The Heart of a Maid

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- t tBART P £-1 A a A 1 1 Vi 8? A NT a * rk ; besafcriccr \7\rar\$€ ATFr Wheeler &C<& ndian Railway Library! No. 8 One Rjjpee. TO 4<- -'< ut- -» •jM^LAtwd*. NEW COPYEIGHT WORKS SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR A. H. WHEELER & CO.'S INDIAN RAILWAY LIBRARY. i • " Soldiers Three : " Stories of Barrack-Room Life. By Rudyard Kipling. 2. " The Stories of the Gadsbys : " A Tale without a Plot. By „ 3- "111 Black and White : " Stories of Native Life. By „ 4- "Under the Deodars : " In Social Byeways. By „ The above four numbers are illustrative of the four main features of Anglo-Indian Life, viz., The Military, Domestic, Native and Social. 5- " The Phantom 'Rickshaw," and other Eerie Tales. By Rudyard Kipling 6. " Wee Willie Winkie," and other Child Stories. By „ 7- "The Colonel's Crime :" A Romance of To-day.

By Ivan O'Beirne. 8. " The Heart of a Maid." By Beatrice Grange. 9- " Closer than a Brother." By G. B. Stuart. IN THE PRESS AND TO BE ISSUED SHORTLY. " The Subaltern, the Policeman and the Little Girl." By Brownlow & Forde. " Doctor Victor." By Ivan O'Beirne. " The Trotter." By Brownlow & Forde. Other volumes to follow. In specially designed picture covers. Price one rupee. The first 9 numbers published are now procurable at all Railway Bookstalls or from A. H. Wheeler & Co., Allahabad. BY RUDYARD KIPLING Plain Tales from the Hills Cloth, Rs. 4 0 Departmental Ditties •> « 2 8 At all Railway Bookstalls or from A. H. Wheeler & Co., Allahabad. FOR OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, SEE OVERLEAF. The Spectator says : — As a wholesome corrective to what may be called the oleographic style of depicting military life now so much in vogue, Mr. Kip ling's brilliant sketches of the barrack-room, realistic in the best sense of the word, deserve a hearty welcome.

Here be no inanities of the officers' mess, no apotheosis of the gilded and tawny-moustachioed dragoon, no languid and lisping lancer, no child-sweethearts — none, in fact, of the sentimental paraphernalia familiar to readers of modern military fiction. Here, instead, we have Tommy Atkins as the central figure, and not Tommy Atkins on parade, but in those moods when the natural man finds freest expression — amorous, pugnacious, and thievisha somewhat earthy personage on the whole, but with occasional gleams of chivalry and devotion lighting up his clouded humanity. Too many so-called realists seem to aim at representing man as continuously animal without any intervals in which his higher nature emerges at all. But Mr. Kipling happily does not belong to this school. The actualities of barrack-room life are not extenuated, but the tone of the whole is sound and manly.

Chapter I

A RIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. " Who knows what days I answer for to-day? Giving the bud, I give the flower." A. M/ynell. RAIN had fallen heavily all day, and Simla had been shrouded in dense grey cloud ; nothing to see, nothing to breathe, only damp and discomfort to feel, and the pouring rain to hear. A depressing day — a day to make most people feel vaguely cross and uncomfortable, and to cause the more sensitive to regret the past, dislike the present, and distrust the future. Towards evening the rain stopped, the clouds dis persed, and the clear blue sky, spanned in the east by one great arch of rainbow, showed vividly against the fresh-washed green of the hills, and hearts grew light again. It is a little humiliating to think how very much the weather and the conditions of the atmosphere have to do with our feelings ; but while bodies contain souls, and the spiritual has power over the physical, so long must we submit to the ruling of outside influences.

The evening became more beautiful when the soft bright glow that only sunset gives, shone on the Simla pines and the barren summits of the more distant hills, while the cicalas shrieked in the trees, making the air hum and simmer with sound. Riding slowly along a narrow B road, one of the least frequented in Simla, were a girl and a young man, in earnest talk. The girl was pretty, though at that moment she hardly looked so, for her face was flushed and her. mouth worked nervously; her companion, a small man with neat insignificant features, was leaning towards her, and speaking in a low voice. " It can't be a surprise to you, May ! For Heaven's sake don't say that you have misunderstood me all this time ! I told you last year that, though you refused me then, I could never forget you, and should try my fate again, and hope for better luck."

"Yes, I remember; but I hoped you had forgotten?" said May Trent, very softly. " Forgotten ! If I had forgotten, do you think I should have sought you* and hung about you all these months as I have been doing. I tried to forget you in the winter, I own, and found it hopelessly impossible, and then I came back to you. Surely you won't make me miserable again, darling ? " Percy Anstruther was a rising young man in the Bengal Civil Service, who had proposed to May a year ago, and taken her answer very quietly. A man generally says, " Let this make no difference between us : let us be friends," after a refusal, but only one in ten keeps his word, and it is natural he should dislike or grow indifferent to a girl who does not wish him to love her. Anstruther could not teach himself to dislike May, or to be indifferent to her, and they were certainly never friends ; he was very quiet and reserved, and love meant more to him than it does to many people.

May felt vaguely, even when he played the part of friend most carefully, that she had not seen the last of him as a lover, but she had let matters go as they would, neither hindering A RIDE AMD ITS CONSEQUENCES. 3 nor helping them, and now she regretted her want of decision. . .'..... "What can I say that will be different from last time?" she said, her eyes filling with tears. " It is cruel of you to make me give you and myself .all this pain again ! You know that I don't love you !" Then, noticing the change in his face, she added quickly, " Oh ! don't look like that ! Please don't ; I can't bear it. You force meto hurt you! I don't love anybody in the way you want; I don't think I ever shall. I must be a stone — I'm not worth caring for." ....'. " Only give me a chance : let me try aud teach you to love me, darling," said Anstruther, hopefully.

"Your love will be all the better worth having, when I win it, for not coming quickly. . I shall win-it; trust me. It is not in nature — it can't be 1 — that such love as mine for you is to be wasted. Won't you trust me ? I know I could make you happy. I feel that I know you so well — while for me it would change and glorify my whole life." May unconsciously drew her reins tighter and tighter till her horse tossed its head uneasily, and there was a long pause. She. had been very romantic once, but life had not fitted itself to her ideals, and now she was trying to shape her ideals to real life as. she thought it \yas, and found the task difficult. The one conclusion she had arrived at was that duty, not love or happiness, was the great fact of existence, and with the exaggeration of youth, she felt herself called upon at twenty years of age to take up the burden of life.

If she. had been better educated she would have thrown herself; heart and soul, into some occupation, called it her Life's Work, and used capitals when she wrote of it, but she was not clever and had spent two years in India. Now two years spent anywhere with Mrs. Trent would have been enough to convince a not very strong-minded girl, that marriage was the only possible career to look forward to, and in India this idea takes root with peculiar rapidity. May had made up her mind to do her duty by marrying the first suitable man that asked her, but deciding and doing are as different as wishing and having, and when the time for performance came, her resolve was very difficult to carry out. Between May and her mother there was very little sympathy, a result probably of their never having lived together until the girl was eighteen.

When mother and daughter — comparative strangers, having scarcely met since the latter's early childhood — are put to the test of living together, without the links of custom to bind them, disagreement, even constant quarrelling, is too often the result. This is one of the many evils of Anglo- Indian life, and it is an evil which reaches far ; for the enforced separation of parent and child, the alienation of years cannot be done away with in a few months, and half the hasty, ill-assorted marriages that take place have for a cause the fact that the girl was not happy at home. Mrs. Trent was very fond of her daughter and very proud of her, but they did not agree well ; every day countless little things occurred to irritate them. Each with the sincerest desire to be amiable, and neither of them ill-tempered by nature, they still found, when to gether, that there came the trifling jar and fret, more hurtful to love than open quarrelling.

May and her mother were alone together at Simla, for Major Trent, hard worked and hard working, was toiling in the plains — too useful to be spared for rest and holiday. A RIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 5 Mrs. Trent was neither unkind nor mercenary, but she was a sensible woman, and intended May and Eva, her second daughter, who was still at school, to marry before it was necessary to decide what to do with the three boys at home. Of course Major Trent was not well off — who is in these latter days in India? — and the cares of his family weighed heavily on him. May knew this— knew too what was expected of her, — but still she hesitated. The crimson clouds were paling as the dusk drew in, and the hum of the cicalas had given place to a great silence ; it seemed to her that they two stood alone be tween earth and heaven, and she forced herself to speak openly.

" Tell me what I should say. You know me better than any one does. I am not happy at home ; you have seen that. My parents think they have been good to me long enough, that it is my bounden duty to get married, and let Eva come out and have her turn. That's about the bitterest feeling a girl can have," she said, breathing as quickly as though she were sobbing, " that her father and mother would gladly give her to any man who would take the trouble to support her." He did not speak, and she went on, excited by her own words. " I shall regret having said this to-morrow, and be very much ashamed of it, but I will speak plainly for once. My mother was angry with me for refusing you last year, and said that, as I cared for no one else, I should end by caring for you. Now I know you better than I did, but my feelings for you are unchanged.

How can you ask me to marry you ?" " It sounds hopeless, but I am not easily frightened. Remember you are excited now and are saying more than you mean. Oh ! can't you trust me, May ? I am some ten years older than you, and I do not speak thoughtlessly. You must realize by this time that my love for you is not a mere fancy, and you say yourself you are not happy at home." " I may look on you merely as a means of escape, then?" " As you will : I trust very much to time. You will love me some day, and, if the whole strength of my nature can influence you, that some day will come quickly. Don't think of my wishes, May: think of yourself and your own feelings, and then tell me if you will marry me." May had unwittingly worked herself into a state of revolt against her father and mother, and the life she had led for the last two years; sooner or later most girls feel, for a time at least, that any thing is better than what they have, and this feeling suddenly possessed her.

Men would not be flattered, if it were Explained to them how often they are accepted, merely because the world has become mono tonous and a new sensation is precious ; luckily, these ex planations are impossible. Then, too, it Seemed an easy way of making a man happy, only to say a few words. It did not strike her clearly at the moment that those few words would pledge her to him, body and soul. The great grey hills were very vast and solemn in the dim light; looking at them she felt dwarfed, and of no impor tance: they had stood and would stand for centuries. What did her insignificant little life matter, after all, how spent, or with whom ? It was all so small and contemp tible. This man wanted her as no one else did ; it would be change at any rate. "Yes, I will marry you," she said quietly ; then, to her great surprise, she felt his arm round her, and as he kissed her she realized what she had done.

For a moment she A RIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 7 was passive, her cheek against his, wondering how best she might retract her words. But now she had given her promise ; it must be irrevocable. To make up for this good resolution, she spurred her horse and freed herself from Anstruther. "Not out of doors, please," she said, laughing ner vously; " it's too absurd ! And look how the dusk is closing in : we must make great haste." She would have hurried on as she spoke, but Anstruther laid a hand on her horse's bridle. " Call me ' Percy' first, just once, and then we'll go as quick as you like." This request and the voice in which it was spoken seemed to her very foolish, and she replied with feelings of mingled impatience and hypocrisy : " Very well, then ; please come, Percy ; I shall get a scolding," and she started off in a hand gallop.

Hastening round a corner they nearly came into colli sion with two other riders — a small, slight girl and a broad shouldered man, whose horses were very near together. " Are you racing, dear ? " called out the girl, in a high sweet voice, but May did not answer or draw rein till they reached the steep little path that led down to Tregarven Cottage. She tried to dismount unaided, but in her haste her habit caught, and Anstruther helped her down, with an air of possessive tenderness that made her shiver. " May I come in and speak to your mother now ?" " Please not ; let me tell her first," begged May, longing to get away from him. " Just as you like ; only of course I'll write to your father to-night ; I suppose you'll allow me to do that, darling?" "Yes! And now good-night. Oh ! you are hurting my hand so, crushing my rings right into it."

And, as his grasp loosened she slipped her hand away, and made her escape in-doors, calling out " Good-night " as she went. It was very undignified, but she felt she could not have endured the farewell that was impending. And Anstruther was not in a mood to take offence ; he only thought com placently, " Poor little girl ! how very shy she is." EDIE JUST A LITTLE GIRL. 9

Chapter II. Edie Just

A LITTLE GIRL. "That fawn-skin, dappled hair of hers, And the blue eye Dear and dewy, And that infantine fresh air of hers !' R. Browning. "Numbers 3, 5, 9, and the supper extras— you'll give me the supper extras, won't you, Miss Cracroft ?" " Oh, no ! indeed I can't. What are you thinking of, Captain Ellis ? Why, there are two of them, and I never give anyone more than four dances. That's one of my hard-and-fast rules, and I won't break it even for you?" " Well, of course, if you say that, I'm afraid to appeal further; but you might think a little of the effect of your cruelty on me." " Oh, you are so funny ! Fancy calling it cruel ! I'll give you the first supper extra if you like. But do tell me : do you really mind ? — do you mean it ? I'm sure you'd be dreadfully tired of me, if I gave you three dances running, wouldn't you, now ?"

Edie Cracroft was always asking little questions, and she had a trick of looking up as she did so with appealing eyes and raised eyebrows. She was very small, short enough to have to look up at every man she talked to, which was in itself an advantage (men like being looked up to), and exceedingly slight. Many people raved about her beauty, but she was one of those girls who never photograph well. When asked for her portrait, as she often was, she looked pathetic and said : " Oh, I never give away a photo, I don't quite like to ; besides, do you know I always come out so horribly ! Dreadfhl things, all teeth and a yard or two of nose ! It's quite true ; you needn't laugh. Well, if you want to remember me, you can do it without a photo. You will, won't you ?" 'Spite of this, she had a complexion like milk and roses, large soft brown eyes, and honey-coloured hair, and knew how to make the best of her defects.

Her teeth were prominent, but the lips over them were always arranged in a sort of vague smile — as attractive to most men, as it was annoying to many women. That was a peculiar thing about Edie. People were either very fond of her, or disliked her exceedingly ; one wanted either to kiss her or to box her ears. When she did not charm, she irritated. Dighton Ellis, of that well - known regiment, the Ineligibles, belonged to the large class of men who were charmed by Edie. He might indeed have been counted in the first rank of them ; for in his eyes the little lady was perfect. He was a tall, square-shouldered young man, handsome, in a blunt-featured way, with an enviable moustache. " Look ! there's Mr. Anstruther. I haven't seen May Trent to-night, have you ? I wonder if" — — (Here Anstru ther came up to them, and Edie stopped speaking.)

May, being tired after the excitement of the afternoon, had preferred not to go to the dance that evening ; but Anstruther had come, he hardly knew why, because it was something to do, and he had not felt able to settle quietly down to whist, his usual evening occupation. "I wonder if I dare hope to find you with a waltz to give away at this hour, Miss Cracroft ?" he asked, falling into the tone of sham gallantry in which men generally spoke to Edie. EDIE JUST A LITTLE GIRL. 11 " I never give away dances beforehand ; I never care to. I think it's so dull, if one always knows beforehand just who one is going to dance with. I can give you either 4 or 7 ; they are both waltzes." " Thank you, I'll have No. 4 then ; shall I find you in this room ?" And he passed on, to the vexation of Edie, who had meant him to take both dances.

"Do you know," she said, turning to Ellis, and speaking in her most confidential tone, "I'm perfectly sure some thing has happened." " Will you go a chick on it, whatever it is ?" suggested Ellis. " I never bet ; but I don't mind wagering my pet pearl pin," touching one she wore, " against a pair of long gloves, that they are engaged." " Who ?" " May and Mr. Anstruther, of course." " How can you tell?" " Oh, I don't know. I'm sure of it, somehow. You'll see I'll get him to tell me." Accordingly when Anstruther's dance with Edie came, she began at once on the subject which interested him most. " I'm so cross," she said, shaking her shoulders, while they were resting after a few turns on a very crowded floor. " I suppose I'm bound to believe you, but I should certainly never think so to look at you.

Who is the offender? — not me, I hope." "Oh, no! not you; it's May. She said she was going to be here. And then she never comes ; it's much too bad of her. And I believe it is really your fault, Mr. Anstruther. Captain Ellis and I saw you having such a long ride this afternoon. I'm sure she's quite tired out." It did not strike Anstruther that one girl rarely speaks to another at a dance, so the presence or absence of a friend can make very little difference, and he was pleased by Edie's anxiety. She had made up her mind to win her gloves. "We rode no further than you did this afternoon, I think," he said. " Well, you were going very much faster. I believe you had had a quarrel. Had you ? Captain Ellis said he didn't think you had, and I was simply longing to know. I shall have to run over and ask May the first thing to morrow morning, if you won't tell me now !"

" No ; we had not been quarrelling — only talking very seriously." " Oh ! I wonder what about ! I suppose I mustn't ask ; but I do wish you'd tell me — do." " What do you think is a serious thing to talk about ? " " I don't know — at least I couldn't say without thinking for such a long time. You know I'm not a bit clever, I only wish I was, like May ; she is so clever, isn't she ? " This little bit of praise decided him. The music stop ped, and they sat down in a quiet corner. " But you haven't told me yet, Mr. Anstruther, had you been quarrelling with May? I don't think I shall ever forgive you if you have, for I'm sure it was all your fault." " Of course it would have been ; but luckily we are agreed ; at any rate on one point, and that's a somewhat important one." " Tell me what you mean really," said Edie, impatiently, tapping on the ground with her little tf-te shoe.

" Promise to congratulate me, first." " Oh, I know now, and I'm so glad. I do congratulate you 1 I think you are very, very lucky ! But how I shall scold May for not telling me herself!" " She did not feel inclined to come this evening." EDIE JUST A LITTLE GIRL. 13 " What a pity ! I should so hate to miss a dance, even if Is this No. 5, Captain Ellis ?" " I've won my bet," she said gleefully as soon as Anstruther was out of hearing. " I was quite right ; he is engaged, and you owe me that pair of gloves — white ones please, and $j4" " He is engaged to Miss Trent, then ?" "Yes ; just as I told you." " I can't think how you get to know," and Captain Ellis seemed lost in admiration of her cleverness ; " but Anstruther is an awfully good sort of fellow, and your friend is a very lucky girl." " Do you really think so ?"

And Edie's little face was twisted into a quaint expression of distaste. " Yes ; indeed I do. Do you dislike him, or know any thing against him ?" " Oh, no ; but he rides so badly ! Of course May is different, but I simply could not marry a man who rode like that ! Ænd the way he dresses, too ! I know it's silly of me to be so particular, but just think when he called on us, he wore Oxford shoes — those patent leather things, you know, — and red socks ! I simply sat and stared at them. I wasn't used to seeing shoes like that." She broke into one of her usual little ripples of laughter, and Ellis, who was a first-rate rider, and always irreproachably dressed, felt an implied compliment, and laughed, too, with a pleasing sense of superiority. " I shall get most, awfully afraid of you, Miss Cracroft.

Fancy your noticing little things like that! I thought young ladies never did." " Oh, I always do — I can't help it ; but I get so laughed at for it. Mamma quite scolded me the other day, because she heard me say, that if any one proposed to me in tennis dress, I should shriek ! But if he was wearing those lovely long yellow riding boots, I should say, 'Yes, in a minute.'" " I'm so glad you told me. I'll order a pair first thing to-morrow morning." " It's much too bad the way you chaff me," pouted Edie. " Chaff you ! Why, I was never more serious in my life." Anstruther spent two dances standing in a doorway, then, after a little desultory talk with Mrs. Cracroft — a painfully thin lady with a fixed smile, — he decided that he was tired of it all, and felt more like walking and solitude than waltzing and society.

Carefully avoiding the appealing eyes of two or three partnerless. girls he knew, he went outside and sent his syce and pony home. Then lighting a cheroot he strolled slowly along the deserted road towards his hotel. The quiet, and the stars, and the cool night calmed some of his excitement, and he began to think for the first time since the afternoon,. Soberly considered, his position was not. a very pleasant one. May had promised to marry him, and there was enough dehght.in that thought to dispel any other for a few minutes ; but his doubts soon returned. Even while giving him her promise she had repeated her last year's decision that she did not love him,. and embittered it, if any additional bitterness were needed, by saying that she looked on him as a means of escape from an unhappy home.

But still he knew there was no other man in the case. Although she did not love him, she loved no one else, and, with, a man's usual calm assurance, he considered love only a question of time. She would love him, when she knew him better, and he was not super-sensitive. Now, after much consideration, he was very well astisfied with what the day had brought,

Chapter III. Girls' Gossip

"Only your pastime, A child will play so With' a little wild bird, Unaware he kills it. Calls it with a mild word. Js angry after, Then again in laughter Loud is the child heard." Then turns it, feels it, Pier Moronelli. May's wish, when she came home, had been to go to her room without seeing her mother, but unluckily she met Mrs. Trent in the passage. " Do you know that it is nearly eight, o'clock ? Far too late to be riding. And how are you going to find time to get cool — I see you are in a fever of heat— and dress for the dance before dinner ?" " I am not going to the dance." "Not going! When did you make up. your mind to that? Why, you have actually ordered. the ayah to get out your dress. I saw it all laid out in your room. "Yes, I did ; but I decided this afternoon, while I was out, that I wouldn't go."

They had gone into the drawing-room together, and May dropped into a chair, while Mrs. Trent stood near. She was a large, handsome woman, curiously like her daughter in features, with a face that flushed when she. was even slightly put out. "You should try to be a little more thoughtful, May I am not sorry not to go. These dances are always dull enough for me; but there is that delicate white dress, which has been lying about, catching the dust and being fingered by the ayah, who you know is never clean." " Oh, it really doesn't matter." " That is not the right spirit in which to take what I say. I don't know how it is, but whenever I reprove you, even in the mildest way, you always make light of it. Go now and get ready for dinner." May was excitable by nature, and she had been sorely tried that afternoon ; losing her self-control, she burst into tears, saying through her sobs, " I don't want any dinner or anything ; leave me alone."