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 “May I inquire what brings you here?" he asked sweetly. "And why you saw fit to bring the saintly Richard?”

“I came because it suited me to do so. I never dreamed you were here ’Pon my soul, I did not!”

“Where then did you think I was?”

“Never thought about you at all, my dear fellow. I’m not your squire.”

“Why is Richard here?”

“Lord, what a catechism! He is here because he brought me with him on his way to Wyncham. Have you any objection?”

“It would be useless,” shrugged Tracy. “Have I killed that young fool?”

Andrew looked him over in disgust.

“No, you have not. You have barely touched him, thanks be.”

“Dear me! Why this sudden affection for Carstares?”

Andrew swung round on his heel, remarking over his shoulder:

“He may be a cheat, but he’s a damned fine fellow. By Gad! he nearly pinked you as I entered!” He chuckled at the memory of that glorious moment.

“He nearly pinked me a dozen times,” replied Tracy, binding his arm round more tightly. “He fights like ten devils. But he was fatigued.”

He followed Andrew across the room and stood looking down at his unconscious foe.

Diana’s eyes challenged him.

“Stand back, your Grace! You have no more to do here!”

He drew out his snuff-box and took a pinch.

“So that is how the matter lies, my dear. I did not know that.”

“You pretend that it would have made a difference in your treatment of me?”

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34

Although this lord of weak remembrance, this

Who shall be of as little memory

When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuaded,—

For he's a spirit of persuasion, only

Professes to persuade,—the king his son's alive.

'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd

As he that sleeps here swims.

Seb. I have no hope

That he's undrown'd.

Ant. O! out of that 'no hope'

What great hope have you! no hope that way is

Another way so high a hope that even

Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,

But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me

That Ferdinand is drown'd?

Seb. He's gone.

Ant. Then tell me

Who's the next heir of Naples?

Seb. Claribel.

Ant. She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells

Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples

Can have no note, unless the sun were post—

The man i' th' moon's too slow—till new-born chins

Be rough and razorable: she that from whom

We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,

And by that destiny to perform an act

Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come

In yours and my discharge.

Seb. What stuff is this !—How say you?

'Tis true my brother's daughter's Queen of Tunis;

So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions

 240 weak remembrance: failing memory

242 earth'd: buried

243, 244 only Professes: makes it his sole profession

250 Cf. n.

256 note: information

post: messenger

258 she that, etc.; cf. n.

259 cast: disgorged, with pun on 'casting of actors' for a play

262 In discharge: to be determined by what you and I do

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Page:Tempest (1918) Yale.djvu/45


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 for her kindness to them. “You are kind,” says he, “indeed I must confess you seem to me too kind to them.”

And then we must remember that Novak was not by any means a man to leave the farm with empty pockets, nor was Terinka either likely to let him depart with them empty. She always perfectly understood Novak when he told her he was so glad to see her comfortably settled there.

And if Novak did not always carry off all he meant to take at once, of course he came oftener, to carry away more than he could manage on a single journey.

Our young mistress had not too good health, and therefore the doctor often drove over to the farm.

But such visits cost money, and therefore Uncle John sometimes himself drove Terinka over to the doctor, to spare the cost of his coming, and to exercise the horses.

Certainly, very few people quite believed in our mistress’ delicate health, but still she had to spare herself on account of it. She did not venture to undertake any heavy work; she did not venture to walk much, or to exert herself, and Uncle John sometimes did not go to look after the field, because he was obliged to take care of his wife.

Doubtless by these devices Terinka advanced to the wished-for goal.

On the strength of her delicate health she told Uncle John that she could not move about in the living-room with sufficient freedom so long as the old people were there. And as the doctor assured him that her delicate health might last some time longer during which she would require rest, Uncle John one day put the matter clearly before grandfather, and the upshot of it all was that grandfather and grandmother were to be banished to a neighbouring room for so long as Terinka continued in delicate health.

This by itself was no doubt a trifling matter, for any one who knew the spare rooms would admit that they were spacious and clean. But still it rather stung grandfather when he was so summarily banished from the living-room, in which for half a century he had experienced all the boons and ills of life.

His eyes were certainly slightly bedimmed, and he told uncle that he thought perhaps Terinka would find it more quiet in the spare room than where so many people were constantly coming and going; but Uncle John objected that opposition only made her worse, and that delicate women must be humoured.


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AUNT KEZIAH’S NIECE.

BY CLARA AUGUSTA.

“Wall, if it don’t seem guod to git sot down once more! Here I’ve been upon the trot ever since four o’clock this mornin’—up stairs and down stairs, and in the sullur; it’s the way of 3 woman, they must work hard all the time, and git precious little thanks for it!

“Yer uncle’s allers for everlastingly dreadin’ washing day; says it’s wurs’n Bedlam, and a complete panorama—equal to town meetin’, or trainin’ day! That’s all a man knows! Jest as if anybody could wash, and scrub, and bile, and slush from sunrise till sunset without makin’ a noise! I’d like to see him try it! I’ve never knowed him, in the course of all our marriage- able life, to miss gittin’ mad washin’ days—he invariably does—and he allers swears when he’s mad! Yer uncle Joshua ain’t a perfain man naturally, but the minit the steam begins to rise Monday mornin’, it runs the chronometer of his temper clean up to Nero, and he’ll blow off like a railroad whistle!

“As for yer cuzzin, Ichabod Jefferson, he allers goes off in the mornin’ to get rid of lug- gin’ water, and he’ll stay till jest the minit I begin to wash the floor; then in he’ll come, and begin to tramp, tramp, and gallop across the room; trackin’ the floor, and eatin’ cake and butter. Ichabod is a ter’ble case for eatin’; there ain’t no end to his appatite. He’d devour the whole airth, and then think nothin’ of crammin’ down a doughnut on top of it! I never knowed him to eat less’n fifteen putaters to a meal, afore last summer. Along the fust of June, my niece, Seraphina Ricanny, came up  here to churalize and smell the country air. As soon as she arriv’, Ichabod sot his cap for her, and of course he had to leave off eatin’ so many putaters, because Seraphina said only Irishers eat ’taters. We made a powerful savin’ in that way.

“Seraphina was about as romantic a bunch of plurality as ever you cum across. Allers drest in white, and wore her hair in dangles, because she said it was poetical; but her gowns made the awfullest sight of washin’ and ironin’! They was more to wash than yer uncle’s shirts when he’s to work in the loggin’ swamp—for she had “em clean down to the ground, and was allers a ‘goin’ out in the dewy bushes draggling round, climbin’ rocks, and doin’ all manner of shaller things; and them white gowns trailin’ arter her  jest like a peacock’s tail ina rainy day! Sez I to her one mornin’,

“Seerypheen, why don’t you wear a caliker gown out in the woods?’

“La! aunty!’ sez she, rollin’ up her eyes clean out of their ribbets, ‘what if any destiny   should meet me?’

“‘Destiny?’ sez I, ‘ who’s yer destiny? I guess  they ain’t much if they wouldn’t be perlite to ye in a caliker gown! Besides, they wouldn’t be at all likely to be out a strolin’ in them woods!’ “Ah!’ sez she, ‘aunt Keziah, you’ve no receptive of the rhumetic visions that float athwart the gold of my metal horizontal!’

“I wonder if I hain’t?’ sez I, ‘I’ve had the  rhumatiz nigh onto ten year, and if I don’t know  what it is by this time, it’s a pity! It’s a ter’ble cumplaint, and I’m sorry you’ve got it—did you ever try mustard poultices?’

“Seraphina kinder looked at me as if she’d seen a sperit, or somethin’, but she didn’t say nothin’—only took a book and went off out inter the sheep’s pasture.

“Ichabod scolded to me for sayin’ anything to her. He said she was too fine bred to under- stand my common talk, and I'd better keep still. Ye see, Ichabod took a shine to her, and couldn’t bear to have anybody speak a word agin her no how. She hadn’t been to our house a fortnight  afore he took to ilin’ his chin and wearin’ standing collars. He kept one hand a pullin’ up his dicky, and ’tother feeling of his chin, the whole of the time, till I got wore out with him.

“‘Don’t, Ichabod,’ sez I, one day at dinner— ‘don’t be a borrying trouble so much; it’ll be   time enuff to worry about yer beard when it   comes! You'll drive it all back if you keep rubbin’ it so!' “Ichabod was mad, and Seraphina pulled out her smelling-bottle, her vinegar grater, she calls it, and clapped it to her nose. Yer uncle sez I’m allers a shockin’ somebody’s modesty, but I can't help it! I’m an honest woman, and bound to speak the truth—shock or no shock! Seraphina got over it though; folks ginerally revive sich things—and along toward night, she started of for the woods agin. Ichabod he went down in


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 Grandfather now recognized himself that his objections were trivial, and submitted to be banished with grandmother the more easily the more urgently the young people laboured to effect his banishment.

On the whole the poor invalid was not so badly off. Grandfather, according to his custom, went to visit Terinka, and consoled himself with the thought that there would be so soon an end of all.

But it seemed all at once to occur to Terinka that he consoled himself with the notion that he would soon be reinstated in the living-room. And so one fine evening after a warm day, she just reminded him that he had not yet gained his point. “For you know,” says she, “my indisposition might easily return.”

I cannot really blame Uncle John for any harshness towards grandfather; not at all. But he was indifferent to him as to everything else in general. For that man was yet to find in the world who could discover something that should console him. If grandfather had still had the stronger will, the son would have obeyed his father: as his wife had it, he obeyed her.

Perhaps he would have obeyed any one, for it was wholly indifferent to him what he did.

Briefly, to whichever side grandfather looked he found himself completely deserted. His sons and daughters now rarely visited him, for the Terincine character was not too alluring. And how could grandfather open out his heart to them when it was all his doing, that he had almost forgotten even those of them who were yet living.

My father, on one occasion, did indeed delicately suggest that grandfather should pay him a visit, and if our house pleased him, that he should establish himself there. But grandfather answered that after all he could not bear to die anywhere but at home.

And now, too, grandfather could not open his heart to grandmother, who complained of her daughter-in-law perpetually, and since grandfather had always from the beginning taken Terinka under his protection he felt that he must seem to do so still, for the sake of consistency.

And once when seated in the yard he tried to think of any one to whom he could open out his heart; then, and not till then, he recognized that he was alone, alone.

Thus involuntarily his eyes fell on the grey-haired dog, Vorjech, who stood there before him, looking up at his eyes and wagging its tail, for it was long since grandfather had noticed it. Rh


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 So it occurred to him, as if by accident, how that Terinka had several times compared his head with the grey-haired dog, Vorjech, and involuntarily he looked again into Vorjech’s eyes.

Vorjech seemed to understand him. He never stirred, and his eyes seemed to grow bedimmed and moist just as grandfather’s eyes did.

“Dear Vorjech, we are then discrowned,” said grandfather, “we are completely alike.”

And Vorjech whined, sprang up, and finally laid himself down at grandfather’s feet. Thenceforward Vorje ch followed at grandfather’s feet. Grandfather had, indeed, sunk very low: not only in mind; even in his dress this was apparent. Hitherto he had had his suit of velveteen clothing new at least at every annual festival, but now it was long past festival time, and grandfather had not yet changed his suit of clothes for a new one.

Perhaps it never once came into his mind. But during that time he pondered more frequently on his previous life. He saw that everything was not well done as he did it.

His previous hardness now melted into meekness, and then he saw that everything was not well done as he did it. He had been often in fault.

In this, his isolation, he began seriously to look out for some one who could understand him. But let him turn the pages to whichever side he would, every name was erased and everywhere only emptiness.

Nor again, were the servants such that he could converse with them. Our young mistress took the greatest pains to show them that they were not to obey grandfather. If he ever gave them any order Terinka bade them do just the very reverse, and that purposely.

The servants soon saw how the land lay. They laughed outright at grandfather, did not obey their mistress, and each one acted according to his own inclination.

And so our household was managed strangely—passing strangely.

Grandfather now at times even began to reflect that after all he had not a trustier friend than Kubista. It came to him that he had wronged, cruelly wronged his friend, and this sense of pity yet further increased his spiritual weakness.

More than once he even thought that it would be well to give the hand to Kubista. He thought that it would be a far better action than any he had hitherto performed, and that it would


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 “Not the slightest, child,” he replied, shutting the box with a snap. “It has merely come as a slight surprise to me. It seems he has the luck this round.” He walked away again as another great bell-peal sounded through the house.

Andrew, pouring cognac into a glass, paused with bottle held in mid-air.

“Thunder and turf! We are like to be a party! Who now?” He set the glass down and lounged out of the room, bottle in hand. They heard him give an astonished cry and a loud laugh, and the next moment O’Hara strode into the room, booted and spurred and enveloped in a heavy surcoat. He came swiftly upon the little group about my lord and went down on one knee beside him. His eyes seemed to take in everyone at a glance. Then he looked across at Richard.

“Is he alive?”

Richard nodded, not meeting the hard, anxious gaze.

O’Hara bent over his friend.

“He has been wounded?”

Diana answered this.

“Only slightly, Sir Miles, but ’twas his shoulder again. He was tired after the ride—Mr. Carstares thinks he has fainted from exhaustion.”

O’Hara very gently slipped one arm beneath my lord’s shoulders and the other under his knees, rising with him as easily as if he were carrying a baby. He walked over to the couch, lowering his burden on to the cushions that Diana placed to receive him.

“He will be easier there,” he said, and looked across at her.

“Ye are quite safe, child?”

“Quite—quite He came just in time—and fought for me.” She dabbed openly at her eyes. “I—I love him so, Sir Miles—and now I hear that he is an Earl!” she sighed.

“Well, child, ’twill make no difference, I take it. I hope he’ll make ye happy.”

She smiled through her tears very confidently.

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 O’Hara turned and faced Richard, who was standing a little in the rear, watching his brother’s face. He met O’Hara’s scathing look squarely.

“Well?”

“Nought,” answered the Irishman cuttingly, and walked over to where Lord Andrew was arguing hotly with his brother.

Carstares returned to my lord’s side and stood looking silently down at him.

Diana suddenly gave a little joyful cry.

“He is coming round! He moved his head! Oh, Jack, my dear one, look at me!” She bent over him with eyes alight with love.

My lord’s eyelids flickered and opened. For a moment he stared at her.

“Why—Diana!”

She took his head between her hands and kissed him full on the mouth. Then she raised his head to look into the blue eyes.

My lord’s arm crept round her and held her tight against him. After a moment she disengaged herself and stood aside. Jack’s eyes, still a little bewildered, fell upon his brother. He struggled up on his elbow.

“Am I dreaming? Dick! ” His voice was full of a great joy.

Richard went quickly to him, trying to put him back on the cushions.

“My dear Jack—no, no—lie still!”

“Lie still?” cried my lord, swinging his feet to the ground. “Not a bit of it! I am well enough, but a trifle dizzy. How in thunder did you come here? Surely ’twas you knocked up my sword ? Yes ? Interfering young cub! Give me your arm a minute!”

“But why do you want to get up?” pleaded a soft voice in his ear.

“So that I can take you in my arms, sweetheart,” he answered, and proceeded to do so.

Then his glance, wandering round the room, alighted on the heated group by the table; Andrew vociferously

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6 “And so,” continued my sister, “I exempt Bottles. And considering, John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most reliable and willing form a Society here for three months wait upon ourselves and one another live cheerfully and socially and see what happens.”

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on. the spot, and went into her plan with the greatest ardour.

We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and mustered in the haunted house.

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun? On his saying, “Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her,” I begged the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine.

“S/te’s a true one, sir,” said Ikey, after inspecting a double-barreled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. “No mistake about her, sir.”

“Ikey,” said I, “don’t mention it; I have seen something in this house.”

“No sir?” he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. Ooded lady, sir?”

“Don’t be frightened,” said I. “It was a figure rather like you.”

“Lord, sir?”

“Ikey!” said I, shaking hands with him warmly: I may say affectionately; “if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I see it again!”

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid of the house, and believed in its being hauated; and yet he would play false on the hauating side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd Girl’s case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a state of real

terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any question of this kind.

To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and every bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting party, or were ship-wrecked. I then recounted the floating rumours concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.: with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words. We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not there to be deceived, or to deceive which we considered pretty much the same thing and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we would be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out the truth. The understanding was established, that any one who heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break silence.

We were, in number and in character, as follows:

First to get my sister and myself out of the way there were we two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I drew Master B.’s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, so called after the great astronomer: than whom I suppose a better man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time; but I suppose lie knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been my wife, I never


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 eral society. I attribute this to his having lived so much alone, as also to the desire he now professes of applying himself to prose writing. He affects a sort of Johnsonian tone, likes very much to be listened to, and seems to observe the effect he produces on his hearer. In mixed society his ambition is to appear the man of fashion; he adopts a light tone of badinage and persiflage that does not sit gracefully on him, but is always anxious to turn the subject to his own personal affairs, or feelings, which are either lamented with an air of melancholy, or dwelt on with playful ridicule, according to the humor he happens to be in.

A friend of ours, Colonel M-, having arrived at Genoa, spent much of his time with us. Lord Byron soon discovered this, and became shy, embarrassed in his manner, and out of humor. The first time I had an opportunity of speaking to him without witnesses was on the road to Nervi, on horseback, when he asked me if I had not observed a great change in him. I allowed that I had, and asked him the cause; and he told me, that knowing Colonel M- to be a friend of Lady Byron's, and believing him to be an enemy of his, he expected that he would endeavor to influence us against him, and finally succeed in depriving him of our friendship; and that this was the cause of his altered manner. I


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 THE

OLD

STONE

MANSION.

BY cuss-Lu J. rsrsnson, aurnoa or “run vannnr rams,” “MADEL,” “KATE avnssronn," ac. [Rntered., according to—Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by Charles J. Peterson, in the Clerk's Oﬁce of the District Uonrt

of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 219.

CHAPTER XIII.

In a few minutes, my cousin came running. eagerly up, saying, ‘Arthur is so glad you are here.”

Mr. Despencer followed her, and taking my hand in both of his, as if we had been old friends, greeted me cordially, and concluded by saying,

“It lifts quite a load from my mind to know: you will be with Georgiana, for business will call me much away, and this is a lonely place at best.”

I will not deny that I felt relieved at these words. Mr. Despencer had not forgotten his old grace of manner. If his welcome had been that of a Paladin to some wandering and wronged princess, it could not have been accompanied by more delicacy in look and manner. I-began to think better of him. I wondered less at what I thought Georgiana’s infatuation. My auswer, doubtless, revealed something of this change in opinion, for my cousin brightened up and gave me a glance full of grateful thanks. Mr. De- spencer noticed it also, and continued quite gallantly,

“You might find it dull, for young married people are apt to forget everybody but them- selves,” and he looked, half laughingly at Geor- giana, who was blushing happily—I had not seen her look so happy before, ‘‘ but fortunately I brought a friend home with me. Mr. Bentley is quite a beau. I should not wonder if he and you got up a flirtation.”

I caught an appealing look from Georgiana to her husband. She had not, I saw, informed Mr. Despencer of the reason for my visit. But he; comprehended, with ready tact, that he had made a blunder of some kind, and offering me his arm, conducted me downstairs in silence.

Oh! how that chance allusion wrung my heart. It brought back, in full force, the memory of my happiness, now gone forever, and which, for the last half hour, I had temporarily forgot.

Mr. Bentley was handsome and well dressed. But he had a sinister expression, which made me shudder instinctively, as one shudders at  sight of a snake. He seemed to me a something between a jockey and a black-leg, dressed up in Sunday clothes and practicing manners learned of a dancing-master. The elaborate politeness with which he received his introduction to me increased my aversion to him, as elaborate politeness always does, when I dislike people; besides, elaborate politeness is never honest.

The next day rose clear and crisp. After break-fast, Mr. Despencer and his friend departed for the city. The former was so much out of humor that he could barely restrain himself sufficiently to be civil. Georgiana looked as if she had been crying. I surmised that she had told him how unrelenting her father was: and my surmise proved correct, as she informed me, after the meal was over, by way of apology for her hus- band’s ill-temper. She did not tell me how harsh he had been to her, however, and that this was the cause of her swollen eyes.

Mr. Bentley, however, was still offensively polite. He seemed to think that he could make up for his friend’s incivility, by excessive attentions to Georgiana and myself, when he only annoyed the first, and exasperated me. For already I was beginning to hate the man. ‘Has he the impertinence,” I said to myself, as I contrasted him with Mr. Talbot, ‘‘to think he can make himself agreeable to me?”

When we were left alone, Georgiana excused herself for an hour or two, on the plea of house- hold affairs, but really, I suspect, to have her cry out unobserved. Left to myself, I set forth to examine the mansion. I had been curious, from what I saw of it the night before, to know where Mr. Bentley had slept, for, except the two chambers occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Despencer and myself, and the loft, which the servant had for a dormitory, I was not aware of any apartments in sufficient repair to be used as sleeping-rooms. I found my anticipations correct. The entire half of the house, on the right of the hall, was in a tenantless condition: the shutters rotted off, or hanging loose; the plaster broke; the ceilings fallen in; the floors decayed. I opened the doors, that led into them from — but


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Column 2, paragraph 2, lines 8–9: should "ship-/wrecked" be "shipwrecked" or "ship-wrecked"? -- Yodin T 21:34, 9 December 2023 (UTC)


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Rh could have left her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-aud-twenty for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room: mine, usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges / was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind or no wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be “fast” (another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have distinguished himself before now, if his father had not unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or that he may enter into some speculation, guaranteed to pay twenty per cent; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business earnestness, and “goes in” to use an expression of Alfred’s for Woman’s mission, Woman’s rights, Woman’s wrongs, and everything that is W oman’s with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and ought not to be. “Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper you!” I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of her at the Picture Room door, “but don’t overdo it. And in respect of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation lias as yet assigned to her, don’t fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sigTit in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not all Wolf and Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it.” However, I digress.

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room, We had but three other chambers: the Corner Koom, the Cupboard Room, and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, “slung liis hammock,” as he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the 1’inest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is grey now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried, “You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!” That he is! And so

unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal’s skin, you would be vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform.

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America, where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convincedthat all salt beef notof his own pickling, is mer-e carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him one “Nat Beaver,” an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman. Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and iigure, and apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor: who came down, in an amateur capacity, “to go through with it,” as he said, and who plays whist better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning to the red cover at the end.

1 never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pastrycook and confectioner. Starling and 1 were Cook’s Mate, turn and turn about, and on special occasions the chief cook “pressed” Mr. Beaver. We had a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was neglected within, and there was no ill humour or misunderstanding among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least one good reason for being reluctant to goto bed.

We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship’s lantern in his hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me that he was “going aloft to the main truck,” to have the weathercock down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said somebody would be “hailing a ghost” presently, if it wasn’t done. So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern and all with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out something else. On several occasions, they both,


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 be perfectly in keeping with self-respect if he were to make the first step.

It occurred to him that hitherto he had never distinguished himself by any particularly good act, though he was originally capable of everything, and to reconcile himself with Kubista would be at least a beginning, maybe also an end. He felt that it would be better to weep on Kubista’s bosom than to lament alone, and to the empty air.

He was already too weak to bear all that he had brought upon himself.

Thus he more than once found himself looking in the direction Kubista used to come and meet him, and if Kubista had really approached, perhaps he would have fallen on his neck, and with lamentations have implored his forgiveness.

Kubista did not, indeed, appear in that direction but fate decreed that they should first meet one another in a different place.

It was Sunday, and grandfather decided to go to church early in the morning. It was not perhaps because he found little to console him at home that he went in better time than the rest, but because he walked slowly, for his foot had latterly been again more painful and then he said he liked to be in time. So at least he said.

And he hobbled to church, in point of fact, before the bells had ceased to chime, and then as the church was still locked, he went to look at the churchyard.

He had not been there for a long while. He could not, indeed, remember how long since.

Many changes there were. Many a new cross had been added, and of those mounds which he remembered fresh more than one was overrun with turf of many years’ growth. Many again were newly dug. Which was to be for him?

On that solitary grave who knelt yonder? That face was known to him, though it aged to unrecognition.

It was old Kubista. He knelt on the grave of his daughter, Betuska, and prayed for his daughter.

Grandfather felt all his hatred suddenly collapse; all the better sides of old Kubista came to mind and he was touched with pity for his unfortunate friend when he learned to realize how unhappy he had himself become.

He did not know how it happened, but he knelt beside Kubista at the grave, and with a quavering voice pronounced the words,


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 indignant, Tracy coolly sarcastic, and O’Hara furious.

“Tare an’ ouns!” ejaculated my lord. “Where did , they all spring from?”

“I don’t quite know!” laughed Diana. “Sir Miles came a few minutes ago—the other gentleman came with Mr. Carstares.”

“Ay, I remember him—’tis Andrew, eh, Dick? Zounds! how he has grown! But what in the world are they all fighting over? Miles! Miles, I say!”

O’Hara wheeled round, surprised.

“Oho! Ye are up, are ye.” He crossed to his side. “Then sit down!”

“Since you are all so insistent, I will. How did you come here?”

O’Hara went round to the back of the couch to arrange a cushion beneath the hurt shoulder, and leaned his arms upon the back, looking down with a laugh in his eyes.

“Faith, I rode!”

“But how did you know? Where”

Twas all on account of that young rascal David,’ he said. “Molly fretted and fumed all the way to the Frasers, vowing the child would be neglected, and what not, and we’d not been in the house above an hour or so, when up she jumps and says she knows that something has happened at home, and nothing will suffice but that I must drive her back. We arrived just as Beauleigh was setting out. He told us the whole tale, and of course I had Blue Peter saddled in the twinkling of an eye and was off after ye. But, what with taking wrong turns and me horse not happening to be made of lightning, I couldn’t arrive until now.”

“You cannot have been so long after me,” said Jack. “For I wasted full half-an-hour outside here, trying to find an opening in the hedge for Jenny to get through. She is now stalled in a shed at the bottom of the lawn with my cloak over her. I’ll swear she’s thirsty, too.”

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Column 1, paragraph 1, lines 31–32: should "praise-/worthy" be "praiseworthy" or "praise-worthy"? -- Yodin T 21:38, 9 December 2023 (UTC)


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 “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”

To Kubista it was the most joyous awakening out of prayer. He took grandfather by the hand, pressed it, and said, “Aye! we have committed many errors.”

Kubista knew not hatred, and it so touched him to see grandfather kneeling beside himself, that he forgave his friend frankly, and from the bottom of his heart.

They sat by Betuska’s grave, and Kubista asked grandfather what had led him thither.

“I came here to choose some place or other”, said grandfather. “Among the living I have one no longer, and I see that I am already a burden to them.”

“Things have not succeeded with us”, said Kubista, but without reproachfulness, only pronouncing the whole truth. “We ourselves have taught friends by our example to desert one another, and now we find ourselves deserted. John even now but seldom comes here, and so I must tend the grave alone. But I will never desert Betuska, and when I have no more power to walk, I will lay myself down beside her.”

Grandfather did in reality feel himself elevated, ennobled, and good—perhaps for the first time in his life. He wished he had still the strength of youth that he might set everything to rights just as he had reconciled himself with Kubista.

Kubista now stood his friend once more. He often visited him behind the barn under the lindens, and seated there on the grass they lightened each other’s sorrows.

The starlings in the trees had much to say to one another, but still they had exhausted themselves ere these neighbours of auld lang syne turned homewards again together.

Grandfather also little by little adapted himself to his fate. He hardly ever complained the least, but learnt to look upon his present circumstances as if they had been so all his life, and were not amenable to change.

He seldom went now to the living-room to see his daughter-in-law; nor did it ever occur to him that he might yet be reinstated there. Indeed, it would even have been a source of grief to him if he had been recalled thither. It had been a hard struggle to disaccustom himself to that room, but now it seemed to him that by being established there he would also put on all his long past frailties.


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 Terinka was at times thoroughly out of health. She was sallow, little inclined to move about, and more like a specimen preserved under a glass case than an animated being. Uncle John did not experience much pleasure in her company; however, he did not look for much pleasure of this kind. Even the child which was born to them, and which Terinka always dressed in the finest clothes, awakened in him no special delight. ’Twas seldom he even smiled at it.

Sometimes he would follow grandfather to his pension house to talk over old times, but what they said on these occasions was of trifling value. It touched upon topics of merely general interest.

I used to go pretty often to visit grandfather at a later period, particularly during the summer time. I knew where his gardens and shrubberies were, and thus made straight for him, for grandfather in summer time was head gardener.

Grey-haired Vorjech was there his inseparable companion. He always stood in front of his kennel and growled when he observed me, for he could not remember my face. Grandfather basked in the sun, scolded Vorjech for not knowing me, and welcomed me with immense satisfaction. Sometimes I also found old Kubista with him.

When I asked him how he felt, he only smiled and said, “Ah! welladay! I am not now what I used to be.” And in these words lay all his confession; his whole life—everything.

And then, when I described to him what went on in Prague, at school and elsewhere, he forgot for very pleasure everything else. in the world. He would not let me leave him, and I had to give him an account of everything I had heard and seen. It seemed as though a new world unrolled itself before his eyes. He always said by way of supplement, “Ah, well, Pepik” (so he had named my father) “knows how to bring up children—he did not learn it from me.”

It was once more St. Lawrence’s festival, and I was already in the bloom of manhood.

It was holiday time and I had just written to my parents to say that I was going to grandfather’s for the festival, where I hoped they would meet me, and then after the festival we could return together.

Just then memories of early days and our visits to grandfather and grandmother came upon me with uncommon force. I felt as though I were their own child, and with all a child’s fondness


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 “I’ll see to that,” promised O’Hara.

Andrew came across the room and bowed awkwardly to my lord, stammering a little. Carstares held out his hand.

“Lord, Andy! I scarce knew you!”

After a moment’s hesitation, Andrew took the outstretched hand and answered, laughingly. But my lord had not failed to notice the hesitation, short though it had been.

“I—beg your pardon. I had forgot,” he said stiffly.

Andrew sat down beside him, rather red about the ears.

“Oh, stuff. Jack! I’m a clumsy fool, but I did not mean that!”

Richard stepped forward into the full light of the candles.

“If you will all listen to me one moment, I shall be greatly obliged,” he said steadily.

Lord John started forward.

“Dick!” he cried, warningly, and would have gone to him, but for O’Hara’s hand on his shoulder, dragging him back.

“Ah, now, be aisy,” growled Miles. “Let the man say it!”

“Hold your tongue, O’Hara! Dick, wait one moment! I want to speak to you!”

Richard never glanced at him.

“I am about to tell you something that should have been told—seven years ago”

“Once and for all, I forbid it!” snapped my lord, trying to disengage himself from O’Hara’s grip.

Miles leant over him.

“See here, me boy, if ye don’t keep a still tongue in your head, its meself that’ll be gagging you, and that’s that!”

My lord swore at him.

Diana laid a gentle hand on his arm.

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 for them. I saw before my eyes grandmother as my childish fancy had pictured her on a charmed height. I felt the immeasurable delight which had always drawn me to her, and that unrest of youth which made us yearn to get the earliest possible glimpse of her wrinkled face. Grandfather had questioned me with special interest the last time I had seen him, and so I had already collected quite a medley of things of which I wished to give him an account. I thought with satisfaction how he would listen, and I felt happy in anticipation at the idea of causing him once again a few moments of simple pleasure.

As I was thus musing, a letter came from father, in which he gave me to understand that I was not to go to grandfather’s for they had buried him that very day, and he explained that he could not inform me about it sooner because he himself only got the news on the very day of the funeral.

I am not sufficiently versed in medical science to say what disease he died of. But he suffered only a very short time.

I am told he was buried most sumptuously, and Uncle John when they came to the churchyard, knelt first by the grave of Betuska, and only then turned aside and threw on grandfather’s coffin three handfuls of earth.

It was the last touch of poetry in uncle. From that time forth he became what people call a well-regulated man.

Later they laid Kubista next Betuska on the other side. Thus kindly mother earth lulled to equal rest those who made havoc of each other’s lives.

And those who still abide on earth, still make havoc of each other’s lives.


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 “Please, John! Please be still! Why should not Mr. Carstares speak?”

“You don’t know what he would do!” fumed Jack.

“In fact, Miss Beauleigh, Sir Miles and Andrew are completely in the dark,” drawled the Duke. “Shall I tell the tale, Richard?”

“Thank you, I shall not require your assistance,” was the cold rejoinder. “But I must ask you to be quiet, John.”

“I will not! You must n”

“That will do,” decided O’Hara, and placed a relentless hand over his mouth. “Go on, Carstares!”

“For the sake of Miss Beauleigh, I will tell you that seven years ago my brother and I went to a card-party. I cheated. He took the blame. He has borne it ever since because I was too much a coward to confess. That is all I have to say.”

Twas for that ye wanted to see me on Friday?’ shot out O’Hara.

Richard nodded, dully.

“Yes, I was going to tell you then.”

“H’m! I’m glad ye had decided to play the man’s part for once!”

With a furious oath Jack wrenched himself free and rounded on his friend.

“You take too much upon yourself, O’Hara!”

He rose unsteadily and walked to Richard’s side.

“Dick has told you much, but not all. You none of you know the reasons we had for acting as we did. But you know him well enough to believe that it needed very strong reasons to induce him to allow me take the blame. If anyone has aught to say in the matter, I shall be glad if he will say it to me—now!” His eyes flashed menacingly as they swept the company, and rested for an instant on O’Hara’s unyielding countenance. Then he turned and held out his hand to his brother with his own peculiarly wistful smile.

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 "Can you bear to speak to me?” muttered Richard, with face averted.

“Gad, Dick, don’t be ridiculous!” He grasped the unwilling hand. “You would have done the same for me!”

Andrew pressed forward.

“Well, I can see no use in raking up old scores! After all, what does it matter? Its buried and finished. Here’s my hand on it, Dick! Lord! I couldn’t turn my back on the man I’ve lived on for years!” He laughed irrepressibly, and wrung Richard’s hand.

My lord’s eyes were on O’Hara, pleading. Reluctantly the Irishman came forward.

Tis only fair to tell you, Richard, that I can’t see eye to eye with Andrew, here. However, I’m not denying that I think a good deal better of ye now than I did—seven years ago.”

Richard looked up eagerly.

“You never believed him guilty?”

O’Hara laughed.

"Hardly!”

“You knew ’twas I?”

“I had me suspicions, of course.”

“I wish—oh, how I wish you had voiced them!”

O’Hara raised his eyebrows, and there fell a little silence. His Grace of Andover broke it, coming forward in his inimitable way. He looked round the room at each member of the company.

“One, two, three—four, five” he counted. “Andrew, tell them to lay covers for five in the dining-room.”

“Aren’t you staying?” asked his brother, surprised.

“I have supped,” replied Tracy coolly.

For a moment O’Hara’s mouth twitched, and then he burst out laughing. Everyone looked at him inquiringly.

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 “Ecod!” he gasped. “Oh, sink me an I ever came across a more amusing villain! ‘Lay covers for five!’ Oh, damme!”

“Or should I have said six?” continued his Grace imperturbably. “Am I not to have the honour of Mr. Beauleigh’s company?”

O’Hara checked his mirth.

“No, ye are not! He was content to let me manage the business, and went back to Littledean.”

“I am sorry,” bowed his Grace, and turned to my lord, who, with his arm about Diana’s waist, was watching him arrogantly.

“I see how the land lies,” he remarked. I congratulate you, John. I cannot help wishing that I had finished you that day in the road. Permit me to say that you fence rather creditably.”

My lord bowed stiffly.

“Of course,” continued his Grace smoothly, “you also wish you had disposed of me. I sympathise. But, however much you may inwardly despise and loathe me, you cannot show it—unless you choose to make yourself and me the talk of town—not forgetting Mistress Diana. Also I abhor bad tragedy. So I trust you will remain here to-night as my guest—er, Andrew, pray do not omit to order bed-chambers to be prepared Afterwards you need never come near me again—in fact, I hope that you will not.”

My lord could not entirely repress a smile.

“I thank your Grace for your hospitality, which I fear,” he glanced down at Diana’s tired face, “I shall be compelled to accept. As to the rest—I agree. Like you, I dislike bad tragedy.”

Diana gave a tiny laugh.

“You are all so stiff!” she said “ I shall go to bed!”

“I will take you to the stairs then,” said Jack promptly, and led her forward.

She stopped as they were about to pass his Grace, and faced him.

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 Tracy bowed very low.

“Good-night, madam. Carstares will know which room I had assigned to you. You will find a servant there.”

“Thank you,” she said steadily. “I shall try to forget the happenings of this day, your Grace. I see the truth in what you say—we cannot afford to let the world see that we are at enmity, lest it should talk. And, I confess it freely, I find it less hard to forgive you the insults of—of to-day, since they brought—Jack—to me. An I had not been in such dire straits, I might never have seen him again.”

“In fact,” bowed his Grace, “everything has been for the best!”

“I would not say that, sir,” she replied, and went out.

For a moment there was silence in the room. No one quite knew what to say. As usual, it was Tracy who came to the rescue, breaking an uncomfortable pause.

“I suggest that we adjourn to the dining-room,” he said. “I gather we may have to wait some time before his lordship reappears. O’Hara, after you!”

“One moment,” replied Miles. “Jack’s mare is in a shed somewhere. I said I would see to her.”

“Andrew!” called his Grace. “When you have finished superintending the laying of the supper, give orders concerning Carstares’ mare!”

A casual assent came from outside, and immediately afterwards Lord Andrew’s voice was heard shouting instructions to someone, evidently some way off.

On the whole, the supper-party passed off quite smoothly. His Grace was smilingly urbane, Andrew boisterous and amusing, and O’Hara bent on keeping the conversation up. Richard sat rather silent, but my lord, already deliriously happy, soon let fall his armour and joined in the talk, anxious to hear all the news of town for the last six years.

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 $$\frac{\frac{1}{r} - \overset{m}\overline{\text{ABC},\ \&\text{c.}}}{1+\frac{1}{r}} = \overset{m}\overline{\mathfrak{ABC},\ \&\text{c.}}$$ is the proposition enunciated in No. 81; $$\frac{1}{r}$$ being the value of the perpetuity (112).

193. Examples of the determination of the single premiums for assurances, and of the derivation of the annual premiums from them, have been given in numbers 82—88, also in 95 and 96; but by the algebraical formulæ given here, the annual premiums may be determined directly, without first finding the total present values of the assurances.

194. Example 1. Required the annual premium for an assurance on the life A now 50 years of age, interest 5 per cent.

195. Ex. 2. What should the annual premium be for an assurance on the last survivor of three lives A, B, C, now aged 50, 55, and 60 years respectively, rate of interest 5 per cent.?

196. Ex. 3. Required the annual premium for an assurance for 10 years only, on a life now 45 years of age, interest 5 per cent.

What has been advanced from numbers 99 to 109, needs no algebraical illustration.


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last few days before the first performance of "The Spring Road" was a whirl of excitement for most of the girls of Central High, and all those belonging to the M. O. R's. or who were to take part in the play. Mr. Sharp, on his own responsibility, announced a general holiday for Friday, with certain lessons to be made up to pay for the deducted time.

"It is my opinion that little work can be expected from either the young ladies or young gentlemen on the momentous day," he said. "Besides, I understand that Miss Gould desires to have a final rehearsal of the play on Friday morning on the stage upstairs. Therefore, mere matters of education may be put aside."

He was quite good natured about it, however, and entirely approved of the attempt of Central High pupils to do something upon the stage that was really "worth while." And Jess Morse's play was indeed far above the average of amateur attempts.


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188 "You girls are invited to a dash on the Blue Streak after the rehearsal to-morrow, Sis," Chet Belding said to Laura at dinner Thursday evening. "Lance and I will show you some sport."

Mrs. Belding looked doubtfully at her husband. "Do you think that ice-boat Chet has built is really safe for the girls, James?" she asked.

"Bless your heart, Mother!" returned the jeweler, his eyes twinkling, "it's quite as safe for Laura and Jess as it is for the boys."

"Ye—es, I suppose so," admitted the good woman. "But it doesn't seem so safe. Girls are different from boys."

"Not so different, nowadays," grumbled Chet "You ought to see some of those husky Central High girls going off with Mrs. Case on their skis. And ski running is as dangerous as ice-boating—believe me!"

"I do believe you, my son. I have no reason to doubt your word," returned Mother Belding, quietly.

"Oh, Mum! that's only an expression"

"Please stick to English—and facts, Chetwood," advised his mother.

"I declare!" grumpily remarked her son. "A meal of victuals at this house has got to be just like attending one of Old Dimple's lectures."


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Rh "Chet!" spoke his father, sternly.

"Well! I guess I didn't mean it just that way—not the way it sounded," the boy said hastily. "But mother does pick a fellow up so"

"I have been doing that all your life, my son," said his mother. "Whenever you stub your toe, mother has been their [sic] to comfort you."

"Got you there, Chet," laughed Laura. "And you used to be a terrible 'stumble heels,' too."

"Say! you're all down on me," declared her brother, but in a milder tone. "I reckon I'm not so popular in this house as I thought I was. But that isn't the answer to my question, Laura. Do you and Jess want to fly with us to-morrow just after lunch?"

"Of course we do," replied his sister. "I don't suppose mother has any real objection?"

"My objections to your sports and athletics seem to have very little reality about them, children," said Mrs. Belding. "Even my husband will not give me backing."

"When I see Chet and Laura anemic, or otherwise sickly, as the result of their out-of-door sports or gym. work, you will find me up in arms with you against such activities, Mother,"


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190 declared Mr. Belding, jovially. "I'd a good deal rather have little Mother Wit here half a Tom-boy"

"Which I'm not, I hope, Papa Belding!" cried Laura, quickly.

"I should hope not," said her mother.

"All right," laughed Mr. Belding. "But I would rather you were than like a few of the girls who attend your school. Some of them are growing up to womanhood too quickly to suit me. There's that Pendleton girl"

"What do you know about Lily Pendleton, Father?" asked Laura, quickly.

"Why, she dresses like a girl of twenty-five—and acts that grown up, too," observed the jeweler. "She was in the store a week or so ago. Now! there's another bad thing. Her mother lets her do just about as she pleases, I guess."

"Mrs. Pendleton has always been very lenient with Lillian," agreed his wife.

"The girl brought into my store a jewel box in which were things valued at more than a thousand dollars, I believe. Old-fashioned jewels left her by her grandmother. She thought of having some re-set. And she really wanted me to buy some of them. She said her mother wouldn't care what she did with them."


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Rh "Of course, James, you did not give the girl money?" exclaimed Mrs. Belding.

"Of course I did not! I am not a pawnbroker. But I valued the stones for her, and she took them away. I wonder what she really meant by trying to sell them?"

Laura listened and flushed; but she remained silent. Since her visit to the Plornish tenement, and since she had read the playbill from Keyport that Jess had brought her, Laura had been very gravely exercised in her mind regarding Lily Pendleton. But she could not bring herself to the point of taking either her father or mother into her confidence. It was not her own secret; it was Lily's.

The following morning the rehearsal of "The Spring Road" went with a snap and vim that delighted everybody. Miss Gould could not praise the girls and boys too highly. Even Mr. Pizotti signified his satisfaction with the way in which the play proceeded. Really, the actual production of the piece would go on well without his presence, although the sum they had agreed to pay the stage manager covered the three performances of the play already arranged for.

Laura and Jess went down to the lake after luncheon to meet the two boys. The Blue


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192 Streak, fresh in a new coat of paint, and with every part of the mechanism guaranteed in perfect order, was already hauled out upon the ice.

The surface of the lake was not as it had been when the girls had taken their first ride on the aero-iceboat. Then the ice was like glass; but now it was pebbly, broken in spots, and not a little "hummocky." There was a stiff wind blowing, too, and this broke up the thinner ice around the water-holes. The course for sleighs and for ice-boats was fairly safe, however, all the way to Keyport.

"Say! we just saw Lily going driving with that sleek little foreigner," said Lance, as the two girls appeared. "I should think Mrs. Pendleton would send a chaperone with her daughter. Old Mike, the coachman, is right under the girl's thumb."

"What do you mean, Lance?" asked Laura, quickly.

"Why, Lil Pendleton and the stage manager are out there in the Pendletons' sleigh. They're aiming for Keyport. And Lil has a big box in the sleigh. Guess they are taking lunch along."

"Lunch!" ejaculated Chet. "Why, that yellow box would hold enough for an army."

"My goodness me! A yellow box?" cried Jess. "Was it that box in which Lil has been


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Rh bringing her costumes to and from the rehearsals?"

"Dunno," said Chet, not much interested.

But Jess turned to her chum, eagerly.

"You know, Laura, she insisted in packing the dresses all into that box again this noon and taking them home with her as usual, although every other girl left her costume in the dressing-rooms. Did you notice it?"

"No," said Laura, slowly.

"Maybe she doesn't expect to get back until it's time to go on for the evening performance," suggested Lance.

"That's not it," returned Laura, quietly.

"What do you suppose that girl has got in her mind, Laura?" demanded Jess, as the boys were making the final preparations for their start.

"I do not know. But I believe she is the 'talented young amateur' advertised to appear at the Keyport Orpheum to-night," said Laura, gravely.

"You don't mean it!" gasped Jess. Then she added, with sudden excitement:

"Why, she'll spoil my play!"

"If she is not here to play her part she will certainly interfere sadly with the success of 'The Spring Road, admitted Laura.


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194 "Oh, oh! That mean, mean thing!" cried Jess, under her breath.

"She is taking her costumes to wear in the production of her own play, which she has renamed 'The Lady of the Castle, said Laura. "She will make a lovely 'Duchess of Doosenberry,' as Bobby nicknamed it, in those robes, Jess."

"Why, Laura, I believe you are not sympathetic," cried Jess.

"Don't you be afraid, dear. Miss Lily will not appear as 'the talented yong [sic] amateur, Greba Pendennis,' if that is what she really intends to attempt. I have fixed that."

"What do you mean?" demanded Jess. But just then the boys shouted to them and they had to hurry to take their places in the ice-boat.

"Chet," said Laura, to her brother, as she settled herself aboard, "run down near the Pendleton sleigh if you can. I want to speak to Lil."

"Just as you say, Sis," returned her brother. "All ready? Let her go, Lance! We'll show these girls some traveling, eh?"

The Blue Streak was off in a moment and the way she tore over the ice always gave the two girls, at first, a feeling as though a wreck were imminent. But in a minute or two the feeling


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Rh subsided, and through the automobile goggles they both wore they dared look ahead.

On this cold afternoon there were not many sleighs or ice-boats on the racing course between Centerport and Keyport. But suddenly Lance looked around, grinned through his mask, and waved his hand toward the shore. The girls immediately knew that he had sighted the Pendleton sleigh.

Laura turned to look at her brother, and he nodded at her reassuringly. Lance reduced the speed, and the Blue Streak began to move shoreward.

The girls could now see the sleigh plainly. The yellow box in which Lil carried her costumes was a splotch of color against the white fur robes. And there was Lil herself and the black figure of the little stage director.

The Blue Streak ran closer and of a sudden the young folks aboard the ice-boat saw that something was amiss with the Pendletons' horses. The dapple grays were fat, well fed beasts, and the coachman was old and rheumatic. Perhaps the appearance of another ice-boat that had just passed the sleigh had startled the horses.

However that might be, old Mike was suddenly flung from his seat, and the horses charged down the lake at a gallop, swinging the sleigh


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196 behind them at a pace that threatened to overturn it at any moment!

The four friends on the aero-iceboat could hear Lil scream. And up sprang the little black figure of Pizotti, alias Plornish, and the next moment he had leaped to the ice!

The horses tore on, and Lil was really in peril. But Chet guided the Blue Streak right down to the runaway, coming so close that Lance Darby was able to leap into the driver's seat from the running ice-boat.

It was a feat that called for agility and coolness; but the boy did it bravely. The next moment he was out on the tongue, had recovered the trailing lines, and the dapple grays were soon brought to an abrupt stop.


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 commandments, that they might rejoice and be filled with love toward God and all mankind.

Each family--a man with his wife, sons, daughters and grandchildren, from the oldest down to the youngest, set up separate tents around the temple. Their tent doors faced the temple so they could stay in their tents and still hear King Benjamin.

The multitude was so large that all the people could not fit inside the temple walls. So King Benjamin had a tower made.

When he spoke from this tower many more people could hear him.

But as he started to speak, not everyone could hear, so King Benjamin had his words written and sent among those who were too far to hear.

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event had certainly come to a startling climax. Even Lily herself, writing a dozen "Duchess of Dawnleighs," could not have imagined quite so serious a situation to balk the determination of her created heroines, as here had arrived to balk herself!

"Well, Lil," Laura said to her, as the girl got out of the sleigh. "I guess you won't run away to-day and leave us all in a fix—and spoil Jess's play. What do you think?"

"Oh, Laura! is poor Mike hurt?" cried the girl, and from that moment Lara thought better of her. For Lil showed she was not entirely heartless. She had thought first of the old coachman who had served her family for so many years, and who was even then probably helping her to get to Keyport and the expected performance of "The Duchess of Dawnleigh," against his own good sense.

"Here he comes, limping," said Laura, rather


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 O’Hara was several times hard put to it to keep from laughing out loud at his thoughts. The humour of the situation struck him forcibly. After fighting as grimly as these men fought, and after all that had transpired, that they should both sit down to supper as they were doing, appealed to him strongly. He had quite thought that my lord would incline to tragedy and refuse to stay an instant longer in the Duke’s house.

It was not until midnight, when everyone else had gone to bed, that the brothers came face to face, alone. The dining-room was very quiet now, and the table bore a dissipated look with the remains of supper left on it. My lord stood absently playing with the long-handled punch spoon, idly stirring the golden dregs at the bottom of the bowl. The candles shed their light full on his face, and Richard, standing opposite in the shadow, had ample opportunity of studying it.

It seemed to him that he could not look long enough. Unconsciously his eyes devoured every detail of the loved countenance and watched each movement of the slender hand. He found John subtly changed, but quite how he could not define. He had not aged much, and he was still the same laughter-loving Jack of the old days, with just that intangible difference. O’Hara had felt it, too: a slight impenetrability, a reserve.

It was my lord who broke the uncomfortable silence. As if he felt the other’s eyes upon him, he looked up with his appealing, whimsical smile.

“Devil take it, Dick, we’re as shy as two schoolboys!”

Richard did not smile, and his brother came round the table to his side.

“There’s nought to be said betwixt us two, Dick. ’Twould be so damned unnecessary. After all—we always shared in one another’s scrapes!”

He stood a moment with his hand on Richard’s shoulder; then Richard turned to him.

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198 bruskly. "He's not dead. But how about Plornish?"

"Plornish?" returned Lil, puzzled.

"Pizotti, then, if you prefer his stage name."

"Is—isn't Pizotti his name?" demanded Lil, still struggling with her tears.

"His real name is Abel Plornish," said Laura, bluntly. She saw no use in "letting Lily down easy." "He has a wife and seven children living down on Governor Street, in a miserable tenement. He neglects them a good deal, I believe. But this time, if he had made what he expected to out of you By the way, Lil, what were you going to pay him?"

"II For putting me on the stage with his company?" she stammered.

"Is that the way he put it? Well, yes," said Laura. "It's the same thing. He was going to star you in your own play, was he?"

"Ye—es," sobbed Lily. "And now it's all spoiled! And I was going to take all the money I pawned grandmother's jewels for"

"Goodness me! How much?" snapped Laura.

"Five hundred dollars."

"Has he got the cash?"

"No," sobbed Lil.

"All right, then. No harm done. I went to


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Rh Mr. Monterey and he found out that Plornish had got together no company at all. You were the only person who had learned a part in your play, I guess, Lily. Ah! Chet's got him."

Indeed, Chet had stopped the aero-iceboat and run back to the prostrate stage director. Plornish had a broken leg and had to be lifted by both boys into the Pendleton sleigh. Old Michael could manage the horses again and turned them about. Laura elected to go back to Centerport with the injured man and the very-much-disturbed Lily Pendleton.

"Now, just see the sort of a man this fellow is," said Laura, paying no attention to the groanings of Plornish. "He was intending to get the money from you at Keyport and then disappear. All he spent was merely for the bills put up advertising the show—the show which he never intended would come off, Lil! And you were going down there and leaving us all in the lurch!"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" groaned Lil.

"I hope so. Sorry enough to go home and rest and prepare to play your part in 'The Spring Road' to-night," spoke Laura, tartly.

"Oh, dear me! how can I?" cried the girl.

"If you don't," said Laura, frankly, "I won't keep this affair a secret. You will be the laugh-


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200 ing stock of all Central High. I am not going to allow Jess Morse's play to be spoiled because of you. If you were so jealous and envious that you did not want to see Jess's play succeed, you could have refused, at least, to be cast for an important part in it. And now," went on Mother Wit, firmly, "you are going to play that part."

"Oh, Laura! you are so harsh," sobbed Lily.

"Much that will hurt you!" sniffed Laura. "We'll drive around by the hospital and leave this Plornish man. If he dares to open his mouth, we'll have him punished for trying to swindle you," and Laura looked sternly at the black-eyed, foreign-looking fellow.

"You see, we know all about you, Mr. Plornish, and you will have to abide by what is done for you. Some of us will help your family while you are helpless. But you've got to be good, or even Mr. Vandergriff will forget that you and he used to be boys together. Pah! with your hair dye, and paint and powder, and all! Why, you are nearly fifty years old, so Mr. Vandergriff says, and you act and dress like a silly boy."

Lily listened to all this, and stopped sobbing. She began to see that there was a chance for her to escape being a butt for her school-fellows' jokes.


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Rh "Can—can you keep Jess and the boys from talking?" she whispered to Laura.

"They'll be like oysters if I tell them to," declared Mother Wit.

"Oh, then, I'll do my best," agreed the foolish girl. Possibly she was deeply impressed by her escape.

Mother Wit's plans were carried out to the letter. Plornish was deposited at the hospital, where he would remain for some weeks. The performance of Jess's play would have to get along without him on this opening night.

And when the hour for the performance arrived, Lily Pendleton was ready, her tears wiped away, glorious in one of her costumes, and "preening like a peacock"—to quote Bobby Hargrew—before one of the long mirrors in the dressing room.

"My, my!" laughed Bobby. "You look as grand as the Duchess of Doosenberry, don't you, Lil?"

Lily looked at her rather sharply. "I'd really like to know how much that child knows?" the older girl murmured.

But it wasn't what the shrewd Bobby knew; it was what she suspected!


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the scenes just before the curtain rose upon the first act of "The Spring Road" there was such a bustle, and running about, and whispering, and excited signals and fragmentary talk, that it did look, Jess said, as though matters never would be straightened out.

Did this one know his or her part perfectly? Was this dress right? Oh, dear! how can this one be made to look right "from the front?" And a thousand other doubts and queries.

No matter how many times a play is rehearsed, it does seem just before the opening performance as though a dozen things would happen to spoil the effect of the first appearance. And to the author of the play it seems as though every person in that audience is a carping critic!

Jess peered through the peephole in the curtain and saw that the hall was crowded.

"I just know it will be a failure!" she moaned to her chum, Laura Belding. "It will be laughed at. I feel it!"


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Rh "Strange how I should feel so differently!" spoke Laura, cheerfully.

"Oh, dear! I'll never be able to hold up my head again if it's not liked," Jess pursued. "It will just kill me."

"Don't die so easy, Chum," said Laura. "You know we'll need you in the big interschool meet after Easter."

"Oh! I'll never be fit to do anything in athletics again!" gasped Jess.

Which was certainly not borne out by the facts, for Jess Morse took a most important part in the spring meet of the Girls' Branch Athletic League, as a perusal of the next volume of this series: "The Girls of Central High on Track and Field; Or, The Champions of the School League," will prove.

At last Miss Gould said all was ready. Really, she did very well without the assistance of the unpleasant, black-eyed, little Pizotti! The signal was given and the curtain rose on the first tableau—and it was a pretty sight! In this allegorical introduction to Jess's play there were a score of the very prettiest girls of Central High, and they had been dressed and were grouped so artistically that an "Ah!" of admiration burst from the big audience.

The little fantasy unwound the thread of plot


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204 which introduced the real play; but when the curtain went down there was no enthusiastic applause. The audience was expectant; but did not wholly understand it. And this was as it should be; the intent of that little prologue was merely to whet the appetite for the real play.

"The Spring Road" ran its three acts through with unvarying success. The applause grew more pronounced; the interest of the audience grew deeper. The fact that a young girl had written the text of the play became harder and harder to believe as the evening lengthened.

At the end—when the general lights went out, one by one upon the stage and left the two principal characters in the radiance of the spot light alone—and when this dimmed slowly and finally went out, the silence of the audience was momentous.

Jess, in the wings, clinging to her chum, waited, scarcely breathing, for the verdict. Had it failed? Had the little lesson she had tried to teach, and the pretty story she had told, failed to "get over?"

Suddenly there was a roar of delight from the back of the hall. Some of the older boys of Central High had managed to get tickets to this first performance, and, led by big Griff, they be-


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Rh gan to chant the well-known yell of Central High.

But that was not what Jess waited for. That was school loyalty. She had expected that.

As the thunder of the boys' applause began to wane there was another sound which reached the ears of those listening behind the curtain. A steady, sharp clapping of hands; then joined by a shuffling of feet. The great mass of the audience was applauding.

The curtain went up, and the whole company appeared. It rose and rose again, at last to display only the principals, down to the final two who had closed the play. But that was not enough.

They could hear Dr. Agnew's heavy voice growling somewhere out in the darkness of the auditorium:

"Author! Author! Bring her out!"

The boys took up the demand. They even called on Jess Morse by name, and hitched that name to the battle cry of their athletic field.

"You've got to go!" cried Laura, giving her chum a push. "You've got to, Jess!"

And so Jess Morse stepped forward, modestly, bashfully, and faced the great audience. Tears half blinded her, but she bowed as she had been taught. And all the time she tasted the first intoxicating draught of Fame!


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206 But that was not quite the end of it all. Mr. Monterey, of the Centerport Opera House, was in a seat down in front that evening. He never was seen to applaud once; but on Saturday evening, when the play was repeated for the general public to attend, he came again and this time brought a stranger who paid quite as close attention to Jess's play as did Mr. Monterey himself.

After the performance and before Jess and Laura started for home with their escorts, they heard that the stranger with the local manager was a very famous New York producer. He had come especially to see "The Spring Road."

And when Jess arrived home she found the gentleman, with Mr. Monterey, conferring with her mother in their little sitting room.

"I assure you," said Mrs. Morse, proudly, "the play is practically Josephine's own work. It is her idea, clothed in her own language. I am pleased that you find it so admirable for a child to have written"

"It is admirable—in spots—for anybody to have written," said the New York gentleman. "And this is the young lady?"

Mrs. Morse introduced Jess.

"You are the budding playwright?" suggested the stranger.

"I am not so sure of that," replied Jess,


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Rh troubled a little. "I wanted the prize Mrs. Kerrick offered, and I did my best."

"And your best is very good—remarkably good," declared the producer. "I have come to see you and your mother about it. I want you to let me have the right to produce the play. Monday I will come with a contract; meanwhile I want Mrs. Morse to accept this check—which Mr. Monterey will endorse for me—to bind the agreement. I take a sort of option on the play, as it were," he said, and he handed the check to Jess.

"You do not mean it?" gasped the girl.

"I certainly do," said the other, rising. "Your play is not like the work of a professional playwright; but a professional writer of plays can take your work and whip it into shape And I am willing to show my confidence in its final success by risking that sum upon it to start with."

Jess looked then at the check. It was another two hundred dollars. Jess shut her eyes tight for a moment; then she opened them again to be sure she was not dreaming.

When she opened them she really believed she saw Poverty fly out of the window!


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Process used for combining images that were split across two pages
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Reference: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side David Nind (talk) 23:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)


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Rh The two entered the opening after some difficult climbing and advanced a short distance into the gloom. Virginia stood peering into the darkness, when suddenly there was a rush of footsteps upon the rocky floor of the cavern, and before she could escape she felt herself seized by unseen hands that reached from the darkness and bore her from her feet.

Gala, who had not advanced so far into the cavern mouth, rushed for the opening and made her escape. She called loudly for help, and members of the Duros guard came running toward her. She informed them whathad occurred, and the warriors rushed into the cavern. They shouted, and the answering echoes threw them into superstitious terror.

They left the place and reported the occurrence to Duros, who immediately ordered a large company of warriors with torches to assemble. An advance was started into the cavern and continued for more than half a mile. Duros in person led the vanguard of his men.

HEN Virginia felt herself lifted and carried along she made no outcry, for she realized that her strength was incapable of combating with her unknown antagonist.

For a long time she was carried by powerful arms until she noticed the darkness in the cavern beginning to grow lighter. She glanced upward for a look at her unknown captor. The face she viewed filled her with terror. The man who was carrying her was of tremendous size and possessed the muscular development of a gorilla. He was beardless, and his skin was ashen gray. When he saw her glance at him he spoke, and the language used was that of the men of Teeheemen.

"Morop is the king of the hollow mountain," he announced. "Morop was the friend in secret of Walum, the high priest of Teeheemen. To Morop, Walum brought choice offerings from the land of Teeheemen. Walum is dead, for Morop has spied from the secret passage upon the white men and Duros. Morop's wife is old and ugly. The white woman shall become the wife of Morop."

Virginia felt the great arms of the giant crush her body to his breast. She felt his massive lips pressed with crushing force against her own.

"In a few days," the giant announced, "Morop of the hollow mountain will make a great feast for his new wife."

Still carrying her, Morop proceeded along the corridors of the great cavern. The light increased constantly, until Virginia could ascertain the cause for this. The mountain into which she was being carried was a great shell, largely hollow, and at the top of the volcanic peak was an enormous opening an eighth of a mile in diameter. Through this the sunlight and fresh air penetrated to a great portion of the interior.

Morop earried Virginia to a point in the cavern where a number of rudely fashioned stone huts stood. In one of these he placed the girl, and then pushed a large stone over the opening.

To Virginia the time passed slowly in her rough prison. Several hours had passed when she was aroused by the sound of a number of warriors of Morop's mountain tribe assembling and chanting fierce songs. Looking through one of the cracks in the wall of her prison, she saw more than a hundred powerful, brutelike men circling about and chanting.

They were armed with great bludgeons and spears. With a final wild shout they ceased their chanting and proceeded in the direction of the Valley of Teeheemen. Duros, advancing at the head of his forces into the hollow mountain, was suddenly attacked


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156 with terrific fury by the tribesmen of Morop.

The men of Teeheemen fought by the light of their torches, and more than one of the warriors of Morop went down with a spear thrust in his body.

"If the white men were here with their thunder sticks we could easily conquer these enemies," Duros called to one of his lieutenants, as they fought together.

The word finally was passed along the line of the Duros followers to retire in order toward the entrance, as it would be necessary to obtain reinforcements and formulate a new plan for invading the mountain's interior. The order was carried out and the retreat was conducted successfully. Two hours later Virginia heard the tribesmen of Morop return and begin the celebration of their victory.

The celebration continued unabated for a week, and Virginia wondered if Morop had forgotten her presence in the village. Every day a wrinkled old woman had brought coarse food to her and had never spoken. With the old woman had come a man powerful enough to remove the stone from the doorway and place it in position again.

Morop fad been too busy celebrating what he considered a victory over the men of Teeheemen when the latter retreated from the mountain, to pay any attention to his fair captive. As the joy of the victory and the incessant feasting began to grow wearisome, he again thought of Virginia and went to her prison. With little effort he removed the stone and entered.

Virginia shrank from before him. He laughed boisterously, and seizing the girl he crushed her body to his chest. She fought desperately but was as helpless as a child in the grasp of the king of the mountain giants. He tore a portion of her blouse from her shoulders and with a wild laugh pushed her from him.

"Tonight you will be the bride of Morop," he stated. "Tonight when the sun leaves the mountain top, Morop will then come to his new woman."

The giant again left the stone hut, closing the entrance after him with the big stone slab.

When he had gone, Virginia rushed to the opening and pushed against the stone with all of her power. Her efforts were unavailing, for the stone had been so fashioned that it fitted into a mortiselike groove in the side of the house and the floor of the cavern.

HE remainder of the day passed quickly for the girl, as the dread of the coming night filled her. When the gloom began to gather in the surrounding cavern depths, she again attempted to push the stone door away, but without success.

Darkness had gathered fully when she heard the stone moved from the entrance. She could distinguish Morop in the light of a torch which an attendant warrior of the tribe was carrying. The giant took the torch from the other and motioned for him to retire.

Entering the hut, he fastened the torch in a niche on the side of the wall. With the muscles of his great arms knotted and moving beneath his skin, Morop stood before the girl, naked except for a trapping about the loins. His powerful physique was one to create wonderment, and Virginia thought as she shrank from before him how little chance any ordinary man could have in battle against the great brute.

"Morop has come to claim his bride this night," he muttered in low tones that seemed to come almost like distant thunder from his chest. "Morop


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6 other thing on my mind and I wanted to go back alone and have some drinks and think about it and wonder how I could do it.

Maybe you saw pictures of us, the ones who were really bad off when the prisoners were exchanged. I was one of the litter cases. My stomach had stopped digesting the slop they fed us, and I was down to ninety-three pounds. One more week and I would have been buried up there beyond the river like so many others were. I was in bad shape. Not only physically but mentally. I was too sick to be flown back. Memory was all shot. I went right into hospital and they started feeding me through a tube.

It was during the months in the military hospital back in this country that I began to sort things out and began to remember more of the details about Timmy Warden of Hillston. When the intelligence people had interrogated me I had told them how Timmy died but nothing more than that. I didn't tell them any of the stuff Timmy had told me.

We were both captured at the same time in that action near the reservoir. I'd known him casually. He was in a different platoon. We were together most of the time after we were captured. Enough has already been written about how it was. It wasn't good.

That prison camp experience can change your attitude toward life and toward yourself. It did that to Timmy Warden. His one thought was to survive. It was that way with all of us, but Timmy seemed more of a fanatic than anybody else. He had to get back.

He told me about it one night. That was after he'd gotten pretty weak. I was still in fair shape. He told me about it in the dark, whispering to me. I couldn't see his face.

"Tal, I've got to get back and straighten something out. I've got to.

Every time I think about it I'm ashamed. I thought I was being smart. I thought I was getting what I wanted. Maybe I've grown up now. I've got to get it straightened out."

"What was it you wanted?"

"I wanted it and I got it, but I can't use it now. I


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INCLAIR stirred slightly, and his eyes opened. Once more his brain was beginning to function dimly, and be had a vague sensation of being closed in. He made to move his hand and discovered that he could not. His head felt as if it were rigidly held in a vise.

Slowly, as conscidusness came back to him, he became aware of his surroundings. He remembered entering the doctor's laboratory. Then the sudden blackness had come. He saw now that he was still in the laboratory. He supposed he had fainted. That no doubt accounted for the sensation of being bound. He became aware that he was sitting upright in a large, hard chair. He could not see the doctor.

Slowly, as if testing his faculties, he tried to turn his head. He felt as if something was pressing his head down, and discovered he could not move it. A new dizziness swept over him. Visions of sudden paralysis flickered through his brain. With an effort he regained control of himself. At least he could move his eyes. That was something, anyway. At this point he caught sight of his hands, which were lying along the arms of his chair, and he discovered that iron bands encircled his wrists and that these bands were fastened by a chain to the arms of the chair. Utterly at a loss, he tried to move his feet, only to learn, after moving them about six inches, that they were similarly fastened.

He closed his eyes, attempting to shake off what he supposed must be the nightmare of a dream.

At that moment he heard a step. Opening his eyes again, he discovered that Dr. Ainsworth had come round in front of him and was watching him smilingly.

"Ah, conscious again, I see," Ainsworth remarked in a tone of satisfaction. "Quite comfortable, I trust?"

Sinclair made a motion to pass his hands over his eyes and was reminded again that his hands were fastened. He looked stupidly at the other man.

"What has happened?"

The doctor gave a little chuckle and stood for a moment longer looking down at him before he answered.

"A little experiment. Just a little experiment."

He turned away and came back with a mirror, which he held up before the younger man.

Sinclair looked, and saw his head crowned with a metal cap, to which were attached strange-looking wires.

"I don't understand," he muttered. "I fainted, didn't I?"

Again the doetor laughed his curious, satisfied laugh.

"Not exactly," he said. "No, not exactly. I'm afraid I must plead guilty to having put something into your coffee."

Sinclair would have shaken his head in bewilderment, but his head was secured, as he had noticed in the mirror, by a vise attached to the back of the chair.

"I don't understand," he repeated. "Please explain what has happened. Why am I fastened like this?"

The doctor had laid aside the mirror and now stood facing the young man in the chair. Behind him, lone rows of labeled bottles and phials formed an appropriate background, together with instruments of which Sinclair could not guess the use.

The doctor's manner was now that of a lecturer addressing his class.

"I shall have to take your mind back some time," he began. "You will no doubt reeall hearing that very interesting little story of a German captain and his captured spies, who were given the choice, you will remember, of going to a known certain death or of meeting a fate the nature of which remained a mystery."