8 g ^ Jf \\^ f v KHIHWO** rt 1 ir" ^-UBRARY^ ^ME-UNIVERS/A. ^ * i 1 3 s \\EUNIVER% . ^UIBRARYQ. SeptJ20 u 1859. THE MINISTER'S WOOING, BY H. BEECHEE STOWE, AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," " SUNNY MEMORIES," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIZ. LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON, & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL. 1859. [The Author reserves the right of translation.] LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET. PS INTKODUCTION. THE author has endeavoured in this story to paint a style of life and manners which existed in New England in the earlier days of her national existence. Some of the principal characters are historic : the leading events of the story are founded on actual facts, although the author has taken the liberty to arrange and vary them for the purposes of the story. The author has executed the work with a reverential ten- derness for those great and religious minds who laid in New England the foundations of many generations, and for those institutions and habits of life from whjch, as from a fruitful germ, sprang all the present prosperity of America. Such as it is, it is commended to the kindly thoughts of that British fireside from which the fathers and mothers of Ame- rica first went out to give to English ideas and institutions a new growth in a new world. H. B. STOWE. 18 Montague Street, Eussett Square, August 25, 1859. THE MINISTERS WOOING. CHAPTER I. MRS. KATY SCUDDER had invited Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Jones, and Deacon Twitchel's wife to take tea with her on the afternoon of June second, A. D. 17 . When one has a story to tell, one is always puzzled which end of it to begin at. You have a whole corps of people to introduce that you know and your reader doesn't ; and one thing so pre- supposes another, that, whichever way you turn your patchwork, the figures still seem ill-arranged. The small item that I have given will do as well as any other to begin with, as it certainly will lead you to ask, ' Pray, who was Mrs. Katy Scudder ?' and this will start me systematically on my story. You must understand that in the then small seaport- town of Newport, at that time unconscious of its present fashion and fame, there lived nobody in those days who did not know ' the Widow Scudder.' In New England settlements a custom has obtained, which is wholesome and touching, of ennobling the woman whom God has made desolate, by a sort of brevet rank which continually speaks for her as a claim on the respect and consideration of the community. The Widow Jones, or Brown, or Smith, is one of the fixed institutions of every New England village, and doubtless the designation acts as a continual plea for one whom bereavement, like the lightning of heaven, has made sacred. The Widow Scudder, however, was one of the sort of women who reign queens in whatever society they move in ; nobody was 2 THE MINISTER S WOOING. more quoted, more deferred to, or enjoyed more unquestioned position than she. She was not rich, a small farm, with a modest, ' gainbrel-roofed,' one-story cottage, was her sole domain ; but she was one of the much-admired class who, in the speech of New England, are said to have ' faculty,' a gift which, among that shrewd people, commands more esteem than beauty, riches, learning, or any other worldly endowment. Faculty is Yankee for savoirfcure, and the opposite virtue to shiftlessness. Faculty is the greatest virtue, and shiftlessness the greatest vice, of Yankee man and woman. To her who has faculty nothing shall be im- possible. She shall scrub floors, wash, wring, bake, brew, and yet her hands shall be small and white ; she shall have no per- ceptible income, yet always be handsomely dressed ; she shall not have a servant in her house, with a dairy to manage, hired men to feed, a boarder or two to care for, unheard-of pickling and preserving to do, and yet you commonly see her every afternoon sitting at her shady parlour-window behind the lilacs, cool and easy, hemming muslin cap-strings, or reading the last new book. She who hath faculty is never in a hurry, never behindhand. She can always step over to distressed Mrs. Smith, whose jelly won't come, and stop to show Mrs. Jones how she makes her pickles so green, and be ready to watch with poor old Mrs. Simpkins, who is down with the rheumatism. Of this genus was the Widow Scudder, or, as the neighbours would have said of her, she that was Katy Stephens. Katy was the only daughter of a shipmaster, sailing from Newport harbour, who was wrecked off the coast one cold December night, and left small fortune to his widow and only child. Katy grew up, however, a tall, straight, black-eyed girl, with eyebrows drawn true as a bow, a foot arched like a Spanish woman's, and a little hand which never saw the thing it could not do, quick of speech, ready of wit, and, as such girls have a right to be, some- what positive withal. Katy could harness a chaise, or row a boat ; she could saddle and ride any horse in the neighbourhood ; she could cut any garment that ever was seen or thought of ; make cake, jelly, and wine, from her earliest years, in most pre- cocious style ; all without seeming to derange a sort of trim, well- kept air of ladyhood that sat jauntily on her THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 3 Of course, being young and lively, she had her admirers, and some well-to-do in worldly affairs laid their lands and houses at Katy's feet ; but, to the wonder of all, she would not even pick them up to look at them. People shook their heads, and wondered whom Katy Stephens expected to get, and talked about going through the wood to pick up a crooked stick, till one day she astonished her world by marrying a man that nobody ever thought of her taking. George Scudder was a grave, thoughtful young man, not given to talking, and silent in the society of women, with that kind of reverential bashfulness which sometimes shows a pure, unworldly nature. How Katy came to fancy him everybody wondered, for he never talked to her, never so much as picked up her glove when it fell, never asked her to ride or sail ; in short, everybody said she must have wanted him from sheer wilfulness, because he of all the young men of the neighbourhood never courted her. But Katy, having very sharp eyes, saw some things that nobody else saw. For example, you must know she discovered by mere accident that George Scudder always was looking at her, wherever she moved, though he looked away in a moment if discovered, and that an accidental touch of her hand or brush of her dress would send the blood into his cheek like the spirit in the tube of a thermometer ; and so, as women are curious, you know, Katy amused herself with investigating the causes of these little phenomena, and, before she knew it, got her foot caught in a cobweb that held her fast, and constrained her, whether she would or no, to marry a poor man that nobody cared much for but herself. George was, in truth, one of the sort who evidently have made some mistake in coming into this world at all, as their internal furniture is in no way suited to its general courses and currents. He was of the order of dumb poets, most wretched when put to the grind of the hard and actual; for if he who would utter poetry stretches out his hand to a gainsaying world, he is worse off still who is possessed with the desire of living it. Especially is this the case if he be born poor, and with a dire necessity upon him of making immediate efforts in the hard and actual. George had a helpless invalid mother to support ; so, though he B 2 4 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. loved reading and silent thought above all things, he put to instant use the only convertible worldly talent he possessed, which was a mechanical genius, and shipped at sixteen as a ship-carpenter. He studied navigation in the forecastle, and found in its calm diagrams and tranquil eternal signs food for his thoughtful nature, and a refuge from the brutality and coarseness of sea life. He had a healthful, kindly animal nature, and so his inwardness did not ferment and turn to Byronic sourness and bitterness ; nor did he needlessly parade to everybody in his vicinity the great gulf which lay between him and them. He was called a good fellow, only a little lumpish, and as he was brave and faithful, he rose in time to be a shipmaster. But when came the business of making money, the aptitude for accumu- lating, George found himself distanced by many a one with not half his general powers. What shall a man do with a sublime tier of moral faculties, when the most profitable business out of his port is the slave- trade? So it was in Newport in those days. George's first voyage was on a slaver, and he wished himself dead many a time before it was over, and ever after would talk like a man beside himself if the subject was named. He declared that the gold made in it was distilled from human blood, from mothers' tears, from the agonies and dying groans of gasping, suffocating men and women, and that it would sear and blister the soul of him that touched it : in short, he talked as whole-souled, unprac- tical fellows are apt to talk about what respectable people some- times do. Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathens are brought over to enjoy the light of the gospel. So, though George was acknowledged to be a good fellow, and honest as the noon-mark on the kitchen floor, he let slip so many chances of making money as seriously to compromise his reputation among thriving folks. He was wastefully generous, insisted on treating every poor dog that came in his way, in any foreign port, as a brother, absolutely refused to be party in cheating or deceiving the heathen on any shore, or in skin of any colour, and also took pains, as far as in him lay, to spoil THE MINISTER S WOOING. 5 any bargains which any of his subordinates founded on the igno- rance or weakness of his fellow-men. So he made voyage after voyage, and gained only his wages and the reputation among his employers of an incorruptibly honest fellow. To be sure, it was said that he carried out books in his ship, and read and studied, and wrote observations on all the countries he saw, which Parson Smith told Miss Dolly Persimmon would really do credit to a printed book ; but then they never were printed, or, as Miss Dolly remarked of them, they never seemed to come to anything and coming to anything, as she understood it, meant standing in definite relations to bread and butter. George never cared, however, for money. lie made enough to keep his mother comfortable, and that was enough for him, till he fell in love with Katy Stephens. He looked at her through those glasses which such men carry in their souls, and she was a mortal woman no longer, but a transfigured, glorified creature, an object of awe and wonder. He was actually afraid of her ; her glove, her shoe, her needle, thread, and thimble, her bonnet- string, everything, in short, she wore or touched became in- vested with a mysterious charm. He wondered at the impudence ot men that could walk up and talk to her, that could ask ner to dance with such an assured air. Now he wished he were rich ; he dreamed impossible chances of his coming home a millionnaire to lay unknown wealth at Katy's feet ; and when Miss Persim- mon, the ambulatory dressmaker of the neighbourhood, in making up a new black gown for his mother, recounted how Captain Blatherem had sent Katy Stephens ' 'most the splendidest India shawl that ever she did see,' he was ready to tear his hair at the thought of his poverty. But even in that hour of tempta- tion he did not repent that he had refused all part and lot in the ship by which Captain Blatherem's money was made, for he knew every timber of it to be seasoned by the groans and saturated with the sweat of human agony. True love is a natural sacrament ; and if ever a young man thanks God for having saved what is noble and manly in his soul, it is when he thinks of offering it to the woman he loves. ^Nevertheless, the India-shawl story cost him a night's rest ; nor was it till Miss Persimmon had ascertained, by a private confabulation with 6 THE MINISTER S WOOING. Katy's mother, that she had indignantly rejected it, and that she treated the captain ' real ridiculous,' that he began to take heart. ' He ought not,' ho said, ' to stand in her way now, when he had nothing to offer. No, he would leave Katy free to do better, if she could ; he would try his luck, and if, when he came home from the next voyage, Katy was disengaged, why, then he would lay all at her feet.' And so George was going to sea with a secret shrine in his soul, at which he was to bum unsucpected incense. But, after all, the mortal maiden whom he adored suspected this private arrangement, and contrived as women will to get her own key into the lock of his secret temple ; because, as girls say, ' she was determined to know what was there.' So, one night, she met him quite accidentally on the sea-sands, struck up a little conversation, and begged him in such a pretty way to bring her a spotted shell from the South Sea, like the one on his mother's mantelpiece, and looked so simple and childlike in saying it, that our young man very imprudently committed himself by remarking, that, ' \Yhen people had rich friends to bring them all the world from foreign parts, he never dreamed of her wanting so trivial a thing.' Of course Katy ' didn't know what he meant, she hadn't heard of any rich friends.' And then came something about Captain Blatherem ; and Katy tossed her head, and said, ' If anybody wanted to insult her, they might talk to her about Captain Blatherem,' and then followed this, that, and the other, till finally, as you might expect, out came all that never was to have been said ; and Katy was almost frightened at the terrible earnestness of the spirit she had evoked. She tried to laugh, and ended by crying, and saying she hardly knew what ; but when she came to herself in her own room at home, she found on her finger a ring of African gold that George had piit there, which she did not send back like Captain Blatherem's presents. Katy was like many intensely matter-of-fact and practical women, who have not in themselves a bit of poetry or a particle of ideality, but who yet worship these qualities in others with the homage which the Indians paid to the unknown tongue of the first whites. They are secretly weaiy of a certain conscious THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 7 dryness of nature in themselves, and this weariness predisposes them to idolize the man who brings them this unknown gift. Naturalists say that every defect of organization has its compen- sation, and men of ideal natures find in the favour of women the equivalent for their disabilities among men. Do you remember, at Niagara, a little cataract on the American side, which throws its silver sheeny veil over a cave called the Grot of Kainbows ? Whoever stands on a rock in that grotto sees himself in the centre of a rainbow-circle, above, below, around. In like manner, merry, chatty, positive, busy, housewifely Katy saw herself standing in a rainbow-shrine in her lover's inner soul, and liked to see herself so. A woman, by-the-by, must be very insensible who is not moved to come upon a higher plane of being, herself, by seeing how undoubtingly she is insphered in the heart of a good and noble man. A good man's faith in you, fair lady, if you ever have it, will make you better and nobler even before you know it. Katy made an excellent wife : she took home her husband's old mother, and nursed her with a dutifulness and energy worthy of all praise, and made her own keen outward faculties and deft handiness a compensation for the defects in worldly estate. Nothing would make Katy's bright eyes flash quicker than any reflections on her husband's want of luck in the material line. ' She didn't know whose business it was, if she was satisfied. She hated these sharp, gimlet, gouging sort of men that would put a screw between body and soul for money. George had that in him that nobody understood. She would rather be his wife on bread and water than to take Captain Blatherem's house, car- riages, and horses, and all, and she might have had 'em fast enough, dear knows. She was sick of making money when she saw what sort of men could make it,' and so on. All which talk did her infinite credit, because at bottom she did care, and was naturally as proud and ambitious a little minx as ever breathed, and was thoroughly grieved at heart at George's want of worldly success ; but, like a nice little Eobin Redbreast, she covered up the grave of her worldliness with the leaves of true love, and sang a ' Who cares for that ?' above it. Her thrifty management of the money her husband brought 8 . THE MINISTER'S WOOING. her soon bought a snug little farm, and put up the little brown gambrel-roofed cottage to which we directed your attention in the first of our story. Children were born to them, and George found, in short intervals between voyages, his home an earthly paradise. He was still sailing, with the fond illusion, in every voyage, of making enough to remain at home, when the yellow fever smote him under the line, and the ship returned to New- port without its captain. George was a Christian man ; he had been one of the first to attach himself to the unpopular and unworldly ministry of the celebrated Dr. H., and to appreciate the sublime ideality and unselfishness of those teachings which then were awakening new sensations in the theological mind of New England. Katy, too, had become a professor with her husband in the same church, and his death, in the midst of life, deepened the power of her re- ligious impressions. She became absorbed in religion, after the fashion of New England, where devotion is doctrinal, not ritual. As she grew older, her energy of character, her vigour and good judgment, caused her to be regarded as a mother in Israel ; the minister boarded at her house, and it was she who was first to be consulted in all matters relating to the well-being of the church. No woman could more manfully breast a long sermon, or bring a more determined faith to the reception of a difficult doctrine. To say the truth, there lay at the bottom of her doctrinal system this stable corner-stone, ' Mr. Scudder used to believe it, / will.' And after all that is said about independent thought, isn't the fact that a just and good soul has thus or thus believed, a more respectable argument than many that often are adduced ? If it be not, more's the pity, since two-thirds of the faith in the world is built on no better foundation. In time, George's old mother was gathered to her son, and two sons and a daughter followed their, father to the invisible one only remaining of the flock, and she a person with whom you and I, good reader, have joint concern in the further unfolding of our story. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. CHAPTER II As I before remarked, Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited company to tea. Strictly speaking, it is necessary to begin with the crea- tion of the world, in order to give a full account of anything. But for popular use, something less may serve one's turn, and therefore I shall let the past chapter suffice to introduce my story, and shall proceed to arrange my scenery and act my little play on the supposition that you know enough to understand things and persons. Being asked to tea in our New England in the year 17 meant something very different from the same invitation in our more sophisticated days. In those times, people held to the singular opinion, that the night was made to sleep in ; they inferred it from a general confidence they had in the wisdom of Mother Nature, supposing that she did not put out her lights and draw her bed- curtains, and hush all noise in her great world-house without strongly intending that her children should go to sleep ; and the consequence was, that very soon after sunset, the whole community very generally set their faces bedward, and the toll- ing of the nine-o'clock evening-bell had an awful solemnity in it, sounding to the full. Good society in New England in those days very generally took its breakfast at six, its dinner at twelve, and its tea at six. ' Company tea,' however, among thrifty, in- dustrious folk, was often taken an hour earlier, because each of the invitees had children to put to bed, or other domestic cares at home, and as in those simple times people were invited because you wanted to see them, a tea-party assembled themselves at three and held session till sundown, when each matron rolled up her knitting-work and wended soberly home. Though Newport, even in those early times, was not without its families which affected state and splendour, rolled about in carriages with armorial emblazonments, and had servants in B 3 10 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. abundance to every turn within-doors, yet there, as elsewhere in Xew England, the majority of the people lived with the whole- some, tlirifty simplicity of the olden time, when labour and intel- ligence went hand in hand in perhaps a greater harmony than the world has ever seen. Our scene opens in the great old-fashioned kitchen, which, on ordinary occasions, is the family dining and sitting room of the Scudder family. I know fastidious modems think that the work- ing-room, wherein are carried on the culinary operations of a large family, must necessarily be an untidy and comfortless sitting- place ; but it is only because they are ignorant of the marvellous workings which pertain to the organ of ' faculty,' on which we have before insisted. The kitchen of a New England matron was her throne-room, her pride ; it was the habit of her life to produce the greatest possible results there with the slightest possible dis- composure ; and what any woman could do, Mrs. Katy Scudder could do par excellence. Everything there seemed to be always done, and never doing. Washing and baking, those formidable disturbers of the composure of families, were all over within those two or three morning-hours when we are composing our- selves for a last nap, and only the fluttering of linen over the green-yard, on Monday mornings, proclaimed that the dreaded solemnity of a wash had transpired. A breakfast arose there as by magic ; and in an incredibly short space after, every knife, fork, spoon, and trencher, clean and shining, was looking as innocent and unconscious in its place as if it never had been used and never expected to be. The floor, perhaps, sir, you remember your grandmother's floor, of snowy boards sanded with whitest sand ; you remember the ancient fireplace stretching quite across one end, a vast cavern, in each corner of which a cozy seat might be found, distant enough to enjoy the crackle of the great jolly wood-fire ; across the room ran a dresser, on which was displayed great store of shining pewter dishes and plates, which always shone with the same mysterious brightness ; and by the side of the fire a commodious wooden ' settee,' or settle, offered repose to people too little accustomed to luxury to ask for a cushion. Oh, that kitchen of the olden times, the old, clean, roomy New England THE MINISTERS "VVOOIXG. 11 kitchen ! Who that has breakfasted, dined, and supped in one has not cheery visions of its thrift, its warmth, its cool- ness ? The noon-mark on its floor was a dial that told of some of the happiest days ; thereby did we right up the shortcomings of the solemn old clock that tick-tacked in the corner, and whose ticks seemed mysterious prophecies of unknown good yet to arise out of the hours of life. How dreamy the winter twilight came in there! as yet the candles were not lighted, when the crickets chirped around the dark stone hearth, and shifting tongues of flame flickered and cast dancing shadows and elfish lights on the walls, while grandmother nodded over her knitting- work, and puss purred, and old Rover lay dreamily opening now one eye and then the other on the family group ! With all our ceiled houses, let us not forget our grandmothers' kitchens ! But we must pull up, however, and back to our subject-matter, which is in the kitchen of Mrs. Katy Scudder, who has just put into the oven, by the fireplace, some wondrous tea-rusks, for whose composition she is renowned. She has examined and pro- nounced perfect a loaf of cake which has been prepared for the occasion, and which, as ustial, is done exactly right. The best room, too, has been opened and aired, the white window-cur- tains saluted with a friendly little shake, as when one says, ' How d'ye do ?' to a friend ; for you must know, clean as our kitchen is, we are genteel, and have something better for company. Our best room in here has a polished little mahogany tea-table, and six mahogany chairs, with claw talons grasping balls ; the white sanded floor is crinkled in curious little waves, like those on the sea-beach ; and right across the corner stands the ' buffet,' as it is called, with its transparent glass doors, wherein are displayed the solemn appurtenances of company tea-table. There you may see a set of real China teacups, which George bought in Canton, and had marked with his and his wife's joint initials, a small silver cream-pitcher, which has come down as an heirloom from unknown generations, silver spoons and delicate China cake- plates, which have been all carefully reviewed and wiped on napkins of Mrs. Scudder's own weaving. Her cares now over, she stands drying her hands on a roller- towel in the kitchen, while her only daughter, the gentle Mary, 12 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. stands in the doorway with the afternoon sun streaming in spots of flickering golden light on her smooth pale-brown hair, a petite figure, in a full stuff petticoat and white short-gown, she stands reaching up one hand and cooing to something among the apple-blossoms, and now a Java dove comes whirring down and settles on her finger, and we, that have seen pictures, think, as we look on her girlish face, with its lines of statuesque beauty, on the tremulous, half -infantine expression of her lovely mouth, and the general air of simplicity and purity, of some old pictures of the girlhood of the Virgin. But Mrs. Scudder was thinking of no such Popish matter, I can assure you, not she ! I don't think you could have done her a greater indignity than to men- tion her daughter in any such connection. She had never seen a painting in her life, and therefore was not to be reminded of them ; and furthermore, the dove was evidently, for some reason, no favourite, for she said, in a quick, imperative tone, ' Come, come, child ! don't fool with that bird, it's high time we were dressed and ready,' and Mary, blushing, as it would seem, even to her hair, gave a little toss, and sent the bird, like a silver fluttering cloud, up among the rosy apple-blossoms. And now she and her mother have gone to their respective little bedrooms for the adjustment of their toilets, and while the door is shut and nobody hears us, we shall talk to you about Mary. Newport at the present day blooms like a flower-garden with young ladies of the best ton, lovely girls, hopes of their families, possessed of amiable tempers and immensely large trunks, and capable of sporting ninety changes in thirty days, and otherwise rapidly emptying the purses of distressed fathers, and whom yet travellers and the world in general look upon as genuine speci- mens of the kind of girls fonned by American institutions. We fancy such a one lying in a rustling silk neglige, and, amid a gentle generality of rings, ribbons, puffs, laces, beaux, and dinner-discussion, reading our humble sketch; and what favour shall our poor heroine find in her eyes ? For though her mother was a world of energy and ' faculty,' in herself considered, and had bestowed on this one little lone chick all the vigour and all the care and all the training which would have sufficed for a family of sixteen, there were no results produced which could bo THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 13 made appreciable in the eyes of such company. She could not waltz, or polk, or speak bad French, or sing Italian songs; but, nevertheless, we must proceed to say what was her education and what her accomplishments. Well, then, she could both read and write fluently in the mother-tongue. She could spin both on the little and the great wheel, and there were numberless towels, napkins, sheets, and pillow-cases in the household store that could attest the skill of her pretty fingers. She had worked several samplers of such rare merit, that they hung framed in different rooms of the house, exhibiting every variety and style of possible letter in the best marking-stitch. She was skilful in all sewing and em- broidery, in all shaping and cutting, with a quiet and deft handiness that constantly surprised her energetic mother, who could not conceive that so much could be done with so little noise. In fact, in all household lore she was a veritable good fairy ; her knowledge seemed unerring and intuitive : and whether she washed or ironed, or moulded biscuit or conserved plums, her gentle beauty seemed to turn to poetry all the prose of life. There was something in Mary, however, which divided her as by an appreciable line from ordinary girls of her age. From her father she had inherited a deep and thoughtful nature, predis- posed to moral and religious exaltation. Had she been born in Italy, under the dissolving influences of that sunny, dreamy clime, beneath the shadow of cathedrals, and where pictured saints and angels smiled in clouds of painting from every arch and altar, she might, like fair St. Catherine of Siena, have seen beatific visions in the sunset skies, and a silver dove descending upon her as she prayed ; but, unfolding in the clear, keen, cold New England clime, and nurtured in its abstract and positive theologies, her religious faculties took other forms. Instead of lying entranced in mysterious raptures at the foot of altars, she read and pondered treatises on the Will, and listened in rapt attention while her spiritual guide, the venerated Dr. H., un- folded to her the theories of the great Edwards on the nature of true virtue. Womanlike, she felt the subtle poetry of these sublime abstractions which dealt with such infinite and unknown 14 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. quantities, which spoke of the universe, of its great Architect, of men, of angels, as matters of intimate and daily contemplation ; and her teacher, a grand-minded and simple-hearted man as ever lived, was often amazed at the tread with which this fair young child, walked through these high regions of abstract thought, often comprehending through an ethereal clearness of nature what he had laboriously and heavily reasoned out ; and some- times, when she turned her grave, childlike face upon him with some question or reply, the good man started as if an angel had looked suddenly out upon him from a cloud. Unconsciously to himself, he often seemed to follow her, as Dante followed the flight of Beatrice, through the ascending circles of the celestial spheres. AVhen her mother questioned him, anxiously, of her daughter's spiritual estate, he answered, that she was a child of a strange graciousness of nature, and of a singular genius ; to which Katy responded, with a woman's pride, that she was all her father over again. It is only now and then that a matter-of-fact woman is sublimated by a real love ; but if she is, it is affecting to see how impossible it is for death to quench it ; for in the child the mother feels that she has a mysterious and undying repossession of the father. But, in truth, Mary was only a recast in feminine form of her father's nature. The elixir of the spirit that sparkled within her was of that quality of which the souls of poets and artists are made ; but the keen New England air crystallizes emotions into ideas, and restricts many a poetic soul to the necessity of expressing itself only in practical living. The rigid theological discipline of Xew England is fitted to produce rather strength and purity than enjoyment. It was not fitted to make a sensitive and thoughtful nature happy, however it might ennoble and exalt. The system of Dr. H. was one that could only have had its origin in a soul at once reverential and logical, a soul, moreover, trained from its earliest years in the habits of thought engen- dered by monarchical institutions. For although he, like other ministers, took an active part as a patriot in the Eevolution, still he was brought up under the shadow of a throne ; and a man THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 15 cannot ravel out the stitches in which early days have knit him. His theology, was, in fact, the turning to an invisible Sovereign of that spirit of loyalty and unquestioning subjugation which is one of the noblest capabilities of our nature. And as a gallant soldier renounces life and personal amis in the cause of his king and country, and holds himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, to be shot down, or help make a bridge of his mangled body, over which the more fortunate shall pass to victory and glory, so he regarded himself as devoted to the King Eternal, ready in His hands to be used to illustrate and build up an Eternal Commonwealth, either by being sacrificed as a lost spirit or glorified as a redeemed one, ready to throw not merely his mortal life, but his immortality even, into the forlorn hope, to bridge with a never-dying soul the chasm over which white- robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory and splendour, whose vastness should dwarf the misery of all the lost to an infinitesimal. It is not in our line to imply the truth or the falsehood of those systems of philosophic theology which seem for many years to have been the principal outlet for the proclivities of the New England mind, but as psychological developments they have an intense interest. He who does not see a grand side to these strivings of the soul cannot understand one of the noblest capabilities of humanity. No real artist or philosopher ever lived who has not at some hours risen to the height of utter self-abnegation for the glory of the invisible. There have been painters who would have been crucified to demonstrate the action of a muscle, chemists who would gladly have melted themselves and all humanity in their crucible, if so a new discovery might arise out of its fumes. Even persons of mere artistic sensibility are at times raised by music, painting, or poetry to a momentary trance cf self-oblivion, in which they would offer their whole being before the shrine of an invisible loveliness. These hard old New England divines were the poets of metaphysical philosophy, who built systems in an artistic fervour, and felt self exhale from beneath them as they rose into the higher regions of thought. But where theorists and philosophers tread with sublime assurance, woman 16 THE MINISTERS WOOING. often follows with bleeding footsteps ; women are always turn- ing from the abstract to the individual, and feeling where the philosopher only thinks. It was easy enough for Mary to believe in se^-renunciation, for she was one with a born vocation for martyrdom ; and so, when the idea was put to her of suffering eternal pains for the glory of God and the good of being in general, she responded to it with a sort of sublime thrill, such as it is given to some natures to feel in view of uttermost sacrifice. But when she looked around on the warm, living faces of friends, acquaintances, and neighbours, viewing them as possible candidates for dooms so fearfully dif- ferent, she sometimes felt the walls of her faith closing round her as an iron shroud, she wondered that the sun could shine so brightly, that flowers could flaunt such dazzling colours, that sweet airs could breathe, and little children play, and youth love and hope, and a thousand intoxicating influences combine to cheat the victims from the thought that their next step might be into an abyss of horrors without end. The blood of youth and hope was saddened by this great sorrow, which lay ever on her heart, and her life, unknown to herself, was a sweet tune in the minor key ; it was only in prayer, or deeds of love and charity, or in rapt contemplation of that beautiful millennial day which her spiritual guide most delighted to speak of, that the tone of her feelings ever rose to the height of joy. Among Mary's young associates was one who had been as a brother to her childhood. He was her mother's cousin's son, and so, by a sort of family immunity, had always a free access to her mother's house. He took to the sea, as the most bold and resolute young men will, and brought home from foreign parts those new modes of speech, those other eyes for received opinions and established things, which so often shock esta- blished prejudices, so that he was held as little better than an infidel and a castaway by the stricter religious circles in his native place. Mary's mother, now that Mary was grown up to woman's estate, looked with a severe eye on her cousin. She warned her daughter against too free an association with him, and so We all know what comes to pass when girls are constantly warned not to think of a man. The most conscien THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 17 tious and obedient little person in the world, Mary resolved to be very careful. She never would think of James, except, of course, in her prayers ; but as these were constant, it may easily be seen it was not easy to forget him. All that was so often told her of his carelessness, his trifling, his contempt of orthodox opinions, and his startling and bold expressions, only wrote his name deeper in her heart, for was not his soul in peril ? Could she look in his frank, joyous face, and listen to his thoughtless laugh, and then think that a fall from a mast-head, or one night's storm, might Ah, with what images her faith filled the blank ! Could she believe all this and forget him ? You see, instead of getting our tea ready, as we promised at the beginning of this chapter, we have filled it with descriptions and meditations, and now we foresee that the next chapter will be equally far from the point. But have patience with us ; for we can write only as we are driven, and never know exactly where we are going to land. CHAPTER III. A QUIET, maiden-like place was Mary's little room. The window looked out under the overarching boughs of a thick apple orchard, now all in a blush with blossoms and pink-tipped buds, and the light came golden-green, strained through flickering leaves, and an ever-gentle rustle and whirr of branches and blossoms, a chitter of birds, and an indefinite whispering motion, as the long heads of orchard-grass nodded and bowed to each other under the trees, seemed to give the room the quiet hush of some little side chapel in a cathedral, where green and golden glass softens the sunlight, and only the sigh and rustle of kneeling worship- pers break the stillness of the aisles. It was small enough for a nun's apartment, and dainty in its neatness as the waxen cell of a bee. The bed and low window were draped in spotless white, with fringes of Mary's own knotting. A small table under the looking-glass bore the library of a well-taught young woman of those times. The ' Spectator,' ' Paradise Lost,' Shakspeare, and 18 THE MINISTERS WOOIXG. ' Robinson Crusoe,' stood for the admitted secular literature, and beside them the Bible and the works then published of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Laid a little to one side, as if of doubtful reputation, was the only novel which the stricter people in those days allowed for the reading of their daughters: that seven- volumed, trailing, tedious, delightful old bore, ' Sir Charles Grandison,' a book whose influence in those times was so uni- versal, that it may be traced in the epistolary style even of the gravest divines. Our little heroine was mortal, with all her divinity, and had an imagination which sometimes wandered to the things of earth ; and this glorious hero in lace and em- broidery, who blended rank, gallantry, spirit, knowledge of the world, disinterestedness, constancy, and piety, sometimes walked before her, while she sat spinning at her wheel, till she sighed, she hardly knew why, that no such men walked the earth now. Yet it is to be confessed, this occasional raid of the romantic into Mary's balanced and well-ordered mind was soon energeti- cally put to rout, and the book, as we have said, remained on her table under protest, protected by being her father's gift to her mother during their days of courtship. The small looking- glass was curiously wreathed with corals and foreign shells, so disposed as to indicate an artistic eye and skilful hand ; and some curious Chinese paintings of birds and flowers gave rather a piquant and foreign air to the otherwise homely neatness of the apartment. Here in this little retreat, Mary spent those few hours which her exacting conscience would allow her to spare from her busy fingered household-life ; here she read and wrote and thought and prayed ; and here she stands now, arraying herself for the tea company that afternoon. Dress, which in our day is becom- ing in some cases the whole of woman, was in those times a remarkably simple affair. True, every person of a certain degree of respectability had state and festival robes ; and a certain cam- phor-wood brass-bound trunk, which was always kept solemnly locked in Mrs. Katy Scudder's apartment, if it could have spoken, might have given off quite a catalogue of brocade satin and laces. The wedding-suit there slumbered in all the unsullied whiteness of its stiff ground broidered with heavy knots of flowers ; and THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 19 there were scarfs of wrought India muslin and embroidered crape, each of which had its history, for each had been brought into the door with beating heart on some return voyage of one who, alas ! should return no more. The old trunk stood with its histories, its imprisoned remembrances, and a thousand tender thoughts seemed to be shaping out of every rustling fold of silk and embroidery, on the few yearly occasions when all were brought out to be aired, their history related, and then solemnly locked up again. Nevertheless, the possession of these things gave to the women of an establishment a certain innate dignity, like a good conscience, so that in that larger portion of existence commonly denominated among them ' every day,' they were content with plain stuff and homespun. Mary's toilet, therefore, was sooner made than those of Newport belles of the present day ; it simply consisted in changing her ordinary ' short-gown and petticoat ' for another of somewhat nicer ma- terials, a skirt of India chintz and a striped jaconet short-gown. Her hair was of the kind which always lies like satin; but, nevertheless, girls never think their toilet complete unless the smoothest hair has been shaken down and rearranged. A few moments, however, served to braid its shining folds and dispose them in their simple knot on the back of the head ; and having given a final stroke to each side with her little dimpled hands, she sat down a moment at the window, thoughtfully watching where the afternoon sun was creeping through the slates of the fence in long lines of gold among the tall, tremulous orchard- grass, and unconsciously she began warbling, in a low, gurgling voice, the words of a familiar hymn, whose grave earnestness accorded well with the general tone of her life and education : ' Life is the time to serve the Lord, The time t' insure the great reward.' There was a swish and rustle in the orchard-grass, and a tramp of elastic steps ; then the branches were brushed aside, and a young man suddenly emerged from the trees a little behind Mary. He was apparently about twenty-five, dressed in the holiday rig of a sailor on shore, which well set off his fine athletic figure, and accorded with a sort of easy, dashing, and 20 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. confident air which sat not unhandsomely on him. For the rest, a high forehead shaded by rings of the blackest hair, a keen, dark eye, a firm and determined mouth, gave the impres- sion of one who had engaged to do battle with life, not only with a will, but with shrewdness and ability He introduced the colloquy by stepping deliberately behind Mary, putting his arms round her neck, and kissing her. ' Why, James!' said Mary, starting up and blushing, ' Come, now!' ' I have come, haven't I ?' said the young man, leaning his elbow on the window-seat and looking at her with an air of comic determined frankness, which yet had in it such wholesome honesty that it was scarcely possible to be angry. ' The fact is, Mary,' he added, with a sudden earnest darkening of the face, ' I won't stand this nonsense any longer. Aunt Katy has been holding me at arm's length ever since I got home ; and what have I done? Haven't I been to every prayer-meeting and lecture and sermon, since I got into port, just as regular as a psalm-book ? and not a bit of a word could I get with you, and no chance even so much as to give you my arm. Aunt Katy always comes between us and says, " Here, Mary, you take my arm." What does she think I go to meeting for, and almost break my jaws keeping down the gapes ? I never even go to sleep, and yet I am treated in this way ! It's too bad ! What's the row ? What's anybody been saying about me ? I always have waited on you ever since you were that high. Didn't I always draw you to school on my sled ? didn't we always use t T e can't always help ourselves. We don't always really know how we do feel. I didn't know, for a long while, that I loved your father. I thought I was only curious about him, because he had a strange way of treating me, different from other men ; but, one day, I remember, Julian Simons told me that it was reported that his mother was making a match for him with Susan Emery, and I was astonished to find how I felt. I saw him that evening, and the moment he looked at me I saw it wasn't true ; all at once I knew something I never knew before, and that was, that I should be very unhappy, if he loved any one else better than me. But then, my child, your father was a different man from James ; he was as much better than I was as you are than James. I was a foolish, thoughtless young thing then. I never should have been anything at all. but for him. Somehow, when I loved him, I grew more serious, and then he always guided and led me. Mary, your father was a wonderful man ; he was one of the sort that the world knows not of ; some- time I must show you his letters. I always hoped, my daughter, that you would marry such a man.' ' Don't speak of marrying, mother. I never shall marry.' ' You certainly should not, unless you can marry in the Lord. Eemember the words, " Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with un righteousness ? and what communion hath light with darkness and what concord hath Christ with Belial 9 or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel ?" ' ' Mother. James is not an infidel.' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 49 ' He certainly is an unbeliever, Mary, by his own confession ; but then God is a Sovereign and hath mercy on whom He will. You do right to pray for him ; but if he does not come out on the Lord's side, you must not let your heart mislead you. He is going to be gone three years, and you must try to think as little of him as possible ; put your mind upon yotir duties, like a good girl, and God will bless you. Don't believe too much in your power over him : young men, when they are in love, will pro- mise anything, and really think they mean it ; but nothing is a saving change, except what is wrought in them by sovereign grace.' ' But, mother, does not God use the love we have to each other as a means of doing us good ? Did you not say that it was by your love to father that you first were led to think seriously ?' ' That is true, my child,' said Mrs. Scudder, who, like many of the rest of the world, was surprised to meet her own words walk- ing out on a track where she had not expected them, but was yet too true of soul to cut their acquaintance because they were not going the way of her wishes. ' Yes, all that is true ; but yet, Mary, when one has but one little ewe lamb in the world, one is jealous of it. I would give all the world, if you had never seen James. It is dreadful enough for a woman to love anybody as you can, but it is more to love a man of unsettled character and no religion. But then the Lord appoints all our goings : it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps ; I leave you, my child, in His hands.' And, with one solemn and long embrace, the mother and daughter parted for the night. It is impossible to write a story of New England life and manners for a thoughtless, shallow-minded person. If we repre- sent things as they are, their intensity, their depth, their un- worldly gravity and earnestness, must inevitably repel lighter spirits, as the reverse pole of the magnet drives off sticks and straws. In no other cotmtry were the soul and the spiritual life ever such intense realities, and everything contemplated so much (to use a current New-England phrase) 'in reference to eternity.' Mrs. Scudder was a strong clear-headed, practical woman. No one had a clearer estimate of the material and outward life, or could more minutely manage its smallest item; but then a D 50 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. tremendous, eternal future had so weighed down and compacted the fibres of her very soul, that all earthly things were but as dust in comparison to it. That her child should be one elected to walk in white, to reign with Christ when earth was a forgot- ten dream, was her one absorbing wish ; and she looked on all the events of life only with reference to this. The way of life was narrow, the chances in favour of any child of Adam infinitely small ; the best, the most seemingly pure and fair, was by nature a child of wrath, and could be saved only by a sovereign decree, by which it should be plucked as a brand from the burning. Therefore it was, that, weighing all things in one balance, there was the sincerity of her whole being in the dread which she felt at the thought of her daughter's marriage with an unbeliever. Mrs. Scudder, after retiring to her room, took her Bible, in preparation for her habitual nightly exercise of devotion, before going to rest. She read and re-read a chapter, scarce thinking what she was reading, aroused herself, and then sat with the book in her hand in deep thought. James Marvyn was her cousin's son, and she had a strong feeling of respect and family attachment for his father. She had, too, a real kindness for the young man, whom she regarded as a well-meaning, wilful young- ster ; but that he should touch her saint, her Mary, that Tie should take from her the daughter who was her all, really embittered her heart towards him. ' After all,' she said to herself, ' there are three years, three years in which there will be no letters, or perhaps only one or two, and a great deal may be done in three years, if one is wise ;' and she felt within herself an arousing of all the shrewd womanly and motherly tact of her nature to meet this new emergency. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 51 CHAPTER YL THE DOCTOR, IT is seldom that man and woman come together in intimate association, unless influences are at work more subtle and myste- rious than the subjects of them dream. Even in cases where the strongest ruling force of the two sexes seems out of the question, there is still something peculiar and insidious in their relation- ship. A fatherly old gentleman, who undertakes the care of a sprightly young girl, finds, to his astonishment, that little Miss spins all sorts of cobwebs round him. Grave professors and teachers cannot give lessons to their female pupils just as they give them to the coarser sex ; and more than once has the fable of ' Cadenus and Vanessa ' been acted over by the most unlikely performers. The Doctor was a philosopher, a metaphysician, a philanthro- pist, and in the highest and most earnest sense a minister of good on earth. The New England clergy had no sentimental affectation of sanctity that segregated them from wholesome human relations; and, consequently, our good Doctor had always resolved, in a grave and thoughtful spirit, at a suitable time in his worldly affairs, to choose unto himself a helpmeet. Love, as treated of in romances, he held to be a foolish and profane matter, unworthy the attention of a serious and reasonable creature. All the language of poetry on this subject was to him an unknown tongue. He contemplated the entrance on married life some- what in this wise : That at a time and place suiting, he should look out unto himself a woman of a pleasant countenance and of good repute, a zealous, earnest Christian, and well skilled in the items of household management, whom, accosting as a stranger and pilgrim to a better life, he should loyally and lovingly entreat, as Isaac did Eebekah, to come under the shadow of his D 2 02 THE MINISTERS WOOING. tent and be a helpmeet unto him in -what yet remained of this mortal journey. But straitened circumstances, and the unsettled times of the Eevolution, in -which he had taken an earnest and zealous part, had delayed to a late bacherlorhood the fulfilment of this resolution. When once received under the shadow of Mrs. Scudder's roof, and within the provident sphere of her unfailing housekeeping, all material necessity for an immediate choice was taken away ; for he was in exactly that situation dearest to every scholarly and thoughtful man, in which all that pertained to the outward life appeared to rise under his hand at the moment he wished for it, without his knowing how or why. He was not at the head of a prosperous church and society, rich and w r ell-to-do in the world, but, as the pioneer leader of a new theology, in a country where theology was the all-absorbing interest, he had to breast the reaction that ever attends the advent of new ideas. His pulpit talents, too, were unattractive. His early training had been all logical, not in the least aesthetic ; for, like the ministry of his country generally, he had been trained always to think more of what he should sa}- than of how he should say it. Consequently, his style, though not without a certain massive greatness, which always conies from largeness of nature, had none of those attractions by which the common masses are beguiled into thinking. He gave only the results of thought, not its incipient processes ; and the consequence was, that few could follow him. In like manner, his religious teach- ings were characterized by an ideality so high as quite to discourage ordinary virtue. There is a ladder to heaven, whose base God has placed in human affections, tender instincts, symbolic feelings, sacraments of love, through which the soul rises higher and higher, refining as she goes, till she outgrows the human, and changes, as she rises, into the image of the divine. At the very top of this ladder, at the threshold of Paradise, blazes dazzling and crystal- line that celestial grade where the soul knows self no more, having learned, through a long experience of devotion, how blest it is to lose herself in that eternal Love and Beauty of which all earthly fairness and grandeur are but the dim type, the distant shadow. This highest step, this saintly elevation, which but few THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 53 selectest spirits ever on earth attain, to raise the soul to which the Eternal Father organized every relation of human existence and strung every chord of human love, for which this world is one long discipline, for which the soul's human education is constantly varied, for which it is now torn by sorrow, now flooded by joy, to which all its multiplied powers tend with upward hands of dumb and ignorant aspiration, this Ultima Thule of virtue had been seized upon by our sage as the all of religion. He knocked out every round of the ladder but the highest, and then, pointing to its hopeless splendour, said to the world, ' Go up thither and be saved !' Short of that absolute self-abnegation, that unconditional surrender to the Infinite, there was nothing meritorious, be- cause, if that were commanded, every moment of refusal was rebellion. Every prayer, not based on such consecration, he held to be an insult to the Divine Majesty ; the reading of the Word, the conscientious conduct of life, the performance of the duties of man to man, being, without this, the deeds of a creature in conscious rebellion to its Eternal Sovereign, were all vitiated and made void. Nothing was to be preached to the sinner, but his ability and obligation to rise immediately to this height. It is not wonderful that teaching of this sort should seem to many unendurable, and that the multitude should desert the preacher with the cry, ' This is an hard saying ; who can hear it ?' The young and gay were wearied by the dryness of metaphysical discussions which to them were as unintelligible as a statement of the last results of the mathematician to the child commencing the multiplication-table. There remained around him only a select circle, shrewd, hard thinkers, who delighted in meta- physical subtleties, deep-hearted, devoted natures, who sym- pathized with the unworldly purity of his life, his active philan- thropy and untiring benevolence, courageous men, who admired his independence of thought and freedom in breasting received opinions, and those unperceiving, dull, good people who are content to go to church anywhere as convenience and circum- stances may drift them, people who serve, among the keen- feeling and thinking portion of the world, much the same purpose as adipose matter in the human system, as a soft cushion between the nerves of feeling and the muscles of activity. 54 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. There was something affecting in the pertinacity with which the good Doctor persevered in saying his say to his discouraging minority of hearers. His salary was small ; his meeting-house, damaged during the Kevolutionary struggle, was dilapidated and forlorn, fireless in winter, and in summer admitting a flood of sun* and dust through those great windows which formed so principal a feature in those first efforts of Puritan architecture. Still, grand in his humility, he preached on, and as a soldier never asks why, but stands at apparently the most useless post, so he went on from Sunday to Sunday, comforting himself with the reflection that no one could think more meanly of his minis- trations than he did himself. ' I am like Moses only in not being eloquent,' he said in his simplicity. ' My preaching is barren and dull, my voice is hard and harsh ; but then the Lord is a Sovereign, and may work through me. He fed Elijah once through a raven, and he may feed some poor wandering soul through me.' The only mistake made by the good man was that of supposing that the elaboration of theology was preaching the gospel. The gospel he was preaching constantly, by his pure, unworldly living, by his visitations to homes of poverty and sorrow, by his searching out of the lowly African slaves, his teaching of those whom no one else in those days had thought of teaching, and by the grand humanity, outrunning his age, in which he protested against the then admitted system of slavery and the slave-trade. But when, rising in the pulpit, he followed trains of thought suited only to the desk of the theological lecture-room, he did it blindly, following that law of self-development by which minds of a certain amount of fervour must utter w r hat is in them, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. But the place where our Doctor was happiest was his study. There he explored, and wandered, and read, and thought, and lived a life as wholly ideal and intellectual as heart could conceive. And could Love enter a reverend doctor's study, and find his way into a heart empty and swept of all those shreds of poetry and romance in which he usually finds the material of his incan- tations ? Even so ; but he came so thoughtfully, so reverently, with so wise and cautious a footfall, that the good Doctor never THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 55 even raised his spectacles to see who was there. The first that he knew, poor man, he was breathing an air of strange and subtile sweetness, from what Paradise he never stopped his studies to inquire. He was like a great, rugged elm, with all its lacings and archings of boughs and twigs, which has stood cold and frozen against the metallic blue of winter sky, forgetful of leaves, and patient in its bareness, calmly content in its naked strength and crystalline definiteness of outline. But in April there is a rising and stirring within the grand old monster, a whispering of knotted buds, a mounting of sap coursing ethe- really from bough to bough with a warm and gentle life ; and though the old elm knows it not, a new creation is at hand. Just so, ever since the good man had lived at Mrs. Scudder's, and had the gentle Mary for his catechumen, a richer life seemed to have coloured his thoughts, his mind seemed to work with a pleasure never felt before. Whoever looked on the forehead of the good Doctor must have seen the squareness of ideality giving marked effect to its out- line. As yet ideality had dealt only with the intellectual and invisible, leading to subtile refinements of argument and exalted ideas of morals. But there was lying in him, crude and tin- worked, a whole mine of those artistic feelings and perceptions which are awakened and developed only by the touch of beauty. Had he been born beneath the shadow of the great Duomo of Florence, where Giotto's Campanile rises like the slender stalk of a celestial lily, where varied marbles and rainbow glass and gorgeous paintings and lofty statuary call forth, even from child- hood, the soul's reminiscences of the bygone glories of its pris- tine state, his would have been a soul as rounded and full in its sphere of faculties as that of Da Vinci or Michael Angelo. But of all that he was as ignorant as a child ; and the first revelation of his dormant nature was to come to him through the face of woman, that work of the Mighty Master which is to be found in all lands and ages. What makes the love of a great mind something fearful in its inception is, that it is often the unsealing of a hitherto unde- veloped portion of a large and powerful being : the woman may or may not seem to other eyes adequate to the effect produced, but the man cannot forget her, because with her came a change THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. which makes him for ever a different being. So it was with our friend. A woman it was that was destined to awaken in him all that consciousness which music, painting, poetry awaken in more evenly-developed minds ; and it is the silent breathing of her creative presence that is even now creating him anew, while as yet he knows it not. He never thought, this good old soul, whether Mary were beautiful or not ; he never even knew that he looked at her ; nor did he know why it was that the truths of his theology, when uttered by her tongue, had such a wondrous beauty as he never felt before. He did not know why it was, that, when she silently sat by him, copying tangled manuscript for the press, as she sometimes did, his whole study seemed so full of some divine influence, as if, like St. Dorothea, she had worn in her bosom, invisibly, the celestial roses of Paradise. He recorded honestly in his diary what marvellous freshness of spirit the Lord had given him, and how he seemed to be uplifted in his communings with heaven, without once thinking from the robes of what angel this sweetness had exhaled. On Sundays, when he saw good Mrs. Jones asleep, and Simon Brown's hard, sharp eyes, and Deacon Twitchel mournfully rocking to and fro, and his wife handing fennel to keep the child- ren awake, his eye glanced across to the front gallery, where one earnest young face, ever kindling with feeling and bright with intellect, followed on his way, and he felt uplifted and comforted. On Sunday mornings, when Mar)- came out of her little room, in clean white dress, with her singing-book and psalm-book in her hands, her deep eyes solemn from recent prayer, he thought of that fair and mystical bride, the Lamb's wife, whose union with her Divine Redeemer in a future mille- nial age was a frequent and favourite subject of his musings ; yet he knew not that this celestial bride, clothed in fine linen, clean and white, veiled in humility and meekness, bore in his mind those earthly features. Xo, he never had dreamed of that ! But only after she had passed by, that mystical vision seemed to him more radiant, more easy to be conceived. It is said that, if a grape-vine be planted in the neighbour- hood of a well, its roots, running silently under ground, wreathe themselves in a network around the cold clear waters, and the THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 57 vine's putting on outward greenness and unwonted clusters and fruit is all that tells where every root and fibre of its being has been silently stealing. So those loves are most fatal, most ab- sorbing, in which, with unheeded quietness, every thought and fibre of our life twines gradually around some human soul, to us the unsuspected well-spring of our being. Fearful it is, because so often the vine must be uprooted, and all its fibres wrenched away; but till the hour of discovery comes, how is it trans- figured by a new and beautiful life ! There is nothing in life more beautiful than that trancelike quiet dawn which precedes the rising of love in the soul. When the whole being is pervaded imperceptibly and tranqiiilly by another being, and we are happy, we know not and ask not why, the soul is then receiving all and asking nothing. At a later day she becomes self-conscious, and then come craving exactions, endless questions, the whole world of the material comes in with its hard counsels and consultations, and the beautiful trance fades for ever. Of course all this is not so to you, my good friends, who read it without the most distant idea what it can mean ; but there are people in the world to whom it has meant and will mean much, and who will see in the present happiness of our respectable friend something even ominous and sorrowful. It had not escaped the keen eye of the mother how quickly and innocently the good Doctor was absorbed by her daughter, and thereupon had come long trains of practical reflections. The Doctor, though not popular indeed as a preacher, was a noted man in his age. Her deceased husband had regarded him with something of the same veneration which might have been accorded to a divine messenger, and Mrs. Scudder had received and kept this veneration as a precious legacy. Then, although not haritlsome, the Doctor had decidedly a grand and imposing appearance. There was nothing common or insignificant about him. Indeed, it had been said, that, when, just after the de- claration of peace, he walked through the town in the comme- morative procession side by side with General Washington, the minister, in the majesty of his gown, bands, cocked hat, and full flowing wig, was thought by many to be the more majestic and personable figure of the two. D 3 58 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. In those days, the minister united in himself all those ideas of superior position and cultivation with which the theocratic system of the New England community had invested him. Mrs. Scudder's notions of social rank could reach no higher than to place her daughter on the throne of such pre-eminence. Her Mary, she pondered, was no common girl. In those days it was a rare thing for young persons to devote themselves to religion or make any professions of devout life. The church, or that body of people who professed to have passed through a divine regeneration, was almost entirely confined to middle-aged and elderly people, and it was looked upon as a singular and unwonted call of divine grace when young persons came forward to attach themselves to it. When Mary, therefore, at quite an early age, in all the bloom of her youthful beauty, arose, accord- ing to the simple and impressive Xew England rite, to consecrate herself publicly to a religious life, and to join the company of professing Christians, she was regarded with a species of defer- ence amounting even to awe. Had it not been for the childlike, unconscious simplicity of her manners, the young people of her age would have shrunk away from her, as from one entirely out of their line of thought and feeling ; but a certain natural and innocent playfulness and amiable self-forgetfulness made her a general favourite. Nevertheless, Mrs. Scudder knew no young man whom she deemed worthy to have and hold a heart which she prized so highly. As to James, he stood at double disadvantage, because, as her cousin's son, he had grown Tip from childhood under her eye, and all those sins and iniquities into which gay and adventurous youngsters will be falling had come to her know- ledge. She felt kindly to the youth ; she wished him well ; but as to giving him her Mary ! the very suggestion made her dislike him. She was quite sure he must have tried to beguile her he must have tampered with her feelings to arouse in her pure and well-ordered mind so much emotion and devotedness as she had witnessed. How encouraging a Providence, then, was it that he was gone to sea for three years ! how fortunate that Mary had been pre- vented in any way from committing herself with him ,' how encouraging that the only man in those parts, in the least fitted THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 59 to appreciate her, seemed so greatly pleased and absorbed in her society ! how easily might Mary's dutiful reverence be changed to a warmer sentiment, when she should find that so great a man could descend from his lofty thoughts to think of her ! In fact, before Mrs. Scudder had gone to sleep the first night after James's departure, she had settled upon the house where the minister and his young wife were to live, had reviewed the window-curtains and bed-quilts for each room, and glanced com- placently at an improved receipt for wedding-cake, which might be brought out to glorify a certain occasion ! 60 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. CHAPTER VII. THE FRIENDS AND RELATIONS OF JAMES. MR. ZEBEDEE MARVYX, the father of James, -vras the sample of an individuality so purely the result of New England society and education that he must be embodied in our story as a repre- sentative man of the times. He owned a large farm in the immediate vicinity of Newport, which he worked with his own hands and kept under the most careful cultivation. He was a man past the middle of life, with a white head, a keen blue eye, and a face graven deeply with the lines of energy and thought. His was one of those clearly-cut minds which New England forms among her farmers, as she forms quartz crystals in her mountains, by a sort of gradual influence flowing through every pore of her soil and system. His education, properly so called, had been merely that of those common schools and academies with which the States are thickly sown, and which are the springs of so much intellectual activity. Here he had learned to think and to inquire, a process which had not ceased with his schooldays. Though toiling daily with his sons and hired man in all the minutiae of a fanner's life, he kept an observant eye on the field of literature, and there was not a new publication heard of that he did not immediately find means to add it to his yearly increasing stock of books. In particular was he a well-read and careful theologian, and all the controversial tracts, sermons, and books, with which then, as ever since, New England has abounded, not only lay on his shelves, but had his pencilled annotations, queries, and comments thickly scattered along their margins. There was scarce an office of public trust which had not at one time or another been filled by him. He was deacon of the church, chairman of the school committee, justice of the peace, had been twice representative in THE MINISTEE'S WOOING. 61 the State legislature, and was in permanence a sort of adviser- general in all cases between neighbour and neighbour. Among other acquisitions, he had gained some knowledge of the general forms of law, and his advice was often asked in preference to that of the regular practitioners. His dwelling was one of those large, square, white, green- blinded mansions cool, clean, and roomy wherein the respecta- bility of New England in those days rejoiced. The windows Avere shaded by clumps of lilacs ; the deep yard with its white fence enclosed a sweep of clean, short grass and a few fruit-trees. Opposite the house was a small blacksmith's shed, which, of a wet day, was sparkling and lively with bellows and ringing forge, while Mr. Zebedee and his sons were hammering and pounding and putting in order anything that was out of the way in farming- tools or establishments. Not unfrequently the latest scientific work or the last tractate of theology lay open by his side, the contents of which would be discussed with a neighbour or two as they entered ; for, to say the truth, many a neighbour, less fore- handed and thrift}', felt the benefit of this arrangement of Mr. Zebedee, and would drop in to see if he ' wouldn't just tighten that rivet,' or ' kind o'ease out that 'ere brace,' or ' let a feller have a turn with his bellows or a stroke or two on his anvil,' to all which the good man consented with a grave obligingness. The fact was, that as nothing in the establishment of Mr. Marvyn was often broken or lost or out of place, he had frequent applica- tions to lend to those less fortunate persons, always to be found, who supply their own lack of considerateness from the abundance of their neighbours. He who is known always to be in hand, and always obliging, in a neighbourhood, stands the chance sometimes of having nothing for himself. Mr. Zebedee reflected quietly on this subject, taking it, as he did all others, into grave and orderly consideration, and finally provided a complete set of tools, which he kept for the purpose of lending ; and- when any of these were lent, he told the next applicant quietly that the axe or the hoe was already out, and thus he reconciled the Scripture which commanded him to ' do good and lend ' with that law of order which was written in his nature. Early in life Mr. Marvyn had married one of the handsomest C2 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. girls of his acquaintance, who had brought him a thriving and healthy family of children, of whom James was the youngest. Mrs. Marvyn was, at this time, a tall, sad-eyed, gentle-mannered woman, thoughtful, earnest, deep-natured, though sparing in the matter of words. In all her household arrangements, she had the same thrift and order which characterized her husband ; but hers was a mind of a finer and higher stamp than his. In her bedroom, near by her work-basket, stood a table covered with books, and so systematic were her household arrangements, that she never any day missed her regular hours for reading. One who should have looked over this table would have seen there how eager and hungry a mind was hid behind the silent eyes of this quiet woman. History, biography, mathe- matics, volumes of the encyclopaedia, poetry, novels, all alike found their time and place there, and while she pursued her household labours, the busy, active soul within travelled cycles and cycles of thought, few of which ever found expression in words. What might be that marvellous music of the Miserere, of which she read, that it convulsed crowds and drew groans and tears from the most obdurate ? What might be those wondrous pictures of Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci ? What would it bo to see the Apollo, the Venus ? W 7 hat was the charm that enchanted the old marbles charm untold and inconceivable to one who had never seen even the slightest approach to a work of art? Then those glaciers of Switzerland, that grand, unap- proachable mixture of beauty and sublimity in her mountains ! what would it be to one who could see it ? Then what were all those harmonies of which she read, masses, fugues, symphonies ? Oh, could she once hear the Miserere of Mozart, just to know what music was like ! And the cathedrals, what were they ? How wonderful they must be, with their forests of arches, many- coloured as autumn- woods with painted glass, and the chants and anthems rolling down their long aisles ! On all these things she pondered quietly, as she sat often on Sundays in the old staring, rattle-windowed meeting-house, and looked at the uncouth old pulpit, and heard the choir fa-sol-la-ing or singing fuguing tunes ; but of all this she said nothing. Sometimes, for days, her thoughts would turn from these subjects and be absorbed in mathematical or metaphysical studies. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 63 ' I have been following that treatise on Optics for a week, and never understood it till to-day,' she once said to her husband. ' I have found now that there has been a mistake in drawing the diagrams. I have corrected it, and now the demonstration is complete. Dinah, take care, that wood is hickory, and it takes only seven sticks of that size to heat the oven.' It is not to be supposed that a woman of this sort was an in- attentive listener to preaching so stimulating to the intellect as that of Dr. H. No pair of eyes followed the web of his reasonings with a keener and more anxious watchfulness than those sad, deep-set, hazel ones ; and as she was drawn along the train of its inevitable logic, a close observer might have seen how the shadows deepened over them. For, while others listened for the clearness of the thought, for the acuteness of the argument, she listened as a soul wide, fine-strung, acute, repressed, whose every fibre is a nerve, listens to the problem of its own destiny, listened as the mother of a family listens, to know what were the possibilities, the probabilities of this mysterious existence of ours to herself and those dearer to her than herself. The consequence of all her listening was a history of deep inward sadness. That exultant joy, or that entire submission, with which others seemed to view the scheme of the universe, as thus unfolded, did not visit her mind. Everything to her seemed shrouded in gloom and mystery ; and that darkness she received as a token of unregeneracy, as a sign that she was one of those who are destined, by a mysterious decree, never to receive the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. Hence, while her husband was a deacon of the church, she for years had sat in her pew while the sacramental elements were distributed, a mournful spectator. Punctilious in every duty, exact, reverential, she still regarded herself as a child of wrath, an enemy to God, and an heir of ^perdition ; nor could she see any hope of remedy, except in the sovereign, mysterious decree of an Infinite and Unknown Power, a mercy for which she waited with the sickness of hope deferred. Her children had grown up successively around her, intelligent and exemplary. Her eldest son was mathematical professor in one of the leading colleges of New England. Her second son, who jointly with his father superintended the farm, was a man of 64 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. wide literary culture and of fine mathematical genitis ; and not unfrequently, on winter evenings, the son, father, and mother worked together, by their kitchen fireside, over the calculations for the almanac for the ensuing year, which the son had been appointed to edit. Everything in the family arrangements was marked by a sober precision, a grave and quiet self-possession. There was little demonstrativeness of afiection between parents and children, brothers and sisters, though great miuual affection and confidence. It was not pride, nor sternness, but a sort of habitual shamefaced- ness, that kept far back in each soul those feelings which are the most beautiful in their outcome ; but after a while, the habit became so fixed a nature, that a caressing or affectionate expression could not have passed the lips of one to another without a painful awkwardness. Love was understood, once for all, to be the basis on which their life was built. Once for all, they loved each other, and after that, the less said the better. It had cost the woman's heart of Mrs. Marvyn some pangs, in the earlier part of her wedlock, to accept of this once for all, in place of those daily out- gushings which every woman desires should be like God's lov- ing kindness, ' new every morning ;' but hers, too, was a nature strongly inclining inward, and, after a few tremulous movements, the needle of her soul settled, and her life-lot was accepted, not as what she would like or could conceive, but as a reasonable and good one. Life was a picture painted in low, cool tones, but in perfect keeping ; and though another and brighter style might have pleased better, she did not quarrel with this. Into this steady, decorous, highly-respectable circle, the youngest child, James, made a formidable irruption. One some- times sees launched into a family circle a child of so different a nature from all the rest, that it might seem as if, like an aerolite, he had fallen out of another sphere. All the other babies of the Marvyn family had been of that orderly, contented sort who sleep till it is convenient to take them up, and while awake suck their thumbs contentedly and look up with large, round eyes at the ceiling when it is not convenient for their elders and betters that they should do anything else. In farther advanced childhood, they had been quiet and decorous children, who could be all dressed and set up in chairs, like so many dolls, of a Sunday THE MINISTER'S. WOOING. 65 morning, patiently awaiting the stroke of the church-bell to be carried out and put into the waggon which took them over the two miles' road to church. Possessed of such tranquil, orderly, and exemplary young offshoots, Mrs. Marvyn had been considered eminent for her ' faculty ' in bringing up children. But James was destined to put ' faculty,' and every other talent which his mother possessed, to rout. He was an infant of moods and tenses, and those not of any regular verb. He would cry of nights, and he would be taken up of mornings, and he would not suck his thumb, nor a bundle of caraway-seed tied in a rag and dipped in sweet milk, with which the good gossips in vain endeavoured to pacify him. He fought manfully with his two great fat fists the battle of babyhood, utterly reversed all nursery maxims, and reigned as baby over the whole prostrate household. When old enough to run alone, his splendid black eyes and glossy rings of hair were seen flashing and bobbing in every forbidden place and occupation. Now trailing on his mother's gown, he assisted her in salting her butter by throwing in small contribu- tions of snuff or sugar, as the case might be ; and again, after one of those mysterious periods of silence which are of most ominous significance in nursery experience, he would rise from the demo- lition of her indigo-bag, showing a face ghastly with blue streaks, and looking more like a gnome than the son of a respectable mother. There was not a pitcher of any description of contents left within reach of his little tiptoes and busy fingers that was not pulled over upon his giddy head without in the least seeming to improve its steadiness. In short, his mother remarked that she was thankful every night when she had fairly gotten him into bed and asleep : James had really got through one more day and killed neither himself nor any one else. As a boy, the case was little better. He did not take to study, yawned over books, and cut out moulds for running anchors when he should have been thinking of his columns of words in four syllables. No mortal knew how he learned to read, for he never seemed to stop running long enough to learn anything; and yet he did learn, and used the talent in conning over travels, sea-voyages, and lives of heroes and naval commanders. Spite of father, mother, and brother, he seemed to possess the most extraordinary faculty of running up unsavoury acquaintances. 66 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. He was a hail-fellow -well-met with every Tom and Jack and Jim and Ben and Dick that strolled on the wharves, and astonished his father with minutest particulars of every ship, schooner, and brig in the harbour, together with biographical notes of the dif- ferent Toms, Dicks, and Harrys, by whom they were worked. There was but one member of the family that seemed to know at all what to make of James, and that was their negro servant, Candace. In those days, when domestic slavery prevailed in New England, it was quite a different thing in its aspects from the same institution in more southern latitudes. The hard soil, unyielding to any but the most considerate culture, the thrifty, close, shrewd habits of the people, and their untiring activity and industry, prevented, among the mass of the people, any great reliance on slave labour. It was something foreign, gro- tesque, and picturesque in a life of the most matter-of-fact same- ness: it was even as if one should see clusters of palm-trees scattered here and there among Yankee wooden meeting-houses, or open one's eyes on clumps of yellow-striped aloes growing among hardback and huckleberry bushes in the pastures. Added to this, there were from the very first, in New England, serious doubts in the minds of thoughtful and conscientiotis people in reference to the lawfulness of slavery ; and this scruple prevented many from availing themselves of it, and proved a restraint on all, so that nothing like plantation-life existed, and what servants were owned were scattered among different families, of which they came to be regarded and to regard themselves as a legitimate part and portion, Mr. Marvyn, as a man of substance, numbering two or three in his establishment, among whom Candace reigned chief. The presence of these tropical specimens of humanity, with their wide, joyous, rich physical abundance of nature and their hearty abandon of outward expression, was a relief to the still clear-cut lines in which the picture of Xew England life was drawn, which an artist must appreciate. No race has ever shown such infinite and rich capabilities of adaptation to varying soil and circumstances as the negro. Alike to them the snows of Canada, the hard, rocky land of New England, with its set lines and orderly ways, or the gorgeous profusion and loose abundance of the Southern States. Sambo THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 67 and Cuffy expand under them all. New England yet preserves among her hills and valleys the lingering echoes of the jokes and jollities of various sable worthies, who saw alike in orthodoxy and heterodoxy, in Dr. Tins-side and Dr. That-side, only food for more abundant merriment; in fact, the minister of those days not unfrequently had his black shadow, a sort of African Boswell, who powdered his wig, brushed his boots, defended and patronized his sermons, and strutted complacently about, as if through virtue of his blackness he had absorbed every ray of his master's dignity and wisdom. In families, the presence of these exotics was a godsend to the children, supplying from the abundant outward- ness and demonstrativeness of their nature that aliment of sym- pathy so dear to childhood, which the repressed and quiet habits of New England education denied. Many and many a New Englander counts among his pleasantest early recollections the memory of some of these genial creatures, who by their warmth of nature were the first and most potent rnesrnerizers of his childish mind. Candace was a powerfully built, majestic black woman, corpu- lent, heavy, with a swinging majesty of motion like that of a ship in a ground swell. Her shining black skin and glistening white teeth were indications of perfect physical vigour which had never known a day's sickness; her turban, of broad red and yellow bandanna stripes, had even a warm tropical glow ; and her ample skirts were always ready to be spread over every childish transgression of her youngest pet and favourite, James. She used to hold him entranced long winter evenings, while she sat knitting in the chimney-corner, and crooned to him strange, wild African legends of the things that she had seen in her childhood and early days, for she had been stolen when about fifteen years of age ; and these weird, dreamy talks increased the fervour of his roving imagination, and his desire to explore the wonders of the wide and unknown world. When rebuked or chastised, it was she who had secret bowels of mercy for him, and hid doughnuts in her ample bosom to be secretly adminis- tered to him in mitigation of the sentence that sent him supper- less to bed ; and many a triangle of pie, many a wedge of cake, had conveyed to him surreptitious consolations which his more conscientious mother longed, but dared not, to impart. In fact, 68 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. these ministrations, if suspected, were winked at by Mrs. Marvyn, for two reasons : first, that mothers are generally glad of any loving-kindness to an erring boy, which they are not responsible for; and second, that Candace was so set in her ways and opinions that one might as well come in front of a ship tinder full sail as endeavour to stop her in a matter where her heart was engaged. To be sure, she had her own private and special quarrels with ' Massa James,' when he disputed aay of her sovereign orders in the kitchen, and would sometimes pursue him with uplifted rolling-pin and floury hands when he had snatched a gingernut or cooky without suitable deference or supplication, and would declare, roundly, that there ' never was sich an aggravatin' young-un.' But if, on the strength of this, any one else ventured a reproof, Candace was immediately round on the other side : ' Dat ar chile gwin' to be spiled, 'cause dey's allers a'pickin' on him ; he's well enough on'y let him alone.' Well, under this miscellaneous assortment of influences, through the order and gravity and solemn monotone of life at home, with the unceasing tick-tack of the clock for ever resound- ing through clean, empty-seeming rooms, through the sea, ever shining, ever smiling, dimpling, soliciting, like a magical charger who comes saddled and bridled and offers to take you to fairy- land, through acquaintance with all sorts of foreign, outlandish ragamuffins among the ships in the harbour, from disgust of slow-moving oxen, and long-drawn, endless furrows round the fifteen-acre lot, from misunderstandings with grave elder brothers, and feeling somehow as if, he knew not why, he grieved his mother all the time just by being what he was and couldn't help being, and, finally, by a bitter break with his father, in which came that last wrench for an individual existence which some time or other the young growing mind will give to old authority, by all these united, was the lot at length cast ; for one evening James was missing at supper, missing by the fireside, gone all night, not at home to breakfast, till, finally, a strange, weird, most heathenish-looking cabin-boy, who had often been forbidden the premises by Mr. Marvyn, brought in a letter, half- defiant, half-penitent, which announced that James had sailed in the ' Ariel ' the evening before. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 69 Mr. Zebedee Marvyn set his face as a flint, and said, ' He went out from us because he was not of us,' whereat old Candace lifted her great floury fist from the kneading-trough, and, shaking it like a large snowball, said, ' Oh, you go 'long, Massa Marvyn ; ye'll live to count dat ar boy for de staff o' your old age yet, now I tell ye ; got de makin' o' ten or'nary men in him ; kittles dat's full allers will bile over ; good yeast will blow out de cork, lucky ef it don't bust de bottle. Tell ye, der's angels has der hooks in sich, and when de Lord wants him dey'll haul him in safe and sound.' And Candace concluded her speech by giving a lift to her whole batch of dough, and flinging it down in the trough with an emphasis that made the pewter on the dresser rattle. This apparently irreverent way of expressing her mind, so contrary to the deferential habits studiously inculcated in family discipline, had grown to be so much a matter of course to all the family that nobody ever thought of rebuking it. There was a sort of savage freedom about her, which they excused in right of her having been born and bred a heathen, and of course not to be expected to come at once under the yoke of civilization. In fact, you must all have noticed, my dear readers, that there are some sorts of people for whom everybody turns out as they would for a railroad-car, without stopping to ask why and Candace was one of them. Moreover, Mr. Marvyn was not displeased with this defence of James, as might be inferred from his mentioning it four or five times in the course of the morning, to say how foolish it was, wondering why it was that Candace and everybody else got so infatuated with that boy, and ending, at last, after a long period of thought, with the remark that these poor African crea- tures often seemed to have a great deal of shrewdness in them, and that he was often astonished at the penetration that Candace showed. At the end of the year James came home, more quiet and manly than he had ever been known before, so handsome with his sunburnt face, and his keen, dark eyes and glossy curls, that half the girls in the front gallery lost their, hearts the first Sunday he appeared in church. He was tender as a woman to his mother, and followed her with his eyes, like a lover, wherever 70 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. she went : he made due and manly acknowledgments to his father, but declared his fixed and settled intention to abide by the profession he had chosen ; and he brought home all sorts of strange foreign gifts for every member of the household. Candace was glorified with a flaming red and yellow turban of Moorish stuff from Mogadore, together with a pair of gorgeous yellow morocco slippers with peaked toes, which, though there appeared no call to wear them in her common course of life, she would put on her fat feet, and contemplate with daily satisfaction. She became increasingly strengthened thereby in the conviction that the angels who had their hooks in Massa James's jacket were already beginning to shorten the line. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 71 CHAPTEE VIII. WHICH TREATS OF ROMANCE. THERE is no word in the English language more unceremoni- ously and indefinitely kicked and cuffed about, by what are called sensible people, than the word romance. TVhen Mr. Smith or Mr. Stubbs has brought every wheel of life into such range and order that it is one steady, daily grind, when they themselves have come into the habits and attitudes of the patient donkey, who steps round and round the endlessly turning wheel of some machinery then they fancy that they have gotten ' the victory that overcometh the world.' All but this dead grind, and the dollars that come through the mill, is by them thrown into one waste 'catch-all' and labelled romance. Perhaps there was a time in Mr. Smith's youth, he remembers it now, when he read poetry, when his cheek was wet with strange tears, when a little song, ground out by an organ-grinder in the street, had power to set his heart beating and bring a mist before his e} - es. Ah, in those days he had a vision ! a pair of soft eyes stirred him strangely ; a little weak hand was laid on his manhood, and it shook and trembled ; and then came all the humility, the aspiration, the fear, the hope, the high desire, the troubling of the waters by the descending angel of love, and a little more and Mr. Smith might have become a man, instead of a banker ! He thinks of it now, sometimes, as he looks across the fireplace after dinner and sees Mrs. Smith asleep, inno- cently shaking the bouquet of pink bows and Brussels lace that waves over her placid red countenance. Mrs. Smith wasn't his first love, nor, indeed, any love at all; but they agreed reasonably well. And as for poor Nellie, well, she is dead and buried, all that was stuff and 72 THE MINISTER'S WOOING, romance. Mrs. Smith's money set him up in business, and -Airs. Smith is a capital manager, and he thanks God that he isn't romantic, and tells Smith Junior not to read poetry or novels, and to stick to realities. ' This is the victory that overcome th the world,' to learn to be fat and tranquil, to have warm fires and good dinners, to hang your hat on the same peg at the same hour every day, to sleep soundly all night, and never to trouble your head with a thought or imagining beyond. But there are many people besides Mr. Smith who have gained this victory, who have strangled their higher nature and buried it, and built over its grave the structure of their life, the better to keep it down. The fascinating Mrs. T., whose life is a whirl between ball and opera, point-lace, diamonds, and schemings of admiration for herself, and of establishments for her daughters, there was a time, if you will believe me, when that proud, worldly woman was so humbled, under the touch of some mighty power, that she actually thought herself capable of being a poor man's wife. She thought she could live in a little, mean house, on no-matt er-what-street, with one servant, and make her own bonnets, and mend her own clothes, and sweep the house Mondays, while Betty washed, all for what ? All be- cause she thought that there was a man so noble, so true, so good, so high-minded, that to live with him in poverty, to bo guided by him in adversity, to lean on him in every rough place of life, was a something nobler, better, purer, more satisfying, than French laces, opera-boxes, and even Madame Eoget's best gowns. Unfortunately, this was all romance, there was no such man. There was, indeed, a person of very common, self- interested aims and worldly nature, whom she had credited at sight with an unlimited draft on all her better nature ; and when the hour of discovery came, she awoke from her dream with a start and a laugh, and ever since has despised aspiration, and been busy with the realities of life, and feeds poor little Mary Jane, who sits by her in the opera-box there, with all the fruit which she has picked from the bitter tree of know- THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 73 ledge. There is no end of the epigrams and witticisms which she can throw out, this elegant Mrs. T., on people who mairy for love, lead prosy, worky lives, and put on their best cap with pink ribbons for Sunday. ' Mary Jane shall never make a fool of herself;' but, even as she speaks, poor Mary Jane's heart is dying within her at the vanishing of a paifi of whiskers from an opposite box, which whiskers the poor little fool has credited with a resume drawn from her own imaginings of all that is grandest and most heroic, most worshipful in man. By-and-by, when Mrs. T. finds the glamour has fallen on her daughter, she wonders ; she has ' tried to keep novels out of the girl's way, where did she get these notions ?' All prosaic, and all bitter, disenchanted people talk as if poets and novelists made romance. They do just as much as craters make volcanoes, no more. What is romance ? whence comes it? Plato spoke to the subject wisely, in his quaint way, some two thousand years ago, when he said, l Man's soul, in a former state, was winged and soared among the gods ; and so it comes to pass, that, in this life, when the soul, by the power of music or poetry, or the sight of beauty, hath her remembrance quickened, forthwith there is a strug- gling and a pricking pain as of wings trying to come forth, even as children in teething.' And if an old heathen, two thousand years ago, discoursed thus gravely of the romantic part of our nature, whence comes it that in Christian lands we think in so pagan a way of it, and turn the whole care of it to ballad-makers, romancers, and opera-singers ? Let us look up in fear and reverence, and say, ' GOD is the great maker of romance. HE, from whose hand came man and woman, HE, who strung the great harp of Existence with all its wild and wonderful and manifold chords, and attuned them to one another, HE is the great Poet of life.' Every impulse of beauty, of heroism, and every craving for purer love, fairer perfection, nobler type and style of being than that which closes like a prison-house around us, in the dim, daily walk of life, is God's breath, God's impulse, God's re- minder to the soul that there is something higher, sweeter, purer, yet to be attained. - E 2 7-i THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. Therefore, man or woman, when thy ideal is shattered as shattered a thousand times it must be ; when the vision fades, the rapture burns out, turn not away in scepticism and bitter- ness, saying, ' There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink,' but rather cherish the revelations of those hours as prophecies and fore-shadowings of something real and possible, yet to be attained in the manhood of immor- tality. The scoffing spirit that laughs at romance, is an apple of the Devil's own handing from the bitter tree of knowledge ; it opens the eyes only to see eternal nakedness. If ever you have had a romantic, un calculating friendship a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul ; if ever you have so loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish worldly considerations, have gone down like drift-wood before 3. river flooded with new rain from heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing, if you awoke bitterly betrayed and de- ceived, still give thanks to God that you have had one glimpse -of heaven. The door now shut will open again. Eejoice that the noblest capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known to you ; treasure it, as the highest honour of your being, that ever you could so feel, that so divine a guest ever possessed your soul. By such experiences are we taught the pathos, the sacred- ness of life ; and if we use them wisely, our eyes will ever after be anointed to see what poems, what romances, what sublime tragedies lie around us in the daily walk of life,' written not with ink, but in fleshly tables of the heart.' The dullest street of the most prosaic town has matter in it for more smiles, more tears, more intense excitement, than ever were written in story or sung in poem ; the reality is there, of which the romancer is fhe second-hand recorder. So much of a plea we put in boldly, because we foresee grave heads beginning to shake over our history, and doubts rising in reverend and discreet minds whether this history is going to prove anything but a love-story, after all. We do assure you, right reverend Sir, and you, most dis- THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 75 creet Madam, that it is not going to prove anything else ; and you will find, if you will follow us, that there is as much romance burning under the snow-banks of cold Puritan preciseness as if Dr. H. had been brought up to attend operas instead of metaphysical preaching; and Mary had been nourished on Byron's poetry instead of 'Edwards on the Affections.' The innocent credulities, the subtle deceptions, that were quietly at work under the grave, white curls of the Doctor's wig, were exactly of the kind which have beguiled man in all ages, when near the sovereign presence of her who is born for his destiny ; and as for Mary, what did it avail her that she could say the Assembly's Catechism from end to end without tripping, and that every habit of her life beat time to practical realities, steadily as the parlour clock ? The wildest Italian singer or dancer, nursed on nothing but excitement from her cradle, never was more thoroughly possessed by the awful and solemn mystery of woman's life, than this Puritan girl. It is quite true, that, the next morning after James's de- parture, she rose as us vial in the dim gray, and was to be seen opening the kitchen-door just at the moment when the birds were giving the first little drowsy stir and chirp, and that she went on setting the breakfast-table for the two hired men, Avho were bound to the fields with the oxen, and that then she went on skimming cream for the butter, and getting ready to churn, and making lip biscuit for the Doctor's break- fast, when he and they should sit down together at a some- what later hour; and as she moved about, doing all these things, she sung various scraps of old psalm-tunes ; and the good Doctor, who was then busy with his early exercises of devotion, listened, as he heard the voice, now here, now there, and thought about angels and the Millennium. Solemnly and tenderly there floated in at his open study- window, through the breezy lilacs, mixed with low of kine, and bleat of sheep, and hum of early wakening life, the little silvery ripples of that singing, somewhat mournful in its cadence, as if a gentle soul were striving to hush itself to rest. The words 76 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. were those of the rough old version of the psalms then in use: ' Truly my waiting soul relies In silence God upon : Because from him there doth arise All my salvation.' And then came the busy patter of the little footsteps with- out, the moving of chairs, the clink of plates, as busy hands were arranging the table ; and then again there was a pause, and he thought she seemed to come near to the open window of the adjoining room, for the voice floated in clearer and sadder : ' God, to me be merciful, Be merciful to me ! Because my soul for shelter safe, Betakes itself to thee. ' Yea, in the shadow of thy wings My refuge have I placed, Until these sore calamities Shall quite be overpast.' The tone of life in New England, so habitually earnest and solemn, breathed itself in the grave and plaintive melodies of the tunes then sung in the churches ; and so these words, though in the saddest minor key, did not suggest to the list- ening ear of the auditor anything more than that pensive re- ligious calm in which he delighted to repose. A contrast indeed they were, in their melancholy earnestness, to the ex- uberant carollings of a robin, who, apparently attracted by them, perched himself hard by in the lilacs, and struck up such a merry roulade as quite diverted the attention of the fair singer ; in fact, the intoxication breathed in the strain of this little messenger, whom God had feathered and winged and filled to the throat with ignorant joy, came in singular contrast with the sadder notes breathed by that creature of so much higher mould and fairer clay, that creature born for an immortal life. But the good Doctor was inly pleased when she sung ; and when she stopped, looked up from his Bible wistfully, as missing something, he knew not what ; for he scarce thought THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 77 how pleasant the little voice was, or knew he had been listen- ing to it, and yet he was in a manner enchanted by it, so thankful and happy that he exclaimed with fervour, ' The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage.' So went the world with him, full of joy and praise, because the voice and the presence wherein lay his unsuspected life, were securely near, so certainly and constantly a part of his daily walk, that he had not even the trouble to wish for them. But in that other heart how was it? how with the sweet saint that was talking to herself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs ? The good child had remembered her mother's parting words the night before, ' Put your mind upon your duties,' and had begun her first conscious exercise of thought with a prayer that grace might be given her to do it. But even as she spoke, mingling and interweaving with that -golden thread of prayer was another consciousness, a life in another soul, as she prayed that the grace of God might overshadow him, shield him from temptation, and lead him up to heaven ; and this prayer so got the start of the other, that, ere she was aware, she had quite forgotten self, and was feeling, living, thinking in that other life. The first discovery she made, when she looked out into the fragrant orchard, whose perfumes steamed in at her window, and listened to the first chirping of birds among the old apple- trees, was one that has astonished many a person before her ; it was this : she found that all that had made life interest- ing to her was suddenly gone. She herself had not known that, for the month past, since James came from sea, she had been living in an enchanted land ; that Newport harbour, and every rock and stone, and every mat of yellow seaweed on the shore, that the two-mile road between the cottage and the white house of Zebedee Marvyn, every mullein-stalk, every juniper-tree, had all had a light and a charm which were suddenly gone. There had not been an hour in the day for the last four weeks that had not had its unsuspected interest, because he was at the White House ; because, possibly, he 78 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. might be going by, or coming in : nay, even in church, when she stood up to sing, and thought she was thinking only of God, had she not been conscious of that tenor voice that poured itself out by her side? and though afraid to turn her head that way, had she not felt that he was there every moment ? heard every word of the sermon and prayer for him ? The very vigilant care which her mother had taken to prevent private interviews had only served to increase the interest by throwing over it the veil of constraint and mystery. Silent looks, involuntary starts, things indicated, not expressed these are the most dangerous, the most seductive aliment of thought to a delicate and sensitive nature. If things were said out, they might not be said wisely, they might repel by their freedom, or disturb by their unfitness ; but what is only looked is sent into the soul through the imagination, which makes of it all that the ideal faculties desire. In a refined and exalted nature it is very seldom that the feeling of love, when once thoroughly aroused, bears any sort of relation to the reality of the object. It is commonly an enkindling of the whole power of the soul's love for whatever she considers highest and fairest; it is, in fact, the love of something divine and unearthly, which, by a sort of illusion, connects itself with a personality. Properly speaking, there is but One true, eternal Object of all that the mind conceives in this trance of its exaltation. Disenchantment must come, of course ; and in a love which terminates in happy marriage there is a tender and gracious process, by which, without shock or violence, the ideal is gradually sunk in the real, which, though found faulty and earthly, is still ever tenderly remembered as it seemed under the morning light of that enchantment. What Mary loved so passionately, that which came between her and God in every prayer, was not the gay, young, dashing sailor, sudden in anger, imprudent of speech, and, though generous in heart, yet worldly in plans and schemings, but her own ideal of a grand and noble man, such a man as she thought he might become. He stood glorified before her an image of the strength that overcomes things physical ; of the THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 79 power of command which controls men and circumstances; of the courage which disdains fear ; of the honour which can- not lie ; of constancy which knows no shadow of turning ; of tenderness which protects the weak ; and, lastly, of religious loyalty, which should lay the golden crown of its perfected manhood at the feet of a Sovereign Lord and Eedeemer. This was the man she loved ; and with this regal mantle of glories she invested the person called James Marvyn : and all that she saw and felt to be wanting, she prayed for with the faith of a believing woman. Nor was she wrong ; for, as to every leaf and every flower there is an ideal to which the growth of the plant is constantly urging, so is there an ideal to every human being, a perfect form in which it might appear, were every defect removed and every characteristic excellence stimulated to the highest point. Once, in an age, God sends to some of us a friend who loves in us, not a false imagining, an unreal character, but, looking through all the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the divine ideal of our nature, loves, not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be. Such friends seem inspired by a divine gift of prophecy, like the mother of St. Augus- tine, who, in the midst of the wayward, reckless youth of her son, beheld him in a vision, standing, clothed in white, a ministering priest at the right hand of God as he has stood for long ages since. Could a mysterious foresight imveil to us this resurrection form of the friends with whom we daily walk, compassed about with mortal infirmity, we should follow them with faith and reverence through all the disguises of human faults and weaknesses, ' waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.' But these wonderful soul-friends, to whom God grants such perception, are the exceptions in life ; yet, sometimes are we blessed with one who sees through us, as Michel Angelo saw through a block of marble when he attacked it in a divine fervour, declaring that an angel was imprisoned within it: and it is often the resolute and delicate hand of such a friend that sets the angel free. There be soul-artists, who go through this world, looking E 3 80 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. among their fellows with reverence, as one looks aniid the dust and rubbish of old shops for hidden works of Titian and Leonardo ; and, finding them, however cracked or torn, or painted over with tawdry daiibs of pretenders, immediately recognise the divine original, and set themselves to cleanse and restore. Such be God's real priests, whose ordination and anointing are from the Holy Spirit ; and he who hath not this enthusiasm is not ordained of God, though whole synods of bishops laid hands on him. Many such priests there be among women ; for to this silent ministry their nature calls them, endowed, as it is, with fine- ness of fibre and a subtile keenness of perception outrunning slow-footed reason, and she of whom we write was one of these. At this very moment, while the crimson wings of morning were casting delicate reflections on tree, and bush, and rock, they were also reddening innumerable waves round a ship that sailed alone, with a wide horizon stretching like an eternity around it; and in the advancing morning stood a young man, thoughtfully looking off into the ocean, with a book in his hand James Marvyn, as truly and heartily a creature of this material world as Mary was of the invisible and heavenly. There are some who seem made to live, life is such a joy to them ; their senses are so fully en rapport with all outward things ; the world is so keenly appreciable, so much a part of themselves ; they are so conscious of power and victory in the government and control of material things, that the moral and invisible life often seems to hang tremulous and unreal in their minds, like the pale, faded moon in the light of a gorgeous sunrise. When brought face to face with the great truths of the invisible world, they stand related to the higher wisdom much like the gorgeous, gay Alcibiades to the divine Socrates, or like the young man in Holy Writ to Him for whose appear- ing Socrates longed ; they gaze, imperfectly comprehending, and at the call of ambition or riches turn away sorrowing. So it was with James : in full tide of worldly energy and ambition there had been forming over his mind that hard THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 81 crust that scepticism of the spiritual and exalted which men of the Avorld delight to call practical sense. He had been suddenly arrested and humbled by the revelation of a nature so much nobler than his own that he seemed worthless in his own eyes : he had asked for love ; but when such love unveiled itself, he felt like the disciple of old in the view of a diviner tenderness, ' Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.' But it, is not often that all the current of a life is reversed in one hour : and now, as James stood on the ship's deck, with life passing around him, and everything drawing upon the strings of old habits, Mary and her religion recurred to his mind, as some fair, sweet, inexplicable vision. "Where she stood he saw ; but how he was ever to get there seemed as incomprehensible as how a mortal man should pillow his form on sunset clouds. He held the little Bible in his Land as if it were some amulet charmed by the touch of a superior being ; but when he strove to read it, his thoughts wandered, and he shut it, troubled and unsatisfied. Yet there were within him yearn- ings and cravings, wants never felt before, the beginning of that trouble which must ever precede the soul's rise to a higher plan of being. There we leave him. We have shown you now our three different characters, each one in its separate sphere, feeling the force of that strongest and holiest power with which it lias pleased our great Author to glorify this mortal life. CHAPTER IX. WHICH TREATS OF THINGS SKKX. As, for example, the breakfast. It is six o'clock, the hired men and oxen are gone, the breakfast-table stands before the open kitchen-door, snowy with its fresh cloth, the old silver coffee-pot steaming up a refreshing perfume, and the Doctor sits on one side, sipping his cotfee and looking across the table at Mary, who is innocently pleased at the kindly beam- 82 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ing in his placid blue eyes, and Aunt Katy Scudder dis- courses of housekeeping, and fancies something must have disturbed the rising of the cream, as it is not so thick and yellow as wont. Now the Doctor, it is to be confessed, was apt to fall into a way of looking at people such as pertains to philosophers and scholars generally, that is, as if he were looking through them into the infinite, in which case, his gaze became so earnest and intent that it would quite embarrass an uninitiated person ; but Mary, being used to this style of contemplation, was only quietly amused, and "waited till some great thought should loom up before his mental vision, in which case, she hoped to hear from him. The good man swallowed his first cup of coffee and spoke : ' In the Millennium, I suppose, there will be such a fulness and plenty of all the necessaries and conveniences of life, that it will not be necessary for men and women to spend the greater part of their lives in labour in order to procure a living. It will not be necessary for each one to labour more than two or three hours a day, not more than will conduce to health of body and vigour of mind ; and the rest of their time they will spend in reading and conversation, and such exercises as are necessary and proper to improve their minds and make progress in knowledge.' New England presents probably the only example of a successful commonwealth founded on a theory, as a distinct experiment in the problem of society. It was for this reason that the minds of its great thinkers dwelt so much on the final solution of that problem in this world. The fact of a future Millennium was a favourite doctrine of the great leading theologians of New England, and Dr. H. dwelt upon it with a peculiar partiality. Indeed, it was the solace and refuge of his soul, when oppressed with the discouragements which always attend things actual, to dwell upon and draw out in detail the splendours of this perfect future which was destined to glorify the world. Nobody, therefore, at the cottage was in the least surprised when there dropped into the flow of their daily life these THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 83 sparkling bits of ore, which their friend had dug in his explorations of a future Canaan, in fact, they served to raise the hackneyed present out of the level of mere commonplace. ' But how will it be possible,' inquired Mrs. Scudder, ' that so much less work will suffice in those days to do all that is to be done ?' ' Because of the great advance of arts and sciences which will take place before those days,' said the Doctor, ' whereby everything shall be performed with so much greater ease, also the great increase of disinterested love, whereby the skill and talents of those who have much shall make up for the weakness of those who have less. 'Yes,' he continued, after a pause, 'all the careful Marthas in those days will have no excuse for not sitting at the feet of Jesus ; there will be no cumbering with much serving ; the church will have only Maries in those days.' This remark, made without the slightest personal intention, called a curious smile into Mrs. Scudder's face, which was re- flected in a slight blush from Mary's, when the crack of a whip and the rattling of waggon-wheels disturbed the conversation and drew all eyes to the door. There appeared the vision of Mr. Zebedee Marvyn's farm- waggon, stored with barrels, boxes, and baskets, over which Candace sat throned triumphant, her black face and yellow- striped ttirban glowing in the fresh morning with a hearty, joyous light, as she pulled up the reins, and shouted to the horse to stop with a voice that might have done credit to any man living. ' Dear me, if there isn't Candace !' said Mary. ' Queen of Ethiopia,' said the Doctor, who sometimes adven- tured a very placid joke. The Doctor was universally known in all the neighbourhood as a sort of friend and patron-saint of the negro race ; he had devoted himself to their interests with a zeal unusual in those days. His church numbered more of them than any in New- port ; and his hours of leisure from study were often spent in lowliest visitations among them, hearing their stories, con- soling their sorrows, advising and directing their plans, 84 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. teaching them reading and writing, and he often drew hard on his slender salary to assist them iu their emergencies and distresses. This unusual condescension on his part was repaid on theirs with all the warmth of their race ; and Candace, in parti- cular, devoted herself to the Doctor with all the force of her being. There was a legend current in the neighbourhood, that the first efforts to catechize Candace were not eminent!}- success- ful, her modes of contemplating theological tenets being so peculiarly from her own individual point of view that it was hard to get her subscription to a received opinion. On the venerable clause in the Catechism, in particular, which declares that all men sinned in Adam and fell with him, Candace made a dead halt : ' I didn't do dat ar', for one, I knows. I's got good mem'ry, allers knows what I does, nebber did eat dat ar' apple, nebber eat a bit ob him. Don't tell me !' It was of no use, of course, to tell Candace of all the expla- nations of this redoubtable passage, of potential presence, and representative presence, and representative identity, and federal headship. She met all with the dogged, ' Xebber did it, I knows ; should 'ave 'rnembered, if I had. Don't tell me !' And even in the catechizing class of the Doctor himself, if this answer came to her, she sat black and frowning in stony- silence even in his reverend presence. Candace was often reminded that the Doctor believed the Catechism, and that she was differing from a great and good man ; but the argument made no manner of impression on her, till, one day, a far-off cousin of hers, whose condition under a hard master had often moved her compassion, came in overjoyed to recount to her how, owing to Dr. H.'s exer- tions, he had gained his freedom. The Doctor himself had in person gone from house to house, raising the sum for his redemption ; and when more yet was wanting, supplied it by paying half his last quarter's limited salary. ' He do dat ar' ?' said Candace, dropping the fork wherewith THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 85 she was spearing doughnuts. ' Den I'm gwine to b'liebe ebery word he cl oes ! ' And accordingly, at the next catechizing, the Doctor's astonishment was great when Candace pressed up to him, exclaiming, ' De Lord bress you, Doctor, for opening de prison for dera dat is bound ! I b'liebes in you now, Doctor. I's gwine to b'liebe ebery word you say. I'll say de Catechize now, fix it any way you like. I did eat dat ar' apple, I eat de whole tree, an' swallowed ebery bit ob it, if you say so.' And this very thorough profession of faith was followed, on the part of Candace, by years of the most strenuous ortho- doxy. Her general mode of expressing her mind on the subject was short and definitive. . ' Law me ! what's de use ? I's set out to b'liebe de Cate- chize, an' I'm gwine to b'liebe it, so !' While we have been telling you all this about her, she has fastened her horse, and is swinging leisurely up to the house with a basket on either arm. ' Good morning, Candace,' said Mrs. Scudder. ' What brings you so early ?' ' Come down 'fore light to sell my chickens an' eggs, got a lot o' money for 'em, too. Missy Marvyn she sent Miss Scudder some turkey-eggs, an' I brought down some o' my doughnuts for de Doctor. Good folks must lib, you know, as well as wicked ones,' and Candace gave a hearty, unctuous laugh. ' No reason why Doctors shouldn't hab good tings as well as sinners, is dere?' and she shook in great billows, and showed her white teeth in the abandon of her laugh. ' Lor' bress ye, honey, chile!' she said, turning to Mary, ' why, ye looks like a new rose, ebery bit ! Don't wonder somebody was allers pvyin' an' spy in' about here !' ' How is your mistress, Candace ?' said Mrs. Scudder, by way of changing the subject. ' Well, porly, rader porly. When Massa Jim goes, 'pears like takiii' de light right out her eyes. Dat ar' boy trains roun' arter his mudder like a cosset, he does. Lor', de house seems so still widout him! can't a fly scratch his ear but it 86 THE MINISTEE'S TVOOIXG. stalls a body. Missy Marvyn she sent down, an' says, would you and de Doctor an Miss Mary please come to tea dis arter- noon ?' ' Thank your mistress, Candace,' said Mrs. Scudder ; ' Mary and I will come, and the Doctor, perhaps,' looking at the good man, who had relapsed into meditation, and was eating his breakfast without taking note of anything going on. ' It will be time enough to tell him of it,' she said to Mary, ' when we have to wake him up to dress ; so we won't disturb him now/ To Mary the prospect of the visit was a pleasant one, for reasons which she scarce gave a definite form to. Of course, like a good girl, she had come to a fixed and settled resolution to think of James as little as possible ; but when the path of duty lay directly along scenes and among people fitted to recall him, it was more agreeable than if it had lain in another direction. Added to this, a very tender and silent friendship subsisted between Mrs. Marvyn and Mary ; in which, besides similarity of mind and intellectual pursuits, there was a deep, unspoken element of sympathy. Candace watched the light in Mary's eyes with the instinct- ive shrewdness by which her race seem to divine the thoughts and feelings of their superiors, and chuckled to herself inter- nally. Without ever having been made a confidante by any party, or having a w r ord said to or before her, still the whole position of affairs was as clear to her as if she had seen it on a map. She had appreciated at once Mrs. Scudder's coolness, James's devotion, and Mary's perplexity, and inly resolved, that, if the little maiden did not think of James in his absence, it should not be her fault. ' Laws, Miss Scudder,' she said, ' I's right glad you's comin', 'cause you hasn't seen how we's kind o' splendified since Massa Jim come home. You wouldn't know it. Why, he's got mats from Mogadore on all de entries, and a great big 'un on de parlour; and ye ought to see de shawl he brought Missus, an' all de cur'us kind o' tings to de Squire. 'Tell ye, dat ar' boy honours bis fader and mudder, ef he don't do nuffin else, an' dat's de fus' commandment wid promise, ma'am ; and to see him a-settin' up ebery day in prayer-time, so hand- THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 87 some, holdin' Missus's han', an' lookin' right into her eyes all de time ! Why, dat ar' boy is one o' de 'lect, it's jest as clare to me ; and de 'lect has got to come in, dat's what I say. My faith's strong, real clare, 'tell ye,' she added, with the triumphant laugh which usually chorused her conversation, and turning to the Doctor, who, aroused by her loud and vigorous strain, was attending with interest to her. ' Well, Candace,' he said, ' we all hope you are right.' ' Hope, Doctor ! I don't hope, I knows. 'Tell ye, when I pray for him, don't I feel enlarged ? 'Tell ye, it goes wid a rush. I can feel it gwine up like a rushin', mighty wind. I feels strong, I do.' ' That's right, Candace,' said the Doctor, ' keep on ; your prayers stand as much chance with God as if you were a crowned queen. The Lord is no respecter of persons.' * Dat's what he a'n't, Doctor, an' dere's where I 'gree wid him,' said Candace, as she gathered her baskets vigorously together, and, after a sweeping curtsy, went sailing down to her waggon, full laden with content, shouting a hearty ' Good mornin', Missus,' with the full power of her cheerful lungs, as she rode off. As the Doctor looked after her, the simple, pleased expres- sion with which he had wa f ched her, gradually faded, and there passed over his broad, good face, a shadow, as of a cloud on a mountain-side. ' What a shame it is,' he said ; ' what a scandal and disgrace to the Protestant religion, that Christians of America should openly practise and countenance this enslaving of the Africans ! I have for a long time holden my peace may the Lord forgive me ! but I believe the time is coming when I must utter my voice. I cannot go down to the wharves, or among the ship- ping, without these poor dumb creatures look at me so that I am ashamed ; as if they asked me what I, a Christian minister, was doing, that I did not coine to their help. I must testify.' Mrs. Scudder looked grave at this earnest announcement ; she had heard many like it before, and they always filled her with alarm, because Shall we tell you why? Well, then, it was not because she was not a thoroughly 88 THE MINISTER'S AVOOIXG. indoctrinated anti-slavery woman. Her husband, who did all her thinking for her, had been a man of ideas beyond his day, and never for a moment countenanced the right of slavery so far as to buy or own a servant or attendant of any kind : and Mrs. Scudder had always followed decidedly along the path of his opinions and practice, and never hesitated to declare the reasons for the faith that was in her. But if any of us could imagine an angel dropped down out of heaven, with wings, ideas, notions, manners, and customs all fresh from that very different country, we might easily suppose that the most pious and orthodox family might find the task of presenting him in general society, and piloting him along the courses of this world, a very delicate and embarrassing one. However much they might reverence him on their own private account, their hearts would probably sink within them at the idea of allow- ing him to expand himself according to his previous nature and habits in the great world without. In like manner, men of high, un world ly^natures are often reverenced by those who are somewhat puzzled what to do with them practically. Mrs. Scudder considered the Doctor as a superior being, possessed by a holy helplessness in all things material and temporal, which imposed on her the necessity of thinking and caring for him, and prevising the earthly and material aspects of bis affairs. There was not in Newport a more thriving and reputable business at that time than the slave-trade. Large fortunes were constantly being turned out in it, and what better Provi- dential witness of its justice could most people require ? Beside this, in their own little church, she reflected with alarm, that Simeon Brown, the richest and most liberal sup- porter of the society, had been, and was then, drawing all his wealth from this source ; and rapidly there flashed before her mind a picture of one and another, influential persons, who were holders of slaves. Therefore, M hen the Doctor announced, ' I must testify,' she rattled her tea-spoon uneasily, and answered, ' In what way, Doctor, do you think of bearing testimony ? The subject, I think, is a very difficult one.' THE MIXISTEBS WOOING. 89 ' Difficult ? I think no subject can be clearer. If we were right in our war for liberty, we are wrong in making slaves or keeping them.' ' Oh, I did not mean,' said Mrs. Scudder, ' that it was diffi- cult to understand the subject ; the right of the matter is clear, but what to do is the thing.' ' I shall preach about it,' said the Doctor ; ' my mind has run upon it some time. I shall show to the house of Judah their sin in this matter.' ' I fear there will be great offence given,' said Mrs. Scudder. ' There's Simeon Brown, one of our largest supporters, he is in the trade.' ' Ah, yes, but he will come otit of it, of course he will, he is all right, all clear. I was delighted with the clearness of his views the other night, and thought then of bringing them to bear on this point, only, as others were present, I deferred it. But I can show him that it follows logically from his principles ; I am confident of that.' ' I think you'll be disappointed in him, Doctor ; I think he'll be angry, and get up a commotion, and leave the church.' ' Madam,' said the Doctor, ' do you suppose that a man who would be willing even to give up his eternal salvation for the greatest good of the universe could hesitate about a few paltry thousands that perish in the using ?' ' He may feel^ willing to give up his soul,' said Mrs. Scudder, naively, 'but I don't think he'll give up his ships, that's quite another matter, he won't see it to be his duty.' ' Then, ma'am, he'll be a hypocrite, a gross hypocrite, if he won't,' said the Doctor. ' It is not Christian charity to think it of him. I shall call upon him this morning and tell him my intentions.' ' But, Doctor,' exclaimed Mrs. Scudder, with a start, ' pray, think a little more of it. You know a great many things depend on him. -Why ! he has subscribed for twenty copies of your " System of Theology." I hope you'll remember that.' ' And why should I remember that ?' said the Doctor, hastily turning round, suddenly enkindled, his blue eyes 90 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. flashing out of their usual misty calm, ' what has my " System of Theology " to do with the matter ?' 'Why,' said Mrs. Scudder, ' it's of more importance to get right views of the gospel before the world than anything else, is it not ? and if, by any imprudence in treating influential people, this should be prevented, more harm than good would be done.' ' Madam,' said the Doctor, ' I'd sooner my system should be sunk in the sea than it should be a millstone round my neck to keep me from my duty. Let God take care of my theology ; I must do my duty.' And as the Doctor spoke, he straightened himself to the full dignity of his height, his face kindling with an uncon- scious majesty, and, as he turned, his eye fell on Mary, who was standing with her slender figure dilated, her large blue eye wide and bright, in a sort of trance of solemn feeling, half-smiles, half- tears, and the strong, heroic man started, to see this answer to his higher soul in the sweet, tremulous mirror of womanhood. One of those lightning glances passed between his eyes and hers which are the freemasonry of noble spirits, and, by a sudden impulse, they approached each other. He took both her outstretched hands, looked down into her face with a look full of admiration, and a sort of naive wonder, then, as if her inspired silence had been a voice to him, he laid his hand on her head, and said, ' God bless you, child ! " Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." ' In a moment he was gone. ' Mary,' said Mrs. Scudder, laying her hand on her daughter's arm, ' the Doctor loves you !' 4 1 know he does, mother,' said Mary, innocently ; ' and I love him, dearly ! he is a noble, grand man !' Mrs. Scudder looked keenly at her daughter. Mary's eye was as calm as a June sky, and she began, composedly, gather- ing up the teacups. ' She did not understand me,' thought the mother. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 91 CHAPTEE X. THE TEST OF THEOLOGY. THE Doctor went immediately to his study and put on his best coat and his wig, and, surmounting them by his cocked hat, walked manfully out of the house, with his gold-headed cane in his hand. 'There he goes!' said Mrs. Scudder, looking regretfully xifter him. ' He is such a good man ! but he has not the least idea how to get along in the world. He never thinks of any- thing but what is true ; he hasn't a particle of management about him.' ' Seems to me,' said Mary, ' that is like an Apostle. You know, mother, St. Paul says, " In simplicity and godly sin- cerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world." ' * To be sure, that is just the Doctor,' said Mrs. Scudder ; * that's as like him as if it had been written for him. But that kind of way, somehow, don't seem to do in our times ; it won't answer with Simeon Brown, I know the man. I know just as well, now, how it will all seem to him, and what will be the upshot of this talk, if the Doctor goes there ! It won't do any good ; if it would I would be willing. I feel as much desire to have this horrid trade in slaves stopped as anybody ; your father, I'm sure, said enough about it in his time ; but then I know it's no use trying. Just as if Simeon Brown, when he is making his hundreds of thousands in it, is going to be persuaded to give it up ! He won't he'll only turn against the Doctor, and won't pay his part of the salary, and will use his influence to get up a party against him, and our church will be broken up and the Doctor driven away, that's all that will come of it ; and all the good that he is now doing 92 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. to these poor negroes will be overthrown, and they never did have so good a friend. If he would stay here and work gradually, and get his System of Theology printed, and Simeon Brown would help at that, and only drop words in season here and there, till people are brought along with him, why, by-and-by something might be done ; butjiow, it's just the most imprudent thing a man could undertake.' ' But, mother, if it really is a sin to trade in slaves and hold them, I don't see how he can help himself. I quite agree with him. I don't see how he came to let it go so [long as he has.' ' Well,' said Mrs. Scudder, ' if worst comes to worst, and he will do it, I, for one, shall stand by him to the last.' ' And I, for another,' said Mary. ' I would like him to talk with Cousin [Zebedee about it,' said Mrs. Scudder. ' When we are up there this afternoon, we will introduce the conversation. He is a good sound man, and the Doctor thinks much of him, and perhaps he may shed some light upon this matter/ Meanwhile the Doctor was making the best of his way in the strength of his purpose to test the orthodoxy of Simeon Brown. Honest old granite boulder that he was, no sooner did he perceive a truth than he rolled after it with all the massive gravitation of his being, inconsiderate as to what might lie in his way : from which it is to be inferred, that, with all his intellect and goodness, he would have been a very clumsy and troublesome inmate of the modern American Church. How many societies, boards, colleges, and other good institutions, have reason to congratulate themselves that he has long been among the saints ! With k hiin logic was every thing ; and to perceive a truth and not act in logical sequence from it a thing so incredible, that he had not yet enlarged his capacity to take it in as a possibility. That a man should refuse to hear truth, he could understand. In fact, he had good reason to think the majority of his townsmen had no leisure to give to that purpose. That men hearing truth should dispute it and argue stoutly against THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 93 it, ho could also understand ; but that a man could admit a truth and not admit the plain practice resulting from it was to him a thing incomprehensible. Therefore, spite of Mrs. Katy Scudder's discouraging observations, our good Doctor walked stoutly, and with a trusting heart. At the moment when the Doctor, with a silent uplifting of his soul to his invisible Sovereign, passed out of his study, on this errand, where was the disciple whom he went to seek? In a small, dirty room, down by the wharf, the windows veiled by cobwebs and dingy with the accumulated dust of ages, he sat in a greasy, leathern chair by a rickety office- table, on which were a great pewter inkstand, an account- book, and divers papers tied with red tape. Opposite to him was seated a square-built individual, a man of about forty, whose round head, shaggy eyebrows, small, keen eyes, broad chest, and heavy muscles, showed a preponderance of the animal and brutal over the intellectual and spiritual. This was Mr. Scroggs, the agent of a rice plantation, who had come on, bringing an order for a new relay of negroes to supply the deficit occasioned by fever, dysentery, and other causes, in their last year's stock. ' The fact is,' said Simeon, ' this last ship-load wasn't as good a one as usual ; we lost more than a third of it, so we can't afford to put them a penny lower.' Ay,' said the other ' but then there are so many women !' 'Well,' said Simeon, 'women a'n't so strong perhaps to start with ; but then they stan' it out, perhaps, in the long run, better. They're more patient ; some of these men, the Mandingoes particularly, are pretty troublesome to manage. We lost a splendid fellow, coming over, on this very voyage. Let 'em on deck for air, and this fellow managed to get him- self loose and fought like a dragon. He settled one of our men with his fist;, and another with a marlinespike that he caught, and, in fact, they had to shoot him down. You'll have his wife ; there's his son, too, fine fellow, fifteen year old by his teeth.' ' What ! that lame one ? ' F 2 9-1 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ' Oh, he a'n't lame ! it's nothing but the cramps from stowing. You know, of course, they are more or less stiff. He's as sound as a nut.' 4 Don't much like to buy relations, on account of their hatching up mischief together,' said Mr. Scroggs. ' Oh, that's all humbug ! You must keep 'em from coming together, anyway. It's about as broad as 'tis long. There'll be wives and husbands and children among 'em before long, start 'em as you will. And then this woman will work better for having the boy ; she's kinder set on him ; she jabbers lots of lingo to him, day and night.' ' Too much, I doubt,' said the overseer, with a shrug. ' Well, well, I'll tell you,' said Simeon, rising. ' I've got a few errands up town, and you just, step over with Matlock and look over the stock ; just set aside any that you want, and when I see 'em all together, I'll tell you just what you shall have 'em for. I'll be back in an hour or two.' And so saying, Simeon Brown called an underling from an adjoining room, and, committing his customer to his care, took his way up-town, in a serene frame of mind, like a man who comes from the calm performance of duty. Just as he came upon the street where was situated his own large and somewhat pretentious mansion, the tall figure of the Doctor loomed in sight, sailing majestically down upon Jhim, making a signal to attract his attention. * Good morning, Doctor,' said Simeon. * Good morning, Mr. Brown,' said the Doctor. ' I was looking for you. I did not quite finish the subject we were talking about at Mrs. Scudder's table last night. I thought I should like to go on with it a little.' ' With all my heart, Doctor,' said Simeon, not a little flattered. ' Turn right in. Mrs. Brown will be about her house business, and we will have the keeping-room all to ourselves. Come right in.' The ' keeping-room ' of Mr. Simeon Brown's house was an intermediate apartment between the ineffable glories of the front parlour and that court of the Gentiles, the kitchen ; for the presence of a large train of negro servants made the latter THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 95 apartment an altogether different institution from the throne- room of Mrs. Katy Scudder. This keeping-room was a low-studded apartment, finished with the heavy oaken beams of the wall left full in sight, boarded over and painted. Two windows looked out on the street, and another into a sort of court-yard, where three black wenches, each with a broom, pretended to be sweeping, but were, in fact, chattering and laughing, like so many crows. On one side of the room stood a heavy mahogany sideboard, covered with decanters, labelled Gin, Brandy, Kum, &c. ; for Simeon was held to be a provider of none but the best, in his housekeeping. Heavy mahogany chairs, with crewel cover- ings, stood sentry about the room ; and the fireplace was flanked by two broad arm-chairs, covered with stamped leather. On ushering the Doctor into this apartment, Simeon courteously led him to the sideboard. ' We rnus'n't make our discitssions too dry, Doctor,' he said ; ' what will you take ?' ' Thank you, sir,' said the Doctor, with a wave of his hand, ' nothing this morning.' And, depositing his cocked hat in a chair, he settled him- self into one of the leathern easy chairs, and, dropping his hands upon his knees, looked fixedly before him, like a man who is studying how to enter upon an inwardly absorbing subject. ' Well, Doctor,' said Simeon, seating himself opposite, sipping comfortably at a glass of rum-and-water, ' our views appear to be making a noise in the world. Everything is preparing for your volumes ; and when they appear, the battle of New Divinity, I think, may fairly be considered as won.' Let us consider, that, though a woman may forget her first- born, yet a man cannot forget his own system of theology, because, therein, if he be a true man, is the very elixir and essence of all that is valuable and hopeful to the universe ; and considering this, let us appreciate the settled purpose of 96 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. our friend, wliom even this tempting bait did not swerve frorr the end which he had in view. ' Mr. Brown,' he said, ' all our theology is as a drop in the ocean of God's majesty, to whose glory we must be ready tc make any and every sacrifice.' ' Certainly,' said Mr. Brown, not exactly comprehending the turn the Doctor's thoughts were taking. ' And the glory of God consisteth in the happiness of al his rational universe, each in his proportion, according to hi* separate amount of being ; so that, when we devote ourselves to God's glory, it is the same as saying that we devote our- selves to the highest happiness of his created universe.' ' That's clear, sir,' said Simeon, rubbing his hands, and taking out his watch to see the time. The Doctor hitherto had spoken in a laborious manner, lik( a man who is slowly lifting a heavy bucket of thought out o\ an internal well. ' I am glad to find your mind so clear on this all-importanl point, Mr. Brown, the more so as I feel that we must imme- diately proceed to apply our principles, at whatever sacrifice of worldly goods ; and I trust, sir, that you are one who, al the call of your Master, would not hesitate even to lay down all your worldly possessions for the greater good of tli universe.' ' I trust so, sir,' said Simeon, rather uneasily, and without the most distant idea what could be coming next in the mind of his reverend friend. ' Did it never occur to you, my friend,' said the Doctor, ' that the enslaving of the African race is a clear violation of the great law which commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and a dishonour upon the Christian religion, more particularly in us Americans, whom the Lord hath so marvel- lously protected, in our recent struggle for our own liberty ?' Simeon started at the first words of this address, much as il some one had dashed a bucket of water on his head, and after that rose uneasily, walking the room and playing with the seals of his watch. ' I I never regarded it in this light,' he said. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 97 ' Possibly not, my friend,' said the Doctor, ' so much doth established custom blind the minds of the best of men. But since I have given more particular attention to the case of the poor negroes here in Newport, the thought has more and more laboured in my mind, more especially as our own struggles for liberty have turned my attention to the rights which every human creature hath before God, so that I find much in my former blindness and the comparative dumbness I have here- tofore maintained on this subject wherewith to reproach myself ; for, though I have borne somewhat of a testimony, I have not given it that force which so important a subject required. I am humbled before God for my neglect, and re- solved now, by his grace, to leave no stone unturned till this iniquity be purged away from our Zion.' ' Well, Doctor,' said Simeon, ' you are certainly touching on a very dark and difficult subject, and one in which it is hard to find out the path of duty. Perhaps it will be well to bear it in mind, and by looking at it prayerfully some light may arise. There are such great obstacles in the way, that I do not see at present what can be done ; do you, Doctor ?' ' I intend to preach on the subject next Sunday, and here- after devote my best energies in the most public way to this great work,' said the Doctor. ' You, Doctor ? and now, immediately ? Why, it appears to me you cannot do it. You are the most unfit man possible. AVhosoever's duty it may be, it does not seem to me to be yours. You already have more on your shoulders than you can cany ; you are hardly able to keep your ground now, with all the odium of this new theology upon you. Such an effort would break up your church, destroy the chance you have to do good here, prevent the publication of your - If it's nobody's system but mine, the world won't lose much, if it never be published ; but if it be God's system, nothing can hinder its appearing. Besides, Mr. Brown, I ought not to be one man alone. I count on your help. I hold it as a special providence, Mr. Brown, that in our own church an opportunity will be given to testify to the reality 98 THE MINISTEK'S WOOING. of disinterested benevolence. How" glorious the opportunity for a man to come out and testify by sacrificing his worldly living and business ! If you, Mr. Brown, will at once, at what- ever sacrifice, quit all connection with this detestable and diabolical slave-trade, you will exhibit a spectacle over which angels will rejoice, and which will strengthen and encourage me to preach and write and testify.' Mr. Simeon Brown's usual demeanour was that of the most leathery imperturbability. In calm theological reasoning, he could demonstrate, in the dryest tone, that, if the eternal tor- ment of six bodies and souls were absolutely the necessary means for preserving the eternal blessedness of thirty-six,, benevolence would require us to rejoice in it, not in itself con- sidered, but in view of greater good. And when he spoke, not a nerve quivered ; the great mysterious sorrow with which the creation groaneth and travaileth, the sorrow from which angels veil their faces, never had touched one vibrating chord either of body or soul ; and he laid down the obligations of man to unconditional submission in a style which would have affected a person of delicate sensibility much like being mentally sawn in sunder. Benevolence, when Simeon Brown spoke of it, seemed the grimmest and unloveliest of Gorgons ; for his mind seemed to resemble those fountains which petrify everything that falls into them. But the hardest- shelled animals have a vital and sensitive part, though only so large as the point of a needle ; and the Doctor's innocent proposi- tion to Simeon, to abandon his whole worldly estate for his. principles, touched this spot. When benevolence required but the acquiescence in certaiii possible things which might be supposed to happen to his soul, which, after all, he was comfortably certain never would happen, or the acquiescence in certain suppositions sacrifices for the good of that most intangible of all ab- stractions, Being in general, it was a dry, calm subject- But when it concerned the immediate giving up of his slave- ships and a transfer of business, attended with all that con- fusion and loss which he foresaw at a glance, then lie felt, and felt too much to see clearly. His swarthy face flushed, his. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. DO little blue eye kindled, he walked up to the Doctor, and began speaking in the short, energetic sentences of a man thoroughly uwake to what he is talking about. ' Doctor, you're too fast. You are not a practical man, Doctor. You are good in your pulpit ; nobody better. Your theology is clear ; nobody can argue better. But come to practical matters, why, business has its laws, Doctor. Ministers are the most unfit men in the world to talk on such .subjects ; it's departing from their sphere ; they talk about what they don't understand. Besides, you take too much for granted. I'm not sure that this trade is an evil. I want to be convinced of it. I'm sure it's a favour to these poor creatures to bring them to a Christian land. They are a thousand times better off. Here they can hear the gospel and have some chance of salvation.' ' If we want to get the gospel to the Africans,' said the Doctor, ' why not send whole ship-loads of missionaries to them, and carry civilization and the arts and Christianity to Africa, instead of stirring up wars, tempting them to ravage each other's territories, that we may get the booty? Think of the numbers killed in the wars, of all that die on the pas- sage ! Is there any need of killing ninety-nine men to give the hundredth one the gospel, when we could give the gospel to them all ? Ah, Mr. Brown, what if all the money spent in fitting out ships to bring the poor negroes here, so prejudiced against Christianity that they regard it with fear and aversion, had been spent in sending it to them, Africa would have been covered with towns and villages, rejoicing in civilization and Christianity ! ' " ' Doctor, you are a dreamer,' replied Simeon, ' an unpractical man. Your situation prevents your knowing anything of real life.' 'Amen! the Lord be praised there Tor!' said the Doctor, with a slowly -increasing flush mounting to his cheek, showing the burning brand of a smouldering fire of indignation. 'Now let me just talk common-sense, Doctor, which has its time and place, just as much as theology ; and if you have the most theology, I flatter myself I have the most common- F 3 100 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. sense : a business-man must have it. Now just look at your situation, how you stand. You've got a most important work to do. In order to do it, you must keep your pulpit, you must keep our church together. We are few and weak. We are a minority. Now there's not an influential man in your society that don't either hold slaves or engage in the trade ; and, if you open upon this subject as you are going to do, you'll just divide and destroy the church. All men are not like you ; men are men, and will be, till they are tho- roughly sanctified, which never happens in this life, and there will be an instant and most unfavourable agitation. Minds will be turned off from the discussion of the great saving doctrines of the gospel to a side issue. You will be turned out ; and you know, Doctor, you are not appreciated as you ought to be, and it won't be easy for you to get a new settlement ; and then subscriptions will all drop off from your book, and you won't be able to get that out ; and all this good will be lost to the world, just for want of common-sense.' ' There is a kind of wisdom in what you say, Mr. Brown,' replied the Doctor, naively ; ' but I fear much that it is the wisdom spoken in James iii. 15, which " descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish." You avoid the very point of the argument, which is, Is this a sin against God ? That it is, I am solemnly convinced ; and shall I " use lightness ? or the things that I purpose do I purpose accord- ing to the flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay?" No, Mr. Brown, immediate repentance, uncon- ditional submission, these are what I must preach as long as God gives me a pulpit to stand in, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear.' 'Well, Doctor,' said Simeon, shortly, 'yoti can do as you like ; but I give you fair warning, that I, for one, shall stop my subscription, and go to Dr. Stiles's church.' ' Mr. Brown,' said the Doctor, solemnly, rising, and drawing his tall figure to its full height, while a vivid light gleamed from his blue eye, ' as to that, you can do as you like ; but I think it my duty, as your pastor, to warn you that I have per- ceived, in my conversation with you this morning, such a want THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. 101 of true spiritual illumination and discernment as leads "me to believe that you are yet in the flesh, blinded by that " carnal mind " which " is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." I much fear you have no part nor lot in this matter, and that you have need, seriously, to set yourself to search into the foundations of your hope ; for you may be like him of whom it is written, (Isaiah xliv. 20,) " He feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand ?" ' The Doctor delivered this address to his man of influence with the calmness of an ambassador charged with a message from a sovereign, for which he is no otherwise responsible than to speak it in the most intelligible manner ; and then, taking up his hat and cane, he bade him good morning, leav- ing Simeon Brown in a tumult of excitement which no previous theological discussion had ever raised in him. 102 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. CHAPTER XL THE PRACTICAL TEST. THE liens cackled drowsily in the barn-yard of the white Marvyn-house ; in the blue Jime-afternoon sky sported great sailing islands of cloud, whose white, glistening heads looked in and out through the green apertures of maple and blossom- ing apple-boughs ; the shadows of the trees had already turned eastward, when the one-horse waggon of Mrs. Katy Scudder appeared at the door, where Mrs. Marvyn stood, with a pleased, quiet welcome in her soft brown eyes. Mrs. Scudder herself drove, sitting on a seat in front, while the Doctor, apparelled in the most faultless style, with white wrist-ruffles, plaited shirt-bosom, immaculate wig, and w r ell-brushed coat, sat by Mary's side, serenely unconscious how many feminine cares had gone to his getting-up. He did not know of the privy consultations, the sewings, stitchings, and starchings, the ironings, the brushings, the foldings and unfoldings and timely arrangements, that gave such dignity and respectability to his outer man, any more than the serene moon rising tran- quilly behind a purple mountain-top troubles her calm head with treatises on astronomy ; it is enough for her to shine, she thinks not how or why. There is a vast amount of latent gratitude to women lying xmdeveloped in the hearts of men, which would come out plentifully, if they only knew what they did for them. The Doctor was so used to being well dressed, that he never asked why. That his wig always sat straight, and even around his ample forehead, not facetiously poked to one side, nor assum- ing rakish airs, unsuited to clerical dignity, was entirely owing THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 103 to Mrs Katy Scudder. That his best broadcloth coat was not illustrated with shreds and patches, fluff and dust, and hang- ing in ungainly folds, was owing to the same. That his long silk stockings never had a treacherous stitch allowed to break out into a long running ladder was due to her watchfulness ; and that he wore spotless ruffles on his wrists or at his bosoni was her doing also. The Doctor little thought, while he, in common with good ministers generally, gently traduced the Scriptural Martha and insisted on the duty of heavenly ab- stractedness, how much of his own leisure for spiritual con- templation was due to the Martha-like talents of his hostess. But then, the good soul had it in him to be grateful, and would have been unboundedly so, if he had known his in- debtedness, as, we trust, most of our magnanimous masters would be. Mr. Zebedee Marvyn was quietly sitting in the front summer parlour, listening to the story of two of his brother churcli- members, between whom some difficulty had arisen in the settling of accounts : Jim Bigelow, a small, dry, dapper little individual, known as general jobber and factotum, and Abram Griswold, a stolid, wealthy, well-to-do farmer. And the fragments of conversation we catch are not uninteresting, as showing Mr. Zebedee's habits of thought and mode of treating those who came to him for advice. ' I could 'ave got along better, if he'd V paid me regular every night,' said the squeaky voice of little Jim ; ' but he was allers puttin' me off till it come even change, he said.' ' Well, 'faint always handy,' replied the other ; ' one doesn't like to break into a five-pound note for nothing ; and I like to let it run till it comes even change.' 'But, brother,' said Mr. Zebedee, turning over the great Bible that lay on the mahogany stand in the corner, ' we must go to the law and to the testimony,' and, turning over the leaves, he read from Deuteronomy xxiv. : * Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates. At his day thou shalt give 104 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it ; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it : lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin \\nto thee.' ' You see what the Bible has to say on the matter,' he said. * Well, now, Deacon, I rather think you've got me in a tight place,' said Mr. Griswold, rising; and turning confusedly round, he saw the placid figure of the Doctor, who had entered the room unobserved in the midst of the conversation, and was staring with that look of calm, dreamy abstraction which often led people to suppose that he heard and saw nothing of what was going forward. All rose reverently ; and while Mr. Zebedee was shaking hands with the Doctor, and welcoming him to his house, the other two silently withdrew, making respectful obeisance. Mrs. Marvyn had drawn Mary's hand gently under her arm and taken her to her own sleeping-room, as it was her general habit to do, that she might show her the last book she had been reading, and pour into her ear the thoughts that had been kindled up by it. Mrs. Scudder, after carefully brushing every speck of dust from the Doctor's coat and seeing him seated in an arm-chair by the open window, took out a long stocking of blue-mixed yarn which she was knitting for his winter-wear, and, pinning her knitting-sheath on her side, was soon trotting her needles contentedly in front of him. The ill-success of the Doctor's morning attempt at enforcing his theology in practice rather depressed his spirits. There was a noble innocence of nature in him which looked at hy- pocrisy with a puzzled and incredulous astonishment. How a man could do so and be so was to him a problem, at which his thoughts vainly laboured. Not that he was in the least dis- couraged or hesitating in regard to his own course. "When he had made up his mind to perform a duty, the question of success no more entered his thoughts than those of the granite boulder to which we have before compared him. When the time came for him to roll, he did roll with the whole force of his being; where he was to land was not his concern. THE MINISTERS WOOING. 105 Mildly and placidly lie sat with his hands resting on his knees, while Mr. Zebedee and Mrs. Scudder compared notes respecting the relative prospects of com, flax, and buckwheat, and thence passed to the doings of Congress and the last pro- clamation of General Washington, pausing once in a while, if, peradventure, the Doctor might take up the conversation. Still he sat dreamily eyeing the flies as they fizzed down the panes of the half-open window. ' I think,' said Mr. Zebedee, ' the prospects of the Federal party were never brighter.' The Doctor was a stanch Federalist, and generally warmed to this allurement ; but it did not serve this time. Suddenly drawing himself up, a light came into his blue eyes, and he said to Mr. Marvyn, ' I'm thinking, Deacon, if it is wrong to keep back the wages of a servant till after the going down of the sun, what those are to do who keep them back all their lives.' There was a way the Doctor had of hearing and seeing when he looked as if his soul were afar off, and bringing suddenly into present conversation some fragment of the past on which he had been leisurely hammering in the quiet chambers of his brain, which was sometimes quite startling. This allusion to a passage of Scripture which Mr. Marvyn was reading when he came in, and which nobody supposed he had attended to, startled Mrs. Scudder, who thought, mentally, ' Now for it !' and laid down her knitting- work, and eyed her cousin anxiously. Mrs. Marvyn and Mary, who had glided in and joined the circle, looking interested ; and a slight flush rose and overspread the thin cheeks of Mr. Marvyn, and his blue eyes deepened in a moment with a thoughtful shadow, as he looked inquiringly at the Doctor, who proceeded : ' My mind labours with this subject of the enslaving of the Africans, Mr. Marvyn. We have just been declaring to the world that all men are born with an inalienable right to liberty. We have fought for it, and the Lord of Hosts has been with us ; and can we stand before Him, with our foot upon our brother's neck ?' 106 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. A generous, upright nature is always more sensitive to blame than another, sensitive in proportion to the amount of its reverence for good, and Mr. Marvyn's face flushed, his eye kindled, and his compressed respiration showed how deeply the subject moved him. Mrs. Marvyn's eyes turned on him an anxious look of inquiry. He answered, however, calmly : ' Doctor, I have thought of the subject myself. Mrs. Marvyn has lately been reading a pamphlet of Mr. Thomas Clarkson's on the slave-trade, and she was saying to me only last night, that she did not see but the argument extended equally to holding slaves. One thing, I confess, stumbles me : Was there not an express permission given to Israel to buy and hold slaves of old ?' ' Doubtless,' said the Doctor ; ' but many permissions were given to them which were local and temporary; for if we hold them to apply to the human race, the Turks might quote the Bible for making slaves of us, if they could, and the Algerines have the Scripture all on their side, and our own blacks, at some future time, if they can get the power, might justify themselves in making slaves of us.' ' I assure you, sir,' said Mr. Marvyn, ' if I speak, it is not to excuse myself. But I am quite sure my servants do not desire liberty, and would not take it, if it were offered.' ' Call them in and try it,' said the Doctor. ' If they refuse, it is their own matter.' There was a gentle movement in the group at the directness of this personal application; but Mr. Marvyn replied, calmly, ' Cato is up at the eight-acre lot, but you may call in Candace. My dear, call Candace, and let the Doctor put the question to her.' Candace was at this moment sitting before the ample fire- place in the kitchen, with two iron kettles before her, nestled each in its bed of hickory coals, which gleamed out from their white ashes like sleepy, red eyes, opening and shutting. In one was coffee, which she was burning, stirring vigorously with a pudding-stick, and in the other, puffy dough-nuts, in THE MINISTERS WOOING. 107 shapes of rings, hearts, and marvellous twists, which Candace had such a special proclivity for making, that Mrs. Marvyn's table and closets never knew an intermission of their presence. ' Candace, the Doctor wishes to see you,' said Mrs. Marvyn. ' Bress his heart !' said Candace, looking up, perplexed. * "Wants to see me, does he ? Can't nobody hab me till dis yer coffee's done ; a minnit's a minnit in coffee ; but I'll be in dereckly,' she added, in a patronising tone. ' Missis, you jes' go long in, an' I'll be dar dereckly.' A few moments after Candace joined r the group in the .sitting-room, having hastily tied a clean white apron over her blue linsey working- dress, and donned the brilliant Madras which James had lately given her, and which she had a bar- baric fashion of arranging so as to give to her head the air of a gigantic butterfly. She sunk a dutiful curtsy, and stood twirling her thumbs, while the Doctor surveyed her gravely. ' Candace,' said he, ' do you think it right that the black race should be slaves to the white ?' The face and air of Candace presented a curious picture at this moment ; a sort of rude sense of delicacy embarrassed her, and she turned a deprecating look, first on Mrs. Marvyn and then on her master. ' Don't mind us, Candace,' said Mrs. Marvyn ; ' tell the Doctor the exact truth.' Candace stood still a moment, and the spectators saw a deeper shadow rol^. over her sable face, like a cloud over a dark pool of water, and her immense person heaved with her laboured breathing. ' Ef I must speak I must,' she said. ' No, I neber did tink 'twas right. When General Washington was here, I hearn 'em read de Declaration ob Independence and Bill o' Eights ; an' I tole Cato den, says I, " Ef dat ar' true, you an' I are as free as anybody." It stands to reason. Why, look at me, I a'n't a critter. I's neider huffs nor horns. I's a reasonable bein', a woman, as much a woman as anybody,' .she said, holding up her head with an air as majestic as a 108 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. palm-tree ; ' an' Cato, lie's a man born free an' equal, ef dar's any truth in what you read, dat's all.' 'But, Candace, you've always been contented and happy with us, have you not ?' said Mr. Marvyn. 'Yes, Mass'r, I ha'n't got nuffin to complain of in dat matter. I couldn't hab no better friends 'n you an' Missis.' ' Would you like your liberty, if you could get it, though ?' said Mr. Marvyn. ' Answer me honestly.' ' Why, to be sure I should ! Who wouldn't ? Mind ye,' she said, earnestly raising her black, heavy hand, ' 'ta'n't dat I want to go off, or want to shirk work ; but I want to feel free. Dem dat isn't free has nuffin to give to nobody ; dey can't show what dey would do.' ' Well, Candace, from this day you are free,' said Mr. Marvyn, solemnly. Candace covered her face with both her fat hands, and shook and trembled, and, finally, throwing her apron over her head, made a desperate rush for the door, and threw her- self down in the kitchen in a perfect tropical torrent of tears and sobs. ' You see,' said the Doctor, ' what freedom is to every human creature. The blessing of the Lord will be on this deed, Mr. Marvyn. " The steps of a just man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way." ' At this moment, Candace reappeared at the door, her butterfly turban somewhat deranged with the violence of her prostration, giving a whimsical air to her portly person. ' I want ye all to know,' she said, with a clearing-up snuff, ' dat it's my will 'an pleasure to go right on doin' my work jes' de same ; an', Missis, please, I'll allers put three eggs in de crullers, now ; an' I won't turn de wash-basin down in de sink, but hang it jam-up on de nail ; an' I won't pick up chips in a milkpan, ef I'm in ever so big a hurry ; I'll do ebery- ting jes' as ye tells me. Now you try me and see ef I won't !' Candace here alluded to some of the little private wilfulnesses which she had always obstinately cherished as reserved rights, in pursuing domestic matters with her mistress. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 109 'I intend,' said Mr. Marvyn, 'to make the same offer to your husband, when he returns from work to night.' ' Laus, Mass'r, why, Cato he'll do jes' as I do, dere a'n't no kind o' need o' askin' him. 'Course he will.' A smile passed round the circle, because between Candace and her husband there existed one of those whimsical contrasts which one sometimes sees in married life. Cato was a small- built, thin, softly-spoken negro, addicted to a gentle chronic cough ; and, though a faithful and skilful servant, seemed, in relation to his better half, much like a hill of potatoes under a spreading apple-tree. Candace held to him with a vehement and patronizing fondness, so devoid of conjugal reverence as to excite the comments of her friends. ' You must remember, Candace,' said a good deacon to her one day, when she was ordering him about at a catechizing, ' you ought to give honour to your husband ; the wife is the weaker vessel.' ' / de weaker vessel ?' said Candace, looking down from the tower of her ample corpulence on the small, quiet man whom she had been fledging with the ample folds of a worsted com- forter, out of which his little head and shining bead-eyes looked much like a blackbird in a nest, ' / de weaker vessel ? Umph!' A whole-woman's- rights' convention could not have expressed more in a day than was given in that single look and word. Candace considered a husband as a thing to be taken care of, a rather inconsequent and somewhat troublesome species of pet, to be humoured, nursed, fed, clothed, and guided in the way that he was to go, an animal that was always losing of buttons, catching colds, wearing his best coat every day, and getting on his Sunday hat in a surreptitious manner for week- day occasions ; but she often condescended to express it as her opinion that he was a blessing, and that she didn't know what she should do if it wasn't for Cato. In fact, he seemed to supply her that which we are told is the great want in woman's situation, an object in life. She sometimes was heard expressing herself very energetically in disapprobation 110 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. of the conduct of one of her sable friends, named Jinny Stiles, who, after "being presented with her own freedom, worked several years to buy that of her husband, but became after- wards so disgusted with her acquisition that she declared she would, ' neber buy anoder nigger.' ' Now Jinny don't know what she's talkin' about,' she would say. ' S'pose he does cough and. keep her awake nights, and take a little too much sometimes, a'n't he better'n no husband at all ? A body wouldn't seem to hab nuffin to lib for, ef dey hadn't an ole man to look arter. Men is nate'lly foolish about some tings, but dey's good deal better'n nuffin.' And Candace, after this condescending remark, would lift off with one hand a brass kettle in which poor Cato might have been drowned, and fly across the kitchen with it as if it were a feather. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. Ill CHAPTER XII. MISS PRISSY. WILL our little Mary really fall in love with, the Doctor ? The question reaches us in anxious tones from all the circle of our readers; and what especially shocks us is, that grave doctors of divinity, and serious, stocking-knitting matrons, seem to be the class who are particularly set against the success of our excellent orthodox hero, and bent on reminding us of the claims of that unregenerate James, whom we have sent to sea OB purpose that our heroine may recover herself of that foolish partiality for him which all the Christian world seems bent on perpetuating. * Now, really,' says the Rev. Mrs. Q., looking up from her bundle of Sewing-Society work, 'you are not going to let Mary marry the Doctor ?' My dear Madam, is not that just what you did, yourself, after having turned off three or four fascinating young sinners as good as James any day ? Don't make us believe that you are sorry for it now ! ' Is it possible,' says Dr. Theophrastus, who is himself a stanch Hopkinsian divine, and who is at present recovering from his last grand* effort on Natural and Moral Ability, ' is it possible that you are going to let Mary forget that poor young man and marry Dr. H. ? That will never do in the world !' Dear Doctor, consider what would have become of you, if some lady at a certain time had not had the sense and discern- ment to fall in love with the man who came to her disguised as a theologian. 112 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ' But he's so old !' says Aunt Maria. Not at all. Old ? What do you mean ? Forty is the very- season of ripeness, the very meridian of manly lustre and splendour. ' But he wears a wig.' My dear Madam, so did Sir Charles Grandison, and Love- lace, and all the other fine fellows of those days : the wig was the distinguishing mark of a gentleman. No, spite of all you may say and declare, we do insist that our Doctor is a very proper and probable subject for a young lady to fall in love with. If women have one weakness more marked than another, it is towards veneration. They are born worshippers, makers of silver shrines for some divinity or other, which, of course, they always think fell straight down from heaven. The first step towards their falling in love with an ordinary mortal is generally to dress him out with all manner of real or fancied superiority ; and having made him up, they wor- ship him. Now a truly great man, a man really grand and noble in heart and intellect, has this advantage with women, that he is an idol ready-made to hand ; and so that very painstaking and ingenious sex have less labour in getting him up, and can be ready to worship him on shorter notice. In particular is this the case where a sacred profession and a moral supremacy are added to the intellectual. Just think of the career of celebrated preachers and divines in all ages. Have they not stood like the image that ' Nebuchadnezzar the king set up,' and all womankind, coquettes and flirts not excepted, been ready to fall down and worship, even before the sound of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and so forth ? Is not the faithful Paula, with her beautiful face, prostrate in reverence before poor, old, lean, haggard, dying St. Jerome, in the most splendid painting of the world, an emblem and sign of woman's eternal power of self-sacrifice to what she deems noblest in man ? Does not old Eichard Baxter tell us, with delightful single-heartedness, how his wife fell in love with him first, spite of his long, pale face, and how she con- THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 113 fessed, dear soul, after many years of married life, that she had found him less sour and bitter than she had expected? The fact is, women are burdened with fealty, faith, reve- rence, more than they know what to do with ; they stand like a hedge of sweet-peas, throwing out fluttering tendrils every- where for something high and strong to climb by, and when they find it, be it ever so rough in the bark, they catch upon it. And instances are not wanting of those who have turned away from the flattery of admirers to prostrate themselves at the feet of a genuine hero who never wooed them except by heroic deeds and the rhetoric of a noble life. Never was there a distinguished man whose greatness could sustain the test of minute domestic inspection better than our Doctor. Strong in a single-hearted humility, a perfect uncon- sciousness of self, an honest and sincere absorption in high and holy themes and objects, there was in him what we so seldom see, a perfect logic of life ; his minutest deeds were the true results of his sublimest principles. His whole nature, moral, physical, and intellectual, was simple, pure, and cleanly. He was temperate as an anchorite in all matters of living, avoiding, from a healthy instinct, all those intoxicating stimuli then common among the clergy. In his early youth, indeed, he ^had formed an attachment to the almost universal clerical pipe, but, observing a delicate woman once nauseated by coming into the atmosphere which he and his brethren had polluted, he set himself gravely to reflect that that which could so offend a woman must needs be uncomely and un- worthy a Christian man ; wherefore he laid his pipe on the mantelpiece, and never afterwards resumed the indulgence. In all his relations with womanhood he was delicate and reverential, forming his manners by that old precept, ' The elder women entreat as mothers, the younger as sisters,' which rule, short and simple as it is, is nevertheless the most perfect resume of all true gentlemanliness. Then, as for person, the Doctor was not handsome, to be sure ; but he was what sometimes serves with woman better, majestic and manly, and, when animated by thought and feeling, having even a commanding grandeur of mien. Add to all this, that our o2 114 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. valiant hero is now on the straight road to bring him into that situation most likely to engage the warm partisanship of a true woman, namely, that of a man unjustly abused for right-doing, and one may see that it is ten to one our Mary may fall in love with him yet, before she knows it. If it were not for this mysterious selfness-and-sameness which makes this wild, wandering, uncanonical sailor, James Marvyn, so intimate and internal, if his thread were not knit up with the thread of her life, were it not for the old habit of feeling for him, thinking for him, praying for him, hoping for him, fearing for him, which woe is us ! is the unfortu- nate habit of womankind, if it were not for that fatal some- thing which neither judgment, nor wishes, nor reason, nor common sense shows any great skill in unravelling, we are quite sure that Mary would be in love with the Doctor within the next six months ; as it is, we leave you all to infer from your own heart and consciousness what his chances are. A new sort of scene is about to open on our heroine, and we shall show her to you, for an evening at least, in new asso- ciations, and with a different background from that homely and rural one in which she has fluttered as a white dove amid leafy and congenial surroundings. As we have before intimated, Newport presented a resume of many different phases of society, all brought upon a social level by the then universally admitted principle of equality. There were scattered about in the settlement lordly man- sions, whose owners rolled in emblazoned carriages, and whose wide halls were the scenes of a showy and almost princely hospitality. By her husband's side, Mrs. Katy Scudder was allied to one of these families of wealthy planters, and often recognized the connection with a quiet undertone of satisfac- tion, as a dignified and self-respecting woman should. She liked, once in a while, quietly to let people know, that, although they lived in the plain little cottage and made no pretensions, yet they had good blood in their veins, that Mr. Scudder s mother was a Wilcox, and that the Wilcoxes were, she supposed, as high as anybody, generally ending the remark with the observation, that ' all these things, to be THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 115 sure, were matters of small consequence, since at last it would be of far more importance to have been a true Christian than to have been connected with the highest families of the land.' Nevertheless, Mrs. Scudder was not a little pleased to have in her possession a card of invitation to a splendid wedding- party that was going to be given on Friday at the Wilcox Manor. She thought it a very becoming mark of respect to the deceased Mr. Scudder that his widow and daughter should be brought to mind, so becoming and praiseworthy, in fact, that, ' though an old woman,' as she said, with a com- placent straightening of her tall, lithe figure, she really thought she must make an effort to go. Accordingly, early one morning, after all domestic duties had been fulfilled, and the clock, loudly ticking through the empty rooms, told that all needful bustle had died down to silence, Mrs. Katy, Mary, and Miss Prissy Diamond, the dress- maker, might have been observed sitting in solemn senate around the camphor-wood trunk, before spoken of, and which exhaled vaguo foreign and Indian perfumes of silk and sandal- wood. You may have heard of dignitaries, my good reader, but, I assure you, you know very little of a situation of trust or im- portance compared to that of the dressmaker in a small New England town. What important interests does she hold in her hands ! How is she besieged, courted, deferred to ! Three months beforehand, all her days and nights are spoken for ; and the simple statement, that only on that day you can have Miss Clippers, is of itself an apology for any omission of attention elsewhere, it strikes home at once to the deepest conscious- ness of every woman, married or single. How thoughtfully is everything arranged, weeks beforehand, for the golden, im- portant season when Miss Clippers can come ! On that day, there is to be no extra sweeping, dusting, cleaning, cooking, no visiting, no receiving, no reading or writing, but all with one heart and soul are to wait upon her, intent to forward the great work which she graciously affords a day's leisure to direct Seated in her chair of state, with her well-worn 116 THE MINISTEK'S WOOING. cushion bristling with pins and needles at her side, her ready roll of patterns and her scissors, she hears, judges, and decides ex cathedra on the possible or not possible, in that important art on which depends the right presentation of the floral part of Nature's great horticultural show. She alone is competent to say whether there is any available remedy for the stained breadth in Jane's dress whether the fatal spot by any magical hocus-pocus can be cut out from thcT fulness, or turned up and smothered from view in the gathers, or concealed by some new fashion of trimming falling with generous appropriateness exactly across the fatal weak point. She can tell you whether that remnant of velvet will make you a basque, whether mamma's old silk can reappear in juvenile grace for Miss Lucy. What marvels follow her, wherever she goes ! "What wonderful results does she contrive from the most unlikely materials, as everybody after her departure wonders to see old things become so much better than new ! Among the most influential and happy of her class was Miss Prissy Diamond, a little, dapper, doll-like body, quick in her motions and nimble in her tongue, whose delicate com- plexion, flaxen curls, merry flow of spirits, and ready abun- dance of gaiety, song, and story, apart from her professional accomplishments, made her a welcome guest in every family in the neighbourhood. Miss Prissy laughingly boasted being past forty, sure that the avowal would always draw down on her quite a storm of compliments, on the freshness of her sweet-pea complexion and the brightness of her merry blue eyes. She was well pleased to hear dawning girls won- dering why with so many advantages she had never married. At such remarks, Miss Prissy always laughed loudly, and declared that she had always had such a string of engage- ments with the women that she never found half an hour to listen to what any man living would say to her, supposing she could stop to hear him. ' Besides, if I were to get married, nobody else could,' she would say. ' What would become of all the wedding-clothes for everybody else?* But sometimes, when Miss Prissy felt extremely gracious, she would draw out of her little chest, just the faintest tip-end of a sigh, and THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 117 tell some young lady, in a confidential undertone, that one of these days she would tell her something, and then there would come a wink of her blue eyes, and a fluttering of the pink ribbons in her cap, quite stimulating to youthful in- quisitiveness, though we have never been able to learn by any of our antiquarian researches that the expectations thus excited were ever gratified. In her professional prowess she felt a pardonable pride. What feats could she relate of wonderful dresses got out of impossibly small patterns of silk ! what marvels of silks turned that could not be told from new ! what reclaimings of waists that other dressmakers had hopelessly spoiled ! Had not Mrs. General Wilcox once been obliged to call in her aid on a dress sent to her from Paris ? and did not Miss Prissy work three days and nights on that dress, and make every stitch of that trimming over with her own hands, before it was fit to be seen ? And when Mrs. Governor Dexter's best silver-gray brocade was spoiled by Miss Pimlico, and "there wasn't another scrap to pattern it with, didn't she make a new waist out of the cape, and piece one of the sleeves twenty- nine times, and yet nobody would ever have known that there was a joining in it ? In fact, though Miss Prissy enjoyed the fair average plain- sailing of her work, she might be said to revel in difficulties. A full pattern with trimming, all ample and ready, awoke a moderate enjoyment; but the resurrection of anything half- worn or imperfectly made, the brilliant success, when, after turning, twisting, piecing, contriving, and, by unheard-of in- ventions of trimming, a dress faded and defaced was restored to more tha/i pristine splendour, that was a triumph worth enjoying. It was true, Miss Prissy, like most of her nomadic compeers, was a little given to gossip ; but, after all, it was innocent gossip, not a bit of malice in it ; it was only all the par- ticulars about Mrs. Thus-and-So's wardrobe, all the statistics of Mrs. That-and-T'other's china-closet, all the minute items of Miss Simpkins's wedding-clothes, and how her mother cried the morning of the wedding, and said that she didn't 118 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. know anything now she could spare Louisa Jane, only that Edward was such a good boy that she felt she could love him like an own son, and what a providence it seemed that the very ring that was put into the bride-loaf was one that he gave her when he first went to sea, when she wouldn't be engaged to him because she thought she loved Thomas Strick- land better, but that was only because she hadn't found him out, you know, and so forth, and so forth. Sometimes, too, her narrations assumed a solemn cast, and brought to mind the hush of funerals, and told of words spoken in faint whispers, when hands were clasped for the last time, and of utterances crushed out from hearts, when the hammer of a great sorrow strikes out sparks of the Divine, even from common stone; and there would be real tears in the little blue eyes, and the pink bows would flutter tremulously, like the last three leaves on a bare scarlet maple in autumn. In fact, dear reader, gossip, like romance, has its noble side to it. How can you love your neighbour as yourself, and not feel a little curiosity as to how he fares, what he wears, where he goes, and how he takes the great life tragi-comedy, at which you and he are both more than spectators ? Show me a person who lives in a country-village absolutely without curiosity or interest on these subjects, and I will show you a cold, fat oyster, to whom the tide-mud of propriety is the whole of existence. As one of our esteemed collaborators remarks, ' A dull town, where there is neither theatre nor circus nor opera, must have some excitement, and the real tragedy and comedy of life must come in place of the second-hand. Hence the noted gossiping propensities of country-places, which, so long as they are not poisoned by envy or ill-will, have a respectable and picturesque side to them, an undoubted leave to be, as probably has almost everything, which obstinately and always insists on being, except sin !' As it is, it must be confessed that the arrival of Miss Prissy in a family was much like the setting up of a domestic show- case, through which you could look into all the families in the neighbourhood, and see the never-ending drama of life, births, THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 119 marriages, deaths, joy of new-made mothers, whose babes weighed just eight pounds and three quarters, and had hair that would part with a comb, and tears of Rachels who wept for their children, and would not be comforted because they were not. Was there a tragedy, a mystery, in all New- port, whose secret closet had not been unlocked by Miss Prissy ? She thought not ; and you always wondered, with an uncer- tain curiosity, what those things might be over which she gravely shook her head, declaring, with such a look, ' Oh, if you only could know!' and ending with a general sigh and lamentation, like the confidential chorus of a Greek tragedy. We have been thus minute in sketching Miss Prissy's portrait, because we rather like her. She has great power, we admit; and were she a sour-faced, angular, energetic body, with a heart whose secretions had all become acrid by disap- pointment and dyspepsia, she might be a fearful gnome, against whose family visitations one ought to watch and pray. As it was, she came into the house rather like one of those breezy days of spring, which burst all the blossoms, set all the doors and windows open, make the hens cackle and the turtles peep, filling a solemn Puritan dwelling with as much bustle and chatter as if a box of martins were setting up housekeeping in it. Let us now introduce you to the sanctuary of Mrs. Scudder's own private bedroom, where the committee of exigencies, with Miss Prissy at their head, are seated in solemn session around the camphor-wood trunk. ' Dress, you know, is of some importance after alV said Mrs. Scudder, in that apologetic way in which sensible people generally acknowledge a secret leaning towards anything so very mundane. While the good lady spoke, she was reve- rentially unpinning and shaking out of their fragrant folds creamy crape shawls of rich Chinese embroidery, India mus- lin, scarfs, and aprons ; and already her hands were undoing the pins of a silvery damask linen in which was wrapped her own wedding-dress. ' I have always told Mary,' she continued, ' that, though our hearts ought not to be set on these things, yet they had their importance.' ' Certainly, certainly, ma'am,' chimed in Miss Prissy. ' I G3 120 THE 'MINISTER'S WOOING. was saying to Miss General Wilcox, the other day, / didn't see how we could " consider the lilies of the field," without seeing the importance of looking pretty. I've got a flower- de-luce in my garden now, from one of the new roots that old Major Seaforth brought over from France, which is just the most beautiful thing you ever did see ; and I was thinking, as I looked at it to-day, that if women's dresses only grew on 'em as handsome and well-fitting as that, why, there wouldn't be any need of me ; but as it is, why, we must think, if we want to look well. Now peach-trees, I s'pose, might bear just as good peaches without the pink blows ; but then who would want 'em to ? Miss Deacon Twitchel, when I was up there the other day, kept kind o' sighin', 'cause Cerintha Ann is getting a new pink silk made up, 'cause she said it was such a dying world it didn't seem right to call off our attention : but I told her it wasn't any pinker than the apple-blossoms ; and what with robins and blue-birds, and one thing or another, the Lord is always calling off our attention ; and I think we ought to observe the Lord's works and take a lesson from 'em.' ' Yes, you are quite right,' said Mrs. Scudder, rising and shaking out a splendid white brocade, on which bunches of moss-roses were looped to bunches of violets by graceful fillets of blue ribbons. ' This was my wedding-dress,' she said. Little Miss Prissy sprang up and clapped her hands in an ecstasy. ' Well, now, Miss Scudder, really ! did I ever see anything more beautiful ? It really goes beyond anything / ever saw. I don't think, in all the brocades I ever made up, I ever saw so pretty a pattern as this.' * Mr. Scudder chose it for me himself, at the silk-factory in Lyons,' said Mrs. Scudder, with pardonable pride, ' and I want it tried on to Mary.' ' Eeally, Miss Scudder, this ought to be kept for her wedding- dress,' said Miss Prissy, as she delightedly bustled about the congenial task. ' I was up to Miss Marvyn's, a-working, last week,' she said, as she threw the dress over Mary's head, ' and she said that James expected to make his fortune in that voyage, and come home and settle down.' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 121 Mary's fair head emerged from the rustling folds of the brocade, her cheeks crimson as one of the moss-roses, while her mother's face assumed a severe gravity, as she remarked that she believed James had been much pleased with Jane Spencer, and that, for her part, she should be very glad when he came home, if he could marry such a steady, sensible girl, and settle down to a useful, Christian life. ' Ah, yes, just so, a very excellent idea, certainly,' said Miss Prissy. ' It wants a little taken in here on the shoulders, and a little under the arms. The biases are all right ; the sleeves will want altering, Miss Scudder. I hope you will have a hot iron ready for pressing.' Mrs. Scudder rose immediately, to see the command obeyed ; and as her back was turned, Miss Prissy went on in a low tone, ' Now /, for my part, don't think there's a word of truth in that story about James Marvyn and Jane Spencer, for I was down there at work one day when he called, and I know there couldn't have been anything between them, besides, Miss Spencer, her mother, told me there wasn't. There, Miss Scudder, you see that is a good fit. It's astonishing how near it comes to fitting, just as it was. I didn't think Mary was so near what you were, when you were a girl, Miss Scudder. The other day, when I was up to General "Wilcox's, the General he was in the room when I was a-trying on Miss Wilcox's cherry velvet, and she was asking couldn't I come this week for her, and I mentioned I was coming to Miss Scudder ; and the General, says he, " I used to know her when she was a girl. I tell you, she was one of the handsomest girls in Newport, by George'!" says he. And says I, " General, you ought to see her daughter." And the General, you know his jolly way, he laughed, and says he, " If she is as handsome as her mother was, I don't want to see her," says he. " I tell you, wife," says he, " I but just missed falling in love with Katy Stephens." ' ' I could have told her more than that,' said Mrs. Scudder, with a flash of her old coquette girlhood for a moment light- ing her eyes and straightening her lithe form. ' I guess, if I 122 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. should show a letter lie wrote me once . But what am I talking about ?' she said, suddenly stiffening back into a sen- sible woman. ' Miss Prissy, do you think it will be necessary to cut it off at the bottom ? It seems a pity to cut such rich silk.' c So it does, I declare. Well, I believe it will do to turn it np.' ' I depend on you to put it a little into modern fashion, you know,' said Mrs. Scudder. ' It is many a year, you know, since it was made.' ' Oh, never you fear ! You leave all that to me,' said Miss Prissy. ' Now, there never was anything so lucky as that, just before all these wedding-dresses had to be fixed, I got a letter from my sister Martha, that works for all the first fami- lies of Boston. And Martha, she is really unusually privi- leged, because she works for Miss Cranch, and Miss Cranch gets letters from Miss Adams, you know Mr. Adams is Am- bassador now at the Court of St. James, and Miss Adams writes home all the particulars about the court- dresses; and Martha, she heard one of the letters read, and she told Miss Cranch that she would give the best five-pound note she had, if she could just copy that description to send to Prissy. Well, Miss Cranch let her do it, and I've got a copy of the letter here in my work-pocket. I read it up to Miss General Wilcox's, and to Major Seaforth's, and I'll read it to you.' Mrs. Katy Scudder was a born subject of a crown, and, though now a republican matron, had not outlived the reve- rence, from childhood implanted, for the high and stately doings of courts, lords, ladies, queens, and princesses, and therefore it was not without some awe that she saw Miss Prissy produce from her little black work-bag, the well-worn epistle. ' Here it is,' said Miss Prissy, at last. ' I only copied out the parts about being presented at Court. She says : ' " One is obliged here to attend the circles of the Queen, which are held once a fortnight ; and what renders it very expensive is, that you cannot go twice in the same dress, and a court-dress you cannot make use of elsewhere. 1 directed my mantua-maker to let my dress be elegant, but plain as I THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 123 could possibly appear with decency. Accordingly, it is white lutestring, covered and full-trimmed with white crape, festooned with lilac ribbon and mock point-lace, over a hoop of enormous size. There is only a narrow train, about three yards in length to the gown-waist, which is put into a ribbon on the left side, the Queen only having her train borne. Ruffled cuffs for married ladies, treble lace ruffles, a very dress cap with long lace lappets, two white plumes, and a blonde lace handkerchief. This is my rigging." ' Miss Prissy here stopped to adjust her spectacles. Her audience expressed a breathless interest. ' You see,' she said, ' I used to know her when she was Nabby Smith. She was Parson Smith's daughter, at Weymouth, and as handsome a girl as ever I wanted to see, just as graceful as a sweet-brier bush. I don't believe any of those English ladies looked one bit better than she did. She was always a master-hand at writing. Everything she writes about, she puts it right before you. You feel as if you'd been there. Now, here she goes on to tell about her daughter's dress. She says : ' " My head is dressed for St. James's, and in my opinion looks very tasty. Whilst my daughter is undergoing the same operation, I set myself down composedly to write you a few lines. Well, methinks I hear Betsy and Lucy say, ' What is cousin's dress ?' White, my dear girls, like your aunt's, only differently trimmed and ornamented, her train being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with white ribbon ; the petticoat, which is the most showy part of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beau- tiful flowers ; the sleeves, white crape drawn over the silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half-way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle, a little stuck between, a kind of hat-cap with three large feathers and a bunch of flowers, a wreath of flowers on the hair." ' Miss Prissy concluded this relishing description with a little smack of the lips, such as people sometimes give when read- ing things that are particularly to their taste. 124 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ' Now, I was a-thinking,' she added, ' that it would be an excellent way to trim Mary's sleeves, three rows of lace, with a sprig to each row.' All this while, our Mary, with her white short-gown and blue stuff-petticoat, her shining pale brown hair and serious large blue eyes, sat innocently looking first at her mother, then at Miss Prissy, and then at the finery. We do not claim for her any superhuman exemption from girlish feelings. She was innocently dazzled with the vision of courtly halls and princely splendours, and thought Mrs. Adams's descriptions almost a perfect realization of things she had read in ' Sir Charles Grandison.' If her mother thought it right and proper she should be dressed and made fine, she was glad of it ; only there came a heavy, leaden feeling in her little heart, which she did not understand, but we who know womankind will translate for you : it was, that a certain pair of dark eyes would not see her after she was dressed ; and so, after all, what was the use of looking pretty ? ' I wonder what James would think,' passed through her head ; for Mary had never changed a ribbon, or altered the braid of her hair, or pinned a flower in her bosom, that she had not quickly seen the effect of the change mirrored in those dark eyes. It was a pity, of course, now she had found out that she ought not to think about him, that so many thought- strings were twisted round him. So while Miss Prissy turned over her papers, and read out of others extracts about Lord Caermarthen and Sir Clement Cotterel Dormer, and the Princess Eoyal, and Princess Augusta, in black and silver, with a silver netting upon the coat, and a head stuck full of diamond pins, and Lady Salisbury and Lady Talbot, and the Duchess of Devonshire, and scarlet satin sacks and diamonds and ostrich-plumes, and the King's kissing Mrs. Adams, little Mary's blue eyes grew larger and larger, seeing far off on the salt green sea, and her ears heard only the ripple and murmur of those waters that carried her heart away, till, by-and-by, Miss Prissy gave her a smart little tap, which awakened her to the fact that she was wanted again to try on the dress which Miss Prissy's nimble fingers had basted. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 125 So passed the day, Miss Prissy busily chattering, clipping, basting, Mary patiently trying on to an unheard-of extent, and Mrs. Scudder's neat room whipped into a perfect froth and foam of gauze, lace, artificial flowers, linings, and other aids, accessories, and abetments. At dinner, the Doctor, who had been all the morning study- ing out his Treatise on the Millennium, discoursed tranquilly as usual, innocently ignorant of the unusual cares which were distracting the minds of his listeners. What should he know of dressmakers, good soul? Encouraged by the respectful silence of his auditors, he calmly expanded and soliloquized on his favourite topic, the last golden age of Time, the Mar- riage Supper of the Lamb, when the purified Earth, like a repentant Psyche, shall be restored to the long-lost favour of a celestial Bridegroom, and glorified saints and angels shall walk familiarly as wedding-guests among men. ' Sakes alive !' said little Miss Prissy, after dinner, 'did I ever hear any one go on like that blessed man? such a spiritual mind ! Oh, Miss Scudder, how you are privileged in having him here ! I do really think it is a shame such a blessed man a'n't thought more of. Why, I could just sit and hear him talk all day. Miss Scudder, I 'wish sometimes you'd just let me make a ruffled shirt for him, and do it all up myself, and put a stitch in the hem that I learned from my sister Martha, who learned it from a French young lady who was educated in a convent ; nuns, you know, poor things, can do some things right ; and I think / never saw such hemstitching as they do there ; and I should like to hemstitch the Doctor's ruffles ; he is so spiritually-minded, it really makes me love him. Why, hearing him talk put me in mind of a real beau- tiful song of Mr. Watts, I don't know as I could remember the tune.' And Miss Prissy, whose musical talent was one of her spe- cial fortes, tuned her voice, a little cracked and quavering, and sang, with a vigorous accent on each accented syllable, ' From the third Leaven, where God resides, That holy, happy place, The New Jerusalem comes down, Adorned with shining grace. 126 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 1 Attending angels shout for joy, And the bright armies sing, " Mortals ! behold the sacred seat Of your descending King !" ' c Take care, Miss Scudder ! that silk must be cut exactly on tlie bias ;' and Miss Prissy, hastily finishing her last quaver, caught the silk and the scissors out of Mrs. Scudder's hand, and fell down at once from the Millennium into a discourse on her own particular way of covering piping-cord. So we go, dear reader, so long as we have a body and a soul. Two worlds must mingle, the great and the little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out, like the gro- tesque carvings on a Gothic shrine ; only, did we know it rightly, nothing is trivial; since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes all things sacred. Have not ribbons, cast-off flowers, soiled bits of gauze, trivial, trashy fragments of millinery, sometimes had an awful meaning, a deadly power, when they belonged to one who should wear them no more, and whose beautiful form, frail and crushed as they, is a hidden and a vanished thing for all time ? For so sacred and individual is a human being, that, of all the million-peopled earth, no one form ever restores another. The mould of each mortal type is broken at the grave ; and never, never, though you look through all the faces on earth, shall the exact form, you mourn ever meet your eyes again ! You are living your daily life among trifles that one death-stroke may make relics. One false step, one luckless accident, an obstacle on the track of a train, the tangling of the cord in shifting a sail, and the penknife, the pen, the papers, the trivial articles of dress and clothing, which to-day you toss idly and jestingly from hand to hand, may become dread memorials of that awful tragedy whose deep abyss ever underlies our common life. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 127 CHAPTEE XIII. THE PARTY. WELL, let ns proceed to tell how the eventful evening drew on, how Mary, by Miss Prissy 's care, stood at last in a long- waisted gown flowered with rosebuds and violets, opening in front to display a white satin skirt trimmed with lace and flowers, how her little feet were put into high-heeled shoes, and a little jaunty cap with a wreath of moss rosebuds was fastened over her shining hair, and how Miss Prissy, de- lighted, turned her round and round, and then declared that she must go and get the Doctor to look at her. She knew he must be a man of taste, he talked so beautifully about the Millennium; and so, bursting into his study, she actually chattered him back into the visible world, and, leading the blushing Mary to the door, asked him, point blank, if he ever saw anything prettier. The Doctor, being now wide awake, gravely gave his mind to the subject, and, after some consideration, said, gravely, * No, he didn't think he ever did.' For the Doctor was not a man of compliment, and had a habit of always thinking, before he spoke, whether what he was going to say was exactly true ; and having lived some time in the family of President Edwards, renowned for beautiful daughters, he naturally thought them over. The Doctor looked innocent and helpless, while Miss Prissy, having got him now quite into her power, went on volubly to expatiate on the difficulties overcome in adapting the ancient wedding-dress to its present modern fit. He told her that it was very nice, said, ' Yes, ma'am,' at proper places, and, 128 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. being a very obliging man, looked at whatever he was directed to, with round, blank eyes ; but ended all with a long gaze on the laughing, blushing face, that, half in shame and half in perplexed mirth, appeared and disappeared as Miss Prissy in her warmth turned her round and showed her. ' Now, don't she look beautiful ?' Miss Prissy reiterated for the twentieth time, as Mary left the room. The Doctor, looking after her musingly, said to himself, ' " The king's daughter is all glorious within ; her clothing is of wrought gold ; she shall be brought into the king in raiment of needlework." ' ' Now, did I ever ?' said Miss Prissy, rushing out. ' How that good man does turn everything ! I believe you couldn't get anything, that he wouldn't find a text right out of the Bible about it. I mean to get the linen for that shirt this very week, with the Miss Wilcox's money ; they always pay well, those Wilcoxes, and I've worked for them, off and on, sixteen days and a quarter. To be sure, Miss Scudder, there's no real need of my doing it, for I must say you keep him looking like a pink ; but only I feel as if I must do something for such a good man.' The good Doctor was brushed up for the evening with zealous care and energy ; and if he did not look like a pink, it was certainly no fault of his hostess. Well, we cannot reproduce in detail the faded glories of that entertainment, nor relate how the "VYilcox Manor and gardens were illuminated, how the bride wore a veil of real point-lace, how carriages rolled and grated on the gravel walks, and negro servants, in white kid gloves, handed out ladies in velvet and satin. To Mary's inexperienced eye it seemed like an enchanted dream, a realization of all she had dreamed of grand and high society. She had her little triumph of an evening ; for everybody asked who that beautiful girl was, and more than one gallant of the old Newport first families felt himself adorned and distinguished to walk with her on his arm. Busy, officious dowagers repeated to Mrs. Scudder the applauding whispers that followed her wherever she went. THE MINISTERS WOOING. 129 ' Keally, Mrs. Scudder,' said gallant old General "Wilcox, ' where have you kept such a beauty all this time ? It's a sin and a shame to hide such a light under a bushel.' And Mrs. Scudder, though, of course, like you and me, sensible reader, properly apprised of the perishable nature of such fleeting honours, was, like us, too, but a mortal, and smiled condescendingly on the follies of the scene. The house was divided by a wide hall opening by doors, the front one upon the street, the back into a large garden, the broad central walk of which, edged on each side with high clipped hedges of box, now resplendent with coloured lamps, seemed to continue the prospect in a brilliant vista. The old-fashioned garden was lighted in every part, and the company dispersed themselves about it in picturesque groups. "We have the image in our mind of Mary as she stood with her little hat and wreath of rosebuds, her fluttering ribbons and rich brocade, as it were a picture framed in the doorway, with her back to the illuminated garden, and her calm, innocent face regarding with a pleased wonder the un- accustomed gaieties within. Her dress, which, under Miss Prissy's forming hand, had been made to assume that appearance of style and fashion which more particularly characterised the mode of those times, formed a singular, but not unpleasing, contrast to the sort of dewy freshness of air and mien which was characteristic of her style of beauty. It seemed so to represent a being who was in the world, yet not of it, who, though living habi- tually in a higher region of thought and feeling, was artlessly curious, and innocently pleased with a fresh experience in an altogether untried sphere. The feeling of being in a circle to which she did not belong, where her presence was in a manner an accident, and where she felt none of the responsibilities which come from being a component part of a society, gave to her a quiet, disengaged air, which produced all the effect of the perfect ease of high breeding. While she stands there, there comes out of the door of the bridal reception-room a gentleman with a stylishly-dressed lady on either arm, with whom he seems wholly absorbed. 130 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. He is of middle height, peculiarly graceful in form and moulding, with that indescribable air of high breeding which marks the polished man of the world. His beautifully-formed head, delicate profile, fascinating sweetness of smile, and, above all, an eye which seemed to have an almost mesmeric power of attraction, were traits which distinguished one of the most celebrated men of the time, and one whose peculiar history yet lives not only in our national records, but in the private annals of many an American family. ' Good Heavens !' he said, suddenly pausing in conversation, as his eye accidentally fell upon Mary. ' Who is that lovely creature ?' ' Oh, that,' said Mrs. Wilcox, ' why, that is Mary Scudder. Her father was a family connection of the General's. The family are in rather modest circumstances, but highly respect- able.' After a few moments more of ordinary chit-chat, in which from time to time he darted upon her glances of rapid and piercing observation, the gentleman might have been observed to disembarrass himself of one of the ladies on his arm, by passing her with a compliment and a bow to another gallant, and after a few moments more, he spoke something to Mrs. "Wilcox, in a low voice, and with that gentle air of deferential sweetness which always made everybody well satisfied to do his will. The consequence was, that in a few moments Mary was startled from her calm speculations by the voice of Mrs. Wilcox, saying at her elbow, in a formal tone : ' Miss Scudder, I have the honour to present to your acquaintance Colonel Burr, of the United States Senate.' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 131 CHAPTER XIV. AT the period of winch we are speaking, no name in the new republic was associated with ideas of more brilliant promise, or invested with a greater prestige of popularity and success, than that of Colonel Aaron Burr. Sprung of a line distinguished for intellectual ability, the grandson of a man whose genius has swayed New England from that day to this the son of parents eminent in their day for influential and popular talent, he united in himself the quickest perceptions and keenest delicacy of fibre with the most diamond hardness and unflinching steadiness of pur- pose. Apt, subtle, dazzling, adroit, no man in his time ever began life witL fairer chances for success and fame. His name, as it fell on the ear of our heroine, carried with it the sugges- tion of all this ; and when, with his peculiarly engaging smile, he offered his arm, she felt a little of the flutter natural to a modest young person unexpectedly honoured with the notice of the distinguished of the earth, whom it is seldom the lot of humble individuals to know except by distant report. But although Mary was a blushing and sensitive person, she was not what is commonly called a diffident girl : her nerves had that steady poise which gave her presence of mind in the most unwonted circumstances. The first few sentences addressed to her by her new com- panion were in a tone and style altogether different from any in which she had ever been approached different from the dashing frankness of her sailor lover, and from the rustic gallantry of her other admirers. That indescribable mixture 132 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. of ease and deference, guided by a fine tact, which shows the practised, high-bred man of the world, made its impression on her immediately, as the breeze on the chords of a wind harp. She felt herself pleasantly swayed and breathed upon : it was as if an atmosphere were around her in which she felt a perfect ease and freedom an assurance that her lightest word might launch forth safely, as a tiny boat on the smooth glassy mirror of her listener's pleased attention. ' I came to Newport only on a visit of business,' he said, after a few moments of introductory conversation ; ' I was not prepared for its many attractions.' ' Newport has a great deal of beautiful scenery,' said Mary. ' I have heard that it was celebrated for the beauty of its scenery and of its ladies,' he answered ; ' but,' he added, with a quick flash of his dark eye, ' I never realised the fact before.' The glance of the eye pointed and limited the compliment ; at the same time there was a wary shrewdness in it : he was measuring how deeply his shaft had sunk, as he always in- stinctively measured the person he talked with. Mary had been told of her beauty since her childhood, notwithstanding her mother had assayed all that transparent, respectable hoaxing by which discreet mothers endeavour to blind their daughters to the real facts in such cases ; but in her own calm, balanced mind she had accepted what she was so often told as a quiet verity, and therefore she neither fluttered nor blushed on this occasion ; but regarded her auditor with a pleased attention, as one who was saying obliging things. ' Cool,' he thought to himself. ' Hum a little rustic belle, I suppose, well aware of her own value; rather piquante, upon my word.' ' Shall we walk in the garden ?' he said ; ' the evening is so beautiful.' They passed out the door, and began promenading the long walk. At the bottom of the alley he stopped, and, turning, looked up the vista of box, ending in the brilliantly-lighted rooms, where gentlemen with powdered heads, lace .ruffles, and glittering knee-buckles were handing ladies in stiff THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 133 brocades, whose towering heads were shaded by ostrich feathers and sparkling with gems. ' Quite court-like, on my word,' he said : ' tell me, do yoti often have such brilliant entertainments as these ?' ' I suppose they do,' said Mary ; ' I never was at one before, but I sometimes hear of them.' ' And you do not attend ?' said the gentleman, with an accent which made the inquiry a marked compliment. ' No, I do not,' said Mary ; ' these people generally do not visit us.' ' What a pity,' he said, ' that their parties should want such an ornament ! but,' he added, ' this night must make them aware of their oversight: if you are not always in society after this, it will surely not be from want of solicitation.' ' You are very kind to think so,' replied Mary ; ' but even if it were to be so, I should not see my way clear to be often in such scenes as this.' Her companion looked at her with a glance a little doubtful and amused, and said ' And pray, why not, if the inquiry be not presumptuous ?' ' Because,' said Mary, ' I should be afraid they would take too much time and thought, and lead me to forget the great object of life.' The simple gravity with which this was said, as if quite assured of the sympathy of her auditor, appeared to give him a secret amusement. His bright dark eyes danced as if he sup- pressed some quick repartee ; but, drooping his long lashes deferentially, he said, in gentle tones ' I should like to know what so beautiful a young lady con- siders the great object of life ?' Mary answered reverentially, in those words familiar from infancy to every Puritan child, ' To glorify God, and enjoy Him for ever.' ' Really ?' he said r looking straight into her eyes with that penetrating glance with which he was accustomed to take the gauge of every one with whom he conversed. ' Is it not ?' said Mary, looking back, calm and firm, into the sparkling, restless depths of his eye. 134 THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. In that moment, two souls, going with, the whole force of their being in two opposite directions, looked out of their windows at each other with a fixed and earnest recognition. Burr was practised in every act of gallantry ; he had made womankind a study : he never saw a beautiful face and form without a sort of restless desire to experiment upon it, and try his power over the interior inhabitant. But just at this moment something streamed into his soul from those blue, earnest eyes, which brought back to his mind what pious people had so often told him of his mother the beautiful and early- sainted Esther Burr. He was one of those persons who systematically managed and played upon himself and others, as a skilful musician on an instrument. Yet one secret of his fascination was the naivete with which at some moments he would abandon him- self to some little impulse of a nature originally sensitive and tender. Had the strain of feeling which now awoke in him come over him elsewhere, he would have shut down some spring in his mind, and excluded it in a moment; but talk- ing with a beautiful creature whom he wished to please, he gave way at once to the emotion : real tears stood in his fine eyes; he raised Mary's hand to his lips and kissed it, saying * Thank you, my beautiful child, for so good a thought ! it is truly a noble sentiment, though practicable only to those gifted with angelic natures.' ' Oh, I trust not !' said Mary, earnestly, touched and wrought upon more than she herself knew by the beautiful eyes, the modulated voice, the charm of manner, which seemed to enfold her like an Italian summer. Burr sighed a real sigh of his better nature, but passed out with all the more freedom that he felt it would interest his fair companion, who, for the time being, was the one woman in the world to him. ' Pure, artless souls like yours,' he said, ' cannot measure the temptations of those who are called to the real battle of life. In a world like this, how many nobler aspirations fall withered in the fierce heat and struggle of the conflict !' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 135 He was saying then what he really felt often bitterly felt ; but using this real feeling advisedly, and with skilful tact, for the purpose of the hour. What was this purpose ? to win the regard, the esteem, the tenderness of a religious exalted nature, shrined in a beautiful form to gain and hold ascendency : it was a life-long habit ; one of those forms of refined self-indulgence which he pur- sued, reckless of consequences. He had found now the key- note of the character : it was a beautiful instrument, and he was well-pleased to play on it. ' I think, sir,' said Mary, modestly, ' that you forget the great provision made for our weakness.' ' How ?' said he. ' They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength,' she replied, gently. He looked at her as she spoke these words with a pleased, artistic perception of the contrast between her worldly attire and the simple religious earnestness of her words. ' She is entrancing,' he thought to himself; 'so altogether fresh and naive.' ' My sweet saint,' he said, ' such as you are the appointed guardians of us coarser beings : the prayers of a soul given up to worldliness and ambition effect little ; you must intercede for us. I am very orthodox, you see,' he added, with that subtle smile which sometimes irradiated his features. ' I am fully aware of all that your reverend Doctor tells you of the worthlessness of unregenerate doings ; and so, Avhen I see angels walking below, I try to secure a "friend at court/' ' He saw that Mary looked embarrassed and pained at this banter, and therefore added, with a delicate shading of earnest- ness ' In truth, my fair young friend, I hope you will sometimes pray for me. I am sure if I have any chance of good, it must come to me in such ways.' ' Indeed I will,' said Mary, fervently, her little heart full, tears in her eyes, her breath coming quick ; and she added, with a deepening colour, ' I am sure, Mr. Burr, there should be 136 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. a covenant blessing for you, if for any one, for you. are the son of a holy ancestry.' ' Eh bien, mon ami, qu'est-ce que tu fais ici ?' said a gay voice behind a clump of box, and immediately there started out, like a French picture from its frame, a dark-eyed figure, dressed like a marquise of Louis Fourteenth's time, with pow- dered hair, sparkling with diamonds. 'Kien que m'amuser,' he replied, with ready presence of mind, in the same tone, and then added ' Permit me, madame, to present to you a charming specimen of our genuine New England flowers. Miss Scudder, I have the honour to present you to the acquaintance of Madame de Frontignac.' ' I am very happy,' said the lady, with a sweet lisping accentuation of English, which well became her lovely mouth. ' Miss Scudder, I hope, is very well ?' Mary replied affirmatively, her eyes resting the while, with pleased admiration, on the brilliant speaking face and diamond- bright eyes which seemed looking her through? ' Monsieur la trouve bien seduisante apparemment,' said the stranger in a low, rapid voice to the gentleman, in a manner which showed a mingling of pique and admiration. ' Petite jalouse, t'assure toi,' he replied, with a look and manner into which, with that mobile force which was peculiar to himself, he threw the most tender and passionate devotion. ' Ke suis-je pas a toi tout-a-fait?' and as he spoke he offered her his other arm. ' Allow me to be an unworthy link between the beauty of France and America.' The lady swept a proud curtsy backward, bridled her beautiful neck, and signed for them to pass. ' I am waiting here for a friend,' she said. ' Your will is always mine,' replied Burr, bowing with proud humility, and passing on with Mary to the supper-room. Here the company were fast assembling in that high tide of good-humour which generally sets in at this crisis of the evening. The scene, in truth, was a specimen of a range of society which in those times could have been assembled THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 137 nowhere else but in Newport. There stood Dr. H., in the tranquil majesty of his lordly form, and by his side the alert, compact figure of his cotemporary and theological opponent, Dr. Stj'les, who, animated by the social spirit of the hour, was dispensing courtesies to the right and left with the debonair grace of the trained gentleman of the old school. Near by, and engaging from time to time in conversation with them, stood a Jewish Rabbi with one or two wealthy bankers of the same race, whose olive complexion, keen eyes, and aquiline profile spoke their descent, and gave a picturesque and foreign grace to the scene. Colonel Burr, one of the most brilliant and distinguished of the rising men of the new republic, and Colonel de Frontig- nac, who had won for himself laurels in the corps of Lafayette during the recent revolutionary struggle, with his brilliant and accomplished wife, were all unexpected and distinguished additions to the circle. Burr gently cleared the way for his fair companion, and purposely placing her where the full light of the wax chan- deliers set off her beauty to the best advantage, devoted him- self to her with a subserviency as deferential as if she had been a goddess. For all that, he was not unobservant when, a few moments after, Madame de Frontignac "was led in on the arm of a dis- tinguished senator, with whom she was presently in full flirtation. He observed, with a quiet, furtive smile, that, while she rattled and fanned herself, and listened with apparent attention to the flatteries addressed to her, she darted every now and then a glance keen as a steel blade towards him and his companion. He was perfectly adroit in playing off one woman against another, and it struck him with a pleasant sense of oddity, how perfectly unconscious his sweet and saintly neighbour was of the position in which she was supposed to stand by her rival. And poor Mary all this while, in her simplicity, really thought she had seen traces of what she would have called ' the strivings of the Spirit in his soul.' 138 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. Alas ! that a phrase weighed down with such a mysterious truth and meaning should ever come to fall on the ear as mere empty cant : with Mary it was a living form, as were all her words, for in nothing was the Puritan education more marked than in the earnest reality and truthfulness which it gave to language. And even now, as she stands by his side, her large blue eye is occasionally fixed in dreamy reverie, as she thinks what a triumph of divine grace it would be if these inward movings of her companion's mind should lead him, as all the pious of New England hoped, to follow in the footsteps of President Edwards. She wishes that she could some time see him alone, where she could talk with him undisturbed. She was too humble, too modest, fully to accept the delicious flattery which he had breathed, in implying that her hand had power to unseal the fountains of good in his soul ; but still it thrilled through all the sensitive strings of her nature, a tremulous flutter of suggestion. She had read instances of striking and wonderful conver- sions from words dropped by children and women ; and suppose some such thing should happen to her, that this so charming, distinguished, and powerful being should be called into the fold of Christ's church by her means ! No, it was too much to be hoped ; but the very possibility was thrilling. "When, after supper, Mrs. Scudder and the Doctor made their adieus, Burr's devotion was still unabated : with an enchanting mixture of reverence and fatherly protection, he waited on her to the last, shawled her with delicate care, and handed her into the small one-horse waggon as if it had been the coach of a duchess. ' I have pleasant recollections connected with this kind of an establishment,' he said, as, after looking carefully at the harness, he passed the reins into Mrs. Scudder's hands ; ' it reminds me of school-days and old times. I hope your horse is quite safe, madam ?' ' Oh, yes,' said Mrs. Scudder ; ' I perfectly understand him.' ' Pardon the suggestion,' he replied, ' what is there that a New England matron does not understand ? Doctor, I must THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 139 call by-and-by and have a little talk with you ; my theologies, you know, need a little straightening.' ' We should all be happy to see you, Colonel Burr,' said Mrs. Scudder ; ' we live in a very plain "way it is true.' ' But can always find a place for a friend ; that, I trust, is what you meant to say,' he replied, bowing with his own peculiar grace as the carriage drove off. ' Eeally, a most charming person is this Colonel Burr,' said Mrs. Scudder. ' He seems a very frank, ingenuous young person,' said the Doctor ; ' one cannot but mourn that the son of such gracious parents should be left to wander into infidelity.' ' Oh, he is not an infidel,' said Mary : ' he is far from it ; though I think that his mind is a little darkened on some points.' ' Ah !' said the Doctor, 'have you had any special religious conversation with him ?' ' A little,' said Mary ; ' and it seems to me, that his mind is perplexed somewhat in regard to the doings of the unrege- nerate. I fear that it has rather proved a stumbling-block in his way ; but he showed so much feeling ! I could really see the tears in Ms eyes.' ' His mother was a most godly woman, Mary,' said the Doctor ; ' she was called from her youth, and her beautiful person became a temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Aaron Burr is a child of many prayers, and therefore there is hope that he may yet be effectually called. He studied awhile with Bellamy,' he added, musingly ; ' I have often doubted whether Bellamy took just the right course with him.' ' I hope he will call and talk with you,' said Mary, earnestly. ' What a blessing to the world if such talents as his could be- come wholly consecrated !' ' Not many rich, not many mighty, not many noble are called,' said the Doctor. ' Yet, if it would please the Lord to employ my instrumentality and prayers, how much should I rejoice ! I was struck,' he added, ' to-night, when I saw those Jews present, with the thought that it was, as it were, a type of that last ingathering, when both Jew and Gentile should bit 140 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. down lovingly together at the gospel feast. It is only by passing over and forgetting these present years, when so few are called, and the gospel makes such slow progress, and look- ing forward to that glorious time that I find comfort. If the Lord but use me as a dumb stepping-stone to that heavenly Jerusalem, 1 shall be content.' Thus they talked while the waggon jogged slowly homeward, while the frogs and turtles and the distant ripple of the sea made a drowsy mingling concert in the summer- evening air. Meanwhile Colonel Burr had returned to the lighted rooms ; and it was not long before his quick eye sought out Madame de Frontignac, standing pensively in a window-recess, half hid by the curtain. He stole up softly behind her, and whis- pered something in her ear. In a moment she turned on him a face glowing with anger, and drew back haughtily ; but Burr remarked the glitter of tears, not quite dried even by the angry flash of her eyes. 'In what have I had the misfortune to offend?' he said, crossing his arms upon his breast. ' I stand at the bar and plead not guilty.' He spoke in French, and she replied in the same smooth accents ' It was not for her to dispute monsieur's right to amuse himself.' BUIT drew nearer, and spoke in those persuasive, pleading tones which he had ever at command, and in that language whose very structure, in its delicate tu toi, gives such oppor- tunity for gliding on through shade after shade of intimacy and tenderness, till gradually the haughty fire of the eyes was quenched in tears; and in the sudden revulsion of a strong impulsive nature, she poured out to him what she called words of friendship, but which earned with them all the warmth of that sacred fire which is given to woman to light and warm the temple of home, and which sears and scars when kindled for any other shrine ; and yet this woman was the wife of his friend and associate. Monsieur de Frontignac was a grave and dignified man of forty-five. Virginie de Frontignac had been given him to THE MINISTEE'S WOOING. 141 wife when but eighteen; a beautiful, generous, impulsive, -wilful girl. She had accepted him gladly for very substantial reasons. First, that she might come out of the convent where she was kept for the very purpose of educating her in ignorance of the world she was to live in. Second, that she might wear velvet, lace, cashmere, and jewels. Third, that she might be a madame, free to go and come, ride, walk, and talk, without surveillance. Fourth, and consequent upon this, that she might go into com- pany, and have admirers and adorer?. She supposed, of course, she loved her husband whom else should she love ? he was the only man except her father and brothers that she had ever seen ; and in the fortnight that preceded their marriage, did he not send her the most splendid bons-bons every day, with bouquets of every pattern that ever taxed the brain of a Parisian artiste ? Was not the corbeille de mariage a wonder and an envy to all her acquaintance 1 and after marriage had she not found him always a steady, indulgent friend, easy to be coaxed as any grave papa? On his part, Monsieur de Frontignac cherished his young wife as a beautiful, though somewhat absurd little pet ; and amused himself with her frolics and gambols, as the gravest person often will with those of a kitten. It was not until she knew Aaron Burr that poor Tirginie de Frontignac came to that great awakening of her being which teaches woman what she is, and transforms her from a careless child tc a deep-hearted, thinking, suffering, human being. For the first time, in his society, she became aware of the charm of a polished and cultivated mind ; able, with exquisite tact, to adapt itself to hers ; to draw forth her inquiries ; to excite her tastes ; to stimulate her observation. A new world awoke around her the world of literature, of taste, of art, of sentiment. She felt somehow as if she had gained the growth of jears in a few months. She felt within herself the stirring of dim aspiration the uprising of a new power of self-devotion and self-sacrifice; a trance of hero worship ; a cloud of high ideal images ; the lighting up, in short, uf all 142 THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. that God has laid ready to be enkindled in woman's nature when the time comes to sanctify her as the pure priestess of a domestic temple. But, alas ! it was kindled by one who did it only for an experiment ; because he felt an artistic pleasure in the beau- tiful light and heat which had burned a soul away. Burr was one of those men, willing to play with any charm- ing woman the game of those navigators who give to simple natives glass beads and feathers in return for gold and dia- monds ; to accept from a woman her heart's blood in return for such odds, ends, and clippings as he could afford her from the serious ambitions of life. Look in with us one moment, now that the party is over, and the busy hum of voices and blaze of lights have died down to midnight silence and darkness. We make you clairvoyant ; and you may look through the walls of this stately old man- sion, still known as that where Eochambeau held his head- quarters, into this room, where two wax candles are burning on a toilette-table before an old-fashioned mirror. The slumbrous folds of the curtains are drawn with stately gloom around a high bed, where Colonel de Frontignac has been for many hours quietly asleep. But opposite, resting with one elbow on the toilette-table, her long black hair hanging down over her night-dress, and the brush hanging listlessly in her hand, sits Yirginie, looking fixedly into the dreamy depths of the mirror. Scarcely twenty yet; all unwarned of the world of power and passion that lay slumbering in her girl's heart ; led, in the meshes of custom and society, to utter vows and take responsi- bilities of whose nature she was no more apprised than is a slumbering babe, and now at last fully awake, feeling the whole power of that mysterious and awful force which we call love, yet shuddering to call it by its name ; yet by its light beginning to understand all she is capable of, and all that marriage should have been to her ! She struggles feebly and confusedly with her fate, still clinging to the name of duty, and baptizing as friendship the strange new feeling which makes her tremble through all her THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 143 being. How can she dream of danger in such a feeling, when it seems to her the awakening of all that is highest and noblest within her ? She remembers when she thought of nothing beyond an opera ticket or a new dress ; and now she feels that there might be to her a friend for whose sake she would try to be noble and great and good ; for whom all self-denial, all high endeavour, all difficult virtue, would become possible ; who would be to her life, inspiration, order, beauty. She sees him, as woman always sees the one she loves noble, great, and good ; for when did a loving woman ever believe a man otherwise ? too noble, too great, too high, too good, she thinks for her, poor, trivial, ignorant coquette poor, trifling, childish Virginie ! Has he not commanded .armies ? she thinks ; is he not eloquent in the senate ? and yet, what interest he has taken in her, a poor, unformed, ignorant creature ! She never tried to improve herself till since she knew him : and he is so considerate too ; so respectful ; so thoughtful and kind ; so manly and honourable ; and has such a tender friendship for her ; such a brotherly, fatherly solici- tude. And yet, if she is haughty, or imperious, or severe, how humbled ana grieved he looks ! How strange that she could have power ever such a man ! It is one of the saddest truths of this sad mystery of life, that woman is often never so much an angel as just tho moment before she falls into the bottomless depths of per- dition ; and what shall we say of the man who leads her up to this spot as an experiment? who amuses himself with taking woman after woman up these dazzling, delusive heights, knowing, as he certainly must, where they lead ? We have been told, in extenuation of the course of Aaron Burr, that he was not a man of gross passions or of coarse in- dulgence, but in tho most consummate and refined sense a man of gallantry : this, then, is the descriptive name which polite society has invented for the man who does this thing. Of old it was thought that one who administered poison in the sacramental bread and wine had touched the very height of impious sacrilege ; but this crime is white by the side of his 144 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. who poisons God's eternal sacrament of love, and destroys woman's soul through her noblest and purest affections. We have given you the after view of most of the actors of our little scene to-night, and therefore it is but fair that you should have a peep over the Colonel's shoulder as he sums up the evening in a letter to a friend. ' MY DEAR , ' As to the business, it gets on rather slowly : L and T are away, and the coalition cannot be formed without them ; they set out a week ago from Philadelphia, and are yet on the road. ' Meanwhile, we have some providential alleviations ; as, for example, a wedding-party to-night at the AVilcox's, which was really quite an affair. I saw the prettiest little Puritan there that I have set eyes on for many a day. I really couldn't help getting up a flirtation with her, though it was much like flirting with a small copy of the Assembly's catechism, of which I had enough years ago, heaven knows. But really, such a naive, earnest little saint, who has such a real, deadly belief, and opens such blue pitying eyes on one, is quite a stimulating novelty. I got myself well scolded by the fair madame (as angels scold), and had to plead like a lawyer to make my peace. 'After all, that woman really enchains me. Don't shake your head wisely. " What is going to be the end of it?" I am sure I don't know ; we'll see when the time comes. ' Meanwhile, push the business ahead with all your might. I shall not be idle. ' D must canvass the Senate thoroughly. I wish I could be in two places at once, and I would do it myself. Au revoir. ' Ever yours, ' BURR.' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ]45 CHAPTER XV. ' AND now, Mary,' said Mrs. Scudder, at five o'clock the next morning, ' to-day, you know, is the doctor's fast, and so we won't get any dinner, and it will be a good time to do up all our little odd jobs. Miss Prissy promised to come in for two or three hours this morning, to alter the waist of that black silk, and I shouldn't be surprised if we could get it all done and ready to wear by Sunday.' We will remark, by way of explanation to a part of this conversation, that our doctor, who was a specimen of life in earnest, ma/'e a practice through the greater part of his pulpit course of spending every Saturday as a day of fasting and retirement in preparation for the duties of the Sabbath. Accordingly, the early breakfast things were no sooner dis- posed of than Miss Prissy's quick footsteps might have been heard pattering in the kitchen. ' Well, Miss Scudder, how do you do this morning? and how do you do, Mary ? Well, if you aint the beaters ! up just as early as ever, and everything cleared away ! I was telling Miss Wilcox that there didn't ever seem to be anything done in Miss Scudder's kitchen, and I did verily believe you made your beds before you got up in the morning. Well , well ; wasn't that a party last night !' she said, as she sat down with the black silk and prepared her ripping-knife. ' I must rip this myself, Miss Scudder ; for there's a great deal in ripping silk, so as not to let anybody know where it has been sewed. ' You didn't know that I was at the party, did you ? Well, I was. You see, I thought I'd just step round there to see about that money to get the doctor's shirt with, and there I found 146 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. Miss Wilcox with so many things on her mind, and says she, ' ' Miss Prissy, you don't know how much it would help me if I had somebody like you just to look after things a little here ;" and says I, " Miss Wilcox, you just go right to your room and dress, and don't you give yourself one minute's thought about anything, and you see if I don't have everything just right." And so there I was in for it, and I just stayed through ; and it was well I did, for Dinah, she wouldn't have put ne'er enough egg in the coffee if it hadn't been for me. "Why, I just went and beat up four eggs with my own hand, and stirred 'em into the grounds. ' Well, but really ; wasn't I behind the door, and didn't I peep into the supper-room ! I saw who was a-waitin' on Miss Mary. Well, they do say he's the handsomest, most fascinating man ; why, all the ladies in Philadelphia are in a perfect quarrel about him ; and I heard he said that he hadn't seen such a beauty, he didn't remember when.' ' We all know that beauty is of small consequence,' said Mrs. Scudder. ' I hope Mary has been brought up to feel that.' ' Oh, of course,' said Miss Prissy ; ' it's just like a fading flower ; all is to be good and useful, and that's what she is ; and I told 'em that her beauty was the least part of her, though I must say that dress did fit like a biscuit, if it was my own fitting. But, Miss Scudder, what do you think I heard 'em saying about the good old doctor ?' ' I am sure I don't know,' said Mrs. Scudder ; ' I only know they couldn't say anything bad.' ' Well, no, not bad exactly,' said Miss Prissy ; ' but they say he's getting such strange notions in his head ; why, I heard some of 'era say he was going to come out and preach against the slave trade ; and I'm sure I don't know what Newport folks will do if that's wicked ; there aint hardly any money here that's made any other way : it'll certainly make a great noise and talk, and make everybody angry ; and I hope the Doctor aint a-going to do anything of that sort.' ' I believe he is, Miss Prissy,' said Mrs. Scudder ; ' he thinks it's a great sin that ought to be rebuked, and I think so too,' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 147 she said, bracing herself resolutely ; ' that -was Mr. Scudder's opinion when I first married him, and it's mine.' ' Oh, ah, yes. Well, if it's a sin, of course,' said Miss Prissy ; ' but then, dear me ! Why, just think how many great houses are living on it. Why, there's General Wilcox himself, and he's a very nice man ; and then there's Major Seaforth ; and why, I could count you off now a dozen all our very first people. Why, Doctor Styles doesn't think so, and I'm sure he's a good Christian. Doctor Styles thinks it's a dispensation for giving the light of the gospel to the Africans ; why, now I'm sure, when I was a-working at Deacon Stebbins', I stopped over Sunday once, 'cause Miss Stebbins she was weakly ; 'twas when she was getting up after Samuel was born. No, on the whole, I believe 'twas Nehemiah, 'cause I remember he had curly hair ; but any way, I remember I stayed there, and I re- member as plain as if 'twas yesterday, just after breakfast, how a man went driving by in a chaise, and the Deacon, he went out and stopped him for travelling on the Lord's day ('cause, you know, he was a justice of the peace), and who should it be but Tom Seaforth, and he told the Deacon his father had got a shipload of negroes just come in, and the Deacon he just let him go, 'cause I remember he said that was a plain work of necessity and mercy.* Well now, who would have thought it? I believe the Doctor is better than most folks ; but then the best people may be mistaken, you know.' ' The Doctor has made up his mind that it's his duty,' said Mrs. Scudder. ' I'm afraid it'll make him very unpopular ; but I, for one, shall stand by him.' 'Oh, certainly,- Miss Scudder, you're doing just right, exactly. Well, there's one comfort, he'll have a great crowd to hear him preach, 'cause as I was going round through the entries last night, I heard 'em talking about it ; and Colonel Burr said he should be there, and so did the General, and so did Mr. What's-his-name there, that senator from Philadelphia. I tell you you'll have a full house.' It was to be confessed that Mrs. Scudder's heart rather sank than otherwise at this announcement, and those who * A fact. 148 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. have felt what it is to be almost alone in the right, in the face of all the ' first families ' of their acquaintance, may perhaps find some compassion for her ; since after all, truth is in- visible, but ' first families ' are very evident. First families are often very agreeable, undeniably respectable fearfully vir- tuous ; and it takes great faith id resist an evil principle which incarnates itself in the stiavities of their breeding and amiability ; and therefore it was that Mrs. Scudder felt her heart heavy within her, and could with a very good grace have joined the Doctor's Saturday fast. As for the Doctor, he sat the while tranquil in his study, with his great Bible and his Concordance open before him, culling, with that patient assiduity for which he was remark- able, all the terrible texts which that very unceremonious and old-fashioned book rains down so unsparingly on the sin of oppressing the weak. First families, whether in Newport or elsewhere, were as invisible to him as they were to Moses during the forty days that he spent with God on the Mount. He was merely thinking of his message, thinking only how he should shape it so as not to leave one word of it unsaid, not even imagining in the least what the result of it was to be : he was but a voice, but an instrument, a passive instru- ment through which an Almighty will was to reveal itself: and the sublime fatalism of his faith made him as dead to all human considerations as if he had been a portion of the immutable laws of nature herself. So the next morning, although all his friends trembled for him when he rose in the pulpit, he never thought of trem- bling for himself : he had come in the covered way of silence from the secret place of the Most High, and felt himself still abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. It was alike to him whether the house was full or empty. Whoever were decreed to hear the message would be there ; whether they would hear or forbear was already settled in the counsels of a mightier will than his : he had the simple duty of utterance. The rxiinous old meeting-house was never so radiant with station and gentility as on that morning : a June sun shone brightly, the sea sparkled with a thousand little eyes, the THE MINISTEE'S WOOING. 149 birds sang all along the way, and all the notables turned out to hear the Doctor. Mrs. Scudder received into her pew, with dignified polite- ness, Colonel Burr, and Colonel and Madame de Frontignac. General Wilcox and his portly dame, Major Seaforth, and we know not, what not of Vernons and De Wolfs, and other grand old names were present there. Stiff silks rustled, Chinese fans fluttered, and the last court fashion stood revealed in bonnets ; everybody was looking fresh and amiable : a charm- ing and respectable set of sinners come to hear what the Doctor would find to tell them about their transgressions. Mrs. Scudder was calculating consequences, and, shutting her eyes on the too evident world about her, prayed that the Lord would overrule all for good : the Doctor prayed that he might have grace to speak the truth, and the whole truth. We have yet on record, in his published works, the great argument of that day, through which he moved with that calm appeal to the reason, which made his results always so weighty. ' If these things be true,' he said, after a condensed state- ment of the facts of the case, 'then the following terrible consequences, which may well make all shudder and tremble who realize them, force themselves upon us, that all who have had any hand in this iniquitous business, whether directly or indirectly, or have used their influence to promote it, or have consented to it, or even connived at it, or have not opposed it by all proper exertions of which they are capable all these are in a greater or less degree chargeable with the injuries and miseries which millions have suffered and are suffering, and are guilty of the blood of millions who lost their lives by this traffic in the human species. Not only the merchants who have been engaged in this trade, and the captains who have been tempted by the love of money to engage in this cruel work, and the slaveholders of every description, are guilty of shedding rivers of blood, but all the legislatures who have authorized, encouraged, or even neglected to suppress it to the utmost of their power, and all the individuals in private stations who have in any way aided 150 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. in this business, consented to it, or have not opposed it to the utmost of their ability, have a share in this guilt. This trade in the human species has been the first wheel of commerce in Newport, on which every other movement in business has chiefly depended. This town has been built up and flourished in times past at the expense of the blood, the liberty, and the happiness of the poor Africans ; and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by it have gotten most of their wealth and riches. If a bitter woe is pronounced on him who buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong (Jer. xxii. 13), to him who buildeth a town by blood, and establisheth a city by iniquity (Hab. ii. 12), to the bloody city (Ezek. xxiv. 6), what a heavy, dreadful woe hangs over the heads of all those whose hands are defiled by the blood of the Africans especially the inhabitants of this state and this town, who have had a distinguished share in this unrighteous and bloody commerce!' He went over the recent history of the country ; expatiated on the national declaration so lately made, that all men are born equally free and independent, and have a natural and inalienable right to liberty, and asked with what face a nation declaring such things could continue to hold thousands of their fellow-men in abject slavery. He pointed out signs of national disaster which foreboded the wrath of heaven : the increase of public and private debts ; the spirit of murmuring and jealousy of rulers among the people ; divisions and contentions and bitter party alienations ; the jealous irritation of England constantly endeavouring to hamper our trade ; the Indians making war on the frontiers ; the Algerines taking captive our ships, and making slaves of our citizens ; all evident tokens of the displeasure and impend- ing judgment of an offended justice. The sermon rolled over the heads of the gay audience deep and dark as a thunder-cloud which in a few moments changes a summer sky into heaviest gloom. Gradually an expression of intense interest and deep concern spread over the listeners ; it was the magnetism of a strong mind, which held them for a time under the shadow of his own awful sense of God's almighty justice. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 151 It is said that a little child once described his appearance in the pulpit by saying, 'I saw God there, and I was afraid.' Something of the same effect was produced on the audience now, and it was not till after sermon, prayer, and benediction were all over, that the respectables of Newport began gradu- ally to unstiffen themselves from the spell, and to look into each other's eyes for comfort, and to reassure themselves that after all they were the first families, eminently respect- able, and going on in the good old way the world had always gone, and that the Doctor, of course, was a Radical and a fanatic. When the audience streamed out, crowding the broad aisle, Mary descended from the singers' seat, and stood with her psalm book in hand, waiting at the door to be joined by her mother and the Doctor. She overheard many hard words from people who an evening or two before had smiled so graciously upon them. It was, therefore, with no little deter- mination of manner that she advanced and took the Doctor's arm, as if anxious to associate herself with his well-earned unpopularity ; and just at this moment she caught the eye and smile of Colonel Burr, as he bowed gracefully, yet not without a suggestion of something sarcastic in his eye. 152 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. CHAPTEB XVI. WE suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges and immunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where, as a French writer has it, ' she appears like a lovely picture in its frame.' Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacred precincts we will give you this morning a ticket of ad- mission. Know, then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projecting window on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large old apple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a robin's nest. Garrets are delicious places, in any case, for people of thoughtful, imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilight days of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off, suggestive antiquity, old worm- eaten chests, rickety chairs, boxes and casks full of old comminglings, out of which, with tiny, childish hands, we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure ? What peep-holes, and hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we made to ourselves, where we sat rejoicing in our security, and bidding defiance to the vague, distant cry which summoned us to school, or to some unsavoury every-day task ! How de- liciously the rain came pattering on the roof over head, or the red twilight streamed in at the window, while we sat snugly ensconced over the delicious pages of some romance, which careful aunts had packed away at the bottom of all things, to be sure we should never read it ! If you have anything, be- loved friends, which you wish your Charlie or your Susie to be sure and read, pack it mysteriously away at the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, in the darkest corner of your THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 153 garret ; in that case, if the book be at all readable, one that by any possible chance can make its way into a young mind, you may be sure that it will not oiily be read, but remembered to the longest day they have to live. Mrs. Katy Scudder's garret was not an exception to the general rule. Those quaint little people who touch with so airy a grace all the lights and shadows of great beams, bare rafters, and unplastered walls, had not failed in their work there. Was there not there a grand easy-chair of stamped- leather, minus two of its hinder legs, which had genealogical associations through the Wilcoxes with the Vernons, and through the Vernons quite across the water with Old England ? and was there not a dusky picture, in an old tarnished frame, of a woman of whose tragic end strange stories were whispered, one of the sufferers in the time when witches were unce- remoniously helped out of the world, instead of being, as now- a-days, helped to make their fortune in it by table-turning ? Yes, there were all these things, and many more which we will not stay to recount, but bring you to the boudoir which Mary has constructed for herself around the dormer-window which looks into the whispering old apple-tree. The enclosure was formed by blankets and bed-spreads, which, by reason of their antiquity, had been pensioned off to an undisturbed old age in the garret, not common blankets or bed-spreads, either, bought, as you buy yours, out of a shop, spun or woven by machinery, without individuality or history. Every one of these curtains had its story. The one on the right, nearest the window, and already falling into holes, is a Chinese linen, and even now displays unfaded, quaint patterns of sleepy-looking Chinamen, in conical hats, standing on the leaves of most singular herbage, and with hands for ever raised in act to strike bells, which never are struck and never will be till the end of time. These, Mrs. Katy Scudder had often instructed Mary, were brought from the Indies by her great- great- grandfather, and were her grand- mother's wedding-curtains, the grandmother who had blue eyes like hers, and was just about her height. The next spread was spun and woven by Mrs. Katy's beloved i 2 154 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. Aunt Eunice, a mythical personage, of whom Mary gathered vague accounts that she was disappointed in love, and that this very article was part of a bridal outfit, prepared in vain, against the return of one from sea, who never came back, and she heard of how she sat wearily and patiently at her work, this poor Aunt Eunice, month after month, starting every time she heard the gate shut, every time she heard the tramp of a horse's hoof, every time she heard the news of a sail in sight, her colour, meanwhile, fading and fading as life and hope bled away at an inward wound, till at last she found comfort and reunion beyond the veil. Next to this was a bed-quilt pieced in tiny blocks, none of them bigger than a sixpence, containing, as Mrs. Katy said, pieces of the gowns of all her grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and female relatives for years back, and mated to it was one of the blankets which had served Mrs. Scudder's uncle in his bivouac at Valley Forge, when the American soldiers went on the snows with bleeding feet, and had scarce anything for daily bread except a morning message of patriotism and hope from George Washington. Such were the memories woven into the tapestry of our little boudoir. Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one end adorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls, and beside it, a reel and a basket of skeins of yarn, and open, with its face down on the beam of the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of work were be- guiled. The dusky picture of which we have spoken hung against the rough wall in one place, and in another appeared an old engraved head of one of the Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci, a picture which to Mary had a mysterious interest, from the fact of its having been cast on shore after a furious storm, and found like a waif lying in the sea-weed ; and Mrs. Marvyn, who had deciphered the signature, had not ceased exploring till she found for her, in an Encyclopaedia, a life of that won- derful man, whose greatness enlarges our ideas of what is pos- sible to humanity, and Mary, pondering thereon, felt the sea-worn picture as a constant vague inspiration. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 155 Here our heroine spun for hours, and hours with intervals, when, crouched on a low seat in the window, she pored over her book, and then, returning again to her work, thought of what she had read to the lulling burr of the sounding wheel. By chance a robin had built its nest so that from her retreat she could see the five little blue eggs whenever the patient brooding mother left them for a moment uncovered. And sometimes, as she sat in dreamy reverie, resting her small, round arms on the window-sill, she fancied that the little feathered watcher gave her familiar nods and winks of a con- fidential nature, cocking the small head first to one side and then to the other, to get a better view of her gentle human neighbour. I dare say it seems to you, reader, that we have travelled, in our story, over a long space of time, because we have talked so much, and introduced so many personages and reflections ; but, in fact, it is only Wednesday week since James sailed, and the eggs which were brooded when he went are still un- hatched in the nest, and the apple-tree has changed only in having now a majority of white blossoms over the pink buds. This one week has been a critical one to our Mary : in it she has made the great discovery that she loves ; and she has made her first step into the gay world ; and now she comes back to her retirement to think the whole over by herself. It seems a dream to her, that she who sits there now reeling yarn in her stuff petticoat and white short-gown is the same who took the arm of Colonel Burr amid the blaze of wax-lights, and the sweep of silks and rustle of plumes. She wonders dreamily as she remembers the dark, lovely face of the foreign madame, so brilliant under its powdered hair and flashing gems, the sweet, foreign accents of the voice, the tiny, jewelled fan, with its glancing pictures and sparkling tassels, whence exhaled vague and floating perfumes ; then she hears again that manly voice, softened to tones so seductive, and sees those fine eyes with the tears in them, and wonders within herself that he could have kissed her hand with such veneration, as if she had been a throned queen. But here the sound of busy, pattering footsteps is heard on 156 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. the old, creaking staircase, and soon the bows of Miss Prissy's bonnet part the folds of the boudoir drapery, and her merry, May-day face looks in. 'Well, really, Mary, how do you do, to be sure? You wonder to see me, don't you ? but I thought I must just run in a minute on my way up to Miss Marvyn's. I promised her at least a half a day, though I didn't see how I was to spare it, for I tell Miss Wilcox I just run and run till it does seem as if my feet would drop off; but I thought I must just step in to say, that I, for my part, do admire the Doctor more than ever, and I was telling your mother we mus'n't mind too much what people say. I 'most made Miss Wilcox angry, standing up for him ; but I put it right to her, and says I, " Miss Wilcox, you know folks must speak what's on their mind, in particular ministers must ; and you know, Miss Wilcox," I says, " that the Doctor is a good man, and lives up to his teaching, if anybody iu this world does, and gives away every dollar he can lay hands on to those poor negroes, and works over 'em and teaches 'em as if they were his brothers;" and says I, "Miss Wilcox, you know I don't spare myself, night nor day, trying to please you and do your work to give satisfaction ; but when it comes to my con- science," says I, " Miss Wilcox, you know I always must speak out, and if it was the last word I bad to say on my dying bed, I'd say that I think the Doctor is right." Why ! what things he told about the slave-ships, and packing those poor creatures so that they couldn't move nor breathe ! "why, I declare, every time I turned over and stretched in bed, I thought of it; and says I, " Miss Wilcox, I do believe that the judgments of God will come down on us, if something a'n't done, and I shall always stand by the Doctor," says I ; and if you'll believe me, just then I turned round and saw the General ; and the General, he just haw-ha\ved right out, and says he, " Good for you, Miss Prissy ! that's real grit," says he, " and I like you better for it." ' "* Laws,' added Miss Prissy, reflectively, ' I sha'n't lose by it, for Miss Wilcox knows she never can get anybody to do the work for her that I will.' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 157 ' Do you think,' said Mary, ' that there are a great many made angry ?' ' Why, bless your heart, child, haven't you heard ? Why, there never was such a talk in all Newport. Why, you know- Mr. Simeon Brown is gone clear off to Doctor Stiles ; and Miss Brown, I was making up her plum-coloured satin a' Monday, and you ought to 'a' heard her talk. But, I tell you, I fought her. She used to talk to me,' said Miss Prissy, sink- ing her voice to a nr^sterious whisper, ' 'cause I never could come to it to say that I was willin' to be lost, if it was for the glory of God ; and she always told me folks could just bring their minds right up to anything they knew they must ; and I just got the tables turned on her, for they talked and abused the Doctor till they fairly wore me out, and says I, " Well, Miss Brown, I'll give in, that you and Mr. Brown do act up to your principles ; you certainly act as if you were willing to be damned ;" and so do all those folks who will live on the blood and groans of the poor Africans, as the Doctor said ; and I should think, by the way Newport people are making their money, that they were all pretty willing to go that way, though, whether it's for the glory of God, or not, I'm doubt- ing. But you see, Mary,' said Miss Prissy, sinking her voice again to a solemn whisper, ' I never was clear on that point ; it always did seem to me a dreadful high place to come to, and it didn't seem to be given to me ; but I thought, perhaps, if it was necessary, it would be given, you know, for the Lord always has been so good to me that I've faith to believe that, and so I just say, " The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ;" ' and Miss Prissy hastily whisked a little drop out of her blue eye with her handkerchief. At this moment Mrs. Scudder came into the boudoir with a face expressive of some anxiety. ' I suppose Miss Prissy has told you,' she said, ' the news about the Browns. That'll make a great falling off in the Doctor's salary ; and I feel for him, because I know it will come hard to him not to be able to help and do, especially for these poor negroes, just when he will. But then we must put everything on the most economical scale we can, and just try, 158 THE MINISTEK'S WOOING. all of us, to make it up to him. I was speaking to Cousin Zebedee about it, when he was down here, on Monday, and he is all clear ; he has made out three papers for Candace and Cato and Dinah, and they couldn't, one of 'em, be hired to leave him ; and he says, from what he's seen already, he has no doubt but they'll do enough more to pay for their wages.' ' Well,' said Miss Prissy, ' I haven't got anybody to care for but myself. I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time (she's married and got four children), that I could take a storm a good deal easier than she could, 'cause I hadn't near so many sails to pull down ; and now, you just look to me for the Doctor's shirts, 'cause, after this, they shall all come in ready to put on, if I hare to sit up till morning. And I hope, Miss Scudder, you can trust me to make them ; for if I do say it my- self, I a'n't afraid to do fine stitching 'longside of anybody, and hemstitching ruffles, too ; and I haven't shown you yet that French stitch I learned of the nuns ; but you just set your heart at rest about the Doctor's shirts. I always thought,' continued Miss Prissy, laughing, ' that I should have made a famous hand about getting up that tabernacle in the wilderness, with the blue and the purple and fine-twined linen ; it's one of my favourite passages, that is ; different things, you know, are useful to different people.' ' Well,' said Mrs. Scudder, ' I see that it's our call to be a remnant small and despised, but I hope we sha'n't shrink from it. I thought, when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing their heads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me to be faithful.' ' And what does the Doctor say ?' said Miss Prissy. ' He hasn't said a word ; his mind seems to be very much lifted above all these things.' ' La, yes,' said Miss Prissy, ' that's one comfort ; he'll never know where his shirts come from ; and besides that, Miss Scudder,' she said, sinking her voice to a whisper, ' as you know, I haven't any children to provide for, though I was telling Elizabeth t'other day, when I was making up 'frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first and last, did more providing for children than married women : but still I THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 159 do contrive to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little old silver teapot that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson's property (I nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her out with my own hands), and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor should want money, you just let me know.' ' Thank you, Miss Prissy,' said Mrs. Scudder ; ' we all know where your heart is.' ' And now,' added Miss Prissy, ( what do you suppose they say? Why, they say Colonel Burr is struck dead in love with our Mary ; and you know his wife's dead, and he's a widower ; and they do say that he'll get to be the next Presi- dent. Sakes alive ! Well, Mary must be careful, if she don't want to be carried off ; for they do say that there can't any woman resist him, that sees enough of him. Why, there's that poor Frenchwoman, Madame what do you call her, that's staying with the Vernons ? they say she's over head and ears in love with him.' ' But she's a married woman,' said Mary ; ' it can't be possible !' Mrs. Scudder looked reprovingly at Miss Prissy, and for a few moments there was great shaking of heads and a whis- pered conference between the two ladies, ending in Miss Prissy's going off, saying, as she went down stairs, ' Well, if women will do so, I, for my part, can't blame the men.' In a few moments Miss Prissy rushed back as much dis- composed as a clucking hen who has seen a hawk. ' Well, Miss Scudder, what do you think ? Here's Colonel Burr come to call on the ladies !' Mrs. Scudder's first movement, in common with all middle- aged gentlewomen, was to put her hand to her head and reflect that she had not on her best cap ; and Mary looked down at her dimpled hands, which were blue from the contact vrith mixed yarn she had just been spinning. ' Now, I'll tell you what,' said Miss Prissy, ' wasn't it lucky you had me here ? for 1 first saw him coming in at the gate, and I whipped in quick as a wink and opened the best i3 160 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. room -window-shutters, and then I was back at the door, and he bowed to me as if I'd been a queen, and says he, "Miss Prissy, how fresh you're looking this morning !" You see, I was in working at the Vernons', but I never thought as he'd noticed me. And then he inquired in the handsomest way for the ladies and the Doctor, and so I took him into the parlour and settled him down, and then I ran into the study, and you may depend upon it I flew round lively for a few minutes. I got the Doctor's study-gown off, and got his best coat on, and put on his wig for him, and started him up kinder lively, you know it tak<;s me to get him down into this world, and so there he's in talking with him ; and so you can just slip down and dress yourselves, easy as not.' Meanwhile Colonel Burr was entertaining the simple- minded Doctor with all the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superior truth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sort of graceful facility of sympathy by which they incline to take on, for the time being, the sentiments and opinions of those with whom they converse, as the chameleon was fabled to change its hue with every surrounding. Such are often supposed to be wilfully acting a part, as exerting themselves to flatter and deceive, when in fact they are only framed so sensitive to the sphere of mental emanation which surrounds others that it would require an exertion not in some measure to harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation, they are like a musician who joins a performer on an instrument, it is im- possible for them to strike a discord ; their very nature urges them to bring into play faculties according in vibration with those which another is exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr to commence talking with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the family of President Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. Bellamy, and thence to glide on to the points of difference and agreement in theology, with a suavity and deference which acted on the good man like a June sun on a budding elm-tree. The Doctor was soon ( wide awake, talking with fervent animation on the topic of disinterested benevo- THE MINISTERS WOOING. 161 lence, Burr the meanwhile studying him with the quiet interest of an observer of natural history, who sees a new species developing before him. At all the best possible points he interposed suggestive questions, and set up objec- tions in the quietest manner for the Doctor to knock down, smiling ever the while as a man may who truly and genuinely does not care a sou for truth on any subject not practically connected with his own schemes in life. He therefore gently guided the Doctor to sail down the stream of his own thoughts till his bark glided out into the smooth waters of the Millennium, on which, with great simplicity, he gave his views at length. It was just in the midst of this that Mary and her mother entered. Burr interrupted the conversation to pay them the compliments of the morning, to inquire for their health, and hope they suffered no inconvenience from their night ride from the party ; then, seeing the Doctor still looking eager to go on, he contrived with gentle dexterity to tie again the broken thread of conversation. ' Our excellent friend,' he said, ' was explaining to me his views of a future Millennium. I assure you, ladies, that we sometimes find ourselves in company which enables us to believe in the perfectibility of the human species. We see family retreats, so unaffected, so charming in their sim- plicity, where industry and piety so go hand in hand ! One has only to suppose all families such, to imagine a Millennium!' There was no disclaiming this compliment, because so deli- cately worded, that, while perfectly clear to the internal sense, it was, in a manner, veiled and unspoken. Meanwhile, the Doctor, who sat ready to begin where he left off, turned to his complaisant listener and resumed an exposition of the Apocalypse. *> ' To my mind, it is certain,' he said, ' as it is now three hundred years since the fifth vial was poured out, there is good reason to suppose that the sixth vial began to be poured out at the beginning of the last century, and has been running for a hundred years or more, so that it is run nearly 162 THE MINISTEK'S WOOING. out ; the seventh and last vial will begin to run early in the next century.' ' You anticipate, then, no rest for the world for some time to come ?' said Burr. ' Certainly not,' said the Doctor, definitively ; ' there will be no rest from overturning till He whose right it is shall come.' ' The passage,' he added, ' concerning the drying up of the river Euphrates, under the sixth vial, has a distinct reference, I think, to the account in ancient writers of the taking of Babylon, and prefigures, in like manner, that the resources of that modern Babylon, the Popish power, shall continue to be drained off, as they have now been drying up for a century or more, till, at last, there will come a sudden and final downfall of that power. And after that will come the first triumphs of truth and righteousness, the marriage- supper of the Lamb.' ' These investigations must undoubtedly possess a deep interest for you, sir,' said Burr ; ' the hope of a future as well as the tradition of a past age of gold seems to have been one of the most cherished conceptions of the human breast.' ' In those times,' continued the Doctor, ' the whole earth will be of one language.' ' Which language, sir, do you suppose will be considered worthy of such pre-eminence?' inquired his listener. ' That will probably be decided by an amicable conference of all nations,' said the Doctor ; ' and the one universally considered most valuable will be adopted ; and the literature of all other nations being translated into it, they will gradually drop all other tongues. Brother Stiles thinks it will be the Hebrew. I am not clear on that point. The Hebrew seems to me too inflexible, and not sufficiently copious. I do not think,' he added, after some consideration, ' that it will be the Hebrew tongue.' ' I am most happy to hear it, sir,' said Burr, gravely ; ' I never felt much attracted to that language. But, ladies,' he added, starting up with animation, ' I must improve this fine " .weather to ask you to show me the view of the sea from this THE MINISTEE'S WOOING. 163 little hill beyond your house, it is evidently so fine ; I trust I am not intruding too far on your morning ?' ' By no means, sir,' said Mrs. Scudder, rising ; ' we will go with you in a moment.' And soon Colonel Burr, with one on either arm, was to be seen on the top of the hill beyond the house, the very one from which Mary, the week before, had seen the retreating sail we all wot of. Hence, though her companion contrived, with the adroitness of a practised man of gallantry, to direct his words and looks as constantly to her as if they had been in a tete-a-tete, and although nothing could be more graceful, more delicately flattering, more engaging, still the little heart kept equal poise ; for where a true love has once bolted the door, a false one serenades in vain under the window. Some fine, instinctive perceptions of the real character of the man beside her seemed to have dawned on Mary's mind in the conversation of the morning ; she had felt the covert and subtile irony that lurked beneath his polished smile, felt the utter want of faith or sympathy in what she and her revered friend deemed holiest, and therefore there was a calm dignity in her manner of receiving his attentions which rather piqued and stimulated his curiosity. He had been wont to boast that he could subdue any woman, if he could only see enough of her : in the first interview in the garden, he had made her colour come and go, and brought tears to her eyes in a manner that interested his fancy, and he could not resist the impulse to experiment again. It was a new sensa- tion to him, to find himself quietly studied and calmly measured by those thoughtful blue eyes ; he felt, with his fine instinctive tact, that the soul within was enfolded in some crystalline sphere of protection, transparent, but ada- mantine, so that he could not touch it. \Vhat was that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which she rested, that made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable and so strong ? Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather's study, among a mass of old letters, one in which that great man, in 164 THE MINISTER'S WOOING early youth, described his future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With his keen natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struck with this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood, that he had in his earlier days copied it in his private recueil. ' They say,' it ran, ' that there is a young lady who is be- loved of that Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight, that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on Him ; that she expects, after a while, to be received up where He is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven, being assured that He loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from Him always. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you should give her all the world. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind, especially after this great God has manifested Him- self to her mind. She will sometimes go from place to place singing sweetly, and seems to be always full of joy and plea- sure ; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in fields and groves, and seems to have some invisible one always conversing with her.' A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more than once, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, a truth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his mother and her mother before her had borne meek witness, their souls shining out as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple ? But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to his own satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which New England faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he said to himself, he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it, then, this charm, so subtile and THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 165 so strong, by which, this fair child, his inferior in age, cultiva- tion, and knowledge of the world, held him in a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable ? His curio- sity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers of pleasing. He was determined that, sooner or later, she should feel his power. With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate : she was completely won over by the deferential manner with which he constantly referred himself to her matronly judgments ; and, on returning to the house, she warmly pressed him to stay to dinner. Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish abandon, declaring that he had not seen anything for years that so reminded him of old times. He praised everything at table, the smoking brown bread, the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had been quietly simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding, with its gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding in the motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of living to be compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New England home, where servants were excluded, and everything came direct from the polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams of Arcadian romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, who did not rise to lofty senti- ments arid heroic deeds, when even his animal wants were pro- vided for by the ministrations of the most delicate and exalted portion of the creation. After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentle and pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the menage by a subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning, in the weaving, and, in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but before the afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the cracked arm-chair of Mary's garret-boudoir, gravely giving judgment on several specimens of her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to his notice. With that ease with which he could at will glide into the character of the superior and elder brother, he had, without 166 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. seeming to ask questions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, her acquaintances. ' You read French, I presume ?' he said to her, with easy negligence. Mary coloured deeply, and then, as one who recollects one's self, answered, gravely, ' No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own.' ' But you should learn French, my child,' said Burr, with that gentle dictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume. ' I should be delighted to learn,' said Mary, ' but have no opportunity.' ' Yes,' said Mrs. Scudder, ' Mary has always had a taste for study, and would be glad to improve in any way.' ' Pardon me, madam, if I take the liberty of making a sug- gestion. There is a most excellent man, the Abbe Lefon, now in Newport, driven here by the political disturbances in France ; he is anxious to obtain a few scholars, and I am inte- rested that he should succeed, for he is a most worthy man.' ' Is he a Roman Catholic ?' 4 He is, madam ; but there could be no manner of danger with a person so admirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, madam, I will call with him some time.' ' Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me,' said Mary. ' She has been studying French by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise on astronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrow and see her about it.' Before Colonel Burr departed, the doctor requested him to step a moment with him into his study. Burr, who had had fre- quent occasions during his life to experience the sort of pater- nal freedom which the clergy of his country took with him in right of his clerical descent, began to summon together his faculties of address for the avoidance of a kind of conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He was agreeably disap- pointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table, and presenting it to him, the Doctor said, ' I feel myself, my dear sir, under a burden of obligation for benefits received from your family, so that I never see a mem- THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 167 ber of it without casting about in my own mind how I may in some measure express my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers of your distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and from them I have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by which he guided a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world. May I ask the favour that you will read them with attention ? and if you find anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happy to hear of it on a future occasion.' ' Thank you, Doctor,' said Burr, bowing, ' I shall always be sensible of the kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on my account. Believe me, sir, I am truly obliged to you for it.' And thus the interview terminated. That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayers for the grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that his father's and mother's God might bless him and make him a living stone in the Eternal Temple. Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table in dressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day. The paper which Dr. H. had handed him con- tained the celebrated ' Resolutions' by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any mere dogmas can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madame de Frontignac, one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred in themselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person "who sees whither they are tending. Burr opened and perused it, laid it by, opened the document which the Doctor had given, and thought- fully read the first of the ' Resolutions ' : ' Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good profit and pleasure in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriad ages hence. ' Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. ' Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and how many and how great soever.' Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or 168 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. twice, and paused thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some time after, lost in reflection ; the paper dropped from his hand, and then followed one of those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when the soul thinks by pictures and goes over endless distances in moments. In him, originally, every moral faculty and sensibility was as keenly strung as in any member of that remarkable family from which he was descended, and which has, whether in good or ill, borne no common stamp. Two possible lives flashed before his mind at that moment, rapidly as when a train sweeps by with flash- ing lamps in the night. The life of worldly expediency, the life of eternal rectitude, the life of seventy years, and that life eternal in which the event of death is no disturbance. Suddenly he roused himself up, picked up the paper, filed and dated it carefully, and laid it by ; and in that moment was renewed again that governing purpose which sealed him, with all his beautiful capabilities, as the slave of the fleeting and the temporary, which sent him, at last, a shipwrecked man, to a nameless, dishonoured grave. He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of the day. ' MY DEAR , 'We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb s'ennuyer, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and tenses. Pour passer le temps, however, I have la belle Fran James ! you are too late ! that can never be !' He drew back from her. ' Mary, are you married ?' 318 THE MINISTEE'S WOOING. ' Before God I am !' she said. ' My word is pledged. I cannot retract it. I have suffered a good man to place his whole faith upon it a man who loves me with his whole soul!' 'But, Mary! you do not love him! That is impossible!' said James, holding her off from him, and looking at her with an agonized eagerness. ' After what you have just said, it is not possible.' ' Oh ! James, I'm sure I don't know what I have said. It was all so sudden, and I didn't know what I was saying but things that I must never say again. The day is fixed for next week. It is all the same as if you had found me his wife !' ' NOT QUITE,' said James, his voice cutting the air with a decided, manly ring. ' / have some words to say to that yet.' ' Oh, James, will you be selfish ? AVill you tempt me to do a mean, dishonourable thing to be false to my word delibe- rately given ?' 'But,' said James, eagerly, 'you know, Mary, you never would have given it if you had known that I was living.' ' That is true, James ; but I did give it. I have suffered Tn'm to build all his hopes of life upon it. I beg yoii not to tempt me. Help me to do right.' ' But, Mary, did you not get my letter ?' ' Your letter !' ' Yes ! that long letter that I wrote you.' ' I never got any letter, James.' ' Strange,' he said ; ' no wonder it seems sudden to you.' * Have you seen your mother ?' said Mary, who was con- scious this moment only of a dizzy instinct to turn the con- versation from the spot where she felt too weak to bear it. ' No ! Do you suppose I should see anybody before you ?' ' Oh, then you must go to her ! ' said Mary. ' Oh, James, you don't know how she has suffered !' They were drawing near to the cottage gate. ' Do, pray,' said Mary. ' Go hurry to your mother don't be too sudden either, for she's veiy weak ; she is almost worn out with sorrow. Go, niy dear brother. Dear you always will be to me !' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 319 James helped her into the house, and they parted. All the house was yet still. The open kitchen door let in a sober square of moonlight on the floor ; the very stir of the leaves in the trees could be heard. Mary went into her little room, and threw herself upon the bed, weak, weary, yet happy ; for deeper and higher above all other feelings was the great relief that he was living still. After a little while she heard the rattling of the waggon, and then the quick patter of Miss Prissy's feet, and her mother's considerate tones, and the Doc- tor's grave voice, and quite unexpectedly to herself she was shocked to find herself turning with an inward shudder from the idea of meeting him. How very wicked ! she thought ; how ungrateful ! and she prayed that God would give her strength to check the first rising of such feelings. Then there was her mother, so ignorant and innocent, busy putting away baskets of things that she had bought in provi- sion for the wedding-day. Mary almost felt as if she had a guilty secret. But when she looked back upon the last two hours, she felt no wish to take them back. Two little hours of joy and rest they had been, so pure, so perfect, she thought God must have given them to her as a keepsake, to remind her of His love, and to strengthen her in the way of duty. Some will perhaps think it an unnatural thing that Mary should have regarded her pledge to the Doctor as of so abso- lute and binding a force, but they must remember the rigidity of her education. Self-denial and self-sacrifice had been the daily bread of her life. Every prayer, hymn, and sermon from her childhood had warned her to distrust her inclina- tions and regard her feelings as traitors. In particular had she been brought up within a superstitious tenacity in regard to the sacredness of a promise, and in this case the promise involved so deeply the happiness of a friend whom she had loved and revered all her life, that she never thought of any way of escape from it. She had been taught that there was no feeling so strong but that it might be immediately repressed at the call of duty, and if the idea arose to her of this great love to another as standing in her way, she immediately Q 320 THE MINISTEK'S WOOING. answered it by saying ' How would it nave been if I had been married ? As I could have overcome then, so I can now.' Mrs. Scudder came into her room with a candle in her hand, and Mary, accustomed to read the expressions of her mother's face, saw at a glance a visible discomposure there. She held the light so that it shone upon Mary's face. * Are you asleep ?' she said. * No, mother.' * Are you unwell ?' ' No, mother ; only a little tired.' Mrs. Scudder set down the candle and shut the door, and after a moment's hesitation, said, * My daughter, I have some news to tell you, which I want you to prepare your mind for. Keep yourself quite quiet. * Oh, mother,' said Mary, stretching out her hands towards her, ' I know it, James has come home.' ' How did you hear ?' said her mother with astonishment. 1 I have seen him, mother.' Mrs. Scudder's countenance fell. 1 Where ?' ' I went to walk home with Cerinthy Twitchel, and as I was coming back he came up behind me just at Savin rock.' Mrs. Scudder sat down on the bed, and took^ her daughter's hand. ' I trust, my dear child,' she said and stopped. * I think I know what you are going to say, mother. It is a great joy and a great relief, but of course I shall be true to my engagement with the Doctor.' Mrs. Scudder's face brightened. * That is my own daughter ! I might have known that you would do so. You would not, certainly, so cruelly disappoint a noble man that has set his whole faith on you.' * No, mother, I shall not disappoint him. I told James that I should be true to my word.' ' He will probably see the justice of it,' said Mrs. Scudder, in that easy tone with which elderly people are apt to dispose of the feelings of young persons. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 321 * Perhaps it may be something of a trial at first.' Mary looked at her mother with incredulous blue eyes. The idea that feelings which made her hold her breath when she thought of them could be so summarily disposed of, struck her as almost an absurdity. She turned her face weariedly to the wall with a deep sigh, and said, * After all, mother, it is mercy enough and comfort enough to think that he is living. Poor cousin Ellen, too, what a relief to her ! it is like life from the dead. Oh ! I shall be happy enough, no fear of that.' ' And you know,' said Mrs. Scudder, { that there has never existed any engagement of any kind between you and James. He had no right to found any expectations on anything you ever told him.' ' That is true also, mother,' said Mary ; ' I had never thought of such a thing as marriage in relation to James.' ' Of course,' pursued Mrs. Scudder, he will always be to you as a near friend.' Mary assented wearily. ' There is but a week now before your wedding,' continued Mrs. Scudder, ' and I think cousin James, if he is reasonable, will see the propriety of your mind being kept as quiet as possible. I heard the news this afternoon in town,' pursued Mrs. Scud- der, ' from Captain Staunton, and, by a curious coincidence, I received this letter from him from James, which came from New York by post. The brig that brought it must have been delayed out of the harbour.' ' Oh, please mother, give it to me !' said Mary, rising up with animation ; ' he mentioned having sent me one.' ' Perhaps you had better wait till morning,' said Mrs. Scud- dor ; ' you are tired and excited.' ' Oh, mother, I think I shall be more composed when I know all that is in ijt,' said Mary, still stretching out her hand. 'Well, my" daughter, you are the best judge,' said Mrs. Scudder ; and she set down the candle on the table, and left Mary alone. It was a very thick letter, of many pages, dated in Canton, and ran as follows : Q2 322 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. CHAPTER XXXVI. ' MY DEAREST MARY, I have lived through many wonderful scenes since I saw you last ; my life has been so adventurous that I scarcely know myself when I think of it. But it is not of that I am going now to write ; I have written all that to mother, and she will show it to you : but since I parted from you there has been another history going on within me, and that is what I wish to make you understand if I can. ' It seems to me that I have been a changed man from that afternoon when I came to your window where we parted. I have never forgotten how you looked then, nor what yon said ; nothing in my life ever had such an effect on me. I thought that I loved you before ; but I went away feeling that love was something so deep, and high, and sacred, that / was not worthy to name it to you ; I cannot think of the man in the world that is worthy of what you said you felt for me. From that hour there was a new purpose in my soul a purpose which has led me upward ever since. ' I thought to myself in this way, " There is some secret source from whence this inner life springs ;" and I knew that it was connected with the Bible which you gave me, and so I thought I would read it carefully and deliberately, to see what I could make of it. I began with the beginning ; it im- pressed me with a sense of something quaint and strange something rather fragmentary ; and yet there were spots all along that went right to the heart of a man who has to deal with life and things as I did. ' Now I must say that the Doctor's preaching, as I told you, never impressed me much in any way. I could not make any connection between it and the men I had to manage, and THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 323 the things I had to do in my daily life. But there were things in the Bible that struck me otherwise ; there was one passage in particular, and that was where Jacob started off 'from all his friends, to go off and seek his fortune in a strange country, and lay down to sleep all alone in the field, with only a stone for his pillow. It seemed to me exactly the image of what every young man is like when he leaves his home, and goes out to shift for himself in this hard world. I tell you, Mary, that me man alone on the great ocean of life feels himself a very weak thing : we are held up by each other more than we know, till we go off by ourselves into this great experiment. Well, there he was, as lonesome as / upon the deck of my ship ; and so lying with this stone under his head, he saw a ladder in his sleep between him and heaven, and angels going up and down. That was a sight which came to the very point of his necessities ; he saw that there was a way between him and God, and that there were those above who did care for him, and who could come to him to help him. ' Well, so the next morning he got up, and set up the stone to mark the place ; and it says " Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." Now there was something that looked to me like a tangible foundation to begin on. 'If I understand Dr. Hopkins, I believe he would have called that all selfishness. At first sight it does look a little so, but then I thought of it in this way. Here he was, all alone ; God was entirely invisible to him, and how could he feel certain that He really existed unless he could come into some kind of connection with Him ? The point that he wanted to be sure of was more than merely to know that there was a God who made the world ; he wanted to know whether He cared anything about men, and would do anything to help them. ' And so, in fact, it was saying " If there is a God who interests himself at all in me, and will be my friend and pro- tector, I will obey Him so far as I can find out His will." ' I thought to myself, " This is the great experiment, and I 324 THE MINISTEK'S \VOOIXG. will try it." I made in my heart exactly tlie same resolution, and just quietly resolved to assume for a while, as a fact, that there was such a God, and whenever I came to a place where I could not help myself, just to ask His help honestly in so many words, and see what would come of it. ' Well, as I went on reading through the Old Testament, I was more and more convinced that all the men of those times had tried this experiment, and found that it would bear them ; and, in fact, I did begin to find in my own experience a great many things happening so remarkably that I could not but think that somebody did attend even to my prayers : I began to feel a trembling faith that somebody was guiding me, and that the events of my life were not happening by accident, but working themselves out by His will. ' Well, as I went on in this way there were other and higher thoughts kept rising in my mind. I wanted to be better than I was ; I had a sense of a life much nobler and purer than anything I had ever lived, that I wanted to come up to. But in the world of men, as I found it, such feelings are always laughed down as romantic and impracticable and impossible. But about this time I began to read the New Testament, and then the idea came to me that the same Power that helped me in the lower sphere of life would help me carry out these higher aspirations. Perhaps the Gospels would not have interested me so much if I had begun with them first ; but my Old Testament life seemed to have schooled me, and brought me to a place where I wanted something higher, and I began to notice that my prayers now were more that I might be noble, and patient, and self-denying, and con- stant in my duty, than for any other kind of help. And then I understood what met me in the very first of Matthew, " He shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." ' I began now to live a new life, a life in which I felt my- self coming into sympathy with you ; for, Mary, when I began to read the gospels I took knowledge of you, that you had been with Jesus. ' The crisis of my life was that dreadful night of the ship- THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 325 wreck. It was as dreadful as the day of judgment. No words of mine can describe to you what I felt when I knew that our rudder was gone, and saw those hopeless rocks before us what I felt for our poor men ! but in the midst of it all the words came into my mind, " And Jesus was in the hinder part of the vessel asleep on a pillow," and at once I felt He icas there ; and when the ship struck, I was only conscious of an intense going out of my soul to Him, like Peter's when he threw himself from the ship to meet Him in the waters. ' I will not recapitulate what I have already written the wonderful manner in which I was saved, and in which friends, and help, and prosperity, and worldly success came to me again after life had seemed all lost, but now I am ready to return to my country, and I feel as Jacob did when he said, " \\ith my staff I passed over this Jordan, but now am I be- come two bands." I do not need any arguments now to con- vince me that the Bible is from above. There is a great deal in it that I cannot understand a great deal that seems to me inexplicable ; but all I can say is, that I have tried its direc- tions, and find that in my case they do work ; that it is a book that I can live by, and that is enough for me. ' And now, Mary, I am coming home again quite another man from what I went out; with a whole new world of thought and feeling in my 'heart, and a new purpose, by which, please God, I mean to shape my life. All this, under God, I owe to you ; and if you will let me devote my whole life to you, it will be a small return for what you have done for me. 4 You know I left you wholly free : others must have seen your loveliness and felt your worth, and you may have learnt to love some better man than I ; but I know not what hope tells me that this will not be, and I shall find true what the Bible says of love, that " many waters cannot quench it, nor floods drown." In any case I shall be always from my very heart -yours, and yours only, till death. 'JAMES Mary rose after reading this letter wrapped into a divine 326 ' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. state of exaltation, the pure joy in contemplating an infinite good to another, in which the question of self was utterly for- gotten. He was then what she had always hoped and prayed he would be, and she pressed the thought triumphantly to her heart. He was that true and victorious man ; that Christian able to subdue life, and to show in a perfect and healthy manly nature a reflection of the image of the superhuman excellence. Her prayers that night were aspirations and praises ; and she felt how possible it might be so to appropriate the gcod, and the joy, and the nobleness of others, so as to have in them an eternal and satisfying pleasure. And with this came the dearer thought that she in her weakness and solitude had been permitted to put her hand to the beginning of a work so noble. The consciousness of good done to an immortal spirit is wealth that neither life nor death can take away. And so, having prayed, she lay down with that sleep which God giveth to His beloved. THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 327 CHAPTER XXXVII. IT is a hard condition of our existence here, that every exalta- tion must have its depression. God will not let us have heaven here below, but only such glimpses and faint showings as pa- rents sometimes give to children when they show them before- hand the jewelry and pictures, and stores of rare and curious treasures, which they hold in store for the possession of their riper years. So it very often happens that the man who, en- tranced by some rapturous excitement, has gone to bed an angel, feeling as if all sin were for ever vanquished, and he himself immutably grounded in love, may wake the next morn- ing with a sick headache ; and if he be not careful may scold about his breakfast like a miserable sinner. We will not say that our dear little Mary rose in this condi- tion next morning ; for although she had the headache, she had one of those natures in which somehow or other the com- bative element seems to be left out, so that no one ever knew her to speak a fretful word. But still, as we have observed, she had the headache and the depression, and then came the slow, creeping sense of a wakening-up through all her heart and soul, of a thousand thousand things that could be said only to one person, and that person one that it would be temptation and danger to say them to. She came out of her room to her morning work with a face resolved and calm, but expressive of languor, with slight signs of some inward struggle. Madame de Frontignac, who had already heard the intelli- gence, threw two or three of her bright glances upon her at breakfast, and at once divined how the matter stood. She was of a nature so delicately sensitive to the most refined shades of Q3 328 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. lionour, that she apprehended at once that there must be a con- flict ; though, judging by her own impulsive nature, she made no doubt that all would at once go down before the mighty force of reawakened love. After breakfast she would insist upon following Mary about through all her avocations. She possessed herself of a towel, and would wipe the teacups and saucers while Mary washed. She clinked the glasses and rattled the cups and spoons, and stepped about as briskly as if she had two or three breezes to carry her train ; and chattered half-English and half-French, for the sake of bringing into Mary's cheek the shy, slow dimples that she liked to watch. But still Mrs. Scudder was around, with an air as provident and forbidding as that of a setting hen who watches her nest ; nor was it till after all things had been cleared away in the house, and Mary had gone up into her little attic to spin, that the opportunity long sought came, of diving to the bottom of this mystery. ' Enfin, Marie, nous wild ! are you not going to tell me any- thing, when I have turned my heart out to you like a bag ? Chere enfant ! how happy you must be !' she said, embracing her. 4 Yes, I am very happy,' said Mary, with calm gravity. * Very happy /' said Madame de Frontignac, mimicking her manner. ' Is that the way you American girls show it when you are very happy ? Come, come, ma belle, tell little Ver- ginie something. Thou hast seen this hero, this wandering Ulysses. He has come back at last the tapestry will not be quite as long as Penelope's. Speak to me of him. Has he beautiful black eyes, and hair that curls like a grape-vine ? Tell me, ma bette. y ' I only saw him a little while,' said Mary ; ' and I felt a great deal more than I saw. He could not have been any clearer to me than he always has been in my mind.' ' But I think,' said Madame de Frontignac, seating Mary as was her wont, and sitting down at her feet, ' I think you are a little "triste" about this! Very likely you pity the poor priest ! It is sad for him, but a good priest has the church for his bride, you know.' THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 329 You do not think,' said Mary, speaking seriously, ' that I shall break my promise, given before God, to this good man?' ' Mon Dieu, mon enfant ! You do not mean to marry the priest after all ! Quelle idee !' ' But I promised him,' said Mary. Madame de Frontignac threw up her hands with an expres- sion of vexation. ' What a pity, my little one, you are not in the true Church ! Any good priest could dispense you from that.' ' I do not believe,' said Mary, ' in any earthly power that can dispense us from solemn obligations which we have as- sumed before God, and on which we have suffered others to build the most precious hopes. If James had won the affec- tions of some girl, thinking as I do, I should not feel it right for him to leave her and come to me. The Bible says that the just man is he that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.' ' This is the sublime of duty !' said Madame de Frontignac, who, with the airy facility of her race, never lost her apprecia- tion of the fine points of anything that went on under her eyes. But nevertheless she was inwardly resolved, that picturesque as this ' sublime of duty ' was, it must not be allowed to pass beyond the limits of a fine art, and so she recommenced. ' Mais c'est absurde ! This beautiful young man, with his black eyes and his curls a real hero a Theseus, Mary ; just come home from killing a Minotaur and loves you with his whole heart and this dreadful promise ! Why haven't you any sort of people in your Church that can unbind you from promises ? I should tbink the good priest himself would do it !' 'Perhaps he would,' said Mary, 'if I would ask him; but that would be equivalent to a breach of it. Of course no man would many a woman that asked to be dispensed.' 'You are an angel of delicacy, my child ; c'est admirable! but after all, Mary, this is not well ! Listen now to me : you are a very sweet saint, and very strong in goodness. I think you must have a very strong angel that takes care of you ; but think, chere enfant, think what it is to marry one man while you love another.' 330 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ' But I love the Doctor,' said Mary, evasively. ' Love !' said Madame de Frontignac. ' Oh, Marie ! you may love him well, but you and I both know that there is some- thing deeper than that ! "What will you do with this young- man ? Must he move away from this place, and not be with his poor mother any more ? Or can you see him, and hear him, and be with him after your marriage, and not feel that you love him more than your husband ?' ' I should hope that God would help me to feel right,' said Mary. 'I am very much afraid He will not, ma chereT said Madame. ' I asked Him a great many times to help me when I found how wrong it all was, and He did not. You remember what you told me the other day, " that if I would do right I must not see that man any more." You will have to ask him to go away from this place. You can never see him, for this love will never die till you die ! That you may be sure of. Is it wise ? Is it right, 'dear little one ? Must he leave his home for ever for you ? Or must you struggle always, and grow whiter and whiter and whiter, and fade away into heaven like the moon this morning, and nobody know what is the matter? People will say you have the liver-complaint, or the consumption, or something. Nobody ever knows what we women die of.' Poor Mary's conscience was fairly posed. This appeal struck upon her sense of right, as having its grounds. She felt inexpressibly confused and distressed. 4 Oh, I wish somebody would _tell me exactly what is right !' she said. ' Well, J will !' said Madame de Frontignac. ' Go down to the dear priest and tell him the whole truth. My dear child, do you think if he should ever find it out after your mar- riage, he would think you used him right ?' ' And yet mother does not think so ! Mother does not wish me to tell him !' ' Pauvrette ! Always the mother ! Yes, it is always the mothers that stand in the way of the lovers. Why cannot she marry the priest herself ?' she said, between her teeth, THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 331 and then looked up, startled and guilty, to see if Mary had heard her. ' I cannot /' said Mary. ' I cannot go against my con- science, and my mother, and my best friend ' At this moment the conference was cut short by Mrs. Scudder's provident footstep on the garret stairs. A vague suspicion of something French had haunted her during her dairy-work, and she resolved to come and put a stop to the interview by telling Mary that Miss Prissy wanted her to come and be measured for the skirt of her dress. Mrs. Scudder, by the use of that sixth sense peculiar to mothers, had divined that there had been some agitating con- ference, and had she been questioned about it, her guesses as to what it might be, would probably have given no bad resume of the real state of the case. She was inwardly re- solved that there should be no more such for the present, and kept Mary employed about various matters relating to the dresses so scrupulously, that there was no opportunity for anything more of the sort that day. In the evening James Marvyn came down, and was wel- comed with the greatest demonstrations of joy by all but Mary, who sat distant and embarrassed after the first saluta- tions had passed. The Doctor was innocently parental ; but we fear there was small reciprocation of the sentiments he expressed on the part of the young man. Miss Prissy, indeed, had had her heart somewhat touched, as good little women's hearts are apt to be by a true love story, and had hinted something of her feelings to Mrs. Scudder in a manner which brought such a severe rejoinder as quite hum- bled and abashed her, so that she ceweringly took refuge under her former declaration, that ' to be sure there couldn't be any man in the world better worthy of Mary than the Doctor.' While still at her heart she was possessed with that troublesome preference for unworthy people which stands in the way of so many excellent things. But she went on vigorously sewing on the wedding-dress, and pursing up her small mouth into the most perfect and guarded expression of 332 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. non-committal, though she said afterwards 'it -went to her heart to see how that poor young man did look sitting there, just as noble and as handsome as a pictur'. She didn't see for Tier part how anybody's heart could stand it. Then, to be sure, as Mrs. Scudder said, the poor Doctor ought to be thought about. Dear, blessed man! What a pity it was things would turn out so ! Not that it was a pity that Jim came home ! That was a great providence ! But a pity they hadn't known about it sooner. "* Well, for her part, she didn't pretend to say ; the path of duty did have a great many hard places in it,' &c. As for James, during his interview at the cottage, he waited and tried in vain for one moment's solitary conversa- tion. Mrs. Scudder was immovable in her motherly kind- ness, sitting there smiling and chatting with him, but never stirring from her place by Mary. Madame de Frontignac was out of all patience, and deter- mined in her small way to do something to discompose the fixed state of things. So, retreating to her room, she con- trived, in very desperation, to upset and break a wash- pitcher, shrieking violently in French and English at the deluge which came upon the sanded floor and the little piece of carpet by the bedside. What housekeeper's instincts are proof against the crash of breaking china ? Mrs. Scudder fled from her seat, followed by Miss Prissy ' Ah, then and there -was hurrying to and fro' while Mary sat, quiet as a statue, bending over her sew- ing, and James, knowing that it must be now or never, was, like a flash, in the empty chair by her side, with his black moustache very near the bent, brown head. ' Mary,' he said, ' you mmt let me see you once more. All is not said ! is it ? Just hear me hear me once alone !' ' Oh, James ! I am too weak ! I dare not ! I am afraid of myself.' * You think,' he said, ' that you must take this course, because it is right ; but is it right ? Is it right to marry one THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 333 man when you love another better ? I don't put this to your inclination, Mary ; I know it would be of no use. I put it to your conscience.' ' Oh, I never was so perplexed before !' said Mary. ' I don't know what I do think. I must have time to reflect. And you, oh, James ! you must let me do right. There will never be any happiness for me if I do wrong nor for you either.' All this^ while the sounds of running and hurrying in Madame de Frontignac's room had been unintermitted, and Miss Prissy, not without some glimmerings of perception into the state of things, was holding tight on to Mrs. Scudder's gown, detailing to her a most capital receipt for mending broken china, the history of which she traced regularly through all the families in which she had ever worked, varying the details with small items of family history, and little incidents as to the births, marriages, and deaths of different people for whom it had been employed, with all the particulars of how, where, and when, so that the time of James for conversation was by this means indefinitely extended. * Now,' he said to Mary, ' let me propose one thing. Let me go to the Doctor and tell him the truth.' ' James, it does not seem to me that I can. A friend who has been so considerate, so kind, so self-sacrificing and disin- terested, and whom I have allowed to go on with this implicit faith in me so long. Should you, James, think of yourself only ? 1 1 do not, I trust, think of myself only,' said James. ' I hope that I am calm enough and have a heart to think for others. But I ask you, is it doing right to him to let him marry you in ignorance of the state of your feelings ? Is it a kindness to a good and noble man to give yourself to him only seemingly, when the best and noblest part of your affec- tion is gone wholly beyond your control. I am quite sure of tliat, Mary. I know you do love him very well, that you would make a most true, affectionate, constant wife to him, but what I know you feel for me is something wholly out of your power to give to him, is it not now ?' 'I think it is,' said Mary, looking gravely and deeply thoughtful. ' But then, James, I ask myself, what if all this 334 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. had happened a week hence ? My feelings would have been just the same, because they are feelings over which I have no more control than over my existence. I can only control the expression of them. But in that case you would not have asked me to break my marriage vow, and why now shall I break a solemn vow deliberately made before God ? If what I can give him will content him, and he never knows that which would give him pain, what wrong is done him ?' ' I should think the deepest possible wrong done me,' said James, ' if, when I thought I had married a wife with a whole heart, I found that the greater part of it had been before that given to another. If you tell him, or if I tell him, or your mother, who is the more proper person, and he chooses to hold you to your promise, then, Mary, I have no more to say. I shall sail in a few weeks again, and carry your image for ever in my heart ; nobody can take that away, and that dear shadow will be the only wife I shall ever know.' At this moment Miss Prissy came rattling along towards the door, talking, we suspect designedly, in quite a high key. Mary hastily said, ' Wait, James, let me think. To-morrow is the Sabbath- day. Monday I will send you word or see you.' And when Miss Prissy returned into the best room, James was sitting at one window and Mary at another, he making remarks in a style of most admirable commonplace on a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, which he had picked up in the con- fusion of the moment, and which at the time Mrs. Katy Scud- der entered, he was declaring to be a most excellent book, and a really truly valuable work. Mrs. Scudder looked keenly from one to the other, and saw that Mary's cheek was glowing like the deepest heart of a pink shell, while in all other respects she was as cold and calm. On the whole she felt satisfied that no mischief had been done. We hope our readers will do Mrs. Scudder justice. It is true that she yet wore on her third finger the marriage ring of a sailor lover, and his memory was yet fresh in her heart ; but even mothers who have married for love themselves THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 335 somehow so blend their daughter's existence with their own as to conceive that she must marry their love and not her own. Beside this, Mrs. Scudder was an Old Testament woman, brought up with that scrupulous exactitude of fidelity in rela- tion to promises which would naturally come from familiarity with a book where covenant-keeping is represented as one of the highest attributes of Deity, and covenant-breaking as one of the vilest sins of humanity. To break the word that had gone forth out of one's mouth was to lose self-respect and all claim to the respect of others, and to sin against eternal rectitude. As we have said before, it is almost impossible to make our light-minded modern times comprehend the earnestness with which these people lived. It was in the beginning no vulgar nor mercenary ambition that made Mrs. Scudder desire the Doctor as a husband for her daughter. He was poor, and she had had offers from richer men. He was often unpopular, but he was the man in the world she most revered, the man she believed in with the most implicit faith, the man who embo- died her highest idea of the good ; and therefore it was that she was willing to resign her child to him. As to James, she had felt truly sympathetic with his mother and with Mary in the dreadful hour when they supposed him lost, and had it not been for the great perplexity occasioned by his return she would have received him as a relative with open arms. But now she felt it her duty to be on the defen- sive, an attitude not the most favourable for cherishing pleasing associations in regard to another. She had read the letter giving an account of his spiritual experience with very .sincere pleasure as a good woman should, but not without an internal perception how very much it endangered her favourite plans. But when Mary had calmly reiterated her determina- tion, she , felt sure of her. For had she ever known her to say a thing she did not do ? The uneasiness she felt at present was not the doubt of her daughter's steadiness, but the fear that she might have been unsuitably harassed or annoyed. 336 THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE next morning rose calm and fair. It was the Sabbath- day ; the last Sabbath in Mary's maiden life if her promises and plans were fulfilled. Mary dressed herself in white her hands trembling with unusual agitation, her sensitive nature divided between two opposing consciences and two opposing affections. Her de- voted filial love towards the Doctor made her feel the keenest sensitiveness at the thought of giving him pain. At the same time, the questions which James had proposed to her had raised serious" doubts in her mind whether it was altogether right to suffer him blindly to enter into this union. So after she was all prepared, she bolted the door of her chamber, and opening her Bible, read, ' If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given ;' and then kneeling down by the bed, she asked that God would give her some immediate light in her present perplexity. So praying, her mind grew calm and steady, and she rose up at the sound of the bell which marked that it was time to set forward for church. Everybody noticed, as she came into the church that morn- ing, how beautiful Mary Scudder looked. It was no longer the beauty of the carved statue, the pale alabaster shrine, the sainted virgin, but a warm, bright, living light, that spoke of some summer breath breathing within her soul. When she took her place in the singers' seat she knew, without turning her head, that he was in his old place not far THE MINISTEE'S WOOING. 337 from her side, and those whose eyes followed her to the gallery marvelled at her face, where ' The pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so divinely wrought That you might almost say her hody thought ;' for a thousand delicate nerves were becoming vital once more, as the holy mystery of womanhood wrought within her. When they rose to sing, the tune must needs be one which Mary and James had often sung together out of the same book at the singing school one of those "wild, pleading tunes dear to the heart of New England, born, if we may credit the report, in the rocky hollow of its mountains, and whose notes have a kind of grand and mournful triumph in their warbling wail. The different parts of the harmony, set contrary to all the canons of musical pharisaism, had still a singular and ro- mantic effect, which a true musical genius would not have failed to recognize. The four parts, tenor, treble, bass, and counter, as they were then called, rose and swelled and wildly mingled with the fitful strangeness of an u^Eolian harp, or of winds in mountain hollows, or the vague meanings of the sea on lone, forsaken shores. And Mary, while her voice rose over the waves of the treble, and trembled with a pathetic richness, felt to her inmost heart the deep accord of that other voice which came to meet hers so wildly melancholy, as if the soul in that manly breast had come forth to meet her soul in the disembodied shadowy verity of eternity. That grand old tune, called by our fathers ' China,' never, with its dirge- like melody, drew two souls more out of themselves and en- twined them more nearly with each other. The last verse of the hymn spoke of the resurrection of the saints with Christ ' Then let the last dread trumpet sound, And bid the dead arise ; Awake, ye nations underground, Ye saints, ascend the skies.' And r,s Mary sang she felt sublimely upborn with the idea that life is but a moment and love is immortal, and seemed in a shadowy trance to feel herself and him past this mortal pain far over on the shores of that other life, ascending 338 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. with Christ all glorified, all tears wiped away, and with full permission to love and to be loved for ever. And as she sang, the Doctor looked upward and marvelled at the light in her eyes and the rich "bloom on her cheek, for where she stood a sunbeam, streaming aslant through the dusty panes of the window, touched her head with a kind of glory, and the thought he then received outbreathed itself in the yet more fervent adoration of his prayer. THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. 339 CHAPTER XXXIX. OUR fathers believed in special answers to prayer. They were not stumbled by the objection about the inflexibility of the laws of nature, because they had the idea that when the Creator of the world promised to answer human prayers, He probably understood the laws of nature as well as they did ; at any rate, the laws of nature were His affairs and not theirs. They were men very apt, as the Duke of Wellington said, to ' look to their marching-orders ;' which, being found to read, ' be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and sup- plication let your requests be made known unto God,' they did it. ' They looked unto Him, and were likened, and their faces were not ashamed.' One reads in the memoirs of Dr. Hopkins how Newport Gardner, one of his African catechu- mens, a negro of singular genius and ability, being desirous of his freedom, that he might be a missionary to Africa, and having long worked without being able to raise the amount required, was counselled by Dr. Hopkins that it might be a shorter way to seek his freedom from the Lord by a day of solemn fasting and prayer. The historical fact is, that on the evening of a day so consecrated his master returned from church, called Newport to him, and presented him with his freedom. Is it not possible that He who made the world may have established laws for prayer, as invariable as those for the sowing of seed and raising of grain ? Is it not as legi- timate a subject of inquiry when petitions are not answered, which of these laws has been neglected? But be that as it may, certain it is, that a train of events were set in operation this day which went directly towards an- swering Mary's morning supplication for guidance. Candace, 340 THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. who on this particular morning had contrived to place herself where she could see Mary and James in the singers' seat, had certain thoughts ' borne in ' on her mind, which bore fruit afterwards in a solemn and select conversation held with Miss Prissy at the end of the horse-shed by the meeting-house, during the intermission between the morning and afternoon sermons. Candace sat on a fragment of a granite boulder which lay there, her black face relieved against a clump of yellow mul- lens, then in majestic altitude. On her lap was spread a check pocket-handkerchief, containing rich slices of cheese and a store of her favourite brown dough-nuts. ' Now, Miss Prissy,' she said, ' der's reason in all things ; and a good deal more in some things dan der is in others. Dere's a good deal more reason in two young, handsome folks coming together dan der is in ' Candace finished the sentence by an emphatic flourish of her dough-nut. ' Now as long as everybody thought Massa Jim was dead, dere wa'n't nothin' in de world else to be done but for Miss Mary to marry the Doctor. But, good Lord ! I heard him a-talkin' to Mrs. Marvyn last night ; it kinder most broke my heart. "Why dem two poor creeturs dey's just as onhappy's dey can be ; and she's got too much feelin' for the Doctor to say a word, and I say he orter be told on't ; dat's what I say,' said Candace, giving a decisive bite to her dough-nut. ' I say so too,' said Miss Prissy : ' why I never had such feelings in my life as I did yesterday when that young man came down to our house ; he was just as pale as a cloth. I tried to say a word to Mrs. Scudder, but she snapped me up so ; she's an awful decided woman when her mind's made up. I was telling Cerinthy Ann Twitchel, she come round me this noon, that it didn't exactly seem to me right that things should go on as they're gone to ; and says I, " Cerinthy Ann, I don't know anything what to do." And says she, " If I was you, Miss Prissy, I know what I'd do ; I'd tell the Doctor." Says she, " Nobody ever takes offence at anything you do, Miss Prissy," To be sure,' added Miss Prissy, ' I have THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 341 talked to people about a good many things that it's rather strange I should, 'cause I ain't one somehow that can let things go that seem to want doing. I always told folks that I should spoil a novel before it got half-way through the first volume, by blirting out some of those things that they let go trailing on till everybody gets so mixed up they don't know what they're doing.' ' Well, now, honey,' said Candace, authoritatively, ef you've got any notion o' that kind, I think it must a come from de good Lord ; and I 'vise ye to be 'tendin' to it right away. You just go 'long and tell de Doctor yo'self all you knows, and den let's see what'll come on't. I tell you I b'lieves it'll be one o' the best day's works you ever did in your life.' ' Well,' said Miss Prissy, ' I guess to-night before I go to bed I'll make a dive at him. When a thing's once out it's out, and can't be got in again, even if people don't like it, and that's a mercy anyhow. It really makes me feel most wicked to think of it, for the Doctor is the blessedest man.' ' That's what he is,' said Candace. ' But den de blessedest men in the world ought fur to know de truth, that's what J think.' ' Yes, true enough,' said Miss Prissy, * I'll tell him any- way.' Miss Prissy was as good as her word, for that evening when the Doctor had retired to his study, she took her light in her hand, and walking softly as a cat, tapped rather timidly at the study door, which the Doctor opening, said be- nignantly ' Ah ! Miss Prissy !' * If you please, sir,' said Miss Prissy, I'd like a little conversation.' The Doctor was well enough used to such requests from the female members of his church, which generally were the pre- lude to some disclosures of internal difficulties or spiritual experiences. He therefore graciously motioned her to a chair. ' I thought I must come in,' she began, busily twirling a bit of her Sunday gown. ' I thought that is I felt it my duty 342 THE MINISTEK'S WOOING. I thought perhaps I ought to tell you that perhaps you ought to know ' The Doctor looked civilly concerned. He did not know but Miss Prissy's wits were taking leave of her. He replied, how- ever, with his usual honest stateliness, ' I trust, dear madam, that you will feel at perfect freedom to open to me any exercises of mind that you may have.' ' It isn't about myself,' said Prissy. ' If you please, it's about you, sir, and Mary.' The Doctor now looked awake in right earnest, and very much astonished besides ; and he looked eagerly at Miss Prissy to have her go on. ' I don't know how you would view such a matter,' said Miss Prissy ; ' but the fact is, that James Marvyn and Mary al- ways did love each other ever since they were children.' Still the Doctor was unawakened to the real meaning of the words, and he answered, simply, ' I should be far from wishing to interfere with so very na- tural and innocent a sentiment, which I make no doubt is all quite as it should be.' ' No ! but,' said Miss Prissy, ' you don't understand what I mean. I mean that James Marvyn wanted to marry Mar)', and that she was well ! she wasn't engaged to him but ' ' MADAM ! !' said the Doctor, in a voice that frightened Miss Prissy out of her chair, while a blaze like sheet-lightning shot from his eyes and his face flushed crimson. ' Mercy on us ! Doctor, I hope you'll excuse me, but there, the fact is out ! I've said it out ; the fact is they wa'n't en- gaged, but that Mary loved him ever since he was a boy, as she never will and never can love any man again in this world, is what I'm just as sure of as that I'm standing here ; and I've felt you ought to know it, 'cause I'm quite sure that if he'd been alive, she'd never given the promise she has the pro- mise that she means to keep if her heart breaks and his too : there wouldn't anybody tell you, and I thought I must tell you, 'cause I thought you'd know what was right to do about it.' During all this latter speech the Doctor was standing with his back to Miss Prissy and his face to the window, just as he THE MINISTERS WOOING. 343 did some time before when Mrs. Scudder came to tell him of Mary's consent. He made a gesture backward, without speak- ing, that she should leave the apartment ; and Miss Prissy left with a guilty kind of feeling, as if she had been plunging a knife in her pastor; and rushing distractedly across the entry into Mary's little bedroom, she bolted the door, threw herself on the bed, and began to cry. 'Well! I've done it,' she said to herself. 'He's a very strong, hearty man,' she soliloquized, ' so I hope it won't put him in a consumption. Men do go in a consumption about such things sometimes. I remember Abner Seaforth did but then he was always narrow-chested, and had the liver complaint, or something. I don't know what Mrs. Scudder will say, but I've done it. Poor man ! such a good man too ! I declare I feel just like Herod taking off John the Baptist's head. Well ! well ! it's done, and can't be helped.' Just at this moment Miss Prissy heard a gentle tap at the door, and started as if it had been a ghost not being able to rid herself of the impression that somehow she had committed a great crime, for which retribution was knocking at the door. It was Mary, who said, in her sweetest and most natural tones, ' Miss Prissy, the Doctor would like to see you.' Mary- was much astonished at the frightened, discomposed manner with which Miss Prissy received' this announcement, and said, ' I'm afraid I've waked you up out of sleep. I don't think there's the least hurry.' Miss Prissy didn't either ; but she reflected afterwards that she might as well get through with it at once, and therefore, faoothing her tumbled cap-border, she went to the Doctor's udy. This time he was quite composed, and received her with a mournful gravity, and requested her to be seated. ' I beg, madam,' he said, ' you will excuse the abruptness of my manner in our late interview. I was so little prepared for the communication you had to make that I was perhaps unsuitably discomposed. Will you allow me to ask whether you were requested by any of the parties to communicate to me what you did ?' ' No, sir,' said Miss Prissy. 344 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ' Have any of the parties ever communicated with you on the subject at all ?' said the Doctor. ' No, sir,' said Miss Prissy. 4 That is all,' said the Doctor. ' I will not detain you. I am very much obliged to you, madam.' He rose and opened the door for her to pass out, and Miss Prissy, overawed by the stately gravity of his manner, went out in silence. THE MINISTER S WOOING. 345 CHAPTER XL. WHEN Miss Prissy left the room the Doctor sat down by the table, and covered his face with his hands. He had a large, passionate, determined nature ; and he had just come to one of those cruel crises in life, in the which it is apt to seem to us that the whole force of our being all that we can hope, or wish, or feel has been suffered to gather itself into one great wave, only to break upon some cold rock of inevitable fate, and go back moaning into emptiness. In such hours men and women have cursed God and life, and thrown violently down and trampled under their feet what yet was left of life's blessings in the fierce bitterness of despair. This or nothing ! the soul shrieks in her frenzy. At just such points as these men have plunged into intem- perance and wild excess ; they, have gone to be shot down in battle ; they have broken life, and thrown it away like an empty goblet ; and gone like wailing ghosts out into the dread unknown. The possibility of all this lay in that heart which had just received that stunning blow. Exercised and disciplined as he had been by years of sacrifice, by constant, unsleeping self- vigilance, there was rising there in that great heart an ocean- tempest of passion ; and for a while his cries unto God seemed as empty and as vague as the screams of birds tossed and buf- feted in the clouds of mighty tempests. The will that he thought wholly subdued seemed to rise under him as a rebellious giant. A few hours before he thought himself established in an invincible submission to God that nothing could shake. Now, he looked into himself as into a seething vortex of rebellion ; and against all the pas- R2 3i6 THE MINISTER'S TVOOIXG. sionate cries of his lower nature, he could only (in the language of an old saint) ' cling to God by the naked force of his will.' That will was as determined and firm as that of Aaron Burr. It rested unmelted amid the boiling sea of passion, waiting its hour of renewed sway. He walked the room for hours ; and then sat down to his Bible, and wakened once or twice to find his head leaning on its pages, and his mind far gone in thoughts from which he woke with a bitter throb. Then he determined to set himself to some definite work ; and taking his Concord- ance, began busily tracing out and numbering all the proof- texts for one of the chapters of his theological system ; till at last he worked himself down to such calmness that he could pray ; and then he schooled and reasoned with himself in a style not unlike, in its spirit, to what a great modern author has addressed to suffering humanity, ' What is it that thou art fretting and self-tormenting about? Is it because thou art not happy ? Who told thee that thou wast to be happy ? Is there any ordinance of the universe that thou shouldst be happy ? Art thou nothing but a vulture screaming for prey ? Canst thou not do without happiness? Yea, thou canst do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness.' The Doctor came lastly to the conclusion that ' blessedness,' which was all the portion his Master had on earth, might do for him also. And therefore he kissed and blessed that silver dove of happiness, which he saw was weary of sailing in his clumsy old ark, and let it go out of his hand without a tear. He slept little that night, but when he came to breakfast all noticed an unusual gentleness and benignity of manner ; and Mary, she knew not why, saw tears rising in his eyes when he looked at her. After breakfast he requested Mrs. Scudder to step with him into his study ; and Miss Prissy shook in her little shoes as she saw the matron entering. The door was shut for a long time, and two voices could be heard in earnest conversation. Meanwhile James Marvyn entered the cottage, prompt to remind Mary of her promise, that she would talk with him again this morning. They had talked with each other but a few moments, by THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 347 the sweetbriar-shaded window in the best room, when Mrs. Scudcler appeared at the door of the apartment, with traces of tears upon her cheeks. ' Good morning, James,' she said. ' The Doctor wishes to see you and Mary a moment together.' Both looked sufficiently astounded, knowing from Mrs. Scud- der's looks that something was impending. They followed Mrs. Scudder, scarcely feeling the ground they trod on. The Doctor was sitting at his table with his favourite large- print Bible open before him. He rose to receive them with a manner at once gentle and grave. There was a pause of some minutes, during which he sat with his head leaning upon his hand. ' You all know,' he said, turning towards Mary who sat very near him, ' the near and dear relation in which I have been expected to stand towards this friend ; I should not have been worthy of that relation if I had not felt in my heart the true love of a husband as set forth in the New Testament ; who should " love his wife even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it ;" and if in case any peril or danger threat- ened this dear soul, and I could not give myself for her, I had never been worthy the honour she has done me. For I take it, wherever there is a cross or burden to be borne by one or the other, that the man who is made in the image of God, as to strength and endurance, should take it upon himself, and not lay it upon her that is weaker ; for he is therefore strong, not that he may tyrannize over the weak, but bear their bur- dens for them, even as Christ for His church. I have just discovered,' he added, looking kindly upon Mary, ' that there is a great cross and burden which must come, either on this dear child or on myself, through no fault of either of us, but through God's good providence ; and, therefore, let me bear it. ' Mary, my dear child,' he said, ' I will be to thee as a father ; but I will not force thy heart.' At this moment, Mary, by a sudden, impulsive movement, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, and lay sob- bing on his shoulder. ' No, no,' she said, ' I will marry you as I said.' ' Not if I will not, dear,' he said, with a benign smile . 348 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. ' Come here, young man,' lie said, with some authority, to James, ' I give thee this maiden to wife,' and he lifted her from his shoulder and placed her gently in the arms of the young man, who, overawed and overcome, pressed her silently to his heart. ' There, children, it is over,' he said. ' God bless you!' ' Take her away,' he added, ' she will be more composed soon.' Before James left, he grasped the Doctor's hand in his and said, ' Sir, this tells on my heart more than any sermon you ever preached, I shall never forget it. God bless you, sir !' The Doctor saw them slowly quit the apartment, and fol- lowing them, closed the door, and thus ended THE MINISTER'S WOOING. THE MINISTEE'S WOOING. 349 CHAPTEE XLI. OF the events which followed this scene, we are happy to give our readers more minute and graphic details than we ourselves could furnish, by transcribing for their edification an autograph letter of Miss Prissy's, still preserved in a black oaken cabinet of our great-grandmother's, and with which we take no further liberties than the correction of a somewhat peculiar orthography. It is written to that sister ' Martha ' in Boston, of whom she made such frequent mention, and who, it appears, it was her custom to keep posted up in all the gossip of her imme- diate sphere. 'Mr DEAR SISTER, ' You wonder, I s'pose, why I haven't written you ; but the fact is, I've been run just off my feet and worked till the flesh aches so, it seems as if it would drop off my bones with this wedding of Mary Scudder's. And, after all, you'll be astonished to hear that she ha'n't married the Doctor, but that Jim Marvyn that I told you about, who had such a won- derful escape from shipwreck. You see, he came home a week before the wedding was to be, and Mary, she was so conscientious, she thought 'twa'n't right to break off with the Doctor, and so she was for going right on with it ; and Mrs. Scudder, she was for going on more yet ; and the poor young man, he couldn't get a word in edgeways ; and there wouldn't anybody tell the Doctor a word about it, and there 'twas drifting along, and both on 'em feeling dreadfully ; and so I thought to myself I'll just take my life in my hand like Queen Esther, and go in and tell the Doctor all about it. 350 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. And so I did. I'm scared to death always when I think of it. But that dear, blessed man ! he took it like a saint. He just gave her up as serene and calm as a psalm-book, and called James in and told him to take her. Jim was fairly over- crowed it really made him feel small, and he says he'll agree that there is more in the Doctor's religion than most men's, which shows how important it is for professing Chris- tians to bear testimony in their works as I was telling Cerinthy Ann Twitchel, and she said there wa'n't anything made her want to be a Christian so much, if that was what religion would do for people. Well, you see, when this came out, it wanted just three days of the wedding, which was to be Thursday; and that wedding-dress I told you about, that had lilies of the valley on a white ground, was pretty much made, except puffing the gauze round the neck, which I do with white satin piping cord, and it looks beau- tiful too. And so Mrs. Scudder and I, we were thinking 'twould do just as well, when in came Jim Marvyn bringing the sweetest thing you ever saw, that he had got in China, and I think I never did see anything lovelier. It was a white silk, as thick as a board, and so stiff that it would stand alone, and overshot with little fine dots of silver, so that it shone when you moved it just like frost-work. And when I saw it I just clapped my hands and jumped up from the floor ; and says I, " If I have to sit up all night that dress shall be made, and made well too." For, you know, I thought I could get Miss Ollodine Hocum to run the breadth and do such parts, so that I could devote myself to the fine work ; and that French woman I told you about, she said she'd help, and she's a master-hand for touching things up. There seems to be work provided for all kinds of people, and French people seem to have a gift in all sorts of dressy things, and 't isn't a bad gift either. Well, as I was saying, we agreed that this was to be cut open with a train, and a petticoat of just the palest, sweetest, loveliest, blue that ever you saw, and gauze puffings down the edgings each side, fastened in, every once in a while, with lilies of the valley ; and 'twas cut square in the neck, with puffing and flowers to match ; and then, tight THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 351 sleeves with full ruffles of that old Mechlin lace that you re- member Mrs. Katy Scudder showed you once in that great camphor-wood trunk. Well, you see, come to get all things together that were to be done, we concluded to put off the wedding till Tuesday; and Madame de Frontignac she would dress the best room for it herself, and she spent no- body knows what time in going round and getting evergreens, and making wreaths, and putting up green boughs over the pictures, so that the room looked just like the Episcopal Church at Christmas. In fact, Mrs. Scudder said if it had been Christmas she wouldn't have felt it right, because it would be like encouraging prelacy ; but as it was, she didn't think anybody would think it any harm. Well, Tuesday night I and Madame de Frontignac we dressed Mary ourselves, and I tell you the dress fitted as if 'twas grown on her ; and Madame de Frontignac she dressed her hair, and she had on a wreath of lilies of the valley, and a gauze veil that came a'most down to her feet and came all around her like a cloud, and you could see her white shining dress through it eveiy time she moved. And she looked just as white as a snowberry ; but there were two little pink spots that came coming and going in her cheeks, that kind o' lightened up when she smiled, and then faded down again. And the French lady put a string of real pearls round her neck, with a cross of pearls, which went down and lay hid in her bosom. She was mighty calm-like while she was being dressed; but just as I was putting in the last pin, she started, for she heard the rumbling of a coach down stairs, for Jim Marvyn had got a real elegant carriage to carry her over to his father's in, and so she knew he was come ; and pretty soon Mrs. Marvyn came in the room, and when she saw Mary, her brown eyes kind o' danced, and she lifted up both hands to see how beautiful she looked ; and Jim Marvyn he was standing at the door, and they told him it wasn't proper that he should see till the time come. ' But he begged so hard that he might just have one peep, that I let him come in, and he looked at her as if she was something he wouldn't dare to touch, and he said to me softly, R3 352 THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. says he, " I'm 'most afraid she has got wings somewhere that will fly away from me, or that I shall wake up and find it is a dream." ' Well, Cerinthy Ann Twitchel was the bridesmaid, and she came next with that young man she is engaged to. It is all out now that she is engaged, and she don't deny it. ' And Cerinthy, she looked handsomer than I ever saw her, in a white brocade with rosebuds on it, which I guess she got in reference to the future, for they say she is going to be married next month. ' Well, we all filled up the room pretty well, till Mrs. Scud- der came in to tell us that the company were all together, and then they took hold of arms, and they had a little time prac- tising how they must stand ; and Cerinthy Ann's beau would always get her on the wrong side, 'cause he's rather bashful, and don't know very well what he's about ; and Cerinthy Ann declared she was afraid that she should laugh out in prayer- time, 'cause she always did laugh when she knew she mus'n't. ' But, finally, Mrs. Scudder told us we must go in, and looked so reprovingly at Cerinthy that she had to hold her mouth with her pocket-handkerchief. ' Well, the old Doctor was standing there in the very silk gown that the ladies gave him to be married in himself, poor, dear man ! and he smiled kind o' peaceful on 'em when they came in and walked up to a kind o' bower of evergreens and flowers that Madame de Frontignac had fixed for them to stand in. Mary grew rather white as if she was going to faint ; but Jim Marvyn stood up just as firm and looked as proud and handsome as a prince, and he kind o' looked down at her, 'cause you know he is a gieat deal taller, kind o' wondering as if he wanted to know if it was really so. Well, when they got all placed, they let the doors stand open, and Cato and Can dace came and stood in the door. And Candace had on her great splendid Mogadore turban, and a crimson and yellow shawl that she seemed to take comfort in wearing, although it was pretty hot. ' Well, so when they were all fixed, the Doctor he began his prayer ; and as most all of us knew what a great sacrifice he THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 353 had made, I don't believe there was a dry eye in the room ; and when he had done there was a great time people blow- ing their noses and wiping their eyes as if it had been a funeral. ' Then Cerinthy Ann she pulled off Mary's glove pretty quick; but that poor beau of hers, he made such work of James's that he had to pull it off himself after all, and Cerinthy Ann she like to have laughed out loud. ' And so, when the Doctor told them to join hands, Jim took hold of Mary's hand as if he didn't mean to let go very soon ; and so they were married, and I was the first one that kissed the bride after Mrs. Scudder. I got that promise out of Mary when I was making the dress. And Jim Marvyn he insisted upon kissing me, 'cause, says he, Miss Prissy, you are as young and handsome as any of them. And I told him he was a saucy fellow, and I'd box his ears if I could reach them. ' That French lady looked lovely, dressed in pale pink silk, with long pink wreaths of flowers in her hair ; and she came up and kissed Mary, and said something to her in French. ' And, after a while, old Candace came up, and Mary kissed her ; and then Candace put her arms round Jim's neck and gave him a real hearty smack, so that everybody laughed. ' And then the cake and the wine was passed round, and everybody had good times till we heard the nine-o'clock bell ring. And then the coach came up to the door, and Mrs. Scudder she wrapped Mary up, kissing her and crying over her ; while Mrs. Marvyn stood stretching her arms out of the coach after her. ' And then Cato and Candace went after in- the waggon be- hind, and so they all went off together, and that was the end of the wedding. And ever since then we ha'n't any of us done much but rest, for we were pretty much tired out. So no more at present from your affectionate sister ' PRISSY. ' P.S. (to Miss Prissy's letter). I forgot to tell you that Jim Marvyn has come home quite rich. He fell in with a man in China who was at the head of one of their great merchant- houses, whom he nursed through a long fever, and took care 354 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. of his business, and so when lie got well nothing would do but he must have him for a partner, and now he is going to live in this country and attend to the business of the house here. They say he is going to build a house as grand as the Vernons' ; and we hope he has experienced religion, and he means to join our church, which is a providence, for he is twice as rich and generous as that old Simon Brown that snapped me up so about my wages. I never believed in him for all his talk. I was down to Miss Scudder's when the Doctor examined Jim about his evidences. At first the Doc- tor seemed a little anxious 'cause he didn't talk in the regular way, for you know Jim always did have his own way of talk- ing, and never could say things in other people's words ; and sometimes he makes folks laugh when he himself don't know what they laugh at, because he hits the nail on the head in some strange way they ar'n't expecting. If I was to have died I couldn't help laughing at some things he said, and yet I don't think I ever felt more solemnized. He sat up there in a sort o' grand, straightforward, noble way, and told us all the way the Lord had been leading of him, and all the exercises of his mind ; and all about the dreadful shipwreck, and how he was saved, and the loving-kindness of the Lord, till the Doctor's spectacles got all blinded with tears, and he couldn't see th^ notes he made to examine him by ; and we all cried, Miss Scudder, and Mary, and I ; and as to Miss Marvyn, she just sat with her hands clasped, looking into her son's eyes, like a picture of the Virgin Mary ; and when Jim got through there wa'n't nothing to be heard for some minutes, and the Doctor he wiped his eyes and wiped his glasses, and he looked over his papers, but he couldn't bring out a word, and at last, says he, " Let us pray," for that was all there was to be said, for I think sometimes things so kind o' fills folks up that there a'n't nothin' to be done but pray, which the Lord be praised we are privileged to do always. Between you and I, Martha, I never could understand all the distinctions our dear, blessed Doctor sets up ; and when he publishes his system, if I work my fingers to the bone, I mean to buy one and study it out, be- cause he is such a blessed man ; though after all's said I have THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 355 to come back to my old place, and trust in the loving-kindness of the Lord, who takes care of the sparrow on the house-top and all small, lone creatures like me ; though I can't say I'm lone either, because nobody need say that so long as there's folks to be done for ; so if I don't understand the Doctor's theo- logy, or don't get eyes to read it on account of the fine stitching on his shirt ruffles I've been trying to do, still I hope I may be accepted on account of the Lord's great goodness ; for if we can't trust that, it's all over with us all.' 356 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. CHAPTER XLIL LAST WORDS. WE know it is fashionable to drop the curtain over a new- married pair as they recede from the altar, but we cannot but hope our readers may have by this time enough of interest in our little history to wish for a few words on the lot of the personages whose acquaintance they have thereby made. The conjectures of Miss Prissy in regard to the house which was to be built for the new-married pair were as speedily as possible realized. On a beautiful elevation, a little out of the town of Newport, rose a fair and stately mansion, whose windows overlooked the harbour, and whose wide cool rooms were adorned by the constant presence of the sweet face and form which has been the guiding-star of our story. The fair poetic maiden, the seeress, the saint, has passed into that appointed shrine for woman, more holy than cloister, more saintly and pure than church or altar a Christian home. Priestess, wife, and mother, there she minis- ters daily in holy works of household peace, and by faith and prayer and love redeems from grossness and earthliness the common toils and wants of life. The gentle guiding force that led James Marvyn from the maxims and habits and ways of this world to the higher con- ception of an heroic and Christ-like manhood was still ever present with him, gently touching the springs of life, brooding peacefully with dove-like wings over his soul, and he grew up under it noble in purpose and strong in spirit. He was one of the most energetic and fearless supporters of the Doctor in his life-long warfare against an inhumanity which was entrenched in all the mercantile interest of the day, and THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 357 which, at last fell before the force of conscience and moral Candace, in time, transferred her allegiance to the growing family of her young master and mistress ; and predominated proudly, in gorgeous raiment and butterfly turban, over a rising race of young Marvyns. All the cares not needed by them were bestowed on the somewhat garrulous old age of Cato, whose never-failing cough furnished occupation for all her spare hours and thought. As for our friend the Doctor, we trust our readers will appreciate the magnanimity with which he proved a real and disinterested love, in a point where so many men experience only the graspings of a selfish one. A mind so severely trained as his had been brings to a great crisis, involving severe self-denial, an amount of reserved moral force quite inexplicable to those less habituated to self-control. He was like a warrior whose sleep even was in armour, always ready to be roused to the conflict. In regard to his feelings for Mary, he made the sacrifice of himself to her happiness so wholly and thoroughly that there was not a moment of weak hesitation no going back over the past no vain regret. Generous and brave souls find a sup- port in such actions, because the very exertion raises them to a higher and purer plane of existence. His diary records the event only in these very calm and temperate words : ' It was a trial to me a very great trial ; but as she did not deceive me, I shall never lose my friend- ship for her.' The Doctor was always a welcome inmate in the house of Mary and James, as a friend revered and dear. Nor did he want in time a hearthstone of his own, where a bright and loving face made him daily welcome ; for we find that he married at last a woman of a fair countenance, and that sons and daughters grew up around him. In time, also, his theological system was published. In that day it was customary to dedicate new or important works to the patronage of some distinguished or powerful individual. The Doctor had no earthly patron. Four or five simple lines are found in the commencement of his work, in which, in a 358 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. spirit reverential and affectionate, he dedicates it to our Lord Jesus Christ, praying Him to accept the good, and to overrule the errors to His glory. Quite unexpectedly to himself the work proved a success, not only in public acceptance and esteem, but even in a tempo- ral view, bringing to him at last a modest competence, which he accepted with surprise and gratitude. To the last of a very long life he was the same steady undiscouraged worker, the same calm witness against popular sins and proclaimer of unpopular truths, ever saying and doing what he saw to be eternally true and right, without the slightest consultation with worldly expediency or earthly gain, nor did his words cease to work in New England till the evils he opposed were finally done away. Colonel Burr leaves the scene of our story to pursue those brilliant and unscrupulous political intrigues so well known to the historian of those times, and whose results were so disastrous to himself. His duel with the ill-fated Hamilton, and the awful retribution of public opinion that followed the slow downward course of a doomed life, are all on record. Chased from society, pointed at everywhere by the finger of hatred, so accursed in common esteem that even the publican who lodged him for a night refused to accept his money when he knew his name, heart-stricken in his domestic relation, his only daughter taken by pirates, and dying in untold horrors, one seems to see in a doom so much above that of other men the power of an avenging Nemesis for sins beyond those of ordinary humanity. But we who have learned of Christ may humbly hope that these crushing miseries in this life came not because he was a sinner above others, not in wrath alone, but that the prayers of the sweet saint who gave him to God even before his birth brought to him those friendly adversities that thus might be slain in his soul the evil demon of pride, which had been the opposing force to all that was noble within him. Nothing is more affecting than the account of the last hours of this man, whom a woman took in and cherished in his poverty and weakness with that same heroic enthusiasm with which it was his lot to inspire so many women. This humble keeper of lodgings was THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 359 told that if she retained Aaron Burr all her other lodgers would leave ' Let them do it then,' she said, ' but he shall remain.' In the same uncomplaining and inscrutable silence in which he had borne the reverses and miseries of his life did this singular being pass through the shades of the dark valley. The New Testament was always under his pillow, and when alone he was often found reading it attentively, but of the result of that communion with higher powers he said nothing. Patient, gentle, and grateful he was, as to all his inner history, entirely silent and impenetrable. He died with the request, which has a touching significance, that he might be buried at the feet of those parents whose sainted lives had finished so diiferently from his own. ' No farther seek his errors to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode.' Shortly after Mary's marriage Madame de Frontignac sailed with her husband to France, where they lived in a very re- tired way on a large estate in the south of France. A close correspondence was kept up between her and Mary for many years, from which we shall give our readers a few extracts. The first is dated shortly after their return to France. ' At last, my sweet Marie, you behold us in peace after our wanderings. I wish you could see our lovely nest in the hills, which overlooks the Mediterranean, whose blue waters remind me of Newport harbour and our old days there. Ah, my sweet saint, blessed was the day I first learned to know you ! for it was you more than anything else that kept me back from sin and misery. I call you my Sibyl, dearest, because the Sibyl was a prophetess of divine things out of the church ; and so are you. The Abbe says that all true, devout persons in all persuasions belong to the true Catholic Apostolic Church, and will in the end be enlightened to know it ; what do you think of that, ma belle ? I fancy I see you look at me with your grave, innocent eyes, just as you used to ; but you say nothing. ' I am far happier, ma Marie, than I ever thought I could be. I took your advice, and told my husband all I had felt and suffered. It was a very hard thing to do ; but I felt how true it 360 THE MINISTER'S WOOIXG. was, as you said, there could be no real friendship without perfect truth at bottom ; so I told him all, and he was very- good, and noble, and helpful to me ; and since then he has been so gentle, and patient, and thoughtful, that no mother could be kinder, and I should be a very bad woman if I did not love him truly and dearly I do. * I must confess that there is still a weak, bleeding place in my heart that aches yet, but I try to bear it bravely ; and when I am tempted to think myself very miserable, I remem- ber how patiently you used to go about your housework and spinning in those sad days when you thought your heart was drowned in the sea ; and I try to do like you. I have many duties to my servants and tenants, and mean to be a good chatelaine ; and I find when I nurse the sick and comfort the poor that my sorrows seem lighter. For after all, Mary, I have lost nothing that ever was mine only my foolish heart has grown to something that it should not, and bleeds at being torn away. Nobody but Christ and His dear mother can tell what this sorrow is ; but they know, and that is enough.' The next letter is dated some three years after. ' You see me now, my Marie, a proud and happy woman. I was truly envious when you wrote me of the birth of your little son ; but now the dear good God has sent a sweet little angel to me, to comfort my sorrows and lie close to my heart ; and since he came all pain is gone. Ah, if you could see him ! he has black eyes and lashes like silk, and such little hands ! even his finger-nails are all perfect, like little gems ; and when he puts his little hand on my bosom I tremble with joy. Since he came I pray always, and the good God seems very- near to me. Now I realize as I never did before the sublime thought that God revealed himself in the infant Jesus ; and I bow before the manger of Bethlehem where the Holy Babe was laid. What comfort, what adorable condescension for us mothers in that scene ! My husband is so moved he can scarce stay an hour from the cradle ! He seems to look at me with a sort of awe, because I know how to care for this pre- cious treasure that he adores without daring to touch. We are going to call him Henri, which is my husband's name and that of his ancestors for many generations back. I vow for THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 361 him an eternal friendship with the son of my little Marie ; and I shall try and train him up to be a brave man and a true Christian. Ah, Marie, this gives me something to live for. My heart is full a whole new life opens before me !' Somewhat later, another letter announces the birth of a daughter, and later still, that of another son ; but we shall only add one more, written some years after, on hearing of the great reverse of popular feeling towards Burr, subse- quently to his duel with the ill-fated Hamilton. ' Ma chere Marie Your letter has filled me with grief. My noble Henri, who already begins to talk of himself as my pro- tector (these boys feel their manhood so soon, ma Marie), saw by my face when I read your letter that something pained me, and he would not rest till I told him something about it. Ah, Marie, how thankful I then felt that I had nothing to blush for before my son ! how thankful for those dear children whose little hands had healed all the morbid places of my heart, so that I could think of all the past without a pang ! I told Henri that the letter brought bad news of an old friend, but that it pained me to speak of it ; and you would have thought by the grave and tender way he talked to his mamma that the boy was an experienced man of forty, to say the least. * But Marie, how unjust is the world ; how unjust both in praise and blame ! Poor Burr was the petted child of society : yesterday she doted on him, nattered him, smiled on his faults, and let him do what he would without reproof; to-day she flouts, and scorns, and scoffs him, and refuses to see the least good in him. I know that man, Mary, and I know that sinful as he may be before Infinite Purity, he is not so much worse than all the other men of his time. Have I not been in America ? I know Jefferson ; I knew poor Hamilton peace be with the dead ! Neither of them had lives that could bear the sort of trial to which Burr's is subjected. When every secret fault, failing, and sin is dragged out and held up with- out mercy, what man can stand ? ' But I know what irritates the world is that proud, disdain- ful calm which will neither give sigh nor tear. It was not that he killed poor Hamilton, but that he never seemed to 362 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. care ! Ah, there is that evil demon of his life ! that cold, stoical pride, which haunts him like a fate. But I know he does feel ; I know he is not as hard at heart as he tries to be ; I have seen too many real acts of pity to the unfortunate, of tenderness to the weak, of real love to his friends to believe that. Great have been his sins against our sex, and God for- bid that the mother of children should speak lightly of them ; but is not so susceptible a temperament, and so singular a power to charm as he possessed, to be taken into account in estimating his temptations ? Because he is a sinning man, it does not follow that he is a demon. If any should have cause to think bitterly of him, I should. He trifled inexcusably with my deepest feelings ; he caused me years of conflict and anguish, such as he little knows. I was almost shipwrecked ; yet I will still say to the last that what I loved in him was a better self something really noble and good, however con- cealed and perverted by pride, ambition, and self-will. Though all the world reject him, I still have faith in this better nature, and prayers that he may be led right at. last. There is at least one heart that will always intercede with God for him.' It is well known that for many years after Burr's death the odium that covered his name was so great that no monument was erected, lest it should become a mark for popular violence. Subsequently, however, in a mysterious manner a plain granite slab marked his grave; by whom erected has been never known. It was placed in the night by some friendly, unknown hand. A labourer in the vicinity, who first dis- covered it, found lying near the spot a small porte-rnonnaie, which had perhaps been used in paying for the workmanship. It contained no papers that could throw any light on the sub- ject, except the fragment of the address of a letter, on which was written ' Henri de Frontignac.' LONDON: PRINTED BY WHIJAM CLOWES AJCD soss, STAMTORD STEEET. v (&f IMI Su UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. BTD HMJRL AUG 1 2 1988 i fhr, t AUG 7 1999 iry ^OJITVD-JO^ ^OJITVD- ^* te . tOF-CAll