Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

GLORIA
A Novel

By MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH

Author of

“The Unloved Wife,” “Lilith,” “Em,” “Em’s Husband,”

“For Whose Sake,” “Why Did He Wed Her?”

“The Bride’s Ordeal,” “Her Love or Her Life,” Etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY

PUBLISHERS :: :: NEW YORK

Popular Books

By MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH

In Handsome Cloth Binding

Price 60 Cents per Volume

CAPITOLA’S PERIL

CRUEL AS THE GRAVE

“EM”

EM’S HUSBAND

FOR WHOSE SAKE

ISHMAEL

LILITH

THE BRIDE’S FATE

THE CHANGED BRIDES

THE HIDDEN HAND

THE UNLOVED WIFE

TRIED FOR HER LIFE

SELF-RAISED

WHY DID HE WED HER

GLORIA

DAVID LINDSAY

For Sale by all Booksellers or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price

A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS

52 Duane Street New York

Copyright, 1877 and 1891

By ROBERT BONNER’S SONS

Renewal granted to Mrs. Charlotte Southworth Lawrence, 1905

“GLORIA”

Printed by special arrangement with

STREET & SMITH

GLORIA

CHAPTER I
A SPOILED BEAUTY

Her eyes flashed fire! Convulsive rage possessed

Her trembling limbs and heaved her laboring breast;

Blind to the future, by this rage misled,

She pulled down ruin on her reckless head.

Dryden.

“David Lindsay, will you marry me?”

The speaker was a girl scarcely past childhood, young, beautiful, good, wealthy, and yet—desperate, as not only her words, but her every look, tone, and gesture proved.

Her voice was low, her tone steadied by a powerful self-control. She stood there with a pale horror, yet fixed resolution, on her face; as one might stand on the deck of a burning ship, wrought up to choose death between fire and water, ready to escape the flames by plunging into the sea.

He to whom she spoke was a poor fisherman on the estate, young, strong, healthy and handsome, with the good looks that youth and health give, but bronzed by exposure, roughened by toil and rudely clothed.

The scene of this strange interview was a small, sandy island on the coast of Maryland. The time, an overclouded and blustering morning near the end of January.

He had been hard at work mending his boat, which lay bottom upwards on the beach, when she came suddenly upon him.

Then he stood up, took off his old tarpaulin hat, and respectfully waited her orders.

What a contrast they formed, as they stood there facing each other—she, the delicate, patrician beauty, wrapped in richest furs and finest velvets, yet with that look of pale horror and fixed resolution on her beautiful face—he, the hardy son of the soil, bronzed and rugged, clothed in a rough pea-jacket and loose corduroy trowsers, with their legs tucked into high, coarse, bull-hide boots; robust, erect, cordial, yet with a look of unbounded astonishment in his fine dark eyes.

They might have been the last young man and maiden left in the world, for all sign of human life or habitation near them, as they stood on that little sterile isle—around them the dark-gray sea roughened by a high wind—behind them the mainland in its wintry aspect of skeleton forests, rising from snow-clad hills.

“David Lindsay, will you marry me?” repeated the girl, seeing that he had not answered her question, but stood before her dumfounded with amazement.

“Miss de la Vera!” was all that he could utter, even now.

“I know that you love me,” she continued, speaking now with more vehemence, and looking over her shoulder, from moment to moment, as if, even in that remote, sea-girt isle, she dreaded espionage, eavesdroppers, discovery, pursuit, arrest. “I know that you love me, David! It is that which gives me courage to come to you for refuge in my dreadful desperation. I know that you love me, for I heard you say so once—when you saved my life that time at the imminent risk of your own.”

“And, oh, is it possible that you can love me?” breathed the young man, in deep tones vibrating with his heart’s profound emotions; for with his whole heart he had loved her, deeply, ardently, hopelessly—with his whole soul he had worshiped her, afar off, as some exalted and forever unattainable good. “Is it possible that you can love me?”

“No!” she answered, hurriedly. “I do not love you! That is, I mean I love everybody, and you more than others; but oh, David, feeling sure that you love me, for you told me so once——”

“I was mad in my presumptuous folly——” began the youth.

“Feeling sure that you love me, because you told me so once, although I do not love you yet more than others, I will be your wife and try to love you more, if only you will take me far away from this place at once and forever, David! If you ever cared for me, stop to ask no questions; but do as I ask you, and you shall have my hand and all that I possess!” she breathed hardly, looking over her shoulder at intervals, with a nervous, expectant, terrified manner.

“Miss de la Vera, it is you who are mad now!” he replied, in a tone of ineffable sadness and longing, as he gazed on her with something like consternation.

And well he might! The situation was astounding!

Here was this young girl, Gloria de la Vera, the daintiest beauty, the wealthiest heiress in the country, proposing to marry HIM, the poor young fisherman attached to the estate! It was wonderful, unprecedented, incredible!

Why, half the young men in the community were mad to get her. A smile of hers would have brought the best of them to her feet.

And yet she came to give her hand and her fortune to this poor, unlearned young fisherman!

“Nothing, nothing but temporary insanity could have betrayed her into such a reckless proposal,” said the young fisherman to himself.

Yet the girl who stood there before him, calm, pale, and steadfast as a marble statue, was not insane—no, nor immodest, nor unmaidenly, however appearances might tell against her.

Neither had she done any wrong, or even suffered any wrong; for she had scarcely a fault in her nature to lead her into any evil, and never an enemy in the world to do her any injury.

Nor had she quarreled with a betrothed lover and sought to revenge herself upon him by rushing into this low marriage; but she had never been in love and never been engaged.

Neither did she hurry towards matrimony as a refuge from domestic despotism, for she was the petted darling of a widowed and childless uncle, who had been a father to her orphanage; and she had had her own right royal will and way all her little life.

If there were any despotic tyrant at old Promontory Hall, that tyrant was the dainty little beauty, Gloria de la Vera herself, and if there were any “down-trodden” slave, that victim was the renowned military hero, Colonel Marcellus de Crespigney!

Why, then, since no reasonable, nor even unreasonable motive could be found for the mad act, should Gloria de la Vera wish to hurl herself head-long down into the deep perdition of a low and loveless marriage?

To elucidate the mystery we must narrate the incidents of her short life.

On the coast of Maryland there is a bleak head of land thrown out into the sea, and united to the main only by a long and narrow neck of rocks.

If this weird headland had been a little loftier it would have been a promontory—or if the neck of rocks had been a little lower it would have been an island.

As it happened, it was neither, or it was both; for, at low tide, when the neck was bare, the head was a promontory, and at high tide, when the waves rolled over the rocks, it was an island entirely surrounded by the sea.

The ground arose gradually from the shore to the centre, upon the highest and safest part of which stood a large, square, heavy, gray stone building, in a yard inclosed by a high stone wall.

Lower down on the shore was another wall, called the sea-wall.

Beyond this, on the sand, were a few scattered fishing huts and boat-sheds.

There was but little vegetation on the place, and the nearer the shore the sparser the growth. On the hill near the house, indeed, there were a few old oaks, said to have been planted more than two centuries before by the first owners of the soil and builders of the house. There were also a few gigantic horse-chestnuts and other fine forest trees; but all these had been transplanted from the mainland ages before. There was nothing of native growth on the promontory.

Behind the house was an old garden, where “made soil” was so rich that the place had grown into a perfect thicket of shrubs, vines, creepers, bushes, and all sorts of hardy old plants, flowers, and fruit-trees.

Behind this was a kitchen garden, where a few vegetables were with difficulty raised for the use of the family, and beyond were fields of thinly growing grass and grain, that barely afforded sustenance for the cattle and sheep on the premises.

Altogether this half sterile promontory, with its square, massive gray stone mansion, its high stone yard-wall, its strong stone sea-wall, its iron gates, and its grim aspect, looked more like a fortress or a prison than the hereditary home of a private family.

The locality had also a bad reputation, and a worse tradition, besides as many aliases as any professional burglar.

It was called Pirates’ Point, Buccaneers’ Bridge, and La Compte’s Landing.

The story, or the history, was that this place had been the frequent resort of the notorious freebooter, La Compte, whose nom-de-guerre of “Blackbeard” had been, in the old colonial days, the terror of the Chesapeake and its tributaries.

Vast treasure, it was said, had once been buried here, and might still be waiting its resurrection at the hands of some fortunate finder.

However that might have been, whatever wealth of gold, silver, or precious stones might have lain hidden for ages in the depths of that sterile ground, it is certain that the last proprietor of the promontory was poor enough.

He was Marcellus de Crespigney, a retired officer of the army, an impoverished gentleman.

At the time our story opens, Colonel Crespigney was a young widower, without children and without family, if we except his maiden aunt, Miss Agrippina de Crespigney, and his youthful ward, Gloria de la Vera.

His history may be very briefly summed up. He was the second son of a wealthy Louisiana planter, whose estate being entailed upon the eldest male child, left little or nothing to younger brothers or sisters.

Marcellus, when required to select a profession, being of a grave and studious disposition, would have preferred divinity or medicine, but finally yielded to the wish of his father, and entered West Point Military Academy to be educated for the army.

At the age of twenty-one he graduated with honors, and then went to spend a short leave with his parents previous to joining his regiment.

He met them by appointment at Saratoga, which was at that time the headquarters and great summer resort of Southern families, flying from the fierce heat and fatal fevers of their native districts to the cool breezes and healing waters of the North.

And here, Marcellus, or, as he was most frequently called, Marcel de Crespigney, met the great misfortune of his life, for here he first saw the lady who was destined to be his wife.

Marcel de Crespigney was one of the handsomest men of his time. At the age of twenty-one he was as beautiful as Apollo. His form was of medium size and fair proportions, his head stately and well set, his features Romanesque in their regularity and delicacy of outline; his hair and beard were dark brown, and closely curled; his eyes dark hazel, with a steady, thoughtful, sympathetic gaze that had the effect of mesmerizing any one upon whom it fell.

Such beauty is too often an evil and a cause of weakness in man. It frequently inspires and nourishes vanity, and saps and blights true manliness.

Such, however, was not its effect upon Marcel de Crespigney.

He had his fatal weakness, as you will presently discover; but that weakness did not take its root in self-love—quite the contrary.

If he had possessed vanity, however, he would have found a surfeit of food for it.

Wherever he appeared, he was noticed as the handsomest man in the company, and many were the light-headed and soft-hearted girls who fell more or less in love with him.

At Saratoga, in the immediate circle of his mother and sisters, he met a party of West Indians—the Count Antonia de la Vera, an aged Portuguese grandee, his young wife, the Countess Eleanor, her sister, Eusebie La Compte, and their three-year-old daughter, named after the good Queen of Portugal, Maria da Gloria; but for the radiant beauty of her fair complexion, golden hair, and sapphire eyes, which she inherited from her mother, they called her Gloria only.

Of all the people present, this child took suddenly and solely to the young lieutenant. She would leave father, mother, auntie or nurse, to leap into the arms of her “Own Marcel,” as she soon learned to call him. It was wonderful; and superficial people said it was his gay uniform that attracted the child—but then the child looked only at his eyes!

But there was another of the West Indian party who found great pleasure in the presence of Marcel de Crespigney. This was Miss Eusebie La Compte, the sister of the Señora Eleanor.

They, the sisters, were not West Indians, but Marylanders, orphan daughters and co-heiresses of old George La Compte, of La Compte’s Landing and Pirates’ Promontory.

In the division of the estate after the death of their parents, the most valuable portion, La Compte’s Landing, had been given to the eldest daughter, Eleanor, and the least desirable, Promontory Hall, to the youngest, Eusebie.

It was while the sisters were residing at the house of their guardian, an eminent lawyer of Washington city, that they made the acquaintance of the Count de la Vera, then ambassador from Portugal. He was a bachelor, and attracted by the radiant blonde beauty of the elder sister, he had proposed for her hand.

Eleanor, whose heart was free, and whose fancy was fascinated by the prospect of rank, wealth and position, promptly accepted the offer, and in due time became Madame de la Vera.

A brilliant season in Washington followed their marriage, then a tour of the fashionable watering-places.

Finally, when the ambassador was recalled, he went to Lisbon to resign his portfolio, and then he came back and settled down on his West Indian estates.

But not for long.

Troubles broke out. Possessions were insecure.

Count de la Vera sold off his property and came to Maryland, the native State of his beautiful wife, where he invested largely in land.

By this time the Señora Eleanor’s health began to fail. Then her doting husband sent for her sister to travel with her, and to help to relieve her of the care of their infant daughter, Gloria.

They all went to Saratoga together, and thus it happened that we found them in the company of Madame de Crespigney and her daughters.

Eusebie La Compte, the heiress of the bleak promontory, had not the radiant beauty of her sister, whose brilliant complexion, shining golden hair and sparkling blue eyes had been inherited by her daughter; no, the pale face, sandy locks and gray eyes of Eusebie formed but a tame copy of the brighter picture.

Yet Eusebie could not be called “plain,” and far less “ugly.” Her form seemed cast in the same mold as that of her beautiful elder sister, only it was thinner. Her profile had the same classic facial angle, but it was sharper. Her complexion was quite as fair, only it was paler. Her hair was of the same color, only it was duller. Her eyes were of the same hue, but they were dimmer.

If Eusebie had been healthy and happy, she would have been as beautiful and brilliant as her sister; or if she had been smitten, as Eleanor had, by hectic fever only, which gives color to the cheeks and light to the eye. But to be afflicted with malaria, which dulls the complexion and dims the eyes, is quite another thing.

Nevertheless, there were times when Eusebie was almost beautiful. It was when any strong emotion flushed her cheeks and fired her eyes.

The West Indian party did not go much into society. The health of Señora Eleanor forbade their doing so. The only company they saw was our party from Louisiana.

The illness of the mother and the negligence of the nurse, threw the little Gloria very much upon the care of Eusebie, who was almost always to be found in Madame de Crespigney’s circle.

Thus it happened that Eusebie and Marcel were brought daily together, and united by their common interest in the beautiful child, Gloria.

So Eusebie, the pale, agueish girl, fell in love with the handsome young Marcel—fell in love with him, not after the manner of the soft-hearted girl, who sighed in secret and slipped out of sight, but after the manner of the woman who says to herself, “Love or death,” and thinks towards her victim, “Your love or your life!”

Marcel de Crespigney being of a tender, affectionate, sympathetic nature, had been more or less in love all the days of his youth. In earliest infancy he was ardently in love with his nurse. At five years old he was passionately enamored of his nursery governess, a bright young Yankee girl. And when she married the Methodist minister, Marcel wept tears of agony. His Sunday-school teacher, an amiable old maid, was his next flame. When she died of yellow fever he put crape on his little cap and flowers on her grave.

Then followed, as queens of his soul—his sisters’ music mistress, his mother’s seamstress, and the overseer’s sister-in-law. At the age of fifteen he actually offered marriage to the doctor’s widow, a genial, soft-eyed, warm-hearted matron of thirty-five, who, in her wisdom and goodness, refrained from wounding his affection by contempt, but gravely and kindly assured him that, though she declined to be engaged then, yet she would wait for him, and if he should be in the same mind five years from that time, she would listen to him.

The boy left her, in ecstasies of hope and happiness, after vows of unchanging, eternal fidelity.

But he did not remain in the same mind, which was fortunate, as the doctor’s widow also died, and—of yellow fever.

At the age of seventeen, when the young man entered West Point, as we have said, he would have speedily contracted a pure, platonic love for the colonel’s wife, a handsome and intellectual lady of middle age, only a high sense of honor warned him of the danger of such moral quicksands.

After this the boy devoted himself to his military studies, and the sentiment of spoonyism soon gave place to the sentiment of heroism.

Yes, Marcel de Crespigney had been in love nearly all his life; but he was neither vain enough nor observant enough to perceive the preference bestowed on him by his young lady friends; nor would he ever have known the infatuation of Eusebie La Compte, had not his mother discovered and revealed it to him.

In the eyes of Madame de Crespigney, the pale Eusebie seemed a very eligible match for her portionless son. Report had exaggerated the riches of the co-heiresses. The elder sister had married a Portuguese grandee. Altogether the connection seemed a good one in a social and financial point of view.

Of course, Madame de Crespigney did not set the matter before her son in that light. She knew Marcel too well. She adroitly directed his attention to the delicate girl, and enlisted his sympathies for her, so that he soon perceived how the pale cheeks would flush, and the dim eyes fire, and the whole plain face grow radiant and beautiful in the love-light of his presence. His heart was free, and so he became interested in her. He thought she was the first who had ever loved him, and so he grew to believe that he loved her.

At least he proposed to her and was accepted.

As the young officer had but a month’s leave before joining his regiment, that was under orders to march for Mexico to join General Scott’s army on the first of September, and as the bride-elect decided to accompany her intended husband, “even to the battlefield,” the engagement was a short one. The wedding was hurried.

On the morning of the twenty-fifth of August the young couple were quietly married in the nearest church, and immediately after the ceremony they set out for Washington, where Lieutenant de Crespigney joined his regiment, which was on the eve of departure for the seat of war.

I do not mean here to tell over again, even the least part, the oft-repeated story of the Mexican War, but only to allude in the briefest manner to Marcel de Crespigney’s share in it. He went to Mexico, accompanied by his bride, who was with him wherever duty called.

She spent the first three years of her married life in camps, on battle-fields, and in hospitals, and so did her woman’s share of the work.

He behaved gallantly from first to last, as is best shown by his military record. For, having entered the service at the beginning of the war with the rank of second lieutenant of cavalry, he left it at the close with that of colonel and brevet brigadier-general.

At the earliest solicitation of his wife, he then resigned his commission and retired with her to private life, on her estate at Pirates’ Promontory, the principal wealth of which consisted in its great fisheries.

No children had come to them to crown their union, and this want had been a source of disappointment to the husband and humiliation to the wife, that even threatened in the course of time to estrange them from each other.

They must have continued to live a very lonely life on their remote estate—“the world forgetting, by the world forgot”—but for circumstances that occurred in the first year of their residence at the Promontory.

These were the deaths of the aged Count de la Vera and his fragile young wife, who passed away within a few days of each other, leaving their orphan child, Maria de Gloria, to the care of her maternal aunt and uncle, who gladly received her.

CHAPTER II
MARIA GLORIA DE LA VERA

A willful elf, an uncle’s child,

And half a pet and half a pest,

By turns angelic, wicked, wild,

Made chaos of the household nest.

Anon.

Gloria was seven years old when she came to live with her uncle and aunt. She was too young and too bright to realize the loss she had sustained in the death of her parents, or to grieve long after them. And besides—was it a new affection, or was it a reminiscence of the old one? She soon became devotedly attached to her uncle.

It was a grim home to which the radiant child had been brought; but nothing could dim the brightness of her spirit or depress the gladness of her heart—not old Promontory Hall with its gray, massive, prison-like structure, its high stone walls, and its dreary sea view, drearier than usual in the dull December days in which Gloria looked upon it—not even the deadening coldness that was creeping like a blighting frost between the husband and the wife—a coldness that the warm-hearted child felt rather than understood.

This condition, it must be confessed, was the fault of Eusebie rather than Marcel. It grew out of the jealousy and suspicion that had their root in her inordinate and exacting affection for him.

Her self-tormenting spirit whispered that he had never really loved her, but had married her out of compassion, or, worse still, that he had never even cared for her in any manner, but had taken her for her little fortune alone. She saw that, as the years passed away, and hope of a family died out, he was disappointed in the continued absence of children, and she persuaded herself that he secretly hated and despised her for not giving them to him.

All this wore out her health and spirits.

And so she grew more and more irritable and petulant, often repelling his best-meant efforts to comfort and cheer her—telling him she wanted none of his capricious sympathy, his hypocritical tenderness; she could live without either.

All this he bore with the greater patience because he knew it could not last long—because he saw the fiery soul was burning out the fragile body, and because he felt that there was a grain of truth in the stack of falsehood. It was this—that he had married her for pity, or for such love as pity inspires.

The coming of Gloria into this house of discord had been as the advent of an angel in purgatory. Her very presence had a mediating, reconciling power.

Yet it must not be supposed that Gloria was a real angel, or that her coming brought perfect peace to the household. Far from this. Gloria had a fiery little spirit of her own that sometimes flamed out at very inconvenient times and seasons, and the most she did towards restoring harmony was to restrain by her bright presence the expression of harsh feelings, and to prevent the estrangement breaking out into open warfare.

While they would be sitting silent and sullen, at the same fireside, in the long back parlor that looked out upon the leaden sky and sea of these dull December days, he would be apparently absorbed in the perusal of some favorite old classic author, she would be engaged in knitting, the glittering, fine, long needles glancing in and out between her delicate white fingers, in round after round of stitches—for she was a great knitter of lamb’s-wool hose—the child would be sitting on the carpet somewhere near, earnestly employed in dressing her doll, drawing on her slate, or cutting figures out of paper—but always singing some little song to herself, filling the room with harmony.

How could the sullen couple break into open warfare in her presence?

Yet sometimes they did so. A dispute would arise out of that dull silence, as a breeze would spring over the gray sea, and blow into storm in one case as in the other.

The gust always arose from Eusebie’s quarter. And Marcel always got the worst of it.

Often little Gloria would see him grieved, humiliated, yet silent and patient, under his wife’s false accusations and bitter reproaches.

Then her soul would be filled with sympathy, her song would cease, her playthings drop, and she would get up and take her little stool and go and sit down by his side and slip her small hand into his and lay her bright head on his knee.

This always quelled the rising storm. It prevented Marcel from retorting, however much exasperated he might be, and it eventually silenced Eusebie, for no one can keep up a quarrel alone.

Gloria’s interference did not always stop at sympathy for Marcel. It sometimes, indeed, broke out into righteous indignation against Eusebie.

On one occasion, she had heard her unhappy aunt taunt him with his want of fortune and charge him with mercenary motives in marrying her. She had seen her uncle’s dark cheek flame, and had noticed how hard it was for him to keep his temper; and she had left her play and gone and sat down by his side, and put her little arms around his knee and laid her shining head upon it.

That had soothed and silenced him. He could not give way to his evil spirit in the presence of the child.

But, mind, when at length he arose and left the parlor, and Gloria found herself alone with her aunt, she rebuked that passionate woman fearlessly.

“You treat my uncle worse than you would dare to treat any negro slave on the promontory,” she exclaimed, in angry tears.

“He is not your uncle,” was all the lady said in reply.

“He is your husband, then! And you treat him worse than you would dare to treat any one else in the world, just because he is a gentleman and cannot retort upon you. You just dare to talk to old ’Phia as you talk to him, and she would give you such a tongue-lashing as you would not get over in a month.”

“If you do not cease your impertinence at once, Miss, I will give you such a whip-lashing as you won’t get over in six!” exclaimed the angry woman.

“No you will not, auntie! If you were to lay a whip upon me, only once, you would repent it all your life, and you would never have a chance to do it again. You are my auntie; but my uncle is my guardian, and he would lead me out of this house and we would never return to it. You know that!”

“Oh, Heaven! It is too true, for he loves me not at all!” breathed the poor woman, losing all self-command, and utterly breaking down in humiliation.

In a moment the child was at her side—at her feet.

“Oh, auntie, poor auntie, don’t cry! I have been naughty, very naughty! And I am sorry, very sorry! Indeed you may strike me now, if you want to, for I do deserve it now!” she said, trying with all her heart to soothe the weeping woman.

But Eusebie clasped the child to her bosom and burst into a passion of sobs and tears.

“I love you, auntie, dear. I do love you, and I am so sorry I was so naughty,” said the child, clasping the unhappy creature around the neck and lavishing caresses on her.

But Eusebie only sobbed the harder for all this.

“And uncle loves you, auntie, dear, indeed he does, although you do always tell him that he doesn’t care for you. I know he does, for when you are”—the child was about to say “cross,” but checked herself in time, and continued—“when you are unhappy he looks at you so pitifully.”

“Oh, Gloria, you don’t know anything about it, and I don’t want his pity. I am not a dog or a beggar,” exclaimed Eusebie, bitterly, as she put her niece from her lap and hurried from the parlor to her own room, to give unrestrained way to her grief.

This heart-sick and brain-sick poor woman was the plague and curse of the household, and such scenes as these were of frequent occurrence.

Little Gloria acted always as a peacemaker, and always successfully; only once in a long time did her sense of justice rouse her indignation to the height of upbraiding her “auntie,” and then her quick bursts of temper were followed by as quick repentance and reparation. She was very impulsive—

“A being of sudden smiles and tears.”

This swift impulsiveness, with its sudden action and reaction, was the keynote to her whole character, the “kismet” of her life.

As yet she was the peacemaker of the house, and all within it felt that this had been her mission to the household. Even the old family servants put their heads together confidentially, or shook them wisely, while they whispered:

“Whatever de trouble is atween de two, marster and mist’ess done been parted long a merry ago if it hadn’t been for little Glo’.”

Indeed, this Promontory Hall, with its high, enclosing walls, and the gray sea rolling around it, and the estranged, unhappy pair within it, must have been a very dull, dreary and depressing home for any child who had not, like Gloria, an ever springing fountain of gladness in her own soul.

As soon as the long winter was over, and the sun shone warm and bright, and the earth grew green and the sea blue, Gloria was out and abroad, with the earliest birds and flowers, as bright as the brightest, and as glad as the gladdest.

With the revival of all nature there was a great revival of business also in the fisheries appertaining to the Promontory and its neighboring isles. The place that was so solitary all the winter was now all alive with fishermen, whose huts and tents and sheds dotted all the little islands within sight from the promontory. No fishermen except those in the service of the family were allowed to haul the seines, or even cast a net from the home beach.

Among the fishermen attached to the service of the family was a young lad of about twelve years old. His parents had passed away, leaving him in the care of his grandmother, who lived in a tiny, sandy islet that stood alone, half a mile east of the promontory.

Who had been the original owner of the little sandhill no one ever knew; for the property was not of sufficient value to stimulate inquiries; and, besides, it had been for ages past occupied by a family of squatters, the present representatives of whom were David Lindsay and his grandmother.

It was on a brilliant May morning that the little Gloria, in her wanderings about the promontory, came to a broken part of the old sea-wall, and, instigated by curiosity, clambered over the stones and looked out upon a long stretch of sands upon which sheds, huts, and stranded boats were scattered among nets, seines, sea-weed and driftwood.

The child, standing in the breach of the wall, paused to gaze with interest on the rude scene that was so entirely new to her.

Then she saw a boy seated amid a drift of nets and seines, with a reel of coarse twine and a large wooden needle in his hand, busy with some work that quite absorbed his attention; for he neither saw nor heard the approach of the little girl.

She, on her part, stood still and watched him with surprise and delight.

The solitary child had not seen another child of any sort, white or black, girl or boy, for more than a year. She had lived only with grown-up people, and very “scroobious” and depressing grown-up people at that. Now her heart leaped for joy at the sight of an angel from her own heaven—another child!

What if he was a poor little lad, with a torn straw hat set on his tangled black curls, a sunburned face, a patched coat, trowsers rolled up to his knees, and below them naked legs and feet? He was another child—an angel from her own heaven! He had come with the sun and the spring, with the birds and the flowers. Here was the crowning joy of the season indeed.

He would be her playmate. He would not rail and weep like Eusebie, nor sigh and groan like Marcel. He would be glad like herself.

Without an instant’s hesitation she ran down to him.

Children, when left to their own intuition, are the most simple and natural democrats and republicans. They care nothing and know nothing of caste. When misled by others, they may become the most repulsive little aristocrats alive.

She stood before him breathless, smiling.

As for the boy, he looked up at her in pleased surprise at the brightest vision that had ever gladdened his eyes.

“Little boy!” she exclaimed, in a tone of kindly greeting.

“Yes, little girl,” he answered, as he arose, dropping his nets and taking off his torn hat.

“I’m so glad to see you!” she exclaimed, smiling.

“So am I, you. Will you sit down on the boat? It is quite dry,” he said, as he pointed to the upturned skiff upon which he himself had been seated.

“Oh, yes, I thank you. I would like to sit down because I have been walking all over the promontory and I am so tired,” she said, as she seated herself.

“Put your feet on this stone, the sands are damp,” said the lad, as he placed a flat piece of rock near her.

“Yes; I thank you. And you sit down, too. Don’t you stand,” she continued. He obeyed the little lady, and seated himself beside her.

“Oh, I am so glad I found you!” she exclaimed, with dancing eyes.

“So am I you; very glad,” he answered, quietly.

“Have you got anybody to play with?” was her next question.

“No,” he replied.

“No more have I. What is your name, little boy?”

“Dave.”

“Dave? That means David, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, David; but everybody calls me Dave.”

“Well, what else is your name besides David?”

“Lindsay—David Lindsay.”

“Oh! Uncle reads to us about one—

“‘Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount,

Lord Lion, King at Arms.’

Was he any kin to you?”

“No, there ain’t no kings nor lions about here,” replied the lad, laughing.

“I don’t know. I didn’t think there was any children or playmates about here; but after finding you I should not wonder if I found kings and lions and—and dwarfs and fairies.”

“I never saw any about here,” said the lad, decidedly.

“David Lindsay, don’t you want to know what my name is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, then, why don’t you ask me?”

“Because—I don’t know—I didn’t like to.”

“Well, my name is Maria da Gloria de la Vera!”

“Oh! what a long name!”

“Yes, but it is a beautiful name, with a beautiful meaning.”

“What does it mean?”

“I believe, but I don’t quite know, that it means the Glory of the Truth, or something like that.”

“It is too long.”

“Yes, it is long as it is spelt and written; but not as it is pronounced, for it is pronounced Davero—Gloria Davero—and the colored folks have got it down to little Glo’.”

“Oh, I like that! Little Glo’!” said the lad, with animation.

“Do you? I am so glad! What does your name mean, David Lindsay?”

“I’m blest if I know what it means, if it means anything at all.”

“But it must mean something, David Lindsay. All names do.”

“Well, then, I will ask my grandmother.”

“Yes, do. Do you like me, David Lindsay?”

“Oh! yes, indeed I do.”

“So do I you, ever so much. What is that you are doing with that long wooden needle and big ball of cord, David Lindsay?”

“I am mending nets.”

“Oh, how curious it is. Will you show me how to do it, David Lindsay? Is it hard to do?”

“No, it is easy. I will be glad to show you,” said the boy, who then instructed her in the simple stitch by which the nets were made.

“What fun!” exclaimed the child, as her slender little fingers plied the wooden needle in and out among the meshes. “Who taught you to do this, David Lindsay?”

“I——” The boy hesitated and looked puzzled, and then said: “I don’t know. I netted nets ever since I could remember, and before, too, I reckon, but not so large nets as these. I netted minnow nets first, I remember that. I s’pose father must ha’ taught me.”

“Have you got a father and mother, David Lindsay?”

“Yes, in Heaven,” replied the lad, lifting his broken hat and bending his head.

“So have I—in Heaven. Have you got any brothers and sisters, David Lindsay?”

“No, not one.”

“No more have I. Have you got any playmates?”

“No; never had any.”

“No more have I. But now I have you, and you have me, and we will be playmates, won’t we?”

“Yes, indeed!”

“How old are you, David Lindsay?”

“I am almost twelve; I shall be twelve next Fourth of July.”

“Oh, what a splendid birthday! I shall be eight the first of June!”

“June is a nice month, too. The roses are all out,” said the boy.

The little girl fell into thought for a few minutes, and then she said:

“What made you lift your hat and bend your head when you said ‘Heaven,’ David Lindsay?”

“Grandmother taught me.”

“‘Grandmother!’ Yes, you said grandmother before.”

“She is father’s mother. Father was drowned in a squall while out fishing when I was seven years old. That was in the spring; mother died of pleurisy the next winter; a bitter, bitter winter, when the snow lay two or three feet deep on the ground and drifted around our little house, and there was no one to bring us wood from the main but grandmother and me, and we had to go for it in the boat and couldn’t bring but a little at a time; and we had no doctor and that was the way poor mother died.”

Gloria’s bright eyes were full of tears. She slipped her hand in that of the boy and said:

“But maybe she would have died all the same. My mother had everything in the world, and she died. But you know neither of them really died; they went to heaven.”

“Yes,” said the boy, in a low tone.

“Now, ain’t grown people queer, David Lindsay?”

“How?”

“The way they talk. They will say one minute a man has died and gone to heaven, and the next minute they will say he is buried in such a church-yard. Now, how can he be in heaven and in the ground at the same time?”

“I don’t know. It is a great mystery,” said the boy, gravely.

“I don’t like mysteries. I don’t. They always make me feel as if I was in a cellar, or some dark place and in danger. And what is more, I don’t believe in them. I don’t believe my father and mother are buried in the ground. I believe they both went out to heaven before that which they used to live in was put in the ground. And, somehow, inside of myself I know it is so. Do you like to read, David Lindsay?” she asked, abruptly.

“Yes; I learned to read and write at St. Inigoes parish school; but I have no books except Webster’s Spelling Book, and I know every word of that by heart, even the fables.”

“Oh, then I can bring you ever so many books. I have a bookcase full, all of my own, in my room, and uncle has a great room full, from the floor up to the ceiling, all around the walls, you know.”

“That is very good of you. I do thank you. You are the little girl that lives up in the house, then—Colonel de Crespigney’s niece?”

“Yes—no. I mean I am Madame de Crespigney’s niece; though, do you know, it seems so strange, I always feel as if he was more kin to me than she is!”

“I suppose you love him best; that must be the reason. Well, everybody loves Colonel de Crespigney. I know I do. He took me on to work here out of kindness, I am sure, for he couldn’t really want me, you see, so many colored people as he has!”

“He is very, very good, and very unhappy. Where do you live, David Lindsay?” she inquired, with the sudden transition of a child’s thoughts.

“Do you see that little, tiny bit of an island out there by itself?” he said, rising and pointing eastward.

“What!—that little sandbank?” she exclaimed in surprise.

“Yes, there is a house on it.”

“A mere shed.”

“We live in it, grandmother and I. And we have chickens and ducks, and a little bit of a garden, with a made soil, where we raise radishes and lettuce and cabbage and potatoes.”

“No flowers?”

“Oh, yes; a red rose-bush, and a white rose-bush, and pinks, and pansies and larkspurs.”

“Oh, that is pretty! Is your grandmother nice?”

“Oh! I tell you!” heartily answered the boy.

“Would she let me come to see her?”

“Why, of course she would, and glad!”

“Well, then, will you take me over there to see your grandmother, David Lindsay?”

“Yes, indeed, that I will, if your uncle will let you go.”

“Oh, he’ll let me. But how do you get over there, David Lindsay?” inquired the child, gazing over the expanse of water to the little dot that seemed to be about half-way between the promontory and the eastern horizon.

“Why, in my little row-boat, to be sure. There, there it is, tied to that post,” answered the boy, pointing to a little skiff that was rocking on the water.

“Oh-h-h! And you’ll take me in that? Oh-h-h! Won’t that be splendid! When will you take me, David Lindsay?” she exclaimed, with all a child’s eager delight in an anticipated holiday.

“To-morrow, if they will let you go. To-night when I go home, I will tell my grandmother, and she will have something to please you when you come, you know.”

“Will she? Oh, how nice. I am so glad I found you. Ain’t you glad you found me, David Lindsay?”

“Oh, I tell you! Yes, indeed! I was so lonesome here.”

“So was I! But we have found one another; we won’t be lonesome any more, will we? We will have such good times, won’t we now, David Lindsay?”

“Ah!” exclaimed the boy.

“But, oh, I say! See here! I can’t net any more. This hard twine hurts my fingers dreadfully,” said little Glo’, looking at her bruised digits.

“I thought it would. Put it up. It is dinnertime, too.”

“Yes, I suppose it is, and I must go home,” said the child, rising reluctantly.

“Oh, no, please don’t,” eagerly exclaimed the boy. “Stay here and have some of my dinner.”

“Dinner!” exclaimed little Glo’, looking all around them in vain search of a kitchen.

“I have brought it with me in a basket,” David explained, as he lifted a little ragged flag-basket from its hiding-place beside the boat. “Sit down and have some.”

“Oh, yes, thank you, so I will! I like that!” she answered, promptly reseating herself.

He then opened his basket, and took from it, first, a coarse crash towel, which he handed to her, saying:

“Now please to set the table.”

“Set the table?” she echoed, in perplexity.

“Yes, you know, spread that towel on the flat stone by you, and I will hand you out the things to put on it.”

“Oh! yes, I know—and play we are housekeeping!” she exclaimed, delightedly, as she laid the cloth.

Then he handed her, in succession, a little cracked, blue-edged white plate, a broken knife and fork, a little paper of salt, another of bread, six hard boiled eggs, and a dozen young radishes, all of which she arranged upon the “table” with funny little housewifely care.

“Now, this will have to be broiled,” he continued, as he took from the bottom of the basket a smoked red herring on a cabbage leaf and laid it on the boat.

“Broiled!” echoed the little housekeeper, as she looked all about in search of a fire.

“Yes,” he answered, laughing, as he went and gathered up some dry, decayed driftwood, and broke it into small chips, and piled it up on some stones. Then he took a tinder box, flint and steel, from his pocket, struck a light, and kindled a fire.

“Oh! that is grand!” exclaimed the delighted child, as she watched him, for all this was play to her.

When the fire had burned down to coals he laid the herring on it.

A fine appetizing flavor soon arose.

Little Glo’ watched the boy as he turned the herring until it was done, and then put it on the blue-edged white plate and set it on the table.

“Oh! isn’t this just perfectly splendid!” again exclaimed the child, as the two sat down to the primitive meal.

They chatted faster than they ate—at least little Glo’ did.

When it was over and the plates and knife and fork had been put back in the basket, the girl arose, very unwillingly, to depart.

“I must go now,” she said; “they will all be looking for me. But, oh! I have had just such a grand time, and I am so glad we found each other! Ain’t you, David Lindsay?”

“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed the boy.

She laughed, kissed her hand to him, and ran off home, singing as she went.

This was the first meeting between Gloria de la Vera and David Lindsay, the poor fisher lad, whom, a few years later, in her utter desperation, she asked to marry her; but many strange events were to happen before she could be driven to such despair as to cast her beautiful and blameless self, with her rank and fortune, at the feet of this humble lad, “unlearned and poor,” and lose herself in the deep dishonor of a low and loveless marriage.

CHAPTER III
THE GIRL’S MISSION TO THE BOY

She was his star. Byron.

Gloria, singing as she went, and skipping like a kid from point to point, over the breach in the sea wall, and dancing through the old grass meadows and turnip fields—hurried on towards her home.

Suddenly her song ceased, and she stood still.

She saw her uncle walking alone with slow and melancholy steps, and his head bowed down upon his breast.

She would have spoken to him, but he waved his hand for her to go on to the house.

She looked at him wishfully, hesitatingly; but he only smiled sadly on her and repeated his gesture with more emphasis.

Then she obeyed him and reluctantly went on.

“That was like meeting a ghost,” she said; and she sang no more that day.

She entered the house and met Sophia on her way through the hall with a pail of hot water in her hand and a look of indignation on her face.

“What’s the matter, ’Phia? Has anything happened? I met uncle outside the park wall and he looked awful! awful!” said the child.

“Well he mought,” replied the woman, wrathfully. “There’s been the biggest row you ebber seed in yer life, and you not here to ’vent of it.”

“Was it auntie and uncle?” inquired the child, in a tone of awe.

“Hi, who else? Yes, honey, it was master and mist’ess and de debbil! And you not here to carcumwent Satin!”

“Oh, dear me, I’m so sorry. How did it all happen, ’Phia?”

“Hi! How I know, chile? I wa’n’t dere. It happen in de long sittin’ room, in course, where dey most in gen’al sits. Fust fing we cullud people knowed was de bell rung wiolent, an’ I run up an’ foun’ mist’ess in fits an’ marster tryin’ to fetch her to. We toted her up stairs ’tween us an’ put her to bed. But soon’s ebber she could speak she sent marster out o’ de room. How does it allers happen, honey? De debbil! Dere’ll be murder done here some ob dese days—always the debbil, an’ dis time he had it all his own ’fernal way, ’cause you wa’n’t here to carcumwent him.”

“Oh, I am so sorry. Poor uncle! poor auntie!” sighed the child, with a look of age and care coming over her bright young face.

“I’m mad; I ain’t a bit sorry; I’m mad. If dem two fools was chillun, dey’d just get good hoopins for quarrelin’ so; an’ bein’ grown-up ’dults, dey desarves hoopin’ ten times as much as chillun, ’cause dey’s big ’nuff to know better! I gwine up now to put her feet in hot water. I’d like to put him and her bofe in hot water up to deir necks, an’ keep ’em dere till they promise to ’have deirselves better!” exclaimed ’Phia, as she took up the pail and went up stairs.

Gloria looked after her. She felt as if she ought to have rebuked the woman for her manner of speaking; but then she did not wish to raise another domestic storm, and she knew that ’Phia had a temper that blazed up at a word, as stubble flames up at a spark. Indeed, if the child had been required to write ’Phia’s name, she would naturally have written it Fire, and thought that she was right.

She hung her hat and sack on the hall rack, and then went softly up to her aunt’s room to sit with her and be ready to run on any errand that was required.

She sat patiently with her auntie all the afternoon, reading a volume of Peter Parley’s story-books.

In the evening she left her, quietly sleeping, and went down stairs to make tea for her uncle.

It was a rather silent meal. De Crespigney was absorbed in thought, and never spoke to the child unless she asked him some question, and then he answered absently, though in the gentlest tone.

After tea she left him sitting in his old leathern arm-chair by the small wood fire that the chill air rendered necessary even in June, and she went up to her own room and crept into bed.

The next morning Madame de Crespigney appeared at the breakfast table as if nothing had happened. These stormy days are followed by calm mornings in the moral as well as in the physical atmosphere.

Gloria knew from experience that after such a tempestuous misunderstanding as they had had on the previous day, her uncle and aunt would have to be left alone to come to a reconciliation. She was also glad of such a good excuse to go out.

So, directly after breakfast, she went up to her bedroom, opened her glass-doored bookcase, and, after taking down and putting up volume after volume, she selected two which she thought would be most beneficial and acceptable to her new friend—these were the charming school books: Peter Parley’s First Book of Geography and Peter Parley’s First Book of History, then just coming into use, both profusely illustrated with maps and pictures.

She put on her little rough-and-ready gray sack and her felt hat—for it was still chilly on the seaside in early June—took the two books under her arm and left the house.

Singing as she tripped along, she hurried blithely down to the breach in the wall, where she found the fisher-boy busily engaged in smoothing that passage by laying the fallen stones a little leveller.

“Oh, good-morning, David Lindsay! Will you take me over in your row-boat to see your grandmother this morning?” she asked as she came up.

“Oh, yes, indeed I will, and glad to do it!” replied the lad, lifting his torn hat from his black curls and holding out his hand to help her across the broken wall.

She sat down on the boat to recover her breath, while he said:

“I stayed here last night until ten o’clock, working to finish my nets, and so get time to take you over to-day. And then I came at daybreak this morning, and have been here ever since, so I have earned a holiday.”

“Oh, how good of you to take so much trouble for me; but how could you see to do your work, after the sun went down?”

“The stars came out. It was one of the brightest starlight nights I ever saw! Besides, netting, you know, is such mere finger-work, that I could almost do it with my eyes shut. Are you ready to go?”

“Presently. Sit down here by me, I want to show you something.”

The boy seated himself beside her.

“Here,” she said, producing the First Book in Geography, and opening upon a page of engravings in sections representing the five races of man.

“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed the boy in delight, as he took the volume from her hands and gazed with devouring eyes upon the fascinating page.

He had never seen a picture of an Indian, an Ethiopian, a Mongolian, or a Malay in all his life, and now he gazed in a breathless rapture upon these.

Pictures were almost unknown to him—the pictures in his grandmother’s old family Bible and the half-a-dozen little illustrations above the fables in Webster’s Spelling Book, being all that he had ever seen.

“Oh-h-h, you can’t think how much I do thank you for lending me this splendid book!” he exclaimed, with fervent gratitude.

“Oh, indeed, I am ever so much obliged to you for being so pleased with it! It makes me feel so happy, you know! But turn over the next page. Oh, there are ever so many more nice pictures in it!”

“Are there?” he asked, and immediately turned the page to discover more and more treasures—Esquimaux and white bears of the Arctic circle; elk, moose, and reindeer, and red Indians of the northern lakes and forests; seals, beavers, Canadians, New England farms, churches, school-houses, New York seaports, shipping, and warehouses; Western prairies, forests and rivers; Southern bays, isles, and cotton plantations.

“Oh! oh! oh!”

What a treasury of happiness to the poor boy, hungering and thirsting for knowledge, who had scarcely ever seen three books or a dozen pictures in his life before, and who had scarcely any conception of any world beyond the horizon of his natural vision!

And as yet he had seen only a few index pictures of North America.

South America and all the Western Hemisphere was to follow in that delightful book.

“Oh, you never can know how much I thank you for this beautiful book!” he exclaimed, with enthusiasm.

“Why, don’t I tell you I am ever so much obliged to you for liking it so well!” said Gloria, her own blue eyes dancing with the delight of delighting.

Over and over he turned the bewitching pages, finding more and more pleasure as he went on even to the end of the book—the picture of the Cape of Good Hope, with Cape Colony.

He had taken some time to look through the volume, pausing long over each picture. So when he closed it, he arose and said:

“I could sit all day and night and look at this book, and forget to eat or sleep, I do believe; but I reckon it is time for us to go now.”

“No, sit down again. I have got something else to show you,” she answered.

He obediently reseated himself, and she put in his hand “The First Book of History,” profusely illustrated with pictures of battles and conventions and portraits of military heroes and statesmen.

“Oh-h-h!” again exclaimed the boy, as he opened at a portrait of George Washington on one side, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the other.

He turned over page after page, finding fresh food for intellect and imagination in every one, while the little girl watched him with her blue eyes sparkling in sympathetic pleasure.

“Oh, how rich I shall feel, with these two books to read every night! I shall never go to bed at dusk when granny does because I am lonesome. I shall never be lonesome now,” he said.

“I am so glad, and so very much obliged to you for being so happy over them, David Lindsay,” she repeated, with more emphasis.

There is no knowing how long the two children might have lingered, sitting side by side on the old boat—he poring with rapture over the book, she watching his enjoyment with ecstasy; but the hour of noon came and passed, and the healthy young appetite of the boy would not allow him to “forget to eat.”

“Oh, how late it is!” he exclaimed, reluctantly closing the book just at the picture of General Washington receiving the sword of Lord Cornwallis after the battle of Yorktown. “Come, we had better go now.”

“Well, yes, I suppose we had. You can read the books every night, can’t you, David Lindsay?”

“Yes, indeed. And when you are up at the house enjoying yourself with all your friends, you may think of me reading your books.”

“Oh! they are your books, David Lindsay,” she hastened to exclaim.

“I daren’t take them from you only as a loan; but, oh! I can never thank you enough for that. Come carefully over all this rubbish. Let me take your hand. There, now, step into the boat and sit down while I untie her. Don’t be afraid. She will not turn over.”

The child suffered him to put her into the rough little old shell that lay rocking on the sea.

He quickly unmoored the boat, got into it, seated himself, and rowed towards the little sandhill that seemed a mere mote on the water.

David rowed vigorously, and the little skiff shot over the sea, and rapidly approached the island.

First she saw the sandy little hillock; next, that there was a tiny house on it, with trees on the farther side; then, as the boat reached the shore and grounded, she saw that the house was a small cottage with a gable roof and one chimney; with one door and window on the ground floor, and one tiny, square window above in the gable. There were no shutters to the windows, but they were shaded from within by flowered wall-paper blinds. The little house was whitewashed with lime, and the door was painted with red ochre, a coarse coloring matter got from the soil on the main. A little garden around the house, with a “made soil,” was fenced in with a whitewashed picket fence. Lilies, Canterbury-bells, hollyhocks, pinks, larkspurs, and other sweet, old-fashioned flowers grew in the front yard. A red rose-bush and a white rose-bush were trained, one on each side of the door. A white dog, of a nondescript race, was asleep on the step, and a black kitten was curled up snugly on his back. These proverbial “natural enemies” had never been anything but loving friends.

At the approach of David the dog sprang up, wide awake, overturning the kitten, who put up her back, gaped, and stretched herself, while Jack ran forward and leaped upon his master, who did not order him “down, sir!” but patted his head and returned caress for caress.

The red door opened then, and a smiling old woman appeared—Mrs. Lindsay, David’s grandmother.

She was a small, plump, fair-faced, blue-eyed dame, with the white hair of sixty years parted plainly over her forehead, and banded back under a clean linen cap. She wore a striped blue and white cotton gown, of her own spinning and weaving, and a white handkerchief folded over her bosom, and a white apron tied before her gown.

She came forward, smiling pleasantly as she held out her hand to the child, while she spoke to David.

“Is this the little lady you have brought to visit me? I am very pleased to see thee, my dear.”

“Oh, thank you, ma’am! It was so nice of you to let me come! And I like David Lindsay. He is all the playmate I have got. But he’s splendid!” said the child, with enthusiasm.

The old woman smiled on her, patted the tiny hand she held in her own, and then led her into the house.

It was a good sized room, with clean, whitewashed walls, the one window shaded with a home-made blind of flowered wall-paper; the floor of wide planks, perfectly bare, yet scrubbed to a creamy whiteness; in one corner a neat bed, with a patchwork quilt and snowy pillows; in another corner a loom, with a piece of cloth in process of weaving; in a third, a large spinning-wheel; in the fourth, a corner cupboard, with glass doors in the upper part, through which might be seen the clean, coarse, blue-edged crockery ware, and the bright pewter dishes of the little ménage.

In the middle of the floor stood a table covered with a coarse but snow-white cloth, and adorned with blue-edge cups and saucers and plates, while on the clean, red ochre-painted hearth stood a tea-pot and several covered plates and dishes, before the clear fire in the small open fireplace.

“Come, lass, let me take off ’ee coat,” said the kind little woman, beginning to unbutton and untie until she had relieved the child of her hat and sack.

“Now, sit ’ee down, lass, while I put dinner on the table,” she continued, depositing her small visitor on a low chip-bottomed chair, near the windowsill, on which stood a box of mignonette, that filled the homely room with fragrance.

“’Ee’s late, Dave. I thought ’ee’d be here wi’ the lass an hour ago, and had all ready for ’ee,” said the old woman, as she began to place dinner on the table.

“We were reading of a book what the little lady loaned me,” replied the boy, as he carefully placed the two volumes on each side the Bible, which stood upon a chest of drawers at the end of the room, between the bed and the corner cupboard.

“It was my fault. I stopped David Lindsay to show him the books,” put in the child.

“It wasn’t ’ee fault, then. It was ’ee goodness, little lass. And it’s na great matter. The dinner is no sich that it can be spoiled,” said Dame Lindsay, as she placed the last dish on the table, and then led her small guest to a seat.

Poor as these cotters were in all things else, they were not poor in regard to food.

The sea supplied them with fish for immediate use, and for salting away against winter; the two pigs that they bought and raised at a trifling cost every year, provided them with pork and bacon; the small poultry-yard with fowls and eggs; the patch of garden with vegetables and fruit; the little Alderney cow with milk and butter.

The few other provisions they needed were easily procurable at the nearest country store on the main, in exchange for the excellent cotton hose and mittens knit by the industrious and skillful hands of the old dame.

Other trifling expenses of the little household were met by the money earned by David on the fishing landing of the promontory.

The dainty midday meat set before the little lady guest was not at all an every-day affair, but was got up expressly for her. It was very attractive—nice fragrant tea, with rich cream and white sugar; nice light, home-made bread, with sweet, fresh butter; fried bluefish, just out of the sea; poached eggs on toast; boiled spring chicken; mashed potatoes, green peas, lettuce, radishes, and, finally, cherry pie, strawberries and cream, and a plenty of new milk.

Little Glo’ ate—well, like a healthy child, with an excellent appetite, and no one near to curb it.

“It is the nicest dinner I ever had in all the days of my life, and—I have been at big dinner parties, too, before I came to the promontory!” she declared, with equal frankness and emphasis, as she arose from the table.

At least, it was the most enjoyable.

The old dame smiled on her, and David felt so pleased and proud!

Ay! the Earl of Leicester entertaining Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle could not have felt more elevated in spirits by her majesty’s august approbation than was the fisher-boy by the pleasure of his little lady guest.

“Mayhap ’ee’ll come again to see us, little lady,” said the old dame.

“Oh, indeed, indeed, indeed I will! Just as often as you’ll please to let me come! Oh, it is so nice here! I’ll be sure to come just as often as ever you will let me come!” exclaimed the child, heartily.

“That will be as often as ’ee likes,” said the old dame.

Then, assisted by David, she hastily cleared away the table, taking the dishes into the “lean-to” behind the cottage, there to remain until she could wash them up after the departure of the visitor.

Then she set herself to entertain the little lady.

She showed her all the few curiosities of the cottage—some strange South Sea shells that had been brought home by a sailor ancestor ages before, and which now decorated the low wooden chimney shelf; then the rusty old gun that had been carried by her own grandfather in the Revolutionary War; then some stuffed birds, some skeletons of strange fish, and some odd-looking pebbles from the beach.

Next she exhibited some of the small treasures of her chest of drawers—a curious patchwork quilt that had won the prize in a certain agricultural and industrial fair held at St. Inigoes many years before.

“And did you sew all these little pieces of colored calico and white cotton together with your own fingers?” inquired the child, with interest.

“Yes, dearie, I did.”

“Oh, how curious and how pretty! How I would like to do that! We have got ever and ever so many calico and cotton pieces in the scrap-bags at home! If I bring some over here, when I come again, will you show me how to cut the pieces into leaves, and flowers, and things, and sew them together like this?”

“Yes, little lass, I will teach ’ee with good will; for I do think it a merit to save up the scraps and turn them to good account, though they do tell me that now-a-days quilts are made by masonry, and sell cheaper than we could make ’em by hand. ’Ee sees, dearie, I use to make ’em to sell; but now I can’t get anybody to give me enough to pay for my work on ’em. So now I knit socks and mittens.”

“They make them by machinery, too,” said the child.

“Yes, and I shouldn’t wonder and they didn’t come to hatch chickens by masonry some of these days! Well a day! No masonry stockings can eekill my knitted stockings, and that the storekeeper knows, and allus takes ’em from me and pays me well in tea and sugar, and whatever I may want. As to the quilt-piecing, lass, I’ll teach ’ee with good will. ’Ee’s a plenty of leisure, I’ll warrant, and ’ee’s well spend it that way in saving the scraps and turning ’em to account as in another,” concluded the canny old dame, as she folded her prize quilt, replaced it, and closed the drawer.

“Oh, I think it is such pretty and curious work, and it is so—economical!” said the little child-woman. “I shall be so glad to learn!”

“She likes to learn everything she sees going on,” added David, who, with his hands in his pockets, stood a smiling spectator of the scene.

“That’s right. Larn all ’ee can, little lass. Now come wi’ me, and I’ll show ’ee the young ducks that were hatched yesterday.”

“Oh!” cried the child, jumping up in glee. “I never saw young ducks in all my life! What a nice place this is!”

“What! Don’t they show ’ee the young things up by, at the house?” inquired the dame.

“No, ma’am; they never thought of it, I reckon; no more did I,” answered the child, as she followed her conductress out into the poultry-yard.

She saw the young ducklings that were just out; then she saw the little chickens that were a week old, and seemed to know as much about life as she herself did. Then she was taken through the garden, and she saw the strawberry bed and the one cherry tree, with its bright red fruit hiding in its green leaves, and the crooked apple tree that bore the green sweetings which would soon be ripe, and the currant bushes along the walk, with the small beds of peas and cabbage and corn between them, and then the bee hive and the two white pigs, and Winny, the little black and white cow, in her shed.

Then they went in.

“Oh! what a nice place this is! The nicest place I ever saw!” said the child.

“’Ee must come often to see it, if ’ee likes it so well,” said the dame, who felt flattered by the child’s sincere admiration; “’ee must come often, but now it is getting late i’ the afternoon, and I must send ’ee home to ’ee friends, lest harm come to ’ee through this visit.”

David, who had kept close to the pair all the day, now left them to get the boat ready.

The old dame carefully put on the child’s hat and sack, and then threw a shawl over her own head, and led the little one down to the water’s edge, where David stood in the boat, waiting.

The child threw her arms around the old woman’s neck, and kissed her heartily, many times, thanking her warmly for the “happy, happy day” she had had.

The dame responded cordially.

David then handed the little girl into the boat, unmoored, and rowed rapidly for the promontory landing, which they reached in a few minutes.

The sun was just setting.

“Oh, David Lindsay, I have had such a splendid time! Oh! I am so glad I found you!” exclaimed little Glo’, as he helped her out of the boat.

“Oh, so am I! Ever so glad! And I think we ought to thank the Lord!” he added, solemnly.

“Oh! I will, when I say my prayers to-night. Are you going to study your books this evening, David Lindsay?”

“Yes, indeed. What are you going to do?”

“Oh, I—I think I will look out some more books for you, and then I will hunt out some pretty bright pieces of calico from the scrap-bag, to learn to make patchwork quilts, and have them ready against the next time I go to see your grandmother.”

“When will you come again? To-morrow?” anxiously inquired the boy, as he leaned on his oar.

“Oh, no, not to-morrow; not to see your grandmother, to put her to so much trouble, you know; but I will come down here to the landing to see you, David Lindsay.”

“Oh, yes, please do.”

“Well, good-bye, David Lindsay.”

“Good-bye.”

“God bless you, David Lindsay!”

“And you, too.”

“I won’t forget to thank Him when I say my prayers to-night.”

“No more will I.”

“Well, good-bye again, David Lindsay.”

“Good-bye.” He did not want to call her Miss de la Vera, much less Miss Gloria; he could not call her little Glo’. He felt, without in the least understanding his feelings, that the first style would be too cold and stiff, and the last perhaps too familiar, so he called her “you,” putting all respect in his low and modulated tone. There was much of nature’s gentleman in this poor little lad in the ragged straw hat.

He waited, hat in hand, until she had turned and tripped lightly over the broken sea-wall and passed out of sight.

Then he covered his head, sat down in his boat, took the oar and reluctantly shoved off from the shore, while she ran home, singing and dancing as she went.

She ran into the house and went directly to seek Sophia.

“Have they been worried about me, ’Phia?” she inquired.

“No, honey; dey’s been too much took up wid ’spoundin’ an’ ’splainin’ ’bout yes’day’s fuss to fink ’bout you. Leastways, mist’ess was; dough marster did ’quire arter you when dey sat down to dinner an’ you wa’n’t dere. Says he:

“‘Whey’s de chile?’

“Says she:

“‘Oh, never mind de chile; she’s running round de place somew’ere, an’ ’Phia can give her her dinner when she comes in. Tell me what you meant by——’ somefin’ or oder, Lord knows what, honey; but at it dey went, ’spoundin’ and ’splainin’. But where is you been all de live-long day, little Glo’?” demanded the woman.

“Oh, ’Phia! I have had such a happy, happy day!” replied the child.

And then she told the cook all about her visit, adding:

“And granny Lindsay begged me to come ever so often!”

“Yes, honey; mighty good ob de ole woman. I knows her, honey, and has buyed mittens ob her—woolen mittens, which she knitted, honey. But you mustn’t go too often, honey. One fing, you mustn’t be too intimit wid people ob dat low order ob deciety. Not as I am sayin’ but dey may be jes’ as good as we is, in de sight ob de Lord, if dey ’haves deirselves; but still, ’ciety is to be despected. An’ another fing, honey, is, dey can’t deford it; dey can’t, indeed; dey can’t deford to ’tain a little lady on fry chickens an’ sich, werry often.”

Now, the first clause of this speech, concerning caste, slipped through the child’s ears without making the slightest impression, but the second clause, about the expense of her visit to the fisherman’s cottage, fixed her attention.

“Oh, yes, I thought of that; so I told David Lindsay I could not go to-morrow. ’Phia, you are right,” she said, as she ran up stairs. She did not go to the sitting-room to interrupt the tête-à-tête of her aunt and uncle, but up to the attic to hunt for bright pieces in the scrap-bag, singing and dancing as she went.

When she met her relatives at tea that night they did not even think of asking her where she had been. They seemed to take it for granted that she had come in soon after dinner, and had been properly attended by ’Phia.

So the child’s holiday escaped their notice.

The next morning, Gloria, true to her promise, went down to the landing, where she found David sitting in the old boat, mending nets.

His face broke into a smile as he took off his hat and stood up to receive her.

“Good-morning, David Lindsay. Did you study your book last night?” she inquired, with childish frankness.

“Oh, yes, indeed! And I have brought the geography here with me to take a glimpse of it now and then; but it is such a temptation to slight my work, that I shall have to leave it home after this,” replied the lad, still standing, hat in hand.

“Oh, no, don’t you do that, David Lindsay! Please don’t! See, now, sit down and take up your netting and go on with it, and I will sit by and read the lessons out, and ask the questions at the bottom of the page, so you can tell if you know them.”

“Oh, yes, I shall like that; for then I can do my work and learn my lesson at the same time. How good you are to me. What makes you so good to me?”

“Why,” she said, opening her blue eyes wide and looking at him with surprise, “don’t you know? You are my playmate, and we are going to play school?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Now give me the book, David Lindsay, and sit down and go on with your netting. Now, how far had you got?” she inquired, when they were seated opposite each other in the old stranded boat.

“Up to ‘What is a cape?’”

“Oh, yes, I can find the place. Now pay attention, David Lindsay,” she said, as she took up the book, opened it, assumed a grave, school-ma’am air, and asked:

“‘What is a cape?’”

“‘A cape is a point of land pretending into the sea,’” answered the pupil.

“‘Ex-tending into the sea,’ David Lindsay,” corrected the little teacher.

“‘EX-tending into the sea,’” emphatically amended the pupil.

“That is right. Now, then, ‘What is a promontory?’”

“‘A promontory is a high point of land pre——’”

“No!”

“EX——”

“Yes.”

“EX-tending into the sea!”

“That is right, David Lindsay. You will soon learn geography.”

She went on with the lesson, slowly drilling it into the head of the boy, who, with his divided attention, was a fair illustration of “the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.”

But before his little teacher left him that day, he had managed to master the principal divisions of land and water, and better than all, he had been inspired with the love and desire of knowledge.

This was the little lady’s mission to the fisher lad, who, a few years later, in the desperation of her unparalleled extremity, she was to ask to be her husband.

CHAPTER IV
LITTLE GLO’S JOY AND WOE

She grew a flower of mind and eye.

Wordsworth.

We have lingered a little over these first days of their childish friendship, because they were types of so many days that followed, all through the budding spring, the blooming summer, and the fruitful autumn.

The little girl was allowed to do very much as she pleased by her studious uncle and invalid aunt, as it was scarcely possible that she would “run into any danger, or fall into any sin,” on so isolated a place as the promontory, where there was neither evil companions or wild beasts to deprave or destroy her.

On the main she might have been more closely looked after; but here she was so safe that not a thought was given to her safety.

So, every day, when it did not rain, little Gloria went down to the landing to see her playmate and read to him while he mended old nets and seines, or made new ones.

At first she was only “playing school,” but later on she understood her work and grew interested in the progress of her pupil; and thus her play rose into “a labor of love.”

Together they went through the First Book in Geography, and the First Book in History, and the Primary Grammar.

And in this way the child not only advanced her pupil playmate, but refreshed her own memory in those studies, which had been too much neglected since her arrival at the promontory.

A pure, sweet, and faithful affection grew up between the two children, such as we have sometimes seen between two little girls or two little boys; only because neither Gloria nor David had any other playmate to divide their attention, their innocent affection was all the stronger, deeper, and more devoted in its exclusiveness.

Very often, too, the fisher-boy brought an invitation from his grandmother to the little lady to spend a day on the sandhill which the old dame called her home. It was always accepted, and always Gloria had “a happy, happy day.”

She learned of the old cottager to net, to knit, to sew, to piece patchwork quilts out of scraps of bright calico and white linen, and to plait doormats out of strips of brilliant cloth or flannel—arts not likely to be of much use to the West Indian heiress—but she liked to learn them, notwithstanding.

“Wouldn’t I make a right good little cottage girl, after all, Granny Lindsay?” she once asked her old friend, in her childish love of approbation.

“’Ee would, my darling,” said the old dame, tenderly. “’Ee would make a helpful, loving little lass by the cottage fire, or a gracious benign princess in a palace. The world’s breath of sunshine is for ’ee, my flower, from the cottage to the palace.”

“I saw some palaces in Havana, but I would rather have a cottage just like this! Oh, I think a cottage is so nice and cosy, and so—SPLENDID!” exclaimed the little girl, with childlike exaggeration and misapplication of words.

So the once lonely child found much joy in her humble friends, giving and receiving good, while spring bloomed into summer, and summer ripened into autumn, and autumn faded into winter.

Then came cold, and frost, and change, a bitter change for little Gloria.

Her playmate’s work was now the clearing up of the fishing landing, mending boats and oars, and putting them away for winter—work that could not go on parallel with his studies, which were now pursued in the evenings at his own home.

Yet Gloria came down late in the afternoon on every clear day to hear him say his lessons. He told her that this helped him on “ever so much.” And it pleased her.

One day after sunset, when she had heard her pupil’s lesson in a very elementary book of astronomy, and had praised his quick apprehension and patient application, and had greatly encouraged him, as she always did, she took leave and ran home, singing and dancing as she went.

When she reached the house, she found ’Phia at the door, looking out for her.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, come in, child,” said the woman, in a frightened tone.

“What—what is the matter? What has happened?” cried Gloria, catching terror from the other.

“I dunno. Somefin’ awful! Mistress has been goin’ on at that rate! She done put de debbil in marster now, sure! Mind, I tell you, honey, dere’ll be murder done here some ob dese days! Mark my words!”

With a slight scream the terrified child fled from this prophetess of evil toward the sitting-room, where she heard the sound of high words.

She opened the door and hurried in.

And this was what she saw:

Her uncle standing on the corner of the hearth, with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his head leaning on his hand, whose fingers were clutched into his black hair; his starting black eyes staring down upon the floor; his black brows knitted, his teeth clenched, his face pallid with suppressed passion.

Her aunt, with her white dress and yellow hair in wild disorder, as if her own desperate hands had rent and torn them, was raging up and down the floor like a tigress in her cage, pouring forth all the gall and venom of her jealous fury, in words that might never be forgiven or forgotten.

Even the child intuitively perceived this, and feared that the man, stung to madness by the woman’s venomed tongue, might be driven to some rash act, fatal to them both.

She looked, shuddering, from one to the other.

It was terrible to see so fragile a creature as Eusebie in the power of such a tremendous passion, that seemed as if it must shrivel her frame as a cobweb in a flame. But it was more terrible to see in Marcel’s whole aspect the chained devil that might break loose in destroying frenzy at any moment. Full of fear and horror, the child crept trembling to the man’s side, put her arms around his waist, which she could just reach, looked up piteously in his face and whispered, in her coaxing tone:

“Uncle, uncle, uncle.”

“My little angel,” he murmured in reply, as his stern dark face softened and brightened.

“Come away from that man this instant, Gloria,” cried Eusebie, stopping in her wild walk and stamping with fury. “Come away from him, I command you! He is not your uncle! You shall not call him uncle! He is a traitor and a villain! Come away, I say!”

The child did not obey; she could not move; she was half paralyzed by fear and horror, and more likely to sink than to stand.

The man put his arm around her, and drew her closer to him.

The woman stamped with fury.

“Let my niece go, you caitiff!” she screamed.

He did not reply to this, but lifted his head and glared at her, while his face darkened and hardened.

The terrified child—terrified for others, not for herself—pressed closely to him, as if, in extremity, she would hold him back by her own baby strength, and moaned, coaxingly:

“Uncle, uncle, uncle dear.”

Again his face changed; he stooped towards her and she laid her cheek against his lips.

“Come away from that man, or I will tear you from him! He is not your uncle! He is no kin to you! He is nothing to you! No! I thank Heaven that not one drop of his false, black blood runs in the veins of any one belonging to me! I have not even a child! Ha! ha! I know the reason! Fiends are not permitted to be fathers!” hissed the woman, with all the hate and scorn that Satan could cast into her face and voice.

Here the man’s eyes glared so fiercely, while his brow grew so black, that the child clasped him in a frantic clutch, moaning, inarticulately, some words of piteous deprecation to restrain him.

“Leave that wretch this instant, I command you! His contact is infamy! Am I not to be obeyed? Oh, then I will snatch you from him!” screamed the woman, in blind fury, as she sprang towards them; but he was too quick for her.

He lifted the half-fainting child in his arms and bore her swiftly out of the room.

“Oh, uncle, she is crazy! She does not know what she says! Don’t mind her! Don’t go back in the room,” coaxed the child, as she put up her hand and stroked and patted his cheek. “Uncle, dear, don’t go back in the room! Come with me to Granny Lindsay’s cottage. Oh, it is so heavenly there.”

But now the man paid but little attention to what she said. He pulled the bell-cord violently.

’Phia ran to answer the bell.

“Take this child up to her bedroom, and stay with her until she goes to sleep,” he said, placing the little girl in the strong arms of the colored woman.

“Oh, uncle, don’t go back to that room! Don’t, or if you do, take me with you!” pleaded the child, caressing his cheek with her hand.

“Go, my dear, go to bed. Pandemonium is no place for babies. Leave me to deal with that demoniac,” he answered, grimly, as he turned away.

“Oh, uncle, don’t mind her! She don’t know what she says!” pleaded the child, stretching out her hands imploringly towards him.

But he had re-entered the room and clapped the door to behind him.

Gloria slid from the woman’s arms, sat down on the lowest step of the stairs and burst into tears.

“Come to bed, honey. Don’t sit there crying. You can’t do no good by dat. You can’t ’vent de debbil from habbin’ his own way dis night,” said ’Phia.

“Oh, I know—I know—I know!” sobbed the child.

“Well, den, come along up to bed, and I’ll stay ’long ob you for company.”

“Oh, I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—I’m so ’fraid. Let me sit here and wait——”

“Wait for what?”

“Oh, till uncle comes out, or one of them does. Oh, I couldn’t go to bed! I couldn’t go to sleep and leave them so! Hush!” suddenly exclaimed the child, breaking off in her talk, and bending forward her head and straining her sense in fearful attention, as she heard her uncle’s voice in low, tense, bitter tones, and then her aunt’s hissing tongue in reply.

The child clasped her hands in a piteous, helpless agony of prayer.

“Come, come, honey, come up to bed, and I will sit by you and tell you pretty stories about foxes and hares, and dwarfs and giants, and little pigs and things, like I used to do,” said ’Phia.

“Hush!” exclaimed the child, starting forward, with staring eyes, as the voices in the closed room sunk lower and became more bitter, intense and hissing.

“Come, come, honey, you must come to bed. ’Tain’t right to be listening, nohow!” expostulated Sophia, in virtuous indignation.

“Oh! I know it is not! I know it is not! And I can’t hear a word they say. I only want to know—want to know——Oh! I’m so afraid! I’m so afraid, ’Phia!” gasped the child, shuddering from head to foot.

“’Fraid o’ what?”

“Oh! ’fraid of something happening!” panted the little girl.

“You can’t help of what happens, so what’s the use o’ bein’ afeard?”

At that moment the voices in the closed room arose, both speaking together in violent, clashing frenzy.

“Oh, ’Phia! Let’s go in! Let’s go in and stand between them!” pleaded the child, springing up.

“Who?—me? No, I thank you, honey! I’m spunky enough, but I ain’t gwine to part a wolf from a wildcat, dere!”

“Then I will! I will!” cried the brave child, running and flinging herself against the closed door; but it was locked fast, and resisted all her efforts, while the angry voices within clashed together in rage.

Suddenly one voice arose above the other, with the roar of an infuriated wild beast. It was her uncle’s voice. It cried:

“DIE, then! and end it all!”

There was a heavy fall and groan.

With a shriek of horror Gloria arose and fled to the negro woman and buried her face in her bosom.

The next instant the door was suddenly unlocked and thrown open, and Marcellus de Crespigney—his face haggard, his eyes starting, his hair bristling—ran out, tore open the hall door and rushed from the house out into the winter night.

“I must go see what’s happened,” hastily muttered the black woman, in a voice full of awe, as she put the child off her knee and went toward the sitting-room.

Gloria, tottering, moaning, sobbing piteously, followed.

The long room was silent and almost dark, for the candles had not been called for, and there was no light except from the smouldering logs of the fire in the open chimney.

Fallen on a rug before this fire, lay a white form.

Sophia stooped to look at it, and instantly started up in horror, crying out:

“Lord have mercy upon us! He has killed her! Marster has murdered mist’ess!”

He had!

There in a little pool of her own blood, lay the small, white face of Eusebie, with its eyes wide open and glazed.

She was quite dead.

CHAPTER V
REMORSE

And well we know your tenderness of heart

And gentle, deep, compassionate remorse.

Shakespeare.

Filled with horror, that subdued all outward show of emotion, the old black woman lifted the light form of her mistress and bore it across the room to the lounge.

Overcome with grief and terror, the child followed her, shaking as with a hard ague fit.

’Phia laid the fast-stiffening body down on the couch and straightened the limbs, and drew the white dress down to the small, rigid feet.

Little Gloria stood by, clasping the woman’s skirts, and crying and sobbing as if her heart would burst.

When ’Phia had decently composed the small body, she went to the bell and rang it sharply, then she turned the key of the door and came back to her post.

She gazed for a moment on the poor, dead face, and then tenderly closed the eyes, keeping her fingers and thumb lightly pressed on the white lids.

Some one came running swiftly along the passage outside, tried the lock, and then rapped.

’Phia went and unlocked the door, holding it a few inches apart, to prevent the entrance of the new-comer.

There were but three servants in that reduced establishment—’Phia, her husband Laban, and her daughter Lamia.

It was the latter who had come to answer the bell.

“What does yer want, mammy?” inquired the girl, seeing that her mother barred her farther progress.

“You tell your daddy to run here right off. No nonsense, now; not to ’lay a minute, but to run here right off! Yer hear me, don’t yer?”

“Yes, mammy; but daddy done gone ’way in de boat to Sinnigger’s.”

“Whey?” sharply demanded the woman.

“To Sinnigger’s, mammy.”

“What he done gone dere for, when he wanted so bad here?”

“Marster done sent him dere arter de doctor. Marster come a-rabin’ out to de quarter, just now, like he gone rip stabin’ mad, an’ say how mist’ess wer’ took berry ill, an’ he hauled off daddy down to de landin’ to start him off to Sinnigger’s arter de doctor. Is mist’ess dat bad, sure ’nough?”

“Hum! Sent arter de doctor, eh? No use send arter de doctor now. Set a house afire, an’ den run for a gourd o’ water to put it out! Hum! Dat a blind!” muttered ’Phia.

“Is mist’ess so berry bad?” inquired the girl.

“So yer daddy’s gone to Sinnigger’s. Whey’s yer marster?”

“Marster done gone down to de boat landin’ to hurry daddy off, I telled you before, mammy. But, say, is mist’ess bad as all dat comes to?” inquired the girl for the third time.

“It ain’t none o’ your business! You go right straight down de kitchen and put on a kettle ob water to heat,” replied the woman, closing the door on her daughter.

“Sent for de doctor! Hum. Dat piece ob ’ception ain’t a gwine to do no good. Lord, Lord, did I ebber expect to lib to see dis awful day? Dough I hab offen an’ offen prophesied as how murder would be done in dis forsak, unlawful house, did I ebber expect as it would come to pass? He’s done it, an’ he’ll sure to be hung, an’ den what is to come ob de place? O-o-m-me,” groaned the woman, as she returned to her post of duty.

At these dreadful words, the voice of the child, that had sunk into low sobs, now arose in wails of anguish.

The next moment the door was thrown open and Marcellus de Crespigney hurried into the room, haggard, ghastly, with distended eyeballs and disheveled hair. After rapidly glancing around the room, his eyes fell upon the form lying on the lounge, and he hurried up to it, breathing hard, as he put the questions:

“How is she? How is she? Better?”

The appalled woman silently moved aside and the child crouched down upon the floor and made room for him.

He stooped anxiously over the rigid form, looked deeply into the marble face and uttered a cry which those that heard never forgot in all their after life.

Then dashing his hand violently against his forehead, he flung himself down by the couch, and dropped his head upon the cold breast of his wife, wailing forth:

“Dead! Dead! Dead! And I have killed her! I, a murderer, most accursed!”

He was totally unconscious of the sobbing child at his feet, or the frowning woman who stood with folded arms, like a black Nemesis, at his back. He had eyes for neither—for nothing but the lifeless form before him.

Gazing on her, pressing his lips to her cold brow, again and again, he broke into the most violent lamentations, the most awful self-accusations.

Then hiding his head in the folds of her raiment, he groaned aloud and seemed to swoon into silence.

Again, with an accession of frenzy, he started up and began striding to and fro, from end to end of the long room, uttering the most agonized self-reproaches, and calling down the most horrible maledictions upon his own head.

This terrible scene went on until at last the weeping child, her heart half broken with grief for her who was beyond suffering, and for him who still suffered, arose from her crouching position and dried her tears and tried to still her sobs, and went to the maddened man, as he raged up and down the floor, invoking imprecations on his own head.

She came behind him, pleading in her pitiful tones:

“Oh, uncle, do not curse yourself! Pray! The Lord is merciful!” And she put her little hand out to touch his.

Then he whirled around upon her like a furious wind, his eyes flashing lightnings of frenzy, his voice thundering:

“Avaunt! Begone! Let no innocent thing come near me!”

The child turned and fled and buried her face in the lap of Sophia, who was now seated by the dead body of her mistress.

“Let me take you to bed, little Glo’,” whispered the woman.

“No—no,” sobbed the aggrieved and terrified child. “No—no. I want to stay near him! I—I want to stay near him!”

Three dreadful hours passed in this way, with little change.

Sophia sat near the head of the lounge, keeping constant watch over the corpse.

Little Gloria crouched on the floor at her feet, with her head hidden in the old woman’s lap.

Marcellus de Crespigney raged up and down the floor, breathing maledictions upon himself, or he dropped down before the dead body of his wife, uttering awful groans or lapsing into more awful silence.

An hour after midnight there came a sound of footsteps, crunching through the frozen snow, and followed by an alarm on the iron knocker at the front door, which announced the arrival of Dr. Prout, the physician of St. Inigoes.

De Crespigney, almost exhausted by the long continued violence of his emotions, was now calm with the calmness of prostration and despair.

“Nothing serious the matter, I hope!” said the cordial voice of the doctor, as he entered the room, ushered by Laban, and met by Colonel de Crespigney, who advanced to receive him.

The physician of St. Inigoes was a short, stout, round-bodied little old man, with a bald head, a smooth face, cheery voice and manner. He was always dressed in speckless black from head to foot.

“Nothing serious, I hope? Only one of madame’s usual nervous attacks, eh?” he cheerfully demanded, as he shook hands with the master of the house.

“It is her last attack, sir. She is dead,” answered De Crespigney, in steady tones.

“Dead? Lord bless my soul, I am—I—dead, do you say?” exclaimed the doctor, in surprise and confusion.

“Yes, sir, she is gone. Come and see.”

“Lord bless my soul, I am very much shocked!” exclaimed the good little man, as he followed the bereaved husband to the lounge on which the body of the ill-fated wife lay.

Old ’Phia lifted the white handkerchief that covered the white face, and then withdrew to give way to her master and the doctor, leading the trembling child away with her.

“How did this happen?” solemnly inquired the doctor, as he gazed down on the waxen face, with the stream of scarlet blood curdled from the corner of the mouth down upon the chin and throat, where it lay in a thick cake.

“Through me. I killed her,” answered De Crespigney, in the same dread monotone in which all his answers to the doctor’s questions had been made.

Dr. Prout turned and gazed at him in amazement for a moment, and then said gravely and kindly:

“My dear friend, this shock has been too much for you. Compose yourself. This unhappy lady has had a fatal hemorrhage of the lungs, such as I feared for a long time past; such as I warned you might be the result of any unusual excitement.”

“Just so, you warned me, yet I killed her.”

The doctor looked at him in a great trouble, then replaced the handkerchief over the quiet face of the dead, and taking his arm led him to a distant sofa, placed him on it, took the seat beside him, and said:

“De Crespigney, you must not say such false things about yourself. Think what the effect upon other minds may be.”

“They are not false; they are true. Listen to me, Dr. Prout. You know you warned me that excitement might prove fatal to my unhappy wife.”

“Yes.”

“You know how prone she was to excitement. You knew her delicate health and her extreme nervous irritability?”

“I knew the weakness of her lungs and the violence of her temper. I knew all that, Colonel de Crespigney, before you ever saw her face.”

“Let that pass,” said Marcel, waving his hand impatiently. “You warned me against the danger of excitement for her. I was not man enough to heed your warning in her behalf. I have been frenzied to-night, Dr. Prout. But attend! This evening I irritated her, excited, taunted, maddened, murdered her!”

“Oh, my dear Colonel. Oh, tut, tut, tut!”

“But hear me! I must tell some one. Oh, this necessity of confession—this afternoon a dispute arose between us, indeed I know not how—I should have calmed, soothed, conciliated her, knowing how dangerous was excitement to that poor, fragile being! But I did not. When she accused me, I recriminated; when she reproached me, I retorted. ‘One word brought on another,’ as the people say. She grew frantic and knew not what she said, I do verily believe. Yet her words stung me to frenzy, and, forgetting my manhood, I—I——”

Here Marcel de Crespigney’s voice broke, and he covered his brow with his hand and dropped his head upon his breast with a look of unutterable shame.

“You never could have raised your hand against your wife, De Crespigney?” exclaimed the doctor, in a harsh voice, and shrinking away from his companion.

Up went the fine head, and wide open with astonishment at such a question the splendid eyes, as Marcel replied:

“Who—I? I raise my hand against that poor little, fragile being? I raise my hand against any woman? I may be a devil, Dr. Prout, but I am not—a—what would you call a man who would strike a woman anyway? I am sure I don’t know.”

“Pardon me the base thought, De Crespigney. It was but a passing thought. Scarcely that indeed. But what do you mean, then, by your self-accusations, my poor friend?”

“I killed her all the same. If I did not strike with my hand, I struck with the poisoned arrow of the tongue. Is any serpent’s sting so venomous as the tongue? Her tongue had stung me to frenzy. She accused me, poor, wrong-headed child that she was, she accused me of marrying her for money, for this miserable, sterile promontory, with its ruinous house and worthless land. I retorted by telling her I married her for pity. “Yes!” cried Marcel, suddenly starting up, and striding to and fro with rising excitement, “yes, villain! caitiff! cur that I was, I told my wife—I told that delicate and sensitive creature that I had married her only for pity! And worse, far worse than that, I saw her pale face grow scarlet at my cruel, shameful words, then, white as death, as she sank upon a chair and placed her hand upon her chest. I did not care. The devil had possession of me.””

“‘You will kill me,’ she gasped.

“‘Die, then, and end it all!’ I answered, brutally, for I half suspected she was acting all this illness. But the next instant she fell heavily forward, with the blood welling from her throat.”

“Gracious Heaven!” murmured the doctor in a low tone.

“I remembered what you had warned me to do in case of such an emergency. I went and laid her down on the rugs quietly, and then ran out and dispatched a servant for you. In ten minutes I was back again at her side, but—she was gone.”

“I came the very moment that I was summoned, but the way was long,” said the doctor.

“You could have done no good, as it turned out, even if you had been in the house. The fault was mine. I killed her! I killed the poor little fragile woman, whose only fault was to love me too well, too jealously, too exactingly, too insanely!” exclaimed De Crespigney, heaping up words as men will do under any strong excitement. “Yes, I killed my delicate, sensitive wife! I killed her with cruel, shameful, unmanly words. Oh, accursed VILLAIN!” he cried, smiting his forehead with a violent blow, as he strode up and down the room.

Dr. Prout went up to him, took his arm and drew it within his own, and saying, with the authority of a keeper over a madman:

“Come, De Crespigney, you must go with me. I am going to take you off to bed and give you an opiate. You, Laban, there! Lead the way to your master’s chamber.”

Marcel, whose stormy fits of emotion had reduced him to the weakness of infancy, submitted himself to be led from the room, preceded by his servant, Laban.

Then there was left in the apartment of death, with the corpse, the old watcher, Sophia, and the child, Gloria, who had sobbed herself to sleep with her head on the black woman’s lap.

A few minutes after the doctor had led De Crespigney away, however, Lamia softly entered the room and whispered:

“The hot water is ready, mammy.”

“Yes. Well, now take this child and carry her up to her room, and undress her without waking her, if possible, and put her to bed. But if she do wake, you stay with her till she goes to sleep again, an’ then you come down here an’ help me. You know what’s happened of by dis time, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes; mist’ess hab broken a blood-vessel, an’ ’deed——”

“Yes! Lord forgive me! I did fink by de way he ran on, as marster had done it hisself! I thanks my Lord it wasn’t him, and dere’ll be no crowner’s quest, nor hanging! Dere, gal, take de poor dear chile and carry her to bed. Well, poor mist’ess, I hopes de Lord will hab messy on her soul! Anyways, dere won’t be no more quarrellin’ an’ fightin’ an’ ’fendin’ an’ provin’ an’ ’spoundin’ an’ ’splainin’ in de house to drive a body ravin’, ’stracted mad. Marse ain’t ’clined to quarrel much hisself, an’ if he was, he couldn’t quarrel by hisself ’dout some one else to help him,” growled old ’Phia, as she lifted the child and laid her, still sleeping, in the arms of Lamia.

The girl took the exhausted child up to her room, undressed, and put her into bed without awakening her.

Once, indeed, the poor little creature half waked as she was finally laid on her pillow; but she only sobbed and swooned away to sleep.

Lamia stood by the bed watching her for a few minutes, and seeing that she was not likely to wake for hours to come, left the chamber and went down stairs to join her “mammy” in the room of death.

Together they washed and dressed the dead, and laid it out neatly on the long table to await the undertaker. Then ’Phia lighted a couple of wax candles and placed one at the head and one at the foot.

Lastly, the two set the room in perfect order, replenished the fire, and finally took up their positions, sitting one on the right, and the other on the left of the body, to watch until daylight.

Dr. Prout remained all night with his sorrowing friend, and then, after an early breakfast the next morning, departed to make, at the request of Colonel de Crespigney, the necessary arrangements for the funeral.

When Marcel de Crespigney re-entered the room of death he found it filled with an atmosphere of repose that calmed even his perturbed spirit. He went to the table and turned down the white linen cover, and saw the face of the dead soothed into a peaceful beauty such as it had never known in life. He gazed on it for some minutes, and then stooped and pressed his lips to the cold, quiet brow with more tenderness than he had ever kissed the living woman. Then he reverently covered the face again, and stole silently from the room.

Little Gloria slept the deep sleep of mental and physical prostration. She did not wake until noon. Then she awoke to memory, and to an agony of grief that refused to be comforted.

“And not a lady about de house to look arter de poor chile! Not eben a white ’oman anywhere in reach. An’ me an’ Lamia dat oberloaded with work, along ob dis drea’ful business!” groaned ’Phia, as she trotted from chamber to parlor, and from parlor to kitchen on her multifarious duties.

Even in the midst of her lamentations she met relief. In the kitchen she found David Lindsay and his grandmother, just arrived, and waiting to see if they could be of any use.

David, on coming to work that morning, had met Dr. Prout and had anxiously inquired if any one was sick at the “house,” and in answer had received the news of Madame de Crespigney’s death.

Then remembering the limited resources of service in that small and isolated household, David, with the thoughtfulness of a boy who had long had a man’s responsibilities on his own young shoulders, re-entered his boat and rowed rapidly across to the little sandy isle, to tell his grandmother, and even to suggest her returning with him.

The gentle old dame saw even more clearly than her grandson had done, the need they had of her at Promontory Hall. So she lost no time in getting ready to go, and in less than half an hour from the moment when she received the news, she stood in Sophia’s kitchen, earnestly offering her services.

“If you’ll only look after de chile, which I b’lieve you is a great favorite ’long o’ her, dat is all as I shall ax ob you,” said ’Phia.

And so the sweet old dame “looked after” little Gloria, and comforted her, night and day, during the three days that preparations for the funeral went on.

Meanwhile, David Lindsay made himself useful in many ways at the Hall during the day, and at night returned to the little isle to take care of the house in the absence of its mistress.

Often Gloria tried to see and console her stricken uncle; but he always refused to have her, saying:

“Let all innocent beings keep aloof from me.”

Thus, in alternations between the frenzy of remorse and the stupor of despair, Marcel de Crespigney passed the interval between the death and burial of his “murdered wife,” as, in his morbid self-reproach, he called her.

“Words kill!” he answered to the expostulations of his friend, the doctor. “Words kill, and I killed her with cruel words! The last words I spoke to her—the last words her failing senses heard from me—were cruel, murderous words! They killed her! What though no law can drag me before an earthly tribunal to answer for her life? Before the awful judgment seat of the God in my own soul, I stand a self-convicted murderer!”

The good doctor shrugged his shoulders, reflecting that it was of no use to argue with a man whose morbid sensibility made him, for the time being, a monomaniac.

Marcel de Crespigney, who had so greatly distinguished himself for martial courage and ability during the Mexican war, was weaker than a child where his sympathies were involved.

This weakness had betrayed him into all the misery of his life. It had drawn him, in his early youth, into a marriage with a plain, sickly, faded woman, who loved him with that morbid, exclusive, absorbing passion that, disappointed, sometimes sends its victim to the madhouse or the grave.

He had married her—let the truth be here told—from the promptings of compassion alone. He had given her all that he had to give—sympathy, tenderness, service. But this was not love—not the love she craved and missed. Hence came humiliation, morbid brooding, and the monomania that turned all his kindly acts and motives into outrage and offence.

Had children blessed their union, and so divided her thoughts and affections, or had they—the husband and wife—though childless, lived in a city, where society must have claimed some of her attention, and taught her something of life, she might have been much healthier in mind and body, and their marriage might have been happier.

But in the drear solitude of Promontory Hall, with no children to fondle, no society but that of the studious, intellectual man whom she vainly and madly loved, there could have been but one of two results for her—madness or death. The most merciful of the two was hers.

But it was also impossible that De Crespigney’s mind, under all these circumstances, should have retained its healthy tone, or that his long patience should not have at last become exhausted, so that in one moment of unexampled exasperation he lost the self-control of years and told her the truth—the truth, not “in love,” but in wrath and scorn, that had slain her.

Now he would not seek to palliate his fault or justify himself. He would not remember the jealousy, the violence, the acrimony with which she had driven him to frenzy; he would only remember her strong love for him and his secret indifference to her, and his deeply sympathetic, compassionate and conscientious spirit suffered pangs of remorse that would seem to others morbid, excessive and unjustifiable.

On the fifth day following the catastrophe, the remains of Eusebie de Crespigney were placed in an elegant rosewood casket and conveyed by boat to the little Gothic chapel on La Compte’s Landing, where they were met by a small number of old friends and neighbors, and where, after the religious services were over, they were consigned to the family vault under the chancel.

Immediately after the funeral, Marcel de Crespigney utterly broke down and fell ill of a brain fever.

Dr. Prout, taking authority on himself in the household anarchy, installed Mrs. Lindsay as nurse, and wrote to his family.

CHAPTER VI
MISS GRIP

She is active, stirring, all fire,

Cannot rest, cannot tire.

Browning.

Within ten days after the despatch of the doctor’s letter it was answered in person by the colonel’s maiden aunt, who, after many misadventures, reached Promontory Hall in the afternoon of a very bitter cold January day.

Miss Agrippina de Crespigney, called by her familiars Miss Grip, was a slight, wiry little woman, with a dark skin, sharp nose and chin, small, keen, brilliant black eyes, tightly curled, bright black hair, and a trim figure, clothed in a close black cashmere gown, with stiff white linen collar and cuffs—a tough little body she was, whose sixty years of life’s hard buffeting had not seemed to have saddened, weakened or in any other way aged, but rather matured, hardened and strengthened.

For now, in the very depth of one of the hardest winters that ever was known here, she had undertaken an arduous journey of more than twelve hundred miles, from the green savannahs of the “Sunny South” to the frozen regions of the icy North, traveling without rest, both day and night, by railroads, stage-coaches, and tavern hacks, and at length arrived at her destination, none the worse for her performance, without showing the slightest sign of suffering from cold or from fatigue.

The last half-day of her hard week’s journey had been peculiarly trying. She had reached St. Inigoes by stage-coach, early in the morning. After a hasty breakfast she had started in the springless carryall belonging to the inn, for the Promontory. When she reached the shore she had to wait hours there for the tide to ebb before she could cross over the neck of land that connected the island cape to the main.

Even then the passage was difficult and dangerous from the piled up blocks of ice that lay across the road.

“I really thought that I was coming to a habitable part of the globe, at least; but this is Nova Zembla! Just Nova Zembla and nothing else! A waste fragment of a continent, flung out as useless into an arctic sea!” said Miss Grip, as the old carriage pitched and tumbled along the narrow ice-encumbered isthmus towards the snow-clad promontory.

“I hab heern it called a many hard names, Miss, but I nebber heered it called Dissemblance afore,” replied the negro driver.

“Well, then, hold your tongue and mind your horses, or you’ll upset me,” rather irrelevantly concluded Miss Grip.

When the rickety carryall drew up before the old iron gate in the old stone wall that enclosed the stern-looking gray-stone house, Miss Grip gave voice once more.

“Is it a police-station, or a penitentiary, or a warehouse, or a fort, or something of the sort? This never was meant for a gentleman’s private residence.”

But she did not even wait to cross the threshold before she seized the reins of government. As soon as she alighted from the carryall she began to issue her orders to the driver.

“Take the carriage around to the stables—of course there are stables and you must find them—put up the carriage, feed and water the horses, then come around to the kitchen. You must get your supper before you go back. Stop! take my trunk off first and bring it up into the house.”

The driver began to obey these orders as the brisk little woman ran up the steps and sounded an alarm on the iron knocker.

Laban opened the door, and the driver carried in the trunk and put it down on the hall floor and departed about his other business.

“How is your master?” sharply demanded Miss Grip of the astonished negro.

“Jes’ de same,” replied the man, as if the answer had been rapped out of him.

“How the same?”

“Onsensible.”

Miss Grip immediately took off her bonnet and shawl, and flung them on the hat-rack, saying:

“Show me the way up through this old jail to the den where your master lies.”

The man looked daggers at the insolent little woman, but he obeyed her, and led the way to the spacious upper chamber where the patient lay, watched by old Mrs. Lindsay and patient little Glo’.

Miss Agrippina nodded silently to the nurse, then kissed the child and sent her out of the room, saying that a sick room was no wholesome place for a little girl.

Now that Miss De Crespigney had come to take her proper place at the bedside of her suffering nephew, good Mrs. Lindsay found herself at liberty to return home and look after her own little affairs.

The child wept at parting with her old friend, and said:

“I know there is no work to do at the landing while all this snow and ice is piled up everywhere; but, oh, do please to send David Lindsay to see me sometimes. I shall be so lonesome when you are gone.”

The gentle old dame promised to do so, and went away to look for Laban to row her over to the little isle.

This though a very short, was not always a very safe trip, at this season of the year, when floating blocks of ice endangered the little boat, and it was only by watchfulness and skill that it was ever accomplished safely.

From that hour Miss Grip administered the government of Promontory Hall.

She was an accomplished nurse and housekeeper, and not at all an unkindly woman, notwithstanding her quick ways. She held a consultation with the doctor on his next visit, and learned from him the facts of the case, of which she would not inquire of the servants or even permit them to speak.

“It was the most unhappy marriage I ever heard of. But then I always knew Marcel would make a mess of it,” was her only comment on the story.

Then she devoted herself to her sick nephew, who, in his delirium, was always holding imaginary conversations with his lost wife, and sealing a reconciliation, such as in the past had always followed one of their quarrels.

Even Miss Grip would sometimes smile and sometimes weep to hear him say:

“I know it, my dear. I knew you did not mean all that you said. I knew you were excited. Yes, I know, for all that, you love me, Eusebie. There, say no more about it, dear. Let us try to forget it,” and so forth, for hours, until exhaustion and stupor would follow.

It was a long illness. The February thaw had come and melted the “iceberg,” as Miss Grip called the snow-clad promontory, before Marcel de Crespigney passed the crisis of his fever, and then he was so weak in mind as well as body that another month passed away before he had gradually recovered strength enough to sit up in his easy-chair and converse a little.

Next, when he was able to bear a sustained discourse, he gave Miss Grip his own version of the fatal quarrel that had precipitated the catastrophe, not sparing himself in the least, but heaping bitter reproaches upon his own head, as he had done from the first.

“Yet,” said Miss Agrippina, “I cannot see that you were so much to blame. But, in any case, it is of no use to look back. All that you can do now is to atone in the future for what you have done amiss in the past. She has left you no child of her own; but she has left a little niece whom she loved. Be a good father to that orphan.”

“I will do so,” answered De Crespigney, very meekly.

“And now, Marcel, take my advice: Whatever else you do, don’t make a fool of yourself again by getting married. Such a bookworm as you has no business with a wife. So, don’t be a fool.”

“I will not,” sighed the colonel, obediently.

When he grew stronger still he sent for the little portable cabinet in which his lost wife was accustomed to keep her papers, and he had it placed upon a stand between his easy-chair and the open wood fire, and he went through her letters, with the intention of burning all of them, lest they should by unforeseen accident fall into other hands.

And here he found what newly awoke his grief and his remorse. It was her last will, duly drawn up, signed, sealed, and witnessed, in which she bequeathed to him the whole of her real and personal estate. Folded in with this document was a letter, dated some time back, and addressed to her husband, to be opened after her death. It seemed to have been written just after one of their fierce quarrels and sorrowful reconciliations. In it she wrote:

“I feel that some day I shall die suddenly in some one of my mad fits of excitement. I feel that when that shall have happened without time for reconciliation, I shall want to speak to you from the other life. I shall want to reach my hand across the great gulf that will divide us and be reconciled to you from the other life. But that may not be my privilege, so I write to you now, and leave with you, for that time, what I feel that I shall want to say to you then.”

And here followed a most pathetic plea for a charitable construction of her confessed infirmities of temper and a prayer for the merciful remembrance of her love. She said not one word about the will she had made securing all her property to him; she was silent on that subject, as if she thought it of little importance compared to the theme upon which she wrote, her own morbid, maddened affections.

The letter so agitated the convalescent that he suffered a relapse of several days’ duration.

As the spring advanced, however, he improved in health, strength and spirits. The season was early that year, so that by the middle of March every vestige of ice and snow had disappeared, and by the first of April the fields were green with grass and the trees blossoming for fruit. And then Marcel de Crespigney was able to sit out on the front porch and enjoy the resurrection of nature with a new sense of life.

Meanwhile the business on the fishing landing was opening briskly, and, among other workmen, David Lindsay found a plenty to do, patching boats and mending nets and clearing beaches.

Again little Gloria went daily down to the old sea-wall and sat and read to her playmate while he mended old seines or netted new ones. She read to him the school histories of Rome, Greece and England, while the hungry mind of the boy swallowed and assimilated them all.

Under the shadow of the old sea-wall the life of the children was an idyl in Arcadie until one unhappy day, when their innocent affection fell under the notice of Miss Agrippina de Crespigney, and shocked that lady’s sense of propriety in the most outrageous manner.

She was giving the poor old manor house a fit of the severest hydrophobic convulsions, which she called a spring cleaning, turning every trunk, box, wardrobe, closet and store-room inside out, and raising dust that had rested undisturbed for ages, when, thinking that she needed more help, she determined to walk down to the landing, where, she was told, the fisher-boy was at work, and to send him to fetch his grandmother to her assistance. When she reached the old sea-wall and stood in the breach, this is what she saw before her:

A little fire kindled on the sands, and some fresh fish laid on the coals to broil; a little napkin spread on a flat stone, with two Little blue-edged plates and green-handled knives and forks, a bunch of radishes, a bunch of onions, and two rolls of wheat bread, and lastly, the two children sitting, side by side, in the old boat, reading from the same book.

Miss Agrippina raised up both her hands in speechless amazement. Then controlling herself, she forbore all reproaches to the little, unconscious offender, and only saying: “Gloria, my love, your uncle wants you. Go right home,” came calmly down to the scene.

Quite innocent of any impropriety, the little girl rose obediently, and saying:

“I am sorry, David Lindsay, that I cannot stay and take dinner with you to-day; but poor uncle, you know! I must go to him directly; you must take the book along with you and read it at home to-night,” she ran lightly along, tripped over the broken wall, and home.

Miss Agrippina turned to dispatch the boy on his errand after his grandmother.

David promptly left his culinary preparations, unmoored his boat, and rowed rapidly for the isle.

And so the children’s little, innocent al fresco feast was spoiled; but that was nothing to what happened afterwards.

CHAPTER VII
CHANGES

All she did was but to wear out the day;

Full oftentimes she leave of him did take;

And oft again devised somewhat to say,

Which she forgot, whereby excuse to make;

So loth was she his company to forsake.

Spenser.

Miss Agrippina de Crespigney stood in the breach of the old stone sea-wall, watching David Lindsay as he rowed rapidly from the shore.

“This intimacy must be stopped at once,” she said; “that poor, neglected child must be looked after and not allowed to associate with every rude boor that she may happen to meet on this dreary promontory! She must be sent to school. I will speak to Colonel de Crespigney on the subject at once.”

So muttering, Miss Grip turned, clambered down from her standpoint and walked rapidly towards the house.

When she got there she found little Glo’ standing between her uncle’s knees, as he reclined in his chip-bottomed arm-chair in the front porch.

“Why, how is this, Aunt Agrippina? This child says you told her I sent for her. It was surely a mistake. I never sent for her,” said Colonel de Crespigney, as soon as he saw Miss Grip.

“No one said you did. I told her you wanted her, and so you do want her, or at least you ought to,” grimly replied the lady.

“Why, what on earth do you mean, Miss de Crespigney?”

“You know very well what I mean, or you should know,” severely retorted Miss Grip.

“Upon my sacred word of honor, I don’t! Pray explain yourself,” entreated the colonel.

Instead of replying to him, Miss Agrippina deliberately divested herself of her bonnet and shawl and gave them to the child, saying:

“Here, my dear, take these up into my room and put them away carefully.”

“Now, then, what do you mean?” demanded the colonel, when the little girl had disappeared into the house.

“I mean that you want your ward to stay at home until she goes to school, which she must do very soon,” said Miss Grip, decidedly.

“Go to school? How can she? There is no school fit for her within fifty miles of this place.”

“Certainly not. She must be sent away to a first-class boarding-school.”

“I cannot consent to that, Aunt Agrippina. I cannot, and will not. I cannot part with her. Besides, it would break her heart to send her away.”

“Fiddle!” said Miss Grip.

“Yet I see that she should have instruction. I will advertise for a first-class resident governess.”

“You will not do any such thing, Colonel Marcellus de Crespigney! A resident governess in the house, indeed! Why, she would marry you in six months!”

“Absurd!” indignantly exclaimed the colonel.

“Oh, yes, you may call it ‘absurd,’ if you like! But I know you, Marcellus! Any needy woman, any single woman, I mean, young or old, plain or pretty, shut up in the same house with you, would marry you out of hand!”

“You must think me a very weak man,” said the colonel.

“I do,” said Miss Grip.

“Thank you,” said De Crespigney, with an air of chagrin.

“Weak where your sympathies are concerned, Marcel, and that is no discredit to you, my dear! But I’ll not have any wandering woman making her market at your expense! No, sir! no resident governess, if you please!”

“I hope, Aunt Agrippina, you will permit me to be master of my own house, so far as to say who shall or shall not make a part of my family.”

“Oh, by all means, and take the consequences, too, for if you engage a resident governess, I shall leave the house. And after I go what respectable woman, do you suppose, would come and live here with a young widower, and no lady of his family to keep her in countenance? Ah, ha! I have you there, Marcel! Yes, and I mean to keep you there!”

“It is rather unkind of you, Aunt Agrippina; but I shall not argue the point, since I know from experience that nothing ever turned you from any resolution that you had formed. Still, I say, it is very unkind of you,” said the colonel, with a wounded air.

“It is for your own good, honey. If I were to stay here and let a resident governess come, she would make you the captive of her bow and spear, and marry you right under my very nose! It will not do, Marcel. The child must be sent to school.”

“But she is so young yet. Not nine years old until June. You or I can direct her studies for the next year or two.”

“I don’t see it. Besides, who is to look after her out of school hours? I tell you, Marcel, it is not only for her education that she is to be sent from home.”

“For what other reason, I pray you?”

“To keep her out of bad company.”

“‘Bad company?’ Bad company, in this remote, isolated place?” exclaimed the colonel, gazing at the lady in surprise.

“Yes! bad company, I say! the very worst company! I think it is a shame, a burning and a crying shame,” exclaimed Miss Grip, firing up at the sound of her own words—“a burning and a crying shame that she, Maria da Gloria de la Vera, a Countess of Portugal by birth, should be left here to run wild like any little savage, with no better companion than a low-born, ignorant fisher-boy! There!”

“Lord—bless—my—soul—alive!” cried the colonel, sarcastically.

“Where do you suppose I found them?” sharply demanded Miss Grip, whose temper was rising.

“Found—whom?” coolly inquired the colonel.

“Your niece and ward, the Countess Maria, and your hired servant, David, the fisher-boy.”

“I wish you would not be ridiculous, my dear aunt. What good does that title do our poor little girl, here in democratic America? Why, even her father, a Portuguese nobleman by birth, but a staunch republican in principle, dropped his title when he transferred his interests to the United States,” said Marcel.

“Then he had no right to do it, and his act is of no consequence to his daughter. She is the Countess de la Vera, and she would be recognized as such in any other civilized country except in democratic America, as you call it. But that is not the point.”

“What is the point, then?”

“I asked you just now, where you supposed I found them?”

“In a boat, on the water?”

“No; sitting on an old, overturned boat under the broken sea-wall, side by side, with an open book before them, both their hands on the covers, both faces bent over the same page.”

“God bless the child! She was trying to teach the lad!” ejaculated Marcel, with a smile of sympathetic pleasure in his eyes.

“I say it is most improper! most indecorous! most objectionable! for the little Countess Maria to be sitting down on an old boat side by side with a low, vulgar, ill-bred fisher-boy!” exclaimed Miss Grip.

“Stop, stop, my dear lady! You go too far, indeed! David Lindsay is a poor fisher lad, certainly; but he is not, in any sense of the words, low, vulgar, or ill-bred.”

“Now, how can he be anything else?”

“By intuition. He has the intuitions of a little gentleman.”

“And now, since you talk like that, I am more determined than ever that the child shall go to school,” said Miss Grip.

“It is of no earthly use for you to persist in saying so, Aunt Agrippina. I cannot part with little Glo’. She is the sunshine of my home—the light of my life! Besides, she loves me so that she could not bear to leave me. The separation would grieve her to death.”

“Fiddle!” scornfully repeated Miss Grip.

The reappearance of little Glo’ interrupted the conversation, and the subject was dropped for the time being.

There is an Indian song which teaches a good lesson in perseverance:

“If a man talk a very long time,

If a man talk a very long time,

If a man talk a very long time,

He will bore a hole through a rock.”

And if a woman so talk, the effect is surer as well as swifter.

At the very first opportunity Miss Agrippina de Crespigney resumed the subject of sending her niece to school, and she talked a “very long time.”

Again and again she returned to the theme, and longer and longer she talked. She would listen to no proposal of home teaching. She would come to no compromise whatever. She would send the little “countess” to a first-class French and English Ladies’ Academy.

But it was not until late in the summer that Colonel de Crespigney, worn out with importunity and convinced, though against his will, by argument, reluctantly consented to the plan.

Miss Agrippina acted promptly on his decision, lest it should be repented of and withdrawn.

“This is Friday, the 14th of August,” she said. “I will myself leave here with the child on Monday, the 17th. We will go to Baltimore and stop at some good family boarding-house. Then I will go to the Academy of the Sacred Heart, and make an engagement to enter her on the reopening of the school exercises on the first of September, get a list of the articles required for her school uniform and outfit, have them purchased and made up in the interval, enter my little lady on the opening day, and come home. All this will take me about a fortnight, I suppose,” said Miss Grip.

And the same day she packed up a few changes of clothes for herself and her niece, and then communicated to the child that she was to go to school on the following Monday.

Her words conveyed but a tithe of the truth to the inexperienced little girl, who forthwith went to her “dee-ar Marcel” for further information.

She found him in his favorite seat—the old chip-bottomed arm-chair, on the front porch.

“Am I really going away from you to school, uncle dee-ar?” she inquired, seating herself on his knees and putting her arms around his neck.

“Yes, my darling. You are a little lady, and must be educated, cultivated, refined, accomplished. And so you must go to school,” replied “Marcel,” laying her tender cheek against his hirsute face.

“But I don’t want to be all that, uncle. I want to stay with you always, and play with David Lindsay.”

Marcel caressed her tenderly, and explained gently the absolute necessity of her submission to the social law that required her to be educated.

“Won’t you be lonesome without your little Glo’, Marcel, dee-ar!”

“Very lonesome indeed, my child.”

“And won’t you be very sorry?” she asked, smoothing his hair with her small hand.

“No, not very sorry, darling. I shall be glad because it will be for your good,” said De Crespigney, trying to look as if he meant what he said.

“You have got Aunty Agrippina and your books and your music to keep you company. But David Lindsay! Oh, Marcel, David Lindsay!” said the child, as the tears filled her eyes.

“What of him, my pet?” asked the colonel very gravely.

“Oh, he has got nobody but me, and no music nor books but what I bring him. Oh, poor David Lindsay! What will he do?” sighed Glo’.

“He will do very well, my dear. He will be busy with his fishing.”

“But he can’t be always fishing! And he will have nobody to play with, or to read with, or to bring him books, or—oh, dear! what shall we do? Oh, I can’t go to school, Marcel! I can’t! How can I go and leave you and David Lindsay?” broke forth the child, in a wail of distress.

“I and David Lindsay must try and console each other, in our little lady’s absence, with the thought that it is all for her good that she has gone. We shall do very well,” said the colonel, more gravely and tenderly than he had yet spoken.

“Oh, will you? Will you? Will you comfort David Lindsay? Will you lend him some books? Oh, he is so hungry for books, uncle dee-ar. I am going to give him all mine before I go away; but mine are only a few, and he will soon read them all. Will you lend him some? Will you, Marcel, dee-ar?”

“Yes, darling, I will indeed. I will, my precious. I will charge myself with the welfare of your little friend, and he shall not want books, nor advice, nor anything that he may require, if he wishes to cultivate his mind,” said Marcel de Crespigney, who was absolutely without any prejudices of rank.

“And oh! will you love David Lindsay, and let him love you, like I do?”

“Like you do? What do you mean, my child?”

“Like I love you! Will you love him and let him love you, like I love you?” she pleaded, laying her soft cheek against his face—a frequent caress of hers.

He kissed her for all reply.

It was too late that Friday evening to see her playmate. She had been reading with him all that afternoon, and had taken leave of him before she knew that she was to go to school. Now she felt sure that he had gone home, and she should not have a chance to see him and tell him until the next day.

Still, she was thinking more of her playmate than of any one else, simply because he had more need of her than any one else. So she went up to her little bookcase and took down all her books and packed them in a trunk that would hold about twenty-five or thirty miscellaneous volumes, comprising nearly all of Peter Parley’s and other juvenile works, that were held in great favor at that time. With these she put in two slates, a dozen graded copy-books, pens, pencils, india-rubber, blotting-papers, inkstand, and every requisite of the school-desk that she could find.

Then she locked it and called up old Laban, and said to him:

“I want you to shoulder this and take it down to the boat-house for me.”

The old servant looked at the trunk and looked at the child, scratched his head, and declared:

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Glo’.”

The little creature was not disposed to take airs on herself; so she kindly explained to the old man what she intended to do with the trunk, adding truthfully:

“I told Uncle Marcel, and he did not object.”

Old Laban then shouldered the trunk and followed his little mistress down the stairs, out of the front door, and so down to the end of the promontory, through the breach in the old sea-wall, and finally to a dilapidated little boat-house, where she directed him to place it.

“It will be safe there until the morning and then I can give it to David Lindsay, and he can carry it away in his boat.”

The sun had set half an hour before, and it was growing dark, so little Glo’ and her sable companion hurried from the shore back to the house.

“Saturday and Sunday! I have only got two days to be with Uncle Marcel and David Lindsay,” said little Glo’ to herself when she awoke the next morning.

And to make the most of her time, she hurried out of bed, dressed herself quickly, and ran down stairs.

Her aunt and uncle had not yet appeared, so she said to the cook:

“Just give me a cup of milk and a biscuit,’Phia, and I will eat my breakfast and go. It is my last day but one at home, and I must make the most of it.”

The old woman complied with her request, and the little girl quickly dispatched her meal, snatched her straw hat from the rack in the hall, and ran out of the house and down to the beach.

She stood in the breach of the broken wall and looked all around for her playmate, but did not see him, and she thought she was going to be disappointed; but just then she heard the sound of a hammer, and knew it must come from one held in his hand, for there was no one else who worked on the beach.

She ran down and found him nailing loose boards on the old boat-house.

“Oh! David Lindsay,” she exclaimed, as soon as she saw him, “I have got something to tell you! What do you think it is? Oh, you would never guess! I am going away on Monday!”

“Oh! NO!” cried the boy, while a look of blank consternation came over his face.

“Indeed, I am! I don’t want to go; but they say I must, David Lindsay.”

“Oh! where are you going?” he asked, in a great trouble, that he never dreamed of trying to hide.

“To a boarding-school in Baltimore. Oh! I don’t want to go, David Lindsay! But they say I must!” cried the child, almost in tears again.

The lad sighed, looked thoughtful, and then said:

“Yes; I know. Even grandmother has said often: ‘Why don’t they send that little lady to school? She ought to be at school.’ So I suppose you must go, sure enough, and it is all right; but it is very har—hard!” said the boy, valiantly trying to suppress a sob, and succeeding in doing so.

“Yes, it is hard; but Uncle Marcel says that he and you must console each other; and he says he will lend you books and give you advice, and help you, if you wish, to improve your mind, David Lindsay. And here, come in here, and see what I have got for you! I told uncle I was going to give them to you, and he did not object. And old Laban brought them down here for me yesterday. Come and see,” she said, as she led the way into the old boat-house and pointed to the trunk.

“Oh!” exclaimed the boy. “Books?”

“Yes! Drag the trunk out into the light where I can show it to you, David Lindsay.”

The boy obeyed.

The girl then unlocked the trunk and gleefully displayed its contents, looking up into the boy’s face with eyes dancing with the delight of delighting. Indeed, his eyes, radiant with rapture, responded fully.

“Oh! oh! what heaps of books and things!” he cried.

“They are all, all yours, David Lindsay!”

“Oh! oh! how generous you are! And—oh! how happy you must be!” he exclaimed, fairly catching his breath in ecstasy.

“Indeed I am very, very happy, David Lindsay!” she cried.

And so she was at that moment, while looking on her playmate’s happiness, and forgetting that she had to leave him soon and go away from home.

And then both went to work and tumbled out all the slates, pencils, and pens, all the “Peter Parleys,” and other attractive school books.

Finally, at the bottom of the trunk, lay two thick volumes, which little Glo’ with some difficulty lifted out and took upon her lap, and playfully hid with her handkerchief, saying:

“And now, David Lindsay, here are two precious, precious treasures, too precious to be read very often!”

“What is it?” said the boy—“the Holy Bible in two volumes?”

“No,” answered the girl, gravely and sweetly. “The Word of the Lord is the Book of books, and not to be talked of with others.”

“Well, then, is it the Lives of the Saints?”

“No,” she answered, smiling; “but you can never guess. This one in blue and gold is the ‘Arabian Nights’ Entertainment,’ and this one in crimson, with the painted picture on the cover, is ‘Fairy Tales.’ Oh! they are just splendid, David Lindsay! I love them, and so will you; but you ought not to read them until you have done all your work and lessons for the day. Mamma never let me have the story-books until I had done my lessons,” said the little girl, solemnly.

Meanwhile David was looking at the new books.

“I—I like these a heap better than I do the school ones,” he said, as he turned over the pages.

“Oh, to be sure! So do I. But they are only holiday books, you know.”

“Yes, these are only holidays, and these are working hours,” said the boy, with a sigh and a smile, as he began to replace the volumes in the bottom of the trunk.

“I will put them all back again, if you want to go to work, David Lindsay,” she said, as she joined him in the task that soon, at her word, he left her to complete. Then the sound of his hammer kept time to her hands as they quickly stowed away the treasures in the trunk.

Presently the boy stopped hammering and came to speak to her again.

“You are so good to me. You do so much for me, and I do not do any for you. I have not found out what to do for you! Oh, could you tell me what I could do for you?”

She opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment pure and simple.

“Why, why, you are always doing ever so much to please me!” she said.

“Now what? Do just tell me what?” he asked.

She paused in thought so long that he asked again, earnestly:

“What do I do to please you?”

“Oh, I don’t know just what in particular, but you do everything every day, all the time! Why, David Lindsay, if you was to go to heaven and leave me behind, I should just cry my eyes out! Yes, I should just sit down on the old boat here and cry my eyes out!” And moved by the picture her imagination had drawn, she might have given him a practical illustration, if he had not quickly responded:

“But I am not going to heaven to leave you behind! All we Lindsay fishermen live to be old men of eighty or ninety, if we don’t get drowned, you know! Though indeed, for the matter of that, we mostly do get drowned,” he added, in a lower tone.

But she heard him, and quickly cried:

“Oh! Don’t you go and get drowned, please don’t, David Lindsay!”

“Indeed, I don’t mean to!” said the boy, as he went back to his hammering.

At that moment the colored girl, Lamia, appeared in the breach of the wall, calling for Miss Gloria.

The child stood up, and answered:

“Here I am. Who wants me?”

“Your aunt! Leastways, your uncle’s aunt—Miss Aggravatin Discrepancy,” said Lamia.

(That was what the negroes, with their usual blundering manner, made out of the lady’s classic and elegant maiden name.)

“What does my aunt want with me, Lamia?” inquired the child, with a troubled look.

“To try on yer travelin’ dress, which me an’ Miss Aggravatin has been a rippin’ up of one of her own old allypackers to make over for you, an’ a cuttin’ an’ a bastin’ of it all de whole mornin’. Come along, chile, ’cause it’s got to be finished to-night, ef we sets up workin’ on it till to-morrow mornin’.”

“I must go, David Lindsay. I must go. But I will come back as soon as ever I can get away. And oh, won’t you please try to get through your work so as to take time to row me over to Sandy Hill to take leave of dee-ar Granny Lindsay? Oh, indeed I must go and take leave of dee-ar Granny Lindsay!” said little Glo’, looking earnestly in the face of her playmate.

“I will work fast and get through all I have to do. I won’t stop for dinner, but will work through the noon hour, and then I can get done by four o’clock and be ready for you,” replied the boy.

Little Glo’ ran home so as to get through the “trying on” as soon as possible.

She found her aunt too busy to question her as to where she had been.

Miss Agrippina did not detain her long, but as soon as the waist of the dress was fitted, and the length of the sleeves and skirt measured, she dismissed the child.

Full of a new idea, little Glo’ ran to seek her uncle.

She found Colonel de Crespigney in the library, seated before the old organ, drawing weird music from its worn-out keys.

“Marcel, dee-ar, I have only got a day and a half now! Won’t you please let David Lindsay off from his work, so he can take me in the row-boat over to bid good-by to Granny Lindsay? Oh, I must say good-by to dee-ar Granny Lindsay before I go,” she pleaded, laying her tender cheek against his face.

“Yes, love,” answered the gentle young uncle. “Yes, you shall have your little will while you stay here. Go and tell the lad to leave off work at once and row you over to the island.”

She kissed him in warm gratitude and sped away to the landing, where she found her playmate still at work.

She told him her joyful news, exclaiming gleefully:

“We shall have a whole half-day holiday, for it is only just twelve o’clock, David Lindsay! We shall have, oh, such a happy, happy half-day!”

The boy quickly stopped his work and got his boat ready.

Then the children lifted the trunk of books between them and placed it in the skiff. Lastly they entered and seated themselves, and David took up the oars and rowed for the isle.

They found the old dame busily engaged in preparing her frugal early dinner of tea and bread and butter, with fried fish, boiled eggs, and peaches and milk.

She gave the little lady a warm welcome and divested her of her hat and mantle. And while Gloria explained that her uncle had given David Lindsay a half holiday, the dame added two more cups and saucers and teaspoons and two more plates and pairs of knives and forks to the table and put a few more eggs on to boil.

“I am going to school on Monday, Granny Lindsay, and I have come to take leave of you,” said little Glo’, when she took the seat that David had placed for her.

“Have ’ee, darling? I’m glad to see ’ee, and main glad to hear ’ee’s going to school,” cordially replied the dame.

“I don’t want to go, Granny Lindsay! I don’t want to leave you all,” sighed the child.

“But ’ee ought to, darling. ’Ee’s a little lady, and ’ee ought to be trained up as such.”

“But I don’t want to be, Granny Lindsay! I want to stay home with dee-ar Marcel and you and David Lindsay!” sadly persisted the child.

“’Ee must subject ’eeself to ’ee pastors and masters, little lady. They do all for ’ee own good.”

“Aunt Agrippina says that I am a countess, Granny Lindsay; but I know I am not. I am worse at counting than at anything else. I never could learn the multiplication table,” said the child, with a look of perplexity and vexation.

“So much the more reason for ’ee to go to school, my little lady! Now sit ’ee up to table and have some dinner.”

Little Glo’ soon forgot her trouble in the society of Granny Lindsay and David.

She passed a “happy, happy half day,” then, with many kisses, took a loving leave of her old friend, and returned home in charge of the fisher lad.

It was sunset when they landed on the promontory beach.

“To-morrow is Sunday. Uncle and aunt and I will go to church at La Compte’s Landing. But after church we shall come directly home. Will you come in the afternoon to bid me a last good-by before I go? You know we are to start before day on Monday, so as to catch the St. Inigoes stage-coach,” said little Glo’, as she was about to take leave of her friend.

“Yes, indeed. I am going to church at St. Inigoes, but I will go to early mass, so as to be back in time to come here in the afternoon,” replied the boy.

“So do! Good-night, David Lindsay!”

“Good-night!”

“God bless you, David Lindsay!”

“And you, too!”

She sped away towards the house, not singing and dancing as had been her custom. Her little loving heart was too heavy with the thought of parting with her friends.

The next day she went with her uncle and aunt to morning service at La Compte’s Landing, returned with them to a early dinner, and then went down to the beach to bid a last good-by to her friend and playmate.

He was waiting for her with a box of fine shells in his hand.

“These are some that grandfather brought home from the Indian Ocean. Granny has kept them for a long time; but she wants you to have them now,” he said, rising and offering the box.

“Oh, how beautiful!” she exclaimed, sitting down with the box on her lap, and beginning to examine them. “So many different colors! so many different shapes and sizes! Not two alike!”

“People can make pretty boxes and vases out of them, granny says. Make the boxes and things out of pasteboard, you know, and stick the shells on them with glue,” said the boy, as he stood looking down on her, pleased that she was pleased with his humble offering.

“Oh, but I think it would spoil the pretty shells to fix them on to anything! I like them to be free, so I can pour them from one hand to the other, and turn them over! Oh, David Lindsay, I am so glad to have them! And so glad you gave them to me, too!”

“Granny gave them to me to give to you.”

“Well, it is all the same, David Lindsay. And I will take the pretty little things to school with me, and look at them every day, and keep them forever and ever. Sit down by me and let us look at the little beauties together. You know that this is our last day.”

The boy obeyed her.

She said it was their “last day;” and that day was drawing rapidly to a close. The children knew that they were going to part, but they scarcely knew yet what the parting was to be to them; they had had no experience in separation; and both wondered a little in secret why they felt no more pain at the immediate prospect of losing each other.

When the sun set, which was always the signal for their daily good-night, little Gloria shut up her box of shells and arose, saying:

“I must go now. Good-by, David Lindsay.”

“Good-by.”

“God bless you, David Lindsay!”

“And you too!”