Lippincotts Magazine, January 1875 | Page 7

age--a plot worthy of Thackeray. If I
could have succeeded in mutilating the statue in the graveyard, I might
have carried it, while you would have admired my act of iconoclasm
with all your Puritan nature. In the momentary abandonment of my
plans, owing to the machinations of my enemies, you will conceive that
I am not very rich. My college-debts and other expenses I am obliged
to leave for your kind attention. The main point of this letter, which M.
Fortnoye has persuaded me to set down as distinctly as in my present
feeble state I can, is that Francine is a pretty little maid who has never
passed by Gretna Green. There! that is my _credo_, and I will subscribe
to it,
"Your loving nephew, JOHN.
"P. S. Address, with such an enclosure as your generosity will prompt,
JEAN K. FFARINA, sole representative and cosmetical chemist in
America on behalf of the Farinas of Cologne, at New Orleans where I
am going to beat my adversaries like Old HIC--"

At this point the tipsy scrawl became illegible.
"This is not a very handsome apology. Did Fortnoye accept it?" I asked,
turning over the clammy and malodorous epistle. At this inquiry the
crack of the door widened and Charles appeared, on fire with
enthusiasm, and so possessed with self-importance that he forgot the
betrayal of his indiscretion.
"I can reply to that question," said Charles. "When M. Fortnoye
received the paper from the duelist he read it over and said, 'You have
meant to impose on me, monsieur, with an incomplete confession. But,
in return for your imperfect restoration of Mademoiselle Joliet's portrait,
you have unconsciously set down such a masterpiece of yourself that I
am certain your aunt will see you as she never did before.'"
Charles, having thus added himself to our cabal without rebuke, took a
lively interest in what followed. The proud father continued: "My
son-in-law, after some business preliminaries, wrote me a handsome
letter demanding what he had already effectively possessed himself of.
I wrote to Francine, already returned to her duties, to be a good girl and
make her husband obey her in all things."
"That may have been," said I, "what made Francine take to laughing all
day and all night, as I heard she did some little time after my departure
from her house. The next news of her," I pursued, "was that she had
been spirited away by some sly old kidnapper. I almost suspected
Kranich."
"The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laughing heartily at the compliment,
"is the man now talking to you. I wanted to take Francine to her
godmother. I turned the key in the door at Carlsruhe, set the
geographers all upon their travels to explore new worlds, and we have
been living ever since quite close to Madame Kranich, who treats me
like an emperor."
It was easy now to understand why the young Kranich, as soon as he
could identify me as a protector of Francine, had been thrown off his
guard and tempted to attack me with his clumsy abuse. It was not very
mysterious, even, why he had wished all handsome girls to be drowned
in the Rhine. For him a pretty damsel was simply a rival in trade.
[Illustration: READING THE CONTRACT.]
Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I should have
encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of Mary Ashburleigh. It

was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused at that resort, considering her
introduction to Frau Kranich almost indispensable to the success of his
scheme. She had no hesitation in following the protecting angel of her
lost child. "My object in this journey is a happy marriage," she had told
me when to my unworthy care her guardianship had been transferred. If
I timorously suspected the marriage to be her own, whose fault was it
but mine? My heart leaped up at the successive stages of this recital, its
hopes confirmed by every additional fact: the Dark Ladye's hand was
certainly free. Fortnoye, I should surmise, was not too desirous to
abandon this magnificent companion at Schwetzingen; but the serpent,
he knew, was left behind, in company with two or three of his and my
friends: it was necessary to take the youth by the ear, as it were, and
dismiss him from the country, without loss of time, to his future of
counter-jumping. His dueling experience may be of some use to him
among the bowie-knives of Louisiana. If his subsequent path is not
strewn with roses, let him rejoice that it is at least lubricated with
cologne-water.
[Illustration: INTERRUPTED REPOSE.]
An hour had passed, and into my room from his own adjoining one
now ambled amicably my friend the baron. He greeted Joliet as an old
friend.