CHAPTER IITONY GOES WITH LADY JANE
Andnow that the end of the journey was so near, the drowsy passengers began to bestir themselves. In order to look a little more presentable, dusty faces and hands were hastily wiped, frowsy heads were smoothed, tumbled hats and bonnets were arranged, and even the fretful babies, pulled and coaxed into shape, looked less miserable in their soiled garments, while their mothers wore an expression of mingled relief and expectation.
Lady Jane did not open her eyes until her companion gently tried to disengage Tony from her clasp in order to consign him to his basket; then she looked up with a smile of surprise at her mother, who was bending over her. “Why, mama,” she said brightly, “I’ve been asleep, and I had such a lovely dream; I thought I was at the ranch, and the blue heron was there too. Oh, I’m sorry it was only a dream!”
“My dear, you must thank this kind young gentleman for his care of you. We are near New Orleans now, and the bird must go to his basket. Come, let me smooth your hair and put on your hat.”
“But, mama, am I to have Tony?”
The boy was tying the cover over the basket, and, at the child’s question, he looked at the mother entreatingly. “It will amuse her,” he said, “and it’ll be no trouble. May she have it?”
“I suppose I must consent; she has set her heart on it.”
The boy held out the little basket, and Lady Jane grasped it rapturously.
“Oh, how good you are!” she cried. “I’ll never, never forget you, and I’ll love Tony always.”
At that moment the young fellow, although he was smiling brightly, was smothering a pang of regret, not at parting with the blue heron, which he really prized, but because his heart had gone out to the charming child, and she was about to leave him, without any certainty of their ever meeting again. While this thought was vaguely passing through his mind, the lady turned and said to him:
“I am going to Jackson Street, which I believe is uptown. Is there not a nearer station for that part of the city, than the lower one?”
“Certainly, you can stop at Gretna; the train will be there in a few minutes. You cross the river there, and the ferry-landing is at the foot of Jackson Street, where you will find carriages and horse-cars to take you where you wish to go, and you will save an hour.”
“I’m very glad of that; my friends are not expecting me, and I should like to reach them before dark. Is it far to the ferry?”
“Only a few blocks; you’ll have no trouble finding it,” and he was about to add, “Can’t I go with you and show you the way?” when the conductor flung open the door and bawled, “Grate-na! Grate-na! passengers for Grate-na!”
Before he could give expression to the request, the conductor had seized the lady’s satchel, and was hurrying them toward the door. When he reached the platform, the train had stopped, and they had already stepped off. For a moment, he saw them standing on the dusty road, the river and the setting sun behind them—the black-robed, graceful figure of thewoman, and the fair-haired child with her violet eyes raised to his, while she clasped the little basket and smiled.
He touched his hat and waved his hand in farewell; the mother lifted her veil and sent him a sad good-by smile, and the child pressed her rosy fingers to her lips, and gracefully and gravely threw him a kiss. Then the train moved on; and the last he saw of them, they were walking hand in hand toward the river.
As the boy went back to his seat, he was reproaching himself for his neglect and stupidity. “Why didn’t I find out her name?—or the name of the people to whom she was going?—or why didn’t I go with her? It was too bad to leave her to cross alone, and she a stranger and looking so ill. She seemed hardly able to walk and carry her bag. I don’t see how I could have been so stupid. It wouldn’t have been much out of my way, and, if I’d crossed with them, I should have found out who they were. I didn’t want to seem too presuming, and especially after I gave the child the heron; but I wish I’d gone with them. Oh, she’s left something,” and in an instant he was reaching under theseat lately occupied by the object of his solicitude.
“It’s a book, ‘Daily Devotions,’ bound in russia, silver clasp, monogram ‘J. C.,’” he said, as he opened it; “and here’s a name.”
On the fly-leaf was written
Jane Chetwynd.From Papa,New York, Christmas, 18—.
“‘Jane Chetwynd,’ that must be the mother. It can’t be the child, because the date is ten years ago. ‘New York.’ They’re from the North then; I thought they were. Hello! here’s a photograph.”
It was a group, a family group—the father, the mother, and the child; the father’s a bright, handsome, almost boyish face, the mother’s not pale and tear-stained, but fresh and winsome, with smiling lips and merry eyes, and the child, the little “Lady Jane,” clinging to her father’s neck, two years younger, perhaps, but the same lovely, golden-haired child.
The boy’s heart bounded with pleasure as he looked at the sweet little face that had such a fascination for him.
“I wish I could keep it,” he thought, “but it’snot mine, and I must try to return to it the owner. Poor woman! she will be miserable when she misses it. I’ll advertise it to-morrow, and through it I’m likely to find out all about them.”
Next morning some of the readers of the principal New Orleans journals noticed an odd little advertisement among the personals:
Found, “Daily Devotions”; bound in red russia-leather, silver clasp, with monogram, “J. C.” Address,Blue Heron, P. O. Box 1121.
Found, “Daily Devotions”; bound in red russia-leather, silver clasp, with monogram, “J. C.” Address,
Blue Heron, P. O. Box 1121.
For more than a week this advertisement remained in the columns of the paper, but it was never answered, nor was the book ever claimed.