No. 5.

VOL. I.

IN

N the years long gone, the prettiest maid by far in all the town of Frederick, that beautiful little city set so daintily in the midst of the Maryland mountains was Janet Foy.

At the time of this chronicle, Janet was just twenty, when if ever a girl is a tyrant and what man will say she is not? she is most tyrannical, and the fair and fickle maiden was exercising over her helpless subjects, not only in Frederick, but in Baltimore, Washington, Hagerstown and the circle of villages in the valleys, a sceptre which smote all hearts and left them bleeding and hopeless where they fell.

As for her own heart, had there been no answering rod which laid the stripes of punishment upon it? Is a woman's heart at twenty, hard, or, is it merely that she steels it against the cavaliers who attack it, and she laughs them to scorn and vanquishment, not because she loves men less, but because she loves power more?

Janet Foy was not at home and among her friends, the cruel tyrant and. imperious woman her suitors claimed that she was, nor was she, among the people of her acquaintance, held in such esteem, except by the love-lorn youths who dangled in her train. Her friends admitted that she was a dreadful flirt, but they insisted that there was such sunshine in her face, and such sparkle in her roguish eyes, such music in her voice and such merry mischief in her laugh, that not a man or woman in Frederick would have given up their pleasure in these harmless attributes to have saved all the love-sick youths of the valley from immediate and perpet

Selfish creatures that they were, what did they care how many tender hearts of the male persuasion were crushed into bits so long as Janet Foy was a delight and a defiance to all the world? If she were a flirt, God made her so, and the simple people who knew her and loved her were quite content not to question or criticize the works and ways of an all-wise Providence.

But had her own light heart never known the touch of that pain which, once felt, is never forgotten?

Among those who had worshiped at her shrine longer, perhaps, than any other, though with less demonstration, was Frederick Ball, a young man who had been practicing law for five years, and who had for ten years dreamed of Janet Foy. He was five years her senior, and when he had seen her as a girl at the school they attended, he had unconsciously fallen in love with her. Usually when boys of fifteen fall in love with girls of ten the proceeding is by no means one of unconsciousness, for love at that demonstrative age is only another form of active consciousness; but with Frederick Ball it was not as with other boys. He was older than his years, and where the ordinary boy of his age would speak it seemed the better way to Frederick to give himself only to thought. only to thought. It was thus that he never talked much to the pretty little girl across the school room, but he would look at her when he could without detection, and he dreamed of her when he dreamed of anything except his future as a great lawyer, for the law was his choice and his hope from the very beginning.

silent espionage of the young man she seemed to have known always without ever noticing particularly, and she became restive and later, woman-like, she resented it.

One day shortly after her graduation, when Frederick was already a full fledged lawyer, they set upon the high doorsteps of her father's house overlooking the square, in which stood the Temple of Justice, wherein Frederick hoped to be a high priest some day, and sitting there talking as young persons talk on doorsteps, they almost quarreled.

"You are so very peculiar, Fred," she said petulantly and as if feeling that it were necessary for her to defend herself against something she could not definitely designate.

"In respect of what, Miss Foy," he responded with a stateliness which was more sarcasm than dignity.

"I don't exactly know," she answered, feeling that while her argument might be defective she was sure of her facts, "but you seem to act towards me as if I were a little girl, and you were my grandfather and were constantly on the watch for fear I would run away."

"Have I ever said anything that would lead you to infer that I was your grandfather?" he smiled in kindly fashion.

"No, you haven't, "she snapped back at him as if his tone nagged her, "but you make me feel as if you carried a sign before my eyes reading, 'Behold your grandfather.""

"That must be because I am so much older than you."

"A man at twenty-five is always the junior of a woman of twenty," she retorted.

"A lady asked me to-day how old Miss Foy was," he said easily, "and I did not give her much satisfaction. When I see her again I shall apologize and say that while I do not know Miss Foy's exact age, I have it on her own authority that she is older than I am and that I am twenty-five."

Her face flushed and the angry lines showed themselves around the corners of her mouth and about her eyes. She was on the point of making a hasty reply when she checked herself and laughed.

"You thought you would provoke me into saying something I shouldn't have said, didn't you?" she said, "Well,

I shall not do it. I am older than you are as I said I was, and I prove it to you by not doing a foolish thing under your provocation. Now, Mr. Attorney, you may go on with your argument.”

"It is women like you are, Janet," he said seriously after he had laughed at her skillful maneuvering, "who make men do whatever they wish them to do, be it good or bad."

"But you are not of the kind of men whom women control in that way. There are women as you say I am, Mr. Ball, and there are men as I say you are. What happens when they meet? Is it the irresistible meeting the unsurmountable?"

Frederick had for a long time wished to speak to Janet exactly on the lines. that now seemed to stretch straight before them both and by Fate's doing rather than by any planning of their own. Certainly not by any of his and he knew that Janet had no need of scheming.

"Janet," he said, with more depth of feeling than he had ever known, "whatever you would ask me to do, that would I do, good or bad."

Now

The girl looked at him in amazement. Perhaps she had never thought of him. other than as the friend of her school days and girlhood-a boy merely. there was in every modulation and accent of his voice and words the very spirit and strength of a man, and a man willing to do whatever she asked. If she had thought of him as a lover of hers who might one day become her husband, no one of those who saw her most ever suspected it for she had given no sign. He knew that she had encouraged him not so much as a master encouraged his dog. He had watched her smile on the dozens who flocked about her and he had prayed in his silence that some day she might smile on him, but not as she did on them. It was not the fraction of a smile he sought, but all-all-all.

What she may have thought she did not speak, and whatever of amazement followed his words passed as a summer cloud and she looked fairly into his eyes, cold and hard, but firmly.

"Mr. Ball," she said very slowly, “I shall take you at your word. I shall ask you to do for me what may be good or

bad as you make it. Come to-morrow evening here. And now, good-bye until then."

As Frederick Ball thought that night of Janet Foy it seemed to him that some new being had taken the place of the pretty little girl he had known, and he wondered what she would ask him to do when he came again the next evening. It was no trifling matter he was sure, for Janet had spoken as only a woman in her most serious mood could speak. Be her commands what they might be, however, he was prepared to obey them to the utmost limit. He dreamed of her that night, but his dreams for the first time were not bright as they had been. There was a shadow lurking in them which he could not define and when morning came he felt as if he were facing some evil. All day the feeling forced itself in upon him at intervals and when he met Janet in the evening he was not as he had ever been. As for Janet she gave no sign, except that she was very serious, indeed.

"Mr. Ball," she said, when they had sat for perhaps a half hour talking at random, "you remember last night that you said you would do anything I asked you to do, good or bad?"

"Quite distinctly, Miss Foy," he replied, "and I am no less willing to perform it now than I was to say it last night. What would you have me to do?" She seemed to appreciate this forestalling of her request by asking for it, and she smiled and put out her hand to him.

"You have an ambition to be a great lawyer," she said slowly, "and you have made such a beginning here as any young man should be proud of. I ask you to give it all up and go to Baltimore, there to begin at the beginning among a strange people.

I ask you " Ball was struck speechless for an instant and then he interrupted her.

"Why, what do you mean, Janet," he cried, "What can you mean? Do you want me to ruin myself? Do you want me to desert my friends? Have you no feeling for my own people? What of you and of me? Is it all to be lost for a foolish woman's whim ?"

She did not change color under this attack.

"You said you would do for me anything I asked," she said coldly, "Am I

3

to understand by that statement just now repeated by yourself that what you say is not what you mean? That you will not do what you say you will do?"

He jumped from the step to the pavement below and walked up and down in front of her as if he were a caged beast under the lash.

"You do not know what you are saying," he exclaimed. "You, a girl. to demand this of me. It is silly, preposterous; it will make me the laughing stock of the town and will mark you as a dangerous flirt who would ruin a man simply to show her power over him."

"That is not the question. I have asked you to give up everything here and go to Baltimore to make a new beginning. I ask again that you do this for my sake, seeing that you have said you would do anything for me I asked, and that you do not return here or communicate with any one. You are to be for two years dead to what may be here. As for myself, I shall go on as I have gone on in the past. At the end of two years you may return. Now, what will you do?"

It was a tremendous question for a man to decide, but there was in Frederick Ball's nature that quality of chivalry which has made poetry and song and love, and with a sudden resolve he stood up before this girl calmly asking so much of him.

"Janet," he said almost fiercely, "what I have said I would do, that will I do. Good night," and he stepped lightly down and hurried away in the darkness.

The girl's eyes glistened and her face shone, with a feeling of triumph, shall it be said?-as the young man walked rapidly down the quiet street, his footsteps striking the time as a soldier's who goes away to battle and victory.

But was she glad?

A year had gone by and the wonder of Frederick Ball's disappearance had given place to other wonders as soon as it was known that he and Janet had quarreled and he had gone away broken hearted. That was the way the story went and Janet said nothing to make it a different story. As for Frederick, he was interdicted. He could say nothing in defense or explanation. He loved