Signing the Contract and What it Cost

Floy was ushered at once into the Madame’s dressing-room, where she found that lady weeping bitterly over her dead favorite as it lay stiff and stark in her lap.

“He’s gone, Miss Kemper!” she sobbed, looking up piteously into Floy’s face, with the tears running fast down her own; “he’s gone, my pretty darling – the only thing I had left to love, and the only one that had any love for poor me!”

The young girl scarcely knew what consolation to offer; she could only express her sympathy and hope that he might be replaced by another as pretty and playful.

“Never, never!” exclaimed the Madame indignantly; “no other ever could or ever shall fill his place. And he shall have a splendid funeral,” she went on, with a fresh burst of grief, “the finest casket money can buy, and a white satin shroud; a monument over his dear little grave too; and I’ll put on mourning as I would for a child.”

For a moment Floy was silent with surprise; then recovering herself,

“This is handsomer than satin, Madame,” she said, gently touching the silky floss of the dog’s own natural coat; “and what a pity to bury it: would it not be better to have it stuffed? for then you need not lose your pet entirely, but can keep him here, caress him, and deck him with ribbons as you have been used to doing.”

“Bless you for the suggestion!” cried the mourner, drying her tears. “So I can; and it will be better than hiding him away out of my sight.

“Mary, you needn’t send the order for the casket or the digging of the grave; but, instead, go out at once and inquire who is the best taxidermist in the city.”

Left alone with the Madame, Floy set herself to the task of persuading her out of the absurd notion of putting on mourning, her main argument being that it was an unwholesome dress and the lady’s health already poor enough.

“That is true; nobody knows what I suffer every day of my life,” assented the Madame; “and as I’m not going to quite lose the darling,” hugging the dead dog lovingly in her arms as she spoke, “I’ll give it up; that is, I’ll wear white instead; and you shall stay all the same and make me some lovely white morning dresses, tucked, ruffled, and trimmed with elegant lace.”

“How immense she will look in them!” was Floy’s mental comment; but she wisely kept her thoughts to herself.

In the mean time Mary was executing her commission with such promptness and energy that within an hour Frisky’s remains had been taken away – the Madame parting from them with many tears and caresses – and the insignia of mourning removed from the outside of the house.

“I don’t know how to thank you enough, miss,” the maid said aside to Floy. “It was just awful to me – the idea of a grand funeral for a dog, and all the neighbors lookin’ on an’ thinkin’ us a pack o’ fools. I wish in my heart you lived here all the time, for you can do more to make the Madame hear reason than all the rest of us put together.”

“Can that be so?” said Floy. “I should not have expected my influence to be nearly so great as yours.”

“Nor I,” said the maid, and Floy wondered at the earnest, curious gaze she bent upon her.

Mary was thinking of the miniature to which the young girl bore so strong a resemblance; but perceiving that Floy observed her scrutiny, she turned hastily away and left the room.

Several times afterward, during this sojourn in the house, Floy was aware of a repetition of Mary’s fixed, searching look, and that the Madame also, in the pauses of her grief, regarded her more than once in much the same manner.

Each time it struck our heroine as strange, but she soon forgot it in thoughts of Espy or the lost parent of whom she was still in quest.

Now that she had not Frisky to take her attention, the Madame took to poring over the miniature again, often weeping bitterly the while; sometimes Mary overheard such murmured words as these:

“Pansy, Pansy, my little Pansy! Oh, I can never forgive myself! My darling, my darling!”

One morning Madame Le Conte awoke with a sudden resolution, and surprised her maid with an unusual order.

“Mary,” she said, “I shall call upon my solicitor to-day. Tell Rory to have the carriage at the door at eleven o’clock. Then bring me my breakfast and dress me at once for the street.”

“What’s up now?” inquired Mary of herself as she hastened downstairs in obedience to the order; “is she going to make a will and leave a lot of money to that pretty Miss Kemper? And all because she looks like that picture in the locket? Well, well, if it had only happened to be me now, how lucky ’twould have been!”

Having come to her resolve, Madame Le Conte was in feverish haste to carry it out, scolded because her breakfast was not ready on the instant, and fretted and fumed over her toilet, accusing Mary of being intentionally and exasperatingly slow.

But the maid bore it with unruffled equanimity, perhaps looking to the possibility of a fat legacy.

The Madame entered her carriage in a tremor of excitement and haste, which, however, calmed down somewhat during the drive.

Arrived at their destination, Mary assisted her to alight and ascend the three or four steps leading into the hall of the building.

“Stop! it is this first door,” said the Madame, panting and wheezing, slight as the exertion had been. “Wait a minute till I recover breath. I want a private interview, and you will stay outside. Rap now.”

Mary obeyed, and hearing a loud “Come in!” opened the door and stepped back to let her mistress enter.

“Ah! Madame Le Conte! how d’ye do?” said the lawyer, rising and offering a hand to his rich client; then, with a sudden recollection, dropping it at his side and contenting himself with pushing forward an arm-chair.

“Sit down, Madame,” he said. “You are quite a stranger here, but I have been out of town, and may have missed a call from you.”

“No,” she panted, “I’ve – not – been here since I saw you last.”

“Ah? Well, my dear Madame, what can I do for you to-day?”

“You have heard nothing – learned nothing yet?”

“Nothing whatever, as I am sorry to say.”

She sighed deeply.

“I think I should give it up,” he said.

“No, no, no!” she cried with vehemence. “I would have you renew and redouble your efforts.”

“What can I do that has not already been done?”

“I don’t know, but you must try to think of something. Write a new advertisement; send it to every paper in the land.”

“It will be putting you to very great expense, and uselessly, I am almost sure.”

“That is my affair,” she wheezed, wiping the perspiration from her face with a delicate cambric handkerchief.

“Certainly,” he replied, with a slight bow of acquiescence; “the money is your own to use as you please, but it is a pity to throw it away. And how long have we been engaged in this search?”

“Ten years!” she sighed half despairingly; “but,” brightening a little, “we’ve almost let it drop for months past. I’d nearly lost heart, but we must begin again and never mind expense. I’d give half my fortune to succeed.”

“I wish you may; though I have not much hope of it, I must confess,” he answered indifferently, “but of course your instructions shall be promptly carried out.”

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LONG-LOST DEED

“Thus doth the ever-changing course of things
Run a perpetual circle, ever turning.”

Hetty and her mother had taken advantage of the slack time to pay a long-promised visit to some friends in the country, leaving to Mrs. Sharp the oversight of domestic affairs and the care of the store, with such assistance as she could get from Araminta and Lucian, who were home for the summer vacation.

John was, as usual, spending his vacation in farm work, while all the apprentices and journey-women had left for the time being, except our heroine and Annie Jones, who was an orphan and had neither home nor friends to go to.