<h2><SPAN name="EPILOGUE" id="EPILOGUE"></SPAN>EPILOGUE</h2>
<h3>SOME STRAY LEAFLETS FROM AN OLD DIARY OF ALTHEA KNOLLYS, FOUND BY ME IN THE PACKET LEFT IN MY CHARGE BY HER DAUGHTER LUCETTA.</h3>
<p>I never thought I should do so foolish a thing as begin a diary. When in
my boarding-school days (which I am very glad to be rid of) I used to
see Meeley Butterworth sit down every night of her life over a little
book which she called the repository of her daily actions, I thought
that if ever I reached that point of imbecility I would deserve to have
fewer lovers and more sense, just as she so frequently advised me to.
And yet here I am, pencil in hand, jotting down the nothings of the
moment, and with every prospect of continuing to do so for two weeks at
least. For (why was I born such a chatterbox!) I have seen my fate, and
must talk to some one about him, if only to myself, nature never having
meant me to keep silence on any living topic that interests me.</p>
<p>Yes, with lovers in Boston, lovers in New York, and a most determined
suitor on the other side of our own home-walls in Peekskill, I have
fallen victim to the grave face and methodical ways of a person I need
not name, since he is the only gentleman in this whole town, except—But
I won't except anybody. Charles Knollys has no peer here or anywhere,
and this I am ready to declare, after only one sight of his face and one
look from his eye, though to no one but you, my secret, non-committal
confidant—for to acknowledge to any human being that my admiration
could be caught, or my heart touched, by a person who had not sued two
years at my feet, would be to abdicate an ascendency I am so accustomed
to I could not see it vanish without pain. Besides, who knows how I
shall feel to-morrow? Meeley Butterworth never shows any hesitation in
uttering her opinion either of men or things, but then her opinion never
changes, whilst mine is a very thistle-down, blowing hither and thither
till I cannot follow its wanderings myself. It is one of my charms,
certain fools say, but that is nonsense. If my cheeks lacked color and
my eyes were without sparkle, or even if I were two inches taller
instead of being the tiniest bit of mortal flesh to be found amongst all
the young ladies of my age in our so-called society, I doubt if the
lightness of my mind would meet with the approbation of even the warmest
woman-lovers of this time. As it is, it just passes, and sometimes, as
to-night, for instance, when I can hardly see to inscribe these lines on
this page for the vision of two grave, if not quietly reproving eyes
which float between it and me, I almost wish I had some of Meeley's
responsible characteristics, instead of being the airiest, merriest, and
most volatile being that ever tried to laugh down the grandeur of this
dreary old house with its century of memories.</p>
<p>Ah! that allusion has given me something to say. This house. What is
there about it except its size to make a stranger like me look back
continually over her shoulder in going down the long halls, or even when
nestling comfortably by the great wood-fire in the immense drawing-room?
<i>I</i> am not one of your fanciful ones; but I can no more help doing this,
than I can help wishing Judge Knollys lived in a less roomy mansion with
fewer echoing corners in its innumerable passages. <i>I</i> like brightness
and cheer, at least in my surroundings. If I must have gloom, or a
seriousness which some would call gloom, let me have it in individuals
where there is some prospect of a blithe, careless-hearted little midget
effecting a change, and not in great towering walls and endless floors
which no amount of sunshine or laughter could ever render homelike, or
even comfortable.</p>
<p>But there! If one has the man, one must have the home, so I had better
say no more against the home till I am quite sure I do not want the man.
For—Well, well, I am not a fool, but I <i>did</i> hear something just then,
a something which makes me tremble yet, though I have spent five good
minutes trilling the gayest songs I know.</p>
<p>I think it is very inconsiderate of the witches to bother thus a
harmless mite like myself, who only asks for love, light, and money
enough to buy a ribbon or a jewel when the fancy takes her, which is not
as often as my enemies declare. And now a question! Why are my enemies
always to be found among the girls, and among the plainest of them too?
I never heard a man say anything against me, though I have sometimes
surprised a look on their faces (I saw it to-day) which might signify
reproof if it were not accompanied by a smile showing anything but
displeasure.</p>
<p>But this is a digression, as Meeley would say. What I want to do, but
which I seem to find it very difficult to do, is to tell how I came to
be here, and what I have seen since I came. First, then, to be very
short about the matter, I am here because the old folks—that is, my
father and Mr. Knollys, have decided Charles and I should know each
other. In thought, I courtesy to the decision; I think we ought to too.
For while many other men are handsomer or better known, or have more
money, alas! than he, he alone has a way of drawing up to one's side
with an air that captivates the eye and sets the heart trembling, a
heart, moreover, that never knew before it could tremble, except in the
presence of great worldly prosperity and beautiful, beautiful things.
So, as this experience is new, I am dutifully obliged for the excitement
it gives me, and am glad to be here, awesome as the place is, and
destitute of any such pleasures as I have been accustomed to in the gay
cities where I have hitherto spent most of my time.</p>
<p>But there! I am rambling again. I have come to X., as you now see, for
good and sufficient reasons, and while this house is one of consequence
and has been the resort of many notable people, it is a little lonesome,
our only neighbor being a young man who has a fine enough appearance,
but who has already shown his admiration of me so plainly—of course he
was in the road when I drove up to the house—that I lost all interest
in him at once, such a nonsensical liking at first sight being, as I
take it, a tribute only to my audacious little travelling bonnet and the
curl or two which will fall out on my cheek when I move my head about
too quickly, as I certainly could not be blamed for doing, in driving
into a place where I was expected to make myself happy for two weeks.</p>
<p>He, then, is out of these chronicles. When I say his name is Obadiah
Trohm, you will probably be duly thankful. But he is not as stiff and
biblical as his name would lead you to expect. On the contrary, he is
lithe, graceful, and suave to a point which makes Charles Knollys'
judicial face a positive relief to the eye and such little understanding
as has been accorded me.</p>
<p>I cannot write another word. It is twelve o'clock, and though I have the
cosiest room in the house, all chintz and decorated china, I find myself
listening and peering just as I did down-stairs in their great barn of a
drawing-room. I wonder if any very dreadful things ever happened in this
house? I will ask old Mr. Knollys to-morrow, or—or Mr. Charles.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I am sorry I was so inquisitive; for the stories Charles told me—I
thought I had better not trouble the old gentleman—have only served to
people the shadows of this rambling old house with figures of whose
acquaintance I am likely to be more or less shy. One tale in particular
gave me the shivers. It was about a mother and daughter who both loved
the same man (it seems incredible, girls so seldom seeing with the eyes
of their mothers), and it was the daughter who married him, while the
mother, broken-hearted, fled from the wedding and was driven up to the
great door, here, in a coach, dead. They say that the coach still
travels the road just before some calamity to the family,—a phantom
coach which floats along in shadow, turning the air about it to mist
that chills the marrow in the bones of the unfortunate who sees it. I am
going to see it myself some day, the real coach, I mean, in which this
tragic event took place. It is still in the stable, Charles tells me. I
wonder if I will have the courage to sit where that poor devoted mother
breathed out her miserable existence. I shall endeavor to do so if only
to defy the fate which seems to be closing in upon me.</p>
<p>Charles is an able lawyer, but his argument in favor of close bonnets
<i>versus</i> bewitching little pokes with a rose or two in front, was very
weak, I thought, to-day. He seemed to think so himself, after a while;
for when, as the only means of convincing him of the weakness of the
cause he was advocating, I ran up-stairs and put on a poke similar to
the aforesaid, he retracted at once and let the case go by default. For
which I, and the poke, made suitable acknowledgments, to the great
amusement of papa Knollys, who was on my side from the first.</p>
<p>Not much going on to-day. Yet I have never felt merrier. Oh, ye hideous,
bare old walls! Won't I make you ring if——</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I won't have it! I won't have that smooth, persistent hypocrite pushing
his way into my presence, when my whole heart and attention belong to a
man who would love me if he only could get his own leave to do so.
Obadiah Trohm has been here to-day, on one pretext or another, three
times. Once he came to bring some very choice apples—as if I cared for
apples! The second time he had a question of great importance, no doubt,
to put to Charles, and as Charles was in my company, the whole interview
lasted, let us say, a good half-hour at least. The third time he came,
it was to see <i>me</i>, which, as it was now evening, meant talk, talk, talk
in the great drawing-room, with just a song interpolated now and then,
instead of a cosy chat in the window-seat of the pretty Flower Parlor,
with only one pair of ears to please and one pair of eyes to watch.
Master Trohm was intrusive, and, if no one felt it but myself, it is
because Charles Knollys has set himself up an ideal of womanhood to
which I am a contradiction. But that will not affect the end. A woman
may be such a contradiction and yet win, if her heart is in the struggle
and she has, besides, a certain individuality of her own which appeals
to the eye and heart if not to the understanding. I do not despair of
seeing Charles Knollys' forehead taking a very deep frown at sight of
his handsome and most attentive neighbor. Heigho! why don't I answer
Meeley Butterworth's last letter? Am I ashamed to tell her that I have
to limit my effusion to just four pages because I have commenced a
diary?</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I declare I begin to regard it a misfortune to have dimples. I never
have regarded it so before when I have seen man after man succumb to
them, but <i>now</i> they have become my bane, for they attract two admirers,
just at the time they should attract but one, and it is upon the wrong
man they flash the oftenest; why, I leave it to all true lovers to
explain. As a consequence, Master Trohm is beginning to assume an air of
superiority, and Charles, who may not believe in dimples, but who on
that very account, perhaps, seems to be always on the lookout for them,
shrinks more or less into the background, as is not becoming in a man
with so many claims to respect, if not to love. <i>I</i> want to feel that
each one of these precious fourteen days contains all that it can of
delight and satisfaction, and how can I when Obadiah—oh, the charming
and romantic name!—holds my crewels, instead of Charles, and whispers
words which, coming from other lips, would do more than waken my
dimples!</p>
<p>But if I must have a suitor, just when a suitor is not wanted, let me at
least make him useful. Charles shall read his own heart in this man's
passion.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I don't know why, but I have taken a dislike to the Flower Parlor. It
now vies with the great drawing-room in my disregard. Yesterday, in
crossing it, I felt a chill, so sudden and so penetrating, that I
irresistibly thought of the old saying, "Some one is walking over my
grave." <i>My grave!</i> where lies it, and why should I feel the shudder of
it now? Am I destined to an early death? The bounding life in my veins
says no. But I never again shall like that room. It has made me think.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I have not only sat in the old coach, but I had (let me drop the words
slowly, they are so precious) I—I have had—a <i>kiss</i>—given me there.
Charles gave me this kiss; he could not help it. I was sitting on the
seat in front, in a sort of mock mirth he was endeavoring to frown upon,
when suddenly I glanced up and our eyes met, and—He says it was the
sauciness of my dimples (oh, those old dimples! they seem to have stood
me in good stead after all); but I say it was my sincere affection which
drew him, for he stooped like a man forgetful of everything in the whole
wide world but the little trembling, panting being before him, and gave
me one of those caresses which seals a woman's fate forever, and made
me, the feather-brained and thoughtless coquette, a slave to this
large-minded and true-hearted man for all my life hereafter.</p>
<p>Why I should be so happy over this event is beyond my understanding.
That he should be in the seventh heaven of delight is only to be
expected, but that I should find myself tripping through this gloomy old
house like one treading on air is a mystery, to the elucidation of which
I can only give my dimples. My reason can make nothing out of it. I, who
thought of nothing short of a grand establishment in Boston, money,
servants, and a husband who would love me blindly whatever my faults,
have given my troth—you will say my lips, but the one means the
other—to a man who will never be known outside of his own county, never
be rich, never be blind even, for he frowns upon me as often as he
smiles, and, worst of all, who lives in a house so vast and so full of
tragic suggestion that it might well awaken doleful anticipations in
much more serious-minded persons than myself.</p>
<p>And yet I am happy, so happy that I have even attempted to make the
acquaintance of the grim old portraits and weak pastels which line the
walls of many of these bedrooms. Old Mr. Knollys caught me courtesying
just now before one of these ancestral beauties, whose face seemed to
hold a faint prophecy of my own, and perceiving by my blushes that this
was something more than a mere childish freak on my part, he chucked me
under the chin and laughingly asked, how long it was likely to be before
he might have the honor of adding my pretty face to the collection.
Which should have made me indignant, only I am not in an indignant mood
just now.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>Why have I been so foolish? Why did I not let my over-fond neighbor know
from the beginning that I detested him, instead of—But what have I done
anyway? A smile, a nod, a laughing word mean nothing. When one has eyes
which persist in dancing in spite of one's every effort to keep them
demure, men who become fools are apt to call one a coquette, when a
little good sense would teach them that the woman who smiles always has
some other way of showing her regard to the man she really favors. I
could not help being on merry terms with Mr. Trohm, if only to hide the
effect another's presence has on me. But he thinks otherwise, and to-day
I had ample reason for seeing why his good looks and easy manners have
invariably awakened distrust in me rather than admiration. Master Trohm
is vindictive, and I should be afraid of him, if I had not observed in
him the presence of another passion which will soon engross all his
attention and make him forget me as soon as ever I become Charles' wife.
Money is his idol, and as fortune seems to favor him, he will soon be
happy in the mere pleasure of accumulation. But this is not relating
what happened to-day.</p>
<p>We were walking in the shrubbery (by <i>we</i> I naturally mean Charles and
myself), and he was saying things which made me at the same time happy
and a bit serious, when I suddenly felt myself under the spell of some
baleful influence that filled me with a dismay I could neither
understand nor escape from.</p>
<p>As this could not proceed from Charles, I turned to look about me, when
I encountered the eyes of Obadiah Trohm, who was leaning on the fence
separating his grounds from those of Mr. Knollys, looking directly at
us. If I flinched at this surveillance, it was but the natural
expression of my indignation. His face wore a look calculated to
frighten any one, and though he did not respond to the gesture I made
him, I felt that my only chance of escaping a scene was to induce
Charles to leave me before he should see what I saw in the lowering
countenance of his intrusive neighbor. As the situation demanded
self-possession and the exercise of a ready wit, and as these are
qualities in which I am not altogether deficient, I succeeded in
carrying out my intention sooner even than I expected. Charles hurried
from my presence at the first word, and proceeded towards the house
without seeing Trohm, and I, quivering with dread, turned towards the
man whom I felt, rather than saw, approaching me.</p>
<p>He met me with a look I shall never forget. I have had lovers—too many
of them,—and this is not the first man I have been compelled to meet
with rebuff and disdain, but never in the whole course of my none too
extended existence have I been confronted by such passion or overwhelmed
with such bitter recrimination. He seemed like a man beside himself, yet
he was quiet, too quiet, and while his voice did not rise above a
whisper, and he approached no nearer than the demands of courtesy
required, he produced so terrifying an effect upon me that I longed to
cry for help, and would have done so, but that my throat closed with
fright, and I could only gurgle forth a remonstrance, too faint even for
him to hear.</p>
<p>"You have played with a man's best feelings," he said. "You have led me
to believe that I had only to speak to have you for my own. Are you
simply foolish, or are you wicked? Did you care for me at all, or was it
only your wish to increase the number of men in your train? This one"
(here his hand pointed quiveringly towards the house) "has enjoyed a
happiness denied me. His hand has touched yours, his lips—" Here his
words became almost unintelligible till his purpose gave him strength,
and he cried: "But notwithstanding this, notwithstanding any vows you
may have exchanged, I have claims upon you that I will not yield. I who
have loved no woman before you, will have such a hand in your fate that
you will never be able to separate yourself from the influence I shall
exert over you. I will not intrude between you and your lover; I will
not affect dislike or disturb your outer life with any vain display of
my hatred or my passion, but I will work upon your secret thoughts, and
create a slowly increasing dread in the inner sanctuary of your heart
till you wish you had called up the deadliest of serpents in your
pathway rather than the latent fury of Obadiah Trohm. You are a girl
now; when you are married and become a mother, you will understand me.
For the present I leave you. The shadow of this old house which has
never seen much happiness within it will soon rest upon your thoughtless
head. What that will not do, your own inherent weakness will. The woman
who trifles with a strong man's heart has a flaw in her nature which
will work out her own destruction in time. I can afford to let you enjoy
your prospective honeymoon in peace. Afterwards—" He cast a threatening
look towards the decaying structure behind me, and was silent. But that
silence did not unloose my tongue. I was absolutely speechless.</p>
<p>"Ten brides have crossed yonder threshold," he presently went on in a
low musing tone freighted with horrible fatality. "One—and she was the
girl whose mother was driven up to these doors dead—lived to take her
grandchildren on her knees. The rest died early, and most of them
unhappily. Oh, I have studied the traditions of your future home! <i>You</i>
will live, but of all the brides who have triumphed in the honorable
name of Knollys, you will lead the saddest life and meet the gloomiest
end notwithstanding you stand before me now, with loose locks flying in
the wind, and a heart so gay that even my despair can barely pale the
roses on your cheek."</p>
<p>This was the raving of a madman. I recognized it as such, and took a
little heart. How could he see into my future? How could he prophesy
evil to one over whom he will have no control? to one watched over and
beloved by a man like Charles? He is a dreamer, a fanatic. His talk
about the flaw in my nature is nonsense, and as for the fate lowering
over my head, in the shadows falling from the toppling old house in
which I am likely to take up my abode—that is only frenzy, and I would
be unworthy of happiness to heed it. As I realized this, my indignation
grew, and, uttering a few contemptuous words, I was hurrying away when
he stopped me with a final warning.</p>
<p>"Wait!" he said, "women like you cannot keep either their joys or their
miseries to themselves. But I advise you not to take Charles Knollys
into your confidence. If you do, a duel will follow, and if I have not
the legal acumen of your intended, I have an eye and a hand before which
he must fall, if our passions come to an issue. So beware! never while
you live betray what has passed between us at this interview, unless the
weariness of a misplaced affection should come to you, and with it the
desire to be rid of your husband."</p>
<p>A frightful threat which, unfortunately perhaps, has sealed my lips. Oh,
why should such monsters live!</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I have been all through the house to-day with old Mr. Knollys. Every
room was opened for my inspection, and I was bidden to choose which
should be refurnished for my benefit. It was a gruesome trip, from which
I have returned to my own little nook of chintz as to a refuge. Great
rooms which for years have been the abode of spiders, are not much to my
liking, but I chose out two which at least have fireplaces in them, and
these are to be made as cheerful as circumstances will permit. I hope
when I again see them, it will not be by the light of a waning November
afternoon, when the few leaves still left to flutter from the trees
blow, soggy and wet, against the panes of the solitary windows, or lie
in sodden masses at the foot of the bare trunks, which cluster so
thickly on the lawn as to hide all view of the highroad. I was meant for
laughter and joy, flashing lights, and the splendors of ballrooms. Why
have I chosen, then, to give up the great world and settle down in this
grimmest of grim old houses in a none too lively village? I think it is
because I love Charles Knollys, and so, no matter how my heart sinks in
the dim shadows that haunt every spot I stray into, I will be merry,
will think of Charles instead of myself, and so live down the unhappy
prophecies uttered by the wretch who, with his venomous words, has
robbed the future of whatever charm my love was likely to cast upon it.
The fact that this man left the town to-day for a lengthy trip abroad
should raise my spirits more than it has. If we were going now, Charles
and I—But why dream of a Paradise whose doors remain closed to you? It
is here our honeymoon is destined to be passed; within these walls and
in sight of the bare boughs rattling at this moment against the panes.</p>
<p>I made a misstatement when I said that I had gone into all the rooms of
the house this afternoon. <i>I did not enter the Flower Parlor.</i></p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I had been married a month and had, as I thought, no further use for
this foolish diary. So one evening when Charles was away, I attempted to
burn it.</p>
<p>But when I had flung myself down before the blazing logs of my bedroom
fire (I was then young enough to love to crouch for hours on the rug in
my lonely room, seeking for all I delighted in and longed for in the
glowing embers), some instinct, or was it a premonition? made me
withhold from destruction a record which coming events might make worthy
of preservation. That was five years ago, and to-day I have reopened the
secret drawer in which this simple book has so long lain undisturbed,
and am once more penning lines destined perhaps to pass into oblivion
together with the others. Why? I do not know. There is no change in my
married life. I have no trouble, no anxiety, no reason for dread;
yet—Well, well, some women are made for the simple round of domestic
duties, and others are as out of place in the nursery and kitchen as
butterflies in a granary. I want just the things Charles cannot give me.
I have home, love, children, all that some women most crave, and while I
idolize my husband and know of nothing sweeter than my babies, I yet
have spells of such wretched weariness, that it would be a relief to me
to be a little less comfortable if only I might enjoy a more brilliant
existence. But Charles is not rich; sometimes I think he is poor, and
however much I may desire change, I cannot have it. Heigho! and, what is
worse, I haven't had a new dress in a year; I who so love dress, and
become it so well! Why, if it is my lot to go shabby, and tie up my
dancing ringlets with faded ribbons, was I made with the figure of a
fairy and given a temperament which, without any effort on my part,
makes me, diminutive as I am, the centre of every group I enter? If I
were plain, or shy, or even self-contained, I might be happy here, but
now—There! there! I will go kiss little William, and lay Loreen's baby
arm about my neck and see if the wicked demons will fly away. Charles is
too busy for me to intrude upon him in that horrid Flower Parlor.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I was never superstitious till I entered this house; but now I believe
in every sort of thing a sane woman should not. Yesterday, after a
neglect of five years, I brought out my diary. To-day I have to record
in it that there was a reason for my doing so. Obadiah Trohm has
returned home. I saw him this morning leaning over his fence in the same
place and in very much the same attitude as on that day when he
frightened me so, a month before my wedding.</p>
<p>But he did not frighten me to-day. He merely looked at me very sharply
and with a less offensive admiration than in the early days of our first
acquaintance. At which I made him my best courtesy. I was not going to
remind him of the past in our new relations, and he, thankful perhaps
for this, took off his hat with a smile I am trying even yet to explain
to myself. Then we began to talk. He had travelled everywhere and I had
been nowhere; he wore the dress and displayed the manners of the great
world, while I had only a hungry desire to do the same. As for fashion,
I needed all my beauty and the fading sparkle of my old animation to
enable me to hold up my head before him.</p>
<p>But as for liking him, I did not. I could admire his appearance, but he
himself attracted me no more than when he had words of angry fury on his
tongue. He is a gentleman, and one who has seen the world, but in other
ways he is no more to be compared with my Charles than his pert new
house, built in his absence, with the grand old structure with whose
fatality he once threatened me.</p>
<p>I do not think he wants to threaten me with disaster now. Time closes
such wounds as his very effectually. I wish we had some of his money.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I have always heard that the wives of the Knollys, whatever their
misfortune, have always loved their husbands. I do not think I am any
exception to the rule. When Charles has leisure to give me an hour from
his musty old books, the place here seems lively enough, and the
children's voices do not sound so shrill. But these hours are so
infrequent. If it were not for Mr. Trohm's journal (Did I mention that
he had lent me a journal of his travels?) I should often eat my heart
out with loneliness. I am beginning to like the man better as I follow
him from city to city of the old world. If he had ever mentioned me in
its pages, I would not read another line in it, but he seems to have
expended both his love and spite when he bade me farewell in the garden
underlying these bleak old walls.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I am becoming as well acquainted with Mr. Trohm's handwriting as with my
own. I read and read and read in his journal, and only stop when the
dreaded midnight hour comes with its ghostly suggestions and the
unaccountable noises which make this old dwelling so uncanny. Charles
often finds me curled up over this book, and when he does he sighs. Why?</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I have been teaching Loreen to dance. Oh, how merry it has made me! I
think I will be happier now. We have the large upper hall to take steps
in, and when she makes a misstep we laugh, and that is a good sound to
hear in this old place. If I could only have a little money to buy her a
fresh frock and some ribbons, I would feel perfectly satisfied; but I do
believe Charles is getting poorer and poorer every day; the place costs
so much to keep up, he says, and when his father died there were debts
to be paid which leaves us, his innocent inheritors, very straitened.
Master Trohm has no such difficulties. He has money enough. But I don't
like the man for all that, polite as he is to us all. He seems to quite
adore Loreen, and as to William, he pets him till I feel almost
uncomfortable at times.</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>What shall I do? I am invited to New York, <i>I</i>, and Charles says I may
go, too—only I have nothing to wear. Oh, for some money! a little
money! it is my right to have some money; but Charles tells me he can
only spare enough to pay my expenses, that my Sunday frock looks very
well, and that, even if it did not, I am pretty enough to do without
fine clothes, and other nonsense like that,—sweet enough, but totally
without point, in fact. If I am pretty, all the more I need a little
finery to set me off, and, besides, to go to New York without
money—why, I should be perfectly miserable. Charles himself ought to
realize this, and be willing to sell his old books before he would let
me go into this whirl of temptation without a dollar to spend. As he
don't, I must devise some plan of my own for obtaining a little money,
for I won't give up my trip—the first offered me since I was
married,—and neither will I go away and come back without a gift for my
two girls, who have grown to womanhood without a jewel to adorn them or
a silk dress to make them look like gentlemen's children. But how get
money without Charles knowing it? Mr. Trohm is such a good friend, he
might lend me a little, but I don't know how to ask him without
recalling to his mind certain words long since forgotten by him perhaps,
but never to be forgotten by me, feather-brained as many people think
me. Is there any one else?</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>I wonder if some things are as wicked as people say they are. I——</p>
<hr style="width: 45%;" />
<p>Here the diary breaks off abruptly. But we know what followed. The
forgery, the discovery of it by her suave but secret enemy, his
unnatural revenge, and the never-dying enmity which led to the tragic
events it has been my unhappy fortune to relate at such length. Poor
Althea! with thy name I write <i>finis</i> to these pages. May the dust lie
lightly on thy breast under the shadow of the Flower Parlor, through
which thy footsteps passed with such dread in the old days of thy
youthful beauty and innocence!</p>
<h3>THE END</h3>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="WORKS_BY_Anna_Katharine_Green" id="WORKS_BY_Anna_Katharine_Green"></SPAN>WORKS BY Anna Katharine Green</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The Leavenworth Case.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A Strange Disappearance.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Sword of Damocles.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Hand and Ring.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Mill Mystery.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Behind Closed Doors.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Cynthia Wakeham's Money.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Marked "Personal."<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Miss Hurd: An Enigma.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dr. Izard.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That Affair Next Door.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lost Man's Lane.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Agatha Webb.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Old Stone House.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">X. Y. Z. A Detective Story.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">7 to 12. A Detective Story.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Defence of the Bride.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Risifi's Daughter. A Drama.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />