CHAPTER XVI

THE AUCTION

"Astonishing, isn't it, where all the stuff comes from? Somebody must

have given very freely. I never gave a thing except money. Bell sent a

lot to be sure, and it's all sold. They had a pile from the Crompton

House. They were good at begging. They didn't expect anything of you, a

stranger, of course?"

"Oh, yes," Eloise replied. "I had an apron which Miss Patrick seemed to

think might sell for something. It was rather pretty, and I made it

myself. I haven't seen it, and think it may have been sold, or perhaps

Mrs. Biggs, who had it in charge, forgot it. She has had a great deal on

her mind."

Jack did not hear more than half Eloise was saying. One fact alone was

clear. She had expected the apron to be there and he would look it up.

"Excuse me," he said, and going into the room where Mrs. Biggs was

trying to make half a loaf of bread do duty as a whole loaf to a party

just arrived, he said to her, "Pardon me, Mrs. Biggs, but did you send

or bring Miss Smith's contribution to the sale? I believe it was an

apron. She has not seen it."

The bread fell from Mrs. Biggs's hand to the table, and the knife

followed it to the floor as she exclaimed, "Lord of heavens! I forgot

it till this minute. Where's Tim?"

She darted from the room and found Tim bringing two pails of water, "the

last gol darned thing he was going to do that night," he said, as he put

them down. Seizing him by the collar his mother almost shrieked, "Run

home for your life, Tim!"

"Why-er,--what-er! Is our house afire?" Tim asked, and his mother

replied, "No, but Miss Smith's apron is there. I clean forgot it. You'll

find it in a paper box on my bed, or in my bureau, or on the closet

shelf, pushed away back, or somewhere. Now clip it."

Tim started without his hat, and the last thing he heard was his

mother's voice shrill as a clarion, "If you don't find the key under the

mat, climb inter the but'ry winder, but don't upset the mornin's milk!"

Business was beginning to slacken and sales were few. Some of the people

had gone home and others were going, and still there were quantities of

goods unsold. An auction was the only alternative and Mr. Bills, who, to

his office of school commissioner, added that of auctioneer, was sent

for. There was no one like him in Crompton for disposing of whatever was

to be disposed of, from a tin can to a stove-pipe hat. He could judge

accurately the nature and disposition of his audience,--knew just what

to say and when to say it, and had the faculty of making people bid

whether they wanted to or not. To hear him was as good as a circus, his

friends said, and when it became known that he was to auction off the

goods remaining from the sale, many who had left came back, filling the

rooms again nearly as full as they were early in the evening.

Eloise's chair was moved a little more to the front,--a long counter

was cleared, and on it Mr. Bills took his stand, smiling blandly upon

the crowd around him and then bowing to Eloise and her escorts, Jack and

Howard. He was bound to do his best before them and took up his work

eagerly. He was happiest when selling clothes which he could try on, or

pretend to, and after disposing of several bonnets amid roars of

laughter he took up Mrs. Biggs's gown, which Ruby Ann had not been able

to sell. Here was something to his mind and he held it out and up, and

tried its length on himself and expatiated upon its beauty and its style

and durability until he got a bid of twenty-five cents, and this from

Howard, who said to Eloise, "It seems a pity not to start the old thing

at something, and I suppose the Charitable Society will take it. I

believe there is one in town."

Eloise did not answer. The spotted gown was an offence to her, and she

shut her eyes while Mr. Bills, delighted that he had a bid at last and

from such a source, began, "Thank you, sir. You know a good thing when

you see it, but only twenty-five cents! A mere nothing. Somebody will

give more, of course, for this fine tea gown to put on hot afternoons.

Just the thing. Twenty-five cents! Twenty-five cents! Do I hear more?

Twenty-five! Did you say thirty?" and he looked at Jack, who half

nodded, and the bids, raised five cents at a time, rolled on between

Jack and Howard and another young man, who cared nothing for the gown,

but liked the fun. Fifty cents was reached at last, and there the

bidding ceased and Mr. Bills was ringing the changes on half a dollar,

half a dollar, for a _robe de chambre_;--he called it that sometimes,

and sometimes a tea gown, and once a _robe de nu-it_, which brought

peals of laughter from those who understood the term, as he certainly

did not. In the dining-room Mrs. Biggs was busy washing dishes, but kept

her ears open to the sounds in the next room, knowing Mr. Bills was

there and anxious to get in and see the fun. When the last shouts

reached her she dropped her dish towel, saying to her companion, "I

can't stand it any longer. I've got to go and see what Bills is up to!"

Elbowing her way in she caught sight of her gown held aloft by Mr.

Bills, and heard his voluble "Going, going, at fifty cents."

She had thought it low at a dollar, and here it was as good as gone for

fifty cents,--to whom she did not know or care,--probably the scrub

woman who had looked at it earlier in the evening and offered sixty. Her

blood was up, and making her way to Mr. Bills she snatched at her gown,

exclaiming, "It's mine, and shall never go for fifty cents, I tell you!"

Here was a diversion, and Mr. Bills met it beautifully.

"Jess so, Miss Biggs," he said, bowing low to her. "I admire your taste

and judgment. I've told 'em time and time over it was worth more than

fifty. The fact is they don't know what is what, but you and I do. Shall

we double right up and shame 'em by sayin' a dollar? A dollar! A dollar!

and going!"

Mrs. Biggs did not know that she assented, she was so excited, and

afterwards declared she didn't: but the final Going was said, with

"Gone! to Mrs. Biggs, for one dollar. Cheap at that!"

At this juncture, when the hilarity was at its height and Mrs. Biggs was

marching off with her property, which she said she should never pay

for, Tim appeared, hatless and coatless, but with the box in his hand.

When Jack locked the door he pushed the key further under the mat than

was usual, and failing to find it at once, and being in a hurry, Tim

made his entrance into the house through the pantry window, upsetting

the pan of milk and a bowl of something, he did not stop to see what, in

his haste to find the box. It was not on the bed, nor on the bureau, nor

pushed back on a shelf in the closet. It was on a chair near the door

where his mother had put it and then forgotten it. As the key was

outside Tim made his exit the way he came in, stopping a moment to look

at the milk the cat was lapping with a great deal of satisfaction.

"Bobbs, you'll have a good supper, and I shall catch old hundred for

giving it to you," he said, picking up the pan and springing through the

window.

He was very warm, and taking off his coat he threw it across his arm and

started rapidly for the sale, knowing before he reached it that Mr.

Bills was there by the sounds he heard. He had no thought that the apron

was not to be sold at auction. Probably that was why it was wanted, and

pushing through the crowd to Mr. Bills he handed him the box, saying,

"Here 'tis. I 'bout run my legs off to get it. Make 'em pay smart."

"Mr. Bills! Mr. Bills!" came excitedly from Ruby Ann, but Mr. Bills did

not hear, the buzz of voices was so great.

He had opened the box and taken out the apron, which he handled far more

carefully than he had the spotted gown.

"Now this is something like first-class business," he said, holding it

up. "The prettiest thing you ever saw,--a girl's apron, all ruffled and

prinked, and,--yes,--made by--"

He had glanced at the card, which said it was made by Miss Smith, and

was about to announce that fact, feeling sure it would bring bidders,

when he chanced to look at Eloise, whose face was nearly as white as the

apron, and in whose eyes he saw an expression which checked the words.

But he had no idea of relinquishing the article, and misunderstood the

motion of Jack's hand to stop him.

"Now, give me an offer," he began,--"a first-rate one, too; none of your

quarters, nor halves. Bid high and show you know something. 'Tain't

every day you have a chance to buy as fine a thing as this. You who have

wives, or daughters, or sisters, or sweethearts, or want it for

yourselves, speak up! Walk up! Roll up! Tumble up! Any way to get up,

only come up and bid!"

He was looking at Jack, whose face was as red as Eloise's was pale.

"If the thing must be sold at auction it shall bring a good price, and

I'll get it, too," he thought.

Standing close to him was Tom Walker, who all the evening had hovered

near Eloise.

"Tom," Jack said. "I have a sister, you know."

Tom didn't know, but he nodded, and Jack went on: "That apron is the

only thing I've seen that I really want for her. I am not worth a cent

to bid. Will you do it for me?"

Tom nodded again, and Jack continued, "Well, start pretty high. Keep

your eyes on me, and when I look at you raise the bid if there is any

against you. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Tom answered, understanding more than Jack thought he did.

He guessed whose apron it was and did not believe much in the sister,

but he had his instructions and waited for the signal. Howard had

watched the sale of the spotted gown with a great deal of amusement, but

was beginning to feel tired with standing so long, and was wondering

when Jack proposed taking Eloise home. That he would go with them was a

matter of course, and he was about to speak to Jack when Tim came in and

the apron sale began. He had no idea whose it was until he saw the halt

in Mr. Bills's manner, and looked at Eloise. Then he knew, and knew,

too, that nothing could get Jack away till the apron was disposed of.

That Jack would buy it he did not for a moment dream, for what could he

do with it? "But yes, he is going to buy it," he thought, as he heard

Jack's instructions to Tom, "and I mean to have some fun with him, and

run that apron up."

Close to him was Tim, and the sight of him put an idea into Howard's

mind. It would be jolly for Tom and Tim to bid against each other, while

he and Jack backed them.

"Tim," he said, laying his hand on the boy's arm, "I am going to buy

that apron for Mrs. Amy, and I want you to bid for me against Tom Walker

and everybody. I have no idea what it is worth, but when I squeeze your

arm _so_, bid higher!"

He gave Tim's arm a clutch so tight that the boy started away from him,

saying, "Great Peter, don't pinch like that! You hurt! 'cause I'm in my

shirt sleeves."

"All right. I'll be more careful," Howard said. "Now begin, before Tom

has time to open the ball."

"Yes, but-er, what-er shall I bid?" Tim stammered.

"How do I know? It's Miss Smith's, and on that account valuable. Go in

with a dollar."

All this time Mr. Bills had been talking himself hoarse over the merits

of the apron, while his audience were watching Howard and Jack, with a

feeling of certainty that they were intending to bid, but they were not

prepared for Tim's one dollar, which startled every one and none more so

than his mother, who, having rolled up her spotted gown "in a _wopse_,"

as she said, and put it with her dish pan and towels, had come back in

time to hear Tim's astonishing bid. She could not see him for the crowd

in front of her, but she could make him hear, and her voice was shrill

and decided as she called out, "Timothy Biggs! Be you crazy? and where

are you to get your dollar, I'd like to know!"

"Tell mother to mind her business! I know what I'm about!" Tim said to

some one near him, while Mr. Bills rang the changes on that dollar with

astonishing volubility, and Tom kept his eyes on Jack for a signal to

raise.

Jack was taken by surprise, but readily understood that it was Howard

against whom he had to contend and not Tim.

"All right, old chap," he whispered, then looked full at Tom, who, eager

as a young race horse, shouted a dollar and a half!

"All right," Jack said again, and turned to Eloise on whose face there

was now some color, as she began to share in the general excitement

pervading the room and finding vent in laughter and cheers when Tom's

bid was raised to two dollars by Tim, and two and a quarter was as

quickly shrieked by Tom. Everybody now understood the contest and

watched it breathlessly, a great roar going up when Tim lost his head

and mistaking a slight movement of Howard's hand on his arm, raised his

own bid from three dollars to three and a half!

"That's right," Mr. Bills said; "you know a thing or two. We are getting

well under way. Never enjoyed myself so well in my life. Three and a

half! three and a half! Who says four?"

"I do," Tom yelled, his yell nearly drowned by the cheers of the

spectators, some of whom climbed on chairs and tables to look at Tom and

Tim standing, one next to Howard and the other next to Jack, with Eloise

the central figure, her ermine cape thrown back, and drops of sweat upon

her forehead and around her mouth.

She almost felt as if it were herself Howard and Jack were contending

for instead of her apron, which Mr. Bills was waving in the air like a

flag, with a feeling that he had nearly exhausted his vocabulary and

didn't know what next to say. Four dollars was a great deal for an

apron, he knew, but he kept on ringing the changes on the four

dollars,--a measly price for so fine an article, and for so good a cause

as a Public Library. And while he talked and repeated his _going,

going_, faster and faster, Tim stood like a hound on a leash fretting

for a sign to raise.

"You ain't goin' to be beat by Tom Walker, be you?" he said, in a

whisper to Howard, who gave him a little squeeze, with the words "Go

easy," spoken so low that Tim did not hear them, and at once raised the

four dollars to four and a half, while quick as lightning Tom responded

with five dollars.

Jack hadn't really looked at him, but it did not matter. He was going

to have the apron, and turning to Howard he said, "I don't know how long

you mean to keep this thing up. I am prepared to go on all night."

Howard felt sure he was and decided to stop, and his hand dropped from

Tim's shoulder quite to the disgust of that young man, who said, "You

goin' to let 'em lick us?"

"I think I'll have to," Howard replied, while "Five dollars, and going!"

filled the room until the final "Gone!" was spoken, and the people gave

gasps of relief that it was over.

"Sold for five dollars to Thomas Walker, who will please walk up to the

captain's office and pay," Mr. Bills said, handing the apron to Tom, who

held it awkwardly, as if afraid of harming it.

"I guess it's yourn," he said, giving it to Jack, who knew as little

what to do with it as Tom.

Ruby came to his aid and took it from him. She had watched the

performance with a great deal of interest, comprehending it perfectly

and feeling in a way sorry for Eloise, whose lips quivered a little when

she went up to her, and bending over her said, "You should feel

complimented, but I'm afraid you are very tired."

"Yes, very tired and warm. I want to get into the fresh air," Eloise

said, shivering as if she were cold instead of warm.

Jack had gone to the cashier's desk to pay for the apron, and Tom

undertook the task of getting the wheel chair through the crowd, running

against the people promiscuously, if they impeded his progress, and

caring little whom he hit if he got Eloise safely outside the door. The

night was at its best, almost as light as day, as they emerged from the

hot, close room, and Eloise drew long breaths of the cool air which blew

up fom the sea, the sound of whose waves beating upon the shore could be

heard even above the din of voices inside the building. The auction was

still going on, and Mr. Bills was doing his best, but the interest

flagged with the sale of the apron and the breaking up of the group

which had attracted so much attention. Even Mrs. Biggs's grandmother's

brass kettle, on which so many hopes were built, failed to create more

than a ripple, as Mr. Bills rang changes upon it both with tongue and

knuckles, and when his most eloquent appeals could not raise a higher

bid than ten cents, it was withdrawn by the disgusted widow, who put it

aside with her dish pan and towels and gown, and then went to find Tim

to take them home.

Howard had been called by Ruby into the room where Amy's dresses were

lying in the boxes just as they came, and asked what they were to do

with them.

"We could not offer them for sale, and she does not want them back," she

said.

"Send them to the Colonel. She'll never know it, and the chance is will

never think of them again," Howard said, and then hurried outside to

where Eloise was still waiting and talking to Tom.

"That apron went first rate," he said. "You must have felt glad they

thought so much of you, 'cause 'twas you and not the apron, though that

was pretty enough."

"Oh!" Eloise replied, drawing her ermine cape around her shoulders, "I

don't know whether I was glad or not. I felt as if I were being sold to

the highest bidder."

"That's so," Tom said. "It was something like it. Ain't you glad 'twas

Mr. Harcourt bought you instead of t'other?"

Eloise laughed as she replied, "Why, Thomas, it was _you_ who bought me!

Have you forgotten?"

She seemed so much in earnest that for a moment Tom thought she was, and

said, "You ain't so green as not to know that 'twas Mr. Harcourt eggin'

me on,--winkin' to me when to raise, and tellin' me to go high! You are

his'n, and I'm glad on't! I like him better than t'other; ain't so big

feelin'. Here they come, both on 'em."

Howard had finished his business with Ruby Ann, and Jack had paid his

five dollars and received the apron, slightly mussed, but looking fairly

well in the box in which they put it. A good many people were leaving

the rooms again, and among them Tim, laden with his mother's dish pan

and towels, and dress and brass kettle, and one or two articles which

she had bought.

"Hallo, Tim! You look some like a pack horse," Tom said, but Tim did not

answer.

He was very tired, for with so many calling upon him through the day and

evening; he had run miles and received only seventy cents for it. He was

chagrined that he had raised his own bid, and wondered Tom did not chaff

him. It would come in time, he knew, and he felt angry at Tom, and angry

with the brass kettle and dish pan and dress which kept him from

wheeling Eloise instead of Tom, who, when they finally started, took his

place behind the chair as a matter of course, while Howard and Jack

walked on either side. It was a splendid night, and when Mrs. Biggs's

house was reached Howard and Jack would gladly have lingered outside

talking to Eloise, if they could have disposed of the boys. But the boys

were not inclined to be disposed of. Tom had become somebody in his own

estimation, and intended to stay as long as the young men did, while

Tim, having found the key, this time instead of entering by the pantry

window, unlocked the door, deposited his goods, and then came back,

saying to Eloise with a good deal of dignity for him, "Shall I take you

in?"

"Yes, please. I think it's time," she said, and Howard and Jack knew

they were dismissed. "Thank you all so much for everything," she

continued, giving her hand to each of them in turn, and pressing Tom's a

little in token of the good feeling she felt sure was established

between them.

It was not long before Mrs. Biggs came home, rather crestfallen that her

spotted gown and brass kettle had not been more popular, but jubilant

over the sale, the proceeds of which, so far as known when she left,

were over two hundred and fifty dollars.

"Never was anything like it before in Crompton," she said, as she helped

Eloise to her bed lounge. "That apron sale beat all. Them young men

didn't care for the apron, of course, except that it was yours, and what

Mr. Harcourt will do with it I don't know. Said he was goin' to send it

to his sister. Maybe he is. He paid enough for it. Five dollars! I was

in hopes they'd run it up to ten! and I was sorry when 'twas over. Mr.

Bills kinder wilted after you all went out, and the whole thing flatted.

Well, good-night! You was the star! the synacure,--is that the word?--of

all eyes, and looked awful pretty in that white cape. I see you've got

Tom Walker, body and soul, but my land! you'd get anybody! Good-night,

again."

She was gone at last, and Eloise was glad to lay her tired head upon her

pillow, falling asleep nearly as soon as she touched it, but dreaming of

the Rummage Sale and that she was being auctioned off instead of her

apron. It was a kind of nightmare, and her heart beat fast as the bids

came rapidly,--sometimes on Howard's side and sometimes on Jack's. She

called him _Jack_ in her dreams, and finally awoke with a start, saying

aloud, "I am glad it was Jack who bought me!"

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The Rummage Sale was a great success and netted fully two hundred and

fifty dollars, besides quantities of goods of different kinds which were

left and given either to the poor or to the Charitable Society in

Crompton. The trunks containing Amy's dresses had been sent home without

Amy's knowledge, and deposited in the closet with Mandy Ann and Judy,

the Colonel swearing at first that he would have nothing pertaining to

Homer Smith so near him. The apron sale had been an absorbing topic of

conversation, the people wondering what Mr. Harcourt was going to do

with his purchase, and if he wouldn't give it back to Eloise. Nothing

was further from his thought. He had bought it to keep, and he laid it

away in the bottom of his trunk with the handkerchief Eloise had used

when he first called upon her.

He was growing more and more in love with her and more unwilling to

leave Crompton. He had already staid longer than he had at first

intended, but it did not need Howard's urgent invitation for him to

prolong his visit. Every day he went to Mrs. Biggs's, and sometimes

twice a day, and took Eloise out in her arm-chair for an airing,--once

as far as to the school-house where Ruby Ann still presided, and where

Eloise hoped soon to take up her duties. She was very happy, or would

have been if she could have heard from California. Every day she hoped

for news, and every day was disappointed, until at last nearly a week

after the Rummage a letter came forwarded by her grandmother from

Mayville. It was from a physician to whom Eloise had twice written with

regard to her mother, and this was his reply:

"Portland, Oregon, September --, 18--.

"My Dear Miss Smith:

"I left San Francisco several months ago and have been stopping in

several places, and that is why your letters were so long in reaching

me. They both came in the same mail, and I wrote to San Francisco to see

what I could learn with regard to your mother. It seems that the private

asylum of Dr. Haynes was broken up, as there were only three patients

when Mrs. Smith left, and it did not pay. Soon after your father died in

Santa Barbara, your mother was removed from the asylum by a gentleman

whose name I have thus far been unable to learn. I thought it must have

been some relative, but if you know nothing of it my theory is wrong.

Dr. Haynes went at once with his family to Europe, and is travelling on

the continent. His address is, Care of Munroe & Co., Bankers, 7 Rue

Scribe. Paris. Write him again, as he must know who took your mother

from his care. He may not be in Paris now, but your letter will reach

him in time. If there is anything I can do to help you, I will gladly do

it. If you were in San Francisco you might find some of the attendants

in the asylum, who could give you the information you desire.

"Yours, very truly,

"J.P. ALLING, M.D."

It was Ruby who brought the letter one evening two or three days before

Eloise expected to make her first appearance in school. Mrs. Biggs and

Tim were out and Eloise was alone. Tearing open the envelope, she read

it quickly, and then with the bitterest cry Ruby had ever heard, covered

her face with her hands and sobbed: "My mother! Oh, my mother!"

"Is she dead?" Ruby asked, and Eloise replied, "Worse than that,

perhaps. I don't know where she is. Read what it says."

She gave the letter to Ruby, who read it twice; then, sitting down by

Eloise and passing her arm around her, she said, "I don't understand

what it means. Was your mother in a lunatic asylum?"

"Oh, don't call it that!" Eloise answered. "It was a private asylum in

San Francisco,--very private and select, father said, but I never quite

believed her crazy. She was always quiet and sad and peculiar, and hated

the business, and so did I."

"What was the business?" Ruby asked, and Eloise answered hesitatingly,

as if it were something of which to be ashamed, "She sang in public with

a troupe,--his troupe. He made her. She was the star and drew big

houses, she was so beautiful and sang so sweetly, without any apparent

effort. It was just like a bird, and when she sang the Southern melodies

she seemed to be in a trance, seeing things we could not see. It made me

cry to hear her. I know many good women are public singers, but mother

shrank from it, and when they cheered like mad there used to be a

frightened look in her eyes, as if she wondered why they were doing it

and wanted to hide, and when she got to our rooms she'd tremble and be

so cold and cry, while father sometimes scolded and sometimes laughed at

her. He tried to make me sing once. I have a fair voice, but I rebelled

and said I'd run away before I'd do it. He was very angry, and sent me

North to my grandmother, saying I was too great an expense to keep with

him unless I would help, and was a hindrance to my mother, who was

always so anxious about me. It nearly killed her to part with me. I was

all the comfort she had, she said, and she always called me Baby. Father

was not kind to her, and it seemed as if he hated me, and was jealous of

mother's love for me. When I heard he was dead, I could not feel badly,

as I ought, and did not cry. He was a very handsome man, and very nice

with people, who thought my mother a most fortunate woman to have so

polished and courteous a husband. They should have seen him as I saw him

at times, and heard him swear, as I have heard him, and call her names

till she was white as a corpse and fainted. I never saw her turn upon

him but once. I had asked her why she didn't leave him and go home, if

she had any to go to. That was when I was a little girl.

"'I have no home or friends in all the wide world to go to' she said,

and then, with a sneer which was maddening, it meant so much, my father

said, 'Ask her who her father was and see if she can tell you.'

"I didn't know then what he meant to insinuate, but mother did, and

there came a look into her eyes which frightened me, and her voice was

not mother's at all, as she walked straight up to him and said, 'How

dare you insult my mother!'

"She looked like an enraged animal, and my father must have been afraid

she would attack him, for he tried to soothe her and succeeded at last

in doing so. I think there was some mystery about her father and mother,

as she would never talk of them. Once I asked her about them, and she

said she hadn't any; and she looked so strange that I never asked her

again. I knew she was born South, that her people were poor, and her

name Harris, and that is all I know, except that no better or lovelier

woman ever lived, and if she is really crazy father made her so, and I

cannot feel any love for him, or respect. If I ever had any, and I

suppose I must have had, he killed it long ago. The first thing I

remember of him in Rome, where I was born, he was practising some music

with mother,--playing for her while she sang, and I was standing by him,

putting my hands on his arm and trying to hum the tune. With a jerk he

said to my nurse, 'Take her away and keep her away.'

"I am wicked, I know, to talk as I am doing, but it seems as if there

was a spell over me urging me to say things I never thought of saying.

It's a comfort to talk to some one who I know is my friend, and you are

so strong every way and have been so good to me."

She laid her head on Ruby's arm like a tired child, and continued, "I

wrote to mother very often after I came to Mayville, and she replied,

telling me how she missed me, and how she always fixed her eyes on some

part of the house, fancying she saw me, and was singing to me, and I

used to listen nights and think I heard her grand voice as it rose and

fell, and the people cheering, and she so beautiful standing there for

the crowd to gaze at, and wishing she could get away from it all.

"At last her letters ceased and father wrote that her mind had given way

suddenly;--that she was a raving maniac,--dangerous, I think he

said,--and I thought of the way she looked at him once when I was a

child, and he told me to ask her about her father. He said she was in

Dr. Haynes's private asylum, where she had the kindest of care. I think

I died many deaths in one when I heard that. I wrote her again and

again, and wanted to go to her, but my father forbade it. No one saw

her, he said, except her attendant and the physician,--not even himself,

as the sight of him threw her into paroxysms. I didn't wonder at that.

He sent my letters back, telling me she would not sense them, and they

would excite her if she did. Her only chance of recovery was in her

being kept perfectly quiet, with nothing to remind her of the past.

"A few months ago he died suddenly in Santa Barbara. One of the troupe

wrote to grandma, and, as I told you, I did not cry; I couldn't. I was

too anxious about mother, and wrote at once to Dr. Haynes, but received

no answer. I waited a while and wrote again, with the same result. Then

I remembered Dr. Alling, who had attended me for some slight ailment,

and wrote to him, with the result you know. Some one has taken my mother

away. Who was it, and where is she? I feel as if I were going mad when I

think of the possibilities."

She pressed her hands to her head and rocked to and fro, while Ruby

tried to quiet and comfort her.

"I must go to San Francisco and find my mother. I would start

to-morrow, lame as I am, only I haven't the money, and grandma hasn't

it, either," she said. "Father made a great deal of money at times, but

he spent it as freely. Always stopped at the best hotels; had a suite of

rooms, with our meals served in them; drank the costliest wines, and

smoked the most expensive cigars, and bought mother such beautiful

dresses. I did not fare so well. Anything was good enough for me after I

refused to sing in public, and that was an added source of trouble to my

mother. I was always a bone of contention and it was, perhaps, as well

in some respects that I was sent away, only mother missed me so. I was

so glad to get this school, because it would give me something for my

mother, whom I hoped to bring home before long. And now, I don't know

where she is, but I must find her. Oh, what shall I do?"

It was not often that Eloise talked of herself and her affairs. At

school in Mayville she had been very reticent with regard to her past,

and had seldom mentioned either her father or her mother. With Mrs.

Biggs she had been equally silent, and, try as she would, the good woman

had never been able to learn anything beyond what Eloise had first told

her,--that her father was dead and her mother in California;--in a

sanitarium, Mrs. Biggs had finally decided, and let the matter drop,

thinking she should some time know "if there was anything to know." Ruby

Ann had from the first seemed to Eloise like one to be trusted, and she

felt a relief in talking to her, and said more than she had at first

intended to say.

For a moment Ruby was silent, while Eloise's head lay on her arm and

Eloise's hand was holding hers. She was thinking of the piano she

wanted to buy, the money for which was in the Crompton bank. There was a

struggle in her mind, and then she said, "I can loan you the money. I

know you will pay it back if you live, and if you don't, no matter. I

will not call it a loss if it does you any good."

At first Eloise demurred, longing to accept the generous offer, and

fearing that she ought not. But Ruby overcame her scruples.

"Naturally I shall keep your place in school, so I owe you something for

the business, don't you see?" she said.

Eloise did not quite see, but she yielded at last, for her need was

great.

"I don't think I'd tell Mrs. Biggs all the sad story, unless you want

the whole town to know it. Tell her you have had bad news from your

mother, and are going to her," Ruby suggested, when at last she said

good-night and went out, just as Mrs. Biggs came in.

"Goin' away! Goin' to Californy! Your mother sick! What's the matter,

and how under the sun are you goin' alone, limpin' as you do? I knew

Ruby Ann would manage to keep the school if she once got it!" were some

of Mrs. Biggs's exclamations when told Eloise was to leave her.

Eloise parried her questions very skilfully, saying nothing except that

her mother needed her and she was going to her, and Mrs. Biggs left her

more mystified than she had ever been in her life, but resolved "to get

at the bottom if she lived."

That night Eloise, who was now sleeping in the chamber to which she had

first been taken, sat a long time by her window, looking out upon the

towers and chimneys of Crompton Place, which were visible above the

trees in the park, and wondering at the feeling of unrest which

possessed her, and her unwillingness to leave.

"If I could only see him once more before I go," she thought, the "him"

being Jack, who, with Howard Crompton, was in Worcester, attending a

musical festival.

Not to see him was the saddest part of leaving Crompton, and for a

moment hot tears rolled down her cheeks,--tears which, if Jack could

have seen and known their cause, would have brought him back from

Worcester and the prima donna who that night was entrancing a crowded

house with her song. Dashing her tears away, Eloise's thoughts reverted

to Amy, who had been so kind to her.

"I hoped to thank her in person," she said, "but as that is impossible,

I must write her a note for Tim to take in the morning, together with

the chairs."

The note was written, and in it a regret expressed that Eloise could not

have seen her.

"Maybe when she reads it she will call upon me to-morrow," she thought,

as she directed the note, and that night she dreamed that Amy came to

her, with a face and voice so like her mother's that she woke with a

start and a feeling that she had really seen her mother, as she used to

stand before the footlights, while the house rang with thunders of

applause.

CHAPTER II

THE LITTLE RED CLOAK

Col. Crompton was in a bad way, both mentally and bodily. The pain in

his gouty foot had extended to his knee, and was excruciating in the

extreme; but he almost forgot it in the greater trouble in his mind. In

the same mail which had brought Eloise's letter from California there

had been one for him, which in the morning Peter had taken from the

postman and examined carefully, until he made out its direction.

"Mister Kurnel Krompton, of Krompton Plais, Krompton, Massachusetts."

So much room had been taken up on one side of the envelope with the

address, that half of "Massachusetts" was on the other side, and Peter's

memory instantly went back to years before, when a letter looking like

this and odorous with bad tobacco had come to the Colonel. He had a copy

of the letter still, and could repeat it by heart, and knew that it was

from Jake Harris,--presumably the "Shaky" for whom the little girl

Eudora had cried so pitifully. This was undoubtedly from the same

source. "What can he want now? and what will the Colonel say?" he

thought, as he took the letter to his master's room.

"A letter for you, sir," he said, putting it down upon the table by the

Colonel's chair, and then lingering on the pretence of adjusting a

curtain and brushing up the hearth, but really waiting to see what

effect the letter would have.

It was different from what he expected. With one glance at the

superscription, the Colonel grew deathly pale, and his hands shook so

that the letter dropped upon the floor. Peter picked it up and handed it

to him, saying, "Can I help you, sir?"

"Yes, by leaving me, and holding your tongue! There's the devil to pay!"

was the answer.

Peter was accustomed to hearing of his master's debts in that direction,

and to being told to hold his tongue, and he answered, "All right, sir,"

and left the room. For some moments the Colonel sat perfectly still, his

heart beating so fast that he could scarcely breathe. Then he opened

Jake's letter, and read as follows:

"Palmetto Clarin', Oct. --, 18--.

"Mister Kurnel Krompton,

"Deer Sir:

"Glory to God. I'se done sung all day for his mussy in lettin' me heer

from lil Miss Dory onc't mo' an' 'noin' she ain't ded as I feared she

was. Mas'r Minister Mason, who done 'tended the funeral of t'other Miss

Dory done tole me how she's livin' with you, an' a lil off in her mind.

The lam'! What happened her, I wonder? Her granny, ole Miss Lucy, was

quar. All the Harrises was quar. Mebby she got it from them. A site of

me will cure her sho'. Tell her I'se comin' to see her as soon as I hear

from you that it is her, sho'. Thar might be some mistake, an' I doan'

want to take the long journey for nothin', 'case I'm ole, tho' I feels

mighty peart now wid de news. Rite me wen you git this. I shall wait

till I har, an' then start to onc't.

"Yours to command,

"JAKE HARRIS."

"P.S.--Mandy Ann, you 'members her, what took care of lil chile. She's a

grown woman now in course, an' has ten chillen, 'sides Ted. You 'members

Ted, on de 'Hatty.' No 'count at all; but Mandy Ann, wall, she's a

whopper, an' when she hears de nuse, she 'most had de pow'. She sen's

her regrets, an' would come, too, if she hadn't so many moufs to feed,

an' Ted doin' nothin' but playin' gemman.

"Onc't mo', yours,

"JAKE."

To describe the Colonel's state of mind as he read this letter is

impossible. He forgot the pain in his leg and knee in the greater

sensation of the cold, prickly feeling which ran through his veins,

making his fingers feel like sticks, and powerless to hold the letter,

which dropped to the floor. With every year he had hugged closer and

closer the secret of his life, becoming more and more morbid and more

fearful, lest in some way his connection with the palmetto clearing

should be known and he fall from the high pedestal on which he had stood

so long, and from which his fall would be greater because he had been

there so long. It would all be right after he was dead. He had seen to

that, and didn't care what the world would say when he was not alive to

hear it. But he was very much alive now, and his sin bade fair to find

him out.

"Just as I feared when that rector told me who his father was," he

thought, cursing the chance which had sent the Rev. Arthur Mason to

Crompton,--cursing the Rev. Charles for giving information to Jake,--and

cursing Jake for the letter, which he spurned with his well foot, as it

lay on the floor. He had hoped the negro might be dead, as he had heard

nothing from him in a long time; and here he was, alive and waiting for

a word to come. "If he waits for that he will wait to all eternity," he

said to himself. "I shall write and make it worth his while to stay

where he is. He knows too much of Amy's birth and her mother's death to

be trusted here. Uncertainty is better than the truth. I have made

matters right for Amy, and confessed everything. They'll find it when

I'm gone, and can wag their tongues all they please. It won't hurt me

then, but while I live I'll keep up the farce. It might have been better

to have told the truth at first, but I didn't, and it's too late now.

Who in thunder is that knocking at the door? Not Amy, I hope,--and I

can't reach that letter," he continued, as there came a low rap at the

door.

"Come in!" he called, when it was repeated, and Cora, the housemaid,

entered.

She had been in the family but a few days and did not yet understand her

duties with regard to the Colonel, and know that she was not to trouble

him. Tim Biggs had been commissioned by Eloise to take her note to Mrs.

Amy, together with the chairs.

"You can't carry both at one time, so take the sea this morning, and the

wheel this afternoon," Mrs. Biggs said, just as Tom Walker appeared.

He had been to the house two or three times since the Rummage,

ostensibly to ask when Eloise was going to commence her duties as

teacher, but really to see her and hear her pleasant "Good-morning,

Thomas, I am glad to see you."

Whatever Mrs. Biggs knew was soon known to half of District No. 5, and

the news that Eloise was going to California had reached Tom, and

brought him to inquire if it were true.

"And won't you come back?" he asked, with real concern on his homely

face.

"Perhaps so. I hope so," Eloise replied, and he continued, "I'm

all-fired sorry you are goin', because,--well, because I am; and I wish

I could do something for you."

"You can," Eloise said. "You can take the wheel chair back to the

Crompton House and save Tim one journey."

Tom cared very little about saving Tim, but he would do anything to

serve Eloise, and the two boys were soon on their way, quarrelling some

as they went, for each was jealous of the other's attention to the

"little schoolmarm," as they called her. Tom reached the house first,

but Tim was not far behind, and both encountered Cora, who bade them

leave the chairs in the hall, while she inquired as to their

disposition. Had Peter been in sight she might have consulted him, but

he was in the grounds, and, entering the Colonel's room she said, "If

you please, sir, what shall I do with the chairs?"

"What chairs?" the Colonel asked, and Cora replied, "A sea chair, I

think, and a wheel chair, which Tom Walker and Tim Biggs have just

brought home."

"My sea chair, and my wheel chair! How in thunder can that be, when I'm

sitting in the wheel, and how came Tom Walker, the biggest rascal in

town, by my chairs, or Tim Biggs either?" the Colonel exclaimed; and

Cora replied, "I think they said the schoolma'am had them. Here's a note

from her to Mrs. Amy."

Since his last attack of the gout the Colonel had in a measure forgotten

Eloise, and ceased to care whether she were rooted and grounded in the

fundamentals or not. That Howard and Jack had been in the habit of

calling upon her he did not suspect, and much less that for the last two

weeks or more she had been enjoying his sea chair, and the fruit and

flowers sent her with Mrs. Amy's compliments. At the mention of her he

roused at once.

"That girl had my chair! How the devil came she by it? A note for Mrs.

Amy! Give it to me, and pick up that paper on the floor and go!"

Cora was not long in obeying, and the irascible old man was again alone.

First tearing Jake's letter in strips, he turned Eloise's note over in

his hand, and read, "Mrs. Amy Smith, Crompton Place." The name "Smith"

always made him angry, and he repeated it with a quick shutting together

of his teeth.

"Smith!" he said, "I can't abide it! And what has she to say to Mrs.

Smith?"

The note was not sealed, and without the least hesitancy he opened it

and read, commenting as he did so.

"My dear Mrs. Smith." (Her dear Mrs. Smith! I like that.) "I am going

away (Glad to hear it) and I wish to thank you for the many things you

have sent me. (The deuce she has! I didn't know it.) The pretty hat I

want to keep, with the slippers, which remind me of my mother.

(Slippers,--remind her of her mother, who, I dare say, never wore

anything but big shoes, and coarse at that," the Colonel growled, and

read on.) The chairs I return, with my thanks for them, and the fruit

and flowers and books. I would like so much to see you, and thank you

personally, but as this cannot be I must do it on paper. Be assured I

shall never forget your kindness to me, a stranger.

"Your very truly,

"E.A. SMITH."

"Smith again! E.A. Smith!" the Colonel said. "Why couldn't she write her

whole name? E.A., ELIZA ANN, of course! That's who she is, ELIZA ANN

SMITH!"

If there was one name he disliked as much as he did Smith, it was Eliza

Ann, and he repeated it again: "ELIZA ANN SMITH! Fruit and flowers and

books, and shoes and my sea chair and a wheel chair sent to her by Amy!

Where did she get the wheel, I'd like to know? I don't believe it!" he

added, as a sudden light broke upon him. "It's that dog Howard's work,

and that other chap."

Ringing the bell which stood on the table beside him, he bade Cora, who

appeared, to send Mrs. Amy to him. Amy had not slept well, and was more

easily confused than usual, but she came and asked what he wanted. It

did not occur to him to give her the note, which he kept in his hand

while he said, in a much softer tone than that in which he had been

talking to himself, "Have you sent things to Eliza Ann Smith,--fruit and

flowers and books, and my sea chair and a wheel chair, and a bonnet and

shoes, and the Lord knows what else?"

Amy was bewildered at once.

"Eliza Ann Smith!" she repeated. "I don't know her. Who is she?"

"Why, the girl that jammed a hole in Brutus's neck and stained the

cushions of my carriage, and broke her leg at Mrs. Biggs's," the Colonel

replied.

At the mention of Mrs. Biggs, Amy's face brightened. Since the day after

the accident, when she sent the hat and slippers, Eloise had not been

mentioned in her presence, and she had entirely forgotten her. Now she

was all interest again, and said, "Oh, yes; I remember now, Poor girl! I

did send her a hat and some slippers, which I hated because I wore them

when I sang. Did they fit her?"

"Lord Harry! How do I know? It isn't likely your shoes would fit her.

They would be a mile too small!" the Colonel said, and Amy asked, "Does

she want anything?"

"No," the Colonel replied. "Somebody has sent her flowers and chairs and

books and things. She thought it was you and wished to thank you."

"It was not I, and I am sorry I forgot her," Amy rejoined, as she turned

to leave him, with a confused feeling in her brain, and a pang of regret

that she had perhaps neglected the little girl at Mrs. Biggs's.

Once the Colonel thought to call her back and give her the note. Then,

thinking it did not matter, he let her go without it. Just what

influence was at work in Amy's mind that morning it were difficult to

tell. Whatever it was, it prompted her on her return to her room to take

the little red cloak from the closet where it was kept and examine it

carefully. It had been the best of its kind when it was bought, and,

though somewhat faded and worn, had withstood the ravages of time

wonderfully. It had encircled her like a friend, both when she was sad

and when she was gay. It had been wrapped around the Baby, of whom she

never thought without a pang and a blur before her eyes. It was the

dearest article she had in her wardrobe, and because of that and because

she had been so forgetful, she would send it to Eliza Ann Smith!

"But not for good," she said to Sarah, who was commissioned to take it

to Eloise the next morning. "She can keep it till she is well. Somebody

told me she had a sprained ankle. I had one once, and I put it across my

lap and foot, it was so soft and warm. Tell her I am sorry I forgot

about her. I am not always quite myself."

* * * * *

"Sent that old red cloak she's had ever since she was knee high! I

shouldn't s'pose there'd be a rag of it left! She must be crazy as a

loon to-day," was Mrs. Biggs's comment, when Sarah told her errand.

"What possessed her?"

Sarah only knew that her mistress was more dazed than usual that

morning, and had insisted upon her bringing the cloak.

"I think it rattled her when the chairs came back. She didn't know

anything about 'em, nor the Colonel either," Sarah said.

Mrs. Biggs laughed, and replied, "I didn't s'pose they did. Them young

men, I b'lieve, was at the bottom of it, and I or'to have told Miss

Smith to send her thanks to them, but I wasn't quite sure about the sea

chair. So I let it slide, thinkin' it was a good joke on 'em to thank

Amy. They pretended the things was from her."

Taking the cloak from the girl, she carried it into the room where

Eloise had fallen asleep, with her foot resting upon a hassock, and a

shawl thrown over it. Removing the shawl and putting the red cloak in

its place, Mrs. Biggs stole noiselessly out, saying to herself, "I guess

she'll wonder where that came from when she wakes up."

CHAPTER III

ELOISE AT THE CROMPTON HOUSE

For an hour or more Eloise slept on, and then awoke suddenly and saw the

scarlet cloak across her foot. At first it was the color which attracted

her. Then taking it in her hands she began to examine it, while drops of

sweat came out upon her forehead and under her hair. She knew that

cloak! She had worn it many and many a time when she was a child. She

had seen her mother fold and pack it far more carefully, when they were

starting on a starring tour, than she did the fine dresses she wore on

the stage.

"It is my mother's, but how came it here?" she thought, as she took it

into the kitchen where she heard Mrs. Biggs at her work. "Where did you

get my mother's cloak?" she asked.

Mrs. Biggs, who always washed on Saturdays, had just put Tim's shirt

through the wringer. Holding it at arm's length with one hand and

steadying herself on the side of the tub with the other, she stared

blankly at Eloise for a moment, and then said, "Your mother's cloak!

Child alive, that's Mrs. Amy's. I've seen her wear it a hundred times

when she was a little girl. She has got on a spell of givin' this

mornin', and sent it to you by Sarah. She's kep' it well all these

years. What ails you?" she continued, as Eloise's face grew as white as

the clothes in Mrs. Biggs's basket.

Ray after ray of light was penetrating her mind, making her wonder she

had not seen it before, and bringing a possibility which made her brain

reel for a moment.

"Sit down," Mrs. Biggs continued, "and tell me why you think this is

your mother's cloak."

"I know it is," Eloise answered. "I have worn it so many times, and once

I tore a long rent in the lining and mother darned it. It is

here,--see!"

She showed the place in the silk lining where a tear had been and was

mended.

"For the Lord's sake, who be you?" Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, still

flourishing Tim's shirt, which she finally dropped back into the tub,

and in her excitement came near sitting down in a pail of bluing water

instead of a chair.

"I am Eloise Albertina Smith, and my father was Homer Smith, and my

mother was Eudora Harris from Florida, and sang in concerts, and lost

her mind, and was in a private asylum in San Francisco, and my father

died, and a strange man took her out a few months ago. I did not know

where she was, and was going to California to find her. I believe your

Mrs. Amy is she, and I am going to the Crompton House to inquire!"

"For Heaven's sake!" was Mrs. Biggs's next ejaculation. "Harris was

Amy's name before she was called Crompton, and her name is Amy Eudora,

too; but I never heard she had a girl."

"Yes, she had, and I am that girl," Eloise said, "and I am going up

there now, right off!"

"You can't walk," Mrs. Biggs suggested. "That ankle would turn before

you got half way there. If you must go,--and I believe I would,--Tim

will git a rig from the livery. Here, Tim," she called, as she heard him

whistling in the woodshed, "run to Miller's and git a carriage and a

span, quick as you can,--a good one, too," she added, as the possibility

grew upon her that Eloise might belong to the Cromptons, and if so,

ought to go up in style.

It did not take long for Tim to execute his mother's order, and the best

turn-out from Miller's stable soon stood before the door.

"I b'lieve I'll go, too. The washin' will keep, and this won't," the

widow said, beginning to change her work-dress for a better one.

Eloise was too much excited to care who went with her, and with Mrs.

Biggs she was soon driving up the broad avenue under the stately maples

to the door of the Crompton House. Peter saw the carriage, and thinking

it came from town with callers on Amy, went out to say she could not see

them, as she was not feeling well and was lying down.

"But I must see her," Eloise said, alighting first and brushing past

him, while he stood open-mouthed with surprise.

"She thinks she is Amy's girl, and, I swan, I begin to think so, too,"

Mrs. Biggs said, trying to explain and getting things a good deal mixed,

and so bewildering the old man that he paid no attention to Eloise, who,

with the cloak on her arm, was in the hall and saying to a maid who met

her, "Take me to Mrs. Amy."

All her timidity was gone, as she gave the order like one who felt

perfectly at home.

"Mrs. Amy is asleep, and I don't like to disturb her. She is unusually

nervous this morning. Will you see the Colonel instead?" the girl said,

awed by Eloise's air of authority.

"My business is with Mrs. Amy, but perhaps I'd better see Col. Crompton

first," she replied.

Mrs. Biggs and Peter were in the house by this time, and heard what

Eloise was saying.

"Better not," Peter began. "I don't know as you can see him. You stay

here. I'll inquire."

He started up the stairs, followed by Eloise, who had no idea of staying

behind.

"Wait," he said, motioning her back as he reached the Colonel's door,

and saw her close beside him. "Let me go in first."

He left the door ajar and walked into the room where the Colonel was

sitting just as he had sat the morning before, when Jake's letter and

Eloise's note were brought to him. He had not slept at all during the

night, and was in a trembling condition, with a feeling of numbness in

his limbs which he did not like.

"Well?" he said sharply, as Peter came in, and he saw by his face that

something had happened. "What's up now?"

"Nothing, but Miss Smith, the teacher," Peter replied. "She wants to see

you."

"Miss Smith, the normal? Do you mean Eliza Ann? Tell her to go away. I

can't see anybody," the Colonel said.

"I'll tell her, but I'm afraid she won't go," Peter replied, starting

for the door, through which a little figure came so swiftly as nearly to

knock him down, and Eloise, who had forgotten her lameness, stood before

the astonished Colonel, her face glowing with excitement, and her eyes

shining like stars as she confronted him.

Old as he was, the Colonel was not insensible to female beauty, and the

rare loveliness of this young girl moved him with something like

admiration, and made his voice a little softer as he said, "Are you

Eliza Ann Smith? What do you want?"

"I am not Eliza Ann," Eloise answered quickly. "I am Eloise Albertina

Smith. My father was Homer Smith; my mother was Eudora Harris, from

Florida, a concert singer, till she lost her mind and was put in a

private asylum in San Francisco. You took her out, and she is here. You

call her Mrs. Amy. She never told me of you. I don't know why. She never

talked much of her girlhood. I don't think she was very happy. She sent

me this cloak, and that's how I knew she was here. I have worn it many

times when a child. I knew it in a moment, and I have come to see her.

Where is she?"

This was worse than Jake's letter, and every nerve in the Colonel's body

was quivering with excitement, and he felt as if a hundred prickly

sensations were chasing each other up and down his arms and legs, and

making his tongue thick as he tried to call for Peter. Succeeding at

last, he said faintly, "Take this girl away before she kills me."

"I shall not go," Eloise rejoined, "until I see my mother. I tell you

she is my mother. Has she never spoken of me?"

"Never," the Colonel answered. "She has talked of a baby who died, and

you are not dead."

"No, but I am Baby,--her pet name for me always. Why she should think me

dead, I don't know. Send for her, and see if she does not know me."

She had come close to the trembling old man, and put one of her hands

on his cold, clammy one. He didn't shake it off, but looked at her with

an expression in his eyes which roused her sympathy.

"I don't mean any harm," she said. "I only want my mother. Send for her,

please."

There was a motion of assent toward Peter, who left the room,

encountering Mrs. Biggs outside the door. There was too much going on

for her not to have a hand in it, and she stood listening and waiting

till Amy came down the hall, her white cashmere wrapper trailing softly

behind her, and her hair coiled under a pretty invalid cap. She had been

roused from a sound sleep, which had cleared her brain somewhat, and

when told the Colonel wished to see her, she rose at once and started to

go to him, fearing he was worse. He heard her coming, and braced himself

up. Eloise heard her, and, with her head thrown back and her hands

clasped together, stood waiting for her. For a moment Amy did not see

her, so absorbed was she in the expression of the Colonel, who was

watching her intently. When at last she did see her, she started

suddenly, while a strange light leaped into her eyes. Then a wild, glad

cry of "Baby! Baby!" rang through the room, and was answered by one of

"Mother! Mother!" as the two women sprang to each other's arms.

Amy was the first to recover herself. Turning Eloise around and

examining her minutely, she said, "I thought you dead. He told me so,

and everything has been a blank to me since."

"You see she is my mother!" Eloise said to the Colonel; "and if she is

your daughter, you must be my grandfather!"

If the Colonel had been carved in stone he could not have sat more

motionless than he did, giving no sign that he heard.

"No matter! I shall find it all out for myself," Eloise continued, as

she turned again to her mother, who was examining the red cloak as if

she wondered how it came there.

The mention of "finding it out" affected the Colonel more than anything

else had done. Amy had said the same thing to him once. She had not

found it out, but this slip of a girl would, he was sure, and with

something like a groan he sank back in his chair with a call for Peter.

"Take them away," he said huskily. "I can't bear any more,

and,--and,--the girl must stay, if Amy wants her, and bring me a

hot-water bag,--two of them,--I was never so cold in my life."

Peter nodded that he understood, and, ringing the bell for Amy's maid,

bade her take her mistress to her room, and the young lady, too. "She is

Mrs. Amy's daughter," he added.

There was no need to tell this, for Mrs. Biggs had done her duty, and

every servant in the house had heard the news and was anxious to see the

stranger. Amy was always at her best in her own room, where Sarah left

her alone with Eloise, and hastened away to gossip with Mrs. Biggs and

Peter. The shock, instead of making Amy worse, had for the time being

cleared her brain to some extent, so that she was able to talk quite

rationally to Eloise, whose first question was why she had thought her

dead. "I was so homesick for you, and cried so much after you went away

that he was angry and hard with me,--very hard,--and I said at last if

he didn't send for you I'd never sing again, and meant it, too," Amy

replied. "It was at Los Angeles on a concert night. I must have been

pretty bad, and he seemed half afraid of me, and finally told me you

were dead, and had been for three weeks, and that he had meant to keep

it from me till the season was over. I believed him, and something

snapped in my head and let in a pain and noise which have never left it;

but they will now I have found you. I went before the footlights once

that night, and the stage was full of coffins in which you lay, and I

saw the little grave in the New England cemetery where he said you were

buried. At last I fainted, and have never sung again. They were very

kind to me at Dr. Haynes's, where he came often to see me till I heard

he was dead. I was not sorry; he had been so,--so--I can't explain."

"I know," Eloise said, remembering her father's manner toward this weak,

timid woman, who went on: "Then Col. Crompton came and brought me home.

I used to live here years ago and called him father, till he said he was

not my father. I never told you of him, or that this was once my home,

although I described the place to you as something I had seen. If he

were not my father I did not want to know who was, and did not want to

talk about it, and after I married Mr. Smith it was very dreadful. He

hated the Colonel when he found he could not get money from him, and

sometimes taunted me with my birth, saying I was a Harris and a Cracker;

but the cruelest of all was telling me you were dead. Why did he do it?"

"I think your fretting for me irritated him, and he feared you might

never sing again unless he sent for me, and he did not want me," Eloise

said. "He never wanted me. He was a bad man, and I could not feel sorry

when he died."

"You needn't," Amy exclaimed excitedly, and, getting up she began to

walk the floor as she continued, "It is time things were cleared up. I

am not afraid of him now, although I was when he was living. He broke

all the spirit I had, till the sound of his voice when he was angry made

me shake. Thank God he was not your father! there has been a lie all the

time, and that wore upon me. Your father,--Adolph Candida,--is lying in

the Protestant burying-ground in Rome."

Grasping her mother's arm Eloise cried, "Oh, mother, what is this you

are saying, and why have I never heard it before?"

Amy had been tolerably clear in her conversation up to this point, but

she was getting tired, and it was a long, rambling story she told, with

many digressions and much irrelevant matter, but Eloise managed to

follow her and get a fairly correct version of the truth. Candida, whom

Amy loved devotedly, and with whom she had been very happy, had died

after a brief illness when Eloise was an infant. Homer Smith, the

handsome American, who had attached himself to the Candidas, was very

kind to the young widow, whom he induced to marry him, and to let her

little girl take his name.

"I don't know why I did that," Amy said; "only he always made me do what

he pleased, and he pretended to love you so much, and he didn't want his

friends to know he was my second husband when he came to America. I

couldn't understand that, but I yielded, as I did in everything. He

seemed to hate the name of Candida, and was jealous of him in his

grave, and would never let me speak of him. I think he was crazy, and

he said I was, and shut me up. He once wrote to Col. Crompton for money

and got a dreadful letter, telling him to go to that place where I am

afraid he has gone, and saying I was welcome to come home any time, if I

would leave the singing master. There was a bad word before the

'singing,' which I can't speak. I meant to go home some time and take

you with me. I hated the stage, and the pain got in my head, and I

forgot so many things after he said you were dead, but never forgot you,

although I didn't talk about you much. I couldn't, for a bunch came in

my throat and choked me, and my head seemed to open and shut on the top

when I thought of you. Col. Crompton has been very kind to me since I

came. I think now he is my father. I asked him once, and he said, No. I

believed him then, and accepted in my mind some Mr. Harris, for I knew

my mother was a true woman. We will find it all out, you and I."

"Yes," Eloise replied, "and the pain will go away, and you will tell me

more of my own father. I know now why I never could feel a daughter's

love for the other one. Does grandmother know? She was always kind to

me, and I love her."

Amy shook her head, and said, "I think not, but am not sure. It will be

clearer by and by. I must sleep now."

When she was tired she always slept, and, adjusting the cushions on the

sofa, Eloise made her lie down, and spread over her the little red cloak

which had been the means of bringing them together.

"Yes, that's right. Cover me with the dear old cloak Jakey gave me,"

Amy said sleepily. "You'll help me find him."

Eloise didn't know who Jakey was, or what connection he had with the

cloak; but she answered promptly, "Yes, I'll help you find him and

everything."

Thus reassured, Amy fell asleep, while Eloise sat by her until startled

by the entrance of Mrs. Biggs. That worthy woman had been busy telling

the servants everything she knew about Eloise since she came to

Crompton, and that she had always mistrusted she was somebody out of the

common. Then, as Eloise did not appear, and the carriage from Miller's

was still waiting at a dollar and a half an hour, it occurred to her

that if Eloise should not prove to be somebody out of the common she

would have to pay the bill, as she had ordered the turn-out. Going to

Amy's room, she walked in unannounced, and asked, "Be you goin' home

with me, or goin' to stay?"

"I don't know what I am to do," Eloise said, starting to her feet.

Amy decided for her. Mrs. Biggs had roused her, and, hearing what was

wanted, she protested so vehemently against Eloise's leaving her even

for an hour, that Mrs. Biggs departed without her, thinking to herself

as she rode in state behind the fleet horses, "It beats the Dutch what

luck some folks have. I've lost my boarder, and Ruby Ann has got the

school, just as I knew she would, and mebby I'll have to pay for the

rig. I wonder how long I've had it."

CHAPTER IV

THE SHADOW OF DEATH

This was on Saturday, and by Monday the whole town of Crompton, from

District No. 5 to the village on the seashore, was buzzing with the news

told eagerly from one to another. The young girl who had sprained her

ankle while coming to take charge of the school in District No. 5 had,

it was told, turned out to be the daughter of Mrs. Amy, and was at the

Crompton House with her mother, who had thought her dead. This some

believed and some did not, until assured by Mrs. Biggs, who, having done

her washing on Saturday, was free on Monday to call upon her neighbors

and repeat the story over and over, ending always with, "I mistrusted

from the first that she was somebody."

The second piece of news was scarcely less exciting, but sad. After his

interview with Eloise, the Colonel had complained of nausea and

faintness, and had gone early to bed. Before going, however, he had

asked if Eliza Ann were still in the house. An idea once lodged in his

brain was apt to stay, and Eliza Ann had taken too strong a hold upon

his senses to be easily removed.

"Bring her here," he said.

She came at once and asked what she could do for him.

"Sit down," he said. "You seem to be lame."

He had evidently forgotten about the accident, and Eloise did not remind

him of it, but sat down while he catechised her with regard to what she

had told him of herself. Some of his comments on Homer Smith were not

very complimentary, and this emboldened Eloise to tell him who her real

father was.

"Thank God!" he said emphatically. "I'm glad you are not that rascal's,

and because you are not you can stay with Amy and fare as she fares. But

why did she think you dead?"

Eloise told him all she thought necessary to tell him, while his face

grew purple with anger, and his clenched fists beat the air as if

attacking an imaginary Homer Smith.

"It's a comfort to know, if there is a God--and I know there is--he is

getting his deserts," he said. Then, as his mood changed, he continued,

"And you are the little normal I didn't want, and you board with Mrs.

Biggs?"

"Yes," Eloise replied. "I am the normal you did not want, and I board

with Mrs. Biggs, where I heard a great deal of Mrs. Amy, as they call

her. I must have a slow, stupid mind, or I should have suspected who she

was. I never heard the name Harris connected with her. If I had I should

have known. It is so clear to me now."

The Colonel looked at her a moment, and then said, "If you are Amy's

daughter you are a Harris, and they are queer, with slow minds,--and now

go. I am infernally tired, and cannot keep up much longer."

He moved his hand toward her, and Eloise took it and pressed it to her

lips.

"D-don't," the Colonel said, but held fast to the soft, warm hand

clasping his. "If one's life could roll back," he added, more to himself

than to Eloise, as his head dropped wearily upon his breast, and he

whispered, "I am sorry for a great deal. God knows I am sorry. Call

Peter."

The old servant came and got him to bed, and sat by him most of the

night. Toward morning, finding that he was sleeping quietly, he, too,

lay down and slept until the early sun was shining into the room. Waking

with a start, he hurried to his master's side, to find him with

wide-open eyes full of terror as he tried to ask what had happened to

him. All power to move except his head was gone, and when he tried to

talk his lips gave only inarticulate sounds which no one could

understand.

"Paralysis," the doctor said when summoned. "I have expected it a long

time," he continued, and would give no hope to Amy and Eloise, who

hastened to the sick-room.

The moment they came in the Colonel's eyes brightened, and when Amy

stooped and kissed him he tried to kiss her back. Then he fixed his eyes

on Eloise with a questioning glance, which made her say to him, "Do you

know me?"

He struggled hard for a moment, and then replied, "Yesh, 'Lisha Ann!

Stay!" and those were the only really intelligible words he ever spoke.

They telegraphed to Worcester for Howard, and learning that he was in

Boston, telegraphed there, and found him at the Vendome. "Come at once.

Your uncle is dying," the telegram said, and Howard read it with a

sensation for which he hated himself, and which he could not entirely

shake off. He tried to believe he did not want his uncle to die, but if

he did die, what might it not do for him, the only direct heir, if Amy

were not a lawful daughter? And he did not believe she was. She had not

been adopted, and he had never heard of a will, and before he was aware

of it a feeling that he was master of Crompton Place crept over him. Amy

would live there, of course, just as she did now, even if he should

marry, as he might, and there came up before him the memory of a rainy

night and a helpless little girl sitting on a mound of stones and dirt

and crying with fear and pain. He had seen Jack's interest in Eloise

with outward indifference, but with a growing jealousy he was too proud

to show. He admired her greatly, and thought that under some

circumstances he might love her. As a Crompton he ought to look higher,

and if he proved to be the heir it would never do to think of her even

if Jack were not in his way. All this passed like lightning through his

mind as he read the telegram and handed it to Jack, who, he insisted,

should return with him to Crompton.

"I feel awfully shaky, and I want you there if anything happens," he

said, while Jack, whose first thought had been that he would be in the

way, was not loath to go.

Eloise was in Crompton, and ever since he left it, a thought of her had

been in his mind.

"If I find her as sweet and lovely as I left her, I'll ask her to be my

wife, and take her away from Mrs. Biggs," he was thinking as the train

sped on over the New England hills toward Crompton, which it reached

about two P.M.

Peter was at the station with Sam, and to Howard's eager questions

answered, "Pretty bad. No change since morning. Don't seem to know

anybody except Mrs. Amy and Miss Eloise. She's with him all the time,

and he tries to smile when she speaks to him."

"Who?" both the young men asked in the same breath, and Peter told them

all he knew of the matter during the rapid drive to the house.

Howard was incredulous, and made Peter repeat the story twice, while his

brain worked rapidly with a presentiment that this new complication

might prove adverse to him.

"What do you think of it?" he asked Jack, who replied, "I see no reason

to doubt it," and he was conscious of a pang of regret that he had not

asked Eloise to be his wife before her changed circumstances.

"She would then know that I loved her for herself, and not for any

family relations," he thought.

He had no doubt that Amy was Col. Crompton's daughter, and if so,

Eloise's position would be very different from what it had been.

"I'll wait the course of events, as this is no time for love-making," he

decided, as they drove up to the door, from which the doctor was just

emerging.

"Matter of a few hours," he said to Howard. "I am glad you have come.

Evidently he wants to see you, or wants something, nobody can make out

what. You have heard the news?"

Howard bowed, and entering the house, ran up to his uncle's room. The

Colonel was propped on pillows, laboring for breath, and trying to

articulate words impossible to speak, while, if ever eyes talked, his

were talking, first to Amy and then to Eloise, both of whom were beside

him, Amy smoothing his hair and Eloise rubbing his cold hands.

They had been with him for hours, trying to understand him as he

struggled to speak.

"There is something he wants to tell us," Eloise said, and in his eyes

there was a look of affirmation, while the lips tried in vain to frame

the words, which were only gurgling sounds.

What did the dying man want to say? Was he trying to reveal a secret

kept so many years, and which was planting his pillow with thorns? Was

he back in the palmetto clearing, standing in the moonlight with Dora,

and exacting a promise from her which broke her heart? No one could

guess, and least of all the two women ministering to him so

tenderly,--Amy, because she loved him, and Eloise, because she felt that

he was more to her than a mere stranger. She was very quiet and

self-contained. The events of the last two days had transformed her from

a timid girl into a fearless woman, ready to fight for her own rights

and those of her mother. Once when Amy was from the room a moment she

bent close to the Colonel and said, "You are my mother's father?"

There was a choking sound and an attempt to move the head which Eloise

took for assent.

"Then you are my grandfather?" she added.

This time she was sure he nodded, and she said, "It will all be right.

You can rest now," but he didn't rest.

There was more on his mind which he could not tell.

"I believe it is Mr. Howard," Eloise thought, and said to him, "He is

coming on the next train. I hear it now. He will soon be here. Is that

what you want?"

The dying man turned his head wearily. There was more besides Howard he

wanted, but when at last the young man came into the room, his eyes

shone with a look of pleased recognition, and he tried to speak a

welcome. In the hall outside Jack was waiting, and as Eloise passed out

he gave her his hand, and leading her to a settee, sat down beside her,

and told her how glad he was for the news he had heard of her, but

feeling the while that he did not know whether he were glad or not. She

had never looked fairer or sweeter to him than she did now, and yet

there was a difference which he detected, and which troubled him. It

would have been easy to say "I love you," to the helpless little

school-teacher at Mrs. Biggs's, and he wished now he had done so, and

not waited till she became a daughter of the Crompton House, as he

believed she was. Now he could only look his love into the eyes which

fell beneath his gaze, as he held her hand and questioned her of the

Colonel's sudden attack, and the means by which she had discovered her

relationship to Amy.

Again he repeated, "I am so glad for you," and might have said more if

Howard had not stepped into the hall, his face clouded and anxious.

"He wants you, I think," he said to Eloise. "At least he wants

something,--I don't know what."

Eloise went to him at once, and again there was a painful effort to

speak. But whatever he would say was never said, and after a little the

palsied tongue ceased trying to articulate, and only his eyes showed

how clear his reason was to the last. If there was sorrow for the past,

he could not express it. If thoughts of the palmetto clearing were in

his mind, no one knew it. All that could be guessed at was that he

wanted Amy and Eloise with him.

"Call him father. I think he will like it," Eloise said to her mother,

while Howard looked up quickly, and to Peter, who was present, it seemed

as if a frown settled on his face as a smile flickered around the

Colonel's mouth at the sound of the name Amy had not given him since she

came from California.

All the afternoon and evening they watched him, as his breathing grew

shorter and the heavy lids fell over the eyes, which, until they closed,

rested upon Amy, who held his hand and spoke to him occasionally,

calling him father, and asking if he knew her. To the very last he

responded to the question with a quivering of the lids when he could no

longer lift them, and when the clock on the stairs struck twelve, the

physician who was present said to Eloise, "Take your mother away; he is

dead."

CHAPTER V

LOOKING FOR A WILL

For three days the Colonel lay in the great drawing-room of the Crompton

House, the blinds of which were closed, while knots of crape streamed

from every door, and the servants talked together in low tones,

sometimes of the dead man and sometimes of the future, wondering who

would be master now of Crompton Place. Speculation on this point was

rife everywhere, and on no one had it a stronger hold than on Howard

himself. He would not like to have had it known that within twenty-four

hours after his uncle's death he had gone through every pigeon-hole and

nook in the Colonel's safe and private drawers, and turned over every

paper searching for a will, and when he found none, had congratulated

himself that in all human probability he was the sole heir. He was very

properly sad, with an unmistakable air of ownership as he went about the

place, giving orders to the servants. To Amy he paid great deference,

telling the undertaker to ask what she liked and abide by her decisions.

And here he was perfectly safe. With the shock of the Colonel's death

Amy had relapsed into a dazed, silent mood, saying always, "I don't

know; ask Eloise," and when Eloise was asked, she replied, "I have been

here too short a time to give any orders. Mr. Howard will tell you."

Thus everything was left to him, as he meant it should be, stipulating

that Eloise meet the people who came, some to offer their sympathy, and

more from a morbid curiosity to see whatever there was to be seen. This

Eloise did with a dignity which surprised herself, and if Howard were

the master, she was the mistress, and apparently as much at home as if

she had lived there all her life. Ruby was the first to call. She had

not seen Eloise since the astounding news that she was Amy's daughter.

"I am so glad for you," she said, and the first tears Eloise had shed

sprang to her eyes as she laid her head on Ruby's arm, just as she had

done in the days of her trouble and pain.

Mrs. Biggs came, too,--very loud in her protestations of delight and

assertions that she had always known Eloise was above the common.

Never since the memorable lawn party many years ago had there been so

great a crowd in the house and grounds as on the day of the funeral. In

honor of his memory, and because he had given the school-house to the

town, the school was closed, and the pupils, with Ruby Ann at their

head, marched up the avenue with wreaths of autumn leaves and bouquets

of flowers intended for the grave. The Rev. Arthur Mason read the burial

service, and as he glanced at the costly casket, nearly smothered in

flowers, and at the crowd inside and out, he could not keep his thoughts

from his father's description of another funeral, where the dead woman

lay in her cheap coffin, with Crackers and negroes as spectators; and

only a demented woman, a little child, and black Jake and Mandy Ann as

mourners. The mourners here were Amy and Howard, Eloise and Jack, and

next to him a plain-looking, elderly woman, who, Mrs. Biggs told every

one near her, was old Mrs. Smith, Eloise's supposed grandmother from

Mayville.

Eloise had sent for her, and while telling the story of deception and

wrong which had been practised so long, and to which the mother listened

with streaming eyes, she had said, "But it makes no difference with us.

You are mine just the same, and wherever I live in the future, you are

to live, too, if you will."

Mrs. Smith had smiled upon the young girl, and felt bewildered and

strange in this grand house and at this grand funeral, unlike anything

she had ever seen. It seemed like an endless line of carriages and foot

passengers which followed the Colonel to the grave, and when the

services were over, a few friends of the Colonel, who had come from a

distance, returned to the house, and among them Mr. Ferris, the lawyer,

who had been the Colonel's counsel and adviser for years, and managed

his affairs. This was Howard's idea. He could not rest until he knew

whether there was in the lawyer's possession any will or papers bearing

upon Amy. When lunch was over he took the old man into his uncle's

library, and said, hesitatingly, "I do not want to be too hasty, but it

is better to have such matters settled, and if I have no interest in the

Crompton estate I must leave, of course. Did my uncle leave a will?"

Lawyer Ferris looked at him keenly through his glasses, took a huge

pinch of snuff, and blew a good deal of it from him and some in Howard's

face, making him sneeze before he replied, "Not that I know of; more's

the pity. I tried my best to have him make one. The last time I urged it

he said, 'There's no need. I've fixed it. Amy will be all right.' I was

thinking of her. If there is no will, and she wasn't adopted and wasn't

his daughter, it's hard lines for her."

"But she was his daughter," came in a clear, decided voice, and both the

lawyer and Howard turned to see Eloise standing in the door.

Rain was beginning to fall, and she had come to close a window, with no

thought that any one was in the library, until she heard the lawyer's

last words, which stopped her suddenly. Where her mother was concerned

she could be very brave, and, stepping into the room, she startled the

two men with her assertion, "She was his daughter."

"He told me so," she continued.

"He did? When?" Howard asked, and Eloise replied, "I asked him, and his

eyes looked yes, and when I said, 'You are my grandfather?' I was very

sure he nodded. I know he meant it."