"Oh, Hannibal," said Edith, putting her hand on the old man's shoulder, and looking at him with her large eyes dimmed with grateful tears, "you don't know how much good you have done me. I have felt that there were none to trust—not one, but you are as true as steel. Your heart isn't black, as I told you before. It's whiter than mine. Oh, that other men were like you!"

"Bress you, Miss Edie, I isn't a man, I'se only a nigger."

"You are my true and trusted friend," said Edith, "and you shall be one of the family as long as you wish to stay with us."

"Now bress you, Miss Edie, you'se an angel for sayin' dat. Don't be afeard, I'se good for sumpen yet, if I be old. I once work for fear in de South; den I work for money, and now I'se gwine to work for lub, and it 'pears I can feel my ole jints limber up at de tought. It 'pears like dat lub is de only ting dat can make one young agin. Neber you fear, Miss Edie, we'll pull trough, and I'se see you a grand lady yet. A true lady you'se allers be, even if you went out to scrub."

"Perhaps I'll have to, Hannibal. I know how to do that about as well as anything else that people are willing to pay for."



CHAPTER XVII

THE CHANGES OF TWO SHORT MONTHS



At the dinner-table it was reluctantly admitted to be necessary that Edith should go to the city in the morning and dispose of some of their jewelry. She went by the early train, and the familiar aspects of Fourth Avenue as she rode down town were as painful as the features of an old friend turned away from us in estrangement. She kept her face closely veiled, hoping to meet no acquaintances, but some whom she knew unwittingly brushed against her. Her mother's last words were:

"Go to some store where we are not known to sell the jewelry."

Edith's usually good judgment seemed to fail her in this case, as generally happens when we listen to the suggestions of false pride. She went to a jeweller downtown who was an utter stranger. The man's face to whom she handed her valuables for inspection did not suggest pure gold that had passed through the refiner's fire, though he professed to deal in that article. An unknown lady, closely veiled, offering such rich articles for sale, looked suspicious; but, whether it was right or wrong, there was a chance for him to make an extraordinary profit. Giving a curious glance at Edith, who began to have misgivings from the manner and appearance of the man, he swept the little cases up and took them to the back part of the store, on pretence of wishing to consult his partner. He soon returned and said rather harshly:

"I don't quite understand this matter, and we are not in the habit of doing this kind of business. It may be all right that you should offer this jewelry, and it may not. If we take it, we must run the risk. We will give you"—offering scarcely half its value.

"I assure you it is all right," said Edith indignantly, at the same time with a sickening sensation of fear. "It all belongs to us, but we are compelled to part with it from sudden need."

"That is about the way they all talk," said the man coolly. "We will give you no more than I said."

"Then give me back my jewelry," said Edith, scarcely able to stand, through fear and shame.

"I don't know about that. Perhaps I ought to call in an officer any way and have the thing investigated. But I give you your choice, either to take this money, or go with a policeman before a justice and have the thing explained," and he laid the money before her.

She shuddered at the thought. Edith Allen in a police court, explaining why she was selling her jewelry, the gifts of her dead father, followed by a rabble in the street, her name in the papers, and she the town-talk and scandal of her old set on the avenue! How Gus Elliot and Van Dam would exult! All passed through her mind in one dreadful whirl. She snatched up the money and rushed out with one thought of escape, and for some time after had a shuddering apprehension of being pursued and arrested.

"Oh, if I had only gone to Tiffany's, where I am known!" she groaned. "It's all mother's work. Her advice is always fatal, and I will never follow it again. It seems as if everything and everybody were against me," and she plunged into the sheltering throng of Broadway, glad to be a mere unrecognized drop in its mighty tide.

But even as Edith passed out of the jeweller's store her eye rested for a moment on the face of a man whom she thought she had seen before, though she could not tell where, and the face haunted her, causing much uneasiness.

"Could he have seen and known me?" she queried most anxiously.

He had done both. He was no other than Tom Crowl, a clerk in the village at one of the lesser dry-goods stores, where the Allens had a small account. He was one of the mean loafers who were present at the bar-room scene, and had cheered, and then kicked Gus Elliot, and "laid for him" in the evening with the "boys." He was one of the upper graduates of Pushton street-corners, and having spent an idle, vicious boyhood, truant half the time from school, had now arrived at the dignity of clerk in a store, that thrived feebly on the scattering trade that filtered through and past Mr. Hard's larger establishment. He was one of the worst phases of the male gossip, and had the scent of a buzzard for the carrion of scandal. The Allens were now the uppermost theme of the village, for there seemed some mystery about them. Moreover, the rural dabblers in vice had a natural jealousy of the more accomplished rakes from the city, which took on something of the air of virtuous indignation against them. Of course the talk about Gus and Van Dam included the Allens; and if poor Edith could have heard the surmises about them in the select coterie of clerks that gathered after closing hours around Crowl, as the central fountain of gossip, she would have felt more bitterly than ever that the spirit of chivalry had utterly forsaken mankind.

When therefore young Crowl saw Edith get on the same train as himself, he determined to watch her, and startle, if possible, his small squad of admirers with a new proof of his right to lead as chief scandal- monger. The scene in the jewelry store thus became a brilliant stroke of fortune to him, though so severe a blow to Edith. (The number of people who are like wolves, that turn upon and devour one of their kind when wounded, is not small.) Crowl exultingly saw himself doubly the hero of the evening in the little room of the loft over the store, where poor Edith would be discussed that evening over a black bottle and sundry clay pipes.

As Edith returned up town toward the depot, the impulse to go and see her old home was very strong. She thought her veil sufficient protection to allow her to venture. Slowly and with heavy step she passed up the well-known street on the opposite side, and then crossed and passed down toward that door from which she had so often tripped in light-hearted gayety, or rolled away in a liveried carriage, the envied and courted daughter of a millionaire. And to-day she was selling her jewelry for bread—to-day she had narrowly, as she thought, escaped the police court—to-day she had no other prospect of support save her unskilled hands, and little more than two short months ago, that house was ablaze with light, resounding with mirth and music, and she and her sisters were known as among the wealthiest belles of the city. It was like a horrid dream. It seemed as if she might see old Hannibal opening the door, and Zell come tripping out, or Laura at the window of her room with a book, or the portly form of her father returning from business, indeed even herself, radiant with pride and pleasure, starting for an afternoon walk as of old. All seemed to look the same. Why was it not? Why could she not enter and be at home! Again she passed. A name on the door caught her eye. With a shudder of disgust and pain, she read—

"Uriah Fox."

"So the villain lives in the home of which he robbed us," she said bitterly. "The world seems made for such. Old Hannibal was right. God lumps the world, but the devil seems to look after his friends and prosper them."

She now hastened to the depot. The city had lost its attractions to her, in view of what she had seen and suffered that day, and though inclined to feel hard and resentful at her fate, she was sincerely thankful that she had a quiet home in the country from which at least the false-hearted and cruel could be kept away.

She saw during the day several faces that she knew, but none recognized her, and she realized how soon we are forgotten by our wide circle of friends, and how the world goes on just the same after we have vacated the large space we suppose we occupy.

She reached home in the twilight, weary and despondent. Her mother asked eagerly:

"Did you meet any one you knew?" as if this were the all-important question.

"Don't speak to me," said Edith impatiently. "I'm half dead with fatigue and trouble. Hannibal, please give me a cup of tea, and then I will go to bed."

"But, Edith," persisted Mrs. Allen querulously, "did you see any of our old set? I hope you didn't take the jewelry where you were known."

Edith's overtaxed nerves gave way, and she said sharply—

"No, I did not go where I was known, as I ought, and therefore have been robbed, and might have been in jail myself to-night. I will never follow your advice again. It has brought nothing but trouble and disaster. I have had enough of your silly pride and its results. What practical harm would it have done me, if I had met all the persons I know in the city? By going where I was not known I lost half my jewelry, and was insulted and threatened with great danger in the bargain. If I had gone to Tiffany's, or Ball and Black's, where I am known, I should have been treated politely and obtained the full value of what I offered. I can't even forgive myself for being such a fool. But I have done with your ridiculous false pride forever."

These were harsh words for a daughter to speak to her mother, under any provocation, and even Zell said:

"Edith, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to speak to mother so."

"I think so, too," said Laura. "I'm sure she meant everything for the best, and she took the course which is taken by the majority in like circumstances."

"All the worse for the majority then, if they fare anything as we have done. The division of labor in this family seems to be that I am to do all the work, and bear the brunt of everything, and the rest sit by and criticise, or make more trouble. You have all got to do something now or go hungry," and Edith swallowed her tea, and went frowningly away to her room. She was no saint, to begin with, and her overtaxed mind and body revenged themselves in nervous irritation. But her young and healthful nature soon found in sound sleep the needed restorative.

Mrs. Allen shed a few helpless tears, and Laura wearily watched the faint flicker on the hearth, for the night was chilly. Zell went into the dining-room and read for the twentieth time a letter received that day.

Unknown to Edith, the worst disaster yet had occurred in her absence. Zell had been to the village for the mail. She would not admit, even to herself, that she hoped for a letter from one who had acted so poor a part as her false lover, and yet, controlled so much more by her feelings and impulses than by either reason or principle, it was with a thrill of joy that she recognized the familiar handwriting. The next moment she dropped her veil to conceal her burning blush of shame. She hastened home with a wild tumult at heart.

"I will read it, and see what he says for himself," she said, "and then will write a withering answer."

But as Van Dam's ardent words and plausible excuses burned themselves into her memory, her weak foolish heart relented, and she half believed he was wronged by Edith after all. The withering answer became a queer jumble of tender reproaches and pathetic appeals, and ended by saying that if he would marry her in her own home it all might be as secret as he desired, and she would wait his convenience for acknowledgment.

She also did another wrong and imprudent thing; for she told him to direct his reply to another office about a mile from Pushton, for she dreaded Edith's anger should her correspondence be discovered.

The wily, unscrupulous man gave one of his satantic leers as he read the letter.

"The game will soon be mine," he chuckled, and he wrote promptly in return:

"In your request and reproaches, I see the influence of another mind. Left to yourself you would not doubt me. And yet such is my love for you, I would comply with your request were it not for what passed that fatal evening. My feelings and honor as a man forbid my ever meeting your sister again till she has apologized. She never liked me, and always wronged me with doubts. Elliot acted like a fool and a villain, and I have nothing more to do with him. But your sister, in her anger and excitement, classed me with him. When you have been my loved and trusted wife for some length of time, I hope your family will do me justice. When you are here with me you will soon see why our marriage must be private for the present. You have known me since you were a child. I will be true to my word and will do exactly as I agreed. I will meet you any evening you wish on the down boat. Awaiting your reply with an anxiety which only the deepest love can inspire, I remain,

"Your slave, GUILLIAM VAN DAM."

Such was the false but plausible missive that was aimed as an arrow at poor little Zell. There was nothing in her training or education, and little in her character, to shield her. Moreover the increasing miseries of their situation were Van Dam's allies.

Edith rose the next morning greatly refreshed, and her naturally courageous nature rallied to meet the difficulties of their position. But in her strength, as was too often the case, she made too little allowance for the weakness of the others. She took the reins in her hand in a masterful and not merciful way, and dictated to the rest in a manner that they secretly resented.

The store wagon was a little earlier than usual that morning, and a note from Mr. Hard was handed in, stating that he had payments to make that day and would therefore request that his little account might be met. Two or three other persons brought up bills from the village, saying that for some reason or another the money was greatly needed. Tom Crowl's gossip was doing its legitimate work.

In the post-office Edith found all the other accounts against the family, with requests for payment, polite enough, but pressing.

She resolved to pay all she could, and went first to Mr. Hard's, That worthy citizen's eyes grew less stony as he saw half the amount of his bill on the counter. The rumor of Edith's visit to the city had reached even him, and he had his fears that collecting might involve some unpleasant business; but, however unpleasant it might be, Mr. Hard always collected.

"I hope our method of dealing has satisfied you. Miss Allen," he ventured politely.

"Oh, yes," said Edith dryly, "you have been very liberal and prompt with everything, especially your bill."

At this Mr. Hard's eyes grew quite pebbly, and he muttered something about its being the rule to settle monthly.

"Oh, certainly," said Edith, "and like most rules, no doubt, has many exceptions. Good-morning."

She also paid something on the other bills, and found that she had but a few dollars left. Though there was a certain sense of relief in the feeling that she now owed much less, still she looked with dismay on the small sum remaining. Where was more to come from? She had determined that she would not go to New York again to sell anything except in the direst extremity.

That evening Hannibal gave them a meagre supper, for Edith had told him of the absolute necessity of economy. There was a little grumbling over the fare. So Edith pushed her chair back, laid seven dollars on the table, saying:

"That's all the money I have in the world. Who's got any more?"

They raised ten dollars among them.

"Now," said Edith, "this is all we have. Where is more coming from?"

Helpless sighs and silence were her only answers.

"There is nothing clearer in the world," continued Edith, "than that we must earn money. What can we do?"

"I never thought I should have to work," said Laura piteously.

"But, my dear sister," said Edith earnestly, "isn't it clear to you now that you must? You certainly don't expect me to earn enough to support you all. One pair of hands can't do it, and it wouldn't be fair in the bargain."

"Oh, certainly not," said Laura. "I will do anything you say as well as I can, though, for the life of me, I don't see what I can do."

"Nor I either," said Zell passionately. "I don't know how to work. I never did anything useful in my life that I know of. What right have parents to bring up girls in this way, unless they make it a perfect certainty that they will always be rich? Here we are as helpless as four children. We have not got enough to keep us from starving more than a week at best. Just to think of it! Men are speculating and risking all they have every day. Ever since I was a child I have heard about the risks of business. I knew some people whose fathers failed, and they went away, I don't know where, to suffer as we have perhaps, and yet girls are not taught to do a single thing by which they can earn a penny if they need to. If anybody will pay me for jabbering a little bad French and Italian, and strumming a few operatic airs on the piano, I am at their service. I think I also understand dressing, flirting, and receiving compliments very well. I had a taste for these things, and never had any special motive given me for doing anything else. What becomes of all the girls thus taught to be helpless, and then tossed out into the world to sink or swim?"

"They find some self-sustaining work in it," said Edith.

"Not all of them, I guess," muttered Zell sullenly.

"Then they do worse, and had better starve," said Edith sternly.

"You don't know anything about starving," retorted Zell, bitterly. "I repeat, it's a burning shame to bring girls up so that they don't know how to do anything, if there's ever any possibility that they must. And it's a worse shame that respect and encouragement are not given to girls who earn a living. Mother says that if we become working girls, not one of our old wealthy, fashionable set will have anything to do with us. What makes people act so silly? Any one of them on the avenue may be where we are in a year. I've no patience with the ways of the world. People don't help each other to be good, and don't help others up. Grown-up folks act like children. How parents can look forward to the barest chance of their children being poor, and bring them up as we were, I don't see. I'm no more fit to be poor than to be President."

Zell never before had said a word that reflected on her father, but in the light of events her criticism seemed so Just that no one reproved her.

Mrs. Allen only sighed over her part of the implied blame. She had reached the hopeless stage of one lost in a foreign land, where the language is unknown and every sight and sound unfamiliar and bewildering. This weak fashionable woman, the costly product of an artificial luxurious life, seemed capable of being little better than a millstone around the necks of her children in this hour of their need. If there had been some innate strength and nobility in Mrs. Allen's character it might have developed now into something worthy of respect under this sharp attrition of trouble, however perverted before. But where a precious stone will take lustre a pumice stone will crumble. There is a multitude of natures so weak to begin with that they need tonic treatment all through life. What must such become under the influence of enervating luxury, flattery, and uncurbed selfishness from childhood? Poor, faded, sighing, helpless Mrs. Allen, shivering before the trouble she had largely occasioned, is the answer.

Edith soon broke the forlorn silence that followed Zell's outburst by saying:

"All the blame doesn't rest on the parents. I might have improved my advantages far better. I might have so mastered the mere rudiments of an English education as to be able to teach little children, but I can scarcely remember a single thing now."

"I can remember one thing," interrupted Zell, who was fresh from her books, "that there was mighty little attention given to the rudiments, as you call them, in the fashionable schools to which I went. To give the outward airs and graces of a fine lady seemed their whole aim. Accomplishments, deportment were everything. The way I was hustled over the rudiments almost takes away my breath to remember, and I have as remote an idea of vulgar fractions as of how to do the vulgar work before us. I tell you the whole thing is a cruel farce. If girls are educated like butterflies, it ought to be made certain that they can live like butterflies."

"Well, then," continued Edith, "we ought to have perfected ourselves in some accomplishment. They are always in demand. See what some French and music teachers obtain."

"Nonsense," said Zell pettishly, "you know well enough that by the time we were sixteen our heads were so full of beaux, parties, and dress, that French and music were a bore. We went through the fashionable mills like the rest, and if father had continued worth a million or so, no one would have found fault with our education."

"We can't help the past now," said Edith after a moment, "but I am not so old yet but that I can choose some kind of work and so thoroughly master it that I can get the highest price paid for that form of labor. I wish it could be gardening, for I have no taste for the shut- up work of woman; sitting in a close room all day with a needle would be slow suicide to me."

"Gardening!" said Zell contemptuously. "You couldn't plow as well as that snuffy old fellow who scratched your garden about as deeply as a hen would have done it. A woman can't dig and hoe in the hot sun, that is, an American girl can't, and I don't think she ought."

"Nor I either," said Mrs. Allen, with some returning vitality. "The very idea is horrid."

"But plowing, digging, and hoeing are not all of gardening," said Edith with some irritation.

"I guess you would make a slim support by just snipping around among the rose-bushes," retorted Zell provokingly,

"That's always the way with you, Zell," said Edith sharply, "from one extreme to another. Well, what would you like to do?"

"If I had to work I would like housekeeping. That admits of great variety and activity. I wish I could open a summer boarding-house up here. Wouldn't I make it attractive!"

"Such black eyes and red cheeks certainly would—to the gentlemen," answered Edith satirically.

"They would be mere accessories. I think I could give to a boarding- house, that place of hash and harrowing discomfort, a dainty, homelike air. If father, when he risked a failure, had only put aside enough to set me up in a boarding-house, I should have been made."

"A boarding-house! What horror next?" sighed Mrs. Allen.

"Don't be alarmed, mother," said Zell bitterly. "We can scarcely start one of the forlornest hash species on ten dollars. I admit I would rather keep house for a good husband, and it seems to me I could soon learn to give him the perfection of a good home," and her eyes filled with wistful tears. Dashing them scornfully away, she added, "The idea of a woman loving a man, and letting his home be dependent on the cruel mercies of foreign servants! If it's a shame that girls are not taught to make a living if they need to, it's a worse shame that they are not taught to keep house. Half the brides I know of ought to have been arrested and imprisoned for obtaining property on false pretences. They had inveigled men into the vain expectation that they would make a home for them, when they no more knew how to make a home than a heaven. The best they can do is to go to one of those places so satirically called an 'intelligence office,' and import them into their elegant houses a small mob of quarrelsome, drunken, dishonest foreigners, and then they and their husbands live on such conditions as are permitted. I would be mistress of my house, just as a man is master of his store or office, and I would know thoroughly how work of all kinds was done, and see that it was done thoroughly. If they wouldn't do it, I'd discharge them. I am satisfied that our bad servants are the result of bad housekeepers more than anything else."

"Poor little Zell!" said Edith, smiling sadly. "I hope you will have a chance to put your theories into most happy and successful practice."

"Little chance of it here in 'Bushtown,' as Hannibal calls it," said Zell suddenly.

"Well," said Edith, in a kind of desperate tone, "we've got to decide on something at once. I will suggest this. Laura must take care of mother, and teach a few little children if she can get them. We will give up the parlor to her at certain hours. I will put up a notice in the post-office asking for such patronage, and perhaps we can put an advertisement in the Pushton Recorder, if it doesn't cost too much. Zell, you must take the housekeeping mainly, for which you have a taste, and help me with any sewing that I can get. Hannibal will go into the garden and I will help him there all I can. I shall go to the village to-morrow and see if I can find anything to do that will bring in money."

There was a silent acquiescence in Edith's plan, for no one had anything else to offer.



CHAPTER XVIII

IGNORANCE LOOKING FOR WORK



The next day Edith went to the village, and frankly told Mr. Hard how they were situated, mentioning that the failure of their lawyer to sell the stock had suddenly placed them in this crippled condition.

Mr. Hard's eyes grew more pebbly as he listened. He ventured in a constrained voice as consolation:

"That he never had much faith in stocks—No, he had no employment for ladies in connection with his store. He simply bought and sold at a small advance. Miss Klip, the dressmaker, might have something."

To Miss Klip Edith went. Miss Klip, although an unprotected female, appeared to be a maiden that could take care of herself. One would scarcely venture to hinder her. Her cutting scissors seemed instinct with life, and one would get out of their way as naturally as from a railroad train. She gave Edith a sharp look through her spectacles and said abruptly in answer to her application:

"I thought you was rich."

"We were," said Edith sadly, "but we must work now and are willing to."

"What do you know about dressmaking and sewing?"

"Well, not a great deal, but I think you would find us very ready to learn."

"Oh, bless you, I can get all my work done by thorough hands, and at my own prices, too. Good-morning."

"But can you not tell me of some one who would be apt to have work?"

"There's Mrs. Glibe across the street. She has work sometimes. Most of the dressmakers around here are well trained, have machines, and go out by the day."

Edith's heart sank. What chance was there for her untaught hands among all these "trained workers."

She soon found that Mrs. Glibe was more inclined to talk (being as garrulous as Miss Klip was laconic) and to find out all about them than to help her to work. Making but little headway in Edith's confidence she at last said, "I give Rose Lacey all the work I have to spare and it isn't very much. The business is so cut up that none of us have much more than we can do except a short time in the busy season. Still, those of us who can give a nice fit and cut to advantage can make a good living after getting known. It takes time and training you know of course."

"But isn't there work of any kind that we can get in this place?" said Edith impatiently.

"Well, not that you' d be willing to do. Of course there's housecleaning and washing and some plain sewing, though that is mostly done on a machine. A good strong woman can always get day's work, except in winter, but you ain't one of that sort," she added, looking at Edith's delicate pink and white complexion and little white hands in which a scrubbing-brush would look incongruous.

"Isn't there any demand for fancy work?" asked Edith.

"Mighty little. People buy such things in the city. Money ain't so plenty in the country that people will spend much on that kind of thing. The ladies themselves make it at home and when they go out to tea."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Edith, as she plodded wearily homeward, "what can we do? Ignorance is as bad as crime."

Her main hope now for immediate necessities was that they might get some scholars. She had put up a notice in the post-office and an advertisement in the paper. She had also purchased some rudimentary school books, and the poor child, on her return home, soon distracted herself by a sudden plunge into vulgar fractions. She found herself so sadly rusty that she would have to study almost as hard as any of her pupils, were they obtained. Laura's bookish turn and better memory had kept her better informed. Edith soon threw aside grammars and arithmetics, saying to Laura:

"You must take care of the school, if we get one. It would take me too long to prepare on these things in our emergency."

Almost desperate from the feeling that there was nothing she could do, she took a hoe that was by no means light, and loosened the ground and cut off all the sprouting weeds around her strawberry-vines. The day was rather cool and cloudy, and she was surprised at the space she went over. She wore her broad-brimmed straw hat tied down over her face, and determined she would not look at the road, and would act as if it were not there, letting people think what they pleased. But a familiar rumble and rattle caused her to look shyly up after the wagon had passed, and she saw Arden Lacey gazing wonderingly back at her. She dropped her eyes instantly as if she had not seen him, and went on with her work. At last, thoroughly wearied, she went in and said half triumphantly, half defiantly:

"A woman can hoe. I've done it myself."

"A woman can ride a horse like a man," said Mrs. Allen, and this was all the home encouragement poor Edith received.

They had had but a light lunch at one o'clock, meaning to have a more substantial dinner at six. Hannibal was showing Zell and getting her started in her department. It was but a poor little dinner they had, and Zell said in place of dessert:

"Edith, we are most out of everything."

"And I can't get any work," said Edith despondingly. "People have got to know how to do things before anybody wants them, and we haven't time to learn."

"Ten dollars won't last long," said Zell recklessly.

"I will go down to the village and make further inquiries to-morrow," Edith continued in a weary tone. "It seems strange how people stand aloof from us. No one calls and everybody wants what we owe them right away. Are there not any good kind people in Pushton? I wish we had not offended the Laceys. They might have advised and helped us, but nothing would tempt me to go to them after treating them as we did."

There were plenty of good kind people in Pushton, but Mrs. Allen's "policy" had driven them away as far as possible. By their course the Allens had placed themselves, in relation to all classes, in the most unapproachable position, and their "friends" from the city and Tom Crowl's gossip had made matters far worse. Poor Edith thought they were utterly ignored. She would have felt worse if she had known that every one was talking about them.

The next day Edith started on another unsuccessful expedition to the village, and while she was gone, Zell went to the post-office to which she had told Van Dam to direct his reply. She found the plausible lie we have already placed before the reader.

At first she experienced a sensation of anger that he had not complied with her wish. It was a new experience to have gentlemen, especially Van Dam, so long her obsequious slave, think of anything contrary to her wishes. She also feared that Edith might be right, and that Van Dam designed evil against her. She would not openly admit, even to herself, that this was his purpose, and yet Edith's words had been so clear and strong, and Van Dam's conditions placed her so entirely at his mercy, that she shrank from him and was fascinated at the same time.

But instead of indignantly casting the letter from her, she read it again and again. Her foolish heart pleaded for him.

"He couldn't be so false to me, so false to his written word," she said, and the letter was hidden away, and she passed into the dangerous stage of irresolution, where temptation is secretly dwelt upon. She hesitated, and, according to the proverb, the woman who does this is lost. Instead of indignantly casting temptation from her, she left her course open, to be decided somewhat by circumstances. She wilfully shut her eyes to the danger, and tried to believe, and did almost believe that her lover meant honestly by her.

And so the days passed, Edith vainly trying to find something to do, and working hard in her garden, which as yet brought no return. She was often very sad and despondent, and again very irritable. Laura's apathy only deepened, and she seemed like one not yet awakened from a dream of the past. Zell made some show of work, but after all left almost everything for Hannibal as before, and when Edith sharply chided her, she laughed recklessly and said:

"What's the use? If we are going to starve we might as well do so at once and have it over with."

"I won't starve," said Edith, almost fiercely. "There must be honest work somewhere in the world for one willing to do it, and I'm going to find it. At any rate, can raise food in my garden before long."

"I'm afraid we shall starve before your cabbages and carrots come to maturity, and we might as well as to try to live on such garbage. Supplies are running low, and, as you say, the money is nearly gone."

"Yes, and people won't trust us any more. Two or three declined to in the village to-day, and I felt too discouraged and ashamed to ask any further. For some reason people seem afraid of us. I see persons turn and look after me, and yet they avoid me. Two or three impudent clerks tried to make my acquaintance, but I snubbed them in such a way that they will let me alone hereafter. I wonder if any stories could have got around about us? Country towns are such places for gossip."

"Have you heard of any scholars?" said Laura languidly.

"No, not one," was Edith's despondent answer. "If nothing turns up before, I'll go to New York next Monday and sell some more things, and I'll go where I'm known this time."

Nothing turned up, and by Sunday they had nothing in the house save a little dry bread, which they ate moistened with wine and water. Mrs. Allen sighed and cried all day. Laura had the strange manner of one awaking up to something unrealized before. Restlessness began to take the place of apathy, and her eyes often sought the face of Edith in a questioning manner. Finding her alone in the garden, she said:

"Why, Edith, I'm hungry. I never remember being hungry before. Is it possible we have come to this?"

Edith burst into tears, and said brokenly:

"Come with me to the arbor."

"I'm sure I'm willing to do anything," said Laura piteously, "but I never realized we would come to this."

"Oh! how can the birds sing?" said Edith bitterly. "This beautiful spring weather, with its promise and hopefulness, seems a mockery. The sun is shining brightly, flowers are budding and blooming, and all the world seems so happy, but my heart aches as if it would burst. I'm hungry, too, and I know poor old Hannibal is faint, though he tries to keep up whenever I am around."

"But, Edith, if people knew how we are situated they would not let us want. Our old acquaintances in New York, or our relations even, though not very friendly, would surely help us."

"Oh, yes, I suppose so for a little while, but I can't bring myself to ask for charity, and no one would under take to support us. What discourages me most is that I can't get work that will bring in money. Between people wishing to have nothing to do with us, on one hand, and my ignorance on the other, there seems no resource. Some of those whom we owe seem inclined to press us. I'm so afraid of losing this place and being out on the street. If I could only get a chance somewhere, or get time to learn to do something well!"

Then after a moment she asked suddenly, "Where's Zell?"

"In her room, I think"

"I don't like Zell's manner," said Edith, after a brief painful revery. "It's so hard and reckless. Something seems to be on her mind. She has long fits of abstraction as if she were thinking of something, or weighing some plan. Could she have had any communication with that villain Van Dam? Oh! that would be the bitterest drop of all in our cup of sorrow. I would rather see her dead than that."

"Oh, dear!" said Laura, "it seems as if I had been in a trance and had just awakened. Why, Edith, I must do something. It is not right to let you bear all these things alone. But don't trouble about Zell, not one of George Allen's daughters will sink to that."



CHAPTER XIX

A FALLING STAR



Zell slept most of the day. She had reached that point where she did not want to think. On hearing Edith say that she would go to New York on Monday, a sadden and strong temptation assailed her. Impulsive, but not courageous, abounding in energy, but having little fortitude, she found the conditions of her country life growing unendurable. Van Dam seemed her only refuge, her only means of escape. She soon lost all hope of their sustaining themselves by work in Pushton. Her uncurbed nature could wait patiently for nothing, and as the long, idle days passed, she doubted, and then despaired, of any success from Edith's plans. She harbored Van Dam's temptation, and the consciousness of doing this hurt her womanly nature, and her hard, reckless tone and manner were the natural consequence. She said to herself, and tried to believe—

"He will marry me—he has promised again and again."

Still, there was the uneasy knowledge that she was placing herself and her reputation entirely at his mercy, and she long had known that Van Dam was no saint. It was this lurking knowledge, shut her eyes to it as she might, that acted on her nature like a petrifying influence.

And yet, Van Dam's temptation had more to contend with in her pride than in her moral nature. Everything in her education had tended to increase the former, and dwarf the latter. Her parents had taken her to the theatre far oftener than even to the fashionable church on the avenue. From the latter she carried away more ideas about dress than about anything else. From a child she had been familiar with the French school of morals, as taught by the sensational drama in New York. Society, that will turn a poor girl out of doors the moment she sins, will take her at the most critical age of her unformed character, night after night, to witness plays in which the husband is made ridiculous, but the man who destroys purity and home-happiness is as splendid a villain as Milton's Satan. Mr. Allen himself had familiarized Zell's mind with just what she was tempted to do, by taking her to plays as poisonous to the soul as the malaria of the Campagna at Rome to the body. He, though dead, had a part in the present temptation of his child, and we unhesitatingly charge many parents with the absolute ruin of their children, by exposing them, and permitting them to be exposed, to influences that they know must be fatal. No guardian of a child can plead the densest stupidity for not knowing that French novels and plays are as demoralizing as the devil could wish them to be; and constantly to place young, passionate natures, just awakening in their uncurbed strength, under such influences, and expect them to remain as spotless as snow, is the most wretched absurdity of our day. Society brings fire to the tow, the brand to the powder, and then lifts its hand to hurl its anathema in case they ignite.

But Mr. Allen sinned even more grievously in permitting a man like Van Dam to haunt his home. If now one of the lambs of his flock suffered irretrievably, he would be as much to blame as a shepherd who daily saw the wolf within his fold. Mr. Allen was familiar with the stories about Van Dam, as multitudes of wealthy men are to-day with the character of well-dressed scoundrels who visit their daughters. Some of the worst villains in existence have the entree into the "best society." It is pretty well known among men what they are, and fashionable mammas are not wholly in the dark. Therefore, every day, "angels that kept not their first estate" are falling from heaven. It may not be the open, disgraceful ruin that threatened poor Zell, but it is ruin nevertheless.

After all, it was the undermining, unhallowed influence of long association with Van Dam that now made Zell so weak in her first sharp stress of temptation. Crime was not awful and repulsive to her. There was little in her cunningly-perverted nature that revolted at it. She hesitated mainly on the ground of her pride, and in view of the consequences. And even these latter she in no sense realized, for the school in which she had been taught showed only the flowery opening of the path into sin, while its terrible retributions were kept hidden.

Therefore, as the miseries of her condition in the country increased, Zell's pride failed her, and she began to be willing to risk all to get away, and when she felt the pinch of hunger she became almost desperate. As we have said, on Edith's naming a day on which she would be absent on the forlorn mission that would only put off the day of utter want a little longer, the temptation took definite shape in Zell's mind to write at once to Van Dam, acceding to his shameful conditions.

But, to satisfy her conscience, which she could not stifle, and to provide some excuse for her action, and still more, to brace the hope she tried to cherish that he really meant truly by her, she wrote:

"If I will meet you at the boat Monday evening, will you surely marry me? Promise me on your sacred honor."

Van Dam muttered, with a low laugh, as he read the note:

"That's a rich joke, for her to accept such a proposition as mine, especially after all that has happened, and still prate of 'sacred honor.'"

But he unhesitatingly, promptly, and with many protestations assured her that he would, and at once prepared to carry out his part of the programme.

"What's the use of half-way lies?" he said, carelessly.

On Monday Edith again took the early train with the valuables of which she designed to dispose. Zell had said indifferently:

"You may take anything I have left except my watch and chain."

But Laura had insisted on sending her watch, saying, "I really wish to do something, Edith. I've left all the burden on you too long."

Mrs. Allen sighed, and said, "Take any thing you please."

So Edith carried away with her the means of fighting the wolf, hunger, from their doors a little longer. But if she had known that a more cruel enemy would despoil her home in her absence, she would rather have starved than gone.

Laura was reading to her mother when Zell put her head in at the door, saying:

"I am going for a short walk, and will be back soon."

She hastened to the office at which she had told Van Dam to address her, and found his reply. With feverish cheeks, and eyes in which glowed excitement rather than happiness, she read it as soon as she was alone on the road, and returned as quickly as possible. Her mind was in a wild tumult, but she would not allow herself one rational thought. She spent most of the day in her room preparing for her flight. But when she came down to see Hannibal about their meagre lunch, he said in some surprise and alarm:

"Oh, Miss Zell, how burnin' red your cheeks be! You'se got a ragin' feber, sure 'nuff. Go and lie right straight down, and I'se see to eberyting. I'se been to de willage and got some tea. A man guv it to me as a sample, and I telled him we'se like our tea mighty strong, so you'se all hab a cup of tea to-day, and to-night Miss Edie'll come back wid a heap of money."

"Poor old Hannibal!" said Zell, with a sudden rush of tenderness. "I wish I were as good as you are."

"Lor bress you, Miss Zell, I isn't good. I'se kind of a heathen. But somehow I feels dat de Lord will bress me when I steals for you alls."

"Oh, Hannibal, I wish I was dead and out of the way! Then there would be one less to provide for."

"Dead and out of de way!" said Hannibal, half indignantly; "dat's jest how to get into de way. I'd be afeard of seein' your spook whenever I was alone. I had no comfort in New York arter Massa Allen died, and was mighty glad to get away even to Bushtown. And den Miss Edie and all would cry dar eyes out, and couldn't do nothin'. Folks is often more in de way arter dey's dead and gone dan when livin'. Seein' your sweet face around ebery day, honey, is a great help to ole Hannibal. It seems only yesterday it was a little baby face, and we was all pretty nigh crazy over you."

"I wish I had died then!" said Zell, passionately, and hurrying away.

"Poor chile, poor chile! she takes it mighty hard," said innocent Hannibal.

She kept her room during the afternoon, pleading that she did not feel well. It gave her pain to be with her mother and Laura, now that she purposed to leave them so abruptly, and she wished to see nothing that would shake her resolution to go as she had arranged. She wrote to Edith as follows:

"I am going, Edith, to meet Mr. Van Dam, as he told me. I cannot—I will not believe that he will prove false to me. I leave his letter, which I received to-day. Perhaps you never will forgive me at home; but whatever becomes of poor little Zell, she will not cease to love you all. I should only be a burden if I stayed. There will be one less to provide for, and I may be able to help you far more by going than staying. Don't follow me. I've made my venture, and chosen my lot. ZELL."

As the long twilight was deepening, Hannibal, returning from the well with a pail of water, heard the gate-latch click, and, looking up, saw Zell hurrying out with hat and shawl on, and having the appearance of carrying something under her shawl. He felt a little surprise at first, but then, Zell was so full of impulse, that he concluded:

"She's gwine to meet Miss Edie. We'se all a-lookin' and leanin' on Miss Edie, Lor bres her."

But Zell was going to perdition.

Little later the stage brought tired Edith home, but in better spirits than before, as she had realized a somewhat fair sum for what she had sold, and had been treated politely.

After taking off her things, she asked, "Where's Zell?"

"Lying down, I think," said Laura. "She complained of not feeling well this afternoon."

But Hannibal's anxious face in the door now caught her attention, and she joined him at once.

"Didn't you meet Miss Zell?" he asked in a whisper.

"Meet her? No," answered Edith, excitedly.

"Dat's quare. She went out with hat and shawl on a little while ago. P'raps she's come back, and gone upstairs again."

Trembling so she could hardly walk steadily, Edith hurried to her room, and there saw Zell's note. Tearing it open, she only read the first line, and then rushed down to her mother and Laura, sobbing:

"Zell's gone."

"Gone! Where?" they said, with dismayed faces.

Edith's only reply was to look suddenly at her watch, put on her hat, and dart out of the door. She saw that there were still ten minutes before the evening boat passed the Pushton landing, and remembered that it was sometimes delayed. There was a shorter road to the dock than the one through the village, and this she took, with flying feet, and a white but determined face. It would have been a terrible thing for Van Dam to have met her then. She seemed sustained by supernatural strength, and, walking and running by turns, made the mile and a half in an incredibly short space of time. As she reached the top of the hill above the landing, she saw the boat coming in to the dock. Though panting and almost spent, again she ran at the top of her speed. Half- way down she heard the plank ring out upon the wharf.

"Stop!" she called. But her parched lips uttered only a faint sound, like the cry of one in a dream.

A moment later, as she struggled desperately forward, there came, like the knell of hope, the command:

"All aboard!"

"Oh, wait, wait!" she again tried to call, but her tongue seemed paralyzed.

As she reached the commencement of the long dock, she saw the lines cast off. The great wheels gave a vigorous revolution, and the boat swept away.

She was too late. She staggered forward a few steps more, and then all her remaining strength went into one agonized cry:

"Zell!"

And she fell fainting on the dock.

Zell heard that cry, and recognized the voice. Taking her hand from Mr. Van Dam's arm, she covered her face in sudden remorseful weeping.

But it was too late.

She had left the shelter of home, and ventured out into the great pitiless world on nothing better than Van Dam's word. It was like walking a rotten plank out into the sea.

Zell was lost!



CHAPTER XX

DESOLATION



Not only did Edith's bitter cry startle poor Zell, coming to her ear as a despairing recall from the battlements of heaven might have sounded to a falling angel, but Arden Lacey was as thoroughly aroused from his painful revery as if shaken by a giant hand. He had been down to meet the boat, with many others, and was sending off some little produce from their place. He had not noticed in the dusk the closely- veiled lady; indeed, he rarely noticed any one unless they spoke to him, and then gave but brief, surly attention. Only one had scanned Zell curiously, and that was Tom Crowl. With his quick eye for something wrong in human action, he was attracted by Zell's manner. He could not make out through her thick veil who she was, in the increasing darkness, but he saw that she was agitated, and that she looked eagerly for the coming of the boat, also landward, where the road came out on the dock, as if fearing or expecting something from that quarter. But when he saw her join Van Dam, he recognized his old bar-room acquaintance, and surmised that the lady was one of the Allen family. Possessing these links in the chain, he was ready for the next. Edith's presence and cry supplied this, and he chuckled exultantly:

"An elopement!" and ran in the direction of the sound.

But Arden was already at Edith's side, having reached her almost at a bound, and was gently lifting the unconscious girl, and regarding her with a tenderness only equalled by his helplessness and perplexity in not knowing what to do with her.

The first impulse of his great strength was to carry her directly to her home. But Edith was anything but ethereal, and long before he could have passed the mile and a half, he would have fainted under the burden, even though love nerved his arms. But while he stood in piteous irresolution, there came out from the crowd that had gathered round, a stout, middle-aged woman, who said, in a voice that not only betokened the utmost confidence in herself, but also the assurance that all the world had confidence in her:

"Here, give me the girl. What do you men-folks know about women?"

"I declare, it's Mrs. Groody from the hotel," ejaculated Tom Crowl, as this delightful drama (to him) went on from act to act.

"Standin' there and holdin' of her," continued Mrs. Groody, who was sometimes a little severe on both sexes, "won't bring her to, unless she fainted 'cause she wanted some one to hold her."

A general laugh greeted this implied satire, but Arden, between anger and desire to do something, was almost beside himself. He had the presence of mind to rush to the boat-house for a bucket of water, and when he arrived with it a man had also procured a lantern, which revealed to the curious onlookers who gathered round with craning necks the pale features of Edith Allen.

"By golly, but it's one of them Allen girls," said Tom Crowl, eagerly. "I see it all now. She's down to stop her sister, who's just run away with one of those city scamps that was up here awhile ago. I saw her join him and take his arm on the boat, but wasn't sure who she was then."

"Might know you was around, Tom Crowl," said Mrs. Groody. "There's never nothing wrong going on but you see it. You are worse than any old woman for gossip. Why don't you put on petticoats and go out to tea for a livin'?"

When the laugh ceased at Crowl's expense, he said:

"Don't you put on airs, Mrs. Groody; you are as glad, to hear the news as any one. It's a pity you turned up and spoiled Mr. Lacey's part of the play, for, if this one is anything like her sister, she, perhaps, wanted to be held, as you—"

Tom's further utterance was effectually stopped by such a blow across his mouth, from Lacey's hand, as brought the blood profusely on the spot, and caused such disfigurement, for days after, that appropriate justice seemed visited on the offending region.

"Leave this dock," said Arden, sternly; "and if I trace any slander to you concerning this lady or myself, I will break every bone in your miserable body."

Crowl shrank off amid the jeers of the crowd, but on reaching a safe distance, said, "You will be sorry for this."

Arden paid no need to him, for Edith, under Mrs. Groody's treatment, gave signs of returning consciousness. She slowly opened her eyes, and turned them wonderingly around; then came a look of wild alarm, as she saw herself surrounded by strange bearded faces, that appeared both savage and grotesque in the flickering light of the lantern."

"O, Heaven! have mercy," she cried, faintly. "Where am I?"

"Among friends, I assure you, Miss Allen," said Arden, kneeling at her side.

"Mr. Lacey! and are you here?" said Edith, trying to rise. "You surely will protect me."

"Do not be afraid, Miss Allen. No one would harm you for the world; and Mrs. Groody is a good kind lady, and will see you safely home, I am sure."

Edith now became conscious that it was Mrs. Groody who was supporting her, and regained confidence, as she recognized the presence of a woman.

"Law bless you, child, you needn't be scared. You have only had a faint. I'll take care of you, as young Lacey says. Seems to me he's got wonderfully polite since last summer," she muttered to herself.

"But where am I?" asked Edith, with a bewildered air; "what has happened?"

"Oh, don't worry yourself; you'll soon be home and safe."

But the memory of it all suddenly came to Edith, and even by the lantern's light, Arden saw the sudden crimson pour into her face and neck, She gave one wild, deprecating look around, and then buried her face in her hands as if to hide the look of scorn she expected to see on every face.

The first arrow aimed by Zell's great wrong already quivered in her heart.

"Don't you think you could walk a little now, just enough to get into the hack with me and go home?" asked the kind woman, in a soothing voice.

"Yes, yes," said Edith, eagerly; "let us get away at once." And with Mrs. Groody's and Arden's assistance, she was soon seated in the hack, and was glad to note that there was no other passenger. The ride was a comparatively silent one. Edith was too exhausted from her desperate struggle to reach the boat, and her heart was too bruised and sore, to permit on her part much more than monosyllables, in answer to Mrs. Groody's efforts at conversation. But as they stopped at the cottage her new friend said, cheerily:

"Don't take it so hard, my child; you ain't to blame. I'll stand by you if no one else will. It don't take me long to know a good honest girl when I see one, and I know you mean well. What's more, I've took a likin' to you, and I can be a pretty fair sort of friend if I do work for a livin'."

Mrs. Groody was good if not grammatical. She had broad shoulders, that had borne in their day many burdens—her own and others'. She had a strong, stout frame, in which thumped a large, kindly heart. She had long earned her bread by callings that brought her in contact with all classes, and had learned to know the world very thoroughly without becoming worldly or hardened. But she had a quick, sharp tongue, and could pay anybody off in his own coin with interest. Everybody soon found it to his advantage to keep on the right side of Mrs. Groody, and the old habitues of the hotel were as polite and deferential to her as if she were a duchess. She was one of those shrewd, strong, cheery people, who would make themselves snug, useful, and influential in a very short time, if set down anywhere on the face of the earth.

Such a woman readily surmised the nature of Edith's trouble, and knew well how deeply the shadow of Zell's disgrace would fall on the family. Edith's desperate effort to save her sister, her bitter humiliation and shrinking shame in view of the flight, all proved her to be worthy of respect and confidence herself. When Mrs. Groody saw that Edith lived in a little house, and was probably not in so high a social position as to resent her patronage, her big heart yearned in double sympathy over the poor girl, and she determined to help her in the struggle she knew to be before her; so she said, kindly:

"If you'll wait till a clumsy old body like me can get out, I'll see you safe into your home."

"Oh, no," said Edith, eagerly, following the strong instinct to keep a stranger from seeing herself, her mother, and Laura in the first hour of their shame. "You have been very kind, and I feel that I can never repay you."

"Bless you, child, I don't expect greenbacks for all I do. I want a little of the Lord's work to come to me, though I'm afraid I fell from grace long ago. But a body can't be pious in a hotel. There's so many aggravatin' people and things that you think swearin', if you darsn't say it out. But I'm a human sort of a heathen, after all, and I feel sorry for you. Now ain't there somethin' I can do for you?"

The driver stood with his lantern near the door, and its rays fell on Edith's pale face and large, tearful eyes, and she turned, and for the first time tried to see who this kind woman was, that seemed to feel for her. Taking Mrs. Groody's hands, she said, in a voice of tremulous pathos:

"God bless you for speaking to me at all. I didn't think any one would again who knew. You ask if you can do anything for me. If you'll only get me work, I'll bless you every day of my life. No one on earth or in heaven can help me, unless I get work. I'm almost desperate for it, and I can't seem to find any that will bring us bread, but I'll do any honest work, no matter what, and I'll take whatever people are willing to give for it, till I can do better." Edith spoke in a rapid manner, but in a tone that went straight to the heart.

"Why, my poor child," said Mrs. Groody, wiping her eyes, "you can't do work. You are pale as a ghost, and you look like a delicate lady."

"What is there in this world for a delicate lady who has no money but honest work?" asked Edith, in a tone that was almost stern.

"I see that you are such a lady, and it seems that you ought to find some lady-like work, if you must do it," said Mrs. Groody, musingly.

"We have tried to get employment—almost any kind. I can't think my sister would have taken her desperate course if we could have obtained something to do. I know she ought to have starved first. But we were not brought up to work, and we can't do anything well enough to satisfy people, and we haven't time to learn. Besides, before this happened, for some reason people stood aloof from us, and now it will be far worse. Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?" cried Edith, despairingly; and in her trouble she seemed to turn her eyes away from Mrs. Groody, with wild questioning of the future.

Her new acquaintance was sniffling and blowing her nose in a manner that betokened serious internal commotion. The driver, who would have hustled any ordinary passenger out quickly enough, waited Mrs. Groody's leisure at a respectful distance. He knew her potential influence at the hotel. At last the good woman found her voice, though it seemed a little husky:

"Lor' bless you, child! I ain't got a millstun for a heart, and if I had, you'd turn it into wax. If work's all you want, you shall have it. I'm housekeeper at the hotel. You come to me as soon as you are able, and we'll find something."

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" said Edith, fervidly.

"Is dat you, Miss Edie?" called Hannibal's anxious voice.

"Good-night, my dear," said Mrs. Groody, hastily, "Don't lose courage. I ain't on as good terms with the Lord as I ought to be. I seem too worried and busy to 'tend to religion; but I know enough about Him to be sure that He will take care of a poor child that wants to do right."

"I don't understand how God lets happen all that's happened to-day. The best I can believe is, that we are dealt with in a mass, and the poor human atoms are lost sight of. But I am indeed grateful for your kindness, and will come to-morrow and do anything I can. Good-by."

And the hack rumbled away, leaving her in the darkness, with Hannibal at the gate.

"Oh, Hannibal, Hannibal," was all that Edith could say.

"Is she done gone clean away?" asked Hannibal, in an awed whisper.

"Would to heaven she had never been born!" said Edith, bitterly. "Help me into the house, for I feel as if I should die."

Hannibal, trembling with fear himself, supported poor, exhausted Edith to a sofa, and then disappeared into the kitchen.

Mrs. Allen and Laura came and stood with white faces by Edith's languid, unnerved form.

There was no need of asking questions. She had returned alone, with her fresh young face looking old and drawn in its grief.

At last Mrs. Allen said, with bitter emphasis:

"She is no child of mine, from this day forth."

Then followed such a dreary silence that it might seem that Zell had died and was no more.

At last Hannibal bustled in, making a most desperate effort to keep up a poor show of courage and hope. He placed on a little table before Edith a steaming hot cup of tea, some toast, and wine, but the food was motioned away.

"It would choke me," said Edith.

Hannibal stood before her a moment, his quaint old visage working under the influence of emotion, almost beyond control. At last he managed to say:

"Miss Edie, we'se all a leanin' on you. We'se nothin' but vines a climbin' up de orange-bush. If you goes down, we all does. And now, Miss Edie, I'd swallow pison for you. Won't you take a cup o' tea for de sake of ole Hannibal? 'Cause your sweet face looks so pinched, honey, dat I feels dat my ole black heart's ready to bust;" and Hannibal, feeling that the limit of his restraint was reached, retreated precipitately to the kitchen.

The appeal, with its element of deep affection, was more needed by Edith in her half-paralyzed state than even the material refreshment. She sat up instantly, and drank the tea and wine, and ate a little of the toast. Then taking the cup and glass into the kitchen:

"There," she said, "see, I've drunk every drop. So don't worry about me any more, my poor old Hannibal, but go to bed, after your hard day's work."

But Hannibal would not venture out of his dark corner, but muttered, brokenly:

"Lor—bress—you—Miss Edie—you'se an angel—I'se be better soon— I'se got—de hiccups."

Edith thought it kindness to leave the old man to recover his self- control in his own time and way, so she said:

"Good-night, my faithful old friend. You're worth your weight in gold."

Meantime, Laura had helped Mrs. Allen to her room but now she came running down to Edith, with new trouble in her face, saying:

"Mother's crying so, I can't do anything with her."

At first Mrs. Allen's heart seemed hardened against her erring child, but on reaching her room she stood a few moments irresolutely, then went to a drawer, took out an old faded picture-case and opened it. From it Zell smiled out upon her, a little, dimpled baby. Then, as if by a sudden impulse rare to her, she pressed her lips against the unconscious face, and threw herself into her low chair, sobbing so violently that Laura became alarmed.

Even in that arid place, Mrs. Allen's heart, there appeared a little oasis of mother love, as this last and bitterest sorrow pierced its lowest depths. She might cast out from her affection the grown, sinning daughter, but not the baby that once slept upon her breast.

As Edith came and took her hand she said, brokenly:

"It seems—but yesterday—that she was—a wee black-eyed—little thing—in my arms—and your father—came—and looked at her—so proudly—tenderly—"

"Would to heaven she had died then!" said Edith, sternly.

"It would have been better if we had all died then,", said Mrs. Allen drearily, and becoming quiet.

Edith's words fell like a chill upon her unwontedly stirred heart, and old habits of feeling and action resumed sway.

With Mrs. Allen's words ended the miserable day of Zell's flight. Hannibal's words were true. Zell, in her unnatural absence, would be more in the way—a heavier burden—than if she had become a helpless invalid upon their hands.



CHAPTER XXI

EDITH'S TRUE KNIGHT



The next morning Edith was too ill to rise. She had become chilled after her extraordinary exertion of the previous evening, and a severe cold was the consequence; and this, with the nervous prostration of an over-taxed system, made her appear more seriously indisposed than she really was. For the sake of her mother and Laura, she wished to be present at the meagre little breakfast which her economy now permitted, but found it impossible; and later in the day her mind seemed disposed to wander.

Mrs. Allen and Laura were terror-stricken at this new trouble. As Hannibal had said, they were all leaning on Edith. They had lost confidence in themselves, and now hoped nothing from the outside world. They had scarcely the shadow of an expectation that Van Dam would marry Zell, and therefore they knew that worse than work would separate them from all old connections, and they had learned to hope nothing from the people of Pushton. Poor, feverish, wandering Edith seemed the only one who could keep them from falling into the abyss of utter want. They instinctively felt that total wreck was impossible as long as she kept her hand upon the helm; but now they had all the wild alarm of those who are drifting helplessly toward a reef, with a deep and stormy sea on either side of it. Thus to the natural anxiety of affection was added sickening fear.

Poor old Hannibal had no fear for himself. His devotion to Edith reminded one of a faithful dog: it was so strong, instinctive, unreasoning. He realized vaguely that his whole existence depended on Edith's getting well, and yet we doubt whether he thought of himself any more than the Newfoundland, who watches beside the bed, and then beside the grave of a loved master, till famine, that form of pain which humanity cannot endure, robs him of life.

"We must have a physician immediately," said Laura, with white lips.

"Oh, no," murmured Edith; "we can't afford it."

"We must," said Laura, with a sudden rush of tears. "Everything depends on you."

Hannibal, who heard this brief dialogue, went silently downstairs, and at once started in quest of Arden Lacey.

"If he is quar, he seemed kind o' human; and I'se believe he'll help us now."

Arden was on the way to the barn, having just finished a farmer's twelve o'clock dinner, when Hannibal entered the yard. An angel of light could not have been more welcome than this dusky messenger, for he came from the centre of all light and hope to poor Arden. Then a feeling of alarm took possession of him. Had anything happened to Edith? He had seen her shrinking shame. Had it led her to—and he shuddered at the thought his wild imagination suggested. It was almost a relief when Hannibal said:

"Oh, Mr. Lacey, I'se sure from de way you acted when we fust come, dat you can feel for people in trouble. Miss Edie's berry sick, and I don't know whar to go for a doctor, and she won't have any; but she mus, and right away. Den again, I oughter not leave, for dey's all nearly dead with trouble and cryin'."

"You are a good, faithful fellow," said Arden, heartily. "Go back and do all you can for Miss Edith, and I'll bring a doctor myself, and much quicker too than you could."

Before Hannibal reached home, Arden galloped past him, and the old man chuckled:

"De drunken Laceys' mighty good neighbors when dey's sober."

As may well be imagined, recent events, as far as he understood them, had stirred Arden's sensitive nature to the very depths. Hiding his feelings from all save his mother, and often from her; appearing to his neighbors stolid and sullen in the extreme, he was, in fact, in his whole being, like a morbidly-excited nerve. He did not shrink from the world because indifferent to it, but because it wounded him when he came in contact with it. He seemed so out of tune with society that it produced only jarring discord. His father's course brought him many real slights, and these he resented as we have seen, and he resented fancied slights quite as often, and thus he had cut himself off from the sympathies, and even the recognition, of nearly all.

But what human soul can dwell alone? The true hermit finds in communion with the Divine mind the perfection of companionship. But Arden knew not God. He had heard of Him all his life; but Jove and Thor were images more familiar to his mind than that of his Creator. He loved his mother and sister, but their life seemed a poor, shaded little nook, where they toiled and moped. And so, to satisfy the cravings of his lonely heart, he had created and peopled an unreal world of his own, in which he dwelt most of the time. As his interest in the real world ceased, his imagination more vividly portrayed the shadowy one, till at last, in the scenes of poetry and fiction, and the splendid panorama of history, he thought he might rest satisfied, and find all the society he needed in converse with those whom, by a refinement of spiritualism, he could summon to his side from any age or land. He secretly exulted in the still greater magic by which the unreal creatures of poetic thought would come at his volition, and he often smiled to think how royally attended was "old, drunken Lacey's" son, whom many of the neighbors thought scarcely better than the horses he drove.

Thus he lived under a spell of the past, in a world moon-lighted by sentiment and fancy, surrounded by his ideals of those about whom he read, and Shakespeare's vivid, life-like women were better known to him than any of the ladies of Pushton. But dreams cannot last in our material world, and ghosts vanish in the sunlight of fact. Woman's nature is as beautiful and fascinating now as when the master-hand of the world's greatest poet delineated it, and when living, breathing Edith Allen stepped suddenly among his shadows, seemingly so luminous, they vanished before her, as the stars pale into nothingness when the eastern sky is aglow with morning. Now, in all his horizon, she only shone, but the past seemed like night, and the present, day.

The circumstances under which he had met Edith had, in brief time, done more to acquaint him with her than years might have accomplished, and for the first time in his life he saw a superior girl with the distorting medium of his prejudice pushed aside. Therefore she was a sudden beautiful revelation to him, as vivid as unexpected. He did not believe any such being existed, and indeed there did not, if we consider into what he came to idealize Edith. But a better Edith really lived than the unnatural paragon that he pictured to himself, and the reality was capable of a vast improvement, though not in the direction that his morbid mind would have indicated.

The treatment of his sister, the sudden ceasing of all intercourse, and the appearance of Gus Elliot upon the scene, had cruelly wounded his fair ideal, but with a lover's faith and a poet's fancy he soon repaired the ravages of facts. He assured himself that Edith did not know the character of the men who visited her house.

Then came Crowl's gossip, the knowledge of her poverty, and her wretched errands to New York to dispose of the relics of the happy past. He gathered from such observations as he could maintain without being suspected, by every crumb of gossip that he could pick up (for once he listened to gossip as if it were gospel), that they were in trouble, that Edith was looking for work, and that she was so superior to the rest of the family that they now all deferred to her and leaned upon her. Then, to his deep satisfaction, he had seen Elliot, the morning after his scathing repulse, going to the train, and looking forlorn and sadly out of humor, and he was quite sure he had not been near the little cottage since. Arden needed but little fact upon which to rear a wondrous superstructure, and here seemed much, and all in Edith's favor, and he longed with an intensity beyond language to do something to help her.

Then came the tragedy of Zell's flight, Edith's heroic and almost superhuman effort to save her, now followed by her pathetic weakness and suffering, and no knight in the romantic age of chivalry ever more wholly and loyally devoted himself to the high-born lady of his choice, than did Arden to the poor sick girl at whom the finger of scorn would now be generally pointed in Pushton.

To come back to our hero, galloping away on his old farm horse to find a country doctor, may seem a short step down from the sublime. And so, perhaps, it may be to those whose ideal of the sublime is only in outward and material things. But to those who look past these things to the passionate human heart, the same in every age, it will be evident that Arden was animated by the same spirit with which he would have sought and fought the traditional dragon.

Dr. Neak, a new-comer who was gaining some little name for skill and success, and was making the most of it, was at home; but on Arden's hurried application, ahemmed, hesitated, colored a little, and at last said:

"Look here, Mr.—-(I beg your pardon, I've not the pleasure of knowing your name), I'm a comparative stranger in Pushton, and am just gaining some little reputation among the better classes. I would rather not compromise myself by attendance upon that family. If you can't get any one else, and the girl is suffering, of course I'll try and go, but—"

"Enough," interrupted Arden, starting up blazing with wrath. "You should spell your name with an S. I want a man as well as a physician," and, with a look of utter contempt, he hastened away, leaving the medical man somewhat anxious, not about Edith, but whether he had taken the best course in view of his growing reputation.

Arden next traced out Dr. Blunt, who readily promised to come. He attended all alike, and charged roundly also.

"Business is business," was his motto. "People who employ me must expect to pay. After all, I'm the cheapest man in the place, for I tell my patients the truth, and cure them as quickly as possible."

Arden's urgency soon brought him to Edith's side, and his practiced eye saw no serious cause for alarm, and having heard more fully the circumstances, he said:

"She will be well in a few days if she is kept very quiet, and nothing new sets in. Of course she would be sick after last night. One might as well put his hand in the fire and not expect it to burn him, as to get very warm and then cool off suddenly and not expect to be ill. Her pulse indicates general depression of her system, and need of rest. That's all."

After prescribing remedies and a tonic, he said, "Let me know if I am needed again," and departed in rather ill-humor.

Meeting Arden's anxious, questioning face at the gate, he said gruffly:

"I thought from what you said the girl was dying. Used up and a bad cold, that's all. Somewhat feverish yourself, ain't you?" he added meaningly.

Though Arden colored under the doctor's satire, he was chiefly conscious of a great relief that his idol was not in danger. His only reply was the sullen, impassive expression he usually turned toward the world.

As the doctor rode away, Hannibal joined him, saying:

"Mr. Lacey, you'se a friend in need, and if you only knowed what an angel you'se servin', you wouldn't look so cross."

"Do I look cross?" asked Arden, his face becoming friendly in a moment. "Well, it wasn't with you, still less with Miss Edith; for even you cannot serve her more gladly than I will. That old doctor r'iled me a little, though I can forgive him, since he says she is not seriously ill."

"I'se glad you feels your privileges," said Hannibal, with some dignity. "I'se knowed Miss Edie eber since she was a baby, and when we lived on de avenue, de biggest and beautifullest in de city come to our house, but none of 'em could compare wid my young lady. I don't care what folks say, she's jes as good now, if she be poor, and her sister hab run away, poor chile. De world don't know all;" and old Hannibal shook his white head sadly and reproachfully.

This panegyric found strong echo in Arden's heart, but his habit of reticence and his sensitive shrinking from any display of feeling permitted him only to say, "I am sure every word you say is more than true, and you will do me a great favor when you let me know how I can serve Miss Edith."

Hannibal saw that he need waste no more ammunition on Arden, so he pulled out the prescriptions, and said:

"The doctor guv me dese, but, Lor bress you, my ole jints is stiff, and I'd be a week in gittin' down and back from de willage."

"That's enough," interrupted Arden. "You shall have the medicines in half an hour;" and he kept his word.

"He is quar," muttered Hannibal, looking after him. "Neber saw a man so 'bligin'. Folks say winegar ain't nothin' to him, but he seems sweet on Miss Edie, sure 'nuff. What 'ud he say, 'You'se do me great favor to tell me how I can serve Miss Edie'? I'se hope it'll last," chuckled Hannibal, retiring to his domain in the kitchen, "'cause I'se gwine to do him a heap ob favors."



CHAPTER XXII

A MYSTERY



At Arden's request his mother called in the evening, and also Mrs. Groody, from the hotel. Hannibal met them, and stated the doctor's orders. Mrs. Allen and Laura did not feel equal to facing any one. Though the old servant was excessively polite, the callers felt rather slighted that they saw no member of the family. They went away a little chilled in consequence, and contented themselves thereafter by sending a few delicacies and inquiring how Edith was.

"If you have any self-respect at all," said Rose Lacey to her mother, "you will not go there again till you are invited. It's rather too great a condescension for you to go at all, after what has happened."

Arden listened with a black look, and asked, rather sharply:

"Will you never learn to distinguish between Miss Edith and the others?"

"Yes," said Rose, dryly, "when she gives me a chance."

The doctor's view of Edith's case was correct. Her vigorous and elastic constitution soon rallied from the shock it had received. Hannibal had sent to the village for nutritious diet, which he knew so well how to prepare, and, after a few days, she was quite herself again. But with returning strength came also a sense of shame, anxiety, and a torturing dread of the future. The money accruing from her last sale of jewelry would not pay the debts resting on them now, and she could not hope to earn enough to pay the balance remaining, in addition to their support. Her mother suggested the mortgaging of her place. She had at first repelled the idea, but at last entertained it reluctantly. There seemed no other resource. It would put off the evil day of utter want, and might give her time to learn something by which she could compete with trained workers.

Then there was the garden. Might not that and the orchard, in time, help them out of their troubles?

As the long hours of her convalescence passed, she sat at her window and scanned the little spot with a wistfulness that might have been given to one of Eden-like proportions. She was astonished to see how her strawberries had improved since she hoed them, but noted in dismay that both they and the rest of the garden were growing very weedy.

When the full knowledge of their poverty and danger dawned upon her, she felt that it would not be right for Malcom to come any more. At the same time she could not explain things to him; so she sent a written request through the mail for his bill, telling him not to come any more. This action, following the evening when Gus Elliot had surprised her in the garden, perplexed and rather nettled Malcom, who was, to use his own expression, "a bit tetchy." Their money had grown so scarce that Edith could not pay the bill, and she was ashamed to go to see him till there was some prospect of her doing so. Thus Malcom, though disposed to be very friendly, was lost to her at this critical time, and her garden suffered accordingly. She and Hannibal had done what they could, but of late her illness, and the great accession of duties resting on the old servant, had caused complete neglect in her little plantation of fruit and vegetables. Thus, while all her crops were growing well, the weeds were gaining on them, and even Edith knew that the vigor of evil was in them, and that, unchecked, they would soon make a tangled swamp of that one little place of hope. She could not ask Hannibal to work there now, for he was overburdened already. Laura seemed so feeble and crushed that her strength was scarcely equal to taking care of her mother, and the few lighter duties of housework. Therefore, though the June sunshine rested on the little garden, and all nature seemed in the rapture of its early summer life, poor, practical Edith saw only the pestiferous weeds that threatened to destroy her one slender prospect of escape from environing difficulties. At last she turned away. To the sad and suffering, scenes most full of cheer and beauty often seem the most painful mockery.

She brooded over her affairs most of the day, dwelling specially on the suggestion of a mortgage. She felt extreme reluctance in perilling her home. Then again she said to herself, "It will at least give me time, and perhaps the place will be sold for debt, for we must live."

The next morning she slept late, her weary, overtaxed frame asserting its need. But she rose greatly refreshed, and it seemed that her strength had come back. With returning vigor hopefulness revived. She felt some cessation of the weary, aching sorrow at her heart. The world is phosphorescent to the eyes of youth, and even ingulfing waves of misfortune will sometimes gleam with sudden brightness.

The morning light also brought Edith a pleasant surprise, for, as she was dressing, her eyes eagerly sought the strawberry-bed. She had been thinking, "If I only continue to gain in this style, I shall soon be able myself to attack the weeds." Therefore, instead of a helpless look, such as she gave yesterday, her glance had something vengeful and threatening in it. But the moment she opened the lattice, so that she could see, an exclamation came from her lips, and she threw back the blinds, in order that there might be no mistake as to the wonder that startled her. What magic had transformed the little place since, in the twilight of the previous evening, she had given the last discouraged look in that direction? There was scarcely a weed to be seen in the strawberry-bed. They had not only been cut off, but raked away, and here and there she could see a berry reddening in the morning sun. In addition, some of her most important vegetables, and her prettiest flower border, had been cleaned and nicely dressed. A long row of Dan O'Rourk peas, that had commenced to sprawl on the ground, was now hedged in by brush; and, better still, thirty cedar poles stood tall and straight among her Lima beans, whose long slender shoots had been vainly feeling round for a support the last few days. Her first impulse was to clap her hands with delight and exclaim: "How, in the name of wonder, could he do it all in a night! Oh, Malcom, you are a canny Scotchman, but you put the 'black art' to very white uses."

She dressed in excited haste, meaning to question Hannibal, but, as she left her room, Laura met her, and said, in a tone of the deepest despondency—

"Mother seems very ill. She has not felt like herself since that dreadful night, but we did not like to tell you, fearing it would put back your recovery."

The rift in the heavy clouds, through which the sun had gleamed for a moment, now closed, and a deeper gloom seemed to gather round them. In sudden revulsion Edith said, bitterly:

"Are we to be persecuted to the end? Cannot the heavy hand of misfortune be lifted a moment?"

She found her mother suffering from a low, nervous fever, and quite delirious.

Hannibal was at once despatched for the doctor, who, having examined Mrs. Allen's symptoms, shook his head, saying:

"Nothing but good nursing will bring her through this."

Edith's heart sank like lead. What prospect was there for work now, even if Mrs. Groody gave it to her, as she had promised? She saw nothing before her but the part of a weary watcher, for perhaps several weeks. She hesitated no longer, but resolved to mortgage her place at once. Her mother must have delicacies and good attendance, and she must have time to extricate herself from the difficulties into which she had been brought by false steps at the beginning. Therefore she told Hannibal to give her an early lunch, after which she would walk to the village.

"You isn't able," said he earnestly.

"Oh, yes I am," she replied; "better able than to stay at home and worry. I must have something settled, and my mind at rest, even for a little while, or I shall go distracted." Then she added, "Did you see Malcom here early this morning?"

"No, Miss Edie, he hasn't been here."

"Go look at the garden."

He returned with eyes dilated in wonder, and asked quickly, "Miss Edie, when was all dat done?"

"Between dark last night and when I got up this morning. It seems like magic, don't it? But of course it is Malcom's work. I only wish I could see him."

But Hannibal shook his head ominously and said with emphasis, "Dat little Scotchman couldn't scratch around like dat, even if de debil was arter him. 'Tain't his work."

"Why, whose else could it be?" asked Edith, sipping a strong cup of coffee, with which she was fortifying herself for the walk.

Hannibal only shook his head with a very troubled expression, but at last he ventured:

"If 'tis a spook, I hope it won't do nothin' wuss to us."

Even across Edith's pale face a wan smile flitted at this solution of the mystery, and she said:

"Why, Hannibal, you foolish old fellow! The idea of a ghost hoeing a strawberry-bed and sticking in bean-poles!"

But Hannibal's superstitious nature was deeply stirred. He had been under a severe strain himself of late, and the succession of sorrows and strange experiences was telling on him as well as on the others. He could not indulge in a nervous fever, like Mrs. Allen, but he had reached that stage when he could easily see visions, and tremble before the slightest vestige of the supernatural. So he replied a little doggedly:

"Spooks does a heap ob quar tings, Miss Edie. I'd tink it was Massa Allen, ony I knows dat he neber hab a hoe in his hand all his life. I doesn't like it. I'd radder hab de weeds."

"O Hannibal, Hannibal! I couldn't believe it of you. I'll go and see Malcom, just to satisfy you."



CHAPTER XXIII

A DANGEROUS STEP



Edith took her deed, and went first to Mr. Hard. There were both coldness and curiosity in his manner, but he could gather little from Edith's face through her thick veil.

She had a painful shrinking from meeting people again after what had happened, and this was greatly increased by the curious and significant looks she saw turned toward her as soon as it was surmised who she was.

Mr. Hard promptly declined to lend any money. He "never did such things," he said.

"Where would I be apt to get it?" asked Edith, despondently.

"I scarcely know. Money is scarce, and people don't like to lend it on country mortgages, especially when there may be trouble. Lawyer Keen might give you some information."

To his office Edith went, with slow, heavy steps, and presented her case.

Mr. Keen was a red-faced, burly-looking man, hiding the traditional shrewdness of a village lawyer under a bluff, outspoken manner. He had a sort of good-nature, which, though not lending him to help others who were in trouble, kept him from trying to get them into more trouble, and he quite prided himself on this. He heard Edith partly through, and then interrupted her, saying:

"Couldn't think of it, miss. Widows, orphans, and churches are institutions on which a fellow can never foreclose. I'll give you good advice, and won't charge you anything for it. You had better keep out of debt."

"But I must have the money," said Edith.

"Then you have come to the wrong shop for it," replied the lawyer, coolly. "Here's Crowl, now, he lends where I wouldn't. He's got money of his own, while I invest mainly for other people."