Edna Browning;

Two days before Georgie’s death she had asked to see her Uncle and Aunt Burton alone for a few moments, and during that interview she talked with them of Maude and Jack, telling them that to the latter she had given all her possessions, and asking them to receive Maude as a daughter in her place, and give her a part at least of what had been intended for herself.

“And mother,” she said to Mrs. Burton, “it is my wish that they be married at once. Do not let them wait because I am dead. It is better for Jack to have a wife. Let them marry immediately. Say it was my dying wish.”

Too much broken with grief to oppose anything which Georgie asked, Mrs. Burton promised compliance with everything, and so it came about that three weeks after Georgie’s death, there was a very quiet wedding at Oakwood, and Maude was made Jack Heyford’s wife. Aside from the family, only Mrs. Churchill and Roy were present, together with Edna and Uncle Phil, who, at the earnest solicitation of Maude came down to the wedding, looking very smart and trim in the new coat bought for the occasion, and the white vest, and big white handkerchief tied about his neck, giving him the appearance of a Methodist minister. Mrs. Burton was a little shocked with his manners, and was glad there were no more guests present to see him. But Mr. Burton enjoyed him thoroughly, and took him all over his farm, and went with him to drive a fast horse which he had just bought, and which came near breaking the necks of both the old men. Roy, too, who had seen him at Rocky Point, was very polite to him and made himself so agreeable, that Uncle Phil prolonged his stay to a week, and when he left, he had Edna’s promise to visit him in October, while Roy was to come for her when her visit was over.

Remembering the widowed Janet among the Scottish hills, and the promise made to Georgie, Jack planned a short trip to Europe, and when on the day following his bridal, the Scotia sailed out of the harbor of New York, he stood upon the deck with Maude at his side, her face radiant with happiness and joyful anticipations of the new world to which she was going. She had as yet heard nothing of Janet, or Jack’s message to her, but one bright, balmy day, when the sea beneath them was like glass, and the sky overhead as blue as Maude’s laughing eyes, Jack led her to a retired part of the steamer, and seating himself beside her, told her Georgie’s story, and why he was going to Scotland.

Georgie had been very beautiful in her fresh girlhood, he said, and they had been so poor, living on one floor of a tenement house down on Varick street. She was older than Jack by a few years; was his half-sister, whom he had loved devotedly ever since he could remember anything. His father had died when he was a mere boy, and soon after his death, Georgie, who then was known as Louise, her real name being Louise Georgiana, had sought for a situation in a milliner’s establishment on Canal street. But her face, and her natural love of coquetry was against her, and after both sons of the proprietor had owned themselves in love with her, she had been dismissed as one who did not know her place. Through a kind friend who was interested in the beautiful girl, she went next to a dry-goods establishment, where she met with Henry Morton, a good-looking young man, whose virtues were rather of the negative kind, and whose infatuation for Louise Heyford was unbounded. She meant to marry rich, and while waiting upon customers, her thoughts were always intent upon the future, when she too could wear her satins and diamonds, and have her carriage waiting at the door, while she purchased what she liked, irrespective of the cost. Henry was poor, and as such did not gain favor very fast with the young girl, although while building her Spanish castles she managed to hold him fast in her meshes, making of him a perfect tool, to come and depart according to her pleasure.

Suddenly the firm failed, and again Georgie was without employment, with a greater love for dress and admiration than ever before, inasmuch as she had been so flattered and caressed. Her next situation was that of nursery governess in the family of Mr. Le Roy, who lived on Fourteenth street, and who had seven daughters, and one only son. Here, in this family where a governess was but little more than an ordinary servant, and where she was seldom or never admitted to a glimpse of the gay world, save as she saw it in the rich dresses the young ladies wore, or heard it in the snatches of talk in which they sometimes indulged in her presence, she lived a dreary, monotonous life, always sitting, and eating, and sleeping in the nursery, where she washed and dressed, and taught and hated the three little Le Roys, who were the fruit of a second marriage, and who did all they could to worry their young teacher’s life away.

It was getting to be intolerable, and Georgie was beginning to think seriously of giving up the situation, and either returning to the home on Varick street, or accepting Henry Morton, when the only son of the house, Richard Le Roy, came home from Europe, and everything was changed as if by magic. They met first in the nursery, where Richard came for a romp with his little half-sisters. He was very fond of children, and as the little ones were nearly crazy over their tall, handsome brother, waylaying him at every corner, and dragging him with them, it came about naturally enough that he was often in the school-room, where a pair of the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, soon began to brighten when he came, and a young face to blush and half turn away when it met his admiring gaze. Perhaps he meant no harm at first, for he was not vicious or bad at heart. Georgie was a poor little lonesome thing, who was shamefully neglected by his proud sisters, and who would be far more in place in the drawing-room than in that pent-up hole with all those young ones worrying her to death, and if he could do anything to ameliorate her condition, it was his duty to do it.

Thus he reasoned, and acted in accordance with his reasoning, and spent a great deal of time with the children, and sometimes took them to drive, always insisting that the governess should accompany them. She needed air and exercise as much as they did, he said, and to Miss Elinor Shawe, to whom he was said to be engaged, he talked very freely of Louise Heyford, and his charitable labors in her behalf. And because of his frank, honest manner, no one suspected evil, or dreamed of the fearful results of his deeds of charity. Henry Morton’s face wore a sober, disappointed look those days when Louise snubbed him in the street,—and was always engaged, or had a headache when he tried to see her; while Louise herself expanded each day into new freshness and beauty, and her eyes shone like stars, and seemed fairly to dance in the exuberance of her happiness. Richard promised her marriage,—honorable, though private marriage, because of his family,—and their future life was to be spent in Europe, where none would know that he had not chosen his bride from his own social rank. All Louise’s castles were about to come real, and in her own mind she had settled her bridal trousseau, and her style of dealing with her husband’s family, when suddenly, as a thief in the night, the blow came, and Richard Le Roy was stricken down with a prevailing epidemic,—cholera, some called it. In twenty-four hours from the time when his kiss was warm on Georgie’s lips, he lay a corpse in the room where he had died, with only Georgie and his father with him. His step-mother and sisters had in the first alarm fled to their chambers, and locked themselves in from the dreadful pestilence, though not until Sophie, the eldest sister, had begged of the despised governess to go to her brother and help him if she could.

“Cholera does not often attack healthy girls like you, but it would kill me sure,” she said, wringing her hands in great distress, while Georgie stood motionless, with her face and lips as white as ashes.

It was fear, Sophie thought, and she tried to reassure the young girl who needed no reassurance, and who went swiftly to the room where her lover lay. He knew she was with him, and clasped her hands in his, and tried to tell his father something,—but the words were never spoken, and before the sun went down he was dead; and Georgie lay upon her face in her own solitary room trying to fight back the horrid fear which amounted almost to a certainty, and which within three days drove her to the store where Henry Morton was a clerk. He saw her as she meant he should, and the sweetness of her smile, and the great change in her manner toward him, drew him again to her side, and revived all his love for her. There was a chance meeting next day in the street, a long walk in the evening, followed by another and another, and ere Richard Le Roy had been in his grave a month, Henry Morton and Louise Heyford were man and wife. Contrary to the usual course of things, she had been the one to urge an immediate union. There was no necessity for delay; they could earn their living better together, and she did so want a home of her own, if only one room. He should see what a nice housekeeper she could be, she said, when he proposed waiting a few months until he had more laid up.

So they were married, and they rented two rooms, and fitted them up as prettily and cosily as his limited means would allow, and there he brought his handsome bride in November, and there, early in the following May the little Annie was born. She was a full-grown, healthy child, with no resemblance to the father, who, troubled and mystified, looked at her curiously, and then at his young wife, and then went away alone, and thought it all out, while as he thought there came over him a change which awoke all the evil passions of his nature, and transformed him into a demon of rage and jealousy. There was a stormy interview between him and his wife, a full confession from her, and then he cast her from him and drove her into the street, where, with her baby in her arms, she wandered half the night until it was no longer safe for a respectable woman to be abroad.

Faint, and tired, and sick, she stepped from the car, and turned toward the home in Varick street.

“I’ll try it,” she said. “I’ll tell them the whole truth, and if they too turn me off, I’ll go to-morrow to Greenwood and die on Richard’s grave.”

As yet, neither her step-mother nor Jack knew of her disgrace, for the former had been sick, and Jack had not been to see her since Annie’s birth two weeks before. Jack slept soundly that night, and dreamed that some one called his name. Waking at last, he listened, and heard Georgie’s voice, calling him to come, and telling him she was dying. That was no dream, and in a moment he was dressed and at the door, where he met his sister with her baby in her arms, and her face so white and ghastly that he uttered a cry of alarm, which brought his mother to his side.

“Louise, it is Louise,” he said, taking her by the shoulder, and pulling her into the room. “It is Louise, mother; but what brings her here at this time of the night, and what, what is this she holds so tight?”

An infant’s wail told him what it was, and ere he could step forward, Georgie held the baby to him and cried:

“Take her, Jack; take her before I die.”

And so it was Jack who first received the little unwelcome child. Jack’s arms, which held her close, and Jack’s voice, which tried to hush her plaintive moans. As she entered the room Georgie had sunk down upon the floor, and when her step-mother tried to assist her she pushed her off, exclaiming: “No, no, not yet; let me lie here in the dust until I tell you all and you know how vile I am.”

Then, amid tears and sobs she told them the truth; how she had sinned, and deceived her husband, who had driven her from him with the fury of a madman.

“I have been in the street, out in the dark ever since,” she said, “and I thought once to go down to the river and end my miserable life, but the touch of baby’s hands kept me from it, and at last I come to you. Oh Jack, don’t turn from me now,” she sobbed, as she saw the look of horror on his face. “I know what I am, but don’t you turn against me. You are all I have in the world. Forgive me, Jack. Take me in. Try me, for the baby’s sake. You may learn to love her sometime, and to pity me.”

She was at the boy’s feet now, and her hands held him fast, as she begged thus for his pardon. And Jack forgave her then and there, and laying the baby upon his mother’s lap, he lifted Georgie up and strove to comfort her, and said so long as he could work she should have a home. He was earning good wages now; he supported his mother, and with a little more self-denial on his part, a little overwork out of business hours, he could support her. He did not kiss her; he could not do it then; but he kept his hand upon her neck while he talked to her, and Georgie did not feel one-half so desolate when she felt the touch of that boyish hand. Jack had saved her; Jack would stand by her; Jack would shield her as far as possible. And he did; and, with his mother’s help, managed so well, that none of their few acquaintances guessed the real cause of the separation between Georgie and her husband, or why the former kept so carefully out of sight with her baby when any of them called. It was mortification, and a natural shrinking from meeting old friends, they thought, and so excused it in her, and gradually forgot to speak of her and her affairs at all.

At first there was in Henry Morton’s face and manner a kind of sullen, brutish ferocity, which made him so unpopular that he was finally dismissed by his employer, and cast upon the world, a desperate man, with nothing to do, nothing to live for, his home desolated, his wife lost, and himself dishonored. Falling in with a set of the New York roughs who live mostly by theft and fraud, he went rapidly from bad to worse, becoming such an expert in robbery that he was always put to do the work inside, while his comrades watched without. Thus it happened that he was found in Roy Leighton’s house, and afterward identified by Russell, who knew him by a defect in his right eye, which had been put out when he was a boy. Although he gave an assumed name, it came out at the trial who he was, and that he had a wife, whom he had abandoned. Then came the verdict of the jury, the sentence to the penitentiary, followed swiftly by escape, and the forgetfulness by the public, as is usual in New York; where robberies are so common, and escape from justice not unfrequent.

A year went by, and Georgie received a letter from her husband, telling her he was dying of an incurable disease, among the Alleghany Mountains. Then came a paper containing a notice of his death, and then Jack went himself to the little inland town to make sure that the wretched man was dead. There could be no mistake about it, he thought, and Georgie breathed freer, and urged her brother’s removal to the West, where they were unknown to every one, and where she could begin life anew as Georgie Heyford, instead of Louise Morton.

And so westward they went, settling first upon a farm which Jack worked upon shares, taxing his strength too much, until his health began to fail, and the farm had to be abandoned. The next move was to Chicago, where Jack procured work as half porter, half errand boy, in the store, and rising gradually to a higher place of trust as clerk, and gaining the good opinion of all who came in contact with him. Georgie and his mother supported themselves by plain-sewing and fancy needle-work, while the little Annie was known as the orphan child of a friend of Mrs. Heyford, and Georgie passed for a young girl. Very few people knew her, as she seldom went out except to get or carry work, and her life bade fair to go on in the same quiet, monotonous way, when there came a letter, which changed at once her whole destiny.

It was from Mrs. Freeman Burton, whose only sister had been the first Mrs. Heyford, and Georgie’s mother. As girls the two sisters had been strongly attached to each other. Early orphaned, they had clung together, and by needle-work and teaching supported themselves respectably, until a rich old man, who might have been Mrs. Burton’s grandfather, had fallen in love with and married her, thus raising her to a position of wealth and importance, and furnishing a home of luxury both for her and her sister Annie. The latter, however, had given her affections to young Heyford, who, though poor, had this in his favor, that he was young and well connected, and that she loved him devotedly, which was more than could be said of the gray-haired husband of Mary, the elder sister, who had sold herself for gold, and who set herself against the Heyford match. But love won the day, and with her sister’s farewell words, “never come to me if you are starving,” ringing in her ears, the young wife went willingly with her husband, and for his sake bore cheerfully a life of comparative poverty, and tried to do her duty by her husband and the little child born to them within the first year of their marriage.

When she heard that her sister’s husband was dead, she wrote her a letter expressing her sympathy, and offering to go to her in case she could in any way comfort or console her. To this letter no answer came, but a year after, Mrs. Heyford was surprised at receiving a call from her sister, who came in quietly, and unattended by carriage or servant. She had married a second time, and was now Mrs. Freeman Burton, of Madison Square. Knowing that her sister was in New York, she had found her out, not to renew acquaintance, but rather to prevent it. She was very frank and open, and said what she had to say in a manner which left no doubt as to her meaning. “Their paths in life were very different,” she said. “As the wife of Mr. Freeman Burton she was entitled to, and should take, the very first place in society, and as her sister was situated so differently, it would be unpleasant for them to meet each other often, and they might as well make up their minds to it first as last. She should come occasionally to see Mrs. Heyford, but should not feel badly if her calls were not returned, and she greatly preferred that Mrs. Freeman Burton should not be known as the sister of Mrs. William Heyford, who lived on the upper floor of a tenement house far down town, and made dresses for a living.” That was decisive. The sisters never met again, and when at Christmas time Mrs. Freeman Burton sent a check for one hundred dollars to Mrs. William Heyford, it was promptly returned, and the intercourse ended entirely when Mrs. Heyford died, as she did, not long after. The husband sent a paper containing a marked notice of the death to Mrs. Freeman Burton, and a second time that lady mounted the three flights of stairs, and knocked at No. ——. But the rooms were shut up; the child Georgie was with her father’s friends, and Mrs. Freeman Burton stole back to her fashionable house, and cried all the morning over the memory of other days, when she and her dead sister had been the world to each other.

Six months later, and she received another paper containing a marked paragraph. Mr. Heyford had married again, and lived now on Varick street, whither Mrs. Burton ventured to go, crying over the little Louise, who had a look like the dead sister, and appearing far more friendly toward the second Mrs. Heyford than she had toward the first. Still, there was no wish expressed for further intercourse, and the families for years knew nothing of each other except through the little presents of books and clothes which were occasionally sent from Madison Square to the little Louise, and which Mrs. Heyford kept.

When Georgie was thirteen, she heard that her aunt had gone abroad, and in the exciting scenes of the ensuing years which followed, she almost forgot the existence of such a relative until a letter came from her, saying she had returned to New York and reopened her house, and was coming in a few weeks to Chicago to find her dear niece.

“I have been a very proud, wicked woman,” she wrote, “but I hope I am trying to do better, and wish to make some amends for my treatment of my poor sister by being kind to her child.”

This was the secret of the whole. Mrs. Burton did believe herself a better woman, and perhaps she was. An ardent admirer of Dr. Pusey, she had in her the elements which made her afterwards a devoted Ritualist, and she wanted to do something which should prove her reform to herself. Upon inquiry in the neighborhood where she had left her sister’s family she could learn nothing of them, so completely had they dropped out of memory. Remembering at last the name of Mr. Heyford’s former employer, she went to him and heard that her brother-in-law was dead, and the family in Chicago; that was all the man could tell her. Of Georgie’s marriage he knew nothing. Mr. Heyford died years ago, he said, and he had taken the boy Jack into his employ until he went West, since which time he had heard nothing from him.

In this dilemma, Mrs. Burton wrote to Georgie, directing to Jack’s care, and then waited the result. For days the letter lay unclaimed, and then appeared among the list of advertised in one of the daily papers. It caught Jack’s eye, and he immediately went for it and carried it to Georgie, who counted it the brightest day of her life when her aunt came to their humble home, and offered to adopt her as her daughter and give her every advantage which the heiress of Mrs. Freeman Burton ought to have. There was no hesitancy on Georgie’s part. Dearly as she loved little Annie, she loved ambition more, and said at once, “I will go.”

To Jack’s suggestion that she tell her aunt of her marriage, at least, she turned a deaf ear. No one must know that. To go to New York as a widow with a child would seriously mar her plans, and then in the winning, fascinating way she knew so well how to use, she persuaded Jack into taking an oath that he never would reveal her secret to any living person unless she first gave him permission to do so. From her step-mother a promise of silence was all she could obtain, but she knew Mrs. Heyford well enough to feel sure that she was safe; and casting the past behind her, she said good-by to Jack, her mother, and Annie, and went with her aunt, who had no suspicion that the beautiful young creature, who seemed so soft, and gentle, and innocent, had a hidden history, from which she would have shrunk in dismay.

What Mrs. Burton hated she hated cordially, and what she loved she loved as cordially, and she lavished upon her niece all the affection which she had withheld from her sister and both her husbands.

At first she had her taught at home under her own eye, and then when she felt that she had acquired a little of the polish and knowledge of the world, which would be expected from Mrs. Freeman Burton’s daughter, she sent her to a fashionable boarding-school, from which she emerged a finished young lady, and became a belle at once. Her after career is so well known to the reader that it is useless to repeat it here, though Jack told Maude of the deep love there had always existed between his sister and the little Annie, who worshipped her as some superior being; “and I loved her, too,” he said, as he finished the sad story, to which Maude had listened wonderingly, “loved her as few brothers have ever loved their sisters. I knew she had many and glaring faults, and sometimes in my anger I was almost desperate in my feelings toward her, but a touch of her hand, a tone of her voice, or a beseeching glance of her eye, had power to quiet me at once, and I would almost have walked over burning coals for her sake, when in her softest mood. I knew, too, that she loved me,—honestly, truly loved me,—and now that she is gone it is a comfort to remember it, for there were times when I was very harsh with her. Poor Georgie; in many things she was a splendid woman, and though she greatly erred, I feel that at the last she was sorry for it and repented most sincerely, and I believe she is in heaven now, with Annie and my mother.”

There were tears in Jack’s eyes, and his voice shook so for a few minutes that he could not go on with his story; but after a little he continued, and told Maude about the burglar at Oakwood, and why he was going to Scotland. It was on a mission for Georgie; and Maude entered heart and soul into it, and would scarcely let him rest a day in England, so anxious was she to find the Janet among the heather hills, and the fatherless little bairns. They found them at last,—a rosy-cheeked, brown-haired little woman, and two fair young children with her, one clinging to her dress behind, and peeping shyly out as the strangers came in, and the other turning his sightless eyes toward them. Their errand was soon told; and when Jack saw how bitterly poor Janet wept, he felt that Henry Morton had been a kind, loving husband to her, even if in secret he had done her wrong. After arranging about the money which Georgie had sent to the widow, who supposed it came from her husband, Jack and Maude repeated their offers of assistance whenever it was necessary; and then promising to see Janet again before returning to America, he bade her good-by, and started on their tour through Europe.