DJSVfaFF r-. Cv ^ THE DISTAFF SERIES Issued under the auspices of the Board of Women Managers of the State of New York for the Columbian Exposition THE DISTAFF 1 SERIES. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00 each. WOMAN AND THI HIQHBB EDUCATION. Edited by Anna C. Bracket!. TH LITBBATUBE or PHILANTHBOPY. Edited by France* A. Goodale. EAKI.Y Pnos* AM. VKRRB. Edited by Alice Mon Earle and Emily ElUworth Ford. Tin Kixniur.ARTiN. Edited by Kate Doiif-lai Wippn. HOUSSHOLD ART. Edited by Candare Wheeler. SHORT STORKS. Edited by Constance Gary Harrison. PUBLISHKD BY HARPER A BROTHERS, N. T. GT For tale by all laoluttltn, or win be tent, r*<*9* prtpaid, to any fart nf tie United Slatet, Canada, or ilnito, on rtfeift of (A* ;>ri r. EDITED BY CONSTANCE CARY HARRISON NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS MDCCCXCIII Copyright, 1893, by HABPKR & BROTHERS. A a riyktt rtuntd. NOTE. MRS. STODDARD S "My Own Story" was pub lished in Tlie Atlantic Monthly; Miss Cliesebro s "In Honor Bound" and Mrs. Slosson s "A Speak- in Ghost " appeared in Harper s Magazine; Miss Crosby s "An Islander" was first printed in Seribner t Magazine; and Mrs. Harrison s "Mon sieur Alcibiade " is reprinted from The Century Magazine. 438553 CONTENTS. Page INTRODUCTION vii MY OWN STORY 1 BY ELIZABETH DEAN BARSTOW STODDARD. IN HONOR BOUND 74 BY Miss CAROLINE CHESKBRO. AN ISLANDER 116 BY Miss MARGARET CROSBY. A SPEAKIN GHOST 150 BY MRS. ANNIE TRUMBCLL SLOSSOX. MONSIEUR ALCIBIADE .-...- 191 BY COXSTAXCE GARY HARRISON. INTRODUCTION. THE series of collections of which this volume is a part is made up of representative work of the women of the State of New York in period ical literature. This literature has been classified under its conspicuous divisions Poetry, Fiction, History, Art, Biography, Translation, Literary Criticism, and the like. A woman of eminent success in each depart ment has then been asked to make a collection of representative work in that department, to include in it an example of her own work, and to place her name upon the volume as its Editor. These selections have been made, as far as possible, chronologically, beginning with the earliest work of the century, in order that the volumes may carry out the plan of the viii "Exhibit of Women s Work in Literature in the State of New York," of which they are an original part. The aim of this Exhibit was to make for the Columbian Exposition a record of literary work, limited, through necessity, both by sex and local ity, but, as far as possible, accurate and com plete, and to preserve this record in the State Library in the Capitol at Albany. It includes twenty-five hundred books, begin ning witli the works of Charlotte Ramsay Lennox, the first-born female author of the province of New York, published in London in 1752, closing with the pages of a translation of Herder, still wet from the press, and comprising the works of .almost every author in the intervening one hun dred and forty years. It includes also three hundred papers read be fore the literary clubs of the State, a summary of the work of all writers for the press, and the folios which preserve the work of many able women who have not published books. The women of the State of New York have had the honor of decorating and furnishing the Library of the Woman s Building. Bulievin-r the best equipment of a library to be literature, they have therefore prepared this Exhibit, and have made its character comprehensive and his toric, in order that it may not be temporary, but that it may be preserved in the State Library and may have permanent value for future lovers and students of Americana. In the preparation of these volumes Messrs. Harper & Brothers have arranged that the com position and other mechanical work, as well as the designing of the cover, should be done by women, thus giving especial significance to the title, " The Distaff Series." BLANCHE WILDER BELLAMY, Chairman of the Committee on Literature of the Board of Women Managers of the State of New York. SHOET STOKIES. MY OWN STORY. BY MRS. ELIZABETH DEAX BARSTOW STODDARD. "Oh, tell her, brief is life, but love is long." " WHAT have I got that you would like to have ? Your letters are tied Tip and directed to yon. Mother will give them to you when she finds them in my desk. I could execute my last will myself, if it were not for giving her additional pain. I will leave everything for her to do except this : take these letters, and when I am dead give them to Frank. There is not a reproach in them, and they are full of wit ; but he won t laugh when he reads them iigain. Choose now, what will you have of mine ?" " Well," I said, " give me the gold pen holder that Redmond sent you after he went away/ Laura rose up in her bed and seized me by my shoulder and shook me, crying be tween her teeth. " You love him ! you love i him f* -Then six?" fpli Ijaek on her pillow. " Oil, if he .were_ here now ! He went. I s4y,th. Ui;\.rtv the: won.a i lie v as en^aiM-.I to before he saw you. lie was nearly mad, though, when he went. The night mother gave them their last party, when you w,ore your black lace dress, and had pink roses in your hair, somehow I hardly knew yon that night. I was in the little parlor, looking at the flowers on the mantel-piece, when Redmond came into the room, and, rushing up to me, bent down and whispered, Did you see her go? I shall see her no more; she is walking on the beach with Maurice. He sighed so loud fhat I IVlt embarrassed, for I was afraid that Harry Lothrop, who \va> laughing and talking in a corner with two or three men, would hear him ; but ho was not aware that they were there. I did not know what to do, unless I ridiculed him. Follow them, I said. Step on her flounces, and Maurice will have a chance to humiliate you with some of his cutting, ex quisite politeness. He never answered a word, and I would not look at him ; but presently I understood that there were tears falling. Oli, you need not look towards mo with such longing ; he does not cry for you now. They seemed to bring him to his senses. He stamped his foot ; but the car pet was thick ; it only made a thud. Then he buttoned his coat, giving himself a vio lent twist as he did it, and looked at me with such a haughty composure that, if I had been you, I should have trembled in my shoes. He walked across the room towards the group of men. Ah, Harry, he said, where is Maurice? Don t you know ? they all cried out; he has gone as Miss Denham s escort. By Jove! said Harry Lothrop, Miss Denham was as hand some as Cleopatra to-night. Little Maurice is now singing to her. Did he take his guitar under his arm ? It was here, for I .saw ;i green bag near his hat when we came in to-night. Just then we heard the twang of a guitar under the window, and Redmond, in spite of himself, could not help a grimace. Is it not a droll world ?" said Laura, after a pause; "things come about so contrariwise." She laughed such a shrill laugh that I shuddered to hear it, and I fell a-crying. "But," she continued, "I am going, I trnst, where a key will be given me for this cipher." Tears came into her eyes, and an expres sion of gentleness rilled her face. "It is strange," she said, " when I know that I must die, that I should bo so moved by earthly passions and so interested in earthly speculations. My heart supplicates God for peace and patience, and at the same moment my thoughts float away in dreams of the past. I shall soon be wiser; I am convinced of that. The doctrine of compen sation extends beyond this \vorld; if it be not so, why should I die at twenty, with all this mysterious suffering of soul? Yon must not wonder over me, when I am gone, and ask yourself, "Why did she live T Be lieve that I shall know why I lived, and let it suffice yon and encourage you to go on bravely. Live and make your powers felt. Your nature is affluent, and yon may yet learn how to be happy." She sighed softly, and turned her face ti> the wall, and moved her fingers as sick people do. She waited for mo to cease weeping ; my tears rained over my face so that I could neither see nor speak. After I had become calmer, she moved io\\ards me again and took my hand; her own trembled. " It is for the last time, Margaret. My good, skilful father gi\es me no medicine now. My sisters have come home; they sit about the house like mourners, with idle Lands, ami do not speak with each other. It is terrible, but it will soon be over." She pulled at my hand for me to rise. I staggered up, and met her eyes. Mine were dry now. " Do not come here again. It will be enough for my family to look at my coffin. I feel better to thiuk you will be spared the pain." I nodded. "Good-bye!" A sob broke in her throat. " Margaret" she spoke like a little child " I am going to heaven." I kissed her, but I was blind and dumb. 1 lifted her half out of the bed. She clasped her frail arms round me, and hid her face in my bosom. " Oh, I love yon !" she said. Her heart gave such a violent plunge that I felt it, and laid her back quickly. Slie waved her hand to me with a deter mined smile. I reached the door, still look ing at her, crossed the dark threshold, and passed out of the house. The bold sunshine smote my face, and the insolent wind played about me. The whole earth was as brilliant and joyous as if it had never been furrowed by graves. Laura lived some days after my interview with her. She sent me no message, and I did not go to see her. From the garret windows of our house, which was half a mile distant from Laura s, I could see the windows of the room where she was lying. Three tall poplar - trees intervened in the landscape. I thought they stood motion less so that they might not intercept my view while I watched the house of death. One morning I saw that the blinds had been thrown back and the windows opened. I knew then that Laura was dead. The day after the funeral I gave Frank his letters, his miniature, and the locket which held a ring of his hair. " Is there a fire f" he asked, when I gave them to him ; " I want to burn these things." I went to another room with him. "I ll leave everything here to-day, and may I never see this cursed place again! Did she die, do you know, because 1 held her promise that she would bo my wife f" He threw the papers into the grate, and crowded them down with his boot, and watched them till the last blackened Hake disappeared. Ho then took from his neck a hair chain, and threw that into the fire also. "It is all done now," he said. He shook my hand with a firm grasp and left me. A mouth later Laura s mother sent me a package containing two bundles of letters. It startled me to see that the direction was dated before she was taken ill : " To be given to Margaret in case of my death. June 5th, 1848." They were my letters, and those which she had received from Harry Lothrop. On this envelope was written, " Put these into the black box he gave you." The gold pen-holder came into my hands also. Departure was engraved on the handle, and Laura s initials were cut in an emerald in its top. The black box was an ebony, gold-plated toy, which Harry Lothrop had given me at the same time Redmond gave Laura the pen-holder. It was when they went away, after a whole summer s visit in our little town, the year before. I locked the letters in the black box, and, "Whether from reason or from impulse only," I know not, but I was prompted to write a line to Harry Lothrop. " Do not," I said, " write Laura any more letters. Those you have already written to her are in my keeping, for she is dead. Was it not a pleasant summer we |>as>r.l together? The second autumn is already nt hand; time flies the same, whether we are dull or gay. For all this period what remains except the poor harvest of a lew letters ?" I received in answer an incoherent and agitated letter. What was the matter with Laura? he asked. He had not heard from her for months. Had any rupture occurred between her and her friend Frank ? Did I suppose she was ever unhappy? He \\a> shocked at the news, and said he must come and learn the particulars of the event. He thanked me for my note, and beg^t-d me to lii-lievo how sincere was his friendship for my poor friend. "Redmond," he continued, "is for the present attached to the engineer corps to which I belong, and he has offered to take charge of my business while I am a day or two absent. He is in my room at this mo ment, holding your note in his hand, and appears painfully disturbed." It was now a little past the time of year when Redmond and Harry Lothrop had left us early autumn. After their departure Laura and I had been sentimental enough to talk over the events of their visit. Re calling these associations, we created an illusion of pleasure which of course could not last. Harry Lothrop wrote to Laura, but the correspondence declined and died. As time passed on we talked less and less of our visitors, and finally ceased to speak of them. Neither of us knew or suspected the other of any deep or lasting feeling towards the two friends. Laura kne\v Redmond, better th.au I did at least, she saw him ofteuer; in fact, she knew both in a differ ent way. They had visited her alone, while I had met them almost entirely iu society. I never found so much time to spare as she seemed to have, for everybody liked her, and everybody sought her. As often as we had talked over our acquaint ance, she was wary of speaking of Red mond. Her last conversation with me re vealed her thoughts, and awakened feelings which I thought I had buffeted down. The tone of Harry Lothrop s note perplexed me, and I found myself drifting back into au old state of mind I had reason to dread. As I said, the autumn had come round. Its quiet days, its sombre nights, filled my soul with melancholy. The lonesome moan of the sea and the waiting stillness of the 10 woods were just the same a year ago ; but Laura was dead, ami Natnn; grieved me. Yet none of us are in one mood long, and at this very time there were intervals when I found something delicious in life, either in myself or the atmosphere. "Moreover, something is or seems That touches me with mystic gleams." A golden morning, a starry night, the azure round of the sky, the undulating horizon of sea, the hluo haze which rose and fell over the distant hills, the freshness of youth, the power of boauty all gave me deep volupt uous dreams. I can afford to confess that I possessed beauty ; for half my faults and miseries arose from the fact of my being beautiful. I was not vaiu, but as conscious of my beauty as I was of that of a flower, and sometimes it intoxicated me. For iu spi ti nt the comforting novels of the Jane Eyre school, it is hardly possible to set an undue value upon beauty; it defies ennui. As I expected, Harry Lothrop came to see me. The sad remembrance of Laura s death prevented any ceremony between us ; we met as old acquaintances, of course, although we had never conversed together half an hour without interruption. I began with the theme of Laura s illness and death, aud the relation which she had held towards me. All at once I discovered, without evidence, that he was indifferent to what I was say ing ; but I talked on mechanically, and like a phantasm the truth came to my mind. The real man was there not the one I had carelessly looked at aud kuowii through Laura. I became silent. He twisted his fingers in the fringe of my scarf, which had fallen off, and I watched them. "Why," I abruptly asked, "have I not known you before ?" He let go the fringe, and folded his hands, and in a dreamy voice replied, " Redmond admires you." " What a pity !" I said. "And yon you admire me, or yourself, just now ; which ?" Ho flushed slightly, but continued with a bland voice, which irritated and interested me: "All that time I was so near you, and you scarcely saw me ; what a chance I had to study you ! Your friend was intelligent and sympathetic, so we struck a league of friend ship : I could dare so much with her, be- 19 cause I knew that she was engaged to marry Mr. Ballard. I own that I have beeu trou bled about her since I went away. How odd it is that I am hero alone with you in this room! how many times I have wished it! I liked you best here; and while absent the remembrance of it has been inseparable from the remembrance of you a picture within a picture. I know all that the room contains : the white vases, and the wire bas kets, with pots of Egyptian lilies and dam ask roses, the books bound in greeu and gold, the engravings of nymphs and fauns, the crimson bars in the carpet, the flowers on the cushions, and, best of all, the arched window and its low seat. But I had prom ised myself never to see you ; it was all I could do for Laura. She is dead, and I am here." I rose and walked to the window, and looked out on the misty sea, and felt strangely. "Another lover, 1 I thought, and lVd- moud s friend, and Laura s. But it all be longs to the comedy we play." He came to where I stood. "I know you so well," he said "your pride, your self-control, even your foibles; but they attract oue, too. You did not es- cape heart-whole from Bedmoud a iufluenco. Ho is not married yet, but be will be ; be is a chivalrous fellow. It was a desperate matter between yon two a band-to-band struggle. It is over with you both, I be lieve : yon are something alike. Now may I offer you my friendship ? If I love you, let me say so. Do not resist me. I appeal to tbe spirit of coquetry which tempted you before you saw me to-night. You are dressed to please me." I was thinking wbat I should say when he skilfully turned the conversation into an ordinary channel. He shook off his dreamy manner, and talked with his old vivacity. I was charmed a little; an asso ciation added to the charm, I fancy. It was late at night when he took his leave. He had arranged it all ; for a man brought his carriage to the door and drove him to the next town, where he had procured it to come over from the railway. When I was shut in my room for the night rage took possession of me. I tore off my dress, twisted my hair with vehe mence, and hurried to bed and tried to go to sleep ; but could not, of course. As when we press onr eyelids together for meditation or sleep, violet rings and changing rays of 14 light flash and fade before the eyeballs, so in the dark unrest of my mind the past flashed up, and this is what I saw : The county ball, where Laura and I first met Redmond, Harry Lothrop, and Maurice. We were struggling through the crowd of girls at the dressing-room door, to rejoin Frank, who was waiting for ns. As we passed out, satisfied with the mutual inspec tion of our dresses of white silk, which were trimmed with bunches of rose-geranium, we saw a group of strangers close by ns, button ing their gloves, looking at their boots, and comparing looks. Laura pushed her fan against my arm; wo looked at each other, and made signs behind Frank, and were caught in the act, not only by him, but by a tall gentleman in the group which she had signalled me to notice. The shadow of a smile was travelling over his face as I caught his eye, but he turned away so sud denly that I had no opportunity for embar rassment. An usher gave us a place near the band, at the head of the hall. " Do not be reckless, Laura," I said " at least, till the music gives you an excuse." " Yon are obliged to me, yon know," she answered, " for directing your attention to such attractive prey. Being in bonds my self, I can only use my eyes for yon; don t be ungrateful." The band struck up a crashing polka, and she and Frank whirled away, with a hun dred others. I found a seat and amused my self by contrasting the imperturbable coun tenances of the musicians with those of the dancers. The perfumes the women wore floated by me. These odors, the rhythmic motion of the dancers, and the hard, ener getic music exhilarated me. The music ended, and the crowd began to buzz. The loud, inarticulate speech of a brilliant crowd is like good wine. As my acquaintances gathered about me, I began to feel its elec tricity, and grew blithe and vivacious. Pres ently I saw one of the ushers speaking to Frank, who went down the hall with him. "Oh, my prophetic soul!" said Laura, " they are coming." Frank came back with the three and in troduced them. Redmond asked me for the first quadrille, and Harry Lothrop engaged Laura. Frank said to me behind his hand kerchief, "It s en regie; I know where they came from ; their fathers are brave, and their mothers are virtuous." The quadrille had not commenced, so I 18 talked with several persons near; but I felt a constraint, for I knew I was closely ob served by the stranger, who was entirely quiet. Curiosity made me impatient for the dance to begin ; and when we took our places I was cool enough to examine him. Tall, slender, and swarthy, with a delicate moustache over a pair of thin scarlet lips, penetrating eyes, and a tranquil air. My antipodes in looks, for I was short and fair; my hair was straight and black like his, but my eyes were blue, and my month wide and full. "What an unnaturally pleasant thing a ball-room is!" he said "before the diist rises and the lights flare, I mean. But no body ever leaves early; as the freshness vanishes the extravagance deepens. Did you ever notice how much faster the musi cians play as it grows late ? When we open the windows, the fresh breath of the night increases the delirium within. I have seen the quietest women toss their failed bou quets out of the windows without a thought of making a comparison between the flowers and themselves." My poor geraniums!" I said "what eloquence!" He laughed, and answered, 17 "My friend Maurice yonder would have said it twice as well." We were in the promenade then, and stopped where the said Maurice was fanning himself against the wall. " May I venture to ask you for a waltz, Miss Deuliam? it is" the next dance on the card," said Maurice; " but of course you are engaged." I gave him my card, and he began to mark it, when Redmond took it, and placed his own initials against the dance after sup per, and the last one on the list. He left me then, and I saw him a moment after talking with Laura. We passed a gay night. When Laura and I equipped for our ten miles ride it was four in the morning. Redmond helped Frank to pack us in the carriage, and we rewarded him with a knot of faded leaves. "This late event," said Laura, with a ministerial air, after we had started, " was a providential one. You, my dear Frank, were at liberty to pursue your favorite pas time of whist, in some remote apartment, without being conscience -torn respecting me. I have danced very well without you, thanks to the strangers. And you, Mar garet, have had an unusual opportunity of u displaying your latent forces. Three such different men ! But let ns drive fast. lam in want of the cup of tea which mother will have waiting for me." We arrived first at my door. As I was going up the steps Laura broke the silence, for neither of us had spoken since her re marks. "By-the-way, they are coming here to stay awhile. They are anxious for some deep-sea fishing. They ll have it, I think. I heard Frank s laugh of delight at Laura s wit as the carriage drove off. It was our last ball that season. It was late in the spring; and when KYd- mond came with his two friends and.sct.tled at the hotel in our town it was early sum mer. When I saw them again they came with Laura and Frank to pay me a visit. Laura was already acquainted with tlnni, and asked mo if I did not perceive her su periority in the fact. "Let us arrange," said Harry Lothrop, "some systematic plan of amusement by sea and land. I have a pair of horses, Maurice owns a guitar, and Redmond s boat will be here in a few days. Jones, our landlord, has two horses that are tolerable under the saddle. Let us ride, sail, and be serenaded. The Lake House, Jones again, is eight miles distant. This is Monday ; shall \ve go there on horseback Wednesday ?" Laura looked mournfully at Frank, who replied to her look, " You must go ; I^canuot ; I shall go back to business to-morrow." I glanced at Redmond; he was contem plating a portrait of myself at the age of fourteen. "Shall we go?" Laura asked him. " Nothing, thank you," he answered. We. all laughed, and Harry Lothrop said, " Redmond, my boy, how fond you are of pictures !" Redmond, with an unmoved face, said, " Don t be absurd about my absent-mind edness. What were you saying?" And he turned to me. "Do you like our plan," I asked, "of go ing to the Lake House ? There is a deep pond, a fine wood, a bridge ; perch, pickerel, a one-story inn with a veranda; ham and eggs, stewed quince, elderberry wine, and a romantic road to ride over." "I like it." Frank opened a discussion on fishing ; Laura and I withdrew, and weiit to the window-seat. J l " I am light-hearted," I said. "It is my duty to be melancholy," she re plied ; " but I shall not niope after Frank has gone." " After them the deluge, " said I. " How long will they stay ?" "Till they are bored, I fancy." " Oh, they are going ; we must leave our recess." Frank and she remained ; the others bid us good-night. "I shall not come again till Christmas. he said. "These college chaps will amuse you and make the time pass; they are young quite suitable companions for you girls. Tivc Ja bagatelle!" He sighed, and, drawing Laura s arm in his, rose to go. She groaned loudly, and lie nipped her ears. "Good-bye, Margaret; let Laura lake care of you. There is a deal of wisdom in her." We shook hands, Laura moaning all the while, and they went home. Frank and Laura had boon engaged throe years. He was about thirty, and was still too poor to marry. Wednesday pruvod pleasant. Wo had an early dinner, and our cavalcade started from Jl Laura s. I rode my small bay horse Folly, a gift from my abseutee brother. His coat was sleeker than satin ; his ears moved per petually, aud his wide nostrils were always in a quiver. He was not entirely safe, for uow aud then he jumped unexpectedly ; but I had ridden him a year without accident, and felt enough acquainted with him not to be afraid. Redmond eyed him. " Yon are a bold rider," he said. " No," I answered " a careful one. Look at the bit, aud my whip, too. I cut his hiud- legs when he jumps. Observe that I do not wear a long skirt. I can slip off the saddle, if need be, without danger." "That s all very well; but his eyes are vicious; he will serve you a trick some day." " When he does, I ll sell him for a cart- liorse." Laura and Redmond rode Jones s horses. Harry Lothrop was mounted on his horse Black, a superb, thick-maned creature, with a cluster of white stars on one of his shoul ders. Maurice rode a wall-eyed pony. Our friends Dickeuson and Jack Parker drove two young ladies in a carriage all the sad dle-horses our town could boast of being in use. We were in high spirits, and rode fast. I was occupied iu watching Folly, who had not been out for several days. At last, tired of tugging at his mouth, I gave him rein, and he flew along. I tucked the edge of my skirt under the Saddle-flap, slanted forward, :ind held the bridle with both hands cl.r it. his head. A long sandy reach of road I;iy before me. I enjoyed Folly s fierce trot ting; but, as I expected, the good hurst- Black was on my track, while the rest of the party were far behind. He soon over took me. Folly snorted when In- heard Black s step. We pulled up, and the two horses began to sidle, and prance, and throw np their heads so that we could not indulge iu a bit of conversation. "Brute!" said Harry Lothrop, "if I were sure of getting on again, I would dismount and thrash you awfully." " Remember Pickwick," I said ; " don t do it." I had hardly spoken when the strap >t his cap broke, aud it fell from his head to the ground. I laughed, and so did he. "I can hold your horse while you dis mount for it." I stopped Folly, and he forced Black near enough for mo to seize the rein and twist it round ray hand ; when I had done so Folly turned his head, and was tempted to take Black s mane in his teeth ; Black felt it, reared, and came down with his nose in my lap. I could not loose my hands, which con fused me, but I saw- Harry Lothrop making a great leap. Both horses were running now, and he was lying across the saddle, trying to free my hand. It was over in an instant. He got his seat, and the horses were checked. "Good God!" he said, "your lingers are crushed." He pulled off my glove, and turned pale when he saw my purple hand. " It is nothing," I said. But I was miserably fatigued, and prayed that the Lake House might come in sight. We were near the wood, which extended to it, and I was wondering if we should ever reach it, when he said : ft You must dismount, and rest under the first tree. We will wait there for the rest of the party to come up." I did so. Numerous were the inquiries when they reached us. Laura, when she heard the story, declared she now believed in Ellen Pickering. Eedmond gave me a .searching look, and asked me if the one- story inn had good beds. "I can take a nap, if necessary," I an swered, "in one of Mrs. Sampson s i(\^\\- bottomed chairs on the veranda. Tlit- croak of the frogs in the pond and the buzz of tlio blue-bottles shall be my lullaby." - "No matter how, if you will rest," he said, and assisted me to remount. We rode quietly together the rest of the way. After arriving, we girls went by our selves into one of Mrs. Sampson s sloping chambers, where there was a low bedstead, and a thick feather-bed covered with a patch work -quilt of the "Job s Trouble" pattern, a small, dim looking-glass sur mounted by a bunch of "sparrow -grass," and an unpaiuted floor ornamented with home-made rugs which were embroidered with pink flower-pots containing worsted rose-bushes, the stalks, leaves, and flowcr> all in bright yellow. We hung up our rid ing-skirts on ancient wooden pegs, for we had worn others underneath them suitable for walking, and then tilted tin- wooden chairs at a comfortable angle against the wall, put our feet on the rounds, and felt at peace with all mankind. " Alas !" I said, " it is too early forcurrant- pies." " I saw," said one of the girls, " Mrs. Sampson poking the oven, and a smell of pies was in the air." " Let us go into the kitchen," exclaimed Laura. The proposal \vas agreeable ; so we went, and found Mrs. Sampson making plum- cake. " The pies are green - gooseberry - pies," whispered Laura " very good, too. " Miss Denhain," shrieked Mrs. Sampson, "yon .haven t done growing yet. How s your mother and your grandmother? Have you had a revival in your church ? I heard of the young men down to Jones s our min ister s wife knows their fathers first-rate men, she says. I thought you would be here with them. Sampson, I said this morning, as soon as I dressed, do pick some gooseberries. I ll have before sun down twenty pies in this house. There they are six gooseberry, six custard, and, though it s late for them, six mince, and two awful great pigeon pies. It s poor trash, I expect ; I m afraid you can t cat it ; but it is as good as anybody s, I suppose." We told her we should devour it all, but must first catch some fish ; and we joined the gentlemen on the veranda. A boat was ready for us. Laura, however, refused to go M in it. It was too small; it was wet; she wauted to walk oil the bridge; she could watch us from that; she wanted some flow ers, too. Like many who are not afraid of the ocean, she held ponds and lakes in ab horrence, and fear kept her from going with us. Harry Lothrop ottered to stay with IIIT, ;iud lake lines to tish from the bridge. She assented, and, after we pushed olF, (hey strolled away. The lake was as smooth and white as sil ver beneath the afternoon sun and a wind less sky ; it was bordered with a mound of greeu bushes, beyond which stretched deep pine woods. There was no shade, and we soon grew weary. Jack Parker caught all the fish, which flopped about our feet. A little way down, where the lake narrowed, we saw Laura and Harry Lothrop hanging over the bridge. "They must be interested in conversa tion," I thought; " he has not lifted his line out of the water once." Krdmond, too, looked over that way often, and at last said, "We will row up to the liridgo, and walk bcick to the house, il \on. .Mam ice. \vill take the boat to the little pier again." "Oh yes," said Maurice. We came to the bridge, and Laura reached out her hand to me. " Why, dear," she exclaimed, " you have burnt yonr face ! Why did you," turning to Redmond, " paddle about so long in the hot sun ?" % Her words were light enough, but the tone of her voice was savage. Redmond looked surprised ; he waved his hand deprecatingly, but said nothing. We weut up towards the house, but Laura lingered behind, and did not come in till we were ready to go to supper. It was past sundown when we rose from the ruins of Mrs. Sampson s pies. We voted not to start for home till the evening was advanced, so that we might enjoy the gloom of the pine wood. We sat ou the veranda and heard the sounds of approaching night. The atmosphere was like powdered gold. Swallows fluttered in the air, delaying to drop into their nests, and chirped their even ing song. We heard the plunge of the lit tle turtles in the lake, and the noisy crows as they flew home over the distant tree-tops. They grew dark, and the sky deepened slow ly into a soft gray. A gentle wind arose, and wafted us the sighs of the pines and their resinous odors. I was happy, but Lau ra was unaccountably silent. "What is it, Laura f" I asked in a whis per. Nothing Margaret ; only it seems to me that we mortals are always riding orlishing. eating or drinking, and that we never get to living. To tell you the truth, the pies \\ t-n too sour. Come, we must go," she said aloud. Redmond himself brought Folly from the stable. " We will ride home together," he said. "My calm nag will suit yours bettor than Black. Why does your hand tremble?" He saw my shaking hands as I took the rein; the fact was, my wrists were nearly broken. " Nothing shall happen to-night, I assure you," he continued, while he tightened Fol ly s girth. He contrived to be busy till all the party had disappeared down a turn of the road. As he was mounting his horse, Mrs. Sampson, who was on the steps, whispered to me, " He s a beautiful young man, now !" He heard her; lie had the ear of a wild animal ; ho took off his hat to Mrs. Samp son, and we rode slowly away. As soon as we were in the wood Redmond tied the bridles of the horses together with his handkerchief. It was so dark that my sight could not separate him from his horse. They moved beside me, a vague, black shape. The horses feet fell without noise in the cool, moist sand. If our companions were near us we could not see them, and we did not hear them. Horses generally keep an even pace when travelling at night subdued by the darkness, perhaps and Folly went along without swaying an inch. I dropped the rein on his neck, and took hold of the pom mel. My hand fell on Eedmond s. Before I could take it away he had clasped it, and touched it with his lips. The movement was so sudden that I half lost my balance, but the horses stepped evenly together. He threw his arm round me, and recoiled from me as if he had received a blow. " Take up your rein," he said, with a strange voice; "quick! we must ride fast out of this." I made no reply, for I was trying to untie the handkerchief. The knot was too firm. " No, no," ho said, when he perceived what I was doing, "let it be so." " Untie it, sir !" " I will not." I put my face down between the horses necks and bit it apart, and thrust it into my bosom. " Now," I said, " shall we ride fast ?" He shook his rein, aud \e rode fiercely : past our party, who shouted at us; through the wood ; over the hrow of the great hill, from whose top \ve s;i\v the dark, motionless sea; through the long street, and through my father s gateway into the stable -yard, where I leaped from my 4iorse, aud, bridle iu hand, said " Good-night !" in a loud voice. Redmond swung his hat and galloped off. Early next morning Laura sent me a uote: "DEAR MARGARET, I have an ague, and mean to have it till Sunday night. The pines did it. Did you bring home any needles f Oil Monday mother will give one of her whist- parties. I shall add a dozen or two of our set ; you will come. " P. S. What do you think of Mr. Harry Lothrop f Good young man, eh f" 1 was glad that Laura had shut herself up for a few days ; I dreaded to see her just now. I suffered from an inexplicable feeling of pride and disappointment, and did not care to have her discover it. Laura, like myself, sometimes chose to protert herself against neighborly invasions. We never Kept our doors locked in the country: I lie sending in of a card was an unknown pro cess there. Our acquaintances walked in upon us whenever the whim took them, and it now and then happened to be an incon venience to us who loved an occasional fit of solitude. I determined to keep in-doors for a few days also. Whenever I was in an unquiet mood I took to industry; so that day I set about arranging my drawers, mak ing over my ribbons, and turning my room upside-down. I reining all my pictures, and moved my bottles and boxes. Then I mend ed my stockings, and marked my clothes, which was not a necessary piece of work, as I never left home. I next attacked the par lor washed all the vases, changed the places of the furniture, and distressed my mother very much. When evening came I brushed my hair a good deal, and looked at my hands, and went to bed early. I could not read then, though I often took books from the shelves, and I would not think. Sunday came round. The church-bells made me lonesome. I looked out of the window many times that day, and, fixing 011 the sash one of my father s ship-glasses, swept the sea, and peered at the islands on the other side of the Lay, gazing through their openings, beyond which I could see the .great dim ocean. Mother came botne from church, and said young Maurice was there and inquired about me. He hoped I did not take cold; his friend Redmond had been hoarse ever since our ride, and had passed most of the time in his own room, drumming on the window-pane and whistling dirges. Mother dropped her acute eyes on me while she was telling mo this; but I yawned all expression from my face. As Monday night drew near my numbness of feeling began to pass off; thought came into my brain by plunges. Now I denied, now I hoped. I dressed myself in black silk, and wore a cape of black Chantilly lace. I made my hair as glossy as possible, drew it down on my face, and put round my head a band composed of minute sticks of coral. When all was done I took the candle and held it above my head and surveyed myself in the glass. I was very pale. The pupils of my eyes were dilated, as if I had received some impression that would not pass away. My lips had the redness of youlli; their color was deepened by my paleness. " Ho\v handsome I am !" I thought, as 1 set down the candle. \Vhen I entered Laura s parlor she came towards me and said. "Artful creature! you knew well, this warm night, that every girl of us would wear a light dress ; so you wore a black one. How well you understand sucli mat ters ! You are very clever ; your real sensi bility adds effect to jsour cleverness. I see how it is. Come into this corner. Have you got a fan? Good gracious! black, with gold spangles; where do you buy your things ? I can tell you now," she contin ued, " my conversation on the bridge the other day." She hesitated, and asked me if I liked her new muslin. She did look well in it ; it was a white fabric, with red rose-buds scattered over it. Her delicate face was shadowed by light, brown curls. She was attractive, and I told her so, and she began again : " Harry Lothrop said, as he was impaling the half of a worm, " Redmond is a handsome fellow, is he not? " He is too awfully thin, I answered, but his eyes are good. " He gave me a crafty side-look, like that of a parrot when he means to bite your finger. " Your friend, too, he added, is really one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw a coquette with a heart. 3 "Let down your line into the water, I said. " He laughed a- little langh. By-the-bye, there is an insidious tenacity about Mr. Harry Lothrop which irritates me ; but I like him, for I think he understands wom en. I feel at ease with him when ho is not throwing out his tenacious feelers. Then IIP said, " Redmond is engaged to his cousin. The girl s mother had the charge of him through his boyhood. He is ardently attached to her the mother, I mean. She is most anxious to call Kedmond her son. " Didn t you have a bite ? I said. " Well, I think the bait is off the hook, he answered; and then we were silent and pondered the water. " There are some people I must speak to," and Laura moved away without looking at me. I opened my fan, but felt chilly. A bustle near mo caused me to raise my eyes; Red mond was speaking to a lady. He was in black, too, and very pale. He turned tow ards me and our eyes met. His expression agitated me so that I unconsciously rose to my feet and warned him off with my fan; Inn lie seemed rooted to the spot. Laura took care of us both ; she came and stood be tween ns. I saw her look at him so sweetly and so mournfully that he understood her in a moment. He shook his head and walked abruptly into another room. Laura went again from me without giving me a look. Maurice came up, and I made room for him beside me. We talked of the riding-party, and then of our first meeting at the ball. He told me that Redmond s boat had arrived, and what a famous boat it was, and " what jolly sprees we fellows had, cruising about with her." I asked him about his guitar, and when we might hear him play. He grow more chatty, and began to tell me about his sister when Redmond and Harry Loth- rop came over to us, which ended his chat. The party was like all parties dull at first, and brighter as it grew late. The old ladies played whist in one room, and the younger part of the company were in another. Cham pagne was not a prevalent drink in our vil lage, but it happened tbat we had some that night. " It may be a sinful beverage," said an old lady near me, " but it is good." Redmond opened a bottle for me, we clink ed glasses, and drank to an indefinite, silent wish. M "One more," he asked, "and let us change glasses." Presently a cloud of delicate warmth spread over my brain, and gave me courage to seek and meet his glance. There must have been an expression of irresolution in my face, for he looked at me inquiringly, and then his own face grew very s;i<l. I felt awkward from my intuition of his opin ion of my mood, when he relieved me by saying something about Shelley, a copy of whose poems lay on a table near. From Shelley he went to his boat, and said he hoped to have some pleasant excursions with Laura and myself. He " would go at once and talk with Laura s mother about thorn. I watched him through the door while he spoke to her. She was in a low chair, and he leaned his face on one hand close to hers. I saw that his natural expression was one of tranquillity and courage. He was not more than twenty- two, but the firmness of the lines about his mouth belied his youth. " He has a wonderful face," I thought, "andjnst as wonderful a will." I felt my own will rise as I looked at him a will that should make me mistress of myself, powerful enough to contend with and resist or turn to advantage any con trolling fate which might come near me. "Do you feel like singing?" Harry Lo- throp inquired. " Do you know Byron s song, One struggle more and I am free ?" " Oh yes," I replied ; " it is set to music which suits my voice. I will sing it." Laura had been playing polkas with great spirit. Since the champagne the old ladies had closed their games of whist for talking, and, as it was nearly time to go, the company was gay. There was laughing and talking when I began, but silence soon after, for the wine made my voice husky and effective. I sang as if deeply moved. "Lord," I heard Maurice say to Laura as I rose from the piano, "what a girl! She s really tragic." I caught Harry Lothrop s eye as I passed through the door to go tip-stairs; it was burn ing ; I felt as if a hot coal had dropped on me. Maurice ran into the hall and sprang upon the stair-railing to ask me if he might be my escort home. That night he sere naded me. He was a good-hearted, cheerful creature ; conceited, as small men are apt to be conceit answering for size with them but pleasantly so, and I learned to like him as much as Redmond did. sa The summer days were passing. W< had ill sorts of parties parties iii houses and out- of-doors; we rode and sailed and walked. Laura walked and talked much with Harry Lothrop. We did not often see each other alone, but when we met were more serious and affectionate with each other. Wo did not speak, except in a general way, of Kcd- inond and Harry Lothrop. I did not avoid Redmond, nor did I seek him. We had many a serious conversation in public, as well us many a gay one; but I had never met him alone since the night we rode through the pines. He went away for a fortnight. On the day of his return he came to see me. He looked so glad when I entered the room that I could not help feeling a wild thrill. I went up to him, but said nothing. He held out both his hands. I retreated. An angry feeling rushed into my heart. " No," I said. " Whose hand did yon hold hist ?" He turned deadly pale. " That of the woman I am going to marry, I smiled to hide the trembling of my lips, and ollered my hand to him ; but In- icdrl it (iirai/. and fell back on his chair, hurriedly 39 drawing bis handkerchief across his face. I saw that he was very faint, and stood against the door, waiting for him to recover. " More than I have played the woman and the fool before you." " Yes." " I thought so. You seem experienced." " I am." "Forgive me," he said, gently; "being only a man, I think you can. Good God," he exclaimed, " what an infernal self-posses sion you show !" "Redmond, is it not time to end this? The summer has been a long one, has it not ? Long enough for me to have learned what it is to live. Our positions are re versed since we have become acquainted. I am for the first time forgetting self, and you for the first time remember self. Redmond, you are a noble man. You have a steadfast soul. Do not be shaken. I am not like yon ; I am not simple or single-hearted. But I imitate you. Now come, I beg you will go." " Certainly, I will. I have little to say." August had nearly gone when Maurice told me they were about to leave. Laura said we must prepare for retrospection and the fall sewing. Ifl " Well," I said, " the future looks gloomy, !ind I must Lave some new dresses." Maurice came to see me one morning in a stall- of excitement to say we were all going to Bird Island to spend the day, dine at the light-house, and sail home by moonlight. Fifteen of the party were going down by the sloop Sapphire, and Redmond had begged him to ask if Laura and I would go in.his boat. "Do go," said Maurice; "it will be our last excursion together ; next week we are off. I am broken-hearted about it. I shall never be so happy again. I have actually whimpered once or twice. Yon should hear Redmond whistle nowadays. Harry pulls his moustache and laughs his oily laughs, but he is sorry to go, and kicks his clothes about awfully. By-the-way, he is going down in the sloop because Miss Fairfax is going, he says that tall young lady with crinkled hair ; he hates her, and hopes to see her sick. May I come for you in the morning, by ten o clock? Redmond will be waiting ou the wharf." " Tell Redmond," I answered, " that T will go; and will you ask Harry Lothrop not to engage himself for all the reels to Miss Fair- lax r 41 He promised to fulfil my message, and went off in high spirits. I wondered, as I saw him going down the walk, why it was that I felt so much more natural and friendly with him than with either of his friends. I often talked confidentially to him ; he knew how I loved my mother, and how I admired my father, and I told him all about my brother s business. He also knew what I liked best to eat and to wear. In return, he confided his family secrets to me. I knew his tastes and wishes. There was no com mon ground where I met Redmond and Harry Lothrop. There were too many topics between Redmond and myself to be avoided for us to venture upon private or familiar conversation. Harry Lothrop was an ac complished, fastidious man of the world. I dreaded boring him, and so I said little. He was several years older than Redmond, and possessed more knowledge of men, women, and books. Redmond had no acquirements, he knew enough by nature, and I never saw a person with more fascination of manner and voice. The evening before the sailing-party I had a melancholy-fit. I was restless, and after dark I put a shawl over my head and went out to walk. I went up a lonesome road beyond our house. On one side I heard the water washing against the shore with regularity, as if it were breathing. On the other side were meadows, where there were cows crunching the grass. A mile farther was a low wood of oaks, through which ran a path. I determined to walk through that. The darkness and sharp breeze which blew against me from limitless space made me feel as if I were the only human creature the elements could find to contend with. I turn ed down the little path into the deeper dark ness of the wood, eat down on a heap of dead leaves, and began to cry. " Mine is a miserable pride," was my thought " that of arming myself with beau ty and talent, and going through the world conquering! Girls are ignorant till they are disappointed. The only knowledge men prof fer us is the knowledge of the heart ; it be comes us to profit by it. Redmond will marry that girl. He must, and shall. I will empty the dust and ashes of my heart as soon as tho fire goes down that is, I think KO; but I know that I do not know myself. I have two natures one that acts, and one that is acted upon ; and I cannot always separate the one from the other." Something darkened the opening into the tt path. Two persons passed in slowly. I perceived the odor of violets, and felt that one of them must be Laura. Waiting till they passed beyond me, I rose and went home. The next morning was cloudy, and the sea was rough with a high wind ; but we were old sailors, and decided to go on our ex cursion. The sloop and Redmond s boat left the wharf at the same time. We expected to be several hours beating down to Bird Island, for the wind was ahead. Laura and I, muf fled in cloaks, were placed on the thwarts aud neglected ; for Redmond and Maurice were busy with the boat. Laura was silent, and looked ill. Redmond sat at the helm, and kept the boat up to the Aviud, which drove the hissing spray over us. The sloop hugged the shore, aud did not feel the blast as we did. I slid along my seat to be near Redmond. He saw me coming, and put out his hand and drew me towards him, looking so kindly at me that I was melted. Trying to get at my handkerchief, which was iu my dress-pocket, my cloak flew open, the wind caught it, and, as I rose to draw it closer, I nearly fell overboard. Redmoud gave a spring to catch me, and the boat lost her headway. The sail flapped with a loud bang. 11 Maurice swore, and we chopped about in the short sea. " It is your destiny to have a scene where- ever you are," said Laura. " If I did not feel desperate I should be frightened. But these green crawling waves are so opaque, if wo fall in we shall not see ourselves drown." " Courage ! the boat is under way," Mau rice cried out ; " we are nearly there." And rounding a little point we saw the light-house at last. The sloop anchored a quarter of a mile from the shore, the water being shoal, and Redmond took off her party by instalments. " What the deuse was the matter with you at one time T" asked Jack Parker. " We saw you were having a sort of convulsion. Our cap n said you were bold chaps to be trifling . with such a top-heavy boat." " Miss Deuhain," said Redmond, " thought she could steer the boat as well as I could, and so the boat lost headway." Harry Lnthrop gave Redmond one of his soft smiles, and a vexed look passed over Redmond s face when he saw it. \Vr had to scramble over a low range of rocks to get to the shore. Redmond anchor ed his boat by one of them. Ilird Island was a famous place for parties. It was a mile iu extent. Not a creature was on it except the light-bouse keeper, his wife, and daughter. The gulls made their nests in its rocky bor ders ; tbeir shrill cries, the incessant dashing of the waves on tbe ledges, and tbe creak ing of the lanternin the stone tower wore all the souuds tbe family heard, except wben they were invaded by some noisy party like ours. They were glad to see us. Tbe ligbt-bouse keeper w y eut into the world only wben it was necessary to buy stores, or when his wife and daughter wanted to pay a visit to the mainland. The bouse was of stone, one story bigb, with thick walls. The small, deep-set win dows and tbe low ceilings gave tbe rooms the air of a prison ; but there was also an air of security about them ; for in looking from the narrow windows one felt that the bouse was a steadfast ship in tbe circle of tbe turbulent sea, whose waves from every point seemed advancing towards it. A pale, coarse grass grew in tbe sand of tbe island. It was too feeble to resist the acrid breath of tbe ocean, so it shuddered perpetually, and bent landward, as if invoking tbe pro tection of its step-mother, the solid earth. " It is perfect," said Redmond to me ; " I have been looking for this spot all my life ; I am ready to swear that I will never leave it." Wo were sitting in a window, facing each other Ho looked out towards the west, and invsently was lost in thought. He folded his arms tightly across his breast, and his eyes were a hundred miles away. The sound of a fiddle in the long alley which led from the house to the tower broke his reverie. " We shall be uproarious before we leave, I said ; " we always are when we come here." The fun had already set in. Some of the girls had pinned up their dresses and bor rowed aprons from the light-house keeper s wife, and with scorched faces were helping her to make chowder and fry fish. Others were arranging the table, assisted by the young men, who put the dishes in the wrong places. Others were singing in the best room. One or two had brought novels along, and were reading them in corners. It was all merry and pleasant, but I felt quiet. Ke<l- iiionil entered into the spirit of the scene. I had never seen him so gay. He chatted with all the girls, interfering or helping, as the case might be. Maurice brought his gui tar, and had a group about him at the loot of the tower stairs. He sang loud, but his voice seemed to fluctuate iiow it rang through the tower, now it was half over powered by the roar of the sea. His poeti cal temperament led him to choose songs in harmony with the place, not to suit the com pany melancholy words set to wild, fitful chords, which rose -and died away according to the skill of the player. I had gone near him, for his singing had attracted me. " Yon are inspired," I said. He nodded. " You never sang so before." " I feel old to-day," he answered, and he swept his hands across all the strings ; " my ditties are done." After dinner Laura asked me to go out with her. We slipped away nnseen, and went to the beach, and seated ourselves on a great rock whose outer side was lapped by the water. The sun had broken through the clouds, but shone luridly, giving the sea a leaden tint. The wind was going down. We had not been there long when Red mond joined us. He asked us to go round the island in his boat. Laura declined, and sftid she would sit on the rock while we went, if I chose to go. I did choose to go, and he brought the boat to the rock. He hoisted the sail half up the mast, and we sailed close to the shore. Jt rose gradually along the east side of the island, and ter minated in a bold ledge which curved into the sea. We ran inside the curve, where the water was nearly smooth. Redmond low ered the sail, and the boat drifted towards the ledge slowly. A tongue of land, cover ed with pale sedge, was on the left side. Above the ledge, at the right, we could see the tower of the light-house. Redmond tied down the helm, and, throwing himself beside me, leaned his head on his hand, and looked at me a long time without speaking. I listened to the water, which plashed faint ly against the bows. He covered his face with his hands. I looked out seaward over the tongue of land ; my heart quaked, like the grass which grew upon it. At last lie rose, and I saw that he was crying the tears rained fast. " My soul is dying," he said, in a stifled voice; "Iain not more than mortal I can not endure it." I pointed towards the open sea, which loomed so vague in the distance. "The future is like that, is it not T Courage ! we must drift through it ; we shall find something." He stamped his foot on the deck. " Women always talk so ; but men are dif- ferent. If there is a veil before us we must tear it away, not sit muffled iu its folds, and speculate on what is behind it. JBise." I obeyed him. He held iue firmly. We were face to face. " Look at ine." I did. His eyes were blazing. " Do you love me ?" "No." He placed me on the bench, hoisted the sail, untied the helm, and we were soon ploughing round to the spot where we had left Laura ; but she was gone. On the rock where she was perched a solitary gull, which flew away with a scream as we approached. That day was the last that I saw Red- mond alone. He was at the party at Lau ra s house which took place the night before they left. We did not bid each other adieu. After the three friends had gone, they sent us gifts of remembrance. Redmond s keep sake was a white fan with forget-me-nots painted on it. To Laura he sent the pen holder which was now mine. We missed them, and should have felt their loss had no deep feeling been involved ; for they gave an impetus to our dull conn- try life, and the whole summer had been one of excitement and pleasure. We settled by degrees into our old habits. At Christmas Frank came. He looked worried and older. He bad heard something of Laura s intimacy with Harry Lothrop, and was troubled about it, I know ; but I believe Laura was silent ou the matter. She was quirt and affec tionate towards him during his visit, and he went back cousoled. The winter passed. Spring came and wont, and we were deep into the summer when Laura was taken ill. She had had a little cough, which no one except her mother no ticed. Her spirits fell, and she failed fast. When I saw her last she had been ill some weeks, and had never felt strong enough to talk as much as she did in that interview. She nerved herself to make the effort, and as she bade me farewell, bade farewell to life also. And now it was all over with her! I fell asleep at length, and woke late. It seemed as if a year had dropped out of the procession of Time. My heart was still beat ing with the emotion which stirred it when Redmond and I were together last. Recol lection had stung me to the quick. A ter rible longing urged me to go and find him. The feeling 1 had when we were in the boat, face to face, thrilled my fibres again. I saw his gleaming eyes; I could have rushed through the air to meet him. But, alas! ex altation of feeling lasts only a moment; it drops us where it finds us. If it were not so, ho\v easy to he a hero ! The dull reac tion of the present,, like a slow avalanche, crushed and ground me into nothingness. " Something must happen at last," I thought, " to amuse me, and make time eu- dnrahle." What can a woman do when she knows that an epoch of feeling is rounded off, fin ished, dead ? Go hack to her story-hooks, her dress-making, her worsted-work ? Shall she attempt to rise to mediocrity on the pi ano or in drawing, distribute tracts, become secretary of a Dorcas society ? or shall sho turn her mind to the matter of cultivating another lover at once ? Few of us women have courage enough to shoulder out the corpses of what men leave in our hearts. We keep them there, and conceal the ruins in which they lie. We grow cunning and artful in our tricks the longer we practise them. But how we palpitate and shrink and shudder when we are alone in the dark ! After Redmond departed I had locked np my feelings and thrown the key away. The death of Laura, and the awakening of n my recollections, caused by the appearance of Harry Lothrop, wrenched the door open. Hitherto I had acted with the bravery of a girl ; I must now behave with the resolution of a woman. I looked into my heart closely. No skeleton was there, but the image of a living man Redmond. 11 1 love him," I confessed. " To be his wife and the mother of his children is the only lot I ever care to choose. He is noble, handsome, and loyal. But I cannot belong to him, nor can he ever be mine. " Of love that never found his earthly close What sequel? What did he do with the remembrance of me ? Ho scattered it, perhaps, with the ash es of the first cigar he smoked after he went from me made a mound of it, maybe, in honor of Duty. I am as ignorant of him as if he no longer existed; so this image must be torn away. I will not burn the lamp of life before it, but will build up the niche where it stands into a solid wall." The ideal happiness of love is so sweet and powerful that, for a while, adverse in fluences only exalt the imiigiiiatioii. When Laura told me of Redmond s engagement, it did but change my dream of what might be into what might have been. It was a mir age which continued while he was present and faded with his departure. Then my heart was locked in the depths of will till circumstances brought it a power of revenge. I think now, if we had spoken freely and truly to each other, I should have suffered less when I saw his friend. We feel better when the funeral of our dearest friend is over and we have returned to the house. There is to be no more preparation, no wait ing; the windows may be opened, and the doors set wide ; the very dreariness and des olation force our attention towards the liv ing. " Something will come," I thought ; and I determined not to have any more reveries. " Mr. Harry Lothrop is a pleasant riddle ; I shall see him soon, or he will write." It occurred to me then that I had some letters of his already in my possession those he had written to Laura. I found the ebony box, and, taking from it the sealed package, unfolded the letters one by one, reading them according to their dates. There was a note among them for me from Laura. " When you read these letters, Marga- M ret," it said, "yon will see that I must have studied the writer of them in vain. You know uow that he made me unhappy : not that I was in love with him much, but he stirred depths of feeling which I had no knowledge of, and which between Frank. my betrothed husband, and myself had no existence. But le roi s amuae. Perhaps ;i strong passion will master this man ; but I shall never know. Will you f" I laid the letters back in their place, and felt no very strong desire to learn any thing more of the writer. I did not know then how little trouble it would be my share of making the acquaintance. It was not many weeks before Mr. Lothrop came again, and rather ostentatiously. ^> that everybody knew of his visit to me. But he saw none of the friends he had made during his stay the year before. I hap pened to see him coming, and went to the door to meet him. Almost his first words were: " Maurice is dead. He went to Florida, took the fever, which killed him, of course. He died only a week after after Laura. Poor fellow ! did he interest you much? I believe he was in love with you, too; but musical people are never desperate, except when they play a false note." "Yes," I answered, "I was fond of him. His conceit did not trouble me, and he never fatigued me; he had -nothing to con ceal. He was a -commonplace man ; one liked him when with him, and when away one had no thought about him." " I alone am left you," said my visitor, putting his hat on a chair, and slowly pull ing off his gloves, linger by finger. He had slender, white hands, like a wom an s, and they were always in motion. After he had thrown his gloves into his hat, ho put his finger agaiust his cheek, leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair, crossed his legs, and looked at me with a cunning self- possession. I glanced at his feet ; they were small and well -booted. I looked into his face ; it was not a handsome one, but ho had magnetic eyes of a lightish blue, and a clever, loose mouth. It is impossible to de scribe him just as impossible as it is for a man who was born a boor to attain the bearing of a gentleman ; any attempt at it would prove a bungling matter when com pared with the original. He felt my scru tiny, and knew, too, that I had never looked at him till then. " Do you sing nowadays ?" he asked, tap ping with his fingers the keys of the piano behind him. " Psalms." " They suit you admirably ; but I perceive you attend to your dress still. How effec tive those velvet bands are ! You look older ihau you did two years ago." "Two years are enough to age a wom an. 1 " Yes, if she is miserable. Can you be unhappy ?" he asked, rising, and taking a M-at beside me. There was a tone of sympathy in his voice which made me shudder, I knew not why. It was neither aversion nor liking ; but I dreaded to be thrown into any tumult of feeling. I realized afterwards more fully that it is next to impossible for a passionate woman to receive the sincere addresses of :i manly man without feeling some fluctua tion of soul. Ignorant spectators call her a coquette for this. Happily, there are teach ers among our own sex, women of cold temperaments, able to vindicate themselves from the imputation. They spare themselves great waste of heart and some generous emotion also remorse and self-accusations regarding the want of propriety and the 57 other ingredients which go to make up a white-muslin heroine. Harry Lothrop saw that my cheek was burning, and made a movement towards me. I tossed my head back, and moved down the sofa ; he did not follow me, but smiled and mused iu his old way. And so it went on not once, but many times. He wrote me quiet, persuasive, elo quent letters. By degrees I learned his own history and that of his family, his prospects and his intentions. He was rich. I knew well what position I should have if I were his wife. My beauty would be splendidly set. I was well enough off, but not rich enough to harmonize all things ac cording to my taste. I was proud, and he was refined; if we were married, what bet ter promise of delicacy could be given than that of pride in a woman, refinement iu a man ? He brought me flowers or books when he came. The flowers were not deli cate and inodorous, but magnificent and deep-scented; and the material of the books was stalwart and vigorous. I read his fa vorite authors with him. He was the first- person who ever made any appeal to my in tellect. In short, he was educating me for a purpose. Once he offered me a diamond cross. I refused it, and Le never asked me to accept any gift again. His visits were not fre quent, and they were short. However great the distance he accomplished to reach me, lie stayed only an evening, and then re turned. He came and weut at uight. In time I grew to look upon our connection as an established thing. He made me under stand that he loved me, and that he only waited for me to return it ; hut he did not say so. I lived an idle life, inhaling the perfume of the flowers he gave me, devouring old lit erature, the taste for which he had created. and reading and answering his letters. To he sure, other duties were fulfilled. I was an affectionate child to my parents, and a proper acquaintance for my friends. I never lost any sleep now, nor was I troubled with dreams. I lived in the outward : all my restless activity, that constant question ing of the heavens and the earth, had erased entirely. Five years had passed since I first saw Redmond. I was now twenty-four. The Fates grew tired of the monotony of my life, I suppose, for about this time it changed. My oldest brother, a bachelor, lived in New York. He asked me to spend the win ter with him ; he lived in a quiet hotel, had a suite of rooms, aud conld make me com fortable, he said. He had just asked some body to marry him, aud that somebody wished to make my acquaiutauce. I was glad to go. My heart gave a bouud at the prospect of change; I was still young enough to dream of the impossible when any chance offered itself to my imagination ; so I ac cepted my brother s invitation with some elation. I had been in New York a month. One day I was out with my future sister ou a shopping raid; with our hands full of little paper parcels, we stopped to look into Gou- pil s window. Tbere was always a rim of crowd there, so I paid no attention to the jostles we received. We were looking at an engraving of Ary Scheffer s " Francoise do Rimini." " Not the worst hell," muttered a voice behind me which I knew. I started, aud pulled Leonora s -arm ; she turned round, and the fringe of her coat-sleeve caught a button on the overcoat of one of the gentle men standing together. It was Redmond ; the other was his " ancient," Harry Lothrop. Leonora was arrested ; I stood still, of course. Redmond had not seen my face, for I turned it from him; and his head was bent down to the task of disengaging his button. " Each ouly as God wills Can work; God s puppets, best and worst, Are we ; there is 110 lust nor first, " I thought, and turned ray head. He in stinctively took off his hat, and then planted it back on his head firmly, and looked over to Harry Lothrop, to whom I gave my hand. He knew me before I saw him, I am con vinced ; but his dramatic sense kept him si- loiit perhaps a deeper feeling. There was an expression of pain in his face which im pelled me to take his arm. " Let us move on, Leonora," I said ; " these are some summer friends of mine," and I introduced them to her. My chief feeling was embarrassment, which was shared by all the party ; for Leo nora felt that there was something unusual in the meeting. The door of the hotel seemed to come round at last, and as we were going in, Harry Lothrop asked mo if he might see me the next morning. " Do come," I answered aloud. We all bowed, and they disappeared. " What an elegant Indian your tall friend is! 1 said Leonora. 61 " Yes ; of the Comanche tribe." " But he would look better hanging from his horse s inane than he does in a long coat." " He is spoiled by civilization and white parents. But, Leonora, stay and dine with me in my own room. John will not come home till it is time for the opera. You know we are going. You must make me splendid ; you can torture me into style, I know." She consented, provided I would send a note to her mother, explaining that it was my invitation, and not her old John s, as she irreverently called him. I did so, and she was delighted to stay. " This is fast," she said ; " can t we have champagne and black coffee ?" She fell to rummaging John s closets, and brought out a dusty, Chinese-looking affair, which she put on for a dressing-gown. She found some Chinese straw shoes, and tucked her little feet into them, and then braided her hair in a long tail, and declared she was ready for dinner. Her gayety was refresh ing, and I did not wonder at John s admira tion. My spirits rose, too, and I astonished Leonora at the table with my chat; she had never seen me except when quiet. I fell into one of those unselfish, uuaskiug moods which arc the glory (if youth: I felt tha.t the pure heaven of love was in the depths of my being; my soul shone like a star in its atmosphere; my heart throbbed, and I cried softly to it, "Live! live! ho is here!" I still chatted with Leonora and made her laugh, and the child for the first time thor oughly liked me. We were finishing our dessert when we heard John s knock. We allowed him to come in for a moment, and gave him some almonds, which he leisurely (racked and ate. " Somehow, Margaret," he said, " you re mind me of those women who enjoy the Ind ian festival of the funeral pile. I have seei "the thing done; you have something of the sort in your mind; be sure to immo late yourself handsomely. Women are the dense." " Finish your almonds, John," I said, " and go away : we must dress." He put his hand on my arm, and whis pered : " Smother that light in your eyes, my girl ; it is dangerous. And you have lived under your mother s eye all your life! You see what I have done" indicating Leonora with his eyebrows; "taken a baby on iny hands." " John, John !" I inwardly ejaculated, " you are an idiot." " She shall never suffer what you suffer; she shall have the benefit of the experience which other women have given me." " Very likely," I answered ; I know we often serve you as pioneers merely." He gave a sad nod, and I closed the door upon him. "Put these pins into my hair, Leonora, and tell me, how do yon like my new dress ?" " Paris !" she cried. It was a dove-colored silk with a black velvet stripe through it. I showed her a shawl which John had given me a pale yellow gauzy fabric with a gold-thread bor der and told her to make me np. She pro duced quite a marvellous effect; for this baby understood the art of dress to perfec tion. She made my hair into a loose mass, rolling it away from my face; yet it was firmly fastened. Then she shook out the shawl and wrapped me in it, so that my head seemed to be emerging from a pale- tinted cloud. John said I looked outlandish, but Leonora thought otherwise. She begged him for some Indian perfume, and he found an aromatic powder, which he sprinkled in side my gloves and over my shawl. Wo found the opera-house crowded. Our seats were near the stage. John sat behind us, so that he might slip out into the lob- by occasionally ; for the opera was a bore to Mm. The second act was over ; John had left his seat ; I was opening and shutting my fan mechanically, half lost in thought, when Leonora, who had been looking at the house with her lorgnette, turned and >:ii<l : "Is not that your friend of this morning on the other side, in the second row, leaning against the third pillar? There is a queen- ish-looking old lady with him. He hasn t spoken to her for a long time, and she con tinually looks up at him." I took her glass and discovered Redmond. He looked back at me through another; I made a slight motion with my handkerchief; he dropped his glass into the lap of the lady next him and darted out, and in a moment he was behind me in John s seat. "Who is with you?" he asked. " Brother," I answered. "You intoxicate me with some strange perfume; don t fan it this way." I quietly passed the fan to Leonora, who now looked back and spoke to him. He talked with her a moment, aud then she dis creetly resumed her lorgnette. " What happened for two years after I left B. ? The last year I know something of." "Breakfast, dinner, and tea, the ebb and How of the tide, and the days of the week." " Nothing more ?" Aud his voice came nearer. . " A few trifles." " They are under lock and key, I sup pose ? " We do not carry relics about with us." " There is the conductor ; I must go. Turn your face towards me more." I obeyed him, and our eyes met. His searching gaze made me shiver. "I have been married," he said, and his eyes were unflinching, " and my wife is dead." All the lights went down, I thought; I struck out my arm to find Leonora, Avho caught it and pressed it down. " I must get out," I said ; arid I walked up the alley to the door without stumbling. I knew that I was fainting or dying ; as I had never fainted, I did not know which. Redmond carried me through the cloak-room and put me on a sofa. " I never can speak to him again," I thought, and then I lost sight of them all. A terribly sharp pain through my heart ronsed mo, and I was in a violent chill. They had thrown water over my face; my hair was matted, and the water was drip ping from it on my naked shoulders. The gloves had been ripped from my hands, and Leonora was wringing my handkerchief. " The heat made you faint, dear," she said. John was walking up and down the room with a phlegmatic countenance, but he was fuming. " My new dress is ruined, John," I said. " Hang the dress ! How do you feel now f" " It is drowned ; and I feel better. Shall we go home I" He went out to order the carriage, and Leonora whispered to me that she had for gotten Redmond s name. "No matter," I answered. I could not have spoken it then. When John came, Leonora beckoned to Redmond to introduce himself. John shook hands with him, gave him an intent look, and told us the carriage was ready. Red mond followed us, and took leave of us at the carriage door. Leonora begged me to stay at her house ; I refused, for I wished to be alone. John 67 deposited her with her mother, and we drove home. He gave me one of his infal lible medicines, and told me not to get tip in the morning. But when morning came I remembered Harry Lothrop was coming, and made myself feady for him. As human nature is not qnite perfect, I felt unhappy about liiin, and rather fond of him, and thought he possessed some admirable qual ities. I never could read the old poets any more without a pang, unless he were with me, directing my eye along their pages with his long white finger ! I never should smell tuberoses again without feeling faint, un less they were his gift ! By the time he came I was in a state of romantic regret, and in that state many a woman has answered, " Yes !" He asked me abruptly if I thought it would be folly in him to ask me to marry him. The ques tion turned the tide. "No," I answered, "not folly, for I have thought many times in the last two years that I should marry you if you said I must. But now I believe that it is not best. You have pursued me patiently; your self-love made the conquest of me a necessary pleasure. That was well enough for me, for you made me feel all the while that, if I loved you, yon were worth possessing. And you are. I liked you. But my feeliug for you did not prevent my fainting away at the opera-house last night when Redmond told me that his wife was dead. "So," he said, " the long-smothered fire has broken out again ! Chance does not befriend me. He saw you last night, and yielded. He said yesterday he should not tell you. He asked me about you after we left you, and wished to know if I had seen you much for the last year. I offered him your last letter to read am I not gener ous ? but he refused it. " When I see her, he asked, am. I at liberty to say what I choose! "On that I could have said, No. Red mond and 1 had not seeu each other since the period of my iirst visit to you. He has been nursing his wife in the meantime, tak ing journeys with her, and trying all sorts of cures; and now he seems tied to his aunt and mother-in-law. He was merely passing through the city with her, and this morn ing they have gone again. Well," after a pause, " there is no need of words between us. I have in my possession a part of you. Beautiful women are like flowers which open their leaves wide enough for their per- fume to attract wandering bees; the per fume is wasted, though the honey may be hid." "Alas, what a lesson this man is giving me!" I thought. " Farewell, th.en," he said. He bit his lips, and his clinched hands trembled; but he mastered his emotion. " You must think of me." " Ami see you, too," I answered. "Every thing comes round again, if we live long enough. Dramatic unities are never pre served in life ; if they were, how poetical would all these things be ! But Time whirls us round, showing us our many-sided feel ings as carelessly as a child rattles the bits of glass in his kaleidoscope." "So be it !" he replied. "Adieu !" That afternoon I stayed at home, and put John s room in order, and cleaned the dust from his Indian idols, and was extremely busy till he came in. Then I kissed his whiskers, and told him all my sins, and cried once or twice during my confession. He petted me a good deal, and made me eat twice as much dinner as I wanted ; he said it was good for me, and I obeyed him, for I felt uncommonly meek that day. Soon after, Redmond sent me a long letter. He said he had been, from a boy, under an obligation to his anut, the mother of his wife. It was a common story, and he would not trouble me with it. He was married soon after Harry Lothrop s first visit to me, at the time they had received the news of Laura s death. How much he had thought of Laura afterwards, while he was watching tlie fading away of his pale blos som ! His aunt had been ill since the death of her daughter, restless, and discontented with every change. He hoped she was now settled among some old friends with whom she might find consolation. In conclusion, he wrote : " My aunt noticed our hasty exit from the opera-house that night, when I was brute enough to nearly kill you. I told her that I loved you. She now feels, after a struggle, that she must let me go. Old women have no rights, she said to me yes terday. Margaret, may I come, and never leave you again T" My answer may be guessed, for one day he arrived. It was the dusk of a cheery winter day, the time when home wears so bright a look to those who seek it. It was an hour before dinner, and I was waiting for John to come in. The amber evening sky gleamed before the windows, and the 71 fire made a red core of light in the room. John s sandal-wood hoxes gave out strange odors in the heat, and the pattern of the Persian rug was just visible. A servant came to the door with a card. I held it to the grate, and the fire lit up his name. " Show him up-stairs," I said. I stood in the doorway, and heard his step on every stair. When he came I took him by the hand, and drew him into the room. He was speechless. " Oh, Redmond, I love you ! How long J T OU were away !" He knelt by me, and put my arms around his neck, and we kissed each other with the first, best kiss of passion. John came in, and I reached out my hand to him and said, "This is my husband." "That s comfortable," he answered. " Won t you stay to dinner?" " Oh yes," replied Redmond ; " this is my hotel." "I see," said John. But after dinner they had a long talk to gether. John sent me to my room, and I was glad to go. I walked up and down, crying, I must say, most of the time, asking forgiveness of myself for my faults, and re membering Laura and Maurice and then thinking Redmond was mine with a con traction of the heart which threatened to .-tiili- me. John took us up to Leonora s that even ing ; he said he wanted to see if Puss would be tantalized with the sight of such a heautiful romantic couple just from fairy land, who were now prepared "to live in peace." We were married the next day in a church in a by-street. John was the only witness, and flourished a largo silk handkerchief so that it had the effect of a triumphal banner. Redmond put the ring on the wrong finger a mistake which the minister kindly rectified. All I had now for the occasion was a pair of gloves. One morning after my marriage, when Redmond and John were smoking together, I was turning over some boxes, for I was packing to go homo on a visit to our mother. I called Redmond to leave his pipe and come to me. " Yon have not seen any of my property. Look, here it is: "One bitten handkerchief. " A fan never used. " A gold pen-holder. "A draggled shawl. T.i " Margaret," bo said, taking my chin in his hand and bringing his eyes close to mine, "I am wild with happiness." " Your pipe has gone out," we heard John say. IN HONOR BOUND. BY MISS CAROLINE CHESEBRO. THE little hamlot called Juniper, lying at the foot of the Granite Hills, had contribu ted men out of all proportion to the State and country twenty ministers to the pul pit, a judge to the Court of Appeals, a gov ernor and a bishop to the Northwestern ter ritory. Poor in crops, it had been rich in men. The traditions of the region for Juniper was yet more a region thaii a place were remarkable. At length, however, came a time when rising generations exhibited all the signs of contented resting on the laurels won, when energy exhibited itself in amassing wealth and in seeking for enjoyment. Farms and stocks looked up as men looked down. There was very little study done by firelight after a long day of labor in the field. The people of Juniper had not yet ceased to worship at the shrines of their ancestors, but the pride 75 kindled by tradition seemed to Lave lost the element of emulation. There was no more of it. Soul took its ease in Juniper; the sacred fire went out. In these days of decline Matthew Reardon was born, of a liue which had neither part nor lot in this heritage of Juniper glory. His father was not a landed proprietor of even the humblest pretensions, but a black smith, who, after roving about with his family of five children from one place to an other, finally settled at Juniper, and there remained, because there he was attacked by a disease which put an end to his wander ings. He did not die, but became palsied and purblind , and henceforth his boys and his old woman must get on as best they could. They exhibited themselves in ways com mon to people among whom nature is strong. They quarrelled over work, food, clothing, fire; and the weakest of the five they were all boys bade fair to be worst off. His mother, perceiving the fact, took the child under her special protection, and thus taught him the great lesson that whatever is desir able in this world may be obtained easily if one have but the wisdom to keep still and use opportunity. 7.; If you ask whether a better character bado fair to be formed in Matthew by this train ing, arid the tact which was thus developed in him, than was fashioned in Abel, the eld est, by his almost desperate use of the weap ons with which he had supplied himself when he found that he must take the place of leader in his father s house, I am afraid you must wait some time for an answer. But without doubt Matthew did make a- more agreeable exhibition of himself. He seemed to be gentle, but perhaps was only calculating ; ho appeared to be generous, possibly was merely timid. Abner Reardou was the fourth son ; Matthew was the sec ond; Michael, the third, had gone to seek his fortune nobody knew where ; Luke was dead since infancy ; and Abel was the eldest. Abner was the only one of the brothers who seemed to know anything about Mat thew, and ho was ten years Matthew s jurf- ior, and but seven when that wonder of the household died. So it happened quite easily that his imagination, fastening upon the dead, made of him something between hu man and divine which by no possibility could have found lodgment within Keardou llesh and blood at least, not at that period of the Kcardon history. 77 Destitute of family record or tradition, blessed merely with a Saxon common-sense which controlled well a Celtic imagination, it is difficult to understand is it ? his belief that, had Matthew lived, the world must have had another notable man out of Juniper. Abner s destiny was not an unhappy one. He was born to star - worship to a devo tional impulse towards the station his broth er had aimed at. With the spirit of an tagonism strongly developed in him, and the disposition to appropriate Avhatever he wanted, wherever he found it, and to ques tion and decide rights on the unquestion able power of the strongest, taking up the tradition of his brother, he felt within him the proud purpose that would give back to his mother what she had really never lost comfort a grief which, in the degree he con ceived of, she had never borne. See how this fiction of an imaginary hero in the house worked on the life of this lad, and speak reverently of imagination, the grandest of gifts to mortals. Abner believed tliat Matthew, who was gentle, had also been brave, and bravely set to work to acquire a, like gentleness. He imagined that the born plodder was patient 78 in the way that lie must be patient would ho win what Mat would certainly have won, and steadily ho sought to discipline his rough and fiery wilfulness into order. As he grew older he saw in his mother a suffering woman who had lost a son by whom, in the midst of savage natures, she had been tenderly loved and served, a son who had been to her as a daughter, and into his heart trickled drops from a divine fount ain that made it a well of brightness. You are in the secret of Abuer Keardon s growth. You know how he conquered his dislike for anything like study; how he struggled to win his own approbation ; how he stood as a slayer of dragons in the den where he was bom. By no miracle was it that a sou like Abner loomed up among the Reardous. For the reason that he was noth ing that could have been lorn of them, nei ther the blacksmith nor his wife understood the lad; and in time, as his eyes opened wider, and his brain more clearly perceived, must it not become as evident to himself as to others, and more intelligible to himself than to them, that between them lay a gulf as deep as time, a wall as high as heaven f Years passed on, and Abel, of coarse, mar ried ; and as he had already a family to a great degree dependent on him in his fa ther s bouse, bo brought bis wife to it, and after tbat, tbough there were slight changes, and perhaps a little gain in cheerfulness, things did not, on the vvbole, go on much better with the Jieardous than they bad from the beginning. A young bride, my young lady, who brings no fortune into the home of a poor man, and, alas! not even health, must she not have inexhaustible good nature, faith un limited, and unquenchable cheerfulness to secure for herself an immovable place in the household affections ? Poor Ruth seemed to have all that could be required, for she soon became the centre of the house, and the bouse was transformed into a home. Yet it seemed strange to all the neighbors when Ruth Colt went over to the Reardous . What could hare induced her to exchange her father s for the blacksmith s house ? Perhaps Abel s bluff kind of man fulness seemed to a delicate girl, who had grown up in a family of girls, full of protecting power. Whatever she expected, whatever she found, it began to appear that Ruth had married Abel and come into the house chiefly that she might instruct Abner how he might find bis wav out. of it. The twenty ministers, the bishop, and tlio judge had each and all passed to their high position through college doors, with mid night lamps and text-books in their hands, and Abner had thought of no other way of egress, and had begun to look with doubt ing gaze towards the future. But Abel s wife came, and made a life-long friend of him by her more than wonderous fairy tale about her uncle in New York, who had begun lift) as a saddler, and was ending it a millionaire. Perhaps the blacksmith s trade might prove as good a beginning, but the saddler had not got on without learning of some sort. Yes, and had taught school before he set himself up in business! There it all was iu a nutshell. The time Abuer had given to study had not been lost the more time ho continued to give to it the better but en terprise also must have Lts opportunity. Abner boldly took the money he had been saving for college expenses money lie had earned by performing sextou duty in a church five miles away and, selling the ap ples which he had dried to a peddler for three cents a pound, he bought tobacco, pipes, cigars, yeast - cakes, matches, soap, and other like light wares, aud these ho exposed for sale on neat shelves which he put np back of a counter in the little shed adjoining Abel s shop. Many a child has "played store" on the outlay of a larger capital than was expended by the experi ment Abner so seriously made. Abel laughed at "the boy;" but there was his o\vu Ruth s story about her uncle, and the Colts had rich relations. Everybody knew it. Abel could not put the testimony of their expe riences out of sight. From time to time, as inquiries were made at the blacksmith s shop for articles of do mestic use, the stock on Abner s shelves be came larger and more varied, and among the goods were displayed, probably by way of ornament, specimens of quartz and of minerals, which Abner s observing eyes had discovered on his Sunday walks to and from the church where he officiated in his hum ble capacity. But Abner was growing older with the months which saw these changes. It took some time to bring about the necessity of enlarged stock, a longer time to collect the specimens and bring them together. Still he never forgot Matthew, and between the books he brought from Juniper Centre Li brary and the shoeing of horses and the selling of wares he had sufficient occnpa- c tion. When would the tide rise, though, so as to surge through the inlet, and set the smooth water his bark was moored in in motion. Sometimes Ruth s younger sister, Abby, came to visit them. She was a lively girl, who had taught school since she was twelve years old a loving girl, who took no over burdening thought of the morrow, and was as satisfied with the pleasure of a day as if the promise of eternal duration were in it. People at the Outre began to say that it would be a pity if another of the Colt girls should be so easily satisfied as to " take " a Reardon,but for all that it was by no means a rare sight on a Sunday morning to see the two walking together on the high-road tow ards the meeting- house. And, indeed, it seemed quite unlikely that they would make any other disposition of themselves than just this which the gossips suggested with thr doubting of sceptics. One day there came a letter from the I m West to the Colt family, and after it had been duly read and discussed by the house hold, Abby put it into her pocket and walked over to Abel s, carrying a thought with her which she hardly dared to measure in its lenjitli and breadth. Abner ought to know about the prairies and the cattle, siiid ho\v a mail might make a fortune by hardly a turn of the hand if lie would only go far enough away from all lie knew and loved in search of it. That was the direction towards which the thought tended. Could she counsel such a step? What couldn t Abby do for Abner ? She could at least sacrifice herself. He ought to go from Juniper. Before she had gone to the house looking for Ruth, or to the blacksmith s shop seek ing Abel that tall, gaunt, black-browed, rather dejected-looking man, to whose face she could bring a kindly smile sooner than any other being except his wife Abby went to speak with Abner, and good reason had she to be surprised at what she found in his shop, and near it, for neither at Juniper nor at Juniper Centre had a like group ever be fore been seen. A short, stout, elderly gentleman, whose head not only, but whose face, seemed to be covered with beautiful gray hair, a man who looked capable of coaxing the secrets out of any kind of nature, stood leaning against Abner s counter, with every speci men that had ornamented the shelves un der his loving eyes. He was talking with M Abner. Two young ladies, attired in curious costume, stood near, listening to the con versation, and evidently surprised by the answers the young man was making. One of these girls was Miss Elizabeth Smiles, the professor s daughter. She had all her father s love of Nature, with an equal curi osity concerning the secrets to be disclosed by her, and even more than his disposition to rejoice over every beautiful thing. She was now perceiving in Abner a second Hugh Miller, whom her father would presently in a manner adopt, and by a rapid mental process peculiar to herself, by which she decided on the destiny of all whom she met, Miss Elizabeth set Abner forward on the path of discovery, and made him a ruler in the field of modern science. Whether Ab- iier s powerful eyes, his dclibcrateness of speech, or the rugged kind of splendor which was revealed in his face when he smiled, helped her in forming her conclu sions, I do not know, but my guess in the matter is worth as much, perhaps, as an other person s, and I guess she was so as sisted. Miss Elizabeth held the lamp of Aladdin in her hand. Abel was busy shoeing a horse, and talk ing at the same time with the professor s s;, wife about a cut the auimal had received from a sharp stone, just above the aukle, which had lamed him somewhat. A group of three girls stood near, watching the oper ation as gravely as though they were taking a lesson in a braiich of horsemanship new to them. The horses on which the party had been mounted Avere fastened to the trees close by, and it was evident that the riders had depended on the animals they might chance to find on their journey to take them from place to place. Nobody noticed Abby, though Abner, she knew, had seen her as she came around the corner; but he made no sign to show that he had. She did not, for that reason, retire to the house. Nobody noticed her, and there was too much to be seen the individuals of the party, the beauty of some of the faces, the oddity of the attire, excited her curi osity; their voices enchanted her. When at last they had mounted their steeds and rode away, she still lingered within sight and sound of what was going on. Abuer came from behind the counter as the gentleman turned from it, and repeated his promise that he would be ready to go with him the next morning at any time he might call for him, and then stood looking M after them as they slowly rodr away towards tLe Juniper Inn, and would not have vent ured to offer his .assistance when the ladies were mounting the steeds had he not been asked to hold a rein or a stirrup, and to pick up a, riding-whip. When he returned to his shop lie saw Abby sitting on the trunk of a tree a little way up the hill-side. " There !" he said, "I knew you would be coining. What do you think ?" "I think volumes," said she. "But what have you there T A letter? " Something worth your reading." "Read it tome. Will you!" Claim ing service, rebuking his claim in the same breath that was Abner. Abby read the letter. He leaned over tin counter, his face supported between his two hands, his eyes glowing, and listened. A bright fire blazed on the hearth of the Juniper Inn ; for though the month was June, night brought not rarely a more than chilling breeze through the valley of the Granite Hills. Surrounded by his wife and the five girls, all his summer pupils, as he called them, be cause lie loved his vocation so well, sat Pro- 87 fessor Smiles, happy in his element. Cau tion, who had mild suggestions to make to Enthusiasm now and tlien^ \vhen it appear ed probable that the latter might entice the girls too fast and too far, was now counsel ling him. Fortunate were the girls to have for their guide a man on culture bent, and intent, too, on proving that the natural sci ences offered the best aids to mental disci pline anywhere to be found. To this select audience around the fire he repeated the story which he had somewhere heard of the Juniper heroes, the twenty min isters, the bishop, and the judge. Elizabeth would have said, but for her conviction that the girls would laugh if she said it, "And there s another hero preparing to graduate from the blacksmith shop." True to the purpose with which he had set out on his tour, the professor had been his own guide so far, but ho had begun to see that he was not getting his share of the rest which the vacation should give him, nor securing exactly the results he had defined to himself before he set out. A male com panion who should serve other purposes than those of a servant merely would great ly lighten his cares. He had been thinking of the available young men in the Polytech- nic School and the School of Mines, but wlieu ho took into consideration the party to whom such student must be attendant, he found that there was no one at liberty whom ho would call to his aid. Had he now and here, in this out-of-the-way place, found the very person whom he needed f It would tally with many of Professor Smiles s experi ences should ho find that this was so. Ho was always expecting the best things, and generally finding them. After the young people and his wife had left him, while ho sat dreaming before the ashen embers, the professor recalled and dwelt upon the intel ligent face of the possible heir of all the Juniper greatness, until he became almost impatient of the hours which must pass be fore the morning walk among the hills which would show him whether he had found here a guide. "Something worth the reading," said Ab- by, as she looked up from her letter. Abner drew the sheet of paper towards him without speaking, and read it slowly for himself. "That is the place for making nimu \." .said he at length, folding the letter and giv ing it back to her. Abby was eloquent iu answer, more so by her voice and glance than, by her words even. Yon understand it, don t yon ? Yon buy the cattle, and brand them with your name, and then let theju run. There is no feed ing. They feed themselves. The prairies make a pretty wide field. All you have to do when you want to sell is to catch them, and they are all ready." " Yes," said Abuer, " if they don t all get the cattle disease and die off, so when you want em they can t be found." "I never thought of that," said Abby. "There s always something starting up you don t expect." "Yes," said Abner; but he looked quickly at Abby, as if he would encourage her by some cheerful words if she really needed to hear them. Then he thought how quickly she had conie over to Juniper to let them know about her cousin s good-fortuue in prospect. "I d. rather go to Kansas," said he. "But if I went, I must go alone. I wouldn t ask anybody to go with me." " I suppose not," she answered. " Why should you unless you could find somebody who had money." " You know what I mean, Abby," he said, slowly and so gravely that she blushed ; but she rallied. " It wouldn t be as handy boarding round in wigwams as it is in New Hampshire, I expect." Abuer laughed now. "If a girl should go out there with me she would have a rough time of it. She would have to board in her own cabin wrck in and week out, and no neighbors, like enough. That would be lonesome. But, West or East, it s all the same, so one is sat isfied." " Who is satisfied ?" asked Abby. " That s the reason West or East isn t all the same to anybody. You are satisfied, thinking yon will bring things around to your liking some time. But you re not satisfied to have them stay as they are. If you are, I m not." Abuer s eyes brightened. " You have hit the nail on the head," said he. " If you would go with me, I would be a fool to leave you behind." There seemed to bo nothing to say to that at least, Abby said nothing directly in response; but she spoke directly to the point when she took from her pocket a little book, and said : " Little Sammy Newton lent me the Tour ist s Guide here it is. Kansas is a long way off. But you see they have marked out a railroad, and there there are those great wide gardens, the prairies." Ah, now it was the pioneer that^ spoke, that heroic heart whose destiny it is to make our future. She pointed with rather tremulous ringer to the section marked Kansas. Abncr took the book from her the little paper -covered book, with its great map which folded into compass of insignificant proportions book which thousands of eyes, old and young, have scanned as closely, as believingly, as ever childhood scanned the wonder-books of fable book that will be studied more and more intently by succeed ing generations. Loug he studied it in the twilight, while lines and names were becom ing obscure. At last he folded it, and gavo it back to Abby. " It would be all work out there," he said ; " but the chances are first-rate. If I should make up my mind to go, Abby, would you go with me?" She did not answer instantly, and he added, " It wouldn t be right to ask it ?" Why wouldn t it ?" said she, quickly. " What difference would it make to me?" 09 "Could \ve make ii home then- . " " Could \ve any where?" " If \ve couldn t, I don t want any." "Same here," she said, in a playful, cheerful tone ; but there were tears iu her eyes. " Let me kuow half an hour before you are ready to start. You shall have your fortune if I can help you to it." Abner understood her. And he knew that he had not won Abby quite as easily as he seemed to have done. But he waa far enough from guessing all her thoughts. What man, what woman, in a like moment has guessed all the other s thoughts! " We should risk all we have," said he, " and you would be the loser, if either of us, Abby." " I have all to gain, and nothing to lose," she said. "Well, then, I think before long we will go and look up your cousin." Hand iu hand they walked back to the house, and then Caleb s letter was talked over by Abby and Ruth, and the sisters re called the day when the orphan boy left tlu-ir father s house for the West with ouly his two hands for his stock iu trade, and now he had his flocks and his herds, aud seemed sure of Fortune s favor. Abel lis tened to it all, and said, finally : "If yon otily go fur enough, and make up your mind what you want before you start, and can put up with nothiu , you are all right. I don t want one o them red dev ils carrying round my top -knot in his pocket." While they talked and argued, Abner walked out of the house, and made no haste to return. A great fire was slowly making its way through his life s secret chamber. The material was heavy ignited with diffi culty ; but it had been kindled, and it would be long before the flame went out. He went to his shop, restored the miner als to their places on the shelves again, and looked around him, not with the eyes of a pleased proprietor, but with the observa tion of a critic who has discovered a stand ard more exacting than he has known be fore. His aspect as he stood there reflecting on the Kansas prospect, and on the party whom he was to escort in the morning to Hopper s Glen, ten miles distant, might not have led a stranger to suspect what had passed be tween a spirited young woman and himself during that past hour. Yet he had not been M able to dwell upon the fact that was now established \\\ih regard to their future as ho sat in the house. He required all out-doors, the heavens above and the stars, the free air and the hills, for the tabernacle of that fact. The doubt he had long entertained whether this bright-minded Abby would ever consent to share his slow fortunes for he had not seen without perceiving the skil ful hand with which she brought order out of disorder wherever she went, and how rich she was in suggestion when other people seemed to bo at their wits end had cost him much disquiet, and now it was removed ! He could not but be amazed. No place short of Kansas seemed to offer him a field large enough and conditions generous enough for the enterprise he must engage in, with Abby for a partner. So it was that he could not sit quietly in the house thinking of these things, and hear Abel talk about the lack of timber in Kansas and the prairie fires, the cattle disease, and the Indians. How should he suspect that Abel in this talk was merely trying to rea son himself into content with his own small chance at fortune, and curbing his restive spirit to do the plodding work of duty, ex pounding, in his way, the doctrine of com- 9.1 pensation, which lie had once heard preached by Now England s high-priest ? It was full ten miles to Hopper s Glen, and as the way was none of the smoothest, the professor had decided to go on foot, and, quite contrary to expectation, his wife and the five girls decided to accompany him, and made such a scornful outcry, when ho had thrown ten miles of difficulty in their way, that he was quite ready to yield; and having ascertained that tiie tourists were prepared in advance for climbing rocky hill sides, and for crossing, if need be, unbridged streams and swamp lauds, all set forth. Going or returning, the young people never lost sight of the professor or their guide. They rested by the way-side under forest trees, examining the floral specimens gathered as they went ; with their small hammers they tapped a cheerful tune on the venerable rocks, and they enriched them selves with the crystals which seemed to be seech of them release from the place of their captivity. They made themselves at home in Nature s grounds, and manifestly were her dearly beloved children. Abner thought of Matthew on that excur sion, and blushed to think how high he had M supposed his own aims to Lave been, how low they really were. The professor mani fested no little desire to be taught concern ing the region; and Abner could tell him the "lay of the land." and the formation of the rocky region within a radius of fifty miles, as well as if he had studied a treatise on tbe subject. He had once accompanied an engineer, who went seeking the most direct line for a railway across the Stale, and in that tour Abner had learned to use his eyes. The rocks, trees, streams, had taken their place in his memory, and what ever information that was desired concern ing them he could give. The professor was not so much surprised as pleased. He knew how in that barren land, side by side with the need which demanded labor of the hands, fair culture throve; and had. Abner been ten times as well versed iu book- knowledge as he was, it would not have astonished him. But those girls, would they not have been astonished had Abby also been of the party ? Let them try conjugating Latin verbs with her, or quoting from Vergil, or singing witli the birds, or dishing up a good meal under nupropitious circumstances! I wish Abby had been of that company. Would she have 97 Lad, as Abner had, an at first overwhelming sense of the distance that lay between her and her company ? Perhaps, and probably on her own behalf; but she would have been astonished and indignant that Abuer shared the humiliation. Poor fellow! true to his inspiration, ho said, "Mat would not have felt it, because it wouldn t have existed." But, as one moment swiftly followed another, the ideal Mat supplied Abner with reasons why he should, stand erect in this company, and with modest self-respect he finally stood erect. Oh, Matthew Keardon, if you saw your work, were not you amazed thereat? Nevertheless, Hail to every veiled prophet," thought of whom has nourished in human hearts the passion of worship ! The next day after this excursion to the Glen, which far exceeded in its wonderful beauty anything that had been imagined by the most fancy-free of the little party, Professor Smiles went down to Abuer s shopj and proposed that he should join him and the ladies as a guide on their projected trip across the State to the White Hills. They expected, he said, to be absent from home a month or six weeks longer ; and, be sides expenses, fair wages would be allowed. 7 The professor dwelt briefly 011 the advan tages the youug man might derive from the trip, and gave him a day to decide. Here was a great opportunity. Should Abuer reject it, think lightly of it, grind on with his feeble hand Fortune s grist, while here was the great windmill, with all the winds of heaven waiting to fill the sails ? It depended on how he looked at the chance. The professor had explained it well. The lad was no fool ; he could not see far into the future, but he conld see with tolerable eyes the present. One day with this party had given him a hundred new ideas. Perhaps Abby could look after the shop ; she iutend- *ed to spend her vacation, now at baud, with Ruth. Why did he say to himself instantly rather than allow her to perform such serv ice, he would give his wares over to moth, rust, and mildew ? Let it not be supposed that had Abner been required to give his answer to the professor within an hour he could not have given it. There was, in re ality, no hesitation in his mind, merely the shadows of a few doubts which were hover ing around, but would never come boldly into sight. In the female mind of the family, how ever, another view was taken of this oppor- 99 tnnity than Abuer took. Abel s wife, who had been thinking with increasing enthu siasm, not to say longing, of the cattle ou those plains, where the way to fortune was made easy, asked and no wonder " Will tramping over the^hills be the same, or bet ter, than getting ready for Kansas ? Time is worth something ; " while the mother of sainted Matthew was troubled about the ap ple crop, which should have instant atten tion if Abner expected to send to market his hundred bushels of dried fruit, as he did last year. It is indeed a grave matter to let go the hold ou certainty such chasing of chimeras as the appalled human heart has seen since the beginning! "Maybe not," Abner said to Ruth. "I must take my chance, though ; and, anyway, there ll be room for me in Kansas after that. It seems to me as if a door had opened, and I must go in." To his mother he said, " The apple business is very well in its way, but I think I see a short-cut to college." And he said the same thing to Abby, though in other words ; and she answered, with the under standing and the heart : " Go with em, Abner. As you say, Kansas is as likely to stand fast as anything. You can take your chance there any time." 100 Her encouraging word seemed to circuit- him. He acknowledged to himself that it did so it was all oue. Abby was associ ated with his decision for better, for worse. Doubtless he would have gone without her encouragement, but it was in accordance with all that favored his going out that she should see, as he did, that there was a chance uot to be made light of. No matter whether all or half he expected, or nothing, came of the " tramping," Abby would never go back of her counsel and lament it. She did not belong to the stoics, who never repent, but had the steady brain of a Juniper girl, and counselled according to her light, and took the consequences bravely. I would like to discourse on Abby, but I resist the tempta tion. The next day saw Abner Rcardon going out of Juniper, not to return that season, nor for many another. The professor liked the young man at tlxi outset, and as they proceeded on their jour ney, day after day, he liked him more and more, and at length, when the right moment had come, he proposed that he should go back with him to town as his assistant, offering him as compensation a home in his own house and a collegiate course. 101 The proposal startled Abner. He wrote home to Abby. What did Abby answer? "You aud I arU Ji VtVsu cii idiots i liat we can not see that New England is your trump card, and not4y il 1 isa ?- ?" S<X 4-1^4* ?*l*k,back with the professo r* to" Boston , and is there need that I should show that the gentleman had secured an invaluable assistant? Any body can tell how it was that he proved himself invaluable who considers the dis cipline to which Abner had subjected him self since he began to think. He was mas ter of himself iu many directions: more methodical, more painstaking and exact,than any other student in college ; and so thor oughly did he understand the truest way of getting on that he yielded only at rare in tervals to the make-shifts of brilliaut lazi ness. I am compelled in all seriousness to say of him, in commendation, what oue can hardly suggest now in reference to thinker or worker without exciting critical suspi cion or pathetic commiseration that he was " conscientious" in his work. There seemed to be reason sufficient why he should not return to Juniper invariably at holiday seasons. He had, in fact, few holidays that were his own for leisure. His vacations were spent chiefly iu journeys 102 with or for Professor Smiles. Ho made tlio tour of libraries and laboratories ; his hands seemed tc be ahvayy frll of noics in short hand ; and time sped so fast he had had hardly. Qpp-oftinjiry. fqr*iiHhilj*ing In a re- grett ul thought concerning Juniper. And when now and then at rare intervals he did go back to the silent hill country, do you think it was all the same as if during his absence he had worked in a less absorbed way? How is it with those who plunge into trade or politics to win the glory or the gold wherewith they will go back to adorn the home and secure the ideal ? Do they find the old home where they left it f Is it forever to remain what it was when the heart loved it best f Is the ideal there ? Abby was there, that good girl who loved him ; and his poor old mother ; sickly Ruth ; the little house full of children ; Abel, grow ing gray and wrinkled ; the paralytic fa ther ; hills that looked not so high as once ; a blacksmith s shop, into which no thought, apparently, beyond that of rudest labor had ever entered. Envy not the youth those visits homo. Twice he returned thither, and the professor, who watched him nar rowly, inspecting him on his return the sec ond time, said to himself, " This will usver 103 do. He must stay with me till he has his diploma, or ho will lose all heart and cour age." The professor had himself kuown the early privation, the hnmble home, the dismay awaiting awakened intelligence that has not yet compjissed the all of human ex perience. He understood what he per ceived in Abuer when he came back from these visits, and therefore determined that they should not be repeated. " Get thee out of thine own country," " Forget thy people and thy father s house," he would have said in so many words had he not had the knowledge of a more excellent way. Abner began to be talked about in col lege circles, and to appear now and then in social gatherings. Wise ones said that he was made of " the right stuff," and to speak of him as a young man of great promise. Elderly ladies took notice of him ; and there was one young lady I need not say the professor s daughter Elizabeth, who studied botany, chemistry, and mineralogy with him a young lady in whom scientific pre dilections were as the vital spark who sometimes congratulated herself on the summer trip which had discovered Abner. This young lady ! Must it not have been a pleasant thing for a young working-man like 104 Abner, whoso hands and whose thoughts found so constantly noble occupation, to have for a companion one who understood his successes because she understood so well the obstacles he had overcome in winning them? Could a comparison between his old home and his present abode suggest it self, and not suggest also a train of thought which might lead who would dare to pre dict, who could avoid predicting, whither f And this companion was a handsome girl, quick-witted, gay-hearted, sweet-tempered, capable of hard study and of deep thought, and the daughter of the man who had proved his best friend, his more than father. Poor Abby ! But then, after all, even the great wall of China could not secure from the nineteenth century the foredoomed Ce lestials. Aud all things must take their chances. In writing to Abby one day Aimer per ceived a reluctance which was perhaps not quite new, but which was more intelligible than it had been before. It occasioned a peculiar movement of his pen, and its sus pension in the air. It seemed unlikely that ho would add another word. And yet he did add many. He deliberately entered on an elaborate description of the social aspect of his life in the city, and it was almost as if he thought that by doing this his dear girl might possibly be led to see with her own. eyes more than he could say how un like Juniper life this life he was living was, and how improbable it was that Juniper, or anybody in Juniper would ever have in him the man anticipated. It became after that his desire to find ont how many of all Juni per s great men had gone back to Juniper for a wife. How strange it was that, after months and months of waiting, he had found courage to speak to Abby the very night when the professor came to Juniper! Looking at the relations he sustained to ward Abby with the unpoetic eyes of com mon-sense, it must at once be seen that for Abner to have cherished at this time any great enthusiasm in view of those relations would argue a very remarkable youth in deed. Do you, my reader, happen to know one such elect of invinciblcs? Of stanch fidelity he might be capable, but consider how society dazzles the gray-beards, and then think of this lad. The well-dressed woman of the world wills not to be rudely ignored by the rustic genius. Soft hair, sweet eyes, sweet voices, perfumes, gar ments, graces, know you not all your worth I 106 Correspondence between Juniper and Bos ton did not rival telegrams. Four-footed beasts could do all its work acceptably. No need of the birds of the air. One day Abner received a letter from Abby, saying that Abel s wife had died, and that she was staying with the family. There was great need of a strong-handed woman in the house, and poor Abel, she knew not what would become of him. And then the children, the poor little motherless children, that were to live and grow up in this hard world ! Abner read it, and he folt not a little grieved, thinking of poor Ruth. But the letter came at a time when ho was more than usually occupied with laboratory and class work, and when his eyes happened to fall on it several hours after he had received it, he was chiefly shocked to find how little impression the death even of this woman, whom he had once thought of as a great family blessing, had made upon him. When his hurry was over he deliberately sat down to think upon all these entangle ments and snares which beset him, and one result of his thinking was that ho told Eliz abeth about Abby and the Kansas cattle plan, which had been unexpectedly de- 107 feated by the coming of her father and the party by whom he was carried out of Juni per. Consider his condition. Could he have told her with any other hope than that by so doing he would be thrown npon his honor, and stand committed to noblest behavior before -the professor s daughter, that noblest woman in the world ? And yet he had been thinking, "Poor Abel! what will become of him, with all that load on him ? Abby was always fond of his chil dren. He will be obliged to marry again. Wliat a mother she would prove to those motherless little ones ! No other man than Abel but " A curious train of thought for a young lover to take up and seriously entertain, and not for a day only. A mouth, six weeks passed, six mouths, and the thought was not yet worn threadbare and dismissed. One day Abuer went to the professor and said : " Do not think me foolish. I know exactly how things stand. I shall have my diploma within a fortnight, if ever, and there s not a little work to be done ; but I must go home. I can t study. I can t fix my mind on anything. They need me there to settle things. We have met with a loss. They do not say it outright, but I know I can bo of great service to all, and there is no use of my trying to accomplish anything here as I am now." The professor looked surprised, of course. It was not the report of himself he could have expected of Abner, his model of self- discipline, bnt he said: "If you must go, you must ; but I should be sorry if anything hindered your going abroad with us alter Commencement, my son. 1 When Abucr looked at Elizabeth, who was in the room preparing certain botan ical specimens for her father s class, she, absorbed in her work, felt that he was look ing at her, and, half lifting her eyes, said : " Who knows what the young lady will say ? Perhaps she can go too." What did she mean by that? As kindly as she said ? Was it probable that she would be so ill-bred and so cruel as to smite and humiliate him by the suggestion of an impossibility, which, had it been a possi bility, would still perhaps have pleased him so little? The professor looked from his daughter to Abner, as if about to exclaim, " How s that I" bnt he did not say it. I Living found the way so clear to Juni per, Abner advanced. He took it without rcluctauce but with gladness ? Yes, but gladness may have little joy. When the sense of honor must be appealed to in be half of love, how is it with love ? Abner packed his worldly goods in a portmanteau, and went to Juniper to say to Abby what he could not write. He would know whether it must be said the instant he looked at her. If either of them had made a mistake choos ing for life and life s happiness, best for life, liberty, and sacred honor that they should know it before the further and more fatal mistake had been made. He believed that the first mistake was not to be denied. Ho must explain things to Abby, must talk with her face to face, aud after that they would always be friends. So he left the city, and went by the crowded routes of travel homeward till he came within fifty miles of Juniper, then by stage; and at last, on foot, he approached tlio blacksmith s shop and the house of Beardon. The door of the old brown house stood open as he approached. How every vine aud shrub and tree in the neighborhood had grown during those two years which had not been broken by return ! The lilac bushes were as a wall shielding the house from the no road, and gave to the place an aspect of se clusion, though the blacksmith s shop was so close at hand. The old trees looked older, the old house more humble. A little yellow-haired girl was swinging on the gate Abel s motherless girl, he knew with a flower in her hand. Ruth stood there when he went away, with a smile op her face and tears in her kind eyes, and wished him well. Where was she now T Could she from any near or far distance look upon him as he came f He spoke to the little girl. But she had forgotten him, and when he looked at her with such scrutiny in his eyes, she jumped down from the gate and ran into the house. He made no haste to follow her, but stood looking around him ; and so, presently, a voice quite near said to him : "You might come in, perhaps." Then he saw Abby standing in the gate way looking at him with a gaze every whit as terrifying as he had bestowed just now upon the child, but merely because they were Abby s own eyes that looked, calm, steady, tender. Here, then, was Abel s wife and the mother of Ruth s motherless children. He ventured a question, like one half wakened Ill from sleep and from iiightmare. Yet be had not come home to play with words. " Are you ready for Kansas ?" said be. "Are you ?" sbe asked iu turn. " We will talk about that," he answered. "Where s mother!" Was it mere honor that had spoken ? Must he now shame himself by his midnight reflections on duty, after he had heard from Abel and his mother how Abby had been as the mother of the household since poor Eutb s death, even as Abner and as Abuer s wife, the mother and the servant of all ? Possibly he had need to test himself still further in order to discover whether he was in honor bound. Possibly Abby, aware of what she did, supplied the test ; but I think not. I think it was rather the result of sad and solemn thinking that made her say to him, next day, when she had made for her self an opportunity : " Abuer, the neighbors say I ought to marry Abel." " They know what your duty is, I dare say," he answered, \vith a glow on his face kindled by what fire, let us hope, she would never suspect. " But I am thinking the same thing." " Abel too, I dare say." " I don t know. But poor Abel !" "You expect me to give you away is that it? To-day, then, for I must go back to-morrow." " I expect your consent," she said, grave ly, so much absorbed by what she had to say and by what she was saying that she seemed to pay no heed to what was evi dently enough passing within bis mind, who had so unexpectedly found the door of deliverance opening. "Abel must mar ry. There are all those children who cau take care of them as well f And the old people ? As to you " She did uot look at him. " As to me," he said, turning his back suddenly on the door of which I have spoken, and expressing himself with a di rectness which must have amazed him, "if I am uot worth your taking, let it be as yon have said." " I have set my common-sense at work," said she. " I have thought a great deal about it. lloston isn t like .hmiprr. It is inhabited by another kind of people." "It js indeed," said he. " Your kind not mine." " I deny that." " Well, you cau find your kind there." 113 " When I Lave found already -what I \vant, and it is mine !" "Don t think of that, Abuer," she said, quickly. " That belonged to the old time. Since then everything is changed. I have often thought it never could have happened if I hadn t come over that night with Cousin Caleb s letter." She was sufficiently in ear nest. " Then you have learned to love Abel and it was a mistake about me," said Abner, slowly. "I have learned many things since you went away." How did it happen that a little later in the day Abner was calling on all that was within him to prove to Abby that a diploma wasn t worth the having if it took him away from her again ? " So far as I can see," she said, " you are in honor bound to the professor. No Kansas for us yet." Where had she learned those words which had haunted and tormented him so long? And did he tell her then, by way of warning, that Miss Elizabeth was there in the place to which she would re turn him ? Not he. He had forgotten Miss Elizabeth. It was, in fact, Abby s talk that sent Abuer the next day back to town, and 114 coustraiued biin to remain there until be should have rendered some invaluable service to Professor Smiles. But who does not behold on the far Kansas plains a thousand cattle bearing A. R. s brand f What did Abner see in the eyes of Miss Elizabeth when he went back f Bountiful loving-kindness. And no more T No more that he could interpret. " I should have expected the heavens to. tall as soon as to hear that you did not know your own heart and mind, Abner. I never could have forgiven you if you had not seen how you were in honor bound." " Ah !" said he ; " but that was not it, Miss Elizabeth. Though, perhaps, I thought it was." " I know it," said she. Thank God for every creature who iu the Father s House makes himself a zealous cus todian of the sacred ideals ! AN -ISLANDER. BY MISS MARGARET CROSBY. I. AT four o clock on a September afternoon Vestal Street, Nantucket, is curiously quiet. The square white bouses stand on either side of the sandy road. The lowering sun light is beginning to cast a gray shadow across its glaring whiteness. The houses have no outside shutters, and the closed in side blinds, of solid wood painted white, have a sightless expression. Beyond, in Lily Street and in the lower part of the town, many of the houses have a railed platform on the roof, called the " walk," where the Nantucket wives were wont, in former days, to watch longingly the out ward or homeward bound sails; but in Vestal Street the houses have not this dig nity. From their upper windows is seen the old windmill, on its green mound, and 116 the moor, undulating unbrokeuly for three miles uutil the sen is reached. Ou such an afternoon in one of these houses an elderly man and woman sat in the living-room talking together. Both were seated in black wooden rockiug-chairs ; and as these two persons talked they rocked, the creaking of the chairs keeping up a groaning accompaniment to their conversa tion. "So Eunice wouldn t go to the Continent with Mrs. Lane?" said the old man. " Well, Mrs. Adams, I always said she was one of the elect." He was small and thin ; his face was smooth-shaven, all but a fringe of white beard that started close to his ears and ran around under his chin. The same fringe grew low down on his bald head and waved on the collar of his bine flannel coat. His face, thus left exposed, had an expression of innocent curiosity and kindliness. At one of the windows a shutter \vas open, and a square of blue mosquito-netting in a frame fitted into the casements and kept the flies out. Mrs. Adams sat by this window making a patch-work quilt, and rocking gently as she sewed. She had a rigid, cautious face and gray hair, brushed 117 smoothly down on either side of her fore head. She spoke with emphasis. "You are right, Deacon Swain, Eunice has always had a calling, as I may say. From the time she was right small she was seriously inclined. She s a conscientious girl, if I do say it. It was a chance to go to the Continent to New York, and it weren t nothing to be governess to Mrs. Lane s children compared to teaching school here; but she had a call to stay here. She said she couldn t go off suddenly and leave everything at loose ends. She d undertook the grammar-school, and this was her place." Deacon Swain s face glowed with ap proval. "Yet it icas a chance to go to New York," he said, as if to provoke Mrs. Adams to further speech. " So folks said," Mrs. Adams answered, dryly. " But Eunice only said as she didn t know as they needed her over to the Conti nent, and they did here, so twas her duty to stay." By "Continent" a Nantucketer always means the mainland. Mrs. Adams paused, and then resumed, with a slight change of tone, " Have you called a minister yet ?" 118 " Well no " replied the deacon. "Should think you d best be hurryin up," said Mrs. Adams, with some severity. "It s a cry in disgrace that the Congrega tional Church of Nantucket should be so long without a minister. There s a falliu away, and it ll grow. I heard of Maria Barnes and all the Aaron Macys at the Episcopal Church last Sunday." The deacon looked uneasy. " That s so," he assented ; but he added, guardedly, " We had a meetiu yesterday, and we re bringin matters to a p iut s quick s we can. Where s Eunice f" he con cluded. "Out in the back lot, parin apples for apple-butter," Mrs. Adams answered. There was a pause of a few moments, while the two rockers creaked in concert. "How does your boarder suit?" inquired the deacon at last. The cautious expression deepened in Mrs. Adams s face. " Well enough !" she said, shortly. The deacon looked at her with mild yet active curiosity. " Does he um pay regular ?" "Yes, he pays regular enough," Mrs. Adams admitted. 119 The deacon gazed, meditatively at the ceiling. He did not wish to appear eager, yet he was anxious to discover the secret of Mrs. Adams s dissatisfaction with her lodger. "I must say the young man commends himself strongly l^o me," he said. "He came into my store for some cigars the day he come, and he didn t seem much to like Nan- tucket. He d took a room to the Spring field House. He s kind of foreign and open- spoken, you know. He said he didn t want to stay to a hotel, when he came to Nan- tncket, with a lot of tourists. That s what he called the strangers." The deacon laughed gently as he made this comment. " Said he d come to study the place and inhabitants; that what he wanted was local coloring. I ve been a-kinder pouderiu that term ever since. Thought he d go back to the Continent right oif. Now, says I "- the deacon was warming to his subject, for Mrs. Adams had stopped working and re garded him with deep attention " says I, don t cross the bay to-day, it s as rugged as fury ; stay a few days and you ll shake down. You see, I says, this is a corner grocery, and folks drop in afternoons and it s real social. You re welcome, I says, to 120 come in and get weighed as many times a day s yon want. He seemed kinder pleased, and then be wanted me to recommend him to some private house, in a quiet street. where he could take a room ; and I told him about you, for Eunice said you was thinking about taking a boarder. I m sorry he don t suit." He paused diplomatically. Mrs. Adams began to sew again. " Tain t that he doesn t suit," she said. " He s talcing enough ; but it s against con science, my keepin him. He s a godless, Sabbath -breakiu man !" She uttered this terrible accusation in a calm, dry voice. " You don t say !" said the deacon, breath lessly. His face was unaffectedly regretful. "Yet," he continued, "he s full of natural grace." "Natural grace ain t goin to help a man where his eternal salvation is concerned. Mrs. Adams returned, severely. "You km>\\- that, deacon, as well as I do." The deacon made an unwilling movement of assent with his head. "Yes, we are taught so," he said, musingly ; " and yet it seems strange, for we are all made in the image of God." 121 Mrs. Adams was too much occupied with her own thoughts to heed him. "The question is," she continued, " whether, as the wife of a Presbyterian minister, I am justified in keeping him in my house." ,. The old man looked distressed. " It s a- question, it s a question," he said; "but what makes you think he s in an uuregen- erate state f" " Plenty of things. He ain t much in the habit of making friends with strangers ; but after he came I told him that, though we wouldn t vacate the sittin -room for any one, he was welcome to come in and sit and play on the music. I do say he makes a sight of music come out of that melodeon ; sounds like the organ I heard when I was to Boston with Ephraim." " Yes," nodded the old man, "I remember your mentioning it to Lucilla when yon came back to the Island." " Well," said Mrs. Adams, " Sundays Dr. Otto played and sang same s other days, and such music! I can t liken it to anything I ever heard. It sounded, well " " French ?" suggested the deacon. His im agination had been fired by the widow s elo quence, and the word came patly to his lips. 122 Mrs. Adams gave his eager, simple old face a sharp look over her glasses. "Persian, more likely," she said, shortly. "Heathenish, anyhow. I soon put an end to that ; but that ain t all. He works at his paiutin s all day Sundays. He let fall in conversation that he makes a habit of at- tendin the play. In Germany he had a seat regular, same as we have a pew in church. As far s I can see he has no Bible. The other day I gave him Ephraim s tract, Go ing to the Play, you kuow." The elder nodded. " He was polite enough to me about it; but when I came in after, he was readin it, and as far as I could make out he was laughing. It just showed his feelings on sacred subjects." A look of helpless distress had come into the deacon s face. "What does Eunice say ?" he asked. "Well, Eunice always looks at things in a high kind of way. When I spoke to her she only says, Mother, perhaps his coinin here is a leadin of Providence, and wo ought not to bar the way. That was three weeks ago. I don t know how she feels now." The old man seemed relieved. " Eunice ain t likely to be far wrong iu such matters. 123 The things of God are spiritually discerned, and it is given to such as her to discern them." He rose and took his hat from the table. " I must be goin .along." He shook hands somewhat limply with Mrs. Adams, who did not rise from the chair. " You d better let Eunice Settle that matter." His face became very grave and tender. " En- nice is one of the Elect, as I said before. It s my belief, Mrs. Adams, that the Lord has great things in store for her." Mrs. Adams only gave him another scru tinizing glance. He left the room, and, as he let himself out of the door, she resumed her work, only calling to him, " I ll send Lucilla some of my apple-but ter ; she told me she wa u t preservin this season ." The back porch of the house looked out on a small enclosure of sandy grass. There was but one stunted tree and no flowers. The gabled end of a neighboring house, painted a dull red, jutted out beyond the rickety fence, at one end of the enclosure. Beyond could be seen the windmill, on its mound, and the green moors. The atmos phere was so clear and sparkling that it lent an actual beauty to the very simple elements which made up this scene. 1-21 In the porch a man sat before his easel, painting. lie had evidently intended to paint simply the gable of the house, with the glimpse of the windmill and (lie moor beyond but Eunice Adams stood at a table just beyond the porch. On the table lay a, pile of. rusty-yellow and red apples, which she was paring. The background of the red house threw her figure into relief, and the temptation to add it to his picture was too strong for Dr. Julius Otto. He had sketched in her figure hastily, and was working carefully on the face. He seemed to be about thirty-five. His light-brown hair grew straight up from his forehead in a thick mass. His moustache swept away from his mouth in a bold wave. His beard was parted in the Prussian fashion, and he had a slightly obstinate mouth and chin. In the turn of his head, the expression of his eyes, in his whole manner, there was an enormous naturalness that was almost startling. He was speaking in rapid, lluent English, with a marked German accent. "For my part," he said, " I am glad I am going to Vienna. I have been five years in this country, and it has treated me kindly. But I find you Americans too prejudiced, too narrow. Now, if you, for instance, could shake off some of the Puritanism that is blighting your life, you would be far hap pier." He threw off this suggestion in a half- teasing manner, yet with a vivid heartiness that was like a cordial. Eunice remained silent for a moment. Then she spoke with an effort. " It is not always necessary to be happy." Her face was one of those we sometimes see in New England. Her forehead was somewhat high, and her features had the same regularity that in her mother had hardened into rigidity. Her skin was colorless, and her dark hair was twisted iu a heavy, waveless mass at the back of her head. Her eyes were singularly clear gray, with dark lashes and eyebrows. Her face had much beauty ; but, more than this, it was so refined and spiritualized by some in ward experience and habitual moral lofti ness that it made a vivid impression on those who saw it for the first time. The Nantucketers were accustomed to this qual ity in her face, and took it as a matter of course ; but the summer visitors who met her in the street used to wonder at the strange, exquisite face, afterwards remem bering its transparent lambency of expres- 1-26 siou as something rarer and more exquisite than beauty. Dr. Otto received her remark with a sort of kindly amusement. "Why, if you please, Miss Enuice, is it not necessary to be happy 1" Eunice looked at him anxiously as ho bent over his easel. She seemed to force herself to speak. " Because, if we do our duty, it makes no difference whether we are happy or not. Things may seem hard here, but in another life " She stopped suddenly, catching her breath nervously. Dr. Otto s face had an expression of half- pitying protest. "All very well," he said, with the same- heartiness, " if one could be guaranteed the second lease. But you know wo are only sure of one life !" He laughed good-hnmoredly as ho spoke. The girl s face only became slightly paler. She dropped the knife and apple she IK Id in her hands. " Do not say that !" she said, in a low voice. " Every one can be sure. You do believe that ?" Her voice was so urgent that the German spoke with more seriousness. 127 "Really, Miss Eunice, do you wish me to speak the truth ?" "Yes," sbe answered. "Well, then, I will tell you fraukly, I have loug since arranged my life without reference to any such beliefs." " How can you live, then I" Her eyes dilated as she looked at him. " All the better," he answered, " since I have ceased to support or torment myself with false hopes or fears. The world is wide. There is so much to do, so much to live for, that there is more than scope for the largest intelligence. It satisfies me. If I complain and wish for more, I am not worthy to have standing-room. Out of it, and let some better man take my place ! But I have not come to that yet. It is true there is misery and suffering, but we can all help each other. Let us do our duty. Yes but let us be happy also, and not starve our lives as you do." Eunice had remained motionless then she spoke again in the same low voice. " Do you mean to say you have no hope of immortality?" Otto laughed. " My dear Miss Eunice," he said, gently, " spend six months in a dissecting-room, 128 and your ideas of life aud immortality will undergo a startling change." His words seemed to give Eunice a mo mentary insight into his hahits of thought. Her face was strangely illuminated as she answered, "It does no good to talk about it, Dr. Otto. It is not in my power that you shall or shall not believe. But the spirit of God is stronger than the mind or will of man. It can teach you aud lead you as I can not, as your own understanding cannot whether you believe it or not, this is true." At any other moment of his life Otto would have looked upon such "an outburst as a pitiable exhibition of superstition. But perfect sincerity has a power of its own, aud he was strangely impressed. To his surprise, Eunice suddenly gathered up the basket of apples and went rapidly into the house. As she passed him he saw that tears were streaming down her face. Their talk was only one of many, but none had reached this point. He whistled very soft ly to himself, and then went on painting iu silence. Dr. Otto had little instinctive reverence, or, as he would have expressed it, no superstitious; but ho had broad sympa- thies and a tender heart. He began to re gret having spoken so frankly. At meals Eunice first served her mother and their guest, and then took her own seat at the table. When he first came this pro ceeding was highly embarrassing to Otto. If Eunice had been less educated and less re fined, it would not have seemed so incongru ous. He used to jump up from his seat to assist her; but he found that this was only disturbing to both Mrs. Adams and her daughter, and he now submitted with a good grace. This evening Eunice was un usually quiet. Long before now Otto had learned the secret of waking her laughter. It had a fresh, unused sweetness, and he learned to wait for this sound and to enjoy it genuinely when it came. But now this pleasure was not in store for him. The girl s eyes were swollen from crying, and her manner w r as full of the dignity of a quiet sorrow. After supper Mrs. Adams took her seat in the rocking-chair of the living-room, with her knitting. Eunice was clearing away the dishes. Otto, who had lingered in the room, spoke suddenly to her. "Miss Eunice, I am afraid my thought less remarks this afternoon have troubled you?" 9 -130 She made no reply, but stood with her eyes cast down. He went on with his usual fluency, "Even if one lias no household gods, one should not try to knock down one s neighbor s. I have no desire to shake your faith. I have no creed to offer you in ex change but the very finite one I proposed this afternoon "he broke off "in fact, I can only ask you to forgive me." She looked up quietly, and he saw that, in spite of her reddened eyes, her expression was lofty and collected. "You have not shaken my faith. It is only terrible to know that you that any one should feel as you do. If yon were ig norant, it -would be different " she stopped "but it does no good to talk about it." She took a dish from the table and left the room. Otto, a little baffled, went into his own room and lighted his lamp. Mrs. Adams and Eunice had arranged this room with their own hands. The walls were white washed, and a square of blue and gray ingrain carpeting covered the floor. The drop-shades were of thick light-blue paper, and the window-curtains of blue and white mosquito-netting, looped back with a wide 131 strip of the blue paper of which the shades were made. The furniture was of the cheap est painted wood, with the exception of a mahogany bureau with small brass knobs. Above the looking-glass hung a worsted- work sampler, framed, and covered with glass. There was an inscription thereon to this effect : "Mary Folger is my name, America is my nation ; Nantucket is my dwelling-place, And Christ is my salvation." The figure of the German was in curious contrast to the air of humble sanctity which this room possessed. He looked too large for its small proportions, and too aggressive for its timid propriety. His tweed shoot ing-jacket and a pair of muddy corduroys sprawled over a chair, where he had flung them when he came in from a sketching ex pedition the day before. His portfolio lay open on the table, and lie sat down by it and looked at his sketches. They seemed to him monotonous some of the most char acteristic Nautucket houses ; one or two of the narrowest and crookedest lanes ; and the rest of the moors, always the moors. At sunset, in the golden haze of the setting sun ; at twilight, purpled and shadowy ; at dawn. 132 by Tom Nevei^s Head, the brown moor and the still sea reddened with the flush of the morning. For a moment they brought back the perfect reality woven into his mental fibres by the tenderest thoughts of his life; then they seemed only faded reflections. He pushed them aside almost angrily. He had graduated from a medical college in Berlin as a physician some years before ; but after a couple of years he gave up his practice, and became an artist from sheer inability to keep out of his studio when he should have been cultivating the good-will of his patients. He came to America, and although he made little money, his artistic reputation induced his friends in Germany to secure for him the position of professor of drawing in the principal art school of Vieniin. He was to sail in a mouth more, and had come to Nantucket to sketch, as well as for a rest before sailing. Now, as the weeks passed, Dr. Otto realized that he was pain fully unwilling to go away. He was almost impatient of this feeling, yet ho could not overcome it. The remote oddity of the place and people, with one exception, were repugnant to him. The fact that the little island was sea-girt and thirty miles from 133 the mainland gave him a sense of confine ment. The four walls of his room seemed to suffocate him. He started np and opened the door of his room. The chill Septemher air blew in at the open hall door. "I shall sail tw,o weeks earlier," thought Otto, " and go to Italy for a fortnight before going to Vienna." He went into the sitting-room. It was deserted. He heard Mrs. Adams moving abont in the kitchen. Eunice was nowhere to be seen. He sat down at the open melo- deon and played and sang the Mignon s Lied of Liszt. "Kennst da das Land wo die Citronen bliih u Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen gluh n ? " floated out through the open door into a room across the hall, where Eunice Adams sat at a table piled with books and papers. She was correcting the children s exercises for the next day. She had not been at the Nantucket high-school, nor had the run of the town library, for nothing. She under stood the words Otto sang. The mellow, pleading tones seemed to curl around her heart and sink into it. "Kennst dn es wohl? Dahin ! Dahin ! mocht ich mil dir, O mein Gelieb- ter, zielm." 134 After a moment she got up, walked firmly across the hall, and softly closed the door of the sitting-room ; and, coming back, shut and bolted the door of her own room. lu the slightly built house the music still sounded, but she bent her head in her hands as she sat by the table, and then went on slowly and patiently with her task. Dr. Otto was beginning to enjoy thorough ly his own music. He made the little in strument tremble and vibrate and give forth grandly the rich harmonies of the song. He sang with feeling, with soul. Suddenly he heard the door shut gently, and footsteps retreat across the hall and the shutting of a second door. He sprang from his chair. "Barbarians!" he muttered in German, " they do not even appreciate good music." Then he laughed, and, shutting the rnelo- deon, looked at his watch and yawned nine o clock. Mrs. Adams put out the light in the din ing-room and looked suspiciously into the sitting-room. " Oh, you can put the light out here," said Otto, apologetically, as if he had been dis covered in a crime "I s pose I might as well," said Mrs. Ad ams, dryly. " It s gettin late." 135 "Late! O ye gods!" murmured Otto. He went down the passage to his room aud went meekly to bed. II. Two or three days later Otto was staud- ing at the window of the sitting-room. As he looked down the road he saw Eunice Adams coming towards the house with a young man. They were in earnest conver sation. The stranger was evidently a cler gyman, from his provincially clerical dress and white cravat. He was tall and slender, with a thin, intellectual face, a long nose, and meditative blue eyes. Otto saw a look of deep affection and respect in these eyes as .the young man bent them on Eunice. Otto turned abruptly away from the win dow, and, taking his hat and sketching ma terials from the table, went out into the hall, meeting Eunice and her companion as they entered. Eunice looked at him with vague anxiety. To his surprise she spoke to him. " Are you going out, Dr. Otto ? Dinner will be ready in a few minutes." 130 " I shall not be at home to dinner. I am going out to sketch," he replied. He almost brushed by the young clergy man, who stood against the wall of the nar row hall to let him pass, and left the house. A half an hour later his cheeks tingled at the recollection of his childishness. " Block head!" he muttered to himself, "thou art not a boy, why shouldst thou care!" and later, " Why not have waited and found out" Otto managed to get some dinner at a farm-house on the moors that day. Some thing seemed to be dragging him back to the little house in Vestal Street, but he obstinately prolonged his own suspense. He made sketch after sketch, painstaking and laborious, and ended by destroying them all. In a sort of inward vision he had seen all day the figures of Eunice and the young clergyman. It was dark when he reached the town, at last, worn out with his long struggle with himself. The moon had come out and bathed the still, white streets with its pure light. It was as still and warm as a midsummer night. The houses looked blanker than ever as he passed them. As lie neared the Adams house he saw a figure 137 approaching him ; small, ami walking with a tremulous step ; his head was uncovered, and his white locks floated iu a silver aure ole as he came towards him. He held a tall buuch of white, feathery grasses iu his hand, and looked not unlike an elderly Angel of the Annunciation. It was Deacon Swain. He moved his hat into his left hand, and held out his right in greeting to the young er man. His face shone with a gentle ra diance as he looked up at him. "A beautiful night, doctor," he said. Otto assented. The old man looked up at the night sky. " It reminds me of the hymn we sang last Sunday," he said. " Soon as the evening shades prevail The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth ; And all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole. " It seems as though such nights as this came to show us that God s mercy to man kind is as boundless as His universe." He put on his hat as he ended. "Good-night, doctor," he said, and passed on. 138 Otto s footsteps made no sound on the sandy path as he reached the house. At the gate beyond the house, which led iuto the " pasture," as the enclosure was called, stood two figures. In the moonlight Otto recognized them as the realization of his vision that day. The man held Eunice s hand in his, and she looked at him earnest ly. Otto stood still for an instant ; then he turned quickly aside, and going up the three steps which led to the door, opened it and went in. Mrs. Adams confronted him in the hall with a startled face. "How you scart me!" she exclaimed. " You came in so quiet. There s a letter for you here," she continued. She led the way into the sitting-room, and Otto followed. The letter was a brief summons from the. directors of the art school, requesting him to come to Vienna to begin his duties at once. As he stood by the table reading the letter, Mrs. Adams went on speaking. Ev ery word she saul pierced his consciousness like an electric shock. "It was a pity you wa n t in to-day. .My nephew, the Rev. Amos Lathrop, \vas here- He came over from Wood s Hull for tin day. and his conversation is of a nature to im- 139 prove the most hardened person. Deacon Swain came in to tea, and he and Amos and Eunice talked. It reminded me of the mil lennium. Amos planned to bring his wife with him, but she couldn t leave the chil dren." Mrs. Adams turned to go out. " Have you had your supper?" she added. " Because, if you haven t, Eunice saved some for you." She left the room without waiting for a reply. Otto stood motionless by the table for a moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed a low, happy laugh. He went out in the hall to the open door at the back of the house. A figure stood in the moon light near the porch. It was Eunice. He went towards her. His happiness at the sight of her overflowed in his eyes and whole expression. In the moonlight her features had an ineffable suavity and purity. She spoke to him gently. " You have come back. I m sorry you could not have talked to my cousin, who has been here all day." Otto almost laughed at the earnest anxie ty of her look and words. What were the speculations of a worn-out theology to him 140 compared with the reality of his love? It carried him on like a great tide. Its strength must carry Enuice with it. A half -hour later Mrs. Adams was sit ting in her room, reading her Bible, when Eunice came and stood before her. Mrs. Adams closed her Bible, keeping one of her fingers between the pages as a mark, and looked up at her daughter. Eunice was very pale, and her manner was filled with an intense, controlled excitement. " Well f" said Mrs. Adams, calmly. "Mother, Dr. Otto is going away." " Well f " said Mrs. Adams again. Eunice turned her head away, and her voice sank. Her mother watched her with immovable confidence. " He asked me to marry him and go with him." She waited a moment, and went on slowly : " I told him I could never marry an unbeliever; and more, that my life \vas prom ised for another service." Mrs. Adams opened her Bible at the place where her finger divided the pages. She read aloud with emphasis: " No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the king dom of God. " She turned the pages and 141 read again: " Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. " "I know," said Eunice. The words came with a deep expiration of her breath, a sigh that was like a renunciation of her whole nature. She turned away, and slowly left the room. The next morning Otto waked late. In spite of the confident spirit of mastery in which he had finally fallen asleep, he awoke with a feeling of overpowering desolation, and found his eyes wet with tears, a thing which was so novel that it startled him. The rebuff of the night before was puz zling, and he began to feel that there might be something in Eunice s theology which was stronger than he, stronger than herself. By the time he was dressed he had reason ed away his fears. It was Saturday, and he congratulated himself, with a sense of triumph, that there was no school that day or the next, and that Eunice would be free. He found h is breakfast saved for him in the dining-room; the striped cot ton cloth turned back at one end and his plate laid on the unpainted wood. Eunice was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Adams came into the room. He was not in a mood for finesse. 14 2 " Mrs. Adams, where is Miss Eunice f" he asked, abruptly. Mrs. Adams looked at him inscrutably. " Eunice is over to Surfside, to my sister Mrs. Burdick s. She s goue for Sunday." On Monday Otto was going. His pride was stuug, and he made his preparations to go away. If the desire of his heart was to be unfulfilled, he would burn his ships be hind him. He would go without seeing Eu nice again. Twice on Sunday he watched Mrs. Adams, in her rusty black dress and bonnet, go down the sandy road on her way to church. The warm weather still held, and the sun shone through a golden Sep tember haze. In spite of this sunshine in the still, darkened house and glaring, shad- owless street, life and hope seemed dead. Otto thought of Eunice, with her violin-soul waiting for the strings to be touched, and then of Vestal Street, and the grammar- school forever! Why should such things be ? Then passion and hope rushed hack in a warm, indignant tide. He would not give her up. . . . The last rays of sunlight bathed the sea. The bronze moors were laid with cloth of gold. At the western horizon the sun s own majesty was lost in a blaze of transparent light. Eunice Adams stood in the porch of her aunt s house with Deacon Swain. His box- cart stood before the house. Eunice s face was turned towards the sun, but she did not see it. The light touched the white hair of the old man as he stood before her. He held her hand in his. " You have decided, then. The Lord has called yon, Eunice," he said, with tremulous solemnity. " Thank God that your ears have not been closed, but, like Samuel, you have heard and answered His voice. I al ways said He had great things in store for you." He turned away, and, getting into his cart, drove away. Eunice looked out on the sea, rapt in a peace from which there seemed no recall. The future seemed to her like the path of light from the setting sun on the Western sea lonely, perhaps, but clearly defined, and ending in a glorious infinity. A sound aroused her. She looked and saw Otto stand ing before her. To see him there was like the sound of a loved voice calling from earth to a ransomed soul in bliss. He told her he was going away ; that he 114 must speak to her before leaving. He spoke in abrupt, short sentences, almost in gasps. With her calm, glorified face she seemed to be slipping away from him. " What is the use ?" said Eunice, slowly. " Do not ask me to listen." In her quiet resistance he felt the hopeless ness of the early morning stealing over him. He began to speak with enforced self- control. " You are sacrificing yourself me to some principle some idea which has no reasonable foundation." His German accent became stronger than ever as he rolled out these words. " Why should you not be happy ? You are young " I am twenty-eight," Eunice interrupted with mechanical truth. Her lips had become very white. " It is cruel," Otto began, vehemently. He stopped abruptly. With one hand he had grasped the post of the porch ; the other hung at his side. He turned away and looked out over the sea. The glory had faded, and there was only a gray expanse of water. " I have made a mistake," he said, heavi ly ; " I thought perhaps you loved me a lit tle." Eunice stood with her hands clasped tightly, her eyes fixed on his face. She sud denly caught the hand that hung by his side and pressed it against her heart, and then raised it to her lips. In her face was an agony of love and renunciation . " You don t understand," she murmured ; "I must do what is right." She seemed about to say more, but before she could do so a third person came from the house into the porch a middle-aged woman, sallow and dark-eyed. She looked sharply at Eu nice and Otto. "Won t you ask yer company into the house, Eunice ?" she said, reproachfully. " Yes, Aunt Eunice," she said, faintly. " This is mother s boarder Dr. Otto please excuse me, I do not feel well. She left them, and, going into the house, went wearily up the narrow stairs to her room. "Come in and take a seat, doctor," said Mrs. Burdick. Otto waited ten minutes while Mrs. Bur- dick subjected him to a cross-questioning; at the end of it she decided there was " something between " Eunice and " doctor." Then at Otto s request she went to call her niece. After a few minutes she came back 10 146 with a message tbat her niece was not well, and was sorry she could not see him again. " I s pose you d like to know about Eu nice s plans, doctor," she said ; " I could tell you," said Mrs. Burdick, peering sharply at him in the dim light. But Dr. Otto seemed iu no mood for listen ing, and after a brief good-night he walk ed away over the darkening moors. From a window iu the farm-house some one watch ed him through blinding tears. The next morning he had left Nuutncket. It was curious that, after a month of rus ticating, Dr. Otto should have been seized with a low, nervous fever. Instead of sail ing for Germauy he remained with an artist friend, who took care of him until he was well enough to go out again. It was Friday, three weeks after he had left Nautucket ; his passage in a German steamer was taken for the following Wednesday. It lias been said that he was well enough to go out, and Sat urday evening found him again in Xan- tucket. He had overrated his strength, and when he arrived at the hotel his head swam and throbbed with a dizzy weakness. It con quered his impulses, and he was obliged to 147 go to bed and toss about all night and all the next day, half blind with headache and fever. Towards evening the pain ebbed away. He dressed, ordered a cup of hot coffee, drank it. and felt that his nerves were steady once more. He waited until he knew that the Adams s supper-hour was past, aucl then took a carriage and drove to Vestal Street. The church-bells were ringing for evening service as he drove through the dark streets. The sparkling October air refreshed him. When he reached the silent house he got out and rang the bell, his heart beatiug wildly. There was no answer ; he rang again, and waited with a vague apprehension. The driver suggested that "perhaps the folks was to evening church." Otto smiled at his for ge tf ulness. He would drive to the church and wait in the last pew until Eunice came out, and then When he reached the church Otto dismiss ed the carriage and slipped silently into the last pew. The lights at the back were dim. The sermon was just ending. There was per fect stillness except a single voice. This voice gave Otto a strauge thrill. He thought he was dreaming. Eunice Adams stood in the pulpit speaking in alow tone of entreaty, a slight figure in a black dress. Her face was 118 pale, but it was illumined as from an in\\ ;u d radiance. Otto only received a bewildered impres sion of the self-forgetful tenderness of her face as she pleaded with the listening peo ple before her, dedicating her life to the mis sion of their salvation. She ceased speaking. and, clasping her hands, looked upward. There was a breathless hush ; then the con gregation bowed their heads for the closing prayer. In the rustle of the bending forms Otto left the church. His brain was in a tur moil. He seemed to hear in the air around him a voice saying, " Tour God is not my God, nor your // HII/ ways." . . He made no effort to see her again. The next morning Otto sat on the deck of the boat as it steamed out of the Nan- tucket harbor. He felt strangely weak and quiet. He watched the gray town, throned like a queen on the risiug ground of the isl and. The shore became blurred as the boat travelled silently over the shining water. The town sank as the distance from it be came greater, until at length there was only a faint white line on the horizon where the blue sea met the blue sky. A few smoke- wreaths shadowed the sky above flu- phu-e 149 where the town had been. At length they, too, had vanished. Only the sea glittered under the sun. A sick man has strange fancies. Had the island ever been there ? Perhaps, like Eu nice s God, the -island Eunice herself were dreams. Yes, but Eunice and the isl and existed although he could not see them. Why should not the same be true of . . . ? Eunice seemed cruel, but perhaps they would both understand some day. Pshaw ! the light dazzled his eyes. He would go to sleep. Dr. Otto pulled his hat over his eyes and .slept; or, at least, the pilot, who sat just above him in his little house, thought he did. A SPEAKIN GHOST. BY MRS. ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON. YES, I do b lieve in em iu oue of em, teuiierate. An I know \vliy you ask me if I do. Somebody s put you up to it, so s yon can make me tell my ghost story. Well, you re welcome to that if you want it. It s no great of a story, but it s true; an , artor all, that s the main p iut iu a story ghost or no gliost. Well, I s pose I ll s prise yon when I say it all happened iu New York city. Seem me hero iu Kitt ry, an knowiu my name s Jenness a real Kitt ry an Portsmouth an Rye name why, o course you d take it for granted I d allers lived round here, an all my happenin s had been in this local ty. Well, you re right oue way. I was born about here, an come of good old Scata- qua River stock. My father was Androu- icus Jeuuess, born an raised in Rye, and the fust thing I rec lect we was liviir in 151 Portsmouth, ou the old Odiorne s P int road. i There was father u mother, three boys Amos, Ezry, an Peleg an me, Mary Ann, the oldest o the family an the only girl. It s the ghost story you want to hear, so I ain t goin to bother you with anything else. But that time I lived there in the old red house, with my own folks round me pears to me now the only time I did ever reely live. We was pretty well to do, we had a good home, and we was all together. Fa ther was a good man, mother the very best o women, an I was dreffle fond on em. An the boys, they was just rugged, noisy, good-natur d chaps, that kep the house lively enough, I can tell you. But when I was nigh on to twenty-five, an the boys was twenty an seventeen an fifteen, ifc all ended, that life in the old red house. Father an my three laughiu , high-sperrited, pleasant- spoken boys, was all drownded at once, one day in September. They went out in a sail boat, a storm come up twas the bcginnin of the line gale an their boat capsized ; an them that went out rugged an big an healthy, laughiu back at ma an me as we stood at the door to see em off, was fetched back stiff an wet an cold, an so dreffle still. 152 I never d seen the boys still afore in all tlu-ir lives. Mother never held up her head arter that day, au afore the new year come in she d follered pa an the hoys. It left me dreffle lonesome. You couldn t a broke up a t um ly in all that section that d a took it harder. For we d allers set so much by each other, an done ary thing we could to keep together an not "be sep rated, an there we was. nil broke up at once, an the old house nothin now but a dry holler shell. I didn t want. o course, to rattle round in it longer n I could help. I got red on it s fast as I could, an went over to Rye. I kuowed how to work an wa n t afraid of it, an , o course, the more I had to do just then the better for me. For I was stupid an scared an sore with the dreffle trouble that come on me so quick an suddiu, an I was so terr ble lonesome. Well, I s pose twas because I d allers liked boys, an was used to bavin em round, an because, too, o my missiu my own boys so bad, that I got a place at fust in Mr. Sheaf s school. Twas a boys school, an they took me for a kind of house-keeper to see to things generally. Twas a sort of comfort as much as anything in this world could be a comfort to see the boys an do for em. I had a little place to myself right off the school-room, an there I used to do my mendin an everything I could contrive to do for an excuse to stay right there, where I could see an hear them boys. Twas a kind of eddication jest to hear em go over their lessons their jography an rethmetic an grammar an partikly their readiu an sayiu pieces. Ev ry speakin day Friday twas I was allers on hand, never losin a word, an sometimes I d practise the boys forehand till they knowed their pieces per fect. I stayed there about six months, an I hoped I could stay there the rest o my days. But even that poor comfort had to be took away ; for Mr. Sheaf s health broke down ; he give up the school an moved away. So I lost even them borrered boys, who d been in a sort o way helpiu to fill up the places o my own. An so agin I was left terr ble lonesome. I didn t know what to do, nor care much. So, when I had an opp tunity to go to New York I took it. Twas a lady who d had a boy at the school, an had been there herself an seen me. Mis Davis she was, an she writ to know if I d come on to stay in her house through the summer, an do for her pa while she an her children was off to the country. As I said afore, I didn t tnnch care what I done, I was so lonesome an mis rable ; so I said I d go. But if I d been lonesome afore, I \vas a hnnderd times lonesomer there. I never d been in a big city afore, an I d kind <> thought twould be folksy an livenin an cheerful. But twa n t a mite like that. The house was mostly shet up an dark. Mr. Rice Mis Davis s pa was off all day long, took his dinner an supper to a tavern somewheres, an was only to home to sleep an eat his breakfast. I didn t have much of anything to do. I had a big down-stairs room they called the front basement to set in. It had two windows on the street, but twas so low down that you couldn t see much out of em without screwin your neck an peekin up. There was lots o folks passiu by all the time, but you couldn t scasly see anything but their feet an 1< us. An oh, the noise o the wagons an cars ! It made me most crazy at first, but bimeby I got a little used to it. But I thought I should jest die o homesickness. How I d think an think an think o the old days an the old house on the Odiorne s P int road! How diff rent it was from this city one! The old home was so quiet an still outside, an so noisy an lively in-doors; an the city house was so noisy an lively out-doors, an so dreffle still an quiet inside. An twas right there in the front base ment o that city house that I see the ghost. Twa n t like ary other ghost I ever heerd on. Them I ve read about mostly wore white sheets, an looked drfeffle skully an bouy, an kind o awful. One o that sort would a scaret me, I know; but this one Avhy, I never felt a mite scaret from the very fust. Fact is, I never knowed twas a ghost for a spell, for it looked like a boy, jest a common, ord nary boy; an twas a speakin one. I don t mean one that talked, but a speakin one that spoke pieces. I don t think I smelt pepp mint the fust time it come. I don t rec lect it anyway, but allers arter that I did. I was settin in the front basement when it come. Twas between live an six in the arternoon, light enough still out-doors, but kind o dusky in my down -stairs room. I wasn t doin anything jest then but settin in my chair an thinkiu . I don t know what twas ex- ackly that made me look up an across the room, but I done it ; an there, staudin right near the table an lookin at me, was the ghost ; though, s I said afore, I didn t know 156 it for a ghost tbeii ; it looked like a boy. But he wasn t a city boy, nor like any one I d seen for a long spell. He was about fourteen or fifteen, I should think, an he wa u t no way pretty to look at, but I liked him from the fust minute. He was real freckled, but that never was a great draw back to me ; an he had kind o light, red- dish-yeller hair, not very slick, but mussy an rough like. His eyes was whity-blue, an he hadn t much in the way o eye-wink ers or eyebrows. An his nose was kind o wide, an jest a mask o freckles, like a tur key egg. So, you see, he wa n t much to look at for beauty, but I took to him right off. I knowed he was from the country s soon as I see him. Any one could tell that. His hands was red an rough an scratched, an he had warts. Then his clothes showed it too. You could see in a jiffy they was home-made, an cut over and down from his pa s. There was a sort o New Hampshire look about him too, an I felt a real draw in to him right off. I was jest a mite s prised to see him staudiu there, for I hadn t heerd a knock or anything, but afore I could speak an ask him what he wanted, he stepped up in front o me, an says, sort o quick an ex cited like, 157 " Don t you want to bear ine speak my piece?" An afore I had time to say that yes, bless bis little heart, I jest would, be begun : "My name is Norvle; on the crampin hills My father feeds his flock," an a lot more about bis folks, an all so pretty spoken an nice. When he d done he drawed one foot up to t other an made a bow, real polite, an then he stood stock-still agin. O course I praised him up, said he d spoke bis piece beautiful, an asked him if he wouldn t like a cooky. I got up an went to the pantry to get some, but when I turned round to ask him if he liked sugar or m las- ses best, he d gone. I thought twas pretty suddin, but then I s posed he was bashful, an had took that way o leavin to save talk an fuss. I looked out o the winder to see if he was round, but there wa u t a sign on him, an I give him up. An twas jest then I begun to smell pepp miut. But I didn t put the two things the boy an the pepp - mint together then ; not till some time arterwards. Well, you don t know how it chirked me up, that little visit. To be sure, it had been real short an uusat sfact ry. He hadn t never 158 told me one word about hisself where he come from, who lie was, nor anything. But that didn t seem to make no difference to me. I felt s if I knowed him real well, an his folks afore him ; an somehow, too, I had afeelin that he d come agin, an I d find out all I wanted to about him an his belongin s. But thinkin about him an his call an all made the time pass real quick, an twas bed time afore I knowed it the fust evenin senee I come there that I hadn t jest longed for nine, an looked at the clock twenty times an hour. The next day slipped by in the same slip- pety way, for I was goin over in my mind what he d done an said, an s posiu an s po- sin who his folks was, an all that. About the same time o day, towards six o clock or so, I set down in the same place by the winder an begun to watch for him. He hadn t said he d come, but I had a strong feelin inside that he was goin to. An he did. But twa n t out o the winder I see him. For I begun to smell a strong pepp - minty kind o smell agin , an I turned to look up at the shelf where I kept my med cines to see if the bottle was broke or the stopple. out, an there stood the ghost. Though even then I never dreamed twas a ghost. 159 I thought twas jest a boy. He was stand- in across the room, jest where I fust see him, by the table, an lookin straight at me. An afore I conlcl say a word he started right for me, an says, lookin real bright an int rest- ed, "Don t you want to hear me speak my piece ?" An off h went as glib as could be. I can t, for the life o ine, rec lect what twas he spoke that time. I get the pieces mixed somehow them days, afore the time come when they meant somethiu , an I begun to take iu their rneauiu s. Mebbe twas "At midnight when the sun was low," or it might be "On Linden in his gardin tent," for I know he spoke them some time. Ten- nerate he said off something. An when he d done he drawed up his foot an bowed real nice. I clapped my hands an praised him up, an then I beguu to ask questions. I wanted to know what his name was, where he come from, who his folks was, how he knowed about me, why he come, an lots o things. He stayed quite a long spell, an I did jest enjoy that talk. Biineby I went into the closet to get something to show IfX) him, an when I come back, he was gone agin. TwaVt till some time arter he d left that I rec lected that though it seemed s if I d had a good talk with him, I d done it all my own self, an he never d said one single word. Nothin , I mean, but that one thing he allers said, " Don t you want to hear me speak my piece ?" An yet somehow I kuowed lots more about him than afore. In the fust place, I d eome to feel cert in sure his name was Norvle. an that he wa n t only speakin a piece about that, but meant it for gospel truth. An arter that I never thought o him by any other name. An I did think o him lots. For even in them two little visits, when I d done most o the talk myself, I d got dreffle fond on him. Yon know I allers liked boys, partikerly boys raised in the country iler>- tricks. An up to this time an quite a spell arterwards I never guessed he was anything but a boy, jest a common, ord nary boy. Well, he kept comin . Every single arirr- noon, jest about six o clock, or a sperk rar- lier or later, I begun to smell a sort o pepp - minty smell, an in come that boy, walked up to me, with his eyes all shinin , lookiu pleased an sort o excited, au says, " Don t you want to hear me speak my piece !" 101 Then he d speak. They was diffreut kinds o pieces; some was verses an some wasn t. But they was all nice, pretty pieces. There was one I remember abont a boy standin on the deck of a ship afire, an how he stood an stood an stood, an wouldn t set down a minute. Another r lated to the breakin waves, an how they dashed up real high. An there was a long one that didn t rhyme, about Romans an countrymen an lovers; he did speak that jest beautiful. Then he d hold out one arm straight an tell how nobody never heerd a drum nor a fun ral note the time they buried somebody in a awful hurry. Agin he d start off speech- iflyiu about its bein a real question arter all whether you had nt better be, or hadn t bet ter not be. That one seemed to be a kind o riddle; not much sense to it. An there was a loud one where he jest insisted that our chains is forged. " Their clankin ," he says, " may be heerd on the plains o Boston." I b lieve twas in that one he kep a-sayin , "Let it come; I repeat it, sir, let it come. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there ain t no peace, an so on. Eeal el quent twas, I hold. An I growed so proud o that boy. By this time I knowed a good deal about him, 11 162 for I d have long talks with him most every day. That is, I thought I Avas haviu long talks with him ; but allers, arter he d goue, I d rec lect he Iiadu t really said anything. But ten iterate, strange as it seems, I did know lots more about him every time. As I said afore, his name was Norvle. His folks was plain farmiu people. You know he spoke of his pa s keepiu sheep the fust time he come. An twas up in the mountains they lived ; prob ly somewheres in the White Mountains, this State. I know once he spoke o Couway s if he lived round there. That: was in a piece about there bein jest seven children in their fam ly. He was real par- tikler about the quantity, an kep callin at tention to the fact that there was exackly seven ; no more, no less. He says, " Two of us at Conway dwells, An two has goue to sea"; ail he went oil to say, " Two of us in the church-yard layt>," (that was him an another, I s posc now, but still says he, "Seven boys an girls is we." I was sorry be hadn t been brougbfc up near tbe water as my boys bad, with the great big sea to look at an sail on. No wonder he spoke o the crampin bills. It allers seemed to me dreffle crampin to bo shut np among tbe hills an away from tbe salt- water. > An now he was off from home an real lonesome, so twas a comfort to him to come over an see me, a plain, self-respectin countrywoman, like his ma an his aunts. So I about made up my mind to take charge on him, do for him, an if bis folks would let me sort o adopt him, in the place o my own boys layiu in Portsmouth graveyard. I never s long s I live shall forgit the day I found out he wa n t a boy, a common, ord nary boy, but a ghost. He d jest come in, an was sayin his piece, when the grocer come to the door with some things. "Wait a minute, Norvle," I says, for I did nt like to lose a word of his speeches, I liked em all so, an I went to the door. But as I opened it an let the man in, I beerd the boy goin right on speakiu . So I says to the grocer man, in a kind o whisper, beck nin as I spoke, " Jest come in an hear this boy ! " For I was real proud of him, ail 7 glad o a chance to show him off. 164 The mau looked rather s prised, but ho fullered me in, an we both stood there by the door, list nin to the little feller. That is, / was list nin with all uiy ears, for twas one o his very best, about England may s well tempt a dam up the waters o the Nile with bulrushes. But when I looked round at the man, smilin at him an noddin uiy head, s if to say, "Ain t he smart?" I see he wa n t pearin to hear anything tall. He was lookin at me, an then round, an seemiu so dumfouudered. " What s the matter o you f" lie says. "What s up?" Norvle was jest closiu then, an I waiu-d till he d made his bow, an theu I says agin, " Wait a minute, Norvlo, an then we ll have our talk." Then I turned round to the grocer, an I says, "Don t he speak fust- rate ?" " What you talkiu about ?" says he. "Got a sunstroke ?" Somehow I knowed all at once that he wa n t foolin , an that he didn t see nor hear what I see an hear so plain, so plain. An I knowed more n that, for that one little thing opened my eyes that I jest wouldn t open till then, an I couldn t shet em agin. I felt queer an dizzy, my head swum, an I put out my hands to keep from fallin . The man stiddied me, helped me into my chair, fetched me some water, an I was well enough arter a little to speak. I told him I felt hetter, an he could go ; so he went away. I looked for Norvle, hut he wasn t there. There was., jest a little smell o pepp mint in the air, but the hoy d gone. I was glad lie had, for I wanted to be all alone fora spell. Well, you can t understand anything about what I went through then ; nobody can. To folks I m jest a queer old woman who tells a com cal ghost story out of her stupid old head. It wa n t very com cal to me that day. For I d got so fond o that boy. I allers liked em ; au I d lost all I ever had. An now this one had come to me when I was so lonesome an low in my mind, an I d gone an took him right into my heart. An he wa n t a boy at all, but a ghost ! That meant so much. Queer s it seems, the fnst thought that struck me was this : he wa u t he or Jiim, but jest it. Then I remembered how I d planned some new clothes for him. But ghosts don t wear out their clothes. An I d meant if his folks would let me to adopt him ; bring him up like my own. How ever could I adopt a 166 ghost? Wa u t it impossible? Come to think o it, could I have dealin s iu any way with a ghost ? We d allers been a re- spect ble faiu ly ; none more so in all New Hampshire ; a religious fam Iy too, orth dox, every single one. Never, s fur s I d hecrd, was there a ghost of any kind mixed up with ary branch o the Jennesses for gen ra- tions. To be sure, there was a story of one that appeared to the Fosses, connected by marriage with the Jenuesses, way back fifty years or more. But that one never showed itself; twas only a sort o weepin an groanin au complainin noise goin through the house at night. An they never encour aged it a mite, but sent for old Parson Williams an had him pray at it till it cleared out. Then they aired the house thorough ly, an never had a sign of it agin. But here was I talkin with one, sociatin with it, gettin fond on it, an really talkin of adoptin it. What was I goin to do ? What was I goin not to do? Over an over in my mind I went at that, an little sleep I got that night, I tell you. As I said afore, we was brought up in a pious fam Iy, an my religion, small s it was to what it oughter been, had brought me through all my troubles so fur, as nothin else could a 167 done. So I prayed, a good deal that night, an read my Bible lots. An bimeby most mornin twas I begun to git red o that whirlin , scaret kind o thinkin , an to look at things stiddier an easier. Mebbe twas the prayin ; anyway I got all o a suddiu so s to see the matter reasonable an cipher it out plain for myself. Twas about this way I went at it. Fust place I says to myself: "What s a ghost, anyway? Why, it s a sperrit. An what s a sperrit? Why, it s a soul. Well, there ain t no harm in a soul; we ve all got em. But then," thinks I to myself, " what s this soul doin here ? Where s it been sence the boy died ?" Well, you see, I knowed tod much about heaven, from Scripter au sermons an all, to think that a soul that once got there would leave it to traipse round here agin an speak pieces. So I had to feel cert in it hadn t ever gpt to heaven tall. An as for the other place why, you never, never in the world, could a made me b lieve that Norvle had been there. He wa n t that kind, I knowed. Twasn t jest because I d got so fond o him, but I felt sure, sure, sure that he d never been there, in that awful stiff rin an sin. He d a showed it if he had. Now you see I was orth dox, an my folks afore 1C8 me, an I d never even heerd that any one thought there might be another place be sides them two local ties. Sence then I ve read somewheres that there is sexes wlm b lieve that, but I d never heerd a hint of it then But seeiu that he hadn t been to arv o them two places, then where had he been, and why did he come to me? Wheu I got to that p iut I had to stop short agin, an bavin uothin better to do, I went to pray- in . An jest s the mornin light shone into my window there come a light shinin right into my heart, an I see it all. Twas this way. Norvle hadn t been fetched up by religions folks. For, strange s it may seem, there s people like that, even in a Christian land. He d been a well-meanin boy, an if he d ever been learnt he d a took right hold o religion, an glad enough too. But ho lived way off in the mountains, there wa n t, no meetin -house within miles, an his folks was like heathen. Even the deestrick school was too fur off for him to go, or else his pa wouldn t spare him to tend. So he d growed up ign ruut of all he d oughter know, never seein a Bible, hearin a sermon, or toucbin a cat chism in all his life. He d learnt how to read somehow, an up in the garret he d come acrost a book o pieces sech as boys 109 speak to school. Au he d took to em, studied em, an got so lie could say em all. But lie had to do it all by hisself. Nobody ever heerd him say em. Nobody would listen when he tried to show off. That s terr ble hard on a boy. They like so to be praised up an noticed when they ve done anything. Why, Peleg, the youngest o my three boys, you know, allers set so by my lookiu at his whittling or hearin him sing, or praisiu the pictur s he drawed oil his slate. But bimeby Norvle died; I don t know how. I never was able to find that out ; whether twas o sickness or an acci dent. But he died without ever haviu been grounded in the right things. An oh, don t you see it now ? Don t you know what come to me that early moruin , as I laid cry- iu and prayin in my bed there? He I mean it, Norvle s poor little ign runt soul had been let to come to me ; me that loved boys and had lost em all. Au I was to be the one to learn it what he hadn t never had a chance to pick up afore he died. So I see I needn t stop beiu fond o it, but go on loviu it harder an harder, till I d loved it right straight up into heaven, where it would a been now but for lack o informa tion. 170 I tell you that was a solemn day to ine. I was happy one way, sorry another, an I felt snch a awful responsibility. I tell yon tain t many that has sech a heft put on em as that. Jest think of it! the hull religions trainin of a ghost! I was busy all day preparin for it. I looked up all my books, the ones I used when I learnt the boys, an the Sab bath-school ones. An I made a kind o plan how I was to begin, an how long twould take to go through all the doctrines an be liefs. Our folks was Congregationals, an though I wa n t as set in my ways about my own Church as some be, still, as Norvle didn t seem to have any partikler leanin 1 to ary other belief, I meant to bring him up as I d been brought. So o course I had to begin with the fall, an I studied on that most all day. As the time drawed nigh for the visit I was drcffle worked up. Seemed sif I couldn t scasly bear it, to see the boy I d got so attached to an built so much on, an know that he wa n t a boy at all, but a ghost. I was settiu there, in my old seat by the window, an for quite a spell arter the pepp- miiit scent come into the room I wouldn t turn my head. Fact is, I was cryin so t I could hardly see out of my eyes. But b mic- by I looked round, an , jest s I thought, there 171 it stood. My eyes was pretty wet, but I winked out the water s well s I could. An s soon s I could see its face plain, I kuowed that it knowed I knowed. It didn t have that pleased, shiuin look in its eyes, but was sort o doubtful an scary. It stepped slow an softly, as if it was goin to stop every step, an when twas in front o me, it said, almost in a whisper, an so mournful, " Don t you want to bear me speak my piece?" I brushed the water out o my eyes an says, real hearty an cordial, " Yes, deary, course I do." He begun in sech a low, shaky voice : "Here rests his head upon the lap of airth, A youth to fortiu an to fame unknown." Poor little feller! I jest ached for him, an my throat felt all swelled up s if Iliad the quinsy. I made up my mind that minute to give up the rest o my days, if it took that long, to savin that little soul o Norvle s. An he shouldn t never feel, if I could help it, that I didn t exackly approve o ghosts, or thought a mite less o him for beiu one. Then I begun my religious teachin . As I said afore, my startin -p int was the fall. But o course I had to allude to the creation fust. Adam an Eve, an all that. Then I 172 learnt him the verse out o the New Eng land Primer about " lu Adam s fall, 1 an that led right up, you see, to riginal sin, nat ral depravity, an all that relates to them doctrines. I had to begin jest as you would with a baby, you see, right at the el mentary things. Then I took the Westminster Short er, an learnt him from "man s chief end" to the decrees. Tvvas a short lesson, but I didn t want to tire him the fust time. He seemed real iut rested, an I forgot for a min ute he was a ghost, an I says, " Norvle, s pose you take this cat chism home an I stopped right off short, for I rec lectrd ho hadn t got any home, but was jest a wand riif , ramblin , uneasy ghost. An oh. wlifiv did he sleep nights? Thinkin o that made the tears come agin, an 1 turned away to sop em up. Wheu I looked round, it was gone. You see I say "it" sometimes, an then agin I say "him." I know I d oughtcr suv " it " all the time ; but well, way down in my old heart it s " him " an " he " allers, an he s no diffVnt from my other three boys. I was a mite nervous next time. I wasn t quite cert in I d gone to work right with my lessons. I d had some exper ence teacliin , what with my own boys an a Sabbath- 173 school class. But how did I know but a ghost s mind was all difFent, an couldn t take in the same things in the same way ? Then lie didn t have no books, an couldn t look over the lesson at home. So mebbo I kep sayin to myself he don t remember a single word about Adam, or his sin, an the terr ble consequences. But I needn t a worried ; for I hadn t hardly time to answer that same old question, " Don t you want to hear me speak my piece ?" afore he started off: "Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! Then me an you an all on us fell down." Could a perfessor in the the logical sem- nary a put it better? The real cat chism doctrine, yon see, " all mankind by the fall," an so on. So I begun to feel encouraged. This time I took foreord nation an election, an easy tilings like that. Eternal punish ment goes along o that lesson by rights, but twas sech a pers nal subjeck for that poor soul that I skipped it that once. So it went on day arter day. I didn t allers keep to the doctrines. I made lowances for Nor- vle s briugiu up, an had more iut restin things now an agin, like who was the fust man, the strongest man, the meekest man, 174 an 1 them. An seeiu he was so fond o pieces, I learnt him pretty verses out o the New England Primer, like " Vashti for pride Was set aside," or "Elijah hid, By ravens fed." He was so tickled with that piece about "Good children must Fear God all day, Parents obey, No false thing gay," an so on. An he liked about John Eog- ers an Agur s prayer, an took right off to that advice at the very eeud o the Primer, by the late rev rent an ven rable Mr. Na- thau el Clap, o Newport, on Rhode Island. But the days was slippin by, an I begun to worry. Twas September now, an my time was up early in October, for the fam - ly was comiu home then. An go a fast I could I hadn t been able to git beyond "the inis ry o that estate whereinto man fell" in the cat chisra, an the buildiu o the temple in the Bible. All about sin an punishment an the old dispensation, you see, an never a speck of light an hope for 175 that poor sperrit. For o course I had to go reg lar an take subjecks as they come, an didn t dast skip over into the New Test - ment comfort till its turn come. I was in a heap o trouble about it, when all of a sud- din another chance was given me. Old Mr. Rice come to me with a letter iu his hand, an asked me if I couldn t be induced to stay on an take care o the house through the winter. Seems that one o the children Mis Davis s, I mean had took cold, an its throat or lungs or something was weak. So the doctor had ordered them to take her crost the water, an they was goin right oif, without comin home at all. Wasn t it won derful ? A iut position o Providence, cer- t in sure, an I thanked the Lord on my bend ed knees. I kep on now in the reg lar way, not havin to hurry, giviu all the time I wanted to the doctrines. For there s notli- in like bein well grounded in them. Nor- vle never said much, but he showed plain enough that he took em all in, by the ap- proprit pieces he spoke arter each lesson. I wish I conld rec lect cm all ; they was wonderful. I know one time we bad free will, an twas the most excitin occasion. I got so worked up over it, showin how twas consistent with election an foreord uation, 17C an argifyiu that we was jest as free to pick an choose as as anybody. An next time he up an speaks, " Hard, hard iudeetl was the contest for freedom aii the struggle for independence." Oh, twas good as a sermon! An , agin, arter a course o lessons on the power o the devil an how to resist him, he spoke that powerful piece, " They tell us, sir, that wo are weak, unable to scope with so forni dable a advers ry ; but when shall we be strong er?" An how he did go on about "Shall we quire the means o effectooal resistance by lyin s pinely on our backs an huggin the d lusive phantom o hope ?" an all that. One day I talked very strong about the Cut h- Jics, warned him ag iust the Pope o Rome, an forbid him ever to go near popish folks. Next time ho come he up au spoke a piece about "Banished from Rome? What s banished but set free From daily contracts?" That showed his views about the Pope plain enough, I think. Oh, I never see a boy let alone a ghost take in truths like him. An it done me good too. I d got a little rusty on them 177 doctrinal b liefs myself, au it rubbed up my knowledge wonderful. I studied up days, an could hardly wait for class-time to come ; an jest s soon s I had the fust suift o pepp- mint arternoons, I d be ready to start off. But I d sillers give him his chance fust, an I growed to love that one thing lie said every time, the only thing I ever heerd him reely say, " Don t you want to hear me speak my piece ?" It seemed to mean more an more each day, an bimeby was most like a whole conversation. Jest from that one remark I begun to know all about his past life an do- in s, his folks, his home, an all. A poor, empty, neglected, lonesome life twas, au my heart ached over it as it come out day by day in our talks. To think o his never hav- iu had what my boys had so much on, all their days; meetiu s, Sabbath-schools, cat - chisms,preparat ry lectur s, monthly concerts, pruyer-meetin s ; he never d had one o them blessed privileges in his hull narrer little life. Well, as I said, I enjoyed the doctrinal teach- in , the Old Test meiit an all; but I was awful glad when with a clear conscience I could turn over the leaf an show him t oth er side. He d been gettin rather low in his mind lately, an no wonder. For I hadn t felt to tell him anything yet but about our 12 dreffle state o sin, the punishment we de served, an the justice o Him who could give it to us. To be sure, I got him to the p int where he knowed twould be all perfectly right, consid rin the circumstances, if he should be sent right down to the place, as the hymn says, "Where crooked ways o sinners lend." He was resigned to it, but he wa u t exackly glad, an he looked rather solemn. So I was pleased enough when I begun to let in a mite o sunshiniu an told him the gospel story. An I declare it never d meant so much to me myself, church member as I d been for more u a dozen years, as when I be gun to tell it to that poor little ghost. I begun way at the very begiimiu , an it was quite a spell afore he see what was comin . He thought I was jest givin an account of a common, ord nary boy. I see that was the way to int rest him, so I told about Him as a little feller, with his mother, an in the carpenter s shop, an rouud the water an the shore with the fishermen an sailors. I was thinkiu o my own boys on the salt water at Portsmouth an Kitt ry when I dwelt so on that part. But pretty soon I rec lected how Norvle was fetched up on 179 risin ground, so I told about His beiu so foud o the hills, goiu up "into a monntin apart," as the Bible says, to pray an to preach, or to set there alone. An how Nor- vle s face did light up then, an his whity- blue eyes shine! I don t doubt ho was thinkin o the New Hampshire hills. For crainpiu s they be, folks that live among em do learn to love em lots. So it went on, till it come nigh the last part o the narr tive. No need for me to remind you o that. I d kuowed it allers, learnt it to my Sabbath-school scholars, heerd it talked an preached an sung all my born days, but twas like a bran -uew thing s I told it to Norvle, an the tears jest ran down my face like rain. He didn t cry. I guess ghosts never does. But oh, how mournful an sorry he looked, with his eyes opened wide an lookin straight into my face, an his lips kind o tremblin ! For quite a spell now he d been speakin diffent sort o pieces hymns an sech. An now he begun to say seen beautiful ones, hymns an psalms I hadn t even thought on for years. Some o em I learnt afore I could read, from hearin mother say em over n over to me as I set on the little cricket at her feet. How I felt as he d say, soft an gentle like, " Don t you 180 want to hear me speak my piece t" an then fuller it right up with one o them sweet old hymns I always rec lected in mother s voice ! Oh, I loved him harder u harder every d;iy ! He was jest s homely s ever, jest s freckled, his hair jest s reddish-yeller an mnssy, hut he looked diff ent, somehow. There was a kind o rested, quiet, satisfied look come on his face hy spells that made him prettier to look at. An bimeby that look come to stay. I couldn t make you understand f I tried an I ain t goin to try how I see what was happen in in that soul. But I did see. I kuowed the very hour the minute most when he see the hull truth an give up to it. There didn t seem to be any powerful con viction o siu. Mebbe ghosts dou t need to go through that. P r aps it s their bodies that makes that work so strong in folks, an ghosts ain t got any bodies. So twas a easy, smooth specie o conversion, an Nor vie hisself didn t seem to know when it hap pened. He kep comin jest the same, alters askin his little question, an speakin his piece. An allers there come with him that pepp miuty scent. To this day that com mon, ev ry-day, physicky smell brings more things back to me than even cinnamon-roses or day-lilies like them in the old garden on the Odiorne s P int road. I went on all the time with iny teachin . I knowed Norvle was all right iiow, an safe for ever n ever. Bat there s plenty o things even perfessors need to know, an I did so like to learn him. Twas gettin past the middle o December now. One day I walked a little ways down street for exercise an fresh air, an all to once there come over me sech a strong rec - lection o Portsmouth woods. I didn t know why twas for a minute, but then I begun to smell a piny, woodsy smell, an I see right on the sidewalk a lot o evergreens pine an hemlock an spruce. Then I remembered that Christmas was comiu . You see, pa an ma had allers made a good deal o Christ mas. Congregatiouals in old times never done so. I know pa said that one time old Parson Pickerin , o Greenland, sent back a turkey that grau f ther Jenuess give him Christmas, sayiu he d ruther have it some other time than on a popish hollerday. But we was fetched up to keep the day. Why, up to the very last Christmas o their lives my three boys hung their blue-yarn stockin s up by the fireplace, though Amos was past nineteen then, an Ezry goin on seventeen. So twas a time full o rec lectin for me. The year afore I d jest put it all out o my 182 head an tried to forget what day twas. But I couldn t forget it here. Twas in the air; twas ev ry where you went. The stores was full o playthings, folks was tniipMii through the streets with their hands au arms full o bundles, ev ry body that passed you was talkiu about it, an twas no use tryin to git red on it. It made me choky an wat ry-eyed all the time, an I couldn t see noMiin ary blessed minute but the old wood fire at home, with the big yarn stock- in s hangin there. But one day arter Nor- vle had left, an the pepp mint scent hadn t quite gone out o the room, I begun to think why I couldn t make a Christmas for him. Now don t laugh at me. I wa n t a fool. I knowed s well s you do that ghosts don t want presents or keep days. But I \v:is ><> lonesome, an jest hungry for a stock in to fill a boy s stockin . " So why," I says to myself, "shouldn t I make b lieve play, s the children says that Norvle wants a real old-fashioned Christmas, an I can give him one ?" The next time he come I led up to the subject an found out, s I snspi- cioned, that he d never heerd o Christ inns or Santy Clans in all his born days. So I told him all about it, an he was so in t "rest ed. Fust I told him whose birthday twas, 183 o course, an why folks kep it. Then I told him about fam lies all gettin together at that time, an comin home from every- wheres, to be with their own folks. An I went on about hangin up stockin s an fillin em with presents. "An now, Norvle," I says, " I m goin to make a real old-fashioned Christmas for yon this year, sech as we used to have in the old house ; seeh as we made for Amos an Ezry an Peleg. For," I says, " you ve been a real good boy this winter, an I set as much by you most p r aps jest as much as I done by my own boys." He looked drcffle tickled, an so twas settled. How I did enjoy gettin ready ! Twa n t so easy as it seems. For I d set my heart on havin the same kind o presents as we used to give the boys, au they wa n t plenty in New York City. The stockin was easy enough, for I had one o Peleg s. You see, I kind o liked to have some o the boys tilings about, an I had some o the old blue feetin layin on my stockin basket s if they was waitiu to be darned. They looked nat - ral an good, you see. Peleg was nigh about Norvle s size. Then I wanted a partikler specie o apple, big an red an shiny ; we called em the Boardman reds. I found some to the market at last. They didn t exackly 184 look like the old kind; but the man said they was, he d jest fetched eua from Ports mouth hisself. The hick ry-nuts I got easy enough, an the maple sugar. I was goiu to get some pepp mint lozeugers, for my boys all thought so much o them, but it seemed too pers nal, an I give em up. I got a big stick o ball lick rish, though boys allers like that an some B gundy pitch to chew. Then o course there must be a jack-knife. I found jest the right kind, big, with a black horn handle an two blades. I set up late nights an riz early to knit a pair o red-yarn mittens, like Peleg s ; they re so good for suowballin , you know. An I wound a yarn ball, an covered it with leather. I had a difFcnlt time findin the fish-hooks an sink ers, for I hadn t been round no great in New York, an there ain t no general store there. But I found em at last. Right on top I was going to put Pely s little chunky, leather- cover Bible. Mother give it to him the day he jined the church, an writ his name in her straight up an down prim handwritiu . I knowed she an him both would be will in it should go to this poor little soul the Scripters meant so much to, an had done so much for. The New York greens didn t satisfy me. 185 There was some stuff with sicky green leaves aii white, tallery-lookiu berries, an some all shinin an pricky, with red fruit. But they didn t look nat ral. Bimeby I come acrost some ground-pine, sech as growed all through the wood lot behind the old house, spranglin over the ground, an some juni per, like what spread amongst the rocks there, with its little black berries an sharp, scratchy needles. I couldn t get any black alder nor bittersweet berries, an had to do without em. Oh, you don t know what it was to me, an my poor empty heart that had ached till twas most numb, to get that stockin ready. Ev ry day I talked Christ mas to Norvle, never lettin him know, o course, what I was goin to give him, but telliu all about diff rent Christmases I d knowed. I went on about how the fam ly was allers together, an father wore his best clothes an set to the head o the table, an mother t other end, an me an the boys all there. Twas nat ral, I s pose. consid rin that I dwelt on that part on it, folks all bein 1 together that day, lovin an doin for their very own. Then I told him how Christ mas Eve we all used to stand together, the boys an me, afore we went to bed, an sing pa s favrit piece, " Home, Sweet Home." I 186 carried the toon, Peleg sung a real sweet sec ond, Ezry Lad the high part, an Amos the low. How it fetched it all back to tell it over to him ! The last night but, one come the twenty- third twas. Norvle had looked real mourn ful -like lately. Ev ry time I spoke o fa ther s house, or fam lies gettin together or goin home for Christmas, I see he looked kind o sorry an s if lie wanted somethin . But I wouldn t see what it meant. That arternoon, though, when he d ast, in a shaky, still voice, " Don t you want to hear me speak my piece ?" he fullered it up with the dear old hymn mother whispered part of the very last day of her life "Airth has engrossed my love too long, Tis time to lift my eyes." Ho went on with all the verses, an when he come to "O let me mount to join their son<;;, he said it s if he was prayin to me, an sech a longin sound come into his voice, an such a longin look into his eyes, that I was all goose-flesh, an so choky. When he d fin ished, I turned away to get my handk chief, an when I looked back agin he was gone. 187 Well, I s pose you see now what I d got to do, and what my plain duty was. I really had knowed it all along, but I d shet my eyes to it a purpose till now ; but I couldn t no longer. That poor soul o Norvle s was regeu rated, saved cert iu sure, an what business had I got -to keep it down here any longer? You see it plain enough, but no one but me an One other knows how much it meant to me that night. " Couldn t I," says I to myself "couldn t I keep him only one day longer, jest over that seas n o Christmas, so hard, so terble hard to bear without him? Anyway, couldn t I have him till mornin , an let him have his stockiu 1 When he was goin to have sech a long, long tima up there, would jest one day more down here make any great diff renco ?" The an swer come quick enough. " Yes, twould ! He b longed somewher s else, an I must send him there, an right straight off, too, even if it broke my heart all to pieces doin it." All the next day I went about my work very softly. It seemed like the day o the boy s fun ral. I d filled the stockin two days afore I couldn t wait an there it laid in my room, never, never, to be hung up, all bulgy an onreg lar an knobby. I knowed what ary bulge meant. That one 188 by the ankle was the jack-knife, an that queer place nigh, the knee was where the stick o lick rish had got crosswise au poked way out each side. There was one Board- man red apple roundin out the toe like a daruiii ball, an right in the top was Pely a chunky little Bible jest showiu above the ribbed part. I didn t empty it. Folks will keep sech things, you know, an it s up in my bedroom soiuewher s now, I b lieve. Well, Christmas Eve come, an come quick too quick for me that time. I d made up my mind twouldn t never do to let Norvle see how I felt. I had a good deal o Jeuness grit, an I called it all up now. So, when he come in, I was jest as usual, an smiled at him real pleasant; but I felt twouldu t do to wait a single minute, for fear I d break down, so afore he could make his one little remark, for the fust time since I kno\vcd him, I begun fust, an ho stood still an listened, "Norvle," I says, speakin s I used to to the boys playfellers that used to come an see em an want to stay on an on " Norvle, I ve had a real nice visit with you. I ve enjoyed your comp ny lots, an I wish I could ask you to stay longer. But it s Christmas Eve, you know, an , s I ve often told you, 189 people d ougbter be with tbeir own folks to-uigbt. You know now wbere your folks is, leastways your Fatber an your Elder Brother. So, I m dreffle sorry to seem im- perlite an send yon off, but wby, this bein Christmas Eve, s I says afore, I really think the best thing for you to do is to go Home I" I got it out somehow ; I don t see bow I done it. Norvle looked right at me, kind o mouru- fle. He stood stock-still, an I thought he was goin to make his one little remark, but he didn t. Jest s true s I live, that boy opened his month an begun to sing. An oh ! what do you suppose he sung ? " Home, Sweet Home !" He d never sung afore : I didn t know s he could; but his voice was like a wood-robin now. An in a minute, though there wa n t anybody but him au me in the room, seemed s if I heerd some other voices. Norvle carried the toon, but I heerd a real sweet second, an then a high part an a low. Twas jest like four boys singin together. An while I looked at him the music sounded further n further off, till when he got to the last " sweet sweet home," I had to lean way forward to ketch a sound. An when it stopped why, he stopped. He didn t go ; he jest wasn t there. Well, I ve got along somehow. Yon do get along through most things, hardy s they be. It s more n forty year now sence my ghost story happened, an I m an old woman. I m failin lately pretty fast, an it makes me think a good deal ahout goin home my self to jiue pa u ma n the boys. I might s well tell yon that when I say the boys, I mean four on em. For, b sides my three, I m cert iu there s goin to be another one, a little chap with rough, reddish-yeller hair, an lots o freckles. Course I know it s all diffeut up there, an things ain t a speck like what they be here ; but somehow it won t seem exackly nat ral if that little feller don t somewher s in the course o conv satiou bring in that favrit remark o his n, " Don t you want to hear me speak my piece F" MONSIEUR ALCIBIADE. BY CONSTANCE CARY HARRISON. A TRANSPARENTLY gentle despot, who might have been led by the finger-tip of the youngest member of his class, was M. Alci- biade de St. Pierre, the Belhaven dancing- master, who gave also lessons in his native tongue. Nature had endowed Mm with a stationary scowl, bis moustaches curled wild ly, and he bore upon the brow a cicatrix that caused bis pupils to liken him to the swashbuckler heroes of Dumas, Scott, or Cervantes. In outward appearance he was Aramis, Athos, Porthos, and D Artagnan in one, with a dash of Le Balafre" and Don Quixote thrown in. Although this picturesque personage was a comparative new-comer in the town, the forebear of M. Alcibiade had arrived in America as pendant to an expedition sup plying an interesting chapter of colonial 192 history. Early in the spring of 1790 came into port at Belhaven a party of French immigrants engaged by Play fair, an English agent, and De Soissous, a nimble-tongned deceiver of bis compatriots, in behalf of an enterprise organized in New England, and styled the Ohio Land Company, to people the wilderness near the month of the Ka- nawba Eiver, beyond the western woods of Virginia. Among the travellers, whose weary hearts beat high with hope as they touched the shore of a fancied El Dorado, were men skilled in the exquisite handicrafts of a per fected civilization. Carvers there were of furniture like wooden lace-work ; beaters of fine brass fashioned into rocaiUc decorations; painters of shepherds piping to their fair, of Cupids turning somersaults in chains of roses ; harpsichord-tuners ; makers of gild ed carnages; varnishers of panels that shone like mirrors; disciples of Boule and Martin; confectioners; perruqniers and all, by a fine irony of fate, bound for & log- hut settlement, where the cry of savage beasts, or the war-whoop of the deadly Ind ian, was to be their nightly lullaby. What eloquence had prevailed upon these hapless beings to believe they were to be the founders of a brave new Paris in tho 193 Western Hemisphere, their wily managers alone could tell. The first instalment of the five hundred Frenchmen said to have been thus deluded, numbering with their wives and children about sixty, after much waiting at Belhaven, their souls within them vexed by homesickness and hope deferred, split up into variously minded factions. Some pressed on, under charge of a long- delayed messenger of the company, to the frontier; others put their all into a return passage to France ; and a few elected to remain and try their fortunes in the little town which in those days had no end of am bitions projects for future greatness. One of these prudent ones was a gay old bachelor, Alcibiade St. Pierre, self-styled " Hair-dresser to the Court of France." He opened a snug little shop, where the gentry of town and country dropped in to have their perukes dressed and tied, to be shorn, perfumed, and shampooed, after the latest fashions in vogue before Alcibiade had set sail for the New World. He was sometimes sent for to bleed, or to apply leeches, and his inille-fleurs graces impressed the towns people mightily. As his trade increased, Alcibiade was called on to lament the sad fortunes of his fellow-immigrants. Most of 13 194 those who became frontiersmen bad suc cumbed to want and hardships, had met the horrors of Indian massacre, or had gone under iu the collapse of an international speculation that carried down its promoters in the crash. From those who returned to France had come dolorous accounts of com motion in their beloved capital. Decidedly, thought M. Alcibiade, it were better to stag nate in Belhaven than be forced by a mob in Paris to dress the head of some former patron upon a pike ! Simple-minded, kindly, cheery as le peM homme gris, the little hair-dresser became a great favorite. A trig Scotch lassie, daughter of a settler, having fallen in love with him, the father consented to the match on con dition that the intended son-in-law would renounce his French patronymic and trans late himself into plain "A.Peters" upon his sign and in his official signature. And thus it came to pass that, instead of the stylish frontispiece so flattering to town pride, there arose above the shop door an announcement remaining there until its blue and gold Avon- dimmed by time, A. PETERS, LADIES AND GENTS HAIR-DRESSEH AND BARBER. 195 And, farther down, WIGS AND TOUPETS. DISEASES OF THE SCALP. ONGUENTS AND SCENTS. HAIK-POWDER, ROUGE, AND PATCHES. ATTENDANCE AT HOUSE FOU BALLS AND ItOUTS. Also, TEETH PULLED, AND LIVELY LEECHES CONSTANTLY IN STOCK. By the smiles and blushes of his buxom bride the gallant Alcibiade considered him self well paid for his self-sacrifice. Con tinuing to prosper, he gave hostages to hair- dressing in the shape of several little lads who spoke English with a broad Scotch burr, French not at all, and, later in life, seized with nostalgia, emigrated with his family to end his days on the soil that gave him birth. Old Mr. Peters had become a figment of tradition in the town when his grandson, the present Alcibiade, appeared upon the scene. To the ancestral St. Pierre the new repre sentative had prefixed a patrician " de," vaguely explained as having been resumed by the family on recovering possession of estates lost in the French Revolution. To plain people in Belhaveu this prefix was in terpreted to be an initial letter D, doing duty for a middle name not given. As for the estates, they must have been limited ti> the amount aptly if not elegantly designated by the French Commandant Mann in tin- conference with the Half-King of the Six Na tions, recorded by Washington in 1753, when he said, " Child, you talk foolish ; there is not so much laud as the black of my nail yours." When first arrived in Belhaven, the poor Frenchman was indeed in a pitiable plight. The attention of the town was called to him by certain readings and recitations in his own language, advertised to be given in Lafayette Hall. Gay Berkeley, who, with her maiden aunt Penelope, had gone into Mrs. Dibble s shop to purchase pens and writing-paper, picked up from the counter a document in manu script that excited her amused curiosity. It was apparently a programme, written on foolscap in a fine copperplate hand, and ex pressed in a queer French -English that would have been a credit to the manual known to fame as the " Portuguese Gram mar and Guide to Polite Conversation." 197 "On my arrival from the France, me Alci- biade de St. Pierre, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and ex-artist of the theaters of Paris, do make hurry to throw myself at the feet of illustrious citizens of Belhaveu, with a presentment special of selections from the immortal Bacine et Corueille, such present ment to have place Hall Lafayette, the Mon day evening to follow. Eeceive, ladies and gentlemen, my distinguished hommages and impressed salutations your very humble ser- viteur." " What in the world is this, Mrs. Dibble ?" asked the young lady, with dimpling cheeks. " Indeed, Miss Gay, I told the chevalier that it wouldn t be long catchin the eye o my best customers," responded Mrs. Dibble, complacently. " I helped him out a bit with the words he didn t know. Dear heart, if ifc wasn t only but for the handwritin , as good as Mr. Johnson s nephew that was put in state s prison for forgery, pore fellow, he that used to practise here with fine nibs an broad nibs, writiu cards spread eagles with your name in curlicues comin out o their beaks an true-lovers knots an doves, if t was a new-married pair. Miss Penelope, I m ashamed to say I m clean out o quills ; 198 but old Fanner Berry up at the cross-roads, the only one I can trust to pick the geese properly, 11 bring me a new lot to-morrow. Miss Gay, now, she s uew school, u uses steel sand, ma am ? Yes ; of course. The usual quantity ? Here s sweet note-paper, Miss Gay, just received from Baltimore, tho tip o the mode, they say pale pink an skim-milk blue. Plain white, did you say, miss? Yes; I ve some cream -laid, like you ve always used befo . If you ve uothin better to do, ladies, twould be a charity to that pore Monnseor to patronize his per formance a Monday night. If twas only for old times sake, Miss Penelope, ma am ; many s the head he s dressed I mean his grandfather s dressed for your faiu ly. Yes; old Mr. Peters s grandson, as I m alive, ma am, an the entertainment most genteel. Selections from Corueel an Raycine ; fifty cents for adults, twenty-five for children, an a special reduction for ladies schools. I thought there d be a chance to jjet the young gentlemen from Mr. Penhallow s Acad emy ; but the chevalier kinder shrivelled up at the mention o boys, an said twas too hard to keep up the true dignity o the drama when they was present Lord knows, since I took to keepin sweet stuff in 199 t other winder, I m up to the ways o boys. If it s ouly a penuy horse-cake comin back as bold as brass, with the hiud-legs eat off, declarin they s found a dead fly instead o a currant for the eye, an wautin their money or another cake " "Do take some tickets, Aunt Pen," plead ed Gay. " Yon know my sister does not approve of anything theatrical, my love," whispered Aunt Penelope. " Most of our church-mem bers think with her. To be sure dear mam ma used often to tell us of the time when Gen eral Washington and his lady, and Miss and Master Custis, drove up to stop two nights at grandpapa s, expressly to attend The Tragedy of Douglas, by Mr. Homo, and a play called The Inconstant ; or, The Way to Win Him. Mamma saw all the entertain ments of the kind, I believe. It was thought of differently in those days." " Doctor Falconer," ventured Gay, men tioning an eminent divine, " quoted, when he last drank tea with us, a passage from Racine. And these are ouly recitations, auntie, uo acting or costumes." " Oh, in that case," said Aunt Penelope, taking out her purse, "you may give me four tickets, Mrs. Dibble, and you may in- 200 vite two members of your French class, child. Seats in the second row, if you please, Mrs. Dibble. In a thing of this kind it is well to be near enough to study the ex pression of the performer s face; and oue likes to forget the crowd when it s poetry. I m sure sister Finetta will be pleased to hear about old Mr. Peters s grandson." Lafayette Hall was a dingy, ill -lighted room over the second floor of the building in which Mrs. Dibble kept her shop. To the young people it was associated with the in termittent delights of performances with trained dogs and canaries ; by Blind Tom, a negro pianist who could repeat every air suggested to him by the audience, and play better with his hands behind him than most of his hearers in the natural attitude ; by the tuueful Hutchinsou family, who stood in a row and warbled; by jugglers always in teresting, and returned missionaries less al luring to the young; of May exhibitions of female seminaries, whereat the pupils iu book- muslin with arbor-vitai wreaths recited be fore applauding parents poems iu honor of their queen, and were afterwards regaled with lemonade and cake. It was there that Gay, as first lady-in-waiting, had once re tired behind the queen s throne in tears. 201 because her majesty had not scrupled to twit her with wearing one of Aunt Pen s muslins "made over" which was too true. Even now Gay could not divest herself of the exhilaration produced by the sight of that green baize curtain and the oil-lamps serving as footlights. When, on the evening of the chevalier s de"but, she came into the hall, she nodded on every side to her friends, with a feeling that this was life. Mrs. Dib ble, whose person was attired in grass-green mousseline de laine, with a wide collar of dotted net, trimmed with cotton lace, took tickets at the door ; and in a conspicuously good seat sat Viney Piper, the little day- dressmaker, whose passion for the drama led her to patronize every respectable show that came to town. Viuey had arrived upon the opening of the doors at six o clock, and the performance was advertised to begin at half-past seven. She was an odd-looking, albino sort of creature, with pinkish eyes and eyelids, pale flaxen hair, and a hook nose much to one side of her face. The chevalier, entering the hall, had canght sight of her on his way to the rear of the stage, and forthwith executed a sweeping bow that Viuey thought the perfection of foreign elegance. 202 When the liall was fairly filled, anil the shuffling of feet announced, the right degree of impatience on the part of the audience, the curtain, pulled up by the performer him self, rose upon a stage empty save for a small pine table displaying a white china water-pitcher and a goblet. M. Alcibiade, weaving a suit of rusty black, with a scarlet- satin stock and white-kid gloves, an order in his button-hole, his hair fiercely ruffled, and his eyes gleaming at some foe unknown, holding a dinner-knife in his clinched hand, stalked on the scene. At this alarming ap parition a little girl sitting by her mamma burst into tears, and had to be consoled with gum-drops from the parental pocket, inter spersed with audible assurances that the gentleman meant no harm. Opening his lips, Alcibiade poured forth a cataract of words, of which the most advanced French scholars in Miss Meechin s senior class could make neither head nor tail. He raved, he roared, he ranted ; then seizing a goblet from the table, half tilled it with water, and, holding the dagger in his other hand, advanced to the footlights cjilling on Heaven to end his woes. At last, drinking the con tents of the poisoned cup, he threw away the dinner-knife, and fell with a gurgling 203 groan and a crash that made the lamps rat tle iu the chaudelier. This, by agreement with Mrs. Dibble, was the signal for that worthy lady to hurry behind the scenes and let fall the curtain on the direful sight ; but she, unfortunately, stood like a stock, aver ring afterwards that her blood was " that cruddled with awr she couldn t a budged a mite !" Next, M. Alcibiade, coming slowly back to life, sat up to confront the audience with a snaile of absolute fatuity; then scrambling to his feet, bowed, kissed his hand, and, going off, let the green baize de scend on act the first. It was long since Belhaven had enjoyed such a merry spectacle. The school-girls leading off with infectious giggles, every bench caught the contagion, and only Viney Piper, mopping real tears from her eyes, an nounced herself a connoisseur of true art. The rest of the programme, although less explosive, met with hysterically suppressed mirth. Before its close, indeed, the audi ence had filtered slowly from the hall, leav ing only the faithful Viney and Mrs. Dibble, the newspaper-carrier (who was stone-deaf), a scrub-woman with her baby in arms, and a few citizens who exacted their money s worth. 204 It was evident that provincial taste had not been educated to the dramatic standard of old Mr. Peters s grandson. Alcibiade, failing in other occupations, sank from pov erty to want. One day when Miss Viney Piper, arriving at the Berkeleys house in Princess Koyal Street, had established her self in the sewing-room, the ladies in sub missive attitudes before her, the little dress maker could hardly wait to dispose of busi ness before introducing the subject near her heart. "Just keep on running up them skirt- widths, Miss Gay ; an Miss Penelope, ma am, you could be gofterin that sleeve while I get the body ready to try on," she said, marshal ling her forces like a general in command. "Did you hear the news that old Mr. IV- ters s grandson ain t expected to live the day out ? Fairly starved, I reckon, fore he d let Mrs. Dibble know, an he sleepin in a hole of an attic at the Drovers Hotel kinder low fever, uothin catchin , the doctor says, but nothin to bring him up again. Such a beautiful genius he is, ma am, an a temper like a child, for all ho looks so fierce." " Starving ! What do you mean, Viney ?" said Miss Penelope, excitedly. " Go, Gay, fetch me my bonnet and mantilla, and help 205 Susan to pack a basket with sonic things. How conies it that nobody knew ?" " It s all right for the present, Miss Penel ope, ma am," said Viney, blushing. " That s what s kep me a little late this mornin . I took up a few trifles, an Mrs. Dibble she s got somebody to mind the store, and is to stay with him all day. But if you d let Peggy put on a chicken to boil down for jelly, it wouldn t be wasted if " here she swallowed once or twice and stabbed her pin-cushion "if the pore Mounseer can t make no use of it." The "pore Mouuseer," however, surviving the day under Mrs. Dibble s kindly care, and finding no lack of nourishment during the days that followed, was, with the assistance of a subscription among some charitable people, transferred in the course of a week to a spare room let to single gentlemen by Mrs. Piper, Viuey s mother, which by happy accident had been recently vacated. The Pipers lived in one of the small frame- houses bnilt to open directly upon the moss- encircled bricks set diagonally in the ancient sidewalk of a modest street. Their door- stone of white marble was accounted in the neighborhood a badge of distinguishing ele gance, as was also a small brass oval serving 206 as a bell-pull, when most people used knock ers, or " knuckles," the gossips would aver. The late Mr. Piper bad beeu a seafaring man, and bad risen to be first mate of tbe brig Polly and Nancy, when, on a return voyage from Cadiz with a cargo of fruit, salt, and wines, bound for Belbaven port, be was swept overboard in a hurricane and lost. Tbe best room of tbe little house, into which one stepped out of tbe street direct, was a sort of marine museum like a chill grotto, suggesting a mermaid s clutch or tbe grip of shark s teeth. Here Mrs. Piper did not care to raise the shades, except at one side window permanently darkened by a trellis overgrown with a vine of the Isabella grape. Tbe children of Miss Viney s custom ers liked to be sent to make appointments with that busy little body ; for Mrs. Piper, too deaf to answer questions, and droning her explanations in a sing-song voice, always showed them around the museum with great affability. The old woman usually sat in a clean kitchen opening upon tbe back yard, where, under the damson-trees and amid the hundred-leaf rose-bnshes, were constructed little winding walks, edged with shells, and leading up to seats made of a whale s back bone. 207 After the Chevalier de St. Pierre had suc ceeded in obtaining classes iu dancing and deportment that enabled him to live, and had settled down to become a fixture iu the widow s house, his spare moments were given to cultivating flowers iu the beds be tween the shell-bordered walks. Everything grows easily in soft Belhaveu air, and soon the Pipers garden became a proverb iu the place. Mrs. Piper s only complaint against her lodger was couched in the expressive phrase, <( The Lord knows how often he empties his water-jug"; but even a distaste for ablution yielded iu time to the insistent cleanliness of his surroundings. Sometimes, to cheer "Madame Pipere" in her solitude, Alcibiadc would descend to the kitchen and proffer to the old woman, knitting in her suuuy window-seat, " a leetle divertissement from ze classique drama of La France." He had a vrai inspiration for the stage, St. Pier.re confessed to Viney, and but for polit ical intrigue would be now in bis rightful place on the boards of the Th6atre Francais. These exhibitions , repeating the celebrated performance of his de"but at Lafayette Hall, were as deeply and religiously admired by the widow as by her daughter. One day occurred a variant upon the usual exercise. Alcibiadehad always treat ed poor lank Viuey as if she were one of the great ladies of the court in bondage to bis ancestor s curling-tongs ; but she was unpre pared for the scene that greeted her return when, having stepped down to Slater s for ;i spool of " forty " cotton, she found the chev alier, in his best black suit, wearing white kid gloves, and holding a bouquet in oue hand, kneeling at Mrs. Piper s feet and kiss ing her finger-tips with reverence. " I ask yon, madame, for the hand of your beautiful and admirable child in marriage," was what Viney and the whole neigborhood within ear-shot heard him roar. Viney, with all her good qualities, was a bit of a virago. The absurdity of the pro ceeding, and the sense that her adjacent ac quaintances were laughing at her affairs, flooded her thin skin with blushes and her soul with anger. While Mrs. Piper, scared out of her wits, was about to open her.lips for a feeble screech, Viney whisked into the kitchen, snatched Alcibiade s bouquet, threw it away into a parsley-be d, and boxed the professor s ears. " You d better believe I give im a piece of my mind," she narrated afterwards to Miss Penelope and Gay. " But, bless you, he 209 cried so pitiful, an begged our pardons so kind o honorable, I bad not the heart to turn him ont o the house like I threatened to. Them white kids, Miss Gay ! An at bis age, an mine! The notion s too cry in ridic lous." And she snapped a seam into the beak of her sewing-bird with vicious emphasis, giving at the same time a sidelong glance into the mirror, and a complacent toss of the head. No one could be long in the chevalier s company without discovering that a very dove of gentleness and affectionate gratitude dwelt iu his gaunt envelope of flesh. So, re straining his pretensions as a lover, he meekly accepted Miss Viney s fiat, and went about the town looking as warlike as ever, but inwardly carrying a broken spirit. One of his dancing-class encountered him cross ing a windy common iu the suburbs of the town pursued by a flock of geese, from whose sibilant obloquy he was making nervous efforts to escape ; and it was known to the boys and girls that the chevalier was al ways alarmed by the apparition of a spider or a cow. No wonder the young people de cided that Alcibiade had been reduced to pulp by Miss Viney s vigorous rejection of his suit. The little dress-maker s peppery 14 temper was familiar to the offspring of her customers, from whom she would stand no trifling around her temporary throne in their respective households. When the war between the States broke out, Viney seemed to have found her des tined vocation as a red-hot secessionist. Not very clear, fundamentally, as to what she resented on the part of the national authorities at the other end of the Long Bridge, some eight miles away, she threw out her rebel banner on the wall, sang " Dixie" in her shrill treble, declaimed, pro tested, and, in short, kept everybody in her vicinity in a boiling state of excitement about the condition of political affairs. When the Belhaveu regiments went on to Kichmond or Mauassas, Viney stitched her fingers to the bone making shirts for them, while Mrs. Piper knit socks of gray wool as fast as her needles conld fly. They also turned out a number of the white linni havelocks and gaiters adopted by one of the companies and afterward discarded as a too shining mark for opposing riflemen. Viney trotted to the train to see the boys go off, and stood there in the crowd, cheering and waving with the best. As she watched the last car recede on two gleaming lines o f steel, 211 its rear platform tbrouged with gesticulat ing shapes in gray, she felt her heart inflate and her stature grow with a yearning desire to go out and fight or do something helpful in their ranks. When she turned to walk home that afternoon of balmy spring, there, haunting her footsteps, was the faithful Alcibiade. He looked into her watery blue eyes as if imploring to be allowed to speak his sym pathy. "Have it out, an be done with it, for gracious sake," said Viney, pettishly. His smooth-finished black coat, his waxed mous tache, the bunch of jonquils in his button hole, fretted her beyond endurance. " Those tears for the brave, they are a beuison," said Alcibiade, sen ti men tally. " Who would not be inspired by them to deeds of glory ?" "It s not the boys I m cryin for," said Viney. "It s us that are left behind and have got to put our necks under the vandal s heel." That "vandal" afforded a famous outlet for secession wrath in those days ; it may be doubted whether the war could have been carried on without him. "Oh! if t worn t for mother, d ye think I d stay ? I d go to-movrow, an carry a water-pail to fill 212 canteens; or I d nurse in hospitals or any thing." " It s a noble, a sacred cause," replied the chevalier, looking down at the toe of his varnished boot to avoid the needle-point of her eye. "You will permit me, chere Mees Viney, to mingle with yours my prayers for its success ? When I think that this Vir ginia that has sheltered two exiles of our house my ancestor, who came here to find a home, a bride, a thousand friends, a thou sand tendernesses; and me, less fortunatf, but ever grateful for the hour that brought 5*011, an angel of goodness, to my rescue in distress " That s neither here uor there," inter rupted Viuey, cruelly. " Besides, it was as much Mrs. Dibble as me, anyway." " But you will not deny me the privilege of sharing your patriotic anxiety for the welfare of the troops f You will allow my heart to beat in unison with yours ?" " Nobody ain t a-preventiu your heart doin what it pleases," said the uncompro mising lady of his love, now fairly out of patience with his phrasing. " But it s deeds, not words, that show what a man s worth nowadays. When I think what a fool I used to be bout fine talkiif . an how I be- 213 lieved if a feller spread himself in speechi- fyin he was botm to be a hero, it makes me fairly sick. I d rather have the little finger o oiie o them privates that s in the train we hear whistlin up yonder bless their souls! than the whole body of a dandy Jim that stays at home. But, law me. I m foolish talkin such stuff to you" Foolish and manifestly unjust, we will agree with her. But Viney s seed was not sown on barren soil, as we shall see. From that date the chevalier s moustaches lost their jaunty curl, his eye its martial fire. The dancing -school declining with the growth of military rule in town, his occupa tion was chiefly to walk along the streets picking up such rumors and crumbs of gossip abont the movements of either army as might bring aspark of interest into the orbs of Miss Viney on his return to the widow s house. The days of June wore on, and Viney s temper, taxed by anxiety abont the issue of the approaching battle, became more tart, her taunts more frequent ; but the chevalier suddenly seemed to take heart and to walk with a firmer tread. One night he did not return to sleep in his tidy bedroom, and Viuey, going into it, found a letter addressed to herself upon the table. 214 "Adieu, my benefactress, beautiful inspira tion of my unworthy life " (the chevalier had written), " I fly to win the approval of your noble tears or to sleep eternally upon the soldier s bloody conch. To yon, in tliis .su preme moment, I dare avow a truth for which my manhood does not blush that I have, until now, held back because of a weakness of temperament that made my Bonl blanch at thought of the soldier s bap tism of fire. Now that the struggle is over, I am resolved to ally myself with the ar mies of the South, that has given me a shelter, and given me yon, adored one, whose hand I embrace in spirit, with that of your respected mother; to whom, and to you, the salutations the most distinguished of your all-devoted. ALCIBIADE." "The land o Dixie !" cried out Miss Vim-y. " If that pore erector s in earnest I ll never draw a free breath till he gets back." M. Alcibiade was very much in earnest. A few days later Miss Viney had a visit from a lawyer who informed her that the Frenchman, before going through the lines to enlist in the Southern army, had caused to be drawn up a will bequeathing to lu-r some hundreds of dollars which by frugality 215 and care he had saved during his residence beneath their roof. Viney had an honest crying-fit after the lawyer left, and, patting on her bonnet, sped down to Princess Royal Street to take counsel with the Misses Berke ley as to the best way of tracing the absent one and conveying to him some token of her appreciation and regard. Those ladies could give her little hope. They promised, how ever, to write recommending Alcibitide to the care and kind offices of their friends in Belhaveu regiments, should the Frenchman find his way among his old acquaintances and pupils; and with this Viuey was forced to be content. After Bull Run, Manassas; and after Ma- nassas, a breathing-space in which North and South held themselves in check, dreading to pierce the veil shadowing the future of the conflict. In the dusk of a warm summer evening, when Viney had carried out a bucket of fresh water with which to drench and cool the already clean bit of pavement appertaining to their front door, a country wagon with a hooded canopy of canvas, drawn by mules and driven by a long-legged rustic in a linen duster, wearing a broad straw hat, pulled up beside the curb. Inside could be heard the cackle of resentful fowls. 216 The driver, carrying a basket of eggs, leaned over and accosted her. "No; I don t want anything to-day, I m bliged to ye," began Viney and broke down with a gasp. "Good Lord ! It s yon, Monnseer 1" "It is, charming Mees Viney," said the pretended fanner, with a warm grasp of her hand. "Hush! Not a word that the neigh bors can overhear." "But I don t understand; you are not in the army, after all ?" "There are ways and ways of being a sol dier," he went on iu a low whisper. "Be lieve me when I tell you I have kept my word. Take a few of these eggs and count them into a dish or basket yes ; your apron will do that I may go on talking without fear. Then I will find it troublesome to gif you change." " But where in the land did you come from ?" she asked, burning with curiosity. " Ma foi, from a Union camp, to-day. where the soldiers have left me little to sell to you, belle dame. To-morrow at daybreak for I shall find fresh mules outside the town I present myself to a general whom a Frenchman is proud to serve ze peer less Beauregard." "You are you are " she began, her face blanched, her teeth chattering. " Never mind what I am ; let me but look once more upon that face of which I so ofteu dream, and then I must hasten away." " Oh, go, go ! " she pleaded. " It was per fect madness for you to come here. Not ten minutes ago a patrol of Yankee soldiers walked down this street." "Bah!" he said, with a shrug, ""have I riot enjoyed the company of their compa triots all day ? But for your sake I will go. Have no fear belle Viuey; you will hear from me again." Was this the timid, the cringing Alcibi- ade? Viuey asked herself all through a sleep less night. Many and many a night there after she was destined to toss and wonder as to his fate. In the autumn she had aline from him, left by a wood-seller from far up in the interior of the county ; he was safe and well, and still in the service of the em ployer who retained him when he had seen her last ; and he was always her devoted and faithful A. de St. P. After that a blank of long years extend ing to the close of the dreadful war. Viney had given him up for dead, of course ; had put ou mourning and made 218 lier mother do the same ; and everybody said how strange it was that Viney Piper should msike all that fuss about a man that just walked out of her house one day and gave her the "go-by" without a word. She could never persuade herself to touch a penny of his bequest, but had consulted her confidante, Miss Penelope, about the propri ety of using it for a fine monument to be erected to his memory in the Belhaven graveyard, when the correspondent of a New York paper, mousing around the old Virginia town for material, announced to the public that he had discovered the iden tity of the famous and daring rebel scout Peters, who, after countless adventures, and escaping the noose a dozen times by a mir acle, had disappeared from sight. This dashing character, it was confidently stated, was none other than a so-called French dancing-master, known at the time as St. Pierre, who had lived in Belhaven pursuing his harmless occupation for some years prior to the war. In the comments of the press upon this announcement more than one reminiscence of Peters was soon given currency ; and presently the editor of a journal in an ob- scuro Western town wrote to the New York 219 paper that Peters, alias St. Pierre, alias no- one-knew-what beside, was then actually re siding in the family of a charitable French man of his locality, having survived a wound and an imprisonment that had left him help less upon his benefactor s hands. When this was .published Viney s friends saw the little woman smile. Then she cried, then she fell down on her knees and thanked God for his mercy, and lastly she packed her little trunk, and set off for Illinois. "You have come to me, and I was too proud to bring the remains of me to you, belle Viiiey !" said Alcibiade, when she ar rived. " It is enough for me to see yon, to forget that prison where I laid so long." Poor little, homely Viney was utterly over come. She took his thin hand, with the claw-like fingers, and, stooping down, kissed it and cried over it. " Lord, lay not this sin to my door !" she said, gazing on the wreck before her with a sudden, bitter self-reproach. " Oh, Mounseer, tell me that you forgive me for what I drove you to, for I ll never forgive myself." "Listen to me, Mees Viney," the French man said, looking about him anxiously to see that no one overheard. "Yon have done for me what a thousand times, in peril of my neck, in cold, in hunger, in a prison cell, I have thanked yon for J T OU have made of me a man ! Son Dieu, a man ! Viney brought him back to the little chamber beneath the roof of Mrs. Piper s house, where the two women nursed him into comparative comfort ; health he might never fully know again. In summer-time, his chair rolled out upon one of the shell- bordered walks, he would remain gazing in absolute content upon Viney sitting on the door-step \vith her work. 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