Dorothy Harcourt's secret : $b Sequel to "A deed without a name"Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
General
Dorothy Harcourt's secret : $b Sequel to "A deed without a name"
Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
American fiction -- 19th century
One afternoon in the early days of May, just as the sun was setting
clear behind the hills of New Jersey, Mrs. Gilbert undressed Owlet, put
her to bed, and then went down to her tea and her two hours’ gossip.
Soon after Hanson came in, dressed for a party, and kissed Owlet good
night. She heard him leave the room, and then she got out of bed and
dressed herself in her very best clothes, and put on her prettiest coral
necklace and armlets, and her finest hat, made up a little bundle of
clothes and pinned them in a paper, and then left the room and went
down—not by the elevator, but by the stairs—and passed from the house
through the “ladies’ entrance,” without attracting any attention from
anyone but the porter, who opened the door for her, without any
suspicion that there was anything irregular in her going out in that
self-possessed, matter-of-fact manner.
The gas had just been lighted on the streets, and the scene was very
brilliant. The shops were fairy palaces. But Owlet did not stop to look
at any of them, she was much too eager to hurry to “Lady.”
She had no idea of the distance that separated her from her beloved.
Goblin Hall was out of the city among the trees somewhere. And people
must know where it was, and she would inquire for it, as soon as she
should see some one who was not in such an awful hurry as all the folks
seemed to be on this street.
The Owlet of a month before would not have hesitated to stop the busiest
man on the sidewalk and ask to be directed, but the Owlet of to-day was
sad, subdued and timid, and so she walked a long distance down Broadway,
until she came in sight of the trees in City Hall Park, and was ready to
drop with fatigue, for she was still very weak. She had not found
courage to speak to any of the crowd, until, at length, she saw an old
woman, very old, very dirty, and very ragged, sitting on a cellar door,
against the wall of a house, and with a huge bundle of foul smelling
rags on her lap.
Owlet only perceived the poverty, and not the wickedness of the
personality before her. She said to herself:
“This old woman is not proud, nor busy, nor in a hurry. I will ask her,
and I reckon she will know; and when I get to Goblin Hall I will have
Lady give her some new clothes, and some——”
Then she stopped before the wretch, and said:
“Please, ma’am, will you show me the way to Goblin Hall?”
“Goblet which?” demanded the crone, who seemed to be rather deaf.
“Goblin Hall.”
“Oh! Goblet Hall! I dunno sich a place. Is it a s’loon or mus’um?”
“I don’t know what is a s’loon or mus’um, ma’am. Goblin Hall is a fine
house where Lady lives. It has trees, and flowers, and chickens and
Ducky Darling. And, please, I am lost, and can’t find it.”
“Oh! you are lost?” inquired the crone, devouring, with her eyes the
rich dress, the fine hat and the coral trinkets worn by the child, and
the bundle carried in her hand.
“Yes, ma’am, please, lost; and I want to go home.”
“Where did you say you wanted to go to?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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