The Actress' Daughter Part 48

"My dear Mr. Curtis, I am truly glad to see you again," said Georgia, in a faltering voice--"more rejoiced than I have words to say."

"And this gentleman! I'll bet you a dollar, now, you'll say you don't know him," said Mr. Curtis, rubbing his hands gleefully.

"Not so, sir," said Georgia, taking a step forward and looking up in the pale agitated face of Mr. Randall, every feature of which was familiar to her now. "My dear, my long-lost brother! My dearest Warren!" And with a great cry she sprang forward and was locked in her brother's arms.

"Georgia! Georgia! my sister!" was all he could say, as he strained her to his breast, and tears, which did honor to his manly heart, dropped on her bowed head.

"Huzza! hip, hip, hurrah! it's all right now!" shouted Mr. Curtis, as he flourished round the room in a frantic extempore waltz of most intense delight, and then, in the exuberance of his joy, he seized hold of the astounded Mr. Leonard and fairly hugged him, in his ecstacy:

"Help! help! murder! fire!" yelled Mr. Leonard, struggling frantically in what he supposed to be the grasp of a maniac.

"There! take it easy, old gentleman!" said Mr. Curtis, releasing him, and cutting a pigeon's wing. "Tol-de-rol-de-riddle-lol! Don't raise such an awful row! Ain't there a picture to look at, my hearty? Hurrah! Oh, how happy I feel! And to think that I should have been the means of bringing them together--I, d.i.c.k Curtis, that never did anything right before in my life! Good gracious! Tol-de-rol---- h.e.l.lo? Where are you going so fast, old gent?"

Mr. Leonard, the moment he found himself free, had seized his hat, and was about to decamp, in the full feeling that a lunatic asylum had broken loose somewhere, when Georgia, looking up, espied him, and said:

"Mr. Leonard, don't go. My best friend must stay and share in my joy this happy day. Can you guess who this is?" she said, laying her hand fondly on her brother's shoulder, and looking up in his face, with a smile shining through her tears.

"Guess!" said Mr. Leonard, testily--"I don't need to _guess_, young lady. I know well enough it's young Randall, and I must say, although he _is_ a namesake of yours, it doesn't look well to see you flying into his arms and hugging him in that manner the moment he comes into the house. No more does it look well for d.i.c.k Curtis to take hold of me like a bear, and dislocate every rib I have in the world, as he has done."

"No, I haven't, Mr. Leonard," interrupted d.i.c.k; "there's Mrs. Leonard, your chief rib--I haven't dislocated her, have I?"

Mr. Leonard's look of deepest disgust was so irresistible that d.i.c.k broke off and burst into a fit of immoderate laughter, snapping his fingers, and throwing his body into all sorts of contortions of delight, and his example proving contagious, both Mr. Randall and Georgia followed it, and all three laughed without being able to stop for nearly five minutes, during which Mr. Leonard stood, hat in hand, looking from one to the other, with a look of solemn dismay unspeakably ridiculous.

"Do not be shocked, Mr. Leonard," said Georgia, as soon as she could speak for laughter, "though really you are not so without cause. Did I not tell you I would surprise you oftener than you thought? Mr. Randall is my own, my only, long-lost brother."

"Her brother! Oh, ginger!" muttered Mr. Leonard, completely bewildered.

"I might have known two such geniuses must be related to one another."

"For all you have kindly done for my sister, Mr. Leonard, accept my thanks," said Mr. Randall, as he came forward, with a smile, and shook him heartily by the hand.

"Well, what a go this is, anyway!" said Mr. Curtis, meditatively. "Only to think of it! And all through me--or, rather, through little Emily's picture! Why, it's wonderful! downright wonderful!--ain't it, Mrs.

Wildair?"

"Mrs. Wildair!" exclaimed Mr. Leonard, looking from d.i.c.k to Georgia with wide-open eyes. Then, as a sudden light broke in upon him. "Why, Heaven bless my soul!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Sure enough, they told me Randall's sister was Wildair's wife--the one that ran away. Great Jehosaphat! to think she should turn up again in such a remarkably funny way, and should prove to be our Miss Randall! I've a good mind to swear!--upon my life, I have!"

"And all through me, too, Mr. Leonard," said Mr. Curtis, exultingly; "if it hadn't been for me they might have gone poking round the world till doomsday and not found one another. If I don't deserve a service of tin plate, I shall feel obliged to you to let me know who does."

"Land of life and blessed promise!" exclaimed Mr. Leonard, who had originally come from "away down East," and when excited always broke out into the expletives of his boyhood, "how do you like it? Do tell, Curtis."

"Well, you see," began Mr. Curtis, with the air of one entering into an obtuse narrative, "Randall--_his_ name's Darrell, but that's neither here nor there; 'what's in a name,' as that nice man, Mr. Shakespeare, says, or, rather, as he makes Miss Juliet Capulet say when speaking of young Mr. R. Montague, her beau. Randall, as I was saying, got hold of a picture of little Emily--I mean Miss Murray, a friend of mine--drawn by Mrs. Wildair there, while residing in your house and doing the governess dodge under the name of Randall too, which turns out to be a family name after all, and one day he accidentally showed it to me, and if I didn't jump six feet when I saw it, then call me a flat, that's all. Of course, I asked him no end of questions and found out where he got it, and then it was all as clear to me as a hole in a ladder, and I knew in a twinkling who 'Miss Randall' was. So we tore along here like a couple of forty-horse-power comets, and, after a whole day of most awful bother, we found out where she was. And here we came, and here we found her, and so, no more at present from yours respectfully, d.i.c.k Curtis." And Mr.

Curtis made a feint of holding out an imaginary dress, like an old lady in a minuet, and courtesied profoundly to the company around.

"My dear Miss Ran--I mean my dear Mrs. Wildair, allow me to congratulate you," said Mr. Leonard, his face all in a glow of delight as he shook her warmly by the hand, "upon my life, I never was so glad in all my days. Good gracious! to think you should turn out to be such a great lady after serving as governess in our---- Well, well, well! And that you should find your brother the same day you took the prize for the best picture in the Academy of Art. G-o-o-d gracious!" said Mr. Leonard, with a perfect shake on the word.

"What! Georgia taken the prize? It can't be possible that _you_ are the successful candidate whose wonderful picture everybody is talking about?" exclaimed her brother, whose turn it was to be astonished.

"Mr. Leonard says so," said she, smiling.

"Oh, Jupiter!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Curtis, thrusting his hands into his pockets and uttering a long, low whistle, indicative of an unlimited amount of amazement, "and you really and truly painted 'Hagar in the Wilderness?'"

"Yes, I really and truly did," smiled Georgia.

"Well," said Mr. Curtis, in a tone of resignation, "all I have to say is that nothing will surprise me after this. And that reminds me, I've quite forgotten an engagement down town, and must be off. Randall, don't you come. I know you have lots of things to say to your sister. Mr.

Leonard, you have an engagement, too--don't say no--I'm sure you have--come along. By-by, Randall, old-fellow; good-day, Mrs. Wildair.

I'll drop in again in the course of the evening. Now, Mr. Leonard, off we go!" and Mr. Curtis put his arm through Mr. Leonard's and fairly dragged him away.

"And so, instead of a poor unknown governess, I have found in my sister one with whose fame the whole city is already ringing," said Mr.

Randall, when they were alone, as he looked proudly and fondly in her beautiful face. "Dear Georgia, how famous you are."

CHAPTER XXIII.

OVER THE WORLD.

"They stood apart.

Like rocks which have been rent asunder, A dreary sea now flows between, But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder Shall wholly do away, I ween, The works of that which once hath been."

COLERIDGE.

"Oh, Warren, what is fame compared to what I have found to-day?" she said, sweetly. "What is fame, and wealth, and all worldly honors, compared to a brother's love? But one thing more is needed now to make me perfectly happy."

"I know what you mean, Georgia--your husband. Is it possible you care for _him_ still, after all he has made you suffer?"

She looked up in his face, and he was answered.

"Then, for your sake, I am sorry he has gone," he said slowly.

"Gone?" she repeated, with a paling cheek. "Gone where?"

"To France, on some important mission from government that no one can fulfill so well as himself, and--I have not the faintest idea of when he will return."

"Now that I have told you all that has befallen me," said Georgia, some half an hour later that same afternoon, as brother and sister sat side by side at the window, "I want to hear your adventures and 'hair-breadth 'scapes by flood and field' since that sad night long ago, when we parted last."

"I fear you are doomed to be disappointed, then, if you expect any such things from me," said her brother, smiling. "My life has been one of most inglorious safety so far, and I never had a hair-breadth escape of any kind, since I was born."

"How strange it is that I could ever believe you dead," said Georgia, musingly. "Miss Jerusha, too, to use her own words, constantly averred that you had 'got taken in somewheres,' and never would hear for a moment that you had perished in the storm."

"Well, Miss Jerusha was right," said Warren, "though really I need not thank her for it, as I am quite certain, from your description, she is the old lady that turned me out that same night. However, I forgive her for that, and owe her a long debt of grat.i.tude besides, for all she has done for you. You remember, of course, Georgia, the company we used to act with?"

"Yes, perfectly. Don't I remember my own performances on the tight-rope and on horseback as the 'Flying Circa.s.sian?" she said, smiling.

"Well, when the old lady turned me off that night, I never felt more like despairing in all my life. I was wretchedly clad--if you don't remember it, _I_ do--and it was bitterly cold. Still, I would not go back without help of some kind, so I staggered on and on through the blinding storm, until at last, benumbed and helpless, I sank down on the frozen ground, as I thought, never to rise again."

"Poor little fellow!" said Georgia, sadly, in whose mind the image of the slight, delicate boy he was then rose uppermost.

Warren laughed at the epithet applied to one who stood six feet without his boots, and went on: