 11 Don't you think you'd better get out of this?" I asked Obermuller as he came into the station a few minutes after I got there. No. I do. Because? Because it won't do you any good to have your name mixed up with a thing like this. But it might do you some good. I didn't answer for a minute after that. I sat in my chair, my eyes bent on the floor. I counted the cracks between the chair and the floor of the office where the chief was busy with another case. I counted them six times back and forth until my eyes were clear and my voice was steady. You're awfully good, I said, looking up at him as he stood by me. You're the best fellow I ever knew. I didn't know men could be so good to women. But you'd better go, please. It'll be bad enough when the papers get hold of this without having them lump you in with a bad lot like me. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a quick little shake. Don't say that about yourself. You're not a bad lot. But you saw the purse. Yes, I saw it, but it hasn't proved anything to me but this. You're innocent, Nance, or you're crazy. If it's the first, I want to stand by you, little girl. If it's the second, good God, I've got to stand by you harder than ever. Can you see me sitting there mag in the bright, bare little room with its electric lights still in my white dress and big white hat, my pretty jacket fallen on the floor beside me? I could feel the sharp blue eyes of that detective Morris feeding on my miserable face. But I could feel, too, a warmth like wine poured into me from that big fellow's voice. I put my hand up to him and he took it. If I'm innocent and can prove it, Fred Obermuller, I'll get even with you for this. Do you want to do something for me now? Do I? Well, if you want to help me, don't sit there looking like the criminal ghost of the girl I know. The blood rushed to my face. Nance Olden, a sniveling coward. Me, showing the white feather. Me, whimpering like a whipped puppy. Me, Nance Olden. You know, I smiled up at him. I never did enjoy getting caught. Hush, but that's better. Tell me now. A buzzer sounded. The blue-eyed detective got up and came over to me. Chief's ready, he said. This way. They stopped Obermuller at the door, but he pushed past them. I want to say just a word to you, Chief, he said. You remember me. I'm Obermuller of the vaudeville. If you'll send those fellows out and let me speak to you just a moment, I'll leave you alone with Miss Olden. The Chief nodded to the blue-eyed detective and he and the other fellow went out and shut the door behind them. I want simply to call your attention to the absurdity and unreasonableness of this thing, Obermuller said, leaning up against the Chief's desk while he threw out his left hand with that big open gesture of his, and to ask you to bear in mind, no matter what appearances may be, that Miss Olden is the most talented girl on the stage today, that in a very short time she will be at the top, that just now she is not suffering for lack of money, that she's not a high roller, but a determined hard-working little grind, and that if she did feel like taking a plunge, she knows that she could get all she wants from me even. Even if you can't pay salaries when they're due, Obermuller? The Chief grinned under his white moustache. Even though the trust is pushing me to the wall, going to such lengths that they're liable criminally as well as civilly if I could only get my hands on proof of their rascality, it's true I can't pay salaries always when they're due, but I can still raise a few hundred to help a friend, and Miss Olden is a friend of mine. If you can prove that she took this money, you prove only that she's gone mad, but you don't. All right, Obermuller, you're not the lawyer for the defense. That'll come later, if it does come. I'll be glad to bear in mind all you've said, and much that you haven't. Thank you. Good night. I'll wait for you, Nance, outside. I'm going to ask you a lot of questions, Miss Olden, the old chief said when we were alone. Sit here, please. Morris tells me you've got more nerve than any woman that's ever come before me, so I needn't bother to reassure you. You don't look like a girl that's easily frightened. I have heard how you danced in the lobby of the Manhattan, how you guide him at your flat and were getting lunch and having a regular picnic of a time when he found that purse. Exactly. Now, why did you do all that? Why? Because I felt like it. I felt gay and excited and not dreaming that that purse was sure to be found. Not dreaming that there was such a purse in existence except from the detective, say so, and never fancying for an instant that it would be found in my flat. Hmm. He looked at me from under his heavy-wrinkled old lids. You don't get nice eyes from looking on the nasty things in this world, Mag. Why, I cried, what kind of a girl could cut up like that when she was on the very edge of discovery? A very smart girl, an actress, a good one, a clever thief who's used to bluffing. Of course, he added softly, you won't misunderstand me. I'm simply suggesting the different kinds of girl that could have done what you did. But if you don't mind, I'll do the questioning. Nance Olden. He turned suddenly on me, his manner changed and threatening. What has become of that three hundred dollars? Mr. Chief, you know just as much about that as I do. I threw up my head and looked him full in the face. It was over now, all the shivering and trembling and fearing. Nance Olden's not a coward when she's fighting for her freedom, and fighting alone without any sympathizing friend to weaken her. He returned to the look with interest. I may know more, he said insinuatingly. Possibly, I shrugged my shoulders. No, it wasn't put on. There never yet was a man who bullied me that didn't rouse the fighter in me. I swore to myself that this old thief-catcher shouldn't rattle me. Doesn't it occur to you that under the circumstances a full confession might be the very best thing for you? I shouldn't wonder if these people would be inclined to be lenient with you if you'd return the money. Doesn't it occur? It might occur to me if I had anything to confess about this purse. How long since you've seen Mrs. Edward Ramsey? He rushed the question at me. I jumped. How do you know I've ever seen her? I do know you have. I don't believe you. Thank you. Neither do I believe you, which is more to the point. Come, answer the question. How long is it since you have seen the lady? I looked at him, and then I looked at my glove, and slowly pulled the fingers inside out, and then—then I giggled. Suddenly it came to me—that silly little insane dodge of mine in the bishop's carriage that day—the girl who had lost her name, and the use all that affair might be to me, if ever. I'll tell you if you'll let me think a minute, I said sweetly. It—it must be all of fifteen months. Ah! You see, I did know that you've met the lady. If you're wise, you'll draw deductions as to other things I know that you don't think I do. And where did you see her? In her own home. Called there, he sneered, alone. No, I said very gently. I went there to the best of my recollection with the bishop. Yes, it was the bishop—Bishop Van Wagonen. Indeed. I could see that he didn't believe a word I was saying, which made me happily eager to tell him more. Yes, we drove up to the square one afternoon in the bishop's carriage, the fat plum-colored one, you know. We had tea there, at least I did. I was to have spent the night, but—that's enough of that. I chuckled. Yes, Magmonahan, I was enjoying myself. I was having a run for my money, even if it was the last run I was to have. So it's fifteen months since you've seen Mrs. Ramsay, eh? Yes. He turned on me with a roar. And yet it's only a week since you saw her at Mrs. Gates's. Oh, no. No, take care. That night at Mrs. Gates's it was dark, you know, in the front room. I didn't see Mrs. Ramsay that night. I didn't know she was there at all till—till—till later I was told. Who told you? Her husband. He threw down his pencil. Look here, this is no lark young woman, and you needn't trouble yourself to weave any more fairy tales. Mr. Ramsay is in a—he's very ill. His own wife hasn't seen him since that night, so you see you're lying uselessly. Really? So Edward didn't go back to Mrs. Gates's that night. Tuck-tuck, after his telephone message, too. Now, assuming your innocence of the theft, Miss Olden, what is your theory? How do you account for the presence of that person, your flat? Now you've hit the part of it that really puzzles me. How do you account for it? What is your theory? He got to his feet, pushing his chair back sharply. My theory, if you want to know it, is that you stole the purse, that your friend Obermuller believes you did, that you got away with the three hundred, or hid it away, and— And what a stupid thief I must be then to leave the empty purse under my lounge. How do you know it was empty? He demanded sharply. You said so. Well, you gave me to understand that it was, then. What difference does it make? It would be a still stupider thief who'd leave a full purse instead of an empty one under his own lounge. Yes, and you're not stupid, Miss Olden. Thank you. I'm sorry I can't say as much for you. I couldn't help it. He was such a stupid. The idea of telling me that Fred Obermuller believed me guilty. The idea of thinking me such a fool is to believe that. Such men as that make criminals. They're so fat-witted you positively ache. They so tempt you to pull the wool over their eyes. Oh, Mag, if the Lord had only made men cleverer, there'd be fewer Nancy Olden's. The chief blue-blast said a speaking tube that made his purple cheeks seem about to burst. My shoulders shook as I watched him. He was so wrathy. And I was still laughing when I followed the detective out into the waiting room, where Obermuller was pacing the floor, at the side of my smiling face he came rushing to me. Nancy, he cried. Orders are, Morris, came in a bellow from the chief at his door, that no further communication be allowed between the prisoner and— Phew! All the pertness leaked out of me. Oh, Mag, I don't like that word. It stings. It binds. It cuts. I don't know what I looked like then. I wasn't thinking of me. I was watching Obermuller's face. It seemed to grow old and thin and haggard before my eyes, as the blood drained out of it. He turned with an exclamation to the chief and— And just then there came a long ring at the telephone. Why did I stand there? Oh, Mag, when you're on your way to the place I was bound for, when you know that before you'll set foot in this same bright little room again, the hounds in half a dozen cities will scratch clean every hiding place you've had, when your every act will be known, and— Oh, then you wait, Mag. You wait for anything. Anything in the world. Even a telephone call that may only be bringing in another wretch like yourself, bound like yourself for the tombs. The chief himself went to answer it. Yes. What? He growled. We'll tell long distance to get busy. What's that? St. Francis. That's the Jagward, isn't it? Who is it? Who? Ramsey. I caught Obermuller's hand. I don't hear you, the chief roared. Oh, yes. Yes, we've got the thief, but the money. No, we haven't got the money. The deuce, you say. Took it yourself. Out of your wife's purse. Yes, yes. But we've got the— What? Don't remember where you— Steady, Nance, whispered Obermuller, grabbing my other hand. I tried to stand steady, but everything swayed, and I couldn't hear the rest of what the chief was saying, though all my life seemed condensed into a listening. But I did hear when he jammed the receiver on the hook and faced us. Well, they've got the money. Ramsey took the purse himself, thinking it wasn't safe there under the spread where any servant might be tempted to chance to uncover it. You'll admit the thing looks shady. The reason Mrs. Ramsey didn't know of it is because the old man's just come to his senses in a hospital and been notified that the purse was missing. I want to apologize to you, chief, I mumbled. For thinking me stupid? Oh, we were both. No, for thinking me not stupid. I am stupid, stupid, stupid. The old fellow I told you about, Mr. O., and the way I telephoned him out of the flat that night, it was— Ramsey. I nodded and then crumbled to the floor. It was then that they sent for you, Mag. Why didn't I tell it straight at the first, you dear old Mag? Because I didn't know the straight of it then myself. I was so heavy-witted I never once thought of Edward. He must have taken the bills out of the purse and then crammed them in his pocket while he was waiting there on the lounge, and I was pretending a telephone and— But it's best as it is. Oh, so best. Think, Mag. Two people who knew her—who knew her mind— believed in Nancy Olden in spite of appearances. Obermuller, while we were in the thick of it, and you—you, dear girl, while I was telling you of it. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of In the Bishop's Carriage This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. In the Bishop's Carriage by Miriam Michelson Chapter 12 When Obermuller sent for me, I thought he wanted to see me about that play he's writing, in which I'm to star, when the pigs begin to fly. Funniest thing in the world about that man, Mag. He knows he can't get bookings for any play on earth, that if he did, they'd be cancelled, and any old excuse thrown at him, as soon as Tossig heard of it and could put on the screws. He knows that there isn't an unwatched whole on theatrical America through which he can crawl and pull me in the play and after him. And yet he just can't let go working on it. He loves it, Mag. He loves it as Molly loved that child of hers that kept her nursing in all the years of its life and left her feeling that the world had been robbed of everything there was for a woman to do when it died. Obermuller has told me all the plot. In fact, he's worked it out on me. I know it as it is, as he wanted it to be, and as it's going to be. He tells me he's built it up about me, that it will fit me as never a comedy fitted a player yet, and that will make such a hit, the play and I together that— And then he remembers that there's no chance, not the ghost of one, and he falls to swearing at the trust. Don't you think, Mr. O, I said as he began again when I came into his office, that it might be as well to quit cursing the syndicate till you've got something new to say or something different to rail about? It seems to me a man's likely to get daffy if he keeps harping on. Oh, I've got it all right, Nance, be sure of that. I've got something different to say of them and something new to swear about. They've done me up, that's all, just as they've fixed Erringer and Gaffney and Howison. Tell me. He threw out his arms and then let them fall to his side. Oh, it's easy, he cried, so easy that I never thought of it. They've just bought the vaudeville out of hand and served notice on me that when my lease expires next month they'll not be able to renew it, unfortunately. That's all. No, not quite. In order to kill all hope of a new plan in me, they've just let it get to be understood that any man or woman that works for Overmuller needn't come round to them at any future time. Phew, a black list. Not anything so tangible. It's just a hint, you know, but it works all right. It works like... What are you going to do? What can you do? Shoot Tossig or myself or both of us. Nonsense. Yes, of course it's nonsense or rather it's only what I'd like to do, but that's not the question. Never mind about me. It's what are you going to do? He looked straight at me, waiting, but I didn't answer. I was thinking. You don't realize, Nance, what those fellows are capable of. When Gaffney told me, before he gave up and went west, that there was a genuine sign of conspiracy among them to crush out us independents, I laughed at him. It's a dream, Gaffney, I said. Forget it. It's no dream as you'll find out when your turn comes in, he shouted. It's a fact, and what's more, Erringer once taxed Tossig to his face with it, told him he knew there was such a document and existence, signed by the great Tossig himself, by Heffelfinger of the Pacific Circuit, by Dixon of Chicago and Wine Stock of New Orleans, binding themselves to force us fellows to the wall and specifying the percent of profit that each one of them should get on any increase of business, to blacklist every man and woman that worked for us, to buy up our debts and even bring false attachments when... Now, weren't there enough real debts to satisfy them? They're hard to please if you haven't creditors enough to suit them. He looked grim, but he didn't speak. I don't believe it anyway, Mr. O., and it isn't good for you to keep thinking about just one thing. You'll land where Erringer did if you don't look out. How did he know about it anyway? There was a leak in Tossig's office. Erringer used to be in with him, and he had it from a clerk who, but never mind that. It's the blacklisting I'm talking about now. Gray's just been in to see me to let me know that she quits at the end of the season, and is lordship, too, of course. You're not burdened with the contract, Nance. Perhaps you'd better think it over seriously for a day or two and decide if it wouldn't be best. I don't have to, I interrupted then. Nance, he cried, jumping up as though he'd been relieved of half his troubles. I don't have to think it over. I went on slowly, not looking at the hand he held out to me. It doesn't take long to know that when you're between the Devil and the Deep Sea, you'd better try the Devil rather than be forced out into the wet. What? You don't mean? I knew he was looking at me incredulously, but I just wouldn't meet his eye. My staying with you will do you no good. Was hurrying now to get it over with, and it would do me a lot of harm. I think you're right, Mr. Obermuller. I'd better just go over to where it's warm. They'll be glad to get me in, and to tell the truth, I'll be glad to get in with the syndicate, even if I can't make as good terms as I might have by selling that contract, which, like the famous conspiracy you're half mad about, never existed. He sat down on the edge of the desk. I caught one glimpse of his face. It was black. That was enough for me. I turned to go. Ah, but it did, Miss Olden. It did, he sneered. I won't believe it on the word of a man that's been in the lunatic asylum ever since he lost his theater. Perhaps you'll believe it on mine. I jumped. On yours? Didn't that little bully, when he lost his temper that day at the Van Twillor, when we had our own fight, didn't he pull a paper out of his box and shake it in my face, and—but you could have them arrested for conspiracy, and—and the proof of it could be destroyed, and then—but I can't see how this interests you. No, no, I said thoughtfully. I only happened to lump it in with the contract we haven't, you and I, and as there's no contract, where there's no need of my waiting till the end of the season. Do you mean to say you'd—you'd— If tw'er done, tw'er better it be done, quickly, I said, Macbethically. He looked at me, sitting there on his desk, his clenched fist on his knee, he looked for a moment as though he was about to fly at me. Then all of a sudden he slipped into his chair, leaned back, and laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh, Mag. No, it wasn't a pleasant laugh, Mag. No, wait, let me tell you the rest. You were so shrewd, Olden, so awfully shrewd, your eye is so everlastingly out for the main chance, and you're still so young that I predict a—a great future for you. I might even suggest that by cultivating Tossig personally. You needn't. No, you're right, I needn't. You can discount any suggestion I might make. You just want to be the first to go over, eh? To get there before Gray does. To get all there is in it for the first rebel that lays down his arms, not to come in late when submission is stale and cheap. Don't worry about terms, you poor little babe in the woods. His own words seem to choke him. Don't you think? I began a bit unsteadily. I think—oh, what a fool I've been. That stiffened me. Of course you have, I said cordially. It's silly to fight the push, isn't it? It's only the cranks that get cocky and think they can upset the fellows on top. The thing to do is to find out which is the stronger, if you're a better man than the other fellow, down him. If he's the champion, enlist under him. But be in it. What's the use of being a kicker all your life? You only let someone else come in for the soft things while you stay outside and gnaw your fingernails and plot and plan and starve. You spend your life hoping to live tomorrow while the tossigs are living high to-day. The thing to do is to be humble if you can't be arrogant. They've got you in the door, don't curse, but placate them. Think of Gaffney hurting sheep out in Nevada, of Urringer in the asylum, of Howison. Admiral, admirable! He interrupted sarcastically. The only fault I have to find with your harangue is that you've misconceived my meaning entirely. But I didn't enlighten you. Good morning, Miss Olden. Goodbye. He turned to his desk and pulled out some papers. I knew he wasn't so desperately absorbed in them as he pretended to be. Won't you shake hands, I asked, and wish me luck. He put down his pen. His face was white and hard. But as he looked at me it gradually softened. I suppose. I suppose I am a bit unreasonable just this minute, he said slowly. I'm hard hit, and I don't just know the way out. Still, I haven't any right to expect more of you than there is in you, you poor little thing. It's not your fault but mine that I've expected. Oh, for God's sakes, Nance, go and leave me alone. I had to take that with me to the Van Twillor, and it wasn't pleasant. But Tossig received me with open arms. Got tired of staying out in the cold, eh? He grinned. I'm tired of Vaudeville, I answered. Can't you give me a chance in a comedy? Hmm, ambitious, ain't you? Open Muller has a play all ready for me, written for me. He'd star me fast enough if he had the chance. But he'll never get the chance. Oh, I don't know. But I do. He's on the toboggan. That's where they all get, my dear, when they get big-headed enough to fight us. But Obermuller is not like the others. He's not so easy, and he is so clever why the plot of that comedy is the bulliest thing. You've read it, you remember it? Oh, I know it by heart, my part of it. You see, he wouldn't keep away from me while he was thinking of it. He kept consulting me about everything in it, in a way we worked over it together. The little man looked at me, slowly closing one eye. It is a habit of his when he's going to do something particularly nasty. Then, in a way, as you say, it is part yours. Hardly. Imagine Nance Older writing a line of a play. Still, you collaborated. That's the word. I say, my dear, if I could read that comedy, and it was half what you say it is, I might. I don't promise mine, but I might let you have the part that was written for you and put the thing on. Has he drilled you any, eh? He was the best stage manager we ever had before he got the notion of managing for himself and ruining himself. Well, he's all that yet. Of course, he has told me, and we agreed how the thing should be done. As he'd write you know, he'd read the thing over to me and I— Fine, fine. A reading from that fool Obermuller would be enough to open the eyes of a clever woman. I'd like to read that comedy, yes? But Obermuller would never. But Olden might. What? Dictate the plot to my secretary Mason in there. He nodded his head back toward the inner room. She could give him the plot in as much of her own part in full as she could remember. You know Mason. Used to be a newspaper man. Smart fellow that, when he's sober. He could piece out the holes, yes? I looked at him. The little beast sat there, slowly closing one eye and opening it again. He looked like an unhealthy little frog, with his bald head, his thin-lipped mouth that laughed, while the wrinkles rate away from his cold, sneering eyes that had no smile in them. I—I wouldn't like to make an enemy of a man like Obermuller, Mr. Tossig. Bah! And I told you he's on the toboggan? But you never can tell with a man like that. Suppose he got into that combine with Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock. What are you talking about? Well, it's what I've heard. But Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock are all in with us. Who told you that fairy story? Obermuller himself. The little fellow laughed. His is a creaky, almost silent little laugh. If a spider could laugh, he'd laugh that way. They're fooling him a bunch or two. Never you mind, Obermuller. He's a dead one. Oh, he said that you thought they were in with you, but that nothing but a written agreement would hold men like that, and that you hadn't got. Smart fellow, that Obermuller. He'd have been a good man to have in the business if it had been for those independent ideas he's got. He's right. It takes. So there is an agreement. I shouted in spite of myself as I leaned forward. He sat back in his chair, or rather he let it swallow him again. What business is that of yours? Stick to the business on hand. Get to work on that play with Mason inside. If it's good and we decide to put it on, we'll pay you five hundred dollars down in addition to your salary. If it's rot, you'll have your salary weekly all the time you're at it, just the same as if you were working till I can place you. In the meantime, keep your ears and eyes open and watch things and your mouth shut. I'll speak to Mason and he'll be ready for you tomorrow morning. Come round in the morning. There's nobody about then, and we want to keep this thing dark till it's done. Obermuller mustn't get any idea what we're up to. He don't love you. No. For shaking him? He's furious. Wouldn't even say goodbye. I'm done for with him anyway, I guess. But what could I do? Nothing, my dear, nothing. Here is smart little girl, he chuckled. Ta-ta! End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Of In the Bishop's Carriage This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. In the Bishop's Carriage by Miriam Michelson Chapter 13 Just what I'd been hoping for, I don't know, but I knew that my chance had come that morning. For a week I had been talking Obermuller's comedy to Mason, the Secretary. In the evenings I stood about in the wings and watched the Van Twillar Company and Brambles. There was one fat role in it that I just ached for, but I lost all that ache and found another, when I overheard two of the women talking about Obermuller and me one night. He found her and made her, one of them said. Just dug her out of the ground, see what he's done for her, taught her every blessed thing she knows, wrote her mimicking monologues for her, gave her her chance, and now, well, Tossig don't pay salaries for nothing, and she gets hers as regularly as I draw mine. What more, I don't know, but she hasn't set foot on the stage yet under Tossig, and they say Obermuller. I didn't get the rest of it, so I don't know what they say about Obermuller. I only know what they've said to him about me. It isn't hard to make men believe those things, but I had to stand it. What could I do? I couldn't tell Fred Obermuller that I was making over his play, soul and as much body as I could remember to Tossig's Secretary. He'd have found that harder to believe than the other thing. It hasn't been a very happy week for me, I can tell you Maggie, but I forgot it all, every shiver and ache of it, when I came into the office that morning as usual and found Mason alone. Not altogether alone, he had his bottle, and he had had it and others of the same family all the night before. The poor drunken wretch hadn't been home at all. He was worse than he'd been that morning three days before, when I had stood facing him and talking to him, while with my hands behind my back I was taking a wax impression of the lock of the desk, and he is unconscious of it all as Tossig himself. The last page I had dictated the day before, which he'd been transcribing from his notes, lay in front of him. The gas was still burning directly above him, and a shade he wore over his weak eyes had been knocked awry as his poor old bald head went bumping down on the typewriter before him. The thing that favored me was Tossig's distrust of everybody connected with him. He hates his partners only a bit less than he hates the men outside the trust. The bigger and richer the syndicate grows, the more power and prosperity it has, the more he begrudges them their share of it, the more he wants it all for himself. He is madly suspicious of his clerks, and hires others to watch them, to spy upon them. He is continually moving his valuables from place to place, partly because he trusts no man, partly because he's so deftly afraid his right hand will find out what his left is doing. He is a full partner of Braun and Lowenthal, with mental reservations. He has no confidence in either of them, half his schemes he keeps from them, the other half he tells them, part of. He's forever afraid that the syndicate of which he's the head will fall to pieces and become another syndicate of which he won't be head. It all makes him an unhappy, restless little beast, but it helped me today. If it had been any question of safe combinations entangled things like that, the game would have been all up for Nancy Oh. But in his official safe, Tosig keeps only such papers as he wants Braun and Lowenthal to see, and in his private desk in his private office he keeps. I stole past Mason, sleeping with his forehead on the typewriter keys. He'll be lettered like the obelisk when he wakes up, and crept into the next room to see just what Tosig keeps in that private desk of his. Oh yes, it was locked, but hadn't I been carrying the key to it every minute for the last 48 hours? There must be a mine of stuff in that desk of Tosig's mag. The touch of every paper in it is slimy with some dirty trick, some bad secret, some mean action. It's a pity that I hadn't time to go through them all. It would have been interesting, but under a bundle of women's letters, which that old fox keeps for no good reason, I'll bet, I lit on a paper that made my heart go bumping like a cart over cobbles. Yes, there it was, just as Obermuller had vowed it was, with Tosig's cramped little signature followed by Hevelfingers, Dixons, and wine stocks, a scheme to crush the business life out of men by the cleverest, up-to-date trust deviltry, a thing that our Uncle Sammy just won't stand for. And neither will Nancy Olden, Miss Monahan. She grabbed that precious paper with a gasp of delight and closed the desk, but she bungled a bit there, for Mason lifted his head and blinked daisily at her for a moment, recognized her and shook his head. No work today, he said. No, I know. I'll just look over what we've done, Mr. Mason, she answered cheerfully. His poor head went down again with a bob, and she caught up the typewritten sheets of Obermuller's play. She waited a minute longer, half because she wanted to make sure Mason was asleep again before she tore the sheets across and crammed them down into the wastebasket, half because she pityed the old fellow and was sorry to take advantage of his condition. But she knew a cure for this last sorry, a way she'd help him later, and when she danced out into the hall she was the very happiest burglar in a world chock full of opportunities. Oh, she was in such a twitter as she did it. All that old delight in doing somebody else up, a vague somebody whose meannesses she didn't know was as nothing to the joy of doing toss a gup. She was dancing out of volcano again, that incorrigible dance. Oh, but such a volcano, Maggie. It atoned for a year of days when there was nothing doing, no excitement, no risk, nothing to keep a girl interested and alive. And Maggie, darlin', it was a wonderful volcano. That one's that last one, for it worked both ways. It paid up for what I haven't done this past year and what I'll never do again in the years to come. It made up to me for all I've missed and all I'm going to miss. It was a remord of demerit for not being respectable and a preventive of further sins. Oh, it was such a volcano as never was. It was a drink and a blue ribbon in one. It was a bang up end and a bully beginning. It was, it was Tossig coming in as I was going out. Suddenly I realized that, but I was in such a mad whirl of excitement that I almost ran over the little fellow before I could stop myself. Phew, what a whirlwind you are. He cried. Where are you going? Oh, good morning, Mr. Tossig, I said sweetly. I never dreamed you'd be down so early in the morning. What are you doing with the paper? He demanded suspiciously. My eye followed his. I could have beaten Nancy Olden in that minute for not having sense enough to hide that precious agreement instead of carrying it rolled up in her hand. Just taking it home to go over it, I said carelessly trying to pass him. But he barred my way. Where's Mason? He asked. Poor Mason, I said. He's, he's asleep. Drunk again? I nodded. How to get away? That settles his hash. Out he goes today. It seems to me you're in a deuce of a hurry. He added as I tried to get out again. Come in. I want to talk something over with you. Not this morning, I said sossily. I wanted to cry. I've got an engagement to lunch and I want to go over this stuff for Mason before one. Hmm, an engagement. Who with now? My chin shot up in the air. He laughed that cold, noiseless little laugh of his. But suppose I want you to come to lunch with me? Oh, thank you, Mr. Tossig. But how could I break my engagement with, with Bronn? How did you guess it? I laughed. There's no keeping anything from you. He was immensely satisfied with his little self. I know him, that old rascal, he said slowly. I say, Olden, just do break that engagement with Bronn. I oughtn't, really. But do, eh? Finish your work here and we'll go off together, us two at twelve-thirty, and leave him cooling his heels here when he comes. He rubbed his hands gleefully. But I'm not dressed. You'll do for me. But not for me. Listen, let me hurry home now and I'll throw Bronn over and be back here to meet you at twelve-thirty. He pursed up his thin little lips and shook his head. But I slipped past him in that minute and got out into the street. At twelve-thirty, I called back as I hurried off. I got around the corner in a jiffy. Oh, I could hardly walk, Mag. I wanted to fly and dance and skip. I wanted to kick up my heels as the children were doing in the square, while the organ ground out ain't a shame. I actually did a step or two with them to their delight. And the first thing I knew I felt a bit of a hand in mine, like a cool pink snowflake, and— Oh, a baby, Mag. A girl baby more than a year old and less than two years young, too little to talk, too big not to walk, facing the world with a winning smile and jabbering things and her soft little lingo, knowing that every woman she meets will understand. I did all right. She was saying to me as she kicked out her soft, heelless little boot. Nancy Olden, I choose you. Nancy Olden, I love you. Nancy Olden, I dare you not to love me. Nancy Olden, I defy you not to laugh back at me. Where in the world she dropped from heaven knows. The organ grinder picked up the shafts of his wagon and trundled it away. The pickin' innies melted like magic. But that gay little flirt, about a year and a half old, just held onto my finger and gabbled. Poetry. I didn't realize just then that she was a lost, straight or stolen. I expected every moment some nurse or conceited mama to appear and drag her away from me, and I looked down at her. Oh, she was just a little bunch of soft stuff. Her face was a giggling dimple framed in a big round hat halo that had fallen from her chicken blonde hair, and her white dress with the blue ribbons at the shoulders was just a little bit dirty. I like them a little bit dirty. Why? Perhaps because I can imagine having a little coquette of my own a bit dirty like that and can't just see Nancy Olden with a spickin' span clean baby all feathers and lace like a bored little grown-up. You're a mouse, I gurgled down at her. You're a sweetheart. You're a— and suddenly I heard a cry and rush behind me. It was a false alarm, just a long-legged girl of twelve rushing round the corner, followed by a lot of others. It hadn't been meant for me, of course, but in the second when I had remembered that precious paper and Tossick's rage when he should miss it, I had pulled my hand away from that bit-babies and started to run. The poor little tot. There isn't any reason in the world for the fancies they take any more than for our own amag. Why should she have been attracted to me just because I was so undignified as to dance with the pickin' innies? But do you know what that little thing did? She thought I was playing with her. She gave a crow of delight and came bowling after me. That finished me. I stooped and picked her up in my arms, throwing her up in the air to hear her crow and feel her come down again. Mouse, I said, will just have a little trip together. The nurse that had loosed you deserves to worry till you're found. The mother that's lucky enough to own you will be benefitted hereafter by a sharp scare on your account just now. Come on, sweetheart. Oh, the feel of a baby in your arms, Mag. It makes the cruelty seem a perfectly unreal thing. A thing one should be unutterably ashamed of imagining. Of accusing human nature of. A thing only an irredeemably vile thing could imagine. Just the weight of that little body riding like a bonny boat at anchor on your arm. Just the cocky little way it sits up, chirping and confident. Just the light touch of a bit of a hand on your collar. Just that is enough to push down brick walls, to destroy pictures of bruised and maimed children that endure after the injuries are healed, to scatter records that even I, I, Nancy Olden, can't believe, and believe, too, that other women have carried their babies as I did some other woman's baby across the square. On the other side I said her down. I didn't want to. I was greedy of every moment that I had her. But I wanted to get some change ready before climbing up the steps to the L station. She clutched my dress as we stood there a minute in a perfectly irresistible way. I know now why men marry baby women. It's to feel that delicious helpless clutch of weak fingers, the clutch of dependence, of trust, of appeal. I looked down at her with that same silly adoration I've seen on Molly's face for her poor, lacking, twisted boy. At least I did in the beginning. But gradually the expression of my face must have changed for all at once I discovered what had been done to me. My purse was gone. Yes, Maggie Monahan, clean and gone. My pocket had been as neatly picked as I myself. Well, never mind, as what? I threw back my head and laughed aloud. Nance Olden, the great doer up, had been done up so cleverly, so surely, so prettily, that she hadn't had an inkling of it. I wished I could get a glimpse of the clever girl that did it. A girl, of course it was. Do you think any boy's fingers could do a job like that and me not even know? But I didn't stop to wish very long. Here was I with the thing I valued most in the world still clutched in my hand and not a nickel to my name to get me, the paper, and the baby on our way. It was the baby, of course, that decided me. You can't be very enterprising when you're carrying a pink lump of sweetness that's all a smile at the moment, that may get all a tear the next. It's you for the nearest police station, you young tough, I said, squeezing her. I can't take you home now and show you to Mag. But she giggled and gurgled back at me, the abandoned thing, as though the police station was just the properest place for a young lady of her years. It was not so very near either, that station. My arm ached when I got there from carrying her. But my heart ached too, to leave her. I told the matron how and where the little thing had picked me up. At first she wouldn't leave me, but the fickle little thing, a glass of milk transferred all her smiles and wiles to the matron. Then we both went over her clothes to find a name or an initial or a laundry mark. But we found nothing. The matron offered me a glass of milk too, but I was in a hurry to be gone. She was a nice matron, so nice that I was just about to ask her for the loan of a car fare when— When I heard a voice, Maggie, in the office adjoining, I knew that voice all right, and I knew that I had to make a decision quick. I did. I threw the whole thing into the lap of fate, and when I opened the door and faced him, I was smiling. Oh yes, it was Tossig. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Of In the Bishop's Carriage This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. In the Bishop's Carriage by Miriam Michelson. He started as though he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw me. The Lord hath delivered my enemy into my hand, shown in his evil little face. Why, Mr. Tossig, I cried before he could get his breath. How odd to meet you here. Did you find a baby too? Did I find—? He glared at me. I find you. That's enough. Now. But the luncheon was to be at 12.30, I laughed, and I haven't changed my dress yet. You'll change it all right for something not so becoming if you don't shell out that paper. Paper? Yes, paper. Look here. If you give it back to me this minute now, I'll not prosecute you for the sake of my reputation, I suggested softly. Yes. He looked doubtfully at me, mistrusting the amiable deference of my manner. That would be awfully good of you, I murmured. He did not answer, but watched me as though he wasn't sure which way I'd jump the next moment. I wonder what could induce you to be so forgiving? I went on musingly. What sort of paper is this you miss? It must be valuable. Yes, it's valuable all right. Come on now. Which are fooling and get down to business. I'm going to have that paper. Do you know, Mr. Tossig? I said impulsively. If I were you, and anybody had stolen a valuable paper from me, I'd have him arrested. I would. I should not care a wrap what the public exposure did to his reputation. So long. So long. I grinned right up at him. So long as it didn't hurt me, myself, in the eyes of the law. Mad? Oh, he was hopping. A German swear word burst from him. I don't know what it meant, but I can imagine. Look here. I give you one more chance. He squeaked. If you don't. What'll you do? I was sure I had him. I was sure from the very whisper in which he had spoken that the last thing in the world he wanted was to have that agreement made public by my arrest. But I tripped up on one thing. I didn't know there was a middle way for a man with money. His manner changed. Nance Olden? He said aloud now. I charge you with stealing a valuable private paper of mine from my desk. Here, Sergeant. I hadn't particularly noticed the Sergeant standing at the other door with his back to us, but from the way he came at Tossig's call I knew he'd had a private talk with him, and I knew he'd found the middle way. This girl's taken a paper of mine. I want her searched, Tossig cried. Do you mean, I said, that you'll sign your name to such a charge against me? He didn't answer. He had pulled the Sergeant down and was whispering in his ear. I knew what that meant. It meant a special pull and a special way of doing things, and you'll do well, my girl, to give up Mr. Tossig's property to him, the Sergeant said stiffly. But what have I got that belongs to him? I demanded. He grinned and shrugged his big shoulders. Weave a way of finding out, you know, here. Give it up, or... But what does he say I've taken? What charge is there against me? Have you the right to search any woman who walks in here? And what in the world would I want a paper of Tossig's for? You won't give it up, then? He tapped a bell. A woman came in. I had a bad minute there, but it didn't last. It wasn't the matron I brought the baby to. You'll take this girl into the other room and search her thoroughly. The thing we're looking for. The Sergeant turned to Tossig. A small paper, he said eagerly. A contract. Just a single sheet of legal cap paper it was typewritten and signed by myself and some other gentleman and folded twice. The woman looked at me. She was a bit hard-mouthed, with iron gray hair, but her eyes looked as though they'd seen a lot and learned not to flinch, though they still felt like it. I knew that kind of look. I'd seen it at the cruelty. What an unpleasant job this of yours is. I said to her, smiling up at her for all the world as that tyke of a baby had smiled at me and watching her melt just as I had. I'll not make it a bit harder. This thing's all a mistake. Which way? I'll come back, Mr. Tossig, to receive your apology, which you can hardly expect me to go to lunch after this. He growled a wrathful, resenting mouthful, but he looked a bit puzzled just the same. He looked more puzzled yet, even bewildered, when we came back into the main office a quarter of an hour later, the woman and I, and she reported that no paper of any kind had she found. Me? Oh, I was sweet amiability personified with the woman and with the sergeant, who began to backwater furiously, but with Tossig. What? You don't mean to say you're not on, Mag? Oh, dear, dear, it's well you had that beautiful wig of red hair that puts even cargers in the shade, for you'd never have been a success in other businesses, I might name. Bamboozled the woman? Not a bit of it. You can't deceive women with mouths and eyes like that. It was just that I'd had a flash of genius in the minute I heard Tossig's voice, and in spite of my being so sure he wouldn't have me arrested, I'd guess, Mag, guess. There was only one way. The baby, of course. And the moment I had, it wasn't long. I'd stoop down, pretending to kiss that cherub good-bye, and in a jiffy I'd pinned that precious paper with a safety pin to the baby's under-pedicode, preferring that risk to risk, I should say it was. And now it was up to Nance to make good. While Tossig insisted and explained and expostulated, and at last walked out with the sergeant, giving me a queer last look that was half cursing, half placating, I stood chatting sweetly with the woman who had searched me. I didn't know just how far I might go with her. She knew the paper wasn't on me, and I could see she was disposed to believe I was as nice as she'd have liked me to be. But she'd had a lot of experience, and she knew, as most women do even without experience, that if there's not always fire where there is smoke, it's because somebody's been clever enough and quick enough to cover the blaze. Well, good-bye, I said, putting out my hand. It's been disagreeable, but I'm obliged to you for—why, where's my purse? We must have left it. And I turned to go back into the room where I'd undressed. You didn't have any. The words came clear and cold and positive. Her tone was like an icicle down my back. I didn't have any, I exclaimed. Why, I certainly—you certainly had no purse, for I should have seen it and searched it if you had. Now, what do you think of a woman like that? Nancy Olden, I said to myself, more in sorrow than in anger, you've met your match right here, when a woman knows a fact and states it was such quiet conviction, without the least unnecessary emphasis and not a superfluous word, where that woman—there's only one game to play to let you hang round here a bit longer and find out what's become of the baby—play it. I looked at her with respect. It was both real and feigned. Of course you must be right, I said humbly. I know you wouldn't be likely to make a mistake, but just to convince me, do you mind letting me go back to look? Not at all, she said placidly. If I go with you, there's no reason why you should not look. Oh, Mag, it was hard lines looking. Why? Why, because the place was so bare and so small. There were so few things to move, and it took such a short time, in spite of all I could do and pretend to do, that I was in despair. You must be right, I said at length, looking woefully up at her. Yes, I knew I was, she said steadily. I must have lost it. Yes. There was no hope there. I turned to go. I'll lend you a nickel to get home, if you'll leave me your address, she said after a moment. Oh, that admirable woman! She ought to be ruling empires instead of searching thieves. Look at the balance of her, Mag. My best acting hadn't shaken her. She hadn't that fatal curiosity to understand motives that wrecks so many who deal with, we'll call them the temporarily unstraight. She was satisfied just not to let me get ahead of her in the least particular. But she wasn't mean, and she would lend me a nickel. Not an emotionally extravagant ten-cent piece, but just a nickel, on the chance that I was what I seemed to be. Oh, I did admire her. But I'd have been more enthusiastic about it if I could have seen my way clear to the baby and the paper. I took the nickel and thanked her, but a fusiveness left her unmoved. A wholesome blue-gound rock with a neat full-bibbed white apron, that's what she was. And still I lingered. Fancy Nance Olden just heartbroken at being compelled to leave a police station. But there was nothing for it. Go I had to. My head was a whirl with schemes coming forward with suggestions and being dismissed as unsuitable. My thoughts were flying about at such a dizzy rate while I stood there in the doorway, the woman's patient hand on the knob and her watchful eyes on me that I actually— Mag, I actually didn't hear the matron's voice the first time she spoke. The second time, though, I turned. So happy I could not keep the tremor out of my voice. I thought she had gone long ago, she said. Oh, we were friends, we too. We'd chummed over a baby, which for women is like what taking a drink together is for men. The admirable dragon in the blue dress didn't waver a bit because her superior spoke pleasantly to me. She only watched and listened. Which puts you in a difficult position when your name's Nance Olden. You have to tell the truth. I've been detained, I said with dignity, against my wish. But that's all over. I'm going now. Goodbye. I nodded and caught up my skirt. Oh! I paused just as the admirable dragon was closing the door on me. Is the baby asleep? I wonder if I might see her once more. My heart was beating like an engine gone mad in spite of my careless tone and there was a buzzing in my ears that deafened me. But I managed to stand still and listen and then to walk off as though it didn't matter in the least to me while her words came smashing the hope out of me. We've sent her with an officer back to the neighborhood where you found her. He'll find out where she belongs, no doubt. Good day. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of In the Bishop's Carriage. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. In the Bishop's Carriage. By Miriam Michelson. Chapter 15. Ah, me, Maggie, the miserable nance that went away from that station. To have had your future in your grasp, like that one of the fates with the string, and then to have it snatched from you by an impish breeze and blown away, goodness knows where. I don't know just which way I turned after I left that station. I didn't care where I went. Nothing I could think of gave me any comfort. I tried to fancy myself coming home to you. I tried to see myself going down to tell the whole thing to Obermuller, but I couldn't do that. There was only one thing I wanted to say to Fred Obermuller, and that thing I couldn't say now. But Nance Olden's not the girl to go round long like a molting hen. There was only one chance in a hundred, and that was the one I took, of course. Back to the square where you found the baby, Nance, I cried to myself. There's the chance that that admirable dragon has had her suspicions aroused by your connection with the baby, which she hadn't known before, and has already dutifully notified the sergeant. There's the chance that the baby is home by now, and the paper found by her mother will be turned over to her papa, and then it's goodbye to your scheme. There's the chance that, but in the heart of me, I didn't believe in any chance but one. The chance that I'd find that blessed baby and get my fingers just once more on that precious paper. I blew in the A.D.'s nickel on a crosstown car and got back to the little square. There was another organ grinder there, grinding out coon songs to which other Pickeninies danced. But nary a little white bundle of fluff caught hold of my hand. I walked that square till my feet were sore. It was hot. My throat was parched. I was hungry. My head ached. I was hopeless. And yet I just couldn't give it up. I had asked so many children and nursemaids whether they'd heard of the baby lost that morning and brought back by an officer that they began to look at me as though I was not quite right in my mind. The maids grabbed the children if they started to come near me, and the children stared at me with big round eyes as though they'd been told I wasn't ogre whom I'd eat them. I was hungry enough too. The little fruit stand at the entrance had a fascination for me. I found myself there time and again till I got afraid I had actually tried to get off with a peach or a bunch of grapes. That thought haunted me. Fancy, nance old and starved and blundering into the cheapest and most easily detected species of thieving. I suppose great generals in their hour of defeat imagine themselves as doing the feeblest, foolishest things. As I sat there on the bench, gazing before me, I saw the whole thing. Nancy Olden, after all her bragging, her skirmishing, her hair-breath scapes and successes, arrested in broad daylight and before witnesses for having stolen a cool, wet bunch of grapes worth a nickel for her hot, dry, hungering throat. I saw the policeman that had do it. He looked like that sergeant molehill I met way, way back in Latimer's garden. I saw the officer that had received me. He had blue eyes like the detective that came for me to the Manhattan. I saw the woman jailer. Oh, she was the A.D. all right, who'd received me without the slightest emotion, show me to a cell and lock the door, as calm, as little triumphant or affected, as though I hadn't once outwitted that cleverest of creatures, and outwitted myself in forestalling her. I saw— Mag, guess what I saw? No, truly, what I really saw. It made me jump to my feet and grab it with a squeal. I saw my own purse lying on the gravel almost at my feet, near the little fruit stand that attempted me. Blank empty it was, stripped clean, not a penny left in it, not a paper, not a stamp, not even my key—just the same I was glad to have it. It linked me in a way to the place. The clever little girl that had stolen it had been there in this park on this very spot. The thought of that cute, young nance old man distracted my mind a minute from my worry, and, oh Maggie darling, I was worrying so. I walked up to the fruit stand with the purse in my hand. The old fellow who kept it looked up with an inviting smile. Lord knows he needed him encouraged me to buy if I'd had a penny. I want to ask you, I said, if you remember selling a lot of good things to a little girl who had a purse this morning. I showed it to him and he turned it over and his crippled old hands. It was full then, or fuller anyway, I suggested. You wouldn't want to get her into trouble, that little girl, he asked cautiously. I laughed, not I, I myself. I was going to say—well, you can imagine what I was going to say, and that I didn't say it or anything like it. Well, there she is, Kitty Wilson over yonder, he said. I gasped. It was so unexpected, and I turned to look. There on one of the benches sat Kitty Wilson. If I hadn't been blind as a bat and full of trouble—oh, it thickens your wits to this trouble, and blinds your eyes and muffles your ears—I'd have suspected something at the mere sight of her. For there sat Kitty Wilson enthroned, a hatless, lank little creature about twelve, and near her, clustered thick as ants around a lump of sugar, was a crowd of children, black and white, boys and girls, for Kitty, that deplorable Kitty, had money to burn. Or what was even more effective at her age, she had goodies to give away. Her lap was full of spoils, she had a sample of every good thing the fruit stand offered. Her cheeks and lips were smeary with candy, her dress was stained with fruit. The crumbs of cake lingered still on her chin and apron. And Kitty, I love a generous thief, was treating the gang. It helped itself from her abundant lap. It munched and gobbled and asked for more. It was a riot of a high old time. Even the birds were hopping about as near as they dared, picking up the crumbs, and the squirrels had peanuts to throw to the birds. And all on Nancy Olden's money. I laughed till I shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn't accustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it doesn't agree with her. I strolled over to where my guests were banqueting. You see, Mag, that's where I shouldn't rank with the AD. I'm too inquisitive. I want to know how the other fellow in the case feels and thinks. It isn't enough for me to see him act. Kitty, I said, somehow a 12-year-old makes you feel more of a grown-up than a 12-months-old does. I hope you're having a good time, Kitty Wilson, but haven't you lost something? She was chewing at the end of a long string of black candy shoe strings, all right. The stuff looks like. And she was eating just because she didn't want to stop. Goodness knows she was full enough. Her jaws stopped though, suddenly, as she looked from the empty person my outstretched hand to me and took me in. Oh, I know that pause intimately. It says, wait a minute till I get my breath, and I'll know how much you know and just what lie to tell you. But she changed your mind when she saw my face. You know, Mag, if there's a thing that's fixed in your memory, it's the face of the body you've done up. The respectables have their rogue's gallery, but we, that is, the light-fingered brigade, have got a fool's gallery to correspond to it. In which of them is my picture? Now, Margaret, that's mean. You know my portrait hangs in both. I looked down on the little beggar that had painted me for the second salon and low, and a flash she was on her feet, the lap full of good things tumble to the ground, and Kitty was off. I was bitterly disappointed in that girl, Mag. I was altogether mistaken in my diagnosis of her. Hers is only a physical cleverness, a talented dexterity. She had no resource in time of danger but her legs, and legs will not carry a graft or half so far as a good quick tongue and a steady head. She halted at a safe distance and glared back at me. Her hostility excited the crowd of children, her push, against me, and the braver ones jeered the things Kitty only looked while the thrifty ones stooped and gathered up the spoil. Tell her I wouldn't harm her, I said to one of her lieutenants. She says she won't hurt E. Kit, the child screamed. She dastard, yelled back Kitty the valiant. She knows I'd peach on her about the kid. Kid? What kid? I cried all afire. The Kitty swiped this morning. Yeah, I told the cop what brought her back, how you took her just as I— Kitty, I cried, you treasure, and with all my might I ran after her. Silly? Of course it was. I might have known what the short skirts above those thin legs meant. I couldn't come within fifty feet of her. I halted, panting, and she paused, too, dancing tantalizingly half a block away. What to do? I wish I had another purse to bestow on that sad Kitty, but I had nothing—absolutely nothing—except. All at once I remembered it. That little pin you gave me for Christmas, mag. I took it off and turned to appeal to the nearest one of the flying bodyguard that had accompanied us. You run on to her and tell her that if she'll show me the house where that baby lives I'll give her this pen. He sped on ahead and parlayed with Kit, and while they talked I held aloft the little pin so that Kit might see the price. She hesitated so long that I feared she'd slip through my hands, but a sudden rival voice piping out, I'll show you the house, Mrs., was too much for her. So with Kit at a safe distance and advanced to guard against treachery and a large and enthusiastic following, I crossed the street, charned a corner, walked down one block and half up another, and halted before a three-story brownstone. I flew up the stairs, leaving my escort behind, and rang the bell. It wasn't so terribly swagger a place which relieved me some. I want to see the lady whose baby was lost this morning. I said to the maid that opened the door. Yesam, who will I tell her? Who? That stumped me. Not Nance Olden, late of the vaudeville, later of the van Twiller and latest of the police station. No, not Nance Olden. Not— Tell her, please, I said firmly, that I miss Murison of the X-ray and that the city editor has sent me here to see her. That did it. Hooray for the power of the press. She showed me into a long parlor, and I sat down and waited. It was cool and quiet and softly pretty in that long parlor. The shades were down, the piano was open, the chairs were low and softly cushioned. I leaned back and closed my eyes, exhausted. And suddenly, mag, I felt something that was a cross between a rose leaf and a snowflake touch my hand. If it wasn't that delectable baby, I caught her and lifted her to my lap and hugged the chuckling thing as though that was what I came for. Then, in a moment, I remembered the paper and lifted her little white slip. It was gone, mag. The under-pedicote hadn't a sign of the paper I'd pinned to it. My head whirled in that minute. I suppose I was faint with the heat, with hunger and fatigue and worry, but I felt myself slipping out of things when I heard the rustling of skirts, and there before me stood the mother of my baby. The little wretch, she deserted me and flew to that pretty mother of hers in her long, cool, white trailing things and sat in her arms and mocked at me. It was easy enough to begin talking. I told her a tale about being a newspaper woman out on a story, how I'd run across the baby and all the rest of it. I must ask your pardon, I finished up, for disturbing you, but two things sent me here. One to know if the baby got home safe, and the other, I gulped, to ask about a paper with some notes that I'd pinned to her skirt. She shook her head. It was in that very minute that I noticed the baby's ribbons were pink. They had been blue in the morning. Of course, I suggested, you've had her clothes changed and... Why, yes, of course, said baby's mother. The first thing I did when I got hold of her was to strip her and put her in a tub. The second was to discharge that gossiping nurse for letting her out of her sight. And the soiled things she had on, the dress with the blue ribbons? I'll find out, she said. She rang for the maid and gave her an order. Was it a valuable paper? she asked. Not very, I stammered. My tongue was thick with hope and dread. Just my notes, you know, but I do need them. I couldn't carry the baby easily, so I pinned them on her skirt, thinking... The maid came in and dumped a little heap of white before me. I fell on my knees. Oh, yes, I prayed all right, but I searched, too. And there it was. What I said to that woman I don't know even now. I flew out through the hall and down the steps, and there Kitty Wilson corralled me. Say, where's that stick-pen? she cried. Here, here you, darling. I said, pressing it into her hand. And Kitty, whenever you feel like swiping another purse, just don't do it. It doesn't pay. Just you come down to the vaudeville and ask for Nance Olden some day, and I'll tell you why. Gee! said Kitty, impressed. Shall... shall I call you a handsome lady? Should she? The blessed inspiration of her. I got into the wagon, and we drove down street to the vaudeville. I burst in past the stage doorkeeper, amazed to see me, and rushed into Fred Obermuller's office. There, I cried, throwing that awful paper on the desk before him. Now, cinch him, Fred Obermuller, as they cinched you. It'll be the holiest blackmail that ever. Oh, and will you pay for the handsome? End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of In the Bishop's Carriage. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. In the Bishop's Carriage by Miriam Michelson. I don't remember much about the first part of the lunch. I was so hungry I wanted to eat everything in sight, and so happy that I couldn't eat a thing. But Mr. O. kept piling the things on my plate. And each time I began to talk, he'd say, Not now, wait till you're rested and not quite so famished. I laughed. Do I eat as though I was starved? You... you look tired, Nance. Well, I said slowly. It's been a hard week. It's been hard for me, too. Harder, I think, than for you. It wasn't fair to me to let me think what I did and say what I did. I'm so sorry, Nance, and ashamed. So ashamed. You might have told me. And have you put your foot down on the whole thing? Not much. He laughed. He's got such a boyish laugh, in spite of his chin and his eyeglasses and the bigness of him. He filled my glass for me and helped me again to the salad. Oh, Mag, it's such fun to be a woman and have a man wait on you like that. It's such fun to be hungry and to sit down to a jolly little table, just big enough for two, with carnations nodding in the tall, slim vase, with a fat, soft-footed, quick-handed waiter dancing behind you and something tempting and every dish your eye falls on. It's a gay, happy, easy world, Maggie Darlin. I vow I can't find a dark corner in it, not today. None but the swellest place in town was good enough, Obermuller had said, for us to celebrate in. The waiters looked clearly at us when we came in. Me and my dusty shoes and must hair and old rig, and Mr. O. and his working-togs. But do you suppose we cared? He was smoking and I was pretending to eat fruit, when at last I got fairly launched on my story. He listened to it all with never a word of interruption. Sometimes I thought he was so interested that he couldn't bear to miss a word I said. And then again I fancied he wasn't listening at all to me, only watching me and listening to something inside of himself. Can you see him, Mag, sitting opposite me there at the pretty little table, often a private room by ourselves? He looked so big and strong and masterful, with his eyes half closed, watching me. That I hugged myself with delight to think that I, I, Nancy Olden, had done something for him he couldn't do for himself. It made me so proud, so tipsily vain, that as I leaned forward eagerly talking, I felt that same intoxicating happiness I get on the stage when the audience is all with me, and the two of us, myself and the many-handed, good-natured other fellow over on the other side of the footlights, go careering off on a jaunt of fun and fancy, like two good playmates. He was silent a minute when I got through, then he laid his cigar aside and stretched out his hand to me. And the reason, Nancy, the reason for it all? I looked up at him, I'd never heard him speak like that. The reason, I repeated. Yes, the reason, he had caught my hand. Why, to down that tiger trust and beat Tossig, he laughed. And that was all. Nonsense, Nancy Olden, there was another reason. There are other tiger trusts. Are you going to set up as a lady errant and right all syndicate wrongs? No, there was another, a bigger reason, Nancy. I'm going to tell it to you. What? I pulled my hand from his, but not before that fat waiter who'd come in without our noticing had got something to grin about. Big pardon, sir, he said. This message must be for you, sir, it's marked immediate and no one else. Obermuller took it and tore it open. He smiled the oddest smile as he read it, and he threw back his head and laughed a full, hardy bellow when he got to the end. Read it, Nance, he said, passing it over to me. They sent it on from the office. I read it. Mr. Fred W. Obermuller, manager, Vaudville Theatre, New York City, New York. Dear Obermuller, I have just learned from your little protégé, Nance Olden, of a comedy you've written. From what Ms. Olden tells me of the plot and situations of, and the greatest of these, your title's great, I judge the thing to be something altogether out of the common, and my secretary and reader, Mr. Mason, agrees with me that properly interpreted and perhaps touched up here and there, the comedy ought to make a hit. Would Ms. Olden take the leading role, I wonder? Can't you drop in this evening and talk the matter over? There's an opening for a fellow like you with us that's just developed within the past few days, and this is strictly confidential. I have succeeded in convincing Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personal matter, which businessmen shouldn't let stand in the way of business. After all, just what is there between you and them? A mere trifle, a misunderstanding that half an hour's talk over a bottle of wine with a good cigar would drive away. If you're the man I take you for, you'll drop in this evening at the Van Twillor and bury the hatchet. They're good fellows, those two, and smart men, even if they are stubborn as sin. Counting on seeing you tonight, my dear fellow, I am most cordially, I am tossig. I dropped the letter and looked over it. I dropped the letter and looked over it, Obermuller. Miss Olden, he said severely, coming over to my side of the table, have you the heart to harm a generous soul like that? He—he's very prompt, isn't he, and most—and then we laughed together. You noticed the letter was marked personal? Obermuller said. He was still standing beside me. No, was it? I got up to him and began to pull on my gloves, but my fingers shook so I couldn't do a thing with them. Oh, yes it was. That's why I showed it to you. Nance—Nance, don't you see that there's only one way out of this? There's only one woman in the world that would do this for me, and that I could take it from. I clasped my hands helplessly. Oh, what can I do, Maggie, with him there and his arms ready for me? I—I should think you'd be afraid, I whispered. I didn't dare look at him. He caught me to him then. Afraid you wouldn't care for an old fellow like me, he laughed. Yes, that's the only fear I had. But I lost it, Nancy—Nancy Obermuller—when you flung that paper down before me. That's quite two hours ago. Haven't I waited long enough? Oh, Mag, Mag, how can I tell him? Do you think he knows that I am going to be good, good, that I can be as good for a good man who loves me as I was bad for a bad man I loved? END OF CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII OF IN THE BISHOP'S CARAGE This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. IN THE BISHOP'S CARAGE BY MIRIAM MIKELSON CHAPTER XVII PHILLIDELPHIA JANUARY XXVII MAGGIE DEAR I'm writing to you just before dinner while I wait for Fred. He's down at the box office looking up advanced sales. I tell you, Maggie Monahan, we're strictly in it, we Obermullers. That Broadway hit of mine has preceded me here, and we've got the town, I suspect, in advance. But I'm not writing to tell you this. I've got something more interesting to tell you, my dear old cruelty chum. I want you to pretend to yourself that you see me, Mag, as I came out of the big chestnut street store this afternoon, my arms full of bundles. I must have on that long coat to my heels of dark warm red silk line with the long in-curving backsweep and high chinchilla collar that Fred ordered made for me the very day we were married. I must be wearing that jolly little redcloth toque caught up on the side with some of the fur. Oh, yes, I knew I was more than a year behind the times when I got them, but a successful actress wears what she pleases and the rest of the world wears what pleases her, too. Besides, fashions don't mean so much to you when your husband tells you how be coming, but this has nothing to do with the bishop. Yes, the bishop, Mag. I had just said, Nance Olden, to myself I still speak to me as Nancy Olden, it's good for me, Mag, keeps me humble and forever grateful that I'm so happy. Nance, you'll never be able to carry all these things and lift your boofal train, too, and there's never a handsome round when it's snowing and—and then I caught sight of the carriage. Yes, Maggy, the same fat, low, comfortable, elegant sober carriage, wide and well kept with rubber-tired wheels, and the two heavy horses, fat and elegant and sober, too, and wide and well kept. I knew whose it was the minute my eyes lighted on it, and I couldn't. I just couldn't resist it. The man on the box, still wide and well kept, was wide awake this time. I nodded to him as I slipped in and closed the door after me. I'll wait for the bishop, I said, with a red-coated assurance that left him no alternative but to accept the situation respectfully. Oh, dear, dear, it was soft and warm inside, as it had been that long, long ago day. The seat was wide and roomy. The cushions had been done over. I resented that. But though a different material there were a still darker plum, and instead of covatis, the bishop had been reading resurrection. I took it up and glanced over it as I sat there. But you know, Mag, the heavy weight plays never appealed to me. I don't go in for the tragic. Perhaps I saw too much of the real thing when I was little. At any rate it seemed dull to me, and I put it aside and sat there absent-mindedly dreaming of a little girl thief that I knew once when the handle of the door turned and the bishop got in and we were off. Oh, the little bishop, the contrast between him and the fat pompous rig caught me. He seemed littler and leaner than ever, his little white-beared scantier, his soft eye kindlier, and his soft heart. God bless my soul, he exclaimed, jumping almost out of his neat little boots while he looked sharply over his spectacles. What did he see? Just a red-coated ghost dreaming in the corner of his carriage. It made him doubt his eyes, his sanity. I don't know what he'd have done if that warm red ghost hadn't got tired of dreaming and laughed outright. Daddy, I murmured sleepily. Oh, that little ramrod of a bishop! The blood brushed up under his clear, thin, baby-like skin and he sat up straight and solemn and awful, awful as such a tiny bishop could be. I fear, Miss, you have made a mistake, he said primely. I looked at him steadily. You know I haven't, I said gently. That took some of the starch out of him, but he eyed me suspiciously. Why don't you ask me where I got the coat, Bishop Van Wagonen? I said, leaning over to him. He started. I suppose he just that moment remembered my leaving it behind that day at Mrs. Ramsey's. Lord bless me, he cried anxiously. You haven't. You haven't again. No, I haven't. Ah, Maggie dear, it was worth a lot to me to be able to say that no to him. It was given to me. Guess who gave it to me? He shook his head. My husband. Maggie Monaghan, he didn't even blink. Perhaps in the bishop's set husbands are not uncommon, or very likely they don't know what a husband like Fred Obermuller means. I congratulate you, my child, or—or did it—were you? Why, I'd never seen Fred Obermuller then, I cried. Can't you tell a difference, Bishop? I pleaded. Don't I look like a—an imposing married woman now? Don't I seem a bit—oh, just a bit nicer? His eyes twinkled as he bent to look more closely at me. You look—you look, my little girl, exactly like the pretty big-eyed, weedling voice child I wish to have for my own daughter. I caught his hand in both of mine. Now that's like my own—own bishop, I cried. Mag, mag, he was blushing like a boy—a prim, rather scared little school boy that somehow—yet—oh, I knew he must feel kindly to me. I felt so fond of him. You see, Bishop Van Wagonen—I began softly—I never had a father and— bless me—what you told me that day you had mistaken me for—for him. The baby—I had forgotten what that old Edward told me—that this trusting soul actually still believed all I told him. What was I to do? I tell you, Mag, it's no light thing to get accustomed to telling the truth. You never know where it'll lead you. Here was I, just a clever little liar, too, and the dear old Bishop would be happy and contented again. But no, that fatal habit that I've acquired of telling the truth to Fred and you mastered me, and I fell. You know, Bishop—I said, shutting my eyes and speaking fast to get it over, as I imagine you must, Mag, when you confess to father feeling—that was all up a little farce comedy—the whole business, all of it, every last word of it. A comedy? I opened my eyes to laugh at him. He was so bewildered. I mean a—a fib. In fact, many of them. I—I was just—it was long ago, and I had to make you believe. His soft old eyes looked at me, unbelieving. You don't mean to say you deliberately lied. Now, that was what I did mean, just what I did mean, but not in that tone of voice. But what can I do? I just looked at him and nodded. Oh, Maggie, I felt so little and so nasty. I haven't felt like that since I left the cruelty. And I'm not nasty, Maggie, and I'm Fred Obermuller's wife, and—and that put a backbone in me again. Fred Obermuller's wife just won't let anybody think worse of her than she can help, from sheer love and pride in that big, clever husband of hers. Now, look here, Bishop Van Wagonen, I broke out. If I were the abandoned little wretch your eyes accused me of being, I wouldn't be in your carriage confessing to you this blessed minute when it'd be so much easier not to. Surely, surely in your experience, you must have met girls that go wrong and then go right forever and ever. Amen. And I'm very right now, but—but it has been hard for me at times, and at those times—ah, you must know how sincerely I mean it—at those times I used to try to recall the sound of your voice when you said you'd like to take me home with you and keep me. If I had been your daughter, you'd have had a heart full of loving care for me. And yet if I had been, and had known that benevolent fatherhood, I should need it less, so much less than I did the day I begged a prayer from you. But it's all right now. You don't know, do you? I'm Nance Olden. That made him sit up and stare, I tell you. Even the Bishop had heard of Nancy Olden. But suddenly, unaccountably, there came a queer, sad look over his face, and his eyes wouldn't meet mine. I looked at him puzzled. Tell me what it is, I said. You evidently forget that you have already told me you are the wife of Mr.—Mr. Ober— Obermuller. Oh, that's all right. I laughed aloud. I was so relieved. Of course I am, and he's my manager, and my playwright, and my secretary, and my—my dear, dear boy. There. I wasn't laughing at the end of it. I never can laugh when I try to tell what Fred is to me. But—funny—that won him. There, there—he said, patting me on the shoulder. Forgive me, my dear. I am indeed glad to know that you are living happily. I have often thought of you. Oh, have you? Yes. I've even told Mrs. Van Wagon and about you, and how I was attracted to you and believed—I am. Oh, oh, have you? I gave a wriggle as I remembered that Maltese Lace Maria wanted, and that I—ew. But luckily he didn't notice. He had taken my hand and was looking at me over his spectacles in his dear, fatherly old way. Tell me now, my dear, is there anything that an old clergyman can do for you? I have an engagement near here, and we may not meet again. I can't hope to find you in my carriage many more times. You are happy. You are living worthily, child? Pardon me, but the stage. Oh, the gentle courtesy of his manner. I loved his solicitude. Father hungry girls like us, Maggie, know how to value a thing like that. You know—I said slowly—the thing that keeps a woman straight and a man faithful is not a matter of bricks and mortar, nor ways of thinking nor habits of living. It's something finer and stronger than these. It's the magic taboo of her love for him and his for her that makes them sacred. Would that to guard them? Why? Yes, yes. He patted my hand softly. Still the old see the dangers of an environment that a young and impulsive woman like you, my dear, might be blind to. You're associates. My associates? Oh, you've heard about Barrel Blackburn. Well, she's—she's just Barrel, you know. She wasn't made to live any different. Some people steal and some drink and some gamble and some—well, Barrel belongs to the last class. She doesn't pretend to be better than she is. And just between you and me, Bishop, I have more respect for a girl of that kind than for Grace Weston, whose husband is my leading man, you know. Why, she pulls the wool over his eyes and makes him the laughing stock of the company. I can't stand her any more than I can Marie Abon, who's never without two strings. All at once I stopped. But wasn't it like me to spoil it all by bubbling over? I tell you, Maggie, too much truth isn't good for the Bishop's set. They don't know how to digest it. I was afraid that I'd lost him, for he spoke with a stately little primness as the carers just then came to a stop. I had been so interested talking that I hadn't noticed where we were driving. Oh, here we are, he said. I must ask you to excuse me, Miss—uh, Misses—that is, there's a public meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children this afternoon that I must attend. Goodbye, then. Oh, are you bound for the cruelty, too? I asked. Why, so am I. And, yes, yes, that's the cruelty. The cruelty stands just where it did, Mag, when you and I first saw it. Most things do in Philadelphia, you know. There's the same prem official straight up and downness about the brick front. The steps don't look so steep now, and the building's not so high, perhaps because of a skyscraper or two that have gone up since. But it chills your blood, Maggie, darling, just as it always did, to think what it stands for. Not man's in humanity to man, but women's cruelty to children. Maggie, think of it, if you can, as though this were the first time you've heard of such a thing. Would you believe it? I waked from that to find myself marching up the stairs behind the bishop's rigid little back. Oh, it was stiff and uncompromising. Barrow Blackburn did that for me. Poor, pretty, pagan barrel. My coming with the bishop—we seemed to come together, anyway—made the people think he'd brought me, so I must be just all right. I had the man bring in the toys I'd got out in the carriage, and I handed them over to the matron, saying, There for the children, I want them to have them all, and now please, to do whatever they want with them. There'll always be others. I'm going to send them right along, if you'll let me, so that those who leave can take something of their very own with them—something that never belonged to anybody else but just themselves, you understand. It's terrible, don't you know, to be a deserted child or a tortured child or a crippled child and have nothing to do but sit up in that bare, clean little room upstairs with a lot of other strangelings, and just think on the cruelty that's brought you here and the cruelty you may get into when you leave here. If I'd had a doll, if Mag had only had a set of dishes or a little tin kitchen, if the boy with a gouge-dye could have had a set of tools, oh, can't you understand. I became conscious, then, that the matron—a new one, Mag, ours is gone—was staring at me, and that the people stood around listening as though I'd gone mad. Who came to my rescue? Why, the bishop, like the manly little fellow he is, he forgave me even barrel in that moment. It's Nance Olden, ladies, he said, with the dignified little wave of his hand that served for an introduction. She begins her Philadelphia engagement tonight, and the greatest of these. Oh, I'm used to it now, Maggie, but I do like it. All the ladies swells buzzed about me, and their Nance stood, preening herself and crowing softly till—till from among the bunch of millinery one of them stepped up to me. She had a big, smooth face with plenty of chins. Her hair was white and her nose was curved, and she rustled and silkened. It was Mrs. Dowager Diamond's alias Henrietta, alias Mrs. Edward Ramsey. Clever! My, how clever! she exclaimed, as though the sob in my voice that I couldn't control had been a bit of acting. She was feeling for her glasses. When she got them and hooked them on her nose and got a good look at me, why, she just dropped them with a smash upon the desk. I looked for a minute from her to the bishop. I remember you very well, Mrs. Ramsey. I hope you haven't forgotten me. I've often wanted to thank you for your kindness. I said slowly while she is slowly recovered. I think you'll be glad to know that I am thoroughly well cured. Shall I tell Mrs. Ramsey how, bishop? I put it square up to him, and he met it like the little man he is, perhaps to my bit of charity to the cruelty children had pleased him. I don't think it will be necessary, Miss Olden, he said gently. I can do that for you at some future time. And I could have hugged him, but I didn't dare. We had tea there in the boardrooms. Oh, Mag, remember how we used to peep into those awful imposing boardrooms? Remember how strange or resentful you felt, like a poor little red-haired nigger up at the block, when you were brought in there to be shown to the woman who called to adopt you? It was also strange that I had to keep talking to keep from dreaming. I was talking away to the matron and the bishop about the playroom I'm going to fit up out of that bare little place upstairs. Perhaps the same child doesn't stay there very long, but there will always be children to fill it. More's the cruel pity. Then the bishop and I climbed up there to see it and plan about it. But I couldn't really see it, Mag, nor the poor white-faced, wise-eyed little waves that have succeeded us, for the tears in my eyes and the ache at my heart and the queer trick the place has of being peepled with you and me and the boy with the gouged eye and the cripple and the rest. He put his gentle, thin, old arm about my shoulders for a moment when he saw what was the matter with me. Oh, he understands my bishop. And then we turned to go downstairs. Oh, I want—I want to do something for them, I cried. I want to do something that counts, that's got a heart in it, that knows. You knew, didn't you? It was true, what I said downstairs. I was. I am a cruelty girl. Help me to help others like me. My dear, he said, very stately and sweet. I'll be proud to be your assistant. You've a kind, true heart, and—and just at that moment, as I was proceeding him down the narrow steps, a girl in a red coat trim with chinchilla and in a red toque with some of the same fur locked our way as she was coming up. We looked at each other. You've seen two peacocks spread their tails and strut as they pass each other? Well, the peacock coming up wasn't in it with the one going down. Her coat wasn't so fine nor so heavy nor so newly, smartly cut. Her toque wasn't so big nor so saucy and the fur on it, not to mention that the descending peacock was a brunette, and—well, mag, I had my day. Miss Evelyn Kingdon paid me back in that minute for all the envy I've spent on that pretty rig of hers. She didn't recognize me, of course, even though the two red coats were so near, as she stopped to let me pass, that they kissed like sisters ere they parted. But mag, Nancy Olden, never got haughty that there wasn't a fall waiting for her. Back of Miss Kingdon stood Mrs. Kingdon—still Mrs. Kingdon, thanks to Nancy Olden—and behind her, at the foot of the steps, was a frail little old-fashioned bundle of black satin and old lace. I lost my breath when the bishop hailed his wife. Maria, he said. Some men say their wives first names all the years of their lives as they said them on their wedding day. I want you to meet Miss Olden, Nancy Olden, the comedian. She's the girl I wanted for my daughter. You'll remember. It's more than a year ago now since I began to talk about her. I held my breath while I waited for her answer, but her poor, short-sighted eyes rested on my hot face without a sign. It's an old joke among us, she said pleasantly, about the bishop's daughter. We stood there and chatted, and the bishop turned away to speak to Mrs. Kingdon. Then I seized my chance. I've heard, Mrs. Van Wagonen, I said softly and oh as nicely as I could, of your fondness for lace. We are going abroad in the spring, my husband and I, to Malta, among other places. Can't I get you a piece there as a souvenir of the bishop's kindness to me? Her little lace-mittant, parchment-like hands clasped and unclasped with an almost childish eagerness. Oh, thank you, thank you very much. But if you would give the same sum to charity. I will, I laughed. She couldn't guess how glad I was to do this thing. And I'll spend just as much on your lace and be so happy if you'll accept it. I promised Henrietta a box for tonight, Maggie, and one to Mrs. Kingdon. The Dowager told me she'd love to come, though her husband is out of town, but, fortunately, she said. But you'll come with me, won't you, Bishop? She said, turning to him. And you, Mrs. Van? The bishop blushed. Was he thinking of Barrow, I wonder? But I didn't hear his answer. For it was at that moment that I caught Fred's voice. He had told me he was going to call for me. I think he fancied that the old cruelty would depress me, as dreams of it have, you know. And he wanted to come and carry me away from it, just as at night, when I've waked shivering and moaning, I felt his dear arms lifting me out of the black night memory of it. But it was anything but a doleful glance he found and hurried down the snowy steps out to a handsome and off to rehearsal. For the bishop had said to me, God bless you, child, when he shook hands with both of us at parting. And the very cruelty seemed to smile a grim benediction as he drove off together on Fred and Nancy Oh. By Leanne Howlett.