[figure description] Page 222.[end figure description]

Fifteen years have passed away, and around the old stone
house there is outwardly no change. The moss still clings
to the damp, dark wall, just as it clung there long ago, while
the swaying branches of the forest trees still cast their
shadows across the floor, or scream to the autumn blast, just
as they did in years gone by, when Hagar Warren breathed
that prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.” Madam Conway,
stiff and straight and cold as ever, moves with the
same measured tread through her gloomy rooms, which are
not as noiseless now as they were wont to be, for girlhood,
joyous, merry girlhood, has a home in those dark rooms, and
their silence is broken by the sound of other feet, not moving
stealthily and slow, as if following in a funeral train, but
dancing down the stairs, tripping through the halls, skipping
across the floor, and bounding over the grass, they go,
never tiring, never ceasing, till the birds and the sun have
gone to rest.

And do what she may, the good lady cannot check the
gleeful mirth, or hush the clear ringing laughter of one at
least of the fair maidens, who, since last we looked upon
them, have grown up to womanhood. Wondrously beautiful
is Maggie Miller now, with her bright sunny face, her
soft, dark eyes and raven hair, so glossy and smooth, that

[figure description] Page 223.[end figure description]

her sister, the pale faced, blue-eyed Theo, likens it to a piece
of shining satin. Now, as ever, the pet and darling of the
household, she moves among them like a ray of sunshine;
and the servants, when they hear her bird-like voice waking
the echoes of the weird old place, pause in their work to
listen, blessing Miss Margaret for the joy and gladness her
presence has brought to them.

Old Hagar, in her cottage by the mine, has kept her
secret well, whispering it only to the rushing wind and the
running brook, which have told no tales to the gay, light-hearted
girl, save to murmur in her ear that a life, untrammeled
by etiquette and form, would be a blissful life indeed.
And Maggie, listening to the voices which speak to her so
oft in the autumn wind, the running brook, the opening
flower and the falling leaf, has learned a lesson different far
from those taught her daily by the prim, stiff governess, who,
imported from England six years ago, has drilled both Theo
and Maggie, in all the prescribed rules of high-life as practised
in the old world. She has taught them how to sit and
how to stand, how to eat and how to drink, as became young
ladies of Conway blood and birth. And Madam Conway,
through her golden spectacles, looks each day to see some
good, from all this teaching, come to the bold, dashing,
untamable Maggie, who, spurning alike both birth and blood,
laughs at form and etiquette as taught by Mrs. Jeffrey, and
winding her arms around her grandmother's neck, crumples
her rich lace ruffle with a most unladylike hug, and then
bounds away to the stables, pretending not to hear the distressed
Mrs. Jeffrey calling after her “not to run, 'twas so
Yankeefied and vulgar;” or if she did hear, answering back,
“I am a Yankee, native born, and shall run for all Johnny
Bull.”

Greatly horrified at this evidence of total depravity, Mrs.

[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]

Jeffrey brushes down her black silk apron and goes back to
Theo, her more tractable pupil; while Maggie, emerging
ere long from the stable, clears the fence with one leap of
her high-mettled pony, which John, the coachman, had
bought at an enormous price, of a travelling circus, on purpose
for his young mistress, who complained that “grandma's
horses were all too lazy and aristocratic in their movements
for her.”

In perfect amazement Madam Conway looked out when
first “Gritty,” as the pony was called, was led up to the
door, prancing, pawing, chafing at the bit and impatient
to be off. “Margaret should never mount that animal,”
she said; but Margaret had ruled for sixteen years, and
now, at a sign from John, she sprang gaily upon the back of
the fiery steed, who, feeling instinctively that the rider he
carried was a stranger to fear, became under her training
perfectly gentle, obeying her slightest command, and following
her ere long like a sagacious dog. Not thus easily
could Madam Conway manage Maggie, and with a groan
she saw her each day fly over the garden gate, and out into
the woods, which she scoured in all directions.

“She'll break her neck, I know,” the disturbed old lady
would say, as Maggie's flowing skirt and waving plumes disappeared
in the shadow of the trees. “She'll break her
neck some day;” and thinking some one must be in fault,
her eyes would turn reprovingly upon Mrs. Jeffrey for
having failed in subduing Maggie, whom the old governess
pronounced the “veriest mad-cap in the world; there was
nothing like her in all England,” she said, “and her low-bred
ways must be the result of her having been born on American
soil.”

If Maggie was to be censured, Madam Conway chose to
do it herself, and on such occasions she would answer,
“Low-bred, Mrs. Jeffrey, is not a proper term to apply to

[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]

Margaret. She's a little wild, I admit, but no one with my
blood in their veins can be low-bred;” and in her indignation
at the governess, Madam would usually forget to
reprove her grand-daughter when she came back from her
ride, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining like stars with
the healthful exercise. Throwing herself upon a stool at
her grandmother's feet, Maggie would lay her head upon
the lap of the proud lady, who, very lovingly would smooth
the soft shining hair, “so much like her own,” she said.

“Before you had to color it, you mean, don't you, grandma?”
the mischievous Maggie would rejoin, looking up
archly to her grandmother, who would call her a saucy
child, and stroke still more fondly the silken locks.

Wholly unlike Maggie was Theo, a pale-faced, fair-haired
girl, who was called pretty, when not overshadowed by the
queenly presence of her more gifted sister. And Theo was
very proud of this sister, too; proud of the beautiful Maggie,
to whom, though two years her junior, she looked for
counsel, willing always to abide by her judgment; for what
Maggie did must of course be right, and grandma would not
scold. So if at any time Theo was led into error, Maggie
stood ready to bear the blame, which was never very severe,
for Mrs. Jeffrey had learned not to censure her too much,
lest by so doing she should incur the displeasure of her
employer, who in turn loved Maggie, if it were possible,
better than the daughter whose name she bore, and whom
Maggie called her mother. Well kept and beautiful was the
spot where that mother lay, and the grave was marked by a
costly marble, which gleamed clear and white through the
surrounding evergreens. This was Maggie's favorite resort,
and here she often sat in the moonlight, musing of one who
slept there, and who, they said, had held her on her bosom
when she died.

[figure description] Page 226.[end figure description]

At no great distance from this spot, was another grave,
where the grass grew tall and green, and where the headstone,
half sunken in the earth, betokened that she who
rested there was of humble origin. Here Maggie seldom
tarried long. The place had no attraction for her, for rarely
now was the name of Hester Hamilton heard at the old
stone house, and all, save one, seemed to have forgotten
that such as she had ever lived. This was Hagar Warren,
who in her cottage by the mine has grown older, and more
crazy-like since last we saw her. Her hair, once so much
like that which Madame Conway likens to her own, has
bleached as white as snow, and her tall form is shrivelled
now, and bent. The secret is wearing her life away, and yet
she does not regret what she has done. She cannot, when
she looks upon the beautiful girl, who comes each day to
her lonely hut, and whom she worships with a species of
wild idolatry. Maggie knows not why it is, and yet to her
there is a peculiar fascination about that strange old woman,
with her snow-white hair, her wrinkled face, her bony hand,
and wild, dark eyes, which, when they rest on her, have in
them a look of unutterable tenderness.

Regularly each day when the sun nears the western horizon,
Maggie steals away to the cottage, and the lonely
woman, waiting for her on the rude bench by the door, can
tell her bounding footstep from all others which pass that
way. She does not say much now, herself; but the sound
of Maggie's voice, talking to her in the gathering twilight,
is the sweetest she has ever heard, and so she sits and listens,
while her hands work nervously together, and her
whole body trembles with the longing, intense desire she
feels, to clasp the young girl to her bosom, and claim her as
her own. But this she dare not do, for Madame Conway's
training has had its effect, and in Maggie's bearing there is

[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]

ever a degree of pride which forbids anything like undue
familiarity. And it was this very pride which Hagar liked
to see, whispering often to herself, “Warren blood and
Conway airs—the two go well together.”

Sometimes a word or a look, would make her start, they
reminded her so forcibly of the dead; and once she said
involuntarily. “You are like your mother, Maggie.
Exactly what she was at your age.”

“My mother!” answered Maggie. You never talked to
me of her. Tell me of her now, I did not suppose I was
like her, in anything.”

“Yes, in everything,” said old Hagar, “the same dark
eyes and hair, the same bright red cheeks, the same—”

“Why Hagar, what can you mean?” interrupted Maggie.
“My mother had light blue eyes and fair brown hair, like
Theo. Grandma says I am not like her at all, while old
Hannah, the cook, when she feels ill-natured, and wishes to
tease me, says I am the very image of Hester Hamilton.”

“And what if you are? What if you are?” eagerly rejoined
old Hagar. “Would you feel badly, to know you
looked like Hester?” and the old woman bent anxiously
forward, to hear the answer, “Not for myself, perhaps, provided
Hester was handsome, for I think a good deal of
beauty, that's a fact; but it would annoy grandma terribly to
have me look like a servant. She might fancy I was Hester's
daughter, for she wonders every day where I get my low-bred
ways, as she calls my liking to sing and laugh, and be
natural.”

“And s'posin' Hester was your mother, would you care?”
persisted Hagar.

“Of course I should,” answered Maggie, her large eyes
opening wide at the strange question. “I wouldn't for the
whole world be anybody but Maggie Miller, just who I am.

[figure description] Page 228.[end figure description]

To be sure I get awfully out of patience with grandma, and
Mrs. Jeffrey, for talking so much about birth and blood and
family, and all that sort of nonsense, but after all, I wouldn't
for anything be poor and work as poor folks do.”

“I'll never tell her, never,” muttered Hagar; and Maggie
continued: “What a queer habit you have of talking to
yourself. Did you always do so?”

“Not always. It came upon me with the secret,” Hagar
answered inadvertently; and eagerly catching at the last
word, which to her implied a world of romance and mystery,
Maggie exclaimed, “The secret, Hagar, the secret! If there's
anything I delight in, it's a secret!” and sliding down from
the rude bench to the grass plat at Hagar's feet, she continued:
Tell it to me, Hagar, that's a dear old woman.
I'll never tell anybody as long as I live. I won't upon my
word,” she continued, as she saw the look of horror resting
on Hagar's face; “I'll help you to keep it, and we'll
have such grand times talking it over. Did it concern yourself?”
and Maggie folded her arms upon the lap of the old
woman, who answered in a voice so hoarse and unnatural
that Maggie involuntarily shuddered, “Old Hagar would
die inch by inch sooner than tell you, Maggie Miller, her
secret.”

“Was it then so dreadful?” asked, Maggie half fearfully,
and casting a stealthy glance at the dim woods, where the
night shadows were falling, and whose winding path she
must traverse alone, on her homeward route. “Was it
then so dreadful?”

“Yes, dreadful, dreadful; and yet, Maggie, I have sometimes
wished you knew it. You would forgive me, perhaps,
if you knew how I was tempted,” said Hagar, and her voice
was full of yearning tenderness, while her bony fingers
parted lovingly the shining hair from off the white brow

[figure description] Page 229.[end figure description]

of the young girl, who plead again, “Tell it to me,
Hagar.”

There was a fierce struggle in Hagar's bosom, but the
night wind, moving through the hemlock boughs, seemed
to say, “Not yet—not yet,” and remembering her vow,
she answered. “Leave me, Maggie Miller, I cannot tell you
the secret. You of all others. You would hate me for it,
and that I could not bear. Leave me alone, or the sight of
you, so beautiful, pleading for my secret, will kill me dead.”

There was command in the tones of her voice, and rising
to her feet, Maggie walked away, with a dread feeling at her
heart, a feeling which whispered vaguely to her of a deed of
blood; for what, save this, could thus affect old Hagar?—
Her road home led near the little burying-ground, and
impelled by something she could not resist, she paused at
her mother's grave. The moonlight was falling softly upon
it, and seating herself within the shadow of the monument,
she sat a long time, thinking, not of the dead, but of Hagar
and the strange words she had uttered. Suddenly, from
the opposite side of the graveyard, there came a sound
as of some one walking, and looking up, Maggie saw
approaching her the bent figure of the old woman, who
seemed unusually excited. Her first impulse was to fly, but
knowing how improbable it was that Hagar should seek to
do her harm, and thinking she might discover some clue to
the mystery, if she remained, she sat still, while kneeling on
Hester's grave, old Hagar wept bitterly, talking the while,
but so incoherently that Maggie could distinguish nothing,
save the words, “You, Hester, have forgiven me.”

“Can it be that she has killed her own child!” thought
Mag, and starting to her feet she stood face to face with
Hagar, who screamed, “You here, Maggie Miller! Here
with the others who know my secret. But you shan't wring

[figure description] Page 230.[end figure description]

it from me. You shall never know it, unless the dead rise
up to tell you.”

“Hagar Warren,” said Margaret sternly, “is murder
your secret? Did Hester Hamilton die at her mother's
hands?”

With a short gasping moan, Hagar staggered backward
a pace or two, and then standing far more erect than Margaret
had ever seen her before, she answered, “No, Maggie
Miller, no; murder is not my secret. These hands,” and she
tossed in the air her shrivelled arms, “these hands are as
free from blood as yours. And now go. Leave me alone
with my dead, and see that you tell no tales. You like
secrets, you say. Let what you have heard to-night, be your
secret. Go.”

Maggie obeyed, and walked slowly homeward, feeling
greatly relieved that her suspicion was false, and experiencing
a degree of satisfaction in thinking that she, too, had
a secret, which she would guard most carefully from her
grandmother and Theo. “She would never tell them what
she had seen and heard—never!”

Seated upon the piazza was Madam Conway and Theo,
the former of whom chided her for staying so late at the
cottage, while Theo asked what queer things the old witch-woman
had said to-night.

With a very expressive look, which seemed to say, “I
know, but I shan't tell,” Maggie seated herself at her grandmother's
feet, and asked, “how long Hagar had been crazy?
Did it come upon her when her daughter died?” she inquired;
and Madam Conway answered, “yes, about that
time, or more particularly when the baby died. Then she
began to act so strangely that I removed you from her care,
for, from something she said, I fancied she mediated harm
to you.”

[figure description] Page 231.[end figure description]

For a moment Maggie sat wrapt in thought—then clapping
her hands together, she exclaimed—“I have it; I know
now what ails her. She felt so badly to see you happy with
me, that she tried to poison me. She said she was sorely
tempted—and that's the secret which is killing her.”

“Secret! What secret?” cried Theo; and womanlike,
forgetting her resolution not to tell, Mag told what she had
seen and heard, adding as her firm belief that Hagar had
made an attempt upon her life.

“I would advise you for the future to keep away from
her, then,” said Madam Conway, to whom the suggestion
seemed a very probable one.

But Maggie knew full well that whatever Hagar might
once have thought to do, there was no danger to be apprehended
from her now, and the next day found her as usual
on her way to the cottage. Bounding into the room where
the old woman sat at her knitting, she exclaimed, “I know
what it is! I know your secret!”

There was a gathering mist before Hagar's eyes, and her
face was deathly white, as she gasped, “You know the secret!
How? where? Have the dead come back to tell?
Did anybody see me do it?”

“Why, no,” answered Mag, beginning again to grow a
little mystified. “The dead have nothing to do with it.
You tried to poison me when I was a baby, and that's what
makes you crazy. Isn't it so? Grandma thought it was,
when I told her how you talked last night.”

There was a heavy load lifted from Hagar's heart, and
she answered calmly, but somewhat indignantly, “So you
told—I thought I could trust you, Maggie.”

Instantly the tears came to Maggie's eyes, and, coloring
crimson, she said: “I didn't mean to tell—indeed I didn't,
but I forgot all about your charge. Forgive me, Hagar,

[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]

do,” and, sinking on the floor, she looked up in Hagar's face
so pleadingly that the old woman was softened, and answered
gently, “You are like the rest of your sex, Margaret.
No woman but Hagar Warren ever kept a secret;
and it's killing her, you see.”

“Don't keep it then,” said Mag. “Tell it to me. Confess
that you tried to poison me because you envied grandma,”
and the soft eyes looked with an anxious, expectant expression
into the dark, wild orbs of Hagar, who replied, “Envy
was at the bottom of it all, but I never tried to harm you,
Margaret, in any way. I only thought to do you good.
You have not guessed it. You cannot, and you must not
try.”

“Tell it to me then. I want to know it so badly,” persisted
Mag, her curiosity each moment increasing.

“Maggie Miller,” said old Hagar, and the knitting dropped
from her fingers, which moved slowly on till they
reached and touched the little snow-flake of a hand, resting
on her knee; “Maggie Miller, if you knew that the telling of
that secret would make you perfectly wretched, would you
wish to hear it?”

For a moment Mag was silent, and then, half laughingly,
she replied, “I'd risk it, Hagar, for I never wanted to know
anything half so bad in all my life. Tell it to me, won't
you?”

Very beautiful looked Maggie Miller then. Her straw
flat sat jauntily on one side of her head, her glossy hair
combed smoothly back, her soft lustrous eyes shining with
eager curiosity, and her cheeks flushed with excitement.
Very, very beautiful she seemed to the old woman, who, in
her intense longing to take the bright creature to her bosom,
was, for an instant sorely tempted.

“Margaret!” she began, and at the sound of her voice

[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]

the young girl shuddered involuntarily. “Margaret!” she
said again, but ere another word was uttered, the autumn
wind, which for the last half hour had been rising rapidly,
came roaring down the wide-mouthed chimney, and the
heavy fireboard fell upon the floor with a tremendous crash,
nearly crushing old Hagar's foot, and driving for a time all
thoughts of the secret from Maggie's mind. “Served me
right,” muttered Hagar, as Maggie left the room for water
with which to bathe the swollen foot. “Served me right, and
if ever I'm tempted to tell her again may every bone in my
body be smashed!”

The foot was carefully cared for. Maggie's own hands
tenderly bandaging it up, and then with redoubled zeal she
returned to the attack, pressing old Hagar so hard that the
large drops of perspiration gathered thickly about her forehead
and lips, which were white as ashes. Wearied at last,
Mag gave it up for the time being, but her curiosity was
thoroughly aroused, and for many days she persisted in her
importunity, until at last, in self defence, old Hagar, when
she saw her coming, would steal away to the low roofed
chamber, and hiding behind a pile of rubbish, would listen
breathlessly, while Margaret hunted for her in vain. Then
when she was gone, she would crawl out from her hiding-place,
covered with cobwebs and dust, and muttering to
herself, “I never expected this, and it's more than I can
bear. Why will she torment me so, when a knowledge of
the secret would drive her mad!”

This, however, Maggie Miller did not know. Blessed
with an uncommon degree of curiosity, which increased each
time she saw old Hagar, she resolved to solve the mystery,
which she felt sure was connected with herself, though in
what manner, she could not guess. “But I will know,”
she would say to herself, when returning from a fruitless

[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]

quizzing of old Hagar, whose hiding-place she had at last
discovered; “I will know what 'tis about me. I shall
never be quite happy till I do.”

Ah, Maggie, Maggie, be happy while you can, and leave
the secret alone. It will come to you soon enough—aye,
soon enough.

p594-236

Previous section

Next section