i ^ :-UN!VER IOS ANGELA % i UBRARY0X <&UIBRARYQr < * <~ d ? 1 i r~ & CAUF(% 3 2 ^ ss s ^ I 3 I I UNIVERJ 1 /^ *y ic t i I I iOr-1 [8 I I %> '. ^WS-ANCElfj^ 1 g <*~^ ^f i a ^i /8 %aaAiNn-3ft ^t-UBRARY^. ( V SO -O % ^OF-CAtlFO/?^ )t> x- v *^- s? g^y^Ni in ; I te s s % II a s ERNEST LINWOOD; OB, THE DINER LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. BY MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. R OF " LINDA ; OR, THE YOUNG PILOT OP THB BELLE CREOLE," " THB BANISHED SOH," OURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE J OR, THB JOYS AND SORROWS OF AMERICAN LIFE," 'THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE; OR, SCENES IN MRS. HENTZ'S CHILDHOOD," " LOVE AFTER MARRIACJE," " MARCUS WARLAND ; OR, THE LONQ MOSS SPRING," "EOLINE; OR, MAGNOLIA VALE; OB, THE HEIRESS OF QLRNMORB," "HELEN AND ARTHUR; OR, MISS THUSA'S SPINNING-WHEEL," "EGBERT GRAHAM;" A SEQUEL TO "uifDA," we. "Thou hast called me thine angel in moments of bliss, Still thine angel I'll prove mid the horrors of this. Through the furnace unshrinking thy steps I'll pursue, And shield thee, aiid save thee, and perish there too." PHILADELPHIA: T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS; 306 CHESTNUT STREET. Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1869, by T. B. PETEKSON & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the .Eastern District of Pennsylvania. MRS. CAROLINE LEE HEKTZ'S WORKS. Each Work is complete in one large duodecimo volume. LINDA; OR, THE YOUNG PILOT OF THE BELLE CREOLE. ROBERT GRAHAM. A SEQUEL TO "LINDA." RENA; OR, THE SNOW BIRD. A TALE OF REAL LIFE. EOLINE; OR, MAGNOLIA VALE; OR, THE HEIRESS OF GLEN MO RE. MARCUS WARLAND; OR, THE LONG MOSS SPRING. ERNEST LIN WOOD; OR, THE INNER LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE; OR, SCENES IN MRS. HENTZ'S CHILDHOOD. HELEN AND ARTHUR; OR, MISS THUSA'S SPINNING- WHEEL. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE; OR, THE JOYS AND SORROWS OF AMERICAN LIFE. LOVE AFTER MARRIAGE. THE LOST DAUGHTER. THE BANISHED SON. Price $1.75 each in Morocco Cloth; or $1.50 in Paper Cover. Above books are for sale by all Booksellers. Copies of any or all of the above books will be sent to any one, to any place, post- age pre-paid, on receipt of their price by the Publishers, T. B. PETEKSOtf & BBOTHEKS, 306 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA. ERNEST LINWOOD. CHAPTER I. WITH an incident of my childhood I will commence the record of my life. It stands out in bold prominence, rugged and bleak, through the haze of memory. I was only twelve years old. He might have spoken less harshly. He might have remembered and pitied my youth and sensitiveness, that tall, powerful, hitherto kind man, my pre- ceptor, and, as I believed, my friend. Listen to what he did say, in the presence of the whole school of boys, as well as girls, assembled on that day to hear the weekly exercises read, writ- ten on subjects which the master had given us the previous week. One by one, we were called up to the platform, where he sat enthroned in all the majesty of the Olympian king-god. One Dy one, the manuscripts were read by their youthful authors, the criticisms uttered, which marked them with honor or hame, gliding figures passed each other, going and return- nig, while a hasty exchange of glances, betrayed the flash of triumph, or the gloom of disappointment. " Gabriella Lynn ! " The name sounded like thunder in my ears. I rose, trembling, blushing, feeling as if every pair of eyes in the hall were burning *like redhot balls on my face. I tried to move, Due my feet were glued to the floor. '*> 6 EKNEST LINWOOD. Gabriella Lynn ! " The tone was louder, more commanding, and I dared not resist the mandate. The greater fear conquered the less. With a desperate effort I walked, or rather rushed, up the steps, the paper fluttering in my hand, as if blown upon by a strong wind. " A little less haste would be more decorous, Miss." The shadow of a pair of beetling brows rolled darkly over me. Had I stood beneath an overhanging cliff, with the ocean waves dashing at my feet, I could not have felt more awe or dread. A mist settled on my eyes. " Read," cried the master, waving his ferula with a com- manding gesture, "our time is precious." I opened my lips, but no sound issued from my paralyzed tongue. With a feeling of horror, which the intensely diffident can understand, and only they, I turned and was about to fly back to my seat, when a large, strong hand pressed its weight upon my shoulder, and arrested my flight. " Stay where you are," exclaimed Mr. Regulus. " Have I not lectured you a hundred times on this preposterous shame- facedness of yours ? Am I a Draco, with laws written in blood, a tyrant, scourging with an iron rod, that you thus shrink and tremble before me ? Read, or suffer the penalty due to disobe- dience and waywardness." Thus threatened, I commenced in a husky, faltering voice the reading of lines which, till that moment, I had believed glowing with the inspiration of genius. Now, how flat and commonplace they seemed ! It was the first time I had ever ventured to reveal to others the talent hidden with all a miser's vigilance in my bosom casket. I had lisped in rhyme, I had improvised in rhyme, I had dreamed in poetry, when the moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lus- tre ; I had thought poetry at the sunset hour, amid twil ght shadows and midnight darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at noonday recess at my solitary desk ; but no human being, save my mother, knew of the young dream-girl's, poetic raptures. One of those irresistible promptings of the spirit which all ERNESTLINWOOD. 7 have felt, and to which many have yielded, induced me at this era to break loose from ray shell and come forth, as I imagined, a beautiful and brilliant butterfly, soaring up above the gaze of my astonished and admiring companions. Yes ; with all my diffidence I anticipated a scene of triumph, a dramatic scene, whicl would terminate perhaps in a crown of laurel, or a pub- lic ovation. Lowly self-estimation is by no means a constant accompani- ment of diffidence. The consciousness of possessing great powers and deep sensibility often creates bashfulness. It is their veil and guard while maturing and strengthening. It is the flower-sheath, that folds the corolla, till prepared to encoun- ter the sun's burning rays. Read ! " I did read, one stanza. I could not go on though the scaffold were the doom of my silence. " What foolery is this ! Give it to me." The paper was pulled from my clinging fingers. Clearing his throat with a loud and prolonged hem, then giving a flourish of his ruler on the desk, he read, in a tone of withering derision, the warm breathings of a child's heart and soul, strug- gling after immortality, the spirit and trembling utterance of long cherished, long imprisoned yearnings. Now, when after years of reflection I look back on that never-to-be-forgotten moment, I can form a true estimate of the poem subjected to that fiery ordeal, I wonder the paper did not scorch and shrivel up like a burning scroll. It did not deserve ridicule. The thoughts were fresh and glowing, the measure correct, the versification melodious. It was the genuine off- spring of a young imagination, urged by the " strong necessity " of giving utterance to its bright idealities, the sighings of a heart looking beyond its lowly and lonely destiny. Ah ! Mr. Regu- lus, you were cruel then. Methinks I see him, hear him now, weighing in the iron scales of criticism every springing, winged idea, cutting and dashing thf words till it seemed to me they dropped blood, 8 BKHESTLINWOOD than glancing from me to the living rows of benches with srr.h & ccld, sarcastic smile. "What a barbarous, unfeeling monster!" perhaps I hear some one exclaim. No, he was not. He could be very kind and indulgent. He had been kind and generous to me. He gave me my tuition, and had taken unwearied pains with my lessons. He could for- give great offences, but had no toleration for little follies. Pie really thought it a sinful waste of time to write poetry in school. He had given me a subject for composition, a useful, practical one, but not at all to my taste, and I had ventured to disregard it. I had jumped over the rock, and climbed up to the flowers that grew above it. He was a thorough mathemati- cian, a celebrated grammarian, a renowned geographer and lin- guist, but I then thought he had no more ear for poetry or music, no more eye for painting, the painting of God, or man, than the stalled ox, or the Greenland seal. I did him injustice, and he was unjust to me. I had not intended to slight or scorn the selection he had made, but I could not write upon it, I could not help my thoughts flowing into rhyme. Can the stream help gliding and rippling through its flowery margins? Can the bird help singing and warbling upward into the deep blue sky, sending down a silver shower of melody as it flies ? Perhaps some may think I am swelling small things into great; but incidents and actions are to be judged by their re- sults, by their influence in the formation of character, and the hues they reflect on futurity. Had I received encouragement instead of rebuke, praise instead of ridicule, had he taken me by the hand and spoken some such kindly words as these : "This is very well for a little girl like you. Lift up that downcast face, nor blush and tremble, as if detected in a guilty act. You must not spend too much time in the reveries of imagination, for this is a working-day world, my child. Even the birds have to build their nests, and the coral insect is a mighty laborer. The gift of song is sweet, and may be mado ERNEST LINWOOD. 9 an instrument of the Creator's glory. The first notes of the lark are feeble, compared to his heaven-high strains. The fainter dawn precedes the risen day." Oh ! had he addressed me in indulgent words as these, who knows but that, like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved ? Who knows but that the golden gates of the Eden of immortality might have opened to admit the wandering Peri to her long-lost home ? I might have been the priestess of a Bhrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered burning incense at my altar. I might have won the laurel crown, and found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves. I might, but it matters not. The divine spark is undying, and though circumstances may smother the flame it enkindles, it glows in the bosom with unquenchable fire. I remember very well what the master said, instead of the imagined words I have written. " Poetry, is it ? or something you meant to be called by that name? Nonsense, child folly moon-beam hallucina- tion ! Child ! do you know that this is an unpardonable waste of time ? Do you remember that opportunities of im- provement are given you to enable you hereafter to secure an honorable independence ? This accounts for your reveries over the blackboard, your indifference to mathematics, that grand and glorious science ! Poetry ! ha, ha ! I began to think you did not understand the use of capitals, ha, ha ! " Did you ever imagine how a tender loaf of bread must feel when cut into slices by the sharpened knife ? How the young bark feels when the iron wedge is driven through it with cleav- ing force ? I think / can, by the experience of that hour. I stood with quivering lip, burning cheek, and panting breast, my eyes riveted on the paper which he flourished in his left hand, pointing at it with the forefinger of his right. " He shall not go on," said I to myself, exasperation giv- ing me boldness, " he shall not read what I have written of my mother. I will die sooner. He may insult my poverty but hers shall be sacred, and her sorrows too." I sprang forward, forgetting every thing in the fear of hear 10 EENESTLINTTOOD. ing her name associated with derision, and attempted to get pos- session of the manuscript. A fly might as well attempt to wring the trunk of the elephant. " Really, little poetess, you are getting bold. I should like to see you try that again. You had better keep quiet." A resolute glance of the keen, black eye, resolute, yet twink- ling with secret merriment, and he was about to commence another stanza. I jumped up with the leap of the panther. I could not loosen his strong grasp, but I tore the paper from round his fingers, ran down the steps through the rows of desks and benches, without looking to the right or left, and flew without bonnet or covering out into the broad sunlight and open air. " Come back, this moment ! " The thundering voice of the master rolled after me, like a heavy stone, threatening to crush me as it rolled. I bounded on before it with constantly accelerating speed. " Go back, never ! " I said this to myself. I repeated it aloud to the breeze that came coolly and soothingly through the green boughs, to fan the burning cheeks of the fugitive. At length the dread of pursuit subsiding, I slackened my steps, and cast a furtive glance behind me. The cupola of the academy gleamed white through the oak trees that surrounded it, and above them the glittering vane, fashioned in the form of a giant pen, seemed writing on the azure page of heaven. My home, the little cottage in the woods, was one mile dis- tant. There was a by-path, a foot-path, as it was called, which cut the woods in a diagonal line, and which had been trodden hard and smooth by the feet of the children. Even at mid-day there was twilight in that solitary path, and when the shadows deepened and lengthened on the plain, they concentrated into gloominess there. The moment I turned into that path, I was supreme. It was mine. The public road, the thoroughfare leading through the heart of the town, belonged to the world. I was obliged to walk there like other people, with mincing steps, and bonnet tied primly under the chin, according to the EBNEST LINWOOD. 11 rule and plummet line of school-girl propriety. But in my own little by-path, I could do just as I pleased. I could run with iny bonnet swinging in my hand, and my hair floating like the wild vine of the woods. I could throw myself down on the grass at the foot of the great trees, and looking up into the deep, distant sky, indulge my own wondrous imaginings. I did so now. I cast myself panting on the turf, and turning my face downward instead of upward, clasped my hands over it, and the hot tears gushed in scalding streams through my fingers, till the pillow of earth was all wet as with a shower. Oh, they did me good, those fast-gushing tears ! There was comfort, there was luxury in them. Bless God for tears ! How they cool the dry and sultry heart! How they refresh the fainting virtues ! How they revive the dying affections ! The image of my pale sweet, gentle mother rose softly through the falling drops. A rainbow seemed to crown her with its sevenfold beams. Dear mother ! . would she will me to go back where the giant pen dipped its glittering nib into the deep blue ether? CHAPTER II. "GET up, Gabriella, you must not lie here on the damp ground. Get up, it is almost night. What will your mother say ? what will she think has become of you ? " I started up, bewildered and alarmed, passing my hands dreamily over my swollen eyelids. Heavy shadows hung over the woods. Night was indeed approaching. I had fallen into a deep sleep, and knew it not. It was Richard Clyde who awakened me. His schoolmaster called him Dick, but I thought it sounded vulgar, and he was always Richard to me. A boy of fifteen, the hardest student in the academy, and, next to my mother and Peggy, the best friend I had in the world. I had no brother, and many a time had he acted a brother's part, when I had needed a manly champion. Yet my mother had enjoined on me such strict re- serve in my intercourse with the boy pupils, and my disposition was so shy, our acquaintance had never approached familiarity. " I did not mean to shake you so hard," said he, stepping back a few paces as he spoke, " but I never knew any one sleep so like a log before. I feared for a moment that you were dead." " It would not be much matter if I were," I answered, hardly knowing what I said, for a dull weight pressed on my brain, and despondency had succeeded excitement. " Oh, Gabriella ! is it not wicked to say that ? " " If you had been treated as badly as I have, you would feel 'ike saying it too." " Yes ! " he exclaimed, energetically, "you have been treated badly, shamefully, and I told the master so to his face." (12) ERNEST LINWOOD. 18 * You ! You did not, Richard. You only thought so. Yon ?ould not have told him so for all the world." " But I did, though ! As soon as you ran out of school, it seemed as if he made but one step to the door, and his face looked as black as night. I thought if he overtook you, he might, I did not know what he would do, he was so angry. I sat near the door, and I jumped right up and faced him on the threshold. Don 't, sir, don 't ! I cried ; she is- a little girl, and you a great strong man." " ' What is that to you, sirrah ? ' he exclaimed, and the forked lightning ran out of his eye right down my backbone. It aches yet, Gabriella. " It is a great deal, Sir, I answered, as bold as a lion. You have treated her cruelly enough already. It would be cowardly to pursue her." " Oh, Richard ! how dared you say that ? Did he not strike you ? " " He lifted his hand ; but instead of flinching, I made myself as tall as I could, and looked at him right steadfastly. You do not know how pale he looked, when I stopped him on the threshold. His very lips turned white I declare there is something grand in a great passion. It makes one look some- how so different from common folks. Well, now, as soon as he raised his hand to strike me, a red flush shot into his face, like the blaze of an inward fire. It was shame, anger made him white but shame turned him as red as blood. His arm drop- ped down to his side, then he laid his hand on the top of his head, ' Stay after school,' said he, 'I must talk with you.' " " And did you ? " I asked, hanging with breathless interest on his words." " Yes ; I have just left him." " He has not expelled you, Richard ? " " No ; but he says I must ask his pardon before the whole achool to-morrow. It amounts to the same thing. I will never do it." ft I am so sorry this has happened," said I. " Oh ! that I had 14 ERNEST LINWOOD never written that foolish, foolish poetry. It has done so much mischief." " You are not to blame, Gabriella. He had no business to laugh at it; it was beautiful all the boys say so. I have no doubt you will be a great poetess one of these days. He ought to have been proud of it, instead of making fun of you. It was so mean." " But you must go back to school, Richard. You are the best scholar. The master is proud of you, and will not give you up. I would not have it said that / was the cause of your leaving, for twice your weight in solid gold." " Would you not despise me if I asked pardon, when I have done no wrong ; to appear ashamed of what I glory in ; to act the part of a coward, after publicly proclaiming him to be one ? " " It is hard," said I, " but " We were walking homeward all the while we were talking, and at every step my spirits sank lower and lower. How differ- ent every thing seemed now, from what it did an hour ago. True, I had been treated with harshness, but I had no right to rebel as I had done. Had I kissed the rod, it would have lost its sting, had I borne the smart with patience and gentle- ness, my companions would have sympathized with and pitied me ; it would not have been known beyond the walls of the academy. But now, it would be blazoned through the whole town. The expulsion of so distinguished a scholar as Richard Clyde would be the nine days' gossip, the village wonder. And I should be pointed out as the presumptuous child, whose dis- appointed vanity, irascibility, and passion had created rebellion and strife in a hitherto peaceful seminary. I, the recipient of the master's favors, an ingrate and a wretch ! My mother would know this my gentle, pale-faced mother. Our little cottage was now visible, with its low walls of gray ish white, and vine-encircled windows. " Richard," said I, walking as slowly as possible, though it was growing darker every moment, "I feel very unhappy. I ERNEST LIN WOOD. 15 will go and see the master in the morning and ask him to punish me for both. I will humble myself for your sake, for you havo been my champion, and I never will forget it as long as I live. I was wrong to rush out of school as I did, wrong to tear the paper from his hands, and I am willing to tell him so now. It shall all be right yet, Richard, indeed it shall." " You shall not humble yourself for me, Gabriella ; I like a girl of spirit." We had now reached the little gate that opened into our own green yard. I could see my mother looking from the window for her truant child. My heart began to palpitate, for no Catholic ever made more faithful confessions to his absolving priest, than I to my only parent. Were I capable of concealing any thing from her, I should have thought myself false and deceitful. With feel- ings of love and reverence kindred to those with which I re- garded my Heavenly Father, I looked up to her, the incarnate angel of my life. This expression has been so often used it does not seem to mean much ; but when I say it, I mean all the filial heart is capable of feeling. I was poor in fortune, but in her goodness rich. I was a lonely child, but sad and pen eive as she was, she was a fountain of social joy to me. Then, she was so beautiful so very, very lovely I I caught the light of her pensive smile through the dimness of the hour. She was so accustomed to my roaming in the woods, she had suffered no alarm. " If my mother thinks it right, you will not object to my going to see Mr. Regulus," said I, as Richard lifted the gate- latch for me to enter. " For yourself, no ; but not for me. I can take care of myself Gabriella." He spoke proudly. He did not quite come up to my childish idea of a boy hero, but I admired his self-reliance and bravery. I did not want him to despise me or my lack of spirit. I began to waver in my good resolution. My mother called me, in that soft, gentle tone, so full of music and of love. In ten minutes I had told her alL CHAPTER III. IF I thought any language of mine could do just ice to Lei character, I would try to describe my mother. Were I to speak of her, my voice would choke at the mention of her name. As I write, a mist gathers over my eyes. Grief for the loss of such a being is immortal, as the love of which it is born. I have said that we were poor, but ours was not abject poverty, hereditary poverty, though /had never known afflu- ence, or even that sufficiency which casts out the fear of want. I knew that my mother was the child of wealth, and that she had been nurtured in elegance and splendor. I inherited from he-r the most fastidious tastes, without the means of gratifying them. I felt that I had a right to be wealthy, and that misfor- tune alone had made my mother poor, had made her an alien from her kindred and the scenes of her nativity. I felt a strange pride in this conviction. Indeed there was a singular union of pride and diffidence in my character, that kept me aloof from my young companions, and closed up the avenues to the social joys of childhood. My mother thought a school life would counteract the influ- ence of her own solitary habits and example. She did not wish me to be a hermit child, and for this reason accepted the offer Mr. Regulus made through the minister to become a pupil in the academy. She might have sent me to the free schools in the neighborhood, but she did not wish me to form associations incompatible with the refinement she had so care- fully cultivated in me. She might have continued to teach me at home, for she was mistress of every accomplishment, but she thought the discipline of an institution like this would give tone (16) ERNEST LIN WOOD. 17 and firmness to my poetic and dreaming mind. She wanted me to become practical, she wanted to see the bark growing and hardening over the exposed and delicate fibres. She anticipated for me the cold winds and beating rains of an adverse destiny. I knew she did, though she had never told me so in words. I read it in the anxious, wistful, prophetic expression of her soft, deep black eyes, whenever they rested on me. Those beautiful, mysterious eyes ! There was a mystery about her that gave power to her ex- cellence and beauty. Through the twilight shades of her sor- rowful loneliness, I could trace only the dim outline of her past life. I was fatherless, and annihilation, as well as death, seemed the doom of him who had given me being. I was for- bidden to mention his name. No similitude of his features, no token of his existence, cherished by love and hallowed by rev- erence, invested him with the immortality of memory. It was as if he had never been. Thus mantled in mystery, his image assumed a sublimity and grandeur in my imagination, dark and oppressive as night. I would sit and ponder over his mystic attributes, till he seemed like those gods of mythology, who, veiling their divinity in clouds, came down and wooed the daughters of men. A being so lovely and good as my mother would never have loved a common mortal. Perhaps he was some royal exile, who had found her in his wanderings a beauteous flower, but dared not transplant her to the garden of kings. My mother little thought, when I sat in my simple calico dress, my school-book open on my knees, conning my daily les- sons, or seeming so to do, what wild, absurd ideas were revelling in my brain. She little thought how high the " aspiring blood * of mine mounted in that lowly, woodland cottage. I told her the history of my humiliation, pass'ion, and flight, of Richard Clyde's brave defence and undaunted resolution, of my sorrow on his account, of my shame and indignation on my own. " My poor Gabriella ! " " You are not angry with me, my mother ? " 18 EKNEST LINWOOD. "Angry! No, my child, it was a hard trial, very hard for one so young. I did not think Mr. Regulus capable of so much unkindness. He has cancelled this day a debt of grati- tude." " My poor Gabriella," she again repeated, laying her delicate hand gently on my head. " I fear you have a great deal to contend with in this rough world. The flowers of poesy are sweet, but poverty is a barren soil, my child. The dew that moistens it, is tears." I felt a tear on my hand as she spoke. Child as I was, I thought that tear more holy and precious than the dew of heaven. Flowers nurtured by such moisture must be sweet. " I will never write any more," I exclaimed, with desperate resolution. " I will never more expose myself to ridicule and contempt." " Write as you have hitherto done, for my gratification and your own. Your simple strains have beguiled my lonely hours. But had I known your purpose, I would have warned you of the consequences. The child who attempts to soar above its companions is sure to be dragged down by the hand of envy. Your teacher saw in your effusion an unpardonable effort to rise above himself, to diverge from the beaten track. You may have indulged too much in the dreams of imagination. You may have neglected your duties as a pupil. Lay your hand on your heart and ask it to reply." She spoke so calmly, so soothingly, so rationally, the fevei of imagination subsided. I saw the triumph of reason and principle in her own self-control, for, when I was describing the scene, her mild eye flashed, and her pale cheek colored with an unwonted depth of hue. She had to struggle with her own emotions, that she might subdue mine. " May I ask him to pardon Richard Clyde, mother ? " " The act would become your gratitude, but I fear it woulc avail nothing. If he has required submission of him, he wil hardly accept yours as a substitute." u Must I ask him to forgive me ? M ast I return ? " I hung breathlessly on her reply. ERNEST LINWOOD. 19 " Wait till morning, my daughter. We shall both feel differ- ently then. I would not have you yield to the dictates of pas- sion, neither would I have you forfeit your self-respect. I must not rashly counsel." ' I would not let her go back at all," exclaimed a firm, de- cided voice. " They ain't fit to hold the water to wash her iiands." " Peggy," said my mother, rebukingly, " you forget yourself.* " I always try to do that," she replied, while she placed on the table my customary supper of bread and milk. " Yes, indeed you do," answered my mother, gratefully, "kind and faithful friend. But humility becometh my child better than pride." Peggy looked hard at my mother, with a mixture of rever- ence, pity, and admiration in her clear, honest eye, then taking a coarse towel, she rubbed a large silver spoon, till it shone brighter and brighter, and laid it by the side of my bowl. She had first spread a white napkin under it, to give my simple re- past an appearance of neatness and gentility. The bowl itself was white, with a wreath of roses round the rim, both inside and out. Those rosy garlands had been for years the delight of my eyes. I always hailed the appearance of the glowing leaves, when the milky fluid sunk below them, with a fresh ap- preciation of their beauty. They gave an added relish to the Arcadian meal. They fed my love of the beautiful and the pure. That large, bright silver spoon, I was never weary of admiring that also. It was massive it was grand and whispered a tale of former grandeur. Indeed, though the fur- niture of our cottage was of the simplest, plainest kind, there were many things indicative of an earlier state of luxury and elegance. My mother always used a golden thimble, she had a toilet case inlaid with pearl, and many little articles ap- propriate only to wealth, and which wealth only purchases. These were never displayed, but I had seen them, and made them the corner-stones of many an airy castle. CHAPTER IV. AND who was Peggy ? She was one of the best and noblest women God ever made. She was a treasury of heaven's own influences. And yet she wore the form of a servant, and like her divine Master, there was " no beauty " in her that one should desire to look upon her. She had followed my mother through good report and ill re- port. She had clung to her in her fallen fortunes as something sacred, almost divine. As the Hebrew to the ark of the cove- nant, as the Greek to his country's palladium, as tlfc chil- dren of Freedom to the star-spangled banner, so she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost worshipped. I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble, self-sacri- ficing, devoted friend. I did not know it then at least not all not half. I knew that she labored most abundantly for us, that she ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an empress, anticipating her slightest wants and wishes, deprecating her gratitude, and seeming ashamed of her own goodness and industry. I knew that her plain sewing, assisted by my mother's elegant needle-work, furnished us the means of support ; but I had always known it so, and it seemed all natural and right. Peggy was strong and robust. The bur- den of toil rested lightly on her sturdy shoulders. It seemed to me that she was born with us and for us, that she belonged to us as rightfully as the air we breathed, and the light that illumined us. It never entered my mind that we could live without Peggy, or that Peggy could live without us. My mother's health was very delicate. She could not sew long without pressing her hand on her aching side, and then Peggy would draw her work gently from her with her large, ERNEST LIN WOOD. 21 kind hand, make her lie down and rest, or walk out in the fresh air, till the waxen hue was enlivened on her pallid cheek. She would urge her to go into the garden and gather flowers for Gabriella, " because the poor child loved so to see them in the room." We had a sweet little garden, where Peggy delved at early sunrise and evening twilight. Without ever seeming hurried or overtasked, she accomplished every thing We had the earliest vegetables, and the latest. We had fruit, we had flowers, all the result of Peggy's untiring, providing hand. The surplus vegetables and fruit she carried to the village mar- ket, and though they brought but a trifle in a country town, where every thing was so abundant, yet Peggy said, " we must not despise the day of small gains." She took the lead in all business matters in-doors and out-doors. She never asked my mother if she had better do this and that ; she went right ahead, doing what she thought right and best, in every thing pertaining to the drudgery of life. When I was a little child, I used to ask her many a question about the mystery of my life. I asked her about my father, of my kindred, and the place of my birth. " Miss Gabriella," she would answer, " you must n't ask ques- tions. Your mother does not wish it. She has forbidden me to say one word of all you want to know. When you ave old enough you shall learn every thing. Be quiet be patient. It is best that you should be. But of one thing rest assu/ed, if ever there was a saint in this world, your mother is one." I never doubted this. I should have doubted as scon the saintliness of those who wear the golden girdles of Paradise. I am glad of this. I have sometimes doubted the love and mercy of my Heavenly Father, but never the purity and excel- lence of my mother. Ah, yes ! once Avhen sorely tempted. We retired very early in our secluded, quiet home. "We had no evening visitors to charm away the sober hours, ?,nd time marked by the sands of the hour-glass always seems to glide more slowly. That solemn-looking hour-glass ! How I used to gaze on each dropping particle, watching the upward segment gradually becoming more and more transparent, and the lower 22 ERNEST LINWOOD. as gradually darkening. It was one of Peggy's inherited treas- ures, and she reverenced it next to her Bible. The glass had l