THE COURIER.
11
A BABY'S VOICE.
Jt is an admitted fact that in tbo
matter of self-sale and barter mobt
women can be wicked very gracefully.
Having received through Hymen, agent,
the awards of Mammon, they smile and
wear good clothes, and only a few die of
broken hearts, while none is so register
ed in their burial certificates. But,
once in a while, with all good intention
to be gracefully, contentedly and smil
ingly wicked, same woman broaks down
in her role.
Such n catastrrpho overtook Corinno
Jamison in the fifth year of her married
life. She had gone into it with her
eyes wide open and she had meant to
march on bravely to the end. She had
detested old Sergius Jamison from the
first time boo knew that ho had pitted
his gold against her beauty and birth
and poverty, and she bad fairly loathed
him when he took her hand at the
altar to slip thereon the little link that
was to chafe and fret and weigh down
until it waB more galling and heavy
than a hundred-weight of iron chains.
But she had married him, and on
his part he had paid royally all that she
had asked. He had dressed her like a
queen; her home was tbo most elegant
in a city of elegant homes; her servants
were numerous and well-trained; her
carriages and horses beyond criticism.
He had given her brother Herbert his
course at Harvard and sent Jonne to
Fans to Maichesi where Jecne had
basely turned her bank on Song and
wedded an English lord, a proceeding
of which her gonerouB brother-in-law
highly approved, and testified thereunto
substantially by the magniflcance of
her trousseau.
Thinking over all these things it
almort seemed aa if he had done enough
to be forgiven being himself. What if
he did say 'I seen" and pick bis teeth
at table in an emphatic way and adver
tise loudly that he wbb taking soup;
what if hie entire conversation was one
of unending recital 'of what he" had and
how he bad made it; what if his jokes
were coarse and his anecdotes vulgar
and his caresses after wine were nauBe
ating in their lewdness? He had paid
and paid royally, nobody could deny.
But there was something on her aide,
too, she thought; she, too, bad paid.
The boy, four ears old now he had
squared accounts; it was in the hope of
such compensation that the man bad
made the bargain. She knew that, and
he had had his desire granted. There
was an heir to all the wealth of Sergius
Jamison; a son whose every feature
duplicated his father; a son who, at four
years old, fairly revelled in display and
who bid fair to spend his father's
millions in no quiet fashion. There
had been very little of the mother feel
ing in the biith of her son; she had felt
crushed under the humiliation of the
terms of her sale and had feverishly
yearned to balance the ledger of obliga
tion; through months she bad agonized
lest the child be not a son and her joy
in his advent was only the joy of a
woman who had cancelled a debt. Of
the spontaneous maternal love, which
even a mare displays toward her colt or
a lioness toward her whelps, she bad
felt not a throb toward the boy. He
was his father incarnate and the at
mosphere of the father that enveloped
the child repelled the affection that the
ordinary mother would have felt in
Bpite of environments.
With the sense of the debt almost, if
dA entirely paid, she had lost her bold
on her role; it had been harder every
year to weBr her clotbea smilingly and
gracefully to carry her chains. When
the little girl bad come, eighteen
months before, she had gathered ber to
her heart n a passionate outburst of
mother love, deep enough and strong
enaugh to bring, for a time, forgetful
noes of the father. But after that it
bad seemed a crucilixion to be a wifo,
even in a mask.
Sho had lost her powor of gracious
subservience to bis moods; she had even
let him boo the contempt she felt for bis
braggadocio and he had lot her, in turn,
feel the iron hand of ownership. De
tecting her passion for the one child
and her indifference towards the other
he had lopt no opportunity of hurting
her pride and mothor-lovo by disparag
ing and neglocting tho one while heap
ing benefits upon tho other; and go it
had gono on daily for eighteen months,
until now tho woman hml lot slip from
her grasp every vestige of powor to bold
her part in tho drama.
So Hho had thought it all over and
brought horself up to tbo pilch of reso
lution: "God required no more than ono
could stand," she thought, "and if it
got to the place where tbo Eternal
Beyond had less torror than the Certain
Present, then God knew that tho limit
was reached and would be merciful
accordingly. She could not go on in
this way any longer; she could not even
be a make believe wife and she would
not be the mother of any more of
Sorgius Jamison's children. She bad
given value received for tbo price he
had paid and now tbey were quits. As
to tho children, it was not like she was u
mother that was needed; there was
money enough to buy every care that
was necessary. In the matter of mother
love the little girl was young enough
soon to get over missing it and the boy
for the first something like mother-love
for him wrenched ber heartstrings into
a vibration of pain; well," bitterly, "he
had never known it to mise; she had
made up ber mind; after all, it was not
bard, and" here she actually smiled
"was it not a most fitting finale that one
who had sold herself, a slave in Hymen's
mart, should choose coward's death?''
Then she went about her preparations
very calmly, as calmly, she recollected,
(ib when she had robed herself for her
brHal five years before. There should
be no scandal to reflect upon tho chil
dren in after yenra; a convenient
neuralgia, an overdose of morphino, a
shocking accident, a gorgeous funeral
and it was all over. And bo she was
almost deferential to ber husband at
dinner, where a number of guests were
assembled, acd but for a neuralgic
headache, which increased as the even
ing wore on, would have been in higher
spirits than her hueband had ever seen
ber. The headache at last was the
palpable cause of her early withdrawal
from her guests, protesting that the
pain was nothing serious and would
disappear by morning. Shi would not
trust herself, as was her nightly custom,
to go through the baby's nursery, which
opened into her own room and whose
door was always ajar, but walked
straight into her own apartment, press
ing her bands to her throbbing temples,
whose simulated ache had grown into a
real agony of pain. She disrobed me
chanically and shook the white powder
into the glass and turned toward the
carafe for wa'er. A rustling behind her
made ber pause and look around. There
framed in the curtains of the doorway,
in ber little, white gown, with her 9yes
heavy with sleep and her red lips
all atremble, stood her baby-git 1.
"Mudder," Bbe said, "Baby wants
mudder."
The woman put down the carafe and
tumbler and kneeling down, in a passion
of tears, caught up the little creature
and rooked her on her bosom. "You
shall bav9 mother, too," she sobbed and
whispered; "we will go together, you
and 1."
In that moment she knew that she
could not leave the child; that nothing,
nothing, was or ever could be to much
to ber as the clinging arms of the baby
that "wanted mother," and so, without
faltering in' her resolution, as regarded
herself, she reached out further to add
to tbo crim against herself that one of
all others at which mankind turns sick
and which wo call Murder.
"Yes," Bho thought, as Bho moved
backward and forward with tho gold of
tho child's hair catching the light of
tho gaB, "they would, go together; it
didn't matter if thoro was a scandal;
tho boy would not Buffor, being a boy,
and Bho could novor go, now, out into
that alluring Boyond with hor baby's
cry in hor ears. Sho could not bo at
noace, oven in paradise, without bor
baby.'' And then, hh sho hold hor and
kissod the littlo rosy palms, thoro camo
back to hor mind something that re
peated and ropoatod itsolf over and ovor
again, something about tho "Pure in
hoart shall see God.' "You will, ray
littlo one," sho whisperod ovor tho
goldon head, and then a groat horror
came upon hor. What if thoy did "go
together" and the puro was separated
from tho impure, and hor arms woro
loosened and tho child was taken away
where purity might bask in tho prosonco
li&lDmiJiw?&p-'!aaamtpnamaw
r
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