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MAE MADDEN

by Mary Murdoch Mason

With an introductory poem, by Joaquin Miller.

The wheel of fortune guide you,

The boy with the bow beside you

Run aye in the way, till the dawn of day

And a luckier lot betide you.

Ben Jonson.

A DREAM OF ITALY.

AN ALLEGORY INTRODUCING "MAE MADDEN."

I.

We two had been parted, God pity us, when

The stars were unnamed and when heaven was dim;

We two had been parted far back on the rim

And the outermost border of heaven's red bars:

We two had been parted ere the meeting of men

Or God had set compass on spaces as yet.

We two had been parted ere God had set

His finger to spinning the spaces with stars,--

And now, at the last in the gold and set

Of the sun of Venice, we two had met.

II.

Where the lion of Venice, with brows afrown,

With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air,

Looks out in his watch o'er the watery town,

With a paw half lifted, with his claws half bare,

By the blue Adriatic, in the edge of the sea,

I saw her. I knew her, but she knew not me.

I had found her at last! Why, I had sailed

The antipodes through, had sought, had hailed

All flags, had climbed where the storm clouds curled,

And called from the awful arched dome of the world.

III.

I saw her one moment, then fell back abashed

And filled full to the throat. . . . Then I turned me once more

So glad to the sea, while the level sun flashed

On the far, snowy Alps. . . . Her breast! Why, her breast

Was white as twin pillows that allure you to rest;

Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies, told

As she rose from the sea, and she threw back the gold

Of her glory of hair, and set face to the shore. . . .

I knew her! I knew her, though we had not met

Since the far stars sang to the sun's first set.

IV.

How long I had sought her! I had hungered, nor ate

Of any sweet fruits. I had tasted not one

Of all the fair glories grown under the sun.

I had sought only her. Yea, I knew that she

Had come upon earth and stood waiting for me

Somewhere by my way. But the path ways of fate

They had led otherwhere. The round world round,

The far North seas and the near profound

Had failed me for aye. Now I stood by that sea

While a ship drove by, and all dreamily.

V.

I had turned from the lion a time, and when

I looked tow'rd the tide and out on the lea

Of the town where the warm sea tumbled and teemed

With beauty, I saw her. I knew her then,

The tallest, the fairest fair daughter of men.

O, Venice stood full in her glory. She gleamed

In the splendor of sunset and sensuous sea;

Yet I saw but my bride, my affinity,

While the doves hurried home to the dome of Saint Mark

And the brass horses plunged their high manes in the dark,

VI.

Was it well with my love? Was she true? Was she brave

With virtue's own valor? Was she waiting for me?

O, how fared my love! Had she home? Had she bread?

Had she known but the touch of the warm-tempered wave?

Was she born upon earth with a crown on her head;

Or born like myself, but a dreamer, instead?

So long it had been! So long! Why the sea,

That wrinkled and surly old time-tempered slave,

Had been born, had his revels, grown wrinkled and hoar

Since I last saw my love on that uttermost shore.

VII.

O, how fared my love? Once I lifted my face

And I shook back my hair and looked out on the sea;

I pressed my hot palms as I stood in my place

And cried, "O, I come like a king to your side

Though all hell intervene." . . . "Hist! she may be a bride!

A mother at peace, with sweet babes on her knee!

A babe at her breast and a spouse at her side! . . .

Have I wandered too long, and has destiny

Set mortal between us?" I buried my face

In my hands, and I moaned as I stood in my place.

VIII.

'Twas her year to be young. She was tall, she was fair

Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?

'Twas her year to be young. She was fair, she was tall

And I knew she was true as I lifted my face

And saw her press down her rich robe to its place

With a hand white and small as a babe's with a doll,

And her feet--why, her feet, in the white shining sand,

Were so small they might nest in my one brawny hand.

Then she pushed back her hair with a round hand that shone

And flashed in the light with a white starry stone.

IX.

Then, my love she was rich. My love she was fair.

Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?

She was gorgeous with wealth, "Thank God, she has bread,"

I said to myself. Then I humbled my head

In gratitude. Then I questioned me where

Was her palace? her parents? What name did she bear?

What mortal on earth came nearest her heart?

Who touched the small hand till it thrilled to a smart?

'Twas her day to be young. She was proud, she was fair.

Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?

X.

Now she turned, reached a hand; then a tall gondolier

That had leaned on his oar, like a long lifted spear,

Shot sudden and swift and all silently

And drew to her side as she turned from the tide. . .

It was odd, such a thing, and I counted it queer

That a princess like this, whether virgin or bride,

Should abide thus apart, and should bathe in that sea;

And I shook back my hair, and so unsatisfied.

Then I fluttered the doves that were perched close about,

As I strode up and down in dismay and in doubt.

XI.

Then she stood in the boat on the borders of night

As a goddess might stand on that far wonder land

Of eternal sweet life, which men have named Death.

I turned to the sea and I caught at my breath,

As she drew from the boat through her white baby hand

Her vestment of purple imperial, and white.

Then the gondola shot! swift, sharp from the shore.

There was never the sound of a song or of oar

But the doves hurried home in white clouds to Saint Mark,

And the lion loomed high o'er the sea in the dark.

XII.

Then I cried, "Quick! Follow her. Follow her. Fast!

Come! Thrice double fare if you follow her true

To her own palace door." There was plashing of oar

And rattle of rowlock. . . . I sat leaning low

Looking far in the dark, looking out as we sped

With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low.

But only the oaths of the men as we passed

When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot thro'

The watery town. Then a deep, distant roar--

The rattle of rowlock, the rush of the oar.

XIII.

Then an oath. Then a prayer! Then a gust that made rents

Through the yellow sailed fishers. Then suddenly

Came sharp forked fire! Then far thunder fell

Like the great first gun! Ah, then there was route

Of ships like the breaking of regiments

And shouts as if hurled from an upper hell.

Then tempest! It lifted, it spun us about,

Then shot us ahead through the hills of the sea

As if a great arrow shot shoreward in wars--

Then heaven split open till we saw the blown stars.

XIV.

On! On! Through the foam, through the storm, through the town,

She was gone. She was lost in the wilderness

Of palaces lifting their marbles of snow.

I stood in my gondola. Up and all down

I pushed through the surge of the salt-flood street

Above me, below. . . Twas only the beat

Of the sea's sad heart. . . Then I heard below

The water-rat building, but nothing but that;

Not even the sea bird screaming distress,

As she lost her way in that wilderness.

XV.

I listened all night. I caught at each sound;

I clutched and I caught as a man that drown'd. . . .

Only the sullen low growl of the sea

Far out the flood street at the edge of the ships.

Only the billow slow licking his lips,

Like a dog that lay crouching there watching for me;

Growling and showing white teeth all the night,

Reaching his neck and as ready to bite--

Only the waves with their salt flood tears

Fawning white stones of a thousand years.

XVI.

Only the birds in the wilderness

Of column and dome and of glittering spire

That thrust to heaven and held the fire

Of the thunder still: The bird's distress

As he struck his wings in that wilderness,

On marbles that speak and thrill and inspire. . .

The night below and the night above;

The water-rat building, the startled white dove,

The wide-winged, dolorous sea bird's call

The water-rat building, but that was all.

XVII.

Lo! pushing the darkness from pillar to post,

The morning came silent and gray like a ghost

Slow up the canal. I leaned from the prow

And listened. Not even the bird in distress

Screaming above through the wilderness;

Not even the stealthy old water-rat now.

Only the bell in the fisherman's tower

Slow tolling a-sea and telling the hour

To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara

For tawny fishers a-sea and pray.

---

XVIII.

My dream it is ended, the curtain withdrawn.

The night that lay hard on the breast of earth,

Deep and heavy as a horrid nightmare,

Moves by, and I look to the rosy dawn. . . . .

I shall leave you here, with a leader fair;

One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth.

She shall lead you on through that Italy

That the gods have loved; and may it be

A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand,

You wander the warm and the careless love-land.

XIX.

By the windy waters of the Michigan

She invokes the gods. . . . Be it bright or dim,

Who does his endeavor as best he can

Does bravely, indeed. The rest is with Him.

Let a new star dance in the Occident

Till it shakes through the gossamer floors of God

And shines, o'er Chicago. . . The Orient

Is hoar with glories. Let Illini sod

Bear glory as well as the gleaming grain,

And engines smoking along her plain.

JOAQUIN MILLER.

CHICAGO, NOV., 1875.

MAE MADDEN.

CHAPTER I.

SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer.

Characters. Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in general.

Edith Jerrold, her daughter.

Albert Madden, a young man on study intent.

Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent.

Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of the Maddens.

Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady.

"It's something like dying, I do declare," said Mae, and as she

spoke a suspicious-looking drop slid softly across her cheek, down

over the deck-railing, to join its original briny fellows in the

deep below.

"What is like dying?" asked Eric.

"Why, leaving the only world you know. There, you see, papa and

mamma are fast fading away, and here we are traveling off at the

rate of ever so many miles an hour."

"Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea."

"Away from everything and everybody we know. I do really think it

is like dying,--don't you, Mr. Mann?" Mae turned abruptly and

faced the young man by her side.

"People aren't apt to die in batches or by the half-dozen,' he

replied, coolly. "If you were all by yourself, it would be more

like it, I suppose, but you are taking quite a slice of your own

world along with you, and really--"

"And really pity is the very last article I have any use for. You

are right. I was only sorry for the moment. 'Eastward Ho' is a

very happy cry. How differently we shall all take Europe," she

continued, in a moment. "There is Albert, I honestly believe he

will live in his Baedeker just because he can see no further than

the covers of a book. You need not laugh, for it is a fact that

people confined for years to a room can't see beyond its limits

when they are taken out into broader space, and I don't see why it

shouldn't be the same with a man who lives in his books as Albert

does."

"He sees the world in his books," said Mr. Mann, with a little

spirit.

"He gets a microscopic view of it, yes," replied Mae,

grandiloquently, "and Edith--"

"Always sees just what he does," suggested Eric maliciously.

"Now, boys," said Miss Mae, assuming suddenly a mighty patronage,

"I will not have you hit at Albert and Edith in this way. It will

be very annoying to them. They have a right to act just as

absurdly as they choose. We none of us know how people who are

falling in love would act."

No, the boys agreed this was quite true.

"And I really do suppose they are falling in love, don't you?"

queried Mae.

Yes, they did both believe it.

Just here, up came the two subjects of conversation, looking, it

must be confessed, as much like one subject as any man and wife.

"What are you talking of?" asked Edith, "Madame Tussaud or a French

salad? No matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a foreign

flavor."

"There you are mistaken," replied the frank Eric, "we were

discussing you two people, in the most homelike kind of a way."

At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae scowled at Eric, who

opened his eyes amazedly, Norman Mann looked over the deck railing

and laughed, the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed near by, and

there was a grand tableau vivant for a few seconds.

"O, come," cried Mae, "suppose we stop looking like a set of

illustrations for a phrenological journal, expressive of the

various emotions. I was only speculating on the different sights

we should see in the same places. Confess, now, Albert. Won't

your eyes be forever hunting out old musty, dusty volumes? Will

not books be your first pleasures in the sight-seeing line?"

"O, no, pictures," cried Edith.

"That is as you say," Mae demurely agreed. "Pictures and books for

you two at any rate."

"And churches."

"For your mother, yes, and beer-gardens for Eric, and amphitheatres

and battle fields for Mr. Mann."

"And for yourself?"

"The blue, blue bay of Naples, a grove of oranges, moonlight and a

boat if it please you."

"By the way," suggested Albert, "about our plans; we really should

begin to agitate the matter at once."

"Yes, to do our fighting on shipboard. Let us agree to hoist the

white flag the day we sight land, else we shall settle down into a

regular War of the Roses and never decide," laughed Norman.

"As there are six minds," continued Albert, "there will have to be

some giving up."

"Why do you look at me?" enquired Mae. "I am the very most

unselfish person in the world. I'll settle down anywhere for the

winter, provided only that it is not in Rome."

"But that is the very place," cried Edith, and Albert, and Mrs.

Jerrold from her camp-chair.

"O, how dreadful! The only way to prevent it will be for us to

stand firm, boys, and make it a tie."

"But Norman is especially eager to go to Rome," said Edith, "and

that makes us four strong at once in favor of that city."

"But is not Rome a fearful mixture of dead Caesar's bones and dirty

beggars? And mustn't one carry hundreds of dates at one's finger-

tips to appreciate this, and that, and the other? Is it not all

tremendously and overwhelmingly historical, and don't you have to

keep exerting your mind and thinking and remembering? I would

rather go down to Southern Italy and look at lazzaroni lie on stone

walls, in red cloaks, as they do in pictures, and not be obliged to

topple off the common Italian to pile the gray stone with old

memories of some great dead man. Everything is ghostly in Rome.

Now, there must be some excitement in Southern Italy. There's

Vesuvius, and she isn't dead--like Nero--but a living demon, that

may erupt any night, and give you a little red grave by the sea for

your share."

"She's not nearly through yet," laughed Edith, as Mae paused for

breath.

"I'm only afraid," said Mae, "that after I had been down there a

week, I should forget English, buy a contadina costume, marry a

child of the sun, and run away from this big world with its puzzles

and lessons, and rights and wrongs. Imagine me in my doorway as

you passed in your travelling carriage, hot and tired on your way--

say to Sorrento. I would dress my beautiful Italian all up in

scarlet flowers and wreathe his big hat and kiss his brown eyes and

take his brown hand, and then we would run along by the bay and

laugh at you stiff, grand world's folks as we skipped past you."

"We shall know where to look for you, if ever you do disappear,"

said Norman Mann.

"But, my dear Mae," added Albert, "though this is amusing, it is

utterly useless."

"Amusing things always are," said Mae.

"The question is, shall we or shall we not go to Rome for the

winter?"

"Certainly, by all means, and if I don't like it, I'll run away to

Sorrento," and Mae shook her sunny head and twinkled her eyes in a

fascinating sort of way, that made Eric feel a proud brotherly

pleasure in this saucy young woman, and that gave Norman Mann a

sort of feeling he had had a good deal of late, a feeling hard to

define, though we have all known it, a delicious concoction of

pleasure and pain. His eyes were fixed on Mae, now. "What is it?"

she asked. "You will like Rome, I am sure." "No, I never like

what I think I shall not."

"It might save some trouble, then, if I ask you now if you expect

to like me," said he, in a lower tone. "Why certainly, I do like

you very much," she replied, honestly. "What a stupid question,"

he thinks, vexedly. "Why did I tell him I liked him?" she thinks,

blushingly. So the waves of anxiety and doubt begin to swell in

these two hearts as the outside waves beat with a truer sea-motion

momently against the steamer's side.

Between days of sea-sickness come delightful intervals of calm sea

and fresh breezes, when the party fly to the hurricane deck to get

the very quintessence of life on the ocean wave. One morning Mrs.

Jerrold and Edith were sitting there alone, with rugs and all sorts

of head devices in soft wools and flannels, and books and a basket

of fruit. The matron of the party was a tall, fine-looking woman,

a good type of genuine New England stock softened by city breeding.

New Englanders are so many propositions from Euclid, full of right

angles and straight lines, but easy living and the dressmaker's art

combine to turn the corners gently. Edith was like her mother, but

softened by a touch of warm Dutch blood. She was tall, almost

stately, with a good deal of American style, which at that time

happened to be straight and slender. She was naturally reserved,

but four years of boarding-school life had enriched her store of

adjectives and her amount of endearing gush-power, and she had at

least six girl friends to whom she sent weekly epistles of some

half-dozen sheets in length, beginning, each one of them, with "My

dearest ----" and ending "Your devoted Edith."

As Edith and her mother quietly read, and ate grapes, and lolled in

a delightfully feminine way, voices were heard,--Mae's and

Norman's. They were in the middle of a conversation. "Yes," Mae

was saying, "you do away with individuality altogether nowadays,

with your dreadful classifications. It is all the same from

daffodils up to women."

"How do we classify women, pray?"

"In the mind of man," began Mae, as if she were reading, "there are

three classes of women; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and

the woman's righters. The first are pretty and silly; the second,

plain and useful; the third, mannish and odious. The first wear

long trailing dresses and smile at you while waltzing, the second

wear aprons and give you apple-dumplings, and the third want your

manly prerogatives, your dress-coat, your money, and your vote.

Flirt with the giddy butterflies, your first love was one. First

loves always are. Marry the busy bee. Your mother was a busy bee.

Mothers always are. And keep on the other side of the street from

the woman s righter as long as you can. Alas! your daughter will

be one."

"Well, isn't there any classifying on the other side? Aren't there

horsemen and sporting men and booky men, in the feminine mind?"

"Perhaps so. There certainly are the fops, and nowadays this

terrible army of reformers and radicals, of whom my brother Albert

here is the best known example."

"What is it?" asked Albert, looking up abstractedly from his book,

for he and Eric had sauntered up the stairs too, by this time.

"They are the creatures," continued Mae, "who scorn joys and idle

pleasures. They deal with the good of the many and the problems of

the universe, and step solemnly along to that dirge known as the

March of Progress. And what do they get for it all? Something

like this. Put down your book, I'm going to prophesy," and Mae

backed resolutely up against the railing and held her floating

scarfs and veils in a bunch at her throat, while she prophesied in

this way:

"Behold me, direct lineal descendant of Albert Madden, speaking to

my children in the year 1995: 'What, children, want amusement?

Want to see the magic lantern to note the effects of light? Alas!

how frivolous. Listen, children, to the achievements of your great

ancestor, as reported by the Encyclopedia. "A. Madden--promoter of

civilization and progress, chiefly known by his excellent theory

entitled The Number of Cells in a Human Brain compared to the

Working Powers of Man, and that remarkable essay, headed by this

formula: Given--10,000,000 laboring men, to find the number of

loaves of bread in the world." Here, children, take these works.

Progressimus, you may have the theory, while Civilizationica reads

the essay. Then change about. Ponder them well, and while we walk

to the Museum later, tell me their errors. Then I will show you

the preserved ears of the first man found in Boshland by P. T.

Barnum, jr.' Oh, bosh," said Mae suddenly, letting fly her

streamers, "what a dry set of locusts you nineteenth century

leaders are. You are devouring our green land, and some of us

butterflies would like to turn our yellow wings into solid shields

against you, if we could. There, I've made a goose of myself again

on the old subject. Edith, there's the lunch bell. Take me down

before I say another word." Exeunt feminines all.

"Where did the child pick up all that?" queried Albert.

"'All that' is in the air just now," answered Norman. "It is a

natural reaction of a strong physical nature against the

utilitarian views of the day. Miss Mae is a type of--"

"O, nonsense, what prigs you are," interrupted Eric, "Mae is jolly.

Do stop your reasoning about her. If you are bound to be a potato

yourself to help save the masses from starvation, don't grumble

because she grew a flower. Come, let us go to lunch too."

Conversation was not always of this sort. One evening, not long

after, there was a moon, and Edith and Albert were missing. Eric

was following a blue-eyed girl along the deck, and Mae and Norman

wandered off by themselves up to this same hurricane deck again.

The moonlight was wonderful. It touched little groups here and

there and fell full on the face of a woman in the steerage, who sat

with her arms crossed on her knee and her face set eastward. She

was singing, and her voice rose clearly above the puff of the

engine and the jabber below. There was a chorus to the song, in

which rough men and tired looking women joined. The song was about

home, and once in a while the girl unclasped her arms and passed

her hands over her eyes. Mae and Norman Mann looked at her

silently. "I suppose we don't know when we make pictures," said

Mae. "Don't we?" asked Norman pointedly. Mae looked very

reprovingly out from her white wraps at him, but he smiled back

composedly and admiringly, and drew her hand a trifle closer in his

arm. And saucy Mae began to feel in that sort of purring mood

women come to when they drop the bristling, ready-for-fight air

with which they start on an acquaintance. Perhaps, if the steamer

had been a sailing-vessel, there would have been no story to tell

about Mae Madden, for a long line of evenings, and girls singing

songs, and hurricane decks by moonlight, are dangerous things. But

the vessel was a fast steamer, and was swiftly nearing land again.

CHAPTER II.

ROME, February, 18--.

MY DEAR MAMMA:--Yes, it is Rome, mamma, and everybody is impressed.

The boys talk of emperors all the time; Edith is wild over Madonnas

and saints, and Mrs. Jerrold runs from Paul's house to Paul's walks

and Paul's drives and Paul's stand at the prisoner's bar, and reads

the Acts through five times a day, in the most religious and

Romanistic spirit. No one could make more fuss over a patron

saint, I am sure. For my part, I feel as if I were in the most

terrible ghost story. The old Romans are all around me.

Underneath the street noises, I seem to hear cries, and in the air

I half see a constant flashing of swords and scars and blood, and I

can't even put my foot on the Roman pavement without wondering

which dead Caesar my saucy Burt boot No. 2 is walking over. I

shouldn't mind trampling old Caligula, but I don't like the thought

on general principles. I feel all out of place, so modern and

fixed up and flimsy. If I could get into old picturesque clothes

and out of the English-speaking quarter, I should not be so

oppressed and might worship Rome. But I seriously think I shall

die if I stay here much longer. There's a spirit-malaria that eats

into my life. I feel as if all the volumes of Roman history bound

in heavy vellum, that papa has in his study, were laid right on top

of my little heart, so that every time it beats, it thumps against

them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than dyspepsia. If I

could only get out on a New England hillside, where there were no

graves more important than those of grasshoppers and butterflies!

What should I do when I got there? Take off my hat, and scream for

joy, and feel free and glad to be in a fresh country, with rich,

warm, untainted earth and young life.

But all this is nonsense, mamma, and I shouldn't be writing it, if

I hadn't just come from the catacombs of St. Calixtus. To think of

Albert's insisting upon going there the very first thing! But so

he did, and so we went, and talked solemnly about the Appian Way,

and saw everybody's tombs and ashes, and quoted poetry, until I

stuck a pin in Albert's arm and sang Yankee Doodle, to keep from

crying. Then, oh, how shocked they looked. Even Mr. Mann seemed

ashamed of me. When we reached the place, we each took a candle

and the guide led the way down into the bowels of the earth.

Mamma, they are very unpleasant. There were two German youths

along, and green lizards crawled all over. They winked at me. The

way grew so narrow that we had to walk one by one through lines of

wall perforated with holes for dead bodies. Once in a while we

would come to a small chapel, for miserable variety's sake, and be

told to admire some very old, very wretched painting. Jonah and

the whale were represented in a double-barreled miracle picture.

Not only was the whale about to swallow Jonah, but he was only as

large as a good-sized brook trout, while Jonah towered away above

him like a Goliath. I found myself wondering if the guide had

convulsions, and, if he should have one now, and die, how many days

would pass before we should eat each other. And would they take me

first, because I am youngest and plumpest? Albert would make good

soup bones, and Eric's shoulder serve as a delicious fore-quarter.

And by the time we came to the top again, I was all ready to cry.

And then, mamma, I did an awful thing. Mr. Mann exclaimed: "Why,

Miss Mae, how frightened you look. You are quite white." And I

answered very sharply: "What a disagreeable man you are. I'm not

frightened at all." I said it in a dreadful tone, and how his face

changed. He looked so strangely. Everybody was still but Albert,

and he said, "Why, Mae, you are very rude to Mr. Mann." Even then

I didn't apologize. So here we are at sword's points, and all the

rest sympathizing with my foe, who is only on the defensive. Why

am I such a belligerent? I can't conceive where I got my nature,

unless from that very disagreeable dear old grandpapa of papa's,

who fought the whole world all his life. But how egotistic I am,

even to my mother. Of course you want to know how we are lodged

and clothed and fed. We have taken apartments, as I presume Albert

wrote you, on the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, quite near the

Costanzi hotel, which is in the height of the fashion as a hotel;

near too, which is better, to Mr. Story's studio and the old

Barberini palace and the Barberini square and fountains. Off

behind, is that terrible church of the Cappucini, with its cemetery

underneath of bones and skulls and such horrors. I like the

apartments very much, principally because I have made three staunch

friends and one good enemy, in the kitchen. The padrona,--she's

the woman who keeps the house, and serves us, too, in this case--

though Mrs. Jerrold has a maid to wait on the table and care for

our rooms--well, the padrona is my first friend. Her cousin, a

handsome southern Italian, is here on a visit, and she is not only

my friend, but my instructress. She tells me lovely stories about

her home and the peasants and their life, while I sit on the floor

with Giovanni,--friend number three and eldest son of the padrona,--

and even Roberto, my enemy, the crying baby of three years, hushes

his naughty mouth to listen to Lisetta, for that is the cousin's

name. I am so glad I studied Italian as hard as I did for my

music, for it comes very easily to me now, and already I slip the

pretty words from my halting tongue much more smoothly and quickly

than you would imagine I could. Mrs. Jerrold isn't quite

satisfied, and would prefer the Costanzi, only she doesn't believe

in letting us girls stay at large hotels. She and Edith are

shocked at my kitchen tastes, so that I generally creep off quietly

and say nothing about it. It is strange for me to have to keep

anything secret, but I am learning how.

As for our clothes, O, mamma, Edith is ravishing in a deep blue-

black silk, with a curly, wavy sort of fringe on it, and odd

loopings here and there where you don't expect to find them. What

can't a Parisian dressmaker do? They have such a wonderful idea of

appropriateness, it seems to me. Now, at home you know we girls

always wear the same sort of thing, but Madame H---- says no,

Edith, and I should dress very differently; and now Edith's clothes

all have a flow, and sweep, and grace about them, and her silks

rustle in a stately way as she walks, while my dresses haven't any

trimming to speak of, but are cut in a clinging, square sort of

way, with jackets, and here and there a buckle, that makes me feel

half the time as if I were playing soldier in a lady-like fashion.

But what a budget this is. How shocked the people here would be.

They take travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat Baedeker, like the

Bible,--and here am I crushing down Rome, and raising Paris on top

of it. Indeed, I can't help it, for Paris is utterly intoxicating.

It takes away your moral nature and adds it all into your powers of

enjoyment. Well, good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me tremendous

letters, won't you; for I do love you dearly.

Your loving daughter,

MAE.

Mae felt a great deal better when she had finished the letter, and,

like a volatile girl as she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris

gloves, singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in a very light-hearted

manner.

"Why, you look like a different girl," cried Eric, as she entered

the parlor, where he and Mr. Mann were sitting. "Mrs. Jerrold,

Edith, and Albert have gone on in a carriage, and you are left to

my tender care; will you ride or walk?"

"How can you ask? My feet are quite wild. No wonder I am a

different girl. Are we not going to the Pincian hill to look at

the live world and people? I have just unlocked the stop-gates and

let the blood bound in my veins as it wants to."

"It has been taking the cinque-pace, I should say from your long

face to-day."

"O, it has only been trying to keep step with the march of the

ages, or some such stately tread, but it was hard work, and now the

dear life of me hops, skips and jumps, like this," and Mae seized

her brother and danced across the room, stopping very near Mr.

Mann, who stood with his back to them, drumming on the window pane.

She looked at him quizzically and half raised her eyebrows.

Eric shook his head, and said aloud in his outspoken way: "You owe

him an apology, Mae, for this morning's rudeness."

Mr. Mann turned quickly. "I am surprised, Eric. Let your sister

find out for herself when she is rude."

"Bless me," cried Eric, "what is the row?"

Mae looked determined. "Are you going to the Pincian with us?" she

asked.

"No, I am going to stay home."

"Well, good-bye, then. Come, Eric." The door closed behind them.

Mr. Mann stood by the window and watched them walk away. Mae, with

her eager, restless, fresh life showing out in every motion; Eric,

with his boy-man air and his student swing and happy-go-lucky toss

of his head. Mr. Mann smiled and then he sighed. "That's a good

boy, so square and fair and merry--and a queer girl," he added.

"Rome isn't the place for her. She must get away, though why I

should take care for her, or worry about her, little vixen. I

don't see." Still he smiled as one would over a very winning, very

wicked child, and shortly after took his hat and went to the

Pincio, after all.

Meantime, the brother and sister had walked gaily along, passed the

Spanish Steps, and were on the Pincian hill. Here, Mae was indeed

happy. The fine equipages and dark, rich beauty of the Italians

delighted her, and she and Eric found a shaded bench, and watched

the carriages drive round and round, and criticised, and admired,

and laughed like two idle children. They bought some flowers, and

Mae sat pulling them to pieces, when they caught sight, down the

pathway, of two approaching Piedmontese officers.

"O," cried Mae, and dropped her flowers, and clasped her hands, and

sprang to her feet, "O, Eric, are they gods or men?"

The Piedmontese officer is godlike. He must be of a certain

imposing height to obtain his position, and his luxurious yellow

moustaches and blue black eyes, enriched and intensified by

southern blood, give him a strange fascination. The cold, manly

beauty and strength of a northern blonde meet with the heat and

lithe grace of the more supple southerner to produce this paragon.

There is a combination of half-indolent elegance and sensuous

langour, with a fire, a verve, a nobility, that puts him at the

very head of masculine beauty. Add to the charms of his physique,

the jauntiest, most bewitching of uniforms, the clinking spurs, the

shining buttons, the jacket following every line of his figure, and

no wonder maidens' hearts seek him out always and young pulses beat

quicker at his approach.

Mae's admiration was simply rapturous. Utterly regardless of the

pretty picture she herself made, of her vivid coloring and

sparkling beauty, she stood among her dropped flowers until the two

pairs of eyes were fixed upon her. Then she became suddenly aware

of her attitude and with quick feminine cunning endeavored to

transfer her admiration to some beautiful horses cantering by,

exclaiming in Italian, that the officers might surely understand

she was thinking only of the fine animals: "O, what wonderful

horses!"

The foreign pronunciation, Eric's amusement, Mae's confusion, were

not lost upon the men. Their curiosity was piqued, their eyes and

pride gratified. They sauntered leisurely past, only to turn a

corner and quicken their steps again toward the bench where Eric

and Mae were seated. They found the brother and sister just

arising, and followed them slowly.

An Italian is quick to detect secrets. The two had not proceeded

far before one said to the other; "Eh, Luigi, we are not the only

interested party."

Luigi looked slowly around and saw a crowd of Italian loungers

gazing at the little stranger with their softly-bold black eyes

full of admiration. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Bah,

they gaze in that way at all womankind. See, now they are watching

the next one," and as he spoke, the boys turned with one accord to

stare at a young Italian girl, who pressed closer to the side of

her hook-nosed old duenna:

"It is not those loungers that I noticed," replied the other. Look

there," and he waved his hand lightly toward the left, where, under

a large-leafed tree, gazing apparently in idleness, stood a young

man.

"Ah," said Luigi, still incredulous, "he sees nothing but Rome; he

is fresh from over the seas."

"No, no, watch his eyes," replied the other.

They were assuredly fixed, with a keen searching glance, on a

little form before them, and as Eric and Mae suddenly turned to the

left, the stranger, half carelessly, but very quickly, crossed to

another path, from which he could watch them, but be, in his turn,

unobserved.

"Jealous," laughed Luigi, shrugging his shoulders again. "Her

lover, probably."

"No," replied Bero, "but he may be some time." Then after a

moment's pause, "Good evening," he said carelessly. "I am going to

say my prayers at vespers. I've been a sorry scamp of late."

Luigi laughed disdainfully and lightly. "You want to get rid of

me? Well, be it so. I don't want to lose my heart over a little

foreigner. I have other game. However, Lillia shall not know of

it. Addio, Bero." So Luigi went off the other way, and Bero, with

a flushed face, followed Mae at a distance, and kept an eye on the

stranger, flattering himself that he was quite unnoticed by those

sharp, keen eyes. He was mistaken, Norman Mann had seen the

officers before they saw him, had watched their footsteps, and had

a pretty clear idea of the whole affair.

Mae walked on happily, chatting with Eric, and with that vague,

delightful feeling of something exciting in the air. She knew

there was an officer behind her, because she had heard the clicking

spurs, but she only guessed that he might be one of the two who had

passed--the taller, perhaps,--which, of course, he was. She had,

moreover, in some mysterious way, caught sight of a figure

resembling Norman Mann, trying, she thought, to avoid her. Her

spirits rose with the half-mystery, and she grew brighter and

prettier and more magnetic to the two followers as she tossed her

shoulders slightly and now and then half-turned her sunny head.

As for Eric, he was totally unconscious of any secrets. He fancied

himself and his pretty, nice, little sister all alone by their very

selves, and he went so far as to expatiate on the vastness of the

world, and how in this crowd there was no other life that bordered

or touched on theirs.

To which Mae replied: "You don't know; you may fall in love with

one of these very Italian girls, or my future husband may be

walking behind me now." When she had said this, she flushed

scarlet and was very much ashamed of herself in her heart.

"We must go home now," Eric replied, quite disdaining such

sybilistic remarks. So they left the hill and went down the Steps

in the rich afternoon light, and so homewards. Of course the

Italian and Mr. Mann still followed them; Norman on the other side

of the street, the Italian in a slyer, less conspicuous manner, by

taking side streets, or the next parallel pavement, and appearing

only at every corner in the distance. He appeared, however, close

at hand, as Mae and Eric turned into their lodgings. His eyes met

Mae's. She blushed involuntarily as she recognized him, and at

once, in that moment, there was an invisible half-acquaintance

established between the two. If they should ever meet again, they

would remember each other.

Mae crept off to the kitchen that evening, to beg for another of

Lisetta's stories, and quite forgot her walk, the officer, and

Norman Mann while she listened to the

STORY OF TALILA.

Talila was a young girl, destined to be a nun. She was a naughty

little girl and would make wry faces at the thought, and wish she

could be a man, a soldier or sailor, instead of being a woman and a

nun; and as she grew older she would dance all the time, and didn't

say her prayers very much, and was so bad that the priest sent for

her to see him. He told her how wicked she was, and that, too,

when she was to be the bride of the church; but she said the church

had many, many brides, and she would rather be the bride of

Giovanni; and that she loved red-cheeked babies better than beads,

and songs were nicer than prayers. Should she sing him such a

pretty, gay one she knew? And the priest could hardly keep from

laughing at the bright-eyed, naughty, naughty Talila. But he said:

"If Giovanni does not want to marry you, will you then become the

bride of the church?" And Talila laughed aloud and tossed her

head. "Giovanni longs to marry me, Father," she said, "I know that

already." But the Father sent for Giovanni and gave him money if

he would say he did not want to marry Talila. At first he would

not say so, but the Father showed him a purse all full of silver,

which Talila's mother had brought him, for it was she who had vowed

Talila should be a nun. Then the Father said: "This is yours if

you say as I wish, and if not, you shall be cursed forever, and all

your children shall be cursed, because you have married the bride

of the church." Then Giovanni crossed himself and took the bag of

silver, and the priest sent for Talila, and she heard her Giovanni

say he didn't want to marry her--she had better be a nun; and she

threw up her brown arms and screamed aloud, and fell down as if

dead. And afterwards she was very ill, and when she grew better

she had forgotten everything and was only a little child, and she

loves little children, and is ever with them, but she calls them

all Giovanni. They play together by the bay through the long day,

and at night she takes them to their mothers, and goes alone to her

home. But alas! she never tells her beads, or prays a prayer, and

sorry things are said of her--that God gave her up because she left

Him. But the children all love her, and she loves them.

CHAPTER III.

Edith and Mae had a quarrel one morning. Mae's tongue was sharp,

but although she breezed quickly, she calmed again very soon. The

latter fact availed her little this time, for Edith maintained a

cold displeasure that would not be melted by any bright speeches or

frank apologies. "Edith," said little Miss Mae, quite humbly for

her, as she put on her hat, and drew on her gloves, "Edith, aren't

you going out with me?" "What for?" asked that young person

indifferently.

"Why--for fun, and to make up. Haven't you forgiven me yet?"

Edith did not reply directly. "I am going out with mamma to buy

our dominoes for the Carnival, and to see our balcony. Albert has

engaged one for us, on the corner of the Corso and Santa Maria e

Jesu. I suppose you can go too. There will be an extra seat.

We'll come home by the Pincian Hill."

"Thank you," said Mae, "but I will get Eric and go for a tramp,"

and she left the room with compressed lips and flushed cheeks. In

the hall were Albert, Eric and Norman, talking busily. "Where are

you going Eric, mayn't I go too, please?" "I'm sorry Mae, but this

is an entirely masculine affair--five-button gloves and parasols

are out of the question."

"O, Ric, I am half lonely." Mae laughed a little hysterically. At

that moment she caught Mr. Mann's eyes, full of sympathy. "But

goodbye," she added, and opened the door, "I'm going."

"Alone?" asked Norman, involuntarily.

"Yes, alone," replied Mae. "Have you any objections, boys?" Eric

and Albert were talking busily and did not hear her. Norman Mann

held open the door for her to pass out, and smiled as she thanked

him. She smiled back. She came very near saying, "I'm sorry I was

rude the other day, forgive me," and he came very near saying, "May

I go with you, Miss Mae?" But they neither of them spoke, and

Norman closed the door with a sigh, and Mae walked away with a

sigh. It was only a little morning's experience, sharp words,

misunderstandings; but the child was young, far from home and her

mother, and it seemed hard to her. She was in a very wild mood, a

very hard mood, and yet all ready to be softened by a kind,

sympathetic word, so nearly do extremes of emotion meet.

"There's no one to care a pin about me," said she to herself, "not

a pin. I have a great mind to go and take the veil or drown myself

in the Tiber. Then they would be bound to search for me, and

convent vows and Tiber mud hold one fast. No, I won't, I'll go and

sit in the Pincian gardens and talk Italian with the very first

person I meet and forget all about myself. I wish Mr. Mann

wouldn't pity me. Dear me, here I am remembering these forlorn

people again. I wish I could see mamma and home this morning,--the

dear old library. Why the house is shut up and mamma's south. I

forgot that, and here am I all alone. It is like being dead.

There, I have dropped a tear on my tie and spoiled it! Besides, if

one is dead, there comes Heaven. Why shouldn't I play dead, and

make my own Heaven?" Here Mae seated herself, for she was on the

Pincio by this time, and looked off at the view, at that wonderful

view of St. Peter's, the Tiber, all the domes and rising ruins and

afar the campagna. "I wouldn't make my Heaven here," thought this

dreadful Mae, "not if it is beautiful. I'd not stay here a single

other day. Bah no!" and she shook her irreverent little fist right

down at the Eternal City.

At this moment, a small beggar, who had been pleading unnoticed at

her side, was lifted from his feet by a powerful hand, and a shower

of soft Italian imprecations fell on Mae's ear. She sprang up

quickly, "No, no," she cried in Italian, "how dare you hurt a

harmless boy?" She lifted her face full toward that of the man who

had inspired her wrath, and her eyes met those of the Piedmontese

officer. She blushed scarlet.

"Pardon, a thousand pardons," began he. "It was for your sake,

Signorina. I saw you shake your hand that he should leave you, and

I fancied that the little scamp was troubling the foreign lady."

Mae laughed frankly, although she was greatly confused. The

officer and the beggar boy behind him waited expectantly. "I shook

my hand at my thoughts," she explained. "I did not see the boy.

Forgive me, Signor, for my hasty words."

The officer enjoyed her confusion quietly. He threw a handful of

small coin at the beggar, and bade him go. Then he turned again to

Mae. "I am sorry, Signorina, that your thoughts are sad. I should

think they would all be like sweet smiles." He said this with an

indescribable delicacy and gallantry, as if he half feared to speak

to her, but his sympathy must needs express itself.

Mae was, as we have seen, in a reckless, wild mood. She did not

realize what she was doing. She had just broken down all barriers

in her mind, was dead to her old life, and ready to plan for

Heaven. And here before her stood a wonderful, sympathizing, new

friend, who spoke in a strange tongue, lived in a strange land was

as far removed from her old-time people and society as an

inhabitant of Saturn, or an angel. She accepted him under her

excitement, as she would have accepted them. No waiting for an

introduction, no formal getting-acquainted talk, no reserve. She

looked into the devoted, interested eyes above her, and said

frankly:

"I was feeling all alone, and I hate Rome. I thought I would like

to play I was dead, and plan out a Heaven for myself. It should

not be in Rome. And then I suppose I shook my fist."

"Where would your Heaven be?" asked the Piedmontese, falling

quickly, with ready southern sympathy, into her mood. Mae seated

herself on the bench and made room for him at her side.

"Where should it be?" she repeated. "Down among the children of

the sun, all out in the rich orange fields, by the blue Bay of

Naples, I think, with Vesuvius near by, and Capri; yes, it would be

in Sorrento that I should find my heaven."

The officer smiled under his long moustaches. "For three days,--at

a hotel, Signorina."

"No, no; with the peasants. I am tired and sick of books, and

people, and reasons. Shall I give you a day of my Heaven?"

Bero smiled and bent slightly forward and rested his hand lightly

on the stick of her parasol, which lay between them. "Go on," he

said.

"I would fill my apron with sweet flowers and golden fruit--great

oranges, and those fragrant, delicious tiny mandarins--and I would

get a crowd of little Italians about me, all a-babbling their

pretty, pretty tongue, and I would go down to the bay and get in an

anchored boat, and lie there all the morning, catching the sunlight

in my eyes, trimming the brown babies and the boat with flowers,

looking off at the water and the clouds, tossing the pretty fruit,

and laughing, and playing, and enjoying. Later, there'd be a run

on the beach, and a ride on a donkey, and a dance, with delirious

music and frolic. And then the moon and quiet,--and I would steal

away from the crowd, and take a little boat, and float and drift--"

"Alone?" asked Bero, softly. "Surely, you wouldn't condemn a

mountaineer's yellow moustache, or a soldier's spurs and sword, if

at heart he was really a child of the sun also? May I share your

day of Heaven? It would be paradise for me, too." All this in the

same soft, deferential manner.

"Well, well,' half laughed, half sighed Mae. "All this is a dream,

unless, indeed, I go home with Lisetta."

"Who is Lisetta?"

"Our padrona's cousin. She is here on a visit. She lives within a

mile of Sorrento, on the coast. She goes home at the end of

Carnival. Oh, how I do long for Carnival," continued Mae, frankly

and confidentially. "Don't you? I am like a child over it, I am

trying already to persuade Eric--that is my brother--to take me

down on the Corso the last night, for the Mocoletti. It would be

much better fun than staying on our balcony."

"Where is your balcony?" asked Bero, stroking his long moustaches.

"It is on the corner of Maria e Jesu, and if I ever see you coming

by, I shall be tempted to pepper your pretty uniform. How

beautiful it is!"

"Yes," replied Bero, again gazing proudly down at his lithe figure,

in its well-fitting clothes, "but I would be willing to be showered

with confetti daily to see you. How shall I know you? What is to

be the color of your domino?" And he bent forward, hitting his

spurs against the paving stones, flashing his deep eyes, and half

reaching out his hand, in that same tender, respectful way.

Mae saw the sunlight strike his hair; she half heard his deep

breath; and, like a flood, there suddenly swept over her the

knowledge that this new friend, this sympathizing soul, was an

unknown man, and that she was a girl. What had she done? What

could she do? Confusion and embarrassment suddenly overtook her.

She bent her eyes away from those other eyes, that were growing

bolder and more tender in their gaze. "I--I--" she began, and just

at this very inauspicious moment, while she sat there, flushed, by

the stranger's side, the clatter of swiftly-approaching wheels

sounded, and a carriage turned the corner, containing Mrs. Jerrold,

Edith, Albert, and Norman Mann. They all saw her.

Mae laughed. It was such a dreadful situation that it was funny,

and she laughed again. "Those are my friends," she said, in a low

voice. "We can walk away," replied the officer, and turned his

face in the opposite direction. "It is too late; and, besides, why

should we?" And Mae looked full in his face, then turned to the

carriage, which was close upon them.

"How do you all do?" she cried, gleefully and bravely. "Isn't

there room for me in there? Mrs. Jerrold, I would like to

introduce Signor--your name?"--she said, quite clearly, in Italian,

turning to the officer.

"Bero," he replied.

"Signor Bero. He was very kind, and saved me from--from a little

beggar boy."

"You must have been in peril, indeed," remarked Mrs. Jerrold,

bowing distantly to Bero, and beckoning the coachman, as Mae sprang

into the carriage, to drive on. "I am sorry to put you on the box,

Norman," Mrs. Jerrold added, as Mae took the seat, in silence, that

Mr. Mann had vacated for her, "and I hope Miss Mae is also." But

Mae didn't hear this. She was plucking up courage in her heart,

and assuming a saucy enough expression, that sat well on her bright

face. Indeed, she was a pretty picture, as she sat erect, with

lips and nostrils a trifle distended, and her head a little in the

air. The Italian thought so, as he walked away, smiling softly,

clicking his spurs and stroking his moustache; and Norman Mann

thought so too, as he tapped his cane restlessly on the dash-board

and scowled at the left ear of the off horse. The party preserved

an amazed and stiff silence, as they drove homeward.

"Eric," cried Norman, very late that same night. "Do be sober, I

have something to say to you about Miss Mae."

"Norman, old boy, how can a fellow of my make be sober when he has

drunk four glasses of wine, waltzed fifteen times, and torn six

flounces from a Paris dress? Why, man, I am delirious, I am. Tra,

la, la, tra, la, la. Oh, Norman, if you could have heard that

waltz," and Eric seized his companion in his big arms and started

about the room in a mad dance. You are Miss Hopkins, Norman, you

are. Here goes--" but Norman struck out a bold stroke that nearly

staggered Eric and broke loose. "For Heaven's sake, Eric, stop

this fooling; I want to speak to you earnestly."

"Evidently," replied Eric, with excited face, "forcibly also.

Blows belong after words, not before," and the big boy tramped

indignantly off to bed.

Norman Mann was in earnest truly, forcible also, for he opened his

mouth to let out a very expressive word as Eric left the room. It

did him good seemingly, for he strode up and down more quietly. At

last he sat down and began to talk with himself. "Norman Mann,

you've got to do it all alone," he said. "Albert and Edith and

Aunt Martha are too vexed and shocked to do the little rebel any

good. Ric, oh, dear, Ric is a silly boy, God bless him, and here I

am doomed to make that child hate me, and with no possible

authority over her, or power, for that matter, trying to keep her

from something terribly wild. If they don't look out, she will

break loose. I know her well, and there's strong character under

this storm a-top, if only some one could get at it. Damn it."

Norman grew forcible again. "Why can't I keep my silly eyes away

from her, and go off with the fellows. You see," continued Norman,

still addressing his patient double, "she is a rebel, and--pshaw, I

dare say it is half my fancy, but I hate that long moustached

officer. I wish he would be summoned to the front and be shot. O,

I forgot, there's no war. Well, then, I wish he would fall in love

with any body but Mae. It must be late. Ric didn't leave that

little party very early, I'm sure, but I can't sleep. I'll get

down my Sismondi and read awhile. I wonder if that child is

feeling badly now. I half believe she is--but here's my book."

Yes, Mae was feeling badly, heart-brokenly, all alone in her room.

After a long, harrowing talk with Mrs. Jerrold, at the close of

which she had received commands never to go out alone in Rome,

because it wasn't proper, she had been allowed to depart for her

own room. Here she closed the door leading into Mrs. Jerrold's and

Edith's apartment, and opened her window wide, and held her head

out in the night air--the poisonous Roman air. The street was very

quiet. Now and then some late wayfarer passed under the light at

the corner, but Mae had, on the whole, a desolate outlook--high,

dark buildings opposite, and black clouds above, with only here and

there a star peeping through.

She had taken down her long hair, thrown off her dress, and half

wrapped herself in a shawl, out of which her bare arms stretched as

she leaned on the deep window seat. She looked like the first

woman--of the Darwinian, not the Biblical, Creation. There was a

wild, half-hunted expression on her face that was like the set air

of an animal brought suddenly to bay. She thought in little jerks,

quick sentences that were almost like the barking growls with which

a beast lashes itself to greater fury.

"They treated me unfairly. They had no right. I shall choose my

own friends. How dare they accuse me of flirting? I flirt, pah!

I'd like to run away. This stupid, stupid life!" And so on till

the sentences grew more human. "I suppose Mr. Mann thinks I am

horrid, but I don't care. I wish I could see Eric, he wouldn't

blame me so. What a goose I am to mind anyway. The Carnival is

coming! Even these old tombs must give way for ten whole riotous

days. I must make them madly merry days. I wonder how I will look

in my domino. I suppose the pink one is mine."

So Miss Mae dried her eyes, picked her deshabille self from the

window seat, turned up the light, slipped into her pink and white

carnival attire, and walked to the window again.

"This is the Corso all full of people, and I'll pelt them merrily,

so, and so, and so!" She reached forth her bare, round arm into

the darkness, and looked down, where, full under the street light,

gazing up at her, stood the Piedmontese officer.

It was at that very moment that Norman Mann put down his Sismondi,

and looked from his window also.

CHAPTER IV.

Mae met Mr. Mann at the breakfast table the next morning without

the least embarrassment. Indeed, the little flutter in her talk

could easily be attributed to unusually high spirits and an excited

and pleased fancy. That was how Norman Mann translated it, of

course. Really, the flutter was a genuine stirring of her heart

with inquietude, timidity and semi-repentance; but Mae couldn't say

this, and it's only what one says out that can be reckoned on in

this world. So Norman Mann, who saw only the bright cheeks and

eyes and restless quickening of an eager girl and did not see the

palpitating feminine heart inside, was displeased and half-cold.

Could any one be long cold to Mae Madden? She believed not. She

was quite accustomed to lightning-like white heats of anger in

those with whom she came in contact, but coldness was out of her

line. Still she met the occasion well. "Shall I give you some

coffee?" she asked, pleasantly. "We breakfast all alone, until

Eric appears. Mrs. Jerrold is not well, and Edith and Albert are

off for Frascati."

"Poor child; how much alone she is," he thought to himself.

"I understand we all go to the play tonight?" queried Mae.

"The thought of Shakspeare dressed in Italian is not pleasant to

me," said Mr. Mann, after a silence of a few minutes.

"I am quite longing to see him in his new clothes. There is so

much softness and beauty in Italian that I expect to gain new ideas

from hearing the play robed in more flowing phrases. Shakspeare

certainly is for all the world."

"But Shakspeare's words are so strongly chosen that they are a

great element in his great plays. And a translation at best is

something of a parody, especially a translation from a northern

tongue, with its force and backbone, so to speak, into a southern,

serpentine, gliding language. You have heard the absurd rendering

of that passage from Macbeth where the witches salute him with

'Hail to thee, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!' into such

French as 'Comment vous portez vous, Monsieur Macbeth; comment vous

portez vous, Monsieur Thane de Cawdor!" A translation must pass

through the medium of another mind, and other minds like

Shakspeare's are hard to find."

Norman spoke with so much reverence for Mae's greatest idol that

her heart warmed and she smiled approval, though for argument's

sake she remained on the other side.

"Isn't a translation more like an engraver's art, and aren't fine

engravings to be sought and admired even when we know the great

original in its glory of color? Then all writing is only

translation, not copying. Shakspeare had to translate the tongues

he found in stones, the books he found in brooks, with twenty-six

little characters and his great mind, into what we all study, and

love, and strive after. But he had to use these twenty-six

characters in certain hard, Anglo-Saxon forms and confine himself

to them. When he wanted to talk about

"fen-sucked fogs,"

and such damp, shivery places, he is all right, but when he sings

of 'love's light wings,' and all that nonsense, he is impeded; now

open to him 'Italian, the language of angels'--you know the old

rhyme--and see what a chance he has among the "liquid l's and bell-

voiced m's and crushed tz's." To-night you will hear Desdemona

call Othello 'Il mio marito,' in a way that will start the tears.

What are the stiff English words to that? 'My husband!' Husband

is a very uneuphonious name, I think."

Norman Mann smiled. "Another cup of coffee, if you please--not

quite as sweet as the last," and he passed his cup. "I believe

there is always a charm in a novel word that has not been

commonized by the crowd. 'Dear' means very little to us nowadays,

because every school girl is every other school girl's 'dear,' and

elderly ladies 'my dear' the world at large, in a pretty and

benevolent way. So with the words 'husband' and 'wife'; we hear

them every day in commonest speech--'the coachman and his wife,' or

'Sally Jones's husband,'--but I take it this is when we stand

outside. That wonderful little possessive pronoun MY has a great,

thrilling power. 'My husband' will be as fine to your ears as 'il

mio marito,' which has, after all, a slippery, uncertain sound; and

as for 'my wife'--"

At that moment the coffee cup, which was on its way back, had

reached the middle of the table, where by right it should have been

met and guided by the steadier, masculine hand; Norman's hand was

there in readiness, but instead of gently removing the cup from

Mae's clasp, it folded itself involuntarily about the white, round

wrist, as he paused on these last words. Was it the little

possessive pronoun that sent the sudden thrill through the

unexpecting wrist? At any rate it trembled; the cup, the saucer,

the coffee, the spoon, followed a well known precedent, and "went

to pieces all at once;" "all at once and nothing first just as

bubbles do when they burst." And so alas! did the conversation,

and that burst a beautiful bubble Norman had just blown.

Damages were barely repaired when Eric entered the breakfast room

with a petulant sort of face and flung himself into a chair. "My!

what a head I have on me this morning," he groaned. "Soda water

would be worth all the coffee in the world, Mae; I'll take it

black, if you please. How cosy you two look. I always take too

much of every thing at a party, from flirtation to-- O, Mae, you

needn't look so sad. I'm not the one in disgrace now. Mrs.

Jerrold, Edith and Albert are just piping mad at you, and as for

Mann, here,--by the way," and Eric rubbed his forehead, as if

trying to sharpen up a still sleepy memory, "I suppose you two have

had it out by this time. Norman sat up till ever so late to talk

you over with me, Mae. Do thank him for me; I am under the

impression that I didn't do so last night."

Mae tapped her fourth finger, on which a small ring glistened,

sharply against the cream jug. "If I were every body's pet lamb or

black sheep, I couldn't have more shepherd's crooks about me. Have

you joined the laudable band, Mr. Mann, and am I requested to thank

you for that?"

"Not at all. Perhaps your brother's remembrances of last night are

not very distinct. I certainly sat up for Sismondi's sake, not for

yours." And he really thought, for the moment, that he told the

truth.

"I warn you," continued Mae, rising as she spoke, "that I have a

tremendous retinue of mentors, and nurses, and governesses already.

You had better content yourself with the fact that you have four

proper traveling companions, and bear the disgrace of being shocked

as best you may by one wild scrap of femininity who will have her

own way in spite of you all." Mae half laughed, but she was

serious, and the boys both knew it.

"You flatter me," replied Norman, "I had aspired to no such

position, but for your brother's sake, if not for your own, I

wished to tell Eric that the Roman air at midnight was dangerous to

your health. I saw you had your window open."

"Did you look through the ceiling, pray?" Mae retorted from the

door-way. "Eric, ring if you want anything. Rosetta is close at

hand."

"I have put my foot in it this time," said Eric, clumsily. "I am

real sorry, Norman, old boy."

Norman did not feel like being pitied, and this remark of Eric's

roused him. He fairly ground his teeth and clenched his hands, but

his big brown moustache and the tablecloth hid these outer

manifestations of anger. "Don't be a goose, Ric," he said. "What

possible difference can all this make to me? Your sister is young

and quick."

Now, it was Eric's turn to wince. Was he giving this fellow the

impression that he thought his sister's opinions would affect him?

Horrible suspicion! Boys always fancy everybody in love with their

sister. He must cure that at once. "Of course," he replied

quickly, "I know you and Mae never agree, that you barely stand

each other. But I didn't know but you would prefer to be on good

terms with her, for all that."

"Miss Mae can choose the terms on which we meet. I shall be

content whatever her decision. What are your plans for the day?"

Lounging Eric straightened himself at once. "I was a perfect fool

last night," he confessed. "and I must rely on you, old fellow, to

help me out. I made engagements for two weeks ahead with Miss

Hopkins and Miss Rae. At any rate, I'm booked for the play to-

night. Now, I can't take two girls very well. That is, I can, but

I thought you might like a show. You may have your choice of the

two. Miss Rae, by the way, says she's wild to know you; thought

you were the most provoking man she ever saw; and that you were--

nonsensical idea--engaged to Mae. All because you wouldn't look at

her the other day when she passed you two, But you can go with Miss

Hopkins, if you prefer."

"Are they pretty?" asked Norman, apparently warming to the task,

"and bright?"

"I should say they were. Miss Hopkins has gorgeous great eyes,--

but Miss Rae is more your style. Still, you may have your choice."

"Silly boy; you're afraid to death that I shall choose Miss

Hopkins. Well, if they are not over stupid and flirtatious--"

"Stupid! Oh, no,"--Eric scouted that idea--"and flirtatious,

perhaps. Miss Hopkins rolls her eyes a good deal, but then she has

a frankness, a winning way."

"Well," laughed Norman, "you're such a transparent, susceptible

infant-in-arms that I'll go with you."

"As shepherd," suggested Eric, "as long as Mae won't have you. But

come, we must go down and call on these people. It won't do at all

for you to appear suddenly this evening, and say, 'I'll relieve my

friend here of one of you.'"

"Oh, what a bore. Is that necessary? Won't a card or a box of

Stillman's bon-bons do them? Well, if it must be, come along,

then."

CHAPTER V.

It was evening, and the brilliantly lighted theatre was crowded to

overflowing. Of course there were English who scowled at the

Americans, and Americans who smiled on every one and ate candy

while Othello writhed in jealous rage, and a scattering of Germans

with spectacles and a row of double-barrelled field glasses glued

over them, and Frenchmen with impudent eyes and elegant gloves, and

a general filling in of Italians, with the glitter here and there

of nobility, and still oftener of bright uniforms. Finally there

was a modicum of true gentry, and these not of any particular

nation or class. It is pleasant to name our party immediately

after referring to these goodly folks. They had a fine box, and

although their ranks were thinned by the loss of two cavaliers,

nobody seemed to care. Albert and Edith were perfectly happy side

by side, and Mrs. Jerrold was well contented to observe her

daughter's smile as Albert spoke to her, and the look of manly

protection in his eyes, as his gaze met Edith's.

As for Mae, she had that delicious feminine pride which is as good

a stimulant as success to women--in emergencies. And to-night was

an emergency to this small, excitable, young thing. Her eyes were

very dark from the expansion of the pupil. They possessed a rare

charm, caught from a trick the eyelids had of drooping slowly and

then suddenly and unexpectedly lifting to reveal the wide, bright

depths, that half-concealed, half-revealed power, which is so

tantalizing. Mae was dressed in this same spirit to-night, and she

was dimly conscious of it. The masses of tulle that floated from

her opera hat to her chin and down on her shoulders, revealed only

here and there a glimpse of rich brown hair, or of white throat.

Her cheeks were scarlet, her lips a-quiver with excitement and

pleasure. She formed a pretty contrast to Edith, who sat by her

side. Miss Jerrold leaned back in her chair quietly, composedly.

She fanned herself in long sweeps, looked pleased, contented, but

in no wise displaced or surprised--thoroughly well-bred and at

home. She might have had a private rehearsal of Othello in her own

dramatic hall the evening before, from her air and mien. Mae, on

the contrary, was alert, on the qui vive, as interested as a child

in each newcomer, and, after the curtain rose, in every tableau.

Such a woman can not fail to attract attention, as long as she is

herself unconscious. The world grows blase so speedily that it

enjoys all the more thoroughly the sight of freshness, verve,

life,--that is, the male portion of the world. Women's great

desire, as a rule, is to appear entirely at ease, city-bred, high-

bred, used to all things, surprised by none.

So there were a great many glasses turned toward Mae that evening.

Very probably the young women in the next box accepted a share of

these glances as their own, and, in a crowd where the French and

Italian elements predominate, or largely enter, they could not have

been far wrong. Every girl or woman who pretends to any possible

charm is quite sure of her share of admiration from these

susceptible beings. The young ladies of the next box had that

indescribable New York air, which extends from the carefully

brushed eyebrows quite to the curves of the wrist and hand. Praise

Parisian modes all you will, but for genuine style, a New York

girl, softened a trifle by commonsense or good taste, leads the

world--certainly if she is abroad. For there she soon finds it

impossible to go to the extremes that American air seems to rush

her into. Three months, or perhaps, if she is observant, three

days in Paris, teach her that the very biggest buttons, or the very

largest paniers, or the very flaringest hats are not for her, or

any lady, and by stepping back to size number two, she does not

detract from her style, while she does add to her lady-likeness.

These two girls, it may be surmised, were no other than Miss

Hopkins and Miss Rae, whom chance or fate or bungling Eric Madden,

who bought the tickets, had seated side by side with the Maddens

and Jerrolds. It was bothersome, when Norman and Eric had played

truant at any rate, but there was no help for it; so after a little

Eric introduced them all round, and the two parties apparently

merged into one, or broke up into four, for tete-a-tetes soon

began. It was a little hard that three girls should have each a

devoted servant, and that only one, and that one, Mae, should be

obliged to receive her care from the chaperon; but so it was.

Nevertheless, Mae bore herself proudly. She was seated next Miss

Rae, separated only by the nominal barrier of a little railing,

while just beyond sat Norman, his chair turned toward the two

girls. The stranger insisted on drawing Mae into the conversation,

partly for curiosity's sake, to watch her odd face and manners,

partly from that genuine generosity that comes to the most selfish

of women, when she is satisfied with her position. It is pleasant

to pity, to be generous; and Miss Rae, having the man, could afford

to share him now and then, when it pleased her, with the lonely

girl by her side. But Miss Rae's tactics did not work. Mae

replied pleasantly when addressed, but returned speedily and

eagerly to Mrs. Jerrold or a survey of the house, with the frank

happiness of a child. She was all the more fascinating to the

admiring eyes that watched her, because she sat alone, electrified

by the inspiration and magnetism from within, and did not need the

stimulus of another voice close by her side, breathing compliments

and flattery, to brighten her eyes and call the blushes to her

cheeks. Norman Mann saw the eyes fixed on her, and they vexed him.

At the same time, he liked her the better on that very account.

And at last the curtain rose.

It was just as Desdemona assures her father of her love for

Othello, that Mae became conscious of a riveted gaze--of a

presence. Lifting her eyes, and widening them, she looked over to

the opposite side of the house, and there, of course, was the

Piedmontese officer again, handsomer, more brilliant than ever,

with a grateful, soft look of recognition in his eyes.

Mae was out of harmony with all her friends. She was proud and

lonely. The man's pleased, softened look touched her heart

strangely. There was almost a choke in her throat, there were

almost tears in her eyes, and there was a free, glad, welcoming

smile on her lips.

Norman Mann saw it and followed it, and caught the officer

receiving it, and thought "She's a wild coquette."

And Mae knew what he saw and what he thought.

Then a strange spirit entered the girl. Here was a man who vexed

her, who piqued her, and who was rude, for Mae secretly thought it

was rude to neglect Mrs. Jerrold, as the boys did that evening, and

yet who was vexed and piqued in his turn, if she did what he didn't

like and looked at another man.

And then here was the other man. Mae looked down at him.

Bless us! who is to blame a young woman for forgetting everything

but the "other man" when he is a godlike Piedmontese officer, with

strong soft cheek and throat, and Italian eyes, and yellow

moustaches, and spurs and buttons that click and shine in a

maddening sort of way?

Of course, in reality, everybody is to blame her, we among the very

virtuous first. In this particular case, however, we have facts,

not morals, to deal with. Mae did see Norman Mann talking

delightedly to a pretty girl, and she did see the officer gazing at

her rapturously, and she quite forgot Othello, and gave back look

for look, only more shy and less intense perhaps, and knew that

Norman Mann was very angry and she and the officer very happy.

What matter though the one should hate her, and the other love her,

and she--

But, bother all things but the delirious present moment. Never

fear consequences. There were bright lights, and brilliant people,

the hum of many voices, the flash of many eyes, and a half secret

between her, this little creature up in the box, and the very

handsomest man of them all.

So while Othello fell about the stage, and ground out tremendous

curses, Mae half shivered and glanced tremblingly toward Bero, and

Bero gazed back protectingly and grandly. Once, when Desdemona

cried out thrillingly, "Othello, il mio marito," Mae looked at

Norman involuntarily and caught a half flash of his eye, but he

turned back quickly to his companion and Mae's glance wandered on

to Bero and rested there as the wild voice cried out again, "il mio

marito, il mio marito."

So the evening slid on. Mae smiled and smiled and opened and half

closed her eyes, and Norman invited Miss Rae to go to church with

him, and to drive with him, and to walk with him, and to go to the

galleries with him, "until, Susie Hopkins, if you will believe it,

I fairly thought he would drop on his knees and ask me to go

through life with him, right then and there." So Miss Rae confided

to Susie Hopkins after the victorious night, in the silence of a

fourth-story Costanzi bedroom.

Susie Hopkins was putting her hair up on crimping-pins, but she

paused long enough to say: "Well, Jack Durkee had better hurry

himself and his ring along, then."

"O, he's coming as quickly as ever he can," laughed Miss Rae,

whereat she proceeded to place a large letter and a picture under

the left-hand pillow, crimped her hair, cold-creamed her lips, and

laid her down to pleasant dreams of--Jack.

CHAPTER VI.

Mae was very much ashamed of herself the next morning. She had

been restored in a measure to popular favor, through Eric, the day

before. Edith and Albert were home from Frascati, when Eric made

his raid bravely on their forces combined with those of Mrs.

Jerrold. He advanced boldly. "It's all nonsense, child, as she

is," he said. "It was natural enough, to talk with the man," for

Mae had made a clean breast of her misdoings to him, to the extent

of saying that they had chatted after the beggar left. "Do forgive

her, poor little proud tot, away across the sea from her mother.

Albert, you're as hard as a rock, and that Edith has no spirit in

her," he added, under his breath. This remark made Albert white

with rage. Nevertheless, he put in a plea for his wayward,

reckless little sister, with effect. After a few more remarks from

Mrs. Jerrold, Mae came out of the ordeal; was treated naturally,

and, as we have seen, accompanied Mrs. Jerrold to the play the

night before.

Now, it was the next day. Mrs. Jerrold breakfasted in her own room

again, and spent the hours in writing home letters full of the

Peter and Paul reminiscences and quotations. Norman and Eric left

for the Costanzi, and Albert and Edith, armed with books, and note-

books, and the small camp-stools, again started away together.

This last 'again' was getting to be accepted quite as a matter of

course. Everybody knew what it meant. They always invited the

rest of the company to go with them, and were especially urgent,

this morning, that Mae should accompany them.

"Why, with mamma in her room you will be lonely," suggested Edith,

"and you can't go out by yourself."

Mae winced inwardly at this, but replied pleasantly: "I have

letters to write also, and I'm not in the mood to-day for pictures,

and the cold, chilling galleries filled with the damp breath of the

ages."

So Edith and Albert, nothing loth, having discharged their duty,

started off. These two have as yet appeared only in the

background, and may have assumed a half-priggish air in opposition

and contrast to Mae. They really, however, were very interesting

young people. Albert with a strong desire in his heart--or was it

in his head?--to aid the world, and Edith with a clear self-

possession and New England shrewdness that helped and pleased him.

Their travels were enriching them both. Edith was trying to draw

the soul from all the great pictures and some of the lesser ones,

and Albert was waking, through her influence, to the world of art.

This morning they were on their way to the Transfiguration to study

the scornful sister. They were taking the picture bit by bit,

color by color, face by face. There are advantages in this

analytical study, yet there is a chance of losing the spirit of the

whole. So Mae thought and said: "I know that sister now, Edith,

better than you ever will." This was while she was looping up her

friend's dress here, and pulling out a fold there, in that

destructive way girls have of beautifying each other. "See here!"

And down sank Miss Mae on her knees, with her lips curved, and her

hands stretched out imploringly, half-mockingly. No need of words

to say: "Save my brother, behold him. Ah, you cannot do it, your

power is boast. Yet, save him, pray."

"A little more yellow in my hair, some pearls and a pink gown, and

you might have the sister to study in a living model, Edith,"

laughed Mae, arising.

Edith and Albert were both struck by Mae's dramatic force, and they

talked of her as they drove to the Vatican. "I wish I understood

her better," said Edith. "I cannot feel as if travel were doing

her good. She is changing so; she was always odd, but then she was

always happy. Now she has her moods, and there is a look in her

eye I am afraid of. It is almost savage. You would think the

beauty in Rome would delight her nature, for she craves beauty and

poetry in everything. I don't believe the theatre is good for her.

Albert, suppose we give up our tickets for Thursday night."

"But you want particularly to see that play, Edith."

"I can easily give it up for Mae's sake. It would be cruel to go

without her, and I think excitement is bad for her."

"You are very generous, Edith, and right, too, I dare say. I wish

my little sister could see pleasure and duty through your steadier,

clearer eyes."

Then the steady, clear eyes dropped suddenly, and the two forgot

all about Mae, and rolled contentedly off, behind the limping

Italian horse. And the red-cheeked vetturino with the flower in

his button-hole, whistled a love-song, and thought of his Piametta,

I suppose.

Meantime, Mae, left to herself, grew penitent and reckless by

turns, blushed alternately with shame and with quick pulse-beats,

as she remembered Norman Mann's face, or the officer's smile. She

wondered where he lived, and whether she would see him soon again.

Poor child! She was really innocent, and only dimly surmised how

he would haunt her hereafter. Would he look well in citizen's

clothes? How would Norman Mann seem in his uniform? She wished

she had a jacket cut like his. And so on in an indolent way. But

penitence was getting the better of her, and after vainly trying to

read or write, she settled herself down for a cry. To think that

she, Mae Madden, could have acted so absurdly. She never would

forgive herself, never. Then she cried some more, a good deal

more.

About four in the afternoon a very bright sunbeam peeped through

her closed blinds, and she brushed away her tears, and peace came

back to her small heart, and she felt like a New England valley

after a shower, very fresh and clean, and goodly,--just a trifle

subdued, however.

She would go to church. She had heard that there was lovely music

at vespers, in the little church at the foot of Capo le Case. St.

Andrea delle Frate, was it? It wasn't very far away. She could

say her prayers and repent entirely and wholly. So she dressed

rapidly, singing the familiar old Te Deum joyously all the while,

and off she started.

The air was cool and clear and delicious and the street-scenes were

pretty. Mae took in everything before her as she left the house,

from the Barberini fountain to the groups of models at the corner

of the Square and the Via Felice; but she did not see, at some

distance behind her, on the opposite side of the street, the sudden

start of a motionless figure as she left the house, or know that it

straightened itself and moved along as she did, turning on to the

pretty Via Sistina, so down the hill at Capo le Case, to the church

below.

She was early for vespers, and there was only the music singing in

her own happy little heart as she entered the quiet place. The

contrast between the spot, with its shrines and symbols and aids to

faith, and all that she had associated with religion, conspired to

separate her from herself and her past, and left her a bit of

breathing, worshiping life, praising the great Giver of Life. She

fell on her knees in an exalted, jubilate spirit. She was more

like a Praise-the-Lord psalm of David than like a young girl of the

nineteenth century.

And yet close behind her, a little to the left, was Bero on his

knees too, at his pater nosters.

By and by the music began. It was music beyond description; those

wonderful male voices, the chorus of young boys, and then suddenly,

the organ and some one wild falsetto carrying the great Latin soul-

laden words up higher.

All this while Mae's head was bent low and her heart was a-praying.

All this while Bero was on his knees also, but his eyes were on

Mae.

The music ceased; the prayers were ended. Mae heard indistinctly

the sweep of trailing skirts, the sound of footsteps on the marble

floor, the noise of voices as the people went away, but still she

did not move. The selah pause had come after the psalm.

When she did rise, and turn, and start to go, her eyes fell on the

kneeling form. She tried to pass quickly without recognition, but

he reached out his hand.

"This is a church," said Mae; "my prayers are sacred; do not

disturb me."

He held his rosary toward her, with the cross at the end tightly

clasped in his hand. "My prayers are here, too," he said. "Oh,

Signorina, give me one little prayer, one of your little prayers."

He knelt before her in the quiet, dim, half light, his hands

clasped, and an intense earnestness in his easily moved Italian

soul, that floated up to his face. It looked like beautiful

penitence and faith to Mae. Here was a soul in sympathy with hers,

one which met her harmoniously in every mood, slid into her dreams

and wild wishes, sparkled with her enjoyment, and now knelt as she

knelt, and asked for one of her prayers.

She stood a minute irresolute. Then she smiled down on him a full,

rich smile, and said in English: "God bless you," The next moment

she was gone.

Bero made no movement to follow her, but remained quietly on his

knees, his head bowed low.

---

"I looked in at St. Andrea's, at vespers," said that dear, bungling

fellow, Eric, at dinner that night, "and saw you Mae, but you were

so busy with your prayers I came away." There was a pause, and Mae

knew that people looked at her.

"Yes, I was there; the music was wonderful."

"Mae," asked Mrs. Jerrold, "Do you have to go to a Roman Catholic

Church to say your prayers?" For Mrs. Jerrold was a Puritan of the

Puritans, and had breathed in the shorter catechism and the

doctrine of election with the mountain air and sea-salt of her

childhood. Possibly the two former had had as much to do as the

latter with her angularity and severe strength.

"Indeed," cried Mae, impulsively, "I wish I could always enter a

church to say my prayers. There is so much to help one there."

"Is there any danger of your becoming a Romanist?" enquired Mrs.

Jerrold, pushing the matter further.

"I wish there were a chance of my becoming anything half as good,

but I am afraid there isn't. Still, I turn with an occasional

loyal heart-beat to the great Mother Church, that the rest of you

have all run away from." "Yes, you have," Mae shook her head

decidedly at Edith. "She may be a cruel mother. I know you all

think she's like the old woman who lived in a shoe, and that she

whips her children and sends them supperless to bed, and gives them

a stone for bread, but she's the mother of all of us,

notwithstanding."

"What a dreadful mixture of Mother Goose and Holy Bible," exclaimed

Eric, laughingly, while Mae cooled off, and Mrs. Jerrold stared

amazedly, wondering how to take this tirade. She concluded at last

that it would be better to let it pass as one of Mae's

extravagances, so she ended the conversation by saying: "I hope,

Eric, you will wait for your sister, if you see her alone, at

church. It is not the thing for her to go by herself."

"No," added Albert, "we shall have to buy a chain for you soon."

"If you do," said Mae quietly, "I'll slip it." And not another

prayer did she say that night.

CHAPTER VII.

It was the first day of Carnival. The determination to enjoy

herself was so strong in Mae, that her face fairly shone with her

"good time coming." She popped her head out of the doorway, and

flung a big handful of confetti right at Eric, but he dodged, and

Norman Mann caught it in his face. Then, seeing a try-to-be-

dignified look creeping upon Mae, he seized the golden moment,

gathered up such remnants of confetti as were tangled in his hair

and whiskers, and flung them back again, shouting: "Long live King

Pasquino! So his reign has begun, has it?"

"Yes; King Pasquino is lord, now, for ten whole days," and she

slowly edged her right hand about, to take aim again at Norman. He

saw her, and frustrated the attempt by catching it and emptying the

contents out upon the floor. The little white balls rolled off to

the corners and the little hand fell slowly by Mae's side. "Why

not go down to the Corso, you and I, and see the beginning of the

fun?" suggested Norman.

"Come along," cried Mae, "you, too, Eric," and the three started

off like veritable children, in a delightful, familiar, old-time

way. Arrived at their loggia, they found an old woman employed in

filling, with confetti, a long line of boxes, fastened to the

balustrade of the balcony. Little shovels, also, were provided,

for dealing out the tiny missals of war upon the heads below.

There were masks in waiting, some to be tied on, while others

terminated in a handle, by a skilful use of which they could be

made as effective as a Spanish lady's fan. Mae chose one of these

latter.

The Corso was alive with vendors of small bouquets and bon-bons and

little flying birds tied in live agony to round yellow oranges.

The fruit in turn was fastened to a long pole and so thrust up to

the balconies as a tempting bait. If bought, the birds and flowers

were tossed together into the streets to a passing friend. As Mae

was gazing rapturously over the balcony, laughing at the few

stragglers hurrying to the Piazza del Popolo, admiring the bannered

balconies and gay streamers, several of these little birds were

thrust up to her face, some of them peeping piteously and flapping

their poor wings. She put up her hands and caught the oranges,

one--two--three--four. In a moment she had freed the fluttering

birds and tossed the fruit back into the street. "Pay them, Eric,"

she cried indignantly; "Why, what is this?" for one of the little

creatures, after vainly flapping its wings, had fallen on the

balcony. Mae picked it up. It half opened its eyes at her and

then lay still in her hands.

"It is dead," said Mae, quietly, going up to Norman. "Oh! Mr.

Mann, I thought Carnival meant real fun, not cruelty. Isn't there

anywhere in this big world where we can get free from such dreadful

things? Well!" she added, impatiently, as Norman paused.

"Give a slow fellow who likes the world better than you do, time to

apologize for it," replied Norman, as familiarly as Eric would have

done. The tone pleased Mae. She looked up and laughed lightly.

"At any rate," suggested he, "let's forget the cruelty now and take

the fun. Three of them are safe and very likely this scrap," and

he touched the dead bird in her hand, "is flying to rejoin his

brothers in hunting-grounds that are stocked with angle-worms, and

such game. We are to have a good time to-day, you and I."

At this moment Eric rushed up. "Say, Mann," he cried, "here they

come. They have taken the balcony just opposite, after all. And

Miss Hopkins looks perfectly in a white veil. And oh! here are the

rest of our own party."

Mae lifted her eyes to the opposite side of the street, but they

did not fall to the level of the Hopkins-Rae party, being stopped

by something above. At a high, fourth-story window, beyond the

circle of flying fun and frolic, confetti and flowers, Mae saw a

wonderful woman's face, a face with great dark eyes and raven hair.

A heavily-figured white lace veil was pulled low over her brow, and

fell in folds against her cheeks. Her skin was white, the scarlet

of her face concentrating in her lips.

There was a strange consonance between the creamy heavy lace and

its flowing intertwined figures, and the face it encircled. A

mystery, a grace, a subtle charm, that had the effect of a vivid

dream, in its combination of clearness and unreality. There was

life, with smothered passion and pride and pain in it, Mae was

sure. So near to her that her voice could have arched the little

distance easily, and yet so far away from her life and all that

touched it.

A gentleman attending the lady whispered to her. She bent her eyes

on Mae, and met her glance with a smile, and Mae smiled rapturously

back.

Mae had been looking for Bero all that afternoon. She felt sure he

would be there, and very soon she saw him among a crowd of officers

sauntering slowly down the Corso. He looked up at the window

opposite. The veiled lady leaned slightly forward and bowed and

waved her white hand. Bero bowed. So did the other officers.

Norman Mann and Eric excused themselves long enough to dash over to

welcome their friends and then stayed on for a little chat. These

young women were quite gorgeous in opera cloaks and tiny, nearly

invisible, American flags tucked through their belts. They tossed

confetti down on every one's heads, and shouted--a little over-

enthusiastically, but one can pardon even gush if it is only

genuine. That was the question in this case.

The horse race came; and Mae went fairly wild. When it was over,

every body prepared to go home. King Pasquino had virtually

abdicated in favor of the Dinner Kings. Mae unclasped her tightly

strained hands, clambered down from a chair she had perched herself

on, smiled a good-bye at the veiled lady, and came away. She rode

home quietly with a big bouquet of exquisite blue violets in her

hand. There was a rose on top and a fringe of maiden's hair at the

edge, and the bouquet was flung from Bero's own hand up at the side

window on the quiet Jesu e Maria, when everyone else but Mae was

out on the Corso balcony.

"It is dreadful to grow old," said Mae, breaking silence, as the

carriage clattered over the stony streets.

"My dear," expostulated Edith, "you surely don't call yourself old.

What do you mean?"

"I fancied I could take the Carnival as a child takes a big bonbon

and just think with a smack of the lips, 'My! how good this is.'

But here I am, wondering what my candy is made of all the time, and

forgetting, except at odd moments, to enjoy myself for trying to

separate false from true, and gold from gilt. Still, what is the

use of this stuff now! I'll remember that horse race, for there I

did forget myself and everything but motion. How I would like to

be a horse!" And the volatile Mae seized the stems of her bouquet

for whip and bridle and gave a little inelegant expressive click-

click to her lips as if she were spurring that imaginary steed

herself.

Norman smiled. "We can't keep children for ever, even--"

"The silliest of us?"

"Even the freshest and blithest."

"O, dear, that is like a moral to a Sunday-school book," said Mae;

"don't be goody-goody to-night."

"What bad thing shall I do to please your majesty, my lady

Pasquino?"

"Waltz," said Mae. So, after dinner, Edith and Eric sang, and

Norman and Mae took to the poetry of motion as ducks take to water,

and outdanced the singers.

"Thank you," said Mae, smiling up at him. "This has done me good."

She pushed the brown hair back from her forehead and drew some deep

breaths and leaned back in her chair, still tapping her eager,

half-tired foot against the floor, while Norman fanned her with his

handkerchief.

This time Bero and the strange, veiled lady and Miss Hopkins and

every other confusing thought floated off, and left them quite

happy for--well--say for ten minutes.

And ten minutes consecutive enjoyment is worth waiting for, old and

cynical people say.

---

The next morning brought back all her troubles, with variations and

complications, on account of some more misunderstood words.

"I think," said Mae, as she paused to blot the tenth page of a home

letter. "that likes and dislikes are very similar, don't you,

Edith?" Then, as Edith did not reply, she glanced up, and saw that

her friend's chair was occupied by Norman Mann. He looked up also

and smiled.

"I am not Edith, you see, but I am interested in your theory all

the same. Only, as I am a man, I shall require you to show up your

reasons."

"Well, I find that people who affect me very intensely either way,

I always feel intuitively acquainted with. I know what they will

think and how they will act under given conditions, and I believe

we are driven into friendship or strong dislikes more by the force

of circumstances than by--"

"Elective affinities or any of that nonsense," suggested Norman

Mann.

"Yes," said Mae, nodding her head, and repeating her original

statement under another form, as a sort of conclusion and proof to

the conversation. "Yes, a natural acquaintance may develop into

your best friend or your worst foe." She started on page number

eleven of her letter, dipping her pen deep into the ink-stand and

giving such a particular flourish to her right arm, as to nearly

upset the bouquet of flowers at her side. It was Bero's gift.

Norman Mann put out his hand to save it. His fingers fell in among

the soft flowers and touched something stiff. It felt like a

little roll of paper. Indignantly and surprisedly he pulled it

out. "What is this?" he cried.

Mae sprang forward, her cheeks aflame. "It is mine," she said.

"Did you put it here?" asked Norman.

"No."

"Then how do you know it is yours? Is not this a carnival bouquet.

idly tossed from the street to the balcony?"

Mae straightened to her utmost height which wasn't lofty then and

said hastily: "Mr. Mann, this is utterly absurd, and more. I am

not a child, and if I catch an idly flung bouquet that holds idle

secrets, I surely have a right to them." She laughed hurriedly.

"Come, give me my note,--some Italian babble, I dare say."

Norman looked at her for a minute with a struggle in his heart and

a flash of half scorn, Mae thought, on his face. What was he

thinking?

That the child was in danger. He had no doubt in his own mind now

that the flowers and the note came from Bero and that Mae knew it.

He held the paper crushed in his hand, while he looked at her.

"I presume you will never forgive me," he said, "but I must warn

you, not as a mentor or even as a friend," noticing her annoyed

air, "but as one soul is bound to warn another soul, seeing it in

danger. Take care of yourself, and there!" And taking the crushed

note between his two hands, he deliberately tore it asunder and

threw the halves on the table before her.

"And there, and there, and there!" cried Mae, tearing the fragments

impetuously, and scattering the sudden little snow flakes before

him. Then, with a look of supreme contempt, she left the room.

Norman looked down on the white heap that lay peacefully at his

feet. "I am a fool," he thought.

"Little Mae Madden, little Mae Madden, I am so sorry for you,"

repeated that excited bit of womankind to herself in the silence of

her own room. "What won't they drive you to yet? How dreadful

they think you are? And only last night we thought things were all

coming around beautifully!"

And she looked at herself pityingly in the glass. A mirror is a

dangerous thing for a woman who has come to pity herself. She sees

the possibilities of her face too clearly. And Mae, looking into

the mirror then, realized to an extent she never had before, that

her eyes and mouth might be powerful friends to herself and foes to

Norman Mann, if she so desired. And to-day she did so desire, and

went down to the Carnival with as reckless and dangerous a spirit

as good King Pasquino could have asked.

The details of this day were very like those of the last. Norman

and Eric vibrated between the Madden and Hopkins balconies; the

crowd was great; confetti and flowers filled the air; and up above

it all, circled by her crown of misty, heavy lace-work, shone out

the beautiful, wonderful face of the strange lady. She dropped

smiles from under her long black lashes and from the corners of the

rare, sweet mouth over the heads of the idlers to Mae, who looked

up to catch them. There was a resting, almost saving influence,

Mae's excited soul believed, in the strange face; and her eyes

sought it constantly. She had been quite oblivious to the friends

about this beautiful stranger, but once, as her eyes sought the

Italian's, she saw her arise with a sudden flash of light on her

face, and hold out a white hand. A head bent over it, and as it

lifted itself slowly, Mae saw once more the well-known features of

the Signor Bero.

She looked down toward the street quickly and a sharp pain filled

her heart.

She had lost her only friend in Rome, so the silly girl said to

herself. If he knew that wonderful woman, and if she flashed those

weary, great eyes for him, how could he see or think of any other?

Moreover, it was very vexatious to have him there. If she smiled

up at the girl, Bero might think she was watching him, trying to

attract his notice. So Mae appeared very careless and played she

did not see him at all, at all. Yet she could not resist looking

up now and then for one of the rare smiles. They seemed like very

far between "nows and thens" to Mae, averaging possibly a distance

of four minutes apart. But that is as one counts time by steady

clock-ticks, and not by heart-beats.

Meanwhile, what could she do with her eyes? They would wander once

in a while over to the opposite balcony, at just such moments as

when Norman Mann was picking up Miss Rae's fan and receiving her

thanks for it from under her drooped eyelids, or choosing a flower

for himself, "the very, very prettiest, Mr. Mann," before she threw

the rest to the winds and the passing gallants.

As Mae grew reckless her eyes grew bright. There were few passers-

by who were not attracted by the flash of those eyes. The sailor

lads, as they trundled past in their ship on wheels, left the

barrels of lime from which they had been pelting the pleasure-

seekers to throw whole handfuls of flowers up to the Jesu e Maria

balcony; a set of hale young Englishmen picked out their prettiest

bonbons for the same purpose; and one elderly, pompous man, who

drove unmasked and with staring opera glasses up and down the

Corso, quite showered her with bouquets, which he threw so poorly,

and with such a shaky old hand, that the street gamins caught them

all except such as he craftily flung so that they might assuredly

tumble back to the carriage again. And Mae, though she had felt

the pleased gaze of a good many eyes before, had never quite put

its meaning plainly to herself. She was apt, on such occasions, to

feel high-spirited, excited, joyous, but now she realized well that

she was being admired, and she led on for victory ardently.

She tossed back little sprays of flowers, or quiet bonbons, or now

and then mischievously let drop a sprinkling of confetti balls

through her half-closed fingers. To do this she drooped her hand

low over among the balcony trimmings, following the soft shower

with her eyes, as some straight soldier would wipe the tiny minie

balls from his face and glance up to see where they came from. If

he looked up once, he never failed to look again, and generally

darted around the nearest corner to return with his offering, in

the shape of flowers or other pretty carnival nonsense. Mae rather

satisfied her conscience, which was tolerably fast asleep for the

time being, at any rate, with the fact that she didn't smile at

these strangers--she only looked!

Her pleasure was heightened by the knowledge that she was watched.

If she glanced across quickly, Miss Rae's eyes were invariably

fixed on her and Norman Mann would be gazing in the opposite

direction in the most suspicious manner. From above her strange

friend leaned over admiringly and once, as Mae looked joyously

upwards, clapped her white hands softly together, while beyond her

a tall figure stood motionless, Mae had pretended not to see Bero

yet, but as the Italian applauded her in this gentle manner, her

eyes sought his involuntarily. He was gazing very fixedly and

rapturously down on her, without any apparent thought of the

beautiful girl by his side. After that, Mae looked up often, in a

glad, childlike way, for spite of this first lesson in wholesale

coquetry, and the new conflict of emotions within her mind, she was

enjoying herself with the utter abandon of her glad nature.

Toward the close of the afternoon, the Italian was suddenly

surrounded by a great mass of flowers, over which she waved her

hand caressingly and pointed down at Mae. "For you," the gesture

seemed to say. The veiled lady appeared to summon several of her

friends, for a number of gentlemen left the other window and its

group of girls, and began the difficult task of attempting to toss

the bouquets from their height down to Mae. This was rendered the

more difficult as the Madden balcony was covered, and the best

shots succeeded in landing their trophies on this awning, where

they were speedily captured and drawn in by the occupants of the

next flat, an ogre of an old woman and her hook-nosed daughter, who

wore an ugly green dress and was otherwise unattractive.

The entire Madden party became interested and stood looking on with

the most encouraging smiles. The very last bouquet was vainly

thrown, however, and gathered in by the ogre, when Bero suddenly

appeared, a little behind the party in the window. The flowers in

his hand were of the same specimens as those he had given M