SARAH WALKER. A NEW STORY.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 83, 3 January 1885, Page 4

SARAH WALKER. A NEW STORY.

BY BRET HA.RTE.

It was very hot. iNot. a breath of air was stirring throughout the western wing of the Greyport Hotel, and the usual feverish life of its 400 inmates had succumbed to the weather. The great verandah was deserted ; the corridors were desolated ; no foot-fall echoed in the passages ; the lazy rustle of a wandering skirt, or a passing sigh that was half a pant, seemed to intensify the heated silence. Anintoxicatedbeo.disgracefullyunsteady in wing and leg, who had beenholding an inebriated conversatien with himself in the corner of my window pane, had gone to sleep at last and was snoring. The errant prince might have entered the slumberous halls unchallenged, and walked into any of the darkened rooms whose open doors gaped for more air, without awakening the veriest Greyport flirt with his salutation. At times a drowsy voice, a lazy interjected sentence, an incoherent protest, a long-drawn phrase Of saccharine tenuity suddenly broken off with a gasp, came vaguely to the ear as if indicating a half -suspended, half -articulated existence somewhere, but not definite Bnough to indicate conversation, in the nidst of this there was the sudden crying of a child. I looked up from my work. Through the camera of my jealously guarded window I could catch a glimpse of the vivid, quivering blue of the sky, the glittering intensity of the ocean, the long motionless leaves of the horse chestnut in the road — all utterly inconsistent with anything as active as this lamentation. I stepped to the open door and into the silent hall. Apparently the noise had attracted the equal attention of my neighbours. A vague chorus of " Sarah Walker," in querulous recognition of, "0 Lord ! that child again !" in hopeless protest, rose faintly from the different rooms. As the lamentation seemed to approach nearer, the visitor's j doors were successively shut; swift footsteps hurried along the hall ; past my open door came a momentary vision of a heated nursemaid carrying a tumultuous chaos of frilled skirts, flying sa3h, rebellious slippers and tossing curls ; there was a moment's rallying struggle before the room nearly opposite mine, and then a door opened and shut upon the vision. It was Sarah Walker ! Everybody knew her ; lew had ever seen more of her than this passing vision. In the great hall, in the dining-room, in the vast parlours, in the garden, in the avenue, on the beach, a sound of lamentation had always been followed by this same brief apparition. Was there a sudden pause among the dancers and a subjugation of the loudest bassoons in the early evening " hop" ? the explanation was given in the words " Sarah Walker." Was there a wild confusion among the morning bathers on the sands? People whispered "Sarah Walker.' A panic among the waiters at dinner, an interruption in the Sunday Bacred concert, a disorganisation of the after-dinner promenade on the verandah, were instantly referred to Sarah Walker. Nor were her efforts confined entirely to public life. In cosey corners and darkened recesses bearded lips withheld the amorous declaration to mutter " Sarah Walker " between their clenched teeth ; coy and bashful tongues found speech at last in the rapid formulation of "Sarah Walker." Nobody ever thought of abbreviating her full name. The two people in the hotel, otherwise individualised, but known only as "Sarah Walker's father" and "Sarah Walker's mother," and never as Mr and Mrs Walker, addressed her only as " Sarah Walker ;" two animals that were occasionally a part of this passing pageant were known as "Sarah Walker's dog" and "Sarah Walker's cat ;" and later it was my proud privilege to sink my own individuality under the title of "that friend of Sarah Walker's." It must not be supposed that she had attained this baleful eminence without some active criticism. Every parent in the Greyport Hotel had held his or her theory oi the particular defects of Sarah Walker's education ; every virgin and bachelor had openly expressed views of the peculiar discipline that was necessary to her subjugation. It may be roughly estimated that she would have spent the entire nine years of her active life in a dark cupboard on an exclusive diet of bread and water, had this discipline obtained ; while, on the other hand, had the educational theories of the parental assembly prevailed, she would have ere this shone an etherealisei essence in the angelic host. In either event, she would have "ceased from troubling," which wa3 the general Greyport idea of higher education. A paper read before our literary society on " Sarah Walker and other Infantile Diseases," was referred to in the catalogue as " Walker, Sarah, Prevention and Cure," while the usual burlesque legislation of our summer season culminated in the act entitled "An aat to amend an act entitled an act for the abatement of Sarah Walker." As she was hereafter exclusively to be fed "on the provisio?is of this act," some idea of its general tone may be gathered. It was a singular fact in this point of her history that her natural progenitors not only offered no resistance to the doubtful celebrity of their offspring, but by hopelessly accepting the situation, to spme extent posed as Sarah Walker's victims. Mr and Mrs Walker were known to be rich, respectable, and indulgent to their only child. They themselves had been evolved from a previous generation of promiscuously acquired wealth into the repose of inherited property ; but it was currently accepted that Sarah had "cast back" and reincarnated some waif on the deck of an emigrant ship at the beginning of the century. Such was the child separated from me I by this portentous history, a narrow pasBage, and a closed nursery door. Presently, however, the door was partly opened again as if to admit the air. The crying had ceased, but in its place the monotonous voice of conscience, for the moment pjrsonated by Sarah Walker's nursemaid, Btapt alive a drowsy recollection of Sarah Walker's transgressions. "You see," said the voice, "wjbat a dreadful thing it is for a little girl to go on as you do. I am astonished at you, Sarah Walker. So is everybody ; so is the good ladies next door ; 03 is the kind gentleman opposite; so is all ! Where you expect to go to, 'evin only knows ! How you expect to be forgiven, saints alone can tell ! But so it is always, and yet you keep it up. And wouldn't you like it different, Sarah Walker ? Wouldn't you like to have everybody love you ? Wouldn't you like them good ladies next door and that nice gentleman opposite all to kinder rise up and say : ' Oh, what a dear, good little girl Sarah

Walker is !' " The interpolation of a smacking sound of lips, as if "in unctuous anticipation of Sarah Walker's virtue, here ensued—" Oh, what a dear, good, sw-e-et, lovely little girl Sarah Walker is !" There was a dead silence. It may have been fancy, but I thought that some of the doors in the passage creaked softly as if in listening expectation. Then the silenco was broken by a sigh. Had Sarah Walker ingloriously succumbed ? Rash and impotent conclusion ! "I don't," said Sarah Walker's voice, slowly rising until it broke on the crest of a mountainous sob. " I— don't— want— 'em to —love — me. I — don't— want— em— to— say— what— a— dear — good — little girlSarah Walker is 1" The light from a half-opened shutter fell full upon her rebellious little figure. She had stiffened herself in a large easy chair into the attitude in which she had been evidently deposited there by the nurse whose torn-oil apron she still held rigidly !in one hand. Her shapely legs stood out before her, jointless and inflexible to the point of her tiny shoes — a pose copied with pathetic fidelity by the French doll at her ! feet. The attitudo must have been dreadI fully uncomfortable, and maintained only '■ as being replete with some vague insults to the person who had put her down, as well as exhibiting a wild indecorum of silken stocking. A mystified kitten— Sarah Walker's inseparable — was held as rigidly under one arm with equal dumb aggressiveness. Following the stiff lino of her half-recumbent figure, her head suddenly appeared perpen dicularly erect — yet the only mobile part of her body. A dazzling sunburst of silky hair, the colour of burnished copper, partly hid her neck and shoulders and the back of the chair. Her eyes were a darker shade of the same colour— the orbits appearing deeper and larger from the rubbing in of habitual tears from long, wet lashes. Nothing so far seemed inconsistent with her infelix reputation, but, strange to say, her other features were marked by delicacy and refinement, and her mouth — that sorely exorcised and justly dreaded member— was small and pretty, albeit slightly dropped at the corners. j The immediate effect of my intrusion was j limited solely to the nursemaid. Swooping ; ' suddenly upon Sarah Walker's too evident deshabille, she made two or three attempts to pluck her into propriety, but the child recognising the cause as well as the effect, looked askance at me and only stiffened herself the more. " Sarah Walker, I'm shocked." "It ain't his room anyway," said Sarah, eyeing me violently. " What's he doing here ?" There was so much truth in this that I involuntarily drew back abashed. The nursemaid ejaculated "Sarah!" and lifted her eyes in hopeless protest. " And he ueedn't come seeing you," continued Sarah, lazily rubbing the back of her head against the chair ; "my papa don't allow it. He warned you 'bout the other gentleman, you know." " Sarah Walker !" I felt it was necessary to say something, " Don't you want to come with me and look at the sea?" I said with utter feebleness of invention. To my surprise, instead of actively assaulting me, Sarah Walker got up, shook her hair over her shoulders, and took my hand. " With your hair in that state ?" almost screamed the domestic. But Sarah Walker had already pulled me into the hall. What particularly offensive form of opposition to authority was implied in this prompt assent to my proposal I could only darkly guess. For myself I knew I must appear to her a weak impostor. What would there possibly be in the sea to interest Sarah Walker ? For the moment I prayed for a | waterspout, a shipwreck, a whale, or any marine miracle to astound her and redeem my character. I walked guiltily clown the ; hall, holding her hand bashfully in mine. I noticed that her breast began to heave convulsively ; if she cried I knew I should mingle my tears with here. We reached the verandah in gloomy silence. As I expected, the sea lay before us glittering in the sun — vacant, staring, flat and hopelessly and unquestionably uninteresting. " I knew it all along," said Sarah Walker, turning down the corners of her mouth ; " there never was anything to see. I know why you got me to come down here. You want to tell me if I'm a good girl you'll take me to sail some day. You want to say if I'm bad the sea will swallow me up. That's all you want, you horrid thing, you." "Hush !" I said, pointing to the corner of the verandah. A desperate idea of escape had just seized me. Bolt upright in the recess of a window sat a nursemaid who had succumbed to sleep equally with her helpless charge in the perambulator beside her. I instantly recognised the infant — a popular organism known as "Baby Buckly"— the prodigy of the Greyport Hotel, the pet of i its enthusiastic womanhood. Fat and featureless, pink and pincushiony, it was borrowed by gushing maidenhood, exchanged by idiotic maternity, and had grown unctuous and tumefacious under the kisses and embraces of half the hotel. Even in its present repose it looked moist and shiny from indiscriminate and promiscuous osculation. " Let's borrow Baby Buckly," I said recklessly. Sarah Walker at once stopped crying. I don't know how she did it, but the cessation was instantaneous, as if she had turned off a tap somewhere. "And put it in Mr Peters's bed!" I continued. Peters being notoriously a grim bachelor, the bare suggestion bristled with outrage. Sarah Walker's eyes sparkled. " You don't mean it ! — go 'way " she said i with affected coyness. i "But I do! Come." We extracted it noiselessly together— that is, Sarah Walker did, with deft womanliness — carried it darkly along the hall to No. 27, and deposited it in Peters's bed, where it lay like a freshly opened oyster. We then returned hand in hand to my room, where we looked out of the window on the sea. It was observable that there was no lack of interest in Sarah Walker now. Before five minutes had elapsed some one had breathlessly passed the open door while we were still engaged in marine observation. This was followed by return footsteps and a succession of swiftly rustling garments, until the majority of women in our wing had apparently passed our room, and we saw an irregular stream of housemaids and mothers converging towards the hotel out of the grateful shadow of arbors, trees, and marquees. In fact, we were still engaged in observation when Sarah Walker's nurse came to fetch her away, and to inform her that "by rights " Baby Buckly 's nurse and Mr Peters should both be made to leave the hotel that very night. Sarah Walker permitted herself to be led off with dry but expressive eyes. That evening she did not cry, but on being taken into the usual custody for disturbance, was found to be purple with suppressed laughter. This was the beginning of my intimacy with Sarah Walker. But while it was evident that whatever influence I obtained over her was due to my being particeps criminis, I think it was accepted that a regular abduction of infants might become

in time monotonous, if not dangerous. So she was satisfied with the knowledge that I could not now, without the most glaring hypocrisy, obtrude a moral superiority over her. Ido not think she would -have turned State evidence and acoused me^ but I was by no means assured of her disinterested regard. She contented herself for a few days afterward in meeting me privately and mysteriously communicating unctuous reminiscences of our joint crime, without suggesting a repetition. Her intimacy with me did not seem to interfere with her general relations to her own species in the other children in the hotel. Perhaps I should have said before that her popularity with them was by no means prejudiced by her infelix reputation. But while she was secretly admired by all, she had few # professed followers and no regular associates, Whether the few whom she selected for that baleful preeminence were either torn from her by horrified guardians, or came to grief through her dangerous counsels, or whether she really did not caro for them, I could not say. Their elevation was brief, their retiremont unregretted. It was, however, permitted me, through felicitous circumstances, to become acquainted with the probable explanation of her unsociability. The very hot weather culminated one afternoon in a dead faint of earth and sea and sky. An Alpine cloudland of snow that had mocked the upturned eyes of Greyport for hours began to darken under the folding shadow of a black and velvety wing. The atmosphere seemed to thicken as the gloom increased ; the lazy dust thrown up by hurrying feet that sought a refuge hung almost motionless in the air. Suddenly it was blown to the four quarters in one fierce gust that as quickly dispersed the loungers drooping in shade and cover. ! For a few seconds the long avenue was lost in flying clouds of dust, and then was left bare of life or motion. "Rain-drops in huge stars and rosettes appeared noiselessly and ! magically upon the sidewalks — gouts of moisture apparently dropped from midair. And then the ominous hush returne 1. A milo away along the rocks I turned for shelter into a cavernous passage of the overhanging cliff, where I could still watch the coming storm upon the sea, A murmur of voices presently attracted my aitention. I then observed that the passage ended in a kind of open grotto, where I could dimly discern the littlo figures of several children, who, separated from their nurses in the sudden onset of the storm, had taken refuge there. As the gloom deepened they became silent again, until the stillness was broken by a familiar voice. There was no mistaking it ; it was Sarah Walker's. But it was not lifted in lamentation ; it was raised only as if resuming a suspended narrative. "Her name," said Sarah Walker, gloomily, " was Kribbles. She was the only child — of — of orphaned parentage, and fair to see, but she was bad, and God did not love her. And one day she was separated from her nurse on a desert island like to this. And then came a hideous thunderstorm, and a great big thunderbolt came galumping after her. And it ketched and rolled all over her— so ! and then it camo back and ketched her and rolled her over— so ! And when they they came to pick her up there was not so much as that left of her. All burnt up " " Wasn't there just a little bit of her shoo ? " suggested a cautious auditor. "Not a bit," said Sarah Walker firmly. All the other children echoed "Not a bit," indignantly, in evident gratification at the completeness of Kribble's catastrophe. At this moment the surrounding darkness was suddenly filled with a burst of blue celestial fire ; the heavy inky sea beyond, the black-edged mourning horizon, the gleaming sands, each nook and corner of the dripping cavo, witli the frightened faces of the huddled group of children, started into vivid life for an instant, and then fell back with a deafening crash into the darkness. There was a slight sound of whimpering. Sarah Walker apparently pounced upon the culprit, for it ceased. "Snifiling 'tracts 'leefcricity," she said sententiously. " But you thaid it wath Dod !" lisped a casuist of seven. " It's all the same," said Sarah sharply, " and so's asking questions." This obscure statement was, however, apparently understood, for the casuist lapsed into silent security. " Lots of things 'tracts it," continued Sarah Walker. " Gold and silver, and metals and knives and rings." "Pennies?" " And pennies most of all ! Kribbles was that vain, she used to wear jewollery and fly in the face of Providence." " But you thaid—" " Will you 1 There ! You hear that ?" There was another flash and a bounding roll of thunder along the shore. " I wonder you didn't ketch it. You would, only I'm here." All was quiet Again, but from certain indications it was evident that a collection of those dangerous articles that had proved fatal to the unhappy Kribbles -w as being taken up. I could hear the clink of coins and jingle of ornaments. That Sarah, herself, was the custodian, was presently shown. " But won't the lightning come to you now ?" asked a timid voice. "No," said Sarah, promptly, "'cause I ain't afraid ! Look !" A frightened protect from the children here ensued, but the next instant she appeared at the entrance to the grotto and ran down the rocks toward the sea. Skipping from boulder to boulder, she reached the furthest projection of the ledge, now partly submerged by the rising surf, and then turned, half triumphantly, half defiantly, toward the grotto. The weird phosphorescence of the storm lit up the resolute little figure standing there, gorgeously bedecked with the chains, rings, and shiny trinkets of her companions. With a tiny hand raised in mock defiance of the elements, she seemed to lean confidingly against the panting breast of the gale, with fluttering skirt and flying tresses. Then the vault behind her cracked with three jagged burning fissures, a weird flame leaped upon the sand, there was a cry of terror from the grotto, echoed by a scream of nurses on the cliff, a deluge of rain, a terrific onset from the gale— and— Sarah Walker was gone ? Nothing of the kind ! When I reached the ledge, after a severe struggle with the storm, I found Sarah on the leeward side, drenched but delighted. I held her tightly, while we waited for a lull to regain the cliff, and took advantage of the sympathetic situation. "But you know you were frightened, Sarah," I whispered ; " you thought of what happened to poor Kribbles." " Do you know who Kribbles was?" she asked confidentially. "No." "Well," she whispered, "I made Kribbles up. And the hidgeous storm and thunderbolt and the burning. All out of my own head." The only immediate effect of this escapade was, apparently, to precipitate and bring into notoriety the growing affection of an obscure lover of Sarah Walker's, hitherto unsuspected. He was a mild, inoffensive ! boy of twelve, known as "Warts," solely from an inordinate exhibition of these youthful excrescences. On the day of Sarah Walker's adventure his passion cul- ,

minated in a sudden and illogical attack upon Sarah's nurse and parents while they were bewailing her conduct, and in assaulting them with his feet and hands. Whether he associated them in some vague way with the cause of her momentary peril, or whether he only wisKed to impress her with the touching flattery of a general imitation of her style, I cannot say. For his love-making was peculiar. A day or two afterward he came to my open door and remained for some moments bashfully looking at me. The next day I found him standing by my chair in the piazza with an embarrassed air, and in utter inability to explain his conduct. At the end of a rapid walk on the sand one morning, I was startled by the sound of hurried breath, and looking around discovered the staggering Warts quite exhausted by endeavouring to keep up with me on his short logs. At last the daily recurrence of his hunting presence forced a dreadful suspicion upon me. Warts was courting me for Sarah Walker ! Yet it was impossible to actually connect her with these mute attentions. "You want me to give them to Sarah Walker," I said cheerfully one afternoon, as he laid upon my desk some peculiarly uninviting Crustacea which looked not unlike a few detached excrescences from his own hands. He shook his head decidedly. "I understand," I continued confidently : "you want me to keop them for her." " No," said Warts, doggedly. " Then you only want me to tell her how nice they are ?" The idea was apparently so shame- ! lessly true that he blushed himself hastily into the passage, and coased any future contribution. Naturally still more ineffective, was the slightest attempt to bring his devotion into the physical presence of Sarah Walker. The most ingenious schemes to lure him into my room while sho was there failed utterly! Yet he must have at one time basked in her baleful presence. "Do you like Warts ?" I askod her one day bluntly. " Yes," said Sarah Walker with cheerful directness, "ain't he got a lot of 'em?— though he used to have more." But sho added reflectively, " do you know the little Ilsey boy ?" I was compelled to admit my ignorance. "Well," she said, with a reminiscent sigh of satisfaction, " he's got only two toes on his left foot — showed 'em to me. And he was born so." Need it be said that in these few words I read the dismal sequel of unfortunate attachmont. His accidental eccentricity was no longer attractive. What were his evanescent accretions, subject to improvement or removal, besides the hereditary and settled malformations of his rival ? Once only in this brief summor episode did Sarah Walker attract the impulsive and general sympathy of Greyport. It is only just to her consistency to say it was through no fault of hers, unless a characteristic exposuio which brought on a chill and diphtheria could be called her own act. Howbeit, toward the close of tho season when a sudden suggestion of tho coming autumn had crept, one knew not how, into the heart of a perfect day, when even a return of the summer warmth had a suspicion of hectic, on one of these days Sarah Walker was missed with the bees and the butterflies. For two days her voice had not been heard in hall or corridor, nor had the sunshine of her French marigold head lit up her familiar places. The two days were days of relief, yet mitigated m ith a certain uneasy apprehension of the return of Sarah Walker, ox' — more alarming thought!— the Sarah Walker element in a moro appalling form. So strong was this impression that an unhappy infant who unwittingly broke this interval with his maiden outcry was nearly lynched. ' ' We're not going to stand that from you, you know," was the crystallised sentiment of a brutal bachelor. In fact, it began to be admitted that Greyport had been accustomed to Sarah Walker's ways. In the midst of this it was suddenly whispered that Sarah Walker was lying dangerously ill, and was not expected to live. Then occurred one of those strange revulsions of human .sentiment which at first seem to point to the dawning of a millennium of poetic justice, but which in this case ended in merely stirring the languid pulses of society into a hectic fever and in making # sympathy for Sarah Walker an insincere and exaggerated fashion, Morning and afternoon visits to her apartment with extravagant offerings were cle rigueur, bulletins were issued three times a day, an allusion to her condition was the recognised preliminary to all conversation ; advice, suggestions and petitions to restore the baleful existence flowed readily from the same facile invention thr t had once proposed its banishment; until one afternoon the shadow had drawn so close that even Folly withheld its carelet s feet before it, and laid down its feeble tinkling bells and gaudy cap tremblingly on the threshold. But the sequel must be told in more vivid words than mine. " Whin I saw that angel lying there," said Sarah Walker's nurse, " as white if ye plaze, as if the whole blessed blood of her body had gone to make up the beautiful glory of her hair ; speechless as she was, 1 thought I saw a sort of longin' in her cyoa. 11 'Is it anythin' you'll be -vvantin', Sarah, darlint,' sez her mother with a tremblin' voice, ' afore its lavin' us ye are ? Ie it the ministher yer askin' for, love?' sez she. " And Sarah looked at me, and if it was the last words I spake, her lips moved and she whispered ' Seotty.' " ' Wirra ! wirra !' sez the mother, ' it's wanderin' she ie, the darlin' ; for Scotty, don't ye see, was tho grand bar-keeper of the hotel. "'Savin' yer prosence, ma'am,' sez I, ' and the child's here, ex is half a saint already, it's truth she's spakin' — it's Scotty ! she wants. ' And with that my angel blinks wid her black eyes * yes.' "•Bring him, 1 says the Docthor, 'at once.' "And they bring him in wid all the mustachios and moighty fine curls of him, and his diamonds, rings, and pins all a-glistening just like his eyes when he set 'em on that suffering saint. "'ls it anythin' you're wantin', Sarah dear ?' sez he, thrying to spake firm. And Sarah looks at him, and then looks at a tumbler on the table. " ' Is it a bit of a cocktail, the likes of the one I made for you last Sunday unbeknownst?' sez he, looking round mortal afraid of the parents. And Sarah Walker's eyes said, 'It is.' Then the minishter groaned, but the docthor jumps to his feet. " * Bring it sez he, 'and howld your jaw, an' ye's a Christian sow!.' And he brought it. An' afther the first sip the child lifts herself up on one arm and sez, with a swate smile and toss of the glass : " ' I looks toward you Scotty,' sez she. " ' I observes you and bows, miss, 5 sez he, makin' as if he was dhrinkin' wid her. 4 " ' Here's another nail in your coffin, old man, 1 sez she, winkin'. " ' And here's the hair all off your head, miss' sez he, quite aisly, tossin' back the joke betwixt 'em. "And with that she drinks it off, and lies down and goes to sleep like a lamb, and wakes up wid the rosy dawn in her cheeks, and the inorthal seekness gone forever."

Thus Sarah Walker recovered. Whether the fact were essential to the moral con-

yeyed in these pages, I leave the reader to judge. I was leaning on the terrace of the Kronprinzen Hof at Rolandseek one hot summer afternoon, lazily watching the groups of tourists strolling along the rond that ran between the Hot and the Rhyne. There was certainly little in the place or its atmosphere to recall the Greyport episode of twenty years before, when 1 was suddenly startled by hearing the name of 'Sarah Walker.' In the road below me were three figures, a lady, a gentleman, and a little girl. As the latter turned toward the lady who addressed her, I recognized the unmistakable copper - coloured tresses, trim figure, delicate complexion, and refined features of the friend of my youth ! I seized my hat, but by the time I had reached the road they had disappeared. The utter impossibility of it being Sarah Walker herself, and the glaring fact that the very coincidence of name would be inconsistent with any conventional ascent from the original Sarah, I admit confuse me. But I examined the book of the "Kronprizen Hof" and the other hotels, and questioned my portier. There was no 41 Mees' J nor "Madame Walkiere " extant in Rolandseek. Yet might not Monsieur have heard incorrectly 1 The Czara Walka was evidently Russian, and Rolandeeck was a resort for Russian princes. But pardon Did Monsieur really mean the younp, demoiselle now approaching ! Ah ! that was a different affair. She was the daughter of the Italian Prince and Princess Monte Castello staying here. The lady with her was not the Princess, but a foreign friend. The gentleman was the Prince. Would he present Monsieur's card ? They wore entering the hotel. The Prince was a little inoffensive - looking man, the lady an evident countrywoman of my own, and the child was, yet was not, Sarah ! There was the face, tho outline, tho figure — but the life, the verve, the audacity, were wanting ! I could contain myself no longer. " Pardon an inquisitive compatriot, madam," I said; "but I heard you a few moments ago address this young lady by the name of a very dear young friend, whom I knew twenty years ago — Sarah Walker. Am I right ?" The Prince stopped and gazed at us both with evident affright ; then suddenly recognizing in my freedom some wild I American indecorum, doubtless provoked ! by the presence of another of my species, which he really was not expected to countenance, retreated behind the ■portier. The circumstance by no means increased the good will of the lady as she replied somewhat haughtily. " The Principes9ina is named Sarah Walker, after her mother's maiden name." "Then this is Sarah Walker's danghter !" I said joyfully. " She is the daughter of the Prince and Princess of Monte Castello," corrected the lady frigidly. "1 had tho pleasure of knowing her mother very well." I stopped and blushed. Did I roally know Sarah Walker very well ? And would Sarah Walker know me now ? Or would it not be very like hor to go back on me ? There was certainly anything but promise in the feeble-minded, vacuous copy of Sarah before me. I waa yet hesitating, when the Prince who had possibly received some quieting assurance irom the portier, himself stepped forward, stammered that the Princess would, without doubt, be charmed to receive me later, and skipped upstairs, leaving the impression on my mind that he contemplated ordering his bill at once. There was no excuse for further prolonging the interview. "Say good- by to the strange gentleman, Sarah," suggested Sarah's companion stiflly. I looked at the child in the wild hope of recognising some prompt resistance to the suggestion that would have identified her with the lost Sarah of my youth — but in vain. "Good-bye, sir," said the affected little creature, dropping a mechanical curtsey. "Thank you very much for remembering my mother." "Good-bye, Sarah !" It was indeed good-bye forever. For on my way to my room I came suddenly upon the Prince in a recess of the | upper hall addressing somebody through an i open door with a querulous protest, whose wild extravagance of statement was grotesquely balanced by its utter timidity of manner. "It is," said the Prince, "indeed a grave affair. We have here hundreds of socialists, emissaries from lawless countries and impossible places, who travel thousands of miles to fall upon our hearts and embrace us. They establish an espionage over us, they haunt our walks in incredible numbers, they hang in droves upon our footsteps. Heaven alone saves us from a public osculation at any moment ! They openly allege that they have dandled us on their knees at recent periods, washed and dressed us, and would do so still. Our happiness, our security — " " Don't be a fool, Prince. Do shut up !" The Prince collapsed and shrank away, and I hurried past the open door. A tall, magnificent-looking woman was standing before a glass, arranging her heavy red hair. The face, which had been impatiently turned toward the door, changed again to profilo, with a frown still visible on the bent brow. Our eyes met as I passed. The next moment the door slammed, and I had seen the last of Sarah Walker.