her broom."
"Never mind; you will like him," rejoined my mother.
I certainly had every chance to like him. For three days he was a constant visitor at our house. He accompanied mother and myself on a drive along Broadway and out on the avenue. I enjoyed the excitement of Broadway and the fresh air of the country, but—Mr. Wareham was by my side, talking pleasantly, even eloquently, and looking all the while as if he would like to eat me. We went to the opera, and for the first time, the fairy world of the stage was disclosed to me. I was enchanted—the lights, the costumes, the music, the circle of youth and beauty, all wrapt me in a delicious dream, but—close by my side was Mr. Wareham, his eyes expanded and his lip protruding. I thought of the Arabian Nights and was reminded of a well-dressed Ghoul. I began to hate the man. On the fourth day he brought me a handsome bracelet, glittering with diamonds, which my mother bade me accept, and on the fifth day I hated him with all my soul. There was an influence about him which repelled me and made me afraid.
It was the sixth night in my new home, and in my night-dress, I was seated on the edge of my bed, the candle near, and my mother by my side. She had entered the room with a serious and even troubled face. The wrinkle was marked deep between her brows. Fixing my lace cap on my head and smoothing my curls with a gentle pressure of her hand, she looked at me long and anxiously but in silence.
"O, mother!" I said, "when will we visit 'father,'—and good old Alice, and—Ernest? I am so anxious to see my home again!"
"You must forget that home," said my mother gravely. "You will shortly be surrounded by new ties and new duties. Nay, do not start and look at me with so much wonder. I see that I must be plain with you. Listen to me, Frank. Who owns this house?"
"It is yours!"
"The pictures, the gold plate, the furniture worthy of such a palace?"
"Yours—all yours, mother."
"Who purchased the dresses and the diamonds which you wear—dresses and diamonds worthy of a queen?"
"You did, mother—of course," I hesitated.
"Wrong, Frank, all wrong!" and her eyes shone vividly, and the mark between her brows grew blacker. "The house which shelters you, the furniture which meets your gaze, the dresses which clothe you, and the diamonds which adorn your person, are the property of—Mr. Wareham."
It seemed to me as if the floor had opened at my feet.
"O, mother! you are jesting," I faltered.
CHAPTER XII.
A REVELATION.
"I am a beggar, child, and you are a beggar's daughter. It is to Mr. Wareham that we are indebted for all that we enjoy. For years he has paid the expenses of your education; and now that you have grown to young womanhood he shelters you in a palace, surrounds you with splendor that a queen might envy, and not satisfied with this—"
She paused and fixed her eyes upon my face, I know that I was frightfully pale.
"Offers you his hand in marriage."
For a moment the light, the mirrors, the roof itself swam round me, and I sank half-fainting in my mother's arms.
"O! this is but a jest, a cruel jest to frighten me. Say, mother, it is a jest!"
"It is not a jest; it is sober, serious earnest;" and she raised me sternly from her arms. "He has offered his hand, and you will marry him."
I flung myself on my knees at the bedside, clasped her hands, and as my night-dress fell back from my shoulders and bosom, I told her, with sobs and tears, of my love for Ernest, and my engagement with him.
"Pshaw! A poor clergyman's son," she said bitterly.
"O, let us leave this place, mother!" I cried, still pressing her hands to my bosom. "You say that we are poor. Be it so. We will find a home together in the home of my childhood. Or if that fails us, I will work for you. I will toil from sun to sun and all night long—beg—do anything rather than marry this man. For, mother, I cannot help it—but I do hate him with all my soul."
"Pretty talk, very pretty!" and she loosened her hands from my grasp; "but did you ever try poverty, my child? Did you ever know what the word meant—poverty? Did you ever work sixteen hours a day, at your needle, for as many pennies, walk the streets at dead of winter in half-naked feet, and go for two long days and nights without a morsel of food? Did you ever try it, my child? That's the life which poor widows and their pretty daughters live in New York, my dear."
"But Ernest loves me—he will make his way in life—we will be married—you will share our home, dear mother."
These words rendered her perfectly furious. She started up and uttered a frightful oath—it was the first time I had ever heard an oath from a woman's lips. Her countenance for a moment was fiendish. She assailed me with a torrent of reproaches, concluding thus:
"And this is your gratitude for the care, the anxiety, the very agony of a mother's anxiety, which I have endured on your account for years! In return for all you condemn me to—poverty! But it shall not be. One of us must bend, and that one will not be me. I swear, girl,"—her brows were knit, she was lividly pale, and she raised her right hand to heaven—"that you shall marry this man."
"And I swear,"—I bounded to my feet, my bosom bare, and the blood boiling in my veins—perchance it was the same blood which gave my mother her fiery temper—"I swear that I will not marry him as long as there is life in me. Do you hear me, mother? Before I marry that miserable wretch, whose very presence fills me with loathing, I will fall a corpse at your feet."
My words, my attitude took her by surprise. She surveyed me silently but was too much enraged to speak.
"O, that my father was living!" I cried, the fit of passion succeeded by a burst of tears; "he would save me from this hideous marriage."
My mother quietly drew a letter from her bosom and placed it open in my hand.
"Your father is living. That letter is the last one I have received from him. Read it, my angel."
I took it—it was very brief—I read it at a glance. It was addressed to my mother, and bore a recent date. These were its contents:
"Dear Frank:
"My sentence expires in two weeks from to-day. Send me some decent clothes, and let me know where I will meet you. Glad to hear that your plans as regards our daughter approach a 'glorious' completion.
"Yours as ever,
"Charles."
It was a letter from a convict in Auburn prison—and that convict was my father!
"It is false; my father died years ago," I cried in very agony. "This is not from my father."
"It is from your father," answered my mother; "and unless I send him the clothes which he asks for, you will see him, in less than three weeks, in his convict rags."
"O, mother! are you human? A mother to taunt her own daughter with her father's shame—"
My temples throbbed madly and my sight failed. All that mortal can endure and be conscious, I had endured. I sank on the floor, and had not my mother caught me in her arms, I would have wounded my forehead against the marble table.
All night long, half waking, half delirious, I tossed on my silken couch mingling the name of my convict father and of Ernest in my broken exclamations. Once I was conscious for a moment and looked around with clear eyes. My mother was watching over me. Her face was bathed in tears. She was human after all. That moment past, the delirium returned and I struggled with horrible dreams