UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 THE ANNALS 
 
 OF A BABY.
 
 A COMPANION TO "HBLBJSTB BABIES." 
 
 THE ANNALS 
 
 OF A BABY. 
 
 HOW IT WAS NAMED ; HOW IT WAS NURSED ; HOW 
 
 IT WAS A TYRANT ; AND HOW ITS NOSE 
 
 GOT OUT OF JOINT. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 A FEW WORDS ABOUT ITS AUNTIES, ITS GRANDFATHERS, GRAND 
 MOTHERS, AND OTHER IMPORTANT RELATIONS. 
 
 ONE OF ITS SLATES. 
 
 _ 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 
 
 LONDON : S. LOW & CO. 
 
 MDCCCT.XXVBv ,-, ,-, >-,,-. * j ,
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1877, BY 
 G. W. CARLETON & CO. 
 
 JOHN F. TROW & SON, 
 
 PRINTERS A^D STEREOTYPERS, 
 
 205-213 East I2//4 Street, 
 
 NEW YORK.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 FAGB 
 
 I. BABY'S FIKST GIFTS ;. 7 
 
 II. NAMING THE BABY 24 
 
 III. ONE OF THE AUNTIES 43 
 
 IV. BABY'S NURSE 58 
 
 V. THE CRIPPLED SISTER 93 
 
 VI. BABY'S PARTY 124 
 
 VII. THE SUNSET OF LIFE 154 
 
 VIII. AUNT HANNAH. 166 
 
 IX. BABY'S NOSE is OUT OF JOINT 206 
 
 X. PASSING AWAY... 215
 
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 THE AOTALS OF A BABY. 
 
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 , 
 BABY S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 r ONCE upon a time a Baby was born in a happy 
 Siome, where the Father and Mother were young, and 
 where there were no other children. It was a soft, 
 v pink little thing, with just dark, downy rings for hair, 
 ^ and a sound like a bird's chirrup for its first weak 
 human cry. There was great joy in the house about it; 
 every one who saw it said there never was such a baby 
 before, and never could be such another. Its Mother 
 had held it a moment on her arm, looking at it in a 
 wonder that it could be really hers, and with a gush 
 of strange love that stirred great shining tears into her 
 eyes, which would have fallen on the Baby, only the
 
 8 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 Fat Nurse with the frilled cap snatched it away and 
 told her " it was unlucky to cry over a new-born child ! ' ? 
 The Father had stolen into the room on tiptoe, kissed 
 his pale girl-wife with a deeper tenderness than he had 
 ever yet felt, had awkwardly held the tiny, warm roll 
 in his strong hands as if it was glass that he was afraid 
 of breaking, and had then been sent away like a victim 
 into outer regions. The Grandfathers had come, lean 
 ing on their gold-headed canes. They smiled at each 
 other, and shook hands across the narrow white crib ; 
 and as they joked over the Baby there was a faint sigh 
 smothered down by each at their own gray hairs, and 
 a little sadness they did not show as they thought of 
 the trials of life that surely lay before that untried 
 soul. The Grandmothers, in their black silk dresses, 
 and with nice rosy faces, had smoothed it and patted it 
 and half cried over it, talking all the while about the 
 births of their own babies that were grown up men and 
 women now, and feeling as if this Baby was a born 
 princess and they both queen-dowagers. And all the 
 Young Aunties, with their gay floating ribbons and 
 fancy aprons, had fluttered in groups around the sleep 
 ing stranger, had held up their dimpled hands in
 
 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 9 
 
 delight, and kissed it softly in subdued ecstasies ; 
 called it " a rosebud," " a seraph," and many other 
 endearing titles; quarrelled who should take it first 
 and hold it longest, until they also had been cleared 
 out, like other victims, by the fat old woman with the 
 frilled cap, who seemed to consider the Baby as her 
 own special possession. The youngest of the Aunties 
 said she was " a bear " behind her back, however ; 
 and the oldest of the Young Aunties held her head up 
 very high, and wondered " who the darling would be 
 named after." 
 
 Every one who came brought the Baby a present, 
 until there never was a baby who had so many and 
 such different gifts. Its own crib, its mother's bed, 
 and its pretty dressing-basket were piled full of them ; 
 and the Baby lay in the midst on its snowy pillow, 
 quite careless of all these tokens of affection and 
 admiration ; able, in fact, to do nothing but rest after 
 the weariness of being born into the world. There 
 were all sorts of rattles and whistles, and india-rubber 
 balls covered with net, a big doll twice as large as 
 Baby's self, with a satin dress and movable eyes, and 
 a blue pincushion with " Baby " spelt on it in bright
 
 10 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 fresh pins intended for Baby's future torture. There 
 were also daintily embroidered slips worked by the 
 Aunties, finely wrought flannels that had tried aged 
 spectacles, silver spoons and forks to feed the pouting 
 mouth still sucking in sleep, and a gold cross and chain 
 that was laid upon the small breast which had scarcely 
 yet learned to heave with breath. Every one that 
 brought a gift brought also good wishes and bright 
 hopes and tender prayers for the innocent little life. 
 Only one Poor Relation brought all these without any 
 thing else ; for she was one of those who are rich only 
 in love, and have nothing to spare from the hard-earned 
 daily bread that fed the hungry. She was not gay and 
 young like the Aunties ; care and trials had taken 
 away her youth and gayety ; but her heart yearned over 
 the Baby perhaps more earnestly than theirs. She was 
 sorry she could not bring something to the child of 
 more value than costly toys or dresses some gift that 
 should be a talisman against pain and evil, something 
 a soul might prize through all eternity. She wished 
 she could summon the fairies, as was done in olden 
 times, to bestow gifts on the children of kings and 
 queens ; only she shuddered when she remembered
 
 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. H 
 
 that with the rest came always a malignant hag who 
 vented her spite in a curse that counteracted all the 
 good offerings of the others. Nevertheless, when she 
 had kissed the Baby " good-by," and murmured a short 
 
 * 
 
 prayer over it, she wended her way homeward with her 
 head full of this same fancy, for the Poor Relation had 
 a poet's heart, though she had never found time from 
 work to sing a poet's songs, and she had secretly kept 
 green there many a faith of her childhood. She could 
 not help thinking, as she walked slowly over the fields, 
 that if she could only find a five-leaved clover, and hold 
 it in her hand in the open air at midnight, perhaps she 
 would see the Fairy Court, and could ask the queen to 
 shed her bounty on the dear infant. She stepped care 
 fully over the grass, so as not to tread on the daisies 
 for she was almost as fond of flowers as of babies and 
 looked for the clover, though she smiled at herself for 
 pretending to believe there were such mysterious crea 
 tures as fairies any more in this changed every-day 
 world. She recollected how often she had hunted for 
 a five-leaved clover when she was a little girl, all over 
 these same meadows, down by the brook-side, and out 
 in the still, solemn woods, and never had found one ;
 
 12 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 and she remembered also how many times she had 
 been told there was no such growth in nature. After 
 awhile, with a sad sigh, she gave up looking for it, and 
 wished she was a child again, with nothing to do but 
 wander under the trees, and run races with the spark 
 ling rills. The sky was all crimson and gold with the 
 sunset, and as she raised her head to gaze at the tinted 
 clouds, she stumbled over a stone hidden in the grass ; 
 as she glanced down again, lo ! before her she suddenly 
 beheld the object of her search, a very and true clover 
 with five leaves, just nestling under the shadow of 
 a full-spread buttercup. She could scarcely believe 
 her eyes, and almost trembled with a sort of awe as she 
 broke it from its slender stalk, and then she was as 
 glad as if she had really been only a child; she 
 laughed over it, and talked to herself about what it 
 should reveal to her, till pleasure brought a flush to her 
 worn cheeks that made her look quite young and 
 pretty, just as she did when she thought she should, 
 perhaps, some day have babies of her own to love. 
 
 That night, before the clock struck twelve, when her 
 Aged Father and Mother and her Crippled Sister were 
 fast asleep, she slipped noiselessly down the stairs and
 
 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 13 
 
 out on the open porch of her humble home, where the 
 moonlight was shining through the vines. She told her 
 self that, at her age, it was silly to be playing such fool 
 ish pranks ; but she held the five-leaved clover tight in 
 her hand, and stood under the arch of boughs, looking 
 out on the narrcfw lawn dotted with bushes, and waiting 
 for midnight. Just at the first stroke of the solemn 
 bell that always tolled the hours, a slight breeze stirred 
 all the leaves around her, and a sort of gentle rustling 
 floated on the quiet air; on the third stroke all the 
 flowers on the vines seemed to expand into full bloom, 
 and turned slowly towards the lawn ; at the fifth, in 
 numerable fire-flies gathered on that one spot ; at the 
 seventh, the dew-drops appeared to grow hard and 
 glitter with brilliant rays like diamonds ; at the ninth, 
 the roses shed floods of perfume, and the jessamine 
 stars fairly distilled a precious odor ; at the eleventh 
 stroke a slender white circle glistened in front of her 
 as if the blades of grass had been bent and strung with 
 oriental pearls ; and at the twelfth, there, suddenly be 
 fore her, was the fairy court. The fairies were all 
 dressed in green, so that, if it had not been for their 
 bright little faces, she might not have thought them
 
 14 BAST'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 fairies at all, but only leaves on the bushes. Titauia 
 was throned on a white rose just a petal or two higher 
 than Pack, who was making faces at the train-bearers 
 of her majesty as they stood just behind her ; the rest 
 were seated on the dew-drops, perched among the 
 blossoms, or balancing on feathery sprays. Titania 
 alone seemed to be arrayed in a silvery mist, with 
 a crown of many-colored jewels on her head, each so 
 small as to be only a spark, and with the breast-plume 
 of a humming-bird in her hand for a sceptre. When she 
 spoke, her voice was low, soft, and clear, like the sing 
 ing of a far-off lark ; the men fairies all pulled off their 
 caps, and Puck stopped plaguing the pages, and turned 
 his twinkling eyes upon her face as he listened. 
 
 "In the name of the five-leaved clover," she said, 
 " the fairy Court has been summoned. The fairies can 
 refuse nothing to the holder of this charm ; make thy 
 request of Titania." 
 
 The Poor Kelation answered like one in a dream: 
 " Gifts for a Baby, O Queen ! " 
 
 The fairy swayed forward a little, and asked with 
 tender interest : " Is it a Baby-boy, or a Baby-girl ? " 
 And when she heard the echo " A girl ! " a sadness
 
 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 15 
 
 passed like a fleeting shadow over the brightness of her 
 face, which, being noticed by Puck, he gave out a 
 mocking laugh, like the whistle of an insect. But the 
 queen waved her sceptre for silence, and a sort of 
 sorrowing expression fell upon the countenances of all, 
 even upon the brow of her sportive husband, while she 
 spoke : 
 
 " Many years ago we could have brought this Baby 
 rare offerings, that would have made all the world 
 know that she had fairies for godmothers ; but, with 
 the belief of men in our power, much of our power is 
 gone ; the gnomes and the elves have all died, so we 
 have no more tribute from the earth and the mines ; 
 your electricity has desolated the water kingdom of 
 the sylphs, and we receive no longer the treasures of 
 the seas ; the salamanders are bound in their summer 
 sleep, and the fickle sprites of air are not now in 
 league with us." 
 
 Here the queen paled, and Puck swore a round oath, 
 drawing his tiny sword, as a rough gale shook the 
 flower on which they sat. 
 
 " But still," she resumed as the breeze passed, beam 
 ing at the Poor Relation like a star emerging from a
 
 16 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 cloud, " still, for those who come to us in faith the 
 fairies have some gifts to render yet. There are not 
 many of us left, and our rich jewels have been stolen 
 from us one by one. It has been long since we have 
 been called upon to bless a cradle, but this Baby shall 
 have all the fairy store of presents. Offer first, O Puck, 
 my lord the king ! " 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " said the merry monarch, nodding ' joy 
 ously to the Poor Relation, " I give the Baby some 
 thing better than gems a light heart and a free wit ! " 
 
 " And I," said another, in answer to the queen, " I 
 bestow a winning smile." 
 
 " And I a rose-hue on the cheeks." 
 
 " And I a soft hand in sickness, and a strong one to 
 protect the weak." 
 
 Thus, one after another, the fairies chirped out their 
 many gifts, till grace, modesty, tenderness, talent, and 
 countless outward beauties had been showered on the 
 unconscious Baby. The Poor Relation's heart was all 
 in a glow and her eyes full of thankful drops to think 
 what favor she had won for the child, when she had 
 not been able to give it a rattle or a doll ; and she was 
 especially glad that all the bad fairies of old stories
 
 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 17 
 
 had seemed to have died out, since not one evil wish 
 was expressed. But suddenly the five-leaved clover 
 trembled in her hand, and through the tear on her 
 lashes she saw Titania standing upon it in all her misty 
 and jewelled glory. The queen pointed to two flowers 
 lying out on the ground one a deep, full rose, red as 
 a man's blood, and the other a pallid lily, shining like 
 a silver chalice in the rays of the moon. 
 
 " Here," said she, " is my gift ; the rose is Life, the 
 lily is Death ; choose which shall be placed in the 
 Baby's hand, for either is a priceless boon." 
 
 While she yet spoke a cloud passed over the moon, 
 and when the light shone out again the fairy court had 
 vanished, and the Poor Relation found herself alone, 
 the five-leaved clover withered in her hand, and at her 
 feet the Rose of Life and the Lily of Death. 
 
 All the rest of the night she could not sleep for 
 weighing in her mind which of the fairy's gifts she 
 should place in the Baby's hand, for she desired to do 
 only that which she thought would be most likely to 
 secure the child's true good. Life, with all the fairies 
 had bestowed, might be beautiful and brilliant, but 
 none of them had given a talisman to shield from
 
 18 S AST'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 sorrow. She thought of her own sad years, and how 
 often she had wished she had died when she was a 
 baby, and so escaped the sin and trouble of existence. 
 She thought, if the Baby died now, innocent and pure, 
 it would go straight to heaven, and be a bright angel 
 among God's cherubs, never to know the want and 
 care, and pain of humanity. 
 
 But then this Baby had so much to live for hope 
 and friends, fame and fortune, and perhaps, who could 
 tell? even happiness, for all hearts did not always 
 suffer. So she could not decide ; and when she arose 
 she asked her white-haired old father as he sat in the 
 sun on the porch : 
 
 " Which would be the best gift for a new-born babe, 
 life or death ? " 
 
 He looked curiously at her with his dim eyes, and 
 answered : 
 
 " It is a hard question, for life 4s full of snares and 
 evil, and when the babe has lived as long as I have it 
 will know that all the hopes of life are not so sweet 
 as the hope of death's long rest ! " 
 
 And she asked the wrinkled mother who sat beside 
 him, clinking the shining needles through the snowy
 
 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 19 
 
 wool ; and the withered hands stopped their busy knit 
 ting for an instant as she said : 
 
 " Life is labor, but in the world after death we will 
 neither toil nor spin ! " 
 
 So she said to herself. " The old, for whom time is 
 over, believe that death is a greater blessing than life. 
 The old are wise; but they are also weary. Let me 
 ask the young." 
 
 So she went into the house where the Crippled Sister 
 was propped up on a couch by the window, weaving 
 arabesque figures into a fine linen garment that swept 
 down over her like a shroud ; and she asked her also : 
 
 " Sister, which would be the best gift for a new-born 
 babe, life or death ? " 
 
 Oh ! life ! life, of course ! " 
 
 " But, Sister, there is so much pain in life you and 
 I know that ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the cripple thoughtfully ; " but there 
 is the air, the sun, and the flowers ; the blue sky and the 
 stars'; the thought of God, and the joy of being ! " 
 
 Then the Poor Relation smoothed the pillows behind 
 her sister's crooked back, and went forth, saying softly, 
 " Life is always hope to the warm blood of youth, for
 
 20 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 youth is not yet tired of woe and work." Then she 
 concluded that the Baby should choose for itself ; she 
 would hold the two flowers over it while asleep, and 
 whichever one its eyes turned upon when they first 
 opened she would know was its destined fate. As she 
 walked back over the field, where she had found the 
 five-leaved clover the day before, the birds sang, the 
 daisies nodded in the breeze, the lowing of kiue reached 
 her ears, and on the side of the purple hills a little way 
 off she saw a bright stream leaping and flashing in the 
 morning light. All things spoke of life, and that life 
 was pleasant and fair. But as she went on farther she 
 came to the still Churchyard, and looked in at the open 
 gate. There lay the green graves with their white 
 stones at the head and foot ; the weeping willows droop 
 ing their graceful branches over the forgotten names ; 
 and all seemed so calm and holy, as if the sleepers 
 there had folded their hands and lain down with the 
 hush of prayer in their hearts ; so that if life looked 
 fair, death at least was peace. Still she mused, as she 
 kept on her way, till she entered the quiet chamber 
 where Baby slumbered in its warm nest. The room 
 was darkened, for the pale Young Mother was asleep
 
 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 21 
 
 also ; and the Fat Nurse was down-stairs in the kitchen, 
 making her face redder than ever under her frilled cap 
 as she stirred a saucepan over the hot fire, keeping 
 her dignity while the cross cook fidgeted with the 
 tongs. The Poor Relation leaned over the crib, hold 
 ing in either hand the Rose of Life and the Lily of 
 Death, and waiting for the Baby to open its eyes upon 
 destiny. The tiny creature did not stir, but slept on 
 till she began to tremble at the power she held, and to 
 think she would carry both the flowers away and bury 
 them in the garden at home. Then she feared the 
 fairy might be angry, and send something worse than 
 life or death upon the child as a punishment for the 
 neglect of her gifts. Suddenly she bethought herself 
 of the five-leaved clover, which she had hidden in her 
 bosom ; so she passed the two blossoms into one hand as 
 she drew forth the faded charm, scarcely believing that 
 the fairies could appear by day, or that the shrivelled 
 plant kept its potency as a spell. But as she held it up 
 Titania appeared, alone and mistier than ever, perched 
 among the airy lace-curtains on the foot -board of Baby's 
 bed. 
 
 " O Queen ! " she cried, " bestow thine own gifts !
 
 22 BABY'S FIRST GIFTS. 
 
 A mortal has not wisdom enough to decide a human 
 fate!" 
 
 The queen smiled on her, and her crown of minute 
 gems sparkled more brightly as she said : 
 
 " Didst thou not know that to find a five-leaved clover 
 and to talk with fairies was to mark thee for trial of 
 soul ? Dost hesitate between my gifts, because sorrow 
 comes into all life ? Sorrow is life's discipline an 
 angel that leads immortals to loftier grace, and they 
 stand higher in the next world who have suffered in 
 this than they who have died unpained. Give this 
 Baby life, for we, the fairies, have given her gifts that 
 shall make her a glory on earth, and her life shall be 
 example. But because we dare to yield naught that 
 can ward off sorrow, I, Titania, will bestow upon her 
 that which will make sorrow sweet, and stay with her 
 as a joy stronger than despair, and a light in every 
 darkness. She shall have Love love from her birth 
 and beyond her tomb ; for Life with Love is richer 
 than Death and Peace ! " 
 
 And the fairy touched the lily with her sceptre, and 
 she and it vanished away. 
 
 When the Young Mother woke she marvelled much
 
 AEY'S FIRST GIFTS. 23 
 
 to see a beautiful crimson rose lying in the Baby's 
 hand. The Baby too awoke, and looked at it, and 
 smiled at the strange plaything. And because it was 
 the first flower her child ever saw, because it came 
 there in so wonderful a way, for even the Fat Nurse 
 knew not who brought it, the Mother took it and 
 pressed it in her Bible. And long after, when the 
 Baby had grown up to be a lovely and noble maiden, 
 worshipped and loved, humble and pure, and a blessing 
 to the Poor Relation, she found it there, the mystic 
 Rose of Life among the words of Christ.
 
 II. 
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 THE young Aunties had said it was a " rose-bud ; " 
 and when it woke from its noonday nap in its little 
 white crib, it was a very blooming little bud indeed ; 
 its round dimpled face was pink with the warm flush 
 of sleep ; its tiny lips, that had been softly sucking in a 
 dream, were dewy and red as two unfolding leaves ; its 
 small, doubled fists, that it looked at so curiously with 
 its wide blue eyes, were tinted in the tender palms like 
 the satiny inside petals of a flower ; and the wee balls 
 of feet, that had kicked themselves out of their pretty 
 socks, had such rosy soles, and such mites of cunning 
 pink toes that the delighted Aunties might have 
 thought each one was verily a sweet and separate 
 blossom. 
 
 And it lay on its downy bed just like a bird in its 
 nest, and cooed at its funny dots of hands, till the
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 25 
 
 young Father and Mother, who had been sitting 
 very quietly while Baby slept, hardly venturing to 
 speak above a whisper for fear of stirring that sacred 
 slumber, smiled at each other as they listened to that 
 little chirp, and went side by side and leaned together 
 over their treasure God's crowning gift to holy human 
 love. 
 
 They looked down on Baby with such shining faces 
 that Baby left off studying its fingers, and looked up at 
 them, with its bright bit of a dawning laugh, that made 
 the admiring Mother lift it in her loving arms for the 
 happy Father to kiss its damask cheek. And then they 
 sat down to watch and wonder at the growing meaning 
 in its ways ; and while, with a solemn tenderness, they 
 talked of what might be in the dim far-off of Baby's 
 future years, there came a peculiar knock at the cham 
 ber door, vigorous and muffled, as if given by strong 
 knuckles well-cased in folded flesh ; and directly there 
 entered in, puffing and beaming, the Fat Nurse in whose 
 ample lap Baby had received its first notions of active 
 life, when habitual trotting churned its daily bread into 
 buttermilk. Instead of the frilled caps that had 
 
 nodded over Babv's naps, she wore a large black bon- 
 
 2
 
 26 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 net like a bombazine coal-scuttle, with an expansive 
 bow tied just in the crease of her doable chin, and car 
 ried in one hand a swelling basket whose lid was intri 
 cately fastened with a green ribbon, and in the other a 
 bulging cotton umbrella, stout in the stick and faded 
 in the stuff. She announced that having just finished 
 np one engagement, and being on her way to another, 
 she had dropped i to see how her former patients 
 were getting along ; and then carefully depositing bas 
 ket and umbrella upon a chair, she loosened the bonnet 
 bow ; flung the flowing strings over her broad shoulders, 
 and took the Baby right into her pillowy arms, as if, 
 while she was about, its place was only there. The 
 Mother saw that she looked at the infant with critical 
 eyes, and anxiously awaited her first remark. Grad 
 ually the long embroidered robe began to wave up and 
 down as the two cushioned knees fell into their usual 
 motion, and Baby's dinner kept time to the rolling; 
 mellow voice. " It's a growin' fust rate, mum ; it's as 
 fine a child as I've seed since I went a-nussin' ; my babies 
 mostly is good speciments ; it ain't got no marks nor dis 
 torts, and no rashes nor chafes. You've did better than 
 most beginners with the fust ; it's pooty well over the
 
 NAMING THE BAST. 27 
 
 colic time, and ain't got a croupy neck, so I reckon 
 it'll get on now all right." 
 
 The fair little Mother sparkled all over at the praise 
 of Experience. 
 
 "Now, mum," Nurse continued, glaring benignly 
 at the white robe that heaved up and down upon her 
 spacious lap, " you haven't told me the young mi's 
 name ? " 
 
 " Oh, Nurse," was the reply, " it's only ' Baby ' yet ; 
 we have hardly thought of any other name ! " 
 
 "Well, now, that's uncommon," rejoined the Nurse 
 in a meditative tone. " If it was the last of a beggar's 
 dozen I could understand that you might have run out 
 of names ; but mostly .there's one cut and dried for the 
 fust afore it's born, and it pops into the world and its 
 name both at onct." 
 
 " Yes," answered the Mother, " it is generally so ; 
 but there are so many to name our Baby after that it is 
 hard to decide ; we cannot name it for one of the 
 Grandmothers without hurting the feelings , of the 
 other ; and if we were to call it after any of the 
 Aunties, all the rest would think they were each neg 
 lected ; and I do not wish it christened after me because
 
 28 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 it would seem so selfish, and there are so many pretty 
 fancy names that we never know which to choose." 
 
 Nurse slowly laid again behind her broad back the 
 bonnet ribbon that had dandled forward by degrees, 
 and nodded assentingly to these confidential remarks. 
 
 " It's curious about names," she said. " I've been 
 a-noticiu' all my life that people grow like their names ; 
 Johns and Jameses ain't near so like to go to the bad 
 as your Howards and Augustuses ; for you see, fine 
 names sort o' give young uns hifalutin' notions. Many a 
 one I've seed onsettled, try in' to match his doiu's to a 
 big-soundin' name, that might have turned out sober 
 chap enough if them he belonged to had had sense to 
 call him after some of the plain old Bible folk. Xow 
 there's me ! You'd never guess what a name I've got ; 
 it was a sore point to me many a long year before I 
 plucked up courage to put it down. My mother had 
 been a-readin' some trash or other of a novel just 
 afore I was born, and nothin' must do but 1 must be 
 named after the young woman it was all about. So 
 when daddy came into the room to see her and me, just 
 as soon as she could gasp she ups and says, " It's to be 
 Sophronisber, Bill; I've settled it so in my own mind.
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 29 
 
 The old man like to have gone off. ' Don't you think 
 Susan would suit us better?' says he. 'Susan!' says 
 she, a-turnin' up her nose, ' I ain't a-goin to have a child 
 of mine called Susan!" 'And I don't think I can 
 stand one of mine named Sofynisby! Lord, what a 
 name ! ' says he. And so they bandied the two names, 
 until mother she was a-gettin' excited and the old man 
 mad; and Mrs. Jane Spotts, who was a-nussin' of her, 
 she just took him by the collar and pulled him out of 
 the room. But the long and the short of it is he 
 wouldn't give in and neither would she, and so they 
 tacked the two together, and there I was, Sophronisber 
 Susan Boggers ! And such a time as I had with that 
 name ! When I got big enough, the older children they 
 all made fun of it, and plagued me half to death *about 
 it ; and mother, she never called me nothin' but full 
 Sophronisber, and dad, he never called me nothin' but 
 Sukey, and it was ' Phrony,' and ' Sophy,' and ' Nis,' 
 and ' Sue,' till I had as many names as a cat has lives. 
 And after I grew up it got worse, till I was 'shamed as 
 could be of the horrid sound, and ready to cuss my 
 sponsors in baptism ; the young fellows they sniggered 
 over it, and the gals they just purtended they couldn't
 
 30 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 say it, it was so long, and used to ask me to spell it for 
 'em, till I got so touchy over it it was a-spilin' my tem 
 per, 'cause I wasn't born a vixen at all. But Howbe 
 ever, when Cuddle came along, and him and me was to 
 make a match, says he, " I don't like your name of So- 
 phronisber ! ' ' No more do I,' says I. ' Let's drop it 
 then,' says he. ' Agreed,' says I. So we got the par 
 son to say 'Susan, will you take this man ?' and made 
 him leave out the Sophronisber, and Mrs. Susan Cuddle 
 I have been ever since. And so I never advise nobody 
 to stick a name to a child that '11 be a thorn in their 
 side, when more like most of 'em will have to be about 
 homely things than livin' like grand folks in a play. 
 How would it sound for me to be goin' out a-nussin' 
 and Bein' called ' Mrs. Sophronisber Cuddle ' ? You 
 ladies would think I was too fine to know my bizuess. 
 No indeed ! Plain Susan for me, I say ! " 
 
 Mrs. Cuddle's garrulous recital might have run on 
 interminably, to such polite listeners ; but while they 
 were laughing over it, the door opened, and in walked 
 quite a family procession bearing cautiously in their 
 midst a snowy box bound and tied up with bright and 
 dainty ribbons. There were the Grandfathers leaning
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 31 
 
 sturdily on their gold-headed canes; and the Grand 
 mothers in their shining black silks with their good- 
 natured faces just tipped to ruddiness by the outside 
 air ; and the Young Aunties, a whole troop of them, 
 fresh and gushing and gay; and the Poor Eolation, 
 clad in quiet dress, with the spiritual beauty of an un 
 selfish life written on her countenance. And the blithe 
 and jubilant greetings all over, the Grandmothers laid 
 the box upon the bed, and with deft fingers undid the 
 fastenings and removed the lid, and lo ! before all the 
 sparkling and admiring eyes, the wonderfully worked 
 and delicate, long christening robe ! And because all 
 those who came with it had had some share in it, they had 
 made up this party to bring it all together to the only 
 Baby in the family on whom they all already doted. 
 One Grandfather had given the material ; and the other, 
 who was something of an artist, in his leisure hours had 
 drawn the design, with quite a pride in its leaves and 
 flowers as they grew and entwined beneath his gold- 
 rimmed spectacles; and one Grandmother had made it 
 up, and the other had set in the lace-like wheels of some 
 fine old-fashioned stitch that had been familiar in the 
 far-off days of her girlhood; and the Young Aunties
 
 32 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 had each embroidered buds and sprays, roses and scrolls, 
 with much comparing of work, and chatting over the 
 " Angel " who was to wear it ; while the Poor Relation 
 had aided her Crippled Sister to finish it off with all 
 those parts which had required unwearying patience 
 and a steady hand. As it lay there before them, beauti 
 ful in feminine sight, a dumb, exquisite thing of cam 
 bric and thread, it seemed almost hallowed to the 
 mother's heart by reason of the richness of love that 
 had made it, and spoke to her, like a voice, of the ten 
 derness with which old and young had wrought out 
 their thought for her little one ; tears filled her soft 
 eyes ; she reverently lifted the little dress and kissed it. 
 " O Baby ! " she cried, with a sweet quiver in her 
 tones, holding it up before the unconscious optics that 
 were engaged in watching the bobbing up and down 
 of its other sweeping garments which the Fat Niirse 
 still monotonously kept going, " look what they have 
 done for you ! All of them, my darling, all of them ! " 
 And then she laid the snowy robe carefully back on 
 the bed, and catching one head after another in her 
 embracing arms, caressed and thanked them, half laugh 
 ing and half crying. All talked at once, till an excited
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 33 
 
 Grandfather rapped upon the floor with his gold-headed 
 cane, producing a moment's lull, of which he availed 
 himself to speak. 
 
 " Here," said he, "is the christening frock; but we 
 have not heard yet what is the Baby's name ? " 
 
 And the Young Mother was again obliged to make 
 humiliating confession that Baby was still a nameless 
 waif ; whereupon arose once more a chorus of voices, 
 exclaiming and suggesting, until the other Grandfather 
 also called the meeting to order, and there was a 
 general subsidence into a semicircle of chairs to de 
 bate the important question. The Young Mother took 
 her Baby in her own arms, and sat upon the low seat in 
 their midst, and the Father stood half behind her, 
 looking down upon the two who were dearer to him 
 than all the rest of the world, and it was the old, old 
 picture of the Holy Family the picture that stirred 
 the hearts of dead and famous painters, till the most 
 beautiful thing that art and religion and human spirits 
 knew was this familiar vision of the mother and child ; 
 for whether it be Mary and the infant Christ, or 
 whether it be a modern mother and her baby, it is the 
 highest and purest and loveliest picture that shines 
 
 9.*
 
 34 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 upon the dark backgrounds of life, and is seen in homes 
 all over earth the rich man's palace and the poor 
 man's hut. 
 
 " Now, then," remarked Grandfather No. One, " the 
 matter under discussion is, ' What is to be the Baby's 
 Name ? ' " 
 
 "It appears to me," said Grandfather No. Two, 
 " that this is not our business at all ; it belongs to 
 them," and he pointed with his cane to the Young 
 Father and Mother. 
 
 "Well, now," chirruped Grandmother No. One, "it 
 will be pleasant to talk it over, and if they have not 
 made a choice, perhaps we can help them to something 
 that will suit." 
 
 " Dear me ! " exclaimed Grandmother No. Two, " it 
 is a girl ; and if a girl is pretty and nice, as our Baby is 
 sure to be, it doesn't matter much what her name is ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't it ? " interposed the Fat Nurse, sotto voce, 
 and the young couple smiled at the recollection of Mrs. 
 Cuddle's early woes with her romantic cognomen. 
 
 " Call it after Sis," hypocritically observed one 
 Young Auntie, indicating another Young Auntie witli 
 a slight flirt of her neatly-gloved hand.
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 35 
 
 " Oh, not for the world ! " impressively replied the 
 other young lady ; " your name is so much sweeter 
 than mine that I am sure it ought to be called after 
 you ! " 
 
 And another Young Auntie sentimentally murmured, 
 " Name it Angelina, do ; because it is such a seraph, 
 you know ! " And the Fat Nurse looked at her quench- 
 ingly, and said so lugubriously, " Better Susan than 
 Sophronisber ! " that they all laughed, though only 
 Baby's Father and Mother understood the personal 
 allusion. 
 
 And then, one after another, each proposed a differ 
 ent name, and the Young Mother had to exercise great 
 tact and diplomacy to decline all without giving 
 offence ; and ever and anon she glanced over at the 
 Poor Relation, who alone sat silent, gazing with floating 
 eyes at the Baby and its parents, as if she saw the pic 
 ture Raphael painted, as if she comprehended the holi 
 ness of the child, the sanctity of the mother she who 
 would never have a baby of her own. 
 
 And they brought up all the family names, and those 
 of Biblical heroines, from Eve to Phebe, whom Paul 
 commended as a " succorer of many ; " and there was
 
 36 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 much chiding of each other's tastes, and quips and 
 quirks and merry sayings over the associations aroused, 
 and affected little shrieks of horror from the Aunties 
 at the unpoetic title of some otherwise forgotten ances 
 tress, and much consequent recalling of family history, 
 and great rolling of the eyes and raising of the hands 
 at the Judiths and Deborahs of the Scriptures. But 
 the young parents seemed hard to please, and objections 
 were offered to everything proposed. 
 
 At last, one of the Grandmothers, who had had her 
 ups and downs in life, and was therefore a rather 
 worldly old lady in so far as she was anxious to save 
 all those belonging to her from corresponding downs, 
 and equally desirous to secure for them all possible ups> 
 insisted upon a moment's silence of the mingling voices, 
 as she had an important motion to make. 
 
 " My Dear," she said to the Mother, evidently consid 
 ering the Father's opinion on the subject quite a secon 
 dary and insignificant consideration, " in naming the 
 Baby would it not be well to regard something else 
 than a mere pleasing of the fancy your child's future 
 advantage, for instance ? Now, there's your Aunt Han 
 nah " here there was a simultaneous outcry from the
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 37 
 
 Aunties, which caused the Grandmother to shake her 
 politic old head at them, and address the conclusion of 
 her remarks to those fastidious butterflies. " Oh, yes ! 
 you midges," she continued, " I know it is not a pretty 
 name ; but Aunt Hannah is enormously rich, and has no 
 one in particular to bequeath her money to, and never 
 tells any one what she is going to do with it. She is a 
 lone creature, and who knows but it would give her a 
 new interest to have our little one called after her ; she 
 might be enough pleased to make it her heir, and the 
 very least she could do for the compliment would be to 
 leave it a handsome sum for its name ! " and the 
 worldly old lady looked triumphantly around her as if 
 she had unquestionably propounded a final satisfactory 
 solution to the difficulty. There was a momentary 
 pause ; even the most thoughtless and gushing of the 
 Aunties saw the possible good thing for the Baby in 
 the proposed arrangement, and had not the heart to 
 venture a word against the chance of a prospective for 
 tune for the general darling ; while the elder people 
 waited in evident anxiety for the parents' reply, and 
 Baby crowed away in happy unconsciousness of schem 
 ing sapience. But the Young Father's face flushed, 
 
 392450
 
 38 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 and the Young Mother lifted her graceful head a little 
 haughtily, as she emphatically answered : 
 
 " No, mamma, I will not lay upon my child's clean 
 life the stain of mercenary motive ! Not for all Aunt 
 Hannah owns would I have my Baby grow up to know 
 I had been so mean as to use its precious name as a 
 bait to catch money ! How could I teach her higher 
 things when she had learned 1 thought so much of 
 gold ? I could never look Aunt Hannah straight in the 
 face again ; I should be sure of her suspicion of design, 
 and I should feel as if I had given over Baby and my 
 self to a degrading bondage of expectation depending 
 on another's death ! I will trust her good fortune to 
 God ; we must not stoop for it ! " 
 
 Grandfather No. One rapped approval with his gold- 
 headed cane and ejaculated, " Spoken like my own 
 brave lass!" Grandfather No. Two said, with just a 
 pei'ceptible inflection of disappointment, " When she 
 comes to our age she will have found out that money 
 is more useful than pride ! " The relieved Young 
 Aunties clapped their applauding hands, and the hus 
 band leaned over and kissed the delicate cheek, a trifle 
 paler from the unusual act of self -assertion against
 
 NAMING THE BABY. 39 
 
 maternal guidance, while the defeated Grandmother 
 rustled her shining black silk, and grew rather redder 
 in her ruddy face, as she somewhat testily exclaimed, 
 " Well then, what are you going to name the child for, 
 and who are you going to call it after ? " 
 
 A soft blush suffused the Young Mother's tender 
 face, that had bent over her cooing Baby, and her 
 voice took even a sweeter melody as she replied : 
 
 " Since we have been talking it over, quite a new 
 thought has come to me about Baby's name. Nurse 
 says that people grow like their names, but I myself 
 have observed that children, in time, resemble the 
 persons they are called for ; I suppose they naturally 
 feel a peculiar interest in and try to imitate those 
 whose name they bear; and there is one we know 
 whom 1 should like my little girl to model after, one 
 who is good, and pure, and true ; who has kept a white 
 soul through dark days and hard times ; who has been 
 faithful in all things, thinking more of others than of 
 herself ; never faltering in the path of right, and more 
 nobly fearless before a wrong than any man I ever 
 saw ; who is a ministering spirit to us all, arid worthy 
 of the best we can give her ; who lives humbly among
 
 40 NAMING THE BAB7. 
 
 men, but never forgets the presence of her God ! " 
 And the Young Mother rose up with her Baby in her 
 arms, and stood before the Poor Relation. " And so, 1 
 dear Cousin Mary," she said, " because I would have 
 my child grow like you, will you let me give her your 
 name ? " 
 
 And the Poor Relation was so surprised and over 
 come at being thus honored in the midst of them all, 
 that she could scarcely speak ; and the Father warmly 
 seconded his wife's requests, and the rest crowded 
 quickly around her, shook her hands, and made her 
 feel they were glad of the choice ; for somehow the 
 Young Mother's little speech had suddenly set her be 
 fore them in clearer light than they were used to see 
 her, and the beauty of her unobtrusive life glorified 
 her for a moment even more than the accepted fact 
 that she was henceforth an important member of the 
 family, since the first grand'child had been named after 
 her. And the worldly old Grandmother forgot the ups 
 and downs of the past and future, and magnanimously 
 said to her : " My daughter is wiser in her generation 
 than I ; it is better to be good than wealthy ; " while 
 the Fat Nurse, having sat the whole visit through, iu
 
 NAltING THE BABY. 41 
 
 order to satisfy her curiosity as to what would be the 
 end of it, tied her bonnet-strings in the crease of her 
 double chin, picked up the portly basket and stout 
 umbrella, ejaculating, " It's a heap more sensible then 
 toadyin' rich folks in the cradle ! " and trotted off with 
 very much the same motion as that which shook up so 
 many infantile breakfasts. And then the family meet 
 ing broke up, wending their way in groups, talking it 
 over still as they went. 
 
 As the Poor Relation walked homeward, there was a 
 shining in her eyes, a color in her cheeks, and a light 
 ness in her step, that had not been there for many a 
 day ; the sun was brighter to her, the skies bluer, the 
 fields greener, than she had ever seen them since her 
 vanished youth ; she was full of yearning thoughts of 
 the little one and its mother ; she even said over her 
 own name to herself with a little happy laugh that was 
 half a sob of delight too ; and she paused once to lift 
 _up her soul in an earnest, aspiring prayer that her 
 Father in heaven would help her to keep her name 
 worthy to be worn by the pure spirit whose angel be 
 held His face. She felt as if she bad a partnership in 
 this new being forever; it was a fresh and solemn link
 
 42 NAMING THE BABY. 
 
 to life and eternity. A rush of love for it flooded her 
 heart, and she, who had neither husband nor child, 
 understood for a moment the blissful sense of mother 
 hood. But when she reached the vine-wreathed porch 
 where her Aged Father and Mother sat together in the 
 declining golden sun, she sank down on the steps at 
 their feet, and could only cry like a very touched and 
 tender woman, as she told in her sweet and simple way 
 about this Naming of the Baby.
 
 III. 
 
 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 
 
 EVERYBODY said that there never was such a Baby; 
 and being the first one for many years in two very 
 large families, there were plenty of voices to ring per 
 petual changes of admiration on its growing beauties 
 and graces ; especially were the Young Aunties that 
 gay and gushing troop of happy girls, Enthusiastic over 
 the little treasure of human life that made such funny 
 passes at their bright ribbons with its tiny dots of 
 hands, or crowed with delight in answer to their un 
 wearied efforts at entertainment. Never did any other 
 baby born into this world possess such lovely eyes, or 
 such bewitching dimples, or such beautiful golden 
 rings of hair ! The flesh of all infants is soft, but 
 surely none other ever had such a pure and velvety 
 skin ! And oh, the little pink-soled feet ! was there 
 ever anything on earth so cunning and so tender as
 
 M ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 
 
 those plump, helpless activities tipped with such mi 
 nute and perfect bits of toes ? Then the intelligence of 
 this precious pet ! How they chronicled among them 
 selves its dawning smiles, and its pin-provoked percep 
 tions of pain symbol of many another torture that life 
 endures from unperceived moral pin-pricks. How 
 they saw intellect written on its expanding brow, and 
 detected offered kisses in the dewy mouth pouting with 
 undissipated dream of milky draught ! And the like 
 nesses they perceived, even in the scarcely defined nose 
 and decidedly double chin ! And the predictions they 
 made of romantic destinies in the future, and the 
 delight and wonder and half-motheiiiness they all had 
 over this live doll, that somehow stirred up the woman- 
 hearts of these untried natures into vague longings and 
 instinctive sympathies! Every morning, when the 
 Young Mother went through her greatest enjoyment of 
 giving her Baby its daily bath with her own hands, 
 there was sure also to be a fair and smiling Auntie 
 beside the little tub to sing or chirrup down the faint, 
 gasping cry at the first plunge in the clear water, to 
 plash with rosy fingers the warm, lucid drops over the 
 fat and dimpled shoulders, or to watch with dancing
 
 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 45 
 
 eyes the round, white limbs kicking up the shining 
 waves against the soft, bare body, and the Baby would 
 crow up to the Young Mother and the Young Auntie, 
 and they would chorus the crow, and laugh back 
 together in so sweet and innocent happiness, and talk 
 broken English to their darling both at once, till it was 
 better than any play to see, and a sort of unwritten 
 poem of the pure joy of humanity. 
 
 And never was a Baby that had apparently as many 
 needs as this one ; never were a deft set of Aunties so 
 busy in providing superfluities of worsted and embroid 
 ery; patterns became their chief interest, and new 
 designs their perpetual quest ; knitting-needles clicked 
 constantly, and coquettish crochet-baskets hung grace 
 fully from the silken belts ; and the result was that 
 Baby had socks enough for a centipede, small blankets 
 sufficient to clothe a moderate-sized tribe of Afghans, 
 more bibs than would protect the undeveloped necks of 
 an orphan asylum, and sacks and caps and wraps of all 
 shapes and materials enough to have fitted out half 
 a dozen destitute missionary boxes; and in fact the 
 perplexed Young Mother did surreptitiously bestow up 
 on less favored infancy many a donation from the over-
 
 46 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 
 
 flowing wardrobe of this fortunate mite. But the gen 
 erous Young Aunties did not miss anything ; they had 
 time and zephyrs in plenty, love and leisure in full ; so 
 they went on industriously increasing the store, and 
 glowing over their own good works. 
 
 Once, on a sunny morning, one of the brighest, and 
 gayest, and cheeriest of the Young Aunties set out for 
 the Baby's home with another new gift for the 
 precious little one a light, white, dainty thing, fleecy 
 as a cloud and warm as the eider-duck's down. She did 
 not step out quite as briskly or into as springy a walk 
 as the Young Aunties generally were wont to do, for 
 there was an air of expectancy in the lingering pace, and 
 a sort of watchful, yet timid hope in the lustrous hazel 
 eyes, which betokened that some one could gladden 
 the sight thereof. But suddenly the walk quickened 
 a little, and the white lids dropped their curled lashes 
 upon the flushing cheek, as a tall figure hove in view 
 with an unmistakable sea-roll in the gait, and then 
 there was a greeting, half -cordial and half-shy, and the 
 handsome Young Sailor turned about and walked on 
 with the Young Auntie. Suddenly for those two 
 chatting lightly of this thing and that, of the weather at
 
 ONE OF THE A UNTIES. 47 
 
 home and on the ocean waves, of the last party and the 
 latest news, even of the Baby in their blithe and bliss 
 ful mood for those two all the common way before 
 them was changed to a golden street; the soft air 
 intoxicated them with gladness, and the sunshine 
 seemed to fold round them warm and bright, as if to 
 shut out all the rest of the world, and life was beauti 
 ful on the happy earth as in those ancient days of inno 
 cence and Eden, for they were young, they were 
 together, and their hearts were trembling with the joy 
 of a yet unspoken dream. For this gallant officer, who 
 had more than once faced death undaunted by danger, 
 and undismayed by stormy winds of tempest or of 
 battle, had never found courage to speak three little 
 words to the fair girl whom he loved better than his 
 life. And she, oh ! be sure, she was gay and gleeful 
 with him, and believed she gave no sign of the sweet 
 secret that tinted her soft cheeks whenever he drew 
 near, and filled the sparkling eyes with such new and 
 tender light. At last they reached the Baby's home, 
 and he was loth to leave her, and she longed for him to 
 linger; so upon half a hint she breathed an invitation, 
 that seemed like a blessing, for him to come into the
 
 48 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 
 
 house and wait till she had given the Baby her gi 
 and then oh, then they both knew -there would be 
 another walk back upon the golden street ! 
 
 But as the young man sat waiting in the quiet parlor 
 while the Young Auntie ran upstairs to caress the Baby 
 and present the last marvellous effort in zephyrs, he saw 
 her still before him ; it seemed to him that he should 
 always see her as he had looked upon her that morning 
 in her youth, and grace, and peerless beauty ; that she 
 could never change or grow old to him, but would for 
 ever and ever live in his heart as fresh, as pure, as en 
 chanting as to-day his first true love, the one woman in 
 all the world for him. And after a mental spasm of 
 great humility as to his own unworthiness, and an in 
 ward reproof of his own presumption in aspiring to the 
 love of a being so angelic, there came into his mind a 
 nervous impatience of any longer delay in learning his 
 fate, and he determined that, come what would, he 
 would ask her to be his before they parted again that 
 day ; but how to do it, oh ! how to do it ? That was the 
 question he was revolving in uneasy perplexity, when, 
 pit-a-pat, he caught the tapping sound of her tiny, high- 
 heeled boots, and his heart leaped as she stood before
 
 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 49 
 
 him again. Was it a mere artifice of feminine coquetry, 
 or was it some deeper womanly instinct, that had made 
 her throw off her hat and bring down the Baby in her 
 girlish arms to show the embarrassed Young Sailor the 
 Family Pride, of whose infantile perfections he had 
 heard so much from the adoring Aunties ? And the 
 Baby cooed, and the Young Auntie chirruped, bending 
 her bright face over the downy little head that nestled 
 against her bosom ; and a new vision flashed into the 
 lover's dream the sweet vision of wife and child upon 
 hearthstone of his own the first vague, longing sense of 
 fatherhood inherent in man's nature awoke at the recog 
 nition of the intuitive motherliness in the woman's; it 
 added a strong and tender yearning to the passionate 
 love ; it calmed the unquiet of his doubts, and steadied 
 his trembling purpose, as with almost conscious 
 ownership he leaned over the Baby and its bonny 
 nurse. 
 
 " Just listen to its darling baby-talk ! " cried she, de 
 lighted with Baby's amiability in showing off. " Oh, 
 you precious petty, coo coo coo ! " 
 
 " Coo coo coo ! " gurgled back the echoing tones 
 
 from the little dot of a rosy mouth. 
 3
 
 50 ONE OF THE AUXTIES. 
 
 " Do you understand that sort of language ? " quietly 
 the bold Young Sailor asked. . 
 
 " Of course," was the indignant reply ; " everybody 
 that has anything to do with a baby knows just what it 
 means ; there, it is coo-cooing now to tell you it under 
 stands all you say ! " 
 
 " Then, Baby," he gravely said, and somehow he 
 caught the tiny ball of a fist and the young girl's little 
 white hand both at once in his big brown one, " tell 
 your dear Auntie how truly I love her, and how much I 
 hope to call her mine ! " 
 
 It was all done, and the Young Auntie never knew 
 what she answered, or how it came to pass ; but she and 
 Baby were gathered up together in the strong arms, and 
 half -laughing, half-crying, she soothed the Baby's aston 
 ished cry between the first kisses of first love. When 
 the Young Mother heard the faint echo of that sudden, 
 sharp wail, she sped unsuspectingly down-stairs to see 
 what was happening to her child ; and, as she floated 
 into the room, she read the old, old story that was being 
 told over again with her Baby in the midst thereof her 
 Baby, that was now gazing up with wise, wide eyes into 
 the Young Auntie's blushing countenance, and was so
 
 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 51 
 
 encircled by two pairs of arms that she scarcely knew 
 which to take it from ; but after a loving embrace and 
 a hearty hand-shake, she carried Baby off at last, recall 
 ing her own cherished love-tale, and left the happy 
 young lovers to themselves. 
 
 Soon after this there was a gay wedding, with a long 
 train of the other Young Aunties for bridesmaids, and 
 a grand show of uniforms, and a bright glancing of 
 naval buttons that made Baby's eyes dance with delight, 
 for Baby was particularly and pressingly invited to the 
 marriage ; and when the gray-haired minister solemnly 
 asked, "Who giveth this woman to be married to this 
 man ? " cooed out so loud and so long that a general 
 smile burst out among the audience, and even made 
 rainbows in the Grandmother's glistening tears. 
 
 Then, in a little while, there was one of those sad 
 partings that wring the life from out young hearts, and 
 a gallant ship had gone to sea, while a fair bride was 
 left at home to count the days of absence. 
 
 Then came watchings for interminable letters, anx 
 ious suspense over a single missing mail, shudders at 
 news of storms and disasters on the ocean, and a gradual 
 sedateness, growing from an absorbing interest, settling
 
 52 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 
 
 the gushing gayety of girlhood. Then there was an 
 unusual silence ; more than one appointed time passed 
 away and brought no letter ; a frightened, far-off look 
 clouded the old brightness of sparkling eyes, and even 
 the postman hurried with averted head more swiftly 
 by the wistful face watching him from the window, 
 knowing well that among the many messages he car 
 ried of love and life and death, there was none for 
 her. And then at last there was published the awful 
 news that thrilled the land the ship he sailed in had 
 gone down at sea, and every soul on board had 
 perished. 
 
 The worst anguish of life had fallen on her such 
 agony as comes but once to a woman, and pales forever 
 the storied tortures of the Burning Lake ; that takes all 
 values out of the things of this world, in which eternity 
 becomes comprehensible through the infinitude of 
 suffering, and the terrible solitude of the spirit which 
 for the time is reached and touched by nought in the 
 universe, neither God nor man. She sat in the midst 
 of mourning friends, but shed no tear; all the great 
 salt- waves of the unfathomed ocean were sweeping 
 over him ; tears of hers could not even fall upon his
 
 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 53 
 
 grave; words of tenderness, of consolation, of hope 
 beyond the tomb, were spoken to her ; she heard only 
 the moaning sound of the never silent sea ; day and 
 night, in her thoughts and in her dreams, she saw a ship 
 go down into the deep, and beheld the cruel and 
 hungry waters sweeping over the swaying form of her 
 dead. She sat in darkness, for the light of day was 
 a mockery ; she rose up and lay down as she was 
 directed, but she neither spoke nor noticed any living 
 being save the gentle Poor Relation, whose mission 
 on earth seemed to be that of ministering to those sick 
 and in affliction ; she appeared to have a dim percep 
 tion, born of that insight into another's grief that 
 personal endurance sometimes gives, that here too was 
 a lonely soul that had suffered loss and known sorrow's 
 worst extreme, and in a mute, pathetic fashion she 
 clung to her a little, following her movements with 
 her listless glance, and laying her weary head upon the 
 patient breast. One day, the old family doctor, who 
 had held her in his arms when she had uttered life's 
 first gasping cry, came from her room with a troubled 
 face, saying softly in tremulous tones, " She must weep, 
 or she will die." And they gathered about her all
 
 54 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 
 
 those she most loved the Mother and the Father and 
 all the saddened Yonng Aunties, and talked tenderly 
 before her of her lost husband ; praised his beauty and 
 his ways, his courage and his worth, and raised up their 
 voices and wept for him in her presence. She rocked 
 herself back and forth, and moaned as they spoke, but 
 she listened with dry eyes still, and a touching terror 
 pervaded the hushed household. 
 
 But one day, when the Poor Relation necessarily 
 returned to her own home, she entered the chamber 
 where her Crippled Sister, with tireless fingers, wove 
 embroidered flowers into fine, flowing muslin, and lo ! 
 she was softly keeping time to the leaf-forming stitches 
 with the plaintive rhythm of Tennyson's sweet song, 
 " Home they brought her warrior dead." Oh, what a 
 thought flashed into the Poor Relation's mind ! Out 
 of the house she flew like a bird, and with swift feet 
 fled along the way that had been to the lovers a golden 
 street, and breathless, entered the nursery where Baby 
 slept the rosy sleep of innocence. 
 
 A few explanatory words to the sympathetic Young 
 Mother, pale also with sisterly anxiety, and Baby was 
 lifted out of its warm nest, fortified with requisite
 
 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 55 
 
 refreshment, and wrapped in the very white and fluffy 
 thing that the Young Auntie had brought it on the 
 eventful morning of her love ; and then back with bur 
 dened arms and swelling heart sped the Poor Relation 
 to the sorrow-stricken dwelling. She crossed the shad 
 owed room unnoticed, and softly laid the little one on 
 the widowed breast. For the first time the pallid lips 
 quivered, and Baby the blessed Baby looked up into 
 the drawn and colorless face, and cooed and cooed as if 
 it had brought a message. Then, at the sweet, familiar 
 sound, the tears burst out, and flowed and flowed, and 
 great sobs shook her fragile frame, and the Poor Rela 
 tion cried also, and the tears of the two women mingled 
 and fell fast like fountains upon the Baby, till Baby 
 began to feel very damp, and so joined in and took a 
 good cry too. 
 
 Every day after that the Poor Relation came on her 
 errand of mercy, bearing the Baby, whose unconscious 
 ministry was softening this stony grief; for wifehood 
 may pass away, widowhood may be overlived, but the 
 sense of motherhood that has been or might have been, 
 lies very deep in the heart of a woman. But one day, 
 as she entered the house, Baby was suddenly snatched
 
 56 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 
 
 away from her, all the Young Aunties seemed to clutch 
 her at once, and half carried her into the presence of a 
 sunburned Sailor, who caught her in his strong embrace 
 as if she had been his own sister. And then was told 
 the wonderful story of the wreck, and the rescue by a 
 homeward-bound but slow-sailing vessel, and a chorus 
 of carefully toned voices repeated, " And now, Cousin 
 Mary, you must tell her, you must tell her right 
 away ! " 
 
 Once more in the lonely and darkened chamber, the 
 Poor Relation put her arms around the pale girl- wife, 
 who wondered now why she had come without the 
 Baby. 
 
 "My darling, I have brought you something even 
 sweeter than the Baby," was the gentle answer ; " a 
 very gospel, dear heart ; good tidings of great joy." 
 
 " Joy to me, Cousin Mary ? Oh, never agam ! The 
 awful sound of the sea shuts out all .good tidings from 
 me forever." 
 
 " But, dear child," and the Poor Relation held her 
 very close to her own beating heart, " you know we are 
 told of a time when the sea shall give up its dead. 
 Sometimes, oh, sometimes, it is not only at the last day !
 
 ONE OF THE AUNTIES. 57 
 
 Ships go down, but other ships are on the waters, and 
 oh, darling, darling, sailors are sometimes saved ! " 
 
 Joy rarely kills. She rose quickly up, she pushed 
 away the encircling embrace, a faint flush flashed into 
 her wan face and a light into her eyes ; she stretched 
 her arms towards the door, she cried out, wild with a 
 new hope, " Oh, Cousin Mary, he has come home, he 
 has come home ! " 
 
 The door flew open. There was a rush and a rapture 
 of meeting like the bliss of heaven. The sea had given 
 up its dead. And as the Poor Relation slipped out, the 
 Mother kissed her in the entry, the Father shook both 
 her hands upon the stairs, and all the Young Aunties 
 hugged her and Baby alternately, for was it not her 
 happy thought that had chased death and saved the 
 sister for her husband ? And it was once more Baby 
 who had given this woman to this man.
 
 IV. 
 
 BABY S NUKSE. 
 
 THE Young Mother was in despair; Baby was no 
 light weight, and her heart was heavy ; her arms were 
 tired, and her mind was worried ; because for nearly 
 two weeks the Young Mother had been Baby's only 
 nurse. Not that all ministrations for her child were not 
 sweet and holy as ever ; not that Baby's little body was 
 not more precious than fine gold; but the extra care 
 and fatigue added to her other duties, the confinement 
 to the house, the weariness of an imperative work which 
 required attention to be constantly on the alert and yet 
 left no trace of its exaction, was beginning to tell on 
 her whole nature, of which the flesh was weaker than 
 the willing spirit. For the Young Mother had had 
 sad experiences of helps and hinderances in the shape of 
 Nursemaids; she had come to consider Baby's life as a 
 "brand snatched from the burning" of incompetency
 
 BABY'S NURSK 59 
 
 and ignorance, and, from the utter carelessness and un- 
 motherliness of those who went about as accomplished 
 handmaids, had almost been inclined to credit the doc 
 trine of total depravity. So that she had grown cau 
 tious and particular in her selection of a new girl ; and 
 having conceived certain transcendental ideas that at 
 the root of all service to humanity, whether from high 
 or low, there must be Love as an inspirer and instigator 
 of faithful duty, it was not very likely she would very 
 soon find requisite fineness in the Hibernian material 
 that generally applied for the situation, with a much 
 stronger interest in wages and perquisites than in the 
 labor and tenderness which was expected for them. 
 
 And if Baby could have spoken in any other lan 
 guage than a coo and a cry, what a tale the small crea 
 ture could have unfolded of torments manifold and in 
 fantile endurance ! of the- brawny Celt who tossed the 
 tiny form in the air, too frightened to make vocal pro 
 test, and who trotted her bony limbs persistently, knead 
 ing the sensitive flesh with bumps and bruises, and who 
 vigorously stuck promiscuous pins through the soft rai 
 ment without the slightest regard to the position of the 
 points; of the sly, sleek " prof essioner," who surrepti-
 
 60 BAST'S NURSE. 
 
 tiously administered paregoric that she might slip away 
 to the pious enjoyment of love-feasts with an admirer 
 who waited at the back gate ; of the French bonne, 
 whose broken chatter banished sleep and whose sole 
 idea of infant needs was confined to a perambulator on 
 the most crowded streets ; of the middle-aged familiar, 
 whose " sober and. honest " character was attested by a 
 private bottle which proved detrimental to her charge 
 to the extent of sundry knocks and falls ; and of the 
 half-grown assistance who ate up all the pap, and pro 
 claimed aloud that " Baby was wisibly swellin' with too 
 much stuffin." 
 
 It seemed as if through the very innocence and help 
 lessness of her Baby the Young Mother had first learned 
 the moral destitution, the lack of all sense of responsi 
 bility which leavens so much human nature with wick 
 edness and vice ; it made her heart-sick sometimes to 
 feel her trust in her fellow-creatures so rudely disturbed, 
 and to comprehend how much the lower strata of peo 
 ple required educating and elevating ; yet, as she knew 
 from her own experience that men and women were 
 not all alike, and that the world held sweetest and best 
 as w r ell as warped and worst, so she kept also her faith
 
 SABY'S NURSE. 61 * 
 
 that even in the hardest and basest there was something, 
 if it could be got at, by which each might be lifted to 
 a higher level ; and as she pondered these things often 
 in the pure charity of her soul, she had the strong long 
 ing of impressible spirits to instruct and uplift the 
 ignorant and the evil ; only in these individual cases 
 her own environment proved too strong for her, and 
 Baby's life, health, and comfort were too dear and too 
 important to afford time and patience for experiment. 
 So, M'ith her instincts sharpened by fresh knowledge 
 and maternal anxiety, she watched and waited for 
 another servitor in whom feeling and fidelity should 
 equal self-interest, and control the enmity cultivated 
 towards employers. She grew too to understand that 
 if her overflowing mother's love was not proof against 
 the monotony and weariness of care-taking, it could 
 hardly be considered an unmitigated privilege by a 
 stranger to have the constant guardianship of the most 
 angelic baby that ever breathed ; and a great compas 
 sion fell upon her for those to whom labor, nnlightened, 
 by affection, is a necessity and a grievance. 
 
 So day after day went by, and as one after another 
 candidate for the place was rejected, the sympathetic
 
 G2 BABY'S KURSK 
 
 Grandmothers, who had hopefully haunted Intelligence 
 Offices, began to think she was too hard to suit, and 
 were inclined to leave her to her own devices at last in 
 the search. The hearty Grandfathers told her she was 
 getting thin and pale with her impracticable fancies, 
 and that she had better put up with any Bridget that 
 came along, rather than wear out her youth and beauty 
 in a hunt for the undiscoverable ; and even the Young 
 Husband gently reproved her for supposing she could 
 ever receive heart-work for hire. The Young Aunties 
 fluttered in, turn about, with sisterly desire to help and 
 relieve ; they each chirped and played a little while 
 with delighted Baby, like the veriest bright and happy 
 children, and while the novelty lasted Baby responded 
 to their enthusiasm and entertainment with all o-ladness 
 
 * o 
 
 and gayety that called forth an unfailing ingenuity of 
 pet names. But when Baby's attention was no longer 
 to be cajoled with caressing tones or tapping on the 
 window-panes ; when it came to the uninteresting task 
 of holding for any length of time a growing and un 
 mindful weight ; when there were unaccountable wails 
 to be soothed, and distracting screams to be pacified or 
 explained, then the Young Aunties felt that they had
 
 BAST'S NURSE. 63 
 
 mistaken their vocation, and looked so forlorn and 
 tired, and tried so hard to be patient, that the Young 
 Mother always made some excuse to release them, and 
 contrived to send them home without having their con- 
 i n'dence entirely shaken in Baby's perfections. But the 
 Poor Relation came in occasionally when she could 
 spare time, and gladly gave the Young Mother some 
 little comfortable rest, while Baby nestled contentedly 
 in the willing arms that never wearied of well-doing, 
 and who, while she thus eased another's burden, for 
 got her own awhile, as, looking into the tiny face, she 
 dreamed many a dream of the might have been. 
 
 It was now one of those rare and lovely days, when 
 Summer, lingering long through the Autumn, brings 
 all that she can of light and heat and color to crown 
 her ensuing departure ; when the warmth was like 
 early June, and the sky a July heaven, while through 
 all the air was a soft and scarcely perceptible haze 
 which sheds upon the October world that indescribable 
 pensiveness which is not sadness, and yet which tem 
 pers joy. And to indulge in this last spell of the sea 
 son's sweetness, the Young Mother had brought Baby 
 to the open parlor window, who looked out in serene
 
 64: BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 quietude at opposite trees and passing sights. There was 
 a solemn stillness in the atmosphere, such as sometimes 
 comes with the changing of the leaves, as if nature 
 waited in sweet expectancy of crimson and gold for the 
 coming silence of the snows or the gathering storms of 
 winter, and the whole circumstance of time and condi 
 tions touched and filled the gentle heart with yearning 
 without pain which lies among those deep things of 
 God which brings the divine into human life. As she 
 Bat there, holding her Baby in her arms, a woman 
 came slowly along on the other side and paused before 
 the window a woman, haggard, jaded, dust-stained ; 
 young in years as the Young Mother, but with the 
 flowers of youth withered on the pale cheeks and pallid 
 month. An image of desolate dejection, she had moved 
 on till Baby's face caught her aimless sight, and wild 
 light flashed into her dreary eyes ; she tossed up her 
 arms and stood still, looking over with such hungry, 
 wistful gaze as made her whole pitiful figure almost 
 pathetic ; then, as if involuntarily drawn by an irresis 
 tible attraction, she crossed the street and came close to 
 the house. The Young Mother shrank just a little, for 
 at the first moment she thought the poor creature was
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 65 
 
 insane ; but her innate delicacy prevented her from 
 showing fear or aversion, and the mood of the day arid 
 season was still upon her ; besides, such a thin, thin 
 hand was laid upon the sill, and such a wan, eager 
 countenance was lifted to her own, that her compas 
 sion welled up into words. 
 
 " What is it ? " she said with such womanly sympa 
 thy in her voice that it was like balm to the wounded. 
 " Are you sick, or in want ? Can I help you ? " 
 
 And the woman gave a short, gasping sob, and 
 stretched out her hands to her. " Only let me kiss 
 your baby ! " she cried. 
 
 The Young Mother naturally hesitated, but the 
 woman went on. 
 
 " Oh, it is so long since I have seen a baby ! Ah, 
 Madam ! you are good, you are happy ; you don't know 
 sorrow ; you don't know sin ; you don't know what it 
 is to have lost your baby and to go about the world 
 with empty arms and despairing heart. Mine is gone 
 gone ! but it seems to'me if a baby's pure lips could 
 but touch mine again, I would be more fit to die ! " 
 
 "With an intuition like an inspiration the Young 
 Mother saw that this being had wronged her own worn-
 
 66 BABY'S KURSK 
 
 anhood, and had suffered through her motherhood ; 
 that the sin and the suffering had been too great for 
 her to bear, and that she was about to take her life to 
 end it all. An exceeding pity flashed the tears into her 
 eyes ; the sin shocked her, but the evident suffering 
 and punishment atoned. She could not send away, 
 perhaps to her death, another fellow-creature, if a word 
 or deed of hers might stay her; a woman, poor, wan, 
 and distressed, who wanted nothing but a baby's kiss, 
 was surely worth saving ; a woman who grieved for a 
 dead baby must have that in her that a little child could 
 lead ; and perhaps the dear Father in Heaven had sent 
 this fallen sister to her JBaby for redemption ! She 
 paused a little space as these thoughts filled her mind 
 paused, looking down into the sad face, over which 
 there gradually rose a deep flush of shame as the silence 
 was misinterpreted into scorn ; then the worn figure 
 turned to go away with a fresh bitterness gathering in 
 the heart. But the Young Mother leaned forward, and 
 laid a hand on her shoulder. " Wait ! " she said, and 
 rose up from the window. She went to the door with 
 her baby on her breast, passed down the steps, took the 
 thin hand in her own, and led the surprised woman into
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 67 
 
 the house into the house and upstairs to her own 
 chamber, placed her in her own low chair, and laid the 
 Baby in her arms. Bewildered by this unexpected 
 kindness, the woman sat silent ; but when the soiled bon 
 net was gently removed, and a soft touch smoothed her 
 hair, she looked up into the sweet face bending over 
 her, and beheld there such a loving sympathy, that all 
 the flood-gates were opened, and she lifted up her heart 
 and wept wept as the Young Mother had never seen 
 any one weep before, with the speechless agony of an 
 overcharged spirit, till at last the other, in the fulness 
 of compassion, put her arms about her and rested the 
 drooping head upon her pure bosom ; and after a while, 
 when there came a peace after the tempest of tears, she 
 brought food and water, that cleansing and refreshing 
 might give strength and comfort ; and when her strange 
 guest thanked her in broken tones, she said, tenderly 
 as one would touch a bleeding sore : 
 
 " Would you mind telling me your story ? Maybe it 
 will give me some idea of how I can help you." 
 
 The woman wrung her hands. " Ah ! you have been 
 so good, so good ! " she cried. " Let me go, let me go ! 
 There is no help for such as I ! There is nothing left,
 
 68 BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 nothing, but to get out of the world ! You have held 
 my head upon your breast, you have put your clean 
 arms about me, you have given your Baby into mine! 
 That is enough ! You might be sorry, if you knew all 
 about me, that you ever touched or spoke to me ! Oh, 
 let me go ! " 
 
 But the Young Mother held her, and pleaded with 
 her, and bade her believe that her heart was not a 
 stone ; that because of their mutual womanhood and 
 motherhood she could not let her go forth again with 
 out some effort to do her good ; that they were alone 
 there with God and each other, and she might speak 
 freely, if thereby might come healing to her; that she 
 must not think of judgment and condemnation, but 
 only that she was bringing her sorrow to a sister and a 
 friend. Then the woman wept again, but tenderness 
 prevailed, and after a little she told all her miserable 
 tale told it with tears and terrible effort told it with 
 unaffected earnestness and simple pathos told it as one 
 only tells a heart-history in the supreme crisis of an 
 unhappy life. 
 
 She was left an orphan when too young to remember 
 her parents, and had been taken in charge by some dis- '
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 69 
 
 taut relatives who owned a large and lucrative farm. 
 They were cold, selfish, puritanical people, with too 
 much pride to let one of their own blood go to the 
 poor-house whose sole idea of child-training was filling 
 the stomach and clothing the back, and who were only 
 kind because they had no provocation to be otherwise, 
 for this child grew to be sufficiently useful to earn all 
 she received. She had been educated at the country 
 school, where, having absorbed all there was to teach, 
 she had learned, among other acquirements, to keep 
 accounts and sew beautifully ; so that she willingly 
 acted as clerk and seamstress, and took her share in the 
 lighter labors of her home. She looked after and loved 
 the dumb creatures, with a friendliness the greater that 
 she had not many human interests. The cows and 
 horses knew her, the sheep came at her call, the poultry 
 clustered round her, and the pigeons lighted on her 
 shoulders; she made hay in the fields, picked wild 
 flowers in the woods, berries by the brookside. Even 
 her duties were light to her, because youth and health 
 sets a glad heart singing at even the heaviest work; 
 and altogether she lived a peaceful, happy, idyllic life, 
 till womanhood imperceptibly dawned on her, ignorant
 
 JO BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 as a little child about everything except her own expe 
 rience, and scarcely conscious that there was any larger 
 world beyond the limits of the farm. 
 
 Then came a day when one was thrown from his horse 
 in a roadside near by, and with much hurt carried into 
 the house, to be laid down for weeks of weariness and 
 pain ; he was left pretty much to her care and attend 
 ance, for the elder people had too much to do little pa 
 tience with the delicate requirement of sickness and 
 refinement. Then carne the long, bright summer hours 
 of convalescence, when, with books brought from the 
 city, he opened up a new world to the young girl sitting 
 at his feet, with upraised face all aglow, drinking in the 
 poetry of love and the poison of unconscious passion. 
 The young simplicity, the unworldly trust, the tender 
 face were fair and sweet to the ennuied man of the 
 world, and to the fickle sense gave the new attraction of 
 change from familiar interests. And so, not being en 
 tirely a fiend, without perhaps intending evil, he won 
 the unreasoning worship of an unconventional heart ; 
 while her careless guardians noticed nothing, consider 
 ing; her still a child, after the fashion of those who do 
 
 D ' 
 
 not realize the growing years in others, and have no
 
 BABY'S NURSR 71 
 
 particular intuition of affection to guide them to the 
 truth. 
 
 At last the days and hours of his stay were numbered ; 
 time and occasion stirred the man's uncontrolled blood. 
 Cunning words were spoken ; practised eloquence be 
 witched ; vows and promises were made and how was 
 this inexperienced girl to know the true from the false ? 
 All the centred and innate love, which had hitherto 
 found so little response, was poured out like water from 
 a pure fount. And she was so innocent so innocent 
 and untaught, and felt only that Love was sacred, and 
 conceived of no evil that could come of it ; cared only 
 that she was his his, body and soul, and rejoiced that 
 she had all her life before her to think of and adore him. 
 Only the bitter pain of parting stabbed her happy dream, 
 and the days grew suddenly long and lonely, weighed 
 upon her waiting spirit, buoyed up also with the sure 
 hope that he would come again. She thought it was his 
 continued absence, her morning expectation and nightly 
 disappointment, the yearning wonder of unbroken trust 
 that no word ever came to her, which made her step so 
 heavy, her face so wan, and her work so tiresome and 
 distasteful. She was so innocent so innocent and igno-
 
 72 BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 rant that she comprehended neither her physical suffer 
 ing, or even that she had sinned. Some interior sense 
 not shame, but surprise and uneasiness made her 
 hide herself from curious looks and significant glances,' 
 until, in her very innocence and ignorance, feeling as if 
 life was slipping away from her, and that she could not, 
 must not die till he came to her again, she must needs ask 
 relief from her pain. Then was opened upon her the tor 
 rent of questions and reproach, scorn and knowledge, and 
 thus she learned that she had sinned and fallen, and was 
 no more tit to dwell with the virtuous and right-minded. 
 Confused and crushed, maddened by jibe and curse, she 
 fled away to the great city where he lived, to search for 
 him there, and find love, and rest, and justice. She had 
 little money and no friends, so she managed to get enough 
 needlework from the stores to give her sustenance while 
 she walked the streets week after week, looking into the 
 faces of the passers-by, always watching, always search 
 ing, for she knew naught of him but his name and in 
 a large metropolis what is one man in the myriad of 
 rushing throngs ? Up and down, back and forth, night 
 and day, in sunshine and in rain, in frost and snow she 
 went, with her wistful eyes and sinking soul ; always
 
 BABY'S NURSE. ^3 
 
 watching, always searching ; keeping hope alive with 
 his remembered words; clinging still to her faith in 
 him, because she yet. knew so little of the world and 
 humanity. Up and down, back and forth, after nights 
 of tears and through days of anguish, in cold, and hun 
 ger, and bodily torment, till nature could hold out no 
 more, and she fell fainting by the way, to be picked up 
 as a cumberer of the streets and sent to one of those 
 hospitals with which charity sanctifies the worst Baby 
 lon. Here her baby was born, and upon the darkness 
 of her despairing desolation there fell the solemn and 
 awful sweetness of a mother's love, that mighty and 
 instinctive gush of tenderness with which a woman en-- 
 velops the one thing which is indeed her very own. 
 
 But she would not linger, even for her child's sake ; 
 and with her infant in her arms, she sought work, .and 
 again commenced her weary search. Sometimes, when 
 rare opportunity occurred, she asked for him ; but as she 
 came in contact with none of his order, she received no 
 information ; and once again she haunted the streets, 
 always looking for the one face she never saw. But 
 her baby comforted her. Like Correggio's Madonna, 
 she knelt before it worshipping, felt as if an angel
 
 74: BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 dwelt with her ; knew herself to be purified and for 
 given in the divine eyes by the holiness of her mother 
 hood, and her heart and hope waxed strong in her body 
 weakened by want and exposure. But one day, even 
 more restless than usual with her ever constant waiting, 
 she had gone abroad, up and down, back and forth, 
 watching and searching still, till she came upon a crowd 
 gathered about a church door, looking for a new-made 
 bride to come forth in the splendor of wealth and the 
 glory of beauty ; the wedding-bells rang gayly through 
 the clear air ; the merry group chatted and jested ; the 
 fine carriages blocked up the highway. She stood still, 
 as she did in all such musterings to gaze expectantly on 
 the faces around, never thinking of the couple that the 
 white-robed priest was blessing in the midst of a stately 
 company a poor, sad, deserted mother, in a faded dress, 
 with a quiet baby in her arms. There was a stir, an 
 opening of doors, a rush of music, a flashing of dia 
 monds and gleaming of white garments, and then over 
 the pealing of the bells, through the marriage march of 
 the organ, rose a terrible cry of murdered hope, as a 
 stricken woman fell insensible at the bridegroom's feet, 
 and the shrinking bride beheld a pale baby caught up
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 75 
 
 from the folds of her costly lace. Did he know her, 
 after those many months, so changed from the bright 
 ness and bloom of happy and glowing girlhood ? Did 
 remorse, then and there, strike a sharp fang into his 
 conscience to sting with memory through all eternity ? 
 Who knows? He made no" sign. He led his wife 
 around the prostrate form, placed her in her carriage' 
 with tender and assuring words, turned again and gave 
 money to a bystander for the unfortunate being who 
 had so unseasonably swooned, and then sank back upon 
 the satin cushions beside his bride, and was whirled 
 away to luxury and ease, honor and high place. And 
 the wedding-bells filled the air with their glad pealings, 
 the music of the organ rolled out from the magnificent 
 church, and humble hands lifted mother and babe out 
 of the way of the gay assembly which poured out from 
 that ceremony which had proclaimed before the altar 
 that God had joined together those two ! She also 
 went her way from the church door, companied by 
 misery and uncomforted even by her child. She 
 wandered on, wandered on day and night, up and 
 down, back and forth, watching no longer, searching no 
 more, but as one stunned by a blow or walking in a
 
 76 BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 dream ; her money gone for she would take none of 
 his ; too wretched to work, ca.st out and roofless in her 
 poverty ; with the streets and houses, men and women, 
 trees and sky, all like shadows in a strange vision ; even 
 the baby at her breast seemed unreal, like a phantom 
 carried in sleep, till its plaintive moans pierced to the 
 , depths where maternity survived, though all else was 
 slain, and roused her to the bitterness and sharp agony 
 of reality. She begged for a pittance to preserve her 
 child ; she grew frantic at the cries she could not still ; 
 she clasped it close to her bosom to give it warmth ; 
 she called out to the passers-by to look at her baby, to 
 tell her what was the matter with it oh ! what was the 
 matter with it ? and what should she do ? And some 
 stopped and did look, and shook their heads, and went 
 on, and some thought she was insane ; and she knelt 
 down in the shades of evening on the cold stones, and 
 prayed and prayed to the Great Power that seemed so 
 far off, while His Angel Death stood so near by ; and 
 then she gazed down at the little white face grown 
 suddenly still, and went wholly mad. 
 
 It was long, past midnight, when a noisy group of 
 such women as only haunt the streets at such hours,
 
 BABY'S NURSR 77 
 
 came laughing and capering out of a heated dance 
 revel, singing their loose songs, and chaffing each other 
 in that fictitious gayety born of wine and excitement ; 
 on they flung, a half-dozen reckless and ruined 
 creatures, caring naught for man or heaven, with their 
 mirth ringing hollow beneath the stars, and their pea 
 cock plumes mellowed by the moonlight ; on they came 
 to where a single figure stood upon the pavement, 
 holding a dead baby in her arms, and babbling of 
 brooks, and fields. They* paused, at first wondering at 
 the burst of childish talk that greeted them, and then 
 closed round about her in a ring of sad and pitying 
 faces. 
 
 Perhaps it \vas the young visage, so wan and 
 pathetic, that touched them ; perhaps it was the dead 
 baby that awed them; perhaps the dethroned mind 
 that shocked them ; or perhaps from their own experi 
 ence they divined something of her unhappy story. 
 Their levity died away, their quips and quirks were 
 silenced, their bacchanal song was strangled by a sigh, 
 their hearts and eyes filled up, and all that came out 
 from them was pure, womanly in look, in voice, in deed. 
 They took the small, cold form reverently out of the
 
 78 BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 straining arms; with tender words and gentle caress 
 they soothed the perturbed spirit, and lovingly and 
 kindly as sisters led her to their own abiding place, and 
 ministered to her in turn during a long and life-threat 
 ening illness, with the care, the patience, the generosity 
 of closest kinship ; and while she lay alike unconscious 
 of good offices and personal grief, took her little infant 
 and placed it solemnly, with church service of chant 
 and scripture, in its grave within a suburban cemetery, 
 shedding tears over the " earHi to earth " that might 
 have washed white many a sin and relieved more than 
 one memory. 
 
 While she was sick and weak they were all forbear 
 ance and goodness towards her, but with the faint 
 bloom of returning strength their former indifference 
 and carelessness came back, and they spake many 
 a bitter truth, in their flippant way, of the world and 
 men that subverted any dawning hope of help to be 
 gathered therefrom ; and they shared with her freely 
 and unsparingly, without counting the cost of their ill- 
 gained gold. She had no other friends ; in the whole 
 wide world she had not one to go to for succor, for 
 counsel, for upholding ; none cared for her save only
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 79 
 
 these in a sort of fellowship of good-will ; she was reck 
 less of herself, ruined as they were, with hell-fire in the 
 past and an outlook of despair in tbe future. So she 
 was fain to stay with them, to become one of them, to 
 strive to drown in wild orgies the gnawing recollec 
 tions, to smother beneath the life of the senses the un 
 ceasing struggle of a tortured soul. For a whole year 
 she drifted through the slough of shameful circum 
 stance, endeavoring in a mad whirl of excitement to 
 harden her nature to her state, in the abandonment of 
 license to find oblivion or distraction. But in vain 
 in vain ! The nights avenged the days ; her dead baby 
 came to her in dreams, lay in her bosom as she 
 slept, touched her with its tiny hands, filled her 
 empty arms ; the ghost of her slaughtered love rose up 
 stainless beside her darker deeds; even the dumb 
 creatures she had known called to her from afar, and 
 drew anear and looked at her with wistful eyes as if 
 they grieved for her lost condition ; through the 
 loudest revelry she heard her child's moaning wail, 
 and could not shut out with wine or wassail from her 
 inw r ard sight the last look of its dying eyes. There 
 was no escaping from the witness within her; she
 
 80 BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 fought the incarnate spirit with every carnal weapon, 
 but the still, small voice could not be silenced ; and at 
 last there grew upon her such a horror of her course, 
 such a loathing of herself, such a longing for emanci 
 pation from evil doings and disgraceful ties, that she 
 sank into a brooding melancholy that, without speech, 
 irritated and reproached her companions. And then 
 these women, who had rescued her in madness, nursed 
 her in illness, ministered to her in want, buried her 
 baby scoffed at her sadness, satirized her scruples, 
 jeered and jested at the signs of lingering principle. 
 Gratitude gave her endurance ; she could never, never 
 forget that they had once been kind and tender and 
 true. So one day she called them all together, told 
 them in touching words that she must go out from 
 them, must belong to them no more; parted among 
 them all she had gained in that unhappy year of dress 
 and trinkets, embraced them all over and over, and 
 went forth in her old faded robe to seek for work and 
 peace. But work was not to be found ; at the old 
 places where they knew and pitied her once, they asked 
 for her record now, and would have none of her ; and 
 she discovered too that some change in the times had
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 81 
 
 made the field scanty and the laborers many; so she 
 passed through a hard probation of starvation and dis 
 tress that assailed her with temptation, and tried her 
 through and through, soul and body. She fancied that 
 her own self-scorn was reflected in every one's eyes and 
 echoed in every voice, till she was almost filled with a 
 dread of human beings, yet in her terrible loneliness 
 craved something to solace her yearning solitude. And 
 then she bethought her of the farm- creatures she had 
 loved; they were not human, and cared not if the 
 caressing hand belonged to sinner or to saint, and per 
 haps they had not forgotten her ; for though it seemed 
 so long ago to her, it had really been but a little while 
 in the calendar of men since she had been with them. 
 So she had gone all that long distance just to look 
 again upon the fields where her childhood had been 
 spent, and to seek a little grain of comfort from, the 
 animals she had fed and nurtured. It was such a little 
 hope left out of all that life had once had for her ! and 
 it cost her some last sacrifice and left her penniless. 
 She had been to the familiar meadows, where she had 
 made hay and picked clover in the past where the 
 
 peace of God which passeth understanding rested in 
 4*
 
 82 BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 the sunshine and stillness, and soothed her mind and 
 nerves ; but the dogs had barked at her, the lambs fled 
 away from her, the cows looked at her with uncon 
 scious eyes, and a strange farm-hand had driven her off 
 as an intruding tramp. The dumb creatures had forgot 
 ten her ; she w-as so changed by her sin and her sorrow ; 
 she knew all of them, but she had become only a stran 
 ger, even to the dun Alderney she had reared up from 
 birth. 
 
 And now she was going back to the great city to find 
 her baby's grave, and die there death was the only 
 merciful thing in this world for such as she ! Only, as 
 she had passed on her footsore way through this sweet 
 town, she had suddenly seen the Young Mother and 
 her Baby sitting at the window ; all her heart leaped 
 up at the sight it was the first baby she had seen since 
 her own was taken from her. Some invisible power 
 seemed to draw her across the street ; she thought if 
 she could only touch the little hands, press the little 
 face, it would be like a blessing to her ! That to kiss 
 once more a baby's pure lips would be like the baptism 
 of Christ, though her sins were 'scarlet as blood ! And 
 now, more than that had come to her more than had
 
 BABTS NURSE. 83 
 
 ever come to her in her life before a good woman had 
 put her arms about her, and had not spurned her, be 
 cause she too had been a mother ! But oh ! let her go 
 now let her go it was more than she could bear let 
 her go to her own baby ! 
 
 The Young Mother had listened with tears running 
 down her cheeks ; in her heart of hearts she had felt 
 that every word was truth, and never before in her 
 love-sheltered existence had she realized the wickedness 
 and wretchedness of a world outside her own. As she 
 listened, she had thought thought with reason contend 
 ing with that charity which overcometh all things 
 should she keep her, this waif from the under-world of 
 vice, this woman torn with suffering, strife, and repent 
 ance ? Should she hold her fast as a precious soul to 
 be saved from wrath to come ? or should she send her 
 forth again from a haven of refuge and safety to fresh 
 hardship, contumely, and suicide, and so have before 
 her conscience an accusing figure forever and forever ? 
 Could she bring her young sisters into the atmosphere 
 of one so tainted ? Could she trust her child with one 
 who had been dragged through the mud of the earth ?
 
 84: BAB F'/S NURSE. 
 
 Was sin contagious from the body ? Ah ! her little 
 babe had lain in those stained arms, had smiled in that 
 face, and had taken no harm. Was it infections from 
 the spirit? Surely this woman's soul was purified by 
 penitence I Only speech and action could convey evil ; 
 could she not guard against that? Ought she not to 
 give her a trial ? Would it not be time enough to turn 
 her away when her influence proved corrupt? Should 
 she help her ? Should she save her ? Dared she, who 
 was happy, and had her own Baby safe, thrust out 
 another, who was most miserable, and whose baby was 
 dead ? Whose baby was dead ! Her tears welled out 
 the charity that overcometh had won the day. She was 
 no longer to her a sinner, an outcast, a Magdalen, but 
 only a mother whose baby was dead. 
 
 And when the other said more quietly, " Ton know 
 all now ; you can only think badly of me like all the 
 rest ! " she took the thin hands in hers, and answered, 
 " I think you have been more sinned against than 
 sinning, and that the dear Father in Heaven has 
 brought you to me. Will you stay with me, and take 
 care of my Baby? I have great need of some 
 one who will put love into this work, and maybe
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 85 
 
 after a while my little one will comfort yon for your 
 own." 
 
 Surprised by this unexpected offer, she, to whom 
 kindness was so unusual, looked up as one astounded. 
 " You will take me? " she said slowly ; "you will keep 
 me ? You will give me your Baby ? " 
 
 " I will give you more," replied the Young Mother. 
 " I will give you Love and a Great Trust. And you 
 can help or harm me much ; for if you are loyal and 
 faithful to me and yourself, you will give me a larger 
 and surer confidence in all humanity ; but if you do 
 not deal righteously and truly with me, I shall never 
 dare to listen to the voice of my own soul again ! You 
 see it is an experiment for both." 
 
 The woman bowed down her head, and there was 
 silence between them for a minute. Then she lifted 
 her eyes with a new light in them : " I could not have 
 dreamed there was anything left for me in this world 
 to do ! " she answered. " I will live, since you do not 
 think me unworthy of such a trust, if only to try and 
 prove to you that there is something true in me still ! 
 I will stay with you. I will be faithful." 
 
 And as a sign and token of their compact, the Young
 
 86 BABY'S NURSE. 
 
 Mother lifted Baby from its crib, and laid her on the 
 other's breast. " Oh, my baby ! my own baby ! " she 
 broke out, " I must see my baby's grave ! " 
 
 " Not now, dear," said the Young Mother. " I can 
 not let you leave me yet. Soriie day we will go there 
 together ! " 
 
 The whole family, as they came in and out, passed 
 judgment on the New Nurse. When the Young Father 
 found her installed in his home, he privately remarked 
 to his wife that she looked rather delicate for such a 
 weight as Baby was getting to be; and the Young 
 Mother put her arms about him, and replied : " Dear 
 est love, she has had hard times ; we will make her 
 stronger among us; and just see how Baby takes to 
 her ! " and she never told him any more than that, she 
 who kept nothing else hid from him all through her 
 life. Grandfather Number Two said he " was glad that 
 Baby had got any kind of a nurse at last, so that he 
 could hear something else talked about ! " But Grand 
 father Number One studied the pale face more than 
 once as he played with Baby ; and one day, when the 
 Young Mother went with him out of the room, he put
 
 EAST'S NURSE. 87 
 
 his arms round her and bade " God bless her for a good 
 lass ! For there has been a sore life in there," he said, 
 " and she is finding peace with my dear girl ! " " Oh, 
 papa ! " she whispered, " how do you know ? " " I know 
 nothing of your Nurse," he answered, " but I can tell 
 a good work when I see it ! " " Qh, papa, papa ! " she 
 murmured ; " it isn't me ; it is all the Baby ! don't you 
 see that it is Baby who is healing and helping her 2 " 
 and Grandfather Number One laid her face against his 
 for a moment, and went quietly forth. The Grand 
 mothers were inclined to be decidedly critical at first, 
 in consequence of ineffectual visits to the Intelligence 
 Offices, and from disapproval of taking in a servant 
 without a reference ; but they could not help but notice 
 her patience and loving care of her charge, and when 
 they beheld her sewing were completely won over, and 
 went about proclaiming her a treasure. And the 
 Young Aunties wondered that she shrank from them a 
 little, and was so shy when they were so gay and gra 
 cious with her ; but Baby loved her that was evident 
 enough and so they were determined to be good to 
 her; and soon after the faded dress had been taken 
 away by the Young Mother, and destroyed entirely
 
 88 BABY'S NUBSK 
 
 from being a reminder of the past, Baby's Nurse was 
 many times overcome with thoughtful little gifts of 
 collars and cuffs, aprons and ribbons, and generous 
 overflowings of young and gushing hearts. While from 
 the Poor Relation, whose instinctive sympathy divined 
 that here was one who sorrowed greatly, there came 
 sometimes such gentle words of strength, such uphold 
 ing of the sinking spirit, that the tried soul clung to her 
 saving grace as though this other woman had indeed 
 been a holy priest ordained of God. And the Fat 
 Nurse, dropping in one day with her basket and um 
 brella, watched her keenly with her twinkling eyes, and 
 said afterwards to the Young Mother, "You've did 
 well by your Baby, mum ; for she's got the Mother- 
 heart, and that's the best recommendation any nurse 
 can have ! " 
 
 One day, when the following Spring had made all 
 the earth green, the Young Mother and the New Nurse 
 went away to the great city, passing through its noise 
 and bustle to another city on its quiet borders, whose 
 people were very still in their last homes the silent 
 City of the Dead ; and among the lowly graves of the 
 poor found a little mound grown over with waving
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 89 
 
 grass and golden buttercups ; and what befell there of 
 remembrance and remorse, of weeping and consolation, 
 gratitude and goodness, the- two women locked up in 
 their hearts, and never spoke of again ; but, before they 
 came away, the lonely grave was covered over with 
 myrtle, and set round with roses, and when next they 
 saw it there was a small white stone at the head, on 
 which was only cut, " In memory of a Baby," for this 
 child had died without a name. 
 
 And the New Nurse lived all her long years with 
 them, and kept her promise, and was faithful, to the 
 end. She came to be like one of their own family, and 
 was respected and trusted, loved and looked up to. It 
 was she who took all their new-born childen in her 
 arms, and tenderly laid out all their dead ; she dressed 
 the young for their bridals, and closed the eyes of the 
 old ; she rejoiced in their joy, sorrowed with their 
 sorrow, shared their burdens ; and the next generation 
 never thought but that she had always been one of 
 them. A weird sort of wisdom from much introspec 
 tion fell on her, and many an earnest word of hers took 
 root for salvation in restless or wayward hearts ; fruits
 
 90 BAST'S NURSE. 
 
 meet for repentance marked all her unassuming way ; 
 her eyes shone with a beautiful peace ; and she who 
 had been cast down and desolate, made gladness for 
 the angels in heaven. 
 
 Many years afterwards, when Baby had grown to be 
 a young lady, when the Young Father had become 
 a rich and renowned citizen and the Young Mother 
 a wise and well-beloved matron, much courted in the 
 social life of the great city where she visited, she met 
 the man who had wrought this ruin, prosperous arid 
 debonair, esteemed and honored, the cynosure of fash 
 ion, head and front of his admiring circle still. It 
 struck him with strange novelty and curious wonder 
 that this one woman, so sought after and distinguished, 
 should meet him always with cold eyes, or turn from 
 him with averted glances. It made him uneasy, this 
 Epicurean who shrank from a crumpled rose-leaf, and 
 that any one human being should disdain or discounte 
 nance him was a skeleton at his life-long feast that 
 must speedily be banished. So, watching one night at 
 a great assembly till he had seen her a little apart, with 
 the graceful effrontery of a practised man of the world,
 
 BABY'S NURSE. 91 
 
 he ventured to question her of the why and thus. She 
 turned her sweet, fair face full upon him all kindling 
 with long-kept indignation and contempt, and spoke 
 out from her sincere heart the stinging answer: " For 
 twenty years I have sheltered in my house the woman 
 whose life you ruined, whose youth you destroyed ; and 
 I therefore deem you unworthy even of her scorn! 
 Seducer and profligate! You are loathsome as a lie! 
 and I forbid you ever to approach or speak to me 
 again ! " He winced and writhed under her righteous 
 anger and plain-spoken words, that like a sharp knife 
 had cut into his vanity and his memory ; he slipped 
 away from her speechless and cowed ; and whether or 
 not his conscience ever reproached him with remorse 
 ful remembrances, he never forgot the crumpled rose- 
 leaf in liis career the expressed odium of one honest 
 spirit. 
 
 And never in all the days of her life did this true 
 woman breathe to any one else, Father or Mother, 
 husband, sister or child, that other woman's secret of 
 a Baby's Grave.
 
 V. 
 
 ON her bod she lay day after day, year in and year 
 out, white and helpless, with large eyes melancholy with 
 the sadness of long suffering. Only the unwearied 
 hands rested not, and the active brain never ceased from 
 thinking. What dreams of health and happiness, 
 what disappointed hopes, what unspoken repinings, 
 what agonies of despair, what rebellious reflections, 
 what wrestlings with destiny, what strivings for pa 
 tience, had been worked off upon the exquisite embroid 
 ery that grew under her delicate fingers ! for always 
 before her was a snowy, diaphanous muslin, with its fine 
 tracery of leaves and flowers, vines and fruit, and into 
 every branch and every blossom she wove her life, and 
 by the perfectly wrought designs she won the cost of 
 her living. One day it would be a lovely wedding- 
 dress that was spread over her humble couch, and out
 
 THE VH1PPLED SISTER. 93 
 
 of her tender blessings on the bride, her sweet fancies 
 of a bliss she could never know, there would be evolved 
 a wonderful result of interwoven beauty, with a poetic 
 meaning in it all that perhaps the wearer would never 
 guess ; and only the worker, touching gently her un di 
 vined creation, would know that each design was signi 
 ficant of a good wish the lilies for purity, the roses for 
 love, the wheat for plenty, the heart's-ease for content. 
 Or it would be an infant's robe to be made rich and rare 
 with unrivalled adornment, and little would the pleased 
 mother suspect the yearnings over the untried future 
 and the visions of its coming life that were wrought 
 through and through her child's dainty garment ; how 
 upon each thread-born wreath there hung prayers for 
 tho . coming years, and how every festoon had felt the 
 prophetic outlook of a solitary spirit to whom a new 
 born babe seemed like an angel fresh from God, to be 
 once more, when earthly career was over, a bearer of 
 palm-branches in the universal heaven. Or, once in a 
 while, they would bring her a spotless shroud to fashion 
 for the dead, and would find unexpectedly laid upon it 
 some mystic emblem to grace the grave, an amaranth or 
 a winged globe, to symbolize to hearts that looked
 
 94 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 thereon the sweet everlasting Beyond. For never nnto 
 others went forth the bitterness of tortured flesh or pris 
 oned existence ; the white roses that she raised were the 
 flowers of silence ; the womanhood that was in her 
 naturally taught her repression ; the unselfishness of her 
 spirit held her back from saddening others ; and her 
 Thought of God and want of outer experience gave her 
 a trust and faith that could overcome at last her weari 
 ness, her isolation, her doubts. But there were times 
 oh ! there were times when the frail body went through 
 the very Valley of the Shadow of Death ; when the 
 pain, the impotence, the unquiet of a separated lot 
 would stir the tried soul with inward storms of revolt 
 and longing ; when the unuttered heart-cries were as 
 piercing and tempestuous in unseen ears as those of a 
 strong man in his agony. But Love was about her al 
 ways ; and, as unto those to whom little is given, spon 
 taneous gratitude is great for that little the suffusing 
 srlow of thankfulness for returning ease, the throb of 
 
 O O J 
 
 sincere joy at a new attention, the bursting of sunlight 
 into her room, the sight of the calm, blue sky, the sound 
 of a tender voice, would still the tumult, and through 
 the shining point of her needle her discontent would
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 95 
 
 flow into lines of beauty, and peace would return with 
 the needed pursuit, and by counting over her pleasures 
 she epnquered her pain. For much and many minis 
 tered to her. The Aged Father and Mother added to 
 her wisdom, poured out for her the hoary experiences 
 of accumulated years, caressed her with their withered 
 hands, shone upon her with their wrinkled faces, where 
 affection beamed brighter than their eyes ; and she, who 
 was the Poor Relation in other homes, but the Light of 
 the Household here, she never tired in her tendence ; 
 she who, without a word, knew all that passed within 
 the kindred mind, whose sweet sympathy soothed, whose 
 genial cheerfulness uplifted, whose arms were around 
 her in the night-watches of suffering, whose days never 
 brought forgetfulness of a single loving care, and who 
 was at once Sister, Friend, and Physician of soul and 
 body. Then there were those abroad who came to her 
 in kindness, often bringing gifts of thoughtfulness and 
 overflowing compassion. The Grandfathers would 
 come, thumping their gold-headed canes upon the floor 
 and her nerves, with hearty salutations, and the very 
 breath of fresh outer air on their portly persons and 
 ruddy faces ; and the chirpy Grandmothers, with their
 
 96 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 gossipy talk of the younger generation, and something 
 nice to tempt the delicate taste, made from an old fam 
 ily receipt that none possessed but themselves. And 
 the Young Aunties, by twos and threes bright and beau 
 tiful with youth, full of lightness and ' Jnirth, gleeful 
 with girlhood's quips and quirks, and always ready to 
 relate all that was going on in their happy world the 
 last party, the latest fashion, the newest books, blushing 
 confidences, tremulous hopes, sometimes the sentimental 
 woes and imaginary ills ; sure always of a cordial lis 
 tener and faithful adviser, and rarely thinking that their 
 gayety and grace might cause a pang to one to whom 
 youth and beauty and the world beyond her chamber- 
 walls were evermore denied. Then her bird sang for 
 her such a delicious song that it awakened marvellous 
 harmonies within, and was sometimes echoed by strains 
 unheard of mortal ears ; for that one voice concentrated 
 for her the chorussed music of the groves ; the liquid 
 notes linked themselves to the harmony of the spheres, 
 and an awe-inspiring refrain of cherubim and seraphim 
 seemed to float to her from the far-off Everlasting! 
 And when the little golden songster tucked his head 
 under his wing at night, her fancy went out all over the
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 97 
 
 earth, and saw in all climes birds of all kinds and plu 
 mage nestling into slumber, and her eyes filled with 
 yearning tears over these feathered innocents, which 
 were thus her only link with God's dumb creatures. 
 And as she gazed out of her window at the small patch 
 of sky she could see therefrom, the floating clouds wore 
 varied shapes for her shapes beautiful or fantastic, mak 
 ing always a changing panorama of which she never tired. 
 Sometimes it was a dark dragon, with overlapping scales 
 and forked tongue ; anon a soft, gray vision of clustered 
 towers and spires ; and again weird and witching faces 
 would form and dissolve against the serene blue ; some 
 times a white angel witli outspread wings would hover 
 over her, and sometimes the sunset glories would make 
 a gorgeous garden of heavenly blossoms before her eyes ; 
 but oftenest a snowy dove would brood in the great im 
 mensity, and then she felt as if the Spirit filled her 
 heart and mind, and lifted her in aspiration till she was 
 no longer a crippled and pain-stricken body, but only a 
 chosen soul taken behind the veil of flesh and sense to 
 behold the secret mysteries of being. Thus in her quiet 
 room, in the silence and solitude of a separated life, she 
 was neither desolate, nor despairing, nor deprived of the
 
 98 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 solace which the good God gives to all who have hearts to 
 feel. But, nevertheless, one thing troubled her much : 
 others did so much for her ; some one, it seemed to her, 
 was always bringing her help or pleasure ; but there 
 was so little she could do for any one ! Her Father in 
 Heaven was loving and bountiful in His mercies to her, 
 but there was nothing she could do for Him ! Praise 
 Him, like her bird, she sometimes did from the very 
 depths of her nature ; but she longed, almost infinitely 
 at times, to reach out towards His children on the earth, 
 and repay to them her debt to Him. In her own home 
 the proceeds of her daily work assisted in maintaining 
 the life that was there, and secured her from becoming 
 a burden upon much-taxed and slender resources. But 
 still this was so little, so little, and she knew not how to 
 do more, her world was so narrow and she came in con 
 tact with so few. Her heart was full as a fountain 
 of its waters, but she had no direction in which to 
 pour out the overflow ; the sacred hour of oppor 
 tunity had not arrived the right chord had not yet 
 been struck. 
 
 One day they sent the Baby to see her the bright- 
 eyed, rosy-mouthed Baby, with the little golden rings of
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 99 
 
 hair fringing the dainty cap, and the tiny dimpled hand 
 stretching out to her from beneath the embroidered cape 
 of the long cloak. It was almost the only Baby she 
 remembered ever to have known, for the young Aun 
 ties were not born in her neighborhood, and it was so 
 long since there had been a baby in the family. In 
 stantly a new tenderness and vague yearning sprang up 
 in her soul ; perhaps the woman's regret that never, 
 never would the blessing of Motherhood be hers, min 
 gled with the other expressions on her pale face ; 
 perhaps too there was something more which told that 
 only alone could the lonely spirit grapple with and 
 overcome these unusual emotions, for Baby's Nurse, 
 wise from her own experiences, quietly took off Baby's 
 wraps, laid the soft white-robed creature in her arms, 
 and went swiftly from the room. She remained away 
 but a little while, not long enough to tire too much the 
 fragile arms ; but in that time the Crippled Sister had 
 shed drops and drops of shining tears over the placid 
 Baby, who looked up at her with strangely wise eyes, not 
 frightened at her unfamiliar face, but as if also ponder 
 ing the secret things of the heart, for babies sometimes 
 seem so freshly come from Paradise, that either mem-
 
 100 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 ories or meditation over unseen marvels appear to hold 
 them in temporary stillness and contemplation, and 
 to give a sense of speechless knowledge past our under 
 standing who have come so far away from the wonder- 
 world which is the source of life and light. 
 
 " O Baby, Baby ! " she said, in her very heart of hearts, 
 " you are a miracle ! for you are a soul one of God's 
 souls born into this world this world where souls strug 
 gle and suffer ! How I wish oh, how I wish that I, 
 even I, crippled and useless, could stand between you 
 and all the pain of the future ! Sweet, tender blossom, 
 dear innocent birdie, why cannot you always be a 
 Baby? why must you grow up to be crowned with 
 thorns, to be crucified, as every soul must be, before you 
 go back to that other life ! Blessings may come to you 
 blessings will come to you, for you are the Baby of love 
 and hope ; but oh, you new-made darling ! you have 
 come into a hard world, for you have been born a 
 woman ! " 
 
 For it suddenly seemed to the Crippled Sister as if 
 she had never before so keenly felt or fancied the strife, 
 the poverty, the crime of this earth, as when she looked 
 upon this untried, sinless being, and there dawned upon
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 101 
 
 her a sudden terrible dream of the might be of any 
 human existence; all the agony and rebellion of her 
 own years rolled up, and momentarily smote down her 
 long patience, but out of it arose a longing almost di 
 vine, to shelter, to shield, not this one only, but all 
 young and untainted lives from the wrath and evil to 
 come. With that singular outlook born of solitude and 
 imagination, she beheld countless homes where babies 
 bloomed babies, all to be men and women some day 
 and she shuddered as she thought what men and women 
 wore in the world, and how even the sweetest and 
 purest knew sorrow and needed strength. And she 
 she who would fain have suffered, in her great hour of 
 yearning over a baby and her race, that the many might 
 be made white from their sins again what could she 
 do? What could she do? It seemed to her as if she 
 was the smallest, most useless, most impotent creation 
 in the Universe, lying there growing almost weary' 
 under the weight of a single mortal Baby. But the 
 child was God's angel and brought His message ! She 
 always said afterwards, if it had not been for the Baby 
 she never would have gained the idea, for as Baby lay 
 quite still looking solemnly up at her, thoughts and
 
 102 THE CRIPPLED SISTEH. 
 
 plans flashed in upon her like electric sparks struck 
 from the innocent presence. 
 
 In a few minutes it had all come into her mind, clear 
 and vivid as a reading of God's word ; the Baby's little 
 hand had touched the waiting chord ; through the 
 Baby's pure eyes she had seen her opportunity; the 
 Baby had given her at last a work to do for her Father 
 in Heaven and her race on earth. And as if this Baby 
 had divined that its mission was ended, and as if it had 
 just dawned upon its infantile sense that the glowing 
 face bending over its own was that of neither Mother 
 nor Nurse, it set up a very human cry, and the latter 
 came in, put on the long white cloak, held up the pout 
 ing mouth to be kissed by pale, quivering lips, and 
 carried her charge away, pondering in her own heart 
 what manner of emotions the Child had awakened in 
 the Crippled Sister's spirit. 
 
 A few days afterwards the Light of the Household 
 went forth into the poor places of the neighborhood, 
 and brought in, one by one, shrinking children, with 
 shabby garments and shy glances ; little girls mi- 
 gathered into schools, untaught of ignorant parents who 
 were slaves of labor, to whom was preached no Gospel
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTEX. 103 
 
 of salvation from idleness, weakness, or vice. These, 
 allured in unwillingly at first, hard enough for a time 
 to keep together, came at last into this quiet chamber 
 as to a holy shrine, sat earnestly at the feet of a pale, 
 patient teacher, and learned the ways of truth and 
 .right, took from her untiring zeal a shield of work or 
 wisdom to defend them in days to come from depend 
 ence, debasement, and ruin. Day by day for a few 
 minutes only sometimes, sometimes for hours, accord 
 ing to her fluctuating strength she had them with her, 
 pouring out the garnered stores of unforgotten reading 
 in simple language, and opening up new worlds for 
 unformed minds; peopling for them with her sweet 
 fancy the woods, the streams, the air, with as beauti 
 ful spiritings as the old fantastic shapes of pagan lore ; 
 showing them what she saw in the sky ; telling them 
 what her bird sang to her, breathing into their recep- 
 ti ve souls the peace and good- will that angels hymn to 
 mankind, clothing common facts in such attractive 
 forms that knowledge grew to be better than choice 
 gold, and making labor so sacred and honorable in their 
 eyes, that to do seemed well -as .to be wise. It was slow 
 work, slow and anxious and earnest, taking more
 
 104: THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 patience than the bearing of pain, calling upon the 
 deepest founts of love for all the charity that suffereth 
 long and hopeth all things ; for ignorance, habit, and 
 inherited traits are formidable fortresses to assail, and 
 can only be overcome by continuance in well-doing. 
 Clumsy fingers and unopened minds were equally diffi 
 cult to guide and to train ; but when the heart was 
 once won the will grew strong, and out of her untiring 
 effort came evidence of fine fruition at lust. 
 
 In the poor homes where they belonged the mothers 
 listened with a sort of awe to the accounts of this pale 
 lady, lying always on her couch, covered with the white, 
 fleecy folds of her delicate work, and giving out to 
 little rapt listeners thoughts that would abide with them 
 all their lives ; and the first result of this feeling was 
 clean faces and smooth pinafores. Then the children's 
 talk brought new ideas to the laboring fathers that 
 brightened the weary toil, and something gentler 
 seemed to steal into the hard and bare existences, and 
 so the sweet influences radiated farther than she could 
 feel, and her work was wider than she knew. 
 
 After a while Christmas was drawing near, and one 
 day there was an interesting assemblage of these small
 
 TEE CRIPPLED SISTER. 105 
 
 scholars in a room where one of them lived, whose 
 mother was a washerwoman, and upon tubs and 
 buckets they were seated in a circle, with their childish 
 countenances expressive of anxious meditation. The 
 weather was cold, and the devices to secure warmth, 
 mostly consisting of capes and shawls belonging to 
 grown-up people and much too large for their present 
 wearers, gave them generally the appearance of ani 
 mated bundles with a face at one end, and the tips of 
 very worn shoes sometimes of bare toes, peeping out 
 of the other ; and the subject of their meeting and con 
 sultation was, How to Get a Christmas Present for the 
 Crippled Sister, and What It Should Be. 
 
 No thought of expediency or custom entered these 
 youthful and inexperienced minds ; it was a matter of 
 pure love and gratitude, or as one of them put it, 
 " She's bin mighty good and lovin' to us, and we want to 
 do suthin' to make her feel we know it ! " The leader 
 of the meeting was a grave little damsel with quiet eyes, 
 who seemed to take a natural precedence. "Now, 
 Aimer Mariar," she said to a buzzing wee thing beside 
 her, " there ain't no use in guessin' and talkin' so 
 
 much ; let's count up ; each girl say how much she cari 
 5*
 
 106 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 give ; we've got to know that first of all. You begin, 
 Anner Mariar; how much are you goin' to have by 
 Christinas ? " 
 
 " Well," chirped out this small being from the folds 
 of a large red muffler, " I'm a goin' to settle down and 
 take a place to mind Mrs. M'Goffin's baby next door ; 
 it's an awful big baby, and drefful cross, but I guess I 
 kin do it, and get my share for the teacher ! I'm to 
 have twenty-five cents a week, but I have to give Mam 
 most of it, cos' I can't work out, and go to the Lady's, 
 and help her too ! but I kin save five cents a week off 
 anyhow ! It ain't much, but it's better'n nothin', and 
 Lord knows I'll earn it with that baby ! " 
 
 " There now, Anner Mariar, that'll do ; let somebody 
 else say something, will you ? " interposed the youthful 
 President. " Jane O'Connor, what do you think you'll 
 have ? " 
 
 The O'Connor's child wound herself very tight in a 
 big plaid shawl. " I'm goin' to do chores in the mornin' 
 for a board in'-house, carry up the coals and sich, and 
 they're to pay me ten cents a day. I spec' the old man 
 will take a good deal of it for gin, but I mean to screw 
 a quarter of it out anyhow, if I have to fight for it ! "
 
 THE VBIPPLED SISTER. 107 
 
 " So far so good," observed the approving Chief. 
 " Nettie Blane, it's your turn ! " Nettie looked down 
 abashed by the superior facilities of her companions, 
 and spoke in a rather low and tremulous tone. " I 
 ain't likely to have a chance to earn any money ; but 
 Uncle Jim he's a sailor, you know he brought me two 
 lovely shells home from his last voyage; they're all 
 smooth and pink inside, such a beautiful color, and 
 have got scolloped edges just like lace, and I thought 
 maybe I could sell them ! " Hereupon ensued an ani 
 mated discussion as to the probability of the nrnrket 
 value of these treasures, and much advice as to places 
 where there would be most likelihood of disposing of 
 them. Little Nettie's cheeks flushed as pink as the 
 shells themselves with excitement over the subject, and 
 her youthful soul experienced the first pain and joy of 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Then the question of resources was put to each of 
 the others in turn, and each made some hopeful reply. 
 One had an uncle who always gave her something for 
 Christmas, and she thought she could coax him to pre 
 sent it a few days beforehand ; and one had a tin bank 
 into which she had dropped all the few pennies she had
 
 108 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 received for two or three years, and she" was willing to 
 contribute all of them ; and so on through the whole 
 group, till a rough estimate was made by the grave little 
 President, after much struggling with the arithmetical 
 problem, and the financial committee rose up from the 
 tubs and buckets in quite tumultuous delight at the 
 amount of the uncollected sum. They circled round 
 for some minutes in rather noisy glee, till the small 
 Chief called them unceremoniously to order by stand 
 ing on a tub and exclaiming : 
 
 " Look here ! We have found out How To Do It, but 
 we haven't made up our minds yet What It Is To Be! " 
 There was an immediate subsidence at this suggestion, 
 and the important deliberation was resumed. This was 
 a very serious question indeed, as it was no longer a 
 matter requiring individual responsibility, but a general 
 decision and consent, and the tone of the discussion be 
 came much more argumentative. " What It Should 
 .Be " was one of those puzzles requiring experience in 
 intuition to decide, and wild and extravagant were 
 some of the first propositions by the more thoughtless 
 and those uninitiated into the cost of things. "I tell 
 you what," said Anna Maria, " there's nothin' like a
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 109 
 
 big cake ! there was one stayed in the baker's window 
 ever so long till last Christmas, and it was all over shin- 
 in' white icin', and it had a jailer and a red and a 
 blue rose right on top; and oh, my! it was just splendid. 
 I used to stand and stand and stand and look at it till 
 my toes were a-most froze, just a-thinkin' what an aw 
 ful lot of nice eatin' there was in it ! Now, / say let It 
 be a cake, for it's so good and so Christmassy !" 
 
 "Anner Marier," remarked the small President, 
 " you're j ust crazy ! Have you any idear what that cake 
 cost? Besides, the Lady gets enough to eat, and she 
 isn't the sort as is always thinking of her stomach." 
 
 Anna Maria was quenched for a moment, but re 
 tained a sense of injury at being thus unceremoniously 
 snubbed, which only waited for an opportunity to be 
 vented. 
 
 Directly the O'Connor's child observed that she 
 thought it would be nice to give the Lady a whole lot 
 
 of fine thread for her work, because she used so much 
 
 i 
 all the time. 
 
 " Thread ! " contemptuously retorted Anna Maria, 
 "who ever heard tell of thread for a Christmas 
 present ! "
 
 110 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 " It's a heap more useful nor a cake ! " replied the 
 other. 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Anna Maria, " people never gets use 
 ful things at Christmas, only something pretty to look 
 at, and good things to eat." 
 
 " Well, anyhow, I guess she wouldn't care about a 
 cake ! " 
 
 " I bet she would then ! " 
 
 " She wouldn't ! " 
 
 "She would!" 
 
 " Hold yer tongue 1 " "I won't ! " Then take that ! " 
 and the O'Connors child gave Anna Maria a quick 
 slap on the cheek. Anna Maria, not having been 
 trained in the Scripture doctrine of turning the other 
 cheek when she was smitten once, was about to return 
 the blow, when the little Chief, with her face all aglow, 
 stepped in between the excited parties. 
 
 " Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, after all the bless 
 ed things the Lady's bin teaching us ! Didn't she read 
 us out of the Good Book one day, ' Little children, love 
 one another ! ' and talk to us about it till we couldn't 
 most of us a-help crying ? And you two ain't no better 
 nor you had never heard it at all ! Do you think she'd
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. HI 
 
 care about a cake, or anything at all, if she knew you'd 
 bin fighting over it ? Now, yon just kiss and make up, 
 and don't have no more such sass ! " And Anna Maria 
 and the O'Connor's child were quite overcome, and fell 
 upon each other's necks and kissed, and then sat lovingly 
 down together on the same tub. 
 
 Then, after this, strange and various articles were 
 proposed, to which many objections were raised, princi 
 pally by the little President, who seemed to think her 
 most important duty was to keep the intended expendi 
 ture within the limits of the probable amount, for 
 which purpose she was obliged to do a good many sums 
 out loud. The puzzle was growing deeper, and the 
 likelihood of a decision seemed farther off than ever, 
 when Nettie Blane said, in her soft voice : " I know 
 what the Lady loves more than anything else, and that's 
 flowers ! Why, just here awhile ago, before it got so 
 cold, I found a bunch of wild posies growing alongside 
 the road as I was going to her house ; they were just 
 common things, but I picked them and took them to 
 her, and you just ought to have seen her over them ! 
 Her face lit all up, she was so pleased, and do you know 
 that for a minute she looked like she never was sick at
 
 112 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 all ; and she kind of petted them with her fingers, and 
 thanked me so nice that I never was so glad of doing 
 anything in my life ! Now, don't you all think she'd 
 rather have flowers real nice flowers, I mean, like you 
 see young gentlemen taking to their sweethearts ; not 
 anything we could find, but something we'd have to 
 buy ? " 
 
 The unconscious poetry in this little girl's soul had 
 vaguely divined that material gifts were not delicate 
 enough for this lonely spirit who communed with things 
 unseen. Nettie's earnestness enforced her idea, which 
 seemed to impress the fancies of her companions, till 
 one exclaimed : 
 
 " But flowers die so soon, and then she would never 
 have nothin' to keep to make her feel that we'd bin 
 thinkin' of her ! " 
 
 An anxious shade fell over Nettie Blane's face, that 
 however instantly brightened with a new thought. 
 
 " Oh, yes she would," she said, " because she'd 
 always remember ! Don't you know, somehow, if you 
 once get a thing, you've always got it, even if you don't 
 see it ! If I sell my shells, it don't much matter really, 
 because whenever I think about them they'll always be
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 113 
 
 in my heart, and I'll always know that Uncle Jim he 
 brought them to me over the sea ! " 
 
 The wise intuitions of the little philosopher struck 
 the poetic chord in the small surrounding humans. 
 Some one murmured, " Things ought to be awful 
 pretty to be remembered always ! " and the general 
 consent seemed to settle without dispute that a basket 
 of flowers would be the very sweetest thing in the world 
 to give. 
 
 " And I know of a man who keeps a hot-house just 
 out of town," said the young President, " and he looks 
 good-humored and kind, so maybe he'll give us some 
 thing real nice for what we'll have to pay ! " And 
 soon after the meeting dispersed, each one going her 
 way, with the sense of quite an important aim embel 
 lishing the future. 
 
 The day before Christmas, as the big, burly and rosy 
 owner of the conservatory just out of town was sort 
 ing his choicest blooms for a large wedding which was 
 to take place in the evening, with a deftness hardly to 
 have been expected from the size of his fingers, the 
 door of the hot-house suddenly opened, and a squadron
 
 114: THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 of a dozen or more small girls, headed by a g-ave-eyed 
 little damsel, entered in solemn procession. 
 
 "Bless my soul!" said the Gentle Giant, turning 
 his bluff, bright face towards them," what do you 
 young ones want ? " 
 
 For an instant they had stood qnite still, looking 
 about them in wonder and delight ; for the whole place 
 was so filled with rare and lovely blossoms that its 
 atmosphere, color, and profusion was like a concentra 
 tion of the tropics. Anna Maria nudged the O'Con 
 nor's child to look at yellow oranges ripening amid 
 their own foliage, and murmured, " Oh, my ! they're 
 really growin' there, they are ! " And Nettie Blane's 
 tender gaze lingered on the white camellias and clus 
 tered azaleas, as if for the first time in her life she had 
 realized a fulfilled sense of perfect beauty. But the 
 Young Leader, deeply impressed with the importance 
 of her errand, had never taken her eyes off the hearty 
 countenance of the Big Gardener, and was not to be 
 diverted from its practical pursuit by any allurements 
 of tint or odor, and in her quiet voice replied to his sur 
 prised salutation : 
 
 " If you please, sir, we want to buy a basket of flowers."
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 115 
 
 The man dropped the two or three buds he held in 
 his hand, turned entirely around, and gave one steady 
 look down the whole line ; he saw at once that they 
 were not likely to want flowers for themselves, and im 
 agined that one or two had been sent on a message, and 
 that the rest had accompanied these. 
 
 " You want to buy " he said slowly. 
 
 " Yes, sir, a basket of flowers, if you please. 
 
 " Who for ? and why are there so many of you ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, I'll tell you. Yon see, sir, there's a 
 dear, kind Lady, and she's a cripple, and never gets off 
 a low kind of bed she lays on, and works all the time 
 the most beautiful broidering flowers you ever seen. 
 And she teaches ns ; we go there to her room, and she 
 tells ns oh ! she tells us such sweet things about every 
 thing, and she tries to make us good, and we're learn 
 ing ever so much from her. So we thought we'd like 
 to give her a Christmas present, and we've all saved up 
 till we think we've got enough; and because she never 
 can go out to see anything a-growing, and just loves 
 flowers like they were alive, we made up our minds to 
 take her some ; because we all give something towards 
 it we all came together about it ; and if you please, sir,
 
 116 THE CRIPPLED SISTER, 
 
 we'd like as nice a basketful as you can make up for 
 our money." 
 
 The rosy face bloomed out bright as one of his own 
 blossoms ; the round eyes grew wonderfully soft and 
 moist, as the big, burly man stooped and kissed the 
 small speaker, and said, with just a touch of huskiness 
 in his voice : 
 
 " "Well, you're a blessed little party ! You just go 
 round, all of you, and pick out what you'd like to have, 
 and I'll fix them up for you ! " There was an immedi 
 ate stir in the young procession, an ^evident delight in 
 this permission, and an intention to put it instantly 
 into practice, when the Small Leader called out, " You 
 keep still there, will you ? Iv'e got something else to 
 say ! " 
 
 Curiosity restored order, and she again addressed the 
 gardener. 
 
 " Ain't those grand flowers very dear ? You see, sir, 
 we don't want anything we can't pay for all right ; 
 because, you know, if you were to go and put in out of 
 goodness something that ought to cost more than we've 
 got the money for, it would be you a-giving, not us ! 
 Besides, if it was too fine, the Lady would be worried
 
 THE CRIPPLED SfSTER. 117 
 
 with thinking where we'd got enough to do^it with ! So 
 if you will please to give us something as nice as you 
 can for just what we can pay for it, we will be so much 
 obliged. We've got this much money ; please to count 
 it, sir, and see if it will do ! " And she handed him a 
 rather battered tin match-box containing the accumu 
 lated contributions in small coins, as they had been 
 gradually brought in as they were gained. 
 
 And as the Gentle Giant took the minute box in his 
 big hands he had to cough to keep down an uncomfort 
 able choking in his throat, and which became even 
 more troublesome when Nettie Blane stepped up to 
 him, and said : " If we can afford it, sir, could you put 
 in a Lily ? because it seems as if she oiight to have 
 white flowers, and I know she loves lilies because she 
 always sets so many of them in her work ; and I heard 
 her say one day like to herself that Solomon in all 
 his glory was not arrayed like one of these ! " 
 
 The Big Gardener by this time was too much touched 
 to keep quite calm. " Here," he said to the Little 
 Leader, " you count out this money, and tell rne how 
 much it is, and I'll do the best I can for it ! " As the 
 grave voice enumerated the amount, piece by piece,
 
 118 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 the rest looked and listened with an eager pride in the 
 limited sum which was pathetic to behold, as every 
 penny of it had been earned by some sort of sacrifice. 
 And when the Big Gardener took a basket and went 
 round his hot-house collecting here and there his sim 
 plest blooms, all these keen eyes watched him in un 
 broken silence, and not one of them stirred a gaze from 
 his fingers as he laid in the moss, propped a superb, 
 stainless lily in the centre, and arranged round it with 
 exquisite taste, violets and heart's-ease, and delicate, pure 
 blossoms ; in breathless quiet they noted every flower 
 that was woven into its place, little thinking that these 
 commoner plants which they were used to see in 
 summer were almost as costly as foreign growths in 
 winter ; and it was not till the whole was finished that 
 they broke out into exclamations of satisfaction. 
 
 " This must be a mighty good woman to make you 
 love her so!" said the man as he handed over the 
 basket to the careful hold of the Little Leader. 
 
 " Good ! " answered Nettie Blane, " she's a-most an 
 angel ; it seems like she ought never to do anything 
 but stand up close to the Throne with just such lilies 
 in her hand ! "
 
 THE CRIPPLED SI1STE&. 119 
 
 For Nettie's inmost heart was stirred by the flowers 
 and the occasion. 
 
 The Big Gardener looked at her a second as if he 
 thought she might have been a stray cherub herself. 
 
 " That's all your own gift," he said,. pointing to the 
 lily-cro wned basket ; " but would you mind taking her 
 a little present from me too ? " 
 
 There was a pause in general fear lest his superior 
 resources might eclipse the glory of their own offering ; 
 the Gentle Giant smiled and answered the unexpressed 
 thought. 
 
 " It shall only be one flower," he said ; and as a 
 single flower in their inexperienced eyes could not 
 possibly compare with a basketful, a happy assent 
 was immediately given. 
 
 He went round among his plants to where bloomed 
 one magnificent blossom, the only one of its kind in 
 the greenhouse. For months and months he had nur 
 tured this particular growth with the utmost care, 
 training it towards the production of this one flower 
 with the solicitude of a father for a child, knowing that 
 its rarity and splendor would bring an immense price; 
 but now, with a glowing face, he broke it unhesitatingly
 
 120 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 from the stalk, and without a sensation of regret, placed 
 it in Nettie Blaue's hand. " Oh, thank yon ! " said 
 Nettie's glad voice, " I will give it to her with your 
 compliments." And then the Big Gardener kissed 
 every one of them as they passed out, and stood at his 
 hot-house door, and watched the little procession as it 
 wound out -of sight with the Little Leader at the head, 
 carrying the Basket of Flowers. 
 
 The Crippled Sister was lying on her low conch, 
 working a butterfly on a white shroud for the dead 
 know not Christmas, and wait for no one's holiday; 
 and as the emblem of immortality spread its wings 
 beneath her glancing needle, she crooned over to her 
 self the song that the angels sang to the wondering 
 shepherds so many centuries ago ; and as the " Good 
 will towards men " dropped from her lips, her chamber 
 door opened and the Light of The Household entered 
 in, folloAved by the procession of children bearing 
 their precious burden. The Light of The Household 
 had tears in her eyes and a 'quiver about her mouth as 
 she said, " Dear Sister, the little ones have brought you 
 a Christinas present ! " for she had met them at the
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 hall-door, and divined all the sweet story from their 
 few words of explanation. 
 
 Then the Little Leader stepped forward with the 
 basket of flowers, and as the Crippled Sister took it in 
 her hands the shroud fell aside, but even in the living 
 delight of the Present, the butterfly of Immortality 
 rested on her bosom below the shining flower of the 
 Annunciation ; and as the children stood round the 
 bed in their poor clothes, and some of their hands hard 
 ened by toil, it dawned upon her how they had worked 
 and sacrificed to bring her this token of love, and her 
 heart was almost too full for words, and tears of purest, 
 saddest joy dropped like rain upon the violets and 
 heart's-ease that represented to her the tender gratitude 
 of those innocent souls. " It is so beautiful ! so beauti 
 ful?" she murmured, and they fairly thrilled to think 
 she meant their happy gift ; but Nettie Blane alone 
 felt that it was of their feelings she spoke, and as if to 
 crown the season's offering of good-will, she laid the 
 single gorgeous blossom beside their own present, say 
 ing : 
 
 " The Big Garderner sent you this too, ma'am, with 
 his compliments, because he said you ' must be a mighty
 
 122 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 
 
 good woman to make us love you so much.' " Then 
 the rich color flooded the Crippled Sister's cheek and 
 brow, and her eyes shone, and she seemed to grow 
 transfigured before their very sight into angelic youth 
 and beauty, and her voice was almost like a song as she 
 cried out, " O my darlings ! you have made me so rich 
 to-day, for you have brought me not only these lovely, 
 lovely flowers, but something I thought never could 
 come into my lonely life the free, blessed Love of 
 Children ! " And she kissed them all over and over, 
 and when they lingered as though loth to leave her, her 
 spirit seemed inspired to speak to them from the text 
 of the flowers ; through the Big Gardener's rare blos 
 som she seemed to bring before them the wonders, the 
 glories, the very atmosphere of the East ; they saw the 
 palms of India and the gardens of Damascus, the roses 
 of Persia, and the Cedars of Lebanon ; and out of the 
 simple blooms of their own sweet gift, she wove tender 
 stories and lessons that would cling in their memories 
 to heart' s-ease and violets as long as they lived ; and she 
 told them at last that the great old artists, when they 
 painted their pictures of the Angel bringing Good News 
 to Mary, the Mother of Christ, always placed just such
 
 THE CRIPPLED SISTER. 123 
 
 another white Lily in his hand ; and that it was sign 
 and token of message and promise. And somehow, as 
 she talked, these poor, little, narrow lives felt them 
 selves grow nearer to the angels; and when, after they 
 had all joined together in singing for her the Christinas 
 hymn, they went out to their humble homes with their 
 hearts upraised in " Glory to God on high," because 
 they felt, in their vague way, that in that one room at 
 least there was " peace on earth and good-will towards 
 men." 
 
 And the Light of the Household leaned over the 
 Crippled Sister with a half sob in her tone as she said, 
 " This is a happy Christmas, Dear ! " " Ah ! yes," an 
 swered she. " And it all came from the precious Baby ; 
 for if it had not been for the Baby, I should never have 
 thought of these other children ! Kneel down, sister, 
 and say a Christmas prayer for the dear Children and 
 the darling Baby ! "
 
 VI. 
 
 BABY S PAKTY. 
 
 BABY was going into short frocks ; and the Young 
 Aunties had all assembled in Baby's home in order to 
 assist the Young Mother in cutting down the long robes 
 which had hitherto covered Baby's restless little feet. 
 They were a gay and happy party as they sat around 
 the pile of dainty white garments, one ripping, another 
 cutting, and the rest sewing with nimble and willing 
 fingers, while Baby lay in the midst, and greatly inter 
 rupted the work and merry chat ; for first one Young 
 Auntie would stop to coo back to the chirping crows, 
 and then a general flow of baby talk would suspend the 
 flashing thimbles; then another Young Auntie, having 
 to do a little necessary measuring of Baby's tiny person, 
 must needs dandle the small creature a while to each 
 of the other Aunties, until the fun grew fast and furi 
 ous, and Baby wild with infantile delight; and then
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 125 
 
 another Aunty was moved to kiss the rosy mouth be 
 cause " the little darling was too sweet to live," and all 
 the other Young Aunties felt called upon to follow suit, 
 until at last the Young Mother called the party to 
 order, using her gold thimble as a gavel, and crying out 
 in a loud voice that she had something important to 
 say. Curiosity conquered the spirit of frolic, and the 
 small fetish was left in peace by its feminine worship 
 pers until all the say was said ; the neglected cambric 
 was resumed and the bright needles began to fly again 
 in this charming sewing-circle. 
 
 " I have been thinking," spoke the Young Mother, 
 when some stillness was restored, " that I should like to 
 celebrate in some way or other Baby's change into short 
 clothes ; suppose we have a Baby party ! " 
 
 Then the sluices of talk opened up; exclamations 
 of "Capital!" "Glorious!" "What a nice idea!" 
 echoed from the Young Aunties, and then began to 
 now a stream of plans and suggestions. 
 
 " How many babies do we know ? " " Shall all the 
 rest come in short dresses like our Baby?" " Won't it 
 be lovely to see such a lot of new baby shoes ? " " All 
 the Nurses will have to come, so it will be a Nurses'
 
 126 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 party too!" "What will the Babies get to eat?" 
 " Pap and arrow-root ? " " Wouldn't it be rich to ladle 
 boiled milk out of the big Punch bowl ? " " What en 
 tertainment for the Nurses ? " " Oh, pale ale and 
 brown stout ! " " Or else unlimited tea and toast ! " 
 " Guess there'll have to be a supply of Mrs. Winslow's 
 soothing syrup ! " " Wonder if they'll all bring their 
 rattles ? " " Our Baby must have a coral to assist the 
 concert ! " " Ho ! Baby ! you're going to have a Ball ! 
 a grand Baby Ball ! And all the fairy godmothers are 
 coming, and all the Baby Princesses, with rings on their 
 fingers and bells on their toes ? " 
 
 Down came the authoritative gold thimble again to 
 quiet the confusion of tongues. 
 
 " That is not the kind of party at all that I want to 
 have," said the Young Mother. " Now, girls, do be 
 still awhile till I tell you what my thought has been 
 about it. We all know what a blessing our precious 
 Baby is ; how we all love her, and what a pleasure she 
 is to us all is she not ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed," rang out the Aunties, " she's just a 
 dimpled angel and worth her weight in gold ! " 
 
 " Then," continued the Young Mother, speaking very
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 127 
 
 softly and tenderly, " it seems to me so selfish to keep 
 all the happiness of her to ourselves, when we might 
 make her the source of sweetness and enjoyment to 
 others. Now, you know, girls, that rich people's chil 
 dren get and have everything our Baby couldn't do 
 much for them ; it isn't to the happy infants M r ho have 
 corals and rattles, arrow-root and pap in plenty, that I 
 want to give my Baby's party, but for the poor little 
 creatures that never have heard a rattle or saw a bowl 
 of good boiled milk in their short lives. Oh, ever since 
 my Baby was born there has come up to me so often 
 the cry of the children the children who are not shel 
 tered and cared for as mine is ; and I have wept over 
 the mothers who must weep over their little ones, be 
 cause they have so little to give them in a world that 
 must be so hard to them ! Can we do nothing for 
 these ? Can we not give these babies a party, and 
 make it an occasion of kindness and rejoicing? " 
 
 The Young Aunties were silent now, and most of 
 the bright eyes were moist with the dew of feeling ; 
 their impressionable hearts and fancies had gone out to 
 those other babies so different in all their surroundings 
 from their own family pet. But one of the gay young
 
 128 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 girls partly because she did not like the unusual sen 
 sation of gravity which had settled upon her sunny 
 spirits, and partly from a naturally practical as well as 
 fastidious turn of mind suddenly exclaimed : 
 
 " But poor people's babies always smell so badly, 
 and are so dreadfully dirty ! they are so sour and slob 
 bery, and generally wear yellow flannel petticoats ! " 
 
 " Ah, dear ! " answered the Young Mother, " how can 
 they be nice and sweet as our Baby, when the parents 
 have to toil so hard, so early and so late, that there is 
 hardly time to make the merest necessaries of life? 
 Besides, you must remember that there are some 
 mothers so poor that they cannot afford even to buy 
 soap ! " 
 
 " Oh, Sister, soap is so cheap ! " cried the practical 
 Young Auntie. 
 
 " Yes to us. But to them bread is so dear, and 
 bread is the necessity and soap the luxury." 
 
 The practical Young Auntie w r as practical no longer; 
 to be too poor to procure soap was a depth of distress 
 to which her imagination had never descended. She 
 had an immediate vision of a rich soap-boiler whose, 
 advances she had always scorned, but who loomed up
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 129 
 
 now in her mind as a possible universal benefactor ; 
 and in a momentary fancy she was herself standing at 
 the door of his factory, dispensing bars of soap to a 
 dirty crowd, as nuns deal out food to the beggars at the 
 gate of a convent, and somehow the Soap-boiler did 
 not seem so low down in the social scale of humanity 
 as before; he became instead a kind of apostle to re 
 deem the Great Unwashed. 
 
 Her passing reverie was interrupted by the Young 
 Mother's voice, as she continued : "DSn't you think we 
 could contrive at our party to provide these poor babies 
 with some of the necessaries that their mothers have so 
 much trouble to obtain for them, and that, perhaps, 
 will leave them a little of their hard-earned money for 
 other things ? " 
 
 " Soap, for instance," said the Young Auntie, who 
 had scarcely got away from the Soap-boiler and his 
 factory door. 
 
 The generous hearts of the Young Aunties were 
 stirred, and the consultation was long and deep ; and 
 the girls went out of Baby's home with a thoughtful 
 pucker in each smooth forehead, occasioned by pro 
 found consideration of each one's share in the new 
 6*
 
 130 BABTS PARTY. 
 
 enterprise, and with much eager talk of the ways and 
 means, and all they meant to do. 
 
 And lo ! as the practical Young Auntie wended her 
 way homeward, by a strange coincidence whom should 
 she meet, face to face, but the Soap-boiler himself ! and 
 with a vague intention of securing future soap for 
 scented babies, she absolutely allowed herself to return 
 his respectful bow with a pleasant nod, whereupon the 
 audacious Soap-boiler, w r ho had hitherto secretly admired 
 her afar off, tool* the liberty of joining her fair high 
 ness upon the open street. Once this man who thus 
 dared would have been met with haughtiness and 
 silence, and would soon have been made to feel that he 
 was no fit escort for an aristocratic Young Auntie, 
 albeit he had all the seeming of a presentable and cour 
 teous gentleman ; but somehow, in the last hour soap 
 had taken on a new dignity, and its manufacturer did 
 not seem so near to the scum of the earth as before. 
 So, involuntarily she was almost gracious, and was sur 
 prised to find that the despised individual was well edu 
 cated, had refined tastes, and even some beautiful enthu 
 siasms ; and in her astonishment and humility at having 
 BO under-estimated a human soul because of a worldly
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 131 
 
 business, she actually invited the Soap-boiler to Baby's 
 party. Afterwards she felt half ashamed of it, and 
 laughed ironically to herself as she pictured him enter 
 ing in the midst of assembled babies, dragging in a 
 great box full of brown soap. And at last it tormented 
 her so that she had asked him, that she began to dream 
 about him, and her. nights were haunted by saponaceous 
 visions until she almost began to envy those to whom 
 soap was a luxury. 
 
 Soon the deft fingers of the Young Aunties began to 
 fly in preparation ; bundles of bright zephyrs adorned 
 their tables; balls of worsted were forever being 
 pounced upon by sportive kittens; odds and ends of 
 yarn strewed each familiar place; every admirer was 
 called upon to hold entangling skeins ; and all their 
 lighter talk was interspersed with grave counting of 
 stitches, till it might have been thought that each one 
 was weaving a Penelope's web, which was never to be 
 finished. And they pursued the Grandfathers for coin 
 to purchase Shetland wool, and tormented them per 
 petually for contributions to knitting-needles, till the 
 Grandfathers who, however, paid out on every demand, 
 and were always rewarded by a kiss from rosy lips
 
 132 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 grumbled after the fashion of men when their pockets are 
 touched, growled greatly over the "nonsense of it all," 
 and declared that " babies were a nuisance anyhow ! " 
 and that " our Baby was too much spoiled ! " at all of 
 wilich the Young Aunties chaffed and coaxed, and came 
 off triumphant. But the hearty Grandmothers entered 
 into the spirit of the thing with real good-will, and gave 
 excellent service in the cause. And the Poor Relation 
 sent her small donation, neat and pure and simple as 
 herself, and the Crippled Sister wrought night and day 
 as she could, at her share of the sweet work. 
 
 And so came on the day of Baby's party, a day when 
 the sun was shining and warm hearts were glowing ; 
 when Baby's home was made bright with flowers, and 
 in the midst thereof stood a great basket, heaped up to 
 overflowing with all kinds of warm and useful and 
 pretty baby garments. Baby herself was dressed in her 
 first short frock, much to her own intense delight, as 
 she could thus uninterruptedly play with her disclosed 
 feet, for the first time covered with the wee-est pair of 
 colored slippers, which her round eyes contemplated 
 with curious observation, and her chubby fingers began 
 immediately to try and pull off. Never yet had she
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 133 
 
 beheld anything so fascinating ; and to kick the small 
 phenomena back and forth, and crow with self-appro 
 bation, seemed to have become her crowning satisfac 
 tion. 
 
 The first to arrive were the Grandfathers and Grand 
 mothers, the latter each carrying a bundle of last con 
 tributions, and the former, half-langhing and half -grum 
 bling, protesting that the whole thing was an absurdity ; 
 that there were enough paupers in the world, without 
 encouraging poor folks to bring any more into exist 
 ence ; that women, anyhow, always had more sentimen 
 tality than common sense ; that because there was one 
 Baby in the family, there was no reason to go mad over 
 a whole lot of other babies ! But the wary Young 
 Mother held her little one up for them to kiss, and that 
 stopped their further speech, for they immediately began 
 to amuse and entice the infant with the gold heads of 
 their canes, and straightway became as foolish over 
 Baby as any woman belonging to them. 
 
 Then came in the Young Aunties, one or two at 
 a time, in the prettiest of simple toilettes, and with the 
 sweetest of youthful, happy faces all aglow with the ex 
 citement of benevolence, and all eagerness and excla-
 
 134 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 mations over Baby's loveliness in its new attire ; and 
 with one Young Auntie entered the undaunted Soap- 
 
 
 
 boiler, who had waylaid her on the road under the 
 pretence that he felt rather shy at going alone to a 
 party where he knew so few much to her dismay, as 
 she had over and over again repented the momentary 
 enthusiasm of humanity which caused her to give the 
 invitation, and had hoped that he had forgotten it ; 
 but somehow, as she crossed the threshold with him, 
 blushing with an unsubdued caste pride or shame, she 
 could not help but watch very narrowly the reception 
 accorded him, and her light heart was greatly relieved 
 to see that he was warmly greeted by the Grandfathers, 
 who, being sensible men of the world, thought a good 
 deal more of a man's character than his business ; that 
 he was cordially welcomed by the Young Father and 
 Mother, whose sense of hospitality did -not permit them 
 to exhibit any surprise, or any other feeling than pleas 
 ure, at his presence ; and above all, that the other 
 Young Aunties sufficiently concealed their amazement 
 and scorn under the mask of distant courtesy ; but 
 because she did perceive, notwithstanding, that in 
 their innermost hearts they were looking down on her
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 135 
 
 escort, her own rose up in involuntary championship, 
 and made her so gracious and respectful to him that he 
 enthroned her Queen of his Life forever. 
 
 Then the pure presence of the Poor Relation entered 
 like a blessing in their midst, and there was a softness 
 and tenderness in every one's manner as she moved 
 from one to another in salutation, which showed that 
 angels are not always entertained unaware. 
 
 And at last, hearty and cheery, with her big black 
 coal-scuttle bonnet tied under her double chin, and in 
 one hand the inevitable cotton umbrella stout in the 
 stick and faded in the stuff while the other grasped 
 the bulging basket whose lid was tightly secured with 
 green ribbons, in rolled the Fat Nurse, who, still pant 
 ing and blowing, having been settled on a wide seat 
 with Baby trotting away on one knee, proceeded dexter 
 ously to open with a single hand that mysterious bas 
 ket without which she was never known to appear, and 
 about whose contents there had always been more or 
 less curiosity ; and behold, when the lid was uplifted, 
 there was the capacious interior filled to the brim with 
 carefully packed sucking-bottles, while the mellow 
 voice poured out an explanation : " You see, when this
 
 136 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 ere precious Baby sent me an invite to come to the party 
 cos, perhaps, I might help some of the poor mothers 
 with my experience thinks I to myself, now I'd 
 like to do something for them poor little mites as don't 
 get much nussin', nor any too much vittles or comfort ; 
 but I have them belongin' to me as I have to take care 
 of, and so have mighty little money to indulge my feel 
 ings with, and I lay awake two or three nights off and 
 on a-cogitatin' and ruminatin' how I should make it out, 
 and at last I just set out mornin' after morn in' with 
 that basket of mine, and went to every house where I 
 had nussed, and asked the ladies to give me all the bot- 
 les they had done with for poor women as couldn't buy 
 'em ; but I didn't get enough, as babies keep comin' on 
 in most families, and bottles, like the long clothes, are 
 apt to descend to the next; so I went around every 
 place where I could find a lot of bottles that could be 
 made to do, and fixed 'em up with tops as don't cost 
 much, you know, and there they are, and welcome ! " 
 
 The Young Aunties told her that she was " a real, 
 dear, good old soul ! " and the Grandmothers patted her 
 on the shoulder and praised her good sense, while to 
 the glistening sight of the Poor Relation these plain
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 137 
 
 bottles sparkled like diamonds; but the Young Mother, 
 thanking her warmly, brought the moisture to the 
 small, twinkling eyes half buried in the fat cheeks, by 
 stooping over and tenderly kissing the coarse, good- 
 humored mouth, for though the Fat Nurse was 
 homely, common, and ungrammatical, though she wore 
 a frilled cap and a bombazine coal-scuttle, and carried 
 a faded cotton umbrella, and though her " profession !J 
 was not the most exalted walk in life, still this Young 
 Mother saw under all this the kind and generous heart, 
 and only felt that " by their fruits ye shall know 
 them I " And lo \ at last, when they were thus gathered 
 together, and waiting for the babies, the primmest of 
 footmen, in the trimmest of livery, delivered with care 
 ful precision a very large package and a very short 
 note, and all the assembled group were quite struck 
 dumb to think that it had never entered any of their 
 minds to ask Aunt Hannah ; for the unexpected mis 
 sive simply said ; " As you have forgotten to invite me 
 to the Baby's party, I send, by bearer, my contribution ' 
 to the same, hoping it may be found useful and accept 
 able." The Young Aunties immediately thought of 
 that grim fairy of the story-books who is always left out
 
 138 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 at the christening, and comes in at the last moment, 
 furious at the slight, to counteract all the good gifts of 
 the other fairy godmothers. But though their Aunt 
 Hannah seemed a very grim fairy indeed to the Young 
 Aunties, there was nothing malicious in her gift ; for, 
 when the package was opened, there lay a score of 
 violet and dove-colored merino Babies' cloaks, warm 
 and wadded, suitable and plain ; and as they all stood 
 in a group .looking at these there came a fresh tender 
 ness into the face of one of the Grandfathers. 
 
 " We let Hannah too much alone," he softly said at 
 length. " Poor thing ! she never forgets ; " and then 
 noticing the curious looks on the Young Aunties' coun 
 tenances, he added : " Ah ! girls, Aunt Hannah is 
 homely and old now, but she was once as young and 
 pretty and happy as any of you. My sister had a great 
 sorrow long ago, and these little things tell me that she 
 has never forgotten. "We must all go and see her 
 more. Her life must be lonely enough in her big, 
 empty house. Go and see her, girls go and see your 
 Aunt Hannah ! " And as he turned away there were 
 tears standing in the eyes that had just looked into the 
 past.
 
 BAfiY'S PARTY. 139 
 
 And hardly had the cloaks been laid out of sight 
 when mothers and babies commenced to arrive. It 
 was a pathetic sight to see them all collected together. 
 All were scrupulously clean, in spite of the Young 
 Auntie's foreboding, and some of the infantile faces 
 fairly shone as if they had been well rubbed into un 
 usual whiteness ; and though there were indeed a few 
 yellow flannel petticoats, these obnoxious garments had 
 at least no shadow of dirt on them, while the poor 
 dresses of the mothers were mended and washed and 
 made as decent as possible, for it was a very rare holi 
 day, and all seemed to have striven to be in everything 
 becoming. The babies themselves were many of them 
 scrawny and pale and miserable to behold, but not par 
 ticularly noisy, for the silent patience of endurance 
 enters early into the spirits of the very poor, and their 
 occasional cries of want and pain were more of feeble 
 whines than the healthy roar of indulged infancy. It 
 stirred the hearts of the women to notice how lean and 
 bony some of the tiny arms were, and how pinched and 
 old a few of the little faces ; but still some were round 
 and rosy and lusty evidences of Nature's success in 
 spite of circumstances, and with sound lungs, which, how-
 
 140 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 ever, they were much too interested in the novel scene 
 to use. 
 
 There was thin and tired-looking Mary Maloney, 
 who took in washing, and whose equally lean baby had 
 never known any other cradle than a broken wash-tub, 
 and who, when no kindly neighbor took care of her 
 child during her absence, carried her washes home on 
 one arm, and her baby on the other. And there was a 
 consumptive seamstress, whose weird and unnaturally 
 quiet infant looked like a little shrivelled up old mon 
 key, with preternaturally keen and cunning eyes ; and 
 big, bouncing Kitty Flanagan, with a heart as ample as 
 her broad bosom, on which reposed too sickly twins, 
 the legacy of a dead daughter, and which tremendous 
 charge the generous soul had accepted with a resigna 
 tion which was almost cheerfulness, though she had to 
 work almost day and night to keep the life in them, 
 and some besides who were dependent upon her. And 
 there were many others gathered in from the byways 
 and hedges of life, and to whom need and sorrow were 
 all too familiar, and pleasure a luxury they had scarce 
 ly ever known ; so that in all these hard lives, so worn, 
 so weary with toil and care, so unlovely and unbright-
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 141 
 
 ened, this sweet occasion of Baby's party became the 
 Day of Days. After the bustle of reception was over, 
 and all were comfortably seated around the parlor, the 
 Young Mother moved a small table in the midst, on 
 which was laid the large new Family Bible, which had 
 been one of her wedding presents, and on the blank 
 leaves of which between the Testaments the only records 
 were her own marriage and that of Baby's birth. She 
 read, half shyly and with tender grace, the beautiful 
 story of the Star of Bethlehem ; and when she paused, 
 some of these poor mothers, who perhaps had never 
 even heard a line of the Good Book before, felt as if a 
 new sacredness had fallen on their own babies, since a 
 little child had once been worshipped by the Wise Men 
 of the East. Then she turned the cherished pages a 
 little farther on, and again read only three verses, the 
 three most beautiful verses that ever touched the uni 
 versal heart of humanity ; and it seemed to all those 
 untutored natures, who through all the burden of ma 
 ternity had felt the throb of love, that this blessed voice 
 which, eighteen hundred years before, had rebuked the 
 disciples, still spoke to each one of them, and ba.de 
 them " Suffer little children to come unto me, and for-
 
 142 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 bid them not," and because "of such is the kingdom 
 of heaven," there fell the holiness of possible angel 
 hood upon each unseemly waif, and for a space there 
 was a reverend silence as if the hands of Christ were 
 in reality being laid upon the little ones, and even the 
 babies themselves kept wonderfully quiet. Then one 
 of the Young Aunties rose up and went to the piano, 
 and sang this sweet benediction of children : 
 
 " To Thee, O God ! whose face 
 
 Their angels still behold, 
 We bring these children, that Thy grace 
 May keep, Thine arms enfold. 
 
 "And as the blessing falls 
 
 Upon each youthful brow, 
 Thy holy spirit grant, O Lord ! 
 To keep them pure as now." 
 
 And the hearts of the mothers were so full that tears 
 fell down on the wan faces of the. babies ; and then 
 all the Young Aunties gathered together around the 
 instrument, and chanted, in their clear, fresh tones, 
 " The Mother's Hymn," that our honored Bryant wrote 
 out of his poet's wisdom and insight ; and the un 
 familiar light and glow upon their mothers' connte-
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 143 
 
 nances, made them so strange to their babies, that they 
 raised up their voices also and wept aloud. Then the 
 doors were thrown open, and in was borne, not only 
 one punch-bowl of -boiled milk, but another, borrowed 
 from the Grandmothers, brimming over with arrow 
 root pap ; and there was great frolic and fun among 
 the busy Young Aunties filling up the Fat Nurse's 
 acceptable bottles, and so.on a gentle gurgling sound 
 proclaimed that the whole assembly were ecstatically 
 at peace ; while the Fat Nurse sat in the midst, beam 
 ing all over with delight at the appropriateness and 
 usefulness of her present, and dealing out advice here 
 and there, after the decided fashion of one having 
 authority. 
 
 " You needn't tell me, Mrs. Maloney, that if that 
 child of yours had such feedin' every day it would 
 ever get plump and healthy ! It ain't vittles it wants 
 so much as air ! Yes, air ! Don't I know well enough 
 how you folks shut yourselves up in your room, and 
 patch up every crack and cranny to keep out a 
 draught? Ain't you afraid as death of a shiver, and 
 keep every window down for fear of a bit of chilliness? 
 You think close air is warm air. Now,, if you'd put
 
 14:4: BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 any sort of a cover over your baby, and then fling up 
 your sashes, and let in the blessed breezes till the smell 
 and the mustiness were all cleared out, and there was 
 a chance to breathe something that you couldn't cut 
 with a knife, your child would gain a little flesh and 
 color, and you too for that matter ! You're just killing 
 your baby with foul air ; that's all that ails it ; and it's 
 a good deal better to be a trifle cold than to be dyin' 
 by inches ! Well, I know, my dear soul, that coal is 
 dear, and every one can't afford a fire ; but a little of 
 the Lord's good, fresh air to sweeten your home won't 
 freeze you to death ! " And then she unhesitatingly 
 accused another conscious mother of giving her baby 
 paregoric to make it sleep at night, or while she was 
 at work, as it was easy to be seen that the small crea 
 ture was one of the restless, nervous sort who are 
 always teething and always crying. No denial or 
 excuse could deceive that practiced eye ; but instead of 
 a severe and indignant protest, she imparted a piece 
 of information : " Don't you know what a sugar-tag is ? 
 You just take a cracker and pound it up crackers 
 don't cost as much as paregoric, and one will do two or 
 three times and sweeten it a little, and tie it up tight
 
 BABY'S PAETY. 145 
 
 in a bit of rag ; stick it into your baby's mouth, and it 
 will suck away at it, and keep still for hours ; try that, 
 and throw your paregoric bottle away anyhow; for 
 cryin' is natural, but stupor ain't." 
 
 And while she delivered her oracular injunctions, 
 the Young Aunties were amused to notice that the 
 Soap-boiler, sitting quietly near by, listened to her quite 
 attentively, as though he thought the Fat Nurse was a 
 character ; who knew what she was about, and was well 
 worth hearing ; and she, nothing daunted by her unusual 
 audience, gave these ignorant mothers, in a . few mo 
 ments, more instruction on the proper physical rearing 
 of their children, than perhaps they had ever learned 
 in all their lives before. 
 
 Soon after, when the Babies were all inwardly re 
 freshed, and many of them asleep, all the cushions and 
 pillows in the house were brought into requisition, and 
 all the sofas and arm-chairs were filled, and the Fat 
 Nurse, Baby's own nurse, the two Grandmothers, and 
 the Poor Kelation were left to mind them all, while the 
 mothers were ushered into the dining-room, where a plen 
 tiful repast had been prepared. The Young Mother had 
 brought out all her prettiest china and finest glass, and
 
 14:6 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 her table was set and garnished as though her guests were 
 the best of her friends ; and the Grandfathers sat at 
 either end and carved for the hungry eaters till their 
 faces glowed with the exercise ; and the Young Father 
 and Mother, the Young Aunties and the Soap-boiler 
 waited on them, and the latter acquitted himself so grace 
 fully, was so thoughtful and considerate, and so gentle 
 and courteous to each poor woman as though she had 
 been the highest lady in the land, that one Young Auntie 
 in particular, watching him critically, began to think him 
 the noblest and truest gentleman she ever saw, and re 
 membered the old story of Gareth, who served in the 
 palace kitchen for a year and a day before he proved 
 himself one of the gallantest knights of King Arthur's 
 Round Table. 
 
 After they had returned to the parlor, and each 
 mother was gathering up her own offspring, the Young 
 Mother noticed the Grandfathers standing together and 
 looking on. Directly they said a few words to each 
 other, and then suddenly disappeared ; and amid the 
 greater freedom of chatter which had begun, she heard 
 their gold-headed canes striking the hall-floor, and the 
 front door closing behind them. For half an instant
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 147 
 
 she was mortified, but then reflected that" there muet be 
 something more than weariness and disgust behind their 
 departure, and she felt confident that in a little while 
 they would be back again, as they had not spoken to her 
 before going out. 
 
 Then the Young Aunties struck up a gay song with 
 a well-known chorus, in which most joined, and then 
 another and another, and when the laughter and noise 
 became a little more than decorous, the great basket 
 was borne in all heaped up with gifts. Everything 
 that mothers could desire for their babies was there. 
 Warm things, soft things, woollen things, flee'cy things, 
 knit things, and woven things, and even a rattle apiece 
 for every baby present ; and the Young Mother and 
 Young Aunties had great joy in the delivery, first plac 
 ing each article in Baby's tiny hands, to be given by her 
 to each other baby, so that everything should be consid 
 ered as Baby's own gift to the little ones. 
 
 The pleasure and gratitude of the mothers was 
 pathetic to observe. Some were loud in their thanks, 
 but some could hardly speak at all ; and one of these, 
 dumb with too much feeling, sank upon her knees and 
 kissed the Young Mother's bountiful hands. But the
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 climax was reached when Aunt Hannah's cloaks were 
 brought forward and dealt out. Hardly, in their wild 
 est dreams had these poor women hoped to ever have 
 anything for their infants so dainty and comfortable ; 
 and when they were told that these had been sent 
 to them by a lonely old lady who had no children of 
 her own, the mother-souls vented themselves in all man 
 ner of quaint and tender blessings and good wishes for 
 her whose generous heart had thus, amid her solitude, 
 remembered the children of the poor. 
 
 Then every baby was invested with its new garments, 
 submitting to the operation with unusual serenity, as if 
 they too were charmed with their acceptable posses 
 sions ; and in truth, the appearance of many was so im 
 proved by these pretty and bright additions to their 
 scant attire, that the mothers were quite elated with 
 pride, and grew eloquent in their praise of each fresh 
 article. 
 
 And when the bustle of admiration had a little sub 
 sided, Kitty Flanagan, with the twins pressed to her 
 ample bosom, decked in their new array and each envel 
 oped in one of Aunt Hannah's cloaks, arose, and begged 
 to be allowed to make a few remarks ; and when a sur-
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 prised silence was thus secured, she said right out of 
 her full heart : 
 
 " Shure, and it's not meself that often shpakes out 
 before my betthers ; but it would be too mane to thim 
 that has thrated us so splindidly if there was niver a 
 one to say a word for the rist ; and troth, I am just 
 shure that I expriss the siutiment of ivery mother pris- 
 eiit when I wish that all the saints may guard the swate 
 Baby as gave this party ; and may the blissing of the 
 Lord God Almighty and the love of the Virgin Mary 
 be upon this house and all thim that's in it ! " and she 
 extended the twins, one on each arm, and waved them 
 as if in benediction, and sat down with a very red face, 
 while all the mothers cried " Amen ! " 
 
 There was a little awkward pause of emotion ; the 
 mouth of the Young Mother quivered; the Young 
 Aunties' eyes were very moist, and those of the Poor 
 Relation shone as with a light; the Grandmothers 
 coughed, and the Soap-boiler turned suddenly and 
 looked out of the window, while the Young Father 
 shook as much of Kitty Flanagan's hand as could be 
 released from her hold of the twins. 
 
 And lo ! when the time came for departure, there on
 
 150 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 either side of the parlor door stood a bareheaded 
 Grandfather, each with a roll of crisp bank-notes in his 
 hand ; and as every woman passed out one of these was 
 put in her hand with a " God bless you ! " or " Good luck 
 to you ! " by these sly old Grandfathers alternately who 
 had slipped away to the bank together, at the time the 
 Young Mother was so sorry to see them leave the house, 
 in order to secure this pile of bright, clean bills, and be 
 back again to bestow them thus at the moment of de 
 parture ; and when the last mother and baby had dis 
 appeared through the door, the Young Mother and all 
 the Young Aunties fell upon them, and kissed them 
 over and over for 'being such "precious, good old dar 
 lings ! " 
 
 And everybody said that Baby's party had been a 
 grand success, and there was that sweet glow of happi 
 ness in the heart of each that came to them inasmuch 
 as they had done it to the least of these, His little ones ; 
 and the Poor Relation remembered that when Simon 
 Peter answered to Jesus, " Yea, Lord, thou knowest 
 that I love thee," lie said unto him, " Feed my 
 Lambs." 
 
 After this the audacious Soap-boiler became more
 
 BABY'S PARTY. 151 
 
 and more attentive to one particular Young Auntie, 
 who slowly and reluctantly, but involuntarily yielded 
 to his advances, much to the astonishment and amuse 
 ment of the other Young Aunties, who watchecl the 
 afiair with much satirical interest, and chaffed her un 
 mercifully, after the fashion of thoughtless .girls who 
 did not care to see anything serious Behind the mirth 
 of a good joke. One day she would find a cake of 
 fancy soap upon her toilette table, with the compli 
 ments of the Soap-boiler directed in the unmistakable 
 handwriting of -a mischievous Young Auntie ; another 
 time she would find her .own soap spirited away from 
 its dish, and the address of the factory left in its place ; 
 and sometimes small bouquets ingeniously cut out of 
 variegated soap would be surreptitiously arranged 
 around her room ; and the very name of soap began to 
 be such a torture to this perplexed Young Auntie that 
 she blushed at its very mention ; until one day the Fat 
 Nurse came in to say that there had just been left at 
 her house, for distribution among the poor mothers who 
 were at Baby's party, a dozen barrels of crackers and 
 as many more of sugar, " to help keep the babies 
 quiet," and an accompanying envelope full of orders
 
 152 BABY'S PARTY. 
 
 for coal, so that " the same babies might be kept warm 
 enough to get some pure air ; " and in the midst of the 
 wondering who the generous donor could be, this 
 Young Auntie recollecting how attentively the Soap 
 boiler had listened to the Fat Nurse's instructions to 
 the mothers on the day of Baby's party, felt, with a 
 great rush of tenderness, that it could have been only 
 he who had done this good thing, and her heart went 
 out to him to be his forever and forever. So that, when 
 she came into her room a day or two after, and saw a 
 caricature prominently placed over her mantel-piece 
 representing her admirer with a leather apron tied 
 around his waist, and a big stick in his hand stirring a 
 steaming kettle of soft-soap, and was aware of the 
 peeping faces of the assembled Young Aunties watch 
 ing through the crack of the door the effect of their 
 latest attempt at ridicule, she indignantly tore down 
 the picture, rent it into shreds and stamped on them, 
 and then flinging wide the door, cried out in her anger 
 and anguish, " That it was a mean shame to vilify a 
 noble gentleman, ; that they knew as well as she did, 
 that though he owned the factory he did no such work 
 there; that lie had inherited his business from his
 
 BAJIY'S PARTY. 153 
 
 father, and whatever they might think of it, had made 
 it by his honorable dealing the peer of any other ; that 
 he was a good man and true, and that that they 
 might say what they pleased about it, but she loved 
 him oh, she loved him ! " 
 
 There was no more chaff after that. The Young 
 Aunties were all conscience-smitten immediately ; they 
 rushed into the room ; they put their arms around 
 her, and caressed her and cried over her ; said they 
 were only in fun, and begged her to forgive them ; and 
 praised the Soap-boiler with an affectionate hypocrisy 
 that brought her soul content ; though they were very 
 much surprised to find that the Grandfathers were 
 mightily pleased with the match, on account of the 
 good name and great uprightness of the suitor's 
 character. 
 
 And on the day of the wedding, in fidelity to the 
 apostleship of cleanliness and appreciation of soap, a 
 large box of the same was . left at the home of each 
 poor mother, who, at first, perhaps did not connect this 
 unexpected and remarkable gift with the gay .Young 
 Auntie who had helped to make them all so happy on 
 
 that memorable day of Baby's Party. 
 
 7*
 
 VII. 
 
 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 
 
 THE Poor Relation's Aged Father and Mother sat 
 together in the vine-wreathed porch, in the glowing sun 
 set of a mellow Autumn day. The sky was all glorious 
 with purple and gold ; roseate clouds, fringed with their 
 silver linings, floated like islands of the blest upon an 
 amber sea ; while piled up against the wide horizon 
 were the transparent pinnacles and lustrous domes of 
 an ethereal temple wifli gates of pearl guarded by 
 white-winged angels; and just overhead spread the ten 
 der, melting blue, with its unutterable calm that soothes 
 the soaring spirit with the peace of God which passeth 
 understandino-. And the leaves on the vines seemed to 
 
 o 
 
 have caught the changing colors of the 'heavens, and had 
 turned crimson and yellow, and on every light breeze 
 some of them were shaken down upon the earth. With 
 the Aged Father and Mother, too, the Sunset of Life
 
 THE SUNSET OF LIFE, 155 
 
 was coming on apace, and, like the fading leaves, they 
 also were passing away. And as the old man sat with 
 his hands clasped on the top of his staff, and looked out 
 with his dim eyes towards the iridescent "West, its glow 
 seemed to wrap them about with lingering warmth, and 
 to make the needles shine as they clicked through the 
 Aged Mother's knitting. They had been silent for 
 a while, each thinking the thoughts that come to the 
 very old of a past full of memories, of a future so 
 short in this world, so tinged with mingled feelings as it 
 extended into the next. 
 
 " Wife," at length said the old man, " we, too, are 
 going down going down like the sun ; we have borne 
 the burden and heat of the day, and the shades of even 
 ing are gathering fast ; we have had a hard life together ; 
 will you be sorry when the night comes on, and there is 
 no more any work or device in the grave ?" 
 
 " Not sorry, Father," she answered, with the sweet 
 quavers of age in her mild voice, " for the grave is such 
 a precious rest for these worn-out bodies ; there will be 
 no more aches or weariness there, and ifc is pleasant to 
 think that for the part of us which is not body there is 
 the Beyond, where one likes to believe there are no
 
 156 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 
 
 more tears. And, Father, if our lives have been hard 
 in some respects, it has been very happy in others ; 
 surely it has been a great blessing that we have been 
 spared to each other, that we have had all our good and 
 ill together ; and then, above all, there were the chil 
 dren ! " 
 
 " The children ! " replied the old man, a little bitterly, 
 " were there ever children born into this world that were 
 not a disappointment in some way or other to their 
 parents ? " 
 
 " Oh, not all, not all !" answered the Aged Mother. 
 " Think of our Mary and her Crippled Sister ! " 
 
 " Ay, ay," said the Aged Father, " they are good 
 enough true and tender ; but then the lives they have 
 had ! All sorrow, and pain, and labor ! It has been an 
 ever-piercing thorn in my side that our girls could not 
 have been sheltered in from every hardship and every 
 grief that they should not have had happy homes 
 and little ones of their own, like that Baby who was 
 here to-day ! And it might have been it all might 
 have been, if it had not been for the wickedness of that 
 boy!" 
 
 " Oh, Father, Father ! don't say hard things of him,
 
 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 157 
 
 for it was not wilful wickedness, only the folly and 
 wildness of youth; and I am sure, if he had lived, 
 he would have atoned long ago. Eemember only that 
 he was our first- child our eldest son ! " 
 
 " I remember it only too well ! " sternly replied the 
 old man. " I remember my joy when he was born ; 
 what high hopes I built on him ; how I worked for him, 
 and watched his growth with such pride and gladness ! 
 I tell you, wife, that the love with which a father loves 
 his eldest son passes the love of a woman, for he sees in 
 him a fresher, newer self, and the embodiment of his 
 race, and there is a sort of sadness and yearning in it, 
 too, from his own knowledge of life ; and I loved this 
 son so, and tried to make him strong and wise. And 
 after all, he dragged my name in the dust, and ruined 
 us all over there in the Great City. I have never been 
 the same man since." 
 
 " But oh, Father ! " and the clicking needles were si 
 lent, and fell into her lap, as she laid her withered hand 
 on her husband's arm, and there was a sob amid the 
 pleading tones ; " think how heart-struck he must have 
 been when he took his own life rather than face your 
 wrath ; think what an agony of suffering and shame our
 
 158 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 
 
 boy must have gone through when he could thus plunge 
 into death to escape it ! Oh, don't say it was cowardly, 
 Father, for he was not himself when he did it ! He 
 was insane with remorse, for our John had been such a 
 brave boy ! " and the two wrinkled hands were wrung 
 together, and a tear flashed down upon the bright nee 
 dles. The old man put his arm around the trembling 
 form, and gently answered : " You are right, Mother 
 dear ; and it is not well for me to go back to that sad 
 time, or to set a single act of temptation and wrong 
 doing against all the other years of affection and obedi 
 ence. And after all, we had great comfort in our 
 grave, steady Jamie ! " 
 
 " But oh ! " said the Aged Mother, all stirred up with 
 these reminiscences, " it was hard, too, that he should 
 have died in a foreign land, away from us all, and with 
 only strangers to close his eyes ! " 
 
 And a new shadow fell over the old man's face ; the 
 Aged Mother saw it, and her quivering arms went 
 round his neck, and she pressed her white and wrinkled 
 cheek against his wan face. 
 
 " Dear," she murmured, " it may seem a strange 
 thing, but I very rarely. think of our boys as dead or
 
 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 159 
 
 lost to us ; mostly I look forward, and see them, radi 
 ant and beautiful, in that other world where I am going 
 to meet them. Ah ! Father, you will never be hard upon 
 our Johnnie there, for all things will be made known 
 to you then ! and Jamie will be j ust your other self." 
 
 " "Well, wife," answered the old man softly, " I be 
 lieve it may be so, for, after all, John really loved us, 
 and by the love that was in him he may have been made 
 meet for heaven, and by love he shall be forgiven ! ". 
 
 The purple and gold of the setting sun flashed out 
 more gloriously than ever ; the white pinnacles and 
 shining domes of the ethereal Temple grew more and 
 more luminous, and the tender blue above seemed to 
 drop down its inexpressible calm like the very dew 
 of heaven; the yellow autumn leaves floated awhile 
 on the soft breeze before they rested on the damp 
 mould, and a silence more eloquent than words fell 
 upon the Aged Father and Mother, as with clasped 
 hands they still looked out towards the glowing "West. 
 
 Then the aged woman said softly out of her reverie 
 of remembrance : " Dear Father ! you always think of 
 the children as grown up ; but they always come back 
 to me, when I arn alone, as little children still. Often
 
 160 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 
 
 and often I sit by the nursery fire in our old home, and 
 they come in with their pattering feet, and group them 
 selves about me in the twilight : Johnnie, with his curly 
 head upon my knee ; Jamie, always grave and steady, 
 on his cricket in a corner of the hearth ; our dear 
 Mary, with the flames lighting up her golden hair and 
 angel face ; our poor, afflicted one, brigftt and restless 
 then, dancing round me on her tiny feet ; and the baby 
 oh, Father ! the baby that never grew up, lying close 
 upon my happy breast ! See ! I have only to close my 
 eyes, and they are all there. I forget Johnnie's sin, 
 and Jamie's far-away grave ; I forget our Mary's toil 
 ing, lonely life, and the pains of her Crippled Sister ; I 
 forget the tears I shed for my baby ; for I only behold 
 the faces of their childhood the innocent, sweet faces, 
 untouched by the world and unspoiled by time ! They 
 come in and out to me all day long ; I hear their young 
 voices ; I feel their clinging arms ! They have been 
 men and women, sinners and sufferers, but they are my 
 little children always still ! " 
 
 " Ah ! would we could have kept them so," replied 
 the old man, " kept them innocent and unstained, and 
 untried forever ! for what do the years bring us all ?
 
 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 161 
 
 And if all things had turned out well, in the course of 
 nature and time our children would probably have 
 turned to other interests, and wrung our hearts anyhow 
 by separation ! As it is, what has life brought them, 
 and what has it brought us ? Death, and sorrow, and 
 an old age of poverty and regrets ! " 
 
 The Aged Mother clasped his hand firmly. " No, 
 dear ! no regrets for me. I have had my children ; there 
 is no regret for me in that even about John ; and in 
 our deepest poverty I could always go back in my heart 
 to our old home, and feel all the love-richness of my 
 early motherhood. There is no poverty for a mother 
 whose children have loved her ! We cannot judge how 
 life has dealt even with otir own. How do we know 
 but that Johnnie's sin may have been his salvation from 
 worse, and that the Angel of Death may not have led 
 him into some condition fitter for his nature ? and if 
 Jamie died, Jamie had lived well ; there never can be 
 any regrets about Jamie ! and surely the lives of our 
 Mary and her Crippled Sister are a daily lesson and 
 blessing ! And I have my baby in heaven my baby 
 that never has grown up through all these years! 
 Father, we must have no regrets at God's dealings with
 
 102 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 
 
 us. A higher wisdom than ours ordereth all things 
 right ! " And the Aged Father bowed his head, and 
 reverently said " Amen ! " 
 
 The light in the sunset sky was something wonderful 
 to see ; the very splendor of the innermost heavens 
 seemed to glow through its magnificence of color ; the 
 waves of the amber sea spread farther and farther, and 
 the silver-fringed islands deepened in their roseate 
 hue ; the wings of the angels guarding the gates of 
 pearl were too luminous for eyes to rest on ; and the 
 shining pinnacles and domes seemed to be wreathed 
 with ascending flames ; the measureless depths of the 
 blue above were still calm with their unspeakable 
 peace ; and the dying leaves ceased for a little while to 
 fall, but floated, floated softly still, as silence once more 
 fell upon the Aged Father and Mother. 
 
 After a quiet space, the old man, with his dim eyes 
 still looking outward towards the iridescent hues, said 
 a little faintly, as the breeze lifted his snowy hair: 
 " Wife, the days are very long ; the sun is slow in 
 going down ; 1 am weary, and 1 would the end were 
 come ! " 
 
 And she answered gravely, " It cannot be far off,
 
 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 163 
 
 for oar work is done and the darkness is drawing 
 near." 
 
 The purple and gold lost a little of their brightness ; 
 the waves of the amber sea waxed paler and withdrew 
 from the far-off verges ; the roseate islands paled to 
 a delicate pink ; over the lustrous domes and pinnacles 
 of the ethereal temple a scarcely perceptible white mist 
 seemed to arise ; at the gates of pearl the angel wings 
 lost something of their dazzling sheen, and in the 
 lovely blue overhead a grayish shadow mingled with its 
 brooding peace ; more and more of the crimson and 
 yellow leaves slipped away from the thinning vines, 
 were whirled about faster in the cooler air, and 
 dropped swiftly upon the waiting mould. 
 
 The old man turned his dim eyes from the fading 
 West to gaze upon the wrinkled face of his life-long 
 companion. " Dear," he said, " the night is dark and 
 the grave is cold ; but there is one thing that has never 
 been dark to me, night or day the light of your loving 
 eyes ; and one thing that has never been cold, even 
 through the dreariest winter the warmth of your 
 wifely heart. God bless you, love of my youth and 
 consoler of my age ! "
 
 164 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 
 
 And the worn old hand shook that caught hold of 
 hers ; the touch of it chilled her very life-blood, and 
 a strange shadow passed over his aged face. 
 
 " Father, father ! " she gasped out, as she leaned over 
 with pallid lips to kiss his, already cold and white, " do 
 not leave me alone ! take me with you to the chil 
 dren ! " 
 
 "Come!" he just' whispered with the last fleeting 
 breath ; " we will go together to our children ! " and 
 
 
 
 the shadow that was on his face passed over to hers. 
 
 The faint gleam of the purple and gold died out ; the 
 fading flush of rosy isles paled and paled till even 
 the silver lining lost its brightness; the glow of the 
 amber sea was drawn inward from the gathering 
 shades of evening that swept over it to the changing 
 gates of pearl, where the angels' wings were soaring 
 away in snowy, transparent clouds ; while behind the 
 dimming veil of mist the ethereal domes and pinnacles 
 were dissolving like the baseless fabric of a vision ; and 
 over the peace of the heavenly blue the blackness of 
 silent night was spreading fast. The crimson and 
 yellow leaves had lost their color in the failing light, 
 and lay an undistinguishable heap upon the dew-damp
 
 THE SUNSET OF LIFE. 165 
 
 mould, while the last rays of the dying day lingered 
 upon the staff which had fallen at the old man's feet, 
 and upon the bright needles which would click in the 
 busy fingers no more forever. And over the vine- 
 
 / o 
 
 wreathed porch the gray shadows of night crept about 
 the Aged Father and Mother, who sat very still together 
 with clasped hands when the Sunset of Life was over.
 
 VIII. 
 
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 AUNT HANNAH lived in a grim, gray mansion on the 
 outskirts of the town, and to the gay Young Aunties, 
 bright with their untried life and joyous with early 
 hope, Aunt Hannah was a very grim and gray person 
 age herself ; for she resided alone in this large, empty 
 house, full of the solid, heavy furniture of other days, 
 keeping the casements always darkened, so that the 
 rooms seemed haunted by gloomy shadows, and moving 
 about therein with a grave, slow presence, as of one 
 who carried a solemn weight. Nothing was ever awry 
 in that silent house ; the high-backed chairs stood 
 straight against the wall in their accustomed places 
 from year to year, and the big, old-fashioned bedsteads, 
 with their canopies and draperies, were more like 
 funeral catafalques than couches for the living. The 
 primmest of footmen opened the hall-door to rare visit-
 
 A UXT HANNAH. 167 
 
 ors with a subdued and sepulchral air, suggestive of an 
 undertaker ; and the fattest, laziest, nattiest of coach 
 men in antiquated coat and capes, drove the fat, lazy, 
 shining old horses at a snail's pace when Aunt Hannah 
 went in her roomy coach to make her annual duty call 
 on her brother's family. Then the unwilling Young 
 Aunties made expressive wry faces to each other on the 
 stairs as they went down to endure her visit, and sat 
 stiffly round the parlor, hammering their brains for stu 
 pid commonplaces with which to entertain her with 
 all their merry quips and quirks banished from their 
 lips, and all their airy gossip laid aside as something 
 too uncongenial for the chilling atmosphere of so severe 
 a guest. Even the kindly Grandmother grew less cor 
 dial and more studiously polite with this reserved and 
 solitary woman; and if the hearty Grandfather kissed 
 his sister with warm welcoming, a tinge of sympathetic 
 sadness seemed always to fall over him as he talked 
 with her ; and she, going not at all into the world, had 
 but few subjects of conversation for them all, and it 
 w r as with a great show of deference and stifled sighs of 
 relief that their occasional intercourse terminated. 
 And SO N Aunt Hannah dwelt apart in her grim and
 
 168 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 echoing house, a lonely woman little known. She 
 manifested so little interest in the outer world, that it 
 was only on family occasions that she w T as recalled or 
 regarded as one of themselves. Possibly, if she had 
 been poor and in want, the loving kindness of these 
 kindred hearts would have drawn her among them, and 
 shared more of their own life with her. But Aunt Han 
 nah was extremely rich ; and while the worldly Grand 
 mother sometimes thought of this with a spasmodic 
 access of interest and attention, other members of the 
 household seemed to make it an additional cause for 
 distance. The Young Aunties had a vague understand 
 ing that some great sorrow had once made Aunt Han 
 nah's days dark and dreary ; but they had so many light 
 matters of their own to engage their hearts and time, 
 that they troubled their minds and memories very little 
 with one they scarcely sought. 
 
 But the Young Mother's spirit was stirred within her 
 by the present of little cloaks which Aunt Hannah had 
 sent to Baby's Party ; and an unusual interest had been 
 excited when Grandfather lsb. One had spoken with so 
 much emotion of the forgotten fairy who had not been 
 bidden to the festivit}'. She pondered these things in
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 169 
 
 her heart of hearts, and her thoughts lingered about the 
 grim, gray house and its grim, gray tenant. Surely, it 
 seemed to her, that was a tender soul who had cared so 
 considerately for the infants of the poor, and more 
 and more she felt that in the woman's nature there 
 must be sweet founts that might be reached by little 
 hands ; and there came over her a great yearning to 
 wards this unloved being, who, in her uuremembered 
 loneliness, had sent forth such a token of goodness to 
 unknown babies. It occurred to her, that if the habit 
 ual barrier of reserve could be penetrated and the pre 
 cious humanities within once aroused by some gentle 
 ministry, that Aunt Hannah might be drawn out of her 
 seclusion to be a power in the world and a benediction 
 to others ; and she was strongly moved to rise up and 
 go to her with such greeting as should open the way to 
 more familiar amenities. But the Young Mother was 
 proud and delicate and quixotic as any uncalculating 
 soul, and her cheek colored as she fancied that her 
 motive might possibly be misunderstood; but a higher 
 inspiration than that came upon her with the sudden 
 pity that Aunt Hannah's very wealth should shut her 
 away from the approaches of real affection. Still, it
 
 170 A UNT HANNAH. 
 
 was not an easy matter to get nearer to an interior 
 nature through the ordinary method of formal visits, 
 and the Young Mother, who had been a gay girl her 
 self, had been frozen up like all the other Young 
 Aunties by the undemonstrative demeanor ; but at last 
 the idea dawned on her that as Aunt Hannah must 
 have a feeling for babies or she never would have fur 
 nished those dainty cloaks perhaps Baby might be the 
 very best means by which to find her innermost heart. ' 
 So Baby was forthwith arrayed in all her glory, and 
 borne by Baby's Nurse to the door of the grim, gray 
 house, where Baby's Young Mother took her in her 
 own arms, and was admitted alone, by the primmest of 
 footmen, to the silence of the solitary halls. 
 
 Amid the oppressive shadows of the gloomy parlor 
 she sat waiting with a beating heart for the grim, gray 
 woman, over whose threshold, she compassionately 
 meditated, no other baby had ever come. Then slowly, 
 stately, coldly, plain and pale, Aunt Hannah entered ; 
 and before she could scarcely recognize her visitor in 
 the dim light, the Young Mother had gone swiftly 
 forward to her, and kissed her over and over on her 
 lips, her eyes, her brow. People rarely kissed Aunt
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 171 
 
 Hannah, and then not often with particular warmth, so 
 that she was at once struck dumb with surprise. 
 
 Then the Young Mother spoke in her earnest, win 
 ning voice : 
 
 " Dear Aunt Hannah, I am very sure you must love 
 babies, so I have brought mine to see you." And Baby, 
 not a whit abashed by a stranger, put out her chubby 
 arms, and cooed up into the new face as if she found 
 nothing there to frighten, of grimness or of grayness ; 
 but a strange pallor spread over the worn countenance, 
 and the Young Mother saw with dismay that her cold- 
 mannered kinswoman had commenced to tremble as 
 with a chill. But Baby put up one of her dimpled 
 hands, and touched the faded cheek, and the next in 
 stant the little golden-ringed head was clasped close to 
 a heaving breast. The Young Mother was too amazed 
 to speak ; she stood still a moment while the older 
 woman mastered her unexpected emotion, for she 
 instantly divined that the sight of her child had touched 
 the chord of some passionate sorrow which had never 
 died. But Aunt Hannah strove to assume her usual 
 deportment, and to converse upon ordinary topics, 
 though she never lifted her eyes off Baby's small figure,
 
 172 A TINT HANNAH. 
 
 and her lips quivered as she talked, till at last, as if the 
 fountains of the great deep broke up, all at once she 
 cried out suddenly, " A baby ! a baby ! In my arms ! 
 on my heart ! " 
 
 " And why not ? " softly said tjie Young Mother, 
 " they are a woman's arms ; it is a woman's heart ! " 
 And Aunt Hannah looked at her as if half frightened 
 at having betrayed her feelings, and half timidly, as 
 if she scarcely expected to be believed. "Dear," she 
 said, " it must surprise you that I, of all people, should 
 be so agitated at seeing your little one ; but, do you 
 know, it is the first time in all my life I ever held a 
 baby in my arms ? " 
 
 The Young Mother was almost shocked, knowing 
 how often babies are more plentiful in the world than 
 arms to hold them ; but then it was Aunt Hannah, and 
 Aunt Hannah had liVed shut up from the world, babies 
 included, this many a long year. " Dear Auntie," she 
 answered, " perhaps I have disturbed you too much by 
 bringing baby to you; but you see, we all think so 
 much of our blessing that I could not bear that there 
 should be one member of the family who did not know 
 her, and I wanted you to love our darling too." And
 
 A. UNT HANNAH. 173 
 
 Aunt Hannah answered her slowly and sadly, " It is a 
 long time since I loved anything ! " 
 
 The Young Mother laid her soft hand on the one 
 that still clung to her child, and the elder woman 
 broke ont in quicker words : " I thought I should never 
 love anything in this life again ; and now you have 
 brought me a baby of all things to me, a baby ! and it 
 is stirring the old life in my heart once more ! " and 
 she drew the Young Mother close down to her, and 
 whispered, half gasping, as if each syllable came forth 
 with a wrench of pain: "Don't you know have you 
 never heard that I too was once a mother ? " " No, 
 Auntie," answered the Young Mother, " I did not know 
 that ; and some day, dear, when you have come to love 
 my Baby, will you tell me about yours?" and Aunt 
 Hannah drew her closer, closer, whispering still, as if 
 she could not breathe aloud the secret sorrow of her 
 soul : " Yes, I was once a mother, hut I never had a 
 baby ! " and then answering the puzzled look which 
 crossed the Young Mother's face, she added, with a 
 great sob, " Oh, child ! my baby died before it was 
 born." And then the Young Mother understood that 
 this disappointed hope had been the overflowing drop
 
 174 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 of despair in Aunt Hannah's bitter cup. "What could 
 she say to such a life-cherished grief, that had been a 
 matter of so little moment in the family that it had 
 been forgotten, or never spoken about, and yet which 
 had helped to darken and make solitary this sad 
 woman's whole existence. She laid her fair cheek 
 against the worn face. " Dear, dear Auntie," she said. 
 " I can imagine how hard that was ! To the mother- 
 heart our child is always our child, and the greatness 
 of the loss is not to be measured by the life ! '' Aunt 
 Hannah clung to her, held her tight, and the arms of 
 both, women were around the Baby. 
 
 " Child, child," she murmured, " for thirty years I 
 have not spoken of this ; I never, never could speak of 
 it before ; my heart was broken then, for I lost all at 
 once all at once ! Come with me," she said, starting 
 up, " I must tell you all now, for you are a woman and 
 a mother, and you will understand. Your Baby's 
 hands have torn away the seal of my silence ! " And 
 with Baby making unresisted clutches at her brooch, 
 she kept her in her arms as she walked up the broad 
 staircase, followed by the Young Mother with her soul 
 full of wonder and sympathy. She led the way
 
 A UNT HANNAH. 175 
 
 through dimly-lighted passages and shaded rooms, to 
 one which at a first glance the Young Mother saw had 
 been arranged as a nursery ; for there was a costly cradle 
 in a corner, covered with faded silk and rich lace grown 
 yellow with time ; and there was the dainty baby's 
 basket, with the same color paled away by the years, 
 and a coral and bells lying on the bureau in whose 
 drawers she surmised there were laid away the little 
 garments that had never been worn ; and over the deep 
 fireplace with its bright andirons, and piled-up un- 
 lighted logs, there hung a man's portrait which seemed 
 to look down still upon Aunt Hannah's plain and 
 aging features with a young and loving face. And 
 there the two women sat down together, and as Aunt 
 Hannah poured out the story of her past to the Young 
 Mother, Baby fell asleep with its tiny golden head 
 nestled upon that bosom which had never before pil 
 lowed an infant's slumber. 
 
 " I was a very happy girl," she said, " not merry and 
 gay as your bright young sisters very likely are among 
 themselves, but rather grave and silent, and a little shy 
 in my ways, but still truly and peacefully happy. You
 
 176 A UNT HANNAH. 
 
 know your father and I lost our parents when we were 
 children, but we grew up nevertheless under kindly 
 and careful guardianship, and there was not a cloud in 
 all tlie untroubled sky of my early years; and when 
 love came to me it was so gradual, so natural an^l so 
 sweet, that I never dreamed of the depth and intensity 
 of my own nature ; and all things went so smoothly and 
 pleasantly for me as regards my marriage for my hus 
 band was young, well-born, well thought of, and very 
 rich. And when he brought me home to this old house, 
 
 o t 
 
 which had been his father's before him, and welcomed 
 me into its walls with a grace and earnestness as charm 
 ing as it was precious, I lifted up my heart in wordless 
 thanksgiving as the most blessed among women. We 
 lived here two or three such happy, perfect years, that 
 if it had not been for the memory of them I never, 
 never could have borne the crushing weight of the 
 after-desolation. Two or three years, and I had but one 
 desire in the world. It seemed to me that a love so 
 entire, so mutual, ought to blossom out in the crowning 
 flower of a child that should be partly him and partly 
 me, as the very personation and consecrated consumma 
 tion of our blended spirits. And at last my desire was
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 177 
 
 about to be fulfilled. Dear, I can hardly tell you, it 
 was something so strange and so sacred, with what lofty 
 and holy aspirations I was filled. To be the author of 
 a living soul, the originator of an immortal being, the 
 selected instrument in the miracle of creation ! Oh, the 
 mystery, the awe, the glory of it, filled me with humili 
 ty, with ecstasy, with daily worship. What a new 
 world of visions and hopes opened on me; what an 
 overwhelming sense of responsibility overmastered me ; 
 what a going forth and clinging to the divine comforted 
 me ! All my faculties enlarged, my instincts widened. 
 I became part of the whole beating pulse of humanity, 
 since, in my exaltation, all humanity seemed also to be 
 parent to my child. And there were times when the 
 divinity of love so flooded my soul that I realized the 
 emanation of all existence from the Fatherhood of God. 
 I longed with inexpressible yearning that this coming 
 being should be in all things pure and unblemished 
 . and beautiful ; and I, who was no more myself to my 
 self, or of any worth save as the mother of my child, I 
 was minutely careful of my acts, my thoughts, even of 
 my surroundings. I studied and strictly conformed to 
 physiological laws ; I read only the loftiest and noblest
 
 178 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 books ; I steadfastly put away from me every narrow 
 or unelevating sentiment; I lived, moved, and had my 
 being in an atmosphere of exquisite harmony, inspiring 
 pursuits, and delicious reveries. I lived long future 
 years in my child's life ; I peopled this old house and 
 these silent rooms with other little shapes ; I hoard 
 their footsteps on the stairs, their voices in the halls. I 
 even lived in my children's children ; and through it all 
 always was the beloved face of their Father beaming on 
 me, if possible, more tenderly as a Mother than a Wife. 
 And I loved him so. I think only a woman can com 
 prehend the added sense of belonging, the solemn rali- 
 zation of being really flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, 
 of being truly joined together beyond any possible 
 chance of putting asunder, with which I loved my hus 
 band as the father of my child. And loving him so, 
 living thus in my hopes and dreams, without a shadow 
 as large as a man's hand to warn me of the wrath to 
 ' come, I saw him go forth one day, strong in his youth, 
 full of health and happiness and love, and in a single 
 hour they had brought him home to me quite dead ! 
 He had been thrown from his horse, had struck his tem 
 ple in the fall, and "had been killed instantly. After
 
 A TINT HANNA H. 1 79 
 
 that 1 remember nothing more. When my mind came 
 back to me, I recollected that my baby ought to have 
 been born, and my first looks searched for it and my 
 first words asked for it. They tdd me, a little sadly, 
 but as if they felt it was but a small calamity compared 
 with the greater loss, that it had died before it was 
 born. Its father's death had slain it. When they told 
 me that, I answered never a word, but turned my face 
 to the wall and laid there for days like a stone. And 
 it seemed to me as if my heart had turned to stone 
 within me. What could others know of my dead hopes, 
 my buried visions ? What understanding could any one 
 else have that I was torn asunder, had lost flesh of my 
 flesh, bone of rny bone, w^as a mere nothing and part of 
 being in becoming less than a wife and mother a mere 
 desolate self, the wreck of what was once a complete 
 woman ! So I never said much to any one. My sor 
 row was deeper than words, almost deeper than tears ; 
 and I took up my life again in a dull sort of way, never 
 caring greatly for anything more, and have lived ever 
 since alone with my dead. When I knew your Baby 
 had been born, so near to me, my heart trembled 
 towards it ; and when I heard about your Baby's Party,
 
 ISO AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 somehow a tender feeling towards those little waifs 
 came over me ; and now that you have brought this lit 
 tle one here, see how the very sight and touch of a 
 baby has pierced the long repression, and opened up 
 the very secrets of my soul ! " 
 
 With reverent and caressing hand the Young 
 Mother drew the drooping head upon her shoulder. 
 u Dearest Auntie," she said, " because I too am a 
 mother, I understand all of it the joy, the aspiration, 
 the hope, the awful sorrow, and the life-long void. 
 And I know I know there can never be any love like 
 the love you have lost on earth ; but dear, dear Auntie ! 
 if you will let us all come about you, you do not know 
 how tenderly we will all feel towards you, and what 
 a real pleasure it will be to every one of us to be with 
 you, to love you, to make your life a little less lonely. 
 It is not good for anyone to be alone so much; and 
 with a heart so capable of loving, you would have more 
 comfort than you think in giving out feelings to others. 
 Dear Auntie, may I send Baby to you often, and bring 
 the girls round to cheer you up ? " 
 
 Aunt Hannah sat silent a moment. " Child," at 
 length she answered, " there is so little in me to interest
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 181 
 
 yon young people ! I have lived shut up with my past 
 and ray books so long that your world is like a strange 
 land to me ; my ways are not your ways." 
 
 " You are our own dear Auntie," replied the Young 
 Mother, " and we are going to love you, and make you 
 love us just as you are. Only let your heart come out 
 to us, and we will try and bring you a little happiness 
 to brighten up this long gloom and solitude ! " 
 
 And Aunt Hannah had tears in her eyes and sobs in 
 her voice as she said : " Dear, you shall all come to me 
 if you will, for I have been lonelier than any one 
 knew, and I did not dare to let myself feel till this 
 minute how much I longed for other souls." 
 
 And after that the two women talked long together ; 
 talked much of the family, and a little more of the dead, 
 and naturally then upon that most universal of all sub 
 jects, the life beyond the grave, and the hope of meeting 
 again the loved ones who had gone before. And when 
 the Young Mother dwelt upon the beautiful faith, and 
 spoke to Aunt Hannah as if her lost baby was surely an. 
 angel in the heavens, Aunt Hannah made sad reply : 
 
 " Ah ! dear, how do I know ? No sign has ever been 
 made me from the other side. And the best authorities
 
 182 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 cannot tell whether a human being is really a soul till 
 the hour of its birth ; and it is of souls we cherish our 
 dreams of immortality. All these long years I have 
 beat against the blind wall of an ignorance that can 
 never be enlightened in this world. I have studied all 
 that has been written about it, and at last at last, I 
 can only say, ' I do not know ! ' This thought of the 
 Beyond is with me always. To 1113 my husband always 
 is no reason destroys that faith ; but about my baby 
 all is doubt ! I think if I had seen its face I might 
 have had more sureness, and I have spent hours upon 
 hours trying to see with my heart how it might have 
 looked ; but it is always dim, shadowy, far off from me 
 I cannot make it alive. I have lived in sorrow upon 
 the memory of a dream." 
 
 The Young Mother's heart was too full for speech. 
 Here was a new phase of grief for which she knew no 
 consolation ; for she was not wise in metaphysics, and 
 her simple trust had never known aught of those refine 
 ments of casuistry with which brooding and solitude 
 torture searching intellects. Only the many, many 
 melancholy days and unhappy nights of this life-long 
 desolation rose up before her, and the sympathy of her
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 183 
 
 whole loving nature welled over to this stricken woman 
 who could not 'even look out to the realms above and 
 behold her baby's face as 't were the face of an angel. 
 
 After that there began a new life about Aunt 
 Hannah. Baby went to her every day ; and in Baby's 
 Nurse she instincti\^ly perceived that there too was 
 one who had suffered, and there came to be a gentle 
 ministry of unspoken interest between the two that 
 brought healing to each. Then the Young Aunties 
 began to drop in a little shyly and very respectfully 
 at first, but soon warming up into their natural selves as 
 more constant companionship wore off reserve on both 
 sides ; the quips and quirks came back in her presence, 
 and the airy gossip was no longer withheld. Aunt 
 Hannah's heart was younger than she knew, for all her 
 youth had only been buried under her sudden and 
 nourished affliction, and began to bubble up again in 
 familiar intercourse with youthful spirits ; and soon the 
 old house was seldom without one or other of these gay 
 and merry girls. The Grandfathers walked round of 
 evenings to chat with her, and even talked with her 
 sometimes of stocks and markets and business ven-
 
 A UNT HANXAU. 
 
 tares, as one having many moneyed concerns, and said to 
 each other that " Hannah was not wanting in good, 
 sound sense." The hearty Grandmothers trotted in 
 and out on all sorts of errands, till Aunt Hannah was 
 almost bewildered by the multiplicity of interests 
 which dawned on her, and the deference with which 
 these kindly old ladies regarded her opinions and sug 
 gestions. But in truth the hearts of all these women 
 were touched to the core by the thought of that unused 
 cradle in the empty room ; and the remembrance of it 
 made them very gentle and earnest towards the lonely 
 woman. The Young Father and the Young Mother 
 seemed to think there was no one like her, and the 
 Poor Relation grew as dear to her as a sister. 51nd 
 Aunt Hannah was fast learning that the love of kin 
 dred and the exchange of intimate affection was the 
 very sweetness of life itself. 
 
 And the solitary home commenced to blossom like a 
 rose. First one window and then another was opened, 
 till the glad sunlight filled every crack and cranny of the 
 once silent halls and gloomy rooms. Then one Young 
 Auntie and then another brought in a pot of flowers, 
 and the color and beauty were like a welcome surprise
 
 A UNT HANNAH. 185 
 
 where the shadows used to lurk, and in a little while 
 all the sills were bright with blooms ; and one day a 
 blithe canary made the wondering walls ring with its 
 echoing melody ; and so came back life, and light, and 
 music to the grim and gray old house. 
 
 And when a delicate pink tint settled on Aunt Han 
 nah's faded cheek, and her eyes took to shining at the 
 new order of things, the audacious Young Aunties 
 never rested till they had arranged her hair in more 
 modern style, and got her dress altered to the fashion 
 of the day ; and they rummaged through long-locked 
 presses, and found rare old creamy laces and beautiful 
 jewels, and took as much delight in decking her out 
 witf? them as though they were children adorning a 
 favorite doll ; and then they danced around her in ad 
 miration, and marched her up to mirrors and bade her 
 look how young and pretty she \vas growing, almost as 
 pretty as the darling Baby herself the Baby, who was 
 the Young Aunties' highest standard of perfection ; 
 and wondered in their own hearts how they ever could 
 have thought Aunt Hannah a- grim and gray old 
 woman ; for love and companionship had freshened 
 her face as well as her soul, and the strangeness and
 
 186 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 - the sweetness of being sought and petted and made 
 much of by these young people made her heart very 
 warm and soft towards them, so that she was as pliable 
 as wax in their hands, and they did nearly as they 
 pleased with her. And a quaint, hidden humor began 
 to sparkle dryly up in her talk which struck out 
 answering fun from these merry girls, and so it came 
 about in time that Aunt Hannah felt that she <rave as 
 
 O 
 
 much amusement as she shared. 
 
 Grandfather No. One was never tired of expressing 
 his joy at his sister's altered ways, and Grandfather No. 
 Two thought it was as good as a play ; the Grand 
 mothers said it was a " resurrection ; " the Youn<r 
 
 7 ,l 
 
 Father told his wife she was a magician, and the Young 
 Mother answered that it was the dear Bab} 7 who had 
 wrought the miracle ; but the Poor Relation, sitting in 
 the twilight with the Crippled Sister, said that " it was 
 all the goodness of God." 
 
 The primmest of footmen was driven distracted by 
 these remarkable changes, and was dimly conscious 
 that they had reached even to him, and that he him 
 self was no longer quite the same either ; he had to 
 open the hall-door so often and answer so many cheer-
 
 A TINT HANNAH. 187 
 
 ful voices, that his own lost something of its sepulchral 
 tone, and with half a dozen gay young Aunties flying 
 in and out all day long, asking all sorts of questions and 
 giving all kinds of orders, it was impossible to maintain 
 the solemnity of an undertaker ; gradually, under the 
 exactions of these busy spirits, the dignity of his office 
 relaxed, and he found himself doing ever so many 
 things that had no relation to his position as a footman, 
 and quite incompatible with continued primness. At 
 first, in the confidence of the lower regions, he was 
 inclined to resent the increase and alterations of his 
 functions, and said more than once that he " Couldn't 
 stay where there was so many goings on, though he 
 had lived with the Missus ever since he wore buttons." 
 Cut he never could get away from those Young 
 Aunties ; at the first prim sign of insubordination de 
 livered in the most sepulchral tones, his puzzled brain 
 was tormented with the wildest of chaff, and he retired 
 to the lower regions again in utter bewilderment as to 
 whether he was the most important or the most ridi 
 culed footman that ever donned livery. Then the 
 plants and the bird seemed to afford him unusual inter 
 est, and he was observed to steal into the rooms and
 
 188 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 take surreptitious sniffs at the flowers, while he almost 
 surfeited the canary with furtive offerings of sugar. In. 
 a little while he actually took to smiling paternally on 
 the pranks of the Young Aunties, and in the course of 
 time became the abject slave of these arbitrary damsels. 
 
 The fat coachman, as he himself expressed it, " was 
 just turned topsy-turvy ; scarcely knew if he was on his 
 head or his heels with so much going and coming ; and 
 the horses were a-getting thin with exercising, and the 
 flesh was a-wearing off his own bones ! " 
 
 " Jeems," he said to the prim footman in a confiden 
 tial conference in the lower regions, " Jeems. they 
 ain't nateral, these rum changes. When folkses have 
 lived such a lot of years along all quiet and easy, why 
 they can't keep on comfortable without stirring every 
 body up I'm blowed if I can see ! " 
 
 " But, after all," replied James, " the changes aro 
 kinder pleasant when you get used to 'em ; we'd got so 
 set into being gruesome that we didn't know there was 
 anything better in the world till the Missus' relations 
 came round. I'm sure I pretty near a-yawned my head 
 off many a night in this very room for want of some 
 thing to think about ! "
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 189 
 
 " Well, I guess you got it now," said the fat coach 
 man, " for I ain't hardly got time to think at all between 
 'em all. But it's them gals as aggerawates me the 
 worst. They're as full of tricks as monkeys, and yon 
 never know whether they're poking fun at you or not, 
 even when they gives you an order." 
 
 " Oh," answered James, in the' warmth of his new 
 allegiance, " they're young and light-hearted ; they 
 don't mean harm ; and I'm sure there ain't many young 
 ladies as would be as free-spoken and cordial, even to 
 old servants like us. They've a nice way of making 
 you feel as if you were just as good as themselves, and 
 know you won't presume on it." 
 
 " Entirely too free-spoken for my idees," retorted the 
 fat coachman ; " for half the time you don't know what 
 they're talking about ; and there's one of 'em keeps 
 a-calling me out of my name all the while, as if it was 
 a joke, and a-proddin' at rne about widders, as if I was 
 given to gallivanting round. ' Mr. Weller,' she says 
 to me, and she turns to the Missus, and says she, 'Now 
 Auntie, ain't he Mr. Weller out and out ? ' and the 
 Missus she smiles, first at her and then at me and I 
 must say the Missus is a differing-looking woman since
 
 190 A UNT HAXNAH. 
 
 she took to smiling and she says, ' Mr. Weller is an in- 
 vallable coachman ! ' And then the young un she looks 
 at me with a long face, and says very solemn, ' But, Mr. 
 Weller, you must beware of the widders ! ' 'I don't 
 know none ! ' says I, getting red, for thinks I, ' maybe 
 somebody's been telling lies about me ! ' ' Widders 
 are dangerous, Mr. Weller,' she keeps on. 'Well, 
 Miss,' says I, ' I ain't after no widders, and I ain't 
 afeard o' none!' and the Missus she just laughs out, 
 the first time I heard her laugh since she was like that 
 same young un there, before the drefful time when they 
 brought the Master home stiff and stark : and you 
 
 O 7 */ 
 
 know it kinder made me choke all up to hear her laugh 
 again ; and I makes my best bow, and says I, ' If you 
 please, miss, I'll look out for widders, and I'll be 
 Weller or anybody else, if it's going to make my Missus 
 laugh like that ! ' and that there young un she just 
 jumped up, and grabbed my hand, and shook it, and 
 said she, ' You dear old Weller, if you ain't good 
 enough to be the blessed Pickvick hisself ! ' There's 
 another name she's got for me, and blow me if the 
 whole of 'em ain't at it ever since, first one with their 
 Weller and another with their Pickvick, and a-ordering
 
 A UNT HANXAH. 191 
 
 me to drive to the Markess of Granby, when they mean 
 the summer-house on the hill, and I just believe they're 
 half cracked ! and between 'em all, and the hosses 
 a-falling off, and the everlasting stirring up, my capes is 
 a-getting as loose as an old blouse ! " 
 
 And the fat coachman kept on grumbling, but the 
 roomy coach was kept always bright, the old horses 
 groomed as sleek as satin, and the Young Aunties de 
 clared that his eyes twinkled .in his fat cheeks when 
 they called him Weller. 
 
 Some little time lifter Aunt Hannah had thus been 
 restored to the activities of life, her conscience began to 
 reproach her for her many years of indulgence in soli 
 tude and uselessness ; she seemed to feel that she owed 
 a debt to humanity for her long withdrawal from its 
 interests and requirements, and she became almost eager 
 in her quiet way to take up some work by which the 
 rest of her existence could be made to compensate for 
 the idle and aimless past. Through contact with other 
 busy spirits she became cognizant of undeveloped ener 
 gies in herself, and she grew restless in her outlook for 
 some worthy effort. Hitherto she had thought but lit-
 
 192 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 tie of her accumulated wealth ; her abundance, having 
 been a matter of habit, had been taken as a matter of 
 course, and its comings in and its goings ont had been 
 regulated only by her individual needs and luxuries ; but 
 now the burden of her possessions pressed on her, the 
 inequalities of human fortunes touched her tender soul, 
 she grew into comprehension of her stewardship, and 
 longed to find a judicious and beneficial channel into 
 which to direct her unemployed riches for the helping 
 and salvation of others. At last this constant thought 
 and yearning became almost a trouble to her, and she 
 must fain open her full heart to the Young Mother and 
 the wise old Grandmothers, who entered into her feel 
 ings and plans with a zest and sympathy all the greater, 
 perhaps, with one of them, that she felt a little guilty in 
 her own mind of having made sundry calculations on 
 the probable distribution of Aunt Hannah's fortune ; 
 but even she was just enough to perceive that the alle 
 viation of the many was a higher purpose than the 
 enriching of the few, and an earnest interest was 
 yielded to the lonely woman who was so unaffectedly 
 reaching out to do good. Then, too, it is a curious 
 peculiarity of our complicated human nature that the
 
 A [INT HANNAH. 193 
 
 disappointment of future advantage may be condoned 
 by present confidence and the privileged pleasure of 
 co-operation and assistance in the very object which 
 changes the direction of bestowal ; for to be personally 
 valued by some particular people is often more gratify 
 ing than the mere anticipation or reception of their 
 generosity. So these women held many a disinterested 
 consultation, discussed scheme after scheme, went 
 about together to hospitals and asylums, and studied 
 great charities, if thereby they might light upon the 
 best thing to be effected but without success ; for all 
 understood that whatsoever her hand might find to do, 
 it was Aunt Hannah's wish that she should do it with 
 her own might, that she desired to absorb her own per 
 sonality in it, and pass the rest of her days in service 
 acceptable to the Lord. 
 
 But the Young Mother, having her Baby for inspi 
 ration, and having once seen into the depths of that 
 sensitive heart which had been plunged into solitude by 
 the deprivation of motherhood, divined at last the 
 truest direction to satisfy the searching spirit. 
 
 " Dear Aunt Hannah," she said one day, when they 
 
 were alone, " it seems to me that in the work you are 
 9
 
 194 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 looking for you need something on which you can 
 expend love as well as money ; it is a dry business just 
 doing a general good without one's own emotions are 
 exercised at the same time.- As a woman, what your 
 nature is craving is not that wide, vague affection for 
 all humanity which would make you help just for 
 humanity's sake ; that is very grand, but the glow of it 
 is too exalted to be continual in one's daily feelings. 
 You need some little part of humanity to come near to 
 you as your very own, to cherish and to aid. You 
 want it in your home, in your every-day life, to fill the 
 nooks and corners of your hungry heart. And, dear 
 Auntie, I think there is only one thing that will do all 
 this for you, for you are one of those women in whom 
 the mother-instinct is stronger than any other, if you 
 will only give it a chance. You have no children, and 
 in this unequal world there are so many, many poor 
 babies who have no mothers. You have this large, 
 empty house, and a warm heart ready to take in the 
 helpless. Fill them with babies. Take into your 
 loving arms these little waifs that are left unloved, and 
 I think, dear Auntie, that such a work would be a 
 blessing to you every way."
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 195 
 
 Aunt Hannah caught at the idea at once ; and the 
 Grandmothers said " it was the very thing ! " and 
 they wondered they had not thought of it before ; the 
 Grandfathers shrugged their shoulders, and remarked 
 that " all women were mad on the subject of babies ! " 
 which observation the Young Aunties immediately 
 proved by expressing their delight in exaggerated 
 adjectives ; while the Poor Relation told the Crippled 
 Sister about it with appreciative tears in her soft eyes. 
 
 Then into the gray old house were brought little 
 friendless orphans, and the prim footman was kept dis- 
 tractingly busy with the comings in of cribs and 
 cradles and all the other needed paraphernalia of 
 infancy; and in finding her vocation, Aunt Hannah 
 had created a new interest for other lives ; the Grand 
 mothers could scarcely bear to stay away from those 
 once empty rooms now made full and vocal ; they felt 
 the value of their advice and experience ; they trotted 
 about, rosy and important, in the service of these Email 
 prote :es and more than once bore in their own arms, 
 from the haunts of poverty and the embrace of dead 
 mothers, some helpless babe to the saving refuge of this 
 ready home. The Young Mother's susceptible heart
 
 196 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 overflowed with yearning towards the parentless nurs- 
 lings, and her love for her own Baby made all these 
 sacred and beautiful and precious in her sight. The 
 Poor Relation came in among them as one born with 
 a gift to soothe their sufferings arid still their cries, and 
 the motherhood of her woman's soul developed when 
 she took these children in her arms and blessed them. 
 The Fat Nurse found her way there with her mysterious 
 basket, and was always cordially welcomed, for many 
 a useful hint was dropped from beneath the coal-scuttle 
 bonnet, and more than one sage suggestion emphasized 
 with the bulgy umbrella. But the Young Aunties were 
 quite absorbed in the new enterprise ; they constituted 
 themselves amateur nurses, and learned patience in the 
 labor ; they rocked cradles to the measure of favorite 
 operas; they picked out particular infants, and gos 
 siped about their beauties with as much relish as over 
 their beaux ; they discussed the latest arrival as eagerly 
 as the last fashion ; they knit up pounds upon pounds 
 of zephyr into warm and fluffy infantile wraps ; and 
 even the babies' eyes brightened in recognition of their 
 gay voices and sunny faces ; but through it all, though 
 others might charm their hearts, their own Baby
 
 AUNT HANNAH. . 197 
 
 reigned supreme fetish still, and the one unrivalled 
 standard of comparison. Even the Grandfathers 
 found themselves drawn into the general attraction, 
 and were occasionally captured and taken triumphantly 
 through rows of babies in that stirring gray house that 
 they had so long known in its sombre loneliness, and 
 were touched into sending wholesale presents of rat 
 tles and unlimited supplies of arrow-root, besides allow 
 ing themselves amiably to be laid under all sorts 
 of contributions therefor by the insatiable Young 
 Aunties, without the usual masculine protest at such 
 assailing. 
 
 In Aunt Hannah herself the change wrought by her 
 work seemed little less than miraculous ; no one would 
 have known her for the reserved, sorrowful woman she 
 was before. Her hands and time were so full that si 
 lence and solitude were no longer practicable; she had 
 so much to do that it gave her also a great deal to say, 
 every faculty was utilized, every energy brought into 
 play, and she blossomed out into a matronly sweetness 
 and earnest motherliness that set its impress on her 
 altered appearance. 
 
 Even the prim footman manifested the most unex-
 
 198 AUNT HANNAH. 
 
 pected aptitudes under the circumstances; and being 
 the only man in the house with so many unprotected 
 females and their charges, assumed a sort of paternal 
 responsibility whose unction greatly tempered his 
 primness, so that he made shy passes at the babies by 
 chucking them under J;heir chins, and was more than 
 once observed to be slyly dandling a stray infant under 
 the friendly shade of spreading trees in the garden. 
 And the fat coachman was busier than ever almost too 
 busy to growl, especially as the Young Aunties were 
 too much taken up with the babies that he carefully 
 drove out for their airings, to torment him so unreason 
 ably about imaginary widows. 
 
 So Aunt Hannah's Orphan Asylum became a rec 
 ognized institution, not only, in the immediate family, 
 but in the whole appreciating town. It met a great 
 want, and before long grew into proportions never 
 anticipated at first. Little did this gentle woman, who 
 had put her hand so willingly to this work, ever 
 imagine how great the need of it had been, and how 
 many motherless waifs there were to be rescued 
 from unkindness, neglect, and death. Soon the gray 
 old house was too crowded and too small, and it
 
 AUNT HANNAH. 199 
 
 wrung Aunt Hannah's heart to have to turn away into 
 the cold charity of the outside world a single baby that 
 was brought to her door ; so first one wing was added, 
 and then another, and more of earth's deserted little 
 ones were gathered into this saving fold. And still 
 they came, more and more, till in this ministry of love 
 even Aunt Hannah's ample resources began to be 
 strained and insufficient for further admittances. And 
 as she pondered over this a little sadly one day, she 
 was accosted by the prim footman in a state of pertur 
 bation and embarrassment quite unusual to that worthy 
 servitor. 
 
 " If you please, ma'am," he began somewhat hesitat 
 ingly and very crimson in the face, " I'd like to say a 
 few words. I've lived with you pretty near all my life, 
 ma'am, and God and yourself willing, hope to die in 
 your service ; and not having a chick nor a child of my 
 own, and never expecting to, I've saved up a lot of my 
 wages with no particular purpose ; and as I'm as inter 
 ested in the babies as anybody, and I know, ma'am, 
 begging your pardon, that you've been a-worrying be 
 cause there ain't room enough, why, I'd just like this 
 money of mine to go towards building a bit or so more.
 
 200 A UNT HANNAH. . 
 
 If you'll please, ma'am, to take it, I'll think it well- 
 earned and well-spent." 
 
 And Aunt Hannah was quite overcome with this 
 generosity,, but reasoned with James about it, very un 
 willing to take from him his treasured savings ; but the 
 prim footman was not to be denied, and answered 
 firmly, " If I died, ma'am, I should leave my money to 
 this here asylum, and glad of something to do with it, 
 as I've got no kinfolks, and I might as well see the 
 good of it with my living eyes ! " So Aunt Hannah 
 comprehended that he would be greatly hurt and dis 
 appointed if she refused his assistance ; and as the 
 prim footman had had little temptations to spend, his 
 accumulation proved to be larger than might have been 
 supposed, and afforded quite a respectable addition, 
 which was built out towards the garden, and called in 
 his honor " James' Ward." And the delight exhibited 
 thereat by the prim footman was quite a sight to see. 
 He watched every brick and stone with affectionate 
 interest, peered into the lime-kiln, and hovered round 
 the hods ; all his leisure was devoted to superintending 
 with intense solicitude the rearing of the walls ; he 
 waited on the workmen with untiring zeal, and was
 
 A UNT HANNAH. 201 
 
 even suspected of having occasionally laid a few lines 
 of mortar himself ; he would hardly sleep in his im 
 patience arid anxiety to see the roof actually on ; and 
 when at last all was finished, and the superfluous 
 babies had overflowed into the new rooms from the 
 main building, the prim footman adopted these as his 
 especial favorites and care, so that at length, to his 
 supreme enjoyment, they came to be called " James' 
 Children ; " and as time went on, under the combined 
 effects of busy days arid perpetual babies, his primness 
 all wore away, and he mellowed into a genial sort of 
 general father, and quite forgetting the dignified 
 limitations of a footman, was often to be seen in the 
 long walks of the old-fashioned garden, patiently and 
 tenderly carrying some ailing infant through the fresh 
 air, or sitting on his particular bench beneath the 
 laro-est tree with one, or even two babies on his knees 
 
 O ' 
 
 playing with the buttons that were worn above such a 
 kind and faithful heart. 
 
 Once, when the needs were many and the laborers 
 
 still too few, the Poor Kelation was surprised, as she sat 
 
 by the Crippled Sister, by a visit from Aunt Hannah, 
 
 who simply said to her : " Tear, I have more than I can 
 
 9*
 
 202 A TINT HANNAH. 
 
 do, and require help. You must come to me and be 
 my right hand." But the Poor Relation only looked 
 over at the white couch and frail figure, under whose 
 transparent fingers the white flowers were growing upon 
 a flowing robe; and Aunt Hannah put her arms around 
 her and said softly : " Not alone, dear, oh, not alone ! 
 both must come, for there is work and welcome for 
 both!" 
 
 And the Poor Relation, whose humble home had felt 
 very lonely since the Sunset of Life had fallen on the 
 Aged Father and Mother, turned to this one of her very 
 own, who was left to her, and asked : " Sister, shall we 
 go?" And the Crippled Sister dropped the snowy 
 muslin, and put forth a trembling hand to each, as she 
 answered with a quivering voice, " Inasmuch as ye do 
 it to the least of these, my little ones, ye do it unto 
 Me ! " So, a little while afterwards, the Grandfathers 
 themselves came and carried the Crippled Sister down 
 to a mattress in the roomy coach, from out of that one 
 apartment which she had not left for so many years ; 
 and nothing could exceed the carefulness with which 
 
 o 
 
 the fat coachman slowly drove over picked ways to the 
 gray old house, where also were conveyed the white
 
 A UNT HANNAH. 203 
 
 couch, the blithe bird, and all the other familiar things 
 upon which her eyes had rested in the olden home; 
 and in their midst the Crippled Sister still worked on, 
 only now her skillful hands fashioned only garments 
 for the babies ; and hither followed her, also, her loving 
 scholars to find increased knowledge in a wider school 
 of humanity ; and all the rest of her days passed away 
 in such pleasantness and peace as her condition would 
 admit ; and not the Poor Relation only, but Aunt Han 
 nah and all the rest went in to her for that spiritual 
 strength which seemed to flow in upon her open soul 
 from the very secret places of the Most High. 
 
 Years went on and on; Aunt Hannah's work and 
 will never faltered. Babies came and came, and the 
 mother-heart took them all in took them all in and 
 cherished and reared them for the life that is, and the 
 life that is to come. She lived to be an old woman, 
 with a soul full of wisdom, and her face came to be as 
 the face of one who had talked with God, with the love 
 that was in it. And the Young Mother would almost 
 have thought in time that she had put away the grief 
 and memories of her youth amid the beautiful interests 
 of her busy age, if she had not known that always
 
 2O1 A UNT HANNAH. 
 
 in that gray old house there was kept a single room 
 unused, in which there was an empty cradle where no 
 baby ever slept; and she wondered, sometimes, if, 
 among all the active concerns of her beneficent life, 
 she had nourished still the strange doubt which had 
 tortured the brooding loneliness of that unmentioned 
 past, for Aunt Hannah never again recurred to the 
 story of her sorrow. But at last, when the time was 
 ripe, Aunt Hannah lay upon her dying bed, surrounded 
 by loving spirits and mourned for by hundreds outside ; 
 when the Young Aunties some of them also mothers 
 then wept bitterly and would not be comforted ; when 
 only the one Grandfather and the one Grandmother 
 who were left, bent their white heads before the 
 mystery they too were soon to meet. When Baby's 
 Nurse paused in her ineffectual ministry, the Young 
 Mother, who had become a comely matron with Baby 
 a grown-up young lady at her side, recalled that mem 
 orable morning in the long ago, when the lonely woman 
 had told 'her with hopeless tears, of the child who had 
 died before it was born. And lo, as she looked down 
 upon the pale face resting on the Poor Relation's 
 gentle bosom, the eyes suddenly opened and looked
 
 A UNT HANNAH. 205 
 
 into hers; with the failing strength the aged harM 
 caught her own and drew her close, as the last words, 
 which she only completely understood, fell from the 
 lips already cold in death : " I have seen my baby ; its 
 face was the face of the living, and it had its father's 
 eyes ! "
 
 IX. 
 
 BABY S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 
 
 BABY could not understand it at all ; she only com 
 prehended in her small way that a great change had 
 come over everything in her little world. The dear 
 Young Mother lay very pale and quiet on her bed, 
 and Baby's crib had been removed from her side into 
 the chamber of Baby's Nurse, all of whose tenderness 
 and patience could not supply the loss when, restless 
 in the new place, Baby woke in the night of the low, 
 familiar tones, and the soft caress of the maternal hand 
 that always soothed, because Baby knew it so well, and 
 felt such a sense of security and peace under it. 
 
 The Fat Nurse had come in one day in her coal 
 scuttle bonnet, with her bulgy umbrella and never-fail 
 ing basket. But she had come to stay, for the basket 
 had been deposited in the closet, with its faded green 
 ribbon strings all untied ; the umbrella had been care-
 
 ABY'S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 207 
 
 fully stood in a remote corner, and the big bonnet 
 replaced by a stiffly-starched frilled cap that struck 
 awe into Baby's heart; and as somehow Baby dimly 
 connected the arrival of this important personage with 
 the beginning of her troubles, she looked upon that 
 florid countenance with no favorable eye, especially as 
 the Fat Nurse was so absorbed in a white bundle on 
 her lap that she took very little notice of Baby Number 
 One. Nor could Baby see any reason why that same 
 long white bundle should attract the attention of every 
 one who came in almost to the exclusion of Baby's 
 hitherto most prominent self ; and the ominous phrase, 
 " Baby's nose is out of joint," so often repeated, seemed 
 to imply some usurpation of her infantile rights, and 
 such a relegation to the background, that when the Fat 
 Nurse at last condescended to hold the white bundle 
 low down for her sisterly inspection, her only impulse 
 was to double her dimpled fist and make an effort to 
 punch the tiny bald head suddenly presented to her 
 bewildered view. 
 
 First, when Baby's Nurse had brought her in fresh 
 and rosy from her bath, to receive the Young Mother's 
 languid morning kiss, this new-comer had been held
 
 208 BABY'S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 
 
 up for due observance, and Baby's Nurse had clasped 
 her close to her breast, and said " Baby's nose is out of 
 joint " with such a sad inflection in her voice, that 
 Baby felt that some misfortune had befallen her, and 
 that this white doll with the scarlet face was the occa 
 sion of it. And the Fat Nurse had responded, " Turn 
 about, fair play ! " in such an unsympathetic tone, that 
 Baby hated her forthwith. 
 
 Then the Young Father had come in, and was very 
 tender over his pale wife, and passing Baby by, had 
 gone across the room, and leaned over the new child, 
 looking at it silently for a moment, touching its downy 
 cheek gently with his finger, and then, as Baby keenly 
 felt, with his notice only partly engrossed by her, had 
 taken her in his arms for the usual greeting and toss, 
 exclaiming half abstractedly and half triumphantly, 
 " Baby's nose is out of joint ! " Baby's nose began to 
 have a queer sensation, and was very nearly twisted for 
 a burst of crying, as the Fat Nurse replied : " It's 
 natur' sir! Babies comes and babies goes, and noses 
 ain't steady long." The Young Father laughed a 
 happy little laugh, and went off to his office with his 
 heart brimming over with joy at the Young Mother's
 
 BABY'S NOSE IS OUT Of JOINT. 209 
 
 safety, and the addition of another darling to his house 
 hold, and left Baby feeling more and more that the 
 Fat Nurse was her mortal enemy. 
 
 Then Baby had been banished from the Toung 
 Mother's room, which had been her only nursery, to 
 another afar off, where she vented herself for two or 
 three days in all the ill-tempers of babyhood ; and 
 when she was just about to find consolation in a bald- 
 pated dolly that had a towel pinned round it to repre 
 sent the white bundle down stairs, and which she 
 could shake and slap to her heart's content, she was 
 suddenly called for .to go and see the Grandfathers, 
 who had come to welcome their last grandchild into 
 this mortal world. And lo ! as she entered at the door 
 Grandfather Number Two shook his gold-headed cane 
 as if he was threatening her, and called out lustily : 
 " Ha ! ha ! little one, your nose is out of joint ! " and 
 Grandfather Number One echoed the phrase just 
 a shade less forcibly. And the Fat Nurse began to 
 trot down a rising whine from the new-found voice, 
 accompanying the motion with the refrain, " Qut of 
 joint, out of jointy, jointy, jointy, joint ! " So that 
 when, in a new accession of wrath, Baby declined to be
 
 210 BABY'S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 
 
 received upon the Grandpaternal knees, the ancient 
 men chucked her under the chin, and smiling at each 
 other as if it was a good joke, said merrily : " The little 
 vixen is jealous ! " and Baby experienced for the first 
 time that Grandfathers are a delusion and a snare. 
 
 The Grandmothers rustled in, with their rosy faces 
 and shining black silks, and chirruped to the Young 
 Mother, and gossiped over the new baby, with just 
 a careless kiss to Baby, who began' to watch with sensi 
 tive spirit for tokens of inattention and displacement, 
 till at last one of them, laying her hand upon the 
 golden curls, said conclusively: ." Well, Nurse, it is 
 a very fine child, and this one's nose is out of joint! " 
 And the Fat Nurse, like an everlasting echo, had 
 responded : " Every dog must have his day ! " And 
 Baby turned her large eyes reproachfully upon the 
 frilled cap, as if wondering why, when her old friend 
 had removed her big bonnet, she should thus take part 
 with every one against her former nursling. 
 
 The roomy coach, driven by the 1'at Coachman, 
 brought Aunt Hannah to the unusually quiet house, 
 where the missing of the sweet presence going in and 
 out of the rooms gave all but the one an aspect of lone-
 
 BABY'S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 211 
 
 liness and emptiness. She had taken the new baby in 
 her arms, and sat holding it awhile with her face full 
 of blessing and love; Baby stood a little way off, look 
 ing at her wistfully, and waiting for the inevitable re 
 mark, and then, as if magnetized by the yearning that 
 softened the brooding features, she slowly drew an ear, 
 and leaned up against her. Quickly one arm was disen 
 gaged from the white bundle, and went around the 
 small figure not too steadfast yet upon its chubby feet, 
 and the thoughtful eyes were turned upon the almost im 
 ploring little countenance lifted to her own, and Aunt 
 Hannah saw there something that no one else had ob 
 served, for she said, half-questioningly, " I wonder if 
 this wee creature feels that her pretty nose is out of 
 joint ? " to which the Fat Nurse heartlessly replied, 
 " I reckon she's most too young to feel much yet, and 
 anyhow, she'll soon get used to it ! " Poor Baby began 
 to have a dim perception that there was no longer any 
 hope for her, and that the repetition of this bitter phrase 
 spread desolation over her early days. The bright 
 Young Aunties floated in, gay and gushing over the 
 great event ; and they cooed, and gurgled, and talked 
 baby talk over the strange arrival, and tenderly touch-
 
 212 BABY'S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 
 
 ed its mites of hands, and insisted on being shown its 
 tinted feet and tiny toes, till Baby's heart swelled with 
 in her, for perhaps she remembered, as it was not so 
 long ago, that they had once gone on in the same way 
 over her now neglected self. It was too much that this 
 red- faced, bald-headed bundle should rob her of the 
 allegiance of these devoted adherents ; too much that 
 the flattery of their ringing voices should be turned 
 aside from their hitherto spoiled and reigning darling; 
 that the pet names should be transferred and the faith 
 less admiration changed to a new object. What to the 
 grown woman is the misery of power and love passing 
 away to a rival, was Baby's experience of this fickleness 
 of adulation ; her small brow puckered, and her rose 
 bud of a mouth began to quiver ; and as a woman ex 
 erts all her arts to win back acrain the waning; influence, 
 
 O O 7 
 
 so the undeveloped cunning of womanhood born in an 
 infant's breast, caused Baby to put forth all her hither 
 to irresistible wiles to attract the altered attention. 
 And the Young Aunties saw through the device and 
 made themselves merry over -it, and petted her fondly, 
 but with a side glance still at the new baby ; and as 
 though conscious of a diminished interest in their here-
 
 BABY'S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 213 
 
 tofore idol, passed her from .one to another with a man 
 ner that was partly self-excusing, as each said to each, 
 " But our Baby's riose is out of joint ! " 
 
 The childish heart was very full, but not yet did the 
 cup overflow, until the Poor Relation entered the room, 
 and catching a glimpse of the young face with the 
 shadow of a first sorrow on it, murmured as though she 
 comprehended the situation, " Ah ! the poor little nose 
 is out of joint." That was the last drop ! That she 
 too, the best beloved, should echo this unceasing re 
 proach, and sting the suffering soul with these repeated 
 words of doom, even though spoken in compassion, 
 was more than could be longer endured. Then Baby 
 went quickly aside, and turning her face from all of 
 them, sat down in a distant corner fronting the wall, 
 and great sobs rose in her throat, and the moans of a 
 bruised spirit sounded through the surprised silence. 
 Consternation fell for a moment upon every one pres 
 ent ; but the Fat Nurse, so careless before, divined the 
 meaning of this outburst. 
 
 "I do believe," she said remorsefully, "that we've 
 all been blind' as bats and hard as rocks, and that that 
 Babv has been a-thinkin' and a-feelin' more than we
 
 214: BABY'S NOSE IS OUT OF JOINT. 
 
 had any idea of ! Every one of us has been a-tellin' 
 her that her nose is out of joint, till it has made the 
 little creetur' lonesome. We don't give these young 
 uns credit enough for knowinness. Poor little tot ! " 
 
 o 
 
 But the Young Mother had risen up in bed, and 
 cried out : " Oh, give me my Baby ! not that one my 
 first Baby ! Don't you see her heart is breaking ! Oh, 
 bring her to me ! " 
 
 And the Poor Relation lifted the little desolate form 
 in her gentle arms and laid her on the Young Mother's 
 bosom, where the passionately tender words and the 
 soft, familiar caress soon stilled the strangling sobs and 
 grief -wrung wail ; and sheltered there upon that faith 
 ful breast, Baby gained her first conception and reali 
 zation that, come weal or woe, though friends may fail 
 and the world forget, or others share the sacred love, to 
 the Mother's heart no Baby's nose is ever out of joint.
 
 X. 
 
 PASSING AWAY. 
 
 BABY was over two years old, and was no longer 
 Baby ; another little one had come into her infantile 
 place, and in the changes and chances of this mortal 
 life Baby had come to be known by her own name the 
 beloved and blessed name of the Poor Relation. To 
 the gay and gushing young girls she was no longer the 
 sole and undivided -Pet ; and that One of the Aunties, 
 whom she had saved for her husband, had now a baby 
 of her own. Baby's Nurse shared her care and love 
 with another charge, and Baby's Party had become a 
 tale of tradition. The Crippled Sister had found the 
 sweetness of living in working out her tender fancies 
 on the white robes for Aunt Hannah's Orphan Asylum; 
 and since the Sunset of Life had fallen on the humble 
 home where the Aged Father and Mother had sat for 
 the last time in the vine- wreathed porch 3 the Poor Rela-
 
 216 PASSING AWAY. 
 
 tion had keenly felt that nothing in this world is 
 stationary; and that over individual and family, as 
 well as through the fortunes of the Great Many, irre 
 sistible Time was forever bringing alteration and move 
 ment. But though Baby might be compensated for 
 the loss of separate idolatry by the welcome compan 
 ionship of other babies, and though the woman's 
 sphere might be enlarged by more numerous duties 
 and wider interests, yet perhaps in Baby's little heart 
 there might have been an undefined sense of something 
 missing and gone, as in the woman's soul there was an 
 unconquerable clinging to things of the past. 
 
 She was thinking much in this strain as she wended 
 her way across the fields where she had found the five- 
 leaved clover, to pay a last visit to her old home, which, 
 in the course of events, was about to pass out of her 
 possession ; and she was going to stand once more in 
 the familiar rooms, long sanctified by sacrifice and 
 suffering, to weep her full heart out alone beneath the 
 roof that had sheltered her nearest and dearest, and to 
 bid a sad farewell to the sacred walls, the cherished 
 flowers, the precious associations of the abandoned 
 abode of many years. It might be lou ly in the sight
 
 PASSING AWAY. 217 
 
 of others, but no place or palace on earth could ever 
 be so sweet and beautiful to her, because of the kin 
 dred lives that had been spent and finished there. 
 
 She was thinking nothing now of five-leaved clovers 
 or Fairy Gifts ; her innermost spirit was all stirred 
 with memories, and she was dwelling far more on 
 those who had gone before to the unknown bourne, 
 than of the new-born existences to which she was her 
 self, in very truth, a Fairy Godmother. Titania and 
 Puck had no place in the mind that was busy with the 
 angels in heaven ; the Fairy Court could not enter into 
 the musings on an empty hearth, and the Rose of Life 
 and Lily of Death had become to her only a part of 
 a lovely dream in which Fancy had played with the 
 secret things of humanity. Long and solemn was the 
 vigil she had set for herself in the silent house ; very 
 still and solitary would the hoars of the night be in 
 this dwelling of perished hopes and vanished labors ; 
 but she knew that the Yoices of the Past would speak 
 to her soul, and that she would hold communion with 
 the invisible. 
 
 The outer door, through which those she loved would 
 
 go back and forth no more, swung back slowly as 
 10
 
 213 PASSING A WAT. 
 
 though loth to admit her to the darkness and loneli 
 ness; the walls that would so soon resound with the 
 tones of strangers gave back a faint and mournful 
 echo of her lingering steps; and the very windows 
 seemed to lean over and look down upon her sympa 
 thetically, as if she only was their own. All! what 
 thoughts, what homely remembrances, what irrepress 
 ible yearnings filled those parting hours, when the 
 dumb and senseless wood and plaster even seemed to 
 be permeated with the personal influences that had 
 emanated in their midst, and to give back the concen 
 trated impression of vanished presences. The bitter 
 ness of death was in the unseen wringings of the 
 hands; the awful cry of the human in the moan 
 unheard of men ; and the saltness of mortal suffering 
 in the tears which fell in the deserted dwelling! 
 Ghosts were there, but she had no fear of them ; the 
 dead arose from their graves and came noiselessly 
 about her, but she shrank not from their companion 
 ship, for to her beautiful faith they wore the wings of 
 God's Messengers, and it was not for them the rain of 
 grief fell down, but for her own coming years upon 
 earth below without their outward and visible inter-
 
 PASSING AWAY. 219 
 
 course. For though the trained spirit may willingly 
 murmur " Thy will Be Done," there is no reconcilia 
 tion in the heart, which remains always natural, with 
 sorrow and bereavement. 
 
 She came down at last as the clock was striking mid 
 night, to stand within the vine-wreathed porch, beneath 
 the starry sky, to look out once more upon the flower- 
 decked law r n all bright and silvered with the summer 
 
 x 
 
 moonlight. 
 
 At the first stroke of the church-bell, to whose tolling 
 of the hours she had so often listened in the night- 
 watches, a rustling breeze stirred all the clustering 
 leaves ; at the third stroke it suddenly seemed to her 
 swimming eyes as if all the flowers on the vines ex 
 panded at once into full bloom, and turned upon their 
 steins towards the lawn ; at the fifth stroke innumera 
 ble fire-flies paled with their restless brilliancy the softer 
 moonshine ; at the seventh the dewy grass and bushes 
 sparkled as if sprinkled with diamonds ; at the ninth 
 stroke the blossoms distilled a flood of marvellous fra 
 grance ; at the eleventh a slender white circle appeared 
 instantaneously before her, flashing into her mind the 
 remembrance of the five-leaved clover; and at the
 
 220 PASSING AWAY. 
 
 twelfth stroke, there straightway before her was truly 
 all the Fairy Court ! 
 
 The Poor Relation was greatly amazed, for she had 
 no charm now with which to summon the little people, 
 and had often doubted whether she had once really be 
 held and talked with the tiny Queen of the Elves. Only 
 when, day by day she had watched Baby growing into 
 the good gifts which she fancied were bestowed upon 
 her on a certain memorable night, did she sometimes 
 allow herself to dwell on the belief that she, even she 
 had won from the fays these blessings for the general 
 darling. But the practical things of every-day exis 
 tence, crowding thick and fast, thrust down into the 
 secret place of her heart the lingering childishness 
 which delighted to muse on poetic visions of storied 
 sprites. And she had told no one that she had held 
 converse with the Fairies, for she knew that the incred 
 ulity of To-day would have impugned her sanity, and 
 this same skepticism of the outer life, which is Common 
 Sense, had so far stolen into her Inner Me, that until 
 she beheld them all before her again she had come to 
 think that her former interview was an illusion of 
 rarely indulged imagination.
 
 PASSING AWAY. 221 
 
 But there they all unmistakably were once more, 
 and she knew that her fancy had no part in their ap 
 pearance now, since it was of far other glorified beings 
 she had been thinking, than these gossamer and airy 
 creatures. And she could not but notice that this time 
 they wore no guise of lightness or merriment. Titania, 
 seated on her white rose throne, looked grave and sol 
 emn, while her silvery robe was mistier than before, and 
 the crown of minute jewels upon her brow seemed dim 
 and heavy. Puck drooped dej ectedly, and made no sly 
 passes at the quiet pages ; and over all the liliputiaii 
 assembly there reigned an aspect of depression and dis 
 tress. 
 
 After a moment's silence Titania sadly spoke : 
 
 " Because, O gentle spirit ! that you were the last in 
 the land who kept faith in us, we came to you before 
 we, who were once summoned to the christening feasts 
 of all the princes of the world ; but since you too have 
 let belief grow cold, and have permitted yourself to 
 think of us as creatures of fiction, w,e must bid you 
 farewell forever ! " 
 
 " Ah, no ! " cried the Poor Eelation, " for now that I 
 see you again my faith comes back, and I know you all
 
 222 PASSING AWAT. 
 
 for the veritable fairies that my childhood longed to 
 see ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Titania a little scornfully, "just now it 
 is night, and you are alone, and we are here ; but to 
 morrow, in the broad day, will you dare to proclaim 
 aloud in the market-place that we really do exist, and 
 that you have seen us with your natural eyes, and heard 
 us with your conscious ears ? " 
 
 And the Common Sense, which is so cruel a foe to 
 Genius, 'and so staunch an ally to Truth, caused the 
 Poor Relation to keep silent and slightly hang her head 
 in shame, and the bright ring of fairies all sighed so 
 piteously that she felt very culpable indeed. 
 
 " Ah well ! " continued Titania, " we can pardon you, 
 for the Spirit of the Age has inherited our lost power, 
 and its impressions are stronger than we, since they only 
 can endure the glare of the sunshine, while we are the 
 children of the shadows and the Past. There is no 
 place for us any longer in this country of steam and 
 schools ; but as long as one heart remained that cher 
 ished us we lingered in our olden haunts. But we have 
 bidden them all adieu even as you have bidden adieu 
 to your former home with all the grief that fairies ever
 
 PASSING A WAT. 223 
 
 can feel, and now we have come to add one more 
 farewell to- night to those you and we have already ' 
 taken." 
 
 " But, O Queen ! " exclaimed the Poor Relation, 
 " why must you go ? why must the places which have 
 known you so long know you now no more ? " 
 
 (i Can you not understand," replied Titania almost 
 sharply, " that when knowledge comes, the fairies 
 must go? In this very house, have there not heen 
 gathered in the ignorant children, whose parents 
 brought with them from a far country all the traditions 
 of our rule, to be shown the light of science and taught 
 the power of fact? When a child has pnlled a flower 
 to pieces in order to count the pistils and stamens, do 
 you think she will ever again see a fairy peeping from 
 its leaves ? Your locomotives have cut through our 
 meadow circles where we danced so merrily of yore ; 
 your railroads have tunnelled the hills whose recesses 
 were all Fairy Land, invisible to the spade and measur 
 ing-line ; and the very woods beneath whose shady 
 ferns we slept so securely in the day-time, have been 
 cut down for Telegraph poles, and there is no longer 
 any suitable spot in this wretched land of bare.actuality,
 
 224 PASSING AWAY. 
 
 work, and progress, for beings so delicate and ethereal 
 as we ! " 
 
 And a low wail, like the dying fall of the wind at 
 night, went up from the saddened Fairy Court. 
 
 " But where will you go, oh, where will you go ? " 
 asked the Poor Relation ; " for though you should 
 again fade away from me as realities, your memories 
 will not pass from my heart, and I would fain picture 
 you in whatsoever region you may be ! " 
 
 " We will go," answered Titania slowly, " to some 
 barbaric land whose people are still children; where 
 the eyes have not been dulled by education, nor where 
 ears have grown deaf to the voices of nature. For 
 them we will dance again in the moonlight, and people 
 their glens and glades ; they will see us amid the ferns, 
 and find our circles in the fields ; and we will be hap 
 pier with them than we have been for a long time 
 here, for with much knowledge cometh much sorrow 
 to man as well as to fairies ! " 
 
 Then the Poor Relation stretched her arms to the 
 little people. " I know," she said, " O beautiful 
 Queen ! that you and yours will never quite go out of 
 my life. I may never again see you with the eyes of
 
 PASSING AWAf. 225 
 
 my sense, but wherever you may go my soul will sum 
 mon you again and again, and you will come from the 
 far away, and whisper to me of the new worlds you 
 have found, pour sweet fancies into my innermost 
 longings, and gather around me in the silence of sleep 
 and night ! " 
 
 " Ah ha ! " cried Puck, " she believes in us yet ! 
 There is enough of the child left in the woman to hold 
 us dear still ! Must we go while one heart so clings to 
 us ? " 
 
 And all the small elves echoed anxiously, " Must we 
 go ? must we go \ " 
 
 But Titania answered mournfully, " It is true that 
 we can never quite forsake those who love us ; but we 
 must go, alas! we must go from this civilization to 
 which she belongs, if we are to live at all, for the 
 March of Improvement treads down such as we, and 
 advancing Reason accounts it good to look upon us 
 slain ! And even she will consider that Use is better 
 than Beauty, and help to train up that Baby which we 
 gifted in the New Order of Things that will know us 
 no more! But because she only, for so long in tlm 
 
 midst of All This, has cherished us and summoned us, 
 10*
 
 226 PASSING AWAY. 
 
 and will regret us, we will leave her a gift which shall 
 remain forever fresh in her heart, to which we will 
 sometimes secretly return." 
 
 And then it seemed to the Poor Relation that all the 
 Fairy Court ringed her round, floating in the mid-air ; 
 that they touched her with their tiny hands, and kissed 
 her with their little, little mouths ; and that Titania, 
 pausing a moment in front of her, left an offering lying 
 on her breast. Then a cloud swept over the face of 
 the moon, and when it had passed away the little 
 people had all. gone out of sight forever; but still upon 
 the scented breeze there swelled the melancholy 
 cadence of their last "Farewell! " And as she glanced 
 downward she saw through her involuntary tears a 
 single familiar flower lying on her bosom within the 
 folds of her dress ; and all her life long the Poor Re 
 lation always knew that any one to whom, in the night 
 of sorrow or amid the hours of care, the fairies could 
 come unbidden, or who could behold a vision of Ti 
 tania, would never be entirely left alone in the dark 
 ness without this token of Heart's-ease. 
 
 THE END.
 
 AND NEW EDITIONS, 
 
 G, W, CARLETON & Co., Publishers, 
 
 Madison Square, New York. 
 
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 Comic Centennial History of the United States. Profusely illustrated fi 50 
 
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 French Love-Songs. Selected from the best French authors i 5 
 
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 The Debatable Land Between this World and the Next ?a oa 
 
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 CHARLES DICKENS' WORKS. 
 
 A Netv Edition. 
 
 A mom* the many editions of the works of this greatest >f 
 fcnglish Novelists, there has not been until now one that entirely 
 satisfies the public demand. Without exception, they each have 
 some strong distinctive objection, either the form and dimensions 
 of the volume* are unhandy or, the type is small and indistinct 
 or, the illustrations are unsatisfactory or, the binding is poor or, 
 the price <s too high. 
 
 An entirely new edition is now, however, published by G. W. 
 Carleton & Co. of New York, which, it is believed, will, in every 
 respect, completely satisfy the popular demand. It is known as 
 
 "Carleton's NCAV Illustrated Edition." 
 
 COMPLETE IN 15 VOLUMES. 
 
 The size and form is most convenient for holding, the type is 
 entirely new, and of a cleat and open character that has received the 
 approval of the reading community in other popular works. 
 
 The illustrations are by the original artists chosen ly Charles 
 Dickens himself and the paper, printing, and binding are of an 
 attractive and substantial character. 
 
 This beautiful new edition is complete in 15 volumes at the 
 extremely reasonable price of $1.50 per volume, as follows : 
 
 I. PICKWICK PAPERS AND CATALOGUE. 
 
 2. OLIVER TWIST. UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER. 
 
 3. DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 4. GREAT EXPECTATIONS. ITALY AND AMERICA. 
 
 5. DOMBEY AND SON. 
 
 6. BARNABY RUDGE ANT) EDWIN DROOD. 
 
 7. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 
 
 8. CURIOSITY SHOP AND MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 9. BLEAK HOUSE. 
 
 IO. LITTLE DORRIT. 
 1 1 . MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 
 12. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 
 13. CHRISTMAS BOOKS. TALE OF TWO CITIES. 
 
 4. SKETCHES BY vQl AND HAKD TIMES. 
 
 15. CHILD'S ENGLAND AND MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 The first volume Pickwick Papers contains an alphabeticsJ 
 catalogue of all of Charles Dickens' writings, with their p.xatious 
 in the volumes. 
 
 This edition is sold by Booksellers, everywhere and single sped- 
 men copies will be forwarded by mail, postage free, on receipt of 
 
 price, 1.50, by G ^ CARLETON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 Madison Square, New York.
 
 MARY J. HOLMES' WORKS. 
 
 I -TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE. f 8 
 
 - -ENGLISH ORPHANS. 
 
 j. -HOMESTEAD ON HILLSIDE. 
 
 . 'LENA RIVERS. 
 
 * MEADOW BROOK. 
 
 5. DORA DEANE. 
 
 7. COUSIN MAUDE. 
 
 6. WEST LAWN. 
 
 ii,- 
 i.i.- 
 IV- 
 
 14.- 
 V*s- 
 
 17. 
 
 -MARIAN GRAY. 
 -DARKNESS AND DAYLIGUi 
 -HUGH WORTHINGTON. 
 -CAMERON PRIDE. 
 -ROSE MATHER. 
 -ETHELVN'S MISTAKE. 
 -MILLBANK. 
 -EDNA BROWNING. 
 -EDITH LYLE. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "Mr. Holmes' stories are universally read. Her admirers are numberless. 
 She is m many respects without a rival in the world of fiction. Her characters 
 are always life-like, and she makes them talk and act like human beings, subject 
 to the same emotions, swayed by the same passions, and actuated by the same 
 monves whu.li are common among men and women of every day existence. Mrs. 
 Holmes is very happy in portraying domestic life. Old and young peruse her 
 stories with great delight, for she writes in a style thdt all can comprehend." 
 /Ww York Weekly. 
 
 "Mrs. Holmes' stcriei are all of a domestic character, and their interest, 
 therctore, is not so intense as if they were more highly seasoned with sensational 
 ism, but it is r fa healthy and abiding character. Almost any new book which her 
 publisher might choose to announce from her pen would get an immediate and 
 general reading. The interest in her tales begins at once, and is maintained to 
 the close. Her sentiments are so sound, her sympathies so warm and ready, 
 an-1 her knowledge of manners, character, and the varied incidents of ordinary 
 Uis is so thorough, that she *vould find it difficult to write any other than an 
 excellent Ulc if she were to try it" Button Banner. 
 
 "Mrs. Holmes it very amusing; has a quick and true sense ot humor, n 
 sympathetic tone, a perception of character, and a familial, attractive tyl. 
 pleasantly adapted to the comprehension and the taste of that large clat of 
 An:rican readers for whom fashionable novels and ideal faniasirj have t; 
 ^iarm." Henry 7*. Tvckertnan. 
 
 837" Th* volumes aie all handsomely printed and bound La tkitb. -<. u 
 *rjrwhere, ind sent by mail, postage frtt, on receipt of price [$1.50 each]* by 
 
 Q. W CARLETON 4 CO., Publisher^ 
 
 Madison Square, New Yetk.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 
 
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