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Jack's Ward, a fiction by Horatio Alger |
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Chapter 11. Miss Harding's Mistake |
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_ CHAPTER XI. MISS HARDING'S MISTAKE Miss Rachel Harding kept on her way to Washington Park. It was less than a mile from her brother's house, and though she walked slowly, she got there a quarter of an hour before the time. She sat down on a seat near the center of the park, and began to look around her. Poor Rachel! her heart beat quicker than it had done for thirty years, as she realized that she was about to meet one who wished to make her his wife. "I hope he won't be late," she murmured to herself, and she felt of the blue ribbon to make sure that she had not forgotten it. Meanwhile Jack reached the park, and from a distance surveyed with satisfaction the evident nervousness of his aunt. "Ain't it rich?" he whispered to himself. Rachel looked anxiously for the gentleman with the red rose pinned to his coat. She had to wait ten minutes. At last he came, but as he neared her seat, Rachel felt like sinking into the earth with mortification when she recognized in the wearer a stalwart negro. She hoped that it was a mere chance coincidence, but he approached her, and raising his hat respectfully, said: "Are you Miss Harding?" "What if I am?" she demanded, sharply. "What have you to do with me?" The man looked surprised. "Didn't you send word to me to meet you here?" "No!" answered Rachel, "and I consider it very presumptuous in you to write such a letter to me." "I didn't write you a letter," said the negro, astonished. "Then what made you come here?" demanded the spinster. "Because you wrote to me." "I wrote to you!" exclaimed Rachel, aghast. "Yes, you wrote to me to come here. You said you'd wear a blue ribbon on your neck, and I was to have a rose pinned to my coat." Rachel was bewildered. "How could I write to you when I never saw you before, and don't know your name. Do you think a lady like me would marry a colored man?" "Who said anything about that?" asked the other, opening his eyes wide in astonishment. "I couldn't marry, nohow, for I've got a wife and four children." Rachel felt ready to collapse. Was it possible that she had made a mistake, and that this was not her unknown correspondent, Daniel? "There is some mistake," she said, nervously. "Where is that letter you thought I wrote? Have you got it with you?" "Here it is, ma'am." He handed Rachel a letter addressed in a small hand to Daniel Thompson. She opened it and read: "Mr. Thompson: I hear you are out of work. I may be able to give you a job. Meet me at Washington Park, Tuesday afternoon, at four o'clock. I shall wear a blue ribbon round my neck, and you may have a red rose pinned to your coat. Otherwise I might not know you. "RACHEL HARDING."
"You didn't!" said Daniel, looking perplexed. "Who went and did it, then?" "I don't know, but I'd like to have him punished for it," said Rachel, energetically. "But you've got a blue ribbon," said Mr. Thompson. "I can't see through that. That's just what the letter said." "I suppose somebody wrote the letter that knew I wear blue. It's all a mistake. You'd better go home." "Then haven't you got a job for me?" asked Daniel, disappointed. "No, I haven't," said Rachel, sharply. She hurriedly untied the ribbon from her neck, and put it in her pocket. "Don't talk to me any more!" she said, frowning. "You're a perfect stranger. You have no right to speak to me." "I guess the old woman ain't right in her head!" thought Daniel. "Must be she's crazy!" Poor Rachel! she felt more disconsolate than ever. There was no Daniel, then. She had been basely imposed upon. There was no call for her to sacrifice herself on the altar of matrimony. She ought to have been glad, but she wasn't. Half an hour later a drooping, disconsolate figure entered the house of Timothy Harding. "Why, what's the matter, Rachel?" asked Martha, who noticed her woe-begone expression. "I ain't long for this world," said Rachel, gloomily. "Death has marked me for his own." "Don't you feel well this afternoon, Rachel?" "No; I feel as if life was a burden." "You have tired yourself with walking, Rachel. You have been out twice to-day." "This is a vale of tears," said Rachel, hysterically. "There's nothin' but sorrow and misfortune to be expected." "Have you met with any misfortune? I thought fortune was smiling upon us all." "It'll never smile on me again," said Rachel, despondently. Just then Jack, who had followed his aunt home, entered. "Have you got home so quick, Aunt Rachel?" he asked. "How did you enjoy your walk?" "I shall never enjoy anything again," said his aunt, gloomily. "Why not?" "Because there's nothing to enjoy." "I don't feel so, aunt. I feel as merry as a cricket." "You won't be long. Like as not you'll be took down with fever to-morrow, and maybe die." "I won't trouble myself about it till the time comes," said Jack. "I expect to live to dance at your wedding yet, Aunt Rachel." This reference was too much. It brought to Rachel's mind the Daniel to whom she had expected to link her destiny, and she burst into a dismal sob, and hurried upstairs to her own chamber. "Rachel acts queerly to-day," said Mrs. Harding. "I think she can't be feeling well. If she don't feel better to-morrow I shall advise her to send for the doctor." "I am afraid it was mean to play such a trick on Aunt Rachel," thought Jack, half repentantly. "I didn't think she'd take it so much in earnest. I must keep dark about that letter. She'd never forgive me if she knew." For some days there was an added gloom on Miss Rachel's countenance, but the wound was not deep; and after a time her disappointment ceased to rankle in her too sensitive heart. _ |
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