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Bessie Bradford's Prize

by Joanna H. Mathews · English · Gutenberg #6569 · 325,735 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Bessie Bradford's Prize

Author: Joanna H. Mathews


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6569]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6569

Credits: Produced by Branko Collin, Tonya Allen, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BESSIE BRADFORD'S PRIZE ***




Produced by Branko Collin, Tonya Allen, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team





BESSIE BRADFORD'S PRIZE

The third of a series of sequels to "the Bessie books"

By Joanna H. Mathews

Illustrated by W. St. John Harper

Dedicated to my dear little friend and fellow author Elizabeth Leiper
Martin ("Elsie")

With the wish that the path of authorship may have for her as many
flowers and as few thorns as it has had for her friend and well
wisher

J. H. M.




CONTENTS.


I. AT THE POLICEMAN'S,

II. LETTERS,

III. LENA'S SECRET,

IV. PERCY,

V. ROBBING THE MAIL,

VI. A CONFIDENCE,

VII. A BOX OF BONBONS,

VIII. "INNOCENTS ABROAD,"

IX. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING,

X. FRANKIE TO THE FRONT AGAIN,

XL A TRUST,

XII. DISCOVERY,

XIII. ACCUSATION,

XIV. WHO WINS?




CHAPTER I.

AT THE POLICEMAN'S.


"Here comes Mrs. Fleming," said Jennie Richards, in a tone indicative
of anything but pleasure in the coming of Mrs. Fleming.

Mrs. Granby responded with an exclamation which savored of a like
sentiment, and rising, she tossed aside the little frock she was
working on, as she added:

"I don't see what she's comin' for! I didn't want her a comin' here,
bringin' her mournin' an' frettin' an' lookin' out for troubles to
pester you, Mary Richards, an' I told her I would be over to her
place this evenin'. I did tell her, you know, I'd fit that dress for
her Mrs. Bradford give her to Christmas, but she just needn't a come
here when I told her I'd go there; an' a kill-joy she is an' no
comfort to nobody. You go into the kitchen, Mary, an' stay there
till she's gone, which I won't be long fittin' her, an' I'll get rid
of her soon's I can,"

Mrs. Richards was about to comply with the suggestion, when Jennie,
who was still gazing out of the window, exclaimed with a total change
of tone:

"And here come the little Miss Bradfords, with Jane, and Miss Belle
Powers and Miss Lily Norris along with them."

The little sister whom she was diverting by holding her up to the
window, began to clap her hands, and Mrs. Richards settled herself
back into her chair again, saying:

"I ain't going into the kitchen to miss _them_, and I'll set the
sunshine they'll bring against the clouds Mrs. Fleming drags."

Mrs. Granby beamed upon her.

"Well, I declare, Mary Richards, you ain't no great hand to talk, but
when you do, you just do it beautiful; now don't she, Jennie? That's
the po'tryest talkin' I've heard this long while, real live po'try,
if there ain't no jingle about it. I allers did think you might a
writ a book if you'd set about it, an' if you'd put such readin' as
that kind of talk into it, I'll be boun' it would bring a lot of
money, an' I'm right glad the little young ladies is comin', on'y I
wish Amandy Flemin' hadn't hit the same time."

It was plain to be seen that the visit of the young party who were on
the way to the door was a source of gratification to the policeman's
family, whatever that of Mrs. Fleming might be. Their quicker
footsteps brought them in before Mrs. Fleming, and they received a
warm welcome. It is to be feared that the younger girl had an eye to
the loaves and fishes with which they usually came laden on their
visits to the Richards' household, as she ran to them on their
entrance, saying,

"What did oo b'ing me?"

"Augh! Shame!" said the scandalized Mrs. Granby, snatching her up;
and, "You'll excuse her, young ladies," said Mrs. Richards, mortified
also; "but she's only a little thing, and you spoil her, always
bringing her something when you come."

That they were not offended or hurt was soon evidenced by the fact
that Lily presently had the little one on her lap, while Belle was
showing her a linen scrap-book which had been brought for her.

Mrs. Granby was a seamstress, and Jane had brought some work which
her mistress, Mrs. Bradford, had sent; and Maggie and Bessie, with
Belle and Lily, who were spending the day with them, had chosen to
accompany her, the first three because they were generally ready for
a visit to the family of the policeman, who had befriended Bessie
when she was lost, the latter because she thought Mrs. Granby "such
fun." To have Mrs. Fleming come in, as she presently did, was bliss
indeed to Lily, who delighted in pitting the cheery, lively little
Mrs. Granby against the melancholy, depressing Mrs. Fleming. Nor was
the entertainment long in beginning.

Jane was to carry home some work which Mrs. Granby had finished, and
as the latter was putting it up Mrs. Fleming came in and was bidden
by her to take a seat till she was ready to attend to her.

"And how's little Miss Neville, Miss Maggie?" asked Mrs. Richards. "I
think that's the name of the young lady who was so brave in saving
her little sister, and was so burned."

"Yes, that's her name," answered Maggie. "She is a great deal better,
Mrs. Richards. The doctor has said she is out of danger, and her
mother has been able to leave her and to go back to the son who is
ill."

"I'm very glad to hear it," said Mrs. Richards, cordially. "My
husband was telling me how wonderful and brave she was, and how she
never thought of herself trying to save the other children; and how
the gentleman Miss Staunton is to marry was burned very bad saving
her."

"Yes; it was a terrible time," said Maggie; "but Mr. Howard is much
better now, too; so we are all very happy."

All this time Mrs. Fleming had sat nodding her head mournfully, as if
she would say, "Don't be encouraged; there is no ground for hope."

"Look! Look at her!" Lily whispered to Bessie. "She's like an insane
Chinese mandarin, rolling round her old head that way."

"Hush!" whispered Bessie, "she'll hear you."

"Don't care if she does," answered Lily.

And now Mrs. Fleming broke forth in just such a lackadaisical,
tearful tone as one would have expected to issue from her lips.

"Oh, Miss Maggie," she whined, "if the dear lady, your ma, 'ad but
listened to me. I told her no good wouldn't come of 'avin' that
number of children to her Christmas tree--twice thirteen; an' I said
if thirteen was hunlucky, twice thirteen was twice worse; an' your ma
just laughed at me; an' the next day came the burnin'."

Bessie looked gravely at her.

"My mother says that is wrong and foolish, too," she said, in an
admonitory tone, "and that thirteen is no worse than any other
number."

"You nor your ma can't gainsay that there come the burnin', Miss,"
persisted the woman.

"I know that Colonel Rush's house was on fire, and that Miss Lena was
burned, and Mr. Howard, too," answered Bessie, equally determined to
maintain her side of the case. "But they are both a great deal
better, and it ought to show you that such things don't make any
difference to God, and that He can take just as good care of one
number as another."

The other children were rather surprised to hear Bessie speak so
decidedly to one older than herself; but this was a subject on which
she felt strongly; her own faith and trust and reliance on the
goodness and power of God were very strong; and more than one
occurrence in her little life had tended to foster these, and she
always rather resented the want of them in others. And now Mrs.
Fleming, in her turn, resented being chidden by this mite who
appeared even younger than she really was. But it pleased her, as
usual, to assume the injured role.

"Well, Miss," she said, "'tain't for me to contradick you nor your
ma. I can't help havin' my hown feelin's an' hopinions; but the Lord
made me to be down-trod, an' I'm willin' to habide 'is will an' stay
down-trod."

This was beyond Bessie; she had no answer, no argument for folly such
as this, if, indeed, she grasped the woman's meaning; but she did
understand that she was still making her moan over matters and things
in general, and that in some way she seemed to be blaming her own
dear mother. She looked displeased and turned away; but here Mrs.
Granby, who had her head in a wardrobe, looking for a large sheet of
paper, withdrew it and came to the front.

"Well," she said, raising her voice so that it might be heard above
the rattle of the stiff paper which she unfolded and wrapped about
the completed work Jane was to carry back, "well, if so be as you
enjoy bein' 'down-trod,' as you do enjoy most things as other folks
don't find pleasin', there ain't nobody goin' to hinder you; but you
look here, Mrs. Flemin', you nor nobody else ain't goin' to cast no
slurs onter Mrs. Bradford which there never was a better lady, nor
one that was so far from down-treadin' folks but more like to be
upliftin' 'em if only they'll let themselves be uplift, an' all her
family the same an' the little ladies brought up accordin'; so, if
you please, no slurs on any of 'em afore me an' Mary Richards which
we would have feelin's on account of it an' wouldn't stan' it in
_this_ house. I don't see why you can't live agreeable like
other folks; an' it does fret me outer patience to hear a body
mortifyin' the Lord's mercies an' you such a heapin' lot sent to you
this very winter, an' it's for your own good I speak, which the Lord
He does get out of patience with us sometimes I do believe when we're
faithless an' mistrustin', an' takes back His blessin's when He finds
we don't hold 'em in no appreciation."

By this time Mrs. Fleming had dissolved into tears and buried her
face in an already much bewept pocket-handkerchief.

Seeing this Mrs. Granby resumed in a soothing tone and with some
self-reproach.

"But just hear me now rattlin' on about my neighbors' short-comin's
an' me plenty of my own, me that ain't a woman of many words neither.
There, Mrs. Flemin', don't mind, an' if you've a min' to compose your
feelin's in the kitchen just step in an' I'll fit your dress soon's
Jane's business is over."

But Mrs. Fleming had no idea of retiring to privacy to compose her
"feelin's;" she preferred to indulge them in public, and she sat
still, sobbing only the louder. The situation was becoming
embarrassing to the young party, and Maggie, with her usual ready
tact, seized upon an opening to change the subject.

"Why, Mrs. Granby," she said, "I did not know you made dresses. I
thought you only did plain sewing such as you have done for our
family."

"I do a bit at it, Miss Maggie," answered the seamstress; "though, to
be sure, I wouldn't undertake to dress-make for ladies like your ma
and aunts an' the like, but for them as hasn't much ambition as to
their figgers, I can make out, an' I did tell Mrs. Flemin' I'd fit
hers, so she could make it herself an' she shouldn't have to do no
expenses about it, for it's on'y right we should all lend a helpin'
hand, an' where would me an' the Richardses be if your folks hadn't
thought the same an' acted accordin', which there's never a night on
my bended knees I don't ask the Almighty's blessin' on you, an'
there's none more deserves it, an' I do b'lieve the dear Lord's of
the same way of thinkin', for there's none as I see happier nor more
prosperin' an' does one's heart good to see it, an' never will I
forget the night we was in such a peck of troubles an' seein' no way
out of 'em me an' the Richardses, an' your pa comin' in an' turnin'
the tide, an' since then, yes, ever since, all goin' so comfortable
an' pleasant with us. I did think when I saw Mr. Bradford's face that
night I first opened the door to him that he was the
agreeablest-lookin' gentleman I ever did see, but me no idea what a
blessin' he was a bringin' us all an' help outer our troubles, which
the Richardses' troubles is always mine too. But I declare, just hear
me runnin' on, as I always do if I get on them times; you'd think I
was the greatest hand to talk ever was."

Lily was having her "fun," and she was quite loth to take leave when
Mrs. Granby had the parcel ready and Maggie made the move to go.

"I'm sure, Miss Maggie," said Mrs. Richards, "that I am truly glad to
hear that Miss Neville is likely to get well. I suppose she'll be
leaving her uncle's now and going away with her mother. It isn't
likely Mrs. Neville will want to be leaving her child again after
such an escape as she's had. I'm sure I couldn't abide one of mine
out of my sight after such a thing. And the bravery of her, too, the
dear young thing. My husband says it was a risk a strong man, and
one of the police themselves, might have shrunk from."

This was an unusually long speech for Mrs. Richards, who was that
which Mrs. Granby so mistakenly called herself, "a woman of few
words," for she, as well as the rest of the family, had been greatly
interested in the adventure of the heroic little girl who had braved
and endured so much to rescue her young brother and sister.

Maggie hesitated one moment, then said:

"No, Mrs. Richards. Mrs. Neville has gone back to her son, but Miss
Lena has not gone with her. She is to stay with Colonel and Mrs. Rush
for a long time, perhaps a year, and we are all so glad about it."

"And could the mother go and leave her, and she might any time take a
turn for the worse, and be took off sudden?" interposed Mrs. Fleming,
whose tears did not prevent her from hearing all that passed. "You
never know when there's been burnin' if there ain't smothered fire,
an' it shows up when you least hexpect it."

No one took any notice of this cheerful prophecy, but Mrs. Granby
asked:

"And the young lady is like to be quite well again and about soon,
Miss Maggie?"

"Oh, yes," answered Maggie, confidently; "and we hope to have her
back at school before long. She is quite well enough now to enjoy
everything except walking; but her feet are still tender and she
cannot yet walk about. But come, girls, it is time to go;" and the
young party took their leave.

When not far from their respective homes, which were all in the same
neighborhood, they met Gracie Howard, and Maggie stopped to speak to
her, although Gracie had shown no sign of wishing to do so; indeed,
she seemed as if she would rather pass on. Of course, the others
lingered too.

"Gracie," said Maggie, "I hope you will come to the meeting of our
club the day after to-morrow. It is so long since you have been."

Gracie colored violently, looked down upon the ground, and in a
nervous way dug the toe of her overshoe into the snow which had
fallen that morning and still lay in some places on the street.

"I don't know; no, I think not--I think--perhaps I may go out with
mamma," she stammered, anxious for some excuse, and yet too honest to
invent one that was altogether without foundation. Perhaps she would
go out with her mother; she would ask her to take her.

"Oh, come, Gracie; do come," persisted Maggie, determined to carry
her point if possible. "It is so long since you have been, and you
know there is a paper owing from you. Your turn is long since passed;
and we'll all be so glad to have you."

Grade's color deepened still more, and she cast a sidelong glance at
Lily, who stood at Maggie's elbow; and Lily saw that she was doubtful
if that "all" included herself. Lily was very outspoken, particularly
so where she saw cause for disapproval, and above all if she thought
others were assuming too much; and she had on certain occasions so
plainly made known her opinion of some of Grade's assumption, that a
sort of chronic feud had become established between the two, not
breaking out into open hostility, but showing itself in a
half-slighting, half-teasing way with Lily, and with Gracie in a
manner partly scornful, partly an affectation of indifference.

Some six weeks since, at a meeting of the club of the "Cheeryble
Sisters," to which all three little girls belonged, Gracie's
overweening self-conceit and irrepressible desire to be first had led
her into conflict with another of her classmates, Lena Neville, in
which she had proved herself so arrogant, so jealous and ill-tempered
that she had excited the indignation of all who were present. But if
they had known what followed after Gracie had been left alone in the
room where she had so disgraced herself, how would they have felt
then? How she had stood by and seen the source of contention, a
composition, which she believed had been written by Lena, torn to
atoms by a mischievous little dog, withholding her hand from rescuing
it, her voice from warning the dog off from it simply for the
indulgence of that same blind, overpowering jealousy. The destruction
was hardly wrought, when repentance and remorse too late had
followed--repentance and remorse, intensified a thousandfold by after
events on the very same day.

But that guilty secret was still locked within her own heart,
weighing heavily upon her conscience, but still unconfessed, still
unsuspected by others. Ever since that miserable afternoon she had
shrunk from meeting her classmates, and although she had been obliged
to do so at school, she had avoided all other opportunities of seeing
them, and on one excuse and another had refused to attend the
meetings of the club which came together every Friday afternoon, the
place of rendezvous being at Mrs. Bradford's, Maggie being the
president as she had been the originator of the club.

It was true that Gracie had later discovered that the ruined paper
was one of her own, a composition on the very same subject as Lena's,
and which had, by the merest accident, and without her knowledge,
been exchanged for that of the young classmate whom she chose to
consider as her rival; and this had in some measure relieved the
weight of sorrow and remorse she had felt when Lena was severely
burned and lay for days hovering between life and death. But she
could not shut her eyes or blind her conscience to the fact that she
had been guilty in intention, if not in actual deed, and she could
not shake off the haunting sense of shame or the feeling that others
must know of the contemptible action of which she had been guilty.

Knowing nothing of this, Maggie and the other members of the club
believed that her avoidance of them and her low spirits were caused
by shame and distress for the bad temper and unkindness she had shown
to Lena on that memorable day; and now Maggie, feeling sorry for her
and also very loath to have any unpleasantness in the club, would
fain have persuaded her to join them once more and to put things on
their old footing.

Gracie was not doubtful of Maggie, nor of Bessie, nor yet of Belle
Powers and Fanny Leroy; in fact, she knew she would be received
kindly by the majority of the members, but about Lily and two or
three others she had her misgivings, and hence that doubtful,
half-deprecating glance at the former, who stood at Maggie's elbow.

Lily caught it, and, although she had intended to be very offish and
high and mighty with Gracie for the rest of her days, her heart smote
her, and flinging her former resolution to the winds, she followed
Maggie's example, and laying her hand persuasively on Gracie's muff,
said, with her usual directness:

"Oh, come on, Gracie! Don't let's have any more madness and being
offended among us. It's horrid; so let by-gones be by-gones, and
come to the club meetings again."

"If they only knew," thought Gracie, "they would not ask me, would
not say 'let by-gones be by-gones;'" but she said that she would come
to the meeting, and then they parted and went their separate ways.

When Maggie and Bessie reached home, they found Colonel Rush there
awaiting them, and heard that he had come to take them to his own
house. Lena, his niece, was coming down to dinner for the first time
since she had been so badly burned; that is, she was to be carried
down, for her poor little feet were still too tender to suffer her to
put them to the ground, or to take any steps upon them. But she had
been so long a prisoner upstairs that it was quite an event for her
to be allowed to join the family at dinner once more; and the Colonel
had seen fit to make it a little more of a celebration by coming for
Maggie and Bessie to make merry with them on the occasion. Indeed, he
was apt to think that such occasions were not complete without the
company of his two pets, and they had both been perfectly devoted to
Lena during the period of her confinement, so that he was more than
ready to make this a little jubilee for all concerned.

Mamma's permission being readily obtained--indeed the Colonel had
secured it before the two little maidens had appeared upon the
scene--the three friends set forth again, well pleased with one
another and with the prospect before them.

"Lena has had quite an eventful day," said the Colonel, as they were
on their way to his house. "First and greatest, I suppose, was a
letter from her brother Russell--only a few lines, it is true, but
the first she has had since he was taken ill, and it was full of
loving praises for her presence of mind and her bravery, and for the
patience with which she has borne her suffering; so it was very
precious to her, for she adores him, you know; and there was another
from her father, containing news which she would like to give you
herself, I am sure; so I leave it for her to do so. And now comes her
first dinner with the family, with you to dine with her. But she is
such a cool, composed little woman, and takes things so quietly, that
we are less afraid of over-excitement for her than we would be for
some I could name."

"Now, Uncle Horace," said Maggie, as he looked down at her with a
twinkle in his kind eyes, "you know I would keep quiet if you told me
to."

"You would try, I am sure, Midget," answered her friend, "but there
are girls and girls, you know, and it is easier for one species to
keep quiet under exciting causes than it is for another."

"But you can't tell how _this_ species would be in such
circumstances," said Maggie, "because I have never been very ill or
had any terrible injury, such as Lena's burns."

"I can tell that you are a very 'happy circumstance' yourself, and
that I am quite satisfied with you as you are," answered the Colonel,
bending another loving look upon the rosy, glowing face upturned to
his, and which broke into dimples at the allusion to an old-time
joke.

Long ago, when Maggie was a very little girl, she had been very fond
of using long words--indeed, she had not yet outgrown this fancy; but
in former days, whenever she heard what she called "a new word," she
would presently contrive some occasion for using it, not always with
the fullest understanding of its exact meaning; and the results, as
may be supposed, were sometimes rather droll.

One summer, when Mr. Bradford's family were at the sea-shore, and
Colonel and Mrs. Rush were their near neighbors, Maggie had taken a
violent dislike to the mistress of the house where she boarded. The
woman was somewhat rough and unprepossessing, it is true, and hence
Maggie had conceived the prejudice against her; but she was
kind-hearted and good, as the little girl learned later. Having heard
some one use the expression, "happy circumstance," Maggie took a
fancy to it; and, as she informed Bessie, immediately resolved to
adopt it as one of "my words."

An opportunity soon presented itself. Mrs. Jones offended both
children, Maggie especially, and soon after, she asked Mr. Jones in
confidence, if he thought Mrs. Jones "a very happy circumstance."
Fortunately, the man, a jolly, rollicking farmer with a very soft
spot in his heart for all children, took it good-naturedly and
thought it a tremendous joke, and his uproarious merriment called
Mrs. Jones upon the scene to reprove him and inquire the cause,
greatly to the confusion and distress of poor embarrassed, frightened
Maggie. And this was increased by the fact that she took occasion to
praise Maggie and Bessie and to say what good, mannerly children they
were.

Mr. Jones, however, did not betray confidence, and later on, Maggie
changed her opinion; but the "happy circumstance" had remained a
family joke ever since, and the expression was frequently brought
into use in the sense in which Maggie had employed it, and the
children laughed now as the Colonel used the old familiar phrase.




CHAPTER II.

LETTERS.


They found Lena in the library, ensconced in state in her uncle's
comfortable rolling chair, in which, in by-gone days when he was lame
and helpless, he had spent many hours, and in which she could easily
be conveyed from room to room by the Colonel's man, Starr, without
putting her still tender little feet to the ground. It was natural
that she should be glad to be down-stairs again after all the past
weeks of confinement and suffering; but Maggie and Bessie found her
in a state of happiness and excitement unusual with the calm,
reserved Lena, and which seemed hardly to be accounted for by the
mere fact that she had once more been allowed to join the family
circle.

But this was soon explained.

"Maggie and Bessie," she said, with more animation than her little
friends had ever seen her show before, "what do you think has
happened? Such a wonderful, such a delightful thing! I cannot see how
it did happen!"

Such a thing as had "happened" was indeed an unwonted occurrence in
Lena's young life; but she had been through so many new experiences
lately, that she might almost have ceased to be surprised at
anything.

If she could have looked in upon her father and mother and invalid
brother Russell, in their far away southern sojourn a few days since,
she would have seen what led to the present unexpected occurrence.
Mrs. Neville had just read to the two gentlemen a letter from her
brother, Colonel Rush, speaking of Lena's continued imprisonment; and
they had continued to talk of their little heroine and her
achievement.

"Was Lena delirious at any time while she was so very ill?" asked
Russell.

"Not exactly delirious," answered his mother, "but somewhat flighty
at times; and at those times, and indeed when she was herself, her
chief thought and her chief distress seemed to be that she would not
be able to enter into competition with her schoolmates for some prize
to be gained for composition. Your Aunt Marion told me that this
prize was an art education provided by some one for a girl with
talent, whose circumstances would not permit her to obtain one for
herself; and she said that Lena had become very much interested in an
English girl, the daughter of the rector of a poor struggling church
in the suburbs of the city, a girl with a very remarkable artistic
talent; and that she and those little Bradfords, on whose education
and training Horace and Marion seem to base all their ideas
respecting children--if, indeed, they have any ideas except those of
the most unlimited indulgence and license--had set their hearts on
winning this prize for that child. Had it been brought about in any
other way and without physical injury to herself, I should be glad
that Lena was removed from such competition. I highly disapprove of
all such arrangements. Children should be taught to seek improvement
and to do their duty because it _is_ their duty, and not with
the object of gaining some outside advantage either for themselves
or others."

"In this case, it certainly seems to have been for a praiseworthy,
unselfish object. Poor, dear little Lena!" said Russell, who was the
only member of his family who ever ventured to set up his opinion in
opposition to his mother's.

"It is the principle of the thing I object to," she said, a little
severely. "As I say, I wish my children to do right because it is
right, and not with any ulterior object."

"The inducement seemed to have one good effect, at least," persisted
Russell, with a slight shrug of his shoulders which was not, perhaps,
altogether respectful, "and that was the wonderful improvement Lena
made in letter-writing; in the matter and manner, the style and the
handwriting, she has certainly made rapid progress during the time
she has been with Miss Ashton. Do you not agree with me, father?"

"Ahem-m-m! Yes, I do indeed," answered Mr. Neville, thinking of a
little letter which lay snugly ensconced in his left-hand waistcoat
pocket, a letter which had come by the same mail as that which his
wife held in her hand, but which he had not thought fit to submit to
her perusal. It was a letter thanking him for giving her the liberty
of asking for anything she wished for--her choice had been that she
might be allowed to remain at her uncle's house during the stay of
the family in the country--a letter sweet, tender, and confiding, and
giving him glimpses into the child's heart which were a revelation to
him; a letter which had touched him deeply, but which he believed
Mrs. Neville would call "gush" and "nonsense." And just now he did
not care to have it so criticised, so he would not show it to his
wife, at least at present.

But before the subject of the conversation had changed, Mrs. Neville
was called from the room, and Mr. Neville said to his son:

"Russell, I am feeling that I owe--ahem!--I owe some
recognition--ahem!--to the Almighty for the very signal mercies
granted to us during the past few weeks, some thank-offering--and,
ahem!--perhaps I owe some to Lena, too. You, in a fair way of
recovery; and, through Lena's wonderful heroism, a frightful casualty
averted; and now she herself doing far better than we had dared to
hope. If the child is set upon giving an artist's education to this
young countrywoman of our own, and your Uncle Horace thinks well of
it,--perhaps it might give her pleasure to have the means of doing
so. Being now disabled it will be impossible for her to enter into
farther competition with her schoolmates, and I wish her to have the
pleasure of making the gift herself. What say you?"

The idea met with unqualified approbation from his son; and not only
this, but Russell expressed a wish to join his father in his
thank-offering. He was liberal and open-handed, this young man, and,
having lately come of age and into possession of quite a fortune in
his own right, he was ready to seize upon any opportunity of
benefiting others out of his own means. He was a young man after
Maggie's and Bessie's own hearts, and they would instantly have
stamped him with the seal of their approval had they known of this
most desirable characteristic.

Some little further conference on the matter ensued between the
father and son, with the result that Lena's eyes and heart had to-day
been gladdened by the receipt of two checks of no inconsiderable
amount--a fortune they seemed to her--the one from her father
representing one thousand dollars, the other from Russell for five
hundred. They were enclosed in a letter from Mr. Neville to his
little daughter, saying that they were to be appropriated to any
charitable purpose which she might designate, subject to her uncle's
approval--either for the use of the young artist, or, if she were
likely to gain the instruction she required through the means of any
of Lena's schoolmates, for any good object which would gratify her.

"It's worth all the burns," said the delighted Lena to her uncle,
when she had shown her prize to him and consulted him as to the best
disposition of it.

"The true martyr spirit," the Colonel said later to his wife. "And
she shows herself a wise and prudent little woman; for when we were
discussing the matter she said she would wait to decide what should
be done with the money until she knows if Maggie or Bessie or any one
of those interested in Gladys Seabrooke wins the prize. She knows
that Mr. Ashton's gift will go to Gladys in that case; and then she
wishes to devote the money to repairing the old church. If she were
thirty instead of thirteen she could not show better judgment or more
common sense."

"I am glad that her father is learning to appreciate her at last,"
said Mrs. Rush, who, being very fond of children herself, deeply
resented the keep-your-distance system and constant repression under
which her husband's sister and brother-in-law brought up their
family.

So this was the prize which Lena had to show to her young friends,
this the story she had to tell. They, Maggie and Bessie, were
enchanted in their turn, and as Lena displayed to them the two magic
slips of paper which held for them such wonderful possibilities, and
which appeared as untold wealth to their eyes, they could not contain
their delight and enthusiasm.

"Why, that will build a whole new church; will it not, Uncle Horace?"
asked Bessie, whose faith that her own Maggie would win the prize was
absolute, especially now that Gracie Howard seemed to have withdrawn
from the contest, and that Lena had been disabled, and who therefore
never doubted that the rector's little daughter was sure of the gift
tendered by Mr. Ashton.

"Well, hardly," said the Colonel, smiling, as he laid aside the
evening paper; "hardly, although it will go far towards making some
of the repairs which are so much needed, and also towards beautifying
the inside of the church a little. And I think that you must let me
also have a hand in this, for I, too, have occasion for a
thank-offering. So altogether, I hope we shall be able to put the
little church into a fairly presentable condition; that is, in case
you decide, Lena, to use your funds for that purpose," he added,
with the private resolve that the needy church should not be the
loser even if the checks were applied to Gladys Seabrooke's benefit.
She was the first object with all three children, that was plainly to
be seen; but if it should fall out that the means of improvement she
so much desired and so much needed were gained for her by Mr.
Ashton's trust, then this small fortune was to be devoted to the
church of which her father was rector. Then, too, these young home
missionaries intended to devote the proceeds of the fair they were to
hold at Easter to the help of the same church; so that altogether the
prospect for its relief seemed to be promising.

[Illustration: "THAT WILL BUILD A WHOLE NEW CHURCH"]

"I had a letter from Russell, too, written by his own hand, the very
first since he has been ill," said the happy Lena. "Oh! and I forgot;
I had a letter from Percy, too. I did not read it, I was so excited
by Papa's and Russell's and the two checks. Let me see; where is it?
Oh, here it is!"

And she opened it; but seeing at a glance that it was unusually long,
she decided that she would not try to decipher Percy's irregular,
illegible handwriting at that time, but would wait till Maggie and
Bessie should have left her and would make the most of their society.

Poor little Lena! her day was not to be all sunshine, for a cloud
came over the heaven of her happiness before she laid her head upon
her pillow that night. But this cast no shadow as yet, and the
evening passed merrily to all three children.

"I do wish that you could come to the club-meeting on Friday, Lena,"
said Bessie, shortly before it was time for them to separate for the
night.

"So do I," said Maggie.

"I am sure that I wish it," said Lena, "but I suppose it will be some
weeks yet before I can go."

Mrs. Rush, who was sitting near, overheard the little colloquy, and
at once made a charming suggestion.

"Suppose," she said, "that you meet here till Lena is well enough to
go to your house, Maggie. My morning room shall be at your service,
as your mother's is at present."

"Oh, how good in you!" cried Maggie and Bessie, both in one breath,
while Lena's pale face flushed with gratitude and pleasure; and so
the matter was arranged, Maggie undertaking to tell all the members
of the club of the change in the place of meeting.

But, glancing at Bessie, Maggie saw that she looked somewhat
perturbed, and she suddenly remembered what had passed with Gracie
Howard that very afternoon, and that she had been urged to resume her
accustomed place among the "Cheeryble Sisters," and had consented to
do so. How would that do now? Would Lena feel like having Gracie come
here? Gracie who had treated her so badly, who had shown such
jealousy and unkindness towards her. This was rather a complication,
and considering it, Maggie became uneasy and embarrassed, and Lena,
who was very quick-sighted, saw it.

"What is the matter, Maggie?" she asked. "Do you think you would
rather not come here?"

"Oh, no!" answered Maggie, "you know I always love to come here. But,
Lena, this afternoon we met Gracie Howard, and I begged her to come
to the meeting to-morrow. She has not been since--since--the day--of
the fire."

The flush which pleasure at her aunt's offer had brought to Lena's
face deepened to crimson, which mounted to the very roots of her hair
as she heard Maggie.

Then after a moment's hesitation, she said, "Will you ask her to
come, Maggie?"

"Yes," answered Maggie, doubtfully, "I'll ask her."

"But you think that she will not come?" said Lena.

"I am afraid she will not," answered Maggie; then added, "I am sure I
should not if I were in her place; I should be too ashamed. I think
she is ashamed, Lena, and sorry, too; I really do."

Lena seemed to be considering for a moment; then she said, evidently
with a great effort,--

"Do you think she would come if I wrote and asked her? I--I would do
it if you thought she would be friends again. And, perhaps," she
added, with a little pathetic wistfulness which nearly made the tears
come to the eyes of the sympathetic Maggie and Bessie, "perhaps she
would, now, after such a thing happened to me. Do you know," sinking
her voice to a whisper, and speaking with an unreserve which she
never showed towards any one save these little friends, and seldom to
them, "do you know that when they thought I was going to die--oh, I
know that every one thought I was going to die--I used to feel so
sorry for Gracie, because we had that quarrel that very afternoon;
and I knew how I should have felt if I had been in her place, and I
used to wish that I could make up with her; and now I would really
like to if she will. Shall I write?"

Bessie, whose eyes were now brimming over, stooped and kissed her
cheek; and Maggie followed her example, as she answered, with a break
in her own voice,

"I don't see how she could help it, Lena; you dear Lena."

Maggie and Bessie were not a little astonished, not only at this
burst of confidence from the shy, reserved Lena, but also at the
feeling she expressed and her readiness to go more than half way in
making advances for the healing of a breach in which she certainly
had not been to blame.

But in the border-land through which Lena's little feet had lately
trod, many and serious thoughts had come to her; thoughts of which
those about her were all unconscious, as she lay seemingly inert and
passive from exhaustion, except when pain forced complaint from her;
and chief among these had been the recollection of the unpleasant
relation which for some time had existed between herself and Gracie
Howard, and which had culminated in the attack of jealousy and
ill-temper which the latter had shown towards her on the very
afternoon of the day in which Lena had been so badly, almost fatally,
injured in the fire. And Lena herself, as has been said, had been
altogether blameless in the affair, had no cause whatever for
self-reproach; nevertheless, she had wished that she could have made
friends with Gracie before she died. But she had spoken to no one of
this until now, when she thus opened her heart, at least in a
measure, to Maggie and Bessie.

Knowing all that they did--and still neither they nor Lena knew
one-half of Gracie's misconduct--what wonder was it that they were
touched, and filled with admiration for this little friend who, a
stranger only a few months since, had come to fill so large a place
in their affection and interest.

But Maggie, feeling confident, as she said, that Gracie was both
ashamed and repentant, was also overjoyed at this opening towards a
reconciliation; for her peace-loving soul could not abide dissension
in any shape, and this breach between two members of the once
harmonious club of the "Cheeryble Sisters" had been a sore trial to
her.

Nor was Bessie much less pleased; and thinking that there was no time
like the present, and that it would be well that Lena should act
before she had opportunity to change her mind,--this showed that she
did not know Lena well, for having once made up her mind that a thing
was right, Lena was not more apt to change than she would have been
herself,--she offered to bring writing materials, that the note might
be written at once; and running into the library, where Colonel Rush
was smoking his cigar, she begged for and received them.

But even with those before her and her resolve firmly taken, Lena
found not a little embarrassment and difficulty in wording her note;
for, owing to the state of affairs between her and Gracie, it was not
the easiest thing in the world for her to do.

However, by Maggie's advice, she resolved to write as though nothing
unpleasant had passed between herself and Gracie, and she finally
produced the following simply-worded note, ignoring all that was
disagreeable.

"DEAR GRACIE,

"Aunt Marion has said that I may have the 'Cheeryble Sisters,' Club
here to-morrow, and she says she will make it a little celebration for
us because it is so long since I have been with you girls. Please
come, for I want to have all of you here.

"Your schoolmate,

"LENA H. NEVILLE."

She hesitated over the manner of closing it, for she could not put
"affectionately yours," as, although she was striving to put from her
all hard thoughts of Gracie, she certainly did not regard her with
any affection, nor would she pretend to do so; for Lena was a most
determinately honest child and would never express, even in a
conventional way, that which she did not feel. She even shocked
Maggie and Bessie now and then, truthful and sincere as they were,
by her extreme and uncompromising plain-speaking; and perhaps it was
as well that she was a child of so few words, or she would often have
given offence. Maggie had suggested "truly yours," as being a common
form even between strangers; but Lena rejected that also as
expressing a sentiment she did not feel, and Bessie finally proposed
"your schoolmate," which satisfied the requirements of both truth and
civility.

Maggie and Bessie posted the note on the way home, so that it might
be sure to reach Gracie early in the morning, and that, as Bessie
said, she might have "time to get over the shock of Lena's
forgiveness before she came to school."

Lena had been carried upstairs and safely deposited in her own room
by Starr; and Hannah, the nurse of the young Nevilles, had gone
down-stairs to seek the food which it was still considered necessary
for the little invalid to take before going to rest, when Lena
bethought herself of her brother Percy's letter, still unopened in
the excitement which had attended the receipt of the two from her
father and Russell.

With a half-remorseful feeling that she had so long left it
unnoticed, she broke the seal of Percy's letter. But the first words
on which her eyes lighted sent a pang to her heart, and as she heard
Hannah's heavy step returning, she thrust the letter hurriedly out of
sight.

"Dear, dear, child!" said the old nurse, as she saw that Lena's hand
shook so that she could hardly hold the bowl of broth, or carry the
spoon to her lips, and with some triumph in, as she believed, the
fulfilment of her own prophecies, "dear, dear, you're hall hupset,
Miss Lena. I told the mistress and I told the doctor you wasn't in no
state to go downstairs yet, or worse still, to be 'avin' company, not
if it was Miss Maggie and Miss Bessie, leastways not hout of your
hown room. 'Ere, let me 'old the basin; you're not fit to do it.
There now, here, child,--why, bless your 'eart, Miss Lena, what is
it?"

Poor little girl! she was still so weak, so nervous from the effects
of the frightful experience through which she had lately passed, and
of all the consequent suffering, that she was in no state to bear
even the slightest shock or excitement. Had Hannah not noticed her
agitation she would probably have controlled herself; but the
questions and pressing of the old servant were too much for her, and
she burst into a flood of hysterical tears.

She retained sufficient presence of mind, however, when Hannah ran to
the door to call her assistant, who was in the next room, to open the
drawer of the table by which she sat, and shut the letter within. No
one must see that letter until she had had time to read it, and find
what those first few sentences meant.

Letitia was sent by Hannah for Mrs. Rush, who speedily came; and,
knowing no other cause, she believed, as the servants did, that this
came from all the excitement of the day, and that they would have to
be more guarded with their little convalescent. She soothed and
petted her, mingling therewith a little judicious firmness, till
Lena's sobs ceased and she was comfortably settled in bed, where she
soon forgot both joys and troubles in the sleep of exhaustion.

"Well!" said Mrs. Rush, when she had left her patient in Hannah's
care and rejoined her husband, "this puts an end to the project of
having the children's club here to-morrow. We have gone too fast, and
now prove that Lena is not so strong and cannot bear so much as we
thought. I must at once send word to Maggie and Bessie."




CHAPTER III.

LENA'S SECRET.


When Mrs. Rush came up a couple of hours later to inquire about her
little niece, she found her still in that heavy sleep; and with
directions to Hannah to call her if needful, left her, with the hope
that she would rest undisturbed till morning.

When Lena woke from that dull sleep some time after midnight, all the
house was still; the only sound she heard was the regular breathing
of Hannah, who slept on a cot on the other side of the room, that she
might be near in case Lena needed anything in the night.

She roused to a bewildered half-consciousness of something unusual;
what was it, good or ill? What had happened before she went to sleep?

Then came the recollection of those delightful letters from papa and
Russell, confiding to her disposal those precious slips of paper
which represented so much; oh! what a pleasure it was to have the
power of doing so much good; then with a shock came the remembrance
of that other letter, and those two or three first lines, which
seemed to have burned themselves upon her eyes as she read.

"DEAR LENA,

"I am in the most awful scrape any one was ever in, and you are the
only one who can help me out of it. If you can't, there is nothing for
me but to be arrested and awfully disgraced, with all the rest of the
family too, and the--"

This was as far as Lena had read when Hannah's returning footsteps
had impelled her to put the letter out of sight; but it had been
enough in her weak state to startle her out of her self-control, and
it has been seen what a shock it gave her. "Arrested" had a terrible
significance to Lena.

Not very long before Mrs. Neville's family had left home, Lena had
seen a boy, about her brother Percy's age, arrested in the streets of
London. He had been taken up for some grave misdemeanor, and having
violently resisted his captors, they had found it necessary to
handcuff him, and when Lena saw him he was being forced along between
two policemen, still fiercely struggling, and with his face and
hands covered with blood. The sight had made a dreadful impression
upon the little girl, and when she heard the word "arrested" it
always came back to her with painful force.

Had it been Maggie or Bessie, or any other child whose relations with
her mother were as tender and confiding as are usually those between
mothers and daughters, the impression might have been lessened by
learning that such a sight was not a usual one, and that people when
arrested were not apt to resist as desperately as the unhappy youth
whom she had seen; but not being accustomed to go to Mrs. Neville
with her joys or troubles, Lena had kept her disagreeable experience
to herself and supposed it all to be the necessary consequence of an
arrest, and Percy's words had conjured up at once all manner of
dreadful possibilities. In imagination she saw him dragged along the
streets in the horrible condition of the criminal she had seen, and
the whole family covered with shame and disgrace.

Percy was four years older than Lena, but had not half his young
sister's strength of character, judgment or good sense, and he was,
unfortunately, afflicted with that fatal incapacity for saying no,
which brings so much trouble upon its victims. He was selfish, too;
not with a deliberate selfishness, but with a heedless disregard for
the welfare and comfort of others, which was often as trying as if he
purposely sought first his own good. He would not have told a
falsehood, would not have denied any wrong-doing of which he had been
guilty, if taxed with it; but he would not scruple to conceal that
wrong, or to evade the consequences thereof, by any means short of a
deliberate untruth. His faults were those with which his father and
mother had the least patience and sympathy, and those which needed a
large share of both; had he ever received these, the faults would
probably never have attained to such a growth, for he was in mortal
dread of both parents, especially of his mother, and this, of course,
had tended to foster the weakness of his character.

Poor Lena lay wakeful but quiet for hours, wondering and wondering
what could be the matter, and what those terrifying words with which
Percy's letter commenced could portend. And she, he wrote, was "the
only one who could help him." She wished vainly for the letter, that
she might know the worst at once; but she had no means of reaching it
at present. Her feet could not yet bear to be touched to the ground,
and she dared not wake Hannah and ask for it. Such an unusual request
at this time of night would arouse wonder and surmise, even if Hannah
could be induced to bring her the letter and give her sufficient
light to read it. The old nurse would think her crazy or delirious,
perhaps run and call her aunt and uncle. No, no; that was not to be
thought of, the poor child said to herself as she lay and reasoned
this all out; she must wait till the day came, and then she must
contrive to read the letter when she was alone. Then she could decide
whether or no it would do to take Colonel and Mrs. Rush into her
confidence. She could not bear to think of keeping anything from this
kind uncle and aunt, who had shown themselves so ready to enter into
all her joys and sorrows, who took such an interest--so novel to
her--in all her duties, her occupations, and amusements; who, with a
genuine love for young people, were at no little pains to provide her
with every pleasure suitable for her.

But--Percy--she must think of him first. Oh, if she only knew all
that was in that dreadful letter!

But at last she fell asleep again, sleeping late and heavily, far
beyond the usual hour. When she awoke, she insisted upon being taken
up and dressed, although her aunt and nurse would fain have persuaded
her to lie still and rest; and that done, her object was to obtain
possession of Percy's letter without attracting attention to it.
Being totally unaccustomed to anything like manoeuvring or planning,
she could think of no excuse by which she might have the table
brought near her chair, or the chair rolled near the table. The maids
thought her remarkably fractious and whimsical and hard to please,
but laid it all to the reaction from last night's hysterical attack.
Do what she would, she could not contrive, poor helpless child, to
come at the drawer of the table unless she spoke out plainly, which
she could not do, and she had been wheeled into the nursery before
the opportunity offered.

But here she found the way opened to her. Hannah, who would let no
one else attend to her young lady's meals when they were taken
upstairs, departed for Lena's breakfast; and after she had gone, Lena
speedily bethought herself of a way of procuring Letitia's absence
for a while by sending her down-stairs with directions for some
change in her bill of fare.

Then calling her little sister Elsie, who was playing about the
nursery, she sent her into her own room, bidding her open the table
drawer and bring her the letter she would find there.

Elsie, a demure, sedate little damsel, who always did as she was told
and was a pattern child after Mrs. Neville's own heart, discharged
her commission and came back with the letter, which she handed to her
sister without asking any inconvenient questions, and returned to her
dolls in the corner.

Lena ventured to open the letter, knowing that Hannah, at least, was
sure to be absent for some moments yet, and sure that Letitia, who
was a dull, unobserving girl, would take no notice. She felt that she
could wait no longer.

There was a few moments' silence in the room; Elsie, absorbed in her
quiet play, took no heed to her sister; Letitia did not return,
having stopped on her way back to the nursery to gossip with one of
Mrs. Rush's maids; and Lena read on undisturbed, read to the very end
of the letter.

Then she spoke to Elsie again, spoke in a voice so changed from its
natural tone that the little one looked up in surprise.

"What's the matter, Lena?" she asked, coming to her sister's side;
"is your throat sore? Oh!" scanning her curiously, "did something
frighten you?"

Lena did not heed either question.

"Elsie," she said, still in that strained voice, as if it were an
effort to speak, "put this in the fire, away far back in the fire."

"Why, Lena!" answered the child, "I'm forbidden to go near the fire.
Did you forget that?"

Lena thought a moment, then said, with a strong effort for
self-control, and still in that same measured tone:

"Then go in my room and open the small right-hand compartment of my
writing-desk and put this letter in it and shut the door tight, tight
again, and lock it and bring me the key. Quick, Elsie."

But again, influenced by conscientious scruples, Elsie objected.

"I 'spect Hannah wouldn't like me to go in your room so much, Lena;
the windows are all open. She didn't say don't go in there, but I
'spect she thinked it, 'cause she always says don't go where the
windows are open."

For the first time in her life Lena condescended to something like
cajolery.

"And you will not do that for your poor sister who cannot walk?" she
asked, reproachfully.

"Oh, yes, yes; and burned herself for me to save me out the fire,"
exclaimed Elsie, throwing her arms about Lena, "I don't care if
Hannah does scold me; I'd just as lief be scolded for you. But your
voice is so queer, Lena; you must be thirsty for your breakfast."

Taking the letter from her sister's hand, the child turned to obey
her request, but was again assailed by doubts as to the course of
duty.

"If Hannah or Letitia come, shall I tell them to put it away?" she
asked.

"No, no!" answered Lena, sharply; then feeling that she must take the
child, at least in a measure, into her confidence, she added,
hurriedly,

"Hannah is not to see it. No one is to see it, no one; and you are
not to speak of it, Elsie. Go now, quickly, and put it in the
secretary."

Rather startled by her voice and manner, the little one obeyed and
returned to Lena's room with the letter.

But now she fell into difficulties. The door of the compartment into
which Lena had told her to put the letter was hard to open; it stuck,
and Elsie vainly struggled with it, for it would not yield. Meanwhile
Letitia, hearing Hannah come up from the kitchen, had hurriedly
returned to her post of duty. She exclaimed on finding the door
between the rooms open and a draught of cold air sweeping through,
and hastening to shut it, discovered Elsie still struggling with the
door of the little closet.

"Well, did I ever!" exclaimed the nursery-maid. "You here in this
cold draught, Miss Elsie; an' what'll Hannah say, I wonder?"

"I want to put this in here, and I can't open this door," said the
loyal little soul, refraining from shifting the blame from her own
shoulders, by saying that she had come on Lena's errand. Letitia went
to her assistance, but the door was still obstinate, and before the
letter was hidden it was made plain "what Hannah would say;" for the
old nurse came bustling in in a transport of indignation at finding
Elsie exposed to the risk of taking cold, for she was a very
delicate child. She rated both her little charge and her assistant in
no measured terms, especially the latter, who, as she said, "had not
even had the sense to put down the windows on the child." She
snatched the letter from Elsie's hand, the little girl repeating what
she wanted to do with it, and bidding her at once to go back to the
other room, gave a violent pull to the small door, which proved more
successful than the efforts of her predecessors.

"What's all this fuss about putting the letter away, anyway?" she
said, glancing at the unlucky document. "Bless me, if t'aint from
Master Percy, an' to Miss Lena! Well, an' she never saying a word of
it. What's she so secret habout it for?"

Now Hannah's chief stumbling-block was a most inordinate curiosity,
and once aroused on the subject of that letter, was not likely to be
laid to rest until it had received some satisfaction. She turned the
letter over and over, scrutinizing it narrowly; but there was nothing
to be learned from the address or the post-mark farther than that it
was certainly from Percy, whose handwriting she well knew. Had she
dared she would have opened it; but that was a thing upon which even
she scarcely ventured, autocrat though she was within the nursery
dominions. Also, Lena was rather beyond her rule since the Neville
family had come to Colonel Rush's house.

Elsie had lost no time in escaping from the storm which her seeming
imprudence had evoked, and the nursery maid had followed; the little
girl reporting to her sister that Hannah had taken the letter from
her and was putting it away. Poor Lena found her precautions of no
avail, and she knew Hannah well enough to feel sure that she would be
subjected to the closest questioning. She must brave it out now, and
she forced herself to face it.

"_I_ sent Elsie in there; it was my fault, not hers," she said,
throwing down the gauntlet with an air of defiance which rather
astonished Hannah.

"You know she oughtn't to go in that cold hair," said Hannah,
sharply. "And why for couldn't you wait till me or Letitia came to
put by your letter if you _was_ in 'aste habout it? There,"
mollified by the look in the beautiful dark eyes, now so unnaturally
large and pathetic through illness and suffering, which Lena turned
piteously upon her without answering, "there, there, child; never
mind now. Heat your breakfast, my dear, for you look quite spent and
worn out. Ye've got a setback by yesterday's doin's that'll last a
week. Come, now, Miss Lena, take this nice chicken an' put a bit of
strength into you."

And the old woman bustled about, displaying to the best advantage the
dainty breakfast she had brought to tempt the appetite of her young
charge.

But Lena could not eat; she was still too sick at heart, and seeing
this, Hannah connected it with the letter.

"You 'av'n't 'ad hany bad news, Miss Lena?" she suddenly asked, as
she bade Letitia remove the tray with its contents almost untouched.
"Master Percy--none of 'em isn't hill?"

"No, no," answered Lena, replying to the latter question and ignoring
the former. "I have not heard that any one was ill. Letitia," in a
tone of imperious command, very unusual with her when speaking to a
servant, "hand me that book--and--Hannah--let me alone."

Hannah was now indeed dumb with amazement, and her suspicions were
more than ever aroused. There was something wrong with Percy; he
might not be ill--he was sure not to be if the absolutely truthful
Lena denied it, but he was in some trouble, and she would not rest
until she found it out.

Percy was, of all her nurslings, Hannah's favorite, perhaps for the
very reason that the instability of his character had so often led
him into scrapes in which she had shielded and helped him. He had, in
his childhood, frequently escaped punishment by her connivance, and
it was her theory that "the poor boy was put upon" more than any of
the others. Now he had been sent away to school, while the rest were
enjoying the unwonted liberty and pleasures of their uncle's house;
and her affectionate old heart was often sore within her as she
pondered over the wrongs she fancied he endured. She was not
over-scrupulous as to the means she took to avert the consequences of
misdoing from Percy, or any other one of the flock whom she had
nursed from earliest babyhood; but so guarded was she that Mrs.
Neville had never suspected her of anything like double-dealing, or
assuredly her reign in the nursery would soon have come to an end.

That she was right in her surmises she became more and more convinced
as she watched Lena and saw that though she kept her eyes fixed upon
the open book in her lap, she never turned a leaf. It was evidently
to avoid observation and to have a pretext for keeping quiet that she
had taken the book. Then, by dint of adroit questioning of the other
servants, she managed to ascertain, without letting them know that
anything was wrong, that no letters had been carried to Lena that
morning, but that Starr had handed her three on the previous
afternoon. Lena had spoken of two of these, her papa's and Russell's,
had told the old nurse what treasures they contained, but she had
said nothing of the other, Percy's. Hannah guessed the truth when she
surmised that in the excitement over the first two, Lena had
forgotten Percy's and opened it later.

"When she'd come up to bed last night! I see, I see," the nurse said
to herself. Percy was surely in some difficulty again, and both he
and Lena were trying to hide it; but she would leave no means untried
to discover what it was.

Mrs. Rush was quite shocked at Lena's looks when she came up to see
her, and so was the colonel in his turn, and Lena found it very
difficult to parry their questions, and to appear even comparatively
unembarrassed and at her ease in their presence. They both positively
vetoed any attempt at coming down-stairs to-day, or the reception of
any visitors; and, indeed, Lena had no inclination for either, but
was quite content to accept their verdict that she must keep
absolutely quiet and try to recover from the over-excitement of
yesterday. She did not wish to see any one; even Maggie and Bessie
would not have been welcome visitors now when that dreadful secret
was weighing upon her, and as for going down-stairs she had no desire
to do so; she wanted to remain as near as might be to the fatal
letter, would have insisted upon being carried back to her own room
had she not feared it would occasion wonder. She was half frantic,
too, about the key of the compartment of the secretary. Hannah had
not brought it to her, and she dared not ask for it.

Oh, how miserable it was to be so helpless with so much at stake! not
to be able even to touch one's feet to the ground to go to find out
if the key were still in the lock, the letter safe in the secretary.

Her apprehensions were of the vaguest, for there was no reason that
any one should go to her secretary without permission, and she had no
cause to suspect that any one would do so, and thus she reasoned with
herself; but had she known it, they were not without cause, for
Hannah had resolved that she would find out what that letter
contained. It must be said for her that although her curiosity was
greatly aroused, she was actuated chiefly by her affection for Percy,
and the desire to rescue him from any trouble into which he might
have fallen.

An opportunity was not long in presenting itself, for when the
doctor, who had been sent for, arrived, Hannah made a plausible
errand into Lena's room and secured the letter.

Having gained her object the dishonorable old woman found the
agitation of her invalid charge amply accounted for. She carried the
letter to a place where she could read it undisturbed and free from
observation, and make herself mistress of its contents; then returned
to Lena's room and put the letter in the place whence she had taken
it.

But Hannah's face was very pale, and she was most unusually quiet all
that day, falling into fits of abstraction as if her thoughts were
far away. She was more tender than ever with Lena, knowing now too
well the trouble which was weighing upon the heart and spirits of the
sensitive young sister, and secretly sharing it with her. Hour after
hour she pondered upon ways and means for relieving her favorite
from the trouble into which his own folly and weakness had led him,
and how she might do so without betraying either this or her own
shameless conduct in possessing herself of the secret.




CHAPTER IV.

PERCY.


Percy Neville had been placed by his parents at a small private
school where only twelve pupils were taken, and where they intended
he should be, as Mrs. Neville said, "under the strictest personal
supervision." The school had been chosen not only on this account,
but also because the principal was an Englishman, and had formerly
been tutor in a school which Mr. Neville had attended when a boy.

Only two of the masters and tutors resided in the school, one of them
being a young man of the name of Seabrooke, who was half tutor, half
scholar, giving his services for such lessons as he took. He was a
youth of uncommon talent, studious and steady, and much thought of by
Dr. Leacraft and the other masters. Six of the twelve pupils were in
one dormitory under charge of this young man; the other six in
another, in the care of Mr. Merton. Had Dr. Leacraft but known it,
just the opposite arrangement would have been advisable, as the
half-dozen boys in Mr. Merton's room were a much more steady set than
those in young Seabrooke's.

Seabrooke himself had little idea of the lawlessness which reigned in
the quarters under his charge; he was an unusually heavy sleeper, and
all manner of pranks were carried on at night without rousing him.

The leader of these escapades was a boy of the name of Flagg, utterly
without principle or sense of honor; but plausible, and, being quick
at his studies, making a fair show with his masters. Over Percy
Neville this boy had acquired a most undesirable influence, and led
him into many pranks and violations of rules which were little
suspected by the authorities. Poor Percy, weak, vacillating, and
utterly without resolution or firmness of character, was easily led
astray, although his conscience, his judgment, and his sense of truth
were often offended by the wrong-doing into which he suffered himself
to be persuaded.

About a mile from the school lived a man of the name of Rice, who
kept boats, fishing-tackle and one or two horses which he let out;
while back of his place was a small lake which afforded good fishing
in the summer and excellent skating in the winter. His house was not
a gambling or drinking place, at least not avowedly so; but some
rather questionable doings had taken place there, and the spot was
one absolutely forbidden to the scholars of Dr. Leacraft's school.
Nevertheless, some of the wilder spirits were in the habit of going
there when they could do so without risk of discovery; and they also
employed Rice to procure for them such articles as were tabooed and
which they could not purchase for themselves. Lewis Flagg was one of
his most constant customers, and he had gradually drawn every one of
the boys in his dormitory into various infringements of regulations.
He had found Percy an easy victim, and by degrees had drawn him on
from bad to worse, until he had brought him to a pass where he was
afraid to rebel lest Lewis should reveal his former misdoings, as he
threatened to do.

Within the last few weeks it had been the practice of the six boys in
Seabrooke's dormitory to slip out of the window at night upon the
roof of the porch, thence by the pillars to the ground, and then off
and away to Rice's house, where a hot supper, previously ordered,
awaited them. This flagrant violation of rules and order had taken
place several times, and, so far, thanks to Seabrooke's heavy
slumbers, had not yet been discovered.

About this time a hard frost of several days duration had made the
skating unusually good; and there was no place within miles of the
school so pleasant or so favorable for that pastime as Rice's pond.
Tempted by this, all the boys under Dr. Leacraft's care had signed a
petition, asking that they might be allowed to go upon this pond if
they would promise not to go into the house.

An hour or two after this petition had been sent in, but before it
had received an answer, a telegram came to the doctor calling him to
Harvard, to his only son, who had been dangerously hurt. The boys
were all assembled at the time for recitation to the doctor, and
rising in his place he made known the subject of the despatch, and
then said:

"In answer to the request which I have just received from you, young
gentlemen, I must return a positive negative. My reasons for
forbidding you to go near Rice's place have lately been given
additional force, and, although I cannot take time to mention them
now, I must request, I must absolutely _forbid_ each and every
one of you from going in the neighborhood of Rice's house or Rice's
pond. I cannot tell how long I may be away; meanwhile the school
will be left under the charge of Mr. Merton and Mr. Seabrooke, and I
trust that you will all prove yourselves amenable to their authority,
and that I shall receive a good report. I leave by the next train.
Good-bye."

The doctor's face was pale and his voice was husky, as he bade them
farewell, dreading what might have come to him before he should see
them again. He was gone in another moment, and in half an hour had
left the house.

Dr. Leacraft was a kind, a just, and a lenient master, granting to
his pupils all the indulgence and privileges consistent with good
discipline, and the more reasonable among the boys felt that he must
have just cause for this renewed and emphatic prohibition against
Rice's place. But Lewis Flagg and his followers were not reasonable,
and many and deep, though not loud, were the murmurs at his orders.
Lewis' boon companions saw from the expression of his eye that he
meditated rebellion and disobedience even while the doctor was
speaking; and Percy Neville and one or two others resolved that they
would refuse to share in them.

Nor were they mistaken. No sooner were the six choice spirits alone
together than Lewis unfolded a plan for "a spree" for the following
night.

The moon was about at the full, and his proposal was that they should
leave the house in the manner they had done more than once before, by
means of the window and the root of the porch, go to Rice's and have
a supper, which was to be previously ordered, and afterwards a
moonlight skate on the lake.

"Rip Van Winkle will never wake," said Flagg, "not if you fire a
cannon-ball under his bed, and we'll be back and in our places and
have a good morning nap before he suspects a thing."

But some of the better disposed among the boys demurred, fresh as
they were from the doctor's late appeal to them, and their knowledge
of the sad errand upon which he had gone; and foremost among them was
Percy Neville.

"I don't know," he said, doubtfully, when Lewis Flagg unfolded his
plan. "I don't know. Isn't it rather shabby after what the doctor
said to us? And--you know--Dick Leacraft might be dying--might be
dead--they say he's awfully hurt--and we wouldn't like to think about
it afterwards if we were breaking rules when the doctor--"

But the expression upon Flagg's face stopped him.

"Hear the sentiment of him!" sneered the bad, reckless boy; "just
hear the sentiment of him! Who'd have thought Neville was such a Miss
Nancy, such a coward? But you're going if the rest go, for we're all
in the same box and have got to stand by one another--none are going
to be left behind to make a good thing for themselves if anything
does leak out."

"I shouldn't, you know I shouldn't say a word!" ejaculated Percy,
indignantly.

"No, I don't believe you would," said Flagg; "but we can't have any
left behind. One in for it, all in for it. Pluck up your courage and
come along, Percy. If you don't,"--meaningly--"you and I'll have some
old scores to settle."

This threat, which meant that former misdeeds and infringements of
rules would be betrayed by Lewis if Percy did not yield, took effect,
as it had done more than once before; and Percy agreed to join in the
prohibited sport. He had not the strength, the moral courage, to tell
Lewis that cowardice and weakness lay in that very yielding, in the
fear which led him into new sin sooner than to face the consequences
of former misdeeds,--misdeeds more venial than that now proposed. It
was not the doctor of whom Percy stood in such awe half so much as
his parents, especially his mother. It is more than possible that he
would have gone to the former and made confession of past offences
rather than continue in such bondage as Flagg now maintained over
him; but he could not or would not face the displeasure of his
father and mother, or the consequences which were likely to follow.
Leniency, or a tender compassion for their faults, were not looked
for by any of the Neville children; when these were discovered they
must be prepared to bide the fullest penalty.

"I don't know about Seabrooke." said Raymond Stewart. "He has not
slept as soundly as usual these last few nights. I've been awake
myself so much with the toothache, and I know that he has been
restless and wakeful; and he might chance to rouse up at the wrong
time and find us going or gone."

"He's seemed to have something on his mind and to be uneasy in the
daytime, too," said another boy, "and he's been so eager for the
mail, as if he were expecting something more than usual. He's
everlastingly writing, too, every chance he finds."

"Oh, he fancies he has literary talent," said Flagg, "and he's
forever sending off the results of his labors. I suppose he expects
to turn out an author and to become famous and a shining mark."

"The doctor says he will be," said Raymond, "and I know that one or
two of his pieces have been accepted by the magazines and paid for,
too. I saw them myself in a magazine at home. It must be a great
thing for a fellow who has his own way to make in the world, as
Seabrooke has. I know his family are as poor as rats. His father is
rector of a little shabby church just out of the city, and I know
they have hard work to get along. You know Seabrooke teaches for his
own schooling."

"I'll see that he sleeps sound enough not to interfere with us
to-morrow night," said Lewis Flagg. "Leave that to me."

He spoke confidently; but to all the questions of the other boys as
to how he was to bring about this result, he turned a deaf ear.

But he succeeded in bringing every one of his five schoolmates to his
own way of thinking, or, at least, to agreeing to join in the
proposed expedition; and his arrangements were carried on without any
further demur openly expressed from them.

Seabrooke was in the habit of taking a generous drink of water every
night the last thing before he retired. On the evening of the
following day, and that for which the aforesaid frolic had been
planned, Lewis Flagg might have been found in the dormitory at a very
unusual hour; and had there been any one there to see, he might have
been observed to shake the contents of a little paper, a fine white
powder, into the water carafe which stood filled upon the wash-stand
in Seabrooke's alcove. Then, with the self-satisfied air of one who
has accomplished a great feat, he stole from the room and back to his
schoolmates.

"Seems to me Seabrooke has been uncommonly chirk and chipper this
evening," said Charlie Denham, when the boys had gone to their rooms,
as their masters supposed-for the night.

"Yes, he had a letter by the evening mail which seemed to set him up
wonderfully," said Raymond. "I hope it has eased his mind of whatever
was on it so that he won't be wakeful to-night."

"Oh, he'll sleep sound enough, I'll warrant you," said Lewis Flagg,
with a meaning laugh.

Ensconced in bed, every boy fully dressed, but with other clothes so
arranged as to deceive an unsuspecting observer into the belief that
all was as usual, they waited the time when Seabrooke should be
asleep.

The young tutor's alcove was not within the range of Lewis' vision,
but Percy from his bed could see all that went on there, and he lay
watching Seabrooke. As usual, at the last moment the latter poured
out a glass of water and proceeded to drink it down; but he had not
taken half of it when he paused, and Percy saw him hold it up to the
light, smell it, taste of it again and then set the glass down, still
more than two-thirds full.

Harley Seabrooke had no mental cause for restlessness that night; the
evening mail had, as Raymond said, brought him that which had lifted
a load of suspense and anxiety from his mind, and he was unusually
light-hearted and at ease. His head was scarcely upon his pillow when
he was asleep, but not so very sound asleep, for Flagg had over-shot
his mark, and the sleeping potion which he had so wickedly put into
the carafe of water had given it a slightly bitter taste, so that
Seabrooke had found it disagreeable and had not drank the usual
quantity, and the close he had taken was not sufficient to stupefy
him, but rather to render him wakeful as soon as it began to act.

Believing themselves safe as soon as they heard his regular
breathing, the six conspirators slipped from their beds out of the
window upon the roof of the piazza, and thence down the pillars to
the ground, and then off and away to Rice's.

Hardly had they gone when Seabrooke, on whom the intended anodyne
began to have an exciting effect, awoke, and lay tossing for more
than an hour. Weary of this, he rose at last, intending to read
awhile to see if it would render him sleepy; but as he drew the
curtain before his alcove, in order to shield the light from the eyes
of the companions whom he supposed to be safe in their beds fast
asleep, he was struck with the unusual silence of the room. Not a
rustle, not a breath was to be heard, although he listened for some
moments. He could hardly have told why, but he was impressed with the
idea that he was entirely alone, and striking a light, he stepped out
into the main room and went to the nearest bed.

Empty! and so with each one in succession. Not a boy was there!

Remembering the petition to Dr. Leacraft and the resentment which his
refusal to accede to it had provoked, it did not take him long to
surmise whither they had gone; and hastily dressing himself he made
his exit from the house in the same way that they had done and
hastened in the same direction, filled with indignation at such
flagrant disobedience and treachery at a time when the doctor was in
such trouble.

The runaways had had what they called a "jolly supper" and were in
the hall of Rice's house donning great-coats and mufflers before
going out upon the lake, when the outer door was opened, and Percy,
who stood nearest, saw Seabrooke. His exclamation of dismay drew the
attention of all, and the delinquents, one and all, felt themselves,
as Percy afterwards said, "regularly caught."

"You will go home at once, if you please," was all the young tutor
said; but, taken in the very act of rebellion to the head master's
orders, not one ventured to dispute the command. He marshalled them
all before him, and the party walked solemnly home, five, at least,
thoroughly shamefaced.

"Don't you feel sneaky?" whispered Raymond to Lewis Flagg.

"No" answered the other; "I'm not the one to feel sneaky. I haven't
been spying and prying and trapping other fellows."

But this bravado did not make the others easy.

Seabrooke made his captives enter by the way in which they had left,
so that the rest of the household might not be disturbed, and ordered
them at once to bed.

"What are you going to do about this?" Lewis asked.

"Report to Mr. Merton in the morning; and then write to the doctor, I
presume, as Mr. Merton's hand is too lame for him to write. It will
be as he thinks best," answered Seabrooke, dryly. "I do not wish to
talk about the matter now."

Contrary to his usual custom, Lewis Flagg did not attempt to treat
lightly and as a matter of no consequence the displeasure of his
masters, but seemed depressed and restless the next morning, and
Percy remarked upon it.

"You'd be cut up too if you were in my place," said Lewis, roughly;
"you're only afraid of your father and mother and the doctor; and you
see I've been in a lot of scrapes this term and been awfully unlucky
about being found out, and my uncle threatened to stop my allowance
if he caught me in another, and he'll do it, too; and I've lots of
debts out--a big one to Rice--and you know what the doctor is about
debt, and my uncle is still worse; there'll be no end of a row if he
knows it. If this fuss could only be kept quiet till after I have my
next quarter-and that's due the first of next week--I could pay off
Rice, at least. But if word goes to the doctor, he'll let my uncle
know--he promised to, by special request," he added, bitterly. "Uncle
will make ten times more row over my debts than he will over one
lark, and I promised Rice he should have his money next week. I'm in
awfully deep with him, Percy, and I don't dare let it be found out.
We'll see what old Merton says this morning. But--the doctor sha'n't
hear of it just yet if I can help it."

Percy wondered how he _could_ help it; but before he could ask
the question the school-bell rang and the boys took their places.

After school was opened, Mr. Merton rose, and, with what Lewis called
"threatening looks" at the delinquents, said, quietly:

"Young gentlemen of Mr. Seabrooke's dormitory, it is hardly necessary
to say that this evening's mail will carry to Dr. Leacraft an account
of last night's flagrant misconduct. Till I hear from him, I shall
take no further steps, save to request that you will not go outside
the house without either myself or Mr. Seabrooke in attendance."

Lewis Flagg was a bright scholar, and so far as recitations went,
maintained his standing in the class with the best; but to-day he was
far below his usual mark, and his attention constantly wandered; and
most of his fellow culprits were in like case. In view of the
escapade of the previous night and its impending consequences, that
was hardly to be wondered at; but Lewis was wont to make light of
such matters, and he was evidently taking this more seriously than
usual.

But the truth was that this did not rise from shame or regret--at
least not from a saving repentance--but because he was absorbed in
trying to find a way out of his difficulties.

Mr. Merton was suffering from acute rheumatism in his right hand, and
being disabled from writing, he had, after consultation with his
junior, delegated him to make the necessary disclosures to the absent
doctor. Seabrooke was observed to be doing a great deal of writing
that afternoon, and was supposed to be giving a full account of the
affair.

The letters to be taken out were always put into a basket upon the
hall table, whence they were taken and carried to the post-office at
the proper hour by the chore-boy of the school. Here, Lewis thought,
lay his opportunity.

Drawing Percy aside again, he said that Seabrooke's letter to the
doctor must be taken from the basket before Tony carried all away,
and be kept back for a day or two; then it could be posted and
nothing more would be suspected than that it had been belated.
Meanwhile his allowance would arrive, and then Dr. Leacraft was
welcome to know all the particulars of the escapade.

Percy was startled and shocked, and at first refused to have any part
in the matter; but the old threat brought him to terms, and he at
last agreed to Lewis' plans that they should contrive to abstract
Seabrooke's letter to Dr. Leacraft from among the others laid ready
for the post, and keep it back until Lewis' allowance had been
received.

But although the two boys made various errands to the hall, they
found no opportunity of carrying out their dishonorable purpose
before Tony had started on his round of afternoon duties, taking with
him the letters for the post.

Scarcely had he disappeared when Mr. Merton said to the six culprits:

"Young gentlemen, you will go for afternoon exercise to walk with Mr.
Seabrooke. The cold will prevent me from venturing out," touching the
crippled right-arm, which lay in a sling, "or I should not trust you
from beneath my own eyes; but if I hear of any farther misconduct, or
you give him any trouble, there will be greater restrictions placed
upon you, and there will be another chapter to add to the sad account
which has already gone to the doctor."

"Dr. Leacraft will be tired before he comes to a second volume of the
thing Seabrooke has written to him," Flagg whispered to Percy, as
they started together for the walk under Seabrooke's care. "Did you
see him writing and writing page after page? He must have given him
every detail, and made the most of it. And he fairly gloated over it;
looked as pleased as Punch while he was doing it; never saw him look
so happy."

"I'm likely to lose my Easter vacation, and dear knows what else for
this," said Percy, who was exceedingly low in his mind over the
consequences of his lawlessness.

"I'll have worse than that," answered Lewis. "I wouldn't mind that;
but if my quarter's allowance is stopped I don't know what I
_shall_ do. Oh, if I only could get hold of that letter!"

Percy made no response; for, much as he dreaded to have this affair
come to the knowledge of his parents, he shrank from the thought of
abstracting and destroying that letter.

Seabrooke had not much reason to enjoy his walk that afternoon if he
had depended upon his company; his charge were all sulky and
depressed; but, somewhat to their exasperation, their young leader
did not pay much heed to their humors; his own thoughts seemed
sufficient for him; and, to judge by the light in his eye and his
altogether satisfied expression, these were pleasant society.

"Seabrooke's been awfully cock-a-hoop all clay," said Raymond
Stewart; "wonder what's up with him."

"He's glad we're in a scrape," said Lewis, bitterly.

"Don't believe it," said Raymond; "that's not like him."

Seabrooke led the way to the village store, a sort of
_omnium-gatherum_ place, as village stores are apt to be, and
which contained also the post-office.

Entering, the party found Tony there before them, the letters he had
carried from the school lying on the counter; for there were several
small parcels and newspapers which would not go into the receiving
box, and the post-mistress was sorting the afternoon up mail, and the
delivery window of the office was closed; so Tony was waiting his
chance for attention. He stood with his back to the counter,
examining some coal shovels, having received orders to buy one.
Seabrooke was at the other side of the store, making some purchases;
the rest of the boys scattered here and there.

"He hasn't put the letters in the box yet; now's our chance,"
whispered Lewis to Percy, and he sauntered up to the counter where
the letters lay, drawing the reluctant Percy with him.

With a hasty glance at the letters, he snatched up the bulky one
which he believed to be that to Dr. Leacraft, gave another quick look
at the address and thrust it within his pocket; then, humming a tune,
he walked leisurely away with an air of innocent unconcern, still
with his arm through that of Percy.

"That was good luck, wasn't it?" he said. "Now we'll keep it till my
allowance comes and then post it."

Seabrooke and the six boys had just reached the door of the school,
when Tony rushed up to the young tutor, and said, hurriedly:

"Mr. Seabrooke, sir, did you take that letter you told me to be
particular of?"

"No," said Seabrooke, turning hastily. "You haven't lost it?"

"I couldn't find it, sir," faltered the boy; "but I know I had it
when I passed the bridge, for I was lookin' at it and rememberin'
what you told me about it."

Seabrooke waited for no more, but darted off upon the road back to
the village, followed by Tony.

"We're in a fix, now," whispered Lewis to Percy, "if there's going to
be a row about that letter. Isn't he the meanest fellow in the world
to be so set upon having the doctor knowing about last night? Percy,
I'll tell you what! We've got to put the letter out of the way now.
And there's old Merton coming, and he's asking for me. Quick, quick;
take it!" drawing the stolen letter from his pocket and thrusting it
into Percy's unwilling hands. "Put it in the stove, quick, quick!
There's no one to see; no one will suspect! Quick now, while I go to
Mr. Merton and keep him back. You're not fit to meet him: why, man,
you're as pale as a ghost."

And Lewis was gone, meeting Mr. Merton in the hall without.

With not a moment for thought, save one of terror lest he should be
found with the missing letter in his hand, Percy opened the door of
the stove, thrust the letter within upon the glowing coals, and
closed the door again, leaving it to its fate, a speedy and entire
destruction, accomplished in an instant.

An hour passed; the supper gong had sounded and the boys had taken
their places at the table, when Seabrooke returned, pale as death,
and with compressed lips and stern eyes.

Mr. Merton, who was extremely near-sighted, did not observe his
appearance as he took his seat, but the boys all noticed it.

"I have not seen it," or, "I have not found it," was all the response
he had to make to the inquiries of, "Have you heard anything of your
letter?" and so forth.

"Have you lost a letter, Harley?" asked Mr. Merton, at length, his
attention being attracted.

"Yes, sir," answered Seabrooke.

"How was that? Was it a letter of importance?" asked the gentleman,

"Yes, sir, a letter of importance, a letter to my father," answered
his junior, but in a tone which told the older man that he did not
care to be questioned further on that subject.

To his father!

Percy's fork dropped from his hand with a clatter upon his plate, and
Lewis' face took an expression of blank dismay which, fortunately for
him, no one observed.

His father! Had they then run all this risk, been guilty of this
meanness, only to delay, to destroy a letter to Seabrooke's father,
while that to the doctor, exposing their delinquencies, had gone on
its way unmolested.




CHAPTER V.

ROBBING THE MAIL.


"Neville and Flagg, I want to speak to you. Will you come into the
junior recitation-room?" said Seabrooke, as soon after supper as he
could find opportunity of speaking apart to the two terrified
culprits.

Fain would the guilty boys have refused, but they dared not; and they
followed Seabrooke to the place indicated, where he closed the door
and, turning, confronted them.

"Lewis Flagg and Percy Neville," he said, sternly, and his voice
seemed to carry as much weight and authority as that of Dr. Leacraft
himself when he had occasion to administer some severe reproof, "I
suppose that you are striving to annoy me in this manner in revenge
for my detection of your deliberate infringement of rules last night,
but your tricks have recoiled upon your own heads, although even now
I will spare you any farther disgrace and punishment if you will
make restitution at once, for you do not know the extent of the crime
of which you have been guilty. Robbing the mail is an offence which
is punished by heavy penalties. You, Lewis, were seen to take a
letter from among those which Tony carried to the post-office; you,
Percy, standing by and not interfering, even if you were not aiding
and abetting. No matter who told me; you were seen; but it is looked
upon as a school-boy trick, and, by my request, will not be spoken
of if you return the letter without delay. Nor shall I betray you.
Lewis, where is that letter? For your own sake, give it to me at
once. You do not know what you have done."

Lewis would have braved it out, would perhaps even have denied taking
the letter, for he was not at all above telling a lie; but he could
not tell how far evidence would be given against him, and, at least,
immunity from farther punishment was held forth to him and his
fellow-culprit.

But--restitution! Percy, as he knew, had followed out his
instructions and put the letter in the fire.

"I'm sorry," he said, with a forced laugh, but with his voice
faltering; "but we had no idea the letter was of special importance.
We thought it was to the doctor about last night, and we only meant
to keep it back for a day or two and--and--well, when you made such a
row about it--Percy--Percy burned it up. But to call it 'robbing the
mail--'"

He was stopped by the change in Seabrooke's face.

"_You burned it!_" he almost shouted, forgetting the caution he
had hitherto observed in lowering his voice so that it might not be
heard by any one who might be outside the door. For one instant he
stared at the two startled boys, looking from one to the other as if
he could not believe the evidence of his ears. "You burned it!" he
repeated, in a lower tone; then, covering his face with his hands, he
bent his head upon the table before him with something very like a
groan. When he raised his head and uncovered his face again he was
deadly pale.

"There were two hundred dollars in that letter," he said; "you have
not only stolen and destroyed my letter, but also all that sum of
money."

Stolen! All that money!

They were sufficiently appalled now, these two reckless, thoughtless
boys; Percy to an even great degree than his more unprincipled
comrade.

Lewis was the first to find his voice.

"There was not! You're joking! You're only trying to frighten us," he
said, although in his inmost soul he was convinced that this was no
joking matter, no mere attempt to punish them by arousing their
fears. Seabrooke's agitation was not assumed, that was easy to be
seen.

Then followed a long and terrible pause, while the three boys, the
injured and the injuring, stood gazing at one another. Then, despite
his wrongs, the unutterable terror in the faces of the latter touched
Seabrooke, especially in the case of Percy, for whom he had a strong
liking; for the boy had many lovable traits, notwithstanding the
weakness of his character.

"What can we do?" faltered Percy, at last.

"What will you do?" asked Lewis, almost in the same breath.

Trembling and anxious, the two culprits stood before the young man,
scarcely older than themselves, who had become their victim and was
now their accuser and their judge, in whose hands lay their sentence.

"Wait, I must think a minute," he said, willing, out of the kindness
of his noble heart, to spare them ruin and disgrace, and yet scarcely
seeing his way clear to it.

"Listen," he said, after some moments' pondering. "You thought that
letter was to Dr. Leacraft, you say, giving an account of last night.
Mr. Merton, who is disabled, as you know, asked me to write to the
doctor; but I begged him to let me off and to ask one of the
professors to do it. That letter you destroyed was to my father, and,
as I told you, contained two hundred dollars in money--money earned
by myself--money which I must have and which you must restore. Give
it back to me--I will wait till after the Easter holidays for it--and
this matter shall go no farther. No one but myself knows that the
letter contained money; only one saw you take it out, and that one
will be silent if I ask it. I will write out a confession and
acknowledgment for you both to sign. Bring me, after the holidays or
before, each your own share of the money and I will destroy that
paper; but if you fail, I will carry it to the doctor and he must
require it of your friends. I will not--I cannot be the loser through
your wickedness and dishonesty. If you refuse to sign I shall go to
Mr. Merton now and to the doctor as soon as he returns. I do not know
if I am quite right in offering to let you off, even upon such
conditions; but if I can help it I will not ruin you and cause your
expulsion from the school, which, I know, would follow the discovery
of your guilt."

Percy, overwhelmed, was speechless; but Lewis answered after a
moment's pause, during which Seabrooke waited for his answer:

"How are we to raise the money?"

"I do not know," answered Seabrooke, "that is your affair. I worked
hard for mine and earned it; you have taken it from me and must
restore it--how, is for you to determine. If your friends must know
of this, and I suppose that it is only through them that you can
repay me, it seems to me that it would be better for you to make a
private confession to them than to risk that which will probably
follow if Dr. Leacraft knows of it. Are you ready to abide by my
terms?"

"You will give us till--" stammered Lewis, seeing no loophole of
escape, but, as he afterwards told Percy, hoping that something
"would turn up" if they could gain time.

"Till Easter--after the holidays--no longer," answered Seabrooke. "I
know very well that you could hardly raise so much at a moment's
notice; so, although it is a bitter disappointment not to have it
now, I will wait till then if you agree to sign the paper which I
will have ready this evening after study hour. Quick now; the bell
will ring in two minutes."

What could they do? Seabrooke was evidently inexorable, and they knew
well that he could not be expected to bear this loss.

"Yes, I will sign it," said the thoroughly cowed Percy. But Lewis
suddenly flashed up and answered impudently:

"How are we to know that the money was in that letter?"

"I can prove it," answered Seabrooke, quietly; "and, Lewis Flagg, I
can prove something more. I tested the water that was in my carafe
last night, and found that it had been tampered with. I know the
object now, and have discovered who bought the drug at the
apothecary's. Do you comprehend me? If the doctor hears of one thing
he will hear of all."

Utterly subdued now, Lewis stammered his promise to comply with the
young tutor's request.

"One question," said Seabrooke, as the two younger boys turned to
leave the room. "How did you come to take a letter directed to my
father for one addressed to Dr. Leacraft?"

"I don't know," replied Percy, at whom he was looking. "I didn't look
at it particularly, but just put it in the stove when Lewis handed it
to me and told me to do it. We saw you writing for ever so long, and
thought that thick letter was to the doctor. We are--were in such a
hurry, you see."

"And I am sure Leacraft and Seabrooke are not so very different when
one is in a hurry," said Lewis.

"I see," said Seabrooke; "you made up your minds that the letter was
to the doctor, and were so afraid of being caught at your mean trick
that you did not take time to make sure. There's the study bell."

The confession and acknowledgment of their indebtedness was signed
that night by both of the guilty boys.

And this was the story which the sensitive, honorable Lena, the
faithful old Hannah had read--Percy's letter, which had commenced:

"DEAR LENA,

"I am in the most awful scrape any boy ever was in, and you are the
only one who can help me out of it. If you can't there is nothing for
me but to be expelled from the school and arrested and awfully
disgraced, with all the rest of the family; and the worst is that
Russell will be so cut up about it--you know his Royal Highness always
holds his head so high, especially about anything he thinks is
shabby--and I am afraid it will make him worse again. As for the
mother! words could not paint her if she hears about it. And if the
doctor gets hold of it!! I've told you how strict he is and what the
rules are. If it hadn't been an iron-clad place, I shouldn't have been
sent here. I hate these private schools where one can't do a thing
without being found out. Well, here goes; you must hear about it, and
it is a bad business."

Then followed, in school-boy language, an account of the whole
disgraceful transaction. A "bad business," indeed; even worse it
appeared to the young sister and the old nurse than it did apparently
to Percy.

"And now, dear Lena," he continued, "there's no one but you who can
help me. Lewis Flagg is going to have his share. He has a watch that
was his father's, a very valuable one, and his older brother wants it
awfully, and told him long ago he would give him a hundred dollars
for it; he has money of his own, the brother has, and Lewis says it
isn't half what the watch is worth; but he'll have to let it go. So
he's all right.

"But what am I to do? I have no such watch. I have nothing I could
sell without mamma and papa finding it out, and think of the row
there would be if they did. You are my only hope, Lena, and you might
do something for me. At any rate, think of Russell. Havn't you
something you could sell? Or--I do not like very much to ask you, but
what can a fellow in such a scrape do?--couldn't you ask Uncle Horace
to let you have it? I am sure he owes you something for saving his
house from being burnt up, and things would have been a great deal
worse if you hadn't found it out and been so brave; and besides, he
thinks so much of you since he will do anything for you, and you can
just tell him you want it for a private purpose. He'll give it to
you; it's only twenty pounds, Lena, and what is twenty pounds to him?
what is it to any of our people, only one wouldn't dare to ask papa
or mamma for it. We wouldn't get it if we did, and everything would
have to come out then; they never trust any one and _would_
know. Only get it for me, dear Lena, and save me and save Russell,
too. You have from now till after the Easter holidays; and think what
you'll save me from! Oh, dear! I wish I'd never seen Lewis Flagg. He
don't care a bit, so that he sees the way out of his own scrape. As
for that solemn prig, Seabrooke, who you'd think was one of the grown
masters with his uppish airs, well, never mind, I suppose he has let
us off easy on the whole, if I only raise my share of the money; and
he is honor bright about it and don't even act as if we two had done
anything worse than the others. Oh! do think of some way, and try
Uncle Horace. I know he'll prove all right, and you see we never
meant to do this.

"Your affectionate brother,

"PERCY H. NEVILLE.

"Oh, I forgot, how are the feet?

"Save Russell!"

The shock of the whole thing; the disobedience and rebellion against
rules; the disgraceful theft of the letter; its destruction; the
peril in which Percy himself stood--all faded into comparative
insignificance with the risk for her adored elder brother. Absolute
quiet, freedom from all worry and anxiety during his protracted
convalescence had been peremptorily insisted upon by his physicians,
and it had proved before this that any excitement not only retarded
his recovery, but threw him back. That the knowledge of Percy's
guilt could be kept from Russell if it came to the ears of her father
and mother never occurred to her, and beyond words did she dread its
effect upon him. She knew that the news of her own serious injuries a
few weeks since had been very hurtful to him, and now her chief
thought was for him.

She lost sight altogether of the contemptible meanness of Percy's
appeal to her--a helpless girl--to rescue him from the consequences
of his own worse than folly, but she was bitterly stung by his
suggestion--nay, almost demand--that she should ask from their kind
and indulgent uncle the means of satisfying the justly outraged
Seabrooke; the uncle who had opened his heart and home to them, whom
she credited with every known virtue, and for whose good opinion and
approbation she looked more eagerly than she did for those of any
other human being, even the beloved brother Russell. No, no; she
would never ask him for such a thing, that honorable, high-minded,
hero-uncle, with his scorn for everything that was contemptible or
mean; "fussy," Percy had called him, about such matters.

Nor did it occur to her that in his selfish desire to secure her aid,
Percy had perhaps exaggerated the risk to himself--the risk of his
arrest and public disgrace, which would reflect upon the family.

Poor little girl! In her inexperience and alarm she did not reflect
that it was not at all probable that Percy would be arrested, even
though he should not be able to comply with Seabrooke's just demands;
and all manner of direful possibilities presented themselves to her
mind. Little wonder was it that she was perfectly overwhelmed, or
that mental excitement had prostrated her again and brought on a
return of her fever.

Nor was Hannah less credulous. She magnified the danger for Percy as
much as the young sister did, although her fears were chiefly for the
culprit himself. She had the means of relieving the boy's
embarrassment if they were but in her own hands, but she had put the
greater part of these in her master's care for investment, and she
could not obtain any large sum of money without application to him.
And, like Lena, she was afraid of exciting some inquiry or suspicion
if she did so. The poor old soul stood almost alone in the world,
having neither chick nor child, kith nor kin left to her, save one
bad and dissipated nephew whom she had long since, by the advice of
her master, cast off. If she asked Mr. Neville for the sum necessary
to help Percy out of his difficulty, he would, she felt confident,
suspect that she was about to give it to this reprobate nephew, and
would remonstrate.

Besides the accumulated wages in her master's hands she had one other
resource, quite a sum, which she carried about with her; a number of
bright, golden guineas tied in a small bag which she wore fastened
about her waist, and which was really a burden to her, since she
lived in constant fear of losing it. But this was for a purpose dear
to old Hannah's heart, namely, her own funeral expenses and the
erection of what she considered a suitable head-stone for herself
after she should have done with life. She would not trust this
precious gold to any bank or company, lest it should fail and leave
her without the means for what she considered a fitting monument for
herself. Within the bag was also an epitaph, composed by herself,
which was to be put upon the proposed gravestone. For Hannah had no
mean opinion of her own merits, and this set her forth as an epitome
of many Christian graces, reading thus:

"Here lies the mortal body of Hannah Achsah Stillwell which she was
hed nurse in the family of Howard Neville eskire for years and brung
up mostly by hand his children and never felt she done enuf for them
not sparin herself with infantile elements walkin nites and the like,
pashunt and gentle not cross-grained like some which the poor little
things they can't help theirselves teethin and the like, respeckful
to her betters knoin her place, kind to them beneth her--which she
was much thort of by all above and below her--and respected by her
ekals. Which to her Gabriel shall say in fittin time:

  "Well done good and faithful servant
  Come to the skys
  Stranger read this pious lesson
  Go and do likewise."

This gem she had read in turn to each of her nurslings as they came
to what she considered a fitting age to appreciate it; and they had
regarded it with great awe and admiration, till they outgrew it and
began to consider it as a joke. Not to Hannah, however, did any one
of them confide the change in his or her views, although they made
merry over it among themselves; and Harold and Elsie still looked
upon it as a most touching and fitting tribute to the merits of their
faithful old nurse, albeit it had been composed and arranged by
herself.

Hannah had also frequently found the bag and its contents an
incentive to well-doing, or an effective and gentle means of
coercion, as upon any rare symptoms of rebellion or mischief which
would occasionally arise within the nursery precincts, in spite of
iron rules and severe penalties, she was wont to detach the bag from
its hiding-place and, retiring to a corner, would count the gold and
read over the future epitaph, murmuring in sepulchral tones,
befitting such a lugubrious subject, that she should soon have need
of both.

This course had generally sufficed to bring the small rebel to terms
at once, and it would promise to be good if she would only consent to
live and continue her care of the nursery. And now, how could she
make up her mind to sacrifice this cherished sum even for the
reckless, selfish boy whom she loved? It had been dedicated to that
one purpose, and it had never before entered her thoughts to divert
it to any other. She was devoted to each one and all of her charges,
past and present; but for no other one than Percy would she ever have
thought of resigning this gold. Not to relieve the sickening terror
and anxiety of the poor little invalid; not to save the whole family
from the disgrace which she apprehended, would she have entertained
the slightest thought of doing so; but for the sake of her beloved
scrapegrace! Could she resolve to do it, was the question which was
now agitating her mind. If Hannah was worried she was apt to be
cross, and for the next day or two she was captious and exacting
beyond anything within the past experience of the nursery, driving
Letitia to the verge of rebellion, and exciting the open-eyed wonder
of the pattern Elsie. Over Lena she crooned and hovered, petting and
coddling her, and longing to speak some words of hope and comfort,
but not daring to do so lest she should betray herself and the
dishonorable way in which she had become possessed of the child's
secret.

Colonel Rush was seated in his library one afternoon when there came
a knock at the door; and being bidden to enter, the portiere was
drawn aside and old Hannah appeared, her face wearing an unusually
solemn and portentous expression.

"Beggin' your pardon, Colonel," she said, dropping her curtsey, "but
I'm not much hacquainted with these Hamerican monies, and would you
be so good as to tell me the worth of twenty-one gold guineas in the
dollars they uses in this country. More shame to 'em, say I, that
they didn't 'old by what was their hown when they was hunder the rule
of hour gracious lady, Queen Victoria, but 'ad to go changin' an'
pesterin' them what 'asn't no partickler hacquaintance with
harithmetic."

Hannah was a privileged character, and sometimes expressed her
opinions with some freedom in the presence of her superiors.

The colonel did not think it worth while to enlighten her on the
subject of American history, or to explain that the United States,
and even the early colonies, had never been beneath the rule of Queen
Victoria; but he gave her the information she desired.

"Twenty-one golden guineas would be somewhere from a hundred and five
to a hundred and ten or fifteen dollars, Hannah," he said; "it might
be even a little more; that would depend upon what is called the
price of gold. A guinea would be worth something over five dollars in
American money at any time, sometimes more, sometimes less, but
always beyond the five. Why?"--knowing of the secret fund for future
expenses, the story having been told to him by his nephews,--"have
you gold of which you wish to dispose? If so, I will do my best to
sell it for you at advantage."

"No, thank'ee, sir," she answered. "I'm only fain to know what it
would fetch," and with another curtsey she was gone, not daring
either to wait for farther questioning or to ask the gentleman to
exchange her gold for her. Indeed, upon the latter point she had not,
hitherto, at all made up her mind. But now it seemed to her that it
was clearly intended that she should make the sacrifice.

"Seems as if it was a callin' of Providence," she murmured to
herself, as she slowly and thoughtfully mounted the stairs and
returned to the nursery; and had any one known the circumstances he
might have seen that the old nurse's resolution respecting that gold
was wavering; "seems as if it was a callin' of Providence. 'Twould
just be a little more than the poor boy needs--oh, will he never
learn to say no when it's befittin 'he should!--just a little more,
and it do seem as if it were put hinto my 'ands to do it. An' I
s'pose I might believe the Lord will take care of them banks and
railroads an' things where the master 'as put what he's hinvested for
me. I don't know as I put so much faith in this hinvestin', you never
know what'll come of it with the ups and downs of them things. Dear,
dear! if I 'ad it now there needn't be no trouble about Master Percy.
But"--feeling for the precious bag--"I think I couldn't rest heasy
in my grave if I 'ad the statoo of the queen 'erself hover me if I'd
let the child I brought up come to this disgrace an' 'im the puny,
weakly baby he was, too, when I took 'im, the fine, sturdy lad he is
now if he is maybe a bit too soon led hastray. But what can you
hexpect of a lad when he's kept hunder the way hour boys is. An' he's
not a bad 'eart, 'asn't Master Percy, an' maybe he might put up a
monyment and a hepithet 'imself for me if he did but know I'd done
that for 'im. It's a risk, too; Percy's no 'ead on his shoulders, an'
I might be left with no tombstone an' no hepithet."

To one who knew Hannah it might have been easy to see which way the
balance was likely to turn; that cherished gold was sure to be taken
for Percy's rescue from the difficulty he was in; but she persuaded
herself that she had not yet made up her mind about the matter.




CHAPTER VI.

A CONFIDENCE.


Meanwhile Lena was fretting herself ill over the terrible secret
which she imagined she shared with no one in the house; turning over
and over in her mind all manner of impossible devices for the relief
of her scapegrace brother. Not for one instant would she entertain
the thought of applying to her uncle in accordance with his
indelicate suggestion; and her father and mother were, to her mind,
as well as to Percy's, utterly out of the question. No idea of
applying to them entered her head. The change in her, her troubled,
worried expression, the almost hunted look in her beautiful eyes made
her uncle and aunt extremely anxious, especially as they could find
no clew to the cause, for they knew nothing of the letter from Percy.

The child wrote to her brother and told him that she could see no way
of procuring the money for him, for she _would not_ apply to
their uncle; but she would try and contrive some means of helping
him.

With the heedless _insouciance_ which distinguished him, or
rather with the selfish facility with which he threw a share, and a
large share, of his burdens upon others, he had comforted himself
with the thought that Lena would surely contrive some way of helping
him; would, in spite of her declarations to the contrary, apply to
Colonel Rush, guarding his secret, and taking upon herself all the
weight and embarrassment of asking such an unheard of favor. But
although he did strive to be hopeful, he had times of the deepest
despondency and dread, when he looked his predicament fully in the
face; and he felt it hard that Lewis, who, after all, had been the
chief offender, should be, as he in his careless way phrased it, "all
right" at what seemed to be so little cost to him, while he, Percy,
was under this cloud of apprehension and uncertainty.

Harley Seabrooke was not hard-hearted, although he was determined
that the two boys should make full restitution, and justly so, and he
could not but feel sorry for Percy when these fits of despair
overtook him.

"Neville," he said to him one day, "have you written to your parents
about this matter?"

"To my father and mother! oh, no!" answered Percy, looking dismayed
at the bare idea of such a thing; "Oh, no, of course not. How could
I?"

"It seems to me," said Harley, eying the boy curiously, "that such a
thing is the most natural course when one is in such a difficulty.
Certainly it must involve confession, but they would be the most
lenient and tender judges one could have. Why not make a clean breast
of it, Percy, and have it over? You hardly, I suppose, can obtain
such a sum of money except by application to them; or have you some
other friend who will help you?"

"I have--I did--I mean I will," stammered Percy. "I have asked
and--and--I know I must have it somehow."

He looked so utterly depressed and forlorn that Harley's heart was
moved for him.

"If I were rich, Percy," he said, "if I could in any way afford it, I
would not insist upon such early payment of my loss; but it is only
just that you should make it good. You did not know what you were
doing, it is true, the extent of the injury to me; but you had
suffered yourself to be tempted into wrong by a boy much worse than
yourself, and you meant to play me a sorry trick, which has recoiled
upon yourself. That money, the check you destroyed, I had received
from a publisher for a piece of work over which I had spent much time
and which I had devoted to a special purpose. I have a young sister
who has a wonderful talent for drawing and painting, is, in fact, a
genius; and her gift ought to be cultivated, for we hope it will, in
time, be a source of profit to herself and others; but my father is
a poor clergyman, and all of us try to do what we can to help
ourselves and one another. You know on what terms I am here; and it
is only through the kindness of Dr. Leacraft that I enjoy the
advantages I do; and of late I have been able to earn a little by
articles I have written for papers and magazines. This two hundred
dollars I had received for a little book, and I intended it should be
the means of giving my little sister at least a beginning of the
drawing lessons which would be of so much use to her. You may judge
then if I do not feel that I must have it back, and that without
farther delay. I am sorry for you, but I cannot sacrifice my sister."

Seabrooke was regarded by the boys as unsympathetic, cold, and stiff
in his manner--perhaps he was somewhat so--and as he seldom spoke of
himself they knew little of his affairs or of his family relations;
and he was also considered to have a rather elderly style of talking,
unbefitting his comparatively few years.

Percy's manner, which had been rather sullen and listless when the
other began to speak, had brightened as Seabrooke went on; and when
he mentioned his sister, his face lighted with a look of interest
which somewhat surprised his senior.

"What is your sister's name? Gladys?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Harley, surprised at the question. "Do you know her?"

"Yes--no--my sister and some other girls I know, know her," said
Percy; and then followed the story of the meeting in the church and
of the interest taken in the young artist by Lena, Maggie and Bessie.

"So it was your friends and relatives, then, who sent the check for
the church to my father, and the Christmas box to my sister?" said
Seabrooke, feeling much more inclined to forgive Percy than he had
felt since the destruction of his letter.

"I don't know anything about a check," answered Percy, for Colonel
Rush had not mentioned that little circumstance to the junior portion
of his family, "but I do know that the girls sent your sister a
Christmas box, for I helped to pack it myself, and they are all agog
about some prize they hope to win among them, a prize which will give
them somehow, an artist education, which they can give to some girl
who needs it. I don't know exactly how it is, only I do know they are
all just agog about it, and they want it for your sister Gladys, at
least for a girl of that name. But I believe I ought not to have
spoken of that; it is only a chance, you know; there are ever so many
girls to try for the prize, and our girls may not gain it."

"And my sister don't want the chance," said Harley, the stubborn
pride which was one of his characteristics, up in arms at once. "We
may be and are poor, but we will not ask for charity."

"Well, you needn't be so highty-tighty about it," said Percy, taking
a more sensible view of the matter than his older companion did.
"_I_ don't call it charity, and if it is, it comes from somebody
who is dead, so one needn't feel any special obligation to the girls.
It is only that they earn the right to say to whom the gift shall go;
they don't _give_ it. And," he added, with his usual happy
faculty for saying the wrong thing, "I don't see why you should be so
stiff about it when you yourself"--he paused, seeing by the dark look
which came over Seabrooke's face that he had touched upon a sore
point.

"You would say," said Harley, stiffly, "when I accept favors from Dr.
Leacraft for myself; but you will please remember that I, at least,
give some equivalent for my tuition, so I am not altogether a charity
scholar. And it is my object to provide for my sister myself, and I
still insist that you shall pay me what you owe me, Neville. If your
friends earned forty scholarships for Gladys, that would make no
difference in my just demands."

"Nobody asked that it should!" exclaimed Percy, flying into one of
the rare passions to which his amiable, easy-going nature would
occasionally lapse under great provocation, "nobody asked that it
should; and you are"--and here he launched into some most
uncomplimentary remarks, and then dashed from the room, leaving
Harley to feel that he had made a great mistake, and missed, by the
insinuation that Percy fancied he would abate his demands for
restitution, an opportunity of influencing the boy, who was easily
led for either good or evil.

The result of this was, on Percy's part, another frantic appeal to
Lena to find some means of helping him before Easter, that Seabrooke
was very hard on him and determined not to spare him.

This letter would never have reached Lena had it not been delivered
into the hands of Colonel Rush, who met the postman at the foot of
his own steps, and took this with others from him. For Hannah,
following out her policy that the end justified the means, and
undeterred by the scrape into which Percy had brought himself by
means somewhat similar, kept on the watch for letters for Lena,
determined to hide and destroy any which should come from Percy.

She fancied that she had not yet made up her mind to the course she
would pursue; but she really had done so, though the faithful old
nurse clung till the last moment to the cherished gold, with a faint
hope that something might yet chance to save it.

The colonel went up to pay a little visit to Lena, and came down
looking rather perturbed and anxious.

"That child continues to look badly," he said to Mrs. Rush, "and she
appears to me to have something on her mind. Do you think it is
possible, now that Russell is better?"

"I am sure of it," answered his wife, "sure that something is
troubling her very much, and I was about to speak of it to you. She
is such a reticent, reserved child, that I did not like to try and
force her confidence, although I have opened the way for her to give
it to me if she chose to do so."

"I brought her a letter from Percy yesterday," said the colonel, "and
when I handed it to her, she flushed painfully and seemed very nervous,
and I noticed that she did not open it while I was in the room. I
wonder if he is in any trouble."

Mrs. Rush shook her head. She had not even noticed this, and had no
clew whereby she might guess at the cause of Lena's depression; but
she said:

"I am going to send for Maggie and Bessie to come and spend the day
with her. She is able, I think, to have them with her, and they may
brighten her a little."

No sooner said than done; the colonel, always glad of any excuse for
bringing these prime favorites of his to his own house, went for them
himself, and finding them disengaged, this being Saturday and a
holiday, brought them back with him.

He had the pleasure of seeing Lena's pale face light up when she saw
them, and soon left the young patient with her two little friends to
work what healing influences they might.

Now, although Lena was very fond of both these girls, Bessie was her
special favorite, perhaps because she, being less shy than Maggie,
had been the first to offer her sympathy and comfort at the time when
Lena had been left at her uncle's with her heart wrung with anxiety
and distress for her brother Russell who was then very dangerously
ill.

And Bessie was now quick to see that something was wrong with Lena.
Maggie saw it too, but shy Maggie, unless it was with some one as
frank as herself, could not seek to draw forth confidences. But, with
her usual considerate thoughtfulness, she did that which was perhaps
better; she presently withdrew herself to the next room with Elsie
and little May and amused them there, so that Lena might have the
opportunity of speaking to Bessie if she so chose.

But not even to Bessie would or could Lena confide the story of
Percy's misdoing and its direful results, longing though she might be
for her sympathy and advice. Lena knew Bessie's strict
conscientiousness, which was almost equalled by her own, and she knew
also Bessie's complete trust in her parents, and how in any trouble
her first thought would be to confide in them in full faith that they
would be only too ready to lift the burden from her shoulders.

No, Bessie was not like herself; she had no dread of her father and
mother, nor had any of the children in that large and happy family;
and it would have seemed unnatural to them to have any such fears.

But there was a question which had been agitating her own mind which
she meant to ask Bessie and hear her clear, straightforward views on
the matter; for Lena feared, and justly, that her own wishes might
have too much weight with her own opinion, and she dared not yield to
these for fear of doing wrong.

"Lena, dear," said Bessie, "is your brother Russell worse?"

"No," answered Lena, "he is improving every day now, mamma says."

"You seem rather troubled and as if something were the matter," said
Bessie, simply, but in half-questioning tones, thus opening the door
for confidence if Lena wished to give it.

"I would like to ask you something," said Lena, wistfully. "You
remember the checks papa and Russell sent me?"

"Oh, yes, of course," answered Bessie. "How could I forget them?"

"Do you think," said Lena, slowly and doubtfully, "that if a person
who was not a poor person was in great trouble, it would be quite
right to use some of that money to help them out of their trouble?
You know papa and Russell say I may use it for any charity I choose.
Do you think it would be called charity to do that when the person
was in trouble only because he had been--had done very wrong?"

"I don't know. I don't quite understand," said Bessie, quite at sea,
as she might well be, at such a vague representation of the case. "I
suppose," thoughtfully, "that it might be right if you felt quite
sure that your father or brother would be willing."

"But they would not be--at least--oh, I do not know what to think or
what to do," exclaimed poor Lena, breaking down under the weight of
all her troubles and perplexities.

"I can't tell what to say unless I know more about it," said Bessie,
taking Lena's hand; "but, Lena dear,"--approaching the subject of
Lena's relations with her own family with some reluctance, "but, Lena
dear, if you do not want to ask your father and mother, why do you
not ask Uncle Horace? He is so very nice and good, and he knows about
almost everything."

But before she had finished speaking she saw that the suggestion did
not meet the case at all.

"Uncle Horace! Oh, no!" ejaculated Lena, "that would be worse than
all! Oh, if I could only tell Russell!"

"Why do you not?" asked Bessie.

"It would make him ill again; it might kill him," answered Lena, more
excitedly than ever. "Tell me what it is right to do by myself,
Bessie."

"How can I, dear, when I do not know what it is?" said the troubled
and sympathizing Bessie.

Lena looked into the clear, tender eyes before her own, and her
resolution was taken; although, knowing, as she did, Bessie's almost
morbid conscientiousness and her horror of anything small, mean or
tricky, she knew that she would be terribly shocked when she heard
the source of the trouble; but she _must_ tell some one, must
have a little advice.

"I want to tell you, Bessie," she said, falteringly, "but you will
not tell any one, will you? Not even Maggie?"

"No. Maggie is very good about that, and not at all curious," said
Bessie. "I couldn't keep a secret of my own from her; but some one
else's she would not mind. But mamma--could I not tell mamma?"

"Oh, no," said Lena, "no! _Must_ you tell your mother
everything--things that are not secrets of your own?"

Bessie stood thoughtful for a moment.

"No," she at last answered, a little reluctantly. "If mamma knew it
would be a help to some one to have me keep a secret, I do not think
she would mind; for mamma has a good deal"--of confidence in her
children, she would have added, but checked herself with the thought
that Lena enjoyed no such blessing, and that she was presenting too
forcible a contrast between her own lot and that of her little
friend, and she hastily substituted, "a great deal of good sense for
her children. But, Lena dear, you do not know how well my mamma keeps
a secret, and how she can help people out of trouble."

"No, no!" said Lena again, "I couldn't let her know. He wouldn't like
it; he would never forgive me," she added, forgetting herself.

Light flashed upon Bessie.

"Lena, is it Percy?" she asked.

"Yes," faltered Lena; and then followed the whole story; at least,
the whole as she knew it, so much as Percy had revealed to her.

Bessie was indeed shocked, perhaps even more at the contemptible
selfishness and weakness which had led Percy to throw the burden of
this secret upon his young sister, and to appeal to her for help,
than she was by his original fault. Her own brother Harry was noted
for his chivalrous gallantry to girls; so much so, that it was a
subject of joke among his schoolmates and companions; and Fred,
although known as a tease, was quite above anything small or petty,
and would have scorned to ask such a thing as this from any girl,
especially from one who was weak and ill, and but just coming back
from the borders of the grave. Bessie felt no sympathy whatever for
Percy, but more than she could express for the innocent Lena; and her
indignation at the reckless brother found vent in terms unusually
emphatic for her.

But, alas for Lena! Bessie could see no way out of the difficulty
more than Lena could herself. In spite of her ardent wish to do this,
her upright little soul could by no means advise or justify for this
purpose the use of any part of the sums put by Mr. Neville and
Russell into Lena's hands.

"For you know, dear Lena," she said, "your father and brother said
for charity, didn't they? And Percy is not a 'charity.'"

"No," answered Lena, with a pitiful, pleading tremor in her voice,
"but papa said I could use it for any good object I chose. See,
Bessie, here is his letter, and that is just what he says."

"Yes," said Bessie, glancing at the lines in Mr. Neville's letter to
which Lena pointed, "yes; but Percy is not an 'object.' At least not
what your father means by 'any object.'"

"And he certainly is not good" she added to herself; then said slowly
again: "But, Lena, why don't you tell your brother Russell, when you
say he is so good and nice?"

But to this also Lena returned the most decided negative. No, Russell
must not be worried or made anxious and unhappy, no matter what might
happen to Percy or to the rest of the family. Russell must be spared,
at all hazards, and it was plainly to be seen that, distressed as she
was for Percy, his welfare was by no means to be weighed in the
balance against that of his elder brother.

Bessie, helpless as Lena herself, had no farther suggestion to offer,
and save that she now shared the burden of her secret with some one
who could sympathize, Lena had gained nothing by imparting it to her
little friend; and when Maggie returned, she found her looking as
depressed and anxious as before, while Bessie's sweet face also now
wore a troubled expression.

Maggie asked no questions; but when they were at home that evening,
Bessie said to her:

"Maggie, dear, I have to have a secret from you. It is not mine, but
Lena's, and she will not let me tell even you; and she will not tell
Uncle Horace or Aunt Marion or any of her people. And then again it
is not her very own secret, but some one else's, and it is a great
weight on her mind because she does not know what to do about it. And
so it is on mine," she added, with a deep sigh.

"I wish you could tell me," said Maggie; "not that I am so very
curious about it, although, of course, I should like very much to
know; but cannot you tell mamma, Bessie?"

"No," answered Bessie; "it seemed to me mamma would not mind if I
promised I would not tell even her, when Lena seemed to have such a
trouble and wanted to tell me. I can't bear not to tell her or not to
tell you; but I thought I would promise, because Lena is such a very
good girl and so very true, and she has such a perfectly horrible
mother. Maggie, every night when you say your prayers, do you thank
God that Mrs. Neville is not your mother? I do."

"Yes, and about a thousand times a day besides," answered Maggie.
"But, Bessie, could you help Lena in her trouble?"

"No," said Bessie, her face shadowed again, "and I do not see how any
one can help her, so long as she will not tell any grown-up person.
Not one of us children could help her."

Bessie was depressed and very thoughtful that evening, and so silent
as to attract the attention of her family; but to all inquiries she
returned only a faint smile without words, while to her mother she
confessed that she had "a weight on her mind," but that this was
caused by another person's secret which she could not tell.

Accustomed to invite and receive the unlimited confidence of her
children, Mrs. Bradford still treated them as if they were reasonable
beings, and on the rare occasions, such as the present, when they
withheld it, she was satisfied to believe that they had good and
sufficient reasons for so doing.




CHAPTER VII.

A BOX OF BONBONS.


If there was one of the two sisters who lay awake after the proper
time in the pretty room which Maggie and Bessie Bradford called their
own--a thing not of frequent occurrence, it was usually Maggie, when
she was revolving in her mind some grand idea, either as the subject
of a composition, or some of the schemes for business or pleasure
which her fertile brain was always devising. But on this night it was
Bessie who could not sleep for worry and anxiety over Lena's
perplexities. As a usual thing she was off to the land of Nod the
moment her head was on the pillow; but to-night she lay tossing and
uneasy until she thought the night must be almost gone. Then
suddenly, as a bright thought came to her--an idea which she thought
almost worthy of Maggie herself--she heard her mother in her own
room.

"Mamma," she called, "is it almost time to rise?"

"Why, no, my darling," said Mrs. Bradford, coming in, "it is only
half-past ten o'clock. What woke you?"

"Oh, I have not been asleep at all, mamma," answered her little
daughter. "I thought I had been awake all the night."

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Bradford; "but it is certainly time that you were
asleep. Have you been troubling yourself, dear, over that secret?"

"I suppose that I have, mamma," answered Bessie; "but I have had a
very nice thought which I believe will help that secret, and I will
try not to be troubled about it any more."

And five minutes later, when her mother looked in again to see if she
were quiet, she found her sleeping.

"Papa," said Bessie, walking into the library the next morning, all
ready for school, and not seeing for the moment that any one was with
her father, "papa, are you going early to your office?"

Mr. Bradford was fond of a long walk on a pleasant morning, and would
occasionally start from home with his little girls on their way to
school, leave them at Miss Ashton's, and then proceed on his way down
town. They always considered this a treat, and he knew now that
Bessie hoped for his company in lieu of that of Jane, the
nursery-maid.

"I think that I shall do so that I may have the pleasure of escorting
two little damsels to school," he answered.

"Then perhaps I shall be fifth wheel to a coach that only needs
three," said a deep, jolly voice from the other side of the room; and
Bessie, turning, saw the tall form of her Uncle Ruthven standing
before one of the book-cases, in which he was searching for a book he
had come to borrow.

Her face brightened with a look which told that this "fifth wheel"
could never be _de trop_; and she sprung toward him with a
welcoming kiss and good morning.

Uncle Ruthven was mamma's dear and only brother, and a great favorite
with his young nieces and nephews, who thought this much travelled,
"much adventured uncle," as Bessie had once called him, a wonderful
hero, and the most entertaining of mortals. So Maggie was as well
pleased as Bessie when she heard by whom they were to be escorted to
school, papa and Uncle Ruthven forming as desirable a pair of
cavaliers as could well be imagined by any two little maidens.

But Uncle Ruthven was somewhat amused to see how Bessie contrived
that he should walk with Maggie, while she took Mr. Bradford's hand
and tried to keep him a little behind. Observing this, and rightly
conjecturing that she had something to say to her father, Mr. Stanton
obligingly drew Maggie on a little faster till they were sufficiently
in advance of the others to permit Bessie to make her confidences.

"Papa," said the little girl, as soon as she thought that her sister
and uncle were out of hearing, "papa, you know that you told me I
might begin to take music lessons after Easter?"

"I remember my promise quite well, dear, and you shall certainly do
so," answered her father. "You have been a dear, patient child about
those lessons, and you may depend now upon your reward."

Bessie had for a long time been anxious to take lessons upon the
piano; but her father and mother had thought it best to defer it, as
she was not very strong, and they had considered that her daily
lessons at school were sufficient for her without the extra labor
which music lessons and practising would involve. This decision had
been a disappointment to her, but she had borne it well, never
fretting and teasing about it, only looking forward eagerly to the
time when she might begin; and her parents now thought her old enough
for this.

"Well, I want to ask you something, papa," she said, coloring a
little, but throwing back her head to look up into his face with her
clear, fearless eyes. "How much would it cost for me to take music
lessons?"

"Forty dollars a quarter is Miss Ashton's price, I think," answered
Mr. Bradford, wondering what this earnest little woman was thinking
of now.

"And two quarters would be eighty dollars--and twenty more would be a
hundred," slowly and thoughtfully said Bessie, who was not remarkably
quick at figures. "That would take two quarters and a half a quarter
to make up a hundred dollars, would it not, papa?"

"Yes," answered her father.

"Then," said Bessie, eagerly, "if I wait for my music lessons for two
quarters and a half longer, will you let me have the hundred dollars
they would cost, papa? I would rather have it; oh, much rather,
papa."

"My child," said her father, "what can you possibly want of a hundred
dollars? Have you some new charity at heart?"

"No, papa," answered the child with growing earnestness; "it is not a
_charity_, but it is for a secret--not my secret, papa,--you
know I would tell you if it was--but another person's secret. And
that person is so very deserving, anybody ought to be very glad to do
a kindness for that person, and she cannot tell anybody about
it--only she told me, and mamma knows I have a secret--and I do want
so very much to help her, and I think I would say I would never take
music lessons all my life to do it."

And more she poured forth in like incoherent style, pleading too,
with eyes and voice and close pressure of her father's hand.

Mr. Bradford was a lawyer of large practice and not a little note,
accustomed to deal with knotty problems, and to solve without
difficulty much more intricate sums than the putting of this two and
two together, and he could guess pretty well in whose behalf Bessie
was pleading now. He had heard during the past week of Lena Neville's
unaccountable depression and nervousness, and of her refusal to
disclose its cause; knew that his little daughters had spent the
previous afternoon with her, and that Bessie had returned from
Colonel Rush's house with "a weight on her mind," as she always
phrased it when she was troubled or anxious, and that even to her
mother and Maggie she had not confided the source of that "weight."

To Mr. Bradford, accustomed to the open natures and sweet,
affectionate ways of his own daughters, Lena Neville was by no means
an attractive child; but so far as he could judge, she was upright
and perfectly straightforward, and with no little strength of will
and purpose; and petted as she was by her indulgent aunt and uncle,
he could not believe that she had brought herself into any difficulty
which she could not confess, on her own account.

No; there must be something behind this; there must be some other
person whom she was shielding, and whom she and Bessie were striving
to rescue from the consequences of his or her own folly and
wrong-doing, and Mr. Bradford believed that he had not far to look
for this person. He had, even in the short period of the Christmas
holidays, when Percy had been much with his own boys, marked the
weakness of his character and the ease with which he was swayed for
either good or evil, according to the temptations or influences
presented to him; and he now felt assured that he had fallen into
some trouble and had appealed to his sister for pecuniary aid; and
that this must be very serious, Mr. Bradford rightly judged, since
Lena dared not apply to the uncle who was so ready to do everything
to make her happy and contented in his house.

And what to do now, Mr. Bradford did not know. It might not be best
that Percy--if it were indeed he for whom these two little girls were
acting--should be shielded from the consequences of his wrong-doing;
and in his own want of knowledge of the circumstances he could not,
of course, judge how this might be; but his pity and sympathy were
strongly moved for Lena; and she was, indeed, unselfish, little
heroine that she was, deserving of any kindness or relief that could
be extended to her. But to act thus in the dark was repugnant to him;
and his judgment and his feelings were strongly at variance as he
listened to Bessie's pleadings that she might be allowed to make this
sacrifice.

"I must think this over for a little, my darling," he said; but when
he saw the disappointment in her face and the gathering tears in her
eyes, he felt that he could not altogether resist her, and he added,
"I think we shall find some way out of this difficulty; but are you
sure that this person has no grown friend to whom she could apply?"

"She thinks not, papa," answered Bessie,"_I_ think she could and
ought to, but she thinks not; and I feel quite sure you would let me
do this if you knew all the reasons."

"Mamma and I will talk the matter over, dear," said Mr. Bradford;
"and you are a dear, generous little girl, to be willing to do this;
for I know how much your heart has been set upon your music lessons."

"But my heart is more set upon this, papa; oh, quite, quite more
set," said Bessie, quaintly.

"We must hurry on now a little," said Mr. Bradford, giving an
encouraging pressure to the small hand within his own, "and you must
try not to worry yourself over this matter."

"What is in that little woman's mind? May I know?" asked Mr. Stanton,
when he and his brother-in-law had left their two young charges at
Miss Ashton's door and had turned their faces business-ward. "Or is
it of a private nature?" he added.

"Well, I suppose I may tell you what she asked; for if I yield every
one will know it, as she has talked so much of her music lessons,"
said Mr. Bradford; "and I will tell you my suspicions. I fear that I
am perhaps too much inclined to yield to her plea, while I am not
satisfied that it is wise to do so. But I am not sure that you will
be a very unprejudiced adviser," he added, knowing well that Uncle
Ruthven was generally of the opinion that it was well to yield to the
wishes of his favorite nieces, Maggie and Bessie.

Then he told of Bessie's proposal, and of whither his own suspicions
tended.

"The dear little soul!" said Mr. Stanton, "and these music lessons
have been the desire of her heart for the last two years."

"Yes for a longer time than that," said Mr. Bradford; "she is making
a real sacrifice in offering to give them up. Of course, there is no
necessity for her to do that; she shall have her music lessons. But
the question with me is whether it is well to work blindly in this
way, even for the purpose of relieving these two innocent children."

"I ask nothing better for my girls than that they may grow up like
yours," said Mr. Stanton, extending his hand to his brother-in-law.
But he offered no advice, expressed no opinion.

Many a time during his busy day did his little daughter's pleading
face rise before Mr. Bradford, and he found himself unable to resist
it, and resolved that he would cast scruples to the winds and tell
Bessie she should have the sum she had asked for. But although he
would not tell her this yet, she should not lose her much desired
lessons; she should begin them at the promised time, and they should
be his Easter gift to her.

Mr. Stanton found a little private business of his own--quite
unexpected when he left home--to attend to after he parted from his
brother-in-law at the door of his office, a little business which was
attended with the following results.

Mr. Bradford reached home that afternoon, and entering the door with
his latch-key was just closing it behind him when Bessie came flying
down the stairs and precipitated herself upon him like a small
whirlwind, followed by Maggie in a state of equal excitement and
making like demonstrations.

"Spare me, ladies," he said, when he could speak; "with your kind
permission I should wish to take farewell of the remainder of my
family before I am altogether suffocated. Might I ask the cause of
this more than usually effusive greeting?"

The answer to this was continued embraces and caresses from both his
captors, a series of the little ecstatic squeals Maggie was wont to
give when she was especially delighted with anything, and from Bessie
the exclamation of:

"Oh, you dear, darling papa! You needn't try to be anonymous, for we
know you did it! There was nobody else, for nobody else knew. We know
it was you; we know it!"

"If I might be allowed to take off my overcoat and to sit down,"
gasped Mr. Bradford.

Then he was released, and proceeded to take off his overcoat, while
the two little girls seized upon one another and went dancing about
the hall to the music of Maggie's continued squeals.

"Have I made a mistake as to my own house and found my way into a
private insane asylum?" said Mr. Bradford, pretending to soliloquize.
"It must be so, else why this wild excitement? These must be two of
the wildest and most excitable of the inmates. I must escape."

[Illustration: "HAVE I FOUND MY WAY INTO A PRIVATE INSANE ASYLUM?"]

And he made a feint of trying to do so, running into his library and
sinking into an easy chair where he was speedily held captive again
by two pair of arms piled one above the other about his neck, while
all manner of endearing epithets were lavished upon him.

"Thank you very much," he said at last, "for all these compliments,
but really I am ignorant why I am particularly deserving of them at
the present moment."

"Oh, you needn't pretend you don't know now, you sweet, lovely
darling," said Maggie, with a fresh squeeze and a kiss, planted
directly upon his right eye. "You have lifted the most dreadful
weight off of Bessie's mind. I don't know what it was, but I know
that she had one, and now it is all gone."

"And you did it in such a delightful way, too, papa," said Bessie;
"sending it in that lovely box of bonbons."

"Sending what--the weight?" said Mr. Bradford.

"Now, papa!" expostulated both at once. "You know what we mean, and
you needn't pretend that you don't," said Bessie. "No, you took away
the weight, and you're just too good for anything."

"If you would throw a little light, perhaps I could understand,"
answered her father; "but really, as it is, I cannot take credit to
myself for having lifted any one's burdens to-day, at least, not
knowingly."

"Oh, papa," said Bessie again, "you know you sent me what I asked you
for this morning in a box of Huyler's, all beautifully done up,
and--oh! I know you, papa--my name written on the parcel by some one
else, so I wouldn't know. But just as if I wouldn't know; it _could
not_ be any one but you, because no one else knew that I wanted
it."

"Upon my word, this is very embarrassing," said Mr. Bradford. "I
should be very glad to be able to say that I had been so generous and
given so much pleasure; but I must disclaim the deed. Upon my honor,
as a gentleman, I know nothing of your box of bonbons or its
contents."

To tell the truth, he was really somewhat embarrassed, for he could
give a very good guess as to the donor of the gift, who, since he had
chosen to be "anonymous," must not be betrayed, and these very
interested inquirers were likely to put some searching questions
which it might be difficult to evade. To avoid these--truth compels
me to state--Mr. Bradford took an ignominious flight, for, saying
that he must hasten upstairs to dress for dinner, he put aside the
detaining arms which would have kept him till conjecture was
satisfied, and once more assuring his little girls that he had
absolutely nothing to do with the box of bonbons and its valuable
contents, and congratulating Bessie that her heart's desire was
attained, he hurried away to his own room. Here he found Mrs.
Bradford, who had thought, as did the little girls, that he had been
the one to relieve Bessie's mind by this means.

Discreet Bessie, and equally discreet Maggie, had neither one
betrayed the little circumstance of the gift to the former to the
general household, mamma alone sharing the secret, and even she did
not know for what purpose it was destined.

The two girls had been with their mother in Mrs. Bradford's
morning-room after they returned from school, when Patrick came to
the door and delivered "a parcel for Miss Bessie."

The nature of this parcel disclosed itself even before it was opened.
There is a peculiar distinctive air about such parcels which stamps
them at once as mines of delight, and Maggie had little hesitation in
pronouncing it to be "a monstrous box of Huyler's! Must be three
pounds at least!"

Uncle Ruthven--that which proved a mystery to Maggie and Bessie need
prove no mystery to us--was a generous giver, and when he did a kind
action it was carried out munificently; and the wrappings being taken
off and the cover of the box removed, a most tempting sight was
disclosed.

"There is a note to tell you who it is from," said Maggie, seeing an
envelope lying on the top of the bonbons.

But Maggie was mistaken, for the envelope contained no writing,
nothing to give, by words, a clue to the giver; but the candies were
forgotten when Bessie drew therefrom a new crisp one hundred dollar
bill. For a moment both she and Maggie stood speechless with
surprise; then the color surged all over Bessie's face, and clasping
her hands together she said, softly, but not so softly but that mamma
and Maggie did not catch the words:

"Papa, oh, papa! I know what that is for." Then turning to her
mother, she said: "It is my secret, mamma; that is, that other
person's secret."

But mamma and Maggie, although in the dark and much puzzled about all
this mystery, rejoiced with her in the relief which was evidently
afforded by this gift, the removal of the "weight;" and Maggie was
quite as ecstatic over papa's goodness as was Bessie herself.

And nowhere was papa disclaiming all knowledge of the gift, at least
disclaiming all responsibility therefor. The mystery thickened for
all concerned. Who could have known, thought Bessie, how very much
she wished for this sum of money?

But how to convey this money to Lena was now the question with
Bessie.

In her innocent simplicity she believed that she had not disclosed
the identity of the person whose secret she was bearing, that this
was still unsuspected by her parents and Maggie, to whom she had
confided that the secret existed. Mystery and management and all
concealment were hateful to her; and as has been seen, she was no
adept at them, and she now felt herself much nonplussed. If she asked
to go to Lena, or to send the money to her, suspicion would be at
once aroused, and loyalty to Lena forbade this.

Moreover, judging not only by herself, but also by what she knew of
Lena, she feared that the pride and independence of the latter would
rebel, even in such a strait, against receiving pecuniary aid from
one who, until a few short months ago, had been a stranger to her,
and she would spare her if possible.

Then suddenly an idea occurred to her which removed, at least, the
latter difficulty. Why not make use of the very way in which this
well timed gift had come to her and send it to Lena anonymously? No
thought of keeping it or converting it to her own use had for one
instant entered Bessie's mind; to her it seemed Heaven-sent, and as
if destined for the very purpose for which she had been longing for
it. To the bonbons she felt that she could lay claim for herself and
her brothers and sisters, but for her own part she could not really
enjoy them until the more valuable portion of the contents of the box
was on its way to its destination.

After some thought and planning about the method of accomplishing
this, she carried an envelope to Jane, the nursery maid, believing
rightly that Lena would not recognize her handwriting, made her put
Lena's address upon it, and then privately enclosed therein the
precious hundred dollar note; and the next morning on the way to
school with her own hand she posted it in the letter-box on the
nearest corner. Lena was not to know whence or from whom it came.
She never thought of any risk in sending it in this unprotected
manner; but happily it fell into honest hands throughout the course
of its journeyings and safely reached those for which it was
intended.

The relief that it was to Bessie to have this accomplished can
scarcely be told.

"Oh!" she said to herself, "I'll never, never, never again let any
one tell me a secret which I may not tell to mamma and Maggie,
especially mamma."

The concealment and the management to obtain her object without
revealing it had been more of a cross to her than can well be
imagined, unaccustomed as she was to anything of the kind.




CHAPTER VIII.

"INNOCENTS ABROAD."


Hannah had asked for "a morning out;" a request which greatly amazed
her temporary mistress, Mrs. Rush, inasmuch as the old woman had no
friends or acquaintances in the city, and was possessed of a
wholesome dread of the snares and pitfalls with which she believed it
abounded, and even when out with her charge would never go without an
escort beyond the park on which Colonel Rush's house fronted and
whence she could keep it in view.

But permission, of course, was granted, and Hannah, after
ascertaining that a banker's office was the proper place to exchange
her precious gold, sallied forth with it, having finally resolved to
sacrifice it for Percy's relief without further delay, as Easter was
drawing near and the time of reprieve was coming to a close.

It would take too long to tell of the trials and tribulations she
encountered on her way to her destination. She consulted every single
policeman she met, and then had so little confidence in their
directions and advice that she still felt herself hopelessly
bewildered and at sea in the business streets of the great city;
while whenever she was obliged to cross among the trucks,
express-wagons and other vehicles, she felt as if there would be an
immediate necessity for the epitaph. As may be supposed, she afforded
no little sport to the guardians of the peace, but they were, on the
whole, kind and considerate to her and often passed her on from one
to another.

But at length, unshielded for the time by any such friendly
protection, she stood at the corner of the greatest and most thronged
thoroughfare and one almost equally crowded which intersected it, and
vainly strove to cross. The policeman on duty there was for the
moment engaged with a lost child and had no eyes for her.

She made several frantic dives forward; but the confusion of wheels,
horses' heads and shouting drivers speedily drove her back to the
sidewalk after each fresh essay; and she was beginning to be in
despair when she felt herself spasmodically seized by the arm, and a
terrified voice said in her ear--no, not in her ear, for Hannah's ear
was far above the diminutive person who had clutched her, and whom
she turned to face,--

"Don't! don't! You'll be run over--yes, over--over indeed! Wait for
the policeman--yes, policeman--'liceman, indeed!"

Hannah's eyes fell upon a very small old lady, attired in a quaint,
old-fashioned costume, with little corkscrew curls surrounding her
face, and carrying a good-sized leather satchel, while her every
movement and word betrayed a timid, nervous, excitable temperament.

"Don't, don't!" she reiterated, "you'll be crushed--yes, crushed,
indeed, crushed; that horse's head touched you, head--indeed--yes,
head. What a place this city is--city, indeed, yes, city. Why did I
come back to it, back, yes, back?"

There are some who may recognize this old lady, but to Hannah she was
an utter stranger, and she gazed upon her in surprise. She was
generally very offish and reserved with strangers, but now a common
misery made her have a fellow-feeling for the little oddity, and she
responded graciously.

Seizing the hand of the woman, whom she could almost have put into
her pocket, she drew it through her arm, and said:

"Ye may well say it; what a place hindeed! But hover I must go some
ow, so come on, ma'am. If so be we're sent to heternity, we'll go
together, an' I'll see you safe through it."

But, apparently, the prospect of going to eternity at such short
notice and under such doubtful protection was not pleasing to Miss
Trevor, and she shrank back from the thronging dangers before her.

But now came the policeman and escorted the two women, both large and
small, through the terrors which had beset them, landing them safely
on the other side of the street.

Hannah's eye had recognized the lady even beneath Miss Trevor's
shabby black dress and strange manner, and she now turned to her with
a respectful:

"Which way are you bound, ma'am? If so be your way's mine, we might
'old on together. There seems to be pretty much men around 'ere, an'
I never did take much stock in men. Leastway honly in one or two,"
with an appreciative remembrance of Colonel Rush and her young
master, Russell Neville.

"I'm going to the banker's--yes--banker's--banker's--yes, going,"
answered Miss Trevor, still flustered and nervous, and forgetting, in
the distractions of the crowd, her usually besetting terror that
every one who addressed her or looked at her in the street was
actuated by purposes of robbery, and speaking as if there were but
one banker in the great city.

But Hannah was wiser.

"There be a lot of 'em I 'ear," she said, "an' I don't know which is
the best of 'em. What do you say, ma'am? Who be you goin' to, by your
leave?"

"To Mr. Powers," answered Miss Trevor. "Powers, yes, Powers. A good
man and a kind--yes, man, indeed, man."

"Is he the kind of a one--a banker, I mean," said Hannah, "that would
give you a note for gold--golden guineas?"

Miss Trevor looked at her suspiciously for one moment. Was this a
trap? Was this friendly person, who was seemingly as much at sea as
she was herself in this wilderness of business streets and crowd of
business men, some swindler in petticoats, some decoy who would lead
her where she might be robbed of all she had about her that was
valuable, of the really precious contents of that shabby, worn
satchel? The bare idea of such a thing was enough to lend wings of
terror to Miss Trevor's feet; and she was about to dart away from
Hannah's side when the hand of the latter in its turn arrested her,
giving, if possible, new force to the fears of the old lady.

"What did I come for?" she ejaculated, "yes, come. I wish I was back
in Sylvandale--yes, Sylvandale, indeed, 'dale."

"Sylvandale!"

The name had a familiar--since the events of the last few days, an
unpleasantly familiar sound to Hannah, and she gave a little start.

"Sylvandale," she repeated; "do you know Sylvandale?"

But again her inquiry only provoked increased alarm in the breast of
Miss Trevor. She had heard of swindlers pretending to know of places
and people belonging to those whom they would victimize; and had not
Hannah's hold upon her been firm she would have wrenched herself free
and fled.

Hannah repeated her question in a rather different form and with an
addition.

"Do you come from Sylvandale? And you maybe know Dr. Leacraft's
school? An' you maybe 'ave seen my boy, Master Percy Neville, my boy
that I nursed?"

Now it so happened that Miss Trevor had seen and marked Percy
Neville, and moreover that she had a very exalted opinion of the
young scapegrace. For she did live in Sylvandale, with a nephew who
had some years since persuaded her to give up teaching in the city in
Miss Ashton's and other schools, and to come to him and let him care
for her in her old age. The home she had gladly accepted; but she
possessed a spirit of independence, and insisted on giving such
lessons as she could procure. She had been fairly successful in this,
and had laid by quite a little sum, which she intended to leave to
this kind nephew. But while this money was in her own keeping, it was
a burden and a care to her, for she lived in constant dread of
robbers and of losing her little savings; therefore she had come to
the city to place it in safe keeping. Belle Powers had been her
favorite pupil while she taught at Miss Ashton's, the child having a
remarkable talent for drawing and making the most of the instruction
she received. Belle thought so much of her queer little teacher that
she had interested her doting father in the old lady, and he had
performed two or three small acts of kindness for her which her
grateful heart had never forgotten. Consequently she credited Mr.
Powers and Belle with every known virtue, and believed that she could
not possibly place her savings in any safer place than the hands of
that gentleman; and perhaps she was not far wrong.

But on her way to the city and to Mr. Powers' office she had been
warily on her guard for snares and pitfalls tending swindlerwise,
until she had fallen into the hands of Hannah. But her unworthy
suspicions of that good person were speedily put to flight by the
mention of Percy Neville's name.

Coming up the village street of Sylvandale one day, she had been
chased by a flock of geese, and as she was hurrying along as fast as
her age and infirmities permitted--anything in the shape of dignity
she had cast to the winds before such foes--she encountered some of
Dr. Leacraft's scholars returning from an afternoon ramble. Most of
them had laughed at the predicament of the terrified old lady, who
certainly presented a ridiculous sight; but Percy, pitying her
plight, and with a strongly chivalrous streak in his nature, had
made a furious onslaught on the geese, and presently turned the
pursuers into the pursued. Then he had picked up the ubiquitous
satchel which Miss Trevor had dropped in her flight, attempted to
straighten her bonnet which was all awry--she thought none the less
of him because his awkward efforts left it rather worse than
before--and escorted her quite beyond the reach of the hissing,
long-necked enemy, who seemed inclined to renew the attack were his
protection removed and the coast clear.

From this time Percy Neville was a hero and a young knight _sans
peur et sans reproche_ with Miss Trevor. She had inquired his
name, and maintained that it just suited him, and her wits had been
constantly at work all winter to devise such small gifts and treats
for him as she was able to procure. Many a basket of nuts and apples,
many a loaf of gingerbread, or other nice home-made dainty, had found
its way into Percy's hands, and had met with ready acceptance and
been heartily enjoyed by the schoolboy appetites of himself and his
companions. Percy always exchanged a cheery nod and smile with her
when he met her, or a pleasant word or two if he encountered her in
the village store or elsewhere.

And now she heard his name in terms of proprietorship and tenderness
from this woman who claimed to be his nurse; and she was at once
arrested in her attempt to shake her off.

"Master Percy Neville--Neville, indeed, Percy!" she exclaimed; "yes,
yes--oh, yes--the dear boy! Those other geese were after me--yes,
geese, indeed, chasing me down the sidewalk--yes, sidewalk, geese
they were--geese--and he came, the dear boy--came and shoo-ed them
away--shoo-ed them, yes, shoo-ed, indeed, shoo-ed."

And now she was quite ready to answer any and every question which
Hannah might put to her, and, so far as she was able, to put her in
the way of that which she was seeking. She confided her own purpose
to the old nurse, and Hannah was fain to tell her hers, at least so
much as that she was anxious to convert her gold into a bank-note
which she might send to Percy without exciting his suspicions as to
whence it came. Of course she gave no hint of his wrong-doing,
saying only that she wished him to have the money and that he should
not know the donor.

But, jostled and pushed about by the passers-by hurrying on during
the most busy time of the day, they could not talk at their ease
there on the sidewalk; and presently Hannah proposed retiring within
the shelter of the broad hallway of an imposing building, where the
two old innocents sat themselves down on a flight of stone stairs and
exchanged confidences. They exchanged more; for before the close of
the conference Hannah's gold, or the greater part of it, was in Miss
Trevor's satchel and a hundred-dollar note in Hannah's hands.

Hannah's arithmetic was much at fault, notwithstanding the
information she had gained from Colonel Rush on the subject of her
finances; and her unheard-of confidence in this utter stranger of an
hour since was further strengthened when Miss Trevor, with her
superior knowledge, made it clear to her that she was about to give
her too much gold in exchange for the bank-note.

Moreover, the odd little drawing-teacher, whom Hannah afterwards,
when some qualms as to her own prudence assailed her, characterized
as "hevery hinch a lady if she was that queer you'd think she'd just
hescaped the lunatic hasylum," removed another stumbling-block from
the path of the latter. She offered, if Hannah desired it, to carry
the money for Percy back to Sylvandale, and to see that it was safely
given into his hands; thus delivering the faithful old nurse from her
dilemma as to the means of conveying it to him. Having once lost some
money through the mail, she had also lost all faith in that, and
knowing nothing of the ways now afforded for sending it in safety,
she had been in some perplexity over this. And, will it be believed?
she committed it to Miss Trevor's keeping without other guarantee
than her word that Percy should receive it without knowing whence it
came. Hannah would readily have let the boy know that she had sent
it, for she was not disposed to hide her light under a bushel; but
she dared not, lest she should betray the dishonorable part she had
played in reading his letter to Lena and so discovering the
disgraceful secret. She was further satisfied, however, as to Miss
Trevor's good faith, after she had, at her request, accompanied her
to Mr. Powers' office. The name of Powers had not conveyed any
especial meaning to Hannah, although she did know that one of Lena's
classmates was named Belle Powers, and she had seen the little girl
once or twice; but when she entered the gentleman's office and
remembered that she had seen him at the Christmas party at Mr.
Bradford's and afterwards at Colonel Rush's, she at once set the seal
of her approval upon him as being "the friend of such gentry;" and
when Mr. Powers received Miss Trevor with great respect and
attention, and promised with many expressions of good will to carry
out her wishes, she plumed herself upon her sagacity in so
intuitively discovering the quality of the little old lady's
"hinches." It is true that these were few in quantity, but Hannah
believed that they were of the right material; nor was she far wrong.

But to make assurance doubly sure she stepped up to Mr. Powers at a
moment when Miss Trevor, intent upon securing the lock of her
satchel, had turned her back, and whispered to him:

"She's all right, isn't she, sir?"

"Oh, yes, yes; only a little odd, but quite herself; as sane as you
are," answered the gentleman, supposing that Miss Trevor's manner had
led Hannah to infer that she was insane.

"If she wasn't hall right I'd lose my buryin' and my moniment for
nothing," said Hannah, almost in the same breath; and Mr. Powers
stared at her, believing that she herself must be a candidate for the
lunatic asylum. Hitherto he had not paid much attention to her,
merely glancing at her as she came in, and supposing her to be Miss
Trevor's attendant; but at this extraordinary speech he scrutinized
her narrowly, wondering if she were quite in her right mind and if it
were safe to let Miss Trevor go about under her guidance.

Having transacted her business, Miss Trevor asked Mr. Powers
concerning Belle and some of her young friends whom she also taught.
And then, to Hannah's dismay, she asked him if he could tell her
anything of Mrs. Rush and her sister, Mrs. Stanton, names very
familiar to Hannah, and which she was not pleased to hear at the
present juncture. She would never have taken Miss Trevor into partial
confidence, would never have entrusted her with the mission to Percy,
had she known that the old lady was acquainted with members of the
very family in whose service she was, with the uncle and aunt of the
boy whom she was secretly striving to save from disgrace.

What should she do now? And here was Mr. Powers actually advising the
old lady to go up and see Mrs. Rush and her late pupils if she had
time to do so. Poor Hannah! she may almost be forgiven for the
dishonorable way in which she had contrived to possess herself of
Lena's letter, for the sake of her loyalty to and self-sacrifice for
her nurslings. Her chief thought now was less for her money than for
the risk of the discovery of Percy's secret by his relatives. She
must be very careful to keep out of the way of any one coming to
Colonel Rush's house, at least, for a day or two. She was in a very
bad humor now, this old Hannah, and as dissatisfied with the turn
matters had taken as but a short time since she had been well
pleased. She quite resented Miss Trevor's acquaintance with Mrs. Rush
and other friends of the Neville family, and her looks toward that
lady were now so glum and ill-natured that Mr. Powers could not fail
to notice them, and was more than ever beset by doubts as to her
perfect sanity. They were a queer couple, he thought, to go wandering
together through the distracting business streets.

When Hannah was worried she was cross, as has been seen; and now,
being thus assailed with doubts as to the wisdom of the course she
had pursued, she proved herself no agreeable companion, and laid
aside the respectful tone and manner with which she had hitherto
treated Miss Trevor, till the old lady began to feel uneasy in her
turn, and her manner and speech became more queer, jerky, and
confused than ever.

At last, when they reached the corner of the street, she grabbed the
arm of a policeman and in her broken, incoherent way, begged to be
put into a street car; and as one happened to be passing at the
moment, the request was complied with and Miss Trevor borne away
before Hannah had fairly realized that she had left her.

Poor Hannah! If she had been uneasy before, it may be imagined what a
state of mind she was in now. She stood watching the retreating
conveyance in a bewildered sort of way till it was almost lost to
sight among the crowd of vehicles; and then, with some vague notion
of pursuing Miss Trevor and demanding back her money, hailed another
car and entered it.

But after she was seated, sober second thought came to her aid, and
all the reasons she had before formed for trusting Miss Trevor,
returned to her, till she once more rested satisfied that the means
for Percy's rescue from the toils he had woven for himself were in
safe hands.




CHAPTER IX.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.


"Who do you think is going to win that prize of Mr. Ashton's?" asked
Fred Bradford of his sisters that day at the dinner table. "It is
coming near Easter, you know, and you must have some idea by this
time."

"Why, Maggie, of course," answered Bessie, positively, for the
question was not one which admitted of dispute to Bessie's mind. She
gave no time for her sister to answer, and Maggie did not reply.

"You seem to be very sure of your position, little woman," said her
father.

"Well, papa," said Bessie, still confidently, "Lena has not been able
to try for it, you know, since she was burned; and Gracie _will
not_ try. She says she don't want it, and she acts very queerly
and seems to have no interest about it at all."

"Perhaps she's ashamed of the way she behaved that day she had the
row with Lena," said Fred, who had heard the account of Gracie's
ill-behavior, not from Maggie and Bessie, but from some of "the other
fellows" whose sisters were members of the "Cheeryble Sisters."

Bessie shook her sunny head.

"No, I don't think so," she answered. "At least she has never said
so, and if she felt sorry enough to keep her from trying for the
prize, I should think she would tell Lena so."

"_You_ would, but not she," said Fred. "Catch Gracie Howard
eating humble pie. But you don't seem to have much idea of gaining it
yourself."

"I!" said Bessie, opening wide her eyes in undisguised astonishment,
"why, no; I am not even trying for it."

"Well, it is too late now, as it is so near Easter," said Harry; "but
since the prize is for general improvement and not for any one
particular composition, I do not see why you should not have tried
and generally improved as well as the others."

"Well, I did try to do the best I could and to improve myself,"
answered Bessie; "but I did not think about gaining the prize. I know
I couldn't."

"Catch Bess not doing her level best for conscience' sake, prizes, or
no prizes," said Fred. "Oh, I say, Bess, you are going to begin your
music lessons at Easter, are you not?"

The color flushed all over Bessie's face and neck as she answered,
after a moment's hesitation, "No, I am not, Fred; and no questions
asked."

"'No questions asked,'" repeated Fred, laughing, "but that is rather
hard on our curiosity, when you have been so wild for music lessons
for the last year or more. What have you been doing that they are
forfeited, for I know papa promised them to you after Easter?"

"I told you no questions asked," repeated Bessie, in a slightly
irritated tone, and looking very much disturbed.

"Hallo!" said the astonished Fred, taking these for the signs of
guilt. "Hallo! our pattern Bess has never been doing anything wrong,
has she? And so very wrong that--ouch! Hal, what was that for? I'll
thank you not to be kicking me that way under the table!"

For Harry had given him a by no means gentle reminder of that nature;
and now his father, too, came to the rescue.

"Let your sister alone, Fred," he said. "I can tell you that she has
done nothing wrong. She and I have a little understanding on this
matter; but she has forgotten that there is no necessity for doing
without the music lessons, and she is, I assure you, to have them.
But, as Bessie says, 'no questions asked.' We will drop the subject."

Bessie's soft eyes opened wide, as she gazed at her father in pleased
surprise. Although the money which had been devoted by her to Lena's
relief had not come through him, it actually had not occurred to her
until this moment that she would not be called upon to give up the
music lessons. She had made the sacrifice freely for Lena's sake, and
had had no thought of evading its fulfilment, even after
circumstances had turned out so differently from anything that she
had expected.

She flashed a grateful, appreciative glance at her father from out of
the depths of those loving eyes, but said nothing; and, as Mr.
Bradford had decreed, the subject was changed. The father and his
little daughter understood one another.

Mr. Bradford did not, however, tell Bessie that he had never intended
that she should be obliged to carry out her sacrifice; she had
offered it unselfishly, and in good faith, and he would let her have
the satisfaction of feeling that she had been willing to do this for
her little friend.

Bessie was not sure whether or no she was in haste to see Lena and
hear from her of the providential gift she had received. She was so
little accustomed to conceal her feelings, to evasion, or to
affectation of an ignorance which did not exist, that she did not
know how she was to maintain an appearance of innocence when Lena
should tell her that which she would doubtless believe to be
surprising news; and more and more confirmed became her resolution
"never, never, never to have another secret" which she could not
share with her mother and Maggie.

But when she did see Lena--which was not until the latter had sent
for her to come to her--all difficulty on that score was removed, for
the news which her friend had to communicate to her was really so
extraordinary and unlocked for that she did not need to affect
surprise, or to feel embarrassed over her own share in the events
Lena had to relate. And the possibility of Bessie being the donor of
that sum of money never occurred to Lena. Perhaps she would have been
glad to know it, for Lena was a proud child, with a very independent
spirit, and in spite of the immense relief it was to her to be able
to free Percy from the difficulties in which he had involved himself,
there had been an uncomfortable feeling back of that from the sense
of obligation to some unknown person. Who could have sent her that
money? Who could have been aware of her extreme need of it?

There is small occasion to say that it had scarcely come into her
hands when it was sent again on its travels; this time to Percy.

The hilarious acknowledgment which immediately came back to her was a
relief in more ways than one, although she was half provoked at the
_insouciant_, devil-may-care-now spirit which it evinced.

Percy wrote:

"DEAR LENA,

"You're the dearest of little sisters, the brickiest of bricks! But
there is no need for me to rob you of your hundred dollars. You say
somebody sent it to you anonymously; well, the same somebody, I
suppose, has done the same good office for me, sent me a hundred
dollars. You say you don't know who it could be; why, it was Russell,
of course. You know he's just as generous as generous can be, and
since he came into his own money he can't rid himself of it fast
enough, but must always be finding out ways of spending it for other
people. And I don't see anything so strange in this way of doing it.
He knew the powers that be would make an awful row if they knew we had
all that money to spend at our own sweet wills, so he took this way of
sending it to us, so that we could keep our own counsel; and if they
do find out we have it, we can say we don't know where it came from.
It is a blessed thing they will never know that I had mine, at any
rate, or ask where it went. You may be sure it did not stay in my
hands long, but went into those of Seabrooke in five minutes. How I
did want to keep it too. But there, Seabrooke is paid, and I'm free
and no one the wiser; at least, no one that I'm afraid of, so no harm
is done. But to think I've had to lose that money for such a thing as
that. I suppose it was a shabby trick to play, and I tell you I think
I never heard anything quite so scurvy as Flagg putting that stuff
into Seabrooke's carafe to make him sleep, and I'm sure Seabrooke
feels more put out about that than he does about the letter, because
that was malice prepense, and the other was--well--an accident; at
least, we did not know the mischief we were doing, and we have made it
all right. But he can't get over the drugging, and I'm glad I had no
hand in it, for I do not know what the doctor will say to it. He is
not back yet; but his son is better, and he will be here when we come
after the Easter holidays. I'm rather sick of Flagg anyway; he has
mean ways, and our dear old Russell wouldn't tolerate him for a
moment, so I'll shake him off all I can when I come back to school.
I'll keep your hundred dollars till I come home, and hand it to you
then. You're a trump, Lena, and I never would have taken it if I could
have helped it. But I would have had to do it if this other hundred
had not come. And, do you know, there is one thing that puzzles me. It
came by post from New York in a hair-pin box, and done up in about a
thousand papers-at least there were six--so I suppose Russell sent to
some one in the city to do it for him; but the whole thing was awfully
womanish. The address was in the most correct, copy-book-y
handwriting, every point turned just so, every loop according to rule.
But it came just in the nick of time, and saved me and your money.
Bless your heart, how are the feet?

"Your own all the same everlastingly obliged brother,

"PERCY NEVILLE."

Thankful as Lena had been to receive this letter, so annoyed was she
by Percy's indifferent, careless way of looking upon his own misdeeds
that she did not show it to Bessie; she was ashamed to do so,
knowing, as she did, Bessie's conscientiousness and strict sense of
honor and honesty. "All right now." Was this indeed all the
impression made upon Percy by his late peril, all the shame and
regret he could feel? Child though she was, and several years younger
than her erring brother, the ways of right and wrong were so much
clearer to her than they were to him, she had so much more
steadfastness of character and purpose.

"Now," she said, when she had told Bessie all, "now if I could only
find out who sent me that money and return it when Percy sends it
back to me. But you see, Bessie, I am not so sure that it was
Russell. It is not at all like the way he does things; he is never
mysterious or anonymous; and he is not at all afraid of papa or
mamma, and can do what he likes with his own money. He is very, very
generous, and always takes such nice ways of being kind to people and
giving them pleasure; and I do not think that this would be at all a
nice way of sending presents to Percy and me. Do you, Bessie?"

"No," answered Bessie, doubtfully, remembering her own way of
conveying to Lena the means of rescuing Percy,--"no--I--do not like
anonymousity very much; but I suppose there are times when one has to
do it."

"Um-m-m; no, I do not think so," said Lena, all unconscious of
Bessie's secret, and looking at her with surprise; for she knew
Bessie's ideas about underhand dealings to be as uncompromising as
her own.

But Bessie stuck to her point; she had known of a case where "to be
anonymous" was the best and only course to take, so it had seemed to
her, and she was not to be convinced that there were not times when
it was justifiable.

However, she was not anxious to dwell upon the subject, and soon
changed it. She knew that Lena's unknown friend was not her brother
Russell, and she was herself mystified about the other sum sent to
Percy; but, fearful of betraying her own part, she began to talk of
something else.

"Do you remember, Lena," she said, "that next Sunday is Easter
Sunday, and that Saturday is the day for Miss Ashton to name the one
who deserves Mr. Ashton's prize?"

"Yes," answered Lena, rather despondently, "but that cannot make much
difference to me, except that I shall be so glad if you or Maggie win
it."

"Oh, Maggie will, certainly," said Bessie, secure in her belief that
no one could compete with her sister, now that Lena was supposed to
be out of the question and Gracie Howard had decidedly withdrawn from
the contest. "Maggie is sure to have it, and you know that she is
anxious for it so she can give it to Gladys Seabrooke, as you would
have done."

"I was thinking," said Lena, with a little hesitation, very different
from her usual straightforward, somewhat blunt way of speaking, "I
was thinking that you and Maggie praise me too much for wishing to
earn the prize for Gladys Seabrooke. I would like to be the one to
win it for her; but I think--I know--it is more for my own sake than
for hers. You know I told you I wished so much that papa and mamma
would think me so much improved by Miss Ashton's teaching that they
would wish me to stay with her; and they would think it a sign of
that if I did win the prize."

"Yes, I know," answered Bessie; "but I thought your father had
promised that you should stay with Uncle Horace and Aunt May, and go
to Miss Ashton's while you were in our country."

"Yes," said Lena, "but I want to stay here till I am quite grown up
and educated. I want papa and mamma to think that I am doing better
here, improving more than I have ever done before--as I am--so that
they will leave me till I am grown up and quite old. Uncle Horace and
Aunt May would keep me; Uncle Horace said he would like to have me
for his girl always."

Not even her opinion of Mrs. Neville as a mother, not even her
appreciation of the happiness of a home with her beloved Colonel and
Mrs. Rush could quite reconcile Bessie to the fact that Lena was not
only willing but anxious to leave her own home and family and to
remain in a country where she would be separated from them for years
to come; but nevertheless she felt a great sympathy for her and a
strong desire that this wish should be fulfilled. Still she could
not but have a little feeling of gladness that, according to her
belief, there was no one who could now compete with her own Maggie
for the prize; and she rather evaded the subject and took up that of
school-news until Maggie, who had come with Jane, the nursery-maid,
to take Bessie home, ran in.

She brought with her the papers read at the last meeting of the
"Cheeryble Sisters' Club," such papers being, at Lena's special
request, always turned over to her for perusal.

"Whose are these?" asked the young convalescent, when Maggie
delivered them to her.

"One is Bessie's, and it is poetry. Did you know that Bessie had
begun to write poetry?" said Maggie.

"Two poetesses in one family!" said Lena. "No, I did not hear that
Bessie wrote poetry too."

"And this is so sweet," said Maggie; "such a pretty idea. And this
paper is Lily's. Lily has given up the resolution that she would
never let her compositions be read in the club, and this is the
second one she has given us. It is good, too," she added. "And this
is another one from Frankie. He seems to think himself quite a
'Cheeryble Sister,'" she added, laughing.

"Can you not read them to me before you go?" asked Lena, and Maggie
assented.

"I'll read the best first," with a smile full of appreciative pride
at Bessie, "for fear Jane comes and asks me to hurry because she has
a million things to do."

And accordingly she unfolded one of the papers she had laid upon
Lena's table when she came in; but before she had time even to
commence it, Jane put her head in at the door with the usual formula.

"Miss Maggie and Miss Bessie, will you please come. I have a million
things to do, and ought to be at home."

"In a few moments," answered Maggie; but Jane added to her
persuasions by saying:

"And it's snowing, too; a snow kind of soft-like that'll be turning
into rain before long, and Miss Bessie'll get wet."

This moved Maggie, as the politic Jane knew that it would do, for it
was not expedient for Bessie to be out in the damp or wet; and when
she glanced out of the window and saw that the maid's words were
true, she lingered no longer, but laid the papers down again and told
Lena they must go; and Jane, congratulating herself that she had
gained her point so easily, was bearing away her young charge when an
interruption occurred.

The children were in Mrs. Rush's sitting-room, and just at this
moment she came in, accompanied by a little old lady, who will,
doubtless be immediately recognized by those who have met her before.

"Maggie and Bessie, you are not just going, are you?" said Mrs. Rush.
"Here is an old friend who would like to see you, at least for a few
moments."

"I think we must go, Aunt May," said Maggie, "for it is snowing, and
mamma would not like Bessie to be out." Then, turning to the little
old lady, "How do you do, Miss Trevor? It is a long time since we
have seen you."

"Time, indeed; time, yes, time," said Miss Trevor, shaking hands
warmly with both Maggie and Bessie. "And you've grown, yes, grown,
actually grown--why, grown!" she added, in a tone which would
indicate that it was a matter of surprise two girls of the ages of
Maggie and Bessie should grow. Then she put her head on one side and
critically scanned her quondam pupils, giving them little nods of
approval as she did so.

Maggie and Bessie were used to Miss Trevor's odd ways and manner of
speaking; but to Lena they were a novelty, as she had never seen her
before, although she had heard of her from her aunt and from her
schoolmates, who often made merry over the recollection of her
peculiarities when she had been their teacher in writing and drawing.

Presently she turned to Lena and surveyed her as if she were a kind
of natural curiosity; yet there was nothing rude or obtrusive in the
gaze.

"My niece, Lena Neville, Miss Trevor," said Mrs. Rush. "Lena, dear,
this is Miss Trevor, of whom you have often heard me speak."

"So this is the little heroine," murmured Miss Trevor, "heroine, yes,
heroine, indeed. Fire, oh yes, indeed, fire; such courage, such
presence of mind, yes, mind, indeed, mind."

Lena was annoyed. She did not like allusions to the fire, to her own
bravery and her rescue of her little sister, even from those who were
near and dear to her; and from strangers they were unendurable to
her. She shrank back in her chair and half turned her face from Miss
Trevor, while the dark look which Mrs. Rush knew so well, but which
she seldom wore now, came over it.

She hastened to effect a diversion.

"Miss Maggie, if you please, it's snowing fast," said Jane, "and I've
a mil--"

"The young ladies cannot walk home in this wet snow," interposed Mrs.
Rush. "The carriage has gone for the colonel; when it returns it
shall take them home. And, Miss Trevor, it shall take you also. You
can go to the nursery if you choose, Jane."

So Jane, forgetting the "million things" in the prospect of a
comfortable gossip with old Margaret, departed to the nursery till
the carriage should return and her young ladies be ready to go.

Miss Trevor, who was at her ease with Mrs. Rush and her former pupils
of Miss Ashton's class if she was with any one, asked many questions
about the studies of the latter and of the progress they were making
in the two branches in which she had been their instructress, and
gave some information respecting herself; Lena listening and looking
on in wonder at her peculiarities of speech and manner, but taking no
part in the conversation.

But at last Miss Trevor turned to her again.

"Neville, you said, my dear Mrs. Rush,--your niece--yes, Neville,
indeed, Neville. Such a favorite with me--me, indeed, yes, favorite.
I know a boy, yes, boy--indeed, youth--such a fine youth--such a
hero--ro, indeed, ro--does not fear geese--hissing creatures, my
dears--yes, creatures, indeed creatures, my dears, yes, creatures,
indeed. Neville he is, yes, Neville--chevalier _sans peur et sans
reproche, 'proche_, indeed, _'proche_."

Now, as may be supposed, Lena was far from regarding her brother
Percy as a "chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_." She had
little reason, in view of late occurrences, to do so, and she never
connected him with the heroic youth on whose praises this odd little
old lady was dwelling. She felt no interest in her, only a sort of
impatient surprise, and wished that her aunt would take her away.

Miss Trevor dwelt farther upon the episode of the geese and Percy's
coming to the rescue; and while Lena maintained a sober face, seeing
nothing especially funny in the story, Maggie and Bessie, and even
Mrs. Rush, had some difficulty in restraining themselves from
laughing outright at the tragic tale she contrived to make out of it,
and the thought of the droll spectacle the old lady must have
presented as she flew down the street, pursued by the hissing,
long-necked foe.

But presently Lena's attention was aroused.

"But are flocks of geese allowed to wander loose in the streets of
Utica, Miss Trevor?" asked Mrs. Rush. "I thought it was too much of a
place for that."

"Oh, no, my dear not Utica, no indeed, not Utica--did you not know?
We moved, yes, moved, a year ago, yes, 'go, to Sylvandale, yes,
Sylvandale--yes, 'dale," said Miss Trevor.

"Sylvandale! Neville!" said Mrs. Rush. "Lena has a brother at school
at Sylvandale. Percy Neville! Can it be that our Percy is your young
cavalier, Miss Trevor?"

"Percy Neville," repeated Miss Trevor, "yes, indeed, that is his
name, name, yes, name. Is it possible he is your brother?" turning to
Lena with a face now radiant with pleasure at this discovery. "Ah!
such a boy, boy, indeed, boy!"

Lena was interested now, and, perhaps a trifle uneasy, lest by any
possibility some knowledge of Percy's escapades should have come to
Miss Trevor and might by her be incautiously betrayed to Colonel and
Mrs. Rush. She turned rather an anxious eye upon the old lady,
wishing that she would not pursue the theme of Percy and his valorous
deeds, but not seeing very well how she could change the subject.
Words did not come easily to Lena.

And her fears were not without foundation, although Miss Trevor knew
nothing of Percy's troubles. Further and more startling revelations
were to come.

For just at the moment, to this assembled group, entered Hannah,
bearing in her hands a tray, on which was a cup of beef-tea for Lena.
She was close to her little lady before she perceived the stranger,
whom she would have shunned as she would a pestilence. The
recognition was mutual, and to Hannah most unpleasant, and in the
start it gave her she nearly dropped the tray and its contents.

"Merciful Lord!" she ejaculated, taken completely off her guard; but
the exclamation was far more of a prayer than an irreverent mention
of her Maker's name.

For was not her beloved nursling in danger? Her Master Percy, for
whom she had sacrificed so much, was he not in danger of betrayal and
disgrace in case this old lady should touch upon the subject of the
money confided to her care to be conveyed to him?

She was not gifted with presence of mind, and she stood perfectly
still, staring in undisguised perturbation at Miss Trevor.

Perceiving this, Miss Trevor believed that it was caused not only by
surprise at seeing her there when she had told Hannah that she
expected to return at once to Sylvandale, but also by the fear that
the money had not reached its destination in good time, and she
hastened to relieve her, thus bringing on the disclosures which
Hannah was dreading.

"Good morning," she said, kindly. "Your money has gone, yes gone, my
good woman, gone. I stayed in the city, yes, stayed, but the money
has gone. He has it, the dear boy, yes, boy, he has it."

It was not her money but her boy that Hannah was fearing for now, and
for whom she stood dismayed at the sight of Miss Trevor. Moreover,
although she knew her place, and generally treated her superiors with
all due respect, if there was one thing more than another which
exasperated her, it was to have any one call her "my good woman;"
and, hastily setting her tray upon the table, she looked daggers at
Miss Trevor, as she answered, snappishly:

"I wasn't askin' ye nothin', ma'am."

Then she turned and fled, desirous to avoid all questions, although
it was not Hannah's way to flee before danger, either real or
apprehended.

[Illustration: "I WASN'T ASKIN' YE NOTHIN', MA'AM."]




CHAPTER X.

FRANKIE TO THE FRONT AGAIN.


It was the worst thing she could have done for her cause. It was her
custom to stand over Lena "till hevery drop of that beef-tea is
taken," knowing, as she did, that her young charge was averse to the
process; and, had she stood her ground she might have evaded or
parried questions, and perhaps have conveyed to Miss Trevor her
desire for secrecy; but her dark looks and sudden exit, evidently
caused by the presence of the latter, put the timid old lady into one
of her flutters.

"What is it, my dear?" she asked, turning to Mrs. Rush, and speaking
in a kind of panic. "What did I do? Does she think--yes--think that
the money has not gone? Oh, yes, indeed, yes, I sent it so carefully,
carefully indeed, fully, and the dear boy has it, yes, has it,
indeed, long before this, long!" Then to Lena, "Your brother, my
dear, yes, brother. Oh, I would have gone home myself to take it to
him, yes, take, if I could not have sent it quite safely, yes, safe;
but they persuaded me to stay, and so I sent it by post, sent it,
yes, post."

Lena gave a little gasp.

Here then was a partial solution of the mystery of that second
hundred dollars. She and Bessie both saw it; Hannah had sent it to
Percy, and by some strange means, through Miss Trevor. And Hannah was
now evidently very angry and disturbed. What could it all mean?

Bessie wondered: but the matter was not of as much moment to her as
it was to Lena, who was more bewildered, if possible, than ever. And
she knew what must follow--questions, explanations, and disclosur

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