An Apache Princess | Page 7

own our limitations are so
obvious. Fond as she had become of Angela's sweet young mother, it
must be owned that whom Janet loved in this way she often chastened.
Neighbors swore it was not grief, nor illness, half so much as
sister-in-law, that wore the gentle spirit to the snapping-point. The great
strong heart of the soldier was well-nigh broken at his loss, and Janet,
who had never seen him shed a tear since early boyhood, stood for once,
at least, in awe and trembling at sight of his awful grief. Time and
nature played their part and brought him, gradually, resignation, but
never genuine solace. He turned to little Angela with almost passionate
love and tenderness. He would, mayhap, have spoiled her had not
frontier service kept him so much afield that it was Janet who really
reared her,--but not according to the strict letter of her law. Wren knew
well what that was and forbade.

Misfortunes came to Janet Wren while yet a comely woman of
thirty-five. She could have married, and married well, a comrade
captain in her brother's regiment; but him, at least, she held to be her
own, and, loving him with genuine fervor and devotion, she sought to
turn him in all things to her serious views of life, its manifold duties
and responsibilities. She had her ideal of what a man should be--a
monarch among other men, but one knowing no God but her God, no
creed but her creed, no master but Duty, no mistress but herself, and no
weakness whatsoever. A braver, simpler, kinder soul than her captain
there dwelt not in the service of his country, but he loved his pipe, his
song, his dogs, his horses, his troop, and certain soldier ways that,
during his convalescence from wounds, she had not had opportunity to
observe. She had nursed him back to life and love and, unwittingly, to
his former harmless habits. These all she would have had him forswear,
not for her sake so much, she said, but because they were in themselves
sinful and beneath him. She sought to train him down too fine for the
rugged metal of the veteran soldier, and the fabric snapped in her hands.
She had sent him forth sore-hearted over her ceaseless importunity. She
had told him he must not only give up all his ways, but, if he would
make her happy, he must put the words of Ruth into his mouth, and that
ended it. He transferred into another corps when she broke with him;
carried his sore heart to the Southern plains, and fell in savage battle
within another month.
Not long thereafter her little fortune, invested according to the views of
a spiritual rather than a temporal adviser,--and much against her
brother's wishes,--went the way of riches that have wings, and now,
dependent solely upon him, welcomed to his home and fireside, she
nevertheless strove to dominate as of yore. He had had to tell her
Angela could not and should not be subjected to such restraints as the
sister would have prescribed, but so long as he was the sole victim he
whimsically bore it without vehement protest. "Convert me all you can,
Janet, dear," he said, "but don't try to reform the whole regiment. It's
past praying for."
Now, when other women whispered to her that while Mrs. Plume had
been a belle in St. Louis and Mr. Blakely a young society beau, the

magnitude of their flirtation had well-nigh stopped her marriage, Miss
Wren saw opportunity for her good offices and, so far from avoiding,
she sought the society of the major's brooding wife. She even felt a
twinge of disappointment when the young officer appeared, and after
the initial thirty-six hours under the commander's roof, rarely went
thither at all. She knew her brother disapproved of him, and thought it
to be because of moral, not military, obliquity. She saw with instant
apprehension his quick interest in Angela and the child's almost
unconscious response. With the solemn conviction of the maiden who,
until past the meridian, had never loved, she looked on Angela as far
too young and immature to think of marrying, yet too shallow, vain and
frivolous, too corrupted, in fact, by that pernicious society school--not
to shrink from flirtations that might mean nothing to the man but would
be damnation to the girl. Even the name of this big, blue-eyed,
fair-skinned young votary of science had much about it that made her
fairly bristle, for she had once been described as an "austere vestal" by
Lieutenant Blake, of the regiment preceding them at Sandy, the ----th
Cavalry--and a mutual friend had told her all about it--another handicap
for Blakely. She had grown, it must be admitted, somewhat gaunt and
forbidding in these