Title: Jessica Trent's Inheritance
Author: Raymond, Evelyn
Language: English
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[Illustration: “One silent, prolonged clasp of her daughter’s little
figure, one light kiss on the pretty lips.”      (See page 13)]


JESSICA TRENT’S INHERITANCE

by

EVELYN RAYMOND

Author of
“Jessica Trent,” “Jessica the Heiress,” “Breakneck Farm,” etc.


[Illustration: GIRLS OWN LIBRARY]



Philadelphia
David McKay, Publisher
610 South Washington Square

Copyright, 1907, by David McKay.



CONTENTS.


 CHAPTER                                    PAGE

      I. JESSICA BEGINS A LONG JOURNEY         9

     II. IN THE TOURIST CAR                   20

    III. THE LONG JOURNEY ENDS                30

     IV. IN THE ANCIENT MANSION               40

      V. BUSTER TAKES A CITY TRAIL            52

     VI. JESSICA’S FIRST GIRL FRIEND          65

    VII. EPHRAIM TAKES HOME THE BUNDLE        76

   VIII. MORNING TALKS AND INTERRUPTIONS      87

     IX. “LAYLOCKS”                           98

      X. LEARNING LIFE                       108

     XI. LETTERS AND CHANGES                 119

    XII. MEETING AND PARTING                 129

   XIII. JESSICA ENTERS SCHOOL               141

    XIV. HOW THE FIRST DAY ENDED             152

     XV. A TEXT FROM GOETHE                  165

    XVI. THE SOMETHING WHICH HAPPENED        179

   XVII. RECONCILIATION AND REVELATION       191

  XVIII. A TELLING VALEDICTORY               203

    XIX. THE DREAM AND THE REALITY           213



JESSICA TRENT’S INHERITANCE.



CHAPTER I.

JESSICA BEGINS A LONG JOURNEY.


“O mother! How can I bear it? How can I go?” cried Jessica Trent,
clinging fast to the slender, black-robed figure standing a little
apart on the platform of the railway station.

“Bravely and hopefully, my darling, as befits the daughter of Cassius
Trent. Eagerly, I trust, as one who goes to finish his life work;”
answered the almost heart-broken mother, the joy of whose existence
would vanish with that outgoing eastern train.

“But I may come home again next year, mother dearest? Say I may come
then!” pleaded the girl.

“If it seems best,” answered Gabriella Trent, tenderly stroking the
fair cheek which seemed to have grown thinner and whiter during these
last days before this parting.

“Next year? Why, my suz! You won’t much more than get there by that
time, child alive. Three thousand miles is pretty consid’able of a
step, seems if,” commented a voice which tried to be as cheerful as it
was loud. But the words ended with a sob; that “three thousand miles,”
which her own fancy had pictured quite breaking down the composure of
Aunt Sally Benton, who had come with the rest of the Sobrante party to
see Jessica Trent off for the Atlantic coast.

“Blow my stripes! If I ever knew there were so many folks all agog for
travelin’! Uneasiest crowd ’t ever I see an’ noisiest. Well, captain,
I hope they’ll get talked out ’fore sleeping time comes. If a body
can sleep aboard a train of cars. Give me a good ship now--then you
sing! Here, you fool! What you jostlin’ into me for? Think this whole
platform belongs to you, just because you’re one the know-nothin’
towerists?” cried Samson, the mighty herder and one-time sailor, as an
anxious “tourist” bumped an armful of luggage against him.

A big crowd it certainly was. Mainly a happy and eager one as well; its
winter’s outing and sight-seeing over, and home-going at hand. A few,
indeed, were sad. Those who had come to California seeking health for
some beloved one and failing to find it; leaving the helpless one to
take his last sleep in that sunny land, or to carry him eastward to die
under native skies.

But amid all the bustle and haste the group from Sobrante was quiet
and separate, only Aunt Sally and Samson now and then breaking out
into exclamations to relieve their overwrought emotions, and thereby
attracting more attention than Mrs. Trent quite enjoyed.

Indeed, she would have preferred to keep these last moments to herself
and Jessica alone, but could not. All the “boys” who could possibly
be spared from the ranch had come to Los Angeles to see their little
“Captain” depart; although John Benton, the carpenter, emphatically
declared:

“It’s all a downright mistake. As if our ‘Lady Jess’ didn’t know more
now than any ‘finished’ boardin’ school miss could even guess at.
Figures? Huh! What does she need more’n to add up a few wages now an’
again, and she’s a likely head at that already. Sent ’way off to New
York after an education that she could get right here in Californy
if her mother’d only think so. I don’t hold with no such unnatural
separations, I don’t.”

As to the girl herself, it seemed to all these devoted henchmen that
she had grown suddenly older, graver, more dignified, almost careworn.
On that very last day of all, when she had made a detailed visit to,
and inspection of, every part of the big ranch, she had done so with a
quiet, critical interest quite contrary to her usual careless gayety.

“This paddock needs attention, ‘boy.’ You mustn’t let things go to ruin
while I’m away nor expect mother to look after them,” she had warned
one ranchman, in a tone he had never heard her use before. Also, she
had gone over his books with the man who now “plucked” the ostriches,
whose feathers were such an important factor in the family income, and
finding his accounts slightly incorrect had reprimanded him sharply.

It had been altogether another Jessica during these last days; but
all felt her altered manner was due wholly to the grief of her
home-leaving; and John Benton was not the only one of the devoted
“boys” who considered her departure a mistake.

However, mistake or not, it was now at hand. A distant whistle sounded.
The southern San Diego train was coming in, the outgoing overland
express stood waiting on the rails before the platform, and by one
impulse the whole Sobrante party grouped about the girl for a final
kiss or hand-shake. To each and all of them she represented the best of
life.

“If anybody harms or tries to harm a hair of your curly yellow head,
my Lady Jess, just you telegrapht me to once an’ I’ll take the trail
eastward, lickety-cut!” cried George Cromarty, with a suspicious
moisture in his usually merry eyes.

“I--I’ve got a brother yender, in the State o’ Maine. Like’s not I’ll
be takin’ a trip that way myself, little captain, if I find Sobrante
gets too lonesome,” said Joe, the smith.

“Be sure you keep that bottle of picra right side up, just the way I
fixed it in your satchel, an’ take a dose if you feel a mite car sick,
or homesick, or----”

“Any other kind of sick!” interrupted John Benton, coolly pushing Aunt
Sally aside, that he might get hold of Jessica himself.

“There’s dried peach turnovers in that basket an’ some my hen chicken’s
best hard-boiled eggs in Mr. Hale’s suit case!” almost screamed Mrs.
Benton as the whole party moved forward toward the train. “There’s a
jar of picked-off roast quail and--Good-by, Jessie Trent! Good-by!
Don’t take no sass from nobody and do, I beg of you, do keep--your
stockin’s--mended; Oh! my stars an’ garters! Oh! my! my suz!” wailed
the poor woman, as the girl she so dearly loved was swept away from her
without even one parting hug.

But Mrs. Trent, to whom this farewell meant more than to any of them,
had now no word to say. One silent, prolonged clasp of her daughter’s
little figure, one light kiss on the pretty lips, and--Jessica was gone!

The dying rumble of the overland seemed a knell of all her happiness
and for a moment, as she stood with closed eyes trying to collect
herself, she had a reckless impulse to board the next outgoing train
and follow on her darling’s “trail.” Then somebody touched her arm and
Ninian Sharp was saying in tones that tried to be cheerful and failed:

“Come, dear madam. Our girl has put you into my especial care and
the first thing on the docket is dinner. It was a poor breakfast
any of us made and I, for one, am hungry. Come on, boys. It’s the
Westminster--for all of us. Here? Ready, every one? This car then for
you and we’ll meet you there. Come, Aunt Sally. Eh? What?”

For as the one-time reporter of the _Lancet_, and now manager of the
Sobrante, hailed a carriage to convey Mrs. Trent and Mrs. Benton
hotel-ward, the latter fell into a tragic attitude and wildly waved her
“reticule” eastward, whither Jessica’s train had gone, and as wildly
thrust her free hand skyward, exclaiming:

“I’d ought to be kicked by cripples! I certainly had! If I ain’t the
foolishest, forgettin’est woman ’twixt the two oceans! An’ it’s too
late now. Oh! my suz a-me!”

Mr. Ninian laughed, and was more grateful to Aunt Sally just then than
he had ever been before. Her evident, if comical, distress interrupted
sadder thoughts and he promptly demanded, again:

“Well, what’s wrong now, neighbor?”

“Shouldn’t think you, nor no other sensible person’d want to go
‘neighborin’’ me, a body that can’t keep her wits about her no longer
’n what I can. Gabriella Trent, I’ve clean gone, or gone an’ clean
forgot, that pink-and-white patchwork quilt I’ve been settin’ up nights
to get ready for Jessie to take with her on the cars, to sleep in!
Now--what do you say to that!”

The dramatic dismay on the good woman’s countenance sent Mr. Sharp into
a roar of laughter which, this time, was wholly unfeigned, and even
brought a smile of amusement to Mrs. Trent’s pale face. The picture her
fancy evoked of pretty, fair-haired Jessica, bundled in the patchwork
quilt on board a luxurious “sleeper” was so absurd that she forgot, for
the moment, other and graver matters.

“No wonder, dear, with all the things you did and looked after, so that
we might both leave home--no wonder you forgot. It was very kind of
you to take so much trouble for the child, but she’ll not really need
the quilt. The beds are well fitted on the sleepers, and Mr. Hale will
care for her as if she were his own. Come. We mustn’t keep Mr. Ninian
waiting and after dinner he wants me to meet one or two business men.
About the mine, you know;” explained Gabriella, entering the carriage,
whither Aunt Sally clumsily followed.

Fortunately, that big-hearted creature could always find a “way out”
of most difficulties, and she promptly settled the quilt question,
saying:

“Well, if she didn’t get it for a keepsake gift, it’s hern all the same
and she shall have it a-Christmas, and you needn’t touch to tell me she
shan’t. Even if I be to ‘Boston,’ come that day, an’ I have to badger
the very life out of my son John to get him to send it to her then. But
dinner, Gabriell’! I don’t feel as if I could eat a single bite. Do
you, yourself, honey?”

This time Ninian felt as if he could shake her. He knew that it would
be small appetite, indeed, Mrs. Trent would bring even to that fine
menu he meant to lay before her, and here was thoughtless Aunt Sally
almost intimating that dining at all would, to-day, be an indecency. So
there was more real feeling than appeared in his rejoinder:

“Look here, Mrs. Benton! I wager that with all your present ‘suffering’
you’ll yet be able to make a good square meal. One, maybe, that it’ll
tax my pocket-book to pay for!”

“Hoity-toity, young man! Who’s asked you to pay for my victuals? I
didn’t; and more’n that it’s my intent and cal’lation to pay spot cash
not only for what I eat but what Gabrielly does, too, and ’twon’t be my
fault if she don’t get urged to fair stuff herself. So there.”

“Good enough, Aunt Sally! You’re a--a brick!” retorted this irreverent
young man, having succeeded in his efforts at diversion and fully
satisfied.

“No, I ain’t. I’m a decent human womanbody, that knows when she’s
sassed at an’ when she isn’t. And you needn’t think you’re the only
creatur’ livin’ can look after Gabriella Trent and them that’s
dear to her. But--you can’t help bein’ what you are--_a man_!” The
infinite scorn which Mrs. Benton threw into that one word tickled the
ex-reporter into another gale of laughter, during which the carriage
arrived at the hotel entrance and the group of Sobrante “boys” waiting
there.

The sound of it didn’t please them. Not in the least. Their own
countenances wore an expression befitting a funeral, and the mirth
depicted on Ninian Sharp’s declared him what they had often felt him to
be--a stranger and alien at Sobrante. It wasn’t his “little Captain”
that had gone and left them desolate. It was their own, idolized “Lady
Jess” in whom he had no right nor parcel, even though he had so fully
won her love and confidence.

“Well! I’ve my opinion of a man that can laugh--to-day--after losing
Sunny Face!” growled Samson under his breath.

“Light weight! Light weight, in his head. I always said so,” added John
Benton, solemn as an owl or--as when he was attempting to lead the
Sunday music at Sobrante.

In one glance at their stern faces Ninian Sharp comprehended what was
in their minds, and set himself to undo any false impression he had
given. That, despite their growls, they liked him he was perfectly
sure; also, that though they did indeed sorely feel the loss of the
girl they adored they were still human enough to enjoy their present
outing in the “City of the Angels,” and--a good dinner!

Handing the ladies over to the care of an obsequious clerk, he
proceeded to line up the ranchmen and to usher them into the big
dining-room, with its long array of neatly-spread tables, and toward
that corner of it which the head waiter indicated.

Inwardly he enjoyed that brief march from the door to the chairs,
each “boy” assuming an air of I-do-this-sort-of-thing-every-day,
don’t-you-know, and each displaying an awkwardness quite unknown
at quiet Sobrante. However, once in their places, and he acting as
interpreter of the menu spread before them, they forgot themselves and
awaited the feast with scant thought for anything beyond it.

Till, just as Mr. Sharp was rising to rejoin Mrs. Trent and Aunt
Sally in another room, he bethought himself to “count noses” and
found himself one nose short. One empty chair faced him, one fine old
presence was missing:

“Hello, here! Where’s ‘Forty-niner?’ Didn’t he come with you from the
station?”

The ranchmen stared at him and at each other; then said John Benton,
gravely:

“I remember now, he didn’t. Plaguyest proud old chap ever handled a
shotgun. Wouldn’t be beholden to anybody for even one dinner. Well!
He’s had experience of Los Angeles an’ ought to know his bearings.
Might ha’ stepped round to that hospital he’s forever talking about, or
to that old crony tavern-keeper’s o’ his’n. But he’ll turn up before
train starts for Marion and home. Couldn’t keep him off Sobrante
ranch though you set the dogs on him. Thinks none of us, that’s a
mite younger’n him, has got sense enough to run things without his
everlasting poke-nose thrust in. Lady Jess, she was pleased to tell
him she’d made him ‘Superintendent’ of the whole shooting-match an’
that was one time our ‘Captain’ made a little mistake. But he’s sort
of touchy like and if he gets too top-lofty we can easy set him down a
peg. I’d like some butter, waiter; and I’d like enough to _see_, this
time.”

So saying, the carpenter cast a casual glance around, as if to convey
to all spectators the fact that he was perfectly familiar with hotel
tables and the manner of dining thereat. The glance included the young
mine manager, but this time that gentleman’s sense of humor was not
touched. A vague uneasiness stirred within him, and it was his ardent
hope that when the home-returning party took the train for Marion the
old sharpshooter would rejoin them.

“Mrs. Trent will be grieved if he forsakes Sobrante now that Jessica
is gone. The old man _is_ ‘touchy,’ as the boys say; and he has never
quite forgiven his old mates for that temporary doubt of his honesty.
The ‘house’ will be lonely, indeed, if neither he nor the little
‘Captain’ goes in and out of it. Yes, I hope he’ll be on hand; and till
that time I’ll not mention him to the lady of the ranch.”

However, when--dinner past and business transacted--the Sobrante
household gathered at the station, _en route_ for home, old Ephraim
Marsh was still absent from his rightful place; and to Mrs. Trent’s
anxious exclamation:

“Why ‘Forty-niner’ hasn’t come yet! We can’t possibly go and leave him
behind! Does anybody know where he is?” there was no reply save the
warning whistle of the locomotive and the conductor’s hoarse command:
“All aboard!”

Till Aunt Sally fancied a solution, crying:

“My suz! I believe he’s gone an’ broke another leg!”



CHAPTER II.

IN THE TOURIST CAR.


For a time after the train pulled out from the station at Los Angeles,
Jessica Trent saw nothing for the mist of tears which blurred her
eyes; save that framed in that mist was the sad, beautiful face of her
mother. How pale it had been! Yet how quiet the dear voice bidding her
“be worthy” of that dead father, whose representative she must be. For
his sake she was to be educated. For his sake, to carry out his high
ideals, she had had to leave her home and “learn life.”

“That was it, more than books, my mother said. ‘Life.’ As if there were
not the best sort of life at dear Sobrante!” she murmured, fancying the
loud “chug-chug” of the train would cover her voice.

To her surprise it had not. For Mr. Hale answered as if she had spoken
aloud to him:

“Suppose you begin to learn it right now and here, my little maid.
There are dozens of people in this car and each one is very much alive.
See that odd old lady in the second section beyond ours. She seems to
be in trouble of some sort and is quite alone. She’s bobbed under her
seat a half-dozen times already, yet comes up empty-handed every time.
You might ask her if you can help.”

For Mr. Hale was wise enough to know that the best and surest way of
curing one’s own discontent is by relieving that of somebody else.

For once Jessica was not inspired by the idea of helping somebody. She
was far more inclined to sit still in her comfortable place and think
about things it were better she should forget--just for a little time.
Sobrante, little Ned and Luis, Buster her beloved mount, the glorious
garden behind the “house”--Oh! to think each mile she journeyed, each
turn of those ceaseless wheels, carried her further and further away!

“Now, dear! I’m really afraid the poor old soul will hurt herself and
she’s rung for the porter times without end, yet he doesn’t come. Will
you, or shall I?”

Indeed, Mr. Hale had already half-risen and only delayed to offer his
services because he knew it better for Jessica to be roused from her
brooding. Fortunately, her good breeding conquered her reluctance and,
a moment later, guiding herself along the aisle of the swaying car, she
reached the old lady’s side and asked:

“Beg pardon, madam, but have you lost something? Can I help you look
for it?”

The traveler rose so suddenly from her stooping posture that her stiff,
old-fashioned bonnet slipped to the back of her neck and imparted a
wild, rakish effect to her peculiar attire. The bonnet was so big
and deep, of that shape known as “poke,” and the face it framed was
so wizened and small that Jessica could think of nothing but some
fairy-tale witch.

“Oh! but Sissy, me dear! Sure ’tis the kind child you are! Arrah musha!
But I’ve lost me fine new gum shoes, what Barney, me son, gave me this
very day whatever. ‘With your rubbers and umberell, mother,’ says he,
‘sure you’ll be makin’ the trip in fine style, and be all forehanded
again’ the bad sort of weather you’ll be meetin’ th’ other side
this big counthry,’ says he. And now I’ve lost them entire, and the
umberell--Here ’tis. Now ain’t that a fine one, Sissy dear?”

“Why, yes. I guess so. I don’t know much about umbrellas we need them
so seldom in California. But the rubbers--I’ll look under the seat. I
can, easier than you. I’m young--smaller, I mean.”

“Not so much smaller, me dear, though younger by some fifty-odd year
I’ve no doubt. Bless your bonny face! Found them ye have. Thank you,
me child, and wait--here’s a reward for your goodness, be sure. Sit by
till you eat it. ’Twould do me old heart good, so being it aches like
a grumblin’ tooth the now. Leavin’ Barney and the nice wife and the
bairns, as I have. Crossin’ this big counthry all by my lone; and after
that the ocean; an’ all that long way just to look upon old Ireland
once more and them in it I hold so dear. Barney’s but one; in Ireland
are three. One is a nun and cannot; one is a priest and will not;
and one is a wife and must not come over to me in this purty land of
Ameriky. Was ever in old Ireland, me dear?”

Almost unconsciously Jessica had obeyed the old lady’s invitation to
share the wide seat with herself and had smilingly accepted the half of
a mint drop which her new acquaintance offered.

“Eat it slow and it’ll last you a long time, me dear. I always carry a
few sweeties in my pocket for the childher; but mayhap ’twould do no
harm were you to have the other bit, seein’s you was so good as to help
an old body.”

So saying, and with a smile that softened the rugged old face, Barney’s
mother carefully deposited the second half of the mint on Jessica’s
knee.

“Thank you. It is very nice,” said the girl, smiling herself at thought
of Ned’s disgust in being offered but one piece of candy, and that with
such an air of generosity.

“You’re a fair lookin’ little maid, me dear, an’ what might your name
be?”

“Jessica Trent.”

“And your home, lassie? Where’s that at?” queried this stranger with
friendly curiosity. “And be you, too, travelin’ by your lone in these
steam cars? Why for and where to? Sure, if so be, and our roads lie
together a bit we might bear one another company. ’Twould do me
old heart good to keep your bonny face alongside till the pain of
this partin’ from Barney eases up a trifle. A good lad, is he, and
forehanded enough, Heaven prosper him! Free with the gold to pay the
toll of my journey--Whisht, alanna! I’ve five hundred dollars sewed in
me petticoat! Mind that, Jessica Trent, and mintion it to none!”

The last information was given in a sibilant whisper, that might have
been heard by other ears than Jessica’s, and was to her so wonderful
that she stared in astonishment. This plainly-dressed old lady carrying
so much money? Who would have dreamed it?

“Me own name is Dalia Mary Moriarty. Me son Barney, he come to
Ameriky when but a tiny bairn, along with Dennis me man. To Californy
Dennis went, to a place called Riverside, an’ a gardener by trade went
into oranges an’ olives. The blessin’ of Heaven was on him an’ he
prospered, even as Barney himself has done. But ’twas not till Dennis
stepped into another world, the world beyant this, me dear, that I
left Connemara an’ follyed here. A nice town, ’tis to be sure, but not
like Ireland. There’s no land that ever I see can match old Ireland
for richness an’ greenness, me dear. Here in Californy ’tis all the
talk of ‘irrigatin’,’ ‘irrigatin’!’ Nought grows without that costly
‘irrigatin’,’ but in me own true land the water is given with the crops
by the same free Hand above. Sure, I’ll be glad to get me home to a
spot where I’ll be let toss out a dipper of water without bein’ bid:
‘Don’t waste it, mother! Remember the garden!’ As if I was ever let to
forget it!” The old lady paused for breath, then added: “But ’tis kind
they was, each and ivery one. Now, all about your own self, me dear, if
so be there’s none waitin’ you to leave me an’ tend them.”

Jessica turned her head and saw that Mr. Hale had settled himself for a
nap, so replied:

“Mr. Hale has gone to sleep so he will not need me for a time. He
is the lawyer gentleman who is taking me across the continent to my
mother’s cousin in New York. I am to live with her till I am educated
enough to go back to Sobrante ranch, my home. My father is dead. My
mother is the most beautiful gentlewoman in--in the world, I guess. I
have the dearest little brother Ned--Edward, his real name is. Besides
him, we have a little adopted one, Luis Maria Manuel Alessandro
Garcia, and his father is dead too.”

“Saints save us! So will the bairn be soon if he has to shoulder that
great name! Sounds like some them old Spaniard folkses that crop up,
now an’ again, round Riverside way! But go on, me dear. ’Tis most
interestin’ to hear tell of your folks, and so be as that you’re
travelin’ to that same city of Ne’ York, where I take ship for home,
we’ll be pleasin’ company for one another, so we will.”

Jessica was not so sure of that. By the jolting of the car the new gum
shoes had again fallen to the floor and disappeared beneath the seat;
and again she was bidden, rather peremptorily to:

“Seek them, child! seek them quick! If we should come to one them
meal-stations, an’ they not in hand, however could I leave the car?”

Overshoes were articles the little Californian had rarely seen and
never owned and, glancing out of window at the sunny landscape, she
exclaimed:

“Why, what can you want of two pairs of shoes on your feet at one time?
Besides, it’s past the rainy season and----”

“Tut, child! Would have me neglect the last gift of me Barney son? Out
of this car I steps not at all without both me umberell an’ me gum
shoes. Meal-stations, or whatever. Mind that! An’ ’tis them same what
give the only bit of exercise possible on these week-long journeys, you
know. ‘Get out at every stoppin’ place, mother, an’ stretch your tired
legs with a tramp up an’ down them station platforms,’ says me boy,
Barney.”

Jessica once more restored the overshoes and for the comfort of both
suggested that they be tied fast to the old lady’s wrist by a string.
Also, she began to feel that a whole week of this companion’s society
would be hard to endure, despite the certain friendliness of Mrs.
Moriarty. Fortunately, just then, a whistle sounded and the train began
to slow up at a station. This roused Mr. Hale to come forward and, with
a courteous bow to the old lady, bid Jessica:

“Come, dear. We stop here long enough to take on water; and I’ll show
you some interesting things about this great overland train.”

Already the novelty of her surroundings had banished, for the time,
the homesickness of Jessica’s heart. Everything was “interesting”
indeed; from the great water tank with its canvas pipe for filling
the engine-boiler, to the crowded baggage cars. As the stop was for
several minutes, nearly everybody left the carriages, to pace swiftly
up and down for the relief of seat-weary muscles, or to enter the small
dining-room to snatch a hasty lunch. The place was already packed with
hungry humanity and passing its window, Mr. Hale complacently remarked:

“Blessing on Aunt Sally and her fine cooking! As soon as the train
moves on again we’ll sample her basket. The food will be good for a
day or so but after that we, too, will have to trust to meal-stations,
except on those stretches of the road where a dining-car is attached.
Now, let’s look at the great engine, and make acquaintance, if we
can, with the skillful engineer who holds our lives in his hands. A
moment’s carelessness on his part means great danger to us, and his
faithfulness is worth far greater reward than it ever attains. Another
bit for your memory book: a single engine is run but a comparatively
short part of our long journey. Coming to California, I learned that
we had changed engines just fourteen times. Those, yonder, are the
tourist-cars; less luxurious than the Pullman we travel in and cheaper.
For the benefit of the many who cannot afford first-class. By the way,
it would be a nice plan to enter the last end of the train and make
our way forward, from car to car, till we reach our own seats in the
‘Arizona’--as our sleeper is called.”

So they did; and Jessica thought she had never seen anything so
wonderful as this traveling disclosed. Especially was she interested
in the “tourist” carriages; for until now she had associated that
word with the wealthy, rather impertinent persons who made southern
California a winter amusement ground and had none too much respect for
the rights of residents whose ranches they visited. One such group,
she well remembered, had driven over Sobrante as if it had been a
public park, or with even greater freedom, since its temporarily absent
mistress returned to find her garden despoiled of its floral treasures.

“Tourist” now began to stand for other things, in this young traveler’s
mind. For weary mothers, cooking scant messes for their fretful
babies upon the great stove in the corner of the car; for bare seats,
sometimes heaped with all sorts of household belongings; for, indeed,
a glimpse of that poverty to which the strict economies of Sobrante
seemed actual luxury.

“Why, how different it is from our place in the ‘Arizona!’ I never,
never, saw so many children! How they do cry! How hot and tired the
mothers look! Oh! can’t I do something for somebody?” cried the girl,
actually distressed by the discomfort about her.

“I wouldn’t interfere, dear. They might not like it. Besides, it’s
not so bad as this all the time. We’re only beginning the long trip.
After a little, things adjust themselves. People become accustomed to
their cramped surroundings and acquainted with one another. By the time
we reach the other side the continent, here and in our own car, we
will seem like one big family--so friendly we shall grow, and so many
mutually interesting things we shall find by the way;” said Mr. Hale.
Then added, rather suddenly: “Why, Jessica, child! What are you doing
now?”

What, indeed! This inspection of the train, begun in simple curiosity,
was having a startling ending. At the extreme rear of the car they were
in sat an old man, fondling a shrieking infant and vainly endeavoring
to quiet it for the frail young mother who looked helplessly on. Too
weak and ill she was to do more than fix her eyes upon the child and
to rest her head against the uncushioned back of the seat, while the
gray-haired man--Could he have been the baby’s grandfather? If so he
showed little skill at nursing, for the more he petted and pitied the
small creature, the more it wriggled and yelled.

Just as there sounded from outside the conductor’s order: “All aboard!”
and the people came hurrying back into the car, Jessica forced her
way among them to where the old man sat and catching the baby from his
arms, cried in a very ecstasy of joy:

“O you blessed old ‘Forty-niner!’ That isn’t the way to hold a baby!
see me!”



CHAPTER III.

THE LONG JOURNEY ENDS.


Mr. Hale never forgot that railway trip.

To rouse Jessica Trent from her sorrow at leaving home he had suggested
her helping others; and so thoroughly did she follow his advice that
he soon had a dozen people depending upon him for counsel and comfort.
Quoth that young traveler, in the very presence of the ailing mother of
the tourist car:

“We are so much better off in our ‘Arizona,’ dear Mr. Hale. Let’s
take this poor little woman and this precious baby right back there
with us. She can have my own soft seat with you and I can sit with
Mrs. Moriarty, as she wanted me to do. Dear Mr. Marsh--Well, he must
be with us in there, too. If he loved me so well he would hide away
from the others and come all the way to the other ocean, just because
he couldn’t live without me, course, I can’t live without him. Why he
didn’t tell them was--was just because.”

“Probably a satisfactory reason to him and seems to be to you, Miss
Jessica. Yet what’s to become of him in New York? Don’t for a moment
imagine your future hostess, Mrs. Dalrymple, will have him at her
house. From all I’ve heard of her she’s a woman of strong opinions and
one of them is that it will be better for you to cut loose from your
western companions for a time.”

Jessica regarded him with some surprise, but her confidence was not
shaken.

“Oh! you see, she doesn’t know ‘Forty-niner.’ I suppose she’s read
stories about cowboys and such things; and my father used to say that
the stories were mostly exag--exaggerated, and written by people who’d
never been west in their lives. Fancy! Writing a book about men one
never saw! Anyway, Cousin Margaret is sure to like Ephraim Marsh.
Nobody could help it.”

Meanwhile, the sharpshooter had settled himself most comfortably in
the ‘Arizona,’ occupying any seat which happened to be vacant for the
moment and quietly retiring to his rightful berth in the “tourist car”
when bedtime came. The ailing mother had accepted Jessica’s place and
berth in Mr. Hale’s section, and the little girl herself had joined
forces with Mrs. Moriarty.

Jessica had had a reasonable sum of money given her, when she left
Sobrante, her mother believing it would add to that womanly training
she needed to have charge of it; and without consulting her present
guardian the girl had given the sick woman enough of her fund to pay
the different rate of fare.

It was too late for Mr. Hale to object, and he was too polite to do
so. The utmost he could accomplish was to warn his charge to expend
nothing more without his advice, and to pass as much of his time in
the smoker as was possible. Fortunately, the baby was a happy child,
when physically comfortable; and it was a good sleeper; so that the
lawyer’s fear of being kept awake at night, by having it in the lower
berth, proved groundless.

By the end of the second day out Jessica and the baby, which she
carried everywhere, had become the life of the train; “going visiting”
in one car after another, making friends in each, and feeling almost
as if they were always to journey thus amid these now familiar faces.
But all journeys end in time, and as they drew nearer and nearer to the
eastern coast, one after another these fellow travelers departed at
some stopping-place, nearest their homes.

“Why, it seems as if there was nothing in this world but just to say
‘Good-by!’” cried Jessica, tearfully, when the hour came for baby and
its mother to leave the “Arizona.”

“Never mind, dearie, you’ve made it a pleasant trip for me, and it’s
a little world. We may meet again; but if we don’t, just you keep on
shedding sunshine and you’ll never be sad for long,” said the invalid,
herself grieved to part with the little Californian yet grateful to
have reached her own home alive.

Then almost before she knew it, the week-long trip had ended. The train
steamed into the great station in Jersey City, those who had come “all
the way across” gathered their belongings, submitted to be brushed
and freshened from the stains of the long trip, hurriedly bade one
another good-by and were gone. Even Mrs. Moriarty had time for but a
single hug and the bestowal of a whole mint drop ere she was captured
by a red-faced Irishwoman in a redder bonnet, who called her “Cousin
Dalia,” and bore her away through the crowd toward that waiting steamer
which should carry her onward to her beloved Ireland.

Jessica watched her go and caught her breath with a sob. It sent a
sharp pain through her heart to find that she seemed the only one for
whom a joyful welcome was not waiting; and she almost resented Mr.
Hale’s blithe voice and manner as he laid his hand on her shoulder and
demanded:

“What? Tears in your eyes, little maid? Are you so sorry to have done
with those tiresome cars and to be on solid ground again? My! But it’s
raining a deluge!”

“Raining? Why--how can it now, so late, in the very middle of April!
But isn’t it good Grandma Moriarty did have the gum shoes, after all?”

“Humph! Good enough for her, but how about ourselves, eh? As for
‘raining in April,’ that’s just the orthodox state of the weather here
in the east. Never mind. A carriage will take us safely enough to
your cousin’s house. This way, please. Have you your satchel? Porter,
take it and these. Now come. I’m as glad as a schoolboy to be at home
again--or so near it that the first suburban train will carry me to it.
Six months since I saw my wife and daughters! That’s a big slice out of
a man’s life.”

He was so glad, indeed, that his usual thoughtfulness for others gave
place to personal considerations; and he forgot that to his young
companion this was not a joyful return but a dreaded beginning.

“This way, Jessica! Step in, please, out of the wet!”

The girl obeyed and entered the carriage, and though she had checked
her tears she felt she had never seen anything so dismal as that great
wharf, with its dripping vehicles, nor heard anything so dreadful as
the cries of the angry drivers, jostling each other in the storm.

Then they drove on to the ferry-boat and there a thunder shower burst
upon that region such as had not been known there for many a day. To
the little Californian, fresh from that thunderless Paraiso d’Oro, it
seemed as if the end of the world might be at hand; and she cowered
against Mr. Hale who slipped his arm caressingly about her. At last he
had begun to understand something of her loneliness and blamed himself
that he had not done so earlier.

“Well, little girl, does this frighten you? To me it is delightful.
At present so fierce, this electric storm will clear the air of all
impurity, and by the time we reach Washington Square, where Mrs.
Dalrymple lives, we shall have almost Californian sunshine. Just think!
Though you have never seen her she is your very own ‘blood relation.’
She knew your mother when she, too, was a little maid like yourself.
I confess I should have liked to know that lady then myself. She must
have been a model of all girlish sweetness, as she is now of womanly
graces. To grow up such a gentlewoman as Mrs. Trent--that’s why you
are breasting a thunder-storm here in New York to-day. Hark! That
peal wasn’t quite so loud as the others. The storm is rapidly passing
eastward and the clouds are lightening. Now look out of the window and
get your first glimpse of our biggest American city. Not the finest
part, by any means, but every part is interesting to me.”

Thus advised Jessica peered through the rain-splashed glass into that
crowded west-side avenue, where it seemed as if the never-ending
line of drays and wagons, the clanging street-cars, the roar of
the “elevated” trains above, and the shouts and screams of all the
teamsters, was pandemonium indeed. She did not find the outlook at
all “interesting,” as the loyal citizen had described it, but most
confusing and terrifying. If this were New York, however should she be
able to endure it?

With a down sinking of her heart, and a homesickness quite too deep for
tears, the “little Captain” leaned back and closed her eyes, while her
fancy pictured that far-away Sobrante, lying bathed in sunshine and in
a peacefulness so wholly in contrast to this dreadful city. Memories of
her home recalled the fact that Ephraim, a part of her old world, was
not with her now and that in the confusion of leaving the train she had
quite forgotten him. This sent her upright again, startled and eager,
to say:

“Why, Mr. Hale! How terrible! We’ve _forgotten_ ‘Forty-niner!’ we must
go right back and get him!”

“Impossible. He should have been on the lookout for us and kept us in
sight. Besides, if we did go back we couldn’t find him. New York crowds
are always changing and he’d move on with the rest. Doubtless, he
thinks it easy to overtake us anywhere here.”

Jessica was hurt. She could not realize how greatly tried the lawyer
had been by many of her thoughtless actions during their long journey,
nor how impatient he was now to be free from his care of her and away
to his own household. His irritation was perfectly natural, and,
secretly, he was extremely glad that they had thus easily lost the
sharpshooter. It was a most satisfactory way out of the difficulty
in appearing at Mrs. Dalrymple’s house with the veteran ranchman in
train. That she would decline to receive Mr. Marsh, he was quite sure;
in which case he would himself have been left with the old fellow upon
his hands, to care for in some way till he could be expressed back to
Sobrante. Yes, he was certainly relieved; but he did not enjoy the
reproachful glance which his young charge bestowed upon him as he
spoke. After a moment she asked:

“Will carriages take you anywhere you want to go, here in this big
place? Can you hire one for money, just as in our dear Los Angeles,
when Mr. Ninian got one to take us from one station to the other? Could
a little girl hire one, herself?”

“Why, of course; but Jessica, dear child, get no silly notions into
your head of running about this city alone--even in a public hack.
Within a very few moments I shall hand you over to the care of your
future guardian and you will have to be guided by her in everything.
Nor need you worry about Ephraim. He’s an old campaigner, has a tongue
to ask questions with, and this is a decent community. He’ll look out
for himself well enough. There! A half-dozen more blocks and we shall
have arrived!”

Jessica could not answer. She turned her head aside and carefully
studied the street through which they were passing. It looked
hopelessly like others they had left. The houses bordering it were
so tall and close together that they seemed to take up all the air,
leaving none for her to breathe. It was a great relief when they came
to an open square and stopped before a big house fronting upon it.

“Ah! I fancied this was the place! One of our old landmarks--and very
few are left. How fine for you to come to live here, child! I almost
envy you the distinction,” cried the New Yorker, with enthusiasm, as he
stepped from the carriage and turned to help Jessica out.

But she was already on the pavement, staring eagerly at her new home
and seeing nothing so remarkable as Mr. Hale fancied about it. It was
some larger than the other houses near, almost twice as wide, indeed;
and it stood somewhat back from the street, guarded by a sharp-pointed
iron fence and an imposing gate. Two rather rusty iron lions couched
before the entrance, on the brown stone steps, but time had softened
their once fierce expression to a sort of grin which could frighten
nobody--not even a stranger from Paraiso d’Oro. On both sides of the
mansion was a stretch of green grass, a rare feature in a city where
every foot of ground was so precious, and that spoke much for the
obstinacy of its possessor who must repeatedly have refused to part
with it for building purposes.

So absorbed in looking at the mansion were both the lawyer and Jessica
that they scarcely heard the murmur of voices behind them, where their
jehu was quietly discussing and arranging a little matter of business
with a man who had ridden beside himself on his coachman’s seat; nor,
till they passed through the iron gateway and ascended the steps, did
they realize that the man, also, had followed.

Then Mr. Hale turned his head and uttered a cry of regret. But Jessica,
likewise turning, felt nothing but joy as she flung herself upon
Ephraim Marsh, standing “at attention,” as composed and at ease as if
he were waiting his mistress’s commands upon the porch at Sobrante.

“Why, Marsh! _you_--here?” cried the lawyer. “We--Miss Jessica feared
she had lost you.”

“She needn’t have. She couldn’t. She’ll never lose me till the grave
covers me,” answered the sharpshooter, solemnly.

“O Ephy! don’t speak of graves, right here at the beginning of things!
And oh! how glad I am to have you, how glad, how glad! You’re a real
bit of dear Sobrante and give me courage!”

The great key turned in the door-lock, a bolt or two shot back and the
door swung on its mighty hinges; slowly and cautiously at first, then
with more confidence as the attendant saw nothing formidable in these
visitors. They seemed to be a gentleman, a soldier, and a little girl,
where he had anticipated beggars or burglars, or worse.

“Is Mrs. Dalrymple at home? This is Miss Jessica Trent, of California,
whom the lady expects; and I am--this is my card. Mr. Marsh, also, of
California--and----”

Mr. Hale paused then motioning Jessica forward followed whither the
old butler led the way; “Forty-niner” bringing up the rear with his
stiffest military stride and most impassive expression.

They were ushered into a great room at the back of the house. Its
long windows were opened upon an iron balcony, from which a flight of
steps ran down into what once had been a charming garden but was now a
neglected wilderness. The room itself was oppressive from its crowding
furniture, dust-covered and dark in tone, and a faded carpet strewn
with much litter added to the unpleasant effect. Till suddenly Jessica
discovered that the carpet had once been a “picture.” An old-time
hunting scene with horses and people and dogs galore; where some of the
horses had lost their heads, the dogs their tails, and the red coats of
the huntsmen had suffered much-through the tread of feet during years
and years of time.

Nevertheless, she was down upon her knees examining it, calling
attention to this detail or that, till the silence in which they had
been left was broken by the sound of a tap-tap along the hall and the
old butler reappeared, announcing:

“Madam Dalrymple.”

Mr. Hale rose and advanced, “Forty-niner” made his best “salute,” but
Jessica neither moved nor spoke. She could only gaze with fascination
at the figure standing between the portieres and wait what next. That
an “old lady”? _That!_



CHAPTER IV.

IN THE ANCIENT MANSION.


“My cousin Jessica! I bid you welcome. Studying my wonderful old
carpet, I see. Your mother did that before you, child, and many another
Waldron besides her. Mr. Hale, I am happy to meet you. Be seated,
please. This other gentleman----”

“Ephraim Marsh, at your sarvice, Ma’am. I belong to Miss Trent. I’m
from Sobrante with her, Ma’am.”

Mr. Hale waited with much interest for what might follow this
statement, but was unprepared for the gracious suavity of Madam
Dalrymple, of whose temper he had heard much. With a kindly, if
patronizing, smile she waved Ephraim aside, directing her own old
servitor to:

“Take Marsh below, Tipkins, and see that he has refreshments.”

Evidently, the Madam had accepted the sharpshooter as a correct feature
of the situation, considering that it was the mark of a gentlewoman
to be well attended; and as the two old men left the room he wondered
how “Forty-niner” himself would relish being classed with the servants
“below stairs.” However, Ephraim cared not one whit for that. He had
attained his ambition. He had come east to share in educating his
“little Captain” and he was now assigned to a home in the same house
with her. “Hooray!” was his thought; and, further, that as soon as one
other small matter was settled he would sit him down and write a letter
to the other “boys” that would make them stare.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Dalrymple sank gracefully into a deep chair, displaying
no sign of the intense pain each movement cost her and physically
unable to stand for a moment longer. Thence she held out a thin white
hand toward the girl who had not yet risen from the floor, nor left off
staring at the lady before her--so wholly different from the picture
she had formed of the “stern old woman” with whom she was to live.

Now blushing at her own rudeness, which she was sure the other had
observed, she rose and came slowly forward and took the extended hand.
Poor hand! So white, yet with such cruelly gnarled and swollen joints!
There was no kiss proffered from either side; even impulsive Jessica
feeling that she would no more dare touch that person in the arm-chair
than she would a bit of the most delicate, and forbidden, porcelain.

“Thank you for welcoming me, Cousin Margaret; if I am to call you
that?” said “Lady Jess,” all the wonder and admiration she felt showing
in her face.

“Certainly, my dear. We are second-cousins twice removed.”

“Then, Cousin Margaret, my mother sends you her dear love and great
respect; and I am to obey you in all things--all things that I can; and
I am to do for you whatever you will let me.”

With that, having ended her little speech as duly instructed by her
mother, Jessica folded her arms across her bosom and tossed back her
yellow curls, in a characteristic gesture, now wholly familiar to Mr.
Hale, but which to a stranger had a little air of defiance. So Mrs.
Dalrymple interpreted it, and with some amusement asked:

“You make some reservation of your obedience, then, do you, Cousin
Jessica? Like Gabriella herself. Meaning, maybe, to obey me when and
only when it suits your mood to do so. Very well; we shall understand
each other perfectly; and those who understand know how to avoid
collision. Be assured, we shall never quarrel, little cousin.”

Jessica was troubled. She felt she had expressed herself badly and
offended this wonderful lady whom she longed to have love her, and who
seemed so little inclined to do so. She hastened to explain:

“I meant only if you should happen to tell me to do something that I
felt wasn’t right--or that is different from what my mother likes--or,
oh! dear! Please _do_ understand what I want to say, for, truly, it was
nothing naughty!”

Madam Dalrymple laughed, and answered:

“Your words, little cousin, are but another instance of the fact that
explanations are the most hopeless things in this world. When Gabriella
left me she, too, tried to ‘explain’ and failed to make a bit of change
in the bare truth. She left me because she wished. You’ll disobey me,
if you do, because you wish. That’s the matter in a nutshell. One thing
I’ll make clear at the beginning: I shall lay no unnecessary commands
upon you, and I shall insist that you remember everywhere and always
that you are a--_Waldron_. You belong to a race that has high ideals
and lives up to them. Ah! yes! One other thing. I don’t care for
demonstrations of affection. We have not come together because we are,
or ever will be, fond of one another; but because we are both Waldrons
and the time is fitting.

“Ah! must you leave us, Mr. Hale? Beg pardon for not--not having
attended more to you than to the child there; and thank you for your
safe escort of her. I shall write my cousin Gabriella at once and
inform her that Jessica has arrived. Good morning.”

Mr. Hale bowed himself out, feeling almost as if he were deserting his
traveling companion to a most unhappy fate. For a girl like “Lady Jess”
to be housed with Madam Dalrymple seemed a bitter thing. The child
had lived in the sunshine, materially and spiritually, and the gloom
of that old mansion in Washington Square had been oppressive even to
him and during such a brief stay. And for the first time since he had
discovered “Forty-niner” a runaway on the train he was thankful for his
presence.

“There’s a trio of stubborn wills shut up in that dark house, this
minute, for even Miss Jessie has a will of her own; as for those of the
Madam and Ephraim, should they happen to clash, I wonder which would
conquer! However, I’ve done with them, for the present, and now for
home and my own dear girls!” thought the lawyer, as he reentered the
waiting carriage and was driven toward the station which led to his own
home, a few miles north of town.

Madam Dalrymple made a slight motion to rise and dropped the slender
cane which had rested against her chair, and the “tap-tapping” of which
had announced her coming through the hall. Instantly, Jessica had
picked it up and restored it, and was as promptly thanked. Moreover the
lady’s eyes, still marvelously dark and bright for one so old, rested
with an interested expression on the young face before them.

“That was well thought, Cousin Jessica. Your mother must have trained
you better than I feared, living so in the wilderness.”

“Oh! it isn’t a wilderness, not in the least. It is the most beautiful
spot in all the world! New York can’t compare with our lovely
Sobrante--not compare! And I hope she didn’t have to ‘train’ me to do a
thing like that, which nobody could help doing, could they?”

“Came naturally, eh? Better still. Sit down. It tires me to see you
standing. Luncheon will be served at one and it is almost that time
now. Sit down and tell me about your journey--or anything you choose.
Only speak low. I observe that by nature, if you are not excited,
your voice is fairly good. Gentlewomen are never noisy nor obtrusive.
Remember that.”

Jessica would rather have remained standing, or, better still, have
stepped through the long open window out into that rain-drenched old
garden, a-glitter now in the sunshine that was almost as bright as
Sobrante’s. But she reflected that here was her first chance to “obey”
and placed herself on a low stool near her hostess, fixing her gaze
upon the lady’s face with a curiosity that failed to offend, it was so
full of admiration. Yet finding that serene scrutiny somewhat trying,
Mrs. Dalrymple herself opened the conversation by asking:

“Does Gabriella, your mother, keep her good looks? Or is she faded from
that rude life she leads and the sorrow she has met?”

“Faded? My--mother--faded? Why, how queer! Cousin Margaret Dalrymple,
she is almost the most beautiful woman in all southern California.
Truly! Mr. Ninian says so, and Mr. Hale did, and--and I think so! She
is just like the Madonna picture in Fra Sebastian’s house, she is
so lovely. Her hair--her hair isn’t quite as white as yours, it is
a beautiful dark gold color--but she has almost as much as you. She
doesn’t wear it in that puffed up, frizzly kind of way, but just turns
it back in one big coil that is--is lovely.”

Mrs. Dalrymple slightly winced. She did wear a profusion of snow-white
locks, as became a venerable woman of fashion, and Jessica was not wise
enough, as yet, to know that such headgear may be bought in a shop
and put on or off at will. The next question followed rather soon and
sharply:

“Does she still sing? She once had a charming voice.”

“Oh! it is like the birds in the trees along the arroyo to hear my
mother sing! She doesn’t often now, it makes her think so much of my
father. Why, all the ‘boys’ say that it was something wonderful when
they two sang together of a Sunday morning, or sometimes at night. John
Benton said it was as near like the music of Heaven as anything on the
earth could be. John is very religious, John is; only, sometimes, when
Aunt Sally tries his patience very much he says--he says things that
don’t sound nice. But Samson is religiouser even than John. They’re
both of them just perfectly splendid ‘boys.’ Oh! all our ‘boys’ are
fine, just fine! You’d love them every one!” answered Jessica with
enthusiasm.

“Humph! I was never any too fond of ‘boys,’ and Gabriella must be crazy
to try and run a ranch by the aid of a few ‘boys.’ Why doesn’t she
employ men, if so be she will persist in living in such an outlandish
place?”

“Little Captain” smiled.

“Well, I suppose they’re not exactly real boys, like Ned or Luis.
They’re quite grown up and gray-headed, most of them. They all worked
for my father, who found them scattered about the world, sort of ‘down
on their luck,’ as Marty says, and brought them all to dear Sobrante to
give them a home and ‘another chance.’ They just about worshipped my
father, I guess, and I know they do my darling mother. Oh! I wish you
could see her!”

“It is wholly her own fault that I cannot. Here comes Tipkins to
announce luncheon, and I have quite forgotten that you should have been
taken to your room to freshen yourself after your journey. Odd! that
Gabriella should have sent a man and not a maid with you. But I suppose
she knew I would prefer one of my own selection, here in the east.”

“Oh! She didn’t _send_ Ephraim. He--he just came because he loved me so
and wouldn’t stay behind. He-- Why dear old ‘Forty-niner’ actually ran
away! Fancy! Just as the _little_ boys so love to do.”

“Humph! A strange life, a strange bringing up you seem to have had.
Tipkins, send Barnes to attend Miss Jessica.”

“Yes, Madam, I’ll--try,” replied the old servant, bowing and
withdrawing upon the errand. Both he and his mistress well knew that
Barnes, my lady’s-maid, was rarely “sent” upon any errand her own will
did not dictate, and that she had more than once declared, since the
coming of Jessica had been decided upon, that “the Madam needn’t go for
to expect me to ’tend upon no brats at my time of life, nor she needn’t
ask it. If she does I’ll give notice and that’ll settle _her_.”

However, curiosity often accomplishes what authority cannot; and
because Tipkins had reported below stairs that “our Miss Gabriella’s
little daughter looks like a hangel out of Heaven,” and the
sharpshooter had treated her maidship with such profound reverence,
upon being presented as “Miss Jessica’s man”--the arbitrary Barnes
condescended to obey the present summons.

Mrs. Dalrymple had made a slight effort to rise from her chair and
Jessica had already sprung forward to help her, when the white-capped
and white-haired maid appeared; but the lady now sank back again,
directing:

“Show Miss Jessica to her room, Barnes, please, and help her to make
what slight change is necessary now. Her luggage can be unpacked before
dinner. I will wait here for her.”

“Luncheon is served, Madam,” remonstrated the maid, rather sharply.

“It can be put back. I will wait for you here,” returned the mistress
with equal sharpness.

With a sniff and a bridling of her head Barnes departed, bidding
Jessica: “This way, please, and mind the stairs. All this twaddle about
old things being better’n new and risking mortals’ legs on rags, beats
me. Hmm. Some folks grow queerer as they grow older, some does.”

Jessica followed in wondering silence and, although warned to “mind the
stairs,” caught her toe in the frayed covering of one and fell. But she
was up again as soon as down and without quite understanding why was
indignant with her guide for the slighting tone in which she spoke.
Certainly, the carpet had once been a very fine one. Even now, where an
unbroken spot appeared, the foot sank deep into a mossy greenness that
was delightful, and fully bore out the vivid description of this old
home which her mother had sometimes given her.

But even in Mrs. Trent’s own girlhood days the furnishings of this
ancient mansion had become worn almost to uselessness, and the years
which had elapsed since then had finished the work of destruction. In
truth, all the floor coverings were now but what Barnes called “man
traps,” where unwary feet would be caught and falls result.

“’Twas one of them same holes the Madam caught her own high heel in
and got an injury was the beginning of her lameness. The doctor calls
it ‘gout,’ he does; but I, well, I calls it ‘pride,’ just plain,
senseless, family pride. Whatever _was_, my lady thinks, is far and
away better nor what _is_. But as for me and the rest of the servants,
give us even the cheapest sort of ‘ingrain,’ providing it was new and
we’d feel safer for our old bones. Well, here is your room, Miss, and
if you’ll let me slip off your frock I’ll soon make you tidy.”

[Illustration: “Thence she held out a thin white hand toward the girl
who had not yet risen from the floor.”      (See page 41)]

Had Jessica known it this was a fine concession on the part of
ever-weary Barnes, who acknowledged to her advancing age with a
frankness which her mistress denied, but she looked so tired from her
climb up the long stairs that the girl promptly exclaimed:

“Oh! Don’t you trouble, please, Mrs. Barnes. I can wait upon myself
quite well. Indeed, I never have anybody to wait upon me, except now
and then my darling mother--just for love’s sake.” Then with a swift
recollection of the tenderness those motherly fingers had shown, even
in the matter of buttoning or unbuttoning a frock, her blue eyes
grew moist and for a moment that dreadful homesickness made her turn
half-faint.

Now old Barnes was neither dense nor unkind. She was merely spoiled.
She had domineered over her fractious mistress since both of them were
young and she really felt that she was of more authority in the house
than its owner. She and Tipkins had entered service together, at the
time of Mrs. Dalrymple’s early marriage, and like the storied “brook”
they “had gone on forever.” Dozens, maybe hundreds, of other servants
had “flowed” through the mansion and few had tarried long. None save
these two original servitors willingly put up with the peculiarities of
the Madam, and the old-time inconveniences of the establishment. She
was quick to notice the down dropping of the girlish face and the gleam
of tears beneath the long lashes, and said, consolingly:

“Of course, Miss, it’ll seem lonesome like and different at first. But
you’ll get used to it, you know. A body can get used to anything in
time. I suppose Californy’s a terrible hot place, now ain’t it? So
it’s a good job you’ve come away from it before the summer. That old
man of yours, he’s a queer stick, I judge. But polite, why he’s real
polite. And old. That’s a fine thing, too. If he’d been young, Madam
would have sent him about his business so fast ’twould have made him
dizzy. But she likes everything old. Having old folks about her makes
her forget her own age and fancy herself still a mere girl. Never
remind my lady that she’s not as young as she used to be and you’ll get
on--get on, fairly well, that is. Now, ready? Is that the kind of frock
you generally wear?”

Barnes had comfortably rested in a rocker while Jessica washed and
brushed at the great washstand, furnished with such expensive and badly
nicked china, in one corner of the great chamber. The rocker had been
overlooked, in the preparation of this room for a young girl’s use, and
would have been removed had Madam remembered it. She herself disdained
the use of such a chair and considered it totally unfit for well-bred
people. Easy chairs of ancient and ample proportions--these were quite
different; but until of late, since that accident which Barnes had
mentioned, she had herself never occupied aught but the straight-backed
ones, such as had been the correct thing in her childhood.

“Yes, most of my clothes are made like this. My mother does them. Isn’t
it pretty? I’ve two more;” finished Jessica proudly, sweeping out the
rather scant skirt to show its beauty.

“Two more! Is that all? And you one of the greatest heiresses in the
land, my lady says!” cried Barnes, looking with infinite scorn upon
the simple blue flannel dress which its wearer thought so fine. “Well!
If that ain’t odd! Come. We’ll go down now, and I warn you again--mind
the stairs!”



CHAPTER V.

BUSTER TAKES A CITY TRAIL.


No life could have been in greater contrast to that of Sobrante than
this upon which the young Californian now entered. Her own first letter
home may best describe it, written soon after her arrival in Washington
Square, and while her impressions were still vivid.

  “MY DARLINGEST, DEAREST MOTHER:

  “We got here all safe and sound, after a nice journey. I was so
  homesick at first I thought I should die. Then Mr. Hale sent me to
  do something for a dear old Irish lady in the two sections ahead
  of ours. It was my section, too, afterwards when the sick mother
  and the Baby came. I found them in the tourist car--tourists can be
  real nice sometimes, mother dear--we’d made mistakes thinking they
  couldn’t be, there at home. But Mr. Hale says the world is full of
  all sorts of people and rude tourists and polite tourists are two
  of those sorts. Besides, our Cousin Margaret Dalrymple thinks it’s
  not being a tourist makes the difference. It’s ‘born in folks to be
  refined or coarse, and one can’t help nature.’ She thinks it’s ‘born
  in me,’ to be quite nice, but that’s no credit to me; she says I had
  the advantage to be a Waldron. Being a Waldron is, I guess, being
  everything ‘correct.’ I’m very glad we’re all Waldrons together, you
  and Cousin Margaret, and darling Ned, and I. It seems to be a great
  help in doing just what one ought to do.

  “Wasn’t it dear and sweet and just perfectly lovely of ‘Forty-niner’
  to steal away and come to take care of me? Mr. Hale said he was
  afraid you Sobrante people would be worried about him, so he
  telegraphed right back to tell you where he was. I hope you got that
  message sooner than we used to those which came by way of Marion;
  but, of course, you did--since now we have a little station of our
  very own right at ‘the Sobrante.’ Queer. My Cousin Margaret and some
  people who have come to this house seem to think it’s a wonderful
  thing, that having a copper mine in the family. I don’t! I think it’s
  horrid. If it hadn’t been for that old stuff being dug out of the
  earth I’d never have had to come away here to be educated. Am I not
  getting educated fast? Yet I’ve learned to write thus much better
  just from you and Mr. Ninian teaching me at home. I am taking the
  greatest pains to do all you want me to.

  “This is the queerest, quaintest old house in the city, some of the
  visitors say. That our Cousin Margaret has been offered an enormous
  price for it but won’t sell it, even though she would get all that
  money and ‘the neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.’ Even she says
  that, and complains most bitterly about the ‘parvenusers’ that have
  crept into it. There are stores and artists’ studios and apartment
  places and--all sorts of things that a Waldron doesn’t like in the
  Square, nowadays. But Cousin Margaret says that once only the ‘inner
  circle of society’ dwelt in these old houses.

  “Speaking of old: that is one word you must never apply to our
  Cousin Margaret. I thought I’d best tell you in case you didn’t know.
  I shouldn’t have known, not right at first, if Barnes hadn’t told
  me. Barnes says that the older and more worn-out the things are the
  better pleased Mrs. Dalrymple is. She is so proud of everything in
  the ‘mansion’ being just the same as it was in her own grandfather’s
  time, that she won’t even buy new chairs for the kitchen nor have new
  plumbing put in, even though the health officers have been trying
  to make her do that. That’s why she can never keep cooks and people
  like that, of the ‘lower classes,’ you know. Barnes says there have
  been four new cooks this very last week that ever was, and I guess
  each one is stupider than the other. I know Wun Lung would have
  been ashamed to put such stuff on our table at home as we had here
  that first luncheon. (We spell lunch with an ‘eon’ at our Cousin
  Margaret’s.) As for dear Aunt Sally, I believe she would have got up
  and tossed the whole mess out into the garden for the chickens to
  eat. Only there aren’t any chickens and Aunt Sally wasn’t here.

  “Dear Ephraim was; and that is the best thing has happened this dozen
  years, Tipkins says. You used to know Tipkins, so, of course, you
  know too that he ‘wouldn’t demean himself to cook anything’ unless
  his Madam was really starving, and then he’d make Barnes do it. He is
  the only one can make Barnes do things she doesn’t like. My Cousin
  Margaret can’t. It’s Barnes makes Cousin Margaret. But Barnes said
  she was a lady’s-maid and she wouldn’t demean, either. Ephraim thinks
  there’s a ‘touch of sentiment in Barnes’s heart for Tipkins’ and
  that’s why she minds him--_sometimes_! Ephraim wishes she would get
  the same sort of ‘touch’ for him, then she wouldn’t order him to do
  things he really doesn’t like. Mr. Hale thought Cousin Margaret would
  be angry with ‘Forty-niner’ for coming and send him away, but she
  wasn’t at all. She thinks it is perfectly ‘correct and Waldron-y’ to
  have a man belonging to you. She was a little vexed that you didn’t
  send a ‘maid’ with me, too, till I told her you hadn’t any maid to
  send. Our maids were both Chinese ‘boys’ and had never combed a
  girl’s hair in their lives nor buttoned a frock.

  “But the best part about Ephraim is that now he is the cook. Seems
  that when he was offered that first luncheon he looked it over and
  turned up his nose about it. Said he reckoned he was in a city where
  they could buy victuals ready cooked if a body was such a fool he
  couldn’t cook them himself. And would he go out and get something
  fit to eat? And Tipkins asked, had he any money? Then Ephraim had to
  own that he hadn’t. It had taken his very last cent to pay his own
  fare here from home and to pay Buster’s fare, too. Think of that?
  The darling old ‘boy’ had hired Buster brought on by express, in a
  car all by himself, because there weren’t any cattle cars on our
  train, and it had cost--Oh! dear! I don’t yet know how much. Ephy
  won’t tell. Anyway, he’d struck his bottom dollar when he reached
  Washington Square--had just enough to hire the hackman to bring
  Buster to the house for him. So he’s here, in the stable behind,
  with our Cousin Margaret’s black span, who are as old, seems if, as
  everything else.

  “Asking him if he had money for the food made Ephraim mad. So he
  said that if he hadn’t he had sense enough to cook it, if there was
  any to cook. Then Tipkins hurried off and bought a great basket full
  of everything nice, and that night we had such a dinner as would have
  done even Aunt Sally credit. There was quite a tilt between those two
  funny old men! Tipkins, he said _he_ was the butler, and as long as
  there was a woman under the roof it wasn’t a man’s place to handle a
  gridiron, and so he wouldn’t demean to cook. Ephraim said _he’d_ been
  everything under the sun a man could be--except a nasty, high-flown
  English butler! He’d worn the United States’ military uniform, and
  he’d dug gold out of California mountains, and taught the nicest
  girl in the universe to sharpshoot to beat the militia--That was me!
  Wasn’t it nice of him to say that?--and he guessed rather than let
  that girl what had done him so proud go and starve for want of decent
  food he’d tackle the first frying-pan came his way.

  “So there he is, installed in the great, dreary kitchen downstairs,
  where it’s so dark I wonder he can see at all, and just as proud now
  of the fine things he fixes as he used to be of me when I hit the
  bull’s-eye. And our Cousin Margaret is perfectly delighted with him.
  She isn’t a bit ashamed to say that her stomach has a good deal to do
  with her temper, and that if the first is satisfied the last is sure
  to be. That’s a good thing about Cousin Margaret. She isn’t a bit
  afraid to say anything she thinks about--about all that _is_, except
  her own age. I don’t mean, course, that she would tell a wrong story
  about that, even, if anybody would dare to ask, but I can’t fancy
  anybody daring. She is such a beautiful old lady--gentlewoman, I
  should say. She’s like you in that, she thinks that is the correctest
  word. She wears clothes that even I, who don’t know much about such
  matters, know are perfectly beautiful. Shining, shimmery silks--like
  the sunlight on the arroyo when there’s water in it; made long
  and draggy like our peacocks’ own tails and her hair--Why, mother
  dearest! Even your beautiful hair isn’t half so much as hers. It’s
  piled on top of her head in what she calls a ‘pompydoor,’ and dips
  down behind all in little crinkles, like mine after it’s been washed;
  and her skin is so white, I don’t believe she ever went out into the
  sunshine without her veil to keep it off. Her eyes are black and
  snappy and she never wears glasses, like the ‘boys’ do, except in
  what Barnes calls the ‘privacy of her bedchamber.’ I’ve never seen
  that privacy and I should be afraid to sleep in her bedchamber. It’s
  the front room upstairs, with three great windows and an ‘alcove.’
  In the ‘alcove’ is a big, big bed, all stuffy curtains and things
  around it and so high there’s a little ladder to climb up. There
  are looking-glasses all about and so many chairs and wardrobes and
  things I shouldn’t think she could hardly move about. I have seen it
  all from the hall, going to my own room at the back, but I’ve never
  been invited in and I wouldn’t dare to go without being asked. That’s
  the one thing about our Cousin Margaret. I guess it’s what you call
  ‘stately.’ She keeps people from daring, all except Barnes. Even the
  persons who call and stay in the drawing-room act afraid of Madam.
  Her reception days are like a queen’s, Tipkins says. There is to
  be one, to-morrow; the ‘last of the season.’ She sent Barnes down
  somewhere to buy me a white frock, with blue ribbons and white shoes
  and stockings. I am to wear it at the reception and be presented,
  for a few minutes, because I am ‘Gabriella’s child.’ Then I am to be
  sent away again. That seems silly to me: to spend money for a frock
  to wear only a few minutes, but I wouldn’t dare say so to Madame
  Dalrymple.

  “My room is the one you used to have. I wonder how you could sleep
  in it without being afraid. I can’t. So Ephy comes upstairs and
  sleeps on a cot outside the door. _I_ was never afraid in all my life
  before, but I am here. Everything is so big and dark and heavy. I
  feel as if I were carrying mountains on my chest, and I’d give--Oh!
  what wouldn’t I give to jump on Buster’s bare back and scamper up the
  canyon as fast as he could go! Cousin Margaret was nice about Buster,
  too. She says it is quite a distinction to have a real Californian
  with her _caballero_ and broncho to ride alongside her carriage when
  she goes out driving in the Park. We are going this afternoon. But I
  don’t feel as glad as I ought, because I must wear the funniest kind
  of a habit, with a long flapping skirt, and Ephraim must put on some
  stiff-looking things she calls suitable for a groom. Cousin Margaret
  has bought these clothes for us, too, all ready-made, and Ephraim
  says he is plumb disgusted, and that he will feel like a fool. I hope
  he won’t. I can’t imagine darling ‘Forty-niner’ feeling like anybody
  except his own sensible self.

  “Now, dearest mother, I must stop. I promised Cousin Margaret I would
  have my new riding things on at precisely four o’clock. When she
  says four o’clock she doesn’t mean a minute before that time nor
  a minute after. The first lesson she is trying to teach me is--is
  ‘punctuerality’ or something like that. She says that to be exact is
  another mark of a gentlewoman, and dear me! It seems that being a
  gentlewoman here in New York, with Madam to watch me, is lots harder
  than being one at dear Sobrante, with only your sweet smile to guide
  me.

  “P.S. I have written you a long, long letter. I have felt as if
  I were talking to you and I have talked right out. The reason it
  is done so well is that Cousin Margaret has read it all over and
  corrected it and made me copy it. She said she would have liked to
  strike out some of my sentences; that they ‘suggested a coarseness
  which must have come from the Trent side of my nature,’ and that no
  girl, purely Waldron, would have put them in. However, it was her own
  dignity as a Waldron which kept her from the striking out. She was
  willing to correct the spelling and writing, though she left some
  mistakes for you to see, so that you might know how much I need that
  education I have got to take. Oh! dear! It sounds like a dose of
  castor oil, or Aunt Sally’s picra! Or even like a great big club _I_
  must be cudgelled with. Never mind. I’ll ‘tackle’ that old education
  with everything that is in me, so that I can get it over and done
  with and travel home to you again. The last part of this letter I
  have not had to have corrected; and the next one I write I’ll try
  to make so perfect she’ll not wish to read any more. If our Cousin
  Margaret would only love me a little tiny bit! or let me love her. I
  so long to hear somebody say ‘darling’ or ‘precious,’ or anything
  else that would make me know they cared. Only Ephraim does now and
  then, but has to say it on ‘the sly’ as he calls it. When Cousin
  Margaret doesn’t hear. It would be beneath a Waldron’s dignity to
  be familiar with a servant--and she considers darling ‘Forty-niner’
  such. He only laughs about it; though, all the same, I believe he’s
  met what Marty calls his ‘come-uppance’ in our Cousin Margaret. She
  likes him, treats him well enough, but keeps him at arms’ length as
  if he were some sort of a ‘creature’ and he is more afraid of her
  than even Tipkins. He says that’s because if he offended she would
  send him away and he won’t be sent.

  “Good-by, good-by, good-by! O my mother! If I had your arms about me
  just this minute! After all I have left a blank page. That is for you
  to fill up with kisses and love, love, love--to you, and Ned, and
  every single body on that dear Sobrante ranch. Oh! why did old Pedro
  ever show us that copper mine? If he hadn’t I wouldn’t have been one
  of ‘the richest girls’ nor have had an education! I should have just
  stayed happily at home and been only a loving

                                                      DAUGHTER JESSICA.”


There was a tap at the door and the girl carefully folded and
sealed the envelope, while a small colored girl, one of the various
“emergencies” as Ephraim called the shifting “extra help” summoned
almost daily, announced:

“The Madam she done want you-all to come right along downstairs and
go a-ridin’ with her. She says you-all must ha’ heerd the big clock
strike an’ should ha’ paid your own attention, miss.”

Jessica sprang up, tripped in the skirt of her riding habit, and fell
on the floor, while the messenger first stared then burst into a loud
guffaw. That was a sort of noise not permitted in that old mansion
and both she and Jessica were frightened as if they had committed
some misdemeanor, as the latter got upon her feet again and held the
offending skirt high out of the way.

She looked curiously upon the little maid, with whom she would far
rather have stayed and played than to have ridden in solemn state
beside the great carriage of her cousin. Girls were the greatest
novelty of all these many new things which had come into her life; and
the one redeeming feature about that forthcoming “education” was that
it would be prosecuted in company with many other “girls.” However, she
dared not tarry, and in a few moments was in her saddle, with Ephraim
riding a hired hack at the prescribed distance behind her, and Buster
vainly trying to accommodate his paces to her will and those of the
sedate blacks drawing the old barouche.

For a little time all went well. Jessica was an experienced mistress of
this exercise and felt her spirits rise as they had not before since
reaching the great city. Mrs. Dalrymple watched her with pride, which
had at first been anxiety, but soon saw that she had no need to fear
for any awkwardness on her young cousin’s part.

“Why, my dear, you do well. You might have been trained in our best
riding academy,” commended the Madam, with satisfaction. “It is the
characteristic of a gentlewoman to be an accomplished equestrienne.”

Jessica smiled and cast a meaning glance backward into Ephraim’s face,
which he was trying to compose into that impassive stolidity of Mrs.
Dalrymple’s own coachman and footman. But he failed and the most he
could accomplish was an ignominious wink. Tipkins had duly instructed
him as to the “correct” behavior on this his appearance as “groom,” but
that teacher would have been shocked through all his English soul had
he seen that contorted wink.

Then they found their way into Fifth Avenue, and this seemed to
Jessica the prettiest part of the town that she had seen, with its
aristocratic, comparative quiet; and here Mrs. Dalrymple explained:

“That brown-stone house on the corner, the right side of the street, is
Madam Mearsom’s school, where I shall place you at the beginning of the
fall term. It is the most fashionable and exclusive of all our private
schools and it is where your mother was trained. I shall take you to
call upon her soon, and have already entered your name upon her list.
Commonly, a pupil has to be enrolled at least two years before there is
a vacancy in her limited classes; but Madam has made an exception in
your favor because, as she admitted, she has always had the honor of
educating the Waldrons. I hope you will appreciate the concession and
never forget the high ideals you must maintain.”

“I will try, Cousin Margaret,” dutifully replied “little Captain,”
though feeling that the “Waldrons and their ideals” were a burden too
heavy for her to bear.

“Now we must turn aside, into a cross street, to see my dressmaker. I
don’t know why such persons always _will_ live on cross streets! It’s
most annoying, they are so much narrower and confusing. Notice, child,
how our New York is laid out. As simple as a checker-board--from First
Street up, all the cross streets go by count, and all the Avenues in
the same order, until you come to that far-away East Side where they
are lettered. But neither you nor I will ever have more to do with
Avenues A, B, or C, than to know they do exist and are marked on the
city map.”

The coachman drew up before a house which seemed to be familiar both to
him and the blacks, which settled down into a sleepy attitude, quite
unfitting such aristocratic beasts but that indicated their prescience
of a long wait. The Madam was helped from the carriage and had to
pause a moment, as always when she made any physical exertion, before
ascending the steps. Then she passed up them with the ease of a much
younger woman and was promptly admitted.

It was there that disaster fell. Buster had been growing more and
more restive. Jessica’s unfamiliar skirt fretted his delicate skin;
the saddle was not his old one fitting comfortably to his back; this
enforced pacing, pacing, was intolerable to a broncho of spirit; this
standing quiet was more annoying even than the pacing had been; and
when a honking automobile came dashing around the corner of the block,
almost into his very face, he cast one terrified, reproachful glance
into his rider’s eyes and took the bit in his teeth.

Oh! but he traveled then! Ephraim pursuing and using most
objectionable language to the hack he bestrode.

“Oh! you vile beast! Call yourself a horse, do you? well, you don’t
know what a horse is, I tell you! Get up! Get on! _Vamos!_ Speed!
Even old Stiffleg, that deserted me on the streets of Los Angeles,
had more fire in him than you, poor old worn-out New Yorker! _Vamos!_
_V-A-M-O-S!_”

In vain. Jessica had vanished. The broncho, unused to city sights and
sounds, would not be checked nor swerved from the mad course he had
elected to follow. The most she could do was to keep her seat upon his
back and this she managed, even though hampered by that detestable
skirt and that slippery new saddle. Barebacked, without this handicap,
how she would have reveled in that mad ride! even now, knowing that her
Cousin Margaret’s dire displeasure awaited her return, she did revel
in it. Almost she could fancy herself tearing across the plain, where
no obstruction offered and the soft sod was a cushioned pathway for
Buster’s hoofs, and for a moment closing her eyes, she let her fancy
carry her back to Paraiso d’Oro; and Buster--whither he would.

But she opened them again in terror, as a wild scream came from beneath
those hoofs and the broncho was so suddenly checked that he almost
threw her off backward.

The inevitable had happened on that crowded thoroughfare into which he
had now turned. She and he had been ignorantly reckless of consequences
and most untoward consequences had resulted.



CHAPTER VI.

JESSICA’S FIRST GIRL FRIEND.


The screams came from a girl of Jessica’s own age, whom Buster had
ridden down and thrown to the pavement. But they were instantly taken
up and repeated by a score of throats, while a crowd assembled on the
spot, as if it had risen from the ground itself.

“Oh! have I killed her?” cried “Little Captain,” as swiftly realizing
the accident, and almost as swiftly, leaping from her saddle to bend
above the girl who now lay with closed eyes and white face, apparently
unconscious.

“Now, that’s awful!” cried somebody. “It’s against the law for folks to
ride that gait!”

“Arrest her, officer! Don’t let her get away!” advised another
on-looker, as a policeman laid his hand on the broncho’s bridle and
held the creature still, save for an exciting trembling through all its
frame.

“I’m not going to ‘get away’! I want to take care of this poor girl!”
retorted Jessica, lifting her head and discovering the officer. “O sir!
I am so sorry. We didn’t see her, Buster nor I, and what can I do?
Is there a hospital near? Is she--Do you think--she _can’t_ be dead,
all in a little minute like that! Tell me, help me--help her--Please,
please!”

At the mention of hospital the girl still lying on the pavement opened
her eyes and tried to rise, and willing hands helped her to do so.
She did gain her feet, quivering and terrified still, yet managing to
protest with vigor:

“No, no, no! I won’t go! Not to a hospital--I won’t, I won’t! See? I
ain’t hurted. I can walk--I shan’t--I shan’t!”

In truth she was not really injured save by the shock of falling, which
had rendered her senseless for a little; until that word “hospital”--so
dreaded by the very poor--pierced her consciousness. Buster had run
against and knocked her down, but it was the blow upon the stones which
had done the most mischief.

With tears of pity and regret dimming her own blue eyes, Jessica
slipped a sustaining arm around the other’s waist and eagerly assured
her:

“Nor shall you go if you’re not really hurt. You shall go home, right
home, if you’ll tell me where and this policeman will get a carriage
for us.”

The Californian was making prompt use of the knowledge she had already
gained concerning this strange city. Policemen were the proper persons
to direct, in time of trouble, and carriages might be had at any and
all times and everywhere. Street-cars were confusingly abundant but of
these she knew nothing and was afraid.

It was the officer who recalled her to the fact that hiring carriages
costs money, and:

“Can you pay for it, miss? Your name and address, please. Whoa, there,
you brute! Was there nobody with you? Don’t you know better than to
ride like that, right here in the city?”

“No, I didn’t. My name is Jessica Trent. I’m just from California and
I don’t know much about New York. My cousin, Mrs. Dalrymple, lives at
Number ---- Washington Square, and I live with her. She has money, and
will pay the carriage man. I haven’t any--not here. But I wasn’t alone,
only that old hired horse wouldn’t travel and--Ah! here he comes!
Ephraim, Ephraim!”

Though he had failed to keep her in sight, the despised hack-horse
had had intelligence enough to follow the course his late companion,
Buster, had taken, and now brought “Forty-niner” to his “Captain’s”
side.

“Why, Lady Jess! Whatever’s this?” demanded the astonished ranchman,
beholding his beloved child standing in the middle of the street, with
her arm about the waist of a ragged, hunchbacked girl, and a tray full
of flowers lying on the stones before them. The flowers were sadly
trampled and bruised, and Buster had planted one restless hoof plump
through the wicker tray.

“I--We run over, or knocked her down, this dear, poor little
flower-girl, I guess she is. I want to get a carriage and take her
home. Have you got any money? This policeman says I must have it first.”

Ephraim slowly dismounted and slipping his own horse’s bridle over one
arm, coolly relieved the officer of Buster’s, much to the delight of
that person in uniform. Then he demanded:

“What’s the taxes?”

“The--what?” asked the policeman, in turn.

“The taxes, the cost, the price of that there carriage?”

“Probably a dollar or two. Depends on where the girl lives and how
long it takes. Say, Sis, I’ve seen you around here before. You’ve been
careless more’n once and a cripple like you’d better take no chances.”

For reply the flower-seller made a saucy face and stooped to gather
up her scattered posies, critically calculating the damage done to
them and the consequent loss to her. She had recovered from her brief
unconsciousness and as Jessica also began to collect the daffodils
and tulips, exclaiming with delight over their beauty, her business
instinct came to the fore.

“Five cents a bunch, miss. Only five cents!”

Yet it was almost mechanically she spoke, for all her hearing was
strained to learn the outcome of that carriage-discussion; and
regardless of further injury to her blossoms, she clapped her thin
hands in delight, as Ephraim settled it by saying:

“Call it up, officer! I reckon we can stand that much. No, you needn’t
worry about the broncho. I’ll lead him and follow the carriage. But
you’ll have to give the orders--This old New York of yours sets a
plainsman plumb crazy!”

The officer found no cause for delay. He had made a few entries in his
note book. The hunchback was not injured, she didn’t need a carriage,
but if these wild Westerners fancied that she did and were able to pay
for it, that was their business.

When the summoned hack drew up to the curbstone, whither the two girls
had retreated when the crowd dispersed, the flower-seller’s pale face
really glowed almost as pink as Jessica’s own, and her ill-shod feet
danced on the stones, as she cried:

“Oh! it’s true, it’s true! What’ll they say when they see me? Oh! my
soul and body! Oh! my!”

“You’ll have to tell where you live,” said Jessica, following the
other into the vehicle and smiling at her eagerness.

“Course. I know how. This is the way they do it, I’ve seen ’em, lots
of times, waiting outside the theaters and such. The ladies they steps
in, just like I did, and they speaks up at the coachy and they says:
‘Home’! Or maybe, ‘Waldorf ’Storia,’ or ‘Fifth Avenoo,’ or wherever
’tis. ‘Hark. Hear me! Driver, 221 Avenoo A. Back tenement, top floor.’”

It might have been that palatial Waldorf Astoria, to which she had
referred, rather than one of the dingiest abodes on that street which
was named by a letter, and that Madam Dalrymple had said was too humble
for any Waldron to know about. Yet here was Jessica going to it, must
go, or be guilty of a rudeness less “Waldrony” than even that knowledge
of poor Avenue A; and it never entered her mind that she could send
the hunchback home, unattended. Though, indeed, it is doubtful if she
could, for the hackman would not, in that case, have felt at all sure
of his fare.

Fortunately, Ephraim knew little and cared less for any street
distinctions. He was simply and wholly disgusted by this whole outing.
The horse he bestrode was never meant for a saddle; his groom’s livery
was uncomfortable in the matter of fit--as well as pride; the restless
Buster was extremely difficult to lead, where peril of the streets was
constantly menacing, and only love for “Little Captain” prevented his
turning about and making straight for Washington Square, even though he
had to ask directions thither at every block.

“My name’s Sophy Nestor. What’s yours? Ain’t this jolly? I’m the
gladdest ever was ’t that horse of yours knocked me down. My! But
didn’t the cop want to hurry me off to the hospital! No, ’twasn’t him,
though, ’twas your own plaguy self! Do you know what a hospital is?
It’s a place where they take folks to cut off their legs and things. We
poor folks is what keeps the hospitals goin’. Them doctors they catch
us and cut us just to learn how the rich folkses’ insides are made.
’Cause that way, Granny says, we’re just as good as the rich ones, our
insides are. But, maybe, you didn’t know. Else, you’d never ha’ said
it. What’d you say it was? Oh! I’m so happy! I never, never was so
happy in my life! Won’t the children in our court and all along the
block just stare their eyes out when they see me come ridin’ home in a
reg’lar carriage! I never thought I’d be inside one, never in all my
life. What’d you say it was?”

“I hadn’t said, but it’s Jessica Trent. And is it possible that right
here in this city full of all sorts of wagons that you’ve never ridden
before?”

The carriage had now passed eastward through the city and even to
the Westerner’s untrained sight the streets looked more crowded, the
buildings poorer and dingier, and the passing throngs altogether
different from those upon Fifth Avenue. But she observed less of the
surroundings than of this chattering girl beside her. So misshapen,
so wretchedly clothed, and so radiantly happy! She had longed for a
playmate of her own age but she had not dreamed of one like this.

In a few moments they had exchanged the fullest confidences. Sophy had
listened wide-eyed and, at first, unbelieving, to Jessica’s story
of a home where one couldn’t even see another house, because it was
so far away; but she had gradually accepted the fact and was lost in
admiration of a girl who could live such a wonderful life yet be so
friendly and nice to a mere flower-girl from “Avenoo A.”

When they reached that dilapidated block where Sophy lived, and with a
great air that young person had ordered the driver to stop, she turned
to Jessica and said:

“Now we’ll get out. Oh! my soul and body! It’s all clean over and done
with! _It didn’t last._ Seems if it didn’t last a minute. Say, Jessica,
if I should go back to that place some other day would you ride round
and let your horse knock me down again, so’s I could come home in
another carriage? Would you?”

“No, I would not! But--but if you care so much about it and will put
on a whole frock and come to Washington Square I’ll ask my Cousin
Margaret Dalrymple to take you with us in hers. But I guess I won’t
get out. I--I’d rather not. She might not like it;” answered Jessie,
more in answer to a warning nod from Ephraim who had now come up to
them than from any reluctance of her own. It was, truly, a strange and
most unlovely place. Lines of ragged clothing fluttered from every
floor, children rolled in the gutters and fought each other savagely
at the least provocation, street vendors yelled till the air was full
of discord, and the whole surroundings told of that abject poverty
which Jessica now beheld for the first time. Yet it interested her
wonderfully, more because it was new than because she understood
it. So, when Sophy insisted, she disregarded Ephraim’s warning and
sprang to the sidewalk, smiling in spite of herself at the hunchback’s
uptossed head and the remarkable strut she assumed for the benefit of
onlookers.

“Yes, you _must_, Jessica Trent. Else Granny won’t believe it’s true
and’ll nag me ’cause the basket’s broke. I’ll come to Washington Square
all right, but I can’t--I can’t put on a whole frock. I haven’t got
one. This way, right this.”

Seizing Jessica’s hand so forcibly she could not withdraw it, Sophy
hurriedly led the way through a sort of dark, damp alley, running
between two houses, to another tall tenement facing a court in the
rear. Here there were more clothes-lines, more fluttering garments,
more crying babies, and more outrageous odors. Instinctively, the
stranger pinched her nose to protect it against the stench, while Sophy
consolingly remarked:

“The smell ain’t nothing when you get used to it. Granny used to mind
it awful, when we first moved here from over Brooklyn way. That was
’fore I can remember an’ my father was killed. She don’t now. She don’t
mind anything only having to _live_. She’s dreadful tired of that,
Granny is, ’cause she don’t much like the folks in the houses. I like
’em all right. Mind the steps! That third one isn’t there, and there’s
a hole in all of ’em. I’ve got so used I know just where to step, even
in the dark. Now, one more and we’ll be to Granny’s door. How funny you
breathe!”

“I can’t--I can’t hardly breathe at all! It’s so--so awful
high--and--smelly.”

“Pinch it again. ’Tisn’t so bad in Granny’s room. She keeps the winder
open all the time. Say, Granny, Granny Briggs! Here’s Jessica Trent,
away from California, wherever that is, and her horse she was a-ridin’
on Thirty-fourth Street knocked me silly and broke the basket, and she
brung me home in a carriage, _in a carriage_, Granny Briggs! And you
needn’t say she didn’t, ’cause you can go right down into the Aveny and
see it standin’ on the stones a-waitin’ to take her back again to where
she come from. True’s I live. You can see her for yourself!”

Jessica made her best, most “Waldron-y” courtesy, and with a grace
hardly to have been looked for in such a place, the aged mistress of
the one room returned it. She was a comely old body, rather ragged than
untidy, and she wore a broad frilled cap on her head, and a piece of a
frayed shawl pinned about her shoulders. She had a great pile of men’s
overalls before her, to which she was putting the finishing stitches,
“by hand,” the only sort of sewing she could get to do, and for which
she was paid a miserable price. But it, and Sophy’s flower-selling, was
their only source of income, and she could afford to waste no time,
even to talk with this astonishing young visitor who had come.

So she rose once, bobbed a returning courtesy to Jessica’s profound
one, and settled back in her chair, having scarcely paused at all in
her work. Then, still sewing as if her life depended on her speed--as
indeed it did--she listened in silence to the story Sophy told, only
opening her lips once to remark:

“Pity the pony didn’t finish you up while it was about it, my poor
child. Life isn’t worth living for such as you. Or me either,” she
added gloomily, and wondering why the Californian didn’t depart. She
wished she would. Sophy would have to carry home part of these garments
before the shop closed for the night and poor folks had no time for
idling. She expressed her desire rather promptly:

“Well, if you’ve done talking, get the leather piece and wrap this work
up. If you hurry you’ll get there in time and since you’ve wasted all
them flowers you’d better step lively. There’s just one half-loaf in
this cupboard and you’re amazing hungry--for such as you.”

“Yes’m. You help, Jessie, please,” cried Sophy; and then, as if
inspired by some wonderful idea, raised herself from the floor where
she was spreading the piece of carriage-cloth used to enwrap the heavy
overalls on their journeys to and from “the shop,” and exclaimed: “Oh!
let’s do it! Let’s ask that nice driver to carry us ’round by the
factory on our way to Washington Square and carry the bundle with us.
Won’t that be grand?”

Jessica hesitated. She feared she was already doing something her
guardian would disapprove, yet otherwise felt no sense of guilt. But
instantly her hesitation vanished, remembering that she had forewarned
Mrs. Dalrymple that there might be times when she could not be
obedient, when her own sense of what was right--for herself--interfered
with Madam’s judgment. This was one of the times! She was sure of it.

Ephraim had nearly “lost his head” in his anxiety, tied to his waiting
outside with the two horses which he could neither leave nor lose; and
his patience entirely gave way when the two girls reappeared, tugging
a mighty bundle between them, Jessica tripping in her unfamiliar
skirt, but Sophy radiant in her rags and in the prospect of another
ride.

What the driver felt was best expressed by the fierce glance he shot
the sharpshooter, with whom he had had a most enjoyable talk during
their long wait, and by his words:

“I look to you, sir, for payment for all this nonsense!”

The effect of this was to turn Ephraim’s wrath from his “Little
Captain” upon the city jehu, and to make him retort, savagely:

“Plague take your cautious soul! You shall be paid and double paid and
don’t you forget it.”

An hour later there entered the aristocratic but now most anxious
presence of Madam Dalrymple, two brightly smiling girls, chattering in
the friendliest manner, and one of them explaining:

“I’m sorry, Cousin Margaret, that Buster ran away, and yet I’m not
sorry only for fear you didn’t like it. This is Sophy Nestor and she
lives on Avenue A. I’ve been to see where she lives, after Buster
knocked her down, and now she’s come to see us, and I’m going up to
get one of my frocks to give her, ’cause she hasn’t any whole one. And
please, will you give me five dollars to pay the hackman? And for fifty
cents more he’d carry her back again.”

This explanation was received in ominous silence.



CHAPTER VII.

EPHRAIM TAKES HOME THE BUNDLE.


The silence was broken by Madam Dalrymple’s dispatching Tipkins to
pay the waiting hackman. But the additional fifty cents was not
forthcoming. In its stead a dime was given Sophy and she was, also,
dispatched with a crispness that forbade her accompanying Jessica
upstairs, in search of a new frock, and that sent “her about her
business” with the reminder that she was to trouble that house no more.

“I will have the matter of the accident investigated and proper
restitution made. You can give Tipkins your address, Sophy Nestor, and
need not wait for Jessica to come downstairs. Tipkins, show the small
person out.”

Sophy stared but did not disobey, even though her soul longed for
one more glimpse of the lovely girl who had crossed her pathway, for
a moment, so to speak, and had vanished within the gloom of that
forbidding mansion. She was an impudent street child, in ordinary,
ready to “sass” anybody who interfered with her and all the more
“touchy” because of her deformity and the curiosity it aroused. But she
dared not sauce this wonderful old lady, who looked to her like some
of the fashionably draped wax figures in modistes’ windows and whose
voice was so icily quiet and stern.

She followed Tipkins’ wake with a meekness hitherto unknown, but a
meekness that was external only.

“Huh! She owns the inside of this house, she does, but she don’t own
the whole street, so there. And I’ll take my stand right out here in
the Square, and here I’ll sell my flowers--or bust! Then I’ll see
Jessica and if she can’t give it to me to-day, she’ll give me that
frock some other day. I hope it won’t be like that riding one she had
on, all tight and draggley, but--Goody! Them ten centses ’ll buy a real
lot of daffies offen the market folks, when market’s done, to-morrow.
I won’t ride in no street car, I won’t, but I’ll be right here in this
Square early to-morrow morning, and Jessie and me can talk through that
iron fence, same’s if we was close together. Them lions is only iron,
too, and I’m not a bit scared of ’em.”

These reflections passed through the hunchback’s mind as she received
the dime from Tipkins and had the door of the mansion closed in
her face. Then she seated herself on a bench in the park till she
remembered that in leaving the hack she had left the bundle of fresh
work in it, which she was taking home to Granny. At that memory she
sprang up dismayed and hurried homeward, fearing many things but most
of all that she would have to go without food for many meals to come
because of her forgetfulness. Granny wouldn’t punish her. She rarely
did by word or blow; but Sophy’s worst punishment would be the fact
that the bundle of goods was lost and that Granny would have to make
it good. Poor Granny! So old and so discouraged! Yet so much nicer in
every way, the loyal grandchild thought, than that rich old lady in the
mansion she had left.

“Why, Cousin Margaret! Where has Sophy gone?” asked Jessica, hurrying
back to the room where she had left her visitor, with her own prettiest
frock on her arm; even that beloved one of white with scarlet trimmings
which had been made for the happy _Navidad_.

“To where she belongs, I hope. Child, you must never, never do such a
thing again.”

“But, Cousin Margaret, I didn’t do it. It was Buster, poor fellow,
who was scared almost to death by those upstairs trains and the
automobiles. Why, they scare me, too, they sound so like a flock of
wild geese coming right down on your head. I hate them. I don’t see why
people ride in them when there are so many horses.”

“For once I agree with you. I also detest them, the modern,
disagreeable things. But that’s begging the question. I refer to your
disobedience in visiting that tenement house.”

“Why--But, Cousin Margaret! I didn’t know--you hadn’t really forbidden;
you’d only said I needn’t ever know anything about poor Avenue A and
the folks live on it, and I wouldn’t have known only Buster made me.
My mother says nothing happens by accident and that everything leads
to something else. Like this, seems if: If Buster hadn’t thrown poor
Sophy down, I’d never have know how poor she was and had the chance to
be good to her. I’m going to write my mother soon as I can and tell
her; and that’s the first time I ever was glad I was going to be an
‘heiress.’ Heiresses have lots of money and oh! dear! It will take all
we can ever dig out of that copper mine to take care of all the poor
folks in Avenue A. I shall ask my mother to have you, or Mr. Hale, or
whoever ’tis that keeps the money, to give me some right away. I can’t
bear to think of any nice old lady, like Granny Briggs, living in a
tiny room with only a bed and two chairs and a weeny, tiny stove in the
corner. She was so busy she couldn’t even stop to talk to me a minute.
It made me feel real tired just to look at her. I’m going to spend my
whole life helping poor Avenue A people, or others like them, and I’m
going to begin with Sophy and her grandmother. I just can’t forget
them, nor--nor the _poor smell_! I should hate that worse of all, that
poor smell. Wouldn’t you?”

Mrs. Dalrymple had listened in silence while her small relative thus
unburdened her soul, and now replied with considerable satisfaction:

“That’s the Waldron in you. I have tried, and once Gabriella did,
faithfully, to do what is known as ‘slumming;’ but the ‘poor smell’
conquered us both. I trust it will you, and certainly you have made a
good beginning, to detect it so instantly. Now, sit down and listen to
me. You are _going_ to be a rich young woman but you _are_ not yet.
You are but a very inexperienced child, who has just caught her first
glimpse of the ‘seamy side’ of life. It isn’t a pleasant side, and to
you it isn’t a necessary one. There are numberless organized charities
to provide for the wants of the poor and I subscribe to many of them.
I will have your name put down upon one or two lists and it must then
content you to know that you are helping, through others, those who
need. Personally, you can have nothing to do with the abjectly poor.
It isn’t fitting and it cannot be. So the next time you are tempted to
visit any such tenement as that of to-day please to remember that you
are under my authority and I forbid.

“Now, that is a longer lecture than I often give and I shall not repeat
it. You must remember and obey. Now go, ask Barnes to make a hot bath
ready for you and send everything you have on to the laundry. Except
your habit, which, of course, must go to a professional cleaner. I feel
as if you had brought that ‘poor smell’ into this very house!”

“Oh! no, Cousin Margaret, it isn’t that. It’s just the ordinary smell-y
kind of air is in here. I noticed it the moment I got here and Barnes
never opens the windows like she ought. My mother says that the more
outdoor air we get into the house the sweeter it is. Why, Cousin
Margaret, we never close the windows at Sobrante, except in the rainy
season and even then not many of them.

“And I’m sorry not to go right away as you want, but there’s something
been forgot. We left the bundle of sewing in that carriage and I
promised Sophy this frock. I couldn’t break my word, you know, so I
will have to go just the once more and after I find the carriage. Is it
in the street here, still?”

“Oh! you tiresome girl! What next? I did not for a moment suppose
that in inviting you to my house I was going to have its peace so
disturbed. Here have I been fretting away half the afternoon, about
your disappearance, instead of enjoying my drive in the park as I
should. Then when you do come home you do it bringing some probable
infection with you. Those tenements are never free from some contagious
disease, I’ve read, and I expect you’ll come down with scarlet fever,
or diphtheria, or some other terrible thing. That would mean a health
officer visiting and fumigation and other miserable annoyances.

“But, no. The hack has disappeared, the bundle of sewing with it--if
such there was. But you’ll not go seek it. I will send Ephraim and with
sufficient money in hand to pay for all possible injuries. Now, call
him and let’s have done with this unpleasant Nestor-Briggs affair.”

Jessica obeyed, uttering no further protest. Indeed, if dear old
“Forty-niner” were to take the matter in hand it would be promptly
and well done. Fortunately, too, it happened that scenting a possible
future customer, the hackman had early in their time of waiting given
Mr. Marsh his carriage number and the address at which he might usually
be found. Thither Ephraim departed, and shouldering the bundle himself,
reappeared at 221 Avenue A, just as the old lady and her grandchild
were sitting down to eat that last half-loaf, with gloomy faces and all
too vigorous appetites.

When Ephraim tapped at the rickety door and Sophy opened it, to see him
standing there with the lost bundle of blue denim on his shoulders, she
screamed with delight and, catching his hand, dragged him within.

“Why, why hold on, there, Sissy! I just come to fetch this back, that
was forgot, and to say in the name of Madam Dalrymple, my ‘Little
Captain’s’ present guardeen, as how she’d be glad to make good for
that accident of Buster’s and the succeeding troubles, and to fetch
this here little dress of Miss Jessica’s that she promised Sissy,
yonder. Mrs. Trent made it with her own hands and my ‘Captain’ wore it
a Christmas Day.”

With considerable reluctance, Ephraim was unrolling the little parcel
and displaying the charming contents. As he did so he could not refrain
from one glance at poor Sophy’s misshapen back and his wonderment as
to the garment’s fit. It actually grieved him to think of anything the
beloved mistress of Sobrante had handled being bestowed in this dingy
abode where even he could detect and shudder at the “poor smell.”

Nor was he at all prepared for the ready hospitality of the old
grandmother, who, while her grandchild was rapturously fondling and
examining the gift, all unconscious of the disparaging look the
sharpshooter had given her, quietly pushed Sophy’s chair back to the
bare table and said:

“We’re just eating our suppers, Mr.--”

“Marsh, ma’am, Ephraim Marsh, once of Californy, late of New York,
and originally hailing from Concord, in the good old State of New
Hampshire.”

He pronounced it “Cawnco’d,” and he gave to his r’s the peculiar
pronunciation which appealed to Granny Briggs’s old heart as his offer
of money had not done.

“_Marsh?_ Of _Concord_? Why, bless you, man, I was born there! I
myself!”

“You don’t! well, gosh all hemlocks! If I ain’t gladder’n I would be to
be struck by lightning and pretty much on the same order of things. A
girl from Cawnco’d! Shake. Name, please, as it is and as it was.”

“Briggs now, Badger it was. My father was the village shoemaker and
cobbler when the town was young and small,” cried the thin old lady,
her voice vibrant with unexpected delight, and so joyously altered in
appearance that Sophy ceased staring at her new frock and stared at her
grandmother instead.

“Well, well, well! I haven’t a word to say; except that it’s just as my
good mistress, Gabriella Trent says, _the Lord does lead_. To think of
it! Just to think of the strangeness of it for one single minute! Your
father was the shoemaker that my father, the tanner, sold his skins to!
Well-tanned hides they were, too, _same as my own_! Tanned so well and
so often that I got a little tired of the business and lit out ’fore
I was more’n half grown. Sophia Badger! Well, then, I reckon I _will_
stay and take a bite with you, just for the sake of old times; only,
I guess, by the look of things you haven’t been used to men-folk’s
appetites, lately. I saw a real decent-looking grocery store as I came
by. I’ll step down and pick up a few odds and ends, if you’ll let me.
I’ve been doing the cooking myself, lately, for the oddest family I
ever struck and ’twould be an agreeable change to eat somebody else’s
truck for once. More’n that, there never was a New Hampshire woman that
couldn’t cook to beat the world. How’s a rasher of bacon with eggs,
potato chips, and a prime cup of coffee? If I fetch ’em will you cook
them, Sophy Badger?”

“Will I not?” cried the now happy old woman, no whit ashamed to take
charity from such as hailed from Concord--magic word! In a moment
“Forty-niner” had disappeared, the bundle of work had been recklessly
tossed into a corner, the oil-stove had been lighted, Sophy dispatched
to a neighbor’s to borrow some needed dishes and frying pans, and the
whole atmosphere changed to that of a sunny room in a well furnished
home. Even the “poor smell” vanished when the sizzling bacon sent up
its own appetizing odors and Granny set the window wide to let in the
evening air. With that sunset breeze came, also, something which these
two had long needed and sadly; and that was--happiness.

Blessed Buster! Whose careless speed had brought it all about! Such
a supper as that Sophy Nestor could not remember. There was neither
stint nor caution about it, and though her elders’ soon satisfied
their own appetites, finding in their reminiscences a more delightful
mental food, the girl ate on and on, and when she could do no more was
not even bidden to take care of what was left against the morrow’s
breakfast.

But at last the feast was over. “Forty-niner” resolutely rose and tore
himself away. He had remembered with compunction that not only the
older people in Washington Square would also need their supper but that
Jessica would, too. So even this old friendship could not interfere
with his love for his “Little Captain” whose history he had given, with
all the tender embellishments his fond fancy pictured. Till even the
world-soured old Granny began to think the girl whom Sophy had called
an “angel” must be such, in truth; and left alone with her grandchild,
clasping the twenty-five good dollars which Madam had sent, with the
offer of more if this should not be satisfactory, the poor soul burst
into tears and expressions of affection. This almost frightened Sophy,
to whom such demonstrations were new, and she was glad when she was
bidden:

“Go to bed now, child, and dream of the good luck has come to us this
day! And to-morrow I’ll write my duty on a decent sheet of paper and
you shall carry it to that old Madam with a nice bunch of daffies--not
too stale nor faded. Go to bed, but--you may kiss me first.”

Back hurried Ephraim to that so different home in Washington Square;
and for once regardless of the etiquette he now so faithfully tried to
practice burst into Madam Dalrymple’s presence, exclaiming:

“That does beat all my first wife’s relations, as Aunt Sally Benton
would say. That little hunchback’s grandmother is no real pauper as we
thought. She’s just a bit down on her luck and as nice as lives. Why,
woman alive, _she hails from Cawnco’d_! Think of that! We were both
little tackers together in that blessed old town and my father used
to sell her father shoe-leather! Hooray, ‘Little Captain!’ That was a
lucky strike Buster made, when he hit Sophy Nestor!”

Even Jessica looked up disturbed at this unwonted behavior on her
“man’s” part, knowing full well how greatly Cousin Margaret would
disapprove, but the expression of that great dame’s countenance was
worth a study.

After a moment of amused silence, said she:

“Indeed! How remarkable! But, Ephraim, if you please, spare us any
more rhapsodies on the Avenue A residents. Jessica was bad enough
but--Ephraim, I would like my dinner.”

Instantly, the old man saluted, wheeled with his accustomed military
precision and vanished below stairs. But he felt as if he had been
dashed with icy water, while Jessica in sympathy found tears spring to
her eyes. But, Jessie, alas! did not as yet realize her full privilege
in being a Waldron.



CHAPTER VIII.

MORNING TALKS AND INTERRUPTIONS.


“Cousin Margaret, are there many Avenue A’s in this city?” asked
Jessica one morning, shortly after that first glimpse of real poverty
which her visit to Sophy Nestor had given her.

Madam laid down the Review she was reading--a Review of Paris
fashions--and brought her attention to bear upon the girl sitting
thoughtfully upon that old, fascinating carpet, whose half-invisible
figures she was so fond of studying.

“I hope not! I should say that one was amply sufficient for even so
large a city as New York. But, Jessica, do get up and take a chair. You
are rumpling your frock and I shall want you to go down town with me
very soon. I have already ordered the carriage. You will need many more
things and so shall I. Look, child. You have fairly good taste. What
do you think of this design for a dinner gown? It strikes me as very
graceful, with the long lines and its dignified simplicity. I’ve a mind
to order Melanie to make me one just like it.”

Jessica obediently came and stood beside the lady, and tried to fix
her gaze upon the colored page of models. But they seemed to dance
before her in a maze of ragged garments fluttering from a “pulley”
clothes-line, and the simpering faces of the pictured wearers took
on the haggard features of the wretched tenement women she could not
forget.

“They all look so silly, those paper women, Cousin Margaret.”

“Of course, odd child! The editor could scarcely afford to pay real
artists to put on the heads to his fashion-models after the great
expense of them, alone. This is the most exclusive of our magazines,
devoted to the art of dress, and the styles in this are copyrighted.
That’s such a fine thing about them, they can never become common.
But--why do you look at me so strangely?”

“Did I, Cousin Margaret? Beg pardon, if I was rude. I didn’t mean it. I
was just--just thinking about that buying me more clothes. Why must I
have them? Do you think my mother would like it?”

“Quite likely not. She seems to have taken up very peculiar ideas, out
there in that wilderness. But you happen to be living in civilization
now and must be clothed in accordance with its demands.”

Jessica laughed. It always amused her to hear dear Sobrante spoken of
as “that wilderness,” when her own memory of it was so delightful. And
it was a little strange, had either of these two thought about it,
that so old a person as Madam should fall into the habit of consulting
so young an one as “Little Captain.” But the lady had lived so long
alone with servants only that it was a relief to discuss affairs with a
real “gentlewoman” and a Waldron, even a girlish one. She had already
learned to look into Jessica’s eyes, as into a mirror, for approval
or disapproval of her oft-changed attire; and, when it was what her
own conscience warned her was “too youthful,” to meet a disappointed
expression in the big, blue eyes. They were so clear and far-seeing,
with such instant perception of the false or the true, that Cousin
Margaret trusted them in spite of herself.

“Well, girlie, what do you think? Would I look well in such a gown?”
again rather impatiently demanded the Madam.

“I think you would look beautiful, just beautiful. You always do, dear
Cousin. Next to my mother I think you must be the most handsome lady
lives. I’ve seen nobody here in this New York, in the carriages we meet
in the Park, nor in the stores down town--or up town, either--that
can compare with you. I suppose that’s because you are a Waldron. And
so--Do you mind if I say it right out?”

“Whether I do or not you are pretty sure to ‘say out’ whatever is in
your mind. So do it now,” smilingly answered the other, flattered more
than she acknowledged by this sincere admiration of Jessica.

“Well, then, I wish you wouldn’t spend any more money on pretty
clothes. I wish you’d give it to the Avenue A people, and all the
others like them in this great city. O Cousin Margaret! It just makes
my heart ache so I can’t sleep, some nights, thinking they have no
soft beds like ours to lie on and so few poor rags to wear while you,
while I, have more things than we need. My mother thought three frocks
were all I wanted. Two to change and a fresh one for Sunday. Only, of
course, at Christmas time it is well to have a prettier one because
that is the best day in all the year and one should do it reverence.
It would save you so much worry, too, and you wouldn’t get half so
tired.”

“Humph! Who ever said that I was tired? Not I, indeed, and who spoke of
worry? Oh! that unfortunate accident of Buster’s! I’d rather have given
a thousand dollars than have it happen. Your head has been full of
maggots--I mean of unwholesomely grave ideas--ever since. I think that
Ephraim fosters them, too, and much as I should dislike to separate you
two I fear I shall have to do it, unless you both promise to put this
Avenue A business out of mind and take life as you should, in your own
station. Tired? I’m certain you never heard me complain, little Jessica
Trent, nor anybody else.”

“No, Cousin Margaret, and that’s what makes Barnes and me feel so bad.”

“Heigho! So Barnes is in it, too, is she?”

“Yes, of course. It’s she helps undress you and puts away your clothes
and she says the wardrobes and closets are just packed with them. She
says it’s a great worriment to her to keep the moths and bugs out of
’em. She says it would be worse, only you like silk things best and
moths don’t much trouble the silks. She----”

“My dear, let me explain what mostly ‘worries’ our good soul Barnes.
As lady’s-maid her perquisites are my cast-off clothing. This she
sells for a considerable sum and puts the proceeds in the bank. So I
shouldn’t think she would object to my buying as many new things as
possible. Humph! If Barnes has got to betraying bedroom secrets Barnes
must be dealt with.”

Madam Dalrymple leaned back in her chair, tossed the Review aside,
and tapped with her tiny cane upon the floor. This cane she called her
“affectation,” laughingly declaring that she carried it because it
happened to be a fad of fashionable folk just then, and only the old
maid servant knew how sorely it was really needed for support. At that
very moment, indeed, it was almost impossible for the proud woman to
prevent the contortion of her handsome features by a spasm of pain.
Rheumatism held her in thrall, but still she laughed and defied it;
believing that no Waldron should be overcome by anything so plebeian as
physical distress. She would carry herself proudly to the end and when
that came, let it come quickly!

Barnes appeared and was bidden to bring hat and mantle; and in a
few moments more the Dalrymple carriage was whirling storeward, its
mistress and her young western cousin making such a lovely picture
against its dark cushions that more than one person looked and envied.
Not the least of these a small flower-girl, clad in a rather soiled
white-and-scarlet frock, who hid her misshapen shoulders against a
building and wistfully held up her violets for sale.

“Five cents a bunch, lady! Only--five--centses--a bunch!”

Something familiar in the shrill cry caught Jessica’s ear, but the
carriage had turned into Broadway and it was too late to see if that
were Sophy Nestor who had called her wares.

Greatly to Jessica’s grief the two girls had not met since that day of
their brief acquaintance. Sophy had duly taken her stand in the Square
and there had watched and waited for a glimpse of the fair-haired
“angel” who had brightened a few hours of her life. But it was Madam
Dalrymple, not Jessica, who discovered the girl posted as near her
own iron gates as could be without entering them and who had promptly
dispatched Tipkins to interview the Square patrolman on the subject.
Result: Sophy was banished as a “nuisance”; and, vowing vengeance
against everybody who had interfered with her, established herself on
the very next corner beyond this policeman’s beat. Thence she gibed
at and mocked him, with all her gutter eloquence, matching her puny
strength against his authority and affecting him not at all, save that
he became much interested in the defiant little creature and pitying
her for her physical affliction, marveled at the peculiarities of the
rich who could call such as she a “nuisance.”

There, alas! She had waited and watched in vain for her new friend. It
so chanced that for the first time in her life the little Californian
fell ill of a slight cold, which Madam instantly magnified into
something dreadful; suggesting diphtheria, and other dire diseases, to
the portly physician who came in his carriage and looked the small maid
over.

“Nothing in the world but a mere cold, dear Madam. There’s not the
least cause for anxiety. Keep her indoors for a time and she’ll be all
right.” Then he departed, pocketing his goodly fee, and leaving his old
patron of exactly the same opinion she had held all along.

So it was small wonder that on this morning of the shopping trip
Jessica should look almost as wan as would have been suitable had she
been really ill. The confinement in that poorly ventilated mansion had
told upon her who had lived always out of doors, and it had given her
time to think much about that other half of the world which dwelt in
Avenue A.

Seeing her at last, stirred Sophy Nestor’s heart to its depths. Her
“angel” didn’t look happy. Sophy wasn’t happy, herself. Granny Briggs
was even more gloomy than of old. The visit of Ephraim had delighted
her for the time; but when it was repeated and he had urged her removal
to better quarters she had stubbornly refused. It had suddenly come to
her New England pride that she was becoming an object of charity and
she would not be pauperized, even by an old town-mate whose father had
sold her father shoe-leather.

She went even further. She sent Sophy to the Square with the
twenty-five dollars in crisp new bills, carefully folded within that
cheap scrap of letter paper, whereon she had inscribed her “duty” and
her thanks, along with the statement that as no injury had been done no
payment was necessary. The frock bestowed upon her grandchild she could
not return. That had already been assumed and worn to bed--lest by some
mischance it should disappear--a vision too beautiful to be real.

In vain Ephraim argued, scolded, entreated. He was obliged to carry the
money back, for Madam Dalrymple refused to touch it, regarding it as
already infected by the “poor smell” or some foul disease. And when his
entreaties were useless, he quietly disposed the sum in a safe place,
awaiting some future day when he could spend it for his old friend, he
angrily declared:

“The trouble with you, Sophia Badger Briggs, is that you over-ate
yourself that night. You’ve been indulgin’ your stomach with poor
rations and slop victuals and that one good square meal just gave
you the dyspepsy. Nothing else on earth ails you. A man with the
dyspepsy--or a woman either--ain’t in their right mind. They haven’t
got a correct ‘sight’ and can’t shoot straight. You think you’ve hit
the ‘bull’s-eye’ with this cantankerous pride o’ yours but you haven’t
come within a mile of it. However, ‘When she will she will, you may
depend on’t, and when she won’t she won’t, and there’s an end on’t.’ So
I’ll take myself back to my pots and pans and when you want me or my
help just send that bright little girl of yours after me an’ I’ll keep
step to the music, instanter. Good-by.”

So it seemed that Madam Dalrymple’s anxiety over the Avenue A
acquaintance was useless. “Forty-niner” and Jessica did, indeed, often
discuss it, but the matter ended in discussion merely.

“Only, Ephy dear, I can never, never be just the same girl I was
before I went to that dreadful place. It’s made this ‘being one of
the richest,’ as I shall be, seem such a solemn thing. The money that
will be mine sometime must all be used to help such poor folks. It
won’t be _mine_, really, you know. My mother said that. She said it
would be ‘a trust put into my hands for righteous disposal.’ Those
were her very own words. Course, I haven’t the money yet. The mine
is costing more than it pays out, now at first, but it’s coming. Mr.
Ninian said there was no possibility of mistake. When it does--O Ephy!
It frightens me to think I may not give enough or give it right or, in
some way, be unfaithful to that ‘trust.’ It makes me feel so old, so
old, Ephy dear!” cried the hitherto careless girl, with an earnestness
which touched and offended her old henchman, till he agreed with Madam
Dalrymple that he’d “give a thousand dollars if that accident had never
happened.” “Only,” he added whimsically, “I haven’t the thousand, so
it’s easy to boast!”

“One good thing there is. Mr. Hale called here yesterday, to see
me--to see _me_, Ephraim Marsh! Think of that! He came to tell me what
my mother had arranged about my ‘spending-money.’ It seemed to be so
queer, this being an ‘heiress’ yet never having any money of my own
to use. Having to go to Cousin Margaret when I wanted any and always
being afraid to ask. Anyhow, that’s all past. I am to have an allowance
of five dollars a month spending-money. All for myself. Isn’t that
splendid? Mr. Hale says my mother wishes me to learn the proper use of
that amount and as I grow older and require more it shall be furnished.
As if any girl could possibly want more than that! Isn’t it fine? Isn’t
it? Do say so, ‘Forty-niner,’ or I shall be so disappointed.”

“Land, honey! I’d say anything in the dictionary to prevent that. I
only want to give you a bit of advice----”

“Don’t, Ephy! Don’t give it! I’ve never had so much advice given me
in all my life as since I’ve come to this New York. Just keep it to
yourself, old dear!” cried Jessica, laying her hand upon his lips.

Whence he removed it with a laugh, but stubbornly insisting:

“Yes, I must. Just one word. Don’t waste a cent of that sixty dollars
per annum on anybody living at 221 Avenue A, rear tenement, top
floor. Flambergasted proud old thing! Even the little one’s caught the
distemper and actually turned up her little pug nose at a peppermint
cat I bought for her, t’other day. Fact. Yet the little beggar looked
at it so greedy--Whew! Her eyes were as green as the cat’s own! But
touch it, no! ‘I don’t care for pep’mints,’ quoth she. ‘I mean my
Granny don’t care to have me eat ’em.’ I bet all my old shoes they
hadn’t a mouthful in that cupboard that minute, and old Sophia sewing
as if she hadn’t another minute to live and must get everything done in
that one. A cupboard full of pride, they had. Nothing else. Shucks!”

“You needn’t sneer at them, Mr. Ephraim Marsh. I like them for it.
I used to think pride was sinful. But it isn’t. Look at my Cousin
Margaret. Instead of complaining and groaning, like Wun Lung, when
he has a pain, she bottles all hers up in her own breast and spares
everybody the thought of her suffering. Barnes says nobody knows what
‘my lady’ endures, some of those ‘privacy’ times, when she’s shut up
in her bedroom and never lets on. Then, when she gets a little better,
on she puts her prettiest gown and down she comes smiling and sits at
table as easy as if she had never ached at all. I think that’s fine,
Ephy. I think that’s the best part of being a ‘Waldron,’ or any other
high-up person, that one is too proud ever to ‘let on’ and make other
folks unhappy. There’s so many ways of testing a gentleperson; like
Cousin Margaret offering a stranger caller a rocking chair. She keeps
one on purpose, though she wouldn’t ‘demean’ to sit in it herself. If
the stranger takes it and rocks, that’s the end of the stranger for my
Cousin Margaret, for it proves the stranger ill-bred. It’s always rude
to rock in company, Ephraim, remember that.”

“Well, well, well! There’s a lot of nonsense been stuffed into your
curly head since we struck the trail for this Gotham! Along with some
sense, too. But, my ‘Captain,’ don’t you go and get a solemn-ite! I
couldn’t stand that. The minute you get too good to be wholesome I
shall upstakes and hoof it back to Californy. And, speakin’ of Madam,
she’s begun to pay me reg’lar wages, same as she would any other
‘chef,’ as she calls it. So betwixt your allowance and my wages--we
ought to feed a good many hungry folks in the course of a year. Eh!
What? Who’s ringing that bell that way? sounds like the crack of doom;
and I vow, I believe they’ve smashed it! Tipkins is out, Barnes has got
the sick headache, no ‘emergency’ creatur’ in for the day, I’ll have to
answer it myself. Hope to goodness there hasn’t anything happened!”

But there had. The direst happening which could befall that ancient
mansion.



CHAPTER IX.

“LAYLOCKS.”


On this same morning Sophy Nestor was early at her post, with her
mended tray filled with the second-hand bouquets she bought from the
florists or market-gardeners. Second-hand in the sense that they had
already been long gathered and were on the point of withering. But
flowers in a city cost much money--much, that is, for a fund so small
as Sophy’s, and fresh ones were wholly beyond her means.

So she shrewdly disposed her posies on her wicker tray, putting the
best blossom forward, freshening them by sprinkling at a convenient
drinking-fountain, and losing no sales for want of insistence on her
own part. Many bought from her because it was the easiest way to be
rid of her petitions, others because they pitied her misfortune; and
still more because she had a deft, tasteful way of arranging her wares
which tempted all flower-lovers. So, in ordinary, she managed each day
to sell all her stock; and this morning, in especial, she hoped for a
brisk trade because--Well, because she was going to be guilty of an
extravagance which seemed almost like stealing.

“This very sweetest, freshest branch of laylock is for my Jessica
Trent, if she goes ridin’ by this way. The market-woman throwed it in
free for nothin’, ’cause she said maybe ’twould bring me good luck.
Seems if I might take it and give it, if I want, since I didn’t have to
pay for it. I always think the flowers belong to Granny and I mustn’t
give away none, bad’s I want. But, to-day, if she _should_ go a-ridin’
by again--Oh! _if she should!_ I’m going to hop right up into the
middle of the street, straight again’ them horses’ feet, and I’ll yell
loud enough this time to make her hear and look. If she looks she’ll
smile, sure; and she’ll stop if that old White Hair ’ll let her. Then
I’ll fling the laylock square into her lap, as she sets there a-ridin’
on them cushions. Oh! my!” murmured Sophy to herself, wanting another
listener.

But the Dalrymple carriage did not appear. Madame was in “privacy” just
then; which might mean that she was in suffering or under the hands
of that person who seemed so mysterious to Jessica--a professional
hair-dresser. As Ephraim had said, Barnes had also retired with her
sick headache, and Tipkins had gone marketing.

To waiting, watching, hoping little Sophy the big mansion looked
strangely quiet and deserted; and the hours dragged by without her
having courage even to molest a passer-by with her shrill;

“Posies! Only five centses a bunch? Please buy my posies!”

Like the little maid behind those barricading iron lions, at that
very moment speculating on the realities of life, Sophy herself fell
pondering; and inquired of a vagrant cur who timidly approached:

“Say, doggie, what makes us all so different? I’ve asked Granny and
all she says is, ‘Injustice.’ I don’t know what that means. I don’t
know why Jessica Trent wears all the time a soft white dress and
I--Well, I wear this one, too, now, only it isn’t quite so white as it
was. But I dassent take it off to let Granny wash it, ’cause she says
it’s none too big now an’ ’twould pucker and shrink all up, ’cause it’s
wool. Why does she live in that big house and I in Aveny A? What makes
her folks so rich and mine so poor? Hey, doggie? Yes, you may smell o’
my posies. Smellin’ ’em won’t hurt any. I wish--Oh! I wish she would
come right out that door and walk up to me and say: ‘Why, Sophy! How
glad I am to see you!’ That’s the way I believe she’d talk if she was
let. If that White Hair--Whew, doggie! What’s that I smell? ’Tisn’t
them posies. It’s more like smoke somewheres. Never mind. I guess that
carriage isn’t a-ridin’ out to-day, so I’ll just go close up to them
iron gates and watch closer. If she should happen to come to the door
to look out--If she should happen!--Why then I’d be right on hand and
ready, and I’d fire that laylock bunch clean into the doorway and the
hall, lickety-cut! Come on! Who’s afraid? That old policeman is out
of sight, anyway, and besides I don’t believe he’s half so mad as he
pretended. I’ll walk right straight along as bold as--as one them lions
and--Queer! Where _is_ that smell of smoke. Oh! I hope it isn’t 221
Aveny A! But, course, it can’t be. That’s too far off to smell.”

Keeping a wary eye for the return of the policeman, Sophy assumed as
nonchalant an air as possible and sauntered slowly up to the closed
gates of the great, old-fashioned mansion, and there forcing her
up-tilted nose between the bars resumed her anxious watch. But only for
a moment longer. Then the awful truth burst on the startled child, wise
in city lore; and, with an agility unlooked for in her poor body, she
leaped the closed gates and pulled at the bell. Forgotten now was the
precious “laylock,” already wilting on the hot sidewalk, forgotten fear
of the policeman and of that more formidable White Hair--Ring, ring,
ring!

When Ephraim rushed to answer that frenzied appeal, still clinging to
the handle of the old-fashioned bell Sophy fell headlong at his feet;
but was up and dashing onward again with the mad cry:

“This house is afire! This house is burnin’ up! Where’s Jessica Trent?
O Jessica, Jessica, _Jes-si-ca_!!”

At that moment the “Little Captain” was in the garden. It was the most
attractive spot to her in that establishment, and she, with Ephraim’s
help, had already reduced some of its disorder to a semblance of
neatness. Now, as if guided by instinct, Sophy made her way thither,
still screaming her warning cry:

“The house is afire! Where are you, Jessica Trent?”

An instant later she had her arms about her “angel” as if to protect
that beloved one at the risk of her own life. Already, other voices
than hers had taken up her cry of “fire!” than which there is none
more terrifying, and already the door which had been opened to her had
admitted many more.

Uproar followed. Clanging engines filled that side of the square.
Firemen spread themselves throughout the house, already doomed.

“Must have been burning a long time. Why, this upper floor is but a
shell, already!” cried one, and began to pound on the unopened doors to
learn if anybody was within the great, shut chambers.

“Madam? yes, she’s somewhere on this second floor. The front room,”
stammered Ephraim, too bewildered to be of much use; and for the
first time in his life, since he had known her, utterly forgetting
his “Little Captain.” Even had he remembered her he would not have
feared, knowing her activity and common sense. To get away, out of the
endangered structure, would have been Jessica’s natural impulse.

Then a man in a helmet came out of the “privacy” so rudely invaded,
bringing in his arms a frail, slender old woman, pale as death and
almost as unconscious. After her came, shrieking down from a higher
floor, poor Barnes; herself in unseemly deshabille and announcing to
everybody:

“It’s my fault! It’s all my fault! I was cleaning--a gown--benzine--a
candle--Oh! what have I done, what have I done!”

“Destroyed one of the city’s priceless landmarks, you old fool, you!”
roughly returned a struggling fireman, whose labor she interrupted.
“Get down those stairs--never mind the flames--they’ll hold you yet, if
you go now. Get out--_instantly_!”

Barnes went. More nimbly than she would have dreamed possible and
followed where she saw her mistress was being carried, into the nearest
drug store amid a crowd of curious strangers. There beside the dazed,
half-comprehending Madam she flung herself to earth and bewailed the
day that ever she was born; till, suddenly recovering from her own
confusion, Mrs. Dalrymple said sternly:

“Barnes, get up. Cover my head with the corner of this blanket and--and
behave yourself. It’s not your house is burning. You are not a Waldron!”

“No, but it’s my fault. I done it. Cleaning that lavender silk, to sell
it for a better price. Oh! what shall I do, what shall I do! How can I
see it burn?”

“Do? Repent in dust and ashes and never let me see your face again!”
cried the tortured Madam, who felt as if the hearts of all her
ancestors were being consumed in that blazing pile, where so many
Waldrons had lived and died and which she had not left, even on her own
marriage.

Barnes crept away; nor was it known that ever afterward she did present
herself before the mistress she had served for half a century.

There was no saving anything. From the beginning the old house, that
was what the firemen called a “tinder box,” burned swiftly; and when
Tipkins came back from market, with his well-filled basket on his arm,
he found but a heap of smoldering ruins where had been his lifelong
home. It seemed to the faithful old man that his heart broke then and
there. But was ever a broken heart known to interfere with what an
English butler considered his “duty?” In a moment he had found his
mistress and stood before her awaiting her orders, almost as quietly
as if it had been the giving of a dinner order, merely. There was none
of the frantic remorse of poor Barnes and his quietude helped Madam
infinitely, though now, to outward appearance, she, too, was calm
enough.

“Well, Tipkins, we must get under shelter at once. Find Jessica, order
a carriage--I don’t suppose our own is available--and take me to the
Fifth Avenue hotel. Ask the druggist, please, if he has a private room
where I can remain until the hack arrives.”

The room was found, and the lady conveyed thither; but when Jessica
was sought she was not to be discovered. The knowledge of this came to
“Forty-niner” first by Tipkins saying, in his most impassive voice yet
with quivering lips:

“Just speak to your little lady, Marsh, and tell her the Madam is
waiting. We’re to go to a hotel for the present.”

“Eh? Who? What?” demanded Ephraim, still standing a bit apart from the
waning crowd, with arms folded and gaze fixed contemplatively upon the
smoking walls. “What a pity! What a horrible pity!”

“Yes. Don’t mention it, not yet, please, man. Tell Miss Jessica, right
away. I must get Madam to her shelter.”

“Jes-si-ca! My ‘Little Captain,’ you mean? Man alive, isn’t she with
Madam?”

“No. She hasn’t seen her, I fancy. Leastwise, she bade me find the
child and fetch her. Hurry up. Madam Dalrymple isn’t one to mix with
a crowd like this, even under such circumstances. Hurry, now. I’m
signalling that hack.”

Ephraim’s weather-beaten face went ghastly white. For a moment his
senses whirled. The next he was rushing madly into the very midst of
the heated ruins, shrieking like one bereft:

“Jessica! Jessica! ‘Little Captain!’ Where are you? Oh! where are you?”

Strong hands forced him back.

“Old man have you lost your wits? Are you seeking death?”

“I shall be--in a minute--if--if--Oh! Has anybody, anybody, seen a
little girl? A golden--haired, curly-headed little girl with the face
of an angel? Has anybody--seen--my ‘Lady Jess’?”

“Take it calm, old man. Tell it again. A little girl? Is there a child
missing? Was there a little girl in that old house? and where?”

“Oh! yes, yes! There was--there is--there must be! _Where?_ How can I
tell? We--we were sitting--talking--just as if--as if--Oh! my God! as
if there was never any danger in the world, when that bell rang and
that other child, that hump-backed flower one--Oh! Jessica, Jessica!”

He broke from his captors with the strength of frenzy and would have
dashed headlong again to his own ruin, over that heap of flame and
broken foundations, but again more hands and stronger held him back.
Then somebody found voice to break again into that pregnant silence
with the suggestion:

“Try the rear! The alley way! The stables! They haven’t gone yet--We
may find--” But even that would-be hopeful voice did not say what they
might find.

To the rear they rushed, where an engine and hose carriage still
blocked the way, playing upon the scorched but yet standing stables,
whence some thoughtful man had already led the blindfolded, frightened
horses. Past these rushed Ephraim, a dozen at his heels. Through the
singed alley gate into that ruined garden where the fallen beams and
timbers lay thick and smoking.

Then peering frantically here and there, hopefully remembering now
how fond his darling had been of that neglected spot, “our only bit
of outdoors” here in this great city, Ephraim came at last upon a
point whence gleamed something white and soft. But the white gleam
was a motionless one, and tottering like a man in a palsy the old
sharpshooter raised his shaking hand and pointed toward that distant
corner, then covered his eyes with his trembling arm.

Reverently, those grimed firemen lifted the scorched bush from what lay
beneath. By the irony of fate it was a “laylock,” and had once borne
blossoms such as Sophy had that morning cherished. It was she they
found first. She was lying with outspread arms, prone on the larger,
stronger body of Jessica beneath, as if stretching her own limbs to
the utmost, that they might wholly cover the other girl she adored.
She had evidently forced the “Little Captain” downward, and, with the
instinct of love, broken many branches from everywhere about and heaped
them first on the other child. Then she had thrown herself upon these
branches and so awaited--What?

A thought of what those children, that little heroine, had suffered in
their time of terror blanched strong faces even now; but it was a glad
cry that went up:

“This one isn’t dead! She’s only half-suffocated with the smoke!”

“Nor this! Nor this! This yellow-headed one is opening her eyes! Thank
God! They are alive!”

Five minutes later the clang of a hospital ambulance came into that
alley, whence the engine had swiftly been removed, and upon a stretcher
therein were most tenderly placed the two small forms of the rescued
children, then--Clang! and away again.

But there stood on the step in the rear a bareheaded, wild old man who
would not be gainsaid, whose eyes were blind with tears, and whose
constant moan was:

“Oh! my ‘Little Captain!’ ‘Little Captain!’”

Meanwhile, in a rear room of a plebeian drug store a haughty,
astonished old lady sat and ignominiously waited; enduring as best she
could the peeps and stares of the “common” people.



CHAPTER X.

LEARNING LIFE.


Jessica opened her eyes from a strangely pleasant dream. Angels had
been hovering around her, as it seemed; but, oddly enough, they had
not worn the traditional feathers and wings. Some of them were all in
white, with white caps on their heads, and some were clad in blue like
the sky from which they must have come. Presently, one of the white
angels bade a blue one:

“Hold that cup to her lips. She is reviving.”

When the cup was held, “Little Captain” obediently drank its contents,
which proved to be something warm and soothing. Then she drifted away
again into a sleep that was dreamless, this time; and from which she
again awoke to realize completely what had happened and in what sort of
place she was.

The “white angel” was a “head-nurse.” The blue one an undergraduate.
She recognized the hospital uniforms from those she had seen in Los
Angeles, while Ephraim lay recovering from his broken limb. She was in
the children’s ward. Rows of white beds lined each side of the long
room, and on each bed rested a child. On the very next cot to her own,
with some doctors and more nurses fussing about it, was Sophy Nestor.
She heard one of these saying:

“That is quite curable. It would be a most interesting case. After she
recovers from this shock I’ll investigate.”

Then that doctor went away and the rest soon followed him, leaving only
a sweet-faced woman in blue hovering between the two cots, whereon lay
these last “emergency” cases. To her Jessica spoke:

“Is Sophy awake?”

“She is waking. Try not to frighten nor disturb her. How are you
feeling?”

“All right. I want to get up and go home. Oh! I forgot! I haven’t
any now, but go to my Cousin Margaret, wherever she is. She must be
somewhere!”

“Don’t excite yourself, dear. You shall go soon, for you’ve had a
wonderful escape. Do you suffer at all?”

“Some. My hands, my face are smarty and queer. But--did Sophy get
burned instead? Oh! she was so good! So strong I couldn’t make her stop
hiding me with her own self, though I tried and tried. Until it got so
hot and I--I couldn’t think right. The darling girl! She--Why! What
makes her lie that way on her face?” demanded Jessica, rising on her
elbow and staring across to the other limp little figure whose hump
protruded under the light bed-covering.

The nurse knew it was better to appease one patient’s curiosity than to
arouse the other, more badly injured one.

“Lie still and I will tell you. She is a heroine. Her back is rather
badly scorched and burned, but not fatally so. It has been carefully
dressed and it is more comfortable for her to rest as she is doing
now than to lie in a more natural position. She was a brave little
creature and, practically, saved your life. Try to help her get well by
keeping very quiet.”

In ordinary, Jessica was not a crying girl, but the tears chased
themselves now down her own cheeks, white with applications to relieve
that “smarting” to which she had acknowledged but that already, in view
of Sophy’s greater hurt, seemed absurdly trivial.

Nor did the wise attendant try to stop this flood, a sure relief to
startled nerves and grieving heart. But after a brief time Jessica
ceased weeping and whispered:

“Do you know where my folks are?”

“There’s an old man in the waiting-room who came with you. He is almost
wild with anxiety and, if the head-nurse allows, I will bring him in to
see you for a moment. On condition that you will not excite yourself
nor the other child.”

“Oh! I will be as quiet as quiet! It’s Ephy! I’m sure it’s my darling
‘Forty-niner!’ Fetch him, please, right quick! I’ll be as good as you
want, only let him come.”

He came, half-blinded by his grateful tears, as he bent above this
darling of his old age, too thankful toward Heaven for speech, and only
able to clasp and unclasp her small hands in his own trembling ones,
till she asked in a whisper:

“Where is my Cousin Margaret?”

“I--I don’t exactly know. Some hotel, Tipkins was taking her. I’ll seek
her now and tell her the good news. Oh! my lamb, my lamb!”

“There, Ephy, dear! Be good. Now go and tell her I’m all right and
tell her, too, how splendid Sophy Nestor was. She covered me with her
own self so that I should not be burned,--she would rather be herself!
Go tell her, tell her quick! She thought Sophy wasn’t--a Waldron, but,
Ephy dear! She is more Waldron-y than any of us! Go tell her, and come
back soon. I guess I can be ‘discharged,’ maybe right away. I’m not the
hurt one, only Sophy. And I’ll stay just long enough to make her feel
how splendid a place a hospital really is and not that dreadful one she
used to think.”

Indeed, he had to go. He had stayed as long as the nurse thought wise,
but it was a far different old man who left that house of mercy from
him who had entered it, believing his darling done to death.

By the very next morning Jessica was up and dressed; her scorched
clothing replaced by an outfit Madam had promptly sent, with the
request that the little girl be taken to her at her hotel as soon as
the authorities deemed it safe. That, they decided, might be almost
at once. The hospital was overcrowded, there was no room for those
who did not really need attention, and Jessica’s healthy frame had
promptly recovered from the shock of her frightful experience. There
remained only the bit of talk that was to be allowed between her and
her rescuer. Sitting with her own blistered hands resting on that part
of Sophy’s body which was least covered by bandages, Jessica said:

“I’ve got to go away now, darling, but I shall come back. You’re going
to get well right soon, the doctors say, and oh! Sophy, I heard one of
them say, too, that your back could be made as straight as mine! Think
of that! Never to have to be afraid of people looking at you, never to
be weak and tired there, any more! Oh! aren’t you glad you came? It
isn’t a real hunchback, you know; only you were let to fall when you
were little and got twisted somehow. I think it’s like a fairy story.
Anyhow, it’s just what my darling mother says: ‘Life is a chain.’ One
thing after another form the links of it and none of them happen except
God wills. I don’t see why He willed that my Cousin Margaret should
lose her beautiful old home that seemed more to her than anything in
this world. All her pretty clothes and old, old ‘antiques,’ and just
had her life saved. Why, it seems as if all those hunting people on
that carpet in the back drawing-room must have felt the flames and
suffered!

“Never mind. That’s past. What she will do next I don’t know; only this
I’m sure of, she’ll let me come to see you every day; and maybe--maybe,
she’ll come, too. Now, I’m going. Ephraim is here with the carriage and
I must. If you’d like it better, maybe my Cousin Margaret will let me
pay for having you in a ‘private’ room away from----”

“No, no, no! I don’t want to be private! I want to feel there are heaps
and slathers of folks all around me, just as there used to be in Aveny
A. I’d die to be alone with nobody but them doctors waitin’ to cut me
up.”

“Now, Sophy Nestor, you quit that! I’ve told you before that you didn’t
know a thing about hospitals. I do. I’ve lived in one once, away home
in California. They’re the blessedest places are. Your Granny Briggs
is coming to see you this morning. Ephraim is to fetch her in the
carriage, after he takes me to my old lady first. Isn’t that funny?
Each of us has our own old lady that we think is the nicest in the
world! Now, I’m going. Hear me say! Before you’ve been in this pleasant
place even another day you’ll think it’s just as nice as I do. See if
you don’t. Now, good-by. I can’t begin to thank you. Words couldn’t do
it. Maybe deeds can, and I’ll try _them_. Good-by. Try to be happy and
you’ll get well quick. Good-by, good-by!”

Jessica found her Cousin Margaret deep in consultation with Madam
Melanie and that other dressmaker from the side street. But the Madam
instantly ceased speaking to these waiting modistes, to clasp the girl
in her arms and to hold her close, close. In that one firm embrace
was a world of meaning, from this undemonstrative old dame. Then
she released the child, merely retaining one small hand in her own,
while she continued her conference concerning the replenishing of the
wardrobes so completely destroyed by fire. Neither she nor Jessica had
anything left save what they had escaped in; and the simple ready-made
suit purchased to leave the hospital in that morning.

The discussion was short. Both these women who had charge of Mrs.
Dalrymple’s attire knew readily what she would require and undertook
that part of the order should be put into the “hurry” department, and
be forthcoming almost immediately. That business over, they departed
and the two descendants of the race of Waldron were left to themselves,
the younger of them scarcely daring to look at the elder, dreading her
distress. She need not have feared, in the least.

“Well, my dear, this is unexpected, indeed. But we are very comfortable
here until we can get away out of town. We will go as soon as possible.
As soon as we have clothes fit to go in. It’s early for Newport but
I think we’d better settle there at once. I’ve been looking over an
agent’s list of furnished ‘cottages’ and fancy one of them will do. I
must send for my man of business first. I think it rather strange he
has not already called upon me.”

Madam had taken one of the prettiest suites in the hotel, with its
comfortable privacy, and already seemed so much at home and so
outwardly content that Jessica wondered. Only for a moment, when a
servant came to announce a caller, did a spasm of pain cross the fine
old features, and give a touch of sharpness to the quiet voice, as she
repeated:

“I have already given orders that I can receive no visitors at present.
Kindly see that these orders are attended to.”

Then Jessica was bidden to relate again the story Madam had already
learned from other lips and the girl was delighted to hear her
kinswoman announce:

“I will make my first call upon that child, Sophy. We must befriend
her. Mr. Hale has been here and has telegraphed your mother of--of
everything. Now, my dear, hand me the morning paper; and make your own
self comfortable. If you wish to write to your mother, there are the
materials on that desk in the corner.”

So Jessica wrote:

  “MY DEAREST MOTHER:

  “I am alive. That’s about the first thing I can think to say. So is
  our Cousin Margaret. So is everybody else. It was all Barnes’s fault.
  She said so herself. She used benzine, that seems to be a catchy sort
  of stuff, and a match near it and first she knew the flames were so
  big she couldn’t stop them. She tried. Ephraim told me. She hasn’t
  been near since and never will, but he saw her on the street outside
  the hospital where they took Sophy and me, ’cause she was afraid that
  her carelessness had made her a murderer as well as a house-burner.
  She said she would have been a murderer if I had died, or Sophy, but
  we didn’t and she isn’t. I hope I will never see her again, now,
  because she would always make me feel angry for my Cousin Margaret.

  “O mother dear! I think she is the wonderfullest woman ever could
  be! I know and you know that she loved the home in Washington Square
  beyond words, ’cause though it was all tumbling to pieces in spots
  and the things inside were getting so worn-out, she wouldn’t sell it
  even for heaps and heaps of money. I know her heart is just broken
  inside of her but the break doesn’t show on the outside, in her face,
  not the least littlest bit. She sits just as proud in her old ‘comfy’
  wrapper as she used to in her beautifullest silk gown. Once I tried
  to say something nice to her, to sort of comfort her if I could, and
  she just looked at me so queer. ‘My dear, spare me. A Waldron never
  whines, but accepts what comes of either good or ill, as it is meant
  and sent.’ I’m so glad she doesn’t whine, nor complain. Granny Briggs
  does. Granny isn’t a bit Waldron-y, though Sophy is--even more than
  anybody I know. I think it must be the highest kind of aristocracy to
  be willing to give up one’s life to save another’s, and that’s what
  Sophy was. Oh! I love her, I love her!

  “My Cousin Margaret is going to the hospital to visit Sophy the
  very first place she does go after her clothes come. Till then she
  stays in her rooms, there are several of them, and denies herself to
  everybody who comes. She’s had lots and lots of calls and offers of
  a temporary home but she doesn’t accept. She doesn’t need, she says;
  yet if she did she _would_ accept very gratefully. Hasn’t she the
  realest, best kind of pride? Oh! I should like to be just like her,
  when I am old, only not so fond of putting on new clothes all the
  time. I heard one the bell-boys tell another that she was: ‘The great
  Madam Dalrymple, the highest-up there was in the world of fashion.
  That it was a prestige for this hotel to have her live here so soon
  after the accident, and would bring other patrons.’

  “Cousin Margaret is going to take a cottage at Newport. That is a
  place by the sea, if you don’t know. She says it will be a big house
  with every ‘convenience’ in it, so I don’t see why they call it a
  ‘cottage.’ Cottages in California are so small and haven’t many rooms
  in them. Never mind. I’m learning things all the time that astonish
  me. I guess my education has begun already. I remember that Mr.
  Ninian said that ‘Education meant learning how to live, to get the
  best out of life.’ Seems if our Cousin Margaret has got a good deal
  of the best, since she can stand such an awful sorrow as losing her
  home and not ‘whine’ once.

  “She seems more disturbed because her ‘man of business’ hasn’t called
  than by anything else. She hasn’t any money, course, just getting
  out of a burning house that way, not until he comes and brings her
  some. She has lots of what she calls ‘credit’ and the hotel folks
  are terrible polite to her, but she’d rather have the ‘cash in hand’
  to pay in advance. She has never run in debt in her life. She says
  that is very ‘plebeian’ and she dislikes plebeian-y things. She sent
  Tipkins after that ‘man of business’ and he couldn’t get in. He said
  the bank-office was closed and nobody answered. There were a lot of
  folks standing around outside the office and he said maybe they had
  scared the man of business by a ‘run’ on the bank. He must be a funny
  kind of a man that would be scared by a few folks just running!

  “Now I must stop for a few minutes. If there’s anything more to tell,
  after we’ve had the dinner the waiter is bringing, I’ll write it
  then. I’m so glad Mr. Hale telegraphed you, so you wouldn’t worry,
  after reading about the fire in the telegraphic column of the paper.
  Mr. Hale said that bad news traveled so fast that good news had to
  hurry up and catch it. He is such a nice man. He is going to bring
  his daughters to see me, soon as they are out of school for the year.

                                “Good-by, for a little while,
                                                              “JESSICA.”

The letter was to be resumed and a most important postscript added. As
the girl left the desk, eager for the tempting dinner being brought
into the room and feeling her blistered fingers sadly painful from her
writing, she was startled by the expression of Madam Dalrymple’s face.

The lady’s eyes were closed, she was very pale, the newspaper she had
been reading had fallen from her nerveless fingers to the floor, and
she looked as if, at last, the full force of the calamity that had
befallen had crushed her beneath its weight. She neither saw nor heard
the entrance of the waiter with his tray nor when Jessica anxiously
demanded: “Oh! what is the matter?” did she answer.



CHAPTER XI.

LETTERS AND CHANGES.


It was some time later when, by Madam Dalrymple’s request, Jessica
added that postscript:

  “DEAREST MOTHER:

  “Something worse than the house burning has happened. The ‘man of
  business,’ has run away and taken all our Cousin Margaret’s money
  with him. At least there’s nothing left of it, nothing at all. She
  hasn’t any of that needed ‘cash in hand’ except the ground the burned
  house stood on. That seems funny, but the ground can be sold and
  bring money for itself. Till then Cousin Margaret has had to borrow
  a little of Mr. Hale. The worst of it is, she says--I heard her
  talking to Mr. Hale and another lawyer she’d sent for to come here
  right away quick--the worst is that she is in some way responsible
  for some other people losing their money. She had allowed her ‘man of
  business’ to ‘speculate’ somehow--Oh! I don’t understand, nor does
  even she. Except that not only has all she thought she had gone,
  nobody knows where, but some she didn’t know she owed, and that she
  must pay back if she’s ever to know another happy moment.

  “She and the lawyers talked till she got dizzy, and I had been all
  the time. Then when I heard her dear old voice go sort of trembly I
  dared to put my arm around her and to remind her: ‘Don’t you worry,
  Cousin Margaret, my mother and I are Waldrons, too, and we’ve a
  copper mine in California that they say is full of money. When we get
  enough dug out we will pay all those folks and give you back all that
  “man” ran away with. I think that losing that money isn’t half as bad
  as losing that old home; and don’t you care a mite!’

  “That was right, wasn’t it? And the two lawyers looked at one another
  quick and Cousin Margaret gave me a little squeeze, and said:

  “‘That’s the Waldron speaking in you, dear. But this is my affair,
  not yours nor Gabriella’s. I shall make everything good. Nobody can
  suffer through me.’

  “Then Mr. Hale cried out real sharp, like he used to when the ‘boys’
  plagued him and said: ‘That dastardly coward! I hope they’ll catch
  him and shut him up for life!’ But the Madam just looked at him,
  quiet and stern, and answered: ‘Don’t say that. It doesn’t belong to
  us to take vengeance. The poor wretch is suffering more than I am, if
  he hasn’t already taken his own life. Let him go. What is left to me
  is to get the highest possible price for the Washington Square land
  and to use it as impartially, judiciously, as I can. Will you two
  take care of that business for me, reserving for yourselves a just
  payment for your services?’

  “And they said they would but would take no pay. But Cousin Margaret
  smiled and said the future would arrange all that. So they went away,
  and she told me to tell you we could not go to Newport now. She has
  a little bit of a place on the Hudson river, somewhere, that she
  bought once when she was traveling through the town just because it
  was so pretty and would make a nice home for Tipkins and Barnes, if
  they should outlive her and get married. Now, of course, Barnes never
  will live there, but Tipkins will. He says he will never leave our
  Cousin Margaret while he has strength to serve her, and that he has
  money in the bank enough to keep us all a good long time. He wants
  his Madam to take it and use it as if it were her own, which it was
  once. But she thanks him just as sweet and says: ‘Not till need be,
  Tipkins.’ I think that was lovely of him, don’t you? Ephy is full
  of schemes for making money for us all. But of course, nobody need
  to worry ’cause of that copper mine we have; and I’m rather glad we
  aren’t going to that Newport, though I would have liked to see the
  sea.

  “Cousin Margaret has counter--counter-demanded, I guess it is--all
  the orders about the new, fine clothes. She is to have just a few of
  the very plainest for herself, and thinks I won’t need many either.
  Till the fall when I go to Madam Mearson’s school. Even there I
  shan’t want them, and I am so glad. I think it takes so much trouble
  to keep changing as I would have had to do if we had gone to that
  Newport, where rich people live. ‘Schoolgirls should dress simply’
  she says.

  “Cousin Margaret says there is a tiny garden beside the little house
  where we will live, in the country, and Ephy says he will be able to
  take care of that. If she _will_, that Granny Briggs may go with us,
  too. Cousin Margaret says she must befriend her, some way.

  “Now this is the real good-by. Ephraim is going to put the letter in
  the mail-box and I do wish it could get to you right away. It is so
  long--a week to go and a week to come; two whole weeks between us,
  mother dear.

                                               “Your loving
                                                              “JESSICA.”

A week later saw Madam Dalrymple and her household installed in the
small cottage up the river. Tipkins was still in charge of the house
affairs, but old “Forty-niner” had encased himself in a suit of the
overalls which Granny Briggs “finished off” and announced himself as
“head gardener,” with “Little Captain” first assistant.

Sophy Nestor was still in hospital. She was rapidly recovering from her
burns and as swiftly learning to love the refuge she had found. Her
heroism had won her many friends; also her willingness, now, to have
the surgeons “experiment” with her deformity. Concerning this, there
was diversity of opinion, with the majority inclining to the belief
that cure was possible.

“Well, Doctors, if both the child and her grandmother approve, do you
go ahead and try. Let no possible expense be spared. The girl whose
life she saved can well repay for any outlay,” Madam Dalrymple had
assured the hospital staff on the occasion of that memorable visit she
had made to little Sophy.

To the crippled child, this was almost more wonderful than the hope of
being made straight. To have this beautiful “White Hair” come to that
ward and have all the children in it know that the visit was to her,
Sophy! All just because she had once done--Why, what any of them might
have done if they had had the chance!

“Roses? Roses--for me--Sophy? Oh! Ma’am, I ain’t worth it! I ain’t half
worth it! Roses--roses cost a lot. I know. And ’twas only a laylock
that was give to me, free for nothing, that I was going--Just laylocks;
but roses! Them kind grows in the hot-houses, I know. I hope--I hope
nobody didn’t go without their dinner to buy ’em!” protested the
flower-girl, half-crying, half-weeping from sheer delight.

“Ah! no, little maid. Nobody would need do that. Why do you say so?”
asked the wonderful Madam in her softest voice, that sounded so like a
caress.

“Why, Jessica said you was poor, too, now. Don’t seem so. Don’t ’pear
as if it could be,” returned the child, critically regarding the plain
street costume of her visitor, and which to the tenant of Avenue A
looked as fine as it was new.

“Well, little girl, poverty is comparative. You don’t understand that
yet, but you will some day. As for you I trust you will never again be
as poor as in those old days before Buster made you acquainted with
my young cousin. By the way, the broncho is going to be a very happy
horse. He is going to live in the country, away from all elevated
trains and jangling street-cars, though he’ll not wholly escape from
automobiles. Even the country isn’t free from those detestable things.”

“Ain’t it, ma’am? What’s it like, that country?”

Jessica listened, amazed to hear Sophy talking so glibly to her
stately Cousin Margaret and to hear that lady replying with so much
graciousness to this once most objectionable girl from Avenue A:

“What is the country like? Like Central Park, only infinitely lovelier.
I’ve a bit of good news for you, too, my child. That good grandmother
of yours is going with us to our new home. Ephraim Marsh says she
‘hails from Cawnco’d,’ same as himself and that she is wearing her
heart out here in the great city. He says, besides, which is more to
the point, that she is a fine cook. So she has promised to go and live
with me and do the family’s cooking. As soon, then, as you are able to
come, you shall visit us and her. Visit, at first, only; because if you
are to be made just like you’d wish to be, it will take many months,
maybe even years. You will really live at the hospital, while Granny
lives with us. But it’s only an hour or two between; short journeys by
rail or boat, a bit of a ride behind Buster--and you will be in the
country itself.”

“Oh! O-h!” gasped poor Sophy, too greatly overcome for further words.

“Now, Jessica, bid your little friend good-by. You may write to her and
maybe she can write to you--if----”

“Oh! ma’am, I can, I can! Granny made me go to night school and I can
write real plain. If I had any paper, or money to put on a stamp on the
envelope. You can get them to a drug store and they cost two cents. The
stamps do. Maybe, if you didn’t mind, some these hospital folks’d buy
one these roses. Then I could. If you didn’t mind so very much.”

“Can you? Well, I fancy a stamp may be procured even right here
in this hospital and without disposing of your flowers. I will see
that it is provided, with all else that is necessary. Ah! you poor,
beauty-starved child, to whom roses suggest but sordid money! Well, it
will not be long till you gather roses from bushes out of doors, and
may they there suggest to you only God’s goodness and love!”

This was a rare outburst from the reticent Madam; who was widely
known for her liberal, “organized” charities; but who had hitherto
contented herself with such, missing the greater delight of bestowing
herself--her personal interest and sympathy, which alone make charity
worth anything to its recipient.

Then Cousin Margaret bore Jessica away. Granny came for a brief, rather
unsatisfactory visit, since the new surroundings in which she found her
grandchild always rather abashed her. Ephraim flew in and out, like
an excited old child, with his arms full of bundles--of more or less
useless contents, like a toy bear and a pineapple cheese--and at last
Sophy was alone in that hospital she had so dreaded.

For a time she felt deserted; but it was only on the second day that
a letter came from Jessica, containing a stamped, addressed envelope,
that made the safe delivery of Sophy’s answer a sure thing. Jessie’s
effusion was not quite so well written as these she had sent home to
California, and this explained itself:

  “MY DEAREST LITTLE HEROINE:

  “We got here all right and Tipkins met us to the station. He’d
  come up ahead of us on the boat with Buster and Buster was the
  trouble. The broncho was all right on that boat and being led up to
  the cottage--it’s just lovely! No bigger than lots in California,
  so I like it better. Buster had never been harnessed, never in all
  his darling life. But I don’t know how we should get along without
  him, ’cause he’s the only horse we have. Now. Think of that! Just
  one little bit of a broncho to do all the teaming and plowing and
  everything for a whole cottage full of folks. Only he won’t team and
  he won’t plow and he won’t--most everything. You know the span and
  the carriages and the coachman and footman were all sold after the
  fire. I mean the horses were. They went to pay our board at that big
  hotel where it costs a lot of money to stay even a single day. So
  that horse--Buster I mean, this time--he wouldn’t draw the little
  bit of wagon Tipkins had hired to take your grandmother and Cousin
  Margaret up the hill in to the cottage, and they thought they’d have
  to walk. Tipkins was mad and struck Buster and that made me angry,
  too. Ephraim lost his own temper and said he’d get ahead of that
  beast or bust. Fancy! ‘Forty-niner’ calling my broncho a ‘beast’!

  “After all it was I that got ahead, not Ephy. I just got on Buster’s
  back and chirruped to him and off he went, just as if we were
  starting to race some other horse across the mesa. Never knew he had
  that wagon with folks in it behind him, till I told him to stop; and
  then we had got home and it was too late for him to fuss.

  “Now, Ephraim says, I’ll have to ride him while he plows that garden,
  for he’s going to have the best, old-fashionedest Yankee kind of a
  garden that he’s seen since he left Concord. He’s going to raise
  the same old marrowfat sort of green pease that Sophia Badger used
  to eat when she was a girl, and I do wish you could see that dear
  old lady! You’re going to, soon, anyway. But she is the happiest!
  Why, she just picks up handfuls of green grass, even, and buries her
  nose in it and says it ‘carries her back to a time when she tramped
  barefoot after the cows in the pasture.’ I shouldn’t think that would
  make anybody extra happy, but it seems to, her. And this morning she
  came across a little plant of what she called ‘Southernwood,’ or ‘Old
  Man’--a queer, smelly kind of bush that you never sold, I guess, from
  your tray--and she burst right out crying! Said her own mother used
  to always carry a sprig of it to meeting when Granny was a mite of a
  child. She could see her mother’s face, just smelling it, she said.
  Fancy! Being the mother of a grandmother! Doesn’t that seem almost
  too old to be believed?

  “My Cousin Margaret is almost as happy as your Granny. She says life
  is so simple up here, and it does her so much good to see anybody so
  glad as Mrs. Briggs. I guess we’re all pretty glad and I am so busy
  that I didn’t write before, because you see Ephy went right at that
  garden this very morning and I’ve been riding Buster to make him drag
  that plow without kicking it out of the furrow every other step.

  “Do you know, Sophy Nestor? I--it seems almost a wicked thing to
  say--but, haven’t lots of happy things happened just because that old
  house burned up? And my Cousin Margaret is more beautiful than ever.
  She doesn’t worry a bit. Your grandmother and Ephraim amuse her all
  the time and Tipkins is even more devoted than he used to be.

  “There seems to be money enough for the little we need, now we don’t
  have to buy so many clothes, and--Ephraim is calling me. He wants
  to go to a seed store at the Landing and he can’t make Buster draw
  the wagon to fetch him and the tools back again unless I ride on his
  back. What a good thing it was all around that Ephy came to this
  side the continent and brought Buster with him! What a good, happy,
  splendid thing life is, anyway! Write right away.

                                  “Your loving, ever grateful
                                                               “JESSIE.”

The reply to this long letter was brief and to the point.

  “DEER JESSICA TRENT:

  “I’ll come Soons i Can. I Cant Now. i’m strapped on a Bord gettin’
  my crook straTened. I’m Goin’ to Bee a traned Nurse and live to a
  hospittle. I’m goin’ to be strapped for--ever And Ever, ’seems if.
  i’m the gladdest ever ’t the house burnt up an’ Buster nocked me down
  an’ everything, sophy nesTor. Yours Till deth. Cross my hart. good
  By.”

This letter did not reach Jessica, of course, until the day following
the trip to the Landing she had mentioned in her own. A trip that
amused the people whom she passed along the way because of her novel
method of making the broncho “go.” A trip that was to have a most
astonishing ending and one to fill the “Little Captain’s” soul with
unspeakable delight.

[Illustration: “She rose once, bobbed a returning courtesy to Jessica’s
profound one.”      (See page 73)]



CHAPTER XII.

MEETING AND PARTING.


The seed-and-tool store was at the Landing, close beside the wharf
where the river boats stopped, on their way up and down. Across the
narrow roadway was, also, the railway station. Between the whistling of
engines, the rumbling of trains, it proved a most confusing spot for
plain-reared Buster, and while Ephraim entered the store to make his
gardening purchases, the broncho did his utmost to stand on his head or
his hind heels, and in either direction to cast his rider to the ground.

In vain. The girl had been saddle-bred from her very infancy and wholly
understood the vagaries of this four-footed friend.

“Now, boy, behave yourself. I’ll neither slip over your nose nor your
tail. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? What’ll the people around all
think of California horses, if you cut up like this? Whoa! There now,
that’s better! Silly Buster! To be afraid of a train of cars that
aren’t coming near you. Look at them. See. You must get acquainted
with them, ’cause you’ll often, often see them. Steady, now. Good boy,
Buster!”

A train had whizzed up to the station over the way and whizzed off
again. The track lay behind the station; so that, at first, alighting
passengers were invisible from the spot where Jessica waited, perched
on the pony’s back, which wore a harness instead of a saddle. Even to
her it was not a comfortable arrangement and a less experienced rider
would have found it almost impossible.

Suddenly, the broncho’s eyes wavered from the train they had watched
disappearing northward and came back to a passenger just coming into
sight around the station. A quiver of some fresh emotion ran through
all his sturdy frame, and with a wild whinny of delight he threw up his
head and bolted across the roadway. Another instant and Jessica was off
his back, in the arms of this passenger, crying incredulously:

“Mother! Why, mother! Is it you? Is it my--_Mother_!”

“My darling, my darling! It is true, then, that you are quite safe,
unharmed?” returned Mrs. Trent, folding her daughter close, then
holding her off at arm’s length, the better to assure herself of the
girl’s safety.

“And Buster saw you first! Think of that! The pony saw and knew you
first! But when--why--where? Ned? How happened--” demanded the excited
“Little Captain,” without pausing for answers to her hurrying questions.

“_Why?_ because it _had_ to happen. Did you think I could learn of
your peril in that terrible fire and not come to find you for myself?
Indeed, I started within the hour after Mr. Hale’s telegram arrived,
even though it was most reassuring and I see now quite true. But, why
are you just here in this place? I stopped at Mr. Hale’s office to find
the address of Cousin Margaret, but he was out and only an office boy
there. Fortunately he found it on the address-book and I took the next
train north. O my darling! My darling little Jess!”

During this fresh embrace a familiar voice broke upon that rhapsody of
reunion, exclaiming:

“Not a mite more’n I expected. I’ve been reckoning time and I ’lowed
to-day was about the limit. How are you, ma’am?”

Mrs. Trent released her daughter to take the outstretched hands of
“Forty-niner,” and to cry, in response:

“You expected me, Mr. Marsh? But I might have known. You were always
wise and sympathetic. You’d have done just the same, wouldn’t you?”

“Sure. Now, ma’am, I’ve been cipherin’ how’s best to get up-hill to
that there cottage where we live now. I reckon the ‘easiest way is
the purtiest way’ an’ that’ll be for me to lead this cantankerous old
broncho, that ‘hasn’t sense enough to go in when it rains,’ and you
and ‘Little Captain’ ride up in a ‘bus.’ There’s two or three of them
always standin’ round, waiting for customers. Baggage, ma’am? Where’s
that at?”

“Here is my check. It’s but a small satchel. I couldn’t wait for
more--even if I was going to stay all summer.”

“All summer, mother dearest? Oh! how splendid! Yet--that won’t be but a
mite of a time, anyway, ’cause it’s summer now. June; just think! I’ve
been here two whole months already.”

The mother might have added: “They seem like as many years to me;” but
it wasn’t her way to dwell upon unpleasant feelings and she had her
arms about her child, at last.

What a ride that was! How the happy tongues flew, how questions and
answers were tossed to and fro, how plans were laid, events discussed,
and the returned easterner felt that she had come into her own again.
California she loved. In California she would live and die; but beside
this broad old river she had been born and its rugged, verdure-covered
Highlands were most beautiful in her sight.

And what a welcome followed, when old Margaret and Gabriella met! How
keen the glances with which each searched the other’s face and read
thereon the lessons life and the years had taught. Through Mrs. Trent’s
heart shot a swift pain, beholding in Madam the signs of a great grief.
Despite the valiant front she would still present to her changed
fortunes, the loss of her home had aged her as the flight of time
could not. In repose, when no necessity for assumed brightness roused
her, she looked to the full what she really was--an old, old woman;
world-weary, life-weary, though a “Waldron” still!

Also, though she did not acknowledge it, she was wofully disappointed
in Gabriella, whom she remembered as a gay, bright “society girl,” but
who was so sadly changed.

To Granny Briggs, who had begun to usurp the confidences once enjoyed
by Barnes, she regretted:

“My cousin Gabriella hasn’t an atom of style. She’s become a regular
dowd, living out there in that wilderness. She used to be the most
admired girl in our set and was Madam Mearsom’s star pupil. She
graduated with highest honors--My! But she was a beauty, that day! in
her white gown, of the finest, sheerest French organdie, with billows
of filmy lace--I took good care that my ward’s gown should be the
handsomest of all her class’s. Poor Gabriella! Such a pity, to throw
herself away on a penniless man when she might easily have married a
millionaire and a gentleman of the first family.”

“Yes’m. But seems if she was real peart and purty lookin’ yet. I don’t
know much about that ‘style,’ I hear tell of, but she’s got a kind of
voice that makes you feel warm in your insides when she talks with
you; and that old Ephraim seems to worship the very ground she treads
on. I don’t know, I ain’t no judge for the aristocratics, but seems if
bein’ loved that way makes up for not havin’ that ‘style.’ What think
she’d like best for dinner, to-day? I’d admire to cook her something as
nice as that old ‘Aunt Sally’ of theirs, or that heathen Wun Lung’s.
Ephraim Marsh, he’s makin’ great reckonin’ on that garden of his’n; but
a garden planted in June ain’t goin’ to be no great shakes, ’cordin’
to New Hampshire notions. What say, we best have? Then I’ll go buy the
stuff of the nighest huckster.”

“Anything, anything, dear Mrs. Briggs!” interrupted a voice, glad
enough to belong to a girl, as Gabriella peeped in from the little
verandah where she had been writing home to little Ned and where she
had overheard all the above conversation. “Any sort of eastern cooking
is delicious to me. I haven’t been so hungry in a long, long time as
since I came ‘home.’”

Not only to little Ned, whose pride at receiving a letter all his own
she could picture, but to that most helpful lawyer friend, Mr. Hale,
had she been writing; and it was due to his kind offices that soon
there joined these happy cottage folk another who could hardly believe
her good fortune true.

“Ah! little daughter! That is the best of having this abundance of
money--though I can scarcely realize yet, that it is really our own
and it’s right to use it--that one may make others happy with it. So
Mr. Hale has arranged with the surgeons in charge to have Sophy Nestor
brought up here to stay as long as we do. I’ve hired that other little
cottage, across the way--that empty one--for we shall need extra
sleeping rooms. She is to be brought, ‘strapped’ as she must be for
long to come, and her attendant nurse with her. The surgeon will run
up, now and then, when it is necessary, and her improvement will not
be hindered because of her coming. Indeed, the change of air will help
her to grow strong. When I think of what we owe that child--I am almost
overcome with gratitude.

“More than that, you and I will sail down to the city, to-morrow
morning, and you shall select the very prettiest little set of
furniture you see and it shall be for her own bedroom. We will give
her one happy summer, if we can, despite that dreadful ‘strapping’ and
lying still that is the price of her recovery. Ah! my darling! God was
good to us when He sent old Pedro to show the way to that copper mine,
with its immeasurable results of benefit to the poor and afflicted!”

That was always the way Gabriella talked. It was ever the one thought
of her heart that this now rapidly growing, famous “Sobrante” mine
was but a trust placed in her hands and those of her children for
the happiness of other people. It made her very grateful, even more
humble, to have been accounted worthy to hold this “trust”; and, thus
listening to the wise mother whom she adored, little Jessica was in
small danger ever of loving money for money’s sake.

To them sometimes laughingly spoke the more worldly-wise Madam.

“But shall you never do anything for the Trents themselves, my
Gabriella? Shall you be always content to live in a frame house in a
wilderness? Is Jessica never to have the benefit of that ‘society’ for
which Madam Mearsom and her own wealth, will fit her? Remember that a
little--just a little--is due those poor Trents and Waldrons!”

“All in good time, Cousin Margaret. The frame house has been, is still,
the happiest of homes. When you come out to California to spend next
winter in the sunshine, you’ll see for yourself how cosy we are. There
is a hospital to be built, first; for so many, many workmen are coming
to our dear Golden Valley, that there must sometimes be illness or even
injury. We must have a place to care for them. We must have a fine
school. The workmen have wives and children. We must have homes, dozens
of those pretty ‘frame cottages,’ if you please! for them to live in.
We must have a church. Maybe I should have put that first. We must have
stores and libraries--Oh! there is no end to the things we must have
if--if that mine holds out to pay for them!”

Such enthusiasm was contagious. Said the Madam, with mock dismay:

“Hold your tongue, Gabriella Trent! Or the first thing I know I shall
be giving away that parcel of land in Washington Square for some
ridiculous charity. Just say no more and let me keep my common sense,
which you’ve almost talked out of my head.”

“O Cousin Margaret, do give it! Give it, surely. And let me care for
you now as you cared for me when I was a girl. The only mother I ever
knew--what so fitting as that you should turn your own proud back on
this ‘society’ of fashion and come home with me to that other, better,
more worth-while society of labor, honesty, and love. You’ll come,
dear? Surely, you will come.”

“And leave our Jessica to the snares of this eastern ‘society,’ which
‘toils not, neither does it spin’? We’re a long way from that question
of dinner we started with, and you’re here for the summer, at least.
One request I have to make. Do me a personal favor. When you go to
town, to-morrow, to buy that Sophy Nestor a set of furniture, please
also buy yourself a decent gown. Even a ready-made one from a store
is preferable to that thing you have on. The sleeves--Why, my dear
girl, the sleeves are at least seven years behind the fashion! and
there’s nothing so betrays the age of one’s clothes as the sleeves
they wear. Since you came here before you got Jessica’s letter--that’s
the worst of your California, it takes an age for letters to go to and
fro!--since you came before then you must know that I have already
ordered a few things for her. They should be finished by this time and
sent up. You can inquire about them. Also, you can see Melanie and find
out about my own things. Really, Gabriella, you are coming in very
handy! I’ve been wanting a trustworthy woman to send shopping, since
I’m to live in the country myself.”

She was in a merry mood, this proud old dame, happy through all her
love-hungry nature to have her old ward with her once more. A merry
party all; though the mother sometimes thought longingly of little Ned
and his “shadow,” Luis; wondering what sort of mischief occupied their
busy brains at that especial moment. But mostly she was as gay as her
own girl. She had come away for a holiday and she was wise enough to
take it to the utmost; leaving home cares and fortunes in the capable
hands of Aunt Sally Benton, Mr. Ninian Sharp, and the faithful “boys.”
That Sobrante would not seem really the old Sobrante to them there,
with her and Jessica and “Forty-niner” absent, she was sure; but that
her welcome, returning, would be all the more delightful and heartsome
she was also sure.

“All summer together.”

Alas! How swift are summer days! And that one came whereon was parting.
Another summer would come and all these with it, it was hoped; but it
was a very sad-faced, if most patient, Sophy Nestor who looked about
her dainty chamber to bid it a winter’s farewell. All that pretty
furniture, of white, with rosebud decorations, which had been given
to her for her “very, very own”; those soft swaying curtains; that
adorable rosebush outside her window, whereon had been the roses right
at hand to gather freely as she would; all the love and gayety of that
simple cottage life; with Granny grown a happy-faced old lady, and with
her beloved Jessica attendant on her as on a precious sister--this was
ended.

The surgeon had come; the nurse had on her street costume and was
waiting; she had herself been capped and wrapped against some adverse
draught; and would presently be lifted in strong arms and carried on a
comfortable stretcher back to that hospital she now called home.

Then--Why, then, so quick one couldn’t realize it--everything was
over. Sophy was back on her own little cot in the children’s ward,
there to become its very life and comfort, so confident and hopeful
and uncomplaining was she. She had bidden Granny good-by. Granny who,
despising conventions, had been installed in the dearest little flat
that could be found near the hospital, and was there to keep house just
as they did in “Cawnco’d”--baked beans and all--with Ephraim Marsh
as boarder and sole companion. Buster had been put out to board in
the village where he had disgraced himself by his own odd behavior.
Tipkins--Well, Tipkins, erect and immaculate as of old, had purchased
his own new livery and was ready to attend his mistress into those
western wilds whither that deluded creature now was bound. Tipkins had
his opinion of anybody, even his faultless Madam, who would forsake
the “higher civilization” of New York, at this time of year, to live
in a frame house on a sort of prairie, with nobody but workmen and
horses, and wild ostriches around. Oh! Tipkins knew! he hadn’t listened
all these weeks to the talk that went on among his betters, without
understanding the entire situation, even though he gave no sign.

“Madam is getting into her second childhood!” he had said in a burst of
confidence to Ephraim. “She’d never have done such a thing as this, if
she wasn’t.”

“Shucks! Lots of folks and towerists come to Californy to spend the
winter. ’Tain’t no fool of a trip, either. It costs money.”

“Well, yes, maybe. But they go to the hotels, the big ones, and pay
high and live like the Waldronses had ought to. But I ain’t forgetting
what she used to be; and I’m wearing my livery constant, to remind her
that there’s others that remember it too. I’ll show them cowboys and
Chinese laundry-cooks, that I knows what’s what, even if they don’t;
and I’ll teach them what a first-class English butler is like.”

Then did “Forty-niner” toss back his grizzled head and laugh. How he
did laugh! Almost as if he were at that moment on the broad plain of
Sobrante where none would be disturbed because of a little noise. And
said he:

“Good! Good enough! I like you, Tippy, I plumb do like you. You’re
straight and white, almost as white as a Yankee. But I’d give all my
old shoes to see the ‘boys’’ faces when you arrive in their midst.
When you try to buttle your butlery in their presence--I tell you,
Tippy, you’ll strike it rich! If ’twasn’t for turnin’ my back on
the ‘Little Captain,’ now, when she’s going to need me the most,
I’d join the homeward-bound myself just to be on hand when that
bottle-green-and-poppy-yeller livery hits the ranch! Oh! Shucks!”

Again that uncontrollable laughter seized him, fancying the face of
Samson the mighty, when Tipkins the haughty should appear before him;
and bending himself double he retreated lest this untimely mirth
should jar upon the feelings of others, to whom this day brought grief.

In the handsome drawing-room of Madame Mearsom, Mrs. Dalrymple,
Gabriella, and poor Jessica gathered for a last embrace. Madam herself
supported them by the kindly dignity of her deportment--exactly what
that deportment should have been at such a time and such a moment. One
glance at her countenance showed her eminently fitted to assume the
charge and education of a “young lady of the higher class,” it was so
benign, so composed, and so intelligent.

But Jessica had scarcely looked at her. She had eyes, at that moment
only for that beloved face of her mother which would vanish in a moment
and leave her alone.

Hark! The door has already closed! the dear face has vanished! “Little
Captain” _is_ alone! On the threshold of a new, unknown life.



CHAPTER XIII.

JESSICA ENTERS SCHOOL.


“Now, my dear, I will introduce you to your mates.”

Jessica caught her breath with a sob, but her blue eyes were dry and
her face piteously white and grief-stricken. This second parting from
her beloved mother had been harder than the first. It was with a
feeling of utter desolation that she followed Madam Mearsom into the
pleasant recreation-room where most of the pupils of the school were
gathered.

These were not many in number; that number “strictly limited” to those
whose guardians were willing to pay an extremely high tuition price.
But it is just to add that the price was well deserved. While known as
a “fashionable” establishment it was yet a most thorough one, affording
its graduates as complete an education as they could have obtained at
a woman’s college. In that respect, Jessica’s new home had been well
chosen.

“Young ladies, I have the pleasure to present to you, Miss Jessica
Trent, of Sobrante, California. I trust that you will make her very
happy among you. Miss Rhinelander, Miss Trent’s desk will be next your
own in the study-room. Kindly do the honors of our house.”

“Yes, madam, with great pleasure,” answered a tall, dark-eyed girl,
moving forward with an air as composed and self-possessed as that of
the schoolmistress herself. With a graceful, sweeping courtesy, she
offered her hand to the newcomer, who accepted it gratefully enough,
yet with the feeling that nothing mattered now.

Helen Rhinelander was instantly offended. She was the leader in the
school, by reason of her ability and social position. Also, by a
certain sort of arrogance which impressed her followers as something
extremely fine and full of “distinction.” To be “_distingué_” was, at
Madame Mearsom’s, the height of elegance.

Now, Miss Rhinelander’s glance swept Jessica’s simple costume, of that
unadorned blue flannel her mother so greatly liked, and there was
disdain in the glance. This disdain was observed and copied by a few.

“Helen’s own clothes are very simple--but then! They are of the finest,
and cut with such a grace. She is style itself. Why, she’s stylish even
in her nightgown!” had remarked one young miss to another, and had
tried to make her own dressmaker copy this “style”--with poor result.

“Dowd!” “Common!” “pretty enough, but--Oh! my!” “She’s simply
impossible! I doubt if even Madam can make that new girl over into
anybody presentable.” “I think it’s a shame to admit such people to our
school. My father sends me here because he believed it to be so very
exclusive. She isn’t exclusive. She might be anybody. She might even
live--anywhere.” “Looks as if she came from California, or some other
outlandish place.” “She’s a dear. How sad she looks and how brave, not
to cry when she’s so longing to.” “I’ve heard about her. She was the
girl that was found in the garden of Madam Dalrymple’s mansion in
Washington Square; when it was burned another girl, a flower-girl,
saved her life.” These were the unspoken opinions that greeted Jessica.

“Helen--Helen isn’t--nice!” whispered Aubrey Huntington to her chum and
satellite. Now when a schoolgirl is dubbed “not nice” by her mates, the
chances are that she is extremely disagreeable. Also, a person may be
that, yet remain perfectly well bred.

Helen prided herself on her breeding, yet she did not hesitate to
elevate her eyebrows slightly, as she conducted Jessica to a low chair
in the pleasantest corner of the room, where one could look out on the
broad Avenue, with its passing throngs and vehicles, and through which
a soft September breeze was blowing.

Jessica accepted the chair with a low “Thank you,” and turned her face
toward the window. The breeze cooled her cheek, that burned beneath the
glances of all these strangers, yet the throngs outside but served to
increase her own loneliness. In fancy she could hear the “chug-chug” of
the train bearing her dear ones far away; and before she knew it the
tears were streaming down her face and she could see nothing even of
the throngs. She did not attempt to stay them, she could not. Neither
did she lift her handkerchief to wipe them off. She was ashamed of
her own weakness, it was so un-Waldron-y, and she hoped none of those
bright creatures yonder had seen it.

“If she had only let me go to my room alone! Just for a little time
till I got used to it!” she thought. Then felt something soft and
dainty touch her cheek, got a whiff of delicate perfume, and heard a
voice whispering:

“Don’t look ’round. Stare right out the window, hard as ever. In a
minute Helen and her clique’ll be going out--It’s exercise hour; and,
lucky for us, I’ve a cold in my head and am excused. I always _do_ get
a cold in my head, whenever I have a chance. It lets you off so many
things. There! They’re going. Madam won’t insist upon you, not this
first day. You’re a ‘new-er.’ ‘New-ers’ get scot of heaps of things.
Now, they’ve gone; every one except Natalie, and she doesn’t count. She
generally is in disgrace, Nat is. Come here, Natalie Graham. This is
Jessica Trent. She’s cried my hanky full, give me yours. Hold on. You
better keep it and sop her cheeks yourself while I go bring that box of
choccies I hid in my bed. I had to take them out the box ’cause that
would have showed, but I left ’em in the paper. Whew! Jessica Trent! I
never saw a girl cry so much nor such awful great tears in all my life.
Nattie’s hanky’ll be soaked, too, in a minute, if you don’t let up.
See if you can’t stop before I get back. I cried, too, the day I was a
‘new-er’ but not that way. Stick to her, Nat, and make her know it’s
not so bad when you get used to it. You can get used to anything, you
know, even the ‘corrective medicine’ Madame has given to us, now and
then, for our complexions.”

By this time the “sopping” process had been thoroughly accomplished,
Jessica had ceased to weep from sheer astonishment, and the lively,
whispering comforter had betaken herself in search of prohibited
“Choccies,” otherwise a rich chocolate dainty. The proprietor of these
had never known a grief that a pound of “Huyler’s” could not cure.

Jessica looked after the plump, retreating figure, with its starched
and sadly berumpled white frock, its extravagantly large bows that
stood out from a brilliant red head at absurd angles, and its odd air
of being made up of bits, rudely flung together in great haste. The
effect was amusing enough to bring a smile even to her lips, sad though
she was, and she demanded of the “sopper” who remained:

“Who is that? Is she a pupil here?”

“That’s Aubrey Huntington. Yes, she’s a pupil, that is, she’s here;
but she doesn’t pupil very much. She’s in so many scrapes she doesn’t
have time. Anyway, she doesn’t need. She’s so awful rich. Her father
is, I mean, and he gives Aubrey heaps and heaps of spending-money,
even though Madame doesn’t approve. Why, he’s richer even than Helen
Rhinelander’s mother, and that family think they own the earth. Helen’s
father is dead, and she’s an heiress. She’s awful smart. Stands head
in all her classes and plays the piano to beat the band. Oh! I ought
not to have said that. It’s slang, and Madame is very particular
about our using slang. There isn’t much of anything that Madame isn’t
particular about. But I love her. I certainly do. She’s just like a
mother to us if we’re in trouble, or ill, or anything; except, well,
except when we get into scrapes and then she’s more like a--a father.
My name is Natalie Graham. Oh! I forgot, Aubrey told you. She and I are
sort of cousins and Madame used to let us room together. This year she
won’t. She says Aubrey does me a great deal of harm and I’m not the
restriction on Aubrey that I should be, being six months older, so.
Some of the girls room alone. I guess you will, ’cause all the double
rooms are full. I guess you’ll be in our form, too. Aubrey can draw
lovely. I mean she can draw funny; but her folks have forbidden her
drawing any more because they want her to study the piano. Her father
says he must have somebody in the family that can make a little music
and soothe an idle hour and Aubrey’s the only child there is, so she’s
shut off on drawing and pinned down to practising. She won’t be long,
though. She can coax her father to let her do ’most anything. She says
it’s a great deal easier to buy a pianola and let the music play itself
on that, and she’s in for a pianola. She says she’s going to be a comic
illustrator and make pictures for the funny papers. She could do it,
too.

“Seems as if she were gone a long time. I--I bet something’s happened!
Ah! Here she comes now. Have you got done crying? Choccies won’t taste
half as nice, if you haven’t, with tears on them. Heigho! Aub! What
kept you?”

“The ‘Snooper.’ She’s in with a headache, or a fit of the ‘snoops’ more
like. She’s got it into her long head that I’ve been doing something
forbidden again, and just casually strayed into my room to find out.
First thing she did she sat right down on my bed, kerflump! And there,
in that very spot, between the sheets were these precious sweeties.
Look at them, will you? Isn’t that enough to try the soul of a saint?
Which I’m not. Poor choccies! To be smashed by the ‘Snooper.’

“So I sat down in the chair and she sat on the bed; and I said just as
politely deportment-y as I could: ‘Beg pardon, Miss Stewart, but I’m
excused from exercise, to-day, on account of my bad cold, and I’ve
retired to my room for a little privacy and--and meditation.’ That’s
where I made a mistake. Saying ‘meditation.’ ‘Snooper’s’ a faddist on
meditation. Says it so improves our souls and a lot more bosh. So she
decided she’d stay and meditate with me. And she did. But I ousted her
at last. _I sang!_ As soon as I began she put up her hand to make me
stop, but the higher she held it the more I warbled, and in time she
fled. But not till after she’d squashed these dear choccies all flat.
Never mind. They were in the waxed paper and we can lick ’em off. Try
some, Jessica. There’s nothing so good for a broken heart as a fresh
cream drop.”

Nobody could withstand this nonsensical, merry girl. Certainly not
Jessica Trent, even though she did wince at that reference to “broken
hearts;” and in another moment the trio were deep in the enjoyment
of the sweets which two of them knew were prohibited “between meals”
though the “new-er” did not. Also, each was frankly imparting all the
facts of her personal history, and the stranger was swiftly learning
that there was still a good deal of happiness left in life. Here were
“girls,” that race of which she knew so little; here was no grave talk
of “duty” and “trusts” and the serious matters which interested grown
folks; and here, once more, Jessica began to feel as she had used in
the old home at Sobrante before any troubles came to it, to make her
thoughtful beyond her years.

Suddenly said Aubrey:

“Pooh! My cold in the head isn’t bad. It’s stuffy in here. It’s
recreation afternoon, anyway, and no lessons till study hour at night.
Let’s get our things and take a walk.”

“Why, Aubrey! How can we without a teacher?”

“A great deal better than with one. It’s teacher’s day off, too, our
class walking one. Oh! come on, Natalie. Don’t be tiresome.”

“I don’t want to be tiresome. I want to go. I’ll run ask Madame.
Probably she’ll tell Miss Leonard to look after us, or she might even
send the groom.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Natalie Graham. Madame has a managers’
meeting in the big drawing-room. I heard them managing as I went
through the upper hall. Miss Leonard is too strict. I’d rather stay at
home than go out with that linen-room woman. Come on. I’m off.”

Alas! Where Aubrey led the way, the weaker Natalie was apt to follow.
Therefore, the first act of Jessica’s life at school was one of
disobedience. The strictest rule of Madame Mearsom’s establishment
was against her pupils’ going upon the streets alone, without the
protection of someone in authority.

But Aubrey was a born New Yorker. She knew, or fancied that she knew,
all its streets and avenues, having seen many of them from the safety
of her father’s carriage--rarely from the point of a pedestrian--save
on those prim walks of the scholars, such as most of them were now
taking.

Once upon the street, she advised:

“Don’t let’s go the regular route. There’s no fun meeting the others.
If we do we’ll have to fall into line and go, ‘miminy-piminy’ just as
usual. New York is all in squares. Let’s go by this east square and
then around the block home again. We can do that as many times as we
like and stay out till we’re tired.”

“All right. Let’s,” agreed Natalie, seeing nothing dangerous in such
a plan. Nor did Jessica object. She followed in all innocence and
ignorance whatever the affectionate Aubrey suggested. But after one
round of the block, that lively girl tired of it.

“Pshaw! There’s nothing to see here. I want to see something. Something
except brown-stone houses and a few carriages before them. Hark! I hear
music! Guess it is a hand-organ! Oh! I love hand-organs! Especially if
they have monkeys to them. Hurry up! Come on! Isn’t this a lark?”

Natalie made a vain clutch at the starched and fleeing skirt, which
eluded her grasp as its wearer dashed onward around the next corner and
eastward along a cross street.

“It _is_ a hand-organ! And there _is_ a monkey--The dearest,
delightfullest one ever! Hurry up, girls, do hurry up. See? There are
children dancing on the pavement. Oh! how pretty and how jolly!”

It was both pretty and extremely “jolly.” Older eyes than these have
watched the unconscious, small street-dancers, lured from their poor
homes by the melody of “Money Musk” or its like, though wheezed from
a weather-beaten hurdy-gurdy; and none of these three now remembered
aught they should.

For them there was also lure in the music and in the antics of the
red-clad monkey.

“Oh! how perfectly, delightfully ‘plebeian!’” cried Aubrey, her own
nimble feet keeping time to those entrancing strains and catching
Jessica about the waist to make her join in that mad whirl. “I can just
fancy Helen Rhinelander’s face when I tell her, to-night, where we have
been and what we’ve done. Ever been to dancing school, Jessica?”

“No, indeed, never.”

“I thought so. Never mind, you’ll learn soon. We have the finest
teacher in the city. Come on, Nat! Let’s take a turn!”

Not one but many; and soon the surroundings changed and even reckless
Aubrey paused and exclaimed:

“Heigho! I guess we’d better be going back. The man is putting up his
monkey, he isn’t going to play any more, it must be nearly supper time.
We _must_ go back.”

“Yes we must,” agreed Natalie, earnestly. “You walk between us, Jessie
Trent. I’m so glad you’ve come to our school. We’ll have the very
nicest times together, we three. Won’t we, Aubrey?”

“Indeed, we will,” answered she.

But her companions noticed that her voice had lost its usual
enthusiasm, and that she now paused to look about her with a puzzled
air. As a leader she suddenly felt responsible for her comrades in
mischief and remarked, rather soberly:

“This isn’t the way. We’re going wrong. The numbers on the houses--I
didn’t know there were such poor houses anywhere, so dingy and so
small; but the numbers run up high, as you go north. I know that. In
time we’ll get to Madame Mearsom’s if we watch the numbers.”

Unfortunately to have watched the numbers of the streets would have
been the safer way, than those upon the houses. These continually grew
larger and larger and as constantly more uninviting. Finally, poor
Aubrey stopped short. Her ruddy face had grown quite pale, and her
breath came fast, as she announced:

“Girls, we are--lost! But we mustn’t get scared nor say a word to
anybody, nor ask a single question. We must just find our own way home.
Else we’ll be taken to a station-house, or worse--be kidnapped! That’s
what my father is always afraid of, that somebody will kidnap me, big
as I am, so as to make him pay a lot of money to get me back again.”

“What’s ‘kidnapped?’” asked Jessica in awed and wondering ignorance.
Nor did her heart grow lighter when these two, long ago enlightened on
that dread subject by the words of maids and nurses, explained to her
its awful meaning.

“Then we mustn’t ask, as you say. Else I would have called that
policeman yonder, just as Mr. Hale and my Cousin Margaret always bade
me do if I was in trouble. We’ll just walk right straight along, with
our heads high up as if we weren’t afraid and didn’t care at all, and
after a while we’ll get somewhere!”

“O Jessica, you darling! You’re just the nicest ever. You give me lots
of courage. Yes, we’ll do that. Stop crying, Natalie. Come on.”

So they set valiantly forth, though the early nightfall was now swiftly
coming; but the “somewhere” they sought was far and hard to find.



CHAPTER XIV.

HOW THE FIRST DAY ENDED.


The three girls walked on till, as Natalie said, their legs “felt like
sticks, hopping up and down” and Aubrey was in a frenzy of fear. This
was so unlike her that it had a most terrifying effect on Natalie and
even Jessica was dismayed. Then, too, she suddenly remembered that
she had once before been “lost” on a Los Angeles’ street and that a
“station-house,” such as these girls dreaded, had been her refuge. They
had come to an open lot, whereon a row of buildings was to be erected,
the cellars already dug; and upon some of the stones heaped there they
sat down to consult.

“I’d be afraid to go back now. I--I’m awful afraid, anyway. I guess, I
guess our ‘lark’ wasn’t so nice as it seemed. I was never out in the
dark like this, without grown-ups with me. Madame--I daren’t think of
Madame! Nor of my father. The last time I got into disgrace he said
that the next time he would punish me by making me stay at school
during all the Christmas holidays. And now--the ‘next time’ has come.
Madame will never overlook this runaway.”

“Aubrey, hush! Don’t!” cried frightened Natalie, more disturbed by
these words of her leader than even by her present condition. Till
then, though anxious, she had not had the least doubt but that they
were still on that road to “somewhere” which Jessica had suggested, or
that “somewhere” would not be in the immediate vicinity of their school.

“Do you mean that we’ve done wrong, real wrong, coming away without
being told we might?” demanded Jessica, with sudden anger.

“Course. You didn’t think we were doing the other thing--‘right’--did
you? Madame will punish us awfully if--if we ever get back. She’ll
stop our pocket money and give us extra lessons and--Oh! dear! I wish
I’d never--never come!” answered Aubrey, collapsing to that degree she
sobbed aloud.

Natalie also began to wail, in an audible and most distressing manner.
She was a girl greatly afraid of “the dark” and the dark was swiftly
coming. October days are short, even when brightest, and the sky was
now overclouded with signs of an approaching storm. An icy breeze swept
round the open place and set them shivering, and the keen hunger of
healthy schoolgirls added to their discomfort.

A policeman came along and Jessica made prompt decision; calling
eagerly:

“O sir! Will you tell us how to get home? We’re lost!”

He stopped and came toward them, even though Aubrey and Natalie
clutched at her frock, whispering: “Don’t! That station-house!”

“Where _is_ your home?”

Without thinking Jessica replied: “Sobrante, California.”

“Whew! Quite a distance, that! However, where are you staying here, in
New York?”

Aubrey had regained her courage and drawn near and promptly gave Madame
Mearsom’s address.

“Hmm. That’s a long way, too, though not so bad as California. There’s
no street car-line will take you, convenient, but--have you any money?”

“Not a cent.”

This was odd. Girls wealthy enough to belong at a fashionable
boarding-school, on the street alone at this time of night without
any money--things began to look dubious. Besides, and here the astute
officer scanned their attire, they were none of them richly dressed.
They were very likely runaways from some reformatory, or public
institution, and the best place for them, anyway, till their story
could be sifted, was the nearest station-house. This was not far
distant, and thither they were now escorted, despite their voluble
protests.

At least Aubrey and Natalie were voluble, and Jessica listened, growing
wise. To be shut up in a station-house meant the worst possible
disgrace. It meant, probably, a prison, and though they had sometimes
felt that the Adelphi, as the Mearsom establishment was called, was “as
bad as a prison” they changed their minds when confronted with the real
thing.

At last “Little Captain” got her own chance to speak and said:

“I’ve thought a way out. If this kind policeman--” the other girls
shuddered--“if this kind policeman will either get a carriage, to
take us to ‘Forty-niner’s,’ or will send for him to come to this
station-house, it will be all right. My Ephraim will pay for us if
there is anything to pay and will take us either to his flat or to
Madame’s.”

The officer was not only willing to do this but it was his duty; but
it was a very grave little group which waited in that big, bare room
of the building while Ephraim was being summoned. Fortunately, the
apartment he occupied was supplied with telephone fixtures, and he had
been as charmed as a boy with the idea of talking over a wire with his
“Little Captain,” whenever he felt inclined. So he promptly had the
proper “connections” made and was now reached without difficulty or
delay. Indeed, that “Hello!” was never more promptly answered than when
it brought the information:

“There’s a girl in this station says you know her, Jessica Trent. She
wants you to come and take her--wherever she belongs. There’s three of
them.”

Ephraim sprang away from the instrument with a shriek.

“Do you hear that, Sophia Badger--Briggs? My little lass, she’s made
herself into three Jessica Trents--and gone and got herself into the
lock-up! Wasn’t it well I stayed behind with you? Didn’t travel back
to Sobrante with the crowd? I knew it. I felt it in my bones my girl’d
want me. She can’t do without her old Ephy, yet! Thank the Lord I’m
here! Where’s my hat? I say, Sophia Badger, where’s my hat?”

In a state of wild excitement, the sharpshooter tore round and round
the tiny rooms, into one and out of another, searching everywhere
for an article he felt was necessary if he would make a respectable
appearance at that dreadful police-station; but which he wouldn’t have
delayed for, had not so much been at stake.

Poor Granny was equally flustered. She had learned to love Jessica
almost as much as she did Sophy, and the very name of “station” held
terror for her. So many, so very many of her old neighbors in Avenue
A had journeyed to such a place and had not returned, having been
forwarded to “the Island” for a longer stay.

It was impossible to connect innocent Jessie with any crime, yet what
but crime could send a girl old enough to tell where she lived to
such a place? So perturbed was she that she unconsciously thrust her
spectacles up over her cap, the better to see, and thus discovered the
missing object.

“Well, Ephraim Marsh! If we ain’t two old fools together! Your hat’s
on your head and has been all the time. More shame to you, wearing it
indoors so much, as you do.”

But he did not tarry to hear her reproof. With a disgusted “Shucks” he
was off and away; hailing the first cab he saw and with a recklessness
new to one of his thrift, offering the driver double pay if he would
make double-quick time. Therefore, it was sooner than they had hoped
when he joined the waiting girls; two of whom were rather surprised
to see the third throw herself into the veteran’s arms with a cry of
delight;

“O Ephy! you darling! I knew you’d come. I knew you wouldn’t fail! But,
Ephraim, what shall I do? This very day, this very first day without
her, I’ve done that will almost break my mother’s heart. I have--Oh! I
am so unhappy!”

Now did the sharpshooter’s face take on a sternness all unknown to
“Little Captain” as, putting her away from he demanded:

“Out with it! Tell the whole story from A to Izzard. What you done? It
can’t be--the sky hasn’t fell yet!--it can’t be that you’ve _took what
didn’t_--What you done, quick?”

She understood the horrible suspicion that his scant knowledge of
station-houses had aroused and was indignant in her turn, but promptly
related the not very “criminal” events of the past few hours; ending
with the request:

“Will you take us back to Madame Mearsom’s in that carriage you came
in? She has money of mine and--Oh! do, quick, quick!”

A gentleman approached, with notebook and pencil in hand. He was
courteous and interested, and eager to serve the paper which employed
him, but Jessica had been instructed by Ninian Sharp concerning
reporters and their ways and her heart took instant fright. With an
appealing gesture she cried:

“O sir! Please don’t write this down. Don’t let it get printed. If it
did and my mother saw it, as she would, ’cause now she reads all the
New York news quick, it would break her heart. If it didn’t that it
would make her dreadfully ashamed because--because we are the Waldrons
and mustn’t do disgraceful things. Please, don’t write about it,
please.”

The man was young and anxious for “copy” and its wage, but he couldn’t
withstand that petition.

“All right, then, Miss. I won’t. But it seems a pity--might make a good
story--However, let it go.”

So it was due to the lessons of far-away Ninian that this escapade was
kept out of the city papers and Madame Mearsom spared the chagrin of
seeing it in print. How it affected her when, a half-hour later the
runaways were once more safely in her presence, they were yet to learn.
At present, all she did was to thank Ephraim for his escort of the
girls and to offer repayment of the carriage hire.

“No, ma’am, I thank you. There’s nobody beholden. I’ve got a good job
now, a-teachin’ customers to shoot in a shooting-gallery up town. My
hours are from seven till ’leven and I must be goin’. About what time
of day is it most convenient for you to have me visit ‘Little Captain.’”

Madame’s countenance underwent a curious change. One could not say just
what this was, yet old “Forty-niner” felt that he had not pleased. Her
answer was disappointing:

“Our pupils are at liberty to receive their friends once a week, on
Thursday afternoons, from four till six. Good evening. Young ladies,
attend me, please.”

Mr. Marsh went away a perplexed man. He had remained behind in New York
simply to be near his beloved girl. If he was to be allowed to visit
her but once a week and then in presence of other people, including
that stately Madame--as her words seemed to imply--there wasn’t going
to be much comfort for either him or Jessica.

“But I’ll stay, all the same. The idee! Only part of a day under that
woman’s care an’ the care so slack ’t my little miss landed in a
station-house! More’n that, though she seemed dreadful relieved to get
her scholars safe back again, I ’low that schoolma’am isn’t apt to give
’em no great shakes of a supper. Wish Jessie was going home with me
now to Sophia Badger’s fried oysters. Early in the season for ’em, the
market man said, but I’ll relish ’em. That’s one good thing about the
east and as poor in Californy--oysters is plenty here and scurce there.
Heigho! What next’ll happen, I wonder.”

Left at the Adelphi Jessica felt once more forsaken. As soon as they
had reached her own private sitting-room, Madame Mearsom made each
pupil tell her story, that by this triple repetition she might arrive
at the exact truth. When they had finished, she said:

“Aubrey, you are the one most at fault. You will retire to your room
where supper will be sent you. You will be put in ‘solitude’ for a week
and you will not go out of doors, except to take your exercise in the
garden, during the same length of time.

“Natalie, you may go below and ask a maid to serve you, though it is
long past the regular supper hour. You will then retire to your room,
study the lessons for to-morrow, and remain there for the rest of
the evening. During the week of Aubrey’s confinement you are to have
as little to do with her as is consistent with good breeding and the
duties of your form.

“Jessica, you will remain with me. I have not yet had my own supper and
you may share it. I will also improve the opportunity for examining you
as to your scholarship.

“Aubrey and Natalie, I wish you good night.”

Each culprit turned and made a reverent obeisance, then slowly retired;
but not before Aubrey had had time to make a grimace in Jessica’s
direction and, by a vivid pantomime, to declare:

“I’d a deal rather be in my own shoes than yours!”

But at that moment the Californian was pitying the other because of
the “solitude” imposed; which, however, later experience proved was
nothing more serious than being debarred from the general amusements
and occupations of her mates. “In the school but not of the school” was
their own definition of this punishment, and to lively Aubrey the most
severe.

It was a very dainty supper served to Madame and her pupil; and so
gentle, sympathetic, and full of understanding did that lady now seem,
that Jessica was speedily talking with a freedom she had not dreamed
possible.

Gradually, by skillful questions and frank answers, the schoolmistress
learned all of the “Little Captain’s” life; and realized how difficult
the girl would find the necessary discipline of her future. Not until
the dessert was finished and the white-capped maid had carried away the
trays, did the subject of the afternoon’s “runaway” come up. Even then
it was lightly dismissed with the remark:

“Of course, now that you know better and understand that nothing must
be done without the approval of some authorized person, you will not
transgress again. Aubrey is a dear child; as warm-hearted and lovable
as one could desire; and in time--in good time--she will develop into
a charming woman. Only be on the watch while with her lest her ‘fun’
should lead you into mistakes. For Natalie, I may say the same, except
that Natalie is a follower as naturally as Aubrey is a leader. One
afternoon has made you close friends with two of your mates--a mutual
‘scrape’ seems to be a certain bond between girls--and before long you
will know them all. The same sorts of persons you will meet, by and by,
in the world at large. As you influence them now, or are influenced by
them, will you do then.

“Now, that is a good deal of a sermon for me. I don’t often lecture
my girls; for I want them, and I especially want you--Gabriella’s
daughter--to look upon me as their best friend, their second mother,
and to confide in me as they would in her. Now, kiss me, Jessica, and
let us call the slate washed clean of this unfortunate happening. I
thank you for preventing that reporter recording the episode in the
public press, as I judge you did. It was very wise in you. I hope
you’ll prove as wise in other matters.

“For instance, here is a real slate. I’ll write on it a real example
and let me see what you know of practical arithmetic.”

Jessica’s heart sank. Already she had fallen in love, after impulsive
schoolgirl fashion, with this stately woman who could yet be so gentle
and so kind, and she foresaw defeat.

“Yes, Madame Mearsom, I’ll try. But--I know you’ll be dreadfully
disappointed. I--I don’t know anything, seems if, after hearing those
other girls talk.”

“Don’t say that. There may be a difference in the amount of knowledge
and in the kinds. You have brains enough. Don’t disparage them.
Remember what Goethe said: ‘What you can do, or think you can, begin
it. Boldness hath genius, power, and magic in it.’ That’s only a simple
example in arithmetic. Be bold and say to yourself ‘I’ll do it!’”

Madame leaned back a little in her high-backed chair and took up the
evening paper, while Jessica fixed her eyes upon the written problem.
Alas! the figures danced before her as if they were bewitched. Do her
utmost she could not possibly tell what would be the difference in the
amount of labor performed by two men, one working eight hours per day
for eight days, and the other ten hours on six days.

After fifteen minutes of hopeless computation on her part and patient
waiting on her examiner’s the student cried:

“I don’t know. It seems as simple as A, B, C; but I haven’t the least
idea of that ‘difference,’ I don’t see an atom of sense in the whole
question. I--I hate arithmetic, anyway.”

“Oh! no you don’t. Hate is too strong a word for a young gentlewoman
to use, except on the extremest provocation. You simply do not know.
That’s nothing. You _will_ know some day, soon. That’s why you’re here.
Let us try geography. Where is Prince Edward’s Island?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea!” cried poor Jessie, with scarlet face.

“How many kings of England have been named Henry?”

“I didn’t know that any had been.”

Madame smiled. Here surely was “virgin soil” wherein to plant the seeds
of learning.

“Do you know anything about the government of our country? In what it
consists?”

“Course. There’s a President and--and--and other folks.”

“Perfectly correct. We will pass over the ‘other folks’ till a future
day. Please spell ‘separate.’”

Mr. Ninian had drilled Jessica during the winter past on the fine art
of orthography and here, at last, she felt herself secure.

“Oh! I can, easily: ‘Sepperate.’”

Madame Mearsom folded her paper and touched a bell. A maid appeared,
and received the order:

“Assemble the young ladies for evening prayers. Then return and show
Miss Trent to her room and see that she has everything comfortable. She
is excused from further exercises on this first day.”

Then to this abashed “new-er” she said:

“There is no ‘form’ at present existing in the school which you are
fitted to enter. I will arrange a special course for you and special
instructors. Good night. I hope you will sleep well.”

“Sleep well!” thought poor Jessica, tossing on her white bed in the
charming room assigned to her. “Why--I was never so ashamed in all my
life! I--I know she knows I don’t know anything! and the ‘boys’ said I
was so terr’ble smart! Sleep? I’m too mortified to sleep; ’cause though
she didn’t tell me I know she knows----”

But promptly, amid this maze of “knows” and “don’t knows” and with the
hot flush of mortification on her cheek, our heroine had passed into
the land of dreams.



CHAPTER XV.

A TEXT FROM GOETHE.


Jessica had gone to bed a homesick, ashamed, discouraged girl. She
awoke, full of determination to conquer all the difficulties of this
“education” which had, last night, seemed so formidable.

As she stood before her little mirror, brushing the yellow curls into
that semblance of order which was their morning state, and that so soon
gave place to a tangle of glistening threads and escaping tendrils, she
regarded herself with severity.

“Jessica Trent, you may be going to be ‘one of the richest’ sometime,
but at present you are a simpleton. You’ve got everything before
you--not a thing behind, except--Well, except knowing how to ride a
horse or an ostrich, or hit a bull’s-eye, or a few other things that
Madame Mearsom would surely say were ‘unbefitting a gentlewoman.’ I
used to love that word, hearing my mother use it. I begin--I begin to
hate it! Humph! There goes, already! A gentlewoman doesn’t say ‘hate.’
But listen, you girl in the glass. I’m going to study so hard I’ll
catch up with that lowest ‘form’ I’m not clever enough to enter yet;
and I’ll pass it by. Then I’ll tackle the next one, and leave that
behind. I’ll--get to be the highest-up, intelligentest--that doesn’t
sound right but you know what I mean, Jessica Trent. I’ll be the head
of the school, as Aubrey said that handsome Helen Rhinelander is. I’ll
take care to keep every rule and I’ll find out what they are. And I’ll
do it all for love’s sake--for my mother! I made a bad beginning, but
‘Little Captain,’ hear me say I’m bound to make a good ending. I WILL!
Right here and now I’ll write that poetry out, which Madame quoted from
that Goethe. I know who he was, my father had his books in his little
library. Maybe, who knows! it might have been that very verse which
encouraged dear father to go ahead and start Sobrante and try to help
so many people. He believed he could ‘do’ it and he did. I remember it
exactly.”

Taking a sheet of the school paper which was supplied to each girl’s
room, Jessica wrote in her very best hand, and in that large size which
would make the script readable from every part of the room.

  “What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
  Boldness hath genius, power, and magic in it.”

This she pinned to the mirror-frame, and, after her brief devotions,
she answered to the “assembly bell” that summoned her to the hall
below; and entered as “boldly” as if her heart were not beating very
fast and her cheek glowing very red, meeting the curious gaze of her
schoolmates.

Of course, the news of her escapade and Madame’s anxiety concerning
the three absentees from last night’s table had spread through all the
forms.

Helen Rhinelander had emphasized the fact that “one must expect such
things from a wild Westerner and that for her part, she felt Madame
had made a great mistake in admitting such a creature to the Adelphi.
Pretty? Well, yes, in a certain way; but no style. Not an atom of
style; and style was the one thing neither money nor education could
procure. It had to be born in a person,” said Helen, with decision, and
all her coterie chirped: “Yes.”

However, Helen was but one, although her influence held many. Also,
there may be counter-influences even more powerful than wealth and
style. Along with the discussion of last night’s affair was circulated
by some braver spirits, the fact that it was the young “Westerner’s”
cool sense which had extricated the trio from a most unpleasant
position, and that Madame was smiling affectionately upon her, as she
now crossed the hall to the seat assigned her.

The smile which Jessica flashed back into that motherly face expressed
something of the thought she had had while brushing her hair. At least,
Madame, long versed in the study of young girls’ faces so interpreted
it; and now she not only smiled again but nodded her white head in
approval.

Prayers over, the family marched quietly out to breakfast, that was as
liberal in quantity and as faultlessly served as it would have been in
some big hostelry. A small matter in itself, some might have said, but
a detail of infinite gain in the matter of the Adelphi’s success. Also,
an excellent equipment for the day’s study that was to follow. “Healthy
bodies make healthy minds” was one of the schoolmistress’s maxims; a
maxim nearly always correct.

After breakfast there came a half-hour of recreation, passed usually in
the garden or conservatory behind the house. Then a silver bell struck
the school hour and each girl filed to her place at her own individual
desk in her own form class-room.

This was Jessica’s first glimpse of a time-regulated household, and she
was so absorbed in watching the others that she scarcely realized she
had been left behind, alone, till a pleasant-faced teacher addressed
her:

“Miss Jessica, you are to be my ‘special’ for the present. I am Miss
Montaigne. This way, please. We are to have a cosy little spot quite to
ourselves, for a time.”

“Good morning. I will try not to give you much trouble, Miss Montaigne,
but I am very stupid. I don’t know anything, really.”

“All the more enjoyable then, to learn. I am so fond of study myself
that I fancy everybody else must be. Sit here, please.”

The place was but an alcove, opening into the lower form class-room,
but isolated from it sufficiently that what went on within between
teacher and pupil could not be overheard. A very haven of comfort for
Jessica, had she been really as stupid as she felt; and one that soon
became to her the very dearest spot in all the great building. In
reality, she was now so eager to learn that she could have “tackled,”
as she called it, every branch of study represented in the institution
at once and altogether. But Miss Montaigne would have none of this.

“Madame has been a most successful instructor and she allows no
overcrowding. Two studies at a time, with an ‘accomplishment’ is her
rule. We are to take up arithmetic and spelling first. With music,
or art, or what your taste decides. Now, we’ll begin. This sum in
addition, if you please;” and the teacher pointed to the very simplest
possible.

Jessica glanced at it in contempt.

“That? Why that’s far easier than making out the ‘boys’ wage-list. You
must be teasing me!”

“No, indeed. Beginning at the root of things. That’s all. You may climb
and grow as fast as Jack’s bean-stalk if you wish. I’ll help push!”

Why, what a delightful person this Miss Montaigne was! Almost as good
as another girl to talk with, and how like a game she made that “hated”
arithmetic seem. It _was_ a game. Played so swiftly and eagerly between
these two that before either noticed how the time was passing the
recess hour was struck and--such a babel of happy voices as followed it.

Desks were deserted, mates sought mates, Aubrey alone mourned sorrowful
in her corner, though Natalie rushed into the alcove and whirled
Jessica out of it, disputing with somebody across the room:

“You’re a mean, hateful girl! It is no such thing! She isn’t! She’s a
dear! Aren’t you, Jessica Trent?”

Jessica returned the ardent hug she received with another as fond, then
holding Natalie off demanded:

“Who are you quarreling with? What did she say?”

“That top-lofty Helen Rhinelander. She calls this the ‘dunce’s corner’
and that you wouldn’t have been any more conspicuous if Madame had
stood you on a stool with a cap on your head. I don’t see what’s the
matter with Helen. She’s hateful enough all the time but she’s never
been quite so unpleasant as since you, came, yesterday. I--I wish she’d
behave.”

“So do I. What’s more I’ll make her yet!”

“Why--Jessica! How can you?” asked the other girl, astonished, as a
group of schoolmates drew near, anxious to know the “new-er” who had
already so stirred the quiet depths of the school.

There was a flash of “Little Captain’s” blue eyes, as she answered:

“I don’t know just how yet but I will. I’ll make her so ashamed she’ll
want to hide her head. Madame said she was a real gentlewoman, and if
she is her hatefulness can’t be deep. I’ll conquer her by kindness, as
my mother says is the best way with ugly folks. That’s the way she did
a Chinese cook we had at Sobrante, and who was--horrible. But he got
over it. Nobody could be nicer than Wun Lung is now.”

“Let’s go out into the garden. The ’mums are just beautiful now. Do
you have chrysanthemums in California, Jessica?” asked another girl,
slipping her arm about the stranger in such a friendly manner that
Helen Rhinelander’s coldness was forgotten.

“Little Captain” had always won liking, wherever she was known, because
of her keen interest in other people and her forgetfulness of self, nor
did she fail now. One by one, her fellow students, even from the higher
forms, gathered about the stranger, listening to her “Californian
talk”--a subject which made her tongue run glibly; and so graphically
did she describe life at Sobrante that she made these New Yorkers
envious of its freedom and constant sunshine. But not a word did she
speak of her prospective wealth; and, oddly enough, from this reticence
the notion spread that she was in reality a poor girl.

“One of Madame’s charity pupils. The daughter of a former ‘Adelphian’
who can’t afford to pay for her. That’s why she’s dressed in such
cheap stuff. Well, she’s nice. She’s real nice, even if she is the
‘stupidest girl in school,’ and I shall treat her just the same as if
she were one of _us_,” said Rosalie Thorne, a sweet-faced senior who
was Helen’s rival for “honors” and was greatly beloved of both teachers
and mates. She was, also, a very conscientious person and, perceiving
Helen’s attitude toward the “wild Westerner” set herself to use her own
influence in an opposite direction.

Thus it happened that Jessica’s coming had divided the school into two
factions; which promptly elected themselves to be “Pros” and “Cons,”
and beginning with the toss of one haughty young head had grown like
that veritable “bean-stalk” to which Miss Montaigne had smilingly
referred.

But Jessica, the innocent cause of this disruption, took it lightly.
Sufficient for her the fact that there were “Pros” enough to more
than satisfy her longing for “girls,” and that these were almost
as admiringly affectionate as even her “boys” at home. So, before
many hours passed she was so happy that “she almost felt wicked,”
remembering how desperately sad she had been at parting with her
mother. She even questioned Madame Mearsom herself upon the subject:

“Dear Madame, is it right for me to be so glad? Is it like turning my
back on mother and Cousin Margaret, and all the rest of the grown-up
folks? I’m not forgetting, you know. I’m not really forgetting; only
there doesn’t seem to be room in my heart for sorrow and all these good
times together. This is the very first time I ever lived with girls and
I think--I think they are just too delightful for words!”

Whereat Madame patted the little hand which had stolen to her shoulder
and answered, emphatically:

“It is most certainly and entirely right. That is why you are here--to
be happy. I can send no more pleasing message to Sobrante than that you
are so ‘glad.’”

One thing alone really disturbed Jessica’s full content. That was
the peculiar behavior of Ephraim Marsh. Invariably, when the day was
fair enough for the “Adelphians” to take their accustomed walks,
“Forty-niner” would appear on the opposite side of the same street.
He would march along, head erect, “eyes front,” as if keeping step to
some invisible band--his whole attitude as correctly military as he
could make it. Never, by any possibility, did he recognize Jessica, nor
answer to her excited hand-salutes--the only sort she was permitted
on the street, or from that distance--and this hurt her sadly. More
than that, he never used his visitor’s privilege of “once a week, on
Thursdays, from four till six.”

“All the other girls have their friends come to see them, Ephy dear.
Why don’t you?”

He gave her no explanation, simply said, each time: “I’ll see.” Not
for anything would he have confessed to her that his proud old heart
had been offended by Madame’s slowly pronounced reply to his question
concerning these visits, for which his own soul hungered unspeakably.
He only urged her to get leave to come to the flat as often as she
could, even though such calls were as unsatisfactory as possible.

“Couldn’t you come without that teaching woman tagged to you, ‘Little
Captain,’ not even once? I’d come for you in a hired carriage and I’d
pay the taxes for it if it took my bottom dollar--which it wouldn’t.
I can’t half begin to use my wages, as a teacher myself, and Sophia
Badger Briggs being such an equonomical housekeeper. I take Sophy
posies, but I daren’t send ’em to you. Them windows to your ‘Adelphi’
are always chock full of flowers anyway.”

“Yes. There’s a little conservatory, you know, in the garden. Besides
the girls’ folks, the rich folks that have always lived in New York,
send flowers. They consider it so ‘refining’; but, Ephy dear! I’d give
all my year’s allowance just for one dear, yellow California poppy,
instead of these ‘American Beauties’ and orchids. Never mind. We’ll
be going home sometime and can gather them for ourselves, and I am, I
certainly am, very, very happy. Why, Ephy! I’m learning so fast, I’ll
be admitted to the lowest form very, very soon. And I’m taking fiddle
lessons. I mean violin ones. I sing, too. Madame says I have a very
good ‘organ’--that’s something in my throat, you know--though I’ll
never equal Gabriella! That’s mother. Gabriella was the ‘star pupil.’
She stood head of everything. Sometimes, when I get pretty tired I feel
as if it were dreadful to have to live up to my mother! I don’t see why
they don’t have stars at both ends of the class, top and bottom; then
I’d be a star, myself, without any trouble. Ephraim Marsh, did you know
I was a dunce?”

“Shucks! No. Nor nobody knows it. ’Tisn’t so. If you aren’t the
smartest----”

“No, Ephy, it’s sadly, desperately true. The things I don’t know
would fill--would fill Madame’s ‘unabridged dictionary!’ I get almost
discouraged, times; but I do love to learn things. I love it. Only I
can’t learn them half fast enough. I want to get to be a ‘star’ right
away quick.”

This was on one of Jessica’s brief visits to Granny Briggs’s
“apartment.” The girl had been corrected for speaking of “flat.” Miss
Montaigne who had accompanied her special charge was reading a book she
had brought with her in the tiny front room, called the “parlor” by the
proud mistress of the little establishment. In fact, she disliked her
own present, enforced surveillance of the trustworthy girl, who had
grown up under the faithful care of the old frontiersman; but Madame’s
rules were inflexible. Her young ladies must be attended during such
calls by some employee of her own.

Jessica suddenly remembered the young lady in the parlor and pushed
aside the plate of Indian pudding which had been part of Granny’s “New
England dinner.”

“Oh! dear! I suppose I must go now. Dear Ephy, do stop that angry
tramping up and down! The little dining-room isn’t big enough for
such a great old fellow as you to go ‘rampagin’ in. We’re going to
school, both of us, aren’t we? But, have patience, we’ll graduate
sometime--with honors or without them, who knows? And then we’ll go
home.”

“You believe we will! Why, ‘Little Captain,’ I’m saving up again’ it
already. It shan’t cost anybody but Ephraim Marsh, one single cent for
all this coming and going, these betwixts and betweens, and all the
whole enduring business of living in New York till we get graddyated.
Shucks! What’s Sophia Badger doing now?”

What, indeed! Could that hospitable creature, who had neither hesitated
nor been ashamed once to offer her last slice of bread to a chance
visitor, could she do less than hunt out her one plate which had a
trifle of decoration about it, and heaping it with the really delicious
pudding carry it into her parlor for Miss Montaigne’s delectation?

Ephraim was aghast. He was more afraid of the prim little “special”
than even of the Madame herself, for the younger woman wore “glasses”
that magnified the eyes behind them into something really formidable.
Besides, however she might lay aside austerity when with her pupil, she
assumed the most dignified of manners when abroad.

That is, she had done so, heretofore. But Granny Briggs--even the
rule-encased schoolma’am could not withstand her appealing face,
encircled by its flapping cap-ruffle; and with an apparent delight she
graciously accepted the pudding, murmuring her most correct “Thank you.”

In another moment the delight had ceased to be apparent and had
become real. One mouthful of the “tasty” dessert proved that this
was something quite out of the common, and the pretty plate was not
returned to Granny till it was empty.

“O Mrs. Briggs! That was so kind of you. Your dainty has carried me
back to the time when I went visiting my own grandmother in your New
England, and her big kitchen with all its good things. I have enjoyed
it more than anything I have eaten for a long, long time.”

This was a trivial matter in itself; but it was not trivial in its
results. Thereafter Miss Montaigne threw all her influence to bear in
giving Jessica more frequent chances to meet her “humble friends,” as
Madame called them; and now and then to let her meet them as Ephraim
had desired, under his escort to and fro.

One thing delighted his soul. Late in the year Madame added a riding
academy to her school; or engaged one for certain afternoons of each
week. Here the sharpshooter knew his darling would shine, and she did.

Yet her success seemed for a time but to increase the unfriendliness
of the “Con” side of the school. The riding classes had been added by
the solicitation of Helen Rhinelander, already a fine horsewoman, who,
during her summer vacations had sometimes “ridden to hounds” with some
fashionable house-party. She loved riding beyond all other exercise,
and had been early taught. She looked for no rival in the matter; but
the very first day, when Jessica had been admitted to the lesson, she
saw that she might be equalled, or even eclipsed.

“That girl rides as if she were part of her horse. The master gave her
that fractious brute of his own, as soon as she begged for it, thinking
that the easiest way to take down her self-conceit; and meaning, of
course, to keep close beside her in case of a fall. Fall? The animal
couldn’t shake her off. He tried, forward and backward, sidewise and
every other wise, but she stuck like a burr. The master was amazed.
Soon he let go the bridle and only watched--to be ready for accident.
After that he watched from sheer delight; and as soon as she had made
the circuit of the ring a few times and had brought her mount down to
a quiet pacing, he said: ‘Miss Trent, I must congratulate you. I have
nothing to teach you.’

“Then Jessica was afraid he wouldn’t let her stay in the class, and
asked him; and, of course, he said he was only too proud of the honor.
Then he questioned her and found out that she had been put on a horse’s
back before she was out of baby-clothes and had to be held there, while
the horse was led around; and afterward--‘Well, afterward, I don’t
remember much except a horse, or sometimes a burro. One has to ride in
California, it’s so big, and wide, and places are so far apart; and,
oh! yes! I forgot! I can ride an ostrich, too. King Zulu was the first
one in America who was ever mounted, so the “boys” claim. He is more
fun even than the swiftest horse; he’s faster, you know.’

“Fancy, Madame Mearsom, that girl talking away like that to our
reserved master! But he liked it. He liked it so well, he even said: ‘I
thought I had a magnificent horsewoman in Miss Rhinelander, but Miss
Trent, I fear she will have to yield the palm to you.’”

“O Rosalie! I’m sorry he said that,” answered Madame, to whom Miss
Thorne had given the above description. “I’ve heard about this
division in the school--our rival favorites; and though I have seemed
to ignore it, it has grieved me deeply. Helen is charming, but for some
unknown reason she appears to have taken a dislike to Jessica. I am
very, very sorry. There should be no rivalry or jealousy between those
two. They are not of the same age, they differ in all respects--I mean
are so unlike one another--they ought to be the best of friends. Do
what you can, dear Rosalie, to bridge this difference. I wish something
would happen to settle the matter!”

Something _was_ to happen; but the anxious schoolmistress could not
foresee that it would be in the nature of a tragedy.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE SOMETHING WHICH HAPPENED.


To solace her daughter for her chagrin in being outclassed by Jessica,
Mrs. Rhinelander gave her a new horse; as handsome a creature as could
be found and “warranted kind and true.”

All the other girls envied Helen her “Beauty,” except the “Little
Captain,” now rapidly developing into an excellent scholar, and with
her love of learning increasing all the time. She was ambitious to be
that “star”--at the top not bottom of the school--and all the energy of
her ardent nature was put into this work. The result of this was that,
despite all prescribed rules for exercise and recreation, Jessica grew
thin and somewhat careworn.

Ephraim was swift to observe this and to devise some plan for remedying
it. He could think of nothing better than to send home to the “boys”
for the “finest four-footed creatur’ in all Paraiso d’Oro.” So he
wrote, as follows:--“The head girl to our ‘Lady’s’ school has been give
as purty a brute as ever I laid eyes on, and ‘Little Captain’s’ has got
to beat it. Now, Samson and John Benton, you put your heads together
and finish up the job and express the creatur’ ’long, double quick.
Our girl isn’t going to be down-sot, in the matter of horse-flesh,
by any trumpery New Yorker, and you see to it. There’s horses here,
course, and good ones; but no beast that hasn’t breathed the superfine
air of Californy is fit for our ‘Lady.’ Mum’s the word till I get your
telegrapht that ‘Sobrante’ has arrived, and then I’ll put in my full
share of the bill. I’m getting a new ‘livery’ made, same as Madam
Dalrymple had me wear and ’t made me feel such a fool, first time. But
if I’m to be ‘groom’ to anybody, at my time of life, and it’ll make
things a mite nicer for my girl, I’ll wear it, smiling.

“I’ve hung around that riding-school where they’re tryin’ to teach
Jessie what she’s known always, and I’ve made friends with the work
folks. More’n that, ‘Little Lady’ has pointed me out to the master as
her teacher at Sobrante, and he spoke to me as slick as molasses. Said
I’d a pupil to be proud of and I ’lowed I had. Then, ’cause she was so
pleased to have me ’round, he up and asked me to ride with his classes
in the Park, whenever I had a mind. And don’t you doubt but that’ll be
every time they go out, soon’s I learn what days it will be. And I cast
an observin’ eye on the outfit of his ‘assistants’ and I’m getting my
own to match. I cal’late the next thing he’ll be doing will be to ask
me to help ‘assist,’ and that’ll be something worth while. ’Twon’t be
on account of wages, neither, but just for the honor of Californy, to
show him how an eighty-year-old can sit a horse, rheumatiz or nothing.

“So, don’t let no grass grow under that horse’s hoofs till he’s shipped
direct; and take it to your hearts that you’ll be doing the square
thing by the girl we all love if you ’tend to this here business with
neatness and despatch.

                “Yours, till death and his exile ends,
                                                        “EPHRAIM MARSH.”

It was but a little more than two weeks later that, on a certain
Thursday, “between four and six,” Jessica had a visitor.

The liveried colored man who admitted the stranger had doubts as to
whether he should have done so, since the caller also wore a livery,
though one not adorned by brass buttons.

However, Ephraim marched boldly in and selecting a chair which
commanded the entrance sat down to wait with what patience he could
till Miss Trent should appear. Other visitors were there, in the
great room, and other pupils; all casting rather amused glances
toward “Forty-niner” and wondering how such a social blunder had been
permitted as his admission into those exclusive precincts. Possibly,
the old man might have been abashed, had he observed these glances,
but he did not. He saw nothing, heard nothing, till a beloved footstep
sounded swiftly through the hall, and at a pace less decorous than
Madame liked, Jessica came bounding into the room.

“O, you darling Ephraim! you did come at last, didn’t you! How dear of
you! And you see it isn’t bad. Now you’ll come every Thursday won’t
you? But--but, Ephy! How funny you look! Why have you got such a queer,
brown suit? Riding boots, leggings,--you’re exactly like one of the
grooms at the academy. What notion possessed you? But never mind. I’m
so glad, so glad to have you; and I would be even in your old overalls
from the gardening last summer.”

Jessica sat down close to her faithful friend but she couldn’t repress
her amusement, the frontiersman was so uncomfortable in his new attire,
yet so full of suppressed excitement. With another smile she demanded:

“Do explain, Ephy. If you wanted new clothes why didn’t you get Mr.
Hale, or somebody who knows what’s correct, to advise you? Even I----”

“Hold on, ‘Captain.’ Come over to that window, yonder!”

With his hat in his hand, he led the way across the room and pointing
outward, demanded:

“Do you see that there bay horse, that boy is leading up and down? ‘All
saddled and bridled and fit for a Prince’?”

“Of course I see him. What a perfectly beautiful animal! See him, now!
What knee action! What a neck! What shapely legs! Whoever owns that
creature knows the ‘points’ of a fine horse. Is it somebody’s you know?”

“I ’low it is. I ’low she does--know points. She’d ought to, being as
she was raised on ’em, so to speak; and if you hadn’t re_cog_nized
them I’d have been plumb disappointed. For the creatur’s _yours_!
Arrived last night, overland, straight from the ‘boys’ at Sobrante,
named ‘Sobrante’ himself, and waiting this minute for his new owner
and mistress to try his paces with me as ‘attendant.’ That’s why this
pesky livery. That’s why I’ve come. That’s why you go ask your Madame,
to once, if you can’t go for a canter in the Park if I’ll wager my own
neck I’ll fetch you home safe, any time she names!”

Jessica’s cry of delight was almost a scream. So “unladylike,” in fact,
that a caller near by elevated her eyebrows and remarked:

“What astonishing things! That groom, that ill-bred girl, I am
surprised at Madame.”

“Oh! that’s nothing. She’s our wild westerner, you know. One may expect
any sort of behavior from her,” replied the young lady addressed,
a “Con” of the most decided sort, and an admiring follower of the
handsome Helen.

However, Jessica had become inured to this kind of remark, which she
happened to overhear, and though it didn’t add to her pleasure it did
not greatly detract from it. Indeed, her heart was beating so high at
thought of her dear “boys’” remembrance of her that she could scarcely
keep her feet from dancing; but she tried to remember Madame Mearsom’s
expressed desires, and with a low: “Come this way!” to Ephraim, she led
him out of the reception room to a smaller one at the end of the hall,
where tradesmen sometimes waited an interview with the mistress of the
house.

“This is quieter, Ephy, and we’re quite by ourselves. Wait just a
minute. Madame is going out this afternoon but I’ll run and ask that
permission. If she’ll only give it! How happy, how happy we will be!”

Already there was a glow upon the cheeks that had been paler than of
old and “Forty-niner” felt he had acted wisely and well. Also, because
of Jessica’s good record in her work and the eagerness in her face,
Madame was graciously pleased to give the coveted permission and to add
her congratulations on the fine gift.

“Two hours, only, from the time of leaving till you are back at the
door, remember, my dear. And I hope, I certainly hope, you will have a
most delightful ride.”

From the windows of the reception room some watched the “Westerner”
ride away and wondered at the ease with which she mounted and assumed
control of an untried mount, one that was as restless and inexperienced
in city surroundings as this beautiful creature from the plains.

“O Ephy! I feel almost, almost as if we were at home again, starting
for a long, long ride--to Dr. Kimball’s, or some other far-away
neighbors. If I didn’t have to wear this tight skirt I’d feel exactly
like. Oh! how well he suits me! His back is perfect. They couldn’t have
chosen better--You dear Sobrante! I’d like to hug you, and I will!”

Suiting the action to the word Jessica leaned forward and clasped the
horse’s beautiful, arched neck, sending a thrill of pleasure through
his equine heart. But another sort of thrill instantly followed. An
automobile whizzed honking by and Sobrante promptly stood upon his hind
feet.

Spectators along the avenue halted in fear. The girlish rider would
certainly be thrown! Only she nor Ephraim showed no alarm. He merely
checked the hired animal he bestrode and which he had taken care
should be the best in its owner’s stable, and watched. He was ready
to clasp Sobrante’s bridle, should that be necessary, and to use his
man’s strength to bring the animal to subjection. However, this was not
required.

Jessica’s own fearlessness inspired her sensitive mount with
confidence. Her whispered soothing words penetrated his consciousness
and his affectionate nature responded to her love.

“Nothing but an ‘auty,’ Sobrante dear! Foolish things, they are not to
be compared with such as you, my beauty; but plenty as can be. You’ll
get used to them, directly. They can’t hurt you. Nothing shall hurt
you, precious! Just hold your head high and proud, and disdain to look
at them, you splendid fellow. Once we are in the Park, we’ll get to the
quietest place and--Go! That is, we’ll pretend to go--but it won’t be
as we could at home. Steady, there, pet. Here comes another ‘goose’ on
four wheels!”

Sobrante curveted and pranced, bowed his beautiful head, tossed it up
and down, showed every symptom of that “disdain” she requested but--did
_not_ rise upon his hind legs. After that, with each succeeding moment,
nearly, one of the offending, snorting monsters passed them by or met
them face to face; and by the time they had entered the Park gates he
had become familiar with at least one phase of the city streets.

Both Ephraim and Jessica were delighted with him.

“He’s just as intelligent--as he looks! Some horses aren’t, you know.
And as handsome as he is wise. Oh! He’s just perfect. He’s far and away
finer than that new ‘Beauty’ of Helen Rhinelander’s. ‘Beauty’ is true
to his name, course, but I don’t like his eye. He shows the white of
it too much; and though he pretends he doesn’t mind autos, isn’t a bit
afraid of them, he is. Down in his heart he is. I’ve watched him while
we were out here in the Park. I think the master doesn’t wholly trust
that horse, either; else he wouldn’t ride so close to Helen and leave
one of his assistants to attend the beginners who need most care.

“Just to think, Ephy dear! I shan’t have to ride a hired horse again!
And I can hardly wait for to-morrow and our regular lesson. All the
‘Pros’ will be delighted with Sobrante; and I’d be glad to share him
with them, if I were allowed.”

“Don’t do that, ‘Captain,’ not yet. You’ve got to let him learn you,
first, so he would mind your voice even with somebody else in his
saddle. And I’ll be on hand. My shucks! But it will seem like old times
for us to be riding together just as we used! Get up there, you slow
poke! I’ve a mind to send home again for a creatur’ of my own! Then I’d
be fixed!”

Jessica said nothing to this; but all at once she appeared anxious for
their return. So they wheeled about and arrived at the ‘Adelphi’ in
such good time that Madame was greatly pleased and promised another
outing for these two alone.

But Jessica’s haste was not so much due to her obedience as to a
notion that had entered her head when Ephraim spoke. If one horse
could be shipped safely from Sobrante, why not two? So she spent the
remainder of that recreation afternoon in writing to her mother and
asking for “Forty-niner” a similar gift to her own. Also, in due time
the letter was answered by the arrival of another steed. Not quite so
fine as Sobrante but far finer than any the sharpshooter could hire
at the ordinary livery-stable; and when received his own delight was
as great as Jessica’s had been. He had been sorely perplexed between
his longing for the animal and his sense of right. He hated debt, as
had all his old employer’s household. He must save to pay expenses
during his life in New York, while his little lady was achieving that
education she desired, and for his trip home again when that education
was accomplished. He would not receive a gift of money from Mrs. Trent,
and Jessica’s “allowance” was most modest--also, generally used up to
the last cent from quarter to quarter. But a gift of a horse--that was
quite another matter; and it added to the old man’s health as well as
his pleasure.

But long before that letter was far on its way the hour had arrived
for the riding class to take their trip to the Park. It was the custom
on such occasions for the horses to be brought to the Adelphi and the
young ladies to start from there, with the attendant master and his
assistant teachers. This time when they assembled, Helen Rhinelander
first saw Sobrante, and Ephraim was gratified by the envious look she
cast on the animal and on its graceful rider.

Reining her own “Beauty” up to Jessica’s side, she inquired:

“Is that your own horse, Miss Trent?”

“Yes, indeed! Isn’t he a dear? The ‘boys’ sent him,” returned
Sobrante’s mistress, pleased to be noticed even thus much by the
haughty senior.

“Hmm. He is--quite handsome. But, if he’s been reared in the--the
wilds, you’ll have trouble with him. You should be careful.”

“Yes, of course. But there’ll be no trouble. I’ve had him out once
already and though he didn’t like the automobiles, at first, he got so
he despised them after a little while. He thinks elevated trains are
dreadful but--he’s as obedient as a horse can be. He knows me already.”

“How absurd! That would be according him human intelligence, which no
four-footed beast possesses. Don’t be too confident.”

Now there was nothing that would sooner arouse Jessica’s quick temper
than disparagement of horses; and she flashed back:

“Indeed, some horses do possess it--or its equivalent. Why, I could
tell you things about Sobrante animals that would amaze you, if you
didn’t know they were true.”

“And because you told them I suppose I _should_ know that!” retorted
Helen sarcastically. “I’ve often heard of ‘California stories’ and I’m
not anxious for them. Only, take care. I’ve ridden for several years
and I know horses are not to be trusted till after you’ve used them a
long time. Even Beauty, here, is restless and I have to watch him all
the time. He is intelligent, if you please, extraordinarily so, but he
hasn’t yet learned to ‘despise’ an auto, after all these weeks.”

“Yes, he is intelligent--to a degree. Not like Sobrante, though; and
if you’ve ridden for years I’ve ridden all my life. It is you who need
warning. That Beauty is in a vicious mood, to-day. There is evil in his
eye. Yes, I am ready!”

With this response to the master’s question: “Ready, young ladies?”
Jessica fell into line, Ephraim beside her, the proudest man in the
whole cavalcade, even though mounted on a beast the “boys” would have
laughed at. But, as he had once ridden “Stiffleg” from love of that
beast he now bestrode this hired hack from affection for his “Little
Captain,” who was growing so fast she was outstripping that adjective
“Little.”

The master himself took his place beside Helen Rhinelander, and to
that young horsewoman this was both pleasing and displeasing. It was
flattering to be singled out as the only one of the class worthy such
attention; yet, on the other hand, it suggested to onlookers that it
was a case of precaution.

Beauty was certainly in an ugly mood. He fretted at the touch of her
hand on the bridle, he acted as if he would like to take the bit in
his teeth, and bolt; and to three of the party, at least, the arrival
at the quieter Park was vast relief. These three were the master, the
sharpshooter, and Jessica Trent. To these three a fine horse meant
something higher than a servant or a beast of burden; he was a creature
of keen perceptions and strong emotions.

That morning, Beauty had been roughly groomed. This was unusual and
painfully trying to his sensitive skin and temper. Then his saddle had
been found defective in some slight way and another which did not fit
had been substituted. Other stable happenings had been unfortunate,
and Beauty took the road far from fit to be trusted with so valuable a
burden as Helen Rhinelander.

However, for a time, after entering the Park, he seemed to forget his
worries, as his young mistress presently forgot hers. To those who
love it, there is nothing more exhilarating than a swift canter on a
fresh spring morning, such as this; and the spirits of the whole party
rose to the highest.

Suddenly from a side road, at a wild rate of speed, rushed a runaway
automobile, tenantless, chauffeurless, tearing its own unguided way
into the very midst of the horseback cavalcade.

“Ware! Ware!” warned the master, shrieked the grooms; while Ephraim
would have planted himself directly in the path of the oncoming monster
had not Jessica reached forward, seized his horse’s bridle and jerked
him aside.

“Ephy! you can’t stop it! Look out, look out! O Helen!”

Beauty, like Ephraim, had planted himself in the way. For an instant he
stood stock still, while the glaring red machine rushed toward his very
front. The next he had reared and plunged and Helen was almost unseated.

What happened after that there were some who could not see, for they
had closed their eyes against an inevitable tragedy.

But Jessica saw, comprehended, acted. With one toss of her own bridle
into Ephraim’s outstretched hand she was on the ground, had caught
that of the frenzied Beauty and swerved him out of the road, Helen
still clinging frightened but unharmed to her saddle. The next instant
the automobile had dashed onward out of sight, but a girl in a blue
habit lay huddled on the ground, a torn and bruised object from which
they turned away their eyes, not daring to look upon her fair, brave
face--so ghastly white and quiet now.



CHAPTER XVII.

RECONCILIATION AND REVELATION.


It was Ephraim who first recovered himself.

Leaping from his horse, he flung both bridles to any hand would catch
them and with a strength and agility due eighteen rather than eighty
years, he lifted his unconscious “Little Captain” in his arms and
ordered:

“Ambulance! St. Luke’s hospital!”

Then he tenderly laid Jessica’s bleeding cheek against his shoulder,
and with shaking hand did his utmost to stanch the flow of blood. For
a moment he did not even weep, then the tears coursed down his bronzed
face till they blinded him.

The whole party had gathered at a small distance, silent, stunned,
unbelieving that such a dreadful thing could have happened, and to her
the most unselfish, most innocent of them all.

“She gave her life to save the girl who hated her!” sobbed Rosalie
Thorne, and again turned her eyes away.

“Look--look--at Helen! She seems--as if she were marble!” whispered
another, feeling that even that subdued murmur were sacrilege.

The clang of an ambulance bell broke in on that silence and, as he had
done once before, poor old Ephraim mounted the steps at its rear and
followed his darling to her fate.

He had not heart for hope left in him. Girls could not twice escape
such peril and live. His “Little Captain” was done for, she would see
her beloved home no more; and again, as he had often felt, he realized
that her coming east at all had been a grievous mistake. Then a strange
feeling of exultation that he should be the only one of her “boys” who
had followed her to the death rose within him and when he realized it,
frightened him.

“It’s as if I was glad--’t she’s--she’s--Hold on there, Ephraim Marsh!
While there’s life there’s hope and if--if ’twas so--she’d--there
wouldn’t have been this on that!” he considered, holding before him the
handkerchief he had pressed to Jessica’s cheek, now so sadly stained
with red.

Of course, Jessica was not dead. Had she been, this story would have
ended then and there; but for a long time her young life swayed in the
balance and the skill of the best was brought to her aid. Her mother
was notified, for a time by hourly telegrams, then by daily ones, of
her exact condition; and that she did not immediately hasten to her
daughter’s side was that she had herself suffered an accident of a
broken limb and was helpless on her back.

Ned and Luis had disappeared up the canyon and as they had
before--imperilled their lives in the mines--so now a presentiment of
danger to them had sent her in pursuit. An unwary step, a loosened
bit of rock, and her search was ended. She was carried home by the
miners, two sadly repentant youngsters in her train, and for a time
so discreet was their behavior that the ranch mistress could scarcely
regret her own mischance which had brought this improvement about.

[Illustration: “It isn’t like a real hunchback, you know: only you were
let fall when you were little and got twisted somehow.”  (See page 112)]

Fortunately, Aunt Sally, aided by Cousin Margaret, was able to dispel
much of the mother’s anxiety; and when the news came that the girl
was “out of danger” the former made a great feast and, preparing all
the ranchmen by a preliminary dose of “medicine” for any possible ill
results, celebrated the event in royal style.

Then she sat down and wrote a letter:

  “MY DEAR LITTLE JESS:

  “Your Ma has broke her leg, and a fine thing too. Nothin’ short of
  broke bones would have set them two boys on the road to Good-ville.
  Sence then they’ve been next door to saints. Ain’t hooked none of my
  pies nor browbeat Wun Lung. I made a supper for the ‘boys’ and all
  the rest the men-folks, and I tell you I made Wunny cook for all he
  was worth. I picry-ed ’em all ’round, first, so as to carry off any
  indigestion they might get, over-eating, and it done ’em good. Even
  though my son John did say ’t he seen the most of ’em fling it on the
  ground, ’stead of into their stummicks.

  “I’m glad you’re to that hospital, where that Sophy girl is; and
  ’twon’t do you a mite of harm to rest up a little from that studying.
  Too much book learning never did set well on a Trent’s digesters
  and Ephraim Ma’sh, he wrote John that you’d been kind of peaked. So
  ’twon’t hurt you. Tell them hospital folks that if they’d admire to
  have one my rising-sun or log-cabin quilts I’d admire just as much to
  send ’em. And I’ll piece as many more as they’ll furnish the patches
  for. I spoke of that to Mis’ Dalrymple and all she did was laugh in
  that slow, ladylike way of hern. She’s real nice, Mis’ Dalrymple is.
  Me and her has real good times a-comparin’ notes about what used to
  be and isn’t no more. I can see, easy as fiddlin’, where ’tis your Ma
  gets her politeness. She was raised by Margaret Dalrymple; and you
  was raised by your Ma; and I do hope to goodness, Jessie Trent, that
  you’ll try to do them credit. Neither don’t you go flinging yourself
  against them ortymo_beels_, that fool folks have hatched out of their
  brains, these last years. I seen one. If you’ll believe me, girlie,
  one of ’em come whizzing onto this very ranch of Sobrante only last
  week that ever was. It was chock full of towerists and it scared the
  ranch horses into fits. But, worse and more of it. They fair set
  Ninian Sharp wild to own one hisself. He’s makin’ real good wages
  now, Ninian is, a-managin’ the mines; and he seems to want every
  new-fangled thing a-going. Him with a world full of horses, and I
  thought he had more sense.

  “Well, I’m sending you by express--John pays the cost--a box of
  home-made guava jelly, some fresh figs, some oranges, some--Well, I
  reckon a little of ‘some’ everything ’t I could think of that would
  keep on so long a road. John, he says you could buy ’em all better
  and cheaper right there in that New York city than it’ll cost to send
  this box. But I know better. Anyhow I know none bought there would
  begin to taste as nice to you as these right from Sobrante. You may
  be gettin’ a terrible smart scholard, as Ephraim Ma’sh he wrote, but
  you’ll never get to be anything except a girl that loves her home
  and her folk better than anything else in the world. Bless you, my
  lamb! there ain’t a night nor day that I don’t go down on my old
  hunkies--I mean knees--and ask the Good Father to take special care
  of you, His fatherless child. There’s many a heart aches for you,
  deary, and many an eye will shine--and cry, too--when that day comes
  that fetches you home. I’ve made up my mind to quit ‘Boston,’ to coax
  my silly, sick cousin to come out here and we’ll build her a little
  bungalow to live in. ‘Bungalow’ is the new-fangled name they’re
  getting here in Californy for just plain house, or cottage. The
  world thinks it’s growin’ powerful smart, don’t it? There’s doin’s
  here, too, I tell you. We’ve got a regular village of houses for the
  miners, started already. You won’t know Sobrante when you get back to
  it.

  “Never mind. It won’t be more’n three or four years, now, for you
  have been gone one already. Just think! A whole endurin’ year, and
  you’ve been burned to death, and ortymo_beel_ed to death, and got
  lost on the streets, and land knows what hasn’t happened. But I’m
  thankful for the good word that come to-day; how you’ll soon be back
  to that big school. Your Ma says that the teacher is going to take
  you and some the other scholards to camp out in the Airondacks this
  summer. I’m glad of it. I don’t justly know what Airondacks, or
  Airydondacks, or whatever ’tis are. But I sort of sense that they’re
  partly woods and partly water and partly mountings. Them three parts
  put together, and you sleeping right outdoors in a tent--What do they
  do when it rains?--will make it seem most like Californy.

  “Now no more till next time. I’d admire to put a bottle or so of
  picry or somethin’ in the box but John he won’t hear to it. He
  says--No, I shan’t repeat what he says. Not to a girl like you,
  ’cause it’s so sort of onrespectful. I know you’ll be glad to
  know I’ve got four more quilts ready pieced and fit to put on the
  quiltin’-frames. When them are done and I get two--three more done
  I’ll nigh have reached my hundred limit, what I set for myself. John
  says what in--I mean he says what does anybody want of a hundred
  quilts, here in Californy with a summer climate all the year round.
  But John, he don’t know everything, even if he thinks he does.

  “It is ‘good-by’ for sure, this time. I’ve got to stop writin’
  and talkin’ to you--as it seems like--’cause there’s some sort of
  goings-on out in Wunny’s kitchen. I cal’late them childern has been
  into some his messes and I can’t let Gabriell’ hear ’em, for it would
  make her fidget. Everybody sends love, and don’t forget to tell the
  hospital folks about the rising-sun and log-cabin.

                    “Your loving, foolish, hungry-for-you,
                                                           “AUNT SALLY.”

This letter was duly read by the nurse who had charge of Jessica to her
convalescent, and as attentively listened to by Sophy, Ephraim, and
even Granny Briggs, herself. It was visitors’ day and “Little Captain”
was so far recovered that these now happy, cheerful callers could not
harm her by the fatigue of conversation. The others laughed over it,
enjoyed it, and even the sharpshooter somewhat ridiculed it.

Upon which, quoth “Sophia Badger, that was:”

“Now Ephraim Marsh, you ain’t half as smart as you think. I take that
letter for just what it’s worth--right out of the heart of one the best
women the Lord ever made. From all you’ve told me about her before,
and what her own letter tells itself, I’d ‘admire’ myself to know her.
She may be queer--so are you. I’m like the old Quaker who said: ‘All
the world’s queer except thee and me, Hannah, and even thee’s a little
queer sometimes.’ We can’t see ourselves and our own queernesses.
A good thing, too; but I wish there were a lot more ‘Aunt Sallies’
scattered around the world, brightening it and dosing it and keeping it
wholesome. Think what a difference ’twould have made to Sophy and me if
there’d been an ‘Aunt Sally’ living in Avenue A when we were starving
there. No, Ephraim Marsh, you always were a light-headed kind of boy
and you never have grown up. So, don’t let me hear no more fun-making
of that good woman in Californy, that I’d admire to know.”

Thus strictly corrected the dame, who had fully assumed charge of her
old playmate’s mind and morals.

To divert attention from her beloved sharpshooter, Jessica cried:

“So you _shall_ know Aunt Sally, Mrs. Briggs! And you are right; she
_is_ one of the best women in the world. I don’t know what my dear
mother would ever have done without her. In all her troubles and
worries, mother has turned to Aunt Sally, and has always found help.
So, when we go home; when Sophy, too, has finished her nurse’s training
and got her diploma; we’ll _all_ go home together. Sophy is to be
superintendent of the hospital mother is to have built and we’ll none
of us who love each other be separated again, never again.

“Oh! the dreams I’ve had, the plans I’ve formed, lying here just
getting well. Seems if my whole life long and every dollar that comes
into my hands must go to make somebody happy. Somebody--no matter
who--just the somebody that comes nearest and the happiness can reach
the first. Life--it makes a girl think pretty seriously when she knows
that just the tiniest bit more of a bruise or a cut would have ended
that life. It seems as if I must hurry, hurry, to make up to somebody
for any mischance has come to them. I----Beg pardon, nurse, what did
you say?”

“That these visitors have stayed their full time; that Sophy must
be taken back to her own place; and that there is one more visitor
wishing to see you. I think you have had enough callers as it is, but
this one has been here nearly every day, inquiring, though not before
asking permission to come up to your room. I think she is one of your
schoolmates, and you must not expect to keep her long. Nor do you talk
much. Let her talk and you just listen and she must not stay long.”

The others made their prompt adieus and departed; Jessica remarking: “I
think it must be Rosalie Thorne. She’s been so kind and sympathetic.
I don’t see how she has given so much time to calling, when she’s
working so hard for her last examination. Only another week and then
Commencement. Oh! I hope I may be ‘discharged’ by that time, so I can
see the girls in their pretty frocks and their flowers and their pride.
Helen and Rosalie are honor girls, I know. Poor Helen. I wish she
would learn to like me just a little bit before she goes away forever.
She’s to live in Europe, Madame said, and perfect herself in music.
At least, to go on with it, though nobody can ever ‘perfect’ himself I
suppose. Poor Helen! How near, how near she came to losing her own life
that day! I remember I warned her about that Beauty. He----”

“There, my little patient. That’s quite enough ‘remembering’ for now.
What I want you to do is some forgetting, if you please, of all that is
past and gone. Think! in another week you will be back at school, well
and happy once more. Ah! here comes a maid with the young lady.”

Jessica was sitting in her pretty chair, but rose as the caller
entered; then promptly settled back again, while her outstretched arm
sank slowly to her side. She was still weak enough to be unnerved by
the sight of Helen Rhinelander whom her visitor proved to be and whom
she had not seen since they two faced death together. Nor was she
at all prepared for the strange behavior of the haughty senior, who
hesitated on the threshold of the room, cast one glance toward the
nurse--as if wishing that person elsewhere--then hurriedly crossed to
Jessica’s chair and sank on her knees beside it.

Helen’s face was streaming with repentant tears and her voice tremulous
with profound emotion as she caught up Jessica’s still-bandaged hand
and kissed it humbly.

“O Jessica, you savior of my life! Will you forgive me? Can you ever,
ever learn to do it?”

“The--savior--Helen--Why, what can you mean? Why do you kneel? Why
are you crying? Oh! don’t please. Please, please, don’t! It seems
so queer--as if things were all coming to an end to have you kneel
there and ask me--_me_--to ‘forgive you.’ What in the world have I
to forgive? It’s I should be forgiven, for I was angry. I was fearful
angry that day, because you slighted Sobrante and praised Beauty.
I--Yes, nurse. I know. I won’t talk about it, only long enough to make
dear Helen understand.”

It was plain enough then that Jessica either did not know how brave
her own action had been nor that all her recent suffering had been
the price of saving her enemy’s life. Understanding this, the nurse
delicately slipped away, leaving those two young souls to find out
the truth from one another and to make that peace which their words
signified had not existed between them.

“Jessica, don’t you know? Is it possible that nobody has told you how
your flinging yourself upon that vicious Beauty prevented his trampling
me under his feet and surely saved my life? He trampled you instead and
I feel--I feel--O Jessica! I have been so mean, so little, so dastardly
and hateful all along from the beginning. I can’t tell you how mean I
feel. Can you forgive me? _Can you_----”

“Helen, Helen! Let’s change the question. Can you love me a little,
tiny bit? That’s all I want in this world to be loved; or what’s
better, be let to love other people just as much as I wish. You are so
beautiful, so clever, I’ve just longed to love you, only--only--Say,
Helen, that you can and will now.”

The senior’s answer was to clasp the convalescent in such a close
embrace as satisfied forever Jessica’s longing in that question.

“Love you, ‘Little Captain’? Oh! with all my heart and soul; and
to try to be somewhat like you is now my dearest ambition. Kiss me,
Jessie, kiss me once.”

Not only kisses but tears commingled, to that extent the watchful nurse
from the room beyond came back to her post and cut the interview short.
But it was a very different, most radiant Helen who left that hospital
room and repaired with her story and her good news to the motherly
presence of Madame Mearsom.

When she had finished that narration, she added:

“And now, Madame, I want you to help me find a way to, at least,
partially repay Jessica for her suffering. I know about hospitals. That
it is very expensive to have a private room and one ‘special’ nurse,
even one; yet Jessica has had two, and sometimes three. That means, I
suppose, that she has been in extremest danger. I want to help her.
Will you find out for me, and arrange it as only your tact can, so
that her pride won’t be hurt? The whole bill, surgeons, nurses, room,
every possible expense; my mother and I wish to pay it and as soon as
we can learn how much it is. Of the larger debt--that I owe her my very
life--I can’t speak yet. Time will show me some way, I hope, to prove
I’m grateful for all that.

“Why, Madame! You are smiling! What can I have said? Haven’t I offered
it right? I’m glad, we’re glad, to do much more if you will tell us
what.”

“Helen, what has put it into your head that Jessica Trent needs any
financial ‘help’?”

“I--I really do not know. Except that all of the girls think, or have
been told, that she is one of your charity pupils.”

Then, indeed, did Madame Mearsom laugh and heartily:

“My dear, that is the most absurd blunder your young heads ever made.
Jessica Trent is what is called ‘A Copper Princess.’ She is the richest
pupil I have ever had.”



CHAPTER XVIII.

A TELLING VALEDICTORY.


The Adelphi was transformed.

Upholsterers, florists, caterers had been so busy in all the main rooms
that when Jessica stepped into them, on her return from hospital, she
scarcely believed she had come to the right place.

Yet she could not be mistaken, for a bevy of happy girls, headed by
Helen Rhinelander herself, had been watching from the upper windows
for the arrival of the carriage that brought her; and these now
swooped down upon her with all the extravagance of greeting natural to
warm-hearted maidens.

“Jessie, you darling! So they did let you come in time for
Commencement, after all! Only last night Madame bade us be prepared
for disappointment, for one of the hospital surgeons said he feared
the effect upon you of so much excitement. So you mustn’t get excited.
Not the least bit in the world!” And as a soothing measure, Aubrey
Huntington caught her recovered friend around the waist and gave her a
wild whirl.

Jessica laughed, caught her breath, began to declare that she
wasn’t--she wouldn’t be “excited,” and had her sentence finished, or
smothered, by a frantic hug from somebody else.

Then came Natalie with the message that:

“Madame wants Jessica in her own private room at once. She’s afraid to
trust her with us, I suppose, and I think it’s real mean to snatch her
away the very minute she gets home.”

“Ah; it does seem like home, really, to be among you all again.
Only what’s been done to the rooms? They are so beautiful, and what
a lovely, lovely world it is, to-day! Seems if there were so many
places to be happy in, so many one can call a sort of home--This, the
hospital, Ephy’s flat, and precious Sobrante. I wish--Oh! how I wish
every girl in all the world could be as happy as I am this minute! Yes,
Natalie, I’m going to Madame right away. But I must say I wish I’d
thought to ask her to have a thin white dress made for me, too. You all
look so sweet and dainty.”

They escorted her to the schoolmistress, Helen herself slipping her
strong arm about the other’s waist, and clasping Jessica’s hand, that
had been so brown and was now so thin and white, with a fervor which
told how deep her own emotion.

Then Madame Mearsom took her from them with a motherly kiss and the
remark:

“Exercises do not begin until ten o’clock. For the time between, Jessie
must rest quietly right here with me. Ah! how well you all look. I am
certainly proud of my girls, to-day.”

Yet there was a ring of sadness in the teacher’s voice. Some of these
would leave her soon, to return no more. They had been with her for
years. She had done, or tried to do, a mother’s part by them and she
loved them. They loved her, too, of that she was sure; but--the young
go away and forget, the old remain and remember.

However, it was not this wise woman’s way to cast any shadows over
other people’s sunshine; and it was now with a gay smile that she waved
them all away and shut the door upon herself and her restored pupil.
Then she led Jessica directly to her own capacious lounge, made her
lie down, covered her lightly with a silken spread, and bade her go to
sleep.

“Sleep, dear Madame? When it’s only morning and I’ve just come home?
Why, I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. I command it; but first drink this bit of bouillon that
the maid has brought. Commencement day is always an exciting one, even
for the perfectly well and strong. You are well, too, now, but not yet
strong. After your nap you shall be dressed and go to join your mates.
This is the first Commencement you have ever attended. You will find
much to interest.”

Jessica sat up and sipped the bouillon: then lay down and at a fresh
command obediently turned her face to the wall. Within five minutes she
was asleep; and the next she knew, Madame was saying:

“It is almost ten o’clock. I must leave you. Maid Maria will help you
in your toilet. All your things are ready in my room.”

Jessica rose and entered the bedroom, where so few of the Adelphians
were ever admitted, and stared in astonishment at Maria, holding up an
exquisite frock of sheerest white, lace-trimmed and blue-ribboned in a
bewildering fashion that showed the touch of some master modiste.

“Oh! how pretty? Which of the girls’ is that? And what am I to wear?
My white muslin, with the two tucks--Oh! dear! I forgot. That was left
mussed last time I wore it, at a rehearsal. But----”

“This is your own, Miss Trent. Madame said I was to dress you in it. It
was made from the measure of your old frock and looks as if it would
just fit. Now, if you please. It’s getting on to time.”

This seemed too good to be true. All her schoolmates had appeared
before her, garbed in white, with the colored ribbons of each class
adorning them. These blue ones meant that she had been promoted and
must be--

“Why, Maria, if I’m to wear this pale blue that must mean I’m now a
third-former! Oh, oh, oh!”

“I reckon ’tis, Miss Trent. Promotions always are at the end of the
year, which seems funny to be called Commencement when ’tis just the
other way. Ah! such soft pretty hair you have. A pity they had to cut
it short, at that there hospital!”

“I don’t think it a pity. Hair will grow and it’s lots easier brushed
when short. Ah! it does fit, doesn’t it? What a dear, dear Madame! How
sweet and thoughtful of her to have it all ready without my having to
ask or wait. It is pretty, Maria! I do look nice in it, don’t I? I
mean--I’m not vain about it, but I’m so glad to look like the rest.”

“Sure; and Madame Mearsom’s not the one to let anybody look different
from their mates. Not she. Even the charity scholars have new
things----”

“Charity scholars, Maria? Are there such in this rich school?”

“Course. Several, or some. I don’t know how many. I only know there
are, account of paying bills for Madame, times.”

“Which are they?”

“Ah! there, Miss Trent! _I_ don’t know, nor nobody, not even the
charity ones themselves. Nobody knows except Madame and the folks they
belong to. Madame says to have them and to teach them is her great
privilege. She’s found the world a place of kindness and she’s been
successful; so she just sort of passes it on. A good woman is Madame;
and now you’re ready, and here come a lot of the girls to take you with
them. Be careful, Miss Trent. Remember you’re but just getting well.”

What a day that followed!

In the big hall, or largest class-room, a temporary platform had been
erected and banked with the roses of that sunny June. Behind the roses
sat the Faculty. Jessica had not known how large this was nor of how
notable presence till she saw this body of gentlemen arrayed in a group
before her. In the very place of honor sat Madame, herself richly
gowned, and far more imposing in appearance than she had seemed in her
ordinary attire.

All her assistants were near her, Miss Montaigne with the rest, smiling
a tender welcome to her “special.” There, too, a little apart from
the rest, where the roses were heaped highest, their own arms filled
with flowers, sat the seniors, the first form girls, who were to be
graduated from this school of text-books, this day, and enter upon the
larger school of life.

There was music, there was prayer, there was a brief address. But the
latter was delivered in the perfunctory way common to such occasions
and listened to with an attention equally perfunctory.

It was the row of “sweet girl graduates” themselves that alone claimed
and retained the interest of everybody in that crowding audience.
Rosalie Thorne was salutatorian, and Helen, valedictorian.

Rosalie acquitted herself well, with her own native modesty and
sympathetic manner, and to her, at least, this leave taking of her old
associates was a trying ordeal.

It was not until the President of the Adelphi Association had presented
the diplomas that Helen Rhinelander arose to perform her part. In
the traditional manner of valedictories, she went over many of the
incidents of the last few years, during which her own residence at
the Adelphi had continued, and brought her essay to a close by a few
telling sentences.

“The Adelphi has always been known as a center of great social
influence for good, but it has never before cherished in its midst a
life-saver. Now it does. There has come to dwell among us a girl who
did not hesitate for the fraction of a second to offer her own life to
preserve that of another, that other not her friend.”

Helen paused and looked over the sea of faces yet saw but one: the
flushed, embarrassed, distressed face of Jessica Trent; who felt that
if the speaker added another word to those which had gone before she
would surely sink in mortification. Helen, who, had now professed to
love her! Helen to do this horrid thing! To hold her up to the gaze of
all these strangers because she had done--Well, what anybody would have
done, in the same moment and danger!

But she need not have feared. Helen was neither unkind nor indelicate,
but she had a purpose in her speech and kept on her way to disclose
it, without so much as once again glancing Jessica’s way. Neither, to
that young person’s infinite relief, did anybody else. The orator’s
reference had been too impersonal, Jessica looked so exactly like all
the other maidens in their fine attire, that nobody not in the secret
suspected who was meant nor what was coming.

“When one has a heroine for a neighbor, one naturally looks up to that
person and wishes to please her. Our life-saving, life-sacrificing
heroine had often expressed a certain wish. We have all heard it,
ignored it, or forgotten it, until her brave act reawakened a desire to
gratify her.

“Once, it seems, she visited a certain poor quarter of this city where
little children swarmed in the gutters and wretched mothers were forced
by ill-paid toil to neglect these helpless little ones. They have been
forgotten by the rest of us; their desperate poverty has mocked at
our abundance; there has been none to give them a thought, except our
young heroine whose repeated assertion has been: ‘When I grow up, if I
can in any way get the money, I will build homes for such poor babies.
They shall have big airy rooms with kind nurses to attend them. They
shall have plenty of toys, _plenty_ of toys, plenty of everything to
make them grow up good and not wicked. How can they help being wicked,
living as they do?’ So she has often talked and we have listened, as
to the dreams of a child, unknowing whereof she spoke.

“All that is changed. The girl who would lay down her life for another
is not a dreamer, she is a practical Christian. And now I, whose life
was that one saved, desire to gratify her wish, her dream, if you
please, to make it happy reality. I will be one to start a home for
those gutter babies, regretting only that I cannot accomplish the work
without asking help from others, and I do it for love of this dear,
dreaming heroine.

“To build a home and equip it for the children of Avenue A and its
swarming tenements I now open a subscription list and head the same
with five thousand dollars. Who comes next?”

Jessica was no longer abashed nor self-conscious. All her heart was
in the scene that ensued, when Madame followed that eloquent appeal
with her own subscription of five thousand. She was well-known as a
fairly rich woman and, in proportion to her means, for an extremely
liberal one. Therefore, nobody except the “heroine” herself was greatly
surprised by her action: but there were others in that rose-adorned
hall who loved Madame and had been trained by her. Old pupils that were
now, some of them, growing gray-headed women, but who still reverenced
their old instructress and followed where she led.

“Two thousand,” said one.

“Ten. Put me down for ten thousand, Miss Rhinelander,” another.

“Even one thousand will help. It takes a heap of money to build a
substantial ‘home’ in this city and I’d like to make it more. But my
subscription is, for the present, one thousand dollars. Have you my
name correct, Miss Rhinelander,” cried still a third.

Experienced persons say that sympathy goes in waves. Many a big sum has
been raised by the sympathetic wave set in motion just as this one has
been; and, before the benediction was pronounced over that assembly,
sufficient money had been guaranteed to make the dream of Jessica Trent
a future reality.

As for that happy girl, she could not at all realize this fact, though
her fancy had again returned to the pitiful small faces which she had
never forgotten and always hoped to help. Not till Helen sought her and
drew her into a quiet spot did she begin to understand.

“You see, Jessica dear, I thought, well I thought you were a ‘charity’
and I told Madame that I wanted to pay for all your stay in the
hospital. Then she told me that you were, or would be, a great deal
richer than any of us; and she suggested that if I wanted to please
you I could best do it by furthering some of your ‘dreams’ about other
people. Then I remembered hearing the girls talk of your being so
touched by the Avenue A babies, and I hoped that since I couldn’t do
anything for you, personally, I might for them. That’s all. My part is
a thank-offering. I think all the rest is pure charity. Are you glad?”

“Glad, Helen? I’m so glad I can hardly breathe. And I can almost hear
my mother saying: ‘Just a link in life’s chain, Jessica.’ I, Buster I
mean, ran away and I went to Avenue A. Just a little thing like that,
yet out of it came--all this! Oh! isn’t it grand? isn’t it beautiful
just to be alive, helping in the ‘chain,’ seeing the happiness grow!
Oh! I thank you, Helen, more than words can tell. And--and how soon
do you think that home can be built? Do you suppose I’ll see it done
before I, too, graduate? I can hardly wait till I get a chance to write
home to my mother and ask her to put her own name down on that list.
She will, she’ll help. O Helen! What a happy day this is!”

“Yes. But a sad one, too. Just as I begin to know you I must lose you.
Even now, within this hour. My mother is waiting--Good-by, good-by!”



CHAPTER XIX.

THE DREAM AND THE REALITY.


Thus ended Jessica Trent’s first year at school. It was the
forerunner of others so like it that no record is needed. There were
summer vacation trips in various directions, visits to the homes of
schoolmates, and one year--the third of her absence from Sobrante--was
spent in Europe.

The intimacy with Aubrey and Natalie begun on her entrance to the
Adelphi, continued through all their mutual course and at last the time
came when they, too, were to be graduated; strangely enough, Aubrey
with first honors and our heroine with none. She wrote home:--

  “DEAR MOTHER:

  “You’re going to be dreadfully disappointed in me, I know, and I
  wish, I wish I could make it otherwise. But I can’t. I think all that
  feverish energy of the first year was but a ‘spurt,’ as rowers say.
  It came from shame. But as soon as I had picked up enough to keep
  even with the girls of my own age I couldn’t tear ahead and climb any
  more of that ‘bean-stalk’ dear Miss Montaigne used to talk about.
  Poor thing! She feels a deal worse about my stupidity than I do. She
  thought she had found a genius to instruct when she first took hold
  of my brains, but she made a mistake.

  “I can sing--a little. I can fiddle, or violin, enough to make it
  pleasant for the ‘boys’ when I get home. I can sew a seam and I’ve
  never forgotten Aunt Sally’s parting injunction to ‘keep my stockings
  mended.’ I can set a table, I can entertain a guest, I’ve been
  through the cooking class and can do an omelet or a Welsh rarebit to
  a turn. I’ve studied banking and economy till I think, I hope, I can
  take care of a good deal of your business; or, at least, can see that
  nobody carries it on badly.

  “I can trim a bonnet, I can make a gown, and I can wash fine laces.
  Aubrey says she doesn’t see what Madame’s pupils need of such
  ‘accomplishments,’ but Madame, who is wise, says one never can tell
  what one may or may not need to know. Anyway, it was her place to
  give us an all around education and she’s done her best for us.

  “I can speak French and German well enough to act as interpreter
  on our trip abroad, and I’ve hammered enough Latin into my head to
  understand Botany and a bit of mineralogy. But I don’t yet see how
  long it would take Mr. A, working so many hours a day to be as smart
  as Mr. B, working some other time. Arithmetic isn’t my strong point.

  “In brief, dearest mother, you’ll find your girl is just a plain,
  home-loving, people-loving, glad-to-be-alive-and-a-link-in-the-chain
  sort of creature; and thus forewarned you’re not to be so greatly,
  greatly disappointed, if you please. I’m not a ‘star,’ as you were;
  not even that bottom-of-the-class-one I sometimes aspired to be.

  “Your room is all ready. You are to stay right here at the Adelphi
  while you are in town. Madame, my second mother, will hear of no
  other arrangement; and, dear, she has promised she will accept your
  invitation to go home with us to Sobrante and stay all summer.

  “Last evening we went to a sort of farewell reception at the ‘Adelphi
  Home for Children,’ our blessed sanctuary for the little ones over
  on Avenue A. As I looked at that great building, with all its fine
  appointments, its comfort and its hosts of happy babies, I got--as I
  used to say when I was a baby myself--‘all chokey up.’ And I sighted
  backward along the ‘chain’ to that far-away afternoon when Buster
  laid its corner stone, so to speak. Knocking down one little maid
  from Avenue A was the real beginning of things.

  “You’ll be in time for Sophy’s graduation, too. She is so strong
  and well now, and such an ideal nurse. They’re going to miss her
  dreadfully at St. Luke’s which has been her home so long. The
  Superintendent told me there was nobody who could manage a fractious
  patient with the skill and tenderness of our dear Sophy. She’s the
  real honor girl of our family. It seems to me there isn’t anything
  in the realm of nursing that she hasn’t conquered. The head surgeon
  says she could even perform one of those fearful ‘operations’ if
  necessary, though I hope it never will be.

  “You should see the darling’s pride in her new, white linen uniforms.
  All her old blue gingham, ‘probationer’ ones she is leaving for any
  other girl who wants to be a nurse and hasn’t money for her clothes.
  You’d think it was bridal finery to see Sophy handle those garments:
  see her fondle the spotless aprons and dainty caps; and hear her
  murmur: ‘At last, at last! I am authorized and free to do for others
  what has been done for me!’ She looks so pretty, so earnest, so
  noble, that I’m sure some of our ‘boys’ will want to break a bone or
  two just to have her attend them.

  “I’ve paid my last visit, too, to Granny Briggs in her apartment. She
  is as happy as Sophy and as proud, but far more weighed down with
  the cares of life. ‘What will I do with this here painted plate,
  what Miss Montaigne first et Indian puddin’ off?’ ‘Them granite pots
  ’t Ephraim Marsh bought, and don’t need scourin’ all the time, I
  certain can’t leave them behind to be thrown into a rubbish heap!’
  Ephraim sits and chuckles and says that he too, ‘at last, is on the
  road to freedom. Sophia Badger that was has badgered the life out of
  him ’cause he’s so forgetful and will eat stuff no man of his age
  ought to, though it’s never hurt him a mite. Fire the whole mess of
  trash into the garbage box, Sophia, and let the poor ash-man get the
  benefit of ’em. We don’t need no New York truck on our ranch, Sophia.
  We’re going home to Sobrante.’

  “The dear old fellow is as happy as a child; but, mother darling,
  there’s a lump in my throat every time I hear him say that sweet word
  ‘home.’ He _is_ going. He _must_ hold out till he gets there and
  maybe, oh! maybe, the ‘superfine air of Californy, where folks live
  to be a hundred and fifteen years old, some of ’em,’ may put that
  new life into his veins that he anticipates. But there are moments
  when my eyes fill looking on his blessed, honest, rugged face and I
  see how worn and thin it is. ‘Sophia Badger’ sees the change in him,
  as well. She has never said so and I would not ask her if she did. I
  couldn’t bear to hear my own fear put into words. She merely cossets
  him and feeds him and scolds him more than ever; yet does it all with
  that maternal smile that makes my heart ache. The two poor, dear old
  creatures! Who still talk of their childhood ‘scrapes’ in ‘Cawnco’d’
  as if it were but yesterday. Ephraim has sent up-river for Buster and
  that happy broncho is also ready for his homeward trip.

  “Altogether, we shall be, _must_ be a merry, merry party; and I can
  hardly realize that I have come to a time when I am writing my very
  last letter to you. Before another one could reach you we shall be
  together, face to face.

  “Till then, and hoping you are duly prepared for the girl you haven’t
  seen in five long years--just because you thought it wiser and better
  for me that I should mature outside the family garden--I bring this
  long one to a close.

                                             “Your daughter,
                                                              “JESSICA.”

Commencements are much alike. This one that witnessed Jessica Trent’s
graduation, might have been any other of her whole school course,
so far as outward appearances went. There were the same artistic
decorations, the same superabundance of flowers, the same well-spread
tables. There was almost the same old crowd of eager spectators so
like were these to the gatherings gone before.

But there was always, as there always will be, a great difference to
the maidens most concerned.

To Jessica’s vast astonishment, she had been chosen valedictorian of
her class; and with a fine ambition that here, at least, she might make
her mother proud, she had worked night and day on her essay and had
brought it to what even Madame pronounced a fine and graceful climax.
Jessie had a gift of speech and she had a gift of pen; but-- Let us not
forecast!

Almost the same Faculty occupied the platform. Almost the same teachers
sat beside the stately Madame; and almost the same group of white-clad
maidens waited with fluttering hearts for their bit of sheepskin which
the President would soon present them.

Mrs. Trent was there, grown scarcely old in these past years, because
of the greater ease and luxury of her life. Madam Dalrymple, in
shimmering silk and coiffure quite as bewildering as when her young
“second cousin twice removed” had first beheld her. She had made the
long trans-continental journey--“I left my rheumatism behind me in
that dry air of California”--to witness a scene which would bring back
that one when Gabriella, beloved of her heart, had also graduated. She
even “Poohs!” at that mother’s disappointment in that Jessica is not a
world-famous scholar. “Why, what do you want, Gabriella? The child is
a gentlewoman--one glance shows it--and the only ‘career’ to which she
need aspire is to make our home a real home, back there at Sobrante.
Leave the scholarship to Ned. That boy has reached the necktie stage
of his existence and begins to think about his hair and finger nails.
He has brains enough, else he’d never have been so mischievous. Don’t
worry because Jessica isn’t a mannish woman, but be content. For my
part, I never saw a more beautiful, wholly satisfactory girl. You
couldn’t hold a candle to her even in your earliest youth; and now
you see how good my judgment was. If I hadn’t fairly nagged you into
sending her to me you’d never have seen such a picture as that yon,”
finished the delighted dame, nodding her white pompadour stage-ward.

Ephraim was there, Mrs. Briggs and Sophy beside him; all in that
same front row with Mrs. Dalrymple and Gabriella; also a young lad
who is taking his first peep at life outside his home and whom the
valedictorian can scarcely believe is the scampish little “tacker” she
remembers, even Ned.

“Now, Jessie. Do us credit,” whispers Miss Montaigne, as the fateful
moment arrives and the girl steps forward to repeat the speech she has
so carefully memorised. She is a “dream of beauty,” as Madam Dalrymple
has declared. Her movements are graceful and easy. She wears her
exquisite graduation gown as unconsciously as if it were her ordinary
school frock, and that Madame has, also, said is to be a mark of
gentlehood. “Such people are clothed--they never wear their clothes.”

Jessica bows, very prettily, very low. She opens her lips and a word or
two issues thence. Then, most unfortunately, she lifts her eyes toward
a group of other girls, with whom she has joyed and sorrowed during
the close intimacy of these past years and--disaster!

Her eyes fill, her face flushes, pales, is covered by her slim white
hands--and Jessica Trent has ignominiously broken down. A fierce sob
escapes her--is taken up and echoed by one, a half-dozen, all of
those white throats of her beloved mates, and they are all weeping in
concert. Even some of the audience, moved by a profound sympathy, shed
a few tears in concert; and--Commencement is over!

“Well, there generally is some unusual happening to mark the close of
our year together, but we’ve never had just this sort of thing before;
and it’s all because we never before graduated a girl whose whole
nature was just _love_!” said poor Miss Montaigne, whose own heart was
heavy at this parting.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sobrante?

Yes, at last. The special or private car, also the “Sobrante,” is
slowly approaching the terminal of the railway--the Sobrante mines. It
is also an observation car and its open spaces are crowded with such
eager people as never before journeyed over that route. Old faces,
young faces, but never a sad nor lonely face among them; and happiest
of all is Jessica Trent’s.

With trembling lips she questions Ninian Sharp as she has used to do in
the days before she was a “young lady”; and he who has met her and all
the returning party at Los Angeles answers as swiftly as she asks:

“What is that big stone building crowning the mesa, old Pedro’s mesa?”

“Our new St. Luke’s hospital; over which your friend Miss Sophy is to
rule.”

“That spire? Is that a _church_, right here at our own dear home?”

“Yes. The Church of the Good Shepherd--Who has cared for His
unfortunates,” replies the mine manager, lifting his hat.

“That long low building, in the valley, where the raisin-grapes used to
grow?”

“Ah! you haven’t forgotten localities, I see. That’s our library,
reading-room, bowling alley, amusement place in general.”

“That other, of red brick with white trimmings?”

“Our school; one of the best equipped and officered in southern
California.”

“Those cottages? Such rows and rows of them, each with its bit of green
about it--Who lives in them? Where have the people come from? you must
have irrigated well and lavishly to make so much verdure here.”

“The miners’, carpenters’, and farmers’ homes. Yes, we’ve water now
and to spare. We tapped it in the mountains, an ever-constant flow,
and water you will remember, Miss Jessica, is a ‘mine’ in itself to
California.”

“Everywhere, everywhere, such changes and so fine! Yet it almost
grieves me to come home and find it all so changed. But that is wrong.
It is the dream of my dead father’s life made blessed reality. So, I am
glad after all, and I feel that from somewhere he is looking down on
me returning, bidding me take up and carry on the work he planned, that
you have organized, and that old Pedro’s gift made possible.

“Ah! here we are! And _this_ is unchanged! This dear old ‘house’ is not
one bit different from my memory of it! Home, home, at last?”

As she sprang from the car and sped across the little intervening space
which yet remained, there issued from that cottage door a plump old
lady, decorated everywhere with strips of flying patchwork, her glasses
on top of her old gray head, and a bottle in her hand, which so shakes
with delight that the vial falls to the ground and breaks.

“Why, Jess--All that good picry--Jessie, my love, my lamb! Luis! Wun
Lung! John, Marty, Ephraim Ma’sh--man alive you needed that medicine,
you needed it powerful, and it’s wasted! Never mind, I’ve got more and
after supper--Wun Lung, do you dast tell me you come out and left them
‘sally luns’ to scorch? Back into that kitchen and serve up that supper
or I’ll cut your pigtail off!”

With this dire and oft-repeated threat the Chinaman disappeared,
salaaming and katowing to the last, as he retreated backward and fixed
his admiring gaze upon the girl he had known and always loved.

But why seek to describe that joyful homecoming? Those who have
home-loving hearts may well imagine it for themselves; and those who
have not would not be interested.

But never was there, could there be, a more grateful heart than Jessica
Trent’s, as she stood that night before her own old, open window
and looked out over that vast estate of which she was to be the
chatelaine; while from her lips there rose the humble, happy cry:

“O Thou dear God Who givest all, make me to be worthy of my
Inheritance!”


THE END.



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  Adventures of a Telegraph Boy
  Dean Dunham
  Erie Train Boy, The
  Five Hundred Dollar Check
  From Canal Boy to President
  From Farm Boy to Senator
  Backwoods Boy, The
  Mark Stanton
  Ned Newton
  New York Boy
  Tom Brace
  Tom Tracy
  Walter Griffith
  Young Acrobat


C. B. ASHLEY.

One of the best stories ever written on hunting, trapping and adventure
in the West, after the Custer Massacre.

  Gilbert, the Boy Trapper


ANNIE ASHMORE.

A splendid story, recording the adventures of a boy with smugglers.

  Smuggler’s Cave, The


CAPT. RALPH BONEHILL.

Capt. Bonehill is in the very front rank as an author of boys’ stories.
These are two of his best works.

  Neka, the Boy Conjurer
  Tour of the Zero Club


WALTER F. BRUNS.

An excellent story of adventure in the celebrated Sunk Lands of
Missouri and Kansas.

  In the Sunk Lands


FRANK H. CONVERSE.

This writer has established a splendid reputation as a boys’ author,
and although his books usually command $1.25 per volume, we offer the
following at a more popular price.

  Gold of Flat Top Mountain
  Happy-Go-Lucky Jack
  Heir to a Million
  In Search of An Unknown Race
  In Southern Seas
  Mystery of a Diamond
  That Treasure
  Voyage to the Gold Coast


HARRY COLLINGWOOD.

One of England’s most successful writers of stories for boys. His best
story is

  Pirate Island


GEORGE H. COOMER.

Two books we highly recommend. One is a splendid story of adventure at
sea, when American ships were in every port in the world, and the other
tells of adventures while the first railway in the Andes Mountains was
being built.

  Boys in the Forecastle
  Old Man of the Mountain


WILLIAM DALTON.

Three stories by one of the very greatest writers for boys. The stories
deal with boys’ adventures in India, China and Abyssinia. These books
are strongly recommended for boys’ reading, as they contain a large
amount of historical information.

  Tiger Prince
  War Tiger
  White Elephant


EDWARD S. ELLIS.

These books are considered the best works this well-known writer ever
produced. No better reading for bright young Americans.

  Arthur Helmuth
  Check No. 2134
  From Tent to White House
  Perils of the Jungle
  On the Trail of Geronimo
  White Mustang


GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.

For the past fifty years Mr. Fenn has been writing books for boys
and popular fiction. His books are justly popular throughout the
English-speaking world. We publish the following select list of his
boys’ books, which we consider the best he ever wrote.

  Commodore Junk
  Dingo Boys
  Golden Magnet
  Grand Chaco
  Weathercock


ENSIGN CLARKE FITCH, U. S. N.

A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and thoroughly
familiar with all naval matters. Mr. Fitch has devoted himself to
literature, and has written a series of books for boys that every
young American should read. His stories are full of very interesting
information about the navy, training ships, etc.

  Bound for Annapolis
  Clif, the Naval Cadet
  Cruise of the Training Ship
  From Port to Port
  Strange Cruise, A


WILLIAM MURRAY GRAYDON.

An author of world-wide popularity. Mr. Graydon is essentially a friend
of young people, and we offer herewith ten of his best works, wherein
he relates a great diversity of interesting adventures in various parts
of the world, combined with accurate historical data.

  Butcher of Cawnpore, The
  Camp in the Snow, The
  Campaigning with Braddock
  Cryptogram, The
  From Lake to Wilderness
  In Barracks and Wigwam
  In Fort and Prison
  Jungles and Traitors
  Rajah’s Fortress, The
  White King of Africa, The


LIEUT. FREDERICK GARRISON, U.S.A.

Every American boy takes a keen interest in the affairs of West Point.
No more capable writer on this popular subject could be found than
Lieut. Garrison, who vividly describes the life, adventures and unique
incidents that have occurred in that great institution--in these famous
West Point stories.

  Off for West Point
  Cadet’s Honor, A
  On Guard
  West Point Treasure, The
  West Point Rivals, The


HEADON HILL.

The hunt for gold has always been a popular subject for consideration,
and Mr. Hill has added a splendid story on the subject in this romance
of the Klondyke.

  Spectre Gold


HENRY HARRISON LEWIS.

Mr. Lewis is a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and has
written a great many books for boys. Among his best works are the
following titles--the subjects include a vast series of adventures in
all parts of the world. The historical data is correct, and they should
be read by all boys, for the excellent information they contain.

  Centreboard Jim
  King of the Island
  Midshipman Merrill
  Ensign Merrill
  Sword and Pen
  Valley of Mystery, The
  Yankee Boys in Japan


LIEUT. LIONEL LOUNSBERRY.

A series of books embracing many adventures under our famous naval
commanders, and with our army during the War of 1812 and the Civil War.
Founded on sound history, these books are written for boys, with the
idea of combining pleasure with profit; to cultivate a fondness for
study--especially of what has been accomplished by our army and navy.

  Cadet Kit Carey
  Captain Carey
  Kit Carey’s Protégé
  Lieut. Carey’s Luck
  Out With Commodore Decatur
  Randy, the Pilot
  Tom Truxton’s School Days
  Tom Truxton’s Ocean Trip
  Treasure of the Golden Crater
  Won at West Point


BROOKS McCORMICK.

Four splendid books of adventure on sea and land, by this well-known
writer for boys.

  Giant Islanders, The
  How He Won
  Nature’s Young Nobleman
  Rival Battalions


WALTER MORRIS.

This charming story contains thirty-two chapters of just the sort of
school life that charms the boy readers.

  Bob Porter at Lakeview Academy


STANLEY NORRIS.

Mr. Norris is without a rival as a writer of “Circus Stories” for boys.
These four books are full of thrilling adventures, but good, wholsome
reading for young Americans.

  Phil, the Showman
  Young Showman’s Rivals, The
  Young Showman’s Pluck, The
  Young Showman’s Triumph


LIEUT. JAMES K. ORTON.

When a boy has read one of Lieut. Orton’s books, it requires no urging
to induce him to read the others. Not a dull page in any of them.

  Beach Boy Joe
  Last Chance Mine
  Secret Chart, The
  Tom Havens with the White Squadron


JAMES OTIS.

Mr. Otis is known by nearly every American boy, and needs no
introduction here. The following copyrights are among his best:

  Chased Through Norway
  Inland Waterways
  Unprovoked Mutiny
  Wheeling for Fortune
  Reuben Green’s Adventures at Yale


GILBERT PATTEN.

Mr. Patten has had the distinction of having his books adopted by the
U. S. Government for all naval libraries on board our war ships. While
aiming to avoid the extravagant and sensational, the stories contain
enough thrilling incidents to please the lad who loves action and
adventure. In the Rockspur stories the description of their Baseball
and Football Games and other contests with rival clubs and teams make
very exciting and absorbing reading; and few boys with warm blood in
their veins, having once begun the perusal of one of these books, will
willingly lay it down till it is finished.

  Boy Boomers
  Boy Cattle King
  Boy from the West
  Don Kirke’s Mine
  Jud and Joe
  Rockspur Nine, The
  Rockspur Eleven, The
  Rockspur Rivals, The


ST. GEORGE RATHBORNE.

Mr. Rathborne’s stories for boys have the peculiar charm of dealing
with localities and conditions with which he is thoroughly familiar.
The scenes of these excellent stories are along the Florida coast and
on the western prairies.

  Canoe and Camp Fire
  Paddling Under Palmettos
  Rival Canoe Boys
  Sunset Ranch
  Chums of the Prairie
  Young Range Riders
  Gulf Cruisers
  Shifting Winds


ARTHUR SEWELL.

An American story by an American author. It relates how a Yankee boy
overcame many obstacles in school and out. Thoroughly interesting from
start to finish.

  Gay Dashleigh’s Academy Days


CAPT. DAVID SOUTHWICK.

An exceptionally good story of frontier life among the Indians in the
far West, during the early settlement period.

  Jack Wheeler


The Famous Frank Merriwell Stories.

BURT L. STANDISH.

No modern series of tales for boys and youths has met with anything
like the cordial reception and popularity accorded to the Frank
Merriwell Stories. There must be a reason for this and there is. Frank
Merriwell, as portrayed by the author, is a jolly whole-souled, honest,
courageous American lad, who appeals to the hearts of the boys. He
has no bad habits, and his manliness inculcates the idea that it is
not necessary for a boy to indulge in petty vices to be a hero. Frank
Merriwell’s example is a shining light for every ambitious lad to
follow. Ten volumes now ready:

  Frank Merriwell’s School Days
  Frank Merriwell’s Chums
  Frank Merriwell’s Foes
  Frank Merriwell’s Trip West
  Frank Merriwell Down South
  Frank Merriwell’s Bravery
  Frank Merriwell’s Hunting Tour
  Frank Merriwell’s Races
  Frank Merriwell’s Sports Afield
  Frank Merriwell at Yale


VICTOR ST. CLAIR.

These books are full of good, clean adventure, thrilling enough to
please the full-blooded wide-awake boy, yet containing nothing to which
there can be any objection from those who are careful as to the kind of
books they put into the hands of the young.

  Cast Away in the Jungle
  Comrades Under Castro
  For Home and Honor
  From Switch to Lever
  Little Snap, the Post Boy
  Zig-Zag, the Boy Conjurer
  Zip, the Acrobat


MATTHEW WHITE, JR.

Good, healthy, strong books for the American lad. No more interesting
books for the young appear on our lists.

  Adventures of a Young Athlete
  Eric Dane
  Guy Hammersley
  My Mysterious Fortune
  Tour of a Private Car
  Young Editor, The


ARTHUR M. WINFIELD.

One of the most popular authors of boys’ books. Here are three of his
best.

  Mark Dale’s Stage Venture
  Young Bank Clerk, The
  Young Bridge Tender, The


GAYLE WINTERTON.

This very interesting story relates the trials and triumphs of a Young
American Actor, including the solution of a very puzzling mystery.

  Young Actor, The


ERNEST A. YOUNG.

This book is not a treatise on sports, as the title would indicate, but
relates a series of thrilling adventures among boy campers in the woods
of Maine.

  Boats, Bats and Bicycles


DAVID McKAY, Publisher, Philadelphia.



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Transcriber’s note:

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Alternate or archaic spelling has been retained from the original.





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