Mrs. Inchbald - "Lover's Vows"

Algernon Charles Swinburne - "Locrine A Tragedy"

Frances Hodgson Burnett - "The Head of the House of Coombe"

Rex Beach - "The Ne'er Do Well"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Fallen Leaves

W >> Wilkie Collins >> The Fallen Leaves




The messenger returned with these lines of reply:--

"Under any ordinary circumstances, I should have used my influence to
help you on in the world. But, when you not only hold the most
abominable political opinions, but actually proclaim those opinions in
public, I am amazed at your audacity in writing to me. There must be no
more communication between us. While you are a Socialist, you are a
stranger to me."

Amelius accepted this new rebuff with ominous composure. He sat quietly
smoking in the deserted room, with his uncle's letter in his hand.

Among the other disastrous results of the lecture, some of the
newspapers had briefly reported it. Preoccupied by his anxieties,
Amelius had forgotten this when he wrote to his relative. "Just like
me!" he thought, as he threw the letter into the fire. His last hopes
floated up the chimney, with the tiny puff of smoke from the burnt
paper. There was now no other chance of shortening the marriage
engagement left to try. He had already applied to the good friend whom
he had mentioned to Regina. The answer, kindly written in this case,
had not been very encouraging:--

"I have other claims to consider. All that I can do, I will do. Don't
be disheartened--I only ask you to wait."

Amelius rose to go home--and sat down again. His natural energy seemed
to have deserted him--it required an effort to leave the club. He took
up the newspapers, and threw them aside, one after another. Not one of
the unfortunate writers and reporters could please him on that
inauspicious day. It was only while he was lighting his second cigar
that he remembered Mrs. Farnaby's unread letter to him. By this time,
he was more than weary of his own affairs. He read the letter.

"I find the people who have my happiness at their mercy both dilatory
and greedy." (Mrs. Farnaby wrote); "but the little that I can persuade
them to tell me is very favourable to my hopes. I am still, to my
annoyance, only in personal communication with the hateful old woman.
The young man either sends messages, or writes to me through the post.
By this latter means he has accurately described, not only in which of
my child's feet the fault exists, but the exact position which it
occupies. Here, you will agree with me, is positive evidence that he is
speaking the truth, whoever he is.

"But for this reassuring circumstance, I should feel inclined to be
suspicious of some things--of the obstinate manner, for instance, in
which the young man keeps himself concealed; also, of his privately
warning me not to trust the woman who is his own messenger, and not to
tell her on any account of the information which his letters convey to
me. I feel that I ought to be cautious with him on the question of
money--and yet, in my eagerness to see my darling, I am ready to give
him all that he asks for. In this uncertain state of mind, I am
restrained, strangely enough, by the old woman herself. She warns me
that he is the sort of man, if he once gets the money, to spare himself
the trouble of earning it. It is the one hold I have over him (she
says)--so I control the burning impatience that consumes me as well as
I can.

"No! I must not attempt to describe my own state of mind. When I tell
you that I am actually afraid of dying before I can give my sweet love
the first kiss, you will understand and pity me. When night comes, I
feel sometimes half mad.

"I send you my present address, in the hope that you will write and
cheer me a little. I must not ask you to come and see me yet. I am not
fit for it--and, besides, I am under a promise, in the present state of
the negotiations, to shut the door on my friends. It is easy enough to
do that; I have no friend, Amelius, but you.

"Try to feel compassionately towards me, my kind-hearted boy. For so
many long years, my heart has had nothing to feed on but the one hope
that is now being realized at last. No sympathy between my husband and
me (on the contrary, a horrid unacknowledged enmity, which has always
kept us apart); my father and mother, in their time both wretched about
my marriage, and with good reason; my only sister dying in
poverty--what a life for a childless woman! don't let us dwell on it
any longer.

"Goodbye for the present, Amelius. I beg you will not think I am always
wretched. When I want to be happy, I look to the coming time."

This melancholy letter added to the depression that weighed on the
spirits of Amelius. It inspired him with vague fears for Mrs. Farnaby.
In her own interests, he would have felt himself tempted to consult
Rufus (without mentioning names), if the American had been in London.
As things were, he put the letter back in his pocket with a sigh. Even
Mrs. Farnaby, in her sad moments, had a consoling prospect to
contemplate. "Everybody but me!" Amelius thought.

His reflections were interrupted by the appearance of an idle young
member of the club, with whom he was acquainted. The new-comer remarked
that he looked out of spirits, and suggested that they should dine
together and amuse themselves somewhere in the evening. Amelius
accepted the proposal: any man who offered him a refuge from himself
was a friend to him on that day. Departing from his temperate habits,
he deliberately drank more than usual. The wine excited him for the
time, and then left him more depressed than ever; and the amusements of
the evening produced the same result. He returned to his cottage so
completely disheartened, that he regretted the day when he had left
Tadmor.

But he kept his appointment, the next morning, to take leave of Regina.

The carriage was at the door, with a luggage-laden cab waiting behind
it. Mr. Farnaby's ill-temper vented itself in predictions that they
would be too late to catch the train. His harsh voice, alternating with
Regina's meek remonstrances, reached the ears of Amelius from the
breakfast-room. "I'm not going to wait for the gentleman-Socialist,"
Mr. Farnaby announced, with his hardest sarcasm of tone. "Dear uncle,
we have a quarter of an hour to spare!" "We have nothing of the sort;
we want all that time to register the luggage." The servant's voice was
heard next. "Mr. Goldenheart, miss." Mr. Farnaby instantly stepped into
the hall. "Goodbye!" he called to Amelius, through the open door of the
dining-room--and passed straight on to the carriage. "I shan't wait,
Regina!" he shouted, from the doorstep. "Let him go by himself!" said
Amelius indignantly, as Regina hurried into the room. "Oh, hush, hush,
dear! Suppose he heard you? No week shall pass without my writing to
you; promise you will write back, Amelius. One more kiss! Oh, my dear!"
The servant interposed, keeping discreetly out of sight. "I beg your
pardon, miss, my master wishes to know whether you are going with him
or not." Regina waited to hear no more. She gave her lover a farewell
look to remember her by, and ran out.

That innate depravity which Amelius had lately discovered in his own
nature, let the forbidden thoughts loose in him again as he watched the
departing carriage from the door. "If poor little Sally had been in her
place--!" He made an effort of virtuous resolution, and stopped there.
"What a blackguard a man may be," he penitently reflected, "without
suspecting it himself!"

He descended the house-steps. The discreet servant wished him good
morning, with a certain cheery respect--the man was delighted to have
seen the last of his hard master for some months to come. Amelius
stopped and turned round, smiling grimly. He was in such a reckless
humour, that he was even ready to divert his mind by astonishing a
footman. "Richard," he said, "are you engaged to be married?" Richard
stared in blank surprise at the strange question--and modestly admitted
that he was engaged to marry the housemaid next door. "Soon?" asked
Amelius, swinging his stick. "As soon as I have saved a little more
money, sir." "Damn the money!" cried Amelius--and struck his stick on
the pavement, and walked away with a last look at the house as if he
hated the sight of it. Richard watched the departing young gentleman,
and shook his head ominously as he shut the door.



CHAPTER 2

Amelius went straight back to the cottage, with the one desperate
purpose of reverting to the old plan, and burying himself in his books.
Surveying his well-filled shelves with an impatience unworthy of a
scholar, Hume's "History of England" unhappily caught his eye. He took
down the first volume. In less than half an hour he discovered that
Hume could do nothing for him. Wisely inspired, he turned to the truer
history next, which men call fiction. The writings of the one supreme
genius, who soars above all other novelists as Shakespeare soars above
all other dramatists--the writings of Walter Scott--had their place of
honour in his library. The collection of the Waverley Novels at Tadmor
had not been complete. Enviable Amelius had still to read _Rob Roy._ He
opened the book. For the rest of the day he was in love with Diana
Vernon; and when he looked out once or twice at the garden to rest his
eyes, he saw "Andrew Fairservice" busy over the flowerbeds.

He closed the last page of the noble story as Toff came in to lay the
cloth for dinner.

The master at table and the servant behind his chair were accustomed to
gossip pleasantly during meals. Amelius did his best to carry on the
talk as usual. But he was no longer in the delightful world of illusion
which Scott had opened to him. The hard realities of his own everyday
life had gathered round him again. Observing him with unobtrusive
attention, the Frenchman soon perceived the absence of the easy humour
and the excellent appetite which distinguished his young master at
other times.

"May I venture to make a remark, sir?" Toff inquired, after a long
pause in the conversation.

"Certainly."

"And may I take the liberty of expressing my sentiments freely?"

"Of course you may."

"Dear sir, you have a pretty little simple dinner to-day," Toff began.
"Forgive me for praising myself, I am influenced by the natural pride
of having cooked the dinner. For soup, you have Croute au pot; for
meat, you have Tourne-dos a la sauce poivrade; for pudding, you have
Pommes au beurre. All so nice--and you hardly eat anything, and your
amiable conversation falls into a melancholy silence which fills me
with regret. Is it you who are to blame for this? No, sir! it is the
life you lead. I call it the life of a monk; I call it the life of a
hermit--I say boldly it is the life of all others which is most
unsympathetic to a young man like you. Pardon the warmth of my
expressions; I am eager to make my language the language of utmost
delicacy. May I quote a little song? It is in an old, old, old French
piece, long since forgotten, called 'Les Maris Garcons'. There are two
lines in that song (I have often heard my good father sing them) which
I will venture to apply to your case; 'Amour, delicatesse, et gaite;
D'un bon Francais c'est la devise!' Sir, you have naturally delicatesse
and gaite--but the last has, for some days, been under a cloud. What is
wanted to remove that cloud? L'Amour! Love, as you say in English.
Where is the charming woman, who is the only ornament wanting to this
sweet cottage? Why is she still invisible? Remedy that unhappy
oversight, sir. You are here in a suburban Paradise. I consult my long
experience; and I implore you to invite Eve.--Ha! you smile; your lost
gaiety returns, and you feel it as I do. Might I propose another glass
of claret, and the reappearance on the table of the Tourne-dos a la
poivrade?"

It was impossible to be melancholy in this man's company. Amelius
sanctioned the return of the Tourne-dos, and tried the other glass of
claret. "My good friend," he said, with something like a return of his
old easy way, "you talk about charming women, and your long experience.
Let's hear what your experience has been."

For the first time Toff began to look a little confused.

"You have honoured me, sir, by calling me your good friend," he said.
"After that, I am sure you will not send me away if I own the truth.
No! My heart tells me I shall not appeal to your indulgence in vain.
Dear sir, in the holidays which you kindly give me, I provide competent
persons to take care of the house in my absence, don't I? One person,
if you remember, was a most handsome engaging young man. He is, if you
please, my son by my first wife--now an angel in heaven. Another
person, who took care of the house, on the next occasion, was a little
black-eyed boy; a miracle of discretion for his age. He is my son by my
second wife--now another angel in heaven. Forgive me, I have not done
yet. Some few days since, you thought you heard an infant crying
downstairs. Like a miserable wretch, I lied; I declared it was the
infant in the next house. Ah, sir, it was my own cherubim baby by my
third wife--an angel close by in the Edgeware Road, established in a
small milliner shop, which will expand to great things by-and-by. The
intervals between my marriages are not worthy of your notice. Fugitive
caprices, sir--fugitive caprices! To sum it all up (as you say in
England), it is not in me to resist the enchanting sex. If my third
angel dies, I shall tear my hair--but I shall none the less take a
fourth."

"Take a dozen if you like," said Amelius. "Why should you have kept all
this from my knowledge?"

Toff hung his head. "I think it was one of my foreign mistakes," he
pleaded. "The servants' advertisements in your English newspapers
frighten me. How does the most meritorious manservant announce himself
when he wants the best possible place? He says he is 'without
encumbrances.' Gracious heaven, what a dreadful word to describe the
poor pretty harmless children! I was afraid, sir, you might have some
English objection to _my_ 'encumbrances.' A young man, a boy, and a
cherubim-baby; not to speak of the sacred memories of two women, and
the charming occasional society of a third; all inextricably enveloped
in the life of one amorous-meritorious French person--surely there was
reason for hesitation here? No matter; I bless my stars I know better
now, and I withdraw myself from further notice. Permit me to recall
your attention to the Roquefort cheese, and a mouthful of potato-salad
to correct the richness of him."


The dinner was over at last. Amelius was alone again.

It was a still evening. Not a breath of wind stirred among the trees in
the garden; no vehicles passed along the by-road in which the cottage
stood. Now and then, Toff was audible downstairs, singing French songs
in a high cracked voice, while he washed the plates and dishes, and set
everything in order for the night. Amelius looked at his
bookshelves--and felt that, after _Rob Roy,_ there was no more reading
for him that evening. The slow minutes followed one another wearily;
the deadly depression of the earlier hours of the day was stealthily
fastening its hold on him again. How might he best resist it? His
healthy out-of-door habits at Tadmor suggested the only remedy that he
could think of. Be his troubles what they might, his one simple method
of resisting them, at all other times, was his simple method now. He
went out for a walk.

For two hours he rambled about the great north-western suburb of
London. Perhaps he felt the heavy oppressive weather, or perhaps his
good dinner had not agreed with him. Any way, he was so thoroughly worn
out, that he was obliged to return to the cottage in a cab.

Toff opened the door--but not with his customary alacrity. Amelius was
too completely fatigued to notice any trifling circumstance. Otherwise,
he would certainly have perceived something odd in the old Frenchman's
withered face. He looked at his master, as he relieved him of his hat
and coat, with the strangest expression of interest and anxiety;
modified by a certain sardonic sense of amusement underlying the more
serious emotions. "A nasty dull evening," Amelius said wearily. And
Toff, always eager to talk at other times, only answered, "Yes,
sir"--and retreated at once to the kitchen regions.

The fire was bright; the curtains were drawn; the reading-lamp, with
its ample green shade, was on the table--a more comfortable room no man
could have found to receive him after a long walk. Reclining at his
ease in his chair, Amelius thought of ringing for some restorative
brandy-and-water. While he was thinking, he fell asleep; and, while he
slept, he dreamed.

Was it a dream?

He certainly saw the library--not fantastically transformed, but just
like what the room really was. So far, he might have been wide awake,
looking at the familiar objects round him. But, after a while, an event
happened which set the laws of reality at defiance. Simple Sally, miles
away in the Home, made her appearance in the library, nevertheless. He
saw the drawn curtains over the window parted from behind; he saw the
girl step out from them, and stop, looking at him timidly. She was
clothed in the plain dress that he had bought for her; and she looked
more charming in it than ever. The beauty of health claimed kindred
now, in her pretty face, with the beauty of youth: the wan cheeks had
begun to fill out, and the pale lips were delicately suffused with
their natural rosy red. Little by little her first fears seemed to
subside. She smiled, and softly crossed the room, and stood at his
side. After looking at him with a rapt expression of tenderness and
delight, she laid her hands on the arm of the chair, and said, in the
quaintly quiet way which he remembered so well, "I want to kiss you."
She bent over him, and kissed him with the innocent freedom of a child.
Then she raised herself again, and looked backwards and forwards
between Amelius and the lamp. "The firelight is the best," she said.
Darkness fell over the room as she spoke; he saw her no more; he heard
her no more. A blank interval followed; there flowed over him the
oblivion of perfect sleep. His next conscious sensation was a feeling
of cold--he shivered, and woke.

The impression of the dream was in his mind at the moment of waking. He
started as he raised himself in the chair. Was he dreaming still? No;
he was certainly awake. And, as certainly, the room was dark!

He looked and looked. It was not to be denied, or explained away. There
was the fire burning low, and leaving the room chilly--and there, just
visible on the table, in the flicker of the dying flame, was the
extinguished lamp!

He mended the fire, and put his hand on the bell to ring for Toff, and
thought better of it. What need had he of the lamplight? He was too
weary for reading; he preferred going to sleep again, and dreaming
again of Sally. Where was the harm in dreaming of the poor little soul,
so far away from him? The happiest part of his life now was the part of
it that was passed in sleep.

As the fresh coals began to kindle feebly, he looked again at the lamp.
It was odd, to say the least of it, that the light should have
accidentally gone out, exactly at the right time to realize the
fanciful extinction of it in his dream. How was it there was no smell
of a burnt-out lamp? He was too lazy, or too tired, to pursue the
question. Let the mystery remain a mystery--and let him rest in peace!
He settled himself fretfully in his chair. What a fool he was to bother
his head about a lamp, instead of closing his eyes and going to sleep
again!

The room began to recover its pleasant temperature. He shifted the
cushion in the chair, so that it supported his head in perfect comfort,
and composed himself to rest. But the capricious influences of sleep
had deserted him: he tried one position after another, and all in vain.
It was a mere mockery even to shut his eyes. He resigned himself to
circumstances, and stretched out his legs, and looked at the
companionable fire.

Of late he had thought more frequently than usual of his past days in
the Community. His mind went back again now to that bygone time. The
clock on the mantelpiece struck nine. They were all at supper, at
Tadmor--talking over the events of the day. He saw himself again at the
long wooden table, with shy little Mellicent in the chair next to him,
and his favourite dog at his feet waiting to be fed. Where was
Mellicent now? It was a sad letter that she had written to him, with
the strange fixed idea that he was to return to her one day. There was
something very winning and lovable about the poor creature who had
lived such a hard life at home, and had suffered so keenly. It was a
comfort to think that she would go back to the Community. What happier
destiny could she hope for? Would she take care of his dog for him when
she went back? They had all promised to be kind to his pet animals in
his absence; but the dog was fond of Mellicent; he would be happier
with Mellicent than with the rest of them. And his little tame fawn,
and his birds--how were they doing? He had not even written to inquire
after them; he had been cruelly forgetful of those harmless dumb loving
friends. In his present solitude, in his dreary doubts of the future,
what would he not give to feel the dog nestling in his bosom, and the
fawn's little rough tongue licking his hand! His heart ached as he
thought of it: a choking hysterical sensation oppressed his breathing.
He tried to rise, and ring for lights, and rouse his manhood to endure
and resist. It was not to be done. Where was his courage? where was the
cheerfulness which had never failed him at other time? He sank back in
the chair, and hid his face in his hands for shame at his own weakness,
and burst out crying.

The touch of soft persuasive fingers suddenly thrilled through him.

His hands were gently drawn away from his face; a familiar voice, sweet
and low, said, "Oh, don't cry!" Dimly through his tears he saw the
well-remembered little figure standing between him and the fire. In his
unendurable loneliness, he had longed for his dog, he had longed for
his fawn. There was the martyred creature from the streets, whom he had
rescued from nameless horror, waiting to be his companion, servant,
friend! There was the child-victim of cold and hunger, still only
feeling her way to womanhood; innocent of all other aspirations, so
long as she might fill the place which had once been occupied by the
dog and the fawn!

Amelius looked at her with a momentary doubt whether he was waking or
sleeping. "Good God!" he cried, "am I dreaming again?"

"No," she said, simply. "You are awake this time. Let me dry your eyes;
I know where you put your handkerchief." She perched on his knee, and
wiped away the tears, and smoothed his hair over his forehead. "I was
frightened to show myself till I heard you crying," she confessed.
"Then I thought, 'Come! he can't be angry with me now'--and I crept out
from behind the curtains there. The old man let me in. I can't live
without seeing you; I've tried till I could try no longer. I owned it
to the old man when he opened the door. I said, 'I only want to look at
him; won't you let me in?' And he says, 'God bless me, here's Eve come
already!' I don't know what he meant--he let me in, that's all I care
about. He's a funny old foreigner. Send him away; I'm to be your
servant now. Why were you crying? I've cried often enough about You.
No; that can't be--I can't expect you to cry about _me;_ I can only
expect you to scold me. I know I'm a bad girl."

She cast one doubtful look at him, and hung her head--waiting to be
scolded. Amelius lost all control over himself. He took her in his arms
and kissed her again and again. "You are a dear good grateful little
creature!" he burst out--and suddenly stopped, aware too late of the
act of imprudence which he had committed. He put her away from him; he
tried to ask severe questions, and to administer merited reproof. Even
if he had succeeded, Sally was too happy to listen to him. "It's all
right now," she cried. "I'm never, never, never to go back to the Home!
Oh, I'm so happy! Let's light the lamp again!"

She found the matchbox on the chimneypiece. In a minute more the room
was bright. Amelius sat looking at her, perfectly incapable of deciding
what he ought to say or do next. To complete his bewilderment, the
voice of the attentive old Frenchman made itself heard through the
door, in discreetly confidential tones.

"I have prepared an appetising little supper, sir," said Toff. "Be
pleased to ring when you and the young lady are ready."



CHAPTER 3

Toff's interference proved to have its use. The announcement of the
little supper--plainly implying Simple Sally's reception at the
cottage--reminded Amelius of his responsibilities. He at once stepped
out into the passage, and closed the door behind him.

The old Frenchman was waiting to be reprimanded or thanked, as the case
might be, with his head down, his shoulders shrugged up to his ears,
and the palms of his hands spread out appealingly on either side of
him--a model of mute resignation to circumstances.

"Do you know that you have put me in a very awkward position?" Amelius
began.