Doctor Hathern's daughters

Sam had a rich, full voice, with a note of pathos in it, which made one forget its slightly nasal twang, and not only Jack but the ladies in the adjoining room listened breathlessly until the song was ended.

“That’s tip-top,” Jack said. “Made me forget what I am trying to remember. Give us another. ‘Three cheers for General Lee and the Southern Army, oh.’ Know it?”

Sam nodded and began again, singing this time with so much feeling that either because of the music, or because it awakened in his misty brain a regret for the Lost Cause the tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down Jack’s cheeks.

“I don’t know why I am crying,” he said apologetically, “unless it’s for what I can’t remember, or for the boys dead on so many battlefields, and we went into it so bravely and hopefully, like Sennacherib’s army.”

“Who’s he? I never heard of that general, and I thought I knew ’em all,” Sam asked, and Jack replied, “Have you never heard of the one hundred and eighty-five thousand able-bodied men who encamped for the night and got up in the morning all dead corpses?”

“Jerusalem! You don’t say! That beats all. It must have happened when I was in Libby. How could they get up if they was dead corpses. I can’t b’lieve it. That’s one of your rebel yarns,” Sam said.

“Bible truth,” Jack rejoined, with a twinkle in his eyes as if he were enjoying Sam’s discomfiture. “Now give us something jolly, like Dixie,” he continued, “or that one about John Brown’s body. I used to hear you fellows sing it nights when our lines were near each other. Know it?”

“I’d laugh if I didn’t. I know the whole caboodle, both sides,” Sam said, and for an hour or more the house rang with the old war melodies,—“Dixie,” “Marching through Georgia,” “My Maryland,” and “John Brown’s Body,” which last Sam sang with great gusto, especially the part relating to the apple tree.

This was the last, and Jack, who had listened to all which had gone before with lively interest began to grow excited, while his face clouded and his eyes were full of pain.

“Stop that,” he thundered, when the leader of the Southern Confederacy was threatened with suspension. “No more of that. It brings back what I have been trying to remember,—her. If she were here, she’d hang you to the sour apple tree; oh, Fanny, Fanny.”

It was a bitter cry, like that at The Plateau when the shock first came upon him. As he had cried then, so he did now, with great, choking sobs, which brought Miss Errington and Annie and Katy all to his bedside. For a few minutes he was perfectly conscious and whispered amid his sobs, “It isn’t manly, I know, but I can’t help it, my head aches so, and I am so weak. Oh, Fanny, how could you do it.”

It was Annie who succeeded in quieting him, and he at last fell asleep with one of her hands holding his and the other upon his forehead.

“Little Annie-mother, what should I do without you?” he said, with a pitiful kind of smile as he looked at her through his tears and then closed his eyes wearily.

After this there were no more paroxysms of delirium, and he seemed partially conscious of what was passing around him. He knew Katy was there, and Miss Errington, whom he still called the general in petticoats. Every day, and many times a day, Sam sung the war songs, with every negro melody he could recall. John Brown, however, was allowed to moulder quietly in the ground, and was never sung again. As Jack grew stronger he clung more and more to Annie, who always sat with him when Sam went to see how matters were progressing at the grocery, where there were three doing business for him, and doing it well, too, judging from the returns he found in his cash drawer. Miranda seemed a near possibility, and Sam told Annie about her, and said he hoped she would call and be kind of sociable when Miranda came. He staid at The Elms a week or more, and then as Jack was improving and perfectly sane he returned to his business and Annie took his place as nurse. Fanny’s name Jack never mentioned, but one day, when he had lain a long time with his eyes closed and an expression on his face as if he were intently thinking, he said to Annie suddenly, “Have you heard from—from them?”

“Yes,” Annie replied. “A cablegram came from Queenstown. They were safely across, but Fan had been very sick most of the voyage, which was a rough one. There has also been another from London. It read, ‘How is Jack?’ and was signed ‘Fanny.’ Miss Errington had cabled her that you were very ill.”

For a moment Jack was silent and then said, “There was a note for me which I didn’t read. Do you know what became of it?”

“Yes, I have it,” Annie replied, and going to her room she returned with it and the hundred dollar bill Fanny had sent in her letter.

Taking the note Jack read it with a white face and hard eyes in which there was no sign of softening. The bitterness of death was over, and he could read with comparative calmness what at first would have wrung his heart with anguish. There was nothing flippant in it, as there had been in the letter to Annie. There were self-accusations and assertions that, after what she had seen of the world, she could not endure poverty and the dull life of Lovering. If Jack were rich she should prefer him to any man in the world, she said, and she believed she did prefer him now, notwithstanding what she had done.

“I have always loved you,” she wrote in conclusion, “and I meant to be true, but a stronger will than my own has mastered me. Don’t despise and forget me. I couldn’t bear that, and if I am ever very unhappy there will be a comfort in knowing that you love me still. Forgive me, and think of me as I used to be in the old days which seem so far away. Good-bye.

As he read this part of the letter Jack’s breath came in gasps, for he understood the selfishness of the girl who, while not hesitating to break his heart, still wished to retain his love and keep him loyal to her. Tearing the note in shreds he handed them to Annie, and said, “Put them in the fire.”

Raising himself on his elbow he watched them as they crisped and darkened and disappeared in smoke. Then, as if with them the past had been blotted out, he lay down again with a different look upon his face from any Annie had seen there since the day at The Plateau. His love for Fanny was dying, and the last blow had been given by her note with which she had meant to bind him to her, in memory, at least.

“Jack,” Annie said, after a moment. “Fan sent this to you in payment for Black Beauty. She wants him back,” and she handed him the hundred dollar note.

She had seen him angry before, but was not prepared for the burst of passion which followed. Throwing the bill from him he exclaimed, “She is welcome to Black Beauty, and I will have none of his money. Take it away before I tear it up as I did her note.”

It was in vain that Annie tried to explain and urge him to keep it, reminding him of the debts he must have incurred in furnishing his house and which this would help to pay. He would not listen. He had borrowed money, he said, with which to pay his bills, preferring to have one debt rather than many. This was due and the bill had perhaps been sent to him during his illness, but he would never soil his hands with any part of the money which had bought his promised wife.

“Use it yourself. I give it to you, or Paul, or Katy, as you please,” he said.

In her heart Annie respected him for his decision and put the bill away till she could confer with Miss Errington with regard to it. That lady, who, her brother said, was never happier than when bossing some thing or some body, was carrying matters with a high hand at The Elms and managing generally. The bill of which Jack had spoken had been brought to the house for collection, and the man who held the note and who lived in Petersburg had said he had great need of the money, but supposed he must wait until Mr. Fullerton was better. It chanced that Miss Errington saw him, as Annie was with Jack and Katy was out. For a moment she reflected, wondering if she dare do it. Then deciding that it was no more than what she owed Mr. Fullerton for the wrong he had received from her brother, she paid the debt and closed the transaction. This Annie told Jack when he spoke of his bill in Petersburg.

“I believe she wishes to give it to you as a kind of atonement for what her brother has done. She has plenty of money,” she said.

“Give it to me!” Jack repeated angrily. “Does she think me a pauper? and as to atonement, nothing can atone,—certainly not money.”

He spoke bitterly, and rising from his chair, for he was now able to be up, walked to the window, where he stood looking out upon the dreary landscape with a face sad and stern.

“Talking of pay,” he said, turning suddenly to Annie, “I can never repay you for all you have been to me in the darkest hours of my life, and the trouble and care I have brought to you. But I shall never forget it. As soon as I am able I am going away from Lovering for awhile. I cannot be here on Christmas day. When I come back I shall be the same old Jack you used to know, with the past buried so deep that it will never be unearthed. I shall do nothing with the house at present. I cannot even go into it, but shall leave it in your care and Norah’s. I think I shall go to Florida into the sunshine. I have not felt warm since that day at The Plateau. No matter how high my fever ran I was conscious of a cold lump like ice at my heart which nothing could melt. Sometimes when you put your hand on my forehead and when you thought I was asleep and said ‘Poor Jack,’ it melted a little. God bless you, Annie. You were to have been my sister. I hold you my sister still,—the best a man ever had.”

He laid his hand caressingly upon her head as she stood by him, a little drooping figure, wholly unlike the queenly Fanny in her personelle, but so much truer and nobler in every womanly instinct.

Within a week after this conversation Jack left Lovering for Florida, under whose sunny skies he hoped to recuperate both in mind and body. Before going he had a long interview with Miss Errington, of whom he had seen but little, and for whom he had a natural prejudice. This, however, wore away as he talked with her. She might be meddlesome and dictatorial, and was never happier than when attending to some one’s business, but she was so thoroughly good and kind and so sincere in her desire to help one out of difficulties that few could withstand her, and Jack was not one of the few. Pay her he must, but he consented at last to be her debtor for a time and to borrow more of her if necessary.

“She is a noble woman and I am glad you have her for a friend,” he said to Annie, when the interview was over. “She must have some of her brother’s magnetic power to twist me round her fingers as she did. You can’t do better than to be guided by her.”

One thing, however, she could not persuade Jack to do, and that was to go into the house at The Plateau.

“No!” he said decidedly, when she urged that there must be a first time, and it was better to do a disagreeable thing at once, and be done with it. “I cannot go there now. It would be like looking into my coffin.”

He would not even ride past it when Annie took him out to drive behind Black Beauty. Too many hopes of happiness were strangled there. “It is a haunted place to me. Later on, when I come back, I will go through it with you and see if the ghosts are there still,” he said, when she suggested driving that way.

Everything pertaining to the grounds and out-buildings was left in the care of Sam Slayton, who, having won golden laurels in his nursing, was earning golden dollars in his grocery, which had become very popular and, as Sam said, was patronized by all the e-lity in town. Annie was to have the keys of the house and to see that it was kept in order. Nothing was to be changed; nothing removed. At this point Miss Errington interfered. It was a shame, she said, to let a fine new Steinway be ruined by standing unused in a cold house all winter. Far better negotiate for its return, even at a discount on the price.

The plan commended itself to Jack as sensible, and the instrument, on which no one had ever played, was returned to the firm from which it came and the greater portion of the money paid for it refunded. It was nearly Christmas time when Jack at last left Lovering, broken in health and spirits, but with a rebound in his sunny, genial nature, which promised much for him when time and change had healed the wound, which smarted with a fresh pain when he bade good-bye to his friends at The Elms, and especially to Annie.

“I don’t know what I shall do without my little Annie-mother,” he said, with a quiver in his voice as he stooped and kissed her forehead as reverently as if she had really been his mother instead of a shrinking girl whose heart throbbed with rapture for a moment, and then beat with a heavy pain at this first kiss she had ever received from Jack since he was a boy and they played the old-time games where kissing was a conspicuous feature and counted for nothing.

The day after Jack left, Annie received a letter from Fanny written at Morley’s Hotel in London, where they were stopping. It was not very long, and to Annie, who knew her sister so well, it did not seem at all in Fanny’s usual bright, witty vein, but rather as if written under restraint. She had been horribly seasick, she said, and if possible would rather walk home than cross the ocean again in rough weather. She had pleasant rooms at the hotel looking out on Trafalgar Square, and was enjoying the sights of London as much as she could in the fog and rain. The Colonel had met several acquaintances at the hotel and more outside, and she had attended a grand dinner in an English family and worn a lovely dress bought at Peter Robinson’s, but made in Paris. The people of the house had been very attentive to her, and had told her that her accent was more English than American. The next night she was going to hear Patti in full evening dress, also bought at Peter Robinson’s. After a few days they were to leave London for Paris, where they should stay until her wardrobe was complete, when they would go on to Nice and Monte Carlo, and then to Italy, spending the winter either in Florence or Rome, probably the latter. There were messages of love for Katy and Paul and Phyllis, but no allusion was made to Jack, or mention of her husband, except when she spoke of his acquaintances. She was anxious for a letter from Annie, telling her all the news, and she signed herself “Fanny.”

Written with a lead pencil between the lines on the first page, and so fine that they were scarcely legible, were the words, “Oh, Annie, what would I give to see you and Katy and Paul and the old home just for a minute! Write me often and everything.”

The letter was directed in the Colonel’s handwriting, and his sister had no doubt that his eye had seen all that was in it, except the pencil lines inserted in a sentence with which they had no connection. There was a world of homesickness in the cry, and Miss Errington read the meaning plainer than Annie did, feeling sure that her brother had already begun to bend his young wife to his iron will.

“Poor girl! I pity her,” she thought, as she gave the letter back to Annie. “I shall write to your sister to-day.”

Annie had written ten or twelve days before, and her letter and Fanny’s had probably crossed each other. She had said nothing of the scene at The Plateau when Jack first heard the news. “What is done cannot be undone, and there is no need to try and make her wretched,” she reasoned. So she merely spoke of Jack’s sudden illness, saying he was at The Elms and gaining slowly. Then she tried to write naturally about Katy and Paul and Phyllis and the townspeople, and whatever else she thought would interest her sister. At the close she said, “Oh, Fan, you don’t know how I miss you everywhere. When you were away with Miss Errington it was not so bad, for I thought you were coming back. Now I know you are not, and I seem to have lost half of myself and am constantly looking for it. I hope you will be happy. You always wished to go to Europe, and I think you will enjoy all you are seeing. Katy sends love and Paul a kiss to ‘Fan-er-nan.’ He was delighted with his horse. Lovingly, Ann.”

Three days before Christmas there came to The Elms an express package directed to Fanny. In it were two boxes bearing the name of a New York firm. One contained a dozen after-dinner coffees of fine Dresden china; the other a dozen silver forks and four dozen spoons of different sizes, and a dozen pearl handled knives, Carl’s wedding present to Fanny. They were very beautiful, but it seemed to Annie like opening two coffins, and her tears came near staining the satin lining of the boxes as she bent over them and thought how Fanny’s eyes would have sparkled had she been there to see them. The same train which brought the package brought also a letter from Carl written from The Windsor in New York, where he had been staying for two or three weeks.

“I got tired of loafing in Boston,” he wrote, “and I thought I would try New York, and, by George, I am tired of that. I must do something or die of ennui. Coming to the wedding will be a little diversion, and after that I shall either open a corner grocery or go abroad. I have not decided which. I envy Jack and Fanny being settled and done for. Wish I were. I have selected at Tiffany’s a wedding present, which I think Fan will like. I told them to engrave the silver ‘F. H.’ and the stupid rascals have left off the ‘F.,’ and marked them simply ‘H.’ I expect to be with you the 23rd, if nothing happens. Very truly, Carl.”

There was a good deal of Carl in this letter, and Katy’s eyes grew very bright for a moment, as Annie read it, and then took on a cold expression, which Miss Errington, who was watching her, could not quite understand. Annie had written to Carl in Boston, telling him there was to be no wedding, but asking him to spend Christmas with them just the same. This letter he evidently had not received. He was coming, and they were all glad, and none more so than Norah. With all his faults there was not a better man living than Carl, she said, and her face was radiant as she prepared his favorite dishes. If they couldn’t have a wedding-feast they should have a dinner that was a dinner, with eight or ten courses, and in the exuberance of her joy she allowed Phyllis to stone the raisins for the pudding she was going to send to the table over a blue flame of-alcohol. Carl’s own room was made ready for him, and every time he heard the whistle of a Richmond train Paul stationed himself at the window to watch for the village ’bus which was to bring his brother from the station. But the trains came and went and brought neither Carl nor any tidings of him, and every one gave him up but Norah. She had more faith in him than anyone else, although admitting that he was never of the same mind two hours at a time.

“But he’s comin’ now. I feel it in my bones,” she said, and made her preparations for Christmas with as much certainty of his presence as if he were already there.

It was a dreary Christmas Eve, with dark clouds scudding across the starless sky and the wind roaring through the tall trees which skirted the avenue leading from the highway to the house, and the morning was drearier still. There had been a blizzard on the western prairies, and it was spending itself on this part of Virginia in a cold, steady rain, which drove against the windows and found its way under the door into the hall, where it stood in little puddles until Phyllis swept it out, letting in more rain as she did so, and shivering with cold as she closed the door and went into the dining-room where breakfast was upon the table and where Paul’s was the only happy face. He had found his stockings full of gifts from Santa Claus, balls and carts and tops and horns, the last of which he blew vigorously as Phyllis lifted him into his high chair and fastened on his bib. Annie was pouring the coffee when Phyllis suddenly exclaimed, “Praise de Lord, thar’s Mas’r Carl now on de step with his umberill blown t’other side out.”

He did not stop to knock, but sprang into the hall, with the rain dripping from his Mackintosh and hat, and his umbrella a total wreck.

“Hallo, Hallo, Hallo, all of you,” he said, as Annie and Katy and Phyllis rushed into the hall to meet him. “This is a nice go for Christmas and a wedding. Call this the sunny south? I am frozen to my bones,” he continued, as he divested himself of his wet garments. “Don’t ask me any questions until I get near a fire and that coffee, which smells so deliciously. I haven’t had a decent thing to eat since I left New York and am half famished.”

He was soon by the open fire in the dining-room and drinking the hot coffee which Annie poured for him.

“I meant to be here yesterday afternoon,” he said, “but was too late for the train; so I came on at night in a cross between a lumber wagon and a cattle car. Never slept a wink, but I was bound to get here if I walked. What time is the ceremony, and where is Fan?” he asked. “Is she staying in her room until she bursts upon us in all her bridal splendor?”

He looked at Annie, who replied, “You didn’t get my letter?”

“No. What letter? I have been in New York three weeks, and when I left Boston I didn’t know how long I should be gone, and gave no directions to have my mail sent to me. My correspondence is not very important anyway, and I hate to answer letters. What did you write, and where is Fan?”

He asked the question a little anxiously, for something in the faces at the table surprised him. It was Paul who answered. With a toot upon his horn and his mouth full of buttered muffins he said, “Fan-er-nan is mar-yed and gone to Europe.”

“Married and gone to Europe!” Carl repeated. “What do you mean? Married to whom?”

“To my brother,” Miss Errington said, taking upon herself the task of explaining, which she did very briefly and without comment.

“Great guns!” Carl exclaimed. “I would not have believed that of Fan. And so there is to be no wedding after all. That’s too bad, and I nearly breaking my neck to get here,” he continued, as he rose from the table and began to walk the floor, talking rapidly and asking many questions which no one answered. “I tell you what,” he said suddenly, going up to Katy, who stood by the window looking out into the rain, “it is too bad to come all this distance without a wedding. We’ll have one yet, if you say so. I’ll put on my other coat and you your other gown. We’ll send for the minister, and, presto! it’s done! What do you say?”

There was a grey light in Katy’s eyes and a ring in her voice, although she tried to laugh, as she replied, “Thank you! I’m not in so great a hurry.”

There was a good deal of dignity in her manner, and her head was held high as she stepped back from him and walked into the adjoining room.

“By Jove! Something is up,” Carl said under his breath. He was so accustomed to have every girl respond to his call that when he met with a rebuff it surprised him.

Katy had been so soft and yielding and so like wax in his hands when he was there before that he did not know what to make of her now. She would thaw of course. She must, for of all the girls he had ever met Katy had made the strongest impression upon him, and was the one he liked best. Away from her he could forget her in a measure, but with her again her spell was upon him, intensified by her coolness, and if she had said so, he would have probably sent for the minister, donned his other coat and settled the matter forever. But she didn’t say so, and her manner piqued and puzzled him. She was very gracious to him, however, when he joined her in the parlor after a romp with Paul, and there was a look in her eyes which made him think of the green woods and the mossy banks where he had sat and talked with her the year before, and watched the color deepening on her cheeks, and the coy drooping of her eyelids, as he held her hand in his, or pushed back a stray curl of her hair from her face, or put his arm around her when there was no other support for her back. Katy had thought of this, too, and hated herself for the part she had played in what was more a tragedy, for her, than a comedy to be lightly forgotten. Not for worlds, however, would she let him know that she had given more meaning to that summer idyl than he had done, and after her first show of coldness she was herself again, and laughed and chatted with him as merrily as ever.

At his request she sang for him, and sang, it seemed to her, as she had never sung before. He was not at all a critic, or music mad in any sense, but he listened in wonder as her rich, full voice filled the house and made him feel hot and cold and faint all at the same time.

“Why, Katy!” he exclaimed, when she was through. “You take a fellow right off his feet. Why don’t you go upon the stage? The whole world would ring with your name.”

“I am going,” Katy replied, as she put up her music, and rose from the stool.

“Never!” Carl exclaimed, so emphatically that Katy looked at him in wonder.

“What have you against the stage?” she asked, and he replied, “Nothing against those who are already there, and among whom, I dare say, there are as many good people in proportion as there are off; but everything against it for you, and when I said you ought to be there I was merely in fun. Standing before the people to be criticised and talked about by the men in the clubs and public places is bad enough, but when you get behind the scenes and see the freedom which must necessarily exist there, and when you come in contact with all classes of men who, because of their talent for acting, or singing, or both, form a part of every company, and with whom you have no choice except to play, Bah! I believe I’d rather see you dead than there.”

He was worse than Fanny, and Katy felt some of her castles melting into air as he talked, for all the fame she had sometimes dreamed of winning was not worth the loss of Carl’s good opinion.

“Perfect yourself in music,” he continued, “and sing for your friends; sing in church; sing for charities; sing anywhere except with a troupe. I couldn’t bear that. Better send for the minister now. It isn’t too late. What do you say?”

He was standing with his hand on her shoulder, looking at her, while she returned his gaze unflinchingly as she replied, “Just what I said this morning. No, thank you. I am not in so great a hurry; and if I were, it would be the mistake of my life and yours. What you do to-day you forget or regret to-morrow, and I have my career to consider.”

If Carl had been in the habit of swearing he would have consigned her career to the lower regions, and in his excitement he might have done so now if she had not released herself from him, and swept from the room, leaving him discomfited and uncertain as to whether he had actually proposed and been rejected, and if it were true that what he desired to-day he tired of to-morrow.

“By Jove!” he said to himself. “No girl ever flouted me like that. I know of forty, with their mothers at their backs, who would have gone for the parson themselves and had him here by this time. I guess Virginia girls are different from those of Boston; Katy certainly is. Career! Katy on the stage! Katy in tights,—with glasses leveled at her! It might come to that sometime, if she sang in opera. I believe I’d shoot her, or myself, should I live to see the sight. That is Miss Errington’s work, but I won’t have it, and I’ll propose in bona fide shape and have the thing settled. Katy is too young, perhaps. She can’t be seventeen yet, but I’ll wait three years. There’s a lot of things I want to do before I settle down into a steady-going married man. But I’ll bind Katy and fix that stage business. I wonder if I would get tired of a three years’ engagement.” On the whole, he concluded that he would, and as he was not quite ready to marry, he decided to wait awhile and keep his eyes on Katy until he saw dangerous signs of her career, when he would step in and stop it.

Carl was a curious compound. There was no question that he loved Katy, but he loved his freedom better, and, on the whole, he was glad that after his talk with her of the stage she gave him no chance to see her alone. If she had, her grace and sweetness and beauty would have influenced him so strongly that he might have proposed in earnest, and—“been rejected, I believe upon my soul,” he reflected, while thinking the matter over after his return to Boston.

Before leaving he had a long talk with Annie with regard to Paul, for whom he had conceived a great liking, and whom he began to think he had neglected. To this thought he was helped by Norah, who, when he asked how long she intended staying at The Elms replied, that she didn’t know. Probably not long, as she knew Miss Annie could not afford to keep her.

“I don’t think her father left much for his daughters,” she said, “and there is Paul to be taken care of, or he may be a cripple. Have you ever thought of that?”

He had not, and he didn’t know what she meant. Accustomed all his life to every luxury, he had not given much thought to the wants of others, except as they were presented to him. When asked for a subscription to some charity, as he often was, he gave liberally. When he passed an old half-clothed man or woman on the corner turning a hand-organ, with “I am blind” pinned on the breast, he always dropped a coin into the cup, and would have lavished thousands upon the people of The Elms had it been suggested to him that they needed it.

“I don’t believe I am so selfish a cad as I am thoughtless,” he said to Annie.

“You see, I have more than I ought to have, and I have given myself to spending it, and forgotten that something was due to others besides charities,—to Paul for instance. He is my half-brother, as well as yours, and I ought never to have let the whole burden fall on you.”

“It has been no burden,” Annie interposed quickly. “Paul could never be that.”

“I don’t mean it that way,” Carl answered. “I mean that I ought to help, and I’m going to. I shall provide for his education and settle something upon him at once. And what is this Norah has been telling me about his being a cripple? She talked as if I were a brute.”

In the excitement incident upon Fanny’s marriage, Annie had for the time being forgotten the fear which had haunted her with regard to Paul, and which came back to her with a shock when Carl asked about it. She told him all she knew, saying, however, that she hoped her fears were groundless, Paul seemed so active and well. Carl’s answer was not reassuring.

“I have noticed him limping at times,” he said, “and once when I asked him why he did so he replied, ‘It hurts me here,’ and put his hand on his back. He must have the best medical advice in Richmond, and if that does not answer we must take him to New York, and if that fails, I will take him to Paris. He can be cured there. Don’t look so white and scared. There may be nothing serious, and if there is, it can be cured. Suppose you go to Richmond with me and take Paul.”

This was on Sunday, and the next day Carl left The Elms, and Annie and Paul went with him as far as Richmond,—the little boy delighted with the first journey he had ever taken in the cars, and Annie’s heart full of anxiety as to what the doctor’s verdict might be.

Everything which ingenuity could devise or money buy had been bought and devised for the two staterooms which Col. Errington had engaged upon the Celtic, and between which there was only a narrow passage. In the one which the Colonel called Fanny’s boudoir, and where she was to sit when it was too cold to be on deck and she did not care to stay in the saloon, there was a large easy chair and footstool, with soft cushions and pillows on the couch under the window. There was a basket of champagne in one corner, with jars of French prunes, preserved ginger and Albert biscuits in another. There were all the last magazines, with three or four books on the shelves, and on the washstand a basket of exquisite flowers filling the room with perfume. When they came on board the ship the Colonel had only shown Fanny their sleeping-room and had then hurried her to the deck, where they staid until the ship was moving down the bay, across which the November wind blew cold and chill. “Now come and see your parlor,” he said, taking her by the arm and leading her to No. ——.

It was Fanny’s first knowledge of a steamer, but she readily understood how infinitely superior this stateroom was to the others, and that she was indebted to her husband’s forethought for it. In the excitement of her hasty marriage there had been no chance for love-making, and her heart was too sore and full of Jack to think of much else. She heard his voice in the din around her as the passengers and their friends crowded the deck, and saw his face on the wharf, waving her a good-bye as the ship moved away and the objects began to grow dim in the distance.

“Oh, Jack, will you never leave me!” she thought, and her hands clasped each other tightly and the lump in her throat was getting larger than she could master when the Colonel broke the spell and led her to her stateroom.

“How do you like it?” he asked, sitting down upon the couch and watching her as her eyes took in every detail and then filled with tears.

He had asked her to call him George, but she had never done so until now, when there awoke within her a throb of something more than gratitude and less than love, and going up to him she put her arms around his neck and kissed him on his forehead. “Oh, George,” she said, “it is lovely, and you were so kind to do it all for me. I thank you, and—and—I am going to be so good, only I must cry now.”

She was sobbing like a child, and he let her cry without protest, and held her closely to him and gently smoothed her hair. Skilled in reading faces, he had read hers on the deck and guessed that thoughts of home, and possibly of Jack, were bringing the pallor around her lips, and the wistful look of pain into her eyes. Just how much of Jack was in her thoughts he did not know. She had told him distinctly that she did not love him, and he had said it was not her love he wanted. It was her beauty,—herself,—her person. He had all these, and when she put her arms around his neck and kissed him, calling him George, there swept over him a possibility of what might be in the future, and in that moment he was as near loving her as he ever would be in his life. And because of this love, if it could be called by that name, his jealousy of Jack and every man who looked at her would be stronger and fiercer and make itself felt at every point. When he thought she had cried enough, he told her so; but her tears, once started, could not be easily stopped, and she kept on until something in his voice and manner, which she could feel but not define, checked them back; and lifting her head from his shoulder she said, “I didn’t mean to cry like this, but I couldn’t help it. I am thinking of Annie and Katy and Paul.”

“Yes, I know; I understand perfectly of what you are thinking, but crying will not help you. Don’t do it again. It makes your eyes and nose red, and I want you to look your best for dinner. I must go now and see if the purser has secured our seats at table, as I told him to do. Dry your eyes and let me see a bright face when I return; or, would you prefer to go on deck and wait for me there.”

She chose the latter, feeling that, pretty as the stateroom was, she should smother in its narrow confines. She wanted air and space in which to breathe, and strangle, if possible, the lump in her throat, which pained her so. Her husband brought her beautiful fur-lined cloak, and fastened it around her neck and tied on her sea hood, which, with its lining of quilted crimson satin was very becoming to her. “There, you look like the pictures of Red Riding Hood,” he said, as he passed his arm around her to steady her, and then led her to the deck. Their chairs were still inextricably mixed up with a pile of other chairs, so he found her a sheltered place on the seat near the railing, and throwing a rug across her lap left her alone with the injunction, “Mind you don’t cry again.”

“No-o,” she said, with a sob, like a little child trying to keep down the tears it has been forbidden to shed.

There were many passing and repassing around her,—passengers, sailors and officers of the ship, each one of whom glanced at the lovely face slightly upturned to the cool wind which blew so refreshingly across the burning cheeks. But Fanny saw none of them. Her eyes were with her thoughts, and they were far away in her Virginia home, with Jack, and every incident of her life as connected with him. How vivid it all was to her. The tall boy and the little girl he had carried so often on his back to school when the mud was deep and she was afraid of soiling her shoes and dress;—the candy and sugar hearts and kisses with the mottoes which he had hidden under her desk where she was sure to find them;—the big red apples he gave her at recess, and his championship generally when she needed it, as she frequently did,—for with her quick hot temper she was a good deal of a fighter, and often battled both with the girls and boys. Later on, when he was a grown young man and she a young lady, how tender and true he had always been to her,—loving her with an intensity which she realized now as she had never before. In his last letter to her, received the day before she had decided to break his heart, he had poured out his love like a torrent. “My darling,” he wrote at the close, “you do not know how much I love you, or how glad I am that I am so soon to see you. Only a few days more and you will be here, and then in one short month you will be mine. It makes me faint with joy to think of it. I am not half good enough for you, but if love and devotion can make a woman happy, you shall be so, my darling, my queen, my wife that is to be.”

She had burned the letter when she said yes to Col. Errington, but the last sentences had stamped themselves upon her memory and came back to her now, each one a stab as she sat there alone, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, except the regular thud of the machinery, which she knew was every moment taking her farther and farther away from the old life and Jack. Yesterday at this time she was free, and could have withdrawn; now, it was too late. She was bound; she could not go back if she would. Possibly she would not if she could, so contradictory was her nature. A life of wealth and luxury looked very attractive to her still, if she could only have forgotten Jack. But she could not. His face was everywhere. It looked at her from every wave which broke around the boat; from every sail, and every angle on the deck where the dark shadows were gathering as the short November day drew to a close; not happy and buoyant as she had always seen it, but full of anguish, as she knew it would be when her letter reached him. “Oh, Jack, Jack!” she said aloud, as she leaned her head back so that her face was distinctly visible to the man who stood behind her and whose approach she had not heard.

Col. Errington had secured the seats he wanted at the Captain’s table,—had met some New York acquaintances, had been congratulated on his marriage, whose haste he had explained as he did to the clergyman, and now he had come to introduce her and take her in to dinner and see what impression she would make upon his friends. It was not particularly pleasant for a bridegroom of less than twenty-four hours to hear his bride repeating the name of his rival as Fanny repeated Jack’s, and for a moment the Colonel clenched his fists and ground his teeth together, muttering an oath under his breath. Then,—for he was not all hard,—there came over him a feeling of pity for the girl who had never pretended to love him, and whom he had lured from her allegiance to another man by every art and argument of which he was capable.

“I shall not stand much of this, but for once I don’t mind,” he thought, and his voice was very pleasant as he said to her, “Fanny, Fanny, have you been asleep?”

“No, no,” she answered quickly, starting up from her reclining position,—her face, which had looked so pale, flushing to the color of the crimson satin lining of her hood; “why did you think me asleep?”

“You were talking aloud; better not give your thoughts to the winds again,” he replied, rather significantly; then added, “dinner is ready and I have come for you. Your seat is next to the Captain, and some of my friends are at the same table. I want to present them to you. That hood is very becoming to you, but you’d better not wear it to the table. Give a brush or two to your hair and you are all right.”

They were in their stateroom now and Fanny was divesting herself of her cloak and hood and giving the few touches to her hair which her husband had suggested. Her gown of navy blue which Jack’s money had bought fitted her fine figure admirably; the color had come back to her cheeks and the sparkle to her eyes, and the Colonel was very proud of her as he lead her into the dining-room and presented her to the Captain and those of his friends whose seats were near his own. Gossip on a ship spreads rapidly, and it had been rumored about so soon that she was the bride of the elderly man who was so attentive to her. Also, that there was a romance of some kind connected with the marriage, and many eyes were directed to her as she took her seat at the table, with the Captain on her left and her husband on her right. She knew she was attracting attention, and her spirits began to rise as she talked with the Captain and those near her to whom she had been introduced. In front of her was a large bouquet of roses, with a card attached to it bearing her name; near it was a basket of cut flowers, also bearing her name, both ordered by the Colonel. In her ignorance of ship usages she fancied they might be from the Captain, who was so attentive to her, or some other friend of her husband’s, and she felt almost happy as she buried her face in the lovely roses, which seemed to add a soft sweetness to her brilliant beauty.

When dinner was over she went with her husband for a walk upon the deck until the cold drove them to the saloon, where she was soon the center of interest to the Colonel’s New York friends, who vied with each other in paying her attention. Matters were not so bad after all, and it was a pretty good thing to be the bride of a man as rich and well known as Col. Errington. Jack and The Elms and Annie and Katy and Paul began to grow misty and far away from this gay company of polished city people. But they came back to her when, at a late hour, the party broke up and the Colonel said he must have a cigar before retiring; but he conducted Fanny to the door of her stateroom, and telling her he should not be gone long left her alone with her wretched thoughts, which, as if to make amends for the respite they had given her, came swarming into her mind with redoubled force. The stateroom lost its prettiness; the roaring of the sea reminded her of the wintry wind as it sometimes howled through the woods and around the house at home when a wild storm was sweeping over Lovering, and, worse than all, Jack’s eyes were looking at her again from her wedding ring and the superb solitaire which guarded it, to the gown his money had paid for and which she was removing.

“Oh! Jack, Jack,—will your eyes haunt me always?” she whispered, wringing her hands so hard that the diamond cut into her flesh.

Fanny could scarcely be called a religious person, but every night of her life since she could remember, except her bridal night, she had said the Lord’s Prayer, either with Annie, or Katy, or Paul, and now from force of habit she knelt by her berth, which reminded her of a cupboard shelf, and began the familiar words. Her voice was choked with sobs, and when she reached “Forgive us our trespasses,” she said instead, “Forgive what I have done, and take Jack’s eyes away, or I shall die.” Once in her berth, which was as comfortable as a berth on a ship can ever be, Jack’s eyes ceased to haunt her, and she might have fallen asleep if she had not heard her husband’s step near the door. “I can’t speak to him to-night,” she thought, with a shiver, and closing her eyes she feigned sleep so successfully that when, as he called her name and she did not answer, he cautiously parted the curtains and looked at her, he believed her asleep, she lay so still, with her hands folded across her breast. Jack would have kissed her at the risk of waking her. The Colonel only thought how fair she was and that her beauty was his own, as he dropped the curtain and went to his couch under the window, where he was soon sleeping as soundly as if outside the wind was not rising until it blew a gale, while the steamer rolled and pitched in a manner well calculated to terrify one not accustomed to the sea.

For awhile Fanny listened to the roar outside and to the noise overhead as the sailors hurried to and fro. At last when she could bear it no longer, she called to her husband, “George, George, I am so frightened. Are we in danger? Do ships ever tip over?”

“Tip over! No. There is no danger. It is only a little spurt of wind. It will soon pass. Go to sleep, child,” the Colonel answered drowsily, and his sonorous breathing soon idled the room again.

Fanny could not sleep, and as the wind increased and the ship rolled more and more she decided that if she must drown it should be with her clothing on. She got out of her berth and steadying herself by it reached up for her dress which she had hung upon a hook and which was swinging out in straight lines, with everything else which could swing. Heretofore she had only been afraid. Now, however, she was suddenly conscious of a new sensation so overmastering that she crept back into her berth, wondering if she were dying, as the cold, clammy feeling crept from her toes up to the roots of her hair, which seemed in her nervous imagination to stand on end. As yet there was no other feeling in her stomach than one of faintness and chill,—but when she raised her head the nausea was so severe that the Colonel was roused from his sleep and came at once to her aid.

“Am I dying?” she asked, and he answered with a laugh, “Dying! No. It’s only seasickness. You will soon be over it.”

All night the retching and nausea continued, and when the grey dawn came struggling through the porthole Fanny was as limp and white and still as if she were dead.

The Colonel had called the doctor and stewardess when his remedies failed, and they had removed her from the berth to the couch under the window where she would have more air and light. And there she lay, motionless, for if she stirred so much as a finger or turned her head the terrible paroxysm seized and shook her until there was scarcely strength in her to move. It was the worst case he had ever seen, the doctor said, as the day wore on and she did not improve. He had said this a good many times when he knew his patients wished to be exceptions, but he meant it now, and became greatly interested in the young bride, who puzzled him somewhat. As the seasickness decreased it was succeeded by a severe pain in the head, with a burning fever, so that at times she was delirious, and said things the Colonel would have given much if she had left unsaid. Jack troubled her, or rather his eyes, which were always looking at her. Many eyes he must have had, as they were everywhere, and especially upon the wedding ring and the solitaire. Here they blinded her if her hand lay outside the sheet. If she covered it up, she saw them still;—not as distinctly, but saw them looking at her, sometimes mockingly, but oftener reproachfully and full of pain.

“Jack, Jack, go away!” she would say imploringly, and once, when the Colonel was standing by her, she slipped the rings from her finger and handing them to him said, “His eyes are on them all the time. Take them away, and perhaps I shan’t see them so often.”

The Colonel took the rings and put them in his vest pocket, with a feeling that he was beginning to reap in some small measure what he had sown. It did not take long for his friends to know about the mysterious Jack whose eyes haunted his wife, and one lady, bolder and more curious than the others, asked him, “Who is Jack? Her brother?”

“He is not her brother,” was the curt reply, and the gleam in the Colonel’s eyes warned the lady not to pursue the subject.

“Curse him!” the Colonel said to himself, as he went up on deck and in the face of a fierce north-easter walked back and forth for half an hour or more, his hands in his pockets and his head bent down as if to break the force of the wind which beat so furiously upon him, but which he didn’t feel at all.

A hurricane would scarcely have moved him, so bitter were his thoughts and so deeply wounded his pride. He knew the ways of a ship and how the passengers, shut up within themselves, hailed anything like gossip and made the most of it, and he knew they were discussing his affairs and building up theories with regard to the Jack whose eyes sat on his wife’s pillow,—on the door,—on the window,—and lastly on her wedding ring, which she had discarded. A few had been in to see her and what they had not heard the stewardess had told, and every possible conclusion was drawn with regard to the matter. All this he guessed as he walked the deck cursing his rival, who, far away, was seeing Fanny’s face just as she saw his, for this was on Tuesday night, when Jack was at his worst.

“Curse him, and her, too, for loving a poor country fellow like that in preference to me,” the Colonel said, and the emphasis on the me told how infinitely superior he though himself to Jack Fullerton and people like him.

Accustomed all his life to deference and preference on account of his wealth and family and distinguished appearance, he could not understand how a man like Jack should be preferred to himself. In love in its purest, truest sense he did not believe. It was a vealy sensation at its best, fit only for the very young. Mature people knew better than to indulge in it. The happiest marriages were marriages of convenience or advancement, where for value received an equivalent was paid and the bargain a fair one.

That he had not married before was his own fault. There was scarcely a young woman of his acquaintance, either in Washington or New York, who would not have thought twice before refusing Col. Errington, and he knew it. Had it not been for his sister’s presence in his household he might perhaps have married earlier, but aside from their little disagreements she had made him so comfortable that he had never seriously considered matrimony until little Fanny Hathern stood up so fearlessly and scorned him to his face with all his troops behind him. He had never forgotten her, and had always cherished a vague belief that she would some day be his wife. When at last he made up his mind in earnest, he resolved that nothing should stand in his way. He never asked himself if he loved her. She would make a fine centre for his surroundings. She was bright and spirited and beautiful and he wanted her, and had won her against the odds of another suitor to whom she was pledged, and her wedding day only a month in the distance. For Jack and what he might feel he did not care at all. He was a man and would get over it, and possibly marry the other twin,—the little brown-eyed woman whom he scarcely remembered, except that she was small and quiet and gentle and far better suited to Jack than Fanny with her piquancy and dash. It had been a fair bargain, he thought; money and position versus youth and beauty. He meant to fulfill his part and give her everything his wife ought to have. Why shouldn’t she fulfill her part, too, and be satisfied? Why should she hanker so after that fellow, calling his name as he heard her call it on the deck,—talking of him continually in her delirium,—seeing his eyes everywhere until he himself began to have a creepy feeling and see them, too. He had been as near loving her as he could love any one when she kissed him in their stateroom and called him George, and that increased his anger. Jealousy and mortified pride were torturing him about equally as he strode on in the face of the wind, which increased more and more, until a sudden lurch of the ship sent him into the midst of a pile of chairs and brought his walk to a close.

With what sounded like an oath he struggled to his feet and descended to the saloon, where a number of his friends were sitting, mostly ladies, and all discussing the mysterious Jack. He did not hear a word they said, but he knew at a glance the purport of their conversation, and a hot, angry flash showed on his face for a moment. Then, on the instant, he became his olden self,—the easy, courteous gentleman,—and when his wife’s illness was alluded to, he spoke of her with great concern and apparent affection.

The world should never know by any act of his of the rage in his heart when he thought of Jack. Outwardly he would be the most devoted of husbands, paying Fanny every possible attention. Alone with her, when the world could not take note;—— Well, he hadn’t made up his mind what he would do if this nonsense continued. The past could not be helped, and she was not responsible for the secret she had betrayed to so many, but in the future it must be different.

When at last he went to his stateroom he found her lying much as she did that first night when she feigned sleep that he might not speak to her. She was not feigning now. Her breath was regular and natural, and there was a faint color in her cheeks which had grown thinner within the last few days. Her hands were folded on her breast as they had been that first night and he noticed more than he had ever done before how white and small they were, and noted, too, with a pang, the absence of the wedding ring still reposing in his vest pocket. When would she wear it again? Would she ask for it, or would he have to offer it to her?

“Never! I’ll be —— first,” he said aloud, with so much vehemence that Fanny stirred in her sleep,—moved her head a little, and with a smile said, “What did you say, Jack?”

“I am not Jack. I’m your husband,” he answered savagely, and in a moment Fanny’s eyes opened and looked at him questioningly. Then she said, “Oh, George, is it you? I dreamed I was at home and somebody was swearing.”

“I know you were dreaming of home,” he replied, which made Fanny’s eyes open wider and shine with a kind of reddish light, as they often did when she was surprised and perplexed.

Was he angry, and why? and had she talked in her sleep? She didn’t know, and she continued to look at him so appealingly, that he felt his wrath giving way and a sensation of something like pity taking its place.

“You are better,” he said, and sitting down beside her told her whatever he thought would interest her and that they were not very far from Queenstown. “I shall cable from there to my sister, who, I suppose, is at The Elms,” he said.

“What day is it?” Fanny asked, and he replied, “Sunday. We ought to be at Queenstown this afternoon, but the rough weather has kept us back. We shall see Ireland to-morrow.”

“Sunday;—yes;” Fanny said, remembering that everything was known in Lovering by this time, and wondering how Jack took it.

The seasickness and fever were gone. She was only weak from their effects, but quite herself mentally. She knew that she had dreamed of home and Jack, and wondered if she had talked of him, but dared not ask. Lifting up her hand to push her hair from her forehead she noticed the absence of her rings, and looking at the Colonel with a smile she extended the ringless hand to him and asked, “Where are they? I seem to remember something about their worrying me. Did I take them off?”

“Yes; you said there were eyes in them looking at you all the time. They are here. Do you want them again?” he replied, and held them up before her.

“Why, yes,” she said. “Of course I want them. How it would look for me to be passing as your wife with no wedding ring; put it on, please.”

It does not take much to soothe a man if he cares at all for a woman, and in a way the Colonel did care for Fanny very much, and the touch of her hand on his and the light which shone in her beautiful eyes fired the flame again, and he held her hand for a moment before he put the rings in their place; then, stooping over her, he kissed her on her forehead.

The next day they reached Queenstown and a cablegram that they were safe was sent to The Elms. Once he thought to stop at Queenstown and make the remainder of the journey overland; but Fanny was very comfortable now; the sea was comparatively calm and they kept on to Liverpool, which they reached the eleventh day out from New York. He would like to have gone directly to London, but Fanny was too utterly exhausted to allow of it. She was almost as helpless as a little child, and a porter carried her in his arms to the carriage in which she was driven to the North Western Hotel. Here two or three days were spent until her strength came back and she could walk across the room without a feeling that the floor was rising up to meet her. It was Saturday before she was quite equal to the journey. Then, securing a first class compartment all to himself, the Colonel started on the second stage of his rather stormy honeymoon.

Chapter VI.
ON THE ROAD TO LONDON.

He was very attentive to Fanny during the rapid journey from Liverpool to London. Fearful lest she should take cold, as the day was raw and misty, he wrapped her fur-lined cloak around her,—made her put her feet upon the hot water jugs,—gave her the whole of one side of the compartment, himself taking the other, although he detested riding backwards. Removing the arms of the seats on her side he arranged the rugs and pillows so she could lie down when she was tired. Then, seating himself in his corner opposite, he unfolded his newspaper, pretending to read although he really was for the most of the time furtively watching his wife and wondering of what she was thinking, and if all the luxury and comfort with which he tried to surround her were as nothing when compared to the lover she had given up for him. When they entered the carriage she had sunk down wearily into the softly cushioned seat,—had thanked him with a bright smile for his care, and then looked out upon the people hurrying up and down the platform in quest of places, and wondering a little who would come in with them and why they didn’t come. Once the anxious face of a young English girl looked in at the window and in a relieved voice called out, “Here mam-ma; here are plenty of seats.” But the door did not yield to her touch. It was locked and the Colonel’s quiet “Engaged for an invalid,” sent her on down the long line of carriages destined for the St. Pancras Station in London. The English girl was followed by a tall, strikingly handsome woman of twenty-eight or thirty, wrapped in rich furs, and accompanied by a little withered old man, who was talking French and gesticulating wildly with both hands. As the lady was the taller of the two, it was she who glanced in at the window, with the question “Ya t’il des places ici,—oui, oui,” and she pulled at the handle of the door. “Mon Dieu,” was her next exclamation, but whether elicited by the unyielding door and the Colonel’s “Engaged, madame,” or Fanny’s face, on which her great black eyes rested for a moment as if fascinated, was uncertain.

She moved on and the little old man waddled after her, while Fanny put her head from the window to look again at the woman whose face had struck her as one she had seen before.

It was not possible, though, as she had never known a real French woman, such as this unquestionably was.

“Why is the door fastened, keeping everybody out?” she asked, and the Colonel replied, “I don’t care to travel with Tom, Dick and Harry. I have engaged the whole compartment.”

That one could do this was new to Fanny, and she sank back into her seat with a feeling of dismay at the prospect of being shut up alone with her husband for three or four hours. She was beginning to be a little afraid of him. Not for anything he had done, but for something in the tone of his voice and the expression of his eyes, which seemed to be looking at her constantly until they made her almost as nervous as Jack’s had done when she was ill. When the train left the station and the Colonel resumed his paper she felt relieved, and began to look with curiosity and interest upon the lanes and hedges and gardens and houses they were passing so rapidly, and which, under the wintry sky, had none of the freshness and greenness she had associated with England. Gradually she became conscious that, instead of reading, her husband was watching her over the top of his paper, with something hard and cruel in his eyes which she could not understand. She knew nothing of what she had said in her delirium, or how bare she had laid her love and longing for Jack, and did not dream of the fierce jealousy and hatred of his rival filling her husband’s mind and making him see Jack written all over her face just as she had seen his eyes everywhere when the fever was upon her. At last, tired of the dreary landscape, and more tired of the scrutiny she could not fathom, she lay down among the cushions and rugs and fell into a dreamless sleep from which she did not fully rouse until they were entering the suburbs of London. Once, when they were stopping at a large town she was conscious that her husband said “Engaged” to some one, and of hearing the hum of disappointed voices outside. Again, she knew that a rug was thrown over her, and a window shade adjusted so as to shield her from any cold air which might find its way to her. He was certainly kind and she felt grateful for it, and when at last she was fully awake and sitting up, she gave him a smile so bright and beaming that he felt his pulse quicken, and the blue demons which had taken possession of him were less blue and tantalizing.

“I have had a splendid sleep. Where are we now?” she said, pushing the curtain away from the window which was covered with dirty splashes of rain.

“In London,” he replied, and Fanny became alert and interested in a moment.

To see London had been the dream of her life and one she had never expected to be realized. Now, she was here, and the outlook was dreary enough, with the yellow fog hanging low over the city,—the gas jets dimly shining through it,—the pools of water in the streets,—and the dirty streams mixed with coal dust and cinders falling from the roofs of the houses. All her old homesickness came back, and she felt utterly desolate and as if she wanted to be near someone. Taking her seat by her husband and leaning her head on his shoulder she said, “Oh, George, this is dreadful. London is ten times worse than New York ever thought of being.”

“It is a deuced nasty day, but it will not always be foggy,” he replied, as he busied himself with getting his bags and bundles together.

“No, it will not always be foggy, nor shall I always feel as I do now,” Fanny thought, and the natural hopefulness of her nature began to assert itself.

She was quite cheerful by the time the train ran into the St. Pancras Station and began to unload its passengers.

As she alighted from the carriage she ran against and nearly knocked down the little Frenchman, who was evidently trying to soothe and quiet his wife, if she were his wife. Her back was towards Fanny, who saw only the outline of her figure, and the coils of yellow hair under her hat. She was talking loudly and evidently greatly enraged, but as she spoke in French Fanny could not understand her. There was no more doubt that she was a virago than there was that the little man was the most patient and henpecked husband in the world. In response to Fanny’s, “I beg your pardon, sir,” as she ran against him, he took off his hat and said in broken English, “I you ask pardon, too, mademoiselle, to be so in your way.”

Then turning towards the lady, “Madame quite—fache; madame, you see,—voiture, so full des Americaines, et des enfants.”

At the sound of his voice, madame turned and Fanny met again the great black, flashing eyes, with dark rings under them and a dusky look generally, such as brush and pencil and belladonna give to eyes where art has been at work. They were, however, quickly withdrawn, as if the lady were ashamed that she had been heard, and while Fanny, puzzled again, was trying to think if she could ever have seen those eyes before, she hurried away with the little man following her.

“Were they quarreling?” Fanny asked, and the Colonel, who understood French perfectly, replied, “I think she was angry because the compartment she was in was full of children and Americans, whom she evidently does not like.”

“Oh,” Fanny said, “you ought to have let her in with us. She interests me somehow, and the old gentleman is lovely. I reckon it is good pious work to live with Madame. I think he crossed himself once when she was blowing him. See, there they are now,” and she pointed to the couple entering a hansom at no great distance from them.

The lady was giving directions to the driver, who bowed assent, closed the little trap door and drove away. Calling another hansom the Colonel bade the man take them to Morley’s Hotel. It is a long way from St. Pancras to Morley’s, and before the hotel was reached all the street lamps were lighted, looking like so many tapers in the thick fog which had settled everywhere and was almost as penetrating as rain. Damp to her skin, tired and cold and homesick, Fanny was driven along the gloomy streets, which seemed interminable.

“We shall soon be there now,” the Colonel said, as he saw how she drooped, and felt her leaning against him.

A few moments later they turned into Trafalgar Square and she heard the splash of the fountains and saw dimly the outlines of the huge lions guarding the place.

“Here we are,” the Colonel said, as they drew up before the hotel, from the windows of which cheerful lights were gleaming, while two or three lackeys in uniform came hurrying out to meet them.