William J. Locke - "The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne"

P. G. Wodehouse - "A Man of Means"

Phillipe de Massa - "Zibeline, v3"

Bertrand Russell - "Political Ideals"

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




"Nobody can deny that," Amelius replied; "the instances of it are too
many. But for one dream fulfilled by a coincidence, there are--"

"A hundred at least that are _not_ fulfilled," Mrs. Farnaby interposed.
"Very well. I calculate on that. See how little hope can live on! There
is just the barest possibility that what I dreamed of you the other
night may come to pass. It's a poor chance; but it has encouraged me to
take you into my confidence, and ask you to help me."

This strange confession--this sad revelation of despair still
unconsciously deceiving itself under the disguise of hope--only
strengthened the compassionate sympathy which Amelius already felt for
her. "What did you dream about me?" he asked gently.

"It's nothing to tell," she replied. "I was in a room that was quite
strange to me; and the door opened, and you came in leading a young
girl by the hand. You said, 'Be happy at last; here she is.' My heart
knew her instantly, though my eyes had never seen her since the first
days of her life. And I woke myself, crying for joy. Wait! it's not all
told yet. I went to sleep again, and dreamed it again, and woke, and
lay awake for awhile, and slept once more, and dreamed it for the third
time. Ah, if I could only feel some people's confidence in three times!
No; it produced an impression on me--and that was all. I got as far as
thinking to myself, there is just a chance; I haven't a creature in the
world to help me; I may as well speak to him. O, you needn't remind me
that there is a rational explanation of my dream. I have read it all
up, in the Encyclopaedia in the library. One of the ideas of wise men
is that we think of something, consciously or unconsciously, in the
daytime, and then reproduce it in a dream. That's my case, I daresay.
When you were first introduced to me, and when I heard where you had
been brought up, I thought directly that _she_ might have been one
among the many forlorn creatures who had drifted to your Community, and
that I might find her through you. Say that thought went to my bed with
me--and we have the explanation of my dream. Never mind! There is my
one poor chance in a hundred still left. You will remember me, Amelius,
if you _should_ meet with her, won't you?"

The implied confession of her own intractable character, without
religious faith to ennoble it, without even imagination to refine
it--the unconscious disclosure of the one tender and loving instinct in
her nature still piteously struggling for existence, with no sympathy
to sustain it, with no light to guide it--would have touched the heart
of any man not incurably depraved. Amelius spoke with the fervour of
his young enthusiasm. "I would go to the uttermost ends of the earth,
if I thought I could do you any good. But, oh, it sounds so hopeless!"

She shook her head, and smiled faintly.

"Don't say that! You are free, you have money, you will travel about in
the world and amuse yourself. In a week you will see more than
stay-at-home people see in a year. How do we know what the future has
in store for us? I have my own idea. She may be lost in the labyrinth
of London, or she may be hundreds of thousands of miles away. Amuse
yourself, Amelius--amuse yourself. Tomorrow or ten years hence, you
might meet with her!"

In sheer mercy to the poor creature, Amelius refused to encourage her
delusion. "Even supposing such a thing could happen," he objected, "how
am I to know the lost girl? You can't describe her to me; you have not
seen her since she was a child. Do you know anything of what happened
at the time--I mean at the time when she was lost?"

"I know nothing."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Have you never felt a suspicion of how it happened?"

Her face changed: she frowned as she looked at him. "Not till weeks and
months had passed," she said, "not till it was too late. I was ill at
the time. When my mind got clear again, I began to suspect one
particular person--little by little, you know; noticing trifles, and
thinking about them afterwards." She stopped, evidently restraining
herself on the point of saying more.

Amelius tried to lead her on. "Did you suspect the person--?" he began.

"I suspected him of casting the child helpless on the world!" Mrs.
Farnaby interposed, with a sudden burst of fury. "Don't ask me any more
about it, or I shall break out and shock you!" She clenched her fists
as she said the words. "It's well for that man," she muttered between
her teeth, "that I have never got beyond suspecting, and never found
out the truth! Why did you turn my mind that way? You shouldn't have
done it. Help me back again to what we were saying a minute ago. You
made some objection; you said--?"

"I said," Amelius reminded her, "that, even if I did meet with the
missing girl, I couldn't possibly know it. And I must say more than
that--I don't see how you yourself could be sure of recognizing her, if
she stood before you at this moment."

He spoke very gently, fearing to irritate her. She showed no sign of
irritation--she looked at him, and listened to him, attentively.

"Are you setting a trap for me?" she asked. "No!" she cried, before
Amelius could answer, "I am not mean enough to distrust you--I forgot
myself. You have innocently said something that rankles in my mind. I
can't leave it where you have left it; I don't like to be told that I
shouldn't recognize her. Give me time to think. I must clear this up."

She consulted her own thoughts, keeping her eyes fixed on Amelius.

"I am going to speak plainly," she announced, with a sudden appearance
of resolution. "Listen to this. When I banged to the door of that big
cupboard of mine, it was because I didn't want you to see something on
the shelves. Did you see anything in spite of me?"

The question was not an easy one to answer. Amelius hesitated. Mrs.
Farnaby insisted on a reply.

"Did you see anything?" she reiterated

Amelius owned that he had seen something.

She turned away from him, and looked into the fire. Her firm full tones
sank so low, when she spoke next, that he could barely hear them.

"Was it something belonging to a child?"

"Yes."

"Was it a baby's frock and cap? Answer me. We have gone too far to go
back. I don't want apologies or explanations--I want, Yes or No."

"Yes."

There was an interval of silence. She never moved; she still looked
into fire--looked, as if all her past life was pictured there in the
burning coals.

"Do you despise me?" she asked at last, very quietly.

"As God hears me, I am only sorry for you!" Amelius answered.

Another woman would have melted into tears. This woman still looked
into the fire--and that was all. "What a good fellow!" she said to
herself, "what a good fellow he is!"

There was another pause. She turned towards him again as abruptly as
she had turned away.

"I had hoped to spare you, and to spare myself," she said. "If the
miserable truth has come out, it is through no curiosity of yours, and
(God knows!) against every wish of mine. I don't know if you really
felt like a friend towards me before--you must be my friend now. Don't
speak! I know I can trust you. One last word, Amelius, about my lost
child. You doubt whether I should recognize her, if she stood before me
now. That might be quite true, if I had only my own poor hopes and
anxieties to guide me. But I have something else to guide me--and,
after what has passed between us, you may as well know what it is: it
might even, by accident, guide you. Don't alarm yourself; it's nothing
distressing this time. How can I explain it?" she went on; pausing, and
speaking in some perplexity to herself. "It would be easier to show
it--and why not?" She addressed herself to Amelius once more. "I'm a
strange creature," she resumed. "First, I worry you about my own
affairs--then I puzzle you--then I make you sorry for me--and now
(would you think it?) I am going to amuse you! Amelius, are you an
admirer of pretty feet?"

Amelius had heard of men (in books) who had found reason to doubt
whether their own ears were not deceiving them. For the first time, he
began to understand those men, and to sympathize with them. He
admitted, in a certain bewildered way, that he was an admirer of pretty
feet--and waited for what was to come next.

"When a woman has a pretty hand," Mrs. Farnaby proceeded; "she is ready
enough to show it. When she goes out to a ball, she favours you with a
view of her bosom, and a part of her back. Now tell me! If there is no
impropriety in a naked bosom--where is the impropriety in a naked
foot?"

Amelius agreed, like a man in a dream.

"Where, indeed!" he remarked--and waited again for what was to come
next.

"Look out of the window," said Mrs. Farnaby.

Amelius obeyed. The window had been opened for a few inches at the top,
no doubt to ventilate the room. The dull view of the courtyard was
varied by the stables at the farther end, and by the kitchen skylight
rising in the middle of the open space. As Amelius looked out, he
observed that some person at that moment in the kitchen required
apparently a large supply of fresh air. The swinging window, on the
side of the skylight which was nearest to him, was invisibly and
noiselessly pulled open from below; the similar window, on the other
side, being already wide open also. Judging by appearance, the
inhabitants of the kitchen possessed a merit which is exceedingly rare
among domestic servants--they understood the laws of ventilation, and
appreciated the blessing of fresh air.

"That will do," said Mrs. Farnaby. "You can turn round now."

Amelius turned. Mrs. Farnaby's boots and stockings were on the
hearthrug, and one of Mrs. Farnaby's feet was placed, ready for
inspection, on the chair which he had just left. "Look at my right foot
first," she said, speaking gravely and composedly in her ordinary tone.

It was well worth looking at--a foot equally beautiful in form and in
colour: the instep arched and high, the ankle at once delicate and
strong, the toes tinged with rose-colour at the tips. In brief, it was
a foot to be photographed, to be cast in plaster, to be fondled and
kissed. Amelius attempted to express his admiration, but was not
allowed to get beyond the first two or three words. "No," Mrs. Farnaby
explained, "this is not vanity--simply information. You have seen my
right foot; and you have noticed that there is nothing the matter with
it. Very well. Now look at my left foot."

She put her left foot up on the chair. "Look between the third toe and
the fourth," she said.

Following his instructions, Amelius discovered that the beauty of the
foot was spoilt, in this case, by a singular defect. The two toes were
bound together by a flexible web, or membrane, which held them to each
other as high as the insertion of the nail on either side.

"Do you wonder," Mrs. Farnaby asked, "why I show you the fault in my
foot? Amelius! my poor darling was born with my deformity--and I want
you to know exactly what it is, because neither you nor I can say what
reason for remembering it there may not be in the future." She stopped,
as if to give him an opportunity of speaking. A man shallow and
flippant by nature might have seen the disclosure in a grotesque
aspect. Amelius was sad and silent. "I like you better and better," she
went on. "You are not like the common run of men. Nine out of ten of
them would have turned what I have just told you into a joke--nine out
of ten would have said, 'Am I to ask every girl I meet to show me her
left foot?' You are above that; you understand me. Have I no means of
recognizing my own child, now?"

She smiled, and took her foot off the chair--then, after a moment's
thought, she pointed to it again.

"Keep this as strictly secret as you keep everything else," she said.
"In the past days, when I used to employ people privately to help me to
find her, it was my only defence against being imposed upon. Rogues and
vagabonds thought of other marks and signs--but not one of them could
guess at such a mark as that. Have you got your pocket-book, Amelius?
In case we are separated at some later time, I want to write the name
and address in it of a person whom we can trust. I persist, you see, in
providing for the future. There's the one chance in a hundred that my
dream may come true--and you have so many years before you, and so many
girls to meet with in that time!"

She handed back the pocket-book, which Amelius had given to her, after
having inscribed a man's name and address on one of the blank leaves.

"He was my father's lawyer," she explained; "and he and his son are
both men to be trusted. Suppose I am ill, for instance--no, that's
absurd; I never had a day's illness in my life. Suppose I am dead
(killed perhaps by some accident, or perhaps by my own hand), the
lawyers have my written instructions, in the case of my child being
found. Then again--I am such an unaccountable woman--I may go away
somewhere, all by myself. Never mind! The lawyers shall have my
address, and my positive orders (though they keep it a secret from all
the world besides) to tell it to you. I don't ask your pardon, Amelius,
for troubling you. The chances are so terribly against me; it is all
but impossible that I shall ever see you--as I saw you in my
dream--coming into the room, leading my girl by the hand. Odd, isn't
it? This is how I veer about between hope and despair. Well, it may
amuse you to remember it, one of these days. Years hence, when I am at
rest in mother earth, and when you are a middle aged married man, you
may tell your wife how strangely you once became the forlorn hope of
the most wretched woman that ever lived--and you may say to each other,
as you sit by your snug fireside, 'Perhaps that poor lost daughter is
still living somewhere, and wondering who her mother was.' No! I won't
let you see the tears in my eyes again--I'll let you go at last."

She led the way to the door--a creature to be pitied, if ever there was
a pitiable creature yet: a woman whose whole nature was maternal, who
was nothing if not a mother; and who had lived through sixteen years of
barren life, in the hopeless anticipation of recovering her lost child!

"Goodbye, and thank you," she said. "I want to be left by myself, my
dear, with that little frock and cap which you found out in spite of
me. Go, and tell my niece it's all right--and don't be stupid enough to
fall in love with a girl who has no love to give you in return." She
pushed Amelius into the hall. "Here he is, Regina!" she called out; "I
have done with him."

Before Amelius could speak, she had shut herself into her room. He
advanced along the hall, and met Regina at the door of the dining-room.



CHAPTER 3

The young lady spoke first.

"Mr. Goldenheart," she said, with the coldest possible politeness,
"perhaps you will be good enough to explain what this means?"

She turned back into the dining-room. Amelius followed her in silence.
"Here I am, in another scrape with a woman!" he thought to himself.
"Are men in general as unlucky as I am, I wonder?"

"You needn't close the door," said Regina maliciously. "Everybody in
the house is welcome to hear what _I_ have to say to you."

Amelius made a mistake at the outset--he tried what a little humility
would do to help him. There is probably no instance on record in which
humility on the part of a man has ever really found its way to the
indulgence of an irritated woman. The best and the worst of them alike
have at least one virtue in common--they secretly despise a man who is
not bold enough to defend himself when they are angry with him.

"I hope I have not offended you?" Amelius ventured to say.

She tossed her head contemptuously. "Oh dear, no! I am not offended.
Only a little surprised at your being so very ready to oblige my aunt."

In the short experience of her which had fallen to the lot of Amelius,
she had never looked so charmingly as she looked now. The nervous
irritability under which she was suffering brightened her face with the
animation which was wanting in it at ordinary times. Her soft brown
eyes sparkled; her smooth dusky cheeks glowed with a warm red flush;
her tall supple figure asserted its full dignity, robed in a superb
dress of silken purple and black lace, which set off her personal
attractions to the utmost advantage. She not only roused the admiration
of Amelius--she unconsciously gave him back the self-possession which
he had, for the moment, completely lost. He was man enough to feel the
humiliation of being despised by the one woman in the world whose love
he longed to win; and he answered with a sudden firmness of tone and
look that startled her.

"You had better speak more plainly still, Miss Regina," he said. "You
may as well blame me at once for the misfortune of being a man."

She drew back a step. "I don't understand you," she answered.

"Do I owe no forbearance to a woman who asks a favour of me?" Amelius
went on. "If a man had asked me to steal into the house on tiptoe, I
should have said--well! I should have said something I had better not
repeat. If a man had stood between me and the door when you came back,
I should have taken him by the collar and pulled him out of my way.
Could I do that, if you please, with Mrs. Farnaby?"

Regina saw the weak point of this defence with a woman's quickness of
perception. "I can't offer any opinion," she said; "especially when you
lay all the blame on my aunt."

Amelius opened his lips to protest--and thought better of it. He wisely
went straight on with what he had still to say.

"If you will let me finish," he resumed, "you will understand me a
little better than that. Whatever blame there may be, Miss Regina, I am
quite ready to take on myself. I merely wanted to remind you that I was
put in an awkward position, and that I couldn't civilly find a way out
of it. As for your aunt, I will only say this: I know of hardly any
sacrifice that I would not submit to, if I could be of the smallest
service to her. After what I heard, while I was in her room--"

Regina interrupted him at that point. "I suppose it's a secret between
you?" she said.

"Yes; it's a secret," Amelius proceeded, "as you say. But one thing I
may tell you, without breaking my promise. Mrs. Farnaby has--well! has
filled me with kindly feeling towards her. She has a claim, poor soul,
to my truest sympathy. And I shall remember her claim. And I shall be
faithful to what I feel towards her as long as I live!"

It was not very elegantly expressed; but the tone was the tone of true
feeling in his voice trembled, his colour rose. He stood before her,
speaking with perfect simplicity straight from his heart--and the
woman's heart felt it instantly. This was the man whose ridicule she
had dreaded, if her aunt's rash confidence struck him in an absurd
light! She sat down in silence, with a grave sad face, reproaching
herself for the wrong which her too ready distrust had inflicted on
him; longing to ask his pardon, and yet hesitating to say the simple
words.

He approached her chair, and, placing his hand on the back of it, said
gently, "do you think a little better of me now?"

She had taken off her gloves: she silently folded and refolded them in
her lap.

"Your good opinion is very precious to me," Amelius pleaded, bending a
little nearer to her. "I can't tell you how sorry I should be--" He
stopped, and put it more strongly. "I shall never have courage enough
to enter the house again, if I have made you think meanly of me."

A woman who cared nothing for him would have easily answered this. The
calm heart of Regina began to flutter: something warned her not to
trust herself to speak. Little as he suspected it, Amelius had troubled
the tranquil temperament of this woman. He had found his way to those
secret reserves of tenderness--placid and deep--of which she was hardly
conscious herself, until his influence had enlightened her. She was
afraid to look up at him; her eyes would have told him the truth. She
lifted her long, finely shaped, dusky hand, and offered it to him as
the best answer that she could make.

Amelius took it, looked at it, and ventured on his first familiarity
with her--he kissed it. She only said, "Don't!" very faintly.

"The Queen would let me kiss her hand if I went to Court," Amelius
reminded her, with a pleasant inner conviction of his wonderful
readiness at finding an excuse.

She smiled in spite of herself. "Would the Queen let you hold it?" she
asked, gently releasing her hand, and looking at him as she drew it
away. The peace was made without another word of explanation. Amelius
took a chair at her side. "I'm quite happy now you have forgiven me,"
he said. "You don't know how I admire you--and how anxious I am to
please you, if I only knew how!"

He drew his chair a little nearer; his eyes told her plainly that his
language would soon become warmer still, if she gave him the smallest
encouragement. This was one reason for changing the subject. But there
was another reason, more cogent still. Her first painful sense of
having treated him unjustly had ceased to make itself keenly felt; the
lower emotions had their opportunity of asserting themselves.
Curiosity, irresistible curiosity, took possession of her mind, and
urged her to penetrate the mystery of the interview between Amelius and
her aunt.

"Will you think me very indiscreet," she began slyly, "if I made a
little confession to you?"

Amelius was only too eager to hear the confession: it would pave the
way for something of the same sort on his part.

"I understand my aunt making the heat in the concert-room a pretence
for taking you away with her," Regina proceeded; "but what astonishes
me is that she should have admitted you to her confidence after so
short an acquaintance. You are still--what shall I say?--you are still
a new friend of ours."

"How long will it be before I become an old friend?" Amelius asked. "I
mean," he added, with artful emphasis, "an old friend of _yours?"_

Confused by the question, Regina passed it over without notice. "I am
Mrs. Farnaby's adopted daughter," she resumed. "I have been with her
since I was a little girl--and yet she has never told me any of her
secrets. Pray don't suppose that I am tempting you to break faith with
my aunt! I am quite incapable of such conduct as that."

Amelius saw his way to a thoroughly commonplace compliment which
possessed the charm of complete novelty so far as his experience was
concerned. He would actually have told her that she was incapable of
doing anything which was not perfectly becoming to a charming person,
if she had only given him time! She was too eager in the pursuit of her
own object to give him time. "I _should_ like to know," she went on,
"whether my aunt has been influenced in any way by a dream that she had
about you."

Amelius started. "Has she told you of her dream?" he asked, with some
appearance of alarm.

Regina blushed and hesitated, "My room is next to my aunt's," she
explained. "We keep the door between us open. I am often in and out
when she is disturbed in her sleep. She was talking in her sleep, and I
heard your name--nothing more. Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned
it? Perhaps I ought not to expect you to answer me?"

"There is no harm in my answering you," said Amelius. "The dream really
had something to do with her trusting me. You may not think quite so
unfavourably of her conduct now you know that."

"It doesn't matter what I think," Regina replied constrainedly. "If my
aunt's secrets have interested you--what right have I to object? I am
sure I shall say nothing. Though I am not in my aunt's confidence, nor
in your confidence, you will find I can keep a secret."

She folded up her gloves for the twentieth time at least, and gave
Amelius his opportunity of retiring by rising from her chair. He made a
last effort to recover the ground that he had lost, without betraying
Mrs. Farnaby's trust in him.

"I am sure you can keep a secret," he said. "I should like to give you
one of my secrets to keep--only I mustn't take the liberty, I suppose,
just yet?"

She new perfectly well what he wanted to say. Her heart began to
quicken its beat; she was at a loss how to answer. After an awkward
silence, she made an attempt to dismiss him. "Don't let me detain you,"
she said, "if you have any engagement."

Amelius silently looked round him for his hat. On a table behind him a
monthly magazine lay open, exhibiting one of those melancholy modern
"illustrations" which present the English art of our day in its laziest
and lowest state of degradation. A vacuous young giant, in flowing
trousers, stood in a garden, and stared at a plump young giantess with
enormous eyes and rotund hips, vacantly boring holes in the grass with
the point of her parasol. Perfectly incapable of explaining itself,
this imbecile production put its trust in the printer, whose charitable
types helped it, at the bottom of the page, with the title of "Love at
First Sight." On those remarkable words Amelius seized, with the
desperation of the drowning man, catching at the proverbial straw. They
offered him a chance of pleading his cause, this time, with a happy
indirectness of allusion at which not even a young lady's
susceptibility could take offence.