Little Novels

With that, the gentleman left me; the servant said it was the doctor.

The change in my benefactor, since I had seen him last, startled and distressed me. He lay back in a large arm-chair, wearing a grim black dressing-gown, and looking pitiably thin and pinched and worn. I do not think I should have known him again, if we had met by accident. He signed to me to be seated on a little chair by his side.

'I wanted to see you,' he said quietly, 'before I die. You must have thought me neglectful and unkind, with good reason. My child, you have not been forgotten. If years have passed without a meeting between us, it has not been altogether my fault—'

He stopped. A pained expression passed over his poor worn face; he was evidently thinking of the young wife whom he had lost. I repeated—fervently and sincerely repeated—what I had already said to him in writing. 'I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly kindness.' Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his wan white hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, and respectfully put it to my lips.

He gently drew his hand away from me, and sighed as he did it. Perhaps she had sometimes kissed his hand.

'Now tell me about yourself,' he said.

I told him of my new situation, and how I had got it. He listened with evident interest.

'I was not self-deceived,' he said, 'when I first took a fancy to you in the shop. I admire your independent feeling; it's the right kind of courage in a girl like you. But you must let me do something more for you—some little service to remember me by when the end has come. What shall it be?'

'Try to get better, sir; and let me write to you now and then,' I answered. 'Indeed, indeed, I want nothing more.'

'You will accept a little present, at least?' With those words he took from the breast-pocket of his dressing- gown an enameled cross attached to a gold chain. 'Think of me sometimes,' he said, as he put the chain round my neck. He drew me to him gently, and kissed my forehead. It was too much for me. 'Don't cry, my dear,' he said; 'don't remind me of another sad young face—'

Once more he stopped; once more he was thinking of the lost wife. I pulled down my veil, and ran out of the room.

IV.

THE next day I was on my way to the north. My narrative brightens again—but let us not forget Sir Gervase Damian.

I ask permission to introduce some persons of distinction:—Mrs. Fosdyke, of Carsham Hall, widow of General Fosdyke; also Master Frederick, Miss Ellen, and Miss Eva, the pupils of the new governess; also two ladies and three gentlemen, guests staying in the house.

Discreet and dignified; handsome and well-bred—such was my impression of Mrs. Fosdyke, while she harangued me on the subject of her children, and communicated her views on education. Having heard the views before from others, I assumed a listening position, and privately formed my opinion of the schoolroom. It was large, lofty, perfectly furnished for the purpose; it had a big window and a balcony looking out over the garden terrace and the park beyond—a wonderful schoolroom, in my limited experience. One of the two doors which it possessed was left open, and showed me a sweet little bedroom, with amber draperies and maplewood furniture, devoted to myself. Here were wealth and liberality, in the harmonious combination so seldom discovered by the spectator of small means. I controlled my first feeling of bewilderment just in time to answer Mrs. Fosdyke on the subject of reading and recitation—viewed as minor accomplishments which a good governess might be expected to teach.

'While the organs are young and pliable,' the lady remarked, 'I regard it as of great importance to practice children in the art of reading aloud, with an agreeable variety of tone and correctness of emphasis. Trained in this way, they will produce a favorable impression on others, even in ordinary conversation, when they grow up. Poetry, committed to memory and recited, is a valuable means toward this end. May I hope that your studies have enabled you to carry out my views?'

Formal enough in language, but courteous and kind in manner. I relieved Mrs. Fosdyke from anxiety by informing her that we had a professor of elocution at school. And then I was left to improve my acquaintance with my three pupils.

They were fairly intelligent children; the boy, as usual, being slower than the girls. I did my best—with many a sad remembrance of the far dearer pupils whom I had left—to make them like me and trust me; and I succeeded in winning their confidence. In a week from the time of my arrival at Carsham Hall, we began to understand each other.

The first day in the week was one of our days for reciting poetry, in obedience to the instructions with which I had been favored by Mrs. Fosdyke. I had done with the girls, and had just opened (perhaps I ought to say profaned) Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar,' in the elocutionary interests of Master Freddy. Half of Mark Antony's first glorious speech over Caesar's dead body he had learned by heart; and it was now my duty to teach him, to the best of my small ability, how to speak it. The morning was warm. We had our big window open; the delicious perfume of flowers in the garden beneath filled the room.

I recited the first eight lines, and stopped there feeling that I must not exact too much from the boy at first. 'Now, Freddy,' I said, 'try if you can speak the poetry as I have spoken it.'

'Don't do anything of the kind, Freddy,' said a voice from the garden; 'it's all spoken wrong.'

Who was this insolent person? A man unquestionably—and, strange to say, there was something not entirely unfamiliar to me in his voice. The girls began to giggle. Their brother was more explicit. 'Oh,' says Freddy, 'it's only Mr. Sax.'

The one becoming course to pursue was to take no notice of the interruption. 'Go on,' I said. Freddy recited the lines, like a dear good boy, with as near an imitation of my style of elocution as could be expected from him.

'Poor devil!' cried the voice from the garden, insolently pitying my attentive pupil.

I imposed silence on the girls by a look—and then, without stirring from my chair, expressed my sense of the insolence of Mr. Sax in clear and commanding tones. 'I shall be obliged to close the window if this is repeated.' Having spoken to that effect, I waited in expectation of an apology. Silence was the only apology. It was enough for me that I had produced the right impression. I went on with my recitation.

'Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest