Mrs. Morgan

“ We can not place the ladders which will give you access to yonder helpless town."
"Then to the men you go!" cried Morgan ruthlessly. "Forward here, two or three of you, take this woman! She chooses——"
"Death——" cried the abbess, snatching a dagger from the nearest hand and driving it into her breast, "rather than dishonor!"
She held herself proudly erect for a moment, swayed back and forth, and then fell prostrate upon the sand, the blood staining her white robe about the hilt of the poniard. She writhed and shuddered in agony where she lay, striving to say something. ”

“ Mrs Morgan said. “Girls show no interest in their homes nowadays. Things are left to servants.”
“I’ve never had much chance,” Prudence explained apologetically. “You see, I am the youngest of six daughters. But I’d like to learn.”
Mr Morgan considered her gentle submissiveness very sweet. He was surprised at his mother’s lack of response to this softly-voiced desire; for himself, he felt a strong temptation to kiss the pretty timid face of the speaker, but his natural shyness restrained him from obeying this impulse.
“Six woman are too many in one household,” Mrs Morgan vouchsafed. ”

“ Apart from religious fanaticism, Mrs Morgan is not a bad woman—only a weak one. As her husband, she is of humble birth, and small beginnings; like him, too, neither has prosperity affected her in the sense of worldly ambition. ”

“ Morgan's house. At first Kike Lumsden, playing hide-and-seek with his own motives, as other men do under like circumstances, gave himself much credit for his grateful attachment to the family. Surely gratitude is a generous quality, and had not Dr. Morgan, though of another denomination, taken him under his roof and given him professional attention free of charge? And Mrs. Morgan and Jane and Nettie, had they not cared for him as though he were a brother? What could be more commendable than that he should find himself loth to leave people who were so good? ”

“ Morgan’s heroines never get into scrapes or are taken at a disadvantage, and they are always so selfpossessed and such good housekeepers. They seem to be born good housekeepers. You remember that Gertrude in ‘Edgewood Days’ kept house for her father when she was only eight years old. When I was eight years old I hardly knew how to do a thing except bring up children. Mrs. Morgan must be an authority on girls when she has written so much about them, and I do want her to have a good opinion of us. ”

“ The next day Mrs Morgan travelled down to see her son. When she asked me to accompany [98] her I did so with some curiosity; for I had already become something of a stranger at Abercorran House, and had often wondered what had become of David Morgan up on his tower. His mother talked readily of his younger days and his stay in London. Though he had great gifts, some said genius, which he might have been expected to employ in the study, he had applied himself to direct social work. For a year he laboured “almost as hard,” he said, “as the women who make our shirts.” ”

“ Mrs Morgan's charms, though drooping like a blighted flower, excited much envy in Susanna's breast, and she soon congratulated her on her extraordinary happiness in having captivated a gentleman of so large a fortune when her own was at present so very small.
At first she commended her for not being elated with so great an acquisition, but in a little time taxed her with ungrateful insensibility to so prodigious a blessing. She continually criticized her economy, accusing her of indolence ”

“ Morgan had half started from his seat, and was between rising and sitting. Then he rose with a slow, involuntary movement, while his face worked terribly between bewilderment and abandonment to illusion. He tottered forward a few steps to the edge of the moonlight, and stood peering at the approaching couple with a hand raised to shade his eyes and a dazed, unearthly smile on his face. The girl saw him first, for she had been gazing demurely before her, while her lover looked only at her. ”

“ Morgan answered, and bent down his ear.
"You will only have mother left," she said —"only mother. And she cries so much when you are away."
"I won't leave her, Mary, only when I go to work," said Morgan, whispering back to the child. "And I'll never go out at night any more."
"Yes; you promised me that."
"And I'll promise more."
"What, father?"
"Never to go into a tavern again."
"Never!"
"No, never. And I'll promise still more."
"Father?"
"Never to drink a drop of liquor as long as I live." ”

“ Once upon a time there was a family called Morgan—Mr. Morgan the father, Mrs. Morgan the mother, Christopher Morgan, aged twelve, Claire Morgan, aged nine, Betty Morgan, aged seven, a fox-terrier, a cat, a bullfinch, a nurse, a cook, a parlourmaid, a housemaid, and a boy named William. William hardly counts, because he came only for a few hours every day, and then lived almost wholly in the basement, and when he did appear above-stairs it was always in the company of a coal-scuttle. That was the family; and at the time this story begins it had just removed from Bloomsbury to Bayswater. ”

“ Morgan was equal to the occasion. “Until death do us part, Edna. This is the joy of which I have dreamed for years and wondered if it could ever be mine,” he whispered, as he looked into her face with all the ardor of his soul and kissed her on the lips.
That evening he hooked his arm in mine on the piazza after dinner and said, “You builded better than you knew, George. We are engaged, and she’s the one woman in the world for me. I’ve told her everything—everything, and she isn’t afraid.” ”

“ The girl laughed as she put the drawing away.
"They happen in stories which I illustrate, Mrs. Morgan," she said dryly. "The real brigands of life come in the shape of lawyers' clerks with writs and summonses. It's a relief from those mad fashion plates I draw, anyway. Do you know, Mrs. Morgan, that the sight of a dressmaker's shop window makes me positively ill!"
Mrs. Morgan shook her head sympathetically and Lydia changed the subject. ”

“ The cry of "Father" had reached the ears of Morgan, who is sleeping in the next room, and roused him into consciousness. He knows the doctor's voice. Why is he here at this late hour? "Do you feel any pain, Mary?" The question he hears distinctly, and the faintly uttered reply also. He is sober enough to have all his fears instantly excited. There is nothing in the world that he loves as he loves that child. And so he gets up and dresses himself as quickly as possible; the stimulus of anxiety giving tension to his relaxed nerves. ”

“ I should always see the serious side of life if it were not for you. I am so glad that we are different, dear. You see—we are antidotes. You correct my seriousness—I sober your lightheartedness."
Morgan looked at her curiously.
"Yet you can be as gay as I, Natalia. You were so at school; you were on our long voyage together. It is only since we have been engaged that you have changed. What is it? Are you not entirely happy?"
"Of course I am—the happiest woman in the world! Only I feel my happiness differently from you. It is a more serious thing to me. It's my nature, I suppose. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV IN WHICH SIR HENRY MORGAN APPEALS UNAVAILINGLY ALIKE TO THE PITY OF WOMAN, THE FORGIVENESS OF PRIEST, THE FRIENDSHIP OF COMRADE, AND THE HATRED OF MEN
nd bless me also, my father," cried Mercedes, kneeling by Alvarado's side.
"Most willingly, my fair daughter," answered the old man. "A fit helpmate indeed thou hast shown thyself for so brave a soldier. By your leave, your Excellency. You will indulge an old man's desire to bless the marriage of the son as he did that of the mother? ”

“ Morgan.
"No, miss," the stout housekeeper shook her head. "I was up at six and he'd gone then, but he'd left his chair in the passage—I've got an idea that's where he slept, miss, if he slept at all."
"Poor old man," said the girl gently. "I haven't been very kind to him, have I? And I do owe him such a lot."
"Maybe he'll turn up again," said Mrs. Morgan hopefully. She had the mother feeling for the old, which is one of the beauties of her [Pg 134] class, and she regretted Lydia's absence probably as much because it would entail the disappearance of old Jaggs as for the loss of her mistress. ”

“ He found Morgan in the rather too luxuriously furnished living room. At sight of the large, pudgy man in his flowered dressing gown, a cigarette held loosely between pursy lips, colorless eyes blinking at him over the top of an evening newspaper, McBride's original sensation of disgust and unappeasable outrage came again upon him, and he knew that he was glad he had undertaken the task immediately before him.
Morgan too was well-born; he too was a bachelor, a member of good clubs, but he was a thorough rotter. Men despised and women feared him. ”

“ He took note of every man that asked a dance of her. One of them kept writing on her programme for what seemed to Morgan an unbearable time, Margaret looking on with a tolerant half-smile. He knew the fellow well and hated him. Fledgling at one or other of the learned professions, always aggressively smooth and well-bred, a veritable paragon of polish without a single redeeming mannerism, to Morgan he represented one large swagger. There was something in the pose of the eye-glasses and in the clean-shaven upper lip that told of boundless conceit and infinite self-assurance. ”

“ Morgan was a man of no principles, whose ruling passion was vanity—and this passion with him took one particular turn; he liked to be beloved by all the women of his acquaintance. The self-complacency excited by the worship of a woman, was to him the most agreeable feeling in the world. He did not flirt merely for an idle amusement, like Tom Musgrove, with an entire indifference to the feelings he excited ”

“ Morgan had introduced him to an elderly and talkative spinster, and then, as he felt, basely deserted him, he was rescued by Rose-Ann; steered through a whirlpool of encounters—he almost failed to recognize Clive Bangs in his evening clothes, with that wild lock of hair neatly slicked into its proper place—and brought into the presence of Howard Morgan himself, who was standing, a tall and impressive figure, with grey hair, a nose like an eagle’s beak, and flashing eyes, in the midst of, as it seemed to Felix, swirling tides of people. ”

“ I shall wait till I see your happiness completed, Morgan, even though this may be our last meeting. Till then I dare not go; you are not to be trusted to take the happiness that is within your grasp. You know I claim to be a connoisseur of women, and I am perfectly satisfied that you shall marry your Margaret. That is the highest compliment I could pay her. There is that indefinable, unseizable something in her face which reveals the whole personality, and it won me immediately. ”

“ What if Morgan never should come back? What if she should find herself a double widow, bereft of both the living and the dead?
During her days she watched for him, straining her eyes up and down the dust-white road. At night her cheek burned upon her pillow, and her tears ran down, yearning for the man who had her heart’s love in his keeping and seemed unworthy of the trust.
At such times her anger would flame hot against Joe. If he had not come into her affairs and muddled them, like a calf in a kitchen, all of this uncertainty and longing would have been spared her. ”

“ Three minutes between you and instant death, Ensign Bradley, for should one of your men enter the room now you see what you would have to expect, sir."
"Oh, sir, have mercy——"
"Unless you do exactly what I say you will be lying there with that carrion," cried Morgan, kicking the prostrate body savagely with his jewelled shoes.
"What do you want me to do? For God's sake be quick, Your Excellency. Time is almost up. I hear the men move." ”

“ Mr. Morgan had distinctly heard Mr. Spencer tell Miss Lindsay that in his missing suitcase were not only her father's unopened letter, but also some letters of hers. What confidence could be placed in the man who, at such a sacred moment, made such a gross mis-statement to the woman whom he professed to love? It was dreadful; Mr. Morgan was pained beyond measure. In the future he would never be able to believe anything he overheard; even though his ear was glued to the keyhole. He was a dispirited man.
He did not return at once to Cloverlea. ”

“ Morgan acquiesced, but Emma did not in this decision.
She had, at first, felt extremely hurt that Mrs. Watson should make her circumstances and situation the subject of unreserved discussion with a man totally unconnected with her family—and that in so loud a tone as to be perfectly audible to any one within a dozen yards of where she sat. But the accent of real interest in Mr. Morgan's voice—and above all, the prospect which he held up of a release from the galling thraldom of her present situation, served to compensate for the want of delicacy in her sister-in-law. ”

“ Rosalind laughed. "I mean Morgan, who does cabinet work. Do you know him?"
"Everybody in Friendship knows Morgan. He is a good fellow, too. Why do you call him the magician?"
"Because that is what father called him when he was a little boy. Once when Morgan had made an old desk look like new, grandfather said he was a magician, and father, who heard him, thought he meant it really. Father and Uncle Allan used to play in his shop and talk on their fingers to him. Can you do that?"
"Why, yes; I'll teach you if you like."
"I should like it very much. It is so tiresome to write things." ”

“ With her wit and vanity, poor French and fine clothes, good common sense and warm Irish heart, Lady Morgan was a most entertaining and original character—a spirited, versatile, spunky little woman, whose whole life was a grand social success. She was also one of the most popular and voluminous writers of her day; but, with all her sparkle and dash, ambition and industry, destined in a few generations more to be almost unknown, vanishing down that doleful "back entry" where Time sends so many bright men and women. ”