The coach of Wells, Fargo & Co. stood before the door of Piney-woods
Station, and Sam Rice, the driver, was drawing on his lemon-colored
gloves with an air, for Sam was the pink of stage-drivers, from his high
white hat to his faultless French boots. Sad will it be when his
profession shall have been altogether superseded; and the coach-and-six,
with its gracious and graceful "whip," shall have been supplanted, on
all the principal lines of travel, by the iron-horse with its grimy
"driver" and train of thundering carriages.
The passengers had taken their seats--the one lady on the box--and Sam
Rice stood, chronometer held daintily between thumb and finger, waiting
for the second hand to come round the quarter of a minute, while the
grooms slipped the last strap of the harness into its buckle. At the
expiration of the quarter of a minute, as Sam stuck an unlighted cigar
between his lips and took hold of the box to pull himself up to his
seat, the good-natured landlady of Piney-woods Station called out, with
some officiousness:
"Mr. Rice, don't you want a match?"
"That's just what I've been looking for these ten years," responded Sam;
and at that instant his eyes were on a level with the lady's on the box,
so that he could not help seeing the roguish glint of them, which so far
disconcerted the usually self-possessed professor of the whip that he
heard not the landlady's laugh, but gathered up the reins in such a
hasty and careless manner as to cause Demon, the nigh-leader, to go off
with a bound that nearly threw the owner of the eyes out of her place.
The little flurry gave opportunity for Mrs. Dolly Page--that was the
lady's name--to drop her veil over her face, and for Sam Rice to show
his genteel handling of the ribbons, and conquer the unaccountable
disturbance of his pulses.
Sam had looked at the way-bill, not ten minutes before, to ascertain the
name of the pretty black-eyed woman seated at his left hand; and the
consciousness of so great a curiosity gratified, may have augmented his
unaccustomed embarrassment. Certain it is, Sam Rice had driven six
horses, on a ticklish mountain road, for four years, without missing a
trip; and had more than once encountered the "road-agents," without ever
yet delivering them an express box; had had old and young ladies, plain
and beautiful ones, to sit beside him, hundreds of times: yet this was
the first time he had consulted the way-bill, on his own account, to
find a lady's name. This one time, too, it had a _Mrs._ before it, which
prefix gave him a pang he was very unwilling to own. On the other hand,
Mrs. Dolly Page was clad in extremely deep black. Could she be in
mourning for Mr. Page? If Demon had an unusual number of starting fits
that afternoon, his driver was not altogether guiltless in the matter;
for what horse, so sensitive as he, would not have felt the magnetism of
something wrong behind him?
But as the mocking eyes kept hidden behind a veil, and the rich, musical
voice uttered not a word through a whole half-hour, which seemed an age
to Sam, he finally recovered himself so far as to say he believed he
would not smoke, after all; and thereupon returned the cigar, still
unlighted, to his pocket.
"I hope you do not deprive yourself of a luxury on my account," murmured
the soft voice.
"I guess this dust and sunshine is enough for a lady to stand, without
my smokin' in her face," returned Sam, politely, and glancing at the
veil.
"Still, I beg you will smoke, if you are accustomed," persisted the
cooing voice behind it. But Sam, to his praise be it spoken, refused to
add anything to the discomforts of a summer day's ride across the
mountains. His chivalry had its reward; for the lady thus favored,
feeling constrained to make some return for such consideration, began to
talk, in a vein that delighted her auditor, about horses--their points
and their traits--and, lastly, about their drivers.
"I have always fancied," said Mrs. Dolly Page, "that if I were a man I
should take to stage-driving as a profession. It seems to me a free and
manly calling, one that develops some of the best qualities of a man. Of
course, it has its drawbacks. One cannot always choose one's society on
a stage, and there are temptations to bad habits. Besides, there are
storms, and upsets, and all that sort of thing. I've often thought,"
continued Mrs. Dolly, "that we do not consider enough the hardships of
drivers, nor what we owe them. You've read that poem--the Post-boy's
Song:
"'Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of Fate,
Forward and back I go.'
"Well, it is just so. They do bring us our letters, full of good and ill
news, helping to weave the web of Fate for us; yet not to blame for what
tidings they bring, and always faithful to their duties, in storm or
shine."
"I shall like my profession better after what you have said of it,"
answered Sam, giving his whip a curl to make it touch the off-leader's
right ear. "I've done my duty mostly, and not complained of the
hardships, though once or twice I've been too beat out to get off the
box at the end of my drive; but that was in a long spell of bad weather,
when the roads was just awful, and the rain as cold as snow."
"Would you mind letting me hold the lines awhile?" asked the cooing
voice, at last. "I've driven a six-in-hand before."
Though decidedly startled, and averse to trusting his team to such a
pair of hands, Sam was compelled, by the psychic force of the little
woman, to yield up the reins. It was with fear and trembling that he
watched her handling of them for the first mile; but, as she really
seemed to know what she was about, his confidence increased, and he
watched her with admiration. Her veil was now up, her eyes were
sparkling, and cheeks glowing. She did not speak often, but, when she
did, it was always something piquant and graceful that she uttered. At
last, just as the station was in sight, she yielded up the lines, with a
deep-drawn sigh of satisfaction, apologizing for it by saying that her
hands, not being used to it, were tired. "I'm not sure," she added, "but
I shall take to the box, at last, as a steady thing."
"If you do," responded Sam, gallantly, "I hope you will drive on my
line."
"Thanks. I shall ask you for a reference, when I apply for the
situation."
There was then a halt, a supply of fresh horses, and a prompt, lively
start. But the afternoon was intensely hot, and the team soon sobered
down. Mrs. Page did not offer again to take the lines. She was overwarm
and weary, perhaps, quiet and a little sad, at any rate. Mr. Rice was
quiet, too, and thoughtful. The passengers inside were asleep. The coach
rattled along at a steady pace, with the dust so deep under the wheels
as to still their rumble. At intervals, a freight-wagon was passed,
drawn to one side, at a "turn-out," or a rabbit skipped across the road,
or a solitary horseman suggested alternately a "road-agent," or one of
James's heroes. Grand views presented themselves of wooded cliffs and
wild ravines. Tall pines threw lengthening shadows across the open
spaces on the mountain-sides. And so the afternoon wore away; and, when
the sun was setting, the passengers alighted for their supper at the
principal hotel of Lucky-dog--a mining-camp, pretty well up in the
Sierras.
"We both stop here," said Sam, as he helped the lady down from her high
position; letting her know by this remark that her destination was known
to him.
"I'm rather glad of that," she answered, frankly, with a little smile;
and, considering all that had transpired on that long drive, Sam was
certainly pardonable if he felt almost sure that her reason for being
glad was identical with his own.
Lucky-dog was one of those shambling, new camps, where one street serves
for a string on which two or three dozen ill-assorted tenements are
strung, every fifth one being a place intended for the relief of the
universal American thirst, though the liquids dispensed at these
beneficent institutions were observed rather to provoke than to abate
the dryness of their patrons. Eating-houses were even more frequent than
those which dispensed moisture to parched throats; so that, taking a
cursory view of the windows fronting on the street, the impression was
inevitably conveyed of the expected rush of famished armies, whose wants
this charitable community were only too willing to supply for a
sufficient consideration. The houses that were not eating and
drinking-houses were hotels, if we except occasional grocery and general
merchandise establishments. Into what out-of-the-way corners the
inhabitants were stowed, it was impossible to conjecture, until it was
discovered that the men lived at the places already inventoried, and
that women abode not at all in Lucky-dog--or if there were any, not more
than a half a dozen of them, and they lived in unaccustomed places.
The advent of Mrs. Page at the Silver Brick Hotel naturally made a
sensation. As assemblage of not less than fifty gentlemen of leisure
crowded about the entrance, each more intent than the other on getting a
look at the arrivals, and especially at this one arrival--whose age,
looks, name, business, and intentions in coming to Lucky-dog, were
discussed with great freedom. Sam Rice was closely questioned, but
proved reticent and non-committal. The landlord was besieged with
inquiries--the landlady, too--and all without anybody being made much
the wiser. There was the waybill, and there was the lady herself; put
that and that together, and make what you could of it.
Mrs. Dolly Page did not seem discomposed in the least by the evident
interest she inspired. With her black curls smoothly brushed, her black
robes immaculately neat, with a pretty color in her round cheeks, and a
quietly absorbed expression in her whole bearing, she endured the
concentrated gaze of fifty pairs of eyes during the whole of dinner,
without so much as one awkward movement, or the dropping of a fork or
teaspoon. So it was plain that the curious would be compelled to await
Mrs. Page's own time for developments.
But developments did not seem likely to come overwhelmingly. Mrs. Page
made a fast friend of the landlady of the Silver Brick, by means of
little household arts peculiarly her own, and, before a fortnight was
gone, had become as indispensable to all the boarders as she was to Mrs.
Shaughnessy herself. If she had a history, she kept it carefully from
curious ears. Mrs. Shaughnessy was evidently satisfied, and quite
challenged criticism of her favorite. Indeed, there was nothing to
criticise. It was generally understood that she was a widow, who had to
get on in the world as best she could, and thus the public sympathy was
secured, and an embargo laid upon gossip. To be sure, there were certain
men in Lucky-dog, of a class which has its representatives everywhere,
who regarded all unappropriated women, especially pretty women, very
much as the hunter regards game, and the more difficult the approach,
the more exciting the chase. But these moral Nimrods had not half the
chance with self-possessed Mrs. Dolly Page that they would have had with
a different style of woman. The grosser sort got a sudden _congé_; and
with the more refined sportsmen she coquetted just enough to show them
that two could play at a game of "make-believe," and then sent them off
with a lofty scorn edifying to behold--to the mingled admiration and
amusement of Mrs. Shaughnessy.
The only affair which seemed to have a kernel of seriousness in it, was
that of Mr. Samuel Rice. Regularly, when the stage was in, on Sam's
night, he paid his respects to Mrs. Page. And Mrs. Page always received
him with a graceful friendliness, asking after the horses, and even
sometimes going so far as to accompany him to their stables. On these
occasions she never failed to carry several lumps of sugar in her
pocket, which she fed to the handsome brutes off her own pink palm,
until there was not one of them she could not handle at her will.
Thus passed many weeks, until summer was drawing to a close. Two or
three times she had gone down to Piney-woods Station and back, on Sam's
coach, and always sat on the box, and drove a part of the way, but never
where her driving would excite remark. It is superfluous to state, that
on these occasions there was a happy heart beneath Sam's linen-duster,
or that the bantering remarks of his brother-drivers were borne with
smiling equanimity, not to say pride; for Sam was well aware that Mrs.
Dolly Page's brunette beauty, and his blonde-bearded style, together
furnished a not unpleasing _tableau_ of personal charms. Besides, Sam's
motto was, "Let those laugh who win;" and he seemed to himself to be on
the road to heights of happiness beyond the ken of ordinary
mortals--especially ordinary stage-drivers.
"I don't calkelate to drive stage more than a year or two longer," Sam
said to Mrs. Page, confidentially, on the return from their last trip
together to Piney-woods Station. "I've got a little place down in
Amador, and an interest in the Nip-and-tuck gold-mine, besides a few
hundreds in bank. I've a notion to settle down some day, in a cottage
with vines over the porch, with a little woman to tend the flowers in
the front-garden."
As if Sam's heightened color and shining eyes had not sufficiently
pointed this confession of his desires, it chanced that at this moment
the eyes of both were attracted to a way-side picture: a cottage, a
flower-bordered walk, a fair young woman standing at the gate, with a
crowing babe in her arms lifting its little white hands to the
sun-browned face of a stalwart young farmer who was smiling proudly on
the two. At this sudden apparition of his inmost thoughts, Sam's heart
gave a great bound, and there was a simultaneous ringing in his ears.
His first instinctive act was to crack his whip so fiercely as to set
the leaders off prancing; and when, by this diversion, he had partly
recovered self-possession to glance at the face of his companion, a new
embarrassment seized him when he discovered two little rivers of tears
running over the crimsoned cheeks. But a coach-box is not a convenient
place for sentiment to display itself; and, though the temptation was
great to inquire into the cause of the tears, with a view of offering
consolation, Sam prudently looked the other way, and maintained silence.
The reader, however, knows that those tears sank into the beholder's
soul, and caused to germinate countless tender thoughts and emotions,
which were, on some future occasion, to be laid upon the alter of his
devotion to Mrs. Dolly Page. And none the less, that, in a few minutes,
the eyes which shed them resumed their roguish brightness, and the lady
was totally unconscious of having heard, seen, or felt any
embarrassment. Sentiment between them was successfully _tabooed_, so far
as utterance was concerned, for that time. And so Sam found, somewhat to
his disappointment, it continued to fall out, that whenever he got upon
delicate ground, the lady was off like a humming-bird, darting hither
and yon, so that it was impossible to put a finger upon her, or get so
much as a look at her brilliant and restless wings. But nobody ever
tired of trying to find a humming-bird at rest; and so Sam never gave up
looking for the opportune moment of speaking his mind.
Meanwhile, Lucky-dog Camp was having a fresh sensation. An organized
band of gamblers, robbers, and "road-agents" had made a swoop upon its
property, of various kinds, and had succeeded in making off with it. The
very night after the ride just mentioned, the best horses in Sam Rice's
team were stolen, making it necessary to substitute what Sam called "a
pa'r of ornery cayuses." To put the climax to his misfortunes, the
"road-agents" attacked him next morning, when, the "ornery cayuses"
becoming unmanageable, Sam was forced to surrender the treasure-box, and
the passengers their bullion. The excitement in Lucky-dog was intense. A
vigilance committee, secretly organized, lay in waiting for the
offenders, and, after a week or two, made a capture of a well-known
sporting-man, whose presence in camp had for some time been regarded
with suspicion. Short shrift was afforded him. That same afternoon his
gentlemanly person swung dangling from a gnarled pine-tree limb, and his
frightened soul had fled into outer darkness.
When this event became known to Mrs. Dolly Page, she turned ghostly
white, and then fainted dead away. Mrs. Shanghnessy was very much
concerned for her friend; berating in round terms, the brutishness of
people who could talk of such things before a tender-hearted lady like
that. To Mr. Rice, particularly, she expatiated upon the coarseness of
certain people, and the refined sensitiveness of others; and Sam was
much inclined to agree with her, so far as her remarks applied to her
friend, who was not yet recovered sufficiently to be visible. Indeed,
Mrs. Page was not visible for so many days, that Sam's soul began to
long for her with a mighty longing. At length, she made her appearance,
considerably paler and thinner than was her wont; but doubly interesting
and lovely to the eyes of so partial an observer as Sam, who would
willingly have sheltered her weakness in his strong, manly arms. Sam,
naturally enough, would never have hinted at the event which had so
distressed her; but she relieved him of all embarrassment on that
subject, by saying to him almost at once:
"Mr. Rice, I am told they have not buried the man they hung, so
shockingly, the other day. They certainly will not leave him _there_?"
she added, with a shudder.
"I don't know--I suppose," stammered Sam, "it is their way, with them
fellows."
"But you will not allow it? You _cannot_ allow it!"--excitedly.
"I couldn't prevent them," said Sam, quite humbly.
"Mr. Rice," and her voice was at once a command and an entreaty, "you
_can_ and _must_ prevent it. You are not afraid? I will go with
you--this very night--and will help you. Don't say you will not; for I
cannot sleep until it is done. I have not slept for a week."
She looked so white and so wild, as she uttered this confession, that
Sam would have been the wretch he was not, to refuse her. So he said:
"Don't you fret. I'll bury him, if it troubles you so. But you needn't
go along. You couldn't; it's too far, and you're too weak,"--seeing how
she trembled.
"I am not weak--only nervous. I prefer to go along. But we must be
secret, I suppose? Oh!"--with a start that was indeed "nervous."
"Yes, we must be secret," said Sam; and he looked as if he did not half
like the business, but would not refuse.
"You are a good man, Mr. Rice, and I thank you." And with that, Mrs.
Dolly Page caught up one of his hands, and kissing it hastily, began to
cry, as she walked quickly away.
"Don't cry, and don't go until I have promised to do whatever you ask,
if it will make you well again," Sam said, following her to the door.
"Then call for me to take a walk with you to-night. The moon is full,
but no one will observe us. They would not think of our going
_there_,"--with another shudder--and she slipped away from his detaining
hand.
That evening Mr. Samuel Rice and Mrs. Page took a walk by moonlight.
Laughing gossips commented on it after their fashion; and disagreeable
gossips remarked that they came home very late, after _their_ fashion.
But nobody, they believed, saw where they went, or what they did. Yet
those two came from performing an act of Christian charity, each with a
sense of guilt and unworthiness very irritating to endure, albeit from
very different causes. One, because an unwelcome suspicion had thrust
itself into his mind; and the other----
The ground of Sam's suspicion was a photograph, which, in handling the
gambler's body somewhat awkwardly, by reason of its weight--Mrs. Page
had found, at the last, she could not render any assistance--had slipped
from some receptacle in its clothing. A hasty glance, under the full
light of the moon, had shown him the features of the lady who sat twelve
paces away, with her hands over her face. It is not always those that
sin who suffer most from the consciousness of sin; and Sam, perhaps,
with that hint of possible--nay, almost certain--wickedness in his
breast-pocket, was more burdened by the weight of it than many a
criminal about to suffer all the terrors of the law; for the woman that
he loved stood accused, if not convicted, before his conscience and her
own, and he could not condemn, because his heart refused to judge her.
When the two stood together under the light of the lamp in the deserted
parlor of the Silver Brick Hotel, the long silence which, by her quick
perceptions, had been recognized as accusing her, upon what evidence she
did not yet know, was at length broken by Sam's voice, husky with
agitation.
"Mrs. Page," he said, assuming an unconscious dignity of mien and
sternness of countenance, "I shall ask you some questions, sometime,
which you may not think quite polite. And you must answer me: you
understand. I'm bound to know the truth about this man."
"About this man!" Then he suspected her of connection with the wretched
criminal whose body had only just now been hidden from mocking eyes? How
much did he suspect? how much did he _know_? Her pale face and
frightened eyes seemed to ask these questions of him; but not a sound
escaped her lips. The imploring look, so strange upon her usually bright
face, touched all that was tender in Sam's romantic nature. In another
moment he would have recalled his demand, and trusted her infinitely;
but in that critical moment she fainted quite away, to his mingled
sorrow and alarm; and Mrs. Shaughnessy being summoned, Sam received a
wordy reprimand for having no more sense than to keep a sick woman up
half of the night; smarting under which undeserved censure, he retired,
to think over the events of the evening.
The hour of departure from Luckydog, for Sam's coach, was four o'clock
in the morning; and its driver was not a little surprised, when about to
mount the box, to discover Mrs. Page waiting to take a seat beside him.
After the adventure of the previous night, it was with some restraint
that he addressed her; and there was wanting, also, something of his
cheerful alacrity of manner, when he requested the stranger who had
taken the box-seat, to yield it to a lady. The stranger's mood seemed
uncongenial, for he declined to abdicate, intimating that there was room
for the lady between himself and the driver, if she insisted upon an
outside seat.
But Mrs. Page did not insist. She whispered Sam to open the coach-door,
and quietly took a seat inside; and Sam, with a sense of irritation very
unusual with him, climbed reluctantly to his place, giving the "cayuses"
the lash in a way that set them off on a keen run. By the time he had
gotten his team cooled down, the unusual mood had passed, and the
longing returned to hear the sweet voice, and watch the bright eyes that
had made his happiness on former occasions. Puzzled as he was, and
pained by the evidence he possessed of her connection, in some way, with
the victim of lynch-law, _that_ seemed like a dream in the clear, sunny
air of morning, while the more blissful past asserted its claim to be
considered reality. Not a lark, warbling its flute-notes by the
way-side, not a pretty bit of the familiar landscape, nor glimpse of
brook, that leaped sparkling down the mountain, but recalled some
charming utterance of Mrs. Dolly Page, as he first knew her; as he could
not now recognize her in the pale, nervous, and evidently suffering
woman, sitting, closely veiled, inside the coach.
Occupied with these thoughts, Sam felt a disagreeable shock when the
outside passenger--in a voice that contrasted roughly with that other
voice which was murmuring in his ear--began a remark about the mining
prospects of Lucky-dog.
"Some rich discoveries made in the neighborhood, eh? Did you ever try
your luck at mining?"
"Waal, no. I own a little stock, though," answered Sam, carelessly.
"In what mine?"
"In the Nip-and-tuck."
"Good mine, from all I hear about it. Never did any prospecting?" asked
the stranger, in that tone which denotes only a desire to make talk,
with a view to kill time.
"No," in the same tone.
"That's odd," stuffing a handful of cut tobacco into his mouth. "I'd
have sworn 'twas you I saw swinging a pick in the cañon east of camp
last night."
"I'm not much on picks," Sam returned, with a slowness that well
counterfeited indifference. "I was visiting a lady last evening, which is
a kind of prospecting more in my line."
"Yes, I understand; that lady inside the coach. She's a game one."
"It strikes me you're devilish free in your remarks," said Sam, becoming
irritated again.
"No offense meant, I'm sure. Take a cigar? We may as well talk this
matter over calmly, Mr. Rice. You see it's ten to one that you are
implicated in this business. Been very attentive to Mrs. Page. Made
several trips together. Let her handle your horses, so she could take
them out of the stable for them thieves. Buried her thieving, gambling
husband for her. You see the case _looks_ bad, anyway; though I'm
inclined to think you've just been made a tool of. I know she's a smart
one. Tain't often you find one smarter."
Sam's eyes scintillated. He was strangely minded to pitch the outside
passenger off the coach. The struggle in his breast between conviction
and resistance to conviction amounted to agony. He could not, in that
supreme moment, discriminate between the anger he felt at being falsely
accused, and the grief and rage of being so horrible disillusioned.
Their combined anguish paled his cheeks, and set his teeth on edge: of
all of which the outside passenger was coolly cognizant. As they were,
at that moment, in sight of the first station, he resumed.
"Let her get up here, if she wants to; I can ride inside. I don't want
to be hard on her; but mind, if you breathe a word to her about my being
an officer, I'll arrest you on suspicion. Let every tub stand on its own
bottom. If she's guilty, you can't help her, and don't want to, either;
if she's innocent, she'll come out all right, never fear. Are you on the
square, now?"
"Have you got a warrant?" asked Sam, in a low tone, as he wound the
lines around the break, previous to getting down.
"You bet! but I'm in no hurry to serve it. Piney-woods station 'ill do
just as well. Telegraph office there."
Mr. Rice was not in any haste this morning, being, as he said, ahead of
time. He invited Mrs. Page to take her usual place on the box, telling
her the gentleman had concluded to go inside; and brought her a glass of
water from the bar. While he was returning the glass, the passengers,
including him of the outside, being busied assuaging their thirst with
something stronger than water, a rattle of wheels and a clatter of hoofs
was heard, and, lo! Mrs. Dolly Page was discovered to be practicing her
favorite accomplishment of driving six-in-hand!
When the "outside" recovered from his momentary surprise, he clapped his
hand on the shoulder of Mr. Rice, and said, in a voice savage with spite
and disappointment:
"I arrest you, sir."
"Arrest and be d----d!" returned Sam. "If you had done your duty, you'd
have arrested _her_ while you had the chance."
"That's so--your head is level; and if you'll assist me in getting on to
Piney-woods station in time to catch the run-away--for she can't very
well drive beyond that station--I'll let you off."
"You'll wait till I'm on, I reckon. My horses can't go on that errand,
and you darsn't take the up-driver's team. Put that it your pipe and
smoke it, old smarty!"--and Sam's eyes emitted steel-blue lightnings,
though his face wore a fixed expression of smiling.
Upon inquiry, it was ascertained that horses might be procured a mile
back from the station; and, while the baffled officer, and such of the
passengers as could not wait until next day, went in pursuit of them,
Sam mounted one of the "cayuses," and made what haste he could after the
coach and Wells, Fargo & Company's express-box. Within a mile or less of
Piney-woods Station, he met the keeper, the grooms, and an odd man or
two, that chanced to have been about the place, all armed to the teeth,
who, when they saw him, halted in surprise.
"Why, we reckoned you was dead," said the head man, with an air of
disappointment.
"Dead?" repeated Sam. "Have you seen my coach?"
"That's all right, down to the station; and the plucky gal that druv it
told us all about the raid the 'road-agents' made on you. Whar's the
passengers? any of 'em killed?"
"Passengers are all right. Where is Mrs. Page?"
"She cried, an' tuk on awful about ye; an' borrered a hoss to ride right
on down the road to meet the other stage, an' let 'em know what's up."
"She did, did she?" said Sam, very thoughtfully. "Waal, that _is_ odd.
Why, she ran away with my team--that's what she did; and it's all a hoax
about the 'road-agents.' The passengers are back at the other station."
Sam had suddenly become "all things to all men," to a degree that
surprised himself. He was wrong about the horse, too, as was proven by
its return to its owner four days after. By the same hand came the
following letter to Mr. Samuel Rice:
"DEAR MR. RICE: It was so good of you! I thank you more than I
can say. I wish I could set myself right in your eyes, for I prize
your friendship dearly--dearly; but I know that I cannot. It has not
been all my fault. I was married to a bad, bad man, when I was only
fifteen. He has ruined my life; but now he is dead, and I need not
fear him. I _will_ hereafter live as a good woman should live. The
tears run down my cheeks as I write you this farewell--as they did
that day when I saw that sweet woman and her babe at the farm-house
gate; and knew what was in your thought. Heaven send you such a wife.
Good-bye, dear Mr. Rice, good-bye.
"DOLLY PAGE!"
There are some men, as well as women, in this world, who could figure in
the _role_ of _Evangeline_, who have tender, loyal, and constant hearts.
Such a one was the driver of the Lucky-dog stage. But, though he sat on
that box for two years longer, and scrutinized every dark-eyed,
sweet-voiced lady-passenger who rode in his coach during that time,
often with an intense longing for a sight of the face he craved--it
never came. Out of the heaven of his life that star had vanished
forever, and nothing was left him but a soiled photograph, and a
tear-stained letter, worn with frequent folding and unfolding.