SHORT STORIES
A MAGAZINE OF FACT AND FICTION

Vol V. No. 2

This magazine is planned to cover the story-telling field of the world. Its selections will be of the best procurable in all the languages.

MAR. 1891

CONTENTS

DECEPTIONS: A MATRIMONIAL STUDY

(Italian of Haydée: Translated for Short Stories by E. Cavazza.)

When, before the altar, the priest asked her, “are you content?” it was with all her soul Gemma had responded, “Yes!”

Oh, yes; she was content indeed. Through the cloud of costly lace which enwrapped her in its snowy transparence, she saw the vast church all dotted with lights, resplendent in the dark gleam of mosaics upon golden backgrounds, animated by the slight movement of the very elegant crowd that filled it; lighted by oblique rays descending from the nave, all a glitter of gold, silks and brilliants; and it was her own future that she seemed to see thus—the years of luxury and wealth which her rich marriage was preparing for her. And had it not been the dream for which she sighed? She, the ideal blonde, of eighteen years, with the tall and proud figure; the pure, disdainful profile under heavy curls like those of an archangel; with haughty eyes sparkling like blue gems under the golden fringes of her long eyelashes.

She had been for a long time a poor girl, the daughter of citizens who had seen better days, that marvelous human lily. She had experienced all the petty troubles, all the cruel daily sufferings of misery that conceals itself. The poor and inelegant gowns, painfully remodeled every year; the insolence of creditors; humiliations; continual and tormenting thoughts of money—she had experienced them all, and in her little heart, eager for pleasure and enjoyment, swollen with unsatisfied longings, a dream was arisen little by little, occupying all the room, rendering her insensible to all the rest: the dream of at last becoming rich.

She wanted it, absolutely; she was born for it; she was rich, now. That “yes,” which she had just pronounced, had, by its three magic letters, changed her destiny; and she was so content, so happy, that it appeared to her it was all a dream, that her Mechlin veil was a cloud that transported her into the realms of the impossible, across a sidereal heaven, of which the diamond pins thrust among her laces formed the flaming stars; and, in order to return to reality, she must cast her eyes toward her husband, Luigo Marchis, kneeling beside her, in the mystic, velvety shade of the altar, lit by the tremulous brightness of the candles.

Ah, there was nothing ideal about him, poor fellow! In vain he straightened his correct person of an elegant man, with his accurately shaven face, with slender brown moustaches, and a still fresh color that gave him something the look of an actor; he remained none the less old, with his powerful shoulders a little bent, with his eyelids grown heavy, and crow’s feet toward his temples, with the gray locks that appeared here and there among his brown hair, with his forty-seven years, of which the weariness was more conspicuous beside that radiant and blonde Spring.

Forty-seven years! How was it possible? He felt his heart so palpitating, full of tears as in youth! And he could not comprehend how so much time had passed, he could not persuade himself of the incredible fact—forty-seven years passed without knowing Gemma.

For they had been acquainted with each other only two months. Marchis, however much he had frequented society, drawn there by his banking connections, had never let himself be talked to of marriage. What! A wife, children, troubles, cares, disappointments ... not even by idea!

And at forty-seven years, one evening, present from motives of curiosity at a ball to which the employees of his bank had invited him, he must needs be smitten by the exquisite, vaporous grace of that blonde girl, dressed simply in white, entering on the arm of a funny little man with a baby-face and a big, silvery beard, her father, a modest clerk in the bank, a rather ridiculous little old man who, beside that divine apparition, slender in her robes of snow, made one think of the gnomes of folk-tales, always crouching at the feet of the fairies.

Ah, weakness of hearts growing old! That apparition was enough to shake all the ideas of Luigo Marchis concerning matrimony, and as the old gnome, despite his absolute nullity, was an honest citizen, incapable of resisting the assiduities of the Director to his pretty daughter, the suitor had been greatly pleased with the consent of that little maiden of eighteen, that beautiful creature, that blonde being, to become his wife. Now he trembled with joy; his eyes were misty with vivid emotion—not perceiving that that too was a sign of old age—and it was a voice choked with joy that to the question of the priest, “Are you content?” replied: “Oh, yes.”

Now, it is done. United, forever united. Having arisen to their feet, she with an elegant and light impulse, like a lily, wind-lifted on its stem; he with a little effort and difficulty, wearied by emotion, they go down from the altar arm-in-arm. Now they pass through the church amid the murmurs of compliments which arise amid the shadows of the aisles, among the dull scraping of feet and the rustle of gowns; there on the peristyle, among the white columns, is a living wave of sun and air which comes to meet them, like a recall to real life, outside of the mystic dream of the church, the creaking of the line of carriages that advanced, the slow descent of the steps, with the white train of the bride spreading and dragging upon the stairs, in folds like snow, soft and light; then the carriages depart; they are alone for the first time, in the narrow space of the carriage, which the bridal dress fills with its whiteness, and the bouquet of orange-blossoms with its acute perfume of intoxicating virginity; and it is then that, conquered by the charm of that face, so delicate and proud amid its large pallid curls, by the splendor of those blue eyes, the elderly bridegroom bends over her to kiss her—

“Dear me, dear me....”

And to see the tranquility with which those finely cut, rose-colored lips return the kisses, through the veil, the question arises whether it is the bridegroom that she kisses, or the Mechlin lace, at five hundred the metre.

* * * * *

Ah! there were adorers around that beautiful signora Marchis, so lovely and so young, married to an old man! It was expected that this fortress would be an easy one to conquer. Precisely on her wedding day, Vico Molise, the most elegant and skeptical of the journalists of Upper Italy, had propounded to his friends this theorem:

“Given a beautiful girl, very poor; given that she marries a rich old man; divide the number of his years by that of the hundreds of thousands of lire of which she becomes mistress, and you will have the number of months necessary for her to take a lover.”

And as soon as he could, he began, with many others, to attempt the demonstration of that theorem.

Well, this time the impeccable psychological diagnosis of Vico Molise had been found to fail. Not only, after some months, the beautiful signora Marchis had no lover, but it appeared also that she never was to have one.

Always dressed with an adorable elegance, with a luxury full of good taste, the beautiful Gemma loved to amuse herself, moving freely in that society new for her, finding herself in her right place as a marvelous plant in a vase of valuable porcelain, developing itself in all its splendor. She went to dances, to the theatre, enjoying the plebiscite of admiration provoked by her beauty, coquetting a little with her adorers, fluttering about the fire in order to make them sparkle, her wings of a golden butterfly; but never letting herself be burned.

In the very moment of a declaration, in the midst of one of those waltzes whose notes seem made on purpose to stifle expiring virtue in their serpentine spirals, she cut short her adorer by turning her angelic head, and saying serenely:

“I don’t see my husband.... Look a little where my husband is, if you will be so kind.”

And it was known that her greatest delight was to relate, precisely to her husband, the declarations which she had received. When she came home with him from a ball, all wrapped in the white silken folds of her sortie du bal, with her pure throat, her snowy shoulders that blossomed still more fair from her swansdown boa; when in the evening she met him in the dining-room, still in visiting costume, with her slim waist tightly compressed by an exquisitely elegant gown, with her face animated by the slight excitement which elegant conversation always produces in a young woman, she amused herself immensely in addressing to her husband some of these provoking and roguish phrases:

“You know, I was at Countess Foschis’.... Molise was there, you know.... Always faithful and always in despair.... And also Comelli, he that has such lugubrious gallantry.... He has promised to kill himself for my sake, within a month, we shall see.... Ah! Ah!”

And sitting opposite to him, in a rustle of satin and jet, making shine like two stars the brilliants, large as hazelnuts, which adorned her small ears, she continued to laugh, with her elastic laughter, full of mischief and full of tenderness.

Ah, indeed, old Marchis could call himself a fortunate man!

Fortunate? Yes, he ought to have considered himself so. When he set himself to reason about it, to describe mentally his conjugal situation, he had to conclude that he would have done wrong to complain of his destiny. And yet....

What of the terribly unexpected had he now discovered in the depths of the pure sapphire of Gemma’s eyes? Was there arisen in his soul the doubt that that faithfulness against every trial, that coldness toward her admirers was nothing but the wish to preserve intact a position acquired with difficulty, and that precisely to that position was directed all the tenderness shown toward himself! I do not know; but the vivid and impetuous joy of the wedding was no longer in him, although his love remained the same; and a painful doubt thrilled in his voice when he replied to the playful confidence of Gemma, forcing himself to laugh too:

“Take care, now, take care.... The vengeance of the tyrant hangs over you....”

Ah, the poor tyrant, how he loved her! How she had known how to bind him with her little hands, white and perfumed as two lilies. For nothing in the world would he have discovered the truth, changed into certainty his fomenting doubt; so, she had only to ask in order to obtain; for now for him that love of which he doubted, had become his life; and he felt a painful stricture at his heart at the mere thought that a day might come when he would be obliged to refuse her something. Yet that day came. Suddenly, by one of those mysterious complications of business his bank, which until then had gone from triumph to triumph, underwent a violent shock. Not a noisy downfall, one of those open, public ruins, which produce great failures; but one of those deep, intimate secret crises, that must be borne without a word, a lament, under penalty of death; that can be overcome only by force of small privations, little hidden savings; it is then that strict economy in the family becomes necessary. The luxury of Gemma, in those moments, became absolutely ruinous for her husband; he ought to have warned her, sought to check her; he dared not; and continued to content her, but very soon came the time when he could do so no more.

It was on the occasion of a great ball to which she was to go; she had ordered from Paris a marvelous gown that became her to perfection; still she was not satisfied. Some days before, in the showcase of the most fashionable jeweler of the city, a diadem had set in revolution all the feminine imaginations; a superb jewel, of antique style, set in silver gilt, of a starry pallor, where the brilliants seemed drops of flame. Gemma wished to have it and indeed it would be difficult to find a face adapted to the almost religious richness of that jewel, more than her snowy profile of an angel in ecstacy.

Ten thousand francs was the price of that jewel; and Marchis did not have them. Mute, immovable, his heart oppressed, he listened to Gemma’s words as she described it to him. How could he tell her, how could he even tell her that he had not the ten thousand francs. It was terrible. To another woman who should have had that caprice, one might have proposed to have her own diamonds reset after that model or perhaps even to have an imitation diadem made; no one would have suspected it; but he felt that the danger lay in confessing his powerlessness. Yet, it must be done.... And he made an effort at courage.

Gemma had seated herself beside him, throwing back and bending a little to one side her blonde head, with that irresistible feminine movement which displays the white throat, the pure line descending from the slender neck to the full-bloomed bust down to the round and flexible waist.

“I would like to have it, it seems to me that I should look well.... Don’t you think so? I have a great wish to be beautiful.... If you knew why?”

She laughed, now, deliciously, with the air of her roguish hours. He was silent for a moment; then, fixing a vague look upon the delicate designs of the oriental carpet, paling as if from an inward wound, he murmured:

“The fact is that I do not know.... I do not really know whether ... whether I shall be able to buy it for you....”

“Why?”

She had quickly raised her head, much surprised, uneasy, looking at him. Such a thing had never happened to her.

Marchis wiped his forehead and resumed his discourse.

“The fact is ... you see, in a bank like ours, there are moments that ... certain moments in which one cannot ... in which it is impossible.”

What was impossible for him, in that moment, was to finish the phrase. He stopped, and lifted his eyes timidly to her, desolately, as if to beg her to help him. She was very pale, with a sudden hardness in all her features, in her compressed mouth, in her knit brows, in her sparkling eyes.

“Have you not ten thousand francs? Is it possible?”

And her voice was hard as her look ... a profound hardness that startled him. But all at once her face changed expression, she recovered her fresh, tuneful laugh, the sweet and limpid ray was rekindled in her blue eyes.

“Come you want to tell me stories, so as not to buy me anything.... Deceiver! I that wished to be beautiful in order to drive Vico Molise a little crazy; he has declared to me that he is tired of my perfidy.... See, you deserve.... Do you know that I am becoming angry with you?”

She really believed that she had hit the truth, with her words. Indeed, he had so well kept up the illusion with her, he had hidden so jealously his embarrassment, that she did not know how to explain this sudden restriction. But meanwhile, every word of hers was a blow to the heart of Marchis; he saw her already at the ball, passing from arm to arm with her step like a flying angel; listening to the insidious compliments of Vico Molise and his kind, and keeping meantime in her heart that leaven of rancor against him because of his refusal; and he saw himself again, as he had seen himself a little while before in the mirror, old, weary, worn, beside her so fresh, young, with eyes sparkling from the cruel scorn of one who has made an unequal bargain.

Suddenly he rose, like one who has taken a decision, passed his hand across his brow, and without replying, went away to go out of the house. She believed that she had conquered, and let him go without moving herself, only with a flash of cunning in her eyes; but when he was on the stairs the door opened, a blonde head appeared between the folding-doors—

“We are agreed, then?”

He did not reply; and she heard his step down the stairway, slow, heavy, weary.

* * * * *

The evening of the ball, Marchis knocked at the door of his wife’s dressing-room. “Come in,” and he entered.

In the little dressing-room so illumined as to seem on fire, with the air filled with fragrance from the little unstoppered bottle of perfume, all gleaming white with the disorder of feminine apparel scattered about, Gemma stood erect before the mirror, between two kneeling maids, ready dressed for the ball. She was truly radiant in her gown of white satin with almond blossoms, with fresh sprays of almond flowers around the neck of the dress, at the waist, among the waving folds of the train, issuing from that covering of delicate, pale, dawn-tinted flowers, she too was fresh as they, with her faintly rosy complexion, as if she were one of those flowers become a person. But under her lashes gleamed anon the flash of cold and cruel rancor.

Her husband had not given her the diadem!

But hearing him enter, she turned, and seeing that he held a casket in his hands, she comprehended everything. With a bound, she was beside him, her arms twined around his neck.

“Oh, how good you are! How good you are! How I love you!” He trembled all over, and was very pale. Gemma did not even perceive it. All at once, with one of her irresistible movements, she loosened her arms from his neck, took with one hand the casket and with the other holding her husband’s hand, she led him after her to the mirror. She seated herself and opened the casket. Among puffs of red plush, under the burning light, the diadem sent forth sparks like a flame. She had a new outburst of joy, took the husband’s head between her hands, drew it down, and kissed his forehead—oh! the forehead of a corpse, icy and livid; then without looking at his features, his wandering gaze, she offered him the diadem and bent before him her blonde head, which was so well suited to that mystical jewel.

“Come sir, crown me!”

And while he sought to unite with trembling hands the clasp of the gems among those marvelous blonde curls, waving and breaking into ripples of gold at every movement, she, still with bent head, lifted her smiling eyes to meet his look. And he answered with a resigned gentleness to the smile of those perilous blue eyes; he, the poor man who deceived for the sake of desire to be deceived, and who bought for himself a little mock love with ... mock diamonds.

ETCHINGS: FROZEN

(E. Henderson: For Short Stories.)

A bleak afternoon in Dakota ... a sledge containing two women and several men is driven rapidly across the prairie.

Alighting at a “shanty,” the women and one of the men enter. The rest of the men immediately begin digging, or rather “chopping” a grave in the frozen ground. They work silently and unceasingly, by turns, for the short winter afternoon already shows signs of merging into night.

The three that entered the house are standing, nervously looking on the scene before them. A fireless stove, unmade beds, everything desolate and untidy. In the middle of the room, a table; on it a motionless form, covered with a coarse gray blanket; on the bed a much smaller, shrouded, form.

One of the women advances to the table, and summoning all her fortitude, throws aside the blanket, and looks on the face of the frozen woman ... frozen solid as a block of ice, the clenched hands, filled with fine, dry snow, fine as sand, sifted into every tress of hair, into her eyes, her ears, down into her bosom, that lay bare, showing how she had tried to nourish her babe, in the face of that pitiless storm ... what availed the warmest mother love, against that relentless cold ... frozen with the blood still in her cheeks and lips ... no time for the crimson stream of life to leave the face.

Bare and comfortless as their home was, no one knows what tempted them to leave it that terrible day. They were bound for a neighbor’s house half a mile distant but had not gone quarter the way when they turned in the wrong direction. They struggled on, husband and wife, carrying the babe less than a year old, until the woman could go no further, and throwing up her hands, fell down. Laying the now stiffening form of the child beside its mother, the bewildered father wandered on, on, until he reached by chance, miles distant, a place to incoherently tell his story and—perish.

The family belonged to the poor “dumb driven cattle” class of Russian Jews. Their own kind had left them to their fate. So the settlers had turned out to give them Christian burial. When the desolate funeral was over the party drove rapidly home again, with the picture before them, of what might be their own fate, if night overtook them on the prairies.

A DEPUTY GOVERNOR’S WOOING

(French of Andre Theuriet: Isabel Smithson: For Short Stories.)

“Can you receive Madame Blouet, sir?” asked an attendant, as he opened the door of the deputy governor’s office.

It was a large, severe-looking apartment, with a very high ceiling, two windows draped with green damask curtains, walls and arm-chairs of the same color, and heavy bookcases of mahogany. The highly waxed floor reflected the cold symmetry of the official furniture, and the mirror over the mantel-piece reproduced with exactness a black marble clock, two bronze lamps and a pair of gilt candlesticks.

Hubert Boinville, the deputy governor, was seated, with his back to the fire-place, at a large mahogany desk which was littered over with deeds and various papers. He raised his grave, melancholy face which was framed in a brown beard, tinged with a few gray hairs, and his black eyes, with tired-looking lids, glanced at the card which the solemn usher handed to him.

On this card was written in a trembling hand, Veuve Blouet (widow Blouet), but the name conveyed no information to him and he put it down impatiently.

“It is an old lady, sir,” said the attendant, in explanation, “shall I send her away?”

“No, let her come in,” replied the deputy governor in a tone of resignation.

The usher straightened himself up in his uniform, bowed, and disappeared, returning the next minute to show in the visitor, who stopped on the threshold and dropped an old-fashioned courtesy.

Hubert Boinville half rose from his chair, and with cold politeness signed her to a seat, which she took, after making another courtesy.

She was a little old lady, dressed in shabby mourning. Her black merino gown had a greenish tinge, and was wrinkled and darned; a limp crape veil, which had evidently served through more than one period of mourning, hung down on each side from an old-fashioned bonnet, and beneath a front of false brown hair was a round, wrinkled face with bright little eyes, a small mouth, and no teeth.

“Sir,” she began, in a somewhat breathless voice, “I am the daughter, sister and widow, of men who served their country. I applied some time ago to the Department for help, and I have come to see whether there is any hope.”

The deputy governor listened without moving a muscle of his face. He had heard so many supplications of this kind!

“Have you ever received any assistance!” he asked, coldly. “No, sir,” she replied. “I have managed to get on until now without asking. I have a small pension.”

“Ah!” he interrupted in a dry tone, “in that case I am afraid we can do nothing for you. We have a great many applicants who have no pension to rely upon.”

“Ah, listen, sir!” she cried despairingly, “I have not explained everything. I had three sons and they are all dead. The last one taught mathematics, and one day during the winter, when he was going from the Pantheon to Chaptal College he caught a violent cold which settled on his lungs and carried him off in two weeks. He had supported me and his child by teaching; the expenses of his illness and death used up all our little savings, and I had to raise money on my pension. Now I am alone in the world with my grandchild, and we have nothing. I am eighty-two years old, sir.”

Tears had gathered under her wrinkled eyelids as she spoke, and the deputy governor was listening more attentively than he had done at first. A peculiar singing intonation of the speaker’s voice, and the sound of certain provincial expressions seemed to his ears like once familiar music; the old lady’s way of speaking had for him a flavor of home which produced a most singular sensation in his mind. He rang his bell and sent for Madame Blouet’s “papers,” and when the sedate usher had laid a thin package before him, he examined the yellow pages with evident interest.

“You are from Lorraine, I see, Madame,” he said at last, turning toward her a face less stern, and on which a faint smile was seen, “I suspected it from your accent.”

“Yes, Sir, I am from Argonne,” she answered, “and you recognized my accent! I thought I had long singe lost it—I have been knocking about France like a flying camp.”

The deputy governor looked with increasing compassion at this poor widow whom a harsh wind had torn from her native forest, and cast into Paris like a withered leaf. He felt his official heart growing softer, and smiling again, he said:

“I also am from Argonne. I lived near your village for a long time, at Clermont,” and then he added gaily, “keep up your courage, Madame Blouet, I hope we shall be able to help you. Will you give me your address?”

“Number 12, Rue de la Sante, near the Capuchin convent. Thank you, Sir, for your kindness. I am very glad to have found a fellow countryman,” and after repeated courtesies the widow took her departure.

As soon as she was gone M. Boinville rose, and going to the window stood looking down into the garden with his face against the glass. But he was not looking at the tops of the half leafless chestnut trees; his dreamy gaze wandered far off toward the East, beyond the plains and the chalky hills of Champagne, past a large forest, to a valley where a quiet river flowed between two rows of poplar trees, to a little old town with tile-roofed houses. There his early childhood had been passed, and later, his vacations. His father, who was registrar in the office of the Chief Justice, led a narrow, monotonous life, and he himself was early accustomed to hard work and strict discipline. He had left home when in his twenty-first year and had returned only to attend his father’s funeral. Possessing a superior intellect and an iron will, and being an indefatigable worker he had risen rapidly on the official ladder, and at thirty-eight years of age was made deputy governor. Austere, punctual, reserved, and coldly polite, he arrived at his office every morning at exactly ten o’clock and remained there until six, taking work with him when he went home. Although he was possessed of keen sensibilities, his bearing was so reserved and undemonstrative that he was thought cold and stern; he saw very little of society, his life being devoted to business, and he had never had enough leisure to think of marrying. His heart indeed, had once asserted itself, before he had left home, but as he then had neither position nor fortune, the girl he loved had refused him in order to marry a rich tradesman. This early disappointment had left in Hubert Boinville a feeling of bitterness which even the other successes of his life could not wholly efface, and there was still a tinge of melancholy in his being. The old lady’s voice and accent had recalled the thought of the past, and his quiet was overwhelmed by a flood of recollections. While he stood there motionless, with his forehead pressing against the window-pane, he was stirring, as one would a heap of dead leaves, the long slumbering memories of his youth, and like a sweet delicate perfume, rose the thoughts of by-gone scenes and days.

Suddenly he returned to his chair, drew Madame Blouet’s petition to him, and wrote upon it the words, very deserving case. Then he rang his bell, and sent the document to the clerk in charge of the relief fund.

On the day of the official assent to Madame Blouet’s petition, Mr. Boinville left his office earlier than usual, for the idea had occurred to him, to announce the good news himself to his aged countrywoman.

Three hundred francs. The sum was but a drop in the enormous reservoir of the ministerial fund, but to the poor widow it would be as a beneficent dew!

Although it was December, the weather was mild, so Hubert Boinville walked all the way to the Rue de la Sante, and by the time he reached his destination, that lonely neighborhood was wrapped in gloom. By the light of a gas lamp near the Capuchin convent, he saw “Number 12” over a half-open door in a rough stone wall, and on entering, found himself in a large market garden. He could just distinguish in the darkness, square plots of vegetables, some groups of rose bushes and here and there the silhouettes of fruit trees. At the other end of the garden, two or three dim lights showed the front of a plain, square building, and to this the deputy governor made his way and had the good luck to run against the gardener, who directed him to the widow Blouet’s lodgings upstairs. After twice stumbling on the muddy steps, M. Boinville knocked at a door under which a line of light was to be seen, and great was his surprise when, the door being opened, he saw before him a girl of about twenty years, holding up a lighted lamp and looking at him with astonished eyes. She was dressed in black, and had a fair, fresh face, and the lamp light was shining on her wavy chestnut hair, round dimpled cheeks, smiling mouth, and limpid blue eyes.

“Is this where Madame Blouet lives?” asked M. Boinville after a moment’s hesitation, and the girl replied, “Yes, sir. Be kind enough to walk in. Grandmother, here is a gentleman who wants to see you.”

“I am coming,” cried a thin, piping voice from the next room, and the next minute the old lady came trotting out, with her false front all awry under her black cap, and trying to untie the strings of a blue apron which she wore.

“Holy mother!” she cried in amazement on recognizing the deputy governor, “is it possible, sir? Excuse my appearance, I was not expecting the honor of a visit from you. Claudette, give M. Boinville a chair. This is my grandchild, sir. She is all I have in the world.”

The gentleman seated himself in an antique arm-chair covered with Utrecht velvet, and cast a rapid glance round the room, which evidently served as both parlor and dining-room. It contained very little furniture; a small stove of white delft-ware, next to which stood an old-fashioned oaken clothes-press; a round table covered with oil-cloth and some rush-bottom chairs, while on the wall hung two old colored lithographs. Everything was very neat, and the place had an old-time air of comfort and rusticity. M. Boinville explained the object of his visit in a few words, and the widow exclaimed:

“Oh, thank you, sir! How good you are. It is quite true that pleasant surprises never come singly; my grandchild has passed an examination in telegraphy, and while she is waiting for a position she is doing a little painting for one and another. Only to-day she has been paid for a large order, and so we made up our minds,” said the grandmother, “to celebrate the event by having only old home dishes for dinner. The gardener down stairs gave us a cabbage, some turnips and potatoes to make a potée; we bought a Lorraine sausage, and when you came in I had just made a tôt-fait.”

“Oh, a tôt-fait!” cried Boinville. “That is a sort of cake made of eggs, milk and farina; it is twenty years since I heard its name and more than that since I tasted it.”

His face became strangely animated, and the young girl, who was watching him curiously, saw a look of actual greediness in his brown eyes. While he was lost in a reverie of the tôt-fait, Claudette and her grandmother turned away and began discussing, and at last the girl whispered:

“I am afraid it would not do.”

“Why not?” returned the old lady, “I think it would please him.” And then, seeing that he was looking at them wonderingly, she went toward him, saying:

“M. Boinville, you have already been so kind to us that I am going to ask of you another favor. It is late, and you have a long way to go—we should be so glad if you would stay here and taste our tôt-fait—should we not, Claudette?”

“Certainly,” said the girl, “but M. Boinville will have a plain dinner, and besides, he is, no doubt, expected at home.”

“No one is waiting for me,” answered the gentleman, thinking of his usual dull, solitary meals in the restaurant. “I have no engagement, but—” he hesitated, looked at Claudette’s smiling eyes, and suddenly exclaimed:—

“I accept, with pleasure.”

“That is right!” said the old lady, briskly. “What did I tell you, Claudette? Quick, my pet, set the table and run for the wine, while I go back to my tôt-fait.”

The girl had already opened the press and taken out a striped table-cloth and three napkins, and in the twinkling of an eye the table was ready. Then she lighted a candle and went down stairs to fetch the wine, while the old dame sat down with her lap full of chestnuts, which she proceeded to crack and place upon the stove.

“Is not that a bright, lively girl?” she said, “she is my consolation; she cheers me like a linnet on an old roof.”

Here the speaker rattled the chestnuts on the stove, and then Claudette reappeared, a little flushed and out of breath, and the old woman went and brought in the potée and set it steaming and fragrant on the table.

Seated between the cheery octogenarian and the artless, smiling girl, and in the midst of half-rural surroundings which constantly recalled the memory of his youth, Hubert Boinville, the deputy governor, did honor to the potée. His grave, cold manner thawed out rapidly and he conversed familiarly with his new friends, returning the gay sallies of Claudette and shouting with merriment at the sound of the patois words and phrases which the old lady used.

From time to time the widow would rise and go to attend to her cookery, and at last she returned triumphant, bringing in an iron baking-dish in which rose the gently swelling golden-brown tôt-fait, smelling of orange-flower water.

Then came the roasted chestnuts in their brown, crisped shells, and the old lady brought from her press a bottle of fignolette, a liquor made of brandy and sweet wine.

When Claudette had cleared the table, the grandmother took up her knitting mechanically and sat near the stove, chatting gaily at first, but she now yielded to the combined effects of the warmth and the fignolette and fell asleep. Claudette put the lamp on the table, and she and the visitor were left to entertain each other. The girl, sprightly and light-hearted, did nearly all the talking. She had been brought up at Argonne, and described the neighborhood with such exactness that Boinville seemed to be carried back to his native place; as the room was warm Claudette had opened a window, and the fresh air came in laden with the odors of the market-garden, and the gurgling sound of a fountain, while farther off was heard the bell of the Capuchin convent.

Hubert Boinville had an hallucination, for which the fignolette, and the blue eyes of his young countrywoman were responsible. It seemed as if twenty years had rolled backward and that he was still in his native village. The wind in the fruit trees was the rustling of the Argonne forest, the soft murmur of running water was the caressing voice of the river Aire. His youth, which for twenty years had been buried under old papers and deeds was now revived, and before him were the blue laughing eyes of Claudette, looking at him so artlessly that his long torpid heart awoke suddenly and beat a delightful pit-a-pat against his breast.

Suddenly the old lady awoke with a start and stammered an apology. M. Boinville rose, for it was time to go, and after thanking the widow warmly for her hospitality and promising to come again, he extended his hand to Claudette. Their eyes met, and the deputy governor’s glance was so earnest that the young girl’s eyelids drooped suddenly. She accompanied him down stairs, and when they reached the house door he clasped her hand again, but without knowing what to say to her. And yet his heart was full.

* * * * *

Hubert Boinville continued to give, as is said in official language, “active and brilliant impulse to the Department.” The ministerial machine went on heaping up on his desk the daily grist of reports and papers, and the sittings of the Council, audiences, commissions and other official duties kept him so busy that he could not find a spare hour in which to go to the humble lodgings near the Capuchin convent. In the midst of his work, however, his thoughts often wandered back to the humble little dinner, and several times his attention was distracted from an official document by a vision of Claudette’s bright azure eyes, which seemed to flutter about on the paper like a pair of blue butterflies. When he returned to his gloomy bachelor apartment, those eyes went before him, and seemed to laugh merrily as he stirred his dull fire, and then he thought again of the dinner in the cheerful room, of the fire blazing up gaily in the delft stove, and of the young girl’s merry prattle, which had temporarily resuscitated the sensation of his twenty-first year. More than once he went to his mirror and looked gloomily at his gray-streaked beard, thought of his loveless youth, and of his increasing years, and said with La Fontaine:

“Have I passed the time for loving?”

Then he would be seized with a sort of tender homesickness which filled him with dismay, and made him regret that he had never married.

One cloudy afternoon toward the end of December, the solemn usher opened the door and announced:

“Madame Blouet, sir.”

Boinville rose eagerly to greet his visitor, and inquired, with a slight blush, for her granddaughter.

“She is very well, sir,” was the answer, “and your visit brought her luck; she received an appointment yesterday in a telegraph office. I could not think of leaving Paris without again thanking you, sir, for your kindness to us.”

Boinville’s heart sank.

“You are to leave Paris; is this position in the provinces?”

“Yes, in the Vosges. Of course I shall go with Claudette; I am eighty years old, and cannot have much longer to live; we shall never part, in this world.”

“Do you go soon?”

“In January. Good-bye, sir; you have been very kind to us, and Claudette begged me to thank you in her name.”

The deputy governor was thunderstruck, and answered only in monosyllables, and when the good woman had left him he sat motionless for a long time with his head in his hands.

That night he slept badly, and the next day was very taciturn with his employes.

Toward three o’clock he brushed his hat, left the office, and jumped into a cab that was passing, and half an hour later he hurried through the market garden of Number 12, Rue de la Santé, and knocked tremblingly at Madame Blouet’s door. Claudette answered the knock, and on seeing the deputy governor, she started and blushed.

“Grandmother is out,” she said, “but she will soon be home and will be so glad to see you.”

“I have come to see, not your grandmother, but yourself, Mademoiselle Claudette,” he returned.

“Me?” she exclaimed anxiously, and he repeated, “Yes, you,” in an abrupt tone, and then his throat seemed to close and he could hardly speak.

“You are going away next month?” he asked at last.

The girl nodded assent.

“Are you not sorry to leave Paris?”

“Yes indeed I am. It grieves me to think of it, but then, this position is a fortune to us, and grandmother will be able to live in peace for the rest of her days.”

“Suppose I should offer you the means of remaining in Paris, at the same time assuring comfort to Madame Blouet?”

“Oh, sir!” exclaimed the young girl, her face brightening.

“It is rather a violent remedy,” he said, hesitating again, “perhaps you would think it too great an effort.”

“Oh no, I am very resolute—only tell me what it is.”

He took a long breath, and then said quietly, almost harshly,

“Will you marry me?”

“Heaven!” she gasped, in a voice of deep emotion; but although her face expressed the deepest surprise, there was no sign of repugnance or alarm. Her bosom heaved, her lips parted, and her eyes became moist with tender brightness.

Boinville dared not look at her, lest he should read refusal in her face, but at last, alarmed by her long silence, he raised his head, saying, “You think me too old—you are frightened—”

“Not frightened,” she answered, simply, “but surprised, and—glad. It is too good. I can hardly believe it.”

“My darling!” he cried, taking both her hands “you must believe it. I am the one to be glad, for I love you.”

She was silent, but there was no mistaking the tenderness and gratitude that were shining in her eyes, and Hubert Boinville must have read them aright, for he drew her closely to him, and meeting with no resistance, raised her hands to his lips and kissed them with youthful fervor.

“Holy Mother!” cried the old lady, appearing on the scene at that instant, and the others turned round, he a little confused; the girl blushing, but radiant.

“Do not be shocked, Madame Blouet,” said the deputy governor. “The evening that I dined here I found a wife; the ceremony will take place next month—with your permission.”

ETCHINGS: THE SAD HOUR

(H. A. Grace: For Short Stories.)

A florist-shop in the city of Philadelphia.

A lady, apparently about thirty years of age, dressed somberly in black, enters, and approaching the proprietor, who is behind the counter, demurely asks:

“Does anyone ever use those floral pieces that I see in the window, as wedding presents?”—at the same time indicating by a gesture that she referred to mementoes of immortelles there conspicuously displayed.

“Well,” answered the florist, somewhat astonished, “that is a use to which I have never before heard of their being put; still I know of no reason why they could not be so used, if one desired to give such an emblem as a token of esteem at such a time. What design would you think of using?” setting on the counter such emblems as Gates Ajar, a harp, and a lyre.

“I hardly know,” continued the lady, “still, I think possibly this one might answer,” picking up the lyre.

“What inscription would you wish on it?” asked the florist.

“The sad hour.”

“Is not that rather sombre for such a joyous occasion?”

“Well, it might be ordinarily, but the fact is simply this: the gentleman to whom I wish to send it and myself were engaged to be married, and he is now about to marry another lady; so if you think the immortelles that you put in it will last a long time, I will take this lyre, and have the motto—

THE SAD HOUR

—just as large and prominent as ever you can make it.”

To this the polite florist replies that he had no doubt but that the immortelles would last as long as could be desired.

The lady left, composed and satisfied.

The emblem was finished in strict accordance with the order and promptly delivered to the address given.

* * * * *

What the recipient said may be recorded in heaven, but is not known on earth, and the florist and his customer still live.

ABRUM, CA’LINE AND ASPHALT

(W. N. Harben: The Round Table.)

Upon the church, the negro denizens of Crippletown focused their opinions. They were about equally divided between the Methodist and Baptist denominations, and no matter how much sociability existed among the men as they went to work together, or among the women as they chatted or sang over their wash-tubs, when Sunday came with its suggestive clangor of church bells, friendliness drew itself into its shell of finery, and only protruded its head to cast depreciative glances at members of any church save its own.

Squads of people bound for the Baptist church, passed squads of people bound for the Methodist church without exchanging even nods of greeting. Extreme reserve and solemnity characterized the general religious bearing.

It is Sunday evening in the cottage of Abraham Wilson, a most devout Methodist of the blackest physical type. He had talked Methodism to his young wife until her brain and tongue were in a tangle. He made it the theme of his evening and morning discourses, and threw in foot-notes at all possible opportunities. He, as well as his neighbors, were curious to know which denomination Caroline would finally join, especially as it had been whispered for some time that she was “on the fence” owing to the fact that her parents had been Baptists and her husband a Methodist.

Few doubted that Abraham’s powers of argument would in time bring her wavering mind to his views. But it seemed that Caroline’s besetting sin, vanity, and love of display, linked with the persuasive powers of the Baptist minister, who called on her often through the day while Abraham was away, were to bulwark the latter’s earnest endeavors.

She had ever looked with charmed eyes on the baptismal ceremonies, which usually took place in a neighboring creek, and her heart had suffered frequent pangs at thinking that she was hindered from being the cynosure of the thousands that sung and shouted on the shore as the dripping candidates were led from the stream. From childhood up she had looked forward to immersion with as much anticipation as she had to marriage. Regardless of this she had married a Methodist, because she had loved him.

“Abrum,” said she, after listening to him in silence for an hour, “Abrum, I know you think you is right, en ev’ybody kin hat der own way er thinkin’ ’bout chu’ches, but ez fur me, I know I’s hat my min’ set on ’mersion in runnin’ water ev’y since I know my min’. I’s been puttin’ it off frum summer ter summer, en now you gwine to disagree wid me.”

Abraham’s surprise rendered him almost speechless. He had felt intuitively that Caroline did not agree with him for a long time, but had nursed the belief that his arguments would wear away her objections ere she gave them voice.

“You ever let me yer er you gwine wadin’ in ’at creek en I swear ’fo’ God I’ll trash you ev’y step frum deh home.”

“Huh!” his wife grunted defiantly. “Shuh, Abrum Wilson! you ain’t man enough; your feared to tech me. I don’t want none er yo’ ol’ ’ligion. ’Sides anything ’at’s good ’nough for Jesus Christ certney is good ’nough fer me. De bible seh He went down into de water; now, Abrum, I can’t go down into de water en hat de preacher des sprinkle my haid out’n er gravy bowl, same as I does w’en I’s ironin’. Now w’t’s de use in talkin’ dat way. Whyn’t Christ des ax um fer er lil in er goa’d dipper? Seem lak dat enough ’cordin’ ter yo all’s way.”

Abraham had exhausted every argument in his brain already, so he could formulate no reply, but inflated almost to explosion with turbulent spleen, he resumed his seat in the door, while she, momentarily triumphant, bustled round the cottage to put their only child, little Asphalt, to bed. The latter two-year old innocent owed its name to the fact that he happened to be born one day while Abram was employed in laying asphalt pavement in the city. He was struck with the high-sounding name and told Caroline that the mixture had “des enough pitch in it fer er nigger child’s name.”

When she had put Asphalt to bed, Caroline timidly drew her chair near to his. He did not look at her.

“Now, Abrum,” said she, pacifically, “you is hat yo’ way, en I hain’t seh nothin’ ergin it all ’long sence we is married.” She waited a moment for him to speak, but as he was stubbornly silent she went on with growing firmness, as she slily eyed him askance: “I ’low ter jine de Baptist chu’ch, de Lawd willin’, en git my ’mersion ’long wid Sallie en Lindy. Brer Brown was here yistiddy en I done give ’im my promise; an he give me lessons w’en ter hol’ my bref ter keep from stranglin’.”

Abraham turned upon her with such suddenness that she shrank back into her chair as if smitten.

“You seh you is hehn? You seh you is?” he growled. “Well, we gwine see. You seh you is gwine wade out in dat creek lak er crippled duck. Le’ me des see it en I’ll git er divo’ce sho en never put my foot in dis house ergin.

“You go git yo’ divo’ce,” she said sullenly, “I’s got er right ter my side same ez you.”

“Look yer, Ca’line!” he snapped out, rising clumsily to his feet, “you des seh ernurr word en I’ll pick up dat plank deh en ’fo’ God I’ll split it over yo’ haid. Huh!”

He waited a moment for the silenced woman to speak, but she did not answer him in words. She angered him more than ever by stealthily regarding him from the corner of her eye and humming, with as much gusto as her caution would allow, a hymn that was usually sung by the Baptists during their baptismal ceremonies.

To this Abraham had no reply, save to look at the offender as if he would thus scorch her with the volcanic heat of his supreme contempt, and walked away into the darkness.

Caroline’s song dwindled into a murmur as he vanished. She went to the door and peered after him as he receded in the misty moonlight, with a look of deep concern upon her.

Abraham went on until he came to the cottage of his widowed sister, Martha Todd. Here he took a seat on the doorstep. A woman came out of the unlighted room.

“Dat you, Abrum?” she grunted in surprise. “Well, well; I do know you skeered me, sho, kase I ain’t ’spectin’ you. What kin er happen ter tek you off frum home dis time er night; I des fixin’ ter go ter baid?”

“Marfy,” said the visitor, in a deeply pained voice, “de storm has riz in my own home at las’. I reckon me en Ca’line done bust up fer good.”

“Why, Abrum; whut’s de matter? How come you seh dat? My!”

“Sister Marfy, you know Ca’line. You know how she is w’en she set ’er haid. She is sho’ nough set on ’mersion en de Baptist chu’ch. You know how I is on dat subjec’.”

“Brer Abrum, dis done come on us at las’.” The woman seemed to filter her tones through a mixture of resignation and satisfaction. “I been hat my eye open fer er long time. I ain’t seh nothin’ kase it no business er mine, en I ’low it bes’ ter wait. Ev’y day while you hard at wuk de Baptist preacher is been er buzzin’ in Ca’line’s ear. I don’t see no way out’n it. It sholly is too bad; Asphy is so young; you is sech er big Mephodis’ an’ er deacon, too. I do know how you feel.”

“Marfy,” said the ebon devotee, sternly, as he evoked a dull thud from his knee onto which his broad hand descended; “Marfy, me en Ca’line gwine be divo’ced, ’at’s de end.”

“Too bad she tuk dat way,” sighed Martha Todd, more deeply than she was given to over her own misfortunes.

The truth was that nothing could have pleased the widowed and childless woman more than to have her brother, who was such a prominent Methodist, and a steady laborer, a member of her own household, which would be, she knew, in case of a separation between the couple.

“Women is er caution, sho, brer,” she went on, “I do know Ca’line is haid-strong. Mighty bad fer bofe, dis disagreement. ’Tain’t ’cordin’ ter scriptur’.”

Silence fell upon the pair, save for the sound of Martha’s breath as it contended with the nicotine in her uncleanly pipe-stem. The hours passed until the clock within struck twelve jingling strokes. Abraham rose stiffly, lingered, stretched himself, for he felt that he needed to apologize for going back.

“Yer gwine back ter ’er, brer?” Martha Todd asked significantly. “May de Lo’d be ’long wid you den.”

“I wouldn’t go er step, but I hatter git my clothes frum ’er’,” said he sheepishly. “You reckon I gwine ’low dat gal ter keep my clothes? Huh! Marfy, w’at you rekon I is?”

“Once you git back she gwine ’suade you ter let ’er be ’mersed. Who knows, we may see Deacon Abrum wid wet clothes on, too. Some women is too sly——”

“You go ’long, sister, I tell you too much is done pass twixt me en Ca’line. I des gwine atter my things, den I’ll come live wid you—I’ll be yer in de mornin’.”

Thus speaking, Abraham turned slowly homeward. Late as it was he found Caroline sitting in the door smoking her pipe. She had a sulky mien on her bent, portly form. She drew her feet under her chair as her liege lord passed wordless into the cottage. He turned up the wick of the low-burning lamp, and as its feeble rays struggled through the room his glance fell on the features of sleeping Asphalt, and a lump rose in his throat.

A crude wardrobe stood against the wall. Through its open door he caught a glimpse of his clothing crowded into the piece of furniture with Caroline’s finery. Therein was his long-tailed broadcloth coat, his bell-shaped silk hat, his shining doeskin trousers, and an overcoat.

He had magnanimously made up his mind that he would demand nothing of the domestic wreck except his own clothing. The furniture of the cottage, all other belongings of him and his wife, should remain with her, even little Asphalt.

While he was looking under the child’s bed for his best boots, which he remembered casting off there a few hours previous, Caroline, with a meaning smile playing round her lips, as if she had divined his plans, rose automatically, walked with a well-assumed air of sleepiness to the wardrobe, and locking it, put the key in her pocket. Then, as if unaware that his startled orbs were on her, she went to the clock on the mantelpiece and began to wind it, singing the while a little air which she often sung when wholly at ease with herself and all the rest of the world.

Abraham stood behind her rigid form, boots in hand, in silence. Something in Caroline’s prompt flank movement gave him a thrill of vague pleasure, while it aroused his aggressiveness. She had thwarted him, it was true, but in doing so had of her own will raised a hindrance to his quitting the place. Abraham had a struggle with himself. Somehow the room seemed to be more cozy than ever before, while Martha Todd’s house rose bleak and dreary before his mental sight. How amicably all might be arranged if Caroline would only relinquish her dream of “runnin’ water.”

Then it occurred to him that, in justice to his usual sternness of manner, he must say something hard to her, must force the key of the wardrobe from her, and secure his clothing, but he could not do it; he was softened by her quiet mien as she stood in the door and looked out at the night. But if he did not take his clothing to his sister in the morning what excuse could he offer for having failed so ignominiously? He decided that he would wait until the next day and see what could be done; so he went into the adjoining room, the “guest-room,” and retired.

He lay in bed with his eyes open, reflecting over the ridiculous position Caroline had placed him in before his fellow churchmen, and smarting over the knowledge that the Baptists were enjoying his discomfiture.

After a while the lamp was extinguished in Caroline’s room, and by her snoring he knew that she was sound asleep. He knew that it would be an easy matter for him to steal into her room and take the wardrobe key from her gown pocket and get possession of his guarded property, but he shrank from hastening matters in any such way. After a while he slept and snored in harmony with his estranged wife.

When he awoke in the morning a most tempting breakfast was waiting him on the table, and Caroline and little Asphalt were looking neat and interesting. He took his accustomed seat glumly and ate his breakfast with a good relish. His pride prevented him from speaking to the woman from whom he was to be divorced, though it did not in any wise interfere with his partaking of the food she had cooked before he was awake. By his wounded taciturnity he would have her comprehend that his day in the cottage was over, that he only delayed to get a chance to lessen the overpacked wardrobe.

So far, it was true, he had made little headway, but then Rome was not built in a day, and he could afford to abide his time, especially as the immersion season had not yet arrived. But he remembered, with a chill, that on his way to work that morning he would be obliged to pass Martha Todd’s house. She would be expecting him to bring along an armful of clothing. What could he do to excuse his delay? He bethought himself all at once of his Sunday boots and the blacking and blacking-brush, still under Asphalt’s little bed. With them he could pay an installment on his sister’s hopes and also shield himself from the appearance of defeat.

Rising from the table, he reached under the bed, and securing the articles in question he tucked them under his arm and sailed forth without looking at Caroline or Asphalt.

Martha Todd was on the lookout, pacing up and down her front yard. She vanquished a rather open look of curiosity as he sauntered down the sidewalk, and gave her face an expression of absolute vacancy of thought.

“Good mornin’, Abrum?” said she.

“Good-mornin’, sister,” he replied, in a sigh, as he passed her into the cottage, “kin I ax yer ter save dese yer boots en blackin’-bresh fer me. It’s all my things I kin git my han’s on now. Ca’line is de beatenes’ woman in dis wull I do know. She’s locked um all up in de wa’drobe en hid de key som’rs. But I gwine back ter night en watch my chances. She ’low she mighty sharp, but you gwine see. You gwine hear supin drap; now min’ whut I seh. She hatter git up ’fo’ day to haid me off. De minute I git my han’s on any er my things I gwine fetch um right ter you, en w’en I got um all frum ’er she kin des go, now you min’ whut I seh. She kin des go ’long en wade en swim tell she tek er tail lak er tadpole fer all I keer. All I want is whut b’longs ter me. I gwine hat um, too, en not many words be passed nurr.”

Discerning Martha began to place a small value on her prospect of gaining her point, but in the sweet delight of being a partner in a family disagreement she did not make her fears known, and pretended to think that he was in the right to a final separation from Caroline.

That day Abraham’s companions wondered at his moods. He was very absent-minded, and seemed extremely nervous and ill at ease. As the hour for dinner arrived he remembered that he would be obliged to go home for a small piece of plug tobacco which he had forgotten.

“My lord, Abrum!” exclaimed a dusky companion in surprise, “whyn’t you step er crost ter de sto’ en buy a piece. It’s er mile, en’ll push you lak smoke ter git back.”

“No use,” said Abraham, taking his luncheon in his hands and eating it as he started off. “No use; I des got ter hat it. It’s my sweet navy, en deh ain’t non er dat kin’ in dat sto’. I cay’nt do er lick dis evenin’ less’n I got it.”

He found it necessary to avoid passing in view of Martha Todd’s house, so his distance was a trifle longer than usual.

He stood in the door in surprise. Caroline and Asphalt were seated at the dining table, and on it for that midday repast was only some bread and water. His heart smote him suddenly as he remembered what a delightful luncheon she had always put up in his pail of mornings. But he must not weaken. He remembered that the desired piece of tobacco was in the pocket of a pair of trousers now locked in the wardrobe. Notwithstanding this knowledge, he went to the mantelpiece, looked in the clock, turned over papers, and ran his hands over the covering of Asphalt’s bed.

Then feeling that some explanation was due Caroline, who was regarding him surreptitiously, he said to Asphalt, whose lack of comprehension was as positive as his blackness:

“Asphy, honey, has you seed yo’ papa’s piece er terbaccer? Seem lak I lef’ it in my blue check pants.”

Caroline, however, as if taking the remark to herself, without deigning to look at him, went to the wardrobe, unlocked it, and threw the pair of trousers referred to on the bed, and placidly resumed her work over the fire-place.

With marked eagerness Abraham ran his hand into a pocket of the garment, and finding the tobacco, he forthwith partook of a quid, as if he were unable to stay his desire for another moment. Then he stood and gazed at his wife steadily for a minute with a mingled look of embarrassment and resentment.

But she took not the slightest notice of him. She did not move save to reach over and fan the flies from Asphalt’s face.

Abraham was in hasty argument with himself in regard to the disposal of the trousers lying before him. He did not like to take them away, for he would be obliged to go to Martha Todd’s house to leave them in her care. If the trousers had been his best he might have thought differently, but as fate would have it they were of the very least value of any of his clothes. They were adorned with vari-colored patches, and fringed badly at the knees.

On the other hand, Caroline, he feared, would consider his failing to take them as an evidence that he was weakening from the rigorous course he was pursuing toward a divorce. He decided upon an exhibition of contempt for the trousers, and again brought his child into diplomatic service.

“Asphy,” said he ruefully, holding the trousers out at arm’s length, while the child was most desperately chewing his cheek to dislocate the colony of flies from the Oklahoma below a wildly rolling orb, “Asphy, yo’ papa has certney got all de use out’n dese yer pants. Some tramp kin hat um. ’Sides I mus’ git er lots er new things ter wear in Texas.” With those words, the last of which caused Caroline to start, he threw the trousers into a corner and left the cottage.

As night after night passed the breach seemed to be widening between the couple. Morning after morning Abraham emerged from his house bearing some article of clothing he had managed to secure. He took them to Martha Todd. She smiled, and shed some crocodile tears over the coat, vest, or trousers, as the case might be, cast depreciating looks at certain grease spots or rents, with a sigh that too plainly suggested her opinion of Caroline’s domestic negligence.

One night while Abraham was sedulously searching under the beds, behind trunks, and everywhere for something belonging to him, he was deeply surprised to detect a loud grunt, indicating a burthen of both defiance and disgust, in the bosom of his hitherto wordless wife. He was even more surprised to see her go with a hasty shuffle to the wardrobe and show him that it had not been locked by throwing the door of it wide open.

With another most contemptuous grunt she resumed her seat and began to pat her foot on the floor vigorously, as if to vent her boiling spleen.

Abraham felt cold to his very marrow. She was then willing to remove every hinderance to his leaving, had, indeed, made an opening by which he could hasten his departure.

He approached the wardrobe slowly, casting helpless glances at Caroline’s heaving back. There among her gowns hung naught he could call his own save a soiled linen duster and his overcoat. With trembling fingers he took the duster from its hook, and stalked out into the night. Slowly he glided with bowed head toward his sister’s house. She sat in the doorway behind a cloud of tobacco smoke.

“Well,” said he almost in a whisper, “well, Marfy, dis trouble is mos’ over wid now. ’Twon’t be long ’fo’ I’ll come, now. I think I got de las’ thing ’cep’ er overcoat. Wid good luck I think I kin git dat ter-morrer night. Ter-night I hope you’ll ’low me ter sleep in yo’ company-room. I want ter let Ca’line en Asphy git use’n ter stayin’ in dat house alone.”

Martha rose and moved into the adjoining room to arrange his bed. Her movements betrayed high elation. Things had taken a shape at last that she had hardly hoped for. She lay awake until past midnight listening to Abraham’s creaking bedstead and gloating over the prospective triumph over her heretical sister-in-law.

The next morning Abraham ate his breakfast at Martha’s and went to work without going home. He thought that an additional twelve hours to Caroline’s suspense would do much toward showing her how desirable it was to have a man around the house. The ensuing day, be it said, was a long one to him, and he suffered more than he thought she did.

When he slouched into his cottage at dusk that day, he was shocked to see the inevitable wardrobe open. Indeed the door of that receptacle was frowningly held ajar by means of a stick of stovewood.

Abraham, however, had arranged a grand coup d’ etat for this last visit to his home. It remained to be seen how the enemy would receive the movement.

It was Saturday. He had his entire earnings of the week—twelve silver dollars—in his pocket. He wondered whether twenty-four halves or twelve whole dollars would make the biggest display, and had finally decided on the latter.

Drawing his hand from his pocket to scratch his head he contrived to evoke quite a merry jingle of coin as he stepped across the room to a small table. Caroline’s face flushed and she followed his movements with a mien of deep interest. Not since their marriage had he failed to divide his week’s wages with her. He did not, as she feared, hand it to her on this momentous occasion. Instead, he sat down at the table, after he had dusted and carefully rolled up his overcoat in a newspaper and began to arrange his money in divers piles and positions by the light of a small piece of candle which he had taken from his pocket and lighted to show Caroline that he was not obliged to call for the lamp, which shone on the supper table.

Then he drew forth a soiled piece of writing paper, a small stub of a pencil, and seemed to be engrossed in a deep calculation, as he scratched down some strange hieroglyphics and lines, as if they marked out his course in the future.

“Asphy,” said he, dreamily, the better to assume utter unconsciousness of the fact that the child was asleep on its bed. “Asphy, honey, you ain’t never yer anybody seh how fur ’tis ter Texas, has you? De boss ’low it’s er long way off frum Atlanta, but I reckon I kin git deh—de train starts at twelve ter-night.”

Caroline was so excited that her trembling hands made the dishes in the cupboard rattle as she was putting away the supper, which he had refused to touch, although she had kept it waiting for his arrival. She took a seat in the doorway and turned her dusky face out toward the night in order that he might not see her tear-dimmed eyes.

At the table he sat over his coin chessmen and figures until the far-away strokes of a clock-bell rang the hour of ten out to them from the heart of the sleeping city. As if to answer the bell came a rasping, labored cough from slumbering Asphalt, a disconnected jargon murmured as from a breast of pain, half subdued by sleep.

Two pairs of eyes were raised suddenly; one from the coin-strewn table, the other from the long rows of lights which mark out a street on the blackness far away, between long lines of tall buildings. Two hearts quickened their beatings simultaneously. Two minds were focused on one idea.

The mother rose quickly and with a cat-like tread went to the child and bent over him. Abraham all at once had eyes for aught besides his gains. His mouth relaxed from its drawn sternness and fell open as he watched Caroline’s anxious posture at the bed. He went to her side.

They looked like a pair of ebony statues. The light of the lamp and candle seemed to be struggling to produce shadows of the couple on the wall, but the rays of one lessened the power of the other, so that four dim contortions in shade took the place of two. The mother’s hand was on the brow of the sleeper; her breath was held in suspense.

“Ca’line,” more in a rasping gasp was the name pronounced than in Abraham’s usual tones; “Ca’line, dat child has got ’is feet wet somewhar’. Dis typhoid fever is all roun’ dis settlement en pow’ful bad wid chillun. You look atter him honey; I gwine fur er doctor. I’ll be back ez soon ez I kin git yer.” He left his money on the table, without giving it a thought or glance, and darted hurriedly from the room.

Day after day the troubled pair watched over their sick child, hoping and praying for its life to be spared to them.

“Ef it had en’ er been fur dis yer divo’ce we hat up ’twix us, Ca’line, it wouldn’t er come, I know,” said Abraham, in sackcloth and ashes one night. “It’s mighty bad ter tamper wid whut de Lo’d have done jined tergerr, en all ’bout His Own Son, too; better not hat no chu’ches en dat. Sister done gwine sen’ me my things back.”

Caroline was husky of voice when she replied, dampening a towel to cool Asphalt’s hot brow: “Abrum, I’m willin’, en only too willin’ ter go wid you in yo’ chu’ch. I don’t know no diffunce ’twix de two; I des hat my min’ sot on foolish showin’ off. En if God will only spar dis one child, I’ll never open my mouf ergin. Who knows but er gwine in der water wid wet clothes might er been my regular death? Mebby dis spell er Asphy’s is er warnin’ ergin it.”

Slowly Asphalt passed the dread climax, and began to grow better, and to-day Crippletown does not contain a more happy couple than Abraham and Caroline.

ETCHINGS: AFTERWARD

(Annie Reeve Aldrich: For Short Stories.)

It is deep winter. A fierce storm shakes the windows in their casement. Melting flakes were in his beard when he entered.

Within is no light save from the fire; a dull, steady glow that bathes the room in soft rose. There are lordly furnishings; about the floor great cushions; skins of the leopard and lion.

There is a screen.

My God, do not let me look behind that screen!

Hush! Where was I? Yes, on the furs before the fire, my head, with loosened hair, pillowed on the rug at his feet.

It was pleasant to listen to the raging of the wind.

He had come to tell me of his approaching marriage—a marriage of love, he said, and laughed.

It was then all the room seemed to burst into a firelight of blood; all the sounds of hell rang in my ears; and my wrist had the sudden strength of ten men to drive the blade in his breast. His great muscles and firm flesh gave momentary resistance to the point, and then, what joy to feel them yield, and the steel slip deftly in!

The wet crimson poured over my fingers into the creases of the palms he had kissed, and the dimples he had counted.

He rolled, so much clay, onto the white furs, and see, I have drawn the screen in front of him ... for he is still laughing ... the happy bridegroom.

I wish the bride might see that smile!

There is a dark stream crawling through the fur, meandering and choosing its crooked way like a little brook in the summer grasses, and it creeps on and on lazily toward the polished hearth. It will run on until the flames drink it ... and when it reaches them I must get some snow at the window and wash my hands ... but just now I can think of nothing but how long it will be by the tick of the carved clock against the wall before it reaches its goal ... of nothing but that, and how, when the fire sinks and crumbles to ashes the waiting shadows will steal from the corners where they hide and gather closer around me ... and I shall have to sit motionless until the dawn, lest by chance I should set my foot in that black little brook ... it is quiet ... but those shadows are only waiting ... waiting in the corners!

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS FOUND

(Edmond Spencer: Parisian Police Archives.)

M. Scipion Desruelles kept a small shop in the Rue de Seine, Paris. He had a wife, but no children.

He was a small tradesman, and his wife a large, coarse-looking woman, quite capable of taking care of shop and Scipion.

Scipion’s past life had been singularly uneventful.

One single circumstance had ruffled it, and that he used often to relate to his gossips, in proof that a hero was spoiled in the making when Scipion became a shopkeeper.

One night, ten years before the time of his introduction to the reader, Scipion had gone to the theatre, and after the performance had taken Madame to a restaurant and treated her to a little supper. Returning home, after he was in bed Scipion heard a noise in the shop. He armed himself with a bootjack, went down, and, with the assistance of the hastily summoned police, captured a burglar.

The man, who said he was an Italian, named Vedova, disclaimed earnestly all felonious intentions, but could give no good account of himself. Scipion prosecuted him vigorously, and he was convicted and sent to Brest.

Two years later Scipion met Vedova in a café and had him arrested as an escaped convict.

In the early part of 1852 Scipion received official notification from Martinique that a bachelor cousin of his on the island, whose name was Pache, was dead and had left him heir to all his property which was large, and included a valuable sugar plantation. Desruelles was further informed by the notary at St. Jean, that it would be necessary for him to come out in person and administer on the estate in order to save himself great loss and inconvenience and many delays.

The bourgeois of Paris is not a traveling character, but neither is he willing to lose money if he can help it. Scipion bought himself a trunk, committed the little boutique in the Rue de Seine to Madame’s charge—she was quite as competent to take care of it as he—made a deed of all his property in Paris to Madame as a preventive of accidents, and then bidding her the most tender adieu, sailed for Martinique, via Bourdeaux, in a brig which took out a cargo of claret and oil for the French islands and New Orleans.

When Desruelles reached Martinique and went to St. Jean, he was simply struck dumb to find his cousin alive and well, and all the notarial papers he had received forgeries!

There was nothing for him to do but go back again.

The brig was to sail in a day for New Orleans, and Scipion determined to go thither in her, take the cars to New York and the steamer thence to Havre, in order to get home again as speedily as possible. He was burning to send the police in search of the rascals who had hoaxed him and made him spend his money and suffer sea-sickness in a wild-goose chase. He was armed with all the preliminary depositions and statements necessary to open the case, duplicates of which were to be forwarded by the authorities from Martinique.

Arrived in New Orleans, Scipion determined to spend a day or two in the city before taking the cars for New York. He put up at a boarding house in the French quarter, and devoted himself to sight-seeing with great assiduity.