CHAPTER XLII.

In all her honest, hard-worked little life Miss Jessup had never done more honest, hard work than she was called upon to do on the day of the inauguration. She had written into the small hours the night before; she had described bunting and arches, evergreens and grand stands, the visiting regiments, club uniforms, bands, banners, torch-lights and speeches, and on the eventful day she was up with the dawn, arranging in the most practicable manner her plans for the day. With letters containing a full and dramatic description of the ceremonies to be written to four western papers, and with extra work upon the Washington weekly and daily, there was no time to be lost. Miss Jessup lost none. Each hour of the day was portioned off--each minute, almost. Now she was to take a glance at the procession from the steps of the Treasury; now she was to spend a few moments in a balcony overlooking another point; she was to see the oath administered, hear the President's address and form an estimate of his appreciation of the solemnity of the moment; she was to take his temperature during the afternoon, and be ready to greet him at the ball, and describe dresses, uniforms, decorations, flags, and evergreens again. Even as she took her hasty breakfast she was jotting down appropriate items, and had already begun an article, opening with the sentence, "Rarely has Washington witnessed a more brilliant spectacle," etc.

It could scarcely be said that she missed anything when she went her rounds later. No familiar face escaped her; she recognized people at windows, in carriages, on platforms. Among others she caught a glimpse of Mrs. Amory, who drove by on her way to the Capitol with her father and Jack and Janey.

"She looks a little tired about the eyes," thought Miss Jessup. "She has looked a little that way all the season, though she keeps going steadily enough. They work as hard as the rest of us, in their way, these society women. She will be at the ball to-night, I dare say."

Bertha herself had wondered if she would find herself there. Even as she drove past Miss Jessup, she was thinking that it seemed almost impossible; but she had thought things impossible often during the winter which had gone by, and had found them come to pass and leave her almost as before. Gradually, however, people had begun to miss something in her. There was no denying, they said, that she had lost some of her vivacity and spirit; some tone had gone from her voice; something of color from her manner. Perhaps she would get over it. Amory had not behaved well in the Westoria land affair, and she naturally felt his absence and the shadow under which he rested.

"Very gradually," she said to the professor once, "I think I am retiring from the world. I never was really very clever or pretty. I don't hide it so well as I used to, and people are finding me out. Often I am a little dull, and it is not likely they will forgive me that."

But she was not dull at home, or the professor never thought so. She was not dull now, as she pointed out objects of interest to Jack and Janey.

"I wish Uncle Philip were here!" cried Jack. "He would have his sword on and be in uniform, and he would look taller than all the rest,--taller than the President."

The day was very brilliant to the children; they were as indefatigable as Miss Jessup, and missed as little as if they had been in search of items. The blare of brazen instruments, the tramp of soldiers, the rattle of arms, the rushing crowds, the noise and color and excitement, filled them with rapture. When they finally reached home they were worn out with their delights. Bertha was not less fatigued; but, after the nursery was quiet and the children were asleep, she came down to dine with the professor.

"And we will go to the ball for an hour," she said. "We cannot submit to having it described to us for the next two weeks by people who were there."

The truth was that she could not sit at home and listen to the carriages rolling by, and watch the dragging hours with such memories as must fill them.

So at half-past ten she stood in her room, putting the last touches to her toilet, and shortly afterward she was driving with the professor toward the scene of the night's gayeties. She had seen the same scene on each like occasion since her eighteenth year. There was nothing new about it to-night; there was some change in dances and music, but the same types of people crowded against each other, looking on at the dancing, pointing out the President, asking the old questions, and making the old comments; young people whirled together in the centre of the ballroom, and older ones watched them, with some slight wonder at the interest they evinced in the exercise. Bertha danced only a few quadrilles. As she went through them she felt again what she had felt on each such occasion since the night of the ball of the last year,--the music seemed too loud, the people too vivacious, the gayety about her too tumultuous; though, judged by ordinary standards, there could have been no complaint against it.

But, notwithstanding this feeling, she lingered longer than she had intended, trying to hide from herself her dread of returning home. No one but herself knew--even the professor did not suspect--how empty the house seemed to her, and how its loneliness grew and grew until sometimes it overpowered her and became a sort of deadly presence. Richard's empty rooms were a terror to her; she never passed their closed doors without a shock.

At half-past twelve, however, she decided to go home. She had just ended a dance with a young _attaché_ of one of the legations; he was a brilliantly hued and graceful young butterfly, and danced and talked well. There had been a time when she had liked to hear his sharp, slightly satirical nonsense, and had enjoyed a dance with him. She had listened to-night, and had used her pretty smile at opportune moments; but she was glad to sit down again.

"Now," she said to him, "will you be so good as to find my father for me, and tell him I will go home?"

"I will, if I must," he answered. "But otherwise"--

"You will if you are amiable," she said. "I blush to own that I am tired. I have assisted in the inaugural ceremonies without flinching from their first step until their last, and I begin to feel that His Excellency is safe and I may retire."

He found her a quiet corner and went to do her bidding. She was partly shielded by some tall plants, and was glad of the retreat they afforded her. She sat and let her eyes rest upon the moving crowd promenading the room between the dances; the music had ceased, and she could catch snatches of conversation as people passed her. Among the rest were a pretty, sparkling-eyed girl and a young army officer who attracted her. She watched them on their way round the circle twice, and they were just nearing her for the second time when her attention was drawn from them by the sound of voices near her.

"Indian outbreak," she heard. "Tredennis! News just came in."

She rose from her seat. The speakers were on the other side of the plants. One of them was little Miss Jessup, the other a stranger, and Miss Jessup was pale with agitation and professional interest, and her note-book trembled in her little, bird-like hand.

"Colonel Tredennis!" she said. "Oh! I knew him. I liked him--every one did--every one! What are the particulars? Are they really authenticated? Oh, what a terrible thing!"

"We know very few particulars," was the answer; "but those we know are only too well authenticated. We shall hear more later. The Indians attacked a small settlement, and a party went from the fort to the rescue. Colonel Tredennis commanded it. The Indians were apparently beaten off, but returned. A little child had been left in the house, through some misunderstanding, and Tredennis heard it crying as the Indians made their second attack, and went after it. He was shot as he brought it out in his arms."

Little Miss Jessup burst into tears and dropped her note-book.

"Oh!" she cried. "He was a good, brave man! He was a good man!"

The band struck up a waltz. The promenading stopped; a score or two of couples took their place upon the floor, and began to whirl swiftly past the spot where Bertha stood; the music seemed to grow faster and faster, and louder, and still more loud.

Bertha stood still.

She had not moved when the professor came to her. He himself wore a sad, grief-stricken face; he had heard the news too; it had not taken it long to travel around the room.

"Take me home," she said to him. "Philip is dead! Philip has been killed!"

He took her away as quickly as he could through the whirling crowd of dancers, past the people who crowded, and laughed, and listened to the music of the band.

"Keep close to me!" she said. "Do not let them see my face!"

When they were shut up in the carriage together she sat shuddering for a moment, he shuddering, also, at the sight of the face he had hidden; then she trembled into his arms, clung to his shoulder, cowered down and hid herself upon his knee, slipped down kneeling upon the floor of the carriage, and clung to him with both her arms.

"I never told you that I was a wicked woman," she said. "I will tell you now; always--always I have tried to hide that it was Philip--Philip!"--

"Poor child!" he said. "Poor, unhappy--most unhappy child!" All the strength of her body seemed to have gone into the wild clasp of her slender arms.

"I have suffered," she said. "I have been broken; I have been crushed. I knew that I should never see him again, but he was alive. Do you think that I shall some day have been punished enough?"

He clasped her close to his breast, and laid his gray head upon her brown one, shedding bitter tears.

"We do not know that this is punishment," he said.

"No," she answered. "We do not know. Take me home to my little children. Let me stay with them. I will try to be a good mother--I will try"--

She lay in his arms until the carriage stopped. Then they got out and went into the house. When they closed the door behind them, and stood in the hall together, the deadly silence smote them both. They did not speak to each other. The professor supported her with his arm as they went slowly up the stairs. He had extinguished the light below before they came up. All the house seemed dark but for a glow of fire-light coming through an open door on the first landing. It was the door Philip Tredennis had seen open the first night when he had looked in and had seen Bertha sitting in her nursery-chair with her child on her breast.

There they both stopped. Before the professor's eyes there rose, with strange and terrible clearness, the vision of a girl's bright face looking backward at him from the night, the light streaming upon it as it smiled above a cluster of white roses. And it was this that remained before him when, a moment afterward, Bertha went into the room and closed the door.

THE END.

THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF

Frances Hodgson Burnett

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS

"_We have no hesitation in saying that there is no living writer (man or woman) who has Mrs. Burnett's dramatic power in telling a story_."--N. Y. HERALD.

In Connection with

The De Willoughby Claim

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Mrs. Burnett's new novel is a literary event of the highest importance. From first to last one reads on with breathless interest of the winning of the great claim which was to reinstate good-natured "Big Tom" De Willoughby in his birthright. Interwoven with it is the story of a woman deceived by the man of whom the world would have least expected it, his identity being effectually concealed till the terrible revelation of the dramatic final chapters. The fate of the heartless fanatic who stood nearest the loving couple, brutal in his loyalty to his idea of the right, has a dramatic significance which is intensified in the light of his past conduct.

As if to compensate, however, for the mother's grief, her child survives her; and in this beautiful child-life Mrs. Burnett has added another charming portrait to her gallery of juvenile characters. How Tom De Willoughby's life was saved from blackness and desolation and made to overflow with happiness--this the reader will learn for himself.

The tragedy of the story, intensified by the contrast of the fanatical New England temper with Southern chivalry and kindness, is not its only side. The love between a beautiful, romantic child and a strong man who is her protector fills the book with a sweetness that matches its dramatic fire.

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The Dawn of a Tomorrow

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His Grace of Osmonde

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A Lady of Quality

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The One I Knew the Best of All

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NOVELS BY MRS. BURNETT

That Lass o' Lowrie's

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Haworth's

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Through One Administration

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A Fair Barbarian

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Giovanni and the Other

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