"But you must not come in."
"No, I have come to stay. I could not live if I did not stay now." She pushed her way in. "Here are some things I have brought. I have telegraphed for a doctor."
It was long before she could satisfy John Marvel, but she staid, and all that night she worked with him over the sick and the dying. All that night they two strove to hold Death at bay, across those wretched beds. Once, indeed, he had struck past their guard and snatched a life; but they had driven him back and saved the others. Ere morning came one of the children had passed away; but the mother and the other children survived; and Eleanor Leigh knew that John Marvel, now on his knees, now leaning over the bed administering stimulants, had saved them.
As Eleanor Leigh stepped out into the morning light, she looked on a new earth, as fair as if it had just been created, and it was a new Eleanor Leigh who gazed upon it. The tinsel of frivolity had shrivelled and perished in the fire of that night. Sham had laid bare its shallow face and fled away. Life had taken on reality. She had seen a man, and thenceforth only a man could command her.
The physician came duly, sent up by the one she had telegraphed to; rode over to the Banyan house, and later to the village, where he pronounced the disease diphtheria and the cause probably defective drainage and consequent impregnation of the water supply; wrote a prescription; commended the country doctor, returned home, and duly charged nearly half as much as the country doctor got in a year, which Miss Leigh duly paid with thoughts of John Marvel. This was what made the change in the girl which her father had noted.
No novelist can give all of a hero's or a heroine's life. He must take some especial phase and develop his characters along that line, otherwise he would soon overload his boat and swamp his reader's patience. He is happy who having selected his path of action does not wear out the reader in asking him to follow even this one line. Thus, it is possible to give only a part of Miss Eleanor Leigh's relation to life, and naturally the part selected is that which had also its relation to John Marvel.
If it be supposed by any one that Miss Eleanor Leigh devoted her entire time and thought to working among the poor he is greatly mistaken. John Marvel and Leo Wolffert did this: but Miss Leigh was far from living the consecrated life. She only made it a part of her life, that is all, and possibly this was the best for her to do. The glimpse which she got at the death-bed in the Banyan cottage that night when she went to help John Marvel fight death, tore the veil from her eyes and gave her a revelation of a life of which she had never dreamed till then, though it lay all about her in its tragic nakedness—but while it gave her pause and inspired her with a sincere wish to help the poor—or, possibly, to help John Marvel and Leo Wolffert, it did not change her nature or make her a missionary. An impulse, whatever its ultimate action, does not revolutionize. She still retained the love of pleasure natural to all young creatures. The young tree shoots up by nature into the sun. She still took part in the gay life about her, and, if possible, found a greater zest in it for the consciousness that she had widened her horizon and discovered more interests outside of the glittering little brazen circle in which her orbit had been hitherto confined. She had immediately on returning home interested herself to secure for John Marvel an invitation from Dr. Capon, her rector, to become one of his assistants and take charge of an outlying chapel which he had built in the poorest district of the town, moved thereto by a commendable feeling that the poor should have the gospel preached to them and that his church should not allow all the honors to go to other churches, particularly that of Rome. Dr. Capon prided himself and was highly esteemed by his fellows—that is, the upper officials, clergy, and laity alike—on his ability to obtain from his people the funds needed to extend what was known as "the work of the Parish," by which was signified mainly the construction of buildings, additions thereto, embellishments thereof, and stated services therein, and, incidentally, work among the poor for whom the buildings were supposed to have been planned. The buildings having all been erected and paid for and due report and laudation thereof having been made, it was found rather more difficult to fill them than had been previously anticipated. And it was set down somewhat to the perversity of the poor that they refused the general invitation extended them to come and be labelled and patronized with words and smiles quite as unctuous as benignant.
Dr. Capon had not the reputation of getting on quite comfortably with his assistants. The exactions of his type of success had made him a business man. As his power of organization increased, spirituality dwindled. He dealt more with the rich and less with the poor. He had the reputation of being somewhat exacting in his demands on them, and of having a somewhat overweening sense of his own importance and authority. Bright young men either declined altogether his suggestions of the whiteness of the harvest in the purlieus of the city, or, having been led into accepting positions under him, soon left him for some country parish or less imposing curacy—an exotic word which the Doctor himself had had something to do with importing from over seas. It thus happened that his chapel recently built for the poor with funds elicited from Dr. Capon's wealthy parishioners was vacant when Miss Eleanor Leigh consulted the Reverend Doctor as to a good church for a peculiarly good young clergyman, and the Doctor being at that time in his second mourning and likewise in that state of receptivity incident to clerical widowers of a year and a half's standing, yielded readily to his fair parishioner's solicitations, and the position was tendered to John Marvel and after some hesitation was accepted—his chief motive being that his old friend Wolffert was there doing a work in which he had greatly interested him. If the fact that Miss Eleanor Leigh also lived in that city influenced him, it would simply prove that John Marvel, like the rest of Humanity was only mortal. The tender was made without the usual preliminary examination of the young man by the Doctor, so impressed had he been by the young girl's enthusiastic accounts of John Marvel's work and influence among the poor. Thus it was, that when John Marvel finally presented himself, the Doctor was more than surprised at his appearance—he was, indeed, almost shocked.
The Doctor was not only fond of his own appearance—which was certainly that of a gentleman and a very well-fed and clerical looking one as well—but he took especial pride in having his assistants also good-looking and clerical. He loved to march in processional and recessional at the end of a stately procession with two or three fine-looking young priests marching before him. It had a solemnizing effect—it made the church appear something important. It linked him with the historic and Apostolic Church of the ages. With the swelling organ pouring forth its strains to soar and die among the groined arches above him, he sometimes felt as he glanced along the surpliced line before him as if he were borne away, and had any one cried to him from the side he might almost have been able to heal with his blessing. But this short, broad, bow-legged, near-sighted man in his shabby, ill-fitting clothes! Why, it would never do to have him about him! He would mar the whole harmony of the scene. If it had not been too late and if the young man had not had such a potent influence behind him, the Doctor might have suggested some difficulties in the way of carrying through the arrangements he had proposed; but though Mrs. Argand and her brother-in-law were understood to have had some differences over certain business matters, she was very fond of her niece and she was the wealthiest woman who came to his church. The Doctor reflected, therefore, that he need not have the awkward young man about him much: and when a little later it appeared that this gawky young man was filling his chapel and neighborhood-house, poor-club and night-schools and was sending in reports which showed that real work was being done, the Doctor was well satisfied to let him remain—so well, indeed, that he never invited him to his house socially, but only held official relations with him. The report that among John Marvel's chief assistants in the work of organizing his poor-clubs and night-school was a Jew Socialist disturbed the Doctor slightly, but he reflected that when one showed such notable results it was in a way necessary to employ many curious agencies, and, after all, the association with Jews in secular affairs was a matter of taste.
XIII
MR. LEIGH.
Now, to recur to the period of my arrival in the West—the day after Miss Leigh's return home her father paid her the unusual honor of leaving his office to take lunch with her.
Her mind was full of the subject of the paper she had read in the press that morning, giving a lurid picture of the inconvenience and distress entailed on the passengers and scoring the management of the company for permitting what was claimed to be "so gross a breach of the rights of the public."
Ordinarily, she would have passed it over with indifference—a shrug of her white shoulders and a stamp of her little foot would have been all the tribute she would have paid to it. But of late she had begun to think.
It had never before been brought so clearly to the notice of the girl how her own pleasures—not the natural but the created pleasures—of which she was quite as fond as other healthy girls of her age and class, were almost exclusively at the expense of the class she had been accustomed to regard with a general sort of vague sympathy as "the Poor."
The attack on her father and herself enraged her; but, as she cooled down, a feeling deeper than mere anger at an injustice took possession of her mind.
To find that she herself had, in a way, been the occasion of the distress to women and children, startled her and left in her mind a feeling of uneasiness to which she had hitherto been a stranger.
"Father," she began, "did you see that dreadful article in the Trumpet this morning?"
Mr. Leigh, without looking up, adopted the natural line of special pleading, although he knew perfectly well instantly the article to which she referred.
"What article?" he asked.
"That story about our having delayed the passenger train with women and children on it and then having side-tracked them without breakfast, in order to give our car the right-of-way."
"Oh! yes. I believe I saw that. I see so many ridiculous things in the newspapers, I pay no attention to them."
"But, father, that was a terrible arraignment," said the girl.
"Of whom?" asked Mr. Leigh, with a little twinkle in his eye.
"Why, of you; of Aunt Sophia, of——"
"Of me!"
"Yes, and of me—of everybody connected with the road."
"Not of you, my dear," said Mr. Leigh, with the light of affection warming up his rather cold face. "Surely no one, even the anarchistic writers of the anarchistic press, could imagine anything to say against you."
"Yes, of me, too, though not by name, perhaps; but I was there and I was in a way the cause of the trouble, because the car was sent after me and Aunt Sophia, and I feel terribly guilty about it."
"Guilty of what, my dear?" smiled her father. "Of simply using your own property in a way satisfactory to you?"
"That is just it, father; that is the point which the writer raises. Is it our own property?"
"It certainly is, my love. Property that I have paid for—my associates and I—and which I control, or did control, in conjunction with the other owners, and propose to control to suit myself and them so long as we have the controlling interest, every socialistic writer, speaker and striker to the contrary notwithstanding."
"Well," said the girl, "that sounds all right. It looks as if you ought to be able to do what you like with your own; but, do you know, father, I am not sure that it is our own. That is just the point—he says——"
"Oh! nonsense!" said her father lightly. "Don't let this Jew go and fill your clear little head with such foolishness as that. Enjoy life while you can. Make your mind easy, and get all the use you can out of what I have amassed for you. I only hope you may have as much pleasure in using it as I have had in providing it."
The banker gazed over at his daughter half-quizzically, half-seriously, took out a cigar, and began to clip the end leisurely. The girl laughed. She knew that he had something on his mind.
"Well, what is it?" she asked smiling.
He gave a laugh. "Don't go and imagine that because that Jew can write he is any the less a—don't go and confound him and his work. It is the easiest thing in the world to pick flaws—to find the defects in any system. The difficult thing is constructive work."
She nodded.
"Did that foreigner go down there while you were there?"
"The Count?"
"The No-Count."
"No, of course not. Where did you get such an idea?"
He lighted his cigar with a look of relief, put it in his mouth, and sat back in his chair.
"Don't let your Aunt Sophia go and make a fool of you. She is a very good business woman, but you know she is not exactly—Solomon, and she is stark mad about titles. When you marry, marry a man."
"Mr. Canter, for example?" laughed the girl. "He is Aunt Sophia's second choice. She is always talking about his money."
"She is always talking about somebody's money, generally her own. But before I'd let that fellow have you I'd kill him with my own hand. He's the worst young man I know. Why, if I could tell you half—yes, one-tenth, of the things I have heard about him—But I can't tell you—only don't go and let anybody pull the wool over your eyes."
"No fear of that," said the girl.
"No, I don't know that there is. I think you've got a pretty clear little head on your shoulders. But when any one gets—gets—why, gets her feelings enlisted you can't just count on her, you know. And with your Aunt Sophy ding-donging at you and flinging her sleek Count and her gilded fools at you, it takes a good head to resist her."
The girl reassured him with a smile of appreciation.
"I don't know where she got that from," continued her father. "It must have been that outside strain, the Prenders. Your mother did not have a trace of it in her. I never saw two half-sisters so different. She'd have married anybody on earth she cared for—and when she married me I had nothing in the world except what my father chose to give me and no very great expectations. She had a rich fellow from the South tagging after her—a big plantation and lots of slaves and all that, and your Aunt Sophy was all for her marrying him—a good chap, too—a gentleman and all that; but she turned him down and took me. And I made my own way. What I have I made afterward—by hard work till I got a good start, and then it came easy enough. The trouble since has been to keep others from stealing it from me—and that's more trouble than to make it, I can tell you—what between strikers, gamblers, councilmen, and other knaves, I have a hard time to hold on to what I have."
"I know you have to work very hard," said the girl, her eyes on him full of affection. "Why, this is the first time I've had you up to lunch with me in months. I felt as much honored as if it had been the King of England."
"That's it—I have to stay down there to keep the robbers from running off with my pile. That young fellow thought he'd get a little swipe at it, but I taught him a thing or two. He's a plunger. His only idea is to make good by doubling up—all right if the market's rising and you can double. But it's a dangerous game, especially if one tries to recoup at the faro table."
"Does he play faro?" asked the girl.
"He plays everything, mainly Merry H—l. I beg your pardon—I didn't mean to say that before you, but he does. And if his father didn't come to his rescue and plank up every time he goes broke, he'd have been in the bankrupt court—or jail—and that's where he'll wind up yet if he don't look out."
"I don't believe you like him," laughed the girl.
"Oh! yes, I do. I like him well enough—he is amusing rather, he is gay, careless, impudent—he's the main conduit through which I extract money from old Prender's coffers. He never spends anything unless you pay him two gold dollars down for one paper one on the spot. But I want him to keep away from you, that's all; I suppose I've got to lose you some time, but I'll be hanged if I want to give you up to a blackguard—a gambler—a rou—a lib—a d——d blackguard like that."
"Well, you will never have that to do," said the girl; "I promise you that."
"How is the strike coming on?" asked his daughter. "When I went away it was just threatening, and I read in the papers that the negotiations failed and the men were ordered out; but I haven't seen much about it in the papers since, though I have looked."
"Oh! Yes—it's going on, over on the other lines across town, in a desultory sort of way," said her father wearily—"the fools! They won't listen to any reason."
"Poor people!" sighed the girl. "Why did they go out?"
"Poor fools!" said Mr. Leigh warmly; "they walked out for nothing more than they always have had."
"I saw that they had some cause; what was it?"
"Oh! they've always some cause. If they didn't have one they'd make it. Now they are talking of extending it over our lines."
"Our lines! Why?"
"Heaven knows. We've done everything they demanded—in reason. They talk about a sympathetic strike. I hear that a fellow has come on to bring it about. Poor fools!"
The girl gave him a smile of affection as he pushed back his chair. And leaning over her as he walked toward the door, he gave her a kiss of mingled pride and affection. But when he had left the room she sat still for some moments, looking straight ahead of her, her brow slightly puckered with thought which evidently was not wholly pleasant, and then with a sweeping motion of her hand she pushed her chair back, and, as she arose from the table, said: "I wish I knew what is right!" That moment a new resolution entered her mind, and, ringing the bell for the servant, she ordered her carriage.
XIV
MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK
She drove first to Dr. Capon's church and, going around, walked in at the side door near the east end, where the robing rooms and the rector's study were. She remembered to have seen on a door somewhere there a sign on which was painted in gilded letters the fact that the rector's office hours were from 12 to 1 on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and this was Thursday. The hour, however, was now nearly three, and she had called only on a chance of catching him, a chance which a stout and gloomy looking verger, who appeared from somewhere at her foot-fall, told her at first was lost; but when he recognized her, he changed his air, grew quite interested, and said he would see if the doctor was in. He had been there he knew after lunch, but he might have left. He entered and closed the door softly behind him, leaving the girl in the gloom, but a moment later he returned and showed her in. The rector, with a smile of unfeigned pleasure on his face, was standing just beside a handsome mahogany writing desk, near a window, awaiting her entry, and he greeted her with cordiality.
"Oh! my dear young lady, come in. I was just about going off, and I'm glad I happened to have lingered a little—getting ready to launch a new year-book." He laid his fingers on a batch of printer's proof lying on the desk beside a stock bulletin. "I was just thinking what a bore it is and lo! it turned into a blessing like Balaam's curse. What can I do for you?" The rector's large blue eyes rested on his comely parishioner with a spark in them that was not from any spiritual fire.
"Well, I don't know," said the girl doubtfully.
"I see you were at the grand ball, or whatever it was last night, and I was so delighted to see that it was for a charitable object—and the particular object which I saw."
"Yes, it is for Mr. Marvel's work out among the poor," said Miss Leigh. The rector's expression changed slightly.
"Oh! yes, that is our work. You know that is our chapel. I built it. The ball must have been a great success. It was the first knowledge I had that you and your dear aunt had returned." His voice had a tone of faint reproach in it.
"Yes, we returned yesterday. I wish the papers would leave me alone," she added.
"Ah! my dear young lady, there are many who would give a great deal to be chronicled by the public prints as you are. The morning and evening star is always mentioned while the little asteroids go unnoticed."
"Well, I don't know about that," said the girl, "but I do wish the papers would let me alone—and my father too."
"Oh! yes, to be sure. I did not know what you were referring to. That was an outrageous attack. So utterly unfounded, too, absolutely untrue. Such scurrilous attacks deserve the reprobation of all thinking men."
"The trouble is that the attack was untrue; but the story was not unfounded."
"What! What do you mean?" The clergyman's face wore a puzzled expression.
"That our car was hitched on to the train——"
"And why shouldn't it be, my dear young lady? Doesn't the road belong to your father; at least, to your family—and those whom they represent?"
"I don't know that it does, and that is one reason why I have come to see you."
"Of course, it does. You will have to go to a lawyer to ascertain the exact status of the title; but I have always understood it does. Why, your aunt, Mrs. Argand, owns thousands of shares, doesn't she, and your father?" A grave suspicion suddenly flitted across his mind relative to a rumor he had heard of heavy losses by Mr. Leigh and large gains by Mr. Canter, the president of the road, and his associates who, according to this rumor, were hostile to Mr. Leigh.
"I don't know, but even if they do, I am not sure that that makes them owners. Did you read that article?"
"No—well, not all of it—I glanced over a part of it, enough to see that it was very scurrilous, that's all. The headlines were simply atrocious. The article itself was not so wickedly——"
"I should like to do some work among the poor," said the girl irrelevantly.
"Why, certainly—just what we need—the earnest interest and assistance of just such persons as yourself, of your class; the good, earnest, representatives of the upper class. If we had all like you there would be no cry from Macedonia."
"Well, how can I go about it?" demanded the girl rather cutting in on the rector's voluble reply.
"Why, you can teach in the Sunday-school—we have a class of nice girls, ladies, you know, a very small one—and I could make my superintendent arrange for Miss—for the lady who now has them to take another class—one of the orphan classes."
"No, I don't mean that kind of thing. If I taught at all I should like to try my hand at the orphan class myself."
"Well, that could be easily arranged—" began the rector; but his visitor kept on without heeding him.
"Only I should want to give them all different hats and dresses. I can't bear to see all those poor little things dressed exactly in the same way—sad, drab or gray frocks, all cut by the same pattern—and the same hats, year in and year out."
"Why, they have new hats every year," expostulated the rector.
"I mean the same kind of hat. Tall and short; stout and thin; slim or pudgy; they all wear the same horrible, round hats—I can't bear to look at them. I vow I'd give them all a different hat for Christmas."
"Oh! my dear, you can't do that—you would spoil them—and it's against the regulations. You must remember that these children are orphans!"
"Being orphans is bad enough," declared the girl, "but those hats are worse. Well, I can't teach them, but I might try some other poor class?"
"Why, let me see. The fact is that we haven't any"—he was speaking slowly, casting his mind over his field—"very poor people in this church. There used to be a number; but they don't come any more. They must have moved out of the neighborhood. I must make my assistant look them up."
"You have no poor, then?"
"Not in this congregation. The fact is this church is not very well suited to them. They don't mix with our people. You see our class of people—of course, we are doing a great work among the poor, our chapels—we have three, one of them, indeed, is a church and larger than many independent churches. Another has given me some anxiety, but the third is doing quite a remarkable work among the working people out in the east end—that under my assistant, the young man you interested yourself so much in last year—and which your ball committee was good enough to consider in selecting the object of its benevolence."
"Yes, I know—Mr. Marvel. I will go out there."
"Oh! my dear, you couldn't go out there!"
"Why not? I want to see him."
"Why, it is away out on the edge of the city—what you might call the jumping-off place—among manufactories and railroad shops."
"Yes, I know. I have been out there."
"You have—why, it is away out. It is on—I don't recall the name of the street. It's away out. I know it's near the street-car terminus that your family own. It's a very pretty chapel indeed. Don't you think so? It is natural that you should take an interest in it, as your aunt, Mrs. Argand, helped us to build it. She gave the largest contribution toward it. I don't know what we should do without charitable women like her."
"Yes, I know. And Mr. Marvel is coming on well?"
A change came over the face of the rector. "Oh, very well—rather an ungainly fellow and very slow, but doing a very good work for our parish. I have been wanting to get the Bishop to go there all this year as there are a number of candidates for me to present; but he has been so busy and I have been so busy——"
"I will go there," said Miss Leigh, rising.
"I don't think you will like it," urged the rector. "It is a very bad part of the town—almost dangerous, indeed—filled with working people and others of that sort, and I don't suppose a carriage ever——"
"I will go in the street cars," said the girl.
"The street cars! Yes, you could go that way, but why not come here and let me assign you a class?"
"I wish to work among the poor."
"The happy poor!" said the rector, smiling. "Why not come and help me in my work—who need you so much?" His voice had changed suddenly and he attempted to possess himself of the gloved hand that rested on his table, but it was suddenly withdrawn.
"I thought we had settled that finally last year," said Miss Leigh firmly.
"Ah, yes; but the heart is not so easily regulated."
"Oh! yes, yours is. Why don't you try Aunt Sophia again?"
"Try—again?—who?" The rector was manifestly somewhat embarrassed.
"Why, Aunt Sophia—'the evening star,'" said Miss Leigh, laughing.
"Who says—? Did she say I had—ah—addressed her?"
"No—I got it from you. Come on now——"
"Which way are you going? That is just my way. May I have the pleasure of driving up with you? I must go and see your aunt and welcome her back. One moment." He had shown the young lady out of the door. He now turned back and folding up the stock bulletin placed it carefully in his pocket.
As the carriage with its smart team turned into one of the broader streets, two young men were standing in a window of a large building highly decorated, looking idly out on the street. They had just been talking of the threatened strike which the newspapers were discussing, as to which they held similar views.
"I tell you what is the matter with those scoundrels," said the elder of the two, a large, pampered young fellow; "they need cold steel—they ought to be made to work."
"How would that suit us?" laughed the other.
"We don't have to."
"Hello! What's old Bart after?" observed the first one.
"Shekels," said the other, and yawned.
"After her—he's taking notice."
"Oh! no; he's wedded to the tape—goes into the Grand five times a day and reads the tape."
"Bet you, he courts her."
"How'll you prove it?"
"Ask her."
"Bet you you daren't ask her."
"How much?"
"What you like."
"I don't want to win your money."
"Don't you? Then hand me back that little fifteen hundred you picked up from me last week."
"That was square, but this is a certainty."
"I'd chance it—bet you a thousand, Jim, you daren't ask her to her face if old Bart isn't courting her and hasn't asked her to marry him."
"Oh! that's different. You want to make me put up and then make my bet for me. I tell you what I'll bet—that she's the only girl I know I wouldn't ask that."
"That may be. Now, I tell you what I'll bet—that you want a drink—ring the bell."
"That's a certainty, too," laughed his friend, and they turned and sank wearily in deep chairs till a drink should give them energy to start a fresh discussion.
Having put down the Rev. Bartholomew at the door of her aunt's imposing mansion, Eleanor Leigh, after a moment of indecision, directed her coachman to drive to a certain street in the section known as "down-town," and there she stopped at a pleasant looking old house, and jumping out of the carriage, ran up the worn stone steps and rang the bell. It was a street that had once been fashionable, as the ample, well-built houses and the good doors and windows testified. But that fickle jade, Fashion, had long since taken her flight to other and more pretentious sections and shops, loan-offices, and small grocers' markets had long engulfed the mansions of the last generation. Had any gauge of the decadence of the quarter been needed it might have been found in the scornful air of Miss Leigh's stout coachman as he sat on his box. He looked unutterably disgusted, and his chin was almost as high as the chins of his tightly reined-up horses.
Miss Leigh asked of the rather slatternly girl who came to the door, if the Miss Tippses were in, and if so, would they see her. When the maid went to see if they were at home, Miss Leigh was shown into a large and very dark room with chairs of many patterns, all old, placed about in it, a horsehair sofa on one side, a marble-topped table in the centre; an upright piano on the other side, and on a small table a large piece of white coral under a glass cover. Where the fireplace had once been, a large register now stood grating off the heat that might try in vain to escape through it.
Presently the maid returned. "Miss Pansy" was in, and would the lady please walk up. It was in the third story, back, at the top of the stairs. Miss Leigh ran up and tapped on the door, waited and tapped again. Then, as there was no answer, she opened the door cautiously and peeped in. It was a small hall-room, bare of furniture except two chairs, a sewing-machine, a table on which was an ironing-board at which at the moment stood a little old lady with a forehead so high as to be almost bald. She was clad in a rusty black skirt, a loose morning sacque of blue cotton, and she wore loose bedroom-slippers. Her sleeves were rolled up, and her arms were thin and skinny. She held a flat-iron in her hand, with which she had evidently been ironing a white under-garment which lay on the board, and another one was on a little gas-stove which stood near a stationary wash-stand. As Miss Leigh opened the door, the old lady gave a little exclamation of dismay and her hand went involuntarily to her throat.
"Oh! I beg your pardon!" said the girl, starting to retire and close the door; "I thought the servant told me——"
By this time the other had recovered herself.
"Oh! come in, won't you?" she said, with a smile and in a voice singularly soft and refined. "My sister will be ready to receive you in a moment. I was only a little startled. The fact is," she said laughing, "I thought the door was bolted; but sometimes the bolt does not go quite in. My sister—Won't you take a chair? Let me remove those things." She took up the pile of under-garments that was on one chair and placed it on top of a pile of dishes and other things on the other.
"Oh! I am so sorry," protested the girl, who observed that she was concealing the dishes; "I was sure the girl told me it was the door at the head of the stairs."
"She is the stupidest creature—that girl. I must really get my sister to speak to Mrs. Kale about her. I would, except that I am afraid the poor thing might lose her place. There is another door just off the little passage that she probably meant."
"Yes—probably. It was I that was stupid."
"Oh! no, not at all. You must excuse the disorder you find. The fact is, this is our work-room, and we were just—I was just doing a little ironing to get these things finished. When your card was brought up—well, we both were—and as my sister is so much quicker, she ran to get ready and I thought I would just finish this when I was at it, and you would excuse me."
"Oh! I am so sorry. I wouldn't for anything have interrupted you," repeated the girl, observing how all the time she was trying unobtrusively to arrange her poor attire, rolling down her sleeves and smoothing her darned skirt, all the while with a furtive glance of her eye toward the door.
"Oh! my dear, I wouldn't have had you turned away for anything in the world. My sister would be désolée. We have a better room than this, where we usually receive our visitors. You will see what a nice room it is. We can't very well afford to have two rooms; but this is too small for us to live in comfortably and we have to keep it because it has a stationary wash-stand with hot water, which enables us to do our laundering."
"Yes, I see," murmured Miss Leigh softly.
"You see, we earn our living by making underclothes for—for a firm——"
"I see, and what nice work you do." She was handling a garment softly.
"Yes, my sister does beautiful work; and I used to do pretty well, too; but I am troubled a little with my eyes lately. The light isn't very good at night—and the gas is so expensive. I don't see quite as well as I used to do."
"How much can you do?" asked her visitor, who had been making a mental calculation.
"Why, I—It is hard to tell. I do the coarser work and my sister does the finishing; then she usually launders and I iron when I am able. I suffer with rheumatism so that I can't help her very much."
"I hope you make them pay you well for it," blurted out the girl.
"Why, we used to get a very good price. We got till recently seven cents apiece, but now it has been cut down—that was for everything, laundering and ironing, too. We are glad to get that."
"How on earth do you manage to live on it?"
"Oh! we live very well—very well, indeed," said the little lady cheerfully. "Mrs. Kale is very good to us. She lets us have the rooms cheaper than she would any one else. You see she used to know us when we lived back in the East. Her father was a clerk in our father's office, and her mother went to school with us. Then when we lost everything and were turned out, we found we had to make our own living and we came here to see about our case, and she found we were here—and that's the way we came to be here. But don't you let my sister know I told you about the sewing," she said, dropping her voice, as a brisk step was heard outside the door. "Ah! here she is now!" as at the moment the door opened and a brisk little old lady, almost the counterpart of her sister, except that she might have been ten years her junior, that is, sixty instead of seventy years of age, tripped into the room.
"Oh! my dear Miss Leigh, how good of you to come all the way out here to call on us! Sister, what in the world are you doing? Why will you do this? I can't keep her from amusing herself! (This with a shake of the head and a comical appeal for sympathy from her visitor.) Won't you walk into our sitting-room? Now, sister, do go and make yourself presentable. You know she will slave over all sorts of queer things. She really loves sewing and ironing. I'm quite ashamed to have you come into this pig-sty. Walk in, won't you?" And she led the way into a larger room adjoining the work-room, leaving Miss Leigh in doubt which was the more pathetic, the little old lady still delving over the ironing-board, making no pretence to conceal their poverty, or the other in her poor "best," trying to conceal the straits in which they were fallen.
Eleanor had observed that the older sister's gaze had constantly rested on the rose she wore, and as they were going out, the latter called her sister's attention to it. She said, she thought it possibly the most beautiful rose she had ever seen.
"Won't you have it?" said Eleanor, and unpinned it.
"Oh! no, indeed, I wouldn't deprive you of it for anything. It is just where it ought to be."
Eleanor persisted, and finally overcame both her reluctance and her sister's objection.
She was struck with the caressing way in which she took and held it, pressing it against her withered cheek.
"Sister, don't you remember the Giant-of-Battles we used to have in our garden at Rosebank? This reminds me of it so—its fragrance is just the same."
"Yes. We used to have a great many roses," explained the younger sister, as she led the way into the next room as if she were asking Eleanor into a palace, though this room was almost as bare of furniture as the other, the chief difference being an upright case which was manifestly a folding-bed, and a table on which were a score of books, and a few old daguerreotypes.
"Your friend, Mr. Marvel, was here the other day. What a nice young man he is."
"Yes," said Eleanor. "I am going out to see him. Where has he moved to?" Miss Pansy said she did not know the street; but her sister had the address. She would go and see. When she came back, she went over and opened the old Bible lying on the table. "Here is where we keep the addresses of those we especially value," she said, smiling. "Oh! here it is. When he was here the other day, he brought us a treat; a whole half-dozen oranges; won't you let me prepare you one? They are so delicious."
Eleanor, who had been holding a bank-note clutched in her hand, thanked her with a smile, but said she must go. She walked across the room, and took up the Bible casually, and when she laid it down it gaped a little in a new place.
"Oh, you know we have had quite an adventure," said Miss Pansy.
"An adventure? Tell me about it."
"Why, you must know there is a young man here I am sure must be some one in disguise. He is so—well, not exactly handsome, but really distinguished looking, and he knows all about railroads and things like that."
"You'd better look out for him," said Miss Leigh.
"Oh, do you think so? My sister and I were thinking of consulting him about our affairs—our railroad case, you know."
"Oh! Well, what do you know about him?"
"Nothing yet. You see, he has just come; but he joined us on the street this morning when we were going out—just shopping—and offered to take our bundles—just two little bundles we had in our hands, and was so polite. My dear, he has quite the grand air!"
"Oh, I see. Well, that does not necessarily make him a safe adviser. Why not let me ask my father about your matter? He is a railroad man, and could tell you in a minute all about it."
"Oh, could you? That would be so kind in you."
"But you must tell me the name of the road in which you had the stock."
"Oh, my dear. I don't know that I can do that. I only know that it was the Transcontinental and something and something else. I know that much, because it was only about sixty miles long, and we used to say that the name was longer than the road. My father used to say that it would some day be a link in a transcontinental chain—that's where it got its name, you know."
"Well, look out for your prince in disguise," said the girl, smiling as she rose to take her leave.
That evening at dinner, after Eleanor had given her father an account of her day, with which she always beguiled him, including a description of her visit to the two old ladies, she suddenly asked, "Father, what railroad was it that used to be known as the Transcontinental Something and Something?'"
"The what?"
"The 'Transcontinental Something and Something Else?' It was about sixty miles long, and was bought up by some bigger road and reorganized."
"I suppose you mean the 'Transcontinental, North-western and Great Iron Range Road.' That about meets the condition you mention. What do you know about it?"
"Was it reorganized?"
"Yes; about twenty years ago, and again about ten years ago. I never quite understood the last reorganization. Mr. Argand had it done—and bought up most of the stock."
"Was any one squeezed out?"
"Sure—always are in such cases. That is the object of a reorganization—partly. Why are you so interested in it?" Mr. Leigh's countenance wore an amused look.
"I have two friends—old ladies—who lost everything they had in it."
"I guess it wasn't much. What is their name?"
"It was all they had. They are named Tipps."
Mr. Leigh's expression changed from amusement to seriousness. "Tipps—Tipps?" he repeated reminiscently. "Bassett Tipps? I wonder if they were connected with Bassett Tipps?"
"They were his daughters—that was their father's name. I remember now, Miss Pansy told me once."
"You don't say so! Why, I used to know Colonel Tipps when he was the big man of this region. He commanded this department before I came out here to live, and the old settlers thought he was as great a man as General Washington. He gave old Argand his start. He built that road,—was, in fact, a man of remarkable foresight, and if he had not been killed—Argand was his agent and general factotum—They didn't come into the reorganization, I guess?"
"That's it—they did not—and now they want to get their interest back."
"Well, tell them to save their money," said Mr. Leigh. "It's gone—they can't get it back."
"They want you to get it back for them."
"Me!" exclaimed Mr. Leigh. "They want me to get it back! Oh, ho-ho! They'd better go after your Aunt Sophia and Canter."
"Yes; I told them you would."
"You did?" Mr. Leigh's eyes once more lit up with amusement.
"Yes: you see they were robbed of every cent they had in the world, and they have not a cent left."
"Oh! no, they were not robbed. Everything was properly done and absolutely regular, as I remember. It must have been. I think there was some sort of claim presented afterward by the Tipps Estate which was turned down. Let me see; McSheen had the claim, and he gave it up—that was when? Let me see. He became counsel for your Uncle Argand in—what year was it?—you were a baby—it must have been eighteen years ago."
"That was nineteen years ago, sir. I am now twenty," said his daughter, sitting up with a very grand air.
The father's eyes lit up with pride and affection as he gazed at the trim, straight figure and the glowing face.
"You were just a little baby—so big." He measured a space of about two span with his hands. "That was your size then, for I know I thought your Uncle Argand might have made me counsel instead of McSheen. But he didn't. And that was McSheen's start."
"He sold out," said the girl with decision.
"Oh, no—I don't think he would do that. He is a lawyer."
"Yes, he would. He's a horrid, old, disreputable rascal. I've always thought it, and now I know it. And I want you to get my old ladies' interest back for them."
"I can't do that. No one can. It's too long ago. If they ever had a claim it's all barred, long ago."
"It oughtn't to be—if it was stolen," persisted his daughter, "and it was."
XV
THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS
Having decided that Mrs. Kale's did not present the best advantages, I determined to move to more suitable quarters. I chose a boarding-house, partly by accident and partly because it was in a semi-fashionable quarter which I liked, and I paid Mrs. Starling, the landlady, a decisive person, two weeks' board in advance, so as to have that long a lease at any rate, and a point from which to take my bearings. I had learned of the place through Kalender, who was deeply enamored of Miss Starling, a Byzantine-hued young lady, and who regarded the house somewhat as Adam is assumed to have regarded Eden after his banishment. Mrs. Starling was, in this case, the angel of the flaming sword. She had higher ambitions for Miss Starling.
I had less than forty dollars left, and fifteen of that was borrowed next day by a fellow-boarder named Pushkin, who occupied the big front room adjoining my little back hall-room, and who had "forgotten to draw any money out of bank," he said, but would "return it the next day at dinner time," a matter he also forgot. I was particularly struck with him not because he had a title and was much kotowed to by our landlady and her boarders—especially the ladies, as because I recalled his name in juxtaposition with Miss Leigh's in the flamboyant account of the ball the night after I arrived.
I was now ensconced in a little pigeon-hole of an office in a big building near the court-house, where, with a table, two chairs, and a dozen books, I had opened what I called my "law office," without a client or an acquaintance; but with abundant hopes.
I found the old principle on which I had been reared set at naught, and that life in its entirety was a vast struggle based on selfishness.
I was happy enough at first, and it was well I was. It was a long time before I was happy again. Having in mind Miss Leigh, I wrote and secured a few letters of introduction; but they were from people who did not care anything for me to people who did not care anything about them—semi-fashionable folk, mainly known in social circles, and I had no money to throw away on society. One, indeed, a friend of mine had gotten for me from Mr. Poole to a man of high standing both in business and social circles, the president of a manufacturing company, with which, as I learned later, Mr. Poole had formerly some connection. This gentleman's name was Leigh, and I wondered if he were the same person who had been posted by Kalender at the head of my story of the delayed train. I thought of presenting the letter. It, however, was so guarded that I thought it would not do me the least good, and, besides, I did not wish to owe anything to Lilian Poole's father, for I felt sure his influence had always been against me, and I was still too sore to be willing to accept a favor at his hands.
It was well I did not present it, for Mr. Poole with well-considered and characteristic prudence, had written a private letter restricting the former letter to mere social purposes, and had intimated that I had been a failure in my profession and was inclined to speculate. This character he had obtained, as I subsequently learned, from Peck.
The new conditions with which I was confronted had a singular effect on me. I was accustomed to a life where every one knew me and I knew, if not every one, at least something good or bad about every one.
Here I might have committed anything short of murder or suicide without comment, and might have committed both without any one outside of the reporters and the police and Dix caring a straw about it.
I felt peculiarly lonely because I was inclined to be social and preferred to associate with the first man I met on the street to being alone. In fact, I have always accounted it one of my chief blessings that I could find pleasure and entertainment for a half-hour in the company of any man in the world except a fool or a man of fashion, as the old writers used to speak of them, or as we call them now, members of the smart set.
The first things that struck me as I stepped out into the thronged streets of the city were the throngs that hurried, hurried, hurried along, like a torrent pouring through a defile, never stopping nor pausing—only flowing on, intent on but one thing—getting along. Their faces, undistinguished and indistinguishable in the crowd, were not eager, but anxious. There was no rest, and no room for rest, more than in the rapids of Niagara. It was the bourgeoisie at flood, strong, turgid, and in mass, ponderant; but inextinguishably common. As I stood among them, yet not of them, I could not but remark how like they were in mass and how not merely all distinction but all individuality perished in the mixing. I recalled a speech that my father had once made. "I prefer countrymen," he said, "to city men. The latter are as like as their coats. The ready-made-clothing house is a great civilizer, but also a great leveler. Like the common school of which you boast, it may uplift the mass, but it levels—it destroys all distinction."
This came home to me now.
I had a proof of its truth, and, I may add, of the effect of urban influences not long after I launched on the restless sea of city life. I was passing one day along a street filled with houses, some much finer than others, when my way was blocked by a child's funeral in front of a small but neat house beside one much more pretentious. The white hearse stood at the door and the little white coffin with a few flowers on it was just about to be borne out as I came up. A child's funeral has always appealed to me peculiarly. It seems so sad to have died on the threshold before even opening the door. It appeared to me suddenly to have brought me near to my kind. And I stopped in front of the adjoining house to wait till the sorrowing little cortege had entered the carriage which followed behind the hearse. A number of other persons had done the same thing. At this moment, the door of the larger house next door opened, and a woman, youngish and well-dressed, appeared and stood on her steps waiting for her carriage which stood at some little distance.
As I was standing near her, I turned and asked her in an undertone:
"Can you tell me whose funeral this is?"
"No, I cannot," she said, so sharply that I took a good look at her as she stood trying to button a tight glove.
"Oh! I thought, perhaps, you knew as they are your next-door neighbors."
"Well, I do not. It's no concern of mine," she said shortly. She beckoned to her carriage across the way. The coachman who had been looking at the funeral caught sight of her and with a start wheeled his horses around to draw up. The number of persons, however, who had stopped like myself prevented his coming up to her door, which appeared to annoy the lady.
"Can't you move these people on?" she demanded angrily of a stout officer who stood like the rest of us, looking on.
"It's a funeral," he said briefly.
"Well, I know it is. I don't expect you to interfere with that. It's these idlers and curiosity mongers who block the way that I want moved to clear a way for my carriage. And if you can't do it, I'll ask Mr. McSheen to put a man on this beat who can. As it happens I am going there now." Insolence could go no farther.
"Let that carriage come up here, will you?" said the officer without changing his expression. "Drive up, lad," he beckoned to the coachman who came as near as he could.
"To Mrs. McSheen's," said the lady in a voice evidently intended for the officer to hear, "and next time, don't stand across the street staring at what you have no business with, but keep your eyes open so that you won't keep me waiting half an hour beckoning to you." She entered the carriage and drove off, making a new attack on her glove to close it over a pudgy wrist. I glanced at the coachman as she closed the door and I saw an angry gleam flash in his eye. And when I turned to the officer he was following the carriage with a look of hate. I suddenly felt drawn to them both, and the old fight between the People and the Bourgeoisie suddenly took shape before me, and I found where my sympathies lay. At this moment the officer turned and I caught his eye and held it. It was hard and angry at first, but as he gave me a keen second glance, he saw something in my face and his eye softened.
"Who is Mr. McSheen?" I asked.
"The next mayor," he said briefly.
"Oh!" I took out my card under an impulse and scribbled my office address on it and handed it to him. "If you have any trouble about this let me know."
He took it and turning it slowly gazed at it, at first with a puzzled look. Then as he saw the address his expression changed.
He opened his coat and put it carefully in his pocket.
"Thank you, sir," he said finally.
I turned away with the consciousness that I had had a new light thrown on life, and had found it more selfish than I had dreamed. I had begun with high hopes. It was, indeed, ever my nature to be hopeful, being healthy and strong and in the prime of vigorous youth. I was always rich when at my poorest, only my heavy freighted ship had not come in. I knew that though the larder was lean and storms were beating furiously off the coast, somewhere, beating her way against the contrary winds, the argosy was slowly making headway, and some day I should find her moored beside my pier and see her stores unladen at my feet. The stress and storm of the struggle were not unwelcome to me. I was always a good fighter when aroused; but I was lazy and too indolent to get aroused. Now, however, I was wide awake. The greatness of the city stirred my pulses. Its blackness and its force aroused my sleeping powers, and as I stepped into the surf and felt the rush of the tides as they swept about and by me, I felt as a fair swimmer might who steps for the first time in a fierce current and feels it clutch his limbs and draw him in. I was not afraid, only awakened and alive to the struggle before me, and my senses thrilled as I plunged and rose to catch my breath and face the vast unknown. Later on I found that the chief danger I had not counted on: the benumbing of the senses, the slow process under which spirit, energy, courage, and even hope finally die.
One who has never had the experience of starting in a big city alone, without a connection of any kind, cannot conceive what it means: the loneliness—utter as in a desert—the waiting—the terrible waiting—being obliged to sit day after day and just wait for business to come, watching your small funds ooze out drop by drop, seeing men pass your door and enter others' offices and never one turn in at yours, till your spirit sinks lower and lower and your heart dies within you. One who has not felt it does not know what it is to be out of work and not able to get it. The rich and fat and sleek—the safe and secure—what know they of want! Want, not of money, but of work: the only capital of the honest and industrious poor! It is the spectre that ever haunts the poor. It makes the world look as though the whole system of society were out of joint—as if all men were in conspiracy against you—as if God had forgotten you. I found men in a harder case than mine—men in multitude, with wives and children, the babe perishing at the mother's withered breast, the children dying for food, staggering along the streets seeking work in vain, while wealth in a glittering flood poured through the streets in which they perished. This bitter knowledge I came to learn day after day till I grew almost to hate mankind. The next step is war against society. Not all who wage it hate the men they fight. It is the cause they hate. There I sat day after day, full of hope and eagerness and—now that my conceit was somewhat knocked out of me—with not only abundant ability, but the stern resolve to transact any business which might be entrusted to me, and just rotted to despair. No wonder men go to the devil, and enlist to fight the whole establishment of organized society. I almost went. When I look back at it now it seems like a miracle that I did not go wholly. Pride saved me. It survived long after hope died. Sometimes, I even thought of the pistol I had in my trunk. But I had made up my mind to live and win. There, too, came in Pride. I could not bear to think of Lilian Poole and Peck. How she would congratulate herself and how Peck would gloat! No, I could not give him that satisfaction. Peck did me a good turn there. A strong enmity, well based, is not always without good results; but Peck should not smear my memory with pretended pity. So I starved, but held on. When I got so that I could endure it no longer, I used to go out and walk up and down the streets—sometimes the fashionable streets—and look at the handsome residences and the fine carriages and automobiles flashing by and the handsomely dressed people passing, and recall that I was as good as they—in my heart, I thought, better. Some of them with kind faces I used to fancy my friends; but that they did not know I was in town. This conceit helped me. And at times I used to fancy that I lived in a particular house, and owned a particular team: thus living for a brief moment like a child in "making pictures." A house is sometimes personal and well-nigh human to me. It appears to have qualities almost human and to express them on its face: kindness, hostility, arrogance, breadth or narrowness, and brutal selfishness are often graven on its front. I have often felt that I could tell from the outside of a house the characteristics of the people within. Arrogance, ignorance, want of tact, pretentiousness and display, spoke from every massy doorway and gaudy decoration with a loudness which would have shocked a savage. This being so, what characters some of the wealthy people of our cities must have! It must be one of the compensations of the poor that the houses of the rich are often so hideous and unhome-like.
The mansion I selected finally as mine was a light stone mansion, simple in its style, but charming in its proportions; not one of the largest, but certainly one of the prettiest in the whole city. Amid a waste of splendid vulgarity it was almost perfect in its harmonious architectural design and lines, and had a sunny, homelike look. It stood in an ample lot with sun and air all around it, and grass and flowers about it. Our fathers used to say, "seated," which has a more established and restful sound. It looked a home of refinement and ease. Its stable was set back some distance behind and a little to one side, so that I could see that it was of the same stone with the mansion and just enough of the same general style to indicate that it belonged to the mansion, and the teams that came out of it were the nattiest and daintiest in the city.
One day as I was walking, trying to divert myself from my loneliness, a brougham rolled out of this stable with a pair of airy, prancing bays, shining like satin, and drew up to the carriage-block a little before me, and a young lady came out of the house as I passed by. My heart gave a leap, for it was the girl I had seen on the train. I took her in, rather than scanned her as she tripped down the stone steps, and she glanced at me for a second as if she thought I might be an acquaintance. She made as she stood there one of the loveliest pictures I had ever laid eyes on: her trim, slim figure, exquisitely dressed, in the quietest way; soft, living brown hair, brushed back from a white, broad forehead; beautiful, speaking eyes under nearly straight brows; and a mouth neither too big for beauty nor too small for character; all set off by a big black hat with rich plumes that made a background for what I thought the loveliest face I had ever seen.
Something pleasant had evidently just happened within; for she came out of the door smiling, and I observed at the same moment her eyes and her dimples. I wondered that people did not always smile: that smile suddenly lit up everything for me. I forgot my loneliness, my want of success, myself. Her hands were full of parcels as she came down the steps, and just as I passed the wind lifted the paper from one—a bunch of flowers, and in trying to recover it she dropped another and it rolled down to my feet. I picked it up and handed it to her. It was a ball, one of those big, squashy, rubber balls with painted rings around it, that are given to small children because they cannot do anything with them. She thanked me sweetly and was turning to her carriage, when under a sudden impulse, I stepped to the door, just as I should have done at home, and, lifting my hat, said, "I beg your pardon, but mayn't I open your door for you?"
She bowed, looking, perhaps, just the least shade surprised. But, having handed her in, I was afraid of embarrassing her, and was backing away and passing on when she thanked me again very graciously. Again I lifted my hat and again got a look into her deep eyes. As the carriage rolled off, she was leaning back in it, and I felt her eyes upon me from under the shade of that big hat with a pleasant look, but I had assumed an unconscious air, and even stopped and picked up, as though carelessly, a couple of violets she had dropped as she crossed the sidewalk; and after a sniff of their fragrance, dropped them into my pocket-book, because they reminded me of the past and because I hated to see them lie on the hard pavement to be crushed by passing feet. The book was empty enough otherwise, but somehow I did not mind it so much after the violets were there.
"Who lives in that house?" I asked of an officer.
"Mr. Leigh, the banker and big west-side street-car man—runs all the lines out that way—all the Argand estate don't run," he added. He waved his arm to include a circle that might take in half the town or half the world. "The big house in the middle of the block is Mrs. Argand's—the great Philanthropist, you know? Everybody knows her." I did not, but I did not care; I knew all I wanted to know—I knew who Miss Leigh was. I reflected with some concern that this was the name of the vice-president of the Railway whom I had attacked through Kalender and of the man to whom Mr. Poole's perfunctory letter was addressed. I went back to my office in better spirits, and, having no brief to work on, even wrote a poem about the violets—about her leaving a track of violets behind her.
I was drawn to that street a number of times afterward, but I saw her no more.
I don't believe that love often comes at first sight; but that it may come thus, or at least, at second sight, I have my own case to prove. It may be that my empty heart, bruised and lonely in that great city, was waiting with open door for any guest bold enough to walk in and claim possession. It may be that that young lady with her pleasant smile, her high-bred face and kindly air, crossing my path in that stranger-thronged wilderness, was led by Providence; it may be that her grace and charm were those I had pictured long in the Heavenward dreams of youth and but now found. However it was, I went home in love with an ideal whose outward semblance was the girl with the children's toys—truly in love with her. And the vision of Lilian Poole never came to me again in any guise that could discomfort me. From this time the vision that haunted me and led me on was of a sweet-eyed girl who dimpled as she smiled and dropped her violets. The picture of Lilian Poole, standing by the marble mantel in her plush-upholstered parlor, adjusting her bracelet so as to set off her not too small wrist, while I faced my fate, flitted before my mind, but she was a ghost to me, and my heart warmed as I thought of the lady of the violets and the children's toys.