread, and

shall give it to him when he is better. Have you seen him?”

“Not yet, but am going now,” Katy answered, as she arose and left the

room. She found Jack quiet, but greatly changed. The last twenty-four

hours had told fearfully upon him, and his face, though flushed, was

drawn and pinched, and in his eyes there was a hopeless look pitiful to

see.

“Jack, do you know me? I am Katy,” she said, laying her hand upon his

hot forehead, just as she had lain it on Annie’s.

For a moment he regarded her intently, associating her in some way with

the to-morrow he had anticipated so much. Then he smiled faintly and

said, “Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t; it comes and goes; with

something that was to make me very glad. Is it to-morrow, and where is

Annie-mother?”

Katy knew what he meant by to-morrow, as Annie had told her, and she

answered him, “Not to-morrow yet. It is to-day, and Annie has a bad

headache. She will come to you as soon as it is better.”

“All right,” Jack said. “Tell her I am sorry her head aches; so does

mine. I ache all over. Something happened, I can’t think what. It comes

and goes, like a forgotten name you are trying to recall; only it isn’t

a name. I sweat so trying to remember. Annie knows; poor little Annie.

She cried with me, or for me, and the rain fell on us and made me cold,

and it was dark, oh so dark.”

At that moment Paul came running in with the horse in his hand. It had

been packed in Miss Errington’s trunk, and when the baggage came she

took it out at once for the impatient child. He had been told not to go

into the sick-room, but seeing the door open and hearing Katy’s voice he

rushed in with his horse exclaiming, “Look Katy, it’s come. See, Jack,

what Fan-er-nan sent me. She’s gone on a ship.”

Jack caught the name, and starting up exclaimed, “That’s what I have

been trying to remember. It _is_ to-morrow and she has not come. She

will never come. Fanny, Fanny, come to me, come.”

Stretching out his arms as if to embrace some one he fell back upon his

pillow, white and exhausted, while Katy tried to quiet him. It seemed to

her as if Fanny must have heard that cry of anguish which brought both

Phyllis and Miss Errington to the door of the room.

“My brother has much to answer for,” Miss Errington said under her

breath, while Phyllis ejaculated, “May the Lord forgive them!” as she

hurried back to the kitchen and her preparations for supper, which were

greatly retarded by the unsettled condition of her nerves.

“I am that oversot that I don’t know a corn cake from a pone of bread,

and you must s’cuse me if things ain’t jess squar. What with de kitchen,

an’ dem niggers in my way, an’ Miss Annie an’ Mas’r Jack, I loses my

balance;” she said to Miss Errington, who came for hot water with which

to bathe Annie’s head.

“I tell you again not to mind me,” Miss Errington replied. “I can take

care of myself, and cook the dinner for the others, if necessary. I know

how to do everything.”

“You do! That beats all,” Phyllis exclaimed, placing both hands on her

hips and regarding intently the tall, majestic lady, whose proud face,

handsome dress and white, jeweled hands looked as if they had never done

so much as to pick up her own handkerchief.

But her looks belied her. Born and reared in New York City in the midst

of luxury, she was fortunate in having had a mother who required her

daughter to learn to do everything necessary to the comfort of a

household. Orphaned soon after leaving school she had for years presided

over her brother’s house in Washington, and often boasted that if every

servant left her she could prepare her own meals and do whatever there

was to be done, except the washing. She drew the line at that. She had

at first hesitated about coming to The Elms in the present state of

affairs, but urged by Katy, who was greatly attached to her, she had

made up her mind to do so. The loneliness of the house in Washington

would be intolerable, and something told her that she might be of

service at The Elms. She was sure of it when she saw how matters were

and how inefficient Phyllis was, or rather how unequal to the emergency.

“’Tain’t laziness, nor onwillin’ness; de Lord knows I’d lay down and let

’em trample on me, if that would help any. It’s the worrit an’ buzzin’

in my head,” she said, when, after supper she was washing the silver and

china which Miss Errington insisted upon wiping for her. The negroes had

been sent home and Phyllis was alone, when Miss Errington offered her

services.

“You look tired,” she said; and Phyllis was tired, for she had been on

her feet all day, and as soon as her dishes were washed she sank down

into a rocking chair near the range and went fast asleep, in the midst

of pots and kettles and brushes and brooms, which would have elicited

groans of disapproval from Norah O’Rourke and alarming creaks from her

shoes, could she have seen them, under ordinary circumstances when there

was no excuse for the untidiness.

The next morning dawned dark and dreary, with a cold November rain.

Annie, who had slept quietly and late, was so much better that she began

to worry about the kitchen arrangements.

“What did you have for breakfast, and how was it served? Phyllis is

getting old and careless,” she said to Katy, who had brushed her hair,

brought her a clean white dressing jacket and was tidying up the room in

which a bright fire, kindled before Annie was awake, was burning.

“We have not had it yet, but it is ready,” Katy replied, with a ring of

excitement in her voice. “Oat-meal and cream, and steak and muffins and

everything. You are to have yours at once. Come in,” she added, in

response to a knock, or rather a kick upon the door, which was a little

ajar and through which Norah O’Rourke came with a broad smile on her

face and in her hands a big tray loaded with delicacies.

“Norah! Norah! Where did you come from? I am so glad,” Annie exclaimed,

and forgetting the disgust she had felt when she saw Mrs. Hathern

kissing Norah on her first arrival at The Elms she threw her arms around

the woman’s neck and held her close, crying hysterically in her great

joy and relief in seeing her again.

Norah, who had missed the express from Richmond the day before, had come

in the night train, reaching Lovering very early that morning. In his

last letter to her Jack had told her to go at once to The Plateau. As

there was no conveyance at the station she had walked to The Plateau,

and been struck with the desolate appearance of the house, around which

there was no sign of life, although the key was in the door. Entering

she made the tour of the house, noting everything, from the tumbled

appearance of the white spread on the bed in the bridal chamber, where

the women had inspected the hair mattress, to the soiled footprints on

the kitchen floor.

“Where is everybody?” she thought, just as a sound outside attracted her

attention.

Going out, she met a negro who looked as if he might be prowling about

rather than there for any good.

“Lor-a-mighty,” he exclaimed, “How you scar’t me! I didn’t think nobody

was here.”

“Where are the folks? Mr. Fullerton, I mean,” Norah asked, and then

listened wonderingly to the story the negro told.

“Miss Fanny done run off wid anoder man, an’ Mas’r Fullerton gone ravin’

mad wid de fever down to de Elms, and Miss Annie jest as bad, an’ de ole

Harry to pay generally.”

“And the house left alone with the key in the door. That’s

shiftlessness, and accounts for them mud tracks. Some truck has been

here,” Norah said, pocketing the key and starting rapidly for The Elms,

which she reached just as the sun was rising and Phyllis was banging at

the range in her efforts to rekindle the fire which had gone out.

To dump the grate and make a fresh fire was a sore trial to Phyllis, who

had never ceased to long for the old kitchen under the dogwood tree.

“I wish de whole caboose was in Tophet,” she said, when turning round

she saw Norah standing in the door with an expression on her face which

she remembered so well.

Never doubting that it was a ghost the old negress sank down upon the

range, the griddles of which were off, her eyes taking in, as Norah’s

had done, the littered condition of the room.

“I was gwine to clar up to-day; de good Lord knows I was,” she said

apologetically, her hands thrown out to keep Norah off as she advanced

into the room.

“Don’t be a fool, Phyllis,” Norah said. “I’m myself in flesh and blood;

just come in the train. Get off that range before you break it down with

your three hundred pounds of fat. Put in more kindlings and a little

kerosene if you want the fire to burn quick.”

“De Lord be praised! I thought you was a spook,” Phyllis exclaimed, as

she extricated herself from the range and sank panting into a chair with

a shaving or two and some splinters of dry wood adhering to her dress.

Throwing off her bonnet and shawl Norah began to make the fire, which

was soon crackling and blazing and diffusing a genial warmth through the

chilly room, while Phyllis told the story of their troubles.

“Miss Fanny done gone an’ married Col. Errin’ton, an’ Mas’r Jack mighty

bad in ole Mas’r’s room, an’ Miss Annie bad upstairs, an’ company in de

house, an’ herself so oversot an’ ’scouraged that she didn’t know enough

to make a fire or get breakfast either.”

As she talked the tears rolled down her face, and her hands shook as

they rested on her lap.

“You poor old soul!” Norah said, in a tone she had never before used

towards Phyllis, who now broke down entirely, while Norah tried to

comfort her. “You’re tired out; that’s the upshot of the matter,” she

said. “Just sit still where you are, and I’ll get breakfast.”

As she talked she picked up broom and brush and pails and kettles and

skillets and spiders, and put them in their places, and then moved from

the pantry to the range, and from the range back to the pantry, with the

bustling activity of old, while Phyllis sat and watched her, crying

softly, but never offering even a suggestion. The sceptre had passed

from her hands, and she was so tired and worn and felt so keenly the

trouble which had come upon them that it was a relief to have Norah take

her place. The coffee was steaming, the muffins baking, the steak

broiling when Katy appeared, almost as startled as Phyllis had been at

the apparition of Norah tossing with a fork the potato she was warming

in cream.

“Norah! What good angel sent you here just when we need you most?” Katy

cried, as she seized Norah around the waist, feeling all care and

responsibility drop from her, now that Norah was there.

Explanations followed on both sides, Norah telling how she happened to

be there and Katy corroborating the story of Fanny’s marriage with Col.

Errington. For a moment Norah’s shoes creaked threateningly as she

tramped across the floor, kicking a gourd out of her way and dropping

into the vernacular, as she always did when excited.

“Drat the villain,” she said. “An’ sure the Lord will reward him, and

her, too; and what’s his sister afther down here?”

Katy told why she was there, adding that no one could be more indignant

than Miss Errington at her brother’s conduct. Thus mollified Norah

stepped more lightly, and at Katy’s suggestion kindled a fire in Annie’s

room so noiselessly that the girl did not awaken until just before Norah

came with her breakfast. Like Katy, Annie felt the burden of anxiety

with regard to the domestic arrangements slipping from her at sight of

Norah. With her at the helm there could be no jars except as they came

through Phyllis. But she was glad to abdicate in favor of a younger and

stronger person, and received in silence Norah’s rasping remarks which

had to come with regard to the filth which had accumulated in the

kitchen and which nothing would eradicate but strong lye and paint. This

would fail to obliterate the marks of pot black and grease upon the

cooking-table. Nothing but a carpenter’s plane could do that.

For a few days Phyllis submitted to the inconvenience of wading a good

share of the time through the soap suds with which Norah was inundating

the floor, and then, one morning, before anyone was astir, she quietly

removed her special belongings to the cabin she had quitted so

regretfully, and where in the wide fireplace she again kindled her fire

upon the hearth, hung her kettles on the crane, and roasted her potatoes

in the ashes. At her next class-meeting when she told her experience she

recounted among her other _massies_ that “De Lord had fotched her as he

did de chillun of Israel through de sea and landed her in a dry place

whar no water was!”

CHAPTER III.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.

JACK.

The doctor could not tell at first how ill Jack really was. He had taken

a severe cold and his temperature was very high, but his paroxysms of

delirium were the worst features in the case, as they made him at times

almost uncontrollable. Apparently he was always trying to recall

something in the past which baffled his memory. Again, he would declare

his intention to go to The Plateau. It was no place for him at The Elms,

he said, and he was going away. At such times it required all the tact

and sometimes all the strength of the neighbor who was with him to keep

him in bed. This man who had only come for a day or two, finally

signified his intention to leave, and another must be found to take his

place. In great perplexity of mind as to where to find the proper

person, the doctor was riding slowly past Sam Slayton’s grocery, near

the door of which a knot of idlers was as usual assembled. Reining in

his horse he asked if they knew of any able-bodied man willing to

undertake the task of nursing Mr. Fullerton, or rather of keeping him in

bed.

“He is not dangerously sick,” he said, “but the trouble has upset his

brain and by spells he is crazy as a loon and bound to get up. Some day

he will scare the women folks to death rushing into their midst, quite

_au naturel_ you know.”

The doctor knew a little French and was fond of airing it occasionally.

His hearers understood him, however, but no one spoke until Sam, who had

been revolving the question, said, “I have had some experience in

nussin’. After I got that bullet in me at Gettysburg I was sent to the

con-_val_-escent hospital. When I got better I was detailed to wait on

some of the sick soldiers, who said I done tip-top; most as well, in

fact, as the young gals who used to come in every day and insist on

doing something, if it was only to wash our faces. I’ll bet some of us

had ’em washed a dozen times a day by as many different gals, God bless

’em. Wall, as I was sayin’, I’ll go and see what I can do with the

Cap’n, just to spite that cuss of a Colonel.”

“Can you leave your business?” the doctor asked, feeling that this

strong man, who had something mesmeric and masterful about him, was just

the one he wanted.

“Wall, you see,” Sam replied with a laugh, “my business ain’t no great,

though it picked up a little yesterday and to-day. I can leave it for a

spell, I guess. Or mabby these chaps’ll run it for me; I can trust ’em.”

It was Sam’s nature to trust everybody, and three or four at once

volunteered to see to his grocery, “And we’ll build you up a good

business, too, and not steal more than half the plunder,” they said. As

a result of this Sam left his grocery in charge of his friends, with the

injunction that old Miss Bower, who lost four boys in the war, should

have good measure, and a cent a pound less for her groceries than the

usual price, and that old man Coulter, who lost both his legs at

Antietam was to have his tobacco free, if he didn’t call for it too

often and in too large quantities. The three who received these and

similar orders looked wonderingly at each other, thinking they were just

beginning to know how big and generous a heart there was in this great,

awkward fellow, who was installed in Jack’s sick-room late on

Thanksgiving night.

The day had been a sad one at The Elms. With her New England ideas and

habits Norah had declared there should be at least a cracker pudding and

a chicken pie; it wouldn’t be worth while to give thanks without as much

as that. So, between her efforts at cleaning and scrubbing the floor and

planing the cooking-table, she managed these delicacies; but the turkey,

to whom so many promises of decapitation had been made by Phyllis

remained in his coop, waiting for a future day when the appetites of the

family would be better than they were now.

Paul was the only one who enjoyed the dinner. The others were thinking

sadly how changed was the day from what they had anticipated. Miss

Errington was especially quiet and somber, with the same look on her

face which it had worn since her brother said to her, “I am to marry

Fanny Hathern.” She had gone out that morning after breakfast, and

enquiring her way to the telegraph office had sent a cablegram to her

brother’s address in London. It was directed to Fanny, and read: “The

Elms. Thanksgiving morning. To Mrs. G. W. Errington. Mr. Fullerton is

here, and dangerously ill with brain fever. Recovery doubtful. C.

Errington.”

She knew that she possibly stretched a point in saying “Recovery

doubtful,” although she tried to persuade herself that she did not. A

man as strong and fullblooded as Mr. Fullerton was apt to die when

smitten with fever, she reasoned, and she experienced a kind of pleasure

in thinking how this first news from home would affect her brother’s

wife. “She deserves it, and worse,” she reflected, as she walked back to

The Elms, where she found Annie down stairs.

“I could not stay in bed any longer,” she said, “and I wanted to see

Jack.”

He was lying very quiet and seemed to be asleep when she went in and sat

down beside him. But he soon grew restless, and his eyes, bright with

fever, fixed themselves curiously upon her.

“Annie-mother,” he said, reaching out his hand and taking hers in it, “I

am glad you have come. You almost make me know what I am trying to

remember and can’t. Was it the house on The Plateau, and is Norah up

there? I am sure I have heard her voice, and another strange one. The

house must be full of people. Send them away. They mustn’t know what it

is I can’t recall.” After that his mind began to wander on other

subjects,—mostly debts, which he said he must see to.

“What debts?” Annie asked, but he only replied, “They make my head ache

so. I was never in debt before.”

“I think it was for furnishing his house,” Annie said in a whisper to

Miss Errington, who had stepped to the room for the first time.

Jack saw her and his eyes glared wildly as, clutching Annie’s hand, he

whispered, “Who is that tall woman? Where have I seen her? Looks like a

general in petticoats, and, oh-h, Annie, she is like _him_; send her

away.”

If Miss Errington were a general in petticoats she was not one to

retreat at the first gun fired at her, and going up to Jack she laid her

hand on his forehead, and said in her decided, straight forward way, “I

am his sister, but your friend and Annie’s. I have come to help her and

you. You will let me stay, won’t you?”

His lip quivered, but he did not answer, nor did he try to withdraw from

the touch of her soothing hand. She had conquered him, and she sat by

him a long time, asking him once, when he began to rave about his debts,

how much they were and where they were. Very curtly he told her it was

none of her business, adding that she might find out if she could.

That night Sam Slayton came in his best clothes, plaid vest and red tie,

looking the typical Brother Jonathan, as he said to Jack, “Wall, how are

you, Cap’n? Goin’ to pull through, ain’t you?”

“Pull through what? and who are you?” Jack asked, adding quickly, “Oh, I

know; you’re that Yankee grocer. Pretty good sort of a fellow they say.”

“Thank you, Square,” Sam replied; after that, calling him alternately

the Cap’n and the Square, as the fancy took him.

From the first there was amity between the two. Sam was so original and

good-natured, with so quaint a way of putting things that the humor of

it penetrated Jack’s clouded brain, and more than once, as the evening

wore on, he laughed heartily at something Sam said to him. The next day

there came a trial of strength, Jack declaring he would get up and go

and pay his debts, and Sam telling him he could not. Laying his arm, big

as a sledge hammer, across Jack’s chest he kept him down until he became

perfectly quiet and said, with a laugh, “Licked again; that was always

the way in the war; just as we thought we’d got the upper hand there

came along the lines the rumor they are coming, they are coming, 300,000

more, and, by George, they did come, and when we shot down one, ten took

his place. You were like the bear the old Vikings used to boil and eat

in the morning in the hall of Valhalla, and which at night was alive and

peart as ever and ready to be boiled again. Heard of him, haven’t you?”

Sam didn’t quite think he had, but he knew “We are coming, Father Abram,

three hundred thousand more,” and could sing it, too; should he?

“Yes, go it,” Jack said, and immediately Sam began the famous war song.

“We are coming, Father Abram,

Three hundred thousand more,

From the mountains of New England

To the California shore.”

Sam had a rich, full voice, with a note of pathos in it, which made one

forget its slightly nasal twang, and not only Jack but the ladies in the

adjoining room listened breathlessly until the song was ended.

“That’s tip-top,” Jack said. “Made me forget what I am trying to

remember. Give us another. ‘Three cheers for General Lee and the

Southern Army, oh.’ Know it?”

Sam nodded and began again, singing this time with so much feeling that

either because of the music, or because it awakened in his misty brain a

regret for the Lost Cause the tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down

Jack’s cheeks.

“I don’t know why I am crying,” he said apologetically, “unless it’s for

what I can’t remember, or for the boys dead on so many battlefields, and

we went into it so bravely and hopefully, like Sennacherib’s army.”

“Who’s he? I never heard of that general, and I thought I knew ’em all,”

Sam asked, and Jack replied, “Have you never heard of the one hundred

and eighty-five thousand able-bodied men who encamped for the night and

got up in the morning all dead corpses?”

“Jerusalem! You don’t say! That beats all. It must have happened when I

was in Libby. How could they get up if they was dead corpses. I can’t

b’lieve it. That’s one of your rebel yarns,” Sam said.

“Bible truth,” Jack rejoined, with a twinkle in his eyes as if he were

enjoying Sam’s discomfiture. “Now give us something jolly, like Dixie,”

he continued, “or that one about John Brown’s body. I used to hear you

fellows sing it nights when our lines were near each other. Know it?”

“I’d laugh if I didn’t. I know the whole caboodle, both sides,” Sam

said, and for an hour or more the house rang with the old war

melodies,—“Dixie,” “Marching through Georgia,” “My Maryland,” and “John

Brown’s Body,” which last Sam sang with great gusto, especially the part

relating to the apple tree.

This was the last, and Jack, who had listened to all which had gone

before with lively interest began to grow excited, while his face

clouded and his eyes were full of pain.

“Stop that,” he thundered, when the leader of the Southern Confederacy

was threatened with suspension. “No more of that. It brings back what I

have been trying to remember,—_her_. If she were here, she’d hang _you_

to the sour apple tree; oh, Fanny, Fanny.”

It was a bitter cry, like that at The Plateau when the shock first came

upon him. As he had cried then, so he did now, with great, choking sobs,

which brought Miss Errington and Annie and Katy all to his bedside. For

a few minutes he was perfectly conscious and whispered amid his sobs,

“It isn’t manly, I know, but I can’t help it, my head aches so, and I am

so weak. Oh, Fanny, how could you do it.”

It was Annie who succeeded in quieting him, and he at last fell asleep

with one of her hands holding his and the other upon his forehead.

“Little Annie-mother, what should I do without you?” he said, with a

pitiful kind of smile as he looked at her through his tears and then

closed his eyes wearily.

After this there were no more paroxysms of delirium, and he seemed

partially conscious of what was passing around him. He knew Katy was

there, and Miss Errington, whom he still called the general in

petticoats. Every day, and many times a day, Sam sung the war songs,

with every negro melody he could recall. John Brown, however, was

allowed to moulder quietly in the ground, and was never sung again. As

Jack grew stronger he clung more and more to Annie, who always sat with

him when Sam went to see how matters were progressing at the grocery,

where there were three doing business for him, and doing it well, too,

judging from the returns he found in his cash drawer. Miranda seemed a

near possibility, and Sam told Annie about her, and said he hoped she

would call and be kind of sociable when Miranda came. He staid at The

Elms a week or more, and then as Jack was improving and perfectly sane

he returned to his business and Annie took his place as nurse. Fanny’s

name Jack never mentioned, but one day, when he had lain a long time

with his eyes closed and an expression on his face as if he were

intently thinking, he said to Annie suddenly, “Have you heard from—from

them?”

“Yes,” Annie replied. “A cablegram came from Queenstown. They were

safely across, but Fan had been very sick most of the voyage, which was

a rough one. There has also been another from London. It read, ‘How is

Jack?’ and was signed ‘Fanny.’ Miss Errington had cabled her that you

were very ill.”

For a moment Jack was silent and then said, “There was a note for me

which I didn’t read. Do you know what became of it?”

“Yes, I have it,” Annie replied, and going to her room she returned with

it and the hundred dollar bill Fanny had sent in her letter.

Taking the note Jack read it with a white face and hard eyes in which

there was no sign of softening. The bitterness of death was over, and he

could read with comparative calmness what at first would have wrung his

heart with anguish. There was nothing flippant in it, as there had been

in the letter to Annie. There were self-accusations and assertions that,

after what she had seen of the world, she could not endure poverty and

the dull life of Lovering. If Jack were rich she should prefer him to

any man in the world, she said, and she believed she did prefer him now,

notwithstanding what she had done.

“I have always loved you,” she wrote in conclusion, “and I meant to be

true, but a stronger will than my own has mastered me. Don’t despise and

forget me. I couldn’t bear that, and if I am ever very unhappy there

will be a comfort in knowing that you love me still. Forgive me, and

think of me as I used to be in the old days which seem so far away.

Good-bye.

FAN.”

As he read this part of the letter Jack’s breath came in gasps, for he

understood the selfishness of the girl who, while not hesitating to

break his heart, still wished to retain his love and keep him loyal to

her. Tearing the note in shreds he handed them to Annie, and said, “Put

them in the fire.”

Raising himself on his elbow he watched them as they crisped and

darkened and disappeared in smoke. Then, as if with them the past had

been blotted out, he lay down again with a different look upon his face

from any Annie had seen there since the day at The Plateau. His love for

Fanny was dying, and the last blow had been given by her note with which

she had meant to bind him to her, in memory, at least.

“Jack,” Annie said, after a moment. “Fan sent this to you in payment for

Black Beauty. She wants him back,” and she handed him the hundred dollar

note.

She had seen him angry before, but was not prepared for the burst of

passion which followed. Throwing the bill from him he exclaimed, “She is

welcome to Black Beauty, and I will have none of _his_ money. Take it

away before I tear it up as I did her note.”

It was in vain that Annie tried to explain and urge him to keep it,

reminding him of the debts he must have incurred in furnishing his house

and which this would help to pay. He would not listen. He had borrowed

money, he said, with which to pay his bills, preferring to have one debt

rather than many. This was due and the bill had perhaps been sent to him

during his illness, but he would never soil his hands with any part of

the money which had bought his promised wife.

“Use it yourself. I give it to you, or Paul, or Katy, as you please,” he

said.

In her heart Annie respected him for his decision and put the bill away

till she could confer with Miss Errington with regard to it. That lady,

who, her brother said, was never happier than when bossing some thing or

some body, was carrying matters with a high hand at The Elms and

managing generally. The bill of which Jack had spoken had been brought

to the house for collection, and the man who held the note and who lived

in Petersburg had said he had great need of the money, but supposed he

must wait until Mr. Fullerton was better. It chanced that Miss Errington

saw him, as Annie was with Jack and Katy was out. For a moment she

reflected, wondering if she dare do it. Then deciding that it was no

more than what she owed Mr. Fullerton for the wrong he had received from

her brother, she paid the debt and closed the transaction. This Annie

told Jack when he spoke of his bill in Petersburg.

“I believe she wishes to give it to you as a kind of atonement for what

her brother has done. She has plenty of money,” she said.

“_Give_ it to me!” Jack repeated angrily. “Does she think me a pauper?

and as to _atonement_, nothing can atone,—certainly not money.”

He spoke bitterly, and rising from his chair, for he was now able to be

up, walked to the window, where he stood looking out upon the dreary

landscape with a face sad and stern.

“Talking of _pay_,” he said, turning suddenly to Annie, “I can never

repay _you_ for all you have been to me in the darkest hours of my life,

and the trouble and care I have brought to you. But I shall never forget

it. As soon as I am able I am going away from Lovering for awhile. I

cannot be here on Christmas day. When I come back I shall be the same

old Jack you used to know, with the past buried so deep that it will

never be unearthed. I shall do nothing with the house at present. I

cannot even go into it, but shall leave it in your care and Norah’s. I

think I shall go to Florida into the sunshine. I have not felt warm

since that day at The Plateau. No matter how high my fever ran I was

conscious of a cold lump like ice at my heart which nothing could melt.

Sometimes when you put your hand on my forehead and when you thought I

was asleep and said ‘Poor Jack,’ it melted a little. God bless you,

Annie. You were to have been my sister. I hold you my sister still,—the

best a man ever had.”

He laid his hand caressingly upon her head as she stood by him, a little

drooping figure, wholly unlike the queenly Fanny in her _personelle_,

but so much truer and nobler in every womanly instinct.

Within a week after this conversation Jack left Lovering for Florida,

under whose sunny skies he hoped to recuperate both in mind and body.

Before going he had a long interview with Miss Errington, of whom he had

seen but little, and for whom he had a natural prejudice. This, however,

wore away as he talked with her. She might be meddlesome and

dictatorial, and was never happier than when attending to some one’s

business, but she was so thoroughly good and kind and so sincere in her

desire to help one out of difficulties that few could withstand her, and

Jack was not one of the few. Pay her he must, but he consented at last

to be her debtor for a time and to borrow more of her if necessary.

“She is a noble woman and I am glad you have her for a friend,” he said

to Annie, when the interview was over. “She must have some of her

brother’s magnetic power to twist me round her fingers as she did. You

can’t do better than to be guided by her.”

One thing, however, she could not persuade Jack to do, and that was to

go into the house at The Plateau.

“No!” he said decidedly, when she urged that there must be a first time,

and it was better to do a disagreeable thing at once, and be done with

it. “I cannot go there now. It would be like looking into my coffin.”

He would not even ride past it when Annie took him out to drive behind

Black Beauty. Too many hopes of happiness were strangled there. “It is a

haunted place to me. Later on, when I come back, I will go through it

with you and see if the ghosts are there still,” he said, when she

suggested driving that way.

Everything pertaining to the grounds and out-buildings was left in the

care of Sam Slayton, who, having won golden laurels in his nursing, was

earning golden dollars in his grocery, which had become very popular

and, as Sam said, was patronized by all the _e-lity_ in town. Annie was

to have the keys of the house and to see that it was kept in order.

Nothing was to be changed; nothing removed. At this point Miss Errington

interfered. It was a shame, she said, to let a fine new Steinway be

ruined by standing unused in a cold house all winter. Far better

negotiate for its return, even at a discount on the price.

The plan commended itself to Jack as sensible, and the instrument, on

which no one had ever played, was returned to the firm from which it

came and the greater portion of the money paid for it refunded. It was

nearly Christmas time when Jack at last left Lovering, broken in health

and spirits, but with a rebound in his sunny, genial nature, which

promised much for him when time and change had healed the wound, which

smarted with a fresh pain when he bade good-bye to his friends at The

Elms, and especially to Annie.

“I don’t know what I shall do without my little Annie-mother,” he said,

with a quiver in his voice as he stooped and kissed her forehead as

reverently as if she had really been his mother instead of a shrinking

girl whose heart throbbed with rapture for a moment, and then beat with

a heavy pain at this first kiss she had ever received from Jack since he

was a boy and they played the old-time games where kissing was a

conspicuous feature and counted for nothing.

CHAPTER IV.—AUTHOR’S STORY CONTINUED.

CHRISTMAS AT THE ELMS.

The day after Jack left, Annie received a letter from Fanny written at

Morley’s Hotel in London, where they were stopping. It was not very

long, and to Annie, who knew her sister so well, it did not seem at all

in Fanny’s usual bright, witty vein, but rather as if written under

restraint. She had been horribly seasick, she said, and if possible

would rather walk home than cross the ocean again in rough weather. She

had pleasant rooms at the hotel looking out on Trafalgar Square, and was

enjoying the sights of London as much as she could in the fog and rain.

The Colonel had met several acquaintances at the hotel and more outside,

and she had attended a grand dinner in an English family and worn a

lovely dress bought at Peter Robinson’s, but made in Paris. The people

of the house had been very attentive to her, and had told her that her

accent was more English than American. The next night she was going to

hear Patti in full evening dress, also bought at Peter Robinson’s. After

a few days they were to leave London for Paris, where they should stay

until her wardrobe was complete, when they would go on to Nice and Monte

Carlo, and then to Italy, spending the winter either in Florence or

Rome, probably the latter. There were messages of love for Katy and Paul

and Phyllis, but no allusion was made to Jack, or mention of her

husband, except when she spoke of his acquaintances. She was anxious for

a letter from Annie, telling her all the news, and she signed herself

“Fanny.”

Written with a lead pencil between the lines on the first page, and so

fine that they were scarcely legible, were the words, “Oh, Annie, what

would I give to see you and Katy and Paul and the old home just for a

minute! Write me often and _everything_.”

The letter was directed in the Colonel’s handwriting, and his sister had

no doubt that his eye had seen all that was in it, except the pencil

lines inserted in a sentence with which they had no connection. There

was a world of homesickness in the cry, and Miss Errington read the

meaning plainer than Annie did, feeling sure that her brother had

already begun to bend his young wife to his iron will.

“Poor girl! I pity her,” she thought, as she gave the letter back to

Annie. “I shall write to your sister to-day.”

Annie had written ten or twelve days before, and her letter and Fanny’s

had probably crossed each other. She had said nothing of the scene at

The Plateau when Jack first heard the news. “What is done cannot be

undone, and there is no need to try and make her wretched,” she

reasoned. So she merely spoke of Jack’s sudden illness, saying he was at

The Elms and gaining slowly. Then she tried to write naturally about

Katy and Paul and Phyllis and the townspeople, and whatever else she

thought would interest her sister. At the close she said, “Oh, Fan, you

don’t know how I miss you everywhere. When you were away with Miss

Errington it was not so bad, for I thought you were coming back. Now I

know you are not, and I seem to have lost half of myself and am

constantly looking for it. I hope you will be happy. You always wished

to go to Europe, and I think you will enjoy all you are seeing. Katy

sends love and Paul a kiss to ‘Fan-er-nan.’ He was delighted with his

horse. Lovingly, Ann.”