Episode of Fiddletown, An

by Bret Harte

In 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very pretty woman. She
had a quantity of light chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling
complexion, and a certain languid grace which passed easily for
gentle-womanliness. She always dressed becomingly, and in what
Fiddletown accepted as the latest fashion. She had only two
blemishes: one of her velvety eyes, when examined closely, had a
slight cast; and her left cheek bore a small scar left by a single
drop of vitriol-- happily the only drop of an entire phial--thrown
upon her by one of her own jealous sex, that reached the pretty face
it was intended to mar. But when the observer had studied the eyes
sufficiently to notice this defect, he was generally incapacitated
for criticism; and even the scar on her cheek was thought by some to
add piquancy to her smile. The youthful editor of THE FIDDLETOWN
AVALANCHE had said privately that it was "an exaggerated dimple."
Colonel Starbottle was instantly "reminded of the beautifying patches
of the days of Queen Anne, but more particularly, sir, of the
blankest beautiful women that, blank you, you ever laid your two
blank eyes upon--a Creole woman, sir, in New Orleans. And this woman
had a scar--a line extending, blank me, from her eye to her blank
chin. And this woman, sir, thrilled you, sir; maddened you, sir;
absolutely sent your blank soul to perdition with her blank
fascination! And one day I said to her, 'Celeste, how in blank did
you come by that beautiful scar, blank you?' And she said to me,
'Star, there isn't another white man that I'd confide in but you; but
I made that scar myself, purposely, I did, blank me.' These were her
very words, sir, and perhaps you think it a blank lie, sir; but I'll
put up any blank sum you can name and prove it, blank me."

Indeed, most of the male population of Fiddletown were or had
been in love with her. Of this number, about one-half believed that
their love was returned, with the exception, possibly, of her own
husband. He alone had been known to express skepticism.

The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this infelicitous
distinction was Tretherick. He had been divorced from an excellent
wife to marry this Fiddletown enchantress. She, also, had been
divorced; but it was hinted that some previous experiences of hers in
that legal formality had made it perhaps less novel, and probably
less sacrificial. I would not have it inferred from this that she
was deficient in sentiment, or devoid of its highest moral
expression. Her intimate friend had written (on the occasion of her
second divorce), "The cold world does not understand Clara yet"; and
Colonel Starbottle had remarked blankly that with the exception of a
single woman in Opelousas Parish, La., she had more soul than the
whole caboodle of them put together. Few indeed could read those
lines entitled "Infelissimus," commencing "Why waves no cypress o'er
this brow?" originally published in the AVALANCHE, over the signature
of "The Lady Clare," without feeling the tear of sensibility tremble
on his eyelids, or the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his cheek,
at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity of THE DUTCH FLAT
INTELLIGENCER, which the next week had suggested the exotic character
of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fiddletown, as a
reasonable answer to the query.

Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her feelings in a
metrical manner, and deliver them to the cold world through the
medium of the newspapers, that first attracted the attention of
Tretherick. Several poems descriptive of the effects of California
scenery upon a too-sensitive soul, and of the vague yearnings for the
infinite which an enforced study of the heartlessness of California
society produced in the poetic breast, impressed Mr. Tretherick, who
was then driving a six-mule freight wagon between Knight's Ferry and
Stockton, to seek out the unknown poetess. Mr. Tretherick was
himself dimly conscious of a certain hidden sentiment in his own
nature; and it is possible that some reflections on the vanity of his
pursuit--he supplied several mining camps with whisky and tobacco--in
conjunction with the dreariness of the dusty plain on which he
habitually drove, may have touched some chord in sympathy with this
sensitive woman. Howbeit, after a brief courtship--as brief as was
consistent with some previous legal formalities--they were married;
and Mr. Tretherick brought his blushing bride to Fiddletown, or
"Fideletown," as Mrs. Tretherick preferred to call it in her
poems.

The union was not a felicitous one. It was not long before Mr.
Tretherick discovered that the sentiment he had fostered while
freighting between Stockton and Knight's Ferry was different from
that which his wife had evolved from the contemplation of California
scenery and her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this
caused him to beat her; and she, being equally faulty in deduction,
was impelled to a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same
premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. Tretherick to
contribute regularly to the columns of the AVALANCHE. It was at this
time that Colonel Starbottle discovered a similarity in Mrs.
Tretherick's verse to the genius of Sappho, and pointed it out to the
citizens of Fiddletown in a two-columned criticism, signed "A. S.,"
also published in the AVALANCHE, and supported by extensive
quotation. As the AVALANCHE did not possess a font of Greek type,
the editor was obliged to reproduce the Leucadian numbers in the
ordinary Roman letter, to the intense disgust of Colonel Starbottle,
and the vast delight of Fiddletown, who saw fit to accept the text as
an excellent imitation of Choctaw--a language with which the colonel,
as a whilom resident of the Indian Territories, was supposed to be
familiar. Indeed, the next week's INTELLIGENCER contained some vile
doggerel supposed to be an answer to Mrs. Tretherick's poem,
ostensibly written by the wife of a Digger Indian chief, accompanied
by a glowing eulogium signed "A. S. S."

The result of this jocularity was briefly given in a later copy
of the AVALANCHE. "An unfortunate rencounter took place on Monday
last, between the Hon. Jackson Flash of THE DUTCH FLAT INTELLIGENCER
and the well-known Col. Starbottle of this place, in front of the
Eureka Saloon. Two shots were fired by the parties without injury to
either, although it is said that a passing Chinaman received fifteen
buckshot in the calves of his legs from the colonel's double-barreled
shotgun, which were not intended for him. John will learn to keep
out of the way of Melican man's firearms hereafter. The cause of the
affray is not known, although it is hinted that there is a lady in
the case. The rumor that points to a well-known and beautiful
poetess whose lucubrations have often graced our columns seems to
gain credence from those that are posted."

Meanwhile the passiveness displayed by Tretherick under these
trying circumstances was fully appreciated in the gulches. "The old
man's head is level," said one long-booted philosopher. "Ef the
colonel kills Flash, Mrs. Tretherick is avenged: if Flash drops the
colonel, Tretherick is all right. Either way, he's got a sure
thing." During this delicate condition of affairs, Mrs. Tretherick
one day left her husband's home and took refuge at the Fiddletown
Hotel, with only the clothes she had on her back. Here she staid for
several weeks, during which period it is only justice to say that she
bore herself with the strictest propriety.

It was a clear morning in early spring that Mrs. Tretherick,
unattended, left the hotel, and walked down the narrow street toward
the fringe of dark pines which indicated the extreme limits of
Fiddletown. The few loungers at that early hour were preoccupied
with the departure of the Wingdown coach at the other extremity of
the street; and Mrs. Tretherick reached the suburbs of the settlement
without discomposing observation. Here she took a cross street or
road, running at right angles with the main thoroughfare of
Fiddletown and passing through a belt of woodland. It was evidently
the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of the town. The dwellings were
few, ambitious, and uninterrupted by shops. And here she was joined
by Colonel Starbottle.

The gallant colonel, notwithstanding that he bore the swelling
port which usually distinguished him, that his coat was tightly
buttoned and his boots tightly fitting, and that his cane, hooked
over his arm, swung jauntily, was not entirely at his ease. Mrs.
Tretherick, however, vouchsafed him a gracious smile and a glance of
her dangerous eyes; and the colonel, with an embarrassed cough and a
slight strut, took his place at her side.

"The coast is clear," said the colonel, "and Tretherick is over
at Dutch Flat on a spree. There is no one in the house but a
Chinaman; and you need fear no trouble from him. I," he continued,
with a slight inflation of the chest that imperiled the security of
his button, "I will see that you are protected in the removal of your
property."

"I'm sure it's very kind of you, and so disinterested!" simpered
the lady as they walked along. "It's so pleasant to meet someone who
has soul--someone to sympathize with in a community so hardened and
heartless as this." And Mrs. Tretherick cast down her eyes, but not
until they wrought their perfect and accepted work upon her
companion.

"Yes, certainly, of course," said the colonel, glancing
nervously up and down the street--"yes, certainly." Perceiving,
however, that there was no one in sight or hearing, he proceeded at
once to inform Mrs. Tretherick that the great trouble of his life, in
fact, had been the possession of too much soul. That many women--as
a gentleman she would excuse him, of course, from mentioning names--
but many beautiful women had often sought his society, but being
deficient, madam, absolutely deficient, in this quality, he could not
reciprocate. But when two natures thoroughly in sympathy, despising
alike the sordid trammels of a low and vulgar community and the
conventional restraints of a hypocritical society--when two souls in
perfect accord met and mingled in poetical union, then-- but here the
colonel's speech, which had been remarkable for a certain
whisky-and-watery fluency, grew husky, almost inaudible, and
decidedly incoherent. Possibly Mrs. Tretherick may have heard
something like it before, and was enabled to fill the hiatus.
Nevertheless, the cheek that was on the side of the colonel was quite
virginal and bashfully conscious until they reached their
destination.

It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and warm with paint,
very pleasantly relieved against a platoon of pines, some of whose
foremost files had been displaced to give freedom to the fenced
enclosure in which it sat. In the vivid sunlight and perfect
silence, it had a new, uninhabited look, as if the carpenters and
painters had just left it. At the farther end of the lot, a Chinaman
was stolidly digging; but there was no other sign of occupancy. "The
coast," as the colonel had said, was indeed "clear." Mrs. Tretherick
paused at the gate. The colonel would have entered with her, but was
stopped by a gesture. "Come for me in a couple of hours, and I shall
have everything packed," she said, as she smiled, and extended her
hand. The colonel seized and pressed it with great fervor. Perhaps
the pressure was slightly returned; for the gallant colonel was
impelled to inflate his chest, and trip away as smartly as his
stubby-toed, high-heeled boots would permit. When he had gone, Mrs.
Tretherick opened the door, listened a moment in the deserted hall,
and then ran quickly upstairs to what had been her bedroom.

Everything there was unchanged as on the night she left it. On
the dressing-table stood her bandbox, as she remembered to have left
it when she took out her bonnet. On the mantle lay the other glove
she had forgotten in her flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau
were half-open (she had forgotten to shut them); and on its marble
top lay her shawl pin and a soiled cuff. What other recollections
came upon her I know not; but she suddenly grew quite white,
shivered, and listened with a beating heart, and her hand upon the
door. Then she stepped to the mirror, and half-fearfully,
half-curiously, parted with her fingers the braids of her blond hair
above her little pink ear, until she came upon an ugly, half- healed
scar. She gazed at this, moving her pretty head up and down to get a
better light upon it, until the slight cast in her velvety eyes
became very strongly marked indeed. Then she turned away with a
light, reckless, foolish laugh, and ran to the closet where hung her
precious dresses. These she inspected nervously, and missing
suddenly a favorite black silk from its accustomed peg, for a moment,
thought she should have fainted. But discovering it the next instant
lying upon a trunk where she had thrown it, a feeling of thankfulness
to a superior Being who protects the friendless for the first time
sincerely thrilled her. Then, albeit she was hurried for time, she
could not resist trying the effect of a certain lavender neck ribbon
upon the dress she was then wearing, before the mirror. And then
suddenly she became aware of a child's voice close beside her, and
she stopped. And then the child's voice repeated, "Is it Mamma?"

Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Standing in the doorway
was a little girl of six or seven. Her dress had been originally
fine, but was torn and dirty; and her hair, which was a very violent
red, was tumbled seriocomically about her forehead. For all this,
she was a picturesque little thing, even through whose childish
timidity there was a certain self-sustained air which is apt to come
upon children who are left much to themselves. She was holding under
her arm a rag doll, apparently of her own workmanship, and nearly as
large as herself--a doll with a cylindrical head, and features
roughly indicated with charcoal. A long shawl, evidently belonging
to a grown person, dropped from her shoulders and swept the floor.

The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Tretherick's delight. Perhaps
she had but a small sense of humor. Certainly, when the child, still
standing in the doorway, again asked, "Is it Mamma?" she answered
sharply, "No, it isn't," and turned a severe look upon the
intruder.

The child retreated a step, and then, gaining courage with the
distance, said in deliciously imperfect speech:

"Dow 'way then! why don't you dow away?"

But Mrs. Tretherick was eying the shawl. Suddenly she whipped
it off the child's shoulders, and said angrily:

"How dared you take my things, you bad child?"

"Is it yours? Then you are my mamma; ain't you? You are
Mamma!" she continued gleefully; and before Mrs. Tretherick could
avoid her, she had dropped her doll, and, catching the woman's skirts
with both hands, was dancing up and down before her.

"What's your name, child?" said Mrs. Tretherick coldly, removing
the small and not very white hands from her garments.

"Tarry."

"Tarry?"

"Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline."

"Caroline?"

"Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick."

"Whose child ARE you?" demanded Mrs. Tretherick still more
coldly, to keep down a rising fear.

"Why, yours," said the little creature with a laugh. "I'm your
little durl. You're my mamma, my new mamma. Don't you know my ol'
mamma's dorn away, never to turn back any more? I don't live wid my
ol' mamma now. I live wid you and Papa."

"How long have you been here?" asked Mrs. Tretherick
snappishly.

"I fink it's free days," said Carry reflectively.

"You think! Don't you know?" sneered Mrs. Tretherick. "Then,
where did you come from?"

Carry's lip began to work under this sharp cross-examination.
With a great effort and a small gulp, she got the better of it, and
answered:

"Papa, Papa fetched me--from Miss Simmons--from Sacramento, last
week."

"Last week! You said three days just now," returned Mrs.
Tretherick with severe deliberation.

"I mean a monf," said Carry, now utterly adrift in sheer
helplessness and confusion.

"Do you know what you are talking about?" demanded Mrs.
Tretherick shrilly, restraining an impulse to shake the little figure
before her and precipitate the truth by specific gravity.

But the flaming red head here suddenly disappeared in the folds
of Mrs. Tretherick's dress, as if it were trying to extinguish itself
forever.

"There now--stop that sniffling," said Mrs. Tretherick,
extricating her dress from the moist embraces of the child and
feeling exceedingly uncomfortable. "Wipe your face now, and run
away, and don't bother. Stop," she continued, as Carry moved away.
"Where's your papa?"

"He's dorn away too. He's sick. He's been dorn"--she
hesitated-- "two, free, days."

"Who takes care of you, child?" said Mrs. Tretherick, eying her
curiously.

"John, the Chinaman. I tresses myselth. John tooks and makes
the beds."

"Well, now, run away and behave yourself, and don't bother me
any more," said Mrs. Tretherick, remembering the object of her visit.
"Stop--where are you going?" she added as the child began to ascend
the stairs, dragging the long doll after her by one helpless leg.

"Doin' upstairs to play and be dood, and no bother Mamma."

"I ain't your mamma," shouted Mrs. Tretherick, and then she
swiftly re-entered her bedroom and slammed the door.

Once inside, she drew forth a large trunk from the closet and
set to work with querulous and fretful haste to pack her wardrobe.
She tore her best dress in taking it from the hook on which it hung:
she scratched her soft hands twice with an ambushed pin. All the
while, she kept up an indignant commentary on the events of the past
few moments. She said to herself she saw it all. Tretherick had
sent for this child of his first wife--this child of whose existence
he had never seemed to care--just to insult her, to fill her place.
Doubtless the first wife herself would follow soon, or perhaps there
would be a third. Red hair, not auburn, but RED--of course the
child, this Caroline, looked like its mother, and, if so, she was
anything but pretty. Or the whole thing had been prepared: this
red-haired child, the image of its mother, had been kept at a
convenient distance at Sacramento, ready to be sent for when needed.
She remembered his occasional visits there on-- business, as he said.
Perhaps the mother already was there; but no, she had gone East.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Tretherick, in her then state of mind, preferred
to dwell upon the fact that she might be there. She was dimly
conscious, also, of a certain satisfaction in exaggerating her
feelings. Surely no woman had ever been so shamefully abused. In
fancy, she sketched a picture of herself sitting alone and deserted,
at sunset, among the fallen columns of a ruined temple, in a
melancholy yet graceful attitude, while her husband drove rapidly
away in a luxurious coach-and-four, with a red-haired woman at his
side. Sitting upon the trunk she had just packed, she partly
composed a lugubrious poem describing her sufferings as, wandering
alone and poorly clad, she came upon her husband and "another"
flaunting in silks and diamonds. She pictured herself dying of
consumption, brought on by sorrow--a beautiful wreck, yet still
fascinating, gazed upon adoringly by the editor of the AVALANCHE and
Colonel Starbottle. And where was Colonel Starbottle all this while?
Why didn't he come? He, at least, understood her. He--she laughed
the reckless, light laugh of a few moments before; and then her face
suddenly grew grave, as it had not a few moments before.

What was that little red-haired imp doing all this time? Why
was she so quiet? She opened the door noiselessly, and listened.
She fancied that she heard, above the multitudinous small noises and
creakings and warpings of the vacant house, a smaller voice singing
on the floor above. This, as she remembered, was only an open attic
that had been used as a storeroom. With a half-guilty consciousness,
she crept softly upstairs and, pushing the door partly open, looked
within.

Athwart the long, low-studded attic, a slant sunbeam from a
single small window lay, filled with dancing motes, and only half
illuminating the barren, dreary apartment. In the ray of this
sunbeam she saw the child's glowing hair, as if crowned by a red
aureole, as she sat upon the floor with her exaggerated doll between
her knees. She appeared to be talking to it; and it was not long
before Mrs. Tretherick observed that she was rehearsing the interview
of a half-hour before. She catechized the doll severely,
cross-examining it in regard to the duration of its stay there, and
generally on the measure of time. The imitation of Mrs. Tretherick's
manner was exceedingly successful, and the conversation almost a
literal reproduction, with a single exception. After she had
informed the doll that she was not her mother, at the close of the
interview she added pathetically, "that if she was dood, very dood,
she might be her mamma, and love her very much."

I have already hinted that Mrs. Tretherick was deficient in a
sense of humor. Perhaps it was for this reason that this whole scene
affected her most unpleasantly; and the conclusion sent the blood
tingling to her cheek. There was something, too, inconceivably
lonely in the situation. The unfurnished vacant room, the half-
lights, the monstrous doll, whose very size seemed to give a pathetic
significance to its speechlessness, the smallness of the one animate,
self-centered figure--all these touched more or less deeply the
half-poetic sensibilities of the woman. She could not help utilizing
the impression as she stood there, and thought what a fine poem might
be constructed from this material if the room were a little darker,
the child lonelier--say, sitting beside a dead mother's bier, and the
wind wailing in the turrets. And then she suddenly heard footsteps
at the door below, and recognized the tread of the colonel's cane.

She flew swiftly down the stairs, and encountered the colonel in
the hall. Here she poured into his astonished ear a voluble and
exaggerated statement of her discovery, and indignant recital of her
wrongs. "Don't tell me the whole thing wasn't arranged beforehand;
for I know it was!" she almost screamed. "And think," she added, "of
the heartlessness of the wretch, leaving his own child alone here in
that way."

"It's a blank shame!" stammered the colonel, without the least
idea of what he was talking about. In fact, utterly unable as he was
to comprehend a reason for the woman's excitement, with his estimate
of her character, I fear he showed it more plainly than he intended.
He stammered, expanded his chest, looked stern, gallant, tender, but
all unintelligently. Mrs. Tretherick, for an instant, experienced a
sickening doubt of the existence of natures in perfect affinity.

"It's of no use," said Mrs. Tretherick with sudden vehemence, in
answer to some inaudible remark of the colonel's, and withdrawing her
hand from the fervent grasp of that ardent and sympathetic man. "It's
of no use: my mind is made up. You can send for my trunk as soon as
you like; but I shall stay here, and confront that man with the proof
of his vileness. I will put him face to face with his infamy."

I do not know whether Colonel Starbottle thoroughly appreciated
the convincing proof of Tretherick's unfaithfulness and malignity
afforded by the damning evidence of the existence of Tretherick's own
child in his own house. He was dimly aware, however, of some
unforeseen obstacle to the perfect expression of the infinite longing
of his own sentimental nature. But, before he could say anything,
Carry appeared on the landing above them, looking timidly, and yet
half-critically, at the pair.

"That's her," said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly. In her deepest
emotions, in either verse or prose, she rose above a consideration of
grammatical construction.

"Ah!" said the colonel, with a sudden assumption of parental
affection and jocularity that was glaringly unreal and affected. "Ah!
pretty little girl, pretty little girl! How do you do? How are you?
You find yourself pretty well, do you, pretty little girl?" The
colonel's impulse also was to expand his chest and swing his cane,
until it occurred to him that this action might be ineffective with a
child of six or seven. Carry, however, took no immediate notice of
this advance, but further discomposed the chivalrous colonel by
running quickly to Mrs. Tretherick and hiding herself, as if for
protection, in the folds of her gown. Nevertheless, the colonel was
not vanquished. Falling back into an attitude of respectful
admiration, he pointed out a marvelous resemblance to the "Madonna
and Child." Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but did not dislodge Carry as
before. There was an awkward pause for a moment; and then Mrs.
Tretherick, motioning significantly to the child, said in a whisper:
"Go now. Don't come here again, but meet me tonight at the hotel."
She extended her hand: the colonel bent over it gallantly and,
raising his hat, the next moment was gone.

"Do you think," said Mrs. Tretherick with an embarrassed voice
and a prodigious blush, looking down, and addressing the fiery curls
just visible in the folds of her dress--"do you think you will be
'dood' if I let you stay in here and sit with me?"

"And let me tall you Mamma?" queried Carry, looking up.

"And let you call me Mamma!" assented Mrs. Tretherick with an
embarrassed laugh.

"Yeth," said Carry promptly.

They entered the bedroom together. Carry's eye instantly caught
sight of the trunk.

"Are you dowin' away adain, Mamma?" she said with a quick
nervous look, and a clutch at the woman's dress.

"No-o," said Mrs. Tretherick, looking out of the window.

"Only playing your dowin' away," suggested Carry with a laugh.
"Let me play too."

Mrs. Tretherick assented. Carry flew into the next room, and
presently reappeared dragging a small trunk, into which she gravely
proceeded to pack her clothes. Mrs. Tretherick noticed that they
were not many. A question or two regarding them brought out some
further replies from the child; and before many minutes had elapsed,
Mrs. Tretherick was in possession of all her earlier history. But,
to do this, Mrs. Tretherick had been obliged to take Carry upon her
lap, pending the most confidential disclosures. They sat thus a long
time after Mrs. Tretherick had apparently ceased to be interested in
Carry's disclosures; and when lost in thought, she allowed the child
to rattle on unheeded, and ran her fingers through the scarlet
curls.

"You don't hold me right, Mamma," said Carry at last, after one
or two uneasy shiftings of position.

"How should I hold you?" asked Mrs. Tretherick with a
half-amused, half-embarrassed laugh.

"Dis way," said Carry, curling up into position, with one arm
around Mrs. Tretherick's neck and her cheek resting on her bosom--
"dis way--dere." After a little preparatory nestling, not unlike
some small animal, she closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

For a few moments the woman sat silent, scarcely daring to
breathe in that artificial attitude. And then, whether from some
occult sympathy in the touch, or God best knows what, a sudden fancy
began to thrill her. She began by remembering an old pain that she
had forgotten, an old horror that she had resolutely put away all
these years. She recalled days of sickness and distrust--days of an
overshadowing fear--days of preparation for something that was to be
prevented, that WAS prevented, with mortal agony and fear. She
thought of a life that might have been--she dared not say HAD been-
-and wondered. It was six years ago; if it had lived, it would have
been as old as Carry. The arms which were folded loosely around the
sleeping child began to tremble, and tighten their clasp. And then
the deep potential impulse came, and with a half- sob, half-sigh, she
threw her arms out and drew the body of the sleeping child down,
down, into her breast, down again and again as if she would hide it
in the grave dug there years before. And the gust that shook her
passed, and then, ah me! the rain.

A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry, and she moved
uneasily in her sleep. But the woman soothed her again--it was SO
easy to do it now--and they sat there quiet and undisturbed, so quiet
that they might have seemed incorporate of the lonely silent house,
the slowly declining sunbeams, and the general air of desertion and
abandonment, yet a desertion that had in it nothing of age, decay, or
despair.

Colonel Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown Hotel all that night
in vain. And the next morning, when Mr. Tretherick returned to his
husks, he found the house vacant and untenanted, except by motes and
sunbeams.

When it was fairly known that Mrs. Tretherick had run away,
taking Mr. Tretherick's own child with her, there was some excitement
and much diversity of opinion, in Fiddletown. THE DUTCH FLAT
INTELLIGENCER openly alluded to the "forcible abduction" of the child
with the same freedom, and it is to be feared the same prejudice,
with which it had criticized the abductor's poetry. All of Mrs.
Tretherick's own sex, and perhaps a few of the opposite sex, whose
distinctive quality was not, however, very strongly indicated, fully
coincided in the views of the INTELLIGENCER. The majority, however,
evaded the moral issue; that Mrs. Tretherick had shaken the red dust
of Fiddletown from her dainty slippers was enough for them to know.
They mourned the loss of the fair abductor more than her offense.
They promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured husband and
disconsolate father, and even went so far as to openly cast discredit
on the sincerity of his grief. They reserved an ironical condolence
for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely
and demonstrative sympathy in barrooms, saloons, and other localities
not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. "She was
alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine
affectation of gloomy concern and great readiness of illustration;
"and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd get away someday, and stampede
that theer colt: but thet she should shake YOU, Kernel, diet she
should jist shake you--is what gits me. And they do say thet you
jist hung around thet hotel all night, and payrolled them corriders,
and histed yourself up and down them stairs, and meandered in and out
o' thet piazzy, and all for nothing?" It was another generous and
tenderly commiserating spirit that poured additional oil and wine on
the colonel's wounds. "The boys yer let on thet Mrs. Tretherick
prevailed on ye to pack her trunk and a baby over from the house to
the stage offis, and that the chap ez did go off with her thanked
you, and offered you two short bits, and sed ez how he liked your
looks, and ud employ you agin--and now you say it ain't so? Well,
I'll tell the boys it ain't so, and I'm glad I met you, for stories
DO get round."

Happily for Mrs. Tretherick's reputation, however, the Chinaman
in Tretherick's employment, who was the only eyewitness of her
flight, stated that she was unaccompanied, except by the child. He
further deposed that, obeying her orders, he had stopped the
Sacramento coach, and secured a passage for herself and child to San
Francisco. It was true that Ah Fe's testimony was of no legal value.
But nobody doubted it. Even those who were skeptical of the pagan's
ability to recognize the sacredness of the truth admitted his
passionless, unprejudiced unconcern. But it would appear, from a
hitherto unrecorded passage of this veracious chronicle, that herein
they were mistaken.

It was about six months after the disappearance of Mrs.
Tretherick that Ah Fe, while working in Tretherick's lot, was hailed
by two passing Chinamen. They were the ordinary mining coolies,
equipped with long poles and baskets for their usual pilgrimages. An
animated conversation at once ensued between Ah Fe and his brother
Mongolians--a conversation characterized by that usual shrill
volubility and apparent animosity which was at once the delight and
scorn of the intelligent Caucasian who did not understand a word of
it. Such, at least, was the feeling with which Mr. Tretherick on his
veranda and Colonel Starbottle, who was passing, regarded their
heathenish jargon. The gallant colonel simply kicked them out of his
way; the irate Tretherick, with an oath, threw a stone at the group,
and dispersed them, but not before one or two slips of yellow rice
paper, marked with hieroglyphics, were exchanged, and a small parcel
put into Ah Fe's hands. When Ah Fe opened this in the dim solitude
of his kitchen, he found a little girl's apron, freshly washed,
ironed, and folded. On the corner of the hem were the initials "C.
T." Ah Fe tucked it away in a corner of his blouse, and proceeded to
wash his dishes in the sink with a smile of guileless
satisfaction.

Two days after this, Ah Fe confronted his master. "Me no likee
Fiddletown. Me belly sick. Me go now." Mr. Tretherick violently
suggested a profane locality. Ah Fe gazed at him placidly, and
withdrew.

Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he accidentally met Colonel
Starbottle, and dropped a few incoherent phrases which apparently
interested that gentleman. When he concluded, the colonel handed him
a letter and a twenty-dollar gold piece. "If you bring me an answer,
I'll double that--sabe, John?" Ah Fe nodded. An interview equally
accidental, with precisely the same result, took place between Ah Fe
and another gentleman, whom I suspect to have been the youthful
editor of the AVALANCHE. Yet I regret to state that, after
proceeding some distance on his journey, Ah Fe calmly broke the seals
of both letters, and after trying to read them upside down and
sideways, finally divided them into accurate squares, and in this
condition disposed of them to a brother Celestial whom he met on the
road, for a trifling gratuity. The agony of Colonel Starbottle on
finding his wash bill made out on the unwritten side of one of these
squares, and delivered to him with his weekly clean clothes, and the
subsequent discovery that the remaining portions of his letter were
circulated by the same method from the Chinese laundry of one Fung Ti
of Fiddletown, has been described to me as peculiarly affecting. Yet
I am satisfied that a higher nature, rising above the levity induced
by the mere contemplation of the insignificant details of this breach
of trust, would find ample retributive justice in the difficulties
that subsequently attended Ah Fe's pilgrimage.

On the road to Sacramento he was twice playfully thrown from the
top of the stagecoach by an intelligent but deeply intoxicated
Caucasian, whose moral nature was shocked at riding with one addicted
to opium-smoking. At Hangtown he was beaten by a passing
stranger--purely an act of Christian supererogation. At Dutch Flat
he was robbed by well-known hands from unknown motives. At
Sacramento he was arrested on suspicion of being something or other,
and discharged with a severe reprimand--possibly for not being it,
and so delaying the course of justice. At San Francisco he was
freely stoned by children of the public schools; but, by carefully
avoiding these monuments of enlightened progress, he at last reached,
in comparative safety, the Chinese quarters, where his abuse was
confined to the police and limited by the strong arm of the law.

The next day he entered the washhouse of Chy Fook as an
assistant, and on the following Friday was sent with a basket of
clean clothes to Chy Fook's several clients.

It was the usual foggy afternoon as he climbed the long
windswept hill of California Street--one of those bleak, gray
intervals that made the summer a misnomer to any but the liveliest
San Franciscan fancy. There was no warmth or color in earth or sky,
no light nor shade within or without, only one monotonous, universal
neutral tint over everything. There was a fierce unrest in the wind-
whipped streets: there was a dreary vacant quiet in the gray houses.
When Ah Fe reached the top of the hill, the Mission Ridge was already
hidden, and the chill sea breeze made him shiver. As he put down his
basket to rest himself, it is possible that, to his defective
intelligence and heathen experience, this "God's own climate," as was
called, seemed to possess but scant tenderness, softness, or mercy.
But it is possible that Ah Fe illogically confounded this season with
his old persecutors, the schoolchildren, who, being released from
studious confinement, at this hour were generally most aggressive.
So he hastened on, and turning a corner, at last stopped before a
small house.

It was the usual San Franciscan urban cottage. There was the
little strip of cold green shrubbery before it; the chilly, bare
veranda, and above this, again, the grim balcony, on which no one
sat. Ah Fe rang the bell. A servant appeared, glanced at his
basket, and reluctantly admitted him, as if he were some necessary
domestic animal. Ah Fe silently mounted the stairs, and entering the
open door of the front chamber, put down the basket and stood
passively on the threshold.

A woman, who was sitting in the cold gray light of the window,
with a child in her lap, rose listlessly, and came toward him. Ah Fe
instantly recognized Mrs. Tretherick; but not a muscle of his
immobile face changed, nor did his slant eyes lighten as he met her
own placidly. She evidently did not recognize him as she began to
count the clothes. But the child, curiously examining him, suddenly
uttered a short, glad cry.

"Why, it's John, Mamma! It's our old John what we had in
Fiddletown."

For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electrically lightened.
The child clapped her hands, and caught at his blouse. Then he said
shortly: "Me John--Ah Fe--allee same. Me know you. How do?"

Mrs. Tretherick dropped the clothes nervously, and looked hard
at Ah Fe. Wanting the quick-witted instinct of affection that
sharpened Carry's perception, she even then could not distinguish him
above his fellows. With a recollection of past pain, and an obscure
suspicion of impending danger, she asked him when he had left
Fiddletown.

"Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee Tlevelick. Likee
San Flisco. Likee washee. Likee Tally."

Ah Fe's laconics pleased Mrs. Tretherick. She did not stop to
consider how much an imperfect knowledge of English added to his curt
directness and sincerity. But she said, "Don't tell anybody you have
seen me," and took out her pocketbook.

Ah Fe, without looking at it, saw that it was nearly empty. Ah
Fe, without examining the apartment, saw that it was scantily
furnished. Ah Fe, without removing his eyes from blank vacancy, saw
that both Mrs. Tretherick and Carry were poorly dressed. Yet it is
my duty to state that Ah Fe's long fingers closed promptly and firmly
over the half-dollar which Mrs. Tretherick extended to him.

Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a series of
extraordinary contortions. After a few moments, he extracted from
apparently no particular place a child's apron, which he laid upon
the basket with the remark:

"One piecee washman flagittee."

Then he began anew his fumblings and contortions. At last his
efforts were rewarded by his producing, apparently from his right
ear, a many-folded piece of tissue paper. Unwrapping this carefully,
he at last disclosed two twenty-dollar gold pieces, which he handed
to Mrs. Tretherick.

"You leavee money topside of blulow, Fiddletown. Me findee
money. Me fetchee money to you. All lightee."

"But I left no money on the top of the bureau, John," said Mrs.
Tretherick earnestly. "There must be some mistake. It belongs to
some other person. Take it back, John."

Ah Fe's brow darkened. He drew away from Mrs. Tretherick's
extended hand, and began hastily to gather up his basket.

"Me no takee it back. No, no! Bimeby pleesman he catchee me.
He say, 'God damn thief!--catchee flowty dollar: come to jailee.' Me
no takee back. You leavee money topside blulow, Fiddletown. Me
fetchee money you. Me no takee back."

Mrs. Tretherick hesitated. In the confusion of her flight, she
MIGHT have left the money in the manner he had said. In any event,
she had no right to jeopardize this honest Chinaman's safety by
refusing it. So she said: "Very well, John, I will keep it. But you
must come again and see me--" here Mrs. Tretherick hesitated with a
new and sudden revelation of the fact that any man could wish to see
any other than herself--"and, and--Carry."

Ah Fe's face lightened. He even uttered a short ventriloquistic
laugh without moving his mouth. Then, shouldering his basket, he
shut the door carefully and slid quietly down stairs. In the lower
hall he, however, found an unexpected difficulty in opening the front
door, and, after fumbling vainly at the lock for a moment, looked
around for some help or instruction. But the Irish handmaid who had
let him in was contemptuously oblivious of his needs, and did not
appear.

There occurred a mysterious and painful incident, which I shall
simply record without attempting to explain. On the hall table a
scarf, evidently the property of the servant before alluded to, was
lying. As Ah Fe tried the lock with one hand, the other rested
lightly on the table. Suddenly, and apparently of its own volition,
the scarf began to creep slowly toward Ah Fe's hand; from Ah Fe's
hand it began to creep up his sleeve slowly, and with an insinuating,
snakelike motion; and then disappeared somewhere in the recesses of
his blouse. Without betraying the least interest or concern in this
phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated his experiments upon the lock. A
moment later the tablecloth of red damask, moved by apparently the
same mysterious impulse, slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe's
fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same hidden channel. What
further mystery might have followed, I cannot say; for at this moment
Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and was enabled to open the
door coincident with the sound of footsteps upon the kitchen stairs.
Ah Fe did not hasten his movements, but patiently shouldering his
basket, closed the door carefully behind him again, and stepped forth
into the thick encompassing fog that now shrouded earth and sky.

From her high casement window, Mrs. Tretherick watched Ah Fe's
figure until it disappeared in the gray cloud. In her present
loneliness, she felt a keen sense of gratitude toward him, and may
have ascribed to the higher emotions and the consciousness of a good
deed that certain expansiveness of the chest, and swelling of the
bosom, that was really due to the hidden presence of the scarf and
tablecloth under his blouse. For Mrs. Tretherick was still
poetically sensitive. As the gray fog deepened into night, she drew
Carry closer toward her, and, above the prattle of the child, pursued
a vein of sentimental and egotistic recollection at once bitter and
dangerous. The sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her again with her
past life at Fiddletown. Over the dreary interval between, she was
now wandering--a journey so piteous, willful, thorny, and useless
that it was no wonder that at last Carry stopped suddenly in the
midst of her voluble confidences to throw her small arms around the
woman's neck, and bid her not to cry.

Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that should be ever
dedicated to an exposition of unalterable moral principle to
transcribe Mrs. Tretherick's own theory of this interval and episode,
with its feeble palliations, its illogical deductions, its fond
excuses, and weak apologies. It would seem, however, that her
experience had been hard. Her slender stock of money was soon
exhausted. At Sacramento she found that the composition of verse,
although appealing to the highest emotions of the human heart, and
compelling the editorial breast to the noblest commendation in the
editorial pages, was singularly inadequate to defray the expenses of
herself and Carry. Then she tried the stage, but failed signally.
Possibly her conception of the passions was different from that which
obtained with a Sacramento audience; but it was certain that her
charming presence, so effective at short range, was not sufficiently
pronounced for the footlights. She had admirers enough in the
greenroom, but awakened no abiding affection among the audience. In
this strait, it occurred to her that she had a voice--a contralto of
no very great compass or cultivation, but singularly sweet and
touching; and she finally obtained position in a church choir. She
held it for three months, greatly to her pecuniary advantage, and, it
is said, much to the satisfaction of the gentlemen in the back pews,
who faced toward her during the singing of the last hymn.

I remember her quite distinctly at this time. The light that
slanted through the oriel of St. Dives's choir was wont to fall very
tenderly on her beautiful head with its stacked masses of
deerskin-colored hair, on the low black arches of her brows, and to
deepen the pretty fringes that shaded her eyes of Genoa velvet. Very
pleasant it was to watch the opening and shutting of that small
straight mouth, with its quick revelation of little white teeth, and
to see the foolish blood faintly deepen her satin cheek as you
watched. For Mrs. Tretherick was very sweetly conscious of
admiration and, like most pretty women, gathered herself under your
eye like a racer under the spur.

And then, of course, there came trouble. I have it from the
soprano--a little lady who possessed even more than the usual
unprejudiced judgment of her sex--that Mrs. Tretherick's conduct was
simply shameful; that her conceit was unbearable; that, if she
considered the rest of the choir as slaves, she (the soprano) would
like to know it; that her conduct on Easter Sunday with the basso had
attracted the attention of the whole congregation; and that she
herself had noticed Dr. Cope twice look up during the service; that
her (the soprano's) friends had objected to her singing in the choir
with a person who had been on the stage, but she had waived this.
Yet she had it from the best authority that Mrs. Tretherick had run
away from her husband, and that this red-haired child who sometimes
came in the choir was not her own. The tenor confided to me behind
the organ that Mrs. Tretherick had a way of sustaining a note at the
end of a line in order that her voice might linger longer with the
congregation--an act that could be attributed only to a defective
moral nature; that as a man (he was a very popular dry goods clerk on
weekdays, and sang a good deal from apparently behind his eyebrows on
the Sabbath)--that as a man, sir, he would put up with it no longer.
The basso alone--a short German with a heavy voice, for which he
seemed reluctantly responsible, and rather grieved at its
possession--stood up for Mrs. Tretherick, and averred that they were
jealous of her because she was "bretty." The climax was at last
reached in an open quarrel, wherein Mrs. Tretherick used her tongue
with such precision of statement and epithet that the soprano burst
into hysterical tears, and had to be supported from the choir by her
husband and the tenor. This act was marked intentionally to the
congregation by the omission of the usual soprano solo. Mrs.
Tretherick went home flushed with triumph, but on reaching her room
frantically told Carry that they were beggars henceforward; that
she--her mother--had just taken the very bread out of her darling's
mouth, and ended by bursting into a flood of penitent tears. They
did not come so quickly as in her old poetical days; but when they
came they stung deeply. She was roused by a formal visit from a
vestryman--one of the music committee. Mrs. Tretherick dried her
long lashes, put on a new neck ribbon, and went down to the parlor.
She staid there two hours--a fact that might have occasioned some
remark but that the vestryman was married, and had a family of
grownup daughters. When Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she
sang to herself in the glass and scolded Carry--but she retained her
place in the choir.

It was not long, however. In due course of time, her enemies
received a powerful addition to their forces in the committeeman's
wife. That lady called upon several of the church members and on Dr.
Cope's family. The result was that, at a later meeting of the music
committee, Mrs. Tretherick's voice was declared inadequate to the
size of the building and she was invited to resign. She did so. She
had been out of a situation for two months, and her scant means were
almost exhausted, when Ah Fe's unexpected treasure was tossed into
her lap.

The gray fog deepened into night, and the street lamps started
into shivering life as, absorbed in these unprofitable memories, Mrs.
Tretherick still sat drearily at her window. Even Carry had slipped
away unnoticed; and her abrupt entrance with the damp evening paper
in her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and brought her back to an active
realization of the present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan the
advertisements in the faint hope of finding some avenue of
employment--she knew not what--open to her needs; and Carry had noted
this habit.

Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shutters, lit the
lights, and opened the paper. Her eye fell instinctively on the
following paragraph in the telegraphic column:

FIDDLETOWN, 7th.--Mr. James Tretherick, an old resident of this
place, died last night of delirium tremens. Mr. Tretherick was
addicted to intemperate habits, said to have been induced by domestic
trouble.

Mrs. Tretherick did not start. She quietly turned over another
page of the paper, and glanced at Carry. The child was absorbed in a
book. Mrs. Tretherick uttered no word, but during the remainder of
the evening was unusually silent and cold. When Carry was undressed
and in bed, Mrs. Tretherick suddenly dropped on her knees beside the
bed, and, taking Carry's flaming head between her hands, said:

"Should you like to have another papa, Carry, darling?"

"No," said Carry, after a moment's thought.

"But a papa to help Mamma take care of you, to love you, to give
you nice clothes, to make a lady of you when you grow up?"

Carry turned her sleepy eyes toward the questioner. "Should
YOU, Mamma?"

Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots of her hair. "Go
to sleep," she said sharply, and turned away.

But at midnight the child felt two white arms close tightly
around her, and was drawn down into a bosom that heaved, fluttered,
and at last was broken up by sobs.

"Don't ky, Mamma," whispered Carry, with a vague retrospect of
their recent conversation. "Don't ky. I fink I SHOULD like a new
papa, if he loved you very much--very, very much!"

A month afterward, to everybody's astonishment, Mrs. Tretherick
was married. The happy bridegroom was one Colonel Starbottle,
recently elected to represent Calaveras County in the legislative
councils of the State. As I cannot record the event in finer
language than that used by the correspondent of THE SACRAMENTO GLOBE,
I venture to quote some of his graceful periods. "The relentless
shafts of the sly god have been lately busy among our gallant Solons.
We quote 'one more unfortunate.' The latest victim is the Hon. C.
Starbottle of Calaveras. The fair enchantress in the case is a
beautiful widow, a former votary of Thespis, and lately a fascinating
St. Cecilia of one of the most fashionable churches of San Francisco,
where she commanded a high salary."

THE DUTCH FLAT INTELLIGENCER saw fit, however, to comment upon
the fact with that humorous freedom characteristic of an unfettered
press. "The new Democratic war horse from Calaveras has lately
advented in the legislature with a little bill to change the name of
Tretherick to Starbottle. They call it a marriage certificate down
there. Mr. Tretherick has been dead just one month; but we presume
the gallant colonel is not afraid of ghosts." It is but just to Mrs.
Tretherick to state that the colonel's victory was by no means an
easy one. To a natural degree of coyness on the part of the lady was
added the impediment of a rival--a prosperous undertaker from
Sacramento, who had first seen and loved Mrs. Tretherick at the
theater and church, his professional habits debarring him from
ordinary social intercourse, and indeed any other than the most
formal public contact with the sex. As this gentleman had made a
snug fortune during the felicitous prevalence of a severe epidemic,
the colonel regarded him as a dangerous rival. Fortunately, however,
the undertaker was called in professionally to lay out a brother
senator, who had unhappily fallen by the colonel's pistol in an
affair of honor; and either deterred by physical consideration from
rivalry, or wisely concluding that the colonel was professionally
valuable, he withdrew from the field.

The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a close by an untoward
incident. During their bridal trip, Carry had been placed in the
charge of Colonel Starbottle's sister. On their return to the city,
immediately on reaching their lodgings, Mrs. Starbottle announced her
intention of at once proceeding to Mrs. Culpepper's to bring the
child home. Colonel Starbottle, who had been exhibiting for some
time a certain uneasiness which he had endeavored to overcome by
repeated stimulation, finally buttoned his coat tightly across his
breast, and after walking unsteadily once or twice up and down the
room, suddenly faced his wife with his most imposing manner.

"I have deferred," said the colonel with an exaggeration of port
that increased with his inward fear, and a growing thickness of
speech--"I have deferr--I may say poshponed statement o' fack thash
my duty ter dishclose ter ye. I did no wish to mar sushine mushal
happ'ness, to bligh bud o' promise, to darken conjuglar sky by
unpleasht revelashun. Musht be done--by God, m'm, musht do it now.
The chile is gone!"

"Gone!" echoed Mrs. Starbottle.

There was something in the tone of her voice, in the sudden
drawing-together of the pupils of her eyes, that for a moment nearly
sobered the colonel, and partly collapsed his chest.

"I'll splain all in a minit," he said with a deprecating wave of
the hand. "Everything shall be splained. The-the-the-melencholly
event wish preshipitate our happ'ness--the myster'us prov'nice wish
releash you--releash chile! hunerstan?--releash chile. The mom't
Tretherick die--all claim you have in chile through him--die too.
Thash law. Who's chile b'long to? Tretherick? Tretherick dead.
Chile can't b'long dead man. Damn nonshense b'long dead man. I'sh
your chile? no! whose chile then? Chile b'long to 'ts mother.
Unnerstan?"

"Where is she?" said Mrs. Starbottle, with a very white face and
a very low voice.

"I'll splain all. Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Thash law. I'm
lawyer, leshlator, and American sis'n. Ish my duty as lawyer, as
leshlator, and 'merikan sis'n to reshtore chile to suff'rin mother at
any coss--any coss."

"Where is she?" repeated Mrs. Starbottle, with her eyes still
fixed on the colonel's face.

"Gone to 'ts m'o'r. Gone East on shteamer, yesserday. Waffed
by fav'rin gales to suff'rin p'rent. Thash so!"

Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The colonel felt his chest slowly
collapsing, but steadied himself against a chair, and endeavored to
beam with chivalrous gallantry not unmixed with magisterial firmness
upon her as she sat.

"Your feelin's, m'm, do honor to yer sex, but conshider
situashun. Conshider m'or's feelings--conshider MY feelin's." The
colonel paused, and flourishing a white handkerchief, placed it
negligently in his breast, and then smiled tenderly above it, as over
laces and ruffles, on the woman before him. "Why should dark
shed-der cass bligh on two sholes with single beat? Chile's fine
chile, good chile, but summonelse chile! Chile's gone, Clar'; but
all ish'n't gone, Clar'. Conshider dearesht, you all's have me!"

Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. "YOU!" she cried, bringing
out a chest note that made the chandeliers ring--"You that I married
to give my darling food and clothes--YOU! a dog that I whistled to my
side to keep the men off me--YOU!"

She choked up, and then dashed past him into the inner room,
which had been Carry's; then she swept by him again into her own
bedroom, and then suddenly reappeared before him, erect, menacing,
with a burning fire over her cheekbones, a quick straightening of her
arched brows and mouth, a squaring of jaw, and ophidian flattening of
the head.

"Listen!" she said in a hoarse, half-grown boy's voice. "Hear
me! If you ever expect to set eyes on me again, you must find the
child. If you ever expect to speak to me again, to touch me, you
must bring her back. For where she goes, I go; you hear me! Where
she has gone, look for me."

She struck out past him again with a quick feminine throwing-out
of her arms from the elbows down, as if freeing herself from some
imaginary bonds, and dashing into her chamber, slammed and locked the
door. Colonel Starbottle, although no coward, stood in superstitious
fear of an angry woman, and, recoiling as she swept by, lost his
unsteady foothold and rolled helplessly on the sofa. Here, after one
or two unsuccessful attempts to regain his foothold, he remained,
uttering from time to time profane but not entirely coherent or
intelligible protests, until at last he succumbed to the exhausting
quality of his emotions, and the narcotic quantity of his
potations.

Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excitedly gathering her
valuables and packing her trunk, even as she had done once before in
the course of this remarkable history. Perhaps some recollection of
this was in her mind; for she stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon
her hand, as if she saw again the figure of the child standing in the
doorway, and heard once more a childish voice asking, "Is it Mamma?"
But the epithet now stung her to the quick, and with a quick,
passionate gesture she dashed it away with a tear that had gathered
in her eye. And then it chanced that, in turning over some clothes,
she came upon the child's slipper with a broken sandal string. She
uttered a great cry here--the first she had uttered--and caught it to
her breast, kissing it passionately again and again, and rocking from
side to side with a motion peculiar to her sex. And then she took it
to the window, the better to see it through her now streaming eyes.
Here she was taken with a sudden fit of coughing that she could not
stifle with the handkerchief she put to her feverish lips. And then
she suddenly grew very faint. The window seemed to recede before her,
the floor to sink beneath her feet; and staggering to the bed, she
fell prone upon it with the sandal and handkerchief pressed to her
breast. Her face was quite pale, the orbit of her eyes dark; and
there was a spot upon her lip, another on her handkerchief, and still
another on the white counterpane of the bed.

The wind had risen, rattling the window sashes and swaying the
white curtains in a ghostly way. Later, a gray fog stole softly over
the roofs, soothing the wind-roughened surfaces, and in- wrapping all
things in an uncertain light and a measureless peace. She lay there
very quiet--for all her troubles, still a very pretty bride. And on
the other side of the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from his
temporary couch, snored peacefully.

A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the little town of Genoa, in
the State of New York, exhibited, perhaps more strongly than at any
other time, the bitter irony of its founders and sponsors. A driving
snowstorm that had whitened every windward hedge, bush, wall, and
telegraph pole, played around this soft Italian Capital, whirled in
and out of the great staring wooden Doric columns of its post office
and hotel, beat upon the cold green shutters of its best houses, and
powdered the angular, stiff, dark figures in its streets. From the
level of the street, the four principal churches of the town stood
out starkly, even while their misshapen spires were kindly hidden in
the low, driving storm. Near the railroad station, the new Methodist
chapel, whose resemblance to an enormous locomotive was further
heightened by the addition of a pyramidal row of front steps, like a
cowcatcher, stood as if waiting for a few more houses to be hitched
on to proceed to a pleasanter location. But the pride of Genoa--the
great Crammer Institute for Young Ladies--stretched its bare brick
length and reared its cupola plainly from the bleak Parnassian hill
above the principal avenue. There was no evasion in the Crammer
Institute of the fact that it was a public institution. A visitor
upon its doorsteps, a pretty face at its window, were clearly visible
all over the township.

The shriek of the engine of the four-o'clock Northern express
brought but few of the usual loungers to the depot. Only a single
passenger alighted, and was driven away in the solitary waiting
sleigh toward the Genoa Hotel. And then the train sped away again,
with that passionless indifference to human sympathies or curiosity
peculiar to express trains; the one baggage truck was wheeled into
the station again; the station door was locked; and the stationmaster
went home.

The locomotive whistle, however, awakened the guilty
consciousness of three young ladies of the Crammer Institute, who
were even then surreptitiously regaling themselves in the bakeshop
and confectionery saloon of Mistress Phillips in a by-lane. For even
the admirable regulations of the Institute failed to entirely develop
the physical and moral natures of its pupils. They conformed to the
excellent dietary rules in public, and in private drew upon the
luxurious rations of their village caterer. They attended church
with exemplary formality, and flirted informally during service with
the village beaux. They received the best and most judicious
instruction during school hours, and devoured the trashiest novels
during recess. The result of which was an aggregation of quite
healthy, quite human, and very charming young creatures that
reflected infinite credit on the Institute. Even Mistress Phillips,
to whom they owed vast sums, exhilarated by the exuberant spirits and
youthful freshness of her guests, declared that the sight of "them
young things" did her good, and had even been known to shield them by
shameless equivocation.

"Four o'clock, girls! and, if we're not back to prayers by five,
we'll be missed," said the tallest of these foolish virgins, with an
aquiline nose, and certain quiet elan that bespoke the leader, as she
rose from her seat. "Have you got the books, Addy?" Addy displayed
three dissipated-looking novels under her waterproof. "And the
provisions, Carry?" Carry showed a suspicious parcel filling the
pocket of her sack. "All right, then. Come, girls, trudge--Charge
it," she added, nodding to her host as they passed toward the door.
"I'll pay you when my quarter's allowance comes."

"No, Kate," interposed Carry, producing her purse, "let me pay;
it's my turn."

"Never!" said Kate, arching her black brows loftily, "even if
you do have rich relatives, and regular remittances from California.
Never! Come, girls, forward, march!"

As they opened the door, a gust of wind nearly took them off
their feet. Kindhearted Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. "Sakes alive,
galls! ye mussn't go out in sich weather. Better let me send word to
the Institoot, and make ye up a nice bed tonight in my parlor." But
the last sentence was lost in a chorus of half-suppressed shrieks as
the girls, hand in hand, ran down the steps into the storm, and were
at once whirled away.

The short December day, unlit by any sunset glow, was failing
fast. It was quite dark already, and the air was thick with driving
snow. For some distance their high spirits, youth, and even
inexperience kept them bravely up; but, in ambitiously attempting a
short cut from the highroad across an open field, their strength gave
out, the laugh grew less frequent, and tears began to stand in
Carry's brown eyes. When they reached the road again, they were
utterly exhausted. "Let us go back," said Carry.

"We'd never get across that field again," said Addy.

"Let's stop at the first house, then," said Carry.

"The first house," said Addy, peering through the gathering
darkness, "is Squire Robinson's." She darted a mischievous glance at
Carry that, even in her discomfort and fear, brought the quick blood
to her cheek.

"Oh, yes!" said Kate with gloomy irony, "certainly; stop at the
squire's by all means, and be invited to tea, and be driven home
after by your dear friend Mr. Harry, with a formal apology from Mrs.
Robinson, and hopes that the young ladies may be excused this time.
No!" continued Kate with sudden energy. "That may suit YOU; but I'm
going back as I came--by the window, or not at all" Then she pounced
suddenly, like a hawk, on Carry, who was betraying a tendency to sit
down on a snowbank and whimper, and shook her briskly. "You'll be
going to sleep next. Stay, hold your tongues, all of you--what's
that?"

It was the sound of sleigh bells. Coming down toward them out
of the darkness was a sleigh with a single occupant. "Hold down your
heads, girls: if it's anybody that knows us, we're lost." But it was
not, for a voice strange to their ears, but withal very kindly and
pleasant, asked if its owner could be of any help to them. As they
turned toward him, they saw it was a man wrapped in a handsome
sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap; his face, half-concealed by a
muffler of the same material, disclosing only a pair of long
mustaches, and two keen dark eyes. "It's a son of old Santa Claus!"
whispered Addy. The girls tittered audibly as they tumbled into the
sleigh; they had regained their former spirits. "Where shall I take
you?" said the stranger quietly. There was a hurried whispering; and
then Kate said boldly, "To the Institute." They drove silently up
the hill, until the long, ascetic building loomed up before them.
The stranger reined up suddenly. "You know the way better than I,"
he said. "Where do you go in?" "Through the back window," said Kate
with sudden and appalling frankness. "I see!" responded their
strange driver quietly and, alighting quickly, removed the bells from
the horses. "We can drive as near as you please now," he added by
way of explanation. "He certainly is a son of Santa Claus,"
whispered Addy. "Hadn't we better ask after his father?" "Hush!"
said Kate decidedly. "He is an angel, I dare say." She added with a
delicious irrelevance, which was, however, perfectly understood by
her feminine auditors, "We are looking like three frights."

Cautiously skirting the fences, they at last pulled up a few
feet from a dark wall. The stranger proceeded to assist them to
alight. There was still some light from the reflected snow; and as he
handed his fair companions to the ground, each was conscious of
undergoing an intense though respectful scrutiny. He assisted them
gravely to open the window, and then discreetly retired to the sleigh
until the difficult and somewhat discomposing ingress was made. He
then walked to the window. "Thank you and good night!" whispered
three voices. A single figure still lingered. The stranger leaned
over the window sill. "Will you permit me to light my cigar here?
It might attract attention if I struck a match outside." By the
upspringing light he saw the figure of Kate very charmingly framed in
by the window. The match burnt slowly out in his fingers. Kate
smiled mischievously. The astute young woman had detected the
pitiable subterfuge. For what else did she stand at the head of her
class, and had doting parents paid three years' tuition?

The storm had passed, and the sun was shining quite cheerily in
the eastern recitation room the next morning when Miss Kate, whose
seat was nearest the window, placing her hand pathetically upon her
heart, affected to fall in bashful and extreme agitation upon the
shoulder of Carry, her neighbor. "HE has come," she gasped in a
thrilling whisper. "Who?" asked Carry sympathetically, who never
clearly understood when Kate was in earnest. "Who?--Why, the man who
rescued us last night! I saw him drive to the door this moment.
Don't speak; I shall be better in a moment--there!" she said, and the
shameless hypocrite passed her hand pathetically across her forehead
with a tragic air.

"What can he want?" asked Carry, whose curiosity was excited.
"I don't know," said Kate, suddenly relapsing into gloomy cynicism.
"Possibly to put his five daughters to school; perhaps to finish his
young wife, and warn her against us."

"He didn't look old, and he didn't seem like a married man,"
rejoined Addy thoughtfully.

"That was his art, you poor creature!" returned Kate scornfully.
"You can never tell anything of these men, they are so deceitful.
Besides, it's just my fate!"

"Why, Kate," began Carry, in serious concern.

"Hush! Miss Walker is saying something," said Kate,
laughing.

"The young ladies will please give attention," said a slow,
perfunctory voice. "Miss Carry Tretherick is wanted in the
parlor."

Meantime Mr. Jack Prince, the name given on the card, and
various letters and credentials submitted to the Rev. Mr. Crammer,
paced the somewhat severe apartment known publicly as the "reception
parlor" and privately to the pupils as "purgatory." His keen eyes
had taken in the various rigid details, from the flat steam
"radiator," like an enormous japanned soda cracker, that heated one
end of the room to the monumental bust of Dr. Crammer that hopelessly
chilled the other; from the Lord's Prayer, executed by a former
writing master in such gratuitous variety of elegant calligraphic
trifling as to abate considerably the serious value of the
composition, to three views of Genoa from the Institute, which nobody
ever recognized, taken on the spot by the drawing teacher; from two
illuminated texts of Scripture in an English letter, so gratuitously
and hideously remote as to chill all human interest, to a large
photograph of the senior class, in which the prettiest girls were
Ethiopian in complexion, and sat, apparently, on each other's heads
and shoulders. His fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of
school-catalogues, the SERMONS of Dr. Crammer, the POEMS of Henry
Kirke White, the LAYS OF THE SANCTUARY and LIVES OF CELEBRATED WOMEN.
His fancy, and it was a nervously active one, had gone over the
partings and greetings that must have taken place here, and wondered
why the apartment had yet caught so little of the flavor of humanity;
indeed, I am afraid he had almost forgotten the object of his visit
when the door opened, and Carry Tretherick stood before him.

It was one of those faces he had seen the night before, prettier
even than it had seemed then; and yet I think he was conscious of
some disappointment, without knowing exactly why. Her abundant
waving hair was of a guinea-golden tint, her complexion of a peculiar
flowerlike delicacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed in deep
water. It certainly was not her beauty that disappointed him.

Without possessing his sensitiveness to impression, Carry was,
on her part, quite as vaguely ill at ease. She saw before her one of
those men whom the sex would vaguely generalize as "nice," that is to
say, correct in all the superficial appointments of style, dress,
manners, and feature. Yet there was a decidedly unconventional
quality about him: he was totally unlike anything or anybody that she
could remember; and as the attributes of originality are often as apt
to alarm as to attract people, she was not entirely prepossessed in
his favor.

"I can hardly hope," he began pleasantly, "that you remember me.
It is eleven years ago, and you were a very little girl. I am afraid
I cannot even claim to have enjoyed that familiarity that might exist
between a child of six and a young man of twenty-one. I don't think I
was fond of children. But I knew your mother very well. I was
editor of the AVALANCHE in Fiddletown when she took you to San
Francisco."

"You mean my stepmother; she wasn't my mother, you know,"
interposed Carry hastily.

Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. "I mean your stepmother,"
he said gravely. "I never had the pleasure of meeting your
mother."

"No; MOTHER hasn't been in California these twelve years."

There was an intentional emphasizing of the title and of its
distinction that began to interest coldly Prince after his first
astonishment was past.

"As I come from your stepmother now," he went on with a slight
laugh, "I must ask you to go back for a few moments to that point.
After your father's death, your mother--I mean your stepmother--
recognized the fact that your mother, the first Mrs. Tretherick, was
legally and morally your guardian and, although much against her
inclination and affections, placed you again in her charge."

"My stepmother married again within a month after father died,
and sent me home," said Carry with great directness, and the faintest
toss of her head.

Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly, and apparently so sympathetically,
that Carry began to like him. With no other notice of the
interruption he went on, "After your stepmother had performed this
act of simple justice, she entered into an agreement with your mother
to defray the expenses of your education until your eighteenth year,
when you were to elect and choose which of the two should thereafter
be your guardian, and with whom you would make your home. This
agreement, I think, you are already aware of, and, I believe, knew at
the time."

"I was a mere child then," said Carry.

"Certainly," said Mr. Prince, with the same smile. "Still the
conditions, I think, have never been oppressive to you nor your
mother; and the only time they are likely to give you the least
uneasiness will be when you come to make up your mind in the choice
of your guardian. That will be on your eighteenth birthday--the
twentieth, I think, of the present month."

Carry was silent.

"Pray do not think that I am here to receive your decision, even
if it be already made. I only came to inform you that your
stepmother, Mrs. Starbottle, will be in town tomorrow, and will pass
a few days at the hotel. If it is your wish to see her before you
make up your mind, she will be glad to meet you. She does not,
however, wish to do anything to influence your judgment.

"Does Mother know she is coming?" said Carry hastily.

"I do not know," said Prince gravely. "I only know that if you
conclude to see Mrs. Starbottle, it will be with your mother's
permission. Mrs. Starbottle will keep sacredly this part of the
agreement, made ten years ago. But her health is very poor; and the
change and country quiet of a few days may benefit her." Mr. Prince
bent his keen, bright eyes upon the young girl, and almost held his
breath until she spoke again.

"Mother's coming up today or tomorrow," she said, looking up.

"Ah!" said Mr. Prince with a sweet and languid smile.

"Is Colonel Starbottle here too?" asked Carry, after a pause.

"Colonel Starbottle is dead. Your stepmother is again a
widow."

"Dead!" repeated Carry.

"Yes," replied Mr. Prince. "Your stepmother has been singularly
unfortunate in surviving her affections."

Carry did not know what he meant, and looked so. Mr. Prince
smiled reassuringly.

Presently Carry began to whimper.

Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair.

"I am afraid," he said with a very peculiar light in his eye,
and a singular dropping of the corners of his mustache--"I am afraid
you are taking this too deeply. It will be some days before you are
called upon to make a decision. Let us talk of something else. I
hope you caught no cold last evening."

Carry's face shone out again in dimples.

"You must have thought us so queer! It was too bad to give you
so much trouble."

"None whatever, I assure you. My sense of propriety," he added
demurely, "which might have been outraged had I been called upon to
help three young ladies out of a schoolroom window at night. was
deeply gratified at being able to assist them in again." The
doorbell rang loudly, and Mr. Prince rose. "Take your own time, and
think well before you make your decision." But Carry's ear and
attention were given to the sound of voices in the hall. At the same
moment, the door was thrown open, and a servant announced, "Mrs.
Tretherick and Mr. Robinson."

The afternoon train had just shrieked out its usual indignant
protest at stopping at Genoa at all as Mr. Jack Prince entered the
outskirts of the town, and drove toward his hotel. He was wearied
and cynical. A drive of a dozen miles through unpicturesque outlying
villages, past small economic farmhouses, and hideous villas that
violated his fastidious taste, had, I fear, left that gentleman in a
captious state of mind. He would have even avoided his taciturn
landlord as he drove up to the door; but that functionary waylaid him
on the steps. "There's a lady in the sittin'-room, waitin' for ye."
Mr. Prince hurried upstairs, and entered the room as Mrs. Starbottle
flew toward him.

She had changed sadly in the last ten years. Her figure was
wasted to half its size. The beautiful curves of her bust and
shoulders were broken or inverted. The once full, rounded arm was
shrunken in its sleeve; and the golden hoops that encircled her wan
wrists almost slipped from her hands as her long, scant fingers
closed convulsively around Jack's. Her cheekbones were painted that
afternoon with the hectic of fever: somewhere in the hollows of those
cheeks were buried the dimples of long ago, but their graves were
forgotten. Her lustrous eyes were still beautiful, though the orbits
were deeper than before. Her mouth was still sweet, although the
lips parted more easily over the little teeth, even in breathing, and
showed more of them than she was wont to do before. The glory of her
blond hair was still left: it was finer, more silken and ethereal,
yet it failed even in its plenitude to cover the hollows of the
blue-veined temples.

"Clara!" said Jack reproachfully.

"Oh, forgive me, Jack!" she said, falling into a chair, but
still clinging to his hand--"forgive me, dear; but I could not wait
longer. I should have died, Jack--died before another night. Bear
with me a little longer (it will not be long), but let me stay. I
may not see her, I know; I shall not speak to her: but it's so sweet
to feel that I am at last near her, that I breathe the same air with
my darling. I am better already, Jack, I am indeed. And you have
seen her today? How did she look? What did she say? Tell me all,
everything, Jack. Was she beautiful? They say she is. Has she
grown? Would you have known her again? Will she come, Jack?
Perhaps she has been here already; perhaps"--she had risen with
tremulous excitement, and was glancing at the door-- "perhaps she is
here now. Why don't you speak, Jack? Tell me all."

The keen eyes that looked down into hers were glistening with an
infinite tenderness that none, perhaps, but she would have deemed
them capable of. "Clara," he said gently and cheerily, "try and
compose yourself. You are trembling now with the fatigue and
excitement of your journey. I have seen Carry; she is well and
beautiful. Let that suffice you now."

His gentle firmness composed and calmed her now, as it had often
done before. Stroking her thin hand, he said, after a pause, "Did
Carry ever write to you?"

"Twice, thanking me for some presents. They were only
schoolgirl letters," she added, nervously answering the interrogation
of his eyes.

"Did she ever know of your own troubles? of your poverty, of the
sacrifices you made to pay her bills, of your pawning your clothes
and jewels, of your--"

"No, no!" interrupted the woman quickly: "no! How could she? I
have no enemy cruel enough to tell her that."

"But if she--or if Mrs. Tretherick--had heard of it? If Carry
thought you were poor, and unable to support her properly, it might
influence her decision. Young girls are fond of the position that
wealth can give. She may have rich friends, maybe a lover."

Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence. "But," she said
eagerly, grasping Jack's hand, "when you found me sick and helpless
at Sacramento, when you--God bless you for it, Jack!--offered to help
me to the East, you said you knew of something, you had some plan,
that would make me and Carry independent."

"Yes," said Jack hastily; "but I want you to get strong and well
first. And, now that you are calmer, you shall listen to my visit to
the school."

It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded to describe the
interview already recorded, with a singular felicity and discretion
that shames my own account of that proceeding. Without suppressing a
single fact, without omitting a word or detail, he yet managed to
throw a poetic veil over that prosaic episode, to invest the heroine
with a romantic roseate atmosphere, which, though not perhaps
entirely imaginary, still, I fear, exhibited that genius which ten
years ago had made the columns of THE FIDDLETOWN AVALANCHE at once
fascinating and instructive. It was not until he saw the heightening
color, and heard the quick breathing, of his eager listener, that he
felt a pang of self-reproach. "God help her and forgive me!" he
muttered between his clinched teeth; "but how can I tell her ALL
now!"

That night, when Mrs. Starbottle laid her weary head upon her
pillow, she tried to picture to herself Carry at the same moment
sleeping peacefully in the great schoolhouse on the hill; and it was
a rare comfort to this yearning, foolish woman to know that she was
so near. But at this moment Carry was sitting on the edge of her
bed, half-undressed, pouting her pretty lips and twisting her long,
leonine locks between her fingers as Miss Kate Van Corlear--
dramatically wrapped in a long white counterpane, her black eyes
sparkling, and her thoroughbred nose thrown high in air--stood over
her like a wrathful and indignant ghost; for Carry had that evening
imparted her woes and her history to Miss Kate, and that young lady
had "proved herself no friend" by falling into a state of fiery
indignation over Carry's "ingratitude," and openly and shamelessly
espousing the claims of Mrs. Starbottle. "Why, if the half you tell
me is true, your mother and those Robinsons are making of you not
only a little coward, but a little snob, miss. Respectability,
forsooth! Look you, my family are centuries before the Trethericks;
but if my family had ever treated me in this way, and then asked me
to turn my back on my best friend, I'd whistle them down the wind;"
and here Kate snapped her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared
around the room as if in search of a recreant Van Corlear.

"You just talk this way because you have taken a fancy to that
Mr. Prince," said Carry.

In the debasing slang of the period, that had even found its way
into the virgin cloisters of the Crammer Institute, Miss Kate, as she
afterward expressed it, instantly "went for her."

First, with a shake of her head, she threw her long black hair
over one shoulder, then, dropping one end of the counterpane from the
other like a vestal tunic, she stepped before Carry with a purposely
exaggerated classic stride. "And what if I have, miss! What if I
happen to know a gentleman when I see him! What if I happen to know
that among a thousand such traditional, conventional, feeble editions
of their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you cannot find one
original, independent, individualized gentleman like your Prince! Go
to bed, miss, and pray to Heaven that he may be YOUR Prince indeed.
Ask to have a contrite and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in
particular for having sent you such a friend as Kate Van Corlear."
Yet, after an imposing dramatic exit, she reappeared the next moment
as a straight white flash, kissed Carry between the brows, and was
gone.

The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince. He was convinced
in his mind that Carry would not come; yet to keep this consciousness
from Mrs. Starbottle, to meet her simple hopefulness with an equal
degree of apparent faith, was a hard and difficult task. He would
have tried to divert her mind by taking her on a long drive; but she
was fearful that Carry might come during her absence; and her
strength, he was obliged to admit, had failed greatly. As he looked
into her large and awe-inspiring clear eyes, a something he tried to
keep from his mind--to put off day by day from contemplation--kept
asserting itself directly to his inner consciousness. He began to
doubt the expediency and wisdom of his management. He recalled every
incident of his interview with Carry, and half-believed that its
failure was due to himself. Yet Mrs. Starbottle was very patient and
confident; her very confidence shook his faith in his own judgment.
When her strength was equal to the exertion, she was propped up in
her chair by the window, where she could see the school and the
entrance to the hotel. In the intervals she would elaborate pleasant
plans for the future, and would sketch a country home. She had taken
a strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to the present location; but
it was notable that the future, always thus outlined, was one of
quiet and repose. She believed she would get well soon; in fact, she
thought she was now much better than she had been, but it might be
long before she should be quite strong again. She would whisper on
in this way until Jack would dash madly down into the barroom, order
liquors that he did not drink, light cigars that he did not smoke,
talk with men that he did not listen to, and behave generally as our
stronger sex is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and
perplexity.

The day closed with a clouded sky and a bitter, searching wind.
With the night fell a few wandering flakes of snow. She was still
content and hopeful; and, as Jack wheeled her from the window to the
fire, she explained to him how that, as the school term was drawing
near its close, Carry was probably kept closely at her lessons during
the day, and could only leave the school at night. So she sat up the
greater part of the evening, and combed her silken hair, and as far
as her strength would allow, made an undress toilet to receive her
guest. "We must not frighten the child, Jack," she said
apologetically, and with something of her old coquetry.

It was with a feeling of relief that, at ten o'clock, Jack
received a message from the landlord, saying that the doctor would
like to see him for a moment downstairs. As Jack entered the grim,
dimly lighted parlor, he observed the hooded figure of a woman near
the fire. He was about to withdraw again when a voice that he
remembered very pleasantly said:

"Oh, it's all right! I'm the doctor."

The hood was thrown back, and Prince saw the shining black hair
and black, audacious eyes of Kate Van Corlear.

"Don't ask any questions. I'm the doctor, and there's my
prescription," and she pointed to the half-frightened, half-sobbing
Carry in the corner--"to be taken at once."

"Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her permission?"

"Not much, if I know the sentiments of that lady," replied Kate
saucily.

"Then how did you get away?" asked Prince gravely.

"BY THE WINDOW."

When Mr. Prince had left Carry in the arms of her stepmother, he
returned to the parlor.

"Well?" demanded Kate.

"She will stay--YOU will, I hope, also--tonight."

"As I shall not be eighteen, and my own mistress on the
twentieth, and as I haven't a sick stepmother, I won't."

"Then you will give me the pleasure of seeing you safely through
the window again?"

When Mr. Prince returned an hour later, he found Carry sitting
on a low stool at Mrs. Starbottle's feet. Her head was in her
stepmother's lap, and she had sobbed herself to sleep. Mrs.
Starbottle put her finger to her lip. "I told you she would come.
God bless you, Jack! and good night."

The next morning Mrs. Tretherick, indignant, the Rev. Asa
Crammer, principal, injured, and Mr. Joel Robinson, Sr., complacently
respectable, called upon Mr. Prince. There was a stormy meeting,
ending in a demand for Carry. "We certainly cannot admit of this
interference," said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashionably dressed,
indistinctive-looking woman. "It is several days before the
expiration of our agreement; and we do not feel, under the
circumstances, justified in releasing Mrs. Starbottle from its
conditions." "Until the expiration of the school term, we must
consider Miss Tretherick as complying entirely with its rules and
discipline," imposed Dr. Crammer. "The whole proceeding is
calculated to injure the prospects, and compromise the position, of
Miss Tretherick in society," suggested Mr. Robinson.

In vain Mr. Prince urged the failing condition of Mrs.
Starbottle, her absolute freedom from complicity with Carry's flight,
the pardonable and natural instincts of the girl, and his own
assurance that they were willing to abide by her decision. And then,
with a rising color in his cheek, a dangerous look in his eye, but a
singular calmness in his speech, he added:

"One word more. It becomes my duty to inform you of a
circumstance which would certainly justify me, as an executor of the
late Mr. Tretherick, in fully resisting your demands. A few months
after Mr. Tretherick's death, through the agency of a Chinaman in his
employment, it was discovered that he had made a will, which was
subsequently found among his papers. The insignificant value of his
bequest--mostly land, then quite valueless--prevented his executors
from carrying out his wishes, or from even proving the will, or
making it otherwise publicly known, until within the last two or
three years, when the property had enormously increased in value.
The provisions of that bequest are simple, but unmistakable. The
property is divided between Carry and her stepmother, with the
explicit condition that Mrs. Starbottle shall become her legal
guardian, provide for her education, and in all details stand to her
IN LOCO PARENTIS."

"What is the value of this bequest?" asked Mr. Robinson. "I
cannot tell exactly, but not far from half a million, I should say,"
returned Prince. "Certainly, with this knowledge, as a friend of
Miss Tretherick I must say that her conduct is as judicious as it is
honorable to her," responded Mr. Robinson. "I shall not presume to
question the wishes, or throw any obstacles in the way of carrying
out the intentions, of my dead husband," added Mrs. Tretherick; and
the interview was closed.

When its result was made known to Mrs. Starbottle, she raised
Jack's hand to her feverish lips. "It cannot add to MY happiness
now, Jack; but tell me, why did you keep it from her?" Jack smiled,
but did not reply.

Within the next week the necessary legal formalities were
concluded, and Carry was restored to her stepmother. At Mrs.
Starbottle's request, a small house in the outskirts of the town was
procured; and thither they removed to wait the spring, and Mrs.
Starbottle's convalescence. Both came tardily that year.

Yet she was happy and patient. She was fond of watching the
budding of the trees beyond her window--a novel sight to her
Californian experience--and of asking Carry their names and seasons.
Even at this time she projected for that summer, which seemed to her
so mysteriously withheld, long walks with Carry through the leafy
woods, whose gray, misty ranks she could see along the hilltop. She
even thought she could write poetry about them, and recalled the fact
as evidence of her gaining strength; and there is, I believe, still
treasured by one of the members of this little household a little
carol so joyous, so simple, and so innocent that it might have been
an echo of the robin that called to her from the window, as perhaps
it was.

And then, without warning, there dropped from Heaven a day so
tender, so mystically soft, so dreamily beautiful, so throbbing and
alive with the fluttering of invisible wings, so replete and
bounteously overflowing with an awakening and joyous resurrection not
taught by man or limited by creed, that they thought it fit to bring
her out and lay her in that glorious sunshine that sprinkled like the
droppings of a bridal torch the happy lintels and doors. And there
she lay beatified and calm.

Wearied by watching, Carry had fallen asleep by her side; and
Mrs. Starbottle's thin fingers lay like a benediction on her head.
Presently she called Jack to her side.

"Who was that," she whispered, "who just came in?"

"Miss Van Corlear," said Jack, answering the look in her great
hollow eyes.

"Jack," she said, after a moment's silence, "sit by me a moment;
dear Jack: I've something I must say. If I ever seemed hard, or
cold, or coquettish to you in the old days, it was because I loved
you, Jack, too well to mar your future by linking it with my own. I
always loved you, dear Jack, even when I seemed least worthy of you.
That is gone now. But I had a dream lately, Jack, a foolish woman's
dream--that you might find what I lacked in HER," and she glanced
lovingly at the sleeping girl at her side; "that you might love her
as you have loved me. But even that is not to be, Jack, is it?" and
she glanced wistfully in his face. Jack pressed her hand, but did
not speak. After a few moments' silence, she again said: "Perhaps
you are right in your choice. She is a goodhearted girl, Jack--but a
little bold."

And with this last flicker of foolish, weak humanity in her
struggling spirit, she spoke no more. When they came to her a moment
later, a tiny bird that had lit upon her breast flew away; and the
hand that they lifted from Carry's head fell lifeless at her side.