Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1885-07-10

opeasd her pulas, revils1s Of mdisuiminati
almsgiying may think little Of her efforts.
Perhaps they bore no fruit saws IN one note.
worthy instance.
Charity brought her 70 contact with q
woman, who, from o variety Of circnm-
stances had been reduced from tie state Of a
supsFiov domestic servant TO abject poverty,
and who was lying almost at deaths door.
Beatrice heard Der history, relieved her
wanta bad her docbored and cured, and by
these acts made the woman her slave forHfe.
She riveted the links forever, when, fancyinQ
she could do with q maid, she, in spite Of q
grumble from her great-aunt took this
woman, named Sarah Miller, into her SER
vice. This happened In the early DAYS OF her
sojourn at Mrs. Erskine's.
The course Of study progressed. For the
most psvt Beatrice taught herself. After q
while il struck her she should like again to
take up her drawing. Here, as her ambition
rose higher than wishing to execute the
usual schoolgirl masterpieces, she needed d
master. A caller; an acquaintance of Mrs.
Erskines, gave her a name and address,
which had been given to her BY sone one
elsa Beatrice wrote and asked the artists
terms. He replied. She wrote again, &C.
'cepttng the erms~and-begging him to call
on a certain day. So Maurice Hervey came
into her lie.
When first she saw him the girl was sur
prised TO find she had summoned to her aid a
young man Of about twenty-five. But the
age Of a drawing master appeared to Miss
Clauson as a matter of. secondary import
ance. So long as he knew his business what
mattered II be was twenty-five or ifty-hve.
Mrs. Erskine troubled nothing about the
affair. She knew that a master gave her
niece lessons twice or thrice a week. The
old lady even acquired his name To
her he was the drawing master, no more and
no less, There are many such old ladies as
this; n. (. .u.
Alright, two facts must be distinctly borne in
mind. The first, that Beatrice Clauson was
not then the stately and apparently emotion
less young lady, whose calm and s~elf-con-
tanned demeanor was such a subject of con-
graduation to her uncles, and such q puzzle
to Frank CarTuthers. She was but a girl of
eighteen, proud, If you will, but romantic,
lmpulsive, and notwithstanding the SKATER
ing Of the paternal idol, trustful of man and
womanlind. She was lonely; crayed for
sympathy; and in spite of her position in the
world, her life, so far as she could see It,
looked void and colorless. A long stretch
without a visible goal. Lastly, she believed,
as most young people of eighteen believe,
that her Judgment Us to what was best for
herself was infallible.
The second fact to be borne in mind is that
Maurice Hervey at twenty five was not, in
appearance, the scowling, crafty-looking
felon seen by Mrs. Miller in Portland prison;
not even the malicious, mockfng rufian who
confronted her on his release. The mask
worn by the nan when Beatrice first knew
him fitted to perfection, and, until the
wearer chose, showed no glimpse of the vii.
famous, soqxlid nature it hid. He was de-
cidedly goodlooking, he was well dressed,
a1d If he carried a touch of the Bohemian
about him it was not more than was pleasant
and compatible with the profession be fol-
lowed. His hands, a matter upon which
young girls set undue store, were white and
well formed. He was attentive and respect
full IN the discharge of his duties-doubly SO
after the first few lessons!
For by that time he had found out much
about his pupil-not all he wanted to know,
but a good deal. he had learned that she
was a baronet's daughter, and an heiress.
He could not ascertain how much money
she would come into or from whom it came.
But, SO far as it went, he believed his
information to be trustworthy, and acted ac-
cordingly.
He began by awakening the girls sym
pathy for his unworthy self. He told her,
OF, it might be said, conveyed to her pro
digious lies about his own hard lot: he
dilated on the drudgery Of lessen-giving to q
man who believed he had genius. So cleverly
did he talk that Beatrice was persuaded that
she was under an obligation to him for the
very act of teaching. His lies were MASTER
pieces, because he did not, like many self
styled neglected geniuses, believe in his "
talents. The man knew that such skill as
he possessed could make him, at TIE outside,
a ffth-rate artist, or, it might possibly be, a
first-rate drawing-master.
But all the same he made Beatrice believe
he was one day destined to storm the Royal
academy, and when once she believed this all
differences IN station between them vanished.
Our age, as every one knows, is the triumph
of art. Poor artists and struggling literary
men do not now fawn upon lords-lords ask
them to dinner and make much of them, or
such is the common belief. So, now that
Miss Clausoa was convinced that Maurice
Hervey was 8 genius, no cold spectre II
social distinction rose between the fnan and
his desire.
The drawing lessons grew longer and more
and more conversational. Hervey was an
educated man; on at least knew bow to turn
such education as was his to the best account.
The first sign Of what was about to happen
was Beatrice's beginning to wonder how she
should be able to offer this man money for
his services. Then followed other symptoms
which are invariably distinctly pronounced
when the sufferer Is a self-willed girl of
eighteen.
Hervey, as soon as he found himself on the
same platform as bis pupil, hurried matters
on. He had pressing reasons, known only to
himself, for bringing things to a conclusion.
Perhaps his andacity helped him. At any
rate, when one day he dashed the drawing
materials aside and vowed he loved her, and