X 
 
 
 >j m - 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS; 
 THEE AND YOU; 
 
 AND 
 
 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 BY 
 
 S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 1880. 
 
Copyright, 1880, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & Co. 
 
L o 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS 5 
 
 THEE AND You 97 
 
 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN 171 
 
 M53O483 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON the fifteenth day of October, in the year 1 807, 
 a young man about the age of twenty walked slowly 
 down Front Street in the quiet city of Philadelphia. 
 The place was strange to him, and with the careless 
 curiosity of youth he glanced about and enjoyed alike 
 the freshness of the evening hour and the novelty of 
 the scene. 
 
 To the lad for he was hardly more the air was 
 delicious, because only the day before he had first set 
 foot on shore after a wearisome ocean-voyage. All 
 the afternoon a torrent of rain had fallen, but as he 
 paused and looked westward at the corner of Cedar 
 Street, the lessening rain, of which he had taken 
 little heed, ceased of a sudden, and below the dun 
 masses of swiftly-changing clouds the western sky 
 became all aglow with yellow light, which set a rain 
 bow over the broad Delaware and touched with gold 
 the large drops of the ceasing shower. 
 
 The young man stood a moment gazing at the 
 changeful sky, and then with a pleasant sense of 
 
 5 
 
6 HEPHZ1BAH GUINNESS. 
 
 sober contrast let his eyes wander over the broken 
 roof-lines and broad gables of Front Street, noting 
 how sombre the wetted brick houses became, and 
 how black the shingled roofs with their patches of 
 tufted green moss and smoother lichen. Then as he 
 looked he saw, a few paces down the street, two 
 superb buttonwoods from which the leaves were flit 
 ting fast, and his quick eye caught the mottled love 
 liness of their white and gray and green boles. 
 Drawn by the unusual tints of these stately trunks, 
 he turned southward, and walking towards them, 
 stopped abruptly before the quaint house above which 
 they spread their broad and gnarled branches. 
 
 The dwelling, of red and black-glazed bricks, set 
 corner to corner, was what we still call a double house, 
 having two windows on either side of a door, over 
 which projected a peaked pent-house nearly hidden 
 by scarlet masses of Virginia creeper, which also 
 clung about the windows and the roof, and almost 
 hid the chimneys. The house stood back from the 
 street, and in front of it were two square grass-plots 
 set round with low box borders. A paling fence, 
 freshly whitewashed, bounded the little garden, and 
 all about the house and its surroundings was an air 
 of tranquil, easy comfort and well-bred dignity. 
 
 Along the whole line of Front Street which was 
 then the fashionable place of residence the house- 
 fronts were broken by white doorways with Doric 
 pillars of wood, such as you may see to-day in cer 
 tain city streets as you turn aside from the busy Strand 
 in London. There were also many low Dutch stoops 
 or porches, some roofed over and some uncovered, 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. j 
 
 but few mansions as large and important as the house 
 we have described. 
 
 As the rain ceased old men with their long pipes 
 came out on the porches, and women s heads peeped 
 from open windows to exchange bits of gossip, while 
 up and down the pavements, as if this evening chat 
 were an every-day thing, men of all classes wandered 
 to take the air so soon as the fierce afternoon storm 
 had spent its force. 
 
 As the young stranger moved along among sparse 
 groups of gentlemen and others, he was struck with 
 the variety of costume. The middle-aged and old ad 
 hered to the knee-breeches and buckles, the younger 
 wore pantaloons of tight-fitting stocking-net, with 
 shoes and silk stockings, or sometimes high boots 
 with polished tops adorned with silk tassels. It was 
 a pretty, picturesque street-scene, with its variety of 
 puce-colored or dark velvet coats and ample cravats 
 under scroll-brimmed beaver hats. 
 
 The sailor of 1807 dressed like the sailor of to-day, 
 and the lad s figure would have seemed no more 
 strange now than it did then. But a certain pride of 
 carriage, broad shoulders set off by a loose jacket, 
 and clothes tight on narrow hips, drew appreciative 
 looks as he passed ; and the eye which wandered 
 upward must have dwelt pleased, I fancy, on the 
 brown, handsome face, with its strong lines of fore 
 head and a mouth of great sweetness above a some 
 what over-large chin. 
 
 As the young man drew near to the buttonwoods 
 a notable-looking person came with slow and thought- 
 laden steps from the south. This gentleman was a 
 
8 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 man of six feet two or three inches, and of so large 
 and manly a build that his great height was not ob 
 servable. His face was largely modelled like his 
 figure, and apart from his dress he looked better 
 fitted to have ridden at the head of a regiment than 
 to have dwelt amidst the quietness of early Phil 
 adelphia. The younger man saw, with the eye of 
 one wont to take note of men s thews and sinews, 
 the gigantic grace of the figure before him, and his 
 curious glances slipped from the low, scroll-brimmed 
 gray beaver hat to the straight-cut coat with its cloth 
 buttons, and at last rested with approval on the plain 
 shoes, devoid of buckle, and the ample gray calves 
 above them. 
 
 As the drab giant turned to enter the gate of the 
 house the young man followed him with his gaze, 
 and a gleam of pleasure crossed his face as another 
 of the persons in our little drama came into view. 
 For as he looked the upper half of the house-door, 
 on which was a heavy brass knocker, opened, and 
 a woman of about thirty-five years, leaning on the 
 upper edge of the lower .half of the door, became 
 suddenly aware of the tall Quaker coming up* the 
 walk. Resting her arms on the ledge, she looked 
 out over the little space, and called aloud, quite 
 briskly, " Marguerite ! Marguerite !" Instantly from 
 between the house and the garden-wall to the south 
 of it came, as at the call of the prompter, yet another 
 of our actors ; and it was for her the young sailor 
 stood still, like a dog on point. 
 
 The girl he saw was possibly sixteen years old, 
 and was dressed in the plainest of Friends attire, but 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. g 
 
 as young people of that sect were rarely clad in those 
 days, in a simple but costly gray silk gown, with the 
 traditional folds of fine muslin about the throat, a 
 plain silk kerchief pinned back on the shoulders, and 
 a transparent cap closely drawn about the face. Un 
 der this cap was wicked splendor of hair, which might 
 have been red, and had vicious ways of curling out 
 here and there from the bondage of the cap, as if to 
 see what the profane world was like. Within the 
 sober boundaries of her Quaker head-gear was a face 
 which prophetic nature meant should be of a stately 
 beauty in years to come, but which just now was 
 simply gracious with changing color and the tender 
 loveliness which looks out on the world from the 
 threshold of maturity. 
 
 At this moment a woman of middle age, in the 
 most severe and accurate of Quaker dress, crossed 
 the street, and catching the little garden-gate as it 
 swung to behind the man, went in just after him. 
 The resolute shelter of the Friends bonnet hid the 
 woman s face from all save those towards whom she 
 turned it, or the young sailor might have seen it 
 lower and grow hard ; for as she went along the path 
 of red gravel the young girl danced merrily up to 
 the door at the call of the lady who stood within it. 
 In her bosom the child had set a bunch of late moss 
 roses, and over her cap and across her breast and 
 around her waist had twined a string of the dark-red 
 berries from which spring the scant calices of the 
 sweetbrier and wild rose. 
 
 The woman in the doorway was fashionably clad 
 in a short-waisted dark velvet dress, with tight-fitting 
 
I0 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 sleeves ending at the upper forearm in a fall of rich 
 lace. She wore her abundant black hair coiled on the 
 back of her head, with little half curls on the fore 
 head. The face below them was dark, sombre, and 
 handsome, with an expression of sadness which rarely 
 failed to impress painfully those who saw her for the 
 first time. She smiled gravely and quietly as she 
 saw the growing look of annoyance on the face of 
 the Quakeress and the half-awed, half-amused ex 
 pression on that of her young niece as she too caught 
 a glance of reprobation. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. Guinness," she said. Most 
 women of her class, who had been Friends, would 
 have called the new-comer by his first name, but this 
 woman, who had been bred a Quaker, but had early 
 left their ranks for those of the Episcopal Church, 
 set her face somewhat against Quaker manners, and 
 in quitting their Society had totally left behind her 
 all their ways and usages. 
 
 A sense of joy lit up the large features of the 
 Friend as he answered, " Thou art well, I trust ? and 
 were I thee I would have my picture made as thou 
 art now, in the frame of the doorway, with the door 
 at the end of the entry open behind thee to make a 
 square of gold out of the western sky. It was art 
 fully devised, Elizabeth. As a Friend I am shocked 
 at thee." 
 
 At this playful speech during which he had taken 
 her hand in greeting Miss Howard s face took a 
 half-amused, half-annoyed expression, which Arthur 
 Guinness quickly comprehended as he heard a short, 
 cough behind him, and dropping Elizabeth s hand 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 II 
 
 turned to see his sister Hephzibah, who was regard 
 ing with set, stern visage the scared child beside them. 
 
 Caught in the brilliant autumn jewelries she had 
 gathered from the garden-wall, the girl, who knew 
 well the hard face now turned upon her, at first 
 caught up her treasures and was moved to fly, but 
 on a sudden checked herself, and pausing drew up 
 her pretty figure with a certain pride, and faced the 
 enemy with a look half determined, half amused. 
 
 The stately aunt in the doorway fluttered her fan 
 to and fro, and said, smiling, " Good-evening, Heph 
 zibah. What is it ails you ?" 
 
 "Nothing ails me," replied the Quakeress: "the 
 ailment is here. It is the disease of the world s van 
 ities in this child;" and turning to the girl she went 
 on : "I had hoped that thou hadst learned to talk 
 less and to laugh less ; and, knowing well thy father s 
 wishes, thou wouldst do better to avoid such gew 
 gaws as these corals, which I suppose my friend 
 Elizabeth hath unwisely tempted thee with." 
 
 The girl made a stern effort to check her mirth at 
 her guardian s mistake, but Nature was too much 
 mistress of this blithe playmate of hers, who sud 
 denly broke into a riot of laughter, saying between 
 her bursts of mirth, " Oh, but thou wilt pardon me, 
 
 and thou knowest I never can help it Oh, thou 
 
 knowest ! and oh dear !" and so saying fled in despair 
 to hide her irreverent mirth. 
 
 The Quakeress s face grew darker as she turned to 
 Elizabeth., "Are these thy lessons?" she said. 
 
 " Good gracious !" said Miss Howard. " How ut 
 terly absurd ! How could you make so droll a mis- 
 
12 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 take? Those were not corals of the sea, but the 
 jewels of our garden." 
 
 " It little matters," replied Hephzibah. " Thou art 
 of our people no longer, and Friends ways are not 
 thy ways, and thou couldst not help but hurt us, even 
 if thou wouldst not." 
 
 " And most surely I would not, as you ought to 
 know by this time. Friends ways are not my ways ; 
 and yet I have obeyed my good brother as to this 
 child most straitly, even when yes, even when I 
 have thought it wrong to make so uncheerful a life 
 for her, knowing well oh, my God ! how sad and 
 lonely it is to be through all the years to come." 
 She said these words as she stood, still holding the 
 open door and staring past the woman she addressed, 
 as if she saw the long vista of time and the dark 
 procession of those years of gloom. 
 
 Arthur looked wistfully into her eyes as he passed 
 her and went into the house ; and his sister, with a 
 look of annoyance, said sharply, " I have other 
 work to do ;" and turning left them. 
 
 No word of all this came to the ears of the young 
 sailor, but what he saw was as it were a pantomime. 
 The girl with her rebel laughter ; the stately Eliza 
 beth Howard, whose air and dress and bearing 
 brought some unbidden moisture to his eyes ; the 
 Quakeress; the stern, half-laughing giant in drab, 
 all helped to make up for him a little drama within 
 the white palings. 
 
 " Comnte c est drble!" he murmured. " Qu elle 
 est belle la Marguerite /" and so saying turned and 
 went lazily southward down Front Street, glancing 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. ^ 
 
 around as he went as if looking for some one whose 
 coming he expected. Musing over the chances 
 which had left him landless, homeless, and money 
 less, the young Frenchman strode along gayly, still 
 keeping a lookout for his friend. As he passed 
 Christian Street and the houses grew scarce, he saw 
 coming towards him the person whom he sought. 
 The new-comer was a man of middle age, dressed 
 somewhat carefully in rather worn black clothes 
 with patched black silk stockings, and low shoes 
 with silver buckles. The style of costume, espe 
 cially the rounded low beaver hat with the rim 
 scrolled upwards in triple rolls, marked the owner 
 for an emigrant abbe, a figure and character which 
 had become familiar enough in Philadelphia, where 
 the French Revolution had stranded numberless un 
 happy waifs of all classes. 
 
 The abbe was a pleasant-looking man of rather 
 delicate features and build, but somewhat ruddy for 
 so slight a person. A certain erectness of carriage 
 was possibly the inheritance by middle life of a youth 
 spent in camps, and around the mouth some traitor 
 lines bespoke love of ease and good living, and gave 
 reason to guess why he had found it pleasant to 
 abandon his regiment for the charming convent 
 which looked downward over Divonne upon the 
 distant Lake of Geneva, and across miles of walnut- 
 groves and tangled vineyards which clothe the slopes 
 of the purple Jura. 
 
 " Good-evening," said the younger man : "you are 
 the welcome." 
 
 The abbe laughed. " If you will speak English," 
 
I4 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 he said, in accents which but slightly betrayed his 
 birth, as indeed they did rarely save in moments of 
 excitement " if you will speak English, say, You 
 are welcome. " 
 
 " Ah, but it is that I find it difficult," returned the 
 sailor ; " and how strange is all the land we have 
 here!" 
 
 " All lands seem strange to the young," said the 
 abbe, " but to me none are strange ; and all are much 
 the same, because no climate disagrees with all wines 
 or with cards, and at forty one is at least a little 
 philosoplie. It seems a tranquil town, and what they 
 call comfortable." 
 
 " At the least," answered the other, " we shall find 
 here a safe home, and, as I trust, something to keep 
 to us the morsel of bread, until better times arrive 
 to our dear France. I have given my letters, and I 
 have hope to get me a place in the bureau of this 
 Monsieur Guinness. It will seem strange at first." 
 
 " Not less than to me to teach these young misses 
 to talk the tongue of France," said the abbe. 
 
 " I have seen one this evening," returned the sailor, 
 " which I should find pleasing to teach." 
 
 " Ah, you find them pretty ?" said the abbe. " Bet 
 ter, cher baron, to forget the beau sexe : we are not of 
 Versailles to-day." 
 
 " You should remember, in turn," answered his 
 nephew, " that I am here only M. de Vismes ; we are 
 barons no longer." 
 
 "You have reason, Henri," said the elder man. 
 " It is like those little comedies we used to play at 
 the Trianon. And, ma foil here I saw but yesterday 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. j^ 
 
 M. le Comte de St. Pierre teaching to dance, as I saw 
 
 him once in that charming little play How one s 
 
 memory fails ! What was it, Henri ? But no mat 
 ter ; all life is to act. Ah, I think that has been said 
 before. How stupid to say what already has been 
 said ! But alas for our grandchildren ! it will be for 
 them impossible to say something new." 
 
 " What difference ?" laughed the younger man. 
 " There are things which to say and to hear shall be 
 pleasant always ;" and the lad kept silence, thinking 
 of the little nothings his mother had said to him, a 
 child, when, hand in hand, they wandered beside the 
 braided streamlets of Divonne. 
 
 Meanwhile the abbe chatted of camp and court, 
 until at last, as they strolled along, lonely men, past 
 the open windows and crowded steps, for the even 
 ing was warm, the younger exclaimed, " Here, some 
 place, I ought to find the house of Monsieur Guin 
 ness, which I was to see to-night. Is it already too 
 soon ?" 
 
 " Ah, not, I think ; but we may wait yet a little, 
 and return again." 
 
 "And this is it," said the younger, pausing. 
 
 The house was a plain brick dwelling, with the 
 usual wooden Doric pillars, painted white. 
 
 Marking the place, the two Frenchmen strolled 
 away up Front Street, to return somewhat later in 
 the evening. They fell into silence as they walked, 
 and the elder man amused himself with a vague kind 
 of wonder at the caractere serieux and tout a fait 
 Anglais of his nephew, little dreaming that the young 
 man was in like fashion marvelling that through 
 
1 6 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 camp and court and cloister, and sad prisons and in 
 awful nearness of death on the scaffold, his uncle 
 should have kept his gay, careless, sceptical nature, 
 his capacity to find some trivial pleasure in all things. 
 He could not understand how a man who had been 
 so close to death in many shapes should yet have 
 brought away with him no shadow of its sombre 
 fellowship, and should have learned only to disbe 
 lieve and to doubt. He himself, beneath the natural 
 childlike joyousness of his race which made hard 
 ships light, concealed for use in darker hours a firm 
 will and a sober steadiness of moral balance, which 
 perhaps came to him from his English mother, and 
 dowered him with a manhood planned for upright, 
 honorable pursuit of noble purposes, a sweet, grave, 
 earnest nature, with the even sunny temper of a 
 sunny day. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 INTO the parlor of the house they had just passed 
 came a few minutes later a tall, gaunt, angular 
 woman, whose stiff and bony outlines were made 
 mercilessly evident by a closely-fitting drab dress 
 with tight plain sleeves and the studiously simple 
 muslin worn only by rigid Friends. Her face was 
 colorless like her dress ; her hair, almost a perfect 
 white, was worn flat under her cap; her features 
 were large and not lacking in a certain nobleness of 
 outline, but strangely wanting in any expression save 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. ij 
 
 that of severe and steady self-control. The room 
 was square, and plainly panelled in white-painted 
 pine; the furniture throughout of rigid, upright ma 
 hogany, with black hair-cloth seats to the chairs. 
 On a claw-toed table double silver candelabra with 
 wax candles would have but dimly lighted the room 
 had it not been for the ruddy glow of a hickory- 
 wood fire which flashed across large, brightly-pol 
 ished andirons and a brass fender cut into delicate 
 open-work. The walls were white; the floor was 
 without carpet, and sanded in curious figures. 
 
 Miss Hephzibah Guinness paused as she entered 
 the room and looked critically about her. Then she 
 snuffed the candles and rang a small silver bell 
 which stood on the table. Presently appeared a 
 little black maid, clad much like her mistress, but 
 in rather less accurate fashion. Mistress Hephzibah 
 pointed sternly to a corner of the room where an 
 active spider had spread his net. 
 
 The little maid examined it curiously : " Done 
 made it sence dis mornin ." 
 
 "And this also?" said the lady, indicating a place 
 on the floor where the carefully-made figures traced 
 by sifting the sand out of a colander were incom 
 plete. " Thou shouldst have been as careful as the 
 spider. Consider his work, how neat, Dorcas." 
 
 " Couldn t consider dat, missus, ef I had a-sp iled 
 him wid de brush." 
 
 The face of the mistress showed no signs of 
 amusement at this ready retort. " Brush away 
 the web," she said, " and keep thy thoughts to thy 
 self." 
 
 b 2* 
 
!g HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 The little maid bestirred herself briskly under the 
 grave eye of her mistress, and presently the knocker 
 was heard. 
 
 " Thy master is out," said Hephzibah, " but I will 
 see any one who may call." 
 
 In a moment or two the maid came back. "Two 
 gentlemen to see the master," said the girl. 
 
 " And thou hast left them to stand in the entry ! 
 Bid them come in at once." 
 
 A moment later the Abbe de Vismes and his 
 nephew entered the room. The younger man cast a 
 glance of amused curiosity at the apartment and at 
 its sombre occupant, who advanced to meet them. 
 The abbe bowed profoundly, without showing a trace 
 of the amazement he felt at this novel interior and 
 the tall and serious figure before him. " Allow me," 
 he said, "to present myself: I am the Abbe de 
 Vismes, and this is my nephew, Monsieur de Vismes. 
 We have an appointment with Monsieur Guinness. 
 Have I the great pleasure to see his wife ?" 
 
 " I am his sister," said Hephzibah, shortly. As he 
 named himself a shudder passed over her, and she 
 steadied herself by seizing the back of a chair as 
 she thought, " Alas ! is the bitter bread coming back 
 on the waters ?" Then she recovered her control 
 with an effort, and added, aloud, " My brother is not 
 married. Take seats, friends." 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed the baron to himself, " what a 
 droll country ! Elle le tutoie. It must be a fashion 
 of Quakre." 
 
 " I should well have known you for the sister," 
 said the abbe : " the likeness is plain to see ;" and this 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. !Q 
 
 was true. He had seen the brother, and was struck 
 now with the resemblance of features and the unlike- 
 tless of expression. 
 
 " It hath been spoken of by many," she said, re 
 plying to his remark. " My brother will be in by 
 and by. You must be, I think, of the unhappy ones 
 who have been cast on our shores by the sad warfare 
 in France ?" 
 
 " We are indeed unfortunate emigres," returned 
 the abbe, " who have brought letters from friends of 
 your brother." 
 
 " From France ?" she exclaimed, hastily. 
 
 " No ; ah, no," he answered ; " from England." 
 
 " And," she said, with a sense of relief, " and 
 and you do not know any one here ?" 
 
 " We have that ill-fortune," he returned, " but hope 
 soon to make friends. As yet it is all most strange 
 to us, and as poverty is a dear tailor, I might ask 
 that we be excused to present ourselves in a dress so 
 unfit. My nephew came a sailor, and the dress he 
 has not yet found time to alter." 
 
 The woman s changeless face turned toward the j 
 lad and met his ready smile, and she had in her j 
 heart a new pang, because she bethought her, " Had \ 
 I been a wife and mother, the son I might have had 
 would have been like this lad smiling at me to-day." 
 But the answer she made was like many answers, 
 the thought least near to her heart: " The young 
 man s apparel is well for his way of life, and hath 
 the value of fitness. But perhaps thou dost not 
 know that we of the Society of Friends observe a 
 certain plainness of dress ourselves, and are for this 
 
20 HEP HZ IB AH GUINNESS. 
 
 reason but little apt to criticise the dress which is 
 plain because of wear or poverty ?" 
 
 " Without doubt, then," laughed the abbe, glanc 
 ing down at his shining breeches and well-darned 
 hose, " I should pass well the trial. They are all 
 grown to a pleasant likeness of tint by reason that 
 they have shared like trials of sun and rain, 
 and, mon Dieu ! they are as well worn as my con 
 science." 
 
 Hephzibah turned upon him with a real sense of 
 shock, and as one wont in meeting to obey the im 
 pulse of speech when it grew strong, she said, " I 
 understand not thy language, indeed, almost none 
 of it, but yet enough to know thou hast spoken as 
 lightly of the great Maker as unwisely of the friend 
 we call conscience. Do I rightly suppose thee to be 
 a minister among thy people ?" 
 
 The lad ceased smiling as he saw her graver face, 
 and the abbe, profoundly puzzled at the sermon his 
 slight text had brought out, and yet seeing he had 
 made a false step, said, " Alas ! I have been so long 
 away from my flock that I am forgetting the simple 
 tongue of the shepherd." 
 
 The woman did not see the amused twinkle in the 
 eye of this gay shepherd of the joyous Trianon, 
 and missed too the sudden glance of amazement in 
 the face of the nephew. She was engaged, as always, 
 in an abrupt, suspicious study of her own motives in 
 speaking, and would have wished to be silent a while. 
 But there was need to speak, and therefore she said, 
 " I am an unfit vessel for the bearing of reproach to 
 another, but thy words startled me, and the thought 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 2 I 
 
 I was thinking spoke itself. Thou wilt consider 
 kindly my saying." 
 
 The abbe was somewhat bewildered at the English 
 used, but he said, " The fair sex hath its privileges to 
 speak what it will, madame : it is ours to obey." 
 
 Hephzibah disliked the gay answer, and turning to 
 the young sailor said, " Thou hast come to shore in 
 our pleasant October weather. Has it its like in 
 France ?" 
 
 " Ah me !" he answered, " they gather the vintage 
 these days on the slopes of the Jura, and the sun is 
 
 less warm than ours, and Pardon, I like it here." 
 
 He paused, with a choking in his throat as he re 
 membered the yellowing walnut groves and the gray 
 chateau of Dex and the distant sapphire lake. 
 
 Hephzibah s face softened anew. " It is hard," she 
 said, " to leave friends and home, but this is perhaps 
 a way, among many, to soften the hearts which are 
 grown hard. And He has many ways to touch us~\ 
 many ways," she added musingly, for she was 
 thinking of what a soul-quake had shaken her own 
 being at the sound of a name unheard for years. 
 
 " Ah, madame," he said, " my heart is not hard, 
 and the world seemed so sweet to me once, when all 
 those that I loved did live." 
 
 " But perchance they died that thou mightst more 
 truly live," said Hephzibah, in calm technical tones. 
 
 " Then I would be dead rather," said young De 
 Vismes fiercely, puzzled and hurt. 
 
 "Ah me!" said the abbe. "You have well said, 
 madame. When that we are gone past many troubles 
 it is that we learn to live. Let us make haste to en- 
 
22 HEP HZ IB AH GUINNESS. 
 
 joy the sun and the wine and the pleasant things, as 
 the wise Solomon has bidden us." 
 
 " But that is so little of life !" said his nephew, sadly. 
 
 " And I fear," added Hephzibah, sternly, " that we 
 are as them that speak to one another in strange 
 tongues, not understanding. But here comes my 
 brother." 
 
 As she spoke Arthur Guinness entered the room, 
 wearing his hat after the fashion of Friends. " These," 
 said his sister, " be friends which have come to thee, 
 Arthur, with letters from thy correspondents in Eng 
 land." 
 
 " They are welcome," said he. " I am glad to see 
 thee again ; and this must be the nephew of whom 
 thou hast spoken, and whose letters I have had." 
 
 " Yes," said the abbe, " my nephew the Baron de 
 Vismes." 
 
 Arthur Guinness took the lad s hand, smiling, and 
 saying, " Well, if he is to be one of my young men, 
 it will be best that he lay aside his title, and his name 
 
 is Yes, I remember in my letter, it is Henry. 
 
 He shall be for us plain Henry, after the manner of 
 Friends." 
 
 Then his sister excused herself and went out, 
 leaving them to discuss the lad s future. As she 
 climbed the stairs her limbs became weak, and, her 
 features relaxing, her face too grew weary. " What 
 have I done," she said, " wherein I took not counsel 
 with the Spirit? These are thoughts which bring 
 madness : I will not harbor them. It must have been 
 done wisely." So she stood a moment before the 
 tall old Wagstaffe clock which faced her at the head 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 2 $ 
 
 of the stairs ticking solemnly. Then she gathered 
 up her strength, saying, " Yet a little while, a little 
 while ! Why dost thou mock me with the memory 
 of a doubtful hour?" and then went on to her cham 
 ber in silence. Twice as she moved along the dark, 
 cold entry, hearing the busy ticking close behind her, 
 twice she turned resolutely, with a feeling as if 
 the tall old coffin-like clerk of Time were pursuing 
 her steps. 
 
 As she closed the door of her chamber she heard 
 with a shiver the ample ringing tones of her brother s 
 voice. It was for her just then a sound of horror. 
 Why, she did not pause to ask herself: perhaps be 
 cause its wholesome pleasantness was in too sharp ] 
 contrast with her new misery, perhaps because it 
 brought before her, in the possible form of a severe 
 judge, the man she loved and honored, and also feared 
 the most. Theirs were richly-contrasted natures, 
 each a compound of what Nature and a creed had 
 made ; for earnestly-believing people are themselves 
 and a creed, or a creed and themselves, and she was 
 a creed and herself, and he was himself above all 
 and a creed. 
 
 Arthur Guinness was saying cheerily, " Will you 
 come up to my study ? We smoke no pipes in my 
 
 sister s room, because it pleases her not, and ] 
 
 Well, in my room here it will be no offence to the 
 tender-minded among Friends who may chance to 
 come, and who like not such vanities." 
 
 " We shall have pleasure to smoke with you," said 
 the abbe, following him. 
 
 At the head of the first flight of stairs Arthur 
 
24 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 Guinness passed with his guests into a room in the 
 second story of what all Philadelphians know as the 
 " back buildings," an arrangement which in later 
 years caused a witty New Yorker to say that Phila 
 delphians built their houses like frying-pans, and lived 
 in the handles. 
 
 The room was sanded, like the parlor, but was 
 filled with books, and on the table were pipes with 
 long reed stems, a tobacco-pot, and two handsome 
 silver tankards with arms engraved upon them. 
 Above the fire was a genealogical tree of the Guin 
 ness family, for, like many Friends even to this day, 
 Arthur Guinness took a certain half-concealed pride 
 in an honorable descent from ancient Kentish stock, 
 and valued himself more than he cared to state on 
 his store of heavy plate. 
 
 The abbe s eye took in with approval the sober 
 luxury and air of culture as they sat down to their 
 pipes, while their host went on to say, " Well, then, 
 it shall be so arranged : the lad comes to my count 
 ing-house; and if thou art still of the same mind on 
 Third day which is to-morrow I will go with thee 
 to Elizabeth Howard, who, I doubt not, will be 
 pleased to have thee instruct her niece in the tongue 
 of France. I see no need myself that a child of 
 Friends should learn these foreign tongues, but as 
 her guardian I have been somewhat careful not to 
 insist too much on my own views." 
 
 " I shall find it a pleasant task, no doubt," said the 
 abbe; "and might I ask that you will also do my 
 nephew the honor to present him to Miss Howard, 
 or such other of your friends as may make it pleasant 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 2 $ 
 
 for the lad ? I fear he may find it triste in this new 
 land." 
 
 Arthur Guinness hesitated : " Yes, yes, by and by. 
 But thou wilt pardon me if I ask that I be excused 
 from presenting him where there are only women. 
 Friend Elizabeth hath some strong notions as to the 
 bringing up of the child, and she does not wish that 
 she should have acquaintances among young men. 
 It is a fancy, but " 
 
 " Nay, but pardon me," said the abbe. " I meant 
 not to ask anything unusual, and no doubt in time 
 he will find friends." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Guinness. " Women have their 
 ways, women have their ways ; but I was not sorry 
 to mention this, because thou wilt be sure to like 
 her, and what more natural than some time to ask 
 leave to take with thee my young friend here ? She 
 would without doubt say no, and I may spare thee 
 annoyance." 
 
 The abbe thought this frank speech strange enough, 
 and young De Vismes, who listened quietly, felt an 
 odd sense of disappointment ; but both made haste 
 to turn the chat aside, and under a cloud of smoke 
 they talked the evening away pleasantly enough. 
 
 As they parted at the door Arthur said, laughingly, 
 " Thou wilt pardon, I am sure, what I have said of 
 my friend Elizabeth Howard. She hath but this one 
 strangeness, and in all else thou wilt find her a woman 
 of noble ways and a great fulness of fresh and pleas 
 ant life." 
 
 The abbe made a courteous reply, and the two 
 strangers went away somewhat easier in mind. 
 
 o 
 
2 6 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON the morning of the following day, Miss or, 
 as it was the usage then to say of middle-aged, un 
 married women, Mistress Elizabeth Howard sat at 
 the window of her house near the corner of Front 
 and Shippen Streets. The day was one of those soft, 
 still October gifts when the sun seems warm again, 
 and the winds stir not, and leaves cease to fall, and 
 the changing year appears to relent and linger, and 
 the southward-flitting robin loiters, cheated for a day. 
 The woman sat quietly in the open window, a stately 
 and, to the least observant, a remarkable-looking 
 person. She was in early middle life, possibly thirty- 
 five. The outline of her face was of the Roman type, 
 delicate in the detail of the light proud nostril, and 
 bold and noble in the general contour of feature. 
 The mouth was a little large, but clearly cut, the 
 chin full and decided. Over a forehead rather high, 
 and more strongly moulded than is common in 
 women, clustered plentiful black hair, curled short 
 in the fashion then oddly called Brutus. A skin of 
 smooth dark rich nectarine bloom made soft the lines 
 of this face, which in repose was at times somewhat 
 stern. The more acute observer would have been 
 struck with the sombre, thoughtful air of command 
 and power in the brow, the mysterious sweetness of 
 the dark-gray eyes, and the contradictory lines of 
 mirth and humor about the mouth. 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 2 / 
 
 Nature had here formed a remarkable character, 
 and circumstance had given it a strange part to play 
 in the drama of life. 
 
 In the garden in front of her and below the window, 
 a charming contrast, sat her niece Marguerite, not 
 less a contrast in her plainest of Friends dress than 
 in the blonde beauty of her young and fast-ripening 
 form. 
 
 Presently the large blue eyes ceased wandering 
 from the book on her lap to the mottled buttonwood 
 bole or the forms of passing wayfarers seen between 
 the snowdrop-bushes. " I promised my guardian to 
 read it," she said ; and the blue eyes turned up to 
 meet the friendly gaze above her. " But I do not 
 like the man in the book. Thee could not read it: 
 thee would never have liked Friend Fox." 
 
 "A nice Quaker you are!" said her aunt, laughing. 
 " Say thou, thou, or you will never learn to speak in 
 meeting." 
 
 "I never want to," cried the girl, pouting. "I like 
 bright things, red things, blue things. I was never 
 meant to be a Quaker. Why may I not go to 
 Christ Church with thee, and wear gay clothes like 
 the trees, aunty? They had no Fox. I wonder 
 Master Penn did not run away when he saw the red 
 hickories and the yellow maples. I will not read 
 it ;" and so saying she threw the book on the grass, 
 and throwing a kiss to her aunt began to pluck the 
 bright autumn flowers at her feet. 
 
 " The way was set for you by another 
 mine," said her aunt. " Be content to walk in it, 
 Marguerite. Perhaps it is better as it is." 
 
2 8 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 "Perhaps," said the girl, "yes, perhaps; but when 
 I am twenty-one there will be no perhaps. " 
 
 " You will always respect the wish of your dead 
 father," said Miss Howard. 
 
 The girl looked grave, the elder woman troubled. 
 
 " Is Marguerite a Friend s name ?" said her niece, 
 pausing and facing her. 
 
 " No," returned her aunt. " You know well, my 
 dear, that your mother was a Frenchwoman, and 
 that you bear her name." 
 
 " And was she of our Society, aunt?" said the girl. 
 " I wish I could have seen her." 
 
 " I wish you could," said the elder woman, ignoring 
 the question. "Ah, I must hasten to ask Hephzibah 
 to make you a better Quaker. I am a poor teacher, 
 I think. I should begin by dyeing those big blue 
 eyes gray, and painting those red cheeks white, as 
 Hephzibah did her brass clock last year ;" and the 
 two laughed merrily at the remembrance. 
 
 " I did not tell you," said the elder, " that I had a 
 note this morning telling me that we are to have the 
 honor to-day of a visit from a committee of Friends. 
 It cannot be for me, and I suppose it is about some 
 of your madcap pranks." 
 
 " Oh, not for me, surely !" said the girl, a little 
 scared. " That must be Hephzibah Guinness s doings. 
 I hate her !" 
 
 " Hush !" said her aunt, smiling. " Here she comes. 
 Get thee gone, little scamp !" 
 
 " Of a verity, the Spirit persuadeth me to depart," 
 said the girl under her breath ; and hastily gathering 
 her flowers in her lap she fled around the corner of 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 2 9 
 
 the house, dropping asters, Queen Margarets, and 
 autumn leaves here and there as she went. 
 
 Her aunt rose from her seat and went across the 
 room to the entry to open the door. " My task is 
 too hard," she said, " too hard. The past is so 
 black, and the future so dark ; and, ah me ! I am so 
 made that to-day is sunny always. How can life be 
 pleasant to me ? I wonder at myself. Come in, 
 Hephzibah ;" and so saying she took the hand of the 
 new-comer, and the two entered the parlor. 
 
 It was a room of another kind from that which 
 Hephzibah had left, and under her Quaker bonnet 
 the thin, gaunt face darkened grimly as she looked 
 about her. She had been there a hundred times 
 before, but to-day, as always, it shocked her that 
 any one should think needful the luxury and color 
 with which Elizabeth Howard delighted to surround 
 herself. The two women were as much apart as 
 their creeds or their social surroundings ; and as I 
 see them now in that far-away time, in the wainscoted 
 parlor, they are to me sharp and vivid pictures. In 
 a high-backed chair of exquisitely carved dark ma 
 hogany sat the handsome, richly-clad lady, one 
 shapely foot on the shining brass fender which 
 fenced in a lazy wood-fire. A large feather fan 
 guarded her face from the blaze, and, when she 
 pleased, from the keen gaze of Hephzibah Guinness, 
 whose stiff gray pent-house bonnet did her a like 
 service at times, since the least turn of the head 
 served to hide her face from view. 
 
 These two women were made by Nature to dislike 
 and respect one another, and sometimes the dislike 
 
 3* 
 
20 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 was uppermost, and sometimes the respect. The 
 chances of life had thrown them together, since 
 Marguerite Howard was the ward of Arthur Guin 
 ness and his sister, and destined by her father s will 
 to be educated in the straitest ways of Friends. The 
 male guardian had come by degrees to concede to 
 his sister all such minor details as concerned the 
 girl s dress and manners. And to this strange and 
 implacable overseeing on the part of the Quakeress, 
 Elizabeth Howard also had yielded after many in 
 ward and some outward struggles. She knew that 
 to be a Friend was for years, at least, the child s 
 fate, and once having submitted as to the main ques 
 tion, she felt that rebellion in lesser matters was un 
 wise, and also unfair to the memory of the brother 
 who had thus ordered his child s life. At times 
 Miss Howard rebelled, but chiefly because she did 
 not dislike a skirmish with Hephzibah Guinness, and 
 because her sense of humor was so ungovernably 
 strong as to break out despite her better judgment 
 when things done or ordered by the Quaker guardians 
 struck her as amusing. 
 
 On the other hand, Hephzibah was a little afraid 
 of Miss Howard s merciless capacity for ridicule, but 
 was quite as ready as she to cross swords in defence 
 of her own views, which, owing to her narrow, well- 
 fenced-in life, she had come to regard with the entire 
 respect which some people entertain for their own 
 opinions. Indeed, could Hephzibah Guinness have 
 blotted out one doubtful act of her life, it is probable 
 that she would have regarded herself with the most 
 absolute approbation. 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 31 
 
 Elizabeth Howard was not to-day in the best of 
 humors, owing chiefly to the curt note which told her 
 of the visit of a committee of Friends, an incident 
 of which she had already some previous and not very 
 agreeable remembrances. She began in Friends lan 
 guage, which she used but rarely, and never to 
 Arthur Guinness, for whom slie was surely and always 
 her noble natural self. " Wilt thou not take off thy 
 bonnet, Hephzibah?" she said: "the room is warm." 
 
 " No," answered Hephzibah, absently ; " I am not 
 warm." 
 
 Then the bonnet itself struck Miss Howard sud 
 denly in an absurd point of view, as everything good 
 or bad did at some time. " How convenient," she 
 added, " thy bonnet must have been to thee in thy 
 younger days !" 
 
 " Why ?" said Hephzibah, shortly. 
 
 " Well, my dear, no man could see you were look 
 ing at him ; and it s such a nice hiding-place : a fan 
 is a trifle to it." 
 
 "I had other and wiser occupation in my youth," ^ 
 said Hephzibah, " than to observe young men. But 
 I have noticed that nothing is too serious to escape 
 thy tendency to ridicule." 
 
 " Bless me !" returned Miss Howard : " is a Quaker 
 bonnet a kind of saint s halo ? I see nothing serious 
 in it except your face, Hephzibah, which is -serious 
 enough." 
 
 " How is Margaret?" said Hephzibah, abruptly. 
 
 " As usual," said the other, feeling with a sense of 
 comfort that her rapier had gone home. " Will you 
 see her ?" 
 
32 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 " No," said the Quakeress. " I would speak with 
 thee of a matter about one of my friends, if only 
 thou canst put away thy mirth for a time and con 
 sider gravely the thing I would say." 
 
 " Now, my dear," laughed Miss Howard, " I shall 
 be as serenely judicious as the clerk of Fourth Street 
 meeting. But have you not known me well enough 
 and long enough to be sure that if I do not get my 
 every-day supply of laughter I must die ?" 
 
 " Thou speakest lightly of dying," returned Heph- 
 zibah. 
 
 " And why not ?" said the other. " I do not know 
 the thing on earth so grim or grave that some time 
 it has not a mirthful look. Some people cry and 
 love and cry and pray. I believe there are people 
 who can smile at their prayers and yet pray as well. 
 Let us live our lives honestly. I should laugh at a 
 jest if I were dying, ay, and fear not that God 
 would frown. What is it I can do for you, Heph- 
 zibah ?" 
 
 The Quakeress hesitated a moment, but Miss How 
 ard s last phrase was spoken kindly and gently. " I 
 have a a friend," said Hephzibah, halting a little at 
 the unusual task of equivocation. " I have a friend 
 to whom came many years ago a chance to turn the 
 whole life of a young person from the vanity of 
 worldly ways and the teachings of a hireling minis 
 try by hiding no, by not telling something which 
 she knew. The concealment hurt no one, and saved 
 a life from the vain ways of the world." 
 
 " Well ?" said Elizabeth, in utter amazement at 
 the nature of the statement set before her. 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 33 
 
 "I think well," went on Hephzibah, "of thy judg 
 ment, even when warped by the errors of the world. 
 Wouldst thou not have done the like ?" 
 
 "I?" said Elizabeth, proudly, "I? You may 
 well ask me what I think of it, of such a thing ; 
 but to ask me if I would do it ! How can you cheat 
 a soul into righteousness ? This comes of a creed 
 which can never see beyond its own gray horizon. 
 How could you dare to ask me such a question?" 
 And so saying the woman rose and stood by the fire, 
 looking down on the moveless visage of Hephzibah. 
 She was a woman with a sense of honor found rarely 
 enough among men, and this thing stirred her as an 
 insult disturbs a man. 
 
 Meanwhile, Hephzibah repented somewhat her 
 design to fortify her resolution by the idea of what 
 another woman whom she respected might think of 
 her action. " I think," she said, " thou hast perhaps 
 misunderstood me." 
 
 " I hope so," said Miss Howard. 
 
 Hephzibah went on : " But the thing was a trifle, 
 and a soul may have been saved from the world." 
 
 "From the world? nonsense!" cried Elizabeth, 
 indignantly, " for the Society of Friends. I was 
 wrong to speak of your creed : it is good enough. 
 But people interpret creeds oddly ; and your friend 
 who could have formed such an idea, and kept up 
 such a low cheat, must have looked at the creed of 
 Fox and Barclay as one looks at a noble landscape 
 through a faulty window-glass." 
 
 " I did not mean to do thee a hurt," said Hephzibah, 
 quietly. " Things appear differently to different peo- 
 
34 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 pie. I never supposed the matter could have seemed 
 so monstrous to thee." 
 
 " Well," said Miss Howard, " I want you distinctly 
 to understand me : it is not a case in which I would 
 like to be misunderstood. What amazes me most 
 about it is that you should ever have had enough 
 doubt on the matter to make it worth while to talk 
 to me about it." 
 
 " I did," said Hephzibah, firmly, " but it is as well 
 to drop it now. Where is Margaret ?" 
 
 " Marguerite is in the garden," said Miss Howard, 
 coldly. " I will call her." 
 
 " Before thou goest," said Hephzibah, " I would 
 say that I think no worse of myself to have asked 
 thee a question." 
 
 " It seems to me, Hephzibah," returned Miss How 
 ard, " that we are about to go over the same ground 
 again." 
 
 " Well, I have in no wise changed my opinion," 
 continued the Quakeress, "and, as thou knowest, I 
 am not wont to change." 
 
 " No," said Miss Howard, smoothing her dress, 
 " no ; but why you should not now and then, for 
 variety, I do not see." 
 
 " Because," said Hephzibah, sitting very erect in 
 her chair, and speaking with so expressionless a vis 
 age that it became a wonderful thing how the mouth 
 had lost acquaintance with the other features and 
 ceased to receive their assistance, " because I am 
 always right." 
 
 Miss Howard broke into the most merry of smiles. 
 Her face was as wonderful in its power of change as 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 35 
 
 was Hephzibah s in its frozen stillness. " Oh, Heph- 
 zibah, what a delightful woman you are !" she said. 
 " I shall think of you all day for this." And over her 
 mobile face flew gleams as it were of sarcastic expres 
 sion and little storms of mirthful, half-controlled 
 laughter. Then she paused a moment as she crossed 
 the room, and turning said, " But if you are always 
 right, Hephzibah Guinness, why not decide the ques 
 tion yourself for your friend? A Quaker pope who 
 is infallible should not ask help of the ungodly." 
 
 Hephzibah said, quietly, " With help of the Spirit 
 we cannot err, but I am not always sure. I do 
 not think we should be always sure that we have 
 spiritual guiding. I meant that we are right when 
 we try to be right. There is the right of holiness 
 and men s right. But I should have known that it 
 was not well to carry my burden to one whose 
 feet go along ways of ease and luxury, and have 
 never had to choose which of two thorny ways to 
 tread." 
 
 Hephzibah looked up as she spoke, and was 
 shocked at the ghastliness of the face before her, 
 which but a moment ago was alive with mirth. But 
 the soul of a queen lay behind it, and a stern effort 
 of will put down the unusual revolt in the woman s 
 features. The doubts which arose in the heart of the 
 Quakeress and broke into speech had power to call 
 up for the other woman thoughts, remembrances, 
 and difficult decisions which rushed upon her at once 
 like an army of remembered evils, but were mastered 
 again of a sudden, almost before Hephzibah had 
 time to wonder. 
 
^6 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 Miss Howard wished to say nothing or to put the 
 thing aside, but even for her strong will Nature was 
 too powerful, and leaning across a chair-back, which 
 she clutched with both hands, she said, " The past is 
 its own. Bury it, bury it, Hephzibah Guinness, and 
 as you value your chance to enter this house, never, 
 never again speak to me of what I may have felt or 
 done or suffered. It is a liberty, madam, a liberty 
 which I allow to no one." 
 
 " But thou knowest " broke in Hephzibah. 
 
 " Enough !" returned Miss Howard, relieved and 
 steadied by her passion of words, as emotion is al 
 ways relieved by its outward expression. " Let us 
 say no more of it. I have made a fool of myself, I 
 dare say, and you must only remember what I meant, 
 and not how I said it. For that I am sorry, because 
 well, because this is my own house. I will call 
 Marguerite," but as she turned the girl she sought 
 came dancing into the room, and at first, not seeing 
 Hephzibah, who was hidden by her aunt s form, 
 caught up her gown and with infinite demureness 
 and grace made a low, sweeping courtesy, exclaiming, 
 " You see I have not forgotten it, Aunt Bess ? Isn t 
 that the way they do it in the minuet ? So, not too 
 fast Oh !" And she caught sight of Heph 
 zibah, whom she both disliked and feared, and at 
 once became erect and quiet. 
 
 The Quakeress looked at her sternly, while Miss 
 Howard, passing the girl, said, " I leave you with 
 Marguerite, Hephzibah : I shall come back in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 As she went by her niece the girl plucked at her 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 37 
 
 dress furtively, and said in a whisper, " Thee will not 
 go, Aunt Bess ?" 
 
 " Chut, child !" murmured her aunt, bending down 
 to kiss her, " she will not eat you ; and if she did, 
 you would surely disagree with her." 
 
 As Miss Howard left the room she reflected. " If 
 I stay I shall only quarrel again with that woman. 
 Better to go. Poor Marguerite !" 
 
 Meanwhile, the child stood in front of Hephzibah, 
 a figure of guilty terror : children in those days stood 
 before their elders until invited to sit down. Heph 
 zibah was somewhat near-sighted, and this Marguerite 
 knew. " Wouldst thou kindly excuse me a moment ?" 
 she said : " I will soon be back again." 
 
 " Come here," replied Hephzibah, curtly, " and sit 
 down." 
 
 Marguerite was holding behind her, in vain hope 
 to hide it, a long skirt of gorgeous brocade which 
 she had borrowed from her aunt s wardrobe for her 
 little bit of masquerade. As she sat down Hephzibah 
 caught sight of the unlucky gown. "And shall this 
 child, after all, go from us?" she said. Then, turn 
 ing to the culprit, she went on, not unkindly : " A 
 concern hath been borne in upon my mind, child, 
 that thou shouldst be preserved in the meek life of 
 truth. There are those who esteem lightly our testi 
 mony to plainness in attire. What is this that I see ?" 
 And she took up the edge of the broidered dress. 
 " Why dost thou so offend against the discipline ?" 
 
 Marguerite had much of her aunt s force of char 
 acter, and by this time had recovered her composure. 
 " Is it wicked ?" she said. 
 
 4 
 
38 IIEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 " It will lead thee to no steadfast haven," said 
 Hephzibah, "and the judgments of youth are vain 
 judgments." 
 
 " But is it wicked?" she persisted, with set lips. 
 
 " It is not for thee to question the example of thy 
 elders." 
 
 " Then Aunt Bess is wicked," said Marguerite, 
 sturdily. 
 
 " She is hedged about with the snares of the world," 
 said Hephzibah, sternly, " and hath counselled thee 
 unwisely." 
 
 " I will not hear her so spoken of," answered 
 Marguerite, flushing half with anger, half in shame, 
 at this her first open outbreak. " She is the best 
 woman God ever made : I wish I were like her." 
 
 Hephzibah disregarded the answer : " Dost thou 
 read the Word ? What portion art thou now read 
 ing?" 
 
 " Revelations," said the girl, shyly. 
 
 " And what hast thou gathered of good from 
 them ?" returned Hephzibah. 
 
 The child s face lit up : " I was made to think " 
 
 and she paused, not having meant to speak out her 
 thoughts. 
 
 " Nay, child," said Hephzibah, " say thy speech out : 
 I may come to understand thee better." 
 
 " I I thought what would Penn and Fox say 
 when they saw the gold pavements and the crystal 
 walls and the color and beauty of the Master s 
 house?" 
 
 " Surely the Great Enemy hath tempted thee," said 
 Hephzibah. " Go to thy room and seek to be more 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 39 
 
 wisely guided. Nay, wait," she added : " thou shouldst 
 be punished." And she detained her by the wicked 
 skirt as two men in the plainest dress of Friends en 
 tered the room and looked with amazement at the 
 child s attire and her filling eyes. " Friends, you are 
 come in good season," said Hephzibah, addressing 
 them. 
 
 At the time of which we speak there had arisen 
 among Friends what were then termed " great 
 searchings of heart concerning the preservation 
 of discipline in the matter of dress and furniture. 
 Mirrors were taken down; brass clocks received a 
 coat of drab paint ; in one case two aged Friends, on 
 paying a visit to a rather lax member of the Society, 
 were shocked to find on her floor the rare luxury 
 of a dark carpet with red spots, over which they 
 stepped, lifting their gowns and picking their way in 
 grim reprobation. This is said to have so much 
 annoyed their hostess that when they left she bore 
 her testimony by carefully inking out all the offend 
 ing spots of red. 
 
 The two Friends whose entry we have noted were 
 overseers appointed by Meeting to examine into and 
 correct breaches of discipline, and, regarding Mar 
 guerite as in a specially dangerous state, had called 
 to remonstrate with her aunt concerning some points 
 as to which rumor had reached them. Although 
 living with her aunt, she was known to be really the 
 ward of Arthur and Hephzibah Guinness, and to be 
 in all spiritual matters within their control. 
 
 As they entered, Miss Howard, returning, met them 
 with her stateliest courtesy. " I received a letter to- 
 
40 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 day," she said, " about my niece : what is there we 
 can do to aid you ?" 
 
 " They are come in good time," said Hephzibah, 
 pointing to the poor girl s dress. 
 
 " Oh, my poor little woman !" returned Elizabeth, 
 taking the child by the waist and holding her close 
 to her. "This was but a child s frolic. I beg no 
 more be said of it." 
 
 " It is of no great moment," answered the older of 
 the men, " but we shall bid her to consider that she 
 transgress not in future as to plainness of dress, and 
 also of demeanor." 
 
 Elizabeth Howard flushed a little, but made no 
 answer. She never ceased to fear that the child 
 whom she so tenderly loved would be taken from 
 her, as would surely have been the case had Hephzi 
 bah been able to convince her brother that this was 
 either wise or right. 
 
 " What further can I do ?" said Miss Howard. " I 
 shall endeavor hereafter to see that she walks more 
 straitly in the way you desire her to go." 
 
 " It is all," said the elder of the two. " We thank 
 thee, friend Elizabeth Howard, for thy courtesy and 
 temperateness, and will be going." 
 
 But Hephzibah felt moved to speak, and said, has 
 tily, " As the child s guardian I would think it well 
 that you asked leave of her aunt to see that her 
 chamber conform somewhat more than it now doth 
 to the plainness of Friends dwellings. Because she 
 is permitted to live with Elizabeth Howard, there is 
 the more reason to ask that the child depart not from 
 the teaching and simplicity of Friends." 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 4! 
 
 " I do not permit strangers to wander through my 
 house," said Miss Howard. " This has gone far 
 enough. My temper is not unnaturally good, and I 
 beg that it be not tried beyond what it may bear." 
 
 " What is this ?" said Arthur Guinness, coming at 
 this moment into the parlor, his good-humored, 
 handsome face lifted by his tall form above the 
 group. 
 
 " A star-chamber inquiry," said Miss Howard, with 
 some heat. 
 
 Now the guardian had been much tried of late by 
 the over-zealous, who thought him derelict in leav 
 ing his ward with her worldly aunt, and he wished to 
 appease all concerned and to keep the peace. 
 
 The elder overseer explained the case, to the inter 
 nal amusement of Arthur, who said, after a pause, " I 
 agree with Miss Howard, but possibly she will oblige 
 me by allowing thee to see the room where Margue 
 rite hath her lessons." 
 
 Arthur Guinness had much weight with Miss 
 Howard, and his mixture of grave sweetness and 
 strong sense of duty, coupled with a keen and ready 
 humor, all appealed to her pleasantly. " Well, yes," 
 she said : " that is really the child s home in this 
 house, as far as she has one apart, for she sleeps in 
 my own chamber. Come, and you shall see for 
 yourselves, and what you do not like shall be 
 amended." 
 
 Upon this she turned, and, followed by the over 
 seers, Hephzibah, and Arthur, led them up-stairs into 
 a little sitting-room. It was so plainly furnished 
 with books and a simple table and chairs that she 
 
42 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 felt herself triumphantly secure. Unluckily, between 
 the windows hung a large round convex mirror sur 
 mounted by a gilded eagle and adorned after the 
 French fashion with chains and elaborate projecting 
 scroll-work. The two overseers paused before it. 
 
 " Thou wouldst do well, friend Arthur, to remove 
 this vain temptation," said the younger. 
 
 " Friend Howard will no doubt thus oblige us," 
 said Arthur, with a gleam of amusement in his face. 
 
 "But," said Miss Howard, "it is the child s. It 
 belonged to her father, and I gave it to her." 
 
 " If it be thus," answered the older Friend, " it 
 were seemly that we dealt with it as many Friends 
 have of late submitted to have done with superfluous 
 ornament." 
 
 "As you will," said Miss Howard, while Margue 
 rite watched the group in profound curiosity. 
 
 Upon this the Friend produced from under the flap 
 of his strait coat a long saw, and advanced upon the 
 unfortunate mirror. 
 
 "What will he do?" said the child, alarmed for 
 her small property. 
 
 " We shall but remove some of these needless 
 ornaments," he said. 
 
 Elizabeth smiled. " Will you pardon me ?" she 
 said, taking the saw from his hand. " I am converted 
 to your ways of thinking, and it seems to me that 
 the handle of this useful tool has also a needless 
 curving of vain scroll-work which cannot add to its 
 usefulness. I shall be back in a moment." And so 
 saying she walked out of the room, leaving the 
 Friends to make what comments they pleased. In 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 43 
 
 a few moments she came back, saying, " Thou seest 
 I have, with the help of my man John and his wood- 
 saw, despoiled the tool of its vain ornaments." In 
 fact, she had had the handle sawn off. 
 
 Arthur Guinness looked at the useless tool and 
 the blank faces of the overseers and the austere 
 visage of his sister. 
 
 " It is not of much use, friend Elizabeth, in its 
 present state. It seems to me," added the overseer, 
 " we have in this matter been trifled with. The child 
 should, we think, be removed." 
 
 Miss Howard broke in. " Enough of this !" she 
 said. " I told you my temper was short. You touch 
 nothing in my house, come what may. I have done 
 my best, with better help from One I name not lightly, 
 to keep this child in wise and wholesome ways. I 
 will be ruled by you no longer. As to these trifles, 
 which I think valueless or worse " 
 
 " Then we had as well go," said Hephzibah. 
 
 " You have spoken the first words of wisdom I 
 have heard to-day," said her hostess. And so with 
 few words all excepting Guinness departed, appar 
 ently, save Hephzibah, without the least show of 
 feeling or ill temper. 
 
 As they left the street-door the older man said, 
 quietly, "Thou wilt do well to reflect;" and this was 
 all. 
 
 "I have reflected," said Miss Howard. " Good- 
 morning." 
 
44 
 
 HEP HZ IB AH GUINNESS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ARTHUR GUINNESS awaited Miss Howard s return 
 in the parlor, walking to and fro under the half-dozen 
 portraits by Copley and Stuart, and in and out, as a 
 meditative man might do, among the nests of Chinese 
 tea-poys, the carved chairs, and India cabinets. The 
 walls were covered with small crimson squares of 
 wall-paper, then just introduced, and the Quaker s 
 foot fell noiselessly on the rich brown and yellow and 
 red of a Turkey carpet. Arthur looked about him 
 at the gay bits of china, and the masses of sombre 
 color relieved by the brasses of the fire-dogs and 
 fender and the flickering glow of the hickory back 
 log. Somehow it came to him, as it had done before, 
 that it was pleasant, and that something in its well- 
 attuned harmony made him comfortable and soothed 
 him after the irritations through which he had just 
 passed. He was of a speculative turn of mind, and 
 was reflecting what a colorless world would be like, 
 and how it would influence men. Then he paused 
 to wonder what had become of Elizabeth, little 
 dreaming that for the past five minutes she had been 
 standing in the entry with her hand on the door, hes 
 itating as she rarely hesitated. At last she steadied 
 herself, and entered the room. Her decision once 
 made, her natural sense of the humor of the scene 
 she had gone through returned with full force, and 
 as she came forward and shook hands with Arthur 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 45 
 
 Guinness she was laughing with the keenest relish 
 of the elders defeat. 
 
 " That was a rout," she said. 
 
 " Some victories are worse than defeats," returned 
 Gumness. 
 
 Miss Howard s face fell. " You will never give up 
 to them ?" she said. " You will never take her from 
 me ? Promise me you will not." 
 
 " Thou art safe as to that," he said ; " but where 
 fore make my task somewhat harder than it need be? 
 Thou knowest that I must sympathize with my own 
 people. It would have been easy for thee to yield 
 in a matter so small." 
 
 " I could not," she said ; " and if I know that you 
 must sympathize with the folly of such extremes, I 
 know also that you do not go such lengths willingly; 
 and it is enough for me to feel sure that you will not 
 part the child from me." 
 
 " But reflect a moment," he said. " If perchance 
 I were to die, as might be, where, then, wouldst 
 thou be in this matter ? My sister would not hesitate 
 a moment." 
 
 Elizabeth looked kindly up at his stalwart strength 
 and smiled. " If you died life would be little to me," 
 she said. 
 
 " And yet," he went on, coloring with pleasure, 
 " thou wouldst still have duties, and most of all to 
 this child." 
 
 " I do not think I should care then for anything. 
 No, I do not mean that : you know what I mean." 
 
 " Yes," he said. " I do, and I do not. When years 
 ago thou earnest here from Carolina to meet the or- 
 
46 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 phan of thy only brother, sent from France to join 
 thee, thou foundest me and my sister, whom he had 
 formerly known here, left guardians of the little one 
 under thy brother s will. He, like myself, was a 
 Friend : thou hadst left us to take the creed of thy 
 mother. But I need not remind thee of all this 
 afresh." 
 
 " No. It is still a wonder to me," she said. " It 
 has been one long struggle to do right in the face 
 of endless embarrassments. I may have failed " 
 
 " Thou hast never failed to do what seemed to 
 thee right," he returned, " and wilt not ever fail. But 
 through all these long years I have loved thee as men 
 rarely love. Nay, thou wilt not hinder me : let me 
 speak. I love thee still. Time went on, and I came 
 to know that while thou didst also love me " 
 
 " I never said so," she cried. 
 
 " But thou dost, thou dost, Elizabeth ! Thou wilt 
 not say it, but thou wilt not say it is not so." 
 
 She was silent, and the dark look of sombre sad 
 ness grew, as it often did, upon her face, so that it 
 seemed strange that such a face could ever smile. 
 
 " Thou art silent," he said. " Year after year I 
 have asked thee to say what barrier stands between 
 us." 
 
 "But you could not: you are a Friend. It is for 
 bidden to you to choose where you will." 
 
 A great passion, half restrained for years, broke 
 loose and took fierce possession of him. " I have 
 taken wiser counsel than thine or mine," he said. 
 " No man s will or wish should come between us. 
 Speak, Elizabeth ! Are they of Divine setting, the 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 47 
 
 bounds thou wilt not break ? Is it a sin to love me ? 
 Nay, that cannot be, for thou dost love me. Oh, my 
 darling, speak to me ! Who will more honestly 
 counsel thee than I ? who will more surely set him 
 self aside to hear and help thee ?" 
 
 Miss Howard dropped into a chair and burst into 
 tears, covering her face with her hands, .and shaken 
 to the heart s core by the awful earnestness of the 
 man and the terror of indecision which stole upon 
 her lonely life. 
 
 " Wilt thou not speak ?" he said. 
 
 " Nay, wait," she pleaded. 
 
 " I have waited long," he answered. 
 
 Then she lifted her head and saw the desolation of 
 anxiety, of grief and pity in the brave face she had 
 learned to love so well. " I cannot bear this," she 
 went on. " I will speak though I die." 
 
 " But I cannot so hurt thee," he returned. 
 
 " No, I must speak now, for now as well as any 
 day it may be told. Listen, and listen well, for never 
 again shall I speak to you of this. It is my life I 
 must tell you, my life." 
 
 Then the two were still a moment while she reso 
 lutely regained the mastery over herself. 
 
 " I could tell you a long story," she said : " I will 
 tell you a short one. I can tell it in one brief death 
 bed scene, my father s. I shall never forget it. We 
 were within hearing of the guns at the siege of 
 Charleston, and my father was dying, and my mother 
 away, and I was a lonely child ; and I can see the 
 room and the curtained bed, and the negroes about 
 the door, and I only near, I only of all who loved 
 
48 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 him. Then I recall the old black nurse saying, 
 4 Honey, de massa want you ; and I was pushed 
 forward to the bed. And I remember the curtained 
 gloom, and the thin and wasted face within. And 
 then I remember this, my father saying, Step back, 
 aunty, you know how we call old negresses aunty, 
 I want to talk to the child, and my time grows 
 short. 
 
 " After this I saw his great gray eyes looking sus 
 piciously about until he made sure no one was near 
 to hear ; and when he was sure he said, Save thy 
 brother, my child, there is no one but thee alive of 
 all my race ; and if I could see thy mother now, I 
 would spare thee this, but I cannot. Therefore, thou 
 who art a child must be as a grown woman, and re 
 member what I tell thee, and speak of it to none 
 unless thou must. I want thee to promise me that 
 thou wilt never marry, because, my child, thou comest 
 of an unhappy race. But when thou art older thou 
 wilt look in a book which is in my desk, and which 
 thy mother will give thee, and then thou wilt see 
 what I mean, and thou wilt know why I say all this. 
 And now I may not speak to thee longer; and I 
 want thee to say only this, that thou wilt look in the 
 book, and if I seem to thee to be right and just, thou 
 wilt do as I say. Then he spoke no more for a 
 moment, until at last he said, Kiss me ; and after 
 this my old black nurse lifted me up on to the high 
 bed, and I kissed him and wondered why his breath 
 was cold and why he did not take me in his arms ; 
 and then, although I cried, they took me away. This 
 is all. And will you wait a moment?" 
 
HEPHZI$AH GUINNESS. 49 
 
 Saying this, she rose and walked steadily out of 
 the room, while Arthur Guinness sat with arms 
 crossed on his breast, awaiting her return. In a few 
 moments she came back, and with a face like that 
 of a judge delivering sentence of death she came 
 towards Arthur, who rose to meet her, and said, " My 
 friend, this is it : read it, and you will think with me. 
 Read it, and you will never more ask me to marry. 
 And now that it is done, how much easier it seems 
 than I thought it ! Perhaps, Arthur, because the 
 burden is shifted on to other shoulders." 
 
 Arthur smiled : " When dost thou want this book 
 again ? May I look at it now ?" 
 
 "No, no, not now," she replied, shuddering. "You 
 must read it away from here. I I do not want to 
 see your face when you read it." 
 
 " Well, well, Elizabeth," he said, cheerily, " I shall 
 do as thou sayest; but it must be bad, indeed, to be 
 as awful as thou seemest to think it." 
 
 " It is awful," she answered. " When you have 
 done with it, leave it here for me if I am out, in the 
 drawer of this table. Good-by, Arthur." 
 
 "Farewell, Elizabeth." 
 
 As he left the house, Arthur Guinness looked 
 curiously a moment at the faded little memorandum- 
 book tied about with ribbon, and putting it in his 
 breast-pocket went away down Front Street to his 
 own home. Seeking his study in the back building, 
 he laid the book on his table, and leisurely filling 
 and lighting a pipe, let the bowl rest on his knee 
 and thought a moment. He was more shaken and 
 troubled than he cared to admit, even to himself, and 
 c d 5 
 
HEPHZ1BAH GUINNESS. 
 
 was calmly waiting until he should feel himself once 
 more fully master of his own emotions. Then he 
 opened the book, and this was what he found : 
 
 " MY DEAR AND ONLY DAUGHTER, ELIZABETH, 
 
 Save thy brother, thou art the last of a race which 
 has known so much more of sorrow than of joy 
 that I beg of thee solemnly to consider what I have 
 here written, that if it seem good to thee thou 
 mayest come to see the matter as I see it, and to 
 fulfil my wish, so that by never marrying our family 
 misery may fall upon no others, and may end with 
 us. HENRY HOWARD. 
 
 "MARCH 10, 1777." 
 
 Then came a number of entries : 
 
 " Richard Howard, Bart, of the Larches, Denbigh 
 shire, died Sept. 3, 1699, by his own hand. 
 
 "Of his brothers, John and Nicholas likewise thus 
 perished. 
 
 " Margaret Wortley, aet 30, daughter of Rd. How 
 ard, Bart, died insane. 
 
 " The grandsons of Rd. Howard, Bart, were thy 
 uncles; and of them none are left, they dying mostly 
 of self-murder in like manner, but happily in foreign 
 parts, so that the way of it is not known at home. 
 
 " And now are left only thou and thy brother, who, 
 thinking on this matter with me, will die without 
 issue. 
 
 " And so may we all find peace !" 
 
 Arthur Guinness let his pipe fall on the floor, and 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. ^ 
 
 turning to the table sat motionless, his chin on his 
 hands, staring, as it were, with sad eyes into the 
 future. He saw dim, changeful pictures of pros 
 perous days to come, of a happy wife, of sons and 
 daughters about his knees. Then he saw them grown 
 up, and shuddering rose and walked to and fro in 
 the room, until at last, feeling some fierce craving 
 for larger movement, he took his hat and leaving 
 the house strode hurriedly away towards the Schuyl- 
 kill. To the day of his death he never forgot those 
 hours of dumb agony. But long before night fell 
 the strong habits of duty and faithful allegiance to 
 common sense had brought him to the same de 
 cision which had guided and darkened the life of 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 His walk took him along the willowy margin of 
 the river, and at last across the floating bridge at 
 Gray s Ferry, and so up to the high ground which 
 lay back of Woodlands. At first there was in all 
 his heart a sea of tameless passion, pent up for years, "* 
 and only set free a moment, to be ordered at the \ 
 next into quiet by a voice to him as potent as that 
 which stilled the raging waters of Galilee. Then 
 came for a while, or at intervals, that strange sense 
 of being morally numbed which is like the loss of 
 feeling mercifully bestowed on the physical system 
 by the blow of the lion s paw. At last, out of the 
 confusion order began to come, a~rid painful capacity 
 to study in detail his own sensations, and to look, 
 though but unsteadily, at the need for decision. 
 Then also he began to take note of outside things, 
 and to see with curious intensity natural objects, 
 
ij2 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 from memories of which would come forth in after- 
 days all the large horror of the sorrow to which 
 they had become linked by Nature s mysterious 
 bonds^"6T association^ 75^ us he noted, whether he 
 would or not/the miserly little squirrels, and the 
 rustling autumn woods thick with leafy funerals, 
 through which the lated robin flew in haste. 
 
 But, as I have said, at length, when he got back 
 his power to reason and to be guided by the laws 
 of action which long habit had made strong, there 
 stayed with him, above all, a sense of pity for Eliza 
 beth so vast and intense that to feel it was simply 
 pain, and yet pain which ennobled and made strong. 
 He felt that were she herself willing he could not 
 now marry her; and out of a strange sense of duty 
 to children yet unborn, and never to live, came at 
 last peace and calm decision. Then he felt that he 
 must see Elizabeth at once, and let her know how 
 just he held her judgment to be. 
 
 In his trouble the hours had fled, and it was in the 
 late afternoon that he reached his home. 
 
 Hephzibah met him in the entry. " Where hast 
 thou been ?" she said, looking in alarm and amaze 
 ment at his mud-stained shoes and pale face. "Thou 
 hast forgotten thy dinner, and the French minister 
 has been here with whom thou wast going to Eliza 
 beth Howard s." 
 
 " No matter," he replied, passing her. " I do not 
 wish for dinner: I am going out again when I have 
 changed my shoes." 
 
 "Thou hast had some worry," said Hephzibah. "I 
 do think it concerns that worldly woman." 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 53 
 
 " Peace !" he returned : " thou knowest not what 
 thou sayest. Nay, ask me nothing. If I have a 
 sorrow, it is for no human ear." 
 
 " Hast thou asked her in marriage ?" persisted 
 Hephzibah, with a deep sense of gladness, " and has 
 she refused thee ?" 
 
 " I said peace," he returned. "The matter concerns 
 thee not; and speak no ill of her, as thou lovest me." 
 
 " If it be as I say, thou hast been wisely dealt 
 with, Arthur Guinness," she replied. A sense of 
 triumph rang out in her tones despite herself, for 
 this marriage was of all things that which she feared 
 the most. 
 
 But Arthur went away up-stairs as she spoke, say 
 ing bitterly, "Ah, Hephzibah, in the field of the 
 Master thou hast gleaned only thistles, and thy 
 tongue is as the tongue of Job s friends. Never 
 again speak in this wise to me. I am hurt and 
 sore : let me alone." 
 
 An hour later Arthur Guinness walked quietly 
 into the parlor of Miss Howard and awaited her 
 coming. Presently she came into the room smiling, 
 and took him by both hands, and said, " Sit down. 
 I kept you waiting, as I was dressing, because I am 
 going to a party to-night. And how thou must dis 
 approve of my splendor !" And she made him a sweep 
 ing courtesy, and settling the folds of her heavy silk 
 dress, sat down by the fire. 
 
 He looked up in wonder at her pleasant face. 
 " How canst thou smile?" he said. 
 
 " How can I ?" she said. "Some people are good, 
 and their goodness helps them over the rough places; 
 
 5* 
 
54 HEP HZ I BAH GUINNESS. 
 
 and some have common sense, and that gets them 
 through : now, I am not very good, and not very 
 sensible, but I must have had a fairy godmother 
 called Mirth, and when things are blackest I am per 
 versely moved to smile ; and that does so iron out 
 the wrinkles." 
 
 " Oh, my darling !" he said. 
 
 " Please don t, or I shall cry," exclaimed Elizabeth: 
 V" I am often near it when I smile. You men never 
 know how close they are together, laughter and tears. 
 There ! let us talk sensibly." 
 
 " I have put thy book in the drawer," he said ; 
 " and it is all over, and thou art right, utterly, en 
 tirely right, and and I shall never trouble thee 
 more. Farewell !" 
 
 "Good-by?" she exclaimed, looking at his quiv 
 ering mouth. " Not at all. Stay a little, just a little. 
 I knew you would agree with me, you always do, 
 because, as Hephzibah wisely remarks of herself, I 
 am always right. It won t hurt you to know that I 
 feel how much of sweetness went out of life when I 
 found that you loved me, and that I must never think 
 to sit at your fireside as a wife. But it was a de 
 cision of years ago, and I made it and unmade it. 
 Yes, I did, for I am weak when you are by. But at 
 last we have both made it, and I thought I should 
 want to die as I told you ; but I do not, not while 
 you live, and not while, now don t look so sad, 
 not while there is anything on earth as amusing as 
 the overseers and Hephzibah." 
 
 " What a droll woman thou art, my Elizabeth !" 
 he said. 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 55 
 
 " Only a natural woman," she replied. " Do you 
 regret what we have done ?" 
 
 " No," he said, firmly. " I do regret the thing, not 
 the decision upon it. I have only to look at the 
 other side to be able to smile a little with thee." 
 
 "Then it is over," she said, "and we will get 
 what we can out of life, with good help, Arthur, and 
 set aside the past. Shall it be so ?" 
 
 " It shall be as thou hast said," he returned. " And 
 what else is it, Elizabeth ?" for she stood up before 
 him flushed and handsome. 
 
 " Only once," she said, " I must tell you how I 
 love and honor and reverence you, how gladly I 
 would have trusted my life to you. I must show 
 you once, as only a woman can, how I love you." 
 And leaning over him as he sat she kissed him. 
 
 Arthur buried his face in his hands. " I thank 
 thee." And the woman, crimson to the hair, turned 
 and fled from the room. 
 
HEPHZ1BAH GUINNESS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON the next morning Miss Howard received a 
 note from Arthur, in which he said in a few words 
 that he was going away for a fortnight, thinking it 
 well that he should not see her face for a time. He 
 went on to explain that it was not unlikely, owing to 
 some commercial affairs, that he should before long 
 have to go to Europe; and he added that he had 
 meant to bring the abbe to see her, as he seemed a 
 proper person to give to her niece the French lessons 
 she wished her to take, but that the gentleman would 
 call upon her at once. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the next day the Abbe de 
 Vismes walked slowly down Front Street, saluting 
 as he passed them three or four of the French nobles 
 who had drifted into this quiet haven out of the 
 storms of European warfare. The abbe, to whom 
 all lands were alike, provided the wines were good 
 and the fare agreeable, had begun to make himself 
 characteristically at home in the tranquil old town. 
 As he passed Walnut Street he lifted his hat to the 
 Marquis de Talons, and the pair exchanged pinches 
 of snuff and walked on together among the groups 
 of homeward-bound artisans and merchants. 
 
 " I am giving lessons in the dance," said the mar 
 quis, " but the times grow better, and before long we 
 shall drink our Bordeaux again at home. What is 
 
HEP HZ IB AH GUINNESS. 57 
 
 it that you do to put the bread in your mouth, 
 abbe ?" 
 
 " The trade which is best," said the abbe, " is to 
 turn Quakre, but I am grown too old to change; 
 and, moreover, they drink not the wine of Madeira, 
 which I find to be comforting and not dear." 
 
 " Thou hast reason," said the marquis, " but thy 
 trade ?" 
 
 " Ah !" returned the abbe, " my trade ! That re 
 minds me, and the place is here. I go to teach a 
 young demoiselle the tongue of France." 
 
 " And is she as lovely as are the rest ?" returned 
 the marquis. 
 
 " Ah ! I know not," said the abbe, " but my nephew, 
 who has but seen her, raves of her as the young will 
 do; and, as I said, this is the place. Au revoir, 
 marquis." And so saying he went into the little gar 
 den, and was presently chatting with Miss Howard. 
 
 The parlor, with its pretty feminine belongings 
 and pictures and china and well-rubbed tables and 
 chairs, took the abbe by surprise, and the stately 
 woman who greeted him with a courtesy which took 
 up half the room no less delighted him. " Ah !" he 
 said, " madame, I am enchanted to be again in a room 
 with pictures and color, and, you will pardon me, 
 with a woman who would have done honor to our 
 court." 
 
 " You flatter me," said Miss Howard, smiling. 
 " You have taken a leaf out of the book of your 
 gallant countryman, De Lauzun." 
 
 " But madame will consider that I have lived here 
 only among the doves which are called Quakres." 
 
58 HEP HZ IB AH GUINNESS. 
 
 " Such as Miss Hephzibah Guinness," returned 
 Miss Howard. " Well ! well ! I can weigh your 
 pretty speeches now. But you have not seen my 
 niece." 
 
 "And when better than now?" he said; upon 
 which the pupil was promptly summoned. 
 
 " This," said Elizabeth, " is my niece, Miss How 
 ard. And this, Marguerite, is the gentleman, the 
 Abbe de Vismes, who will do you the honor to teach 
 you French." 
 
 " She does not yet speak that tongue ?" he said. 
 
 " No," replied Miss Howard. 
 
 " Then I may say, madame, comme elle est gracieuse, 
 cette filler 
 
 The girl laughed. "Ah, sir, though I do not 
 know French," she said, " I think you said some 
 thing pleasant of me. It was thee, Aunt Bess, who 
 said that a woman would understand a man if he 
 said pretty things of her in Hebrew." 
 
 " And to be spiritueUe seems to be of the family," 
 said the abbe. " But you said her name was Mar 
 guerite, I think." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Howard, "her mother s name. 
 Her mother was French." 
 
 "Ah ! and of what family ?" inquired the abbe. 
 ^ " We never knew her," said Elizabeth, briefly : 
 " she died in France. Shall our lessons begin to 
 morrow ?" 
 
 And after more chat and many compliments it 
 was so agreed, and the abbe went away, doubly 
 happy that he had a pupil and that she was beautiful 
 to look upon. 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 59 
 
 The cool October days came and went, and the 
 colder November mornings stripped off the last 
 mournful leaves, while the French emigres settled 
 down to their work, the abbe to his lessons, which 
 began to be sufficient, the young baron to his novel 
 labor in the Quaker merchant s counting-house. By 
 degrees the exiled youth grew to like the quiet town 
 with its splendid breadth of river boundaries, and to 
 find friends among the rich and refined families to 
 whom his name, and still more his frank and easy 
 manners, gave him ready access. But above all 
 other pleasures were the morning and evening walks 
 to and from his place of business, for these led him 
 past the garden and the buttonwoods, and the only 
 house which was not open to him. Daily he lingered 
 there, sometimes catching a glimpse of the blooming 
 face he had learned to like so well, and sometimes 
 seeing only the place which had come to be so 
 pleasant for him. 
 
 By degrees, Marguerite in turn began to notice 
 the handsome stranger who lingered as he went by, 
 and looked happy when he caught her eye as she 
 glanced up from her autumn garden-work of trim 
 ming the rose-bushes and preparing her plants for 
 the winter. On this young and guileless heart no 
 strong impressions had yet been made^and perhaps 
 the very means which her aunt so sedulously em 
 ployed to keep her free from all companionship with 
 tfieTolher sex had but prepared her to feel deeply the 
 first homage which a man should lay at her feet. 
 
 At length one morning she looked up from her 
 book and said, quietly, "Aunt Bess, why dost thou 
 
6O HEPHZIBAII GUINNESS. 
 
 not ask the abbe to bring the poor young man who 
 is his nephew to see us ? I see him go by here 
 almost every day, and I think he would like to come 
 in. I would if I were he." 
 
 Miss Howard turned towards her with a startled 
 look. " Why," said she, " do you concern yourself 
 with the young man ? I dare say he has friends 
 enough." 
 
 " But, aunt, he looks as if he would be nice to 
 talk to, and he must have seen many things I should 
 like to hear. And besides, aunt, why do no young 
 men come here, and only Mr. Guinness and Heph- 
 zibah and and old people ?" 
 
 " You will know some day," said Elizabeth. " Other 
 young women may have friends who are young men, 
 but you cannot, and you must not ask me why until 
 the day comes that I may tell you why. Now you 
 must trust me that what I ask is wise and right. Go 
 back to your book again, my dear." 
 
 " Yes, Aunt Bess," she replied ; and the truant 
 locks fell over the volume, but their owner s thoughts 
 strayed afar and made little castles for her in the 
 land of Spain, such as young hearts are wont to 
 build. 
 
 The morning after was cold and clear, and, early 
 afoot, Marguerite was busy at her last tasks in the 
 little garden, sweeping the leaves into corners and 
 trimming the box borders. Presently, as she stood 
 by the fence and threw over some dead branches, 
 she was aware of a blush that told of her conscious 
 ness of the close neighborhood of the young baron. 
 In her confusion she threw over with the lapful of 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 6 1 
 
 trimmed stems her garden scissors and one of her 
 gloves. 
 
 The young man touched his hat smilingly, and 
 gathering up the articles in question laid one hand 
 on the fence and leapt lightly over into the garden. 
 " Mademoiselle will pardon me," he said. " These 
 are her scissors. And we cannot be quite altogether 
 stranger the one to the other." 
 
 " Oh, but you should not come in," cried the girl, 
 naively : " my aunt will not like it. And my glove, 
 too, if you please." 
 
 " Mon Dieu /" said the baron. " When it is that 
 we enter the land of faery we go not away without a 
 souvenir. Mademoiselle will two times pardon me." 
 And so saying, with his pleasant face glowing with 
 mischief and evident admiration, he bowed to her, 
 and kissing the glove thrust it in his bosom, and 
 again leaping the fence, lifted his hat and went calmly 
 away down Front Street, leaving her amused, amazed, 
 and a little frightened. Tjiejnj^yjth quick female in 
 stinct she glanced a moment at the windows and cast 
 a furtive look after the lithe, handsome figure which 
 had disturbed her maiden heart. 
 
 The incident was a great one in her quiet life, but 
 she said nothing of it to her aunt. Why, she could 
 hardly have told herself, for in all things she was as 
 frank as one could have wished so young a thing to 
 be. Then the days fled by anew until midwinter 
 brought an event which was destined to disturb all 
 concerned in this story. 
 
 According as he had said, Arthur Guinness found, 
 not now to his dislike, that affairs of moment made 
 
 6 
 
62 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 it needful that he should go to Europe. The chance 
 to sail at once offered itself while he was absent in 
 New York, and there was not time to allow of the 
 four days journey to Philadelphia and back again, if 
 he would not lose an opportunity which might not 
 recur for a month. Not sorry to put a little time 
 between himself and Elizabeth, he seized the oppor 
 tunity, and went away without seeing her again. 
 Then a letter came, and another, and after that he had 
 found his way to the Continent, and Miss Howard 
 heard no more. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MEANWHILE, an open winter of frequent sunshine 
 ended in February with a week of intensely cold, 
 clear, vivid days. On the late afternoon of one of 
 these Hephzibah Guinness stood in her front parlor 
 ready, in drab cloak and woollen stockings drawn 
 over her shoes, to face the out-door cold. As she 
 passed out into the entry, the knocker of the street- 
 door sounded, and she herself opening the door was 
 aware of young De Vismes, his face in a pleasant 
 glow with the keen frostiness of the winter air. 
 
 " There is," he said, " madame, a packet which 
 arrives from France, and there are letters which I 
 am to carry to you ; and behold them. It makes 
 evil weather to-day." 
 
 Hephzibah took the letters, a large bundle, but 
 did not ask the young man to enter. She had an 
 
HEPHZIBAII GUINNESS. 63 
 
 odd dislike to foreigners and a half-confessed belief 
 that they could all speak English well enough if they 
 chose. " I am about to go out," she said, 4< so that 
 I may not ask thee in." 
 
 " I wish you a good-evening," he returned, and 
 left her. 
 
 The Quakeress went back into the house and 
 hastily tore open the envelope. There was a long 
 package within addressed to her. This also she 
 opened, and within it found a large roll of folded 
 pages, yellow and stained as if written years before. 
 On the back it was addressed to the Abbe Gaston 
 de Vismes. 
 
 "At last !" she said, " at last ! Why must I decide 
 anew ? What I did was best for her. Yes, it was 
 best; and now it is all to be thought over again, as 
 if once in a life were not enough !" Then she looked 
 at the other letters. There was one, a heavy one, for 
 Miss Howard. " That at least may wait," said Heph- 
 zibah. Lastly, she fell upon a letter to herself from 
 her brother. This she eagerly opened, and read with 
 a haste as eager. It ran in this wise : 
 
 " DEAR HEPHZIBAH, After many perils and grave 
 occasions by sea and land, I have prosperously ended 
 the affairs for which I came to Europe. Some busi 
 ness of a brother-merchant hath led me to the town 
 of Nantes, where it hath been my fortune to be 
 brought into relations with an ancient dealer, who, 
 on hearing my name, and learning whence I came, 
 inquired of me concerning a child sent to Philadel 
 phia years ago on the death of its father, one William 
 
64 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 Howard. Thou wilt be amazed to know that the 
 child is our ward, Marguerite, and that she was the 
 daughter of a lady of the class of nobles called De 
 Vismes, to whom William Howard was married ; 
 and, what is yet more strange, I am told that letters 
 which William Howard confided to this merchant 
 were sent over to my care by the packet which came 
 after the one which fetched our ward. These may 
 have come while I was gone to Carolina to bring 
 Elizabeth, but they seem to have been lost, although 
 I do remember me plainly of the coming in of the 
 packet, which was the George Arnauld. 
 
 " I send thee here the original papers, of which 
 those lost were only copies, and with them a long 
 and curious statement, with which I fear thou wilt 
 not be well pleased. Thou wilt find that William 
 speaks especially of a letter of instruction and of 
 his will, which latter we did receive, and that he 
 desires that in place of the child being bred in the 
 ways of our Society, as he was at first minded 
 and wrote, she should be left wholly to the ward 
 ship of our good friend Elizabeth. I pray thee 
 at once to read the strange story William relates, 
 and also his final letter, and then to give them to 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 " Thou wilt learn that the child is now rich in this 
 world s goods. I shall linger but long enough to 
 secure to her this ample estate, and to place it in 
 safety, and shall then return with all the haste I may 
 to our own land. 
 
 " Thy always loving brother, 
 
 " ARTHUR." 
 
HEPHZ1BAH GUINNESS. 65 
 
 Hephzibah set her lips sternly, and turned without 
 a word to the longer paper, which she read and re 
 read eagerly. It ran thus : 
 
 "GENEVA, May 10, 1794. 
 
 "To MY BELOVED FRIEND, ARTHUR GUINNESS, 
 Merchant, Thou knowest that after the child Mar 
 guerite was sent to thee, I did also despatch to thee 
 my will and a certain letter in which I desired Heph 
 zibah and thee to be guardians of the little maid. I 
 did also provide for her bringing up in the ways of 
 our Society, and for her living with my sister Eliza 
 beth. But having been afflicted since the child went 
 away to thee with bitter and, it is to be feared, mortal 
 illness, I am come to think that I shall do more wisely 
 to leave her in ward of my sister, Elizabeth Howard, 
 so to raise her as may seem best to her, she being, 
 although not of our Society, a woman seriously 
 minded, despite some light ways of speech and vain 
 jesting. 
 
 " Having thus provided by a letter of which a copy 
 hath been sent to thee, I have it still on my mind to 
 relate to thee the story of the child s parentage. If 
 it had pleased Providence that I should have lived 
 to care for her, I believe I shoulJ still have let her 
 be looked upon as my child ; Lut as it now seems 
 unlike that I shall live to go home, I esteem it best 
 to inform thee fully as to the fact that she is in no 
 manner of my blood. 
 
 " Thou knowest that while I dwelt in England I 
 felt a concern as to them that were afflicted in France. 
 On this account I crossed over into that unhappy 
 country, and journeyed hither and thither bearing 
 
66 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 testimony. Twice I was cast into bonds, and twice 
 in danger of my life ; but because of my being an 
 American and of our Society, I was each time set at 
 ease, and now of late have been left to do as I am 
 guided. At last I came in the Eleventh month, 
 which they call Frimaire, to the city of Nantes, on 
 the river Loire, where, having a letter to one Pierre 
 Porlat, some time a preacher of the Society of Prot 
 estants, he did kindly receive me into his house. A 
 great gloom was come on all because of the cruelty 
 of one Carrier, who hath put many to sudden death 
 by drowning without even a form of trial. 
 
 " We comforted each the other with cheerful talk, 
 and at last he confided to me that he had concealed in 
 a vacant house next to his a young woman, a widow, 
 and her little child, the husband, a Marquis la Roche, 
 having been lately put to death. I was able to help 
 these poor people by carrying to them food, especially 
 at night, when we would sit in the darkness, a light 
 being imprudent, and talk of many things, and of 
 some good for speech and reflection to such as are 
 in trouble. The young woman was of great beauty 
 of person, and also of a singular calm sweetness, 
 such as greatly moved my pity. 
 
 " At last on the evening of the fifteenth day of the 
 Eleventh month, I came in from comforting some of 
 the many who were in despair, and found Pierre 
 Porlat and the woman La Roche set about by a guard 
 of fierce-looking men. The poor thing had her little 
 frightened child in her arms. I turned and followed 
 them towards the prison. When we came near to 
 the place, which is a low building called the Entrepot, 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 67 
 
 close to the water, we met eighty or more men and 
 women tied in pairs and being driven like poor 
 sheep only these knew their fate on to a boat 
 to be sunk in the river. When they were counted 
 the man Carrier said two were missing, and seeing 
 the woman La Roche and Pierre, he said, Let these 
 be added to make the count correct/ and threaten 
 ing them with his sword, pushed them towards the 
 river. Then the poor mother in her agony cried to 
 me to take the child, and I went near her to do so, 
 much moved, as thou mayst suppose. Then the man 
 Carrier said, Who is this? and one of the captains, 
 named Lamberty, answered that I was a Quakre, as 
 they say, and an American, and therefore a foe to 
 aristocrats ; upon which the man Carrier laughed and 
 said, What carest thou for the citoyenne ? Is she 
 thy mistress ? Then I was filled with shame for her, 
 and with great pity, so that I scarce could speak, and 
 may I be forgiven ! I replied, The woman is my 
 wife. Then they all laughed and said, Let the 
 Quakre have his wife, and make haste; and on this 
 the woman and her child were set free. But they 
 bade us stay and see the poor creatures drowned 
 which were left. My friend Pierre cried out, The 
 good God guide thee ! And after this I thrust the 
 woman behind me, that she might not see this misery, 
 and so stood in prayer while this great cruelty was 
 suffered. Then I took her arm, and, carrying the 
 child, went away into the town, fearfully searching 
 my heart to see if the thing I had done was well. 
 
 " I lay awake all that night, and the next day I 
 said to Edulienne, which was her name, I have 
 
68 HEP HZ IB A II GUINNESS. 
 
 saved thy life with a lie, and thou art yet in peril. 
 What I have done sorely troubles me. Then she 
 answered sweetly that I was a true gentleman, and 
 that she would not be so saved, but would go and 
 give herself up. But I answered that what I did I 
 was moved to do, and that now the only true thing 
 to do, both to salve my own conscience and to save 
 her life, was to make her really my wife. On this 
 she burst into tears, and could talk no more, but next 
 day came to me and said it should be as I wished. 
 And so, not to weary thee, we were married secretly 
 by a brother of poor Porlat in the presence of his 
 wife and daughter, all in tears. 
 
 " But my little woman scarce spoke afterwards, 
 and pined away and died before spring, like one 
 stricken, perhaps of remembering her marquis; and, 
 after all, I know not yet if that I did were well. But 
 coming to Bordeaux, I found a master of a ship I 
 knew, and gave him charge to carry the little one to 
 thee; and this was in Fifth month of the year 1794. 
 
 " This paper will be left in charge of Eugene Per- 
 riere, of Nantes, merchant, who will see that it reaches 
 thee in case of my death, with a copy of my instruc 
 tions to my sister as to the governing of the child s 
 life. 
 
 " Thy true friend, 
 
 " WILLIAM HOWARD." 
 
 When Hephzibah had finished she rose, and folding 
 the papers, went up-stairs to her brother s room and 
 laid them in his desk, which she shut. " Let them 
 rest there," she said, "while I think it over. Eliza- 
 
I1EPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 6 9 
 
 beth may wait : there is no haste. They seem to have 
 been long on the way, and he may follow them soon. 
 There seems nothing but to give over the child to 
 the world ; and I can see the face of that proud 
 woman when she hears it. Must all my years of 
 anxiousness go for nothing?" 
 
 After this she walked to and fro in the room, as 
 her brother had done when a blow as great, but far 
 different, had fallen upon him. Years before, in a 
 moment of too exalted trust in the wisdom of her 
 own views as to how another s life should be ordered, 
 she had destroyed the letter in which William How 
 ard had wisely stated his altered opinions as to the 
 education and religious training of the girl they had 
 all believed to be his own. There are in every 
 Church those who, if they held the reins of authority, 
 would use them to force into their own ways of 
 thinking all who chance to differ from them in belief; 
 and of this peculiar mould was Hephzibah Guinness. 
 Now the house she had builded with some fear and 
 anxiety, but with no great doubt, was crumbling, and, 
 as often happens, doubt began to grow as the prob 
 ability of failure arose and increased ; for it was plain 
 enough to her that the one conscience she dreaded 
 outside of her own that of her brother would be 
 certain not to sympathize in the means by which she 
 had secured, as she believed, the eternal safety of 
 Marguerite. Night fell as she walked to and fro 
 in the mazes of terror, doubt, and rudely-shaken 
 convictions. At last, with a shock, came to her the 
 idea that perhaps Arthur had written also directly to 
 Elizabeth Howard; and at once, unable to bear the 
 
70 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 suspense through one night, she went down-stairs 
 and out of the house. As she walked along the 
 deserted streets, more and more clearly arose before 
 her the spectre of Arthur s anger and reproach ; but 
 not for a moment was it plain to her that it would be 
 righteous anger or just reproach. Yet it would be 
 in some wise a falling off from her of the one thing 
 in her life which was always sweet and fresh, and 
 grew with a wholesome ripeness as years went on. 
 Then, too, as she stood in the little garden, search 
 ing herself implacably to find if that which she had 
 done was well, of a sudden the question took a new 
 form, and pausing she asked herself if Arthur had 
 himself done this thing, how it would have seemed 
 to her sitting in judgment. Somehow, she could 
 not carry out this idea. She stood in the night air, 
 and tried to make for herself a picture, as it were, 
 of Arthur burning the letter; but the figure she 
 summoned up seemed to face her pale-visaged and 
 grave, and would not act its part in the drama. With 
 this a strange anger came over her, as if at the dear 
 friend who was fated not to understand her ; and then 
 at last, with the despotism of a strong nature, she 
 brought up her dominant instinct to put down these 
 doubts, and saying aloud, " Thou knowest, Righteous 
 Judge, if I have served Thee or not, Thee, and 
 Thee only," she knocked, and in a moment or two 
 passed from her sombre thoughts into the life and 
 gayety of Miss Howard s parlor. 
 
 The scene that presented itself to Hephzibah when 
 she entered the parlor was not fitted to soothe or 
 comfort her. At the table the abbe was showing 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. ji 
 
 Miss Howard a new game of cards, which her niece 
 was also learning unasked. 
 
 " No news of Mr. Guinness ?" said Miss Howard. 
 
 " I have heard nothing," said Hephzibah, with a 
 pang at the equivocation ; and then reflecting that 
 young De Vismes might have mentioned the letters, 
 she added, " A package from him came to-day." 
 
 " Well, Aunt Bess," said Marguerite, " he must 
 come home soon now." 
 
 Hephzibah was in a state of irritation which made 
 any excuse for its display a good one. " Why dost 
 thou call Elizabeth Howard, Aunt Bess?" she said. 
 " The habit is unseemly." 
 
 The abbe looked surprised. He came of a world 
 which took life easily. 
 
 " I like it," said Elizabeth, briefly : " it is my wish. 
 Suppose we put aside our little questions of discipline 
 till we are alone." 
 
 " All hours are good for a good purpose," returned 
 Hephzibah. " Does the child learn also to use these 
 tools of the Great Enemy?" she added, pointing to 
 the cards. 
 
 Miss Howard s sense of humor broke out, as was 
 her way. " Poor old Satan !" she said : " how much 
 we put upon him ! He might sue the whole world 
 for slander." 
 
 " He has done so much worse in my France," 
 sighed the abbe, " that we may pardon him these 
 morsels of paper." 
 
 " The wrath of the Great Judge hath visited thy 
 unhappy land," exclaimed Hephzibah, in measured 
 and tranquil tones. " Evil hath come of evil, 
 
72 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 punishment of wrong-doing. He hath purged the 
 threshing-floor: He " 
 
 " Madame," said the abbe, some little remnant of 
 nature stirring in him, " my mother died on the 
 guillotine: you should of kindness fear to speak thus 
 to one of my race. More than the wicked died, 
 women who were sweet and pure died ; priests better 
 than me ; some who were young, and had not even 
 lied ever in their lives. Ah, if we older ones were to 
 die thus, we could without doubt find a reason to 
 call it punishment." 
 
 Some remembrance arose and smote Hephzibah ; 
 but there must have been a cross of the Puritan in 
 her breed, for these words came in answer : " Why He 
 visiteth the sins of one generation on another is His 
 alone to know ; but we have none sinned so little that 
 we may not accept punishment, and find a cause in 
 us somewhere. Yet I did not mean to hurt thee." 
 
 The abbe rose and bowed silently, and there was a 
 moment of awkward pause, when Marguerite said, 
 " Oh, aunt, it must be time we went." 
 
 " Where ?" said Hephzibah. 
 
 " We are going on to the ice to see the skating, 
 and the coasting at High Street on the hill down 
 
 to the river, and the bonfires, and " And she 
 
 paused, thinking what else or who else might be on 
 the ice. 
 
 " Will you go with us, Hephzibah ?" said Miss 
 Howard, civilly but coldly. " I have promised Mar 
 guerite, as we shall be in the country far away from 
 here next year, and perhaps she may never have 
 another chance." 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 73 
 
 " You mean to leave us ?" said Hephzibah. " Is 
 not this a new plan ? And Margaret ? Is she to 
 go? Dost thou think of taking her." 
 
 " Of course," said Elizabeth. " I go because of 
 her." 
 
 "And my brother? doth he approve?" 
 
 " He does," said Elizabeth. " Any more questions, 
 my dear ?" 
 
 "No," replied Hephzibah, "but I thought thou 
 wouldst " 
 
 " Don t think for other people, Hephzibah : it 
 makes half the mischief in the world." 
 
 " It is my duty," said Hephzibah, " to think for this 
 child." 
 
 " Do not you think also," said Elizabeth, whisper 
 ing in a quick aside, " that the abbe may come to 
 believe we have more religion than manners?" 
 
 "That matters little," returned Hephzibah. "I 
 will say no more to thee now. Farewell." 
 
 "Madame goes not on the ice?" said the abbe; 
 and then, unable to resist, demurely added, " It would 
 not make colder madame." 
 
 " I do not understand," said literal Hephzibah, 
 "why it should not make me cold." 
 
 " I did say colder} said the abbe, while Elizabeth 
 shook her fan at him, to his delight. 
 
 " I shall see you soon," said Hephzibah, and so left 
 them. 
 
74 
 
 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IT was a gay and merry scene on which the little 
 party looked as they stood in their winter wraps at 
 the top of the hill which sloped downward abruptly 
 from Front Street to the river. The broad highway 
 was covered with beaten snow, and at the river s 
 brink a wide planking of wooden boards extended 
 from the edge of the wharf down on to the solid ice 
 of the stream. On either side bonfires were blazing, 
 and lit with flashing glow the hipped roofs and red 
 brick gables at the corners of Front and Water 
 Streets. On the deep ice of the solid river, far over 
 towards Windmill Island, fires were also seen, and 
 around these swift-flitting figures on skates went to 
 and fro, dimly seen for a moment and then lost in 
 the darkness which lay upon all distant objects. 
 
 At the line of Front Street a crowd of the better 
 class of people was gathered, intently watching the 
 scene. Boys, men, and girls on long sleds were 
 gliding every minute from the top of the hill. At 
 first slowly, with noise and shouts of laughter, they 
 started away : then the pace quickened and they flew 
 past the fires on the hill-slope of the street, now seen, 
 now lost, now seen again, until with a cry they 
 gained the ice of the river and darted with delicious 
 speed across the black, smooth plane of the silent 
 Delaware. 
 
 It was the first time Marguerite had set foot on a 
 
HEP HZ IB AH GUINNESS. 75 
 
 frozen river, and she had an odd sense of awe and in 
 security. Then the wildness of the picture began to 
 tell upon her quick and sensitive nature, to the abbe s 
 amusement and pleasure, for he had become strangely 
 fond of the charming little Quaker lady. 
 
 Here and there on the ice were bonfires, from which 
 in every direction fell broad flaring shafts of rosy 
 light broken by the long shadows of the skaters as 
 they flew around the blaze. Many of the coasters 
 also carried pine-knot torches, and as they dashed 
 by the little party with cry and laugh the lights 
 flared, and then sped away over the ice until they 
 became but as red stars in the distance. 
 
 At last the girl urged that they should go over to 
 Windmill Island, where hundreds of people were 
 seen by the light of a vast fire engaged in barbecuing 
 an ox. Here they lingered a while, and then the 
 abbe, having learned that the ice was firm and safe, pro 
 posed that they should venture over a little towards 
 the Jersey shore. Accordingly, they crossed the 
 narrow islet, and walked some two hundred yards 
 out on the farther ice. Here were no fires, but a dark 
 quiet, with but a few score skaters who preferred the 
 tranquil loneliness of the broader channel. 
 
 "How solemn it is, aunt!" said the girl as the 
 black night grew about them over the dark ice, 
 while, noticed only by Marguerite, a swift form on 
 skates flew around them, now near, now far, in grace 
 ful curves. 
 
 Lured by the beauty of the faint moonlight on 
 the ice and by the charm of the less-occupied parts 
 of the frozen stream, they had gone some distance 
 
7 6 
 
 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 farther, when the abbe said abruptly, " What is 
 that ?" 
 
 A loud cracking sound came from the ice some 
 distance below them. In this direction the river was 
 partly open, and the gleam of the moonlight was 
 visible on the clear water among the cakes of floating 
 ice. As they stood to listen ten or twelve skaters 
 clustered about them. Then there was another and 
 a louder sound. 
 
 " The ice must be breaking up with the ebb tide," 
 said Miss Howard, startled. " Come, let us get back 
 to the island." 
 
 " Ah, yes, we shall do well to make haste," said 
 the abbe, as the sounds, great and small, came quick 
 and sharp through the keen, clear, frosty stillness. 
 
 At this moment the group scattered as if a bomb 
 shell had fallen among them. The skaters flew to 
 right and left as a loud noise like a pistol-shot rang 
 almost beneath their feet, while a crack ran along the 
 ice, dimly seen as the cleft suddenly widened. The 
 abbe and Miss Howard sprang back, and the latter, 
 looking wildly around, cried out, " Marguerite ! where 
 are you ? Marguerite !" 
 
 The girl in her curiosity at these mysterious sounds 
 had ventured away a score of yards farther towards 
 the open water. " Here, here, Aunt Bess !" she 
 answered, running towards her aunt. 
 
 " Oh, my God !" cried Miss Howard. " My child ! 
 my child !" for the ebbing tide had broadened the 
 cleft swiftly, so that as they stayed by the edge it had 
 grown in a few moments to a space some five or six 
 feet broad. 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 77 
 
 "Jump! jump over!" screamed Elizabeth. "We 
 will catch you." 
 
 At this moment several persons came forward, and 
 a tall young man on skates cried out in a voice of 
 command, " For the love of the saints, do not move ! 
 It is now too late. Wait !" Jn an instant he was 
 away, flitting back into the darkness. Then, when a 
 hundred feet off, he turned short, and crying aloud, 
 " Gare ! gare ! I would say, Take care ! place ! 
 place !" he skated with desperate energy straight 
 towards the group, and, hardly pausing, gathered 
 himself up at the edge of the rift and with a leap 
 bounded over the open space of water, and coming 
 down on the far side rocked to and fro, recovered his 
 balance, flew along with the wild impulse of his leap, 
 and returning in one long curve was at the side of 
 the frightened girl. The ice was fast floating away. 
 
 " It is I," he cried. " I will answer for her with 
 my life. It is I, Henri de Vismes !" 
 
 "My nephew!" exclaimed the abbe. "Be tran 
 quil : he will take care of her." 
 
 " What shall we do ?" returned Miss Howard. 
 
 " Get ashore," cried young De Vismes, " before 
 the ice breaks. Seek men, that they do bring us a 
 boat." 
 
 " Oh, my darling !" wailed Elizabeth. 
 
 " Have no fear," exclaimed the young baron, now 
 hardly seen ; and the ice, as they exchanged quick, 
 agitated words of cheer and comfort and alarm, still 
 moved farther and farther away. They could now 
 only hear the voices of Marguerite and De Vismes, 
 who themselves were no longer visible. 
 
 7* 
 
7 8 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 " Come," said the abbe. " There is to us but the 
 one thing to do." And in silent horror Elizabeth 
 followed him quickly over the ice to the shore of the 
 island. 
 
 Meanwhile, the fretting river worked its will, and 
 with crush and cry and groan and shocks the broken 
 floes separated from the main mass and floated off, 
 now grinding together, now thrust apart. The ice- 
 island on which the two young people stood was 
 about half an acre in extent, and quite safe from , 
 being overwhelmed. The danger was chiefly, as the 
 baron knew, from the intense winter cold, which 
 happily was made less terrible by the absence of 
 wind. 
 
 The moment he was secure on the ice De Vismes 
 said to Marguerite, " Have not fear, little lady : you 
 are safe. It is but to wait." 
 
 " I am not afraid," she answered, " but I am sorry 
 for aunt. And I thank you so very much : I do not 
 think many men could have done that, and" with a 
 pause " I am sure many would not." 
 
 The young baron laughed gayly : " It was nothing 
 to do, and I could not have left you alone. I should 
 have gone through the water that I might come to 
 you. Is it not droll that we should know one another 
 thus? jfe me presente, mademoiselle. I am the baron 
 Henri de Vismes." 
 
 "And I," said his companion, "am Miss Marguerite 
 Howard." And she courtesied, laughing at the 
 strangeness of the scene. 
 
 Meanwhile, as they talked, the baron undid his 
 skates, and then, noticing that the girl shuddered, he 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 79 
 
 said, " It makes very cold here. If it were that we 
 had a bonfire !" Then he took off his cloak. " Put 
 this around you," he added. 
 
 Marguerite insisted that she was warm enough. 
 "You will freeze," she exclaimed. 
 
 " I am happy," he said, " and they who are happy 
 do not suffer." 
 
 " Why are you happy ?" said Marguerite, shivering. 
 " I am sure I am not." 
 
 " Because," he said, quietly, " I am with you." 
 
 She was silent, and, innocent as she was, some 
 instinct restrained her tongue while the cloak was 
 thrown around her and the clasp fastened by two 
 strong hands, which shook as they touched her 
 throat. 
 
 " Let us walk," he exclaimed. " It is safe that we 
 keep moving." 
 
 In this manner two hours fled away. Marguerite, 
 despite the cloak, was shaking with the growing cold 
 of the night, and De Vismes was becoming chilled 
 and anxious. She begged to sit down, but the young 
 man urged her to motion, and, taking her hand and 
 laughing, made her run to and fro on the ice. 
 
 At last she said, " I am strangely sleepy : let me 
 rest." 
 
 " To rest is to die," said he, calmly; and again they 
 moved about, both of them silent and filled with a 
 dread of which they did not speak, while the ice 
 floated down the river towards the Point House, and 
 the lights and the bonfires grew dimmer and dimmer. 
 
 After a long silence Marguerite exclaimed, " I can 
 not walk now : my head swims, my feet must be 
 
8o HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 frozen : I cannot feel them. Oh, I shall die !" And, 
 so saying, she reeled, and but for the ready arms 
 which caught her would have fallen on the ice. De 
 Vismes laid her down, resting her head on his knee, 
 and without a word stripped off his coat and waist 
 coat, and, glancing anxiously and sadly over the 
 water, wrapped his clothes around her, put his cap 
 under her head and began to rub her feet. Presently 
 she revived a little under the influence of one of those 
 strange waves of reanimation which surprise the 
 watchers by death-beds when life is slowly failing. 
 " Where am I ?" she said. " Who are you ?" 
 
 " I am Henri de Vismes," he answered. " We are 
 on the ice alone. Pray God they do soon come to 
 us, or we die of cold!" 
 
 " I remember now," she said. " You said we must 
 walk : I cannot walk, but you are a man and are 
 strong. Do you run on the ice, and perhaps you 
 may live to tell Aunt Bess how I loved her. You 
 see, I am quite warm: I have no pain now no pain." 
 And her voice failed. 
 
 De Vismes was kneeling beside her as she spoke. 
 " I shall not ever leave you," he said, " but soon I 
 may not be able to speak. Therefore think not I 
 shall go." And he caught her close to him, and as 
 her head lay on his shoulder he said, " I did not 
 mean to tell you until I had said it to your aunt, but 
 now it does not make matter: I love thee. Canst 
 hear me say I love thee ?" And he looked piteously 
 down at the dimly-seen face beneath his, and then 
 across the cruel waste of rocking ice-floes. 
 
 She murmured something. 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 8 1 
 
 "What dost say, Marguerite?" And he drew her 
 closer. 
 
 "I thought there would be some one who would 
 love me some day," she muttered. " Aunt Bess 
 thinks not. Ah, she did not know." Then she was 
 silent, and spoke no words in answer to his broken 
 wail of love and pity. 
 
 De Vismes sat still, feeling, as did Marguerite, the 
 cold less and less, and growing confused in mind and 
 more easy in body. He saw the dim outlines of the 
 splendid sweep of the Jura Mountains, the turreted 
 chateau, the warm summer sun on the walnut-groves. 
 He dreamed of warmth as a man who starves dreams 
 of banquets. Then he thought how many De Vismes 
 had died in the saddle, at sea, by the axe, and that 
 he, the only one left, was to perish of cold ; and then 
 of a sudden he rose up, staggering and still holding 
 the girl, and cried aloud, " Torches ! lights ! Wake 
 up, wake up, Marguerite ! wake ! Saved ! saved !" 
 and reeling fell with her, while cries rang across the 
 moonlit river and swift feet hastened from a boat 
 along the ice. 
 
 When the young baron awakened from the swoon 
 which had almost been death he was lying in a chintz- 
 curtained bed with high mahogany posts. As his 
 head cleared he saw by the dim light Miss Howard 
 seated near the fire. " Mademoiselle !" he exclaimed. 
 " Mon Dieu ! where am I ?" 
 
 Miss Howard was at his side in a moment, and 
 drew aside the curtains. " You are in my house," 
 she said, kindly. "Ask no questions now. You 
 have been ill, very ill." 
 
82 HEPHZIBAII GUINNESS. 
 
 " But/ he said, "je m en souviens. Ah, yes, the ice !" 
 And he started up. "And Marguerite, mademoi 
 selle?" 
 
 " She is well," said Miss Howard, " doing well." 
 
 "Ah!" he murmured, and, still feeble, fell back 
 again. 
 
 After this the days went by, and with them mem 
 ory returned, and he made out, as it were bit by bit, 
 the scene on the ice, and learned that Marguerite 
 had recovered even more rapidly than he. Then his 
 uncle came to see him, and he began to get about 
 his room, and to feel that he should no longer tax 
 this generous hospitality. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MEANWHILE, in Elizabeth Howard s bosom was 
 raging a storm of emotions which taxed to the 
 uttermost her unusual powers of self-control. For 
 years she had sedulously, almost ridiculously, 
 guarded Marguerite from contact with the other sex. 
 She had told Arthur that she meant in the spring to 
 remove to the country, and there to isolate her niece 
 until she could fully make clear to her why she must 
 never think of marriage, and why her life and fate 
 must be different from those of a woman whom 
 destiny had left free to love. With her her race 
 must end. And now a pitiless accident had rudely 
 broken the guard she had set about her niece for 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 83 
 
 in his ravings De Vismes had only too clearly told 
 the story of his passionate first love. 
 
 But perhaps he alone loved ; and at last she saw 
 that he too must be told their miserable history, and 
 that Marguerite s young life must also be darkened 
 by this sombre knowledge. Miss Howard was not a 
 person to abandon a purpose to which duty and a 
 clear intelligence had guided her, and once resolved 
 she waited only until De Vismes was well enough to 
 bear an appeal to his honor and manliness. 
 
 In pursuance of her views she so arranged it that 
 when De Vismes and Marguerite first met after their 
 illness it should be in her own presence. There was 
 to be no chance for sudden love-passages arising out 
 of natural gratitude ; and she was half amused, half 
 sad at the awkward greetings which passed between 
 the two as she brought them together in her parlor. 
 But love has eyes as well as lips, and rosy blazonry 
 on cheeks that glow with too warm consciousness of 
 unspoken thoughts. 
 
 Just, however, as the scene was growing awkward, 
 Hephzibah appeared, and after many questions asked 
 and answered, for the Quaker spinster was of a curi 
 ous cast of mind, she turned with her usual abrupt 
 ness upon De Vismes, saying, " Thou wilt be going 
 to thy lodgings soon, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Yes," said the young man, coloring : " I have 
 been too long an intruder here." 
 
 " We owe you too much to think you anything 
 but one of our own household," said Elizabeth, while 
 Marguerite looked up coyly thankful. 
 
 " Yet it is time that I went away," said De Vismes, 
 
84 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 " but there will be no time that I shall regret to have 
 been here. It will be that I go to-morrow." 
 
 " Is there no news of Mr. Guinness ?" said Eliza 
 beth. 
 
 " None of late," replied Hephzibah ; and so saying 
 left them. 
 
 The evening sped away pleasantly with cards and 
 mirth, and the abbe told his little stories of the French 
 court. At last, Marguerite having gone to bed and 
 the abbe departed, De Vismes rose and said to Miss 
 Howard, " This will be my last good-night in your 
 house. Bon soir, mademoiselle. I shall be grieved 
 to leave you : I shall not ever forget." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Howard, rising, " it will be your 
 last good-night here ;" and she paused. " Will you 
 be seated a little while ? I have something to say 
 to you." 
 
 De Vismes looked suprised, but with ready polite 
 ness sat down again, saying, " Is it that I can serve 
 you in any way ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Elizabeth; "more than you guess, 
 perhaps more than you will wish." 
 
 " Mademoiselle does not yet know me," said De 
 Vismes. 
 
 Elizabeth went on abruptly : " You are young and 
 joyous, and life seems gladsome to you despite many 
 sorrows." 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " I have of late come to think of 
 it as most sweet." 
 
 "And therefore," said she, sadly, " I think it cruel, 
 even if in the end it be kind, to speak as I must do. 
 You love my niece." 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 35 
 
 " Ah, mademoiselle knows it ! she has guessed it ! 
 How kind of her to save a young man the awkward 
 task to speak, to say he loves !" 
 
 "No more," said Miss Howard. "I know it; and 
 you would have died for her?" 
 
 " Died for her, if it might be, a thousand deaths," 
 said he. " I " 
 
 " And if so," broke in Elizabeth," if that be true, 
 would you give her up and go away if I show you 
 that to marry her would be wrong wrong to her, 
 wrong to yourself to your race, to your blood, to 
 your children s children ?" 
 
 De Vismes grew pale : " What is it mademoiselle 
 would say ? If that she will come to love me, why 
 is it we may not marry ? There is no shameful thing 
 possible." 
 
 Miss Howard rose : the task was too hard for her. 
 The frank, anxious young face followed her as she 
 went and came. At last she paused : " There is in 
 her blood, in my blood, a taint : we are born to be 
 insane, to take our own lives. We are of a doomed 
 race. We may not love as others do. God has set 
 a curse on us. We may not marry; we may not see 
 our little ones grow up and bless us as other women 
 do. They would come to curse us when they knew. 
 They would ask, Why were we born to this misery ? 
 Ah, it is a terrible thing that you have come to love 
 Marguerite ! But you will pardon me my abruptness : 
 I meant to make it gentle, but how can I ?" 
 
 De Vismes looked and felt bewildered. The sud 
 denness of the blow indeed overcame him. " I will 
 think of what you have said to me, mademoiselle: 
 
86 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 I cannot now gather myself to think of it. I I 
 never yet did hear of such a thing : I must have time 
 to reflect." 
 
 " Reflect !" said Elizabeth. " No, no ; you must 
 act, not reflect. You love her ; that is a reason to 
 act. You must go away, and come back no more. 
 You must never see her again on earth. Then I 
 shall know how to save her. Oh, for God s sake, do 
 not make it more hard for me! If you will not help 
 me, I must tell her. How can I tell her?" 
 
 " But if she loves me," cried he, in despair, " how 
 am I to go, to go and leave her, to see her no 
 more, to let her think of me, a French gentleman, 
 a noble, as of a man who would say when as if 
 about to die, I love thee, and then fly and make no 
 sign ?" 
 
 " But I will tell her when you are gone," said 
 Elizabeth. " You shall lose nothing in my hands. 
 Surely you can trust me. And then she does not 
 love you : I am sure she cannot. It will be you 
 only who will suffer, and I appeal to you as a 
 gentleman to save her. I am sure she does not 
 love you." 
 
 " That may be," he said, sorely shaken. 
 
 " You ought not to hesitate," said Miss Howard; 
 "you ought to go. Do not stay until you win her 
 young heart, only that inevitable parting may break 
 it. Why wait? You seem as though you would 
 yield if you believed what I say. Ah, trust me, she 
 does not love you." 
 
 " If this be so, I will go," said De Vismes, white 
 as a sheet. " I will go, because you are right ; but 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. %j 
 
 if I thought she loved me, I would trust to the good 
 God s mercy and stay." 
 
 " Oh, my heavens !" cried Elizabeth, in despair. 
 " She does not love you." 
 
 As she spoke, Marguerite glided swiftly into the 
 room, crying out, " You have no right to speak for 
 me, Aunt Bess. I I came down because I had for 
 gotten to kiss you good-night, and I heard you. I 
 I Oh, Aunt Bess, I do love him! Is it wrong?" 
 
 " Marguerite !" said De Vismes ; and he caught 
 her in his arms. 
 
 "Oh, my children!" exclaimed Elizabeth. As she 
 spoke the knocker sounded again and again. 
 
 " What is that?" said Miss Howard. " It is late; 
 what can it be ?" And the little commonplaces of life 
 broke into their storm of fears and hopes and made 
 a sudden quiet. 
 
 " I will go to see," said De Vismes, "if you please. 
 The maid must have gone to bed. They knock 
 again." 
 
 " Yes, oblige me by seeing who it is. They seem 
 in haste," said Elizabeth. 
 
 De Vismes went into the entry and hastily opened 
 the door. He fell back in amazement as Hephzibah, 
 not recognizing him, went past him with no more 
 notice than to say, " Is thy mistress in the parlor?" 
 and then suddenly broke into the room. 
 
 Elizabeth and Marguerite rose in amazement. 
 
 Hephzibah stood still an instant in the doorway, 
 her drab cloak dripping, her scant gray locks fallen 
 about her face and neck, without bonnet or other 
 headgear. 
 
88 HEPHZIBAIl GUINNESS. 
 
 "What is it?" cried Miss Howard. 
 
 Hephzibah seized her arm and leaned forward. 
 "He is dead !" she said. " Thou hast killed him." 
 
 " I ? Who ?" exclaimed Elizabeth. 
 
 "Arthur, my Arthur, my brother Arthur ! Do not 
 look at me so. Go down on thy knees and pray for 
 forgiveness." 
 
 " For Heaven s love," said Elizabeth, " what is it, 
 woman ? Did you say Arthur was dead ? Tell me 
 about it. I I never did trust you : this cannot 
 be." 
 
 " He is dead," said Hephzibah, " drowned, the 
 ship lost, the news just come. I loved no one like 
 him. Why didst thou deny him the poor gift that 
 would have kept him here ?" 
 
 " If," said Elizabeth, " my dear Arthur is gone to 
 God, I am answerable to the dead alone. My love ! 
 my love !" And she sank into a chair in a passion 
 of tears, while De Vismes and her niece ran to her 
 side and silently stood by her as if to comfort and 
 protect her. 
 
 Hephzibah, white, trembling, with hands knitted 
 in front of her, and with working fingers, remained 
 alone and speechless, looking down upon the little 
 group. At last she said, with a curious unnatural 
 firmness, " There are many things to talk of, Eliza 
 beth Howard." 
 
 Elizabeth looked up. "Are you of flesh and blood, 
 woman?" she cried. "Go! go away! I cannot talk 
 with you to-night. Take her home, some one." 
 
 " That were best," said De Vismes. 
 
 " I should better do my Master s errand were I to 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 8 9 
 
 forget on His service the loved one I have lost," 
 returned Hephzibah. " To-day is His time. To 
 morrow, to-morrow Who owns to-morrow ? 
 
 Had I been more ready in the past to warn my 
 brother of the snares of the worldlings, he might 
 yet be alive." 
 
 " Go !" said Miss Howard. And De Vismes took 
 the Quakeress kindly but firmly by the arm, saying, 
 " Come ; the time is not well for speech." And they 
 turned and left the room. 
 
 " Poor Aunt Bess !" cried Marguerite. " If only I 
 could do something for you !" 
 
 " Only One can do that, my child," said Elizabeth. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE news of Arthur Guinness s death fell with 
 varied influence upon those who were near or dear 
 to him. 
 
 An awful temptation was by Fate put away from 
 the path of Miss Howard. The man she loved was 
 taken, and with him went, as she knew only too well, 
 much of the little sunshine of her life. It was more 
 like widowhood to her than such a loss would have 
 been to a younger woman ; and it was characteristic 
 of the woman and of her life that after the first sharp 
 anguish she accepted her new sorrow as brave men 
 accept sentence of death, and that with eyes more 
 
 8* 
 
9 o 
 
 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 than ever set on the future she took up the threads 
 of duty anew, and went sweetly and pleasantly along 
 the ways of life. 
 
 To Hephzibah she was that enigma which a person 
 with a strong overruling sense of humor must always 
 be to one who knows no note in the wide gamut of 
 mirth-making thoughts. That, as time went on, Miss 
 Howard could smile, nay, worse, laugh, that the 
 little events of daily life could still afford her amuse 
 ment, seemed to Hephzibah a constant insult to her 
 brother s memory. But some laugh through life, 
 laugh if they win or lose ; and some cry if they 
 always win ; and Elizabeth would have gone with a 
 smile to any fate which life could bring. The ex 
 asperation which this temperament wrought on 
 Hephzibah had unhappily evil consequences, and 
 perhaps was the overweight which turned the balance 
 of her decisions. 
 
 Her brother s death left her possessed of the pa 
 pers which would give her steady control over the 
 spiritual destinies of Marguerite, whose sole guard 
 ian she now became. She found it easy to assure 
 herself that a fortune was bad for the girl, that to 
 fall under Elizabeth s entire rule was yet more evil for 
 the child. Then, too, Elizabeth, goaded to despair 
 by her new assumptions as time went by, rose in 
 revolt, as any noble nature must have done, until at 
 last Hephzibah became more and more certain that 
 nothing could be surer spiritual death for her ward 
 than the fate which would be hers if the later 
 wishes of William Howard became known. Come 
 what might, a long while must elapse before it be- 
 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. QJ 
 
 came clear through other sources that the child was 
 not destined to Quakerism. Letters were lost every 
 week in those days, and war everywhere made it as 
 likely as not that years would pass before the truth 
 was made manifest. Therefore it was that the letters 
 lay in Arthur Guinness s desk safe enough, and that 
 the months fled away and the spring came. 
 
 Meanwhile, Marguerite went listlessly about her 
 daily tasks, with a sense that much of the sweetness 
 of her young life had gone from her ; for, after one 
 or two more interviews with her lover, she had been 
 told by Miss Howard the dark story of her race, and 
 had come at last, like De Vismes and Arthur Guin 
 ness, to acquiesce in the decree by which Elizabeth 
 had forbidden for them as for herself the thought 
 of love or marriage. 
 
 It was the old, sad, beautiful tale of love con 
 trolled by duty. But to see one another, to meet 
 and to part with no utterance of their forbidden love, 
 was fast becoming a task too grave for youthful hu 
 man hearts. The baron felt that it behooved him as 
 a man to end the ever-renewed struggle by leaving 
 the city. Therefore on an afternoon in the end of 
 May there was a scene in Miss Howard s home of 
 bitter final parting, from which De Vismes tore him 
 self away with the sobs of Marguerite echoing in 
 his ears. He went out through the paling fence, 
 and moved westward along Shippen to Argyle 
 Street, half consciously avoiding the ways where he 
 could meet faces that he knew. Here he turned 
 westward on his favorite walk towards the Neck, 
 along Kingsessing Road, then lined with fields and 
 
9 2 
 
 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 pasture-grounds, and presently felt a kindly arm on 
 his own and heard his uncle say, " Thou hast been 
 hurt of a woman, my dear. Shall I be disagreeable 
 to walk with thee? I know that fortune went not 
 well with thee, Henri, because we are poor and 
 friendless. Were it not so, thy Quaker maid had 
 not said nay to one of our house." 
 
 " But, uncle," said the baron, " it is still as I told 
 thee. There is more to put us one from the other 
 than the want of love. It is not my secret, and I 
 cannot tell thee." 
 
 " As thou pleasest," said the abbe. " Women are 
 alike all the world over: men may vary, but women 
 never. Ah, if I could but endow thee with my ex 
 perience, thou mightst have good luck with the lady. 
 And she is handsome too, and I am told will have a 
 good dot. One acquires experience too late." 
 
 The baron was silent, as his mood fitted not with 
 the abbe s cynical ways, and they walked along qui 
 etly. By and by they came upon the Penrose Ferry 
 Road, and the frogs began to croak their vespers 
 and a faint haze rose up over the broad meadows of 
 the Neck lands, while the setting sun, large, round, 
 and crimson, hung on the far horizon s verge across 
 the Schuylkill. A windmill s sails turned slowly on 
 the left of the road, and the sound of the milking- 
 pans and the lowing of cows crossed the flat pas 
 tures and ditches, and came pleasantly to the ears of 
 the exiles as they paused to listen, soothed by the 
 peaceful sweetness of the hour. Then a flock of 
 sheep came along the road, and as they jostled one 
 another the dust of the highway made a cloud of 
 
HEP HZ I BAH GUINNESS. 
 
 93 
 
 rosy gold over and about them and the herdsman 
 who walked behind in a check cloak and slouched 
 hat. 
 
 " It is like our Normandy," said the abbe. " But, 
 mon Dieu, what is this ?" for as he spoke they were 
 aware of a tall, largely-made man coming towards 
 them with quick steps. 
 
 The baron darted forward : " It is is it ? nay, it 
 is you, Mr. Guinness ! Where is it that you have 
 come from ? We have thought you dead." 
 
 " Ah, this is most happy," cried the abbe. 
 
 " By the will of Providence," said Arthur, " it is 
 indeed I, a man saved after shipwreck and many 
 perils. I landed at New Castle to-day, and made 
 haste to drive home, but, my carnage breaking 
 down, I am come these last few miles afoot. Are all 
 well, Elizabeth, Hephzibah, Marguerite ?" 
 
 "All," said the baron; "and what joy will there 
 be!" 
 
 Then Arthur went on to tell his story, and at last 
 it was agreed that the abbe should hasten in advance 
 to tell Hephzibah, and that the baron should also 
 warn Miss Howard, lest the women should be too 
 much startled by this sudden return of Arthur. 
 
 The abbe reached Miss Guinness s house a half- 
 hour after, and with what result we shall presently 
 hear. When, still later, he entered Miss Howard s 
 home, he found the little group, half in tears, half in 
 laughter, surrounding the dear friend who had so 
 unexpectedly come back. Elizabeth was saying to 
 the baron, " It was good and thoughtful of you to 
 come beforehand and tell me. I thank you." And 
 
94 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 then a small hand stole furtively into his, and he felt 
 by its tender touch that he was still better thanked. 
 
 "But what ails thee, friend De Vismes ?" said 
 Arthur; and all turned to look at the abbe, who was 
 flushed and excited. 
 
 " Oh, a thing most strange," replied the abbe, " and 
 I must tell it." 
 
 "Why not?" said Miss Howard, looking up with 
 flushed and joyful face. 
 
 " And I must leave thee," said Arthur. " It was 
 on my way to pass here, and I could not go by with 
 out a word ; but now I would seek Hephzibah." 
 
 "She is not in her house," said the abbe; "and 
 before you go I may ask that a thing be for me made 
 clear." 
 
 "And what?" said Arthur. "Tell us soon, for I 
 may not tarry on my way home." 
 
 "I did go," said the abbe, "with haste to tell 
 mademoiselle the sister of your soon coming, but the 
 small maid gave me assurance that she was not at 
 home ; and then I did think I would leave a word 
 written to say all I had to say ; and that I might 
 write I was asked of the maid to go into the room 
 of M. Guinness, where sometimes we have smoked. 
 And when, the maid having opened the desk and left 
 me, I ended the little note, I saw with amazement on 
 a bundle of papers which had a look to be old the 
 name of me, Gaston de Vismes, abbe. And as it 
 seemed of my address, I did not attend long before 
 I unfolded the sheets and read. What I read was to 
 me as a dream, as a dream of the past, as a tale of 
 the dead, of my sister. I am troubled : I say, This 
 
HEPHZ1BAH GUINNESS, 95 
 
 is mine. I find in the leaves a letter of Miss How 
 ard : I bring it too, I bring all. You will make for 
 me excuses. This paper is what the dead say. It 
 disturbs me, I am shaken. Here is the letter for 
 you, Mademoiselle Howard." 
 
 At this moment Hephzibah entered the room ; 
 she had come by an accident hither. She saw first 
 in the abbe s hands the papers she had concealed, 
 and heard his last rapid, troubled sentences. 
 
 " Thou hast stolen my papers," she said, coldly ; 
 and then of a sudden, as she advanced a step, she 
 caught sight of Arthur, who ran forward as she 
 spoke. 
 
 " Hephzibah ! sister !" he cried, " I am come again. 
 Our heavenly Father has heard thy prayers." 
 
 " Arthur !" she said, and for a brief moment, 
 locked in his strong arms, she remembered only 
 that this one loved heart yet beat. But then sud 
 denly there came upon her the horror and fear of 
 the discovery which was about to spring upon her. 
 She was not a woman to wait her fate or keep si 
 lence, hoping to escape. While the little group 
 watched this solemn meeting of the brother and sis 
 ter she gathered herself up, calmly adjusted her gray 
 bonnet, and said, " Wilt thou come home with me, 
 Arthur? I have much to say. These papers were 
 in a cover addressed by thee to me : I will take them 
 now." And she moved towards the amazed abbe. 
 
 " Nay," said Elizabeth, " it seems that they belong 
 to the abbe. And my own letter, it has a distant 
 date. Why, woman, did you really dare to keep this 
 from me ?" 
 
96 HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 
 
 " What does this mean ?" said Arthur ; and all eyes 
 turned upon Hephzibah. 
 
 " Give me my papers," she said. " We should talk 
 of them alone, Arthur." 
 
 " But," said the abbe, " I have read them." 
 
 " Thou hast read them ?" said Hephzibah, in meas 
 ured tones. 
 
 " Why not ?" exclaimed Arthur, puzzled. 
 
 " And they say that it was my sister, the Marquise 
 de la Roche, which Mr. Howard did marry to save 
 from death ; and the child is my niece, and not his 
 daughter." 
 
 " Impossible !" said Elizabeth. " What dream is 
 this ?" And she seized the girl as if fearing to lose 
 her, and added, " But you kept these papers, Heph 
 zibah ? You thought Arthur dead : you meant to 
 keep them always. Oh, woman! woman! how could 
 you ? Arthur, I would not have told this : I did not 
 know. I am sorry : I pity her." 
 
 " Thou hast no need," said Hephzibah. " What I 
 did was under a concern, but the way has not opened, 
 and I am freed." 
 
 " Oh, Hephzibah !" exclaimed Arthur, and sinking 
 into a chair he covered his face. 
 
 " I am grieved only to have hurt thee, brother," 
 said Hephzibah. " The girl is lost to Friends : the 
 world hath her." 
 
 " And," cried the young De Vismes, " she is of our 
 own blood, my cousin ! A/i, mon ame /" And he 
 caught the bewildered girl in his arms, while Heph 
 zibah turned quietly and went out into the street. 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 ONCE on a time I was leaning over a book of the 
 costumes of forty years before, when a little lady said 
 to me, " How ever could they have loved one another 
 in such queer bonnets ?" And now that since then 
 long years have sped away, and the little critic is, 
 alas ! no longer young, haply her children, looking 
 up at her picture, by Sully, in a turban and short waist, 
 may have wondered to hear how, in such disguise, she 
 too was fatal to many hearts, and set men by the ears, 
 and was a toast at suppers in days when the waltz 
 was coming in and the solemn grace of the minuet 
 lingered in men s manners. 
 
 And so it is, that, calling up anew the soft Sep 
 tember mornings of which I would draw a picture 
 before they fade away with me also, from men s 
 minds, it is the quaintness of dress which first comes 
 back to me, and I find myself wondering that in 
 nankeen breeches and swallow-tailed blue coats with 
 buttons of brass once lived men who, despite gnarled- 
 rimmed beavers and much wealth of many-folded 
 E S 9 97 
 
98 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 cravats, loved and were loved as well and earnestly 
 as we. 
 
 I had been brought up in the austere quiet of a 
 small New England town, where life was sad and 
 manners grave, and when about eighteen served for 
 a while in the portion of our army then acting in the 
 North. The life of adventure dissatisfied me with 
 my too quiet home, and when the war ended, I was 
 glad to accept the offer of an uncle in China to enter 
 his business house. To prepare for this it was de 
 cided that I should spend six months with one of the 
 great East India firms. For this purpose I came to 
 Philadelphia, and by and by found myself a boarder 
 in an up-town street, in a curious household ruled 
 over by a lady of the better class of the people called 
 Friends. 
 
 For many days I was a lonely man among the 
 eight or ten persons who came down, one by one, at 
 early hours to our breakfast table and ate somewhat 
 silently and went their several ways. Mostly, we 
 were clerks in the India houses which founded so 
 many Philadelphia fortunes, but there were also two 
 or three of whom we knew little, and who went and 
 came as they liked. 
 
 It was a quiet lodging-house, where, because of 
 being on the outskirts and away from the fashion and 
 stir of the better streets, those chiefly came who 
 could pay but little, and among them some of the 
 luckless ones who are always to be found in such 
 groups, stranded folks, who for the most part have 
 lost hope in life. The quiet, pretty woman who 
 kept the house was of an ancient Quaker stock which 
 
THEE AND YOU. 99 
 
 had come over long ago in a sombre Quaker May 
 flower, and had by and by gone to decay, as the best 
 of families will. When I first saw her and some of 
 her boarders it was on a pleasant afternoon early in 
 September, and I recall even now the simple and 
 quiet picture of the little back parlor where I sat 
 down among them as a new guest. I had been tran 
 quilly greeted, and had slipped away into a corner 
 behind a table, whence I looked out with some curi 
 osity on the room and on the dwellers with whom 
 my lot was to be cast for a long while to come. I 
 was a youth shy with the shyness of my age, but 
 having had a share of rough, hardy life, ruddy of 
 visage and full of that intense desire to know things 
 and people that springs up quickly in those who have 
 lived in country hamlets far from the stir and bustle 
 of city life. 
 
 The room I looked upon was strange, the people 
 strange. On the floor was India matting, cool and 
 white. A panel of painted white woodwork ran 
 around an octagonal chamber, into which stole 
 silently the evening twilight through open windows 
 and across a long brick-walled garden-space full of 
 roses and Virginia creepers and odorless wisterias. 
 Between the windows sat a silent, somewhat stately 
 female, dressed in gray silk, with a plain muslin cap 
 about the face, and with long and rather slim arms 
 tightly clad in silk. Her fingers played at hide-and- 
 seek among some marvellous stitchery, evidently a 
 woman whose age had fallen heir to the deft ways of 
 her youth. Over her against the wall hung a portrait 
 of a girl of twenty, somewhat sober in dress, with 
 
IOO 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 what we should call a Martha Washington cap. It 
 was a pleasant face, unstirred by any touch of fate, 
 with calm blue eyes awaiting the future. 
 
 The hostess saw, I fancied, my set gaze, and rising 
 came toward me as if minded to put the new-comer 
 at ease. " Thee does not know our friends ?" she 
 said. " Let me make thee known to them." 
 
 I rose quickly and said, " I shall be most glad." 
 
 We went over toward the dame between the win 
 dows. " Grandmother," she said, raising her voice, 
 " this is our new friend, Henry Shelburne, from New 
 England." 
 
 As she spoke I saw the old lady stir, and after a 
 moment she said, " Has he a four-leaved clover ?" 
 
 " That is what she always says. Thee will get 
 used to it in time." 
 
 " We all do," said a voice at my elbow ; and turn 
 ing, I saw a man of about thirty years old, dressed 
 in the plainest-cut Quaker clothes, but with the con 
 tradiction to every tenet of Fox written on his face, 
 where a brow of gravity forever read the riot act to 
 eyes that twinkled with ill-repressed mirth. W T hen 
 I came to know him well, and saw the preternatural 
 calm of his too quiet lips, I used to imagine that 
 unseen little demons of ready laughter were forever 
 twitching at their corners. 
 
 " Grandmother is very old," said my hostess. 
 
 " Awfully old," said my male friend, whose name 
 proved to be Richard Wholesome. 
 
 " Thee might think it sad to see one whose whole 
 language has come to be just these words, but some 
 times she will be glad and say, Has thee a four- 
 
THEE AND YOU. IOI 
 
 leaved clover ? and sometimes she will be ready to 
 cry, and will say only the same words. But if thee 
 were to say, Have a cup of coffee ? she would but 
 answer, Has thee a four-leaved clover? Does it 
 not seem strange to thee, and sad ? We are used to 
 it, as it might be, quite used to it. And that above 
 her is her picture as a girl." 
 
 " Saves her a deal of talking," said Mr. Wholesome, 
 " and thinking. Any words would serve her as well. 
 Might have said, Topsail halyards, all the same." 
 
 " Richard !" said Mistress White. Mistress Pris- 
 cilla White was her name. 
 
 " Perchance thee would pardon me," said Mr. 
 Wholesome. 
 
 " I wonder," said a third voice in the window, 
 " does the nice old dame know what color has the 
 clover ? and does she remember fields of clover, pink 
 among the green ?" 
 
 " There is a story," said Priscilla, " that when my 
 grandmother was yet a young woman, my grand 
 father on the day that he died, his death being 
 sudden, fetched her from the field a four-leaved 
 clover, and so the memory of it clings while little else 
 is left." 
 
 " Has thee a four-leaved clover ?" re-echoed the 
 voice feebly from between the windows. 
 
 The man who was curious as to the dame s re 
 membrances was a small stout person whose arms 
 and legs did not seem to belong to him, and whose 
 face was strangely gnarled, like the odd face a boy 
 might carve on a hickory-nut, but was withal a visage 
 pleasant and ruddy. 
 
102 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 " That," said Mistress White as she moved away, 
 " is Mr. Schmidt, an old boarder with some odd 
 ways of his own which we mostly forgive. A good 
 man if it were not for his pipe," she added demurely, 
 " altogether a good man." 
 
 " With or without his pipe," said Mr. Wholesome. 
 
 " Richard !" returned our hostess, with a half 
 smile. 
 
 " Without his pipe," he added ; and the unseen 
 demons twitched at the corners of his mouth anew. 
 
 Altogether, these seemed to me droll people, they 
 said so little, and, saving the small German, were so 
 serenely grave. I suppose that first evening must 
 have made a deep mark on my memory, for to this 
 day I recall it with the clearness of a picture still 
 before my eyes. Between the windows sat the old 
 dame with hands quiet on her lap now that the twi 
 light had grown deeper, a silent, gray Quaker 
 sphinx, with only one remembrance out of all her 
 seventy years of life. In the open window sat as in 
 a frame the daughter, a woman of some twenty-five 
 years, rosy yet as only a Quakeress can be when 
 rebel nature flaunts on the soft cheek the colors its 
 owner may not wear on her gray dress. The outline 
 was of a face clearly cut and noble as if copied from 
 a Greek gem, a face filled with a look of constant 
 patience too great perhaps for one woman s share, 
 with a certain weariness in it also, yet cheerful too, 
 and even almost merry at times, the face of one 
 more thoughtful of others than of herself, and, despite 
 toil and sordid cares, a gentlewoman, as was plain 
 to see. The shaft of light from the window in 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 103 
 
 which she sat broadened into the room, and faded to 
 shadow in far corners among chairs with claw toes 
 and shining mahogany tables, the furniture of that 
 day, with a certain flavor about it of elegance, reflect 
 ing the primness and solidness of the owners. I 
 wonder if to-day our furniture represents us too in 
 any wise ? At least it will not through the gener 
 ations to follow us : of that we may be sure. In the 
 little garden, with red gravelled walks between rows 
 of box, Mr. Schmidt walked to and fro, smoking his 
 meerschaum, a rare sight in those days, and almost 
 enough to ensure your being known as odd. He 
 walked about ten paces, and went and came on the 
 same path, while on the wall above a large gray cat 
 followed his motions to and fro, as if having some 
 personal interest in his movements. Against an 
 apricot tree leaned Mr. Wholesome, watching with 
 gleams of amusement the cat and the man, and now 
 and then filliping at the cat a bit of plaster which he 
 pulled from the wall. Then she would start up alert, 
 and the man s face would get to be quizzically un 
 conscious ; after which the cat would settle down and 
 the game begin anew. By and by I was struck with 
 the broad shoulders and easy way in which Whole 
 some carried his head, and the idea came to me that 
 he had more strength than was needed by a member 
 of the Society of Friends, or than could well have 
 been acquired with no greater exercise of the limbs 
 than is sanctioned by its usages. In the garden were 
 also three elderly men, all of them quiet and clerkly, 
 who sat on and about the steps of the other window 
 and chatted of the India ships and cargoes, their talk 
 
104 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 having a flavor of the spices of Borneo and of well- 
 sunned madeira. These were servants of the 
 great India houses when commerce had its nobles, 
 and lines were sharply drawn in social life. 
 
 I was early in bed, and rising betimes went down 
 to breakfast, which was a brief meal, this being, as 
 Mr. Wholesome said to me, the short end of the day. 
 I should here explain that Mr. Wholesome was a 
 junior partner in the house in which I was to learn 
 the business before going to China. Thus he was 
 the greatest person by far in our little household, 
 although on this he did not presume, but seemed to 
 me greatly moved toward jest and merriment, and 
 to sway to and fro between gayety and sadness, or 
 at the least gravity, but more toward the latter when 
 Mistress White was near, she seeming always to be 
 a checking conscience to his mirth. 
 
 On this morning, as often after, he desired me to 
 walk with him to our place of business, of which I 
 was most glad, as I felt shy and lonely. Walking 
 down Arch Street, I was amazed at its cleanliness, 
 and surprised at the many trees and the unfamiliar 
 figures in Quaker dresses walking leisurely. But 
 what seemed to me most curious of all were the plain 
 square meeting-houses of the Friends, looking like 
 the toy houses of children. I was more painfully 
 impressed by the appearance of the graves, one so 
 like another, without mark or number, or anything 
 in the disposition of them to indicate the strength 
 of those ties of kinship and affection which death 
 had severed. Yet I grew to like this quiet highway, 
 and when years after I was in Amsterdam the resem- 
 
THEE AND YOU. IO 5 
 
 blance of its streets to those of the Friends here at 
 home overcame me with a crowd of swift-rushing 
 memories. As I walked down of a morning to my 
 work, I often stopped as I crossed Fifth Street to 
 admire the arch of lindens that barred the view to 
 the westward, or to gaze at the inscription on the 
 Apprentices Library, still plain to see, telling that 
 the building was erected in the eighth year of the 
 Empire. 
 
 One morning Wholesome and I found open the 
 iron grating of Christ Church graveyard, and passing 
 through its wall of red and black glazed brick, he 
 turned sharply to the right, and coming to a corner 
 bade me look down where, under a gray plain slab 
 of worn stone, rests the body of the greatest man, as 
 I have ever thought, whom we have been able to 
 claim as ours. Now a bit of the wall is gone, and 
 through a railing the busy or idle or curious, as they 
 go by, may look in and see the spot without entering. 
 
 Sometimes, too, we came home together, Whole 
 some and I, and then I found he liked to wander and 
 zigzag, not going very far along a street, and showing 
 fondness for lanes and byways. Often he would turn 
 with me a moment into the gateway of the Univer 
 sity Grammar School on Fourth Street, south of 
 Arch, and had, I thought, great pleasure in seeing 
 the rough play of the lads. Or often, as we came 
 home at noon, he liked to turn into Paradise Alley, 
 out of Market Street, and did this, indeed, so often 
 that I came to wonder at it, and the more because in 
 an open space between this alley and Commerce 
 Street was the spot where almost every day the 
 
IO 6 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 grammar-school boys settled their disputes in the 
 way more common then than now. When first we 
 chanced on one of these encounters, I was surprised 
 to see Mr. Wholesome look about him as if to be 
 sure that no one else was near, and then begin to 
 watch the combat with a strange interest. Indeed, 
 on one occasion he utterly astonished me by taking 
 by the hand a small boy who had been worsted and 
 leading him with us, as if he knew the lad, which 
 may well have been. But presently he said, " Reu 
 ben thee said was thy name ?" " Yes, sir," said the 
 lad. "Well," said Mr. Wholesome, after buying 
 him a large and very brown horse gingerbread, two 
 doughnuts, and a small pie, "when you think it 
 worth while to hit a fellow, never slap his face, be 
 cause then he will strike you hard with his fist, which 
 hurts, Reuben. Now, mind : next thee strikes first 
 with the fist, my lad, and hard, too." If I had seen 
 our good Bishop White playing at taws, I could not 
 have been more overcome, and I dare say my face 
 may have shown it, for, glancing at me, he said de 
 murely, "Thee has seen in thy lifetime how hard it 
 is to get rid of what thee liked in thy days of boy 
 hood." After which he added no more in the way 
 of explanation, but walked along with swift strides 
 and a dark and troubled face, silent and thoughtful. 
 I observed many times after this that the habits and 
 manners of Friends sat uneasily on Mr. Wholesome, 
 and that when excited he was quite sure to give up 
 for a time his habitual use of Friends language, and 
 to let slip now and then phrases or words which were 
 in common use among what Mistress Priscilla called 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 ID/ 
 
 world s people. It was a good while before I came 
 to understand the source of these peculiar traits. 
 
 Sometimes in the early morning I walked to my 
 place of business with Mr. Schmidt, who was a man 
 so altogether unlike those about him that I found in 
 him a new and varied interest. He was a German, 
 and spoke English with a certain quaintness and 
 with the purity of speech of one who has learned the 
 tongue from books rather than from men. I found 
 after a while that this guess of mine was a good one, 
 and that, having been bred an artist, he had been put 
 in prison for some political offence, and had in two 
 years of loneliness learned English from our older 
 authors. When at last he was set free he took his 
 little property and came away with a bitter heart to 
 our freer land, where, with what he had and with the 
 lessons he gave in drawing, he was well able to live 
 the life he liked in quiet ease and comfort. He was 
 a kindly man in his ways, and in his talk gently 
 cynical ; so that, although you might be quite sure 
 as to what he would do, you were never as safe as to 
 what he would say ; wherefore to know him a little 
 was to dislike him, but to know him well was to love 
 him. There was a liking between him and Whole 
 some, but each was more or less a source of wonder 
 ment to the other. Nor was it long before I saw 
 that both these men were patient lovers in their way 
 of the quiet and pretty Quaker dame who ruled over 
 our little household, though to the elder man, Mr. 
 Schmidt, she was a being at whose feet he laid a 
 homage which he felt to be hopeless of result, while 
 he was schooled by sorrowful fortunes to accept the 
 
I0 8 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 position as one which he hardly even wished to 
 change. 
 
 It was on a warm sunny morning very early, for 
 we were up and away betimes, that Mr. Schmidt 
 and I and Wholesome took our first walk together 
 through the old market-sheds. We turned into 
 Market Street at Fourth Street, whence the sheds 
 ran downwards to the Delaware. The pictures they 
 gave me to store away in my mind are all of them 
 vivid enough, but none more so than that which I 
 saw with my two friends on the first morning when 
 we wandered through them together. 
 
 On either side of the street the farmers wagons 
 stood backed up against the sidewalk, each making a 
 cheap shop, by which stood the sturdy owners under 
 the trees, laughing and chaffering with their custom 
 ers. We ourselves turned aside and walked down 
 the centre of the street under the sheds. On either 
 side at the entry of the market, odd business was 
 being plied, the traders being mostly colored women 
 with bright chintz dresses and richly-tinted ban 
 danna handkerchiefs coiled turban-like above their 
 dark faces. There were rows of roses in red pots, 
 and venders of marsh calamus, and " Hot corn, sah, 
 smokin hot," and " Pepper-pot, bery nice," and sell 
 ers of horse-radish and snapping-turtles, and of 
 doughnuts dear to grammar-school lads. Within 
 the market was a crowd of gentlefolks, followed by 
 their black servants with baskets, the elderly men 
 in white or gray stockings, with knee-buckles, the 
 younger in very tight nankeen breeches and pumps, 
 frilled shirts, and ample cravats, and long blue swal- 
 
THEE AND YOU. 109 
 
 low-tailed coats with brass buttons. Ladies whose 
 grandchildren go no more to market were there in 
 gowns with strangely short waists and broad gypsy 
 bonnets, with the flaps tied down by wide ribbons 
 over the ears. It was a busy and good-humored 
 throng. 
 
 "Ah," said Schmidt, "what color!" and he stood 
 quite wrapped in the joy it gave him looking at the 
 piles of fruit, where the level morning sunlight, 
 broken by the moving crowd, fell on great heaps of 
 dark-green watermelons and rough cantaloupes, and 
 warmed the wealth of peaches piled on trays backed 
 by red rows of what were then called love-apples, 
 and are now known as tomatoes ; while below the 
 royal yellow of vast overgrown pumpkins seemed to 
 have set the long summer sunshine in their golden 
 cheeks. 
 
 " If these were mine," said Schmidt, " I could not 
 forever sell them. What pleasure to see them grow 
 and steal to themselves such sweet colors out of the 
 rainbow which is in the light!" 
 
 " Thee would make a poor gardener," said Whole 
 some, " sitting on thy fence in the sun and watching 
 thy pumpkins, damn nasty things anyhow!" 
 
 I looked up amazed at the oath, but Schmidt did 
 not seem to remark it, and went on with us, lingering 
 here and there to please himself with the lovely con 
 trasts of the autumn fruit. 
 
 " Curious man is Schmidt," remarked Wholesome 
 as we passed along. " I could wish thee had seen 
 him when we took him this way first. Old Betsey, 
 yonder, sells magnolia flowers in June, and also pond- 
 
110 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 lilies, which thee may know as reasonably pleasant 
 things to thee or me ; but of a sudden I find our 
 friend Schmidt kneeling on the pavement with his 
 head over a tub of these flowers, and every one 
 around much amazed." 
 
 "Was it not seemly?" said Schmidt, joining us. 
 "There are those who like music, but to me what 
 music is there like the great attunement of color? 
 and mayhap no race can in this rise over our black 
 artists hereabout the market-ends." 
 
 " Thee is crazed of many colors," said Wholesome, 
 laughing, " a bull of but one." 
 
 Schmidt stopped short, to Wholesome s disgust. 
 " What," said he, quite forgetful of the crowd, " is 
 more cordial than color ? This he recalleth was a 
 woman black as night, with a red turban and a lapful 
 of magnolias, and to one side red crabs in a basket, 
 and to one side a tubful of lilies. Moss all about, I 
 remember." 
 
 " Come along," said Wholesome. " The man is 
 cracked, and in sunny weather the crack widens." 
 
 And so we went away down street to our several 
 tasks, chatting and amused. 
 
 Those were most happy days for me, and I found 
 at evening one of my greatest pleasures when 
 Schmidt called for me after our early tea and we 
 would stroll together down to the Delaware, where 
 the great India ships lay at wharves covered with 
 casks of madeira and boxes of tea and spices. Then 
 we would put out in his little row-boat and pull away 
 toward Jersey, and, after a plunge in the river at 
 Cooper s Point, would lazily row back again while 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the spire of Christ Church grew dim against the fading 
 sunset, and the lights would begin to show here and 
 there in the long line of sombre houses. By this 
 time we had grown to be sure friends, and a little 
 help from me at a moment when I chanced to guess 
 that he wanted money had made the bond yet 
 stronger. So it came that he talked to me, though I 
 was but a lad, with a curious freedom, which very 
 soon opened to me a full knowledge of those with 
 whom I lived. 
 
 One evening, when we had been drifting silently 
 with the tide, he suddenly said aloud, " A lion in the 
 fleece of the sheep." 
 
 "What?" said I, laughing. 
 
 " I was thinking of Wholesome," he replied. " But 
 you do not know him. Yet he has that in his coun 
 tenance which would betray a more cunning crea 
 ture." 
 
 " How so ?" I urged, being eager to know more of 
 the man who wore the garb and tongue of Penn, and 
 could swear roundly when moved. 
 
 " If it will amuse," said the German, " I will tell 
 you what it befell me to hear to-day, being come 
 into the parlor when Mistress White and Wholesome 
 were in the garden, of themselves lonely." 
 
 " Do you mean," said I, " that you listened when 
 they did not know of your being there ?" 
 
 " And why not ?" he replied. " It did interest me, 
 and to them only good might come." 
 
 " But," said I, " it was not " 
 
 "Well?" he added, as I paused," Was not 
 
 honor/ you were going to say to me. And why 
 
H2 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 not? I obey my nature, which is more curious than 
 stocked with honor. I did listen." 
 
 "And what did you hear?" said I. 
 
 "Ah, hear!" he answered. "What better is the 
 receiver than is the thief? Well, then, if you will 
 share my stolen goods, you shall know, and I will 
 tell you as I heard, my memory being good." 
 
 " But " said I. 
 
 " Too late ; you stop me," he added ; " you must 
 hear now." 
 
 The scene which he went on to sketch was to me 
 strange and curious, nor could I have thought he 
 could give so perfect a rendering of the language, 
 and even the accent, of the two speakers. It was 
 also a revelation of the man himself, and he seemed 
 to enjoy his power, and yet to suffer in the telling, 
 without perhaps being fully conscious of it. The 
 oars dropped from his hands and fell in against the 
 thwarts of the boat, and he clasped his knees and 
 looked up as he talked, not regarding at all his 
 single, silent listener. 
 
 " When this is to be put upon the stage there shall 
 be a garden and two personages." 
 
 " Also," said I, " a jealous listener behind the 
 scenes." 
 
 " If you please," he said promptly, and plunged at 
 once into the dialogue he had overheard : 
 
 " Richard, thee may never again say the words 
 which thee has said to me to-night. There is, thee 
 knows, that between us which is builded up like as 
 a wall to keep us the one from the other. 
 
 " * But men and women change, and a wall crum- 
 
THEE AND YOU. U^ 
 
 bles, or thee knows it may be made to. Years have 
 gone away, and the man who stole from thee thy 
 promise may be dead, for all thee knows. 
 
 " Hush! thee causes me to see him, and though 
 the dead rise not here, I am some way assured he is 
 not yet dead, and may come and say to me " Cilia," 
 that is what he called me, " thee remembers the 
 night and thy promise, and the lightning all around 
 us, and who took thee to shore from the wrecked 
 packet on the Bulkhead Bar." The life he saved I 
 promised. 
 
 " Well, and thee knows By Heaven ! you 
 
 well enough know who tortured the life he gave, 
 who robbed you, who grew to be a mean sot, and 
 went away and left you ; and to such you hold, with 
 such keep faith, and wear out the sweetness of life 
 waiting for him ! 
 
 " Richard ! 
 
 " Have I also not waited, and given up for thee a 
 life, a career, little to give. I hope thee knows I 
 feel that. Has thee no limit, Priscilla ? Thee knows 
 God help me ! how well you know I love you. 
 The world, the old world of war and venture, pulls 
 at me always. Will not you find it worth while to 
 put out a hand of help ? Would it not be God taking 
 your hand and putting it in mine? 
 
 " Thee knows I love thee. 
 
 " And if the devil sent him bacK to curse you 
 anew 
 
 " Shame, Richard ! I would say, the Lord who 
 layeth out for each his way, has pointed mine/ 
 
 " And I? 
 
 h 10* 
 
U4 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 11 1 Thee would continue in goodness, loving me 
 as a sister hardly tried. 
 
 " By God ! I should go away to sea. 
 
 " Richard ! 
 
 " Which is the last word of this scene," added 
 Schmidt. " You mayhap have about you punk and 
 flint and steel." 
 
 I struck a light in silence, feeling moved by the 
 story of the hurt hearts of these good people, and 
 wondering at the man and his tale. Then I said, 
 " Was that all ?" 
 
 " Could you, if not a boy, ask me to say more of 
 it? Light thy pipe and hold thy peace. Happy 
 those who think not of women. I, who have for a 
 
 hearth-side only the fire of an honest pipe Way 
 
 there, my lad ! pull us in and forget what a loose 
 tongue and a soft summer night have given thee to 
 hear from a silly old German who is grown weak of 
 head and sore at soul. How the lights twinkle !" 
 
 Had I felt any doubt at all of the truth of his nar 
 ration, I should have ceased to do so when, for the 
 next few days, I watched Mr. Wholesome, and saw 
 him, while off his guard, looking at Mistress White 
 askance with a certain wistful sadness, as of a great 
 honest dog somehow hurt and stricken. 
 
 When an India ship came in, the great casks of 
 madeira, southside, grape juice, bual, and what not 
 were rolled away into the deep cellars of the India 
 houses on the wharves, and left to purge their vinous 
 consciences of such perilous stuff as was shaken up 
 from their depths during the long homeward voyage. 
 Then, when a couple of months had gone by, it was 
 
THEE AND YOU. II5 
 
 a custom for the merchant to summon a few old gen 
 tlemen to a solemn tasting of the wines old and new. 
 Of this, Mr. Wholesome told me one day, and thought 
 I had better remain to go through the cellars and drive 
 out the bungs and drop in the testers, and the like. 
 " I will also stay with thee," he added, " knowing 
 perhaps better than thee the prices." 
 
 I learned afterward that Wholesome always stayed 
 on these occasions, and I had reason to be glad that 
 I too was asked to stay, for, as it chanced, it gave me 
 a further insight into the character of my friend the 
 junior partner. 
 
 I recall well the long cellar running far back under 
 Water Street, with its rows of great casks, of which 
 Wholesome and I started the bungs while awaiting 
 the new-comers. Presently came slowly down the 
 cellar-steps our senior partner in nankeen shanks, 
 silk stockings, and pumps, a frosty-visaged old 
 man, with a nose which had fully earned the right to 
 be called bottle. Behind him limped our old porter 
 in a blue check apron. He went round the cellar, 
 and at every second cask, having lighted a candle, 
 he held it upside down until the grease had fallen 
 thick on the cask, and then turning the candle stuck 
 it fast in its little pile of tallow, so that by and by 
 the cellar was pretty well lighted. Presently, in 
 groups or singly, came old and middle-aged gentle 
 men, and with the last our friend Schmidt, who wan 
 dered off to a corner and sat on a barrel-head watch 
 ing the effects of the mingling of daylight and can 
 dlelight, and amused in his quiet way at the scene 
 and the intense interest of the chief actors in it, 
 
!l6 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 which, like other things he did not comprehend, had 
 for him the charm of oddness. I went over and 
 stood by him while the porter dropped the tester- 
 glass into the cool depths of cask after cask, and 
 solemn counsel was held and grave decisions reached. 
 I was enchanted with one meagre, little old gentle 
 man of frail and refined figure, who bent over his 
 wine with closed eyes, as if to shut out all the sense- 
 impressions he did not need, while the rest waited to 
 hear what he had to say. 
 
 " Needs a milk fining," muttered the old gentle 
 man, with eyes shut as if in prayer. 
 
 " Wants its back broke with a good lot of egg 
 shell," said a short, stout man with a snuff-colored 
 coat, the collar of which came well up the back of 
 his head. 
 
 "Ach!" murmured Schmidt. "The back to be 
 hurt with eggshell ! What will he say with that ?" 
 
 " Pshaw !" said a third : " give it a little rest, and 
 then the white of an egg to every five gallons. Is it 
 bual?" 
 
 " Is it gruel ?" said our senior sarcastically. 
 
 " Wants age. A good wine for one s grandchil 
 dren," murmured my old friend with shut eyes. 
 
 " What is it he calls gruel ?" whispered Schmidt. 
 " How nice is a picture he makes when he shuts his 
 eyes and the light of the candle comes through the 
 wine, all bright ruby, in the dark here ! And ah, 
 what is that?" for Wholesome, who had been taking 
 his wine in a kindly way, and having his say with 
 that sense of being always sure which an old taster 
 affects, glancing out of one of the little barred cellar- 
 
THEE AND YOU. nj 
 
 windows which looked out over the wharf, said ab 
 ruptly, " Ha ! ha ! that won t do !" 
 
 Turning, I saw under the broad-brimmed hat in 
 the clear gray eyes a sudden sparkle of excitement 
 as he ran hastily up the cellar-stairs. Seeing that 
 something unusual was afloat, I followed him quickly 
 out on to the wharf, where presently the cause of 
 his movement was made plain. 
 
 Beside the wharf was a large ship, with two planks 
 running down from her decks to the wharf. Just at 
 the top of the farther one from us a large black- 
 haired, swarthy man was brutally kicking an aged 
 negro, who was hastily moving downward, clinging 
 to the hand-rail. Colored folks were then apt to be 
 old servants, that is to say, friends, and this was 
 our pensioned porter, old Tom. I was close behind 
 Wholesome at the door of the counting-house. I 
 am almost sure he said " Damnation !" At all events, 
 he threw down his hat, and in a moment was away 
 up the nearer plank to the ship s deck, followed by 
 me. Meanwhile, however, the black and his pur 
 suer had reached the wharf, where the negro, stum 
 bling and still clinging to the rail, was seized by the 
 man who had struck him. In the short struggle 
 which ensued the plank was pulled away from the 
 ship s side, and fell just as Wholesome was about to 
 move down it. He uttered an oath, caught at a loose 
 rope which hung from a yard, tried it to see if it was 
 fast, went up it hand over hand a few feet, set a foot 
 on the bulwarks, and swung himself fiercely back 
 across the ship, and then, with the force thus gained, 
 flew far in air above the wharf, and dropping lightly 
 
H8 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 on to a pile of hogsheads, leapt without a word to 
 the ground, and struck out with easy power at the 
 man he sought, who fell as if a butcher s mallet had 
 stunned him, fell, and lay as one dead. The whole 
 action would have been amazing in any man, but to 
 see a Quaker thus suddenly shed his false skin and 
 come out the true man he was, was altogether be 
 wildering, the more so for the easy grace with 
 which the feat was done. Everybody ran forward, 
 while Wholesome stood, a strange picture, his eyes 
 wide open and his pupils dilated, his face flushed and 
 lips a little apart, showing his set white teeth while 
 he awaited his foe. Then, as the man rallied and sat 
 up, staring wildly, Wholesome ran forward and looked 
 at him, waving the crowd aside. In a moment, as 
 the man rose still bewildered, his gaze fell on Whole 
 some, and, growing suddenly white, he sat down on 
 a bundle of staves, saying faintly, " Take him away ! 
 Don t let him come near!" 
 
 " Coward!" said I; " one might have guessed that." 
 
 "There is to him," said Schmidt at my elbow, 
 "some great mortal fear; the soul is struck." 
 
 " Yes," said Wholesome, " the soul is struck. 
 Some one help him," for the man had fallen over 
 in something like a fit, and so saying strode away, 
 thoughtful and disturbed in face, as one who had 
 seen a ghost. 
 
 As he entered the counting-house through the 
 group of dignified old merchants, who had come out 
 to see what it all meant, one of them said, " Pretty 
 well for a Quaker, Friend Richard!" 
 
 Wholesome did not seem to hear him, but walked 
 
THEE AND YOU. \\g 
 
 in, drank a glass of wine which stood on a table, and 
 sat down silently. 
 
 " Not the first feat of that kind he has done," said 
 the elder of the wine-tasters. 
 
 " No," said a sea-captain near by. " He boarded 
 the Penelope in that fashion during the war, and as 
 he lit on her deck cleared a space with his cutlass 
 till the boarding-party joined him." 
 
 " With his cutlass ?" said I. " Then he was not 
 always a Quaker?" 
 
 "No," said our senior; "they don t learn these 
 gymnastics at Fourth and Arch, though perchance 
 the overseers may have a word to say about it." 
 
 " Quaker or not," said the wine-taster, " I wish any 
 of you had legs as good or a heart as sound. Very 
 good body, not too old, and none the worse for a 
 Quaker fining." 
 
 " That s the longest sentence I ever heard Wilton 
 speak," said a young fellow aside to me ; " and, by 
 Jove ! he is right." 
 
 I went back into the counting-house and was 
 struck with the grim. sadness of face of our junior 
 partner. He had taken up a paper and affected to be 
 reading, but, as I saw, was staring into space. Our 
 senior said something to him about Old Tom, but he 
 answered in an absent way, as one who half hears or 
 half heeds. In a few moments he looked up at the 
 clock, which was on the stroke of twelve, and seeing 
 me ready, hat in hand, to return home for our one- 
 o clock dinner, he gathered himself up, as it were, 
 limb by limb, and taking his wide-brimmed hat 
 brushed it absently with his sleeve. Then he looked 
 
12Q THEE AND YOU. 
 
 at it a moment with a half smile, put it on decisively 
 and went out and away up Arch Street with swifter 
 and swifter strides. By and by he said, " You do 
 not walk as well as usual." 
 
 " But," said I, " no one could keep up with you." 
 
 "Do not try to ; leave a sore man to nurse his 
 hurts. I suppose you saw my folly on the wharf, 
 saw how I forgot myself?" 
 
 " Ach !" said Schmidt, who had toiled after us hot 
 and red, and who now slipped his quaint form in be 
 tween us ; " Ach ! You forgot yourself. This say 
 you ? I do think you did remember your true self 
 for a time this morning." 
 
 "Hush! I am a man ashamed. Let us talk no 
 more of it. I have ill kept my faith," returned 
 Wholesome, impatiently. 
 
 " You may believe God doth not honor an honest 
 man," said Schmidt ; " which is perhaps a God 
 Quaker, not the God I see to myself." 
 
 I had so far kept my peace, noting the bitter self- 
 reproach of Wholesome, and having a lad s shyness 
 before an older man s calamity ; but now I said in 
 dignantly, " If it be Friends creed to see the poor 
 and old and feeble hurt without raising a hand, let 
 us pray to be saved from such religion." 
 
 " But," said Wholesome, " I should have spoken 
 to him in kindness first. Now I have only made of 
 him a worse beast, and taught him more hatred. 
 And he of all men !" 
 
 " There is much salvation in some mistakes," said 
 Schmidt, smiling. 
 
 Just then we were stopped by two middle-aged 
 
THEE AND YOU. I2 I 
 
 Friends in drab of orthodox tint, from which now 
 adays Friends have much fallen away into gay 
 browns. They asked a question or two about an 
 insurance on one of our ships ; and then the elder 
 said, " Thy hand seems bleeding, Friend Richard ;" 
 which was true; he had cut his knuckles on his op 
 ponent s teeth, and around them had hastily wrapped 
 a handkerchief which showed stains of blood here 
 and there. 
 
 " Ach !" said Schmidt, hastening to save his friend 
 annoyance. " He ran against something. And how 
 late is it ! Let us go." 
 
 But Wholesome, who would have no man lie ever 
 so little for his benefit, said quietly, " I hurt it knock 
 ing a man down ;" and now for the first time to-day 
 I observed the old amused look steal over his hand 
 some face and set it a-twitching with some sense of 
 humor as he saw the shock which went over the 
 faces of the two elders when we bade them good- 
 morning and turned away. 
 
 Wholesome walked on quickly, and as it seemed 
 plain that he would be alone, we dropped behind. 
 
 " What is all this ?" said I. " Does a man grieve 
 thus because he chastises a scoundrel ?" 
 
 " No," said Schmidt. " The Friend Wholesome 
 was, as you may never yet know, an officer of the 
 navy, and when your war being done he comes here, 
 there is a beautiful woman whom he must fall to 
 loving, and this with some men being a grave disor 
 der, he must go and spoil a good natural man with 
 the clothes of a Quaker, seeing that what the woman 
 did was good in his sight." 
 
 F II 
 
I2 2 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 " But," said I, " I don t understand." 
 
 " No," said he ; " yet you have read of Eve and 
 Adam. Sometimes they give us good apples and 
 sometimes bad. This was a russet, as it were, and at 
 times the apple disagrees with him for that with the 
 new apple he got not a new stomach." 
 
 I laughed a little, but said, " This is not all. There 
 was something between him and the man he struck 
 which we do not yet know. Did you see him ?" 
 
 " Yes, and before this, last week some time in the 
 market-place. He was looking at Old Dinah s tub 
 of white lilies when I noticed him, and to me came 
 a curious thinking of how he was so unlike them, 
 many people having for me flower-likeness, and this 
 man, being of a yellow swarthiness and squat- 
 browed, minded me soon of the toadstool you call a 
 corpse-light." 
 
 " Perhaps we shall know some time ; but here is 
 home, and will he speak of it to Mistress White, do 
 you think ?" 
 
 " Not ever, I suppose," said Schmidt ; and we went 
 in. 
 
 The sight we saw troubled me. In the little back 
 parlor, at a round mahogany table with scrolled 
 edges and claw toes sat facing the light Mistress 
 White. She was clad in a gray silk with tight 
 sleeves, and her profusion of rich chestnut hair, with 
 its wilful curliness that forbade it to be smooth on 
 her temples, was coiled in a great knot at the back 
 of her head. Its double tints and strange change- 
 fulness, and the smooth creamy cheeks with their 
 moving islets of roses that would come and go at a 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 123 
 
 word, were pretty protests of Nature, I used to 
 think, against the demure tints of her pearl-gray 
 silken gown. She was looking out into the garden, 
 quite heedless of the older dame, who sat as her 
 wont was between the windows, and chirruped now 
 and then, mechanically, " Has thee a four-leaved 
 clover?" As I learned some time after, one of our 
 older clerks, perhaps with a little malice of self-com 
 fort at the fall of his seniors principles, had, on 
 coming home, told her laughingly all the story of 
 the morning. Perhaps one should be a woman and 
 a Friend to enter into her feelings. She was tied by 
 a promise and by a sense of personal pledge to a 
 low and disgraced man, and then coming to love an 
 other despite herself she had grown greatly to honor 
 him. She might reason as she would that only a 
 sense of right and a yearning for the fulness of a right 
 eous life had made him give up his profession and 
 fellows, and turn aside to follow the harder creed of 
 Fox, but she well knew with a woman s keenness of 
 view that she herself had gone for something in this 
 change; and now, as sometimes before, she re 
 proached herself with his failures. As we came in 
 she hastily dried her eyes and went out of the room. 
 At dinner little was said, but in the afternoon there 
 was a scene of which I came to know all a good 
 while later. 
 
 Some of us had gone back to the afternoon work 
 when Mr. Wholesome, who had lingered behind, 
 strayed thoughtfully into the little back garden. 
 There under a thin-leaved apricot tree sat Mistress 
 White, very pretty, with her long fair fingers clasped 
 
124 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 over a book which lay face down on her lap. Pres 
 ently she was aware of Richard Wholesome walking 
 to and fro and smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe, 
 then, as yet in England, called a churchwarden. 
 These were two more than commonly good-looking 
 persons, come of sturdy English stock, fined down 
 by that in this climate which has taken the coarse 
 ness of line and feature out of so many of our 
 broods, and has made more than one English painter 
 regret that the Vandyke faces had crossed the ocean 
 to return no more. 
 
 Schmidt and I looked out a moment into the long 
 vista where, between the rose-boughs bending from 
 either wall under the apricot, we could see the gray 
 silvery shimmer of the woman s dress, and beyond 
 it, passing to and fro, the broad shoulders of the ex- 
 captain. 
 
 " Come," I said, " walk down with me to the 
 wharf." 
 
 " Yet leave me," he returned. " I shall wisely do 
 to sit here on the step over the council-fire of my 
 pipe. Besides, when there are not markets and flow 
 ers, and only a strait-down, early-afternoon sun, I 
 shall find it a more noble usage of time to see of my 
 drama another scene. The actors are good ;" and 
 he pointed with his pipe-stem down to the garden. 
 "And this," he said, "is the mute chorus of the 
 play," indicating a kitten which had made prey of 
 the grand-dame s ball of worsted, and was rolling it 
 here and there with delight. 
 
 " But," I answered, " it is not right or decent to 
 spy upon others actions." 
 
THEE AND YOU, i 2 $ 
 
 "For right!" he said. "Ach! what I find right 
 to me is my right ; and for decent, I understand you 
 not. But if I tell you what is true, I find my pleas 
 ure to sit here and see the maiden when at times the 
 winds pull up the curtain of the leaves." 
 
 " Well ! well !" said I, for most of the time he was 
 not altogether plain as to what he meant, as when he 
 spoke of the cat as a chorus. " Well ! well ! you 
 will go out with me on the water at sundown ?" 
 
 " That may be," he answered ; and I went away. 
 
 I have observed since then, in the long life I have 
 lived, that the passion called love, when it is a hope 
 less one, acts on men as ferments do on fluids after 
 their kind, turning some to honest wine and some to 
 vinegar. With our stout little German all trials seemed 
 to be of the former use, so that he took no ill from 
 those hurts and bruises which leave other men sore 
 and tender. Indeed, he talked of Mistress White to 
 me, or even to Wholesome, whom he much embar 
 rassed, in a calm, half-amused way, as of a venture 
 which he had made, and, having failed, found it pleas 
 ant to look back upon as an experience not altogether 
 to be regretted. We none of us knew until much 
 later that it was more than a mere fancy for a woman 
 who was altogether so sweet and winsome that no man 
 needed an excuse for loving her. When by and by I 
 also came to love a good woman, I used to try myself 
 by the measure of this man s lack of self-love, and won 
 der how he could have seen with good-will the woman 
 he cared for come to like another man better. This 
 utter sweetness of soul has ever been to me a riddle. 
 
 An hour passed by, when Schmidt heard a footfall 
 
I 2 6 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 in the room behind him, and rising saw an old mem 
 ber of the Society of Friends who came at times to 
 our house, and was indeed trustee of a small estate 
 which belonged to Mistress White. Nicholas Old- 
 mixon was an overseer in the Fourth Street meeting, 
 and much looked up to among Friends as a prompt 
 and vigilant guardian of their discipline. Perhaps 
 he would have been surprised to be told that he had 
 that in his nature which made the post of official 
 fault-finder agreeable ; but so it was, I fancy, and he 
 was here on such an errand. The asceticism of 
 Friends in those days, and the extent to which Mr. 
 Oldmixon, like the more strict of his sect, carried 
 his views as to gravity of manner and the absence 
 of color in dress and furniture, were especially hate 
 ful to Schmidt, who lived and was happy in a region 
 of color and sentiment and gayety. Both, I doubt 
 not, were good men, but each was by nature and 
 training altogether unable to sympathize with the 
 other. 
 
 " Good-evening !" said Schmidt, keeping his seat 
 in the low window-sill. 
 
 Mr. Oldmixon returned, "Thee is well, I trust?" 
 
 " Ach ! with such a sun and the last roses, which 
 seem the most sweet, and these most lovely of fall- 
 flowers, and a good book and a pipe," said Schmidt, 
 " who will not be well ? Have you the honest bless 
 ing of being a smoker?" 
 
 " Nay," said the Quaker, with evident guarding of 
 his words. " Thee will not take it amiss should I 
 say it is a vain waste of time ?" 
 
 " But," answered Schmidt, " time hath many uses. 
 
THEE AND YOU. I2/ 
 
 The one is to be wasted ; and this a pipe mightily 
 helps. I did think once, when I went to meeting 1 , 
 how much more solemn it would be for each man to 
 have a pipe to excuse his silence." 
 
 " Thee jests idly, I fear," said the Friend, coloring, 
 and evidently holding himself in check. " Is that 
 friend Wholesome in the garden ? I have need to 
 see him." 
 
 " Yea," said Schmidt, with a broad smile, " he is 
 yonder under a tree, like Adam in the garden. Let 
 us take a peep at Paradise." 
 
 Mr. Oldmixon held his peace, and walked quietly 
 out of the window and down the gravelled path. 
 There were some who surmised that his years and 
 his remembrance of the three wives he had outlived 
 did not altogether suffice to put away from him a 
 strong sentiment of the sweetness of his ward. Per 
 haps it was this notion which lit up with mirth the 
 ruddy face of the German as he walked down the 
 garden behind the slim ascetic figure of the overseer 
 of meeting in his broad hat and drab clothes. On 
 the way the German plucked a dozen scarlet roses, a 
 late geranium or two, and a few leaves of motley 
 Poinsetta. 
 
 Wholesome paused a moment to greet the new 
 comer quietly, and straightway betook himself ab 
 sently to his walk again to and fro across the garden. 
 Mistress White would have had the old overseer 
 take her seat, but this he would not do. He stood 
 a moment near her, as if irresolute, while Schmidt 
 threw himself down on the sward, and, half turning 
 over, tossed roses into the gray lap of Mistress 
 
I2 8 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 White, saying, " How prettily the God of heaven has 
 dressed them !" 
 
 Mistress White took up the flowers, not answering 
 the challenge, but glancing under her long lashes at 
 the ex-captain, to whom presently the overseer turned, 
 saying, " Would thee give me a word or two with thee 
 by ourselves, Richard?" 
 
 " There are none in the parlor," said Priscilla, " if 
 thee will talk there." 
 
 " If," said WJholesome, " it be of business, let it 
 wait till to-morrow, and I will call upon thee : I am 
 not altogether myself to-day." 
 
 " Nay," said Nicholas, gathering himself up a little, 
 " thee must know theeself that I would not come to 
 thee here for business : thee knows my exactness in 
 such matters." 
 
 " And for what, then, are you come ?" said Whole 
 some, with unusual abruptness. 
 
 " For speech of that in thy conduct which were 
 better, as between an elder Friend and a younger, 
 to be talked over alone," said Mr. Oldmixon, se 
 verely. 
 
 Now, Wholesome, though disgusted by his lack 
 of power to keep the silent pledges he had given 
 when he entered the Society of Friends, was not 
 dissatisfied with his conduct as judged by his own 
 standard of right. Moreover, like many warm 
 hearted people, he was quick of temper, as we have 
 seen. His face flushed, and he paused beside the 
 overseer : " There are none here who do not know 
 most of what passed this morning ; but as you do 
 not know all, let me advise you to hold your peace 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 I2 9 
 
 and go your ways, and leave me to such reproach as 
 God may send me." 
 
 " If that God send thee any," muttered Schmidt. 
 
 But Nicholas Oldmixon was like a war-horse 
 smelling the battle afar off, and anything like resist 
 ance to an overseer in the way of duty roused him 
 into the sternness which by no means belonged to 
 the office, but rather to the man. " If," he said, 
 " any in membership with us do countenance or pro 
 mote tumults, they shall be dealt with as disorderly 
 persons. Wherefore did thee give way to rash vio 
 lence this morning?" 
 
 Priscilla grew pale. " I think," she said, " Friend 
 Nicholas, thee forgets the Christian courtesy of our 
 people one to another. Let it rest a while ; friend 
 Richard may come to think better of it by and by." 
 
 "And that I trust he may never," muttered Schmidt. 
 
 But the overseer was not to be stayed. " Thee 
 would do better to mind the things of thy house and 
 leave us," he said. " The ways of this young man 
 have been more than once a scandal, and are like to 
 come before the meeting to be dealt with." 
 
 " Sir," returned Wholesome, approaching him and 
 quite forgetting his plain speech to make it plainer, 
 " your manners do little credit to your age or your 
 place. Listen : I told you to speak no more of this 
 matter;" and he seized him by the lappel of his coat 
 and drew him aside a few paces. " For your own sake, 
 I mean. Let it die out, with no more of talk or 
 nonsense." 
 
 " For my sake 1" exclaimed the overseer ; " and 
 why ? Most surely thee forgets theeself." 
 
1 3 o 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 " For your own sake," said Wholesome, drawing 
 him still farther away, and bending toward him, so 
 that his words were lost to Schmidt and Priscilla, 
 " and for your son John s. It was he whom I struck 
 to-day." 
 
 Mr. Oldmixon grew white and staggered as if 
 stricken. " Why did thee not come and tell me ?" 
 he said. " It had been kinder ; and where is that 
 unhappy man?" 
 
 " I do not know," returned Wholesome. 
 
 " Nevertheless, be it he or another, thee was in the 
 wrong, and I have done my duty. And is my un 
 happy son yet alive ?" and so saying, he turned away, 
 and without other words walked through the house 
 with uncertain steps and went down the street, while 
 Wholesome, with softened face, watched him from 
 the doorstep. Then he went back quietly into the 
 garden, and turning to Schmidt, said, " Will you 
 oblige me by leaving me with Mistress White? I 
 will explain to thee by and by." 
 
 Schmidt looked up surprised, but seeing how pale 
 and stern he looked, rose and went into the house. 
 The woman turned expectant. 
 
 " Priscilla, the time has come when thee must 
 choose between me and him." 
 
 " He has come back ? I always knew he would 
 come." 
 
 " Yes, he has come back ; I saw him to-day," said 
 Wholesome, " and the John Oldmixon of to-day is 
 more than ever cruel and brutal. Will thee trust me 
 to make thee believe that?" 
 
 " I believe thee," she returned ; " but because he is 
 
THEE AND YOU. j^I 
 
 this and worse, shall I forget my word or turn aside 
 from that which, if bitter for me, may save his soul 
 alive?" 
 
 " And yet you love me ?" 
 
 " Have I not said so ?" she murmured, with a half 
 smile. 
 
 The young man came closer and seized both hands 
 in his : " Will it not be a greater sin, loving me, to 
 marry him ?" 
 
 " But he may never ask me, and then I shall wait, 
 for I had better die fit in soul to be thy wife than 
 come to thee unworthy of a good man s love." 
 
 He dropped her hands and moved slowly away, 
 she watching him with full eyes. Then he turned and 
 said, "But should he fall fall as he must and come 
 to be what his life will surely make him, a felon whom 
 no woman could marry " 
 
 "Thee makes duty hard for me, Richard," she 
 answered. " Do not make me think thee cruel. 
 When in God s good time he shall send me back the 
 words of promise I wrote when he went away a dis 
 graced man, to whom, nevertheless, I owed my life, 
 
 then Oh, Richard, I love thee ! Do not hurt 
 
 me. Pray for me and him." 
 
 " God help us !" he said. " We have great need to 
 be helped ;" and suddenly leaning over he kissed her 
 forehead for the first time, and went away up the gar 
 den and into the house. 
 
 The soft September days were past, and the crisp 
 October freshness was with us before my little drama 
 went a step further. Wholesome had got into a 
 fashion of seeking loneliness, and thus Schmidt and 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 I were more than ever thrown together. So it came 
 that on a Saturday, which to me, a somewhat priv 
 ileged person in the counting-house, was always a 
 half-holiday, and on Sunday afternoon, if I went 
 not to Christ Church, we were wont to wander at 
 will about the lovely country along the Schuylkill or 
 up the Wissahickon talking of many things. Nor 
 did Schmidt ever tire of the crowded market-place, 
 and although in our walks he talked of what he saw 
 there and elsewhere as with a child s pleasure in his 
 own thoughts and words, they never wearied me. 
 To many he was more odd than pleasant, because on 
 all subjects and at all times he turned himself inside 
 out, with little regard to what he had to say or who 
 heard him. I recall well some of our morning 
 strolls. 
 
 " Let us walk serenely," he said. (I suppose he 
 meant slowly enough to think.) " The Wholesome 
 goes before, and with what a liberal strength he 
 walks ! How beautiful to see ! As if he would give 
 away his legs when he walks, so much is there of 
 strength he needs not in the Quaker life." 
 
 " I cannot see yet," I said, " why he must turn 
 Quaker. I would have trusted that man with untold 
 gold or a woman s honor the first half-hour he talked 
 to me." 
 
 " I like not that sect," returned Schmidt. " It does 
 make nicer women than men. Should there be two 
 religions for the two sexes ? and do you think ever 
 Penn and Mr. Fox did take among the women a 
 vote when they went to the queerness of robe which 
 is theirs ?" 
 
THEE AND YOU. 133 
 
 " I have heard," I said, " that it is only a continu 
 ance of the plainer fashions of their own time." 
 
 " And why," he said, " should to-day wear the 
 garments of a century away? And does not Nature 
 mock their foolish customs ? Even now behold how 
 pretty a sight is this." And he paused before a stall 
 where the ripe Spanish watermelons split into halves 
 showed their gorgeous red. " How spendthrift is 
 Nature of her tints.! and in the peach-time there is a 
 pleasure to eat of this scarlet! I thought it so pretty 
 last week when we dined with Mr. Wilton, the red 
 melons on the shining brown mahogany, and the 
 gray-greens of the apples, and the Heath peaches, 
 soft and rosy, with the ruby of the madeira wine. 
 How charming a thing is a table after dinner what 
 few do ever think !" 
 
 " Stop !" I said : " look there !" A little way be 
 fore us, in simple tints of gray serge, and with rebel 
 curls peeping out under her stiff, ugly silk bonnet, 
 Priscilla was moving down the market. She was 
 busy with her daily marketing, and behind or beside 
 her was our old brown Nancy, trim and cleanly, with 
 her half-filled basket. A few steps in the rear was a 
 man who paused and held back as she stopped, and 
 then went on. As I caught his side face and hungry 
 eyes, and a certain hyena-like swiftness of impatient 
 movement, I knew him for the man whom Whole 
 some had struck on the wharf a few weeks before. 
 Now he was clad in the height of the fashion, with 
 striped silken hose, tight nankeen breeches, a brown 
 swallow-tailed coat, and an ample cambric cravat. 
 The. bright brass buttons were new, the beaver hat, 
 
 12 
 
134 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 scroll-rimmed and broad on top, was faultlessly 
 brushed. 
 
 " Ach !" said Schmidt, " a devil which is handsome 
 for little of good ! The plainer parent must have 
 been made to be liberal of money to plume the fine 
 bird." 
 
 Just then the man looked round, and, Whole 
 some being gone on ahead, and seeing no one he 
 knew, he paused beside Priscilla and spoke to her. 
 What he said we did not hear. She turned, a little 
 startled, and dropped her purse. The man set his 
 foot on it, and stooping as if to look for it, deftly 
 picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. 
 
 I started forward. 
 
 " Nay," said Schmidt, " the audience shall not 
 spoil the play. Wait." 
 
 Her face grew pale, and I at least thought she saw 
 but would not notice the mean theft. A few brief 
 words passed between them. He asked something, 
 and she hesitated, I thought. Then a few more 
 words, and as we went by I heard her say something 
 about the afternoon, and then with a word more he 
 turned and left her. 
 
 " Alsp," said Schmidt, " the plot thickens. How 
 handsome and foul he is, with that visage clean 
 shaven and the nose of hawk ! We shall see when 
 all the performers are come upon the stage. Good- 
 by ! I go to see if further he will amuse me." 
 
 For my part, bewildered at Priscilla s knowledge 
 of this ruffian, astonished at his gay change of dress, 
 and recalling his emotion on the wharf, I also began 
 to feel an interest in the drama going on about me. 
 
THEE AND YOU. 135 
 
 After dinner next day, when her guests save myself 
 had gone away to their several tasks, Mistress Pris- 
 cilla in the garden grew busy among the roses with 
 the dead leaves and the bugs. A very pretty picture 
 she made, and if I had been a painter it is thus I should 
 have wished to paint her. Against the wall of dark- 
 red brick the long bending rose-branches made a bri 
 ery hedge of green and leafy curves, flecked here and 
 there with roses red, white, and pink; and against 
 this background there was the charming outline of 
 Priscilla in ashen-tinted silk, with a fine cambric hand 
 kerchief about her throat, and a paler silk kerchief 
 pinned away from the neck on the shoulders, much as 
 Friends wear them still. A frail pretence of a cap 
 there was also, and wicked double tints of hair the 
 color of chestnuts and dead leaves and buttonwood 
 bark and such other pretty uncertain tints as have 
 stored away a wealth of summer sun. Now and then 
 she was up on tiptoe to pluck a rose or break off a 
 dead stem, and then the full ripe curves of her figure 
 were charming to see. And so, like a gray butterfly, 
 she flitted round the garden-wall, and presently, quite 
 in a natural way, came upon me demurely reading. 
 
 " Thee should be up and away to thy business, 
 friend loiterer," she said. 
 
 " I think I shall stay at home this afternoon," I 
 answered, giving no reason. 
 
 I saw she looked troubled, but in a moment she 
 added, " Not if I wanted thee to do an errand for me 
 in Front Street." 
 
 " I have a bone in my foot," said I, recalling one 
 of our boy excuses for laziness. 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 " But I would pay thee with a rose and some 
 thanks," she returned, laughing. 
 
 " No doubt that would pay some folks, but I am 
 not to be bribed. If I were older it might answer; 
 but as I am only a boy, I may tell you how pretty 
 you look among the roses. And I think you are 
 dressed for company this afternoon." 
 
 " Thee is a very saucy lad," she replied, half 
 troubled, half smiling, "and and I must tell thee, 
 I suppose, that I am looking for a friend to come 
 on a business of mine, and I shall like thee better 
 if thee will go away to-day, because " 
 
 " Because why?" I said. 
 
 " Because I ask thee to go." 
 
 At this moment, as I rose to obey her, laughing 
 and saying, " But will you not tell me his name ?" 
 Schmidt appeared in the window. 
 
 "Ah!" said he, smiling his pleased, quiet smile, 
 which rarely grew into noisy mirth, " we masquerade 
 of this pleasant afternoon as a queen of pearls. You 
 would have lacked some one to admire you were I 
 not come back so good luckily now." 
 
 Priscilla blushed, but said quickly, " This lazy boy 
 has been saying much the same things. Ah !" and 
 she looked worried of a sudden as the knocker 
 sounded. " There !" she exclaimed, " some one is 
 coming to see me on business. Please to leave me 
 the parlor." 
 
 "Ah, well!" said Schmidt, smiling, "we will go; 
 and he turned to enter the house. 
 
 " But not that way," she said hastily. " I I am 
 in trouble : I do not want you to see I mean 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 137 
 
 please to go out by the garden-gate : I will explain 
 another time." 
 
 Schmidt looked surprised, but, taking my arm, went 
 without more words down the garden, saying in my 
 ear, in his queer jerky way, " Hast thou ever seen 
 what a smear the slimy slug will make on the rose- 
 leaf?" 
 
 I said, " I do not understand." 
 
 " But God does, my lad ; and when thy rose comes, 
 pray that there be no vile slugs afoot." 
 
 From that evening we all noticed a sad change in 
 Priscilla. The gay sallies and coquetry which had 
 defied all bonds were gone, and she went about her 
 needed household work silent, preoccupied, and pale. 
 The greatest charm of this woman was in her pretty 
 little revolts against Quaker ways, and her endless 
 sympathy with everybody s tastes and pursuits ; but 
 now she was utterly changed, until all of us who loved 
 her, as friend or as more than friend, began to notice 
 her sadness and to question among ourselves as to 
 its cause. 
 
 It soon grew to be known among us that in the 
 afternoons Priscilla had meetings at home with a 
 stranger, and we observed also that Wholesome had 
 become silent and abstracted. This was a source 
 of some amusement to our little company of India 
 clerks and supercargoes, who laid it to the fact that 
 Wholesome s sad conduct having been brought to 
 the consideration of the monthly meeting, the over 
 seers had waited upon him and wasted much time in 
 fruitless admonitions, the ex-captain proving quite 
 unable to see that he had acted otherwise than be- 
 
 12* 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 came a God-fearing man. I suspect this treason to 
 the creed of Friends sat easy on him, and graver by 
 far were the other questions which beset him on 
 every side. 
 
 At last, one afternoon early in October, Wholesome 
 had started a little late for the counting-house, when, 
 as we passed down Arch Street near Fifth, he suddenly 
 stopped and said, " I must go back. This thing has 
 gone on long enough. A man must put his hand in 
 the business." 
 
 " What is it?" said I, surprised at the sternness of 
 his manner. 
 
 " Do you see that person?" he replied, pointing to 
 a fashionably-dressed gentleman on the far side of 
 the way, going up the street with a certain leisurely 
 swagger. It was the man he had struck on the 
 wharf, and whom I had seen in the market-place. 
 
 I said, " Yes, I see him. What do you mean to 
 do?" 
 
 " No matter. I am going home : I have stood this 
 long enough." 
 
 " But what do you mean to do?" 
 
 " Kill him," said Wholesome, quietly. 
 
 I was at once shocked, alarmed, and a little amused, 
 it seemed so incongruous a threat from a man in drab 
 and broad-brim. But I had the sense to try to dis 
 suade him from returning as we stood under the 
 lindens, he cool and quiet, I anxious and troubled, 
 as any man so young would have been. At last he 
 broke away, saying, " I am going home. You need 
 not come. I do not want you." 
 
 " If you go back," I said, " I go also." 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 139 
 
 " As you please," he returned ; and we went swiftly 
 homeward, without a word on either side. 
 
 Since then I have seen on the stage many and 
 curious scenes, but none more dramatic than that on 
 which the curtain rose at four o clock on this pleas 
 ant October evening. 
 
 Wholesome, pale, cold-visaged, handsome, opened 
 the door as if his being there were a matter of course, 
 and walked into the back parlor. Between the win 
 dows, as usual, sat the older dame, of no more mortal 
 consequence than a clock. On the window-step we 
 saw Priscilla, and as we passed out of the nearer 
 window into the garden, I observed our dark-visaged 
 friend leaning against the window-jamb and talking 
 earnestly to her. 
 
 She rose up, a little flurried and anxious, saying, 
 " Perhaps thee remembers John Oldmixon, Richard ? 
 And these are Richard Wholesome and a new friend, 
 Henry Shelburne." 
 
 As she spoke she scanned furtively and with a 
 certain uneasiness the two strongly-contrasted faces. 
 Neither man put out his hand, but Wholesome said, 
 " Yes, I remember him, and well enough. He has 
 not changed, I think;" and as he ended, his glance 
 rose to meet the darker eyes of his foe. If will to 
 hurt had been power to slay with the look which 
 followed this silent challenge, there would have been 
 a dead man at Priscilla s feet. John Oldmixon must 
 have been well used to the eye of hate. 
 
 " Nay," he said, " we have shifted parts like men 
 in a play I once saw. I went away a Quaker, and 
 am come back a man of the world : you went away 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 a gay midshipman, and here you are a Friend in 
 drab." 
 
 " Yes, a Friend," said Priscilla, quickly, lifting her 
 eyes to Wholesome s with mute pleading in their 
 fulness. 
 
 " I suppose," said I, desirous to turn the talk from 
 what seemed to me dangerous ground, " I suppose 
 there is no rule about Friends dress, is there ? Who 
 sets the fashions for Friends ?" 
 
 " There are none," she said, smiling. " Like the 
 flowers of the field and the trees, our dress is ever 
 the same." 
 
 " Ah," said Wholesome, who was getting his pas 
 sion well in hand, " I think thee will see some new 
 fall patterns in the leaves overhead, Priscilla. Thee 
 has given us a weak example for Friends." 
 
 "It has little beauty," said Oldmixon, "this Friends 
 dress, but it may have its use, for all that. For in 
 stance, no one would insult or strike a man in drab, 
 however great the provocation he might give. It is 
 as good as chain-armor." 
 
 " Why not ?" replied Wholesome, flushing. " A 
 man may be a man, whatever his garb, and I, for one, 
 should feel as free to chastise a scoundrel to-day as 
 ten years ago, and as ready to answer him." 
 
 " Oh, Richard ! Richard ! thee forgets !" 
 
 " True," he said, " I did. I forgot you. Pardon 
 me!" 
 
 " It is so easy to brag in drab," returned Oldmixon. 
 " That s another of its uses. But that concerns no 
 one here. Shall I see you to-morrow, Priscilla ?" 
 
 The last insult quieted Wholesome, as such things 
 
THEE AND YOU. 141 
 
 do quiet some men. He made no answer, but smiled 
 and went away down the garden whistling, a thing 
 I had never heard him do before, while Priscilla 
 said in a half whisper, " No, not to-morrow. How 
 can thee find it pleasing to annoy my friends? Does 
 thee think that a thing I should like?" 
 
 " He is not my friend," replied the man, brutally, 
 and losing his temper as easily with the woman as 
 he had kept it with the man. " Folks who masquer 
 ade in Quaker clothes need to be taught lessons 
 sometimes/ 
 
 "Thee forgets thyself," said Priscilla. "Think a 
 little, and take back thee words." 
 
 " Not I," said he, sneeringly. " A fellow like that 
 wants a teacher at times." 
 
 Priscilla was a woman, and the man thus jeered at 
 was out of earshot, and she loved him ; so for once 
 her creed and temper alike failed her, and she said 
 proudly, " I hear it is thee rather that has been to 
 school to him, and did not like thee lesson." 
 
 " By Heaven !" said he, angrily, " you are no better 
 Quaker than he ! I hope my wife will have better 
 manners." He flushed with shame and with wrath 
 at thus coming to learn that Priscilla knew of his 
 humiliation. " Good-by !" he said, and turned to 
 leave. 
 
 But Priscilla was herself again. " I beg of thee do 
 not go in anger," she said. " I was wrong : pardon 
 me !" 
 
 " Not I," he returned. " Think a little next time 
 before you speak." 
 
 " John !" she said, reproachfully, but he was gone. 
 
I 4 2 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 As he went I saw Wholesome pass quietly out of 
 the garden-gate, and surmising that he had gone to 
 meet Oldmixon, and not knowing what might come 
 of it, I made some excuse, and leaving Priscilla pale 
 and shaken, I followed by the front door. 
 
 I was right. As Oldmixon crossed Second Street, 
 I walking behind him, Wholesome came out of a 
 side lane and touched him on the shoulder. There 
 was no woman now, and both men came out in their 
 true colors. 
 
 Oldmixon turned. He looked uneasy, and, I 
 thought, scared. " What do you want?" he said. 
 
 Wholesome turned to me : " This is no business 
 of yours : leave us, Shelburne." 
 
 " Not now," I said. 
 
 " Well, as you please ; but step out of earshot. I 
 have something to say to this man which concerns 
 only him and me." 
 
 Upon this I walked away, but as their voices rose 
 I caught enough to surprise me. 
 
 Wholesome spoke to him quietly for several min 
 utes. Then Oldmixon replied aloud, " And if I say 
 no?" 
 
 " Then," said Wholesome, also raising his voice, 
 " I will tell her all." 
 
 "And what good will it do?" answered the other, 
 angrily. "Do you think I will release her? and do 
 you think she will lie while I carry this ?" and he 
 touched his breast-pocket. " She may never marry 
 me, but you, at least, will be no better off It will 
 only be said you told a pretty story, thinking to 
 compass your own ends." 
 
THEE AND YOU. 143 
 
 Almost without knowing it I drew nearer, unnoted 
 by the two angry men. 
 
 " Yet I will do it," said Wholesome. 
 
 " You little know her : tell her and try it," said the 
 other. 
 
 Wholesome paused. Then he said, " I believe you 
 are right, or let us suppose you so. What is to stop 
 me from delivering you to justice to-morrow, to 
 day ?" 
 
 The other smiled : "Just because, if you feel sure 
 this woman will marry me, you love her too well to 
 damn her husband quite utterly." 
 
 Wholesome laughed hoarsely, and said, " Don t 
 count on my goodness in that kind of fashion. By 
 Heaven ! you have been nearer death within this last 
 week or two than you dream of; and I should no 
 more think twice about the lesser business of putting 
 you out of the way of soiling better lives than about 
 crushing a cockroach." 
 
 Oldmixon looked at him keenly, and no doubt 
 made the reflection that had he meant to act he 
 would have done so without warning. His face lit 
 up as if he were about to speak. Then he changed 
 his purpose, was silent a moment, and said, " Richard 
 Wholesome, there has been enough bad blood be 
 tween me and you already. Let it stop here. This 
 woman is out of your reach, and always will be while 
 I live. For her sake let us be at peace." 
 
 " Peace !" said Wholesome. " You would not be 
 lieve it if I were to say that if she loved you, and 
 you were any way worth loving, I would help you 
 to marry her and go away not quite unhappy. But 
 
144 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 now," and his scorn grew uncontrollable, " now, to 
 talk of peace, peace with a cur, with a creature who 
 holds a pure woman by a girl s promise which he 
 treats as a business contract, peace with a man who 
 trades on a woman s hope that she can drag him out 
 of the mire of his vices ! I wonder at my own self- 
 restraint," he added, as the other fell back a step 
 before his angry advance. 
 
 " Will you hear me ?" said Oldmixon. 
 
 "Hear you? No," said Wholesome. "When 
 you hear of me again, it will be through the sheriff." 
 
 " Ah, is it so really ?" returned the other. " Have 
 your way, then, and see what will come of it;" and 
 so saying, he turned and went away. 
 
 Wholesome stood an instant, and then, looking 
 up, said to me, " You here yet? I suppose you have 
 heard enough to trouble you. Do me the kindness 
 not to mention it. I did not mean the talk should 
 have been a long one, and it had better have been 
 elsewhere, but a man is not always his own master." 
 
 This I thought myself, but the upper streets of 
 Philadelphia were in that day half country, the way 
 farers scarce, save on the main highways. I said to 
 him that I had heard a good deal of what was said, 
 but did not fully understand it. 
 
 " No need to," he replied. " Forget it, my lad." 
 
 That evening late, as we sat at our window in the 
 second story, Schmidt and I, we heard voices in the 
 garden just below us, at first low, then louder. 
 
 " It is Priscilla and Wholesome, not yet gone away 
 to sleep," said Schmidt. " What will he ? There is 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 145 
 
 a something which ever she asks and ever he will 
 not. And if she would it ask of the other, which is 
 me, there would be ways to do it, I warrant you, and 
 that quickly. Canst hear, my boy ?" 
 
 " Hear?" said I aloud, so as to disturb the couple 
 below, who, however, were too intent to heed my 
 warning. "Hear? What business have I with 
 other people s affairs?" and so I coughed again 
 lustily. 
 
 "Foolish imp! why shall you spoil my drama?" 
 said Schmidt. " Never have you paid as I have to 
 get an interest in them which play ; and think what 
 a rare piece you spoil, and how pretty, too, with this 
 jealous lover on the balcony and the drab Romeo 
 and Juliet in the moonshine beneath ! See ! what is 
 it they speak ? He says, Yes, you shall have your 
 way. And about what, my lord ? Would you mind 
 if that I go below to hear?" 
 
 " Now that," I said, " you shall not do." 
 
 " And wherefore should I tarry ?" he returned. 
 " Are my motives as the crystal to be seen through ? 
 And if I listen for ill, that is ill ; and if I go to listen 
 for good " 
 
 " Good or ill," said I, " friend Schmidt, we do not 
 do such things here." 
 
 "And there is to myself wonderment that it is so," 
 he returned ; " and as it is my conscience that will 
 bleed, I go." 
 
 " Not so," said I, laughing, and began to hail 
 Wholesome in the garden, and to ask him to throw 
 me a cheroot. 
 
 As I called out the voices ceased, and Schmidt, 
 G k 13 
 
I4 6 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 quite furious, exclaimed, "There is not so much of 
 amusing in the life of gray and drab here as that an 
 interest shall be taken out of it, and nevermore be 
 missed. The thing you have done is unhuman." 
 
 Meanwhile, Wholesome had thrown up to me his 
 cigar-case, and Priscilla had flitted into the house like 
 a misty ghost through the moonlight. 
 
 The little I had heard that night, and what Schmidt 
 had added as comment, and what Wholesome had 
 said to Oldmixon, could not fail, of course, to make 
 clear to me that here was a mystery which seemed 
 to be growing deeper. 
 
 Meanwhile, our daily work went on, while Mis 
 tress White grew paler than her white kerchief, and 
 went about her household tasks watched by loving 
 and tender eyes. As I was a sort of extra clerk at 
 our counting-house and received no salary, I went 
 and came with more liberty than the rest ; whence it 
 chanced that sometimes I was at home when John 
 Oldmixon paid his frequent afternoon visits. I liked 
 the man little, and since his meeting with Wholesome 
 less than ever. Once or twice I found Priscilla crying 
 after he had gone ; and this so moved me that I made 
 up my mind to tell Schmidt, partly because I was 
 curious, and partly because, with a boy s lack of 
 knowledge of the perplexities of life, I hoped to find 
 or hear of some escape for her. I was saved this 
 need by an event which chanced a day or two later. 
 
 I came home early in the afternoon with Schmidt 
 to get our rough clothes, as we meant to be gone a 
 day or two down the river in his boat, and to sleep 
 the first night at Chester or Marcus Hook. As we 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 147 
 
 entered the parlor I heard a harsh voice saying 
 roughly, " I will wait no longer. Be as good as your 
 written pledge, or let me go and drift to the devil, as 
 I shall. Only one person can save me." 
 
 Schmidt seized my arm and held me back at the 
 door a moment, and I heard Priscilla say, " Can thee 
 fail to see how ill I grow ? Will thee not wait but a 
 little while, John, only a little ? Richard has prom 
 ised me thee shall take no hurt: thee knows he would 
 not lie." 
 
 All this while, at brief intervals, like a scared bird 
 who sees near her nest a serpent, the old lady from 
 her seat between the windows kept sounding her one 
 note: "Has thee a four-leaved clover?" in a voice 
 shrill and feeble. 
 
 Meanwhile, I had turned away as Oldmixon replied 
 to Priscilla, " Not a week longer, not a week ! You 
 are lying to me in your heart, and you only just dare 
 not lie with your lips." 
 
 This brutal speech was too much for Schmidt. 
 " The man," he said, " which can this suffer should 
 no more breathe the air of God ;" and so saying went 
 in abruptly. 
 
 As he entered, I being behind him, John Old 
 mixon, confused and wrathful, let go his rough hold 
 on Priscilla s wrists and rose up, seeking to compose 
 his disturbed features. The German walked straight 
 up to him. " Not ever do we abuse women in this 
 house," he said. " Go straightways out of it." 
 
 Oldmixon laughed. "How is this, Cilia?" he 
 said. 
 
 "What is called a gentleman," said Schmidt, "he 
 
148 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 is very mild to women. Talk your great talk to me 
 who am a man : what need to shelter by a petticoat." 
 
 By this time Priscilla was her quiet self. " Hush, 
 John !" she said. " You will both remember my 
 aged mother." 
 
 " Has thee a four-leaved clover ?" said the old 
 dame. 
 
 " There is of you but a child," returned Schmidt 
 to Priscilla softly : " the ways of foul things like this 
 one you do not know. Leave us but a moment, and 
 never shall he more trouble thy sweetness." 
 
 Oldmixon s face grew gray with rage. " Insolent 
 little Dutchman !" he said. 
 
 " Hush !" again broke in Priscilla. " Speak not 
 thus ;" and turning to Schmidt, "This is my husband 
 that shall be. How we may differ is for us alone. 
 I pray thee to go away, and be angry no more for 
 the cross that is to be borne by me with what patience 
 the Lord shall help me to get." 
 
 " He does not help me to any patience," said 
 Schmidt, " seeing these things ; but if it be as you 
 say, I go ; but as for this man " 
 
 " Well ?" said Oldmixon. 
 
 " Come away, Schmidt," I exclaimed. " This is no 
 business of yours. Come!" 
 
 " Yes, go," said Priscilla, anxiously, standing like 
 an angel of peace between the two angry men. 
 
 " Let it then be so," said Schmidt, " for now." 
 
 " And for always," said she. 
 
 And we turned and went without more words. 
 
 Another week went by, when one morning Schmidt 
 proposed to me that we should walk up the Schuyl- 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 149 
 
 kill to the Falls ; and as I was always glad of his 
 company, we set out after our one-o clock dinner. 
 Where we walked by ponds and green fields and 
 gardens the great city has come and left no spot un 
 filled ; but now, as then, above Fairmount the river 
 rolled broad between grassy hills and bold rocky 
 points. We hailed a boatman just below Callowhill 
 Street, and being set on the far side went away north 
 ward along the river-marge. It was lovely then : it 
 is so to-day. We walked on, leaving above us on 
 the bank the sloping lawns of Solitude, Sweetbrier s, 
 Eaglesfield, and at last Belmont, and, now by the 
 water-side and now under the overhanging catalpas 
 of the " River Road," came at last to the " Falls." 
 In those days a vast rock extended two-thirds of the 
 way across from the west side, and so dammed .up 
 the waters that they broke in foam through the nar 
 row gap on the east, and fell noisily about six feet 
 in a hundred and fifty yards. The rock, I recall well, 
 was full of potholes, and there was one known from 
 its shape as Devil Foot. Of all this there is to-day 
 nothing left, the dam at Fairmount having hidden it 
 under water, but in tliose times the view from the 
 rock took in a lovely sweep of river down to Peter s 
 Island and far beyond it. 
 
 That was a day to remember, and it brought out 
 all that was most curious and quaint and sincere in 
 my German friend. It was mid-October, and a haze 
 which was gray or gold as shade or sun prevailed lay 
 moveless everywhere. 
 
 Said Schmidt to me, basking on the rock, " Have 
 you learned yet to look with curiousness at this 
 
ISO 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 pretty Nature which for us dresses with nice changes 
 all the days ?" 
 
 His speech often puzzled me, and I said as much 
 this time. 
 
 " It is my bad English which I have when I try 
 not to talk my Spenser or my Shakespeare, to which 
 I went to school. It was not a mystery I meant. I 
 would but this say, that it is gainful of what is most 
 sweet in living to have got that wise nearness of love 
 to Nature. Well ! and I am not yet understood ? 
 So let it be. When a music which pleases you is 
 heard, is it that it fills up full your throat some way 
 and overflows your eyes ?" 
 
 I was ever sensitive to harmony, and could follow 
 him now. I said, (i Yes, there are songs which are 
 most sweet to me, which so move me that I scarce 
 hear them willingly." 
 
 " Thus," he said, " I am stirred by the great orches 
 tra of color which is here, but music I know not. 
 How strange is that! And if," he said, "you were 
 to shut your eyes, what is it in this loveliness would 
 stay with you ?" 
 
 " Oh, but," said I, " no one thing makes it lovely. 
 It is not only color, but sounds, like this rush of 
 water at our feet." 
 
 " It is as you say," replied Schmidt. " And what 
 a sweet-tempered day, with a gray haziness and a not 
 unkindly coolness to the air where the sun is not!" 
 
 "A day like Priscilla," I said, demurely. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " that was well said, like Pris 
 cilla. How lovely sad that is," he went on, "to see 
 the leaves shiver in the wind and rain all reds and 
 
THEE AND YOU. 151 
 
 golds through the air ! And do you see this picture 
 behind us, where is that great green fir, and around 
 it to the top, like a flame, the scarlet of your Virginia 
 creeper? And below these firs on the ground is a 
 carpet, a carpet all colors near, and gray pinks to 
 us far away ; and under the maples what you call, 
 ach ! the wild words which fail me, fine broken-up 
 gold and red bits. It is what you call stippled, I 
 mean." 
 
 " And the curled leaves afloat," I said, "how pretty 
 they are." 
 
 "And the brown sedges," he added, "and the 
 crumpled brown ferns, and over them the great 
 splendid masses of color, which do laugh at a 
 painter!" 
 
 Then we were silent a while, and the blue smoke 
 went up in spirals from Schmidt s meerschaum. At 
 last he said, in his odd, abrupt way, " To talk helps 
 to think. This is a strange coil we have about our 
 good Priscilla. I have been going it over in my own 
 mind." 
 
 " I understand it so little," said I, " that I am un 
 able to help you. Can you tell me more of it than 
 I know already ?" 
 
 " And why not ?" said Schmidt, frankly. " This is 
 it " 
 
 " But stop !" said I. " If it involves other folks 
 secrets, I do not want to know it." 
 
 " That is my business," returned Schmidt, delib 
 erately filling his pipe. " What I do I settle with 
 my own conscience if I have any ; which I know not 
 clearly. How amazing some day to be called to an 
 
152 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 account for it, and then to put hands in the moral 
 pockets and say, Where is it ? Let me talk my 
 dark thoughts out to daylight." 
 
 " Well, then," I said, laughing, " go on." 
 
 " And first of Oldmixon. There is, I have come 
 to know, a black history of this man in the war. 
 Our good Wholesome was in the way to help him 
 with money, so much that to pay he could not. Then 
 is there a not nice story of a shipwreck, and boats 
 too full, and women which he would throw overboard 
 or not take in from a sinking ship, and sharp words 
 and a quarrel with Wholesome, and these followed 
 by a stab in the darkness, and a good man over in a 
 raging sea and no more seen of men." 
 
 " Good Heavens !" said I : "do you mean he 
 stabbed Wholesome?" 
 
 " It is so," he replied. 
 
 " And then ?" said I. 
 
 " Next," he said, " is some foul horror of women 
 shrieking lonely on a vessel s deck over which go the 
 wailing seas. But this Wholesome is by a miracle afloat 
 for hours on a spar, and saved by a passing ship." 
 
 V But knowing all this," I said, " why does he not 
 tell it and drive the wretch away ?" 
 
 " Because," returned Schmidt, " there is another 
 side, of a little Quaker girl, the ward of Nicholas 
 Oldmixon, who is on a time before this saved from 
 great peril of fear more than of death by this man, 
 John Oldmixon, and then such love between them 
 as may be betwixt a fair woman and a foul man." 
 
 " But," said I, "this does not seem enough to make 
 our present tangle." 
 
THEE AND YOU. ^3 
 
 " Assuredly never," he went on. " But also the 
 man takes to worse ways, and to the woman s girl- 
 love comes later her belief that here is a soul to save. 
 And, come what will, she, when he has fled away, 
 writes letters in which she makes foolish promise to 
 marry him when he comes back." 
 
 " But will she keep such an absurd promise ?" 
 I said. 
 
 " Is she a woman ?" he answered. " There is a 
 creature mingled of angel and fool which will do this 
 thing, and let no man stop her." 
 
 " But," I added, " you have not told me why 
 Wholesome does not go to the recorder and tell his 
 story, and have the scoundrel arrested." 
 
 " Ah, true !" he said. " A day more and the thing 
 would have been ; but the beast, well warned by our 
 foolish Quaker war-man, goes swiftly to Priscilla and 
 is penitent over again, and will she save him ?" 
 
 " And then ?" said I. 
 
 " This Quaker woman turns my man Wholesome 
 her finger around, and says, God has set me the 
 task to marry this man, John Oldmixon, and save 
 his soul alive, whatever that may mean, and ,so 
 she has Wholesome s good promise that he will leave 
 the wretch to her and his conscience forever." 
 
 " And so it ends," said I, " and Priscilla is a dead 
 woman. If I were Wholesome, I would save her 
 despite herself, even if she never married me." 
 
 " But you are not Richard Wholesome," he re 
 turned. " There is half of him Quaker and half a 
 brave gentleman, and all of him the bond-slave of a 
 woman s foolish will." 
 
154 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 " Then is it a tale told ?" I said. 
 
 " Hardly do I know," replied Schmidt, rising. 
 " There are two ends to all things. Let us go : the 
 twilight falls, and how lovely is the golden light on 
 the yellow hickories yonder!" 
 
 And so we strolled homeward lazily, the chill 
 October evening air growing damper and the twi 
 light well upon us before we reached the city. 
 
 Just as we were come to our own door, Schmidt, 
 who had been long silent, stopped me and said, 
 "There is a thing I would -say to you for lack of an 
 elder to listen. But first make me a promise that no 
 man s ear shall get the value of what I have said to 
 you." 
 
 " I will tell no one," I answered. 
 
 Then he paused : " This more I want of you. I have 
 much weighed it before I thought to put on one so 
 young what may come to be a burden ; but also there 
 is none else. Some time if that I send or write for 
 you to follow me, do it swiftly as I may direct. Will 
 you?" 
 
 I said yes with a sense that it was to one of my 
 bringing up a little too romantic, and so far absurd ; 
 yet his tone was earnest, and even sad, and I there 
 fore took care not to smile. 
 
 " That is all," he returned ; and we went in. 
 
 All that time is broken up for me into distinct 
 scenes like a play, some of them, as I said before, 
 having the clearness of pictures, being like these but 
 the scenes of a moment. The days and hours be 
 tween are less well defined in my memory. There is 
 one of these brief pictures which hangs as it were in 
 
THEE AND YOU. 155 
 
 my mind, and which I could wish that some one 
 would paint for me. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and Wholesome, as had 
 often chanced of late, did not go to meeting, but after 
 breakfast walked out of the room with a sombre face 
 and clouded brow, and went slowly up-stairs to his 
 chambers in the third story. In one he slept; the 
 other was a sitting-room, filled with relics of his 
 many voyages, skins of wild beasts, deer and moose 
 horns, pipes and the like, of which I found it pleas 
 ant to hear him chat. I followed him up-stairs, and 
 with Schmidt came to the door of his room, meaning 
 to ask him to walk with us. He must have been 
 much taken up with his own thoughts, for he did not 
 hear us, and, the door being ajar, Schmidt of a sudden 
 checked me and pointed into the room. Against 
 the farther wall was a tall mahogany clock, such as 
 are common in old houses here, a rather stately 
 timepiece, crowned with a carven cock over its ample 
 metal face. Below it, on the floor, lay a large tiger- 
 skin, upon which stood Wholesome. The clock-door 
 was open, and he seemed to have just taken from its 
 interior a pair of rapiers. One he had set against the 
 clock, and unsheathing the other he held the point 
 in one hand and the haft in the other, and bent it as 
 if to try its temper. I can see the man now in his 
 drab clothes, his curly hair, his look of easy, ample 
 strength, the tiger-skin and the open clock. Then I 
 can see him throw his chest out and lunge twice or 
 thrice at the wall with the lightsome grace of a prac 
 tised hand. 
 
 Schmidt stepped back on tiptoe, whispering, " Come 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 away," and silently we went down the staircase, I 
 wondering, and he moody and abstracted, making 
 no reply to my questionings and comments. 
 
 At last he said, " I walk not to-day. Will you 
 please me to not forget what you have promised 
 yesterday ?" 
 
 The summons came soon. I was lying on the 
 grass under the apricots, teasing the cat for the lack 
 of better amusement, that Sunday in the early after 
 noon. Across me fell the shadow of Schmidt coming 
 noiseless over the sward. I rolled over on my back, 
 laughing and tossing the angry cat about, knowing 
 not it was the shadow of a tragedy which had fallen 
 across me at my careless play. 
 
 Schmidt regarded me a moment with a soft, grave 
 look, and then, dropping on the grass beside me, said, 
 " I have before me in the day which goes a business 
 which will not be the play of boys ; but being, as you 
 know, a man of lonely ways, there is not one I can 
 think to ask that they go with me." 
 
 " And why not take me," I said, " as you meant to 
 do, I suppose?" 
 
 " I would not if I could help it," he returned. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Schmidt," said I, abruptly, " it is a fancy 
 you and Mr. Wholesome have to make a boy of me ; 
 but if not forty, I am no more a boy than you. If 
 you want help and I can give it, I am at your call. 
 If you want to explain your purpose, I will listen. If 
 you choose to hold your tongue, I am willing to go 
 with you anywhere without question." 
 
 " That was nice-spoken," he said, quietly, " and 
 with good trust. There will a woman love you well 
 
THEE AND YOU. 157 
 
 some day for the sweet honest ways of you. Come, 
 then, and wait for me at the door a moment." 
 
 He presently appeared with a long plaid cloak over 
 his shoulders, the air being shrewd and cool, and 
 we went away down Arch Street together. 
 
 At the corner of High and Front stood a building 
 with hipped roof and many gables, once the London 
 Coffee-House, but at the time I speak of rather fallen 
 in its fortunes to be a lodging-house of no great 
 repute, but not ill kept, and in the war a great resort 
 of privateersmen. 
 
 As we turned into the bar-room together, Schmidt 
 said to me, " You are here only to see, and to re 
 member what you come to see." 
 
 Then he exchanged a few words with the landlord, 
 like himself a German, and, laughing gayly, went 
 away up the narrow stairs to a front room on the 
 second story, where he knocked. I heard no reply, 
 but, at all events, Schmidt walked in, and as I passed 
 him turned, locked the door, and, keeping the key in 
 his hand, went a pace or two before me. At the 
 table between the windows sat John Oldmixon. He 
 turned his head, and with an oath too profane to 
 repeat threw down his pen, and rising faced us. 
 Schmidt walked to the table, and glancing at the 
 half-written letter which lay there, said, smiling, " You 
 write to Richard Wholesome ? Then am I yet in 
 good time." 
 
 " For what?" exclaimed Oldmixon, angrily. "To 
 look at a private letter ? Who the devil asked you to 
 come here ? Leave my room, or " 
 
 " Hush !" said Schmidt, quietly. " You are, as I 
 14 
 
I 5 8 
 
 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 do suppose, a man of the world, and what is called a 
 gentleman. I have a brief business with you, which 
 I would not for the sake of myself and you should 
 be known." 
 
 " I do not know, sir," returned Oldmixon, " of any 
 business you can possibly have with me. Open that 
 door and leave my room." 
 
 "Ach! well!" said Schmidt. "Will you then 
 listen to me ?" 
 
 " No !" cried the other. " No man shall play this 
 kind of game on me. Go, or I shall have to make 
 you." 
 
 " It will be well if you shall hear me," replied 
 Schmidt, quite master of himself. 
 
 " Then," said the other, " I shall open the door by 
 force and have you put out." 
 
 " But to my side there are two," said Schmidt, as 
 Oldmixon advanced. 
 
 On this hint I stood against the door, saying, 
 " What Mr. Schmidt wants I know no more than 
 you, but until you hear him you do not leave this 
 room." 
 
 Oldmixon looked from one to the other, and then, 
 as by a sudden resolution, said, " A deuced pretty 
 business, indeed ! I cannot fight two. What is it 
 you want?" 
 
 " Now you are come into the land of reason," said 
 the German. " I pray of you to hear me, and with 
 tranquilness to think." 
 
 " Go on," said Oldmixon. 
 
 " Good !" returned Schmidt. " Mr. Wholesome, 
 who does well know all of you, from the one side of 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 you to the other, what you call through and through, 
 he has his cause why he may not tell of you and 
 send you away or have you put in jail." 
 
 " Nonsense ! what stuff is this ?" exclaimed Old- 
 mixon. 
 
 " Yet hear," said Schmidt. " I have put on paper, 
 which is in my pocket here, a little account of you 
 for to be given to a magistrate. When he comes to 
 see it there arrives straight the constable, and he 
 touches you on the shoulder and says, You come 
 with me. " 
 
 " Pshaw !" said the other. " Is this a theatre ?" 
 
 " It is a theatre," returned Schmidt, " and we are 
 the actors, and the play is good. This paper you 
 can have on your own terms if you are wise ; and 
 once it is yours, I swear to you I shall not ever in life 
 speak or write of you again. But if you will not, 
 then when I go from this, in a time but short, it shall 
 be in the hands of the recorder." 
 
 " Do you take me for an idiot ?" said the other. 
 " What do I care for your terms ? and what are 
 you to me ? Wholesome will never testify against 
 me." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Schmidt ; " and still you will be 
 no less a man ruined ; and here at least there shall 
 be no place for you, and no woman ay, not the 
 lowest will look on you with grace." 
 
 Oldmixon fell back a pace, hesitated, and said 
 hoarsely, " What do you want?" 
 
 Schmidt leaned over and said something to him 
 which I did not hear. 
 
 Oldmixon started. " Fight you !" he said, with a 
 
l6o THEE AND YOU. 
 
 sort of bewilderment. " What for ? We have no 
 quarrel. What utter nonsense !" 
 
 " Nonsense or not," cried Schmidt, "you fight or I 
 go ; and what shall follow I have not failed to tell 
 you." 
 
 " Do you suppose," said the other, " I am to be at 
 the beck and call of every foreign adventurer? If 
 you come on Wholesome s quarrel, go back and tell 
 him I will meet him anywhere with any weapons. 
 With him, at least, I have a score to settle." 
 
 " And what score ?" returned Schmidt. 
 
 " He has struck me," said Oldmixon. " I am only 
 waiting my time. I have no quarrel with you." 
 
 " That is a thing easy to mend," said Schmidt ; and 
 to my surprise and horror he struck Oldmixon on 
 the face with the leather glove he held. 
 
 The other, wild with rage, hit out at him fiercely 
 as I threw myself between them, and there was a 
 moment s struggle, when Schmidt exclaimed, step 
 ping back, " Will that be enough ?" 
 
 " Too much !" cried the other, furiously. * You 
 shall have your way, and your blood be on your own 
 head, not on mine. I take you, sir, to witness," he 
 added, appealing to me, " that he provoked this 
 quarrel." 
 
 " It is so," said Schmidt ; and turning to me, " Let 
 come what shall, Herr Shelburne, you will say it was 
 my quarrel. And now," to Oldmixon, "the terms 
 are but these ;" and he talked apart with his foe a 
 few moments. There was anger and dissent and in- 
 sistance in their words, but I could not, and did not 
 wish to, hear them. 
 
THEE AND YOU. l6l 
 
 At last Schmidt said aloud, "It is the letters 
 against this paper, and Mr. Shelburne to hear and 
 take notice." 
 
 I bowed, somewhat in the dark, I confess. 
 
 " Mr. Shelburne has my full confidence," said Old- 
 mixon, saluting me, and now full master of himself. 
 " And what time to-morrow shall it be ?" he added. 
 
 " To-day," returned Schmidt. 
 
 " Ah ! as you like," said the other, with a good 
 show of indifference ; " and the hour and place, if 
 you please?" 
 
 "To-day," said Schmidt, "at six o clock. There 
 are certain willows of a clump which stand a mile 
 below Passyunk Road in the meadow on the way to 
 League Island. Four there are and one dead, on 
 the left. If at that hour we meet not, the word shall 
 to the magistrate, as I have said it." 
 
 " Never fear," said Oldmixon ; " I shall not fail 
 you. The threat was little needed. Who is your 
 second. Mine will be " 
 
 " There will be no second or any to see," said 
 Schmidt. 
 
 " But this is not a duel : it is murder !" exclaimed 
 Oldmixon. 
 
 " We will call no names," replied the German. 
 " Will you be there ? And listen : if I am not of the 
 lucky side, you will take this paper and your letters, 
 and so will it end. That is my bargain, and you 
 have much to win." 
 
 " Enough !" cried the other. " I shall be there, 
 ay, and ready. Your weapons ?" 
 
 " These," said Schmidt ; and throwing back his 
 / 14* 
 
1 62 THEE AND YOU. 
 
 cloak, he displayed the two rapiers we had seen 
 Wholesome handling. 
 
 "At six?" 
 
 " At six," said the other ; and with no more words 
 we left the room. 
 
 During this singular scene I had held my peace, 
 but as we reached the street I said, " You cannot 
 mean to meet this man ?" 
 
 " But I shall," he replied, " and you will here leave 
 me." 
 
 " That," said I, " I shall not do. If you go alone, 
 it must seem to any one a murder should either of 
 you die. I go with you, come what may." 
 
 He reasoned with me in vain, and at last, seeing 
 that the time sped away, he yielded, and we hastily 
 took a chaise from a livery-stable, and, I driving, 
 we went away to the place set. Within a hundred 
 yards of it we tied the horse and silently walked 
 down the road. Presently Schmidt got over a fence, 
 and crossing a meadow paused under a group of 
 pollard willows. 
 
 The scene is with me now, to fade only when I 
 also vanish. A nearly level sun shot golden light 
 across the tufted marsh-grasses of the low Neck 
 lands, already touched with autumn grays. There 
 was no house near us, and far away I could see over 
 the ditches and above the dikes of this bit of Hol 
 land the tops of schooners on the distant Schuylkill. 
 To the north the broken lines of the city still took 
 the fading sun, while around us a chill October haze 
 began to dim the farther meadows, and to hover in 
 the corners of the dikes and over the wider ditches. 
 
THEE AND YOU. 163 
 
 We had waited a Few moments only, I leaning 
 thoughtfully against a tree, Schmidt quietly walking 
 to and fro, smoking as usual, and, as far as I could 
 see, no more moved than if he were here to shoot 
 for a wager. The next moment I started, as behind 
 me broke out the loud roar of some ancient bullfrog. 
 In fact, I was getting nervous and chilly. Schmidt 
 laughed merrily at my scare. " And listen !" he said, 
 as all around the frogs, big and little, broke into 
 hoarse croakings and chirrups. "Ah!" he went on, 
 "there is to nature always a chorus ready. Do you 
 find a sadness in their tongues to-day ?" 
 
 It seemed to me horrible, indeed, as I listened, but 
 it had never so seemed to me before. 
 
 " And now is our man here," exclaimed Schmidt, 
 as the sound of distant horse-hoofs caused us to turn 
 toward the road. 
 
 A moment or two later, Oldmixon, who had dis 
 mounted and tied his horse, came swiftly over the 
 field. 
 
 "There are two!" he exclaimed, abruptly. 
 
 "It is not my fault," said Schmidt. "But Mr. 
 Shelburne shall walk a hundred yards away and 
 wait. If you kill me, it will be not so bad a thing to 
 have one to say there was a fair play." 
 
 "As you will," said the other; "but we did not so 
 agree." 
 
 " The paper," said Schmidt, " is here ; and the 
 letters ? " 
 
 " Are here," returned Oldmixon. 
 
 " Mr. Shelburne shall take them, if you please," 
 added Schmidt. " If you have good fortune, they 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 both shall to you ; and if I am to win, Mr. Shelburne 
 shall me kindly give them, and I pledge my honor 
 as a man to be truthful to what I have you promised. 
 And as you are a gentleman, is this all of them ?" 
 
 " On my honor," returned Oldmixon, proudly, with 
 more courtesy than was common to him. 
 
 " These, then, to you, my Shelburne," said Schmidt ; 
 "and, as I have said, you will amuse yourself a hun 
 dred yards away, not looking until there is no more 
 sound of swords." 
 
 I felt there was no more to be done, and so walked 
 slowly away, carrying the papers, while the two men 
 took off their coats. I turned at the sharp click of 
 the meeting blades, and looked with wild eagerness. 
 The contrast between the German s close-set, ungainly 
 form and the well-knit, tall figure of his foe filled me 
 on a sudden with foreboding. I was surprised, how 
 ever, in a moment to see that Schmidt was a master 
 of his weapon. For a minute or so I cannot tell 
 how long, it seemed to me an eternity the swords 
 flashed and met and quivered and seemed glued to 
 gether, and then there were two cries of rage and 
 joy. Schmidt s foot had slipped on the tufted sward, 
 and Oldmixon s sword-point had entered his right 
 breast. The German caught the blade with his left 
 hand, and ran his foe furiously through the sword- 
 arm, so that he dropped his weapon, staggered, 
 slipped, and fell, while the German threw the blade 
 far to the left. I ran forward at once. 
 
 " Back !" cried Schmidt ; and, gathering himself 
 up, said to Oldmixon, " Your life is mine. Keep still 
 or I will kill you : as I live, I will kill you ! You 
 
THEE AND YOU. 165 
 
 had Priscilla s letters : they are to me now. And do 
 you give her up for always ?" 
 
 " No," said Oldmixon. 
 
 " Then I shall kill you," said Schmidt. " Say your 
 prayers : you have no more to live." 
 
 The fallen man was white with fear, and turned 
 towards me for help. The German, hurt, unsteady, 
 feeling his minutes precious, was yet cool and stern. 
 " The words !" he said. 
 
 " I am in your power," said Oldmixon. 
 
 This was all, as it were, a moment s work, while I 
 was advancing over the half-meadow across which I 
 had retreated. 
 
 " Schmidt," I said, " for Heaven s sake, remember 
 me at least. Don t kill a defenceless man in cold 
 blood." 
 
 "Back!" he answered: "not a step more near or 
 he dies as by you ;" and his dripping sword-point 
 flickered perilously over Oldmixon as he lay at his 
 feet. " Quick !" he said. " I am hurt, I fail. To 
 kill you were more sure. Quick ! the words ! the 
 words!" 
 
 "What words?" said Oldmixon. "I am in your 
 power. What are your terms ?" 
 
 " You will say," said Schmidt, his hand on his side 
 and speaking hard, " you will say, I give back her 
 words with her letters. " 
 
 " I do," said Oldmixon. 
 
 "And you hear?" said Schmidt to me coming 
 near; "and take that other rapier, Shelburne." 
 
 Oldmixon had risen and stood facing us, silent, 
 ghastly, an awful memory to this day as a baffled 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 man, and around us the brown twilight, and his face 
 black against the blue eastern sky. 
 
 " Yet a word more," said Schmidt. " You have 
 lost, and I have won. To-night shall my charge be 
 set before a magistrate. You have a horse : go ! 
 Let us see you not any more." 
 
 It was after dark by the time I reached home in 
 the chaise with my companion, as to whom I felt the 
 most bitter anxiety. At first I spoke to him of his 
 condition, but upon his saying it hurt him to talk, I 
 ceased to question him and hurried the horse over 
 the broken road. When at last we were at our house- 
 door, I helped him to get out, and saw him sway a 
 moment as with weakness. As I opened the door I 
 said, " Let me help you to bed." 
 
 He replied, "Yes, it were well;" and resting a 
 hand on my shoulder, used one of the sheathed 
 rapiers as a staff. 
 
 Candles were burning in the parlor, and an astral 
 lamp, and voices sober or merry came through the 
 half-closed door. On the hall-table was also a can 
 dle. Of a sudden Schmidt paused, and said in a 
 voice broken by weakness, with a certain pitiful terror 
 in its tones, " The power goes away from me. I 
 grow blind, and shall see her no more." 
 
 Meanwhile he rocked to and fro, and then with a 
 cry of " Priscilla !" he turned from my supporting 
 shoulder, and as one dazed, pushed open the parlor 
 door, and staggering, sword in hand, into the room, 
 dropped it and leant both hands on the little round 
 table for support, so that for a moment the light fell 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 on his ghastly white face and yearning eyes. Then 
 he swayed, tottered, and fell on the floor. 
 
 They were all around him in a moment with cries 
 of dismay and pity. 
 
 " What is this ?" said some one to me. 
 
 Priscilla was on the floor at once, and had lifted 
 his head on to her knee. 
 
 " He is hurt," said I. 
 
 "Ah! God have pity on us!" exclaimed Whole 
 some, picking up his rapier. " I understand. Bring 
 water, some one, and brandy. Quick !" 
 
 " Does thee see," cried Priscilla in sudden horror, 
 "he is bleeding? Oh, cruel men !" 
 
 I stood by with fear, remorse, and sorrow in my 
 heart. " It was " I began. 
 
 "Hush!" broke in Wholesome, "another time. 
 He is better. His eyes are open: he wants some 
 thing. What is it, Heinrich ?" 
 
 " Priscilla," he said. 
 
 " Priscilla is here, dear friend," she said quietly, 
 bending over him. 
 
 " I thought I was a little boy and my head in my 
 mother s lap. Where am I ? Ah, but now I do 
 remember. The letters !" and he fumbled at his 
 pocket, and at last pulled them out. " With this on 
 them," he said, " you cannot ever any more think of 
 him." 
 
 They were stained with the blood from his wound. 
 
 "Never! never! never!" she cried piteously: "for 
 this last wickedness no forgiveness !" 
 
 " And he is gone," he added. " And Shelburne, 
 where is my Shelburne ?" 
 
THEE AND YOU. 
 
 " Here ! here !" I said. 
 
 " Tell her he gives her up for always never no 
 more to trouble her good sweetness. Wholesome, 
 where art thou ?" 
 
 " I am with you," said the captain, in a voice husky 
 with emotion. 
 
 "Quick! listen!" continued Schmidt, gasping. 
 " Time goes away for me. Is it that you do love 
 her well ?" 
 
 " Oh, my God !" said Wholesome. 
 
 " But never more so well as I," said Schmidt. 
 " Priscilla !" As he spoke his eyes looked up with 
 yearning into the face above his own. Then suddenly 
 he drew a long breath, his hands ceased to clutch 
 her dress, his head rolled over. He was dead. 
 
 When another summer again lit up the little garden 
 with roses, and the apricot blossoms were as snow 
 in the air of June, Priscilla married Richard Whole 
 some. 
 
 All of Heinrich Schmidt s little treasures were left 
 to her, but out of his memory came to her other 
 things : a yet more gracious tenderness in all her 
 ways, to her religion a greater breadth, to her 
 thoughts of men a charity which grew sweeter as it 
 grew larger, like her own spring roses. 
 
 The Quaker captain lived as he had lived, but grew 
 more self-contained as years went by, and children 
 came to chide with gentle wonder the rare outbreaks 
 which were so sad a scandal to Friends. 
 
 We laid Heinrich Schmidt away in the shadow of 
 Christ Church, and around his grave grew flowers in 
 
THEE AND YOU. JQ 
 
 such glorious abundance as he would have loved, 
 and by what gentle hands they were planted and 
 cared for it were easy to guess. 
 
 I am an old man to-day, but I cannot yet trust 
 myself to try and analyze this character of his. I 
 still can only think with tenderness and wonder of 
 its passionate love of nature, its unselfish nobleness, 
 its lack of conscience, and its overflowing heart. 
 
 5 
 
A DRAFT 
 
 ON 
 
 THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 NOT many of us would be eager to live our lives 
 over again if the gift of a new life were possible ; but 
 when I think upon the goodness and grace and love 
 that have these many years gone side by side with 
 mine, I doubt a little as to how I should decide. In 
 deed, were God to give it me to turn anew the stained 
 and dog-eared pages of the life-book, it would not 
 be for the joy of labor, or to see again the marvels 
 of growth in knowledge, that I should so yearn as 
 for the great riches of love which have made for me 
 its text and margins beautiful with the colors of 
 heaven. And so, when I recall this life, and its sor 
 rows and adventures and successes, with every mem 
 ory comes to me first of all the tender commentary 
 of that delightful face ; and I rejoice with a sudden 
 following of fear as I turn to see it again, and once 
 more to wonder at the calm of sweet and thoughtful 
 gravity which the generous years have added to its 
 abundant wealth of motherly and gracious beauty. 
 
 It is a little story of this matron and myself which 
 I find it pleasant to tell you ; chiefly, I suppose, be- 
 
 171 
 
Ij2 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 cause it lets me talk of her and her ways and doings, 
 a very simple story, with nothing in the least start 
 ling or strange, but so cheerful and grateful to me to 
 think over that I cannot but hope you too may get 
 good cheer from it, and like her a little, and find 
 interest in my old friend the clockmaker and his boy, 
 and haply come at last to believe that you would be 
 pleased to smoke a pipe with me, and to give me too 
 of such love as you have to spare ; which, I take it, 
 is for a man to get from man or woman the most de 
 sirable of earthly things. 
 
 We had been married a twelvemonth, I think, and 
 were coming on in years, she being eighteen, and I 
 well, somewhat older, of course. From among gentle 
 and kindly folks, long and steadily rooted in the soil 
 of one of our oldest Dutch towns in Middle Penn 
 sylvania, we had come, with good courage and great 
 store of hopes, to seek our fortunes in the Quaker 
 City, whose overgrown-village ways always seem 
 to the stranger from the country so much more home 
 like than the bullying bustle of its greater sister. 
 
 I smile now when I think what very young and 
 trustful people we were, May and I, and how full of 
 knowledge we thought ourselves of men and things. 
 I had been bred an engineer, and when I married 
 May was a draughtsman in a great manufactory, 
 with just enough of an income to make our marriage 
 what most folks would call unwise, an opinion in 
 which, perhaps, I might join them, were it not that 
 so many of these reckless unions, in which there is 
 only a great estate of love, have seemed to me in the 
 end to turn out so well. 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 173 
 
 Away from broad fields, and laden barns, and my 
 father s great farmhouse, and plenty, and space, we 
 came to grope about for a home among strangers, 
 with at least a hope that somewhere in the city we 
 should find a little of what my wife s old father, the 
 schoolmaster, used to call " homesomeness." With 
 great comfort in our mutual love, we found for a long 
 while no abiding-place which seemed to us pleasant, 
 until at last a happy chance brought us to lodge 
 within the walls which for some two years of our 
 young married life were all to us that we could ask. 
 
 It chanced one day that I had to have a watch 
 mended, and for this purpose walked into a shop in 
 one of the older streets, a place altogether deserted 
 by the rich, and not fully seized upon by trade. 
 There were many great warerooms and huge store 
 houses, with here and there between them an old 
 house built of red and glazed black brick r with small 
 windows full of little gnarled glasses, and above them 
 a hipped roof. Some of these houses had at that 
 time half doors, and on the lower half of one of these 
 was leaning a man somewhat past middle life. The 
 window-cases on either side were full of watches, 
 and over them was a gilded quadrant and the name 
 F. WILLOW. As I drew near, the owner for he it 
 was let me in, and when I gave him my watch, took 
 it without a word, pushed his large spectacles down 
 over two great gray eyebrows on to eyes as gray, 
 and began to open and pore over the timepiece in a 
 rapt and musing way. 
 
 At last said I, " Well ?" 
 
 " In a week," said he. 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 " A week !" said I ; " but how am I to get on for a 
 week without it?" 
 
 "Just so !" he returned. " Sit down while I look 
 at it, or come back in half an hour." 
 
 " I will wait," said I. 
 
 Without further words he turned to his seat, 
 screwed into his eye one of those queer black- 
 rimmed lenses which clockmakers use, and began to 
 peer into the works of my sick watch. In the mean 
 while I amused myself by strolling between the little 
 counters, and gravely studying the man and his be 
 longings, for both were worthy of regard. A man 
 of fifty-five, I should say, upright, despite his trade, 
 gray of beard and head, with an eagle nose and 
 large white teeth. Altogether a face full of power, 
 and, as I learned, of sweetness when I came to know 
 better its rare smile. The head was carried proudly 
 on a frame meant by Nature to have been the envy 
 of an athlete, but now just touched with the sad 
 shadows of fading strength. Wondering a little at 
 the waste of such a frame in so petty a toil, I began 
 to hear, as one does by degrees, the intrusive ticking 
 of the many clocks and watches which surrounded 
 me. First I heard a great tick, then a lesser, then by 
 and by more ticks, so as at last quite to call my at 
 tention from their owner. There were many watches, 
 and, if I remember well, at least a dozen clocks. In 
 front of me was a huge old mahogany case, with a 
 metal face, and a ruddy moon peering over it, while 
 a shorter and more ancient time-piece with a solemn 
 cluck, for which at last I waited nervously, was curi 
 ous enough to make me look at it narrowly. On 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 175 
 
 the top sat a neatly-carved figure of Time holding in 
 both hands an hour-glass, through which the last 
 grains were slowly dropping. Suddenly there was a 
 whirring noise in the clock, and the figure grimly 
 turned the hour-glass in its hands, so that it began 
 to run again. The sand was full of bits of bright 
 metal, gold perhaps, and the effect was pretty, 
 although the figure, which was cleverly carved, 
 had a quaint look of sadness, such as I could 
 almost fancy growing deeper as he shifted the glass 
 anew. 
 
 " He hath a weary time of it," said a full, strong 
 voice, which startled me, who had not seen the 
 clockmaker until, tall as his greatest clock, he stood 
 beside me. 
 
 " I was thinking that, or some such like thought," 
 said I, but feeling that the man spoke for himself as 
 well as for his puppet. " I wonder does time seem 
 longer to those who make and watch its measurers 
 all day long ?" 
 
 " My lad," said he, laying two large white hands 
 on my shoulders with a grave smile and a look which 
 somehow took away all offence from a movement 
 so familiar as to seem odd in a stranger, " my lad, I 
 fancy most clockmakers are too busy with turning 
 the dollar to care for or feel the moral of their tick 
 ing clocks." Then he paused and added sadly, " You 
 are young to moralize about time, but were you 
 lonely and friendless you would find strange com 
 pany in the endless ticking of these companions of 
 mine." 
 
 With a boy s freedom and sympathy I said quickly, 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 " But is any one are you quite lonely and friend 
 less?" 
 
 " I did not say so," he returned, abruptly ; but he 
 added, looking around him, " I have certainly more 
 clocks than friends." 
 
 " Well, after all," said I, " Mr. Willow, what is a 
 clock but a friend, with the power to do you one 
 service, and no more ?" 
 
 " I think," said he, " I have seen friends who 
 lacked even that virtue, but this special little friend 
 of yours needs regulation ; its conscience is bad. 
 Perhaps you will be so kind as to call in a week ; it 
 will take fully that long." 
 
 I went out amused and pleased with the man -s 
 oddness, and feeling also the charm of a manner 
 which I have never since seen equalled. As I passed 
 the doorway I saw tacked to it a notice of rooms to 
 let. I turned back. " You have rooms to let. 
 Might I see them ?" 
 
 " If it please you, yes," he said. "The paper has 
 been up a year, and you are the first to ask about it. 
 You will not wish to live long in this gloomy place, 
 even," he added, " if I should want you." 
 
 Then he locked the shop-door and led me up a 
 little side-stair to the second story, and into two 
 rooms, the one looking out on the street, and the 
 other on a square bit of high-walled garden, so full 
 of roses for now it was June that I quite won 
 dered to find how beautiful it was, and how sweet 
 was the breeze which sauntered in through the open 
 casement. 
 
 "Pardon me," said I, "but did you plant all these?" 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 177 
 
 " Yes," he said. " My boy and I took up the 
 pavement and put in some earth, and made them 
 thrive, as," he added, " all things thrive for him, 
 pets or flowers, all alike." 
 
 I turned away, feeling how quaint and fresh to me 
 was this life made up of clocks and roses. The rooms 
 also pleased me, the rent being lower than we were 
 paying ; and so, after a glance at the furniture, which 
 was old but neat, and observing the decent cleanli 
 ness of the place, I said, " Have you any other 
 lodgers ?" 
 
 " Two more clocks on the stairway," he replied, 
 smiling. 
 
 " My wife won t mind them or their ticking," I 
 said. " I am always away until afternoon, and per 
 haps she may find them companionable, as you do !" 
 
 " Wife !" he said, hastily. " I shall have to see 
 her." 
 
 "All right!" said I. 
 
 " No children ?" he added. 
 
 " No," said I. 
 
 " Humph ! Perhaps I am sorry. They beat clocks 
 all to pieces for company, as my boy says." 
 
 " Only my wife and I, sir. If you do not object, 
 I will bring her to look at the rooms to-morrow." 
 
 As I turned to leave, I noticed over the chimney- 
 place a tinted coat-of-arms, rather worn and shabby. 
 Beneath it was the name " Tressilian," and above it 
 hung a heavy sabre. 
 
 As I walked away I mused with a young man s 
 sense of romance over the man and his trade, and 
 the history which lay in his past life, a history I 
 
If g A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 never knew, but which to this day still excites my 
 good wife s curiosity when we talk, as we often do, 
 of the clocks and the roses. 
 
 I shall never forget the delight that my little lady 
 found in our new home, to which we soon after 
 moved. It was a warm summer afternoon, as I well 
 remember. The watchmaker and his boy, whom I 
 had not yet seen, were out, and the house was in 
 charge of a stout colored dame, who was called 
 Phoebe, and who was never without a " misery" in 
 her head. 
 
 My May followed our trunks up-stairs, and went 
 in and out, and wondered at the coat-of-arms and 
 the sabre ; and at last, seeing the roses, was down 
 stairs and out among them in a moment. I went 
 after her, and saw, with the constant joy her pleas 
 ures bring to me, how she flitted like a bee to and 
 fro, pausing to catch at each blossom a fresh per 
 fume, and shaking the petals in a rosy rain behind 
 her as her dress caught the brambles. 
 
 " May," said I at last, " you have demolished a 
 thousand roses. What will their owner say ? Look ! 
 there is Mr. Willow now." 
 
 Then, like a guilty thing, caught in her innocent 
 mood of joy and mischief, she paused with glowing 
 cheeks, and looked up at the window of our room, 
 whence Mr. Willow was watching her, with the lad 
 beside him. " Oh, what a scamp I am, Harry !" said 
 she, and in a moment had plucked a moss-rose bud, 
 and was away up-stairs with it. 
 
 When I reached the room she was making all sorts 
 of little earnest excuses to the watchmaker. " But I 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 have spoilt your rose-harvest," she said. " Will you 
 let me give you this one ?" and as I entered the man 
 was bending down in a way which seemed to me 
 gracious and even courtly, a moisture in his eyes as 
 she laughingly pinned the bud to the lappel of his 
 threadbare coat. 
 
 " Well, well !" he said. " It is many and many a 
 day since a woman s hand did that for me. We must 
 make you free of our roses, that is, if Arthur likes." 
 
 The lad at this said gravely, " It would give me 
 the greatest pleasure, madam." 
 
 I smiled, amused that the little woman should be 
 called madam in such a reverential fashion, while she 
 retreated a step to see the effect of her rose, and then 
 would arrange it anew. They made freshness and 
 beauty in the old wainscoted chamber, the man, 
 large and nobly built, with a look of tenderness and 
 latent strength ; the girl, full of simplicity and grace, 
 hovering about him with mirthful brown eyes and 
 changeful color; the lad, tall, manly, and grave, 
 watching with great blue eyes, full of wonder and a 
 boy s deep worship, her childlike coquetries and 
 pretty ways. From that day forward father and son, 
 like another person I know of, were her humble 
 slaves, and from that day to this the wily little lady 
 has only gone on adding to her list of willing vas 
 sals. 
 
 It was early agreed that the clockmaker, his son, 
 and ourselves should take meals in common in our 
 little back room, which, under my wife s hands, soon 
 came to look cheerful enough. By and by she quietly 
 took control of the housekeeping also, and with 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 Phoebe s aid surprised us with the ease in which we 
 soon began to live. But as to the roses, if they had 
 thriven in the care of Arthur and his father, they now 
 rioted, if roses can riot, in luxury of growth over 
 wall and trellis, and, despite unending daily tributes 
 to make lovely our table and chamber, grew as if 
 to get up to her window was their sole object in life. 
 I have said those were happy days, and I doubt not 
 that for others than ourselves they were also delight 
 ful. Often in the afternoon when coming back from 
 my work, I would peep into the shop to see the 
 watchmaker busy with his tools, the lad reading 
 aloud, and my wife listening, seated with her needle 
 work between the counters. Often I have stayed 
 quiet a moment to hear them as the lad, perched on 
 a high stool, would sit with a finger in his book, 
 making shrewd comments full of a strange thought- 
 fulness, until the watchmaker, turning, would listen 
 well pleased, or May would find her delight in urging 
 the two to fierce battle of argument, her eyes twink 
 ling with mischief as she set about giving some ab 
 surd decision, while the clocks big and little ticked 
 solemnly, and the watches from far corners made faint 
 echoes. Or perhaps, in the midst of their chat, all 
 the clocks would begin to strike the hour, and on a 
 sudden the watchmaker would start up from his seat 
 and stride toward some delinquent a little late in its 
 task, and savagely twist its entrails a bit, and then 
 back to his seat, comforted for a time. My May had 
 all sorts of queer beliefs about these clocks and their 
 master, and delighted to push the hands a little back 
 or forward, until poor Willow was in despair. One 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. l % l 
 
 hapless bit of brass and iron, which was always five 
 minutes late in striking, she called the foolish virgin, 
 and at last carried off to her room, explaining that 
 it was so nice to get up five minutes late, and the 
 clock would help her to do it ; with other such pleas 
 ant sillinesses as might have been looked for from a 
 young person who kept company with idle roses and 
 the like. 
 
 But if the clockmaker and my wife were good 
 friends, the lad and she were sworn allies, and just 
 the frank, wholesome friend she has since been to 
 my boys she was then to young Willow. His white 
 mice and the curiously tame little guinea pig, which 
 had been taught not to gnaw the roses, hard sen 
 tence for those cunning teeth of his ! were hers 
 in a little while as much as the boy s, and the two 
 had even come at last to share his favorite belief 
 that the solemn old battered box-turtle in the garden 
 had been marked with " G. W." by General Wash 
 ington, and was to live to be the last veteran of 76. 
 I used to propose in my unheroic moments that the 
 old fellow should apply for a pension, but my jeers 
 were received with patience, and this and other boy- 
 beliefs rested unshaken. 
 
 There are many scenes of our quiet life of those 
 days which are still present to me in such reality as 
 if they were pictures which I had but to open a gal 
 lery door to see anew. The watchmaker seems to 
 me always a foremost figure in my groups. He was 
 a man often moody, and prone when at leisure to sit 
 looking out from under his shaggy eyebrows into 
 some far-away distance of time and space ; almost 
 
 16 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 haughty at times, and again so genial and sunshiny 
 and full of good talk and quick-witted fancies that it 
 was a never-ceasing wonder to us unmoody young 
 folks how these human climates could change and 
 shift so strangely. His wintry times were sadly fre 
 quent when, as we came to know him better, he 
 ceased to make efforts to please, and yielded to the 
 sway of his accustomed sadness. The boy made a 
 curious contrast, and was so full of happy outbursts 
 of spirits and mirth, so swiftly changing too, with an 
 ever-brightening growth of mind, that beside his 
 father no one could fail to think of him as of the 
 healthful promise of the springtide hour. And as 
 for my wife, in his better times the watchmaker had 
 a pretty way of calling her " Summer," which by and 
 by, for his own use, the lad made into " Mother Sum 
 mer," until at length the little lady, well pleased with 
 her nicknames, answered to them as readily as to her 
 lawful titles. 
 
 I used to think our happiest days were the bright 
 Sundays in the fall of the last year of our long stay 
 with the Willows. We had taken up the habit of 
 going to the Swedes Church, which in fact was the 
 nearest to our house, and surely of all the homes of 
 prayer the quaintest and most ancient in the city. 
 Always when the afternoon service was over we used 
 to wander a little about the well-filled churchyard 
 and read the inscription on Wilson s grave, and won 
 der, with our boy-friend, who knew well his story, if 
 the many birds which haunted the place came here 
 to do him honor. Pleasant it was also to make our 
 way homeward among old houses long left by the 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. ^^ 
 
 rich, and at last to find ourselves sauntering slowly 
 up the wharves, quietest of all the highways on Sun 
 day, with their ships and steamers and laden market- 
 boats jostling one another at their moorings, like 
 boys at church, as if weary of the unaccustomed 
 stillness. Then, when the day was over, we were in 
 the habit of sitting in the open doorway of the shop 
 watching the neatly-dressed Sunday folk, lulled by 
 the quiet of the hour and the busy, monotonous 
 ticking of the little army of clocks behind us, while 
 my wife filled our pipes, and the talk, gay or grave, 
 rose and fell. 
 
 On such an early October evening came to us the 
 first break in the tranquil sameness of our lives. We 
 had enjoyed the evening quiet, and had just left the 
 garden and gone into the shop, where Mr. Willow 
 had certain work to do, which perhaps was made 
 lighter by our careless chat. By and by, as the night 
 fell, one or two sea-captains called in with their chro 
 nometers, that they might be set in order by the 
 clockmaker. Then the lad put up and barred the 
 old-fashioned shutters, and coming back settled him 
 self into a corner with a torn volume of " Gulliver s 
 Travels," over which now and then he broke out into 
 great joy of laughter, which was not to be stilled 
 until he had read us a passage or two, whilst between- 
 times my wife s knitting-needles clicked an irregular 
 reply to the ticking clocks, and I sat musing and 
 smoking, a little tired by a long day s work. 
 
 At last the watchmaker paused from his task and 
 called us to look at it. It was some kind of register 
 ing instrument for the Coast Survey, a patent on 
 
1 84 
 
 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 which he greatly prided himself. Seven or eight 
 pendulums were arranged in such a manner that their 
 number corrected the single error of each escapement. 
 Further I do not remember, but only recall how we 
 marvelled at the beautiful steadiness of the movement, 
 and how my wife clapped her hands joyously at the 
 happy end of so much toil and thought. 
 
 " It is done," said the watchmaker, rising. " Let 
 us look how the night goes ;" for it was a constant 
 custom with him always before going to bed to stand 
 at the door for a little while and look up at the heav 
 ens. He said it was to see what the weather would 
 be, a matter in which he greatly concerned himself, 
 keeping a pet thermometer in the garden, and noting 
 day by day its eccentricities with an interest which 
 no one but my wife ever made believe to share. I 
 followed him to the open door, where he stood lean 
 ing against the side-post, looking steadily up at the 
 sky. The air was crisp and cool, and overhead, thick 
 as snow-flakes, the stars twinkled as if they were 
 keeping time to the ticking clocks. Presently my 
 wife came out, and laying a hand on his arm stood 
 beside us and drank in the delicious calm of the 
 autumn night, while the lad fidgeted under his elbow 
 between them, and got his share of the starlight and 
 the quiet. 
 
 " It seems hard to think they are all moving for 
 ever and ever," said the boy. " I wonder if they are 
 wound up as often as your clocks, father ?" 
 
 " It is only a great clock, after all," said Willow, 
 " and must stop some of these days, I suppose. Did 
 ever you think of that, little Summer ?" 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 I8 5 
 
 " Will last our time," said my wife. 
 
 " Your time !" returned the clockmaker. " Your 
 time is forever, little woman : you may live in the 
 days not of this world to see the old wonder of it all 
 fade out and perish." 
 
 Just then a man stopped in front of us and said, 
 "Does Mr. Willow live here?" 
 
 " Yes," said I ; and as he came toward us we 
 naturally gave way, thinking him some belated cus 
 tomer, and he entered the lighted shop. 
 
 Then Willow turned again, and the two men came 
 face to face. The stranger was a man of great height, 
 but spare and delicate. He leaned on a gold-headed 
 cane somewhat feebly, and seemed to me a person of 
 great age. What struck me most, however, was the 
 ease and grace of his bearing and a certain elegance 
 of dress and manner. The moment Willow set eyes 
 on him he staggered back, reeled a moment, and, 
 catching at a chair, fell against the tall clock over 
 which he had set the figure of Time. " What has 
 brought you here ?" he cried, hoarsely. 
 
 " My son, my boy," said the elder man, in a voice 
 shaken by its passion of tenderness. " Can you 
 never, never forget ?" 
 
 " Forget !" said the other. " I had almost come to 
 that, but, remembering anew, how can I ever forgive ? 
 Go !" he cried, fiercely, darting forward on a sudden 
 and opening the door. " Go, before the madness 
 comes upon me. Go, go before I curse you." Then 
 he reeled again, and growing white, fell into a chair, 
 and as if choked with emotion, stayed, rigidly point 
 ing to the door. 
 
 1 6* 
 
1 86 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 Then my wife ran forward. " Leave us," she said, 
 "whoever you are. You see how ill he is. You 
 can do no good here. Come again if you will, but 
 go away now." 
 
 The stranger hesitated and looked in bewilderment 
 from one to another, while the lad, till then silent, 
 opened the door wider and said, gently, " Will it 
 please you to go, grandfather ?" 
 
 " My boy his boy !" exclaimed the new-comer, 
 patting his curly head. " Now am I indeed pun 
 ished," he added, for the lad shrunk back with a look 
 of horror quite strange on a face so young, and, 
 suddenly covering his face with both hands, the 
 elder man went by him and passed out into the street 
 without a word. Then the boy hastily shut the door, 
 and we turned to Willow, who had fallen in some 
 thing like a swoon from his chair. Silently or with 
 whispers we gathered about him, while my wife 
 brought a pillow and some water and gave him to 
 drink. At last we got him up-stairs to our own 
 room, where for some days he lay in a state of feeble 
 ness which seemed to me very strange in one so 
 vigorous but a little while before. On the next 
 morning after his attack he showed some uneasiness, 
 and at length was able to bid us take down the 
 painted arms over the fireplace and hide them away ; 
 but beyond this he gave no sign of what he had passed 
 through, and by slow degrees got back again very 
 nearly his wonted habits and mode of life. 
 
 I need scarcely say that so strange an event could 
 hardly take place in our little household without 
 awakening the curiosity of two people as young and 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. ^j 
 
 romantic as May and I. Indeed, I greatly fear that 
 the little lady so far yielded to the impulses of her 
 sex as even to question young Willow in a round 
 about way; but the lad was plainly enough schooled 
 to silence, and you had only to look at his square, 
 strongly-built chin to learn how hopeless it would be 
 to urge him when once his mind was made up. He 
 only smiled and put the question by as a man would 
 have done, and before us at least neither father nor 
 son spoke of it again during the next month. 
 
 The pleasant hazy November days came and went, 
 and one evening on my return home I learned that 
 Mr. Willow had suffered from a second attack of 
 faintness, and from my wife I heard that the lad had 
 let fall that his grandfather had called once more, and 
 that the two men had had another brief and bitter 
 meeting. The following morning, as I went to my 
 work, I saw the stranger walking to and fro on the 
 far side of the street. Nothing could be more piti 
 able than his whole look and bearing, because nothing 
 is sadder to see than a man of gentle breeding so 
 worn with some great sorrow as to have become 
 shabby from mere neglect of himself. He peered 
 across the street, looked up at the windows and at 
 the shop, and at last walked feebly away, with now 
 and then a wistful look back again, such a look as 
 I saw once in my life in the great eyes of a huge 
 watch-dog whom we left on the prairie beside the 
 lonely grave of his master. 
 
 From this time onward, all through a severe win 
 ter, he haunted the neighborhood, once again, and 
 only once, venturing to speak to the clockmaker, to 
 
!88 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 whom his constant presence where he could hardly 
 fail to see him at times became a torture which was 
 plainly wearing his life away. Twice also he spoke 
 to the boy, and once urged him to take a little pack 
 age which we supposed might have been money. At 
 last my anxiety became so great that I spoke to him 
 myself, but was met so coldly, although with much 
 courtesy, that I felt little inclined to make the same 
 attempt again. 
 
 I learned with no great trouble that he lived quietly 
 during this winter at one of our greater hotels, that 
 he seemed to be a man of ample means, and that his 
 name was Tressilian, but beyond this I knew no 
 more. He came, at last, to be a well-known figure 
 in our neighborhood, as he wandered sadly about 
 among rough porters and draymen and the busy 
 bustle of trade. His visits to our house, and his 
 questions about Mr. Willow, were added sources of 
 annoyance to the latter, who rarely failed to look 
 gloomily up and down the street, to make sure of 
 his absence, before he ventured out of doors. 
 
 Under this system of watching and worry,. Mr. 
 Willow s attacks grew at last more frequent, and as 
 the spring came on my good wife became, as she said, 
 worked up to that degree that she at last made up 
 her feminine mind ; and so one fine morning sallied 
 out and had her own talk with the cause of our 
 troubles. 
 
 I think the good little woman had determined to 
 try if she could reconcile the father and son. She 
 came to me in the evening a good deal crestfallen, and 
 with very little of the blessedness of the peacemaker 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. i%g 
 
 in her face. While Mr. Willow was out she had sent 
 his son, who was keeping guard in the shop, on an 
 errand, and had then actually brought the stranger 
 into the house, where, refusing to sit down, he had 
 wandered to and fro, talking half coherently at times, 
 and at last urging her to induce his son to speak 
 with him once more. As to their cause of quarrel 
 he was silent. "A lonely, sad old man," said my 
 wife. He said he would kneel to his boy, if that 
 would do good, but to go away, to go away and leave 
 him, that he could not do, that he would not do. 
 God would bless her, he was sure ; and might he kiss 
 her hand? and so went away at last sorrow-stricken, 
 but wilful to keep to his purpose. 
 
 Perhaps my wife s talk may have had its effect, 
 because for a month or two he was absent. Then he 
 came and asked at the door for Willow, who was out, 
 and for a while haunted the street, until late in the 
 spring, when we saw him no longer. 
 
 Meanwhile, Willow had become more feeble, 
 and a new trouble had come to our own modest 
 door. 
 
 Many years have since gone by, and happier for 
 tunes have been ours, brave sons and fair daugh 
 ters, and more of this world s gear than perhaps is 
 good for us to leave them, but to this day I remem 
 ber with discomfort that luckless evening. I hastened 
 home with the news to my wife ; and what news to 
 two trustful young folks, who had married against 
 the will of their elders, and had seen, as yet, no cause 
 to regret their waywardness ! 
 
 " May," said I, and I can recall how full my 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 throat felt as I spoke, " May, I I am thrown out 
 of work. The company is lessening its staff, and I 
 am to be discharged." 
 
 I thought the little woman would have been 
 crushed, but, on the contrary, it was I, who meant to 
 comfort her, who was the beaten one. 
 
 " Well, Harry," said she, in a cheery way, " I did 
 not suppose it would last forever." 
 
 Man though I was, I sat down and covered my 
 face with my hands. We were very young, and very, 
 very poor. I had been offered, not long before, a 
 place in the West, but our little treasury was very 
 low, and to secure the position with a probable fu 
 ture of success required some hundreds of dollars, 
 so that we had not dared to give it another thought ; 
 and now, at last, what were we to do ? 
 
 "Do!" said May. "Why But kiss me, 
 
 Harry, you haven t kissed me since you came 
 in." 
 
 I kissed her, rather dolefully I fear. " We can t 
 live on kisses," said I. 
 
 " Not as a steady diet," she replied, laughing. 
 " Perhaps this may have good news for us ;" and so 
 saying, she handed me a letter. 
 
 I opened it absently and glanced over it in haste. 
 " Misfortunes never come single, May," said I. 
 
 " No, my darling," she answered, laughing ; " they 
 only come to married people, to make them good 
 girls and boys, I suppose. What is it, you grumpy 
 old man ?" 
 
 I read it aloud. It was a request and a rather 
 crusty one too from a bachelor cousin to return to 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN, igi 
 
 him a small sum which he had lent us when we were 
 married. He had met with certain losses which 
 made it needful that he should be repaid at once. 
 
 " Any more letters, May ?" said I, ruefully. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said she. "Let us think about it 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "What good will sleeping on it do?" I replied. 
 " Do you expect to dream a fortune ?" 
 
 " I have dreamed a good many," she said, " in my 
 time, and all for you, you ungrateful fellow. Now 
 suppose " 
 
 " Well, suppose what?" said I, crossly. 
 
 " Suppose," she returned, " suppose we two laugh 
 a little." 
 
 That woman would have laughed at anything or 
 with anybody. 
 
 " I can t laugh, May," said I. " We are in a rather 
 serious scrape, I assure you." 
 
 " Scrape !" said she. " Old age is a scrape, but at 
 twenty-two all the good things of time are before us; 
 and and God, my darling, has he not been very, 
 very good to us two sparrows,?" 
 
 "But, May," said I, "it is not myself I think of; 
 
 " Me, I suppose, me. Do you know how rich I 
 am, Harry ? It seems to me I never can be poor. 
 There s, first, your love, that is twenty thousand 
 dollars ; then there is that dear old bearded face of 
 yours, that is ten thousand more ; then there is all 
 the rest of you, that s ever so much more ; and then 
 there are my Spanish castles *" 
 
 " May, May," said I, " if castles in Spain would 
 
192 
 
 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 aid us, I would gladly enough help you to build 
 them ; but for my part " 
 
 " For my part," she broke in, " castles in Spain 
 do help me. They help me to get over the shock of 
 this horrid bother, and to gain a little time to steady 
 myself. Indeed, I think if I were to draw a big 
 check on the Rothschilds at this very moment, it 
 would ease me a bit. It would ease me, you see, 
 even if they did not pay it." 
 
 " May, May !" said I, reproachfully. 
 
 " Now, Harry," she cried, laughing, " I must laugh 
 and have my nonsense out. I can t cry, even for you. 
 Let us go out and have a good long walk, and to 
 morrow talk over this trouble. We shall live to 
 smile at the fuss we have made about it. So, change 
 your coat and come with me; I was just dressed to 
 go out to meet you." 
 
 " Well, May," I said, " if only " 
 
 "If! fiddlesticks!" she cried, putting her hand 
 over my mouth and pushing me away. " Hurry, or 
 we shall be late." 
 
 I don t often resist the little lady, and so I went 
 as she bid me, and by and by coming back, there 
 was May laughing and making absurdly merry over 
 a bit of paper on the desk before her. I leaned over 
 her shoulder and said, " What is it, sweetheart?" 
 
 " Riches," said she. 
 
 " Nonsense !" said I. 
 
 " What a relapse !" cried the wifey. " So you 
 despise gold, do you ? See what I have been doing 
 for you while you have been idling in the next 
 room." 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 193 
 
 " What is it ?" said I, laughing, for not to laugh 
 when she laughed was simply out of the question. 
 
 She gave me the paper, and I read just this pretty 
 stuff: 
 
 " The Bank of Spain, please pay to Bearer (who, 
 the benevolent bank should know, is out of place 
 and out of humor, and owes money not of Spain) 
 One Thousand Dollars. 
 
 "$iooo. "THE BEST OF WIVES." 
 
 We left the order and the wretched letter on the 
 desk, and went merrily down-stairs, full once more 
 of hope and faith, comforted somehow by so little a 
 thing as this jest of hers. I made, as I remember, a 
 feeble effort to plunge anew into my griefs, but May 
 rattled on so cheerfully, and the laugh and the smile 
 were so honest and wholesome, that good humor 
 could no more fail to grow in their company than a 
 rose refuse to prosper in the warm sweet suns of 
 June. I have loved that woman long, and have greatly 
 loved her afresh for the good and tender things I 
 have seen her do, but it was on the summer evening 
 of our trouble I first learned that I could love her 
 more, and that truly to love is but to grow in all 
 knowledge of such courage and winning sweetness 
 and gallant, cheery endurance as she showed me 
 then, just as it were for a little glimpse of the gra 
 cious largeness of this amazing blessing which had 
 fallen into my poor lap and life. 
 
 That warm June afternoon was filled full for me 
 of those delightful pictures which I told you have 
 
I9 4 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 hung, with others more or less faded, in the great 
 gallery of art which adorns my Spanish castle. There 
 are bits by a rare artist of the long-gone gables and 
 hip-roofs and half doors which used to make old 
 Swanson Street picturesque. There is one little 
 group of boys just loosed from school, ruddy and 
 jolly, around a peanut-stand, alike eager and penni 
 less, while behind them May reckless, imprudent 
 May ! is holding up a dime to the old woman, and 
 laughing at the greedy joy that is coming on a sud 
 den over the urchins faces as the nuts become a 
 possible possession. 
 
 We were great walkers in those days ; and as we 
 walked and the houses and poor suburbs were left 
 behind, and we gained the open roads which run 
 wildly crooked across the Neck, it was pleasant to 
 feel that we had escaped from the tyranny of right 
 angles. It was the first time we had gone south of 
 the city, and we found there, as you may find to-day, 
 the only landscape near us which has in it something 
 quite its own, and which is not elsewhere to be seen 
 near to any great city in all our broad country. It 
 has helped me to one or two landscapes by Dutch 
 artists, which will fetch a great price if ever my heirs 
 shall sell the Spanish castle. 
 
 Wide, level, grassy meadows, bounded by two 
 noble rivers, kept back by miles of dikes ; formal 
 little canals, which replace the fences and leave an 
 open view of lowing cattle; long lines of tufted pol 
 lard willows, shock-headed, sturdy fellows ; and here 
 and there a low-walled cottage, with gleaming milk- 
 cans on the whitewashed garden palings; and, be- 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 195 
 
 tween, glimpses of red poppies, tulips, and the like, 
 while far away in the distance tall snowy sails of 
 hidden hulks of ships and schooners move slowly to 
 and fro upon the unseen rivers. 4 
 
 Charming we found it, with a lowland beauty all 
 its own, lacking but a wind-mill here and there to 
 make it perfect of its kind. Along its heaped-up 
 roads we wandered all that summer afternoon, until 
 the level sun gleamed yellow on the long wayside 
 ditches, with their armies of cat-tails and spatter- 
 docks and tiny duckweed ; and at last the frogs came 
 out, both big and small, and said or sung odd bits 
 of half-human language, which it pleased the little 
 woman to convert into absurd pieces of advice to 
 doleful young folks such as we. She would have 
 me pause and listen to one solemn old fellow who 
 said, I am sure, " Good luck ! good luck !" and to 
 another sturdy brown-backed preacher, who bade 
 us " Keep up ! keep up !" with a grim solemness of 
 purpose most comforting to hear. Then we stopped 
 at a cottage and saw the cows milked, which seemed 
 so like home that the tears came into my wife s 
 eyes ; and at last we had a bowl of sweet-smelling 
 milk, and then turned homeward again, the smoke 
 of my pipe curling upward in the still cool evening 
 air. 
 
 It was long after dark when we reached home. 
 As we went up the side stair which opened on the 
 street by a door of its own, I put my head into the 
 shop and bade Mr. Willow good-night. He was 
 seated at his bench studying the strange swing of 
 the many pendulums of his new instrument, but in 
 
196 
 
 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN 
 
 place of the pleased look which the view of his com 
 pleted task usually brought upon his face, it was sad 
 and weary, and he merely turned his head a moment 
 to answer my salute. On the stairs we met Phcebe, 
 who was greatly troubled, and told us that a little 
 while before dusk, Mr. Willow and his son being out, 
 the stranger had called, and asking for my wife, 
 for the little lady, as he called her, had pushed by 
 the maid and gone up-stairs, saying that he would 
 wait to see her. Phcebe, alarmed at his wild manner, 
 had kept watch at our door until her master came 
 back. Then she had heard in our room, where the 
 son and father met, fierce and angry words, after 
 which the old man had gone away and the clock- 
 maker had retired to his shop. All that evening we 
 sat in the darkness of our room alone, thinking it 
 best not to disturb Mr. Willow and his lad, who were 
 by themselves in the shop. About ten the boy came 
 up, bade us a good-night, and soon after we ourselves 
 went, somewhat tired, to bed. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and as usual we slept 
 . rather later than common. After dressing I went 
 into the back room, and, throwing up the window, 
 stood still to breathe the freshness of the time. The 
 pigeons were coquetting on the opposite gables and 
 housetops, and below me, in the garden, the rare 
 breezes which had lost their way in the city were 
 swinging the roses and jessamines like censers, till 
 their mingled odors made rich the morning air. 
 
 Suddenly I heard a cry of surprise, and turning, 
 saw my May, prettier and fresher than any roses in 
 her neat white morning-dress. Her face was full of 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. IQJ 
 
 wonder, and she held in her hands the papers we had 
 left on the table the night before. 
 
 " What is it now, May?" said I. 
 
 " Look !" she said, holding up her draft on the 
 Bank of Spain. 
 
 Beneath it was written, in a bold and flowing hand, 
 " Paid by the Bank of Spain," and pinned fast to the 
 paper was a bank-note for I could hardly credit 
 my eyes one thousand dollars. We looked at one 
 another for a moment, speechless. Then May burst 
 into tears and laid her head on my shoulder. I can 
 not understand why she cried, but that was just what 
 this odd little woman did. She cried and laughed 
 by turns, and would not be stilled, saying, " Oh, 
 Harry, don t you see I was right ? God has been 
 good to us this Sabbath morning." 
 
 At last I took her in my arms and tried to make 
 her see that the money was not ours, but then the 
 little lady was outraged. She called Phoebe, and 
 questioned her and young Willow in vain. Neither 
 knew anything of the matter, and my own notion as 
 to its having been a freak of the English stranger she 
 utterly refused to listen to. 
 
 It was vast wealth to us needy young people, this 
 thousand dollars, and as it lay there on the table it 
 seemed to me at times unreal, or as if it might be the 
 dreamed fulfilment of a dream, soon to vanish and 
 be gone. My wife must also have had some such 
 fancy, for she was all the time running back and for 
 ward, now handling the note, and now turning to cry 
 out her gratitude and thankfulness upon my breast. 
 
 To this day we know not whence it came, but as 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 Willow s father was plainly a man of wealth, and as 
 he had spoken in words of strong feeling to my wife 
 of the little service she had tried to render him, I 
 came at last to believe that the gift was his. At all 
 events, we heard no more of the giver, whoever he 
 may have been. I trust that he has been the better 
 and happier for all the kind and pleasant things my 
 wife has said of him, and for the earnest prayers she 
 said that night. 
 
 While we were still talking of the strange gift, 
 young Willow suddenly returned, and, after waiting 
 a moment, found a chance to tell us that his father s 
 room was empty, and to ask if we knew where he 
 could be. I felt at once a sense of alarm, and ran 
 up-stairs and into Mr. Willow s chamber. The bed 
 had not been slept in. Then I went hastily down to 
 the shop, followed by my wife and the lad. On 
 opening the door the first thing which struck me was 
 that the clocks were silent, and I missed their ac 
 customed ticking. This once for years they had not 
 been wound up on Saturday night, as was the clock- 
 maker s habit. I turned to his workbench. He was 
 seated in front of it, his head on his hands, watching 
 the pendulums of his machine, which were swinging 
 merrily. " Mr. Willow," said I, placing a hand on 
 his shoulder, " are you sick ?" He made no answer. 
 
 " Why don t he speak ?" said May, with a scared 
 face. 
 
 " He will never speak again, my darling," I replied. 
 " He is dead !" 
 
 I have little to add to this simple story. On in- 
 
A DRAFT ON THE BANK OF SPAIN. 
 
 199 
 
 quiry I found that the stranger had left the city. No 
 claimant came for our money, and so, after a little, 
 having buried Mr. Willow in the Old Swedes church 
 yard, we went away with his son to the West. The 
 lad told us then that it was his father s desire that on 
 his death he should take his true name. An evil fate 
 went with it, and to-day young Tressilian lies in a 
 soldier s nameless grave beneath the giant shadows 
 of Lookout Mountain, one more sweet and honest 
 life given for the land he had learned to love and 
 honor. 
 
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