They sat down to cards for a while after tea, during which conversation was rather forced, consisting mainly of extravagant compliments from the gentlemen, and tender, meaning glances which the girls did not resent. Mrs. Allen languidly joined them for a while, and excused herself saying:
"My poor head has been too heavily taxed of late," though how, save as a small distillery of helpless tears, we do not remember.
The regret of the young men at being deprived of her society was quite affecting in view of the fact that they had often wished her dead and out of the way.
"Why should we shut ourselves up within walls this lovely spring evening, this delicious earnest of the coming summer?" said Mr. Van Dam to Zell. "Come, put on your shawl and show me your garden by moonlight."
Zell exultingly complied, believing that now she would show him, not their poor little garden, but the paradise of requited love. A moment later her graceful form, bending like a willow toward him, vanished in the dusky light of the rising moon, down the garden path which led to the little arbor.
Gus, having the parlor to himself, went over to the sofa, seated himself by the side of Edith and sought to pass his arm around her waist. "You have no right," again said Edith with dignity, shrinking away.
"But will you not give the right? Behold me a suppliant at your feet," said Gus tenderly, but comfortably keeping his seat.
"Mr. Elliot," said Edith earnestly, "do you realize that you are asking a poor girl to marry you?"
"Your own beautiful self is beyond all gold," said Gus gushingly.
"You did not think so a month ago," retorted Edith bitterly.
"I was a fool. My friends discouraged it, but I find I cannot live without you."
This sounded well to poor Edith, but she said half sadly:
"Perhaps your friends are right. You cannot afford to marry me."
"But I cannot give you up," said Gus with much show of feeling. "What would my life be without you? I admit to you that my friends are opposed to my marriage, but am I to blight my life for them? Am I, who have seen the best of New York for years, to give up the loveliest girl I have ever seen in it? I cannot and I will not," concluded Gus tragically.
"And are you willing to give up all for me?" said Edith feelingly, her glorious eyes becoming gentle and tender.
"Yes, if you will give up all for me," said Gus languishingly, taking her hand and drawing her toward him.
Edith did not resist now, but leaned her head on his shoulder with the blessed sense of rest and at least partial security. Her cruelly harassed heart and burdened, threatened life could welcome even such poor shelter as Gus Elliot offered. The spring evening was mild and breathless, and its hush and peace seemed to accord with her feelings. There was no ecstatic thrilling of her heart in the divine rapture of mutual and open recognition of love, for no such love existed on her part. It was only a languid feeling of contentment—moon-lighted with sentiment, not sun-lighted with joy—that she had found some one who would not leave her to labor and struggle alone.
"Gus," she said pathetically, "we are very poor; we have nothing. We are almost desperate from want. Think twice ere you engage yourself to a girl so situated. Are you able to thus burden yourself?"
Gus thought these words led the way to the carrying out of Van Dam's instructions, for he said eagerly:
"I know how you are situated. I learned all from Zell's letter to Van Dam, but our hearts only cling the closer to you, and you must let me take care of you at once. If you will only consent to a secret marriage I can manage it."
Edith slowly raised her head from his shoulder. Gus could not meet her eyes, but felt them fixed searchingly on his face. There was a distant mutter of thunder like a warning voice. He continued hurriedly:
"I think you will agree with me, when you think of it, that such a marriage would be best. It would be hard for me to break with my family at once. Indeed I could not afford to anger my father now. But I would soon get established in business myself, and I would work so hard if I knew that you were dependent on me!"
"Then you would wish me to remain here in obscurity your wife," saidEdith in a low constrained tone that Gus did not quite like.
"Oh, no, not for the world," replied Gus hurriedly. "It is because I so long for your daily and hourly presence that I urge you to come to the city at once."
"What is your plan then?" asked Edith in the same low tone.
"Go with me to the city, on the boat that passes here in the evening. I will see that you are lodged where you will have every comfort, yes luxury. We can there be quietly married, and when the right time comes we can openly acknowledge it."
There was a tremble in Edith's voice when she again spoke, it might be from mere excitement or anger. At any rate Gus grew more and more uncomfortable. He had a vague feeling that Edith suspected his falseness, and that her seeming calmness might presage a storm, and he found it impossible to meet her full searching gaze, fearing that his face would betray him. He was bad enough for his project, but not quite brazen enough.
She detached herself from his encircling arm, went to a book-stand near and took from it a richly bound Bible. With this she came and stood before Gus, who was half trembling with fear and perplexity, and said in a tone so grave and solemn that his weak impressible nature was deeply moved:
"Mr. Elliot, perhaps I do not understand you. I have received several offers before, but never one like yours this evening. Indeed I need not remind you that you have spoken to me in a different vein. I know circumstances have greatly altered with me. That I am no longer the daughter of a millionaire, I am learning to my sorrow, but I am the same Edith Allen that you knew of old. I would not like to misjudge you, one of my oldest, most intimate friends of the happy past. And yet, as I have said, I do not quite understand your offer. Place your hand on this sacred book with me, and, as you hope for God's mercy, answer me this truly. Would you wish your own sister to accept such an offer, if she were situated like myself? Look me, an honest girl with all my faults and poverty, in the face, and tell me as a true brother."
Gus felt himself in an awful dilemma. Something in Edith's solemn tone and look convinced him that both he and Van Dam had misjudged her. His knees trembled so that he could scarcely rise. A fascination that he could not resist drew his face, stamped with guilt, toward her, and slowly he raised his fearful eyes and for a moment met Edith's searching, questioning gaze, then dropped them in confusion.
"Why do you not put your hand on the book and speak?" she asked in the low, concentrated voice of passion.
Again he looked hurriedly at her. A flash of lightning illumined her features, and he quailed before an expression such as he had never seen before on any woman's face.
"I—I—cannot," he faltered.
The Bible dropped from her hands, they clasped, and for a moment she seemed to writhe in agony, and in a low, shuddering tone she said:
"There are none to trust—not one."
Then, as if possessed by a sudden fury, she seized him roughly by the arm and said hoarsely:
"Speak, man! what then did you mean? What have all your tender speeches and caressing actions meant?"
Her face grew livid with rage and shame as the truth dawned upon her, while poor feeble Gus lost his poise utterly and stood like a detected criminal before her.
"You asked me to marry you," she hissed. "Must no one ask your immaculate sisters to do this, that you could not answer my simple question? Or, did you mean something else? How dare you exist longer in the semblance of a man? You have broken the sacred law of hospitality, and here, in my little home that has sheltered you, you purpose my destruction. You take mean advantage of my poverty and trouble, and like a cowardly hunter must seek out a wounded doe as your game. My grief and misfortune should have made a sanctuary about me, but the orphaned and unfortunate, God's trust to all true men, only invite your evil designs, because defenceless. Wretch, would you have made me this offer if my father had lived, or if I had a brother?"
"It's all Van Dam's work, curse him," groaned Gus, white as a ghost.
"Van Dam's work!" shrieked Edith, "and he's with Zell! So this is a conspiracy. You both are the flower of chivalry," and her mocking, half-hysterical laugh curdled Gus's blood, as her dress fluttered down the path that led to the arbor.
She appeared in the doorway like a sudden, supernatural vision, Zell's head rested on Mr. Van Dam's shoulder, and he was portraying in low, ardent tones the pleasures of city life, which would be hers as his wife.
"It is true," he had said, "our marriage must be secret for the present. You must learn to trust me. But the time will soon come when I can acknowledge you as my peerless bride."
Foolish little Zell was too eager to escape present miseries to be nice and critical as to the conditions, and too much in love, too young and unsuspecting, to doubt the man who had petted her from a child. She agreed to do anything he thought best.
Then Edith's entrance and terrible words broke her pretty dream in fragments.
Snatching her sister from Van Dam's embrace, she cried passionately:
"Leave this place. Your villany is discovered."
"Really, Miss Edith"—began Van Dam with a poor show of dignity.
"Leave instantly!" cried Edith imperiously. "Do you wish me to strike you?"
"Edith, are you mad?" cried Zell.
"Your sister must have lost her reason," said Van Dam, approachingZell.
"Stand back," cried Edith sternly. "I may go mad before this hateful night passes, but while I have strength and reason left, I will drive the wolves from our fold. Answer me this: have you not been proposing secret marriage to my sister?"
Her face looked spirit-like in the pale moonlight, and her eyes blazed like coals of fire. As she stood there with her arm around her bewildered, trembling sister, she seemed a guardian angel holding a baffled fiend at bay.
This was literally true, for even hardened Van Dam quailed before her, and took refuge in the usual resource of his satanic ally—lies.
"I assure you, Miss Edith, you do me great injustice. I have only asked your sister that our marriage be private for a time—"
"The same wretched bait—the same transparent falsehood," Edith cried. "We cannot be married openly at our own home, but must go away with you, two spotless knights, to New York. Do you take us for silly fools? You know well what the world would say of ladies that so compromised themselves, and no true man would ask this of a woman he meant to make his wife. These premises are mine. Leave them."
Van Dam was an old villain who had lived all his life in the atmosphere of brawls and intrigue, therefore he said brazenly:
"There is no use in wasting words on an angry woman. Zell, my darling, do me justice. Don't give me up, as I never shall you," and he vanished on the road toward the village, where Gus was skulking on before him.
"You weak, unmitigated fool," said he savagely, "why did I bring you?"
"Look here, Van Dam," whined Gus, "that isn't the way to speak to a gentleman."
"Gentleman! ha, ha," laughed Van Dam bitterly.
"I be hanged if I feel like one to-night. A pretty scrape you have got me into," snarled Gus.
"Well," said Van Dam cynically. "I thought I was too old to learn much more, but you may shoot me if I ever go on a lark again with one of your weak villains who is bad enough for anything, but has brains enough only to get found out. If it hadn't been for you I would have carried my point. And I will yet," he added with an oath. "I never give up a game I have once started."
And so they plodded on with mutual revilings and profanity, till Gus became afraid of Van Dam, and was silent.
The dark cloud that had risen unnoted in the south, like the slowly gathering and impending wrath of God, now broke upon them in sudden gusts, and then chased them, with pelting torrents of rain and stinging hail, into the village. The sin-wrought chaos—the hellish discord of their evil natures—seemed to have infected the peaceful spring evening, for now the very spirit of the storm appeared abroad. The rush and roar of the wind was so strong, the lightning so vivid, and the crashing thunder peals overhead so terrific, that even hardened Van Dam was awed, and Gus was so frightened and conscience-smitten that he could scarcely keep up with his companion, but shuddered at the thought of being left alone.
At last they reached the tavern, roused the startled landlord, and obtained welcome shelter.
"What!" he said, "are the boys after you?"
"No, no," said Van Dam impatiently; "the devil is after us in this infernal storm. Give us two rooms, a fire, and some brandy as soon as possible, and charge what you please."
When Grus viewed himself in the mirror, as he at once did from long habit, his haggard face, drenched, mud-splashed form, awakened sincere self-commiseration; and his stained, bedraggled clothes troubled him more than his soiled character. He did not remember the time when he had not been well dressed, and to be so was his religion—the sacred instinct of his life. Therefore he was inexpressibly shocked, and almost ready to cry, as he saw his forlorn reflection in the glass. And he had no change with him. What should he do? All other phases of the disastrous night were lost in this.
"There is nothing to be bought in this mean little town, and how can I go to the city in this plight?" he anxiously queried.
"Go to the devil then," and the sympathetic Van Dam wrapped himself up and went to sleep.
Gus worked fussily at his clothes till a late hour, devoutly hoping he should meet no one whom he knew before reaching his dressing-room in New York.
Edith half led, half carried her sobbing sister to the parlor. Mrs. Allen, no longer languid, and Laura from her exile, were already there, and with dismayed faces drew near the sofa where Zell had been placed.
"What has happened?" asked Mrs. Allen tremblingly.
Edith's self-control, now that her enemies were gone, gave way utterly, and sinking on the floor, she swayed back and forth, sobbing even more hysterically than Zell, and her mother and Laura, oppressed with the sense of some new impending disaster, caught the contagion of their bitter grief, and wept and wrung their hands also.
The frightened maid stood in one door, with white questioning face, and old gray-haired Hannibal in another, with streaming eyes of honest sympathy.
"Speak, speak, what is the matter?" almost shrieked Mrs. Allen.
Edith could not speak, but Zell sobbed, "I—don't—know. Edith—seems to have—gone—mad."
At last, after the application of restoratives, Edith so far recovered herself as to say brokenly:
"We've been betrayed—they're—villains. They never—meant—marriage at all."
"That's false!" screamed Zell. "I won't believe it of my lover, whatever may have been true of your mean little Gus Elliot. He promised to marry me, and you have spoiled everything by your mad folly. I'll never forgive you."—When Zell's wild fury would have ceased, cannot be said, but a new voice startled and awed them into silence. In the storm of sorrow and passion that raged within, the outer storm had risen unnoted, but now an awful peal of thunder broke over their heads and rolled away among the hills in deep reverberations. Another and a louder crash soon followed, and a solemn, expectant silence fell upon them akin to that when the noisy passionate world will suddenly cease its clamor as the trump of God proclaims the end.
"Merciful heaven! we shall be struck," said Mrs. Allen shudderingly.
"What's the use of living?" said Zell in a hard, reckless tone.
"What is there to live for?" sighed Edith, deep in her heart. "There are none to be trusted—not one."
Instead of congratulations received with blushing happiness, and solitaire engagement rings, thus is shown the first result of Mrs. Allen's policy, and of society's injunction:
"Keep your hands white, my dears."
The storm passed away, and they crept off to such poor rest as they could get, too miserable to speak, and too worn to renew the threatened quarrel that a voice seemingly from heaven had interrupted.
The next morning they gathered at a late breakfast-table with haggard faces and swollen eyes. Zell looked hard and sullen, Edith's face was so determined in its expression as to be stern. Mrs. Allen lamented feebly and indefinitely, Laura only appeared more settled in her apathy, and, like Zell and Edith, was utterly silent through the forlorn meal.
When it was over, Zell went up to her room and Edith followed her. Zell had not spoken to her sister since the thunder peal had suddenly checked her bitter words. Edith dreaded the alienation she saw in Zell's face, and felt wronged by it, knowing that she had only acted as truest friend and protector. But in order still to shield her sister she must secure her confidence, or else the danger averted the past evening would threaten as grimly as ever. She also realized how essential Zell's help would be in the struggle for bread on which they must enter, and wished to obtain her hearty co-operation in some plan of work. She saw that labor now was inevitable, and must be commenced immediately. From Laura little was to be hoped. She seemed so lacking in mental and physical force since their troubles began, that it appeared as if nothing could arouse her. She threatened soon to become an invalid like her mother. The thought of help from the latter did not even occur to her.
Edith had not slept, and as the chaos and bitterness of the past evening's experience passed away, her practical mind began to concentrate itself on the problem of support. Her disappointment had not been so severe as that of Zell, by any means, and so she was in a condition to rally much sooner. She had never much more than liked Elliot, and now the very thought of him was sickening, and though labor and want might be hard indeed, and regret for all they had lost keen, still she was spared the bitterer pain of a hopeless love.
But it was just this that Zell feared, and though she repeated to herself over and over again Van Dam's last words, "I will never give you up," she feared that he would, or what would be equally painful, she would be compelled to give him up, for she could not disguise from herself that her confidence had been shaken.
But sincere love is slow to believe evil of its object. If Van Dam had shown preference for another, Zell's jealousy and anger would have known no bounds, but this he had never done, and she could not bring herself to believe that the man whom she had known, since childhood, who had always treated her with uniform kindness and most flattering attention, who had partaken of their hospitality so often and intimately that he almost seemed like one of the family, meditated the basest evil against her.
"Gus Elliot is capable of any meanness, but Edith was mistaken about my friend. And yet Edith has so insulted him that I fear he will never come to the house again," she said with deep resentment. "If I had declined a private marriage, I am sure he would have married me openly."
Therefore when Edith entered their little room Zell's face was averted, and there was every evidence of estrangement. Edith meant to be kind and considerate, and patiently show the reasons for her action.
She sat down and took her sister's cold, impassive hand, saying:
"Zell, did I not help you dress in this very place last evening? Did I not wait against my judgment till Mr. Van Dam came? These things prove to you that I would not put a straw between you and a true lover. Surely we have trouble enough without adding the bitter one of division and estrangement. If we don't stand by each other now what will become of us?"
"What right had you to misjudge Mr. Van Dam by such a mean little scamp as Gus Elliot? Why did you not give him a chance to explain himself?"
"O Zell, Zell, how can you be so blinded? Did he not ask you to go away with him in the night—to elope, and then submit to a secret marriage in New York?"
"Well, he told me there were good reasons that made such a course necessary at present."
"Are you George Allen's daughter, that you could even listen to such a proposal? When you lived on Fifth Avenue would he have dared to even faintly suggest such a thing? Can he be a true lover who insults you to begin with, and, in view of your misfortunes, instead of showing manly delicacy and desire to shield, demands not only hard but indecent conditions? Even if he purposed to marry you, what right has he to require of you such indelicate action as would make your name a byword and hissing among all your old acquaintances, and a lasting stain to your family? They would not receive you with respect again, though some might tolerate you and point you out as the girl so desperate for a husband that she submitted to the grossest indignity to get one."
Zell hung her head in shame and anger under Edith's inexorable logic, but the anger was now turning against Van Dam. Edith continued:
"A lady should be sought and won. It is for her to set the place and time of the wedding, and dictate the conditions. It is for her to say who shall be present and who absent, and woman, to whom a spotless name is everything, has the right, which even savage tribes recognize, to shield herself from the faintest imputation of immodesty by compelling her suitor to comply with the established custom and etiquette which are her safeguards. The daughter of a poor laborer would demand all this as a matter of course, and shall the beautiful Zell Allen, who has had scores of admirers, have all this reversed in her case, and be compelled to skulk away from the home in which she should be openly married, to hunt up a man at night who has made the pitiful promise that he will marry her somewhere at some time or other, on condition that no one shall know it till he is ready? Mark it well, the man who so insults a lady and all her family never means to marry her, or else he is so coarse and brutal in all his instincts that no decent woman ought to marry him."
"Say no more," said Zell, in a low tone, "I fear you are right, though I would rather die than believe it. Oh, Edith, Edith!" she cried in sudden passionate grief. "My heart is broken. I loved him so! I could have been so happy!"
Edith took her in her arms and they cried together. At last Zell said languidly;
"What can we do?"
"We must go to work like other poor people. If we had only done so at first and saved every dollar we had left, we should not now be in our present deeply embarrassed condition. And yet, Zell, if you, with your vigor and strength, will only stand by me, and help your best, we will see bright days yet There must be some way by which two girls can make a livelihood here in Pushton as elsewhere. We have at least a shelter, and I have great hopes of the garden."
"I don't like a garden. I fear I couldn't do much there. And it seems like man's work too. I fear I shall be too wretched and ignorant to do anything."
"Not at all. Youth, health, and time, against all the troubles of the world." (This was the best creed poor Edith then had.) "Now," she continued, encouragingly, "you like housework. Of course we must dismiss our servants, and if you did the work of the house with Laura, so that I had all my time for something else, it would be a great saving and help."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! that we should ever come to this!" said Zell despairingly.
"We have come to it, and must face the truth."
"Well, of course I'll try," said Zell with something of Laura's apathy. Then with a sudden burst of passion she clenched her little hands and cried:
"I hate him, the cold-hearted wretch, to treat his poor little Zell so shamefully!" and she paced up and down the room with inflamed eyes and cheeks. Then in equally sudden revulsion she threw herself down on the floor with her head in her sister's lap, and murmured, "God forgive me, I love him still—I love him with my whole heart," and sobbed till all her strength was gone.
Edith sighed deeply. "Can she ever be depended on?" she thought. At last she lifted the languid form on the bed, threw over her an afghan, and bathed her head with cologne till the poor child fell asleep.
Then she went down to Laura and her mother, to whom she explained more fully the events of last evening. Laura only muttered, "shameful," but Mrs. Allen whined, "She could not understand it. Girls didn't know how to manage any longer. There must be some misunderstanding, for no young men in the city could have meant to offer such an insult to an old and respectable family like theirs. She never heard of such a thing. If she could only have been present—"
"Hush, mother," said Edith almost sternly. "It's all past now. I should gladly believe that when you were a young lady such poor villains were not in good society. Moreover, such offers are not made to young ladies living on the avenue. This is more properly a case for shooting than management. I have no patience to talk any more about it. We must now try to conform to our altered circumstances, and at least maintain our self-respect, and secure the comforts of life if possible. But we must now practice the closest economy. Laura, you will have to be mother's maid, for of course we can keep no servants. I have a little money left, and will pay your maid to-day and let her go."
"I don't see how I can get along without her," said Mrs. Allen helplessly.
"You must," said Edith firmly. "We have no money to pay her any longer, and your daughters will try to supply her place."
Mrs. Allen did not formally abdicate her natural position as head of the family, but in the hour of almost shipwreck Edith took the helm out of the feeble hands. Yet the young girl had little to guide her, no knowledge and experience worth mentioning, and the sea was rough and beset with dangers.
The maid had no regrets at departure, and went away with something of the satisfaction of a rat leaving a sinking ship. But with old Hannibal it was a different affair.
"You ain't gwine to send me away too, is you, Miss Edie?" said he, with the accent of dismay.
"My good old friend," said Edith feelingly, "the only friend I'm sure of in this great world full of people, I fear I must. We can't afford to pay you even half what you are worth any longer."
"I'se sure I doesn't eat sech a mighty lot," Hannibal sniffled out.
"Oh, I hope we shan't reach starvation point," said Edith, smiling in spite of her sore heart. "But, Hannibal, you are a valuable servant; besides, there are plenty of rich upstarts who would give you anything you would ask, just to have you come and give an old and aristocratic air to their freshly-gilded mansions."
"Miss Edie, you doesn't know nothin' 'tall about my feelin's. What's money to ole Hannibal! I'se lived 'mong de millionaires and knows all 'bout money. It only buys half of 'em a heap of trouble and doesn't keep dar hearts from gettin' sore. When Massa Allen was a livin', he paid me big, and guv me all de money I wanted, and if he, at last, lost my money which he keep, it's no mo'n he did wid his own. And now, Miss Edie, I toted you and you'se sisters roun' on my shouler when you was babies, and I hain't got nothin' left but you, no friends, no nothin'; and if you send me away, it's like gwine out into de wilderness. What 'ud I do in some strange man's big house, when my heart's here in de little house? My heart is all ole Hannibal has left, if 'tis black, and if you send me away you break it. I'd a heap rader stay here in Bushtown and starve to death wid you alls, dan live in de grandest house on de avenue."
"Oh, Hannibal," said Edith, putting her hand on the old man's shoulder, and looking at him with her large eyes dimmed with grateful tears, "you don't know how much good you have done me. I have felt that there were none to trust—not one, but you are as true as steel. Your heart isn't black, as I told you before. It's whiter than mine. Oh, that other men were like you!"
"Bress you, Miss Edie, I isn't a man, I'se only a nigger."
"You are my true and trusted friend," said Edith, "and you shall be one of the family as long as you wish to stay with us."
"Now bress you, Miss Edie, you'se an angel for sayin' dat. Don't be afeard, I'se good for sumpen yet, if I be old. I once work for fear in de South; den I work for money, and now I'se gwine to work for lub, and it 'pears I can feel my ole jints limber up at de tought. It 'pears like dat lub is de only ting dat can make one young agin. Neber you fear, Miss Edie, we'll pull trough, and I'se see you a grand lady yet. A true lady you'se allers be, even if you went out to scrub."
"Perhaps I'll have to, Hannibal. I know how to do that about as well as anything else that people are willing to pay for."
At the dinner-table it was reluctantly admitted to be necessary that Edith should go to the city in the morning and dispose of some of their jewelry. She went by the early train, and the familiar aspects of Fourth Avenue as she rode down town were as painful as the features of an old friend turned away from us in estrangement. She kept her face closely veiled, hoping to meet no acquaintances, but some whom she knew unwittingly brushed against her. Her mother's last words were:
"Go to some store where we are not known to sell the jewelry."
Edith's usually good judgment seemed to fail her in this case, as generally happens when we listen to the suggestions of false pride. She went to a jeweller downtown who was an utter stranger. The man's face to whom she handed her valuables for inspection did not suggest pure gold that had passed through the refiner's fire, though he professed to deal in that article. An unknown lady, closely veiled, offering such rich articles for sale, looked suspicious; but, whether it was right or wrong, there was a chance for him to make an extraordinary profit. Giving a curious glance at Edith, who began to have misgivings from the manner and appearance of the man, he swept the little cases up and took them to the back part of the store, on pretence of wishing to consult his partner. He soon returned and said rather harshly:
"I don't quite understand this matter, and we are not in the habit of doing this kind of business. It may be all right that you should offer this jewelry, and it may not. If we take it, we must run the risk. We will give you"—offering scarcely half its value.
"I assure you it is all right," said Edith indignantly, at the same time with a sickening sensation of fear. "It all belongs to us, but we are compelled to part with it from sudden need."
"That is about the way they all talk," said the man coolly. "We will give you no more than I said."
"Then give me back my jewelry," said Edith, scarcely able to stand, through fear and shame.
"I don't know about that. Perhaps I ought to call in an officer any way and have the thing investigated. But I give you your choice, either to take this money, or go with a policeman before a justice and have the thing explained," and he laid the money before her.
She shuddered at the thought. Edith Allen in a police court, explaining why she was selling her jewelry, the gifts of her dead father, followed by a rabble in the street, her name in the papers, and she the town-talk and scandal of her old set on the avenue! How Gus Elliot and Van Dam would exult! All passed through her mind in one dreadful whirl. She snatched up the money and rushed out with one thought of escape, and for some time after had a shuddering apprehension of being pursued and arrested.
"Oh, if I had only gone to Tiffany's, where I am known!" she groaned. "It's all mother's work. Her advice is always fatal, and I will never follow it again. It seems as if everything and everybody were against me," and she plunged into the sheltering throng of Broadway, glad to be a mere unrecognized drop in its mighty tide.
But even as Edith passed out of the jeweller's store her eye rested for a moment on the face of a man whom she thought she had seen before, though she could not tell where, and the face haunted her, causing much uneasiness.
"Could he have seen and known me?" she queried most anxiously.
He had done both. He was no other than Tom Crowl, a clerk in the village at one of the lesser dry-goods stores, where the Allens had a small account. He was one of the mean loafers who were present at the bar-room scene, and had cheered, and then kicked Gus Elliot, and "laid for him" in the evening with the "boys." He was one of the upper graduates of Pushton street-corners, and having spent an idle, vicious boyhood, truant half the time from school, had now arrived at the dignity of clerk in a store, that thrived feebly on the scattering trade that filtered through and past Mr. Hard's larger establishment. He was one of the worst phases of the male gossip, and had the scent of a buzzard for the carrion of scandal. The Allens were now the uppermost theme of the village, for there seemed some mystery about them. Moreover, the rural dabblers in vice had a natural jealousy of the more accomplished rakes from the city, which took on something of the air of virtuous indignation against them. Of course the talk about Gus and Van Dam included the Allens; and if poor Edith could have heard the surmises about them in the select coterie of clerks that gathered after closing hours around Crowl, as the central fountain of gossip, she would have felt more bitterly than ever that the spirit of chivalry had utterly forsaken mankind.
When therefore young Crowl saw Edith get on the same train as himself, he determined to watch her, and startle, if possible, his small squad of admirers with a new proof of his right to lead as chief scandal-monger. The scene in the jewelry store thus became a brilliant stroke of fortune to him, though so severe a blow to Edith. (The number of people who are like wolves, that turn upon and devour one of their kind when wounded, is not small.) Crowl exultingly saw himself doubly the hero of the evening in the little room of the loft over the store, where poor Edith would be discussed that evening over a black bottle and sundry clay pipes.
As Edith returned up town toward the depot, the impulse to go and see her old home was very strong. She thought her veil sufficient protection to allow her to venture. Slowly and with heavy step she passed up the well-known street on the opposite side, and then crossed and passed down toward that door from which she had so often tripped in light-hearted gayety, or rolled away in a liveried carriage, the envied and courted daughter of a millionaire. And to-day she was selling her jewelry for bread—to-day she had narrowly, as she thought, escaped the police court—to-day she had no other prospect of support save her unskilled hands, and little more than two short months ago, that house was ablaze with light, resounding with mirth and music, and she and her sisters were known as among the wealthiest belles of the city. It was like a horrid dream. It seemed as if she might see old Hannibal opening the door, and Zell come tripping out, or Laura at the window of her room with a book, or the portly form of her father returning from business, indeed even herself, radiant with pride and pleasure, starting for an afternoon walk as of old. All seemed to look the same. Why was it not? Why could she not enter and be at home! Again she passed. A name on the door caught her eye. With a shudder of disgust and pain, she read—
"Uriah Fox."
"So the villain lives in the home of which he robbed us," she said bitterly. "The world seems made for such. Old Hannibal was right. God lumps the world, but the devil seems to look after his friends and prosper them."
She now hastened to the depot. The city had lost its attractions to her, in view of what she had seen and suffered that day, and though inclined to feel hard and resentful at her fate, she was sincerely thankful that she had a quiet home in the country from which at least the false-hearted and cruel could be kept away.
She saw during the day several faces that she knew, but none recognized her, and she realized how soon we are forgotten by our wide circle of friends, and how the world goes on just the same after we have vacated the large space we suppose we occupy.
She reached home in the twilight, weary and despondent. Her mother asked eagerly:
"Did you meet any one you knew?" as if this were the all-important question.
"Don't speak to me," said Edith impatiently. "I'm half dead with fatigue and trouble. Hannibal, please give me a cup of tea, and then I will go to bed."
"But, Edith," persisted Mrs. Allen querulously, "did you see any of our old set? I hope you didn't take the jewelry where you were known."
Edith's overtaxed nerves gave way, and she said sharply—
"No, I did not go where I was known, as I ought, and therefore have been robbed, and might have been in jail myself to-night. I will never follow your advice again. It has brought nothing but trouble and disaster. I have had enough of your silly pride and its results. What practical harm would it have done me, if I had met all the persons I know in the city? By going where I was not known I lost half my jewelry, and was insulted and threatened with great danger in the bargain. If I had gone to Tiffany's, or Ball and Black's, where I am known, I should have been treated politely and obtained the full value of what I offered. I can't even forgive myself for being such a fool. But I have done with your ridiculous false pride forever."
These were harsh words for a daughter to speak to her mother, under any provocation, and even Zell said:
"Edith, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to speak to mother so."
"I think so, too," said Laura. "I'm sure she meant everything for the best, and she took the course which is taken by the majority in like circumstances."
"All the worse for the majority then, if they fare anything as we have done. The division of labor in this family seems to be that I am to do all the work, and bear the brunt of everything, and the rest sit by and criticise, or make more trouble. You have all got to do something now or go hungry," and Edith swallowed her tea, and went frowningly away to her room. She was no saint, to begin with, and her overtaxed mind and body revenged themselves in nervous irritation. But her young and healthful nature soon found in sound sleep the needed restorative.
Mrs. Allen shed a few helpless tears, and Laura wearily watched the faint flicker on the hearth, for the night was chilly. Zell went into the dining-room and read for the twentieth time a letter received that day.
Unknown to Edith, the worst disaster yet had occurred in her absence. Zell had been to the village for the mail. She would not admit, even to herself, that she hoped for a letter from one who had acted so poor a part as her false lover, and yet, controlled so much more by her feelings and impulses than by either reason or principle, it was with a thrill of joy that she recognized the familiar handwriting. The next moment she dropped her veil to conceal her burning blush of shame. She hastened home with a wild tumult at heart.
"I will read it, and see what he says for himself," she said, "and then will write a withering answer."
But as Van Dam's ardent words and plausible excuses burned themselves into her memory, her weak foolish heart relented, and she half believed he was wronged by Edith after all. The withering answer became a queer jumble of tender reproaches and pathetic appeals, and ended by saying that if he would marry her in her own home it all might be as secret as he desired, and she would wait his convenience for acknowledgment.
She also did another wrong and imprudent thing; for she told him to direct his reply to another office about a mile from Pushton, for she dreaded Edith's anger should her correspondence be discovered.
The wily, unscrupulous man gave one of his satantic leers as he read the letter.
"The game will soon be mine," he chuckled, and he wrote promptly in return:
"In your request and reproaches, I see the influence of another mind. Left to yourself you would not doubt me. And yet such is my love for you, I would comply with your request were it not for what passed that fatal evening. My feelings and honor as a man forbid my ever meeting your sister again till she has apologized. She never liked me, and always wronged me with doubts. Elliot acted like a fool and a villain, and I have nothing more to do with him. But your sister, in her anger and excitement, classed me with him. When you have been my loved and trusted wife for some length of time, I hope your family will do me justice. When you are here with me you will soon see why our marriage must be private for the present. You have known me since you were a child. I will be true to my word and will do exactly as I agreed. I will meet you any evening you wish on the down boat. Awaiting your reply with an anxiety which only the deepest love can inspire, I remain,
"Your slave, GUILLIAM VAN DAM."
Such was the false but plausible missive that was aimed as an arrow at poor little Zell. There was nothing in her training or education, and little in her character, to shield her. Moreover the increasing miseries of their situation were Van Dam's allies.
Edith rose the next morning greatly refreshed, and her naturally courageous nature rallied to meet the difficulties of their position. But in her strength, as was too often the case, she made too little allowance for the weakness of the others. She took the reins in her hand in a masterful and not merciful way, and dictated to the rest in a manner that they secretly resented.
The store wagon was a little earlier than usual that morning, and a note from Mr. Hard was handed in, stating that he had payments to make that day and would therefore request that his little account might be met. Two or three other persons brought up bills from the village, saying that for some reason or another the money was greatly needed. Tom Crowl's gossip was doing its legitimate work.
In the post-office Edith found all the other accounts against the family, with requests for payment, polite enough, but pressing.
She resolved to pay all she could, and went first to Mr. Hard's, That worthy citizen's eyes grew less stony as he saw half the amount of his bill on the counter. The rumor of Edith's visit to the city had reached even him, and he had his fears that collecting might involve some unpleasant business; but, however unpleasant it might be, Mr. Hard always collected.
"I hope our method of dealing has satisfied you. Miss Allen," he ventured politely.
"Oh, yes," said Edith dryly, "you have been very liberal and prompt with everything, especially your bill."
At this Mr. Hard's eyes grew quite pebbly, and he muttered something about its being the rule to settle monthly.
"Oh, certainly," said Edith, "and like most rules, no doubt, has many exceptions. Good-morning."
She also paid something on the other bills, and found that she had but a few dollars left. Though there was a certain sense of relief in the feeling that she now owed much less, still she looked with dismay on the small sum remaining. Where was more to come from? She had determined that she would not go to New York again to sell anything except in the direst extremity.
That evening Hannibal gave them a meagre supper, for Edith had told him of the absolute necessity of economy. There was a little grumbling over the fare. So Edith pushed her chair back, laid seven dollars on the table, saying:
"That's all the money I have in the world. Who's got any more?"
They raised ten dollars among them.
"Now," said Edith, "this is all we have. Where is more coming from?"
Helpless sighs and silence were her only answers.
"There is nothing clearer in the world," continued Edith, "than that we must earn money. What can we do?"
"I never thought I should have to work," said Laura piteously.
"But, my dear sister," said Edith earnestly, "isn't it clear to you now that you must? You certainly don't expect me to earn enough to support you all. One pair of hands can't do it, and it wouldn't be fair in the bargain."
"Oh, certainly not," said Laura. "I will do anything you say as well as I can, though, for the life of me, I don't see what I can do."
"Nor I either," said Zell passionately. "I don't know how to work. I never did anything useful in my life that I know of. What right have parents to bring up girls in this way, unless they make it a perfect certainty that they will always be rich? Here we are as helpless as four children. We have not got enough to keep us from starving more than a week at best. Just to think of it! Men are speculating and risking all they have every day. Ever since I was a child I have heard about the risks of business. I knew some people whose fathers failed, and they went away, I don't know where, to suffer as we have perhaps, and yet girls are not taught to do a single thing by which they can earn a penny if they need to. If anybody will pay me for jabbering a little bad French and Italian, and strumming a few operatic airs on the piano, I am at their service. I think I also understand dressing, flirting, and receiving compliments very well. I had a taste for these things, and never had any special motive given me for doing anything else. What becomes of all the girls thus taught to be helpless, and then tossed out into the world to sink or swim?"
"They find some self-sustaining work in it," said Edith.
"Not all of them, I guess," muttered Zell sullenly.
"Then they do worse, and had better starve," said Edith sternly.
"You don't know anything about starving," retorted Zell, bitterly. "I repeat, it's a burning shame to bring girls up so that they don't know how to do anything, if there's ever any possibility that they must. And it's a worse shame that respect and encouragement are not given to girls who earn a living. Mother says that if we become working girls, not one of our old wealthy, fashionable set will have anything to do with us. What makes people act so silly? Any one of them on the avenue may be where we are in a year. I've no patience with the ways of the world. People don't help each other to be good, and don't help others up. Grown-up folks act like children. How parents can look forward to the barest chance of their children being poor, and bring them up as we were, I don't see. I'm no more fit to be poor than to be President."
Zell never before had said a word that reflected on her father, but in the light of events her criticism seemed so Just that no one reproved her.
Mrs. Allen only sighed over her part of the implied blame. She had reached the hopeless stage of one lost in a foreign land, where the language is unknown and every sight and sound unfamiliar and bewildering. This weak fashionable woman, the costly product of an artificial luxurious life, seemed capable of being little better than a millstone around the necks of her children in this hour of their need. If there had been some innate strength and nobility in Mrs. Allen's character it might have developed now into something worthy of respect under this sharp attrition of trouble, however perverted before. But where a precious stone will take lustre a pumice stone will crumble. There is a multitude of natures so weak to begin with that they need tonic treatment all through life. What must such become under the influence of enervating luxury, flattery, and uncurbed selfishness from childhood? Poor, faded, sighing, helpless Mrs. Allen, shivering before the trouble she had largely occasioned, is the answer.
Edith soon broke the forlorn silence that followed Zell's outburst by saying:
"All the blame doesn't rest on the parents. I might have improved my advantages far better. I might have so mastered the mere rudiments of an English education as to be able to teach little children, but I can scarcely remember a single thing now."
"I can remember one thing," interrupted Zell, who was fresh from her books, "that there was mighty little attention given to the rudiments, as you call them, in the fashionable schools to which I went. To give the outward airs and graces of a fine lady seemed their whole aim. Accomplishments, deportment were everything. The way I was hustled over the rudiments almost takes away my breath to remember, and I have as remote an idea of vulgar fractions as of how to do the vulgar work before us. I tell you the whole thing is a cruel farce. If girls are educated like butterflies, it ought to be made certain that they can live like butterflies."
"Well, then," continued Edith, "we ought to have perfected ourselves in some accomplishment. They are always in demand. See what some French and music teachers obtain."
"Nonsense," said Zell pettishly, "you know well enough that by the time we were sixteen our heads were so full of beaux, parties, and dress, that French and music were a bore. We went through the fashionable mills like the rest, and if father had continued worth a million or so, no one would have found fault with our education."
"We can't help the past now," said Edith after a moment, "but I am not so old yet but that I can choose some kind of work and so thoroughly master it that I can get the highest price paid for that form of labor. I wish it could be gardening, for I have no taste for the shut-up work of woman; sitting in a close room all day with a needle would be slow suicide to me."
"Gardening!" said Zell contemptuously. "You couldn't plow as well as that snuffy old fellow who scratched your garden about as deeply as a hen would have done it. A woman can't dig and hoe in the hot sun, that is, an American girl can't, and I don't think she ought."
"Nor I either," said Mrs. Allen, with some returning vitality. "The very idea is horrid."
"But plowing, digging, and hoeing are not all of gardening," saidEdith with some irritation.
"I guess you would make a slim support by just snipping around among the rose-bushes," retorted Zell provokingly.
"That's always the way with you, Zell," said Edith sharply, "from one extreme to another. Well, what would you like to do?"
"If I had to work I would like housekeeping. That admits of great variety and activity. I wish I could open a summer boarding-house up here. Wouldn't I make it attractive!"
"Such black eyes and red cheeks certainly would—to the gentlemen," answered Edith satirically.
"They would be mere accessories. I think I could give to a boarding-house, that place of hash and harrowing discomfort, a dainty, homelike air. If father, when he risked a failure, had only put aside enough to set me up in a boarding-house, I should have been made."
"A boarding-house! What horror next?" sighed Mrs. Allen.
"Don't be alarmed, mother," said Zell bitterly. "We can scarcely start one of the forlornest hash species on ten dollars. I admit I would rather keep house for a good husband, and it seems to me I could soon learn to give him the perfection of a good home," and her eyes filled with wistful tears. Dashing them scornfully away, she added, "The idea of a woman loving a man, and letting his home be dependent on the cruel mercies of foreign servants! If it's a shame that girls are not taught to make a living if they need to, it's a worse shame that they are not taught to keep house. Half the brides I know of ought to have been arrested and imprisoned for obtaining property on false pretences. They had inveigled men into the vain expectation that they would make a home for them, when they no more knew how to make a home than a heaven. The best they can do is to go to one of those places so satirically called an 'intelligence office,' and import them into their elegant houses a small mob of quarrelsome, drunken, dishonest foreigners, and then they and their husbands live on such conditions as are permitted. I would be mistress of my house, just as a man is master of his store or office, and I would know thoroughly how work of all kinds was done, and see that it was done thoroughly. If they wouldn't do it, I'd discharge them. I am satisfied that our bad servants are the result of bad housekeepers more than anything else."
"Poor little Zell!" said Edith, smiling sadly. "I hope you will have a chance to put your theories into most happy and successful practice."
"Little chance of it here in 'Bushtown,' as Hannibal calls it," saidZell suddenly.
"Well," said Edith, in a kind of desperate tone, "we've got to decide on something at once. I will suggest this. Laura must take care of mother, and teach a few little children if she can get them. We will give up the parlor to her at certain hours. I will put up a notice in the post-office asking for such patronage, and perhaps we can put an advertisement in the Pushton Recorder, if it doesn't cost too much. Zell, you must take the housekeeping mainly, for which you have a taste, and help me with any sewing that I can get. Hannibal will go into the garden and I will help him there all I can. I shall go to the village to-morrow and see if I can find anything to do that will bring in money."
There was a silent acquiescence in Edith's plan, for no one had anything else to offer.
The next day Edith went to the village, and frankly told Mr. Hard how they were situated, mentioning that the failure of their lawyer to sell the stock had suddenly placed them in this crippled condition.
Mr. Hard's eyes grew more pebbly as he listened. He ventured in a constrained voice as consolation:
"That he never had much faith in stocks—No, he had no employment for ladies in connection with his store. He simply bought and sold at asmalladvance. Miss Klip, the dressmaker, might have something."
To Miss Klip Edith went. Miss Klip, although an unprotected female, appeared to be a maiden that could take care of herself. One would scarcely venture to hinder her. Her cutting scissors seemed instinct with life, and one would get out of their way as naturally as from a railroad train. She gave Edith a sharp look through her spectacles and said abruptly in answer to her application:
"I thought you was rich."
"We were," said Edith sadly, "but we must work now and are willing to."
"What do you know about dressmaking and sewing?"
"Well, not a great deal, but I think you would find us very ready to learn."
"Oh, bless you, I can get all my work done by thorough hands, and at my own prices, too. Good-morning."
"But can you not tell me of some one who would be apt to have work?"
"There's Mrs. Glibe across the street. She has work sometimes. Most of the dressmakers around here are well trained, have machines, and go out by the day."
Edith's heart sank. What chance was there for her untaught hands among all these "trained workers."
She soon found that Mrs. Glibe was more inclined to talk (being as garrulous as Miss Klip was laconic) and to find out all about them than to help her to work. Making but little headway in Edith's confidence she at last said, "I give Rose Lacey all the work I have to spare and it isn't very much. The business is so cut up that none of us have much more than we can do except a short time in the busy season. Still, those of us who can give a nice fit and cut to advantage can make a good living after getting known. It takes time and training you know of course."
"But isn't there work of any kind that we can get in this place?" saidEdith impatiently.
"Well, not that you' d be willing to do. Of course there's housecleaning and washing and some plain sewing, though that is mostly done on a machine. A good strong woman can always get day's work, except in winter, but you ain't one of that sort," she added, looking at Edith's delicate pink and white complexion and little white hands in which a scrubbing-brush would look incongruous.
"Isn't there any demand for fancy work?" asked Edith.
"Mighty little. People buy such things in the city. Money ain't so plenty in the country that people will spend much on that kind of thing. The ladies themselves make it at home and when they go out to tea."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Edith, as she plodded wearily homeward, "what can we do? Ignorance is as bad as crime."
Her main hope now for immediate necessities was that they might get some scholars. She had put up a notice in the post-office and an advertisement in the paper. She had also purchased some rudimentary school books, and the poor child, on her return home, soon distracted herself by a sudden plunge into vulgar fractions. She found herself so sadly rusty that she would have to study almost as hard as any of her pupils, were they obtained. Laura's bookish turn and better memory had kept her better informed. Edith soon threw aside grammars and arithmetics, saying to Laura:
"You must take care of the school, if we get one. It would take me too long to prepare on these things in our emergency."
Almost desperate from the feeling that there was nothing she could do, she took a hoe that was by no means light, and loosened the ground and cut off all the sprouting weeds around her strawberry-vines. The day was rather cool and cloudy, and she was surprised at the space she went over. She wore her broad-brimmed straw hat tied down over her face, and determined she would not look at the road, and would act as if it were not there, letting people think what they pleased. But a familiar rumble and rattle caused her to look shyly up after the wagon had passed, and she saw Arden Lacey gazing wonderingly back at her. She dropped her eyes instantly as if she had not seen him, and went on with her work. At last, thoroughly wearied, she went in and said half triumphantly, half defiantly:
"A woman can hoe. I've done it myself."
"A womancanride a horse like a man," said Mrs. Allen, and this was all the home encouragement poor Edith received.
They had had but a light lunch at one o'clock, meaning to have a more substantial dinner at six. Hannibal was showing Zell and getting her started in her department. It was but a poor little dinner they had, and Zell said in place of dessert:
"Edith, we are most out of everything."
"And I can't get any work," said Edith despondingly. "People have got to know how to do things before anybody wants them, and we haven't time to learn."
"Ten dollars won't last long," said Zell recklessly.
"I will go down to the village and make further inquiries to-morrow," Edith continued in a weary tone. "It seems strange how people stand aloof from us. No one calls and everybody wants what we owe them right away. Are there not any good kind people in Pushton? I wish we had not offended the Laceys. They might have advised and helped us, but nothing would tempt me to go to them after treating them as we did."
There were plenty of good kind people in Pushton, but Mrs. Allen's "policy" had driven them away as far as possible. By their course the Allens had placed themselves, in relation to all classes, in the most unapproachable position, and their "friends" from the city and Tom Crowl's gossip had made matters far worse. Poor Edith thought they were utterly ignored. She would have felt worse if she had known that every one was talking about them.
The next day Edith started on another unsuccessful expedition to the village, and while she was gone, Zell went to the post-office to which she had told Van Dam to direct his reply. She found the plausible lie we have already placed before the reader.
At first she experienced a sensation of anger that he had not complied with her wish. It was a new experience to have gentlemen, especially Van Dam, so long her obsequious slave, think of anything contrary to her wishes. She also feared that Edith might be right, and that Van Dam designed evil against her. She would not openly admit, even to herself, that this was his purpose, and yet Edith's words had been so clear and strong, and Van Dam's conditions placed her so entirely at his mercy, that she shrank from him and was fascinated at the same time.
But instead of indignantly casting the letter from her, she read it again and again. Her foolish heart pleaded for him.
"He couldn't be so false to me, so false to his written word," she said, and the letter was hidden away, and she passed into the dangerous stage of irresolution, where temptation is secretly dwelt upon. She hesitated, and, according to the proverb, the woman who does this is lost. Instead of indignantly casting temptation from her, she left her course open, to be decided somewhat by circumstances. She wilfully shut her eyes to the danger, and tried to believe, and did almost believe that her lover meant honestly by her.
And so the days passed, Edith vainly trying to find something to do, and working hard in her garden, which as yet brought no return. She was often very sad and despondent, and again very irritable. Laura's apathy only deepened, and she seemed like one not yet awakened from a dream of the past. Zell made some show of work, but after all left almost everything for Hannibal as before, and when Edith sharply chided her, she laughed recklessly and said:
"What's the use? If we are going to starve we might as well do so at once and have it over with."
"I won't starve," said Edith, almost fiercely. "There must be honest work somewhere in the world for one willing to do it, and I'm going to find it. At any rate, can raise food in my garden before long."
"I'm afraid we shall starve before your cabbages and carrots come to maturity, and we might as well as to try to live on such garbage. Supplies are running low, and, as you say, the money is nearly gone."
"Yes, and people won't trust us any more. Two or three declined to in the village to-day, and I felt too discouraged and ashamed to ask any further. For some reason people seem afraid of us. I see persons turn and look after me, and yet they avoid me. Two or three impudent clerks tried to make my acquaintance, but I snubbed them in such a way that they will let me alone hereafter. I wonder if any stories could have got around about us? Country towns are such places for gossip."
"Have you heard of any scholars?" said Laura languidly.
"No, not one," was Edith's despondent answer. "If nothing turns up before, I'll go to New York next Monday and sell some more things, and I'll go where I'm known this time."
Nothing turned up, and by Sunday they had nothing in the house save a little dry bread, which they ate moistened with wine and water. Mrs. Allen sighed and cried all day. Laura had the strange manner of one awaking up to something unrealized before. Restlessness began to take the place of apathy, and her eyes often sought the face of Edith in a questioning manner. Finding her alone in the garden, she said:
"Why, Edith, I'm hungry. I never remember being hungry before. Is it possible we have come to this?"
Edith burst into tears, and said brokenly:
"Come with me to the arbor."
"I'm sure I'm willing to do anything," said Laura piteously, "but I never realized we would come to this."
"Oh! how can the birds sing?" said Edith bitterly. "This beautiful spring weather, with its promise and hopefulness, seems a mockery. The sun is shining brightly, flowers are budding and blooming, and all the world seems so happy, but my heart aches as if it would burst. I'm hungry, too, and I know poor old Hannibal is faint, though he tries to keep up whenever I am around."
"But, Edith, if people knew how we are situated they would not let us want. Our old acquaintances in New York, or our relations even, though not very friendly, would surely help us."
"Oh, yes, I suppose so for a little while, but I can't bring myself to ask for charity, and no one would under take to support us. What discourages me most is that I can't get work that will bring in money. Between people wishing to have nothing to do with us, on one hand, and my ignorance on the other, there seems no resource. Some of those whom we owe seem inclined to press us. I'm so afraid of losing this place and being out on the street. If I could only get a chance somewhere, or get time to learn to do something well!"
Then after a moment she asked suddenly, "Where's Zell?"
"In her room, I think"
"I don't like Zell's manner," said Edith, after a brief painful revery. "It's so hard and reckless. Something seems to be on her mind. She has long fits of abstraction as if she were thinking of something, or weighing some plan. Could she have had any communication with that villain Van Dam? Oh! that would be the bitterest drop of all in our cup of sorrow. I would rather see her dead than that."
"Oh, dear!" said Laura, "it seems as if I had been in a trance and had just awakened. Why, Edith, I must do something. It is not right to let you bear all these things alone. But don't trouble about Zell, not one of George Allen's daughters will sink to that."