Loveliness: A Story

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1

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<S«a.o- ^<i%f ^*is^

Unv>-

^

(Mrs. H. D. Ward)

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LOVELmESS

ELlZABLIEf .-i fjAKr , ; .

LOVELINESS

BY

ELIZABETH STUAET PHELPS HlfiA

" Be my benedlotioD said,
yfith my hand upon thy head,
a«ntl« feUaw-creatnre 1 "

BOSTON AND VKW TOBK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMFAHT

fs

3H2

THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE BT
SARAH S. STILWELL

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD
AND HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND CO.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For the smoke of their twment aacendeth.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAcn
Loveliness • Frontispiece

The maid stood looking idlt about • • • • 14

<<tlll loyeuness comes home" •••••• 20

Through the bending shrubbery . • • • • 40

LOVELINESS.

Loveliness sat on an eidei^down cushion em-
broidered with cherry-colored puppies on a pearl
satin cover. The puppies had gold eyes. They
were drinking a saucer of green milk. Loveliness
wore a new necktie^ of cherry, a shade or two
brighter than the puppies, and a pearl-gray, or one
might call it a silver-gray jacket. He was sitting
in the broad window sill, with his head tipped a
little, thoughtfully, towards the left side, as the
heads of nervous people are said to incline. He
was dreamily watching the street, looking for any
one of a few friends of his who might pass by, and
for the letter-carrier, who was somewhat late.

Loveliness had dark, brilliant eyes, remarkably
alert^ but reflective when in repose. Part of their
charm lay in the fact that one must watch for their
best expression; for Loveliness wore bangs. He
had a small and delicate nose, not guiltless of an
aristocratic tip, with a suspicion of a sniff at the

2 LOVELINESS.

inferior orders of society. In trath^ Loveliness was
an aristocrat to the end of his tongue^ which curled
daintily against his opalescent teeth. At this mo-
ment it lay between his teeth^ and hung forward as
if he held a roseleaf in his lips ; and this was the
final evidence of his birth and breeding.
-S F or Lov eliness was a . little dog ;. jl sUier-Tjorki.
snire, blue of blood and delicately. reared, — ^a tiny
creature, the essence of tenderness 3 set, soul and
body, to one only tune. To love and to be Jt)e-
loved, — that was his life.A*;.He knew no other, nor
up to this time could he conceive of any other ; for
he was as devotedly beloved as he was passionately
loving. His brain was in his heart. In saying
this one does not question the quality of the brain,
any more than one does in saying a similar thing
of a woman. Indeed, considered as an intellect,
his was of the highest order known to his race.
Loveliness would have been interesting as a psycho-
logical study, had he not been absorbing as an
affectional occupation. His family and friends
often said, " How clever ! " but not until after they
had said, ^^ How dear he is ! " The order of pre-
cedence in this summary of character is the most
enviable that can be experienced by human beinga
But the dog took it as a matter of course.

LOVELINESS. 8

This little creature loved a number of people on
a sliding scale of intimacy, carefully guarded, as
the intimacies of the high-born usually are; but
one he loved first, most, best of all, and pro-
foundly. I have called him Loveliness because it
was the pet name, the " httle name," given to him
by this person. In point of fact, he answered to a
variety of appellations, more or less recognized by
society; of these the most lawful and the least
agreeable to himself was Mop. It was a disputed
point whether this were an ancestral name, or
whether he had received it from the dog store,
whence he had emerged at the beginning of his-
tory, — the shaggiest, scrubbiest, raggedest, wildest
little terrier that ever boasted of a high descent.

People of a low type, those whose imagination
was bounded by menial similes, or persons of that
too ready inclination to the humorous which fails
to consider the pos^sible injustice or unkindness
that it may involve, had in Mop's infancy found a
base pleasure in attaching to him such epithets as
window-washer, scrubbing-brush, feather-duster, and
footmuff. But these had not adhered. Loveliness
had. It bade fair, at the time of our story, to out-
live every other name.

4 LOVELINESS.

The little dog had both friends and acquaint-
ances on the street where the professor lived ; and
he watched for them from his cushion in the win-
dow, hours at a time. There was the cabman^ the
academic-looking cabman, who was the favorite of
the faculty, and who hurrahed and snapped his
whip at the Yorkshire as he jJassed by ; there was
the newsboy who brought the Sunday papers, and
who whistled at Loveliness, and made faces, and
called him Mop.

To-day there was a dark-faced man, a stranger,
standing across the street, and regarding the pro-
fessor's house with the unpleasant look of the for-
eign and ill-natured. This man had eyebrows that
met in a straight, black line upon his forehead, and
he wore a yellow jersey. The dog threw back his
supercilious little head and barked at the yellow
jersey severely. But at that moment he saw the
carrier, who ran up the steps laughing, and brought
a gumdrop in a sealed envelope addressed to Love-
liness. There was a large mail that afternoon,
including a pile of pamphlets and circulars of the
varied description that haunts professors' houses.
Kathleen, the parlor maid, — another particular
friend of the terrier's — took the mail up to the

^

LOVELINESS. 6

stady, but dropped one of the pamphlets on the
stairs. The dog rebuked her carelessness (after he
had given his attention to the carrier's gumdrop)
by picking the pamphlet up and bringing it back
to the window seat, where he opened and dog-eared
it with a literary manner for a while, until sud-
denly he forgot it altogether, and dropped it on
the floor, and sprang, bounding. For the dearest
person in the world had called him in a whisper,
— " Love-li-ness ! " And the dearest face in the
world appeared above him and melted into laughing
tenderness. " Loveliness ! Where 's my Xoi?6-li-
ness ? "

A little girl had come into the room, a girl of
between five and six years, but so small that one
would scarcely have guessed her to be four, — a
beautiful child, but transparent of coloring, and
bearing in her delicate face the pathetic patience
which only sick children, of all human creatures,
ever show. She was exquisitely formed, but one
little foot halted and stepped weakly on the thick
carpet. Her organs of speech were perfect in
mechanism, but often she did not speak quite
aloud. Sometimes, on her weaker days, she carried
a small crutch. They called her Adah.

6 LOVELINESS.

She came in without her crutch that afternoon ;
she was feeling quite strong and happy. . The little
dog sprang to her hearty and she crooned over him,
sitting beside him on the window seat and whisper-
ing in her plaintive voice : " Love-li-ness ! I can't
live wivout you anover mmute, Loveliness! I
can't live wivout you ! "

She put her head down on the pearl-gray satin
pillow with the cherry puppies, and the dog put his
face beside hers. He was kept as sweet and clean
as his little mistress, and he had no playfellow
except herself, and never went away from home
unless at the end of a gray satin ribbon leash. At
all events, the two would occupy the same pillow,
and all idle effort to struggle with this fact had
ceased in the household. Lovehness sighed one
of the long sighs of perfect content recognized by
all owners and lovers of dogs as one of the happi-
est sounds in this sad world, and laid his cheek to
hers quietly. He asked nothing more of life. He
had forgotten the world and all that was therein.
He looked no longer for the cabman, the newsboy,
or the carrier, and the man with the eyebrows had
gone away. The universe did not exist; he and
she were together. Heaven had happened. The

LOVELINESS. 7

dog glanced through half-closed, blissful eyes at
the yellow hair — "eighteen carats fine" — that
fell against his silver bangs. His short ecstatic
breath mingled with the gentle breathing of the
child. She talked to him in broken rhapsodies.
She called him quaint, pet names of her own, —
" Dearness " and " Daintiness," " Mopsiness " and
" Preciousness," and " Dearest-in-the-World," and
who knew what besides ? Only the angels who are
admitted to the souls of children and the hearts of
little dogs could have understood that interview.

No member of the professor's household ever
interfered with the attachment between the child
and the dog, which was set apart as one of the
higher facts in the family life. Indeed, it had its
own page of sacred history, which read on this
wise : —

When Adah was a walking baby, two and a half
years before the time of which we tell, the terrier
was in the first proud flush of enthusiasm which an
intelligent dog feels in the mastery of little feats
and tricks. Of these he had a varied and interest-
ing repertoire. His vocabulary, too, was large.
At the date of our story it had reached one hun-
dred and thirty words. It was juvenile and more

8 LOVELINESS.

limited at the time when the sacred page was writ-
ten, but still beyond the average canine proficiency.
Loveliness had always shown a genius for the Eng-
lish language. He could not speak it, but he tried
harder than any other dog I ever knew to do so;
and he grew to understand with ease an incredibly
large part of the usual conversation of the family.
It could never be proved that he followed — or did
not follow — the professor of psychology in a dis-
cussion on the Critique of Pure Reason ; but his
mental grasp of ordinary topics was alert and logi-
cal. He sneezed when he was cold and wanted a
window shut, and barked twice when his delicate
china water-cup was empty. When the fire depart-
ment rang by, or a stove in the house was left on
draught too long, and he wished to call attention to
the circumstance, he barked four times. Besides
the commonplace accomplishments of turning som-
ersaults, being a dead dog, sitting up to beg for
things, and shaking hands. Loveliness had some
attainments peculiar to himself.

One of these was in itself scientifically interest-
ing. This luxurious, daintily fed little creature,
who had never known an hour's want nor any
deprivation that he could remember, led by the

LOVELINESS. 9

blind instinct of starving, savage ancestors skulking
in forests where the claw and tooth of every living
thing were against every other, conscientiously
sought to bury, against future exigencies, any kind
of food for which he had no appetite. The rem-
nants of his dog biscuit, his saucer of weak tea, an
unpalatable dinner, alike received the treatment
given to the bare bone of his forefathers when it
was driven into the ground.

Anything served the purpose of the earth, — the
rough, wild earth of whose real nature the house
pet knew so little. A newspaper, a glove, a hand-
kerchief, a sheet of the professor's manuscript, a
hearth brush, or a rug would answer. Drag these
laboriously, and push them perseveringly to their
places ! Cover the saucer or the plate from sight
with a solemn persistence that the starving, howl-
ing ancestor would have respected! Thus Love-
liness recognized the laws of heredity. But the
corners of rugs were, and remained, the favorite
burying sod.

On that black day when the baby girl had used
her white apron by way of blowers before the
reluctant nursery fire, the little dog was alone in
the room with her. It had so happened.

10 LOVELINESS.

Suddenly, through the busy house resounded
four shrill, staccato barks. In the vocabulary of
Loveliness this meant, " Fire ! Fire ! Fire ! Fire ! "
Borne with them came the terrible cries of the
child. When the mother and the nursemaid got
to the spot, the baby was ablaze from her white
apron to her yellow hair. She was writhing on the
floor. The terrier, his own silver locks scorching,
and his paws in the flame, was trying to cover his
young mistress with the big Persian rug, in itself a
load for a collie. He had so far succeeded that the
progress of the flames had been checked.

For years the professoi speculated on the pro-
blems raised by this tremendous incident. Whether
the Yorkshire regarded the fire as a superfluity,
like a dinner one does not want, — but that was
fai^fetched. Whether he knew that wool puts out
fire, — but that was incredible. Whether this,
that, or the other, no man could say, or ever has.
Perhaps the intellect of the dog, roused to its ut-
most by the demand upon his heart, blindly leaped
to its most difficult exertion. It was always hard
to cover things with rugs. In this extremity one
must do the hardest. Or did sheer love teach him
to choose, in a moment that might have made a fool

>

LOVELINESS. 11

or a lunatic of a man^ the only one or two of several
processes which could by any means reach the emer-
gency ?

At all events, the dog saved the child. And she
became henceforth the saint and idol of the family,
and he its totem and its hero. The two stood to-
gether in one niche above the household altar. It
was impossible to separate them. But after that
terrible hour Kttle Adah was as she was : frail, un-
certain of step, scarred on the pearl of her neck and
the rose of her cheek; not with full command of
her voice ; more nervously deficient than organically
defective, — but a perfect being marred. Her fa-
ther said, " She goeth lame and lovely."

On the afternoon when our story began, the child
and the Yorkshire sat cuddled together in the broad
window seat for a long time. Blessedness sat with
them. Adah talked in low love tones, using a lan-
guage as incomprehensible to other people as the
tongue in which the dog replied to her. They car-
ried on long conversations, broken only by caresses,
and by barks of bliss or jets of laughter. The child
tired herself with laughing and loving, and the dog
watched her ; he did not sleep ; he silently lapped
the fingers of her little hand that lay like a cameo
upon the silken cushion.

12 LOVELINESS.

Some one came in and said in a low voice : ^^ She
is tired out. She most have her snpper and be pat
to bed.''

Afterwards it was remembered that she clung to
Loveliness and cried a little, foolishly ; fretting that
she did not want her supper, and demanding that
the dog should go up to bed with her and be put at
once into his basket by her side. This was gently
refused.

" You shall see him in the morning," they told
her. Kathleen put the little dog down forcibly
from the arms of the child, who wailed at the sepa-
ration. She called back over the balusters : " Lover
li-ness ! Good-by, Loveliness 1 When we 're grown
up, we '11 always be togever. Loveliness ! "

The dog barked rebelliously for a few minutes ;
then sighed, and accepted the situation. He ran
back and picked up the pamphlet which Kathleen
had dropped, and carried it upstairs to the profes-
sor's study, where he laid it on the lowest shelf of
the revolving bookcase. The professor glanced at
the dog-eared pages and smiled. The pamphlet was
one of the innumerable throng issued by some phi-
lanthropic society devoted to improving the condi-
tion of animals.

LOVELINESS. 18

When Kathleen came downstairs she found the
dog standing at the front door^ patiently asking that
it might be opened for him. She went down the
steps ; for it was the rule of the house never to al-
low the most helpless member of the family at hberty
unguarded. The evening was soft, and the maid
stood looking idly about. A man in a yellow jersey,
and with straight, black eyebrows, was on the other
side of the street ; but he did not look over. The
suburban town was still and pleasant ; advancing
spring was in the air ; no one was passing ; only a
n^gro boy lolled on the old-fashioned fence, and
shouted : " Hi ! Yi ! Yi ! Look a' dem crows
carryin' ofE a b'iled pertater 'n' a piecer squushed
pie ! "

Kathleen, for very vacuity of mind, turned to
look. Neither potatoes nor squash pie were to be
seen careering through the skies ; nor, in fact, were
there any crows.

" I '11 have yez arrested for sarse and slander ! "
cried Kathleen vigorously.

But the negro boy had disappeared. So had the
man in the yellow jersey.

" Where 's me dog ? " muttered Kathleen. It
was dipping dusk ; it was deepening to dark. She

14 LOVELINESS.

called. Loveliness was an obedient little fellow al«
ways; but he did not reply. The maid called
again; she examined the front yard and the pre-
mises^ — slowly, for she was afraid to go in and tell.
With the imbecility of the timid and the erring, she
took too much time in a fruitless and unintelligent
search before she went, trembling, into the house.
Kathleen felt that this was the greatest emergency
that had occurred since the baby was burned. She
went straight to the master's door.

" God have mercy on me, but I 've lost the little
dog, sir ! "

The professor wheeled around in his study chair.

" There was a nigger and a squashed crow — but
indeed I never left the little dog, as you bid me,
sir — I never left him for the space of me breath
between me lips — and when I draws it in the little
dog warn't nowhere. . . . Oh, whatever '11 she say?
Whatever '11 she do ? Mother of God, forgive me
soul ! Who 'U tell her ? ''

Who indeed ?

The professor of psychology turned as pale as
the paper on which he was about to write his next
famous and inexphcable lecture. He pushed by
Kathleen and sprang for his hat.

THE MAID STOOD LOOKING IDLY

I

LOVELINESS. 15

But the child's mother had abeady run out, bare-
headed^ into the street^ calling the dog as she ran.
Nora, the cook, left the dinner to burn, and fol-
lowed. Kathleen softly shut the nursery door, " So
she won't hear," and, sobbing, crept downstairs.
The family gathered as if under the black wing of
an unspeakable tragedy. They scoured the pre-
mises and the street, while the professor rang in the
pohce call. But Loveliness was not to be found.

The carrier came by, on his way home after his
day's work was over.

" Great Scott ! " he cried. " I 'd rather have lost
a month's pay. Does she know ? "

The newsboy trotted up, and stopped whistling.

"Hully gee!" he said. "What'U the Uttle
gell dew ? "

The popular cabman came by; he was driving
the president, who let down the window and asked
what had happened. The driver uttered a mild and
academic oath.

" Me 'n' my horse, we 're at your disposal as soon
as me and the president have got to faculty meet-
ing.

But the president of the University of St. George
put his long legs out of the carriage, and bowed the
professor into it.

16 LOVELINESS.

« The cab is at your service now/' he said aiix-
iously, " and so am I. They can get along with-
out us for a while^ to-night. Anything that I can
do to help you, Professor Premice, in this — real
calamity — How does the child bear it ? "

" Poor little kid ! " muttered the cabman. " And
to think how I used to snap my whip at 'em in the
window ! "

" An' how I used to bring him candy, contrary
to the postal laws ! " sighed the carrier. The cab
driver and the postman spoke as if the dog and the
child were both already dead.

The group broke slowly and sadly at last. The
mother and the maids crept tearfully into the house.
The professor, the carrier, the newsboy, and the
president threw themselves into the matter as if they
had been hunting for a lost child. The president
deferred his engagement at the faculty meeting for
two hours, — which gave about time for a faculty
meeting to get under way. The professor and the
cab driver and the police ransacked the town till
nearly dawn. It began to rain, and the night grew
chilly. The carrier went home, looking like a man
in the shade of a public calamity. The newsboy
ran around in the storm, shadowing all the negro

LOVELINESS. 17

boys he met^ and whistling for Loveliness in dark
places where low-bred curs answered him, and yellow
mongrels snarled at his soaked heels. But the pro*
f essor had the worst of it ; for when he came in,
drenched and tired, in the early morning, a little
figure in a lace-trimmed nightgown stood at the
head o£ the stairs, waiting for him.

The professor gave one glance at the child's face,
and instinctively covered his own. He could not
bear to look at her.

"Papa," said Adah, limping do™ the sWr^
"where is Loveliness? I can't find him! Oh, I
cannot find him ! And nobody will tell me where
he 's gone to. Papa ? I arxpect you to tell me 'e
truf e. Whbeb is my Loveliness ? "

Her mother could not comfort or control her.
She clung to her father's heart the remainder of
the night; moanmg at intervals, then unnaturally
and piteously still. The rain dashed on the win-
dows, for the storm increased; the child shrank
and shivered.

" He 's neoer been out in 'e rain, Papa ! He will
be wet — and frightened. Papa, who will give
him his little baxet, and cover him up warm?
Papa ! Papa ! who will be kind to Loveliness ? **

18 LOVELINESS.

In the broad daylight Adah fell into a short
sleep. She woke with a start and a ery^ and asked
for the dog. " He '11 come home to breakfust,"
she said, with quivering lip. " Tell Nora to have
some sugar on his mush when he comes home."

But Loveliness did not come home to breakfast.
The child refused to eat her own. She hurried
down and crept to the broad window seat, to watch
the street. When she saw the empty gray satin
cushion, she flung herself face down with a heart-
rending cry.

" Papa ! Papa ! Papa ! I never had a 'fliction
before. Oh, Papa, my heart will break itself apart.
Papa, can't you know enough to comfort you little
girl? I can't live wivout my Loveliness. Oh,

Papa ! Papa ! "

• .. .• . ...

This was in the decline of March. The winds
went down, and the rains came on. The snow slid
from the streets of the university town, and with-
drew into dingy patches about the roots of trees
and fences, and in the shady sides of cold back
yards. The mud yawned ankle-deep, and dried,
and was not, and was dust beneath the foot. Cro-
cuses blazed in the gardens of the faculty^ — royal

LOVELINESS. 19

purple, gold, and wax-white lamps set in the young
and vivid grass. The sun let down his mask and
looked abroad, and it was April. The newsboy
the carrier and the cab-driver laughed for very joy
of living. But when they passed the professor's
house they did not laugh. It came on to be the
heart and glory of the spring, and the warm days
melted into May. But the little dog had not been
found.

The professor had exhausted hope and ingenuity
in the dreary quest. The State, one might say
without exaggeration, had been dragged for that
tiny dumb thing, — seven pounds' weight of life
and tenderness. Money had been poured like love
upon the vain endeavor. Rewards of reckless pro-
portion appealed from public places and from pub-
lic columns to the blank eyes that could not or did
not read. The great detective force, whose name
is familiar from sea to sea, had supplemented the
useless search of the local poKce and of the city
press. And all had equally failed. The "dog
banditti " had done their work too well.

Loveliness had sunk out of sight like forgotten
suffering in a scene of joy.

In the window seat, propped with white pillows,

20 LOVELINESS.

"lame and lovely," Adah sat. The empty em-
broidered gray cushion lay beside her. Sometimes
she patted the red puppies softly with one thin
little hand; she allowed no one else to touch the
cushion.

" Till Loveliness comes home," she said. In the
window, silent, pale, and seeing everything, she
watched. But Loveliness did not come home.

The pitiful thing was that the child herself was
so changed. She had wasted to a little wraith.
For some time she had not walked without her
crutch. Now she scarcely walked at all. At the
first she had sobbed a good deal, in downright
childish fashion; then she wept silently; but now
she did not cry any more, — she did but watch.
Her sight had grown unnaturally keen, like that of
pilots; she gazed out of great eyes, bright, and dry,
and solemn. Already she had taken on the look of
children whose span of time is to be short. She
weakened visibly.

At first, her father took her out with him in the
cab, so she should feel that she was conducting the
search herself. But she had grown too feeble for
this exertion. Sometimes, on such drives, she saw
cruel sights, — animals suffering at the black tern-

TILL LOVELINESS COMES HOME"

LOVELINESS. 21

pers of men or the diabolic jests of boys ; and she
was hurried home, shivering and sobbing. When
night came she would ask for the Yorkshire's bed
to be put beside her own, and with trembling fin-
gers would draw up the crimson blankets over the
crimson mattress, as if the dog had been between
them. Then she would ask the question that
haunted her most : —

"Mamma, who will put Loveliness into a little
baxet to sleep, and cover him up? Papa, Papa,
will they be kind to Loveliness ? "

Stormy nights and days were always the hardest.

" Will Loveliness be out and get wet ? Will he
shiver like *e black dog I saw to-day? Will he
have warm milk for his supper ? Is there anybody
to rub him dry and cuddle my Loveliness ? "

To divert the child from her grief proved impos-
sible. They took her somewhere, in the old, idle
effort to change the place and help the pain ; but
she mourned so, "because he might come home,
and nobody see him but me," that they brought
her back.

The president of the university, who was a dog-
less and childless man, presented the bereaved
household with a mongrel white puppy, purchased

22 LOVELINESS.

under the amiable impression that it was of a rare^
Parisian breed. The distingmshed man cherished
the ignorant hope of bestowing consolation. But
the invalid child^ with the sensitiveness of invalid
children^ refused to look at the puppy, who was re-
turned to his donor, and constituted himself hence-
forth the tyrant and terror of that scholastic house-
hold.

As the weather grew warmer, little Adah failed
and sank. It came on to be the bloom of the year^
and she no longer left the house.

The carrier and the cab driver lifted their hats in
silence now, when they passed the window where
the little girl sat, and the newsboy looked up with
a sober face, like that of a man. The faculty and
the neighbors did not ask, " How is the child ?
but always, "Have you heard from the dog?
The doctor began to call daily. He did not shake
his head, — no doctor does outside of an old-fash-
ioned story, — and he smiled cheerfully enough
inside the house ; but when he came out of it, to
his carriage, he did not smile. So the spring mel-
lowed, and it was the first of June.

One night, the poor professor sat trying to put
into shape an impossible thesis on an incomprehen-

99
99

LOVELINESS. 28

sible subject (it was called The Identity of Identity
and Non-Identity), for Commencement delivery in
his department. Pulling aside some books of ref-
erence that he needed, he dragged to view a
pamphlet from the lowest shelf of the revolving
bookcase. Then he saw the marks of the York-
shire's teeth and claws on the pamphlet corners,
and, sadly smiling, he opened and read.

The Commencement thesis on The Identity of
Identity and Non-Identity was not corrected that
night. The professor of psychology sat moulded
into his study chair, rigid, with iron lips and
clenched hands, and read the pamphlet through,
every word, from begmning to end. For the first
time in his life, this eminent man, wise in the wis-
dom of the world of mind, and half educated in the
practical affairs of the world of matter, studied for
himself the authenticated records of the torments
imposed upon dumb animals in the name of science.

As an instructed man, of course this subject was
not wholly unfamiliar to him, but it was wholly for-
eign. Hitherto he had given it polite and indiffer-
ent attention, and had gone his ways. Now he read
like a man himself bound, without anaesthesia, be-
neath the knife. Now he read for the child's sake,

24 LOVELINESS.

with the child's mind^ with the child's nerves^ and
with those of the little helpless thing for whom her
life was wasting. He tore from his shelves every
volume, every pamphlet that he owned upon the
direful subject which that June night opened to his
consciousness ; and he read until the birds sang.

With brain on fire, he crept, in the brightness of
coming day, to his wife's side.

" Tired out, dear ? " she asked gently. Then he
saw that she too had not slept.

'^ Adah has such dreams," she explained ; ^^ cruel
things, — all the same kind."

" About the dog ? "

^' Always about the dog. I have been sitting up
with her. Sheis — not as strong as — not quite" —

The professor set his teeth when he heard the
mother's moan. When she had sunk into broken
rest he stole back to his study, and locked out of
si&:ht the pamphlet which Loveliness had chewed,
si, mth Z profound and «=ientifi« treats on the
subject, arguing and illustrating this way and that
(some of these had cuts and photogravures which
would haunt the imagination for years), he crowded
the whole out of reach. His own brain was reeling
with horrors which it would have driven the woman

LOVELINESS. 25

or the child mad to read. Scenes too ghastly for a
strong mind to dwell upon, incidents too fearful for
a weak one to conceive, flitted before the sleepless
father.

Now the professor began to do strange and secre-
tive things. Unknown to his wife, unsuspected by
his fading child, he began to cause the laboratories
of the city and its environs to be searched. In the
process, curious trades developed themselves to his
astonished ignorance : the tricks of boys who supply
the material of anguish; the trade of the janitor
who sells it to the demonstrator ; the trade of the
brute who allures his superior, the dog, to the lairs
of medical students. Dark arts started to the fore-
ground, like imps around Mephistopheles concealed.
From such repellent education the professor came
home and took his little girl into his arms, and did
not speak, but laid his cheek to hers, and heard the
piteous, familiar question, " Papa, did you promise
me they 'd be kind to Loveliness ? " It was always
a whispered question now; for Adah had entirely
lost command of her voice, partly from weakness,
partly from the old injury to the vocal organs ; and
this seemed, somehow, to make it the harder to
answer her.

I

So tbere fell a day when the child in the win-
dow, propped by more than the usual pillows, sat
watching longer than usual, or more sadly, or more
eagerly, — who can say what it was ? Or did she
look BO much more translucent, more pathetic, than
on another day ? She leaned her cheek on one little
wasted hand. Her great eyes commanded the street.
She had her pilot's look. Now and then, if a little
dog passed, and if he were gray, she started and
leaned forward, then sank hack faintly. The sight
of her would have touched a savage ; and one be-
held it.

A man in a yellow jersey passed by upon the
other side of the street, and glanced over. His
straight, black brows contracted, and he looked at
the child steadily. As he walked on, it might have
been noticed that his brutal head hung to his breast
But he passed, and that cultivated street was clean
of him. The carrier met him around the comers
and glanced at him with coldness.

" What 's de matter of de kid yonder, in de win-
der?" asked the foreigner.

" Dyin'," said the carrier shortly.

" Looks she had — what you call him ? — gallop-
in* oonsnm'tion," observed the man with the ey»
browB.

LOVELINESS, 27

^^ Gallopin' heartbreak/' replied the carrier, push-
ing by. ^^ There 's a devil layin' round loose out-
side of hell that stole her dog, — and she a little

sickly thing to start with, him ! There 's fifty

men in this town would lynch him inside of ten min-
utes, if they got a clue to him, him to ! '*

That afternoon, when the professor left the house,
the newsboy ran up eagerly. " There *s a little nig-
ger wants yez, perfesser, downstreet. He 's in wid
the dog robbers, that nigger is. Jes' you arsk him
when he see Mop las' time. Take him by the scruff
the neck, an' wallop like hell till he tells. Be spry,
now, perfesser ! "

The professor hurried down the street, fully pre-
pared to obey these directions, and found the negro
boy, as he had been told.

"Come along furder," said the boy, looking
around uneasily. He spoke a few words in a hoarse
whisper.

The blood leaped to the professor's wan cheeks,
and back again.

" I '11 show ye for a V," suggested the boy cun-
ningly. " But I won't take no noter hand. Make
it cash, an' I '11 show yer. Ye ain't no time to be
f oolin'," added the gamin. " It 's sot for termorrer

28 LOVELINESS.

'leven o'clock. He 's down for the biggest show of
the term^ he is. The students is all gwineter go^
an* the doctors along of 'em."

His own university ! His own university ! The
professor repeated the three words, as he dashed
into the city with the academic cabman's fastest
horse. For weeks his detectives had watched every
laboratory within fifty miles. But — his own col-
lege ! With the density which sometimes sub-
merges a superior intellect, it had never occurred to
him that he might find his own dog in the medical
school of bis own institution. Stupidly he sat gaz-
ing at the back of the gamin who slunk beside the
aversion of the driver on the box. The professor
seemed to himself to be driving through the terms
of a false syllogism.

The cabman drew up in a filthy and savage neigh-
borhood, in whose grim purheus the St. George pro-
fessors did not take their walks abroad. The negro
boy tumbled off the box.

The professor sat, trembling like a woman. The
boy went into the tenement, whistling. When he
came out he did not whistle. His evil little face
hadfaUen. His arms were empty.

LOVELINESS. 29

" The critter 's dum gone/* he said.

« Gone ? '*

" He 's dum goneter de college. Dey 'se tuk him,
sah. Dum dog to go so yairly."

The countenance of the professor blazed with the
mingUng fires of horror and of hope. The excited
driver lashed the St. George horse to foam ; in six
minutes the cab drew up at the medical school.
The passenger ran up the walk like a boy, and
dashed into the building. He had never entered it
before. He was obliged to inquire his way, like a
rustic on a first trip to town. After some delay and
dif&culty he found the janitor, and, with the assur-
ance of position, stated his case.

But the janitor smiled.

" I will go now — at once — and remove the dog,"
announced the professor. " In which direction is it?
My little girl — There is no time to lose. Which
door did you say ? "

But now the janitor did not smile. " Excuse me,
sir," he said frigidly, " I have no orders to admit
strangers." He backed up against a closed door,
and stood there stolidly. The professor, burning
with human rage, leaned over and shook the door.
It was locked.

80 LOVELINESS.

^^ Man of darkness ! " cried the professor. ^^ You
who perpetrate" — Then he collected himself.
" Pardon me/' he said, with his natural dignity j " I
forget that you obey the orders of your chiefs, and
that you do not recognize me. I am not accustomed
to be refused admittance to the departments of my
own university. I am Professor Premice, of the
Chair of Mental Philosophy, — Professor Theophras-
tus Premice." He felt for his cards, but he had
used the last one in his wallet.

" You might be, and you might n't," replied the
janitor grimly. " I never heard tell of you that I
know of. My orders are not to admit, and I do
not admit."

" You are unlawfully detaining and torturing my
dog ! " gasped the professor. " I demand my pro-
perty at once ! "

" We have such a lot of these cases," answered
the janitor wearily. "We hain't got your dog.
We don't take gentlemen's dogs, nor ladies' pets.
And we always etherize. We operate very tenderly.
You hain't produced any evidence or authority, and
I can't let you in without."

"Be so good," urged the professor, restraining
himself by a violent effort, " as to bear my name to

LOVELINESS. 81

some of the faculty. Say that I am without^ and
wish to see one of my colleagues on an urgent
matter."

" None of 'em 's in just now but the assistant de-
monstrator/' retorted the janitor, without budging,
" He 's experimenting on a — well, he 's engaged
in a very pretty operation just now, and cannot be
disturbed. No, sir. You had better not touch the
door. I tell you, I do not admit nor permit. Stand
back, sir ! "

The professor stood back. He might have entered
the lecture room by other doors, but he did not
know it ; and they were not visible from the spot
where he stood. He had happened on the labora-
tory door, and that refused him. He staggered out
to his cab, and sank down weakly.

" Drive me to my lawyer ! " he cried. " Do not
lose a moment — if you love her ! "

It was eleven o'clock of the following morning ;
a dreamy June day, afloat with color, scent, and
warmth, as gentle as the depths of tenderness in the
human heart, and as vigorous as its noblest aspira-
tions.

The students of the famous medical school of the

32 LOVELINESS,

University of St. George were crowding up the
flagged walk and the old granite steps of the col-
lege; the lecture room was filUng; the students
chatted and joked profusely, as medical students do,
on occasions least productive of amusement to the
non-professional observer. There chanced to be
some sprays of lily of the valley in a tumbler set
upon the window sill of the adjoining physiological
laboratory, and the flower seemed to stare at some-
thing which it saw within the room. Now and then,
through the door connecting with the lecture room,
a faint sound penetrated the laughter and conversa-
tion of the students, — a sound to hear and never to
forget while remembrance rang through the brain,
but not to tell of.

The room filled ; the demonstrator appeared sud-
denly, in his fresh, white blouse ; the students be-
gan to grow quiet. Some one had already locked
the door leading from the laboratory to the hallway.
The lily in the window looked, and seemed, in the
low June wind, to turn its face away.

" Gentlemen," began the operator, '^ we have be-
fore us to-day a demonstration of unusual beauty
and interest. It is our intention to study " — here
he minutely described the nature of the operation.

LOVELINESS. 88

" There will be also some collateral demonstrations
of more than ordinary value. The material has been
carefully selected. It is young and healthy," ob-
served the surgeon. " We have not put the subject
under the usual anaesthesia," — he motioned to his
assistant, who at this point went into the laboratory,
— " because of the importance of some preliminary
experiments which were instituted yesterday, and to
the perfection of which consciousness is conditional.
Gentlemen, you see before you " —

The assistant entered through the laboratory door
at this moment, bearing something which he held
straight out before him. The students, on tiered
and curving benches, looked down from their amphi-
theatre, lightly, as they had been trained to look.

'' It is needless to say," proceeded the lecturer,
"that the subject will be mercifully disposed of
as soon as the demonstration is completed. And
we shall operate with the greatest tenderness, as
we always do. Gentlemen, I am reminded of a
story " —

The demonstrator indulged in a little persiflage at
this point, raising a laugh among the class; he
smiled himself ; he gestured with the scalpel, which
he had selected while he was talking ; he made three

^

84 LOVELINESS.

or four sinister cats with it in the air^ preparatory
cuts, — an awful rehearsal. He held the instrument
suspended, thoughtfully.

"The first incision" — he hegan. "Follow me
closely, now. You see — Gentlemen ? Gentlemen !
Really, I cannot proceed in such a disturbance —
What is that noise ? " With the suspended scalpd
in his hand, the demonstrator turned impatiently.

" It 's a row in the corridor," said one of the stu-
dents. " We hope you won't delay for that, doctor.
It 's nothing of any consequence. Please go ahead."

But the locked door of the laboratory shook vio-
lently, and rattled in unseen hands. Voices clashed
from the outside. The disturbance increased.

" Open ! Open the door ! " Heavy blows fell
upon the panels.

" In the name of humanity, in the name of mercy,
open this door ! "

"It must be some of those fanatics," said the
operator, laying down his instrument. " Where is
the janitor ? Call him to put a stop to this."

He took up the instrument with an impetuous
motion ; then laid it irritably down ag^. The at-
tention of his audience was now concentrated upon
the laboratory door, for the confusion had redoubled^

LOVELINESS, 86

At the same time feet were heard ^proaehing the
students* entrance to the lecture room. One of the
jOMTkg men took it upon himself to lock that door
also, which was not the custom of the place ; hut he
found no key, and two or three of his classmates
joined him in standing against the door, which they
barricaded. Their blood was up, — they knew not
why ; the fighting animal in them leaped at the
mysterious intrusion. There was every prospect of
a scene unprecedented in the history of the lecture
room.

The expected did not happen. It appeared that
some unsuccessful effort was made to force this door^
but it was not prolonged; then the footsteps re-
treated down the stairs, and the demiand at the labo-
ratory entrance set in again, -this time in a new
voice : —

" It is an officer of the court ! There is a search-
warrant for stolen property ! Open in the name of
the Law ! Open this door in the name of the
Commonwealth ! "

Now the door sank open, was burst open, or was
unlocked, — in the excitement, no one knew which
or how, — and the professor and the lawyer^ the
officer and the search-warrant, fell in.

36 LOVELINESS.

The professor pushed ahead^ and strode to the
operating table.

There lay the tiny creature, so daintily reared, so
passionately beloved ; he who had been sheltered in
the heart of luxury, like the little daughter of the
house herself ; he who used never to know a pang
that love or luxury could prevent or cure ; he who
had been the soul of tenderness, and had known
only the soul of tenderness. There, stretched,
bound, gagged, gasping, doomed to a doom which
the readers of this page would forbid this pen to
describe, lay the silver Yorkshire, kissing his vivi-
sector's hand.

In the past few months Loveliness had known to
the uttermost the matchless misery of the lost dog
(for he had been sold and restolen more than
once) ; he had known the miseries of cold, of hun-
ger, of neglect, of homelessness, and other torments
of which it is as well not to think ; the sufferings
which ignorance imposes upon animals. He was
about to endure the worst torture of them all, —
that reserved by wisdom and power for the dumb,
the undefended, and the small.

ThQ of&cer seized the scalpel which the demon-
strator had laid aside, and slashed through the

LOVELINESS. 87

straps that bound the victim down. When the gag
was removed, and the little creature, shorn, sunken,
changed, almost unrecognizable, looked up into his
master's face, those cruel walls rang to such a cry
of more than human anguish and ecstasy as they
had never heard before, and never may again.

The operator turned away; he stood in his
butcher's blouse and stared through out of the lab-
oratory window, over the head of the lily, which re-
garded him fixedly. The students grew rapidly
quiet. When the professor took Loveliness into
his arms, and the Yorkshire, still crying like a hu-
man child that had been lost and saved, put up his
weak paws around his master's neck and tried to
kiss the tears that fell, unashamed, down the cheeks
of that eminent man, the lecture room burst into a
storm of applause ; then fell suddenly still again, as
if it felt embarrassed both by its expression and by
its silence, and knew not what to do.

"Has the knife touched him — anywhere?"
asked the professor, choking.

" No, thank God ! " replied the demonstrator,
turning around timidly; "and I assure you — our
regrets — such a mistake " —

"That will do, doctor," said the professor.

88 LOVELINESS.

^^ Gentiezaeji^ let me pass, if you please. I have no
tune to lose. There is one waiting for this little
ereatur^ who " —

He did not finish his sentence, but went out
from among them. As he passed with the shorn
and quiyering dog in his arms, the students rose to
their feet.

He stopped the cab a hundred feet away, went
across a neighbor's lot, and got into the house by
the back door, witiii the Yorkshire hidden under his
coat. The doctor's buggy stood at the curbstone
in front. The Httle girl was so weak that morn-
ing — what might not have happened ?

The father felt, with a sudden sickness of hearty
that time had hardly converged more closely witit
fate in the operating room than it was narrowing in
his own home. The cook shrieked when she saw
him come into the kitchen with the half-hiddeQ
burden in his arms ; and Kathleen ran m, panting.

" Call the doctor," he commanded hoarsely,
'' and ask him what we shall do."

All the stories that he had ever read about joy
that killed blazed through his brain. He dared
neither advance nor retreat, but stood in the mid-

LOVELINESS. 89

die of the kitchen^ stupidly. Then he saw that the
quick wit o£ Kathleen had got ahead of him ; for
she was on her knees arranging the crimson blan-
kets in the empty basket. Between the three, they
gently laid the emaciated and disfigured dog into
his own bed. Nora cried into the milk she was
warming for the little thing. And the doctor
came in while Loveliness feebly drank.

" Wait a minute/' he said, turning on his heel.
He went back to the room where the child lay
among the white pillows, with her hand upon the
empty gray satin cushion. Absently she stroked
one of the red puppies whose gold eyes gazed for-
ever at the saucer of green milk. She lay with her
lashes on her cheeks. It was the first day that she
had not watched the street. Her mother, sitting
back at the door, was fanning her.

" Adah ! " said the doctor cheerily. " We Ve
got something good to tell you. Your father has
found — there, there, my child! — yes, your father
has found him. He looks a little queer and home-
sick—guess he's missed you some — and you
must n't mind how he looks, for — you see, Adah,
we think he has Kved with a — with a barber, and
got shaved for nothing ! " added the doctor stoutly.

40 LOVELINESS.

The doctor had told his share of professional fibs
in his day^ like the most of his race ; but I hope he
was forgiven all the others for this one's merciful
and beautiful sake.

"Come, professor!" he called, courageously
enough. But his own heart beat as hard as the
father's and the mother's, when the professor slowly
mounted the stairs with the basket bed and the
exhausted dog within it.

" Jjoy^'li-ness ! " cried the child. It was the
first loud word that she had spoken for months.

Then they lifted the dog and put him in her
arms; and they turned away their faces, for the

sight of that reunion was all the nerve could bear.

... . ••. .•

So it was as it has been, and ever will be, since
the beginning to the end of time. Joy, the Angel
of Delight and Danger, the most precious and the
most perilous of messengers to the heart that loves,
came to our two little friends, and might have de-
stroyed, but saved instead.

The child was strong before the dog was; but
both convalesced rapidly and sweetly enough. In
a week Adah threw away her little crutch. Her
lost voice returned, to stay. The pearl and the

THROUGH THE BENDING

LOVELINESS. 41

rose of her soft, invalid skin browned with the sum-
mer sun. Peals of laughter and ecstatic barks re-
sounded through the happy house. Little feet and
little paws trotted together across the dew-touched
lawn. Wonderful neck ribbons, — a new color
every day, — tied by eager, small fingers upon the
silver-gray throat of the Yorkshire, flashed through
the bending shrubbery in pursuit of a Uttle glan-
cing white figure in lawn dresses, with shade hat
hanging down her back. The satin cushion with
the embroidered puppies was carried out among the
blushing weigelia bushes ; and the twain lived and
loved and played, from day-start to twilight, in the
live, midsummer air.

Sometimes she was overheard conversing with
the terrier, — long, confidential talks, with which
no third person intermeddled.

" Dearness ! Daintiness ! Loveliness ! Did you
have a little baxet with blankets while you were
away ? Preciousness ! Did they cut you meat and
warm you soup for you, and comfort you? Did
they ever let you out to shi-shiver in 'e wet and
cold? Tell me, Dearest-in-'e-World ! Tell me,
Love-li-ness ! Tell me all about it. Tell me about
'e barber who shaved you hair so close, — was he
kind to you ? "

42 LOVELINESS.

When Commencement was over^ and the town
quiet and a little dull^ something of a festive nature
was thought good for Adah ; and the doctor, who
came only as a matter of occasional ceremony now,
to see his patient running away from him, proposed
a party ; for he was not an imaginative man, and
could only suggest the conventional.

" Something to take her mind off the dog for a
little," he said. " We must avoid anything resem-
bling a fixed idea."

" Love is always a fixed idea," replied the pro-
fessor of psychology, smiling. " But you may try,
doctor."

" I will arx Loveliness," said the child quietly.
She ran away with the Yorkshire, and they sat
among the reddening weigeKa bushes for some
time, conversing in low tones. Then they trotted
back, laughing and barking.

" Yes, Papa, we '11 have a party. But it must be
a io?;6liness party. Mamma. And we Ve decided
who to arx, and all about it. If you would like to
know, I '11 whisper you, for it 's a secret to Loveli-
ness and me, until we think it over."

Merrily she whispered in her mother's bending
ear a list of chosen guests. It ran on this wise : —

LOVELINESS. 48

The f amUy.

The carrier.

Kathleen and Nora.

The newsboy.

The cabman.

The doctor.

Some of the neighbors* Kttle dogs and girls.

Not boys, because they say ^' Sister boy ! '* and
' Sickum ! "

The president's white puppy.

The president.

Nobody else.

Not the barber.

" Here 's ' e invitation," she added with dignity,
'^and we'll have a picture of him printed on his
puppy cushion at ' e top, Papa."

She put into her father's hand a slip of paper, on
which she had laboriously and irregularly printed
in pencil the following legend : —

On Satterday, After Nune.
if not stormy.

AT 2 O CLUK.

LOVELINESS
At Home.

BLBCTROTYPBD AND PRINTBD
BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND Ca

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A*

\

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P8 3142 .L6

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