Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

“ It was a bitter pride that was pushing her into this unloving marriage.
She would let Harry Hawthorne, who had flirted with her so cruelly, see that she did not care for him at all; that she could marry a man who was his superior in position, in riches, and in everything that made up true and noble manhood.
Geraldine despised a male flirt. Whenever one of the creatures tried to catch her eyes in public, she always set him down beneath contempt, and one withering glance from her flashing eyes would make him shrink into himself, ashamed for once before the scornful eyes of a true woman. ”

“ Her beauty thrilled his blood like a draught of rare old wine, and he felt that here was the love of his life, for no woman had ever touched his heart as maddeningly as this one; so he answered, almost as passionately, in a swift, overmastering impulse to draw her within the circle of his life:
"A dream that may easily become a reality. Will you let me help you to become an actress? I am almost sure that I can secure you a position in my company."
"Oh, I would be so grateful," smiled Geraldine, her cheeks glowing crimson with joy. ”

“ When her carriage rolled away, and he noted the lingering glance sent after it by Cameron Clemens, he sneered, grimly:
"Bah! what fools love makes of us all! There is Clemens as madly in love with that hateful Cissy Carroll as I am with pretty Geraldine. He has been in love with her ever since Azuba Aylesford forced them apart, to marry him herself. Egad! I did them a good turn when I flattered Mrs. Clemens into eloping with me; and if the Carroll girl ever gets him back she may thank me for ridding him of his incumbrance, though she hates me like poison!" ”

“ Clifford Standish drank in with keen delight the music of her voice, and thrilled with rapture at her rare beauty, so he answered, gallantly:
"He did not see you, and I was in no hurry, for it pleased me just to stand there and watch you. I was watching your spirited face and gestures and thinking that you would make a clever actress. You belong to an amateur dramatic society, do you not?"
"Oh, yes, and I enjoy it so much. It is the dream of my life to be an actress!" exclaimed Geraldine, impulsively, her eager, brown eyes shining like stars. ”

“ Stansbury's gentle mother, to ride through the crowded and gayly decorated streets, in the private carriage, to the hospitable red brick house full of pretty fun-loving girls, and to be installed as an honored guest in a dainty chamber, was a treat to the little working-girl whose life flowed in such a narrow groove of toil and poverty, and she thought, generously:
"Oh, I am very fortunate to find such kind friends, and I will always love them for their goodness to me. How I wish Cissy had come with me, for she would enjoy this so much." ”

“ Of course, I still admire beautiful, costly things, but I would not give him in exchange for a millionaire."
"You are right, dear. Although it is well to have love and wealth, too, yet love is the best of all, and I would not barter it for anything on earth," answered Cissy, so earnestly that Geraldine put her arm around her neck and whispered, coaxingly:
"Dear, you have always spoken so sweetly of love—and yet you do not seem to care for lovers yourself. Why is it? Have you never loved any one?" ”

“ Poor Geraldine! poor Geraldine! What a cruel ending this was to the Christmas Day that had dawned so auspiciously upon her life.
She had had a few hours of exquisite happiness—the pure and perfect happiness of tender mutual love, that brings heaven down to earth for young, ardent hearts.
* * "That passionate love of youth,
That comes but once in its perfect bliss—
A love that, in spite of its trust and truth,
Seems never to thrive in a world like this."
From bliss to despair—that was the story of Geraldine's one day. ”

“ Geraldine saw before her an elegant-looking gentleman—tall, broad-shouldered, graceful, with a clean-shaven face, clear-cut features, fair, clustering locks, and large, glittering, light-blue eyes, keen and clear as points of steel in their direct gaze, but with something unpleasant somehow in their admiring expression that made the pretty salesgirl drop her eyes bashfully, as he continued, easily:
"I have lost a bet of a box of gloves to a lady, and would like you to assist me in selecting some pretty ones to pay the debt." ”

“ Have we brought you too far in your weak state? Oh, I see, you're looking at the beauty! You're hard hit, aren't you? So am I! She's a stunner!"
At that moment the footman closed the door on Geraldine, and the carriage rolled away.
She did not look out of the window, or she would have seen Hawthorne—the lover over whom her fond heart was yearning—start forward with outstretched arms toward the carriage, crying, wildly:
"It is she! it is she! Stop the carriage, I say! I must speak to her one moment!" ”

“ Late in the afternoon Clifford Standish came into the store to buy a pair of gloves.
He was bright, smiling, and elegant as ever, and chatted gayly with Geraldine.
"I have some good news for you this evening," he whispered, but the girl scarcely smiled.
She knew that he would not bring her any tidings of Harry Hawthorne, and it seemed to her that she cared for nothing else.
How strange is love when it enters the heart as a guest, shutting out interest in everything else—strange, subtle, sweet, and absorbingly selfish. ”

“ Miss Erroll looked at Cissy and faltered:
"You can tell him why."
Cissy answered:
"I think he knew some dark secret in her past that she was anxious to hide, now that she is leading a better life, and he threatened her with betrayal unless she helped him to carry out his plot. Is it not so?"
"It is the truth. I tried to keep from doing it, but I could not get out of his power. Oh, how hard it is for a woman who has once done wrong to lead a good life again! The avenging fates pursue her to death or madness!" groaned the detected governess. ”

“ They told me you had left them for Hawthorne—that you were betrothed to him, and he had demanded your retirement from the stage. Was this true, Geraldine?"
She bowed a cold, affirmative answer.
"It was true! I knew it, and I was in despair," ranted Standish. "Oh, how easily a woman's heart can turn against a man! You might have waited a day, Geraldine, and given me a chance to clear myself from that false charge. But, no! in your wounded pride you turned against me, and pledged yourself to the traitor who had plotted that vile outrage—my arrest on the stage—to further his own base ends." ”

“ There must be some mistake."
"There is treachery somewhere. Oh, why did I let her go, poor child?" cried Cissy, with a sudden awful presentiment of evil.
He sank into a chair, trembling with dread.
"Tell me quickly what you mean—give me every clew you can—for I must go in search of her," he exclaimed, anxiously.
And Cissy told him about the man, Jem Rhodes, and the note, and the elegant sleigh in which Geraldine had gone away so blithely, her rosy face radiant with joy, thinking to meet her lover. ”

“ So why should we become enemies for the sake of a worthless woman?"
How she shivered with shame under the stinging contempt of his tones, for some womanhood lurked in her still, and she knew that she was not quite so black as she was painted.
But as she quailed before his righteous wrath, Cissy came generously to the rescue, her gray eyes dark with emotion, her cheeks suffused with blushes.
"Hush! do not utterly crush her with your scorn!" she cried. "Clifford Standish lied to you, the perjured villain! She did not refuse to marry him. ”

“ But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream."
How sad that a shadow should fall so suddenly over Geraldine's happiness!
But as she stood at a window, panting from the dance, rosy and smiling, as she talked to Harry Hawthorne, a shadow suddenly came between her and the light, pausing by her side till she looked up and saw—Clifford Standish!
Alas! that his shadow should ever come between her and the dawning happiness of her life!
Alas! that she had ever met him, the handsome, unscrupulous actor, who stood there scowling at his splendid rival!
"Mr. Standish!" ”

“ She sat listening dumbly while the train rushed on and on, bearing her farther and farther away from New York and her own true lover—for she knew in her heart that he was true, and that the actor was telling her vile falsehoods—and her poor heart sank like a stone in her breast.
Oh, what would be her fate now, she wondered in anguish, hating herself because she had fallen so easily into this fatal trap.
Standish continued, in a pleading tone:
"What could I do in my despair, darling, but oppose cunning to cunning, and fraud to fraud? ”

“ At length, driven almost mad by his fiendish conduct, she had thrown caution to the winds, and caused his arrest on the stage that night for desertion.
But she would have trembled with fear could she have heard his threats against her that night as he raged up and down his prison-cell, execrating her as the cause of his losing pretty Geraldine forever.
"A few more hours and my peerless girl would have been mine, all mine! Oh, to miss happiness by so slight a chance, it is horrible, and dearly shall that woman pay for this!" he swore. ”

“ Leaving the car, however, at an obscure side street with the intention of seeking a near-by saloon and concert hall, he crossed the street, and was proceeding on his way when suddenly he heard hurried footsteps behind, and then a hand clutched his arm whirling him fiercely around.
"Wretch!" hissed a man's voice, vibrant with hate. "Wretch! So I have caught you at last! Where is she? Where is my Geraldine?"
Under the glare of the electric lights that shone with ghastly whiteness on the snowy pavement, he found himself looking into the stern blue eyes of Harry Hawthorne. ”

“ Clifford Standish started with blended surprise and joy, for he had not counted on such an easy victory.
He had expected that Geraldine would accuse him of falsehood, scorn him, flout him—do anything else but weaken in this simple way.
But his masculine vanity made the task of gulling him an easy one, for he thought instantly:
"How weak and silly women are! They will believe any garbled story a man chooses to tell them." ”

“ He has been a hero at dozens of fires, and has several medals of honor, but he will not accept promotion. He says he loves the horses, and will not give up driving. But look! the team is about to start!"
Every word she uttered only made Geraldine love Hawthorne more dearly, for what woman does not love a hero?
Geraldine watched the contest with flashing eyes; but, needless to say, she saw but one man, and she soon realized that the most thunderous applause was given to him.
"He is the swiftest runner of them all!" cried Carrie Odell. "Look how the men are dropping off! They cannot stand it. ”

“ When Hawthorne pressed her hand in the dance, and looked into her eyes, drinking in deep draughts the intoxication of her beauty and sweetness, the girl thrilled with a rapture akin to pain, and those moments of dizzy, subtle bliss so dazzling in their brightness, returned to Geraldine through all her life as her happiest hours—that hour in a [Pg 27] woman's life when First Love "is a shy, sweet new-comer, and Hope leads it by the hand." ”

“ Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels crowding round us,
With heaven's light upon their wings.
"Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man's lips have uttered
Echoes in God's skies."
Pete, the driver of the sleigh in which Clifford Standish had so successfully accomplished the abduction of Geraldine, had told the truth about the affair.
Geraldine had indeed fainted at some words he had said to her, and while in this condition he had lifted her in his arms and carried her aboard the train. ”

“ Why cannot he leave that beautiful, innocent girl in peace? I have done wrong in my life, I know, but nothing so bad as what he asks of me, to lend myself to a vile plot against the peace of a girl who has never harmed me, a girl who has won my liking by her high-bred courtesy, as freely given to me as if I were her equal, instead of a paid dependent. How kind and good they all are to me, and how can I repay their bounty by such treachery? ”

“ I despise real stage people! They're most always shabby sheep, and their acquaintance no credit," returned Cissy, rudely, giving such mortal offense by the taunt that Geraldine did not speak another word to her on the way home.
They had two small rooms, and Cissy hastened to one to prepare their simple tea, so as to get ready for the theatre, but Geraldine hurried to beautify herself for her caller, putting on her best gown, a garnet cashmere, with velvet trimmings, and drawing her wealth of golden brown locks into the classic Psyche knot. ”

“ But, dear Geraldine, please don't let him persuade you with his silly flatteries to go on the stage. It's a hard life for a young girl, they say, and full of terrible temptations. Believe me, you are better off behind O'Neill's glove counter."
Geraldine's pride was cruelly wounded at Cissy's lack of sympathy in her pet ambition, and she answered, rashly:
"Cissy Carroll, you're just jealous, that's why you preach to me! I can't help being pretty and attractive, can I? And I know that if he had offered to make you an actress, instead of me, you'd have sung quite another tune." ”