After many days

Front matter

CopyrightN®

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

X r

Part I. Chaptbr

I. Wild-Flowers . . . .

II. “Jewels will be better” ....

III. “’Tis BUT A Little Faded Flower” rV. “Altogether an Accident”

V. The Heiress op Cedarwood . . . .

VI. Under an Apple-Tree ....

VII. Hugh receives a Commission . . . .

VIII. “So LONG AS YOU ARE AMUSED”

IX. Mr. Trafford offers Advice . . . .

X. “ I WANDERED BY THE BrOOKSIDE ” . -

XI. “ Would you like to pay your Debt ? ”

XII. “ An Absolute Stroke of Luck ” .

XIII. “Where is the Miniature?” . . . .

XIV. Mrs. Lathrop fulfills a Duty

XV. A Triumphant Debut . . . . .

XVI. “I HAVE LIVED AND LOVED ” ....

XVII. “ The Light in the Dust lies dead ” .

XVIII. “I WILL HOLD YOUR HaND BUT AS LONG AS ALL MAY ”

XIX. “The Thorns I reap are op the Tree I planted” .

XX. Exeunt omnes

CONTENTS.

Part II. Chapter

I. After Ten Years . . . .

II. A Shadow of the Past

III. At last! ......

IV. In Richmond Park ....

V. “Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot?”

VI. A Voice from the Past

VII. “The Luxury of Regret”

VIII. “ Old Sentiment ” .

IX. “For the Sake of the Past” .

X. After all, Old Things are best

XI. “ I REMEMBER WELL ”...

XII. “The little less, and what Worlds away!”

XIII. “ Scores are settled between Us ” .

) c

XIV. “ I WILL FIND THE WaY ! ” .

XV. The Blow falls . . . .

XVI. “ Checkmated — by Fate ” .

PAGE

XVII.

“After Long Grief and Pain”

AFTER MANY DAYS.

PART I.

Chapter I. Wild-fl0wee8

A WOODLAND glen into which the soft April sunshine streamed, through which a bright brook babbled, where graceful trees leaned over the water, and flowers of many kinds covered the ground like a carpet : on a flat stone at the foot of one of these trees a girl of sixteen sat dabbling a leafy branch in the current of the brook, and varying this amusement occasionally bj leaning, over to look at the water, which gave back a reflection of her face and of the white blossoms of a hawthorn which arched overhead.

Near by, a boy, probably two years her senior, also sat, engaged in weaving, with remarkably dexterous fingers, a wreath of wild-flowers, which • he had evidently gathered in the course of a long ramble.

“ I don’t think there’s anything in the woods prettier than this crimson honeysuckle, Amy,” he said. “See what a vivid color it has ! ”

“It is very pretty,” said Amy, glancing up. “ But I care more for the sweetness than the color. Give me a spray, Hugh.”

“Wait a minute,” said Hugh, “and you shall have the wreath. I am making it for you. I’ll put a long, trailing spray behind. There, now ! I call that picturesque ! ”

He extended the wreath at arm’slength, looked at it admiringly, then rose and laid it on his companion’s head — a head covered with unruly masses of chestnut hair, in rich, curling waves.

“ It’s very becoming to you ! ” he said, stepping backward for a better view, and nearly tumbling over an outspread root into the water. “ What a lovely Queen of May you’d make, Amy ! ”

Amy leaned over and looked at herself in the clear brook.

“‘For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May,’ ” she hummed, under her breath. “It’s likely, isn’t it? ” she added, with a laugh that had a slight ring of bitterness. “Fancy anybody in Edgerton thinking of Amy Reynolds as Queen of May — except you, Hugh ! ”

“I’m not the only person who thinks you the prettiest girl in Edgerton,” said Hugh. “ I sometimes wish I was ! Oh, yes, I do ! ” — as Amy looked at him, arching her brows in a challenging fashion she had. “ It’s no pleasure to me to hear men say, ‘ There goes pretty Amy Reynolds.’ I always feel like knocking them down — and I’m not large enough for that,” he ended, ruefully.

“ I shouldn’t advise you to try it,” said Amy, and again her laugh rang out, this time full of unalloyed gayety. “ Y ou are not large, Hugh, and the consequences might be unpleasant. Besides ”-^with an almost Gallic shrug — “ what does it matter? Am I injured by being called

AFTER MANY DAYS.

‘Pretty Amy Reynolds?’ It’s not respectful — but then it is meant to be complimentary.”

“And you like compliments?” said Hugh, with an attempt at sarcasm.

“ Of course I like compliments,” answered Amy. “I’d prefer them to be respectful, but a person in my position can’t expect that.”

“Now you are talking nonsense,” said Hugh, severely. “A person in your position ! As if you are not as good as anybody ! ”

“ Am I ? ” the girl asked ; and her lip — too young a lip by far for such an expression — curled scornfully. “That depends on what you mean. I hope I am as honest as anybody ; but I’m poor and obscure, and I don’t think that is exactly ‘ as good as anybody.’ But we won’t talk about such disagreeable things. What are you going to do ? ”

He had taken a book from his pocket while she was speaking, and opened it ; then he produced a pencil, and answered : “lam going to see if I can draw your head. Sit stiU, and look at the hill over there.”

This was apparently not a new pro- i ceeding, for it excited no surprise. Amy said, “ I’ll look at tho dogwood-tree,” and Hugh went to work.

He sketched rapidly, and with the ease of one who had acquired, from long practice, perfect command of the pencil. If there had been any artist by to glance over his shoulder, he would have been surprised to see how accurate was his eye, how steady his hand ; and his surprise would have increased to amazement if he had known that the boy was altogether self-taught. With clear, vigorous strokes he drew the outlines of the graceful, spirited head, the long, waving lines of the beautiful neck, and still unformed but symmetrical figure. He shaded almost as rapidly as he sketched, and his pencil was busy with the fiowery wreath and rippling hair, when Amy spoke, abruptly :

“ Hugh, wouldn’t you give anything to be rich ? ”

“I shouldn’t care about being rich,” Hugh answered, glancing from his book to his sitter and his sitter to his book, in true artist-fashion. “ If I had money enough to go away and learn to be a painter — that’s all I’d ask.”

“ That’s all you care for,” said Amy. “But I care for a hundred things, and for all of them I want money, money, money! There isn’t anything in the world, Hugh, that money can’t buy ! ”

“You are mistaken about that, Amy. If you were ugly, it could not buy you a pretty face.”

“And what good is my pretty face, when I never have a new dress or a becoming hat from one year’s end to another ? ” demanded Amy, aggrieved. “ Do you know how I would look if I had on that lovely hat Miss Waldron wore in church this morning ? ”

“ I’ve no doubt you’d look very pretty,” replied Hugh, “ but it couldn’t be any more becoming to you than your wreath of wild-flowers.”

Amy tossed the head on which this I wreath reposed. Wild-flowers were, in her sight, less than nothing compared to a French hat in the latest style.

“ That is absurd ! ” she said, trenchantly. “You are a boy, and you don’t know what you are talking about. If I was rich, I would have the most beautiful dresses — prettier than anybody here wears, except Miss Waldron — and I’d drive in a pony-carriage, and papa should never give another music-lesson, and Felix should go to Leipsic, and the other boys to the hest schools, and Mariette should be dressed like an angel, and you should go and learn to be a painter, Hugh.”

“ I am much obliged to your ladyship,” said Hugh. “ And after I had learned, would you aUow me the honor of painting your portrait? ”

“ Yes, and I would wear violet velvet and point-lace and pearls for you to paint it in.”

WILD FLOWERS.

“ I like you best as you are,” said Hugh, “ and I really don’t think it’s right, Amy, for you to think so much about such things. It only makes you miserable, since you can’t have them.”

“ But I will have them ! ” cried Amy. “ I am determined on that, Hugh. I will be rich ! I am sick and tired of the grinding life we lead, of worry and debt and scraping and pinching, and wearing washed-out dresses ! People who have never known the want of money may talk of it’s being wrong to desire it,” the girl went on, passionately, “ but I Tcnow that there is no prison on earth like poverty, and I hate it, and I don’t mean to bear it ! ”

Hugh looked at her with a pair of very clear, serene eyes — the only attractive feature in his boyish face. From his earliest childhood he had known the life of which she spoke ; at this very moment he Avas held prisoner by “ those twin-jailers of the daring heart, low birth and iron fortune,” but it was not in his nature to rebel with such bitterness and defiance as this.

Though he was not able to make art the pursuit of his life, its exercise was still a delight to him ; and when he held a pencil in his fingers, he scarcely sighed even for the instruction which at other times he would have bartered anything to win. Young as he was, he had been tossed about the world enough to know something of its dangers, and he felt a thrill of fear as he looked at the beautiful face before him, and thought of the passionate, undisciplined nature longing so madly for the pleasures and trappings of wealth.

“You should not talk so, Amy,” he said, reprovingly. “ You may be sure it is very wrong. How can a girl like you make money ? ”

“ How ? ” replied Amy. “ Why, in this way.”

Then she threw her head slightly back, curved her round, white throat, and, opening her mouth, sent forth such a clear.

ringing tide of melody, that a bird in the tree over her head flew up with a startled cry. Yet, if it had paused a moment longer, it might have thought that one of its own companions was pouring out those sounds of the woodland stillness.

Certainly Amy sang with as little efibrt as a bird, and Hugh felt that he had never before appreciated the beauty and power of her voice. It had wonderful compass as well as exquisite purity, and was flexible as a wind-instrument.

The echo-song which she had begun to sing tested this last quality admirably. As her silver notes soared in the longdrawn call, and then sank, the hill -side joined in giving back the soft, dying echo.

“Brava! ” said an unexpected voice in the rear, and a pair of hands beat enthusiastically together.

Amy and Hugh turned simultaneously, surprised and a little startled.

Standing so near, that but for the singing they must have heard his approach, was a stranger, regarding them with a smile — a young man, of handsome face and elegant figure.

Seeing how much he had startled them, he was the first to speak :

“I beg pardon,” he said, lifting his hat lightly. “ I had no right to express my admiration, but one does not often listen to such a voice. Allow me to say that it is wonderful, and I have heard all the best singers of the day.”

“Thank you,” said Amy.

She did not know what else to say, and she blushed very much in saying this.

Hugh, on his part, looked at once fierce and awkward. He considered the intrusion a great impertinence, but being only a “^hobbledehoy,” as Amy often called him, he did not clearly see how to manifest this opinion.

“ I am afraid I was foolish to let my enthusiasm find expression,” the stranger went on, with his glance fixed admiringly on Amy’s face, to which Hugh’s wreath was indeed very becoming. “I

AFTER MANY DAYS.

interrupted you, when, if I had kept quiet, I might have heard another song.”

“I did not mean to sing any more,” answered Amy, who had recovered her self-possession by this time. “ Hugh has heard me often enough. He does not care about it.”

“But / have not heard you often,” said that gentleman, “ and I should be very grateful for another song. Music is the passion of my life, and I have never heard a finer voice than yours.”

“ Don’t sing, Amy ! ” said Hugh, brusquely. “It is time for us to go home.”

The intruder gave him an amused and carelessly supercilious glance; then he looked at Amy again, and she thought what very handsome eyes he had !

“ I fear,” he said, addressing her, “ that you may think me a little presuming ; but I am one of the most unconventional people in the world, and there is nothing I like better than to ignore the starch and buckram of society occasionally, and make an acquaintance in a natural, informal manner. As a warrant of my respectability, allow me to say that my name is Marchmont, and I am a cousin and guest of the Lathrops, with whom, if you live in Edgerton, you are probably acquainted.”

“ I am not acquainted with them, but I know who they are,” answered Amy, always proudly literal in her statements. “ They are very rich, fashionable people, while I am the daughter of Mr. Reynolds, the music-teacher. And this is Hugh Dinsmore,” she added, with an instinct of courtesy.

Mr. Marchmont lifted his hat again, with the air of one who acknowledges an introduction. “ I am happy to know you. Miss Reynolds,” he said. “ Finding Sunday afternoon dull, I sauntered out into the woods, but I did not expect to meet either Flora or Euterpe— much less the two in one. May I hope that you will, of your charity, sing another song for me ? ”

“ Amy,” said Hugh, again breaking in, “ it is certainly time for us to go home.”

In return for his solicitude, Amy flashed a glance of vexation at him. “ It is not time, Hugh, and you know it ! ” she said, in an irritated tone. — “Did you like the song I sang before ? ” she asked, turning to Mr. Marchmont.

“ Very much,” he replied.

“ Well, I will sing you something better now,” she said, quietly. Then, folding her hands and looking straight up into the blue sky, to his amazement she began the “fwjws awmam,” from Rossini’s “ Stabat Mater.” Even Hugh forgot his anger as he listened, for it might have been a seraph singing the divine melody instead of the girl who so shortly before had been talking of violet velvet and point-lace. It was impossible to connect any earthly association with the pure notes that fell on the ear like “the music of the spheres,” and seemed capable of piercing to the very courts of heaven. When the last, strain ceased, Amy’s eyes drooped for the first time, and then she turned them on Mr. Marchmont.

He had unconsciously advanced nearer to her, and his face was absolutely aglow with excitement. “ Why, it is divine ! ” he cried. “Good heavens! do you know that you have one of the most beautiful voices in the world? ”

“I am glad that you think so,” she answered ; and she looked (Hugh thought) exultant. A starry light streamed into her dark-gray eyes, a vivid flush of color shone on her peach-like cheeks. “ Papa has taken a great deal of pains with my voice,” she went on, “and he does not like me to sing for people in general ; but, since you said you were cultivated musically — which most people in Edgerton are not,” she added, candidly, “I thought I would like your opinion of my singing. Do you think that I can make a fortune with my voice ? ”

“ I am sure of it,” he answered, confidently. “No one who heard you could fail to be sure. There is gold, and tri-

“JEWELS WILL BE BETTER.

umph, and delight for multitudes in that throat of yours.”

She made him a pretty little courtesy — the girl was lissome and graceful as a ' bayadere.

“Thank you,” she said. — “And now I will not detain you longer. Hugh, it is time for us to go.”

“You must let me thank you for the great pleasure you have given me,” said Mr. Marchmont, eagerly.

“If I have given you pleasure, you have given me encouragement, so you are not all in my debt,” she replied.

“ But you may come to my debut^ if you will.”

“ I shall certainly be there,” he said, smiling.

As she moved away, the spray of honeysuckle which had been attached to her wreath behind dropped to the ground, and he stooped for it. “ I shall keep this as a souvenir of my pleasant adventure,” he said, “ and on the night of your first triumph I will return it in roses. Thanks again, and au remiry -

“This way, Amy. We have to go for the children,” said Hugh, impatiently.

CHAPTER II. “jewels will be bettee.”

They walked on in silence through the woods for some minutes. Then Amy said :

“ Why are you so cross, Hugh ? There was no harm in singing for the gentleman.”

“Yes, there was harm,” answered Hugh. “You ought to know better. I am sure your father would not like it if he knew.”

“Then we won’t let him know,” said Amy, with that expressive play of countenance which the French call a moue. “Though I don’t really think he would care,” she added. “Papa is not a dragon.”

“ But he is a man,” said Hugh, who was greatly vexed, “ and he knows thq,t a young girl should not sing to every stranger who chooses to ask her to do so.”

“ I should not have sung to him if I had not wanted his opinion of my voice,” said Amy ; “ and I am so glad he praised it. What was it he said? — ‘gold, triumph, the delight of multitudes,’ in my throat ! O Hugh I I am so happy I could dance and sing for joy ! ”

She clapped her hands as she spoke, and, making a movement like a balletdancer’s pirouette^ darted forward several paces, and then waltzed back.

“ For shame — on Sunday ! ” said Hugh, who had heard numerous admonitions about “ the Sabbath-day ” in his early youth, and in whose memory the recollection of such teaching still lingered.

“ Where’s the harm ? ” asked the girl, gayly. “ May I not sing as well as the birds, and dance as well as the sunbeams? Pouf! as old Madame Duchesne says. I am going to be rich ; I am going to be admired ; I am going to Zm.— Hugh, did you know I could sing so well ? ”

“ I never had an idea of it, Amy,” replied Hugh, simply.

“And, to tell you the truth,” said Amy, stopping short and looking at him, with her face flushed into radiant beauty, “ I had no idea of it myself until this evening. Do you know what being inspired means? I think I was inspired when I sang that ‘ Cujiis animam? Wasn’t it divine? I felt as if I could do anything in the world with my voice — as : if I could send it straight up into heaven : if I chose. I never had such a sense of power before. I did not think of any- I thing while I sang except the delight I of uttering such thrilling sounds. Papa never praises my voice, though I know he thinks it very fine ; but when I saw Mr. Marchmont’s face— and hasn’t he splendid eyes? — then I knew that fortune and fame are here ” — she touched her throat.

“And will your father consent to your

AFTER MANY DAYS.

singing in public? ” asked Hugh, his face growing grave.

The girl stared at him.

“ Why, that is what he means me to do!” she said. “That is why he is so careful of my voice — cultivating it, hut never allowing me to strain it. He would not let me sing in the church-choir, though I have been so anxious to do it ; not that I cared about the choir, but I wanted to test my voice in a large building. I am satisfied now, however. I know that I can fill any theatre in the world.”

“I suppose I ought to be glad,” said Hugh, “ but I’m not, and I can’t help it. I hope you are mistaken — I hope your voice is not as good as you think. I should be glad of anything that kept you from going on the stage.”

This was more than Amy could bear. Her eyes flashed with anger instead of delight, and she fairly stamped her foot.

“How dare you! — oh, how dare you hope such a cruel thing ! ” she cried. “ I didn’t think you could be so mean ! When there is but one chance of relief from this horrible life of poverty — one chance to free others as well as to escape myself — you grudge me that! O Hugh, I didn’t think you could ! ”

Hugh felt stricken with remorse, yet unable to retract what he had uttered.

“ I wish to Heaven I was rich and older! ” he said, with a sigh.

“Wishes are of no good,” said Amy, with the air of one who had given them a fair trial and found them useless. “ But if you were as rich as an emperor, and a hundred years old, you could not keep me from going on the stage. Gold, triumph, the delight of multitudes — oh, I wTsh I was going to make my debut to-night! You should paint my portrait in the costume of the character in which I achieved my first triumph.”

“Not I,” said Hugh, grimly. “I should paint you, with your wreath of wild-flowers, as my Amy — not the public’s.”

“But I am not your Amy, sir,” she said, laughing; and then she began singing again, trilling her birdlike notes for very birdlike joy.

The sun was nearly down when they paused a few minutes later on the crest of a hill which they had been gradually ascending. Immediately below lay a green valley, through the midst of which wound a stream —

“ A sedgy brook whereby the red kine meet

And wade to drink their fill,”

and over the fallen tree which made a rustic bridge across this a party of children were trooping in single file.

“ There they are ! ” said Amy, waving her handkerchief.

“ What a beautiful scene ! ” said Hugh, in the tone of one thrilled suddenly. “ Look, Amy — look ! ”

Amy looked in the direction which he indicated, but it is doubtful whether she understood what had stirred him. She, to whom one kind of harmony was so intelligible, scarcely comprehended the harmony of another kind which filled the fair landscape, sweeping westward to the golden sky.

But to Hugh it was even more divine than the “Gwjwsawmaw.” There was a pearly mist over everything like the haze of Indian summer, only it was more delicate, and had in it all the buoyancy of spring, the indefinable sense of awakening life — of resurrection instead of death. Near at hand the softly-swelling hills and lovely meadows were covered with emerald; afar the fringe of distant forest melted into azure softness. There were clouds of snowy blossoms in the fields, and every breeze was laden with fragrance. The sun was sinking behind the mist which near the horizon veiled his glory so that it could be gazed upon fearlessly. Filmy vapors of rose and gold floated above, and high over these the new moon rode — a slender silver boat.

“ And I shall not see it again for another week ! ” said the boy, in a tone of keen

“JEWELS WILL BE BETTER/ pain. “ Oh, how can people live in the world and think so little of its beauty ! Amy, I could paint that sky. I know — I know I could ! ”

“ Just as I know that I could fill an opera-house with my voice,” said Amy, arching her throat. “ When I am prima donna assoluta, you shall paint as many sunsets as you like, Hugh.”

“ Do you think I would take your money?” asked Hugh, flushing. “We may laugh about such things, but you mustn’t believe for a minute that I would really do it.”

“ Then you would be very ungracious,” said Amy, indignantly.

The embryo quarrel was stopped here by the advent of the children, who came running and laughing up the hill, laden with flowers and blossoming boughs. There were seven of them, ranging in age from fourteen to six years. Four of these were Amy’s brothers and sister ; the other three were the children of Mrs. Crenshaw, a kind woman who kept a boarding-house next door to the Reynoldses, and made no claim to social position. If she had done so, Willie, Fanny, and Hetty Crenshaw would probably have been pacing decorously to Sunday-school in their best bib and tucker, instead of running wild, like young fawns, in the lovely spring woods with “ those Reynolds children.”

Of the last there were three boys and one girl, besides Amy; Felix, the eldest of the boys, had been named after Mendelssohn, and justified his name by the precocity of his musical genius. He had played from the time that his tiny fingers could touch the keys, and now, at fourteen, his father — a musician himself of rare power — declared that he could teach him no more. “ He knows as much of the science of harmony as I do,” Mr. Reynolds would say ; “ he will make a great musician, if I can send him to Germany.” That however, was gigantic. On this April evening, the path by which Felix was to go to Germany had not opened yet.

The other two boys, Oliver and Ernest, were more ordinary ; they, too, possessed in a measure the musical talent of the family, but it was largely dominated by the tastes and habits of common boyhood. And youngest of all was pretty baby Mariette, with a face like an opening rose-bud, great eyes of turquoise-blue, and a shower of glittering ringlets falling to her waist.

It may be imagined how gayly — yet, certainly, how harmlessly — this group of I children laughed and talked as they took their way homeward through the gloaming, so tenderly purple, so delightfully fragrant. Amy and Hugh led the procession — and a quaint Bohemian pair they were: the future prima donna assoluta was habited in a muslin dress which many washings had very much faded and slightly shrunken; her straw hat was swung on her arm like a basket, while Hugh’s wreath still crowned her graceful head. So pretty and so shabby was she, that she might be described in general terms as looking like a vagabond Queen of May. Her companion, though not less shabby, was decidedly less picturesque; he was simply an undersized boy, plain of face and awkward of movement, whose clothes, though clean, were much worn and also a little outgrown.

So long as they were in the country, these trifles of costume mattered little, and it was only when they approached the outskirts of the town that Amy began to wear that air of defiance which soon comes to social outlaws.

The road which they were following left the sweet wildness of the open country and led first between grass-lots and cultivated fields, then by a stone-wall of considerable length, over the top of which evergreens drooped, showing that grounds of large extent and probable beauty lay within.

“If I were rich I would not build a wall around my grounds to deprive people of the pleasure of looking at them,” said Hugh.

AFTER MANY DAYS.

“ If you were rich you would not care how people who had no grounds felt about it,” said Amy. “It is to Iceep us from looking at their lawns and gardens that they build such walls.”

“ Isn’t this where General Waldron lives?” asked Oliver. “He’s the old gentleman who has such a big white mustache. I like his looks.”

“ It’s a pretty place — we can get a glimpse through the gate,” said Felix, stopping before this portal, which was of iron. “ I see a lawn and part of a fountain, and the corner of a greenhouse — ”