PERKINS ANXIOUSLY SEEKS LIZZY GLENN.
ONE Morning, a few days after the young man named Perkins had
related to his friend the history of his attachment to Miss
Ballantine and his subsequent bereavement, he opened a letter which
came by mail, among several relating to business, postmarked New
Orleans. It was from an old friend, who had settled there. Among
other matters, was this paragraph:--
"I heard something the other day that surprised me a good deal, and,
as it relates to a subject in which no one can feel a deeper
interest than yourself, I have thought it right to mention it. It is
said that, about a year and a half ago, a young woman and her father
suddenly made their appearance here, and claimed to be Mr. and Miss
Ballantine. Their story, or rather the story of the daughter (for
the father, it is, said, was out of his mind), was that the ship in
which they sailed from New York had been burned at sea, and that a
few of the passengers had been saved in a boat, which floated about
until all died but herself and father; that they were taken up
almost exhausted, by a Dutch East Indiaman, and that this vessel
when near the Cape of Good Hope, encountered a gale, and was blown
far off south, losing two of her masts; and that she was finally
wrecked upon an uninhabited island, and the few saved from her
compelled to remain there for nearly two years before being
discovered and taken off. This story was not believed. Mr.
Paralette, it is said, who has retained possession of all Mr.
Ballantine's property since his absence, was waited upon by the
young woman; but he repulsed her as an impostor, and refused to make
the least investigation into her case. He had his own reasons for
this, it is also said. Several of Mr. Ballantine's old friends
received notes from her; but none believed her story, especially as
the man she called her father bore little or no resemblance to Mr.
Ballantine. But it is now said, by many, that loss of reason and
great physical suffering had changed him, as these would change any
man. Discouraged, disheartened, and dismayed at the unexpected
repulse she met, it is supposed by some, who now begin to half
believe the story, that she died in despair. Others say that the
same young woman who called upon Mr. Paralette has occasionally been
seen here; And it is also said that two of our most eminent
physicians were engaged by a young woman, about whom there was to
them something singular and inexplicable, for nearly a year and a
half to attend her father, who was out of his mind, but that they
failed to give him any relief. These things are now causing a good
deal of talk here in private circles, and I have thought it best to
make you aware of the fact."
From that time until the cars left for New York, Perkins was in a
state of strong inward excitement. Hurriedly arranging his business
for an absence of some weeks, he started for the South late in the
afternoon, without communicating to any one the real cause of his
sudden movement. After an anxious journey of nearly two weeks, he
arrived in New Orleans, and called immediately upon Mr. Paralette,
and stated the rumor he had heard. That gentleman seemed greatly
surprised, and even startled at the earnestness of the young man,
and more particularly so when he learned precisely the relation in
which he stood to the daughter of Mr. Ballantine.
"I remember the fact," was his reply. "But then, the young woman
was, of course, a mere pretender."
"But how do you know?" urged Mr. Perkins. "Did you take any steps to
ascertain the truth of her story?"
"Of course not. Why should I? An old friend of her father's called
upon them at the hotel, and saw the man that was attempted to be put
off by an artful girl as Mr. Ballantine. But he said the man bore no
kind of resemblance to that person. He was old and white-headed. He
was in his dotage--a simple old fool--passive in the hands of a
designing woman."
"Did you see him?"
"No."
"Strange that you should not!" Perkins replied, looking the man
steadily in the face. "Bearing the relation that you did to Mr.
Ballantine, it might be supposed that you would have been the first
to see the man, and the most active to ascertain the truth or
falsity of the story."
"I do not permit any one to question me in regard to my conduct,"
Mr. Paralette said, in an offended tone, turning from the excited
young man.
Perkins saw that he had gone too far, and endeavored to modify and
apologize: but the merchant repulsed him, and refused to answer any
more questions, or to hold any further conversation with him on the
subject.
The next step taken by the young man was to seek out his friend, and
learn from him all the particular rumors on the subject, and who
would be most likely to put him in the way of tracing the
individuals he was in search of. But he found, when he got fairly
started on the business for which he had come to New Orleans, that
he met with but little encouragement. Some shrugged their shoulders,
some smiled in his face, and nearly every one treated the matter
with a degree of indifference. Many had heard that a person claiming
to be Miss Ballantine had sent notes to a few of Mr. Ballantine's
old friends about two years previous; but no one seemed to have the
least doubt of her being an impostor. A week passed in fruitless
efforts to awaken any interest, or to create the slightest
disposition to inquiry among Mr. B.'s old friends. The story told by
the young woman they considered as too improbable to bear upon its
face the least appearance of truth.
"Why," was the unanswerable argument of many, "has nothing been
heard of the matter since? If that girl had really been Miss
Ballantine, and that simple old man her father, do you think we
should have heard no more on the subject? The imposition was
immediately detected, and the whole matter quashed at once."
Failing to create any interest in the minds of those he had supposed
would have been most eager to prosecute inquiry, but led on by
desperate hope, Perkins had an advertisement inserted in all the
city papers, asking the individuals who had presented themselves
some eighteen months before as Mr. Ballantine and his daughter, to
call upon him at his rooms in the hotel. A week passed, but no one
responded to the call. He then tried to ascertain the names of the
physicians who, it was said, had attended an old man for imbecility
of mind, at the request of a daughter who seemed most deeply devoted
to him. In this he at length proved successful.
"I did attend such a case," was at last replied to his oft-repeated
question.
"Then, my dear sir," said Perkins, in a deeply excited voice, "tell
me where they are."
"That, my young friend, is, really out of my power," returned the
physician. "It is some time since I visited them."
"What was their name?" asked the young man.
"Glenn, if I recollect rightly."
"Glenn! Glenn!" said Perkins, starting, and then pausing to think.
"Was the daughter a tall, pale, slender girl, with light brown
hair?"
"She was. And though living in the greatest seclusion was a woman of
refinement and education."
"You can direct me, of course, to the house where they live?"
"I can. But you will not, I presume, find them there. The daughter,
when I last saw her, said that she had resolved on taking her father
on to Boston, in order to try the effects of the discipline of the
Massachusetts Insane Hospital upon him, of which she had seen a very
favorable report. I encouraged her to go, and my impression is that
she is already at the North."
"Glenn! Glenn!" said Perkins, half aloud, and musingly, as the
doctor ceased. "Yes! it must be, it is the same! She was often seen
visiting Charlestown, and going in the direction of the hospitals.
Yes! yes! It must be she!"
Waiting only long enough in New Orleans to satisfy himself that the
persons alluded to by the physician had actually removed from the
place where they resided some months before, and with the declared
intention of going North, Perkins started home by the quickest route
from New Orleans to the North. It was about the middle of February
when he arrived in Boston. Among the first he met was Milford, to
whom he had written from New Orleans a full account of the reason of
his visiting that place so suddenly, and of his failure to discover
the persons of whom he was in search.
"My dear friend, I am glad to see you back!" said Milford,
earnestly, as he grasped the hand of Perkins. "I wrote you a week
ago, but, of course, that letter has not been received, and you are
doubtless in ignorance of what has come to my knowledge within the
last few days."
"Tell me, quickly, what you mean!" said Perkins, grasping the arm of
his friend.
"Be calm, and I will tell you," replied Milford. "About a week ago I
learned, by almost an accident, from the transfer clerk in the bank,
that the young woman whom we knew as Lizzy Glenn had, early in the
fall, come to the bank with certificates of stock, and had them
transferred to the Massachusetts Insane Hospital, to be held by that
institution so long as one Hubert Ballantine remained an inmate of
its walls."
"Well?" eagerly gasped Perkins.
"I know no more. It is for you to act in the matter; I could not."
Without a moment's delay, Perkins procured a vehicle, and in a
little while was at the door of the institution.
"Is there a Mr. Ballantine in the asylum?" he asked, in breathless
eagerness, of one of the attendants who answered his summons.
"No, sir," was the reply.
"But," said Perkins in a choking voice, "I have been told that there
was a man here by that name."
"So there was. But he left here about five days ago, perfectly
restored to reason."
Perkins leaned for a moment or two against the wall to support
himself. His knees bent under him. Then he asked in an agitated
voice--
"Is he in Boston?"
"I do not know. He was from the South, and his daughter has, in all
probability, taken him home."
"Where did they go when they left here?"
But the attendant could not tell. Nor did any one in the institution
know. The daughter had never told her place of residence.
Excited beyond measure, Perkins returned to Boston, and went to see
Berlaps. From him he could learn nothing. It was two months or so
since she had been there for work. Michael was then referred to; he
knew nothing, but he had a suspicion that Mrs. Gaston got work for
her.
"Mrs Gaston!" exclaimed Perkins, with a look of astonishment. "Who
is Mrs. Gaston?"
"She is one of our seamstresses," replied Berlaps.
"Where does she live?"
The direction was given, and the young man hurried to the place. But
the bird had flown. Five or six days before, she had gone away in a
carriage with a young lady who had been living with her, so it was
said, and no one could tell what had become of her or her children.
Confused, perplexed, anxious, and excited, Perkins turned away and
walked slowly home, to give himself time to reflect. His first fear
was that Eugenia and her father, for he had now no doubt of their
being the real actors in this drama, had really departed for New
Orleans. The name of Mrs. Gaston, as being in association with the
young woman calling herself Lizzy Glenn, expelled from his mind
every doubt. That was the name of the friend in Troy with whom
Eugenia had lived while there. It was some years since he had
visited or heard particularly from Troy, and therefore this was the
first intimation he had that Mrs. Gaston had removed form there, or
that her situation had become so desperate as the fact of her
working for Berlaps would indicate.