The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863

by Henry Morford

  CHAPTER I.

  A JUNE MORNING OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE--GLIMPSES OF WEST PHILADELPHIA--THE DAYS BEFORE GETTYSBURG--THE TWO ON THE PIAZZA--MARGARET HAYLEY AND ELSIE BRAND--AN EMBRACE AND A DIFFERENCE--FORESHADOWINGS OF CARLTON BRAND, BROTHER AND LOVER.

  A wide piazza, with the columns made of such light tracery in scrolledplank-work that they seemed to be almost unreal and gave an appearance ofetheriality to the whole front of the house. The piazza, flecked over withthe golden June sunshine that stole down between the branches of the talltrees standing in front and shading the house, and that crept in throughthe network of twine and climbing roses clambering almost up to the rooffrom the balustrade below. The house to which the piazza adjoined, large,built of wood in that half Flemish and half Elizabethan style which has oflate years been made popular through cheap books on cottage architectureand the illustrations in agricultural newspapers,--two and a half storiesin height, with a double gabled front that belonged to the one, elaboratecornices and work over the piazza that belonged to the other, and a turretin the centre that belonged to neither. A wide, tall door opening from thepiazza, and windows also opening upon it, sweeping down quite to thefloor. Altogether a house which approached more nearly to the "composite"order of architecture so much affected by wealthy Americans, than to anyone set down in the books by a particular designation; and yet shapely andimposing, and showing that if the most unimpeachable taste had not presidedover the erection, yet wealth had been lavishly expended and all the moderngraces and ornaments freely supplied.

  In front of the house, and sweeping down to the road that ran within ahundred feet, a grassed lawn lying in the lovely green of early summer,only broken at irregular intervals by the dozen of trees of larger andsmaller sizes, round which the earth had been artistically made to swell soas to do away with any appearance of newness and create the impression thatthe roundness had been caused by the bursting of the trees farther out ofthe ground through many years of vigorous growth. Beneath one of thelargest of the trees--a maple, with the silver sheen almost equally dividedbetween its bark and its glossy leaves, a long wooden bench or settee, withtwo or three sofa-cushions thrown carelessly upon it, as if it formed attimes a favorite lounge for a reader or a smoker. On the piazza a triad ofchairs, irregularly placed and all unoccupied. One of the two folding doorsleading into the halls from the piazza, wide open, as became the season,and the other half closed as if a single puff of summer breeze comingthrough the hall had become exhausted before closing it entirely. One ofthe windows opening from the piazza into what seemed to be the better partof the house, closed entirely; and the other, with the shutters "bowed" orhalf open, permitting a peep into a large parlor or sitting-room, with richcarpet and handsome furniture, but kept dusky under the impression (more orless reasonable) that thereby additional coolness would be secured.

  Near the house, on both sides, other houses of corresponding pretensionthough displaying great variety in style of architecture; and in front,across the wide road, still others showing to the right and left, and thewhole appearance of the immediate neighborhood evidencing that it wasneither country nor city, but a blending of both, suburban, and a chosenspot for the residences of those who did business in the great city andwished to be near it, and who possessed means and taste to make so pleasanta selection. Still farther away in front, as seen between the other housesand shrubbery, and stretching off southward in a long rolling sweep, richagricultural country, with some of the hay-crop yet ungathered, broadfields of grain receiving the last ripening kiss of the sun before yieldingto the sickle or the reaping-machine, and fruit-trees already beginning tobe golden with the apples, pears and peaches glimmering amid the leaves. Aquiet, gentle scene, with evident wealth to gild it and perfect repose tolend it character; and over all the warm sun of a June morning resting likea benediction, and a slight shadow of golden haze in the air softeningevery object in the perspective. Occasionally a pedestrian figure movingslowly along one of the foot-paths that bordered the wide road; and anon afarm-wagon loaded with early produce and on its way to market, rumbling bywith such a sleepy expression on the face of the driver and such lollingsof the ears of the full-fed and lazy horses, that the episode of itspassage rather added to than detracted from the slumberous quiet of theprospect.

  Then another passage, very different and not at all in keeping with any ofthe points that have before been noted. An officer in full uniform, withthe front of his chasseur cap thrown high in defiance of the glare of thesunshine, spurring by on a high-stepping and fast-trotting horse, eastwardtowards the city, with such life and haste in every movement of himself andthe animal he bestrode as to momentarily dash the whole view with unquiet.Then the equestrian figure out of sight and the beat of his horse's hoofsheard no longer; and the scene relapsing into that languor born of the Junemorning verging rapidly towards noon.

  Then a sudden sound, still more discordant with the drowsy peace of thehour than the sight of the spurring soldier, and still more painfullysuggestive of war in the land of peace. The quick, sharp rattle of asnare-drum, but a little space removed, and apparently passing down one ofthe lateral roads in the neighborhood, dying away with a light tap into thedistance a moment after, and quiet coming back again yet more markedlyafter so incongruous an interruption.

  The place, West Philadelphia, half a mile or more beyond the Schuylkill,not far from the line traversed beyond the bridge by the Market Streetcars, and near the intersection of that branch of the main artery known asthe Darby Road,--in the outer edge of that beautiful little section withits tall trees and plats of natural green, out of and into which theshrieking monsters of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad dart every hour inthe day with freight and passengers to and from the Great West. The time,late in June, 1863, a few days before Gettysburg, when the long-threatenedinvasion of the North by the rebels had become for the moment anaccomplished fact, when Lee and Ewell had crossed the Potomac, swept onthrough Upper Maryland, entered Pennsylvania, devastated the farms andcarried away the stock of the farmers on the border, laid York under acontribution, burned the barracks at Carlisle, and threatened every hour tocapture Harrisburgh and force the passage of the Susquehanna. When womenand children, and by far too many of the able-bodied inhabitants who shouldhave shown more pride if they indeed possessed no courage, had fled awayfrom the Seat of Government of the Keystone State, and the public recordswere following them to prevent their falling into the hands of an enemyknown to be destructive and revengeful, and for the moment believed to beirresistible. When the rebels themselves boasted that they were about toteach the North all the horrors of war that had fallen upon the South inthe long contest,--and that in a few days they would water theircavalry-horses in the Delaware, if they did not achieve the same success atthe very banks of the Hudson; and when the newspapers of New York andPhiladelphia, for the moment completely discouraged, gave up the line ofdefence of the Susquehanna, and gravely debated, whether a check couldindeed be made at the Delaware, with the loss of the Quaker City, orwhether the great struggle must at last be transferred to the Hudson hillsof New Jersey. When the Reserves were mustering in Philadelphia, and theCoal Regiments forming in the haunts of the sturdy miners. When thePennsylvania coal-mines were to be set on fire by the invader, and left toburn on until all the fuel of the nation was destroyed, if the "greatconflagration" of the whole earth did not follow as a result. When moreplacards calling for the defence of the State, were exhibited in theneighborhood of old Independence Hall, than had ever shown there, invitingthe idle to amusement, in the most prosperous seasons of opera, theatre andconcert-saloon--drums beating at every corner, brass bands blowing on everysquare, patriotic appeals and efforts to recruit on every hand, and yet thepeople apparently lying under bodily apathy or mental paralysis. WhenGovernor Seymour, of New York, and Governor Parker, of New Jersey, waivingthe political question for the moment, were calling out the troops of thoseStates to the defence of Pennsylvania; and when the militia of
the city ofNew York and the returned nine-months volunteers of New Jersey were showingthemselves equally ready to respond to the call. When the Army of thePotomac seemed for the moment to be nothing, even for the defence of theNorth, Hooker discredited, no successor discovered, public confidence lost,the very darkest day of the struggle at hand, and no man able or willing topredict what might be the extent of disaster reached before the rollingback of the tide of invasion from the homes of the loyal States.

  Such were the place, the time, the surroundings, and the atmosphere (so tospeak) of the house of the blended Flemish and Elizabethan styles ofarchitecture, at West Philadelphia, of which, thus far, only the outwardaspects have been presented. Yet there may be an inexcusable neglect ofthe proprieties, in presenting a house, its green lawn, shady trees, andeven the pleasant landscape stretching away in front of it, before thoseliving figures which would certainly have attracted the attention of anobserver in advance of any of the inanimate beauties of art or nature.

  Those figures were two in number, both standing on the piazza, very nearthe trellis of climbing roses, and where the flecks of sunshine fellthrough the leaves upon them and dashed them with little dots and lines ofmoving light, as well as the floor upon which they stood. Both weregirls--both young--both beautiful; at least each possessed that combinationof features, form and manner, making her very pleasing to the casualobserver, and certain to be reckoned beautiful by some one admitted to acloser knowledge of the spirit enshrined within. They were evidently dearfriends; for as they stood near the trellis, and the hand of the taller ofthe two plucked a half-open rose from one of the clusters, and sheplayfully tried to coax it to a fuller opening by breathing caressinglyupon it and separating its clinging leaves with her dainty fingers,--thearm of the other was around her waist, and both the trim and graceful formswere slightly swaying backward and forward in that pleasant, idle,school-girl motion which the grown woman does not easily forget until ithas given the "fidgets" to half her elder acquaintances.

  The taller and perhaps by a year the elder--she of the rose--was thedaughter of the mistress of that pleasant summer paradise, born to wealthand position, and her birth registered some two-and-twenty years before inthe predecessor of the heavy family Bible with its golden clasps, which layin state in the parlor so near her, as Margaret Hayley. She was a littleabove the average height of womanhood, and might have seemed too tall forgrace but for the exquisite rounding of the lithe form, the matchless fallof a pair of sloping shoulders that could not probably be matched within aradius of an hundred miles, the graceful carriage of a neck that wouldhave been long if less elegantly poised, the beauty in shape and spring inmotion of the Arab foot under which the water would have run as easily asbeneath a bridge, and the supple delicacy of the long taper fingers withtheir rose-tinted nails, which seemed perfect and high-blooded enough tohave a mission of playing among heart-strings as the fingers of othersmight do among the chords of a harp.

  In feature the young girl had quite as many claims to attention. The hairwas very dark and very profuse--so near to black that it needed thesunlight before the golden shadows in the dark brown became fullyapparent--swept plainly down on either side, in the madonna fashion, from abrow that was very pure, high and clear. The face was handsomely moulded,rather long than broad, as beseemed the figure, rather pale than ruddy,though with a dash of healthy color in each cheek that belied any momentarysuspicion of ill health; the nose a little long and somewhat decided, butvery classic in outline and finely cut at the nostril; the eyes dark--sodark that a careless observer would have lost their brown and called themblack, and their expression a little reserved if not sad and even sometimessevere; the mouth small and well-shaped, with the lips as delicately tintedas the faintest blush-rose in the cluster near her, but a shade too thinfor the exhibition of exuberant passion, and showing a slight curl of prideat the corners of the upper; the chin rounded, full, and forming a pleasantpoint for the eye to rest upon as it descended from the face to study thecontour of neck and shoulders. The first appreciative glance at her wascertain to be followed by the suppressed exclamation: "How very handsome!"and the second by a thought that the lips did not syllable: "How very proudand queenly!" It might have needed many more than a third, before the gazercould go to the full depth of a very marked character, and say how much ofthat queenly bearing might be ready to bend at last to the magic touch ofthe softer passions, and how much of that evident goodness and firmnessmight be employed in conveying happiness to others than herself. Among herpeculiarities, she seemed to despise stripes, plaids, sprigs, spots, andthe other endless varieties of color in material; and the lawn which sweptthat morning around her erect figure was of a neutral tint and as devoid ofspot as were arms, ears and neck of any ornament in jewelry except a smallcameo at the throat, a slight gold chain around the neck and descending tothe bosom, and a single cluster diamond sparkling on the forefinger of theright-hand that was dallying with the spirit hidden among the rose-leaves.

  No more telling contrast to the tall, majestic girl could well have beensupplied, than her neighbor and dear friend, Elsie Brand (Elspeth,baptismally, for reasons that will hereafter develop themselves, but alwayscalled Elsie by those admitted to the least intimacy.) She was at leastfour inches shorter than Miss Hayley, round and rather plump, though verygraceful in figure, with a chubby face, ruddy cheeks, piquant nose, merryblue eyes, pouting red lips, full hair coming low down on the forehead andof that pale gold which the old Scotch poets immortalized as "yellow," inso many of their lays of the bardic era. Pretty, beyond question, but moregood and attractive-looking than beautiful; and if a second look atMargaret Hayley would have induced an observation having reference to herpride, a second at Elsie Brand was certain to bring out the thought if notthe speech: "What a charming, good little girl!" Perhaps a third, withpersons not too severely in training for the great Olympian races ofmorality, was very likely to create such a sensation as one experiences ingazing at a lusciously ripe peach, having particular reference to the pulpyred lips with their funny pout and kissable look, and ending in a wish thatthe crimson love-apples of the modern Hesperides were not quite sozealously guarded.

  Elsie had not yet passed her twenty-second birthday, though she had been"of age" for a good many twelvemonths, in the estimation of those who hadcome near enough to her to feel the beating of her warm heart. DoctorJames Holton, graduate of the Pennsylvania Medical College, and lately astudent with one who had been a student with David Hosack, held his ownpeculiar estimation of Elsie Brand, and had almost been driven into rankatheism from the necessity of both holding and proving that the theory ofour springing from one common father and mother could not possibly becorrect, as the clay of which Elsie was made had been so very different--somuch purer, sweeter and better--from that employed in the moulding ofordinary mortals!

  For some minutes the two young girls had been standing in silence, Margaretengaged with experiments on her opening rose and Elsie with one arm aroundher and lazily observing the operation--both apparently full of thatindolent enjoyment born of ease, content, and the languid air of the summermorning. Then the little one spoke:

  "Margaret, do you know of what I have been thinking for the last twominutes?"

  "Haven't any machine by which I could pry into the droll secrets of yourbrain, Elsie, my dear!" answered the taller, pleasantly, but with no smileupon her lips meanwhile, and apparently with all her attention yet absorbedin her horticultural experiment.

  "Shall I tell you?" queried Elsie.

  "Certainly, pet, if you like!" was the reply, the tone, as well as the wordof endearment, showing indefinably that Margaret Hayley thought of herselfas a woman and yet of her companion (of nearly the same age) as little morethan a child.

  "I was thinking," said the little girl, "how much of character is sometimesshown in the action of a moment, and how very different we are."

  "Who thought your little head was so philosophical, Elsie?" answeredMargaret, and this time she for a moment d
eserted her rose and lookedaround with a pleasant smile. "Well, the application of your thought toyourself and to me?"

  "Oh," said the little one. "It was only about the rose. I should haveplucked it, if I plucked it at all, and enjoyed it as it was. You aretrying to make something else out of it, and yet show no wish to destroythe flower. A cruel woman--different from either of us, I hope--wouldprobably be plucking off the leaves one by one and throwing them away,without caring how much pain she might be inflicting on the life of theflower, hidden away down somewhere in its heart."

  "A very pretty idea, upon my word!" said Margaret, ceasing to blow upon andpluck at the leaves, and turning upon her companion a countenance showingsomething like surprised admiration. "And what do you make of my character,Elsie, as shown by my handling of the rose?"

  "You must not be angry with me, Margaret," answered the young girl, alittle in the spirit of deprecation. "But you see _I_ should have beensatisfied with the rose as it was, and the other would have been cruellydissatisfied with it in any shape, and you----"

  "Well, dear? I----"

  "You showed that you were not entirely satisfied with every thing as itwas, and that you had a little self-will leading you to force things to beas you chose, by trying to make that poor little flower outrun the courseof nature and bloom before it was quite ready."

  "I think you are right, Elsie," said Margaret, nodding her head in thatslight and repeated manner indicative of answering the mind within quite asmuch as any observation from without. "I am _not_ satisfied with everything in the world, Elsie. I am not cruel, I hope and believe; but I amsharper, harder, more requiring than you, and consequently not formed forhalf so much true happiness. I _do_ feel like forcing things to be what Irequire, sometimes, and then I suppose I grow unamiable."

  "You are never any thing else than a dear good girl, with a wiser head thanmy rattle-pate, and my own sweet sister that is to be!" and the arm of thespeaker went still more closely around the slight waist it encircled. Ablush as delicately roseate as the first flushings of dawn crept over themore classic face that bent above her own, the lips above came down to meetthose pouting below, and the two young girls were kissing and embracing asif they had been two lovers of opposite sexes but very much of one opinionas to the best office of the lips. Any delicately-nerved old bachelor whoshould have happened to pass in front of the house at that moment and catcha glimpse of the scene just then enacted on the piazza, would certainlyhave fainted away on the spot, at the idea of such a waste of the mostdelicious of "raw material."

  "You may have the rose for your lesson--you see I have not spoiled it,after all," said Margaret, when the kiss had been given and the rosy flushdied away from her own cheek.

  "To give to Carlton?" asked Elsie, as she held out her hand for it.

  "No, Carlton must come after his own roses!" was the reply, with the leastdash of pride in the curling of the upper lip.

  "And pluck them himself?" asked saucy Elsie.

  "Certainly!"

  "No matter where he finds them growing--on tree, or on cheek, or on lips!"continued the young girl, with a light laugh.

  For an instant the same flush rose again on the cheek of Margaret Hayley;then she forced it away, smiled, and said:

  "Certainly! why not? Carlton Brand kisses me, sometimes, and I have morethan once kissed him back. What is that to you, sauce-box, when we areengaged to be married?"

  "What is that to me? Every thing! Joy--happiness--to know that I am goingto have so dear a sister!" cried the little one, throwing both her arms,this time, around the pliant waist of Margaret and hugging her in a perfecttransport of delight, which seemed quite shared in, though moretranquilly, by the object of the demonstration.

  The saddest, cruellest thing in all the lyric drama is the blast of DeSylva's horn on Ernani's wedding morning, calling him in one instant fromhappy love to dishonor or death. Neither in romance nor in nature shouldsuch sudden transitions occur. Alas, for humanity! they do occur in both,not occasionally but habitually. The Duchess of Richmond's ball--thenWaterloo. De Joinville springs on board his flag-ship to sail for theattack on Vera Cruz, in the very ball dress in which he has been dancingthe whole night through with the republican belles at Castle Garden. ThePall is over every thing of earth: how sadly and how inevitably it droopsabove the Banner! No scene upon earth could have been more exquisitelypeaceful, and few could have been lovelier, than that which surrounded andcomprehended those two fair girls in their embrace upon the piazza. Wealth,youth, beauty, good feeling, happiness--all were there; and love blent withfriendship, for was not the embrace, given by Elsie Brand and accepted byMargaret Hayley, both given and accepted quite as much for her brother'ssake as her own? It was fitting, then, according to the sad fitness ofearth, that the element of discord should enter into the peaceful and thebeautiful.

  The officer spurred by, as we have seen him do, gazing only with ourincorporeal eyes. Both the young girls, just releasing each other fromtheir embrace, saw the dark cloud of war sweeping between them and thesunlit grain fields. Elsie Brand shuddered and drew back, as if theincongruity jarred her nature. Margaret Hayley instantly lifted her proudneck the higher, as if something in _her_ nature sympathized with everysuggestion of the struggle, and as if she was, indeed, insensibly riding onwith the hurrying horseman.

  "And what does the shudder mean, little one?" asked Margaret, who hadplainly distinguished it at the moment of release.

  "I hate war, and every thing connected with it!" was the reply, the tonealmost petulant.

  "And I do _not_ hate it, painful as it may be in many particulars," saidMargaret. "Force and energy are the noblest developments in life. Braveryis the nearest possible approach to that divine character which knows nosuperior and consequently fears none."

  "Nearer to the divine than _love_?" asked the little one.

  Just for one instant, again, that roseate tint on the cheek of Margaret, asshe said: "Nobler, if not nearer to the divine; and sorry as I must be tosee the bloodshed caused by a civil war in my native land, I am almost gladthat it has occurred, sometimes, as a means of rousing the sluggish pulsesof men who would otherwise have stagnated in trade and pleasure, andproving that we yet possess something of the hero spirit of old."

  "And _I_ am sorry for it all the while, night and day, in my prayers and inmy dreams," answered Elsie Brand, with a sigh. "Hark!" as the tap of thedrum came across from the lateral road before-mentioned. "There is anotherreminder of the curse, and one that comes nearer home. Do you remember,Margaret, that I shall soon have a brother, and you a lover, separated fromus and in terrible danger? They say Harrisburgh must be taken, unless avery large body of troops can reach it at once. The Reserves will probablygo on, to-night, and Carlton will probably accept his old commission again.I do want him to do his duty, Margaret, if it _is_ his duty; but I hopethat he will not think so--that he will not go away."

  "And _I_ hope that he _will_!" answered Margaret, her tall form drawn up toits full height, and a look of stern pride upon her face that could notvery well be mistaken.

  "To go into danger--perhaps to death?" asked Elsie, looking sadly at theproud Sibylline face.

  "To a thousand deaths, if necessary, rather than towards the leastsuspicion of a want of true manhood!"

  "Ah, you do not know the trembling fear of a sister's love!" said Elsie,with a sigh.

  "I know a love fifty times deeper!" said Margaret, the pride still on herface, and yet that ever-returning flush coming up again to say that if lovehad not conquered pride it had at least divided the dominion. "Listen,Elsie Brand, to some words that you may as well understand now as ever.There is no one near to hear us, and so it is almost like speaking beforeheaven alone. I love your brother, deeply, devotedly, with all the power ofmy nature--so devotedly that if that love should be wrenched away from myheart by any circumstance, I know that my life would thenceforth be but onelong, wretched mockery of existence. Happy natures like yours, Elsie, donot know the absolute agony that li
es in such love. And yet I could give upthat love, and my life with it, and would do so, before I would live, love,and yet _despise_!"

  "Despise?--are you speaking of Carlton--of my brother?" asked the younggirl, apparently a little lost in the mysterious energy of her companion'swords.

  "I said that I could _not_ despise," Margaret Hayley went on. "I must not,or we have no future. Do you know that I should have reverenced yourbrother more, even if I did not love him better, if he had not refused thecommission in the army tendered him at the commencement of the war? I mighthave wept, perhaps mourned--but I should have idolized. Now, I only love amortal like myself, where I might have been worshipping a hero!"

  "Or sobbing over a grave!" said Elsie, with a sigh which told how easilyshe might have been brought to illustrate the word she used.

  "What then!" was the quick reply of Margaret. "The glory would have beenhis--the loss and grief would have been mine, and I could have borne them.But he did not choose to enter the struggle, prominent as he had once beenin military movements. He had the excuse of business and occupation, and Ihave tried to believe that he needed no other."

  "Needed?--what do you mean, Margaret?" cried Elsie Brand in a tone and witha movement of starting back which evidenced both pain and alarm.

  "It is a painful thing, but I must say it, to you, as I do not know that Icould say it to him," pursued Margaret. "I mean, that I have tried tobelieve that there was no flaw in my idol--that Carlton Brand, who heldevery pulse of my woman's heart responsive to his touch--did not lack theone manly virtue of _courage_!"

  "And would you _dare_ to believe my brother--the man you have pretended tolove--a _coward_?" There was something vexed and sharp, almost angry, inElsie's tone, now, that did not promise another immediate embrace like thatof a few moments previous. Margaret Hayley saw the expression of her face,but neither blenched before it nor seemed to feel any anger at themanifestation.

  "Elsie Brand," she said, her words slow, measured, and with a cadence thatwas somehow inexpressibly pained and mournful, "I am no school-girl, and Iam speaking words that I mean. I know your brother to be patriotic, I knowhim to be in high health, athletic, vigorous and determined; and havesometimes believed that if he had possessed that one requisite, animalcourage, he would long ago have been fighting the foes of the republic.Grieve as I may to part with him, I am glad you believe that he is goingwith the Reserves. He had his choice, before, and I let my own heartinstead of my reason have sway, and did not question its propriety. Butwere he to hang back now, when his native State is invaded and every armnecessary to drive back the rebels from Pennsylvania soil, I should knowthat he was a coward!"

  "I don't like you, Margaret Hayley, when your face looks so and you talk inthat manner!" said the little girl. "But I will not quarrel with you.Carlton is going with the Reserves, and some day when he is killed or youhear how he has shamed all the rest with his bravery, you will be sorry forthe words you have just spoken!" Just then the little yellow-haired girlwas the Sibyl, and her prophecy went upon record with the wild words ofMargaret, to be afterwards remembered--how sadly!

  "No--do not be angry with me, Elsie," said Margaret, taking the hand thathad been temporarily released. "You have no cause. I have been speakingagainst my own heart all the while, much more than against the man whom Itruly love. I know him to be noble and true, and I will believe him brave.Are you satisfied? Kiss me!" and the proud, statuesque face once more lostits gravity, to bring back all the joyousness into the rounder and merrierone from which it had temporarily departed.

  The light summer jockey-hat of Elsie lay just within the door, on a chair.With a quick glance at the watch hidden under her waist-riband, she steppedwithin the door, threw on her hat, and was about to terminate her somewhatprolonged morning-call, when Margaret took it off again, dropped it intoone of the vacant chairs, and said:

  "No--do not go away. You have nothing to do at home--mother has gone downto the city for the day, you know, and I shall be lonely. We shall havesome lunch--you may call it dinner if it will taste any better,--very soon.Stay till the afternoon--cannot you do so, just as well as not?"

  "I suppose so--no, I must see Carlton--yes, though, Carlton will be quiteas likely to come here first as to go home, if he has arranged to goaway--yes, I will stay if you wish it so much!" rapidly answered the littleone.

  "That is a good girl," said Margaret Hayley, just as she might have patteda school hobby-de-hoy on the head. "Now run into the parlor and get thevery nicest book you can find, draw the easy-chair out of the hall, andenjoy yourself the best you can for just twenty minutes, while I go downto the kitchen, in ma's place, and see what progress our new Dutch cook hasbeen making."

  She disappeared with the words, and her injunctions were acted upon almostas rapidly. In half a minute Elsie had the arm-chair out of the hall, andan illustrated work off one of the tables in the parlor, and was preparedfor her short period of indolent enjoyment.