Idle Hour Stories

In Old Kentucky

A PRIZE STORY

Everybody was at Crab Orchard springs, that favorite resort in the ante-bellum days. What though the main rooms were cramped and stuffy, or that the straggling cottages across the grassy lawn were mere shells. It was a place thoroughly rural, thoroughly enjoyable. Merely to ramble along the winding saw-dust walks to the deep embowered springs, was a sufficient augury of improved health. It was the one daily excitement to crowd up to the long platform and see the stage come in, bringing high and low, the rich and moderate liver. The luggage was light, Saratoga trunks being unknown quantities, and no gowns were brought except those of the crushable kind that did duty at ten-pins, fishing, walking, dancing, and not least, driving, for the gravel turnpikes were fine.

Across the wide street was Bachelors' Row, where were installed hunters and hounds from the Southland, rich cotton and sugar planters, sporting men and their sable attendants. Here the candles burned all night, and there were loud whispers of games in vogue not as innocent as those listed on the tempting advertising circulars of the Springs. This sunny, summer life was of the dolce far niente sort, given up to idle pleasure, and quite out of the way of the tragic happenings of romance. Yet a mystery had managed to creep into this Arcadian realm, a thing not at first tangible, but getting to be an acknowledged first-class secret as the days went by.

Egbert Mason had been nearer the carriage than the rest of the sunset crowd when the stage rolled up, followed by the close, luxurious-looking vehicle so rarely seen in those parts. He declared he caught a glimpse of a being, exquisitely beautiful among the two or three closely wrapped and veiled women who descended from the carriage; and the young men were on the qui vive some hours later to see the new comers enter the ball room. But they did not appear either that night, or any other night. They kept their cottage rooms closely, sitting out only in the rear, and were waited upon by the two black servants they had brought. Various were the conjectures about them, and vague stories soon took shape. The hotel register told only their names: Mrs. Glencarron, Mrs. Hamilton and daughter, from Mississippi. The daughter was an invalid, and this was all that could be drawn from the faithful blacks. The girls pouted, and mamas looked unutterables when their curiosity found no relief; while the men were wisely silent, though equally diligent in fruitless investigation.

It was past midnight, and the lights were out, when the ominous cry of "fire!" sounded through the grounds, striking terror to the visitors thus suddenly startled from their sleep, and emptying the cottages of their half-clad occupants by one accord. A glance at the crackling flames showed that Bachelors' Row was on fire and doomed. Men from the distant village were soon on the spot with buckets, and amid frightened cries, confused questions, and a general hurrying, scurrying of feet, a few had presence of mind to cover the main building with wet blankets, lest the trees now snapping and hissing might drop a blazing brand and the whole place go down.

After the first panic had subsided there was nothing to do but stand and watch the graphic scene; and while thus engaged the attention of some was attracted by a face white and drawn as with pain among the by-standers. It was that of one of the mysterious ladies of the southern cottages. But even as they noted the faded beauty and aristocratic bearing of the stranger she was hurried away by another figure closely wrapped and hooded. Not before she had ejaculated: "Oh, what is it? Is she——?" and there the words were lost.

It was somewhere near the early morning when Egbert Mason who had been foremost in fighting the fire, was aroused by a voice just outside his window, which was left open for the faint breeze of the summer night.

"Come quick iz you kin, young marster, fur de lub o'heb'n."

Between sleeping and waking the young man jumped up and peered out of the window. He could just discern the prim red and yellow turban of the black keeper of the strange ladies.

"Iz you a doctor, Marster? Dey says you iz."

"Yes—a very young one—what is wanted?"

The negress spoke a few very hurried words in a lower tone.

"All right. In one moment—stay—never mind—I have it—I'm coming." And catching up something from the shelf of his closet the young doctor sped away to the mysterious door of the southern guests.

He was met on the threshold by an anxious, grief-stricken face, and the words half sobbed out:

"Was there no one else? None older? You—why, you are a boy."

"True, madam, but I am not without experience. I hope—I think, you may trust me, unless——"

But she drew him hurriedly within the door, and on to an inner chamber, where lay his patient, so guarded that he never once saw her face. Before the earliest risers were called to the long breakfast hall there echoed the cry of a little child in the southern cottages—a girl baby that opened its eyes first in an atmosphere of secrecy and mystery.

Sixteen years had gone by. It was the eighth of January, and the Capitol Hotel at Frankfort was a blaze of military glory. It was the annual commemorative ball, and Strauss' band was pouring forth inspiring strains, as the dancers, in fancy costumes of every age and clime, flitted to and fro. The beauty, wealth and chivalry of Kentucky were there. The stars and stripes were draped about the speaking portraits of dead heroes, and munitions of war glittered on every side.

Among those wearing the neat broadcloth evening dress of the plain American citizen was Dr. Egbert Mason, the famous surgeon, now a distinguished looking man of thirty-five. It was rather late in the evening when he appeared, and he was soon captured by his friend, the Hon. Leslie Walcott, who bore the distinction of being the youngest member of the House, and presented to Miss Eleanor Carleton, the most popular of all the belles and beauties on the floor. Her dress was an exquisite personation of the stars and stripes, from the crown of stars on her golden brown hair, to the gaily ribboned white satin slipper. Her white muslin skirts showed the red stripes at intervals; a soft blue sarcanet sash across her breast was stamped with the outstretched wings of the American eagle, and in every detail this unique costume was alluring to a degree.

Dr. Mason was more than impressed by her extreme youth, in its setting of precocious womanly grace and charm. She was so happy and bright, a sans souci maiden whom he lost no time in winning to his own colors, by the magic of a well-stored mind and an eloquent tongue. A sonsie, sweet-sixteen lassie, not yet out of school, but wonderfully developed, like the southern girls of the period, whose parents were possessed of ample means. He sounded her fresh, rich stores of mind and found she had indeed been carefully taught, wisely trained. Not at once did he learn it all, but soon enough to resolve to win and wear this jewel, if only Providence were kind. Providence? Ah, there swept across his face the shade of one bitter memory—one foul wrong that had darkened his earlier manhood. A woman's fatal wiles, a man's trust betrayed. He forgot that she had vowed vengeance if it took a lifetime. He thrust it all aside, and turned to the purity and innocence of this fair young womanhood, with the infinite longing of a starved nature.

The evening of the ball did not close without another surprise for Egbert Mason. Eleanor Carleton was challenging him in a spirited quotation contest when her mother approached leaning upon the arm of the Governor of the State. She was a handsome, dark-eyed woman, young enough to seem the elder sister of the lovely girl who called her mother.

"Eleanor, my child," she said, barely glancing at her daughter's companion. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Have you been in the draughts of those halls? Supper is ready."

"Oh, I've been in very good hands," was the merry reply, as the girl introduced Dr. Mason, and shook hands with the Governor, who was looking down at her with his kindliest smile.

"Madam," he said gallantly, "I must compliment you upon this exceedingly pretty and patriotic dress. I have been watching it from afar all evening. How could you conceive such a marked hit for the occasion."

"I hope it in order for me to say she never fails," proudly answered Senator Carleton, an imposing looking man, who had come up in time to hear the last remark. "The march is playing for supper—"

"Oh, mother—what is it?" cried the girl, suddenly directing attention to Mrs. Carleton's face, which was colorless, almost ghastly, while her eyes seemed gazing afar off into space.

"Allow me," said Dr. Mason, with concern, advancing quickly, and amid the excited gathering of the little circle about him, he gently bore her to one of the large windows, as the Senator in visible alarm threw up the sash.

"To my room," she murmured, as she revived a little, and thither they conducted her as quietly as possible.

At the door the startled young girl turned and impulsively clasping the doctor's hand, exclaimed:

"Oh, Dr. Mason—what is the matter? I never saw my mother like this—is she going to be ill?"

He tried to reassure her, though the touch of her soft, clinging fingers set his blood dancing like wild fire in his veins.

That night old Ailsie knelt beside her mistress and soothed her with the crooning tones of her childhood days.

"Don't you fret, Missie; he doan know nuffin' 'bout it now. An' if he do he ain' gwine ter tell nobody."

That night, too, Egbert Mason, in dreams climbed a mountain height to reach an eagle's nest. As he grasped the last wavering support a figure glittering with stars dropped from the nest, suspended by a tattered flag. Down, down it fell. Frantically he clutched at the frail colors. They lengthened more, and more, till the starry, shimmering form was swaying above a yawning abyss. Could he save her? Her—his young love with the appealing eyes? With one mighty effort he nerved himself for the desperate descent, when lo! from yon black depth appears the vindictive face of Isabella Drury. Older, careworn, faded—but still Isabella, and wearing the head of a Medusa.

"You shall never marry that girl, Egbert Mason! I have sworn it! If you attempt it I will kill one or both of you!" and the face of the speaker was like a mad woman. "Oh, I know all you would say," she went on, striding about the rooms she had entered by strategy. "But she shall not have you if I can not. Pshaw! What fools men are! Do you know who and what she is? Where is your boasted pride, that shrank from a thing like me! Let me tell you, then, you scornful, high mightiness! Eleanor Carleton is——" and she hissed the hateful word in his ears.

"Woman! You lie!" shouted Egbert Mason, stung to frenzy by her taunts, and sick unto death of her persecution. His was not a quiet nature, and she had touched him in his sorest point. "You lie, and you know it! Out of my sight! Tell all you will. I, too, can threaten. Your vile secret is still safe with me, but I shall find means to be rid of you—Go!"

"Stop!" she commanded, coming nearer and dropping her voice to a sibillant whisper. "Go back seventeen years to a summer night at Crab Orchard Springs! Aha! you start, I see you have not forgotten. Do you recollect the part you played that night? She is that child!" and with a malicious laugh she swiftly passed from the room.

The man sat stunned where she had left him. Could it be true? And what was the mystery of that far-away night of his youth? The more he pondered the more complete grew the chain. Senator Carleton had married a Kentucky girl, it was true; but her youth had been passed on a Mississippi plantation. He had years ago heard more or less idle gossip about the hard, miserly nature of the old planter, Hamilton, and of his bitter opposition to his daughter's match with penniless young Carleton. There had been an elopement, or something. It came back to him like some

hideous nightmare. His pure, spotless darling—his promised wife! Could there be sin or shame enveloping such a being? He must know. He wrote to Mrs. Carleton. In earnest words of manly truth and honor he besought her to explain to him the past. Eleanor was visiting a friend in a distant city. No answer came. He went to the house and was denied admittance. He followed Eleanor only to learn that she had been hastily summoned home. That was not the day of rapid transit. He returned at last to find a letter of farewell forever—his beloved had been spirited away to other scenes. Then Egbert Mason left his native land, baffled, broken-hearted, and devoted the next three years to the study of special lines in his profession.

In a stately drawing room of an ideal Kentucky home are Eleanor Carleton and Egbert Mason, once more face to face.

"Oh, my love," he moaned, bending almost reverently before her, "what a mistake, I knew it all when too late. The letters were all found when that unhappy woman was sent to the asylum. Did you think I could change? 'Forget thee dear?'" he quoted unconsciously—he had said the lines so often;

Still she stood, gravely looking at him, her maturing beauty made the fairer by the sable gown she wore.

"Forgive me," then she spoke. "I thought you knew. I have been Leslie Walcott's wife these four months."

As he sat beside his solitary hearth there was a fumbling outside the door. He opened to admit old Ailsie, now crippled with rheumatic pains.

"I know'd dat was you. Marse Doctor, 'n I follered yer, I want to tell yer:—Mistress 'splained all 'bout dat 'fore she died. Dey wan't nothin' wrong. Her an' her ma was 'feared to let old Master know she hed run 'way an' married Marse Henry. He said he wan't gwine ter will her nary cent. So mistess and her sister, Miss Ellen, arter while, dey fotch her up to de springs. Den ole master he died sudden like, an' Marse Henry, he had done ben 'way off to New Auleens—never know'd dey had fooled old Master 'bout de chile an' all dat. Po' Mistress! she nebber could tell him no better, and she was always skeerd-like arter she seed you agin. But she sot right down dat day and writ all about it to you an' I goes and gives de letter to dat purty white lady what was sich a good frien', and den she gimme yourn, ain——"

"Yes, yes, Auntie, I know—I have the letters here——at last," he added in low, husky tones.

The Louisville Journal of the next New Year, under date of January 9, contained the following notice, with lengthy editorial comment:

"Died suddenly last night, of heart disease, at the close of the Military Ball, at the Capitol Hotel, Frankfort, the Hon. Leslie Walcott, age thirty-two years."

Did hope stretch out an alluring hand to one lonely reader?

His Gratitude

VENGEANCE IS MINE

"But surely you do not realize, Robert Garrett, that when you foreclose this mortgage you leave us virtually penniless;" and the large dark eyes of the suppliant were blinded by an agony of tears.

"Really, madam, I regret to seem hard;" and the polished courtesy of the cold, harsh voice fell with heavy weight upon her strained senses. "Your husband has had more time now than any law allows, human or divine."

"Oh, how gladly he would have paid the debt;" she moaned; "it was his kindness and forbearance to others—kindness that seemed imperative. He could not take the law against his crippled brother, his mother's dying legacy to him. You know all this—you know, too, that if you will only grant a little longer respite he can settle the claim, or the greater part of it. How then can you be so cruel as to drive us out of doors! You who need nothing of this world's goods!"

The man of business stirred a little, crossed his well-clad legs in still greater comfort, and audibly repressed a yawn. Then as if unwillingly forced to say something he did it as ungraciously as possible.

"Again I say I grieve to proceed to harsh measures, but"—then as she was about to interpose he broke out irritably, "God bless my soul, Mrs. Blaine, how can you expect anything else! I am obliged to be accurate in my matters, otherwise there would be no end to imposition from shiftless men who are always going to pay but——never do."

"This, then, is your ultimatum, sir? You will turn me and my children out wanderers from the old home where I was born—where I had hoped to die? Can you do this? Even you, whom the world calls rich and prosperous and——charitable!" As she spoke she bent upon him in fine scorn her brilliant eyes dark and piercing.

"Painful things occur every day, my dear madam, in this transitory life. And once in a while the tables turn. I think I remember a time when I pleaded with perhaps not so much eloquence, but quite as much earnestness, for a boon at the hands of pretty Mildred Deering. I didn't get it, and I have survived, you see. We are apt to magnify our misfortunes;" and a mocking smile told wherein lay the animus that was her undoing.

Then she drew her graceful figure to its full height, and with the contempt of an outraged wife and mother, her words came in tones of concentrated vehemence:

"So! Robert Garrett, this is your vaunted Christianity! You, the immaculate pillar of the church—the friend of the outcast—the chief among philanthropists! Grant your boon? Was there was ever a moment in her sheltered life when Mildred Deering would have consorted with the hypocrite you are? Never! Better a thousand times poverty with nobility and truth in the man she loves. Better an age of privation with Herbert Blaine than a single instant in the presence of such as you. Do your worst! And may God mete out to you and yours the mercy you have shown us!"

Clasping the hand of her little girl who had clung to her mother's skirts, gazing with wide-open, awestruck eyes at the great man, she was gone in a moment.

"Ah!" uttered Robert Garrett in a long-drawn-out syllable, reaching for the evening paper.

There had been another silent witness of this scene in the person of a lad who stood within the door he had entered just as Mrs. Blaine had appeared in the opposite way. He was a rather ill-favored schoolboy, but his thoughts as he came forward with the lanky awkwardness of youth and took a chair in chimney corner, were not of himself or his looks.

"Father," he said after some minutes had passed, the rattle of the newspaper and the measured ticking of the clock being the only disturbing sounds, "Father," he repeated, this time with a falling inflection.

Startled uncomfortably at the unexpected address the father peered frowningly at the boy with a gruff, "What!"

"Do you think it is just the fair and square thing to turn 'em out?"

"What do you know about it, you young meddler. Keep quiet about what does not concern you. You have enough to eat and wear—attend to your own business."

There was no encouragement to go on, so young Robert sat and pondered till his father, chafing under the silent rebuke personified in every line of the son's uncomely face, sent him to his room.

In the other house there was little sleep; and for many succeeding days the devoted Blaines, with heavy hearts, put by their idols one by one, till at last the time-honored oaken doors closed upon them in relentless banishment. It mattered not that amid new scenes prosperity once more opened her sheltering arms and kept the wolf from the door. The new owner of Deering Castle, as the villagers had admiringly christened the grand old place, refused to sell it. Robert Garrett, with the littleness born of a mean, cramped nature, clung to this coveted possession as the one thing to be held, though all else were taken. He had money but knew not how to enjoy it. His household, for the most part, reflected the coarseness of his nature, and as time passed his retribution was meted out in rebellious sons and daughters, who wasted his substance and dragged down his name still further in the mire.

Twenty years had gone by. Herbert Blaine and his bright-eyed wife slept in the city of the dead. With their latest breath they had, one by one, adjured their beloved daughter, the only surviving child since the civil war had laid low their three manly boys, to regain possession of the old homestead. Time, they assured her, would make all things even, and long before they laid down the burden of life, they had seen how the wife's curse beat upon the head of the man who had so oppressed them. They had learned to feel pity for him whom they had once despised. Not so Jessie Blaine. She was a woman now, and had been, for a few brief years, till death robbed her, a happy wife. But never could she forget that dismal twilight hour when her innocent eyes had photographed the hateful, sneering face of her mother's enemy; when her ears had phonographed his mocking words. The scene had haunted her waking and sleeping, for many days; and still after all these years she could and did remember.

She rejoiced when she heard that wild Ben Garrett had broken nearly every law of the decalogue, and was wrecking the peace of all who cared for him. "They richly deserve it all;" she said, when some fresh escapade or misdemeanor would come to light. He had squandered his father's thousands aimlessly, recklessly, and was fast bringing his white hairs in sorrow to the grave. Jessie Forrester only smiled as she read these items from the local press. Riches and honors were hers. There was nothing lacking but the dear old home of her people, and this could not be bought. She climbed to heights undreamed-of in her earlier days, and became a shining light in the world of letters. Her books were read in two continents. Statesmen and distinguished circles sought her till her name became a power in the land. Her influence was widespread. In an eastern city she at last came to revel in her books and manuscripts, or in her sweet, healthful, domestic loves, renouncing all thoughts of revenge, for the time being, and abandoning the hope of recovering the sacred pile where she first saw the light.

One day there came a letter bearing the postmark of her native town. With difficulty deciphering the straggling, tremulous address, she broke the seal and read as follows:—

"Madam:

"A heart-broken father appeals to you in his hour of extremity, to save his son from the gallows. My boy—my wayward, reckless boy, who was once as innocent and pure as yourself, has fallen into the hands of treacherous natives and half-breeds in Arkansas, and they accuse him of murdering a traveller for his money. He is guiltless of this crime—God knows he is; but the weight of evidence is fearful, and I am powerless to refute it. The proceedings have been hurried over and the verdict is against him.

"I am unable to go to him—I bring the case to you. Go, I beg of you, to Washington and plead with the congressman from this, your native district, and the Arkansas representative, who is your kinsman. Urge them to see the President and prevail upon him to sift the evidence. I realize most bitterly that I have no claim upon you, but oh, for God's sake, Madam, do what you can for a distracted father. Hanging! Oh, save him from that—and act quickly, for he has only five days to live. I am crazed with anxiety and sleeplessness.

"Your obedient servant,

"Robert Garrett."

Jessie Forrester's hour had come. The revenge so ardently longed-for since the hour her mother had invoked the curse of heaven upon this man, was here. What though his boy did perish, by an ignominous death. A more worthless cumberer of the earth did not exist. Ah! that cold, sneering voice on the winter's eve so long ago; her mother's tears! As he had sown so should he reap, and her hands would help to gather in the harvest. Through him they had been exiled all these years from the home that was their birthright. The husband of her early womanhood might have been spared if only they could have nursed him back to health under the cool shade of those grand old trees instead of languishing in the hot city. Help this man? This incarnation of cruel selfishness? Not she;—his boy should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. How could she lift a voice to save him! "His boy?" Ah, through her tender mother's heart there darted a pain all unwonted. Her own noble, gifted boy—her all—what if untoward fate should have in store for him some doom of shame—him, her idol and her pride.

She sat buried in thought till suddenly starting up she consulted a time table, then rang hurriedly for her maid. She was ready in thirty minutes, and summoning her young son, was soon enroute for the capital. Arriving at ten o'clock she called a carriage and sped away to new northwest quarter of the city. By midnight she had seen both representatives and thoroughly enlisted their services. She gave no reason for her intercession, nor was it necessary. It was enough that she deemed it a case for intervention. Next morning the two statesmen had an interview with the President, and by the hardest, for the mass of evidence against young Garrett was overwhelming, got a stay of proceedings till the case could be further investigated.

Well-nigh exhausted from the mental and bodily strain, Jessie arrived at her home unfit for anything but rest. Then she answered her enemy's letter. Did she reproach him with his life-long injustice? Did she demand the old home in exchange for the service she had rendered? Or at least the privilege of buying it? She merely wrote;—

"I have been to Washington and secured a reprieve pending further sifting of evidence."

Ben Garrett was saved and the close view of the gallows sobered him at last. He married the daughter of a Texas ranchman and Jessie heard of him no more.

Five years passed away when on a gloomy afternoon in the autumn, Jessie Forrester, now a woman of thirty, and wearing her years and honors well, was sitting at her desk in an elegant sanctum, absorbed in the fate of two lovers whose history she was creating.

Her door opened and a grave, handsome man with a bearded face stood before her.

"Madam," he said briefly "you once did my brother a great favor. I am here to thank you for it."

His brother? A favor? Ah, she had been doing favors for many in all these years. She did not remember any particular one; it was an every day matter. Every mail brought petitions and she never turned a deaf ear. The doing of favors brought its own reward.

She looked steadily at the stranger, and he felt again in his inmost soul the gaze of those large brown eyes seen once before dilated with childish terror.

"My name is Garrett," he explained, as briefly as before.

Garrett—that hated name. Involuntarily her eyes fell upon the work before her, while a warm flush mantled her cheeks.

"May I sit down for five minutes?"

She again raised her eyes without speaking, and he seated himself, not looking at but beyond her as if her steady gaze unmanned him.

"Madam, my parents are dead. I have come to offer you Deering Castle at your own price. I should not presume to suggest it as a gift. It is yours if you wish it. I have heard so often," and here his voice fell for very shame, "that you wanted it. It was not then mine to dispose of; now there is no barrier; it is yours. I will send my attorney to you."

Rising he lingered a moment with a certain wistfulness suffusing his features, then made his way out ere Jessie could recover sufficiently to bid him stay.

Her faculties were in a tumult. Deering Castle hers—the estate of her fathers—the venerated old home hers at last. It almost took her breath away. A Garrett was offering it. That name hated all her life. But did she hate it now?

There was no more work that day for the author. Nor ever again did her genius shine out in rapturing periods till she drew inspiration from the grand environment of the old homestead. Here Robert Garrett is not an unwelcome guest. Young Herbert is in fact quite devoted to the grave, sedate man with the tender heart. Will his benign influence one day still further cement the new friendship?

The Singer's Christmas

A HOLIDAY STORY

The air of the December day was soft and mild. All the world was in the streets, glad of a respite from the late cold "snap," which had brought out furs and heavy wraps.

Signora Cavada was taking her accustomed drive, chaperoned by a comfortable looking American woman; for this was an American city, and the famous prima donna was winning nightly laurels at the Louisville Opera House.

To-day, the carriage with its high-stepping bays sought a new neighborhood, that the great singer might not be bored with repeated views of the same places. As it bowled along an old man in tattered garments approached, hat in hand, and held it toward the open window for alms. The driver cracked his whip peremptorily above the straggling gray locks of the suppliant, and drove on toward the suburbs.

"Who was that poor old man?" asked the singer in excellent English.

"Oh, only a beggar; the streets are full of them just before Christmas," replied her companion.

"Is he very poor?" persisted the signora. "In my own country we have beggars—they make a business of begging. But that was a grand face. I shall go back again to look for him; tell the driver."

Accustomed to obey the caprices of her mistress, the duenna gave the order and the carriage turned back. There stood the old man as before, but this time he did not approach the equipage.

"Come here," said the signora, holding out a neatly gloved hand.

Fixing his faded eyes, now kindling with something like hope, upon her lovely face, he came nearer, and at her bidding told his story. It was a common one: Ill-health, a vagabond son, his earnings all gone, no work, and finally beggary.

"And have you no one to take care of you? Where do you live?"

"In that old shed, madam," he answered, pointing to a tumbled down cabin once used as a cobbler's shop. "And I have with me my little girl, my grandchild."

"A little girl in that place? Where is she? How do you keep her?"

"Ah, madam, she makes flowers—her mother taught her—and earns a few pennies now and then. She sings, too, madam," he added with pride.

"Sings?" eagerly echoed the signora. "Fetch her here; I want to see her."

"She has gone away to the woods to gather evergreens. To-morrow is Christmas Day."

"Yes, yes, I remember! And how do you celebrate the day?" added the lady.

"In feasting and rejoicing," said the duenna, before the old man could answer.

"And the poor? I have read some very pretty stories about the poor in your cities on Christmas Day."

"Oh, the poor get along well enough," she said, with an accent of indifference or contempt. "They have more than they deserve."

But the singer was again leaning toward the waiting figure outside, seeing which the old man said as if in apology:

"That is why I was asking for help, madam; people are generous at Christmas. But I have known better times; I do not like to beg."

The prima donna was not rich. She supported her own old father and mother, and was educating her brother for a grand tenor. With one of those quick impulses born of heaven, she ordered the driver to descend from his box and throw open the carriage. When the roof parted and the sunshine came flooding down upon her, the singer faced the crowd that had been steadily gathering for ten minutes, eager to see the Signora Cavada, whose voice was the most jealously guarded jewel of her store, For she had been recognized by a chance passer-by.

Suddenly there stole on the air a divine strain that caused a hush as by magic to fall upon the restless groups. Louder, sweeter, stronger, more entrancing it rose, then sunk to the whispering cadence of a sigh. The old man's hands were crossed before him, and tears poured down his withered cheeks. Ere the charmed listeners realized that the voice had ceased, the singer gave the poor supplicant a coin, and waving him toward the crowd, which was increasing every moment, said,—

"Tell them I will sing again."

The old man went from one to another till the worn hat grew so heavy that he had to carry it in his arms. Money for his needs, money for his dear little girl. Then the signora sang again; when about to depart she scribbled an address which she handed the bewildered man, and drove on to her hotel.

What a Christmas was that! And what a feeling of happiness filled her heart! And the duenna said nothing.

A day or two later the beggar and his grandchild appeared at the private entrance of the hotel where the signora was sojourning. The paper he carried in his hand was a passport, and he soon stood in her parlor. He was dressed in a neat new suit, and the child was as sweet as a wild rose.

"Come and kiss me, little one," said the beautiful lady. "I want to hear you sing."

Unappalled by the richness of the apartment, and conscious only the kindness shown her, the child, who was about twelve years old, sang one of the popular street ballads of the day.

"Santa Maria!" exclaimed the signora, who always ejaculated in her own tongue. "But you have a treasure here, my friend! The child is a wonder. This voice must be trained—we will see—we will see."

Touching an electric bell, she summoned a messenger and hastily wrote a line which she gave him. During the boy's absence she questioned the strange pair in whom she felt so absorbing an interest, and gathered what there was to tell of their daily life. Their neighbors were kind, and the women exercised a sort of motherly care over the little girl; but the very best there was to know seemed bad enough, and the singer shuddered as she imagined the dreariness of such poverty as their's.

In answer to the call a young man stood before her.

"Beppo," she said, "your fortune is made; look at that old man." She spoke in Italian, and the face of the artist, for such he was, lit up with enthusiasm, as he marked the striking head and face of the person indicated. "Your model for the Beggar of San Carlo," continued the lady.

Beppo Cellini, at the bidding of his countrywoman, at once made terms with the old man to sit to him for his great Academy picture.

The little girl, whose voice now commands thousands of dollars on the operatic stage, was placed under training at the joint expense of her benefactress and two other artist friends.

The old man, Signor Beppo's model, is at rest now, but he still lives in the "Beggar of San Carlo." And the Signora Cavada, among all the good deeds of her charitable career, has never known a truer thrill of happiness than she experienced on her American Christmas Day.

Turning the Tables

A PRACTICAL STORY

There was great commotion in the kitchen of a large seaside hotel not many miles from Long Branch. A commotion in fact, that struck dismay to the heart of the proprietor, who, upon visiting the store-room near by, was caught and detained, an invisible listener to the uproar.

"I 'clar ter gracious!" screamed the fat, colored cook, "I aint a-gwine ter stan' it no longer! Po' white trash a-layin' up in bed all mornin,' an' den it's eggs! Eggs biled, eggs scrabbled, an' homilies (omelettes) tell yer can't res' nohow! I'se mazin' tired of it all, I tell yer! I'se gwine ter quit—I is!"

"You'se gwine ter quit—you is! I speck! I'm done heerd dat talk eber day dis month," jeered cook number two. "Ef you quits you kin jest bet yer bottom dollar I aint a-gwine to stay. Got more'n I kin do now—I is."

"An' what yer reckon dis chile's goin' ter do den?" pertly chimed in the mulatto kitchen maid. "I'm got all de runnin' roun' ter do, an' yer kin jist bet I don't have no easy time. Quit as quick as yer please—all of yer—I'll go 'long wid de crowd!" and with a toss of her woolly bangs, she dumped a pan of potato peelings out at the door.

"Dry up! dry up!" broke in the head waiter, appearing on the scene in true autocrat fashion. He boasted of "right smart book learnin'," and was a recognised power in the land. "You don't have no trouble at all to what I do. It's run here, there and everywhere, all in a minute, with a dozen blockheads to look after. And it's precious few tips I get here, I promise you! I never see as stingy a lot o' people in all my born days. Say! you there, Jim! fetch that tray along! What are you gapin' at, nigger?"

"Don't you nigger me, you black dude!" retorted the darkey, and as he spoke a smart chambermaid pranced along, flirting back at another waiter, and ran plump against the boy, tray and all. Down went the dishes with a clatter which brought a bevy of waiters and maids on the scene, while the laundress rushed in, all dripping with soapsuds. This so irritated the head waiter that he seized a teacup and threw it at the unlucky tray man. Then followed a fusillade of broken crockery and promiscuous dodging of giggling maids and explosive men-servants.

The fat cook interposed a threatening, hissing tea-kettle to stop the war, and the perplexed housekeeper appeared among the belligerents as the overwhelmed proprietor beat a hasty retreat. Stealing unperceived along the corridors, an idea struck him. This state of things was simply dreadful; something must be done. He quickly decided. He despatched his little son to the rooms and all about the premises to request the guests to assemble to an affair of state in the imposing chamber known as the main parlor. His wife was an invalid, and the poor man was beside himself in his perplexity.

With wondering, smiling faces they came—a pleasing array of city boarders—ease and comfort written upon every face.

His audience assembled, the distressed gentleman proceeded to pour forth his grievances. He asked what he should do in such a dilemma. His help had been engaged from the swarms of colored persons who infest the stations and public resorts along the coast. They had given trouble ever since the hotel was opened. They complained and annoyed him first about one thing, then about another, till he was well on to the verge of lunacy.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," he pathetically continued, "if I try to soothe and satisfy, and raise wages and make promises, what guarantee have I that the same thing will not occur to-morrow, and next day, and next week? I engaged them fairly and squarely, and have held strictly to my contract. They are so spoiled and unmanageable that there is no satisfaction in their service. Even now, while I am talking they are no doubt still in an uproar. Why, it is a wholesale mutiny. Something must be done at once. I have come to you for advice. If, as I say, they could be persuaded to remain, I cannot promise you any comfort. If I discharge the whole crew, it will be a day, perhaps two days, before I can supply their places; for I shall have to go to New York for white help. Can you solve the problem?"

For a moment there was silence. Then Miss May Delano, a handsome, wealthy city girl, said, with a challenging glance all around: "I'll wait upon the table for my part, if somebody will get me something to serve!"

This was received with an outburst, and instantly all was chatter and confusion as they caught up the spirit of the thing.

"I'll fill the orders as fast as you can take them," boasted a Wall St. exquisite, who would have unbent his dignity to any degree to please the bewitching heiress.

"I'll help anywhere—wherever I'm needed," exclaimed another city belle.

"And I!" came in chorus. "We'll be chambermaids," said a party who had just donned bathing suits of blue flannel.

"All right! Get to work!" commanded the crowd. "You have on just the dress for the business."

"Well, Mrs. Ingalls," smilingly encouraged a plump matron, "I suppose we might do as good cooking here as we have done at home in times of emergency. Shall we try?"

"I'm agreeable," laughed the lady. "That is, if we can manage the range."

"Oh, leave that to me," said her husband. "I guess I've handled ranges before." Which caused more merriment, since that gentleman's business was in the hardware line.

Fresh came another bevy of rosy faces, whose owners declared that they had been to a cooking school and knew all about it.

"Nothing like practical demonstration," bantered the young men.

"Hurrah!" cried one Hamilton, the pet of the house. "Give me the girl who can don a white apron, roll up her sleeves, and plunge her pretty arms into the flour barrel! That's what I'm looking for!" and he cleverly balanced a chair on his chin, amid a clamor of repartee and good-natured defiance.

"Go in, the whole ship's crew!" fervently urged a family man. "It will be the best fun of the season."

"All right!" promptly agreed the ladies. "We are ready. Now, hurry up and get on your porter's apron in time for the next wagon of trunks. Pray, call us when you are about to shoulder one!" which turned the laugh on the muscular member of the group.

"I think I'd rather be parlor maid," sweetly chimed in a little blonde beauty, with fluffy bangs.

"Suits you to a T," was the gallant response from the younger men.

"And I'll have to stand guard to keep you from flirting," put in an adorer.

"Pot calling the kettle black!" was the saucy fling from a chorus of school-girls who were enjoying their first seaside vacation.

"Now, grandma," exclaimed the parlor maid to a beautiful old lady with silver hair, "you shall have a big chair right in the middle of the dining hall, and be manager-in-chief."

Meanwhile the landlord had been overcome.

"Ladies," he now managed to articulate, and certainly he meant it, "I don't know what to say; I don't know how to thank you. But I know what I'll do; I'll turn away the last one of those quarrelsome blacks; root and branch they shall go. I'm tired of living in bedlam. I shall go down at once and start them; then I'll telegraph to New York and take the first train out. Rest assured I shall be back to your relief as soon as possible."

The proprietor had made himself heard in the confusion, and as he left the parlor hearty cheers followed him, when immediately the groups of talkers broke out again into plans and promises.

"Organize! Organize!" thundered a big man who had been jostled from his morning paper. "There can be no success without system."

"Hear! Hear!" roared the fun-loving fellows. "Down with the crowd to the lower regions! Come on with your constitution and by-laws! Hold fast to law and order! Give us liberty, or death—pumpkin pies and lily-white hands! Hurrah! On to the kitchen!"

With mock circumspection they were forcing couples to pair off; but the level-headed matrons soon arranged matters more to the purpose. The various branches of work were assigned to willing hands that only awaited the signal for action.

Great was the consternation of the mutineers when the "boss" appeared in the dismantled kitchen and ordered them all off the premises. In vain they protested, laying the blame on first one and then another. Their day of grace was ended and no quarter shown. Wilfully and from sheer love of bickering, they had offended all sense of justice and propriety, and in unbroken ranks they must go.

When the fiat had irretrievably gone forth, they showed again the claws and the cloven foot. The "cook-lady" said she "didn't hafter work nohow;" she reckoned she could "git along." The maids and the waiters took the cue and were equally independent. But though paid their wages in full, they were discharged without "a recommend"; and this, in the height of the season, was no small privation.

"Teach them a lesson!" muttered the proprietor with satisfaction. "Serves them right! I'm rather glad of the row."

Cheerily the guests fell to work in their several departments, and if more than one match for life was not made among the young people, it was from no lack of genuine admiration in their new roles. The lads and lassies were happy and rosy and busy at their self-appointed tasks. The white-coated waiters were dubbed "No. 47," "No. 50," and so on, and right nobly they served the well-spread tables, which lacked nothing, not even the boon of contentment, which so helps digestion.

The flushed matrons behind big kitchen aprons, with diamonds locked away in the hotel safe, took turns to perfection. Many guests took their ease, and were mere lookers-on at the frolic; but a right goodly company put their shoulders to the wheel.

When the new corps of "help" were installed, they found the hotel clean and tidy from attic to cellar, and everything in its proper place.

The episode was one to be remembered by the malcontents, who had had a severe lesson; by the host, who had seen a genuinely good side of human nature; and the ladies who had so nobly stepped into the breach, learned during their brief period of servitude to be more patient and considerate to those who serve.