Chapter 21

IT IS SO HARD FOR A YOUNG GIRL TO FACE THE WORLD ALONE.

"Help! help!" the words echoed sharp and clear again through the frosty morning air, and this time the man walking hurriedly along the road heard it distinctly, paused, and turned a very startled face toward the river.

It required but a glance to take in the terrible situation; the young girl stretched at full length on the ice, holding by main strength, something above the aperture in the ice; it was certainly a woman's head.

"Courage, courage!" he cried in a voice like a bugle blast. "Help is at hand! Hold on!" And in less time than it takes to tell it, he had reached the girl's side.

"Save her, save her!" gasped Margaret Moore. "My hands are frozen; I can not hold on any longer;" and with this she sunk back unconscious, and the burden she held would have slipped from her cramped fingers back into the dark, cold waves had not the stranger caught it in time. It required all his strength, however, to draw the body, slim though it was, from the water.

One glance at the marble-white face, and he uttered a little cry:

"Great Heaven! if it isn't Jessie Bain!"

Laying his dripping burden on the bank, the man lost no time in dragging Margaret Moore back from her perilous position; then the stranger, who was a fisherman, summoned assistance, and the two young girls were quickly carried back to the cottage, and a neighbor called in.

Jessie was the first to recover consciousness. She had suffered a terrible shock, a severe chill, but the blood of youth bounded quickly in her veins. Save a little fever, which was the natural result of the counter-action, she was none the worse for her thrilling experience.

With Margaret Moore it was different. The doctor who had been called in shook his head gravely over her condition.

"It may be a very serious matter," he said, slowly; "it may result in both hands having to be amputated, leaving her a cripple for life. Deranged and a cripple!" he added, pityingly, under his breath. "It would be better far if the poor thing were to die than to drag out the existence marked out for her."

"You will do all that you possibly can to save her hands?" said Captain Carr, anxiously.

"Yes, certainly," returned the doctor, "all that it is possible to do."

Jessie Bain's gratitude knew no bounds when she learned how near she had come to losing her life, and that she owed her rescue to the heroism of faithful Margaret Moore. She wept as she had never wept before when she discovered how dearly it might cost poor Margaret.

Alas! how true it is that trouble never comes singly! At this crisis of affairs, Captain Carr suddenly succumbed to a malady that had been troubling him for years, and Jessie Bain found herself thrown homeless, penniless upon the world. She was thankful that poor Margaret Moore did not realize the calamity that had overtaken her. That humble cottage roof which had sheltered her so long would cover her head no more.

"There is only one thing to be done, and that is to place the girl in an asylum," the neighbors advised.

This Jessie Bain stoutly declared she never would do as long as she had two hands to work for the unfortunate girl.

"I shall turn all my little possessions into money," she declared, "and go immediately to New York City and find something to do. She shall go with me and share my fortunes; my last crust of bread I will divide with her."

Every one thanked Heaven that by almost a miracle Margaret Moore's hands were saved to her.

A few days later Jessie Bain bid adieu forever to Fisher's Landing, accompanied by the girl who followed her so patiently out into the world.

How strange it is that New York City is generally the objective point for the poor and friendless in search of employment.

The journey to the great metropolis was a long one. They reached there just as the sun was sinking.

The first thing to be thought of was shelter. Inquiring in the drug store opposite the depot, she found that there was a small boarding-house down the first cross-street.

Jessie soon found the street and number to which she had been directed. A pleasant-faced maid opened the door. She was immediately shown into the parlor, and a brisk, bustling little woman soon put in an appearance.

She looked curiously at the two pretty young girls when she learned their errand.

"This is a theatrical boarding-place," she said, "and all of our rooms are full save two, and they are to be occupied on the twentieth. You might have them up to that time, I suppose," she added, unwilling to let the chance of making a few extra dollars go by her. "Or perhaps you and your sister could make the smaller one do for both."

"We could indeed!" eagerly assented Jessie.

She had noticed that the woman had called Margaret Moore her sister, and she said to herself that perhaps it would be as well to let it go at that, as it would certainly save much explanation.

And then again, if the landlady knew that her companion had lost her reason, she would never allow them to stay there over night, no matter how harmless she might be.

Jessie started out bright and early the next morning to search for employment, cautioning Margaret over and over again not to quit the room, and to answer no questions that might be put to her. After the first day's experience, she returned, heartsick and discouraged, to the boarding-house.

"Didn't find anything to do, eh?" remarked the landlady, sympathetically, as she met her at the door.

"No," said Jessie; "but I hope to meet with better luck to-morrow."

"Why don't you try to get on the stage," said Mrs. Tracy, patting the girl's shoulder. "You are young, and, to tell you the truth, you've an uncommonly pretty face."

"The stage?" echoed Jessie. "Why, I was never on the stage in all my life. What could I do on the stage?"

"You would make your fortune," declared the woman, "if you were clever. And there's your sister, too, she is almost as pretty as yourself. She'd like it, I am sure."

At that moment a woman who was passing hurriedly through the dimly lighted hall stopped short.

"What is this I hear, Mrs. Tracy?" she exclaimed. "Are you advising your new boarders, those two pretty, young girls, to go on the stage?"

"Yes," returned the other. "They are looking for work, and drudgery would be such hardship for them. And to tell the exact truth, Manager Morgan of the Society Belle Company, who is stopping with me, told me he would find a place in his company for her if she would leave her sister and go out on the road; and, furthermore, that he would push her, and take great pains in learning her all the stage business."

That evening, by his eager request, the manager was introduced to Jessie Bain.

He told a story so glowing, Jessie felt sorely tempted to accept his offer of a position on the stage. He promised her such a wonderful large salary and such grand times that she was surprised. Jessie's only objection in not accepting the offer was the thought that she should be parted from Margaret, which, the manager assured her, would have to be, as he had no room in his company for two.

"You can board her right here at Mrs. Tracy's," he suggested, "as your salary will be ample to pay for her. It is a chance that not one girl out of a thousand ever gets. You must realize that fact."

"Do you think I had better accept it, Mrs. Tracy?" asked Jessie.

"Indeed, I shouldn't hesitate," was the reply. "I'm not a theatrical person myself, although I do keep this boarding-house for them, and I don't know much about life behind the foot-lights, only as I hear them tell about it; but if I were in your place, it seems to me that I should accept it. If you don't like it, or get something better, it's easy enough to make a change, you know."

Jessie took this view of the case, too, and she signed a contract with the manager of the theatrical company.

"I hope I shall have a good part in the play," said Jessie, anxiously; "and, believe me, I will do my best to make it a success."

"Your face alone will insure that," said Manager Morgan, with a bland smile that might have warned the girl. "I will cast you for the lovely young heiress in the play. You will wear fine dresses and look charming. The part will suit you exactly."

"But I have no fine clothes," said Jessie, much down-hearted.

"Do not let such a little matter as that trouble you, I pray," he said gallantly. "I will advance you the required amount; you can pay me when you like."

Jessie said to herself that she had never met so kind a gentleman, and her gratitude was accordingly very great.

The next morning she was waited upon by a French _modiste_, who seemed to know just what she required, and a few days later, half a dozen dresses, so gorgeous that they fairly took Jessie Bain's breath away, were sent up to her.

She tried to explain to Margaret, who had settled down into a strange and unaccountable apathy, all about her wonderful good luck; but she answered her with only vacant monosyllables. And knowing that part of the truth must be told sooner or later, Jessie was forced to admit to Mrs. Tracy that Margaret had lost her reason, but that she was by no means harmful.

"That is no secret to me," responded Mrs. Tracy. "Every one in the boarding-house thought that from the first day you came here, though you tried hard to hide her malady from us. And I repeat my offer, that you can leave your sister in my charge, and I will do my very best for her. Let me tell you why," she added, in a low voice. "I had a daughter of my own once who looked very like your sister Margaret. She lost her reason because of an unhappy love affair, and she drooped and died. For her sake my heart bleeds with pity for any young girl whose reason has been dethroned. God help her!"

So it was settled that Margaret was to remain with Mrs. Tracy.

"After a few rehearsals you will get to know what you have got to do, quite well," said Manager Morgan, as he handed Jessie her part to learn. "Our company has been called together very hurriedly. We expected that it would be fully a month later ere rehearsals would begin and our members be called together. I have the same people who were with me last year, all save the young lady whose place you take, and they are all well up in their parts and don't need rehearsals. We go out on the road in one week more. I shall have to coach you in your part."

The handsome Mr. Morgan made himself most agreeable during those days of rehearsal, and if Jessie Bain's heart had not been entirely frozen by the frost of that earlier love for Hubert Varrick, which had come to such a bitter ending, she might have fancied this handsome, dandified manager.

The company were to open their season at Albany, and at last the day arrived for Mr. Morgan and Jessie to start.

There was to be just one rehearsal the following forenoon, and the next evening the play was to be produced.

It was a bitter trial for Jessie to leave Margaret alone there; but the bitterest blow of all was that she could not make Margaret understand that they were to be separated from each other for many long weeks.

It was snowing hard when the train steamed into Albany. Mr. Morgan, who had gone up by an earlier train, met her at the depot.

"We will go right to the theater," he said; "the remainder of the company are there; they are all waiting for us."

Jessie felt a little disappointed at not getting a cup of good hot tea; but she was too timid to mention it.

A dozen or more faces were eagerly turned toward them when they entered the theater. Four very much over-dressed young women, sitting in a group and laughing rather hilariously, and half a dozen long-ulstered, curly-mustached _blasé_-appearing gentlemen, stared boldly at the timid, shrinking young girl whom Manager Morgan led forward.

"Our new leading lady, Miss Jessie Bain," he announced, briefly; adding quickly after this general introduction: "Clear the stage every one who is not discovered in the first act."

The way these gentlemen and ladies fairly flew into the wings astonished Jessie. They acted more like frightened children, afraid of a school-master than like ladies and gentlemen who were great heroes and heroines of the drama. Jessie stood quite still, not a little bewildered.

"Excuse me; but were you ever on before?" asked one of the girls, eyeing Jessie curiously.

"No," she answered; "but I do hope I will get along. I am very anxious to learn."

At this there was a great deal of suppressed tittering, which rather nettled Jessie.

"You must have wonderful confidence in yourself to attempt to play your part to-night, with only this one rehearsal. Aren't you afraid you will get stage-frightened?"

"I used to take part in all the entertainments that we used to give at home in the little village I came from. Once I had a very long part, and I always had an excellent memory."

"Let me give you a little word of advice," said the girl, who introduced herself as Mally Marsh, linking her arm in Jessie's and drawing her into one of the dark recesses of the wings, where they were quite alone together. "Did you see the girl in the sealskin coat who sat at my right as you came up? I want to tell you about her."