The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mae Madden, by Mary Murdoch Mason 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: Mae Madden Author: Mary Murdoch Mason Release Date: May 12, 2006 [EBook #1829] Last Updated: November 11, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAE MADDEN *** Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger MAE MADDEN By Mary Murdoch Mason With an introductory poem, by Joaquin Miller. The wheel of fortune guide you, The boy with the bow beside you Run aye in the way, till the dawn of day And a luckier lot betide you. Ben Jonson. CONTENTS A DREAM OF ITALY. MAE MADDEN. 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. A DREAM OF ITALY. AN ALLEGORY INTRODUCING “MAE MADDEN.” I. We two had been parted, God pity us, when The stars were unnamed and when heaven was dim; We two had been parted far back on the rim And the outermost border of heaven’s red bars: We two had been parted ere the meeting of men Or God had set compass on spaces as yet. We two had been parted ere God had set His finger to spinning the spaces with stars,— And now, at the last in the gold and set Of the sun of Venice, we two had met. II. Where the lion of Venice, with brows afrown, With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air, Looks out in his watch o’er the watery town, With a paw half lifted, with his claws half bare, By the blue Adriatic, in the edge of the sea, I saw her. I knew her, but she knew not me. I had found her at last! Why, I had sailed The antipodes through, had sought, had hailed All flags, had climbed where the storm clouds curled, And called from the awful arched dome of the world. III. I saw her one moment, then fell back abashed And filled full to the throat. . . . Then I turned me once more So glad to the sea, while the level sun flashed On the far, snowy Alps. . . . Her breast! Why, her breast Was white as twin pillows that allure you to rest; Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies, told As she rose from the sea, and she threw back the gold Of her glory of hair, and set face to the shore. . . . I knew her! I knew her, though we had not met Since the far stars sang to the sun’s first set. IV. How long I had sought her! I had hungered, nor ate Of any sweet fruits. I had tasted not one Of all the fair glories grown under the sun. I had sought only her. Yea, I knew that she Had come upon earth and stood waiting for me Somewhere by my way. But the path ways of fate They had led otherwhere. The round world round, The far North seas and the near profound Had failed me for aye. Now I stood by that sea While a ship drove by, and all dreamily. V. I had turned from the lion a time, and when I looked tow’rd the tide and out on the lea Of the town where the warm sea tumbled and teemed With beauty, I saw her. I knew her then, The tallest, the fairest fair daughter of men. O, Venice stood full in her glory. She gleamed In the splendor of sunset and sensuous sea; Yet I saw but my bride, my affinity, While the doves hurried home to the dome of Saint Mark And the brass horses plunged their high manes in the dark, VI. Was it well with my love? Was she true? Was she brave With virtue’s own valor? Was she waiting for me? O, how fared my love! Had she home? Had she bread? Had she known but the touch of the warm-tempered wave? Was she born upon earth with a crown on her head; Or born like myself, but a dreamer, instead? So long it had been! So long! Why the sea, That wrinkled and surly old time-tempered slave, Had been born, had his revels, grown wrinkled and hoar Since I last saw my love on that uttermost shore. VII. O, how fared my love? Once I lifted my face And I shook back my hair and looked out on the sea; I pressed my hot palms as I stood in my place And cried, “O, I come like a king to your side Though all hell intervene.” . . . “Hist! she may be a bride! A mother at peace, with sweet babes on her knee! A babe at her breast and a spouse at her side! . . . Have I wandered too long, and has destiny Set mortal between us?” I buried my face In my hands, and I moaned as I stood in my place. VIII. ‘Twas her year to be young. She was tall, she was fair Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there? ‘Twas her year to be young. She was fair, she was tall And I knew she was true as I lifted my face And saw her press down her rich robe to its place With a hand white and small as a babe’s with a doll, And her feet—why, her feet, in the white shining sand, Were so small they might nest in my one brawny hand. Then she pushed back her hair with a round hand that shone And flashed in the light with a white starry stone. IX. Then, my love she was rich. My love she was fair. Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there? She was gorgeous with wealth, “Thank God, she has bread,” I said to myself. Then I humbled my head In gratitude. Then I questioned me where Was her palace? her parents? What name did she bear? What mortal on earth came nearest her heart? Who touched the small hand till it thrilled to a smart? ‘Twas her day to be young. She was proud, she was fair. Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there? X. Now she turned, reached a hand; then a tall gondolier That had leaned on his oar, like a long lifted spear, Shot sudden and swift and all silently And drew to her side as she turned from the tide. . . It was odd, such a thing, and I counted it queer That a princess like this, whether virgin or bride, Should abide thus apart, and should bathe in that sea; And I shook back my hair, and so unsatisfied. Then I fluttered the doves that were perched close about, As I strode up and down in dismay and in doubt. XI. Then she stood in the boat on the borders of night As a goddess might stand on that far wonder land Of eternal sweet life, which men have named Death. I turned to the sea and I caught at my breath, As she drew from the boat through her white baby hand Her vestment of purple imperial, and white. Then the gondola shot! swift, sharp from the shore. There was never the sound of a song or of oar But the doves hurried home in white clouds to Saint Mark, And the lion loomed high o’er the sea in the dark. XII. Then I cried, “Quick! Follow her. Follow her. Fast! Come! Thrice double fare if you follow her true To her own palace door.” There was plashing of oar And rattle of rowlock. . . . I sat leaning low Looking far in the dark, looking out as we sped With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low. But only the oaths of the men as we passed When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot thro’ The watery town. Then a deep, distant roar— The rattle of rowlock, the rush of the oar. XIII. Then an oath. Then a prayer! Then a gust that made rents Through the yellow sailed fishers. Then suddenly Came sharp forked fire! Then far thunder fell Like the great first gun! Ah, then there was route Of ships like the breaking of regiments And shouts as if hurled from an upper hell. Then tempest! It lifted, it spun us about, Then shot us ahead through the hills of the sea As if a great arrow shot shoreward in wars— Then heaven split open till we saw the blown stars. XIV. On! On! Through the foam, through the storm, through the town, She was gone. She was lost in the wilderness Of palaces lifting their marbles of snow. I stood in my gondola. Up and all down I pushed through the surge of the salt-flood street Above me, below. . . Twas only the beat Of the sea’s sad heart. . . Then I heard below The water-rat building, but nothing but that; Not even the sea bird screaming distress, As she lost her way in that wilderness. XV. I listened all night. I caught at each sound; I clutched and I caught as a man that drown’d. . . . Only the sullen low growl of the sea Far out the flood street at the edge of the ships. Only the billow slow licking his lips, Like a dog that lay crouching there watching for me; Growling and showing white teeth all the night, Reaching his neck and as ready to bite— Only the waves with their salt flood tears Fawning white stones of a thousand years. XVI. Only the birds in the wilderness Of column and dome and of glittering spire That thrust to heaven and held the fire Of the thunder still: The bird’s distress As he struck his wings in that wilderness, On marbles that speak and thrill and inspire. . . The night below and the night above; The water-rat building, the startled white dove, The wide-winged, dolorous sea bird’s call The water-rat building, but that was all. XVII. Lo! pushing the darkness from pillar to post, The morning came silent and gray like a ghost Slow up the canal. I leaned from the prow And listened. Not even the bird in distress Screaming above through the wilderness; Not even the stealthy old water-rat now. Only the bell in the fisherman’s tower Slow tolling a-sea and telling the hour To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara For tawny fishers a-sea and pray. * * * * * * XVIII. My dream it is ended, the curtain withdrawn. The night that lay hard on the breast of earth, Deep and heavy as a horrid nightmare, Moves by, and I look to the rosy dawn. . . . . I shall leave you here, with a leader fair; One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth. She shall lead you on through that Italy That the gods have loved; and may it be A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand, You wander the warm and the careless love-land. XIX. By the windy waters of the Michigan She invokes the gods. . . . Be it bright or dim, Who does his endeavor as best he can Does bravely, indeed. The rest is with Him. Let a new star dance in the Occident Till it shakes through the gossamer floors of God And shines, o’er Chicago. . . The Orient Is hoar with glories. Let Illini sod Bear glory as well as the gleaming grain, And engines smoking along her plain. JOAQUIN MILLER. CHICAGO, NOV., 1875. MAE MADDEN. CHAPTER I. SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer. Characters: Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in general. Edith Jerrold, her daughter. Albert Madden, a young man on study intent. Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent. Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of the Maddens. Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady. “It’s something like dying, I do declare,” said Mae, and as she spoke a suspicious-looking drop slid softly across her cheek, down over the deck-railing, to join its original briny fellows in the deep below. “What is like dying?” asked Eric. “Why, leaving the only world you know. There, you see, papa and mamma are fast fading away, and here we are traveling off at the rate of ever so many miles an hour.” “Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea.” “Away from everything and everybody we know. I do really think it is like dying,—don’t you, Mr. Mann?” Mae turned abruptly and faced the young man by her side. “People aren’t apt to die in batches or by the half-dozen,” he replied, coolly. “If you were all by yourself, it would be more like it, I suppose, but you are taking quite a slice of your own world along with you, and really—” “And really pity is the very last article I have any use for. You are right. I was only sorry for the moment. ‘Eastward Ho’ is a very happy cry. How differently we shall all take Europe,” she continued, in a moment. “There is Albert, I honestly believe he will live in his Baedeker just because he can see no further than the covers of a book. You need not laugh, for it is a fact that people confined for years to a room can’t see beyond its limits when they are taken out into broader space, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be the same with a man who lives in his books as Albert does.” “He sees the world in his books,” said Mr. Mann, with a little spirit. “He gets a microscopic view of it, yes,” replied Mae, grandiloquently, “and Edith—” “Always sees just what he does,” suggested Eric maliciously. “Now, boys,” said Miss Mae, assuming suddenly a mighty patronage, “I will not have you hit at Albert and Edith in this way. It will be very annoying to them. They have a right to act just as absurdly as they choose. We none of us know how people who are falling in love would act.” No, the boys agreed this was quite true. “And I really do suppose they are falling in love, don’t you?” queried Mae. Yes, they did both believe it. Just here, up came the two subjects of conversation, looking, it must be confessed, as much like one subject as any man and wife. “What are you talking of?” asked Edith, “Madame Tussaud or a French salad? No matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a foreign flavor.” “There you are mistaken,” replied the frank Eric, “we were discussing you two people, in the most homelike kind of a way.” At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae scowled at Eric, who opened his eyes amazedly, Norman Mann looked over the deck railing and laughed, the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed near by, and there was a grand tableau vivant for a few seconds. “O, come,” cried Mae, “suppose we stop looking like a set of illustrations for a phrenological journal, expressive of the various emotions. I was only speculating on the different sights we should see in the same places. Confess, now, Albert. Won’t your eyes be forever hunting out old musty, dusty volumes? Will not books be your first pleasures in the sight-seeing line?” “O, no, pictures,” cried Edith. “That is as you say,” Mae demurely agreed. “Pictures and books for you two at any rate.” “And churches.” “For your mother, yes, and beer-gardens for Eric, and amphitheatres and battle fields for Mr. Mann.” “And for yourself?” “The blue, blue bay of Naples, a grove of oranges, moonlight and a boat if it please you.” “By the way,” suggested Albert, “about our plans; we really should begin to agitate the matter at once.” “Yes, to do our fighting on shipboard. Let us agree to hoist the white flag the day we sight land, else we shall settle down into a regular War of the Roses and never decide,” laughed Norman. “As there are six minds,” continued Albert, “there will have to be some giving up.” “Why do you look at me?” enquired Mae. “I am the very most unselfish person in the world. I’ll settle down anywhere for the winter, provided only that it is not in Rome.” “But that is the very place,” cried Edith, and Albert, and Mrs. Jerrold from her camp-chair. “O, how dreadful! The only way to prevent it will be for us to stand firm, boys, and make it a tie.” “But Norman is especially eager to go to Rome,” said Edith, “and that makes us four strong at once in favor of that city.” “But is not Rome a fearful mixture of dead Caesar’s bones and dirty beggars? And mustn’t one carry hundreds of dates at one’s finger-tips to appreciate this, and that, and the other? Is it not all tremendously and overwhelmingly historical, and don’t you have to keep exerting your mind and thinking and remembering? I would rather go down to Southern Italy and look at lazzaroni lie on stone walls, in red cloaks, as they do in pictures, and not be obliged to topple off the common Italian to pile the gray stone with old memories of some great dead man. Everything is ghostly in Rome. Now, there must be some excitement in Southern Italy. There’s Vesuvius, and she isn’t dead—like Nero—but a living demon, that may erupt any night, and give you a little red grave by the sea for your share.” “She’s not nearly through yet,” laughed Edith, as Mae paused for breath. “I’m only afraid,” said Mae, “that after I had been down there a week, I should forget English, buy a contadina costume, marry a child of the sun, and run away from this big world with its puzzles and lessons, and rights and wrongs. Imagine me in my doorway as you passed in your travelling carriage, hot and tired on your way—say to Sorrento. I would dress my beautiful Italian all up in scarlet flowers and wreathe his big hat and kiss his brown eyes and take his brown hand, and then we would run along by the bay and laugh at you stiff, grand world’s folks as we skipped past you.” “We shall know where to look for you, if ever you do disappear,” said Norman Mann. “But, my dear Mae,” added Albert, “though this is amusing, it is utterly useless.” “Amusing things always are,” said Mae. “The question is, shall we or shall we not go to Rome for the winter?” “Certainly, by all means, and if I don’t like it, I’ll run away to Sorrento,” and Mae shook her sunny head and twinkled her eyes in a fascinating sort of way, that made Eric feel a proud brotherly pleasure in this saucy young woman, and that gave Norman Mann a sort of feeling he had had a good deal of late, a feeling hard to define, though we have all known it, a delicious concoction of pleasure and pain. His eyes were fixed on Mae, now. “What is it?” she asked. “You will like Rome, I am sure.” “No, I never like what I think I shall not.” “It might save some trouble, then, if I ask you now if you expect to like me,” said he, in a lower tone. “Why certainly, I do like you very much,” she replied, honestly. “What a stupid question,” he thinks, vexedly. “Why did I tell him I liked him?” she thinks, blushingly. So the waves of anxiety and doubt begin to swell in these two hearts as the outside waves beat with a truer sea-motion momently against the steamer’s side. Between days of sea-sickness come delightful intervals of calm sea and fresh breezes, when the party fly to the hurricane deck to get the very quintessence of life on the ocean wave. One morning Mrs. Jerrold and Edith were sitting there alone, with rugs and all sorts of head devices in soft wools and flannels, and books and a basket of fruit. The matron of the party was a tall, fine-looking woman, a good type of genuine New England stock softened by city breeding. New Englanders are so many propositions from Euclid, full of right angles and straight lines, but easy living and the dressmaker’s art combine to turn the corners gently. Edith was like her mother, but softened by a touch of warm Dutch blood. She was tall, almost stately, with a good deal of American style, which at that time happened to be straight and slender. She was naturally reserved, but four years of boarding-school life had enriched her store of adjectives and her amount of endearing gush-power, and she had at least six girl friends to whom she sent weekly epistles of some half-dozen sheets in length, beginning, each one of them, with “My dearest ——” and ending “Your devoted Edith.” As Edith and her mother quietly read, and ate grapes, and lolled in a delightfully feminine way, voices were heard,—Mae’s and Norman’s. They were in the middle of a conversation. “Yes,” Mae was saying, “you do away with individuality altogether nowadays, with your dreadful classifications. It is all the same from daffodils up to women.” “How do we classify women, pray?” “In the mind of man,” began Mae, as if she were reading, “there are three classes of women; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and the woman’s righters. The first are pretty and silly; the second, plain and useful; the third, mannish and odious. The first wear long trailing dresses and smile at you while waltzing, the second wear aprons and give you apple-dumplings, and the third want your manly prerogatives, your dress-coat, your money, and your vote. Flirt with the giddy butterflies, your first love was one. First loves always are. Marry the busy bee. Your mother was a busy bee. Mothers always are. And keep on the other side of the street from the woman’s righter as long as you can. Alas! your daughter will be one.” “Well, isn’t there any classifying on the other side? Aren’t there horsemen and sporting men and booky men, in the feminine mind?” “Perhaps so. There certainly are the fops, and nowadays this terrible army of reformers and radicals, of whom my brother Albert here is the best known example.” “What is it?” asked Albert, looking up abstractedly from his book, for he and Eric had sauntered up the stairs too, by this time. “They are the creatures,” continued Mae, “who scorn joys and idle pleasures. They deal with the good of the many and the problems of the universe, and step solemnly along to that dirge known as the March of Progress. And what do they get for it all? Something like this. Put down your book, I’m going to prophesy,” and Mae backed resolutely up against the railing and held her floating scarfs and veils in a bunch at her throat, while she prophesied in this way: “Behold me, direct lineal descendant of Albert Madden, speaking to my children in the year 1995: ‘What, children, want amusement? Want to see the magic lantern to note the effects of light? Alas! how frivolous. Listen, children, to the achievements of your great ancestor, as reported by the Encyclopedia. “A. Madden—promoter of civilization and progress, chiefly known by his excellent theory entitled The Number of Cells in a Human Brain compared to the Working Powers of Man, and that remarkable essay, headed by this formula: Given—10,000,000 laboring men, to find the number of loaves of bread in the world.” Here, children, take these works. Progressimus, you may have the theory, while Civilizationica reads the essay. Then change about. Ponder them well, and while we walk to the Museum later, tell me their errors. Then I will show you the preserved ears of the first man found in Boshland by P. T. Barnum, jr.’ Oh, bosh,” said Mae suddenly, letting fly her streamers, “what a dry set of locusts you nineteenth century leaders are. You are devouring our green land, and some of us butterflies would like to turn our yellow wings into solid shields against you, if we could. There, I’ve made a goose of myself again on the old subject. Edith, there’s the lunch bell. Take me down before I say another word.” Exeunt feminines all. “Where did the child pick up all that?” queried Albert. “‘All that’ is in the air just now,” answered Norman. “It is a natural reaction of a strong physical nature against the utilitarian views of the day. Miss Mae is a type of—” “O, nonsense, what prigs you are,” interrupted Eric, “Mae is jolly. Do stop your reasoning about her. If you are bound to be a potato yourself to help save the masses from starvation, don’t grumble because she grew a flower. Come, let us go to lunch too.” Conversation was not always of this sort. One evening, not long after, there was a moon, and Edith and Albert were missing. Eric was following a blue-eyed girl along the deck, and Mae and Norman wandered off by themselves up to this same hurricane deck again. The moonlight was wonderful. It touched little groups here and there and fell full on the face of a woman in the steerage, who sat with her arms crossed on her knee and her face set eastward. She was singing, and her voice rose clearly above the puff of the engine and the jabber below. There was a chorus to the song, in which rough men and tired looking women joined. The song was about home, and once in a while the girl unclasped her arms and passed her hands over her eyes. Mae and Norman Mann looked at her silently. “I suppose we don’t know when we make pictures,” said Mae. “Don’t we?” asked Norman pointedly. Mae looked very reprovingly out from her white wraps at him, but he smiled back composedly and admiringly, and drew her hand a trifle closer in his arm. And saucy Mae began to feel in that sort of purring mood women come to when they drop the bristling, ready-for-fight air with which they start on an acquaintance. Perhaps, if the steamer had been a sailing-vessel, there would have been no story to tell about Mae Madden, for a long line of evenings, and girls singing songs, and hurricane decks by moonlight, are dangerous things. But the vessel was a fast steamer, and was swiftly nearing land again. CHAPTER II. ROME, February, 18—. MY DEAR MAMMA:—Yes, it is Rome, mamma, and everybody is impressed. The boys talk of emperors all the time; Edith is wild over Madonnas and saints, and Mrs. Jerrold runs from Paul’s house to Paul’s walks and Paul’s drives and Paul’s stand at the prisoner’s bar, and reads the Acts through five times a day, in the most religious and Romanistic spirit. No one could make more fuss over a patron saint, I am sure. For my part, I feel as if I were in the most terrible ghost story. The old Romans are all around me. Underneath the street noises, I seem to hear cries, and in the air I half see a constant flashing of swords and scars and blood, and I can’t even put my foot on the Roman pavement without wondering which dead Caesar my saucy Burt boot No. 2 is walking over. I shouldn’t mind trampling old Caligula, but I don’t like the thought on general principles. I feel all out of place, so modern and fixed up and flimsy. If I could get into old picturesque clothes and out of the English-speaking quarter, I should not be so oppressed and might worship Rome. But I seriously think I shall die if I stay here much longer. There’s a spirit-malaria that eats into my life. I feel as if all the volumes of Roman history bound in heavy vellum, that papa has in his study, were laid right on top of my little heart, so that every time it beats, it thumps against them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than dyspepsia. If I could only get out on a New England hillside, where there were no graves more important than those of grasshoppers and butterflies! What should I do when I got there? Take off my hat, and scream for joy, and feel free and glad to be in a fresh country, with rich, warm, untainted earth and young life. But all this is nonsense, mamma, and I shouldn’t be writing it, if I hadn’t just come from the catacombs of St. Calixtus. To think of Albert’s insisting upon going there the very first thing! But so he did, and so we went, and talked solemnly about the Appian Way, and saw everybody’s tombs and ashes, and quoted poetry, until I stuck a pin in Albert’s arm and sang Yankee Doodle, to keep from crying. Then, oh, how shocked they looked. Even Mr. Mann seemed ashamed of me. When we reached the place, we each took a candle and the guide led the way down into the bowels of the earth. Mamma, they are very unpleasant. There were two German youths along, and green lizards crawled all over. They winked at me. The way grew so narrow that we had to walk one by one through lines of wall perforated with holes for dead bodies. Once in a while we would come to a small chapel, for miserable variety’s sake, and be told to admire some very old, very wretched painting. Jonah and the whale were represented in a double-barreled miracle picture. Not only was the whale about to swallow Jonah, but he was only as large as a good-sized brook trout, while Jonah towered away above him like a Goliath. I found myself wondering if the guide had convulsions, and, if he should have one now, and die, how many days would pass before we should eat each other. And would they take me first, because I am youngest and plumpest? Albert would make good soup bones, and Eric’s shoulder serve as a delicious fore-quarter. And by the time we came to the top again, I was all ready to cry. And then, mamma, I did an awful thing. Mr. Mann exclaimed: “Why, Miss Mae, how frightened you look. You are quite white.” And I answered very sharply: “What a disagreeable man you are. I’m not frightened at all.” I said it in a dreadful tone, and how his face changed. He looked so strangely. Everybody was still but Albert, and he said, “Why, Mae, you are very rude to Mr. Mann.” Even then I didn’t apologize. So here we are at sword’s points, and all the rest sympathizing with my foe, who is only on the defensive. Why am I such a belligerent? I can’t conceive where I got my nature, unless from that very disagreeable dear old grandpapa of papa’s, who fought the whole world all his life. But how egotistic I am, even to my mother. Of course you want to know how we are lodged and clothed and fed. We have taken apartments, as I presume Albert wrote you, on the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, quite near the Costanzi hotel, which is in the height of the fashion as a hotel; near too, which is better, to Mr. Story’s studio and the old Barberini palace and the Barberini square and fountains. Off behind, is that terrible church of the Cappucini, with its cemetery underneath of bones and skulls and such horrors. I like the apartments very much, principally because I have made three staunch friends and one good enemy, in the kitchen. The padrona,—she’s the woman who keeps the house, and serves us, too, in this case— though Mrs. Jerrold has a maid to wait on the table and care for our rooms—well, the padrona is my first friend. Her cousin, a handsome southern Italian, is here on a visit, and she is not only my friend, but my instructress. She tells me lovely stories about her home and the peasants and their life, while I sit on the floor with Giovanni,—friend number three and eldest son of the padrona,—and even Roberto, my enemy, the crying baby of three years, hushes his naughty mouth to listen to Lisetta, for that is the cousin’s name. I am so glad I studied Italian as hard as I did for my music, for it comes very easily to me now, and already I slip the pretty words from my halting tongue much more smoothly and quickly than you would imagine I could. Mrs. Jerrold isn’t quite satisfied, and would prefer the Costanzi, only she doesn’t believe in letting us girls stay at large hotels. She and Edith are shocked at my kitchen tastes, so that I generally creep off quietly and say nothing about it. It is strange for me to have to keep anything secret, but I am learning how. As for our clothes, O, mamma, Edith is ravishing in a deep blue-black silk, with a curly, wavy sort of fringe on it, and odd loopings here and there where you don’t expect to find them. What can’t a Parisian dressmaker do? They have such a wonderful idea of appropriateness, it seems to me. Now, at home you know we girls always wear the same sort of thing, but Madame H—— says no, Edith, and I should dress very differently; and now Edith’s clothes all have a flow, and sweep, and grace about them, and her silks rustle in a stately way as she walks, while my dresses haven’t any trimming to speak of, but are cut in a clinging, square sort of way, with jackets, and here and there a buckle, that makes me feel half the time as if I were playing soldier in a lady-like fashion. But what a budget this is. How shocked the people here would be. They take travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat Baedeker, like the Bible,— and here am I crushing down Rome, and raising Paris on top of it. Indeed, I can’t help it, for Paris is utterly intoxicating. It takes away your moral nature and adds it all into your powers of enjoyment. Well, good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me tremendous letters, won’t you; for I do love you dearly. Your loving daughter, MAE. Mae felt a great deal better when she had finished the letter, and, like a volatile girl as she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris gloves, singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in a very light-hearted manner. “Why, you look like a different girl,” cried Eric, as she entered the parlor, where he and Mr. Mann were sitting. “Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, and Albert have gone on in a carriage, and you are left to my tender care; will you ride or walk?” “How can you ask? My feet are quite wild. No wonder I am a different girl. Are we not going to the Pincian hill to look at the live world and people? I have just unlocked the stop-gates and let the blood bound in my veins as it wants to.” “It has been taking the cinque-pace, I should say from your long face to-day.” “O, it has only been trying to keep step with the march of the ages, or some such stately tread, but it was hard work, and now the dear life of me hops, skips and jumps, like this,” and Mae seized her brother and danced across the room, stopping very near Mr. Mann, who stood with his back to them, drumming on the window pane. She looked at him quizzically and half raised her eyebrows. Eric shook his head, and said aloud in his outspoken way: “You owe him an apology, Mae, for this morning’s rudeness.” Mr. Mann turned quickly. “I am surprised, Eric. Let your sister find out for herself when she is rude.” “Bless me,” cried Eric, “what is the row?” Mae looked determined. “Are you going to the Pincian with us?” she asked. “No, I am going to stay home.” “Well, good-bye, then. Come, Eric.” The door closed behind them. Mr. Mann stood by the window and watched them walk away. Mae, with her eager, restless, fresh life showing out in every motion; Eric, with his boy-man air and his student swing and happy-go-lucky toss of his head. Mr. Mann smiled and then he sighed. “That’s a good boy, so square and fair and merry—and a queer girl,” he added. “Rome isn’t the place for her. She must get away, though why I should take care for her, or worry about her, little vixen. I don’t see.” Still he smiled as one would over a very winning, very wicked child, and shortly after took his hat and went to the Pincio, after all. Meantime, the brother and sister had walked gaily along, passed the Spanish Steps, and were on the Pincian hill. Here, Mae was indeed happy. The fine equipages and dark, rich beauty of the Italians delighted her, and she and Eric found a shaded bench, and watched the carriages drive round and round, and criticised, and admired, and laughed like two idle children. They bought some flowers, and Mae sat pulling them to pieces, when they caught sight, down the pathway, of two approaching Piedmontese officers. “O,” cried Mae, and dropped her flowers, and clasped her hands, and sprang to her feet, “O, Eric, are they gods or men?” The Piedmontese officer is godlike. He must be of a certain imposing height to obtain his position, and his luxurious yellow moustaches and blue black eyes, enriched and intensified by southern blood, give him a strange fascination. The cold, manly beauty and strength of a northern blonde meet with the heat and lithe grace of the more supple southerner to produce this paragon. There is a combination of half-indolent elegance and sensuous langour, with a fire, a verve, a nobility, that puts him at the very head of masculine beauty. Add to the charms of his physique, the jauntiest, most bewitching of uniforms, the clinking spurs, the shining buttons, the jacket following every line of his figure, and no wonder maidens’ hearts seek him out always and young pulses beat quicker at his approach. Mae’s admiration was simply rapturous. Utterly regardless of the pretty picture she herself made, of her vivid coloring and sparkling beauty, she stood among her dropped flowers until the two pairs of eyes were fixed upon her. Then she became suddenly aware of her attitude and with quick feminine cunning endeavored to transfer her admiration to some beautiful horses cantering by, exclaiming in Italian, that the officers might surely understand she was thinking only of the fine animals: “O, what wonderful horses!” The foreign pronunciation, Eric’s amusement, Mae’s confusion, were not lost upon the men. Their curiosity was piqued, their eyes and pride gratified. They sauntered leisurely past, only to turn a corner and quicken their steps again toward the bench where Eric and Mae were seated. They found the brother and sister just arising, and followed them slowly. An Italian is quick to detect secrets. The two had not proceeded far before one said to the other; “Eh, Luigi, we are not the only interested party.” Luigi looked slowly around and saw a crowd of Italian loungers gazing at the little stranger with their softly-bold black eyes full of admiration. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Bah, they gaze in that way at all womankind. See, now they are watching the next one,” and as he spoke, the boys turned with one accord to stare at a young Italian girl, who pressed closer to the side of her hook- nosed old duenna: “It is not those loungers that I noticed,” replied the other. “Look there,” and he waved his hand lightly toward the left, where, under a large-leafed tree, gazing apparently in idleness, stood a young man. “Ah,” said Luigi, still incredulous, “he sees nothing but Rome; he is fresh from over the seas.” “No, no, watch his eyes,” replied the other. They were assuredly fixed, with a keen searching glance, on a little form before them, and as Eric and Mae suddenly turned to the left, the stranger, half carelessly, but very quickly, crossed to another path, from which he could watch them, but be, in his turn, unobserved. “Jealous,” laughed Luigi, shrugging his shoulders again. “Her lover, probably.” “No,” replied Bero, “but he may be some time.” Then after a moment’s pause, “Good evening,” he said carelessly. “I am going to say my prayers at vespers. I’ve been a sorry scamp of late.” Luigi laughed disdainfully and lightly. “You want to get rid of me? Well, be it so. I don’t want to lose my heart over a little foreigner. I have other game. However, Lillia shall not know of it. Addio, Bero.” So Luigi went off the other way, and Bero, with a flushed face, followed Mae at a distance, and kept an eye on the stranger, flattering himself that he was quite unnoticed by those sharp, keen eyes. He was mistaken, Norman Mann had seen the officers before they saw him, had watched their footsteps, and had a pretty clear idea of the whole affair. Mae walked on happily, chatting with Eric, and with that vague, delightful feeling of something exciting in the air. She knew there was an officer behind her, because she had heard the clicking spurs, but she only guessed that he might be one of the two who had passed—the taller, perhaps,—which, of course, he was. She had, moreover, in some mysterious way, caught sight of a figure resembling Norman Mann, trying, she thought, to avoid her. Her spirits rose with the half-mystery, and she grew brighter and prettier and more magnetic to the two followers as she tossed her shoulders slightly and now and then half-turned her sunny head. As for Eric, he was totally unconscious of any secrets. He fancied himself and his pretty, nice, little sister all alone by their very selves, and he went so far as to expatiate on the vastness of the world, and how in this crowd there was no other life that bordered or touched on theirs. To which Mae replied: “You don’t know; you may fall in love with one of these very Italian girls, or my future husband may be walking behind me now.” When she had said this, she flushed scarlet and was very much ashamed of herself in her heart. “We must go home now,” Eric replied, quite disdaining such sybilistic remarks. So they left the hill and went down the Steps in the rich afternoon light, and so homewards. Of course the Italian and Mr. Mann still followed them; Norman on the other side of the street, the Italian in a slyer, less conspicuous manner, by taking side streets, or the next parallel pavement, and appearing only at every corner in the distance. He appeared, however, close at hand, as Mae and Eric turned into their lodgings. His eyes met Mae’s. She blushed involuntarily as she recognized him, and at once, in that moment, there was an invisible half-acquaintance established between the two. If they should ever meet again, they would remember each other. Mae crept off to the kitchen that evening, to beg for another of Lisetta’s stories, and quite forgot her walk, the officer, and Norman Mann while she listened to the STORY OF TALILA. Talila was a young girl, destined to be a nun. She was a naughty little girl and would make wry faces at the thought, and wish she could be a man, a soldier or sailor, instead of being a woman and a nun; and as she grew older she would dance all the time, and didn’t say her prayers very much, and was so bad that the priest sent for her to see him. He told her how wicked she was, and that, too, when she was to be the bride of the church; but she said the church had many, many brides, and she would rather be the bride of Giovanni; and that she loved red-cheeked babies better than beads, and songs were nicer than prayers. Should she sing him such a pretty, gay one she knew? And the priest could hardly keep from laughing at the bright-eyed, naughty, naughty Talila. But he said: “If Giovanni does not want to marry you, will you then become the bride of the church?” And Talila laughed aloud and tossed her head. “Giovanni longs to marry me, Father,” she said, “I know that already.” But the Father sent for Giovanni and gave him money if he would say he did not want to marry Talila. At first he would not say so, but the Father showed him a purse all full of silver, which Talila’s mother had brought him, for it was she who had vowed Talila should be a nun. Then the Father said: “This is yours if you say as I wish, and if not, you shall be cursed forever, and all your children shall be cursed, because you have married the bride of the church.” Then Giovanni crossed himself and took the bag of silver, and the priest sent for Talila, and she heard her Giovanni say he didn’t want to marry her—she had better be a nun; and she threw up her brown arms and screamed aloud, and fell down as if dead. And afterwards she was very ill, and when she grew better she had forgotten everything and was only a little child, and she loves little children, and is ever with them, but she calls them all Giovanni. They play together by the bay through the long day, and at night she takes them to their mothers, and goes alone to her home. But alas! she never tells her beads, or prays a prayer, and sorry things are said of her—that God gave her up because she left Him. But the children all love her, and she loves them. CHAPTER III. Edith and Mae had a quarrel one morning. Mae’s tongue was sharp, but although she breezed quickly, she calmed again very soon. The latter fact availed her little this time, for Edith maintained a cold displeasure that would not be melted by any bright speeches or frank apologies. “Edith,” said little Miss Mae, quite humbly for her, as she put on her hat, and drew on her gloves, “Edith, aren’t you going out with me?” “What for?” asked that young person indifferently. “Why—for fun, and to make up. Haven’t you forgiven me yet?” Edith did not reply directly. “I am going out with mamma to buy our dominoes for the Carnival, and to see our balcony. Albert has engaged one for us, on the corner of the Corso and Santa Maria e Jesu. I suppose you can go too. There will be an extra seat. We’ll come home by the Pincian Hill.” “Thank you,” said Mae, “but I will get Eric and go for a tramp,” and she left the room with compressed lips and flushed cheeks. In the hall were Albert, Eric and Norman, talking busily. “Where are you going Eric, mayn’t I go too, please?” “I’m sorry Mae, but this is an entirely masculine affair—five-button gloves and parasols are out of the question.” “O, Ric, I am half lonely.” Mae laughed a little hysterically. At that moment she caught Mr. Mann’s eyes, full of sympathy. “But goodbye,” she added, and opened the door, “I’m going.” “Alone?” asked Norman, involuntarily. “Yes, alone,” replied Mae. “Have you any objections, boys?” Eric and Albert were talking busily and did not hear her. Norman Mann held open the door for her to pass out, and smiled as she thanked him. She smiled back. She came very near saying, “I’m sorry I was rude the other day, forgive me,” and he came very near saying, “May I go with you, Miss Mae?” But they neither of them spoke, and Norman closed the door with a sigh, and Mae walked away with a sigh. It was only a little morning’s experience, sharp words, misunderstandings; but the child was young, far from home and her mother, and it seemed hard to her. She was in a very wild mood, a very hard mood, and yet all ready to be softened by a kind, sympathetic word, so nearly do extremes of emotion meet. “There’s no one to care a pin about me,” said she to herself, “not a pin. I have a great mind to go and take the veil or drown myself in the Tiber. Then they would be bound to search for me, and convent vows and Tiber mud hold one fast. No, I won’t, I’ll go and sit in the Pincian gardens and talk Italian with the very first person I meet and forget all about myself. I wish Mr. Mann wouldn’t pity me. Dear me, here I am remembering these forlorn people again. I wish I could see mamma and home this morning,—the dear old library. Why the house is shut up and mamma’s south. I forgot that, and here am I all alone. It is like being dead. There, I have dropped a tear on my tie and spoiled it! Besides, if one is dead, there comes Heaven. Why shouldn’t I play dead, and make my own Heaven?” Here Mae seated herself, for she was on the Pincio by this time, and looked off at the view, at that wonderful view of St. Peter’s, the Tiber, all the domes and rising ruins and afar the campagna. “I wouldn’t make my Heaven here,” thought this dreadful Mae, “not if it is beautiful. I’d not stay here a single other day. Bah no!” and she shook her irreverent little fist right down at the Eternal City. At this moment, a small beggar, who had been pleading unnoticed at her side, was lifted from his feet by a powerful hand, and a shower of soft Italian imprecations fell on Mae’s ear. She sprang up quickly, “No, no,” she cried in Italian, “how dare you hurt a harmless boy?” She lifted her face full toward that of the man who had inspired her wrath, and her eyes met those of the Piedmontese officer. She blushed scarlet. “Pardon, a thousand pardons,” began he. “It was for your sake, Signorina. I saw you shake your hand that he should leave you, and I fancied that the little scamp was troubling the foreign lady.” Mae laughed frankly, although she was greatly confused. The officer and the beggar boy behind him waited expectantly. “I shook my hand at my thoughts,” she explained. “I did not see the boy. Forgive me, Signor, for my hasty words.” The officer enjoyed her confusion quietly. He threw a handful of small coin at the beggar, and bade him go. Then he turned again to Mae. “I am sorry, Signorina, that your thoughts are sad. I should think they would all be like sweet smiles.” He said this with an indescribable delicacy and gallantry, as if he half feared to speak to her, but his sympathy must needs express itself. Mae was, as we have seen, in a reckless, wild mood. She did not realize what she was doing. She had just broken down all barriers in her mind, was dead to her old life, and ready to plan for Heaven. And here before her stood a wonderful, sympathizing, new friend, who spoke in a strange tongue, lived in a strange land was as far removed from her old-time people and society as an inhabitant of Saturn, or an angel. She accepted him under her excitement, as she would have accepted them. No waiting for an introduction, no formal getting-acquainted talk, no reserve. She looked into the devoted, interested eyes above her, and said frankly: “I was feeling all alone, and I hate Rome. I thought I would like to play I was dead, and plan out a Heaven for myself. It should not be in Rome. And then I suppose I shook my fist.” “Where would your Heaven be?” asked the Piedmontese, falling quickly, with ready southern sympathy, into her mood. Mae seated herself on the bench and made room for him at her side. “Where should it be?” she repeated. “Down among the children of the sun, all out in the rich orange fields, by the blue Bay of Naples, I think, with Vesuvius near by, and Capri; yes, it would be in Sorrento that I should find my heaven.” The officer smiled under his long moustaches. “For three days,—at a hotel, Signorina.” “No, no; with the peasants. I am tired and sick of books, and people, and reasons. Shall I give you a day of my Heaven?” Bero smiled and bent slightly forward and rested his hand lightly on the stick of her parasol, which lay between them. “Go on,” he said. “I would fill my apron with sweet flowers and golden fruit—great oranges, and those fragrant, delicious tiny mandarins—and I would get a crowd of little Italians about me, all a-babbling their pretty, pretty tongue, and I would go down to the bay and get in an anchored boat, and lie there all the morning, catching the sunlight in my eyes, trimming the brown babies and the boat with flowers, looking off at the water and the clouds, tossing the pretty fruit, and laughing, and playing, and enjoying. Later, there’d be a...