MISS HARDING'S MISTAKE
Miss Rachel Harding kept on her way to Washington Park. It was less than
a mile from her brother's house, and though she walked slowly, she got
there a quarter of an hour before the time.
She sat down on a seat near the center of the park, and began to look
around her. Poor Rachel! her heart beat quicker than it had done for
thirty years, as she realized that she was about to meet one who wished
to make her his wife.
"I hope he won't be late," she murmured to herself, and she felt of the
blue ribbon to make sure that she had not forgotten it.
Meanwhile Jack reached the park, and from a distance surveyed with
satisfaction the evident nervousness of his aunt.
"Ain't it rich?" he whispered to himself.
Rachel looked anxiously for the gentleman with the red rose pinned to
his coat.
She had to wait ten minutes. At last he came, but as he neared her seat,
Rachel felt like sinking into the earth with mortification when she
recognized in the wearer a stalwart negro. She hoped that it was a mere
chance coincidence, but he approached her, and raising his hat
respectfully, said:
"Are you Miss Harding?"
"What if I am?" she demanded, sharply. "What have you to do with me?"
The man looked surprised.
"Didn't you send word to me to meet you here?"
"No!" answered Rachel, "and I consider it very presumptuous in you to
write such a letter to me."
"I didn't write you a letter," said the negro, astonished.
"Then what made you come here?" demanded the spinster.
"Because you wrote to me."
"I wrote to you!" exclaimed Rachel, aghast.
"Yes, you wrote to me to come here. You said you'd wear a blue ribbon on
your neck, and I was to have a rose pinned to my coat."
Rachel was bewildered.
"How could I write to you when I never saw you before, and don't know
your name. Do you think a lady like me would marry a colored man?"
"Who said anything about that?" asked the other, opening his eyes wide
in astonishment. "I couldn't marry, nohow, for I've got a wife and four
children."
Rachel felt ready to collapse. Was it possible that she had made a
mistake, and that this was not her unknown correspondent, Daniel?
"There is some mistake," she said, nervously. "Where is that letter you
thought I wrote? Have you got it with you?"
"Here it is, ma'am."
He handed Rachel a letter addressed in a small hand to Daniel Thompson.
She opened it and read:
"Mr. Thompson: I hear you are out of work. I may be able to give
you a job. Meet me at Washington Park, Tuesday afternoon, at four
o'clock. I shall wear a blue ribbon round my neck, and you may have
a red rose pinned to your coat. Otherwise I might not know you.
"RACHEL HARDING."
"Some villain has done this," said Rachel, wrathfully. "I never wrote
that letter."
"You didn't!" said Daniel, looking perplexed. "Who went and did it,
then?"
"I don't know, but I'd like to have him punished for it," said Rachel,
energetically.
"But you've got a blue ribbon," said Mr. Thompson. "I can't see through
that. That's just what the letter said."
"I suppose somebody wrote the letter that knew I wear blue. It's all a
mistake. You'd better go home."
"Then haven't you got a job for me?" asked Daniel, disappointed.
"No, I haven't," said Rachel, sharply.
She hurriedly untied the ribbon from her neck, and put it in her pocket.
"Don't talk to me any more!" she said, frowning. "You're a perfect
stranger. You have no right to speak to me."
"I guess the old woman ain't right in her head!" thought Daniel. "Must
be she's crazy!"
Poor Rachel! she felt more disconsolate than ever. There was no Daniel,
then. She had been basely imposed upon. There was no call for her to
sacrifice herself on the altar of matrimony. She ought to have been
glad, but she wasn't.
Half an hour later a drooping, disconsolate figure entered the house of
Timothy Harding.
"Why, what's the matter, Rachel?" asked Martha, who noticed her
woe-begone expression.
"I ain't long for this world," said Rachel, gloomily. "Death has marked
me for his own."
"Don't you feel well this afternoon, Rachel?"
"No; I feel as if life was a burden."
"You have tired yourself with walking, Rachel. You have been out twice
to-day."
"This is a vale of tears," said Rachel, hysterically. "There's nothin'
but sorrow and misfortune to be expected."
"Have you met with any misfortune? I thought fortune was smiling upon us
all."
"It'll never smile on me again," said Rachel, despondently.
Just then Jack, who had followed his aunt home, entered.
"Have you got home so quick, Aunt Rachel?" he asked. "How did you enjoy
your walk?"
"I shall never enjoy anything again," said his aunt, gloomily.
"Why not?"
"Because there's nothing to enjoy."
"I don't feel so, aunt. I feel as merry as a cricket."
"You won't be long. Like as not you'll be took down with fever
to-morrow, and maybe die."
"I won't trouble myself about it till the time comes," said Jack. "I
expect to live to dance at your wedding yet, Aunt Rachel."
This reference was too much. It brought to Rachel's mind the Daniel to
whom she had expected to link her destiny, and she burst into a dismal
sob, and hurried upstairs to her own chamber.
"Rachel acts queerly to-day," said Mrs. Harding. "I think she can't be
feeling well. If she don't feel better to-morrow I shall advise her to
send for the doctor."
"I am afraid it was mean to play such a trick on Aunt Rachel," thought
Jack, half repentantly. "I didn't think she'd take it so much in
earnest. I must keep dark about that letter. She'd never forgive me if
she knew."
For some days there was an added gloom on Miss Rachel's countenance, but
the wound was not deep; and after a time her disappointment ceased to
rankle in her too sensitive heart.