Adrift in New York Part 14

"Yes; but I would rather earn my living some other way, if possible."

"Small blame to you for that. I had a girl in Dodger's room last year who used to sew for a livin'. Early and late she worked, poor thing, and she couldn't make but two dollars a week."

"How could she live?" asked Florence, startled, for she knew very little of the starvation wages paid to toiling women.

"She didn't live. She just faded away, and it's my belief the poor thing didn't get enough to eat. Every day or two I'd make an excuse to take her in something from my own table, a plate of meat, or a bit of toast and a cup of tay, makin' belave she didn't get a chance to cook for herself, but she got thinner and thinner, and her poor cheeks got hollow, and she died in the hospital at last."

The warm-hearted apple-woman wiped away a tear with the corner of her ap.r.o.n, as she thought of the poor girl whose sad fate she described.

"You won't die of consumption, Mrs. O'Keefe," said Dodger. "It'll take a good while for you to fade away."

"Hear him now," said the apple-woman, laughing. "He will have his joke, Miss Florence, but he's a good bye for all that, and I'm glad he's goin' to lave Tim Bolton, that ould thafe of the worruld."

"Now, Mrs. O'Keefe, you know you'd marry Tim if he'd only ask you."

"Marry him, is it? I'd lay my broom over his head if he had the impudence to ask me. When Maggie O'Keefe marries ag'in, she won't marry a man wid a red nose."

"Break it gently to him, Mrs. O'Keefe. Tim is just the man to break his heart for love of you."

Mrs. O'Keefe aimed a blow at Dodger, but he proved true to his name, and skillfully evaded it.

"I must be goin'," he said. "I've got to work, or I can't pay room rent when the week comes round."

"What are you going to do, Dodger?" asked Florence.

"It isn't time for the evenin' papers yet, so I shall go 'round to the piers and see if I can't get a job at smashin' baggage."

"But I shouldn't think any one would want to do that," said Florence, puzzled.

"It's what we boys call it. It's just carryin' valises and bundles.

Sometimes I show strangers the way to Broadway. Last week an old man paid me a dollar to show him the way to the Cooper Inst.i.tute. He was a gentleman, he was. I'd like to meet him ag'in. Good-by, Miss Florence; I'll be back some time this afternoon."

"And I must be goin', too," said Mrs. O'Keefe. "I can't depend on that Kitty; she's a wild slip of a girl, and just as like as not I'll find a dozen apples stole when I get back. I hope you won't feel lonely, my dear."

"I think I will lie down a while," said Florence. "I have a headache."

She threw herself on the bed, and a feeling of loneliness and desolation came over her.

Her new friends were kind, but they could not make up to her for her uncle's love, so strangely lost, and the home she had left behind.

Chapter X.

The Arch Conspirator.

In the house on Madison Avenue, Curtis Waring was left in possession of the field. Through his machinations Florence had been driven from home and disinherited.

He was left sole heir to his uncle's large property with the prospect of soon succeeding, for though only fifty-four, John Linden looked at least ten years older, and was as feeble as many men past seventy.

Yet, as Curtis seated himself at the breakfast table an hour after Florence had left the house, he looked far from happy or triumphant.

One thing he had not succeeded in, the conquest of his cousin's heart.

Though he loved himself best, he was really in love with Florence, so far as he was capable of being in love with any one.

She was only half his age--scarcely that--but he persuaded himself that the match was in every way suitable.

He liked to fancy her at the head of his table, after the death of his uncle, which he antic.i.p.ated in a few months at latest.

The more she appeared to dislike him, the more he determined to marry her, even against her will.

She was the only one likely to inherit John Linden's wealth, and by marrying her he would make sure of it.

Yet she had been willing to leave the home of her youth, to renounce luxury for a life of poverty, rather than to marry him.

When he thought of this his face became set and its expression stern and determined.

"Florence shall yet be mine," he declared, resolutely. "I will yet be master of her fate, and bend her to my will. Foolish girl, how dare she match her puny strength against the resolute will of Curtis Waring?"

"Was there any one else whom she loved?" he asked himself, anxiously.

No, he could think of none. On account of his uncle's chronic invalidism, they had neither gone into society, nor entertained visitors, and in the midst of a great city Florence and her uncle had practically led the lives of recluses.

There had been no opportunity to meet young men who might have proved claimants for her hand.

"When did Miss Florence leave the house, Jane?" he inquired, as he seated himself at the table.

"Most an hour since," the girl answered, coldly, for she disliked Curtis as much as she loved and admired Florence.

"It is sad, very sad that she should be so headstrong," said Curtis, with hypocritical sorrow.

"It is sad for her to go away from her own uncle's house," returned Jane.

"And very--very foolish."

"I don't know about that, sir. She had her reasons," said Jane, significantly.

Curtis coughed.

He had no doubt that Florence had talked over the matter with her hand-maiden.

"Did she say where she was going, Jane?" he asked.

"I don't think the poor child knew herself, sir."

"Did she go alone?"

"No, sir; the boy that was here last night called for her."