CHAPTER I THE FAIR UNKNOWN

The great bell of the cathedral chimed musically the hour of six, its vibrant tones mingling with the muffled din and clangor of smaller bells, steam whistles, town clocks and street-car jingle, making itself heard above the roar and rattle of travel over the stone-paved streets of the Forest City.

Away at the north the blue lake rolled, its waters dotted by the many white-clothed vessels and smoke-trailing steamships. The whole was made bright by a lowering, unveiled sun, which ere long must sink to rest in its waves. At the south a heavy cloud of smoke and vapor rested above the river flats, hiding the blackened roofs of the shops and manufactories, only broken by the scarlet tongues of fire that occasionally shot upward from seething furnaces and tall chimneys.

The rattle upon the pavement grew louder, and the confusion of sounds greater, as the crowds of workmen thronged the streets, homeward-bound, after the hard day of labor.

At an upper window of La Grande Hotel a lady, screened by the hanging folds of the curtain drapery, 10looked out upon the multitude of pedestrians hurrying along the sidewalk below. The close-fitting gown of soft, light material revealed a plump, stylish little figure, most attractive in its fashionable perfection. Against the dark wood of the window-casing rested a white, rounded wrist, and delicate, dimpled hand, upon the fingers of which glittering stones caught the rich sunlight and showered it in rainbow splendor upon the opposite wall.

The fluffy rings of fair hair that rested above her forehead seemed appropriate adornment to the bright, girlish face and careless, smiling eyes, that showed so certainly her exemption from sorrow and care.

The perfection and harmony of her costume showed also that she belonged to that class that “Toil not, neither do they spin,” but are the beautiful exponents of the art of modiste and hairdresser.

Across the room, resting indolently in an easy chair, a gentleman studied the third edition of the Daily Leader, apparently oblivious of the presence of the fair lady at the window. He, too, had the well-fed, well-groomed look of the man with full purse and few anxieties, together with an air of unmistakable elegance and worldly wisdom.

In age he appeared five and thirty. His face was smooth shaven, except for the long, drooping mustache which shaded the corners of his firm-lipped mouth. His dark hair, inclined to curl, was closely cropped. His brown eyes were marvelously clear and penetrating, his forehead broad and particularly full above the temples. His heavy, massive build, 11with the squarely cut and rather prominent chin gave him an awesome individuality, which was counteracted by the exceeding graciousness, gentleness, and courtesy of his manner.

He was well known in business circles, a man keen, shrewd, and full of worldly cunning, but as honest and upright as the majority of his compeers who make or lose fortunes in a day at the mart of speculation.

At present he was connected with a steel industry, and greatly interested in the fluctuations of the ore and coal market, the strikes at the mines, and the attitude of the United States Congress with reference to tariff rates. He was yet studying the columns before him, and balancing in his mind the advisability of recalling salesmen from certain localities, when the lady interrupted his thought.

“Horace, have you ever noticed that pretty, sad-looking woman, dressed in black, who goes by here so frequently, leading a little child?”

“Pretty, sad woman, dressed in black—small child. A definite description, truly. How many in this delightful city will answer to the same, think you? Pretty—in a city noted for handsome women; sad—few are happy; dressed in black—the fashionable street dress at present; and small child—not a scarce article, I believe. Really, Nellie, you must be more specific.” And Mr. Wylie laid his paper carefully over the arm of his chair and smiled provokingly at his wife.

“Oh, you are too bad! This lady has such a sweet face, she is really conspicuous, and she always comes 12down Leader Avenue at about this hour and turns down Herald Street, going into one of those blocks across the way. I feel quite sure she gets sewing to do, for she usually carries a good-sized parcel with her. She is very interesting.”

“Why, my dear, I am surprised at your enthusiasm. You really seem to have been cultivating a habit of observation.” Mr. Wylie leaned his head against the back of his chair and looked at his wife through half-closed eyes, while with his large, shapely hand he softly stroked his smooth chin.

“A woman with a parcel and a mystery,” he continued. “I am not sure but you would shine as a female detective, Nellie. Shall I send in your name at the next meeting of the police board?”

Mrs. Wylie looked at her husband with a petulant pout of her pretty lips. “You are really unkind to ridicule me when I want to be very serious. Truly, I believe this is a woman with a mystery and history. She has attracted me wonderfully, as she would you could you see her. I wish I knew of some way to learn more about her.”

“And so you have been sitting here watching for the unknown, when I supposed you were studying costumes, or mentally rhapsodizing upon the architectural beauties of the stone walls opposite. I am afraid, Nellie, you are getting lonely. The Misses Eldridge have not called lately, or that dear, delightful Mrs. Lee, about whom you were raving a month ago, has gone away. I must look into this. When my wife is forced to seek amusement and objects 13of interest in the faces of the passers-by upon the streets—”

“Oh, how fortunate! There she comes now! You shall see for yourself,” interrupted Mrs. Wylie, eagerly leaning forward and scanning the street before her. “She will be opposite here before long.”

Mr. Wylie arose languidly, and slightly shaking his body to adjust his clothing, moved gracefully across the room to his wife’s side, where, glancing over her shoulder, he sought the described woman. Among the throng of hurrying pedestrians crossing the street a few rods away they saw a lady, dressed in plain and unassuming black, slowly accommodating her footsteps to the pace of the little toddler at her side, who trudged along with the half-tottering, uncertain gait of infants of her age. So slowly was she obliged to walk that the spectators at the window had ample opportunity for close inspection.

The woman was of medium height, slender and pliant, with a fine poise of the head and grace of sloping shoulders. Her face was pale, too pale for perfect health, Elinor Wylie thought, and her features were clear-cut and expressive. But the beauty of her face was in her eyes. As she came opposite the hotel she seemed accidentally to glance upward. Involuntarily Mr. and Mrs. Wylie drew back from the window, then looked at each other and laughed.

“Is she not lovely?” questioned Mrs. Wylie triumphantly.

“She has rather fine features,” returned the gentleman, absently twirling the curtain about his fingers. “I fancy I have seen her before somewhere, 14but I cannot now remember where.” He wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. “I do not associate that face in my memory, however, with black robes or the character of sewing woman in Forest City.”

“I knew you would be interested if you could but see her; and now how can I learn more of her? I might seek her in a business way to get her to sew for me or something of that kind,” said the little woman, looking inquiringly at her husband.

He laughed, a soft-modulated laugh, that well harmonized with his languid movements and studied grace.

“I am afraid you are premature in arriving at conclusions. You are not yet sure that she is a sewing woman. I think I begin to understand your mission on earth. You should be at the head of an organized benevolent society. You are such an adept at fishing out cases upon which to waste your sympathy.”

“Please do not laugh, Horace. It is very seldom I become interested in anything of the kind and you should encourage me,” she said.

And truly it was a rare thing for careless, thoughtless Elinor Wylie to take interest in anything outside the fashionable circle which she denominated “our set.” Her life had been too carefully ordered for her to have much appreciation of the wretchedness beyond her gates.

“And so you think I should allow you the luxury of an entirely new sensation,” said Mr. Wylie, with his habitual drawl. “All right. Be as benevolent 15as you choose, only be careful,” he continued, rising and beginning to draw on his gloves.

Mrs. Wylie looked at him inquiringly.

“I am going to keep an appointment with Colonel Fenton. By the way, Nellie, did I tell you, Doctor Lyman, the noted seer and spiritist, is coming next week to give a series of lectures in Garrett’s Hall? I think we’ll have to attend, will we not?”

“Dr. Lyman? Oh, yes; Mrs. Wallace was telling me about him. Do you care to hear him?” asked Mrs. Wylie doubtfully.

“Most assuredly, and so must you. People say he is remarkably interesting; and besides, it will never do to lose so good an opportunity to learn of the invisible world toward which we are fast hastening; eh, Nelly?”

“But, Horace—” Little Mrs. Wylie hesitated and raised her blue eyes to his questioningly.

“Well, my dear, I am the personification of devout attention; what will you have?”

“I wonder—do you really believe he knows any more about the other world than any one else?”

“Undoubtedly; a great deal more.” Mr. Wylie assumed a serio-comic air.

“I don’t see why; but I mean, do you really believe he is right? Do you believe they are right who believe in spirit manifestation and all that sort of thing?”

“Do I believe in them who do believe? My dear girl, you are asking unanswerable questions. I believe in an infinite number of things or I believe in nothing. It is to find out just what I believe that 16I propose to attend Dr. Lyman’s lectures. I have listened to the preaching of orthodoxy from childhood; now, I will absorb a little heterodoxy and see if it is any more clear to the human comprehension. But I must be going. Is not that the fair lady again?”

“Yes, and see, she has another and different-sized parcel. Poor thing, I wonder if it is hard work?”

“I think I’ll go down on the street and get a nearer view of the fair unknown. It seems to me I have seen that face some time before this. It is probably a chance resemblance to some one I have known, that haunts me. Good-by.” And kissing his hand to his wife, Mr. Wylie left the room.

“Talk of woman’s curiosity,” laughed Elinor to herself. “It does not compare with that of the sterner sex.” And she watched her husband cross Herald Street and walk down the avenue with more than his usual celerity. Then she touched a tiny bell, which was answered by a young girl from the adjoining room.

“You may bring Robbie to me, Tibby. Mr. Wylie has gone away and I am at leisure to amuse him.”

The young nurse departed, to return with a mischievous little lad of four years, beautiful in his night robes of linen and lace, and the mother-love, which even the society life could not destroy, shone in Mrs. Wylie’s eyes as she clasped him in her arms.

“You may leave us now, Tibby. I will call you when Robbie has done with his play.”

The smiling, dimple-cheeked maid withdrew, and the mother gave herself up to the enjoyment of a 17frolic with the wide-awake child. When, an hour later, she summoned the maid to put the cherub in his bed, she met with opposition. Robbie had not wearied of his mother, and refused to go.

“But it is bed-time, Robbie, and the sand-man will come to put sand in your eyes,” remonstrated Mrs. Wylie.

“Don’t tare, ain’t doin’ to bed,” asserted the wilful child.

“But you must go, dear; mother desires it.”

“Ain’t doin’ to,” persisted Robbie, with the perversity of a spoiled child.

The mother looked helplessly at Tibby, who came forward smiling, while her eyes sought those of the little rebel.

“Come,” she said sweetly, and to Mrs. Wylie’s surprise the boy put his hand into the inviting one of the nurse and suffered himself to be led from the room.

“What remarkable eyes that girl has,” soliloquized Mrs. Wylie as the door closed behind them. “I have been more fortunate than I dared hope in securing her services.”

CHAPTER II TIBBY’S EYES

As for Tibby’s eyes, no one had been able to decide upon the exact color of them. On warm, sunshiny afternoons, when Tibby yawned in a swinging hammock on the back veranda and the pupils were small and contracted, they appeared of a cerulean hue, warm and languorous. On cloudy days, when the sky was dark and lowering, Tibby’s eyes were gray and forbidding. But when a tempest of rage shook her pliant figure her eyes sparkled black as coal from the mines. Her brothers called them cat’s eyes, not only because the name Tibby was a contraction of the more severe Tabitha of her christening, but from the ever-varying, changing light which shone in their restless depths, which now dilated until the least rim of color was visible, now contracted like those of a purring kitten.

Tibby had not to depend upon the beauty of her opalescent eyes for recognition, for nature had dealt most generously with her, giving her regular features, and so mixing and intermingling the types of brunette and blonde in her physique that no one could determine in which class to catalogue her. The delicious glint of the sun in her brown hair, the rich waves of carmine that tinged and receded from her cheeks, the arched black brows which defined themselves so conspicuously against the shining 19whiteness of her forehead were contradictions when compared, but formed a tout ensemble most charming.

It appeared, too, that Tibby’s nature was as contradictory. Wayward and wilful as she was at times, at others she appeared of angelic sweetness, and the soft, innocent depths of those slumberous blue eyes captivated the hearts of all who met her, and made them swear no evil could exist in her.

And now while Tibby, like her feline namesake, purrs most delusively in the midst of her aesthetic surroundings, and her pink-tinted fingers effectually conceal any hidden claws, her mind reviews a scene but three weeks behind the present.

She sees an old-fashioned, wood-colored farm-house with broad lawn, in which are bright beds of dear old-fashioned flowers, marigolds and petunias, bachelor buttons and scarlet poppies; and she sees herself in calico gown and big sunbonnet standing under the old elm, in listening attitude, while a shrill, chirruping note sounds in her ear.

“Hello, Tib, what’s up?” shouts a boyish voice, and a stout-limbed, bare-footed lad bounds down the path toward her.

“Hush!” she says. “Ah, you have frightened it away! It was singing in the old elm and I hoped to find it. It’s a tree-toad, isn’t it? Did you ever see one, Tom?”

“Hundreds of ’em,” replies the boy contemptuously.

“What do they look like, Tom? Are they green?”

“They’re mostly the color of the thing they’re 20on, I reckon,” says the oracle. “Sometimes they’re like the bark of the trees or fence, and then again they’re sort of green if they’re on the grass.”

“Humph! You don’t expect me to believe such a fish story as that, do you?” replies Tibby scornfully, drawing up her straight, slim figure with dignity. “As if any mortal thing could change its color! As well might the leopard change his spots,” she continues as her mind reverts to the Scripture lesson of the preceding Sabbath.

“That’s all you know about it! They’re thicker ’n spatter down in the lane, an’ I guess I know what I’m telling you! Why, Tibby, they’re like your eyes. A minute ago they were blue, now they’re yeller. Mother says your eyes make her fidgety, they’re so changeable.” And Tom laughed gleefully.

“Did she, Tom; when?”

“Yisterday. I heard her tell pop. And say, Tibby, if you don’t go down cellar and do that churnin’, she’ll make it hot for you. She says you allus slip off on churnin’ days.”

“It’s already done, Mr. Tom. I did it before I came out here. But mother’ll think I haven’t, and won’t she have a conniption fit?”

Again the twain laugh.

“Say, Tom, wouldn’t you like to go away somewheres, where folks are different—into the city, or somewhere? It’s deadly dull here, an’ then mother’s so cross—”

“I dunno, pop’s all right if she didn’t put him up to pitch into us.” Tom gives his trousers a jerk, 21and digs his bare toes into the grass. “An’ she tells him you’re wilful and headstrong as fury.”

Tibby tosses her red-brown curls and purses up her small mouth expressively, then she remembers her quest.

“Just find this toad for me, Tom, and I’ll thank you ever so much, that’s a good boy,” she purrs as she approaches the tree more closely. “I want to see one for myself. Here, I’ll boost you up into the tree. I think it’s out on that limb.”

And the good-natured Tom, declining her proffered aid, climbs the tree with an agility born of long practice, while the girl feels her eyes dilate with expectancy, and then he captures the singer and brings it to her for inspection. Good Tom! Tibby feels these same eyes filling as she looks upon this picture. The toad is a dull gray, and looks incapable of producing these strident sounds. What a queer, homely thing it is. Ugh!

“Put it back upon the limb, Tom. I’m afraid to touch it,” she says with a shiver, and Tom laughs contemptuously.

“You know about as much about toads as Bess does,” he says; “we saw some toad-stools, last night, growing in the moss down on the bank and she said, ‘O, ain’t they pretty, Tom? And to think the toads made ’em, too.’ Ha, ha, ha! she thought the toads made ’em.”

Tibby feels a little lump rise in her throat as she remembers this, and as she turns away her head she sees, as she saw then, a glittering carriage, drawn by a handsome span of bays, come swiftly down the big 22hill on the east, and watches it with fascinated glance as it spins across the level of the flats and up into the covered, wooden bridge. It comes forth from the nearer end of the structure, and then something happens, for almost before the house the horses come to a halt and the driver springs out. Something has broken. Tibby knows that it must have been caused by that steep pitch off the end of the bridge, which should have been repaired, or filled in, long ago.

“There,” she says to Tom, “if Path-master Morton had attended to that place, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“That comes from putting in politicians that don’t know beans from broomsticks,” says Tom oracularly. “A man that don’t keep his own place in repair can’t be expected to look after the public ones.”

The driver examines the carriage closely, and then comes into the yard and asks for hammer, nails, and other repairing material. Tom runs for the supplies, while Tibby watches a small lady, accompanied by a yellow-haired boy with long curls and kilts, step daintily from the broken carriage and enter the yard. The lady smiles upon Tibby and asks if she may sit down to wait under the shade of the patriarchal old tree; and Tibby replies to her questioning, while she sits before her and tells her of her brothers and sisters, and her heart swells with pride at the lady’s praise of her home and surroundings. Her eyes follow those of the lady to the old-fashioned, weather-brown farm-house, with its low-browed gables and spreading lean-tos, built apparently without regard to economy of ground space; 23then to the left, where upon a little lower ground the great red-roofed barns and spacious corn-cribs stand, and again to the nodding, smiling flowers dotting the lawn.