Mrs Peixada. Harland Henry

to your reputation. Somebody calls at your office. ’Is Mr. Ripley in?’ ’No,’ replies your clerk, ’Mr. Ripley is abroad on important business.’ ’Ah,’ thinks the caller, ’this Ripley is a flourishing young practitioner.’ And mark my words, nothing hastens success like a reputation for success.”

      “Such a picture sends the blood to my head. I mustn’t look at it. It would make me discontented with the reality.”

      “If you’re diplomatic,” Hetzel went on, “you can get a liberal education out of this Peixada case. Just fancy jaunting from town to town in Europe, and having your expenses paid. In your moments of leisure you can study art and languages and the manners, costumes, and superstitions of the hoary east.”

      “And all the while, Mrs. Peixada may be living quietly here in New York! Isn’t it exasperating to realize the difficulty of putting your finger upon a given human being, when antecedently it would seem so easy? Nevermind; up-hill work though it be, it’s sure to get interesting. A woman, young, beautiful, totally depraved, a murderess at the age of twenty-one—I wonder what she is like.”

      “Oh, probably vulgar to the last degree. Don’t form a sentimental conception of her. Keep your head cool, or else your imagination will get the better of your common sense.”

      “No fear of that. But I shall go at the case with all the more zest, because I am anxious to view this novel specimen of womankind.”

      “You’ll find she’s a loud, flashy vixen—snapping eyes, strident voice, bediamonded person. Women who resort to powder and shot to get rid of their husbands in this peaceable epoch of divorce, are scarcely worth a respectable man’s curiosity.”

      “Hello!” cried Arthur, abruptly. “What’s that?”

      “Oh, that,” answered Hetzel, “that’s the corner house—No. 46.”

      Hetzel spoke metonymically. “That” was a descending musical scale—fa, mi, re, do, si, la, sol, fa—which rang out all at once in a clear soprano voice, from someplace near at hand; a wonderfully powerful voice, with a superb bugle-like quality.

      “Fa, sol, la, si, do, re, mi, fa,” continued the songstress. .

      “By Jove,” exclaimed Arthur, “that’s something like.” Then for a moment he was all ears, and did not speak. At last, “The corner house?” he queried. “Has some one moved in?”

      “Yes,” was Hetzel’s answer; “they moved in yesterday. I had this all the morning.”

      “This singing?”

      “Exactly, and a piano to boot. Scales and exercises till I was nearly mad.”

      “But this—this is magnificent. You were to be envied.”

      “Oh, yes, it’s very fine. But when a man is trying to prepare an examination paper in the integral calculus, it distracts and interferes. She quite broke up my morning’s work.” Hetzel was a tutor of mathematics in a college not a hundred miles from New York.

      “Have you seen her?” Arthur asked.

      “No, they only took possession yesterday. A singular thing about it is that they appear to confine themselves to one floor. The blinds are closed every where except in the third story, and last night there was no light except in the third story windows. Queer, eh?”

      Arthur approached the verge of the roof, and looked over at the corner house across the street. The third story windows were open wide, and out of them proceeded that beautiful soprano voice, now practicing intervals—fa-si, sol-do, and so forth. “Well,” he affirmed, “this is a regular romance. Of course a woman with such a voice is young and beautiful and every thing else that’s lovely. And then, living cooped up on the third floor of that dismal corner house—she must be in needy circumstances; which adds another element of charm and mystery. I suppose she’s in training to become a prima donna. But who are they? Who lives with her?”

      “How should I know? I haven’t seen any of them. I take it for granted that she doesn’t live alone, that’s all.”

      “Hush-sh!” cried Arthur, motioning with his hand.

      The invisible musician had now abandoned her exercises, and was fairly launched upon a song, accompanying herself with a piano. Neither Arthur nor Hetzel recognized the tune, but they greatly enjoyed listening to it, because it was rendered with so much intelligence and delicacy of expression. They could not make out the words, either, but from the languid, sensuous swing of the melody, it was easy to infer that the theme was love. There were several verses; and after each of them, occurred a brilliant interlude upon the piano, in which the refrain was caught up and repeated with variations. Arthur thought he had never heard sweeter music in his life; and very likely he never had. “That woman,” he declared, when silence was restored, “that woman, whoever she is, has a soul—a rare enough piece of property in this materialistic age. Such power of making music betokens a corresponding power of deep feeling, clear thinking, noble acting. I’d give my right hand for a glimpse of her. Why doesn’t some mesmeric influence bring her to the window? Oh, for an Asmodeus to unroof her dwelling, and let me peep in at her—observe her, as she sits before her key-board, unconscious of observation!” Even Hetzel, who was not prone to enthusiasms, who, indeed, derived an expert’s satisfaction from applying the wet blanket, admitted that she sang “like an angel.”

      Arthur went on, “Opera? Talk about opera? Why, this beats the opera all hollow. Can you conceive a more exquisite mise en scene? Twilight! Lingering in the west—over there behind the cathedral—a pale, rosy flush! Above, a star or two, twinkling diamond-like on the breast of the coming night! In our faces, the fragrance of the south wind! Below us, the darkling river, alive with multitudinous craft! Can your Opera House, can your Academy of Music boast any thing equal to it? And then, as the flower and perfection of this loveliness, sounding like a clarion from heaven, that glorious woman’s voice. I tell you, man, it’s poetry—it’s Rossetti, Alfred de Musset, Heinrich Heine—it’s—Hello! there she goes again.”

      This time her selection was the familiar but ever beautiful Erl Konig, which she sang with such dramatic spirit that Hetzel himself exclaimed, when she had finished, “It actually made my heart stand still.”

      “ ‘Du liebes Kind, komm geh mit mir!’ ” hummed Arthur. “Ah, how persuasively she murmured it! And then, ’Mein Vater, mein Vater, und horest du nicht?’.—wasn’t it blood-curdling? Didn’t it convey the entire horror of the situation? the agony of terror that bound the child’s heart? Beekman Place has had an invaluable acquisition. I’ll wager, she’s as good and as beautiful as St. Cecilia, her patroness. What do you guess, is she dark or fair, big or little?”

      “The odds are that she’s old and ugly. Patti herself, you know, is upwards of forty. It isn’t probable that with her marvelous musical accomplishments, this lady is endowed with youth and beauty also. I wouldn’t cherish great expectations of her, if I were you; because then, if you should ever chance to see her, you’ll be so much disappointed. Better make up your mind that her attractions begin and end with her voice. Complexion? Did you ask my opinion of her complexion? Oh, she’s blonde—that goes without saying.”

      “Wrong again! She’s a brunette of the first water; dusky skin, red mouth, black, lustrous eyes. You can tell that from the fire she puts into her music. As for her age, you’re doubly mistaken. If you had the least faculty for adding two and two together—arithmetician that you are—you’d know at once that a voice of such freshness, such compass, and such volume, could not pertain to a woman far beyond twenty. On the other hand, no mere school-girl could sing with such intelligent expression. Wherefore, striking an average, I’ll venture she’s in the immediate vicinity of twenty-five. However, conjectures are neither here nor there. Where’s Josephine? Let’s have her up, and interrogate her.”

      With this speech, Arthur began to pound his heel upon the roof—the method which these young bachelors employed to make known to their domestic