Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1876 — FORTUNATA’S POCKET. [ARTICLE]

FORTUNATA’S POCKET.

“ Wm’t you try it then, Then was a world of persuasion in the voice tlat uttered this entreaty, as well as in the lark-blue eyes that seconded it. Janet’sown brown ones wavered as she answend: “ I vish I could, Arthur; oh, I do wish I could But indeed it would be madness. You kiow your father’S’words—and you know That he is. He would never forgive us.” “ Tlrn if we must, we will do without his forgiveness, and do quite as well, too, Idareiay. Don’t look so grave, dear; you kow I mean no disrespect, but is it reason ble we should spend our best years waitm,’ on a whim of his, so long as I have apair of hands and a head equal to • compand fractions ?” said Arthur, ending with asmile what he had begun with a frown. “ They say Heaven helps those that hep themselves, and I’ve no fear but we cord take care of ourselves.” “ Wimight venture, perhaps, if we had only arse Ives to care for,” answered Janet, shaking her head. “But you know,!krthur, it is not so. When you marryne you marry my family along with ne ” ‘ ‘ Ari am ready to marry all your thirtieth cusins into the bargain, if oniy it were aong with you.” “ Ye, 1 know how foolish you are,” rejoind the girl, still in her former halfjestingtone. “So, you see, Arthur, I have t< be wise for tw'O. As if a wife weren burden enough—hush, sir! they are budens; don’t all the magazines say so?—vthout loading you with two more incumgances. For Angie must have her comfois, poor thing, and Harry is going to collge if I have to go on my hands ana kneeso get him there! No, there is nothing so: it but to wait and hope another year; rho knows what may happen in a wholerear?” “ Wil,” said Arthur, after a pause, durimwhich he had stood considering, with bitted brows, “ I never could quite see th beauty pf the Micawber policy myself, ht I suppose there is no appeal from your ecislon.” J. Thtgirl sighed in silence, but as she followd him into the passage she laid her hand a his arm. “ Anur, ybu don’t think me selfish ?” she whipered. “Dolt I!” said he; and the accompanying cress seemed to imply that Arthur, rather ked selfishness than otherwise. “ The n>st selfish, obstinate little lamb I ever saw always set on sacrificing herself to somekdy else.” With te shutting of the door that shut him out f sight the happy glow faded from J ail’s face, and she turned back with anoier patient sigh. Waitifig and hoping, > easy to preach, would have been less aid to practice had they been more eveiy proportioned. For, in their - circumstajes, what could a year, or even ten years, o ? Might they not wait a lifetime in va.?

While Ahur Irvin walked along, revolving thr difficulties with as much anxiety bi considerably less .alienee, her words Curred to him: “You know what your ffier is.” Trulydid he know but too wel The jesting reproach he had just useto her might have applied in sober earist to his father; so far, at least, as selftness and obstinacy went; for anythingln any respect less like a little lamb tan Mr. Irvin, Br.,could hardly have en imagined. That member of the anial kingdom which he most suggested, pqaps, to an unprejudiced observer, was pig, at the moment when he plants his ur feet firmly, cocks up his ears and ne, and turns his small red eyes with a lo< of stubborn defiance on the hapless mtal who vainly seeks to coax him in tbway he would not. Mr. Irvin, it must tallowed, was scrupulously neat, and en nice, in his personal habits, which ie pig certainly is not; otherwise the remblance was undeniable. Filial, respect dbtless prevented Arthur from dwelling oit, but it could hardly have failed to st;e him. The words Jai had just recalled were spoken during certain conversation carried on in tl counting-room, when Arthur had ratin nervously unfolded a project which he d very much at heart. Mr. Irvin listenedn perfect silence, not even lifting his ej from some invoices he was looking ov. Then at last, push.ing them aside, hqid in a matter-of-fact done: “ We might as vl come to a definite understanding on te subject, Arthur; it may save some tii and trouble. You

know my plans for you about Emily Warner—s2o,ooo down. But it seems you can plan bester for yourself, eh ? Very well, now I’ll ipiake a bargain wjtli you. No beggar enters these doors as my daughter, and if you choose to throw yourself into the gutter, why, you may stay there forever for any help of mine; you shall, sir, by the Lord Harry! and you know if I generally mean what I say. I picked you out a wife and a fortune; if you don’t choose to take the wife 1 shall look to you for every cent of the money. That settled, you may marry where and whom you like. The day that Miss Janet Hollister can give you her hand with $20,000 in it I shall be happy to make her acquaintance ; until then I don’t care to hear her name. So now we understand each other.”

And Mr. Irvin with hard self-satisfac-tion leaned back in his comfortable chair, while Arthur, looking at the pursed-up lips, bit his own hard to keep back certain unfllial remarks trembling on tflem. Months had passed since then and the matter still stood exactly the same. Arthur once or twice, indeed, had attempted to reopen the question, but a dogged “ You have my ultimatum,” from his father, warned him that he would be urging bis cause at its own risk. It was a hard trial and one that the young man would never have borne but for Janet, who would neither come between his father and him nor copsent to let his love for her be the means of his worldly ruin. “ Better, I am afraid, to give up at once,.” she had said;but if you care too much to do that, let us wait patiently for possibilities.” So was she preaching hope to him out of her own hopelessness. For what chance had she of ever fulfilling Mr. Irvin's condition—she, whose utmost efforts were even needed to pay her way from day to day? Was she not, after all, selfish to accept the sacrifice of Arthur’s best years of life ? Ought she not, even at the cdst of some present pain to him, to save him the long, wearing trial that seemed so likely to be unrewarded after all? This was what, more sadly than usual, she was linking, as she shut him out of her sigMtand went back, with a sigh, to her sinall daily worries. “Is Arthur gone at last?” was the greeting that reached her on opening the door, in a voice sweet through all its querulous impatience. “ Not ■ that it makes much difference to me, for now I suppose you’re going to that dreadful old woman, and she’ll keep you forever, as usual. How people tan be so selfish!” “ Never mind, Angie, dear,” said Janet, soothingly, bending down to the face on the pillows, a face as white as they,, but with a kind of pathetic beauty in the wasted outlines and over-large blue eyes. “If she is exacting, it’s not for me to complain, for it gives me bread-and-but-ter, you know.” “Spread thin enough, though,” grumbled the invalid. “1 declare, Jenny, in common justice she ought to make it up to you in her will. Besides, you’re some sort of cousins, aren’t you, like all the Scotch?” “ Rather too diffuse relationship to do me much good, I’m afraid,” answered Janet, laughing, as she began putting on her out-door things.- 7 Angie was quite right, however; there was a cousinship hear enough to reckon between her half-sister Janet Macdonald Hollister and this old lady who bore the same name. So, at least, Mrs. Macdonald had declared, and demonstrated it to her own satisfaction. Their acquaintance was entirely a chance one, made through the medium of the advertising columns. Janet, left with the charge of a sickly half-sister and young brother, looked about for something to help herself out, and thought she might satisfy the requirements of an old lady who did not expect to secure a finished professor in music, art and languages for a smaller stipend than she would have paid her cook. The result was a call on Mrs. Macdonald, and an engagement which had lasted ever since. It was not likely-to last much longer now, for it lsdgrown but too plain to Janet that her employer’s days were numbered. Her warm heart could not help a thrill of pity sometimes, at thought of the stoical old woman, dying by inches, alone in the midst of her riches. 'Not, indeed, that she need have been alone, as she grimly remarked to Janet one day when she had been amusing herself by tracing out a relationship through twists and turns too intricate for any but a Scotch head.

“I’ve relations enough, I can assure ye, Miss Janet, fond ones, too, that would make naught of giving up the pleasures of this world to smooth my path into another. But I’d rather take the will for the deed, you see; they’re welcome to my old shoes when I’m done with ’em, but so long as I do stand in ’em I’ll have nobody treading on my heels. Now, it’s different with you; you’re one of the clan, to be sure, but then you weren’t brought jujito look upon your rich eld cousin as ydur natural prey. “Now' I dare say if 1 Were to take a notion to leave you enough to buy some sort of mourning fol-de-rol you are just silly enough to let it give you*a kindly thought of me, instead of hating my memory because ’twasn’t more; hey,child?’’ w And the old lady tapped her companion on the shoulder, whereat Janet turned her face upward with such a ray of wondering pity in the soft, deep-gray eyes, as pierced straight through the customary mask on the cynical old face, which responded for a moment with the womanly trust and tenderness latent now beneath a crust of many years. She did not speak a word, but let her hand rest again on the young girl’s shoulder, booking down into her eyes the while with a look half sad, half comforted. And always after thift Janet felt that there was a stronger bond between them than tjie mere give and take of convenience.

The end seemed very near to Janet this morning, as she stood By the sick woman and looked down into the ashy, wrinkled face, out of which the eyes gleamed with a keen contrasting fire. It was little she could do to-day for her employer, who was too restless for continued reading, but she found such evident satisfaction in the young girl’s presence that the latter finally, with some hesitation, offered to come and nurse her. This, however, the old lady would not hear of. “No, no,” she said. “Best let well alone. I’m not denying it’s a comfort to hear and see you, but I’ve got too set in my ways to go out of ’em at the last—and, after all, it’s as easy dying as living alone; eh, lassie? No, you'll just come tor your bit hour or two daily, as we agreed, till time saves us both the trouble.” Time was not long in doing that. Mrs. Macdonald failed soj rapidly that Before many days all was over. Janet, as she was bidden, attended the funeral, remaining likewise to hear the reading of the will. The great, gloomy parlor, old-fash-ioned and set as its late mistress, was sprinkled about with Macdonalds, relatives in every degree of Scotch cousinship, who looked cautiously at each other ana coldly at Janet, subduing to a decent sad-

ness the eager glances that sought the in/wnose hands the will had been placed.? It was a decent sadness, however, that was unfeigned when the testament had been read. For not one was satisfied, though not one was forgotten. All fared exactly alike, even to the “ beloved cousin Jaqfot Macdonald Hollister,” to her . own amazement and that of the others. The last, indeed, was so unpleasantly evident that sensitive Janet, although aware that her claim defrauded no one, was considering how to withdraw it when the lawyer’s voice broke the momentary pause." “There are two codicils,” said Mr. Rand. “The first that if the will be hot carried out to the letter in every point the whole bequest shall lapse to the asylum fund for poor widows already named in the will.” Mr. Rand lifted his eyes and glanced keenly over the surrounding faces, which had suddenly exchanged angry protest for acquiescence. For each, in his own interest, must now support the interest of the others. “ Codicil second,” resumed the lawyer, “relates to the watch worn by the deceased, the only piece of property excepted from the general sale. It is an old-fashioned article, of no very great intrinsic worth, and valuable to the deceased’s friends chiefly as a souvenir, having on the two Cases miniatures of the late Mrs. Macdonald mid her husband. The will provides that whoever may take it shall forfeit SSOO of his legacy—in consideration that the watch will serve mostly as a souvenir, and it is only fair the fool should pay for his folly. Moreover, on pain of forfeiting it, he shall carry it every three months to Mr. Sandham, who has regulated it for years. If there is nobody cares to indulge in so expensive a piece of sentiment, it shall be sold for what it will bring, and the proceeds given to the poor of St. Leonard’s„ parish.’ These are the words of the will, ladies and gentlemen,” concluded the lawyer, “and here is the article in question.” The late Mrs. Macdonald’s relatives gathered around for examination, but all, with a shake of the head and a curl of the lips, turned away again, beginning in a low tone to converse among themselves, as if the day’s business were closed. “The property proves considerably less than I supposed,” said one. “ Well, yes; but I know she had some rather heavy losses a few years ago. Then that asylum fund ” “I am to understand, then,” interposed Mr. Rand’s quiet voice, “ that the watch will be sold as undesirable

“ Oh, no,” here interrupted Janet, with timid earnestness, drawing near, and regarding through a grateful, pitiful mist the pictured face of her benefactress, the unwept old woman whom careless hands had just carried out from that very room to her hardly more lonely tomb. “I will take it if no one else.” “There seems to be little objection on that score,” remarked the lawyer, with a slight smile following her doubtful glance at the others. So the lumbering, old-fashioned thing became Janet’s undisputed property. She thought of it, rather apprehensively, it must be owned, all the way home. What would Angie say to it—Angie, to whom that forfeited money would have meant so much of ease and comfort ? What Angie would say to it soon ceased to be doubtful, for she grew almost eloquent over her sister’s folly. “The idea of throwing away all that money! Of course, in our circumstances, you can afford to w-aste SSOO. It will grow’ again in your pocket, I suppose.” “Don’t, Angie dear,” pleaded Janet. “ Only think how much we have left still! I have only given back -” “Just one-quarter! Five into twenty’s four, nought’s a nought,” put in Harry, who sat twirling his slate-pencil oyer an unfinished sum, which he found jpiuch less interesting than this example not down in the book. Angie gave a little treble scream. “ A quarter! You hear, Janet? One whole quarter, and my back so bad, and Hany wearing out shoes at the rate he does! I do wonder you could be so thoughtless, Janet!” Janet did not answer for a moment. Her overflowing gratitude had hindered her perhaps from measuring this unexpected bounty exactly, and Harry’s glib calculation somehow seemed to put it before her in a new light. True, it was a quarter that she had sacrificed to an impulse, and Angie’s back was bad, and Harry’s wear and tear of shoe-leather enormous. “lam very sorry, Angie darling,” she said deprecatingly. “ Perhaps it was thoughtless; but if you could have been in my place and seen it as I did—all of us taking that poor old creature’s money so greedily, and not even pretending to care about her picture.” ]• l-

“Lrion’t blame ’em,” said Harry, embittered perhaps by the allusion to that sore point of his toes, and snapping a contemptuous thumb and finger at the watch on the table near: “ Horrid old guy!” * 1 For shame, Harry!” cried Janet, facing round on him. “To take her money ana*then talk like that, and she only just buried, too! Oh, how cruel, how mean!” “Why, Jenny! I—l didn’t mean anything,” stammered Harry, abashed by this unwonted passion in “ gentle Janet’s” eyes and voice. “ Only,” a returning gleam of mischief in his face as he saw the excitement fade out of hers, “ with that tunny little twinkle in the eye, and that fol-de rol thing perched on top of the head and the waist up to the ears, it does look such an old-fashioned quiz, don’t it, nQw?” holding it out for inspection. “ I dare say,” answered Janet, already self-reproachful, as she stroked “her boy’s” brown curls. “ But do you suppose we should look very new-fashioned ourselves fifty years from Sow, Hariy?” “ Ho, nou!" cried the saucy boy. “ Tell you what, Miss Jen, take you girls as you stand, from the stilts under your feet to the cheese-plates on your heads, and a naturalist fifty years from now wouldn’t know what sort of animal he’d got hold of!”

“ Is a cheese-plate animal or vegetable, Harry?" asked’Janet gravely. “Animal, I guess," answered Harry boldly. “You’d think so over at old Gresham’s, if you could see ” “Oh, you horrid boy!” moaned Angie, turning her head on her pillows. “Come, Harry; I won’t have you talk so,” said Janet laughingly, as she picked up his slate-pencil. Sb Harry returned to arithmetic and Janet went over to coax poor sickly Angie back into good temper. The bequest at the time had seemed to Janet an inexhaustible mine of wealth —a kind of Fortunatus’ purse which should carry out all her cherished day dreams; it would surround poor Angie with luxuries; it would send Harry to college; it would even form, at least, a nest-egg for that once impossible treasure which Arthur's father made the condition of their happiness. But, as time slipped by, she found every dbllar, in anticipation at least, a dozen times appropriated, and the treas-

ure become impossible again. She could almost have fancied it all » dream but for the watch which Jay before her, a sufficiently solid reminder in its heavy, oldfashioned case, the eyes’of the miniature winking up at her from the dim enamel. She looked back at it with a smile and then a sigh, then one day remembered suddenly,ihat the prescribed three months had nearly elapsed, and she must not forget to take it with her the next time she went down town with Harry. Mr. Sandham—a wiry old man, with black eyes and a polished bald head, on which a velvet skull-cap sat coquettishly askew—received them; looking at her, she noticed, with a singular curiosity as he took the watch from her hand. “ This is a very old acquaintance of mine,” he said, as he pressed one spring after another. “A very remarkable and, indeed, I may say, valuable piece of workmanship. Were you aware of that, Miss Hollister?” he asked with a sudden sharp look at her. “As a souvenir it is, indeed, very valuable to me,” she .answered, coloring a little, “but I did not imagine that in itself ” “ Ah, that is because you have probably not studied it as I have. Look a$ it again now, Miss Hollister, and see if you perceive nothing remarkable.” 4‘ltis intricately inlaid,” said J-awet hesitatingly, as she turned it over, “and the portraits are done with curious exactness, but ” “ To be sure, to be sure, the portraits,” put in Mr. Sandham, rubbing his hands with the quick, cat-like motion peculiar to him. “There is something curious about the portraits, is there not? Now, what should you say it was, eh, Miss Hollister?” Janet looked doubtfully from his face to the pictured ones and back again. “ Only see the eyes!” continued the old man gleefully; “how they twinkle, as if they were just ready to tell you all about it!” And truly the two little diamond points in each face, as the old man turned them to the strong light, sparkled and winked as if fairly radiating mystery. “ What would you say?” he went on, “if,l were to tell you that each of these concea’ed a diamond——” “As large as a roc’s egg?” ecstatically murmured Harry, who, fresh from the “Arabian Nights’ ” wonders, would indeed hardly have been surprised to see a Genie issue from the watch-case. “ I am not familiar with the roc’s egg,” said the old man, turning upon Master Harry with a sudden confusing ceremoniousness, “it being, I apprehend, of the kind chiefly Jound in mares’ nests, which I haift* hever yet had the fortune to' discover. But I was about to ramark that the four eyes conceal four fine diamonds, which, united, form a very pretty little sum indeed. Look, Miss Hollister!” And, pressing a hidden spring as he spoke, the outer case flew aside, revealing a second one within, in which were set two large diamonds, while, on repeating the same action with the other side, similar treasures were there disclosed.

“ You must understand, Miss Hollister,” said the jeweler, nodding at J&net’s bewildered face, “that the late Mrs. Macdonald was of a cautious temperament—no bad thing in anybody; and having suffered some losses by a bank she conceived the idea of investing a certain portion of her fortune in such a way as to retain it safe about her own person. She commissioned me to make an inner case for this watch—readily done from its great thickness, as you may observe —in which .two diamonds were set on each side, in a position to come directly beneath the eyes, which were then pierced with a hole in each center. This enabled her always to assure herself of their safety, while by disguising their size it lessened the risk of robbery. You see? Peopie would hardly take the trouble to steal such a little bit of a diamond as that,” said Mr. Sandham, smilingly, as he readjusted the dull blank sockets again over the imbedded jewels, where the tiny central point of light winked up again like the eye of a benevolent witch.

“Aren’t you lucky, though, Jenny Wren?” cried Harry, as soon as he was out of the old man’s parajyzing presence. “ Won’t Arthur be glad, though? Now you can be married and no more trouble. What was it Angie said about the money growing again? And jt has, just like that old what's-his-name with the purse; only vours is a watch-pocket instead of a purse, rdeclare it ought to be changed to Fortunate’s Pocket!”— Scribner's Monthly.