Emile Souvestre - "An Attic Philosopher, v3"

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Alfred de Musset - "The Confession of a Child of The Century"

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




Toff lifted one of his hands to his heart. "You are aware of my
weakness, sir. When that charming little creature presented herself at
the door, sinking with fatigue, I could no more resist her than I could
take a hop-skip-and-jump over the roof of this cottage. If I have done
wrong, take no account of the proud fidelity with which I have served
you--tell me to pack up and go; but don't ask me to assume a position
of severity towards that enchanting Miss. It is not in my heart to do
it," said Toff, lifting his eyes with tearful solemnity to an imaginary
heaven. "On my sacred word of honour as a Frenchman, I would die rather
than do it!"

"Don't talk nonsense," Amelius rejoined a little impatiently. "I don't
blame you--but you have got me into a scrape, for all that. If I did my
duty, I should send for a cab, and take her back."

Toff opened his twinkling old eyes in a perfect transport of
astonishment. "What!" he cried, "take her back? Without rest, without
supper? And you call that duty? How inconceivably ugly does duty look
when it assumes an inhospitable aspect towards a woman! Pardon me, sir;
I must express my sentiments or I shall burst. You will say perhaps
that I have no conception of duty? Pardon me again--my conception of
duty is _here!"_

He threw open the door of the sitting-room. In spite of his anxiety,
Amelius burst out laughing. The Frenchman's inexhaustible contrivances
had transformed the sitting-room into a bedroom for Sally. The sofa had
become a snug little white bed; a hairbrush and comb, and a bottle of
eau-de-cologne, were on the table; a bath stood near the fire, with
cans of hot and cold water, and a railway rug placed under them to save
the carpet. "I dare not presume to contradict you, sir," said Toff,
"but there is _my_ conception of duty! In the kitchen, I have another
conception, keeping warm; you can smell it up the stairs. Salmi of
partridge, with the littlest possible dash of garlic in the sauce. Oh,
sir, let that angel rest and refresh herself! Virtuous severity,
believe me, is a most horribly unbecoming virtue at your age!" He spoke
quite seriously, with the air of a profound moralist, asserting
principles that did equal honour to his head and his heart.

Amelius went back to the library.

Sally was resting in the easy-chair; her position showed plainly that
she was suffering from fatigue. "I have had a long, long walk," she
said; "and I don't know which aches worst, my back or my feet. I don't
care--I'm quite happy now I'm here." She nestled herself comfortably in
the chair. "Do you mind my looking at you?" she asked. "Oh, it's so
long since I saw you!"

There was a new undertone of tenderness in her voice--innocent
tenderness that openly avowed itself. The reviving influences of the
life at the Home had done much--and had much yet left to do. Her wasted
face and figure were filling out, her cheeks and lips were regaining
their lovely natural colour, as Amelius had seen in his dream. But her
eyes, in repose, still resumed their vacantly patient look; and her
manner, with a perceptible increase of composure and confidence, had
not lost its quaint childish charm. Her growth from girl to woman was a
growth of fine gradations, guided by the unerring deliberation of
Nature and Time.

"Do you think they will follow you here, from the Home?" Amelius asked.

She looked at the clock. "I don't think so," she said quietly. "It's
hours since I slipped out by the back door. They have very strict rules
about runaway girls--even when their friends bring them back. If _you_
send me back--" she stopped, and looked thoughtfully into the fire.

"What will you do, if I send you back?"

"What one of our girls did, before they took her in at the Home. She
jumped into the river. 'Made a hole in the water'; that's how she calls
it. She's a big strong girl; and they got her out, and saved her. She
says it wasn't painful, till they brought her to again. I'm little and
weak--I don't think they could bring _me_ to life, if they tried."

Amelius made a futile attempt to reason with her. He even got so far as
to tell her that she had done very wrong to leave the Home. Sally's
answer set all further expostulation at defiance. Instead of attempting
to defend herself, she sighed wearily, and said, "I had no money; I
walked all the way here."

The well-intended remonstrances of Amelius were lost in compassionate
surprise. "You poor little soul!" he exclaimed, "it must be seven or
eight miles at least!"

"I dare say," said Sally. "It don't matter, now I've found you."

"But how did you find me? Who told you where I lived?"

She smiled, and took from her bosom the photograph of the cottage.

"But Mrs. Payson cut off the address!" cried Amelius, bursting out with
the truth in the impulse of the moment.

Sally turned over the photograph, and pointed to the back of the card,
on which the photographer's name and address were printed. "Mrs. Payson
didn't think of this," she said shyly.

"Did _you_ think of it?" Amelius asked.

Sally shook her head. "I'm too stupid," she replied. "The girl who made
the hole in the water put me up to it. 'Have you made up your mind to
run away?' she says. And I said, 'Yes.' 'You go to the man who did the
picture,' she says; 'he knows where the place is, I'll be bound.' I
asked my way till I found him. And he did know. And he told me. He was
a good sort; he gave me a glass of beer, he said I looked so tired. I
said we'd go and have our portraits taken some day--you, and your
servant. May I tell the funny old foreigner that he is to go away now I
have come to you?" The complete simplicity with which she betrayed her
jealousy of Toff made Amelius smile. Sally, watching every change in
his face, instantly drew her own conclusion. "Ah!" she said cheerfully,
"I'll keep your room cleaner than he keeps it! I smelt dust on the
curtains when I was hiding from you."

Amelius thought of his dream. "Did you come out while I was asleep?" he
asked.

"Yes; I wasn't frightened of you, when you were asleep. I had a good
look at you; and I gave you a kiss." She made that confession without
the slightest sign of confusion; her calm blue eyes looked him straight
in the face. "You got restless," she went on; "and I got frightened
again. I put out the lamp. I says to myself, 'If he does scold me, I
can bear it better in the dark.'"

Amelius listened, wondering. Had he seen drowsily what he thought he
had dreamed, or was there some mysterious sympathy between Sally and
himself? The occult speculations were interrupted by Sally. "May I take
off my bonnet, and make myself tidy?" she asked. Some men might have
said No. Amelius was not one of them.

The library possessed a door of communication with the sitting-room;
the bedchamber occupied by Amelius being on the other side of the
cottage. When Sally saw Toff's reconstructed room, she stood at the
door, in speechless admiration of the vision of luxury revealed to her.
From time to time Amelius, alone in the library, heard her dabbling in
her bath, and humming the artless old English song from which she had
taken her name. Once she knocked at the closed door, and made a request
through it--"There is scent on the table; may I have some?" And once
Toff knocked at the other door, opening into the passage, and asked
when "pretty young Miss" would be ready for supper. Events went on in
the little household as if Sally had become an integral part of it
already. "What _am_ I to do?" Amelius asked himself. And Toff, entering
at the moment to lay the cloth, answered respectfully, "Hurry the young
person, sir, or the salmi will be spoilt."

She came out from her room, walking delicately on her sore feet--so
fresh and charming, that Toff, absorbed in admiration, made a mistake
in folding a napkin for the first time in his life. "Champagne, of
course, sir?" he said in confidence to Amelius. The salmi of partridge
appeared; the inspiriting wine sparkled in the glasses; Toff surpassed
himself in all the qualities which made a servant invaluable at a
supper table. Sally forgot the Home, forgot the cruel streets, and
laughed and chattered as gaily as the happiest girl living. Amelius,
expanding in the joyous atmosphere of youth and good spirits, shook off
his sense of responsibility, and became once more the delightful
companion who won everybody's love. The effervescent gaiety of the
evening was at its climax; the awful forms of duty, propriety, and good
sense had been long since laughed out of the room--when Nemesis,
goddess of retribution, announced her arrival outside, by a crashing of
carriage-wheels and a peremptory ring at the cottage bell.

There was dead silence; Amelius and Sally looked at each other. The
experienced Toff at once guessed what had happened. "Is it her father
or mother?" he asked of Amelius, a little anxiously. Hearing that she
had never even seen her father or mother, he snapped his fingers
joyously, and led the way on tiptoe into the hall. "I have my idea," he
whispered. "Let us listen."

A woman's voice, high, clear, and resolute, speaking apparently to the
coachman, was the next audible sound. "Say I come from Mrs. Payson, and
must see Mr. Goldenheart directly." Sally trembled and turned pale.
"The matron!" she said faintly. "Oh, don't let her in!" Amelius took
the terrified girl back to the library. Toff followed them,
respectfully asking to be told what a "matron" was. Receiving the
necessary explanation, he expressed his contempt for matrons bent on
carrying charming persons into captivity, by opening the library door
and spitting into the hall. Having relieved his mind in this way, he
returned to his master and laid a lank skinny forefinger cunningly
along the side of his nose. "I suppose, sir, you don't want to see this
furious woman?" he said. Before it was possible to say anything in
reply, another ring at the bell announced that the furious woman wanted
to see Amelius. Toff read his master's wishes in his master's face. Not
even this emergency could find him unprepared: he was as ready to
circumvent a matron as to cook a dinner. "The shutters are up, and the
curtains are drawn," he reminded Amelius. "Not a morsel of light is
visible outside. Let them ring--we have all gone to bed." He turned to
Sally, grinning with impish enjoyment of his own stratagem. "Ha, Miss!
what do you think of that?" There was a third pull at the bell as he
spoke. "Ring away, Missess Matrone!" he cried. "We are fast
asleep--wake us if you can." The fourth ring was the last. A sharp
crack revealed the breaking of the bellwire, and was followed by the
shrill fall of the iron handle on the pavement before the garden gate.
The gate, like the palings, was protected at the top from invading
cats. "Compose yourself, Miss," said Toff, "if she tries to get over
the gate, she will stick on the spikes." In another moment, the sound
of retiring carriage-wheels announced the defeat of the matron, and
settled the serious question of receiving Sally for the night.

She sat silent by the window, when Toff had left the room, holding back
the curtains and looking out at the murky sky.

"What are you looking for?" Amelius asked.

"I was looking for the stars."

Amelius joined her at the window. "There are no stars to be seen
tonight."

She let the curtain fall to again. "I was thinking of night-time at the
Home," she said. "You see, I got on pretty well, in the day, with my
reading and writing. I wanted so to improve myself. My mind was
troubled with the fear of your despising such an ignorant creature as I
am; so I kept on at my lessons. I thought I might surprise you by
writing you a pretty letter some day. One of the teachers (she's gone
away ill) was very good to me. I used to talk to her; and, when I said
a wrong word, she took me up, and told me the right one. She said you
would think better of me when you heard me speak properly--and I do
speak better, don't I? All this was in the day. It was the night that
was the hard time to get through--when the other girls were all asleep,
and I had nothing to think of but how far away I was from you. I used
to get up, and put the counterpane round me, and stand at the window.
On fine nights the stars were company to me. There were two stars, near
together, that I got to know. Don't laugh at me--I used to think one of
them was you, and one of them me. I wondered whether you would die, or
I should die, before I saw you again. And, most always, it was my star
that went out first. Lord, how I used to cry! It got into my poor
stupid head that I should never see you again. I do believe I ran away
because of that. You won't tell anybody, will you? It was so foolish, I
am ashamed of it now. I wanted to see your star and my star tonight. I
don't know why. Oh, I'm so fond of you!" She dropped on her knees, and
took his hand, and put it on her head. "It's burning hot," she said,
"and your kind hand cools it."

Amelius raised her gently, and led her to the door of her room. "My
poor Sally, you are quite worn out. You want rest and sleep. Let us say
good night."

"I will do anything you tell me," she answered. "If Mrs. Payson comes
tomorrow, you won't let her take me away? Thank you. Goodnight." She
put her hands on his shoulders, with innocent familiarity, and lifted
herself to him on tiptoe, and kissed him as a sister might have kissed
him.

Long after Sally was asleep in her bed, Amelius sat by the library
fire, thinking.

The revival of the crushed feeling and fancy in the girl's nature, so
artlessly revealed in her sad little story of the stars that were
"company to her," not only touched and interested him, but clouded his
view of the future with doubts and anxieties which had never troubled
him until that moment. The mysterious influences under which the girl's
development was advancing were working morally and physically together.
Weeks might pass harmlessly, months might pass harmlessly--but the time
must come when the innocent relations between them would be beset by
peril. Unable, as yet, fully to realize these truths, Amelius
nevertheless felt them vaguely. His face was troubled, as he lit the
candle at last to go to his bed. "I don't see my way as clearly as I
could wish," he reflected. "How will it end?"

How indeed!



CHAPTER 4

At eight o'clock the next morning, Amelius was awakened by Toff. A
letter had arrived, marked "Immediate," and the messenger was waiting
for an answer.

The letter was from Mrs. Payson. She wrote briefly, and in formal
terms. After referring to the matron's fruitless visit to the cottage
on the previous night, Mrs. Payson proceeded in these words:--"I
request you will immediately let me know whether Sally has taken refuge
with you, and has passed the night under your roof. If I am right in
believing that she has done so, I have only to inform you that the
doors of the Home are henceforth closed to her, in conformity with our
rules. If I am wrong, it will be my painful duty to lose no time in
placing the matter in the hands of the police."

Amelius began his reply, acting on impulse as usual. He wrote,
vehemently remonstrating with Mrs. Payson on the unforgiving and
unchristian nature of the rules at the Home. Before he was halfway
through his composition, the person who had brought the letter sent a
message to say that he was expected back immediately, and that he hoped
Mr. Goldenheart would not get a poor man into trouble by keeping him
much longer. Checked in the full flow of his eloquence, Amelius angrily
tore up the unfinished remonstrance, and matched Mrs. Payson's briefly
business-like language by an answer in one line:--"I beg to inform you
that you are quite right." On reflection, he felt that the second
letter was not only discourteous as a reply to a lady, but also
ungrateful as addressed to Mrs. Payson personally. At the third
attempt, he wrote becomingly as well as briefly. "Sally has passed the
night here, as my guest. She was suffering from severe fatigue; it
would have been an act of downright inhumanity to send her away. I
regret your decision, but of course I submit to it. You once said, you
believed implicitly in the purity of my motives. Do me the justice,
however you may blame my conduct, to believe in me still."

Having despatched these lines, the mind of Amelius was at ease again,
He went into the library, and listened to hear if Sally was moving. The
perfect silence on the other side of the door informed him that the
weary girl was still fast asleep. He gave directions that she was on no
account to be disturbed, and sat down to breakfast by himself.

While he was still at table, Toff appeared, with profound mystery in
his manner, and discreet confidence in the tones of his voice. "Here's
another one, sir!" the Frenchman announced, in his master's ear.

"Another one?" Amelius repeated. "What do you mean?"

"She is not like the sweet little sleeping Miss." Toff explained. "This
time, sir, it's the beauty of the devil himself, as we say in France.
She refuses to confide in me; and she appears to be agitated--both bad
signs. Shall I get rid of her before the other Miss wakes?"

"Hasn't she got a name?" Amelius asked.

Toff answered, in his foreign accent, "One name only--Faybay."

"Do you mean Phoebe?"

"Have I not said it, sir?"

"Show her in directly."

Toff glanced at the door of Sally's room, shrugged his shoulders, and
obeyed his instructions.

Phoebe appeared, looking pale and anxious. Her customary assurance of
manner had completely deserted her: she stopped in the doorway, as if
she was afraid to enter the room.

"Come in, and sit down," said Amelius. "What's the matter?"

"I'm troubled in my mind, sir," Phoebe answered. "I know it's taking a
liberty to come to you. But I went yesterday to ask Miss Regina's
advice, and found she had gone abroad with her uncle. I have something
to say about Mrs. Farnaby, sir; and there's no time to be lost in
saying it. I know of nobody but you that I can speak to, now Miss
Regina is away. The footman told me where you lived."

She stopped, evidently in the greatest embarrassment. Amelius tried to
encourage her. "If I can be of any use to Mrs. Farnaby," he said, "tell
me at once what to do."

Phoebe's eyes dropped before his straightforward look as he spoke to
her.

"I must ask you to please excuse my mentioning names, sir," she resumed
confusedly. "There's a person I'm interested in, whom I wouldn't get
into trouble for the whole world. He's been misled--I'm sure he's been
misled by another person--a wicked drunken old woman, who ought to be
in prison if she had her deserts. I'm not free from blame myself--I
know I'm not. I listened, sir, to what I oughtn't to have heard; and I
told it again (I'm sure in the strictest confidence, and not meaning
anything wrong) to the person I've mentioned. Not the old women--I mean
the person I'm interested in. I hope you understand me, sir? I wish to
speak openly, excepting the names, on account of Mrs. Farnaby."

Amelius thought of Phoebe's vindictive language the last time he had
seen her. He looked towards a cabinet in a corner of the room, in which
he had placed Mrs. Farnaby's letter. An instinctive distrust of his
visitor began to rise in his mind. His manner altered--he turned to his
plate, and went on with his breakfast. "Can't you speak to me plainly?"
he said. "Is Mrs. Farnaby in any trouble?"

"Yes, sir."

"And can I do anything to help her out of it?"

"I am sure you can, sir--if you only know where to find her."

"I do know where to find her. She has written to tell me. The last time
I saw you, you expressed yourself very improperly about Mrs. Farnaby;
you spoke as if you meant some harm to her."

"I mean nothing but good to her now, sir."

"Very well, then. Can't you go and speak to her yourself, if I give you
the address?"

Phoebe's pale face flushed a little. "I couldn't do that, sir," she
answered, "after the way Mrs. Farnaby has treated me. Besides, if she
knew that I had listened to what passed between her and you--" She
stopped again, more painfully embarrassed than ever.

Amelius laid down his knife and fork. "Look here!" he said; "this sort
of thing is not in my way. If you can't make a clean breast of it,
let's talk of something else. I'm very much afraid," he went on, with
his customary absence of all concealment, "you're not the harmless sort
of girl I once took you for. What do you mean by 'what passed between
Mrs. Farnaby and me'?"

Phoebe put her handkerchief to her eyes. "It's very hard to speak to me
so harshly," she said, "when I'm sorry for what I've done, and am only
anxious to prevent harm coming of it."

_"What_ have you done?" cried honest Amelius, weary of the woman's
inveterately indirect way of explaining herself to him.

The flash of his quick temper in his eyes, as he put that
straightforward question, roused a responsive temper in Phoebe which
stung her into speaking openly at last. She told Amelius what she had
heard in the kitchen as plainly as she had told it to Jervy--with this
one difference, that she spoke without insolence when she referred to
Mrs. Farnaby.

Listening in silence until she had done, Amelius started to his feet,
and opening the cabinet, took from it Mrs. Farnaby's letter. He read
the letter, keeping his back towards Phoebe--waited a moment
thinking--and suddenly turned on the woman with a look that made her
shrink in her chair. "You wretch!" he said; "you detestable wretch!"

In the terror of the moment, Phoebe attempted to leave the room.
Amelius stopped her instantly. "Sit down again," he said; "I mean to
have the whole truth out of you, now."

Phoebe recovered her courage. "You have had the whole truth, sir; I
could tell you no more if I was on my deathbed."

Amelius refused to believe her. "There is a vile conspiracy against
Mrs. Farnaby," he said. "Do you mean to tell me you are not in it?"

"So help me God, sir, I never even heard of it till yesterday!"

The tone in which she spoke shook the conviction of Amelius; the
indescribable ring of truth was in it.

"There are two people who are cruelly deluding and plundering this poor
lady," he went on. "Who are they?"

"I told you, if you remember, that I couldn't mention names, sir."

Amelius looked again at the letter. After what he had heard, there was
no difficulty in identifying the invisible "young man," alluded to by
Mrs. Farnaby, with the unnamed "person" in whom Phoebe was interested.
Who was he? As the question passed through his mind, Amelius remembered
the vagabond whom he had recognized with Phoebe, in the street. There
was no doubt of it now--the man who was directing the conspiracy in the
dark was Jervy! Amelius would unquestionably have been rash enough to
reveal this discovery, if Phoebe had not stopped him. His renewed
reference to Mrs. Farnaby's letter and his sudden silence after looking
at it roused the woman's suspicions. "If you're planning to get my
friend into trouble," she burst out, "not another word shall pass my
lips!"

Even Amelius profited by the warning which that threat unintentionally
conveyed to him.

"Keep your own secrets," he said; "I only want to spare Mrs. Farnaby a
dreadful disappointment. But I must know what I am talking about when I
go to her. Can't you tell me how you found out this abominable
swindle?"

Phoebe was perfectly willing to tell him. Interpreting her long
involved narrative into plain English, with the names added, these were
the facts related:--Mrs. Sowler, bearing in mind some talk which had
passed between them on the occasion of a supper, had called at Phoebe's
lodgings on the previous day, and had tried to entrap her into
communicating what she knew of Mrs. Farnaby's secrets. The trap
failing, Mrs. Sowler had tried bribery next; had promised Phoebe a
large sum of money, to be equally divided between them, if she would
only speak; had declared that Jervy was perfectly capable of breaking
his promise of marriage, and "leaving them both in the lurch, if he
once got the money into his own pocket" and had thus informed Phoebe,
that the conspiracy, which she supposed to have been abandoned, was
really in full progress, without her knowledge. She had temporised with
Mrs. Sowler, being afraid to set such a person openly at defiance; and
had hurried away at once, to have an explanation with Jervy. He was
reported to be "not at home." Her fruitless visit to Regina had
followed--and there, so far as facts were concerned, was an end of the
story.

Amelius asked her no questions, and spoke as briefly as possible when
she had done. "I will go to Mrs. Farnaby this morning," was all he
said.

"Would you please let me hear how it ends?" Phoebe asked.

Amelius pushed his pocket-book and pencil across the table to her,
pointing to a blank leaf on which she could write her address. While
she was thus employed the attentive Toff came in, and (with his eye on
Phoebe) whispered in his master's ear. He had heard Sally moving about.
Would it be more convenient, under the circumstances, if she had her
breakfast in her own room? Toff's astonishment was a sight to see when
Amelius answered, "Certainly not. Let her breakfast here."