Maggie Miller. Mary Jane Holmes

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      If Maggie was to be censured, Madam Conway chose to do it herself; and on such occasions she would answer: "'Low-bred,' Mrs. Jeffrey, is not a proper term to apply to Margaret. She's a little wild, I admit, but no one with my blood in their veins can be low-bred;" and, in her indignation at the governess, Madam would usually forget to reprove her granddaughter when she came back from her ride, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining like stars with the healthful exercise. Throwing herself upon a stool at her grandmother's feet, Maggie would lay her head upon the lap of the proud lady, who very lovingly would smooth the soft, shining hair, "so much like her own," she said.

      "Before you had to color it, you mean, don't you, grandma?" the mischievous Maggie would rejoin, looking up archly to her grandmother, who would call her a saucy child, and stroke still more fondly the silken locks.

      Wholly unlike Maggie was Theo, a pale-faced, fair-haired girl, who was called pretty, when not overshadowed by the queenly presence of her more gifted sister. And Theo was very proud of this sister, too; proud of the beautiful Maggie, to whom, though two years her junior, she looked for counsel, willing always to abide by her judgment; for what Maggie did must of course be right, and grandma would not scold. So if at any time Theo was led into error, Maggie stood ready to bear the blame, which was never very severe, for Mrs. Jeffrey had learned not to censure her too much, lest by so doing she should incur the displeasure of her employer, who in turn loved Maggie, if it were possible, better than the daughter whose name she bore, and whom Maggie called her mother. Well kept and beautiful was the spot where that mother lay, and the grave was marked by a costly marble which gleamed clear and white through the surrounding evergreens. This was Maggie's favorite resort, and here she often sat in the moonlight, musing of one who slept there, and who, they said, had held her on her bosom when she died.

      At no great distance from this spot was another grave, where the grass grew tall and green, and where the headstone, half sunken in the earth, betokened that she who rested there was of humble origin. Here Maggie seldom tarried long. The place had no attraction for her, for rarely now was the name of Hester Hamilton heard at the old stone house, and all save one seemed to have forgotten that such as she had ever lived. This was Hagar Warren, who in her cottage by the mine has grown older and more crazy-like since last we saw her. Her hair, once so much like that which Madam Conway likens to her own, has bleached as white as snow, and her tall form is shriveled now, and bent. The secret is wearing her life away, and yet she does not regret what she has done. She cannot, when she looks upon the beautiful girl who comes each day to her lonely hut, and whom she worships with a species of wild idolatry. Maggie knows not why it is, and yet to her there is a peculiar fascination about that strange old woman, with her snow-white hair, her wrinkled face, her bony hand, and wild, dark eyes, which, when they rest on her, have in them a look of unutterable tenderness.

      Regularly each day, when the sun nears the western horizon, Maggie steals away to the cottage, and the lonely woman, waiting for her on the rude bench by the door, can tell her bounding footstep from all others which pass that way. She does not say much now herself; but the sound of Maggie's voice, talking to her in the gathering twilight, is the sweetest she has ever heard; and so she sits and listens, while her hands work nervously together, and her whole body trembles with a longing, intense desire to clasp the young girl to her bosom and claim her as her own. But this she dare not do, for Madam Conway's training has had its effect, and in Maggie's bearing there is ever a degree of pride which forbids anything like undue familiarity. And it was this very pride which Hagar liked to see, whispering often to herself, "Warren blood and Conway airs—the two go well together."

      Sometimes a word or a look would make her start, they reminded her so forcibly of the dead; and once she said involuntarily: "You are like your mother, Maggie. Exactly what she was at your age."

      "My mother!" answered Maggie. "You never talked to me of her; tell me of her now. I did not suppose I was like her in anything."

      "Yes, in everything," said old Hagar; "the same dark eyes and hair, the same bright red cheeks, the same—"

      "Why, Hagar, what can you mean?" interrupted Maggie. "My mother had light blue eyes and fair brown hair, like Theo. Grandma says I am not like her at all, while old Hannah, the cook, when she feels ill-natured and wishes to tease me, says I am the very image of Hester Hamilton."

      "And what if you are? What if you are?" eagerly rejoined old Hagar. "Would you feel badly to know you looked like Hester?" and the old woman bent anxiously forward to hear the answer: "Not for myself, perhaps, provided Hester was handsome, for I think a good deal of beauty, that's a fact; but it would annoy grandma terribly to have me look like a servant. She might fancy I was Hester's daughter, for she wonders every day where I get my low-bred ways, as she calls my liking to sing and laugh and be natural."

      "And s'posin' Hester was your mother, would you care?" persisted

       Hagar.

      "Of course I should," answered Maggie, her large eyes opening wide at the strange question. "I wouldn't for the whole world be anybody but Maggie Miller, just who I am. To be sure, I get awfully out of patience with grandma and Mrs. Jeffrey for talking so much about birth and blood and family, and all that sort of nonsense, but after all I wouldn't for anything be poor and work as poor folks do."

      "I'll never tell her, never," muttered Hagar; and Maggie continued: "What a queer habit you have of talking to yourself. Did you always do so?"

      "Not always. It came upon me with the secret," Hagar answered inadvertently; and eagerly catching at the last word, which to her implied a world of romance and mystery, Maggie exclaimed: "The secret, Hagar, the secret! If there's anything I delight in it's a secret!" and, sliding down from the rude bench to the grass-plat at Hagar's feet, she continued: "Tell it to me, Hagar, that's a dear old woman. I'll never tell anybody as long as I live. I won't, upon my word," she continued, as she saw the look of horror resting on Hagar's face; "I'll help you keep it, and we'll have such grand times talking it over. Did it concern yourself?" and Maggie folded her arms upon the lap of the old woman, who answered in a voice so hoarse and unnatural that Maggie involuntarily shuddered, "Old Hagar would die inch by inch sooner than tell you, Maggie Miller, her secret."

      "Was it, then, so dreadful?" asked Maggie half fearfully, and casting a stealthy glance at the dim woods, where the night shadows were falling, and whose winding path she must traverse alone on her homeward route. "Was it, then, so dreadful?"

      "Yes, dreadful, dreadful; and yet, Maggie, I have sometimes wished you knew it. You would forgive me, perhaps. If you knew how I was tempted," said Hagar, and her voice was full of yearning tenderness, while her bony fingers parted lovingly the shining hair from off the white brow of the young girl, who pleaded again, "Tell it to me, Hagar."

      There was a fierce struggle in Hagar's bosom, but the night wind, moving through the hemlock boughs, seemed to say, "Not yet—not yet"; and, remembering her vow, she answered: "Leave me, Maggie Miller, I cannot tell you the secret. You of all others. You would hate me for it, and that I could not bear. Leave me alone, or the sight of you, so beautiful, pleading for my secret, will kill me dead."

      There was command in the tones of her voice, and rising to her feet Maggie walked away, with a dread feeling at her heart, a feeling which whispered vaguely to her of a deed of blood—for what save this could thus affect old Hagar? Her road home led near the little burying-ground, and impelled by something she could not resist she paused at her mother's grave. The moonlight was falling softly upon it; and, seating herself within the shadow of the monument, she sat a long time thinking, not of the dead, but of Hagar and the strange words she had uttered. Suddenly, from the opposite side of the graveyard, there came a sound as of someone walking; and, looking up, Maggie saw approaching her the bent figure of the old woman, who seemed unusually excited. Her first impulse was to fly, but СКАЧАТЬ