Stella Rosevelt

Confusion reigned during the next half hour among the company who had hitherto been so gay. Josephine Richards had rushed into their midst, startling everybody out of their senses by shrieking out:

“Go to Miss Gladstone! A mad dog! a mad dog!”

It was all that she could say, for she immediately after sank down helpless in a violent fit of hysterics, while the women, with white faces, huddled together in fear and trembling, and the men, with horrified eyes and quaking hearts, ran hither and thither in search of Star.

Then there had come that quick, sharp report, directing them to the spot, and telling them that all danger to them was past. But the terrible question arose:

“Was Miss Gladstone safe?”

Ralph Meredith, his feet winged with love and fear, was, as we have seen, first upon the scene of the tragedy, and caught her frantically to his heart just as she was falling to the ground.

“Is she bitten?” he cried, in a voice of agony, and with ashen lips, to the stranger, who stood, gun in hand, over the dead dog.

“No; she has not even a scratch; she has merely fainted from fright,” he answered; and throwing down his gun, he took a long pocket-flask filled with brandy from his hunting-pouch, and approached the unconscious girl.

He knelt upon the ground beside her and poured a few drops between her lips, though his hands trembled violently from the terrible excitement and anxiety under which he had been laboring.

“Go for some water,” he said to his son, who, having heard the report of his father’s fowling-piece, now appeared upon the scene.

He darted away like a fawn, and was back in less than three minutes with a pitcherful, which he had seized from the camp, while a frightened crowd followed at his heels.

But it was a long time before Star revived. The shock to her nervous system had been a terrible one, and nature seemed loth to resume her sway after it. But at the end of half an hour her chest began to heave, and a slight tinge of color returned to her lips.

Ralph Meredith, who hung over her in an agony of suspense and fear, would let no one touch her or come near her, save his sister and Mr. Rosevelt; and he found that it required all the strength of his will to keep him from betraying to the gaping crowd the passionate love he entertained for the senseless girl.

Finally, to everybody’s relief, those white lids were unclosed, those beautiful eyes looked up, and a long, shuddering sigh shook her whole frame.

“What has happened?” she questioned, with a vacant look.

“You are faint, dear. Drink this and you will be better,” Grace Meredith said, gently, while she held a silver cup to her lips.

She swallowed the stimulus mechanically, and then began to shiver, as if from the cold.

“I remember,” she murmured, all the color fading from her face again, and they feared another season of unconsciousness would follow.

“Is he dead?” she asked, a moment after, beginning to rally once more.

“Yes; he was killed instantly,” Ralph Meredith returned.

“And Josephine—Miss Richards—is she safe?”

Everybody looked surprised at this query, for no one had had any idea that that young lady had been in any danger until now.

“Yes; Miss Richards is safe,” Mr. Rosevelt answered; but a frown contracted his brow as he began to understand that Star had sacrificed her own safety and endangered her own life to save that of an ungrateful girl.

No one had been able to gather from Josephine’s excited and incoherent account anything save that a mad dog had attacked Miss Gladstone in the woods. She said not a word of how the noble girl had come to her rescue, warned her of her danger, and then put into execution a hazardous plan to secure her safety.

There was not an atom of gratitude in her heart toward Star for having done this heroic deed—no softening, no sense of sorrow or repentance for her own unkindness in the past, or for the insult which she had only that day offered her; there was only a sense of triumph that she herself was safe, no matter how or at whose risk.

When they came, bringing Star back—for she was still too weak to walk—to the spot where they had all gathered so gay and thoughtless that morning, there was a look of sadness and sympathy in every countenance save those of Mrs. Richards and her daughter, who stole away by themselves, jealous of the interest and concern manifested by the whole company for the object of their hatred.

When Star found that Josephine had kept the facts of the encounter with the mad dog to herself, simply stating that Miss Gladstone had been attacked by it, she also appeared very reluctant to converse about it, and as the subject seemed to excite her, no one felt disposed to press her with questions.

The gentleman who owned the dog sent to his home for his carriage to have her conveyed to the steamer, although she had smilingly affirmed that she should be “able to walk with the help of Uncle Jacob’s arm.”

Upon reaching the boat they improvised a couch for her on deck, as she objected going into the saloon, and by resting quietly during the two hours’ sail, she seemed almost like herself, save her unusual pallor, when the vessel touched the pier at Newport.

A carriage was here procured, and she was driven, with Mr. Rosevelt, Miss Meredith, and her brother, to her hotel.

Grace insisted upon remaining through the night with her.

“You are not fit to be left alone, and—I want to stay,” she pleaded, as Star hesitated about accepting her offer.

So the two young girls passed the night together, and Star, growing confidential, and feeling that some explanation regarding Josephine’s insulting remarks that morning was due her friend, told her much concerning her life, and how it had happened that she was at one time an inmate of Mrs. Richards’ family; also relating the events that had transpired since she and Mr. Rosevelt left them, and how she had rescued Josephine from the mad dog.

Star was really ill from nervous prostration the next day, and obliged to keep her room; but Miss Meredith regaled curious ears with the whole story of Josephine Richards’ danger and Star’s courageous defense of her, and all Newport did indeed “ring” even as she had hoped.

Enough could not be said in admiration of the brave girl, while scorn and contempt were freely expressed for the recipients of so much heroism for refusing to acknowledge their indebtedness, and awarding her the commendation she deserved.

Mr. Rosevelt was even more unnerved, when he learned the truth, than he had been the previous day.

He came to her room, wan and haggard, after talking with Miss Meredith, and sank, weak and trembling, into a chair at her side.

“My child,” he said, brokenly, as he took both her hands and looked them carefully over with tear-laden eyes, “are you sure you did not get a scratch anywhere?”

“Quite sure, Uncle Jacob,” Star replied, reassuringly; “the dog did not touch me anywhere, and if he had, I had a pair of stout undressed kid gloves on, and they would have protected me.”

“But you were in terrible danger. Suppose you had not succeeded in pinning him down, and he had turned upon you?” he said, with a shudder.

“I did not think of that,” Star answered; “but if I had known that he would turn upon me, I believe I should have tried to save Josephine just the same. Somebody was in danger of being bitten even if she escaped unharmed, and I felt that I must strain every nerve and not allow him to get among the company. The dog was a tiny little thing,” she went on, flushing and becoming excited as she seemed to live over again that dreadful experience; “but, oh, Uncle Jacob, he was terribly strong. I thought once that I should have to let him go; I could not have held him one minute longer;” and she covered her face with her hands, weeping from nervousness.

“We must not talk about it any more; it excites you,” Mr. Rosevelt said, soothingly; “but the world would have been very dark for me if anything had happened to you; and—I am bitter enough to feel that Josephine Richards’ safety is dearly bought, even at the sacrifice of nothing more than your nerves and strength,” he concluded, in a stern tone.

Star reached out one white hand and laid it gently upon his, saying, with grave sweetness, while she wiped away her tears:

“Uncle Jacob, let us not judge too harshly nor be unforgiving. ‘Charity,’ you know, ‘suffereth long and is kind, and never faileth.’ Surely you would not have had me run away like a coward, and leave her sitting there playing with that mad creature, knowing that she was in such fearful danger?”

“N-o,” he admitted, reluctantly.

“Just think,” Star went on; “she had him in her lap, and I did not speak one instant too soon, for hardly had I told her that he was mad, when he snapped at her. No; I am glad that I did what was right, and Josephine Richards’ life was every bit as precious to me yesterday as that of any one else, and I should have done just the same had she been an enemy a hundred-fold more than she is. She has endeavored to injure me, I know, in every possible way, and, in all the ordinary walks of life, I should let her alone. Her spite and ill-will, however bitter, cannot do me any real harm, although they may annoy me exceedingly, and doubtless will, in the end, rebound upon herself; but I am glad that I did not falter yesterday. I did what I could with the kindest of motives; and if she does not feel that she owes me anything, it cannot alter the fact that I did my duty.”

Mr. Rosevelt regarded her with an almost worshipful look.

“That good book, which you love so well, says that ‘a little child shall lead them;’ and truly, Star, you in your youth shame me in my maturer years by your Christian spirit,” he said, in an humble tone.

Star did not reply, but she looked very happy.

“Surely Uncle Jacob must have been reading some in ‘that good book,’ to quote thus from it,” she thought, while his remark about a Christian spirit told that he was thinking upon the more serious questions of life—all of which was very encouraging to her who had so often been wounded by his bitterness and skepticism.