The Queen of Hearts

nd how did she find her

ild. Her mother died while she was an infant; her father was my dear and valued friend, Major Yelverton. He lived long enough to celebrate

to his daughter’s education, and with his intentions as to the disposal of all his property in her favor. My own idea, therefore, was, that the reading of the will would inform me of nothing which I had not known in the te

nd for her residence, under ordinary circumstances, with the major’s sister, Lady Westwick,

ns. During the lives of both of them, it was left to her own choice to say which of the two she would prefer to live with. In all other respects the condition was imperative. If she forfeited it, excepting, of course,

watched over the welfare of the little motherless child — I remembered the innumerable claims she had established in this way on her brother’s confidence in her affection for his orphan daughter, and I

friend’s peculiarities of disposition and feeling, to which I had not hitherto attached sufficient importance, wer

e son of a small farmer, and it was his pride never to forget this circumstance, never to be ashamed of it, and

n every year. Lady Westwick was the most light-hearted, the most generous, the most impulsive of women; capable, when any serious occasion called it forth, of all that was devoted and self-sacrificing, but, at other and ordinary times, constitutionally restless, frivolous, and eager for perpetual gayety. Distrusting the sort of life which he knew his daughter would lead under her aunt’s roof, and at the same time gratefully remembering his sister’s affectionate devotion toward his dying wife and her helpless infant, Maj

but a pattern pupil in respect of attention to her lessons, she became from the first the chosen favorite of every one about her. The very offenses which she committed against the discipline of the school were of the sort which provoke a smile e

r, she discovered, to her horror and amazement, that all four girls were out of bed — were dressed in brilliantly-fantastic costumes, representing the four grotesque “Queens” of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs, familiar to us all on the pack of cards — and were dancing a quadrille, in which Jessie sustained the character of T

er the mistress’s back was turned, Whatever might have become of the nicknames thus employed in relation to the other three girls, such a mock title as The Queen of Hearts was too appropriately descriptive of the natural charm of Jessie’s character, as well as of the adventure in which she had taken the lead, not to rise naturally to the lips of every one

and her living six weeks in our dismal solitude and our humdrum society was, as she herself frankly wrote me word, quite out of the question. Fortunately, she had always got on well with her uncle

ay, more than sufficed to convince me that the poor major’s plan for the careful training of his daughter’s disposition, though plausible enough in theory, was little better than a total failure in practice. Miss Jessie, to use the expressive common phrase, took after her aunt. She was as generous, as impulsive, as li

he Crimea in 1854, and had other work in hand now than recording the sayings and doings of a young lady. Mr. Richard Yelverton, who had been hitherto used to write to me with tolerable regularity, seemed now, for some reason that I could not conjecture, to have forgotten my existence. Ultimately I was

a that crossed my mind when I read the news of Mr. Yelverton’s death. I was now

beginning of the year. Consequently, so far as eighteen hundred and fifty-five was concerned, the condition exacted by the will yet remained to be performed. She had

o alternatives — the one, of allowing herself to be buried six weeks in The Glen Tower; the other, of breaking the condition, giving up the money, and remaining magnanimously contented with nothing but a life-interest in her father’s property. At present she inclined decid

mind was made easy enough to let me think of Jessie again. Just as I was considering the necessity of writing once more to my refractory ward, a second letter arrived from her. She had returned at last from abroad, had suddenly changed her mind, suddenly grown sick of society, suddenly become enamored of the pleasures of retirement, and suddenly found out that the three horrid old men were three dear old men, and that six weeks’ solitude a

Owen merely turned pale, lifted his weak, thin hands in a panic-stricken manner, and then sat staring at me in speechless and motionless bewilderment. Morgan stood up straight before m

ed?” I repeated,

. They were too happy in the garden of Eden — down comes the serpent and turns them out. Solomon was too wise — down comes the Queen of Sheba, and makes a fool of him. We’ve been too comfortable at The Glen Tower — d

mes?” exclaimed Owen, piteously. “Do

t? When destiny has found a man out, and heated his gridiron for him,

comparison between a young lady and a hot grid

r as well as we can. The difficulty is where to put her; and, when that is settled, the next puzzle will be, what to ord

pened his eyes in perplexed consideration — repeated to himself s

in, Griffith, by gett

a grown young woman who is coming to

see; we couldn’t do wrong, I suppose — could we? —

n himself. As I came to that conclusion, I saw through the window our old housekeeper on her way

proaching event. When I had explained all the circumstances to her, she carefully put

n? Well, sir, here’s my advice: Don’t you trouble your head abou

do you

ng your presence) a foot apiece in our graves, haven’t we? When you was young yourself, sir, what would you have done if they

ly can’

Don’t you worry your head about her — she’ll save y

housekeeper took up her baske

n the neighborhood to whom I could apply for assistance, and the nearest shop eight miles distant from us. The toughest cas

f the old building. It contained three cottage-rooms, and they might be made barely habitable for a young lady. But then those rooms were occupied by Morgan. His books were in one, his bed was in another, his pipes and general lumber were in the third. Could I expect him, after the sour similitudes he had used in reference to our expected visitor,

the spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower. The first of the servants carried the materials for making a fire; the second bore an inverted arm-chair on his head; the third tottered under a h

does this mea

ng at me with a smile of sour satisfaction. “I’ve got the star

” I asked, as the head man of the procession

his tower?” re

s, to be sure

her, setting his foot on the first

n’t,” I

id Morgan, “and that’s ex

oom is not

t of her

ndows has fall

t of her

row’s nest i

t of her

repetition, Morgan, in his turn, had disappeared up the wind

seventh story, I began to feel, for the first time, as if my scattered wits were coming back to me. By the time the evening had closed in I had hit on no less than three excellent ideas, all providing for the future comfort and amusement of our fair guest. The first idea was to get her a Welsh pony; the second was to hire a piano from the county town; the third was to send for a boxful of novels from London. I must confess I thought these projects

r’s parting words when s

it is not to be concealed that I felt less sanguine of our success in entertaining the coming guest. So far as external preparations were concerned, there seemed, indeed, but little to impr

with which we three brothers have been accustomed, for years past, to beguile the t

er lost its sober attraction to my tastes, for it has always employed me in watching the best interests of my brother, and of my son

body corporate of doctors from the position which they have usurped in the estimation of their fellow-creatures. This daring work is entitled “An Examination of the Claims of Medicine on the Gratitude of Mankind. Decided in the Negative by a Retired Physician.” So far as I can tell, the book is likely to extend to the dimensions of an Encyclopedia; for it is Morgan’s plan to treat his comprehensive subject principally fro

r, and in disposition, the gentlest of mankind, Owen, by some singular anomaly in his character, which he seems to have caught from Morgan, glories placidly in the wildest and most frightful range of subjects which his art is capable of representing. Immeasurable ruins, in howling wildernesses, with blood-red sunsets gleaming over them; thunder-clouds rent with lightning, hovering over splitting trees on the verges of awful precipices; hurricanes, shipwrecks, waves, and whirlpools follow each other on his canvas, without an intervening glimpse of quiet everyday nature to relieve the succession of pictorial horrors. When I see him at

yond the narrow circle of The Glen Tower. I try hard, in our visitor’s interest, to look into the res

ve the old type parson of the days of Fielding still in a state of perfect preservation. Our local clergyman receives a stipend which is too paltry to bear comparison with the wages of an ordinary mechanic. In dress, manners, and tastes he is about on a level with the upper class of agricultural laborer. When attempts have been made by well-meaning gentlefolks to recognize the claims of his profession by asking him to their houses, he has been known, on more than one occasion, to leave his plowman’s pair of shoes in the hall, and en

ouse, I finish my dressing and go down to breakfast, secretly veering round to the housekeeper’s opinion that Miss Jessie will really bring matters to an abrupt conclusion by running away. I find Morgan as bitterly

the Earthquake at Lisbon, and inquires whether I think she would like that subject. I preserve my gravity sufficiently to answer in the affirmative, and my brother retires meekly to his studio, to depict the engulfing of a city and the destruction of a popu

a good stroke of business, and thereupon wins my lasting gratitude by taking, in

mplaint drop from their lips. Now, with regard to these rooms, for example, sir — you put a neat French bedstead in that corner, with curtains conformable — say a tasty chintz; you put on that bedstead what I will term a sufficiency of bedding; and you top up with a sweet little eider-down quilt, as light as roses, and similar the same in color. You do that, and what follows? You please her e

ons, as he had already planned out the bedroom, with the strictest reference to the connectio

one climax of upholstery to another, warning visions of his bill disclosed themselves in the remote background of the scene of luxury and magnificence which my friend was conjuring up. Certain sharp professi

ain articles of rarity from Bristol) would occupy nearly a fortnight, I dismissed the upholsterer with the understanding that I should take a day or two for consideration, and let him know

ount for such extraordinary simplicity on my part on the supposition that my wits had become sadly rusted by long seclusion from society. Whether it was referable to this cause or not, my innocent trustfulness was at a

s longer. Having dispatched the necessary order to that effect, I next wrote to hire the piano and to order the box of novels. This do

droom. From this moment Morgan retired definitely to the top of the tower, and Owen

on our favorite bench in front of the tower when we were startled by a shout from above us. Looking up directly, we saw Morgan half in and half ou

evented us for some time from seeing anything. At last we both discerne

contain? Do pianos travel in chaises? Are boxes of novels conveyed to their destination by a posti

our rough inclosure-wall of loose stone, and rapidly approached us. A b

e Yelverton herself — arriving, without a word of warn