"Don't you like to be surprised, Jim?" Josephine murmured, with a bewitching glance. After all, Jim, straight and handsome, with his merry eyes and the clean cut look about his mouth and chin, was the superior of any young man she had met in college or in New York. "No, I don't like you to surprise me," he returned. "I'm going to surprise you again tonight, Jim," she almost whispered. The surprise came just before the company broke up. It brought a flush hair in luxurious ease. Only a year ago Ellen Beck had loved Jim Ashdown. Josephine had reason to know that, and she believed that love had not grown cold. If she could open her uncle's eyes to the fact the victory would be hers. She laid down her comb and looked at herself in the mirror with a satisfied smile. It was only when she glanced below the glass at the portrait of her mother that her conscience was uneasy. Her mother was the one being on earth whom Josephine feared and revered, and it w as with a feeling of relief that she THE FLATIRON BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY. to Jim's cheeks and a queer expression to his eyes. "To please me, Jim," urged Josephine. "I want to see uncle tonight. You come down in the morning to visit me, but not now, please!" There was a puzzled look on Ellen Beck's face a few moments later when Jim approached her; there was a heavy frown on Bennett Henry's face as the two left the parlors together, but Josephine's face was serene as she took her uncle's arm and they walked home together. In her room the girl combed out her reflected that the case of Bennett Henry versus Josephine Henry would be quietly decided before her mother's return. In the morning Jim Ashdown called. Josephine received him on the broad front piazza, vine sheltered and perfumed with the scent of delicately tinted, overhanging apple blossoms. Jim had brought his horses. "The day is too beautiful to stay indoors," he cried presently. "Come out for a drive, Jo." Josephine shook her head languidly. She wore a long morning dress and reclined lazily in the hammock, a novel lying on its face beside her. She yawned. "I can't today, Jim. To tell the truth, I'm lazy. It got pretty hot down in New York before I left, and this piazza never seemed so cool and pleasant before." Josephine yawned again and clasped her hands beneath her head. "I'm too lazy even to go out on an errand this afternoon, but I must unless"-she looked around in sudden animation -"you will be glad enough to do it for me. "If it's anything I can do"-began Jim awkwardly. "It's the simplest thing to do in the world," the girl interrupted. "It's not to match dress goods or buy ribbons or anything of that kind. Mamma left a book here to be returned, a borrowed book. Will you take it back?" "Certainly," returned Jim, fingering his hat. "Where does it go?" "Away up to Ellen Beck's-such a long walk," added Josephine. "I tell you I am lazy." A few moments later Josephine occupied the piazza alone. Her uncle appeared at the corner of the house. "Jim," he cried and then stopped abruptly. "I thought Ashdown was here.' "He was, but he has gone. He went up to Ellen Beck's," Josephine answered from behind her book, and Bennett Henry turned and strode away without a word. That day was but the beginning. With great persistence, but with consummate tact and skill, Josephine monopolized her uncle's time and threw Jim Ashdown and Ellen Beck together. With secret exultation she watched Ellen's eyes kindle and her cheeks flush whenever Jim approached. With equal skill she warded off all attempts on her uncle's part-and they were many -to approach the subject of either Jim or Ellen. Her task was a peculiarly galling one to Josephine on account of its publicity as well as its difficulty. She was aware that the Alldale population was viewing her with marked interest. It was one afternoon when the July heat and people's curiosity, combined with the fear of ultimate failure had got badly on her nerves that she met Mrs. Brown. As has been hinted before, Josephine was not the warm admirer of Mrs. Brown that her mother was. Mrs. Brown assumed a right to pry into Josephine's affairs, which that young lady resented; hence when they met that afternoon Mrs. Brown calmly walked in where the other angels of Alldale feared to tread. She stopped and asked coolly: 46 Well, Josie, how do you like your uncle's choice?" My Josephine's eyes blazed. Her cheeks flushed. She spoke with a peculiar icy deliberation which always characterized her tones when she lost her self-possession. uncle's choice! If he knew her as well as I do he would see in her only defects to be endured where he now sees virtues!" "Josie Henry!" cried Mrs. Brown indignantly. "Shame on you for speaking like that!" And she shook one of Josephine's arms vigorously. "I know," continued Josephine, with a sneer, that she is a favorite of yours, but 66 then you do not know her as well as I do. Good afternoon." Ten minutes later, sitting in her room with hot cheeks and cold hands, she would have given weeks of her life to unsay those hasty, biting words. They would be repeated. If they should reach her uncle Josephine set her teeth. If they reached her mother- The girl gave a quick gasp. That thought stung. Her first fear was realized within a few days. She had not dreamed that her STATUE OF LIRERTY, NEW YORK CITY. jovial uncle could look at her with such angry eyes. She had not imagined that he could intrench himself behind so high a barrier that she could not scale it, and Josephine trembled before his overwhelming flood of silent displeasure and scorn. Things were in this unexpected state when she received a letter from her mother, bearing the unwelcome news of her homecoming. When Josephine read this she went up to her room, lay down and turned her face to the wall. Jane put her head in at the door. "Ellen Beck is downstairs, Miss Josephine. She wants to see you very particularly." "Send her up," replied Josephine, dully wondering what Ellen Beck, of all people, should want of her. When her caller entered she found the shades drawn and Josephine on the couch with a handkerchief, wet in camphor, held to her head. Ellen hesitated. "I am sorry your head aches," she said, with the uncertain air of one who does not know quite what to do. "Perhaps I'd better go away and come some other day, only" Ellen's face showed no resentment. Instead an expression of pity stole over it as she glanced at her hostess. Her cheeks were flushed; Josephine's were white. "I told him the same thing," she continued, "but he persisted in the request, and I came." "Suppose," said Josephine icily, "that you leave my uncle out of the question and tell me the object of your mission." Ellen raised her head with a dignity which became her fair, earnest face. "I BETHESDA FOUNTAIN, CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK CITY. vere, but I am coaxing it into good humor before mamma comes tonight." "Is your mother coming tonight?" "Yes." Ellen looked down a moment, playing with her handkerchief, and Josephine felt her heart give a leap which sent the blood crashing through her temples, for on the third finger of the other's left hand shone a diamond held by a slender circlet of gold. Suddenly Ellen looked up. She spoke in hesitating, gentle tones. "I have come on a most delicate mission, Josephine, but I have not come voluntarily. Mr. Henry requested it as a favor to himself, and I cannot refuse his requests." Josephine sat motionless, waiting, but her heart gave another suffocating leap. "He has asked me to come to you with will," she replied in a spirited tone. "Your uncle wished to be relieved of the painful necessity of telling you that he considered your attitude toward your mother cruelly unjust and that your accusations against her are arousing great indignation in the town" 66 My accusations!" interrupted Josephine. She sat up, gasping. Her white face flamed. "Are you insane, Ellen Beck? I think my mother is the noblest woman in the world!" "So do we," continued Ellen quietly. "Who has been telling contemptible lies about me?" demanded Josephine hotly. No one," said Ellen promply. "You yourself have said the most contemptible thing that has been uttered, and you said it plainly to Mrs. Brown." Josephine gave a cry and fell back among her pillows. Anger and utter bewilderment played over her face. Finally she burst out. "The remarks which I made to Mrs. Brown were made concerning-you!" There was a pause. A light leaped into Ellen's eyes, and her tone thrilled with suppressed feeling as she said: "The remarks were aimed at your uncle's fiancee, who, as the whole town knows, is your mother." "My mother!" The room swam before Josephine's wide eyes. A thousand incidents which she had misinterpreted adjusted themselves now. Her uncle's resentment when he had seen Jim with Ellen had been for his niece then, not for himself. Alldale's curiosity, Ellen's pity, her own cool rejection of her uncle's con man, grunted out a curt reply in the negative, and, opening the furnace door with his pole, flooded the place with light. It was Friday night. The clock in the front shop pointed to the quarter before five. In another ten minutes or so the men engaged at the engineering works of John H. Ransom & Co. would be paid off for the week. The money was already neatly done up in little paper bags with the name of the firm on them, and stacked in little rows in the office. Sandy MacTavish, having temporarily finished with the furnace, caught his "mate" in the act of getting into his coat. He looked at him in silent fury and burst into Scottish expletive: "Ay, dinna work a minut ower lang. A loon like you has mitchie important bees ness outside the shop. It wants ten minutes to the 'oor. If those bits o' piping are not staked-" The boy fled from him in dismay. The bits of pipe measured six feet in length and more, and he was due to play a cornet in a church band at six o'clock. He refused to touch the piping, and Sandy swore at him more lustily than before. Another man walking through the casting shed laughed as he listened to it all. It was Sandy's way of licking the boys into shape. Ronald Leslie, foreman fitter at Ransom's, came and stood beside the furnace too. "What's the row, Sandy?" he said. "Ronald, my lad," said the old man, "it's the old story; the young lads are not worth their salt. It's come in late if you can, go away early, sleep in the cupboard or on the roof whenever you think the old man's back is turned. Is that the way to keep your job, I'd like to know?" "Your job," said Ronald, with a shrug. "What's your job worth when you've kept it? Thirty-eight shillings a week won't keep a man out of the workhouse when he's old. Your job! The job that takes all your waking time, that gives you no leisure, to think, that-" "That winna let you sit down and spend your days fiddlin' wi' a toy that has nae mair sense in it than my poll." Leslie did not speak. Instead, he stared into the heart of the furnace. It may have been that he saw the realization of his dream there. "The idea's good," he said, "and if I could patent it-" "And if you could get any firm to tak' it up and work it for you. Ye canna do it, Ronald Leslie. And why? The thing's been tried before, man. You've got brains in your head. Canna you see that you're throwin' away time and money, and breaking a woman's heart?" The clock had struck now; the men from the brass shop came clattering down the stairs. Sandy got himself into his coat. "It's not only thirty-eight shillings a weeks you're throwin' away, Ronald, mind you that." He went to claim his money, and Ronald Leslie kicked at the scraps of iron and steel that strewed the floor. |