Chapter I

here are but few dwelling-houses left which are occupied as such in that part of Philadelphia which was once so fashionable, the neighborhood of Independence Square. The rooms within the stately old mansions are now used by lawyers and other professional men for their offices, and business signs adorn the brick fronts without. There are one or two exceptions to this rule, however, and there was one house where the descendants of a long line of ancestors still lived in the home of their fathers.

The two Misses Herrick prided themselves upon having been born and brought up in the old house in Fourth Street, the same house in which General Washington had so often supped with their great-grandfather, when the table was adorned with the blue India oyster-dish and the egg-shell teacups, which were now kept behind the locked glass doors of the corner cabinet in the dining-room.

In one of the windows of this old house, in a room which fronted on the street, sat Elizabeth, looking out on the autumn rain, which dripped dismally through the leafless trees and flooded the brick pavement. Elizabeth was a niece of the Misses Herrick, and she had lived with them all her life.

It seemed a very long time, as she looked back upon it, although it was really only eleven years; but that is a great space of time when one is waiting; and Elizabeth had been waiting, ever since she had been old enough to know that she had a father, for his return.

He went away from America, she had been told, when her mother died, and that was when Elizabeth was a baby. Valentine, her brother, was almost three years older, and he had been sent to their mother's family in Virginia. The brother and sister had met but once or twice; for the aunts in Fourth Street did not like boys, and therefore did not encourage his coming there, and as Elizabeth had never been allowed to visit her Southern relatives, they were practically strangers to one another.

The Misses Herrick always spoke of the children's father as "poor Edward" when they mentioned him at all. This was when an infrequent letter arrived bearing a foreign post-mark. Elizabeth did not know why he should be poor, for his sisters were certainly very wealthy, and she had an indistinct idea, suggested to her by her old nurse, who was now dead, that some day she herself would have a great deal of money.

But that made no particular impression on her mind beyond the fact that if she did own money, she would like to give it all to her father if he were poor. Perhaps that was the reason he did not come home, because he could not pay for his passage.

Elizabeth thought it all out as she sat at the window this rainy afternoon, and she determined to question her aunts on the subject at the earliest opportunity. Julius Cæsar sat opposite to her, also looking at the rain. When a gust of wind rattled the window and swirled the dead leaves on the pavement he gazed out more intently still; for although he was no longer young, and was extremely dignified, he was not above playing occasionally with anything so fascinating as a moving leaf.

The little girl would have led a lonely existence had it not been for Julius Cæsar, the cat.

The trouble was that Aunt Caroline was so occupied with her social duties, and Aunt Rebecca with the many lectures, concerts, and German or French classes which she attended, that there was little chance to speak with them.

Elizabeth did not see them very often, either—only at luncheon, or when she went out with Miss Herrick to be fitted for her fall or spring outfit, or after an altercation with Miss Rice, the governess.

On these latter occasions, which, it must be confessed, were very frequent, Miss Herrick was called in to act as mediator or judge, and Elizabeth found that she invariably took the part of Miss Rice in the discussion.

It was while she was thinking thus that her aunt Rebecca entered the room. Miss Rebecca Herrick was still a young-looking woman, tall and slender, and always beautifully dressed, and she was rarely seen without a book of some sort, for her tastes were distinctly literary.

When she came into the room this afternoon her face wore a preoccupied expression, and she was in evident haste. She did not see her niece sitting in the deep recess formed by the heavy curtain at the window until Elizabeth spoke,

"Aunt Rebecca, is it true that my father is poor?"

"Mercy, child, I did not see you there! How you startled me. What did you say?"

"Is my father a poor man?"

"Elizabeth, how absurd! Poor? Why should he be?"

"Because Aunt Caroline always says, when a letter comes from him, 'Here is a letter from poor Edward.'"

"Nonsense, Elizabeth! What ridiculous fancies you have! But don't stop me now with your questions. I am looking for the French book I am reading with Madame La Pierre. Have you seen it?"

"No," replied Elizabeth, not offering to look for it. "I am going to write to my father, Aunt Rebecca."

But her aunt, having found the book, had left the room.

"I am going to write to him, Julius," she repeated, stroking the cat's glistening white breast. "I do wish you were a fairy cat and could speak. It would be so nice to have some one to talk things over with. Never mind. When my father comes home, as he surely will when he gets my letter, I can talk everything over with him. Won't it be lovely, Julius?"

Then she left the window where she had been sitting so long and went to the writing-desk—her aunt Caroline's desk, so carefully arranged, with its silver implements and monogrammed paper. She would write to her father, as she had said, though she did not know how to address it. But fortunately her father's last letter, which had come that very morning, was lying open on the desk, with the date and the name of the place at which he was stopping written across the top.

She took an envelope and carefully copied the name, addressing it to Mr. Edward Herrick, and then she wrote the following letter—wrote it hastily, and without stopping to think what she should say:

"My dear Father,—I hope you are well, and that you are coming home soon. I do not know why you stay away from us so long, unless it is because you have not enough money to come home with. Aunt Caroline always calls you poor Edward, so I think that must be the reason. I want to tell you that we are not poor here at all. Aunt Caroline and Aunt Rebecca both have lots and lots of money, and I have an allowance of seventy-five cents a week to spend as I like, only I have to buy my hair-ribbons out of it, because Aunt Caroline thinks I lose so many, and it is going to make me take better care of them if I have to pay for them myself; but it does not make a bit of difference, for they will get lost.

"I do not suppose that seventy-five cents a week will help you much to get home, but I am going to tell you something else. My old nurse Mary Ann, that died, told me once that when I was grown up I would have lots of money; she said I was an airess. I do not think that is the way to spell that word, but I will look it out in the dickshunary before I send the letter. I do not want you to think that I do not know how to spell, father dear. I read a book about an airess the other day, and it said she had a great deal of money, but she could not use it until she was very, very old—twenty-one, I think.

"Now, father dear, I have a sujjestshun to make. Could not you borrow some money of somebody to come home with, and tell them you will pay it back in ten years? I have counted it up, and it will be ten years before I am twenty-one. It is a very long time, I know, but perhaps there is somebody who knows you well and will trust you. You can tell them that you know your daughter will pay it back.

"It seems strange that my aunts do not give it to you, for they have a great deal, I think; but I do not like to ask them to. They are very queer sometimes, father dear, though I do not like to say anything against your sisters. But won't you come home to me soon? I want you so much. We could live together, and my brother Valentine could come home too, and we should be so happy. I have thought it over ever so many times, and I think it would be too perfect. I really need you, father, and I will try to be just as much like my mother as I can possibly be. They say I look like her, for I have dark eyes and light hair; but I am not pretty, and she was. Aunt Caroline says I have an unfortunate temper. The words pop right out so fast when I get mad that I can't stop them, and so many things make me mad.

"But do come home, father dear. I need you so much; and please do as I say about the money. Come soon to your very loving and lonely little daughter,

"Elizabeth Herrick.

"P.S.—The nicest thing in this house is Julius Cæsar. He is a cat, very large and black, with a white breast, four white paws, and one white spot in the middle of his back.

"E. H."

This was a very long letter, and the unformed childish hand in which it was written covered several sheets of Miss Herrick's best note-paper. When it was finished Elizabeth folded it and placed it in the envelope, forgetting to correct the misspelled words. She found a five-cent stamp in her aunt's well-filled box—she had seen Miss Herrick put that kind of a stamp on her letters to "poor Edward"—and then going into the hall, she took an umbrella from the rack and sallied forth into the rain to mail the precious missive.

Elizabeth was mistaken when she told her father that she was not pretty. Her large dark eyes and the hair which hung over her shoulders like a mass of spun gold formed a striking contrast, but her cheeks were thin and somewhat pale, and her expression was too old for that of a child of twelve. Her lonely life was reflected in her face.

Her aunts did not intend to neglect her, but they were busy women whose own special interests came first in importance, and they did not understand the child. They thought that to feed and clothe her and to give her a beautiful home to live in was all that was necessary, in addition to the education, of which Miss Rice had charge.

They wearied of Elizabeth's questions, the result of long trains of thought carried on by the alert inquiring mind, and either refused to answer them or referred her to Miss Rice. The governess was one who considered it more important to know exactly how far it was in miles from the meridian of Greenwich to that of Washington, and what was the date of the eleventh battle of the Thirty Years' War, than to plunge into the subjects which interested Elizabeth.

Soon after the little girl's return from her expedition to the lamp-post Miss Herrick came in. She was in out-door dress, and she carried a card-case in her hand. Although she was rather below medium height, Miss Herrick's manner of holding her well-shaped head was so stately that she gave one the impression of being taller. Her features were regular, and there was not a trace of silver in the smooth dark hair which was never out of place. The Herricks were all noted for their beauty, and although Miss Caroline was well over fifty, was still a handsome woman.

"Are you there, Elizabeth?" she asked, in her evenly modulated voice; "it is a frightful day to go out, but I promised faithfully to go to Mrs. Ford's tea. Tell me when the carriage comes to the door. My umbrella seems to be wet. It is very strange. And who has been at my desk? The pen is still filled with ink, and carelessly flung down on the clean fresh blotter! Do you know anything about it, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, Aunt Caroline. I have been writing a letter there," said a small but courageous voice from the window-seat.

"Writing a letter at my desk? May I ask why and to whom? Does not the desk in your room afford opportunities for your correspondence?"

"It was easier to write it here. My room is so far off, and I wanted to get it done quickly."

"What nonsense! And to whom did you write?"

"My father."

"Your father! Elizabeth, how dared you, without my permission? Poor Edward! What will he say?"

"There you go again, Aunt Caroline," said Elizabeth, coming down the long room and standing at her aunt's side. "Won't you please tell me why you always call my father poor? Is he really and truly poor? Hasn't he any money? Do you suppose he is ever—really—hungry, like the Brady family in the back street?"

She asked these questions slowly and fearfully, and a solemn look came into the large brown eyes fixed so intently on her aunt's face.

"What nonsense you talk, Elizabeth! Tell me at once what you wrote to him about."

"Not unless you tell me why you call him poor," returned the little girl, firmly. "I ought to know something about my own father, I think, and you ought to tell me."

"You are extremely disrespectful. Leave the room at once."

"Very well; I will, Aunt Caroline. Only I think you might tell me, and I mean to find out somehow about my father. And I was the one who used your umbrella. I went out to mail my letter. And I used your stamp, which I will pay you back. And I got my feet soaking wet, and I don't mean to change my shoes. So there!"

"What a child she is!" thought Miss Herrick, as her niece disappeared behind the portière. "I wonder what she has written to poor Edward? What will he say? I trust he may never receive it. And she said her feet were wet. That will not do, for she will surely have a sore throat." And she touched the bell.

"James," she said to the man who appeared, "tell Marie to find Miss Elizabeth and change her shoes. Her feet are wet."

But it was some time before James told Marie, and still longer before Marie went in search of Elizabeth, and when she did the child was not to be found.

The house in Fourth Street was very large, with huge rooms and lofty ceilings, for it had been built in the generous fashion dear to our grandfathers. The drawing-rooms occupied the first floor, the sleeping-rooms of the two Misses Herrick the second, while Elizabeth had for her own one in the third story.

Then there were the "back buildings," on the first floor of which were the kitchens, above these the dining-room and library, and still farther above a number of rooms which were used for various purposes, such as the storing of furniture, camphor-chests, and the like.

There was one room in this part of the house which, to Elizabeth's knowledge, had never been opened, and, strange to say, it was fastened by a padlock. Elizabeth often wandered over the house when she had nothing else that was particularly interesting to do, and this padlocked door always possessed a strong fascination for her.

Why was it locked at all, and why was there a padlock on it? Was not an ordinary lock enough? There must be something very precious in there. What could it be? The mystery piqued Elizabeth's curiosity immensely. If she could only see behind that closed door!

On this rainy afternoon when she had been dismissed so summarily from the drawing-room she mounted the long double flight of stairs toward her own room. When she reached the third-story landing, however, her glance fell upon the locked door, which directly faced her.

"What is in that room?" she said to herself. "I must find out. Aunt Caroline won't tell me about my father, so I am going to discover things for myself. There is the front door shutting, so she is off, and Aunt Rebecca is taking her French lesson in the library. No one will hear me."

She turned and hurried down the thickly carpeted stairs, her flying feet making not a sound, and ran along the hall to her aunt Caroline's room. The lofty four-post bedstead, which had been made especially large for great-grandfather Herrick's famous height, seemed but of ordinary size in the great chamber, and the massive wardrobe and old-fashioned chests of drawers consumed but little of the space.

Elizabeth paused in the middle of the room and looked about her. If she could only see the key-bag which she knew Miss Herrick kept in her room. She would not like to open any drawers to find it. It did not seem quite the right thing to go to people's bureau drawers. Fortunately it was not necessary. The key-bag hung on a rack near the dressing-table.

Elizabeth took it carefully down and ran up stairs again. Slowly and laboriously she tried each key to the little padlock. Not one of them would fit. There were thirty keys at least, and yet not one would open the door. What should she do? Disappointment only made her more anxious than ever to succeed.

Very dejectedly she returned to Miss Herrick's room and hung the bag where she had found it. She was turning away when she chanced to see a small Chinese cabinet of drawers on the dressing-table. It was curiously inlaid, and the corners were bound with silver, and it consisted of but two little drawers, the whole standing not more than four inches high. Elizabeth had noticed it before on the table when she had been in her aunt's room, and she had always admired it.

She took it up and looked at it. One of the little drawers slipped out as she held it, and within lay two keys, one large and the other small, and they were tied together with a ribbon. With a half-suppressed "Oh!" of delight she seized them and ran up stairs.

One key fitted the lock of the door, the other the padlock. With perfect ease she turned them and entered the room.

[to be continued.]