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What Can She Do?

by Edward Payson Roe · English · Gutenberg #6090 · 701,771 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: What Can She Do?

Author: Edward Payson Roe


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6090]
                Most recently updated: September 8, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6090

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT CAN SHE DO? ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










The Works of E. P. Roe

VOLUME TEN

WHAT CAN SHE DO?

ILLUSTRATED





DEDICATION

                  IF I WERE
               TO DEDICATE THIS
           BOOK IT WOULD BE TO THOSE
      GIRLS WHO RESOLVE THAT THEY WILL NOT
PLAY THE POOR ROLE OF MICAWBER, THEIR ONLY CHANCE FOR
     LIFE BEING THAT SOME ONE WILL "TURN UP"
           WHOM THEY MAY BURDEN WITH
                THEIR HELPLESS
                    WEIGHT




PREFACE



This book was not written to amuse, to create purposeless excitement,
or to secure a little praise as a bit of artistic work. It would
probably fail in all these things. It was written with a definite,
earnest purpose, which I trust will be apparent to the reader.

As society in our land grows older, and departs from primitive
simplicity, as many are becoming rich, but more poor, the changes that
I have sought to warn against become more threatening. The ordinary
avenues of industry are growing thronged, and it daily involves a more
fearful risk for a woman to be thrown out upon the world with
unskilled hands, an untrained mind, and an unbraced moral nature.
Impressed with this danger by some considerable observation, by a
multitude of facts that might wring tears from stony eyes, I have
tried to write earnestly if not wisely.

Of necessity, it touches somewhat on a subject delicate and difficult
to treat--the "skeleton in the closet" of society. But the evil exists
on every side, and at some time or other threatens every home and
life. It is my belief that Christian teachers should not timidly or
loftily ignore it, for, mark it well, the evil does not let us or ours
alone. It is my belief that it should be dealt with in a plain,
fearless, manly manner. Those who differ with me have a right to their
opinion.

There is one other thought that I wish to suggest. Much of the fiction
of our day, otherwise strong and admirable, is discouraging in this
respect. In the delineation of character, some are good, some are bad,
and some indifferent. We have a lovely heroine, a noble hero,
developing seemingly in harmony with the inevitable laws of their
natures. Associated with them are those of the commoner or baser sort,
also developing in accordance with the innate principles of their
natures. The first are presented as if created of finer clay than the
others. The first are the flowers in the garden of society, the latter
the weeds. According to this theory of character, the heroine must
grow as a moss-rose and the weed remain a weed. Credit is not due to
one; blame should not be visited on the other. Is this true? Is not
the choice between good and evil placed before every human soul, save
where ignorance and mental feebleness destroy free agency? In the
field of the world which the angels of God are to reap, is it not even
possible for the tares to become wheat? And cannot the sweetest and
most beautiful natural flowers of character borrow from the skies a
fragrance and bloom not of earth? So God's inspired Word teaches me.

I have turned away from many an exquisite and artistic delineation of
human life, sighing, God might as well never have spoken words of
hope, warning, and strength for all there is in this book. The Divine
and human Friend might have remained in the Heavens, and never come to
earth in human guise, that He might press His great heart of world-wide sympathy against the burdened, suffering heart of humanity. He
need not have died to open a way of life for all. There is nothing
here but human motive, human strength, and earthly destiny. We protest
against this narrowing down of life, though it be done with the
faultless skill and taste of the most cultured genius. The children of
men are not orphaned. Our Creator is still "Emmanuel--God with us."
Earthly existence is but the prelude of our life, and even from this
the Divine artist can take much of the discord, and give an earnest of
the eternal harmonies.

We all are honored with the privilege of "co-working with Him."

If I in my little sphere can by this book lead one father to train his
children to be more strong and self-reliant, one mother to teach her
daughters a purer, more patient, more heroic womanhood--if I have
placed one more barrier in the tempter's way, and inspired one more
wholesome fear and principle in the heart of the tempted--if, by
lifting the dark curtain a moment, I can reveal enough to keep one
country girl from leaving her safe native village for unprotected life
in some great city--if I can add one iota toward a public opinion that
will honor useful labor, however humble, and condemn and render
disgraceful idleness and helplessness, however gilded--if, chief of
all, I lead one heavy-laden heart to the only source of rest, I shall
be well rewarded, whatever is said of this volume.




CONTENTS



CHAPTER I
THREE GIRLS

CHAPTER II
A FUTURE OP HUMAN DESIGNING

CHAPTER III
THREE MEN

CHAPTER IV
THE SKIES DARKENING

CHAPTER V
THE STORM THREATENING

CHAPTER VI
THE WRECK

CHAPTER VII
AMONG THE BREAKERS

CHAPTER VIII
WARPED

CHAPTER IX
A DESERT ISLAND

CHAPTER X
EDITH BECOMES A "DIVINITY"

CHAPTER XI
MRS. ALLEN'S POLICY

CHAPTER XII
WAITING FOR SOME ONE TO TURN UP

CHAPTER XIII
THEY TURN UP

CHAPTER XIV
WE CAN'T WORK

CHAPTER XV
THE TEMPTATION

CHAPTER XVI
BLACK HANNIBAL'S WHITE HEART

CHAPTER XVII
THE CHANGES OF TWO SHORT MONTHS

CHAPTER XVIII
IGNORANCE LOOKING FOR WORK

CHAPTER XIX
A FALLING STAR

CHAPTER XX
DESOLATION

CHAPTER XXI
EDITH'S TRUE KNIGHT

CHAPTER XXII
A MYSTERY

CHAPTER XXIII
A DANGEROUS STEP

CHAPTER XXIV
SCORN AND KINDNESS

CHAPTER XXV
A HORROR OF GREAT DARKNESS

CHAPTER XXVI
FRIEND AND SAVIOUR

CHAPTER XXVII
THE MYSTERY SOLVED

CHAPTER XXVIII
EDITH TELLS THE OLD, OLD STORY

CHAPTER XXIX
HANNIBAL LEARNS HOW HIS HEART CAN BE WHITE

CHAPTER XXX
EDITH'S AND ARDEN'S FRIENDSHIP

CHAPTER XXXI
ZELL

CHAPTER XXXII
EDITH BRINGS THE WANDERER HOME

CHAPTER XXXIII
EDITH'S GREAT TEMPTATION

CHAPTER XXXIV
SAVED

CHAPTER XXXV
CLOSING SCENES

CHAPTER XXXVI
LAST WORDS




CHAPTER I

THREE GIRLS



It was a very cold blustering day in early January, and even brilliant
thronged Broadway felt the influence of winter's harshest frown. There
had been a heavy fall of snow which, though in the main cleared from
the sidewalks, lay in the streets comparatively unsullied and
unpacked. Fitful gusts of the passing gale caught it up and whirled it
in every direction. From roof, ledges, and window-sills, miniature
avalanches suddenly descended on the startled pedestrians, and the air
was here and there loaded with falling flakes from wild hurrying
masses of clouds, the rear-guard of the storm that the biting
northwest wind was driving seaward.

It was early in the afternoon, and the great thoroughfare was almost
deserted. Few indeed would be abroad for pleasure in such weather, and
the great tide of humanity that must flow up and down this channel
every working day of the year under all skies had not yet turned
northward.

But surely this graceful figure coming up the street with quick,
elastic steps has not the aspect of one driven forth by grave business
cares, nor in the natural course of things would one expect so young a
lady to know much of life's burdens and responsibilities. As she
passes I am sure the reader would not turn away from so pleasant a
vision, even if Broadway were presenting all its numberless
attractions, but at such a time would make the most of the occasion,
assured that nothing so agreeable would greet his eyes again that
sombre day.

The fierce gusts make little impression on her heavy, close-fitting
velvet dress, and in her progress against the wind she appears so trim
and taut that a sailor's eye would be captivated. She bends her little
turbaned head to the blast, and her foot strikes the pavement with a
decision that suggests a naturally brave, resolute nature, and gives
abundant proof of vigor and health. A trimming of silver fox fur
caught and contrasted the snow crystals against the black velvet of
her dress, in which the flakes catch and mingle, increasing the sense
of lightness and airiness which her movements awaken, and were you
seeking a fanciful embodiment of the spirit of the snow, you might
rest satisfied with the first character that appears upon the scene of
my story.

But on nearer view there was nothing spirit-like or even spirituelle
in her aspect, save that an extremely transparent complexion was
rendered positively dazzling by the keen air and the glow of exercise;
and the face was much too full and blooming to suggest the shadowy and
ethereal.

When near Twenty-first Street she entered a fruit store and seemed in
search of some delicacy for an invalid. As her eye glanced around
among the fragrant tropical fruits that suggested lands in wide
contrast to the wintry scene without, she suddenly uttered a low
exclamation of delight, as she turned from them to old friends, all
the more welcome because so unexpected at that season. These were
nothing less than a dozen strawberries, in dainty baskets, decked out,
or more truly eked out, with a few green leaves. Three or four baskets
constituted the fruiterer's entire stock, and probably the entire
supply for the metropolis of America that day.

She had scarcely time to lift a basket and inhale its delicious aroma,
before the proprietor of the store was in bowing attendance, quite as
openly admiring her carnation cheeks as she the ruby fruit The man's
tongue was, however, more decorous than his eyes, and to her question
as to price he replied:

"_Only_ two dollars a basket, miss, and certainly they are beauties
for this season of the year. They are all I could get, and I don't
believe there is another strawberry in New York."

"I will take them all," was the brief, decisive answer, and from a
costly portemonnaie she threw down the price, a proceeding which the
man noted in agreeable surprise, again curiously scanning the fair
face as he made up the parcel with ostentatious zeal. But his customer
was unconscious, or, more truly, indifferent to his admiration, and
seemed much more interested in the samples of choice fruit arranged on
every side. From one to another of these she flitted with the delicate
sensuousness of a butterfly, smelling them and touching them lightly
with the hand she had ungloved (which was as white as the snow
without), as if they had for her a peculiar fascination.

"You seem very fond of fruit," said the merchant, his _amour propre_
pleased by her evident interest in his stock.

"I have ever had a passion for fine fruits and flowers," was the
reply, spoken with that perfect frankness characteristic of American
girls. "No, you need not send it; I prefer to take it with me."

And with a slight smile, she passed out, leaving the fruiterer
chuckling over the thought that he had probably had the pleasantest
bit of trade on Broadway that dull day.

Plunging through the drifts, our nymph of the snow resolutely crossed
the street and passed down to a flower store, but, instead of buying a
bouquet, ordered several pots of budding and blooming plants to be
sent to her address. She then made her way to Fifth Avenue and soon
mounted a broad flight of steps to one of its most stately houses. The
door yielded to her key, her thick walking boots clattered for a
moment on the marble floor, but could not disguise the lightness of
her step as she tripped up the winding stair and pushed open a
rosewood door leading into the upper hall.

"Mother, mother," she exclaimed, "here is a treat for you that will
banish nerves, headache, and horrors generally. See what I have found
for you out in the wintry snows. Now am I not a good fairy for once?"

"Oh, Edith, child, not so boisterous, please," responded a querulous
voice from a great easy-chair by the glowing grate, and a middle-aged
lady turned a white, faded face toward her daughter.

"Forgive me, mother, but my tramp in the January storm has made me
feel rampantly well. I wish you could go out and take a run every day
as I do. You would then look younger and prettier than your daughters,
as you used to."

The invalid shivered and drew her shawl closer around her,
complaining:

"I think you have brought the whole month of January in with you. You
really must show more consideration, my dear, for if I should take
cold--" and the lady ended with a weary, suggestive sigh.

In fact, Edith had entered the dim heavily-perfumed room like a gust
of wholesome air, her young blood tingling and electric with exercise,
and her heart buoyant with the thought of the surprise and pleasure
she had in store for her mother. But the manner in which she had been
received had already chilled her more than the biting blasts on
Broadway. She therefore opened her bundle and set out the little
baskets before her mother very quietly. The lady glanced at them for a
moment and then said, indifferently:

"It is very good of you to think of me, my dear; they look very
pretty. I am sorry I cannot eat them, but their acid would only
increase my dyspepsia. Those raised in winter must be very sour. Ugh!
the thought of it sets my teeth on edge," and the poor, nervous
creature shrank deeper into her wrappings.

"I am very sorry, mother, I thought they would be a great treat for
you," said Edith, quite crestfallen. "Never mind; I got some flowers,
and they will be here soon."

"Thank you, dear, but the doctor says they are not healthy in a room--Oh, dear--that child! what shall I do!"

The front door banged, there was a step on the stairs, but not so
light as Edith's had been, and a moment later the door burst open, and
"the child" rushed in like a mild whirlwind, exclaiming:

"Hurrah! hurrah! school to the shades. No more teachers and tyrants
for me," and down went an armful of books with a bang on the table.

"Oh, Zell!" cried Edith, "please be quiet; mother has a headache."

"There, there, your baby will kiss it all away," and the irrepressible
young creature threw her arms around the bundle that Mrs. Allen had
made herself into by her many wrappings, and before she ceased, the
red pouting lips left the faintest tinge of their own color on the
faded cheeks of the mother.

The lady endured the boisterous embrace with a martyr-like expression.
Zell was evidently a privileged character, the spoiled pet of the
household. But a new voice was now heard that was sharper than the
"pet" was accustomed to.

"Zell, you are a perfect bear. One would think you had learned your
manners at a boys' boarding school."

Zell's great black eyes blazed for a moment toward the speaker, who
was a young lady reclining on a lounge near the window, and who in
appearance must have been the counterpart of Mrs. Allen herself as she
had looked twenty-three years before. In contrast with her sharp,
annoyed tone, her cheeks and eyes were wet with tears.

"What are you crying about?" was Zell's brusque response. "Oh, I see;
a novel. What a ridiculous old thing you are. I never saw you shed a
tear over real trouble, and yet every few days you are dissolved in
brine over Adolph Moonshine's agonies, and Seraphina's sentiment,
which any sensible person can see is caused by dyspepsia. No such
whipped syllabub for me, but real life."

"And what does 'real life' mean for you, I would like to know, but
eating, dressing, and flirting?" was the acid retort.

"Though you call me 'child,' I have lived long enough to learn that
eating, dressing, and flirting, and while you are about it you might
as well add drinking, is the 'real life' of most of the ladies of our
set. Indeed, if my poor memory does not fail me, I have seen you
myself take a turn at these things sufficiently often to make the
sublime scorn of your tone a little inconsistent."

As these barbed arrows flew, the tears rapidly exhaled from the hot
cheeks of the young lady on the sofa. Her elegant languor vanished,
and she started up; but Mrs. Allen now interfered, and in tones harsh
and high, very different from the previous delicate murmurs,
exclaimed:

"Children, you drive me wild. Zell, leave the room, and don't show
yourself again till you can behave yourself."

Zell was now sobbing, partly in sorrow and partly in anger, but she
let fly a few more Parthian arrows over her shoulder as she passed
out.

"This is a pretty way to treat one on their birthday. I came home with
heart as light as the snowflakes around me, and now you have spoiled
everything. I don't know how it is, but I always have a good time
everywhere else, but there is something in this house that often sets
one's teeth on edge," and the door banged appropriately with a
spiteful emphasis as the last word was spoken.

"Poor child," said Edith, "it _is_ too bad that she should be so
dashed with cold water on her birthday."

"She isn't a child," said the eldest sister, rising from the sofa and
sweeping from the room, "though she often acts like one, and a very
bad one too. Her birthday should remind her that if she is ever to be
a woman, it is time to commence," and the stately young lady passed
coldly away. Edith, went to the window and looked dejectedly out into
the early gloom of the declining winter day. Mrs. Allen sighed and
looked more nervous and uncomfortable than usual.

The upholsterer had done his part in that elegant home, The feet sank
into the carpets as in moss. Luxurious chairs seemed to embrace the
form that sank into them. Everything, was padded, rounded, and
softened, except tongues and tempers. If wealth could remove the
asperities from these as from material things, it might well be
coveted. But this is beyond the upholsterer's art, and Mrs. Allen knew
little of the Divine art that can wrap up words and deeds with a
kindness softer than eider-down.

"Mother's room," instead of being a refuge and a favorite haunt of
these three girls, was a place where, as we have seen, their "teeth
were set on edge."

Naturally they shunned the place, visiting the invalid rather than
living with her; their reluctant feet impelled across the threshold by
a sense of duty rather than drawn by the cords of love. The mother
felt this in a vague, uncomfortable way, for mother love was there,
only it had seemingly turned sour, and instead of attracting her
children by sweetness and sympathy, she querulously complained to them
and to her husband of their neglect. He would sometimes laugh it off,
sometimes shrug his shoulders indifferently, and again harshly chide
the girls, according to his mood, for he varied much in this respect.
After being cool and wary all day in Wall Street, he took off the curb
at home; therefore the variations that never could be counted on. How
he would be at dinner did not depend on himself or any principle, but
on circumstances. In the main he was indulgent and kind, though quick
and passionate, brooking no opposition; and the girls were really more
attached to him and found more pleasure in his society than in their
mother's. Zelica, the youngest, was his special favorite, and he
humored and petted her at a ruinous rate, though often storming at
some of her follies.

Mrs. Allen saw this preference of her husband, and was weak enough to
feel and show jealousy. But her complainings were ineffectual, for we
can no more scold people into loving us than nature could make buds
blossom by daily nipping them with frost. And yet she made her
children uncomfortable by causing them to feel that it was unnatural
and wrong that they did not care more for their mother. This was
especially true of Edith, who tried to satisfy her conscience, as we
have seen, by bringing costly presents and delicacies that were seldom
needed or appreciated.

Edith soon became so oppressed by her mother's sighs and silence and
the heavy perfumed air, that she sprang up, and pressing a remorseful
kiss on the white thin face, said:

"I must dress for dinner, mamma: I will send your maid," and vanished
also.




CHAPTER II

A FUTURE OF HUMAN DESIGNING



The dining-room at six o'clock wore a far more cheerful aspect than
the invalid's room upstairs. It was furnished in a costly manner, but
more ostentatiously than good taste would dictate. You instinctively
felt that it was a sacred place to the master of the house, in which
he daily sacrificed to one of his chosen deities.

The portly colored waiter, in dress coat and white vest, has just
placed the soup on the table, and Mr. Allen enters, supporting his
wife. He had sort of manly toleration for all her whims and
weaknesses. He had never indulged in any lofty ideas of womanhood, nor
had any special longings for her sympathy and companionship. Business
was the one engrossing thing of his life, and this he honestly
believed woman incapable of, from her very nature. It was true of his
wife, but due to a false education rather than to any innate
difficulties, and he no more expected her to comprehend and sympathize
intelligently with his business operations, than to see her go down to
Wall Street with him wearing his hat and coat.

She had been the leading belle in his set years ago. He had admired
her immensely as a stylish, beautiful woman, and carried her off from
dozens of competitors, who were fortunate in their failure. He always
maintained a show of gallantry and deference; which, though but
veneer, was certainly better than open disregard and brutal neglect.

So now, with a good-natured tolerance and politeness, he seated the
feeble creature in a cushioned chair at the table, treating her more
like a spoiled child than as a friend and companion. The girls
immediately appeared also, for they knew their father's weakness too
well to keep him waiting for his dinner.

Zell bounded into his arms in her usual impulsive style, and the
father caressed her in a way that showed that his heart was very
tender toward his youngest child.

"And so my baby is seventeen to-day," he said. "Well, well, how fast
we are growing old."

The girl laughed; the man sighed. The one was on the threshold of what
she deemed the richest pleasures of life; the other had well-nigh
exhausted them, and for a moment realized it.

Still he was in excellent spirits, for he had been unusually fortunate
that day, and had seen his way to an "operation" that promised a
golden future. He sat down therefore to the good cheer with not a
little of the spirit of the man in the parable, whose complacent
exhortation to his soul has ever been the language of false security
and prosperity.

The father's open favoritism for Zell was another source of jealousy,
her sisters naturally feeling injured by it. Thus in this household
even human love was discordant and perverted, and the Divine love
unknown. What chance had character, that thing of slow growth, in such
an atmosphere?

The popping of a champagne cork took the place of grace at the opening
of the meal, and the glasses were filled all around. In honor of
Zell's birthday they drank to her health and happiness. By no better
form or more suggestive ceremony could this Christian (?) family wish
their youngest member "God-speed" on entering the vicissitudes of a
new year of life. But what they did was done heartily, and every glass
was drained. To them it seemed very appropriate and her father said,
glancing admiringly at her flaming cheeks and dancing eyes--
"This is just the thing to drink Zell's health in, for she is as full
of sparkle and effervescence as the champagne itself."

Had he been a wiser and more thoughtful man, he would have carried the
simile further and remembered the fate of champagne when exposed.
However piquant and pleasing Zell's sparkle might be, it would hardly
secure success and safety for life. But in his creed a girl's first
duty was to be pretty and fascinating, and he was extremely proud of
the beauty of his daughters. It was his plan to marry them to rich men
who would maintain them in the irresponsible luxury that their mother
had enjoyed.

Circumstances seemed to justify his security. The son of a rich man,
he had also inherited a taste for business and the art of making
money. Years of prosperity had confirmed his confidence, and he looked
complacently around upon his family and talked of the future in
sanguine tones.

He was a man considerably past his prime, and his florid face and
portly form indicated that he was in the habit of doing ample justice
to the good cheer before him. Intense application to business in early
years and indulgence of appetite in later life had seriously impaired
a constitution naturally good. He reminded you of a flower fully blown
or of fruit overripe.

"Since you have permitted Zell to leave school, I suppose she must
make her debut soon," said Mrs. Allen with more animation than usual
in her tone.

"Oh, certainly," cried Zell, "on Edith's birthday, in February. We
have arranged it all, haven't we, Edith?"

"Heigho! then I am to have no part in the matter," said her father.

"Yes, indeed, papa," cried the saucy girl, "you are to have no end of
kisses, and a very long bill."

This sally pleased him immensely, for it expressed his ideal of
womanly return for masculine affection, at least the bills had never
been wanting in his experience. But, mellowed by wine and elated by
the success of the day, he now prepared to give the coup that would
make a far greater sensation in the family circle than even a debut or
a birthday party. So, glancing from one eager face to another (for
between the wine and the excitement even Mrs. Allen was no longer a
colorless, languid creature, ready to faint at the embrace of her
child), he said with a twinkle in his eye--

"Well, go to your mother about the party. She is a veteran in such
matters. But let there be some limit to the length of the bill, or I
can't carry out another plan I have in view for you."

Chorus--"What is that?"

Coolly filling his glass, he commenced leisurely sipping, while
glancing humorously from one to another, enjoying their impatient
expectancy.

"If you don't tell us right away," cried Zell, bouncing up, "I'll pull
your whiskers without mercy."

"Papa, you will throw mother into a fever. See how flushed her face
is!" said Laura, the eldest daughter, speaking at the same time two
words for herself.

The face of Edith, with dazzling complexion all aglow, and large dark
eyes lustrous with excitement, was more eloquent than words could have
been, and the bon vivant drank in her expression with as much zest as
he sipped his wine. Perhaps it was well for him to make the most of
that little keen-edged moment of bright anticipation and bewildering
hope, for what he was about to propose would cost him many thousands,
and exile him from business, which to him was the very breath of life.

But Mrs. Allen's matter-of-fact voice brought things to a crisis, for
with an injured air she said:

"How can you, George, when you know the state of my nerves?"

"What I propose, mamma, will cure your nerves and everything else, for
it is nothing less than a tour through Europe."

There was a shriek of delight from the girls, in which even the
exquisite Laura joined, and Mrs. Allen trembled with excitement. Apart
from the trip itself, they considered it a sort of disgrace that a
family of their social position and wealth had never been abroad.
Therefore the announcement was doubly welcome. Hitherto Mr. Allen's
devotion to business had made it impossible, and he had given them no
hints of the near consummation of their wishes. But he had begun to
feel the need of change and rest himself, and this weighed more with
him than all their entreaties.

In a moment Zell had her arms about his neck, and her sisters were
throwing him kisses across the table. His wife, looking unusually
gratified, said:

"You are a sensible man at last," which was a great deal for Mrs.
Allen to say.

"Why, mamma," exclaimed her husband, elevating his eyebrows in comic
surprise, "that I should live to hear you say that!"

"Now don't be silly," she replied, joining slightly in the laugh at
her expense, "or we shall think that you have taken too much
champagne, and that this Europe business is all a hoax."

"Wait till you have been outside of Sandy Hook an hour, and you will
find everything real enough then. I think I see the elegant ladies of
my household about that time."

"For shame, papa! what an uncomfortable suggestion over a dinner
table!" said the fastidious Laura. "Picture the ladies of your
household in the salons of Paris. I promise we will do you credit
there."

"I hope so, for I fear I shall have need of _credit_ when you all
reach that Mecca of women."

"It's no more the Mecca of women than Wall Street is the Jerusalem of
men. What you are all going to do in Heaven without Wall Street, I
don't see."

Mr. Allen gave his significant shrug and said, "I don't meet notes
till they are due," which was his way of saying: "Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof."

"The salons of Paris!" said Edith, with some disdain. "Think of the
scenery, the orange-groves, and vineyards that we shall see, the
Alpine flowers--"

"I declare," interrupted Zell, "I believe that Edith would rather see
a grape-vine and orange-tree than all the toilets of Paris."

"I shall enjoy seeing both," was the reply, "and so have the advantage
of you in having two strings to my bow."

"By the way, that reminds me to ask how many beaux you now have on the
string," said the father.

Edith tossed her head with a pretty blush and said: "Pity me, my
father; you know I am always poor at arithmetic."

"You will take up with a crooked stick after all. Now Laura is a
sensible girl, like her mother, and has picked out one of the richest,
longest-headed fellows on the street."

"Indeed!" said his wife. "I do not see but you are paying yourself a
greater compliment than either Laura or me."

"Oh, no, a mere business statement. Laura means business, and so does
Mr. Goulden."

Laura looked annoyed and said:

"Pa, I thought you never talked business at home."

"Oh, this is a feminine phase that women understand. I want your
sisters to profit by your good example."

"I shall marry an Italian count," cried Zell.

"Who will turn out a fourth-rate Italian barber, and I shall have to
support you both. But I won't do it. You would have to help him
shave."

"No, I should transform him into a leader of banditti, and we would
live in princely state in the Apennines. Then we would capture you,
papa, and carry you off to the mountains, and I would be your jailer,
and give you nothing but turtle-soup, champagne, and kisses till you
paid a ransom that would break Wall Street."

"I would not pay a cent, but stay and eat you out of house and home."

"I never expect to marry," said Edith, "but some day I am going to
commence saving my money--now don't laugh, papa, for I could be
economical if I once made up my mind"--and the pretty head gave a
decisive little nod.

"I am going to save my money and buy a beautiful place in the country
and make it as near like the garden of Eden as possible."

"Snakes will get into it as of old," was Mrs. Allen's cynical remark.

"Yes, that is woman's experience with a garden," said her husband with
a mock sigh.

Popping off the cork of another bottle, he added, "I have got ahead of
you, Edith. I own a place in the country, much as I dislike that kind
of property. I had to take it to-day in a trade, and so am a
landholder in Pushton--prospect, you see, of my becoming a rural
gentleman (Squire is the title, I believe), and of exchanging stock in
Wall Street for the stock of a farm. Here's to my estate of three
acres with a story and a half mansion upon it! Perhaps you would
rather go up there this summer than to Paris, my dear?" to his wife.

Mrs. Allen gave a contemptuous shrug as if the jest were too
preposterous to be answered, but Edith cried:

"Fill my glass; I will drink to your country place. I know the cottage
is a sweet rustic little box, all smothered with vines and roses like
one I saw last June." Then she added in sport, "I wish you would give
it to me for my birthday present. It would make such a nice porter's
lodge at the entrance to my future Eden."

"Are you in earnest?" asked the father suddenly.

Both were excited by the wine they had drunk. She glanced at her
father, and saw that he was in a mood to say yes to anything, and,
quick as thought, she determined to get the place if possible.

"Of course I am. I would rather have it than all the jewelry in New
York." She was over-supplied with that style of gift.

"You shall have it then, for I am sure I don't want it, and am
devoutly thankful to be rid of it."

Edith clapped her hands with a delight scarcely less demonstrative
than that of Zell in her wildest moods.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Allen; "the idea of giving a young lady such an
elephant!"

"Bat remember," continued her father, "you must manage it yourself,
pay the taxes, keep it repaired, insured, etc. There is a first-class
summer hotel near it. Next year, after we get back from Europe, we
will go up there and stay awhile. You shall then take possession,
employ an agent to take care of it, who by the way will cheat you to
your heart's content. I will wager you a box of gloves that, before a
year passes, you will try to sell the ivy-twined cottage for anything
you can get, and will be thoroughly cured of your mania for country
life."

"I'll take you up," said Edith, in great excitement, "but remember, I
want my deed on my birthday."

"All right," said Mr. Allen, laughing. "I will transfer it to you to-morrow, while I think of it. But don't try to trade it off to me
before next month for a new dress."

Edith was half wild over her present. Many and varied were her
questions, but her father only said:

"I don't know much about it. I did not listen to half the man said,
but I remember he stated there was a good deal of fruit on the place,
for it made me think of you at the time. Bless you, I could not stop
for such small game. I am negotiating a large and promising operation
which you understand about as well as farming. It will take some time
to carry it through, but when finished we will start for the 'salons
of Paris.'"

"I half believe," said Laura, with a covert sneer, "that Edith would
rather go up to her farm of three acres."

"I am well satisfied as papa has arranged it," said the practical
girl. "Everything in its place, and get all out of life you can, is my
creed."

"That means, get all out of me you can, don't it, sly puss?" laughed
the father, well pleased, though, with the worldly wisdom of the
speech.

"Kisses, kisses, unlimited kisses, and consider yourself well repaid,"
was the arch rejoinder; and not a few, looking at her as she then
appeared, would have coveted such bargains. So her father seemed to
think as he gazed admiringly at her.

But something in Zell's pouting lips and vexed expression caught his
eye, and he said good-naturedly:

"Heigho, youngster, what has brought a thunder-cloud across your saucy
face?"

"In providing for birthdays to come, I guess you have forgotten your
baby's birthday present."

"Come here, you envious elf," said her father, taking something from
his pocket. Like light she flashed out from under the cloud and was at
his side in an instant, dimpling, smiling, and twinkling with
expectation, her black eyes as quick and restless as her father was
deliberate and slow in undoing a dainty parcel.

"Oh, George, do be quick about it, or Zell will explode. You both make
me nervous," said Mrs. Allen fretfully.

Suddenly pressing open a velvet casket, Mr. Allen hung a jewelled
watch with a long gold chain about his favorite's neck, while she
improvised a hornpipe around his chair.

"There," said he, "is something that is worth more than Edith's farm,
tumble-down cottage, roses, and all. So remember that those lips were
made to kiss, not to pout with."

Zell put her lips to proper uses to that extent that Mrs. Allen began
to grow jealous, nervous, and out of sorts generally, and having
finished her chocolate, rose feebly from the table. Her husband
offered his arm and the family dinner party broke up.

And yet, take it altogether, each one was in higher spirits than
usual, and Zell and Edith were in a state of positive delight. They
had received costly gifts that specially gratified their peculiar
tastes, and these, with the promise of a grand party and a trip to
Europe, youthful buoyancy, and champagne, so dilated their little
feminine souls that Mrs. Allen's fears of an explosion of some kind
were scarcely groundless. They dragged their stately sister Laura, now
unwontedly bland and affable, to the piano, and called for the
quickest and most brilliant of waltzes, and a moment later their lithe
figures flowed away in a rhythm of motion, that from their exuberance
of feeling, was as fantastic as it was graceful.

Mr. Allen assisted his wife to her room and soon left her in an
unusually contented frame of mind to develop strategy for the coming
party. Mrs. Allen's nerves utterly incapacitated her for the care of
her household, attendance upon church, and such humdrum matters, but
in view of a great occasion like a "grand crush ball," where among the
luminaries of fashion she could become the refulgent centre of a
constellation which her fair daughters would make around her, her
spirit rose to the emergency. When it came to dress and dressmakers
and all the complications of the campaign now opening, notwithstanding
her nerves, she could be quite Napoleonic.

Her husband retired to the library, lighted a choice Havana, skimmed
his evening papers, and then as usual went to his club.

This, as a general thing, was the extent of the library's literary
uses. The best authors in gold and Russia smiled down from the black
walnut shelves, but the books were present rather as furniture than
from any intrinsic value in themselves to the family. They were given
prominence on the same principle that led Mrs. Allen to give a certain
tone to her entertainments by inviting many literary and scientific
men. She might be unable to appreciate the works of the _savants_, but
as they appreciated the labors of her masterly French cook, many
compromised the matter by eating the _petits soupers_ and shrugging
their shoulders over the entertainers.

And yet the Allens were anything but vulgar upstarts. Both husband and
wife were descended from old and wealthy New York families. They had
all the polish which life-long association with the fashionable world
bestows. What was more, they were highly intelligent, and, in their
own sphere, gifted people. Mr. Allen was a leader in business in one
of the chief commercial centres, and to lead in legitimate business in
our day requires as much ability, indeed we may say genius, as to lead
in any order department of life. He would have shown no more ignorance
in the study, studio, and laboratory, than their occupants would have
shown in the counting-room. That to which he devoted his energies he
had become a master in. It is true he had narrowed down his life to
little else than business. He had never acquired a taste for art and
literature, nor had he given himself time for broad culture. But we
meet narrow artists, narrow clergymen, narrow scientists just as
truly. If you do not get on their hobby and ride with them, they seem
disposed to ride over you. Indeed, in our brief life with its fierce
competitions, few other than what are known as "one idea" men have
time to succeed. Even genius must drive with tremendous and
concentrated energy, to distance competitors. Mr. Allen was quite as
great in his department as any of the lions that his wife lured into
her parlors were in theirs.

Mrs. Allen was also a leader in her own chosen sphere, or rather in
the one to which she had been educated. Given _carte-blanche_ in the
way of expense, she would produce a brilliant entertainment which few
could surpass. The coloring and decorations of her rooms would not be
more rich, varied, or in better taste, than the diversity, and yet
harmony of the people she would bring together by her adroit
selections. She had studied society, and for it she lived, not to make
it better, not to elevate its character, and tone down its
extravagances, but simply to shine in it, to be talked about and
envied.

Both husband and wife had achieved no small success, and to succeed in
such a city as New York in their chosen departments required a certain
amount of genius. The _savants_ had a general admiration for Mrs.
Allen's style and taste, but found that she had nothing to offer on
the social exchange of her parlors but fashion's smallest chit-chat.
They had a certain respect for Mr. Allen's wealth and business power,
but, having discussed the news of the day, they would pass on, and the
people during the intervals of dancing drifted into congenial schools
and shoals, like fish in a lake. Mr. and Mrs. Allen had a vague
admiration for the learning of the scholars and the culture of the
artists, but would infinitely prefer marrying their daughters to
downtown merchant princes.

Take the world over, perhaps all classes of people are despising
others quite as much as they are despised themselves.

But when the French cook appeared upon the scene, then was produced
your true democracy. Then was shown a phase of life into which all
entered with a zest that proved the common tie of humanity.




CHAPTER III

THREE MEN



While Mrs. Allen was planning the social pyrotechnics that should
dazzle the fashionable world, Edith and Zell were working off their
exuberant spirits in the manner described in the last chapter, which
was as natural to their city-bred feet as a wild romp is to a country
girl.

The brilliant notes of the piano and the rustle of their silks had
rendered them oblivious to the fact that the door-bell had rung twice,
and that three gentlemen were peering curiously through the half-open
door. They were evidently frequent and favored visitors, and had
motioned the old colored waiter not to announce them, and he
reluctantly obeyed.

For a moment they feasted their eyes on the scene, as the two girls,
with twining arms and many innovations on the regular step, whirled
through the rooms, and then Zell's quick eye detected them.

Pouncing upon the eldest gentleman of the party, she dragged him from
his ambush, while the others also entered. The youngest approached the
blushing, panting Edith with an almost boyish confidence of manner, as
if assured of a welcome, while the remaining gentleman, who was
verging toward middle age, quietly glided to the piano and gave his
hand to Laura, who greeted him with a cordiality scarcely to be
expected from so stately a young lady.

The laws of affinity and selection were evidently in force here, and
as the reader must surmise, long acquaintance had led to the present
easy and intimate relations.

"What do you mean," cried Zell, dragging under the gaslight her
cavalier, who assumed much penitence and fear, "by thus rudely and
abruptly breaking in upon the retirement of three secluded young
ladies?"

"At their devotions," added the cynical voice of the gentleman at the
piano, who was no other than Mr. Goulden, Laura's admirer.

Zell's attendant threw himself in the attitude of a suppliant and said
deprecatingly:

"Nay, but we are astronomers."

"That's a fib, and not a very white one either," she retorted. "I
don't believe you ever look toward heaven for anything."

"What need of looking thither for heavenly bodies?" he replied in a
low, meaning tone, regarding with undisguised admiration her glowing
cheeks. "Moreover, I don't like telescopic distances," he continued,
with a half-made motion to put his arm around her waist.

"Come," she said, pirouetting out of his reach, "remember I am no
longer a child, I am seventeen to-day."

"Would that you might never be a day older in appearance and
feelings!"

"Are you willing to leave me so far behind?" she asked with some
maliciousness.

"No, but you would make me a boy again. If old Ponce de Leon had met a
Miss Zell, he would soon have forsaken the swamps and alligators of
Florida." "Oh, what a watery, scaly compliment! Preferred to swamps
and alligators! Who would have believed it?"

"I am not blind to your pretty, wilful blindness. You know I likened
you to something too divine and precious to be found on earth."

"Which is still true in the carrying out of your marvellously mixed
metaphors. I must lend you my rhetoric book. But as your meaning dawns
on me, I see that you are symbolized by old Ponce. I shall look in the
history for the age of the ancient Spaniard to-morrow, and then I
shall know how old you are, a thing I could never find out."

As with little jets of silvery laughter and with butterfly motion she
hovered round him, the very embodiment of life and beautiful youth,
she would have made, to an artist's eye, a very true realization of
the far-famed mythical fountain.

And yet, as a moment later she confidingly took his arm and strolled
toward the library, it was evident that all her flutter and hesitancy,
her seeming freedom and mimic show of war, were like those of some
bright tropical bird fascinated by a remorseless serpent whose intent
eyes and deadly purpose are creating a spell that cannot be resisted.

Mr. Van Dam, upon whose arm she was leaning, was one of the worst
products of artificial metropolitan life. He had inherited a name
which ancestry had rendered honorable, but which he to the utmost
dishonored, and yet so adroitly, so shrewdly respecting fashion's
code, though shunning nothing wrong, that he did not lose the _entree_
of the gilded homes of those who called themselves "the best society."

True, it was whispered that he was rather fast, that he played heavily
and a trifle too successfully, and that he lived the life of anything
but a saint at his luxurious rooms. "But then," continued society,
openly and complacently, "he is so fine-looking, so courtly and
polished, so well connected, and what is still more to the point, my
dear, he is reputed to be immensely wealthy, so we must not heed these
rumors. After all, it is the way of these young men of the world."

Thus "the best society" that would have politely frozen out of its
parlors the Chevalier Bayard, _sans peur et sans reproche_, had he not
appeared in the latest style, with golden fame rather than golden
spurs, welcomed Mr. Van Dam. Indeed, not a few forced exotic belles,
who had prematurely developed in the hothouse atmosphere of wealth and
extravagance, regarded him as a sort of social lion; and his
reticence, with a certain mystery in which he shrouded his evil life,
made him all the more fascinating. He was past the prime of life,
though exceedingly well preserved, for he was one of those cool,
deliberate votaries of pleasure that reduce amusement to a science,
and carefully shun all injurious excess. While exceedingly deferential
toward the sex in general, and bestowing compliments and attentions as
adroitly as a financier would place his money, he at the same time
permitted the impression to grow that he was extremely fastidious in
his taste, and had never married because it had never been his fortune
to meet the faultless being who could satisfy his exacting eyes. Any
special and continued admiration on his part therefore made its
recipient an object of distinction and envy to very many in the unreal
world in which he glided serpent-like, rather than moved as a man. To
morbid minds his rumored evil deeds became piquant eccentricities, and
the whispers of the oriental orgies that were said to take place in
his bachelor apartments made him an object of a curious interest, and
many sighed for the opportunity of reforming so distinguished a
sybarite.

On Edith's entrance into society he had been much impressed by her
beauty, and had gradually grown quite attentive, equally attracted by
her father's wealth. But she, though with no clear perception of his
character, and with no higher moral standard than that of her set,
instinctively shrank from the man. Indeed, in some respects, they were
too much alike for that mysterious attraction that so often occurs
between opposites. Not that she had his unnatural depravity, but like
him she was shrewd, practical, resolute, and was controlled by her
judgment rather than by her impulses. Her vanity, of which she had no
little share, led her to accept his attentions to a certain point, but
the keen man of the world soon saw that his "little game," as in his
own vernacular he styled it, would not be successful, and he was the
last one to sigh in vain or mope an hour in lovelorn melancholy. While
ceasing to press his suit, he continued to be a frequent and familiar
visitor at the house, and thus his attention was drawn to Zell, who,
though young, had developed early in the stimulating atmosphere in
which she lived. At first he petted and played with ner as a child, as
she wilfully flitted in and out of the parlors, whether her sisters
wanted her or not. He continually brought her _bon-bons_ and like
fanciful trifles, till at last, in jest, the family called him Zell's
"ancient beau."

But during the past year it had dawned on him that the child he petted
on account of her beauty and sprightliness, was rapidly becoming a
brilliant woman, who would make a wife far more to his taste than her
equally beautiful but matter-of-fact sister. Therefore he warily, so
as not to alarm the jealous father, but with all the subtle skill of
which he was master, sought to win her affections, knowing that she
would have her own way when she knew what way she wanted.

For Zell this unscrupulous man had a peculiar fascination. He petted
and flattered her to her heart's content, and thus made her the envy
of her young acquaintances, which was incense indeed to her vain
little soul. He never lectured or preached to her on account of her
follies and nonsense, as her elderly friends usually did, but gave to
her wild, impulsive moods free rein. Where a true friend would have
cautioned and curbed, he applauded and incited, causing Zell to
mistake extravagance in language and boldness in manner for spirit and
brilliancy. Laura and Edith often remonstrated with her, but she did
not heed them. Indeed, she feared no one save her father, and Mr. Van
Dam was propriety itself when he was present, which was but seldom.
What with his business, and club, and Mrs. Allen's nerves, the girls
were left mainly to themselves.

What wonder that there are so many shipwrecks, when young, heedless,
inexperienced hands must steer, unguided, through the most perilous
and treacherous of seas?

Mr. Allen's elegant, costly home was literally an unguarded fold, many
a laborer, living in a tenement house, doing more to shield his
daughters from the evil of the world.

To Mr. Van Dam, Zell was a perfect prize. Though he had sipped at the
cup of pleasure so leisurely and systematically, he was getting down
to the dregs. His taste was becoming palled, and satiety was burdening
him with its leaden weight. But as the child he petted developed daily
toward womanhood, he became interested, then fascinated by the
process. Her beauty was so brilliant, her excessive sprightliness so
contagious, that he felt his sluggish pulses stir and tingle with
excitement the moment he came into her presence. Her wild, varying
moods kept him constantly on the _qui vive_, and he would say in
confidence to one of his intimate cronies:

"The point is, Hal, she is such a spicy, piquant contrast to the
insipid society girls, who have no more individuality than fashion
blocks in Broadway windows."

He liked the kittenish young creature all the more because her
repartee was often a little cutting. If she had always struck him with
a velvet paw, the thing would have grown monotonous, but he
occasionally got a scratch that made him wince, cool and brazen as he
was. But, after all, he daily saw that he was gaining power over her,
and the manner in which the frank-hearted girl took his arm and leaned
upon it spoke volumes to the experienced man. While he habitually wore
a mask, Zell could conceal nothing, and across her April face flitted
her innermost thoughts.

If she had had a _mother_, she might, even in the wilderness of earth,
have become a blossom fit for heavenly gardens, but as it was, her
wayward nature, so full of dangerous beauty, was left to run wild.

Edith was beginning to be troubled at Zell's intimacy with Mr. Van
Dam, and to conceive a growing dislike for him mingled with suspicion.
As for Laura, the eldest, she was like her mother, too much wrapped up
in herself to have many thoughts for any one else, and they all
regarded Zell as a mere child still. Mr. Allen, who would have been
very anxious had Zell been receiving the attentions of some penniless
young clerk or artist, laughed at her "flirtation with old Van Dam" as
an eminently safe proceeding.

But on the present evening her sisters were too much occupied with
their own friends to give Zell or her dangerous admirer much
attention. As yet no formal engagement had bound any of them, but an
intimacy and mutual liking, tending to such a result, was rapidly
growing.

In Edith's case the attraction of contrasts was again shown. Augustus
Elliot, the youth who had approached her with such confidence and
grace, was quite as stylish a personage as herself, and that was
saying a great deal. But every line of his full handsome face, as well
as the expression of his light blue eyes, showed that he had less
decision in the whole of his luxurious nature than she in her little
finger. Self-indulgence and good-natured vanity were unmistakably his
characteristics. To yield, not for the good of others, but because not
strong enough to stand sturdily alone, was the law of his being. If he
could ever have been kept under the influence of good and stronger
natures, who would have developed his naturally kind heart and good
impulses into something like principle, he might have had a safe and
creditable career. But he was the idol of a foolish, fashionable
mother, and the pet of two or three sisters who were empty-brained
enough to think their handsome brother the perfection of mankind; and
by eye, manner, and often the plainest words, they told him as much,
and he had at last come to believe them. Why should they not? He was
faultless in his own dress, faultless in his criticism of a lady's
dress, taking the prevailing fashion as the standard. He was perfectly
versed in the polite slang of the day. He scented afar off and
announced the slightest change in the mode, so that his elegant
sisters could appear on the avenue in advance of the other fashion-plates. As they sailed away on a sunny afternoon in their gorgeous
plumage, the envy of many a competing belle, they would say:

"Isn't he a duck of a brother to give us a hint of a change so early?
After all there is no eye or taste like that of man when once
perfected."

And then they knew him to be equally _au fait_ on the flavor of wines,
the points of horses, the merits of every watering-place, and all the
other lore which in their world gave pre-eminence. They had been
educated to have no other ideal of manhood, and if an earnest,
straight forward man, with a purpose, had spoken out before them, they
would have regarded him as an uncouth monster.

Notwithstanding all his vanity, "Gus," as he was familiarly called,
was a very weak man, and though he would not acknowledge it, even to
himself, instinctively recognized the fact. He continually attached
himself to strong, resolute natures, by whom, if they were adroit, he
could easily be made a tool of. He took a great fancy to Edith from
the first hour of their acquaintance, and she soon obtained a strong
influence over him. She instinctively detected his yielding
disposition, and liked him the better for it, while his good-nature
and abundant supply of society talk made him a general favorite.

When every one whispered, "What a handsome couple they would make!"
and she found him so looked up to and quoted in the fashionable world,
she began to entertain quite an admiration as well as liking for him,
though she saw more and more clearly that there was nothing in him
that she could lean upon.

Gus's parents, who knew that the Allens were immensely wealthy, urged
on the match, but Mr. Allen, aware that the Elliots were living to the
extent of their means, discouraged it, plainly telling Edith his
reasons.

"But," said Edith, at the same time showing her heart in the practical
suggestion, "could not Gus go into business himself?"

"The worst thing he could do," said the keen Mr. Allen. "He has tried
it a few times, I have learned, but has not one business
qualification. He could not keep himself in toothpicks. His mother and
sisters have spoiled him. He is nothing but a society man. Mr. Elliot
has not a word to say at home. His business is to make money for them
to spend, and a tough time he has to keep up with them. You girls must
marry men who can take care of you, unless you wish to support your
husbands."

Mr. Allen's verdict was true, and Edith felt that it was. When a boy,
Gus could get out of lessons by running to his mother with a plea of
headache or any trifle, and in youth he had escaped business in like
manner. His father had tried him a few times in his office, but was
soon glad to fall in with his wife's opinion, that _her_ son "had
too much spirit and refinement for plodding humdrum business, that he
was a born gentleman and suited only to elegant leisure," and as his
gentleman son only did mischief downtown, the poor over-worked father
was glad to have him out of the way, for he with difficulty made both
ends meet, as it was. Hoping he would do better with strangers, he
had, by personal influence, procured him situations elsewhere, but
between the mother's weakness and the young man's confirmed habits of
idleness, it always ended by Gus saying to his employers:

"I'm going of on a little trip--by-by," at which they gave a sigh of
relief. It had at last become a recognized fact that Gus must marry an
heiress, this being about the only way for so fine a gentleman to
achieve the fortune that he could not stoop to toil for. As he admired
himself complacently in the gilded mirror that ornamented his
dressing-room, he felt that a wise selection would be his only
difficulty, and though an heiress is something of a _rara avis_,
he sternly resolved to cage one with such heavy golden plumage that
even his mother, whom no one satisfied save himself, would give a sigh
of perfect content. When at last he met Edith Allen, it seemed as if
inclination might happily blend with his lofty sense of duty, and he
soon became Edith's devoted and favored attendant. And yet, as we have
seen, our heroine was not the sentimental style of girl that falls
hopelessly and helplessly in love with a man for some occult reason,
not even known to herself, and who mopes and pines till she is
permitted to marry him, be he fool, villain, or saint. Edith was fully
capable of appreciating and weighing her father's words, and under
their influence nearly decided to chill her handsome but helpless
admirer into a mere passing acquaintance; but when he next appeared
before her in his uniform, as an officer in one of the "crack" city
regiments, her eyes, taste, and vanity, and somehow her heart, so
pleaded for him that, so far from being an icicle, she smiled on him
like a July sun.

But whenever he sought to press his suit into something definite, she
evaded and shunned the point, as only a feminine diplomatist can. In
fact, Gus, on account of his vanity, was not a very urgent suitor, as
the idea of final refusal was preposterous. He regarded himself as
virtually accepted already. Meanwhile Edith for once in her life was
playing the role of Micawber, and "waiting for something to turn up."
And something had, for this trip to Europe would put time and space
between them, and gently cure both of their folly, as she deemed it.
Folly! She did not realize that Gus regarded himself as acting on
sound business principles and a strong sense of duty, as well as
obeying the impulses of what heart he had. The sweet approval of
conscience and judgment attended his action, while both condemned her.

As Gus approached this evening, she felt a pang of commiseration that
not only were they separated by her father's and her own disapproval,
but that soon the briny ocean would also be between them, and she was
unusually kind. She decided to play with her poor little mouse till
the last, and then let absence remedy all. Her mind was quick, if not
very profound.

As Mr. Goulden leaned across the corner of the piano, and paid the
blushing Laura some delicate compliments, one could not but think of
an adroit financier, skilfully placing some money. There was nothing
ardent, nothing incoherent and lover-like, in his carefully modulated
tones, and nicely selected words that meant much or little, as he
might afterward decide. Mr. Goulden always knew what he was about, as
truly in a lady's boudoir as in Wall Street. The stately, elegant
Laura suited his tastes; her father's financial status _had_ suited
him also. But he, who through his agents knew all that was going on in
Wall Street, was aware that Mr. Allen had engaged in a very heavy
speculation, which, though promising well at the time, might, by some
unexpected turn of the wheel, wear a very different aspect. He would
see the game through before proceeding with his own, and in the
meantime, by judicious attention, hold Laura well in hand.

In that brilliantly lighted parlor none of these currents and counter
currents were apparent on the surface. That was like the ripple and
sparkle of a summer sea in the sunlight. Every year teaches us
something of what is hidden under the fair but treacherous seeming of
life.

The young ladies were now satisfied with the company they had, and the
gentlemen, as can well be understood, wished no further additions.
Therefore they agreed to retire to the library for a game of cards.

"Hannibal," said Edith, summoning the portentous colored butler who
presided over the front door and dining-room, "if any one calls, say
we are out or engaged."

That solemn dignitary bowed as low as his stiff white collar would
permit, but soliloquized:

"I guess I is sumpen too black to tell a white lie, so I'se say dey is
engaged."

As the ladies swept away, leaning heavily on the arms of their favored
gallants, he added, with a slight grin illumining the gravity of his
face, "It looks mighty like it."




CHAPTER IV

THE SKIES DARKENING



The game of cards fared indifferently, for they were all too intent on
little games of their own to give close attention. Mr. Van Dam won
when he chose, and gave the game away when he chose, but made Zell
think the skill was mainly hers.

Still, in common parlance, they had a "good time." From such clever
men the jests and compliments were rather better than the average, and
repartee from the ruby lips that smiled upon them could not seem other
than brilliant.

Edith soon added to the sources of enjoyment by ordering cake and
wine, for though not the eldest she seemed naturally to take the lead.

Mr. Goulden drank sparingly. He meant that not a film should come
across his judgment. Mr. Van Dam drank freely, but he was seasoned to
more fiery potations than sherry. Not so poor Gus, who, while he could
never resist the wine, soon felt its influence. But he had sufficient
control never to go beyond the point of tipsiness that fashion allows
in the drawing-room.

Of course through Zell's unrestrained chatter the recently made plans
soon came out.

Adroit Mr. Van Dam turned to Zell with an expression of much pleased
surprise, exclaiming:

"How fortunate I am! I had completed my plans to go abroad some little
time since."

Zell clapped her hands with delight, but an involuntary shadow
darkened. Edith's face.

Gus looked nonplussed. He knew that his father and mother with
difficulty kept pace with his home expenses and that a Continental
tour was impossible for him. Mr. Goulden looked a little thoughtful,
as if a new element had entered into the problem.

"Oh, come," laughed Zell. "Let us all be good, and go on a pilgrimage
together to Paris--I mean Jerusalem."

"I will worship devoutly with you at either shrine," said Mr. Van Dam.

"And with equal sincerity, I suppose," said Edith, rather coldly.

"I sadly fear, Miss Edith, that my sincerity will not be superior to
that of the other devotees," was the keen retort, in blandest tones.

Edith bit her lip, but said gayly, "Count me out of your pilgrim band.
I want no shrine with relics of the past. I wish no incense rising
about me obscuring the view. I like the present, and wish to see what
is beyond."

"But suppose you are both shrine and divinity yourself?" said Gus,
with what he meant for a killing look.

"Do you mean that compliment for me?" asked Edith, all sweetness.

Between wine and love Gus was inclined to be sentimental, and so in a
low, meaning tone answered:

"Who more deserving?"

Edith's eyes twinkled a moment, but with a half sigh she replied:

"I fear you read my character rightly. A shrine suggests many
offerings, and a divinity many worshippers."

Zell laughed outright, and said, "In that respect all women would be
shrines and divinities if they could."

Van Dam and Goulden could not suppress a smile at the unfortunate
issue of Elliot's sentiment, while the latter glanced keenly to see
how much truth was hinted in the badinage.

"For my part," said Laura, looking fixedly at nothing, "I would rather
have one true devotee than a thousand pilgrims who were _gushing_ at
every shrine they met."

"Brava!" cried Mr. Goulden. "That was the keenest arrow yet flown;"
for the other two men were notorious flirts.

"I do not think so. Its point was much too broad," said Zell, with a
meaning look at Mr. Goulden, that brought a faint color into his
imperturbable face, and an angry flush to Laura's.

A disconcerted manner had shown that even Gus's vanity had not been
impervious to Edith's barb, but he had now recovered himself, and
ventured again:

"I would have my divinity a patron saint sufficiently human to pity
human weakness, and so come at last to listen to no other prayer than
mine."

"Surely, Mr. Elliot, you would wish your saint to listen for some
other reason than your weakness only," said Edith.

"Come, ladies and gentlemen, I move this party breaks up, or some one
will get hurt," said Gus, with a half-vexed laugh.

"What is the matter?" asked Edith innocently.

"Yes," echoed Zell, rising, "what is the matter with _you_, Mr. Van
Dam? Are you asleep, that you are so quiet? Tell us about your
divinity."

"I am an astronomer and fire-worshipper, somewhat dazzled at present
by the nearness and brilliancy of my bright luminary."

"Nonsense! your sight is failing, and you have mistaken a will-o'-the-wisp for the sun.

"'Dancing here, dancing there, Catch it if you can and dare,'"
and she flitted away before him.

He followed with his intent eyes and graceful, serpent-like gliding,
knowing her to be under a spell that would soon bring her fluttering
back.

After circling round him a few moments she took his arm and he
commenced breathing into her ear the poison of his passion.

No woman could remain the same after being with Mr. Van Dam. Out of
the evil abundance of his heart he spoke, but the venom of his words
and manner were all the more deadly because so subtle, so minutely and
delicately distributed, that it was like a pestilential atmosphere, in
which truth and purity withered.

No parent should permit to his daughters the companionship of a
thoroughly bad man, whatever his social standing. His very tone and
glance are unconsciously demoralizing, and, even if he tries, he
cannot prevent the bitter waters overflowing from their bad source,
his heart.

Mr. Van Dam did not try. He meant to secure Zell, with or without her
father's approval, believing that when the marriage was once
consummated Mr. Allen's consent and money would follow eventually.

For some little time longer the young ladies and their favored
attendants strolled about the room in quiet tete-a-tete, and then the
gentlemen bowed themselves out.

The door-bell had rung several times during the evening, but Hannibal,
with the solemnity of a funeral, had quenched each comer by saying
with the decision of the voice of fate:

"De ladies am engaged, sah," and no Cerberus at the door, or mailed
warder of the middle ages, could have proved such an effectual barrier
against all intruders as this old negro in his white waistcoat and
stiff necktie, backed by the usage of modern society. Indeed, in some
respects he was a greater potentate than old King Canute, for he could
say to the human passions, inclinations, and desires that surged up to
Mr. Allen's front door, "Thus far and no farther."

But upon this evening there was a caller who looked with cool,
undaunted eyes upon the stiff necktie and solemn visage rising above
it, and to Hannibal's reiterated statement, "Dey _am_ engaged,"
replied in a quiet tone of command:

"Take that card to Miss Edith."

Even Hannibal's sovereignty broke down before this persistent,
imperturbable visitor, and scratching his head with a perplexed grin
he half soliloquized, half replied:

"Miss Edith mighty 'ticlar to hab her orders obeyed."

"I am the best judge in this case," was the decisive response. "You
take the card and I will be responsible."

Hannibal came to the conclusion that for some occult reason the
gentleman, who was well known to him, had a right to pronounce the
"open sesame" where the portal had been remained closed to all others,
and, being a diplomatist, resolved to know more fully the quarter of
the wind before assuming too much. But his statecraft was sorely
puzzled to know why one of Mr. Allen's under-clerks should suddenly
appear in the role of social caller upon the young ladies, for Mr.
Fox, the gentleman in question, ostensibly had no higher position. His
appearance and manner indicated a mystery. Old Hannibal's wool had not
grown white for nothing, and he was the last man in the world to go
through a mystery as a blundering bumblebee would through a spider's
web. He was for leaving the web all intact till he knew who spun it
and whom it was to catch. If it was Mr. Allen's work or Miss Edith's,
it _must_ stand; if not, he could play bumblebee with a vengeance, and
carry off the gossamer of intrigue with one sweep.

So, showing Mr. Fox into a small reception room, he made his way to
the library door with a motion that would have reminded you of a
great, stealthy cat, and called in a loud, impressive whisper:

"Miss Edith!"

Edith at once rose and went to him, knowing that her prime minister
had some important question of state to present when summoning her in
that tone.

Screened by the library door, Hannibal commenced in a deprecating way:

"I told Mr. Fox you'se engaged, but he say I must give you dis card.
He kinder acted as if he own dis niggar and de whole establishment."

A sudden heavy frown drew Edith's dark eyebrows together and she said
loud enough for Mr. Fox in his ambush to hear:

"Was there ever such impudence!" and straightway the frown passed to
the listener, intensified, like a flying cloud darkening one spot now
and another a moment later.

"Return the card, and say I am engaged," she said haughtily. "Stay,"
she added thoughtfully. "Perhaps he wished to see papa, or there is
some important business matter which needs immediate attention. If
not, dismiss him," and Edith returned to the library quite as much
puzzled as Hannibal had been. Two or three times recently she had
found Mr. Fox's card on returning from evenings out. Why had he
called? She had only a cool, bowing acquaintance with him, formed by
his coming occasionally to see her father on business, and her father
had not thought it worth while to formally introduce Mr. Fox to any of
his family at such times, but had treated him as a sort of upper
servant. Her certainly was putting on strange airs, as her old grand-vizier had intimated. But in the game of cards, and her other little
game with Grus, she soon forgot his existence.

Meantime Hannibal, reassured, was regal again, and marched down the
marble hall with something like the feeling and bearing of his great
namesake. If there were a web here, the Allens were not spinning it,
and he owed. Mr. Fox nothing but a slight grudge for his "airs."

Therefore with the manner of one feeling himself master of the
situation he said:

"Hab you a message for Mr. Allen?"

"No," replied Mr. Fox quietly.

"Den I tell you again Miss Edith _am_ engaged."

Looking straight into Hannibal's eyes, without a muscle changing in
his impassive face, Mr. Fox said in the steady tone of command:

"Say to Miss Edith I will call again," and he passed out of the door
as if _he_ were master of the situation.

Hannibal rolled up his eyes till nothing but the whites were seen, and
muttered:

"Brass ain't no name for it."

Mr. Fox's action can soon be explained. Mr. Allen, while accustomed to
operate largely in Wall Street through his brokers, was also the head
of a cloth-importing firm. This in fact had been his regular and
legitimate business, but like so many others he had been drawn into
the vortex of speculation, and after many lucky hits had acquired that
overweening confidence that prepares the way for a fall. He came to
believe that he had only to put his hand to a thing to give it the
needful impulse to success. In his larger and more exciting operations
in Wall Street he had left the cloth business mainly to his junior
partners and dependants, they employing his capital. Mr. Fox was
merely a clerk in this establishment, and not in very high standing
either. He was also another unwholesome product of metropolitan life.
As office boy among the lawyers, as a hanger-on of the criminal
courts, he had scrambled into a certain kind of legal knowledge and
had gained a small pettifogging practice when an opening in Mr.
Allen's business led to his present connection. Mr. Allen felt that in
his varied and extended business he needed a man of Mr. Fox's stamp to
deal with the legal questions that came up, look after the intricacies
of the revenue laws, and manage the immaculate saints of the custom-house. As far as the firm had dirty, disagreeable, perplexing work to
do, Mr. Fox was to do it. Whenever it came in contact with the majesty
of the law and government, Mr. Fox was to represent it. Whenever some
Israelite in whom _was_ guile sought, on varied pretext, to wriggle
out of the whole or part of a bill, the wary Mr. Fox met him on his
own plane and with his own weapons, skirmished with him, and won the
little fight.

I would not for a moment give the impression that Mr. Allen was in
favor of sharp practice. He merely wished to conduct his business on
the business principles and practice of the day, and it was not his
purpose, and certainly not his policy, to pass beyond the law. But
even the judges disagree as to what the law is, and he was dealing
with many who thrived by evading it; therefore the need of a nimble
Mr. Fox who could burrow and double on his tracks with the best of
them. All went well for years, and the firm was saved many an
annoyance, many a loss, and if this guerilla of the house, as perhaps
we may term him, had been as devoted to Mr. Allen's interests as to
his own, all might have gone well to the end. But these very sharp
tools are apt to cut both ways, and so it turned out in this case. The
astute Mr. Fox determined to serve Mr. Allen faithfully as long as he
could faithfully and pre-eminently serve himself. If he who had
scrambled from the streets to his present place of power could reach a
higher position by stepping on the great rich merchant, such power
would have additional satisfaction. He was as keen-scented after money
as Mr. Allen, only the latter hunted like a lion, and the former like
a fox. He mastered Mr. Allen's business thoroughly in all its details.
Until recently no opportunity had occurred save work which, though
useful, caused him to be half-despised by the others who would not or
could not do it. But of late he had gained a strong vantage point. He
watched with intense interest Mr. Allen's attraction toward, and
entrance upon, a speculation that he knew to be as uncertain of issue
as it was large in proportions, for, if the case ever became critical,
he was conscious of the power of introducing a very important element
into the problem.

In his care of the custom-house business he had discovered technical
violations of the revenue laws which already involved the loss to the
firm of a million dollars, and, with his peculiar loyalty to himself,
thought this knowledge ought to be worth a great deal. As Mr. Allen
went down into the deep waters of Wall Street, he saw that it might
be. In saving his employer from wreck he might virtually become
captain of the ship.

After this brief delineation of character, it would strike the reader
as very incongruous to say that Mr. Fox had fallen in love with Edith.
Mr. Fox never stumbled or fell. He could slide down and scramble up to
any extent, and when cornered could take a flying leap like that of a
cat. But he had been greatly impressed by Edith's beauty, and to win
her also would be an additional and piquant feature in the game. He
had absolute confidence in money, much of which he might have gained
from Mr. Allen himself. He knew a million of her father's money was in
his power, and this, in a certain sense, placed him in the position of
a suitor worth a million, and such he knew to be almost omnipotent on
the avenue. If this money could also be the means of causing Mr.
Allen's ruin, or saving him from it, he believed that Edith would be
his as truly as the bonds and certificates of stock that he often
counted and gloated over. Even before Mr. Allen entered on what he
called his great and final operation for the present, Mr. Fox was half
inclined to show his hand and make the most of it, but within the last
few days he had learned that perhaps a greater opportunity was opening
before him. Meantime in the full consciousness of power he had begun
to call on Edith, as we have seen, something as a cat plays around and
watches a caged bird, which it expects to have in its claws before
long.

The next morning at breakfast Edith mentioned Mr. Fox's recent calls.

"What is he coming here for?" growled Mr. Allen, looking with a frown
at his daughter.

"I'm sure I don't know."

"I hope you don't see him."

"Certainly not. I was out the first two times, and last night sent
word that I was engaged. But he insisted on his card being given to me
and put on airs generally, so Hannibal seems to think."

That dignitary gave a confirming and indignant grunt.

"He said he would call again, didn't he, Hannibal?"

"Yes'm," blurted Hannibal, "and he looked as if de next time he'd put
us all in his breeches pocket and carry us off."

"What's Fox up to now?" muttered Mr. Allen, knitting his brows. "I
must look into this."

But even within a few hours the cloud land of Wall Street had changed
some of its aspects. The serenity of the preceding day was giving
place to indications of a disturbance in the financial atmosphere. He
had to buy more stock to keep the control he was gaining on the
market, and things were not shaping favorably for its rise. He was
already carrying a tremendous load, and even his herculean shoulders
began to feel the burden. In the press and rush of business he forgot
about Fox's social ambition in venturing to call where such men as Van
Dam and Gus Elliot had undisputed rights.

Those upon whom society lays its hands are orthodox of course.

The wary Fox was watching the stock market as closely as Mr. Allen,
and chuckled over the aspect of affairs; and he concluded to keep
quietly out of the way a little longer, and await further
developments.

Things moved rapidly as they usually do in the maelstrom of
speculation. Though Mr. Allen was a trained athlete in business, the
strain upon him grew greater day by day. But true to his promise, and
in accordance with his habit of promptness, he transferred the deed
for the little place in the country to Edith, who gloated over its dry
technicalities as if they were full of romantic hope and suggestion to
her.

One day when alone with Laura, Mr. Allen asked her suddenly:

"Has Mr. Goulden made any formal proposal yet?"

With rising color Laura answered:

"No."

"Why not? He seems very slow about it."

"I hardly know how you expect me to reply to such a question," said
Laura, a little haughtily.

"Is he as attentive as ever?"

"Yes, I suppose so, though he has not called quite so often of late."

"Humph!" ejaculated Mr. Allen meditatively, adding after a moment,
"Can't you make him speak out?"

"You certainly don't mean me to propose to him?" asked Laura,
reddening.

"No, no, no!" said her father with some irritation, "but any clever
woman can make a man who has gone as far as Mr. Goulden commit himself
whenever she chooses. Your mother would have had the thing settled
long ago, or else would have enjoyed the pleasure of refusing him."

"I am not mistress of that kind of finesse," said Laura coldly.

"You are a woman," replied her father coolly, "and don't need any
lessons. It would be well for us both if you would exert your native
power in this case."

Laura glanced keenly at her father and asked quickly:

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. A word to the wise is sufficient."

Having thus indicated to his daughter that phase of Wall Street
tactics and principles that could be developed on the avenue, he took
himself off to the central point of operations.




CHAPTER V

THE STORM THREATENING



Laura had a better motive than that suggested by her father for
wishing to lead Mr. Goulden to commit himself, for as far as she could
love any one beyond herself she loved him, and she also realized fully
that he could continue to her all that her elegant and expensive
tastes craved. Notwithstanding her show of maidenly pride and reserve,
she was ready enough to do as she had been bidden. Mr. Allen guessed
as much. Indeed, as was quite natural, his wife was the type of the
average woman to his mind, only he believed that she was a little
cleverer in these matters than the majority. The manner in which she
had "hooked" him made a deep and lasting impression on his memory.

But Mr. Goulden was a wary fish. He had no objection to being hooked
if the conditions were all right, and until satisfied as to these he
would play around at a safe distance. As he saw Mr. Allen daily
getting into deeper water, he grew more cautious. His calls were not
quite so frequent. He managed never to be with Laura except in company
with others, and while his manner was very complimentary it was never
exactly lover-like. Therefore, all Laura's feminine diplomacy was in
vain, and that which a woman can say frankly the moment a man speaks,
she could scarcely hint. Moreover, Mr. Goulden was adroit enough to
chill her heart while he flattered her vanity. There was something
about his manner she could not understand, but it was impossible to
take offence at the polished gentleman.

Her father understood him better. He saw that Mr. Goulden had resolved
to settle the question on financial principles only.

As the chances diminished of securing him indirectly through Laura as
a prop to his tottering fortunes, he at last came to the conclusion to
try to interest him directly in his speculation, feeling sure if he
could control only a part of Mr. Goulden's large means and credit, he
could carry his operation through successfully.

Mr. Goulden warily listened to the scheme, warily weighed it, and
concluded within the brief compass of Mr. Allen's explanation to have
nothing to do with it. But his outward manner was all deference and
courteous attention.

At the end of Mr. Allen's rather eager and rose-colored statements, he
replied in politest and most regretful tones that he "was very sorry
he could not avail himself of so promising an opening, but in fact, he
was 'in deep' himself--carrying all he could stand up under very well,
and was rather in the borrowing than in the lending line at present."

Keen Mr. Allen saw through all this in a moment, and his face flushed
angrily in spite of his efforts at self-control. Muttering something
to the effect:

"I thought I would give you a chance to make a good thing," he bade a
rather abrupt "good-morning."

As the pressure grew heavier upon him he was led to do a thing the
suggestion of which a few weeks previously he would have regarded as
an insult. Mrs. Allen had a snug little property of her own, which had
been secured to her on first mortgages, and in bonds that were quiet
and safe. These her husband held in trust for her, and now pledged
them as collateral on which to borrow money to carry through his
gigantic operation. In respect to part of this transaction, Mrs. Allen
was obliged to sign a paper which might have revealed to her the
danger involved, but she languidly took the pen, yawned, and signed
away the result of her father's long years of toil without reading a
line.

"There," she said, "I hope you will not bother me about business
again. Now in regard to this party--" and she was about to enter into
an eager discussion of all the complicated details, when her husband,
interrupting, said:

"Another time, my dear--I am very much pressed by business at
present."

"Oh, business, nothing but business," whined his wife. "You never have
time to attend to me or your family."

But Mr. Allen was out of hearing of the querulous tones before the
sentence was finished.

Of course he never meant that his wife should lose a cent, and to
satisfy his conscience, and impressed by his danger, he resolved that
as soon as he was out of this quaking morass of speculation he would
settle on his wife and each daughter enough to secure them in wealth
through life, and arrange it in such a way that no one could touch the
principal.

The large sum that he now secured eased up matters and helped him
greatly, and affairs began to wear a brightening aspect. He felt sure
that the stock he had invested in was destined to rise in time, and
indeed it already gave evidences of buoyancy. He noticed with an
inward chuckle that Mr. Goulden began to call a little oftener. He was
the best financial barometer in Wall Street.

But the case would require the most adroit and delicate management for
weeks still, and this Mr. Allen could have given. Success also
depended on a favorable state of the money market, and a good degree
of stability and quietness throughout the financial world. Political
changes in Europe, a war in Asia, heavy failures in Liverpool, London,
or Paris, might easily spoil all. Reducing Mr. Allen's vast
complicated operation to its final analysis, he had simply bet several
millions--all he had--that nothing would happen throughout the world
that could interfere with a scheme so problematical that the chances
could scarcely be called even.

But gambling is occasionally successful, and it began to look as if
Mr. Allen would win his bet; and so he might had nothing happened. The
world was quiet enough, remarkably quiet, considering the
superabundance of explosive elements everywhere.

The financial centres seethed on as usual, like a witch's caldron, but
there were no infernal ebullitions in the form of "Black Fridays." The
storm that threatened to wreck Mr. Allen was no wide, sweeping
tempest, but rather one of those little local whirlwinds that
sometimes in the west destroy a farm or township.

For the last few weeks Mr. Fox had quietly watched the game, matured
his plans, and secured his proof in the best legal form. He now
concluded it was time to act, as he believed Mr. Allen to be in his
power. So one morning he coolly walked into that gentleman's office,
closed the door, and took a seat. Mr. Allen looked up with an
expression of surprise and annoyance on his face. He instinctively
disliked Mr. Fox, as a lion might be irritated by a cat, and the
instinctive enmity was all the stronger because of a certain family
likeness. But Mr. Allen's astuteness had nothing mean or cringing in
it, while Mr. Fox heretofore had been a sort of Uriah Heep to him.
Therefore his surprise and annoyance at his new role of cool
confidence.

"Well, sir," said he, rather impatiently, returning to his writing, as
a broad hint that communications must be brief if made at all.

"Mr. Allen," said Mr. Fox, in that clear-cut, decisive tone, that
betokens resolute purpose, and a little anger also "I must request you
to give me your undivided attention for a little time, and surely what
I am about to say is important enough to make it worth the while."

Though Mr. Allen flushed angrily, he knew that his clerk would not
employ such a tone and manner without reason, so he raised his head
and looked steadily at his unwelcome visitor and again said briefly:

"Well, sir?"

"I wish, in the first place," said Mr. Fox, thinking to begin with the
least important exaction, and gradually reach, a climax in his
extortion, "I wish permission to pay my addresses to your daughter
Miss Edith."

Knowing nothing of a father's pride and affection, he had unwittingly
brought in the climax first.

The angry flush deepened on Mr. Allen's face, but he still managed to
control himself, and to remember that the father of three pretty
daughters must expect some scenes like these, and that the only thing
to do was to get rid of the objectionable suitors as civilly as
possible. He was also too much of an American to put on any of the
high-stepping airs of the European aristocracy. Here it is simply one
sovereign proposing for the daughter of another, and generally the
young people practically arrange it all before asking any consent in
the case. After all, Mr. Fox had only paid his daughter the highest
compliment in his power, and if any other of his clerks had made a
similar request he would probably have given as kind and delicate a
refusal as possible. It was because he disliked Mr. Fox, and
instinctively gauged his character, that he said with a short, dry
laugh:

"Come, Mr. Fox, you are forgetting yourself. You have been a useful
employe" in my store. If you feel that you should have more salary,
name what will satisfy you, and I will consult my partners, and try
and arrange it."--"There," thought he, "if he can't take that hint as
to his place, I shall have to give him a kick." But both surprise and
anger began to get the better of him when Mr. Fox replied:

"I must really beg your closer attention; I said nothing of increased
salary. You will soon see that is no object with me now. I asked your
permission to pay my addresses to your daughter."

"I decline to give it," said Mr. Allen, harshly, "and if I hear any
more of this nonsense I will discharge you from my employ."

"Why?" was the quiet response, yet spoken with the intensity of
passion.

"Because I never would permit my daughter to marry a man in your
circumstances, and, if you will have it, you are not the style of a
man I would wish to take into my family."

"If a man who was worth a million asked for your daughter's hand would
you answer him in this manner?"

"Perhaps not," said Mr. Allen, with another of his short, dry laughs,
which expressed little save irritation, "but you have my answer as
respects yourself."

"I am not so sure of that," was the bold retort. "I am practically
worth a million--indeed several millions to you, as you are now
situated. You have talked long enough in the dark, Mr. Allen. For some
time back there have been in your importations violations of the
revenue laws. I have only to give the facts in my possession to the
proper authorities and the government would legally claim from you a
million of dollars, of which I should get half. So you see that I am
positively worth five hundred thousand, and to you I am worth a
million with respect to this item alone."

Mr. Allen sprang excitedly to his feet. Mr. Fox coolly got up and
edged toward the door, which he had purposely left unlatched.

"Moreover," continued Mr. Fox, in his hard metallic voice, "in view of
your other operations in Wall Street, which I know all about, the loss
of a million would involve the loss of all you have."

Mr. Fox now had his hand on the door-knob, and Mr. Allen was glaring
at him as if purposing to rush upon him and rend him to pieces.

Standing in the passageway, Mr. Fox concluded, in a low, meaning tone:

"You had better make terms with me within twenty-four hours."

And the door closed sharply, reminding one of the shutting of a steel
trap.

Mr. Allen sank suddenly back in his chair and stared at the closed
door, looking as if he were a prisoner and all escape cut off.

He seemed to be in a lethargy or under a partial paralysis; he slowly
and weakly rubbed his head with his hand, as if vaguely conscious that
the trouble was there.

Gradually the stupor began to pass off, his blood to circulate, and
his mind to realize the situation.

Rising feebly, as if a sudden age had fallen, on him, he went to the
door and gave orders that he must not be disturbed, and then sat down
to think. Half an hour later he sent for his lawyer, stated the case
to him, enjoined secrecy, and asked him to see Fox, hoping that it
might be a case of mere blackmailing bravado. Keen as Mr. Allen's
lawyer was, he had more than his match in the astute Mr. Fox. Moreover
the latter had everything in his favor. There had been a slight
infringement of the revenue laws, and though involving but small loss
to the government, the consequences were the same. The invoice would
be confiscated as soon as the facts were known. Mr. Fox had secured
ample proof of this.

Mr. Allen might be able to prove that there was no intention to
violate the law, as indeed there had not been. In fact, he had left
those matters to his subordinates, and they had been a little
careless, averaging matters, contenting themselves with complying with
the general intent of the law, rather than, with painstaking care,
conforming to its letter. Bat the law is very matter-of-fact, and can
be excessively literal when money is to be made by those who live by
enforcing or evading it, as may suit them. Mr. Fox could carry his
case, if he pressed it, and secure his share of the plunder. On
account of a very slight loss, Mr. Allen might be compelled to lose a
million.

Before the day's decline the lawyer had asked Mr. Fox to take no
further steps, stating vaguely that Mr. Allen would look into the
matter, and would not be unreasonable.

A sardonic grin gave a momentary lurid hue to Mr. Fox's sallow face.
Knowing the game to be in his own hands, he could quietly bide his
time; so, assuming a tone of much moderation and dignity, he replied,
he had no wish to be hard, and could be reasonable also. "But," added
he, in a meaning tone, "there must be no double work in this matter.
Mr. Allen must see what I am worth to him--nothing could be plainer.
His best policy now is to act promptly and liberally toward me, for I
pledge you my word that if I see any disposition to evade my
requirements I will blow out the bottom of everything," and a snaky
glitter in his small black eyes showed how remorselessly he could
scuttle the ship bearing Mr. Allen's fortunes.

A speedy investigation showed Mr. Fox's fatal power, and Mr. Allen's
partners were for paying him off, but when they found that he exacted
an interest in the business that quite threw them into the background,
they were indignant and inclined to fight it out. Mr. Allen could not
tell them that he was in no condition to fight. If his financial
status had been the same as some weeks previously, he would rather
have lost the million than have listened one moment to Mr. Fox's
repulsive conditions, but now to risk litigation and commercial
reputation on one hand, and total ruin on the other, was an abyss from
which he shrank back appalled.

His only resource was to temporize, both with his partners and Mr.
Fox, and so gain time, hoping that the Wall Street scheme, that had
caused so much evil, might also cure it. Of course he could not tell
his partners how he was situated. The slightest breath of suspicion
might cause the evenly balanced scales in which hung all chances to
hopelessly decline. The speculation now promised well.

If he could only keep things quiet a little longer--

Edith must help him. Calling her into the library after dinner, he
asked:

"Has Mr. Fox called lately?"

"No, sir, not for some little time."

"Will you oblige me by seeing him and being civil if he calls again?"
"Why, papa, I thought you did not wish me to see him."

"Circumstances have altered since then. Is he very disagreeable to
you?"

"Well, papa, I have scarcely thought of him, but to tell you the truth
when he has been here on business I have involuntarily thought of a
mousing cat, or the animal he is named after on the scent of a hen-roost. But of course I can be civil or even polite to him if you wish
it."

A spasm of pain crossed her father's face and he put his hand hastily
to his head, a frequent act of late. He rose and took a few turns up
and down the room, muttering:

"Curse it all, I must tell her. Half knowledge is always dangerous,
and is sure to lead to blunders, and there must be no blunders now."

Stopping abruptly before his daughter, he said, "He has proposed for
your hand."

An expression of disgust flitted across Edith's face, and she replied
quickly:

"We both have surely but one answer to such a proposition from
_him_."

"Edith, you seem to have more sense in regard to business and such
matters than most young ladies. I must now test you, and it is for you
to show whether you are a woman or a shallow-brained girl. I am sorry
to tell you these things. They are not suited to your age or sex, but
there is no help for it," and he explained how he was situated.

Edith listened with paling cheek, dilating eyes, and parting lips, but
still with rising courage and a growing purpose to help her father.

"I do not wish you to marry this villain," he continued. "Heaven
forbid!" (Not that Mr. Allen referred this or any other matter to
Heaven; it was only a strong way of expressing his own disapproval.)
"But we must manage to temporize and keep this man at bay till I can
extricate myself from my difficulties. As soon as I stand on firm
ground I will defy him."

To Edith, with her standard of morality, the course indicated by her
father seemed eminently filial and praiseworthy. The thought of
marrying Mr. Fox made her flesh creep, but a brief flirtation was
another affair. She had flirted not a little in her day for the mere
amusement of the thing, and with the motives her father had presented
she could do it in this case as if it were an act of devotion. Of the
pure and lofty morality of the Bible she had as little idea as a
Persian houri, and rugged Roman virtue could not develop in the social
atmosphere in which the Allens lived. It was with a clear conscience
that she resolved to beguile Mr. Fox, and signified as much to her
father.

"Play him off," said this model father, "as Mr. Goulden does Laura.
Curse him!--how I would like to slam the front door in his face. But
my time may come yet," he added with set teeth.

That morning Mr. Allen sent for Mr. Fox, as he dared brave him no
longer without some definite show of yielding, in order to keep back
his fatal disclosures. With a dignity and formality scarcely in
keeping with his fear and the import of his words, he said:

"I have considered your statements, sir, and admit their weight. As I
informed you through my lawyer, I wish to be reasonable and hope you
intend to be the same, for these are very grave matters. In regard to
my daughter, you have my permission to call upon her as do her other
gentleman friends, and she will receive you. In this land, that is all
the vantage-ground a _gentleman_ asks, as indeed it is all that can be
granted. I am not the King of Dahomey or the Shah of Persia, and able
to give my daughters where interest may dictate. A lady's inclination
must be consulted. But I give you the permission you ask; you may pay
your addresses to my daughter. You could scarcely ask a father to say
more."

"It matters little to me what you or others say, but much what they
do. My action shall be based upon yours and Miss Edith's. I have
learned in your employ the value of promptness in all business
matters. I hope you understand me."

"I do, sir, but there can be no indecent haste in these matters. In
gaining the important position--in assuming the relations you desire--there should be some show of dignity, otherwise society would be
disgusted, and you would lose the respect which should follow such
vast acquirements."

"Where I can secure the whole cloth, I shall not worry about the
selvage of etiquette and passing opinion," was Mr. Fox's cynical
reply.

Mr. Allen could not prevent an expression of intense disgust from
coming out upon his face, and he replied with some heat:

"Well, sir, something is due to my own position, and I cannot treat my
daughter like a bale of cloth, as you suggest in your figurative
speech. However," he added, warily, "I will take the necessary steps
as soon as possible, and will trespass upon your time no longer."

As Mr. Fox glided out of the office with his sardonic smile, Mr. Allen
felt for the moment that he would rather become bankrupt than make
terms with him.

Meanwhile the month of February was rapidly passing, though each day
was an age of anxiety and suspense to Mr. Allen. The tension was too
much for him, and he evidently aged and failed under it. He drank more
than he ate, and his temper was very variable. From his wife he only
received chidings and complaints that in his horrid "mania for
business" he was neglecting her and his family in general. She could
never get him to sit down and talk sensibly of the birthday and debut
party that was now so near. He would always say, testily, "Manage it
to suit yourselves."

Laura and Zell were too much wrapped up in their own affairs to give
much thought to anything else. But Edith, of late, understood her
father and felt deeply for him. One evening finding him sitting
dejectedly alone in the library after dinner, she said:

"Why go on with this party, papa? I am sure I am ready to give it up
if it will be any relief to you."

The heart of this strong, confident man of the world was sore and
lonely. For perhaps the first time he felt the need of support and
sympathy. He drew his beautiful daughter, whom thus far he had
scarcely more than admired, down upon his lap and buried his face upon
her shoulder. A breath of divine impulse swept aside for a moment the
stifling curtains of his sordid life, and he caught a glimpse of the
large happy realm of love.

"And would you really give up anything for the sake of your old
father?" he asked in a low tone.

"Everything," cried Edith, much moved by the unusual display of
affection and feeling on the part of her father.

"The others would not," said he bitterly.

"Indeed, papa, I think they would if they only knew. We would all do
anything to see you your old jovial self again. Give up this wretched
struggle; tell Mr. Fox to do his worst. I am not afraid of being poor;
I am sure we could work up again."

"You know nothing about poverty," sighed her father. "When you are
down, the world that bowed at your feet will run over and trample on
you. I have seen it so often, but never thought of danger to me and
mine."

"But this party," said the practical Edith, "why not give this up? It
will cost a great deal."

"By no means give it up," said her father. "It may help me very much.
My credit is everything now. The appearance of wealth which such, a
display insures will do much to secure the wealth. I am watched day
and night, and must show no sign of weakness. Go on with the party and
make it as brilliant as possible. If I fail, two or three thousand
will make no difference, and it may help me to succeed. Whatever
strengthens my credit for the next few days is everything to me. My
stock is rising, only it is too slow. Things look better--if I could
only gain time. But I am very uneasy--my head troubles me," and he put
his hand to his head, and Edith remembered how often, she had seen him
do that of late.

"By the way," said he, abruptly, "tell me how you get on with Mr.
Fox."

"Oh, never mind about that now; do rest a little, mind and body."

"No, tell me," said her father sharply, showing how little control he
had over himself.

"Well, I think I have beaten him so far. He is very demonstrative, and
acts as if I belonged to him. Did I not manage to always meet him in
company with others, he would come at once to an open declaration. As
it is, I cannot prevent it much longer. He is coming this evening, and
I fear he will press matters. He seems to think that the asking is a
mere form, and that our extremity will leave no choice."

"You must avoid him a little longer. Come, we will go to the theatre,
and then you might be sick for a few days."

In a few minutes they were off, and were scarcely well away when Mr.
Fox, dressed in more style than he could carry gracefully, appeared.

"Miss Edith am out," said Hannibal loftily.

"I half believe you lie," muttered Mr. Fox, looking very black.

"Sarch de house, sah. It am a berry gentlemanly proceeding."

"Where has she gone? and whom did she go with?"

"I hab no orders to say," said Hannibal, looking fixedly at the
ceiling of the vestibule.

The knightly suitor turned on his heel, muttering, "They are playing
me false."

'Twas a pity, and he so true.

The next day Edith was sick and Mr. Allen's stock was rising. Hannibal
again sent Mr. Fox baffled away, but with a dangerous gleam in his
eyes.

On the following morning Mr. Allen found a note on his desk. His face
grew livid as he read it, and he often put his hand to his head. He
sat down and wrote to this effect, however:

"I am arranging the partnership matter as rapidly as possible. In
regard to my daughter you will ruin all if you show no more
discretion. I cannot compel her to marry you. You may make it
impossible to influence her in your favor. You have been well
received. What more can you ask? A matter of this kind must be
arranged delicately."

Mr. Fox pondered over this with a peculiarly foxy expression. "It
sounds plausible. If I only thought he was true," soliloquized this
embodiment of truth.

Mr. Allen's stock was higher, and Mr. Fox watched the rise grimly, but
he saw Edith, who was all smiles and graciousness, and gave him a
verbal invitation to her birthday-party which was to take place early
in the following week.

The fellow had not a little vanity, and was insnared, his suspicions
quieted for the time. Valuing money himself supremely, it seemed most
rational that father and daughter should regard him as the most
eligible young man in the city.

Edith's friends, and Gus in particular, were rather astonished at the
new-comer. Laura was frigid and remonstrant, Zell and Mr. Van Dam
satirical, but Edith wilfully tossed her head and said he was clever
and well off, and she liked him well enough to talk to him a little.
Society had made her a good actress. Meanwhile on the Tuesday
following (and this was Friday) the long expected party would take
place.




CHAPTER VI

THE WRECK



On Saturday Mr. Allen's stock was rising, and he ventured to sell a
little in a quiet way. If he "unloaded" rapidly and openly, he would
break down the market.

Mr. Fox watched events uneasily. Mr. Goulden grew genial and more
pronounced in his attentions. Gus, on Saturday, showed almost as much
solicitude for a decisively favorable answer as did Mr. Fox, if the
language of his eyes meant anything; but Edith played him and Mr. Fox
off against each other so adroitly that they were learning to hate
each other as cordially as they agreed in admiring her. Though she
inclined in her favor to Mr. Fox, he was suspicious from nature, and
annoyed at never being able to see her alone.

As before, they were at cards together in the library, and Edith went
for a moment into the parlor to get something. With the excuse of
obtaining it for her, Mr. Fox followed, and the moment they were alone
he seized her hand and pressed a kiss upon it. An angry flush came
into her face, but by a great effort she so far controlled herself as
to put her finger to her lips and point to the library, as if her
chief anxiety was that the attention of its occupants should not be
excited. Mr. Fox was delighted, though the angry flush was a little
puzzling. But if Edith permitted that she would permit more, and if
her only shrinking was lest others should see and know at present,
that could soon be overcome. These thoughts passed through his mind
while the incensed girl hastily obtained what she wished. But she,
feeling that her cheeks were too hot to return immediately to the
critical eyes in the library, passed out through the front parlor,
that she might have time to be herself again when she appeared. On
what little links destiny sometimes hangs!

That which changed all her future and that of others--that involving
life and death--occurred in the half moment occupied in her passing
out of the front parlor. The consequences she would feel most keenly,
terribly indeed at times, though she might never guess the cause. Her
act was a simple, natural one under the circumstances, and yet it told
Mr. Fox, in his cat-like watchfulness, that with all his cunning he
was being made a fool of. The moment Edith had passed around the
sliding door and thought herself unobserved, an expression of intense
disgust came out upon her expressive face, and with her lace
handkerchief she rubbed the hand he had kissed, as if removing the
slime of a reptile; and the large mirror at the further end of the
room had faithfully reflected the suggestive little pantomime. He saw
and understood all in a flash.

No words could have so plainly told her feeling toward him, and he was
one of those reptiles that could sting remorselessly in revenge. The
nature of the imposition practiced upon him, and the fact that it was
partially successful and might have been wholly so, cut him in the
sorest spot. He who thought himself able to cope with the shrewdest
and most artful had been overreached by a girl, and he saw at that
moment that her purpose to beguile him long enough for Mr. Allen to
extricate himself from his difficulties might have been successful. He
had had before an uneasy consciousness that he ought to act
decisively, and now he knew it.

"I'm a fool--a cursed fool," he muttered, speaking the truth for once,
"but it's not too late yet."

His resolution was taken instantly, but when Edith appeared after a
moment in the library, smiling and affable again, lie seemed in good
spirits also, but there was a steely, serpent-like glitter in his
eyes, that made him more repulsive than ever. But he stayed as late as
the others, knowing that it might be his last evening at the Allens'.
For Edith had said as part of her plan for avoiding Mr. Fox:

"We shall be too busy to see any company till Tuesday evening, and
then we hope to see you all."

Her sisters had assented, expecting that it would be the case.

With a refinement of malice, Mr. Fox sought to give general annoyance,
by a polite insolence toward the others, which they with difficulty
ignored, and a lover-like gallantry toward Edith, which was like
nettles to Gus, and nauseating to her; but she did not dare resent it.
He could at least torment her a little longer.

At last all were gone, and her father coming in from his club said,
drawing her aside:

"All right yet?"

"Yes, but I hope the ordeal will be over soon, or I shall die with
disgust, or, like some I have read of in fairy stories, be killed by a
poisonous breath."

"Keep it up a little longer, that is a good, brave girl. I think that
by another week we shall be able to defy him," said her father in
cheerful tones. "If my stock rises as much in the next few days as of
late, I shall soon be on _terra firma_."

If he had known that the mine beneath his feet was loaded, and the
fuse fired, his full face would have become as pale as it was florid
with wine and the dissipation of the evening.

Monday morning came--all seemed quiet. His stock was rising so rapidly
that he determined to hold on a little longer.

Goulden met and congratulated him, saying that he had bought a little
himself, and would take more if Mr. Allen would sell, as now he was
easier in funds than when spoken to before on the subject.

Mr. Allen replied rather coldly that he would not sell any stock that
day.

Mr. Fox kept out of the way, and quietly attended to his routine as
usual, but there was a sardonic smile on his face, as if he were
gloating over some secret evil.

Tuesday, the long-expected day that the Allens believed would make one
of the most brilliant epochs in their history, dawned in appropriate
brightness. The sun dissipated the few opposing clouds and declined in
undimmed splendor, and Edith, who alone had fears and forebodings,
took the day as an omen that the storm had passed, and that better
days than ever were coming.

Invitations by the hundred, with imposing monogram and coat-of-arms,
had gone out, and acceptances had flowed back in full current. All
that lavish expenditure could secure in one of the most luxurious
social centres of the world had been obtained without stint to make
the entertainment perfect.

But one knew that it might become like Belshazzar's feast.

The avalanche often hangs over the Alpine passes so that a loud word
will bring it whirling down upon the hapless traveller. The avalanche
of ruin, impending over Mr. Allen, was so delicately poised that a
whisper could precipitate its crushing weight, and that whisper had
been spoken.

All the morning of Tuesday his stock was rising, and he resolved that
on the morning after the party he would commence selling rapidly, and,
so far from being bankrupt, he would realize much of the profit that
he had expected.

But a rumor was floating through the afternoon papers that a well-known merchant, eminent in financial and social circles, had been
detected in violating the revenue laws, and that the losses which such
violation would involve to him would be immense. The stock market,
more sensitive than a belle's vanity, paused to see what it meant. One
of Mr. Allen's partners of the cloth house brought a paper to him. He
grew pale as he read it, put his hand suddenly to his head, but after
a moment seemingly found his voice and said:

"Could Fox have been so dastardly?"

His partner shrugged his shoulder as much as to say, "Fox could do
anything in that line."

Mr. Allen sent for Fox, but he could not be found. In the meantime the
stock market closed and the rise of his stock was evidently checked
for the moment.

By reason of the party, Mr. Allen had to return uptown, but he
arranged with his partner to remain and if anything new developed to
send word by special messenger.

By eight o'clock the Allen mansion on Fifth Avenue was all aglow with
light. By nine, carriages began to roll up to the awning that
stretched from the heavy arched doorway across the sidewalk, and
ladies that would soon glide through the spacious rooms in elegant
drapery, now seemed misshapen bundles in their wrapping, and gathered
up dresses as they hurried out of the publicity of the street. The
dressing-rooms where the spheroidal bundles were undergoing
metamorphose became buzzing centres of life.

Before the long pier glasses there was a marshalling of every charm,
real or borrowed (more correctly bought), in view of the hoped-for
conquests of the evening, and it would seem that not a few went on the
military maxim that success is often secured by putting on as bold a
front, and making as great and startling display, as possible. But as
fragrant, modest flowers usually bloom in the garden with gaudy,
scentless ones, so those inclined to be _bizarre_ made an excellent
foil for the refined and elegant, and thus had their uses. There is
little in the world that is not of value, looking at it from some
point of view.

In another apartment the opposing forces, if we may so style them,
were almost as eagerly investing themselves in--shall we say charms
also? or rather with the attributes of manhood? At any rate the
glasses seem quite as anxiously consulted in that room as in the
other. One might almost imagine them the magic mirrors of prophecy in
which anxious eyes caught a glimpse of coming fate. There were certain
youthful belles and beaux who turned away with open complacent smiles,
vanity whispering plainly to them of noble achievement in the parlors
below. There were others, perhaps not young, who turned away with
faces composed in the rigid and habitual lines of pride. They were
past learning anything from the mirror, or from any other source that
might reflect disparagingly upon them. Prejudice in their own favor
surrounded their minds as with a Chinese wall. Conceit had become a
disease with them, and those faculties that might have let in
wholesome, though unwelcome, truth were paralyzed.

But the majority turned away not quite satisfied--with an inward
foreboding that all was not as well as it might be--that critical eyes
would see ground for criticism. Especially was this true of those whom
Time's interfering fingers had pulled somewhat awry, even beyond the
remedy of art, and of those whose bank account, jewels, silks, etc.,
were not quite up to the standard of some others who might jostle them
in the crush. Realize, my reader, the anguish of a lady compelled to
stand by another lady wearing larger diamonds than her own, or more
point lace, or a longer train. What _will_ the world think, as under
the chandelier this painful contrast comes out? Such moments of deep
humiliation cause sleepless nights, and the next day result in bills
that become as crushing as criminal indictments to poor overworked
men. Under the impulse of such trying scenes as these, many a matron
has gone forth on Broadway with firm lips and eyes in which glowed
inexorable purpose, and placed the gems that would be mill-stones
about her husband's neck on the fat arms or fingers that might have
helped him forward. There are many phases of heroism, but if you
want your breath quite taken away, go to Tiffany's, and see some
large-souled woman, who will not even count the cost or realize the
dire consequences--see her, like some martyr of the past, who would
show to the world the object of his faith though the heavens fell,
march to the counter, select the costliest, and say in tones of
majesty:

"Send the bill to my husband!"

Oh, acme of faith! The martyrs knew that the Almighty was equal to
the occasion. She knows that her husband is not; yet she trusts, or,
what is the same thing here, gets trusted. Men allied to such women
are soon lifted up to--attics. It is still true that great deeds bring
humanity nearer heaven!

Therefore, my reader, deem it not trivial that I have paused so long
over the Allens' party. It is philosophical to trace great events and
phenomenal human action to their hidden causes.

There were also diffident men and maidens who descended into the
social arena of Mrs. Allen's parlors, as awkward swimmers venture into
deep water, but this is fleeting experience in fashionable life. And
we sincerely hope that some believed that the old divine paradox, "It
is more blessed to give than to receive," is as true in the drawing-room as when the contribution-box goes round, and proposed to enjoy
themselves by contributing to the enjoyment of others, and to see
nothing that would tempt to heroic conduct at Tiffany's the next day.

When the last finishing touches had been given, and maids and
hairdressers stood around in rapt politic breathlessness, and were
beginning to pass into that stage in which they might be regarded as
exclamation points, Mrs. Allen and her daughters swept away to take
their places at the head of the parlors in order to receive. They
liked the prelude of applause upstairs well enough, but then it was
only like the tuning of the instruments before the orchestra fairly
opens.

Mrs. Allen, as she majestically took her position, evidently belonged
to that class whom pride petrifies. Her self-complacency on such an
occasion was habitual, her coolness and repose those of a veteran. A
nervous creature upstairs with her family, excitement made her, under
the eye of society, so steady and self-controlled that she was like
one of the old French marshals who could plan a campaign under the
hottest fire. Her blue eyes grew quite brilliant and seemed to take in
everything. Some natural color shone where the cosmetics permitted,
and her form seemed to dilate with something more than the mysteries
of French modistes. Her manner and expression said:

"I am Mrs. Allen. We are of an old New York family. We are very, very
rich. This entertainment is immensely expensive and perfect in kind. I
defy criticism. I expect applause."

Of course this was all veiled by society's completest polish; but
still by a close observer it could be seen, just as a skilful sculptor
drapes a form, but leaves its outlines perfect.

Laura was the echo of her mother, modified by the element of youth.

Zell fairly blazed. What with sparkling jewelry, flaming cheeks,
flashing eyes, and words thrown off like scintillating sparks, she
suggested an exquisite July firework, burning longer than usual and
surprising every one. Admiration followed her like a torrent, and her
vanity dilated without measure as attention and compliments were
almost forced upon her, and yet it was frank, good-natured vanity, as
naturally to be expected in her case as a throng of gaudy poppies
where a handful of seed had been dropped. Zell's nature was a soil
where good or bad seed would grow vigorously.

Mr. Van Dam was never far off, and watched her with intent, gloating
eyes, saying in self-congratulation:

"What a delicious morsel she will make!" and adding his mite to the
general chorus of flattery by mild assertions like the following:

"Do you know that there is not a lady present that for a moment can
compare with you?"

"How delightfully frank he is!" thought Zell of her distinguished
admirer, who was as open as a quicksand that can swallow up anything
and leave not a trace on its surface. Edith was quite as beautiful as
Zell, but far less brilliant and pronounced. Though quiet and
graceful, she was not stately like Laura. Her full dark eyes were
lustrous rather than sparkling, and they dwelt shrewdly and
comprehendingly on all that was passing, and conveyed their
intelligence to a brain that was judging quite accurately of men and
things at a time when so many people "lose their heads."

Zell was intoxicated by the incense she received. Laura offered
herself so much that she was enshrouded in a thick cloud of
complacency all the time. Edith was told by the eyes and manner of
those around her that she was beautiful and highly favored by wealth
and position generally. But she knew this, as a matter of fact,
before, and did not mean to make a fool of herself on account of it.
These points thoroughly settled and quietly realized, she was in a
condition to go out of herself and enjoy all that was going on.

She was specially elated at this time also, as she had gathered from
her father's words that his danger was nearly over and that before the
week was out they could defy Mr. Fox, look forward to Europe and
bright voyaging generally.

Mr. Allen did not tell her his terrible fear that Mr. Fox had been a
little too prompt, and that crushing disaster might still be
impending. He had said to himself, "Let her and all of them make the
most of this evening. It may be the last of the kind that they will
enjoy."

The spacious parlors filled rapidly. If lavish expenditure and a large
brilliant attendance could insure their enjoyment, it was not wanting.
Flowers in fanciful baskets on the tables and in great banks on the
mantels and in the fireplaces deservedly attracted much attention and
praise, though the sum expended on their transient beauty was
appalling. Their delicious fragrance mingling with perfumes of
artificial origin suggested a like intermingling of the more delicate,
subtile, but genuine manifestations of character, and the graces of
mind and manner borrowed for the occasion.

The scene was very brilliant. There were marvellous toilets--dresses
not beginning as promptly as they should, perhaps, but seemingly
seeking to make up for this deficiency by elegance and costliness,
having once commenced. There was no economy in the train, if there had
been in the waist. Therefore gleaming shoulders, glittering diamonds,
the soft radiance of pearls, the sheen of gold, and lustrous eyes
aglow with excitement, and later in the evening, with wine, gave a
general phosphorescent effect to the parlors that Mrs. Allen
recognized, from long experience, as the sparkling crown of success.
So much elegance on the part of the ladies present would make the
party the gem of the season, and the gentlemen in dark dress made a
good black enamel setting.

There was a confused rustle of silks and a hum of voices, and now and
then a silvery laugh would ring out above these like the trill of a
bird in a breezy grove. Later, light airy music floated through the
rooms, followed by the rhythmic cadence of feet. A thinly clad
shivering little match-girl stopped on her weary tramp to her cellar
and caught glimpses of the scene through the oft-opening door and
between the curtains of the windows. It seemed to her that those
glancing forms were in heaven. Alas for this earthly paradise!

Mr. Fox, with characteristic malice, had managed that Mr. Allen and
perhaps the family should have, as his contribution to the
entertainment, the sickening dread which the news in the afternoon
papers would occasion. As the evening advanced he determined to accept
the invitation and watch the effect. He avoided Mr. Allen, and soon
gathered that Edith and the rest knew nothing of the impending blow.
Edith smiled graciously on him; she felt that, like the sun, she could
shine on all that night. But as, in his insolence, his attentions grew
marked, she soon shook him off by permitting Gus Elliot to claim her
for a waltz.

Mr. Fox glided around, Mephistopheles-like, gloating on the sinister
changes that he would soon occasion. He was to succeed even better
than he dreamed.

The evening went forward with music and dancing, discussing,
disparaging, flirting, and skirmishing, culminating in numbers and
brilliancy as some gorgeous flower might expand; and seemingly it
would have ended by the gay company's rustling departure like the
flower, as the varied colored petals drop away from the stem, had not
an event occurred which was like a rude hand plucking the flower in
its fullest bloom and tearing the petals away in mass.

The magnificent supper had just been demolished. Champagne had foamed
without stint, cause and symbol of the increasing but transient
excitement of the occasion. More potent wines and liquors, suggestive
of the stronger and deeper passions that were swaying the mingled
throng, had done their work, and all, save the utterly _blase_,
had secured that noble elevation which it is the province of these
grand social combinations to create. Even Mr. Allen regained his
habitual confidence and elevation as his waist-coat expanded under, or
rather over, those means of cheer and consolation which he had so long
regarded as the best panacea for earthly ills. The oppressive sense of
danger gave place to a consciousness of the warm, rosy present. Mr.
Fox and the custom-house seemed but the ugly phantoms of a past dream.
Was he not the rich Mr. Allen, the owner of this magnificent mansion,
the cornerstone of this superb entertainment? If by reason of wine he
saw a little double, he only saw double homage on every side. He heard
in men's tones, and saw in woman's glances, that any one who could pay
for his surroundings that night was no ordinary person. His wife
looked majestic as she swept through the parlors on the arm of one of
his most distinguished fellow-citizens. Through the library door he
could see Mr. Goulden leaning toward Laura and saying something that
made even her pale face quite peony-like. Edith, exquisite as a moss-rose, was about to lead off in the German in the large front parlor.
Zell was near him, the sparkling centre of a breezy, merry little
throng that had gathered round her. It seemed that all that he loved
and valued most was grouped around him in the guise most attractive to
his worldly eyes. In this moment of unnatural elation hope whispered,
"To-morrow you can sell your stock, and, instead of failing, increase
your vast fortune, and then away to new scenes, new pleasures, free
from the burden of care and fear." It was at that moment of false
confidence and pride, when in suggestive words descriptive of the
ancient tragedy of Belshazzar he "had drank wine and praised the gods
of gold and of silver" which he had so long worshipped, and which had
secured to him all that so dilated his soul with exultation, that he
saw the handwriting, not of shadowy fingers "upon the wall," but of
his partner, sent, as agreed, by a special messenger. With revulsion
and chill of fear he tore open the envelope and read:

"Pox has done his worst. We are out for a million--All will be in the
morning papers."

Even his florid, wine-inflamed cheeks grew pale, and he raised his
hand tremblingly to his head, and slowly lifted his eyes like a man
who dreads seeing something, but is impelled to look. The first object
they rested on was the sardonic, mocking face of Mr. Fox, who, ever on
the alert, had seen the messenger enter, and guessed his errand. The
moment Mr. Allen saw this hated visage, a sudden fury took possession
of him. He crushed the missive in his clenched fist, and took a hasty
stride of wrath toward his tormentor, stopped, put his hand again to
his head, a film came over his eyes, he reeled a second, and then fell
like a stone to the floor. The heavy thud of the fall, the clash of
the chandelier overhead, could be heard throughout the rooms above the
music and hum of voices, and all were startled. Edith in the very act
of leading off in the dance stood a second like an exquisite statue of
awed expectancy, and then Zell's shriek of fear and agony, "Father!"
brought her to the spot, and with wild, frightened eyes, and blanched
faces, the two girls knelt above the unconscious man, while the
startled guests gathered round in helpless curiosity.

The usual paralysis following sudden accident was brief on this
occasion, for there were two skilful physicians present, one of them
having long been the family attendant. Mrs. Allen and Laura, in a
half-hysterical state, stood clinging to each other, supported by Mr.
Goulden, as the medical gentlemen made a slight examination and
applied restoratives. After a moment they lifted their heads and
looked gravely and significantly at each other; then the family
adviser said:

"Mr. Allen had better be carried at once to his room, and the house
become quiet."

An injudicious guest asked in a loud whisper, "Is it apoplexy?"

Mrs. Allen caught the word, and with a stifled cry fainted dead away,
and was borne to her apartment in an unconscious state. Laura, who had
inherited Mrs. Allen's nervous nature, was also conveyed to her room,
laughing and crying in turns beyond control. Zell still knelt over her
father, sobbing passionately, while Edith, with her large eyes dilated
with fear, and her cheeks in wan contrast with the sunset glow they
had worn all the evening, maintained her presence of mind, and asked
Mr. Goulden, Mr. Van Dam, and Gus Elliot, to carry her father to his
room. They, much pleased in thus being singled out as special friends
of the family, officiously obeyed.

Poor Mr. Allen was borne away from the pinnacle of his imaginary
triumph as if dead, Zell following, wringing her hands, and with
streaming eyes; but Edith reminded one of some wild, timid creature of
the woods, which, though in an extremity of danger and fear, is alert
and watchful, as if looking for some avenue of escape. Her searching
eyes turned almost constantly toward the family physician, and he as
persistently avoided meeting them.




CHAPTER VII

AMONG THE BREAKERS



After another brief but fuller examination of Mr. Allen in the privacy
of his own room, Dr. Mark went down to the parlors. The guests were
gathered in little groups, talking in low, excited whispers; those who
had seen the reading of the note and Mr. Allen's strange action
gaining brief eminence by their repeated statements of what they had
witnessed and their varied surmises. The role of commentator, if
mysterious human action be the text, is always popular, and as this
explanatory class are proverbially gifted in conjecture, there were
many theories of explanation. Some of the guests had already the good
taste to prepare for departure, and when Dr. Mark appeared from the
sick room, and said:

"Mr. Allen and the family will be unable to appear again this evening.
I am under the painful necessity of saying that this occasion, which
opened so brilliantly, must now come to a sad and sudden end. I will
convey your adieux and expressions of sympathy to the family"--there
was a general move to the dressing-rooms. The doctor was overwhelmed
for a moment with expressions of sympathy, that in the main were felt,
and well questioned by eager and genuine curiosity, for Fox had
dropped some mysterious hints during the evening, which had been
quietly circulating. But Dr. Mark was professionally non-committal,
and soon excused himself that he might attend to his patient.

The house, that seemingly a moment before was ablaze with light and
resounding with fashionable revelry, suddenly became still, and grew
darker and darker, as if the shadowing wings of the dreaded angel were
drawing very near. In the large, elegant rooms, where so short a time
before gems and eyes had vied in brightness, old Hannibal now walked
alone with silent tread and a peculiarly awed and solemn visage. One
by one he extinguished the lights, leaving but faint glimmers here and
there, that were like a few forlorn hopes struggling against the
increasing darkness of disaster. Under his breath he kept repeating
fervently, "De Lord hab mercy," and this, perhaps, was the only
intelligent prayer that went up from the stricken household in this
hour of sudden danger and alarm. Though we believe the Divine Father
sees the dumb agony of His creatures, and pities them, and often when
they, like the drowning, are grasping at straws of human help and
cheer, puts out His strong hand and holds them up; still it is in
accordance with His just law that those who seek and value His
friendship find it and possess it in adversity. The height of the
storm is a poor time and the middle of the angry Atlantic a poor place
in which to provide life-boats.

The Allens had never looked to Heaven, save as a matter of form. They
had a pew in a fashionable church, but did not very regularly occupy
it, and such attendance had done scarcely anything to awaken or
quicken their spiritual life. They came home and gossiped about the
appearance of their "set," and perhaps criticised the music, but one
would never have dreamed from manner or conversation that they had
gone to a sacred place to worship God in humility. Indeed, scarcely a
thought of Him seemed to have dwelt in their minds. Religious faith
had never been of any practical help, and now in their extremity it
seemed utterly intangible, and in no sense to be depended on.

When Mrs. Allen recovered from her swoon, and Laura had gained some
self-control, they sent for Dr. Mark, and eagerly suggested both their
hope and fear.

"It's only a fainting fit, doctor, is it not? Will he not soon be
better?"

"My dear madam, we will do all we can," said the doctor, with that
professional solemnity which might accompany the reading of a death
warrant, "but it is my painful duty to tell you to prepare for the
worst. Your husband has an attack of apoplexy."

He had scarcely uttered the words before she was again in a swoon, and
Laura also lost her transient quietness. Leaving his assistant and
Mrs. Allen's maid to take care of them, he went back to his graver
charge.

Mr. Allen lay insensible on his bed, and one could hardly realize that
he was a dying man. His face was as flushed and full as it often
appeared on his return from his club. To the girls' unpracticed ears,
his loud, stentorous breathing only indicated heavy sleep. But neither
they nor the doctor could arouse him, and at last the physician met
Edith's questioning eyes, and gravely and significantly shook his
head. Though she had borne up so steadily and quietly, he felt more
for her than for any of the others.

"Oh, doctor! can't you save him?" she pleaded.

"You must save him," cried Zell, her eyes flashing through her tears,
"I would be ashamed, if I were a physician, to stand over a strong
man, and say helplessly, 'I can do nothing.' Is this all your boasted
skill amounts to? Either do something at once or let us get some one
who will."

"Your feelings to-night, Miss Zell," said the doctor quietly, "will
excuse anything you say, however wild and irrational. I am doing
all--"

"I am not wild or unreasonable," cried Zell. "I only demand that my
father's life be saved." Then starting up she threw off a shawl and
stood before Dr. Mark in the dress she had worn in the evening, that
seemed a sad mockery in that room of death. Her neck and arms were
bare, and even the cool, experienced physician was startled by her
wonderful beauty and strange manner. Her white throat was convulsed,
her bosom heaved tumultuously, and on her face was the expression that
might have rested on the face of a maiden like herself centuries
before, when shown the rack and dungeon, and told to choose between
her faith and her life.

But after a moment she extended her white rounded arm toward him and
said steadily:

"I have read that if the blood of a young, vigorous person is infused
into another who is feeble and old, it will give renewed strength and
health. Open a vein in my arm. Save his life if you take mine."

"You are a brave, noble girl," said Dr. Mark, with much emotion,
taking the extended hand and pressing it tenderly, "but you are asking
what is impossible in this case. Do you not remember that I am an old
friend of your father's? It grieves me to the heart that his attack is
so severe that I fear all within the reach of human skill is vain."

Zell, who was a creature of impulse, and often of noblest impulse, as
we have seen, now reacted into a passion of weeping, and sank
helplessly on the floor. She was capable of heroic action, but she had
no strength for woman's lot, which is so often that of patient
endurance.

Edith came and put her arms around her, and with gentle, soothing
words, as if speaking to a child, half carried her to her room, where
she at last sobbed herself asleep.

For another hour Edith and the doctor watched alone, and the dying man
sank rapidly, going down into the darkness of death without word or
sign.

"Oh that he would speak once more!" moaned Edith.

"I fear he will not, my dear," said the doctor, pitifully.

A little later Mr. Allen was motionless, like one who has been touched
in unquiet sleep and becomes still. Death had touched him, and a
deeper sleep had fallen upon him.

One of the great daily bulletins will go to press in an hour. A
reporter jumps into a waiting hack and is driven rapidly uptown.

While the city sleeps preparations must go on in the markets for
breakfast, and in printing rooms for that equal necessity in our day,
the latest news. Therefore all night long there are dusky figures
flitting hither and thither, seeing to it that when we come down in
gown and slippers, our steak and the world's gossip be ready.

The breakfast of the Gothamites was furnished abundantly with _sauce
piquante_ on the morning of the last day of February, for Hannibal
had shaken his head ominously, and wiped away a few honest tears,
before he could tremulously say to the eager reporter:

"Mr. Allen--hab--just--died."

Gathering what few particulars he could, and imagining many more, the
reporter was driven back even more rapidly, full of the elation of a
man who has found a good thing and means to make the most of it. Mr.
Allen himself was not of importance to him, but news about him was.
And this fact crowning the story of his violation of the revenue law
and his prospective loss of a million, would make a brisk breeze in
the paper to which he was attached, and might waft him a little
further on as an enterprising news-gatherer.

It certainly would be the topic of the day on all lips, and poor Mr.
Allen might have plumed himself on this if he had known it, for few
people, unless they commit a crime, are of sufficient importance to be
talked of all day In large, busy New York. In the world's eyes Mr.
Allen had committed a crime. Not that they regarded his stock gambling
as such. Multitudes of church members in good and regular standing
were openly engaged in this. Nor could the slight and unintentional
violation of the revenue law be regarded as such, though so grave in
its consequences. But he had faltered and died when he should not have
given way. What the world demands is success: and sometimes a devil
may secure this where a true man cannot. The world regarded Mr. Van
Dam and Mr. Goulden as very successful men.

Mr. Fox also had secured success by one adroit wriggle--we can
describe his mode of achieving greatness by no better phrase. He was
destined to receive half a million for his treachery to his employers.
During the war, when United States securities were at their worst;
when men, pledged to take them, forfeited money rather than do so, Mr.
Allen had lent the government millions, because he believed in it,
loved it, and was resolved to sustain it. That same government now
rewards him by putting it in the power of a dishonest clerk to ruin
him, and gives him $500,000 for doing so. Thus it resulted; for we are
compelled to pass hastily over the events immediately following Mr.
Allen's death. His partners made a good fight, showed that there was
no intention to violate the law, and that it was often difficult to
comply with it literally--that the sum claimed to be lost to the
government was ridiculously disproportionate to the amount
confiscated. But it was all in vain. There was the letter of the law,
and there were Mr. Fox and his associates in the custom-house, "all
honorable men," with hands itching to clutch the plunder.

But before this question was settled the fate of the stock operation
in Wall Street was most effectually disposed of. As soon as Mr.
Goulden heard of Mr. Allen's death, he sold at a slight loss all he
had; but his action awakened suspicion, and it was speedily learned
that the rise was due mainly to Mr. Allen's strong pushing, and the
inevitable results followed. As poor Mr. Allen's remains were lowered
into the vault, his stock in Wall Street was also going down with a
run.

In brief, in the absence of the master's hand, and by reason of his
embarrassments, there were general wreck and ruin in his affairs; and
Mrs. Allen was soon compelled to face the fact, even more awful to her
than her husband's death, that not a penny remained of his colossal
fortune, and that she had yawningly signed away all of her own means.
But she could only wring her hands in view of these blighting truths,
and indulge in half-uttered complaints against her husband's "folly,"
as she termed it. From the first her grief had been more emotional
than deep, and her mind, recovering in part its usual poise, had begun
to be much occupied with preparations for a grand funeral, which was
carried out to her taste. Then arose deeply interesting questions as
to various styles of mourning costume, and an exciting vista of
dressmaking opened before her. She was growing into quite a serene and
hopeful frame when the miserable and blighting facts all broke upon
her. When there was little of seeming necessity to do, and there were
multitudes to do for her, Mrs. Allen's nerves permitted no small
degree of activity. But now, as it became certain that she and her
daughters must do all themselves, her hands grew helpless. The idea of
being poor was to her like dying. It was entering on an experience so
utterly foreign and unknown that it seemed like going to another world
and phase of existence, and she shrank in pitiable dread from it.

Laura had all her mother's helpless shrinking from poverty, but with
another and even bitterer ingredient added. Mr. Goulden was extremely
polite, exquisitely sympathetic, and in terms as vague as elegantly
expressed had offered to do anything (but nothing in particular) in
his power to show his regard for the family and his esteem for his
departed friend. He was very sorry that business would compel him to
leave town for some little time--

Laura had the spirit to interrupt him saying, "It matters little, sir.
There are no further Wall Street operations to be carried on here.
Invest your time and friendship where it will pay."

Mr. Goulden, who plumed himself that he would slip out of this bad
matrimonial speculation with such polished skill that he would leave
only flattering regret and sighs behind, under the biting satire of
Laura's words suddenly saw what a contemptible creature is the man
whom selfish policy, rather than honor and principle, governs. He had
brains enough to comprehend himself and lose his self-respect then and
there, as he went away tingling with shame from the girl whom he had
wronged, but who had detected his sordid meanness. Sigh after him! She
would ever despise him, and that hurt Mr. Goulden's vanity severely.
He had come very near loving Laura Allen, about as near perhaps as he
ever would come to loving any one, and it had cost him a little more
to give her up than to choose between a good and a bad venture on the
Street. With compressed lips he had said to himself--"No gushing
sentiment. In carrying out your purpose to be rich you must marry
wealth." Therefore he had gone to make what he meant to be his final
call, feeling quite heroic in his steadfastness--his loyalty to
purpose, that is, himself. But as he recalled during his homeward walk
her glad welcome, her wistful, pleading looks, and then, as she
realized the truth, her pain, her contempt, and her meaning words of
scorn, his miserable egotism was swept aside, and for the first time
the selfish man saw the question from her standpoint, and as we have
said he was not so shallow but that he saw and loathed himself. He
lost his self-respect as he never had done before, and therefore to a
certain extent his power ever to be happy again.

Small men, full of petty conceit, can recover from any wounds upon
their vanity, but proud and large-minded men have a self-respect, even
though based upon questionable foundation. It is essential to them,
and losing it they are inwardly wretched. As soldiers carry the
painful scars of some wounds through life, so Mr. Goulden would find
that Laura's words had left a sore place while memory lasted.

Mr. Van Dam quite disarmed Edith's suspicions and prejudices by being
more friendly and intimate with Zell than ever, and the latter was
happy and exultant in the fact, saying, with much elation, that her
friend was "not a mercenary wretch, like Mr. Goulden, but remained
just as true and kind as ever."

It was evident that this attention and show of kindness to the warm-hearted girl made a deep impression and greatly increased Mr. Van
Dam's power over her. But Edith's suspicion and dislike began to
return as she saw more of the manner and spirit of the man. She
instinctively felt that he was bad and designing.

One day she quite incensed Zell, who was chanting his praises, by
saying:

"I haven't any faith in him. What has he done to show real friendship
for us? He comes here only to amuse himself with you; Gus Elliot is
the only one who has been of any help."

But Edith had her misgivings about Gus also. Now, in her trouble and
poverty, his weakness began to reveal itself in a new and repulsive
light. In fact, that exquisitely fine young gentleman loved Edith well
enough to marry her, but not to work for her. That was a sacrifice
that he could not make for any woman. Though out of his natural
kindness and good-nature he felt very sorry for her, and wanted to
help and pet her, he had been shown his danger so clearly that he was
constrained and awkward when with her, for, to tell the truth, his
father had taken him aside and said:

"Look here, Gus. See to it that you don't entangle yourself with Miss
Allen, now her father has failed. She couldn't support you now, and
you never can support even yourself. If you would go to work like a
man--but one has got to be a man to do that. It seems true, as your
mother says, that you are of too fine clay for common uses. Therefore,
don't make a fool of yourself. You can't keep up your style on a
pretty face, and you must not wrong the girl by making her think you
can take care of her. I tell you plainly, I can't bear another ounce
added to my burden, and how long I shall stand up under it as it is, I
can't tell."

Gus listened with a sulky, injured air. He felt that his father never
appreciated him as did his mother and sisters, and indeed society at
large. Society to Gus was the ultra-fashionable world of which he was
one of the shining lights. The ladies of the family quite restored his
equanimity by saying:

"Now see here, Gus, don't dream of throwing yourself away on Edith
Allen. You can marry any girl you please in the city. So, for Heaven's
sake" (though what Heaven had to do with their advice it is hard to
say), "don't let her lead you on to say what you would wish unsaid.
Remember they are no more now than any other poor people, except that
they are refined, etc., but this will only make poverty harder for
them. Of course we are sorry for them, but in this world people have
got to take care of themselves. So we must be on the lookout for some
one who has money which can't be sunk in a stock operation as if
thrown into the sea."

After all this sound reason, poor, weak Grus, vaguely conscious of his
helplessness, as stated by his father, and quite believing his
mother's assurance that "he could marry any girl he pleased," was in
no mood to urge the penniless Edith to give him her empty hand, while
before the party, when he believed it full, he was doing his best to
bring her to this point, though in fact she gave him little
opportunity.

Edith detected the change, and before very long surmised the cause. It
made the young girl curl her lip, and say, in a tone of scorn that
would have done Gus good to hear:

"The idea of a _man_ acting in this style."

But she did not care enough about him to receive a wound of any depth,
and with a good-natured tolerance recognized his weakness, and his
genuine liking for her, and determined to make him useful.

Edith was very practical, and possessed of a brave, resolute nature.
She was capable of strong feelings, but Gus Elliot was not the man to
awaken such in any woman. She liked his company, and proposed to use
him in certain ways. Under her easy manner Gus also became at ease,
and, finding that he was not expected to propose and be sentimental,
was all the more inclined to be friendly.

"I want you to find me books, and papers also, if there are any, that
tell how to raise fruit," she said to him one day.

"What a funny request! I should as soon expect you would ask for
instruction how to drive four-in-hand."

"Nothing of that style, henceforth. I must learn something useful now.
Only the rich can afford to be good-for-nothing, and we are not rich
now."

"For which I am very sorry," said Gus, with some feeling.

"Thank you. Such disinterested sympathy is beautiful," said Edith
dryly.

Gus looked a little red and awkward, but hastened to say, "I will hunt
up what you wish, and bring it as soon as possible."

"Four are very good. That is all at present," said Edith, in a tone
that made Gus feel that it was indeed all that it was in his power to
do for her at that time, and he went away with a dim perception that
he was scarcely more than her errand boy. It made him very
uncomfortable. Though he wished her to understand he could not marry
her now, he wished her to sigh a little after him. Gus's vanity rather
resented that, instead of pining for him, she should with a little
quiet satire set him to work. He had never read a romance that ended
so queerly. He had expected that they might have a little tender scene
over the inexorable fate that parted them, give and take a memento,
gasp, appeal to the moon, and see each other's face no more, she going
to the work and poverty that he could never stoop to from the innate
refinement and elegance of his being, and he to hunt up the heiress to
whom he would give the honor of maintaining him in his true sphere.

But his little melodrama was entirely spoiled by her matter-of-fact
way, and what was worse still he felt in her presence as if he did not
amount to much, and that she knew it; and yet, like the poor moth that
singes its wings around the lamp, he could not keep away.

The prominent trait of Gus's character, as of so many others in our
luxurious age of self-pleasing, was weakness; and yet one must be
insane with vanity to be at ease if he can do nothing resolutely and
dare nothing great. He is a cripple, and, if not a fool, knows it.

During the eventful month that followed Mr. Allen's death, Mrs. Allen
and her daughters led what seemed to them a very strange life. While
in one sense it was real and intensely painful, in another the
experiences were so new and strange that it all seemed an unreal
dream, a distressing nightmare of trouble and danger, from which they
might awaken to their old life.

Mrs. Allen, from her large circle of acquaintances, had numerous
callers, many coming from mere morbid curiosity, more from mingled
motives, and not a few from genuine tearful sympathy. To these "her
friends," as she emphatically called them, she found a melancholy
pleasure in recounting all the recent woes, in which she ever appeared
as chief sufferer and chief mourner, though her husband seemed among
the minor losses, and thus most of her time was spent daring the last
few weeks at her old home. Her friends appeared to find a melancholy
pleasure in listening to these details and then in recounting them
again to other "friends" with a running commentary of their own, until
that little fraction of the feminine world acquainted with the Allens
had sighed, surmised, and perhaps gossiped over the "afflicted family"
so exhaustively that it was really time for something new. The men and
the papers downtown also had their say, and perhaps all tried, as far
as human nature would permit, to say nothing but good of the dead and
unfortunate.

Laura, after the stinging pain of each successive blow to her
happiness, sank into a dreary apathy, and did mechanically the few
things Edith asked of her.

Zell lived in varied moods and conditions, now weeping bitterly for
her father, again resenting with impotent passion the change in their
fortunes, but ending usually by comforting herself with the thought
that Mr. Van Dam was true to her. He was as true and faithful as an
insidious, incurable disease when once infused into the system. His
infernal policy now was to gradually alienate her interest from her
family and centre it in him. Though promising nothing in an open,
manly way, he adroitly made her believe that only through him, could
she now hope to reach brighter days again, and to Zell he seemed the
one means of escape from a detested life of poverty and privation. She
became more infatuated with him than ever, and cherished a secret
resentment against Edith because of her distrust and dislike of him.

The Allens had but few near relatives in the city at this time, and
with these they were not on very good terms, nor were they the people
to be helpful in adversity. Mr. Allen's partners were men of the world
like himself, and they were also incensed that he should have been
carrying on private speculations in Wall Street to the extent of
risking all his capital. His fatal stock operation, together with the
government confiscation, had involved them also in ruin; and they had
enough to do to look after themselves. They were far more eager to
secure something out of the general wreck than to see that anything
remained for the family. The Allens were left very much to themselves
in their struggle with disaster, securing help and advice chiefly as
they paid for it.

Mr. Allen was accustomed to say that women were incapable of business,
and yet here are the ladies of his own household compelled to grapple
with the most perplexing forms of business or suffer aggravated
losses. Though all of his family were of mature years, and thousands
had been spent on their education, they were as helpless as four
children in dealing with the practical questions that daily came to
them for decision. At first all matters were naturally referred to the
widow, but she would only wring her hands and say:

"I don't know anything about these horrid things. Can't I be left
alone with my sorrow in peace a few days? Go to Edith."

And to Edith at last all came till the poor girl was almost
distracted. It was of no use to go to Laura for advice, for she would
only say in dreary apathy:

"Just as you think best. Anything you say."

She was indulging in unrestrained wretchedness to the utmost.
Luxurious despair is so much easier than painful perplexing action.

Zell was still "the child" and entirely occupied with Mr. Van Dam. So
Edith had to bear the brunt of everything. She did not do this in
uncomplaining sweetness, like an angel, but scolded the others soundly
for leaving all to her. They whined back that they "couldn't do
anything, and didn't know how to do anything."

"You know as much as I do," retorted Edith.

And this was true. Had not Edith possessed a practical resolute
nature, that preferred any kind of action to apathetic inaction and
futile grieving, she would have been as helpless as the rest.

Do you say then that it was a mere matter of chance that Edith should
be superior to the others, and that she deserved no credit, and they
no blame? Why should such all-important conditions of character be the
mere result of chance and circumstance? Would not Christian education
and principle have vastly improved the Edith that existed? Would they
not have made the others helpful, self-forgetting, and sympathetic?
Why should the world be full of people so deformed, or morally feeble,
or so ignorant, as to be helpless? Why should the naturally strong
work with only contempt and condemnation for the weak? While many say,
"Stand aside, I am holier than thou," perhaps more say, "Stand aside,
I am wiser--stronger than thou," and the weak are made more hopelessly
discouraged. This helplessness on one hand, and arrogant fault-finding
strength on the other, are not the result of chance, but of an
imperfect education. They come from the neglect and wrong-doing of
those whose province it was to train and educate.

If we find among a family of children reaching maturity one helpless
from deformity, and another from feebleness, and are told that the
parents, by employing surgical skill, might have removed the
deformity, and overcome the weakness by tonic treatment, but had
neglected to do so, we should not have much to say about chance. I
know of a poor man who spent nearly all that he had in the world to
have his boy's leg straightened, and he was called a "good father."
What are these physical defects compared with the graver defects of
character?

Even though Mr. Allen is dead, we cannot say that he was a good
father, though he spent so many thousands on his daughters. We
certainly cannot call Mrs. Allen a good mother, and the proof of this
is that Laura is feeble and selfish, Zell deformed through lack of
self-control, and Edith hard and pitiless in her comparative strength.
They were unable to cope with the practical questions of their
situation. They had been launched upon the perilous, uncertain voyage
of life without the compass of a true faith or the charts of principle
to guide them, and they had been provided with no life-boats of
knowledge to save them in case of disaster. They are now tossing among
the breakers of misfortune, almost utterly the sport of the winds and
waves of circumstances. If these girls never reached the shore of
happiness and safety, could we wonder?

How would your daughter fare, my reader, if you were gone and she were
poor, with her hands and brain to depend on for bread, and her heart
culture for happiness? In spite of all your providence and foresight,
such may be her situation. Such becomes the condition of many men's
daughters every day.

But time and events swept the Allens forward, as the shipwrecked are
borne on the crest of a wave, and we must follow their fortunes.
Hungry creditors, especially the petty ones uptown, stripped them of
everything they could lay their hands on, and they were soon compelled
to leave their Fifth Avenue mansion. The little place in the country,
given to Edith partly in jest by her father as a birthday present, was
now their only refuge, and to this they prepared to go on the first of
April. Edith, as usual, took the lead, and was to go in advance of the
others with such furniture as they had been able to keep, and prepare
for their coming. Old Hannibal, who had grown gray in the service of
the family, and now declined to leave it, was to accompany her. On a
dark, lowering day, symbolic of their fortunes, some loaded drays took
down to the boat that with which they would commence the meagre
housekeeping of their poverty. Edith went slowly down the broad steps
leading from her elegant home, and before she entered the carriage
turned for one lingering, tearful look, such as Eve may have bent upon
the gate of Paradise closing behind her, then sprang into the
carriage, drew the curtains, and sobbed all the way to the boat.
Scarcely once before, during that long, hard month, had she so given
way to her feelings. But she was alone now and none could see her
tears and call her weak. Hannibal took his seat on the box with the
driver, and looked and felt very much as he did when following his
master to Greenwood.




CHAPTER VIII

WARPED



It is the early breakfast hour at a small frame house, situated about
a mile from the staid but thriving village of Pushton. But the
indications around the house do not denote thrift. Quite the reverse.
As the neighbors expressed it, "there was a screw loose with Lacey,"
the owner of this place. It was going down hill like its master. A
general air of neglect and growing dilapidation impressed the most
casual observer. The front gate hung on one hinge; boards were off the
shackly barn, and the house had grown dingy and weather-stained from
lack of paint. But as you entered and passed from the province of the
master to that of the mistress a new element was apparent, struggling
with, but unable to overcome, the predominant tendency to unthrift and
seediness. But everything that Mrs. Lacey controlled was as neat as
the poor overworked woman could keep it.

At the time our story becomes interested in her fortunes, Mrs. Lacey
was a middle-aged woman, but appeared older than her years warranted,
from the long-continued strain of incessant toil, and from that which
wears much faster still, the depression of an unhappy, ill-mated life.
Her face wore the pathetic expression of confirmed discouragement. She
reminded one of soldiers fighting when they know that it is of no use,
and that defeat will be the only result, but who fight on
mechanically, in obedience to orders.

She is now placing a very plain but wholesome and well-prepared
breakfast on the table, and it would seem that both the eating and
cooking were carried on in the same large living-room. Her daughter, a
rosy-cheeked, half-grown girl of fourteen, was assisting her, and both
mother and daughter seemed in a nervous state of expectancy, as if
hoping and fearing the result of a near event. A moment's glance
showed that this event related to a lad of about seventeen, who was
walking about the room, vainly trying to control the agitation which
is natural even to the cool and experienced when feeling that they are
at one of the crises of life.

It could not be expected of Arden Lacey at his age to be cool and
experienced. Indeed his light curling hair, blue eyes, and a mobile
sensitive mouth, suggested the reverse of a stolid self-poise, or
cheerful endurance. Any one accustomed to observe character could see
that he was possessed of a nervous, fine-fibred nature capable of
noble achievement under right influences, but also easily warped and
susceptible to sad injury under brutal wrong. He was like those
delicate and somewhat complicated musical instruments that produce the
sweetest harmonies when in tune and well played upon, but the most
jangling discords when unstrung and in rough, ignorant hands. He had
inherited his nervous temperament, his tendency to irritation and
excess, from the diseased, over-stimulated system of his father, who
was fast becoming a confirmed inebriate, and who had been poisoning
himself with bad liquors all his life. From his mother he had obtained
what balance he had in temperament, but he owed more to her daily
influence and training. It was the one struggle of the poor woman's
life to shield her children from the evil consequences of their
father's life. For her son she had special anxiety, knowing his
sensitive, high-strung nature, and his tendency to go headlong into
evil if his self-respect and self-control were once lost. His
passionate love for her had been the boy's best trait, and through
this she had controlled him thus far. But she had thought that it
might be best for him to be away from his father's presence and
influence if she could only find something that accorded with his
bent. And this eventually proved to be a college education. The boy
was of a quick and studious mind. From earliest years he had been fond
of books, and as time advanced, the passion for study and reading grew
upon him. He had a strong imagination, and his favorite styles of
reading were such as appealed to this. In the scenes of history and
romance he escaped from the sordid life of toil and shame to which his
father condemned him, into a large realm that seemed rich and
glorified in contrast. When he was but fourteen the thought of a
liberal education fired his ambition and became the dream of his life.
He made the very most of the district school to which he was sent in
winter. The teacher happened to be a well-educated man, and took pride
in his apt, eager scholar. Between the boy's and the mother's savings
they had obtained enough to secure private lessons in Latin and Greek,
and now at the age of seventeen he was tolerably well prepared for
college.

But the father had no sympathy at all with these tastes, and from the
incessant labor he required of his son, and the constant interruptions
he occasioned in his studies even in winter, he had been a perpetual
bar to all progress.

On the day previous to the scene described in the opening of this
chapter, the winter term had closed, and Mr. Rule, the teacher, had
declared that Arden could enter college, and with natural pride in his
own work as instructor, intimated that he would lead his class if he
did.

Both mother and son were so elated at this that they determined at
once to state the fact to the father, thinking that if he had any of
the natural feelings of a parent he would take some pride in his boy,
and be willing to help him obtain the education he longed for.

But there is little to be hoped from a man who is completely under the
influence of ignorance and rum. Mr. Lacey was the son of a small
farmer like himself, and never had anything to recommend him but his
fine looks, which had captivated poor Mrs. Lacey to her cost. Unlike
the majority of his class, who are fast becoming a very intelligent
part of the community, and are glad to educate their children, he
boasted that he liked the "old ways," and by these he meant the worst
ways of his father's day, when books and schools were scarce, and few
newspapers found their way to rural homes. He was, like his father
before him, a graduate of the village tavern, and had imbibed bad
liquor and his ideas of life at the same time from that objectionable
source. With the narrow-mindedness of his class, he had a prejudice
against all learning that went beyond the three R's, and had watched
with growing disapprobation his son's taste for books, believing that
it would spoil him as a farm hand, and make him an idle dreamer. He
was less and less inclined to work himself as his frame became
diseased and enfeebled from intemperance, and he determined now to get
as much work as possible out of that "great hulk of a boy," as he
called Arden. He had picked up some hints of the college hopes, and
the very thought angered him. He determined that when the boy broached
the subject he would give him such a "jawing" (to use his own
vernacular) "as would put an end to that nonsense." Therefore both
Arden and his mother, who were waiting as we have described in such a
perturbed anxious state for his entrance, were doomed to bitter
disappointment. At last a heavy red-faced man entered the kitchen,
stalking in on the white floor out of the drizzling rain with his
muddy boots leaving tracks and blotches in keeping with his character.
But he had the grace to wash his grimy hands before sitting down to
the table. He was always in a bad humor in the morning, and the chilly
rain had not improved it. A glance around showed him that something
was on hand, and he surmised that it was the college business. He at
once thought within himself:

"I'll squelch the thing now, once for all."

Turning to his son, he said, "Look here, youngster, why hain't you
been out doing your chores? D'ye expect me to do your work and mine,
too?"

"Father," said the impulsive boy with a voice of trembling eagerness,
"if you will let me go to college next fall, I'll do my work and yours
too. I'll work night and day--"

"What cussed nonsense is this?" demanded the man harshly, clashing
down his knife and fork and turning frowningly toward his son.

"No, but father, listen to me before you refuse. Mr. Rule says I'm fit
to enter college and that I can lead my class too. I've been studying
for this three years. I've set my heart upon it," and in his
earnestness, tears gathered in his eyes.

"The more fool you, and old Rule is another," was the coarse answer.

The boy's eyes flashed angrily, but the mother here spoke.

"You ought to be proud of your son, John; if you were a true father
you would be. If you'd encourage and help him now, he'd make a man
that--"

"Shut up! little you know about it. He'd make one of your snivelling
white-fingered loafers that's too proud to get a living by hard work.
Perhaps you'd like to make a parson out of him. Now look here, old
woman, and you, too, my young cock, I've suspicioned that something of
this kind was up, but I tell you once for all it won't go. Just as
this hulk of a boy is gettin' of some use to me, you want to spoil him
by sending him to college. I'll see him hanged first," and the man
turned to his breakfast as if he had settled it. But he was startled
by his son's exclaiming passionately:

"I will go."

"Look here, what do _you_ mean?" said the father, rising with a black
ugly look.

"I mean I've set my heart on going to college and I will go. You and
all the world shan't hinder me. I won't stay here and be a farm drudge
all my life."

The man's face was livid with anger, and in a low, hissing tone he
said:

"I guess you want taking down a peg, my college gentleman. Perhaps you
don't know I'm master till you're twenty-one," and he reached down a
large leather strap.

"You strike me if you dare," shouted the boy.

"If I dare! haw! haw! If I don't cut the cussed nonsense out of yer
this morning, then I never did," and he took an angry stride toward
his son, who sprang behind the stove.

The wife and mother had stood by growing whiter and whiter, and with
lips pressed closely together. At this critical moment she stepped
before her infuriated husband and seized his arm, exclaiming:

"John, take care. You have reached the end."

"Stand aside," snarled the man, raising the strap, "or I'll give you a
taste of it, too."

The woman's grasp tightened on his arm, and in a voice that made him
pause and look fixedly at her, she said:

"If you strike me or that boy I'll take my children and we will leave
your roof this hateful day never to return."

"Hain't I to be master in my own house?" said the husband sullenly.

"You are not to be a brute in your own house. I know you've struck me
before, but I endured it and said nothing about it because you were
drunk, but you are not drunk now, and if you lay a finger on me or my
son to-day, I will never darken your doors again."

The unnatural father saw that he had gone too far. He had not expected
such an issue. He had long been accustomed to follow the lead of his
brutal passions, but had now reached a point where he felt he must
stop, as his wife said. Turning on his heel, he sullenly took his
place at the table, muttering:

"It's a pretty pass when there's mutiny in a man's own house." Then to
his son, "You won't get a d--n cent out of me for your college
business, mind that."

Rose, the daughter, who had been crying and wringing her hands on the
door-step, now came timidly in, and at a sign from her mother she and
her brother went into another room.

The man ate for a while in dogged silence, but at last in a tone that
was meant to be somewhat conciliatory said:

"What the devil did you mean by putting the boy up to such
foolishness?"

"Hush!" said his wife imperiously, "I'm in no mood to talk with you
now."

"Oh, ah, indeed, a man can't even speak in his own house, eh? I guess
I'll take myself off to where I can have a little more liberty," and
he went out, harnessed his old white horse, and started for his
favorite groggery in the village.

His father had no sooner gone than Arden came out and said
passionately:

"It's no use, mother, I can't stand it; I must leave home to-day. I
guess I can make a living; at any rate I'd rather starve than pass
through such scenes."

The poor, overwrought woman threw herself down in a low chair and
sobbed, rocking herself back and forth.

"Wait till I die, Arden, wait till I die. I feel it won't be long.
What have I to live for but you and Rosy? And if you, my pride and
joy, go away after what has happened, it will be worse than death,"
and a tempest of grief shook her gaunt frame.

Arden was deeply moved. Boylike he had been thinking only of himself,
but now as never before he realized her hard lot, and in his warm,
impulsive heart there came a yearning tenderness for her such as he
had never felt before. He took her in his arms and kissed and
comforted her, till even her sore heart felt the healing balm of love
and ceased its bitter aching. At last she dried her eyes and said with
a faint smile: "With such a boy to pet me, the world isn't all flint
and thorns yet."

And Rosy came and kissed her too, for she was an affectionate child,
though a little inclined to be giddy and vain.

"Don't worry, mother," said Arden. "I will stay and take such good
care of you that you will have many years yet, and happier ones, too,
I hope," and he resolved to keep this promise, cost what it might.

"I hardly think I ought to ask it of you, though even the thought of
your going away breaks my heart." "I will stay," said the boy, almost
as passionately as he had said, "I will go." "I now see how much you
need a protector."

That night the father came home so stupidly drunk that they had to
half carry him to bed where he slept heavily till morning, and rose
considerably shaken and depressed from his debauch. The breakfast was
as silent as it had been stormy on the previous day. After it was
over, Arden followed his father to the door and said:

"I was a boy yesterday morning, but you made me a man, and a rather
ugly one too. I learned then for the first time that you occasionally
strike my mother. Don't you ever do it again, or it will be worse for
you, drunk or sober. I am not going to college, but will stay at home
and take care of her. Do we understand each other?"

The man was in such a low, shattered condition that his son's bearing
cowed him, and he walked off muttering:

"Young cocks crow mighty loud," but from that time forward he never
offered violence to his wife or children.

Still his father's conduct and character had a most disastrous effect
upon the young man. He was soured, because disappointed in his most
cherished purpose at an age when most youths scarcely have definite
plans. Many have a strong natural bent, and if turned aside from this,
they are more or less unhappy, and their duties, instead of being
wings to help life forward, become a galling yoke.

This was the case with Arden. Farm work, as he had learned it from his
father, was coarse, heavy drudgery, with small and uncertain returns,
and these were largely spent at the village rum shops in purchasing
slow perdition for the husband, and misery and shame for his wife and
children. In respectable Pushton, a drunkard's family, especially if
poor, had a very low social status. Mrs. Lacey and her children would
not accept of bad associations, so they had scarcely any. This
ostracism, within certain limits, is perhaps right. The preventive
penalties of vice can scarcely be too great, and men and women must be
made to feel that wrong-doing is certain to be followed by terrible
consequences. The fire is merciful in that it always burns, and sin
and suffering are inseparably linked. But the consequences of one
person's sin often blight the innocent. The necessity of this from our
various ties should be a motive, a hostage against sinning, and
doubtless restrains many a one who would go headlong under evil
impulses. But multitudes do slip off the paths of virtue, and helpless
wives, and often helpless husbands and children, writhe from wounds
made by those under sacred obligations to shield them. Upon the
families of criminals, society visits a mildew of coldness and scorn
that blights nearly all chance of good fruit. But society is very
unjust in its discriminations, and some of the most heinous sins in
God's sight are treated as mere eccentricities, or condemned in the
poor, but winked at in the rich. Gentlemen will admit to their parlors
men about whom they know facts which if true of a woman would close
every respectable door against her, and God frowns on the Christian
(?) society that makes such arbitrary and unjust distinctions. Cast
both out, till they bring forth fruits meet for repentance.

But we hope for little of a reformative tendency from the selfish
society of the world. Changing human fashion rules it, rather than the
eternal truth of the God of love. The saddest feature of all is that
the shifting code of fashion is coming more and more to govern the
church. Doctrine may remain the same, profession and intellectual
belief the same, while practical action drifts far astray. There are
multitudes of wealthy churches, that will no more admit associations
with that class among which our Lord lived and worked, than will
select society. They seem designed to help only respectable, well-connected sinners, toward heaven.

This tendency has two phases. In the cities the poor are practically
excluded from worshipping with the rich, and missions are established
for them as if they were heathen. There can be no objection to costly,
magnificent churches. Nothing is too good to be the expression of our
honor and love of God. But they should be like the cathedrals of
Europe, where prince and peasant may bow together on the same level
they have in the Divine presence. Christ made no distinction between
the rich and poor regarding their spiritual value and need, nor should
the Christianity named after Him. To the degree that it does, it is
not Christianity. The meek and lowly Nazarene is not its inspiration.
Perhaps the personage He told to get behind Him when promising the
"kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" has more to do with it.

The second phase of this tendency as seen in the country, is kindred
but unlike. Poverty may not be so great a bar, but moral delinquencies
are more severely visited, and the family under a cloud, through the
wrong-doing of one or more of its members, is treated very much as if
it had a perpetual pestilence. The highly respectable keep aloof. Too
often the quiet country church is not a sanctuary and place of refuge
for the victims either of their own or another's sin, a place where
the grasp of sympathy and words of encouragement are given; but rather
a place where they meet the cold critical gaze of those who are hedged
about with virtues and good connections. I hope I am wrong, but how is
it where you live, my reader? If a well-to-do thriving man of
integrity takes a fine place in your community, we all know how church
people will treat him. And what they do is all right. But society--the
world--will do the same. Is Christianity--are the followers of the
"Friend of publicans and sinners"--to do no more?

If in contrast a drunken wretch like Lacey with his wife and children
come in town on top of a wagon-load of shattered furniture, and all
are dumped down in a back alley to scramble into the shelter of a
tenement house as best they can, do you call upon them? Do you invite
them to your pew? Do you ever urge and encourage them to enter your
church? and do you make even one of its corners homelike and inviting?

I hope so; but, alas! that was not the general custom in Pushton, and
poor Mrs. Lacey had acquired the habit of staying at home, her
neighbors had become accustomed to call her husband a "dreadful man,"
and the family "very irreligious," and as the years passed they seemed
to be more and more left to themselves. Mr. Lacey had brought his wife
from a distant town where he had met and married her. She was a timid,
retiring woman, and time and kindness were needed to draw her out. But
no one had seemingly thought it worth while, and at the time our story
takes an interest in their affairs, there was a growing isolation.

All this had a very bad effect upon Arden. As he grew out of the
democracy of boyhood he met a certain social coldness and distance
which he learned to understand only too early, and soon returned this
treatment with increased coldness and aversion. Had it not been for
the influence of his mother and the books he read, he would have
inevitably fallen into low company. But he had promised his mother to
shun it. He saw its result in his father's conduct, and as he read,
and his mind matured, the narrow coarseness of such company became
repugnant. From time to time he was sorely tempted to leave the home
which his father made hateful in many respects, and try his fortunes
among strangers who would not associate him with a sot; but his love
for his mother kept him at her side, for he saw that her life was
bound up in him, and that he alone could protect her and his sister
and keep some sort of a shelter for them. In his unselfish devotion to
them his character was noble. In his harsh cynicism toward the world
and especially the church people, for whom he had no charity whatever
--in his utter hatred and detestation of his father--it was faulty,
though allowance must be made for him. He was also peculiar in other
respects, for his unguided reading was of a nature that fed his
imagination at the expense of his reasoning faculties. Though he
drudged in a narrow round, and his life was as hard and real as
poverty and his father's intemperance could make it, he mentally lived
and found his solace in a world as large and unreal as an uncurbed
fancy could create. Therefore his work was hurried through
mechanically in the old slovenly methods to which he had been
educated, he caring little for the results, as his father squandered
these; and when the necessary toil was over, he would lose all sense
of the sordid present in the pages of some book obtained from the
village library. As he drove his milk cart to and from town he would
sit in the chill drizzling rain, utterly oblivious of discomfort, with
a half smile upon his lips, as he pictured to himself some scene of
sunny aspect or gloomy castellated grandeur of which his own
imagination was the architect. The famous in history, the heroes and
heroines of fiction, and especially the characters of Shakespeare were
more familiar to him than the people among whom he lived. From the
latter he stood more and more aloof, while with the former he held
constant intercourse. He had little in common even with his sister,
who was of a very different temperament. But his tenderness toward his
mother never failed, and she loved him with the passionate intensity
of a nature to which love was all, but which had found little to
satisfy it on earth, and was ignorant of the love of God.

And so the years dragged on to Arden, and hiss twenty-first birthday
made him free from his father's control as he practically long had
been, but it also found him bound more strongly than ever by his
mother's love and need to his old home life.




CHAPTER IX

A DESERT ISLAND



The good cry that Edith indulged in on her way to the boat was a
relief to her heart, which had long been overburdened. But the
necessity of controlling her feelings, and the natural buoyancy of
youth, enabled her by the time they reached the wharf to see that the
furniture and baggage were properly taken care of. No one could detect
the traces of grief through her thick veil, or guess from her firm,
quiet tones, that she felt somewhat as Columbus might when going in
search of a new world. And yet Edith had a hope from her country life
which the others did not share at all.

When she was quite a child her feeble health had induced her father to
let her spend an entire summer in a farmhouse of the better class,
whose owner had some taste for flowers and fruit. These she had
enjoyed and luxuriated in as much as any butterfly of the season, and
as she romped with the farmer's children, roamed the fields and woods
in search of berries, and tumbled in the fragrant hay, health came
tingling back with a fullness and vigor that had never been lost. With
all her subsequent enjoyment, that summer still dwelt in her memory as
the halcyon period of her life, and it was with the country she
associated it. Every year she had longed for July, for then her father
would break away from business for a couple of months and take them to
a place of resort. But the fashionable watering-places were not at all
to her taste as compared with that old farmhouse, and whenever it was
possible she would wander off and make "disreputable acquaintances,"
as Mrs. Allen termed them, among the farmers' and laborers' families
in the vicinity of the hotel. But by this means she often obtained a
basket of fruit or bunch of flowers that the others were glad to share
in.

In accordance with her practical nature she asked questions as to the
habits, growth, and culture of trees and fruits, so that few city
girls situated as she had been knew as much about the products of the
garden. She had also haunted conservatories and green-houses as much
as her sisters had frequented the costly Broadway temples of fashion,
where counters are the altars to which the women of the city bring
their daily offerings; and as we have seen, a fruit store was a place
of delight to her.

The thought that she could now raise without limit fruit, flowers, and
vegetables on her own place was some compensation even for the trouble
they had passed through and the change in their fortunes.

Moreover she knew that because of their poverty she would have to
secure from her ground substantial returns, and that her gardening
must be no amateur trifling, but earnest work. Therefore, having found
a seat in the saloon of the boat, she drew out of her leather bag one
of her garden-books and some agricultural papers, and commenced
studying over for the twentieth time the labors proper for April.
After reading a while, she leaned back and closed her eyes and tried
to form such crude plans as were possible in her inexperience and her
ignorance of a place that she had not even seen.

Opening her eyes suddenly she saw old Hannibal sitting near and
regarding her wistfully.

"You are a foolish old fellow to stay with us," she said to him. "You
could have obtained plenty of nice places in the city. What made you
do it?"

"I'se couldn't gib any good reason to de world, Miss Edie, but de one
I hab kinder satisfies my ole black heart."

"Your heart isn't black, Hannibal."

"How you know dat?" he asked quickly.

"Because I've seen it often and often. Sometimes I think it is whiter
than mine. I now and then feel so desperate and wicked, that I am
afraid of myself."

"Dere now, you'se worried and worn-out and you tinks dat's bein'
wicked."

"No. I'm satisfied it is something worse than that. I wonder if God
does care about people who are in trouble, I mean practically, so as
to help them any?"

"Well, I specs he does," said Hannibal vaguely. "But den dere's so
many in trouble dat I'm afeard some hab to kinder look after
demselves." Then as if a bright thought struck him, he added, "I specs
he sorter lumps 'em jes as Massa Allen did when he said he was sorry
for de people burned up in Chicago. He sent 'em a big lot ob money and
den seemed to forget all about 'em."

Hannibal had never given much attention to religion, and perhaps was
not the best authority that Edith could have consulted. But his
conclusion seemed to secure her consent, for she leaned back wearily
and again closed her eyes, saying:

"Yes, we are mere human atoms, lost sight of in the multitude."

Soon her deep regular breathing showed that she was asleep, and
Hannibal muttered softly:

"Bress de child, dat will do her a heap more good dan askin' dem deep
questions," and he watched beside her like a large faithful
Newfoundland dog.

At last he touched her elbow and said, "We get off at de next landin',
and I guess we mus' be pretty nigh dere."

Edith started up much refreshed and asked, "What sort of an evening is
it?"

"Well, I'se sorry to say it's rainin' hard and berry dark."

To her dismay she also found that it was nearly nine o'clock. The boat
had been late in starting, and was so heavily laden as to make slow
progress against wind and tide. Edith's heart sank within her at the
thought of landing alone in a strange place that dismal night. It was
indeed a new experience to her. But she donned her waterproof, and the
moment the boat touched the wharf, hurried ashore, and stood under her
small umbrella, while her household gods were being hustled out into
the drenching rain. She knew the injury that must result to them
unless they could speedily be carried into the boat-house near. At
first there seemed no one to do this save Hannibal, who at once set to
work, but she soon observed a man with a lantern gathering up some
butter-tubs that the boat was landing, and she immediately appealed to
him for help.

"I'm not the dock-master," was the gruff reply.

"You are a man, are you not? and one that will not turn away from a
lady in distress. If my things stand long in this rain they will be
greatly injured."

The man thus adjured turned his lantern on the speaker, and while we
recognize the features of our acquaintance, Arden Lacey, he sees a
face on the old dock that quite startles him. If Edith had dropped
down with the rain, she could not have been more unexpected, and with
her large dark eyes flashing suddenly on him, and her appealing yet
half-indignant voice breaking in upon the waking dream with which he
was beguiling the outward misery of the night, it seemed as if one of
the characters of his fancy had suddenly become real. He who would
have passed Edith in surly unnoting indifference on the open street in
the garish light of day, now took the keenest interest in her. He had
actually been appealed to, as an ancient knight might have been, by a
damsel in distress, and he turned and helped her with a will, which,
backed by his powerful strength, soon placed her goods under shelter.
The lagging dock-master politicly kept out of the way till the work
was almost done and then bustled up and made some show of assisting in
time for any fees, if they should be offered, but Arden told him that
since he had kept out of sight so long, he might remain invisible,
which was the unpopular way the young man had.

When the last article had been placed under shelter Edith said:

"I appreciate your help exceedingly. How much am I to pay you for your
trouble?"

"Nothing," was the rather curt reply.

The appearance of a lady like Edith, with a beauty that seemed weird
and strange as he caught glimpses of her face by the fitful rays of
his lantern, had made a sudden and strong impression on his morbid
fancy and fitted the wild imaginings with which he had occupied the
dreary hour of waiting for the boat. The presence of her sable
attendant had increased these impressions. But when she took out her
purse to pay him his illusions vanished. Therefore the abrupt tone in
which he said "Nothing," and which was mainly caused by vexation at
the matter-of-fact world that continually mocked his unreal one.

"I don't quite understand you," said Edith. "I had no intention of
employing your time and strength without remuneration."

"I told you I was not the dock-master," said Arden rather coldly.
"He'll take all the fees you will give him. You appealed to me as a
man, and said you were in distress. I helped you as a man. Good-evening."

"Stay," said Edith hastily. "You seem not only a man, but a gentleman,
and I am tempted, in view of my situation, to trespass still further
on your kindness," but she hesitated a moment.

It perhaps had never been intimated to Arden before that he was a
gentleman, certainly never in the tone with which Edith spoke, and his
fanciful, chivalric nature responded at once to the touch of that
chord. With the accent of voice he ever used toward his mother, he
said:

"I am at your service."

"We are strangers here," continued Edith. "Is there any place near the
landing where we can get safe, comfortable lodging?"

"I am sorry to say there is not. The village is a mile away."

"How can we get there?"

"Isn't the stage down?" asked Arden of the dock-master.

"No!" was the gruff response.

"The night is so bad I suppose they didn't come. I would take you
myself in a minute if I had a suitable wagon."

"Necessity knows no choice," said Edith quickly. "I will go with you
in any kind of a wagon, and I surely hope you won't leave me on this
lonely dock in the rain."

"Certainly not," said Arden, reddening in the darkness that he could
be thought capable of such an act. "But I thought I could drive to the
village and send a carriage for you."

"I would rather go with you now, if you will let me," said Edith
decidedly.

"The best I have is at your service, but I fear you will be sorry for
your choice. I've only a board for a seat, and my wagon has no
springs. Perhaps I could get a low box for you to sit on."

"Hannibal can sit on the box. With your permission I will sit with
you, for I wish to ask you some questions."

Arden hung his lantern on a hook in front of his wagon, and helped or
partly lifted Edith over the wheel to the seat, which was simply a
board resting on the sides of the box. He turned a butter-tub upside
down for Hannibal, and then they jogged out from behind the boat-house
where he had sheltered his horses.

This was all a new experience to Arden. He had, from his surly
misanthropy, little familiarity with society of any kind, and since as
a boy he had romped with the girls at school he had been almost a
total stranger to all women save those in his own home. Most young men
would have been awkward louts under the circumstances. But this was
not true of Arden, for he had daily been holding converse in the books
he dreamed over with women of finer clay than he could have found at
Pushton. He would have been excessively awkward in a drawing-room or
any place of conventional resort, or rather he would have been sullen
and bearish, but the place and manner in which he had met Edith
accorded with his romantic fancy, and the darkness shielded his rough
exterior from observation.

Moreover, the presence of this flesh-and-blood woman at his side gave
him different sensations from the stately dames, or even the most
piquant maidens that had smiled upon him in the shadowy scenes of his
imagination; and when at times, as the wagon jolted heavily, she
grasped his arm for a second to steady herself, it seemed as if the
dusky little figure at his side was a sort of human electric battery
charged with that subtile fluid which some believe to be the material
life of the universe. Every now and then as they bounced over a stone,
the lantern would bob up and throw a ray on a face like those that had
looked out upon him from those plays of Shakespeare the scenes of
which are laid in Italy.

Thus the dark, chilly, rainy night was becoming the most luminous
period of his life. Reason and judgment act slowly, but imagination
takes fire.

But to poor Edith all was real and dismal enough, and she often sighed
heavily. To Arden each sigh was an appeal for sympathy. He had driven
as rapidly as he dared in the darkness to get her out of the rain, but
at last she said, clinging to his arm:

"Won't you drive slowly? The jolting has given me a pain in my side."

He was conscious of a new and peculiar sensation there also, though
not from jolting. He had been used to that in many ways all his life,
but thereafter they jogged forward on a walk through the drizzling
rain, and Edith, recovering her breath, and a sense of security, began
to asked the questions.

"Do you know where the cottage is that was formerly owned by Mr.
Jenks?"

"Oh, yes, it's not far from our house--between our house and the
village." Then as if a sudden thought

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