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HUSKS.
BY MARION HARLAND.

CHAPTER I.

It was a decided uncompromising rainy day. There were no showers, coquetted with by veering winds or dubious mists, that at times grew brighter, as if the sun were burning away their lining; but a uniform expanse of iron-gray clouds—kept in close, grim column by a steady, although not violent east wind—sent straight lines of heavy rain upon the earth. The naked trees, that, during the earlier hours of the deluge had seemed to shiver for the immature leaf-buds, so unfit to endure the rough handling of the storm, now held out still, patient arms, the rising sap curdled within their hearts. The gutters were brimming streams, and the sidewalks were glazed with thin sheets of water.

The block of buildings before which our story pauses, was, as a glance would have showed the initiated in the grades of Gotham life, highly respectable, even in the rain. On a clear day when the half-folded blinds revealed the lace, silken and damask draperies within, when young misses and masters—galvanized show-blocks of purple and fine linen, that would have passed muster behind the plate-glass of Genin or Madame Demorest—tripped after hoops or promenaded the smooth pavement; when pretty, jaunty one-horse carriages, and more pretentious equipages, each with a pair of prancing steeds, and two "outside passengers" in broadcloth and tinsel hatbands, received and discharged their loads before the brown-stone fronts—had the afore-mentioned spectator chanced to perambulate this not spacious street, he would have conceded to it some degree of the fashion claimed for it by its inhabitants. There were larger houses and wider pavements to be had for the same price a few blocks further on, in more than one direction, but these were unanimously voted "less eligible" and "deficient in style," in spite of the fact that as good and better materials were employed in their construction, and they were in all respects equal in external show and inside finish to those in this model quarter. "But our block has a certain air—well—I don't know what; but it is just the thing, you know, and so convenient! So near the avenue!" would be the concluding argument.

The nameless, indescribable charm of the locality lay in the last clause. "Just step around the corner and you are in the avenue," said the favored dwellers in this vicinity, as the climax in the description of their abode, and "that way fashion lies" to every right-minded New Yorker of the feminine gender.

But the aristocratic quiet of the neighborhood, rendered oppressive and depressing by the gloom of the day, was disturbed by a discordant sound—a child's cry, and what was especially martyrizing to refined auriculars, the lament had the unmistakable plebeian accent. The passionate scream with which the pampered darling of the nursery resents interference with his rights and liberty of tyranny or the angry remonstrance of his injured playmates, would have been quite another species of natural eloquence, as regards both quality and force, from the weak, broken wail that sobbed along the wet streets. Moreover, what respectable child could be abroad on foot in this weather? So, the disrespectable juvenile pursued her melancholy way unnoticed and unquestioned until she reached the middle of the square. There a face appeared at a window in the second story of a house—which only differed from those to its right, left and opposite in the number upon the door—vanished and in half a minute more a young lady appeared in the sheltered vestibule.

"What is the matter, little girl?"

The tone was not winning, yet the sobs ceased, and the child looked up, as to a friendly questioner. She was about eleven years of age, if one had judged from her size and form; but her features were pinched into unnatural maturity. Her attire was wretched, at its best estate; now, soaked by the rain, the dingy hood drooped over her eyes; the dark cotton shawl retained not one of its original colors, and the muddy dress flapped and dripped about her ankles. Upon one foot she wore an old cloth gaiter, probably picked up from an ash heap; the remains of a more sorry slipper were tied around the other.

"I am so cold and wet, and my matches is all sp'ilt," she answered in a dolorous tone, lifting the corner of a scrap of oil-cloth, which covered a basket, tucked for further security under her shawl.

"No wonder! What else could you expect, if you would go out to sell them on a day like this? Go down into the area, there, and wait until I let you in."

The precaution was a wise one. No servant in that well-regulated household would have admitted so questionable a figure as that which crept after their young mistress into the comfortable kitchen. The cook paused in the act of dissecting a chicken; the butler—on carriage days the footman—checked his flirtation with the plump and laughing chambermaid, to stare at the wretched apparition. The scrutiny of the first named functionary was speedily diverted to the dirty trail left by the intruder upon the carpet. A scowl puckered her red face, and her wrathful glance included both of the visitants as alike guilty of this desecration of her premises. The housemaid rolled up her eyes and clasped her hands in dumb show of horror and contempt to her gallant, who replied with a shrug and a grin. But not a word of remonstrance or inquiry was spoken. It was rather a habit of this young lady's to have her own way whenever she could, and that she was bent upon doing this now was clear.

"Sit down," she said, bringing up a chair to the fire.

The storm beaten wanderer obeyed, and eagerly held up her sodden feet to the red grate.

"Have you no better shoes than those?"

"No, ma'am."

"Humph! Nor dress, nor shawl?"

"No, ma'am."

"Are you hungry?"

A ray shot from the swollen eyes. "Yes, ma'am."

The lady disappeared in the pantry and presently returned with five or six slices of bread and butter hastily cut and thickly spread, with cheese and cold meat between them.

"Eat!" She thrust them into the match-girl's fingers. "Wait here, while I go and look for some clothes for you."

As may be supposed, the insulted oracle of kitchen mysteries improved the time of the benefactress's absence by a very plain expression of her sentiments towards beggars in general, and this one in particular; which harangue was received with applause by her fellow-servants and perfect equanimity by its object. She munched her sandwiches with greedy satisfaction, watching, the while, the little clouds of steam that ascended from her heated toes. She was, to all appearances, neither a sensitive nor intelligent child, and had known too much of animal want and suffering to allow trifles to spoil her enjoyment of whatever physical comfort fell to her lot. Her mother at home could scold quite as violently as the cook was now doing, and she was more afraid of her anger, because she beat while she berated her. She was convinced that she stood in no such peril here, for her protectress was one in power.

"Have you eaten enough?" said the clear, abrupt voice behind her, as she held two sandwiches in her fingers, without offering to put them to her lips.

"Yes, ma'am. May I take 'em home?"

"Certainly, if you like. Stand up and take off your shawl."

She put around the forlorn figure a thick cloak, rusty and obsolete in fashion, but which was a warm and ample covering for the child, extending to the hem of her dress. The damp elf-locks were hidden by a knitted hood, and for the feet there were stockings and shoes and a pair of India-rubbers to protect these last from the water.

"Now," said the Humane Society of One, when the refitting was at an end, "where do you live? Never mind—I don't care to know that yet! Here is a small umbrella—a good one—which belongs to me. I have no other for myself when I go out in bad weather. I mean to lend it to you, to-day, upon the condition that you will bring it back to-morrow, or the first clear day. Will you do it?"

The promise was readily given.

"Here's an old thing, Miss Sarah," ventured the butler, respectfully, producing a bulky, ragged cotton umbrella from a corner of the kitchen closet. "It's risky—trusting such as that with your nice silk one."

"That will let in the rain, and it is entirely too large for her to carry. You understand, child? You are to bring this safely back to me, the first time the sun shines. Can you find your way to this house again?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, easy. Thank you, ma'am!"

She dropped an awkward curtsey as Miss Sarah held open the door for her to pass, and went out into the rain—warm, dry and shielded against further damage from the storm.

Unheeding the significant looks of the culinary cabinet, Sarah Hunt turned away and ascended the stairs. She was a striking-looking girl, although her features, when in repose, could claim neither beauty of form nor expression. Her complexion was dark and pale, with a slight tinge of olive, and her hair a deep brown, lips whose compression was habitual, an aquiline nose, and eyes that changed from dreamy hazel to midnight blackness at the call of mind or feeling, gave marked character to her countenance. Her sententious style of address to the child she had just dismissed was natural, and usual to her in ordinary conversation, as was also the gravity, verging upon sombreness, which had not once during the interview relaxed into a smile.

The family sitting-room, her destination at present, and to which we will take the liberty of preceding her, was furnished elegantly and substantially, and there, leaning back in lounging chairs, were Miss Lucy Hunt, the eldest daughter of the household, and her bosom friend, Miss Victoria West. Each held and wielded a crochet needle, and had upon her lap a basket of many-hued balls of double or single zephyr worsted, or Shetland or Saxony wool, or whatever was the fashionable article for such pretty trifling at that date. Miss West had completed one-quarter of a shawl for herself, white and scarlet, and her friend had made precisely the same progress in the arduous manufacture of one whose centre was white and its border blue.

"Yours will be the prettiest," remarked Lucy regretfully. "Blue never looks well in worsteds. Why, I can't say, I'm sure. It is too bad that I can wear so few other colors. But I am such a fright in pink or scarlet or any shade of red!"

"As if you could be a fright in anything," returned her companion, with seeming indignation.

Lucy smiled, showing a set of faultless teeth that, to a stranger's first glance, would have appeared by far the most attractive point of her physiognomy. If closer examination discovered that her skin was pearly in whiteness and transparency, that her form was exquisite, with a sort of voluptuous grace; her hands worthy, in shape and hue, to become a sculptor's model; still, in the cold, unflattering light of this rainy afternoon her want of color, her light gray eyes, her yellow hair, drawn straight back from the broad, low brow, precluded the idea that she could ever, with all the accessories of artificial glare, dress and animation, be more than a merely pretty girl. Miss West knew better, and Lucy realized the power of her own charms with full and complete complacency. Secure in this pleasant self-appreciation, she could afford to be careless as to her every-day looks and home people. She saw and enjoyed the manifest surprise of those who, having seen her once in morning deshabille, beheld her afterwards in elaborate evening toilet. Then the abundant hair waved in golden ripples about the classic head, the most artfully simple of tasteful ornaments—a camellia, a rosebud, or a pearl hairpin, its sole adornment; her eyes, large, full and soft, were blue instead of gray, while the heat of the assembly-room, the excitement of the crowd, or the exultation of gratified vanity supplied the rounded cheek with rich bloom and dewy vermillion to the lips. But nature's rarest gift to her was her voice, a mellow contralto, whose skillful modulations stole refreshingly to the senses amid the sharp clash of strained and higher tones, the castanet-like jingle which most American belles ring unmercifully into the ears of their auditors. Lucy Hunt was not "a great talker," still less was she profound or brilliant when she did speak; yet she invariably conveyed the impression to the mind of a new acquaintance of a thoroughly cultivated woman, one whose acquirements were far beyond her modest exhibition of thought and sentiment. The most commonplace phrase came smoothly and roundly from her tongue, and he was censorious indeed who was willing to lose the pleasure afforded by its musical utterance in weighing its meaning. At school she had never been diligent, except in the study of music, and her painstaking in this respect was rewarded by the reputation, justly earned, of being the finest vocalist in her circle of associates. In society she shone as a rising star of the first magnitude; at home she was happy, cheerful and indolently amiable. Why should she be otherwise? From her babyhood she had been petted and admired by her family, and the world—her world—was as ready with its meed of the adulation which was her element.

There were, besides the two sisters already introduced to the reader, three other children in the Hunt household—a couple of sturdy lads, twelve and fourteen years of age, and little Jeannie, a delicate child of six, whom Lucy caressed with pet titles and sugar-plums of flattery, and Sarah served in secret and idolatrous fondness. This family it was Mrs. Hunt's care and pride to rear and maintain, not only in comfort, but apparent luxury, upon the salary which her husband received as cashier of a prominent city bank, an income sufficient to support them in modest elegance, but which few besides Mrs. Hunt could have stretched to cover the expense of their ostensible style of living. But this notable manager had learned economy in excellent schools, primarily as a country girl, whose holiday finery was purchased with the proceeds of her own butter-making and poultry-yard; then as the brisk, lively wife of the young clerk, whose slender salary had, up to the time of his marriage, barely sufficed to pay for his own board and clothes, and whose only vested capital was his pen, his good character and perfect knowledge of book-keeping. But if his help-meet was a clever housewife, she was likewise ambitious. With the exception of the sum requisite for the yearly payment of the premium upon Mr. Hunt's life insurance policy, their annual expenses devoured every cent of their receipts. Indeed, it was currently believed among outsiders that they had other resources than the cashier's wages, and Mrs. Hunt indirectly encouraged the report that she held property in her own right. They lived "as their neighbors did," as "everybody in their position in society was bound to do," and "everybody" else was too intent upon his personal affairs, too busy with his private train of plans and operations to examine closely the cogs and levers and boilers of the locomotive Hunt. If it went ahead, and kept upon the track assigned it, was always "up to time," and avoided unpleasant collisions, it was nobody's business how the steam was gotten up.

Every human plant of note has its parasite, and Miss Lucy Hunt was not without hers. There existed no reason in the outward circumstances of the two girls why Miss Hunt should not court Miss West rather than Miss West toady Miss Hunt. In a business—that is, a pecuniary—point of view, the former appeared the more likely state of the case, inasmuch as Victoria's father was a stock-broker of reputed wealth, and with a probable millionaireship in prospective, if his future good fortune equalled his past, while Mr. Hunt, as has been stated, depended entirely upon a certain and not an extravagant stipend. But the girls became intimate at school, "came out" the same winter at the same party, where Lucy created a "sensation," and Victoria would have been overlooked but for the sentimental connection between the debutantes. Since then, although the confidante would have scouted the imputation of interested motives with virtuous indignation of wounded affection, she had nevertheless "made a good thing of it," as her respected father would have phrased it, by playing hanger-on, second fiddle, and trumpeter general to the belle.

"As if you could be a fright in anything," she had said, naturally and perhaps sincerely.

Lucy's smile was succeeded by a serious look. "I am sadly tempted sometimes! Those lovely peach-blossom hats that you and Sarah wore this past winter were absolute trials to my sense of right. And no longer ago than Mrs. Crossman's party I was guilty of the sin of coveting the complexion that enabled Maria Johnston to wear that sweet rose-colored silk, with the lace skirt looped with rosebuds."

"You envy Maria Johnston's complexion? Why don't you go further and fall in love with her small eyes and pug nose?" inquired Victoria, severely ironical. "I have heard that people were never contented with their own gifts, but such a case of blindness as this has never before come under my observation."

"No, no! I am not quite so humble with regard to my personal appearance as you would make out. Yet"—and the plaintive voice might have been the murmur of a grieving angel—"I think that there are compensations in the lot of plain people that we know nothing about. They escape the censure and unkind remarks that uncharitable and envious women heap upon those who happen to be attractive. Now, there is Sarah, who never cares a button about her looks, so long as her hair is smooth and her dress clean and whole. She hates parties and is glad of any excuse to stay out of the parlor when gentlemen call. Give her her books and that 'snuggery,' as she calls it, of a room upstairs, and she is happier than if she were in the gayest company in the world. Who criticises her? Nobody is jealous of her face or manners or conversation. And she would not mind it if they were."

"She has a more independent nature than yours, my dear. I, for one, am rejoiced that you two are unlike. I could not endure to lose my darling friend, and somehow I never could understand Sarah; never could get near to her, you know."

"I do not wonder at that. It is just so with me, sisters though we are. However, Sarah means well, if her manner is blunt and sometimes cold."

The entrance of the person under discussion checked the conversation at this point, and both young ladies began to count their stitches aloud, to avoid the appearance of the foolish embarrassment that ever overtakes a brace of gossips at being thus interrupted.

Sarah's work lay on her stand near the window, where she had thrown it when the crying child attracted her notice, and she resumed it now. It was a dress for Jeannie. It was a rare occurrence for the second sister to fashion anything so pretty and gay for her own wear.

"Have you taken to fancy work at last?" asked Victoria, seeing that the unmade skirt was stamped with a rich, heavy pattern for embroidery.

"No!" Sarah did not affect her sister's friend, and did not trouble herself to disguise her feelings towards her.

Lucy explained: "She is making it for Jeannie. She does everything for that child."

"You are very sisterly and kind, I am sure," Victoria continued, patronizingly. "You must quite despise Lucy and myself for thinking of and doing so much for ourselves, while you are such a pattern of self-denial."

A blaze shot up in Sarah's eye; then she said, coldly: "I am not self-denying. Have I ever found fault with you or Lucy for doing as you like?"

"Oh, no, my dear. But you take no interest in what we enjoy. I dare say, now, you would think it a dull business to work day after day for three or four weeks together, crocheting a shawl which may go out of fashion before one has a chance to sport it at a watering-place."

"I certainly should!" The curl of the thin upper lip would have answered for her had she not spoken.

"And you hate the very sight of shellwork and cone-frames, and Grecian painting, and all such vanities?"

"If I must speak the truth, I do—most heartily."

Victoria was not easily turned from her purpose.

"Come, Sarah! Tell us what you would have us, poor trifling, silly things, do to kill the time."

"If you must be a murderer, do it in your own way. I have nothing to say in the matter."

"Do you mean that time never hangs upon your hands—that you are never ennuyee—blasee?"

"Speak English, and I will answer you."

"I want to know," said the persevering tormentor, "if the hum-drum books upstairs, your paint-box and your easel are such good company that you are contented and happy always when you are with them—if you never get cross with yourself and everybody else, and wonder what you were put into the world for, and why the world itself was made, and wish that you could sleep until doomsday. Do you ever feel like this?"

Sarah lifted her eyes with a wondering, incredulous stare at the flippant inquisitor.

"I have felt thus, but I did not suppose that you had."

"Oh, I have a 'blue' turn now and then, but the disease is always more dangerous with girls of your sort—the reading, thinking, strong-minded kind. And the older you grow, the worse you will get. I haven't as much book knowledge as you have, but I know more of the world we live in. Take my advice and settle down to woman's right sphere. Drive away the vapors with beaux and fancy-work now. By-and-by a husband and an establishment will give you something else to think about."

Sarah would have replied, but Lucy broke in with a laugh, light and sweet.

"You two are always at cross-questions! Why can't you be satisfied to let one another alone? Sarah and I never quarrel, Vic.. We agree to disagree. She gives me my way, and I don't meddle with her. If she likes the blues (they say some people enjoy them), where's the harm of her having them? They never come near me. If I get stupid, I go to bed and sleep it off. Don't you think I have done ten rows since breakfast? What a godsend a rainy day is, when one has a fascinating piece of work on hand!"

Too proud to seem to abandon the field, Sarah sat for half an hour longer, stitching steadily away at the complicated tracery upon the ground to be worked; then, as the dimmer daylight caused the others to draw near to the windows, she pushed aside her table and put by her sewing.

"Don't let us drive you away!" said Victoria's mock-polite tones, and Lucy added, kindly, "We do not mean to disturb you, Sarah, dear."

"You do not disturb me!" was the reply to the latter. The other had neither glance nor word.

Up another flight she mounted to a room, much smaller than that she had left and far plainer in its appointments. The higher one went in Mrs. Hunt's house the less splendid everything became. In the state spare chamber—a story below—nothing of comfort and luxury was wanting, from the carved rosewood bedstead, with the regal-looking canopy overshadowing its pillows, down to the Bohemian and cut-glass scent bottles upon the marble of the dressing-cabinet. Sarah's carpet was common ingrain, neither pretty nor new; a cottage bedstead of painted wood; bureau and washstand of the same material; two chairs and a small table were all the furniture her mother adjudged needful. To these the girl had added, from her pittance of pocket-money, a set of hanging bookshelves, a portable desk, an easel and two or three good engravings that adorned the walls.

She locked the door after her, with a kind of angry satisfaction in her face, and going straight to the window leaned upon the sash and looked down into the flooded street. Her eyes were dry, but there was a heaving in her throat, a tightening of the muscles about the mouth that would have made most women weep for very relief. Sarah Hunt would have scorned the ease purchased by such weakness. She did not despise the sad loneliness that girt her around, any more than the captive warrior does his cell of iron or stone, but she held that it would be a cowardly succumbing to Fate to wound herself by dashing against the grim walls, or bring out their sleeping echoes by womanish wailings. So, presently, her throat ached and throbbed no longer, the rigid muscles compressed the lips no more than was their wont, the hands loosened their vise-like grasp of one another—the brain was free to think.

The rain fell still with a solemn stateliness that befitted the coming twilight. It was a silent storm for one so heavy. The faint hum of the city, the tinkle of the car-bell, three blocks off, arose to her window above its plashing fall upon the pavement, and the trickle of the drops from sash to sill. A stream of light from the lamp-post at the corner flashed athwart the sidewalk, glittered upon the swollen gutter, made gold and silver blocks of the paving stones. As if they had waited for this signal, other lights now shone out from the windows across the way, and from time to time a broad, transient gleam from opening doors told of the return of fathers, brothers, husbands from their day's employment.

What was there in the line that should make the watcher catch her breath in sudden pain and lay her hand, with stifled moan, over her heart, as she repeated it aloud?

Witness with me, ye maternal Hunts, who read this page—you, the careful and solicitous about many things—in nothing more ambitious than for the advancement and success in life of your offspring—add your testimony to mine that this girl had all that was desirable for one of her age and in her circumstances. A house as handsome as her neighbors, an education unsurpassed by any of her late school-fellows, a "position in society;" a reasonable share of good looks, which only required care and cultivation on her part to become really distingue; indulgent parents and peaceably inclined brothers and sisters—read the list, and solve me, if you can, the enigma of this perturbed spirit—this hungering and thirsting after contraband or unattainable pleasures.

"Some girls will do so!" Mrs. Hunt assured her husband when he "thought that Sarah did not seem so happy as Lucy. He hoped nothing ailed the child. Perhaps the doctor had better drop in to see her. Could she be fretting for anything, or had her feelings been hurt?"

"Bless your soul, Mr. H. There's nothing the matter with her. She always was kind o' queer!" (Mrs. Hunt did not use her company grammar every day.) "And she's jest eighteen year old. That's the whole of it! She'll come 'round in good time, 'specially if Lucy should marry off pretty soon. When Sarah is 'Miss Hunt,' she'll be as crazy for beaux and company and as ready to jump at a prime offer as any of 'em. I know girls' ways!"

Nor am I prepared to say that Sarah, as she quitted her look-out at the high window at the sound of the dinner bell, could have given a more satisfactory reason for her discontent and want of spirits.

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