Mae Madden | Page 5

by, and I look to the rosy dawn. . . . .
I shall leave you here,
with a leader fair;
One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth.
She
shall lead you on through that Italy
That the gods have loved; and
may it be
A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand,
You wander the

warm and the careless love-land.
XIX.
By the windy waters of the Michigan
She invokes the gods. . . . Be it
bright or dim,
Who does his endeavor as best he can
Does bravely,
indeed. The rest is with Him.
Let a new star dance in the Occident

Till it shakes through the gossamer floors of God
And shines, o'er
Chicago. . . The Orient
Is hoar with glories. Let Illini sod
Bear
glory as well as the gleaming grain,
And engines smoking along her
plain.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
CHICAGO, NOV., 1875.
MAE MADDEN.
CHAPTER I.
SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer.
Characters. Mrs. Jerrold, matron
and chaperon in general.
Edith Jerrold, her daughter.
Albert
Madden, a young man on study intent.
Eric, his brother, on pleasure
bent.
Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of the
Maddens. Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady.
"It's something like dying, I do declare," said Mae, and as she spoke a
suspicious-looking drop slid softly across her cheek, down over the
deck-railing, to join its original briny fellows in the deep below.
"What is like dying?" asked Eric.
"Why, leaving the only world you know. There, you see, papa and
mamma are fast fading away, and here we are traveling off at the rate
of ever so many miles an hour."
"Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea."

"Away from everything and everybody we know. I do really think it is
like dying,--don't you, Mr. Mann?" Mae turned abruptly and faced the
young man by her side.
"People aren't apt to die in batches or by the half-dozen,' he replied,
coolly. "If you were all by yourself, it would be more like it, I suppose,
but you are taking quite a slice of your own world along with you, and
really--"
"And really pity is the very last article I have any use for. You are right.
I was only sorry for the moment. 'Eastward Ho' is a very happy cry.
How differently we shall all take Europe," she continued, in a moment.
"There is Albert, I honestly believe he will live in his Baedeker just
because he can see no further than the covers of a book. You need not
laugh, for it is a fact that people confined for years to a room can't see
beyond its limits when they are taken out into broader space, and I don't
see why it shouldn't be the same with a man who lives in his books as
Albert does."
"He sees the world in his books," said Mr. Mann, with a little spirit.
"He gets a microscopic view of it, yes," replied Mae,
grandiloquently,
"and Edith--"
"Always sees just what he does," suggested Eric maliciously.
"Now, boys," said Miss Mae, assuming suddenly a mighty patronage,
"I will not have you hit at Albert and Edith in this way. It will be very
annoying to them. They have a right to act just as absurdly as they
choose. We none of us know how people who are falling in love would
act."
No, the boys agreed this was quite true.
"And I really do suppose they are falling in love, don't you?" queried
Mae.
Yes, they did both believe it.

Just here, up came the two subjects of conversation, looking, it must be
confessed, as much like one subject as any man and wife.
"What are you talking of?" asked Edith, "Madame Tussaud or a French
salad? No matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a foreign
flavor."
"There you are mistaken," replied the frank Eric, "we were
discussing
you two people, in the most homelike kind of a way."
At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae scowled at Eric, who
opened his eyes amazedly, Norman Mann looked over the deck railing
and laughed, the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed near by, and there
was a grand tableau vivant for a few seconds.
"O, come," cried Mae, "suppose we stop looking like a set of
illustrations for a phrenological journal, expressive of the various
emotions. I was only speculating on the different sights we should see
in the same places. Confess, now, Albert. Won't your eyes be forever
hunting out old musty, dusty volumes? Will not books be your first
pleasures in the sight-seeing line?"
"O, no, pictures," cried Edith.
"That is as you say," Mae demurely agreed. "Pictures and books for
you two at any rate."
"And churches."
"For your mother, yes, and beer-gardens for Eric, and amphitheatres
and battle fields for Mr. Mann."
"And for yourself?"
"The blue, blue bay of Naples, a