But we must close. We have found De Quincey a subtile philosopher, a mighty master of the historic art, a prose poet of unrivalled splendor. To powers so versatile and extraordinary, combined with learning so profound, and a style of such matchless brilliance, we believe that no other writer of the present age can lay any great claims. Still we take our leave of that eccentric, storm-tossed man of genius with feelings of profound regret. Great as his contributions to literature are, he might have done vastly more. But nervous maladies blasted his hopes, overthrew his colossal designs, and he evermore drifts down the ages a wreck—splendid, brilliant, the admiration of all beholders—but none the less a wreck.



'FEED MY LAMBS.'

PART FIRST.

Harry has crept to his little bed, shivering with childish dread of the dark. Ungentle hands have placed him there, guardians careless of his comfort and chary of kind words and looks, and a coarse-voiced girl has said, as she took the light away, and banged the door behind her:

'Cry out loud, you little imp, and I'll send the black bears to catch you.'

So Harry is choking down his sobs, and crying silently, very silently. The chill and melancholy night wind, as it comes moaning through the casement and rustling the light leaves of the tall poplar as they rest against the window panes, and the great round tears as they fall with a dull, heavy drop, drop on his lonely pillow, are the only sounds that break the dismal stillness, excepting now and then, when a great sob, too mighty to be choked down, bursts from the little, overcharged heart. And then Harry fancies he feels, through the thin coverlet and torn night dress, the huge black paws of these same bears grasping the tender round shoulder, blue with the cold, while the little boy lies there shivering and shuddering in an agony of apprehension. Darkness above and around him, terrible, black, silent darkness; darkness which enwraps and enfolds him and takes away his breath, like the heavy, stifling folds of a hideous black mantle; darkness that the active imagination of the timid child peoples with phantom shapes, grotesque and horrible—forms made unnaturally visible by their own light, that mouth and leer, and stretch out distorted arms to seize him, whose appalling presence fills the room from floor to ceiling, and which eddy and circle around him in horrid demon dances, whirling gradually nearer and nearer, until myriads of hideous faces are thrust close to his own, or grin above him, while he chokes for breath—forms that make the cold sweat stand on his baby forehead, and freeze the blood in his veins, that he watches night after night, with his blue eyes starting from their sockets and his hair standing on end, that make of the desolate nighttime a dread and a horror! And there is no one to kneel beside his lonely bed and tell the frightened child, sick with dread, that there are no such things as odious black dwarfs, who drag young children off to dark and dismal dungeons by the hair of their head, nor great giants, who grow always bigger as you look at them, and who eat up, at a mouthful, little boys who cry in the dark. No tender mother bends low with all but divine compassion to listen to his little sorrows, or soothe his childish fears—to teach him his simple prayers, or tell him sweet stories of a little child like himself, before whose lowly cradle wise men bowed as at a shrine, and to do whom reverence shining ones came from a far-distant country. There is no one to pillow his curly head upon a loving bosom, and lull him to sleep with quaint old lullabies. Harry is worse than motherless.

So on the night in question, as on all other nights preceding, poor Harry, worn out with fright and weariness, is dropping to sleep from sheer exhaustion, closing his swollen eyes in troubled slumber, when, half unconsciously turning his curly head upon the pillow to find a dry place for the wet cheek to rest against, something bright and shining makes long lines of light in the tears still wet on Harry's lashes, and wakes him up again.

Such a bright, beautiful star it is. One that has been slowly rising, climbing the blue outside, until it reaches a break in the foliage of the tree before the window, and shines straight into Harry's eyes. Something of that strange solemnity that fills minds of a maturer growth when gazing on the starry heavens, hushes that baby's soul into reverence as he looks upon it. The terrible shapes melt away into the gloom, he feels no dread of the dark now, and vaguely and gradually there arises the first dim consciousness of the deep spiritual want within him—the first awakened desire of the finite soul to see and find the Infinite Father and claim his protection. Fragments of childish hymns, parts of simple prayers, such poor and scattered crumbs of spiritual instruction as he has gleaned here and there somehow, and on which the infant soul has been but meagrely fed, crowd in upon him. Then come wondering thoughts of that great good Being, that strange, unfathomable mystery, whose name is God, Who lives up in the blue somewhere, and yet is everywhere. This problem of Omnipresence he has pondered and pondered over, and reasoned upon, in his childish fashion, but now it dawns with a newer and clearer light on Harry's mind. God is everywhere. To his awakened spiritual perception this holy, mysterious, and invisible presence seems pervading the sky, the air, the earth, filling and enfolding all things. Night after night, as he had lain there sobbing and crying and thought himself all alone in the darkness, this great good God had been with him all the time, and he had never known it, never felt it until now; and, overwhelmed by the mighty thought, powerfully felt, though imperfectly comprehended, awestruck Harry, tremulous with reverence, obedient to some childish fancy that the name of father is not holy and reverent enough for such a Being, folds his tiny hands, earnestly praying:

'Our Grandfather which art in heaven, stay near poor Harry in the dark, and keep the bears away!'

Is it faith or fancy, that soft, gentle, summery atmosphere that fills the room, and makes the little, lonely heart thrill as with the pleasant consciousness of a loving presence? It is real to Harry, with his child's undoubting faith. Stretching forth his rounded arms, and clasping the dark, impalpable air in a joyous embrace, he nestles closely to the wet pillow as if it were a loving bosom, and falls asleep with a smile upon his lip. A childhood robbed of childish joys and pleasures, the little, insignificant trifles which form its sum of happiness, denied the sympathetic love and tenderness which is the life of little hearts, deprived of the pleasures suited to its state, yet too immature to turn within itself for comfort in its need, its life without and within a dull, joyless, dreary blank—such was poor Harry's, for a shadow dark and terrible rested on his baby heart and home, a something that darkened and deepened day by day, and grew more and more insupportable as the weary time crept on. What it was, and how long it had rested there before he became conscious of its presence, and whether his miserable home had ever been free from it and ever been a happy one, little Harry never knew. All his brief life it had lain there. Its shadow had crept into the violet eyes with the first faint glimmer of intelligence, and when the new-born soul, mysterious breath of God, first woke from its mystic dreaming, and looked consciously out upon the world into which it had come, its baleful presence crept into that holy sanctuary, and darkened what should have been cloudless as well as sinless. He had drawn it in with every breath from the atmosphere of the little world around him; it rested on all he came in contact with, and gradually and sadly there arose in the mind too immature to comprehend the cause and the nature of this desolating power, yet feeling vaguely day by day its blighting effects, sorrowful and earnest questionings—questionings like the following, to which there came back no answer to the little, suffering heart:

Why his home (if home it may be called in which the heart finds no resting place), the four walls that enclosed the place where he ate and slept, was such a dull, joyless, lonesome spot? What that dark something was that shadowed its light and took from it all joy and comfort, causing every face within it to wear a melancholy or forbidding aspect? Why there was no glad smile even on his father's lips, when he came to seek the sad young creatures that crept silently to his knee and looked wistfully up into the care-worn face; and why, though loving and kind, he was always kind with that sorrowful tenderness which makes sad hearts the sadder? Why this craving that he feels within him, this half-undefined, insatiable longing for maternal love and sympathy? What had sealed from the thirsting heart this purest fountain of earthly tenderness?

A mother's form was present to him day by day, but where was the maternal heart of love which should have beat within that bosom? 'Can a mother forget her children?' There is a fell and terrible destroyer, which murders peace in hearts and homes, whose very breath is a mildew and a blight, in whose desolating track follow woe, want, and ruin; a fierce, insatiable appetite, trebly cursed, that makes of life a loathsome degradation, and fills dishonored graves, blighting all that is divine and godlike in human nature, sealing the gushing fountain of maternal tenderness, and teaching even a mother's heart forgetfulness. O God! of what punishment shall thy justice deem those worthy, who, by cold neglect, cruelty, or shameful slavery to such a passion, shut out the light, and check the rich and limitless expansion of all that is divine in the souls committed to their charge? Ah! what did it matter that there were honorable titles affixed to the name so disgraced, that in the home thus blighted were all the luxuries and appliances of wealth, that rare pictures hung against its walls, carpets covered the floors whose velvet surface muffled the footfalls, costly curtains shut out the too garish light, that servants were at command, well paid to take care of the neglected children, paid to care for the house, and all fine things within it, and—paid to keep its secrets! What did all this matter to the miserable possessor of wealth and name, the disgraced husband, the heart-broken father? He could comprehend this woe in all its bearings, could measure the length, the breadth, the depth of the curse that had lighted upon him? Homes there were whose walls and floors were bare, whose windows were shaded by no costly curtains, but from which happy faces looked—lowly homes, poor in this world's wealth, but rich in domestic peace and love; and for the blessed quiet of their lowly hearthstones, he would joyfully have bartered wealth and fame, and all such dross as men call happiness. And Harry saw them too. The little, lonely heart, saddened by a shadow it could not comprehend, from its own gloomy home turned longingly to their homely cheerfulness, as flowers turn to the light.

One in particular had attracted his childish notice. It was just across the road; he could see it from the window of the nursery where he played, and he used to leave his play to watch it. Such glimpses of a happy home had streamed through its opening portals and fallen on the heart of the little solitary watcher like a benison. What hasty peeps he took at its homely brightness as the door opened and closed, and what long, long looks he bestowed upon it, when it stood open for hours together, as it did now in the fine June weather! It was only a simple cottage. Too unpretending for hall or entry, the little parlor opened into the street, and from the window where he stood, Harry could see straight into it. There it was, with its bright papered walls, and gay red carpet, its deep low window seat looking like a garden, where flowers bloomed and frail exotics stretched forth their delicate leaves to bathe in the sunlight that came streaming in, and cunning little yellow birds, in quaint, tiny cages, sang the long day through. And there—oh, busy fingers! making neat and bright the little home—heart of love, shedding blessed sunlight around it—there, so busy and blithe, so happy and gay, sat the presiding genius of the place, with a face so bright and good—just such a face as you would expect to see in such a home; one that sad and disappointed mortals, meeting in the street, would turn to for a second look, and bless it as it passed; a face to which childhood cleaves instinctively, sure of ready sympathy with its little joys and sorrows; one that would never be disfigured by envy or malice; never grow black with passion, and oh! never, never look senseless, idiotic, and drivelling, as another face on which he looked so often did; but to Harry's fancy, it was like the sky on a calm summer's day, always pure and bright, and always the same. It was brighter and happier and better altogether when, in the fresh morning time, the little lady went tripping by on the pavement beneath the window with a small market basket on her arm. Then Harry, clambering to the sill, and leaning out, could see straight into it; and sometimes it happened that, attracted by that fixed gaze of earnest admiration, that happy face would be turned upward, and break into a beaming smile, as the sunny eyes met the large, blue, mournful orbs looking down upon them. Then there would be a smile on the lip and a song in the heart of the little watcher for the rest of the day. Cheering and dear as that face had ever been to him since he had first had the happiness of beholding it, much as he had watched and loved it, it had drawn him with a more potent attraction still and grown doubly dear of late. He had been within the sacred precincts of a true home; he had breathed that atmosphere of heaven; he knew how that small, snug, cosy room looked to its inmates now. Yes, he had been there, and his going in chanced in the following manner:

This lady, whose cheerful presence was fast becoming a benison to Harry, had, among her other bright possessions, a rosy-cheeked, laughing-eyed, frolicsome mischief, about Harry's age, and he had recently come from the country happier, merrier, and fresher than ever, having still, as it were, about him the fragrant breath of the wood-violets, the purity of the unvitiated air, the freedom of the broad, green fields, the fragrant atmosphere of all the delightful things with which he had been so recently in contact.

One morning, not long after his coming, the cross girl who put Harry to bed at night, marshalled him and his brother out (as was her wont in fine weather) for a dreary promenade, which usually agreeable exercise consisted in the present instance in marching down a dusty stone pavement, by a long, unbroken line of brick buildings, up one street, and down another (for they always went the same way), until they came to a huge, dreary-looking schoolhouse, where they left Charley, and came back more drearily than they went. Well, on this particular morning, Charley had forgotten his slate, and he and the girl returning to search for it left Harry at the gate to await their return. The little urchin, just at that precise moment, spying Harry solus, and impelled by the agreeable prospect of a playfellow, rushed across the street, at the imminent danger of being run over, to scrape acquaintance.

'Come, and play with me,' cried the little fellow, bounding up to Harry in all the ardor of a glowing anticipation, eagerly folding one thin hand in both his dimpled ones, and flashing a whole flood of sunlight into the sad young eyes that so timidly met his sunny ones. 'Come, and play with me, do! and we'll play at horse and build mud houses, and ma'll give us lots of candy and raisins, and a great big doughnut, ever so big, as big as my hands and your hands, and all our hands put together.'

'I can't,' said Harry, sadly resigning all thought of these rare dainties. 'Betty'll scold so!'

'We'll sit on the bank under the willow at the back of the house,' pursued the tempter, folding the hand he held still tighter within his own, 'where she can't see us; and when she comes to take you away, I'll bite her.'

The youthful pleader had unconsciously used the most potent argument possible. Harry wavered. To sit on a green bank under a willow, with such a sunny-faced companion as that, and listen to the birds singing in the branches, and the rustling of the leaves—to look up through the green, and see patches of blue sky through breaks in the foliage—and then, too, oh, blessed hope! to see the lady whom he regarded with such enthusiastic and reverent devotion, and to whose love he clung with all the wild tenacity of a desolate heart—to see her smile, and hear her speak—to him, perhaps; all this rose like a glorious vision before Harry, and the possibility of its realization sent the light to his eyes and the color to his face.

The contemplated walk in the hot, dusty streets, with the cross Betty—(which tyrannical young female, having brought the children, as it were, under military rule, and being a rigid disciplinarian, seldom failed to punish some fancied dereliction of duty by sundry shakes and pinches as they went along)—this prospect, placed beside the bright, cool picture his fancy had conjured up, seemed more unendurable than ever. With one quick glance toward the house, to see if that ogre, having in custody that form a little taller and face a little older and sadder than his own, was making her appearance, Harry, seized by an irresistible impulse, and still holding fast the chubby hand that had taken his so confidingly, bounded from the pavement, dashed across the road, and both dashed through the garden and into the cosy parlor in a trice, panting like young racehorses. And there, in the brightest spot of the snug, bright room, by that bower of a window, sat the sunny-faced lady whom Harry's childish imagination had exalted into a superior being. Abashed at having so rudely rushed into that revered presence, Harry stood shyly by the door, trembling with embarrassment, while his more active companion, releasing his hand, bounded across the room, and, clambering up into his mother's lap and putting his arms around her neck and his rosebud of a mouth close to her ear, commenced a whispered explanation.

There was something strangely attractive in that mother's face, as she pushed back the clustering hair, after smilingly listening to the story, and pressed a fervent kiss upon that baby brow—a look which had never been on any face for him, but which he had dreamed of at night, and longed for by day, with a strange, undefined, half-conscious longing. It was as if he had found something he had been blindly searching, something for which the solitary heart had vaguely felt an ever-present need; and the timid child, forgetting his timidity, his awe of the presence into which he had come—forgetting all but his heart's great need—in a burst of pathetic longing, more sorrowful than tears, cried:

'Give me a kiss, too, just one!'

He was across the room and in her arms in a moment. Blessings on the true mother's heart! it gave not one kiss, but a dozen. Ah! feeling the blessing of those tears upon his head, pressed close against the breast throbbing with pure maternal sympathy, his own starved heart eagerly drinking from that overflowing fountain, the word mother rose naturally to his lips then.—Alas for her from whom alone that beating heart, throbbing with a new delight, should have received that revelation! Alas for the heart thus robbed of its lawful heritage, to whom the highest and holiest of earth's affection had manifested itself but as a brutish instinct, which, in fits of maudlin tenderness, could fold the little form in a loathsome embrace, and smother the pure breath with drunken kisses! No other love, however high and pure it may be, can atone to the wronged heart that has been cruelly robbed of this.

In this new-found joy all heavy sorrows were forgotten. Pressed close against that sympathetic bosom, he was happy now, happier than he had ever been before; and when at last she wiped her tears away, and, lifting the hand on which his grateful tears were falling (for Harry cried too), and smilingly up-turning the tear-wet face to meet her own, that face was so changed by joy that she hardly knew it, and Harry wondered why it was that she laughed and cried together when she looked at it, and kissed him over and over again more times than he could count. Laughing and chatting gayly until she saw her own smiles reflected on the little, sorrowful features, she, with a tender mother's care, bathed the flushed face, combed out the bright silky hair, smoothed and arranged the rumpled dress, and, taking the small hand, went out to the garden gate to meet the expedition sent in search of Harry.

Now this was his red-letter day. Harry was in luck. Therefore it was not one of the many servants of the establishment, or any straggling acquaintance that had joined in the search. Luckily, it was not one of these, or the cross Betty, who first espied Harry and the lady: otherwise he would have been borne away from his friend and his recently discovered Eden in triumph, in spite of all cries and protestations. It was Harry's own papa; and it did not take many words, when the bright-faced lady was the pleader (backed by that little face, with that strange flush of joy upon it, that spoke more eloquently to the father's heart than any words could have done), to induce that gentleman to allow Harry to remain where he was all day; likewise to extort a promise that he might come to see the lady whenever and as often as she chose to trouble herself with the care of him: and this being nicely arranged, Harry's papa went his way and they went theirs. And Harry did that day what is seldom done in this world of disappointment—more than realized his anticipations. He sat on the bank and heard the birds sing; he played at horse until he was tired; and though he did not build mud houses, he ate sugar ones, which was, in every respect, a vast improvement on the original design; and, what was more than all, his little playfellow, whose temper was as sunny as his face, never gave him a cross word or look the whole day through. They had supper, when the time came, under the rustling leaves of a huge green tree; and there were raisins and nuts and candy, cakes grotesquely cut and twisted into every conceivable shape, and every imaginable dainty. All through that memorable day, Harry was the happiest of the happy. Other days succeeded this that were but a thought less bright. A time had come when the rough path seemed smooth to the little pilgrim's feet, and flowers sprang up by the lonely wayside, and golden sunlight fell through the rifted clouds and crowned the little head with its blessing, and light and warmth crept into the chilled and desolate life, and made existence beautiful: a brief and joyful time, on which was written, as on all bright things of earth, those words of mournfulness unutterable: 'Passing away!'

PART SECOND.

It is that hour of day's decline when the turbulent roar from the city's busy mart is hushed into a lazy hum, when a peaceful, quiet calm breathes through the atmosphere and settles on the noisy earth, as if all things were hushed into tranquil silence at thought of the coming twilight's holy hour. The sun's red, slanting rays fall on the dusty pavement in front of that gloomy, stately mansion which Harry calls his home, enter a richly furnished room where the blinds are thrown open and the curtains looped back, and with their fervent glow rest compassionately upon a drooping female figure, upon a bent head bowed in shame, a head still young, whose wealth of rich black tresses passion and remorse have already marked with gray. Sin-stricken, woe-stricken, and remorseful, feeling how inefficient is even her mother's love, how powerless every earthly consideration to hold her back from ruin; stretching out palsied hands to Heaven for help; racked by the fierce fires of repentance, her tortured soul corroded by remorse, she mourns passionately but unavailingly.

Oh! there are hours like this in the hidden history of every fallen and degraded son of Adam, when the scales are removed from the spiritual eyes, and the sin-stained soul shiveringly beholds the depth to which it has fallen, and shrinks back appalled at the sight; when the demon has departed for a season, and evil thoughts and evil influences are cast out, and, feeling their power returning with repentance, angels come to minister unto the sorrowing one. Gentle guardians are there, who have watched it all its life through, striven with all the means that lie within the grasp of a spirit's power to stay it on its downward course and bring the lost soul back. Ah! 'Love's labor lost.' Ineffectual these oft-repeated efforts may be, ineffectual through all time they doubtless will be; but who shall say in the 'land of the undying' that the work of ministering love shall not continue? What man is that, that in an hour like this can look upon his brother, prostrate in spirit, racked with remorse, no matter how vile and polluted, and can say anguish like this shall be that soul's undying portion in the long hereafter; that God's justice requires infinite punishment for a finite crime; that, when freed from its earthly body, the ears of the All-Compassionate shut out that soul's despairing cry for pardon? Who shall limit infinite mercy? Who shall set bounds to Divine compassion, or think that, toiling painfully and slowly up the endless heights of progression, there shall not be a time away onward in the solemn future, hidden in the dim mists of ages yet to come, when that soul shall be cleansed from its pollution, freed from its mourning, sin entirely cast out, and God shall be all and in all?

The light breeze, as it sways the loose heavy tresses, wafts to her ear a strain of distant music. All the drowsy afternoon it has been playing, lost almost entirely at first in the busy hum of the streets and in the long lull of the lazy wind—a strain only caught at rare intervals when the breeze is strong enough to bear it to her. It has been slowly approaching as the hours creep on, advancing a few steps at a time. Ballads and simple ditties, dances, waltzes, grand old marches! with that unaccountable attraction for trifles which the mind often experiences in its hours of suffering, mechanically, one after another, she has traced them all. Now the varied tones cease to pervade the atmosphere, and there is a long resting pause. When the music begins again, it is on the pavement, almost beneath the window, and the old musician, perhaps unconsciously wrought upon by the silent influence of the hour, has merged from the gay to the pathetic, and plays only sad little pieces in the minor key. Presently from the multitude of sweet sounds there arises on the air a song lower and sadder than the others—a strange, pathetic melody, falling on the ear like a low, plaintive wail, broken by keen throbs of agony: her whole nature beats in responsive echo. O God! gone so far down the dreary road which has darkly led her from that time of purity and peace when that song was nightly sung to her; after so many weary years of sin and suffering, to hear those notes again! It is but a simple thing which has the power so to move her, a mere nothing; half dirge, half hymn, familiar to her long-forgotten childhood, once sung by her mother as a cradle song! With her wretched face buried in her hands, she hears it, and clearly the past rises before her: her childhood in its innocence; her girlhood in its purity; her womanhood, her motherhood in its degradation! All the holier part of what was once herself; all that was true and noble, womanly and pure, from the deep waters of oblivion to which that damning appetite has consigned them, rise to haunt her now, pale, wan, and spectre-like. Oh! to sit down, side by side with her former self; to see herself as she used to be before the tempter crept into the Eden of her heart; to look despairingly up to the height whence she had fallen, so wrecked in moral strength that she had not the power to retrace a single step! Peace departed, virtue lost, health undermined, affection squandered, ruthlessly murdering the peace of one whose life through all the time of its sad earth-sojourning is linked with hers; cursing the home she should have blessed and brightened, making of that fair garden, wherein sweet domestic graces should have bloomed and blossomed as the rose, but a desolate and barren waste, knowing that hearts, little hearts, that had drawn their life-beat from her own, had starved and sickened for the love which is their rightful food;—with senses bleared and deadened, she had heard them piteously wailing but for a morsel of that bread of life without which even the footsteps of the self-reliant, the strong and brave of heart, faint and falter by the way, and she had cruelly denied them that precious nutriment; she had given them life, but had robbed them of all that makes life endurable. Life's duties unfulfilled, life's high and holy aims trampled under the foot of sensual indulgence, living to blight instead of to bless! O woman, wife, and mother, thy life when lived aright a crucifixion of the flesh, a sublime self-sacrifice—not for thee the pleasures of sense and time, not for thee may peal earth's songs of triumph! Fainting oft beneath the burden of the cross, we trace thy way by bloody footprints, suffering as a saint;—falling from thy estate, how terrible will be thy retribution as a sinner!

Hark! There is the patter of little feet ascending the staircase, coming down the long upper hall. To the repentant mother's ears what music so sweet as that? She listens breathlessly. Was it thought of her that had impelled them thither? Would they approach her room? Since she had grown more and more repulsive day by day, since those fits of drunken passion had become a thing of fearful frequency, and those little ones had suffered from their violence, and learned to fear her, they had come but seldom—never alone; but they are approaching now, shyly, hesitatingly, as if afraid to come, but still approaching—pausing at the very threshold. The burning tears force their way through the clenched fingers—the sound of the little feet has given her power to pray. Though angels fail in the work of redemption, there may yet be power in the little hands to hold her back. She does not rise to open the door, but sits choking down her sobs, and listening to the turning, twisting, shaking of the door knob, to a dozen failures in unskilful attempts to enter, every movement of the little hand sending a strange thrill of mingled pain and pleasure through the overburdened heart.

It opens at last, and Harry stands upon the threshold, looking timidly in. Ah! no maudlin sorrow, no senseless, idiotic mirth, no disgusting stupor disfigures the face on which he gazes. Its depth of hopeless, despairing tenderness, so eloquently accompanied by the pathetic movement of the outstretched hands, almost frightens him by its intensity; but, in obedience to the motion, he comes forward, half-fearfully proffering the flower he holds in his hand.

'A flower sent to her by a lady who was so kind,' he tremblingly explains, 'one that he loves so dearly!'

It is the lily, the emblem of purity. She takes it from him, lays it on the table behind her, out of sight, a sullen glow of resentment at the gift mingling with the sorrow of her face as she does so. What mother had fathomed her shameful secret, and dared to send her child to her with a gift like that? Some one that is fast gaining the place she should have occupied in his heart! One that is fast winning away from her the love she so much needs to aid her in the desired reformation. She notes how the little face softens and brightens when he speaks of her, and a sharp pang of jealousy shoots through her heart. The fact that she has never sought to win that heart to herself by kindness, that she has forfeited her child's respect, and never deserved its love, only increases her resentment and adds poignancy to the pang. She feels the slight form start and shiver with a strange, fearful repulsion as she places it on her lap. Would the strong natural affection nature had implanted there, so cruelly crushed out, now nearly if not quite dead, arise anew to life, and grow stronger than this repulsion? That is the question to be answered now. Ah! if there were but a spark remaining, were it only a poor, feeble, smouldering flame, it would have the power, she felt, to light her to higher and better things. With a thrill of pure maternal love, a stranger to her heart, whose holiest impulses, deadened by reckless indulgence, have degenerated into instincts, she folds the little form closer to her, in spite of its shuddering, and, looking into the upturned face (O mother, miserably blind), reads understandingly for the first time the hunger of heart so legibly written on every speaking feature. With the sharp arrow of conviction that pierces her soul at the sight, comes a voice appealing to its inmost recesses, a voice speaking those words spoken by the great heart of Divine Compassion, eighteen hundred years ago; those words of tenderest pleading: 'Feed my lambs!' How had she fed those committed to her charge? The wan, thin, sorrowful face, the little heart finding no joy in life, grown weary before its time, best answer that question. Aided by her aroused spiritual perceptions, she reads now all too truthfully the sad, sad record of the heart-breaking loneliness of the life she has made desolate; and, pressing the wronged heart close against her own, the keen remorse of her soul bursts forth in a low moan of irrepressible anguish:

'Oh, my child! my little, little, little child!'

Studying the face bent over him as children learn to study the faces of those whom they have reason to fear, whose kindness is at best capricious, and finding nothing but sorrow and tenderness in it, he began to fear it less: thankful even for a brief season of kindness, the solitary child laid the pale cheek close against his mother's, and twined the thin arms about her neck. It was a strange and blissful sensation for that mother to feel them clinging there. In her softened mood it made the tears fall hot and fast, to think how strange it was.

'What made Harry think of coming to see ma to-day?' she said at last, brushing them hurriedly away.

'A lady gave me that flower, mamma, and told me to bring it to you.'

A pause and a closer pressure—then she questioned nervously:

'What lady is it, Harry? Where does she live? How came you to know her, darling?'

Harry hesitated. He noticed the dark shadow that swept across her face at every reference to his new-found friend, and, with a child's intuitive perception, he saw the subject gave her pain. Striving with ready tact to draw her attention from it to himself, he went back to the beginning, to give her a sort of history of how he came to form the acquaintance.

'Mamma,' he said timidly, twining his arms still closer around her neck, and speaking in a slow, hesitating way, as if he feared that this would give her pain also, 'our house, you know, is a very lonesome place. Oh, so very lonesome!—just like a day when the sun won't shine, and the rain comes dark and slow. Well, ma, it was always bad enough, but when Charley went away to school, and you stayed up here more than ever, and Betty got crosser than ever, you can't think how lonesome it was! Pa used to bring me playthings at first, but I felt so bad I couldn't play with them. I felt all the time as if I wanted something, and,' glancing piteously up into his mother's face, and laying his little hand upon his heart, 'as if I was so hungry here. Well, I used to climb up at the window and watch the people going by, and wonder and wonder what the matter was.' He waited as if half expecting an answer; but a stifled sob was the only reply. 'Looking out the window and seeing other people, I found out after a while that we were different from everybody else. Other mothers who had little boys like me, always took their little boys with them when they went to walk. All the sunshiny days they went walking up and down—walking up and down; and the mothers were not cross like Betty, and the little boys were not lonesome like me, but had such red, chubby cheeks, and looked happy 'most all the time. The first day I found this out, when Betty took me away from the window, and stood me up before the glass to comb my hair, and I looked in and saw what a face I had, I cried and cried. Then the mothers would smile and look pleased whenever their little boys spoke to them, and seemed to love them so much, that I wanted them to love me too; and I used to throw little things out of the window sometimes, so that they would look up and smile at me.'

Ah! the young, tender heart, living, as yet, only by the affections, that required such a wealth of love to fill it! The little outcast heart depending on casual passers by for a stray word or look of comfort, striving to feed itself on such poor, miserable crumbs as these! It made the mother's face grow white with anguish to think of that.

'Well, about just such a time every morning, when Charley had gone to school, and I sat by the window as lonesome as lonesome could be, on the sidewalk under the window there always came a lady who was kinder to me than the other ladies, who always looked up and smiled. Such a beautiful lady, ma, with a face as kind as pa's, and a great deal more smiling; you'd love her if you saw her; I know you would—you couldn't help it. And ma,' and here Harry's enthusiasm died out, and his voice took a sadder tone, 'she's got a little boy, just about as big as I am, and she always takes him with her when she goes out, just like the other ladies. And—and ma'—the low voice had a frightened tone in it, as if the little one feared he was venturing too far.

'Yes, Harry.'

'I thought—that—that—'

'What, darling?'

'That if you would go out to walk yourself sometimes, and take us with you, Charley and me, that we shouldn't be so different from everybody else, and it wouldn't be quite so lonesome here.'

A long pause followed—a frightened pause on Harry's part. Venturing, after a little while, to look into his mother's face, its sadness, unmixed with anger reassured him, and he proceeded:

'That was the lady who sent you the flower. She lives in a little white house just across the road. One day, when Betty took me out for a walk, I ran away and went there; and I have been there a good many times since. It's a little house, ma, a very little house. There are no bright pictures or beautiful carpets in it; but they are never lonesome there. She is as kind to her little boy every day as you are to me now. It's a long time, ma, since you kissed me and held me on your lap, and acted as if you loved me! Oh, mamma!' He laid the pale cheek, wet with grateful tears, close against her own. 'Why a'n't you good to me always? I love you now, but I don't love you always; I can't love you always, ma. That day when you frightened me so, when you pulled my hair, threw me down on the floor, and whipped me till the blood ran, I didn't like you for a long time then, you hurt me so.'

The grief of the wretched mother burst forth anew in sobs and tears.

'Oh, Harry! oh, my poor, poor child! Did ma do that?'

'Don't cry, ma, oh, don't cry; I don't think you meant to do it. There is something that changes you, that makes you cross and strange. And ma'—the timid voice sank away to a low, frightened whisper, broken and tremulous with tears.

'Yes, dearest.'

'You won't be angry, dear mamma?'

'No, love, no.'

He hid his face on her shoulder, sobbing:

'It's something that you drink. They never have it there, in that little house,' pursued Harry in a voice choked with rushing tears. 'They never have it anywhere where they are happy. Oh, mamma! If you'd only send it away, if you'd throw it away, if you would put it out of sight; oh, my dear, dear mamma, if you would never look at it, never taste it, never, never drink it any more!' In the energy of his supplication he twined the little arms still closer and closer about her neck—his tears fell like rain upon her bosom. That baby face, eloquent with entreaty and wet with tears! She could not bear to see it. Crimson with shame, she hid her own in her outstretched hands. 'She never drinks it. I've watched her; she drinks coffee sometimes, water sometimes, tea 'most always. Ma, if you must drink something, why wouldn't tea do just as well?'

She folded her arms about the little form, and clasped it to her bosom. Her face was lighted with a high resolve, the heart against which her child's was pressed was throbbing with a lofty impulse.

'It would, my darling, it would; with God's help, it shall. Here in His holy presence, I solemnly promise, if there is any strength in good resolutions, if there is any power of good left within me, if God will not utterly forsake one who has so long forsaken her better nature, never, never, from this time, henceforth and forever, to touch, taste, or look upon the accursed thing.'

That night, at the foot of the tall poplar, the flickering sunlight falling through the leaves on his head, making the brown hair golden where it fell, Harry sat watching the coming of his brother. He had not long to wait; in a little while the red, slanting rays fell on that other head of darker brown. The well-known form appeared at the gateway, and Harry went bounding down the gravel walk to meet him.

'Ma wants to see you,' panted the little brother. 'She wanted you to come up to her room as soon as ever you got home. She sent me to tell you so.'

The message was such an unusual one, he was so flushed and excited, so proud to give it, and the look of joy shining in the pale face was such a stranger to it, that the great brown eyes of the elder brother opened wide in silent wonder, and the excited Harry had caught him by both hands, and was dragging him by main force toward the house before he had recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to speak.

'I don't want to go,' cried the unwilling Charley, ruefully drawing back. 'I don't want to go, Harry. Why does she want to see me? What makes her want to see me? I a'n't done nothing to be whipped for!'

'Oh! it isn't that,' returned the little fellow eagerly. 'We a'n't going to be whipped any more, unless we're real naughty, and then not very hard; and ma is going to send Betty away, and we a'n't going to be scolded any more; and she's going to take us to walk and ride with her sometimes, as the other mothers do. Why,' cried the eager child, all glowing at the delightful prospect, 'Why, Charley, we're going to be happy now.'

'Oh, I don't believe we are,' sadly sighed the more experienced Charley, scratching his curls disconsolately, and looking at his brother in a maze of perplexity and doubt. 'I've thought we were going to be happy a great many times, but we a'n't been never, and I don't believe we ever will be. The first thing I remember was being lonesome, and I've been as lonesome as could be ever since. No, no; we shall never be happy. Ta'n't no use thinking about being happy,' and the forlorn child threw himself upon the grass in a hopeless and dejected manner. 'But they do say, Harry,' he continued, looking up through the leaves at the blue vault above him, 'that there's a place up yonder somewhere where good people go when they die, and where everybody is happy. I've thought, since I heard about it, that perhaps some people went there without dying. If they do, Harry, and I can only find out the way, I'd leave this mean old place, and go there straight, this very minute. I'd like to have you and pa come, Harry; but ma is always scolding or whipping us for something. I don't like ma, and I don't care whether she ever gets there or not. Come to think of it,' pursued Charley, as a new thought seemed to strike him, 'I had a good deal rather she wouldn't come; for if she did find out the way, and come up there after a while, like as any way she'd bring a switch with her.'

'You shouldn't talk so about ma, Charley,' said his meek-eyed brother. 'She isn't cross always. She has been kind to me to-day, so kind,' said the little fellow, stemming with his fingers two great round drops that were slowly running down his cheeks, 'that it makes the tears come to think about it. I was with her a great long while, and she didn't scold or speak cross once. Why, only think, Charley,' he proceeded, opening his eyes, as if the fact about to be communicated could never be sufficiently wondered at, 'we were all alone together for ever so long, and she might have got angry and whipped me just as well as not, and pa would never know anything about it.'

'It's a wonder she didn't,' scornfully returned his brother; 'it would have been such a nice chance. She don't get such a chance as that every day. There wouldn't have been any fun in it if she had, though; for I tell you what it is,' he continued, looking about on his hands for sundry marks and dents left thereon by the nails of his mother, 'I tell you what it is, Harry, when she gets hold of a feller, she digs right in. She pounds us more than half the time for just nothing at all, only because she gets mad and likes to do it. To be sure, I get mad myself sometimes, and say ugly words, and ought to be whipped; but you, you never do anything to be whipped for, and she,' proceeded the indignant little fellow, with an emphasis of immeasurable scorn on that personal pronoun, 'she to go to work and pound a little, pale fellow like you! Why, she ought to be ashamed of herself. I get so mad sometimes when she gets to whipping us, and pa comes to take us away, that I think if he would pound her just as hard as she pounds us, and just long enough to let us see how good it feels, I wouldn't care a bit—I'd just like it: but he don't never; he only trembles all over and gets very white, sets her down in a chair, and takes us out of the room—buys us playthings, or tells us stories to stop our crying, and that's the end of it until next time.'

Poor Harry! the color had faded from his face, the light from his eyes. That deep shadow of inexpressible mournfulness had again crept into them. Memory of such scenes, as are never garnered up in the breasts of happy childhood, shadowed his face and heart. His short-lived happiness was over. He made no reply to his brother, but sat motionless, gazing at the sky with a searching, yearning, far-off gaze. Looking at the two young faces turned upward, it would have been hard to say which was the saddest. Young as they were, traces of the working of the curse which had blighted their lives, were plainly visible in both. Both were equally pale and thoughtful, both robbed of the brightness and gayety belonging to their years, only varying in expression as they varied in temperament. The look of meek and patient endurance on the face of the younger spoke of a nature that wrong and suffering might crush, but could never rouse to anger or resentment—of a heart that would break, if must be, but would patiently lie down and die. The scornful defiance flashing ever and anon in the face of the elder brother, the immeasurable bitterness mingling with its sadness, showed a proud and fiery temperament that could be goaded to desperation.

'But she shall never strike me many times more,' continued Charley, with suppressed indignation. After a pause, during which, with compressed lip and clouded brow, he had been resentfully dwelling upon the pain and humiliation consequent upon the blows he had received: 'Never! never! for I don't care if it is wrong, if pa does tell me not to do it, I don't care if she is my mother; after I get just a little bigger, when she strikes me, I'm going to strike back again.'

These vengeful threats exciting no answering comments from his brother, Charley turned to look at him. A strange prophetic chill swept across the intuitional soul, and filled it with vague, shuddering apprehension.

'Harry, don't look that way; Harry, come back to yourself! Oh, Harry! take your eyes from the sky and look at me. You frighten me so!' cried Charley, in a voice tremulous with agitation.

The consciousness of his surroundings had dawned so slowly on the rapt soul, the patient face had turned toward his brother's so calmly, he was so meek and quiet, so undemonstrative usually, that he was totally unprepared for the wild burst of passionate weeping with which Harry threw himself upon his neck.

'Oh! Charley, Charley, I cannot find it, I cannot see the land you talk of. I know it must be there, where the sky is clear and the sun is shining; but I've been looking, and I can't see it anywhere. Oh! Charley, where is it? Where is the place up yonder where they are good and happy? Show me the way there, show me the way. I don't want to stay here,' sobbed Harry, coming back to his own hopeless self again; 'I want to go somewhere where folks don't have to be lonesome all the time; I don't know what dying is, but if dying will do it, I want dying to take me there.'

He had drawn his brother toward him, wiped his tears away with his own little apron, and soothed him as well as his agitation would permit, striving, amid the tumult of his thoughts, to gather up such meagre scraps of information as he had gleaned upon the subject, and put it into intelligible words, when, from a window almost hidden by the leaves of the tree under which they were sitting, they heard a voice calling to them, a familiar voice, but with a new tone in it, which quickens their pulse-beat, and makes their hearts throb with a sweet joy. Dimly visible through the foliage, a familiar face is looking down upon them, loving and tender as any mother's face should be; and with that look, the strong instinctive love for her which nature had implanted in their hearts awoke in all its strength. Pride, anger, sorrow, were all alike forgotten. To her loving call there came from eager lips the ready response:

'Yes, mamma; we are coming, dear mamma.'

Those who are blessed with golden memories of a happy childhood, perchance but lightly prize Heaven's brightest, choicest gift. Those who have never felt the hungering and thirsting of a heart deprived of sympathy and kindness, the desolate pining of that state more sorrowful than orphanage, can but feebly, faintly guess how tender tones and soft caresses, loving words and looks, such common blessings as awaken in the happy thought of gratitude, were treasured up in these lonely hearts as gifts of priceless value, or measure the deep thankfulness which thrilled them as they knelt side by side at their mother's knee, and said their prayers in the deepening twilight that summer night.

They had a table spread before the open window, and had their supper in their mother's room, and, as the light sank into darkness, with an arm thrown around each little form caressingly, and a brown head resting on each shoulder, they sat beside her on the sofa, and listened as she told them, in language suited to their childish comprehension, of the coming joys in store for them, of what a happy home their future home should be, now that she had resolutely parted from the curse that had destroyed their peace, and forever turned her back against it;—listened as she drew glowing pictures of the walks and rides they would take, of the varied pleasures they would enjoy together, pleasures it should be her pleasing task to plan. They had nothing to damp their enjoyment, for she had dismissed Betty, and with her own hands undressed and bathed them, and robed them for the night; and they enjoyed it all, not with the keen zest, the careless hilarity of childhood, but with the subdued and thoughtful gravity seen in beings of maturer years, to whose lot has fallen more of the sorrows than the joys of life, and who receive happiness, when at rare intervals it comes to them, with a tremulous thankfulness, as if fearful of entertaining so strange a guest; and when at last it ended, as all happy seasons must, and both tired heads rested on one pillow, Harry whispered to his brother:

'There is nothing to be sorry for now, Charley. She will never drink that dark stuff any more—I know she never will; she will never forget the promise she has made.'

Then the drowsy eyes, ere they closed, sought the dim night sky for that star, the brightest in the blue above him, which had revealed itself through his tears, when alone in the darkness he had first learned to pray, and, gazing on it, and on the sky beyond, where a happier home than any earthly one is proffered, murmured to himself, with a peaceful smile:

'Oh! we shall be so happy, so very, very, very happy!'

PART THIRD.

She promised. Oh, frail and sandy foundation, on which to build bright hopes of earthly happiness! Only for four brief weeks, one happy month, that solemn promise was faithfully remembered. Of the effort that even this short period of abstinence had cost her, of the burning thirst which tortured her by day and night, the fierce desire that battled with and almost overcame her feeble resolution when the enthusiasm that had at first upheld her died away, of the suffering of those weary weeks of conflict, only those can tell who, heroes every one, like her, have battled with this fierce spiritual Apollyon, and who, unlike her, have overcome. Hour by hour the maddening desire of gratification wasted little by little her moral strength. The thirst grew stronger, the will weaker.

The thought of the home she had brightened by her self-denial, the heart she had gladdened, the little ones who had drawn their life from hers, whose trust in her was growing stronger day by day, as evening came and showed the valued promise still remembered, and morning dawned and found her faithful, held her back at first; but gradually this also lost its power. Then that torturing, burning, maddening thirst swept over the doomed soul like a fierce simoom, drying up the fountains of maternal tenderness, bearing away all sense of duty, all tenderness and sympathy, the blessed hope of heaven itself, in its desolating track. One wretched day, when this thirst was so strong upon her that her priceless soul grew worthless in her eyes, and she would smilingly have bartered it but for a single draught; one well-remembered, miserable day, when the little faces were raised to hers, and found upon it no trace of motherly affection, only that dark foreboding look, and grew pale with fright when desire had reached that relentless climax which leaves the victim no choice but of madness or gratification, she had fiercely summoned her usual messenger, sent for her usual drink, and sat grimly waiting for it. In vain that trusty messenger, to whose care the wretched father had confided that pitiful remnant of family honor, the shame of public exposure, boldly setting fear of her aside, earnestly besought her to wrestle with the demon yet a little longer, were it but a single day; and implored her with tears to remember the little ones on whom this blow would fall so heavily. There was no tone of motherly affection within that raging breast to respond to that appeal. With parched, cracked lips, and burning eyes and bloated face fierce with desire, she had driven her from her presence. Fear lest the lack of this great need would drive her to distraction quite, and some worse evil yet befall them, she had gone her way, weeping as she went. She came back presently. There was enough of that terrible poison in the bottle she brought to make her mistress drunk a score of times. She may get drunk now, dead drunk; in a little while she may lie upon the floor a senseless, idiotic, disgusting creature. She almost prays it may be so, as she hands her the glass which she angrily calls for, for there is yet a greater evil to be dreaded. The liquor so long untasted, acting upon her naturally high temper, may arouse within her a wild tempest of passion; in her frenzy she may fall upon those little ones, beat, bruise, maim, murder them perhaps. It is not the first time their lives have been endangered by her violence. To get them from the room without exciting her opposition, so quietly and naturally that it shall hardly attract her observation, is her first care; hence, under pretence of arranging the window curtain, she says to Charley, who is standing near it:

'Charley, say you want some cakes—a drink of water—anything that's down stairs, and follow me out of this room.'

'I can't go, Maggie,' returned the child, in the same cautious whisper, glancing toward his mother with his large dark eyes wildly dilated, and his small face bleached with fright. 'Harry won't go, and I can't leave Harry.'

'Harry shall go,' energetically repeated the resolute Maggie, putting her head out of the window to say her say. 'He is not going to stay here to be mauled! Harry,' she continued, in the most insinuating tone imaginable, 'come down stairs with Maggie. There's a darling.'

He was leaning out of the window, apparently looking at something in the street below, and did not move as she addressed him.

'Harry, Harry,' she called again, in an excited whisper, 'do you hear me? quick, child, quick!'

He turned toward her his face covered with tears.

'Don't cry, for heaven's sake, child; don't cry here,' returned Maggie, with a suppressed groan, 'or that mother of yours will pounce upon you in spite of me.'

At the mention of that word, what little self-possession he retained gave way, and he sobbed outright. It was a sob so passionate and long suppressed, and it burst forth in spite of him with such vehemence, that it shook the little form from head to foot, and sounded through the still room so miserably hopeless, so heart-broken, that it even aroused the stupefied being nodding in her chair, whom he had the misery to call by the name of mother. It awakened within her some vague thought of motherly sympathy; and, stupidly striving to comprehend what it meant, and idly muttering to her miserable self, she poured out a third glass, held it in her hand as well as she was able, and came tottering forward, swaying to and fro in maudlin efforts to keep her feet. She took up her position directly behind Harry, and looked vacantly out. She was trying to ask what was the matter, with a tongue whose palsied utterance made language incomprehensible, when Harry's friend, whom he had been watching, and whose figure he had, with love's delicate discrimination, picked out from a score of similar figures, and known to be hers, when it was but a mere speck in the distance, passed directly under the open window, and, startled by that sob and by that drunken voice in answer, looked wonderingly up. Oh, heavens! she read that fearful secret in one blank, horrified glance. She read it in the despairing hopelessness of the little face turned toward hers—that look so terrible in a face so young. She read it still more clearly in that fiery, bloated, senseless visage looking down upon her with a dull stare, in the swaying form feebly holding the tell-tale glass. She knew now why that delicate child, nursed in the lap of affluence, having all that wealth could purchase, had come so timidly to her lowly dwelling, and earnestly besought her for a single kiss; what had made the little face sorrowful and wan, and set that seal of suffering upon it. She saw it all, and, under the sudden weight of that astounding revelation, she literally staggered as under the weight of a blow. Looking down through his tear-dimmed eyes at the face he loved so well, Harry saw upon it no look of sympathy or recognition for him—only that blank, amazed, horror-stricken look at that something behind him, a look which embraced every item of the shameful scene, and showed all too clearly how plainly it did so. Then, without a word or glance of kindness, she gathered her veil closely about her pallid visage, and quickly hurried away. Alas for Harry! he feels that the truth has turned her heart from his, and she has gone forever. The anguish of that thought was too great for suppression, and he stretched forth his hands toward the retreating figure with a forlorn wail of supplication. That look of horror, that low, plaintive, heart-broken cry, like a child forsaken of its mother, had sobered her a little. She had been a proud woman once, and a remnant of the nobler pride which had once uplifted her was still left within her soul. To have eyes from which shone forth the pure, unsullied spirit of womanhood, discover her secret, and look upon her in her shame; to behold in a rival, whom unseen she hated, womanhood enthroned in excellence; to see its image in herself fallen and defaced, sunken in degradation; to know that a few kind and well-bestowed caresses had won her child's love from her, that on that strange maternal bosom the little head rested more tranquilly and peacefully than on her own; to owe her a double grudge as discoverer and supplanter—this aroused the smouldering and now perverted pride yet alive within her bosom, and fanned it to a flame. She clinched her hands convulsively, her teeth shut together with a dull, grating sound, the unsteady form swayed to and fro, like a lithe tree shaken in the wind of a coming tempest, and the bloated face, dark with wrath, was terrible to look upon. It was a fearful thing to be alone with that half-drunken creature, and see wave after wave of passion rolling over her tempest-tossed soul, lashing it into fury. Maggie felt it to be so now. As a trusty confidant and able protector, one who, by some strange means, had gained an ascendency over her mistress that no other possessed, and wisely exercised this controlling power, she had been with these poor children through many similar scenes, sheltering them under the broad wing of her protection, but she had never beheld the gathering of so dark a storm, never felt the vague, shuddering dread, the chill apprehension which seized on her now. One glance at that terrible being showed her power lost, her protection insufficient, impotent. To stay with them and endeavor to breast the coming storm would be madness—to try to get the children from the room now would be both impolitic and dangerous; at the least demonstration of the kind that storm would be sure to burst upon them in all its resistless fury, and before its raging power she felt her strength would be utter weakness. She must fly for aid. Perhaps even now some invisible being, conscious of their danger, might be impelling their father to the rescue.

'Harry,' said Maggie, turning very pale, as she glanced at the dreadful figure rocking to and fro in fearful communing with itself, and bending down to whisper a parting injunction as she tied on her bonnet, 'don't speak to her, don't look toward her. Don't cross her in any way. She's the devil's own, now.'

A word, a look, a gesture of entreaty to Charley, placing in dumb show his brother in his charge, and she passed from the room hastily and noiselessly, but not unperceived. As she vanished, an evil smile of triumph at thus being so easily rid of an able antagonist, flashed across the terrible face, giving it almost the look of a demon. In passing out, Maggie has left the door ajar, which perceiving, the wretched woman totters across the room, shuts the door, locks it, throws the key upon the floor, and, tottering back to her seat, again takes a long, deep draught from the glass upon the table. Fixing her fiery eyes full on Harry, she calls out imperiously:

'Come here, sir!'

The tone in which the command is given is cruel, stern, and cold, unsoftened by maternal tenderness, untouched by womanly gentleness, and the bloated face has the same evil look upon it. Harry shrinks back affrighted.

'Are you deaf, you adder? Come here, I say, come here.'

There is a fierceness in the tone now which shows a longer delay will be dangerous; and so Charley, pale and trembling, comes forth from the corner in which he has been crouching, and, taking his smaller brother by the hand, they come forward together.

'What made you bawl after that woman—that woman in the street?' she says, viciously grasping the little shoulder, and giving it a shake. 'Answer me this minute. Speak, sir, speak!'

'I—I can't help loving her, ma,' falters the poor child deprecatingly, while the blue eyes fill, and the tears fall slowly down his face.

'There, none of your snivelling,' she cries fiercely, giving him another shake. 'Come up here; come closer. Here! Stand back, you,' pushing Charley from her with a force that makes him stagger. 'Now then,' she furiously demands, 'did you ever cry after me when I went away and left you?'

He is so faint with fright that he can hardly find his voice to answer, and the words are almost inarticulate as he falters forth:

'Sometimes, ma; sometimes, when you are kind to me.'

'You never did; you know you never did, you little liar,' shrieks the crazed creature, savagely dealing him a heavy blow which sends him reeling from her.

'Oh, ma! Oh, ma!' gasps the poor child, crouching down in the extremity of terror as the terrible figure comes flying toward him. 'Don't kill me, oh, don't kill me; I'm such a little boy!'

She pounces upon him like a tigress, lifting the fragile form high in the air, and dashing it down to the floor again with all her cruel force. She shakes, she bites him, she rains blows upon the poor, defenceless child, leaving prints of her vicious fingers all over the poor little body wherever she touches the tender skin, marks of her cruel nails on the delicate arms and hands, long, deep scratches from which the blood exudes slowly. One last cruel blow hushes the suppressed cries of pain and terror, the low moans for mercy, and lays the bruised and quivering form senseless at her feet. Then the mad creature, crazed with drink and passion, goes careering up and down the room, snatching from table and bureau the costly trinkets with which they are adorned, and wildly trampling them beneath her feet as she hurries to and fro. She is so terrible to look upon, with that scarlet, bloated face, distorted by passion, and the long, thick hair unbound hanging wildly about it, and that baleful light in her bloodshot eyes, so terrible in the frenzied excitement of look and motion, that Charley, who has crept to the side of his prostrate brother, and is tenderly holding the unconscious head, has no power to cry or move, but sits half frozen with horror, with his great brown eyes wildly dilated, fixed in a species of fascination upon the strange motions of that dreadful figure, and merely in obedience to the instinct of self-preservation endeavors to shield himself and his insensible charge from the heavy blows aimed at them as she comes flying past. A few brief moments pass in this way, moments which to that poor child, alone with that wild being, seem dreadful hours of torturing length. Then the blessed sounds of coming relief fall on his ear, footsteps are approaching, a man's firm, hurried tread and woman's lighter but no less rapid step are heard through the hall below, up the staircase—on, on they come, crossing the long upper hall, pausing at the threshold. Then they try the door; swift, crushing blows are rained upon it, the door is burst open, and they come rushing distractedly in.

'Oh, pa! pa!' The tongue is loosed whose utterance fear has palsied, and Charley stretches forth his hands to the strong arm of his earthly saviour. One hasty glance around the room strewn with fragments of costly toys, one look at the maniacal form in the centre with wildly dishevelled hair, and leering, vacant face, then the anguished eyes fall on that for which they are searching, see the outstretched arms of the little figure cowering in a corner half hid by the window curtain, see that other figure lying at its feet, so livid and motionless, so breathless, with the deathly face upturned, and the long brown lashes, still wet with tears, resting on the marble cheeks.

'O God! too late! too late!' The strong agony of that father's heart bursts forth from his bleached lips in that wild, irrepressible cry. He seizes the tottering form. He shakes it fiercely: 'Woman! fiend! blot on the name of mother! you have killed my boy!'

That momentary burst of passion past, he leaves the hapless creature to her witless mumbling, and, with great waves of anguish rolling over his soul, the broken-hearted father kneels beside his boy.

'Not dead! oh, thank God! not dead.'

There is a slight throbbing motion of the heart, a faint, scarcely perceptible pulsation at the wrist. They raise the senseless form from off the floor. Up to his room they bear him; softly on his little bed they lay him—that little bed from which he is never more to rise. Gentle footsteps glide noiselessly about the room, loving eyes are bent above him, and tears fall upon the upturned face. Long days go and come, fragrant sunny days, bright with the bloom of summer, each day one less of earth, one nearer heaven. The loving watchers know it, and ever and anon there are sounds of smothered weeping there. But there are no answering tears from eyes soon to look on immortal things, for on the passing soul dawns a vision of a home beyond the shadow and the blight, where, in meadows fragrant with immortal flowers, the Great Shepherd feedeth His sheep, and, as He tenderly leads them beside the still waters, gathers the lambs to His bosom. In that clime glows the glory of unfading light, the bloom of undying beauty. Henceforth the beauty and the light of this transitory sphere seem wan and cold, and the fading things of earth grow worthless in the dying eyes, and the tranced soul longs to be gone, yet bides its time with patient sweetness. Patient amid all his pain, no groan escapes the parched lips, no complaining murmur. Bearing all his sufferings with meek endurance, quiet and very thoughtful he lies upon his little bed, smiling placidly upon those about him—grateful, very grateful for their love and care; watching with musing eyes the long hours through the changes of the day on the sky as seen from his window—gray dawn melting into morning, morning into mellow day, day, with its varied changes, sinking into night. The heaven beyond on which he muses as he gazes, the home for which he longs, baptizes him with its light beforetime. On the sinless brow the seal of a perfect peace is set, and the air about the child grows holy. A hush falls on the room mysterious and solemn, and they know that white-robed immortals are treading earthly courts, mingling in earthly company; for he murmurs in his dreams of radiant faces that bend above him; and the wan face, as they watch it in its slumbers, grows bright with the look of heaven. A few more hours of earth, a little longer tarrying of the immortal with the mortal part where it has lived and loved, suffered and rejoiced; a few more moans of pain, and the blue eyes open and look upon the day whose silent light will dawn upon us all. They had not thought the end so near at hand; and, worn out with grief and watching, the father and his faithful nurses had one by one retired to rest, leaving Charley, at his earnest solicitation, to sit beside the bed and watch his brother's fitful slumbers. Since that fatal day, a dread and horror of his mother had seized upon the child. Though surrounded by those he loved, her near approach would cause strong nervous chills, and her kiss or touch would throw him into frightful spasms, from which they could with difficulty recover him; hence, by the doctor's orders, she was forbidden the room, and it was only when utter exhaustion had steeped his refined spiritual sense into perfect oblivion of surrounding objects, that she was permitted to enter there and gaze for a little on the wan features of her sleeping child. That day, knowing his time on earth was short, and possessed by a restless and uncontrollable desire to be near him, even though she could not look upon his face, into the room of her dying boy she had stolen like a culprit, and noiselessly shrank into the farthest corner of the room, screened from his observation by the heavy window-curtain and the high head-board of the bed. They had discovered her there after a time, but she, in terms which would have moved the coldest heart to pity, implored them with tears to allow her to remain; and they, seeing that the demon had departed from her for a season, and compassionating the forlorn being, had gone away and left her there. She sits motionless in the silent room, her despairing eyes fixed on the serene heaven to which her darling will soon be gone, and from which the stern justice of an accusing conscience tells her she may be forever excluded.

And oh! if this be truth, if in the world beyond there is no hope for sinful souls that have gone astray in this, and this parting is eternal, then, oh then, through the long, dark ages of suffering which may be her future portion, never to look upon her darling more, never more to kiss the sweet lips that have called her mother, never more to look upon him here till the silken lashes droop toward the marble cheek and the half-veiled eyes have lost their lustre, and they lead her in for a last look ere the little face is shut out from mortal gaze forever!—oh! the unutterable anguish of that thought, and the remorse which mingles with it! Not for that last dreadful act, for she never knew that she had killed him. No clear remembrance of that day lives within to curse her memory, but she knows that a strange and unaccountable dread of her has seized upon the child, that she is banished from his dying presence; and an undefined and vague remembrance, a misty horror, has fallen on her life, rests on her like an incubus, pursues her in a thousand phantom shapes through the long, dark watches of the terror-laden night, and through burdened days of ceaseless suffering. She knows, for they have told her, that when his consciousness returned, his first cry had been for the mother of his heart; that she had left everything and come to him; that she had taken her place beside his bed, a dearer place than she had ever occupied in his heart; that no hands like those chill, magnetic ones could soothe him in his pain, or charm him to his fitful slumbers; that on no bosom could the throbbing head rest so tranquilly as on her own. What the mother's heart suffered in that knowledge when her better nature prevailed, only the Being knows Who framed it. The hours of the long day wore heavily on. The sun, that had paused awhile in mid-heaven, was now sinking slowly toward the west. Yet, unmindful of food or rest, seated in the same corner into which she had shrunk on entering the room, ever and anon rocking herself to and fro, or wringing her hands in silent agony, there sits the wretched mother, hidden watcher by the bedside of her dying boy. The room has been chosen for its retired situation, and is removed from the noise of household occupations; and the bustle of the crowded street, even in its busiest hours, falls on the ear in a distant hum. It is quiet now, very quiet. Harry has awakened once from his slumbers, asked to be moved nearer the front of the bed, that they may be very near each other while he sleeps again, and, when that was done, has smiled lovingly upon the little, sorrowful watcher, and, with his wasted hand tightly clasped in his, has fallen into sounder slumbers. In the deathlike stillness which has fallen on the room, she can hear his breathing, and has ventured twice or thrice, while he slept thus, to steal softly to the bedside and look upon his face; but as at each successive attempt he has seemed almost immediately to feel the dreaded atmosphere, and his slumbers have become broken and uneasy, with a heavy heart she has crept silently back again. Charley has waited until the thin hand of the sick child has relaxed its clasp on his own, then, moved by a loving impulse, noiselessly busies himself in removing a littered mass of vials, cups, and glasses, which have accumulated on the stand near the bed, to a table just at hand, and taxes his childish ingenuity in arranging thereon, in the prettiest possible form, a multitude of toys and trinkets, gifts sent by the servants of the house to his brother, putting the new ones in front, so that his eye may fall on them first when he wakes again. This done, he creeps back to his seat by the bedside, and silently watches his slumbers as before.

A ray of sunlight, bright and warm, creeps through the lattice and falls on the veined lids; the eyes open, and instinctively moving from the too dazzling light, rest placidly on a fragment of blue sky just visible through the half-closed window. With eyes fixed intently on that hazy distance, moment after moment, silent and motionless he lies, and the blue orbs grow lustrous as he gazes with the mystic beauty of eyes whose inner vision rests on unutterable things, and gradually there comes upon the little face the look that never comes on any face but once. Oh, mystic change! Oh, strange solemnity of death! The little watcher by the bedside, face to face with its mysterious presence for the first time, ignorant of its processes, feels a dread, half-defined idea of what it may be, and, with a piteous effort to recall his dying brother back to his old look and seeming, tremulously falters:

'See all the nice things they've sent you, Harry, all the pretty toys you've got! Here they are, spread out upon the table. Look, brother, look!'

The eyes are bright and clear, the shadow of death has not yet dimmed their light. They turn slowly, very slowly, and, just glancing at the toy-strewn table, rest upon his brother's face. Oh! what is that look within them that chills the warm life-current, and makes him cold and shivering in the heat of that summer day, as the sick child feebly says:

'You may have them all, all, Charley; I sha'n't never want them any more.'

'You've hardly looked at them at all, Harry,' quavers the young voice in reply, bravely trying to continue the subject. 'You don't know how handsome they are. The nicest ones, the very nicest ones Betty bought you! Poor Betty! she has done nothing but cry since you've been sick—cry, and buy you presents. She says when you get well, Harry—' and here the brave little voice, that has been tremulous and tear-laden all along, breaks down entirely, and he puts up his hand to check the tears that are running down his face. There are no tears in those other eyes looking into his; the mists of death are gathering within them. He cannot see the tear-wet face so plainly now, but he feebly strokes the hand that lies against his own, and says, in a weaker voice, pausing now and then for breath:

'Poor brother, dear brother! Don't cry, Charley, don't cry! You must tell Betty not to cry. Poor Betty! I haven't seen her once since I've been sick. And poor mamma'—the faint voice, forgetful of its weakness, grows stronger for a moment, and dwells on that name with measureless compassion—'poor, poor, poor mamma! I don't feel afraid of ma any more, and I want to see her. I DO so much want to see her! Where is ma, Charley?'

There is a movement in the lower part of the room, and a bent form comes tottering forward, with hair hanging wildly about a haggard, despairing, woeworn face. Her hands are outstretched in piteous supplication.

'Here I am,' a voice choked with sobs makes answer, 'Here's your poor, miserable, guilty mother, Harry. O Harry! my sins have barred me out from the heaven you are entering; say you forgive me before we part forever. Oh! my darling, it is the last time I shall ever ask it; give me one kiss before you go!' He smiled as only the dying can smile, and stretched out his feeble arms. 'He smiles upon me, he forgives!' shrieked the half-demented creature. 'O God! most merciful! Thou hast not quite forsaken me!' and with a step forward, and a gesture of embrace, the hapless being falls heavily upon the floor.

'Raise me up, raise me up,' pleads the sick child, after partially recovering from the shock the fall had given him; and, as he gazes upon the prostrate form, the white, haggard, insensible features, an angel's pity and compassion shine in the dying face. 'Oh, I can't kiss her, Charley. Tell poor mamma I couldn't kiss her,' he faintly moans. Then the fitful strength gives way again, and the tired head droops wearily on his brother's shoulder. The chilled form creeps closer to a warm embrace. A little while they hold each other thus—these little ones, brothers by the ties of blood, bound nearer to each other than any tie of blood can bind, by the sacred bond of suffering! Then the arm around poor Charley's neck relaxes its hold, and falls with a dull, lifeless sound back upon the pillow. The little form grows colder, colder yet. He has no power to lay it down, no power to cry for help, but sits holding it, half paralyzed, as he hears them rushing up the stairs, urged wildly on by the dreadful fear that they have come too late.

There is a piteous supplication in the large, dilated eyes, a mute prayer for help in the white face he turns upon them as they enter. To the hurried questions which come pouring forth, the bleached, white lips make answer:

'He got cold, and went to sleep again; and he has been getting colder ever since.'

Then the father, stooping, looks into the little face lying on Charley's shoulder, and, staggering back as if a blow had struck him, cries out: 'Dead!' and the friend that Harry had loved so well raises the curly head and lays it back upon the pillow. There are no tears in her gentle eyes for him, for she knows the little, weary heart is resting now on the great heart of Infinite Love—that he is gone to One who, with outstretched arms, stood ready to receive him—One who said long ago: 'Suffer little children to come unto Me!'



AN HOUR IN THE GALLERY OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN.

THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL EXHIBITION.

Great is the variety in the different classes of men to be found in picture galleries. First in importance stand the artists, oftentimes oracular personages, dangerous of approach by outsiders having opinions (such must generally expect a direct snubbing, polite indifference, or silent scorn), knowing much but not everything, no single one infallible, highly honorable as members of a guild, secretive as doctors or lawyers, chary of talking shop to the uninitiated, hardworking, conscientious, half luring, half scoffing at the glorious visions of the creative imagination granted them chiefly of all men, wonder workers, world reformers, recorders of the past and prophets of the future, comforters of prose-ridden humanity, stewards of some of God's best gifts, openers of the gates of the beautiful, and hence ushers into the vestibule of the glorious 'Land of the Hereafter.' May they all remember their lofty calling, and never diminish their usefulness by unworthy contests among themselves, or by sacrificing their own better judgment to the exigencies of popular requirement!

Next in order come the connoisseurs. Unmistakably one is that young man with near-sighted eyeglass, with Dundreary whiskers and jaunty air, who talks of breadth, handling, foreshortening, perspective, etc.; who perhaps quotes Ruskin, has seen galleries abroad, is devoted to genre pictures, and, after rattling through an exhibition for a half hour, pronounces definitely upon the merits of the entire collection, singly and en masse.

Equally recognizable is the older picture-fancier. He talks, if possible, even more learnedly, discoursing of balance, tone, chiaroscuro; he despises innovations, judges in accordance with names; is of course convinced the present can bear no comparison with the past; will look through a whole gallery, and finally be captivated by some well-executed conceit—a sun shining through a hole—three different sorts of light, of fire, candle, and moon, mixed in with monstrous shadows and commonplace figures—some meaningless countenance surmounting a satin whose every shining thread is distinguishable, and the pattern of whose lace trimming could be copied for a fashion plate; he is, in short, a fussy, loud individual, with money to buy and some out-of-the-way place to hang pictures.

Then there is the man who knows but one, or at most two or three artists, and will look at the works of none other; who sees, as travellers generally do, not that which is, but that which he had made up his mind to see before he left his own threshold. There are those attracted by nothing except brilliant color, and others who have heard so much of the vulgarity of 'high lights' and gaudy hues, that they will tolerate nothing but brown trees, russet grass, gray skies, slate rocks, drab gowns, copper skins, and shadows so deep that the discovery of the objects represented becomes a real game of 'hide and go seek.' There are also the timidly modest, who, although aware of their own preferences, are yet afraid to admire any new name until some recognized authority has given permission. Another division of this class consists of those who, knowing their own inability to draw or to color the simplest object, hesitate to refuse admiration to any art production that is even barely tolerable. Let us concede to this class our respect, as humility is the only solid basis for any human acquirement.

We also find the pretty young lady, who says 'lovely,' 'charming,' or 'horrid,' 'abominable,' in a very attractive, but most indiscriminating manner;—the individual who cares only for the design (to whom real depth or pathos and affected prettiness are too often one and the same), and the other, who looks only at the technical execution. Rare, indeed, are the imaginative analysts who, while considering the design, can comprehend its philosophy, tell why it pleases or displeases, why they like or dislike; and still rarer are they who add to impartiality, observation, common sense, imaginative perception, and analytic power, a sufficiency of technical knowledge to render their criticism useful, not only to outsiders, but even to artists themselves. Such a guide would indeed be an invaluable companion in any gallery of art. In default of him, let us do the best we can, and come to a consideration of some of the works offered us in this, the thirty-ninth annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design.

Before we begin, however, let us make a passing remark upon a custom that seems lately to have come in vogue, namely, to publish in the daily papers damaging criticisms upon pictures offered for sale at auction, such criticisms generally appearing one, or at most two days before the sale. The want of good taste, or even of abstract justice, in such a proceeding, must be apparent to every one who will pause a moment to consider. To compare small things with great, for the sake of illustration, if our neighbor has made his purchase of spring drygoods, and spreads them upon the counter of his store, we may or may not admire his taste in the selection of patterns, but we surely should not think ourselves called upon to rush to the newspapers and blazon forth an opinion to his detriment, especially if our assertions were mere guesses, perhaps even untrue, or if we were ourselves concerned in the selling of similar wares. Among the public are many tastes to be gratified, and each man can judge for himself of that which pleases him. A case of impudent pretension or actual imposition will of course require honest people to give in their testimony, but the facts adduced in such a case must be susceptible of proof, and not mere matters of individual taste or opinion; neither must they be advanced at so late an hour as to render their refutation difficult, or indeed impossible. A regular exhibition, such as that of the Academy, offers fair ground for discussion, as all sides have a chance of obtaining a hearing; but even there, the scales of justice should be nicely poised, and great care taken that neither rashness, flippancy, nor prejudice be permitted any share in their adjustment, and 'good will toward men' be the only extra weight ever added to either side.

To begin with the landscapes, one of the most remarkable, and, to our individual taste, the most attractive in the whole collection, is No. 147, 'The Woods and Fields in Autumn,' by Jervis McEntee, N. A. The fine tree-drawing and the exquisite harmony of color in this poetic representation of autumn scenery are worthy of all praise. The clouds are gathering for dark winter days, a few pleasant hours are yet left to the dying year, the atmosphere is saturated with moist exhalations, with tender mists softening but not obscuring the beautiful forms of the leafless trees and shrubs. The springs are filling, the low grounds marshy, the leaves on the woodpaths crisp and of a golden brown. Far away in the west is a band of gray light, that tells of clearer skies and brighter seasons one day to come, of new hopes to dawn, when the earth, and the soul, shall have been purified by adverse blasts, by the baring of their nakedness to the unimpeded, searching light of heaven. No. 124, 'The Wanderer,' is a picture of similar character by the same skilful hand. Thoughtful, refined, and discriminating lovers of art cannot fail to find instruction and delight in these noble conceptions, and indeed it is chiefly in the possession of such persons that we find the truthful, conscientious, tenderly conceived, and poetical pictures of Jervis McEntee.

S. R. Gifford, N. A., exhibits two works, differing widely from each other, but both worthy of his reputation. Let the names now longer and more widely established in the estimation of the general public look to their laurels, for here is one who is destined successfully to enter an honorable contest for the possession of the very highest honors. Unity of design, and warmth as well as vividness of light, positive atmosphere, characterize the works of this artist, and render each one a satisfactorily completed poem. No. 226, 'South Mountain, Catskills,' presents a view doubtless well known to many of our readers. The far-away horizon, the winding Hudson with its tiny sails, the square dent where lies the lake in the Shawangunk range, the serrated ridges of the lower hills, the smoke from the lowlands outside the Clove, the shadowed, ridgy sides of the Round Top Mountain, the stunted pines of the South Mountain, so characteristically represented, the great rock overhanging the cliffs, and the whortleberry bushes and other low growth clustering about its base—all speak to us unmistakably of that very spot, and tell the story of the place as we scarcely thought it could have been told, yet so simply, so naturally, that the art of the artist is almost forgotten in actual enjoyment of the scene portrayed. No. 250, 'A Twilight in the Adirondacs,' glows with an intensity of light suggestive of some secret art, and not of ordinary paint and canvas. A few brilliant cloud-specks float in a golden sky, which is reflected from the surface of a placid lake, high up among the hills, whose haze-flooded and light-crowned tops fade away into the far distance. To many this picture will prove more attractive than the view from the South Mountain: perhaps it is our familiarity with and love for the original of the last-mentioned view, which induce us to give to it our personal preference.