MISS MIX.

BY CH--L--TTE BR--NTE.



CHAPTER I.

My earliest impressions are of a huge, misshapen rock, against which
the hoarse waves beat unceasingly.  On this rock three pelicans are
standing in a defiant attitude.  A dark sky lowers in the background,
while two sea-gulls and a gigantic cormorant eye with extreme disfavor
the floating corpse of a drowned woman in the foreground.  A few
bracelets, coral necklaces, and other articles of jewelry, scattered
around loosely, complete this remarkable picture.

It is one which, in some vague, unconscious way, symbolizes, to my
fancy, the character of a man.  I have never been able to explain
exactly why.  I think I must have seen the picture in some illustrated
volume, when a baby, or my mother may have dreamed it before I was born.

As a child I was not handsome.  When I consulted the triangular bit of
looking-glass which I always carried with me, it showed a pale, sandy,
and freckled face, shaded by locks like the color of seaweed when the
sun strikes it in deep water.  My eyes were said to be indistinctive;
they were a faint, ashen gray; but above them rose--my only beauty--a
high, massive, domelike forehead, with polished temples, like
door-knobs of the purest porcelain.

Our family was a family of governesses.  My mother had been one, and my
sisters had the same occupation.  Consequently, when, at the age of
thirteen, my eldest sister handed me the advertisement of Mr.
Rawjester, clipped from that day's "Times," I accepted it as my
destiny.  Nevertheless, a mysterious presentiment of an indefinite
future haunted me in my dreams that night, as I lay upon my little
snow-white bed.  The next morning, with two bandboxes tied up in silk
handkerchiefs, and a hair trunk, I turned my back upon Minerva Cottage
forever.



CHAPTER II.

Blunderbore Hall, the seat of James Rawjester, Esq., was encompassed by
dark pines and funereal hemlocks on all sides.  The wind sang weirdly
in the turrets and moaned through the long-drawn avenues of the park.
As I approached the house I saw several mysterious figures flit before
the windows, and a yell of demoniac laughter answered my summons at the
bell.  While I strove to repress my gloomy forebodings, the
housekeeper, a timid, scared-looking old woman, showed me into the
library.

I entered, overcome with conflicting emotions.  I was dressed in a
narrow gown of dark serge, trimmed with black bugles.  A thick green
shawl was pinned across my breast.  My hands were encased with black
half-mittens worked with steel beads; on my feet were large pattens,
originally the property of my deceased grandmother. I carried a blue
cotton umbrella.  As I passed before a mirror, I could not help
glancing at it, nor could I disguise from myself the fact that I was
not handsome.

Drawing a chair into a recess, I sat down with folded hands, calmly
awaiting the arrival of my master.  Once or twice a fearful yell rang
through the house, or the rattling of chains, and curses uttered in a
deep, manly voice, broke upon the oppressive stillness.  I began to
feel my soul rising with the emergency of the moment.

"You look alarmed, miss.  You don't hear anything, my dear, do you?"
asked the housekeeper nervously.

"Nothing whatever," I remarked calmly, as a terrific scream, followed
by the dragging of chairs and tables in the room above, drowned for a
moment my reply.  "It is the silence, on the contrary, which has made
me foolishly nervous."

The housekeeper looked at me approvingly, and instantly made some tea
for me.

I drank seven cups; as I was beginning the eighth, I heard a crash, and
the next moment a man leaped into the room through the broken window.



CHAPTER III.

The crash startled me from my self-control.  The housekeeper bent
toward me and whispered:--

"Don't be excited.  It's Mr. Rawjester,--he prefers to come in
sometimes in this way.  It's his playfulness, ha! ha! ha!"

"I perceive," I said calmly.  "It's the unfettered impulse of a lofty
soul breaking the tyrannizing bonds of custom."  And I turned toward
him.

He had never once looked at me.  He stood with his back to the fire,
which set off the herculean breadth of his shoulders.  His face was
dark and expressive; his under jaw squarely formed, and remarkably
heavy.  I was struck with his remarkable likeness to a Gorilla.

As he absently tied the poker into hard knots with his nervous fingers,
I watched him with some interest.  Suddenly he turned toward me:--

"Do you think I'm handsome, young woman?"

"Not classically beautiful," I returned calmly; "but you have, if I may
so express myself, an abstract manliness,--a sincere and wholesome
barbarity which, involving as it does the naturalness--" But I stopped,
for he yawned at that moment,--an action which singularly developed the
immense breadth of his lower jaw,--and I saw he had forgotten me.
Presently he turned to the housekeeper:--

"Leave us."

The old woman withdrew with a courtesy.

Mr. Rawjester deliberately turned his back upon me and remained silent
for twenty minutes.  I drew my shawl the more closely around my
shoulders and closed my eyes.

"You are the governess?" at length he said.

"I am, sir."

"A creature who teaches geography, arithmetic, and the use of the
globes--ha!--a wretched remnant of femininity,--a skimp pattern of
girlhood with a premature flavor of tea-leaves and morality.  Ugh!"

I bowed my head silently.

"Listen to me, girl!" he said sternly; "this child you have come to
teach--my ward--is not legitimate.  She is the offspring of my
mistress,--a common harlot.  Ah!  Miss Mix, what do you think of me
now?"

"I admire," I replied calmly, "your sincerity.  A mawkish regard for
delicacy might have kept this disclosure to yourself.  I only recognize
in your frankness that perfect community of thought and sentiment which
should exist between original natures."

I looked up; he had already forgotten my presence, and was engaged in
pulling off his boots and coat.  This done, he sank down in an
arm-chair before the fire, and ran the poker wearily through his hair.
I could not help pitying him.

The wind howled dismally without, and the rain beat furiously against
the windows.  I crept toward him and seated myself on a low stool
beside his chair.

Presently he turned, without seeing me, and placed his foot absently in
my lap.  I affected not to notice it.  But he started and looked down.

"You here yet--Carrothead?  Ah, I forgot.  Do you speak French?"

"Oui, Monsieur."

"Taisez-vous!" he said sharply, with singular purity of accent.  I
complied.  The wind moaned fearfully in the chimney, and the light
burned dimly.  I shuddered in spite of myself.  "Ah, you tremble, girl!"

"It is a fearful night."

"Fearful!  Call you this fearful, ha! ha! ha!  Look! you wretched
little atom, look!" and he dashed forward, and, leaping out of the
window, stood like a statue in the pelting storm, with folded arms. He
did not stay long, but in a few minutes returned by way of the hall
chimney.  I saw from the way that he wiped his feet on my dress that he
had again forgotten my presence.

"You are a governess.  What can you teach?" he asked, suddenly and
fiercely thrusting his face in mine.

"Manners!" I replied, calmly.

"Ha! teach ME!"

"You mistake yourself," I said, adjusting my mittens.  "Your manners
require not the artificial restraint of society.  You are radically
polite; this impetuosity and ferociousness is simply the sincerity
which is the basis of a proper deportment.  Your instincts are moral;
your better nature, I see, is religious.  As St. Paul justly
remarks--see chap. 6, 8, 9, and 10--"

He seized a heavy candlestick, and threw it at me.  I dodged it
submissively but firmly.

"Excuse me," he remarked, as his under jaw slowly relaxed.  "Excuse me,
Miss Mix--but I can't stand St. Paul!  Enough--you are engaged."



CHAPTER IV.

I followed the housekeeper as she led the way timidly to my room. As we
passed into a dark hall in the wing, I noticed that it was closed by an
iron gate with a grating.  Three of the doors on the corridor were
likewise grated.  A strange noise, as of shuffling feet and the howling
of infuriated animals, rang through the hall. Bidding the housekeeper
good night, and taking the candle, I entered my bedchamber.

I took off my dress, and, putting on a yellow flannel nightgown, which
I could not help feeling did not agree with my complexion, I composed
myself to rest by reading Blair's Rhetoric and Paley's Moral
Philosophy.  I had just put out the light, when I heard voices in the
corridor.  I listened attentively.  I recognized Mr. Rawjester's stern
tones.

"Have you fed No. 1?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said a gruff voice, apparently belonging to a domestic.

"How's No. 2?"

"She's a little off her feed, just now, but will pick up in a day or
two!"

"And No. 3?"

"Perfectly furious, sir.  Her tantrums are ungovernable."

"Hush!"

The voices died away, and I sank into a fitful slumber.

I dreamed that I was wandering through a tropical forest.  Suddenly I
saw the figure of a gorilla approaching me.  As it neared me, I
recognized the features of Mr. Rawjester.  He held his hand to his side
as if in pain.  I saw that he had been wounded.  He recognized me and
called me by name, but at the same moment the vision changed to an
Ashantee village, where, around the fire, a group of negroes were
dancing and participating in some wild Obi festival.  I awoke with the
strain still ringing in my ears.

"Hokee-pokee wokee fum!"

Good Heavens! could I be dreaming?  I heard the voice distinctly on the
floor below, and smelt something burning.  I arose, with an indistinct
presentiment of evil, and hastily putting some cotton in my ears and
tying a towel about my head, I wrapped myself in a shawl and rushed
down stairs.  The door of Mr. Rawjester's room was open.  I entered.

Mr. Rawjester lay apparently in a deep slumber, from which even the
clouds of smoke that came from the burning curtains of his bed could
not rouse him.  Around the room a large and powerful negress, scantily
attired, with her head adorned with feathers, was dancing wildly,
accompanying herself with bone castanets.  It looked like some terrible
fetich.

I did not lose my calmness.  After firmly emptying the pitcher, basin,
and slop-jar on the burning bed, I proceeded cautiously to the garden,
and, returning with the garden-engine, I directed a small stream at Mr.
Rawjester.

At my entrance the gigantic negress fled.  Mr. Rawjester yawned and
woke.  I explained to him, as he rose dripping from the bed, the reason
of my presence.  He did not seem to be excited, alarmed, or
discomposed.  He gazed at me curiously.

"So you risked your life to save mine, eh? you canary-colored teacher
of infants."

I blushed modestly, and drew my shawl tightly over my yellow flannel
nightgown.

"You love me, Mary Jane,--don't deny it!  This trembling shows it!" He
drew me closely toward him, and said, with his deep voice tenderly
modulated:--

"How's her pooty tootens,--did she get her 'ittle tootens wet,--bess
her?"

I understood his allusion to my feet.  I glanced down and saw that in
my hurry I had put on a pair of his old india-rubbers.  My feet were
not small or pretty, and the addition did not add to their beauty.

"Let me go, sir," I remarked quietly.  "This is entirely improper; it
sets a bad example for your child."  And I firmly but gently extricated
myself from his grasp.  I approached the door.  He seemed for a moment
buried in deep thought.

"You say this was a negress?"

"Yes, sir."

"Humph, No. 1, I suppose?"

"Who is Number One, sir?"

"My FIRST," he remarked, with a significant and sarcastic smile. Then,
relapsing into his old manner, he threw his boots at my head, and bade
me begone.  I withdrew calmly.



CHAPTER V.

My pupil was a bright little girl, who spoke French with a perfect
accent.  Her mother had been a French ballet-dancer, which probably
accounted for it.  Although she was only six years old, it was easy to
perceive that she had been several times in love.  She once said to
me:--

"Miss Mix, did you ever have the grande passion?  Did you ever feel a
fluttering here?" and she placed her hand upon her small chest, and
sighed quaintly, "a kind of distaste for bonbons and caromels, when the
world seemed as tasteless and hollow as a broken cordial drop."

"Then you have felt it, Nina?" I said quietly.  "O dear, yes. There was
Buttons,--that was our page, you know,--I loved him dearly, but papa
sent him away.  Then there was Dick, the groom, but he laughed at me,
and I suffered misery!" and she struck a tragic French attitude.
"There is to be company here to-morrow," she added, rattling on with
childish naivete, "and papa's sweetheart--Blanche Marabout--is to be
here.  You know they say she is to be my mamma."

What thrill was this shot through me?  But I rose calmly, and,
administering a slight correction to the child, left the apartment.

Blunderbore House, for the next week, was the scene of gayety and
merriment.  That portion of the mansion closed with a grating was
walled up, and the midnight shrieks no longer troubled me.

But I felt more keenly the degradation of my situation.  I was obliged
to help Lady Blanche at her toilet and help her to look beautiful.  For
what?  To captivate him?  O--no, no,--but why this sudden thrill and
faintness?  Did he really love her?  I had seen him pinch and swear at
her.  But I reflected that he had thrown a candlestick at my head, and
my foolish heart was reassured.

It was a night of festivity, when a sudden message obliged Mr.
Rawjester to leave his guests for a few hours.  "Make yourselves merry,
idiots," he added, under his breath, as he passed me.  The door closed
and he was gone.

An half-hour passed.  In the midst of the dancing a shriek was heard,
and out of the swaying crowd of fainting women and excited men a wild
figure strode into the room.  One glance showed it to be a highwayman,
heavily armed, holding a pistol in each hand.

"Let no one pass out of this room!" he said, in a voice of thunder.
"The house is surrounded and you cannot escape.  The first one who
crosses yonder threshold will be shot like a dog.  Gentlemen, I'll
trouble you to approach in single file, and hand me your purses and
watches."

Finding resistance useless, the order was ungraciously obeyed.

"Now, ladies, please to pass up your jewelry and trinkets."

This order was still more ungraciously complied with.  As Blanche
handed to the bandit captain her bracelet, she endeavored to conceal a
diamond necklace, the gift of Mr. Rawjester, in her bosom.  But, with a
demoniac grin, the powerful brute tore it from its concealment, and,
administering a hearty box on the ear of the young girl, flung her
aside.

It was now my turn.  With a beating heart I made my way to the robber
chieftain, and sank at his feet.  "O sir, I am nothing but a poor
governess, pray let me go."

"O ho!  A governess?  Give me your last month's wages, then.  Give me
what you have stolen from your master!" and he laughed fiendishly.

I gazed at him quietly, and said, in a low voice: "I have stolen
nothing from you, Mr. Rawjester!"

"Ah, discovered!  Hush! listen, girl!" he hissed, in a fiercer whisper,
"utter a syllable to frustrate my plans and you die; aid me, and--"
But he was gone.

In a few moments the party, with the exception of myself, were gagged
and locked in the cellar.  The next moment torches were applied to the
rich hangings, and the house was in flames.  I felt a strong hand seize
me, and bear me out in the open air and place me upon the hillside,
where I could overlook the burning mansion. It was Mr. Rawjester.

"Burn!" he said, as he shook his fist at the flames.  Then sinking on
his knees before me, he said hurriedly:--

"Mary Jane, I love you; the obstacles to our union are or will be soon
removed.  In yonder mansion were confined my three crazy wives.  One of
them, as you know, attempted to kill me!  Ha! this is vengeance!  But
will you be mine?"

I fell, without a word, upon his neck.
