University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

Adelaide's position at Miss Holyoke's school
was far from an enviable one. Her parentage was
unknown. Boys and girls are more quick even
than grown persons to detect aught that is equivocal
in the birth or genealogy of their companions,
and wo to the unhappy victim of their suspicions,
if he or she be of a sensitive disposition!

No one, with whom Adelaide was brought in

contact, appeared to know anything concerning her
that was disreputable; but all distrusted her respectability.
Miss Holyoke herself, though she
had her sex's share of curiosity upon most subjects,
was discreetly cautious how she pursued her
inquiries too far in regard to her pupil. She was
fearful lest the investigation might result to her
prejudice; and then Miss Holyoke might be scrupulous
about retaining her in her strictly genteel
establishment. Now there was a proper degree
of uncertainty in regard to the young lady's position.
All that the instructress knew, and all that it
concerned her to know, was that her quarter's dues
were punctually paid in advance, and that Adelaide
had a larger amount of spending money than any
of her companions. A respectable banker in Wall-street
was the person to address in case an extra
supply of money was at any time wanted, or in the
event of the illness of the young lady. Apprised
of thus much, Miss Holyoke, it cannot be denied,
had her own surmises and conclusions; but she
maintained an imperturbable silence on the subject.

And what did Adelaide herself know in regard
to her origin and family? Little more than her
instructress and schoolmates. She was now in
her sixteenth year, and had been six years a resident
at Soundside in Miss Holyoke's family. The
remembrances she preserved of the period of her
childhood were fleeting and shadowy. She had a
faint recollection of a cottage beside a broad
stream; and of a porch, where she used to sit with
two or three little children of her own age and eat
blueberries and milk; and of a lady richly dressed,
who used to stop before the gate in her carriage
and take her in her lap and ask her questions as to
the treatment she received. The impressions of
these distant events were for the most part pleasing;
and yet the image of the lady seemed to be

always connected with painful though indefinable
associations. Sometimes Adelaide would persuade
herself that it must all be a dream; and then some
little incident or trait would stand out more salient
than the rest from memory's canvass, and convince
her of the reality of the whole.

She remembered well the events of the few years
immediately preceding her transference to her present
abode. She had resided in the family of a Mr.
Greutze, a teacher of music in Philadelphia; and
there she had not only been treated with kindness
and attention, but had acquired a ready colloquial
knowledge of the German language and attained
considerable proficiency in music. To be sure she
learned little else under his care; but it was with
the most poignant regret that she quitted a roof,
where she had heard no other accents than those
of harmony and affection. Soon after her departure
from Philadelphia, the Greutze family, consisting
of a husband, wife and two daughters, broke
up their establishment and returned to their native
Germany. She had heard nothing of them for upwards
of five years, and was ignorant of their
address.

Up to her thirteenth year Adelaide lived in happy
ignorance of any conjectures that might be interchanged
by others in regard to her parentage. In
answer to repeated interrogations which she addressed
to those, under whose protection she might
be, it was told her that she was an orphan; and
that the relatives of her parents were in Europe.
She would often ponder intently on these circumstances;
but, child as she was, she never distrusted
the ingenuousness of her informers. She would ask
herself in these solitary moments of reflection,
“how happens it that I have neither brother, sister,
kinsman or kinswoman, who takes sufficient interest
in me to visit me at least once a year?” And

then the remembrance of the richly dressed lady,
who used to come in her carriage every Saturday
to see her, would rise to her mind, and give her
new food for reverie and conjecture.

At length the terrible suspicion, which others entertained,
was forced with crushing effect upon her
own apprehension. The occasion was this: Adelaide
had been wandering through some of the shady
by-lanes of the village, and returning home, had
been summoned into the parlor by Miss Holyoke.
She found a lady present, a stranger to her, who
rose from the piano as she entered.

“Adelaide, my dear,” said Miss Holyoke, “here
is some new music I have just received from New
York—some waltzes from the famous new opera
of Amilie—will you play them for us?”

“I will try,” returned Adelaide. “I cannot always
read music correctly at sight; but this seems
to be very simple as well as very beautiful.”

She took her seat at the piano—glanced a moment
at the sheet before her while pulling off her
gloves—and then running her fingers lightly over
the keys—went through the whole series of waltzes
in a very correct and spirited style of execution.

When she had concluded, Miss Holyoke turned
to the strange lady, and said: “You see, Miss
Ashby, that my pupil plays without hesitation this
music, which you called so difficult, and which you
declined attempting. I fear you are not sufficiently
qualified for the office of musical teacher in the
Holyoke Seminary for young ladies.”

Miss Ashby bit her lips, and turned a glance full
of malice and hostility upon poor Adelaide, who
now began to be painfully conscious of the comparison
in her favor.

A few hours afterwards Adelaide was sitting
alone in her little chamber. She had a strange
distaste, this solitary child, for all dark and gloomy

colors. Everything in the room she occupied gave
evidence of this. The walls, window-curtains,
chairs, table, bureau, sofa, bed and coverlid were
all of a pure white. The floor had its white cloth.
Even her books were covered with paper of a
stainless white. A crystal champagne glass, holding
some white roses, stood upon the white marble
mantel-piece; and Adelaide, dressed in a robe entirely
white, with slippers of a delicate lilac hue, sat
in a half recumbent posture, tapping an ivory paper
folder against her lips, and conning a lesson in ancient
history.

She suddenly started, as if a dark cloud had all at
once come between her and the sun. She turned,
and saw Miss Ashby, whose whole attire was
intensely funereal, enter the apartment.

“I couldn't leave Soundside without coming to
bid you good-bye, my dear,” said the lady, with a
smile so constrained and sinister, that Adelaide instinctively
shuddered. She rose, however, and
with an air that spoke high breeding, replied,
“Pray be seated.”

“I can stop but one moment,” said Miss Ashby.
“How charmingly you did play, my dear, to be
sure! Is not your mother a piano-forte teacher?”

“I am an orphan, Miss Ashby,” replied Adelaide.

“Poor thing! An orphan! Ahem! That is,
your father doesn't claim you, my dear. Now I
should think he would be quite proud of you. But
then society is so dreadfully prejudiced in such
cases!”

“What do you mean, Miss Ashby? Speak more
plainly,” gasped forth Adelaide, swallowing her
heart, which seemed ready to leap from her breast,
so sudden was the shock communicated by the revolting
intimation.

“Surely, my dear, you are aware that—”

“Aware of what?” exclaimed Adelaide, starting

to her feet, her eyes kindling, and her whole frame
dilated with excitement.

“Dear me! You are enough to frighten one,
child!” returned Miss Ashby. “Of course, I supposed
that you knew what all the world said of
you.”

“And what do the world say?” asked Adelaide,
in a subdued tone.

“They say that your father and mother were
never married, and that you are—”

“Oh, no, no! do not say it!” exclaimed the heart-broken
child, bursting into tears, and covering her
face with her hands.

“Dear me! I supposed, of course, that you knew
all about it,” said Miss Ashby; and to do her justice
this was partially true; but a feeling of irrepressible
envy checked the outburst of her better feelings.
“I must go now,” she continued; “or I shall miss
the coach that is to convey me to the steamboat.
Pray, don't take on so, child. You thought you
were an orphan—would you not be rejoiced to find
that you have a parent?”

Adelaide looked up from her weeping—her head
erect—and her tear-laden eyes sparkling with a
sudden animation. A smile of indescribable sweetness—such
a smile as might play across the lips of a
commissioned seraph while announcing pardon to a
sinner—illumined her features, and returned an answer
more eloquent than any that could have been
framed by words, to the interrogation. Even the
spiteful Miss Ashby relented for a moment. But
the mischief was done. The humbling suspicion
was awakened, and it must either gather force, or
be removed forever in the mind of Adelaide.

Miss Ashby took her leave; and Adelaide was
once more alone. This child possessed an intelligence
beyond her years. Confided from an infantile
age to the care of strangers, nature and her own

instincts seemed to make amends for the absence
of a parent's tender and ever vigilant superintendence.
Conscience was to her in the light of a mother;
or shall we believe that there were good and
guardian spirits about her, who infused into her soul
a sense of right and beauty? One singular habit
would seem to countenance this idea. She would
daily arraign herself for real or fancied errors, and
impose such penalties as she deemed suitable.
These penalties were always rigidly fulfilled. Thus
she was her own accuser, judge and punisher. And
the very freedom from others' scrutiny and restraint
which she enjoyed, made her the more watchful
and severe towards herself.

Constant activity, mental, manual or physical, was
one of the first of duties in her eyes. Every portion
of the day had its appropriate employment.
Debarred by the express will of those, who supplied
the means for her education, from no pursuit which
agreed with her tastes, she was allowed to range
at will through the fields of German and English
literature. Her long residence in the family of the
German musician, Greutze, had enabled her to render
herself as familiar with his language as with her
own; and the works of Jean Paul, Schiller, Goethe
and Klopstock were as well thumbed by her as those
of Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Scott and Byron.

It will not be considered surprising, therefore,
that Miss Ashby's heartless intimation was immediately
understood by Adelaide—that she saw at once
the true character, in a worldly point of view, of
her imputed position. Hours flew by, during which
she remained lost in meditation. At length Miss
Holyoke came to seek her.

“What is the matter, Adelaide, that you have
not come down to dinner?” she asked, as she entered
the room.

“Ah! tell me—tell me, whose and what am I?”

exclaimed the agitated girl, seizing the hand of her
instructress.

Miss Holyoke, as has already been seen, knew
nothing positive in regard to her pupil's genealogy.
But it now occurred to Adelaide that the absence of all knowledge upon this point was the best proof
in confirmation of the truth of the suspicion aroused
by Miss Ashby's interrogations. From that moment
there was a marked modification of some of
this young girl's traits of character. Agitation of
mind was succeeded by a violent fever, from which
she recovered slowly. But her constitution, though
delicate, had much recuperative energy; and it was
at length re-established in all its original purity.
Convalescence, however, was accompanied with
change. Naturally social in her disposition, fluent
and communicative in conversation, and quick to
bestow and elicit confidence, she now became shy,
reserved and abstracted. She imagined, and not
unjustly, that her schoolmates were well aware of
the suspicion that blurred her reputation. She was
too proud and too generous to involve others in the
consequences of associating with one, whose respectability
was doubted. And thus she kept aloof
from all companionship.

But love was a necessity of her nature; and
unable to lavish her exhaustless treasures and
manifestations of love upon human kind—for the
whole population of the village was thrifty and
healthy—she found objects for its sheltering care
in the brute and vegetable creation. An old horse
turned out in a barren field to starve and die, was
sure to receive food and protection from her hands.
She would watch over a languishing shrub or tree
with an almost parental solicitude. She would
shrink from succoring no living creature, however
fearful and revolting. It mattered not whether it
was a wounded snake or a perishing bird. Both

equally claimed her kind offices; for she assigned
the existence of both, in the words of Origen, to
“the exuberant fulness of life in the Deity, which,
through the blessed necessity of his communicative
nature, empties itself into all possibilities of being,
as into so many receptacles.” And this thought
made her regard the life of the meanest insect or
reptile with reverence.

An instance illustrative of the force of this sentiment
is worthy of mention. A noble bull-dog, who
went by the name of Cossack, was condemned to
be shot on suspicion of hydrophobia. Adelaide
protested against the sacrifice; for having some
acquaintance with the diseases of animals, she
believed that the imputed malady did not exist in
this case. Her appeals, however, were in vain.
Cossack must die. A gun loaded with buck-shot
was aimed and fired at his heart. The charge
took effect in his thigh. With one bound the
agonized creature broke his chain. Amid screams
of terror the spectators fled—all except Adelaide.

“He will bite you—he is mad,” exclaimed the
man who had fired the gun, and who, in his alarm,
had swung himself high on the bough of a tree.

Adelaide remained firm; and the dog swaying
from side to side, stood with drooped head, his
tongue lolling out and covered with foam, and the
blood oozing from his wound.

“Poor fellow! Cossack! Cossack!” said Adelaide,
endeavoring to attract his attention.

“Escape while you can, you fool-hardy girl!”
cried the man with the gun. “At least, get out of
the way, and let me fire again.”

Cossack, as if he recognized the meaning of the
man's words, lifted his head, looked imploringly at
Adelaide, and dragging himself a few paces with
difficulty, fell at her feet.

“He is mine now,” said Adelaide, stooping to

pat him on the back and seizing his chain. “The
dog has been poisoned—he is not mad,” she continued,
looking at his tongue.

Gently but firmly she persisted in her object,
until at length it was agreed that she should take
charge of the wounded animal. But how would
she dispose of him? For Cossack could not walk,
and all the bystanders were too much afraid
that he would bite to lend their assistance to
remove him. But true kindness is ever fertile in
expedients. In the little enclosure where Adelaide
maintained her superannuated horse was an old
sleigh half filled with straw, and containing parts
of an old harness thrown by as useless. By the
promise of a few pennies Adelaide persuaded a
butcher's boy to tackle the horse to the ricketty
vehicle and bring him as far as the barred gate.
Then quitting her wounded protegé for a few moments,
she opened the gate and led the horse to
where poor Cossack lay panting, but regarding her
movements with evident interest. With considerable
effort she lifted him tenderly into the sleigh,
and placed him upon the straw, although in the act
her hands and dress became smeared with blood.
Then fastening the end of the dog's chain securely
to the side of the sleigh, she assured the spectators
that there was no longer any danger, and leading
the horse with the vehicle and its contents at his
heels back into the enclosure, she applied herself
to the examination of Cossack's wound and the
administration of the proper remedies.

Her heroism and care were, after several months,
amply rewarded. Poor Cossack was crippled in
one thigh for life, but he recovered his health, thus
refuting the slander that pronounced him mad.
Never did brute repay human protection with such
tokens of gratitude as he ever afterwards exhibited
towards Adelaide. For hours he would lie extended

with his head resting on his fore paws, and
his big sagacious eyes lifted so as to observe every
change upon her face. His lameness prevented
his following her when she went forth on horseback,
but he would often limp after her in her pedestrian
rambles through the alleys of the forest or by the
water's side.

In the frame of mind, which we have described
as consequent upon Adelaide's doubts as to her
parentage she reached her sixteenth year, and the
period of her encounter with the two young sportsmen
on the beach.