This little bit of burlesque, short as it is, is full of delicate satirical touches. The prompt attention given to the complaint of the robber, who of course has no rights whatever in the premises; the readiness of the khan to infer malice on the part of the plundered Lesghian; his unique conception of the lex talionis as a law which may be satisfied with anybody's eye; the cool assumption that because the unfortunate fifer occasionally shuts both eyes he ought in strict justice to lose both eyes, and should be duly grateful to the merciful khan for permitting him to keep one of them,—are all the fine and skilful touches of a bright wit and a humorous fancy.

GEORGE KENNAN.



OF BARBARA HICKS.

I.

When I looked under her bonnet I perceived a face that was more to my mind than any face I had ever before seen. Perhaps it was wrong for me to think so much about a face; but it was borne in upon me that such a well-favored countenance must of necessity come from a still more well-favored manner of life; for a face, to me, is only the reflex of the inner workings of Life, and to this day I doubt if I could sit down and describe fully the shape or moulding of any one particular feature of that face, for it was not the face, but the expression that formed it, that inclined me toward it. I was a stranger in the place, and but newly come, and my name had forerun me in kindly writings from many friends, so that I may often have been mentioned in households where I had never been seen. But I went to Barbara Hicks's father, and informed him how considerably my mind inclined me toward his daughter, and that I would, if he permitted me, ask to be better known unto her. "Thee is over young to think of marriage, friend Biddle," said he.

I felt a burning sensation mounting to my face, and I could only say in reply, "Verily. But the heart of youth is lonely—more so than the heart of age, and it looks upon all Nature for companionship."

"Thy mingling with the world's people has made thee glib of tongue," said he, eyeing me, and smiling as much as was seemly.

"But I am not of the world's people, if thee means the flaunters of various colors and loud-voiced nothings. And I do not think of marriage—nay, will not—until thy daughter has taken me into full acquaintanceship and approbation. Thee knows I am not advanced in the world's wealth, and that I am but a beginner in manhood; thee knows that I came here and set up as a lumberman; thee may or may not care to have thy daughter to know me."

"I care as much as beseems any father to bethink him of his child's welfare. Come with me, Samuel Biddle."

So he fetched me into the sizable sunny kitchen where Barbara was preparing vegetables for the dinner.

"This is friend Samuel Biddle," said he.

"I am pleased to see thee," said she, "and if thee waits until I dry my fingers I will shake hands with thee."

Youth is ever impetuous. In my haste or foolish confusion I took her hand as it was, and had the mortified pride of seeing a long potato-paring hanging about my thumb when she had resumed her occupation.

"Thee is overly quick," said her father, rather displeased, I thought.

"Thee must pardon me: it is a habit I have."

"Habits are bad things to have."

"Thank thee," I said.

I know that unnecessary words are wholly unlooked for amongst us Friends, and that description of any part of the Lord's works is as unnecessary and carries with it as little of what we mean as can be. Incidents are greater than description, as the telling to me how a tree looked when it was in full foliage is not near so incisive as that the tree fell with a great crash during a storm in the night. Therefore it would be using needless language, which a Friend's discipline enjoins him to beware of, for me to say how friend Hicks's daughter might have seemed to those to whom I wished to impart how she seemed to me; rather let some various incidents provide their estimate of her. That one of the world's people might say she was pleasant to look upon I have no doubt; but to me she was not beautiful: she was only what I would have had her to be; and that which is entirely as we would have it to be is never beautiful: it is too near us to be that. I cared well to be with her while her father bided near and talked to me of the community I had left, and which had given me my certificate to friend Hicks's Meeting. And yet I fear me that I made several dubious replies to his many trite questions as we sat on the porch in the quiet of the evening, for friend Barbara's eyes were upon me, and she had a little dint in either cheek which affected me amazingly. (I have heard such dints called dimples—by whom, I cannot say.) She had a most extraordinary way of miscomprehending all that I said, and frequently appealing to her father; so I perforce must repeat all that I had before said, which often forced me into much confusion of words, which seemed to make her dints more deep than usual. Then the quiet of her home after a busy day of traffic and bargaining and buying and selling was infinitely composing to my mind. There were trees all about the house, and some orderly flowers—more of the herb species, I think, than the decorative. There were faint sounds coming from distant places, and when a great many stars were come and the wind waved the branches of the trees, the stars looked, as one might say, like tiny musical lamps set among the leaves, they seemed so many and so bright there, and the distant sounds so pleasant. I am not, as a usual thing, a noticing man, but while friend Hicks's daughter was within a few feet of me it seemed I noticed everything with considerable acuteness. I think this may be accounted for on the score that I was trying to notice something which failed me as I searched for it; and that was, if I were to Barbara what Barbara was to me. She was too friendly, and yet I would have her friendly: she was too cheerful, and yet I would have her cheerful. I bethink me that I would rather that her friendliness and cheerfulness might in a measure depend upon me for existence. I think I came too often to friend Hicks's house, although he understood me.

"Thee is a most persistent young man," he said to me.

"Does thee think too much so?" I asked.

"Nay, friend Biddle: persistency is an excellent quality which is most praiseworthy in youth."

"And does thee think that persistency will gain me a wife?"

"Thee had better depend upon thyself more than upon persistency in such an issue," he said, with the corners of his mouth much depressed.

"Does thee think I might venture to offer myself to thy daughter for a husband?"

"Nay. A husband never offers himself to his wife: the gift should be so valuable that she would willingly exchange herself for it."

"Will thy daughter think so?"

"Undoubtedly."

"May I be emboldened to ask her?"

"Thy mind must tell thee better than my lips," he said.

Then I watched him going down among the trees and the shadows, and I sat, much perturbed in spirit, waiting for Barbara. When she did come I had not one word to say. I only remember that I sat with one leg crossed over the other, and wished I could perchance cross the right one over the left instead of the left over the right, and yet I had not the power to do so. I was sure my brain was playing me false, for things seemed utterly at variance with possibilities.

"Thee seems shaken, friend Biddle," said she.

"Nay," I responded.

"Thee certainly is. I trust thy business is prospering, and that thy mind is not set too much upon any one thing."

"Nay."

"Can I do anything for thee?"

"Nay."

So I could not say one word. Friend Barbara took up her knitting, and I saw that she was rounding the heel of a stocking; and I trust I am truthful, if volatile, when I remember me that I wished I were her knitting-needle. She was very quiet: her ball of yarn slipped away, lacking proper gravitation. "My!" said she, and went and fetched it.

"Has thee ill news from thy people?" she asked, rather restive under my changelessness.

"They are happily easy," said I.

Then she was quiet.

I bethought me that I had my hat in my hand, and would rise to put it upon my head and say farewell, but I could not.

"Thee does not seem so comfortable as thee might be," said she.

"I am comfortable," I said.

Then her yarn rolled away again. Again she said, "My!" and fetched it.

"Is thee waiting for father?" she asked.

"Nay," said I.

I think she grew more restive under the silence: I arose. "Farewell," said I.

"Farewell," said she; and the dints in her cheeks were extreme: they were the only dints about her, everything else being so prim and gray and well-ordered, while these were—quite different.

Her father came in just then. I went boldly to him. "Friend Hicks," I said very loud, "will thee ask thy daughter to marry me?"

"Can thee not ask?"

"Nay: I have tried, but I fail. I never asked such a thing before, and, belike, thee has."

"Necessarily," said he.

Then he asked Barbara. "Does thee quite approve friend Biddle?" asked she.

"Necessarily," he answered as before.

"Then, Samuel Biddle, I will be thy wife," said she.

"Thank thee, friend Barbara," I said, and shook hands with her father.

"Thee may shake hands with Barbara," said he.

And I did. I fear me that she looked with a less demure look into my face as I did so: I think she might have cared to have me hold her hand a little longer than I did.

But her father said, "Thee has attended to thy business: now bear me out in mine. What is thy income? when can I see thy father and mother?"

It was most gratifying on next First Day to go to meeting and sit beside friend Hicks. Far over on the women's side I think I knew which woman was Barbara. And meeting was stiller than ever, and more like the Lord's meaning of holiness; or it was the stillness upon my spirit that needed no divine Feet to tread it down and say, "Peace, be still!" I had reached the peace beyond understanding saving to those who likewise possess it: something that was greater to me than myself had come to me and called itself all my own. There was a most able discourse from friend Broomall that day, but I heard so little of it I have scarce the right to criticise some of his comments. The windows were all open, and the sound of the breeze that flapped the casement and the far-away lowing of a cow were very pleasant—indeed, almost grievingly pleasant. And butterflies came in and out, and were bright and soothing. Friend Hicks was soothed and slept profoundly all the while: he awoke and said that friend Broomall had been most cogent in his reasoning. I, who had heard so little, said, "Verily."

After meeting, Barbara walked home, and I walked with her. I doubt if I ever cared for flowers and blue skies and little singing birds as I did on that placid First Day—my own First Day!

"Thee was most attentive during meeting, Samuel Biddle," said she.

"Thank thee. So was thee," said I.

"How does thee know?"

"I fear I watched thee."

"Thee might have been better employed."

"How did thee know that I was attentive?"

"Like thee, I think I watched thee."

"Thank thee, Barbara Hicks."

"The same to thee, Samuel Biddle."

I think all this made me most kindly disposed toward the whole world. We reached home shortly, and Barbara poured tea for me during dinner-time, and made it very sweet—sweeter than I had ever accustomed myself to take tea, though I deemed it more than admirable. After dinner friend Hicks said the flies were troublous that time of the day. We were on the porch, friend Hicks, his daughter and myself. I suggested that he might be less troubled did he cover his face with his handkerchief.

"Thee is thoughtful," said he, and did so with an odd look in his face; and I saw that he had left a small corner of the handkerchief turned over, so that his left eye was not out of view. Barbara was in a chair next to mine, only considerably removed, and her father was on the other side of me. We were very quiet, and Barbara said it was a most likely day. I said yes—that I never remembered such another day. I heard friend Hicks give infallible tokens of sleep; I knew the flies troubled him considerably; so I thought it well to reach over and turn the corner of his handkerchief over his exposed eye. Then I placed my chair closer to Barbara's.

Everybody knew we should marry each other from that First Day when I had sat with friend Hicks and walked home with Barbara afterward. Friend Broomall welcomed me to the Monthly Meeting with many cordial expressions, and spoke conciliatingly of the marriage state. It was most pleasant to me when I walked betimes to see friend Barbara, and mayhap conversed during the entire evening with her father about the lumber business or the tariff, or some such subject: at such times I think my mind was not within my speech, and that as often as modesty permitted I would look toward Barbara. I am fully cognizant that I often tried to change the current of argument by sometimes turning and saying, "Is it not the opinion of thee, friend Barbara?" at some trite words from her father. "Thee knows a woman understands so little of these various themes," she would say; and I would grow restive. Yet friend Hicks grew more well-disposed toward me, and cared to talk much of himself to me; which always shows that a man thinks well of thee. I bethink me that if Barbara's mother had lived some things might have been different, and that perchance she might have claimed her husband's attention away from me a little, and monopolized an hour or so of his time each evening: women have a species of inner seeing which most men lack to a great degree. And yet, to show my fuller confidence in friend Hicks, I said to him once, "I wish thee to take charge of all my savings and earnings. Thee knows I shall be a married man some time, and till then I would much desire thee to care for these moneys."

"Can thee not take proper charge of what thee has collected?"

"Yea. But my wife's father should understand the state of my finances."

"Set not thy mind too much upon riches, Samuel Biddle."

"Is thy daughter not worth any mere worldly riches I could accumulate?"

"Favor is deceitful, and a woman should never put ill thoughts into a man."

"Did thee not hope for money as I do when thee was young and knew the woman who would be thy wife?"

"Samuel Biddle, I will do this for thee, as thee asks. Thee has grown upon me much of late, and even as I once hoped, so it is meet that thee should hope."

So I gave my savings and earnings into his keeping; and when I had gone away to the lumber-regions I sent the money just the same.

"I thank thee for trusting father so much," said Barbara when we met after this, and quite smiled in my face.

"Thy father trusts me beyond my trust in him in letting thee into my keeping," I said.

"My!" said she. And we stood together for some little time, looking at nothing in particular. And yet it was borne in upon me that friend Barbara rarely thought of me when I was not present with her. I doubt much that this should have given annoyance, for why should we pry into another's thoughts? And yet it rankled in my bosom, and I could but feel that I knew the truth. I should have liked her to think much of me, in sooth: I should have liked her to think of me while she knitted the stockings in the bright leafy porch or walked among her garden-herbs, or when she was busy over her household cares. It was the vain-glorious feeling of youth which prompted this doubt in me, but in youth vain-glory is what wisdom is in age.

I bethink me that I have said "friend Barbara" at some parts of this narration, at others simply "Barbara." I may do so again and yet again. It is and will be just as she appeared to me at the times whereof I set it down.

About this time—say three months after the First Day whereof I have spoken—a very advantageous business-offer reached me from the lumber-regions: I was to go there for a matter of six months, and I should, perchance, be well remunerated for the going. I turned this matter well over in my mind before I let it slip into another mind, and when I deemed that I was resolute in forming and retaining my own set opinion I imparted the knowledge to friend Hicks.

"Thee will assuredly go?" said he.

"Verily," I replied, and looked at Barbara, and saw that she knitted just as actively and deftly as usual. This did not please me quite, for I should have liked to see her pause and look up with much interest manifested. But nay: she was ever the same. I could not guard my vain tongue as I should have done; so, forgetting even her father's presence, I said, "Friend Barbara, is thee sorry to see me go?"

"Thee knows what is best for thee to do," said she.

"But is thee sorry?"

"I am not sorry."

"Perhaps thy mind is not inclined to me as much as I had hoped?" I said with considerable hot-headedness.

"Thee is to me what thee has ever been—neither more nor less."

"Barbara!" said her father with a high-raised voice.

She started up before him, her face very much increased in color, and she folded her arms above her kerchief. "Father," she said, "if thee thinks I am old enough to marry, I think I am old enough to form an opinion of my own. Had I been in Samuel Biddle's place, and an offer of change of residence had been proffered to me, I should first have gone to the woman who was to be my wife and told her the bearings of the case, and let her tell her father: I should never have gone to her father first."

She would have gone from the room, but her father called her back and bade her resume her sewing; which she did, though I saw her neckerchief rise and fall as though her heart were unusually perturbed beneath it.

"Is thee grown perverse?" said her father angrily.

"Nay," she answered. "I am my father's daughter: my will is my own."

"This to me?" he said.

"Friend Hicks," said I, in much pain, "I pray thee let me go: I have unwittingly caused this. It has been because I set my mind so wilfully upon thy daughter that I forgot all else but her, and had not the courage to say to her what I did to thee."

He spoke long and earnestly to me then, and when we looked around Barbara had quietly quitted the room.

But as I went sore of spirit down the lane on my way home she suddenly faced me. There were marks upon her face as of the stains of drops of water, and her eyes, I perceived, were heavy and swollen. "Will thee forgive me, Samuel Biddle?" said she.

"I should ask that of thee," I replied.

"Thee knows I was headstrong," she said, taking my sleeve in her hand.

"Not more so than I, for I made up my mind to marry thee, and, I fear me, thought more of myself than of thee." She looked with compassion, I thought, upon me.

"I would be thy wife, no matter what comes," said she.

"Feeling for me all that a wife should feel for her husband?"

"Yea."

Then I stood by Barbara while she wiped her eyes upon my sleeve.

For a day or so I felt constrained at friend Hicks's house, but when I saw his daughter the same as usual, kind and considerate—perhaps more considerate than usual to me—I bethought me that perchance a Friend is at times a trifle too circumspect in his words, a trifle too circumscribed in his actions. He must be seemly in his carriage and speech, must not allow unbecoming emotion to prey upon him, must build the body from the spirit, and not the spirit from the body. I had tried to do all these, and yet there were times when sensation overpowered calculation, and it would have afforded me peace to have held friend Barbara within my arms and said many foolish and irrelevant words, and heard such words from her. Sometimes it seems to me that three feet apart, two feet, one, two inches, one, is too much from one who is exceedingly much to us: the mere touch of hand to hand, unmeaning as such a thing is, may be infinitely more than a mere gratification of sense. Still, I would not have it understood that I am a militant spirit, fond of what stubborn folk term "progression," nor would I throw aside any of the rules which have been mine and those of many generations of ancestors who followed George Fox and knew his intents to be pure withal.

But I was to go away East now, and my preparations were completed.

"I hope thee will bear in mind that I shall often think of thee, friend Barbara," I said on the last evening I should see her for a long time.

The dints in her face looked very comely as she answered, "I shall, friend Biddle."

"And thee will think of me?"

"I always do," she said. And yet this was not what I had much desired, although I must perforce be contented. I knew, though, that distance would only make her closer to me in spirit, and that I should be kinder to all women for her sake—that I should pity all helplessness for her sake; for where the mind inclineth most favorably, where gentleness and sweetness for another is borne in upon us, we invariably associate that other with a sort of tender helplessness which can only be made into perfect strength by ourselves. And then I had grown to have a species of fear for Barbara: it was as though she were greater than I, although I could reason down this foolish ebullition in the calm knowledge that the Lord made all beings equal. Mayhaps, had I been assured in my mind that she should not only think of me from necessity, arising out of our long companionship and near relation, but that she should care well to call to mind my absent form and features and voice and presence, and her own want of me, I should have left friend Hicks's house with lithesome spirit and much happiness. However, I thought, my being away for six months might cause her to miss me; and we never miss what is not of great account to us.

"May I write letters to thee, Barbara?" I asked.

"Thee must gain father's consent," she said.

So I asked friend Hicks—only I asked it in this way: "May Barbara write letters to me?"

"I will write thee all that is necessary, as thee will write me: what more is needful?" answered friend Hicks.

So, as I went away, and it was Seventh Day, and the world seemed expecting the morrow, when the world's peace should be personified in public praise and a cessation from labor and earthly thought, I stood in the shadow and took friend Hicks's hand.

"I trust thee may be successful," said he.

"I think any man may be successful in this world's affairs," I said.

"There is such a thing as suffering and pain which the Lord sends."

"Nay, friend Hicks," I said, "I am lately thinking that peradventure the Lord sends not pain to our earthly bodies, or else that pain would be a trial and a punishment; whereas I may look around and see dumb animals and little singing birds die of suffering and pain; and surely the Lord inflicts no punishment on things he cannot be displeased with. Suffering and pain are the worms of the earth, the penalties of earthly life, which has more of the world in it than heaven."

"I trust thee will not be arbitrary in time, friend Biddle," said he, almost displeased.

But Barbara placed her hand in mine. "Samuel Biddle," said she, "may a man's suffering and pain be a woman sometimes?"

"Belike," I answered, and could say no more.

"Then I say I trust thee shall be free from grievousness all thy life if I can keep thee so."

"Thee can," I said.

"I will," she said.

"Farewell, Barbara."

"Fare thee well, friend Biddle."

I almost stumbled over a man as I hurried out by the gate. "I beg thy pardon, friend," I said.

"I beg yours, sir," he answered. I looked, and saw that he was a hireling minister with a white cloth at his neck and an unhappily-cut coat. And he raised his hand to his hat and said, "I am but new in this neighborhood: I am the pastor of the church newly erected here."

"Peace be unto thee, man of the Lord!" I said.

"And to you, my friend!" he answered.

And I had but time to reach the station and take my place in the car that whirled me away from where my mind was so constantly set.

II.

It was but natural and wholly consistent that I should choose an unassuming and grave lodging-house on my arrival at the place of my destination; for, apart from my predilection of religious tenets, quietude is closely allied to much thought; and while my training had made me desire the quietude as a part and portion of the best of life, friend Barbara had made thought inexpressibly pleasant and wholesome to me. There were men all around me who had, perhaps, little or no thought of religion—that is, the emotion of religion, which is so often confounded with religion itself—yet when I made known my wishes of a quiet home to them they assisted me without the usual looking askance at my plain garb and manner of speech. Was I not a man like themselves? were not my functions as their own? Take away what each of us looked upon as faults in the other, and we were equals and alike. I made my request boldly: had I minced the matter and felt a shame in it, I might have merited all the ridicule which men morally and physically strong, or men morally and physically diseased, usually throw upon a conscious weakness which would pass for something else. I was recommended to many houses, only they all had the great drawback—many other lodgers. At last some one proposed Jane Afton's house: that was quiet enough, they assured me, but the greatest objection to any paled when in comparison with this: she had a demented woman in charge—harmless, but wholly astray from sense.

"I assure thee," I said to friend Afton, "I fear not the minds of people: the body does the harm in this world."

"In that case you have come to the right house," said she. "For Fanny Jordan is a little, slight woman without strength, and her insanity is from religion."

And so on my first day in the place I found my lodging-house. It might have been more conciliating to my mind had friend Afton not attempted the use of the plain language, for she made but a sorry attempt at it at best.

"Thee's trunk is arrived, and thee's hat-box is smashed by the lout of a boy that brought it," she said; and this is merely a specimen of her manner. It was grating upon me, but I forbore to make remark, as I have no doubt her principle was all that could be desired, although it was faulty in its constructive carrying out. I may safely say that I did not remember there was another lodger besides myself in her house when I retired for the night, and I was sitting at the little table in my room moved by a power of mind to think past many miles, even unto the home of friend Hicks. I saw him sitting by the kitchen-fire that was so warm and large in its dimensions—for it was cold weather now—and on the opposite side of the hearth his daughter on a low chair was busy looking into the flame that lit up the smooth bands of her hair that lay like satin of a soft brown color upon her comely face. Her eyes were bright, her lips were parting as one who jests, and—But I fear me I have run beyond sense again. Suffice it to say that I sat there culpably lost in thought, when a solemn voice like the voice of a prophet of old startled me and made me cold.

"Out of tribulation comes patience; out of patience, hope," said the voice; and then a low, scornful laugh. It was then I remembered the poor demented woman, and I arose and opened my room-door. She was standing inside her own room, a slight pale woman with a sadly-bereaved face: her arms were stretched out above her as one in supplication. "False God!" she cried in a voice cold and bitter, in which there was no trace of tenderness or pitiful earnestness, "Thou hast made me a lie upon Thy cruel earth. Tribulation Thou hast given me; patience the world forced upon me; hope Thou hast denied me."

Still with her arms outstretched she spoke to the Lord and reviled Him. She clenched her hands in anger at times as her speech waxed more wrathful. In much compassion I would have gone in and closed the door, but as I was on the point of doing so, she, with one of those quick and nervous thrills that so often belong to dementia, saw me and pointed to me. She would have spoken, but I saw friend Afton's hand suddenly close about her waist, draw her forcibly from my view, and close the door between us.

"The Lord is mighty," I said to myself, and called to mind that youth among the tombs so long ago—that youth that they of old said was possessed of devils, and whom the pitying Man of Sorrows called upon to be free from torments.

In the morning friend Afton explained that I need have no fear.

"I think thee fails to comprehend that we Friends neglect one thing in our training, and that is fear," said I.

"And poor Mrs. Jordan won't make thou look for another boarding-house, sir?" asked she.

"Friend Jordan assuredly will not," said I, "but friend Afton may, if thee will pardon my abruptness, which seems to wound thee."

"How?"

"Thee has thy language, friend—I have mine. I do not stop to say 'you' to thee because thy mode is not as mine: then thee might be as free with me, and say 'you' to me, just as thee would if my plain garb were changed for a Joseph's coat."

"I thought I was polite in doing it," said she.

"Thank thee. Thee may be that, but thee is scarcely truthful; and all due politeness, as thee terms it, must be truthful, or it is called deceit."

She understood me, and she was natural thereafter.

Now perhaps I chafed in spirit at this time because I heard no word from friend Hicks. I am convinced at this present moment that had he felt it borne in upon him to indite me some words of homely comfort, I should have been gratified exceedingly. But his mind lay otherwise presumably, for no word came for a week.

Once during that week I saw friend Jordan walking wearisomely along the passage-way of friend Afton's house. She gave me a quick look as she saw me ascending the stair. "Ishmael!" she said.

"Nay," I responded: "no man's hand is against me, nor is mine against any man."

"And yet I am Hagar weeping in the wilderness."

"I pity thee."

"You are a Quaker."

"I am a Friend."

"And you believe in God?"

"Yea, verily. The voice of the Lord in the vineyard calleth me ever."

"Fool! There is no God."

"Nay, I am no fool. 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' And I never say that."

"I used to think that, but God has taken away my life, and left me the life of the damned."

"The Lord taketh no man's life: He giveth, and man destroyeth."

"I like you, Quaker. You don't say 'Never mind,' and give me right in all I say. Yes, I like you, Quaker."

"I thank thee, friend," I said, and passed by her and entered my room.

As time went on I grew accustomed to hearing her at all hours of the night repeating passages from the Scriptures, and misapplying their calm greatness. I could hear her open her window, and could see from mine that she stood there talking to the stars, and asking them where was the woman that had been she, and where was her own dear love and unalterable affection? I could see that she wept often, and that the tears ran down her white wan face all pinched by suffering, and that she supplicated the night in tender words to bring back to her what had gone away—what had gone away!

I was alone in this place: the people were not such as would be my choice of companions, for there were no Friends in the community, and I scarcely think I ever was fitted for the society of the world's people. I care much for silent meditation and in-looking, and the joys and pleasures of the gayer people seemed but noisome, and not of a tone with Nature's silent sunshine and green leaves, white snows and growing things. It is, I know, my early training that has made me fitted only to see thus. I cared now much to stay in my room after the tasks of the day were over and think of the friends far off. Belike I am most domestic in my desires, and that may be the cause why my mind travelled swiftly and surely to friend Hicks's fireside, and dwelt so long and with all gentleness close beside his daughter. And then I began, in my being so much alone, to inconsistently connect friend Barbara with friend Jordan. The demented woman was always calling out for those who were much to her, but who were far from her—was always saying that her heart wanted the love that was denied it. I bethink me that I more fully sympathized with her than was my wont, simply because I cared so much for friend Barbara and heard so much of longing for affection that had been denied. Therefore, as time passed on and the letters from friend Hicks were very few, and always ended with "My daughter sends her duty to thee"—never one word more or less—and I could not with becoming grace say aught of her to her father when I replied to his letters, which were strictly of a business nature and acknowledged the receipt of various moneys which I sent him for the keeping,—therefore, as time passed on, friend Jordan grew upon me. I would leave my room-door open of nights, and take a chair and seat myself upon the threshold; and as she walked up and down, up and down, restless and discontented, repeating disconnected scraps of Bible verses, I would often say a word to her in answer to some heedless and terrible question of the goodness of the Lord. Friend Afton had less care of her at such times, for she told me friend Jordan cared very well for me because I was so quiet and orderly. Then when the woman was tired and could walk no more, I would offer her my chair and would talk to her—not giving her frivolous answer for frivolous question, but saying to her what I had to say as earnestly as though I had been moved by Spirit in meeting to give the assurances of my own heart. It is a wonder to me at this day how calm she often became under my mode of speech. She fell into the way of looking for me and expecting me, and often when I saw her, far in the night, at her window holding out her very thin hands in supplication, I would softly raise my own window and say kindly, "Don't thee think thee could sleep if thee tried, friend Jordan?"—"I will try, Quaker," she would say, and go in and close the window, and remain quiet for the rest of the night. It was a sad contrast, I am sure—she wild and uncontrollable from self-government, and I held in and still by discipline of many ancestors. And then when she found that her cavilling against the Lord and His mighty works was the opposite of pleasant to me, and made me sad of visage, she after a while would content herself to say, "I used to say" so and so, as the case might be, "but now I doubt myself;" which was more comforting.

But there came a letter from friend Hicks; and after much talk concerning a certain lot of lumber and other matters of business, he said, "My daughter is not looking healthful, and is not so well as could be desired." I do not know what made me forget all the rest of his letter but that one line. It seemed to me that I was stricken with pain with that thin black miracle—pen-and-ink words. I wrote a letter to him instantly; I put aside all modesty of demeanor and spoke only of Barbara, of my desire to have her well and cheerful; I never once in all my lines mentioned business. Friend Hicks must have been sensibly astonished. That night when I went home friend Jordan for the first time grated upon me, and I would fain have gone into my room and closed the door and thought long and painfully. In my flighty mind I saw Barbara pining, and for me! Never before had I thought she cared so well for me as now when she was not in fair health. It is a sad happiness to think that some dear one is far from thee, and heavy of heart all for thee. But I was selfish, for I heard a sob at my closed door, and friend Jordan was crouched on the sill. "Have you deserted me too?" she asked.

"Nay, friend," I replied, "but I had sad news which left me beyond much comfort."

"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,'" she said.

"Will thee touch my hand?" I tried to say, for my voice was quite broken. "Comfort!"

And so we talked long and tirelessly: she seemed in her sanest mind, and something in me appeared to make her look at me more than usual.

"Why do you not complain?" she asked me. And I told her that I had nothing to complain of.

And to-night she told me that she had read the Scriptures misunderstandingly all her life; that she had taken their truths to her in affright; that their majesty had, instead of raising her up to their height, debased her even below herself. I saw in all from the first, even had friend Afton not told me, that what is called religion had wrecked her mind, and in my own manner of understanding the Lord's way I could scarcely comprehend it.

Although I had not much mind in my affairs after I had heard of Barbara's illness, yet a week sped along before I had word again. And what word was it that did come? I have read that to hear of the death of one who is infinitely near to us in spirit is not the worst we can hear—that the separation by death is not so eternal as the separation which life can make. Barbara wrote me herself this time, unknown to her father; and I had been away but a matter of three months. She said no word of her illness nor of her father: she addressed herself in all honesty and ruth to me. She had, somehow, in the place met with a man, one of the world's people, whom she found much to her mind—far more than I had ever been, she said: her father necessarily knew nothing of this, and she had chosen rather to tell me of it first, as I had the best right to know first of all. (The best right! I remembered the time when I had spoken to her father before I had spoken to her of my intended coming to this place where I was.) She asked me would I be willing to take as a wife a woman who could not care for me solely, carrying guiltily into her married life the memory of her great feeling for a man who was not her husband. She asked if it were not better that she should tell me this, rather than to hold herself tied to a false code of honor which should make her give herself to me because she had promised to do so. She would, if I still chose to hold her to her word, marry me, but it was best I should know; and she trusted I would say no word to her father about this, as it was clearly between her and me. She further said that did I refuse to give her up she would not compromise me in the least, as she did not know if that other man cared at all for her; and she was sure, as I must be, that she had never shown him that he was aught to her.

This was the letter I was to answer unknown to her father. I saw her honor standing out white and unassailable in it: I saw even her modesty, and, above all, her truth and the womanly knowledge of what a wife should be to her husband. I also saw that her father's will was her law; that her father's will had influenced her ever; and that when I first proffered my request of him for his daughter in marriage she took such a request as his will: had he said No, her answer would have been likewise: as it was Yes, she had acquiesced. But the pain of it! the pain of it!

I never once, from the minute the words clung to my mind like burning iron to flesh, questioned as to how I must reply to the letter: the reply shaped itself while I read her words. Could I take to myself a wife who cared little for me? I cared too much for Barbara to have such a wife.

And yet when I had come to friend Afton's house and entered my room, I closed and locked the door before I sat down to reply to the letter, as though I were doing a guilty deed. My hand trembled: the words I wrote were blurred. I heard a low knock at my door, but I answered it not: why should even a demented woman see me as I was? I wrote and re-wrote my answer before I found it fitted to my mind. My letter must have not myself in it: it must be clean of all foolish extravagance. And yet I extenuated, for I called for another letter from her. I wrote, Did she rightly know her mind? was she firm in her reasoning? and who was the man? I had not intended writing that last, but something forced me to it: it was not vain curiosity, for curiosity is too far removed from pain to be a part of it. But I could not see whom she could possibly know of all the inhabitants of the place that could thus exercise her spirit. There were few people there whom she had not known for years, and it was not likely she should have known any one all this time and only now be awakened to a greater knowledge. Perhaps a cruel feeling of jealousy actuated me in some measure. Why, I reasoned, had friend Barbara thus led me on? But I stopped there. Had she led me on? Nay. She had never given me reason to think that I was aught to her: I had ever wrestled in spirit, hoping that she would see in me what I saw so clearly in her—all that I could ever care to call my own. She had never tried to deceive me by false words or looks or actions: she had been true to her instincts as a woman in all this time, and had been as I had seen her. Too truly I saw that the care had been upon my side alone—that when I was most uplifted in spirit it was because I had been blinded to anything save my own inordinate feeling and hope of comfort. I forgot all else as I sat there with her letter in my hand; and even my discipline was of little account when I folded my arms across the table and let my head rest there for a little while.

How long I rested there I know not, but I was aroused by words of friend Jordan, and she said those awful questionings from the Cross, "My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken me?" And I arose and raised my hand, and said those same words too. Then I opened the door, and she sprang into my arms. She was wild and excited, and friend Afton was with her, but powerless to do anything. I let her weep close to me and cry out and laugh—do just as she would until she sank exhausted. Then I talked with her calmly and dispassionately, and she clung to me and would not be removed. For an hour or so we rested there, and then friend Afton gave me a letter from friend Hicks. I started, and would have put the letter in my pocket, but the eyes of friend Jordan were upon me, and I thought to allay her suspicions of my not acting toward her as I would toward others; so I opened and read the letter. No need to send friend Barbara the letter now. Her father wrote me that his daughter, much against his will, had formed the acquaintance of a hireling minister, one Richard Jordan, who had charge of the new church just built there, and that, though friend Barbara had never told of the man, yet her father had seen her walking with him. Friend Hicks deemed that her being promised to me gave only me the right to expostulate with her upon this, and desired me to write to her forthwith, as he himself had said no word to her. I had friend Barbara's letter and her father's: which should I obey? The one coming from the friend who was nearest to me?

I afterward wrote to Barbara that I could not say one word of myself in this matter, but that she must act as she thought best; only that she must take all things into consideration, and must weigh one thing in the balance with another—that did she make a mistake in going from her people into the world, she might never rectify it to her own mind; but that if she could justify her acts to herself, there was no need to call upon any aid outside of what her own principles of right could afford her. I thought it as well not to put myself at all in the letter, and to let her think that it was as though I were writing as an interested friend to another who scarcely knew what to do in a momentous time. Her father's letter I passed entirely over. He never knew, nor does Barbara know to this day, that I received it.

Yet that night, when I sat with friend Jordan in the hallway of friend Afton's house, my mind seemed confused and full of uncertainty. I scarcely noted the name which friend Hicks told me belonged to the man he had seen his daughter walking with, and not until friend Afton called to the other woman that she should retire for the night did the similarity of the names bear upon me. The hireling minister was named Jordan, the demented woman's name was Jordan: it might be a casual coincidence, but the man seemed taking all away from me that had made my life pleasant and hopeful, while the woman said I gave her new life, new hope, and all that life and hope consisted of—a healthful belief in the Lord and His works—although I knew that while she said so her lost mind was perhaps only being influenced by a quiet and moderate one. Yet maybe there are moments of what is called delusion which are the most sane constituents of a lifetime. As it was, late in the night, as I lay awake and sore in spirit, and wild with all things and almost with the Lord, sleepless and with much yearning grown upon me, I heard the voice calling out in the night up to the stars and the mystery of quiet for love and all that had been near and dear to this one clouded mind; and I turned my face to the wall. And I was like Ishmael indeed when I remembered, while that voice threw out its plaint and the words were clear and cleaved the darkness, that when I had last parted with Barbara, when I hurried from her presence fearful to look back lest she might call me from manly order by a look or a smile, I had thrown myself against a man outside the garden-gate, the man with a white neckcloth and long black ill-cut coat, who had told me that he was the minister of the church but newly erected, and that I had bidden peace go with him, and he had bidden it back to me.

III.

I bethink me that I was very much perturbed in my mind after this, albeit I was exteriorly the quiet, drab-colored Quaker that all knew me to be. Still, I have failed yet to ascertain what discipline that can govern actions, looks and speech can make man's heart throb more sluggishly than the feelings to which all Nature is prone must ever provoke. Thee knows a Friend must be seemly to all, and that alone will inform thee that I manifested no alteration in my demeanor. And my business qualifications were not impaired because of the uprising in my mind, for what has worldly business to do with spiritual? I could bargain and sell to the best advantage, be wholly consistent in all things, and be termed a man whose feelings were so schooled that no emotion ever dared come nigh them. Thee may think, the world may think, that suppressed emotion is annihilated emotion: I who wear drab know differently. And the silence between friend Barbara and myself was not a silence to be broken by useless speech: it was too closely allied to the end of something I had been brought to think almost eternal. I still had letter after letter from friend Hicks, which I replied to always—letters on purely business-matters, never once touched by so much as the name of Barbara, for she no longer sent her duty to me; and I could but realize how stern her father must be to her at home for her dereliction, and I—pitied her. As the weeks went by and I heard nothing of or from her, I may safely asseverate that the cruelly weak feeling that had oppressed me at first left me by degrees, and I could see far clearer than before, and could perchance blame myself for having failed to see ere this that I was what I was to her. I began to weigh the many chances of happiness against the many certainties of unhappiness, and I could but understand that she had with a woman's keen insight found out easily what it had cost me so considerably to know. I could not blame her: why should I? She had acted most fairly to me: had I done as well to her? In friend Afton's house I fought the battle which alone Friends approve of and sanction—the battle of the spirit against the flesh; and I conquered well, I am assured, although I could never cease to care for friend Barbara as I had cared for her since I had known her: it would have been entirely inconsistent with the principles of constancy and truth which had been so early and late imbibed by me.

I must say now that my great comfort in these times was friend Jordan; and, odd as it may appear, the similarity of her name with that of the man whom friend Hicks's daughter had learned to regard so highly seemed to call her closer to me than anything else at the same season might have done. Of evenings we would take up our old manner, and she would say, "Quaker, you are kinder than you know."

She had never learned my name, nor had expressed a desire to know it: what were names of things to her who had lost the things themselves?

"Thank thee, friend Jordan," I would say; and then we would sit and talk. Sometimes she would do all the talking: at other times she let me join her. With her confused mind it was perhaps the best work I could have had, to try to let in a little light where darkness had been so long.

"We always love those the most who give us the most pleasure, do we not?" she asked me.

I could not give her the reply she wanted, for friend Hicks's daughter had given me considerable happiness; so I remained quiet.

"Then next to those I love, and who nightly shine down to me in long, cool reaches of light from the stars, I love you, Quaker," she said.

"I thank thee," I replied.

"You should never thank for love," she said, "for it is a gift that requires as much as it bestows."

"And yet they call thee crazed!" I said, and placed my hand upon her wild dishevelled hair.

"But you Quakers never show any feeling," she went on, "and I suppose you never love."

"Sometimes we do," said I.

She seemed to think I was made sorry by what she had spoken, for she started. "What am I saying?" she exclaimed, "when you have shown me more feeling than any one in the world; and maybe you love me a little."

"We should love our neighbors as ourselves."

"I want the stars," she began, weeping: "I want to reach them, to go to them, to have the light in my mind that is gone out of it up to them."

I could say nothing, for my want was something akin to hers.

Many a wild night had she now, and friend Afton and I had often but sad chances of keeping her within bounds: we had to watch her while she would stand and call out to the far-off lights in the sky; and as, like a prophet of old, she stood and repeated divine words of care and an all-seeing love, she was grown softer and gentler, and her speech seemed to come from one who understood what the words imparted to her hearers. She was fond of saying the Psalms of David, and would weep at the touching words of suffering, of joy and of exultation which that man, so many thousand years dead, had been wont to sing as perchance he stood as she now did, looking up to the same nightly skies and weeping as she now wept, as his words rang through the ever-settled calmness of the night, and had no answer borne to his ears, but only the quiet made even quieter by his sorrow or his joy.

But I find that again I am using superfluous if not wholly irrelevant speech. Let me say, however, that had I possessed more curiosity—or, rather, if I had expressed more curiosity—friend Afton would have told me, as she afterward did, that the woman was not so entirely alone as she imagined herself to be, for that weekly letters reached friend Afton wherein were goodly wages for the care of the stricken one.

That my affairs prospered I am glad to relate—that in the six months I should be here I should accumulate an agreeable sum might have pleased me. But what was that sum to me now, when I realized to what purpose I had expected to put it? Yet my greed received a check. I had a letter from friend Hicks. It was a most grievous letter: my money, all that he held in trust for me (and it was my all), had been stolen from his keeping. The theft had occurred more than a month ago, but as he had sedulously hoped to detect the culprit, he had kept the fact from me for shame at what might be termed his negligence of reposed trust. He had instigated diligent search, but nothing had come of it: there was no one to accuse. He had determined, however, to pay back to my account from his own moneys the full amount, and had only informed me of the loss that there might be no secrecy between us, and that I should never hear from outside parties that this thing had occurred, and that he had used most reprehensive tact to disguise the fact from me. I wrote a letter to him. I reminded him that the money was of no account—that as it had been intended for the well-known purpose, and as my marriage was to be at no set time, let it rest to my loss, and not his, for that I would never accept of his money to cover what was truthfully a theft from me.

I heard long afterward that he let his daughter read this letter, as he knew that she was often with Richard Jordan, and he desired to acquaint her that I meant to be well in all my principles. This was as I understood it.

The loss of this money gave me little concern, I assure thee; and now that it would never be put to its originally-intended use, I perhaps cared less than I ordinarily might have cared; for friend Barbara's long silence could help me but to one conclusion, and that was that she would never be my wife. For had she consented to be guided by her former promise, her confession of much care for another man would have most effectively debarred me from calling into requisition that promise so exactingly obtained from her. My wife must have no fondness for another man than me. And yet when, a few days after the receipt and reply of her father's letter, another in friend Barbara's writing was placed in my hand, I can but say that more joy than I had ever before experienced was mine, and I thought of Miriam's song so full of triumph and gladness. And then the wonderful words of the psalm came to me. "'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,'" I said aloud, and thought of poor friend Jordan as she had understood those words so short a time ago.

Suppose Barbara had written in answer to my letter to her—had owned that her thought of the man was a delusion, and that she cared for me, and me only, above all others in the world! I carried the letter by me for many an hour, for it was business-time when I had it, and I let nothing interfere with needful duties of the day. It lay within my pocket pulseless, as a letter always is: its envelope had my name upon it carefully and neatly inscribed. Then when I had an hour to myself I walked, not more briskly than usual, to a sunny hollow surrounded by new boards smelling most pleasantly of the rich forests they had helped to form, and there, surrounded by deal that had held many a singing bird's voice in its time, I broke the seal of Barbara's second letter to me. I think I was vastly stricken as I read it—more stricken perhaps than life can ever experience twice. Did she write as I had most hoped and desired? It was a long letter, and I read it through twice to fully comprehend it. She was a thief! she herself had stolen the money! She knew that her father must have written me that the money was gone, and she did not wish to see the blame rest on an innocent person. Her father had been harsher than usual with her, and, when she would have asserted herself in many ways, had always referred her to me, telling her that I was the rightful one to say what might and what might not be: her father had refused to hear her make mention of the man she had mentioned to me, and had not recognized her being with him at all. (I could see in this that friend Hicks had tried more than arbitrary means to reduce his daughter's mind to the level of his wishes. But to the letter.) How could she, then, she wrote, tell her father of the taking of the money? She trusted that I might not think her overly bold, but if I did, it made no difference to her, for she was rendered desperate on all sides. (Ah, friend Barbara! thy father had ever such a cold reserve, that was not meant unkindly, but nevertheless was overly severe.) She could trust me, for it was my own money she had taken. (I bethink me it was but an odd trust at best.) She had taken the money to send to the man she cared so much for: he was a very poor man, and the congregation of which he was the hired preacher was poor; and as they had built a church which they could not afford to pay for, it was but in reason that they could not pay the minister of the church. The church was what the world's people call "a split" from another church—split because the people quarrelled about the Thirty-nine Articles, whatever they be, one party wanting thirty-eight or forty, and the other perhaps the original number. She knew that the minister was woefully in debt; that no one would trust him any further; that he had met and told her nothing at all of it; that he was duly polite to her, and mentioned none of his affairs at all. (O Barbara! how thee shielded him!) But she had questioned a woman who knew much of him, and the woman had said that he must have money for a certain secret purpose, the nature of which purpose the woman refused to tell, and that he was crazed for money. Barbara had asked the woman if the purpose were a sinful or shameful purpose, but the answer had been that it was the most holy one a man could have. Then Barbara had looked upon his white face and knew of his straits, and had pitied him. It was borne in upon her that she should help him. "Thee would have felt so, I am assured," she wrote. Then looking around her, confused by many and conflicting feelings, sad and grieving for herself, having no one to go to in the greatest trial a woman can have, she had seen but one thing to do: she called to mind Samuel Biddle, and how generously he had acted toward her—more generously than she had reason to suppose another man could ever do. Friend Biddle's letter to her was couched in such kindly terms that she knew it had been no great overthrow of feeling on his part to give her the liberty which she had long debated with herself whether to accept or not; and had finally concluded to do so. Then she had taken the money from her father's iron safe. She had sent it anonymously to the man, though she feared that he suspected from whom it came; and that was the saddest stroke of all, "for, friend Biddle," she wrote, "I know not if I am anything unto him, but I do assure thee he is much to me." (Poor friend Barbara! how I pitied thee for that!)

This was all of the letter, and I read it through twice.

I had gotten over my foolish emotion of disappointment, as I have told thee before this, and I went back to my office and indited a reply to the epistle immediately. "Let it be as thee has done, and thee may think that I fully sympathize with thee." That was my only reply.

And when I thought over the letter—her letter—from beginning to end, all day long, I did not see that I could have indited a different reply. Still, when I went home to friend Afton's house, and friend Afton came to me and told me that friend Jordan had had a more miserable day than ever, although my sympathy was fully aroused, yet it was with a sense of relief that I entered my room and closed the door, for I bethought me that I had much to ponder on. But my thought was interrupted: the poor demented woman was weeping in her room. She was stormy in her grief, and I heard friend Afton scolding. I opened my door. "Friend Jordan, is thee grieved?" I asked.

"Oh, Quaker," she cried, running to me, "they are all in the sky calling to me, and this woman will not let me reach them."

"She would have jumped out," whispered friend Afton, "and I had to nail down the sash."

I nodded, and motioned for her to keep quiet. "Does thee think thee would like to talk to me a while?" I asked.

"Not now, for I only want to talk with them. But tell me, Quaker—tell me if you want one thing more than any other in this world, and I will ask them to give it to you. Is there any one that you want to love you? For they can easily help you, as they have made me love you, and made you be good to me."

"Nay, friend," I said, "even the light from the stars cannot make one care for me who would not."

Then she cried out that I was sorrowful, and that I made her heart heavy—I who had always been a comfort and a guidance before.

"I will be so to thee now," I said.

"Then give me rest," she cried.

"The Lord knows I would give thee rest, O soul! if I could."

She looked at me most suddenly—I may say as a flash—and quickly glanced in at my room.

"Then I think I can rest in your room," she said.

"Thee shall do so."

Then I put on my hat and prepared to go out, and friend Afton said it was a relief to have one so obliging in the house.

"Farewell to thee," I said to friend Jordan.

She stood inside my doorway and looked at me. "'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,'" she said, and moved like a spirit toward me, placed her lips upon my cheek, and went in and closed the door. It was the first time any woman save my mother had ever kissed me.

Those words made me feel that they applied to me, youth is so vain and exacting even of the Lord's words. Nevertheless, as I went along the dark streets I heard them ringing in my ears with such a benign meaning as I never had understood in them before.

Long I walked the streets, lost in much thought and contemplation, and I felt what was weakness leaving me, and I deemed how heavy were some yokes compared to mine—friend Barbara's, for instance, she who must be surrounded and held in by unsympathizing moods. I fain would have helped her more than I did, but any further succor only meant a further offering of my feeling for her, and that she was as powerless to accept as I was to make her accept it. Long I walked the streets, and had the hopeful, helping words around and within me. And late in the night I turned my wearied steps toward friend Afton's, and once more was entering the house, when, as though an angel—as though the Lord above—had spoken to me from high overhead, in grave, solemn, holy voice came the words, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." And I turned my eyes above as I hope to turn them on the last Vast Day, when methinks those words may again be spoken and call forth a mighty response. But what was that white form so far above, even upon the sill of my window, three stories from the ground? With a great terror grown upon me I rushed into the street, and saw far up there, far in the night, friend Jordan standing out in the darkness with hands supplicating the stars, saying those words. This was why she had desired to rest in my room: with the cunning of insanity, she had known that the windows of her own room were nailed down, and so on the instant had thought of mine as a possible means of reaching to her stars. With every limb frozen, it seemed, by sudden petrification, I had no power to unclose my lips, but I made a sound like a groan, I know, and then I saw her reach up high, high toward the sky and give a leap into the air. There came a crash of breaking glass, and I saw a whirl of white garments far above me that came fluttering down in a spiral motion. I rushed toward it ere it fell: there came a sickening thud on the ground beside me, and a lifeless mass lay there.

I can scarcely narrate this calmly or well, but thee sees I have tried my best.

Then when friend Afton came to me, and in pardonable and much agitation asked me to write to the friends of the dead woman, I complied, and directed the letter to the Reverend Richard Jordan; and his address was the place where friend Hicks sojourned, as likely thee has guessed.

"What was this man to the deceased? does thee know?" I asked friend Afton.

"No, sir. He placed her with me a year ago, and asked me to take the best of care of her, and has always sent me money for her wants, and paid me well besides. And, strange to say, I never could get her to mention him. He seemed to be a good man, but poor in his dress—too young in the profession to get a wealthy 'call.'"

So the Reverend Richard Jordan, who had cared for this woman, was the man whom friend Barbara thought well of! This was what the money had been wanted for—this was the secret which was "neither sinful nor shameful, but the most holy that a man can have"!

When he came in at friend Afton's I went to him. "Who was the deceased?" I asked—most bluntly, I fear me.

"She was my wife," he said sadly, and so altogether frankly that I knew he was no guilty man, whatever else he might be.

"I grieve with thee," I said. "And before thee goes up to thy solemn office of praying by thy dead wife's side, I would tell thee something. I met thee—look at me!—months ago, when I almost stumbled against thee outside of Benjamin Hicks's garden-gate. Thee was new to the place, thee told me."

"I remember you," he said, and flushed painfully.

"Nay, do not redden," I said almost with anger. "I know all things about thee, and nothing that is harmful."

"Nor ever has been harm," he said firmly.

"I know thee has had much money sent to thee, and thee does not know from whom."

"I do," he said, "and am ashamed to say I accepted it. It came from your friend Hicks's daughter, but it was for my poor wife—for her alone. I could not help myself—I—"

"Thee has no need of shame for that. The Lord must have made it patent to thee that we are placed here to help one another. And so much as friend Hicks's daughter did for thee she did well, and she has my consent; for it was my money that she sent thee."

"God bless you, man!" he said, holding his hand to his face, "for I am nothing to you."

"And what is Benjamin Hicks's daughter to thee if thee is nothing to me?"

He looked at me in wonder: "She is to me a good woman who did her benefits in secret. I never had much conversation with her, for we seldom met; but she was ever kind, and I heard that she would marry soon. I never talked much to any one, for my cares have been great to me, and that sorrow up stairs has been a goodly portion."

"Go to thy sorrow," I said, "and let it comfort thee, as sorrow should, that thee did the best thee could."

Was I cruel in having spoken to him as I had, and at this time?

Then I wrote all—everything of the past months, of to-day, of the deceased woman's suffering, of her death, her husband's arrival, and all that he had said to me. It was a considerably lengthy letter, but what of that? It was for friend Barbara. I sent it at once. Then I must not neglect my duties here, so I stayed the allotted time, receiving occasional word from friend Hicks, but none from his daughter.

I think my mind was much inclined toward the hireling minister, for I clearly saw, as thee no doubt does, that he never knew what Barbara thought of him, and that he never could know, for he was a pure man and the sad husband of a sad wife. And when he would have said words of thanks to me when he left me I checked him: "Thee knows a Friend is not well pleased with many words: let the many good deeds which thee will do act as the many kind words thee would give me."

"With God's help I will," said he.

"Verily," I said; "and I bid peace be unto thee!"

"And unto you, friend!" he said. And the words that had been our first parting at friend Barbara's father's gate were the words that were our last as I left him at his wife's grave, from whence he was to go to a church in a distant city.

And when the six months were over and I was at liberty to go, I wrote another letter of a single line to Barbara, and this was it: "I am coming to thy father's house." That was all, for I thought that maybe she might not care overly much to greet me, all things considered, and might peradventure choose to make a trifling visit to her cousin Ann Jones, to whose house she as often as not went for those changes which most women much incline toward. Yet when I entered upon the porch of friend Hicks's house, and Barbara was there, and said, "I am pleased to see thee, friend Biddle," and her father said, "How does thee do?" altogether as though I had seen them but a day before, it was most agreeable to my mind and soothing to my spirit. And when, after the dinner was over, before which there was little chance at conversation, although I thought I detected a slight pallor in friend Barbara's face where before the dints had been, and when she had betaken herself to some place out of sight, and friend Hicks was beginning to talk upon my loss in his suffering a theft on his premises, I merely said, "Yea, friend Barbara took the money." Thee should have seen his face: it must have afforded thee considerable amusement.

"Barbara?" he said with much difficulty.

"Yea," I answered. "I know all about it; and she gave it to Richard Jordan, whom thee thought to frighten me with. He was poor, in need, and had a wife whom he must care for. I was in the house where his wife was ever since thee parted with me."

"Samuel Biddle!"

"Verily, friend Hicks. And she was a demented woman, whom her husband had to take good care of, and she relied upon me for such poor comfort as I could afford her. She is deceased, and it was myself who sent for her husband. Maybe there was much secrecy which thy daughter and I kept without thee, but mayhap we did it for the best. And thee must never inquire anything more about it; and I regret thee had so much concern, and thank thee for a most kind and generous friend."

"Samuel Biddle, I deemed that Barbara was not unto thee, nor thee unto her, as both had been to one another."

"Thee must be at odds with reason, friend Hicks, for I never have cared less for Barbara than I did at the first."

So I told the narrative to him; and although I strictly adhered to the facts, I bethink me that had I made them a trifle straighter he might not have comprehended them as he did. But he came to me as I sat there on the porch, and he laid his hand on my arm: "I have been overly strict with Barbara, friend Samuel, and thee must pardon me, for I only kept her for thee. Thee is a good man; and although some of Barbara's and thy doings in this matter, as thee has related it, are scarcely in accordance with an understanding of the world such as I have, and such as thee may hope to have in time, and most of what thee has done is rather removed from orthodox, yet I hold myself in thy debt."

Then as I glanced up I saw a face looking narrowly from far off in the hall: I fear me that Barbara must inevitably have heard every word. However, it was rather warmish weather, and as she came out to the porch with her knitting in her hands, she looked as though she were grateful to me; and there were wet rings about her eyes which made me sad to see, and I remembered the time in the lane, a long while ago, when I had seen just such rings and stains about her eyes. We spake not a word, and she sat down on one side of me and her father on the other. As in another time, friend Hicks put his handkerchief over his face to protect him from the air—the flies not being come yet—and I scarcely hesitate to say that he covered his left eye as well as his right. Then I am positive that the silence grew irksome to me, for I knew not what to think of Barbara's manner, nor what to say. So I arose and stood on the edge of the porch, and looked far over the large unbroken landscape, as all early spring landscapes are. I could not have been there many minutes before a soft touch made me turn about, and Barbara was beside me, and the rings about her eyes were wetter than ever.

"Barbara!" I said softly.

"Hush!" she whispered most gently, glancing toward her father, now balmily sleeping. "Samuel Biddle, I must thank thee: thee knows what for, so I need not repeat it. I thank thee, not as I would have thanked thee six months ago, but as—"

"As what, Barbara?"

"As thy wife soon to be, Samuel Biddle."

I placed her hand in mine. "And thee is not mistaken?" I said.

"Nay, not mistaken now. I never knew thee till I understood that all men are not like thee. I never knew thee till I most foolishly thought that a few words from another man on even trivial subjects meant more than thy silence of devotion. I learned my own mind in many ways, Samuel, and then I learned thee; for I had thought thee was in a measure thrust upon me, and only because I had not seen thee before father's approval of thee. That other man's care of his wife—a care that kept her affliction from any and all eyes—showed me what thee was even, and what thee was for me. I cannot rightly say all that I would, but I can only say this—that I never cared overly much for thee at first, Samuel Biddle; but Richard Jordan has taught me one thing, which perhaps no other man in the world could have done."

"And that is—?"

"What love is."

"Barbara!"

"Yea, Samuel Biddle, what love is; for I love thee, I love thee, and but only thee; and might never have told thee so, but I heard what thee said a spell ago to father, and I knew that thee was not disgusted with me, but cared for me as much as ever. Yea, a stranger man has taught me what love is."

And while I could but pat her head as it rested upon my shoulder, I said gladly, "Barbara, more than man has taught me what love is, and to love thee; but maybe a man can teach to woman what the Lord alone has taught to me."

"Let me think so, Samuel—that the Lord taught thee, and thee taught me the knowledge fresh from the Lord."

Then I placed my lips upon Barbara's lips.

ROBERT C. MEYERS.



LADY MORGAN.

With her wit and vanity, poor French and fine clothes, good common sense and warm Irish heart, Lady Morgan was a most entertaining and original character—a spirited, versatile, spunky little woman, whose whole life was a grand social success. She was also one of the most popular and voluminous writers of her day; but, with all her sparkle and dash, ambition and industry, destined in a few generations more to be almost unknown, vanishing down that doleful "back entry" where Time sends so many bright men and women. As the founder of Irish fiction—for the national tales of Ireland begin with her—and the patron of Irish song (she stimulated Lover to write "Rory O'More," and "Kate Kearney" is her own), always laboring for liberty and the interests of her oppressed countrymen, and preserving her name absolutely untouched by scandal through a long and brilliant career, she deserves a place among distinguished women. She evidently had no idea of being forgotten, and completed twenty chapters of autobiography—its florid egotism at once its fault and its charm—besides keeping a diary in later years, and preserving nearly all the letters written to her, and even cards left at her door. But on those cards were the names of Humboldt, Cuvier, Talma and the most celebrated men of that epoch, down to Macaulay, Douglas Jerrold and Edward Everett, while she could count among her intimates the noted men and women of three countries. La Fayette declared he was proud to be her friend; Byron praised her writings, and always expressed regret that he had not made her acquaintance in Italy; Sydney Smith coupled her name with his own as "the two Sydneys;" Leigh Hunt celebrated her in verse; Sir Thomas Lawrence, Ary Scheffer and other famous artists begged for the honor of painting her portrait. Was it strange after all this, and being told for half a century that she was an extraordinarily gifted and fascinating woman, that (being a woman) she should believe it?

She was extremely sensitive in regard to her age, and if forced to state it on the witness-stand would doubtless have whispered it to the judge in a bewitching way, as did a pretty but slightly passe French actress under similar embarrassing circumstances. She pleads: "What has a woman to do with dates—cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates—new style, old style, precession of the equinox, ill-timed calculation of comets long since due at their station and never come? Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would make the most natural points of reference in woman's autobiography. Plutarch sets the example of dropping dates in favor of incidents; and an authority more appropriate, Madame de Genlis, who began her own memoirs at eighty, swept through nearly an age of incident and revolution without any reference to vulgar eras signifying nothing (the times themselves out of joint), testifying to the pleasant incidents she recounts and the changes she witnessed. I mean to have none of them!"

Sydney Owenson was born in "ancient ould Dublin" at Christmas: the year is a little uncertain. The encyclopaedias say about 1780: 1776 has been suggested as more correct, but we will not pry into so delicate a matter. A charming woman never loses her youth. Doctor Holmes tells us that in travelling over the isthmus of life we do not ride in a private carriage, but in an omnibus—meaning that our ancestors or their traits take the trip with us; and in studying a character it is interesting to note the combinations that from generations back make up the individual. Sydney's father was the child of an ill-assorted marriage. "At a hurling-match long ago the Queen of Beauty, Sydney, granddaughter of Sir Maltby Crofton, lost her heart, like Rosalind, to the victor of the day, Walter McOwen (anglicized Owenson), a young farmer, tall and handsome, graceful and daring, and allowed him to discover that he had 'wrestled well and overthrown more than his enemies.' Result, an elopement and mesalliance never to be forgiven—the husband a jolly, racketing Irish lad, unable to appreciate his high-toned, accomplished wife, a skilful performer on the Irish harp, a poetess and a genius, called by the admiring neighbors 'the Harp of the Valley.'" Their only child, the father of Lady Morgan, was a tolerable actor, of loose morals and tight purse, who could sing a good song or tell a good story, and who was always in debt.

Sydney was a winsome little rogue, quite too much for her precise and stately mother, who was ever holding up as a model a child, in her grave fifty years agone, who had read the Bible through twice before she was five years old, and knitted all the stockings worn by the coachmen! All in vain: Sydney was not fated to die early or figure as a young saint in a Sunday-school memoir. She took a deep interest in chimney-sweeps from observing a den of little imps who swarmed in a cellar near her home, and on one occasion actually scrambled up a burning chimney, followed by this sooty troop. Her pets were numerous, the prime favorite being a cat named Ginger, from her yellow coat. Her mother, who was shocked by Sydney adding to her nightly petition, "God bless Ginger the cat!" did not share this partiality, as is seen in the young lady's first attempt at authorship, which has been preserved:

My dear pussy-cat, Were I a mouse or a rat, Sure I never would run off from you, You're so funny and gay With your tail when you play, And no song is so sweet as your mew. But pray keep in your press, And don't make a mess, When you share with your kittens our posset, For mamma can't abide you, And I cannot hide you Unless you keep close in your closet.

Her voice was remarkable, but her father, knowing too well the temptations that beset a public singer, refused to cultivate her talent for music, saying, "If I were to do this, it might induce her some day to go on the stage, and I would prefer to buy her a sieve of black cockles from Ring's End to cry about the streets of Dublin to seeing her the first prima donna of Europe." A genuine talent for music will assert itself in spite of neglect, and one evening at the house of Moore, where with her sister Olivia she listened in tearful enthusiasm to some of his melodies, sung as only the poet could sing them, was an important event in her life. She tells us that after this treat they went home in almost delirious ecstasy, actually forgetting to undress themselves before going to bed. This experience developed a longing to know more of the early Irish ballads, and roused a literary ambition. If the grocer's son could so distinguish himself, she could surely relieve her dear father from his embarrassments; and she began at once to write with this noble object. Her unselfish and unwavering devotion to her rather worthless father is the most attractive and touching point in her character. After her mother's death she was sent to boarding-school, where she studied well, scribbled verses, accomplished herself in dancing, and furnished bright home-letters for her less brilliant mates.

She next figures as a governess in the family of a Mrs. Featherstone of Bracklin Castle. There was a merry dance for adieu the night she was to leave, but, like Cinderella, she danced too long: the hour sounded, and Sydney was hurried into the coach in a white muslin dress, pink silk stockings and slippers of the same hue, while Molly, the faithful old servant, insisted on wrapping her darling in her own warm cloak and ungainly headgear. Being ushered in this plight into a handsome drawing-room, there was a general titter at her grotesque appearance, but she told her story in her own captivating way until they screamed with laughter—not at her now, but with her—and she was "carried off to an exquisite suite of rooms—a study, bedroom and bath-room, with a roaring turf fire, open piano and lots of books;" and after dinner, where she was toasted, she sang several songs, which had an immense effect, and the evening ended with a jig, her hosts regretting that they had no spectators besides the servants. This, her first jig out of the school-room, she contrasts with her last one in public, when invited by the duchess of Northumberland to dance with Lord George Hill. She accepted the challenge from the two best jig-dancers in the country, Lord George and Sir Philip Crampton, and had the triumph of flooring them both.

Her first novel, St. Clair, was now completed. She had kept the writing of it a profound secret, and one morning the young author, full of ambitious dreams, borrowed the cook's market-bonnet and cloak and sallied out to seek her fortune. Before going far she saw over a shop-door "T. Smith, Printer and Bookseller," and ventured in. It was some minutes before T. Smith made his appearance, and when he did so he had a razor in one hand, a towel in the other, and only one side of his face shaved. After hearing her errand he told her, good-naturedly, that he did not publish novels, and sent her to Brown. Brown wanted his breakfast, and was not anxious for a girl's manuscript; but his wife persuaded him to promise to look it over; and, elated with success, Sydney ran back, forgetting to leave any address, and never heard of her first venture till, taking up a book in a friend's parlor, it proved to be her own. It had a good sale, and was translated into German, with a biographical notice which stated that the young author had strangled herself with an embroidered handkerchief in an agony of despair and unrequited love. The Sorrows of Werther was her model, but with a deal of stuff and sentimentality there was the promise of better things. "In all her early works her characters indulge in wonderful digressions, historical, astronomical and metaphysical, in the midst of terrible emergencies where danger, despair and unspeakable catastrophes are imminent and impending. No matter what laceration of their finest feelings they may be suffering, they always have their learning at command, and never fail to make quotations from favorite authors appropriate to the occasion."

The Novice of St. Dominick was Miss Owenson's second novel, and she went alone to London to make arrangements for its publication. In those days a journey from Ireland to that great city was no small undertaking, and when the coach drove into the yard of the Swan with Two Necks the enterprising young lady was utterly exhausted, and, seating herself on her little trunk in the inn-yard, fell fast asleep. But, as usual, she found friends, and good luck was on her side. The novel was cut down from six volumes to four, and with her first literary earnings, after assisting her father, she bought an Irish harp and a black mode cloak, being always devoted to music and dress. At this time her strongest ambition was to be every inch a woman. She gave up serious studies, to which she had applied herself, and cultivated even music as a mere accomplishment, fearful lest she should be considered a pedant or an artiste.

Next came The Wild Irish Girl, her first national story, which gave her more than a national fame, and three hundred pounds from her fascinated publisher. It contains much curious information about the antiquities and social condition of Ireland, and a passionate pleading against the wrongs of its people. It made the piquant little governess all the rage in fashionable society, and until her marriage she was known by the name of her heroine, Glorvina. As a story the book is not worth reading at the present day.

In The Book of the Boudoir, a sort of literary ragbag, she gives, under the heading "My First Rout in London," a graphic picture of an evening at Lady Cork's: "A few days after my arrival in London, and while my little book, The Wild Irish Girl, was running rapidly through successive editions, I was presented to the countess-dowager of Cork, and invited to a rout at her fantastic and pretty mansion in New Burlington street. Oh, how her Irish historical name tingled in my ears and seized on my imagination, reminding me of her great ancestor, 'the father of chemistry and uncle to the earl of Cork'! I stepped into my job carriage at the hour of ten, and, all alone by myself, as the song says, 'to Eden took my solitary way.' What added to my fears and doubts and hopes and embarrassments was a note from my noble hostess received at the moment of departure: 'Everybody has been invited expressly to meet the Wild Irish Girl; so she must bring her Irish harp. M.C.O.' I arrived at New Burlington street without my harp and with a beating heart, and I heard the high-sounding titles of princes and ambassadors and dukes and duchesses announced long before my poor plebeian name puzzled the porter and was bandied from footman to footman. As I ascended the marble stairs with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated by emotions similar to those which drew from a frightened countryman his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria: 'Oh, jabbers! I wish some of my greatest enemies was kicking me down Dame street.' Lady Cork met me at the door: 'What! no harp, Glorvina?'—'Oh, Lady Cork!'—'Oh, Lady Fiddlestick! You are a fool, child: you don't know your own interests.—Here, James, William, Thomas! send one of the chairmen to Stanhope street for Miss Owenson's harp.'"

After a stand and a stare of some seconds at a strikingly sullen-looking, handsome creature who stood alone, and whom she heard addressed by a pretty sprite of fashion with a "How-do, Lord Byron?" she says: "I was pushed on, and on reaching the centre of the conservatory I found myself suddenly pounced upon a sort of rustic seat, a very uneasy pre-eminence, and there I sat, the lioness of the night, shown off like the hyena of Exeter 'Change, looking almost as wild and feeling quite as savage. Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd which an idle curiosity, easily excited and as soon satisfied, had gathered round us, she prefaced every introduction with a little exordium which seemed to amuse every one but its object: 'Lord Erskine, this is the Wild Irish Girl whom you are so anxious to know. I assure you she talks quite as well as she writes.—Now, my dear, do tell my Lord Erskine some of those Irish stories you told us the other evening. Fancy yourself among your own set, and take off the brogue. Mrs. Abingdon says you would make a famous actress: she does indeed. You must play the short-armed orator with her: she will be here by and by. This is the duchess of St. Albans: she has your novel by heart. Where is Sheridan?—Do, my dear Mr. T—— (This is Mr. T——, my dear: geniuses should know each other)—do, my dear Mr. T——, find me Mr. Sheridan. Oh! here he is!—What! you know each other already? So much the better.—This is Lord Carysford.—Mr. Lewis, do come forward.—That is Monk Lewis, my dear, of whom you have heard so much, but you must not read his works: they are very naughty.' Lewis, who stood staring at me through his eye-glasses, backed out after this remark, and disappeared. 'You know Mr. Gell,' her ladyship continued, 'so I need not introduce you: he calls you the Irish Corinne. Your friend Mr. Moore will be here by and by: I have collected all the talent for you.—Do see, somebody, if Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons are come yet, and find me Lady Hamilton.—Now, pray tell us the scene at the Irish baronet's in the rebellion.'

"Lord L—— volunteered his services. The circle now began to widen—wits, warriors, peers and ministers of state. The harp was brought forward, and I tried to sing, but my howl was funereal. I was ready to cry, but endeavored to laugh, and to cover my real timidity by an affected ease which was both awkward and impolitic. At last Mr. Kemble was announced. Lady Cork reproached him as the late Mr. Kemble, and then, looking significantly at me, told him who I was. Kemble acknowledged me by a kindly nod, but the stare which succeeded was not one of mere recognition: it was the glazed, fixed look so common to those who have been making libations to altars which rarely qualify them for ladies' society. Mr. Kemble was evidently much preoccupied and a little exalted. He was seated my vis-a-vis at supper, and repeatedly raised his arm and stretched it across the table for the purpose, as I supposed, of helping himself to some boar's head in jelly. Alas! no! The bore was that my head happened to be the object which fixed his tenacious attention, which, dark, cropped and curly, struck him as a particularly well-organized brutus, and better than any in his repertoire of theatrical perukes. Succeeding at last in his feline and fixed purpose, he actually stuck his claws in my locks, and, addressing me in the deepest sepulchral tones, asked, 'Little girl, where did you get your wig?' Lord Erskine came to the rescue and liberated my head, and all tried to retrieve the awkwardness of the scene. Meanwhile, Kemble, peevish, as half-tipsy people generally are, drew back muttering and fumbling in his pocket, evidently with some dire intent lowering in his eyes. To the amusement of all, and to my increased consternation, he drew forth a volume of the Wild Irish Girl, and reading with his deep, emphatic voice one of the most high-flown of its passages, he paused, and patting the page with his fore finger, with the look of Hamlet addressing Polonius, he said, 'Little girl, why did you write such nonsense? and where did you get all those damned hard words?' Thus taken by surprise, and smarting with my wounds of mortified authorship, I answered unwittingly and witlessly the truth: 'Sir, I wrote as well as I could, and I got the hard words from—Johnson's Dictionary.' He was soon carried off to prevent any more attacks on my head, inside or out."

Glorvina was now very much the fashion, visiting in the best Dublin society and making many friends, whom she had the tact to retain through life. When articles of dress or ornament are named for one, it is an unfailing sign that they have attained notoriety, if not fame, and the bodkin used for fastening the "back hair" was called "Glorvina" in her honor. Like many attractive women of decided character, she had her full share of faults and foibles. Superficial, conceited, sadly lacking in spirituality and refinement, a cruel enemy, a toady to titles, a blind partisan of the Liberal party,—that is her picture in shadow. Her style was open to severe criticism, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth suggests mildly that Maria, in reading her novel aloud in the family circle, was obliged to omit some superfluous epithets.

In this first flush of celebrity she never gave up work, holding fast to industry as her sheet-anchor. Soon appeared two volumes of patriotic tales. Ida of Athens was Novel No. 3, but written in confident haste, and not well received. The names of her books would make a list rivalling that of the loves of Don Giovanni (nearly seventy volumes), and any extended analysis or criticism would be impossible in this rapid sketch. "Every day in my life is a leaf in my book" was a motto literally carried out, and she tried almost every department of literature, succeeding best in describing the broad characteristics of her own nation. "Her lovers, like her books, were too numerous to mention," yet her own heart seemed untouched. She coquetted gayly, but her adorers were always the sufferers.

Sir Jonah Barrington wrote her at this time a complimentary and witty letter, in which he says of her heroine Glorvina, "I believe you stole a spark from heaven to give animation to your idol." He thought the inferiority of Ida was owing to its author's luxurious surroundings. "I cannot conceive why the brain should not get fat and unwieldy, as well as any other part of the human frame. Some of our best poets have written in paroxysms of hunger, and I really believe that Addison would have had more point if he had had less victuals; and if you do not restrict yourself to a sheep's trotter and spruce beer, your style will betray your luxury." But soon came an increase of the very thing feared for her fame, in the form of an invitation from Lady Abercorn and the marquis to pass the chief part of every year with them. This was accepted, and thus she met her fate. Lord Abercorn kept a physician in his house, Doctor Morgan, a handsome, accomplished widower, whom the marchioness was anxious to provide with a second wife. She had fixed upon Sydney as a suitable person, but the retiring and reticent doctor had heard so much of her wit, talents and general fascination that he disliked the idea of meeting her. He was sitting one morning with the marchioness when a servant threw open the door, announcing "Miss Owenson," who had just arrived. Doctor Morgan sprang to his feet, and, there being no other way of escape, leaped through the open window into the garden below. This was too fair a challenge for a girl of spirit to refuse, and she set to work to captivate him, succeeding more effectually than she desired, for she had dreamed of making a brilliant match. Soon a letter was written to her father asking his leave to marry the conquered doctor, yet she does not seem to have been one bit in love. He was too grave and good, though as devoted a lover as could be asked for. It was a queer match and a dangerous experiment, but after a while their mutual qualities adjusted themselves. He kept her steady, and she roused him from indolent repose. As a critic of that time says: "She was as bustling, restless, energetic and pushing as he was modest, retiring and unaffected." Lover gives this picture of them: "There was Lady Morgan, with her irrepressible vivacity, her humor that indulged in the most audacious illustrations, and her candor which had small respect for time or place in its expression, and who, by the side of her tranquil, steady, contemplative husband, suggested the notion of a Barbary colt harnessed to a patient English draught-horse."

She had a certain light, jaunty air peculiarly Irish, celebrated by Leigh Hunt in verses which embody a faithful portrait:

And dear Lady Morgan, see, see where she comes, With her pulses all beating for freedom like drums, So Irish, so modish, so mixtish, so wild, So committing herself, as she talks, like a child; So trim, yet so easy, polite, yet high-hearted, That Truth and she, try all she can, won't be parted. She'll put on your fashions, your latest new air, And then talk so frankly, she'll make you all stare. Mrs. Hall may say "Oh!" and Miss Edgeworth say "Fie!" But my lady will know the what and the why. Her books, a like mixture, are so very clever That Jove himself swore he could read them for ever, Plot, character, freakishness, all are so good, And the heroine herself playing tricks in a hood.

After a happy year with her patrons Glorvina married and moved to a home of her own in Kildare street, Dublin, whence she writes to Lady Stanley: "With respect to authorship, I fear it is over. I have been making chair-covers instead of periods, hanging curtains instead of raising systems, and cheapening pots and pans instead of selling sentiment and philosophy." But even during this first busy year of housekeeping she was working upon O'Donnel, another national tale, for which she was paid five hundred and fifty pounds. It was highly praised by Sir Walter Scott, and sold with rapidity, but her Liberal politics made her unpopular with the leading Tory journalism of England. In point of pitiless invective the criticism of the Quarterly and Blackwood has perhaps never been exceeded. Her books were denounced as pestilent, and the public advised against maintaining her acquaintance. Miss Martineau, an impartial critic, if impartiality consists in punching almost every one she passed, did not fail to give our heroine a black eye, speaking of her as "in that set to which Mrs. Jameson belonged, who make women blush and men grow insolent."