Wilna

“ Madame Geoffrin also writes to the King:—
19th September.
“As long as the Bishop of Wilna was in Paris, I could see how weak he was and how [Pg 224] much he required to be guided.... When I saw him start for Poland, without taking either of his two acolytes, I foresaw all that would occur. I am more than ever convinced that one can have no confidence in weak minds and frivolous characters. The poor man will be his own dupe; others will avenge your Majesty.” ”

“ Vienna was reached in safety, and there Madame de Staël at first determined to remain three weeks, while a courier was despatched to Wilna to obtain the Russian passport from the Emperor Alexander. The first ten days of her sojourn were marked by cloudless pleasure. Security had returned to her; and, after her late repression, varied chiefly by the Prefect of Geneva's solemn exhortations, it was a real delight to find herself in the midst of a society where Napoleon was frankly abused. ”

“ Here I learnt that the carts which had left Wilna the evening before at midnight, on reaching a defile, had not been able to go further. One of the first waggons had fallen open on turning over, and the money in it had been taken by those standing near. The other carriages, from top to bottom of the mountain, were obliged to halt. Many horses had fallen to rise no more.
While they told me this, we heard the musketry fire of Marshal Ney's rear-guard, and on the left Cossacks were visible, drawn by the sight of booty. ”

“ Haven't I been with him nearly five years, ever since the Battle of Eylau, and I'm not married? What do you say to that, Marie?'—turning to the other cantinière.
But Marie, whose marriage was of the same kind as Mother Gâteau's, said nothing.
The soldier asked Mother Gâteau if she had monté à la roue on the mountains at Wilna.
'Ah!' she said, 'if I'd been strong enough, I shouldn't have missed the chance. I picked up some in the snow, but it hasn't done me much good. When you find yourself with rascals who respect nothing, we women can never feel safe. ”

“ The army of 1870 will read their own miseries again. Here, too, is the drama of hunger. Where shall we find a scene to compare with that of the garrison of Wilna flying at the sight of the spectre army, ready to devour everything before it? Moreover, we cannot help seeing that Bourgogne was a kind-hearted man; his bursts of egotism are contrary to his real nature, and are followed instantly by remorse. He helped his comrades to the utmost, and risked a great deal so that a prisoner whose father had aroused his sympathy might escape. ”

“ Nevertheless he wrote to Madame Geoffrin: “My last letter to you enclosed one for the Bishop of Wilna, written in accordance with the request contained in your letter of 13th January. To what I then wrote both to you and to him, I can only here now add that I see by a letter of his to the Abbé Siestrzencewiez he is under the impression that I requested the Russians to sequestrate his property. Nothing is more untrue ”

“ On a dull December day, in the year of grace 1771, a coach drew up at the door of the Convent of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, Rue de Sève, [2] and three persons alighted from it—a lady advanced in years, very simply dressed; a man of distinguished appearance, easily recognisable as a foreigner; and a pale and delicate-looking little girl. These persons were no other than the famous Madame Geoffrin; Prince Massalski, Bishop of Wilna; [Pg 2] and his eight years old niece, the little Princesse Hélène. ”

“ The party at the Villa were seated at breakfast the following morning, when Vyner arrived with his young guest—a fine, manly-looking, determined fellow, whose frank bearing and unaffected demeanour interested the ladies strongly in his favour at once; nor did the tone of sorrow and sadness in his manner detract from the good impression he produced. The tidings of his father’s death had met him as he landed at Genoa, and overwhelmed him with affliction—such utter friendlessness was his—so bereft was he of all that meant kindred or relationship. ”

“ Groping his way in the direction from which the voice came, Willan stumbled against the wall of the house, and put his hand on the window-sill. "Who sings in here?" he cried, fumbling in the empty space.
"Holy Mother!" shrieked Victorine, and ran out of the storeroom, letting the door shut behind her with all its force. The noise echoed through the inn, and waked Willan's friend, who was also taking a nap in one of the old leather-cushioned high-backed chairs in the bar-room. Rubbing his eyes, he came out to look for Willan. ”

“ A brilliant idea came to Winona—which, by the way, she afterward carried out. “Our side-porch is almost all screened. I wonder if mother wouldn’t let me sleep there? I’m going to ask her, anyway.”
“I wish I could, too,” breathed Louise, “but our side-porch is where everybody goes by—that’s the worst of living on a corner. I know I never could break the milkman and the baker of contributing rolls and milk on top of me in the early morning!”
“What a splendid idea! Then you could have ‘breakfast in your bed,’ like Harry Lauder,” said Winnie, and both girls stopped to giggle. ”

“ Vyner would sit down at the fire with him, and tell all the little family secrets that are usually reserved for the members themselves; and Georgina would join him in the garden, to explain how she long foresaw the infatuation of her brother-in-law, but was powerless to arrest it; and even Lady Vyner—the cold and distant Lady Vyner—informed him, in the strictest secresy, that her dear mother had latterly taken a fondness for Malaga, and actually drank two full glasses of it every day more than the doctor permitted. What may not the man do in the household who is thus accepted and trusted? ”

“ They thought so, too, and presently Nataly and Helen went off in search of the farmhouse which had promised to keep them supplied with perishable provisions.
Winona and Adelaide, freed of any further duties till supper-time, went off exploring. It was a perfect day, bright and breezy and not too hot. Winona half-danced along, singing under her breath. The sun glinted on her pretty hair and lighted up her blue eyes. Adelaide looked at her wistfully.
“I do wish I were you!” she said abruptly.
Winona looked at her in surprise. “Wish you were me? Why, on earth?” she asked. ”

“ Bryan. “Hurry, now—run, or you’ll catch cold. Adelaide and I are coming, too.”
The whole party—for Winnie and Helen wanted to see the finish—set off at a brisk trot for Old Mary’s.
Old Mary was an elderly Irishwoman who earned her living mostly by taking in washing, but also by selling ginger-ale, cookies and sandwiches to such picnics and automobile parties as came her way. Her little house was close to the picnic-woods.
“They’re sure of a good fire to change their things by, that’s one comfort,” said Winnie to Helen as they ran along in the rear of their dripping friends. ”

“ He pictures the pleasant drawing-room with its cheerful fire, and the happy faces round the hearth; he fancies he hears the merry laugh, the melodious chords of the piano, the swell of some sweet voice, and then he bends his ear to the rugged plash of the breaking sea, or the whistling wind as it sweeps through some Alpine “crevasse.” If no sense of such dangers arose to Vyner’s mind, yet there was enough to make him feel how different was his present position from anything that his daily life exacted. The chances that we voluntarily confront have a wondrous fascination. ”

“ He knew well how all this seeming industry redounded to his credit; the little entreaties to him to take some fresh air, to take a walk or a drive, were all so many assurances of friendly interest in his behalf; and when Vyner would say, “Have a care, M’Kinlay; remember what’s to become of us if you knock up,” Lady Vyner’s glance of gratitude, and Miss Courtenay’s air of half confusion, were an incense that positively intoxicated him with ecstasy. ”

“ Vyner was a good walker, and trained to the mountains, so that his eye quickly detected any available short cut, and enabled him at a glance to choose his path. If there was not actual peril in his position—thus alone and companionless in a wild region, where any suspicion may attach to the stranger—there was that amount of adventure that summons a man’s courage to its post, and tells him that he must look to his own safety; and who that has felt this sensation, this proud sense of self-dependence, does not know its ecstasy! ”

“ Going to get honorable mention, anyway!”
“Oh, then you’d really rather!” said Helen. “I’m so glad. But it won’t seem natural not to have you on the float, Winnie!”
“Just as natural as not having Marie,” said Winona.
“No,” said Marie quietly, “not exactly. You’re like the spirit of the whole thing, Win, and I think they ought to have you.”
“You can’t,” said Winona, sitting down on the grass and drawing her knees up to her chin.
“We could if we canned Nataly,” said Louise the rebel, half under her breath.
“Well, you can’t do that,” said the other girls in a breath. ”

“ I believe if I can I shall keep my own name for the Camp Fire. It is prettier than anything I could make up or find.”
“It certainly is,” said her mother.
“Why didn’t I have a Nindian name, too?” clamored Florence aggrievedly, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Because your other grandmother didn’t,” said her mother, kissing her. “One Indian maiden in a family is enough. What names have the other girls chosen, Winnie?”
Winona began to laugh. ”

“ So continuously had Winona dwelt in the loftier realms of social and spiritual endeavour, it is doubtful if she knew that an organization known as the Friday Night Social Club was doing a lot to make life brighter for those of Newbern's citizens who were young and sportive and yet not precisely people of the better sort. In the older days of the town, when Winona was twenty, there was but one social set. Now she was thirty, and there were two sets. She knew the town had grown; one nowadays saw strange people that one did not know, even many one would not care to know. ”

“ They both turned in the collars of their middy blouses, and rolled the cuffs under. Skirts over them, a bandanna apiece round their necks, and the checked shawl over Louise’s head and a handkerchief on Winona’s—and they were very convincing emigrants.
“Our shoes are rather too good,” said Winona discontentedly, “but you mustn’t ask too much in this world. Pin your hair up, Louise. It’s too red for an Italian, or even a Syrian.” ”

“ Adelaide turned and faced Winona.
“Well, go ahead and talk,” she said. “It won’t make things any less so.” Then suddenly she burst out, “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know how it feels never to have anything extra. If I go to a party I’m likely to be the worst-dressed girl there. If I go to school and the girls treat I have to say I don’t want any because I can’t pay back. I can’t invite anybody to meals, because I can’t give them extra nice things to eat. ”

“ Vyner, because he certainly often felt for her that desire which is all some men know of love. But, call it by what name you please, it had no affinity to the love he felt for Violet.
And Mrs. Vyner? She was proud, excessively proud, of her triumph. She watched Violet's dawning jealousy, and deepening sadness, with a quiet savageness, horrible to think of; and she noted the increasing entanglement of Marmaduke in her net, with the pride of a coquette regaining her prey, and triumphing over a handsomer younger woman. ”

“ It was a big hotel that they had come upon, and its wide porches were full of women, young and old, rocking, and talking and embroidering, and willing enough to look at the things the girls had. The arrangement was that Winona should take care of the smaller things, the painted and embroidered linens and so forth in the suitcases, while Louise attended to the pottery and larger art-craft things, and a row of Adelaide’s jellies. She didn’t expect to sell the jelly to people who already had three meals a day, but she was agreeably surprised. ”

“ To gain this end, what man would not have made himself a slave? If any man could resist such an attraction, Vyner was not that man; and he submitted to every caprice, in the deluded hope of seeing his submission crowned with its reward.
In effect, Mrs. Vyner's will was law; yet so dexterously did she contrive matters, that it always seemed as if Vyner was the sole ordainer of everything. He was the puppet, moving as she pulled the wires, and gaining all the odium for her acts.
Violet, as I said, was the only one who saw this. She read her stepmother's character aright ”

“ No, none,” said Vyner, after a moment of straggle; and the words were not well uttered, when the fellow pushed off his boat, and struck out with all his vigour for the shore.
“What a suspicious creature your savage is; that man evidently believed you meant to bribe him to some deep treachery against his master,” said Grenfell.
“Do let the poor peasant escape,” cried Vyner, laughingly, while he hastened below to avoid any further display of the other’s malevolence, calling out to Mr. Crab to follow him. “Let us get under weigh with the land breeze this evening,” said he. ”

“ Bryan.
“Opeechee, I do not want to change my name. May I not be known in the Camp Fire as Winona? The name is one that an Indian gave one of my own people many circles of moons ago, and it is mine by inheritance.” 46
“Will you tell the Camp Fire about it?” asked Mrs. Bryan.
So Winnie told the Camp Fire the story her mother had told her, of the weary Indian woman her grandmother had helped, and whose papoose had been called “Winona,” “Flashing Ray of Light.”
“Could anything be better than to be a ray of light in dark places?” asked Winona. ”