Gerald’s breath was almost taken away by this unexpected proposal. He had heard of the firm of “Lyttleton & Rand,” both members of which were registered as eminent lawyers in New York. He instantly recognized the fact that it would be a great thing for him to become associated with them, while eight hundred dollars, over and above all living expenses, would be quite a leap beyond fifteen dollars a week, and finding himself. Then, too, the prospect of travel and sightseeing was very alluring.
He was dazzled, almost paralyzed, for a moment, by such unexpected good fortune, coming to him just at this time, when he had seemed to be under such a cloud; but he managed to inquire with a good degree of outward composure:
“What will my duties be?”
“Well, I should say something like what they were with Mr. Brewster,” Mr. Lyttleton responded; “the writing of letters, both confidential and ordinary; the keeping of my private accounts; in fact, whatever of a clerical nature would naturally fall to a lawyer’s secretary, and—perfect loyalty and integrity. I warn you, also, that I shall have plenty of work for you to do.”
“I do not mind work,” said Gerald eagerly.“In fact, I like to be a little crowded. I think it keeps up one’s enthusiasm. The position is very tempting, Mr. Lyttleton, but——”
“But what?” demanded the gentleman, eying him sharply.
“I am wondering if it would be quite honest in me to accept it when you really know nothing of me or my qualifications; and going out of the country, too, it might be quite awkward for you if I should not fill the bill.”
Mr. Lyttleton gave vent to a little laugh.
“Now I begin to understand what Adam Brewster meant when he said you were ‘morbidly honest,’” he replied. “But, in case you do not fill the bill, as you express it, I suppose I could ship you back home again. However, if you are willing to come with me, upon so short an acquaintance, I will assume the responsibility of your ability, and we’ll settle the matter here and now. Is it a bargain?”
“Yes, sir, and thank you very much,” Gerald heartily replied.
“Oh, you needn’t feel under any obligation, for I am going to make you earn your money,” retorted his companion, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes, but in a very satisfied tone. “Will you have a glass of wine with your dessert?”
“Thank you—no; I never take wine—just a cup of coffee, if you please.”
“Coffee for two,” briefly ordered the lawyer; but the look which he bestowed upon his new clerk was one of unqualified approbation.
“Do you disapprove of wines?” he questioned, as the waiter disappeared.
“I disapprove of the abuse of them,” said Gerald, flushing; “and if one does not use them at all one can never be guilty of excess.”
“That is a self-evident fact, surely,” said his companion. “How about smoking?”
“I do not smoke.”
“H’m! you are what might be termed a ‘model young man,’” his employer dryly observed.
“I am nothing of the kind, if, by that, you mean to imply that I assume to have no faults,” Gerald retorted, with a little flash in his eyes, for he began to suspect that he was being quizzed; “but I have always claimed that I would never become a slave to any habit.”
“And you are right, Winchester—I wish there were more young men in the world who possessed just that spirit of independence,” said Mr. Lyttleton, in a friendly tone. “Wines and liquors I shun, but I smoke—my cigar I cannot do without; I wish I could. Now,” he added, as he pushed back his chair, “I have an engagement, and must hurry away; but I would like to have you come to my office to-morrow morning at nine, sharp, when I shall want to talk with you further about your duties.”
“Very well, sir. I will be on time,” Gerald returned, and then the two shook hands cordially, and separated.
It was a little after two when they left the restaurant, and Gerald thought he might as well go directly up-town to call upon Allison, and inform her of his flattering prospects.
But he sighed when he remembered that the ocean would soon roll between them, and it would be many months before he could see her again.
A servant admitted him, and conducted him to the drawing-room, and a few moments later, Allison came running down-stairs, with an eager elasticity in her steps that set her lover’s pulses leaping with secret joy.
As she entered the room, she sprang to meet him with outstretched hands and smiling lips, although the brilliant flush upon her cheeks and the shy drooping of her golden-fringed lids betrayed that she was not quite at ease.
“I am glad to see you, Gerald,” she said, cordially; “it is so long since you were here; and, oh! I can hardly realize all that has happened since that day,” she went on, with starting tears. “It breaks my heart, too, to think how you have been shut up in that dreadful place. Why didn’t you send me word, you bad, bad boy?”
“I did not like to trouble you, Allison—I thought you had enough to bear without adding to your burdens.”
“But it would have helped me to bear mine—it would have given me something else to think of,” said the fair girl; “and then I could have told what I knew, and you would have been set free.”
“No, that could not have been accomplished, for there was no one who would become my bondsman, and the affair had to come to trial; and, besides, Allison, I really did not think that you had overheard anything of importance that would make your testimony of any value,” Gerald explained.
“Well, you might at least have allowed me to prove my friendship for you, and show a little sympathy. I think it was just dreadful, Gerald, and I nearly cried my eyes out yesterday after I came home and had time to realize what you must have suffered. Now do tell me all about it, for I only heard a brief account of the case when I went to the bank. Mr. Phillips said that you were arrested for being found in the vault, with some valuables belonging to papa, and some jewels that were mama’s, besides doing something that I do not understand to some books. He said you were then on trial, and so I hurried away—remembering what I had heard papa say about your honesty—to see if I couldn’t help you.”
“You saved me, Allison—I should have had to serve a term in State’s prison but for you,” said the young man tremulously.
“Well, I want you to begin at the beginning and tell me all,” Allison commanded, as she seated herself upon the sofa beside her guest, and prepared to listen to his story.
Gerald began with the note which he had received from Mr. Brewster, and related all that had occurred in connection with his trouble, up to the time of the trial, while Allison hung almost breathless upon his words.
“And John Hubbard was the one who found you in the vault, and had you arrested, in spite of the fact that you had papa’s keys, and told him that he had sent you there to perform an errand for him?” she exclaimed excitedly, when he concluded.
“Yes.”
“Why, he must have known that you had been sent there?”
“He did know it, Allison; but he asserted, as you know, that I stole the keys from the drawer in the table, while I was here that Saturday afternoon.”
“But I proved that you did not,” cried Allison exultantly, “and he didn’t seem to be very well pleased about it, either.”
“No,” said Gerald gravely; “he had reasons of his own for wanting to ruin my reputation.”
“What reasons?”
“He has long hated me—he has been scheming for nearly two years to get me discharged from the bank, and I am confident that it was he who tampered with the books, to make them show that I had been dishonest, although, of course, I cannot prove this.”
“It was a bright idea of getting that expert,” said Allison.
“Yes, that was Professor Emerson’s idea, and it worked well. The professor returned from Washington only two days before the trial, and, upon learning the charges, immediately said he knew a man who, he thought, would help me. He looked him up, then the two demanded the books for examination, and it did not take Mr. Plum very long to decide that some very crooked work had been done by somebody whose name was not Winchester,” Gerald explained. “I watched Hubbard while he was making his statements,” he added,“and I knew by the look in his eyes that he had been balked in a game which he had felt pretty sure of winning.”
“And yet papa trusted him,” said Allison musingly.
“Surely, Allison, you do not think I doctored those books? You cannot believe that I would be guilty of defrauding your father after all his kindness to me?” he cried, in a wounded tone.
“Oh, no! I did not mean to imply that, Gerald,” she returned earnestly. “I would not have hurt you like that for all the world! No, indeed, Gerald, if all the world said you were guilty, I would never have believed it.”
“Could you have trusted me to such an extent, Allison?” he breathed, bending to look into her eyes, his face lighting with sudden joy.
“You know I could—nothing could ever make me lose faith in you. What I did mean, when I said that papa trusted Mr. Hubbard, was, it seemed strange to me that so shrewd a business man as my father was should have been so deceived in any one.”
“Allison, I do not believe that he was deceived; I imagine he knew he was not to be trusted implicitly,” said Gerald thoughtfully. “I used to fear, sometimes, that John Hubbard had managed to draw Mr. Brewster into some transactions that were beginning to complicate his business, and so made it necessary for him to retain the man.”
“Oh, I hate him with all my heart!” Allison suddenly burst forth, with startling vehemence; “and, Gerald, I am going to tell you something—I must tell somebody: that man asked me the other day to—don’t look at me so, please,” she interposed, averting her scarlet face—“he asked me to marry him.”
“Allison!” exclaimed Gerald, in breathless astonishment, and turning deathly pale; “has he dared—has he presumed upon the position he occupies toward you to do such a thing? Oh, he is a bigger rascal than I thought him. Allison, you will not let him either coax or force you to ruin your life in that way.”
“Why, of course not—I told him I couldn’t marry him; you know I could not, Gerald,” the ingenuous girl replied, and involuntarily moving a little nearer his companion, with a confiding air that thrilled him with joy, and yet what she had told him made him very uneasy.
“I cannot understand why papa should have given him authority over me for so many years,” she said.
“I cannot, either—it seems very strange to me,” Gerald observed thoughtfully. He then told her of Mr. Lyttleton’s proposition, and his contemplated tour abroad; but before he was through Allison dropped her face upon her hands and burst into tears.
“Oh, Gerald, don’t go!—I cannot spare you!” she sobbed.
A shock of joy went quivering through the young man at her words, although his own heart was almost rent in twain in view of the approaching separation. Yet he felt that he had no right to betray the great love he entertained for her. She was young—she was alone in the world, and he felt that it would not be quite honorable to take advantage of either her youth or loneliness to make her commit herself. But, oh! he longed, mightily, to gather her in his arms, tell her all, and ask her to wait until he could win a position worthyof her acceptance, when he would lay himself and all he possessed at her feet.
He was silent so long, thinking of this, and trying to control his yearning, that she finally lifted a wondering glance to him, and thus caught him unawares—reading all that was in his heart through the loving eyes which but too plainly told its story.
The next moment her golden head lay upon his breast, and his trembling arms enfolded her.
“My darling! my darling! I did not mean to betray myself; but you caught me napping,” he breathed, laying his cheek against her shining hair.
Allison lifted her head and flashed him a roguish look through her tears.
“You betrayed yourself a long time ago,” she whispered, a happy smile wreathing her red lips; “have you forgotten that night at Lakeview?”
“No, dear, but I half-hoped that you had, and I have had many a guilty twinge since, recalling it. I really had no right to betray my love for you, nor abuse the confidence and hospitality of your father in any such way; but it was done before I was hardly aware of it. But, Allison, now that the veil has been entirely rent asunder, I must tell you that I began to love you when I first came to your father, and every year has only served to strengthen my affection. But I am not going to ask you to bind yourself to me by any promise, even now. I feel it would not be fair to you. You are not yet through school, and after you graduate you will want to see something of the world; so I am going to leave you free to choose for yourself, in case you should ever meet any one else whom you might love more than you love me; I could better bear to lose you than to have you make a lifelong mistake.”
Allison here sat up and looked her lover full in the eye.
“Gerald, do you think it could be possible that you have made a mistake in what you have just told me?” she questioned.
“No, I am sure it would not be possible for me ever to love any one but you,” he earnestly returned.
“And do you think man capable of greater fidelity than woman?”
“N-o, perhaps not; still I will not exact any promise from you at present, Allison,” he gravely replied; “by and by, when you have completed your studies—when you have been out in society a while—when I have won my spurs, as the knights of old used to say—if you are then free, and of the same mind, I shall feel that I have a right to ask you to give yourself to me.”
“Oh, what a complicated and indefinite proposition!” said Allison, laughing, but with an impatient shrug of her graceful shoulders; “but what do you mean by ‘when you have won your spurs?’”
“Why, when I have made money enough to raise me above the suspicion of being a fortune-hunter,” was the smiling response.
“But suppose you do not achieve success by the time you have indicated?” queried Allison demurely.
“Then I suppose I must wait until I do,” with a sigh.
“Ah! I thought so,” she retorted saucily;“you are far too proud, my Gerald. Perhaps I am lacking in that quality, and I am very sure that I am not ‘morbidly conscientious,’ so I am going to make you promise me something, here and now.”
He smiled fondly down at her. She was so sweet and lovable, so charmingly frank, to let him see how dear he was to her, and yet not in the least unmaidenly about it.
“Very well; I will promise anything you ask,” he said tenderly; “but first, since I have confessed so much, let me hear you say that you love me.”
She leaned toward him with parted lips and gleaming eyes; she clasped her small, white hands, and laid them upon his breast.
“Gerald,” she breathed softly, “you know that I love you with all my heart.”
Again he folded her close, his face luminous with happiness.
“Bless you, my darling!” he said, with passionate earnestness. “Now you may ask me whatever you will.”
“Well, then, Gerald,” said Allison, regarding her lover earnestly, “you know, of course, that papa left me a lot of money.”
“Yes, I know that Mr. Brewster was supposed to be a very rich man,” the young man responded, with a regretful sigh.
“And one little body, like me, couldn’t begin to spend it all—especially when she is cooped up in a boarding school, and has an ogre of a guardian to hold her in check,” the young girl continued, with a mock, injured air.
“Well?” said Gerald, smiling at her mood, yet not suspecting toward what it was tending.
“You say that you—love me very much, Gerald?”
“Ah, my darling, I have no words to tell you all there is in my heart.”
“And you know that I—I am every bit as fond of you?” This with a shy look and blush that were almost bewildering.
“I trust so, dearest.”
“Then nothing should ever be allowed to come between us as a barrier.”
“No, indeed! Nothing ever shall come between us—at least, if I can prevent it,” rashly asserted this unsuspicious wooer.
A happy little laugh rippled over Allison’s scarlet lips at this assurance, and, laying her hands upon his shoulders, she looked straight into his eyes, while a gleam of triumph shone in her own.
“There!” she said, drawing a long breath; “now I have you just where I want you, and you must promise me that, when I have completed my studies, and you get back from Europe and are nicely established in your position—whether you have made a lot of money or not—you will take me just as I am. I shall have plenty, and there will be no reason why we should not share it together.”
“But, Allison——” Gerald began, looking flushed and embarrassed as, at least, he comprehended her meaning.
She playfully laid her slender fingers upon his lips; but he captured her hand, though with a very tender look into the lovely eyes upraised to his.
“You must let me finish what I was going to say, dear,” he said resolutely. “You must know that no man could respect himself to ask a woman to marry him if he could not give her a comfortable home and feel that he was, in every sense of the word, her protector. I never could be dependent upon your fortune, Allison,” he concluded, with an air of pride and decision which convinced her that there would be no use in discussing that point further.
She secretly admired him for the stand he had taken; but, womanlike, she wanted the last word.
“You said you would promise me anything I asked,” she said, with a pretty pout.
“But I did not think you would be guilty of taking such an unfair advantage of me,” Gerald retorted, laughing. “I cannot swear away my self-respect, to please even you,” and bending, he softly kissed the white brow that was resting against his shoulder.
“Well, but what has passed between us to-day makes you belong to me, does it not?” Allison questioned.
“Forever.”
“I don’t see, then, but that you have sworn yourself away,” she retorted slyly.
“Yes, I believe I have. What a lawyer you would have made, sweetheart!” Gerald responded, laughing again.
“Very well; it is a poor rule that will not work both ways,” Allison gravely observed; “I will not receive more than I am willing to give, and so, Gerald, our mutual watchword shall be ‘forever.’”
“My darling!” whispered the young lover, tears of emotion springing to his eyes, “surely such a spirit of loyalty should nerve my heart to any endeavor.”
“How can I let you go away across the ocean!” Allison broke forth, after a moment of silence, and in a voice of keen regret.
“Yes, it does seem a little hard that I must go,” Gerald returned;“but I am hoping a great deal from this coming year of experience with Mr. Lyttleton—I am impressed that it will be a stepping-stone toward the goal I wish to reach. Besides, I should not see much of you during the next six months, as, of course, you will soon return to school.”
“Yes; I am to go back on Saturday; but we will write to each other often.”
“Yes, I am sure there is no reason why we should not,” Gerald assented; “but, perhaps, it will be just as well that Mr. Hubbard should not know of our correspondence.”
“He will never learn of it from me,” said Allison spiritedly, and adding, with a sigh:
“Oh, I wish papa had not made him my guardian.”
“I can echo that wish most heartily,” her companion responded fervently; “and I cannot understand his doing so—allowing him such unlimited power over you, and making him sole executor of his will also; it does not seem at all like Mr. Brewster’s habitual shrewdness. By the way, has he given you your jewels, and the other box?”
“What other box? I have mama’s jewels—at least, they are in the safe in the library; Mr. Hubbard brought them directly here after the trial; but I know nothing about any other box.”
“Well, there were two boxes which I was to bring to your father; but possibly one of them contained things which do not concern you, papers, perhaps, relating to Mr. Brewster’s business. Still, I am impressed that he did not wish any one to know anything of it or its contents, and that was why he enjoined me to secrecy regarding my errand that Sunday.”
“I will ask Mr. Hubbard about it,” said Allison thoughtfully.
“Yes, I think I would,” her lover replied, “although I do not believe you will get any satisfaction from him; but it will at least let him know that you are aware of its existence and have some curiosity regarding the matter. But I must go now, dear,” he added, rising. “I have a good many things to do for myself during the week, and doubtless Mr. Lyttleton will require me at his office some of the time.”
“But you will come often between now and Saturday?” Allison pleaded, as she clasped both hands about his arms, as if loath to let him go.
“I will come as often as you like,” he answered, smiling.
“Then I shall look for you every evening; only I hope that Mr. Hubbard will not pop in upon us, and spoil everything.”
“Then every evening I will come,” Gerald replied, as he took a fond farewell of her, and went away with a very happy heart.
The remaining few days passed very swiftly to these young lovers, who spent their evenings together, without exciting the suspicions of John Hubbard, who, however, made some errand to call upon Allison almost every day.
Upon one occasion she questioned him about the box of which Gerald had spoken, asking what it contained.
“It is locked, and, as yet, I have found no key to it,” the man told her evasively, but with a quickly averted glance, which did not escape the fair girl’s watchful eyes.“Indeed, I have been too busy to think much about it,” he added; “but I imagine there is nothing in it but business papers.”
So Allison was none the wiser, as Gerald had prophesied, and on Saturday returned to her school, where, becoming absorbed in her studies, she soon forgot all about it for the time.
Gerald sailed for Europe the following Monday, and John Hubbard, upon learning of the fact, experienced a feeling of intense relief.
“Good riddance to him,” he muttered. “Now I need have no fear, for I shall have a clear field to myself.”
After Allison’s departure, Mr. Hubbard decided that it would be useless expense to keep the Brewster establishment running; consequently, he advertised it for rental, furnished, and it was taken almost immediately by a Philadelphia family, who, bringing their own servants with them, did not require any of the help who had served there so long; and thus, all the servants, with Mrs. Pollard, who had become exceedingly fond of Allison, and who felt that she was being driven from her home, were obliged to find situations elsewhere.
The house at Yonkers was disposed of in the same way; consequently, at the end of six months, when Allison had completed her education, she found herself practically homeless, until she could arrange to go to Newport for the summer, and so was obliged to take up her residence with her guardian, whose family consisted of only himself and his mother, with their servants.
They were not to go to Newport until the middle of July, as Mr. Hubbard had been so busy he had been unableto attend to the opening of the cottage; but he managed to make his own home so pleasant, and Allison so heartily welcome, while she found Mrs. Hubbard such a dear old lady, she was wholly content to remain with them.
He did not once refer to his previous proposal of marriage; he continued her the same liberal allowance which her father had made her, and gratified her every wish, making himself so agreeable and entertaining that all would probably have gone well but for an incident that occurred during the second week after her return.
Gerald returned about that time, and, feeling that Mr. Hubbard would not favor his calling upon her, she arranged to meet him at a certain point on Broadway, one day, when they were to go to Delmonico’s for lunch, and to talk over their experiences of the last half-year.
They had hardly met and greeted each other when, they were suddenly confronted by John Hubbard.
“Well, Allison, whither are you bound?” he inquired, stepping directly in her path, but without deigning Gerald even a glance of recognition.
The young girl paused aghast and flushed with mingled embarrassment and astonishment.
Then, recovering herself, her beautiful eyes began to blaze with indignation at the slight in her companion.
“Mr. Hubbard,” she said, glancing from him to Gerald, “do you not recognize Mr. Winchester?”
“I have no acquaintance with Mr. Winchester,” the man frigidly, but very unwisely, responded.“I was, however, just on my way home to get you to go with me to see that new painting at the Academy of Design.”
“I thank you, Mr. Hubbard,” Allison retorted, just as icily, “but I was on my way to lunch at Delmonico’s with Mr. Winchester. Come, Gerald.”
Whereupon Miss Brewster haughtily passed her guardian, and proceeded on her way, attended by her lover, who, although he bowed coldly to the man, found it difficult to restrain his anger at his insolence.
“But, Allison——” authoritatively began John Hubbard, looking back after the graceful, but proudly erect figure of his ward.
He might as well have addressed the paving-stones, for the independent little lady paid not the slightest heed to him.
“Gerald, I could almost strangle him for being so rude to you,” she remarked, when they were beyond hearing of the man.
“Never mind me, dear,” he replied, smiling, but regarding her with an admiring look. “I believe it would be worth while being snubbed occasionally for the sake of seeing you look so pretty in your righteous indignation over it.”
“He has been very good to me of late, and I had begun to like them—almost,” Allison explained; “but I believe this has made him more hateful to me than ever. However,”tossing her shining head defiantly, “I am not going to let it spoil our little visit together.”
They had their lunch, and a quietly jolly time over it, and then Allison insisted that Gerald himself should take her to see the painting of which Mr. Hubbard hadspoken. They passed a couple of hours thus very pleasant, and then reluctantly separated.
But they decided that, in future, they would have to be more wary about their meetings; and, as Gerald was very busy, it was doubtful about their seeing much of each other before Allison went to Newport, and now the fair girl began to chafe sorely over the fact that her fate was so closely allied with the man who was so obnoxious to her.
When she reached home on this afternoon, she found John Hubbard there before her, and wearing a very injured air.
But she paid very little attention to him until, galled by her coolness toward him, he opened fire upon her.
“I was very sorry to meet you with that disreputable fellow today,” he began, when the indignant girl whirled around upon him like a small tornado.
“Mr. John Hubbard, you will be kind enough never to speak of my friend, Mr. Winchester, in that way again,” she cried, with flaming cheeks and blazing eyes; “and I will further say that I regard your rudeness to him to-day as a personal insult to me, also.”
The man gazed at her in astonishment. He was dumfounded by such an exhibition of temper. Her manner was usually characterized by a sweetness and quietness that gave one the impression that she could not be aroused to an exhibition of passion, although the determination and obstinacy which she had shown at Gerald’s trial had betrayed a strong will.
“Really, Allison,” he began, after a moment, and realizing that it would not be wise to antagonize herstill further, “I meant no disrespect to you—you know that I have only the tenderest regard for you; but I was so taken aback upon seeing you upon the street with that—with young Winchester, I was hardly responsible for what I did or said. I have never changed my opinion regarding the young man, however, and it hurt me deeply to meet you with him.”
Allison opened her lips as if about to retort sharply to him again; but she suddenly checked herself, and turning from him, left the room without deigning him any reply.
But the man’s suspicions having been aroused, he resolved to watch his ward closely.
The result of his prying was the discovery of Gerald’s photograph, which he found in a box in one of Allison’s bureau-drawers, and with it his last letter from Europe, together with a couple of recent notes which told him a great deal regarding their relations to each other—enough to drive him into a white heat of rage, and arouse all his native villainy and cunning.
He had observed that Gerald had improved greatly during his absence abroad; he had grown more manly, while there was a prosperous look about him which betokened success and progression.
This was true, for Gerald had proved himself so congenial to his employer, and so thoroughly in earnest and determined to do his very best, that the two had at once become the best of friends, and at the end of three months Mr. Lyttleton raised his salary to a thousand a year. More than this, he had found his mental grasp so keen and forceful, that he had persuaded him to beginthe study of law, under his supervision, and thus the young man found himself working out the very plan which his friend, Professor Emerson, had once suggested to him.
John Hubbard congratulated himself that he was so soon to get Allison away from New York, and he hurried his own work in order to prevent any delay in his plans.
But the afternoon previous to her departure the lovers had an enjoyable drive in Central Park, and on her return from this excursion, Allison met with an adventure which, although, at the time, it seemed unimportant in itself, was destined to result in great things later on.
As she had a few errands to attend to before going home, Gerald left her at one of the large stores on Broadway, after bidding her a reluctant farewell. She had completed her purchase, and had just left a fashionable millinery establishment, where she had bought “a love of a hat,” that was destined to do duty at the seaside, and was standing upon the curbing, waiting for an uptown car, when she observed a young girl, about fourteen years of age, leaning against a lamp-post, and crying bitterly.
She was poorly clad, was very pale, and wore a dejected, suffering air, which at once appealed to the tender heart of the young heiress, who also observed that a heavy bundle lay upon the sidewalk at her feet.
Stepping quietly to her side, Allison gently laid her hand upon her arm to attract her attention.
“Why are you crying?” she questioned in an earnest tone; “has anything happened to you?”
The girl turned her tear-stained face upon the speaker, and Allison saw that it was almost convulsed with pain.
With her right hand she pointed to her left arm, which, her companion now saw, hung limp and useless—broken—by her side.
The next moment the sufferer dropped senseless at her feet.
Allison’s first impulse was to scream for help. But she quickly conquered it, for she had a horror of becoming the center of a curious, gaping crowd upon a public thoroughfare.
Almost at the same moment she espied a policeman across the street, and beckoned him to come to her assistance; then, stooping over the senseless girl at her feet, tried to move her into a more comfortable position.
“What has happened?” queried the officer, as he appeared upon the spot. “A drunk, I reckon—eh?”
“No,” said Allison, flushing with indignation at his indifferent tone; “the girl’s arm is broken, and she has fainted.”
“Humph! then it’s a case for the hospital. I’ll ring up an ambulance,” was the perfunctory response.
Allison caught her breath sharply, for, like many others who are ignorant regarding such institutions, she had a perfect horror of a hospital.
“No,” she said quickly and decidedly, while she glanced up at a sign over a window in the next block, “Doctor Ashmore’s office is quite near—take her there.”
“She doesn’t look as if she could afford to pay a swell surgeon like Doctor Ashmore—she’s a better subject for the hospital, miss,” said the man slightingly.
“Well, but I am not going to allow her to be put into an ambulance and driven a long way over these rough pavements to any hospital,” Allison asserted decidedly. “I know Doctor Ashmore—he is a first-class surgeon, and I will be responsible for his charge. Now, pray do as I ask you, and do not let this poor thing lie here upon the hard sidewalk a moment longer” she concluded, somewhat impatiently, for people were beginning to gather about them.
“All right, miss; if you choose to look out for her, it’s no affair of mine,” said the policeman, and, calling another man to his aid, the two lifted the still unconscious girl and bore her into the noted surgeon’s office, Allison swiftly leading the way thither.
“I have brought you a patient, Doctor Ashmore,” she observed, as he entered, and the gentleman came forward to greet her, whereupon he ordered the men to deposit their burden upon a couch, and at once proceeded to make an examination of the case.
“The arm is broken above the elbow,” he observed, after ripping up the sleeve of the girl’s dress. “Who is this protégée of yours, Miss Brewster?”
“I do not know,” Allison replied; “I found her leaning against a lamp-post crying, and asked her what the trouble was, when she merely pointed to her arm, and then fainted away.”
“Well, we will soon have her comfortably fixed. Perhaps you would like to go into another room while I set the bone,” said Doctor Ashmore, after calling hisassistant, and ordering him to bring splints, bandages, and other necessary appliances.
“No, thank you; the poor thing will perhaps feel better if she comes to herself and finds me here, and I will try not to mind the operation,” replied Allison, in a spirit of true self-abnegation, yet not feeling nearly so brave as her words had sounded.
Nothing more was said, and the surgeon proceeded at once about his task, without attempting to revive his patient, who was still unconscious.
But as his skilful fingers put the fractured bone into position, a low, shuddering moan plainly told that the shock and pain of the setting had resulted in restoring suspended animation.
But the girl made no other sound, no resistance; she lay white and motionless while the splints were adjusted, and the bandages arranged, and when all was over she raised herself to a sitting posture, and looked curiously about her.
“Where am I?” she inquired of Allison, as another patient entered, and claimed the surgeon’s attention.
“In the office of Doctor Ashmore. I asked a policeman to bring you here, so that your injury could be attended to immediately,” Allison explained; “and,” she added, smiling encouragingly into the pale, pinched face before her, “I am sure the worst is over.”
“Perhaps you think so—but that is all you know about it,” returned the girl grimly.
“But I have always heard that after a broken bone is once set, there is very little discomfort experienced while the fracture is mending.”
“Oh, the arm will do well enough,” said the girl, glancing at the bandaged member indifferently; “I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”
“What were you thinking about?” inquired Allison, with surprise.
“Of the money I’ve lost and the scoldings and abuse I shall get because I sha’n’t be able to do any work for the next few weeks,” returned the patient, with an anxious frown. “But where’s my bundle?” she questioned, with a sudden start, and glancing around the room with a troubled air.
“Over there behind that chair,” said Allison, pointing it out. Then she asked: “Now will you tell me your name, and how you happened to get hurt?”
“My name is Ellen Carson,” the girl replied;“I had been to Cohen & Isaacs, to carry back a lot of work, and get some more, and the pay for the last. I live with my aunt, or my uncle’s wife, and I do the housework, while she and Anna—my cousin—make boys’ jackets for a living. I help on them, too, after the drudgery is done, and I always have to fetch and carry the bundles. I had the pay for the last lot—three dollars—in one hand, and was hurrying home, when an ugly-looking fellow gave me a rough push, knocking me against that lamp-post, then snatched the purse, and made off with it, before I hardly knew what had happened. At first I was so wild over losing the money, and what I should catch when I got home, I didn’t know that I was hurt; but, after a minute or two, the pain got so sharp it took my breath away, and then I found my arm was broken. Oh, dear! Aunt Lu will just about kill me for letting that money be stolen,” Ellen concluded, with a sob, great tears chasing over her hollow cheeks.
“Hush! Do not cry! I will make the money part of it all right,” said Allison kindly, a great pity for the unfortunate girl surging through her heart. “I am sure your aunt cannot be very kind to you if she will mind the loss of three dollars more than your accident.”
“Kind! huh!” exclaimed Ellen, with a mirthless laugh, “and she’ll mind the broken arm enough, too, but not in the way you mean; she and Anna will have to do the housework now for a while, and I shall get plenty of kicks and cuffs for being in the way and ‘not earning my salt.’ I sha’n’t get much but salt, either, I imagine, to pay for losing that money.”
“Oh, I cannot imagine any one being so cruel,” said Allison, looking deeply troubled. “Your aunt must be very poor, as well as unkind.”
“You bet she is; but it wasn’t always so bad as it is now,” Ellen observed, and, growing confidential. “When Uncle Alan—he was my mother’s brother, and his name was Brown—was alive, I used to go to school, and we lived in a better part of the city. Anna graduated from the high school more’n four years ago; she’s handsome, too—or would be if she could have pretty clothes like yours”—this with an appreciative glance at Allison’s dainty costume.“After Uncle Alan died, Aunt Lu at first threatened to send me to an orphans’ home; but when she found how handy I was in the kitchen, and to run on errands, she got over that, though she doesn’t mind twitting me about being a beggar every day of my life.”
“But does she not pay you something for doing the work and helping upon the jackets?” questioned Allison, with almost a sense of guilt as she compared the ideal life which she had always led with the miserable existence of this poor, abused child.
“Pay me! Good land! Uncle Alan has been dead going on four years, and I haven’t had a dime of my own to spend at one time since. Sometimes I’ve got so desperate I’ve thought I’d run away and leave Aunt Lu and Anna to shift for themselves, and become a cash-girl in some store, but I haven’t a decent dress or a whole pair of shoes or stockings to my name, and nobody’d hire me looking like this,” the girl concluded, as she glanced ruefully down at her faded dress, and the clumsy, defaced shoes upon her feet.
Tears involuntarily rushed to Allison’s eyes, as they fell upon her costly, well-filled purse, and she realized for the first time in her life that she had never known the meaning of the word “poverty.” Again a sense of guilt swept over her as she thought of the dainty ten-dollar boots and the silken stockings that encased her feet—of the expensive hat upon her head, and the many other accessories of her toilet, the price of one of which would have seemed like a small fortune to this destitute girl.
“I suppose you thought you were doing a good thing when you had me brought in here?” Ellen resumed, after a moment of silence, and glancing around the luxurious room they were in;“but Aunt Lu will never pay Doctor Ashmore for setting my arm—he’s one of your swell, high-priced doctors; you would have done better if you’d sent me to some hospital.”
“I couldn’t,” said Allison; “somehow, I have a prejudice against a hospital; but you need not worry about Doctor Ashmore’s fee—I am going to pay him myself.”
“H’m! that’s very good of you, and you must have lots of spare cash to be able to sling it about in that way,” Ellen observed, with a wistful glance at the silver-tipped pocketbook in Allison’s daintily gloved hand. “But,” starting to her feet, “I must be getting along home, though goodness knows how I am going to carry that bundle with only one hand, and—and my knees have a queer, shaky feeling in them, too,” she concluded, growing pale and sinking back upon the couch again.
“Where do you live?” Allison questioned, in a voice that was somewhat husky.
“Down on Greenwich Street.”
“Oh!” breathed the petted child of fortune, with a shiver of repulsion; and then she abruptly crossed the room to speak to the surgeon’s assistant. She asked him if he would call a carriage for her, after which she went thoughtfully back to her protégée.
“I am going to send you and your bundle home in a carriage,” she said to her; “and now tell me, please, was it exactly three dollars that was stolen from you this morning?”
“Yes, just the price of a dozen jackets.”
“What! you do not mean that you only get that amount for making a dozen jackets?” exclaimed Allison, aghast.
“That is all—just twenty-five cents apiece,” said the girl, with a confirmative nod.
Allison opened her purse, and took from it three dollars.
“Ellen,” she said, in a very winning tone, “I am going to give you that much to take to your aunt, so that she cannot blame you for the loss.”
“My! but ain’t you good!” breathed the girl, with a long, grateful sigh, as she reached eagerly for the money.
“Wait,” said Allison; “I will get an envelope from Doctor Ashmore to put it in—it will be safer so,” and going to the surgeon, who was now writing at his desk, she asked him to give her two.
She placed the three dollars in one, then returned to Ellen, to whom she gave it, and who hastily thrust it into the bosom of her dress.
“Now,” continued Allison, “I am sorry that I cannot know how you will get on with your arm, for I am going to leave the city for the summer to-morrow morning. But, of course, you will have to come to Doctor Ashmore occasionally, and I shall learn from him how you are, when I return, and perhaps then I can help you to find something to do in a pleasanter home——”
“Oh, would you?—will you?” cried the girl, with pathetic eagerness. “I should love you with all my heart for it.”
Allison was almost ready to weep as she met the wistful eyes uplifted to hers.
“I will try, if you will leave your address with Doctor Ashmore,” she replied, as she quietly slipped a ten-dollar bill into the other envelope; “and now I am going to give you this for your very own,” she continued, as she tucked her gift into Ellen’s hand; “you can do whatever you like with it.”
“For me! Oh! do you mean that you have given me all that? Ten dollars!” gasped the astonished girl, whose quick eyes had detected the denomination of the bill. “Have you a right to give away so much money? What will your father and mother say? Why, I can’t believe it!”
Her voice shook from intense excitement and the hand that held the coveted sum trembled visibly.
“Yes, Ellen, I have the right to give away what I like, and I have no father nor mother, I regret to say, to question my pleasure in that respect. You need not say anything about it to your aunt unless you choose.”
“I guess I sha’n’t tell either Aunt Lu or Anna a word about it,” Ellen hastily interposed. “I shouldn’t have it long if I did. I shall keep very mum, and when my arm gets well, I will make a good use of it,” she added, with a gleam of triumph in her eyes that Allison never forgot. Then, with something very like a sob, she continued: “Why, miss, I think I must feel something like the slave I read about not long ago, when his master gave him his liberty: ‘I ’clar to goodness,’ he said, ‘dis am a new world to me!’ This money means freedom to me and a new world to live in. How I love you for being so kind to me! I—I hope you do not mind my saying it”—in an apologetic tone—“I know I’m of no account, but I haven’t had anybody to love since my mother died, seven years ago.”
Allison was deeply touched by the girl’s emotion, and the pathos of this last remark.
“Indeed, Ellen, you are of a great deal of account,” she returned, with a winning smile; “and when I come back to the city, in the fall, I will try to see you again, and I hope I shall find you well and happier than you are to-day. Ah, I think the carriage has come for you,” she concluded, as Doctor Ashmore’s attendant at that moment returned, accompanied by the coachman, who had come for the bundle.
The surgeon then came forward, gave his patient some directions, making an appointment for her to come to him again in a few days, after which Allison bade her a kind good-by, paid the hackman his fare, and charged him to “be sure and carry the bundle into the house for Ellen when she reached home.”
Then Allison turned to Doctor Ashmore and requested him to name his charge for setting the broken arm.
He smiled into her beautiful, earnest face.
“Are you in the habit of picking up disabled protégées in the streets of New York, Miss Allison?” he questioned.
“No; I am ashamed to say that this is my first experience of anything of the kind,” Allison gravely replied;“but it would have been inhuman to have left her lying there upon the pavement, or to have allowed her to be carried away to a hospital, when help was so near. I knew, too, that she could not fall into better hands than yours.”
“Thank you for your tribute and confidence,” said the surgeon, in a gratified tone, “but there will be no charge for what I have done.”
“Oh, but I never should have presumed to bring her here if I had not expected to be responsible for her fee,” Allison exclaimed, and flushing sensitively.
“I understand; but I think you have already done your share for that poor, forsaken-looking child,” the man kindly responded. “I like to do a good deedonce in a while myself, so we will not talk any more about the fee.”
He had not been unmindful of what had occurred between the two girls, notwithstanding he had appeared to be absorbed in other things.
Allison thanked him heartily for his personal interest in the case, and then, after a few moments of friendly chatting, bade him good afternoon, and went home, having received a vivid object lesson upon human poverty and suffering which she felt she should never forget, and little thinking how the “bread which had that day been cast upon the waters” would be returned to her after many days.
The next morning after her adventure with Ellen Carson, Allison left New York for Newport, where the Brewster villa was reopened, with John Hubbard to play the part of proprietor and host, and mature his plans for the capture of the beautiful heiress for whom and whose money he had so long been scheming.
To Allison the thought of spending the entire summer in the same house with the man whom she so disliked seemed intolerable, and she became very restless and rebellious in view of the prospect before her ere a week had passed.
“What shall I do with myself during all the years that will intervene before his authority over me or my fortune will expire?” she asked herself, with a feeling of excessive impatience, one day during the second week of their sojourn at Newport.
Yet the man was unwearied in his attentions, unvarying in his kindness to her. He spared no trouble to give her pleasure, he grumbled at no expense if he could but see her smiling and happy, and be allowed to bask in her presence.
“I cannot live an idle, aimless life,” she mused,“while I am waiting for Gerald to make his fortune. Oh, what a proud, obstinate boy! But why doesn’t he write to me? I have not heard from him once since coming to Newport,” she sighed, with a troubled expression. “I would like to teach,” she went on, after a moment of thought; “but it hardly seems right for me, with my fortune, to apply for a position which would otherwise be filled by a girl who must support herself. But something I must do to break away from this bondage. Oh, I know!” with an eager start. “It will be just the most delightful plan! I will have a chaperon, and I will travel.It will be such a blessed relief to get away from—him!”
And, much elated with what she considered a very clever plan, she sought her guardian and made known her wish to go abroad.
The man glanced sharply at her the moment he comprehended her purpose; then sat quietly listening to her until she concluded the rehearsal of her plan, which was, in the main, that she wished to have at least a couple of years of foreign travel before making her début in New York society—which it would not be etiquette for her to do until her season of mourning was over.
When she was through he changed his seat to one beside her, and remarked, with a confidential look and smile:
“Really, Allison, I think it rather singular that you and I both should have the same project in view.”
She glanced up at him in surprise.
“Why, have you been planning such a trip for me?” she questioned, with a momentary twinge of conscience,lest she had been more unjust toward him than he merited.
“Yes,” he replied, in a tone which he could not make quite steady, for the proposal he was about to make was a very momentous one to him. “You are now through school, and it is but right that you should see something of the world. I have had this in mind for some time, and have been trying to arrange for it. I now have my business in such shape that I can leave it indefinitely, and we will have a long holiday, Allison; we will spare neither time nor money, and you shall go wherever your sweet will inclines.”
The girl shot one quick, startled look at her companion; then a burning flush suffused her neck, cheek and brow, for his tone had grown suspiciously tender and tremulous, and she dreaded inexpressibly what she feared was to come.
“Oh, but I did not once think of—of taking you from your business to go with me,” she hastened to say. “I can have a chaperon, you know; there is Miss Wilber, my teacher in history, who has often attended young ladies abroad during summer vacations. She is out of health, and will not teach the coming year, and I am sure she would be glad to go with me; she would be a delightful companion, too, for she is so well posted in history, and has been about so much she is a perfect encyclopedia of facts, legends and traditions. I should feel perfectly safe, and be very happy with her, also.”
“Ah, yes; no doubt it would be a very good arrangement, both for yourself and the lady,” rejoined John Hubbard, when Allison paused, although a frownswept over his face at her evident eagerness to substitute her own plan for his; “but, my dear child, I could never consent to let you go away to Europe like that; I should never know one moment of peace during your absence. Allison,” with sudden and vehement earnestness, “do you remember what I told you only a few months ago—that I have loved you ever since you were a little girl, and that, during all those years, I have had only one aim in life—that of eventually winning you for my wife? Think of it, Allison! I have lived nearly eleven years with this one hope to feed upon and cheer me. I know that I am somewhat older than you, but my affection is none the less strong and true—indeed, having nursed my hopes so long, my love is far more intense than it could have been at the age when a man usually chooses his wife. My darling, I adore you; my life is bound up in you; I must win you, or the world will henceforth be a blank to me, and during the last six months I have yearned for this moment more than I can express. Allison, you will marry me; you will be my wife, and we will go abroad for our honeymoon. I will live only to make you happy, and you shall go where you like if you will but give me the right to go with you.”
He had spoken so rapidly that Allison could not have interrupted him if she had wished; he had poured out his passionate avowal with such resistless vehemence that she was stricken dumb, and sat with averted face, an almost sickening sense of repugnance, even fear, oppressing her.
As he concluded he leaned forward, laying his handupon hers, which were tensely clasped upon her lap, and tried to look into her downcast eyes.
His touch broke the spell upon her.
Almost involuntarily she shrank from him, snatching her hands from his, a visible shiver creeping over her, and driving every particle of color from her face.
“Oh,” she gasped, as if oppressed by some terrible weight upon her chest, “why will you say such things to me? No, no; it cannot be!”
The man’s countenance changed, as if he had been smitten a sharp and sudden blow.
“Do not tell me that,” he breathed, in a hoarse, unnatural voice. “I cannot bear it. I have lived too long with only this one hope to sustain me, to have it ruthlessly wrested from me at this late day.”
Something in the man’s tone—a sort of despairing, appealing note—sent a wave of pity coursing through Allison’s heart.
“I am sorry if I have pained you,” she faltered; “but—I cannot love you, Mr. Hubbard, and so I must not marry you.”
“I will make you love me, Allison,” he returned, with almost pathetic earnestness. “Out of the superabundance of my own affection I will nourish yours until your heart will turn to me as naturally as a flower turns to the sun.”
But Allison only shrank farther from him.
“It is impossible; it can never be,” she said, so decidedly there was no mistaking her determination to settle the matter for all time.
“Why?” he demanded, sharply, but with quiveringlips. “Why can you never love me? How is it that you are so positive?”
“I do not know that I can tell you why; it is not easy to analyze one’s feelings,” Allison responded constrainedly. “I only know that I do not love you and that it would be a great sin to become your wife without loving you.”
“Then it must be because some one stands between us,” said John Hubbard, with jealous bitterness. “Tell me! Is is so? Do you love some one else?”
There was now a note of impatient authority in his tone that aroused Allison’s antagonism and a spirit of recklessness. Then, too, his love-making was so repulsive to her she felt that she could not endure it a moment longer. Perhaps, she thought, if she should confess the truth to him it would put an end to his hopes and emancipate her from all persecutions of this nature in the future.
“Yes,” she admitted, after a moment of hesitation, a vivid flush suffusing her face, “that is the reason.”
“Aha!” he breathed, hoarsely, the veins upon his temples standing out hard and full. “So you confess it! Who is he? Who is he?”
His tone was almost savage, his aspect so vindictive that Allison was aroused in proportion.
She turned upon him with a haughty air, and met his lowering eyes with a clear, cold glance.
“That is my own secret,” she frigidly returned.
“Ha, ha! So you fondly believe it is a secret, do you?” he mockingly retorted.“You imagine that no one has eyes or perceptions to discern the signs of the times? My haughty little lady, your ‘secret’ is no secret; I have read your heart, like an open book, for many a long year.”
“Very well, then; if you are so well versed in mind reading there is no need of your asking information regarding what you already know,” said the fair girl, with quiet sarcasm.
“Perhaps not; but I wish to have my suspicions corroborated by the testimony of your own lips. I want to be sure that my fate is irrevocably sealed before I bow to it. So, tell me, is it Gerald Winchester whom you love? Is he the rival upon whom you expect to bestow your peerless self and your enviable fortune?”
Again Allison flushed a deep and conscious crimson. The man’s manner had grown so coarse and repulsive, while his mocking reference to Gerald set all her pulses tingling with indignation and defiance, and a desire to stand up in defense of her lover.
“And suppose you are right in your surmise—what then?” she demanded, proudly, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
“In that case, I tell you that you are doomed to be terribly disappointed, for I swear that you shall never marry that upstart! He shall never have the privilege of handling one dollar of Adam Brewster’s fortune!” snarled the man, but so beside himself with ragehis voice was hardly audible.
Allison was now thoroughly angry and disgusted.
She sprang to her feet and confronted her companion with haughty mien and blazing eyes.
“You are exceedingly presuming,” she began scornfully.“You are overstepping the bounds of your authority as my guardian, for I certainly have and shall exercise the right to choose for myself whom I will marry, and——”
“And what, Allison?” questioned John Hubbard, growing very white as she suddenly paused. “This is a matter that must be settled, here and now, so you may as well express yourself freely.”
“I was simply going to observe that my choice would certainly not fall upon yourself, even were I heart-whole,” she retorted, with startling candor, and driven to utter defiance by his arbitrary tone and manner.
The man flushed scarlet beneath the scathing words; then a lurid light sprang into his eyes.
“I am afraid you do not realize what you are doing, Miss Brewster, by so scornfully rejecting my suit,” he said, with an evident effort for self-control.
“You have driven me to plain speaking, sir,” Allison replied more calmly. “You would not accept my courteous rejection of your proposals, and you have made me very angry by your slighting remarks about Mr. Winchester, whom you have always appeared to hate, and whom you have also shamefully persecuted.”
“Yes, I have hated and do still hate him, the insufferable upstart, with his assumption of high-toned airs, which are entirely at variance with the beggardly position he has always occupied,” Mr. Hubbard almost hissed, a cold glitter in his eyes, and with the old vicious gleam of his white teeth beneath his mustache. “More than that,” he resumed cruelly,“I swore long ago that he should never marry you, as I plainly saw he was aiming to do by worming himself into the confidence of your father and making love to you on the sly——”
“If you please, Mr. Hubbard, I think we have discussed this subject sufficiently, and I would like to change it,” Allison here icily interposed. “I have decided that I will spend the next two years traveling; therefore, I shall write to Miss Wilber this evening to——”
“Not quite so fast, my young lady, if you please,” her guardian rudely interrupted. “You appear to forget or ignore the fact that you are under my authority, and are not free to arrange your movements exactly as you like without my consent.”
“I am more than eighteen years of age, Mr. Hubbard,” said Allison, proudly, “and I am capable of thinking and acting for myself in all ways except the management of my fortune. Business I do not understand, and I bow to the decree of my father’s will that you shall act as my agent financially; but I am no longer a child, to be told that I cannot go here or there, provided I am properly attended, and I shall arrange to go abroad immediately, with Miss Wilber as my chaperon.”
“Excuse me, Miss Brewster, but you will not go abroad this summer, unless you go under my protection, and as my wife,” John Hubbard observed, with a peculiar smile, that was exceedingly exasperating, and which also sent a strange chill to the heart of his listener. “You’d better be sensible and listen to reason, Allison,” he continued more gently, after a momentof silence. “If you will accede to my proposal, your future may be one long idyl of happiness; your every wish shall be gratified; you shall be a queen—I your slave. But,” sternly, as the girl made an impatient gesture, “if you defy me, I——”
“Well, what if I defy you?” she cried, turning upon him with the air of a princess.
“I have it in my power to crush you.”
A light, scornful laugh rippled over Allison’s red lips.
The idea of a man like John Hubbard, whom, all her life, she had instinctively regarded as her inferior, being able to “crush” her, Adam Brewster’s daughter, and heiress to a million or more, seemed ludicrous in the extreme.
“You appear to be skeptical regarding my powers, Miss Brewster,” the man observed, with a crafty smile, but with a face that was ghastly white from his intense anger.
“Well, yes, I am,” she dryly responded, as she drew forth her watch and glanced at the time. “Excuse me,” she added coldly, “but I have an engagement to drive at four.”
She was about to turn away and leave the room when her companion seized her hand in a vise-like grip, and, bending before her, gazed straight into her eyes with a look that sent a cold chill running down her back.
“Once more, and for the last time—and think well before you answer me—will you marry me, Allison?” he questioned, through his tightly locked teeth.
“No! a thousand times, no!” she cried, in a ringingtone; “and if you ever broach the subject again I will appeal to be set free from your guardianship. I will not submit to such persecution.”