Doctor Hathern's daughters

There was now a difference in her singing which I was quick to detect. It was just as sweet and full, but she was tired and her voice showed it, and was like the homesick cry of a child longing to lie down and rest in the sunshine and beside the running brooks of its distant home. And the people who knew she was from Virginia understood it, and there was scarcely a dry eye in the house when she finished. I was crying outright, while Paul by the window was sobbing on Carl’s neck,—“Less go home; it’s a heap nicer than here.”

It was over at last. The people were hurrying out,—some to try their luck at the Casino before the doors closed, and all talking of the girl who had so delighted them. As soon as he could Jack brought Carl and Paul to me, and we made our way across the stage in quest of Katy. She had already gone to the villa, where we found her, limp and exhausted, lying upon a couch with Norah ministering to her and piles of flowers around her, tributes to her genius,—bouquets, baskets, horse-shoes, harps,—everything, except pillows and crosses, which would have made the room look more like a funeral than it did. With a shout Paul threw himself upon Katy, nearly strangling her with hugs, and saying, “Oh, Katy, how you did sing! It made me think of the angels first, and then I got sick at my stomach, didn’t I Carl?”

Miss Errington, Jack and I had all congratulated Katy and kissed her, when Carl came up. At sight of him she started to rise, but he put her gently back, saying, “Stay where you are and rest. You sang splendidly, Katy. I was proud of you,” and then he, too, kissed her on her forehead. A wonderful light shone in Katy’s eyes as she looked up at him; the tire all left her face, which was bright with smiles and blushes as she declared she was not fatigued at all.

“Just for a moment when Paul hurrahed and I knew he was there I did feel as if I should drop, it was so sudden,” she said, “but after that I was all right, and when I sang the Swannee River I was at home with the negroes, and a part of the time falling into the duck pond with Carl fishing me out.”

“You were!” Carl exclaimed, bending over her until his face almost touched hers; “that’s exactly where I was,—there and in the woods after you were ill.”

He had somehow gotten possession of her hand and kept it until it was wanted to repress Paul, who, on the other side of the couch, was hugging and kissing her at intervals as the fancy took him. We were a very happy family, and sat talking together until Norah, the only sensible one among us, insisted that Katy must go to bed.

“There’s another day comin’, and it’s to-morrow now,” she said, pointing to the clock which was striking one.

Sam had been in to see us, and in his characteristic way had expressed his approval of Katy’s singing. The foreign lingo he didn’t understand, he said, but the tune was tip-top, while Kentucky Home and Swanny River took the cake, and made him think of Mirandy and the little baby who died, and he snummed if he could keep from crying.

Carl, Paul and Sam went back to their hotel and the lights were soon out in the little villa. In the Grand Villa, however, there was one shining in Madame’s room, and I could see her in full undress, moving rapidly about as if packing her trunks.

“I believe she is going away,” I said to Jack, who gave his little tantalizing whistle, and replied, “Shouldn’t wonder!”

Immediately after breakfast the next morning Carl and Paul joined us, and as the day was unusually warm for the season we all sat in the verandah looking towards the Casino in one direction and the Grand Villa to the left. At this end of the piazza a large screen was standing, put there to shut us from the eyes of our neighbors, when they were sitting out as they often did. They were late this morning like ourselves, and if Madame were leaving it could not be until afternoon as the express train both ways had passed. Norah was everywhere present, and her shoes, which were new, creaked frightfully, showing an excited state of mind, although she was in high spirits and talked continually when near us. She had tried her luck at the roulette table the previous night, she said, and lost more than she won, but she didn’t care. She saw the people and they saw her, and she guessed some of them were not greatly pleased to renew her acquaintance. We were wondering what she meant, when we saw Madame come out and sit down with her back to us at the farthest end of the long piazza. Before seating herself, however, she glanced furtively around as if to assure herself that she was not observed. Our position was such that through a space between the screen and the side of the villa we could see her without ourselves being seen. I was the nearest to the screen and was looking at her when I heard a very decided “Ah-hem!” twice repeated as if to attract attention, and leaning forward I saw that Norah had crossed our part of the grounds and was standing on those of the Grand Villa, evidently Ah-hem-ming to the woman in the distance, who sat as immovable as a stone. When the coughs did not prevail, Norah called out, “Halloo!—halloo! How are you this morning?”

Jack whistled, while Katy and I looked aghast at each other. “Say, why don’t you speak to an old friend?” came next from Norah, and then Madame partly turned and said, “If you are talking to me, it’s no use. I understand little English.”

Jack whistled again, and Carl, who was sitting close to Katy, rose to his feet and took a step forward as if to stop Norah’s impertinence, but her next remark kept him motionless as it did the rest of us. Norah had picked up enough French to understand Madame, and straightening herself back she answered: “The Lord save us! Born in Vermont, and can’t speak English! That’s too much, but you don’t cheat me. We worked together in Miss Haverleigh’s kitchen too long for me not to know Julina Smith, in spite of your painted hair. I heard of you from your Cousin Jane, who is in a hotel in Dresden, where my sister is cook. She told me you’re a great lady and all that, but I didn’t spose you’d refuse to speak to me and say you didn’t know English. That’s nonsense. Come and see the folks from Virginny. They’re all here but Miss Fanny.”

We were all outside the screen now, and standing upon the grass—except Miss Errington, who had no special interest in the matter, and Carl, who, at the mention of Julina Smith, had dropped into his chair, where he sat while we went out to meet our former maid. She was very pale as she rose up and faced us, with the look of a hunted animal, which has been run down and sees no way of escape. She had played her game and lost, and now she made the best of it and came towards us at once, moving slowly as if in pain. Paul had always been fond of her, and when he saw who she was he ran forward with a shout.

“Oh, Madame, Madame, I’m so glad,” he said, and threw himself into her arms.

This seemed to reassure her. Kissing the little boy she held him by the hand and came up to us, as far from the Grand Villa as possible. She was very pale and the dark rings under her eyes were not works of art, but the result of anxiety and loss of sleep. She spoke very low, but every word was distinct and in perfect English.

“Yes, I am, or was, Julina Smith,” she began, “and I have worked in Mrs. Haverleigh’s kitchen with Norah, but society would recognize me as your equal now, and it is your boast in America that one can rise if he has the will to do it. I had the will, and I have risen. When I came to France my aunt had sold what I called her chateau near Fontainebleau and was keeping a Pension in Paris. She gave me advantages and I profited by them. We had the best of people, mostly French, and among them Monsieur Felix. He was much older than I and very rich, or I thought him so. He was a good man,—not very deep,—but good. He loved me and married me, thinking me wholly French and that my name was Julie Du Bois. He never knew I was born in America, or could speak English. If he had he wouldn’t have cared, he was so fond and proud of me, but he might have told of it and that I wished to prevent. My aunt died. I had no relations left in Paris to betray me,—no relatives this side of the water, except Jane, who is only a second cousin, and I went to work to lose all traces of my former self. Partly as a disguise, and partly because I thought it would give me a more striking appearance, I bleached my hair. You remember my teeth. No one could forget them. I had them extracted and went for a new set to a famous American dentist. He did his best for me, and when I gained in flesh, as I soon did, the metamorphose was complete, and deceived even those who had been at my aunt’s Pension and knew me as the young girl who sometimes played for them to dance. These I did not often meet. I avoided everyone I had ever known, in my morbid fear of being recognized. My husband’s family is a good one, and as his wife I was somebody and I enjoyed it and passed for a lady,—as I think I am.”

She smiled bitterly here, and then went on: “When I first saw this dear little boy,” and she passed her hand caressingly over Paul’s head, “I was drawn to him at once, and my affection for him was not feigned. I was glad to see Carl again and afraid he would know me, but he didn’t. I sometimes thought his man Sam suspected me and knew he did not like me. He lived in the same town with my father when I was a girl.”

“Jerusalem! I told you so,” came energetically from Sam, who had come from the hotel and seeing us standing together had joined us in time to hear a part of what Madame was saying.

To him she gave a look of scorn, as one quite beneath her, and then went on, a little stammeringly now, for she had reached the hardest part of her story, and her eyes went over and beyond us to the piazza where Carl’s boots were visible as he sat motionless, but listening to every word.

“I was glad to see Carl,” she said again, speaking as if something were choking her. “I always liked him as a boy, although he was very proud,—so proud that had he known I was Julina, my changed position as Madame Felix would hardly have atoned for the fact that I once served his mother. I am a woman and human, and it was a gratification to know that I could interest and attract him and I tried my best to do it, with what success he can tell you. But,” and here she fixed her eyes on Katy, “I never found him anything but a true, honorable man, whom any good girl might trust. I think I amused him, but he was not of my kind. His New England training unfitted him for my set and he broke away from us. Better for him that he did, although we lead a very happy life as a rule. I am half French by birth and all French by nature and habit. Bohemian French, too, and like it. The life suits me. It couldn’t suit Carl. There is too much Puritan there. He is happier with you, and there is no reason why you should not take him as readily as if he had never known me. I saw your sister in London two years ago and avoided her. I did not know you were my neighbor here until I learned your name. I had no fear you would recognize me. You were too young when I knew you, but you troubled me greatly in the Casino, though not as much as you did”; and now she addressed me: “I did not know you were in Europe, and when I saw you and Mr. Fullerton I felt that my time had come. I was sure of it when I heard Norah’s voice last night as I passed on my way to the Casino and saw her later in the rooms. I might deceive everyone else, but Norah never.”

“That’s as sure as you’re born,” came from Norah, and Madame went on: “I meant to leave this morning, but the rest of my party go to-morrow and I waited. I am glad I did. Glad I have told you all, and you may not believe me, but I am so glad to see you again, and I wish we were friends, but that we can never be.”

“Why not?” Katy said, going over to the woman and offering her hand.

Madame’s confession and what she said of Carl had wiped out all her animosity, and she felt only pity for the woman who had been so humiliated.

“Oh, Katy, Katy!” Madame exclaimed, bursting into tears and throwing her arms around Katy’s neck. “I do not deserve this from you. God bless you, and make you happy. Carl is worthy of you, even if he has been soiled a little by contact with me. It is only a speck which your love will wipe out. I tried to make him care for me but could not. He was never more to me than a friend.”

All this she said very low, as she continued to cry.

There was a stir at the end of the long piazza of the Grand Villa. The Count had come out and was looking curiously in our direction. In a moment Madame was herself,—erect and dignified and speaking in a whisper.

“We leave to-morrow. It is not necessary that my party should know everything or anything. They despise the bourgeois; they would despise Julina Smith. They think I come from a good old Norman family, now extinct. Let them continue to think so. I shall tell them I had met some of you before. I know what to say;—trust me, and—good-bye.”

She wrung Katy’s hand, kissed Paul and went across the lawn and piazza to where the Count stood waiting for her. What she told him we never knew,—something satisfactory, no doubt, as he was driving with her that afternoon, and in the evening we saw him by her side at the gaming table in the Casino. But we didn’t disturb or go near her. Early the next morning piles of baggage left the Grand Villa, and we were up in time to see Madame’s black bonnet disappearing through the shrubbery as she went down to the station.

“Good riddance to her. I don’t believe in her, for all of her tears and fine words. Not speak English indeed!” came from Norah as she watched her.

Norah had stopped for awhile in Dresden where she had some relatives, and among them a cousin employed in a hotel where Jane Du Bois was also an employee. This girl, who could speak English, was very friendly with Norah, and when she heard she was from America made many inquiries about the country to which she had some thought of emigrating, and where, she said, she once had some relatives,—Smiths,—who lived in —— Vermont. Did Norah know them?

“I knew a Julina Smith from that place years ago,” Norah replied, whereupon it came out that Julina and Jane were second cousins, but had never met.

Jane had heard, though, of Julina’s fine marriage with Monsieur Felix of Passy, and that she was now a grand lady, ignoring the few relatives she had left and living in great splendor until her husband died. Where she was now, Jane neither knew nor cared. Norah, too, was quite indifferent to the whereabouts of her former associate and never dreamed of finding her at Monte Carlo. She had met Jack on the piazza as he was returning for my fan, and the two were talking together when Madame passed on her way to the Casino. She was a woman to be noticed anywhere and Norah looked curiously and rather admiringly at her as she drew near. In Jack’s mind there had always been a strong suspicion as to Madame’s identity. Surely he had seen her before, and if so Norah might help him to solve the mystery. He was not, however, prepared for what followed when to her question “Who is that lady coming?” he replied “Madame Julie Felix. Do you know her?”

Madame was close to them and the moonlight shone full on her face and eyes, which flashed for a moment on Norah and were quickly withdrawn.

“I’d smile if I didn’t know Julina Smith!” Norah exclaimed. “I heard she was Madame Felix and a great lady. Well, I’d of known them eyes in the dark.”

“Eureka! I thought so,” Jack said, hurrying in for the fan and making no further conversation with Norah with regard to Madame.

When left alone Norah was not quite so sure as she had been. “But I’ll satisfy myself,” she thought. “It would be like Julina to masquerade this way and not let them know who she was.”

She accordingly went to the Casino and satisfied herself that Madame was Julina. Of her intimacy with Carl she knew nothing, or in her wrath she might have exposed her at the table. In her mind Julina was only passing as a great lady whom it would be her pleasure to unmask, which she did effectually.

“Madame Felix!” she repeated at intervals through the day. “To think it should come true what she said about being rich, with diamonds, and a tail to her gown a yard long, and she not lettin’ on who she was. We are well to be rid of her.”

We all thought so, too, and breathed freer with the doors and windows of the Grand Villa closed, although I missed the excitement of watching its inmates and half wished we might have seen more of Julina.

Carl had been indignant at Norah when she first called out to Madame, but the moment he heard the name Julina Smith he felt, as he afterwards told Katy, as if a feather could have knocked him down. Everything connected with her, recurred to him and he knew it was Julina before she acknowledged it and came forward to meet us. I think she wanted to see him; but he did not join us, and he spent most of the day at the hotel in his room, seeing no one except Sam, who felicitated himself upon the fact that he had always mistrusted Madame.

“But I never thought of Julina,—the lyenist girl there was in town,” he said;—“with airs enough to sink a ship. Why, she’d deceive the very elect.”

This was to Carl, who made no reply. He was very sore on the subject of Madame, who had duped him so completely, and did not care to discuss her. That evening he dined with us, and was very quiet all through the dinner, during which no allusion was made to Madame. Katy and I had already talked her over by ourselves.

“I hated her at first,” Katy said, “but when I saw her standing there so brave under the lash of Norah’s tongue, telling us all about it, and knew how hard it must be for her to do it, I was sorry for her, and I forgave her everything, even to Carl. It was splendid in her to exonerate him as she did. Of course he was only her friend.”

I was glad Katy took this view of it and watched eagerly for the denouement of the drama I felt sure was to come. The day Madame left, Carl and Jack and Paul and Sam went on an excursion to the country and did not return until time for dinner. The night was cool for Monte Carlo, and after dinner we all gathered around the fire which had been kindled in the salon, except Katy, who was on the piazza with Carl. He had come from the hotel and was walking up and down with her in the moonlight, which was at its full that night, making the town almost as light as day. At last he came in for a warm cloak which he put around her and then made her sit down in a reclining chair adjusted to such an angle that when she leaned back in it, as she soon did, the moonlight fell upon her face, showing plainly every change in its expression as he talked to her. He had drawn another and lower chair to her side, and sitting down by her took one of her hands in his and held it while he went over every incident of his life which he thought at all crooked, and dwelling longest on his intimacy with Madame Felix, as that was the episode he most deplored and of which he was most ashamed.

“I cannot account for the influence she had over me,” he said. “If I believed in mesmerism I should say it was that, but I don’t. Consequently it must have been my own weakness and love of flattery, for she did flatter me and amuse me, and, fool that I was, I was really proud of her notice, believing in her blue blood and connection with the old aristocracy of which she so modestly hinted, and all the time she was Julina Smith and I didn’t guess it. You don’t know how I hate myself.”

With her head thrown back on the chair rest,—and her eyes closed, Katy listened with the moonlight falling on her face, from whose expression Carl could form no conclusion as to her thoughts until, as he grew more and more condemnatory of himself, she started up and with a girl’s perversity began to defend Madame.

“I don’t think her so bad,” she said. “She liked you when you were a boy and wrote you a love letter,—Annie has told me about it,—and you snubbed her awfully. Afterwards you met as equals and you were pleased with her, as you are with every handsome woman, and she is handsome if she does bleach her hair, and I am not certain but it improves her. It is certainly striking. She was kind to Paul and kind to you, and being French and full of intrigue it is natural that she would want to see if she could do with the man what she couldn’t with the boy,—attract him. She succeeded because you thought her Madame Felix, with blue blood in her veins. She is no worse now that you know she is Julina Smith with Yankee blood instead of blue, and I don’t think it a bit nice for you to throw stones at her after she exonerated you from everything as she did.”

Katy had made her speech and lay back again in her chair with her eyes on Carl who had listened to her amazed. If she could thus excuse and defend Madame, would she not also overlook his own shortcomings. She had been very gracious to him since he came to Monte Carlo, and especially since Madame declared herself as Julina, and something in her eyes emboldened him to put his face down close to hers, while he poured out words of love which must be answered.

“Why don’t you speak to me?” he said at last, and Katy replied, “How can I when you are stopping my mouth with kisses. Let me sit up, please.”

Raising herself in her chair, and smoothing her hair which was a good deal tumbled, she said, “What about my Career? You saw me on the stage the other night. Would you rather have seen me dead than there? Would you be willing to see me in more public places,—real opera houses,—if I were your wife? Wouldn’t you mind being known only as my husband, waiting for me at home, or, worse yet, waiting for me behind the scenes, where pandemonium reigns and if there is anything bad in the actors it comes out? Would you like to read how divinely I sang or danced,—it might come to that, you know? And my picture would be in the shop windows and in the papers with the horrid cuts we sometimes see there. Do you love me well enough to stand all this?”

She was looking intently at him as she talked, and Carl writhed at the picture she drew of him as the husband of a prima donna. Was that frail young girl worth the humiliation he should be called upon to endure at times, if she persisted in her Career? Was his love for her strong enough to overbalance every thing? As Fanny once had weighed her love for Jack against money and position, so he now weighed his love for Katy against her Career, and Katy conquered.

“Yes, my darling,” he said, drawing her face to him until it was hidden from the moonlight and nearly smothered on his bosom, “I love you so much that forty Careers shall not stand in my way, if you will take me. Sing in public if you want to, and I will wait at home, or in the green-room, or out doors, or anywhere, and when I hear the shouts of applause I shall comfort myself with thinking, ‘Applaud her all you like, the more the better. You can’t spoil her. To you she is the great singer, but she is my wife!’”

I wonder if Carl thought himself a hero when he said that. Katy did. Disengaging herself from him she lifted up her face which, either from the moonlight or the pallor which had settled upon it, made Carl think that just so the faces of the glorified dead must look when entering Paradise.

“Carl,” she said, and her lips quivered and the tears stood in her eyes, “I have heard you. Now, listen to me. I have dreamed so much of a Career, in which I know I should succeed and in which I should be comparatively happy. I like the excitement,—the sight of the people,—the applause,—the flowers,—and most of all I like to sing; but, Carl, I have learned that there is something better than all this, and that is love such as you offer me. Wait a minute,”—and she drew back as he was about to take her in his arms. “Hear me through before you squeeze my breath out of me again. You have conceded everything. Do you think I will accept the sacrifice and make no return? No, Carl. I am not ashamed to say that I love you so much that I am willing to give up my Career for you. If I didn’t love you and should never marry it would be different; a married woman has no business on the stage unless her husband is there, too,—and I don’t think you have the slightest aptitude for it. You could only sit in the audience or wait in the green-room, or if we traveled on our own hook, as the Hathern-Haverleigh troupe, you might take the money and tickets at the door. How would you like that?”

Carl did not reply, and she went on: “I don’t want you at the door selling tickets, or in the green-room, or with the audience, or anywhere except with me, and I with you. Are you satisfied?”

Each had offered a great sacrifice to the other and there was perfect trust and love between them, and when the moon, which for a moment had been hidden by a cloud, came out again it shone on two faces so close to each other that they almost seemed but one.

“My darling, my darling!” was all Carl said, or had time to say, for the clock was striking twelve, and the people were swarming out of the Casino and coming, some of them, past our villa on their way home.

Jack had been asleep a long time, but I was awake and waiting for Katy, who, I feared, might take cold, sitting so long in the night air. Was there ever a girl cold, I wonder, from sitting with her lover? Katy surely was not, judging from her crimson cheeks and hot hands when I joined her in the hall. I heard her as she came up the stairs and stopped at my door, whispering very low, “Annie, Annie, are you awake?”

I knew what she wanted, and remembering how I had longed for some sympathetic ear to listen to my happiness when Jack proposed to me, I slipped on my dressing-gown and bed-shoes and went out to her.

“Oh, Annie,” she began, as we sat down together. “I am so glad that I could not sleep till I had told some one. I am to give up all thought of the stage and marry Carl. I don’t see why I have kept him off so long when I have always loved him since I fell into the duck pond, and he has loved me,—I am sure of it now,—no matter where he was, or with whom; there was never a moment that his heart was not ready to open for me if I would come into it. He said so, and I believe it. I know the worst there is to know, and it is not bad for a young man like him. A little fickle, with escapades and flirtations which meant nothing, because he always saw my face everywhere and it kept him from falling. He said so. And then,—Julina! He takes that most to heart because he was so deceived, and he really was pleased with her. He said so. And I don’t care. She’s a handsome woman, who knows just how to make a young man like her. And I don’t blame her much either. He snubbed her awfully when he was a boy, and when she met him on equal terms it was natural that she, being French and steeped in art, should try to be even with him. I hated her at first, but when she stood up before us and confessed I forgave her everything. Paul likes her and she likes him. There must be something good about her, but she can never move Carl again. He said so.”

Katy’s “He said so” was very frequent, showing how implicit was her faith in Carl, and because he said so there could be no appeal. For an hour we talked, or rather Katy did, while I sat in a huddle trying to follow her and keep warm. Then as the clock struck one there came two peremptory calls from either end of the hall,—one from Miss Errington for Katy, and one from Jack for me. I think Katy would willingly have sat up all night telling what he said, but Jack’s assertion that unless I came at once he was coming for me, broke up the conference, until after breakfast, when Carl came to be congratulated and accepted as Katy’s promised husband.

Chapter VIII.—Annie’s Story Continued.
CONCLUSION.

It was a happy winter we spent in Florence and Rome and Sorrento, going in the early spring to Venice and the Lakes, and later on to Paris. Here there were four delightful weeks, and I wanted to stay longer, but Carl hurried us on to London, where he was to be married. We all urged him to wait until we were home at The Elms, but he said No,—he had waited long enough; and so one morning in early June there was a very quiet wedding in —— church, with only a few personal friends present, and Katy was Mrs. Carl Haverleigh. There was a wedding breakfast at the Grand, where we were stopping, and where on our return from church we found a letter and package from Julina,—now the Countess de Varré! Fortune had favored her again. The brother-in-law had died and left her a good share of the money he had taken from her. The chateau at Passy was hers once more, where she was living with the Count and very happy, as a titled lady. Accompanying her letter was an individual tea set of exquisite china, with gold lined spoons and sugar tongs and silver tray,—her wedding gift to Katy and Carl conjointly, with a hope that sometimes when they were using it they would think of one who was not so bad as to American eyes she might seem to be. Katy was pleased, but Carl did not express himself, and I do not think he has ever yet taken a cup of tea from the pretty set which stands on Katy’s little tea-table in Boston and is greatly admired.

It was the middle of July when we reached New York and found Fanny waiting for us on the dock, and insisting upon our going with her to the cottage she had rented at Newport. It was too hot for either Virginia or Washington, she said, and she carried her point so far as Carl and Katy and Miss Errington were concerned. Jack said he must go home to his business, and I, of course, went with him, taking Paul, who was beginning to droop with travel and excitement. It was a lovely summer day when we drove up the avenue to our home, where Phyllis and many of our neighbors greeted us with a warmth which told us that nowhere in the world were there truer friends than in Lovering.

“And nowhere so pleasant a home,” I said, as I went all over the house, happy as a child to be back again among the Virginia hills with her blue sky over my head and the breath of the woods and pines upon my cheek.

It was better than Newport, where Katy was a great belle and where Fan had more than one offer of marriage, which she promptly declined. She was on the best of terms with her sister-in-law, and when the season was over the two went together to the house in Washington. Carl and Katy came to us and staid all through the autumn and were joined at Thanksgiving by Fan and Miss Errington. What a day that was,—and dinner, too, which Phyllis thought she superintended, although the real head was Norah, who had come with Katy, but who for once was careful of the old negress’ feelings and humored her fancies.

Towards the close of dinner Katy said, “We have no wine, but water will do as well. Let us drink to the health of the Countess de Varré.”

“Good,” Carl said, and we drank to her health and amused ourselves with reminiscences of her when she was Julina Smith and served us as our maid.

Phyllis had received the news of her advancement with a snort and a dangerous topple of her turban. She had never liked the girl, and when, as she chanced to be in the room, we drank her health, she exclaimed, “Oh, my Lord, my Lord! Ef I couldn’t drink suffin better’n July, I’d go dry a spell.”

It is many years since that day and many more since most of the incidents of this story took place. Jack and I are quite old people now, or the younger generation think us so. I am forty-seven, and have a double chin. Jack calls me a roly-poly, while a boy, who stands six feet and has eyes like Jack, says I waddle like a duck when I walk, but am the sweetest and jolliest little mother in the world. Jack is fifty-three and getting grey and stout, and is a fine type of the well-conditioned southern gentleman,—not too much pressed with business, but still with enough to do. He has been to Congress twice and there is talk of sending him as a State Senator next year. One winter we took a house in Washington, and I staid there with Jack and saw all I ever care to see of fashionable society. Fanny was on the top wave, and as Katy was with us a part of the time we were made much of and went everywhere,—sometimes to three different places in one night, and by the close of the long term I was quite worn out and glad to get back to the old home under The Elms, with only Phyllis and a bright mulatto girl to look after instead of the crew I had in Washington, who stole my handkerchiefs and collars and Jack’s socks and wore my black silk dress to one of their carousals, and who always hoped to die if they had done anything of the sort when charged with the offense.

The tall boy, with eyes like Jack, is our first-born,—our son Hathern, who is nearly seventeen, and preparing for Yale. My choice is for some other college, but only Yale will suit him and we have yielded, his father telling him, however, that if he thought to join in all the sports which have sometimes made the students of Yale a by-word as well as a terror to the towns they visited, he would be mistaken, as he had no money to spend that way,—“and without money,” he added, “you can’t be in it.”

Hathern, who is a splendid specimen of young manhood and fond of athletic sports of all kinds, looked rather blue until Fan came from Washington and he took her for a drive. That night he confided to his sisters that aunt Fan was a brick! That he intended to stand well in all his classes and with his teachers and to be graduated with honor, and never drink a drop of anything stronger than water, but—he was also going to be in it; and with the enthusiasm of a girlhood which sees more to admire in an athlete than in a student, the sisters agreed that Aunt Fan was a brick,—that the cold water and standing well in classes and graduating with honor was all right, but the athletics were more fun, and it was worth some knocks and scratches and bruises, and even a broken bone now and then, to be in it.

These girls, who are fourteen, are twins, named Fan and Ann, and very much like the originals, except that Fan is not quite as handsome or as tall as her aunt, and Ann is taller and handsomer than her mother. Otherwise, they are much like the girls introduced in the first chapter of this story, and often, when I see them flitting through the house and grounds, doing the things Fan and I used to do,—saying the things we used to say, in voices much like ours,—the years of my life roll back and I am young as they are, with as little care or thought for the future. Then Jack comes in and calls me Annie-mother, a name he resumed the day he brought Hathern to me and said, “Would you like to see our boy?” and I am myself again,—a matron-mother of forty-seven, but feeling scarcely older than when I was a girl like my Fan and Ann.

Fanny, as I call her now, to distinguish her from my daughter, is a beautiful woman still, and she knows it and the world knows it, and had she chosen she might have married a General or a Judge or an ex-Governor, or have used her large fortune to build up the impoverished estate of an Englishman with a title. But she would have none of them. “I am very happy as I am,” she says, and I think she is. She is more quiet and dignified than she used to be and strangers call her proud. But to me she is the same Fan as ever,—a part of myself,—while to Jack I think she is really a sister whom he honors and consults in some matters more than he does me. She comes and goes as she pleases. Is sometimes in Washington,—sometimes in Newport, sometimes in Florida, where the Hathern villa is a reality, sometimes at The Plateau,—and once she spent eighteen months in Europe with Paul, whom, in a way, she has adopted. He is now twenty-seven, with a refined, delicate face and an air of languor about him caused by his weak back, which has always troubled him more or less. He is a graduate of Yale, and when Hathern decided to go there he began to question him as to what he did, but soon gave it up, saying Paul was no good. He didn’t know about anything but rules and books and professors and wasn’t in it at all! When he chooses he stops with us, or with Katy, but is most with Fanny, who needs him more than we do. “Our room” at The Plateau has been given to him and fitted up as a kind of study, or den, where he spends a great deal of his time with his books. He is something of a scientist and goes into every ism and ology and osophy of the day. Just now he has taken up microbes and is studying their habits, if they have any, and he writes long articles for Reviews, in which he tries to interest Fan and Hathern and the twins, and sometimes myself, but generally fails, as they are too deep for us.

There is one, however, who always listens and applauds, although it is doubtful whether he understands a word, and that is Sam Slayton, Fan’s factotum, who takes care of The Plateau when she is there and takes care of it when she is not, and makes more at it than he did in his grocery. He has never married again, but every year he goes to Vermont to visit Mirandy’s grave and mourn. During the mourning he wears a tall hat with a band of crape around it, and on his return to The Plateau puts it away carefully until the period comes again. As it is the hat he wore on his wedding trip it is somewhat out of date, but he does not mind it and felt greatly insulted when last winter some one wanted to borrow it for Uriah Heep to wear at a Dickens Carnival given for the Y. M. C. A.’s in Lovering.

Miss Errington is often with us. The twins call her Aunt Cornie, and think almost as much of her as of their stately Aunt Fanny. Some meddling person has told them of that chapter in Fan’s life and their father’s which was almost a tragedy and I do not think they have quite forgiven her for her part in it, although each has said to me that she would rather have me for her mother than Auntie Fan, who is so grand and cold. Fan has made her will and left her money to Paul and my children, with a proviso for Katy’s should any be born to her. As yet Carl and Katy are childless, but very, very happy with each other. They travel a great deal and when at home their handsome new house on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston is usually filled with guests and Katy makes a charming hostess and Carl a delightful host. In most respects he is the same genial, handsome Carl we knew as a boy, with something about him which makes everyone his friend. He still admires a pretty face when he sees it, and discusses its points with Katy, but always winds up by saying, “But by Jove, she can’t hold a candle to you, the most beautiful woman I ever saw, and the older you grow the handsomer you are.”

I think Carl is right, and that, if possible, Katy is lovelier in her maturity than when she was a girl. Paul worships her; Hathern worships her; the twins worship her; we all worship her, and yet she is not spoiled. She was a sweet, unselfish, loving child, and is a loving, unselfish woman. If she has ever regretted the Career she gave up for Carl, she has made no sign, and seems to find her greatest happiness with him. Occasionally, when she is in Lovering she sings in our pretty Concert Hall and everybody comes to hear her, but never have I heard her sing as she sang at Monte Carlo, or seen upon her face the expression I saw there after she knew Carl was in the audience listening to her. Now, when she sings in Lovering he is to all intents and purposes stage manager, adjusting the lights and the piano, and the curtain, and then sitting behind the scenes and applauding her with the rest. Once when she seemed to have excelled herself and the hall rang like the salon in Monte Carlo, he said to her after it was over, “Upon my soul, Katy, I believe you’d have made your mark if you had gone on with your Career. How would you like to begin it now?”

For an instant there was a look on Katy’s face which made me think of a war-horse scenting the battle. Then it faded and she shook her head saying, “Too late, my voice will crack pretty soon,—or wobble as Hathern says old Mrs. Mosier’s does when she tries to sing high. I am content as I am and perfectly happy with you.” What answer Carl made I do not know, for I discreetly left the room just as he took her in his arms. Carl is rather demonstrative, and the twins say that if Katy could have been squeezed and kissed to death she would have died long ago. Norah runs the house in Commonwealth Avenue and runs Carl and Katy, too; but as she allows them a good many privileges, and is wholly faithful to their interests, they do not mind it, and in most matters let her have her way.

Phyllis is very old,—how old she does not know,—but she is wholly disabled from taking charge of the kitchen, where a younger woman is installed as cook, with Phyllis as nominal superintendent. Only in this way can I hope for peace. The instructions which Norah left so many years ago have been found and tacked up over the sink, and are held up as iron rules to the patient, much enduring Sarah, who says, “I ’specs we mus’ let the ole woman have her way, or think she has it; but, Lord bless you, I has to cheat her. I can read writin’ an’ she can’t, an’ I reads it wrong a heap o’times, an’ when she gits too high I done tell her I’m follerin’ Norah O’Rock’s ’structions, an’ she comes down like a lam’. I knows how to manage her.”

The house under The Elms has been enlarged and improved and is, I think, an ideal country home, although Hathern and the twins would like a square hall and a tower and many projections here and there, and porcelain bath-tubs and electric lights,—and a big fortune to keep it all up, their father says, his solid sense always coming to the front when the young blood gets rampant. Hathern has his horse and wheel, and the twins have each her riding pony,—presents from Fan, who usually gives them what they want, if it is feasible and proper. Black Beauty died years ago and was buried in the woods behind The Plateau, with Fan and Paul as mourners.

And now the story winds to a close. It was commenced in June, the month of roses, when the south wind blew softly through the doors of the wide hall, and on the lawn outside there was the sound of young voices in the tennis court, where Paul and Hathern and the twins were playing. Jack was away on business, and Phyllis was sitting under the dogwood tree watching the play and sympathizing equally with both sides. She is sitting there now asleep in the sunshine, but the tennis court is silent and the twins’ ponies and Hathern’s horse stand in the lane with their noses on the gate looking towards the house as if asking why they are not taking their usual canter through the woods or over the smooth turnpike. Jack is again away on business as he was a year ago, and I am alone, for Fanny and Carl and Katy, who are here, have gone with the young people to the town hall, which is filled with flowers and ferns and evergreens. It is Memorial Day, when, north and south, east and west, the graves of our soldiers will be decorated by the loving hands of many who were not born until after the war and to whom that time is only a dark page of history nearly blotted out.

Others there are, however, whose hearts will ache with the old pain as they think of the loved ones who, whether their cause were right or wrong, gave their lives for it and died on the battlefield. Boxes of rare flowers, ordered by Fanny, have come from Washington, and few graves will be more beautiful than the two where Charlie and The Boy are lying. Hathern and the twins have taken the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars from the faded uniforms of grey and blue, where they have hung so long, and carried them to the little cemetery across the field. From where I sit I can see them side by side waving in the breeze and occasionally touching each other as if in friendly greeting. Through the open doors of the wide hall where I am writing the wind blows in and the wind blows out as it did a year ago, breathing of peace in the land. In the distance I hear the sound of martial music, and know that the procession has formed and will soon be marching down the street, and I wonder if I shall have time to finish my story before it passes The Elms. With the first beat of the drum Phyllis rouses from her sleep under the dogwood tree, and coming to me says, “It seems mighty like de wah, but thank God dat is over and gone.”

The procession is in sight. Hathern is carrying the tattered flag, and Paul is walking by his side, laden with flowers. They have stopped opposite the hillside cemetery. They are decorating the graves of Charlie and The Boy. My eyes are full of tears, and I cannot write any more.