VI

“Just for one kiss that thy lips had givenJust for one hour of bliss with thee,I would gladly barter my hopes of heaven,And forfeit the joys of eternity;For I know in the way that sins are reckonedThat this is a sin of the deepest dye,But I also know if an angel beckoned,Looking down from his home on high,And you adown by the gates InfernalShould lift to me your loving smile,I would turn my back on the things Eternal,Just to lie on your breast awhile.”

“Ugh!” said Ellen, “I would scorn to lie on Colonel Stevens’ old fat breast.”

WALLACE, Ellen’s sweetheart, had not sold his play, but he expected to any day. He was, however, impatient to be married—they had now been engaged over a year—and he wrote Ellen that he could not wait, anyway more than two or three months longer. Meanwhile Ellen secured a better position.

The new position was at a much greater distance from our house, and as she had to be at the office early, she decided to take a room farther down town. Papa at first did not want her to leave home, but Ellen pointed out that Hochelaga was too far away from her office, and then she added, to my delight, that she’d take me along with her. I could make her trousseau and cook for us both, and it wouldn’t cost any more for two than for one.

Mama thought we were old enough to take care of ourselves. “For,” said she, “when I was Ellen’s age I was married and had two children. Besides,” she added, “we are crowded for room, in the house, and it will only be for a month or two.”

So Ellen secured a little room down town. Ithought the house was very grand, for there was thick carpet on all the floors and plush furniture in the parlor.

We were unpacking our trunk, soon after we arrived, when there was a knock at our door, and in came Mrs. Cohen, our landlady and a big fat man. Mrs. Cohen pointed at us with a pudgy finger:

“There they are!” she explained. “Ain’t they smart? Look at that one,” pointing to Ellen, “she is smart like a lawyer, and the sister,” pointing to me, “she is come to work and sew like she was the wife, see.”

She turned about then and yelled at the top of her voice:

“Sarah! Sarah! Where is that lazy Sarah? Come! Directly!”

A young, thin girl with a clear skin and enormous black eyes came slowly up the stairs and into the room.

“See, Sarah,” cried Mrs. Cohen, “there is two girls that is more smart than you. That one, she is just the same age as you, and she makes good money, yes. She makes twelve dollar a week.Youcannot do that. Oh, no!”

Sarah looked at us sullenly, and to our greeting: “How do you do?” she returned: “How’s yourself?” Then turning savagely on her father and stepmother, she snarled:

“And if I can’t make money, whose fault is it? I have to work more hard than a servant even, with all those children of yours!”

“Sarah, Sarah! be more careful of your speech!” cried her mother. “Did not the God above give to you those six little brothers? You should thank Him for His kindness.”

She started down the stairs, followed by her husband. Sarah, however, stayed in the room, and now she smiled at us in a friendly way.

“Say, Miss— What’s your names?”

“Ellen and Marion.”

“Well, say, my stepmother is the limit. Gosh! I wish we were not Jews. Nobody likes us.”

“You ought not to say that,” said Ellen, severely, “the Jews were God’s chosen people, remember.”

“Gosh!” said Sarah, “I wish He didn’t choose me.”

That evening, Sarah thrust her face in at our door, and called in a loud whisper:

“Say, girls, do youse want to see two old fools? Come on then.”

She led us, all tiptoeing, into a room next to one occupied by a little English old maid named Miss Dick, who gave music lessons for twenty-five cents a lesson, and who always spoke in a sort of hissing whisper, so that a little spit came from her lips. Mrs. Cohen called it the “watering can.”

“Kneel down there,” said Sarah, pointing to a crack in the wall. I peeped through, and this is what I saw: Seated in the armchair was a funny little old man—I think he was German—with a dried, wrinkled face. Perched on the arm of the chair was Miss Dick. They were billing and cooing like turtle doves, and she was saying:

“Am I your little Dicky-birdie?” and he was looking proud and pleased.

Ellen and I burst into fits of laughter, but Sarah pulled us away, and we covered our mouths and stifled back the laughter. When we got to our room, Sarah told us that the old man, Schneider, had come to her father and mother and asked them to find him a wife. Her mother agreed to do so for the payment of ten dollars. She had spoken to Miss Dick, and the latter had also agreed to pay ten dollars.

About a week after we had been there, Miss Dick and Mr. Schneider were married. They had packed up all Miss Dick’s things and were going down the stairs with bags in their hands, when Mrs. Cohen ran out into the hall.

“Now please, like a lady and gentleman, pay me the ten dollars each as we made the bargain, for I make you acquainted to get married.”

“Ten dollars!” screamed Miss Dick.

“Yes, you make the bargain with me.”

“I made no such bargain,” cried the brideshrilly. “We met and loved at first sight.” Turning to Schneider, who was twirling his thumbs, she said: “Protect me, dearie.”

He said:

“I say nutting. I say nutting.”

“Willyou pay that debt?” demanded Mrs. Cohen and then, as Miss Dick did not answer, she pointed dramatically to my sister Ellen, who was standing with me laughing at the head of the stairs. “You see that lady. She is just the same as a lawyer, and she say you should pay. Pay for your man like a lady, that smart lady up there say you should.”

“Oh, oh! you old Shylock!” screamed Miss Dick hissingly. Mrs. Cohen was obliged to wipe her face and, backing away, she cried:

“Don’t you Shylock me with your watering can.”

Ellen and I were doubled up with laughter, and Mrs. Cohen seized hold of a broom, and literally swept bride and groom from the house, shouting at them all sorts of epithets and curses.

WE had been at Cohen’s less than a month, when Wallace wrote he could wait no longer.

He had not sold his play, but he had a very good position now as associate editor of a big magazine, and he said he was making ample money to support a wife. So he was coming for his little Ellen at once. We were terribly excited, particularly as Wallace followed up the letter with a telegram to expect him next day, and sure enough the next day he arrived.

He did not want any “fussy” wedding. Only papa and I were to be present. Wallace did not even want us, but Ellen insisted. She looked sweet in her little dress (I had made it), and although I knew Wallace was good and a genius and adored my sister, I felt broken-hearted at the thought of losing her, and it was all I could do to keep from crying at the ceremony.

As the train pulled out, I felt so utterly desolate that I stretched out my arms to it and cried out aloud:

“Ellen, Ellen, please don’t go. Take me, too.”

I never realized till then how much I loved my sister. Dear little Ellen, with her love of all that was best in life, her sense of humor, her large, generous heart, and her absolute purity. If only she had stayed by my side I am sure her influence would have kept me from all the mistakes and troubles that followed in my life, if only by her disgust and contempt of all that was dishonorable and unclean. But Wallace had taken our Ellen, and I had lost my best friend, my sister and my chum.

That night I cried myself to sleep. I thought of all the days Ellen and I played together. Even as little girls mama had given us our special house tasks together. We would peel potatoes and shell peas or sew together, and as we worked we would tell each other stories, which we invented as we went along. Our stories were long and continuous, and full of the most extravagant and unheard of adventures and impossible riches, heavenly beauty and bravery that was wildly reckless.

There was one story Ellen continued for weeks. She called it: “The Princess who used Diamonds as Pebbles and made bonfires out of one-hundred-dollar bills.” I made up one called: “The Queen who Tamed Lions and Tigers with a Smile,” and more of that kind.

Mama would send Ellen and me upon messages sometimes quite a distance from our house, for wehad English friends living at the other side of the town. The French quarter was cheaper to live in and that was why we lived in Hochelaga. Ellen and I used to walk sometimes three miles each way to Mrs. McAlpin’s house on Sherbrooke Street. To vary the long walk we would hop along in turn, holding one another’s legs by the foot, or we would walk backward, counting the cracks in the sidewalks that we stepped over. One day a young man stood still in the street to watch us curiously. Ellen was holding one of my feet and I was hopping along on the other. He came up to us and said:

“Say, sissy, did you hurt your foot?”

“No,” I returned, “we’re just playing Lame Duck.”

It was strange now, as I lay awake, crying over the going of my sister, that all the queer little funny incidents of our childhood together came thronging to my mind. I vividly remembered a day when mama was sick and the doctor said she could have chicken broth. Well, there was no one home to kill the chicken, for that was the time papa went to England. Ellen and I volunteered to kill one, for Sung Sung, our old servant, believed it would be unlucky to kill one with the master away—one of his everlasting superstitions. Ellen and I caught the chicken. Then I held it down on the block of wood, while Ellen was tochop the head off. Ellen raised the hatchet, but when it descended she lowered it very gently, and began to cut the head off slowly. Terrified, I let go. Ellen was trembling, and the chicken ran from us with its head bleeding and half off.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est? Qu’est-ce que c’est? De little girl, she is afraid. See me, I am not scared of nutting.”

It was the French grocer boy. He took that unfortunate chicken, and placing its bleeding head between the door and jamb, he slammed the door quickly, and the head was broken. I never did like that boy, now I hated him. Ellen looked very serious and white. When we were plucking the feathers off later, she said:

“Marion, do you know we are as guilty as Emile and if it were a human being, we could be held as accomplices.”

“No, no, Ellen,” I insisted. “I did not kill it. I am not guilty. I wouldn’t be a murderer like Emile for anything in the world.”

“You’re just as bad,” said Ellen severely, “perhaps worse, because to-night you’ll probably eat part of your victim.”

I shuddered at the thought, and I did not eat any chicken that night.

When I was packing my things, preparatory to leaving Mrs. Cohen’s next morning, for I was to return home, now that Ellen was married, Mrs.Cohen came in with a large piece of cake in her hand. She was very sorry for me because I had lost my sister.

“There,” she said, “that will make you feel better. Taste it. It is good.” I could not eat their cake, because she used goose grease instead of butter, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and I pretended to take a bite. When she was not looking I stuffed it into the wastepaper basket.

“Now never mind about your sister no more,” she said kindly. “The sun will shine in your window some day.”

I was still sniffing and crying, and I said:

“It looks as if it were going to rain to-day.”

“Vell then,” she said, “it vill not be dry.”

IWAS at an age—nearly eighteen now—when girls want and need chums and confidantes. I was bubbling over with impulses that needed an outlet, and only foolish young things like myself were capable of understanding me. With Ellen gone, I sought and found girl friends I believed to be congenial.

My sister Ada, because of her superiority in age and character to me, would not condescend to chum with me. Nevertheless, she heartily disapproved of my choice in friends, and constantly reiterated that my tastes were low. Life was a serious matter to Ada, who had enormous ambitions, and had already been promised a position on our chief newspaper, to which she had contributed poems and stories. To Ada, I was a frivolous, silly young thing, who needed constantly to be squelched, and she undertook to do the squelching, unsparingly, herself.

“Since we are obliged,” said Ada, “to live in a neighborhood with people who are not our equals, I think it a good plan to keep to ourselves. That’s the only way to be exclusive. Now, thatGertie Martin” (Gertie was my latest friend) “is a noisy American girl. She talks through her nose, and is always criticizing the Canadians and comparing them with the Yankees. As for that Lu Fraser” (another of my friends) “she can’t even speak the Queen’s English properly, and her uncle keeps a saloon.”

Though I stoutly defended my friends, Ada’s nagging had an unconscious effect upon me, and for a time I saw very little of the girls.

Then one evening, Gertie met me on the street, and told me that, through her influence, Mr. Davis (also an American) had decided to ask me to take a part in “Ten Nights in a Bar Room,” which was to be given at a “Pop” by the Montreal Amateur Theatrical Club, of which he was the head. I was so excited and happy about this that I seized hold of Gertie and danced with her on the sidewalk, much to the disgust of my brother Charles, who was passing with his new wife.

Mr. Davis taught elocution and dramatic art, and he was a man of tremendous importance in my eyes. He was always getting up concerts and entertainments, and no amateur affair in Montreal seemed right without his efficient aid. The series of “Pops” he was now giving were patronized by all the best people of the city and he had an imposing list of patrons and patronesses. Moreover the plays were to be produced in a real theatre, not merely a hall, and so they had somewhat the character of professional performances.

To my supreme joy, I was given the part of the drunkard’s wife, and there were two glorious weeks in which we rehearsed and Mr. Davis trained us. He said one day that I was the “best actress” of them all, and he added that although he charged twenty-five dollars a month to his regular pupils he would teach me for ten, and if I couldn’t afford that, for five, and if there was no five to be had, then for nothing. I declared fervently that I would repay him some day, and he laughed, and said: “I’ll remind you when that ‘some day’ comes.”

Well, the night arrived, and I was simply delirious with joy. I learned how to “make up,” and I actually experienced stage fright when I first went on, but I soon forgot myself.

When I was crawling on the floor across the stage, trying to get something to my drunken husband, a voice from the audience called out:

“Oh, Mar-ri-on! Oh, Ma-ri-on! You’re on the bum! You’re on the bum!”

It was my little brother Randle, who, with several small boys had got free seats away up in front, by telling the ticket man that his sister was playing the star part. I vowed mentally to box his ears good and hard when I got home.

When the show was over, Mr. Davis came tothe dressing room, and said, right before all the girls:

“Marion, come to my studio next week, and we’ll start those lessons, and when we put on the next ‘Pop,’ which I believe will be ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ we will find a good part for you.”

“Oh, Mr. Davis,” I cried, “are you going to make an actress of me?”

“We’ll see! We’ll see!” he said, smiling. “It will depend on yourself, and if you are willing to study.”

“I’ll sit up all night long and study,” I assured him.

“The worst thing you could do,” he answered. “We want to save these peaches,” and he pinched my cheek.

Mr. Davis did lots of things that in other men would have been offensive. He always treated the girls as if they were children. People in Montreal thought him “sissified,” but I am glad there are some men more like the gentler sex.

So I began to take lessons in elocution, and dramatic art. Oh! but I was a happy girl in those days. It is true, Mr. Davis was very strict, and he would make me go over lines again and again before he was satisfied, but when I got them finally right and to suit him, he would rub his hands, blow his nose and say:

“Fine! Fine! There’s the real stuff in you.”

And what with Nora crying with sympathy and excitement.

He once said that I was the only pupil he had who had an atom of promise in her. He declared Montreal peculiarly lacking in talent of that sort, though he said he had searched all over the place for even a “spark of fire.” I, at least, loved the work, was deadly in earnest and, finally, so he said, I was pretty, and that was something.

We studied “Camille,” “The Marble Heart” and “Romeo and Juliet.” All of my spare time at home, I spent memorizing and rehearsing. I would get a younger sister, Nora, who was absorbedly interested, to act as a dummy. I would make her be Armand or Armand’s father.

“Now, Nora,” I would say, “when I come to the word ‘Her,’ you must say: ‘Camille! Camille’!”

Then I would begin, addressing Nora as Armand:

“You are not speaking to a cherished daughter of society, but a woman of the world, friendless and fearless. Loved by those whose vanity she gratifies, despised by those who ought to pity her—her—Her—”

I would look at Nora and repeat: “Her—!” and Nora would wake up from her trance of admiration of me and say:

“Camel! Camel!”

“No, no!” I would yell, “Thatis—” (pointing to the right—Mr. Davis called that “Dramaticaction”) “yourway!Thisway—” (pointing to the left) “is mine!”

Then throwing myself on the dining-room sofa, I would sob and moan and cough (Camille had consumption, you may recall), and what with Nora crying with sympathy and excitement, and the baby generally waking up, there would be an awful noise in our house.

I remember papa coming half-way down the stairs one day and calling out:

“What in the devil is the matter with that Marion? Has she taken leave of her senses?”

Mama answered from the kitchen:

“No, papa, she’s learning elocution and dramatic art from Mr. Davis; but I’m sure she’s not suited to be an actress, for she lisps and her nose is too short. But do make her stop, or the neighbors will think we are quarreling.”

“Stop this minute!” ordered papa, “and don’t let me hear any more such nonsense.”

I betook myself to the barn.

THE snow was crisp and the air as cold as ice. We were playing the last performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” We had been playing it for two weeks, and I had been given two different parts, Marie Claire, in which, to my joy, I wore a gold wig and a lace tea-gown—which I made from an old pair of lace curtains and a lavender silk dress mama had had when they were rich and she dressed for dinner—and Cassy. I did love that part where Cassy says:

“Simon Legree, you are afraid of me, and you have reason to be, for I have got the devil in me!”

I used to hiss those words at him and glare until the audience clapped me for that. Ada saw me play Cassy one night, and she went home and told mama that I had “sworn like a common woman before all the people on the stage” and that I ought not to be allowed to disgrace the family. But little I cared for Ada in those days.Iwas learning to be an actress!

On this last night, in fact, I experienced all thesensations of a successful star. Someone had passed up to me, over the footlights if you please, a real bouquet of flowers, and with these clasped to my breast, I had retired smiling and bowing from the stage.

To add to my bliss, Patty Chase, the girl who played Topsy, came running in to say that a gentleman friend of hers was “crazy” to meet me. He was the one who had sent me the flowers. He wanted to know if I wouldn’t take supper with him and a friend and Patty that night.

My! I felt like a regular professional actress. To think an unknown man had admired me from the front, and was actually seeking my acquaintance! I hesitated, however, because Patty was not the sort of girl I was accustomed to go out with. I liked Patty pretty well myself, but my brother Charles had one day come to the house especially to tell papa some things about her—he had seen me walking with Patty on the street—and papa had forbidden me to go out with her again. As I hesitated, she said:

“It isn’t as if they are strangers, you know. One of them, Harry Bond, is my own fellow. You know who his folks are, and but for them we’d have been married long ago. Well, Harry’s friend, the one who wants to meet you, is a swell, too, and he hasn’t been out from England long. Harry says his folks are big nobs over there, and

Someone had passed up to me over the footlights, if you please, a real bouquet of flowers.

he is studying law here. His folks send him a remittance and I guess it’s a pretty big one, for he’s living at the Windsor, and I guess he can treat us fine. So come along. You’ll not get such a chance again.”

“Patty,” I said, “I’m afraid I dare not. Mama hates me to be out late, and, see, it’s eleven already.”

“Why, the night’s just beginning,” cried Patty.

There was a rap at the door, and Patty exclaimed:

“Here they are now!”

All the girls in the room were watching me—enviously, I thought—and one of them made a catty remark about Patty, who had gone out in the hall, and was whispering to the men. I decided not to go, but when I came out of the room there they were all waiting for me and Patty exclaimed:

“Here she is,” and, dragging me along by the hand, she introduced me to the men.

I found myself looking up into the face of a tall young man of about twenty-three. He had light curly hair and blue eyes. His features were fine and clear-cut, and, to my girlish eyes, he appeared extraordinarily handsome and distinguished, far more so even than Colonel Stevens, who had, up till then, been my ideal of manly perfection. Everything he wore had an elegance aboutit from his evening suit and the rich fur-lined overcoat to his opera hat and gold-topped cane. I felt flattered and overwhelmingly impressed to think that such a fine personage should have singled me out for especial attention. What is more, he was looking at me with frank and undisguised admiration. Instead of letting go my hand, which he had taken when Patty introduced us, he held it while he asked me if he couldn’t have the pleasure of taking me out to supper. As I hesitated, blushing and awfully thrilled by the hand pressing mine, Patty said:

“She’s scared. Her mother won’t let her stay out late at night. She’s never been out to supper before.”

Then she and Harry Bond burst out laughing, as if that were a good joke on me, but Mr. Bertie (his name was the Honorable Reginald Bertie—pronounced Bartie) did not laugh. On the contrary, he looked very sympathetic, and pressed my hand the closer. I thought to myself:

“My! I must have looked lovely as Marie St. Claire. Wait till he sees me as Camille.”

“I’m not afraid,” I contradicted Patty, “but mama will be worried. She sits up for me.”

This was not strictly true, but it sounded better than to say that Ada was the one who always sat up for anyone in the house who went out at night. She even used to sit up for my brother Charlesbefore he was married, and I could just imagine the cross-questioning she would put me through when I got in late. Irritated as I used to be in those days at what I called Ada’s interference in my affairs, I know now that she always had my best good at heart. Poor little delicate Ada! with her passionate devotion and loyalty to the family and her fierce, antagonistic attitude to all outside intrusion. She was morbidly sensitive.

Mr. Bertie quieted my fears by dispatching a messenger boy to our house with a note saying that I had gone with a party of friends to see the Ice Palace.

Even with Ada in the back of my mind, I was now, as Patty would say, “out for a good time,” and when Mr. Bertie carefully tucked the fur robes of the sleigh about me, I felt warm, excited and recklessly happy.

We drove over to the Square, where the Ice Palace was erected. The Windsor Hotel was filled with American guests who were on the balconies watching the torchlight procession marching around the mountain. My brother Charles was one of the snow-shoers, and the men were all dressed in white and striped blanket overcoats with pointed capuchons (cowls) on their backs or heads, and moccasins on their feet.

It was a beautiful sight, that procession, andlooked like a snake of light, winding about old Mount Royal, and when the fireworks burst all about the monumental Ice Palace, inside of which people were dancing and singing, really it seemed to me like a scene in fairyland. I felt a sense of pride in our Montreal, and looking up at Mr. Bertie, to note the effect of so much beauty upon him, I found him watching me instead.

The English, when they first come out to Canada, always assume an air of patronage toward the “Colonials,” as they call us, just as if, while interested, they are also highly amused by our crudeness. Now Mr. Bertie said:

“We’ve seen enough of this Ice Palace’s hard, cold beauty. Suppose we go somewhere and get something warm inside us. Gad, I’m dry.”

Harry told the driver to take us to a place whose name I could not catch, and presently we drew up before a brilliantly lighted restaurant. Harry Bond jumped out, and Patty after him. I was about to follow when I felt a detaining hand upon my arm, and Bertie called out to Bond:

“I’ve changed my mind, Bond. I’ll be hanged if I care to take Miss Ascough into that place.”

Bond was angry, and demanded to know why Bertie had told him to order supper for four. He said he had called the place up from the theatre. I thought that queer. How could they

I found him watching me.

have known I would go, since I had not decided till the last minute?

“Never mind,” said Bertie. “I’ll fix it up with you later. Go on in without us. It’s all right.”

Harry and Patty laughed, and, arm-in-arm, they went into the restaurant. All the time Bertie had kept a hand on my arm. I was too surprised and disappointed to utter a word, and after he had again tucked the rug about me, he said gently:

“I wouldn’t take a sweet little girl like you into such a place, and that Patty isn’t a fit person for you to associate with.”

I said:

“You must think I’m awfully good.”

I was disappointed and hungry.

“Yes, I do think so,” he said gravely.

“Well, I’m not,” I declared. “Besides, I’m going to be an actress, and actresses can do lots of things other people get shocked about. Mr. Davis says they are privileged to be unconventional.”

“You, an actress!” he exclaimed. He said the word as if it were something disgraceful, like Ada might have said it.

“Yes,” I returned. “I’ll die if I can’t be one.”

“Whatever put such an idea in your head. You’re just a refined, innocent, sweet, adorablelittle girl, far too sweet and pure and lovely to live such a dirty life.”

He was leaning over me in the sleigh, and holding my hand under the fur robe. I thought to myself: “Neither St. Vidal nor Colonel Stevens would make love as thrillingly as he can, and he’s certainly the handsomest person I’ve ever seen.”

I felt his arm going about my waist, and his young face come close to mine. I knew he was going to kiss me, and I had never been kissed before. I became agitated and frightened. I twisted around and pulled away from him so that despite his efforts to reach my lips his mouth grazed, instead, my ear. Much as I really liked it, I said with as much hauteur as I could command:

“Sir, you have no right to do that. How dare you?”

He drew back, and replied coldly:

“I beg your pardon, I’m sure. I did not mean to offend you.”

He hadn’t offended me at all, and I was debating how on earth I was to let him know he hadn’t, and at the same time keep him at the “proper distance” as Ada would say, when we stopped in front of our house. He helped me out, and lifting his hat loftily, was bidding me good-bye when I said shyly:

“M-Mr. Bertie, you—you d-didn’t offend me.”

Instantly he moved up to me and eagerly seized my hand. His face looked radiant, and I did think him the most beautiful man I had ever seen. With a boyish chuckle, he said:

“I’m coming to see you to-morrow night. May I?”

I nodded, and then I said:

“You mustn’t mind our house. We’re awfully poor people.” I wanted to prepare him. He laughed boyishly at that and said:

“Good heavens, that’s nothing. So are most of my folks—poor as church mice. As far as that goes, I’m jolly poor myself. Haven’t a red cent except what the governor sends out to me. I’m going to seeyouanyway, and not your house.”

He looked back at the driver whose head was all muffled up under his fur collar. Then he said:

“Will you give me that kiss now?”

I returned faintly:

“I c-can’t. I think Ada’s watching from the window.”

He looked up quickly.

“Who’s Ada?”

“My sister. She watches me like a hawk.”

“Don’t blame her,” he said softly, and then all of a sudden he asked:

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Do you?”

“Well, I didn’t—till to-night, but, by George, I do—now!”

IAM not likely to forget that first call of Reginald Bertie upon me. I had thought about nothing else, and, in fact, had been preparing all day.

I fixed over my best dress and curled my hair. I cleaned all of the lower floor of our house, and dusted the parlor and polished up the few bits of furniture, and tried to cover up the worn chairs and horsehair sofa.

Every one of the children had promised to “be good,” and I had bribed them all to keep out of sight.

Nevertheless, when the front doorbell rang that evening, to my horror, I heard the wild, noisy scampering of my two little brothers down the stairs, racing to see which should be the first to open the door; and trotting out from the dining-room right into the hall came Kathleen, aged three, and Violet, four and a half. They had been eating bread and molasses and had smeared it all over their faces and clothes, and they stood staring solemnly at Mr. Bertie as though they had never seen a man before. On the landing above,looking over the banister, and whispering and giggling, were Daisy, Lottie and Nellie.

Oh, how ashamed I felt that he should see all those dirty, noisy children. He stood there by the door, staring about him, with a look of amazement and amusement on his face; and, as he paused, the baby crawled in on hands and knees. She had a meat bone in her hand, and she squatted right down at his feet, and while staring up at him, wide-eyed, she went right on loudly sucking on that awful bone.

My face was burning, and I felt that I never could live down our family. Suddenly he burst out laughing. It was a boyish, infectious laugh, which was quickly caught up and mocked and echoed by those fiendish little brothers of mine.

“Are there any more?” he demanded gaily. “My word! They are like little steps and stairs.”

I said:

“How do you do, Mr. Bertie?”

He gave me a quizzical glance, and said in a low voice:

“What’s the matter with calling me ‘Reggie?’”

Nora had run down the stairs and now, to my intense relief, I could hear her coaxing the children to come away, and she would tell them a story. Nora was a wonderful story-teller, and the children would listen to her by the hour. So would all the neighbors’ children. I had told herthat if she kept the children out of sight I would give her a piece of ribbon on which she had set her heart. So she was keeping her word, and presently I had the satisfaction of watching her go off with the baby on one arm, Kathleen and Violet holding to her other hand and skirt, and the boys in the rear.

Mr. Bertie, or “Reggie,” as he said I was to call him, followed me into the “parlor.” It was a room we seldom used in winter on account of the cold, but I had coaxed dear papa to help me clean out the fireplace—the only way it was heated—our Canadian houses did not have furnaces in those days—and the boys had brought me in some wood from the shed. So, at least, we had a cheerful fire crackling away in the grate, and although our furniture was old, it did not look so bad. Besides he didn’t seem to notice anything except me, for as soon as we got inside he seized my hands and said:

“Give you my word, I’ve been thinking about you ever since last night.”

Then he pulled me up toward him, and said:

“I’m going to get that kiss to-night.”

Just then in came mama and Ada, and feeling awfully embarrassed and confused, I had to introduce him. Mama only stayed a moment, but Ada settled down with her crochet work by the lamp. She never worked in the parlor onother nights, but she sat there all of that evening, with her eye on Mr. Bertie and occasionally saying something brief and sarcastic. Mama said, as she was going out:

“I’ll send papa right down to see Mr. Bertie. He looks so much like papa’s brother who died in India. Besides, papa always likes to meet anyone from home.”

Papa came in later, and he and Mr. Bertie found much to talk about. They had lived in the same places in England, and even found they knew some mutual friends and relatives. Papa’s sisters were all famous sportswomen and hunters. One was the amateur tennis champion, and, of course, Mr. Bertie had heard of her.

Then papa inquired what he was doing in Montreal, and Bertie said he was studying law, and hoped to pass his finals in about eight months.

Then, he added that as soon as he could get together a fair practice, he expected to marry and settle down in Montreal. When he said that, he looked directly at me, and I blushed foolishly, and Ada coughed significantly and sceptically.

I really didn’t get a chance to talk to him all evening, and even when he was going I could hardly say good-bye to him for mama came back with Daisy and Nellie, the two girls next to me, and what with Ada and papa there besides andeverybody wishing him good-bye and mama inviting him to call again, I found myself almost in the background. He smiled, however, at me over mama’s head, and he said, while shaking hands with her:

“I’ll be delighted. May I come—er—to-morrow night?”

I saw Ada glance at mama, and I knew what was in their minds. Were they to be forced to go through this all again? The dressing up, the suppressing of the children, the using of the unused parlor, the burning of our fuel in the fireplace, etc. Papa, however, said warmly:

“By all means. I’ve some pretty good sketches of Macclesfield I’d like to show you.”

“That will be charming,” said my caller and, with a smile and bow that included us all, he was gone.

I did not get that kiss after all, and I may as well confess I was disappointed.

THE winter was passing into spring and Reggie had been a regular visitor at our house every night. The family had become used, or as Ada put it “resigned,” to him. Though she regarded him with suspicion and thought papa ought to ask his “intentions,” she knew that I was deeply in love with him. She had wrung this admission from me and she expressed herself as being sorry for me.

Because of Reggie’s dislike for everything connected with the stage, I had stopped my elocution lessons and I was making some money at my painting. We had had a fine carnival that winter, and I did a lot of work for an art store, painting snow scenes and sports on diminutive toboggans, as souvenirs of Canada. These American visitors bought and I had, for a time, all the work I could do. This work and, of course, Reggie’s strenuous objections kept my mind from my former infatuation.

Then, one night, he took me to see Julia Marlowe in “Romeo and Juliet.” All my old passionand desire to act swept over me, and I nearly wept to think of having to give it up. When we were going home, I told Reggie how I felt, and this is what he said:

“Marion, which would you prefer to be, an actress or my wife?”

We had come to a standstill in the street. Everything was quiet and still, and the balmy sweetness of the Spring night seemed to enwrap even this ugly quarter of the city in a certain charm and beauty. I felt a sweet thrilling sense of deep tenderness and yearning toward Reggie, and also a feeling of gratitude and humility. It seemed to me that he was stooping down from a very great height to poor, insignificant me. More than ever he seemed a wonderful and beautiful hero in my young eyes.

“Well, dear?” he prompted, and I answered with a soft question:

“Reggie, do you really love me?”

“My word, darling,” was his reply. “I fell in love with you that first night.”

“But perhaps that was because I—I looked so nice as Marie Claire,” I suggested tremulously. I wanted to be, oh, so sure of Reggie.

“You little goose,” he laughed. “It was because you were you. Give me that kiss now. It’s been a long time coming.”

I had known him three months, but not till thatnight had we had an opportunity for “that kiss,” and itwassweet, and I the very happiest girl in the world.

“Now we must hurry home,” said Reggie, “as I want to speak to your father, as that’s the proper thing to do, you know.”

“Let’s not tell papa yet,” I said. “Ihatethe proper thing, Reggie. Why do you always want to be ‘proper.’”

Reggie looked at me, surprised.

“Why, dear girl, it’s the proper thing to be—er—proper, don’t you know.”

There was something so stolidly English about Reggie and his reply. It made me laugh, and I slipped my hand through his arm and we went happily down the street. Just for fun—I always liked to shock Reggie, he took everything so seriously—I said:

“Don’t be too cocksure I’ll marry you. I still would love to be an actress.”

“My word, Marion,” said he. “Whatever put such a notion in your head? I wish you’d forget all about the rotten stage. Actresses are an immoral lot.”

“Can’t one be immoral without being an actress?” I asked meekly.

“We won’t discuss that,” said Reggie, a bit testily. “Let’s drop the dirty subject.”

When he was going that night, and after hehad kissed me good-bye several times in the dark hall, he said—but as if speaking to himself:

“Gad! but the governor’s going to be purple over this.”

The “governor” was his father.

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