Mliss :: :: University of Virginia Library

In good time the Wingdam stage bore Mliss
from the settlement of Smith's Pocket. The
leave-takings of Mliss were almost pathetic.
Scores of bearded miners, who had known her
from infancy, assembled at the stage office to
see her off. The farewell injunctions of these
gentlemen were characteristic.

“Keep a stiff upper lip, little one,” said he of
the blonde beard and Raphael-like countenance,
whose encouragement at the school examination
had led to such sensational results, “don't show
the white feather, whatever else you may do.”

Mliss smiled and put up her face for the
blonde beard to kiss.

“If your new mother don't do the right thing
by you, write to some of us,” whispered another.
“We'll straighten the kinks out of her if
you say the word.”

“Thank you,” replied Mliss, subdued to politeness
by these expressions of friendship, “I
will.”

“You'll find lots of Clyties down there,” said
a third, “but don't give in to the best of them.
You're worth a heap of them bleached things.”

Mliss thanked him, also, and began a hurried
hand-shaking all around. Clytie, looking exceedingly
sweet and pretty, came up at last and
threw her arms around Mliss's neck.

“We haven't always been very good friends,”
mumured the gentle girl, “but I love you.”

Quick and passionate in love as in hate, Mliss
folded her once hated Clytie to her heart. The
latter protracted this embrace, perhaps not entirely
unconscious of the effect the tableau
might produce upon the masculine witnesses.

Mrs. Smith stood a little apart, a smiling spectator
of this scene. The white eyelids drooped
lower than usual over her dark and brilliant
eyes, and a tender expression softened the rigid
outlines of her mouth. Her face was cool and
colorless, and to the casual observer she seemed
a fond mother, regarding with a fond mother's
complacency these manifestations of friendship
bestowed upon her daughter. But there
were observant eyes upon her, and these were
reminded of a good-natured cat, finding amusement
in the antics of a captive mouse, whose
hour of immolation had not yet arrived.

The driver cut short these leave-takings with
a gruff “All aboard!” and Mliss and her mother
hurried into the stage. Jehu leisurely mounted
his box, gathered the reins in his gloved hands
in the most improved style of the art, nodded
to the stable boy who restrained the impatient
coursers, and dashed off at a rattling pace, enveloped
in a cloud of red dust.

The trained animals continued their animated
gait until the settlement was lost to view; then,
with a unanimity of mind gained by long practice
in deceit, subsided into a sober trot.

Thrice in the ascent, the stage, winding round
the brows of hills, came to a full view of the
settlement, and each time Mliss, looking from
the window, could see promiscuous waving of
hats, amid which she could distinguish the
snow-white handkerchief of her quondam enemy
and present friend—the correct Clytie. As the
inexorable driver made the last turn in the zigzag
road, and the settlement of Smith's Pocket
glided from view, the child sank back in her
seat, and cried as if her heart was breaking.
The defiant nature that was proof against rebuffs
and taunts, which somewhat too readily gave
curse for curse and blow for blow, was purged of
its fierce hardness by the sunshine of love.

Mrs. Smith reclined in her corner and surveyed
with half-closed eyes the quivering form of
her daughter. The placid smile, in which the
observant eyes of the miners had detected a
latent menace, still hovered on her red lips, but
its expression was less carefully concealed. For
some reason the woman hated the child.

The driver was in a fearful temper that day.
The box-passenger, a frequent traveler on that
route, marked it as one of Bill Green's black
days. The harmony that usually existed between
this accomplished Jehu and his horses
was destroyed. The lash that ordinarily hummed
a harmless threat over their heads, now fell
against sides and limbs, raising great welts, of
which, at another time, Bill would have been
more conscience-stricken than if it had fallen in
his line of duty to slay a regiment of men.

Equine nature has in it a touch of the human.
Its philosophy is not unlike ours. With
them, as with us, patience in time ceases to be
a virtue. Bill Green's trained team was no exception
to this rule. Fretted by sundry angry
twitchings for which they could discover no
cause, and smarting from the sharp cuts which
they deemed undeserved, they held a rapid consultation.
A favorable spot was selected to carry
their resolves into practice. The signs were
visible in a vicious laying back of eight ears, a
warning whisk of four tails, and like a flash they
were off. Down a long incline the stage rolled
on its wheels, the horses leaping as if actuated
by a fell determination to cut a connection that
had ceased to be pleasant or honorable, a hatless
driver pulling madly and impatiently at the
reins, and frightened passengers screaming at
the top of their voices. On, on they flew. The

red dust rose and formed a dense slauting column
in the rear. The rays of the June san falling
serenely upon this slanting column, gave it
the appearance of a rising volume of fire. Past
mining claims, where men stood speechless, too
distant to render assistance; past farm-houses,
where tow-headed children gathered in the doorway,
cured for the time of all desire for a stage
ride, and adding to the general tumult with
their cries; past vehicles whose drivers took care
not to claim the legal right to half the highway;
past weary pedestrians rendered suddenly contented
with their laborious mode of progression
—and still Bill Green kept his seat on the box,
no longer striving to suppress a rebellion that
had assumed such formidable proportions, but
hoping yet to guide it to its own destruction.

The check came, like the rise, from an insignificant
cause. A meek and gentle-eyed cow
was lying by the roadside calmly chewing her
cud when the four bounding horses burst upon
her astonished vision. The impetus fright
added to her will brought her to her feet in much
less time than she usually occupied in making
that change of posture, and with a perversity
not to be ascribed wholly to her sex, she started
to cross the road. There was time, even for this
ill-advised movement, if she had been a cow of
any decision of character. But fairly turned in
the middle of the road, the exploit seemed hazardous.
She stopped, and probably resolved to
retrace her steps. This hesitation was fatal.
The leaders were upon her. They made a gallant
effort to clear the unexpected obstacle to
their progress, but the impetus from behind as
they rose carried them along.

There was a confused mass of struggling animals,
the agonized bellow of the irresolute cow
rising from the din. The sudden stoppage of
the stage pitched Bill Green upon the backs of
his fallen rebels, where the box-passenger quickly
joined him. The three inside male passengers
alighted and quickly cut such portious of the
harness as attached the horses to the stage. The
driver, swearing terrifically, was extricated
from his dangerous position, the horses were
helped to their feet, and an account taken of
damages. The horses were badly bruised, but
no bones broken. The cow, crushed nearly to
death, was speedily shot. The inside passengers
were uninjured. Mrs. Smith looked very pale
when lifted to the ground, but Mliss was but little
frightened. Her sympathies went to the
cow, and after the cow was killed to the horses.
She got water and washed the blood from their
bruises with her white pocket-bandkerchief, and
when there were no more bruises to wash, she
scolded them in a confidential tone for running
away. People soon began to come from all
quarters. The Wingdam stage did not often indulge
in such irregularities. It was a well-principled
stage as a rule, and Bill Green was a
careful driver. Some thought he must have
taken a drop too much, and regretted the loss of
public confidence that might be incurred thereby.
Bill vouchsafed safed no explanation, but repaired
damages as quickly as possible, and gave the
order “All aboard!”

Mrs. Smith reached the city in good time
without further adventure. The lady was waited
for at the steamboat-landing by a man with
whom she seemed well acquainted. Mliss eyed
this man narrowly, and decided in her own mind
that she would not like him. He was not such
a man as she expected to meet in the city. Her
ideal of a city gentleman was Mr. Gray, and
this man did not look in the least like Mr. Gray
He was short and stout, with a red face and
large hands. His garments were ill-fitting, and
the child, in her estimate of the tailor's abilities,
did not make sufficient allowance for the
difficulty to be overcome in fitting such a figure
at all.

The man helped Mrs. Smith into a carriage,
and would have lifted Mliss in, but that agile
young lady disdained his aid She hopped in
as a squirrel might, and throwing herself on a
seat turned and glared upon him a look of defiance.

“O, ho!” muttered the man, “my little
heiress is too good to be touched, is she? We
shall see, shan't we Nellie?”

“Don't provoke the child,” remonstrated Mrs.
Smith, who did not seem in the least put out by
being so familarly addressed; “she has a temper
of her own.”

“Come honestly by it, I dare say. You are
not quite an angel, Mrs. Smith,” and he chuckled
to himself, as if somewhere in his speech a joke
was waiting popular appreciation.

Mrs. Smith rested quietly under the imputation
of not being thoroughly angelic in all her
moods, and Mliss, disdaining to recognize the
man's presence, looked silently from the carriage
window as it passed slowly through the
streets.

In some one of the wilderness of houses
stretched out on either side was one man who
was in her mind the embodiment of all that
was good in this world. This man had been
her first friend, was ever her dearest friend, and
was now her only friend. She was too young
and too inexperienced in the ways of the world
to comprehend that the fortune she supposed she
had inherited might, through the cupidity of
others, endanger her life or liberty, but she

felt an instinctive longing for the presence of
him who had always been her guide, her preceptor,
and protector. But in this labryinth of
streets and wilderness of houses, how was he to
find her? Had he been in the country, if the
country was ever so large, she might search him
out, but her knowledge of woodcraft would not
avail her here.

The house to which Mliss was taken did not
correspond with her preconceived idea of her
city home more than the man who persisted in
being her companion corresponded with her idea
of city men. It was larger and had more windows
than the National Hotel at Smith's Pocket,
but it was not clean nor nicely furnished. At
the head of a broad stairway, covered with matting,
a hall or passage ran the entire length of
the house, and at intervals along this passage
were doors which opened into rooms.

The arrival of Mrs. Smith was the signal for
the occupants of several of these rooms to come
forth to greet her. Three or four painted and
over-dressed women kissed her with friendly ardor,
and men in all sorts of semi-attire came and
shook her hand. The first greeting over, Mliss
became the chief object of attention. At this
period in Mliss's life she had no well defined
dea of policy. She had faults which at times
became sufficiently prominent, but the practice
of deception was not one. She never thought of
concealing her likes or dislikes. Kindness won
her quickly, but harshness could not bend her.

The people who now crowded around her inspired
her with a disgust she took no pains to
conceal. There were rough-visaged miners all
around Smith's Pocket for whom she felt the
sincerest affection, but on these men and women,
better dressed and more genteel, she turned her
back in disdain. Her quick perception enabled
her to distinguish between genuine sympathy
and the curiosity with which selfish people regard
an object of interest.

To the friends of Mrs. Smith, Mliss was an
object of interest. They had heard something
of her singular if not romantic history. They
had heard that she had fallen heir to a handsome
fortune, and knew that Mrs. Smith had
gone up to Smith's Pocket to put in her claim to
a widow's moiety, and to the guardianship of
her daughter. That Mrs. Smith was in fact the
widow of the late Mr. Smith and the mother of
Mliss, it did not occur to them to doubt. Mrs.
Smith was perhaps thirty years of age, and some
of them had known her three or four years. She
might have been married and borne a child and
not thought the circumstance of sufficient importance
to justify mention to every-day friends.
They all agreed that it was very fortunate she
had not obtained a divorce, especially as the
trifling circumstance of not being divorced had
not in the least restricted her freedom of action.

This little savage was the heiress. She had
money enough in her own right to make her a
fine lady. It was worth while to make friends
with her. The boldest among them did not
dare to pronounce her pretty, though all agreed
she might become so with proper training. She
had splendid eyes and teeth, and if she showed
the latter too much the habit could not be as
cribed to overweening vanity. She evidently
had a more lively appreciation of the value of
teeth as a means of defense than as a personal
ornament.

A word may be necessary at this place to save
the reader the trouble of disparaging conjecture
in regard to the house in which Mrs. Smith had
taken rooms. It was a respectable second-class
lodging house. The occupants of the rooms
were people of fair repute. Of twenty or more
ladies in the house, three were divorced wives
living on the alimony a credulous and good-natured
court had allowed them from the property
of cast-off husbands. Five were actresses holding
themselves in readiness for an engagement.
Four were musicians who played for a consideration
two or three hours each evening in some
place not advertised in respectable journals, the
names of which the ladies themselves could
never remember when asked where they were
engaged. Five were ballet-girls, respectable,
poor, prematurely old and hopelessly faded, and
there were always three or four who lived no one
knew how. All had male friends, but the degree
of intimacy accorded these gentlemen was
sacredly regarded as a matter between each lady
and her own conscience.

The male occupants of rooms in this establishment
were no higher in the social world than
the ladies. Half of them were fourth-rate musicians,
depending upon chance cemands for
professional services for a livelihood. Two had
good situations in the orchestra of a regular
theatre, and were regarded as men of means.
There were two or three Bohemians, occasional
writers for daily or weekly papers, gentlemen
whose versatility of talent was such that they
could burlesque a popular play or write a leader
for a commercial daily. The distinguishing peculiarity
of these gentlemen of the quill was the
circumstance that they seemed to have been
born two or three weeks too soon, and had always
been in debt for the expenses incurred in
consequence of this singular mistake.

There could be no community which held
money in lighter esteem, and there was none
which kept a brighter lookout for such stray
coin as chanced within their reach. Their contempt
for money was manifested by their haste

to get rid of it, and their appreciation of money
was shown by their eagerness to get more.
There was nothing in that establishment money
could not buy, no service it would not command.
It was a rare thing for one of them to retire at
night with a dollar at their disposal or with a
positive knowledge of the means for the next
day's dinner. Yet they always dined. If one
was impecunious, another had met with a little
good luck. If, as often happened, a whole circle
mourned an exhausted exchequer, one of
the party would recall a friend on whom Fortune
had recently smiled. When resources were
at their lowest ebb, and the masculine heart was
pierced with despair, the more fertile brain of
some one of the ladies would devise measures by
which the needed supplies were obtained.

Mrs. Smith, with her reported fortune, was a
welcome comer in this establishment. She had
tasted poverty herself, as some of them knew,
and would hardly “go back” on her old friends.
The lady justified their reasonable expectations.
She loaned small sums without a murmur, and
never hinted at repayment. She was always
ready to send for beer, that darling solace of the
decaying female's heart, and her table would
always accommodate two or three guests. Thus
while secretly preparing to change for quarters
more in keeping with her altered circumstances,
she made a friend of every person she met.

At first Mliss was treated with great consideration.
The ladies insisted upon taking her to
their respective rooms, and bestowed upon her
all sorts of pet names. The gentlemen who held
money in such contempt calculated that in two
or three years she would be marriageable, and
that a fortune, though encumbered with a wife,
was better than no fortune at all. In time,
however, both ladies and gentlemen ceased their
attentions. The child was permitted to come
and go as her own pleasure dictated. Mrs.
Smith never troubled herself to know where she
was or with whom. Often Mliss would come in
in the evening from a long ramble and go supperless
to bed without a question being asked
showing an interest in her welfare. The room
used as a parlor was generally full of company
when Mrs. Smith was at home, and was locked
when she was away. Mliss had her own little
room, where she sat, night after night, reading
or thinking. Her liberty, however, was sweet
to her. Her old wandering habits returned. A
growing consciousness of sex restrained her
from making these long journeys of days and
nights in which she had indulged at Smith's
Pocket, but she rose with the sun and took long
walks in every direction. Some days she would
spend on the wharves, watching the ships discharge
or take in their cargos, and again she
would climb the hills to the south and west of
the city, returning at night to renew her rambles
the next day.

At first her chief thought was that she might
meet Mr. Gray. She walked the main thoroughfares
day after day, watching for each form
as it appeared in the distance, but giving it no
thought after she saw it was not the one she
sought Many passers became familiar with
her sad, silent, but strangely interesting face,
but to her all faces were as one that were not
his. Hungry, patient little heart! How slowly
she came to the sad conclusion that Mr. Gray
had forgotten the pet pupil whom he had once
drawn from sin and misery.

One day, weary and heartsick, Mliss came
home earlier than usual and went silently to her
own room. She had scarcely closed the door
when a familiar voice greeted her ear. It was
the voice of the man she had known as Waters,
the murderer of McSnagley, the suspected murderer
of her own father. She had once saved
this man's life, when threatened by a mob, but
she had not at that time knew how deeply he
had injured her. Now this man was in apparently
confidential conversation with her mother.

Mliss had no scruples which restrained the
impulses to put her ear to the key-hole of the
door. Her ear was quick and she heard voices
as distinctly as if she had been in the other room.

“How long is this fooling going to last?”
asked Waters; “you know I run my neck into
a noose every time I come to town.”

“You must be patient, John,” replied Mrs.
Smith. “Things are working as well as we
could wish. The child leads a wild, vagrant
life, and her manifestations o temper have
been witnessed by all the people in the house.
In two or three months, at the most it will be
safe to make an application to the city authorities
to have her placed under proper restraint.”

“Which means,” asked Waters, “the Industrial
School.”

“Or the Magdalen Asylum.”

“She is too young for that.”

“She is almost thirteen. Physicians will tell
you it is no uncommon thing for girls of that
age to deserve to be put there.”

“But that won't do; Mliss is ot so bad in
that way.”

“Perhaps not yet. But I have asked for three
months more.”

“Welt; do you look for a row? Has that
fellow Gray turned up?”

“Mr. Gray seems to have forgotten us. I can
find him when I want him, but Mliss is not
likely to meet him.”

“There will be trouble if she should.”

“I don't know. We will prove that the child
leads a life that must inevitably result in her
ruin. Mr. Gray, if ever so much disposed to be
her friend, cannot prove that she does not.”

“But he knows about the money.”

“In three months the money will be safe.”

“And then,” said Waters, “how do I know
you will not shake me?”

“You don't know,” coolly replied the lady.

“Perhaps you think you can.”

“I know I can.”

“Seems to me you've been thinking it over?”

“I have been thinking it over.”

“Well, what is your conclusion?”

“To be true to you.”

The answer was followed by the sound of
kisses. The conversation was resumed, but it
was of an affectionate nature and did not interest
the listener. She arose from her knees,
shook her fist menacingly at the door, showing
wo rows of teeth many a belle would have given
a fortune to possess.