The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals. Ann S. Stephens

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      "Now you mean to be unkind," said Clara, rising, with a warm flush in her cheeks; "I will not ask another favor of you."

      Clara gathered up her embroidery, and prepared to leave the sheltered seat in which this conversation had been held. She certainly was not acting now, for Closs saw that her eyes were full of tears.

      "Clara," he said, holding out both hands; "Clara, forgive me."

      She hesitated a minute, then set down her basket, and crept close to his side, wiping the tears with one hand, while he clasped the other. Then she snatched her hand away, and held it behind her.

      "No—I won't forgive you."

      "Not if I persuade Lady Hope to take you up to London for this appearance?"

      "Ah, then, perhaps."

      "And go with you myself?"

      "That will be splendid."

      "That Olympia is a magnificent creature. I took supper with her once in New York."

      "You, Mr. Closs! You took supper with her?"

      "She sang for us that night, divinely."

      "And you admire her so much?"

      "Very much."

      "Mr. Closs, I do not think I care to go. There is no need of your asking Lady Hope—I decline the whole thing."

      "Still, I think we will go, Clara, if it is only to show you how much a woman can be worshipped, and yet despised. Yes, yes, we will go and hear Olympia sing."

      But Clara was not to be so easily appeased. She gathered up her worsted and embroidery, huddled them together in her work-basket and went away, refusing to let Closs carry her basket, or even walk by her side.

      While he stood watching the haughty little thing, a voice from the other side of the cedar tree arrested him. He turned, and saw a face that had once been familiar, but which he could not at the moment recognize.

      The woman came forward with a startled look. She was evidently past thirty, and had an air of independence, which he had never seen in an English domestic.

      She came closer, their eyes met, and he knew that it was Maggie Casey, the chambermaid who had led him up to that death-chamber, the last time he visited it. She had recognized him from the first.

      "Mr. Hepworth," she said, in a low voice: "Mr. Hepworth!"

      Closs had almost been prepared for this, and did not allow himself to be taken by surprise.

      "You have got half the name right at any rate," he said, quietly; "Hepworth Closs, and you have it complete. You never could have heard it in full, when you lived in New York, I fancy."

      "Closs, Closs? No, I never heard that name given to you; but it once belonged to Lady Hope, I remember."

      "And of course, naturally belongs to her brother, my good girl," said Closs, with a quiet smile.

      "Her brother? Whose brother? Not the Lady that was—"

      The girl broke off, and her voice died in a low whisper.

      "No, no!" broke in the man, with sudden impatience; "that was a terrible thing, which you and I will be all the happier in forgetting. The poor woman who did it is suffering a hard penalty, if she is not in fact dead."

      "Yes, sir, yes; but how came her grandchild here? How came you there?"

      "Hush!" said Hepworth, in a voice of command, that startled the woman; "who gave you authority to ask such questions? What can you know about the old woman's grandchild?"

      "I know that the young lady who left you ten minutes ago was the little girl they called her grandchild. I saw the coroner holding the poor little thing up to look on the dead lady. I think that lady was her mother."

      "And have told her so, perhaps?"

      "No; I never did, and I never will. She called the old woman, Yates, grandmother; but I know better than that, for I know where her grandchild is this very minute."

      "You know her grandchild?"

      "Yes, I do, and a prettier creature never lived."

      "You know her, and will tell me?"

      "Indeed, I will do nothing of the sort," answered Margaret, for she had thrown off the jaunty abbreviation of her name. "There is something about all this that puzzles me. People that I never expected to see again keep crossing my path like ghosts, and somehow most of them have something to do with that time. Why can't the whole thing rest? I'm sure that poor old woman, Yates, has had her punishment, and I don't want to talk about what I don't understand."

      "You are wise," said Closs, whose face had lost all its cheerfulness; "there is no good in even thinking of a dead past, and, as you say, that poor old woman has her punishment. I am glad you have said nothing of these things to my sister, or Lady Clara."

      "Why should I?" said Margaret, with shrewd good sense: "what good would it do? In fact, what do I know? I only hope no such trouble will ever come to this house."

      "Heaven forbid!" said Closs, fervently, and the two parted.

CHAPTER IV.

       THE ITALIAN TEACHER.

       Table of Contents

      Lady Clara was right. Olympia had brought her daughter to London after a professional tour on the continent, not as her daughter. Olympia would not force herself to admit that the tall Juno-like girl, who outshone her in beauty, and rebuked her flippant grace by a dignity at once calm and regal, could, by any possibility, be her own offspring, at least as yet. She had arranged it with Brown that no public acknowledgment of Caroline's relationship should be made, and that she should pass as an adopted child or protege, at least until her success on the operatic stage was confirmed.

      Brown had stipulated, on his part, that the girl should receive her musical training in strict privacy, so far as that was possible, and, in no case, should be moved from his personal supervision, a condition that Olympia accepted with delight, for, after a month or two, she began to feel the presence of her cast-off husband something of a restraint, and regarded the quick growth and blooming loveliness of the young girl as almost a wrong to her own ripe beauty. Still she would not loosen her hold as a parent on the girl's life, but still hoped to reap a golden harvest from her talent, and sun her own charms, as they waned, in the splendor of her child's beauty.

      With these feelings, Olympia opened her campaign in Europe, and swept a brilliant career from France to Italy, and from thence to Austria and St. Petersburg, leaving Caroline with her guardian and maid, in a village near Florence, where she could perfect herself in Italian and music at the same time.

      There Caroline's life really began. They were staying at a pretty villa, terraced up from the banks of a bright little stream, that emptied itself into the Arno, so isolated and lonely, that it was perfect СКАЧАТЬ