"Here is Henrietta Montfort, in the sea-green cloak!" cried Margaret. "Look, girls, what a haughty, disagreeable face; I don't wonder her family trembled before her."

"And here—oh, here is Hugo!" cried Peggy; "black velvet, she said. Look here, Margaret!"

The portrait was that of a man in middle life, handsomely dressed in black velvet, with hat and ruff. His face was sad, but the bright, dark eyes looked intelligently at the girls, and the whole face had a familiar look.

"He has a look of Papa," said Margaret softly; "it is a weaker face, but there is a strong resemblance."

"I think he looks like John Strong," said Peggy decidedly.

"My dear Peggy," said Rita, "I must pray that you will take less notice of our uncle's gardener. What does it matter to you how he looks? I ask you. Now that you are my sister I must teach you to forget this habit of speaking to servants as if they were your equals. I overheard you the other day conversing—absolutely conversing—with this man. Dear child, it is wholly unsuitable. I tell you, and I know."

Margaret, who loved peace almost too well, was tempted to let this pass, but her conscience shouted at her, and she spoke.

"I am sorry to have you regard John Strong as an ignorant or inferior person, Rita," she said gently, knowing that she seemed priggish, but encouraged by Peggy's confused and abashed look.

"I think that if you were to talk with him a little yourself, you would feel differently. He is a very superior man, and Uncle John has the highest opinion of him; Aunt Faith has told me so."

Rita shrugged her shoulders. "Really, tres chere," she said, "this is a case in which it is not necessary, believe me, to go back a hundred years. We hear about the manners of the vieille ecole; my faith, the school may become too old!"

"Rita!" cried Margaret indignantly. "How can you?"

Rita only shrugged her shoulders; her eyes shone with the very spirit of wilfulness.

"Ma cousine," she said, "it is a thousand pities that you cannot come to Havana with me. The quality of being always virtuous—it is abhorrent, tres chere; correct it, if possible. And the garret cries out for us!" she said, turning away, with the straight line between her eyes that meant mischief, as Margaret had already learned. She turned to Peggy, who stood in some alarm, not knowing whether the old friend or the new should claim her allegiance.

"Allons!" she cried. "The door, Peggy! which door will take us to this place of joy? this one? Hein! it is locked; it will not open."

"That must be Uncle John's room," said Peggy. "It is always locked. I—I have tried it two or three times." And she stole a guilty glance, which made the two older girls laugh outright.

"Fatima!" said Margaret, trying to speak lightly, though her heart still burned from Rita's insolent words. "Peggy, it is a dangerous thing to try doors in a house like Fernley."

"Oh, I dare say it is only a linen closet," said Peggy. "I shouldn't have cared, only it is provoking not to be able to see what is in there. But this is the garret door, this way. I went up part way once, but it seemed so big and spooky, I didn't want to go all the way alone."

It was a big place, indeed, this garret! The girls looked about them in wonder, as soon as their eyes grew accustomed to the dim light that came from the small gable windows. The corners were black and deep,—miles deep, poor Peggy thought, as she peered into them. Old furniture lay about, broken chairs and gouty-legged tables. In one corner a huge chest of drawers loomed, with round, hunched shoulders, as if it were leaning forward to watch them; in another—oh, mercy! what was that?

The three caught sight at once of an object so terrifying that Rita and Peggy both shrieked aloud, and turned to flee; but Margaret held them back.

"Girls," she said, and her voice trembled a little, whether from laughter or fear; "wait! It—it can't be what it looks like, you know! It must—" She advanced cautiously a few steps, and began to laugh. It certainly had looked at first like the figure of a man hanging from the rafters; it proved to be only an innocent suit of clothes, dangling its legs in a helpless way, and holding out its arms stiffly, as if in salutation.

Recovering from their fear, the girls advanced again, Peggy giggling nervously. "I thought it was him!" she whispered.

"He, not him," was on Margaret's lips, but she kept the words back. She could not always be a schoolmistress; and then she scorned herself for moral cowardice.

"Thought it was who, Peggy?" she asked. "Hugo Montfort?"

"Ye—yes!" said Peggy.

"But he did not hang himself, child! He wants to find his papers, that is all. Ah, here are the trunks; now for the wigs, girls!"

The wig trunk proved a most delightful repository. The wigs were in neat boxes; many of them were of horsehair, but a few were of human hair, frizzed and tortured out of all softness or beauty. Dainty Margaret did not incline to put them on, but Peggy was soon glorious in a huge white structure, with a wreath of roses on the top, that made her look twice her height. "Ain't I fine?" she cried. "Here, Margaret, here is one for you."

Margaret twirled the wig around, and examined it curiously. "What they all must have looked like!" she said. "This is a judge's wig, I think."

"Then it can fit none but you, Senorita Perfecta!" cried Rita; but the sting was gone from her tone, and she had wholly forgotten her moment of spite. "Here! here is mine. Behold me, a gallant of the court! I advance, I bow—but my cloak, where is my cloak? Quick, Marguerite, the key of the other chest!"

The other chest, a great black one, studded with brass nails, contained, as Mrs. Cheriton had said, any amount of material for the delightful pastime of dressing up. The gauzes were crumpled, to be sure, the gold lace tarnished, and the satins and brocades more or less spotted and decayed; but what of that? The splendours of the Family Chest were too solemn to sport with; here was material for hours and days of joy. Rita was soon arrayed in a scarlet military coat, a habit skirt of dark velvet, and a plumed hat which perched like a bird on top of her flowing wig. Peggy was put into a charming Watteau costume of flowered silk, in which she looked so pretty that Rita declared it was a shame for her ever to wear anything else; while Margaret found a long, gold-spotted gauze that took her fancy mightily. Thus attired, the three girls frisked and danced about the huge, dim old garret, astonishing the spiders, and sending the mice scuttling into their holes in terror. The seventeen years that sometimes weighed heavily on Margaret's slender shoulders, and that sat like a flame of pride on Rita's white forehead, seemed utterly forgotten; these were three merry children that ran to and fro, waking the echoes to mirth. Rita proposed a dance, and cried out in horror when Peggy confessed that she could not dance at all, and Margaret that she had had few lessons and no experience.



"Poor victims!" cried the Cuban. "Slaves of Northern prejudice! I will teach you, my poors! Not to dance, not to understand the management of a fan—how are you to go through life, without equipment, I ask you?"

She held out her arms with a gesture so tragic that Margaret could not help laughing.

"Rita, forgive me!" she said. "I was trying to fancy my poor dear father giving me a lesson in the management of a fan. He was really my chief teacher, you know."

"Yes, and who was there for me to dance with?" cried Peggy, holding out her gay flounces. "Brother Jim would be rather like a grizzly bear, I think, and none of the others would. Jean and I used to dance with each other, but it was just jumping up and down, for we didn't know anything else."

Rita sighed, and felt the weight of empire on her shoulders. "You shall learn," she said again. "I will teach you. But not here, it is too dim and dusty. The courtesy, however, we can try. Mesdames! Raise the skirt, thus, the left foot in advance; the left, Peggy, child of despair! now bend the right knee, and slowly, slowly, sink thus, with grace and dignity. Oh, pity on me, what have you done now?"

Poor Peggy had done her best, but when it came to sinking slowly and gracefully, it was too much for her. She stepped on her train, tripped, lost her balance, and fell heavily back against the wall. She clutched the wooden panel behind her, and felt it move under her fingers.

"Oh, mercy!" she cried, "it's moving! The wall is moving! Margaret, catch hold of my hand!"

Margaret caught her hand, and helped her to her feet. When she moved away from the wall, it was seen that the wooden panel had indeed moved. It had slid open a few inches, and blackness looked through at them. Peggy clutched her cousins and trembled. Where was now the courage, the coolness, which had made her the heroine of the morning's adventure? Gone! Anything in the ordinary course of nature, bogs and such matters, Peggy was mistress of, but black spaces, with possible white figures lurking in them, were out of her province.

"Margaret," she whispered, "do you see? It is open!"

"Yes, I see!" said Margaret. "What a delightfully mysterious thing, girls! A secret chamber, perhaps, or a staircase! It must be a staircase, for it is in the thickness of the wall behind the chimney. Do run and get a lamp, Peggy, like a good girl, and we will see. How damp and earthy it smells!"

Peggy flew, only too glad to get away from the black, yawning hole. She was back in three minutes with the lamp, and the three cousins peered into the open space, Margaret holding the lamp high above her head, so that the light might penetrate as far as possible.

It was indeed a staircase; a narrow, winding way, wide enough for one person, but no more. It plunged down like a black pit, and its end could not be seen.

"But this is superb!" cried Margaret. "Shall we explore it, girls? I don't suppose there can be any objection, do you? It is probably never used."

"By all means, let us explore!" said Rita. "But do you know what I am thinking, Marguerite?"

"Something romantic and mysterious, I am sure!" said Margaret, smiling.

"Something practical and businesslike, rather, tres chere. I am thinking that for a concealment, if a concealment were necessary, this is the finest house in the world. Come on!"

Peggy hung back, her round cheeks pale with dread; but she could not bear to be left behind; and as Margaret and Rita plunged down the narrow stair, she followed, with beating heart. She had longed all her breezy little life for mystery, adventure, something wonderful to happen to her, with which she could impress and awe the younger children; now it had really come, and her heart beat with mingled terror and excitement.

Down—down—down. The lamplight shone on the rough walls of discoloured plaster, the old steps creaked beneath their tread; that was all. Now they came to a tiny landing, and something gleamed before them,—the brass handle of a door. Margaret hesitated, fearing that they might be trenching on forbidden ground; but Rita opened the door quickly, and Peggy pressed down behind her.

They saw a room, like the other bedrooms in the house, large and airy. It was evidently ready for use, the bed neatly made, everything in spotless order. Brushes and shaving-tools lay on the dressing-bureau. The table was covered with books.

"Uncle John's room!" whispered Margaret. "It must be, of course; and this is where the locked door is on the second story. Come along, girls; we ought not to go prying into people's rooms!"

"My faith, I cannot see that!" retorted Rita. "If there were anything of interest in the room,—but nothing—a plain room, and nothing more! A pretty thing to end a secret staircase; he should have shame for it. But come, as you say; we have yet a way to go down."

They closed the door carefully, and once more began the descent. Down—down—down. But this second half of the way was different. The staircase was wider, and the walls were cased in wood. Moreover, it showed marks of usage. The steps above were covered with thick dust, evidently long undisturbed; but these were clean and shining. Decidedly, the mystery was deepening.

"Suppose we find it is just a back way to the servants' rooms!" whispered practical Margaret.

"Suppose feedle-dee-dee!" said Rita; and her funny little foreign accent on the word made Peggy choke and splutter behind her.

Now they were evidently approaching the ground floor, for sounds were audible below them: a footstep, and then the clink of metal, as if some one were moving fire-irons.

"Elizabeth, probably!" whispered Margaret. "What shall we say to her?"

"Let's yell and rush out and scare her!" proposed Peggy.

"Hush!" said Rita. "Oh, hush! we know not who it is. Look! a gleam of light,—the crack of a door! quick, the lamp!" and with a swift, silent breath she blew out the lamp, and they were in total darkness.

They now saw plainly the light that shone through the crack of a door, a few steps below them. The sounds in the room beneath had ceased. All was still for a moment; then suddenly Peggy made a false step in the dark, and stumbled; she uttered a smothered shriek, and then began to giggle.

"Animal!" muttered Rita through her teeth. "Can you not be silent?"

Peggy was now in front, and seeing that light came also through the keyhole, she stooped and looked through it. The next instant she uttered a dreadful shriek, and staggered back into Margaret's arms. "The man!" she cried; "the man in black velvet!"

A chair was hastily pushed back in the room below; steps crossed the floor, and as Margaret flung open the door, another door at the further end of the room was seen to close softly.



CHAPTER VIII.

CUBA LIBRE.

"But, Marguerite, when I tell you that I know!"

"But, Rita, my dear, how can you know?"

"Look at me; listen to me! Have you your senses?"

"Most of them, I hope."

"Very well, then, attend! When stupid, stupid Peggy—I love her, observe; she is my sister, but we must admit that she is stupid,—truth, Marguerite, is the jewel of my soul—when she stumbled against the door, when she screamed, we heard sounds, did we not?"

"We did!" Margaret admitted.

"Sounds,—and what sounds? Not the broom of a servant, not the rustle of a dress,—no, we hear the step of a man! We enter, and a door closes at the further end of the room; click, a lock snaps! I rush to the window; a figure disappears around the corner of the house; I cannot see what it is, but I would swear it was no woman. I return,—we look about us at this room, which never have we seen before. A gentleman's room, as an infant could perceive. A private library, study, what you will, luxurious, enchanting. Books over which you sob with emotion,—or would sob, if your temperament permitted you expression; pictures that fill my soul with enchantment; a writing-table, and on it papers—heaps and mounds of papers! Am I right? do I exaggerate? Alps, Pyrenees of papers! You saw them?"

"I didn't see anything higher than Mt. Washington," said Margaret soberly. "There were a good many, I confess."

"They burst from drawers," pursued Rita, enjoying herself immensely; "they toppled like snow-drifts; they strewed the floor to a depth of—"

"Oh, Rita, Rita! do rein your Pegasus in, or he will fly away altogether. There certainly were a great many papers, and they confirmed our poor little Peggy in her belief that the man she had seen was Hugo Montfort, making his ghostly search for the papers he lost. Whereas you think—"

"Think! when I tell you that I know!"

"You think," Margaret went on calmly, "that it was John Strong, the gardener. Well, and what if it was?"

"What if it was? Marguerite, you are impossible; you have the intelligence of a babe new born. What! we find this man in his master's room, spying upon his private things, romaging—what is that word?—romaging his papers, most likely making himself possessed of what he will, and you say, what of this? Caramba, I will tell you what of this it would be in Cuba! String him up to the wall and give him quick fifty lashes; that would be of it!"

"Long Island is a good way from Cuba!" said Margaret. "I don't think we will try anything of that sort here, Rita. And when you come to think of it, my dear, we have been here a few weeks, and John Strong was here before we were born; Aunt Faith told me so. Don't you think he may perhaps know what he is about rather better than we do?"

"Know what he is about!" Rita protested, with a shower of nods, that he knew very well what he was about. The question was, did their uncle know? And the black velvet coat, what had Margaret to say to that? she demanded. It was evident that this good man, this worthy servant, was in the habit of wearing his master's clothes during his absence. Did gardeners habitually appear in black velvet? Ha! tell her that!

Margaret did not know that they did, but it was perfectly possible that Mr. Montfort might have given some of his old clothes, a cast-off smoking-jacket, for example, to his gardener and confidential servant. There would be nothing remarkable in that, surely. Besides, were they absolutely certain that the mysterious individual was dressed in black velvet? Poor, dear Peggy was in such a state of excitement, she might well have fancied—and so on, and so on. The two cousins went over the ground again and again, but could come to no decision.

"Say what you will, tres chere!" said Rita, finally; "glorify your gardener, give him the family wardrobe, the family papers; I keep watch on him, that is all! Let Master Strong beware! Not for nothing was I brought up on a plantation. Have I not known overseers, to say nothing of hosts of servants, white, black, yellow? Your books, chere Marguerite, do they teach you the knowledge of persons? Let him beware! he knows not a Cuban!" and she nodded, and bent her brows so tragically that Margaret could hardly keep her countenance.

"Have you ever acted, Rita?" she asked, following the train of her thoughts. "I am sure you must do it so well."

"Mi alma!" cried Rita, "it was my joy! Conchita and I—ahi! what plays we have acted in the myrtle-bower in the garden! Will you see me act? You shall."

John Strong and his iniquities were forgotten in a moment. Bidding Margaret call Peggy, and make themselves into an audience in the lower hall, Rita whirled away to her own room, where they could hear her singing to herself, and pulling open drawers with reckless ardour. The two other girls ensconced themselves in a window-seat of the hall and waited.

"Do you know what she is going to do?" asked Peggy.

Margaret shook her head. "Something pretty and graceful, no doubt. She is a born actress, you know."

"I never saw an actress," said Peggy. "She—she is awfully fascinating, Margaret, isn't she?"

Margaret assented warmly. There was no tinge of jealousy in her composition, or she might have felt a slight pang at the tone of admiring awe in which Peggy now spoke of her Cuban cousin. Things were changed indeed since the night of their arrival.

"It isn't only that she is so awfully pretty," Peggy went on, "but she moves so—and her voice is so soft, and—oh, Margaret, do you suppose I can ever be the least like her, just the least bit in the world?"

She looked anxiously at Margaret, who gazed back affectionately at her, at the round, rosy childish face, the little tilted nose, the fluffy, fair hair. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to stroke and pat Peggy as if she were a kitten, but no one would think of patting Rita.

"Dear," said Margaret softly, "dear Peggy! I like you better as you are. Of course Rita is very beautiful, and neither you nor I could ever look in the least like her, Peggy. But—it is a great deal better to look like our own selves, isn't it, and learn to appear at our best in a way that suits us? That is what I think. Now that you have learned to do your hair so nicely, and to keep your dress neat—"

"You taught me that," said honest Peggy; "you taught me all that, Margaret. I was a perfect pig when I came here; you know I was."

"Don't call my cousin names, miss! I cannot permit it. But if I have taught you anything, Peggy, it is Rita who has given you the little graces that you have been picking up. I never could have taught you to bow,—and really, you are quite superb since the last lesson. Then, these pretty dresses—"

"Oh, do you think I ought to take them?" broke in Peggy. "Margaret, do you think so? She brought them into my room, you know, and flung them down in a heap, and said they were only fit for dust-cloths—you know the way she talks, dear thing. The lovely brown crepon, she said it was the most hideous thing she had ever seen, and that it was the deed of an assassin to offer it to me. And when I said I couldn't take so many, she snatched up the scissors, and was going to cut them all up—she really was, Margaret. What could I do?"

"Nothing, dear child, except take them, I really think. It was a real pleasure to Rita to give them to you, I am sure, and she could not possibly wear a quarter of all the gowns she brought here. But see, here comes our bird of paradise herself. Now we shall see something lovely!"

Rita came down the stairs, singing a little Spanish song. Her dress of black gauze fluttered in wide breezy folds, a gauze scarf floated from her shoulders; she was indeed a vision of beauty, and the two cousins gazed at her with delight. Advancing into the middle of the hall, she swept a splendid courtesy, and suddenly unfurled a huge scarlet fan. With this, she proceeded to go through a series of astonishing performances. She danced with it, she sang with it. She closed it, and it was a dagger, and she swooped upon an invisible enemy, and stabbed him to the heart; she flung it open, and it became the messenger of love, over which her black eyes gleamed and glowed in irresistible coquetry. All the time she kept up a dramatic chant, sometimes sinking almost to a whisper, again rising to a shriek of joy or passion. Suddenly she stopped.

"All this is play!" she said, turning to her rapt audience.

"Now you shall see the real thing: you shall see Cuba libre. But for this I must have another person; it is impossible to do it alone. Margaret,—no! Peggy can better do this! Peggy, come, and you shall be Spain, the tyrant."

Peggy looked as if she would much rather be aspiring Cuba, but she came forward obediently, and was bidden to put herself in an attitude of insolent defiance. Peggy scowled and doubled up her fists, thinking of a picture of a prizefighter that she had once seen.

"Ahi!" cried Rita, springing upon her. "Not thus! you have the air of a cross child. Thus, do you see? Fold the arms upon the chest, abase the head, bring the eyebrows down till you have to look through them! So! that is better! Now gnaw your under lip, and draw in your breath with a hiss, thus!" and Rita herself uttered a hiss so malignant that poor Peggy started back in affright. "But be still!" cried Rita, "you are now perfect. You are an object—is she not, Marguerite?—to turn cold the blood." Margaret did not commit herself, being wholly occupied in keeping back the smiles that Peggy's aspect called forth. She certainly was an object, poor dear child, but Rita was so absorbed in her play that she saw nothing absurd even in a tyrant scowling through flaxen eyebrows with a pair of helpless, frightened blue eyes. She now drew back, knelt, flung up her arms, and raised her eyes to heaven. Her lips moved; she was praying for the success of her cause. Rising, she came forward, and with noble earnestness demanded her freedom. The tyrant was bidden to look about on the ruin and desolation that he had wrought; he was implored by all that was holy, all that was just and noble, to withdraw from the land where he had long ceased to have any real right of ownership. Peggy, in obedience to whispered orders, shook her head with stubborn violence, and stamped her foot. Cuba then, drawing herself to her full height, threw down her gage of defiance (a tiny pearl-covered glove) and declared war to extermination. The banner of freedom (the fan) was unfurled and waved on high, the national song was chanted, and the war began. Spain, the tyrant, now had a hard time of it. She was pounced upon from one side, then from another; she was surrounded, hustled this way and that; the fan was fluttered wide in her face, poked sharply between her ribs. A single straightforward blow from her strong young arm would have laid the slender Cuba at her feet, but she could strike no blow. She was only to hiss, and clutch the air in impotent fury, and when she did this, Margaret had such an uncontrollable fit of coughing that it almost produced an armistice.



Now Spain was told that she was growing weak, a decrepit, bleeding old woman. Her fate was upon her; let her die!

Obeying the imperious gesture, Peggy sank on her knees, and had the satisfaction of hearing that "the old serpent died bravely." The fan did more and more dreadful execution, and now she lay gasping, dying, on the floor. Standing above her was a triumphant young goddess, waving the flag of Cuba libre, and declaring, with her foot on the neck of the prostrate tyrant, that despotism was dead, and that Freedom was descending from heaven, robed in the Cuban colours, and surrounded by a choir of angels, all singing the national anthem. And here Rita actually pulled from her bosom a small flag showing the Cuban colours, and waved it, crying that the blood-red banner of war (the fan) was now furled forever, and that Cuba and the United States, now twin sisters, would proceed to rule the world after the most approved methods. This ended the scene, and the two actors stood before Margaret, one very red and sheepish, the other glowing like flame with pride and enthusiasm, awaiting her plaudits. Margaret clapped and shouted as loud as she could, and expressed her admiration warmly enough; but Rita shook her head and sighed.

"Ah, for an audience!" she cried. "To pour out one's heart, to live the life of one's country, and have but one to see it,—it is sad, it is tragic. Do I exaggerate, Marguerite?—it is death-dealing!" Then she praised Peggy, and told her that she had made a magnificent tyrant, and had died as game as possible. "Ah!" she said. "What it would be if you could only do something real for Cuba! I would shed my blood, would pour out its ultimate drops (Rita's idioms were apt to become foreign when she was excited), but if you also could do something, my cousins, what glory, what joy for you; and it may be possible. No, hush! not a word! At present, I breathe not a whisper, I am the grave. But there may come a day, an hour, when I shall call to you with the voice of a trumpet; and you,—you will awaken, halves of my heart; you will spring to my side, you will—Marguerite, you are laughing! At what, I ask you?"

"I beg your pardon, dear," said Margaret. "I was only thinking that a trumpet might really be needed, since a bell is not loud enough. The dinner-bell rang five minutes ago, and Elizabeth has come to see what we are about."

But at sight of Elizabeth, standing demurely in the doorway, Cuba libre vanished, and there remained only a very pretty young lady in the sulks, who had to be coaxed for five minutes more before she would come to her dinner.

"Am I seventeen, or thirty-seven?" thought Margaret, as she finally led the way to the dining-room.



CHAPTER IX.

DAY BY DAY.

"Oh! what a mystery The study is of history!"

For some time things continued to go smoothly and pleasantly at Fernley. The days slipped away, with nothing special to mark any one, but all bright with flowers and gay with laughter. The three girls were excellent friends, and grew to understand each other better and better. The morning belonged rather to Margaret and Peggy; Rita was always late, and often preferred to have her breakfast brought to her room, a practice of which the other girls disapproved highly. They were always out in the garden by half past eight, with breakfast a thing of the past, and the day before them. The stocking-basket generally came with them, and waited patiently in a corner of the green summer-house while they took their "constitutional," which often consisted of a run through the waving fields, or a walk along the top of the broad stone wall that ran around the garden; or again, a tree-top excursion, as they called it, in the great swing under the chestnut-trees. Then, while they mended their stockings, Margaret would give Peggy a "talk-lesson," the only kind that she was willing to receive, on English history, with an occasional digression to the Trojan war, or the Norse mythology, as the case might be. Peggy detested history, and knew next to nothing of it, and this was a grievous thing to Margaret.

"First William the Norman, Then William his son; Henry, Stephen and Henry, Then Richard and John,"

had been one of her own nursery rhymes, and she could not understand any one's not thrilling responsive when the great names were spoken that filled her with awe and joy, or with burning resentment.

"But, my dear," she would cry, when Peggy yawned at Canute, and said he was an old stupid, "my dear, think of the place he holds! think of the things he did!"

"Well, he's dead!" Peggy would reply; "I don't see what good it does to bother about him now. Who cares what he did, all that time ago?"

"But," Margaret explained patiently, "if he had not done the things, Peggy, don't you see, everything would have been different. We must know, mustn't we, how it all came about that our life is what it is now? We must see what we came from, and who the men were that made the changes, and brought us on and up."

"I don't see why!" said Peggy; "I don't see what difference it makes to me that Alfred played the harp. I don't want to play the harp, and I never saw any one who did. It is rather fun about the cakes, but he was awfully stupid to let them burn, seems to me."

Not a thrill could Margaret awaken by any recital of the sorrows and sufferings of the Boy Kings, or even of her favourite Prince Arthur. When her voice broke in the recital of his piteous tale, Peggy would look up at her coolly and say, "How horrid of them! But he would have been dead by this time anyway, Margaret; why do you care so much?"

Still Margaret persevered, never losing hope, simply because she could not believe that the subject itself could fail to interest any one in his senses. It was her own fault a good deal, she tried to think; she did not tell the story right, or her voice was too monotonous,—Papa was always telling her to put more colour into her reading,—or something. The history itself could not be at fault.

"And, Peggy dear; don't think I want to be lecturing you all the time, but—these are things that one has to know something about, or one will appear uneducated, and you don't want to do that."

"I don't care. I don't see the use of this kind of education, Margaret, and that is just the truth. Ma never had any of what you call education,—she was a farmer's daughter, you know, and had always lived on the prairie,—and she has always got on well enough. Hugh talks just like you do—"

"Please, dear, as you do, not like."

"Well, as you do, then. He talks William the Conqueror and all those old fuddy-duddies by the yard, but he can't make me see the use of them, and you can't. Now if you would give me some mathematics; that is what I want. If you would give me some solid geometry, Margaret!"

But here poor Margaret hung her head and blushed, and confessed that she had no solid geometry to give. Her geometry had been fluid, or rather, vapourous, and had floated away, unthought of and unregretted.

"I am sorry and ashamed," she said. "Of course I ought to be able to teach it, and if I go into a school, of course I shall have to study again and make it up, so that I can. But it never can be possible that triangles should be as interesting as human beings, Peggy."

"A great deal more interesting," Peggy maintained, "when the human beings are dead and buried hundreds of years."

"One word more, and I have done," said poor Margaret. "You used an expression, dear,—old fuddy-duddies, was it? I never heard it before. Do you think it is an elegant expression, Peggy dear?"

"It's as good as I am girl!" said Peggy; and Margaret shut her eyes, and felt despair in her heart. But soon she felt a warm kiss on her forehead, and Peggy was promising to be good, and to try harder, and even to do her best to learn the difference between the two Harolds,—Hardrada and Godwinsson.

And if she would promise to do that, might she just climb up now and see what that nest was, out on the fork there?

Perhaps Rita would come down soon, with her guitar or her embroidery-frame; and they would sing and chatter till the early dinner. Rita's songs were all of love and war, boleros and bull-fights. She sang them with flashing ardour, and the other girls heard with breathless delight, watching the play of colour and feeling, that made her face a living transcript of what she sang. But when she was tired, she would hand the guitar to Margaret, and beg her to sing "something cool, peaceful, sea-green, like yourself, Marguerite!"

"Am I sea-green?" asked Margaret.

"Ah! cherub! you understand me! My blood is in a fever with these songs of Cuba. I want coolness, icy caves, pine-trees in the wind!"

So Margaret would take the guitar, and sing in her calm, smooth contralto the songs her father used to love: songs of the North, that had indeed the sound of the sea and the wind in them.

"It was all for our rightful king That we left fair Scotland's strand. It was all for our rightful king, We ever saw Irish land, My dear, We ever saw Irish land!"

The plaintive melody rose and fell like the waves on the shore; and Rita would curl herself like a panther in the sun, and murmur with pleasure, and call for more. Then, perhaps, Margaret would sing that lovely ballad of Hogg's, which begins,

"Far down by yon hills of the heather sae green, And down by the corrie that sings to the sea, The bonnie young Flora sat sighing her lane, The dew on her plaid and the tear in her e'e.

"She looked on a boat with the breezes that swung Afar on the wave, like a bird on the main, And aye as it lessened, she sighed and she sung, 'Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again!'"

But Rita had no patience with Flora McDonald.

"Why did she not go with him?" she asked, when Margaret, after the song was over, told the brave story of Prince Charlie's escape after Culloden, and of how the noble girl, at the risk of her own life, led the prince, disguised as her waiting-woman, through many weary ways, till they reached the seashore where the vessel was waiting to take him to France.

"He could not speak!" said Margaret. "He just took her hand, and stood looking at her; but she could hardly see him for her tears. Then he took off his cap, and stooped down and kissed her twice on the forehead; and so he went. But after he was in the boat, he turned again, and said to her:

"'After all that has happened, I still hope, madam, we shall meet in St. James's yet!' But of course they never did."

"But why did she not go with him?" demanded Rita. "She had spirit, it appears. Why did she let him go without her?"

Margaret gazed at her wide-eyed.

"He was going into exile," she said. "She had done all she could, she had saved his life; there was nothing more to be done."

"But—that she should leave him! Did she not love him? was he faithless?"

Margaret blushed, and drew herself up unconsciously. "You do not understand, Rita," she said gravely. "This was her prince, the son of her sovereign; she was a simple Scottish gentlewoman. When he was flying for his life, she was able to befriend him, and to save his life at peril of her own; but when that was over, there was no more need of her, and she went back to her home. What should she have done in France, at the king's court?"

"Even if so," muttered Rita, with the well-known shrug of her shoulders, "I would have gone, if it had been I. He should not have thrown me off like that."

Margaret raised her eyes, full of angry light, and opened her lips to speak; but instead kept silence for a moment. Then, "You do not understand," she said again, but gently; "my mother was a Scotchwoman, so I feel differently, of course. It is no matter, but I will tell you this about Miss McDonald: that when she died, years after, an old woman of seventy, she was buried in the sheet that had covered Prince Charles Stuart, that night after Culloden."

"My!" said Peggy, "it must have been awfully yellow!"

After dinner it was Rita's custom to take a siesta. She declared that she required more sleep than most people, and that without eleven hours' repose she should perish. So while she slept, Margaret and Peggy arranged flowers, or Peggy would write home, with many sighs of weariness and distress, while Margaret, sitting near her, snatched a half-hour for some enchanting book. It sometimes seemed to her more than she could bear, to be among so many fine books, and to have almost no time to read. At home, several hours were spent in reading, as a matter of course; often and often, the long, happy evening would pass without a word exchanged between her father and herself. Only, when either looked up from the book, there was always the meeting glance of love and sympathy, which made the printed page shine golden when the eyes returned to it. Here, reading was considered a singular waste of time. Rita read herself to sleep with a novel, but Peggy was entirely frank in her confession that she should not care if she never saw a book again. Even the home letters were a grievous task to her, for she never could think of anything to say. Margaret, deep in the precious pages of Froissart, it might be, would be roused by a portentous sigh, and looking up, would find Peggy champing the penhandle, and gazing at her with lack-lustre eyes.

"What's the matter now, Peg of Limavaddy?"

"I can't—think—of a single thing to say."

"Child! I thought you had so much to tell them this time. Think of that lovely drive we took yesterday; I thought you were going to tell about that. Don't you remember the sunset from the top of the long hill, and how we made believe the clouds were our fairy castles, and each said what she would do when she got there? Rita was going to organise a Sunset Dance, with ten thousand fairies in crimson and gold, and you were going to be met by a hundred thoroughbred horses, all white as snow, and were going to drive them abreast in a golden chariot; don't you remember all that? Tell them about the drive!"

"I have told them," said Peggy gloomily. "I couldn't put in all that, Margaret; it would take all day, and besides, Ma would think I was crazy."

"Do you mind my seeing what you wrote?—oh, Peggy!"

For Peggy had written this: "We had an elagant ride yesterday."

"What's the matter?" asked Peggy. "Isn't it spelled right?"

"Oh, that isn't it!" said Margaret. "At least, that is the smallest part. 'Elegant' has two e's, not two a's. But,—Peggy dear, you surely would not speak of a drive as elegant!"

"Why not? I said ride, not drive, but I don't see any difference. It was elegant; you said so yourself. I don't understand what you mean, Margaret." And Peggy looked injured, and began to hunch her shoulders and put out her under lip; but for once Margaret, wounded in a tender part, took no heed of the signs of coming trouble.



"I say so? Never!" she cried indignantly. "I hope I—that is, I—I don't think the word can be used in that way, Peggy; I do not, indeed. You speak of an elegant dress, or an elegant woman, but not of an elegant drive or an elegant sunset. The word implies something refined, something—"

"Oh, bother!" said Peggy rudely. "I didn't come here to school, Margaret Montfort!"

"I sometimes wonder if you ever went anywhere to school!" said Margaret; and she took her book and went away without another word, her heart beating high with anger and impatience.

Such affairs were short-lived, however. Margaret had too much sense and good feeling, Peggy too much affection, to let them last. The kiss and the kind word were not long in following, and it was to be noticed that Rita was never allowed to find out that her two Northern cousins ever disagreed by so much as a word. There was some unspoken bond that bade them both make common cause before the foreign cousin whom both loved and admired. So when Rita made her appearance beautifully dressed for the afternoon drive or walk (for they could not have the good white horse every day,—a fact which made the senorita chafe and rage against John Strong more than ever), she always found smiling faces to welcome her, and the three would go off together in high spirits, to explore some new and lovely part of the country.

Peggy was always the driver. On their first drive John Strong had gone with them, to the intense disgust of Rita, and the indignation of Peggy, who, though she was very fond of the grave factotum, resented the doubt he implied of her skill. It was a silent drive, Margaret alone responding to the remarks of their conductor, as he pointed out this or that beautiful view. He never went with them again, but having first tested Peggy's powers by a tete-a-tete drive with her, cheerfully resigned the reins, and used to watch their departure with calm approval.

"The little one makes much the best figure on the box!" John Strong would say to himself. "If life were all driving, now—but—

"Weel I ken my ain lassie; Kind love is in her e'e!"



CHAPTER X.

LOOKING BACKWARD.

But in the twilight came Margaret's hour of comfort. Then Peggy had her dancing-lesson from Rita, and while the two were whirling and stumping about the hall, she would steal away through the little door and down the three steps to the white rooms, where peace and quiet, gentle words and kind affection were always awaiting her. Aunt Faith always understood the little troubles, and had the right word to say, of sympathy or counsel. The two had grown very near to each other.

"How is it," Margaret asked one evening, "I seem so much nearer your age, Aunt Faith, than the girls'? Do you suppose I really belong to your generation, and got left behind by accident?"

Aunt Faith laughed. "My dear, you ought to have had half a dozen brothers and sisters!" she said. "An only child grows up too fast, especially where, as in your case, the companionship with father or mother is close and intimate. No doubt your dear father did his best to grow down to your age, when you were little; but he did not succeed, I fear, so you had to grow up to his. Was not that the way?"

Margaret nodded thoughtfully. "I remember his playing horse with me!" she said. "Poor dear Papa! I asked him to play, and he said in his deep, slow way, 'Surely! surely! the child must have play. Play is necessary for development.' And then he sat and looked at me, with his Greek book in his hand, as if I were a word that he could not find the meaning of. Oh! I remember it so well, though I must have been a little tot. Then he got up and said, 'I will be a horse, Margaret! Consider me a horse!' and he gave me the tassels of his dressing-gown, and began to amble about the room slowly, among the piles of books. Oh, dear! I can see him now, dear Papa! He made a very slow horse, Aunt Faith, and I felt, in a baby way, that there was something awful about it, and that he was not meant to play. I think I must have dropped the tassels pretty soon, for he came to a great book lying open on a chair, and forgot everything else, and stood there for an hour reading it. I never asked him to play again, but we used to laugh over it when we were big—I mean when I was big, and had grown up to him a little bit."

Mrs. Cheriton laid her hand on the girl's head, and smoothed her hair tenderly.

"You must have been lonely sometimes, dear?" she said.

"Oh, no; never, I think. You see, I learned so many things that I could play by myself, and it never troubled Papa to have me in the room where he was writing; I think he rather liked it. I had the waste-paper basket; that was one of my chief delights. I might do what I wanted with the papers, if I only put them back. So I carpeted the room with them, and I laid out streets and squares, and had the pamphlets for walls and houses. Or I was a queen, with a great correspondence, and all the letters were brought to me by pages in green and gold, and when I read them (this was before I could really read, of course), they were all from my baby sister, and they told of all the lovely things she was seeing, and the wonderful countries she and Mamma were travelling in. Aunt Faith, I never see a waste-paper basket now, without feeling as if there must be a letter for me in it."

"Was there really a baby sister, dear?"

"Yes, oh, yes! she died with Mamma, only a few days after her birth,—little Penelope! It seems such a great name for a tiny baby, doesn't it, Aunt Faith? But it is a family name, Papa told me."

"Yes, indeed, many of the Montforts have been named Penelope. You remember the poor Aunt Penelope I told you about, who made the unhappy marriage; and there were many others."

"Oh, that reminds me!" said Margaret. "Aunt Faith, you promised to tell me some day about Aunt Phoebe. Don't you remember? We were speaking of these white rooms, and you said it was a fancy of Uncle John's to have them so, and you thought he remembered his Great-aunt Phoebe; and then you said you would tell me some time, and this is some time, isn't it, Auntie dear?"

"I cannot deny that, Margaret, certainly. And I don't know why this is not a very good time; the twilight is soft and dusky, and Aunt Phoebe's story ought not to be told in broad daylight."

She was silent a moment, as if looking back into the past. "It is the sequel, rather than the story itself, that is singular," she said. "The first part is like only too many other stories, alas! Your Great-aunt Phoebe—your Great-great-aunt, I should say—was betrothed to a brave young officer, Lieutenant Hetherington. It was just at the breaking out of the War of 1812, and the engagement was made just as he was going into active service. She was a beautiful girl, with large dark eyes, and superb fair hair,—none of you three girls have this combination, but it is not uncommon among the Montforts; I myself had fair hair and dark eyes. Phoebe was highly romantic, and when her lover went to war, she gave him a sword-belt plaited of her own hair."

"Oh," cried Margaret, "like Sir Percival's sister!"

"Exactly! Very likely it was from that story that she took the idea, for she was a great reader. However it might be, her mother was greatly distressed at her cutting off so much of her fine hair, and did her best to prevent it, but to no purpose, as you may imagine. Giles Hetherington joined the army, carrying the braided belt with him, and they say he never parted with it, night or day, but slept with it beside him on the pillow. Poor fellow! He was killed in a night attack by the Indians, set on by the British. He was in a hut with some other officers, and the sentry must have slept at his post, they supposed. They were surrounded, the house set on fire, and the officers all killed. One private escaped to tell the dreadful story, and he told of the gallant fight they made, and how Giles Hetherington fought for the life that was so dear to others. He defended the door while two of his comrades forced the window open, hoping to steal around and take the savages in the rear; but the window was watched, too, and these officers were shot down, and then an Indian sprang in at the window, and stabbed Hetherington in the back. Ah, me! It is a terrible story, dear child! He staggered back to the bed, the soldier said, and caught up the belt, that was lying there while he slept. He was past speech, but he gave it to this soldier, who was a lad from this place, and motioned him to the window; then he fell back dead, and the man crept out of the window,—the Indians having run around to the front,—and crawled off, lying flat in the grass, and so escaped with his life. He brought the belt, all dabbled with blood, back to Fernley, meaning to give it to Madam Montfort quietly, that she might break the news to her daughter, but poor Phoebe chanced to come through the garden just as he was standing on the steps with the belt in his hand, and she saw it."

"Oh! oh, dear!" cried Margaret, clasping her hands. "Aunt Faith, it is too dreadful! How could she bear it?"

"My dear, she could not bear it. She had not the strength. She did not lose her mind, like poor Aunt Penelope, but really, it might almost have been as well if she had, poor soul. When she woke from the long swoon into which she had fallen at sight of the belt, she heard all the story through without a word, and then she came here, and left the world."

"Came here?" repeated Margaret.

"Here, to these rooms; but what different rooms! She sent for a painter, and had the walls painted black. She had everything with an atom of colour in it taken away; and in these black rooms she lived, and in them she died. She wept so much—partly that, and partly the want of light—that her eyes became abnormally sensitive, and she could not bear even to see anything white. As time went on—Margaret, you will hardly believe this, but it is literally true—she would not even have white china on her table. She declared it hurt her eyes. So her father, who could refuse her nothing, sent for a set of dark brown china, and she ate brown bread on it,—would not look at white bread,—and was served by a mulatto woman, an old nurse who had been in the family from her childhood."

"Aunt Faith, can it be—you say it really is true! but—how could they let her? Why did they not have an oculist?"

"My dear child, oculists did not exist in those days. If she were living to-day, it would be pronounced a case of nervous exhaustion, and she would be taken for a sea voyage, or sent to a rest-cure, or treated in one of the hundred different ways that we know of nowadays. But then, nobody knew what to do for her, poor lady. To be 'crossed in love,' as it was called, was a thing that admitted of no cure, unless the patient were willing to be cured. People spoke of Phoebe Montfort under their breath, and called her 'a blight,' meaning a person whose life has been blighted. The world has gone on a good deal in the two generations since then, my dear Margaret."

"I should think so," said Margaret; "poor soul! And did she have to live very long, Aunt Faith? I hope not!"

"A good many years, my dear. She must have been an elderly woman when she died; not old, as I count age, but perhaps seventy-five, or thereabouts. I lived far away at that time, but John Montfort has often told me of the time of her death. He was a little lad, and he regarded the Black Rooms and their tenant with the utmost terror. He used to run past the door, he says, for fear the Black Aunt should come out and seize him, and take him into her dreary dwelling. Poor Aunt Phoebe was the mildest creature in the world, and would not have hurt a fly, but to him she was something awful,—out of nature. He was taken in to see her once or twice a year, and he always had nightmare after it, being a nervous child. Well, one day he was running through the Green Parlour here, and looking back at the windows of the Black Rooms, as he never could help doing; and he saw Rosalie, the coloured woman, come to the window and throw it wide open, letting in the full light of day. Then she went to the next, and so on; and the child knew what had happened before she spoke. I remember her words:

"'She's gone, honey! Her sperit's gone. It went out'n dis window, straight by whar you's standin', and into the cedar bush. De Lord hab mercy!'

"And poor little John took to his heels, and ran, and never stopped running till he was in his own bed upstairs.

"That is the story, Margaret; but I ought to add that the belt of hair was laid in the grave with her, at her special request."

"What a sad, sad story! Poor soul! Poor, forlorn, tortured soul! How glad she must have been to go! Aunt Faith—"

"Yes, dear Margaret!"

"Oh, nothing,—only—it seems dreadful sometimes, to feel that terrible things may be coming, coming toward one, and that one never can look forward, never know when they may come! I sometimes think, if I could see a year ahead, or even a week,—but one never knows. I suppose it is best, or it would not be!"

"Assuredly, dear child! When you think a little more, you will see the wisdom and the mercy of it. How could we go steadfastly along our path of every day, if some day we saw a pit at the farther end? Life would be impossible, Margaret."

"Yes, I—I suppose so!" said Margaret thoughtfully.

"And all the time," Mrs. Cheriton went on, "all the time, during the clear, calm days and years, my child, we are, or we ought to be, laying by, as it were; storing up light and strength and happiness for the dark days when we may so deeply need them. Think a moment! Think of all the happy days and years with your father! They are blessed memories, are they not, Margaret? every day is like a jewel that you take out and look at, and then put back in its case; you never lose these precious things that are all your own!"

"Oh, never! oh, how well you know, Aunt Faith! how you must have felt it all!" The girl raised her head, and saw the face of the aged woman transfigured with light and beauty. She also was looking back through the years,—who could tell how long!

"But suppose,"—it was still she who spoke,—"suppose now, Margaret, that these memories were other than they are! Suppose that instead of the blessed golden days, you had days of storm and anger and disagreement to look back on; that there had been unkindness on one side, unfaithfulness on the other; suppose it had been with you and your father as it has been with some parents and children that I have known,—how then?"

"Oh!" murmured Margaret, her eyes filling with tears, that yet had no bitterness in them; "but it could not have been so, Aunt Faith. Papa was an angel, you know; an angel of goodness and love."

"Now you see what I mean by storing up light against the dark days," said Mrs. Cheriton. "If he had not been loving and good,—and if you, too, had not been a good and dear daughter,—think what your possessions would be to-day. As it is, you have what can never be taken from you; and so if we go on steadfastly, as I said, content not to see before us, but cherishing and making the best of what we have to-day, the best of what to-day holds will be ours forever, till death comes to end all the partings and all the sorrow."

The last words were spoken rather to herself than to Margaret. The latter sat still, not daring to speak; for it seemed as if some beautiful vision were passing before the eyes of the old woman. She sat looking a little upward, with her lips slightly parted, the breath coming and going so softly that one could not perceive it, her hands clasped in her lap. Now the lips moved, and Margaret heard the low words of a prayer, rather breathed than whispered. Another moment, and the brown eyes grew bright and smiling once more, and the kindly gaze fell on the girl, who sat awestruck, half afraid to breathe.

"My poor Margaret!" said Mrs. Cheriton quickly. "My poor little girl, I have frightened you. Dear, when one is so old as I am the veil seems very thin, and I often look half through it and feel the air from the other side. But you—you must not stay here too long, you must not be saddened by an old woman's moods. You love to stay, and I love to have you, but it must not be too long. I will just tell you about the change in the rooms, and then—well, the Black Rooms remained shut up for many, many years after Aunt Phoebe's death. Indeed, I fancy they were never used until after your grandfather's death, when the property was divided, and your Uncle John took Fernley as his share. Then one of the first things he did was to throw open these rooms, send for a painter, and have them painted white from floor to ceiling, as you see. He had no use for them at that time, but he has told me that he did not like to be in the same house with anything black. Everything burnable was burned,—for your grandfather, as long as he lived, kept Aunt Phoebe's belongings just as she left them,—the brown crockery was smashed—"

"Oh, that was a pity!" cried Margaret. "Just for the curiosity—"

"I have a piece, my dear!" said Mrs. Cheriton. "Elizabeth Wilson—good Elizabeth—saved a piece for me; and she kept one of the black silk gowns (she has been in the house ever since she was a child), to put in the family chest. So there, Margaret, you have the story of Aunt Phoebe from beginning to end. And now you must go out and play."

"Oh, just a moment!" pleaded Margaret. "Aunt Faith,—Uncle John must be very nice."

"My dear, he is the best man in the world. There is not a doubt about it."

"Shall we see him at all, Aunt Faith?"

"You shall see him. I cannot say exactly when, but you shall see him, Margaret; that I promise you on the word of a centenarian. Now will you go, or shall Janet—"

"Oh, I will go! I will go! Good-bye, dear Aunt Faith. I have had the most delightful hour," and Janet came and closed the white door softly after her.



CHAPTER XI.

HEROES AND HEROINES.

"Oh for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear!"

"How to support life on such a day as this?" demanded Rita, coming out of her room, and confronting her cousins as they came upstairs. She had been asleep, and her dark eyes were still misty and vague. The others, on the contrary, had been running in the rain, and they were all a-tingle with life and fresh air, and a-twinkle with rain-drops. The moment was not a good one, and Rita's straight brows drew together ominously.

"You have been—amusing yourselves, it appears," she said, in the old withering tone that they were learning to forget. "Of course, here nothing matters; one may as well be a savage as an elegante in the wilderness; but I should be sorry to meet you in Havana, my cousins!"

Peggy hung her head, and tried to keep her muddy feet out of sight. Margaret only laughed, and held up her petticoats higher.

"You ought to have been with us, Rita!" she said. "We have had great fun. The garden is one great shower-bath, and the brook is roaring like a baby lion. I am really beginning to learn how to walk in wet feet, am I not, Peggy? I used to think I should die if my feet were wet. It is really delightful to feel the water go 'plop!' in and out of one's boots. Now, my dear," she added, "I really cannot let you be cross, because Peggy and I are in the most delightful good humour, and we came in on purpose, because we thought you would be awake, and would want to be amused. If you frown, Rita, I shall kiss you, all dripping wet, and you know you could not bear that."

She advanced, holding up her rosy, shining face, down which the drops were still streaming. Rita uttered a shriek and vanished.

"I don't see how you can talk to her that way," said Peggy admiringly. "When she opens her eyes at me, and pulls her eyebrows together, I feel about two inches high and three years old. You are brave in your own way, Margaret, if you can't pull people out of bogs."

Margaret laughed again. "My dear, I found it was the only way," she said. "If I let her ride over me—" Here she stopped suddenly, and with a change of tone bade Peggy hasten to change her wet clothes. "It is all very fine to get wet," she said, "and I am grateful for the lesson, Peggy; but I know that one must change when she comes in."

Peggy made a grimace, and said that at home she was often wet through from morning till night, and nobody cared; but Margaret resolutely pushed her into her room and shut the door, before going on to her own.

In a few minutes both girls, dry and freshly clad, knocked at Rita's door; and though her "Come in" still sounded rather sullen, it was yet a distinct invitation, and they entered. Rita had made this room over in her own way, much to Elizabeth's inconvenience. The chintz curtains were almost covered with little flags, emblems, feathery grasses, and the like, pinned here and there in picturesque confusion. A large Cuban flag draped the mantelpiece, and portraits of the Cuban leaders adorned the walls. Over the dressing-table was the great scarlet fan which had played such a conspicuous part in the drama of "Cuba Libre," and it was pinned to the wall with a dagger of splendid and alarming appearance. The mirror was completely framed in photographs, mostly of dark-eyed senoritas in somewhat exaggerated toilets. Inscriptions in every variety of sprawling hand testified to the undying love of Conchita, Dolores, Manuela, and a dozen others, for their all-beautiful Margarita, to part from whom was death.

If this were literally true, the youthful population of Cuba must have been sensibly diminished by Rita's departure. There were black-browed youths, too, some gazing tenderly, some scowling fiercely, all wearing the Cuban ribbon with all possible ostentation. One of these youths was manifestly Carlos Montfort, Rita's brother, for they were like enough to have been twins; another had been pointed out to Margaret, in a whisper charged with dramatic meaning, as "Fernando," the cousin on her mother's side, the handsomest man in Havana, and the most fascinating. Margaret looked coolly enough at this devastator of hearts, and thought that her own cousin Carlos was far handsomer. Peggy thought so, too; indeed, her susceptible sixteen-year-old heart was deeply impressed by Cousin Carlos's appearance, and she would often steal into the room during Rita's absence, to peep and sigh at the delicate, high-bred face, with its flashing dark eyes, and the hair that grew low on the forehead, with just the same tendril curls that made Rita's hair so lovely. Oh! Peggy would think, if her own hair were only dark, or even brown,—anything but this disgusting, wishy-washy flaxen. She had longed for dark eyes and hair ever since she could remember. Poor Peggy! But she kept her little romance to herself, and indeed it was a very harmless one, and helped her a good deal about keeping her hair neat and her shoe-strings tied.

When the girls went in now, they found Rita curled up on her sofa, with the robe and pillow of chinchilla fur that had come with her from Cuba. It was a bad sign, Margaret had learned, when the furs came out in warm weather. It meant a headache generally, and at any rate a chilly state of body, which was apt to be accompanied by a peevish state of mind. Still, she looked so pretty, peeping out of the soft gray nest! She was such a child, after all, in spite of her seventeen years,—decidedly, she must be amused.

"Well," said Rita, half dolefully, half crossly, "I cannot command solitude, it appears. I am desolated; I desire to die, while this frightful rain pours down, but I cannot die alone; that is not suffered me."

"Certainly not," replied Margaret cheerfully. "Don't die yet, please, dear, but when you feel that you must, we will be at hand to take your last wishes, won't we, Peggy?"

But Peggy thought Margaret cruel, and could only look at Rita remorsefully, feeling that she had sinned, she knew not how.

"And how are we to amuse ourselves?" added Margaret, seating herself on the couch at Rita's feet. "I think we must tell stories; it is a perfect day for stories. Oh, Peggy, don't you want to get my knitting, like the dear good child you are? I cannot listen well unless I have my knitting."

Peggy brought the great pink and gray blanket which had been Margaret's friend and companion for several months, and with it her own diminutive piece of work, a doily that she was supposed to be embroidering. Rita lay watching them with bright eyes, her eyebrows still nearer together than was desirable. At last, "Well," she said again. There was impatience and irritation in the tone, but there was interest, too.

"Well," replied Margaret, "I was only thinking what would be pleasantest to do; there are so many things. How would it do for each of us to tell a story,—a heroic story, such as will stand the rain, and not be afraid of a wetting?"

"Of our own deeds?" inquired Rita.

"Oh, perhaps hardly that. If I waited to find a heroic deed of my own performance, you might get tired, my dear. Somehow heroics do not come every day, as they used in story times. But I can tell you one of my father. Will you hear it?"

Rita nodded languidly; Peggy looked up eagerly.

"It was in the great Blankton fire," said Margaret. "I don't suppose you know about it, Rita, but Peggy may have heard. No? Well, the country is very big, after all. It seems as if all the world must have heard of that fire. I was hardly more than a baby at the time, but I remember seeing the red glare, and thinking that we were not going to have any night that time, as the sun was getting up again as soon as he had gone to bed. We were living in Blankton that winter, for papa had some work that made it necessary for him to be near the Blankton libraries; Historical Society work, you know, as so much of his work was." She paused for some appreciative word, but none came. Apparently neither of her cousins had heard of the Historical Society, which had played so large a part in her father's life and her own.

"The whole sky was like blood!" she went on; "and when the smoke-clouds that hung low over the city blew aside, we could see the flames darting up, high, high, like pillars and spires. Oh! it was a beautiful, dreadful sight! I watched it, baby as I was, with delight. I never thought that my own father was in all that terrible glow and furnace, and that he came near losing his precious life to save another's."

"How?" cried Peggy, roused at the mention of saving life. "Did he start another fire to meet it?"

"Oh, no, no!" cried Margaret, in her turn failing to appreciate the Western point of view. "He tried to help put it out at first in the building where he was, and when he saw that was impossible, he went to work getting out his books and papers. They were very, very valuable; no money could have bought some of them, he said, for they were original documents, and in some cases there were no duplicates. They were Papa's treasures,—more to him than twenty fortunes. So he began taking them out, slowly and carefully, thinking he had plenty of time. But after he had taken out the first load, he heard cries and groans in a room near his own office, and going in, he found an old man, a wretched old miser that lived there all alone, in dirt and misery, though every one knew he was immensely rich. He seemed to have gone out of his mind with fright, and there he sat, his hands full of notes and bonds and things, screaming and crying, and saying that he could not go out, for he would be robbed, and he must stay there and burn to death. Papa tried to reason with him, but he would not listen, only screamed louder, and called Papa a robber when he tried to take the papers from him. Then Papa called to the men who were passing by to help him, but they were all so busy saving their own things, they could not stop, I suppose, or at any rate, they did not; and all the time the fire was coming nearer, and the smoke was getting thicker and thicker. Somebody who knew Papa called to him that the fire had reached his entry, and that in five minutes his office would be in flames. He started to run, thinking he could get out a few precious books, and let the others go while he got the old man out; but this time the poor old soul clung to him, and begged not to be left to burn, and looking out into the hall, Papa saw the smoke-cloud all shot with flame, and bright tongues licking along the walls toward him. So he took the old man by the arm and tried to lead him out, but he screamed that his box must go too, his precious box, or he should die of grief. That was his strong-box, and it was too heavy for him to lift, so he sat down beside it, hugging it, and saying that he would never leave it. Poor Papa was at his wit's end, for at any moment they might be surrounded and cut off from the stairs. So he heaved up the box and threw it out of the window, and then he took the old miser on his back and ran for his life. Oh, girls, there was only just time! He had to run through the fire, and his hair and beard were singed, and his clothes; but he got through, half blinded and choked, and almost strangled, too, for the old miser was clutching his throat all the time, and screaming out that he had murdered him."

"Why did he not drop him?" inquired Rita. "My faith, why should he be saved, the old vegetable?"

"Oh, Rita, you don't know what you are saying. It was a human life, and of course he had to save it; but it did seem cruel that the precious books and papers had to be sacrificed for just wretched money. That was the heroic part of it,—Papa's leaving the things that meant more to him than anything in the world, except me and his friends, and saving the old miser's money."

"If he could have saved him and the books, and let the money go to Jericho!" said Peggy; "but I suppose he couldn't."

"That was just it! The man was really out of his mind, you see, and if Papa had left him he might have run into the fire, or jumped out of the window, or done any other crazy thing. Well, that is my story, girls. Who shall come next,—you, Rita?"

Rita had been only partly roused by the story of the fire. An uncle saving a dirty old man and his money did not specially appeal to her; the hero should have been young and ardent, and should have saved a lady from the burning house. Peggy wanted to be responsive, but it seemed a great fuss to make over musty old books and papers; probably they were like those that Margaret made such a time about in the library here; Peggy had looked at some of them, and they were as dry as dry could be. If he had saved a dog, now, or a child,—and at the thought her eyes brightened.

"Do heroines count," she asked; "or must it be a man?"

"Of course they count!" cried Margaret, bending over her work to hide the tears that came to her eyes. She felt the glow checked in her heart,—knew that her story, her beloved story, had not struck the note that always thrilled her when she saw in thought her father, slender, gray-haired, carrying out the strange man, and leaving behind him, without a word, the fruits of years of toil.

"Of course heroines count, my dear! Have you one for us?"

"Ma did something nice once," said Peggy shyly; "she saved my life when I was a baby."

"Tell us!" cried both girls, and Rita's eyes brightened, for this seemed to promise better.

"It was when Pa first took up the claim," said Peggy. "The country was pretty wild then,—Indians about, and a good many big beasts: panthers, and mountain lions, and so on. I was the only girl, and I was two years old. Pa used to be out on the claim all day, and the boys with him, all except Hugh, and he was in bed at that time; and Ma used to work in the garden, and keep me by her so that I wouldn't get into mischief.

"One day she was picking currants, and I had been sitting by her, playing with some hollyhock flowers she had given me. She did not notice when I crawled away, but suddenly she heard me give a queer sort of scream. She turned round, and there was a big panther dragging me off down the garden path by my dress. Ma felt as if she was dead for a minute; but then she ran back to the seed-house—it was only a few steps off—and got a hoe that she knew was there, and tore off after the panther. It wasn't going very fast, for I was a pretty heavy baby, and it didn't know at first that any one was after it. When it heard Ma coming it started off quicker, and had almost got to the woods when she caught up. Ma raised that hoe and brought it down on the beast's head as hard as she knew how. It dropped me, and turned on her, grinning and snarling, and curling its claws all ready for a spring. She never stopped to draw breath; she raised the hoe again, and that time, she says, she prayed to the swing of it; and she brought it down, and heard the creature's skull go crash under it, and felt the hoe sink in. The panther gave a scream and rolled over, and then Ma rolled over too; and when Pa came home to dinner, a few minutes later, they were both lying there still, and I was trying to pick up my hollyhock flowers. We have never had hollyhocks since then; Ma can't bear 'em."

There was no doubt about the effect of Peggy's story. Before it was finished Rita was sitting bolt upright, her chinchilla robe thrown back, her hands clasped over her knee, her eyes alight with interest; and Margaret cried, "Oh, Peggy, Peggy, what a splendid story!"

"Well, it's true!" said Peggy.

"Of course it is; that's the splendid part. Oh, I am so proud to have an aunt so brave and strong. Aunt—why, Peggy, you have never told me your mother's name!"

"You never asked," said Peggy. "Her name is Susan."

Margaret blushed, and mentally applied the scourge to herself. It was true; she never had asked. Peggy had said that her mother had no education, and had got along very well without it; this was all that Margaret wanted to know. A shallow, ignorant woman, who had let her child grow up in such ignorance as Peggy's; and now she learned, all in a moment, of a strong, brave woman, helping her husband to clear the waste where their home was to be, making that home, bringing up her great family in love and rude plenty, and killing wild beasts with her own hard, honest hand. Margaret was learning a good deal this summer, and this was one of the most salutary lessons. She bowed her head and accepted it, but she only said aloud:

"Aunt Susan! I hope I shall know her some day. I shall put her in my heroine book, Peggy, from this minute." And the tone was so warm and hearty that Peggy's eyes filled with tears, and she felt dimly that she, too, had been neglectful of "Ma" of late, and resolved to write a good long letter that very afternoon.

"And now it is your turn, Rita!" said Margaret. "I give you till I knit to the end of this row to find a hero or heroine in your family. You must have plenty of them."

Rita laughed, and curled herself into another graceful, sinuous attitude. Her eyes shone. "My brother Carlos is in the mountains," she said; "my cousin Fernando with him. Pouf! if I were with them!"

She was silent a moment, and then went on, speaking slowly, and pausing every few minutes to blow little holes in her chinchilla robe, a favourite amusement of hers.

"The San Reals have plenty of heroes, heroines too; my mother was a San Real, you remember. What will you have, Marguerite? Far back, an ancestor of mine was the most beautiful woman in Spain. Her lover was seized by the Inquisition; she went to the Tribunal, accused herself, and died in his place. Will you have her for a heroine? My great-grandfather—he was a Grandee of Spain. The nephew of the king insulted him to the death, and thought his rank made him safe. He was found dead the next morning, and my great-grandfather lay dead beside him, with the dagger in his heart that had first slain the prince. Is he a hero such as you love, Marguerite?"

"No, not at all!" cried Margaret, "Rita, what dreadful tales! Those were the dark days, when people did not know better; but surely you must have some ancestors who were not murd—who did not die violent deaths."

"They are San Reals!" said Rita. "They had royal blood of Spain in their veins. Cold, thin, Northern blood cannot warm to true heroism." She sulked for some time after this, and refused to say anything more; but desire of imparting was strong in her, and Margaret's smile could not be resisted indefinitely.

"Come!" she said. "You meant no harm, Marguerite; you cannot understand me or my people, but I should have known it, and your birth is not your fault. Listen, then, and see if this will please you."

She seemed to meditate for some time, and when she spoke again it was still more slowly, as if she were choosing her words.

"Once on a time,—no matter when,—there was a war. A cruel, unjust, devilish war, when the people of—when my people were ground to the earth, tortured, annihilated. All that was right and true and good was on one side; on the other, all that was base and brutal and horrible. There was no good, none! they are—they were devils, allowed to come to earth,—who can tell why?

"The—the army of my people had suffered; they were in need of many things, of food, of shoes, but most of all of arms. The whole nation cried for bloodshed, and there were not arms for the half of them. How to get weapons? Near by there was another country, but a short way across the water—"

"Africa?" asked Peggy innocently. But Rita flashed at her with eyes and teeth.

"If you will be silent, Calibana! Do I tell this story, or do you? have I mentioned a name?"

"I beg pardon!" muttered poor Peggy. "I didn't mean to interrupt, Rita; I only thought Africa was the nearest to Spain across the water."

Rita glowered at her, and continued. "This neighbour-country was rich, great, powerful; but her people were greedy, slothful, asleep. They had arms, they had food, money, everything. Did they help my people in their need? I tell you, no!"

She almost shrieked the last words, and Margaret looked up in some alarm, but concluding that Rita was merely working herself up to a dramatic crisis, she went on with her knitting.

"To this rich, slothful country," Rita went on, dwelling on every adjective with infinite relish, "came a girl, a daughter of the country that was bleeding, dying. She was young; she had fire in her veins instead of blood; she was a San Real. She stayed in a house—a place—near the seashore, a house empty for the great part; full of rooms, empty of persons. The thought came to her,—Here I could conceal arms, could preserve them for my country, could deliver them to vessels coming by sea. It is a night expedition, it is a little daring, a little valour, the risk of my life,—what is that? I could arm my country, my brothers, against the tyrants. I could—" Rita paused, and both girls looked at her in amazement. She had risen from the couch, and now stood in the middle of the room; her slender form quivered with emotion; her great eyes shone with dark fire; her voice vibrated on their ears with new and powerful cadences.

"This girl—was alone. She needed help. With her in the house were others, her friends, but knowing little of her heart. Their blood flowed slowly, coldly; they were good, they were kind, but—would they help her? Would they brave danger for her sake, for the sake of the country that was dearer to her than life? Alone she was but one, with their aid—

"Listen! there came one day a letter to this house by the sea; it was for—for the person of whom I speak. Her brother was near, in a city not far off. He had come to collect arms, he had bought them, he must find a place to conceal them. Her dream was about to come true. She turned to her friends, the two whom she loved! She opened her arms, she opened her soul; she cried to them—"

"Stop!" said Margaret. She, too, had risen to her feet, and her face was very pale. Peggy looked from one to the other in alarm. Were they going to quarrel? Margaret's eyes were as bright as Rita's, but their light was calm and penetrating, not flashing and glowing with passion.

"Rita," she said, "I hope—I trust I am entirely wrong in what I cannot help thinking. I trust this is a story, and nothing else. It cannot be anything else!" she continued, her voice gaining firmness as she went on. "We are here in our uncle's house. He is away, he has left us in charge, having confidence in his brothers' daughters. If—if anything—if anybody should plan such a thing as you suggest, it would not only be ungrateful, it would be base. I could not harbour such a thought for an instant. Oh, I hope I wrong you! I hope it was only a dramatic fancy. Tell me that it was, my dear, and I will beg your pardon most humbly."

She paused for an answer, but Rita made none for the moment.

She stood silent, the very soul of passion, her eyes dilating, her lips apart, her breast heaving with the furious words that her will would not suffer to escape. Margaret almost thought she would spring upon her, like the wild creature she seemed. But presently a change came over the Cuban girl. A veil gathered over the glowing eyes; her hands unclenched themselves, opened softly; her whole frame seemed to relax its tension, and in another moment she dropped on her couch with a low laugh.

"Chere Marguerite," she said, "you, too, were born for the stage. Your climax, it was magnificent, tres chere; pity that you spoiled it with an anti-climax." And she shrugged her shoulders. "My poor little story! You would not even let me finish it. No matter; perhaps it has no end; perhaps I was but trying to see if I could put life into you, statues that you are. Ah, it was a pretty story, if I could have been permitted to finish it!"

Margaret turned scarlet. "My dear, if I have been rude," she said, "I am very sorry, Rita; I thought—"

"You thought!" said Rita, her full voice dropping the words scornfully, in a way that was hard to bear. "Your thoughts are very valuable, tres chere; I must not claim too many of them; they would be wasted on a poor patriot like me. And thou, Peggy, how didst thou like my story, eh?"

Rita turned so suddenly on Peggy that the poor child had not time to shut her mouth, which had been open in sheer amazement.

"Shut it!" said Rita sharply. "Is it a whale, or the Gulf of Mexico? I asked how you like my story, little stupid. Have you had sense to attend to it?"

Peggy's eyes filled with tears. A month ago she would have answered angrily, but now Rita was her goddess, and she could only weep at a harsh word from her.

"I—I think it is fine for a story, Rita," she answered slowly. "I loved to hear it. But—" Her blue eyes wandered helplessly for a moment, then met Margaret's steady gaze, and settled. "But if such a thing were true, Margaret would be right, wouldn't she?"

"And if you removed yourselves now?" queried Rita, turning her back to them with a sudden fling of the fur robe over her shoulder. "One must sleep in this place, or be talked to death, it appears. I choose sleep. My ears ring at present as with the sound of the sea,—a sea of cold babble! Adios, Senorita Calibana, Dona Fish-blood! I pray for relief!"

Margaret took Peggy's hand without a word, and they went out; but Peggy cried till dinner-time, and would not be comforted.