The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Speckled Bird, by Augusta J. Evans Wilson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: A Speckled Bird Author: Augusta J. Evans Wilson Release Date: May 4, 2011 [eBook #36029] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPECKLED BIRD*** E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) A SPECKLED BIRD BY AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON AUTHOR OF "ST. ELMO," "VASHTI," "INFELICE," "AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS," ETC. "As a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her." G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1902, BY G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY A Speckled Bird. Issued August, 1902. To MY KIND READERS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN, WHO HAVE DESIRED AND ASKED ME TO WRITE AGAIN, THESE PAGES ARE OFFERED IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF VERY LOYAL FRIENDSHIP DURING MANY YEARS CONTENTS CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII POPULAR NOVELS A SPECKLED BIRD CHAPTER I "Grandma, who named me Eglah?" "My cousin, Bishop Vivian, when he baptized you." "Do you think he had any right to put such a label on me?" "Certainly, because your father selected your name, and the bishop had no choice." "It is so ugly, I never can like it, and a little baby that can't speak her mind ought not to be tied to something she must drag all her life and hate for ever and ever." "Eat your breakfast, and try to be a good, quiet child, then your name will not trouble you so much." "I never shall like it, any more than you do, and you know, grandma, when you call me your mouth twists like you had toothache." "I was not consulted about your name. It belonged to your New England Grandmother Kent, and as it appears you belong only to your father, you were called after his mother. I heard him tell you it was the name of a queen—one of David's wives." "Yes, but I found out she was not the head queen—just a sort of step-wife queen. Now if I could only be the pet queen, Sheba, I should not fret at all." "The Queen of Sheba was not David's wife." "You are all wrong about your Bible, grandma, because you are only a Methodist. David's Sheba was nicknamed Bath Sheba, for the reason that he saw her going to her bath-house, and she looked so pretty. I saw her picture in father's 'Piscopal Bible." "There, there! Be quiet. Drink your milk." Mrs. Maurice leaned back in her chair and sighed as she looked down at the fragile child beside her. The tall, silver coffee urn showed in repoussé on one side the flight of Europa, on the other Dirce dragged to death. Eglah could never understand how the strands of the victim's hair supported the weight of her form, and wondered why they did not give way and set the prisoner free. To-day she eyed it askance, then surveyed her own fair image reflected in the polished, smooth surface below the band of figures. "Grandma, don't you think horses are much nicer for ladies to ride than oxen?" "Yes, my dear." "Then why did you buy ox riders?" one small finger pointed to the heirloom fetich. "I did not buy the urn. It has belonged to your Grandfather Maurice's family for one hundred and fifty years, and was brought from Old England. Eliza, take her away. If she cannot be silent, she must go back and have her meals with you. It seems impossible to teach her that in the presence of grown people children are expected to listen." Mrs. Mitchell came forward from a side table, lifted the little girl from her chair, and untied the ruffled bib that protected her white dimity dress. "Now tell grandmother you are sorry you annoyed her, and if she will let you sit at her table you will be as quiet as she wishes." "Ma-Lila, don't make me tell stories; she doesn't believe them, and I am so tired saying things I don't mean. I want to go back to the side table, where you are not always scolding me. Grandma, it will be peacefuller if I stay with Ma-Lila ——" "Hush! Come here." Mrs. Maurice lifted the little one's dimpled chin and studied the fair face that had bloomed seven years in her lonely home: a winsome face cut like a gem, velvety-brown eyes, long-lashed, and the pure, pale oval set in a shining bronze frame of curling hair, all chestnut in shade, braided with gold when sunshine hid among the ripples. "Kent! Kent—even her ears small as any other rogue's. She is her father's child." "Is that a sin, grandma?" Mrs. Maurice swiftly laid her hand over the uplifted, upbraiding eyes, to veil something in their depths that often disquieted her, and sought refuge in her habitual command: "Take her away, Eliza." Ringing the small bell close to the breakfast tray, the mistress took a spray of starry jasmine from the vase in the centre of the table, and as she turned away said to the grey-haired butler: "Aaron, you will put a plate and chair for Miss Eglah at the side table until further orders. Tell Oliver I shall not want the carriage until four o'clock." Unusually tall and very handsome was this stately widow of a Confederate general who had been slain during one of the fierce conflicts around beleaguered Richmond. No white hairs marred the glossy blackness of the thick coil half hidden under a snowy crêpe cap, and the brilliant blue eyes were undimmed by tearful years of widowhood—a widowhood involving for her the full, sad significance of the sacred and melancholy term, an inability to forget, a despair of any earthly consolation, and a jealous reticence that denied all discussion of her sorrow, as she would have defended her dead from an alien's rude touch. To her, time had brought neither oblivion nor alleviation, only a sharpened sense of irreparable bereavement; and as one standing in an unending and hopeless eclipse, she accepted the gloom with a stern and silent rejection of all other lights when the sun of her life went down. Anniversaries are electric batteries that thrill the domain of emotions, and one day out of every three hundred and sixty- five the strings of memory are keyed to their utmost tension, vibrating with an intolerable intensity that reddens the lips of old wounds and quickens dull aches to stinging torture. This memorial morning Mrs. Maurice crossed the wide, vaulted hall, and passing through the long, pillared drawing- room, opened a locked door and shut herself in a darkened chamber to keep tryst with the sacred souvenirs that represented all she held dear. Raising the window, she turned the blinds to allow sunlight entrance into this silent reliquary filled with mementoes jealously guarded "in solemn salvatory": a heavy, square bedstead with twisted columns that upheld a red-lined tester whence embroidered draperies fell; a gilded swinging wicker crib, with baby blankets, rose bordered; a velvet easy chair, where a gentleman's quilted silk dressing-gown hung over the carved back, and his slippers lay beneath; a table heaped with a child's toys, books, and daguerreotypes of various sizes. On a leathern couch lay a folded Confederate uniform, and a man's straw hat, cane, spurs, and riding whip had been placed beside the faded grey coat. Over the old-fashioned, high marble mantel hung a portrait of General Egbert Maurice, clad in uniform, wearing three stars and a wreath on his collar, and holding his plumed hat in his right hand. At one corner of the mantel a furled Confederate flag leaned until it touched the frame of the picture, and from the marble shelf, where lay the general's sash and sword, hung the stained and torn guidon of his favorite regiment. On the wall opposite the fireplace the portrait of a lovely girl with an apron full of roses seemed to fill the room with radiance and color. With a slow, caressing movement, Mrs. Maurice's slim white hand passed over the front of the smoking-gown, and fastened in a button hole the spray of fragrant, satin-starred jasmine; then, lifting the faded grey coat, she held it to her heart in a tight, straining clasp, as she seated herself on the couch, and her fingers lingered on tarnished gilt buttons and braid. Inside the uniform was pinned a parcel wrapped in tissue paper, from which she shook out a mass of yellowed lace, and as the filmy folds of an infant's christening robe swept across her lap, a subtle perfume of withered flowers like the breath of a rose jar stole over the room. With dry eyes she looked long at one portrait, then at the other: the husband of her youth and the only child that had come as crowning blessing to a happy married life where no dissensions muttered, no discordant clash jarred the perfect harmony. As the dead years babbled, she listened now to echoes of manly tones, and now to a baby's prattling lisp, still dividing as of yore her heart's homage. When war robbed her of the husband who had never ceased to be tender lover, her only hold on life centred in their beautiful daughter Marcia, and the struggle to guard her and defend from confiscation and ruin the fine landed estate and large fortune left by General Maurice had served, in some degree, to lessen the tendency to morbid brooding. To the truly typical Southern woman who survived the loss of family idols and of her country's freedom, for which she had surrendered them, "reconstruction," political and social, was no more possible than the physical resurrection and return of slain thousands lying in Confederate graves all over the trampled and ruined South. No mourning Southern matron indulged more intensely an inexorable, passionate hatred of Northern invaders than did Mrs. Maurice, who refused to accept the inevitable, and shut her doors against agents of "union and reconstruction" as promptly as she would have barred out leprosy or smallpox. Proud of the social prestige with which her Brahmin birth and stainless family record had dowered her, she wielded her influence in uncompromising hostility to all who advocated a tacit acceptance of the new conditions called "peace." The loss of negroes that abandoned several plantations would have materially impaired the Maurice fortune, had not the prevision of the general's commission merchant in a distant seaport induced the precautionary course of sending a portion of his crop of cotton to Liverpool early in the first year of the war, thus securing a large amount of treasure under the British flag, where (as the cotton factor wrote Mrs. Maurice a few years later) "'Union' thieves could not steal, nor 'reconstruction' moths and rust feed upon it." Out of the wreckage that succeeded the final catastrophe at Appomattox the family fortune of General Maurice emerged triumphant in proportions, and the minority of Marcia was a bulwark that defied successfully the numerous assaults of "loyal confiscators." Sooner or later the diabolus ex machina confronts us all, and pierces at the one spot least guarded because deemed invulnerable. Mrs. Maurice's maternal pride was built on the shifting sands of girlish impulse and flattered vanity, and the crash showed her that somewhere at the cross roads she had failed to offer a black lamb in propitiating evil divinities— had left no morsel of meat for the sleuth-hounds of baleful destiny that suddenly bayed destruction to the last earthly hope life held for her. Reared in the semi-cloistral seclusion of a Southern girl's education in ante-bellum days, trained at home by governesses, and barred from society until she should have made the European tour for which her mother had fixed an early date, predestined Marcia went to her doom when at the house of a friend she met accidentally the recently appointed Federal judge, Allison Kent—handsome, courtly, debonair, and wily. Clandestine courtships rarely lag; hence this lover of forty years, dreading discovery and the prompt removal of an infatuated girl only seventeen on her last birthday, kept the mother in complete ignorance of impending calamity until the night before her departure for Europe, when Marcia fled with him to an adjoining State, where a justice of the peace made them man and wife. In accordance with life-long custom, Mrs. Maurice went to her child's bedroom to kiss her good night, and on the pillow found a farewell note, praying for forgiveness, and promising to meet her at a town on the line of her journey. How the mother bore this shock only God knew; no eye but His watched during that long night, when her soul went down into a Gehenna of torture—when, alone in her crucifixion, she accepted defeat, and girded herself for grim endurance. As day dawned she unlocked her door, and summoning her servants, said: "Miss Marcia has left me to marry a man who cannot enter my house. Take this note to Mr. Whitfield's residence at once; not to his office, to his house. Minerva, you will finish packing Miss Marcia's trunk, which must be sent to her. I shall make no change in my plans, except to take the noon train instead of the one at midnight. Ask me no questions. Send Mitchell and Eliza to me." When her attorney, Mr. Whitfield, appalled by the stony white face that showed no hint of tears, no more trace of grief than the marble figure that supported the mantel at her side, essayed a few words of sympathy, she put out her hands with an imperious gesture. "There is no comfort possible, and I need your help only in writing a new will. I start to New York at noon, so you have little time." A few hours later, having seen only her pastor and her lawyer, she left her rifled home by a route that enabled her to avoid the town designated as a place of meeting. Across the girl's farewell letter, which was returned to "Marcia Maurice," she had written: "My only hope is that God will take me out of this world before I see again the face of the child who has disgraced the memory of her father and the name of her mother." Eighteen months had been spent in Europe, whence she was most reluctantly recalled by the death of Robert Mitchell, the overseer and business manager of one of her plantations, who was killed by the explosion of a mill engine. His young widow, Eliza, had been sheltered and guarded in Mrs. Maurice's home when orphaned by the death of her father, a Methodist chaplain attached to General Maurice's command, and the intimacy of years was marked by unfailing kindness and confidence on the part of the benefactress, by profound affection and ardent gratitude on that of the destitute girl. The peculiarly harrowing circumstances attending her husband's loss had so severely shocked Eliza that Mrs. Maurice promptly removed her from the "overseer's cottage" to her own house, where she was nursed tenderly and skilfully in the room that before her marriage she had so long called her home. Loving Marcia very warmly, she had attempted to intercede with the indignant mother, and one of her letters had enclosed an appeal from the erring daughter. It was returned unopened, and accompanied by a very positive assurance that any future repetition would not be forgiven. Old friends gathered to greet the returned traveller, yet all intuitively avoided allusion to the domestic cancer that, despite her proud, silent composure, was eating the heart barred against sympathy. She learned from the newspapers that under the new Federal régime Judge Kent was temporarily Senator, and that after a season in Washington he and Marcia were living at a hotel in her own neighboring city; but as the latter had followed her husband into the Episcopal Church, no meeting occurred between parent and child. So complete was the estrangement, and so unapproachable the stern, silent attitude of the mother, that when Dr. Eggleston, the family physician, and Bishop Vivian, the favorite cousin, called early one morning on an urgent errand, both realized that they championed a forlorn and desperate cause in battling with this old lioness robbed of her young. Instinctively she divined their mission as her eyes fell upon a letter lying on the bishop's knee, and her lips narrowed and tightened. Standing on the hearth with her arms folded, she listened quietly to her cousin's impassioned pleading for forgiveness and to the doctor's distressing presentation of Marcia's alarming condition, which he felt constrained to pronounce hopeless. "Madam, if you deny her dying prayer, remorse will drive you to despair." "She has been dead to me since the hour she deliberately deceived and forsook me. Kent's wife ceased to be my child when she insulted, disgraced, her father's name." "Oh, Patricia, how can you hope or claim God's mercy for yourself if you refuse pardon to your repentant and unhappy daughter?" A spark leaped into the cold clear eyes. "For mercy I think I shall never need to plead, and when my God grants me justice I will try to be satisfied." "Will you not at least read the few lines the poor child wrote while we held her hand and guided the pen? Oh, cousin, if you could see her now!" The bishop held out the letter. "Because you are the bearer I cannot refuse you that courtesy." She walked to the window and, holding the curtain aside, read the brief petition: "My Own Mother: "Let me come home to die. It will not be so hard if I can look into your face once more, and know that your dear hand will close my eyes as I go down into my grave. I shall see father soon, and if he could come now to my help, you know he would take me in his arms and lay me in my mother's lap. Be merciful to your poor, dying "Marcia." Leaning eagerly forward, the two grey-haired men watched and listened for some relenting token; but after a few moments she turned toward a desk, and with no change in the frozen calm of her handsome face, she merely traced a word at the bottom of the page, handed it to the bishop, and left the room. "Come." That night a cold waxen image of a boy whose soul refused to enter its clay tabernacle was laid for a moment in Eliza Mitchell's arms, to be kissed as only young mothers can kiss their dead first-born. The following day the hospital ambulance brought back on a stretcher the wan form of the erring daughter, who fainted from exhaustion as the bearers carried her into the home of her fathers. Three days later she died in her mother's arms, whispering with icy lips: "If my baby lives, keep her for my sake—for my sake." So little Eglah Kent was given, when three hours old, to the care of the young foster-mother Eliza, and slept upon the heart that mourned for the lost baby boy. Since then seven years had passed, and to-day, as Mrs. Maurice caressed Marcia's lace christening robe, she put aside all that pertained to the girl's disobedience and elopement, and memory dwelt only upon the sunny time when her husband and daughter made home a heaven. Into the quiet room crept the whine of a dog scratching at the door. As she opened it, a feeble brown creature crossed the floor, crouched before the hearth, and, raising soft, tender eyes to the portrait of the general, barked once and beat the carpet with his tail, as if in salute; her husband's favorite pointer Hector, failing fast, but loyal and true as the heart of his widow. CHAPTER II Sharing in some degree that infallible instinct whereby lower animals interpret the character of their owners, young children are often as wise and wary as dogs and cats, and before Eglah could walk without clinging to Eliza's finger, she knew intuitively that her silent, watchful grandmother eyed her suspiciously, and that warm caresses could be expected only from her father and her young foster-mother. Profound and regretful compassion rather than tenderness filled Mrs. Maurice's heart, and she faithfully ministered to the infant's needs, as she would have pityingly warmed and fed some bleating lamb bereft of its dam by March snows. Since the little girl showed, except in form, no faintest trace of Maurice blood, her grandmother regarded her most sorrowfully—not as Marcia's baby, but as the living monument of a cruel and unpardonable injury inflicted by Judge Kent. Even in the cradle Eglah defied an authority supreme in the household. "You must not say Lila, but Mama-Eliza." "I won't! It hurths my tongue to say Elitha. I will say Ma-Lila." The child's inherent antagonism made her a vexing embodiment of protest, an obstinate interrogation point punctuating the commands of this old-fashioned lady whose domestic canons belonged to an era when boys and girls were not considered "servile" because trained to answer their elders "No, sir," or "Yes, ma'am," and when after a meal in the sunset glow young human broods followed feathered folk to an early rest before stars spangled the sky. If among General Maurice's choice collection of thoroughbred game fowls, with yellow legs and bronze breasts, had appeared an uncouth mongrel pullet, dust-colored and blue of skin, his exacting widow would not have rejected it more summarily than did her proud soul repudiate the Kent scion whom she housed luxuriously because of Marcia's last prayer, but felt no more desire to caress than to fondle the bullet that slew her husband. Judge Kent's official duties called him often from the city, and during his visits to his child Mrs. Maurice, if compelled to see him, maintained the reticent, frigid courtesy with which she had received him when he first crossed her threshold bearing his unconscious wife. He had never touched the slender white fingers that pointed to the staircase that day, and while she allowed herself no verbal expression of animosity, he was humiliated by the consciousness of her intense detestation. As Southern hostess in a typical Southern home, she fully realized noblesse oblige, and her punctilious observance of the etiquette of hospitality accentuated the position she assigned him—that of stranger within her gates. He had hoped the baby might bridge the chasm, but when he ventured to dwell upon his unwillingness to deprive Mrs. Maurice of this "sweet source of solace," she promptly dispelled his illusion. "Make no mistake, Judge Kent. You leave the poor child here, and I retain her simply because her mother so requested." Desiring to minimize sources of future contention, she had directed Mr. Whitfield to acquaint him with her will, whereby the entire estate would pass at her death into the hands of certain trustees, who, after providing a liberal annuity for Eglah and Eliza, should control absolutely all interests until Eglah was twenty-one years old, when a legacy of five thousand dollars would be paid to Eliza. Should the little girl be removed from the care of her foster-mother, the annuity of the former ceased, and half of the value of the estate should be deducted from her inheritance; and if Eglah died before marriage, the homestead was bequeathed to childless Confederate widows of that State, as an Egbert Maurice memorial. Since General Maurice's last testament had left his fortune unconditionally to his wife, there was no appeal from her decision, and Judge Kent bore the keen disappointment with such semblance of acquiescence as he could summon, striving to veil his hatred of the woman whose contempt lay beneath her studied courtesy like an iron wall under a sheet of ice. An adroit and tireless schemer, he usually steered safely in the troubled political sea, and only once, in an unguarded moment, dared the current of Mrs. Maurice's convictions. "If the people of the South could only reason from the analogy of history——" He was silenced by the hand thrown up, palm outward. "We have only the privilege of suffering and remembering. The grim analogy of Sicily under Verres suggests a rather painful parallel. For us there remains solely the grace of silence; and it were well if you, sir, could set me an example, when numbered among guests under my roof." The voice was low, clear, steady, but the narrow lip arched, and the light in her blue eyes reminded him of the violet flame one sees flash up over a bed of hot anthracite. Eglah was five years old when her father was called to Washington, and thence sent to Europe on a government mission, which he so successfully accomplished that on his return the governor of his native State appointed him senator to fill an unexpired term. Having proved a useful servant of the Administration, official influence secured his election and return to the United States' Senate two years later, and Mrs. Maurice welcomed any change that removed him from her neighborhood. His rare visits were festivals to his little daughter, and she revelled in the wealth of caresses, the endearing words, the prodigality of gifts that always characterized his brief sojourns. Thus were laid the foundations of an intense and absorbing devotion to her father that gradually became the dominant factor in her life. "Nutwood"—the three-storied red brick house crowning an eminence shaded by walnut and chestnut trees—had been built in 1825 by General Maurice's father, and its pillared piazza running along three sides overlooked the city of Y ——, two miles distant, where spires and factory chimneys lifted their lines against mellow western skies. On the first and second floors of the old mansion wide halls crossed at right angles, admitting breezes from every point of the compass, and so unusually thick were the walls that the nearly square windows framed in cedar furnished comfortable lounging seats. For many years this place had been famous throughout the State for its race-horses, game chickens, pointers, fox-hounds, and fine library, and the hospitality dispensed was peculiar to an era characterized by conditions that the Civil War annihilated. No invading army had reached the city of Y——, but raiding cavalry squads once completely sacked the Maurice plantations many miles distant in the river valley, and burned not only the empty gin house, but the commodious family residence often occupied in autumn. Prior to her departure for Europe Mrs. Maurice had rebuilt gin and warehouses, and erected a pretty four-room cottage comfortably furnished, which, with fifty acres of adjoining land, she gave as dower to Eliza when she married the faithful overseer and manager of the "Bend Plantations." One sultry spring morning in Eglah's ninth year, she sat with Eliza in the "out-door schoolroom" where lessons were studied in warm weather. It was a cool retreat—a circular, latticed summer-house—overrun by yellow woodbine, honeysuckle, and a pink multiflora rose, all in full bloom, busy distilling perfume their satin lips offered in libation to the lazily wandering wind that caressed them. The pointed roof was rain proof, the floor tiled, and between the arched openings seats were fastened to the lattice wall. From the round table in the centre lovely views of shrubbery, lily- starred lawn, far-off grain fields, green pasture lands where cattle browsed, seemed set in frames of leafage and tendril that ran riot around the archways. A walk bordered with lilacs and azaleas led to the door of the conservatory, which flanked the long drawing-room; stretching beyond, one could see the wide front of the house, where no balustrade broke the line of white columns rising to the crenellated flat roof. Eglah sat with a geography lying open before her on the table, and her head supported by arms resting on the map, but once she turned a leaf, and the wind fluttered a letter many weeks old from her father. "Are you ready to answer the map questions?" "No, Ma-Lila. Why must I always answer other people's questions, when nobody answers mine? I will say my lesson when you tell me what 'scallawag' and 'carpet-bagger' mean." "They are ugly slang words, and if I were you I should try to forget I ever heard them. Little girls have nothing to do with politics, and you have not told me of whom the Graham children were speaking at the party." "Never mind about names. I looked in the dictionary, but could not find 'scallawag.' I know it means something horrid and vulgar and hateful, and I never will go to another party." Eliza's reply was drowned by the scream of "King Herod"—a lordly peacock that had earned the title from his slaughter of young turkeys and chickens in the poultry yard. Now he trailed his feathers across the walk, came up to the summer- house, and uttered his piercing cry in quick succession. "Something is going to happen. Uncle Aaron says it is a bad sign when Herod squalls at a door." "Something happened a while ago, when a man rode up the avenue and tied his horse. Now he is leaving the steps, and Herod knows he is a stranger. You must not listen to superstitious foolishness from negroes," said Eliza, with a fine scorn of all but her own peculiar pet superstition, kept closely guarded in her heart. Eglah shut the geography, propped her chin on her palms as her elbows rested on the table, and watched the beautiful bird preen his feathers. "Ma-Lila, how old must I be before you will be ready to tell me why grandmother hates my father so?" "Dearie, she does not 'hate' him, and you ought to try not to——" "Don't tell stories, Ma-Lila, because I want always to believe everything you say—and—there! Listen to grandma's bell. Three rings; that is for you." Eliza laid in her work basket the embroidered cambric ruffle she was hemming and, throwing her white apron over her head, went swiftly to the house. Mrs. Maurice sat in the drawing-room, with two newspapers unfolded on her lap, but whether their contents annoyed or gratified her, the cold, quiet face gave no indication. "Is Eglah ready to come and recite her lessons?" "Not yet, madam." "Put away her books; she will be excused from lessons to-day. Judge Kent has married again in Washington, and these papers furnish detailed accounts of the brilliant wedding reception. He has swallowed the gold bait of a widow he met in Europe. She is reputed rich, of course—a Mrs. Nina Herriott—and the bridal pair will go to England for the summer." "Our poor baby! This news will break her heart," replied the foster-mother, whose eyes had filled with tears at thought of the child's suffering. "Yes, she will grieve sorely, but better now than later in life. I have been pondering the best way to break the news to her." "Let me tell her. I think I understand her disposition more thoroughly than anyone else." "You fancy I do not comprehend my own granddaughter?" "I beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Maurice. I mean only that I have watched all her little ways, and she feels less restraint with me than with you; but of course you must choose your own way in this matter." "For us, this marriage is fortunate, and I rejoice at every circumstance that heightens the barrier between Judge Kent and me. He will never dare to disturb the child while I live, and brides are not importunate for the custody of step- children. Eliza, I never felt until to-day that Eglah is really Marcia's baby. She is a thousand times dearer to me now than ever before." "Dear madam, I thank God for anything that will make you open your heart and take the precious child in. In many ways she needs tenderness from you, and especially since the children's parties she has attended recently, where rude things were said about her father. She has not told me all, but you know the damaging rumors about some of his decisions while Federal Judge in our State, and the Graham children, whose interests suffered through him, speak very bitterly of his career. Eglah has asked me many questions lately, which I always evaded, but she broods over this matter and is resentful." "Poor little thing! Her father has lived on sour grapes so long, her teeth must inevitably be on edge. Henceforth she belongs to me." "She is absolutely devoted to him, and it is distressing to know how her very heartstrings are tied around him. It amounts to idolatry." "Yes, I realize that, and it will be a sad day for her when the glamour fades and she sees the ugly, deformed clay feet of her idol." "It would break her heart." "No. We both know sorrow does not destroy, and death is deaf to calls from crushed hearts. She will simply find herself chained to a galling sense of shame. These papers were brought this morning by a young man who impressed me as a thoroughbred gentleman—Mr. Noel Herriott, son of Mrs. Kent's first husband. He spoke kindly of his stepmother, and explained that, as he was passing through Y—— on his way west, Judge Kent had given him a card of introduction to me, and requested him to see Eglah, for whom he brought the package yonder on the window sill. I knew the poor child would be distressed at the news, and thought it best she should have time to recover from the shock before seeing him. He continues his journey by the midnight train, and I have invited him to return and take tea here, when Eglah can be introduced to him. Eliza, perhaps you are right; certainly you are more nearly her mother than any living being, and you will tenderly break the news to her. Carry the papers and the parcel and make her understand. After a while I wish to come out and join you." In shaking and furling his rainbow train King Herod had shed a long feather. Eglah picked it up, and finding a knife in the work basket proceeded to sharpen the end into a pen, with which she purposed writing to her father. As Eliza entered and placed the papers on the table, the little girl looked up. "Oh, Ma-Lila, you are crying! What is it? Not bad news from father?" "My baby, your father is well and has sent you a present. Come to me, darling; I want to talk to you." She drew her to her lap and held her close. "We know, of course, your father dearly loves his daughter, but he is often very lonely, and as he cannot have you with him, what would you think if you heard he had married a lady who would be kind and good to him? Don't you——" "I know that would be a lie—a wicked lie! Why do you say such horrible things and hurt me so?" She threw off the clasping arm and sprang to the floor, stamping the tiles with her right foot. "My precious baby, I would not hurt you for a million of dollars! You know your Lila loves you better than everything else in the world. I would rather hold my hand in the fire than tell you a painful thing if it could be helped. But somebody must speak the truth to you." She knelt down by the indignant child and kissed her hot cheek twice. "My darling, it is true—positively true—that your father was married some days ago. Now, you must not struggle to get away from me. Listen, and let me explain it all." "Don't! I won't listen. I can't—wait—wait—" She went to the seat along the wall and threw herself face downward, crossing her arms over her head. She lay so still that a quarter of an hour later Eliza sat down beside her, and while her hand softly stroked the brown curls, she read slowly the description of church wedding and subsequent reception. "My darling, you love your father so well you want him to be happy, and——" "No, not with another wife, and away from me. I would rather he was dead—for then nobody else could claim him. Two wives! It is like having two Gods." Taking the papers, she read the marked paragraphs, and though neither sob nor tear betrayed the intensity of her sorrow, one little hand caught at her throat, where a stricture seemed to stifle her. "You must try to bear this trouble patiently." "I can't. I would not bear it at all, if I could help myself. Now I am an orphan! An orphan!" "Not while I live to love you. Look at this parcel, your father's present." Eliza unwrapped the paper and took out an oblong gilded box, to which was fastened a card: "For our dear little daughter Eglah, with love of her father and mother." The child glanced at the handwriting and her eyes seemed almost to take fire. She snatched the box and threw it to the floor. "It is not mine; I have no father and no mother. I have only Ma-Lila left!" She buried her face in Eliza's lap, and hoping a burst of tears would relieve the strain, the nurse silently caressed her, waiting for the storm to break; but save the trembling of the figure no sign was given. After a while, Eliza whispered, "Grandmother is coming down the walk." Eglah started up as if electrified, and lifted the box from the floor, holding it against her breast. Leaning on her cane, Mrs. Maurice came to the table, sat down, and opened her arms. "My dear child, come here." Not an inch stirred Eglah, and Eliza gently forced her forward within reach of the extended arms. Mrs. Maurice leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her head away. "My poor little girl, don't you know I love you?" "Oh, no, grandma; you never did love me, and you never will." "But I do, dear child. Kiss me." "I don't want to kiss you any more than you want to kiss me. I understand exactly how you feel. You are sorry for me because you think father has treated me badly in getting married. But, grandmother, you need not pity me now, for I must make you understand that my father always is right. No matter what he may do, he has good reasons, and if I am satisfied nobody else can complain. I shall always know father is right." The dry, white face was lifted proudly, and the challenging eyes met her grandmother's steadily, but the childish lips trembled and the hand clutched spasmodically at her throat. A gush of genuine tenderness warmed the old lady's heart as she took the quivering fingers, spread them on her own palm, and touched the girl's forehead with her lips. "'Loyal and true'—that is the Maurice motto. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!' To-day we will have no lessons, and this evening Eliza shall dress you especially to meet the gentleman, Mr. Herriott, whom your father wishes you to know. Eliza, see that she has a warm bath, and put some orange flower water in her glass of lemonade." In after years Noel Herriott often recalled that afternoon spent at Nutwood. The inimitable courtesy of the handsome stately hostess, the sweet countenance of the widowed foster-mother—whose anxious, tender gaze rarely left the white-clad child—the grave negro butler, wearing linen apron that matched his grey head, and the spacious old cedar- wainscotted dining-room where, on bare, polished mahogany table, the light of wax candles was reflected in silver dishes and candelabra, and glittered from heavy, antique-shaped, cut-glass bowls, while golden honeycomb and ripe strawberries mixed their fragrance with the breath of crimson carnations heaped in a Sèvres china centrepiece that once graced banquets at Trianon. Most vivid of all impressions, he retained the imperishable image of a beautiful girl, with singularly white cheeks and lustrous, shy eyes, glowing unnaturally from her fierce struggle for composure—a proud, sensitive face whose exquisite lines suggested rare old cameos behind cabinet glass. Though the guest was a very young man, his quiet manner and perfect ease indicated thorough acquaintance with the most refined society, and despite her sectional prejudice Mrs. Maurice yielded to the charm of an unusually handsome personality and a conversation marred by no trace of egotism. The crocus light of after-glow still tinged the west, where the sickle of a new moon swung, when the visitor rose to depart. "Miss Eglah, when I come back from New Mexico and Arizona, shall I bring you a Zuñi pickaninny or a Moqui pony?" She shook her head. "Since your father has stolen my stepmother, do you not think you might persuade yourself to accept me as a sort of half cousin or hemi-demi-semi-stepbrother, or any kind of a relative you may choose? I am quite alone in the world, and you are just the sister I should like to claim as my hermanita. May I?" "Thank you, sir, I would rather not. I want only my father." He bowed, and lifting her dainty little hand brushed it with his mustache. "Mrs. Maurice, in saying good-bye, I must thank you cordially for the privilege of spending several hours in your lovely home, which illustrates all I have read of charming Southern life, and realizes completely my ideal picture of what your sunny land must have been in former years." "Good-bye, Mr. Herriott. I wish you a pleasant journey. Nutwood is a mere shadow of old and happier days. Ichabod is printed all over the ruined South, and we live only to guard our graves." CHAPTER III The quiet, systematic routine of life at Nutwood was by no means cloistral in its seclusion, and though the term "house- party" had not yet taken root south of the Potomac, guests from various parts of the State frequently spent a week with Mrs. Maurice, and were entertained at dinners, luncheons, and teas with the lavish hospitality traditional in the family. Accustomed early to meeting strangers, Eglah was neither bashful nor awkward, but she understood fully that her father was unpopular in the social world around her, and she deeply resented an antipathy which, though never discussed in her presence, she felt it impossible to forgive or remove. The explanatory assistance of Minerva, daughter of the cook, had enabled her to comprehend all the unpleasant significance of "scallawag" and "carpet-bagger," and with the fervor of indignant loyalty she promptly espoused whatever cause her father was reputed to represent. Alert and en garde, she expected attacks, felt eager to retaliate, and consequently was often stung by the young people of her circle with whom she was no favorite. For many months after Judge Kent's second marriage, Mrs. Maurice yielded to a new and yearning tenderness toward her grandchild, whom she heartily pitied, but the overtures came too late; the plastic season had passed, the angles had stiffened, the childish heart had hardened hopelessly, and caresses that formerly might have won her love were received in cold, irresponsive passiveness. Once she had gone under Eliza's care to spend Christmas in Washington, and though the pretty, gay, good-natured stepmother laid siege to the girl's heart and fondled and pampered her, Mrs. Kent knew from the defiant gleam in her watchful, jealous eyes that the daughter would never tolerate a usurper who sat on her own mother's throne and divided her father's affections. During the following year, Mrs. Maurice was prostrated by an attack of pneumonia that resulted in heart weakness, from which she never fully rallied. The reins of household government slipped easily into Eliza's hands, and that reticent, faithful young woman proved worthy of the confidence so long reposed in her by her benefactress. The last link in the chain of daily duties to which the invalid clung was her habit of listening to Eglah's recitations from text-books, but the hour came when she reluctantly laid down the self-imposed task. "My dear, in future say your lessons to Eliza. I find I am not strong enough to be patient, and without perfect patience no one should attempt to teach. Go now and practise your piano exercises; it will not disturb me in the least." She took into her own cold, beautifully shaped hand Eglah's slender, warm fingers, looked at them critically, and smiled as she drew them tenderly across her cheek. "Kiss me, little one. Try always to obey Eliza, for she will never fail you when you need comfort, and in all this world nobody loves you as she does. Send her to me." When the nurse came in and seated herself, darning gourd in hand, Mrs. Maurice was glancing over a blank book used for memoranda. "Eliza, here are some instructions you must follow faithfully when I am gone. I have written them carefully, so that you cannot misunderstand. I leave nothing to your discretion, not because your judgment is defective, but simply for the reason that I desire my wishes executed exactly. It is an absolute condition of my will that you should have the personal care of Eglah until she marries. If she should be sent to a new-fangled college (one of her father's Yankee fads), you will board in sight of her; when she travels, you go with her. Nothing but her death, or marriage, shall separate you, and with this provision I can safely leave her. Egbert and Marcia will understand I have done what was possible for the poor baby. Proud little thing! she will be tortured indeed if ever the time comes when she feels ashamed of her father—and wily though he is, her eyes are keen. She is all Kent in appearance, except her hands and feet; they are dainty, beautiful, patrician, genuinely Maurice like my Marcia's." She laid the book on Eliza's lap, motioned her away, and, turning her head aside, closed her eyes. With the ebbing of summer tide her pulse waned slowly but steadily, like a star going down to the gates of the west. Leaning heavily on her husband's cane, followed by the aged pointer, the tall, wasted figure went to and fro through the old house, as one having packed and waiting for departure looks to see if aught has been forgotten; and over the pallid face with its cloud of black hair an exultant smile sometimes shone, as she realized how soon she should reclaim her treasures in the beckoning Beyond. It was an August night when the pilot's signal came, and swiftly and gladly she "crossed the bar." Eliza was aroused from a sound sleep by Eglah, who shook her. "Ma-Lila, I am so frightened! I heard grandma call out 'Egbert!' 'Marcia!' Something had already waked me suddenly." "Oh, dearie, you were only dreaming." She sprang up and lighted a candle, but the girl clung to her. "No, it was not a dream. I heard it clear and loud like a quick cry. I was so scared I waited a while, and then I went to her room—but she is not there! I could see the bed was empty, because Dinah had left the night lamp burning in the passage. What can it mean?" "Grandmother is often restless, and goes out on the colonnade, where the fresh air relieves her oppressed breathing. No doubt she is there now. Baby, do not tremble so." Clutching Eliza's nightgown, Eglah followed her to the sick room, which was unoccupied, and waking Dinah, who slept on a cot in the hall, they searched the entire length of the piazza, the foster-mother shielding the light with her hand. Turning to re-enter the house, they were startled by the howl of a dog, answered instantly by a scream from Herod, roosting on one of the arched chimney tops. Eglah was so terrified she threw her arms around Eliza, thereby dashing the candle from her trembling hand. "She must be in the general's room, and old Hector is there also." Swiftly they crossed the halls, and found a light shining through the partly open door of the memorial chamber. A candle burned low under the portrait over the mantel, and Hector, with his head thrown back against his mistress's knee, howled feebly. She sat in her husband's easy chair, her head pillowed on his dressing gown, where a fresh Cape jasmine gleamed, and over her lap flowed the yellowed lace of Marcia's christening robe, half hiding the baby shoes of white kid. She had laid one hand on the Confederate uniform folded on the couch beside her chair, and about the long, white fingers of the other were wrapped strands of vivid red seed-coral—the necklace and bracelets of her only child. Stern lines and shadows of sorrow had faded forever from the frozen face, where eternal peace set its blessed seal, and in the wide eyes fixed on her husband's portrait was the rapt expression that comes only with the lifting of the veil as the soul drifts through its windows of flesh. The icy shiver that runs across the world when day dawns grew into a windy gust from the west, extinguishing the fluttering candle flame and blowing the lace curtains out eastward like white sails bearing away the happy spirit to crystal seas. At the edge of the sky, where the morning star burned, a thread of orange glowed in the soft pearl grey of the new day, and only the crowing of the game cocks from their cedar thicket broke the silence that death consecrates. CHAPTER IV Were it possible to probe the recesses of cerebration by some psychological process as searching as the Roentgen ray, many strange beliefs would be dragged from secret chambers sedulously guarded, where mental fetiches are worshipped. Those who knew Eliza Mitchell well considered her a very pretty, dignified, reticent young widow, who won respect by her adherence to mourning garments—never laid aside after her husband's death; but her rigid observance of the strictest phase of Methodist discipline presented a certain austerity of character that appeared to rebuke quietly even the members of her own denomination who indulged in "the putting on of gold and costly apparel, and taking such diversions" as aforetime were considered appanages of the "flesh and the devil." Keenly observant and silently contemplative, she had grown shrewd as a judge of character, and laid the tribute of her confidence at the feet of few; yet this little woman, eminently practical and rigidly orthodox in the faith of her father, had surrendered to one belief that dominated heart, soul, and mind—that ruled her absolutely, and that she jealously guarded from all but her God. Her most intense and precious conviction was that the soul created and intended for her baby boy, who never breathed, had been assigned to the body of Marcia's infant girl born a little later. She was assured that her child had never known life on earth, and had been in his coffin but a few hours when Eglah first opened her eyes. Souls never die. What of the soulless still-born? Would God...