Transcriber’s Note:

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

“WE WILL NEVER QUARREL THEN, WILL WE, DARLING?” HE SAID.—Queenie Hetherton, Page [217].

Queenie Hetherton

BY

MARY J. HOLMES

As published in the New York Weekly, Vol. 35, No. 31

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1880, by

STREET & SMITH

Copyright, 1883, by

DANIEL HOLMES

(All rights reserved)

Copyright, 1908, by

DANIEL HOLMES

Queenie Hetherton.

TO

MRS. JULIE P. SMITH,

OF HARTFORD, CONN.,

I DEDICATE THIS STORY OF QUEENIE,

IN MEMORY OF

THE DEAR LITTLE GIRL WHO SLEEPS AMONG

THE NEW ENGLAND HILLS.

Brockport, June, 1883.

CONTENTS.

QUEENIE HETHERTON.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCING SOME OF THE CHARACTERS.

The morning mail for Merrivale had just arrived, and the postmaster was distributing the letters. Col. Rossiter, who lived in the large stone house on the Knoll, had two; one from his wife, who, with his two daughters, was spending the summer at Martha’s Vineyard, and one from his son Philip, a young graduate from Harvard, who had been off on a yachting excursion, and was coming home for a few days before joining his mother and sisters at the sea-side. There was also one for Mrs. Lydia Ann Ferguson, who lived on Cottage Row, and was the fashionable dressmaker of the town. Mr. Arthur Beresford, the only practicing lawyer in Merrivale, had six, five of which he read hastily, as he stood in the post-office door, and then for a moment studied the superscription of the other, which was soiled and travel-worn, and bore a foreign postmark.

“From Mr. Hetherton,” he said, to himself. “What can he want, I wonder?” and opening the letter, he read as follows:

“Hotel Meurice, Paris, June 10th, 18—.

“Mr. Beresford:

“Dear Sir:—You will undoubtedly be surprised to hear that I am coming home. Once I expected to live and die abroad, but recently, with my failing health, there has come over me an intense longing to see America once more.

“After an absence of nearly twenty-three years, it will seem almost as strange to me as to my daughter Reinette, who has never been in an English-speaking country. She is as anxious to come as I am, and we have engaged passage on the Russia, which sails from Liverpool the 25th. I have no idea whether the old house is habitable or not. All important changes and repairs I prefer to make myself, after Reinette has decided what she wants; but, if possible, I wish you to have a few rooms made comfortable for us. The large chamber which looks toward the town and the river I design for Reinette, and will you see that it is made pretty and attractive. If I remember rightly, there used to be in it a mahogany bedstead older than I am. Remove it, and substitute something light and airy in its place. Reinette does not like mahogany. Put simple muslin curtains at the windows, and have nothing but matting on the floors; Reinette detests carpets. And if you know of a pair of fine carriage horses and a lady’s saddle pony, have them ready for inspection, and if they suit Reinette I will take them. If you chance to hear of a trusty, middle-aged woman suitable for a housekeeper at Hetherton Place, retain her until Reinette can see her; and please have the conservatory and garden full of flowers. Reinette is passionately fond of flowers—fond, in fact, of everything bright and pretty. She has just come in, and says tell you to be sure and get her some cats and dogs, so I suppose you must do it; but, for Heaven’s sake, don’t fill the house with them—two or three will answer. I can’t abide them myself. Reinette is waiting for me to go to dinner, and I must close. Shall telegraph to you from New York as soon as the vessel arrives, and shall follow on first train.

“Truly, Frederick Hetherton.

“Spare no money to make the place comfortable.”

Arthur Beresford’s face was a puzzle as he read this letter from one whose business agent and lawyer he merely was, and whom he scarcely remembered at all except as a dashing, handsome young man, whom everybody called fast, and whom some called a scamp.

“Cool, upon my word!” he thought, as he folded the letter and returned it to his pocket. “A nice little job he has given me to do. Clean the house; air Miss Reinette’s bed-chamber; move the old worm-eaten furniture, and substitute something light and cheerful which Reinette will like; put muslin curtains to her windows; get up a lot of horses for her inspection; fill the garden with flowers, where there’s nothing but nettles and weeds growing now; and, to crown all, hunt up a menagerie of dogs and cats, when, if there is one animal more than another of which I have a mortal terror, it is a cat. And this Reinette is passionately fond of them. Who is she, any way? I never heard before that Mr. Hetherton had a daughter; neither, I am sure, did the Rossiters or Fergusons. Mrs. Peggy would be ready enough to talk of her Paris granddaughter if she had one. But we shall see. Mr. Hetherton’s letter has been delayed. He sails the 25th. That is day after to-morrow, so I have no time to lose, if I get everything done, cats and all. I wish he had given the job to somebody else. Phil Rossiter, now, is just the chap to see it through. He’d know exactly how to loop the curtains back, while as for cats I have actually seen the fellow fondling one in his arms. Ugh!” and the young lawyer made an impatient gesture with his hands, as if shaking off an imaginary cat.

Just at this point in his soliloquy, Colonel Rossiter, who had been leisurely reading his two letters inside the office, came out, and remembering that he was a connection by marriage with the Hethertons, Mr. Beresford detained him for a moment by laying a hand on his arm, and thus making him stand still while he read the letter to him, and asked what he thought of it.

“Think?” returned the colonel, trying to get away from his companion, “I don’t think anything; I’m in too great a hurry to think—a very great hurry, Mr. Beresford, and you must excuse me from taking an active part in anything. I really have not the time. Fred. Hetherton has a right to come home if he wants to—a perfect right. I never liked him much—a stuck-up chap, who thought the Lord made the world for the special use of the Hethertons, and not a Rossiter in it. No, no; I’m in too great a hurry to think whether I ever heard of a daughter or not—impression that I didn’t; but he might have forty, you know. Go to the Fergusons; they are sure to be posted, and so is Phil, my son. By the way, he’s coming home on next train. Consult him; he’s just the one, he’s nothing else to do, more’s the pity. And, now, really, Mr. Beresford, you must let me go. I’ve spent a most uncommon length of time talking with you and I bid you good-morning.”

And so saying, the colonel, who among his many peculiarities numbered that of being always in a hurry, though he really had nothing to do, started toward home at a rapid pace, as if resolved to make up for the time he had lost in unnecessary talk.

Mr. Beresford looked after him a moment, and then, remembering what he had said of Philip, decided to defer his visit to Hetherton Place until he had seen the young man.

Two hours later, the Boston train stopped at the station, and Phil Rossiter came up the long hill at his usual rapid, swinging gait, attracting a good deal of attention in his handsome yachting-dress, which became him so well. The first person to accost him was his aunt, Mrs. Ferguson, who insisted upon his stopping for a moment, as she had a favor to ask of him. Phil was the best natured fellow in the world, and accustomed to have favors asked of him, but he was tired, and hot, and in a hurry to reach the quiet and coolness of his own home, which was far pleasanter, and more suited to his taste than the close, stuffy apartment into which Mrs. Ferguson led him, and where his cousin sat working on a customer’s dress.

Anna Ferguson, who had been called for her mother, but had long ago discarded Lydia as too old-fashioned, and adopted the name of Anna, was eighteen, and a blue-eyed, yellow-haired blonde, who would have been very pretty but for the constant smirk about her mouth, and the affected air she always assumed in the presence of her superiors. Even with Phil she was never quite at her ease, and she began at once to apologize for her hair, which was in crimping-pins, and for her appearance generally.

“Ma never ought to have asked you into the work-room, and me in such a plight,” she said. But Phil assured her that he did not mind the work-room, and did not care for crimping-pins—he’d seen bushels of them, he presumed. But what did his aunt want? he was in something of a hurry to get home, as his father was expecting him, and would wonder at his delay.

Phil knew he was stretching the truth a little, for it was not at all likely his father would give him a thought until he saw him, but any excuse would answer to get away from the Fergusons, with whom at heart he had little sympathy.

What Mrs. Ferguson wanted was to know if he had ever heard his mother or sisters speak of a dressmaker at Martha’s Vineyard, a Miss Margery La Rue, who was a Frenchwoman, and who had written to Mrs. Ferguson, asking if she wished to sell out her business, and if it would pay for a first-class dressmaker to come to Merrivale.

“Here’s her letter, read it for yourself if you can,” Mrs. Ferguson said. “Anny and me found it hard work to make it out, the writing is so finefied.”

Philip took the letter, which was written in that fine, peculiar hand common to the French, and which was a little difficult at first to decipher. But the language was in good English and well expressed, and the writer, Miss Margery La Rue, late from Paris, wished to know if there was an opening for a dressmaker in Merrivale, and if Mrs. Ferguson wished to sell out, as Miss La Rue had been told she did.

“I wish to mercy ma would get out of the hateful business and take that horrid sign out of her window. I’d split it up quick for kindlings. I’m always ashamed when I see it,” Miss Anna said, petulantly, for she was foolish enough and weak enough to ascribe all her fancied slights to the fact that her mother was a dressmaker and had a sign in her window.

Mrs. Ferguson, however, did not share in this feeling, and reprimanded her ambitious daughter sharply, while Philip, who knew how sore she was upon the point, asked her if she really thought she would be any better with the obnoxious sign gone and her mother out of business.

“Of course I wouldn’t be any better. I’m just as good as anybody now,” Miss Anna retorted, with a toss of her head. “But you know as well as I, that folks don’t think so, and ma and I are not invited a quarter of the time just because we work for a living. Even your sisters Ethel and Grace would not notice me if I wasn’t their cousin. As it is, they feel obliged to pay me some attention. I hate the whole thing, and I hope I shall live to see the day when I can go to the sea-side, and wear handsome dresses and diamonds, and have a girl to wash the dishes and wait on me. There’s the bell, now: somebody to get some work done, of course,” and Anna flounced out of the room to wait upon a customer, while her mother asked Philip again if he had ever heard his sisters speak of Miss La Rue.

Philip never had, but promised to inquire when he went to the Vineyard, as he intended doing in a few days. Then, not caring for a second encounter with his cousin, he went out of the side door and escaped into the street, breathing freer in the open air and wondering why Anna need always to bother him about being slighted because she was poor, as if that made any difference.

Mr. Beresford was the next to accost Phil, and as the Hetherton business was uppermost in his mind, he walked home with the young man and opened the subject at once by telling him of the letter and asking if he had ever heard of Reinette Hetherton.

“Reinette Hetherton—Reinette,” Philip repeated. “No, never; but that’s a pretty name, and means ‘little queen.’ I wonder what kind of a craft she is? Frenchy, of course, and I hate the French. She must be my cousin, too, as I have never heard that Mr. Hetherton married a second time. When will she be here?”

Phil was interested in the girl at once, but Mr. Beresford, who was several years older, was more interested in the numerous arrangements he was to make for her reception. They had reached the Knoll by this time, and were met in the hall by the colonel, who did not manifest the least annoyance because of Mr. Beresford’s presence, but on the contrary seemed glad to have him there, as it relieved him from any prolonged stay with his son.

“Eh, Phil, glad to see you,” he said. “Hope you had a pleasant time;” then, in an absent kind of way, with a wave of his hand, “make yourself at home. You are quite welcome, I am sure; both of you,” bowing to Mr. Beresford. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I will leave you. Shall see you at lunch time, good-morning, gentlemen;” and with another very courtly bow, he walked rapidly away to the greenhouse, where he was watching the development of a new kind of bean found in Florida the previous winter.

Left to themselves the two young men resumed their conversation concerning Reinette Hetherton, and Mr. Beresford showed Phil her father’s letter.

“Upon my word,” said Phil, “one would suppose this Reinette to be a very queen, the way her father defers to her. Everything must bend to her wishes; bedstead, matting, flowers, housekeeper, horses, and cats and dogs; that’s rich; but I’ll take the last job off your hands. I know of a whole litter of young puppies which I’ll have in readiness for her, besides half a dozen or more cats.”

“Yes, thank you. I am sure I shall be glad to be rid of the cat business,” said Mr. Beresford, “but tell me, please, about Mrs. Hetherton, Reinette’s mother, I was too much of a boy when she went away, and you, of course, were a mere child, but you must have heard of her from your mother. They were sisters, I think.”

“Half sisters,” Philip replied. “My grandfather Ferguson was twice married, and mother was the child of his first wife. Grandma Ferguson, as most everybody calls her, is only my step-grandmother, and Mrs. Hetherton was her daughter Margaret, and, as I’ve heard, the most beautiful girl in Merrivale. It was her beauty which attracted Mr. Hetherton, and I imagine it was a love match, for he was proud as Lucifer and very rich, while she was poor and—and—well, she was a Ferguson,” and Philip changed color a little as he said this: then, as Mr. Beresford looked curiously at him he added, laughingly, “Not that I am in the least ashamed of my relatives. They do not affect me one whit. I am just what I am, and a cart load of Fergusons can’t hurt me, though I’ll confess that grandma and aunt Lydia do try me at times, but wait and see what Miss Reinette thinks of them. When are you going over to investigate the place, and would you like me to go with you?”

Nothing could suit Mr. Beresford better, for though he was several years older than Phil, the two were fast friends, and later in the day, when it was beginning to grow cool, they rode together toward “Hetherton Place,” which had been tenantless since the death of General Hetherton, ten or twelve years before.

CHAPTER II.
INTRODUCING MORE OF THE CHARACTERS.

Hetherton Place was nearly a mile distant from the village, and on the side of a hill, the ascent of which was so gradual that on reaching the top one was always surprised to find himself so far above the surrounding country, of which there were most delightful views. Turn which way you would the eye was met with lovely landscape pictures of grassy meadows and plains, of wooded hill-sides, sloping down to the river’s brink and stretching away to the sandy shores of the ponds or little lakes, which, when the morning sun was shining on them, sparkled like so many diamonds, in the sunny valley of Merrivale, where our story opens.

Merrivale was not a very large or very stirring town, for its sons and daughters had a habit of turning their backs upon the old home and seeking their fortunes in the larger cities or in the West, where nature seems to be kinder and more considerate to her children, in that her harvests there yield richer stores with less of that toil of the hands and sweat of the brow so necessary among the rocky hills of New England. There were no factories in Merrivale, for the waters of the lazily-flowing Chicopee were insufficient for that, but there were shoe-shops there, and the men who worked in them lived mostly in small, neat houses on Cottage Row, or on the new streets which were gradually creeping down the hill to the river and the railroad track, over which almost every hour of the day heavily-laden trains went rolling on to the westward.

Years and years ago, when the Indians still lurked in the woods around Merrivale, and bears were hunted on Wachuset Mt., and the howl of the wolf was sometimes heard in the marshy swamp around old Cranberry Pond, the entire town, it is said, was owned by the Hethertons, who traced their ancestry in a direct line back as far as the Norman conquest. Theirs of course was the bluest blood in Merrivale, and theirs the heaviest purse, but purses will grow light in time, and blood grow weak as well, and the Hetherton race had died out one by one, until, so far as anybody knew, there was but a single member remaining, and he as good as dead, for any good he did to the people of Merrivale. For nearly twenty-three years Frederick Hetherton had lived abroad, and during that time, with one exception, he had never communicated with a single individual except his lawyers, the Beresfords—first Henry, the elder, who had been his friend and colleague, and, after his death, with Arthur, who succeeded to his brother’s business.

When Frederick first came home from college he was a dashing, handsome young man, with something very fascinating in his voice and manner; but to the young girls of Merrivale he was like the moon to the humble brook on which it shines, but always looks down. They could watch, and admire, and look up to him from a distance, but never hope for anything like an intimate recognition, for the Hethertons held themselves so high that very few were admitted to the charmed circle of their acquaintance.

Mrs. Hetherton, Frederick’s mother, had come from the vicinity of Tallahassee, and with the best blood of Florida in her veins, was, if possible, more exclusive than her husband, and labored assiduously to instill her notions into the mind of her son.

After her death, however, whether it was that he found life at Hetherton Place too lonely, or that he missed her counsels and instructions, he was oftener with the young people of Merrivale; and rumors were at last afloat of frequent meetings between the heir of Hetherton and Margaret Ferguson, whose father was a stone mason, but a perfectly honest, upright, and respectable man, and whose mother was then familiarly known in the community as the Aunt Peggy who sold root beer and gingerbread in the summer time, and Boston brown bread and baked beans in the winter.

During Mrs. Hetherton’s life-time her carriage had occasionally stopped before the shop door while she bartered with Peggy for buns and cakes, but anything like social intercourse with the Fergusons the lady would have spurned with contempt.

Great, therefore, was her astonishment when Col. Paul Rossiter, who had been educated at West Point, and whom, in a way, she acknowledged as her equal, fell in love with and married Mary Ferguson, who was the child of her father’s first marriage, and in no way related to Peggy, and who was quite as well educated as most of the girls in town, and far prettier than any of them. The Fergusons were all good-looking, and Mary’s dazzling complexion and soft blue eyes caught the fancy of Col. Rossiter the first time he reined his horse in front of the shop where root beer and gingerbread were sold.

Col. Rossiter at the time was thirty-five or more, and had never evinced the slightest interest in any one of the opposite sex. Indeed, he rather shunned the society of ladies and was looked upon, by them as a very peculiar and misanthropical person. He belonged to a good family, was an orphan and rich, and had no one’s wishes to consult but his own; and so, after that first call at Peggy’s establishment, when Mary entertained and waited upon him, it was remarked that he seemed very fond of root beer, and that it took him some time to drink it, for his chestnut mare was often tied before the shop door for half an hour or more, while he sat in the little room where Mary was busy with the shoes she stitched, or closed, as they called it, for the large shop near by. At last the gossip reached Mrs. Hetherton, whose guest the colonel was, and who felt it her duty to remonstrate seriously with the gentleman. The colonel listened to her in a dazed kind of way, until she said, although no harm would come to him, he certainly could not wish to damage the girl’s good name by attentions which were not honorable.

Then he roused up, and without a word of reply, started for town, and entering Peggy’s shop, strode on to the back room, where Mary sat with her gingham apron on and her hands besmeared with the shoemaker’s wax she was obliged to use in her work. They were, nevertheless, very pretty hands, small, and white, and dimpled, and the colonel took them both between his own, and before the astonished girl knew what he was about, he asked her to be his wife, and told her how happy he would make her, provided she would forsake all her family connections and cleave only unto him.

“I do not mean that you are never to see them,” he said, “but anything like intimacy would be very undesirable, for there would be a great difference between your position as my wife and theirs, and——”

He did not finish the sentence, for Mary had disengaged her hands from his by this time, and he always insisted that she struck at him, as she rose from her seat and, with flashing eyes, looked him straight in the face, while she said:

“Thank you, Col. Rossiter. You have said enough for me to understand you fully. You may be proud, but I am prouder still, and I decline your offer, which, the way you made it, was more an insult than an honor. I know I am poor, and that father is only a day laborer, but a better, truer, worthier man never lived, and I hate you for thinking to make me ashamed of him; while his wife, though not my mother, has always been kind to me, and I will never turn my back upon her, never! The man who marries me will marry my family too, or at least, will recognize them. I wish you good-morning, sir,” and she walked from the room with all the hauteur of an offended duchess, leaving the crest-fallen colonel alone, and very much bewildered and uncertain as to what had happened.

It came to him at last that he was refused by Mary Ferguson, the girl who stitched shoes for a living, and whose stepmother made and sold root beer.

“Is the girl crazy?” he asked himself, as he precipitately left the house. “Does she know what she is doing to refuse me, who would have made her lady! and she says she hates me, because I will not marry her family. Well, well, it’s my first experience at love-making, and I think it will be my last.”

But it was not, for Mary Ferguson’s blue eyes had played the very mischief with the colonel’s heart-strings, and he could not give her up, and the next day he told her so in a letter of three pages, which she promptly returned to him, with the words:

“The man who marries me must recognize my family.”

A week went by, and then the colonel sent his love a letter of six pages, in which he capitulated generally. Not only would he recognize the family, but in proof thereof, he would buy the large stone house called the Knoll, which was at present unoccupied, and he had heard was for sale. Here they would live, in the summer at least, and during the winter she might like Boston for a change, but he would not insist upon anything which did not meet her approval. All he wanted was herself, and that he must have.

This was a concession, and Mary, who, while standing by her family, had not been insensible to the good fortune offered her, surrendered, and in less than a month was Mrs. Colonel Rossiter, and mistress of the handsome stone house, where her father was always made welcome, and her stepmother treated with kindness and consideration.

We have dwelt thus long upon the wooing and wedding of the colonel, because the Rossiters and Fergusons have as much to do with this story as the Hethertons, and because the marriage of Mary Ferguson was the means of bringing about another marriage, without which Reinette, our dainty little queen, could never have been the heroine of this romance. Mary would hardly have been human if her sudden elevation to riches and rank had not affected her somewhat. It did affect her to a certain extent, though the villagers, who watched her curiously, agreed that it did not turn her head, and that she fitted wonderfully well in her new place.

“Acts for all the world as if she was born to that grandness, and ain’t an atom ashamed of me nuther,” Mrs. Peggy said, never once suspecting that Mrs. Rossiter, as she mingled more and more in her husband’s world, did sometimes shiver, and grow cold and faint at her old-fashioned ways and modes of speech.

As for the father he enjoyed to the full seeing his daughter a lady, but laughed at her endeavors to change and polish him.

“’Tain’t no use, Mollie,” he would say. “You can’t make a whistle of a pig’s tail, and you can’t make a gentleman of me. My hard old hands have worked too long in stone and mortar to be cramped up in gloves or to handle them wide forks of yourn. I shall allus eat with my knife; it comes nateral-like and easy, and shall drink my tea in my sasser. But I like to see you go through with the jimcracks, and think you orter, if the colonel wants you to. You allus had the makin’ of a lady, even when your hands, where the diamonds is now, was cut and soiled with hard waxed ends, and nobody’ll think the wus of you, unless it’s some low-minded, jealous person who, when they see you in your best silk gownd may say how you was once poor as you could be, and closed nigger shoes for a livin’. That’s human nater, and don’t amount to nothin’. But, Mollie, though you can’t lift Peggy nor me, there’s your sister Margaret growin’ up as pretty and smart a gal as there is in Merrivale. You can give her a hist if you will, and mebby she’ll make as good a match as you. She’s the prettiest creetur I ever see.”

And in this John Ferguson was right, for Margaret was even more beautiful than her sister Mary. To the same dazzling purity of complexion, and large, lustrous blue eyes, she added a sweetness of expression and a softness of manner and speech unusual in one who had seen so little of the world. Mrs. Rossiter, who was allowed to do whatever she pleased, acted upon her father’s suggestion and had her sister often with her, and took her to Boston for a winter, and to Saratoga for a season, and it was in the Rossiter carriage that Frederick Hetherton first remarked the fresh, lovely young face which was to be his destiny. He might, and probably had, seen it before in church, or in the shop where he occasionally went for beer, but it had never struck him just as it did, when, framed in the pretty bonnet, with the blue ribbons vieing with the deeper, clearer blue of the large bright eyes which flashed a smile on him as he involuntarily lifted his hat.

Fred Hetherton was very fond of pretty faces, and it was whispered that he did not always follow them for good, and there were rumors afloat of large sums of money paid by his father for some of his love affairs, but, however that might be, his intentions were always strictly honorable with regard to Margaret Ferguson. At first his pride rebelled a little, for he was quite as proud as any of the Hethertons, and he shrank from Aunt Peggy more than Mr. Rossiter had done. But Margaret’s beauty overcame every scruple at last, and when his father, who had heard something of it in town, asked him if it were true that he was running after old Ferguson’s daughter, he answered boldly, “Yes, and I intend to make her my wife.”

A terrible scene ensued, and words were spoken which should never have passed between father and son, and the next day Fred Hetherton was missing from his home and Margaret Ferguson was missing from hers, and two days later Aunt Peggy went over to Hetherton Place and claimed relationship with its owner by virtue of a letter just received from her daughter who said she was married the previous day, and signed herself “Margaret Hetherton.” Then the father swore his biggest oaths, said his son was his no longer, that he was glad his wife had died before she knew of the disgrace, and ended by turning Peggy from his door and bidding her never dare claim acquaintance with him, much less relationship. What he wrote to his son in reply to a letter received from him announcing his marriage no one ever knew, but the result of it was that Frederick determined to go abroad at once, and wrote his father to that effect, adding that with the fortune left him by his mother he could live in luxury in Europe, and asked no odds of any one. This was true, and Mr. Hetherton had no redress, but walked the floors of his great lonely rooms foaming with rage and gnashing his teeth, while the Fergusons were crying over the letter sent to them by Margaret, who was then in New York, and who wrote of their intended departure for Europe.

She was very happy, she said, though she should like to come home for a few days and bid them good-by, but Frederick would not allow it. She would write them often, and never, never forget them. Then came a few lines written on shipboard, and a few more from Paris, telling of homesickness, of Frederick’s kindness, and the pearls and blue silk dress he had bought her. Then followed an interval of silence, and when Margaret wrote again a change seemed to have come over her, and her letters were stilted and constrained like those of a person writing under restraint, but showed signs of culture and improvement. She was still in Paris, and had masters in French and music and dancing, but of her husband she said very little, except that he was well, and once that he had gone to Switzerland with a party of French and English, leaving her alone with a waiting-maid whom she described as a paragon of goodness.

To this letter Mrs. Rossiter replied, asking her sister if she were really content and happy, but there came no response, and nothing more was heard from Margaret until she wrote of failing health and that she was going to Italy to see what a milder climate would do for her. Weeks and weeks went by, and then Mr. Hetherton himself wrote to Mr. Ferguson as follows:

“Geneva, Switzerland, May 15th, 18—.

“Mr. Ferguson.—Your daughter Margaret died suddenly of consumption in Rome, the 20th of last month, and was buried in the Protestant burying ground.

“Yours,

“F. Hetherton.”

Nothing could be colder or more unsatisfactory than were these brief lines to the sorrowing parents, to whom it would have been some comfort to know how their daughter died, and who was with her at the last, and if she had a thought or word for the friends across the water, who would never see her again. But this solace was denied them, for though Mrs. Rossiter wrote twice to the old address of Mr. Hetherton in Paris, she never received a reply, and the years passed on, and the history of poor Margaret’s short married life and death was still shrouded in mystery and gloom, when General Hetherton died without a will; and, as a matter-of-course, his property went to his only child, who, so far as the people knew, had never sent him a line since he went abroad.

Upon the elder Mr. Beresford, who had been the general’s legal adviser, devolved the duty of hunting up the heir, who was found living in Paris and who wrote to Mr. Beresford, asking him to take charge of the estate and remit to him semi-annually whatever income there might be accruing from it. The house itself was to be shut up, as Frederick wrote that he cared little if the old rookery rotted to the ground. He never should go back to live in it: never return to America at all, but he would neither have it sold or rented, he said. And so it stood empty year after year, and the damp and mold gathered upon the roof, and the boys made the windows a target for stones and brick-bats, and the swallows built their nests in the wide-mouthed chimneys, and, with the bats and owls flew unmolested through the rooms, where once the aristocratic Mrs. Hetherton trailed her velvet gowns; and the superstitious ones of Merrivale said the place was haunted and avoided it after nightfall, and over the whole place there brooded an air of desolation and decay.

Then the elder Beresford died, and Arthur, who was many years younger, succeeded him in business and took charge of the Hetherton estate, and twice each year wrote formal letters to Mr. Hetherton, who sent back letters just as formal and brief, and never vouchsafed a word of information concerning himself or anything pertaining to his life in France, notwithstanding that Mrs. Rossiter once sent a note in Mr. Beresford’s letter, asking about her sister’s death, but to this there was no reply, except the message that she died in Rome as he had informed her family at the time.

Thus it is not strange that the letter to Mr. Beresford announcing his return to America, and speaking of his daughter, was both a surprise and revelation, for no one had ever dreamed there was a child born to poor Margaret before her death. In fact, the Fergusons themselves had almost forgotten the existence of Mr. Hetherton, and had ceased to speak of him, though John, who had now been dead four years or more had talked much in his last sickness of Margaret, and had said to his wife:

“Something tells me you will yet be brought very near to her. I don’t know exactly how, but in some way she’ll come back to you; not Maggie herself perhaps, but something; it is not clear quite.”

And now at last she was coming back in the person of a daughter, but grandma Ferguson did not know it yet. Only Mr. Beresford and Philip held the secret, for Col. Rossiter counted for nothing, and these two were driving toward Hetherton Place on the warm June afternoon of the day when our story opens.

CHAPTER III.
MR. BERESFORD AND PHIL.

Scarcely any two men could be more unlike each other than the two who walked slowly through the Hetherton grounds, commenting on the neglected, ruinous condition everywhere apparent, and the vast amount of labor necessary to restore the park and garden to anything like beauty or order.

Mr. Beresford, as the elder, will naturally sit first for his photograph. In age he was probably not more than thirty-five, though he looked and appeared somewhat older than that. He had received a first-class education at Yale, and when he entered the law he devoted himself to it with an energy and assiduity which, had he lived in a larger town than Merrivale, would have placed him at the head of his profession. There was no half way work with him. Whatever he did, he did with all his might, and his services were much sought after by people in the towns around Merrivale, so that he was always occupied and busy.

In stature he was medium size for a man, but finely formed, with a head set erect and square upon his shoulders, and crowned with a profusion of dark brown hair, which curled slightly around his forehead. His complexion was dark, and his eyes those round, bright, restless eyes which make you uncomfortable when fixed upon you, because they seem to be reading your inmost secrets and weighing all your thoughts and motives.

Belonging to one of the oldest and best families in the country, he was proud of his blood and proud of his name—foolishly proud, too, in many things, for had he been Anna Ferguson, that sign in her mother’s window would have annoyed him even more then it did the young lady herself, while the memory of the beer and the gingerbread once sold by her grandmother, and the cellar walls and chimneys built by her grandfather, would have driven him nearly frantic. Indeed, it was a wonder to him how Phil Rossiter could endure the Fergusons, whom he considered wholly vulgar and second-class. And yet, Arthur Beresford was a man of sterling qualities, and one whom everybody respected and liked, though not as they liked Phil Rossiter—good-natured, easy-going, indolent Phil, who, though always ready to help whenever his services were needed, had never been known to apply himself for any length of time to a single useful thing.

Business he had none; employment none; but for this useless life his mother was, perhaps, more in fault than he, for she was virtually the moving power of the family, or, as the villagers termed it, “the man of the house.”

Always peculiar, Col. Rossiter had grown more and more peculiar and absent-minded with every year of his married life, and as a natural consequence his wife, whose character was stronger than his, had developed into a self-reliant, independent woman, who managed her husband and his affairs admirably, and for the most part let her children manage themselves. Especially was this the case with Phil, who was her idol, and whom she rather encouraged in his idleness. There was money enough, she reasoned, for the colonel was one of those fortunate men in whose hands everything turns to gold, and there was no need for Phil to apply himself to business for several years at least. By and by when he came to marry, it might be well enough to have some profession, but at present she liked him near her ready to do her bidding, and no queen ever received more homage, or a mother more love, than did Mrs. Rossiter from her son. For her sake he would do anything, dare anything, or endure anything, even to the Fergusons, and that was saying a great deal, for they were not a family whose society he could enjoy. But his mother was a Ferguson, and he was bound to stand by them, and if the vulgarity of Mrs. Lydia, his Uncle Tom’s wife, or the silly affectation of his cousin Anna, ever made him shudder, he never gave a sign, but bore up bravely and proudly, secure in his own position as a Rossiter and a gentleman.

To his grandmother he was always attentive and kind. She was not his own blood relation, he reasoned, and she was old, and so he allowed her to pet and fondle him to such an extent as sometimes to fill him with disgust. Only once had he rebelled, and that when a boy of ten. “Granny’s baby,” she sometimes called him, and this sobriquet had been adopted by his schoolfellows, who made his life so great a burden that at last on one occasion, when she said to him as she patted his young, fresh face, “Yes, he is granny’s baby,” he revolted openly, and turning fiercely upon her, exclaimed:

“You just hush up, old woman, I’ve had enough of that. I ain’t your baby. I’m ten years old, and wear roundabouts, and I’ll be darned if I’ll be called baby any longer.”

She never called him so again, or kissed him either, until the night three years later when he was going away to school next day. And then she did not offer it herself. She said good-by to him at his father’s house, and went back to her own home, where she had lived alone since her husband’s death, and which seemed lonelier to her than ever, because on the morrow Phil would be gone. Phil was her idol, her pride, and his daily visits had made much of the sunshine of her life, and as she undressed herself for bed, and then went to wind the tall clock in the kitchen corner, the tears rolled down her face and dropped upon the floor. She was a little deaf, and standing with her back to the street door she neither saw nor heard anything until she felt a pair of arms close tightly around her neck, and Phil’s lips were pressed against hers.

“For the dear Lord’s sake how you scart me. What on airth brought you here!” she exclaimed, turning toward him with her nightcap border flying back, and her tallow candle in her hand.

Phil was half crying, too, as he replied:

“I could not go away without kissing you once more, and having you kiss me. You haven’t done so since that time I got so plaguy mad and called you names. I’ve cried about it fifty times, I’ll bet. I want you to forgive it, and kiss me, too. I’m awful sorry granny.”

The pet name for her in his babyhood, and which he had long since discarded, dropped from his lips naturally now, and putting down her candle the old lady took him in her arms and nearly strangled him as she sobbed:

“Forgive you, Phil? Of course I will, with all my heart, and kiss you, too. Any woman, young or old, would like to kiss a mouth like yours.”

We do not believe our readers will like Philip Rossiter the less for this little incident, or because even in his young manhood he had a mouth which any woman, young or old, might like to kiss. A handsome mouth it was, with full red lips which always seemed just ready to break into a merry, saucy laugh, but which you felt intuitively had never been polluted by an oath, or vulgar word, or low insinuation against any one. In thought, and word, and deed, he was as pure as any girl, and held all women in the utmost respect, because his mother was a woman.

At the time our story opens Phil was twenty-five years old, though from the delicacy of his complexion he looked younger, and might easily have passed for twenty-one. Tall, willowy, and graceful in figure, he was, like all the Ferguson race, blue-eyed and fair, with a profusion of soft brown hair, which curled just enough to save it from stiffness. People called him handsome, with his frank, open, boyish face and winning smile but he hated himself for it, as a handsome man was an abomination, he thought, and he had times of hating himself generally, because of that natural distaste to application of any kind, which kept him from being what he felt sure he was capable of being if he could but rouse himself to action. Had he been a woman, he would have made a capital dressmaker, for he knew all the details of a lady’s dress, from the arrangement of her hair to the fit of her boot, and could detect at a glance any incongruity in color, and style, and make-up. To his sisters he was invaluable as a critic, and no article which he condemned was ever worn again. It was strange, considering how unlike to each other they were, that Phil and Mr. Beresford should be such friends, but each understood perfectly the peculiarities of the other, and each sought the other’s society continually. With Mr. Beresford the fact that Phil was a Rossiter covered a multitude of sins, while more democratic Phil cared but little who Mr. Beresford’s family were, but liked the lawyer for himself, and spent a great deal of time in his office, where he once actually begun the study of law, but gave it up as soon as a party of his college friends asked him to join an excursion to the Adirondacks, and he never resumed it again.

CHAPTER IV.
THE INVESTIGATION.

“Well, this is a jolly place for the kind of girl I fancy Miss Reinette to be,” Phil said, as he strolled through the grounds, putting aside with his cane the weeds, and shrubs, and creeping vines, which choked not only the flower-beds, but even the walks themselves.

Everywhere were marks of ruin and decay, and the house seemed worse than all the rest, it was so damp and gloomy, with doors off their hinges, floors half rotted away, and the glass gone from most of the lower windows.

“Seems like some old haunted castle, and I actually feel my flesh creep, don’t you?” Phil said to his companion, as they went through room after room below, and then ascended the broad staircase to the floor above.

“Suppose we first take the room intended for Miss Reinette?” Mr. Beresford suggested, and they bent their steps at once toward the large chamber with the bay-window overlooking the town and the country for miles and miles away.

As they stepped across the threshold both men involuntarily took off the hats they had worn during their investigation below. Perhaps neither of them was conscious of the act, or that it was a tribute of respect to the unknown Reinette, who was in the thoughts of both as they stood in the great silent, gloomy room, from which the light was excluded by the heavy shutters which had withstood the ravages of time. This had evidently been the guest chamber during the life of Mrs. Hetherton, and the furniture was of solid mahogany and of the most massive kind, while the faded hangings around the high-post bed were of the heaviest silken damask. But the atmosphere was close and stifling, and Mr. Beresford drew back a step or two while Phil pressed on until he ran against the sharp corner of the bureau and uttered a little cry of pain.

“For Heaven’s sake come out of this,” Mr. Beresford exclaimed. “Let’s give the whole thing up, and let Mr. Hetherton fix his own old rookery. We can never make it decent.”

“Just hold on a minute,” said Phil, making his way to a window, “wait till I let in a little air and light. There,” he continued, as he opened window after window and pushed back the heavy shutters, one of which dropped from the hinges to the ground. “There, that is better, and does not smell so like an old cheese cupboard, and look, Beresford, just see what a magnificent view. Ten villages, as I live, and almost as many ponds, and the river, and the hills, with old Wachusett in the distance.”

It was indeed a lovely landscape spread out before them, and Phil, who had an artist’s eye for the beautiful, enjoyed it to the full, and declared it as fine as anything he had seen in Switzerland, where he went once with his father just before he entered college. Mr. Beresford was, however, too much absorbed in the duties devolving upon him to care for views, and Phil himself soon came back to the room and examined it minutely, from the carpet, molding on the floor, to the rotten hangings on the bed, which he began at last to pull down, thereby raising a cloud of dust, from which Mr. Beresford beat a hasty retreat.

“I tell you what,” he said, “it’s of no kind of use. I shall wash my hands of the entire job, and let Miss Reinette arrange her own room.”

“Nonsense! you won’t do any such thing,” said Phil. “It’s not so very terrible, though I must confess it’s a sweet-looking boudoir for a French lady to come to, but it can be fixed easy enough. I’ll help. I can see the end from the beginning. First, we’ll have two or three strong women. I know where they are. I’ll get ’em. Then we’ll pitch every identical old dud out of the window and make a good bonfire—that falls naturally to the boys. Then we, or rather, the women, will go at the room, hammer and tongs, with soap, and sand, and water, and burnt feathers, if necessary. Then we’ll get a glazier and have new window-lights put in, and a painter with paint-pot and brush, and a paperer to cover the walls with—let me see, what shade will suit her complexion, I wonder. Is she skim-milky, with tow hair, like the Fergusons generally, or is she dark, like the Hethertons, do you suppose?”

“I’m sure I don’t know or care whether she is like a Dutch doll or black as a nigger. I only wish she would stay in France, where she belongs,” growled Mr. Beresford, very hot and very sweaty, and a good deal soiled with the dust from the bed-curtains which Phil had shaken so vigorously.

“Take it cool, old fellow,” returned Phil. “You’ll be head and ears in love, and go down on your knees to her in less than a month.”

“She’ll be the first woman I ever went on my knees to,” said Mr. Beresford, while Phil continued:

“Reinette is light, of course; there never was a Ferguson yet who had not a complexion like a cheese, so we will have the paper a soft, creamy tint, of some intricate pattern, which she can study at her leisure, mornings when she is awake and does not wish to get up. That settles the paper, and now for the furniture—something light—oak, of course, and real oak, no sham for the queen. Mosquito net—coarse, white lace, trimmed with blue, for blondes and blue always go together. So, we’ll loop the muslin window curtains back with blue, and have some blue and white what do you call ’em, Beresford—those square things the girls are always making for backs of chairs, and bureaus, and cushions; you know what I mean?”

“No I don’t. I’m not a fool to know all the paraphernalia of a girl’s bed-chamber,” said Mr. Beresford, while Phil replied, with imperturbable good nature:

“Neither am I a fool because I can no more enter a room without knowing every article and color in it, and whether they harmonize or not, than you can help hearing of a projected law-suit without wondering if you shall have a hand in it; chacun à son goût, my good fellow. You see I am beginning to air my French, as I dare say this little French queen speaks atrocious English. Do you understand French, Beresford?”

“Scarcely a word, and I am glad I do not. English is good enough for me,” said Mr. Beresford, thinking to himself, however, that he would privately get out his grammar and French reader, and brush up his knowledge of the language, for if the foreigner, in whom he was beginning to feel a great deal of interest, really could not speak English readily, it would never do to give so much advantage to handsome, winning Phil, who startled him with the exclamation:

“I’ve got it! Tidies!—that’s what I mean. Blue and white tidies on the bureau, with little fancy scent-bottles standing round—new-mown hay jockey-club, eau-decologne, the very best that Mrs. Maria Ferina Regina can make; and soap! By Jove! she shall have the very last cake of the box I got in Vienna nine years ago; I keep it in the drawer with my shirts, and collars, and things, for perfumery; but I’ve got to give it up now. Not but Miss Reinette will bring out a cart load, but I wish her to know that we Americans have foreign soap sometimes, as well as she. Then, there’s powder; I must get sister Ethel to give me some of Pinaud’s.”

“Powder! What do you mean?” Mr. Beresford asked, in unfeigned surprise; and Philip replied:

“Now, Beresford, are you putting on, or what? Is it possible you have lived to be forty years old——”

“Only thirty-five,” interrupted Mr. Beresford, and Phil continued:

“Well, thirty-five, then. Have you lived to be thirty-five, and don’t know that every grand lady has a little powder-pot and puff-ball on her dressing bureau, just to touch her skin and make it feel better when she’s moist. Some of it costs as high as three dollars a package—that’s the kind Reinette must have. You ought to have some, too. It would improve that spot where the dust of the Hethertons has settled under your nose. There—don’t rub it with your hands; you make it worse than ever. We must hunt round for some water to wash your face before we go back to town. But let’s furnish this room with matting, which we quite forgot, and a willow chair in the bay-window, and a work-table, and another chair close by, with the cat and kittens. That will make the picture complete, and if she is not satisfied, why, then she’s hard to suit. I’ll make this room my special charge; you needn’t bother about it at all. I was going right down to the Vineyard, but shall wait to greet my cousin. And now, come on, and let’s investigate the rest of the old hut, while there is daylight to do it in.”

Mr. Beresford was not at all loth to leave the close room which smelled so musty and damp, but which really seemed in a better state of preservation than other parts of the house. Everything had gone to decay, and but for Phil he would have been utterly discouraged, and abandoned all attempts to restore the place to anything like a habitable condition. Phil was all enthusiasm, and knew exactly what ought to be done, and in his zeal offered to see to nearly everything, provided his friend did not limit him as to means. This Mr. Beresford promised not to do. Money should be forthcoming even if a hundred workmen were employed, as Phil seemed to think there must be, the time was so short, and they would like to have things decent at least for Miss Reinette, of whom they talked and speculated as they rode back to town. Was she pretty, they wondered, and the decision was, that as all young girls have a certain amount of prettiness, she probably was not an exception; yes, she was pretty, unquestionably, and Frenchy, and spoiled, and a blonde, Phil said, for no one with a drop of Ferguson blood in his veins was ever anything but that, and the young man spoke impatiently, for he was thinking of his own lilies and roses, and fair hair which he affected to hate.

“Of course she is petite,” Mr. Beresford said, but Phil did not agree with him.

He was himself six feet; his mother was tall, his cousin Anna was tall. All the Fergusons were tall, and the young men bet a soft hat on the subject of Reinette’s height. They were getting very much interested in the young lady, nor was their interest at all diminished when, as they reached the village, they called at the post-office and found a letter from her, which, though sent by the same steamer with her father’s had not reached Merrivale until that evening. The handwriting was very small, but very plain and pretty; the letter was very short and ran as follows:

“Hotel Meurice, Paris, June ——.

“Mr. Arthur Beresford.—Dear Sir: I have just discovered that papa has told you among other things to have a little saddle pony in readiness for me. Now I will not have a pony. I detest a little horse as much as I do a little woman, and I must have a great tall horse, who will carry me grandly and high. The biggest and grandest you can find.

“Truly, Reinette Hetherton.”

It almost seemed to the young men that they held the unknown Reinette by the hand, so near did this letter bring her to them, and such insight into her character did it give them.

“She has a mind of her own and means to exercise it,” said Mr. Beresford, while Phil, intent upon the soft hat, said:

“You will lose your bet, old fellow. Nobody but an Amazon would insist upon a great tall horse. It is just as I told you. She is five feet eleven at least. I want a nice hat, and if you don’t object, I’ll pick it out myself, and send you the bill.”

“I was just thinking of doing the same by you, for only a wee little creature would want a tall horse to carry her grandly and high,” said Mr. Beresford, still studying the gilt-edged sheet of note paper, where there lingered a faint delicate perfume which miles of travel by land and sea had not quite destroyed.

“Ah bien, nous verrons,” said Phil: then, bidding good-night to his friend, he walked away humming softly an old French song, of which Mr. Beresford caught the words, “Ma petite reine.”

“Confound the boy,” he said to himself. “He’s better up in French than I am, and that will never do.”

Arrived at his rooms, Arthur Beresford’s first act after putting Reinette’s letter carefully away, was to hunt up his long-neglected Ollendorf, over which he pondered for two hours or more, with only this result, that his head was full of all sorts of useless and nonsensical phrases, and that even in his dreams he kept repeating over and over again, “Avez vous mon chapeau? Oui, monsieur, je l’ai.”

CHAPTER V.
PHIL INTERVIEWS HIS GRANDMOTHER.

After leaving Mr. Beresford Phil concluded, before going home, to call on his grandmother and ask if she had ever heard of a granddaughter in France. The house of grandma Ferguson, as she was now universally called, was the same low, old-fashioned brown building under the poplar trees where she had sold gingerbread and beer in the days when Paul Rossiter and Fred Hetherton came wooing her two daughters, Mary and Margaret. In her youth grandma Ferguson had been a tall, slender, well-formed girl, with a face which always won a second glance from every one who saw it. In fact, it was her pretty face which attracted honest John Ferguson when he was looking for some one to be a mother to his little girl. Margaret Martin was her real name, but everybody called her Peggy, and everybody liked her, she was so thoroughly kind-hearted and good-natured, and ready to sacrifice herself in every and any cause. But her family was against her. Her father was coarse and low, and a drunkard, and her brothers were coarser and lower still, and the most notorious fighters in town, while her mother was a shiftless, gossipy, jealous woman, who would rather receive charity at any time than work, and who always grumbled at the charity when given. But against Peggy’s reputation not a whisper had ever been breathed. She was loud-talking, boisterous, and ignorant, and a Martin but perfectly honest, straightforward, and trusty, and from the day John Ferguson, the thrifty stonemason took her to his home to look after his house and child her fortune was made, for in less than six months she became his wife. As Mrs. John Ferguson she was somewhat different from Peggy Martin, and tried, not without success, to lower her voice and soften her manners; but her frightful grammar remained unchanged, and her slang was noted for its originality and force. But she was a good mother, and wife, and neighbor, and after her father and mother died, and her fighting brothers emigrated to California, she shook the Martin dust from her skirts and mounted several rounds higher on the ladder of respectability. But she did not get into society until some years after the Rossiters were established in the great house on the Knoll. Her faithful John was under the sod, and the beer sign gone from the window of the low brown house where she lived in comfort and ease, with a colored servant Axie, who was very serviceable to her indulgent mistress, making her bread, and pies, and caps, and frequently correcting her grammar, for Axie knew more of books than Mrs. Peggy.

To Mrs. Rossiter Grandma Ferguson was a care and sometimes a trouble: to the young ladies, Ethel and Grace, she was an annoyance and a mortification, both from her manners and her showy style of dress, while to Phil, who did not care in the least how she talked or how she dressed, she was a source of amusement, and he frequently spent hours in her neat, quiet sitting-room, or out on the shaded back porch where he found her on the evening of his return from Hetherton Place. With increasing years Grandma Ferguson had lost the slight, willowy figure of her girlhood, and had reached a size when she refused to be weighed. So saucy Phil set her down at two hundred and fifty, and laughed at her form, which he said he could not encircle with both his long arms. All delicacy of feature and complexion had departed, and with her round red face and three chins she might well have passed for some fat old English or German dowager, especially when attired in her royal purple moire antique, which she always called her morey with a long heavy gold chain around her neck, and her best lace cap with mountains of pink bows upon it. Mrs. Ferguson was fond of dress, and as purple and pink were her favorite colors, she sometimes presented a rather grotesque appearance. But on the night when Phil sought her, she had laid aside all superfluities and her silvery hair shone smooth and glossy in the soft moonlight, while her plain calico wrapper looked cool and comfortable and partially concealed her rotund form.

“For the massy’s sake,” she said, as Phil’s tall figure bent under the door-way and came swiftly to her side, “what brung you here so late, and why hain’t you come afore? I was round to your Aunt Lyddy Ann’s this afternoon, and she told me you was to home, so I made a strawb’ry short-cake for tea, hopin’ you’d happen in. There’s a piece cold in the buttry now if you want it.”

Phil declined the short-cake, and sitting down by his grandmother told her of Mr. Hetherton’s letter, and asked if she had ever heard of a daughter.

Mrs. Ferguson was a good deal startled and surprised, or, as she expressed it afterward to Reinette herself, “she was that beat that a feller might have knocked her down with a straw.” That there was somewhere in the world a child of her beautiful young daughter who died so far away, was a great shock to her, and, for an instant, she stared blankly at Phil, as if not quite comprehending him. Then she began:

“Fred Hetherton coming back after so many years, and bringin’ a darter with him! My Maggie’s girl! That’s very strange, and makes me think of what your gran’ther said afore he died. Seems as if he had second sight or somethin’, which ain’t to be wondered at when you remember that he was born with a vail over his face, and could allus tell things. He said that, in some way, Maggie would come back to me, and she is comin’: but it’s queer I never hearn of a baby when Maggie died. Still, it’s like that sneak of a Fred Hetherton to keep it from us. We wasn’t good enough to know there was a child. But, thank the Lord, there’s as much Ferguson in her as Hetherton, and he can’t help that. I never could abide him, even when he came skulkin’ after Maggie, and whistlin’ for her to come out. At fust I was afraid he didn’t mean fair with her, and I told him if he harmed a hair of her head I’d shoot him as I would a dog. There’s fight, you know, in the Martins!”

And the old lady’s eyes blazed with all the fire of her two scape-grace brothers, once the prize-fighters of the country.

“What were the particulars of the marriage and her death? I’ve heard, of course, but did not pay much attention, as I knew nothing of Reinette,” said Phil; and Mrs. Ferguson replied:

“’Twas a runaway match, for old Mr. Hetherton rode such a high hoss that Fred was most afraid of his life, and so they run away—the more fools they—and he took her to Europe, and that’s the last I ever seen of her, or hearn of her either, as you may say. It’s true she writ sometimes, but her letters was short, and not satisfyin’ at all—seemed as if she was afraid to tell us she was lonesome for us at home, or wanted to see us. She had a new blue silk gown, and cassimere shawl, and string of pearls, and a waitin’-maid, and she said a good deal about them, but nothin’ of Fred, after a spell, whether he was kind or not. He never writ, nor took no more notice of us than if we was dogs, till there came a letter from him sayin’ she had died suddenly at Rome and was buried in the Protestant grave-yard. He was in Switzerland then, I believe, skylarkin’ round, for he was always a great rambler, and we didn’t know jestly where to direct letters; but your mother writ and writ to the old place in Paris, and never got no answer, and at last she gin it up. When old man Hetherton died, Fred had to write about business, but never a word to us.”

“It’s very singular he did not tell you about the little girl,” suggested Phil; and Mrs. Ferguson replied:

“No ’tain’t. He wouldn’t of let us know if there had been a hundred babies. He’d be more likely to keep whist, for fear we’d lay some claim to her, and we as good as he any day, if he wasn’t quite so rich. Why, there never was a likelier gal than your mother, even when she closed boots for a livin’; and there ain’t a grander lady now in the land than she is.”

“I don’t know about the grand,” said Phil, “but I know there is not a better woman in the world than my mother, or a handsomer either, when she’s dressed in her velvet, and laces, and diamonds. I wish you could see her once.”

“I wish to gracious I could,” returned Mrs. Ferguson. “Why don’t she never put on her best clothes here and let us see ’em once, and not allus wear them plain black silks, and browns, and grays?”

“Merrivale is hardly the place for velvets and diamonds,” said Phil. “There is seldom any occasion for them, and mother does not think it good taste to make a display.”

“No, I s’pose not,” grandma replied; “but mabby Rennet will take me with her to Washington, or Saratoga, or the sea-side, and then I can see it all. And they needn’t be ashamed of me nuther. There’s my purple morey, and upon a pinch I can have another new silk. Rennet will find her granny has clothes!”

Phil did not usually wince at anything his grandmother said, but now a cold sweat broke out a over him as he thought of her at the sea-side arrayed in her purple morey, which made her look fatter and coarser than ever, with the bright pink ribbons or blue feather in her cap. What would Reinette say to such a figure, and what would Reinette think of her any way? He was accustomed to her; he knew all the good there was in her; but Reinette, with her French ideas, was different, and he found himself seeing with Reinette’s eyes and hearing with Reinette’s ears, and blushing with shame for the good old lady, who went on talking about her new granddaughter, whom she sometimes called Rennet, and sometimes Runnet, but never by her right name.

At last Phil could bear it no longer, and said:

“Grandma, isn’t it just as easy to say Reinette as Rennet? Do you know what a rennet is?”

“No, what is it?” she asked, and he replied:

“It is what farmers put in milk to make cheese curd.”

“Bless the boy!” and Mrs. Ferguson laughed till the tears rolled down her fat cheeks. “Bless the boy, that’s runnet; as if I didn’t know runnet—I, that lived with a farmer three summers, and made cheese every day.”

“No matter; it is spelled rennet, and I do not believe my cousin would care to be called that. We want to please her, you know,” said Phil, and his grandmother replied:

“To be sure we do, and we must make quite a time when she fust lands here. Your mother and the gals will come home, of course.”

“Perhaps so. I shall write them about it,” said Phil, and his grandmother continued: “We must get up a percession to meet her, in your father’s carriage, and a hired hack, and our best clothes. I’ll see Lyddy Ann to-morrow about fixin’ me somethin’ to wear. Now I think on’t, Lyddy Ann talks of sellin’ out her business—so she told me this afternoon. Did you know it?”

“I knew some one had written her on the subject, but not that she had decided to sell,” was Phil’s reply, and his grandmother said:

“She hain’t, exactly; but Anny’s puttin’ her up to it, thinkin’ she’ll be thought more on if her mother is not a dressmaker, and that sign is out of the winder. Silly critter! She gets that from the Rices, and they was nothin’ extra—I know ’em root and branch. I tell you I’m as much thought on as if I hadn’t sold gingerbread and beer; but Anny says I’m only noticed on account of the Rossiters—that folks dassent slight Miss Rossiter’s mother, and mabby that’s so.”

How dreadful her conversation was to Phil, who wondered if she had always talked in this way, and if nothing could be done to tone her down a little before Reinette came. Nothing, he finally decided, and then proceeded to tell her what changes Mr. Beresford contemplated making at Hetherton Place, and what Mr. Hetherton had written of his daughter’s tastes with reference to cats, and asked if she could help him there.

“That’s the Martin blood in her,” said Mrs. Ferguson. “We are desput fond of cats, but I can’t let her have old Blue, who has lived with me this ten years, but there’s Speckle, with three as lovely Malta kittens as you ever see. They torment me most to death killin’ chickens and tearing up the flower-beds. Rennet can have them and welcome.”

It was Rennet again, and Phil let it pass, feeling that to change an old lady like his grandmother was as impossible as to change the order of the seasons, and hoping his cousin would have sense enough to overlook the grammar, and the slang, and prize her for the genuine good there was in her. As it was now getting very late Phil at last said good-night and walked toward home thinking constantly of Reinette, wondering how he should like her, and wondering more how she would like him.

CHAPTER VI.
GETTING READY FOR REINETTE.

Within two days it was known all over Merrivale that Frederick Hetherton was coming home and was to bring with him a daughter of whose existence no one in town had ever heard, and within three days thirty workmen were busy at Hetherton Place trying to restore the house and grounds to something like their former appearance. Nominally Mr. Beresford was the superintendent, but Phil was really the head, the one who thought of everything and saw to everything, and to whom every one finally went for advice. He had written to his mother and sisters telling them of the expected arrival, and asking if they would not come home for a few days to receive Reinette, who would naturally feel more at her ease with them than with the Fergusons.

To this letter his sister Ethel replied, expressing her astonishment that there should be a cousin of whom she had never heard, and saying they should be very glad to be in Merrivale to receive her, but that her mother was suffering from a sudden and acute attack of muscular rheumatism, and required the constant care both of herself and her sister Grace, so it would be impossible for them to leave her.

“Mother is very anxious to have father here; because she thinks he can lift her better than any one else,” Ethel wrote in conclusion, “but she says perhaps he ought to stay and welcome Miss Hetherton; he must do as he thinks best.”

This letter Phil showed to his father, of course, and as Col. Rossiter was not particularly interested, either in Frederick Hetherton or his daughter, and as it was very obnoxious to have Grandma Ferguson coming to him every day as she did to discuss the percession which ought to go up to meet the strangers, he started at once for the sea-side, and as Mr. Beresford was confined to the house with a severe influenza and sore throat Phil was left to stem the tide alone. But he was equal the emergency and enjoyed it immensely. Every day was spent at Hetherton Place, except on the occasions when he made journeys to Springfield or Worcester in quest of articles which could not be found in Merrivale. It was astonishing to Mr. Beresford, to whom daily reports were made, how much Phil knew about the furnishing of a house. Nothing was forgotten from a box of starch and pepper up to blankets, and spreads, and easy-chairs. Phil seemed to be everywhere at the same time, and by his own enthusiasm spurred on the men to do double the work they would otherwise have done. He superintended everything in the grounds, in the garden, and in the house, where he frequently worked with his own hands. He cut the paper and the border for Reinette’s bed-chamber, put down the matting himself, looped the muslin curtains with knots of blue ribbon, and from his own room at the Knoll brought a few choice pictures to hang upon the walls. He asked no advice of any one, and was deaf to all the hints his cousin Anna gave him with regard to what she thought was proper in the furnishing of a house. But when toward the last she insisted upon going to Hetherton Place, he consented and took her himself in his light open buggy.

Anna was never happier than when seen by the villagers in company with Phil, or with any of the Rossiters of whose relationship to herself she was very proud, parading it always before strangers when she thought there was any likelihood of its working good for herself. Like her grandmother she thought a great deal of dress, and on this occasion she was very dashingly arrayed with streamers on her hat nearly a yard long, her dress tied back so tight that she could scarcely walk, her fan swinging from her side, a black lace scarf which came almost to her feet, and a white silk parasol which her mother had bought in Boston at an enormous price. Anna was very much in love with her parasol, and very angry with Phil for telling her it was more suitable for the city than for the country. She liked city things, she said, and if the Merrivale people were so far behind the times as not to tolerate a white silk parasol she meant to educate them. So she flaunted her parasol on all occasions and held it airily over her head as she rode to Hetherton Place with Phil, and was very soft, and gentle and talkative, and told him of a schoolmate of hers who had just been married, and made a splendid match, only some might object to it, as the parties were own cousins, not half, but own? For her part she saw nothing out of the way if they were suited. Did Phil think it wrong for cousins to marry each other?

Yes, Phil thought it decidedly wicked, and he urged his pony into a pace which drowned the rest of Miss Anna’s remarks on the subject of cousins marrying.

Arrived at Hetherton Place, the young lady criticised things generally with an unsparing tongue. Every thing was so simple and plain, especially in Reinette’s room. Of course it was pleasant, and neat, and cool, and airy, but why did Phil get matting for the floor, and that light, cheap-looking furniture. There was a lovely pattern of Brussels carpeting at Enfair’s for a dollar fifty a yard and a high black walnut bedstead and dressing bureau at Trumbull’s; and why didn’t he get a wardrobe with a looking-glass door, so Reinette could see the bottom of her dresses. Then she inspected the pictures, and asked where he found those dark-looking photographs, and that woman in the clouds with her eyes rolled up, and so many children around her. Why didn’t he get those lovely pictures, “Wide Awake” and “Fast Asleep?” They would brighten up the room so much!

Phil bit his lips, but maintained a very grave face while he explained to the young lady that what she called photographs were fine steel engravings, which he found in Frankfort, one a landscape after Claude Lorraine, and the other a moonlight scene on the Rhine, near Bingen, with the Mouse Tower and Ehrenfels in sight, while the woman with her eyes rolled up was an oil copy of Murillo’s great picture, the gem of the Louvre.

Anna Ferguson had been to boarding-school two or three quarters, and had botanies, and physiologies, and algebras laid away on the book-shelf at home; but for all that she was a very ignorant young lady, and guiltless of any knowledge of the Louvre or Murillo and Claude Lorraine. But she liked to appear learned, and had a way of pretending to know many things which she did not know; and now she hastened to cover her mistake by pretending to examine the pictures more closely, and saying, “Oh, yes, I see; lovely, aren’t they? and so well done! Why, Mr. Beresford, you here!” and she turned suddenly toward the door, which Arthur Beresford was just entering.

He was much better, and had ridden over to Hetherton Place with a friend who was going a few miles farther, and, hearing voices up stairs, had come at once to Reinette’s room, where he found Phil and Anna.

Just then a workman called Phil away, and Mr. Beresford was left alone with Anna, who was even better pleased to be with him than with her cousin, and who assumed her prettiest, most coquettish manners in order to attract the grave lawyer, whose cue she at once followed, praising the arrangement of the room generally, and finally calling his attention to the pictures, one of which, she said, was drawn by Mr. Lorraine, and the other by—she could not quite remember whom, but—the oil painting was the portrait of Murillo, whose hands and hair she thought so lovely. That came from Loo, in France, but the engravings were from somewhere in Kentucky—Frankfort, she believed.

Mr. Beresford was disgusted, as he always was with Anna, but did not try to enlighten her, and, as Phil soon joined them, they went over the rest of the house together. Only the upper and lower halls, the dining-room, the library, Mr. Hetherton’s and Reinette’s bedchambers, the kitchen and servants’ rooms had been renovated, and these were all in comfortable living order, with new matting on the floors, fresh paint and whitewash everywhere, and furniture enough to make it seem homelike and cozy. But it was in the grounds that the most wonderful change had been wrought, and Mr. Beresford could scarcely credit the evidence of his eyes when he saw what had been done. Weeds and obnoxious plants dug up by the roots; gravel walks cleaned and raked; quantities of fresh green sod where the grass had been almost dead; masses of potted flowers here and there upon the lawn and in the flower-garden; while the conservatory, which opened from the dining-room, was partly filled with rare exotics which Phil had ordered from Springfield.

In its palmy days Hetherton had been one of the finest places in the country, and, with some of its beauty restored, it looked very pleasant and inviting that summer afternoon; and Anna felt a pang of envy of her more fortunate cousin, for whom all these preparations were made, and of whom Phil talked so much. Anna was beginning to be jealous of Reinette, and, as she rode home with Phil, she asked him if he supposed he would make as much fuss for her if she were coming to Merrivale.

“Why, yes,” he answered her, “under the same circumstances I should, of course.”

“Yes, that’s just the point,” she retorted. “Under the same circumstances, which means if I were rich like her, and belonged to the Hethertons. I tell you what, Phil, ‘Money makes the mare go,’ and though this girl is not one whit better than I am, whose mother is a dressmaker and whose father keeps a one-horse grocery, you and that stuck-up Beresford, whom I hate because he is stuck-up, would run your legs off for her, when you, or at least he, would hardly notice me. You have to, because you are my cousin, but if you were not you would be just as bad as Beresford. Wouldn’t you now?”

Phil did not care to argue with his cousin, whose jealous nature he understood perfectly, so he merely laughed at her fancies and tried to divert her mind by asking her where she thought he could find a blue silk spread to lay on the foot of the bed in Reinette’s chamber.

Anna did not know, but promised to make it her business to inquire, and also to see that some pots of ivies were sent to Hetherton Place before the guests arrived.

The ruse had succeeded, and Miss Anna, who felt that she was deferred to, was in a much better frame of mind when she was at last set down at her mother’s door. She found her grandmother in the sitting-room, and at once recounted to her all she had seen at Hetherton Place, and how she was to send over some ivies and hunt up a blue silk quilt for Reinette’s bed.

“A blue silk bed-quilt this swelterin’ weather? What under the sun does she want of that?” grandma asked, and Anna explained that Cousin Ethel had a pink silk quilt because her room was pink, and Cousin Grace had blue because her room was blue. It was a fashion, that was all.

“Fiddlesticks on the fashion!” her grandmother replied. “Better save the money for something else. If Rennet must have an extra comforter, there’s that patch-work quilt, herrin’-bone pattern, which her mother pieced when she was ten years old. It took the prize at the cattle show, and I’ve kep’ it ever sense as a sort of memoir. If Rennet is any kind of a girl she’ll think a sight on’t because it was her mother’s work. I shall send it over with the cat and kittens.”

“Cat and kittens! What do you mean?” Anna asked, in unfeigned surprise, and her grandmother explained that Rennet’s father had written she was very fond of cats, and Phil wanted some for her, and she was going to give her Speckle and the Maltas.

Anna, who was above such weaknesses as a love for cats, sniffed contemptuously, and thought her cousin must be a very silly, childish person; “but then grandma,” she added, “you may as well call her by her right name, which isn’t Rennet, but Reinette, with the accent on the last syllable.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” said grandma. “Phil told me not to call her Rennet, but what’s the difference? I mean to do my duty by her, and show Fred Hetherton that I know what is what. We must all go up in percession to meet ’em, and, then, go with ’em to the house, and your mother is goin’ to fix me a new cap in case we stay to tea, and if it ain’t too hot I shall wear my morey, and if it is, I guess I’ll wear that pinkish sprigged muslin with my lammy shawl, and you, Anny, must wear your best clothes, for we don’t want ’em to think we are back-woodsy.”

There was no danger of Anna’s wearing anything but her best clothes, and for the next three days she busied herself with thinking what was most becoming to her, deciding at last upon white muslin and a blue sash, with her long lace scarf fastened with a blush-rose, her white chip hat faced with blue and turned up on one side, with a cream-colored feather drooping down the back. This she thought would be altogether au fait, and sure to impress Reinette with the fact that she was somebody.

Anna was getting quite interested in her new cousin, with whom she meant to stand well; and though she said the contrary, she was really glad that Ethel and Grace Rossiter were both absent, thus leaving her to represent alone the young-ladyhood of the family.

Such was the state of affairs on the morning when the paper announced that the Russia had reached New York the previous afternoon—a piece of news which, though expected, threw Mr. Beresford, and Phil, and the Fergusons into a state of great excitement.

Fortunately, however, everything at Hetherton Place was in readiness for the strangers. The rooms were all in perfect order; a responsible and respectable woman in the person of a Mrs. Jerry, had been found for housekeeper, and with her daughter Sarah installed in the kitchen. Two beautiful horses, with a carriage to match, were standing in the stable, awaiting the approval of Miss Reinette; while in another stall a milk-white steed, tall and large, was pawing and champing, as if impatient for the coming of the mistress he was to carry so grandly and high. Chained in his kennel to keep him from running away to the home he had not yet forgotten, was a noble Newfoundland dog, which Phil had bought at a great price in West Merrivale, and whose name was King. Could Phil have had his way, he would have bought a litter of puppies, too, for the young lady; but Mr. Beresford interfered, insisting that one dog like King was enough to satisfy any reasonable woman. If Miss Hetherton wanted puppies, let her get them herself. So Phil gave them up, but brought over Speckle and the three Maltas, and these were tolerably well domesticated, and had taken very kindly to the stuffed easy-chair which stood in Reinette’s window. The blue silk quilt had been found in Worcester, and Grandma Ferguson had sent over the “herrin’-bone” which Margaret pieced when ten years old, and which had taken the prize at the “Cattle show.” This Mrs. Jerry had promised faithfully to put on Rennet’s bed, and to call the young lady’s attention to it as her mother’s handiwork.

And so all things were ready, and Grandma Ferguson’s sprigged muslin, and lammy shawl, and new lace cap were laid out upon the bed when Phil came with the news that the ship had arrived, and that in all probability, they should soon get a telegram from Mr. Hetherton himself.

This was early in the morning, and as the hours crept on, Mr. Beresford and Phil hovered about the telegraph office, until at last the message came flashing along the wires, and the operator wrote it down, and, with a white, scared face, handed it to Mr. Beresford, who, with a whiter face and a look of horror in his eyes, read the following:

“New York, July ——, 18—.

“To Mr. Arthur Beresford:

“Papa is dead. He died just before the ship touched the shore, and I am all alone with Pierre. But every body is so kind, and everything has been done, and we take the ten o’clock train for Merrivale, Pierre and I and poor dead papa. Please meet us at the station, and don’t take papa to his old home. I could not bear to have him there dead. I should see him always and hate the place forever; so bury him at once. Pierre says that will be better. I trust everything to you.

“Reinette Hetherton.”

CHAPTER VII.
ON THE SEA.

The Russia was steaming slowly up the harbor to her moorings on the Jersey side of the Hudson, and her upper deck was crowded with passengers, some straining their eyes to catch the first sight of familiar forms among the crowd waiting for them on shore, and others to whom every thing was strange, looking eagerly from side to side at the world so new to them. Standing apart from the rest, with her hands locked tightly together, her head thrown back, and a long blue vail twisted around her sailor hat, was a young girl with a figure so slight that at first you might have mistaken her for a child of fourteen, but when she turned more fully toward you, you would have seen that she was a girl of twenty summers or more, whose face you would look at once, and twice, and then comeback to study it again and wonder what there was in it to fascinate and charm you so. Beautiful in the strict sense of the word it was not, for if you dissected the features one by one there was much to find fault with. The forehead was low, the nose was short and inclined to an upward turn, as was the upper lip, and the complexion was dark, while the cheeks had lost something of their roundness during the passage, which, though made in summer, had not been altogether smooth and free from storm.

During the first three days Reinette had been very sick, and Pierre, her father’s attendant, had carried her on deck, and wrapped her in blankets and furs, and watched over and cared for her as if she had been a queen. Then, when the rain came dashing down and the great green waves broke over the lower deck, and she refused to return to the close cabin and said she liked to watch the ocean in a fury, because it made her think of herself in some of her moods, he staid by her and covered her with his own rubber cloak and held an umbrella over her head until the wind took it from him and turning it wrong side out, carried it far out to sea, where it rode like a feather on the waves, while Reinette laughed merrily to see it dance up and down until it was lost to sight. Others than Pierre were interested in and kind to the little French girl, whose father had kept his berth from the time he came on board at Liverpool.

It was whispered about that he was a millionaire, and that Reinette was his only child, and heiress of his vast fortune; and as such things go for a great deal on shipboard as well as elsewhere, this of itself was sufficient to interest the passengers in Reinette, who, as soon as she was able, danced about the ship like the merry, lighthearted creature she was, now jabbering with Pierre in his native tongue, and sometimes holding fierce altercations with him, now watching the sailors at their work, and not unfrequently joining her own clear, bird-like voice in the songs they sung, and again amusing some fretful, restless child, whose tired mother blessed her for the respite, and thought her the sweetest type of girlhood she had ever seen. Everybody liked her, and, after a little, everybody called her beautiful, she was so bright and sparkling, with the rich, warm color in her cheeks, her pretty little mouth always breaking out in exclamations of surprise or bursts of laughter, her long eyelashes and heavy brows, her black, wavy hair, which in some lights had in it a tinge of golden brown, as if it had been often kissed by the warm suns of Southern France, and, more than all, her large, dark, brilliant eyes which flashed upon you so suddenly and so swiftly as almost to blind and bewilder you with their brightness. Taken as a whole, Reinette Hetherton was a girl, who, once seen, could never be forgotten; she was so sunny, and sweet, and willful, and piquant, and charming every way; and the passengers on the Russia, who were mostly middle-aged people, petted, and admired, and sympathized with her, too, when, with the trace of tears in her beautiful eyes, she came from her father’s bedside and reported him no better.

For months his health had been failing, and he had hoped the sea voyage would restore him somewhat; but he was growing steadily worse, though as yet there was no shadow of fear in Reinette’s heart; she was only sad and sorry for him, and staid with him whenever he would let her. Generally, however, he would send her away after a few passionate hugs and kisses, and inquiries as to how he was feeling. She must get all the sea air she could, he said, for he wanted her to be bright and fresh when he presented her to his friends in America.

“Not that I have many friends there,” he said, smiling a little bitterly. “It has been so many years, and so much has happened, since I left home, that I doubt if any remember or care for me; but they will forgive me, perhaps, for the sake of you, my daughter,” and he stroked fondly the long silken curls which Reinette wore bound at the back of her head, and looked lovingly into the eyes meeting his so tenderly.

Then he sent her away, and turning in his narrow berth, thought again, as he had thought many times, of all the sin and evil doing he had heaped up against himself and others since the day he last saw his native land. Many and terribly bitter were the thoughts crowding his brain and filling him with remorse, as he lay there day after day, and knew that with each turn of the noisy screw he was nearing the home where there was not a friend to welcome him.

“But once there,” he said to himself, “once back in the old place, I’ll begin life anew. I’ll make friends even of my enemies for the sake of my darling; oh, Queenie, my child, there is so much I would undo for you—for you—to whom the greatest wrong of all has been done, and you so unconscious of it. Would you kiss me as you do? Would you love me as you do, if you knew all the dark past as I know it? Oh, my child! my child!” and, covering his face with his hands, the sick man sobbed aloud.

“If I live to get there,” was now the burden of his thoughts; but could he live he asked himself, as, day by day, he felt he was growing weaker, and counted the rapid heart-beats and saw the streaks of blood upon the napkin his faithful Pierre held to his lips after a paroxysm of coughing.

The desire for life was stronger within him now than it had been in years; but the candle was burned out; there was only the snuff remaining, and when at last the scent of the land breeze was borne through his open window, and Reinette came rushing in to tell him they were entering the harbor, and she had seen America, he knew the hand of death was on him, and that the only shore he should ever reach would be the boundless shore of eternity, which was looming up so black before him. But he would let Reinette be happy as long as possible, and so he sent her from him, and then with a low moan, he cried:

“Pity me, oh, God! I have so much need to be forgiven.”

In his gayest, most reckless moods, with his skeptical companions round him jeering at all that was sacred and holy, he had said there was no God, that the Bible was only an old woman’s fable, but he had never quite believed it, and now, with death measuring his life by heart-beats, he knew there was a God and a hereafter by the stings of his own conscience, and the first prayer uttered in years fell from his white lips. Oh, how many and how great were the sins which came back to him as he thought of his wasted life, remembering his mother dead so long ago; his father, too, whose last words to him had been a curse; and the beautiful Margaret, whom for a short period he had loved with a love so impetuous that in a few short months it had burned itself out and left only poisonous ashes where the fierce passion had been. How gentle, and patient, and forgiving she was, and how basely he had requited her faithfulness and love.

“Oh, Margaret,” he whispered, “I am so sorry, and if I could undo the past I would.”

Then, as another phantom, darker, more terrible than all the others flitted before his mind, he shivered as with a chill, while the great drops of sweat came out upon his forehead, and the palms of his hands which he clasped so tightly together, were dripping with perspiration. And while he lay there alone suffering the torments of remorse he could hear the rapid movements of the sailors and the excited crowd on deck watching for the shore. And Reinette, he knew, was with them, looking eagerly upon the new world which recently he had tried to teach her to love as her future home.

“Home—America,” he murmured; “I must see it again!” and, regardless of consequences, he got out of his berth, and, tottering to his window, looked out upon the beautiful bay, and saw in the distance the city, which had grown so much since he last looked upon it.

But the exertion was too great for him, and, dizzy and faint, he crept back to his bed, where he lay unconscious for a moment; then rousing himself, and alarmed by the terrible feeling stealing over him so fast, he called aloud for Reinette.

The call was heard by Pierre, who was never far away, and who came at once, greatly alarmed by the pallor in his master’s face and the flecks of blood upon the lips and chin.

To go for Reinette was the work of an instant, and like a frightened deer, she bounded down the stairway to her father’s side, and in her impetuosity almost threw herself upon him. But he motioned her back, and whispered.

“Not so close; you take my breath away. Pierre,” he added faintly as his valet started for the physician, “don’t go for him; it’s too late now. I am dying; nothing can help me, and I must not be disturbed. I must be alone with Queenie. Stand outside till I call.”

The frightened Pierre obeyed, and then Reinette was alone with her dying father. She knew he was dying, but the awful suddenness stunned her so completely that she could only gaze at him in a stupefied kind of way, as his eyes were fixed so earnestly upon her.

“Little Queenie,” he said, using the pet name he always gave her, “kneel down beside me and hold my hands in yours while I tell you something I ought to have told you long ago.”

She obeyed, and, covering his cold hands with kisses, whispered:

“Yes, father, I am waiting.”

But if he heard, he did not answer at once; and when at last he spoke, it was with difficulty, and like one who labors for breath. His mind, too, seemed wandering, and he said:

“I can’t tell, but if it ever comes to you, promise you will forgive me. I have loved you so much, my darling oh, my darling, promise while I can hear you!”

“Yes, father, I promise,” Reinette replied, knowing nothing to what she pledged herself, thinking nothing except of the white face on the pillow, where the sign of death was written.

“Queenie, are you here?” the voice said again, and she replied, “Yes, father,” while he continued: “I meant to have told you when we reached New York, but cannot now, I am too weak. It is too late, forever too late. Oh Queenie—oh, Margaret, forgive!”

“Is it of mother you wish to tell me?” Reinette asked bending forward eagerly, and fixing her great dark eyes upon him.

“Your mother, child—your mother. Yes—no—don’t speak that name aloud. We’ve left her way over there, or I thought we had. That’s why I was going home—to get away from it, and—if——Queenie, where are you? I can’t see you, child. You are surely here? You are listening?”

“Yes, yes, father, I am here. I am listening,” and the girl’s rigid face and fixed, wide-open eyes showed how intently she was listening.

“Yes, child, that’s right; listen so close that nobody else can hear. We are all alone?”

“Yes, father, all alone; only Pierre is outside, and he understands English so little. What is it, father? What are you going to tell me?”

There was silence for a moment, while Mr. Hetherton regarded his daughter fixedly, and with an expression in his eyes which made her uneasy and half afraid of him.

“What is it?” he said, at last. “I don’t know; it comes and goes, as she did. Ah! now I have it: Queenie, remember how much I love you, and if you ever meet your mother, remember it was my fault, and do not blame her too much.”

“Oh, poor father! his mind is wandering,” Reinette thought; but she said to him, soothingly: “Mother is dead; she died in Rome when I was born.”

Again the eyes regarded her wistfully as the dying man replied:

“Yes, I know; but she’s here, or she was over there in the corner just now, laughing at my pain. Oh, Queenie! do the torments of the lost begin before they die? I’m sorry—oh, I am so sorry! It’s too late now—too late. I can’t think how it was, or tell you if I could.”

He was quiet a moment, and seemed to be himself again, as his hands caressed the shining hair of the head bowed down so near to him.

“Too late, Queenie. I ought to have told you before, but it’s my nature to put off; and now when they claim you in Merrivale, accept it; try to like everybody and be pleased with everything. America is very different from France. Trust Mr. Beresford; he is my friend. He comes of a good race. Tell him everything. Go to him for everything necessary, but don’t trouble any one when you can help yourself. Don’t cry before people; it bothers and distresses them. Be a woman; learn to care for yourself. Govern your temper; nobody will bear with it as I have. Be patient with Pierre—and—and—Queenie, child, where are you? It’s getting so dark. I can’t see you anywhere, nor feel you either. Have you left me, too? and Margaret is gone now.”

“No, no; I’m here!” Reinette cried, in an agony of fear; and her father continued:

“Remember, when it comes to you, as it may, that you promised to forgive.”

“Yes, father. I don’t know what you mean, but if I ever do, I’ll forgive everything—everything, and love you just the same, forever and ever,” Reinette said to him; and the cold, clammy hands upon her head pressed harder in token that he had heard. But that was the only response for a moment, when he said again, and this time in a whisper, with heavy, labored breath:

“One thing more comes to my mind. There will be letters for me—some on business, and possibly some others, and you must let no one see them if there is any thing in them the world ought not to know. Promise Queenie.”

“I promise,” Reinette said, frightened at the strange look in his face and his evident eagerness for her reply.

“God bless you, darling! Keep your promise and never try to find—”

He did not say what or whom, but lay perfectly quiet while overhead on deck the trampling of feet was more hurried and noisy, and the ship gave a little lurch as if hitting against something which resisted its force and set it to rocking again. The motion threw Reinette backward and when she gathered herself up and turned toward the white face upon the pillow, she uttered a wild cry in French:

“Oh Pierre, Pierre, come quickly, father is dead!” and tottering toward the door she fell heavily against the tall custom-house officer just entering the state-room.

He had come on board to do his duty; had seen the bustling little Frenchman speak hurriedly to the young girl on deck; had seen her dart away, and fancied she cast a frightened look at him. When others came to declare the contents of their trunks she had not been with them.

“Secreting her goods and chattels, no doubt,” he thought, and made his way to the state-room, where he stood appalled in the awful presence of death.

Reinette might have had the wealth of all Paris in her trunks and carried it safely off, for her boxes were not molested, and both passengers, ship’s crew, and officers vied with each other in their care for and attention to this young girl, whose father lay dead in his berth, and who was all alone in a foreign country. Understanding but little of the language, and terrified half out of his wits at the sight of death, Pierre was almost worse than useless, and could do nothing but crouch at his mistress’ feet, and holding her hands in his, gaze into her face in dumb despair, as if asking what they were to do next.

“Children, both of them. We must take it in hand ourselves,” the captain said to his mate, and he did take it in hand, and saw that Reinette was made comfortable at the Astor, and that the body was made ready for burial.

When asked if she had friends or relatives expecting her, Reinette replied:

“No, papa was all I had. There’s only Pierre now, and Mr. Beresford, papa’s agent. I am to trust him with everything.”

Later, when something was said to her of telegraphing to Mr. Beresford to come for her, she answered, promptly:

“No, that would make unnecessary trouble, and father said I was not to do that. Pierre and I can go alone. I have traveled a great deal, and when papa was sick in Germany and Pierre could not understand, I talked to the guards and the porters. I know what to do.”

And on the pale face there was a resolute, self-reliant look, which was in part born of this terrible shock and partly the habit of Reinette’s life.

“To-morrow morning I will telegraph,” she added. “You see us to the right train, and I can do the rest, I can find the way. I have been studying it up.”

And she showed him Appleton’s Railway Guide, to which she had fled as to a friend.

Since leaving the ship she had not shed a tear in the presence of any one, but the anguish in her dry bright eyes, and the drawn, set look about her mouth told how hard it was for her to force back the wild cry which was constantly forcing itself to her lips. Her father, to whom in life her slightest wish had been a law had said to her, “Don’t trouble people, nor cry if you can help it. Be a woman;” and now his wish was a law to her, which she would obey if she broke her heart in doing it. She did not seem at all like the airy, merry-hearted, laughing girl she had been on shipboard, but like a woman with a woman’s will and a woman’s capacity to act. That she could go to Merrivale alone she was perfectly sure, and she convinced the captain of it, and then with a voice which shook a little, she said:

“Mr. Beresford will meet me, of course, at the station, and some others, perhaps. I don’t quite know the ways of this country. Will they bury him at once do you think, or take him somewhere first?”

The captain understood her meaning and replied by asking if she had friends—relatives—in Merrivale.

“None,” she said. “Nobody but Mr. Beresford, father’s friend and lawyer.”

“But you have a house—a home—to which you are going?”

“Yes, the home where father lived when a boy, and which he was so anxious to see once more,” Reinette said, and the captain replied:

“Naturally, then, they will take your father there for a day or two, and then give him a grand funeral, with——”

“They won’t; they sha’n’t,” interrupted Reinette, her eyes blazing with determination. “I won’t have a grand funeral, with all the peasantry and their carts joining in it. Neither will I have him carried to the old home. I could not bear to see him there dead. I should hate the place always, and see him everywhere. He is my own darling father to do with as I like. Pierre says I’m my own mistress, and I shall telegraph Mr. Beresford to-morrow that father must be buried from the station, and I shall make him do it.”

She was very decided and imperious, and the captain let her have her way, and sent off for her next morning the long telegram which she had written, regardless of expense, and which so startled the people in Merrivale and changed their plans so summarily.

CHAPTER VIII.
REINETTE ARRIVES.

Mr. Beresford, to whom the telegram was addressed, read it first, feeling as if the ground was moving from under his feet, and leaving a chasm he did not know how to span.

“What is it?” Phil asked, as he saw how white Mr. Beresford grew, and how the hand which held the telegram shook.

“Read for yourself,” Mr. Beresford said, passing the paper to Phil, to whose eyes the hot tears sprang quickly, and whose heart went out to the desolate young girl, alone in a strange land, with her dead father beside her.