To Jabel Blake, who came up lugging an ancient and large carpet-bag, and who repelled every urchin who wanted the job of carrying it, Elk MacNair spoke cordially but without enthusiasm.

"Jabel," he said, "if I hear you growl about money as long as you are here, I'll take you up to the Capitol and lose you among the coal-holes."

"It took many a grunt to make the money," said Jabel Blake, "and it's natural to growl at the loss of it."

By this time they had come to the street, and there in a livery barouche were the superb broad shoulders, fringed from above with fleece-white hair, of Judge Dunlevy. Health, wisdom, and hale, honorable age were expressed attributes of his body and face, and by his side, the flower of noble womanhood, sat Catharine, his child, worthy of her parentage. Both of them welcomed Arthur MacNair with that respectful warmth which acknowledged the nearness of his relationship to the approaching nuptials, and the Judge said:

"Great credit to Jabel Blake as a representative citizen, in that his eyes have seen the glory of these fine boys, to whom he has been so fast a friend!"

Jabel's glassy eyes shone, and his mouth unclosed like a smile in a fossil pair of jaws.

"It's the nighest I ever come to being paid for my investment in Arty and Elk," he said, "to get sech a compliment from Judge Dunlevy! They are good boys, though they've cost me a powerful lot, and I hope they'll save their money, stick to their church, and never forgit Ross Valley, which claims the honor of a buildin' 'em up."

"Get up here, Jabel, and ride!" cried Elk. "Remember that coal-hole, old man!"

"No! no!" cried Jabel; "I can walk. These fine carriages is expensive luxuries. They'll do for politicians, I 'spose, but not for business men with limited means."

The Judge made Jabel Blake sit facing him, however, and they rattled off to the hotel, where Elk MacNair had secured a parlor and suite for his brother in the retired end of the structure, commanding a view of Newspaper Row upon one side and of the Treasury facade on the other. The long, tarnished mirrors, the faded tapestry, and the heavy, soiled, damask curtains impressed Jabel Blake as parts of the wild extravagance of official society, and gave him many misgivings as to the amount of his bill. He retained enough of his Scotch temperament, however, to make no ceremony about a glass of punch, which the General ordered up for the old man, Arthur MacNair only abstaining, and the beauty and amiability of the Judge's daughter, who sat at his side and beguiled him to speak of his idolized village, his mills, his improvements, and his new bank, softened his hard countenance as by the reflection of her own, and touched him with tender and gratified conceptions of the social opportunities of his proteges. Miss Dunlevy's face, with the clear intellectual and moral nature of her father calmly looking out, expressed also a more emotional and more sympathetic bias. A pure and strong woman, whose life had ripened among the families and circles of the best in condition and influence, she had never crossed to the meaner side of necessity, nor appreciated the fact, scarcely palpable, even to her father, that he was poor. An entire life spent in the public service had allowed neither time nor propriety for improving his private fortune; and as his salary continued over the war era at the same modest standard which had barely sufficed for cheaper years, he had been making annual inroads upon his little estate, which was now quite exhausted. His daughter might have ended his heartache and crowned his wishes by availing herself of any of several offers of marriage which had been made to her; but the soldierly bearing, radiant face, and fine intellect of Elk MacNair had conquered competition when first he sought, through her father's influence, a lieutenancy in the army.

His career had been brilliant and fortunate, and when he was brought in from the field dangerously wounded, her womanly ministrations at the hospital had helped to set him upon his horse again, with life made better worth preserving for the promise of her hand, surrendered with her father's free consent. It was a love-match, without reservations or inquiries, the rapport and wish of two equal beings, kindred in youth, sympathy, and career, earnest to dwell together and absorbed in the worship of each other. Folded in full union of soul as perfectly as the leaves of a book, which are in contact at every point equally, they felt at this period the wistful tenderness of a marriage near at hand, and their eyes anticipated it, seeking each other out. She was cast in the large stature of her father, and her dark brown hair and eyes betokened the stability of her character, while her graces of movement and speech no less revealed her adaptability to the social responsibilities which she had solely conducted since her mother's death. Together, Catharine and her affianced made a couple equal to the fullest destiny, and they won praise without envy from all.

"It is a happy fortuity," said Judge Dunlevy, putting aside his glass; "Catharine's marriage to a worthy man, native to my own part of the country; Arthur's induction into national life; and hard-working Jabel Blake's final triumph with his bank! There is no misgiving in the mind of any of us. The way is all smooth. Perfect content, perfect love, no stain upon our honors or our characters: with such simple family democracies all over the land we vindicate the truthfulness of our institutions, and grow old without desponding of our country!"

"I feel almost religiously happy," said Arthur, the Congressman; "not for myself, particularly; not for my mere election to Congress, for in our district there are many abler men to make representatives of—I hope none with more steadfast good intentions!—but Elk here always had so much health, blood, wayward will, and brilliancy that I sometimes feared he might abandon the safe highways of labor and self-denial and try some dangerous short-cut to fortune. To see him survive the battle-field and begin the longer campaigns of peace with a profession, a reputation, no entanglements, and such a wife, makes me a religious man. God bless you, brother Elk!"

General MacNair said, in a jesting way, that Arthur was the truest, most old-fashioned, and most ridiculously scrupulous brother that ever grew up among the daisies; but he was affected, as were they all.

"Elk MacNair," asked Jabel Blake, in his hard, incisive, positive, business voice, "what do you mean to do after you are married?"

The General looked at Jabel as if he were a little officious and with large capacities for being disagreeable.

"I have arranged to buy a partnership in a legal firm having the largest practice in the North west. This is better than beginning alone and waiting to make a business."

"How much will that cost?" persisted Jabel Blake, not remarking the growing repulsion with which the General answered, after some little embarrassment:

"One hundred and sixty thousand dollars."

"Why!" cried Jabel Blake, "that is nearly as much as it takes to start the Ross Valley bank. Take care! Take care! Beware, Elk MacNair, of getting into debt at your time of life. It makes gray hairs come. It breaks up domestic pleasure. It mortgages tranquil years. Neither a borrower nor a lender be! That's Bible talk, and the Bible is not only the best book for the family, but the best business book besides."

"I don't mean to run in debt," said the General, with a look, perhaps surly; "I mean to buy into the firm with cash."

"Bosh!" said Jabel Blake, rising up, "where did you get one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, Elk MacNair?"

"If you were not claiming to its fullest extent the privilege of my father's friend, Jabel, I should tell you that it was none of your business! I will have made the money by the practice of law in the City of Washington."

"Dear me, Elk," said his brother, quietly; "I don't presume to be worth five thousand dollars, all told. But I suppose you have genius and opportunity, and the times are wondrous for men of acquaintance and enterprise."

Jabel Blake stared at Elk MacNair a long while without speaking.

II.

The sudden revelation that Elk MacNair was very rich had, on the whole, a depressing effect. Kate Dunlevy, who had expected to marry purely for love, found with a little chagrin that she was also marrying for money. The Judge was led to remark upon the curiosities of a speculative age and a fluctuating currency, and said he longed for the solid times of hard coin, cheap prices, easy stages, and a Jeffersonian republic. As for Jabel Blake, he was too late for that day to deposit his bonds at the Treasury and obtain the currency for the Ross Valley bank, so he went sauntering around the city, grim as a defeated office-seeker.

The brothers also made some calls, and Arthur MacNair was puzzled and at the same time pleased, to find that his dashing junior knew everybody, had something to chat about with innumerable strangers or members, and was freely admitted to any public office he desired. They came home at twilight, quite fatigued, and found Jabel Blake lying on a bed in the inner chamber, fast asleep.

"Dreaming of his bank!" said Elk MacNair; "what a metallic soul must Jabel's be! His very voice rattles like money. His features are cut hard as a face on a coin."

"Jabel has good points, Elk," said the Congressman; "if you can understand the passion of the town builder you can apprehend him. He has devoted his life to Ross Valley, and the only text of Scripture he finds it hard to understand is, that he who ruleth his soul is greater than he who buildeth a city."

The two brothers sat together in the main room; the day, at the windows, was growing grayer, and they were silent for a while.

The face of Elk MacNair had been growing long during the whole afternoon, but with an assumed gayety he had sought to make the hours pass pleasantly, and when his thoughtful and modest brother endeavored to argue with him that his legal labors were wearing him out, Elk MacNair turned the conversation off in a cheerful way by saying:

"Arthur, I have arranged that you shall have the chairmanship of a first-rate committee."

"How arranged it?"

"Oh, these things can be managed, you know. Every good position in Washington has to be begged for, or brought about by strategic approaches. I know the Speaker and the Speaker's friends below him, and the old chairman of the committee where I wish you to be; and, among us all, you have obtained the rare distinction, for a new member, of going to the head of one of the best of the second-class committees."

"I do not like this, Elk," said Arthur. "I hope I am without ambition, particularly of that sort which would annihilate processes and labors, and seek to obtain distinction by an easy path. I do not know that I shall make a speech during the whole of this Congress, although I shall try to be in my seat every day, and to vote when I am well informed. What committee is it that you have been at such pains to put me at the head of it?"

"The Committee on Ancient Contracts."

Arthur MacNair, who had not much color at the best of times, turned a little pale.

"Elk," said he, "there is a bad sound in that word 'contracts.' Of course, I do not take much stock in the widespread scandal about our Government giving away contract work to do from base or personal considerations; but I have a little belief that one ought to avoid even the appearance of evil. I think I must refuse to go on that committee."

Elk MacNair seemed to grow darker and older, and his face assumed an intensity of expression which his brother did not perceive.

"Pshaw! Arty," he said, with agitation, "everything here goes by friends. You brought with you no renown, no superstition, nothing which would entitle you to the Speaker's consideration. He might have put you, but for me, away down on the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions."

"I think I would like that committee," said Arthur MacNair quietly. "In it I might be the means of doing gratitude to some old and needy hero. I like those tasks which involve no notoriety. At home, in our church and among our townsfolks, I always tried to get on the societies which are unknown to public fame; and there, any little thing which I can diligently do brings its own reward. I must decline to go on the Committee on Ancient Contracts, Elk!"

The younger brother, with his dark burning eyes, met at this point the cool, unsuspecting glance of the country lawyer, and something in it seemed to embarrass even his worldliness, for he rose from his seat and threw up his hands impatiently.

"Oh! very well," he said. "I thought I was doing you a service, and now I see that it has been love's labor lost. In fact, I want you on that committee to serve a little turn for me!"

The country brother looked up with truthful surprise.

"For you, Elk?"

"Yes," cried the younger, striding up and down the floor with the step of one made decisive by being put at bay; "I want you upon that committee, not only to do me a turn but to do me a benefit; to come to my rescue; to fulfil the expectations of many hard-working months; to make me happy. Yes, Arthur, to make my fortune!"

Arthur MacNair followed the rapid walk and excited voice of his brother with astonishment. His small, thin, commonplace face seemed to develop lights and intelligences which were painful to him, the clearer his apprehensions became. He said, in a quiet, still voice, as if he also were interested now,

"I am afraid I am on the eve of hearing something bad, my brother. If it must come, let it all come."

"Arthur MacNair," said Elk, his voice raised above the ordinary pitch, and the recklessness of an officer in the ardor of battle showing in his working face, quick talk, and rapid gestures, "you are on the eve of hearing something. In your answer lies my destiny. I told you I was a lawyer, and had made one hundred and sixty thousand dollars with which I was to buy my way into an attorney's firm and establish myself in business. It was true. I have made that engagement. My talent and energy are recognized, and the place of which I spoke is waiting for me immediately after my marriage. The lady who is to be my bride is divided from me by no other consideration than this—that I have not obtained the one hundred and sixty thousand dollars."

The Congressman grew paler, and he made an effort to say "Go on," but his voice was scarcely audible, and Elk MacNair saw that he seemed to be suddenly sick. With self-reproach the younger brother observed all this, but it was too late for him to falter; the time was too precious.

"Arty," he said; "oh, my brother, the whole story must be told and the full crisis met. I am dependent upon you for the price of my happiness; for the hand of my wife; for the key to my fortune; for all that makes the future auspicious and the past clear. I am not a lawyer, as I have said, in the common sense in which, with modest effort and goodness, you have followed out your career. I am a lobbyist!"

"I returned from the war flushed with my success, and told on every hand that an immediate and profound prosperity were close before me. These politicians and speculators around the capital took me by the hand, flattered me, and showed me where my fortune was within my own grasp. Little by little they led me on, using my reputation and influence to accomplish their ends; and my mode of living, my acquaintances, my expectations, increased with my facilities, until, chafing under the consciousness that I was working out the private interests of others, I resolved to stake all upon one large hazard, conclude this wayward, self-accusing life, and depart from the purlieus of legislation. Up to the present time no stigma has been attached to my irregularities, none have suspected that I was less than I claimed to be—a soldier and a gentleman, betrothed to the noblest woman in the world. But this manner of living in the end works the destruction of habits and reputation to any who continue in it. To be brief, I have found political life nothing but a commerce. All have their price, and the highest sometimes sell out the cheapest. Men are estimated here by their boldness and breadth only, and a single successful venture of the kind I have in hand will dismiss me from this city rich and without exposure, and I swear never again to be seen in the lobbies of the Federal legislature. All my dependence in this, however, is upon you. I watched your campaign in our native region—how gallantly and how exceptionably you fought it, none knows so well!—and I took to heart the belief that, wishing to see me distinguished, wedded, and settled, your old scruples might give way, and you would afford me this last, best chance. Shall I go on?"

The small, thin face of the elder brother seemed to have lost all of its vitality; his fragile form was even more diminished; it might almost have been paralysis which had seized him.

"Water!" he muttered. "I cannot talk."

The younger brother ran for a glass, and with a look of mingled guilt and affection sought to support him with his arm. Arthur MacNair feebly repelled his assistance.

"You may finish, sir," he said.

"God forgive me," cried Elk MacNair, sinking into a chair; "my brother, I beseech you, do not think so evil of me as to suppose that in this enterprise I would compromise your character for one minute, and if it shall be necessary, all the fault shall be mine by open confession. There is an old claim for postal services rendered many years ago, which has reposed in the catacombs of one of the departments. The claimant has long been dead, and it was purchased for a small sum from his heirs. There are some equities about the claim; the attestations in its favor are purely documentary, and I have so entirely manipulated every instrumentality on the way to its passage, judicial, legislative, and executive, that if the Committee on Ancient Contracts should report favorably upon it at the beginning of the session, my confederates in the House will see that it goes along, and the department will pay it immediately. Congress will then at once adjourn, within a day or two, for such is the usage here. With my share of the money, which will be large, I will be a man of wealth and able to turn my back once and for all upon this Capitol. You are to be the chairman of the committee; the other members, as is habitual here, will intrust the whole matter to you; a few words explanatory of this claim will send it on its way, and the crisis of my life will have passed."

When the younger brother had finished, he also seemed to have expended his strength in the effort he had made, and he sat limp and despondent. The elder brother, on the contrary, appeared to recover his strength by a vigorous effort of the will. He stood up. He walked straight before his brother and looked down upon him with his penetrating blue eyes.

"Elk MacNair," he said, "tell me—by our common origin, solemnly, truthfully, and on your honor, tell me—will this claim stand the test of full investigation? Is it right?"

"Arthur," said the younger, feebly, "under that appeal I must speak truthfully. The claim is irregular; perhaps it has been paid already. There is no time for investigation. I have stocked the cards, and the trick must be taken at once or never. You have this alternative. I can take you off that committee, and I have a man in reversion who will get the post and pass the claim."

The stature of Arthur MacNair seemed to expand, and he became the positive spirit of the room.

"Not so," he said; "it shall not pass, Elk MacNair, neither by my help nor by any other man's! You have acknowledged to me that there is no justice in this thing. You have made me a party to a fraud. You shall know that the only oath I came here to take is that of allegiance to the interests of the country. No brotherhood, no sympathy, no ambition, no pity, nothing shall be able to swerve me from my full duty."

"What would you do, fanatic?" cried Elk MacNair.

"I will denounce that claim upon the floor of Congress, and couple with the denunciation the story of this infamous proposal you have made to a member of Congress."

The younger brother gave a laugh.

"What nonsense, Arthur," he said. "If you expect to find any large class of Americans who will appreciate such heroism, exhibited at the sacrifice of your own blood and family, you do not know your countrymen in these days. The only men who deal in sentiment in our time are demagogues, who never feel it. A sneer will go up from all the circles of the capital, from all the presses of the land, at a man who seeks, in a political age, to play the part of the elder Brutus."

"Miserable, lost, dishonored man!" said Arthur MacNair. "In the valleys of my State, in the quiet farming districts all through the Union, among the hard-working, the penurious, and the plain—such as you and your class despise—there are armies of men who would rise and march upon this capital if they appreciated the whole of the scene in which you have figured to-day! You would steal the money of the people that you may buy a character and a position among your countrymen. Shame upon the man who would defend the acquisition of such booty to wed the woman he loves."

Every word which Arthur MacNair had uttered, and most of all the last, cut like a knife into the pride of Elk MacNair.

"I thought I was pleading with my brother," he said hoarsely, "not to a stone. I shall say no more. I have placed myself in your power. Remember this: if my point is not carried within three days, or if it be balked by your interference, I will blow out my brains. I have walked to the door of hell on the battle-field, and I can go further."

He seized his hat and hurried away like a fury. Arthur MacNair stood motionless an instant in the middle of the floor, and then, worn out with the intensity of the scene, his limbs gave way beneath him, and he fell unconscious.

In a moment the hard, strong face and giant form of Jabel Blake appeared over the threshold of the bedroom; he lifted his Congressman and counsel in his arms and carried him grimly to a sofa.

III.

The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe was much delighted, on the morning subsequent to the occurrences related in our last chapter, to see Jabel Blake walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with the pensive air of a man whose heart had been broken. The Honorable Perkiomen supposed that Jabel had failed to receive some drawback or other upon his income-tax, and he rejoiced in the reverses of the close and thrifty.

But Jabel Blake was now concerned solely with the sudden and violent rupture between the MacNair brothers. He had little acquaintance with Elk MacNair, and no great fondness for him; but, being well informed as to the positive, combative traits of character in Arthur MacNair, Jabel knew very well that what his counsel had threatened to do he would do, though his own heart-strings might be sundered.

The deepest wish in Jabel's heart, next to establishing a national bank in Ross Valley, was to see the marriage between Kate Dunlevy and the MacNair family brought to pass; yet such was his reverence for the Dunlevys and so great his antagonism to the Washington Lobby that he was half inclined to be himself the means of breaking off the match between the daughter of his great neighbor and exemplar and the son of his old chum and companion.

Jabel took his way to the house of the old Circuit Judge, which was one of a row of tall brown-stone structures not far from the city hall, and when he rang the bell a servant showed him to a library in the second story, where the Judge was dictating certain judicial opinions to his daughter. The two elderly men retired to an adjacent apartment, which seemed, from its appointments and the character of needlework and literature strewn about, to be the boudoir of Miss Dunlevy; and the Judge, who was somewhat past the prime of life, plunged into a long story about Ross Valley and its early settlement, speaking much of the time with his eyes closed in a sort of half reverie, while Jabel, who occupied a seat nearer to the library, was meantime overhearing a conversation between Kate Dunlevy and young Elk MacNair, who had followed hard upon Jabel's heels. The old Judge meantime, used to their voices, paused only to remark that he thought Elk MacNair one of the strongest, most brilliant, and most promising men in the nation, and then went on with his dissertation upon pioneer days among the spurs of the Alleghenies. Jabel, however, who was an attentive, inquisitive busybody, and who lived in a part of the country where folks of quality and large pursuits were few, observed that the two voices in the next room were lowered, and that their key, while not so high, was yet even more startling than before.

"Kate," said Elk MacNair, "I had counted upon my brother as an assured ally in something of the most momentous importance to me at this juncture, before our marriage. My brother is a man of power, but of narrow views, and I have unconsciously aroused his animosity. He is not to be appeased. Nothing can divert him from his purpose.

"It can be nothing, if Arthur is the arbiter and your happiness the subject," said Miss Dunlevy.

"It is a point of honor differently taken by two men," said Elk MacNair; "and the issue is a matter of character. It is a matter of fortune besides, and if neither relents both will suffer."

These words were attended with some emotion which smote the rough feelings of Jabel Blake, and he was a witness of some subsidiary endearments, besides, which softened his indignation against the young officer. So he followed Elk MacNair from the house and accosted him upon the street.

"General," he said, "I claim the privilege of a guardian over you boys—over your brother in particular, who is a true man and an obstinate one. I know the matter of your difference. If you do not yield, Arthur MacNair will keep his word! You will be exposed on the floor of Congress, exactly as he promised, and your engagement with Kitty Dunlevy broken forever."

"Jabel Blake," answered the soldier, "I know just what I am about. I told my brother that I would blow my own head off if he sacrificed me for a sentiment. And just that I mean to do."

"I know the devil in the MacNair blood," said Jabel Blake; "but you are playing a false part and Arthur a true one. He fought his campaign against the corruptions and chicanery of power, and he will trample you out like a snake."

"He thinks he's correcting a boy," said Elk MacNair; "he shall find me a soldier."

"And you will find him a Christian soldier, truer to his allegiance than to rob his country!"

"Pshaw!" laughed Elk MacNair; "a skinflint who has raked up fortune with his fingers, ground down his laborers, pinched his soul, and stooped his stature for money, has no right to be my chaplain, Jabel Blake! You have grown rich like a scavenger. What matter if I bring down fortune with my rifle, though the American eagle be the bird. I would spare my body some of the dirty crawling you have done to get your bank!"

"Base boy!" cried Jabel Blake, with more contempt than anger; "I will live to teach you that a life of thrift and honest toil is above your power to insult it. You can neither repel me nor break your brother's heart. The time will come when you will weep to deserve the respect you have lost from these gray hairs."

He passed away with his old, heavy, deliberate gait, and left the young man almost repentant.

IV.

The galleries and floors of the House of Representatives were crowded, as was usual upon early working days of the session. Among the members in a retired seat his red shock of hair, clerical dress, and thin, worn, commonplace, freckled face denoted the new member from the Scotch district of Pennsylvania. The gay daughter of the Honorable Perkiomen Trappe, picking him out from the diplomatic gallery by the aid of her opera-glass, remarked that she mourned for her country when Europe could behold such a specimen of homespun among American Congressmen.

"And what's more, pet," said the Honorable Perkiomen, "he's a bin put on a fat committee. He has the cheer in the room on Ancient Contracts, and your unfortnit father is only a member under him. I think that staving cavalry brother of his'n, Elk MacNair, fixed his feed for him!"

They turned to look at Elk MacNair, sitting in the gallery near by with the venerable Judge and the Judge's daughter. His dark goatee, eyes, and hair, were set in a face unusually pale and intense, and his manly and refined worldly bearing suited his associations. Kate Dunlevy, with her charms of bloom, repose, and stateliness, looked like the wife of such a public man.

"Elk," said she, "you do not seem to be at ease to-day. You are pale and nervous, and you have stared down there at your brother's seat till people are taking notice of you."

"I am suffering a little, Kitty; that is all. My case comes up within five minutes, and I might as well blow my head off if it shall stick anywhere."

His eyes seemed to flame out with a reckless light as he said this.

"Arthur has a sick look as well," said Kate. "This public life is too exciting for him. See how nervously he sips that glass of water."

"Sick!" exclaimed Elk MacNair, with a voice of bitterness, yet with a melancholy glance of admiration in the direction of the Congressman; "he is more dangerous than sick. His will is sublime, Kate; nothing can soften it, not even pity."

The committees were now being called by the Speaker, and chairman after chairman rose to make his report. As the list diminished more and more, and the Committee upon Ancient Contracts approached its turn, there were no two such livid, deathly faces in all the crowded house as these two brothers wore. Elk MacNair's had a settled ferocity. The youthfulness and comely moods were gone from it, and the burnt-out countenance of a man of the world looked dead and ashen above the exhausted reservoirs of a diseased mind. Nothing was left but the last chance before despair, and apprehensive of the failure of this hope also, his gloved hand, resting upon a pocket hidden at his hip, sought support from the hilt of a pistol secreted there. Was this the meaning of the sullen and ghastly determination glaring from his eyes? Yes, love and death were almost mated; and so in every busy Congress do the spectres of temptation and ill-omen lurk in wait.

The country brother on the floor showed also his tenacious purpose in his compressed lips, straight, expanded breast and shoulders, and clear and direct but grave look. No extremity of occasion could make a heroic figure of him, but in his plain face was the beauty of moral courage. He rose to his feet when the Speaker cried:

"Committee on Ancient Contracts is next in order. The gentleman from Pennsylvania!"

The people in the galleries were not disappointed that such a homely man should have no voice nor grace, and that he spoke only with the gravest effort.

"The gentleman's voice is inaudible to the chair," said the Speaker.

But Elk MacNair had heard it from where he sat. He had distinguished the fitful words:

"The committee reports against the —— claim for postal services, desires that it do not pass, and the chairman wishes to make a personal explanation relative to the claim."

"Kitty," said Elk MacNair, in a coarse whisper, "my brother has broken my heart!"

"Stay!" said Miss Dunlevy; "he staggers in his seat as if he were about to fall. A page has run to him with a letter. He reads it. Elk, for Heaven's sake, go to his help! He is dying!"

There was a rush of members about the new chairman of committee. Confusion reigned upon the floor of Congress. The lobby brother had apprehended it all. He cleared the gallery at a run, passed a familiar doorkeeper like a dart, and raised his senior to his breast.

"Arty," he whispered, "may Heaven forgive me! I repent of my folly and wickedness, and entreat you to speak to me!"

"Heaven has forgiven you, Elk MacNair!" muttered the spent Congressman. "Your father's friend has spared your fame and my feelings at the expense of his fortune. It has taken the bank of Jabel Blake—the dream of his life—to save you from a dishonored name, and to give you a wife too worthy for you!"

He put a piece of paper in the lobbyist's hands. It said:

"Arthur, I have given you the last gift in my power—a costly and a dear one—to keep your brother from disgrace, and to save you both remorse. I have bought the —— claim, and destroyed it, but Ross Valley has lost the bank.

"JABEL BLAKE."

V.

On the terrace of the Capitol, while all this was occurring, a gaunt, gigantic, aged figure might have been seen, looking away into the city basking in the plain at his feet, with almost the bitterness of prophecy. He carried an old worn carpet-bag, and a railroad ticket appeared in his hat-band. It was Jabel Blake, shaking the dust of the capital city from his feet!

To him the soft and purple panorama brought no emotions, as pride of country or aesthetic associations; and even the bracing savor of the gale upon the eminence seemed laden, to his hard regard, with the corruptions and excesses of a debauched government and a rank society. The river, to him, was but the fair sewer to this sculptured sepulchre. The lambent amphitheatre of the inclosing ridges was like the wall of a jail which he longed to cross and return no more. He saw the dark granite form of the Treasury Department, and groaned like one whose heart was broken there. The bank of Ross Valley was never to be!

Jabel thought in one instant of the inquiries which should be addressed to him on his return, the prying curiosity of the hamlet, the strictures of his neighbors and laborers, the exultation of his enemies, the lost chance of his cherished village to become the mart of its locality and dispense from its exchequer enterprise and aid to farms and mines and mills.

"The good God may make it up to my children some day," he said; "but the bank is never to be in the life of old Jabel Blake!"

So Jabel went home and met with all obtuseness the flying rumors of the country. His worst enemies said that he had fallen from grace while in Washington, and "bucked" with all his bonds against a faro bank. His best friends obtained no explanation of his losses. He kept his counsel, grew even sterner and thriftier than he had ever been, and only at the Presbyterian church, where he prayed in public frequently at the evening meetings, were glimpses afforded of his recollections of Washington by the resonant appeals he made that the money-changers might be lashed out of the temples there, and desolation wrought upon them that sold doves.

There was no bank at Ross Valley, but people began to say that old Jabel Blake had particles of gold in the flinty composition of his life, and that his trip to Washington had made him gentler and wider in his charities. He was attentive to young children. He encouraged young lovers. He lifted many errant people to their feet, and started them on their way to a braver life of sacrifice. And fortune smiled upon him as never before. His mills went day and night, stopping never except on Sabbaths. The ground seemed to give forth iron and lime wherever he dug for it. The town became the thriftiest settlement in the Allegheny valleys, and Jabel Blake was the earliest riser and the hardest delver in the State.

It happened at the end of two years that rheumatism and an overstrained old age brought Jabel Blake to bed, and a flood, passing down the valley, aroused him, despite advice, to his old indomitable leadership against its ravages. He returned to his rest never to arise; for now a fever laid hold upon the old captain, and he talked in his delirium of Judge Dunlevy and his bank, and he was attended all the while by Arthur MacNair.

One night, in a little spell of relief, Jabel Blake opened his eyes and said,

"Arty, I dreamed old Jabel Blake was in heaven, and that he had founded a bank there!"

"Jabel," said the young Congressman, "you must have some treasure laid up there, old friend. And not only in heaven, but in this world also. Look on this happy family redeemed by your sacrifice!"

Jabel Blake opened his eyes wider, and they fell upon Judge Dunlevy.

"This is a great honor," he said; "Ross Valley brings her great citizen back."

"No!" cried the Judge, "it is you, Jabel, who have brought us all to your bedside to do ourselves honor. Here are Elk MacNair and my daughter, who owe all their fortune to your fatherly kindness, and who have come to repay you the uttermost farthing. Providence has appreciated your sacrifice. They bring for your blessing, my grandson, and the name they have given him is Jabel Blake."

"Jabel," said General MacNair, "take with our full hearts this money. It has been honestly earned with the capital of your bank. We return it that you may fulfil the dream of your life!"

Jabel Blake took the money, and a smile overspread his face. His hard lineaments were soft and fatherly now, and their tears attested how well he was esteemed. He drew Elk MacNair's ear to his lips, and said feebly, and with his latest articulate breath,

"General, you owe me two years' interest!"

They laid Jabel Blake away by his fathers, and on the day of the funeral Ross Valley was crowded like a shrine.



POTOMAC RIVER.

Brave river in the mountains bred, And broadening on thy way, So stately that thy stretches seem The bosom of the bay! Thy growth is like the nation's life, Through which thy current flows— Already past the cataracts And widening to repose.

Thy springs are at the Fairfax stone, Thy great arms northward course, They join and break the mountain bars With ever rallying force; But in thy nature is such peace, The beaten mountains yield, And lie their riven battlements Within thy silver shield.

Through battle-fields thy runnels wind, In fame thy ferries shine; Thy ripples lave the ancient stones On Freedom's boundary line; Where every slave the border crossed, A living host repass'd, And of the sentries of thy fords, John Brown shall be the last!

Yet, O Potomac! of thy peace Somewhat let faction feel, And Northern Pilgrims patient hear Of Mosby and MacNeill. The long trees bloom where Stuart cross'd, And weep where Ashby bled, And every echo in thy hills Seems Stonewall Jackson's tread.

The love we bore in other days No difference can bar, And truce was kept at Vernon's grave However rolled the war. Like thee, oh river! human states By many a rapid rage, Before they reach the deeper tides And glass the perfect age.

Brief is the span since Calvert's huts Were still the Indian's sport, And Braddock's columns stumbled on The borderer Cresap's fort, Till now the tinted hills grow fond Around yon marble height, Where Freedom calmly rules a realm That tires her eagle's flight.

And still the wild deer sip thy springs, The wild duck haunt thy coves, And all the year the fisher fleets Bask o'er thine oyster groves; The strange new bass thy trout pursue. And where the herring spawn, The blue sky opens to let through Thine own majestic swan.

Haste, Nature! Raze yon shiftless halls, Where pride penurious bides, The while the richness of the hills Runs off to choke the tides; Where every negro cabin stood A freeman's hearthside warm, And broad estates of bramble wood Expunge in many a farm!

Fill and revive these fair arcades, O race to Freedom born! The tinkling herds that roam the glades, The barge's mellow horn, The lonesome sails that come and go Repeat the wish again: The ardent river yearns to know Not memories, but MEN!



TELL-TALE FEET.

The din of the day is quiet now, and the street is deserted. The last bacchanal reeled homeward an hour ago. The most belated cabman has passed out of hearing. The one poor wretch who comes nightly to the water-side has closed her complaint; I saw her shawl float over the parapet as she flung her lean arms against the sky and went down with a scream. Here, in the busiest spot of the mightiest city, there is no human creature abroad; but footsteps are yet ringing on the desolateness. They are heard only by me. There are two of them; the first light, timorous, musical; the other harsh and heavy, as if shod with steel. I recognize them with a thrill; for they have haunted me many years, and they are speaking to me now. The one is soothing and pleading, and it implores me to write; but the second is like the striking of a revengeful knell. "Confession and Pardon," says the one; "Horror and Remorse," echoes the other. They tinkle and toll thus every midnight, when my hour of penance arrives and I have tried to register my story. It is almost finished now. Let me read the pages softly to myself:

"My life has been a long career of suffering. The elements, whose changes and combinations contribute to the pleasure of my species, have arrayed themselves against me. I am fashioned so delicately that the every-day bustle of the world provokes exquisite and incessant pain. Embodied like my fellows, my nerves are yet sensitive beyond girlishness, and my organs of sight, smell, and hearing are marvellously acute. The inodorous elements are painfully odorous to me. I can hear the subtlest processes in nature, and the densest darkness is radiant with mysterious lights. My childhood was a protracted horror, and the noises of a great city in which I lived shattered and well-nigh crazed me. In the dead calms I shuddered at the howling of winds. I fancied that I could detect the gliding revolution of the earth, and hear the march of the moon in her attendant orbit.

"My parents loved me tenderly, and, failing to soothe or conciliate me, they removed from the busy city to a secluded villa in the suburbs. Those labors which necessitated abrupt or prolonged sound were performed outside our grounds. The domestics were enjoined to conduct their operations with the utmost quietude. Carriages never came to the threshold, but stopped at the lodge; the drives were strewn with bark to drown the rattle of wheels; familiar fowls and beasts were excluded; the pines were cut down, though they had moaned for half a century; the angles of the house were rounded, that the wind might not scream and sigh of midnight, and the flapping of a shutter would have warranted the dismissal of the servants. Thick carpets covered the floors. My apartments lay in a remote wing, and were surrounded with double walls, filled with wool, to deaden communication. Goodly books were provided, but none which could arouse fears or passions. Fiery romances were prohibited, and histories of turmoil and war, with theology and its mournful revelations, and medicine, which revived the bitter story of my organism. My library was stocked with dreamy and diverting compositions—old Walton, the pensive angler; the vagaries of ancient Burton, and the placid essayists of the Addisonian day. Of poets I had Cowper and Wordsworth, who loved quiet life and were the chroniclers of domestic men and manners. Pictures of shadowy studios and calm lakes, unfrequented coverts and sleepy wayside inns, covered my wall. The tints of tapestry, panel, and furniture were subdued, and the sunshine which mellowed a stained window was softened by an ingenious arrangement of shades and refractors. Art opposed her quaintest contrivances against the intense and violent moods of Nature, and my retirement was secure from the inroads of all except my careful guardians.

"But I was still unhappy, and the prey of vivid fancies. This privacy suggested the great world without, where men were wrestling with dangers. I imagined ships upon stormy seas, and whirlwinds around mountain-homes; the chaos of cities, the rout of armies, dim arctic solitudes, where the icebergs tumbled apart and the frozen seas split asunder. They had banished painful occurrences, but the sensitive organism could not be destroyed, and I bore up until almost insane, struggling to be cheerful when stunned and dazzled. At last, when my mother stole into my room one day—it was October, I think, for I could hear the tiniest leaves dropping to the grass far below—I laid my head wearily in her lap and covered my ears with my hands. My eyes were filled with tears.

"'My dear mother, I cannot bear this life. I suffer as of old, though there be not a mote across the sun nor a breath in the air. If my mind could be led from these consciousnesses, I might be calm.'

"'Luke,' said my mother, 'you need a companion.'

"The thought was a new one, and so thrilled me.

"'No, mother,' I replied; 'strong, healthy beings could not exist thus cloistered.'

"'For less than money,' she responded, 'they have done more.'

"'We should not agree,' I said; 'I would be peevish and he would despise me.'

"'Your companion must be a woman, my son.'

"A succession of short chills passed through every nerve, and a moment's faintness possessed me.

"'It must not be,' I pleaded; 'a restless, chatting, plotting woman would be worse than all.'

"My mother marked my rising agitation and glided away.

"'Whatever can relieve you, dear Luke,' she said, 'your father shall obtain.'

"I now fancied that they believed me mad, and that a keeper was to be introduced to me, under the guise of a companion. I formed many mental portraits of this fierce person, and they kept me awake through the long watches. I even meditated escape, and unclosed my casement with that design, but the sunlight, the bird songs, and the zephyrs rushed into my window and staggered me like so many sentinels. One day I slept fitfully, and dreamed that I was poor and orphaned, with the alternatives of death or work before me. I had wandered to a village and thrown myself beneath some elms, with a horrible despair sealing my eyelids. Suddenly the grass was stirred by some human footfalls, and two soft voices were speaking close beside me.

"'It is strange,' said the first voice; 'he is pale and delicate, but with no evidences of heavier afflictions.'

"'You do not know him,' murmured the other; 'wait and see!'

"A face bent down to mine, and the lips of a woman touched my cheek. I started in my sleep, caught my breath gaspingly, and quivered like an aspen.

"'This is indeed terrible,' said the soft voice compassionately; 'but do not despair. It cannot be nature. It must be habit, or bashfulness, or the effect of some childish and forgotten fright. Cheer up, and hope!"

"'Be kind to him, Heraine,' resumed the other; 'you are my last resort, and becoming his companion you become my child. Do not vex, do not excite him. Be yourself—always calm, gentle, and affectionate—and the kindness which you show my boy may God return to you in mercy and blessing!'

"I unclosed my eyes; the scene was resolved to my quiet library. Something glided through the door, but a form from the other side flung a shadow across my face. A premonition of the keeper thrilled me a moment, but I turned slowly at length and looked into the intruder's face.

"A woman, or rather a girl with a woman's face, serene and placid, as if never ruffled by care or passion, sat between me and the window, and the gloomy light softened her calm countenance. As I looked up her lashes fell, and her blue eyes were bent fixedly upon the floor. She seemed like one of my sedate portraits, which had come down from its case. She waited, apparently, for some sign of recognition, or until my surprise should have passed away, and did not move while I ran her over with keen curiosity. She was, probably, of my own age, though her self-possession might have stamped her as much older; but the bloom of her cheek and her bosom just ripening were indices of a girl's year's. She raised her eyes at length and bade me good afternoon in a voice which reminded me of the faintest lullaby. The quiet tone was seconded by an assuring glance, and directly we were conversing without restraint, as if friends of years rather than acquaintances of an hour.

"Heraine was the impersonation of composure. The neutral tint of dress corresponded with the smooth tresses of her brown hair. Her touch was magnetic, and petulancy vanished at her smile as at a charm. Her intelligence was, doubtless, the secret of her power. She divined my moods without inquiry, and cheered them without effort. She led me out of the unhealthy atmosphere engendered by my sensitiveness, and I sometimes forgot my disability for hours. She was as good as she was capable, and as amiable as she was resolute. We fraternized immediately, and I felt all the newness of a regenerated life. My temperament was fitful as of yore, but the gloomy spectres vanished; and my attention being weaned from the slighter occurrences of nature, I was no longer racked by their tremors and jars. The soft face of Heraine seemed to hush all chaos, and when she smiled I thought that the very earth had ceased to roll. When her large liquid eyes were fully opened upon me, I seemed to be looking into the hungry blue of the sky, and carried aloft by the look beyond the influence of matter. For the moment my nerves grew numb, the compass of my senses narrowed to her wondrous face, and the fetters which bound me to it were forged of gold.

"The months went by like the stars, which wheel eternally, but seem motionless as we watch them. Sometimes we read aloud, but our voices were low and lulling, as if quieter than silence. Then we talked of my calm paintings, shadowing deeper lonelinesses in them. But it was my highest rapture to sit in stillness for hours while Heraine, cushioned at my feet, made cunning embroideries, like some facile poet whose fingers were dropping rhymes.

"I remarked that our conversations were progressive. My companion led me gradually into forbidden themes, as if to strengthen and embolden me. We went forth, in fancy, from our shadowy chamber, through deep groves, into twilights, beneath soft skies, even into the glare of the sun, and, at last, among the storms and the seas. I may have quivered, but I was not shocked; for the wrack and roar of the universe were drowned in the quietness of her voice. Then we walked abroad a little way, and, though pained, I endured; for she did not abuse these successes. She had travelled in far countries, and often read me friendly letters which attested how well the world esteemed her. Sometimes her acquaintances came to the house, but never to my room; and once or twice she was absent a whole day, when my nervousness returned. There was one correspondent whose missives were never read to me—a fine, bold hand, which at length became familiar. Their receipt pleased her, I thought, and once I ventured to say,

"'Heraine, you have a pleasant letter there.'

"She only blushed very much, and all her quietness was gone for a moment.

"As the months expanded into years, a new feeling engendered from our intimacy. I did not comprehend it at first. It crept upon me like the unfolding of a new sense, or the gradual realizing of the earliest profound thought. An unexpected event gave it recognition.

"The boldly-indorsed letters came twice a month at first, afterward four times, and finally twice, thrice, and even five times a week. Heraine was quick and flushed. She passed but two or three hours daily in my apartment, and substituted for the embroidery a dress of such bright hues that it dazzled my eyes. One day she took her accustomed seat, with a face subdued to sadness and an irresolute manner.

"'Luke,' she said, after a long pause, 'we have passed many days pleasantly together?'

"She did not wait for me to speak, though I thrilled and turned deadly white.

"'And because so pleasantly, I contemplate my farewell with regret.'

"'Your farewell, Heraine?'

"'Yes,' she said firmly; 'to-day—this afternoon—this hour—I bid adieu to Glengoyle!'

"I fell forward in my seat, forcing down my heart, which sobbed and swelled, and the whole world rang, flared, and burst into violence. If the seas had opened their fountains and the crust of the globe crushed up, there would have been no greater chaos. But in my faintness and agony I caught the blue eye which had soothed and melted me so often, and, clasping my hands, I fell at her knees and said,

"'Heraine, I love you!'

"It was her time to tremble now, and I interpreted the pallor of her cheek as a signal of hope.

"'I know that I love you,' I said; 'if the earth and the stars were to be blotted out, and you remain, I should not miss them. You are my universe. Without you there is no creation, and the elements are at war. If you leave me, you have left only a bright space in a wretched eternity. No voice but yours can say "peace" to me. Be merciful and remain!'

"She was moved with my appeal, and tears came to her eyes.

"'I did not know that it had come to this,' she said. Then her composure returned, and she raised me with a smile.

"'If you would win any woman,' she said meaningly, 'you must first be a man. You are not a man, Luke. You are a child! You have shut the sunlight from you, and the trill of a thrush pierces you like an arrow. Would you cage your wife in the gloominess of this sepulchre? Would you hush her songs, and tremble beneath her caresses, and die in the delights of her love? Go! Open the window of this vault! Mingle with the crowds of cities! Ascend into the mountains! Cross the seas! Become worthy of my affection, and then entreat me again!'

"She had shown me the abject thing I was. Her conditions were harder than death; but the hope she had spoken was like a glimpse of Heaven, and I answered,

"'Heraine, I will do it!'

"In a month I set out for my travels. An easy coach conveyed me to London, and the third day I lay sick in Paris. Sore of body and brain, strained in nerve and stunned in sense, I persisted in my resolve, and was whirled, more dead than alive, across the Continent to Berlin. In the period of three months I had traversed all the leading kingdoms and pushed my purpose to the sandy banks of the Nile. Every moment in this journey was an infinity of torture; but in the bitterest pangs I remembered the divine consummation, and kept on. My infirmities were increased rather than diminished. In the deepest thunder I could hear the delving of the beetle; and though the whole vault blazed with electric light, I could see the twinkle of the glow-worm. But among the multitude of noises which haunted me, the most persistent were the footfalls of men. There were pauses in the lives of all other beings. The weasel and the hyena rested sometimes, and I could avoid their haunts, but men were forever alert and ubiquitous. I heard them in abysses, upon peaks, and in wildernesses. They trod upon my nerves; they crushed sleep from my soul. I closed my ears in vain; I fled without refuge; I prayed without avail. The patter of little children, the footfall of the maiden, the elastic pace of the youth, the racking limp of the cripple, the veteran hobbling upon his wooden stump, the confused tread of crowds, the steady tramp of soldiers—these tortured me by daylight, and I kept penance at midnight with the going of outcasts and vagrants.

"I learned to classify these footfalls. My sensations of them were so keen that my memory retained them. I recognized individuals, not by their faces but by their feet. A solitary tourist met me among the ruins of Luxor; I knew his tread, though months had elapsed, among the thousands on London Bridge. A gypsy family, whom I passed on the Spanish sierras, went under my window in Paris, and I missed the feet of the lad who had been hanged. Ten thieves were marched to the pillory in Kiev; I counted the paces of the four who escaped, from a closed diligence on the Simplon. I lost not one among the millions of footfalls. But there were two which I distinguished every where. When I pursued, they retreated; when I fled, they followed me. They were like two echoes in different keys; and one of them I loved, the other I hated. The first was soft, tinkling, harmonious, like a memory rather than a sound; the other was firm, vigorous, and vehement, and it kept time with the soft footstep, as if to drown it to my ears. When I was fagged and wretched, the light footfall approached me; but when, inspirited, I rose to behold its owner, it died away in the thunder of its companion tread.

"At last I embarked for America, and when the land disappeared I said to myself, 'At sea, at least, no footfalls can follow.' But one night, when the clangor of the screw drove me upon deck, I heard, far astern, through the deep fog, the sound of two haunting feet. Next morning a swifter steamer overtook us. The waves revelled between, and the winds were high, but above the bellow of our engines and the elements, those thrilling footfalls rang out. I caught a glimpse of a familiar something, as the rival craft went by, and reeled and fell upon the deck.

"I found New York the noisiest city in the world, and felt that a week's tenure would drive me mad. A fire occurred in Broadway the night of my arrival, and the din of the mobs which ran to its relief was greater than all the combined clamors of Europe. So I resorted to a beautiful village called Wyoming, in the heart of the Susquehanna mountains, and passed the month of September in comparative quiet. If any place in the world is shut in from brawls and storms, it is this historic valley. Its reminiscences were sad and painful to me, but its scenes were like soft dreams.

"During a part of my tenure in the village I missed my shadowy attendants; but when, one day, I ascended to Prospect Rock, I heard amid the hum of farms and mines and mills, those same audible repetitions floating up the sides of the mountain. The valley grew dim upon my sight, and I hastened nervously to my cottage. Thenceforward I seldom lost them. When I penetrated the wild glen of the Lackawanna, or climbed the Umbrella Tree, or ventured into the Wolf's Den, or sat upon Queen Esther's Rock, or sailed upon Harvey's Lake, they followed me, the one lulling, the other maddening—invisible but omnipresent types of the good and the evil which forever hover in the air.

"One day I ventured to Falling Waters, a reservoir which is precipitated from a cliff, called Campbell's Ridge, into a gorge of the Shawnee Mountains. The deafening roar of the cataract would be almost deathly to me; but, strengthened by the promise of Heraine, I determined to add this achievement to the long list of inflictions endured for her sake.

"I made the ascent on foot, and could see, from the base of the ridge, the skein of foam shining through the pines in its everlasting flight down the rocks. I became accustomed to the sound as I gradually approached, and mused, with gladness, of an early return to England. Heraine would acknowledge my vindication. Suffering more anguish from a sunbeam or a song than others from the knout or the rack, I had yet run the gauntlet of the intensest horrors, cheered by the certainty of her regard. She would confess her error. We should shut out the world again from our shadowy home at Glengoyle, and go down together, hand in hand, to a deeper stillness. As I mused thus I heard the haunting footfalls again, going up the mountain before me. To my delight, their attendant demon was inaudible, and I pursued them rapturously. The rush of waters grew louder. They had moaned before; they shrieked and screamed now, as if in the agony of their suicidal leap. But, clear and musical, above the hell of sound rang the tinkling feet which had led me around the globe.

"I called aloud. I quickened my pace. I could see only in glimpses through my tears; but along the steep sinuosities of the path something fluttered and vanished, and fluttered again—I recognized Heraine.

"I knew now the fidelity of her affection. She had followed my invalid wanderings, to be near me in want and prostration. I could have knelt in the aisle of the dim woods, with God's choir of waters pealing before me, to weep my gratitude. But as the figure of Heraine disappeared above, those other abhorred footfalls rang keenly below. Deep, rapid, and elastic, they were sonorously defined above the clash of the cataract. I fled, with my hands upon my ears.

"On and on! winding among boles, creeping beneath branches, climbing ledges, vaulting over fissures and chasms, I reached the open plain at last, and halted unnerved upon the brink of the abyss.

"The glory of the prospect filled me with exquisite pain. A mist, arched by a delicate rainbow, rose from the tumbling flood, and the sunny valley was visible, at intervals, beyond it, inclosed by blue mountains and intersected by the pale, ribbon-like Susquehanna. It was my fate to endure, not to enjoy; but at this moment the cataract was forgotten in a deeper torment; the boughs opened, the sky split with the shock of feet, and a man bounded from the wood.

"He was tall, handsome, and athletic, and his ruddy cheeks were flushed with exercise. He made a trumpet of his hands, and hallooed, long and clear,

"'Hera—a—a—ine!'

"Then he whistled through his fist till the rocks and water rang.

"'Where the deuce is the dear girl?' he said, and his eyes fell upon me.

"A terrible hatred rose in my heart against this man. It was the first great passion I had nurtured, and had received no other provocation than the empty sounds of his footfalls. But antipathies are not accidental merely; they are organic; and my quick sense took alarm even from his tread. One's character may be defined in his gait, but I knew from the tramp of this person that his nature was averse to mine. Why had he followed my affianced across the seas? Why had his crashing drowned the music of her steps? Why had he uttered her name with an endearment? Why had he been retained at her side, and I sent alone and wretched before? My wrists knotted nervously as these accusations took shape, and my blood became gall.

"'I beg pardon,' he said curtly; 'but are you the young man we are looking for?'

"I asked through my teeth whom he designated in the term 'we.'

"'Heraine, of course,' he replied; 'give me your hand! We have followed our little invalid—that's what we call you—over many a league, and may make his acquaintance at last. Ralph Clendenning, at your service!'

"I shrank menacingly from him, and counted the dull throbs of my heart.

"'What! timid!' he said; 'and with so old a friend? I never met you, indeed, but then I have talked of you so often that you have grown to be quite a brother.'

"I saw that he was frank and winning, and hated him the more.

"'Upon my word,' he added, 'there was none whom I had resolved in my mind to love so well, for the sake of Heraine.'

"A cry escaped me, so bitter that it seemed a howl, and I clenched my hands.

"He still followed me along the very edge of the cliff, extending his hand. A horrible impulse rushed upon me, and a thought darker than jealousy caught it up. I hurled myself against him. He staggered on the brink of the abyss, and went down with a sharp, half-stifled scream!

"My eyes followed the dead weight, as it rolled from ledge to ledge, accelerated each instant by the force of the cataract. A world, tossed out of gravity and crashing among the planets, could not have been more awfully distinct. Down—down—down—a formless mass of fibre and bone, the mist seemed to buoy it up when it reached the deepmost cascade, and as it disappeared through the tops of the pines I heard the coming of footfalls.

"Mine was a soul in torment, listening to music in heaven. I stood, stiff and numb in horror, staring into the gulf. The roar of the cataract was smothered to a babble. The rainbow vibrated tremulously to the dropping harmonies. I saw the familiar shadow as it gided to my feet. A soft hand thrilled me with its touch, and the old voice said,

"'Dear Luke, I am Heraine, come back.'

"I could not stir. My eyes were forged to the abyss.

"'Why do you glare so wildly?' she said. 'Come! you have been brave, and must not fail now. Have you no kind greeting for Heraine?'

"Down in the abyss, swaying and rocking upon the pine bough, with the frank smile as when I murdered him, I saw my victim in fancy.

"'Speak, Luke,' she repeated. 'I have a dear friend here; he has made the long pilgrimage with me, fondly anticipating this meeting. You will know him to-day, and I am sure you will love him.'

"Still surging upon mist and spray and bough, with the halo of the rainbow shimmering above it, the noble face turned upward forgivingly.

"'We have planned for your happiness, dear friend. Compared to the retreat we have fashioned for you, Glengoyle is a Babel. But you are ill, Luke; What terrible allurement lies in the waterfall? Come away from the brink! Ralph! Ralph!'

"She called in clear tones. The woods and waters answered back.

"'He is there,' I stammered; 'down—deep—dead—do you see him?—how he smiles and surges on the tufts of the pines! I—thrust him over—in rage—even as he gave me his hand—I slew him!'

"'Merciful God!' she whispered in horror; 'he was my husband!'

"The rainbow dissolved; the waterfall deluged the valley; the mountains were covered with waves; the skies grew pitchy dark; I saw nothing more.

* * * * *

"My sensations upon waking were those of a diver who has risen from the tranquil depths to the surface. Hubbub recommenced; horror returned. My hair was shaven close to my skull; my head ached dismally; I moved my hand with an effort, and my eyelids were so weak that I could not unseal them for a time.

"I was lying in my old chamber at Glengoyle, and Heraine was sitting at my bedside. Her garments were sable, her brown hair thin, her face placid, as of yore, but marked by deep-seated grief, and the magnetism of will and courage was gone from it. To the eye she was the same; to the mind, a weak and broken thing. Crime had changed both our natures; she had been tutor and governess before, and I the passive, submissive creature; but sin had made me bold, and sorrow worn her to a woman.

"'Luke,' she said, in the same lullaby tone, 'do you know me? do you recognize the place? are you still weak?'

"'Heraine,' said I, sternly, 'do not the wrongs we have done each other forbid this intimacy?'

"'Oh, Luke!' she replied, 'let us not uncover the past. I have buried your sin with its victim, and watched you through weary months, and prayed God to pardon you.'

"'Can God pardon your sin to me, Heraine?'

"'I trust so, Luke,' she said feebly, 'if ever in my life I treasured you a hard thought or did you any injury.'

"'Is it no injury,' I said, 'to have lured me by a false promise from my quiet home? I have endured the torture of cities, seas, suns, and storms. Your pledge was my spur and talisman through all. But you had cheated me with a lie. You were another's already. For you I have stained my hands with blood and shut heaven against my soul!'

"'As I have an account to Settle, Luke,' she pleaded, 'I meant your happiness only. To have told you that I was wedded would have pained you. I thought to familiarize you with scenes and sounds, by making my regard an incentive to adventure. It was your mother's plan. I yielded to the deception, and believed it good."

"'It was a wicked falsehood,' I said; 'you knew the weakness of my nature—that my sensitiveness was a disease—that to cross me was to kill. You have made both of us wretched forever.'

"My cruelty was murdering her; her face grew deathly in its pallor, and she pressed her hands upon her heart.

"'Let the dead man lie between us,' I proceeded; 'it is not seemly for you to be my friend; and to me you are an ever-present accusation. We must not see each other!'

"'Oh, Luke!' she cried, falling upon her knees imploringly; 'I am a bruised thing, a-weary of the world. This silence and darkness are endeared to me. Do not send me away!'

"'You agitate me,' I said; 'let us do our penance, each in loneliness. There was a time when our sorrows were mutual; it is past; we have only to say farewell.'

"I covered my face with my hands; she touched my brow with her lips, and when the door had closed upon her sobbing I heard her footfalls making mournful music on the stairs. They rang upon the lawn, then pattered down the drive; they passed desolately out of the gate, they were lost on the highway, and then the world became blank again.

* * * * *

"'Luke,' said my mother timidly, 'Mrs. Clendenning—Heraine—is—dead.'

"'I know it,' said I quietly.

"She seemed surprised, and interrogated me with her eyes.

"'She died at twilight yesterday,' I stated; 'as the first candles were lit in the lodge and the earliest star appeared—I heard her footsteps.'

"'At that time she passed away,' sobbed my mother. 'Oh, Luke! you were cruel to the poor girl. Her parting prayer was made for you. To the last you stood between Heraine and heaven.'

"'At that time, mother, I was sitting at my window. Tears and thrills haunted me during the afternoon, and I was frightened in the silence and darkness. And I heard Heraine's footsteps come up the road, pass the lodge, ascend the stairs, and cross my threshold. They were like echoes rather than sounds—hollow and ghostly; and mingled with them were the deeper footfalls of my other spectre, her husband.'

"I could not inhabit my chamber now. These awful sounds drove me into the open world, where I hoped to lose them in the tread of multitudes. I wandered to the old church on the day of the funeral, and looked upon the bier with dry and burning eyes. The pastor read of the holy Jerusalem, and said that her pure feet were walking the golden streets. But in the hushes of the sobbing I heard them close beside me, and while children were strewing her grave with flowers they followed me over the stile and through the village till I gained the fields and took to my heels in fright.

"I sought the resort of crowds, and lived amid turbulences. In busy hours I baffled my pursuers; but in the dark midnights, when only the miserable walked, I suffered the agonies of remorse and penance. The ever-flowing stream of life on London Bridge became my solace. My apartments are here, and I sit continually at an open window, leaning far forward, to catch the thunder of the tramp. I know the footfalls as of old. I see the suicide pace to and fro, to nerve herself for the deed. I hear her sleek betrayer, and detect their wretched offspring as he first essays to filch a handkerchief or a purse.

"Oh, the footfalls! the footfalls! Each tread marks a good or a wicked thought. A fiend or an angel starts beneath every heel. They write an eternal record as they go. Their voices float forever to witness against or for us. We people space as we cleave it. The ground that is dumb as we spurn it has a memory and a revenge. I am more sensitive than my kind; and my penance to these monitors of my sin is but a realization of the terror which all must feel at the accusation of their footfalls."



UPPER MARLB'RO'.

Through a narrow, ravelled valley, wearing down the farmer's soil, The Patuxent flows inconstant, with a hue of clay and oil, From the terraces of mill-dams and the temperate slopes of wheat, To the bottoms of tobacco, watched by many a planter's seat.

There the blackened drying-houses show the hanging shocks of green, Smoking through the lifted shutters, sunning in the nicotine; And around old steamboat-landings loiter mules and over-seers, With the hogsheads of tobacco rolled together on the piers.

Inland from the river stranded in a cove between the hills, Lies old Marlb'ro' Court and village, acclimated to her chills; And the white mists nightly rising from the swamps that trench her round, Seem the sheeted ghosts of memories buried in that ancient ground.

Here in days when still Prince George's of the province was the queen, Great old judges ruled the gentry, gathering to the court-house green; When the Ogles and the Tayloes matched their Arab steeds to race, Judge Duval adjourned the sessions, Luther Martin quit his case.

Here young Roger Taney lingered, while the horn and hounds were loud, To behold the pompous Pinkney scattering learning to the crowd; And old men great Wirt remembered, while their minds he strove to win, As a little German urchin drumming at his father's inn.

When the ocean barks could moor them in the shadow of the town Ere the channels filled and mouldered with the rich soil wafted down— Here the Irish trader, Carroll, brought the bride of Darnell Hall, And their Jesuit son was Bishop of the New World over all.

Here the troopers of Prince George's, with their horse-tail helmets, won Praise from valiant Eager Howard and from General Wilkinson; And (the village doctor seeking from the British to restore) Key, the poet, wrote his anthem in the light of Baltimore.

One by one the homes colonial disappear in Time's decrees. Though the apple orchards linger and the lanes of cherry-trees; E'en the Woodyard[3] mansion kindles when the chimney-beam consumes, And the tolerant Northern farmer ploughs around old Romish tombs.

By the high white gravelled turnpike trails the sunken, copse-grown route, Where the troops of Ross and Cockburn marched to victory, and about, Halting twice at Upper Marlb'ro', where 'tis still tradition's brag, That 'twas Barney got the victory though the British got the swag.

But the Capital, rebuilded, counts 'mid towns rebellious this— Standing in the old slave region 'twixt it and Annapolis; And the cannons their embrasures on the Anacostia forts Open tow'rd old ruined Marlb'ro' and the dead Patuxent ports.

[Footnote 3: "The Woodyard," the finest brick mansion on the western peninsula of Maryland, the seat of the Wests, twelve miles from Washington, burned down a few years ago by the unaccountable ignition of the great beam of wood over the big chimney-place, which had stood there for nearly 200 years. Either seasoned by the fire or fired by spooks, it caught in the night, and a heap of imported bricks stood next morning in place of The Woodyard.]

Still from Washington some traveller, tempted by the easy grades, Through the Long Old Fields continues cantering in the evening shades, Till he hears the frogs and crickets serenading something lost, In the aguey mists of Marlb'ro' banked before him like a frost.

Then the lights begin to twinkle, and he hears the negroes' feet Dancing in the old storehouses on the sandy business street, And abandoned lawyers' lodges underneath the long trees lurk, Like the vaults around a graveyard where the court-house is the kirk.

He will see the sallow old men drinking juleps, grave and bleared— But no more their household servants at the court-house auctioneered; And the county clerk will prove it by the records on his shelves, That the fathers of the province were no better than ourselves.



PREACHERS' SONS IN 1849.

When I admit that these reminiscences are real, it will at once be inferred that I am a preacher's son. The general reputation of my class has been bad since the day of Eli; but I affirm and maintain that reason does not bear out this verdict, however obstinate experience may be. For why should the best parents have the worst children? and that our itinerant sires were godly and self-sacrificing men the most prodigal of their boys must confess. No flippant or errant example rises before me when I take my father's portrait in my hand and recall the humility and heroism of his life. A stern and angular face, out of whose saliences look two ruddy windows, lit by a steadfast cheerfulness, is thinly thatched by hairs of iron-gray, and around the long loose throat a bunch of frosted beard sparkles as if the painter's pencil had fastened there in reverence. I do not need to study the bent, broad shoulders and thin sinewy limbs to measure the hardness and steepness of his path; he climbed it like a bridegroom, humming quaint snatches of hymns to lull his human waywardnesses, and all the fever and errantry of our own vain career shrink abashed before his high devotion.

That I have turned out a rover is not odd; for the travelling preacher's son is cradled upon the highway. Three months after my birth we "moved" a hundred miles; by my sixteenth year we had made eleven migrations.

We children little sympathize with our weak and sickly mother on these occasions, but look forward to a change of abode as something very novel and desirable. We count the days between Christmas and April, after which the annual "Conference" assembles in the distant city, and we see our father, in his best black suit, quit the parsonage door with an anxious face, cut to the heart by his wife's farewell, "May they give you a good place, Thomas!"

Then come letters—one, two, three: "The bishops are friendly;" "The Presiding Elder has promised to do the best for us that he can;" "The influential Doctor Bim has praised our missionary sermon, and Brother Click, the Secretary, has applauded our Charge's large subscription to the Advocate;" "Our character has passed even the severe approval of the great theologian, Steep;" "Take courage, my dear, and hope for the best!"

The membership, meanwhile, are dropping in by couples to say kindly words to our mother, whom they pity, and it is rumored that they are collecting a purse to help us on our way. At last our father returns, striving to hide his solicitude in a smile, for no fate to which they could consign himself would scathe that grisly servant of his Master; but for his family, who do not altogether share the spirit of his mission, he has a little fear. He kisses us all in order, from the least to the biggest, commencing and ending with our mother, and playfully prevaricates as to our "appointment," the name of which we noisily demand, until his wife says timidly,

"Where do they send us, Thomas?"

He tries to smile and trifle, but the possibility of her discontent gives him so great pain that we children perceive it.

"How would you like to go to Greensburg?"

"Not Greensburg!" she says, with a sudden paleness.

"Isn't it a good circuit?" he says smilingly; "they paid the last preacher three hundred dollars, and his marriage fees were a hundred more. They say he saved fifty dollars a year!"

"Oh, Thomas, I thought I had fortitude, but this—"

"Is only to test your faith," he cries. "A poor preacher's wife should be willing to go anywhere—even to Greensburg; but that is not our appointment, dear; we move to Swan Neck."

Then the fun begins in earnest. The church people come to look at our contribution bedquilts, and help us pack up the blue earthenware. The legs of the prodigious box, yclept a milk chest, are summarily amputated and laid away in it, with the parental library, which, we are sorry to say, is equally doubtful in point of both ornament and use. The good gossips slyly peep into the covers of Matthew Henry, and regard their retiring pastor as a more learned man than they had suspected, while the black letter-press of Lorenzo Dow, and John Bunyan, and Fox's "Book of Martyrs" touches them like so much necromancy. The faithful old clock, whose disorders are crises in our humdrum pastoral year, is stopped and disjointed, much to our marvel, and all the spare straw in the barn is brought to protect the large gilt-edged cups and saucers, which say upon their edges, "To our pastor," and "To our pastor's wife." The thin rag carpets are folded away; the potatoes in the bin are sold to Brother Bibb, the grocer, and to a very few of the select sisters we present a can of our preserved quinces, with directions how to prepare them. Poor Em., the black domestic, drops so many tears upon the parlor stove as she carries it out to the wagon that the fresh blackening she has so industriously given it goes for nothing; for Em. is to be discharged, and the fact troubles her, though a preacher's servant has little to eat and plenty to do.

At last the old parsonage is quite bare and deserted, though our successors, box and baggage, have moved in upon us, much to the annoyance of the females, who see with jealousy that the new arrival gets the lion's share of attention, and that Brother Tipp, whose class-book we took from him, and who has backbitten us ever since, is courteous as a dancing-master with our rival. We shall talk for six years to come—that is, our mother—of Bangs's, the new-comer's, impudence in feeding his horse on our oats, and shall never speak of him as Brother Bangs, but simply call him Bangs, emphasized. We are not even sure that he will not turn his poultry loose before ours has been secured, and we boys, with great zeal, run down the roosters and ducks, giving them, if the truth must be told, longer chase than is necessary. The aged muscovy, we are sorry to say, lames himself in the retreat, and the only goose on the premises hides among Powell's, the neighbor's, so that we cannot tell which from which. However, the property is tied up at last in the several wagons; Sister Phoenix's lunch has been eaten, and our father, the itinerant, in his shirt-sleeves, stands up, with pain and perspiration on his brow, to bid his flock good-by.

"Now, brethren," he says, with a quiver at his throat, "my time is passing; I have finished the work appointed for me to do. Renew the kindnesses you have done me and my little ones upon the good steward who is to replace me. My heart weeps to cut the bonds which have held us so long together; but in this world I am a pilgrim and a stranger. Let us all pray!"

As his shrill, broken voice goes up in a mingled wail and hosanna, we children peep by stealth into the working faces of the bystanders, and our own grow tearful, till our little sister cries aloud, and our mother falls into some fond matron's arms.

Immediately our wagons are on the way. The clustering village roofs and the church spire sink down behind. We are too full of excitement to share the silence of our elders, and the passing objects while us to laughter and debate.

Swan Neck is a representative circuit. It lies, as everybody knows, somewhere upon the Eastern shore—that landmark and stronghold of Methodism. The parsonage is in Crochettown, the county-seat, and the circuit comprises half a dozen churches down the neck, among the pine forests and on the bay side. Our father tells our mother on the way of the advantages of the place, till we take it to be quite a metropolis. He says that Wiggins, whom we succeed, gives a first-rate account of it. One of the members (Judd) is a judge, and our church, in short, rules the roast thereabout, and makes the Episcopalians stand around, not to speak of the Baptists, who try as usual to edge us out.

The boys ask with glowing cheeks if there is a river at Crochettown, and are thrown into ecstasy by the reply that a large steamboat touches there twice a week, and that there is a drawbridge. We are less interested in the statement that the schools are good, but hear with delight the history of one Dumple, an innkeeper, who persecutes our church and sells quantities of "rum" to our young men. William, the son of Wiggins, our predecessor, was once seen in the bar-room and reported to his father, who fetched him home by posse comitatus, and found that he smelled strongly of soda water.

As we go along the road in this way, our furniture mean time having been shipped by water, a very compact and knotty young man rides up behind us upon a nag which we at once identify as church property. The sleekness of the flanks betokens his conversance with other people's corn-cribs, and he has a habit of shying at all the farm-house gates as if habituated to stopping whenever he liked and staying to dinner. His Perseus has a semi-gallant, semi-verdant way of lifting his hat, and his voice is hard as his knuckles.

"Woa, Sal!" he says (all preachers drive mares, it may be interpolated), "have I the pleasure of addressing Brother Ryder?"

"The same, sir."

"My name is Chough, sir; the annual Conference has done me the favor of associating my name with yours at Swan Neck."

"Oh, ho! You are my colleague; my wife, Brother Chough!"

The wife runs Brother Chough over immediately, who looks very red and awkward, and she gives her estimate of him in an undertone. It will be bad for Chough if he is at all airish or scholastic, or individual in his opinions, for between a senior pastor's wife and his young assistant there is an hereditary distrust; conceit has no show at all in a young itinerant.

But Chough wisely confines his remarks to asking questions about the bishops, and agrees with us that Doctor Bim's address on the church extension cause was sound as the Fathers, and finally gives us his own extraction, which we trace to the respectable Choughs of Caroline County, and at once fraternize with him.

Those were happy days for us children! Cornfield and barn and negro quarter rolled by us like things of fable. We watched the squirrels in the scrubwood as never again we shall take interest in human companionship, and stopped at farm-house troughs to water our nag with keener joy than that with which we have since gazed upon far blue seas or soft cis-alpine lakes and rivers.

At last we reach the place; the complement of free negro cabins lies on its outskirts; we ask the way to the Methodist preacher's residence, and learning with feigned surprise that "he has just gone an' lef town for good," cross a sandy creek and bridge, climb a hill, and stop at our future threshold.

It is an ancient edifice of brick; a pigmy stable stands beside it, with a gate intervening, and in the rear we have a lot big enough to graze one frugal horse, and a garden sufficiently large to employ us boys. Our father starts off immediately to find the keys; but in the face of a gathering of small lads in pinafores and jack-knives, who come to gaze at us, we scale the gate, enter a back shutter, and cry a welcome to our mother from the second-story front.

We hastily scan the several chambers to claim all that we find in the drawers and closets; are gratified to observe the bow-gun and shinney-sticks of the young Wigginses departed, and quite fall out among ourselves over the wooden effigy of an Indian which has tumbled down from the barn-top.

Soon the nearest neighbor of our persuasion arrives with our father, and takes our mother and the baby away to his dwelling. A fat old trustee and local preacher carries off ourself and sister, and we go bashfully and wonderingly into the heart of the town, past the church, past the market-house, past the tavern and court and public hall, until the door of our host closes upon us, and our short sandy hairs appear at the windows to scan the street and the people.

Yeasty, our host, is the only local preacher in Crochettown, where he also keeps a store, but is said to be as rich as Croesus, and miserly as get out; and he has a pretty daughter, Margot, who sweeps into the room like a little queen, and, being older than ourselves, patronizes us till we blush. She rattles off all the town talk, the parties in the winter season, the terrible master of the academy, and the handsomest boys, including Barret, who is dissipated and writes poetry; the beauty of Marian Lee, who seems to be the terror of young gentlemen, though Margot don't see any thing in her, the proud piece!

And so we pick up the history of the village with the diligence of Froissart or Jean de Troyes, and eat last winter's apples by the ruddy grate, listening to Margot, with our very round tow head upon our sister's, filled with vague dreams of greatness and wealth, and old Yeasty's silver half dollars piled up around us, and Margot to chat at our side forever.

Oh! innocent days of itinerant urchinhood, your freshness comes no more; we "move on" as of old—waifs in the wide circuit of this nomad life—but with the hymns which lulled us in the neglected meeting-house, the prophecies they told us of toil, duty, reverence, and content, have floated into heaven whither our father has gone!

The bulk of our furniture being delayed, and our mother impatient of accepting hospitality, we move into the great, bare parsonage house on Saturday, and sit in the only furnished room. It grieves even ourselves to see how this merry moving has thinned her anxious white face, and therefore we forbear to fret her when we read the three long Bible chapters she exacts. Josh, our brother, does not purposely pronounce physician "physiken," as he is in the habit of doing, and our sister remembers for once that ewe lamb is to be called "yo," and not "e-we" in two syllables. The dinner is quite cold, but Josh, who complains, is reminded of the poor Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, who could not afford salt with his potatoes. Josh says that for his part he don't like potatoes anyhow, and will not be comforted.

In the afternoon we present ourselves at Sunday-school, and as the preacher's sons are supposed to be first-class ecclesiastical scholars, are put in the Bible-class. Here we surprise everybody by the quantity of verses we know by heart, and get many red and blue tickets for our reward. It must be confessed that we had been twice before paid for the same lesson, it being our perquisite to carry all that we know from school to school. We see Margot among the girls, swinging her feet under the seat as she hummingly commits her lesson to memory, and as her feet are very pretty, they do not perhaps move unconsciously. But Josh and we have quite a battle as to Margot, Josh saying, "She's my girl," and we averring that "we know better—she's mine," until finally our sister disposes of the matter by betraying us to the little coquette, whereat we are both ashamed, and go home hastily.

We feed and curry the horse by turns, and hunt eggs in the stable with boisterous rivalry, and have quite a contest as to who shall go down upon "the circuit" first, which is at last settled in favor of the first person.

On the appointed Sunday we rise betimes, "gear up" the nag to the sulky, and depositing a carpet-stool in the foot, sit upon it between our father's legs, and trot out of town at a respectably slow gait to clear the preacher of any suspicion of keeping a fast horse. Fairly out of town, however, we switch up somewhat, ourself watching over the dasher the clods and dust thrown from the mare's shoes, and our father humming snatches of hymns, with his grave eyes twinkling.

We say "How de do," of course, to every passer-by, as it is the pride of the profession to lead the etiquette of the country; and, passing remarks upon the badness of the fences, the staunchness of the barns, and the coziness of the dwellings, soon leave the cultivated high-road for one of the by-ways which lead down the sparsely-settled "Neck." The sombre pine forests gather about us; a squirrel or two runs across the route, and a solitary crow caws in the tree-top; we hear the loud "tap-tap-tap" of a woodpecker, and see through the sinuous aisles of firs some groups of negroes pattering to church. The men take off their hats obsequiously, and the women duck their heads, and our father says benignantly, "Going to church, boys? that's right! I like to see you honor the Great Master!" At which the younger Africans show their teeth, and the more forward patriarchs reply, "Yes, massar, bress de Lord!"

So the teams increase in number like the wayfarers, all with the same object in view, until we see the church at last, standing behind a line of whitewashed palings, flanked by less pretentious worm fences, and in the rear a long shed for horses, open in front, shadows the few tomb memorials of stone and stake.

Several lads and worldlings at the gate, slashing their boots with riding-whips, make obeisance, while two or three plain old gentlemen walk down to meet us, saying:

"Brother Ryder, we pre-sume! Welcome to Dodson's Corner, Brother Ryder!"

We tie up the nag, loosen her bridle bit, and follow into the meeting-house—a lofty building unplastered at the roof, whose open eaves and shingles give place in summer to nests of wasps, and in the winter to audacious birds, some of which swoop screaming to the pulpit, and beat the window panes in futile flight. Two uncarpeted aisles lead respectively to the men's side and the women's side—for, far be it from us, primitive Methodists, to improve upon the discipline of Wesley—and midway of each aisle, in square areas, stand two high stoves, with branching pipes which radiate from their red-hot cylinders of clay. The pulpit is a square unpainted barricade, with pedestals on each side for a pair of oil-lamps; the cushions which sustain the Bible are the gift of young unconverted ladies, and are sacredly brought to the place of worship each Sunday morning and taken away in the afternoon.

By the side of the stove the old stewards and the new minister stand awhile talking over the moral status of the country, the advances made by the Baptists, and the amount of money contributed by Dodson's Corner to the various funds of the church. The folk, meanwhile, drop in by squads, the colored element filling the unsteady gallery in the rear, until our father looks at his open-faced watch, and says:

"Bless my soul, brethren, it is time to begin the services!"

He ascends into the pulpit. We sit on what is known as the "Amen side," with our thumb in our button-hole, and watch the process of the chief steward, who is unlimbering his tuning-fork. He obtains the pitch of the tune by rapping the pew with this, or, if his teeth be sound, which is rare, touches the prongs with his incisors. Then his head—whose baldness, we imagine, arises from the people in the rear looking all the hair off—is thrown back resolutely, his jaws fly wide open, he projects a tangible stream of music to the roof, to the alarm of the birds, and comes to a dead halt at the end of the second line—for here we have congregational singing, and even those without hymn books may assist to swell the music. But very often the leader breaks down; the vanguard of old ladies cannot keep up the tune; volunteers make desperate efforts to rally the chorus, but retire discomfited, and the pastor, in addition to praying, reading, and preaching, must finally, in his worn, subdued voice, lead the forlorn hope.

The sermon on this inaugural occasion may justly be termed a work of art. It must be conclusive of the piety, learning, eloquence, and sound doctrine of the preacher, and be by turns argumentative, combative, stirring, pathetic, practical, and pictorial. The text has about the same connection at first with the discourse that a campanile has with a cathedral. A solid eulogium upon the book from which it is taken gives occasion for some side-slashes at Voltaire, Hume, and Gibbon; the deaths of these are contrasted with the obsequies of the righteous, and the old-fashioned, material place of punishment is reasserted and minutely described. The text is then said to naturally resolve itself into three parts—the injunction, the direction, and some practical illustrations. The injunction, it is further allowed, re-subdivides itself, and these parts are each proclaimed in the form of speech of "Once more." We are quite too old a hand at listening to imagine that "once more" means only once more, and start to enumerate the beams in the roof, the panes in the windows, and the gray hairs in the old gentleman's head before us. About the time that we feel sleepy an anecdote arouses us: then the iteration of expletives from the membership succeeds; we see that the owner of the tuning-fork has fallen to sleep in so ingenious an attitude that he would never have been detected but for his snore, and are amused by the fashion one good lady has of slowly wagging her head as she drinks in the discourse. A slight commotion in the gallery arises, which gives a steward excuse to steal down the aisle and hasten to the scene of disturbance; the final appeal, brimming with the poetry of mercy, grace, patience, and salvation is said; we all kneel down upon the hard cold floor while the last prayer is being made, and receive the benediction, as if some invisible shadow of bright wings had fallen upon the dust and fever of our lives.