University of Virginia Library

THE ORPHAN'S TASK.

“O, mother, it 's so cold here! I shall freeze, I know I shall;
and, mother, just see how blue the baby's hands are! You won't
stay in this dreadful place much longer, will you? And say,
mother, why don't father come?”

Yes, that was it—“Why don't father come?” Marion Leslie
had asked herself that question a great many times, since
the sunny morning when her noble husband had clasped her to
his heart, two long years before, with words of blessing, and
joined his good ship for a six months' voyage. Weary, weary
days and nights she had asked herself, “Why don't he come?”
and the wind and rain sobbed through the linden-trees, and gave
no answer but a wail. Six months after his departure, Marion
had clasped to her breast a babe, on which its father's eyes had
never rested; and a faint, sweet smile rippled round her red
lips, as she thought how he would take them in his arms, and
bless them, the mother and the child. But weeks were braided
into months, and yet he came not. There was a rumor, very
brief, and very terrible, that his ship was wrecked, and all on
board perished; but Marion never believed it, — how should she?
— and still she sat there in the cottage, singing to her babe sometimes,
and sometimes weeping, and asking herself, between her
sobs why it was her husband did not come.

But there was a change, at length — an execution in the house.
At first, Marion looked on listlessly, neither caring nor understanding;
but at last the truth broke on her with a sudden shock,
and she arose. They were beggars. She understood that; and
then it was beautiful to see the triumph of her woman's love and
courage. She went forth with her three fatherless children, —
her daughter Blanche, her little Charley, and the baby not yet
three months old, — forth from the smiling cottage, out into the
cold, desolate world.

It was a beautiful home from which she was driven — the home
of her bridal, the home of her wife-hood, whither her husband
had borne her, with the orange-blossoms in her hair, ere
the suns of seventeen bright, summery years had woven their radiance
in her golden curls. There, for fourteen years, they had
lived and loved, with only the one sorrow of his necessary
absences; for Marion was a sailor's bride. She had been a
spoiled and petted child, and a still more petted wife; and now
that misfortune had come upon her, she was too proud to
suffer in the pleasant country-town among those who had known
and loved them in their brightest days. And this was why, having
collected what money she was able to command from the
sale of her few valuables, she gathered her stricken ones around
her one morning, and departed, — no one knew, and only a few
cared, whither. Other hands lit the hearth-fire at Maple Cottage,
and its rosy light beamed upon happy faces; and there
came no shadow of those suffering ones who had once lived and
loved there, to dim the picture.

Marion Leslie found a refuge, with her children, in one of the
humblest of the many cheap boarding-houses of New York.

For a long time she could procure no employment, but at length,
by dint of persevering inquiry, she obtained regular work from a
cheap clothing-store in the neighborhood. But they had sunk
from one privation to another, until eighteen months after their
coming to New York (the time at which our brief sketch opens),
when their home, if home it could be called, was but a miserable
attic, in Paradise-square. Marion had grown very thin, but
there was a wild lustre in her blue eyes, a hectic flush on her
pale cheek; and you could not have met her, without a start of
surprise, at finding, robed in patches, and dwelling in misery, the
very embodiment of some painter's conception of a Saint Cecilia.
She sat there, bending over her rickety pine table, and stitching
wearily, while the baby lay sleeping on a couch of straw at her
feet; and the little Charley, clinging to her robe, clasped his
stiffened fingers together, and strove not to cry. So early do
the children of the poor learn patience.

At last the mother stopped for a moment, and drew her little
boy upon her knee. “Charley,” she said, “mother's dear Charley,
are you so very cold? Well, sister Blanche will come home
presently, and then Charley shall be warmed and fed. Mother's
little boy can wait, can't he?”

“Yes, mother, I can wait. I don't freeze much now, do you,
mother?” and the little fellow wound his thin, cold arms round
the weary woman's neck, and kissed away the tears that were
streaming down her thin cheeks. And then the door-latch was
raised softly, and a young girl of fourteen tripped lightly in.
Spite of all the disguises of wretchedness, spite of the clumsy
shoes, the coarse, patched garments, and the half-frozen fingers,
Blanche Leslie was beautiful. Hers was not the mere beauty of

feature and complexion, through which looks oftentimes deformity
of soul; but it was that perfect and harmonious beauty,
which only one painter in a cycle of centuries can shadow forth.
Her long, golden curls floated down over her spiritual face, like
rippling waves of sunlight; and her features were pure and classical,
as the Madonna of Thorwaldsen. A glad smile illuminated
her face as she entered the apartment, and, going up to her
mother, she exhibited, with eager interest, two twenty-five cent
pieces.

“Only see, dear mother,” she cried, joyfully, “was n't Mr.
Green good? Here are two shillings he owed you for work,
and here are two shillings more, that he just made me a present
of; and he spoke to me so gently, mother dear, and put his hand
upon my head, and drew my curls through his fingers, just as
father used to, long ago; and then he said it was a shame for one
so delicate as you to have to do such work, and for a child like
me, too; — that it must not be, and he could put me in a way of
doing something better; and he said I must not let you tire
yourself with coming to the shop any more; that I must always
come for you. Was n't he good, mother?”

“God is good, my child,” said Marion, solemnly, and, for a
moment, she drew the girl's fair head to her bosom. “Now, go
darling,” she said, smiling through her tears, “go and get some
fagots, and a loaf of bread, for these poor children are almost
starved and frozen.”

And as Blanche left the room Mrs. Leslie sighed bitterly. O,
is not suspicion one of the most blighting curses of poverty?
Marion had striven to teach her daughter faith in the beauty and
purity of human nature, but painfully was the conviction forced

upon her mind, that hereafter the widow's child must learn a
different lesson. Blanche was too poor, and too beautiful, to be
spared the luxury of trust. Grafton Green was a plodding,
scheming man of the world, and not the one to give even two
shillings from a pure motive of disinterested kindness; and
Marion resolved that, no matter how much she was needed at
home, or how much she suffered, she must be the only one here-after
to visit the rich man's clothing-store.

Another year passed, and still the wretched family lived on, in
the miserable attic in Paradise-square. And yet they were not
wholly wretched, not wholly miserable. There was faith and
prayer, and much love, beneath their humble roof; and the baby,
the little Ida Leslie, was growing up fair and sweet enough to
have gladdened any heart not wholly broken. She was a perpetual
joy to her mother, for only in her face could she see an
ever-present semblance of her lost Willie. Blanche and Charley
had Marion's own blue eyes, and golden curls; but Ida's heavy
tresses were black as night, and her large, dark eyes were wild
and passionate as an Italian's;—they were Willie's own. But
there was more sorrow than joy in the lonely roof. The pain
in the mother's side was growing more constant and severe;
the hectic flush was deepening on her cheek, and slowly, but
surely, she knew her feet were entering the path that leads down
to the country of the great departed, “into the silent land.”

For many a month Blanche had been the only messenger to
the clothing-store of Grafton Green; and whether it was that
the unsoiled innocence of the sweet young girl had subdued, by
its silent power, even his wicked and worldly heart; or whether
it was that he was waiting for the mother's death, that he might

be more secure of success, he had, during all this time,
treated Blanche with the greatest respect. But the kindest
friend the lone ones had as yet found was a tall, graceful,
beautiful woman, living by herself, on the lower floor of
the house. Marion did not know her business, or whence
came the means to purchase her welcome and delicate offerings
of fruit and flowers; but she never dreamed of doubting the
stranger's purity, and had learned to love her with a sister's
fondness. “There comes Lady,” said the little Ida, one day,
when the woman entered; and Marion, looking up, with a sweet
smile, said, “Will you not let us have some other name to call
you by?”

“Clara was the name I bore when I was young and happy,”
said the stranger, sadly; and from that time the little Ida called
her “Lady Clara;” and in truth the name suited well the proud,
statuesque style of her faded but still regal beauty.

“I am going to die, Lady Clara,” said Marion, solemnly, one
day, when the little Ida was sleeping on the stranger's lap, and
Charley had gone on an errand with his sister Blanche.

“Yes,” was the reply, “and I have long been wishing to make
a proposal to you. I am an actress. I presume, Mrs. Leslie,
you have looked, as I once did, on actresses, with holy horror. I
think, however, you already know me well enough to believe that
my life has been free from crime. I have, indeed, been unfortunate,”
she continued, while her finely-chiselled upper lip curled
with a half-sneer, “and there are those in the world to whom
suffering and misfortune are the worst of crimes. My story
has not been a singular one. I was born in the highest
circle of metropolitan aristocracy. I was an only child, and my

mother died when I was very young. My education was superficial;
that is, I was required to learn only such things as I
pleased; and I confined my studies chiefly to the modern languages
and music, of which I was passionately fond. The legitimate
result of such a self-willed course of training was a runaway
marriage with a handsome but dissolute soldier; and yet I
loved him. O God, how I did love him!” and the proud woman
clasped her white hands across her brow, and wept for a brief
moment of tempestuous agony, and then, with a firm voice, she
proceeded. “It was not a twelvemonth before my husband
wearied of his plaything, and left me. I thanked God then
that I was not a mother; but I have thought since it might
have been better if there had been a childish voice to call me
back to life. Already my poor father had died, and I took
to my heart the knowledge that I had brought his gray hairs to
the grave. Soon after his death, a will was produced — though I
was always doubtful of its authenticity — endowing his brother's
sons with all his vast fortune. I do not know as the will could
have been set aside; I surely would not have questioned it;
for I was far too proud to go back among the circles I had
adorned in other days, as a deserted wife; and I bore my griefs
alone, as best I might. At first, I strove to support myself, as
you have done, by needle-work. You know what a weary, torturing,
slow-dividing of soul and body that is; and soon I began
to loathe existence most intensely. At last, I sought an engagement
at a third or fourth rate theatre, and my offer was accepted
gladly. I am told that, if I had had ambition, I might have
risen to be a queen of tragedy; but I had none.

“I would not go upon the boards of a first-class theatre, lest I

should perchance be recognized by those who had known me in
happier days; and even where I am, I would only take the least
conspicuous parts. I have chosen this ruinous, tumble-down
habitation, because it suits both my altered taste and my altered
means; but I have managed to surround myself with many comforts,
and, thank God, I have preserved, unsoiled, the purity of
my heart and life.

“And now, Mrs. Leslie, I have, as I said, a proposal to make
to you. I have seen, for a long time, your anxiety about Blanche;
nor do I wonder at it. But Blanche is strong-principled, and
strong-minded beyond her age. Now, if you will trust her to
me, I propose to make her an actress. She can soon take a
higher rolè of characters than I do, and will be able to support
her brother and sister. I know you will think it a hard choice
between this and starvation. I know your imagination will even
exaggerate the trials and temptations of this career; but think a
moment, — can any other path be more, nay, can any other path
be as much exposed to temptation, as that of a young and beautiful
sewing-girl, whose scanty pittance hardly keeps her above
absolute want, and whose very business exposes her in a thousand
ways to the pursuit of the unprincipled and licentious? Then
there is one more consideration; — as an actress, Blanche need
not despair of finding time enough to become, at least, respectably
educated; while, should she grow up a seamstress, you are
aware such a hope would be the height of absurdity. Blanche
is well enough while you live, — I would not have her situation
changed at present; but I know it is your conviction that you
cannot stay to guard her long; and, not even though she were
starving, would I say to her, `Blanche, come with me to the

theatre,' unless I could also add, `Blanche, my advice has your
mother's sanction.' Shall I say it?”

“Leave me for a few moments, good, kind friend,” was the
reply, “and then I will answer you;” and, laying the little Ida
gently down, the actress glided from the room. Left to herself,
Marion Leslie knelt and prayed, long and fervently, —
prayed as only an anxious, suffering mother can pray. She
looked forward, with strained and aching eyes, into the future;
she saw the place of thorns over which her loved one's tender
feet must tread, and she prayed for strength to decide aright.
At last, as she heard the returning footsteps of her friend, she
rose from her knees, and, with a faint smile, whispered —

“Yes, I have decided. You may give my Blanche her
mother's sanction and blessing on whatever course you approve.
I leave her in your care, and, when I am gone, deal gently with
her, for the sake of the dead.”

“I accept the trust,” said, very solemnly, she whom the child
called “Lady Clara;” and, in a moment more, Blanche entered.

“Come hither, darling,” said the mother, fondly, holding out
her thin hand to Blanche; and Charley climbed upon her knee,
and Blanche knelt down by her mother's side.

“Blanche, dearest, you have been a good and faithful child
to me, and God will bless you, now, when I am gone, and
forever.”

“You gone, sweet mother!” and a look of mingled grief and
terror drifted up to Blanche's clear, blue eyes.

“Yes, darling,” — and Marion took in her hand the length of
her fair child's golden curls, — “yes, darling, the wild-flowers
of another spring-time will blow above your mother's nameless

grave, and my little ones will be God's orphan children then!
No, no, Blanche, darling, treasure, don't weep so wildly!—I 'm
very weak, Blanche; I can't bear it.” And the brave girl struggled
with herself till moans subsided to sobs, and sobs to quiet
tears, and then her mother continued: “It would be sinful to
mourn so for me, my darling; for I am going home to Jesus. I
may stay with you for some time yet, but I must go when He
calls me, and then Clara will take care of you.”

The next morning Blanche awoke just as the first sun-rays were
brightening the attic windows. The poor children had crept early
to bed the night before, for they had no money to buy lights or
fuel, and Blanche could not carry home the work they had completed
till the morning. It had been a bitter cold night, but
Blanche, with the little Charley in her arms, had slept soundly.
When the sunlight flashed upon the windows, she started up in
alarm, to see how late it was, and, hurrying on her scanty supply
of raiment, she glanced at the low couch of straw where her
mother lay sleeping. The tears came to her eyes as she whispered,
“Poor, dear mamma, she is so ill! She sleeps late this
morning, and I guess I 'll carry this work home before I wake
her;” and then, gathering up the work into a bundle, she stept
softly to her mother's pallet, to give her one gentle kiss before
she left her. God of the fatherless! The lips to which she
pressed her own were cold and pale as marble. Marion Leslie
was dead!

Another meek victim “led as a lamb to the slaughter;”
another sacrifice offered up to the mighty Moloch of trade, and
that iron custom which closes to a woman the avenues of
healthy and respectable employments; another soul gone up

before its Maker, crying out for vengeance against the mighty
of the land!

There are, who think death steals into the habitations of the
poor almost in the guise of an angel of light; that, because their
paths are hedged about with troubles and choked up with thorns,
the echo of the familiar foot-fall is not missed; that, because the
rain and storm beat upon their heads, the rain of sorrow fails to
fall upon the grave of the departed; but those who read the
“short and simple annals of the poor” will trace another record.
There were tears, and wailings, and sorrow, in the tumble-down
house in Paradise-square, when the body of Marion Leslie was
borne forth to the burial. The fair hair banded across her forehead
was wet with tears; and it was as if she wrenched out,
and carried away with her, other hearts beside her own. And
why not? If all things are bright around us, there is less room
for the shadow to fall. The difference is between taking his
single sun-ray from some lone prisoner in dungeon-walls, or
leaving one beam the less to brighten the splendors of the royal
palace.

It was a week after the funeral, when one morning Clara
reminded the sorrowing Blanche of the bundle of work not yet
carried home to the clothing-store of Grafton Green.

“Yes, yes,” said the young girl, abstractedly; “where is it?
I must go to work, I know. I 'll take it now.”

“Wait a moment,” said the actress, “and I will go with you
to carry it;” and she robed herself in a costume which, to the
uninitiated eyes of Blanche, seemed the height of elegance.
And, in truth, she looked more than ever worthy of her title —
“Lady Clara” — when the heavy folds of a rich and costly

mantle fell gracefully about her tall and slender figure, and her
wrists and throat were muffled in soft and glossy furs.

“Now, Blanche,” she said, when she had completed her toilet,
“I will go with you; but you must wait till a moment after
I have gone in, and not on any account appear to recognize
me!”

When Blanche entered the store, she was surprised to see the
deference accorded by the clerks to her richly-dressed companion.
The actress stood at a counter at the further end of the
store, turning over, with an air of fashionable indifference, some
finely-stitched collars and cuffs. The young girl entered timidly,
and, stepping up to Mr. Green himself, she said, in a low,
musical tone, “Here is that last work, sir. Won't you please
to excuse my not having brought it home before? for my mother
is dead!”

A strange kind of expression flitted over the rich man's features,
— Blanche thought it anger, the actress called it triumph.
“I should be glad to indulge you, if I could, poor child!” he
said, with a strange gentleness; “but I must treat all my girls
alike, and the rule is, if any one keeps work out a week, it must
be charged to them, and they are to retain it. So, you see, I must
charge this now, Blanche, — twenty shillings, — but the charge
is a mere matter of form; you are too young and fair to suffer,
and I 'll give you some easy work to do now, and we 'll settle
about that, another time.”

“Blanche,” said Lady Clara, coming forward, “I expected
this — trust in me, poor child! Mr. Green, you said your
charge against this girl was twenty shillings; here is your
money, and we 'll just make you a present of the garment, to

atone for your disappointment. Come, Blanche; wish Mr.
Grafton Green a very good-morning; you will take no more
work from his establishment!”

Mr. Grafton Green muttered something altogether too near an
oath to be written down for ears polite, and the actress took the
fair girl's hand in hers, and left the “establishment,” with a
patronizing courtesy. When, at length, they were seated with
Charley and the little Ida in the apartment of “Lady Clara,”
in reply to Blanche's tearful, “O, Clara, what shall I do? we
shall starve!” the lady unfolded her plan, and endorsed it with
the dead mother's sanction. “I have paid up for your miserable
attic, dear Blanche,” she concluded, “and settled up accounts
with your landlord. I have been laying by money for this very
thing, Blanche, and now you shall stay with me, you and the
little ones, until you can do better; and I will support you, until
you can support yourself.”

And thus it was, climbing up, on to the stage, from weary
stepping-stones of toil, and want, and sorrow, one of our first
actresses made her début. “You have nothing to do now but
study,” said Clara, when the preparatory arrangements were
completed; and Blanche did study, as none can but those who
have a high and holy motive. She had not adopted her profession
without a bitter struggle, — not until every other door
seemed closed against her, and she had seemed to hear her dead
mother's voice, out of the grave, calling on her to arise and toil for
the children so sacredly given to her charge.

It was her highest ambition that they, for whom she thus
sacrificed herself, should never know at what a cost the flowers
which strewed their path were purchased. While they were yet

so young, it was very easy to send them to bed, before she made
her toilet for the theatre; and, as they grew older, she hoped to
be able to take a higher part, and so acquire the means to send
them away from her to school. Years passed on, and her wishes
were accomplished. At twenty, she found herself promoted to
the highest characters in the first theatres, and she had the satisfaction
of calling home her little sister on the Sabbath, and
learning, from the love of that innocent child-heart, that earth
was not all a wilderness. As for Charley, he was sent far away,
and growing hale and hearty, as his sister saw, when the happy
trio assembled with Clara, at a quiet, rural, country boarding-house,
for the summer vacation.

At twenty, Blanche Leslie was beautiful, — proudly beautiful.
Her success as an actress had been almost unexampled,
for one so young; and she had found time and
means to secure a brilliant education. The promise of her
childhood was more than fulfilled. Her large, radiant blue
eyes revealed the gifted soul looking through them, and her
complexion was fair and pure as the finest statuary. Her
figure was lofty and commanding, tall, and with sufficient fulness
to be graceful as a vision; and altogether she was the
most magnificent tragedienne that ever appeared upon the
boards of New York.

And now there dawned another dream upon her life. One
night there came behind the scenes a stranger, whom the manager
introduced to her as his friend, Lionel Hunter. It was to
Blanche like a revelation. She had never before met such a
man. Her acquaintance was limited to the circle of the green-room,
and no one had hitherto found lodgment in her heart for

more than a passing thought; but this man — this Lionel
Hunter!

You might not have thought, at the first glance, that he was a
man to strike a lady's fancy; but I, who have seen and known
him, tell you that no man ever came so near realizing my conceptions
of the divine as Lionel Hunter. I never looked at him,
but I held my breath, and thought of those old times, when
the sons of God loved the daughters of men — when there
were Titans on the earth, and Nature, our primal mother,
wove stars in her dark hair for her bridal. He must have
been at least six feet two inches in height, and proportionately
large. His face resembled, more than anything else, the portraits
we have all seen of Shakespeare. He was handsomer than
the portraits, it is true; but there was the same expansive forehead,
the same indescribably fascinating eyes, and the same
sensuous mouth, with its expression of almost infantile sweetness.
His eyes were large and bright, of a liquid hazel, and his
chestnut-black hair curled over his classical head, down almost
to his shoulders.

“My friend,” said the manager, as he presented him, “is the
author of the last new play we brought upon the stage; and he
wishes to thank you, Miss Leslie, for having so gloriously personated
one of his best characters.”

And then he took Blanche's little hand in his own; and while
it lay there, fluttering like a caged humming-bird, he spoke a
few low, musical words of praise and thanks, which brought
the rich blood flushing to the fair girl's cheek, as it had
never flushed before. That night he walked with her to her
home; for she and “Lady Clara” had removed from Paradise-square,

and now had taken pleasant rooms at a respectable
hotel. After that, Blanche was no more lonely. Almost daily
Mr. Hunter would meet her in her walks, and sometimes accompany
her home.

Then, the enthusiastic girl lived on the memory of that meeting,
until she should see again her hero, her demi-god. Sometimes
there was but a chance interview of a few words, and
sometimes she would not see him for a day; but there would be
a quick ring at the door, and a bouquet of flowers left for Miss
Leslie. And these were always the costliest exotics, or heavy
clusters of the fragrant climbing roses, with long stems; so that
always in Blanche Leslie's parlor was summer, and the breath
of flowers. Perhaps it was not well for the inexperienced girl
that Lady Clara's voice had failed her, and she was spending
the winter in the country; but surely never before had life
seemed half so bright.

At last, Mr. Hunter came often to her rooms. Another of
his tragedies was to be produced, and, that she might be perfect
in her part, he read it to her many times at home. Surely, never
was another voice so musical; and Blanche could not refuse, when
the play was over, to listen to yet other plays, and hear the
glorious creations of the master dramatist himself made vocal.
It was the day before Miss Leslie's last engagement previous to
the summer vacation, and once more Lionel Hunter sat beside
her in her room. Somehow it seemed a very natural thing,
and his broad breast had grown to be the customary resting-place
for her sunny head.

He sat beside her now, and once more he had drawn that fair
head underneath his arm, and was gazing fondly in her upturned

face. “Blanche,” he said at length, in a deep, musical whisper,
— “Blanche, darling, tell me once more that you love me.
O, dear one, my life has been a weary thing sometimes; there
have been dens and dark places in it; but you have walked
beside me for a while, and my path has grown radiant with the
glory of your soul. O, Blanche, Blanche, best, purest half of
myself, I could not live without you now!—tell me once more
that you love me!” And the proud man paused, and bent his
face to catch the whispers of her answer, till he could feel her
breath warm upon his cheek.

There was truth, and passion, and tenderness, in the girl's
voice, as she murmured, “O, my Lionel, my lion-hearted!
you know I love you — you know I could not help it.”

And his face bent lower still, as once more he said, “And
Blanche, my Blanche, will you be all mine, and forever?”

“Forever,” was the faintly-whispered reply; “I love you,
— how could I be another's?”

“And you will not love me less, Blanche, when I tell you I
am not the humble, plodding scribbler you have thought, but a
man rich in fame and wealth, whose name is a passport to the
proudest circles in the land. Can you be proud of me, Blanche
darling, and not love me less?”

But the tears gathered slowly in the young girl's eyes, and
trembled on the heavy lashes, as she replied, “But you, Lionel;
if this be so, how can you love me? Will you not blush when
men shall say your wife has been an actress?”

“Great heavens, Blanche! have you been deceived, all this
time? Did you think I meant to marry you? Why, Blanche,
that would be certain ruin. Have you so little trust, so little

faith in me, that you think I would be more true to you, when
some old priest had said over a few words of a senseless ceremony?
I thought you loved me. Well, no matter, Blanche; I
was deceived — I can bear it — take your head off my breast —
get up, and go away. Why don't you go? In Heaven's name,
what are you staying here for?”

“Because I love to stay, Lionel, and because I will never stay
again. O, Lionel, you have darkened all my life! Why did
you come to me, with your bright, bewildering beauty?”

“Why? Because I loved you, because I thought your heart
was not that of a stone, but a woman. Stay, now; what are you
getting up for? Blanche, sit still!”

“No, I shall get up now, and you will go and leave me forever.”

“I shall do no such thing. I will go and leave you till to-morrow,
and then I 'll come back, and say `Blanche, will you
be mine?'” and he rose, and walked toward the door; but turning,
ere he reached it, he spread out his arms, and said, in those
low, rich tones that never could have belonged to any human
voice but his, “Come to me, Blanche darling, come and lay
your little golden head upon my breast. Who else can shelter
you so well as I? You have said that I was your world. Be
true to me, then, — true to your own soul, clinging even now to
mine, — and come to me. Is the world more than I am, Blanche?”

“No, sir, no,” and the young girl shut her eyes, and clasped
her white hands across them. “No, sir, but God is, and the
voice of my dead mother calling to me out of her grave! Go,
Mr. Hunter!”

“Do you mean it, Blanche? Do you mean to say I shall go
away and never see you any more — that you will no more live

for me, nor I any more live for you? That we are to be nothing
to each other, any more?”

“That is what I mean, Mr. Hunter.”

He walked slowly and deliberately back again, and raised her
in his arms. “Look at me, Blanche, and tell me, now, do you
mean to say, Go, Lionel, go, and never look upon my face
again!”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Hunter; I mean to say just that: — Go, and
never come again, and in mercy go quickly.”

“You mean to say, Go and come again to-morrow; — that is
my reasonable Blanche. You are feverish and excited now, and
would indeed be best alone;” and, so saying, he kissed her
gently, released her, and walked to the door. Then, turning
once more, he said, “Good-by till to-morrow, Blanche, little
one. Let me see you happy, then!”

It was two o'clock, the next afternoon, when Lionel Hunter
rang at the door of Miss Leslie's boarding-house. He was shown
into her accustomed sitting-room, but she was not there. He
threw himself into her easy-chair, and lying on the table beside
him he perceived two notes, directed in a light, graceful hand,
which he recognized but too well — the one to him, the other to
the manager of the Broadway theatre. Eagerly he broke the
seal of the one superscribed “Lionel Hunter,” and read thus:

A deep, anguished groan burst from the heart of Lionel Hunter,
as he pressed the note again and again to his fevered lips.
“Lost, lost, lost!” It seemed a dirge with which the whole
creation was groaning. Then, for the first time, he knew how
madly he had loved Blanche Leslie; then, he knew it would
have been but a light thing to have laid down fame, and wealth,
and this world's honor, so that her head could have lain

upon his bosom, so that he could have called her his wife.
But it was too late. Lionel Hunter was not one to yield to circumstances
tamely, or without a struggle. He had found the
eidolon of his life's long dreams; had looked into her eyes,
had held her head upon his heart; and now she was gone —
now that he would have called her wife, he could not. At first
there seemed a kind of injustice in it. He forgot that she had
fled because of her very love, not from him, but from temptation;
and the proud man ground his teeth together, and then sat
down in the chair her form had pressed, and moaned helplessly.

Ten years had passed. It was the rich, hazy autumn.
A kind of misty, Indian-summer glory lay all over the broad
landscape, and flooded with its radiance the pleasant parlor of
an elegant little cottage, in the suburbs of New Orleans.
The room was tenanted by two ladies, both graceful, both elegant,
but neither young. Thirty summers had woven their
meshes of light in Blanche Leslie's fair tresses, and over them the
moon must have risen in a night of sorrow; for among the
golden curls were threads of silver. Her features were purer,
and more spiritual in their outline, and her thin figure had lost
none of its grace.

“Three weeks more, Lady Clara,” and, as she spoke, you
might have fancied her voice had in it the low, touching music
of a Peri shut out of Paradise, and pleading that the gates
might be reöpened, — “three weeks more, and Ida's schooldays
will be past forever. How can I manage then? How
shall I any longer spare her the knowledge that her sister is an
actress?”

“You can hardly hope to conceal it longer, Blanche; and why
should you wish it? Surely, dear one, in your pure life there
is nothing for which to blush. In my anxiety, when you left
New York so suddenly, I had nearly betrayed your secret. O,
Blanche, you can never dream the relief it was, when I got your
letter, telling me your assumed name, and requesting me to join
you at New Orleans. I was really thankful when Charley
entered the navy; for, if he had staid at home, both he
and Ida must surely have long since known your secret;
though, really, Blanche, I never could see your reasons for concealment.”

“O Clara!” and the poor girl shuddered as she spoke, “you
would see, if you knew all. Sometime I 'll tell you why I left
New York so suddenly. God in heaven be thanked, I 've been
able so far to prevent Ida from even seeing the inside of a
theatre! I can bear to have my life blank and dark, if I can
make my mother's child happy. — What! a letter, Anne?” as
the servant entered. “That must be from some one at the
green-room. I hope they don't want me for a rehearsal.”

But why did her cheek grow pale, and her hand tremble, as
she glanced at the superscription, and nervously broke the seal?
and what was there in its contents to bring the hot, bitter tears
up from their fountain in her strong, proud heart? “Blanche,”
it said —

Blanche glanced around, when she had read it to the close;
she was alone. Clara had stolen unperceived from the room.

She threw herself upon her knees, and prayed, for a brief moment,
as only the suffering can pray; and, when she rose, her
face was pale and tearful, indeed, but she had ceased to tremble.
Going toward the open window, she drew before her a little
inlaid ebony writing-desk, his gift in happier days, and wrote
rapidly:

“No, no, little darling, you shall not send me from you. I
will call you my wife. You shall be Blanche Hunter. Look
up, darling. Let me gaze into your blue eyes, life of my life!
and, believe me, as God is in heaven, I will never leave nor
forsake thee!”

And, dear me, reader! — but stories of real life always will
end with a marriage, however much I may strive to prevent it,
and my heroine behaved just like all other heroines; and it was
not till years after, when Ida Leslie also sat among her husband

and her children, that she learned the furnace of affliction
through which her sister's feet had trod; and that she herself
owed the joy and prosperity of her life-time, — not to Mrs.
Lionel Hunter, leader of the ton, — but to Blanche Leslie, the
Actress.