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Ebook has 736 lines and 33369 words, and 15 pages

go up to Washington for a week or two, and sent for Jaqueline also. For Patty had a little baby girl, and they all laughed merrily about being uncles and aunts. What was happening to the country was a minor consideration.

When the doctor came down again he had a well-digested plan.

"If it wasn't for running the risk on the ocean I should say take the boy over to London at once and have the best medical skill there. But there are some excellent physicians in Philadelphia and New York. Old Dr. Rush does little in practicing now, but he is still ready and generous with advice. You know, I am young in the profession, and as yet we cannot boast much medical talent in our young city. Let Mrs. Mason stay with him three months or so, and have the best treatment. I think it quite a serious matter."

Mr. Mason was aghast at first.

"He is so young now, and the injury may not be as bad as I anticipated; but it will need excellent skill to take him through without leaving permanent marks and much suffering. So it had better be attended to at once."

"Hush! I have mentioned it to no one but your parents. It is not to be discussed. It is a spinal trouble, and that covers the ground. And he must have immediate care. You and Annis will come with us, for it would be too lonely to have you here on the plantation, even if your father is back and forth."

Mrs. Mason discussed the plans with Jaqueline at once, and the girl was full of the warmest sympathy.

"If we could take Annis! but the doctor thinks it would be bad for the child, and an added care."

"Oh, mamma, you may trust her with me! I am not as gay and volatile as I was a year ago, nor so frivolous."

"Mamma, that suggests something. A Madame Badeau, a very charming French refugee, has started a school for children and young ladies just a short distance from the doctor's. She is trying to get scholars enough to insure her support. And she teaches the pianoforte. It is quite coming into vogue since Mrs. Madison makes so much of the grand one at the White House, where ladies are often asked to play. Annis is such a little home girl that she would be very unhappy away. We all love her so dearly. And I will look after her clothes, and the doctor after her health, and Patty and the baby will be so much entertainment. Patty is making a very charming woman, and much admired," said the elder sister heartily.

"That is an admirable plan, and you are kind to take so much interest in the child. It relieves me of considerable anxiety, and she has run wild long enough, though she has picked up an odd conglomeration of knowledge from Charles. I know your father will be glad and thankful."

"To let you go quite away--to stay!" ejaculated Annis, when she heard of the plan. "Mamma, I have given up part of you a good many times, but I can't give up all," and the soft lips quivered. "Why can I not go? I will be very good, and not make any trouble. And I could help you with Charles, and read to him. He is so fond of me."

"It would not be possible to take you, dear," she replied tenderly. "You would add to my care. The doctor thinks this plan the best, the only one."

"But, if Charles should be ill a long while! And think how lonesome he would be with just a nurse! You can write quite well, and you can send me letters about everything. Jaqueline knows of a delightful school you can go to. It is time you were learning something, as well as Varina. There, dear, don't make it harder for me."

Then Mr. Mason came in, but for once she would not sit on his knee nor listen to his bright predictions.

At first Charles refused utterly to go without Annis. He was sure she couldn't be in the way. He loved mamma very much, but he had found it lonely at school without Annis to tell things over to. She was different from the other girls--and, then, they were grown women, except Varina; and he could not stand it without her.

"I want to get well and grow up to manhood, and then none of you shall take her away from me!" he cried.

Mrs. Mason gave a soft sigh, hoping he would have no greater heartache in the days to come.

Dr. Collaston finally persuaded him that this would be the best arrangement, as quiet and a darkened room might be necessary. "And it would be like keeping her a prisoner," he said. "Her mother could not take her out, and she could not go about a strange city alone, so it would be rather selfish to ask so much of her."

"And I don't mean to be selfish. If you all think so, it must be right; but I am sorry, all the same."

"You may get home by Christmas," the doctor said hopefully.

IN OLD WASHINGTON.

There were many arrangements to make. Only Mr. and Mrs. Mason knew how really serious the case might be, and Mrs. Mason felt that she could not accept the responsibility alone. Dixon, the overseer, was a good manager and a trusty man, and his wife a very efficient woman. Indeed, the older house slaves could have run the place without supervision, but it was well to have a responsible head. Louis would come down now and then and inspect the financial affairs, and bring Jaqueline occasionally. It would not be quite like going to London, and Mr. Mason might return if really needed.

So they packed up and put things in order, and went up to Washington to settle Annis. Charles seemed really stronger, but the doctor knew it was only excitement. Patty's house was so pretty and the office so handy, the boy did not see why he could not remain with her.

The house was quite fine for the times. Land was abundant, and houses did not have to crowd. There were spacious rooms, for people were hospitably inclined. Southern women made charming hostesses. In an ell part the doctor had an office, for he was quite ambitious in his profession, if he had one eye on the advancement of the City. He had rented one of his houses, and another was likely to be sold.

There were people who shook their heads dubiously and feared an invasion; others reasoned there was so little prospect of booty in Washington compared to the commercial cities, there could be no possible danger.

Jaqueline had a pretty corner room. Opening into it was a smaller one devoted to Annis, with its dainty bed curtained with white muslin and fringe that nodded in the slightest breeze. The floor was painted, and a rug made by the slaves at home lay at the bedside. Grandmother had sent Patty the mahogany furnishing of one room that she had brought from the Mason house when she was married, and it was quite an heirloom. This was in Jaqueline's room.

The baby went far toward reconciling Annis. A pretty, plump little thing, with great dark eyes and a fringe of dark hair over a white forehead, she looked like a picture. Judy, one of the slaves from home, was her nurse.

Yet the parting was very hard for Annis. The doctor had taken Charles in his own carriage. They were to go to Baltimore and rest a day or two and visit some of the connections.

Annis felt at first as if she must be visiting.

"You were a tiny little girl then. I hope you will not be very homesick; there are so many things to see. And when the horses are sent up we can take beautiful rides."

Annis swallowed over a lump in her throat.

"The baby will grow and be very cunning. And every week you are to write to mamma."

"And to Charles. I am not to mind not getting answers from him; it makes his head ache to write."

"And, then, there are the children at Aunt Jane's. Her baby talks everything in the funniest crooked fashion. To-morrow we will call on Madame Badeau. I hope you will like school. It is only in the morning."

"I am fond of learning things if they are not too hard."

"Some of us have to learn quite hard lessons," and Jaqueline sighed.

Madame Badeau lived in a rather shabby-looking rough stone house, quite small in the front, but plenty large enough for her and a serving-man and maid, and running back to a pretty garden, where she cultivated all manner of beautiful flowers, and such roses that lovers of them were always begging a slip or piece of root. There was a parlor in the front filled with the relics of better days, and draped with faded Oriental fabrics that were the envy of some richer people. There was always a curiously fragrant perfume in it. Next was the schoolroom, entered by a side door, where there were small tables in lieu of desks, wooden chairs, and a painted floor that the maid mopped up freshly every afternoon when the children were gone. Back of this were the living room and a very tiny kitchen, while upstairs were two rooms under the peaked roof, where Madame and Bathsheba slept.

Madame was small, with a fair skin full of fine wrinkles. She wore a row of curls across her forehead, a loosely wound, soft white turban that gave her a curious dignity, and very high heels that made a little click as she went around. She was quite delicate, and had exquisite hands, and wore several curious rings. Her voice was so finely modulated that it was like a strain of music, and she still used a good many French words. She had been at the French court and seen the great Franklin and many other notables, and had to fly in the Reign of Terror, with the loss of friends and most of her fortune.

Bathsheba, the maid, was nearly six feet tall, and proud of some Indian blood that gave her straight hair and an almost Grecian nose. She was proud of her mistress too, and was in herself a bodyguard when Madame went out. The old man who kept the garden clean and did outside work was a slave too old for severe labor, and was hired out for a trifle. At night he went home to sleep at the cabin of a grandchild.

Annis was attracted at once by the soft voice that ended a sentence with a sort of caressing cadence. And when Jaqueline wrote her name in full Madame said:

"Bouvier. That is French. Your mamma's maiden name, perhaps?"

"No," returned Annis, with a little color. "It was my own papa, who is dead. And he could read and talk French. I knew a little, but I was so young when he died."

"And our father married Mrs. Bouvier some years ago," said Jaqueline, "so Annis and five of us Mason children constitute the family. Mrs. Bouvier was cousin to our own mother."

"I shall take great pleasure in teaching you French. Poor France has had much to suffer. And now that detestable Corsican is on the throne, with no drop of royal blood in his veins! but you can tell what he thinks of it when he divorces a good and honorable woman that his son may inherit his rank. But my nation did not take kindly to a republic. They are not like you," shaking her turbaned head.

The distance to school was not great, so in fair weather it was a nice walk. Now the place is all squares and circles and rows of beautiful houses, but then people almost wondered at the venturesomeness of Dr. Collaston and Mr. Jettson building houses in country ways; for although streets were laid out and named, there was little paving. The Mason tract was on Virginia Avenue, but the others had gone back of the Executive Mansion, on high ground, and had a fine view of the whole country; and Georgetown being already attractive, it seemed possible the space between would soon be in great demand.

Out beyond them were some fine old mansions belonging to the time of plantations and country settlements. The very last of the preceding century the Convent of the Visitation had been erected, for so many of the Maryland gentry were Roman Catholics. There was a school for girls here, mostly boarding scholars.

Then Rock Creek stretched way up on the heights, threading its path in and out of plantations where fields were dotted with slaves at their work, often singing songs with the soft monotonous refrain that suggested the rhythm of the distant ocean. Occasionally you met a silvery lake that bosomed waving shadows; then stretches of gigantic oaks, somber pines, and hemlocks; and now and then a little nest of Indian wigwams whose inhabitants preferred quasi-civilization.

To the southeast, on the Anacostia River, was the navy yard, active enough now. And there was Duddington Manor, with its high wall and stately trees overtopping it, built by Charles Carroll, to be for a long while a famous landmark in solitary grandeur. But the Van Ness mansion, nearer the Potomac, was always alight, and often strains of music floated out on the night air to the enjoyment of the passer-by.

Annis had been living in a kind of old world, peopled with the heroes of Homer, the knights of Arthur, and the pilgrims of Chaucer, as well as Spenser's "Fa?rie Queene." She had a confused idea that Pope's garden was in some of these enchanted countries, and that Ben Jonson and Shakspere were among the pilgrims who sang songs and told tales as they traveled on, or stopped at the roadside and acted a play. Charles had learned where to place his heroes and who of them all were real.

Annis left the realm of imagination and fancy and came down to actual study. At first she did not like it.

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