David's mother approved of steady habits, but for all that she would rather have had him waste some of his time, and be like the rest of his kind.

"Poor David!" she would say, sometimes, "if anybody could only make him think he was somebody, he'd be somebody. But he 'a'n't got no confidence."

"Mother," I would answer, "don't worry about David. He's good, and goodness is as good as anything."

She liked to have me call her mother. I had been there so long that I almost filled the place of one of her lost ones. Besides, I had no mother of my own, and no real home.

Miss Joey, not being past thirty, had a plan in her head. Her head was small,—so was she,—but the plan was large enough and good enough.

This plan, however, was upset, and by her own means, even before the prospect of its being carried out was even probable. It was Miss Joey's own notion that one half the house should be let.

"We are so dwindled down," she said. "A small, quiet family would bring in a little something, and be company." This was at the close of a long and rather lonely winter.

So, one day, Mr. Lane came home, and said he had let the other half to a family from up-country,—man and wife and little girl.

"The very thing!" said Miss Joey.

Alas for human foresight!

The next day, at sundown, a loaded wagon drove up; then a carryall, from which stepped an elderly couple and a sweet pretty girl.

"What angel is that, alighting upon earth?" I exclaimed, looking over Miss Joey's head.

"Thought she was goin' to be a little girl," said she.

"Wal," replied Mr. Lane, "that's what he called her: suppose she seems little to him. But so much the better. The bigger she is, the more company she'll be."

Miss Joey went in to receive them, and I retired to my chamber. From the window I observed that the pretty girl was very handy about helping, and heard her mother call her Mary Ellen.

The next morning, just as I was leaving for the office, I heard a quick step across the entry. The door opened, and "the little girl," Mary Ellen, came in. Her hair was pushed straight behind her ears, and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.

"I came in," said she, rather bashfully, "to ask if Mr. Lane would help us set up a bedstead; father had to go, and mother's feeble."

"Mr. Lane's gone to get his horse shod," said Miss Joey.

Mary Ellen stood still, doubting whether to speak, but looking rather puzzled; for David was in plain sight, fixing his pickerel-traps in the back-room.

"Miss Joey," said I, smiling, and looking towards him, "there are two Mr. Lanes, you know."

"Oh, David,—yes,—David. Wal, so David could."

And so David did. I bit my lip, and went out.

In turning the corner of the house, I passed the open window, and glanced in, as was natural. 'Twas an old-fashioned bedstead, and there was David, red as a rose, screwing up the cord, while Mary Ellen, fair as a lily, was hammering away at the wooden peg, while the old lady stood by, giving directions.

It struck me so queerly that I laughed and talked to myself all the way to the office.

"Poor David!" I muttered, "how could he steady his hands, with such a pair of white arms near them? Good! good!" And then I would ha! ha! and strike my stick against the stones. "Turner," said I, addressing myself, "she's what you may call a sweet pretty girl."

I addressed the same remark to Miss Joey that night at tea.

"The girl," said she, "is an innocent little country-girl. She's got a good skin and a handsome set of teeth. But there's no need of her findin' out her good looks, unless you men-folks put her up to 't."

This I of course took to myself, David being out of the question.

An innocent little country-girl! And so she was. She brought to mind damask roses, and apple-blossoms, and red rosebuds, and modest violets, and stars and sunbeams, and all the freshness and sweetness of early morning in the country. A delicious little innocent country-girl! Poor David! who could have guessed that you were to be the means of letting in upon her benighted mind the secret of her own beauty?

Anybody who has travelled in the country has noticed two kinds of country-girls. The first are green-looking and brazen-faced, staring at you like great yellow buttercups, and are always ready to tell all they know. The others are shy. They look up at you modestly, with their blue or their brown eyes, and answer your questions in few words. Of this last kind was Mary Ellen. She looked up with brown eyes,—not dark brown, but light,—hazel, perhaps.

And those brown, or hazel, or grayish eyes looked up to some purpose,—as David, if he had had the gift of speech, might have testified. But a man may tell a good deal and never use his tongue at all. The eyes, for instance, or even the cheeks, can talk, and are full as likely not to tell lies.

It might have been two months, perhaps, after the other half was let, that I heard Mrs. Lane say one day,—

"Joey, there's an alteration in David."

"For better or wuss?" calmly inquired that maiden.

I did not hear the reply, but I had seen the alteration. In fact, I had noticed it from the beginning, and had come to the conclusion that the mischief was done the first day,—that his heart somehow got a twist in the screwing-up of the bed-cord,—that it received every one of the blows which those white arms were aiming at the insensible wood.

It was a case which had vastly interested me. I mean that it was quite in my line, detecting a man's secret in his countenance. I was glad of the practice.

Mary Ellen knew, too; and yet she had received no help from the profession. Only an innocent little country-girl! 'Twas her natural penetration. What a pity women can't be lawyers, they have so much to start with!

Poor David! He wasn't sensible of what had befallen him. How should he be? He didn't know why he smarted up his dress, why Bay-fishing wasn't profitable, or why working on the land agreed with him best. He hadn't even found out, as late as June, why he liked to have her bring out the luncheon-basket to the mowers. But before the autumn he had discovered his own secret. He knew very well, then, why he thought it a good plan for Mary Ellen to come in and pare apples with Miss Joey at the halves.

I could have wished him a pleasanter way, though, of finding out his secret.

There was another that saw the alteration, and that was Emily, the sick one,—the care and the blessing of the household. For twelve summers her foot had never pressed the greensward. They told me that once she was a gay, frolicsome girl. 'Twas hard to believe, so tranquil, so spiritual, so heavenly was the expression which long suffering had brought to her face. That face, apart from this wonderful expression, was beautiful to look upon. It seemed as if sickness itself was loath to meddle with aught so lovely. So, while her body slowly wasted from the ravages of disease, her countenance remained fair and youthful.

She often had days of freedom from suffering,—days when, as she expressed it, her Father called away His unwelcome messengers. At these times she would sit in her stuffed chair, or lie on the sofa, and the family went in and out as they chose. Everybody liked to stay in Emily's room. Its very atmosphere was elevating.

Then there were collected so many beautiful things,—for these she craved. "I need them, mother," she would say,—"my soul has need of them. If there are no flowers, get green leaves, or a picture of Christ, or of some saint, or little child." And sometimes I would dream, for a moment, that even I, with all my obtuseness, my earthiness, could have some faint perception of the way in which, in the midst of suffering, any form of beauty was a strength and a consolation.

And singularly enough for a sick girl, she liked gold ornaments and jewels. People used to lend her their chains and bracelets. "I know it is strange, mother," she said, one day, while holding in her hand a ruby bracelet,—"strange that I care for them; but they look so strong, so enduring, so full of life: hang them across the white vase, please; I love to see them there."

It was good for her when Mary Ellen came, vigorous, fresh, beautiful, like the early morning. She liked to have her in the room, to watch her face, to braid her long brown hair, and dress it with flowers, or pearls, or strings of beads,—to clasp her hands about the pretty white throat, as if she were only a pigeon, or a little lamb, brought in for her to play with.

She was pleased, too, about David. "He is so good," she said to me one day. "I always knew he had love and gentleness in his heart, and now an angel has come to roll away the stone."

I thought a great deal of my privilege of going into her room, the same as the rest. After the perplexing, and often low, grovelling duties of my profession, it was like sitting at the gate of heaven.

I used to love to come home, at the close of a long summer's day, and find the family assembled there. I felt the rest of the hour so much more, sitting among people who had been hard at work all day.

The windows would be set wide open, that not a breath of out-door air might he lost. And with the air would seem to come in the deep peace, the solemn Hush of a country-twilight. It pervaded the room; and even my cold, worldly nature would be touched.

In these dim, shadowy hours, when Nature seemed to stand still, breathless, waiting for the coming darkness, if I longed for anything, it was for a voice to sing. Speech seemed harsh. Yet we often repeated hymns and ballads. Emily knew a great many, and, after saying them over, would dwell upon them, drawing the most beautiful meanings from passages which to me had seemed obscure, and sometimes talked like one inspired.

I felt that these seasons were my salvation,—were saving me from my worldliness. Still, I sometimes had a guilty feeling, as if I were drawing from Emily her beautiful life,—as if I were getting something to which I had no right, something too good for me,—as if she might exclaim, at any moment, "Virtue is gone out from me!"

But Mary Ellen could sing. That was good. She knew hymns by dozens, and tunes to them all, both old and new. Besides these, she could sing love-songs and quaint old ballads, that nobody ever heard before.

After she came, we had music to our twilights.

David, of course, was a listener. He said he was always fond of music. I used sometimes to wonder if the pretty singer of love-songs had any special designs upon him. For I had been curiously watching this innocent little country-girl.

In talking with a friend of mine, he had laid it down as a law of Nature, that all women, wild or cultivated, delight to worry and torment all men; that they play with and prey upon their hearts; and that this is done instinctively, as a cat worries a mouse.

"A ministering angel thou," quoted I, rather abstractedly, as if comparing views.

"Angels? Yes,—and so they are," he answered, rather smartly. "And every man's heart is a pool, into which they must descend and trouble the waters!"

I knew my friend had reason for his bitterness. Still, I resolved to watch Mary Ellen.

David's bashful attentions were by no means displeasing to her: that I saw. She had not been accustomed to your glib, off-handed, smartly dressed youths. Here was a good-looking young man, of blameless life, who helped her draw up the bucket, took her to sail, taught her to row, brought her home bushes of huckleberries and branches of swamp-pinks from the pasture, and shells from the beach.

That few words accompanied his offerings was matter of little moment, since what he would have said was easily enough read in his face. It was sufficient that his eyes spoke, that they followed her motions, that he seemed never ready to go so long as she remained, that when she went he could not long stay behind.

Poor David! It wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to. Everybody knew 't wasn't a bit like him. He was charmed. And that reminds me of what Miss Joey said to Mr. Lane, the old man.

It was just about sundown, and they two were sitting in the front-room, looking out of the windows. It had been a sultry day. I was trying to keep comfortable, and had found a nice little seat just outside the door, underneath the lilacs.

Mary Ellen and David came slowly walking past. They didn't seem to be saying much. She had come out bareheaded, just for a little fresh air and a stroll round the house. How cool she looked, in her light blue gown, and her white apron, that tied behind with white bows and strings, or streams! A May-bee buzzed about their ears, and lighted on her shoulder. Poor David! He brushed it off before he thought. How frightened he looked! how confused! But then just think of all the other may-bes he had in his head, confusing him, buzzing to him all manner of beautiful things!

They stopped under the early-ripe tree. Mary Ellen pointed upwards, laughing. He sprang up and snatched off the apple. Then she pointed higher, and still higher, until at last he climbed the tree, and dropped the apples down into her apron.

"Mr. Lane," said Miss Joey, in an impressive undertone, "did you ever hear of anybody's bewitchin' anybody?"

"In books, Joey," he answered.

"Wal," said she, in a low, but decided voice, "I'll tell you what I think, and what's ben my mind from the beginnin' on't. That gal's bewitched David. Don't you remember," she continued, "that the fust week they come David had a bad cold?"

"Wal, like enough he did," drawled the old man. "David was always subject to a bad cold."

"He did," replied Miss Joey. "I've got the whole on't in my mind now. And mebby you've noticed that these folks are great for gatherin' in herbs, and lobely, and bottlin' up hot-crop?"

"Pepper-tea's a suvverin' remedy for a cold," put in the old man.

"But now," Miss Joey proceeded, sinking her voice almost to a whisper, "I want to fix your thoughts on somethin' dark-colored, in a vial, that she fetched across the entry for him to take."

"Help him any?"

"Can't say it did, and can't say it didn't. But ever sence that, David's ben a different man. He's follered that gal about as if there'd ben a chain a-drawin' him,—as if she'd flung a lassoo round his neck, and was pullin' him along. See him, and you see her. If she wants huckleberries, she has huckleberries. If she wants violets, she has violets. See him now, lookin' down at her through the branches. And see her, turnin' her face up towards him. He's nigh upon addled. Shouldn't wonder this minute, if he didn't know enough to keep his hold o' the branch. Does that seem like our David, Mr. Lane, a bashful young feller like him?"

"Bashful or bold makes no difference," replied the old man. "Love'll go where't is sent,—likely to hit one as t' other. And when they're hit, you can't tell 'em apart.—Why, Joey," he continued, suddenly quickening his tone, "there's the Doctor's boy, as I'm alive!"

Dr. Luce lived the other side of "the Crick." The young man coming along the road was his son, just arrived home.

As he came nearer, I took notice of his dress. I usually did, when people came from the city. He wore a black bombazine coat, white trousers, white waistcoat, blue necktie, and a Panama hat. His complexion was fair, with plenty of light hair waving about his temples. He stepped briskly along, with shoulders set back, twirling his glove.

I knew Warren Luce well enough. I could tell just how it would strike him, seeing David up in a tree, flinging down apples to a girl. I could very well judge, too, how he would encounter the fair apparition beneath.

But how would he strike Mary Ellen,—this polished, smooth-tongued, handsomely dressed youth? I had forebodings. I seemed to divine the future. I fidgeted upon my seat, and straightened myself up, rather pleased that my studies were getting complicated,—that I should have a chance of searching out the natural heart of woman, when under the most trying circumstances.

But just as I was making ready to commence upon my new chapter, Mrs. Lane called me to come and help move Emily. I very often lifted her from the chair to the sofa. It could hardly be called lifting. 'Twas like taking a little bird out of its nest and placing it in another. "The Doctor's boy has come," said I, very quietly, when I had wheeled the sofa so that she might feel the air from the window.

She made no answer then; but a little after, when her mother stepped out a minute, she said, just as quietly,—

"How will it be?"

"How do you think?" I said.

"I wish," she replied, "that he hadn't come. David is a dear brother. I fear."

When Emily said "I fear," there was no need to ask what. She feared the effect upon Warren Luce of Mary Ellen's fresh and simple beauty. She feared the effect upon her of his city-manners and fluent speech. She feared for David an abiding sorrow. Warren Luce had travelled, had been in society, and had been educated. I knew him well for a selfish, heartless fellow, whose very soul had been drowned in worldly pleasures. Just from the midst of artificial life, how charming must appear to him our sweet wild-rose, our singing-bird, our fresh, untutored, innocent little country-girl!

"But why borrow trouble?" I said to myself. "It will come soon enough. If not in this way, then in some other. Trouble stays not long away."

CHAPTER II.

"The Crick" wasn't half a mile across. The Doctor's house was in plain sight from our windows. 'Twas just a pleasant walk round there, and we called them neighbors. The two young men had always been on the very best of terms. Warren liked David because he knew how good he was, and David liked Warren because he didn't know how bad he was. The chief bond between them was the boat. Our stylish young gentleman, when he came down to Nature, wanted to get as near her as he could,—not, perhaps, that he loved her, but he liked a change. Nothing suited him better than "camping out," or starting off before light a-fishing with David.

I was not at all surprised, therefore, that he should appear bright and early the next morning, to make some arrangement for the day.

I saw him coming, from my window, and was pleased that I had lingered at home rather beyond office-hours,—for Mary Ellen was shelling peas in the back-doorway beneath, and I should have an opportunity of advancing somewhat in my new chapter. It was a nice shady place. The door-steps and the ground about them were still damp from the dew.

He came trippingly along, inquiring for David. Mary Ellen blushed some. I saw that their acquaintance had commenced the night before. He chatted a little with the old folks, but directed most of his talk to Mary Ellen, that he might have an excuse for looking her full in the face, and drinking in her beauty. I saw him seat himself on the flat stone. I saw him glance admiringly at the pretty white hands, handling so daintily the green pods. I saw him show her how to make a boat of one, putting in sticks for the thwarts. And finally, I saw David come round the house and stop short.

Warren sprang up.

"Waiting for you, David," said he. "Tide coming, stiff breeze. We can be on Jake's Ledge in a twinkling."

And passing over a high hill, on my way to the Square, I saw the sloop-boat, with flag flying, putting off towards Jake's Ledge.

For the next two months the Doctor's boy walked straight in the path which my prophetic vision had marked out for him. Morning, noon, and evening brought him paddling across "the Crick," or footing it round by the shore-way.

Emily and I were troubled. We had once feared that our good brother and friend would pass through life as a blind man wanders through a flower-garden, lost to its chief beauty and sweetness. But his eyes had been opened. And now was his life-path to lead him into a thorny wilderness? was a worse darkness to settle down upon him?

I fancied there was a hopeless look in his face,—that he shrank into himself more than ever. The Doctor's boy had fairer gifts than he to offer, and no lack of well-chosen words. It was with the utmost uneasiness that I caught, occasionally, some of these telling phrases. I liked not his air of devotedness, his eye constantly following Mary Ellen's movements. I liked not the flower-gatherings, the rambles among the rocks, the rowing by moonlight. Emily's short sentence came often to mind, "I fear."

For I felt almost sure that Warren Luce was in earnest,—that he was deeply and truly in love with Mary Ellen. Not that he intended this at first, but that her beauty conquered him. Most likely this was the first of his knowing he had a heart, 'twas so small. Still, 'twas the best thing he had, and appeared to hold considerable love for one of its size.

And how was it with Mary Ellen? Ah, she was enough to puzzle a justice! I was not long, though, in perceiving that this unenlightened maiden felt instinctively that her personal appearance should be attended to a little more carefully than when only David was to admire. Her hair was always in nice order, and I observed that even in the morning she would have some bit of muslin or lace-work peeping from beneath her short sleeve. I hope there is no harm in saying that I had, even before this, noticed the shapeliness of her arm. I think I was struck with it the first morning, when she came across the entry.

And was she really a coquette, carrying herself steadily along between two lovers, that she smiled just as pleasantly on David, giving him never a cold word, even while the blushes kindled by the soft speeches of Warren Luce still burned upon her cheeks?

I found myself getting confused. My new studies were very absorbing in their nature, and extremely intricate. Three books to translate, and never a dictionary!

After patient investigation, I settled down upon the conviction that there was in the heart of our little country-girl one corner of which David's constant goodness, and earnest, though unspoken love, had given him the entire possession.

I thought thus, because I saw that in her own nature were truth and goodness. And she was quick of perception. I was often struck by the shrewdness of her remarks. I thought the more favorably of her, too, that she was fond of pictures. Before they came to live in the other part, she had taken a dozen lessons of an itinerant drawing-master. I had often encountered her in my walks, trying to make a sketch of a tree or a house. She always tucked it behind her, though, or into her pocket, the minute I came in sight.

It was certainly true that she had not yielded to the fascinations of the Doctor's boy so readily and so entirely as I had feared. "The girl has some common sense," I thought, "some stability,—and likewise some ideas of the eternal fitness of things." For I noticed, with pleasure, one night in Emily's room, when somebody said, "There comes the Doctor's boy," that she got up and closed the door.

She had been singing the old-fashioned hymn commencing,—

"On the fair Heavenly Hills."

The last line,

"And all the air is Love,"

was repeated. The music was peculiar,—the notes rising and falling and rolling over each other like waves.

She had just stopped. Nobody moved. The silence was broken only by the rustling of the lilac-bushes, as the night-wind swept over them.

"The whispering of angels!" said Emily, softly.

I was pleased that she closed the door. It showed that she felt his unfitness to enter our little paradise. I took heart for David. And yet it was only the next day that came the crowning with hop-blossoms.

I had returned home early, and was in my own room, waiting for tea. Casting my eyes towards the garden, I saw Mary Ellen sitting beneath a tree, leaning against the trunk. Near by was a hop-pole, laden with its green. And near by, also, stood Warren Luce, holding in his hand a thin, square book. He had gathered a quantity of the beautiful hop-blossoms and tendrils, and was directing her how to arrange them about her head. It appeared to be his object to make her look like a picture in his book. "A little more to the right. A few leaves about the ear," I heard him say; and then, "They must drop a little lower on the other side. In the picture, the tendrils touch the left shoulder. Now hold the basket full of them, in this way. The blossoms must be trailing over it, and your right hand upon the handle. Not so. Let me show"—And as he touched her hand to place it in the right position, I almost sprang from my seat, I was so indignant for David.

I might have saved myself the trouble, though, for the next moment David himself appeared, walking slowly home from the Square, with something in a basket he was bringing for Emily. David was a good brother.

"Perfect!" exclaimed Warren, as he completed his tableau. "Just like the picture, only"—And here he dropped his voice.

"David, come here," he called out, "and see which picture is the prettiest."

Poor David! I saw that it was all he could do, to walk straight past without speaking.

"Take them off," said Mary Ellen. "They are heavy."

And she pulled the wreath from her head.

That evening, coming home late, I saw a bright light in her room, and glanced up, as I came near. She stood at the looking-glass between the windows, holding a light in her hand. Upon her head, trailing down upon her left shoulder, was a wreath of hop-blossoms. She wanted to know how she looked in them. At least, this was my interpretation of the vision. And while she held the light, first in one hand, then in the other, turning this way and that, I stood debating whether there was any harm in a girl's knowing she was pretty, or in her wishing to inform herself whether any adornments rather out of the common course—hop-blossoms, for instance—were becoming. That question, and the other, about all women being coquettes, remain in my mind undecided to this day.

Emily must have noticed something peculiar in David's manner, when he brought her the basket. For it was the next day, I think, that she said to me, in her quiet way,—

"Mr. Turner, a new feeling is taking hold of me. I'm afraid I—hate!"

She made this announcement in her usual calm voice, as if she had been speaking of some new manifestation of her disease. Then she told what she had been observing in David's manner, and in Mary Ellen's. Said she,—

"The girl has no heart. She trifles with David, and he is so wretched. Better the stone had never been rolled away than his love be so thrown back upon him. I pity him so much, and can do nothing."

I hardly knew what to say in reply, for I was just as troubled as she about David. He wandered off by himself, in the chill autumn evenings, returned late, and stole off to his bed in silence. Stories of suicides came to me. A man who never spoke might do anything. And this, I thought, was the point. If I could only make him speak!

He had always been more open with me than anybody,—had expressed himself freely about the homestead, and his plans for redeeming it, and about his anxiety for Emily. I could certainly, I thought, bring him to speak of his trouble, if I only had for him a sure word of encouragement. But this I had not, because Mary Ellen was such a puzzle. Her openness served better for hiding the truth than did David's reserve. At the bottom of my heart, though, was full faith in her love for him. I paid her the compliment of believing she was too good to care seriously for such a man as Warren Luce. But, then, I couldn't give my faith to David.

How would it do to make a bold move,—to speak to her? Might I not show her how much was at stake, and in some way have my faith confirmed? Would, or wouldn't it answer for me to do this? Should, or shouldn't I make bungling work of it? I turned the matter over in my mind, to assure myself of my right to intermeddle.

We, too, had a sort of friendship, and I conceived that she very much respected my opinion. In some ways, I had been of service to her. The old man, her father, had been involved in legal troubles. She was anxious to understand all about it. So I talked law to her, read law to her, and marked law for her in my big books, besides giving advice gratis. She had also taken other books from my library, whenever she chose. I had lent her pictures to copy, and had shown her the way to various points, in the country round about, whence a simple view might easily be taken. Moreover, I was all the same as one of the family, and felt a brother's interest in David. And, lastly, I was eight or ten years older than she.

'Twas certainly my right to speak. I could well see, however, that it was a matter of some delicacy. My superior age and wisdom might shed a halo around me; still, I was nothing more nor less than a young man, for all that.

It was one pleasant afternoon in the latter part of September, that, engaged in these perplexing meditations, I strolled down towards the shore. Mary Ellen hadn't been in to tea, her mother said, and I was wondering what had become of her.

One solitary buttonwood stood close to the edge of the bank,—so close that at high tide its brandies hung over the water. I climbed up into a reserved seat which was always kept for me there, a comfortable little crotch among the boughs. Upon extraordinary occasions,—a splendid sunset, or a rain, coming over the water, or an uncommonly fine moon, or a furious storm,—I used to mount to this seat for a good view.

On this particular afternoon the tide was unusually high,—in some places, up to the top-rail of the meadow-fence. Our "Crick" was quite a little bay.

A skiff came paddling along-shore. As it drew near, I saw that it contained two people,—the Doctor's boy and Mary Ellen. He was singing, but I was unable to distinguish the words. Then there was some laughing. After that, she began singing to him, and I made out both words and tune, for then the boat was quite near. It was an old-fashioned ballad, which I once heard her sing to Emily. It began thus:—

"As I was walking by the river-side, Where little streams do gently glide, I heard a fair maiden making her moan,— 'Oh, where is my sweet William gone? Go, build me up a little boat, All on the ocean I will float, Hailing all ships as they pass by, Inquiring for my sweet sailor-boy.'"

I liked the music, it was so plaintive, so different from the common well-bred songs.

Not a breath of air was stirring. Her voice rang out upon the stillness, clear and shrill as a wild bird's. It was such a voice as you frequently meet with among country-girls, entirely uncultivated, but of great power, and, on some notes, of wonderful sweetness. Her admiring listener rested upon his oars, letting his skiff drift along upon the tide. It floated underneath the tree, and up into "the Crick." As it passed, I saw, in the bottom of the boat, a little basket of wild cherries.

While watching their progress, I heard a rustling among some alder-bushes that grew about a fence, and, upon looking that way, saw David. He, too, was watching the play, though he had not, like me, the benefit of a seat in the gallery.

The expression on his countenance was something like what I had seen on the faces of people at the theatre: a sort of fixed, immovable look, as if its wearer were determined on being sensation-proof.

I glanced at the skiff. The Doctor's boy was throwing cherries at Mary Ellen, and she was catching them in her mouth. She was in a great frolic, laughing, showing her pretty teeth, and so earnest that one might suppose life had no other object than catching wild cherries.

Just then I perceived, a little to the right of me, the head and shoulders of a woman rising slowly above the bank, and recognized at once the small features and peculiarly small gray eyes of Miss Joey. She had been gathering marsh-rosemary along-shore.

She, too, was a spectator of the play,—was, in part, an actor in it; for, while David's eyes were fixed upon the boat, hers were fixed upon him, and with the same despairing expression.

"Poor Miss Joey!" I said mentally, "doomed to see your beautiful plan fail and come to nought! You and he suffer the same suffering, but it can be no bond between you."

She turned, and slowly descended the bank, and I watched her small figure as it picked its way among the rocks, and finally disappeared around a point.

Meanwhile the voyagers had landed, and were making their way to the house. I could see them until they reached the garden-gate, could see Mary Ellen swinging her sun-bonnet by its string, and hear her laughing, as she tried to mock the katydids.

Then I looked for David. The feeling came over me that I was in some magnificent theatre, where I was like a king, having a play acted for me alone. David was lying upon the ground, with his face buried in the damp grass.

No matter how much we may read of the effects of great sorrow or great happiness, they will always, in real life, come to us as something we never heard of. I involuntarily turned my head aside, feeling that I was where I had no right to be, that I had intruded my profane presence into the innermost sanctuary of a human heart.

While I was debating whether to remain concealed, or to go to him, throw my arms around him, and say some word of comfort, he arose and walked slowly towards the house. And I noticed that he went by exactly the same route which the two had taken before him,—which brought to mind Miss Joey's expression, "as if there'd ben a chain a-drawin' him."

That very evening, as I was sitting at my window, watching the moon rise over the water, I saw Mary Ellen pass along the road, and sit down upon a little wooden step which was attached to a fence for convenience in getting over. She was watching the moon rise, too.

The scene I had so recently witnessed from the buttonwood-tree had made me desperate. I felt that now, if ever, I must speak. Seizing my hat, I walked rapidly to the spot, hoping it would be given me in that hour what to say.

After we had talked awhile about the moon, how it looked, rising over the waters, as we saw it, and rising over the mountains, as she had seen it, I turned my face rather aside, and said, quite suddenly,—

"Mary Ellen, I want to speak to you about something important. I hope you will take it kindly."

She made no answer; seemed startled. I hardly know how I stumbled along, but I finally found myself speaking of my friendship for David, and of my aversion to Warren Luce. She appeared not at all displeased, but said very little. This was not as I expected. I thought she might answer carelessly,—lightly.

There came a pause. I couldn't seem to get on. She safe with averted face, her arm on the fence, her head in her hand. In the strong light of the moon, every feature was revealed. How beautiful she was in the moonlight! But what was her face saying? A good deal, certainly; but what?

I stood leaning against the fence.

"Mary Ellen," said I, with a sudden jerk, as it were, "it can't be that Warren Luce—that he is the one whom—that—that you"—And here I stopped.

"I think Warren Luce has great power over me," said she, calmly, as if coolly scanning her own feelings; "but you said right. He is not the one whom—that"—

And here she smiled, as if at the thought of my broken-off sentences, but without looking up.

"My dear girl," said I, earnestly, and taking a forward step,—"forgive me, but—I think—I hope—you love David,—don't you?"

'Twas a bold question, and I knew it; but I was thinking how pleasant 'twould be to carry good tidings to my friend.

"I love his goodness," said she, just as calmly as before. "And I love him for loving me. I wish he was happy. I hope no harm will come to him. I would do everything for him,—but"—and here her voice fell—"I don't love him as Jane loved."

"Jane who?" I asked, in surprise.

"Jane Eyre."

Here was a dilemma for me. What should I say next? What business had I, meddling with a young girl's heart? I had been almost sure of finding soundings, yet here I was in deep water! And, with all my pains, what had I accomplished?

She arose, and moved towards the house. I walked along by her side, without speaking.

"I'm going away to-morrow," said she, as we reached the gate, "to make a visit at the old place; then everybody will be happier."

It was my turn then to be silent,—for I was trying to take in the idea that there was to be no Mary Ellen in the house. She had occupied our thoughts so long, had been so prominent an actor in our daily life,—how we should miss her!

"Oh, no," I said, calmly,—for I had thought away all my surprise,—"we shall all miss you very much."

And there we parted.

She left us the next morning, for a visit to her old home.

The latter part of the day I went into Emily's room. She had been growing worse for some time, and had been removed to the westerly room to be rid of the bleak winds. David was sitting on a low stool by her bedside, his head resting upon the bed, looking up in her face. She smiled as I entered.

"David is so tall," said she, "that I can't see his face away up there, and so he brings it down for me to look at."

She held in her hand the ruby bracelet.

"David says," she continued, "that he is going to the gold-country, to get money to pay off the mortgages,—and that, when he begins to get gold, he shall get a heap, and will bring me home a whole necklace of rubies, and make a beautiful home for me: when he goes," she repeated, with an unbelieving smile.

I smiled, too, and passed on, feeling that I had already intruded too much upon the privacy of hearts, and would leave the brother and sister in peace.

A few nights after this, I came home late from the Square, and found the household in great commotion. David went out fishing, long before daybreak, and had not yet returned. Other boats had come in, but nothing had they seen of him, either on the Ledge or off in the Bay. This was the more mysterious, as the weather had been unusually mild, with but little wind.

After talking over the matter with them, I suggested that he might have gone farther than usual, and, on account of the light winds, had not been able to get back. The night was calm, with plenty of moonlight. There could be no possible danger to one so accustomed to the water as David.

This appeared very reasonable; and, at a late hour, all retired to bed.

The next morning I looked from my window at daybreak. Miss Joey was standing on the hill, gazing off upon the water. In a few minutes the old folks came out. They crept up the hill, and stood looking off with Miss Joey. I joined them. There was a fine strong breeze, and fair for boats bound in. Not one, however, was in sight. Away off in the Bay was a homeward-bound schooner, with colors flying. A fisherman, probably, returning from the Banks. The morning air was chilly. We silently descended the hill.

During the day we heard that a vessel from Boston had spoken, half-way on her passage, a small sloop-boat, with one man in it. Boston was sixty miles distant, and it was something very unusual for a small boat to make the passage. Friends in the city were written to, but no information was obtained, and day after day passed without relieving our suspense.

But this was at last ended by a letter from David himself. It was written to me. He had sold his boat in Boston, and had gone to New York, where his letter was dated. He was going to sail for California the next day.

"I have long been meaning to go," he wrote, "but never thought of leaving in this way, until I reached the fishing-ground, last Wednesday morning. It came into my mind all at once, and I kept straight along. If I'd gone back, the old folks, maybe, wouldn't have let me come, because, you know, I'm the last. Besides, I thought I could go easier while—But you know all about it, Turner. I saw that you knew. It has been very hard. Somehow, trouble don't slip off of me easy. Taking everything as it was, I couldn't stay by any longer. Otherwise, I don't know as I could have left the old folks and Emily. I can't ask you to stay, unless it's convenient; but while you do, I hope you'll have a care over all I've left behind. You can cheer up Emily better than anybody."

"The strength and the beauty of the house are gone!" remarked Emily to me, as I sat down one afternoon by her window.

Poor girl! It was but seldom she was able to speak at all. David's sudden departure, and the anxiety attending it, had been too much for her. Besides, she missed Mary Ellen. That little country-girl had, besides her innocence and her good looks, a vein of drollery, which made her a very entertaining companion. And then, being so quick-witted, and so kind-hearted, she thought of various little things to do for Emily's comfort, which never would have occurred to her mother or Miss Joey. Emily wanted her back again. She had got over that feeling of hatred of which she once accused herself.

"It wasn't her fault," said she, one day, quite suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

"That she didn't love David in the way he loved her. I don't think she deceived him. He never said anything, you know; so, of course, she had no reason for being any other than kind to him. I believe she felt badly about it, herself. I've seen her, when she thought I was asleep, lean her head upon her hand, and sit so for a great while. Maybe, though, it's because I want so much to love her that I make excuses for her. I wish she'd come,—it's so lonely."

And it was lonely. It was like remaining in the theatre after the play is over and the actors retired. For Warren Luce, too, was gone. His visit was only for the summer, and he had returned to his clerkship.

"How would it have been, if he hadn't come?" I asked myself. "Might David have been happy? Might she have loved him as 'Jane' loved? And how much of her heart had the Doctor's boy carried away? Perhaps his power over her was greater than she would own,—greater than she knew herself. Perhaps he was even then corresponding with her. He might even be with her among the mountains."

Thus I debated, thus I questioned.

CHAPTER III.

Mary Ellen was gone six weeks. We were all glad when she came back, the house had seemed so like a tomb. I'm not sure about Miss Joey. No doubt she looked upon her with an evil eye, as being the upsetter of all her plans. But then there was nothing Miss Joey dreaded more than a lonely house. She wanted company.

And what better company, pray, can there be than a fair young face? Who would ask for better entertainment than to watch the lighting-up of bright eyes, and the parting of rosy lips, or the thousand other bewitchments of youth and beauty?

And she looked more beautiful than ever,—I suppose, because she came in a dull time: just as flowers seem lovelier and more precious in the winter. I fancied she was very sad, very thoughtful. Perhaps 'twas David's going away that caused this. Perhaps she was sorry she had cast from her such a precious thing as love.

When Emily became much worse, which was shortly after her return, she installed herself as chief nurse, sitting for hours in the darkened room, amusing her with children's songs and stories,—for the sick girl, in her weakest state, craved childish things.

That was a quiet, a truly pleasant winter. After getting letters from David, telling of his safe arrival out, everybody became more cheerful.

But in the spring, as warm weather came on, Emily grew every day weaker. The apple-blossoms came and went unheeded.

One morning she awoke, unusually free from pain, and said to Mary Ellen,—

"I saw David last night. He said to me, 'I shall come sooner than I expected. But, before I come, I shall send the ruby necklace.'" Then she described the miner's hut in which she had seen him.

This was in the first part of June.

On the day after the fourth of July we got news of his death. He had been lost overboard, in a storm, between San Francisco and the Sandwich Islands.

It is very sad to recall that time of deep affliction. He was the last of five sons, all of whom had left home in full health and strength, none of whom returned.

"Five as likely young men," said poor Miss Joey, "as ever grew up beneath one roof."

"All five gone!" groaned the old man, as he leaned his face against the wall.

"Five brothers waiting for me," whispered Emily, as Mary Ellen bent over her, weeping.

"Five boys," moaned the poor broken-hearted mother,—"nobody to take care of them, nobody to do for them, no comforts, no mother, and now no grave!"

'Twas touching to see her husband trying to console her. Her favorite seat was in one corner of the hard, old-fashioned settee. There she would sit, swaying herself to and fro, whispering sometimes to herself, "Deep waters! deep waters!"

The old man would sit close up to her, and say, softly,—

"Now, mother, don't! I wouldn't take on. You know he isn't there. Look up. Don't forget God!"

Poor old man! 'Twas hard for him to look up, with so much to draw him down. But I don't think he ever forgot God.

A little before sunset, one afternoon, a few weeks after the sad news of David's death had reached us, Mary Ellen came out to where I was sitting under the lilacs, and asked if I couldn't move Emily into her own room for a little while.

"Is she able?" I asked.

"I don't know what has come over her," she replied, "she seems so strong. For a long time I thought her asleep, but all at once she spoke out clear and loud, and said, 'I want to see his grave. If anybody could take me to my own room, I could see his grave.' She keeps repeating it, and she means the sea."

'Twas not much to take her across the entry. Mary Ellen arranged everything, and we placed her on a sofa by the window.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "how I have longed for this! I have hungered and thirsted for a good look at the sea."

Her cheeks were pale, her eyes large and bright.

She looked so ethereal, so unearthly, and lay so long motionless, with her eyes fixed upon the water, that I half feared she would at that moment pass away from us,—that she might, in some beautiful form, a dove, or a bright angel, soar upward through the open window, and be lost to our sight among the golden-edged clouds above.

But she was thinking of David's grave. And a beautiful grave it seemed, from that window. The water was still, as smooth as glass. I had never noticed upon it so uncommon a tinge. 'Twas mostly of a pale green, very pale; but portions of it were of a deep lilac. Farther off it was purple, and very far off a dim, shadowy gray. I was glad it had on that particular night such a peaceful, placid look.

"Oh, what a beautiful grave!" said Emily. Then her eyes wandered to different points of the landscape, dwelling for a long time on each.

"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same. I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer, as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before noise began, to hear the whetting of the scythe, and then waited for the smell of the hay to come in at the windows.

"Those maples, on the knoll, are my dear friends. I've been glad with them in the spring, and sorry with them in the fall, through all these years. The birds and the dandelions and the violets are all my friends. I've waited for them every year, and it seemed as if the same ones came back. You well people can't understand it. They are near to me. I enter into the life of each one of them, just as you do into the lives of your human friends. Spirits go everywhere, see everything. That will be too much. I'm attached to just this spot of earth. And then I'm attached to myself. I can't realize that I shall be the same, and I don't want to give myself up, poor miserable creature as I am."

Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment. Her voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation, amazed us. She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her Heavenly Father.

The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat. She looked up with a strange smile, and said,—

"My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful home. It is almost ready, David said. But he brought the necklace, and clasped it about my throat. It choked me, and I groaned a little. David went then, and I've been waiting ever since for you to come."

It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this. I observed that she trembled. "My dear girl," said I, "what makes you tremble so?"

"Why," said she, in a whisper, "there is truly a red circle about her throat. I saw it. 'Tis a warning. She's going to die."

"Maybe," I said, "she is going soon to her beautiful home. But we know no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure." Then, taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily's room.

Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping. The old man, with the Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed. He had been reading and praying.

She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen.

"I know," said she, in a perfectly distinct, but low voice, as we drew near the bedside,—"I know what made me talk so yesterday.".

She paused then, and afterwards spoke with difficulty. We all stood breathless, bending eagerly forward, that not a word might be lost.

"I know," she repeated, "what it was. 'Twas the earthy principle in me—which revived—for a moment—at the last—and then put forth all its strength. Since I have seen David—it seems pleasant—to go. I can't tell,—you wouldn't understand,—I couldn't, if the separation—hadn't begun. I'm not wholly here now." And the fixed, strange look in her face confirmed the words as they fell from her lips.

She lay for some time very still, breathing every moment fainter and fainter, but seemingly in no distress.

Suddenly she started. Her face grew radiant. Her gaze seemed fixed on some point, thousands and thousands of miles away. Clasping her hands together, she cried out, joyfully,—

"Oh, the beautiful home! the beautiful home!"

'Twas over in an instant. She closed her eyes, turned her head a little on the pillow, and breathed her life away as softly and peacefully as a poor tired child sinks away to sleep.

"And I saw the angels of God ascending and descending," I said, earnestly. For I felt that one whose spiritual eyes were opened might certainly do so.

Late in the afternoon, when the heat of the day was past, I walked out to the clump of maples on the knoll. Mary Ellen was already there.

"Yes," said I, sitting down by her side, upon the grass, "we will lay her here among her friends. And we will place here a white marble monument."

"I wish," said Mary Ellen, looking timidly up in my face, "that it could be in memory of David, too." She said this with tears in her eyes, and an unsteady voice.

As I sit writing, I can see from my window the simple white monument, which Mary Ellen and I planned together. The grass and field-flowers are growing all about it, and the birds, Emily's birds, are singing in the branches above. It has only this inscription,—

"In memory of David and Emily."

"Six children,—and only one grave to show for all of them!" groaned the poor old mother, when we first led her out to show her the stone.

But there was shortly another grave beneath the maples; for the worn-out old woman soon sank after Emily's death, and with her last breath begged to be laid by her side.

Only the old man and Miss Joey left. Still I could not go away. No other place seemed like home. And besides, I had found out, long ago, my own secret. It had been revealed to me, day by day, as I watched Mary Ellen in the sick-room of Emily,—as I observed her patience, her sweetness, her tenderness!

And my secret came upon me with an overwhelming power. But I mastered it. I kept it to myself. That is, as far as words were concerned. For the expression of his face, for involuntary glances, no man can be held responsible.

I kept it to myself,—or tried to do so; for I wasn't sure—of anything. Emily's words, "I fear," came to me with deep meaning. For, if the goodness of David, if the fascinations of Warren Luce had effected nothing, what could I hope?

And was I sure about this last, about Warren? He was in the place. Emily's sickness only had kept him away. I reviewed myself to myself, overhauled whatever virtues or failings I knew of as belonging to me.

Nothing very satisfactory resulted. But I remembered what the old man said to Miss Joey, "Love'll go where 'tis sent," and took courage. Eight or ten years older. I wonder if she would mind that?

Day after day passed, and my secret still burned within me. It must shine out of my eyes, I thought. But then, since Emily's death, I had seen Mary Ellen much less frequently. She kept mostly with her mother, on their own side of the house.

But the time that was foreordained from the beginning of the world for the bursting-forth of my secret came at last.

It was a month after Emily's death. I happened to come home in the evening unusually early. 'Twas exactly such a night as the one on which I tried to sound the depths of a young girl's heart, and failed. If she would only come out in the moonlight again, and let me try once more!

As I passed the orchard, my heart gave a great leap, for she was there,—she and Miss Joey, carrying in a great basket of apples. I seized her side of the basket with one hand, and with the other grasped hers so earnestly that she fairly started: I was so glad to see her!

I led her along to the house, and then led her back, until we came to the same little step on the fence,—with full faith, now, that it would be given me in this hour what to say.

I seated her exactly as she was before, with the moon shining full in her face. Then I took my stand, leaning against the fence, just the same. How beautiful she was in the moonlight!

"And is there anybody," said I, as if continuing the conversation, "that you do love as Jane did?"

My voice, though, was far less steady than at the other time.

"Mr. Turner," she exclaimed, starting up, with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks, "you've no right to ask me such a question!"

That blushing by moonlight! It was too much to be endured with calmness. I felt myself giving way before it.

But I sha'n't tell any more. It's no sign, because a man opens his heart, that he should let everything drop out of it.

If those interested know, that, at my earnest request, she gave me the right to ask not only that question, but others which would naturally follow, they know enough.

I would willingly tell them, though, if our English language had a few thousand words added to it, how delightful it was to know that this sweet wild-rose had been blossoming for me, that our singing-bird had been singing for me! I am willing to tell, too, how foolish I felt, when the deceitfulness of the human heart, of my own human heart, became apparent; when I found that I had been loving for myself, while I thought I was loving for David,—that I had been jealous for myself, and not for him; when I found that I had been studying my chapter, without regarding the notes underneath.

And being at last put upon the right track, I found it taking me a long way backwards. It took me away to the beginning, when Mary Ellen first came across the entry, and showed me that then and there the arrow was sped, and love went where it was sent. I had misgivings, even, of having taken a portion of the dark liquid in the little bottle. I could perceive the drawing of the "chain," and almost feel the "lassoo" about my neck.

"Lawyer, indeed! And wonderfully sharp at cross-questioning, when you couldn't draw a secret from a woman! Lawyer, indeed! Of great penetration, that couldn't read a young girl's heart, when it lay open before you,—that couldn't read your own! You'd better give up the profession, and go to painting. That suits you better. Beauty is your chief delight, after all. Not only beauty of face, but beauty of everything under the sun. Go sit in your crotch among the green boughs and paint landscapes!"

It was full four years ago that I thus inveighed against myself, and just about a year from the time when I took up the moonlight talk where it had been left off, and finished it so charmingly. We two were taking a long stroll together, and had been making our mutual confessions,—our man-and-wife confessions.

My innocent little country-girl turned her sweet face up to mine with a doubtful expression, a comically wise look, and said, a little anxiously,—

"Do you think it will pay?"

Oh, she's a capital wife! She has beauty and sweetness and exquisite taste and simplicity and loving-kindness, with just enough worldliness to take all these charming qualities safely along through life.

Hear how wisely she discusses the "coquette" question.

Says she,—"I think it's natural for all women to want to please all men. I believe that the very best and wisest woman in the world is affected by flattery from a handsome man who knows how to flatter. Very likely this might be put the other way about, but then in books that side is usually left out. But what you, Mr. Landscape-painter, would like to know is, whether I coquetted with the Doctor's boy. And I will own that I tried to please him. I liked to have him think I was pretty. I can't think what it was about him that had such power over me. I tremble now to think what might have been, if—And just think what a whole life would be with such a person! I don't believe, though, any girl could have withstood him, unless her heart—I believe I should certainly have loved him, if"—

"If what, and unless what?" I asked, drawing her close up to me, as if that dangerous youth had still power to take her from me.

She looked up so roguishly,—

"You ought to know; you took the chapter to study."

Oh, my innocent little country-girl! If I were a poet, I'd write a song in your praise; and if I were a musician, I'd set it to music. But the poetry is in my heart; and 'tis set to music there.

* * * * *

SWEET-BRIER.

Tender of words should singer be, Sweet-Brier, who would tell of thee; One who has drunk with eager lip And treasured thy companionship;

One who has sought thee far and wide, In early dew, with morning pride; To whom thou art no new-made friend, Whose memories on thy breath attend.

For such thou art a lemon-grove, Where wandering orient odors rove,— Yet loyal ever to thy home, The valley where the north winds roam.

Sometimes I would call thee mine; But sweeter far than mine or thine To listen unto Nature's song, Saying, To lovers all belong.

I love thee for my greenest days Rescued from Time at thy sweet gaze, For pictures brilliant as the Spring Brought back upon thy breathing wing.

I love thee for thy influence, Heart-honey, without impotence; He who would reach thy virgin blush, Like warrior bold, must dangers crush.

Chiefly I love thee for thyself, Wealth-giver, ignorant of pelf; Fain would I learn thy upright ways And heart thus redolent of praise.

* * * * *

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

VIII.

ECONOMY.

"The fact is," said Jennie, as she twirled a little hat on her hand, which she had been making over, with, nobody knows what of bows and pompons, and other matters for which the women have curious names,—"the fact is, American women and girls must learn to economize; it isn't merely restricting one's self to American goods, it is general economy, that is required. Now here's this hat,—costs me only three dollars, all told; and Sophie Page bought an English one this morning at Madame Meyer's for which she gave fifteen. And I really don't think hers has more of an air than mine. I made this over, you see, with things I had in the house, bought nothing but the ribbon, and paid for altering and pressing, and there you see what a stylish hat I have!"

"Lovely! admirable!" said Miss Featherstone. "Upon my word, Jennie, you ought to marry a poor parson; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich man."

"Let me see," said I. "I want to admire intelligently. That isn't the hat you were wearing yesterday?"

"Oh, no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was my waterfall-hat, with the green feather; this, you see, is an oriole."

"A what?"

"An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn about these things?"

"And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop of scarlet feathers sticking straight up?"

"That's my jockey, papa, with a plume en militaire."

"And did the waterfall and the jockey cost anything?"

"They were very, very cheap, papa, considering. Miss Featherstone will remember that the waterfall was a great bargain, and I had the feather from last year; and as to the jockey, that was made out of my last year's white one, dyed over. You know, papa, I always take care of my things, and they last from year to year."

"I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, "I never saw such little economists as your daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I'm sure I can't see. I never could, I'm convinced."

"Yes," said Jennie, "I've bought but just one new hat. I only wish you could sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne and I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls',—new, you know, just out of the milliner's shop; and last Sunday they came out in such lovely puffed tulle bonnets! Weren't they lovely, Marianne? And next Sunday, I don't doubt, there'll be something else."

"Yes," said Miss Featherstone,—"their father, they say, has made a million dollars lately on Government contracts."

"For my part," said Jennie, "I think such extravagance, at such a time as this, is shameful."

"Do you know," said I, "that I'm quite sure the Misses Fielder think they are practising rigorous economy?"

"Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! How can you say so?"

"I shouldn't be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, now," said I, "that Miss Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because she has bought only six new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If it were not for her dear bleeding country, she would have had thirty-six, like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we were admitted to the secret councils of the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive what temptations they daily resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practise economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel, when they think of the puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe's, for forty-five; and how they go home descanting on virgin simplicity, and resolving that they will not allow themselves to be swept into the vortex of extravagance, whatever other people may do."

"Do you know," said Miss Featherstone, "I believe your papa is right? I was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that she really did feel the necessity of economy. 'Perhaps we might afford to spend more than some others,' she said; 'but it's so much better to give the money to the Sanitary Commission!'"

"Furthermore," said I, "I am going to put forth another paradox, and say that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though made over, and contrived from last year's stock."

"They can't know anything about it, then," said Jennie, decisively; "for, certainly, nobody can be decent, and invest less in millinery than Marianne and I do."

"When I was a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got her a new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall;—that was the extent of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year, did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also, bought myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light pair, and wore them through the summer, and another two through the winter; one or two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried me through all my parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity which requires two or three new ones every spring and fall had not arisen. Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a jockey, must still be troubled with anxious cares for her spring and fall and summer and winter bonnets,—all the variety will not take the place of them. Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, there seems to be no limit to the quantity of material and trimming that may be expended upon them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year was considered by careful parents a liberal allowance for a daughter's wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a part to make up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, my particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. We all thought that a very scant pattern; yet she generally made a very pretty and genteel appearance, with the help of occasional presents from friends."

"How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?" said Marianne.

"She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk was considered a reasonable allowance to a lady's wardrobe. Once made, it stood for something,—always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, completed the list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., we all did our own embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too. Girls looked as pretty then as they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year is insufficient to clothe them."

"But, mamma, you know our allowance isn't anything like that,—it is quite a slender one, though not so small as yours was," said Marianne. "Don't you think the customs of society make a difference? Do you think, as things are, we could go back and dress for the sum you did?"

"You cannot," said my wife, "without a greater sacrifice of feeling than I wish to impose on you. Still, though I don't see how to help it, I cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becoming needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women. It seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensome that young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a moderately good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with a wife who could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-five dollars a year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positively could not get through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, are getting to be so attached to the trappings and accessories of life, that they cannot think of marriage without an amount of fortune which few young men possess."

"You are talking in very low numbers about the dress of women," said Miss Featherstone. "I do assure you that it is the easiest thing in the world for a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, and not have so much to show for it either as Marianne and Jennie."

"To be sure," said I. "Only establish certain formulas of expectation, and it is the easiest thing in the world. For instance, in your mother's day girls talked of a pair of gloves,—now they talk of a pack; then it was a bonnet summer and winter,—now it is a bonnet spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and hats like monthly roses,—a new blossom every few weeks."

"And then," said my wife, "every device of the toilet is immediately taken up and varied and improved on, so as to impose an almost monthly necessity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by the jackets of June; the buttons of June are antiquated in July; the trimmings of July are passees by September; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and all sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of improvement; every article of feminine toilet is on the move towards perfection. It seems to me that an infinity of money must be spent in these trifles, by those who make the least pretension to keep in the fashion."

"Well, papa," said Jennie, "after all, it's just the way things always have been since the world began. You know the Bible says, 'Can a maid forget her ornaments?' It's clear she can't. You see, it's a law of Nature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that we had read in church last Sunday, about the curls and veils and tinkling ornaments and crimping-pins, and all that. Women always have been too much given to dress, and they always will be."

"The thing is," said Marianne, "how can any woman, I, for example, know what is too much or too little? In mamma's day, it seems, a girl could keep her place in society, by hard economy, and spend only fifty dollars a year on her dress. Mamma found a hundred dollars ample. I have more than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep myself looking well. I don't want to live for dress, to give all my time and thoughts to it; I don't wish to be extravagant; and yet I wish to be lady-like; it annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and neat and nice; shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. I don't see where the fault is. Can one individual resist the whole current of society? It certainly is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half the things we do. We might, I suppose, live without many of them, and, as mamma says, look just as well, because girls did before these things were invented. Now, I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am a pattern of good management and economy, because I get so much less than other girls I go with. I wish you could see Miss Thorne's fall dresses that she showed me last year when she was visiting here. She had six gowns, and no one of them could have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and some of them must have been even more expensive; and yet I don't doubt that this fall she will feel that she must have just as many more. She runs through and wears out these expensive things, with all their velvet and thread lace, just as I wear my commonest ones; and at the end of the season they are really gone,—spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all pulled to pieces,—nothing left to save or make over. I feel as if Jennie and I were patterns of economy, when I see such things. I really don't know what economy is. What is it?"

"There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping," said my wife. "I think I am an economist. I mean to be one. All our expenses are on a modest scale, and yet I can see much that really is not strictly necessary; but if I compare myself with some of my neighbors, I feel as if I were hardly respectable. There is no subject on which all the world are censuring one another so much as this. Hardly any one but thinks her neighbors extravagant in some one or more particulars, and takes for granted that she herself is an economist."

"I'll venture to say," said I, "that there isn't a woman of my acquaintance that does not think she is an economist."

"Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest of them," said Jennie. "I wonder if it isn't just so with the men?"

"Yes," said Marianne, "it's the fashion to talk as if all the extravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, I think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for cigars and pipes,—an expense which hasn't even the pretence of usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes something to the agreeableness of society; but a man's cigars and pipes are neither ornamental nor useful."

"Then look at their dress," said Jennie; "they are to the full as fussy and particular about it as girls; they have as many fine, invisible points of fashion, and their fashions change quite as often; and they have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and their sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs and scarf-pins, their watch-chains and seals and seal-rings, and nobody knows what. Then they often waste and throw away more than women, because they are not good judges of material, nor saving in what they buy, and have no knowledge of how things should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap is a little too tight, they cut the lining with a penknife, or slit holes in a new shirt-collar, because it does not exactly fit to their mind. For my part, I think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. A pretty thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the country laid to us!"

"You are right, child," said I; "women are by nature, as compared with men, the care-taking and saving part of creation,—the authors and conservators of economy. As a general rule, man earns and woman saves and applies. The wastefulness of woman is commonly the fault of man."

"I don't see into that," said Bob Stephens.

"In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether a particular purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it is taken from. Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her dress, and gives fifty dollars for a bonnet; she gives a third of her income;—it is a horrible extravagance, while for the woman whose income is ten thousand it may be no extravagance at all. The poor clergyman's wife, when she gives five dollars for a bonnet, may be giving as much, in proportion to her income, as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficulty with the greater part of women is, that the men who make the money and hold it give them no kind of standard by which to measure their expenses. Most women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, without chart or compass. They don't know in the least what they have to spend. Husbands and fathers often pride themselves about not saying a word on business-matters to their wives and daughters. They don't wish them to understand them, or to inquire into them, or to make remarks or suggestions concerning them. 'I want you to have everything that is suitable and proper,' says Jones to his wife, 'but don't be extravagant.'

"'But, my dear,' says Mrs. Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress and housekeeping, I could tell better.'

"'Nonsense, Susan! I can't do that,—it's too much trouble. Get what you need, and avoid foolish extravagances; that's all I ask.'

"By-and-by Mrs. Jones's bills are sent in, in an evil hour, when Jones has heavy notes to meet, and then comes a domestic storm.

"'I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that's the way you are going on. I can't afford to dress you and the girls in the style you have set up;—look at this milliner's bill!'

"'I assure you,' says Mrs. Jones, 'we haven't got any more than the Stebbinses,—nor so much.'

"'Don't you know that the Stebbinses are worth five times as much as ever I was?'

"No, Mrs. Jones did not know it;—how should she, when her husband makes it a rule never to speak of his business to her, and she has not the remotest idea of his income?

"Thus multitudes of good conscientious women and girls are extravagant from pure ignorance. The male provider allows bills to be run up in his name, and they have no earthly means of judging whether they are spending too much or too little, except the semi-annual hurricane which attends the coming in of these bills.

"The first essential in the practice of economy is a knowledge of one's income, and the man who refuses to accord to his wife and children this information has never any right to accuse them of extravagance, because he himself deprives them of that standard of comparison which is an indispensable requisite in economy. As early as possible in the education of children they should pass from that state of irresponsible waiting to be provided for by parents, and be trusted with the spending of some fixed allowance, that they may learn prices and values, and have some notion of what money is actually worth and what it will bring. The simple fact of the possession of a fixed and definite income often suddenly transforms a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking, prudent little woman. Her allowance is her own; she begins to plan upon it,—to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do numberless sums in her little head. She no longer buys everything she fancies; she deliberates, weighs, compares. And now there is room for self-denial and generosity to come in. She can do without this article; she can furbish up some older possession to do duty a little longer, and give this money to some friend poorer than she; and ten to one the girl whose bills last year were four or five hundred finds herself bringing through this year creditably on a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without numerous things which she used to have. From the stand-point of a fixed income she sees that these are impossible, and no more wants them than the green cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own taste and skill take the place of expensive purchases. She refits her hats and bonnets, retrims her dresses, and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways, sets herself to make the most of her small income.

"So the woman who has her definite allowance for housekeeping finds at once a hundred questions set at rest. Before, it was not clear to her why she should not 'go and do likewise' in relation to every purchase made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear logic of proportion. Certain things are evidently not to be thought of, though next neighbors do have them; and we must resign ourselves to find some other way of living."

"My dear," said my wife, "I think there is a peculiar temptation in a life organized as ours is in America. There are here no settled classes, with similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the same society, going to the same parties, and blended in daily neighborly intercourse, are families of the most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In England there is a very well understood expression, that people should not dress or live above their station; in America none will admit that they have any particular station, or that they can live above it. The principle of democratic equality unites in society people of the most diverse positions and means.

"Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden's, an old and highly respected one, with an income of only two or three thousand,—yet they are people universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the intercourse of life with merchant-millionnaires whose incomes are from ten to thirty thousand. Their sons and daughters go to the same schools, the same parties, and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of social equality.

"Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie in the great and evident expenses of our richer friends. We do not expect to have pineries, graperies, equipages, horses, diamonds,—we say openly and of course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly increased by the proximity of these things, unless we understand ourselves better than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get a fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don't expect sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond ear-rings, begins to be speculated about among the young people as among possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house with Axminster and hang our windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels and brocatelle,—it would not do not to. And so we go on getting hundreds of things that we don't need, that have no real value except that they soothe our self-love,—and for these inferior articles we pay a higher proportion of our income than our rich neighbor does for his better ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a young man just entering business will spend an eighth of a year's income to put one on his wife, and when he has put it there it only serves as a constant source of disquiet,—for now that the door is opened, and Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with envy at the superior ones constantly sported around her. So also with point-lace, velvet dresses, and hundreds of things of that sort, which belong to a certain rate of income, and are absurd below it."

"And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because they lasted a lifetime."

"Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year; they may be cheap for her rate of living,—but for us, for example, by no magic of numbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have the greatest bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds, than not to have them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace, never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy, and just as much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objecting to me for not having them? Nobody, as I ever heard."

"Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne.

"The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not to expect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to think or inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the first step in certain directions. We have moved on all our life after a very antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have had our little old-fashioned house, our little old-fashioned ways."

"Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my dear," said I, mischievously.

"Yes, except the parlor-carpet," said my wife, with a conscious twinkle, "and the things that came of it; there was a concession there, but one can't be wise always."

"We talked mamma into that," said Jennie.

"But one thing is certain," said my wife,—"that, though I have had an antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed, I have spent more money than many of them for real comforts. While I had young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wages to a really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go into the country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and carriage for daily driving,—by which means we afforded, as a family, very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built our house, and while we left out a great many expensive commonplaces that other people think they must have, we put in a profusion of bathing-accommodations such as very few people think of having. There never was a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was necessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew on the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and dressing."

"Your mother has had," said I, "what is the great want in America, perfect independence of mind to go her own way without regard to the way others go. I think there is, for some reason, more false shame among Americans about economy than among Europeans. 'I cannot afford it' is more seldom heard among us. A young man beginning life, whose income may be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant and gallant to affect a careless air about money, especially among ladies,—to hand it out freely, and put back his change without counting it,—to wear a watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts like those of some young millionnaire. None but the most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of living, and declares that he cannot get along on his salary. The same is true of young girls, and of married men and women too,—the whole of them are ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life and health in many households are of a nature that cannot be cast on God, or met by any promise from the Bible,—it is not care for 'food convenient,' or for comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, and to stretch a narrow income over the space that can be covered only by a wider one.

"The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staring her hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and meal all to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort in the good old Book, reading of that other widow whose wasting measure of oil and last failing handful of meal were of such account before her Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit them; and when customers do not pay, or wages are cut down, she can enter into her chamber, and when she hath shut her door, present to her Father in heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the air she shall be fed and with the lilies of the field she shall be clothed: but what promises are there for her who is racking her brains on the ways and means to provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and Champagne at her next party as her richer neighbor, or to compass that great bargain which shall give her a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs. Croesus, who has ten times her income?"

"But, papa," said Marianne, with a twinge of that exacting sensitiveness by which the child is characterized, "I think I am an economist, thanks to you and mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, and keeping within it; but that does not satisfy me, and it seems that isn't all of economy;—the question that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all do more and better than I do?"

"There," said I, "you have hit the broader and deeper signification of economy, which is, in fact, the science of comparative values. In its highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative value of things,—money only the means of enabling one to express that value. This is the reason why the whole matter is so full of difficulty,—why every one criticizes his neighbor in this regard. Human beings are so various, the necessities of each are so different, they are made comfortable or uncomfortable by such opposite means, that the spending of other people's incomes must of necessity often look unwise from our stand-point. For this reason multitudes of people who cannot be accused of exceeding their incomes often seem to others to be spending them foolishly and extravagantly."

"But is there no standard of value?" said Marianne.

"There are certain things upon which there is a pretty general agreement, verbally at least, among mankind. For instance, it is generally agreed that health is an indispensable good,—that money is well spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that ruins it.

"With this standard in mind, how much money is wasted even by people who do not exceed their income! Here a man builds a house, and pays, in the first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a location in a fashionable part of the city, though the air will be closer and the chances of health less; he spends three or four thousand more on a stone front, on marble mantels imported from Italy, on plate-glass windows, plated hinges, and a thousand nice points of finish, and has perhaps but one bathroom for a whole household, and that so connected with his own apartment that nobody but himself and his wife can use it.

"Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, which fashion has not made expensive, and builds without a stone front, marble mantels, or plate-glass windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation through his house, and bathing-rooms in every story, so that the children and guests may all, without inconvenience, enjoy the luxury of abundant water.

"The first spends for fashion and show, the second for health and comfort.

"Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond bracelet and a lace shawl, and take her yearly to Washington to show off her beauty in ball-dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will command any but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The woman is worn out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt to keep up a showy establishment with only half the hands needed for the purpose. Another family will give brilliant parties, have a gay season every year at the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford the wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the servants enough food to keep them from constantly deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole time, are witnesses to what such families consider economy. Economy in the view of some is undisguised slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for the sake of fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is undisguised hard selfishness to servants and dependents, counting their every approach to comfort a needless waste,—grudging the Roman-Catholic cook her cup of tea at dinner on Friday, when she must not eat meat,—and murmuring that a cracked, second-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants' room: what business have they to want to know how they look?

"Some families will employ the cheapest physician, without regard to his ability to kill or cure; some will treat diseases in their incipiency with quack medicines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the doctor's bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an evil demon of economy, which, like an ignis fatuus in a bog, delights constantly to tumble them over into the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the quantity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a quarter, and the whole ferments and is spoiled. They cannot by any means be induced at any one time to buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress finally, after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown by altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, poor thread, poor sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor coal. One wonders, in looking at their blackened, smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is there at all for,—it certainly warms nobody. The only thing they seem likely to be lavish in is funeral expenses, which come in the wake of leaky shoes and imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker's bill. One pities these joyless beings. Economy, instead of a rational act of the judgment, is a morbid monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and haunting them to the grave.

"Some people, again, think that nothing is economical but good eating. Their flour is of an extra brand, their meat the first cut; the delicacies of every season, in their dearest stages, come home to their table with an apologetic smile,—'It was scandalously dear, my love, but I thought we must just treat ourselves.' And yet these people cannot afford to buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought-of extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars' worth of delicacies on his arm, Smith meets Jones, who is exulting with a bag of crackers under one arm and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the other, which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. 'I can't afford to buy pictures,' Smith says to his spouse, 'and I don't know bow Jones and his wife manage.' Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, but they will have their picture, and they are happy, Jones's picture remains, and Smith's fifty dollars' worth of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will be gone forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swallowing of expensive dainties brings the least return. There is one step lower than this,—the consuming of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If all the money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent in books and pictures, I predict that nobody's health would be a whit less sound, and houses would be vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent in smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every family in the community a good library, to hang everybody's parlor-walls with lovely pictures, to set up in every house a conservatory which should bloom all winter with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling with ample bathing and warming accommodations, even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in the Millennium I believe this is the way things are to be.

"In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry arises, How shall there be retrenchment? I answer, First and foremost retrench things needless, doubtful, and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the same. Second, retrench all eating not necessary to health and comfort. A French family would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from the tables of those who call themselves in middling circumstances. There are superstitions of the table that ought to be broken through. Why must you always have cake in your closet? why need you feel undone to entertain a guest with no cake on your tea-table? Do without it a year, and ask yourselves if you or your children, or any one else, have suffered materially in consequence.

"Why is it imperative that you should have two or three courses at every meal? Try the experiment of having but one, and that a very good one, and see if any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must social intercourse so largely consist in eating? In Paris there is a very pretty custom. Each family has one evening in the week when it stays at home and receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter and cake, served in the most informal way, is the only refreshment. The rooms are full, busy, bright,—everything as easy and joyous as if a monstrous supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake, were waiting to give the company a nightmare at the close.

"Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circle of this kind, 'I ought to know them well,—I have seen, them every week for twenty years.' It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social enjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in this way answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better too."

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in the matter of dress now,—how much ought one to spend just to look as others do?"

"I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor of one of our hotels. Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their conversation I found that they belonged to that class of women among the Friends who devote themselves to travelling on missions of benevolence. They had just completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers in the country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged on another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal ways,—telling them where they might go the next day to find friends who would open to them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life.

"As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, I began secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women adorning themselves with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit; for the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness and purity of the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. I could not help thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lace sleeves, and dresses elaborately trimmed could not have improved even their outward appearance. Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but a small trunk in travelling from place to place, and hindered but little their prayers and ministrations.

"Now, it is true, all women are not called to such a life as this; but might not all women take a leaf at least from their book? I submit the inquiry humbly. It seems to me that there are many who go monthly to the sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who give thanks each time sincerely that they are thus made 'members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ,' who have never thought of this membership as meaning that they should share Christ's sacrifices for lost souls, or abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter one inconvenience for the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there is a higher economy which we need to learn,—that which makes all things subservient to the spiritual and immortal, and that not merely to the good of our own souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood.

"The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with their different costume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women of no particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, a more excellent way,—a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces and ornaments of the sex fade, appear like dim candles by the pure, eternal stars."

* * * * *

THE HEART OF THE WAR.

Peace in the clover-scented air, And stars within the dome; And underneath, in dim repose, A plain, New-England home. Within, a murmur of low tones And sighs from hearts oppressed, Merging in prayer, at last, that brings The balm of silent rest.