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“I did not become a drunkard, but two or three times I drank to intoxication.”

She paused, and, with a downward glance at her mutilated limb, sighed heavily.

“One wild, stormy night I was quite alone,” she continued. “The wind howled round the house like a legion of devils, as it seemed to me, and the air was full of eerie sounds. I had been more than usually depressed all day, and grew worse and worse as the hours crept slowly by. My husband I knew would not be home before morning; one servant was away, and the other had gone to bed in a distant part of the house.

“I wasn’t exactly afraid, but I kept thinking of Ethel, and how I had ill-used her, and that I should probably never see her again, till I was half crazed with remorse. At last I could not endure it any longer. I kept wine in a closet in my dressing-room; I went to it, poured out and drank one glass after another till I was quite stupefied.

“The last thing I remember is dropping into a chair beside the fire – a low-down grate filled with glowing coals; the next I knew I awoke in my bed, roused to consciousness by a sharp pain in my right arm.

“My husband, the servant-woman – who was crying bitterly – and two or three doctors were in the room. They were talking in low tones, and kept glancing at me.

“‘What is the matter?’ I asked; ‘what have you been doing to my hand that it pains me so?’ It was the surgeon nearest me who answered.

“‘Madame,’ he said in a compassionate tone, ‘it was so badly burned that we were obliged to take it off.’

“‘Off! burned!’ I shrieked, wild with terror and despair.

“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘your husband found you lying insensible on the floor, with your right hand in the grate and burnt almost to a cinder.’”

Ethel sprang up, threw her arms about the Madame’s neck, and sobbed aloud.

“My poor, poor aunt!” she said when she could speak. “What a dreadful, dreadful thing it was! My heart aches for you! oh, how could you bear it?”

Madame Le Conte returned the caress, then Ethel resumed her seat.

“I could not escape it!” she sighed, “and I felt that it was a just punishment that deprived me of the hand I had used to forge the notices which robbed my sister of her lover.

“Remorse has tortured me horribly many a time since, but I never have resorted to the intoxicating cup to escape its stings.

“I gave up society from the time of my accident. I could not bear the thought of exposing myself to the curious gaze and questioning of common acquaintances or of strangers.

“My husband pitied me very much, and never once said to me, ‘It is your own fault,’ as well he might. Finding how I shrank from meeting any one I knew, he proposed removing to this city, where we were entirely unknown, and I was glad to come. It is now ten years since he died, leaving me everything he possessed.”

CHAPTER XXXV
A FLITTING

 
“The keen spirit
Seizes the prompt occasion, makes the thought
Start into instant action, and at once
Plans and performs, resolves and executes!”
 

Hannah More.

“And all alone!” sighed Ethel, breaking the momentary pause that followed the concluding sentence of the Madame’s story. “Ten years of utter loneliness, save the presence of hired servants – of constant ill-health and mental anguish, besides the dreadful loss of your right hand! My poor, poor aunt, you have indeed suffered horribly and long!”

“Indeed I have, and I hope Heaven will accept it as some atonement! Well, what is it, child: you deem it not sufficient?” as Ethel turned upon her a pained, troubled look.

“Ah, Aunt Nannette,” she said, “there is but one atonement for sin, even the blood of Christ.”

“My sister, my gentle, forgiving little Pansy, would think I had endured far more than enough,” sobbed the Madame in an injured tone, and almost turning her back upon her niece.

Ethel dropped her crocheting, rose hastily, and putting her arms about the Madame’s neck, said soothingly, “Don’t misunderstand me, auntie dear. I did not mean – I could not feel for a moment that my mother or I could wish to add a feather’s weight to all you have suffered, or help grieving over it, or wishing you might have been spared it.”

“What then?” asked the Madame petulantly, and with a movement as if she would free herself from the enfolding arms.

“Only,” Ethel said gently, withdrawing them and resuming her seat, “that sin as committed against God cannot be atoned for by anything that we can do or suffer.”

“I shall try to sleep now,” said the Madame, closing her eyes. “I am exhausted.”

And truly she looked as if she were; her face was haggard and old beyond her years, and her eyes were swollen with weeping.

Ethel’s filled with tears as she gazed upon the careworn, miserable face, and thought how wretched she was in spite of all her wealth; how her wounded spirit would keep her so, even could her hand and health of body be restored.

“Poor thing!” said the young girl to herself, “none but Jesus can do her good, and she will not come to Him.”

Feigned sleep presently became real, and for an hour or more Ethel was to all intents and purposes as much alone as if she had been sole occupant of the room.

She did not move from her chair, but her fingers were busy with her crocheting, her thoughts equally so with the tale to which she had been listening.

It seemed to have made her acquainted with her mother, and she dwelt upon her character, as drawn by Madame Le Conte, with ever-increasing love and admiration.

How she pitied her sorrows – the separation from him who had won her young, guileless heart, the news that he was lost to her, then of his death! Ah how could she bear such tidings of Espy! He would never love another; but he might die. She shivered and turned pale at the very thought. Ah, God grant she might be spared that heart-breaking grief! But should it come, she would live single all her days; she could never be forced or persuaded to do as her mother had done; her nature was less gentle and yielding, better fitted to brave the storms of life. That loveless marriage! ah, how sad! how dreadful the trials that followed!

And her mother had married again. Rolfe Heywood was not really dead, and perhaps – ah yes, it must have been he who had found and won her, he the one whom she had always loved; Ethel was certain of it, certain that none but he could have reconciled her, the bereaved, heart-broken mother, to life, and so quickly gained her for his bride.

And had she forgotten her child in her new-found happiness? the child who was now searching so eagerly, lovingly for her? No, no, the tender mother-love could not be so easily quenched! No doubt unavailing efforts had been made to recover her lost treasure; and though other little ones had perhaps come to share that love, the first-born held her own place in the mother’s heart.

“Oh, when shall I find her? how can I endure this waiting, waiting in suspense? ’Tis the hardest thing in life to bear!” she exclaimed half aloud, forgetting that she was not alone; letting her work fall in her lap while she clasped her hands together over her beating heart and drew a long, sighing breath.

“What – what is it?” cried Madame Le Conte, starting from her sleep and rubbing her eyes. “Has anything happened?”

“No, nothing. How thoughtless I have been to disturb your slumbers!” Ethel said, rising, bending over her, and gently stroking her hair.

“Oh,” sighed the Madame, “it is no matter! my dreams were not pleasant: I am not sorry to have been roused from them. But what is it that you find so hard to bear?”

“This suspense – this doubt whether my mother still lives; whether I shall ever find her.”

“We will! we must!” cried the Madame with energy, starting up in her chair as she spoke. “They say money can do everything, and I will pour it out like water!”

“And I,” said Ethel low and tremulously, “will pray, pray that, if the will of God be so, we may be speedily brought together; and prayer moves the Arm that moves the universe.”

“And we will share the waiting and suspense together; it will be easier than for either alone. But if you have found it hard to endure for one year, what do you suppose the ten that I have waited and watched have been to me?”

Many, many times in the next two years, while looking, longing, hoping even against hope for the finding of her mother and the coming of Espy, Ethel’s heart repeated that cry, “Oh, this weary, weary waiting, this torturing suspense! it is hard, hard to bear!”

Two years, and no word of or from either. Two years of freedom from poverty with all its attendant ills. Two years of abounding wealth.

But poverty is not the greatest of evils, nor do riches always bring happiness. Ethel’s life during this time had had other trials besides the absence of those loved ones, and the uncertainty in regard to their well-being and their return to her.

Her days, and often her nights also, were spent in attendance upon her aunt, whose ailments seemed to increase, and who grew more and more querulous, unreasonable, and exacting.

Ethel bore it all very patiently, seldom appearing other than cheerful and content in her aunt’s presence, though sometimes giving way to sadness and letting fall a few tears in the privacy of her own apartments.

There was a sad, aching void in the poor hungry heart which the Madame’s capricious, selfish affection could not fill. A hunger of the mind, too, for other and better intellectual food than the novels she was daily called upon to read aloud for the Madame’s delectation.

But, as says an old writer, “Young trees root all the faster for shaking,” and the young girl’s character deepened and strengthened under the trying but salutary discipline.

She was developing into a noble, well-poised woman, soft in manner, energetic in action, unworldly and unselfish to a remarkable degree. And making diligent use of the scraps of time she could secure to herself, she was accomplishing far more than she realized in the direction of mental culture.

On a bright, warm day in the latter part of April, 1876, Ethel sat in her boudoir looking over the morning paper. As usual, the advertisements claimed her first attention; for who could say that Espy and her mother might not be searching for her in the same way in which she was pursuing her quest for the latter?

Ah, nothing there for her. The daily recurring disappointment drew forth a slight sigh. An additional shade of sadness rested for an instant upon the fair face, then was replaced by a most sweet expression of patient resignation.

The paper was full of the coming Centennial. She read with interest the descriptions of the great buildings and the many curious and beautiful things already pouring into them; also of the preparations for the accommodation of the crowds of people from all parts of the world who were expected to flock thither.

A thought struck her, and her face lighted up; her heart beat fast. She started to her feet, the paper still in her hand; then dropping into her chair again, turned once more to the advertisements and marked one with her pencil, after which she sat for some moments in deep thought.

A tap at the door, and Mary, putting in her head, said, “The Madame wants you to come now, miss.”

Ethel hastened to obey the summons.

Madame Le Conte was in her boudoir, receiving a professional call from her physician, Dr. Bland.

The doctor rose with a smile as the young girl entered, and offered his hand in cordial greeting.

She seemed to bring with her a breath of the sweet spring air, so fresh and fair was she in her dainty morning dress of soft white cashmere, relieved by a bunch of violets at the throat, and another nestling amid the dark glossy braids of her hair.

The easy grace of her movements, the brightness of her eyes, the delicate bloom on the softly-rounded cheek and chin, spoke of perfect health.

“You are quite well?” he asked, handing her a chair.

“Quite, I am thankful to say. No hope of finding another patient in me, doctor,” she returned laughingly. “But what of Aunt Nannette?”

“I think she needs a change of air and scene. I have been trying to persuade her to go to Europe for the summer; or if she would stay a year, it would be better.”

“Preposterous idea!” wheezed the patient. “Hardly able to ride down town, how could I think of undertaking to cross the ocean? Suppose there should be a shipwreck; immensely heavy, unwieldy, helpless as I am, I’d go to the bottom like a lump of lead. No, no, home’s the only place for me.”

“You will get no better here, Madame,” said the doctor shortly.

“And we need not anticipate a shipwreck,” said Ethel. “The sea air might do you great good.”

“I tell you it’s nonsense to talk of it!” returned the Madame impatiently.

The doctor rose and bowed himself out. Ethel ran after him, stopped him in the hall, and talked eagerly for a few moments.

“By all means, if you can persuade her; anything for a change,” he answered, bidding the young girl a smiling adieu.

She stood musing a moment when he had left her; then rousing herself, hastened back to her aunt, who said reproachfully:

“I wish you wouldn’t run away and leave me alone, Ethel. I want to be read to.”

“And I am entirely at your service,” the young girl returned pleasantly, taking up the morning paper again and seating herself near the Madame’s easy chair. “There are some articles here about the Centennial which I am sure will interest you.”

She read with an enthusiasm that was contagious.

“What a pity we should miss it all!” exclaimed the Madame at length. “There will never be another Centennial of our country in my lifetime, or even in yours.”

“No; and why should we not go, as well as others?” Ethel answered with suppressed eagerness.

“Impossible, in my invalid condition.”

“Aunt Nannette,” cried Ethel, throwing down the paper and clasping her hands together in her excitement, “people will be flocking there from all parts of the land and the civilized world. I have a presentiment that my mother will be there, and that we shall meet her if we go!”

“Child, child! do you really think it?” cried the Madame, starting up, then sinking back again upon her cushions panting and trembling.

“I do, Aunt Nannette, I do indeed! and we shall never, never have such another opportunity. And Espy, too, will be there – I know it, I feel it! He is an artist. Will he not have a picture to exhibit?”

“Yes, yes, I see it! we must go! But how can I? how can we manage it? I can never live in a hotel, never exist in a crowd; I should suffocate!” And the Madame wheezed and panted and wiped the perspiration from her face, while her huge frame trembled like a jelly, so great was her agitation.

“I will tell you, Aunt Nannette,” said Ethel, dropping on her knees and taking the shaking hands in hers, while she lifted to the Madame’s troubled, distressed face her own – sparkling, animated, fairly radiant with hope and gladness. “I have already planned it all, and Dr. Bland approves. There are furnished houses to let. We will write and engage one for the whole season – six or eight months – and we will take our servants with us and go directly there, leaving this house in the care of a trusty middle-aged couple I know. We will have our own carriage and horses, and drive about the beautiful park to our hearts’ content. We will go now, while there is no crowd, and, having plenty of time, can see everything we care to look at without fatiguing ourselves by attempting too much at once.”

“How rapid you are! Really, child, you almost take my breath away!” panted the Madame, shaking her head dubiously, though evidently attracted by the bright picture Ethel had drawn.

“But you will go? I may make the arrangements? Oh, think what it would be to find your long-lost sister!” said Ethel, pressing the hands she held, and gazing with pleading eyes into the Madame’s face.

“Yes, yes! but ah, the journey? how am I to accomplish that?”

Ethel reassured her on that point, overruled one or two other objections which she raised, and, not giving her time to retract her permission, hastened to her writing-desk and wrote a note to Mr. Tredick, asking him to call that day or the next, and an answer to an advertisement of a furnished house to let in West Philadelphia, which, from the description, she felt nearly certain would suit them, engaging the first refusal, promising to be on the spot within a week, and to take immediate possession should everything prove to be as represented.

Both notes were despatched as soon as written, a message sent to the persons in whose care Ethel proposed to leave their present residence, and then she returned to her aunt.

“And now Mary and I will overhaul the trunks and decide, with your help, auntie, what is to be taken with us and what left behind.”

“Child, child,” cried the Madame breathlessly, “how precipitate you are! Engaged to be in Philadelphia in a week! How are we to prepare in that short space of time?”

“No great amount of preparation needed, auntie dear,” laughed Ethel, throwing her arms about the Madame’s neck.

“Shopping, Pansy, dressmaking – ”

“Ah, we have loads of dresses already!” interrupted the girl in her most persuasive tones. “And think of the hundreds of stores and dressmakers and milliners in Philadelphia! Can’t we get everything we want there? Don’t let us carry too many coals to Newcastle,” she ended, with a silvery laugh that brought a smile to her aunt’s face in spite of herself.

Madame Le Conte’s inertia was compelled to give way before Ethel’s energetic persistence, and the girl carried her point. In a week they were cosily established in a very pleasant residence within easy walking distance of the great Centennial grounds.

CHAPTER XXXVI
REUNITED

 
“After long storms and tempests overblown,
The sun at length his joyous face doth clear.” —
 

Spenser.

Madame Le Conte had found the journey very fatiguing. For a few days she utterly refused to stir out of the house, indeed kept her room almost constantly, and would scarcely allow Ethel to go out of her sight.

This was hard on the young girl, for she was burning with impatience to be looking, not upon the rare and beautiful things brought together in the Exposition from all quarters of the earth, but for the loved one of whom she had been in quest for years. Was she there? should she see her? would they recognize each other? Ah, it seemed to her that until that dear one was found she should have no eyes for anything but the multitude of faces presented to her gaze. How could she wait? how endure the slow torture of passing hour after hour, and day after day, shut up with her invalid aunt, listening to her endless fretting and complaining, her reproaches for having brought her away from the home where she was so comfortable, the physician who so thoroughly understood her constitution, wearing her out with the long journey with really no object but a wild-goose chase after the unattainable; for now she was quite convinced that her sister would have been found long since had she been in the land of the living.

Ethel’s patience was sorely tried; her courage also, for it was difficult to keep hope alive in her own breast while compelled to hear an incessant repetition of these doleful prognostications.

But at last there was a rift in the cloud. Madame Le Conte woke one morning feeling rested and refreshed by her night’s sleep, and consequently in tolerable spirits, and Ethel succeeded in coaxing her into her carriage. They drove to and about the park, visited the Main Building, and the Madame spent a couple of hours in a rolling chair, and returned home delighted with her day’s experience.

She had no more reproaches for her niece on the score of having brought her to the great Exhibition almost against her will, but still maintained that there was no reasonable hope of finding her lost sister there.

Yet Ethel was not to be discouraged, but began every day with renewed hope that ere its close her long quest should be ended.

“Mother, mother! and Espy, my own Espy!” her heart kept whispering in the solitude of her own room, and as her eye moved from face to face in the streets, the cars, the buildings and grounds of the Exposition.

She wanted to be there every day, and all day, because there, as it seemed to her, she must find them; but her aunt could not bear the fatigue of constant attendance, and was not willing to be left at home till, to Ethel’s great joy, she came upon a lap-dog the exact counterpart of the lost Frisky in appearance, and with fully as great an aptitude for learning amusing little tricks; and the entertainment Madame Le Conte found in teaching and caressing him was sufficient to induce her to allow her niece occasionally to go out without her.

And those days when she was free from the care imposed by her aunt’s companionship, and at liberty to roam about at her own sweet will, were by far the most enjoyable to Ethel. She liked to lengthen them out, and had often eaten her breakfast and gone long before the Madame awoke from her morning nap, and sometimes the sun was near his setting when she returned.

She was interested in the exhibits, yet few faces of men or women that came within her range of vision escaped her observation. The main object of her coming was never absent from her mind; she pursued her search diligently, but at times physical weariness compelled her to pause and rest awhile.

On a lovely day early in June, after four or five hours spent in the usual manner, she turned aside from the vicinity of the hurrying crowds, and seeking out a cool, quiet retreat in a little dell by the side of a limpid stream of water, sat down on a bench in the shade of some weeping willows.

With her hands folded in her lap, her eyes upon the rivulet that went singing and dancing almost at her feet, she was thinking of her lost loved ones, and weighing the chances of meeting them, when some one sprang down the bank and pushed aside the drooping branches which half concealed her from view. Lifting her eyes, there was a simultaneous, joyous exclamation —

“Floy!”

“Espy!”

She hardly knew what followed – so sudden, so great was the glad surprise – but in another moment he was sitting by her side, her hand in his, one arm about her waist, while in an ecstasy of delight he gazed into her blushing, radiant face.

For a time their joy was beyond words; but what need of them? Was it not enough that they were together?

At last Espy spoke. His tones were low and pleading.

“Floy, darling, you will not send me from you again? It is true I have not gained my father’s consent (I have not even seen him or so much as heard from him for over two years), but I am no longer a child; am pushing my own way in the world, and since this thing will affect my happiness so much more nearly than his, and probably long after he has gone from earth, I cannot think it is required of us to wait for that.”

He paused, but the girl did not speak. Her eyes were on the ground, a soft blush suffused her cheek, and a slight smile trembled about her full red lips.

She perceived that Espy had heard nothing of her changed circumstances and the consequent alteration in his father’s feelings; and, for reasons of her own, she preferred that he should for the present remain in ignorance of these things; yet she could not drive him from her again, could not deny to him or herself the happiness that now might be lawfully theirs.

Besides, she felt that his reasoning was sound; that he was of age to choose for himself, and to disregard his father’s refusal to give consent.

“Floy, Floy, you will not, cannot be so cruel as to bid me begone?”

Espy’s voice was full of passionate entreaty, and his grasp tightened upon her hand.

“No, no, I cannot,” she faltered; “I cannot so reward such love and constancy as yours. When we last met you refused to accept your freedom, and – you – shall not have it now,” she concluded playfully, lifting a smiling, blushing face to his for an instant, then half averting it as she caught the look of ecstasy in his.

“Your willing slave for life, I hug my chain!” he cried in transport.

“Which means me, I suppose,” she laughed, for he drew his arm more closely about her as he spoke.

“A golden chain,” he whispered low and rapturously; “such fetters and warder as Fitz-James appointed for the Graeme.”

Another arch smile, and another swift, bewitching glance from the lustrous eyes, were the only reply vouchsafed him; but he seemed satisfied.

“Floy, my own little wife!” he whispered, bending over her to look into the blushing, happy face, “this moment repays me for all the loneliness, all the struggles of the past two years.”

Then he went on to tell of a long, weary, fruitless search for her.

He had returned to Chicago shortly after his mother’s death, hoping to learn her address from the Leas, but found their house closed and a bill of sale upon it. The newspapers told him of Mr. Lea’s defalcation and subsequent suicide, but he could not discover the whereabouts of the family, nor in any other way obtain a clue to the residence of her whom he was so anxiously seeking.

At length, abandoning its personal prosecution for the time, but engaging a friend to continue it for him, he went to Italy to pursue the study of his art, determined to make fame and money as a worthy offering to his “little love” when she should be found.

“It has been my dream by day and by night, dearest,” he said, “and has been partially realized. I have sold some pictures at very good prices, and am hoping much from some I have on exhibition here. If they do for me what I hope, I shall soon be able to make a home for you, where, God helping me,” he added low and reverently, “I will shield you from every evil and make your life as bright and joyous and free from care as that of any bird.”

How her heart went out to him in proud, fond appreciation as he said these words, his face, as he bent over her and looked into hers with his soulful eyes, all aglow with love and delight.

“But tell me,” he exclaimed as with sudden recollection, “how has it fared with you during all these long, weary months that we have been so far apart? Well, I trust, for you are looking in far better health than when I saw you last. But how came you here in Philadelphia? I hoped, yet called myself a fool for hoping, that I might find you here, for I could not suppose you had means to come, much as you might desire to do so.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “I did greatly desire to come, and a good Providence opened the way, Espy,” and she looked earnestly at him. “I have found the deed of gift, learned my true name, and discovered – no, not my mother,” as she saw the question in his eyes, “but her sister, who is now helping me in my search.”

“Oh, Floy, how glad I am! And I, too, will help!” he exclaimed. “Helping you to find your lost mother has always been a part of my dream, and I have been working to that end. I have thought that she, if living and prosperous, would come to this great Exhibition, this Centennial of our country, and the subjects for my pictures were chosen accordingly; I have painted for her eye more than for any other. But I shall not describe them,” he continued in response to her eager, inquiring look. “They were hung only this morning, and I will take you to see them.”

She rose hastily, but he drew her back.

“Not yet, Floy, darling! let us stay here a little longer. I think the crowd may lessen in the next hour, and there is so much I want to say to you – to ask you. What of this new-found relative – this aunt? Are you happy with her? is she kind to you?”

“She is very fond of me, and I have a good home with her,” Ethel answered, smiling brightly as she turned her face to him. “And she will be glad, very glad, to see you, Espy. I have told her the whole story of our acquaintance and engagement, and she is deeply interested for us both.”

He flushed with pleasure.

“Ah, Floy, my little love! our skies are brightening; the course of true love begins to run smooth. How glad I am for you!”

“Do you know,” she said gayly, “that you have not asked me my true name? though I told you I had found it.”

“Ah, yes; I want to hear it, and how and where you found the paper; but I think you must let me call you always by the name I have loved so dearly since we were mere babies. I think no other can ever sound so sweet to my ear.”

“I shall allow my willing slave to have his own way in this one thing,” she returned sportively. “I do not object to being Floy to you, though all others call me Ethel.”

“Ethel!” he said, “that is a sweet name too.”

“Yes; allow me to introduce myself. Mr. Alden, I am Ethel Farnese, sometimes called Pansy by my aunt – a pet name she had formerly bestowed upon my mother, the first Ethel Farnese.”

“I like that also,” he said, gazing with all a lover’s admiration into the sparkling, animated face. “You are rich in sweet names, as who has a better right?”

“Where is your curiosity?” she queried. “You have not even asked if I found the will.”

“No, to be sure! And you did?”

She shook her head. “I am quite convinced that it never existed.”

“I presume you are right there. But I have found my curiosity, and am burning with desire to hear how you came to discover the other paper, to find your aunt, and – and all the rest of it. You remember that I know absolutely nothing of your history from the time of your leaving Cranley to this, except the few moments that we were together in Mr. Lea’s library.”

“And I,” she returned, “am burning with desire to see those pictures, and to learn how they are to assist me in my quest. The story is too long to be told in an hour, Espy, with all the minute detail that I know you would require. So you shall have it at another time.”

“Will you let me see you home, and spend the evening with you?”

“Yes, if my aunt will spare me. She’s an invalid, and seems to value my society far beyond its real worth.”

“Then her estimate must be high indeed,” he responded in the same playful tone. “But since it is your wish, fair lady, I will now conduct you to the Art Gallery and show you the pictures.”

He led her out of the little dell up a flight of steps in the grassy bank, and together they traversed the winding paths and broad avenues that led to the Art Building, walking along side by side silently, yet only dimly conscious of the delicious summer air, the brilliant sunlight, the gay parterres, the crowds of people in the walks and passing up and down the broad, white marble steps of Memorial Hall as they ascended them.