"SHE WAS MY MOTHER."
"Sweet face, sweet eyes, and gleaming
Sun-gifted, mingling hair;
Lips like two rosebuds dreaming
In June's fruit-scented air."
Kathleen sat down in front of a bright coal fire, and leaned her curly
head back against the easy-chair. In doing so, her upraised eyes
encountered over the mantel the picture of a young girl done in water
colors. It was a life-size head and bust, and represented a beautiful
young creature with rosy cheeks, pouting lips, dark-blue eyes, and
curly golden hair. The expression of the face was piquant and spirited,
and greatly resembled Kathleen's own.
Kathleen gazed with startled eyes at this beautiful picture, and
gasped, faintly:
"Who is it?"
She was alone with Chester, and as he looked up she saw a shadow of
pain cloud his dark-blue eyes.
Drawing his chair close to hers, he half-whispered:
"She was my cousin. She has been dead many years."
"Her name?" exclaimed Kathleen, excitedly, and he lifted a warning hand.
"Not so loud. Grandma might hear," he said; then, answering the puzzled
look in her eyes, he added, softly:
"It was grandma's youngest child--her only daughter, and she met such a
tragic fate that it nearly broke her mother's heart. Even now she can
not bear to talk of her. We never speak her name, because it makes our
hearts ache."
"It was Zaidee--Zaidee Franklyn," murmured the girl.
"How did you know?" in astonishment.
"No matter. Tell me all about her," answered Kathleen, whose memory had
returned to her as by a flash of lightning at sight of that lovely face.
"There is little to tell," he replied. "My poor cousin's story is short
and tragic, like her life. My grandmother had but two children, a son
and a daughter. The son, my father, died years ago, but Zaidee, his
petted young sister, died years before--died, alas! by her own hand."
She shivered like one in a chill, and he said:
"Was it not horrible? She was so young, so lovely, and she had
everything, it seemed, to make her happy. But this is her story: When
she was barely sixteen, a rich man from Boston married her and took
her away from her simple home to his grand, rich one. She loved her
handsome husband very dearly, and seemed to be wildly happy. Her people
did not hear from her often, but she sent this picture and many gifts
to her mother. In a year she had a little daughter, but she did not
invite grandma to go and see the child. Vincent Carew was rich and
great, and very proud, so the Franklyns believed that he was trying to
break his young wife off entirely from her past. The Franklyns were
proud, too, in their way. They resented it; and so the communication
between the two families almost ceased, until, suddenly, like a clap of
thunder, came the news that the young wife had committed suicide!"
"Why?" she gasped.
"We do not know. It was a profound mystery even to her husband. But
it broke my grandfather's heart. He died in less than a week after
the news came. Grandma came, then, to live with us at River Cottage.
My mother died in a few years after, then my father. We two--grandma
and I--are the last of the family unless my cousin, Kathleen Carew,
Zaidee's child, is yet living. That we do not know. We wrote several
times. No answer came, and we gave up the hope of ever knowing the
daughter of the proud Vincent Carew."
"And she has never written to you?" asked the girl, in wonder.
"Never," he replied.
"There must be some mistake," she faltered.
"No, there is no mistake; but I fancy the proud Vincent Carew is at the
bottom of it all. He would not care for his child to know her humble
relatives on her mother's side. Why, he was governor of his state
eight years, and was in Congress also. The Franklyns were plain simple
people; my grandfather and my father were mechanics, although nobler
hearts never beat in human breasts, and they were never rich. It is
from the life-insurance money they left us that we are enabled to live
in comparative comfort now."
Her eager, interested eyes made him go on rather diffidently:
"As for me, I have no taste that way. My desire is for a literary life.
I have written some trifles that the critics praised."
"Your name?" the girl asked, curiously, gazing with interest at his
handsome face.
"Chester Franklyn," he replied.
"Would you like to meet your unknown cousin--the daughter of the proud
Vincent Carew?" she pursued.
His face grew grave.
"I do not know how to answer you," he replied. "She would not care for
us. Perhaps her father has never told her about the Franklyns."
She looked at him with a strange expression, and held out to him her
little white hand.
"I am your cousin--I am Kathleen Carew!" she said to him; and, while
he stared in astonishment, she pointed at the picture of the beautiful
girl.
"She was my mother!" she said.