CHAPTER I.

Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, Josephine

Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

BESSIE'S FORTUNE.

A Novel.

MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,

AUTHOR OF

TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.--DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.--MILBANK.--ENGLISH

ORPHANS.--LENA RIVERS.--ETHELYN'S MISTAKE.--HUGH

WORTHINGTON.--MADELINE.--WEST LAWN.--MARIAN GREY--EDNA BROWNING, ETC.

NEW YORK:

_G.W. Dillingham, Publisher_,

SUCCESSOR TO G.W. CARLETON & CO.

LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.

MDCCCLXXXVIII.

TO MY NEPHEW,

WALTER H. TWICHELL

(OF WORCESTER. MASS.)

I DEDICATE THIS STORY OF BESSIE,

WHICH WILL REMIND HIM OF A HAPPY YEAR IN EUROPE.

CONTENTS

PART I.

I. The Jerrolds of Boston

II. Grey Jerrold

III. Lucy

IV. Thanksgiving Day at Grey's Park

V. The Old Man and the Boy

VI. Miss Betsey McPherson

VII. The Dinner at Which Bessie is Introduced

VIII. After The Dinner

IX. The Horror at the Farm-House

X. The Interview

XI. At the Old Man's Bedside

XII. The Story

XIII. Facing it

XIV. The Effect of the Story

XV. Grey and the Secret

XVI. Expecting Bessie

PART II.

I. Stoneleigh

II. The McPhersons

III. At Monte Carlo

IV. Little Bessie

V. At Penrhyn Park

VI. Seven Years Later

VII. Neil's Discomforture

VIII. Jack and Bessie

IX. Christmas at Stoneleigh

X. Grey

XI. Christmas Day

XII. The Contract

XIII. The New Grey

XIV. Miss McPherson and the Letter

XV. From January to March

XVI. From March to June

XVII. Mrs. Rossiter-Browne

XVIII. The Birds which sang, and the shadows which Fell

XIX. What Grey and Jack Did

XX. What The McPhersons Did

XXI. What Daisy Did

PART III.

I. In Rome

II. Farewell

III. Dead

IV. Poor Daisy

V. Bessie's Decision

VI. In Liverpool

VII. On the Ship

VIII. Grey and his Aunt

IX. Bessie is Promoted

X. Bessie meets her Aunt

XI. Miss McPherson's Housemaid

XII. Bessie's Successor

XIII. Bessie goes to Grey's Park

XIV. Telling Bessie

XV. Wedding Bells

XVI. Bessie's Fortune

XVII. Old Friends

XVIII. Home again

XIX. Joel Rogers' Monument

XX. After Five Years

BESSIE'S FORTUNE.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

THE JERROLDS OF BOSTON.

Mrs. Geraldine Jerrold, of Boston, had in her girlhood been Miss

Geraldine Grey, of Allington, one of those quiet, pretty little towns

which so thickly dot the hills and valleys Of New England. Her father,

who died before her marriage, had been a sea-captain, and a man of great

wealth, and was looked upon as a kind of autocrat, whose opinion was a

law and whose friendship was an honor. When a young lady, Miss Geraldine

had chafed at the stupid town and the stupider people, as she designated

the citizens of Allington, and had only been happy when the house at

Grey's Park was full of guests after the manner of English houses, where

hospitality is dispensed on a larger scale than is common in America.

She had been abroad, and had spent some weeks in Derbyshire at the

Peacock Inn, close to the park of Chatsworth, which she admired so much

that on her return to Allington she never rested until the five acres of

land, in the midst of which her father's house stood, were improved and

fitted up as nearly as possible like the beautiful grounds across the

sea. With good taste and plenty of money, she succeeded beyond her most

sanguine hopes, and Grey's Park was the pride of the town, and the

wonder of the entire county. A kind of show place it became, and Miss

Geraldine was never happier or prouder than when strangers were going

over the grounds or through the house, which was filled with rare

pictures and choice statuary gathered from all parts of the world, for

Captain Grey had brought something curious and costly from every port at

which his vessel touched, so that the house was like a museum, or, as

Miss Geraldine fancied, like the palaces and castles in Europe, which

are shown to strangers in the absence of the family.

At the age of twenty-two, Miss Geraldine had married Burton Jerrold, a

young man from one of the leading banks in Boston, and whose father,

Peter Jerrold, had, for years, lived on a small farm a mile or more from

the town of Allington. So far as Geraldine knew, the Jerrold blood was

as good as the Grey's, even if old Peter did live a hermit life and wear

a drab overcoat which must have dated back more years than she could

remember. No one had ever breathed a word of censure against the

peculiar man, who was never known to smile, and who seldom spoke except

he was spoken to, and who, with his long white hair falling around his

thin face, looked like some old picture of a saint, when on Sunday he

sat in his accustomed pew by the door, and like the publican, seemed

almost to smite upon his breast as he confessed himself to be a

miserable sinner.

Had Burton Jerrold remained at home and been content to till the barren

soil of his father's rocky farm, not his handsome face, or polished

manners, or adoration of herself as the queen of queens, could have won

a second thought from Geraldine, for she hated farmers, who smelled of

the barn and wore cowhide boots, and would sooner have died than been a

farmer's wife. But Burton had never tilled the soil, nor worn cowhide

boots nor smelled of the barn, for when he was a mere boy, his mother

died, and an old aunt, who lived in Boston, took him for her own, and

gave him all the advantages of a city education until he was old enough

to enter one of the principal banks as a clerk; then she died and left

him all her fortune, except a thousand dollars which she gave to his

sister Hannah, who still lived at home upon the farm, and was almost as

silent and peculiar as the father himself.

"Marry one of the Grey girls if you can," the aunt had said to her

nephew upon her death bed. "It is a good family, and blood is worth more

than money; it goes further toward securing you a good position in

Boston society. The Jerrold blood is good, for aught I know, though not

equal to that of the Greys. Your father is greatly respected in

Allington, where he is known, but he is a codger of the strictest type,

and clings to everything old-fashioned and _outre_. He has resisted all

my efforts to have him change the house into something more modern, even

when, for the sake of your mother, I offered to do it at my own expense.

Especially was I anxious to tear down that projection which he calls a

lean-to, but when I suggested it to him, and said I would bring a

carpenter at once, he flew into such a passion as fairly frightened me.

'The lean-to should not be touched for a million of dollars; he

preferred it as it was,' he said; so I let him alone. He is a strange

man, and--and--Burton, I may be mistaken, but I have thought there was

something he was hiding. Else, why does he never smile, or talk, or look

you straight in the face? And why is he always brooding, with his head

bent down and his hands clenched together? Yes, there _is_ something

hidden, and Hannah knows it, and this it is which turned her hair grey

so early, and has made her as queer and reticent as your father. There

is a secret between them, but do not try to discover it. There may be

disgrace of some kind which would affect your whole life, so let it

alone. Make good use of what I leave you, and marry one of the Greys.

Lucy is the sweeter and the more amiable, but Geraldine is more

ambitious and will help you to reach the top."

This was the last conversation Mrs. Wetherby ever held with her nephew,

for in two days more she was dead, and Burton buried her in Mt. Auburn,

and went back to the house which was now his, conscious of three

distinct ideas which even during the funeral had recurred to him

constantly. First, that he was the owner of a large house and twenty

thousand dollars; second, that he must marry one of the Greys, if

possible; and third, that there was some secret between his father and

his sister Hannah; something which had made them what they were;

something which had given his father the name of the half-crazy hermit,

and to his sister that of the recluse; something which he must never try

to unearth, lest it bring disquiet and disgrace.

That last word had an ugly sound to Burton Jerrold, who was more

ambitious even than his aunt, more anxious that people in high positions

should think well of him, and he shivered as he repeated it to himself,

while all sorts of fancies flitted though his brain.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed at last, as he arose, and, walking to the

window, looked out upon the common, where groups of children were

playing. "There is nothing hidden. Why should there be? My father has

never stolen, or forged, or embezzled, or set any one's house on fire.

They esteem him a saint in Allington, and I know he reads his Bible all

the time when he is not praying, and once he was on his knees in his

bedroom a whole hour, for I timed him, and thought he _must_ be crazy.

Of course so good a man can have nothing concealed, and yet--"

Here Burton shivered again, and continued: "And yet, I always seem to be

in a nightmare when I am at the old hut, and once I told Hannah I

believed the house was haunted, for I heard strange sounds at night,

soft footsteps, and moans, and whisperings, and the old dog Rover howled

so dismally, that he kept me awake, and made me nervous and wretched, I

don't remember what Hannah said, except that she made light of my fears,

and told me that she would keep Rover in her room at night on the floor

by her bed, which she did ever after when I was at home. No, there is

nothing, but I may as well sound Hannah a little, and will go to her at

once."

When Mrs. Wetherby died, her nephew sent a message to his father and

sister, announcing her death, and the time of the funeral. He felt it

his duty to do so much, but he did not say to them, "Come, I expect

you." In fact, away down in his heart, there was a hope that they would

not come. His father was well enough in Allington, where he was known;

but, what a figure he would cut in Boston, in his old drab surtout and

white hat, which he had worn since Burton could remember. Hannah was

different, and must have been pretty in her early girlhood. Indeed, she

was pretty now, and no one could look into her pale, sad face, and soft

dark eyes, or listen to her low, sweet voice, without being attracted

to her and knowing instinctively that, in spite of her plain Quakerish

dress, she was a lady in the true sense of the word. So, when she came

alone to pay the last token of respect to the aunt who had never been

very gracious to her, Burton felt relieved, though he wished that her

bonnet was a little more fashionable, and suggested her buying a new

one, which he would pay for. But Hannah said "no," very quietly and

firmly, and that was the end of it. The old style bonnet was worn as

well as the old style cloak, and Burton felt keenly the difference

between her personal appearance and his own. He, the Boston dandy, with

every article of dress as faultless as the best tailor could make it,

and she, the plain countrywoman, with no attempt at style or fashion,

with nothing but her own sterling worth to commend her, and this was far

more priceless than all the wealth of the Indies. Hannah Jerrold had

been tried in the fire, and had come out purified and almost Christlike

in her sweet gentleness and purity of soul. She knew her brother was

ashamed of her--whether designedly or not, he always made her feel

it--but she had felt it her duty to attend her aunt's funeral, even

though it stirred anew all the bitterness of her joyless life.

And now the funeral was over, and she was going home that very

afternoon--to the gloomy house among the rocks, where she had grown old,

and her hair gray long before her time--going back to the burden which

pressed so heavily upon her, and from which she shrank as she had never

done before. Not that she wished to stay in that grand house, where she

was so sadly out of place, but she wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, so

that she escaped from the one spot so horrible to her. She was thinking

of all this and standing with her face to the window, when her brother

entered the room and began, abruptly:

"I say, Hannah, I want to ask you something. Just before Aunt Wetherby

died, she had a long talk with me on various matters, and among other

things she said she believed there was something troubling you and

father, some secret you were hiding from me and the world. Is it so? Do

you know anything which I do not?"

"Yes, many things."

The voice which gave this reply was not like Hannah's voice, but was

hard and sharp, and sounded as if a great ways off, and Burton could see

how violently his sister was agitated, even though she stood with her

back to him. Suddenly he remembered that his aunt had also said: "If

there is a secret, never seek to discover it, lest it should bring

disgrace." And here he was, trying to find it out almost before she was

cold. A great fear took possession of Burton then, for he was the

veriest moral coward in the world, and before Hannah could say another

word, he continued:

"Yes, Aunt Wetherby was right. There is something; there has always been

something; but don't tell me, please, I'd rather not know."

He spoke very gently for him, for somehow, there had been awakened

within him a great pity for his sister, and by some sudden intuition he

seemed to understand all her loneliness and pain. If there had been a

wrongdoing it was not her fault; and as she still stood with her back to

him, and did not speak, he went up to her, and laying his hand upon her

shoulder, said to her:

"I regret that I asked a question which has so agitated you, and,

believe me, I am sorry for you, for whatever it is, you are innocent."

Then she turned toward him with a face as white as ashes and a look of

terror in her large black eyes, before which he quailed. Never in his

life, since he was a little child, had he seen her cry, but now, after

regarding him fixedly a moment, she broke into such a wild fit of

sobbing that he became alarmed, and passing his arm around her, lead her

to a seat and made her lean her head upon him, while he smoothed her

heavy hair, which was more than half gray, and she was only three years

his senior.

At last she grew calm, and rising up, said to him:

"Excuse me, I am not often so upset--I have not cried in years--not

since Rover died," here her voice trembled again, but she went on quite

steadily. "He was all the companion I had, you know, and he was so

faithful, so true. Oh, it almost broke my heart when he died and left me

there alone!"

There was a world of pathos in her voice, as she uttered the last two

words, "There alone," and it flashed upon Burton that there was more

meaning in them than was at first indicated; that to live there alone

was something from which his sister recoiled. Standing before her, with

his hand still upon her head, he remembered, that she had not always

been as she was now, so quiet and impassive, with no smile upon her

face, no joy in her dark eyes. As a young girl, in the days when he,

too, lived at home, and slept under the rafters in the low-roofed house,

she had been full of life and frolic, and played with him all day long.

She was very pretty then, and her checks, now so colorless, were red as

the damask roses which grew by the kitchen door, while her wavy hair was

brown, like the chestnuts they used to gather from the trees, in the

rocky pasture land. It was wavy still, and soft and luxurient, but it

was iron grey, and she wore it plain, in a knot at the back of her head,

and only a few short hairs, which would curl about her forehead in spite

of her, softened the severity of her face. Just when the change began in

his sister. Burton could not remember, for, on the rare occasions when

he visited his home he had not been a close observer, and had only been

conscious of a desire to shorten his stay as much as possible, and

return to his aunt's house, which was much more to his taste. He should

die if he had to live in that lonely spot, he thought, and in his newly

awakened pity for his sister, he said to her, impulsively:

"Don't go back there to stay. Live with me. I am all alone, and must

have some one to keep my house. Von and I can get on nicely together."

He made no mention of his father, and he did not half mean what he said

to his sister, and had she accepted his offer he would have regretted

that it had ever been made. But she did not accept it, and she answered

him at once:

"No, Burton, so long as father lives I must stay with him, and you will

be happier without than with me. We are not at all alike. But I thank

you for asking me all the same, and now it is time for me to go, if I

take the four o'clock train. Father will be expecting me."

Burton went with her to the train, and saw her into the car, and bought

her _Harper's Monthly_, and bade her good-by, and then, in passing out,

met and lifted his hat to the Misses Grey, Lucy and Geraldine, who had

been visiting in Boston, and were returning to Allington.

This encounter drove his sister from his mind, and made him think of his

aunt's injunction to marry one of the Greys. Lacy was the prettier and

gentler of the two, the one whom everybody loved, and who would make him

the better wife. Probably, too, she would be more easily won than the

haughty Geraldine, who had not many friends. And so, before he reached

his house on Beacon street, he had planned a matrimonial campaign and

carried it to a successful issue, and made sweet Lucy Grey the mistress

of his home.

It is not our purpose to enter into the details of Burton's wooing.

Suffice it to say, that it was unsuccessful, for Lucy said "No," very

promptly, and then he tried the proud Geraldine, who listened to his

suit, and, after a little, accepted him, quite as much to his surprise

as to that of her acquaintances, who knew her ambitious nature.

"Anything to get away from stupid Allington," she said to her sister

Lucy, who she never suspected had been Burton's first choice. "I hate

the country, and I like Boston, and like Mr. Jerrold well enough. He is

good-looking, and well-mannered, and has a house and twenty thousand

dollars, a good position in the bank, and no bad habits. Of course, I

would rather that his father and sister were not such oddities: but I am

not marrying them, and shall take good care to keep them in their

places, which places are not in Boston."

And so the two were married, Burton Jerrold and Geraldine Grey, and

there was a grand wedding, at Grey's Park, and the supper was served on

the lawn, where there was a dance, and music, and fireworks in the

evening; and Sam Lawton, a half-witted fellow, went up in a balloon, and

came down on a pile of rocks on the Jerrold farm, and broke his leg; and

people were there from Boston, and Worcester, and Springfield, and New

York, but very few from Allington, for the reason that very few were

bidden. Could Lucy have had her way, the whole town would have been

invited; but Geraldine overruled her, and made herself life-long enemies

of the people who had known her from childhood. Peter Jerrold staid at

home, just as Burton hoped he would, but Hannah was present, in a new

gray silk, with some old lace, and a bit of scarlet ribbon at her

throat, and her hair arranged somewhat after the fashion of the times.

This was the suggestion of Lucy Grey, who had more influence over Hannah

Jerrold than any one else in the world, and when she advised the new

silk, and the old lace, and the scarlet ribbon, Hannah assented readily,

and looked so youthful and pretty, in spite of her thirty years, that

the Rev. Mr. Sanford, who was a bachelor, and had preached in Allington

for several years, paid her marked attention, helping her to ices, and

walking with her for half an hour on the long terrace in a corner of the

park.

There was a trip to Saratoga, and Newport, and the Catskills, and then,

early in September, Burton brought his bride to the house on Beacon

street, which Geraldine at once remodeled and fitted up in a style

worthy of her means, and of the position she meant her husband to

occupy. He was a growing man, and from being clerk in a bank, soon came

to be cashier, and then president, and money and friends poured in upon

him, and Geraldine's drawing-rooms were filled with the elite of the

city. The fashionables, the scholars, the artists, and musicians, and

whoever was in any degree famous, met with favor from Mrs. Geraldine,

who liked nothing better than to fill her house with such people, and

fancy herself a second Madame De Stael, in her character as hostess. All

this was very pleasing to Burton, who, having recovered from any

sentimental feeling he might have entertained for Lucy, blessed the good

fortune which gave him Geraldine instead. He never asked himself if he

loved her; he only knew that he admired, and revered, and worshiped her

as a woman of genius and tact; that what she thought, he thought; what

she wished, he wished; and what she did he was bound to say was right,

and make others think so too. There had been a condescension on her part

when she married him, and she never let him forget it; while he, too,

mentally acknowledged it, and felt that, for it, he owed her perfect

allegiance, from which he never swerved.

CHAPTER II.

GREY JERROLD.

Just a year after the grand wedding at Grey's Park, there was born to

Burton and Geraldine a little boy, so small and frail and puny, that

much solicitude would have been felt for him had there not been a

greater anxiety for the young mother, who went so far down toward the

river of death that every other thought was lost in the great fear for

her. Then the two sisters, Hannah and Lucy, came, the latter giving all

her time to Geraldine, and the former devoting herself to the feeble

little child, whose constant wail so disturbed the mother that she

begged them to take it away where she could not hear it cry, it made her

so nervous.

Geraldine did not like children, and she seemed to care so little for

her baby that Hannah, who had loved it with her whole soul the moment

she took it in her arms and felt its soft cheek against her own, said to

her brother one day:

"I must go home to-morrow, but let me take baby with me. His crying

disturbs your wife, who hears him however far he may be from her room.

He is a weak little thing, but I will take the best of care of him, and

bring him back a healthy boy."

Burton saw no objection to the plan, and readily gave his consent,

provided his wife was willing.

Although out of danger, Geraldine was still too sick to care for her

baby, and so it went with Hannah to the old home among the rocks, where

it grew round and plump, and pretty, and filled the house with the music

of its cooing and its laughter, and learned to stretch its fat hands

toward the old grandfather, who never took it in his arms, or laid his

hands upon it. But Hannah once saw him kneeling by the cradle where the

child was sleeping, and heard him whisper through his tears:

"God bless you, my darling boy, and may you never know what it is to sin

as I have sinned, until I am not worthy to touch you with my finger.

Oh, God forgive and make me clean as this little child."

Then Hannah knew why her father kept aloof from his grandson, and pitied

him more than she had done before.

It was the first of October before Geraldine came up to Allington to

claim her boy, of whom she really knew nothing.

Only once since her marriage had she been to the farm-house, and then

she had driven to the door in her handsome carriage with the

high-stepping bays, and had held up her rich silk dress as she passed

through the kitchen into the "best room," around which she glanced a

little contemptuously.

"Not as well furnished as my cook's room," she thought, but she tried to

be gracious, and said how clean every thing was, and asked Hannah if she

did not get very tired doing her own work, and praised the dahlias

growing by the south door, and ate a few plums, and drank some water,

which she said was so cold that it made her think of the famous well at

Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight.

"Your well must be very deep. Where is it?" she asked, not because she

cared, but because she must say something.

On being told it was in the woodshed she started for it, and mistaking

the door, was walking into a bedroom, when she was seized roughly by her

father-in-law, whose face was white as ashes, and whose voice shook, as

he said:

"Not in there; this is the way."

For an instant Geraldine looked at him in surprise he seemed so

agitated; then, thinking to herself that probably his room was in

disorder, and the bed unmade, she dismissed it from her mind, and went

to investigate the well, whose water tasted like that at Carisbrooke

Castle.

Half an hour in all she remained at the farm-house, and that was the

only time she had honored it with her presence until the day when she

came to take her boy away.

Not yet fully recovered from her dangerous illness, she assumed all the

airs of an invalid, and kept her wraps around her, and shrank a little

when her husband put her boy in her lap, and asked her if he was not a

beauty, and did not do justice to Hannah's care, and the brindle cow

whose milk he had fed upon. And in truth he was a healthy, beautiful

child, with eyes as blue as the skies of June, and light chestnut hair,

which lay in thick curls upon his head. But he was strange to Geraldine,

and she was strange to him, and after regarding her a moment with his

great blue eyes, he turned toward Hannah, and with a quivering lip began

to cry for her. And Hannah took him in her arms and hugging him to her

bosom, felt that her heart was breaking. She loved him so much, he had

been so much company for her, and had helped to drive away in part, the

horror with which her life was invested, and now he was going from her;

all she had to love in the wide world, and so far as she knew, the only

living being that loved her with a pure, unselfish love.

"Oh, brother! oh, sister!" she cried, as she covered the baby's dimpled

hands with kisses, "don't take him from me; let me have him; let him

stay awhile longer. I shall die here alone with baby gone."

But Mrs. Geraldine said "No," very decidedly, for though as yet she

cared but little for her child, she cared a great deal for the

proprieties, and her friends were beginning to wonder at the protracted

absence of the boy; so she must take him from poor Hannah, who tied on

his scarlet cloak and cap of costly lace, and carried him to the

carriage and put him into the arms of the red-haired German woman who

was hereafter to be his nurse and win his love from her.

Then the carriage drove off, but, as long as it was in sight, Hannah

stood just where it had left her, watching it with a feeling of such

utter desolation as she had never felt before.

"Oh, baby, baby! come back to me!" she moaned piteously. "What shall I

do without you?"

"God will comfort you, my daughter. He can be more to you than baby

was," the old father said to her, and she replied:

"I know that. Yes, but just now I cannot pray, and I am so desolate."

The burden was pressing more heavily than ever, and Hannah's face grew

whiter, and her eyes larger, and sadder, and brighter as the days went

by, and there was nothing left of baby but a rattle-box with which he

had played, and the cradle in which he had slept. This last she carried

to her room up stairs and made it the shrine over which her prayers were

said, not twice or thrice, but many times a day, for Hannah had early

learned to take every care, great and small, to God, knowing that peace

would come at last, though it might tarry long.

Geraldine sent her a black silk dress, and a white Paisley shawl in

token of her gratitude for all she had done for the baby. She also wrote

her a letter telling of the grand christening they had had, and of the

handsome robe from Paris which baby had worn at the ceremony.

"We have called him Grey," Geraldine wrote, "and perhaps, he will visit

you again next summer," but it was not until Grey was two years old,

that he went once more to the farm-house and staid for several months,

while his parents were in Europe.

What a summer that was for Hannah, and how swiftly the days went by,

while the burden pressed so lightly that sometimes she forgot it for

hours at a time, and only remembered it when she saw how persistently

her father shrank from the advances of the little boy, who, utterly

ignoring his apparent indifference, pursued him constantly, plying him

with questions, and sometimes regarding him curiously, as if wondering

at his silence.

One day, when the old man was sitting in his arm-chair under the apple

trees in the yard, Grey came up to him, with his straw hat hanging down

his back, his blue eyes shining like stars, and all over his face that

sweet smile which made him so beautiful. Folding his little white hands

together upon his grandfather's knee, he stood a moment gazing fixedly

into the sad face, which never relaxed a muscle, though every nerve of

the wretched man was strung to its utmost tension and quivering with

pain. The searching blue eyes of the boy troubled him, for it seemed as

if they pierced to the depths of his soul and saw what was there.

"Da-da," Grey said at last. "Take me, peese; I'se tired."

Oh, how the old man longed to snatch the child to his bosom and cover

his face with the kisses he had so hungered to give him, but in his

morbid state of mind he dared not, lest he should contaminate him, so he

restrained himself with a mighty effort, and replied:

"No, Grey, no; I cannot take you. I am tired, too."

"Is you sick?" was Grey's next question, to which his grandfather

replied:

"No, I am not sick," while he clasped both his hands tightly over his

head out of reach of the baby fingers, which sometimes tried to touch

them.

"Is you sorry, then?" Grey continued, and the grandfather replied:

"Yes, child, very, very sorry."

There was the sound of a sob in the old man's voice, and Grey's blue

eyes opened wider as they looked wistfully at the lips trembling with

emotion.

"Has you been a naughty boy?" he said; and, with a sound like a moan,

Grandpa Jerrold replied:

"Yes, yes, very, very naughty. God grant you may never know how

naughty."

"Then why don't Auntie Hannah sut oo up in 'e bed'oom?" Grey asked, with

the utmost gravity, for, in his mind, naughtiness and being shut up in

his aunt's bedroom, the only punishment ever inflicted upon him, were

closely connected with each other.

Almost any one would have smiled at this remark, but Grandpa Jerrold did

not. On the contrary there came into his eyes a look of horror as he

exclaimed:

"Shut me in the bedroom! That would be dreadful indeed."

Then, springing up, he hurried away into the field and disappeared

behind a ledge of rocks, where, unseen by any eye save that of God, he

wept more bitterly than he had ever done before.

"Why, oh, why," he cried, "must this innocent baby's questions torture

me so? and why can I never take him in my arms or lay my hands upon him

lest they should leave a stain?"

Then holding up before him his hard, toil-worn hands, he tried to recall

what it was he had heard or read of another than himself who tried to

rid his hands of the foul spot and could not.

"Only the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," he whispered

to himself, while his lips moved spasmodically with the prayer habitual

to them; four words only, "Forgive me, Lord, forgive."

It had always been a strong desire with Grey to be led around the

premises by his grandfather, who had steadily resisted all advances of

that kind, until with a child's quick intuition, Grey seemed to

understand that his grandfather's hands were something he must not

touch.

That afternoon, however, as Mr. Jerrold was walking on the green sward

by the kitchen door, with his head bent down and his hands clasped

behind him, Grey stole noiselessly up to him, and grasping the right

hand in both his own, held it fast, while he jumped up and down as he

called out to Hannah, who was standing near:

"I'se dot it, I'se dot it--dada's han', an' I sal keep it, too, and tiss

it hard, like dat," and the baby's lips were pressed upon the rough

hand, which lay helpless and subdued in the two small palms holding it

so tight.

It was like the casting out of an evil spirit, and Granpa Jerrold felt

half his burden rolling away beneath that caress. There was a healing

power in the touch of Grey's lips, and the stain, if stain there were

upon the wrinkled hand, was kissed away, and the pain and remorse were

not so great after that.

Grey had conquered and was free to do what he pleased with the old man,

who became his very slave, going wherever Grey liked, whether up the

steep hill-side in the rear of the house or down upon the pond near by,

where the white lilies grew and where there was a little boat in which

the old man and the child spent hours together, during the long summer

afternoons.

In the large woodshed opposite the well, and very near the window of

Granpa Jerrold's bedroom, a rude bench had been placed for the use of

pails and washbasins, but Grey had early appropriated this to himself

and persisted in keeping his playthings there, in spite of all his

grandfather's remonstrances to the contrary. If his toys were removed

twenty times a day to some other locality, twenty times a day he brought

them back, and arranging them upon the bench sat down by them defiantly,

kicking vigorously against the side of the house in token of his

victory, and wholly unconscious that every thud of his little heels sent

a stab to his grandfather's heart.

What if he should kick through the clapboards? What if the floor should

cave in? Such were the questions which tortured the half crazed man, as

he wiped the perspiration from his face and wondered at the perversity

of the boy in selecting that spot of all others, where he must play and

sit and kick as only a healthy, active child can do.

But after the day when Grey succeeded in capturing his hands, Granpa

Jerrold ceased to interfere with the play-house, and the boy was left in

peace upon the bench, though his grandfather often sat near and watched

him anxiously, and always seemed relieved when the child tired of that

particular spot and wandered elsewhere in quest of amusement.

There was, however, one place in the house which Grey never sought to

penetrate, and that was his grandfather's bedroom. It is true he had

never been allowed to enter it, for one of Hannah's first lessons was

that her father did not like children in his room. Ordinarily this would

have made no difference with Grey, who had a way of going where he

pleased; but the gloomy appearance of the room where the curtains were

always down did not attract him, and he would only go as far as the door

and look in, saying to his aunt:

"Bears in there! Grey not go."

And Hannah let him believe in the bears, and breathed more freely when

he came away from the door, though she frequently whispered to herself.

"Some time Grey will know, for I must tell him, and he will help me."

This fancy that Grey was to lift the cloud which overshadowed her, was a

consolation to Hannah, and helped to make life endurable, when at last

his parents returned from Europe, and he went to his home in Boston.

After that Grey spent some portion of every summer at the farm-house

growing more and more fond of his Aunt Hannah, notwithstanding her quiet

manner and the severe plainness of her personal appearance so different

from his mother and his Aunt Lucy Grey. His Aunt Hannah always wore a

calico dress, or something equally as plain and inexpensive, and her

hands were rough and hard with toil, for she never had any one to help

her. She could not afford it, she said, and that was always her excuse

for the self-denials she practiced. And still Grey knew that she

sometimes had money, for he had seen his father give her gold in

exchange for bills, and he once asked her why she did not use it for her

comfort. There was a look of deep pain in her eyes, and her voice was

sadder than its wont, as she replied:

"I cannot touch that money. It is not mine; it would be stealing, to

take a penny of it."

Grey saw the question troubled his Aunt Hannah, and so he said no more

on the subject, but thought that when he was a man, and had means of his

own, he would improve and beautify the old farm-house, which, though

scrupulously neat and clean, was in its furnishing plain in the extreme.

Not a superfluous article, except what had been sent from Boston, had

been bought since he could remember, and the carpet, and chairs, and

curtains in the best room had been there ever since his father was a

boy. And still Grey loved the place better than Grey's Park, where he

was always a welcome guest, and where his Aunt Lucy petted him, if

possible, more than did his Aunt Hannah.

And sweet Lucy Grey, in her trailing dress of rich, black silk, with

ruffles of soft lace at her throat and wrists, and costly diamonds on

her white fingers, made a picture perfectly harmonious with Grey's

natural taste and ideas of a lady. She was lovely as are the pictures of

Murillo's Madonnas, and Grey, who knew her story, reverenced her as

something saintly and pure above any woman he had ever known. And here,

perhaps, as well as elsewhere, we may very briefly tell her story, in

order that the reader may better understand her character.

CHAPTER III.

LUCY.

She was five years older than her sister Geraldine, and between the two

there had been a brother--Robert, or Robin, as he was familiarly

called--a little blue-eyed, golden-haired boy, with a face always

wreathed in smiles, and a mouth which seemed made to kiss and be kissed

in return. He was three years younger than Lucy, who, having been petted

so long as the only child, looked somewhat askance at the brother who

had come to interfere with her, and as he grew older, and developed that

wonderful beauty and winning sweetness for which he was so remarkable,

the demon of jealousy took possession of the little girl, who felt at

times as if she hated him for the beauty she envied so much.

"Oh, I wish he was blind!" she once said, in anger, when his soft blue

eyes had been extolled in her hearing and compared with her own, which

were black as midnight and bright as the wintry stars.

And, as if in answer to her wish, an accident occurred not long after,

which darkened forever the eyes which had caused her so much annoyance.

Just how it happened no one knew. The two children had been playing in

the dining-room, when a great crash was heard, and a wild cry, and Robin

was found upon the floor screaming with agony, while near him lay a

broken cup, which had contained a quantity of red pepper, which the

housemaid had left upon the sideboard until ready to replenish the

caster. Lucy was crying, too, with pain, for the fiery powder was in her

eyes, also. But she had not received as much as Robin, who from that

hour, never again saw the light of day.

There were weeks of fearful suffering when the little hands were tied to

keep them from the eyes which the poor baby, who was only two years and

a half old, said, "Bite Robin so bad," and which, when at last the pain

had ceased, and the inflammation subsided, were found to be hopelessly

blind.

"Blind! blind! Oh, Robin, I wish I was dead!" Lucy had exclaimed, when

they told her the sad news, and with a bitter cry she threw herself

beside her brother on his little bed and sobbed piteously. "Oh, Robbie,

Robbie, you must not be blind! Can't you see me just a little? Try,

Robbie. You must see me; _you must_."

Slowly the lids unclosed, and the sightless eyes turned upward toward

the white face above them, and then Lucy saw there was no hope; the

beautiful blue she had so envied in her wicked moods, was burned out,

leaving only a blood-shot, whitish mass which would never again in this

world see her or any other object.

"No, shister," the little boy said, "I tan't see 'oo now. It 'marts some

yet, but bime by I see 'oo. Don't ty;" and the little hand was raised

and groped to find the bowed head of the girl weeping in such agony

beside him.

"What for 'oo ty so? I see 'oo bime by," he persisted, as Lucy made no

reply, but wept on until her strength was exhausted and she was taken

from the room in a state of unconsciousness, which resulted in a low

nervous fever, from which she did not recover until Robbie was as well

as he ever would be, and his voice was heard again through the house in

baby laughter, for he had not yet learned what it was to be blind and

helpless.

Lucy had said, when questioned with regard to the accident, that she had

climbed up in a chair to get some sugar for herself and Robin from the

bowl on the shelf of the sideboard, that she saw the cup of pepper and

took it up to see what it was, and let it drop from her hand, directly

into the face of Robin, who was looking up at her. Thus she was

answerable for his blindness, and she grew suddenly old beyond her

years, and devoted herself to her brother, with a solicitude and care

marvelous in one so young, for she was not yet six years old.

"I must be his eyes always as long as I live," she said, and she seldom

left his side or allowed another to care for him in the least.

He slept in a little cot near hers. She undressed him at night, and

dressed him in the morning and gave him his breakfast, always selecting

the daintiest bits for him and giving him the larger share of

everything. Together they wandered in the park, she leading him by the

hand and telling him where they were, or carrying him in her arms, when

the way was rough, and then, when she put him down, always kissing him

tenderly, while on her face there was a look of sadness pitiful to see

in one so young.

When she was seven years old, and Robin four, her mother, who had been

an invalid, ever since the birth of Geraldine, died, and that made

Lucy's burden still heavier to bear. They told her, her mother would not

live till night, and with a look on her face, such as a martyr might

wear when going to the stake, Lucy put Robin from her, and going to her

mother's room, asked to be left alone with her.

"There is something I must tell her. I cannot let her die until I do,"

she said, and so the watchers went out and left the mother and child

together.

What Lucy had to tell, no one knew; but when at the going down of the

sun, the mother was dying, Lucy's head was upon her neck, and so long as

life remained, the pale hand smoothed the dark tresses of the sobbing

girl, and the white lips whispered, softly:

"God bless my little Lucy, He knows it all. He can forgive all. Try to

be happy, and never forsake poor Robbie."

"Never, mother, never," was Lucy's reply, and she kept the vow to the

letter, becoming mother, sister, nurse, and teacher all in one, to the

little blind Robin, who loved her in return with all the intensity of

his nature.

It was the wish of Mr. Grey, that Lucy should be sent to school with the

children of her age, but she objected strongly, as it would take her so

much from Robin; so, a governess was employed in the house and whatever

Lucy learned, she repeated to her brother, who drank in her lessons so

eagerly, that he soon became her equal in everything except the power to

read and write. Particularly was he interested in the countries of

Europe, which he hoped to visit some day, in company with his sister.

"Not that I can ever see them," he said, "but I shall know just how they

look, because you will describe them so vividly, and I can hear the dash

of the sea at Naples, and feel the old pavements in Pompeii, and the

hot lava of Vesuvius. And, oh, perhaps we will go to the Holy Land, and

stand just where Christ once stood, and you will see the hills He looked

upon, and the spot on which He suffered. And I shall be so glad and

somehow feel nearer to Him. And, oh, if He could be there as He was

once--a man, you know--I'd cry to Him louder than ever old Bartimeus

did, and tell Him I was a little blind boy from America, but that I

loved Him, and wanted Him to make me see. And He would, I know."

Such were the dreams of the enthusiastic boy, but they were never to be

realized. Always delicate as a child, he grew more and more so as he

became older, so that at last all mental labor was put aside, and when

he was sixteen, and Lucy nineteen, they took him to St. Augustine, where

he could hear the moan of the sea and fancy it was the Mediterranean in

far-off Italy. Lucy was of course with him, and made him see everything

with her eyes, and took him to the old fort and led him upon the sea

wall and through the narrow streets and out beneath the orange trees,

where he liked best to sit and feel the soft, warm air upon his face and

inhale the sweet perfume of the southern flowers.

But all this did not give him strength. On the contrary, the hectic

flush on his cheek deepened daily, his hands grew thinner and paler, and

the eyelids seemed to droop more heavily over the sightless eyes. Robin

was going to die, and he knew it, and talked of it freely with his

sister, and of Heaven, where Christ would make him whole.

"It will be such joy to see," he said to her one night when they sat

together by the window of his room, with the silvery moonlight falling

on his beautiful face and making it like the face of an angel. "Such joy

to see again, and the very first one I shall look at after Christ and

mother, will be old blind Bartimeus, who sat by the roadside and begged.

I have not had to do that, and my life has been very, very happy, for

you have been my eyes, and made me see everything. You know I have a

faint recollection of the grass, and the flowers, and the trees in the

park, and that has helped me so much; and I have you in my mind, too,

and you are so lovely I know, for I have heard people talk of your

sweet face and beautiful eyes; starry eyes I have heard them called."

"Oh, Robbie, Robbie, don't!" came like cry of pain from Lucy's quivering

lips. But Robin did not heed her, and went on:

"Starry eyes--that's just what they are, I think; and I can imagine how

lovingly they look at me, and how pityingly, too. There is always

something so sad in your voice when you speak to me, and I say to

myself, 'That's how Lucy's eyes look at me, just as her voice sounds

when it says brother Robbie.' I shall know you in heaven, the moment you

come, and I shall be waiting for you, and when I see your eyes I shall

say, 'That is sister Lucy, come at last!' Oh, it will be such joy!--no

night, no blindness, no pain, and you with me again as you have been

here, only there, I shall be the guide, and lead you through the green

pastures beside the still waters, where never-fading flowers are

blooming sweeter than the orange blossoms near our window."

Lucy was sobbing hysterically, with her head in his lap, while he

smoothed the dark braids of her hair, and tried to comfort her by asking

if she ought not to be glad that he was going where there was no more

night for him, and where she, too, would join him in a little while.

"It is not that!" Lucy cried, "though it breaks my heart to think of you

gone forever. How can I live without you? What shall I do when my

expiatory work is finished?"

"Expiatory work?" Robin repeated, questioningly. "What do you mean? What

have you to expiate?--you, the noblest, most unselfish sister in the

world!"

"Much, much. Oh, Robbie, I cannot let you die with this upon my mind,

even if the confession turn your love for me into hate--and you do love

me, I have made your life a little less sad than it might have been but

for me."

"Yes, sister, you have made my life so full of happiness that, darkened

as it is, I would like to cling to it longer, though I know heaven is so

much better."

"Thank you, Robbie--thank you for that" Lucy said; then, lifting up her

head, and looking straight into her brother's face, she continued: "You

say you have a faint recollection of the grass, and the flowers, and

the trees in the park. Have you also any remembrance, however slight,

how I looked when we were little children playing together at home?"

"I don't know for sure," Robin replied, while for an instant a deep

flush stained his pale cheeks: "I don't know for sure. Sometimes out of

those dim shadows of the past which I have struggled so hard to retain,

there comes a vision of a little girl--or, rather, there is a picture

which comes before my mind more distinct than the grass, and the trees,

and the flowers, though I always try to put it away; but it repeats

itself over and over again, and I see it in my dreams so vividly, and

especially of late, when life is slipping from me."

"What is the picture?" Lucy said, and her face was whiter than the one

above her.

"It is this," Robin replied. "I seem to see myself looking up, with

outstretched arms, toward a little girl who is standing above me,

looking down at me with a face which cannot--cannot be the one I shall

welcome to heaven and know as my sister's; for this in the picture has a

cruel expression on it, and there is hatred in the eyes, which are so

large and black, and stare so fixedly at me. Then there is a crash, and

darkness, and a horrible pain, and loud cries, and the eyes fade away in

the blackness, and I know no more till you are sobbing over me and

begging me to say that I can see you. I remember that, I am sure, or

else it has been told me so often that it seems as if I did; but the

other, the face above me, is all a fancy and a delusion of the brain.

You never looked at me that way--never could."

Here he paused, and the girl beside him withdrew herself from him, and

clasping her hands tightly together, knelt abjectly at his feet as she

said:

"Oh, Robbie, Robbie! my darling, if you could know with what shame, and

anguish, and remorse I am kneeling before you, you would pity and

perhaps forgive me when I have told you what I must tell you now. But

don't touch me--don't put your hands upon me, for that would quite

unnerve me," she continued, as she saw the thin hands groping to find

her. "Sit quite still and listen, and then, if you do not loathe me with

a loathing unutterable, call me sister once more, and that will be

enough."

The old cathedral clock was striking twelve when that interview ended,

and when it struck the hour of midnight again Robin Grey lay dead in the

room which looked toward the sea, and the soft south wind, sweet with

the perfume of roses and orange blossoms, kissed his white face and

stirred the thick curls of golden hair clustering about his brow. As is

often the case with consumptives, his death had been sudden at the last,

so sudden that Lucy scarcely realized that he was dying, until she held

him dead upon her bosom. But so long as life lasted he kept repeating

her name in accents of unutterable tenderness and love.

"Lucy, Lucy, my precious sister, God bless you for all you have been to

me, and comfort you when I am gone, darling, darling Lucy, I love you so

much; Lucy, Lucy, Lucy where are you? You must not leave me. Give me

your hand till I reach the river-bank where the angels are waiting for

me, I can see them and the beautiful city over the dark river, though I

can't see you; but I shall in heaven, and I am almost there. Good-by,

good-by, Lucy."

It almost seemed as if, he were calling to her from the other world, for

death came and froze her name upon his lips which never moved again, and

Lucy's work was done. Other hands than hers cared for the dead body,

which was embalmed, and then sent to its northern home.

There were crowds of people at the church where the funeral was held and

where Robin had been baptized. The son of Captain Grey was worthy of

respect, and the citizens turned out _en masse_, so that there was

scarcely standing room in the aisles for all who came to see the last of

Robin. Very touchingly the rector spoke of the deceased, whose short

life had been so pure and holy, and then he eulogized the sister who had

devoted herself so unselfishly to the helpless brother, and who, he

said, could have nothing to regret, nothing to wish undone, so absolute

and entire had been her sacrifice. Hitherto Lucy had sat as rigid as a

stone, but as she listened to her own praises she moved uneasily in her

seat, and once put up her hand deprecatingly as if imploring him to

stop. When at last the services were over, and the curious ones had

taken their last look at the dead, and the undertaker came forward to

close the coffin-lid, her mind, which had been strained to its utmost,

gave way, and not realizing what she did or meant to do, she arose

suddenly, and gliding swiftly past her father, stepped to the side of

the coffin, and throwing back her heavy crape vail; stooped and kissed

the eyelids of her brother, saying as she did so:

"Dear Robbie, can you see me now, and do you know what I am going to

do?"

There was a glitter in her eyes which told that she was half-crazed, and

her father arose to lead her to her seat beside him; but she waved him

back authoritatively, and in a clear, distinct voice, which rang like a

bell through the church, said to the astonished people:

"Wait a little. There is something I must tell you. I have tried to put

it away, but I cannot. My brain is on fire, and will never be cool again

until I confess by Robbie's coffin; then you may judge me as you please.

It will make no difference, for I shall have done my duty and ceased to

live a lie, for my life has been one long series of hypocrisies and

deceit. Our clergyman has described me as a saint, worthy of a martyr's

crown, and some of you believe him, and look upon the care I gave to

Robbie as something unheard-of and wonderful. And I have let you think

so, and felt myself the veriest hypocrite that ever breathed. Don't you

know that what I did was done in expiation of a crime, a horrid, cruel

deed, for I put out Robbie's eyes. I made him blind.

"I knew you would shudder and turn from me in loathing," she continued,

in a louder, clearer tone, as she felt the thrill of surprise which ran

through the assembly, and grew more and more excited, "But it is the

truth, I tell you. I put out those beautiful eyes of which I was so

envious because the people praised them so much. I could not bear it,

and the demon of jealousy had full possession of me, young as I was, and

sometimes, when I saw him preferred to me, I wished him dead, _dead_,

just as he is now. Oh, Robbie, my heart is breaking with agony and

shame, but I must go on. I must tell how I hated you and the pretty baby

ways which made you so attractive, and when I climbed up in the chair

after the lumps of sugar and saw the cup of Cayenne pepper, and you

standing below me with wide-open eyes and outstretched hands, asking me

to give, the devil look possession of me and whispered that now was my

chance to ruin those eyes looking up so eagerly at me. I had heard that

red pepper would make one blind, and--and--oh, horror, how can I tell

the rest?"

Lucy's voice was like a wailing cry of agony, as, covering her white

face with her hands, she went on:

"I held the cup toward Robbie, and said: 'Is it this you want?' and when

in his ignorance he answered: 'Yes, div me some,' I dropped it into his

hands, saying to myself, 'it is not my fault if he gets it in his eyes.'

"You know the rest, how from that moment he never looked on me or any

one again; but you do not, cannot know the anguish and remorse which

filled my soul, when I realized what I had done. From that day to the

hour of Robbie's death there has never been a moment when I would not

have given my sight--yes, my life for his. And that is why I have been

the devoted sister, as you have called me. I was trying to atone, and I

did a little. Robbie told me so, for I confessed it all to him before he

died; I told him just how vile I was, and he forgave me, and loved me

just the same and went to sleep with my name on his lips. I can see it

there now, the formation of the word Lucy, and it will be the first he

utters when he welcomes me to heaven, if I am permitted to enter there.

"I have made this confession because I thought I ought, that you might

not think me better than I am, I know you will despise me, but it does

not matter; Robbie forgave and loved me to the last, and that alone will

keep me from going mad."

She ceased speaking, and with a low, gasping sob fell forward into the

arms of her father, who had stepped to her side in time to receive her.

It was a blustering March day when they buried Robert Grey in the

cemetery at Allington, while his sister, who had been taken directly

from the church to her home, lay unconscious in her room, only moaning

occasionally, and whispering of Robbie, whose eyes she had put out.

"People will hate me always," she said, when after weeks of brain fever

she was herself again. But in this she was mistaken, for the people who

knew her best loved her most, and as the years went on, and all felt the

influence of her pure, stainless, unselfish life, they came to esteem

her as almost a saint, and no house was complete which had not in it

some likeness of the sad, but inexpressibly sweet face which had a smile

for every one, and which was oftenest seen in the cheerless houses where

hunger and sickness were. There Lucy Grey was a ministering angel, and

the good she did could never be told in words, but was known and felt by

those who never breathed a prayer which did not have in it a thought of

her and a wish for her happiness.

When Grey was first laid in her arms, and she saw in his great blue eyes

a look like those other eyes hidden beneath the coffin-lid, she felt as

if Robbie had come back to her, and there awoke within her a love for

the child greater even than his own mother felt for him. And yet, so

wholly unselfish was her nature that she never mourned or uttered a word

of protest when, as the boy grew older, he evinced a preference for the

farm-house in the pasture, rather than for the grand old place at Grey's

Park, where, since her sister's marriage and her father's death, she had

lived alone.

"Hannah needs him more than I do," she would say to herself, but her

sweet face was always brighter, and in her great black eyes there was a

softer light when she knew he was coming to break the monotony of her

lonely life.

After her marriage, Geraldine did not often honor Allington with her

presence. It was far too quiet there to suit her, and Lucy lived too

much the life of a recluse. No little breakfasts, no lunches, no evening

parties at which she could display her elegant Paris costumes; nothing

except now and then a stupid dinner party, to which the rector and his

wife were invited, and that detestable Miss McPherson, who said such

rude things, and told her her complexion was not what it used to be, and

that she looked older than her sister Lucy. Miss McPherson was an

abomination, and going to the country was a bore, but still Geraldine

felt obliged to visit Allington occasionally, and especially on

Thanksgiving day, when it is expected that the sons and daughters of New

England will return to the old home, and grow young again under the

roof which sheltered their childhood.

And so, on the morning when our story properly opens, Mr. and Mrs.

Burton Jerrold and their son Grey, a well grown lad of fourteen, left

their home on Beacon street, and with crowds of other city people took

the train for the country, to keep the festal day.

CHAPTER IV.

THANKSGIVING DAY AT GREY'S PARK.

The season had been unusually warm and pleasant for New England, and

until the morning of Thanksgiving Day the grass upon the lawn at Grey's

Park had been almost as fresh and green as in the May days of spring,

for only the autumnal rains had fallen upon it, and the November wind

had blown as softly as if it had just kissed the wave of some southern

sea, where it is summer always. But with the dawning of Thanksgiving

Day, there was a change, and the carriage which was sent from Grey's

Park to the station to meet the guests from Boston was covered with

snow, and Mrs. Geraldine shivered, and drew her fur-lined cloak more

closely around her as she stepped from the train, and looking ruefully

down at her little French boots, said petulantly:

"Why do they never clear the snow from the platform, I wonder, and how

am I to walk to the carriage? It is positively ankle deep, and I with

silk stockings on!"

Mrs. Geraldine was not in an enviable frame of mind. She had declined an

invitation to a grand dinner party, for the sake of going to Allington,

where it was always snowing or raining or doing something disagreeable,

and her face was anything but pleasant as she stood there in the snow.

A very slave to her opinions and wishes, her husband always thought as

she thought, and fondly agreed with her that going to Allington was a

bore, and that he did not know how she was to wade through all that snow

in thin boots and silk stockings, and not endanger her life by the

exposure.

Only Grey was happy; Grey, grown from the blue-eyed baby boy, who used

to dig his little heels so vigorously into the rotten base-board under

the bench in the wood-shed of the farm house, into the tall, blue-eyed,

open-faced lad of fourteen, of whom it could be truly said that never

had his parents been called upon to blush for a mean or vicious act

committed by him. Faulty he was, of course, with a hot temper when

roused, and a strong, indomitable will, which, however, was seldom

exercised on the wrong side. Honorable, generous, affectionate, and pure

in all his thoughts as a young girl, he was the idol of his aunts and

the pride of his father and mother, the latter of whom he treated with a

teasing playfulness such as he would have shown to a sister, if he had

one.

Mrs. Jerrold was very proud of her bright, handsome boy, and had a

brilliant career marked out for him; Andover first, then Harvard, and

two years or more at Oxford, and then some high-born English wife, for

Mrs. Jerrold was thoroughly European in her tastes, and toadied to the

English in a most disgusting manner.

During her many trips across the water, she had been presented to the

queen, had attended, by invitation, a garden party, and a ball at which

the Prince and Princess of Wales were present, and had spent several

weeks in the country houses of some of the wealthy English.

Consequently, she considered herself quite _au fait_ with their style

and customs, which she never failed to descant upon, greatly to the

amusement of her listeners, and the mortification of Grey, who was now

old enough to see how ridiculous it made his mother appear.

Grey was delighted to go to Allington, and the grandest dinner party in

the world, with all the peers of England as guests, would have been a

small compensation for the good cheer he expected both at Grey's Park,

and at the farm-house. He was glad, too, for the snow and as the express

train sped swiftly on, and he watched it from the window, falling in

blinding sheets and covering all the hill-tops, he thought what fun it

would be on the morrow to drive his Aunt Lucy's bays over to the

farm-house after his Aunt Hannah, whom he would take for a long drive

across the country, and frighten with the rapidity with which the bays

would skim along.

"Hurrah! There's Allington, and there's Tom," he cried, springing up as

the train shot under the bridge near the station. "Come on, mother, I

have your traps, great box, little box, soap-stone, and bag. Here we

are! And, my eyes what a blizzard! It's storming great guns, but here

goes," and the eager boy jumped from the car into the snow, and shook

hands with Tom, his Aunt Lucy's coachman, and the baggage-master, and

the boy from the market where his aunt bought her meat, and Saul

Sullivan, the fiddler, the most shiftless, easy-going fellow in

Allington, who wore one of Grey's discarded hats given to him the

previous year.

"Holloa! holloa! how are you?" he kept repeating, as one after another

pressed up to him, all glad to welcome the city boy who was so popular

among them. Hearing his mother's lamentations over the snow, he said to

the coachman: "Here, Tom, take these traps, while I carry mother to the

carriage." Then, turning to her, he continued; "Now, little mother, it

will never do for those silk stockings to be spoiled, when there is a

great strapping fellow like me to whom you are only a feather's weight,"

and lifting the lady in his arms as if she had really been a child, he

carried her to the carriage, and put her in, tucking the blankets around

her, and carefully brushing the snow from her bonnet. "Now, father, jump

in, and let me shut the door. I'm going on the box with Tom. I like the

snow, and it is not cold. I am going to drive myself." And in spite of

his mother's protestations, Grey mounted to the box, and taking the

reins, started the willing horses at a rapid rate toward Grey's Park,

where Miss Lucy waited for them.

Bounding up the steps, Grey dashed into the hall, and shaking the snow

from his coat and cap, seized his aunt around the waist, and after two

or three hearty kisses, commenced waltzing around the parlor with her,

talking incessantly, and telling her how delighted he was to be at

Grey's Park again.

"Only think, I have not seen you for more than a year, and I've been to

Europe since, and am a traveled young man. Don't you see marks of

foreign culture in me?" and he laughed mischievously, for he knew his

aunt would comprehend his meaning. "Then, too," he continued, "I'm an

Andover chap now, but find it awful poky. I almost wish I had gone to

Easthampton. Such fun as the boys have there! Sent a whole car-load of

gates down to Springfield one night! I'd like to have seen the

Easthamptonites when they found their gates gone, and the Springfielders

when they opened that car. Holloa, mother! Isn't it jolly here? And

don't you smell the mince pies? I am going to eat two pieces!" And the

wild boy waltzed into the library in time to see his mother drop

languidly into an arm-chair, with the air of one who had endured all it

was possible to endure, and who considered herself a martyr.

"Pray be quiet, and come and unfasten my cloak. You forget that your

Aunt Lucy is no longer young, to be whirled round like a top."

"Young or not, she is as pretty as a girl, any day," Grey replied,

releasing his aunt and hastening to his mother.

Knowing her sister's dislike to the country, Miss Grey had spared no

pains to make the house as attractive as possible. There was no furnace,

but there were fires in every grate, and in the wide fire-place in the

large dining-room, where the bay-window looked out upon the hills and

the pretty little pond. Lucy's greenhouse had been stripped of its

flowers, which, in bouquets, and baskets, and bowls, were seen

everywhere, while pots of azaleas, and camellias, and rare lilies stood

in every nook and corner, filling the rooms with a perfume like early

June, when the air is full of sweetness.

But Mrs. Geraldine found the atmosphere stifling, and asked that a

window might be opened, and that Grey would find her smelling-salts

directly, as her head was beginning to ache.

Grey knew it always ached when she was in a crank, as he called her

moods, and he brought her salts, and undid her cloak and bonnet, and

kissed her once or twice, while his father, who was hot because she was

hot, said it was like an August day all over the house, and opened a

window, but shut it almost immediately, for a cloud of snow came

drifting in, and Mrs. Geraldine knew she should get neuralgia in such a

frightful draught.

"Come to your room and lie down. You will feel better when you are

rested," Lucy said, with a troubled look on her sweet face, as she led

the way to the large, cheerful chamber which her sister always occupied

when at Grey's Park.

"What time do you dine?" Geraldine asked, as she caught the savory smell

of something cooking in the kitchen.

"I have fixed the dinner hour at half-past two," Lucy replied, and

Geraldine rejoined:

"Half-past two! What a heathenish hour! and I do so detest early

dinners."

"Yes, I know," Lucy answered, in an apologetic tone, "but Hannah cannot

stay late, on account of her father" then, turning to her

brother-in-law, who had just come in, she added: "You know, I suppose,

that your father has not been as well as usual for several weeks. Hannah

thinks he is failing very fast."

"Yes, she wrote me to that effect," Burton replied, "but she is easily

alarmed, and so I did not attach much importance to it. Do you think him

seriously ill?"

"I don't know except from Hannah herself, as he sees no one. I was there

yesterday, but he would not allow me to enter his room. I am told that

he has taken a fancy that no one shall go into his bedroom but Hannah

and the doctor. That looks as if his mind might be a little unsettled."

Instantly there came back to Burton's mind what his aunt had said to him

on her dying-bed: "There is a secret between them, but never try to

discover it, lest it should affect you, too. There may be disgrace in

it." Years had passed since Burton heard these words, and much good

fortune had come to him. He had married Geraldine Grey, and had become

president of a bank; he had increased in wealth and distinction, until

no one stood higher on the social platform of Boston than he did. He had

been to the Legislature twice and to Congress once, and was the Hon.

Burton Jerrold, respected by every one, and, what to his narrow mind was

better still, he was looked upon as an aristocrat of the bluest type.

None of his friends had ever seen the queer old hermit at the

farm-house, or Hannah either for that matter, for she had seldom been in

Boston since Grey was a baby, and on the rare occasions when she did go

she only passed the day, and had her lunch in the privacy of Mrs.

Geraldine's room. Once or twice a year, as was convenient, Burton had

been to the farm-house to see his father, whom he always found the same

silent, brooding man, with hair as white as snow, and shoulders so bent

that it was difficult to believe he had ever been upright. And so,

gradually, Burton had ceased to wonder at his father's peculiarities and

had forgotten his suspicions; but now they returned to him again, and he

shivered as there swept suddenly over him one of those undefinable

presentiments which sometimes come to us, and for which we cannot

account.

"What time is Hannah coming?" he asked.

"I hardly know," Lucy replied; "the boy who stays here to do the outdoor

work is to bring her as soon as she can leave her father, who will have

no one with him in his room during her absence. He is very anxious to

see Grey, but I doubt if he will even let him into the bedroom."

During this conversation Grey had listened intently, and now he

exclaimed;

"I have it. My dinner will taste better if I see grandpa first, and show

him my Alpenstock, with all those names burned on it. I mean to drive

over after Aunt Hannah myself. It will be such fun to surprise them

both."

"Grey, are you crazy to think of going out in this storm?" Mrs. Jerrold

exclaimed.

But Grey persisted, and, pointing to the window, said:

"It is not snowing half as fast as it did; and look, there's a bit of

blue sky. I can go, can't I, Aunt Lucy?"

"Ye-es, if Tom is willing," Lucy said, a little doubtfully; for she

stood somewhat in awe of Tom, who did not like to harness oftener than

was necessary.

"Pho! I'll risk Tom," Grey said. "Tom knows me;" and in less than ten

minutes one of the bays was harnessed to the cutter, and Grey was

driving along in the direction of the farm-house, which, for the first

time in his life, struck him as something weird-like and dreary,

standing there alone among the rocks, with the snow piled upon the roof

and clinging in masses to the small window-panes. "I don't wonder mother

thinks it seems like some old haunted house we read about. It is just

the spot for a lively ghost. I wish I could see one," he thought, as he

drove into the side-yard, and, giving his horse to the care of the

chore-boy, Sam, who was in the barn, he went stamping into the kitchen.

CHAPTER V.

THE OLD MAN AND THE BOY.

Old Mr. Jerrold had failed rapidly within a few weeks, but as long as

possible he dressed himself every day and sat in his arm-chair in the

kitchen, for the front room was rarely used in winter. At one time, when

Hannah saw how weak her father was growing, and knew that he must soon

take to his bed, she suggested that he should occupy the south room, it

was so much more sunny and cheerful than his sleeping apartment, which

was always dark, and gloomy, and cheerless. But her father said no very

decidedly.

"It has been a part of my punishment to keep watch in that room all

these dreadful years, and I shall stay there till I die. And, Hannah,

when I cannot get up any more, but must lie there all day and all night

long, don't let any one in, not even Miss Grey, for it seems to me there

are mirrors everywhere, and that the walls and floor have tongues, and I

am getting such a coward, Hannah--such a coward, I am too old to confess

it now. God has forgiven me; I am sure of that, and the world need not

know what we have kept so long, you and I. How long is it, Hannah? My

memory fails me, and sometimes it seems a thousand years, I have

suffered so much, and then again it is but yesterday--last night. How

long did you say, Hannah!

"Thirty-one years next Thanksgiving, was Hannah's reply, spoken, oh, so

mournfully low.

"Thirty-one years, and you were a girl of fifteen, and your hair was so

brown and glossy, just like your mother's Hannah--just like hers, and

now it is so grey Poor child! I am so sorry for you, but God knows all

you have borne for me, and some day you will shine as a star in His

crown, while I, if I am permitted to enter the gates, must have the

lowest seat."

It was the last of October when this conversation took place, and the

next day but one the old man did not get up as usual, but staid in bed

all that day, and the next, and the next, until it came to be understood

between himself and Hannah that he would never get up again.

"Shall I send for Burton?" Hannah asked, and he replied:

"No, he does not care to come, and why trouble him sooner than

necessary? He is not like you. He is grand and high, and ashamed of his

old father, but he is my son, and I must see him once more. He will be

up on Thanksgiving Day, and I shall live till then. Don't send for him.

I cannot have him in this room--can't have anybody--don't let them in!

Can no one see under the bed?"

"No, father, no one can see: no one shall come in," Hannah answered.

Then for weeks she kept her lonely watch over the half-crazed old man,

who started at every sound and whispered piteously:

"Don't let them come here, Hannah. I am too old; and there is Grey--the

boy--for his sake, Hannah, we will not let them come for me now!"

"No, father, they shall not come. Grey need not know," Hannah always

replied, though she had secretly cherished a hope that some time in the

future, when the poor old father was dead, she would tell Grey and ask

his help to do what she fully meant to do when her hands, bound for

thirty years, should be loosened from the chain.

She could trust Grey, could tell him everything, and feel sure that his

earnest, truthful blue eyes would took just as lovingly at her as ever,

and that he would comfort and help her as no one else could do.

Such was the state of affairs at the farm-house on the morning of

Thanksgiving Day, when Hannah was making her preparations to go to

Grey's Park for two hours or more, just to sit through the dinner and

see Grey, whom she had not seen since his return from Europe.

Her father was not as well that morning. Thanksgiving was always a

terrible anniversary for him, for as on that day the several members of

a family meet again around the old hearth-stone, so the ghosts of the

past all came back to torture him and fill him with remorse.

"How it blows," he said, as the wind shook the windows of his room, and

went screaming around the corner of the house. "How it blows, and I seem

to hear voices in the storm--your voice, Hannah, as it sounded thirty

years ago, when you cried out so loudly, and I struck you for it, and

beat old Rover, too. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, yes, father, but don't talk of it to-day; try to forget; try to

think only that Grey is here, and that you will see him to-morrow."

"Grey, the boy with the big blue eyes which look so straight at you that

I used sometimes to wonder if he did not see into my heart and know what

I was hiding?" the old man replied. "Grey, the little boy who would sit

on that bench in the woodshed, and kick the floor until I sweat at every

pore with fear, and whom I would not touch till he captured my hands,

and held them in his soft, warm ones, and kissed them, too, my wicked

old hands, kissed by Grey's baby lips. Would he touch them now if he

knew? I used to think if I lived till he was a man I would tell him; and

maybe you will do it after I am dead. He is coming here to-morrow, you

say, and Burton; but Burton isn't like Grey. He is proud and worldly,

and a little hard, I am afraid; but the boy, tell him how I love him;

try to make him understand, and when he comes to-morrow maybe he will

kiss me again. It will be for the last time. I shall never see him more.

But hark, what's that? Don't you hear bells? And there is the stamping

of feet at the door. Go, child, quickly, and not let them in here."

Hannah, too, heard the sound and the opening of the kitchen door, and

hurrying from her father's bedside, she called out, sharply:

"Who is it? Who's there?"

"My name is Norval, on the Grampian hills," was replied, in the

well-remembered voice of Grey, who continued, merrily, as he approached

her: "And you, dear Aunt Hannah, you are the dame with the wonderful

name which forward and backward still reads the same."

He did not attempt to waltz with her, as he had done with Lucy; he had

tried it once, but she went the wrong way, and he told her there was no

more dance in her than in the kitchen tongs. So now he only wound his

arms around her and kissed her many times, and when she sat down in a

chair, he stood over her and smoothed her hair and thought how gray it

had grown within the year. He had no suspicion that there was any secret

sorrow weighing upon her, but he knew that her life was a hard one,

owing to the peculiarities of his grandfather, and now as he looked at

her, he felt a great pity for her, and there was a lump in his throat,

as he stooped to kiss her again and said:

"Poor auntie, you look so tired and pale. Is grandpa so very sick, and

more troublesome than usual?"

Hannah had not cried in years. Indeed it was the effort of her life to

keep her tears back, but now, at the sound of Grey's sympathetic voice

and the touch of his fresh, warm lips upon her own, she broke down

entirely, and for a few moments sobbed as if her heart would break,

while Grey in great concern, knelt down before her, and tried to comfort

her.

"What is it, auntie?" he said. "Is it because you are so lonely, and are

afraid grandpa will die? I'll take care of you then, and we will go to

Europe together, and you shall ride on a mule and cross the

Mer-de-Glace. I used to think when I was over there how we would some

day go together, and I would show you everything."

At the mention of Europe, Hannah's tears ceased, and commanding her

voice, she said, abruptly:

"Did you go to Wales?"

"Yes, we went there first. Don't you remember?"

Without answering that question, Hannah continued:

"Did you go to Carnarvon?"

"Carnarvon! I guess we did. We spent a whole day at the old castle, and

went all over it, and into the room where the first Prince of Wales was

born. It isn't much bigger than our bath-room. But I tell you those old

ruins are grand;" and with all a boy's enthusiasm over his first trip to

Europe, Grey launched out into a graphic description of what, he had

seen and done, repeating everything ridiculous in order to make his Aunt

Hannah laugh.

"You ought to have heard father try to talk French," he said. "It was

enough to kill one with laughing. He bought a little book and would

study some phrase, and then fire it off at the waiters, screaming at the

top of his voice, as if that would make them understand better; and once

it was too funny. We were in a shop in Lucerne, and father wanted to

know the price of something, so he held it up before a little dapper man

with blue eyes and yellow hair, and said, 'Com-bi-on'--that's the way he

pronounced it--'com-bi-on;' but the man didn't com-bi-on worth a cent,

and only stared at him as if he thought him a lunatic. Then father tried

again, and yelled as loud as he could, '_Pree--pree!_ how much-ee,

much-ee?' Then there was a glimmer of a smile on the man's face, and

when father, wholly out of patience, roared out, 'Damnation, are you a

fool?' he replied, 'No, but I'm a Yankee like yourself, and the price of

the carving is twenty-five francs;' and, sure enough, he was a chap from

Maine. After that father always asked them first if they

_parlez-vous-ed_ English. Mother got on better, because she knew more of

the language, and always gave a twist to the words which made them sound

Frenchy; but she was afraid to talk much, for fear she'd make a mistake

and Miss Grundy would laugh at her. She is awfully afraid of Miss

Grundy, especially if the _genus homo_ happens to be English. But I did

not care. I wanted to learn, and I studied in the railway car, and at

the table, and in bed, and had a teacher when we staid long enough in a

place, and then I plunged in, mistake or no mistake, and talked to

everybody. I used to sit on the box with the driver when we drove, so as

to talk to him, and you have no idea what a lot you pick up that way, or

how glad they are to help you; and now, though I do not suppose I always

use good grammar or get the right accent, I can _parlez_ with the best

of them, and can speak German, too, a little. I think I have improved

some; don't you, auntie."

Of course she did, and she told him so, and smiled fondly upon the

bright, handsome boy, knowing that in what he said of himself there was

neither conceit nor vanity, but a frankness and openness which she liked

to see in him.

"And now for grandpa," he suddenly exclaimed, "he will think I am never

coming."

And before she could stop him he had entered the low, dark room, where,

on the bed, pushed close to the side-wall near the woodshed, and just

where it had stood for thirty years, the old man lay, or rather sat, for

he was bolstered upright, with chair and pillows behind him, his long

white hair parted in the middle and combed behind his ears, and his arms

folded across his bosom.

At Grey's abrupt entrance he started, and his face flushed for a moment,

but when he saw who it was, the look of fear gave way to one of joy, and

his pale face lighted up with gladness as he welcomed the eager boy, who

told him first how sorry he was to find him so sick, and then what a

grand time he had in Europe.

"I have been to the top of Rigi, and old Pilatus and Vesuvius, and

Flegere, and crossed the Mer-de-Glace and Tete Noir, and the Simplon,

and they are all here on my Alpenstock; look, see! but no, you cannot,

it is so dark! I'll raise the curtain."

And Grey hastened to the window, while his grandfather cried out in

alarm:

"Stop, Grey, stop. I'll call your Aunt Hannah! Hannah, come here!"

She was at his side in an instant, bending over him while he whispered:

"Is it safe? Can he see nothing, sure?"

"Nothing, father, nothing," was the reply, and thus reassured the old

man took the Alpenstock, which had done such good service, and looked at

the queer names burned upon it, lingering longest upon the first one,

"Grey Jerrold, Boston, Mass., 18--."

Very rapidly Grey talked of his travels, and the wonders beyond the sea.

"But, after all, America is best," he said, "and I am glad I am an

American. Boston is the place to be born in. Don't you think so,

grandpa?"

"Yes, yes. Did you go to Wales? To Carnarvon?" the old man said, so

abruptly that Grey stopped short and stared at him blankly.

His Aunt Hannah had asked the same question. Could it be they were more

interested in Carnarvon than in Mont Blanc and Vesuvius? If so, he would

confine himself to Carnarvon, and he began again to describe the old

castle, and the birth-room of the first Prince of Wales. Then his

grandfather interrupted him by asking:

"Did you hear of any family there by the name of Rogers?"

"Rogers? No. Why? Did you ever know any one by that name who lived in

Carnarvon?" Grey asked, and his grandfather replied:

"Yes, a great many years ago, longer than you can remember. Joel Rogers,

that was the name, and he had a sister, Elizabeth. You did not hear of

her?"

"Father, father; you are talking too much; you are getting excited and

tired," Hannah interposed in some alarm, but her father replied:

"No. I'm not afraid of Grey, now that I see his face again; it's a face

to be trusted. Grey would not harm his old grandfather. Would you, boy?"

and the childish old man began to cry piteously, while Grey looked

inquiringly at his aunt, and touched his forehead meaningly, as much as

to say:

"I know, I understand; a little out of his head."

She let him think so, and laying his hand on his grandfather's hair,

Grey said:

"Don't cry; of course I would not harm you, the best grandpa in all the

world."

"No, no, Grey; the worst, the worst; and yet it does me good to know you

love and respect me, and you always will when I am dead and gone, won't

you, even if you should ever know how bad I was, and you may sometime,

for it is impressed on me this morning that in some way you will help

Hannah out of it. You two, and no more. Poor Hannah. She has suffered so

much for my sake. Be good to her, Grey, when I am gone; be good to

Hannah. Poor Hannah."

"Yes, grandpa, I will," Grey said, in a tearful voice, as he

involuntarily wound his arms around the woman he was to be good to. "I

will always care for Aunt Hannah, and love her above all women. Don't

you worry about that. She shall live with me when I am a man, and we

will go to Europe together."

"Yes, to Carnarvon, perhaps," Mr. Jerrold interposed, and then said,

suddenly: "Do you remember the day you caught and kissed my old hands,

and did me so much good? Would you mind kissing them again?--this one;

it burns so and aches!" and he raised his thin, right hand, winch Grey

took in his own, and kissed reverently and lovingly, saying as he did

so:

"Poor, tired hand, which has done so much hard work, but never a bad

act."

"Oh, oh! My boy, my boy, you hurt me!" grandpa cried, as he snatched his

hand from Grey, who looked at him wonderingly and said:

"I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. Is your hand sore?"

"Sore? Yes, sorer than you know or guess; so sore that it aches down to

my very heart."

"Come, Grey, I think it is time we were off. Father is getting tired and

excited. You will see him again to-morrow," Hannah said, and her father

rejoined:

"To-morrow! Who knows? To-day is all we can call our own, and I will

bless my boy to-day. Kneel down, Grey, and let me put both hands on your

head."

With a feeling of awe Grey knelt beside the bed, while his grandfather

laid his hands on his head and said:

"May God bless my boy Grey, and make him a good man--not like me, the

chief of sinners, but Christlike and pure, so that he may one day reach

the eternal home where I hope to meet him, through the merits of the

blood of Jesus, which cleanseth from all sin--all sin, even mine. God

bless my boy!"

It seemed like a funeral, and Grey's eyes were full of tears as he rose

from his knees and said:

"Good-by, grandpa. We must go now, but I will come again to-morrow, and

stay all day and all the next, for I do not go back to Andover till

Monday, and next summer I will spend all my vacation with you. Good-by;"

and stooping, he kissed the white forehead and quivering lips, around

which a smile of peace was setting.

Then, he left the room, never dreaming that it was good-by forever.

Once in the open air, with his Aunt Hannah by his side, the cloud which

in the sick-room had settled upon him lifted, and he talked and laughed

merrily as they drove swiftly toward Grey's Park where dinner was

waiting for them.

CHAPTER VI.

MISS BETSEY McPHERSON

The table was laid in the large dining-room, which faced the south, and

whose long French windows looked into the terraced flower-garden and

upon the evergreens fashioned after those in the park at Versailles.

When alone, Lucy took all her meals in the pleasant little breakfast

room, where only two pictures hung upon the wall, and both of Robin--one

taken in all his infantile beauty, when he was two years old, and the

other at the age of fourteen, after the lovely blue eyes which smiled so

brightly upon you from the first canvas were darkened forever, and the

eyelids were closed over them. This was Lucy's favorite room, for there

Robin seemed nearer to her. But Geraldine did not like it. It was like

attending a funeral all the time, she said; and so, though it was quite

large enough to accommodate her Thanksgiving guests, Lucy had ordered

the dinner to be served in the larger room, which looked very warm and

cheerful with the crimson hangings at the windows and the bright fire on

the hearth.

After having regaled herself with a glass of sherry, a biscuit, a piece

of sponge cake, and some fruit, Mrs. Geraldine had descended to the

dining-room to see a new rug, of which Lucy told her. Glancing at the

table, which was glittering with china, and glass, and silver, she began

counting:

"One, two, three, four, five, six places. You surely did not expect

Burton's father?"

Lucy flushed a little, as she replied:

"Oh, no; the sixth place is for Miss McPherson."

"Miss McPherson! What possessed you to invite her? I detest her, with

her sharp tongue and prying ways. Why, she is positively rude at times,

and exasperates me so," Geraldine said, angrily; and her sister

rejoined:

"I know she is peculiar and outspoken, but at heart she is true as

steel, and I thought she would be very lonely taking her Thanksgiving

dinner alone. And then she will be glad to see you and inquire after her

brother's family, whom she knows you met abroad."

"Yes, we spent a week with her brother, the Hon. John McPherson, and his

wife Lady Jane, at the house of Captain Smithers in Middlesex. Miss

McPherson is, at least, well connected," Geraldine said, mollified at

once as she recalled her intimacy with Lady Jane McPherson.

To be acquainted with a titled lady was, in her opinion, something to be

proud of, and since her return from Europe she had wearied and disgusted

her friends with her frequent allusions to Lady Jane and her visit to

Penrhyn Park where she had met her. And Miss McPherson was her

sister-in-law, and on that account she must be tolerated and treated, at

least, with a show of friendship. So when she heard that she had arrived

she went to meet her with a good deal of gush and demonstration, which,

however, did not in the least mislead the lady with regard to her real

sentiments, for she and Geraldine had always been at odds, and from the

very nature of things there could be no real sympathy between the

fashionable lady of society, whose life was all a deception, and the

blunt, outspoken woman, who called a spade a spade, and whose rule of

action was, as she expressed it, the naked truth and nothing but the

naked truth. Had she worn false teeth and supposed any one thought them

natural, she would at once have taken them out to show that they were

not; and as to false hair, and frizzes, and powder, and all the many

devices used, as she said, "to build a woman," she abominated them, and

preferred to be just what the Lord had made her, without any attempt to

improve upon his work. Once Lucy Grey had asked her why she did not call

herself Elizabeth, or Lizzie, instead of Betsey, which was so

old-fashioned, and she had retorted, sharply, that though of all names

upon earth she thought Betsey the worst, it was given to her by her

sponsors in baptism, and Betsey she would remain to the day of her

death.

She was tall and angular, with large features, sharp nose, and little

bright, black, bead-like eyes, which seemed to look you through, and

read your most secret thoughts. As her name indicated, she was of Scotch

descent; indeed, her grandfather was Scotch by birth, but he had moved

into England, where her father and mother, and herself were born, so

that she called herself English, though she gloried in her Scotch blood

and her Scotch face, which was unmistakable.

After her birth, her father had bought a place in Bangor, Wales, which

he called Stoneleigh, and there her two brothers, Hugh and John, were

born, and her parents had died.

She had come alone to Allington, when comparatively young, and, settling

down quietly, had for a time watched closely the habits of the people

around her, and posted herself thoroughly with regard to the workings

and institutions of a Republic, and then she adopted them heartily, and

became an out-and-out American, and only lamented that she could not

vote and take part in the politics of the country. Of her past life she

never spoke, and of her family seldom. Her father and mother were dead;

she had two brothers, both well enough in their way, but wholly unlike

each other, she had once told Lucy Grey, whom she had always liked, and

with whom she was more intimate than with any one else in Allington,

unless it were Hannah Jerrold. Although very proud of her family name

and family blood, she was no boaster, and no one in Allington would ever

have known that one of her brothers had been in Parliament, and that his

wife was a Lady Jane Trevellian, if chance had not thrown them in the

way of Mrs. Geraldine.

Once, and once only, had she returned to her native land, and that two

or three years before our story opens. Then she had been absent three or

four months, and when she returned to Allington, she seemed grimmer and

sterner than ever, and more intolerant of everything which did not savor

of the "naked truth." And yet, as Lucy Grey had said of her to her

sister, she was true as steel to her friends, and at heart was one of

the kindest and best of women, and, with the exception of Miss Lucy

Grey, no one in Allington was found so often in the houses of the poor

as she, and though she rebuked sharply when it was necessary, and told

them they were dirty and shiftless when they were, she made her kindness

felt in so many ways that she was, if possible, more popular than Lucy

herself, for, while Lucy only gave them money and sympathy, she helped

them with her hands, and, if necessary, swept their floors, and washed

their faces, and made their beds, and sometimes took their children home

and kept them with her for days.

Such was Miss Betsey McPherson, who, as she is to figure conspicuously

in this story, merits this introduction to the reader, and who, in her

black silk of a dozen years old, with a long, heavy gold chain around

her neck and a cap fashioned after the English style upon her head,

stood up very tall and stiff to receive Mrs. Geraldine, but did not bend

her head when she saw it was that lady's intention to kiss her.

"I know she would as soon kiss a piece of sole-leather as me, and I

would rather kiss a flour-barrel than that powdered face," was her

thought; and so she only gave her hand to Mrs. Jerrold, who told her how

glad she was to see her and how much she was pleased with her brother,

the Hon. John McPherson, and his charming wife, the Lady Jane.

"Why have you never spoken of them to us? I should be proud of such

relatives," she said; and Miss McPherson replied:

"Umph! What's the use? I'm no better, no worse for them."

Just then the sound of bells was heard, and Hannah and Grey came in, and

were received most cordially by Miss McPherson, who unbent to them as

she had not done to the Boston lady. Indeed, there was something even

tender in her voice as she spoke to Hannah and inquired after her

father. Then, turning to Grey, she laid one hand on his head, and taking

his chin in the other, looked searchingly in his face as she said:

"I wonder if you are the same boy I used to like so much, or has a trip

to Europe spoiled you, as it does so many Americans?"

"Not a bit of it," Grey answered, merrily. "Europe is grand; Europe is

beautiful; but she is very old, and I like young America better, with

her freedom and her go-ahead, even if she is not as intensely

respectable, and dignified, as her mother across the water."

The dinner-bell here put an end to the conversation, and Lucy preceded

her guests to the dining-room, followed by her brother, who had been

more than usually affectionate in his greeting to his sister, whom he

took in to dinner, while Grey escorted his mother and Miss McPherson.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DINNER, AT WHICH BESSIE IS INTRODUCED.

The soup and fish had been served, and during the interval while Mr.

Jerrold carved the big turkey which Hannah had contributed, and which

she had fattened all the summer in anticipation of Grey's return and

this very dinner, Mrs. Geraldine took occasion to introduce her favorite

subject of conversation, Europe, and its customs, which she thought so

infinitely superior to those this side the water.

"Umph!" ejaculated Miss McPherson, with an upward toss of the chin.

Then, turning to Grey, she said, "And did you, too, like all the foreign

habits?"

"No, indeed," was Grey's reply. "Just think of having your coffee and

roll brought to you in the morning while you are in bed, and eating it

in the smelling room, without washing your hands, and then going to

sleep again. That is what I call very _narsty_, as the English say,

though they do not use the word in that sense."

"You forget that Miss McPherson is English," Mrs. Jerrold said, and the

lady in question at once rejoined:

"Never mind. I do not believe in spoiling a story for relation's sake,

or country's either, and I fully agree with Grey that the Continental

habit of breakfasting in bed, with unwashed face and hands, is a very

_nasty_ one, in the American sense of the word. I never did it, and

never would."

"You have been on the Continent, then?" Mr. Jerrold asked, and instantly

there came upon Miss McPherson's face an expression of bitter pain, as

if some sad memory had been stirred; then, quickly recovering herself,

she answered:

"Yes, I was at school in Paris a year, and traveled another year all

over Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. It may seem strange to Grey, who

probably cannot realize that I was ever young, to know that I, too, have

my Alpenstock as a voucher for the mountains I have climbed and the

chasms I have crossed. Did you go to Monte-Carlo?"

The question was addressed to Grey, who replied:

"Yes, we were there four days."

"Did you play?"

"No, I did not even see them play. They would not let me in; I was too

young, and I should not have played anyway, for I promised Aunt Lucy I

would not," Grey said, and Miss McPherson replied, with startling

vehemence:

"That's right, my boy! that's right! Never, never play for money so long

as you live. You have no idea what perils lurk around the gaming-table,

or what an accursed spot Monte-Carlo is, beautiful as it is to look at.

Those lovely grounds are haunted with the ghosts of the suicides who,

ruined body and soul, have rushed unprepared into the presence of their

Maker."

None of the guests had ever seen Miss McPherson so excited, and for a

moment there was silence while they gazed at her wonderingly, as she sat

with lips compressed and nostrils dilated, looking intently over their

heads at something they could not see, but which evidently was very

vivid to her.

Mrs. Geraldine was the first to speak, and she said, half laughingly:

"You are quite as much prejudiced against _Rouge et Noir_ as your

brother, for when I told him I tried my luck at Monte-Carlo and won

twenty-five dollars, he seemed horrified, and I think it took him some

hours to regard me with favor again."

"Yes, and he had reason. The McPhersons have all good cause to abhor the

very name of gambling," Miss McPherson replied, hitching her chair a

little further away from Geraldine as from something poisonous; then, in

her characteristic way of suddenly changing the conversation, she said:

"You saw my nephew, Neil McPherson?"

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Jerrold replied. "We saw a good deal of him; he is very

fine-looking, with such gentlemanly manners for a boy. I should be glad

if Grey would imitate him," and she glanced at her son, on whose face a

cloud instantly fell.

Miss McPherson saw it, and turning to him she asked:

"How did you like Neil? Boys are sometimes better judges of each other

than older people. Did you think him very nice?"

Remembering Miss McPherson's love for the _naked truth_, Grey spoke out

boldly.

"No, madam; at first I did not like him at all. We had a fight!"

"A fight!" Miss McPherson repeated, in surprise, as did both Hannah and

Lucy simultaneously, while Mrs. Jerrold interposed:

"I think, Grey, I would not mention that, as it reflects no credit upon

you."

"But he insulted me first," Grey replied, and Miss McPherson insisted:

"Tell it, Grey, and do not omit anything, because I am his aunt. Tell it

exactly as it was. I want the truth."

Thus encouraged, Grey began: "I know I did not do right, but he made me

so angry. It was the Fourth of July and we were at Melrose stopping at

the George Inn, while Mr. McPherson's family were at the Abbey Hotel

close to the old ruin. There were several Americans at our house, and

because of that the proprietor hung out our national flag. It was such a

lovely morning, and when I went into the street and saw the Stars and

Stripes waving in the English wind, I hurrahed with all my might and

threw up my cap in the air.

"'May I ask why you are making so much noise?' somebody said close to

me, and turning round I saw a lad about my own age, wearing a tall

stove-pipe hat, for he was an Eton boy.

"His manner provoked me quite as much as his words, it was so

overbearing, and picking up my cap, I said: 'Why, it's the Fourth of

July, and that is the Star-spangled Banner!'

"'Star-spangled fiddlestick!' he retorted, tapping the ground with the

tip of his boot.' And so you are a Yankee? I heard there was a lot of

them here.'

"'Yes, I'm a Yankee,' I replied; 'a genuine down-easter and proud of it

too, and who, are you?'

"'I? Why, I am Neil McPherson, an Eton boy, and my father is the Hon.

John McPherson, and my mother is Lady Jane McPherson,' he replied, in a

tone intended to annihilate me wholly.

"But I stood my ground, and said:

"'Oh, you are Neil McPherson, are you? and your father is an honorable,

and your mother a lady? Well, I am Grey Jerrold, of Boston, and my

father is an honorable, and my mother is a lady, too!"

"'Now, reely, you make me larf,' he cried. 'Your father may be an

honorable--I believe you have such things--but your mother is not a

lady; there are no ladies in America--born ladies, such as we have in

the United Kingdom. And pray what have you Yankees done, except to make

money, that you should all be so infernally proud of your country and

that rag?' pointing to the flag.

"By this time my blood was up, and I squared up to him, saying:

"'What have we done? We have whipped Johnny Bull just as I am going to

thrash you under that very flag which you were pleased to designate a

rag.'

"He saw I meant business, and bucked off, saying:

"'Oh, but you carn't. I'm the son of Lady Jane McPherson, you know, and

you carn't touch me.'

"'We'll see if I carn't,' I answered, and then I pitched in and thrashed

him till he cried for quarter, and I let him go, threatening all sorts

of vengeance upon me, the worst of which was that he would tell his

mother and have me arrested for assault and battery.

"That was my introduction to Neil McPherson, and I am ashamed of it

now, for I came to like him very much."

During the recital Miss McPherson had laughed until the tears ran down

her cheeks, a thing very unusual to her, while neither Hannah nor Lucy

could repress a smile at Grey's earnestness, but Mr. Jerrold looked very

grave, and his wife annoyed and displeased.

"I am glad to hear you acknowledge that you are ashamed," Mr. Jerrold

said; "for I was very _much_ ashamed that a son of mine should so far

forget himself as to fight a stranger whom he had never seen before.

But, in justice to you, I must add what you have omitted, which is that

you went and apologized to the boy for the affront."

"Did you?" Miss McPherson said, turning to Grey, who replied:

"Yes; and I must say that he received my rather bungling apology better

than I supposed he would.

"'All right,' he said, offering me his hand; 'I dare say I was a cad to

say what I did of your flag, but you needn't have hit me quite so hard.

Where did you learn boxing?'

"'I never learned it,' I told him. 'It was natural to all the Yankees,

who were born with clenched fists, ready to go at it.'

"He believed me, and said 'Reely, is that so?' and then he invited me to

play billiards with him, and we got to be good friends, and he asked all

sorts of questions about America, and said that our girls were the

prettiest in the world when they were young. All the English say that,

and Neil had heard it forty times, so it was not original with him. He

said, however, that pretty as they were, his cousin, Bessie, was far

prettier, that she was a most beautiful little creature, and as sweet as

she was beautiful."

"Bessie!" Miss McPherson exclaimed, with a peculiar ring in her voice,

and a manner of greater interest than she had evinced in Grey's recital

of his encounter with Neil, "Do you mean the daughter of Archibald

McPherson, my nephew, and did you see her? Did you see Archie?"

Grey colored, and replied;

"No, I did not, for mother wished to punish me for fighting Neil, and

so when a Mrs. Smithers asked us to spend a week with the McPhersons at

her home in Middlesex, I was left behind in London with some friends,

but I had great fun. I went to the Tower, and the circus, and the Abbey,

and the museum, and everywhere, though I was sorry not to see Bessie,

who with her father and mother, was also at Captain Smithers'."

"You saw them, then," Miss McPherson continued, addressing herself to

Mrs. Jerrold, "You saw Archie, and his wife and Bessie. What is Archie

like? I never saw him, but I have his wife. She was the daughter of a

milliner, or dressmaker, or ballet-dancer, from Wales, in the vicinity

of Bangor, or Carnarvon, I believe."

"Carnarvon!" Hannah repeated quickly, while a sudden pallor came to her

lips and forehead, but no one noticed it, and Geraldine hesitated a

little, uncertain as to how far she dared to tell the truth and not give

offense.

But she was soon relieved from all uneasiness on that score, by Miss

McPherson, who, noticing her hesitancy, said:

"Don't be afraid to tell me exactly as it is, for were Archie ten times

my nephew, I would rather hear the whole truth just as Grey told it of

Neil. So, then, what did you think of Archie? I have an idea he is a

good-natured, good for nothing, shiftless fellow, who never earned a

penny in his life, and who gets his living from any one who will give it

to him."

She spoke with a great asperity of manner, and then waited for

Geraldine, who replied:

"You have stated the case in much stronger language than I should have

done, but in the main I believe you are right. Mr. Archibald McPherson

is one whom you could not possibly mistake for other than a gentleman.

He is courteous, and kind, and agreeable, but very indolent, I should

say, for he never stands when he can sit, and never sits when he can

recline; indeed, his position is always a lounging one, and he impressed

me as if he were afraid of falling to pieces if he exerted himself."

"Just so, that is what I thought," Miss Betsey said, emphatically. "He

takes it from his father, rather than his mother. She, I believe, had

some energy and snap She was a chorus singer in some opera, and I did

not like the match, though I now believe she was too good for Hugh. And

now for Archie's wife, Daisy they call her. What of her?"

Mrs. Jerrold evidently had no scruples about freeing her mind with

regard to Daisy McPherson, and she answered, promptly:

"I did not like her at all, neither did Lady Jane, and I tried my best

to keep aloof from her, but could not; she is pushing and aggressive and

sweetly unconscious that she is not wanted. And yet she is exceedingly

pretty, with that innocent kind of face and childish, appealing way

which women detest, but which takes with the men," and Mrs. Geraldine

glanced sharply at her husband, who was just then very busy with his

pudding, and pretended not to hear her, while she went on: "She has some

accomplishments, speaks French and German, I believe, perfectly, sings

simple ballads tolerably well, but rolls her eyes frightfully, and is so

conscious of herself that she disgusts you. I should call her a regular

Becky Sharp, always managing to get the best of everything, and, as she

told me herself, always having on her list two or three invitations for

as many weeks, to as many different places."

"But how does she do it?" Miss Betsey asked, and Mrs. Jerrold replied:

"I hardly know, nor do the ladies themselves. Sometimes, as in the case

of Mrs. Smithers, the invitation is genuine and sincere, but oftener it

is a mere form at which Daisy jumps at once, thanking the lady sweetly,

and either asking her to fix a time, or more frequently fixing it

herself to suit her own convenience. She has a most wonderful talent,

too, forgetting presents of clothes and jewelry for herself and Bessie,

and that is the way they live, for they have no means, or, at least,

very little, except what she manages to get from the men by philopoenas,

or bets, or games at cards and chess, where they allow her to win,

because she almost begs them to let her do so. She even got five pounds

from my husband on a wager, which he did not at first think in earnest."

And again the black eyes flashed at Button, who now looked up from the

orange he was peeling and said laughingly:

"Yes, Daisy did me out of twenty-five dollars in the neatest possible

manner, and would have fleeced me out of twenty-five more if I had not

been on my guard against her. She got twenty-five pounds out of Lord

Hardy who was a guest at the Smithers', but he acted as if it were a

pleasure to be cheated by so pretty a woman, and she is the prettiest

woman I ever saw."

"Umph!" Miss Betsey said again, while Geraldine continued:

"Yes, she is pretty, with a pink and white complexion, blue eyes and

golden hair, which curls naturally, and which she still wears hanging

down her back so as to show it to good advantage, and she a woman of

thirty."

"No, Geraldine, you are mistaken," Mr. Jerrold said, quickly. "You

forget that she was married at seventeen, and Bessie is only eight; so,

at the most, Daisy cannot be more than twenty-six."

"I am glad you know her age so well," Mrs. Geraldine retorted, "I think

twenty-six too old to wear one's hair streaming down the back. We were

all disgusted, and especially Lady Jane, whose room was just across the

hall, directly opposite hers. She told me herself that she would never

have accepted Mrs. Smithers' invitation had she known that adventuress

was to be there. And yet she was very kind to little Bessie. Indeed, no

one could look at that child and not love her at once, and pity her,

too, for the influence with which she was surrounded."

"Yes, Bessie--tell me of her," and Miss McPherson leaned forward

eagerly. "They pretend she was named for me. Then why not call her

Betsey, if that is her name?"

"Would you call a child Betsey?" Hannah asked, joining for the first

time in the conversation.

"No, of course not. I think it horrid, but if I was christened Betsey,

no power on earth could turn me into a Bessie; but go on and tell me

about her," and she turned to Mrs. Geraldine, who continued:

"She has her mother's wonderful beauty, with all its refinement of her

father, and such a sweet expression that you feel like kissing her. Her

eyes, like her mother's, are blue, but so clear and dark that at times

they seemed almost black, especially when there came into them as there

often did, a troubled look, when Daisy was relating some of her

adventures, which we knew could not be true. At such times, it was

curious to watch the child as she listened with her great wide-open eyes

and flushed cheeks, while her breath came in short gasps, as if she were

longing to contradict her mother, and this she sometimes did.

"'Mamma, mamma, please,' she would say. 'Haven't you forgotten? Wasn't

it this way?' but a look would silence her, and there would settle upon

her face and about her mouth that patient, sorrowful expression pitiful

to see in one so young."

"And her father, was he fond of her?" Miss McPherson asked, and Mrs.

Jerrold replied:

"Yes, very, and she of him. She seemed to recognize the difference

between him and her mother, and kept by him most of the time. It was a

very pretty sight to see her with her arms around his neck and her

bright head leaning on his arm, while she looked up at him so lovingly

and sympathizingly, too, as they watched the maneuvers of her mother.

Once I heard her say to him, when Daisy was flirting more than usual and

attracting all eyes to her, 'I shall never do like that; but mamma is

very pretty, isn't she?'

"'Yes, darling, very pretty,' he answered, and then they kissed each

other very quietly. I wish you could see Bessie."

It was not often that Geraldine praised anything or anybody as she

praised this little English girl who had made a strong impression upon

her, and of whom she might have said more if Miss McPherson had not

rejoined:

"I did see her once, and her mother, too. I was home three years ago,

you know, and I went to Aberystwyth in Wales, where I heard Archie was

staying, but I did not make myself known to him, I was so disgusted with

what I heard of his wife's conduct, which he allowed without a word of

protest. But I was anxious to see the child, and one morning I sat on a

bench on the Marine Terrace watching a group of children playing near

me. I was almost sure that the one with the blue eyes and bright hair

was Archie's and so I called aloud, 'Betsey McPherson, are you there?'

"Instantly she came to me, and folding her hands in my lap, looked up at

me with her wondering eyes and said:

"'I am Bessie McPherson, not Betsey.'

"'Weren't you christened Betsey?' I asked, and she replied:

"'Yes, but they never call me that. It's a horrid name, mamma says.'

"'Then why did she give it to you?' I said, and she answered with the

utmost gravity:

"'For some old auntie in America who has money; but she never sent me a

thing, nor answered papa's letter. I think she is mean, don't you?'

"I did not tell her what I thought of the old auntie, though I could not

repress a smile at her frankness, which pleased me more than

prevarication would have done.

"'Where is your papa?' I asked, and she replied:

"'At the Queen's Hotel, but it is awful expensive there, and papa says

we can't afford it much longer. But mamma says we must stay till she

finds some place to visit. There she is now, and that is Lord Hardy with

her; they are going over to the old ruins,' and she pointed to a young

woman in the distance, bedizened out in white muslin and blue ribbons,

with her yellow hair hanging down her back, and her big straw hat in her

hand instead of on her head; and she was talking and laughing and

coquetting with a short, spindle-legged chap, not much taller than

herself, and looking with his light curly hair and mustache like a

poodle-dog.

"'Who did you say he was?' I asked, and the child answered me:

"'Lord Hardy, mamma's friend. He is very rich and very nice. He gives me

lots of things, and sometimes buys us all first class tickets, and then

it is so grand. I don't like to go second-class, but, you see, papa is

very poor.'

"'How, then, can he afford to stop at expensive hotels?' I asked, and

she said, while a shadow came over her face:

"'We couldn't if we didn't have one small room on the top floor, where

I sleep on the lounge. I never go to _table d'hote_ but stay in my room

and eat whatever mamma can slip into her pocket without the waiters

seeing her. Sometimes it is not much, and then I am so hungry; but mamma

will get us an invitation to visit somebody soon, and then I can eat all

I want.'"

The guests had listened very attentively to this recital, and none more

so than Grey, who leaned eagerly forward, with quivering lips and

moistened eyes, as he exclaimed:

"Poor little girl, how I wish she had some of my dinner! Why didn't you

bring her home with you, away from her wicked mother?"

Miss McPherson did not reply, for there dawned upon her suddenly a fear

lest she had talked too much, and her manner changed at once, while she

sank into an abstracted mood, and her eyes had in them a far-off look,

as if she were seeing the child who came to her upon the sands of

Aberystwyth and looked into her face with eyes she had never been able

to forget, and which she could now see so plainly, though the little

girl was thousands of miles away.

Dinner being over Hannah said it was time for her to go home, and Lucy

accordingly ordered the sleigh to be brought to the door.

"You will come to-morrow as early as possible," Hannah said to her

brother, who replied:

"Yes, immediately after breakfast, for I must go back to Boston on the

afternoon train, I have an engagement for Saturday."

"So soon?" Hannah said, in a tone of disappointment: "I hoped you would

stay longer; father will be so sorry; he has anticipated your visit so

much."

"It is impossible. I have promised for Saturday, and must keep the

appointment," and Burton Jerrold leisurely scraped and trimmed his thumb

nail, but did not explain that the appointment he must keep was with the

members of his club, who gave a dinner on Saturday.

He knew very well that he could remain in Allington until Saturday

afternoon and then reach home in time for the dinner; but the place was

almost as distasteful to him as to his wife, and he gladly seized upon

any pretext to shorten his stay as much as possible.

"Shall I tell father that you will come with Burton to-morrow?" Hannah

asked her sister, who instantly assumed that air of invalidism which she

found so convenient when anything disagreeable was suggested for her to

do.

Drawing her shawl more closely about her, and glancing with a little

shiver at the window, she replied:

"N-no, I hardly think I shall go out to-morrow, it will be so cold, and

probably stormy; but you may expect me for a little while on Saturday,

if the day is fine."

"But _I_ shall come and stay till Monday, and I hope you have a lot of

mince pies baked up. Last Thanksgiving we were in Paris, and had pea

soup, and brains, and eels, and stewed celery for dinner," Grey said, as

he kissed his aunt and bade her good-by.

CHAPTER VIII.

AFTER THE DINNER.

The carriage which took Hannah home also took Miss McPherson to the door

of her dwelling, a large, old-fashioned New England house, with a wide

hall through the center, and a square room on either side; one the

drawing-room or parlor in which the massive furniture had not been

changed during the twenty years and more that Miss Betsey had lived

there; the other the living room where the lady sat, and ate, and

received her friends and where now a bright fire was burning in the

Franklin stove, and the kettle was singing upon the hob, while a little

round Swiss table was standing on the Persian rug before the fire, and

on it the delicate cup and saucer, and sugar bowl, and creamer, which

Miss McPherson had herself bought at Sevres years ago, when the life she

looked forward to was very different from what had actually come to her.

Possibly the memory of the day when she walked through those brilliant

rooms at Sevres, and bought her costly wares, softened a little her

somewhat harsh, uncompromising nature, for there was a very womanly

expression on her usually severe face as she sipped her favorite oolong,

and gazed dreamily into the fire, where she seemed to see again the

sweet face of the child who had talked to her on the shores of Cardigan

Bay, and whose innocent prattle had by turns amused, and interested, and

enraged her. And, as she gazed she thought:

"Yes, Grey was right. Why didn't I take the little thing in my arms and

bring her home with me? To think of her being hungry, when there is

enough wasted in this house every day to feed her! And why did I so far

forget myself as to talk as I did to-day--I, who am usually so silent

with regard to my affairs! Why need I have told them that Archie's wife

was a trollop. I suppose the venom is still rankling in me for the name

she called me, 'Old Sour Krout!'" and Miss Betsey smiled grimly as she

remembered all, the child upon the terrace had said to her that summer

morning three years ago, "She is truthful, at all events," she

continued, "and I like that, and wish I had her here. She would be a

comfort to me, now that I am old, and the house has no young life in it,

except my cats. There's the bedroom at the end of the hall, opening from

my room. She could have that, and I should be so happy fitting it up for

her. I'd trim it with blue, and have hangings at the bed, and--"

Here she stopped, seized with a sudden inspiration, and summoning the

housemaid, Flora, to her, she said:

"Remove the tea things and bring my writing-desk."

Flora obeyed, and her mistress was soon deep in the construction of a

letter to Archibald McPherson, to whom she made the proposition that he

should bring his daughter Betsey to her, or if he did not care to cross

the ocean himself, that he place her under the charge of some reliable

person who was coming to America and who would see her safely to

Allington, or, that failing, she did not know but she would come herself

for the child, so anxious was she to have her.

"I shall not try to conceal from you that I have seen her. You know

that by the result. I did see her on the terrace, and saw your wife,

too, and I liked the child, and want her for my own, to train as I

please and to bring up to some useful occupation, so that, if

necessary, she can earn her own living. There has been too much

false pride in our family on account of birth and blood. The idea

that because you are born a gentleman or lady you must not work is

absurd. Would it not be more honorable to sweep the streets, or

scour knives and pare potatoes, than to sponge one's living out of

strangers who despise you in then hearts even when inviting you to

their houses? We have men, and women too, in America who do not work

but get their living from others, and we call them tramps, and have

them arrested as vagrants. But that is neither here nor there. I

want you to give little Betsey to me, and she, at least, will never

regret it. But don't let me hope of a fortune influence you, for my

will was made years ago, and not a McPherson is remembered in it.

Still, if Betsey pleases me, I may add a codicil and give her a few

thousands, but don't count upon it, or my death either. We are a

long-lived race, and I am perfectly strong and well; so, if you let

me have her, do it because you think it will be better for her,

morally and spiritually, to be removed from the poisonous atmosphere

which surrounds her. I liked her face; I liked her voice; I liked

her frankness. I shall like her; so send her, and I will bear the

expense; or write and say you can't, and that will close the book.

"Your aunt, Miss BETSEY McPHERSON. Allington, Mass.

"P.S. I shall direct this to the old home in Wales, though I have no

idea you are there, as I hear your wife prefers to be traveling."

The letter finished and directed, Miss Betsey sat a long time gazing

dreamily into the fire and thinking of the past, the present, and the

possible future, when a bright-haired child might be sitting there by

her side and making her life less lonely and aimless than it was now.

Meanwhile the party at Grey's Park had gathered around the fire in the

drawing-room, and Geraldine was repeating to her sister the particulars

of her presentation to the queen, shivering occasionally as she heard

the sleet and snow beating against the window, for with the going down

of the sun the storm had commenced again with redoubled fury, and the

wind howled dismally as it swept past the corners of the house, bearing

with it blinding sheets of snow and rain, and sounding some times like

human sobbing as it died away in the distance.

"Is there some one crying outside, or is it the wind?" Mr. Jerrold

asked, as the sobbing seemed like a wail of anguish, while there crept

over him one of those indefinable presentiments which we have all felt

at times and could not explain; a presentiment in his case of coming

evil, whose shadow was already upon him.

"It is the wind," Grey said. "What an awful storm for Thanksgiving

night!" and rising, he walked to the window just as outside there was

the sound of a fast-coming vehicle, which stopped at the side piazza.

A few moments later the door of the drawing-room opened, and a servant

appeared with a note, which she handed to Mr. Jerrold, saying:

"Sam Powley brought this from your sister. He says your father is very

bad."

Mr. Jerrold was not greatly surprised. It seemed to him he had expected

this, for the sobbing of the wind had sounded to him like his father's

voice calling to him in the storm. Taking the note from the girl, he

tore it open and read:

"DEAR BROTHER: On my return home I found our father much worse,

indeed, I have never seen him so bad, and he insists upon your

coming to him to-night, so I have sent Sam for you, with

instructions to call on his return for our clergyman, Mr. Sanford,

as he wishes particularly to see him. Come at once, and _come

alone_."

"HANNAH."

The words "come alone" were underscored, and Burton felt intuitively

that the secret he had long suspected and which had shadowed his

father's life, was at last coming to him unsought. He was sure of it,

and knew why Hannah had written "come alone." It meant that Grey must

not come with him, and when the boy who had stood beside him and read

the note with him, exclaimed, "Grandpa is worse; he is going to die; let

us go at once," he said, very decidedly:

"No, my son, not to-night. To-morrow you shall go and stay all day, but

not to-night, in this storm."

Very unwillingly Grey yielded, and saw his father depart without him.

"How is my father? How does he seem?" Mr. Jerrold asked of the boy Sam,

who replied:

"I don't know; I have not seen him. He would not even let me in this

afternoon when Miss Hannah was gone. He locked the door, and I heard him

working at something on the floor by his bed, as if trying to tear up

the plank. He was there when Miss Hannah came home and found him. I

guess he is pretty crazy. But here we are at the minister's, I was to

stop for him, you know. You will have to hold the horse. I sha'n't be

long," and reining up to the gate of the rectory Sam plunged into the

snow, and wading to the door, gave a tremendous peal upon the brass

knocker.

The Rev. Mr. Sanford, who had for many years been rector of the little

church in Allington, was taking his evening tea with his better-half,

Mrs. Martha Sanford, a little, plump, red-faced woman, with light gray

eyes and yellow hair, who ruled her husband with a rod of iron, and

would have ruled his parish if they had not rebelled against her. With

all her faults, however, she took excellent care of her lord and master,

and looked after his health as carefully as she did after his household

interests; and on this particular night, because he had complained of a

slight hoarseness to which he was subject, she had at once enveloped his

throat with folds of red flannel, under which was a slice of salt pork,

her favorite remedy for all troubles of a bronchial nature. And, in his

warmly wadded dressing-gown and padded slippers, the reverend man sat

enjoying his tea and crisp slices of toast, which Mrs. Martha prepared

for him herself, when the sound of the brass knocker startled them both,

and made Mrs. Martha start so suddenly that the slice of bread she was

toasting dropped from the fork upon the hot coals, where it was soon

reduced to ashes.

"Who can be pounding like that on such a night as this?" she asked, as

she hastened to open the hall-door, which admitted such a gust of wind

that she came near shutting it in Sam's face.

But the boy managed to crowd into the hall, and shaking a whole

snow-bank of snow from his cap and coat, he began:

"If you please, ma'am, old Mr. Jerrold is very bad indeed, and Miss

Hannah wants the minister to come right off. Mr. Burton Jerrold is out

in the sleigh, waiting for him, and says he must hurry."

"Mr. Sanford go out such a night as this! It's impossible! He is half

sick now. What does old Mr. Jerrold want?" Mrs. Sanford said, sharply;

and Sam replied, as he shook down another mass of snow upon the carpet:

"Don't know; the Sacrament, mebby, as I guess he's going to die," and

the boy advanced a step or two into the warmly lighted room, where the

rector, who had risen to his feet, was beginning to divest himself of

his dressing-gown.

"Stay back; you have brought snow enough into the hall without spoiling

the parlor carpet, too," Mrs. Martha said, angrily; then, going to her

husband, whose purpose she divined, she continued; "Charles, are you

crazy, to think of going out in this storm?"

"But, my dear," the rector began, meekly, "if the poor old man is

dying--and Hannah would never have sent in such a storm unless she

thought so--if he is dying and desires the comfort of the communion,

shall I refuse it to him because of a little inconvenience to myself?

No, no; I have not so learned Christ. Please bring me my coat, Martha,

and my boots, and the little communion service."

"A pretty time of day to think of that, just as the candle is burned to

the snuff," Mrs. Martha retorted. "Here for years you have exhorted and

entreated him to be confirmed, and he has resisted all your appeals with

the excuse that for him to go to the Lord's table would be a mortal sin;

and now, just at the last, in such a storm, he sends for you. I consider

it an insult to his Creator and to you, too."

"Will you please bring my coat and boots and things? I can never quite

find them myself," was all the rector said, and knowing that further

opposition was useless, Mrs. Martha went in quest of the boots and

overshoes, and coat and overcoat and muffler, and fur cap and mittens,

and heavy shawl, in which she enveloped her husband, lamenting that

there was not ready a hot soap-stone for his feet, which were sure to

suffer.

But the little man did not need the soap-stone; he had the warmest,

kindest, most unselfish heart that ever beat in a human breast, and

never thought of the storm, as he waded through the deep snow and took

his seat beside Burton Jerrold in the sleigh, which Sam drove rapidly

toward the farm-house in the pasture.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HORROR AT THE FARM-HOUSE.

When Hannah reached home the gray November afternoon was already merging

into the dark night, which was made still darker by the violence of the

increasing storm, and never had Hannah's home seemed so desolate and

dreary as it did when the sleigh turned from the highway into the

cross-road which lead to it, and she saw through the gathering gloom the

low, snow-covered roof and the windows from which no welcoming light was

shining. It had been so bright, and cheerful, and warm in the

drawing-room at Grey's Park, and here all was cold, and cheerless, and

dark, as she went into the house with a vague presentiment of the horror

awaiting her.

Entering through the wood-shed she stumbled upon Sam, who was sitting on

a pile of wood, and who said to her:

"I guess your father is mighty bad. I didn't go near him till I heard

him groaning and praying, and taking on so, that I opened the door and

asked if he wanted anything. Then he jumped out of bed and told me to be

gone, spying on him, and he locked the door on me, and I heard him as

if he was under the bed trying to tear up the floor, and I ran out here,

for I was afraid."

"Under the bed!" Hannah repeated, while a cold sweat oozed from every

pore. "He must be crazy! But do not come with me to his room; it would

make him worse. I can manage him alone; but please make a fire in the

summer kitchen and stay there this evening. Father seems to know when

any one is in the next room and it troubles him."

"Yes-m," the boy replied, thinking it a very strange freak that the old

man would allow no one with him except his daughter.

But Sam was neither quick nor suspicious, and glad of any change from

the cold wood-shed, he started to kindle a fire in the room adjoining,

which in summer was used for a kitchen, while Hannah, lighting a candle,

hastened to the door of her father's room, which she found locked, while

from within she heard labored breathing, and a sound like tugging at a

board which evidently offered resistance.

"Father," she cried, in terror, "let me in! It is I, Hannah, and Sam is

in the wood-shed."

After a moment the key was turned and Hannah stepped inside, locking the

door after her.

In the middle of the floor her father stood, with his long white hair

falling around his corpse-like face and his eyes bright with the

excitement of delirium. The bed was moved toward the center of the room

and in the farthest corner a board of the floor had been partially

removed.

"What are you doing?" Hannah asked, advancing quickly to her father.

"Oh, Hannah," the old man said, whimperingly; "I did so want to be sure

that it was there. I dreamed it was gone, that it had never been there,

and it was so real I wanted to see. I thought I'd get done before you

came, but it was so hard. I cannot get the boards up. But you can do it;

go down on your knees and take the floor up just this once. I'll never

ask it again. It was thirty-one years ago to-night, and when it is

thirty-two I shall be dead. Go down, Hannah, I want to know if it is

there still, the horror I have slept over every night for thirty-one

long years."

"No, father," Hannah answered, firmly. "Ask me anything but that. Be

satisfied that it _is_ there. Who should take it away, when no one knows

but ourselves? Get into bed, father; you are shivering with cold."

Like a conquered child the old man obeyed her and crept into bed, while

she drew the blankets around him, and then stooping down in the dark

corner she drove the loosened board to its place, shuddering as she did

so and experiencing a feeling of terror such as she had not felt before

in years. Pushing the bed back to its usual position, she sat down by

her father and tried to quiet him, for he was strangely restless, and

talked of, things which made the blood curdle in her veins.

"Hark!" he exclaimed, as a gust of wind went shrieking past the window.

"What was that, Hannah, that sound like a human cry?"

"It was only the wind. A wild storm is sweeping over the hills

to-night," she said, as she drew a little nearer to him and took his

hand in hers as if to give herself courage, for she, too, fancied there

was in the wailing wind the echo of a cry she never could forget.

"Yes," the old man replied, "just such a storm as shook the house

thirty-one years ago to-night, and above it all I hear Rover's howl and

the awful word you shouted aloud and which the winds caught up and

carried everywhere so that the world is full of it. Do you remember it,

Hannah!"

Did she remember it. Ask rather could she ever forget the awful word

which it seemed to her was written on the very walls and doors of the

house, and on her forehead where all the world might see it!

Ask her if she remembered, when even now, after the lapse of thirty-one

years, she could hear so distinctly the shriek of despair, which, as her

father had said, the winds had caught up and carried over the hills and

far away, where it was still repeating itself over and over again, and

would go on forever until reparation were made, if that were possible

now.

It was always ringing in her ears, just as the stains were on her hands,

where she felt them as she clasped her long thin fingers convulsively

and wondered if she were going mad.

Her father was very quiet now; he was falling asleep, and sinking on

her knees beside the bed, the wretched woman moaned piteously:

"Oh, my Father in heaven, how long must I bear this burden which

to-night presses so heavily? Help me, help me, for I am so weak and sad.

Thou knowest I was innocent, and I have tried so hard to do right. If I

have failed--if I ought to have spoken in spite of the vow, forgive me,

for if my sin is great, great, too, has been my punishment.

"I cannot stay here," she thought, as she rose from her knees. "The room

is full of phantoms which gibber at me from the dark corners, and shout

the word in my ears as I shouted it that awful night when Rover kept me

company. Poor old Rover, lying under the snow. If he were only here I

should not be quite so desolate. I believe that for the first time in my

life I am a coward," and shaking with cold, or fear, or both, Hannah

left her father's room and went into the kitchen, where Sam was stuffing

the stove with wood.

The moment she appeared, however, he withdrew the stick he was crowding

in, and began to close some of the draughts. But she said to him:

"Don't do that, Sam. Let it burn; put on more. I am very cold. And light

a candle, Sam; three candles! It is so dark here, and the wind howls so.

Does it say anything to you, Sam? Any word, I mean?"

Sam had no idea what she meant, nor, indeed, did he think if she meant

any thing, for his wits came slowly. People called him stupid, and this

was his greatest recommendation to Hannah, who could not have had a

bright, quick-seeing boy in her household.

Sam suited her, and his answer to her question was characteristic of

him.

"No, I don't hear nothin' it says, only it screams like a panther in a

fit," and Sam deliberately lighted the three candles, and placed them on

the table, while Hannah drew a hard wooden chair to the stove, and

putting her feet upon the hearth, clasped her hands around her knees,

and sat there till she was thoroughly warm, and her nerves were quieted.

She was not afraid now, and taking one of the candles she went to her

father's room and found him sleeping, with a calm, peaceful expression

on his face, and another look, too, which made her heart stand still a

moment, for she felt intuitively that the black shadow of death had

crept into the room.

Suddenly he awoke, and seeing her standing by him smiled lovingly upon

her, and said:

"Is that you, Hannah? faithful always, but your work is almost done, I

am going home very soon to the dear Saviour. I am sure of it. I know it.

My sins are washed away in His blood; even the stains upon my hands,

which are clean and white now as were Grey's the day he caught and held

me so fast. May God bless the boy and make him a good man, and a comfort

to you, my child, who have been so much to me, the best, most unselfish

of daughters. And something tells me you will be happy when I am gone. I

hope so, I pray so; and now, Hannah, send for Burton. I shall not be

here in the morning, and I must see him once more, and send for Mr.

Sanford, too. I must see him before I die. Burton and the minister, no

one else; not even the boy Grey; he must not come, for, Hannah, I am

going to tell!"

"What, father?" Hannah gasped, and he replied:

"I am going at last to confess the whole to my son and the clergyman. I

must do it. I shall die easier."

"But, father," Hannah cried, in alarm, "reflect a moment. What possible

good can it do to tell Mr. Sanford, or even Burton? It would only give

him unnecessary pain. You have kept it so long, why not let the grave

bury your secret?"

"Because I cannot," the old man answered, "I must tell Burton. I have

always intended to do it at the last, so that he might know what you

have borne. Perhaps he may be kinder, gentler with you. Burton stands

well with men; high in the world, but he is not like you; he would never

have done what you have, and I want him to know that there is a

sacrifice which ennobles one more than all the honors of the world, and

I want Mr. Sanford to know why I could not go forward and ratify my

baptismal vows, as he has so often urged me to do, thinking me obstinate

in my refusal; and I wish to hear him say that he believes I am

forgiven; that Christ will receive me, even me, a--Oh, Hannah, I can not

say that word. I cannot give myself that name. I never have, you know.

It was so sudden, so without forethought, and, could I live my life over

again, I think I should tell at once, and not bury the secret as I did.

But hurry, Hannah. Send Sam. I have but a few hours to live. Tell them

to come quickly, Burton and the minister, not Grey."

So Hannah wrote the note to her brother, and gave it to Sam, who, in a

most unwilling frame of mind, harnessed the horse, and started in the

storm for Grey's Park.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of the coming of the guests, Hannah put her

father's room a little more to rights, lighted another candle, put more

wood in the stove, and then sat down to wait the result, with a heart

which it seemed to her had ceased to beat, so pulseless and dead it lay

in her bosom. She had no fear of anything personally adverse to herself

or her father arising from the telling of the secret kept so many years.

It would be safe with Mr. Sanford, while her proud brother would die a

thousand deaths sooner than reveal it; but, oh, how cruelly he would be

hurt, and how he would shrink from the story, and blame her that she

allowed it to be told, especially to the clergyman--and she might

perhaps prevent that yet. So she made another effort, but her father was

determined.

"I must, I must; I shall die easier, and he will never tell. We have

known him so long. Twenty-five years he has been here, and he took to us

from the first. Do you remember how often he used to come and read to

you on the bench under the apple tree?"

"Yes, father," Hannah answered, with a gasp, and he went on:

"Seeing you two together so much, I used to think he had a liking for

you, and you for him. Did you, Hannah? Were you and the minister ever

engaged?"

"No, father, never," Hannah replied, as she pressed her hands tightly

together, while two great burning tears rolled down her cheeks.

"And yet you were a comely enough lass then," her father rejoined, as if

bent on tormenting her. "You had lost your bright color to be sure, but

there was something very winsome in your face and eyes, and manner; and

he might better have married you than the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued,

fussy Martha Craig, who, like the Martha of old, is troubled about many

things, and leads the minister a stirred up kind of life."

"Mrs. Sanford is a model housekeeper, and takes good care of her

husband," Hannah said, softly; and then, as she heard the sound of

voices outside, she arose quickly, and went to meet her brother, and the

man who, her father had said, would better have married her than the

"sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Martha."

CHAPTER X.

THE INTERVIEW.

The rector was full of interest and concern as he stepped into the room,

and when Hannah apologized for sending for him on such a night, he

answered promptly:

"Not at all, not at all. If I can be of any comfort to you or your

father, I should be very sorry not to come. How is he?"

Hannah did not answer him, so intent was she upon studying her brother's

face, which was anything but sympathetic, as he shook the snow from his

overcoat and warmed his hands by the stove. The Hon. Burton Jerrold

liked his comfort and ease, and as he was far from easy or comfortable,

he made his sister feel it by his manner, if not by his words.

"Is father so much worse that you must send for us in this storm?" he

asked, and Hannah replied:

"Yes, he is very bad. He says he is going to die, and I believe it. He

will not last the night out, and of course I must send for you, and he

insisted that Mr. Sanford should come too."

"Yes, certainly; I am glad he did," the clergyman rejoined, thrusting

his hands into his coat-pocket. "He wishes the communion, I dare say,"

and he placed reverently upon the table the little silver service.

Hannah's face flushed as she replied;

"He did not mention that, I do not suppose he thinks he can receive it.

What he wishes is to see you, to talk to you, to--to--"

She hesitated, her brother's countenance was so forbidding, then added,

quickly:

"'He wishes to tell you something which he has kept for years," and her

voice sank to a whisper as she glanced again at her brother.

It was coming, then, the thing he had suspected so long, and which he

never had wished to learn, and Burton Jerrold breathed hard as he said:

"But surely, Hannah, if there are family secrets to be told, I am the

one to hear them, and not a stranger. Mr. Sanford can have no interest

in our affairs."

"I could not help it, brother," Hannah said, mildly. "I tried to

dissuade him, but he would not listen, and Mr. Sanford is not like a

stranger to us."

She turned her dark eyes full of tears upon the clergyman, who gave her

back an answering glance which her brother did not observe, and would

not have comprehended if he had.

"Yes, Hannah," Mr. Sanford said, "you can trust me; be the secret one of

life or death, it is safe with me as with you." And he gave her his hand

by way of affirmation.

And Hannah took the offered hand and held fast to it as a drowning man

holds to a straw, while the tears ran like rain down her pale face.

"Hannah! Burton! Are you there, and the minister? There is no time to

lose," came feebly from the sick-room, and Hannah said:

"He is calling us; go to him, please. I will join you in a minute."

Then she hurried to the summer kitchen, where she found Sam, who thought

his work done, and was removing his boots preparatory to going to bed.

"Wait, Sam," she said. "I am sorry, for I know you are tired and sleepy,

but you must sit up a while longer, and take Mr. Sanford home. I will

bring you an easy-chair in which you can sleep till I want you."

Thus speaking, she brought a large Boston rocker and a pillow for the

tired boy, who, she knew, would soon be fast asleep, with no suspicion

of what was about to transpire in the sick-room to which she next

repaired, closing the door behind her. Her father had both Burton's

hands in his, and was crying like a little child.

"Oh, my son, my son," he said, "if I could undo the past, I should not

have to turn my eyes from my own child in shame, and that I have done

ever since you were a boy, and came from Boston to see us. How old was

he, Hannah? How old was Burton when the terrible thing happened?"

"'Twelve," Hannah answered, and her father went wandering on like one

out of his mind, talking of Burton when he was a boy--of his dead

wife--of Hannah, who had suffered so long, and of the storm, which he

said was like the one which swept the New England hills thirty-one years

ago that very night, when the snow fell so deep that no one came near

the place till Monday.

"Three whole days," he said. "Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I had time

to hide the dark deed so securely that it has never been suspected."

Burton started quickly, and glanced at his sister with a look of amazed

inquiry. He had thought of forgery, and theft, and embezzlement, but

never of what his father's words might imply, and the cold sweat began

to froze from the palms of his hands while a kind of nightmare crept

over him, and kept him rooted to the spot as his father went on:

"But, oh! what agony of remorse I have endured! The tortures of the lost

are not more intense than my sufferings have been! Think of my meeting

people day after day with the mark of Cain upon my brow, burning there

so hotly that it seemed as if you must all see it, and know my guilt.

How could I join myself to God's people with this sin unconfessed? I

could not, and yet, I feel in my heart that I am forgiven, washed in His

blood as white as snow, so that there is rest for me in Paradise. Still,

I must confess; I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no

one else--not Grey--no, no, not the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His

life must not be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my

coffin. Oh, Grey! Grey! May God bless the boy and give him every needful

happiness, and make him so good and noble that his life will blot out

the stain upon our name.

"Father!" Burton cried, in a choking voice; "for pity's sake, have done,

and tell me what you mean! The suspense is terrible."

"I mean," and the old man spoke clearly and distinctly--"I mean that,

thirty-one years ago to-night, in the heat of passion, I killed a man in

the kitchen yonder, and buried him under this floor, under my bed, and I

have slept over his grave ever since!"

"A murderer!" dropped from Burton Jerrold's pale lips; and "A murderer!"

was echoed in the next room by lips far whiter than Burton Jerrold's,

and which quivered with mortal pain as the boy Grey started from his

stooping position over the stove and felt that he was dying.

For Grey was there, and had been for the last few minutes, and had heard

the secret which he was not to know.

After his father left Grey's Park, he had sat a few minutes with his

mother and aunt, and then, complaining of a headache, had asked to be

excused, and gone to his room, which was at the head of some stairs

leading down into a narrow hall and out into the side yard. When the boy

entered his chamber, he had no intention of going to the farm-house, but

as he thought of his grandfather dying, and that to-morrow might perhaps

be too late to see him alive, the wish to go there grew stronger and

stronger, until it became an impulse which he could not resist.

"Something tells me I must go," he said; "that it is needful for me to

be there, and go I shall. I am not afraid of the snow. It cannot be more

than a foot on the level. I have waded through more banks than that, and

it is only a mile from here across the fields and through the woods. I

shall not tell any one, but I am going."

And in a few moments Grey had descended the stairs, and unlocking the

outer door, locked it again, and putting the key in his pocket, started

for the farm-house, striking into a cross-road which led across the

fields, and which in summer he used often to take in preference to the

highway. It was a little nearer, and led through grassy lanes, and cool

pinewoods, and pleasant pasture lands, across a stream where he had once

built a dam, and had a little water-wheel which his grandfather made for

him.

The way, however, was anything but pleasant now, with the cold, dark

sky, the tall, leafless trees, and the drifting snow, which he found was

more than a foot deep on the level, except in the woods, where it had

not fallen so thickly. But Grey was young and fearless, and he went on

rapidly, until he reached the knoll from which the house was visible not

far away. It had ceased snowing by this time, and the moon, which was

nearly at its full, was struggling to show itself through a rift in the

gray clouds. The wind, however, was still blowing in wild gusts, and as

it swept past him he, too, fancied it had in it a human sound.

"It is like Aunt Hannah's voice calling to me. I am glad I came, though

I suppose father will scold," he said, as he paused a moment to rest,

and then rapidly descended the knoll to the house.

Entering by the wood-shed door, which was first reached, he went into

the summer kitchen, and passed on into the second kitchen, where a

candle was burning dimly, and where he stopped a moment by the warm

stove. No one heard him, no one knew he was there; but as he stood in

the silence and darkness he heard distinctly his grandfather's voice,

and this was what he heard:

"I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no one else, not

Grey--no, no, not, the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His life must not

be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my coffin. Oh, Grey!

Grey! May God bless him and give him every needful happiness, and make

him so good and noble that his life will blot out the stain upon our

name."

Here Grey, who stood motionless, heard his father say:

"For pity's sake tell me what you mean; the suspense is terrible."

And then came the awful response, which sounded through the silent room

like the knell to all the boy's future happiness and peace of mind.

"Thirty-one years ago to-night, in the heat of passion I killed a man

in the kitchen yonder, and buried him under this floor, under my bed,

and I have slept on his grave ever since!"

No wonder Grey's face grew white as the face of a corpse, while his

heart throbbed with unutterable pain as he whispered the word his father

had said aloud.

His grandfather, whom he had thought so good, and loved so much, a

murderer! He had killed a man in that very room, perhaps on the spot

where the boy was standing, and Grey recoiled from the place, and looked

down upon the floor, which gave no sign of the tragedy enacted there

thirty-one years ago, and kept hidden ever since.

Like a flash of lightning Grey saw all the past, and understood now what

had been singular in his grandfather's manner and in his Aunt Hannah's,

too; for she had been privy to the deed, and had helped to keep it from

the world, and to Grey this was the bitterest thought of all, the one

which made him sick, and faint and dizzy, as he groped his way to the

door, which he opened and closed cautiously, and then fell heavily upon

his face in the snow, with all consciousness for the moment blotted out.

The chill, however, and the damp revived him almost immediately, and

struggling to his feet he started on his route back to Grey's Park along

the same road he had come, seeing nothing, bearing nothing but that one

word, that name his father had given to his grandfather, and which he,

too, had echoed. Over and over again the winds repeated it until the,

woods seemed full of it, and he said to himself:

"Will it always be so? Shall I never hear anything but that again so

long as I live, and I am so young, only fourteen, and I meant to be a

great and honorable man, and a good one, too. And I can still be that.

God knows I am not to blame. Would he hear me, I wonder, if I should ask

him now to take some of this pain away which fills my heart to

bursting!"

And there, on the pure white snow, in the shadow of the leafless woods,

the heart-broken boy knelt down, and with clasped hands, and the great

tears streaming over his upturned face, asked God to forgive him for his

grandfather's sin, and take the pain away, and help him to be a good

man, if he could never be great and distinguished. And God heard that

prayer made to him in the wintry night, from the depths of the boyish

heart, and a feeling of quiet came over Grey as he resumed his walk.

"I am not to blame," he said, "and people will not think so if they

know, which they never will, for father will not tell, nor Mr. Sanford

either; but I shall always know, and life will never be the same to me

again."

It certainly looked forlorn and dreary enough to him by the time he

reached Grey's Park, and letting himself quietly in, he crept

noiselessly up to his bed, from which he did not rise until late the

next morning, when his Aunt Lucy came herself to call him, and told him

his grandfather was dead.

CHAPTER XI.

AT THE OLD MAN'S BEDSIDE.

When the word "murderer!" dropped from Burton Jerrold's lips, his father

started as if a bullet had pierced his heart, and the hot blood surged

up into his face, as he said:

"Oh, my son, my son, that you should be the first to call me by a name

which even Hannah has never spoken, and she has known it all the time.

She saw me do the deed; she helped me bury it. Poor Hannah!"

"You!" and Burton turned fiercely upon his sister, who stood like a

block of marble and almost as colorless. "You helped. Then you were an

accessory to the crime, and never spoke, never told! No wonder your hair

turned white before its time!"

"Brother! brother!" Hannah cried, as she threw up her hands in an

anguish of entreaty. "You do not know, you cannot guess, or you would

never reproach me thus."

"But I do know that you kept silence, and that I, who thought myself so

honorable and high, am branded with disgrace, am the son of a--"

"Stay!" and the dying man gathered all his remaining strength for the

reproof. "You shall not call me by that name again. You shall not speak

thus to your sister, the noblest woman and the most faithful daughter

God ever gave to the world. I bound her by a solemn oath not to speak,

even had she wished to, which she did not, for I was her father; your

father, too, and I know that in some respects you are not worthy to

touch the hem of her garment. Say, Mr. Sanford," and he turned to the

rector, who had stood looking on, stupefied with what he heard, "did

Hannah do wrong, not to bear witness against me?"

"Hannah never does wrong," the rector said, rousing himself, and going a

step nearer to her he took her cold, clammy hand between his own, and

held it there, while he continued: "Mr. Jerrold, you reproach your

sister for her silence, but consider what her speaking would have done

for you! If you feel it so keenly when only you and I know of it, what

would you have felt had the whole world been made cognizant of the fact?

I do not know the circumstances of your father's crime. Probably there

was great provocation, and that it was done in self-defense, and if so

the gallows would not have been his punishment, though a prison might,

and do you think that as the son of a felon you could have stood where

you do now in the world's estimation? No; instead of reproaches, which I

do not believe spring from a sense of justice, rather thank your sister

who has given all the brightness of her life to shield her father from

punishment and you from disgrace."

The rector spoke more severely than was his wont, for he felt a contempt

for the man whose real character he now understood better than he had

before; but his words had a good effect, for Burton saw the truth there

was in them, and turning to his sister, who was sobbing piteously he

said:

"Forgive me, Hannah, if I seemed unjust. I am so stunned and hurt that I

am not myself, and do not know what I say. I am glad you kept silent; to

have spoken would have been to ruin me; but why, having kept the secret

so long, did you not keep it longer? Why did not father take it with

him to his grave? Surely no good can come from wounding and humiliating

me so cruelly."

"Perhaps not, my son," the old man answered, feebly. "For you it might

have been better if I had never spoken. Possibly it is a morbid fancy,

but I felt that I must confess to my minister. My conscience said so,

and that I must tell you in order that you may be a comfort and help to

Hannah in what she means to do."

"What does she mean to do?" Burton asked, in alarm, and his father

replied:

"Make restitution in some way to the friends of the man I killed, if she

can find them."

"Oh!" and Burton set his teeth firmly together as he thought what danger

there might be in restitution, for that would involve confession, and

that meant disgrace to the Jerrold name. "I shall prevent that if I can;

it is well, after all, that I should know," he thought; then to his

father he said; "Who was the man? Where are his friends? Tell me all

now."

"Yes, I will; but, Hannah, look--I thought I heard some one moving in

the next room, a few minutes ago," the old man said, and going to the

door, Hannah glanced around the empty kitchen which bore no trace of the

white-faced boy who not long before, had left it with an aching heart,

and who at that moment was kneeling in the snow and asking God to

forgive him for his grandfather's sin.

"There is no one there, and Sam is sleeping soundly in the room beyond,"

she said, as she returned to her father's side, and taking her place by

him passed her arm around him and supported and reassured him, while he

told the story of that awful night, a story which the author will tell

in her own words rather than in those of the dying man, who introduced a

great deal of matter irrelevant to the case.

CHAPTER XII.

THE STORY.

Forty years or more before the night of which we write, there had come

to Allington a peddler, whose home was across the sea, in Carnarvon,

Wales. He was a little, cross eyed, red-haired, wiry man, with a blunt,

sharp way of speaking, but was very popular with the citizens of

Allington, to whom he sold such small articles as he could conveniently

carry in a bundle upon his back; needles, pins, thread, pencils,

matches, thimbles, cough lozengers, Brandreth's pills, handkerchiefs,

ribbons, combs, and sometimes Irish laces and Balbriggans formed a part

of his heterogeneous stock, which was varied from time to time to suit

the season, or the wants of his customers.

Very close at a bargain, and very saving of his money, he seldom stopped

at the hotel, but passed the night at the houses of his acquaintances,

who frequently made no charge for his meals or his lodgings. Especially

was this the case at the farm-house where the peddler, whose name was

Joel Rogers, was always welcome, and where he usually staid when in

Allington. Between Peter Jerrold and the peddler there was a strong

friendship, and the two often sat into the small hours of the night,

while the latter told marvelous tales of his wild Welsh country, which

he held above all other lands, and to which, the last time he was seen

in Allington, he said he was about to return.

For three days he remained in the town, selling off the most of his

stock, and then bidding his friends good-by, started late on the

afternoon of Thanksgiving Day for the adjoining town, where a few debts

were owing him, and where he hoped to dispose of the rest of his

merchandise.

As he left the village the snow began to fall heavily and this, perhaps,

was why he decided to stop at the farm-house, which was not upon the

highway, but nearly half a mile from it, upon a cross-road which led

through Peter Jerrold's farm to the town line, and which was seldom

traveled by any one except by Peter Jerrold himself and those who came

to visit him. Thus the house stood in a most lonely, secluded spot, with

only the chimney and the top of the roof visible to the people of the

neighborhood.

Here Peter Jerrold lived with his daughter Hannah, who was now nearly

fifteen, and who had kept his house since her mother's death, which

occurred when she was twelve years old.

Bright, unselfish, and very pretty, Hannah was a general favorite with

the people of Allington and many were the merry-makings and frolics held

at the old farm-house by her young friends. But these were suddenly

brought to an end by a fearful sickness which came upon Hannah, and,

which transformed her from the light-hearted, joyous girl of fifteen,

into a quiet, reserved, white-faced woman, who might have passed for

twenty-five, and whose hair at eighteen was beginning to turn gray. It

was the fever, the people said, and Hannah permitted them to think so,

though she knew that the cause lay behind the fever, and dated from the

awful night when Joel Rogers came into their kitchen, and asked for

shelter from the storm, which was readily granted him.

It was probably his last visit, he said, as it was doubtful if he ever

returned to America, for he meant to settle down and die in Carnarvon,

his old home, where his only sister, Elizabeth, was living. Then he

talked of his money, which, he said, was considerable, and was mostly

invested in some slate quarries in the vicinity of Carnarvon.

For a long time the two men sat before the wood fire, talking of England

and Wales, eating the apples which Hannah brought them from the cellar,

and drinking freely of some wine which Peter had made himself, and which

he brought out in honor of his friend's last visit.

This at last began to take effect, making them loud and noisy, and

inclined to contradict each other, and quarrel generally, and then, as

the peddler was counting out his gold, of which he had several hundred

dollars he turned suddenly to Mr. Jerrold, and said:

"By the way, you have never paid me the five dollars I loaned you when

I was here last winter."

The latter affirmed that he had paid it in the spring, and that Hannah

saw him do it, which was the fact. But the peddler persisted in his

demand, and grew louder and more vociferous in his language, calling

both Peter Jerrold and Hannah liars, and saying he would have his money

if he went to law to get it.

A violent quarrel then ensued, and such epithets as liar, cheat, and

swindler were freely interchanged, and then there was a simultaneous

spring at each other, the chairs were overturned and they were rolling

upon the floor, dealing each other fierce blows and tearing each other's

hair like wild beasts. It was the peddler who struck first, but Peter,

being the stronger of the two, got his antagonist under him, and with a

stick of wood which was lying upon the hearth struck him upon the head,

inflicting a fearful wound from which the blood flowed in torrents,

staining Peter's hands and face as he pushed back his hair, and sobered

him at once. But it was too late, for when Hannah, who, during the

fight, had cowered in the corner with her hands over her eyes, withdrew

them as the struggle ceased, and looked at the white, blood-stained face

over which her father was bending, she knew the man was dead, and with a

cry of horror, ran from the room out into the darkness, where shriek

after shriek of "_Murder! Murder!_" rang out upon the air and was

drowned by the louder scream of the terrible storm which was sweeping

over the hills that Thanksgiving night.

Beside her in the snow crouched the house-dog, Rover, trembling with

fear, and mingling his howling cry of terror with her more awful one of

murder. The dog had been a witness of the fray, keeping close by his

mistress' side, and occasionally uttering a low growl of disapproval as

the blows fell thick and fast, and when at last it was over, and the

dead man lay white and still, with his blood upon the floor, Rover

sprang toward his master with a loud, angry bark and then fled with

Hannah into the storm, where he mingled his cry with hers and added to

the horror of the scene.

"Half-crazed with what he had done, and terrified lest be should be

detected, Peter Jerrold's first idea was of self-preservation from the

law, and the cries he had heard outside filled him with rage and fear.

Staggering to his daughter's side he struck the dog a savage blow, then

taking Hannah roughly by the arm and leading her into the house, he said

to her, fiercely:

"Are you crazy, girl, that you yell out your father's guilt to the

world? You and that brute of a dog, whom I will kill and so have him out

of the way! Here, you Rover, come here!" he said to the dog, who was

standing before Hannah, bristling with anger and growling at intervals,

"Come here while I finish you," and he opened the door of the wood-shed

where he always kept the gun he had carried in the war of 1812.

Divining his intention Hannah stepped between him and Rover, on whose

head she laid her hand protectingly, while she said:

"Father, you will not touch the dog, if you value your own safety, for

if you do, every man in Allington shall know what you have done, before

to-morrow dawns. Isn't it enough that you have killed _him_!" and she

pointed shudderingly to the inanimate form upon the floor.

For a moment Peter Jerrold regarded her with the face of a maniac; then

his expression changed, and with a burst of tears and sobs he fell upon

his knees at her feet, and clasping the hem of her dress abjectly in his

hands, besought her to pity him, to have mercy, and save him from the

gallows, for in the first frenzy of fear he felt it would be his life

they would require if once his guilt were known.

"I cannot die a felon's death. You do not want your poor father hung!

Think of yourself; think of Burton; both so young, to carry such a

disgrace all your lives. I did not mean to kill him; God knows I didn't.

He provoked me so, he hit me first, and I struck harder than I thought,

and he is dead. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? I cannot be hung;

you will not betray me. Promise me you will not!"

She had no thought of betraying him, except as she had threatened it in

defense of Rover, who now stood up erect, looking first at her, and then

at her father, as if curious to see how it would end.

"Father, I have no wish to see you hung," Hannah said, while her knees

shook under her at the thought. "I shall not witness against you, if I

can help it. But what will you do? How can you keep it a secret? People

will know, when they see him, that he did not die by fair means."

To her the thought of hiding the crime had not occurred, and a shudder

of horror ran through her frame when her father said:

"People need not know. He was going to Europe. Let them think he has

gone, and we will bury him, you and I, where he will never be found."

"Bury him here? Where? and Hannah's teeth chattered with fright, as she

thought of living all her life in a house which held a buried secret in

the shape of a murdered man.

"Bury him under the floor of my room, over in the corner where the bed

always stands," the father replied so calmly that Hannah looked at him

wonderingly to see if he were utterly void of feeling, that he could

speak so quietly of what filled her with unspeakable dread.

But he was neither callous nor unconcerned. He was merely stunned with

the magnitude and suddenness of his crime, and the natural fear of its

detection. The repentance, the remorse were to come afterward, and be

meted out to him in such measure of bitterness as has seldom fallen to

the lot of man. Regarding his daughter fixedly for a moment, he said in

a hard, reckless kind of way:

"Hannah, there is no use in whimpering now. The deed is done, and cannot

be undone; though, God is my witness, I would give my life in a moment

for the one I have taken, if I could, and I swear to you solemnly that I

wish I had been the one killed rather than the one to kill. But it was

not to be so. I have slain my friend. The world would call it murder, as

you did, and hang me. I cannot be hung. I must hide it, bury it, and you

must help and swear on the Bible not to tell so long as I live. Will you

do it? Answer, quick, and let us get to work, for I am a very coward,

and hear voices in the storm as of people coming to take me. Will you

help me, and will you swear?"

"Oh, father, father," Hannah cried, in an agony of entreaty; "do not ask

me to help! Do not ask me to swear, though I promise not to tell, if I

can avoid it. But if he is missed, if inquiry is made for him, if he is

traced here, and I am questioned, am put upon my oath, I cannot tell a

lie, and maybe they would not hang you when they knew the circumstances.

He was very unreasonable and aggravating, and called us both liars. I

can testify to that. Oh, father, consider a moment! Would it not be

better to go at once, and confess the truth to some one who has

influence. Captain Grey is our friend. Tell him, and ask his advice. Go,

father; now, and leave him where he lies. I shall not be afraid to stay

alone, knowing you are doing right. Go, father."

She was on her knees before him now, clasping his feet, and pleading

piteously. But she might as well have talked to a stone.

"Give himself up to the hangman? Never!" he answered. And she was no

daughter of his to desire his death, as she evidently did. She could

stay there in the corner with her dog, as great a sneak as herself! He

did not wish her services; he could manage alone, he said, angrily, as

he turned from her and entered his room, where she heard him moving out

his bed, and knew that he was taking up a portion of the floor.

Then there came over her a great blackness, and a buzzing in her head

like the sound of many bees in the summer time, and she fell upon her

face, unconscious of everything. How long she lay thus she did not know,

but when she came to herself again there was no light in the room except

that made by the dying fire upon the hearth and Rover was licking her

cold face and hands, and now and then uttering a low whine as if in

token of sympathy. The body was still upon the floor near her, but from

her father's room there came a sound, the import of which she understood

perfectly. Shivering as with a chill, she moaned:

"Oh! how can I bear it? My life will be one long, living death, and I

shall always want to shriek out the dreadful thing which father says I

must keep! Can I? Ought I? And could they hang my father? I do not think

so. They would call it manslaughter, and pardon him, for my sake--for

Burton's."

And here the poor girl groaned bitterly, as she thought of Burton, her

young brother, whom she loved so much, and of whom she was so proud,

and for whom she was so glad that he could live in Boston, amid all the

fine sights of a city, which suited him better than the homely life at

the farm-house. When, after her mother's funeral, her aunt, Mrs.

Wetherby, had offered to take him home with her and bring him up as her

own, Hannah had felt for a time as if she could not let him go and leave

her there alone; but when she thought of all the benefit it would be to

him, and saw how much he wished it, she stifled every selfish feeling,

for his sake, and saw him leave her without a sign of the pain at her

heart, or the unutterable longing she had for his companionship. And

now, as she thought of him, her bitterest pang came from the fact that

if this deed were known, he would suffer all his life from the shame of

it, and, to herself, she said:

"For Burton's sake, I must bear it always, and alone. He must never know

what I know. No one must ever know, and may God forgive me if I am doing

wrong!" And falling upon her knees, with her head upon Rover's neck, the

wretched girl prayed earnestly for grace to know what was right, and

strength to do it.

And He who hears every sincere cry for help, even though His ear may

seem deaf, and the heavens brass, sending back the cry like an unmeaning

sound, gave her the strength needful for the hour, and a feeling of

calmness stole over her, making her quiet, and even fearless of the

stiffened form lying so near her upon the floor.

But when, a few minutes later, her father appeared in the door, with a

candle in his hand, and said to her, "I have done all I can do alone;

you must help me now," the old terror came back, and staggering to her

feet, she asked:

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Help carry him into the next room," her father replied, and then

forgetting Burton, forgetting everything, she burst out again:

"Oh, father, will it not be better to tell the truth, at once? The fact

that you do so will go a long way toward clearing you. The people all

respect you so much, and they know he was quarrelsome and insulting at

times. Think, father, think!"

"I have thought," he answered, "and I tell you I cannot be hanged!"

then going swiftly to his bed-room he came back with a Bible in his

hand, and standing before the white-faced girl, said to her: "I see I

cannot trust you, unless you swear upon this book, never, while I live,

to breathe to any living person what has been done here to-night. When I

am dead do what you like, but swear now, as you hope for heaven, never

to tell!"

And Hannah took the oath which he dictated to her, and kissed the sacred

book which seemed to burn her lips as she did so. She had sworn. She

would keep the vow to the end, and her father knew it, and with this

fear lifted from his mind he became almost cheerful in his manner, as he

explained to her what she was to do.

And Hannah obeyed him, and with limbs which trembled in every joint went

with him to the attic and helped him bring down some boards which had

lain there for years and on which she and Burton had played many an hour

in days gone by. She knew what he was going to do with them, and without

a word held the light while he fashioned the rude coffin in which he

laid the dead man, but not until she had with her own hands reverently

and tenderly washed the blood from the ghastly face and bound about the

wound upon the temple a handkerchief which she found in his pack. Then,

after the body was placed in the box, she took a pillow from her

father's bed, and putting on it a clean covering and placing it under

the peddler's head, folded his hands upon his breast, and kneeling

beside the box bowed her head upon the boards and began the Lord's

Prayer.

It was her burial service for the dead, all she could think of, and for

a moment her father stood staring at her as if stupefied with what he

saw; then his features relaxed, and falling on his knees beside her he

cried out piteously:

"Oh, Father in heaven, forgive, forgive! Thou knowest I did not mean to

do it. Have mercy, have mercy! Blot out my great sin, and if a prayer

for the dead is not wrong, grant that this man, my friend, whom I sent

into eternity with no time for repentance, may be among the saved;

forbid that I should destroy him body and soul. Oh, help me! for the

brand of Cain is upon me, and already my punishment seems greater than I

can bear. If I could give my life for his I would do so gladly, but I

cannot, and I must live on in torment forever and ever, with this

blood-stain on my hands burning like coals of fire. Oh, my heavenly

Father, have mercy! I did not mean to do it."

His head was on the rough coffin and he was sobbing in wild abandonment

of despair, while Hannah, too, knelt beside him, with a face as white as

the dead man's and eyes into which there had come a look of fright and

horror, which would never entirely leave them until her dying day.

In a corner of the room Rover had been lying for the last fifteen or

twenty minutes, eyeing the proceedings warily, and occasionally giving a

growl of disapproval when his master came near him, and when the body

was lifted into the coffin, he uttered a long, deep howl which echoed

through the house like the wail of some troubled spirit, drifting on the

wings of the wind still moaning around the windows and the doors.

"Oh, Rover, Rover, don't!" Hannah cried, going to him, and winding her

arms around his neck, "Be quiet, Rover, or I shall die."

As if he comprehended her meaning the noble brute lay down again, and

resting his head upon his paws, looked on until his master gave way to

his paroxysm of grief. Then he arose, and going up to the prostrate man,

licked his hair and face just as, earlier in the night, he had licked

Hannah's when she lay beside him on the floor. He was only a dog, but

his sympathy was reassuring to the wretched man, who looked up, and with

a faint smile, said to his daughter:

"Rover forgives and pities me. I will take it as a token that God will

do so, too; and now we must finish our work."

As if endued with superhuman strength, Hannah helped her father carry

the body to the grave he had dug, and there they buried it, while her

tears fell like rain, and her father's lips moved with the words:

"Forgive, forgive; I did not mean to kill him."

Everything belonging to the peddler was buried with him, except a

leathern bag in which was the gold he had counted in the evening, and a

small tin box fastened by a padlock, the key of which was found in his

pocket, and his silver watch, which Hannah laid aside with a thought of

the sister Elizabeth, whom he had mentioned with so much affection, and

who, he said, was to be his heir. The money and the watch belonged to

her and must be kept sacredly until the day when Hannah could safely

give them to her, as she fully meant to do. For the rest there was

nothing of any value, and they buried it with him, and filled the grave,

or rather the father filled it, while Hannah held the light, and Rover

looked on curiously.

Then, when all was done, when the floor was nailed down securely, the

bed moved back to its place, the blood-stains washed from the kitchen

floor, and there was nothing left to indicate the awful tragedy which

had been enacted there, the father and daughter sat down with Rover

lying between them, and talked as to how they would face it.

CHAPTER XIII.

FACING IT.

On the table beside them lay the watch, the leathern bag, and the box

which had belonged to the deceased. In the bag there were several

hundred dollars in twenty, ten, and five dollar gold pieces, and in the

box, which Hannah unlocked, there were some papers, and tied together

with a faded ribbon was a lock of dark brown hair, a bit of purple

heather, a few English violets, and some leaves of ivy; while on the

paper in which they were wrapped was the date of a summer day, many,

many years ago, when the dead man was young. Whatever might have been

the romance of which this souvenir was the sign, it was buried forever

with the past, and Hannah put it back in the box as carefully and

tenderly as if it were the hand of the woman on whose head that brown

tress once grew.

The next thing which met the view was a picture painted on ivory of a

young girl who might have been sixteen or eighteen years of age, and

whose face was so beautiful that Hannah uttered an exclamation of

surprise as she held it to the light and examined it closely.

The dress was old-fashioned, and such as would indicate that the wearer

belonged to the middle, rather than the wealthy class, but Hannah did

not think of that, so absorbed was she in the beauty of the fresh, young

face, and the expression of the large blue eyes, which seemed to look at

her so intently. The dark brown tress, so carefully wrapped in paper,

and bearing the scent of English violets and heather blossoms could

never have grown on this girl's head, for the wavy hair which fell in

such masses upon her neck was of that peculiar shade of gold, dashed

with red, seldom seen in America, and which latterly has become so

fashionable, that where nature fails to produce it, art has been called

into requisition, and achieved most wonderful success.

"Oh, how lovely she is," Hannah said, showing the picture to her father.

"This must be his sister, the Elizabeth he was so fond of. He said once

she was many year's younger than himself, and very beautiful. I do not

wonder he loved her."

The bundle of papers was next examined, and found to contain a few

receipts for moneys paid in England and America, and the will of the

deceased, executed some months before, and in which he gave everything

he possessed to his beloved and only sister, Elizabeth, her heirs and

assigns forever.

"Father!" Hannah said, with a trembling voice, as she finished reading

aloud this will, "I am sure that this is his sister's picture, and we

have a duty to do. We must find Elizabeth Rogers, and put her in

possession of her own, this gold in the box, and whatever else he may

have owned in Wales. He spoke of shares in some mines or quarries. These

all belong to his sister, and we must not defraud her; those blue eyes

would haunt me forever. What shall we do?"

She was looking earnestly at her father, over whose face there came a

sudden pallor, and a hard, bitter expression, as he answered her:

"Find her! Of course! Advertise! go to Wales, if necessary, in search of

her, or get a lawyer to do it! Break your vow; tell the whole truth, as

you would have to, in order to establish his death; and get me hanged!

That would be the result of restitution."

"Oh, father," Hannah cried in terror. "Is there no other way? If I find

this woman and give her her own, must I tell her the whole truth? Will

it not be enough if I say he is dead, that I saw him die, that I helped

to lay him in his coffin? I would not mention you, or that I had a

father. Surely she would be satisfied."

"Yes, _she_ might, but not the law. I do not understand the ins and outs

myself, there are so many questions necessary to make a thing legal, but

this I am sure of; the whole thing would be ripped up, and I hanged, as

I told you. No, Hannah, you cannot find this woman while I live, which,

please God, may not be long. When I am gone, find her, if you like, but

you must shield me. Remember your vow, and--and--swear again, not to

move in the matter while I live."

He was growing so excited with this new fear that his daughter shrank

from him in alarm, and at last yielding to his importunities took

another oath of secrecy, which doomed the blue-eyed woman in Wales to a

life of poverty, if such now were her portion.

"But what shall we do with this money?" Hannah asked.

And her father replied:

"Keep it until you can restore it to its rightful owner without harm to

me. Elizabeth may never get it, but her heirs, some child yet unborn,

may be made rich by you, one day, who knows?"

Yes, some child then unborn might one day be richer for this crime, but

that did not comfort Hannah, now, and the future held no gleam of hope

or happiness for her, as she put the papers, and the watch, and the

gold, and the portrait, together in the tin box, and tried to think

where she could hide them.

Owing to the storm, and the depth of the snow, no one visited the lonely

farm-house until the Monday following the tragedy, when a neighbor came

breaking through the drifts to see how it fared with Peter, who tried to

appear natural as he talked of the depth of the snow, and inquired for

the news, and mentally anathematized the dog Rover, who, the moment the

stranger appeared, stretched himself before the bedroom door with a

keen, watchful look in his eyes, as if he were on the alert and guarding

the terrible secret.

And this habit, commenced that morning, was continued by the faithful

creature up to the day of his death, which happened several years later.

No matter where he was, whether chasing a rabbit through the woods or

sleeping by the stable door, he seemed by some instinct to know when a

visitor arrived, and hastened at once to his post, from which neither

threats nor persuasions could dislodge him. For Hannah tried both, but

when she coaxed he whined and whisked his big tail on the floor, and

when she threatened he growled and showed his teeth, but staid there

just the same.

The Monday night following the tragedy, Hannah was stricken down with a

low, nervous fever, which lasted for weeks, and from which she arose the

mere shadow of her former self. All life and vivacity had left her, and

instead of a girl of fifteen she seemed like a woman of twenty-five, so

quiet and reserved she became, with no color in her cheeks, no

elasticity in her step, no joy in her voice, no brightness anywhere

except in her large dark eyes, which shone with unusual brilliancy, and

had in them always a look which puzzled and fascinated her friends, who

little dreamed of what those strangely bright, beautiful eyes saw

constantly before them.

Whether sleeping or waking the picture was always there, of the dead man

on the floor with the blood-stains on his face, and she felt the touch

of the clammy hands which she had folded upon his breast. She could not

go to school again, for in her morbid state of mind to study was

impossible, and so she staid at home, brooding over the past and

shrinking from the future, with no companionship except that of Rover,

who seemed so fully to understand and sympathize with her. Oftentimes

when her work for the day was done, and she sat down listlessly upon a

little seat beneath the apple tree which grew in the yard, the dog would

go to her, and putting his head in her lap, gaze into her face with such

a human look of pity in his eyes that her tears would fall like rain, as

she wound her arms around his neck and sobbed:

"Oh, dear old Rover, you know, and you are sorry for me. What should I

do without you! What shall I do when you are gone?" and the white lips

would frame a prayer that Rover might be spared to her long, for without

him life would be intolerable.

And yet Hannah had no foolish fancies, filled though the house was, with

the image of the dead man. She did not believe in ghosts, and had no

fear that the occupant of the hidden grave beneath the floor would come

back to trouble her; it was rather the horror of the crime, the sin,

which so oppressed her, filling her with the wildest fancies, and making

her see always the dreadful word murder written everywhere upon the

walls, and the blood-stains on the floor, where no trace was visible to

other eyes than hers. Sometimes in the dark night, in her lonely bed

beneath the roof, with the stars looking in upon her, she felt as if her

brain were on fire and that she was going mad with the load of anguish

and guilt, for she accused herself as equally guilty with her father,

inasmuch as she had witnessed the deed and was helping him to conceal

it.

"But God knows I cannot help it. I am bound with bonds I cannot break,"

she would cry, as she stretched her hands toward heaven in dumb

supplication for pardon and peace, which came at last to the troubled

spirit.

And though she never knew again the joy of youth which had left her

forever, there came to her long intervals of rest and quiet and

comparative peace, if not happiness; and when, three years after the

tragedy which had blighted her young life, she, with others of her

companions, ratified her baptismal vows and openly confessed Christ, He

who sees and knows the secrets of all hearts, knew that among those who

knelt to receive the rite of confirmation there was not one purer or

more sincere than she who thought herself the vilest of the vile.

Naturally, as time rolled on, and the peddler Rogers came no more to

Allington, inquiries were made for him, the people wondering if he

intended remaining in Wales the remainder of his life, or would he

appear in their midst again some day, with his balbriggans and Irish

linens. But as he had never been more to the citizens than a peddler of

dry-goods, he was soon forgotten, and Peter Jerrold's secret was safe

under the floor, and the tin box, with the gold and the will, was safe

in the niche of the huge chimney, where Hannah had hidden it, until

such time as it could be given into the hands of the rightful owner. For

this Hannah fully intended doing. How, or when, or by what agency, she

could not tell, but sometime in the future, restitution would be made,

either to Elizabeth or her heirs. She had calculated the interest on the

money, and resolved yearly to lay by that amount for the benefit of the

Rogers heirs. Everything pertaining to Carnarvon she read up, knowing

perfectly its history, where it was situated, how to reach it, and

almost fancying that she knew the very house where the peddler had

lived, and where possibly Elizabeth was still living. And some day she

would find the place and give up the money and will, and tell as much of

the past as was necessary to tell, but no more.

And with this end in view she lived her dreary, monotonous life, which

knew no change, except on the rare intervals when her young brother

Burton, came up from Boston to spend a few days with the father and

sister from whom he was growing estranged so fast; for between them and

himself there was nothing common, and he was always glad when his short

visit was over, and he was free to return to the life more in accordance

with his taste than that at the farm-house.

When Rover died, several years after the tragedy of which he was a

witness, Hannah felt that she had lost all that made life endurable, and

mourned for him as for a human friend. With all the faithful sagacity of

his race the noble brute had clung to her, seldom quitting her side, and

frequently, when her heart was saddest, and she was weeping by herself,

licking her face and hair, and uttering a kind of low cry, as if he

understood her perfectly; and when at last he died, it was with his head

in her lap, and her tears falling upon his shaggy face. Even to the last

he was faithful to the charge he had so long assumed. A neighbor had

come into the kitchen, and dragging himself from the mat on which he was

lying, Rover crawled to the door of the bedroom, and stretched himself

in front of it, while in the dying eyes lifted to Hannah's face, there

was an expression of unutterable love and regret for the mistress he was

leaving forever. When the visitor left the house, Hannah tried to coax

the dog back to his mat near the stove, but he was too weak to move, and

so she placed a blanket under him and kneeling by his side, put his head

in her lap, and held it there until he ceased to breathe.

After his death there was nothing to relieve the tedium of Hannah's

life, and but for her trust in God her reason must have given way under

the strain, for it was not only her own sorrow, but her father's as

well, which she had to bear. With him there was no rest, day or night,

and every breath was a prayer for mercy and forgiveness.

At first he was continually haunted with a fear of detection, and

frequently in the night he would steal noiselessly to Hannah's room, and

awakening her with a whisper, tell her there were men about the house,

come to arrest him, and charge her with having broken her oath and

betrayed him into the hands of the law. Every possible precaution

against a surprise was taken. Iron bolts were put on the doors, the

windows were nailed down, and the house was never for an hour left

alone. The people said the man was deranged, and pitied the young girl

who, from daily association with him, was becoming almost as peculiar as

himself.

After a few years the aged pastor, who had so long officiated in the

stone church on the common, died, and the Rev. Charles Sanford, fresh

from the Theological Seminary, was called to take his place. Full of

energy and zeal in his work, the young rector soon made himself

acquainted with all his parishioners, and seemed to find a peculiar

attraction in the inmates of the farm-house, where he spent a great deal

of time, arguing with the father on the nature of the unpardonable sin,

and answering the many questions his host propounded to him upon the

subject of genuine repentance and its fruits, and how far confession to

man was necessary that one might be saved.

To these discourses Hannah was always an attentive listener, and there

came gradually a new light into her dark eyes, and a faint color to her

white cheeks, when she saw the rector coming up the walk, and met his

winning smile. But all this was ended at last; for, after a night in

June, when she walked with the young clergyman through the pasture land

under the row of chestnut trees which grew upon the hill-side, he came

less frequently to the farm-house, and when he did come his discourse

was mostly with her father, whom he was laboring to convince that it was

his duty to be confirmed. But Peter always answered him:

"No, you don't know what you ask. I am too vile, too great a sinner for

that. The very stones would cry out against me."

The clergyman thought him crazy, and after a time abandoned the effort,

and went but seldom to the farm-house, where Hannah had again entered

the dark cloud in which his coming had made a rift, and which now seemed

darker than ever, because of the momentary brightness which had been

thrown upon it. She, too, had labored with her father as Mr. Sanford had

done, telling him of the peace which was sure to follow a duty

performed, but he answered her:

"Never, child, never; for, don't you see, I must first confess, and that

is to put the halter around my own neck. They would hang me now, sure,

for the concealment, if for nothing more. It might have been better if I

had told at first, as you advised. I believe now they would have been

lenient toward me. A few years in prison, perhaps, and then freedom the

rest of my life. Oh, if I had done it. But now it is forever too late.

God may forgive me. I think he will, but I can never join his church

with this crime on my soul."

After this Hannah said no more to him upon the subject, but bent all her

energies to soothe and rid him of the morbid, half-crazy fancies which

had taken possession of him.

And so the wretched years went on, until Peter Jerrold had numbered more

than three score years and ten, and suffered enough to atone many times

for crimes far more heinous than his had been. But nature at last could

endure no more, and on the Thanksgiving night, thirty-one years after

the event which had blighted his life, he felt that he was dying, and

insisted upon confessing his sin not only to his son, but also to his

clergyman, who has been his friend and spiritual adviser for so many

years.

"I shall die so much easier," he said to Hannah, who sent for them both,

and then with her arm around her father, held him against her bosom,

while he told in substance, and with frequent pauses for breath, the

story we have narrated.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE EFFECT OF THE STORY.

After the first great shock of surprise, when the word murderer dropped

from his lips, and he reproached his sister so harshly and unreasonably,

Burton Jerrold stood with folded arms, and a gloomy, unsympathetic face,

as immovable at first as if he had been a stone, and listened to the

tale as repeated by his father. But when the tragic part was reached,

and he saw the dead man on the floor, his sister crouching in the corner

of the room, with Rover at her side, the rude coffin, the open grave,

and the secret midnight burial, his breath came in long, shuddering

gasps, and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his forehead and

about his pallid lips. And when his father said, "I buried him here in

this room, under this bed, where I have slept ever since, and he is

there now," he started backward as suddenly as if the ghost of the

peddler had risen from the floor and confronted him. Then, staggering

forward, he would have fallen if Mr. Sanford had not caught him by the

arm and supported him a moment.

Bringing him a chair, the clergyman said to him, pityingly:

"Sit down, Mr. Jerrold, and try to compose yourself. You are not in

fault: no one can blame you."

"No, no, I know it; but it hurts me just the same. The disgrace! I can

never be happy again. Oh, Hannah, why did you let him tell me? I cannot

bear it, I cannot!" the wretched Burton moaned, and his father replied:

"Your sister has borne it for thirty-one years. Are you less brave than

she?"

"I don't know. Yes, I believe I am. I have more at stake than she. Our

positions are not the same. There is Geraldine, and Grey, I can never

look them in the face again, knowing what I know," Burton cried,

impetuously, and covering his face with his hands, he sobbed as strong

men never sob, save when some terrible storm, which they feel themselves

inadequate to meet, is beating pitilessly upon them.

"Oh, brother," Hannah said, in her soft, entreating voice, "this is

worse than all the rest. Don't take it so hard. It is not so bad as you

think. You will not be disgraced. Geraldine will never know: the world

will never know. Char--Mr. Sanford is just as safe as I. He will never

tell," and the dark eyes looked for one moment at the man whom, in her

excitement and forgetfulness, she had almost called by his Christian

name, and who, in response to the call and the look, went to her side,

and laying his hand upon her head, said, solemnly:

"As heaven is my witness, what I have heard here to-night shall never

pass my lips."

Pressing his hand for an instant upon Hannah's bowed head, he withdrew

it, but staid at her side until the recital was ended, and the old man,

who was sinking fast, said to him, in a faint whisper:

"You know all now, and why I could not join the church. It was too late

to tell the world of my guilt. God knew it. I believe he has baptized me

with His Holy Spirit. Do you think that as His minister you can pray for

my departing soul?"

"Yes, yes," the clergyman replied, and falling upon his knees, for he

saw in the pinched face the look he could not mistake, he began the

prayer for the dying one, who whispered, faintly:

"That is good, very good. And now, Hannah, the Lord's Prayer once more;

it is the last. We have said it many times together, you and I, when the

night was blackest and we could think of nothing else. Where are you,

Hannah?" he added, in a tone of alarm, as if he had lost her. "It is

growing dark and I cannot see. You must not leave me now. We have kept

together so long."

"I am here, father; with my arm around your neck, and I am kissing your

dear face," Hannah said, and then, bending over him, she commenced the

prayer they had so often said together when no other words would come.

Faintly the old man's voice joined hers and that of the clergyman, and

only Burton was silent. He could not pray, but sat silent, while his

father whispered at short intervals:

"Forgive; yes, that's the good word, and I am forgiven. I feel it. I

know it. Salvation is sure, even for me, and in heaven I shall wait and

watch for you, Hannah, the best and truest daughter a man ever had. Oh,

God bless my Hannah, and grant that some joy, some happiness may come to

her when I am gone; and Grey, the baby Grey, oh, bless him, too, with

every needful blessing--the baby Grey, whose little hands took the

stain, the smart from mine--my Grey, whom I love so much."

"And Burton, too!" Hannah suggested, as her father ceased speaking

without mentioning his son.

"Yes," he replied, rousing a little. "And Burton, my son; God bless him.

But he is not like you, Hannah, nor like Grey. He could not forgive as

you have; he will never forgive me. And yet he is very just, very good,

very respectable, and the Hon. Burton Jerrold, of Boston. Tell him

good-by and God bless him from me, the murderer!"

Those were the last words he ever spoke, for though he lingered for some

hours it was in a kind of stupor, from which they could not rouse him.

Seeing that he could be of no further service, and remembering the

careful Martha, who, he knew, was sitting up for him, armed with

reproaches for the lateness of the hour, and various medicines as

preventives for the cold he was sure to have taken, Mr. Sanford

signified his intention to return home, and insisted that the boy Sam

should not be awakened to drive him there.

The storm had ceased, the moon had come out, and he greatly preferred

the walk, he said, even if the snow were deep. There were curious

thoughts crowding in the brain of the grave, quiet man, tumultuous

thoughts, which spanned a score of years and brought with them keen joy

as well as a bitter pain. He was standing before the kitchen fire, with

Hannah near him, holding the warm muffler he was to tie around his

neck. Regarding her fixedly for a moment, he said, addressing her by the

old pet name which had once been so familiar to him:

"Hanny, that is why you said 'no' to me that summer night when we walked

together under the chestnut trees, and I felt that you had broken my

heart?"

Any one who saw Hannah Jerrold at that moment would have called her

beautiful, with the sudden light which shone in her dark eyes, the

bright color which, came to her cheeks, and the softness which spread

itself all over her upturned face, as she answered, promptly, and still

very modestly:

"Yes, Charlie, that was the reason."

For an instant these two, whom a cruel fate had separated, looked into

each other's eyes with a look in which the love of twenty years was

embodied; then involuntarily the hands clasped, and the man and the

woman who had walked together under the chestnut trees twenty years ago,

kissed each other for the first time in their lives, _she_ feeling that

on her part there was nothing unwomanly, nothing wrong in the act, and

_he_ feeling that on his part there was not the shadow of infidelity to

the woman who bore his name and looked so carefully after his welfare.

The one was his wife, whom he respected greatly, and to whose wishes he

sacrificed every wish of his own, when he could conscientiously do so;

the other was the woman he had loved in the long ago, and whose "no,"

spoken so decidedly, and with no explanation except that it must be, had

sent him from her with a heart-ache from which he now knew he had never

fully recovered.

Twelve years after that summer, the memory of which was still half joy,

half pain, he had married Miss Martha Adams, of Cambridge, because a

mutual friend had told him he ought to do so, that a bachelor clergyman

was never as useful as a married one, and that Miss Martha, a maiden

lady of thirty-five, was eminently fitted to fulfill the duties of a

rector's wife, for she came from a long line of clergy and for years had

run the Sunday-school, and the sewing society, and the church generally

in the parish to which she belonged. Added to this she had some money

and excellent health, two good things in a minister's wife as everybody

knew.

Mr. Sanford promised his friend to think about it, and then, one

afternoon, walked across the fields to the house among the rocks and

looked again at Hannah, who was twelve years older and graver and

quieter than when she won the love of his young manhood; but there was

something inexpressibly sweet in the pale, sad face, and the large dark

eyes thrilled him as they did of old, so that he found his longing for

her greater, if possible, than ever. But when he said to her, "Hanny,

have you ever regretted your answer to me?" and she replied, "No,

never," he turned away, and, walking back across the fields to his own

home, wrote to his friend in Walpole, signifying his readiness to be

introduced to Miss Martha Adams. The result of this was that Martha had

been his wife for nearly eight years, and ruled him with a rod of iron,

which she, however, sometimes covered, so that he did not feel it quite

so much as he might otherwise have done. But it pressed heavily now, as

in the clear, cold night he walked slowly home through the deep,

untrodden snow, which he scarcely minded, so intent were his thoughts

upon the past and what might have been.

Alas! for the many hearts, aching in secret and sending backward vain

regrets for what might have been, what should have been, but what can

never be. And, if sometimes the heart thus wrung cries out with a great

cry for the happiness it has missed, is there disloyalty to him or her

who stands where another should have stood? God only knows, and He is

far more merciful and ready to forgive his erring children than are they

to forgive each other. And he must have pitied the man who, with a

thought of Hannah thrilling every fiber of his heart, went back to the

home where Martha was waiting impatiently for him, with words of chiding

upon her lips.

He knew it would be so, knew she would sit up for him until morning, if

necessary, and knew, too, that in all probability bowls of herb tea and

a hot foot-bath awaited him, for Martha was careful of his health, and

sometimes oppressive with her attentions, and he sighed as he drew near

his home and saw the light, and thought, "Oh, if she would only go to

bed and leave me alone awhile, and not make me talk."

But she was up and waiting for him, in her purple flannel dressing-gown,

which did not improve her ruddy complexion, and a frown on her face,

which deepened into a scowl as he came in and she saw the condition of

his boots and the lower part of his pants.

"Charles Sanford," she began, "do you mean to say you walked, and do you

know what time it is?"

"Yes, Martha," he answered, meekly, "it is very late, but I could not

help it, and I insisted upon walking rather than have the tired,

sleeping boy come out in the cold. I needed the exercise. I am not

cold."

"But you _have_ taken cold. You needn't tell me, and I've got the water

ready for a foot-bath, and some hot boneset tea. How did you leave Mr.

Jerrold? and did he take the sacrament at last?" she said, and he

replied:

"No, he did not; he--"

But before he could say more she burst out with growing irritability:

"Not take it! Why then did he send for you on such a night, and why did

you stay so long?"

She was pouring the boiling water into the foot-tub, in which she had

put a preparation of mustard and prickly ash and red pepper, which she

kept on hand for extreme cases like this, and the odor of the steam made

him sick and faint, as, grasping the mantel, he replied:

"He wished me to pray with him; he will not live till morning. Please

don't talk to me any more. I am more tired than I thought, and something

makes me very sick."

He was as white as ashes, and with all her better, softer nature roused,

for Martha was at heart a very good woman, she helped him to a chair,

and bathed his head in alcohol, and rubbed his hands, and did not

question him again. But she made him swallow the herb tea, and she kept

on talking herself, wondering what Hannah would do after her father was

gone. Would she stay there alone, or live with her brother? Most likely

the former, as Mrs. Jerrold would never have her in her family, and

really, one could not blame her, Hannah was so peculiar and queer. Pity

was that she had never married; an old maid was always in the way.

And then Mrs. Martha, as if bent on torturing her husband, to whom every

word was a stab, wondered if any man ever had wanted Hannah Jerrold for

his wife, and asked her husband if he had ever heard of any such thing.

"I should not be likely to know it," he replied, "for until you came, I

never heard any gossip."

There was an implied rebuke in this answer, and it silenced Mrs. Martha,

who said no more of Hannah, but as soon as possible got her lord to bed,

with a soapstone at his feet and a blanket wrapped around him, in order

to make him sweat and break up the cold she was certain he had taken.

Meanwhile at the farm-house Burton and his sister were standing together

near the kitchen fire, where poor Grey had stood two hours before, and

heard what changed the coloring of his whole life. They were speaking of

him, and what they said was this:

"If it were only myself I might bear it," Burton said, "though life can

never be to me again what it has been, and I shall think like Cain that

the sin is branded on me; and I was so proud, and stood so high, and

meant to make the name of Jerrold so honorable a name that Grey and his

children would rejoice that they bore it. Of course Grey will never

know, but I shall, and that will make a difference. Hannah," he added,

quickly, struck by something in her face, "what did you mean, or rather

what did father mean by your making restitution to the peddler's

friends? What is there to restore?"

In his recital of his crime the old man had omitted to speak of the

money and the will, or, at most, he had touched so lightly upon them

that it had escaped the notice of his son, whose mind was wholly

absorbed in one idea, and that of the body buried under the floor within

a few feet of him. Hannah explained to him what her father meant, and

told him of the box and the gold, to which she had every year added the

interest--compound interest, too--so that the amount had more than

quadrupled, and she had found it necessary to have another and larger

box in which to keep the treasure.

"That is why I have so often asked you to change bills into gold for

me," she said. "Paper might depreciate in value, or the banks go down,

but gold is gold everywhere, and I have tried so hard to earn or save

the interest, denying myself many things which I should have enjoyed as

well as most women, and getting for myself the reputation of closeness

and even stinginess, which I did not deserve. I had to be economical

with myself to meet my payments, which increased as the years went on,

until they are so large that sometimes I have not been able to put the

whole in the box at the end of the year, and I am behindhand now, but I

keep an exact account, and shall make it up in time."

"But, Hannah, I used to give you money willingly, and would have given

you more if you had asked for it. I had no idea of this," Burton said,

and she replied:

"Yes, I know you would, but I did not like to do it, for fear you would

think me extravagant and wonder what I did with so much. Not a penny you

gave us ever went into the box. That was my matter, not yours; and I

have worked so hard to do it, for father was not able to look after the

farm, which of itself is poor and barren, and as he was only willing to

hire a boy, I have done a man's work myself at times."

"You, Hannah--you?" Burton said, gazing at the pale-faced, frail-looking

woman, who had done the work of a man rather than ask money of him who

sometimes spent more on one large party than she did in a whole year,

and who said to him, with a sad smile:

"Yes; I have spaded the garden, and planted the corn in the field back

of the hill, where no one could see me, and have helped Sam get in the

hay, though I never attempted to mow; but I did lay up a bit of stone

wall which had tumbled down, I have done what I could."

Poor Hannah! No wonder that her hands, once so small and shapely, were

broad, and hard, and rough, and not much like Mrs. Geraldine's, on which

there were diamonds enough to more than liquidate the debt due to

Elizabeth Rogers and her heirs; and no wonder that her dress, which so

often offended her brother's artistic and critical eye, was coarse, and

plain, and selected with a view to durability rather than comeliness.

She had done what she could, and what few women would have done, and

Burton knew it, and was conscious of a great feeling of respect and

pity, if not affection, for her, as she stood before him in a stooping

posture, with her toil-worn hands clasped together as if asking his

pardon for having intruded her own joyless life upon his notice. But

above every other feeling in his heart was the horrible fear of

exposure if she attempted restitution, and he said to her at last:

"I am sorry for you, Hannah, and I can understand how, with your extreme

conscientiousness, you believed it your duty to do as you have done. But

this must go no further. To discover Elizabeth Rogers is to confess

ourselves the children of a murderer, and this I cannot allow. You have

no right to visit father's sin upon Grey, who would be sure to find it

out if you stirred in the matter. He is sensitive, very, and proud of

his name. It would kill him to know what we do."

"No, brother, it would hurt him, but not kill him." Hannah said, with

energy; "and ever since he was a little child I have depended upon him

to comfort me, to help me, as I knew he would when he was older; and

something tells me he will find the heirs. I do not mean to tell him

until he is a man, able to understand."

"Hannah!" and there was fierce anger in the voice. "You are not my

sister if you ever dare tell Grey this thing, or hint it to him in any

way. He must never know it, both for his own sake and mine. I could not

even look at him without shame if he knew what my father was. You have

kept it thirty-one years; keep it thirty-one longer, and, as you vowed

secrecy to my father, so swear to me solemnly, as you hope for Heaven,

never to tell Grey or any one."

He had seized her wrist, and held it so tightly that she winced with

pain as she cried out:

"Oh, Burton, I cannot; I must restore the money and the will."

"Stuff and nonsense!" he repeated, growing more and more excited. "That

woman is dead before this, and her heirs, if she had any, scattered to

the winds. People never miss what they never had, and they will not miss

this paltry sum. Promise me, that you will drop this insane idea of

restitution and never reveal what you know, even after Geraldine and I

are dead, should you outlive us both. Think of the disgrace to the

Greys."

And so, worried, and worn, and half crazed with fatigue and excitement,

Hannah bound herself again, and, had not Grey already known the secret,

Elizabeth Rogers' heirs would never have heard of the tin box in the

chimney, from which place Hannah brought it at last to show the contents

to her brother, who, perfectly sure that she would keep her word, could

calmly examine the will and scan the features of the young girl upon the

ivory.

"She is very lovely," he said, "though evidently she belongs to the

working class; her dress indicates as much. But whoever she is or was,

she is not like this now; she is old or dead. Put it back in the box,

Hannah, and if ever you accidentally find to a certainty where the

original is, or her heirs, send the will and the money to her from

Boston or New York, and she will thus get her own without knowing where

it came from."

This was rather a lame way to make restitution, but Hannah seized upon

it as something feasible, and felt in a measure comforted. She would

herself go to Europe some time, and hunt up the Rogers heirs so

cautiously that no suspicion could attach to her, and then, having found

them, she would send them the will and the money she was hoarding for

them. This was a ray of hope amid the darkness--the straw to which she

clung; and the future did not seem quite so cheerless, even when, a few

hours later, she stood with her brother by the side of her dead father,

who had died without a struggle or sigh, just as the chill morning was

breaking in the east and giving promise of a fairer day than the

previous one had been.

CHAPTER XV.

GREY AND THE SECRET.

Breakfast was waiting in the pleasant dining-room at Grey's Park, where

Burton Jerrold sat before the fire, with his head bent down and his face

so white and ghastly that his wife, when she came in and saw him, was

moved with a great pity for him, though she wondered much that his

sorrow should be so acute for the father he had never seemed very fond

of in life. Stooping over him she kissed him softly, and said:

"I am sorry you feel so badly, Burton. Your father was old, and quite

ready to die; surely that should comfort you a little."

"Yes, yes, I know; but please don't talk to me now," he replied, with a

gesture of the hand as if to silence her.

He was not sorry for his father's death, but he was willing, nay glad,

that she should think so, for he could not tell her of the load of shame

from which he should never be free.

"What would she say if she knew?" he asked himself, as he remembered all

her pride of blood, and birth, and family. And Grey, his only boy, of

whom he was so proud, and who, he fully expected, would some day fill

one of the highest posts in the land;--what would he say if he knew his

father was the son of a murderer? Burton would not soften the crime even

in thought, though he knew that had his father been arrested at the

time, he could only have been convicted of manslaughter, and possibly

not of that. But he called it by the hard name murder, and shuddered as

he thought of Grey.

"But he never will know," he said to himself, "Hannah will keep her

promise, and I do not fear Mr. Sanford, though I'd give half my

fortune--yes, all--if he had not been told. Grey will never know. But

_I_ know, and must meet his innocent eyes, and hear him talk of his

grandfather as of saint."

It was at this point in his soliloquy that Grey came slowly in, his face

whiter than his father's, with dark rings around his eyes, which were

heavy and swollen with the tears he had shed. Grey had not slept at all,

for the dreadful words, "I killed a man, and buried him under my bed,"

were continually ringing in his ears, while the ghost of the murdered

man seemed present with him, urging him to vengeance for the wrong,

until at last, when he could bear it no longer, he stretched his hands

out into the darkness, and cried:

"What is it you want with me? I am not to blame, but if there is any

thing I can do to make it right, I'll do it, when I am man. Now, go away

and do not torment me so."

Grey knew there was nothing there, knew that the spirits of the

departed do not come back again, but he was not in a frame of mind to

reason clearly upon anything. He only knew how wretched he was, and that

after his promise to redress the dead man's wrongs he grew calmer and

more quiet, though there was still the terrible pain and disappointment

in his heart, especially when he thought of his Aunt Hannah, whom he had

held so high, and whom he now felt he had loved and revered more than

any other person.

Remembering all the past, which at times had puzzled him, and which he

now understood, he was certain that she had known from the first, and so

was an accomplice. Possibly the law would not touch her, he reasoned, as

he tried to fancy what might have been had this thing been known to the

public; but he remembered having heard of a case which happened in an

adjoining town many years before, where, at the instigation of his wife,

a man was killed and thrown into his own well. The wife was hung in

Worcester with her three accomplices, but a woman who was in the house

at the time went free, though she was ever after known as "Old 'Scape

Gallows," and shunned accordingly. Was his Aunt Hannah like her? Would

people thus call her, if they knew?

"No, no; oh, no," he cried in agony. "She is not like that! Please God,

grant that my Aunt Hannah is a good woman still. I cannot lose faith in

her, and I love her so much."

And thus the dreadful night wore to an end, and the morning found Grey

burning with fever, while a sharp pain, like a knife, cut through his

temples every time he moved. He was not surprised when Lucy came and

told him his grandfather was dead. He expected it, but with a moan he

buried his face in his pillow, and sobbed:

"Oh, grandpa, where are you now, I wonder; and I thought you so good, so

sure of Heaven. Please, God, have mercy on him. Oh, I can not bear it. I

cannot bear to think that he is lost! And he loved me so, and blessed me

on his death-bed."

This was the burden of Grey's grief, for he did not stop to consider all

the years of sincere repentance which had purified the soul just gone,

and made it fit for heaven, and his heart was very sore as he slowly

dressed himself and went down to the breakfast-room to meet his father,

who knew what he did, and who must feel it just as keenly.

Grey's first impulse was to fall upon his neck and cry out:

"I know it. I heard it. I was there. We will bear it together," but when

he remembered that his grandfather had said: "that he was not to know,"

he restrained himself, and said very quietly:

"Grandpa is dead. Aunt Lucy told me. When is the funeral?"

The voice was not like Grey's, and Mr. Jerrold looked up quickly to meet

the eyes which fell at once as did his own. Neither could look in the

other's face with that secret which each knew and was hiding from the

other. But both were outwardly calm, and the breakfast passed quietly,

with no reference to the recent event occupying the minds of all. Mrs.

Jerrold and her sister had expected that Grey would feel his loss keenly

and possibly be noisy in his boyish demonstrations of grief, but they

were not prepared for the torpor which seemed to have settled upon him,

and which kept him indoors all day sitting by the fire over which he

shivered as if in a chill, though his cheeks were crimson, and he

sometimes wiped the drops of sweat from his lips and forehead. His head

was still aching terribly, and he was cold and faint, and this was a

sufficient reason for his declining to accompany his Aunt Lucy, when,

after breakfast was over, she went with his father to the farm-house,

where she spent nearly the entire day, seeing to the many little things

necessary for the funeral, and which Hannah could not attend to.

Geraldine did not go. Her nerves were not equal to it and she should

only be in the way, she said. So she sent her love to Hannah and

remained at home with Grey, who seldom spoke to her, and scarcely

stirred, though occasionally his mother saw his lips move and great

tears roll down his cheeks.

"I supposed he would care, but not so much as this," she thought, as she

watched him anxiously, wondering at the strength of his love for an old

man in whom she had never even felt interested.

Once, moved with pity for him, she put her hand on his head, just as in

the morning she had put it on her husband's, and stooping, kissed him

tenderly, saying:

"I am sorry for you, Grey. It is really making you sick. Try and not

feel so badly. Your grandfather was old and ready to die. You would not

have him back, he is so happy now."

Just as his father had done when she tried to comfort him, so Grey did.

He made a gesture for her to stop, and said piteously:

"Please don't talk to me now, I cannot bear it;" so she sat down again

beside him, while he continued to nurse the bitter thoughts crowding so

fast upon him:

Was his grandfather happy now? Was it well with him in the world to

which he had gone? he kept asking himself over and over again all that

dreary day and the drearier night which followed, and which left him

whiter, sadder, if possible, than ever.

The funeral was appointed for half past two on Saturday afternoon, and

Burton, who went over in the morning, asked Grey to go with him.

"Your Aunt Hannah will expect you. She was disappointed in not seeing

you yesterday," but Grey said promptly:

"No, I'll wait, and go with mother."

So Mr. Jerrold went alone with Lucy, leaving his wife and Grey to join

him about half past one, just before the neighbors began to assemble.

When Grey came in, Hannah, who was already draped in her mourning robe

which Lucy had provided for her, went up to him, and putting her arms

around him, said, very low and gently, but with no sadness in the tone:

"Oh, Grey, I am so glad you have come and sorry you are suffering so

from headache, but I know just how you loved him and how he loved

you--better than anything else in the world. Will you come with me and

see him now? He looks so calm and peaceful and happy, just as you never

saw him look."

"Oh, no, no!" Grey cried, wrenching himself from her. "I cannot see him;

don't ask me, please."

"Not see your grandfather who loved you so much? Oh, Grey!" Hannah

exclaimed, with both wonder and reproach in her voice. "I want you to

remember him as he looks now, so different from what he was in life."

"But I cannot," Grey said, "I never saw any one dead; I cannot bear it,"

and going from her he took a seat in the kitchen as far as possible from

the bedroom which held so much horror for him.

He knew his grandfather was not there, for he was lying in his coffin in

the front room, where Lucy Grey had put the flowers brought from the

conservatory at Grey's Park. But the _other one_ was there, under the

floor where he had lain for thirty-one years, and Grey was thinking of

_him_, wondering who he was and if no inquiries had ever been made for

him. The room was a haunted place for him, and he was glad the door was

closed, and once, when Lucy went into it for something, he started us if

to keep her back. Then remembering that he must never be supposed to

know the secret of that room, he sank again into his chair in the

corner, where he staid until the people began to assemble, when he went

with his mother into the adjoining room, where the coffin was and where

he sat immovable as a stone through the service, which, was not very

long. The hymn, which had been selected by Hannah, was the one

commencing with, "Asleep in Jesus, that blest sleep, from which none

ever wake to weep," and as the mournful music filled the rooms, and the

words came distinctly to Grey's ears, he started as if struck a blow,

while to himself he said:

"_Is_ he asleep in Jesus? If I only knew! Can no one tell me? Poor

grandpa!"

Then he was quiet again, and listened intently to what Mr. Sanford was

saying of the deceased. Contrary to his usual custom, the rector spoke

of the dead man, who had gone down to the grave like a sheaf of grain

fully ripe and meet for the kingdom of Heaven.

"There can be no mistake," he said, "I was with him a few hours before

he died. I heard his words of contrition for sins committed and his

assurance that all was peace and joy and brightness beyond the tomb. His

sins, of which he repented as few ever have, were all washed away in

Jesus' blood, and while to-day we stand around his grave, he is safe

with the Savior he loved and trusted to the end."

What else he said, Grey did not know, for the sudden reaction in his

feelings. Mr. Sanford was with his grandfather at the last. He had heard

the dreadful words, "I killed a man!" and yet he declared the sinner

saved. He must know, he who had stood by so many death-beds.

"Yes, he is asleep in Jesus," Grey whispered, while over him there stole

a feeling of deep joy, mingled with remorse that he had ever doubted the

goodness of his grandfather, who had prayed for and blessed him on the

Thanksgiving Day which seemed so long ago.

Grey could look upon him now, and when his Aunt Hannah and his father

rose to take their leave of the corpse, he went with them, lingering by

the coffin after they had returned to their seats, and bending over the

white, still face, where death had left a smile, so peaceful, so

inexpressibly sweet that it touched the boy keenly, and stooping down he

kissed the stiffened lips, and murmured, through his tears:

"Dear grandpa, forgive me for doubting you, I know you were good. I know

you are in heaven."

He spoke in a whisper and no one heard what he said, though all noted

the pallor of his face and the heavy rings about his eyes, and when the

next day it was rumored in town that he was very sick, no one was

surprised. It was brain fever, induced by the strain upon his mental

powers, and the cold he had taken that night when, unknown to any one,

he had gone to the farm-house through the storm, and returned again.

For three weeks he lay at the very gates of death, watched and cared for

as few boys have ever been cared for and watched, for he was the idol of

hearts which would break if he were to die. The farm-house was shut up,

and Hannah took her post as chief nurse to the boy she loved so much,

and whose condition puzzled her a little. Once, in the first days of his

illness, when, after an absence of an hour or so, she re-entered the

room, where his father was keeping watch, he lifted his bright,

fever-stricken eyes to her face, and asked:

"Who was the man?"

"What man?" Hannah and her brother asked, simultaneously, a great fear

in the heart of each lest the other had betrayed what Grey was not to

know.

"Have you told him?" Burton whispered to his sister, who answered:

"You know I have not." Then, turning to Grey, who was still looking at

her, she said to him again: "What man?"

For a moment the wild, bright eyes regarded her fixedly; then there

seemed to come over the boy a gleam of reason, and he replied:

"I don't know."

After that he never mentioned the man again, or in any way alluded to

the secret weighing so heavily upon the two who watched him so

constantly--Hannah and his father. Not a word ever passed between them

either on the subject, so anxious were they for the life of the lad, who

in his delirium talked constantly of the past, of Europe, and the ship,

and the mountains he had climbed, and whose names were on his

Alpenstock. Again he was at Carnarvon, going over the old castle, and

again at Melrose, fighting on the fourth of July with Neil McPherson,

who had said his mother was not a lady. Then there were quieter moods,

when he talked of and to little Bessie McPherson, whom he had never

seen, but who came to him in his delirium, and, with her sunny blue eyes

and golden hair, hovered around his bed, while he questioned her of the

little room high up in the hotel, where she went without her dinner so

often, while her heartless mother dined luxuriantly.

"Send for her and bring her here, where she can have enough to eat. Why

don't you send for Bessie?" he would say to them; and once he said it to

Miss McPherson, who was standing by his bedside, and who replied:

"I have sent for her; she is coming."

"All right!" he answered. "Stuff her when she comes. Give her all the

mince pie she can eat, and all the griddle cakes. She never saw any at

home."

After that he was more quiet; but every morning and evening he asked,

"Has Bessie come?" and when told, "Not yet," he would reply, "Send her

to me when she comes; I want to see her."

And so the time went on until the fever spent itself, and there came a

morning when Grey awoke to perfect consciousness of the present and a

vague remembrance of the past. They told him how long he had been sick,

and how anxious they had been.

"Did I talk much?" he asked his Aunt Lucy, when she was alone with him.

"Yes, most of the time," she replied, and over his face there flitted a

shadow of fear lest he had talked of things he ought not.

"What did I say?" he asked; and she told him as nearly as she could

remember.

"And Aunt Hannah was here all the time? Where is she now?" he inquired;

and Lucy replied:

She went home last night, for the first time in two weeks. She had to

go, as the snow had drifted under the eaves, and the house was leaking

badly."

"Is she there alone?" Grey asked, with a shudder, as he thought of that

hidden grave under the floor.

"No, Sam is there, and I sent Sarah with her," was Lucy's answer, and

after a moment Grey continued:

"Wasn't Mr. Sanford here once; in the room, I mean?"

"Yes, many times," Lucy replied. "He prayed for you here two or three

times, and in the church every Sunday."

"Send for him. I want to see him. Send now," Grey said, adding, as he

saw the expression of joy on his aunt's face, and guessed what was in

her mind. "Don't think I'm awful good, or going to join the church. It

is not that, but I want to see the minister before Aunt Hannah comes

back."

Fortunately Mr. Sanford was at that very moment below. He had stopped on

his way to the post-office to inquire for Grey, at whose side he soon

stood, holding the pale hand in his, and looking inquiringly into the

eager face of the boy who had asked to see him alone, and who said to

him as he had to his Aunt Lucy;

"Don't think I am good, or going to join the church, for I am not, I

thank you for praying for me. I guess it helped me pull through, and I

am going to pray myself by and by, but I don't want you to talk to me

about that now. I want to ask you something. Grandpa never joined the

church, and at the funeral you said he was good, that he was safe; did

you mean it?"

Grey's eyes were fixed earnestly upon the rector, who answered,

unhesitatingly:

"I wish I were as sure of heaven as he. I know he is safe."

"You _are_ sure?" Grey rejoined, flushing a little, for now he was

nearing the real object of his interview with the rector, "You are sure,

and Aunt Hannah is sure. She ought to know. You believe her a good

woman?"

Mr. Sanford could not understand the breathless eagerness with which

Grey awaited his reply, which came quickly, decidedly:

"Your Aunt Hannah! Yes, she is the best, the truest, the purest woman

who ever lived. She is a martyr, a saint, an angel. I never knew one

like her."

"Thank you," Grey said, with a look of intense relief in his eyes. "You

have made me very happy. I wanted to feel sure, about grandpa; and now,

please go. I am very tired; some time I will see you again."

So the rector left him, feeling a little disappointed with the result of

his interview. He had hoped that Grey wished to speak with him of

himself, and of his new resolves for the future, when, in fact, it was

only a wish to be reassured of his grandfather's safety, which the boy

possibly doubted a little because he had never united himself with the

church. That Hannah had anything to do with it the rector never

suspected and did not dream of the great gladness in Grey's heart as he

kept repeating to himself:

"She is good, even if she did know. She is a saint, a martyr, an angel;

and I distrusted her; but all my life hereafter I will devote to her by

way of atonement."

It was late in the afternoon when Hannah returned to Grey's Park, and

went up to see her nephew, of whose improved condition she had heard.

"Oh, auntie," he cried, when he saw her. "I am so glad to have you

back;" and Hannah did not guess that the boy had her back in more ways

than one, but she kissed him, and cried over him, and told him how her

heart had ached when she feared she might lose him, and how desolate the

world would be without him, while he told her how much he loved her, and

how he meant to care for her when he was a man, and take her to Europe,

and everywhere.

"And you will grow young again," he said. "You have never had any

youth, I guess. How old are you, auntie?"

She told him she was forty-six, and making a little mental subtraction

he thought:

"Fifteen when it happened. No, she has had no youth, no girlhood;" but

to her he said: "You do not look so old, and you are very pretty still;

not exactly like Aunt Lucy or mother. You are different from them both,

though more like Aunt Lucy, whose face is the sweetest I ever saw except

yours, which looks as if Christ had put His hand hard upon it and left

His impress there."

There were great tears upon the face where Christ had laid His hands so

hard, and Grey kissed them away, and then asked about the old house, and

said he was coming to spend the day with her just as soon as possible,

and the night, too, adding, in a sudden burst of bravery and enthusiasm:

"And I'll sleep in grandpa's room, if you wish it, I am not afraid

because he died in there."

"No, no," Hannah said, and her cheek paled a little. "It is not

necessary for you to sleep there. No one will ever do that again. I

shall always keep it as he left it."

Grey knew what she meant, but made no comment, and as he seemed very

tired Hannah soon left him to rest.

Naturally strong and full of vigor, Grey's recovery was rapid, and in

ten days from the time the fever left him, his father drove him to the

farm-house, where Hannah was expecting him, with the south room made as

cheerful as possible, and a most tempting lunch spread for him upon a

little round table before the fire. Mr. Jerrold was going to Boston that

afternoon, and so Grey was left alone with his aunt, as he wished to be,

for he meant to tell her that he, too, shared her secret, and after his

father had gone and his lunch was over, he burst out suddenly:

"Auntie, there is something I must tell you. I can't keep it any longer.

I was here the night grandpa died. I was in the kitchen, and heard

about--about that under the floor!"

"Grey!" Hannah gasped, as her work dropped from her nerveless hands,

which shook violently.

"Yes," Grey went on. "I wanted to come with father, but he said no, and

so I went to my room but could not go to bed, for I knew grandpa was

dying, and I wished to see him, and I stole out the back way, and came

across the fields and into the kitchen, where I stood warming myself by

the stove and heard you all talking in the next room. I did not mean to

listen, but I could not help it, and I heard grandpa say: 'Thirty-one

years ago, to-night, I killed a man in the kitchen yonder, and buried

him under the floor, under my bed, and have slept over him ever since.'

You see I remember his very words, they affected me so much, I thought

the floor came up and struck me in the face, and that my throat would

burst with the lump which almost strangled me. I did not hear any more,

for I ran from the house into the open air where I could breathe, and

went back to Grey's Park, and up to my room without being missed at all.

I thought I should die, and that was what made me sick, and why I did

not come here till the funeral and why I did not want to see grandpa. I

was so disappointed, so shocked, and afraid he was not in heaven, till I

heard what Mr. Sanford said, and, auntie, I must tell you all, I thought

dreadful things of you, too, because you knew. I thought you were what

they said '_Old 'Scape Gallows_' was, an accomplice."

"Oh, Grey, my boy, no, no," Hannah cried aghast. "This is worse than

death, and from _you_. I cannot bear it."

In an instant Grey was kneeling at her side, imploring her forgiveness

and telling her he did not think this of her now.

"I know you are good, a saint, a martyr, an angel, the best woman that

ever lived. Mr. Sanford said so."

"Mr. Sanford!" Hannah, exclaimed. "What do you mean? You have not spoken

to him?"

"Not of that," Grey said. "But I sent for him, you know, and Aunt Lucy

thought I was going to be good and join the church, but I only wanted

him to tell me sure that grandpa was safe, and that you were good, as I

used to think you were. He never suspected I was inquiring about you, I

brought it in so neat; but he said you were a martyr, a saint, an

angel, and the best woman that ever lived, and I believed him, and love

you so much, and pity you so much for all you must have suffered. And,

now, tell me about it. Don't omit a single detail. I want to know it

all."

So she told him everything, and when the story was ended, he took her

white face between his two hands, and kissing it tenderly, said:

"Now, I am sure you are a saint, a martyr, an angel; but the martyrdom

is over. I shall take care of you, I will help you find Elizabeth Rogers

or her heirs, and father shall not know. I'll go to Europe when I am a

man, and inquire at every house in Carnarvon for Joel Rogers or his

sister; and when I find the heirs, I will send the money to them, and

they shall never know where it came from; and if there are shares in

quarries and mines, I'll manage that somehow. I am to be a lawyer, you

know, and I can find some kink which will work."

How he comforted her with his cheery, hopeful words, and how fast the

hours flew by until Tom came to take him back to Grey's Park. But Grey

begged so hard to stay all night, that Hannah ventured to keep him, and

Tom returned without him.

"I am not a bit afraid of the house now, and would as soon sleep in

grandpa's room as anywhere," he said to Hannah, as they sat together in

the evening, and then they talked of her future until Grey was old

enough to take care of her, as he meant to do.

"Shall you stay here?" he asked, and Hannah replied:

"I don't know yet what I shall do, I shall let your father decide for

me."

"You might live with us in Boston," Grey said. "That would be jolly for

me; but I don't know how you and mother would hitch together, you are so

unlike. I wish I was big, and married, and then I know just where you

would go. But father will arrange it, I am sure."

And three weeks later, when Burton came up from Boston after his son, he

did arrange it for her.

"It is of no use," he said to her. "I have tried meeting and mingling

with my friends, and I feel as if they saw on my face what is always in

my mind, and if I stay in Boston I shall some day scream out to the

public that my father was a murderer. I could not help it, and I can

understand now how Lucy was wrought upon to do what she did in church

when they thought her crazy. I shall be crazy, too, if I stay here, and

I am going away. Geraldine likes Europe, and so do I; and as I can leave

my business as well as not, I shall shut up my house, and go abroad

until I feel that I can look my fellowmen in the face."

"And Grey?" Hannah asked, sorrowfully, knowing how dreary her life would

be with him so far away.

"I shall take him with me," her brother replied, "I shall put him in

school somewhere in England or Germany, and send him eventually to

Oxford. But you will stay here, won't you? I'd rather you would."

"Yes," she answered, still more sadly, for she fully understood the

intense selfishness of the man, who went on:

"I shall be happier, knowing you are here, for I cannot have the house

sold, or rented, or even left alone, lest by some chance the secret of

our lives should be discovered. I am almost as morbid on the subject as

father was: but with you here, I shall feel safe. You can have any one

live with you whom you choose, and I will supply you with plenty of

money. So I do not see why you should not in time be quite content."

"Yes, brother," Hannah said, very low; "but shall I not see Grey for

years?"

"Perhaps not; I don't know," was her brother's reply, as he arose to go,

without a single throb of pity for the woman who was to be left alone in

the home so hateful to him.

But Grey, when he heard of the plan, which did not surprise him,

comforted her with the assurance that he should spend all his long

vacations with her, as he did not mind crossing the ocean at all.

"I may be with you oftener than if I were in America, and then some time

I'll go to Carnarvon and begin the search. So, don't feel so badly," he

said to her as he saw the great tears roll down her cheeks, and guessed

in part her sorrow.

And so the necessary arrangements were made as rapidly as possible, and

one Saturday about the middle of March, Hannah stood on the wharf in New

York with a feeling like death in her heart, and saw Grey sail away and

leave her there alone.

CHAPTER XVI.

EXPECTING BESSIE.

After Miss McPherson had sent her letter to her nephew, Archie, asking

him to give his little daughter to her keeping, her whole nature seemed

to change, and there was on her face a look of happy expectancy rarely

seen there before. Even her cook, Sarah, and her maid, Flora, noticed

and discussed it as they sat together by the kitchen fire; but as Miss

McPherson never encouraged familiarities with her domestics, they asked

her no questions, and only wondered and speculated when she bade them

remove everything from the small bedroom at the end of the upper hall,

which communicated with her own sleeping apartment. But when this room

was papered and painted, and furnished with a pretty carpet of drab and

blue, and a single iron bedstead with lace hangings, and a child's

bureau and rocking-chair, and more than all when a large doll was

bought, with a complete wardrobe for it, Flora could no longer restrain

her curiosity, but asked if her mistress were expecting a child.

"Yes," was the reply, "my grandniece, Betsey, who was named for me. She

lives at Stoneleigh, my old home in Wales, and I may get a letter any

day saying she has sailed. I shall go to New York to meet her so have my

things ready for me to start at a moment's notice."

So confident was Miss McPherson that her nephew would be glad to have

his daughter removed from the influences around her to a home where she

was sure of enough to eat, and that his frivolous wife would be glad to

be rid of a child who must be in the way of her flirtations, that she

was constantly expecting to hear that she was coming. She did not

believe Archie would bring her himself, but she thought he would

probably consign her to the care of some reliable person, or put her in

charge of the captain or stewardess, and in her anxiety to have the

little girl she had written a second letter three days after she sent

the first. In this she had suggested the stewardess of the Celtic, whom

she knew, and with whom she assured Archie he could trust his child. But

days and weeks went by, until it was past the middle of June, and still

there were no tidings of Bessie; at last, however, there came a foreign

letter, addressed in a woman's hand to:

"Miss Elizabeth McPherson, Allington, Worcester Co., Mass., U.S.A."

The Elizabeth was an affront to the good woman, who bristled all over

with resentment, as she held the dainty envelope in her hand and studied

the strange monogram, "D.A.M." (Daisy Allen McPherson).

"Swears even in her monogram! I knew she would," was Miss Betsey's

comment, as she broke the seal and began to read, first muttering to

herself, "She writes well enough."

The letter was as follows:

"STONELEIGH, BANGOR, June 3d.

"OUR DEAR AUNT."

"Umph! I'm not _her_ aunt," was the mental comment, and then she

read on:

"We have just come home from Paris, where we spent several

delightful weeks with a party of friends, who would gladly have kept

us longer, but Archie was homesick for the old place, though what he

can see in it to admire I am sure I do not know. So here we are for

an indefinite length of time, and here we found both your letters,

which old Anthony, who grows more and more stupid every year, failed

to forward to us in Paris. As Archie leaves everything to me, he

said I must answer the letters, and thank you for your offer to

remove our little girl from the poisonous atmosphere you think

surrounds her, and bring her up morally and spiritually. I do not

know what the atmosphere of Stoneleigh used to be when you lived

here, but I assure you it is very healthy now; not at all poisonous,

or malarious. We have had some of the oldest yews cut down and that

lets in the sunshine and fresh air, too.

"But I am wandering from the object of my letter, which is to say

that we cannot let you have our little Bessie, even with the

prospect of her learning to scour knives and pare potatoes, and

possibly having a few thousands, if she does well. Archie would as

soon part with his eyes as with Bessie; while nothing short of an

assured fortune, and that a large one, would induce me to give her

up. She is in one sense my stock in trade--"

"Heartless wretch!" dropped from the indignant lady's lips. "Her stock

in trade! What does she mean? Does she play out this child for her own

base purposes?"

Then she read on:

"Strangers are always attracted by her, and through her we make so

many pleasant acquaintances. Indeed, she quite throws me into the

shade, but I am not at all jealous. I am satisfied to be known only

as Bessie's mother. I am very proud of her, and hope some day to see

her at least a countess."

"Countess! Fool!" muttered Miss Betsey, and read on:

"The inclosed photograph is like her in features, but fails, I think, in

expression, but I send it, as it will give you some idea of her as she

is now."

Here Miss Betsey stopped, and taking a card from the bit of tissue paper

in which it was wrapped, gazed earnestly and with a feeling of intense

yearning and bitter disappointment upon the beautiful face, whose great

wide-open, blue eyes looked at her, just as they had looked at her on

the sands at Aberystwyth. The photographer's art had succeeded admirably

with Bessie, and made a most wonderful picture of childish innocence and

beauty, besides bringing out about the mouth and into the eyes that

patient, half sorry expression which spoke to Miss Betsey of loneliness

and hunger far up in the fourth and fifth stories of fashionable hotels,

where the little girl often ate her smuggled dinner of rolls and nuts

and raisins, and whatever else her mother could convey into her pocket

unobserved by those around her.

"Yes, she looks as if a big slice of plum pudding or mince pie would do

her good! Poor little thing, and I am not to have her," Miss Betsey

said, with a lump in her throat, as she continued reading:

"You saw her once, I know, three years ago, at Aberystwyth, though

she had no idea then who the funny woman was who asked her so many

questions. Why didn't you make yourself known to us? Archie would

have been delighted to meet you. He never saw you, I believe. And

why didn't you speak to me when I went by as Bessie says I did? Was

Archie with me, I wonder? or, was it young Lord Hardy from Dublin,

Archie's best friend? He was with us there, and sometimes walked

with me when Archie was not inclined to go out. He is very nice, and

Archie is very fond of him, while to Bessie and me he is like a

brother."

Here Miss Betsey stopped again, and taking off her spectacles harangued

the tortoise-shell cat, who was sitting on the rug and looking at her.

"Archie's friend! her brother! Humbug! It does make me so mad to see a

married woman with a young snipper-snapper of a fellow chasing after

her, and using her husband as a cover. Mark my words, the woman who does

that is not a pure, good woman at heart, or in thought, though outwardly

she may be sweet as sugar; and her husband--

"Well, he is both weak and unmanly to allow it, and is looked upon with

contempt."

To all this Mrs. Tortoise-shell purred an assent, and the lady went on

with the letter.

"Bessie is wailing for me to go for a walk, and so I must bring this

letter to a close. Archie sends his love, and will, with me, be very

glad to welcome you to your old home, should you care to visit it.

When I was a child I thought it the grandest place in the world, but

it is very much run down, for we have no money with which to keep it

up, and have only the two servants, Anthony and Dorothy, both of

whom are getting old. And yet I do not complain of Archie for not

trying to do something. Once, however, before we were married I

tried to rouse him to something like energy, and caring for himself,

but since seeing the world, his world I mean, for you know of course

I am not what would be considered his equal socially, I have changed

my mind, and do not blame him at all. Brought up as he was with an

idea that he must not work, it is very hard for him to overcome

early prejudices of training and education, and I think his uncle,

the Hon. John, would be intensely mortified to have his nephew in

trade, though he is very careful not to give him any thing toward

his support, and we are so poor that even a hundred pounds would be

a fortune to us. Maybe some good angel will send it to us by and by.

"Hoping it most devoutly, I have the honor to be,

"Very sincerely, your niece,

"DAISY ALLEN McPHERSON.

"P.S.--Bessie thanks you again for the turquois ring you sent her."

"A hundred pounds! Five hundred dollars! and maybe she devoutly hopes I

shall be the good angel who will send it to her, but she is mistaken. Do

I look like an angel?" Miss Betsey said, fiercely, addressing herself

again to the cat. "No, they may go to destruction their own way. I wash

my hands of them. I should have been glad for the little girl, but I

can't have her. She will grow up like her mother, marry some fool, have

her friend and brother dangling after her, and smuggle dinners and

lunches for her children up in the attic. Well, so be it. That ends it

forever!"

The letter was an insult from beginning to end, and Miss McPherson felt

it as such, and with a sigh of keen regret as for something lost, she

put away the picture, and when Flora asked when little Miss Bessie was

coming, she answered curtly:

"Never!"

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

STONELEIGH.

The season is June; the time fourteen years prior to the commencement of

this story, and the place an old garden in Wales, about half way between

Bangor and the suspension bridge across Menai Straits. The garden, which

was very large, must have been beautiful, in the days when money was

more plenty with the proprietor than at present; but now there were

marks of neglect and decay everywhere, and in some parts of it the

shrubs, and vines, and roses were mixed together in so hopeless a tangle

that to separate them seemed impossible, while the yew trees, of which

there were several, grew dark, and thick, and untrimmed, and cast heavy

shadows upon the grass plats near them. The central part of the garden,

however, showed signs of care. The broad gravel walk was clean and

smooth, and the straight borders beside it were full of summer flowers,

among which roses were conspicuous. Indeed, there were roses everywhere,

for Anthony loved them as if they were his children, and so did the

white-faced invalid indoors, whose room old Dorothy, Anthony's wife,

kept filled with the freshest and choicest. It did not matter to her

that the sick man had wandered very far from the path of duty, and was

dying from excessive dissipation; he was her pride, her boy, whom she

had tended from his babyhood, and whom she would watch over and care for

to the last. She had defended and stood by him, when he brought home a

pretty little brown-eyed, brown haired creature, whose only fault was

her poverty and the fact that she was a chorus singer in the operas in

London, where Hugh McPherson had seen and fallen in love with her. Two

years she lived at Stoneleigh, happy as the singing birds which flew

about the place and built their nests in the yews, and then one summer

morning she died, and left to Dorothy's care a little boy of three

weeks, who, without much attention from any one as regarded his moral

and mental culture, had scrambled along somehow, and had reached the age

of sixteen without a single serious thought as to his future and without

ever having made the least exertion for himself. Dorothy and Anthony,

the two servants of the place, had taken care of him, and would continue

to do so even after his father's death, or, if they did not, his uncle,

the Hon. John McPherson, in London, would never see him want, he

thought; so, with no bad habits except his extreme indolence, which

amounted to absolute laziness, the boy's days passed on, until the hot

summer morning in June, when he lay asleep on a broad bench under the

shade of a yew tree, with his face upturned to the sunlight which

penetrated through the overchanging boughs and fell in patches upon him.

Occasionally a fly or honey-bee came and buzzed about him, but never

alighted upon him, because of the watchful vigilance of the young girl

who stood by his side, shielding him from the sun's rays with her person

and her while cape bonnet, which she also used to scare away the

insects, for Archie McPherson must not be troubled even in his sleep, if

care of hers could prevent it.

The girl who was not more than twelve in reality, though, her training

had made her much older in knowledge and experience, was singularly

beautiful, with great blue eyes and wavy golden hair, which fell in long

curls to her waist. Her dress, though scrupulously neat and clean, and

becoming, indicated that she belonged to the middle or working class,

far below the social position of the boy. But whatever inequality of

rank there was between them, she had never felt it, for ever since she

could remember anything, Archie McPherson had played with and petted and

teased her, and she was almost as much at home at Stoneleigh as in the

work-room of her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Allen, who made dresses for the

ladies of Bangor and vicinity.

"How handsome he is," she said to herself, as she gazed admiringly upon

the sleeping boy, "and how white and slim his hands are. A great deal

whiter than mine, but that, I suppose, is because he is a gentleman's

son, and I have to wash dishes, and sweep and dust the rooms;" and the

girl glanced regretfully at her own hands, which, though fat and

well-shaped, were brown, and showed signs of the dusting and

dish-washing required of her by her mother, whose means were very

limited, and whose dressmaking did not warrant luxury of any kind.

"I wish my hands were white, and that I could wear diamond rings like

the ladies at the George," she continued; "and sometime I will, if they

are only shams. Half the world does not know the difference."

Just then a handsome carriage containing a gentleman and lady, child and

nurse, and maid, turned in at the lodge gate, which Anthony opened very

respectfully, with a pull at his forelock.

"That's the McPhersons from London! What an ugly, proud-looking thing

Lady Jane is!" the girl thought, and in watching the carriage as it

drove toward the house she relaxed her vigilance so far that a huge blue

bottle-fly which had been skirting around the spot, for some time,

alighted squarely upon Archie's nose, and roused him from his slumber.

Yawning lazily, and stretching his long arms, he looked up, and seeing

his companion, called out, in a tone half familiar, half patronizing, as

he would address an inferior:

"Halloo, Daze, what are you doing here?"

"Keeping the sun and the flies off from you; they bite awfully this

morning," she answered, quietly, and Archie continued:

"Upon my word, Daze, you are a little trump, standing bareheaded in the

sun to shield me! How long have you been here?"

"Half an hour, perhaps; and I was getting tired," was the girl's reply;

but Archie did not ask her to sit down beside him, for he wanted all the

bench to lounge upon, and leaning upon his elbow he went on talking to

her, and answering her questions jestingly, until she said:

"How is your father?"

Then there came a shadow upon the face of the boy, who replied:

"He is worse, and they have sent for Uncle John and Lady Jane. We expect

them to-day."

"Yes, I know; they came while you were asleep. Lady Jane looks very

proud," Daisy said, and Archie rejoined:

"She looks as she is then. I hate her!"

If Archie hated her, Daisy did too, and she answered promptly, "So do

I!" though she had never seen the lady in question until that morning

when she rode by, arching her long neck and looking curiously around

her.

"She thinks the world made only for her and the baby Neil," Archie said,

"and Dorothy thinks so too. She is in a great way about her coming

because we have no servants, I don't care! Let Uncle John give us some

money if they want style when they come to Stoneleigh."

"That's so!" and Daisy nodded approvingly; then she went on: "Mother has

made some lemon jelly for the dinner, because Dorothy says she makes it

so nice, and I am going over this evening to wash the dishes and help

Dorothy a little."

"You? I wouldn't!" Archie said, looking reflectingly at her.

"But she will give me a shilling toward a new sash," was the girl's

answer, and Archie replied:

"I'll give you the shilling; don't go," and he put his hand in his

pocket for the shilling, which Daisy knew was not there, for the poverty

of the McPhersons of Stoneleigh was no secret in the neighborhood any

more than was the pride which kept them so poor.

She had often heard both discussed by her mother's customers, and when

Archie said, as he withdrew his hand empty, "Plague on it, what a bother

it is never to have any money; I wish we were not so poor. I wonder how

I can make a fortune; I've thought of forty ways," she asked saucily:

"Did you ever think of going to work?"

"To work! To work!" he repeated, slowly, as if not fully comprehending

her, "I don't think I quite know what you mean."

"I mean," she replied, "that if you have no money, and want some, why

don't you go to work and earn it like Giles, the tailor, or Jones, the

baker? It would not hurt you one bit."

"That is rich!" Archie exclaimed, sitting upright for the first time and

laughing immoderately. "The best thing I have heard. Ask Lady Jane, or

Uncle John, or even Anthony, how they would like to have a McPherson

turn baker, or tailor, or tinker."

"You know I did not mean you to be any of these," the girl answered, a

little indignantly; "but you might do something. You can go to London

and be a clerk in that big store, Marshall & Snellgrove's. That would

not be hard, nor spoil your hands."

"I am afraid it would, little Daze," the boy replied. "You will have to

try again. It would never do for a McPherson to be in trade. We were not

born to it. How would _gambling_ suit you? Piles of money are made that

way."

"Gambling!" Daisy repeated, and could Miss Betsey McPherson have seen

the scorn which flashed in the eyes of Daisy Allen, she would have

forgiven the Daisy McPherson whom she saw years after upon the terrace

at Aberystwyth flirting with Lord Hardy.

But the Daisy of the Marine Terrace was a very different person from the

young girl who, with a hand upon each hip and her head on one side, gave

Archie a piece of her mind in terms neither mild nor selected.

"Gambling! I'd never speak to you again if you stooped to such a thing

as to play for money. You'd better a thousand times sell butcher's meat

at the corner, or cry gooseberries in the street! Suppose you are a

gentleman, a McPherson, without money, must you either gamble, or sit

still and let some one else take care of you? It won't hurt _you_ to

work any more than any body else, and you'll have to do something. Every

body says so. Suppose you do have Stoneleigh when your father dies;

there are only a few acres besides the park, and they are all run down.

What are you going to do?"

"Upon my word, I did not know you had so much vim. You are a regular

little spit-fire," Archie said, regarding her intently; then after a

pause, he added: "What am I going to do? I am sure I don't know, unless

I marry you and let you take care of me! I believe you could do it."

The hands which had been pressed on Daisy's hips met suddenly together

in a quick, nervous clasp, while there came over the girl's face a look

of wonder and surprise, and evident perplexity. Although Daisy was much

older than her years in some things, the idea of marrying Archibald

McPherson, or any one else, had never entered her mind.

Now, however, she was conscious of a new feeling, which she could not

define, and after regarding him fixedly for a moment, without any

apparent consciousness, she answered in a very matter of fact way:

"I believe I could take care of you--somehow!"

"I know you could; so, suppose we call it a bargain," Archie said, but

before Daisy could reply Lady Jane's maid appeared coming down the broad

walk.

Stopping in front of the girl and boy, and merely noticing the former by

a supercilious stare, she said to the latter interrogatively:

"Mr. Archibald McPherson?"

"Present!" he answered, with a comical look at Daisy, on whom it was

lost, for she was admiring the smart cap and pink ribbons of the maid,

who said:

"If you are Mr. Archibald, your father wishes to see you. He said I was

to fetch you directly."

Rising slowly Archie shook himself together, and started for the house,

while Daisy looked after him with a new and thoughtful expression on her

face.

"Archie!" she called at last. "Tell Dorothy I shall not come to help her

with the dishes. I have changed my mind. I do not want the shilling."

"All right," was Archie's response, as he walked on never dreaming that

he had that morning sown the first germ of the ambition which was to

overshadow all Daisy Allen's future life, and bear fruit a hundred-fold.