"Gingeling in the whistling wind as clear And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell."

The monks who were unable to indulge their taste for the chase sought recompense in unrestrained indulgence at the table. The land was overspread with an innumerable swarm of begging friars, who fawned on the great, flattered the wealthy, and despoiled the poor. Another class traversed the country, selling pardons "come from Rome all hot," and extolling the virtues of their relics and the power of their indulgences with the eloquence of a quack vending his nostrums. Bishops held civil offices under the king, and priests acted as stewards in great men's houses. Simony possessed the Church, and the ministers of religion again sold their Master for silver.

The domestic and social life of the higher classes of society in the last half of the fourteenth century can be delineated, with a fair approach to exactness, from the detached hints scattered through such old romances and poems of that period as the diligent labors of zealous antiquaries have brought to light.

The residences of all the great and wealthy possessed one general character. The central point and most important feature was the great hall, adjoining which in most houses a "parlour," or talking-room, had recently been built. A principal chamber for the ladies of the household was generally placed on the ground-floor, with an upper chamber, or "soler," over it. In the larger establishments additional chambers had been clustered around the main building, increasing in number with the wants of the household. The castles and fortified buildings varied a little in outward construction from the ordinary manorial residences, but the same general arrangement of the interior existed. A few of the stronger and more important buildings were of stone; but the larger proportion were of timber, or timber and stone combined.

The great hall was the most important part of the establishment. Here the general business of the household was transacted, the meals served, strangers received, audiences granted, and what may be termed the public life of the family carried on. It was also the general rendezvous of the servants and retainers, who lounged about it when duty or pleasure did not call them to the other offices or to the field. In the evening they gathered around the fire, built in an iron grate standing in the middle of the room; for as yet chimneys were a luxury confined to the principal chamber. The few remaining halls of this period that have not been remodelled in succeeding ages present no trace of a fireplace or chimney. At night the male servants and men-at-arms stretched themselves to sleep on the benches along its sides, or on the rush-covered floor.

The floor at the upper end was raised, forming the dais, or place of honor. On this, stretching nearly from side to side, was the "table dormant," or fixed table, with a "settle," or bench with a back, between it and the wall. On the lower floor, and extending lengthwise on each side down the hall, stood long benches for the use of the servants and retainers. At meal-times, in front of these were placed the temporary tables of loose boards supported on trestles. At the upper end was the cupboard, or "dresser," for the plate and furniture of the table. In the halls of the greater nobles, on important occasions, tapestry or curtains were hung on the walls, or at least on that portion of the wall next the dais, and still more rarely a carpet was used for that part of the floor,—rushes or bare tiles being more general. A perch for hawks, and the grate of burning wood, sending its smoke up to the blackened open roof, completed the picture of the hall of a large establishment in the fourteenth century.

The "parlour," or talking-room, as its name imports, was used chiefly for conferences, and for such business as required more privacy than was attainable in the hall, but was unsuited to the domestic character of the chamber.

After the hall, the most important feature of the building was the principal chamber. Here the domestic life of the family was carried on. Here the ladies of the household spent their time when not at meals or engaged in out-door sports and pastimes. The furniture of this room was more complete than that of the other parts of the building, but was still rude and scanty when judged by modern wants. The bed was of massive proportions and frequently of ornamental character. A truckle-bed for the children or chamber servants was pushed under the principal bed by day. At the foot of the latter stood the huge "hutch," or chest, in which were deposited for safety the family plate and valuables. Two or three stools and large chairs, with a perch or bar on which to hang garments, completed the usual furniture of the chamber.

In this room was one important feature not found in the others, and which accounted for the increasing attachment manifested towards it. The fire, instead of being placed in an iron grate or brazier in the middle of the room, burned merrily on the hearth; and the smoke, instead of seeking its exit by the window, was carried up a chimney of generous proportions.

The household day commenced early. The members of the family arose from the beds where they had slept in the garments worn by our first parents before the fall; for the effeminacy of sleeping in night-dresses had not yet been introduced, and it was only the excessively poor that made the clothes worn during the day serve in lieu of blankets and coverlets.

"'I have but one whole hater,'[1] quoth Haukyn; 'I am the less to blame, Though it be soiled and seldom clean: I sleep therein of nights.'"

Breakfast was served about six o'clock. It is difficult to get an exact description of the customs of the breakfast-table, or the nature of the meal, as the contemporary writers make little allusion to it. Probably it was but a slight repast, to allay the cravings of appetite until the great meal of the day was served. Until within a few years of the period of which we write, the dinner-hour was so early that but little food was taken before that time.

Dinner was then, as now, the principal meal of the English day. In the houses of the great it was conducted with much ceremony; and among the richer classes certain well-established rules of courtesy in relation to the meal were observed. The family and their guests entered the great hall about ten o'clock. They were met by a domestic, bearing a pitcher and basin, and his assistant, with a towel. Water was poured on the hands of each person, and the ablutions carefully performed; scrupulous cleanliness in this respect being required, from the fact that forks were as yet things undreamed of. The principal guests took their seats at the "table dormant," on the dais, the person of highest rank having the middle seat,—which was consequently at the head of the hall,—and the others being arranged according to their respective rank.

At the side-tables, below the dais, sat the inferior members of the household, with the guests of lesser note,—these also arranged with careful regard to rank and position. The beggar or poor wayfarer who was admitted to a humble share of the feast crouched on the rushes among the dogs who lay awaiting the bones and relics of the repast, and thankfully fed, like Lazarus, on "the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table."

The guests being seated, the busy servitors hastened to cover the table with a "fair white linen cloth," of unsullied purity; and on it were placed the salt-cellars of massive silver, the spoons and knives; next the bread, and then the wine, poured with great ceremony into the drinking-cups by the cupbearer. The silver vessels were brought from the "dresser," and arranged on the table, the display being proportioned to the wealth and condition of the host and the consideration to be paid to the guests. The head cook and his assistants entered in procession, bearing the dishes in regular order, and deposited them on the table with due solemnity. The pottage was first served, and when this course was eaten, the vessels and spoons were removed. The carver performed his office on the meats, holding the joint, according to the traditions of his order, carefully with the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand, whilst he carved. The pieces were placed on "trenchers" or slices of bread, and handed to the guests, who made no scruple of freely using their fingers. The bones and refuse of the food were placed on the table, or thrown to the dogs.

The people of that day were not insensible to the pleasures of the table; and, unless urgent matters called them to the field or the council, dinner was enjoyed with leisurely deliberation. In great houses of hospitable reputation, the great hall at the hour of meals was open to all comers. The traveller who found himself at its door was admitted, and received position and food according to his condition. The minstrels that wandered over the country in great numbers were always welcome, and were well supplied with food and drink, and received liberal gifts for their songs and the long romances of love and chivalry which they recited to music. Not unfrequently satirical songs were sung, or the minstrel narrated stories in which the humor was of a coarser nature than would now be tolerated in the presence of ladies, but which in that day were listened to without a blush.

Dinner ended, the vessels and unconsumed meats were removed, the tablecloths gathered up, and the relics of the feast thrown on the floor for the dogs to devour. The side-tables were removed from their trestles and piled in a corner, and the hall cleared for the entertainments that frequently followed the dinner. These consisted of feats of conjuring by the "joculators," balancing and tumbling by the women who wandered about seeking a livelihood by such means, or dancing by the ladies of the household and their guests.

The feast and its succeeding amusements disposed of, the ladies either shared in the out-door sports and games, of which there were many in which women could take part, or they retired to the chamber, where, seated in low chairs or in the recessed windows, they engaged in making the needle-work pictures that adorned the tapestry, listening the while to the love-romances narrated by the minstrel who had been invited for the purpose, or gave willing ear to the flattery of some "virelay" or love-song, sung by gay canon, gentle page, or courtly knight.

About six o'clock, the household once more assembled in the hall for supper; and then the orders for the ensuing day were given to the servants and retainers. Soon after dark the members of the family and their guests sought their respective sleeping-places, as contrivances for lighting were rude, and had to be economized. Such of the servants as had special chambers or sleeping-places retired to them, whilst a large proportion of the male servants and such of the retainers as belonged immediately to the household stretched themselves on the benches or floor of the hall, and were soon fast asleep. Such is a sketch of the ordinary course of domestic life among the higher classes of English society in the fourteenth century.

Among the greater nobles, the details of the daily life were sometimes on a more magnificent scale; but the leading features were as we have described them. Rude pomp and barbaric splendor marked the establishments of some of the powerful barons and ecclesiastical dignitaries. At tilt and tournament, the contending knights strove to outshine each other in gorgeousness of equipment, as well as in deeds of arms. Nor were the ladies averse to richness of attire in their own persons. Costly robes and dainty furs were worn, and jewels and gems of price sparkled when the dames and demoiselles appeared at great gatherings, or on occasions of state and ceremony. The extravagance of dress in both sexes had grown to be so great an evil, that stringent sumptuary laws were passed, but without producing any effect.

The moral state of even the highest classes of society was not of a flattering character. Europe was one huge camp and battle-field, in which all the chivalry of the day had been educated,—no good school for purity of life and delicacy of language. The literature of the time, at least that portion of it which penetrated to ladies' chambers, was of an amorous, and too frequently of an indelicate character. A debased and sensual clergy swarmed over the land, finding their way into every household, and gradually corrupting those with whom their sacred office brought them into contact. The manners and habits of the time afforded every facility for the gratification of debased passions and indulgence in immoral practices.

Whilst the barons feasted and fought, the ladies intrigued, and the clergy violated every principle of the religion they professed, the great mass of the population lived on, with scarcely a thought bestowed on them by their social superiors. Between the Anglo-Norman baron and the Anglo-Saxon laborer, or "villain," there was a great gulf fixed. The antipathy of an antagonistic and conquered race to its conquerors was intensified by years of oppression and wrong, and the laborer cherished a burning desire to break the bonds of thraldom in which most of the poor were held.

By the laws of the feudal system, the tenants and laborers on the property of a baron were his "villains," or slaves. They were divided into two classes;—the "villains regardant," who were permitted to occupy and cultivate small portions of land, on condition of rendering certain stipulated services to their lord, and were therefore considered in the light of slaves to the land; and the "villains in gross," who were the personal slaves of the landowner, and were compelled to do the work they were set to perform in consideration of their food and clothing. Besides these two classes a third had recently come into existence, and, owing to various causes, was fast increasing in extent and importance,—that of free laborers, who worked for hire. This class was recruited in various ways from the ranks of the "villains in gross." Some were manumitted by their dying masters, as an act of piety in atonement for the deeds of violence done during life; but by far the greater number effected their freedom by escaping to distant parts of the country, where but little search would be made for them, or by seeking the refuge of the walled towns and cities, where a residence of a year and a day would give them freedom by law. The citizens were always ready to give asylum to those fugitives, for they supplied the growing need for laborers, and enabled the cities, by the increase of population, to maintain their independence against the pretensions of the barons.

The condition of the "villain" was bad at the best; and numerous petty acts of oppression in most instances increased the bitterness of his lot. Himself the property of another, he could not legally hold possessions of any kind. Not only the land he tilled, and the rude implements of husbandry with which he painfully cultivated the soil, but the cattle with which he worked, the house in which he lived, the few chattels he gathered around him, and the scanty store of money earned by hard labor, all belonged to his master, who could at any time dispossess him of them. The "villain" who obtained a livelihood by working the few acres of land which had been held from father to son, on condition of performing personal labor or other services on the estate of the landowner, was subject not only to the demands of his master, but to the tithing of the Church; to the doles exacted by the swarms of begging friars, who, like Irish beggars of the present day, invoked cheap blessings on the cheerful giver, and launched bitter curses at the heads of those who refused alms; to the impositions of the wandering "pardoners," with their charms and relics; and to the tyrannical exactions of the "summoners," who, under pretence of writs from ecclesiastical courts, robbed all who were not in position to resist their fraudulent demands. What these spared was frequently swept away by the visits of the king's purveyors and the officers of others in power, who, not content with robbing the poor husbandman of the proceeds of his toil, treated the men with violence and the women with outrage. Complaint was useless. The "churl" had no rights which those in office were bound to respect.

Ignorant, superstitious, and condemned to a life of unrequited toil and unredressed wrongs, the mental and moral condition of the agricultural poor was wretchedly low. Huddled together in mud cottages, through the rotten thatches of which the rain penetrated; clothed with rough garments that were seldom changed night or day; feeding on coarse food, and that in insufficient quantities,—their physical condition was one of extreme misery. The usual daily allowance of food to the bond laborer of either class, when working for the owner of the land, was two herrings, milk for cheese, and a loaf of bread, with the addition in harvest of a small allowance of beer. Occasionally, salted meats or stockfish were substituted for the herrings.

The condition of the free laborer was measurably better; but even he was condemned to a life of privation and wretchedness, relieved only by the knowledge that his scanty earnings were his own, and that he could change the scene of his labors if he saw fit. The ordinary agricultural laborer, at the wages usually given, would have to work more than a week for a bushel of wheat. At harvest-time and other periods when the demand for labor was unusually great, as it was after the pestilences that swept the land about the time of which we write, the free laborers demanded higher wages; and although laws were passed to prevent their obtaining more than the usual rates, necessity frequently compelled their employment at the advanced prices. The receipt of higher wages only temporarily bettered their condition. Accustomed to griping hunger and short allowances of food, when better days came, they thought only of enjoying the present, and took no heed of the future. After harvest, with its high wages and cheapness of provision, the laborer frequently became wasteful and improvident. Instead of the stinted allowance of salted meat or fish, with the pinched loaf of bean-flour, and an occasional draught of weak beer, his fastidious appetite demanded fresh meat or fish, white bread, vegetables freshly gathered, and ale of the best. As long as his store lasted, he worked as little as possible, and grumbled at the fortune that made him a laborer. But these halcyon days were few, and soon passed away, to be followed by decreasing allowances of the commonest food, fierce pangs of hunger, and miserable destitution. A bad harvest inflicted untold wretchedness on the poor. Ill lodged, ill fed, and scantily clothed, disease cut them down like grass before the scythe. A deadly pestilence swept over the land in 1348, carrying off about two thirds of the people; and nearly all the victims were from among the poorest classes. In 1361, another pestilence carried off thousands, again spreading terror and dismay through the country. Seven years later a third visitation desolated England. Here and there one of the better class fell a victim to the destroyer; but the great mass were from the ranks of the half-starved and poorly lodged laborers.

The morality of the poor was, as might be expected, at a low ebb. Modesty, chastity, and temperance could scarcely be looked for in wretched mud huts, where all ages and sexes herded together like swine. Men and women alike fled from their miserable homes to the ale-house, where they drank long draughts of cheap ale, and, in imitation of their superiors in station, listened to a low class of "japers" who recited "rhymes of Robin Hood," or told coarse and obscene stories for the sake of a share of the ale, or such few small coins as could be drawn from the ragged pouches of the bacchanals.

Between proud wealth and abject poverty there can be no friendly feeling. Stolid, brutish ignorance can alone render the bonds of the slave endurable. As his eyes are slowly opened by increasing knowledge, and he can compare his condition with that of the freeman, his fetters gall him, he becomes restive in his bonds, and at length turns in blind fury on his oppressors, striking mad blows with his manacled hands. Trodden into the dust by the iron heel of a tyrannical feudal power, the peasantry of France had turned on their oppressors, and wreaked a brief but savage vengeance for ages of wrong. The atrocious cruelties and mad excesses of the revolted Jacquerie could only have been committed by those who had been so long treated as brutes that they had acquired brutish passions and instincts. The English peasantry had not yet followed the example of their French compeers; but the gathering storm already darkened the sky, and the mutterings of the thunder were heard. Superstitiously religious, they hated the ministers of religion who violated its principles. Born slaves and hopelessly debased and ignorant, they began to ask the question,—

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who then was the gentleman?"

Occasionally a rude ballad found its way among the people fiercely expressive of their scorn of the clergy and their hatred of the rich. One that was very popular, and has been transmitted to our day, asked,—

"While God was on earth And wandered wide, What was the reason Why he would not ride? Because he would have no groom To go by his side, Nor grudging of no gadeling[2] To scold nor to chide.

* * * * *

"Hearken hitherward, horsemen, A tiding I you tell, That ye shall hang And harbor in hell!"

But no leader had as yet arisen to give proper voice to the desire for reformation that burned in the hearts of the common people. The writers of that age were breathing the intoxicating air of court favor, and heeded not the sufferings of the common rabble. Froissart, the courtly canon and chronicler of deeds of chivalry, was writing French madrigals and amorous ditties for the ear of Queen Philippa, and loved too well gay society, luxurious feasts, and dainty attire, not to shrink with disgust from thought of the dirty, uncouth, and miserable herd of "greasy caps." Gower was inditing fashionable love-songs. Chaucer, who years after was to direct such telling blows in his Canterbury Tales at the vices and corruptness of the clergy, was a favorite member of the retinue of the powerful "John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster," and had as yet only written long and stately poems on the history of Troilus and Cressida, the Parliament of Birds, and the Court of Love. Wycliffe, the great English reformer of the Church, was quietly living at his rectory of Fylingham, and preparing his first essays against the mendicant orders. John Ball, the "crazy priest of Kent," as Froissart calls him, was brooding over the miseries of his poor parishioners, and nursing in his mind that enmity to all social distinctions with which he afterwards inflamed the minds of the peasantry, and incited them to open rebellion.

But in the quarter least expected the oppressed people found an advocate. An unobtrusive monk, whose name is almost a doubtful tradition, stole out from his quiet cell in Malvern Abbey, and, whilst his brethren feasted, climbed the gentle slope of the Worcestershire hills, and drank in the beauties of the varied landscape at his feet. There, on a May morning, as he rested under a bank by the side of a brooklet, and was lulled to sleep by the murmuring of the water, he dreamed those dreams that set waking people to thinking, and gave a powerful impetus to the moral and social revolution that was just commencing.

The "Vision of Piers Plowman" is every way a singular production. Clothed in the then almost obsolete verse of a past age, it breathes wholly the spirit of the time in which it was written. The work of a monk, it is unsparing in its attacks on the monastic orders. Intended for the reading or hearing of the middle and lower classes, it gives more frequent glimpses of the social condition of all ranks of people than any other work of that age. As a philological monument, it is of great value; as a poem, it contains many passages of merit; and as a storehouse of allusions to the social life of the people in the fourteenth century, it is invaluable.

The poem consists of a series of visions or dreams, of an allegorical character, in which the dreamer seeks to find Truth and Righteousness on earth, meeting with but little success. The allegorical idea cannot be followed without weariness, and, in fact, the intentions of the writer are by no means clear, the allegory being frequently involved and contradictory. The beauty of the poem lies in its detached passages, its occasional poetic touches, its graphic pictures, biting satire, and withering denunciation of fraud, corruption, and tyranny. The measure adopted is the unrhymed alliterative, characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon literature, and which had long been disused, but which retained its hold on the affections of the common people, who were of Anglo-Saxon stock. In the extracts we give from the poem, the measure is retained, but the words modernized, so far as can be done without injuring the sense or metre.

The opening passage of the "Vision" has been so frequently reproduced, as a specimen of the poet's style, that it is probably familiar to many readers, but its exquisite naturalness and simplicity tempt us to quote it here.

"In a summer season, When soft was the sun, I shaped me into shrouds[3] As I a shep[4] were; In habit as an hermit Unholy of works Went wide in this world Wonders to hear: And on a May morwening On Malvern hills Me befell a ferly,[5] Of fairy methought. I was weary for-wandered, And went me to rest Under a broad bank By a bourne's[6] side; And as I lay and leaned, And looked on the waters, I slumbered into a sleeping It swayed so merry."

The first scene in the visions that visited the sleep of the dreaming monk gives a view of the social classes of that time, beginning with the humblest, whose condition was uppermost in his mind. The picture is not only painted with vigorous touches, but affords a better idea of society in the fourteenth century than can be elsewhere obtained. There is the toiling ploughman, who "plays full seldom," winning by hard labor what wasteful men destroy; the mediaeval dandy, whose only employment is to exhibit his attire; the hermit, who seeks by solitude and penitential life to win "heaven's rich bliss"; the merchant, who has wisely chosen his trade,—

"As it seemeth in our sight That such men thriveth."

There are minstrels, who earn rich rewards by their singing; jesters and idle gossips; "sturdy beggars," wandering with full bags; pilgrims and palmers, who

"Went forth in their way With many wise tales, And had leave to lie All their lives after";

counterfeit hermits, who assumed the cloak and hooked staff in order to live in idleness and sensuality; avaricious friars, selling their religion for money; cheating pardoners; covetous priests; ambitious bishops; lawyers who loved gain better than justice; "barons and burgesses, and bondmen also," with

"Bakers and brewers, And butchers many; Woollen websters, And weavers of linen; Tailors and tinkers, And toilers in markets; Masons and miners, And many other crafts. Of all kind living laborers Leaped forth some; As ditchers and delvers, That do their deeds ill, And driveth forth the long day With Dieu save dame Emme. Cooks and their knaves Cried, 'Hot pies, hot! Good geese and grys,[7] Go dine, go!'"

To plead the cause of the poor and weak against their powerful oppressors, and to protest in the name of religion against the pride and corrupt life of its ministers, was the object of the monk of Malvern Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself, he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand the hold the poem at once acquired on the attention of the lower classes, and its influence in directing and hastening the attempt of the oppressed people to break their galling bonds.

What we have before said in reference to the wretched condition of the peasantry, as shown by contemporary evidence, is confirmed by the writer of the "Vision." The peasant was a born thrall to the owner of the land, and could

"no charter make, Nor his cattle sell, Without leave of his lord."

Misery and he were lifelong companions, and pinching want his daily portion. The wretched poor

"much care suffren Through dearth, through drought, All their days here: Woe in winter times For wanting of clothing And in summer time seldom Soupen to the full."

A graphic picture of a poor ploughman and his family is given in the "Creed" of Piers Plowman, supposed to have been written by the author of the "Vision," but a few years later.

"As I went by the way Weeping for sorrow, I saw a simple man me by, Upon the plow hanging. His coat was of a clout That cary[8] was called; His hood was full of holes, And his hair out; With his knopped[9] shoon Clouted full thick; His toes totedun[10] out As he the land treaded; His hosen overhung his hockshins On every side, All beslomered in fen[11] As he the plow followed. Two mittens as meter Made all of clouts, The fingers were for-werd[12] And full of fen hanged. This wight wallowed in the fen Almost to the ankle. Four rotheren[13] him before That feeble were worthy, Men might reckon each rib So rentful[14] they were. His wife walked him with, With a long goad, In a cutted coat, Cutted full high, Wrapped in a winnow sheet To weren her from weathers, Barefoot on the bare ice That the blood followed. And at the land's end layeth A little crumb-bowl,[15] And thereon lay a little child Lapped in clouts, And twins of two years old Upon another side. And all they sungen one song, That sorrow was to hear; They crieden all one cry, A careful note. The simple man sighed sore, And said, 'Children, be still!'"

The tenant of land, or small farmer, was in a better condition, and when not cozened of his stores by the monks, or robbed of them by the ruffians in office or out of office, managed to live with some kind of rude comfort. What the ordinary condition of his larder and the extent of his farming stock were, may be learned from a passage in the "Vision."

"'I have no penny,' quoth Piers, 'Pullets to buy. Nor neither geese nor grys; But two green cheeses, A few curds and cream, And an haver cake,[16] And two loaves of beans and bran, Baked for my fauntes[17]; And yet I say, by my soul! I have no salt bacon. Nor no cokeney,[18] by Christ! Collops for to maken.

"But I have perciles and porettes,[19] And many cole plants,[20] And eke a cow and calf. And a cart-mare To draw afield my dung, The while the drought lasteth; And by this livelihood we must live Till Lammas time. And by that I hope to have Harvest in my croft, And then may I dight thy dinner As me dear liketh.'"

We have already described the tenure by which the tenant held his lands, and the protection the knightly landowner was bound to give his tenant. Thus Piers Plowman, when his honest labors are broken in upon by ruffians,

"Plained him to the knight To help him, as covenant was, From cursed shrews, Aud from these wasters, wolves-kind, That maketh the world dear."

At times this was but a wolf's protection, or a stronger power broke through all guards. The "king's purveyor," or some other licensed despoiler, came in, and the victim was left to make fruitless complaints of his injuries. The women were subjected to gross outrages, and the property stolen or destroyed.

"Both my geese and my grys His gadelings[21] fetcheth, I dare not, for fear of them, Fight nor chide. He borrowed of me Bayard And brought him home never, Nor no farthing therefore For aught that I could plead. He maintaineth his men To murder my hewen,[22] Forestalleth my fairs, And fighteth in my chepying.[23] And breaketh up my barn door, And beareth away my wheat, And taketh me but a tally For ten quarters of oats; And yet he beateth me thereto."

Then, as now, there were complaints that the privations of the poor were increased by the covetousness of the hucksters, and "regraters" (retailers), who came between the producer and the consumer, and grew rich on the profits made from both.

"Brewers and bakers, Butchers and cooks,"

were charged with robbing

"the poor people That parcel-meal[24] buy; For they empoison the people Privily and oft. They grow rich through regratery, And rents they buy With what the poor people Should put in their wamb.[25] For, took they but truly, They timbered[26] not so high, Nor bought no burgages,[27] Be ye fell certain."

Stringent laws were made against huckstering and regrating, and officers were appointed to punish offenders in this respect, "with pillories and pining-stools." But officers, then as now, were not proof against temptation, and were often disposed

"Of all such sellers Silver for to take; Or presents without pence, As pieces of silver, Rings, or other riches, The regraters to maintain."

Nor had the rogues of the fourteenth century much to learn in the way of turning a dishonest penny. The merchant commended his bad wares for good, and knew how to adulterate and how to give short measure. The spinners of wool were paid by a heavy pound, and the article resold by a light pound. Laws were made against such frauds, but laws were little regarded when they conflicted with self-interest. The crime of clipping and "sweating" coin was frequently practised. Pawn-brokers, money-lenders, and sellers of exchange thrived and flourished.

The rich find but little consideration at the hands of the plain-spoken dreamer. Their extravagance is commented on; their growing pride, which prompted them to abandon the great hall and take their meals in a private room, and their uncharitableness to the poor. They practise the saying, that "to him that hath shall be given."

"Right so, ye rich, Ye robeth them that be rich, And helpeth them that helpen you, And giveth where no need is. Ye robeth and feedeth Them that have as ye have Them ye make at ease."

But when, hungered, athirst, and shivering with cold, the poor man comes to the rich man's gate, there is none to help, but he is

"hunted as a hound, And bidden go thence."

Thus

"the rich is reverenced By reason of his richness, And the poor is put behind."

Truly, says the Monk of Malvern,

"God is much in the gorge Of these great masters; But among mean men His mercy and his works."

But it is on the vices and corruptions of the clergy that the monk pours the vials of his wrath. He cloaks nothing, and spares neither rank nor condition. The avarice of the clergy, their want of religion, and the prostitution of their sacred office for the sake of gain, are sternly denounced in frequently-recurring passages. The facility with which debaucheries and crimes of all kinds could be compounded for with the priests by presents of gold and silver, the neglect of their flocks whilst seeking gain in the service of the rich and powerful, their ignorance, pride, extravagance, and licentiousness, are painted in strong colors. The immense throng of friars and monks, who "waxen out of number," meet with small mercy from their fellow-monk. Falsehood and fraud are described as dwelling ever with them. Their unholy life and unseemly quarrels are held up for reprobation. Nor do the nuns escape the imputation of unchastity. The quackery of pardoners, with their pardons and indulgences from pope and bishop, is treated with contempt and scorn. Bishops are criticised for their undivided attention to worldly matters; and even the Pope himself does not escape censure.

"What pope or prelate now Performeth what Christ hight[28]?"

The cardinals come in for a share of the censure, and here occurs a passage, curiously suggestive of the celebrated line,—

"Never yet did cardinal bring good to England."

"The commons clamat cotidie Each man to the other, The country is the curseder That cardinals come in; And where they lie and lenge[29] most, Lechery there reigneth."

Years afterwards, Wycliffe dealt mighty blows at the corrupt and debased clergy, and Chaucer pierced them with his sharp satire, but neither surpassed their predecessor in the vigor and spirit of his onslaughts. One passage, which we quote, had evidently been acted on by Chaucer's "poor parson," and can be studied even at this late day.

"Friars and many other masters, That to lewed[30] men preachen, Ye moven matters unmeasurable To tellen of the Trinity, That oft times the lewed people Of their belief doubt. Better it were to many doctors To leave such teaching, And tell men of the ten commandments, And touching the seven sins, And of the branches that bourgeoneth of them, And bringeth men to hell, And how that folk in follies Misspenden their five wits, As well friars as other folks, Foolishly spending, In housing, in hatering,[31] And in to high clergy showing More for pomp than for pure charity. The people wot the sooth That I lie not, lo! For lords ye pleasen, And reverence the rich The rather for their silver."

It would be hardly proper to leave this portion of the subject without alluding to the remarkable passage which has been held by many as a prophecy of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., nearly two centuries later. After denouncing the corruptions of the clergy, he says:—

"But there shall come a king And confess you religiouses, And beat you as the Bible telleth For breaking of your rule; And amend monials, Monks and canons, And put them to their penance.

* * * * *

And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon, And all his issue forever, Have a knock of a king, And incurable the wound."

A distinctive and charming feature of the English landscape is the hedgerow that divides the fields and marks the course of the roadways. Nowhere but in England does the landscape present such a charming picture of "meadows trim with daisies pied," "russet lawns and fallows gray," spread out like a map, divided with irregular lines of green. Nowhere else is the traveller's path guarded on either hand with a rampart of delicate primroses, sweet-breathed violets, golden buttercups fit for fairy revels, honeysuckles in whose bells the bee rings a delighted peal, and luscious-fruited blackberry-bushes. Nowhere else is such a rampart crowned with the sweet-scented hawthorn, robed in snowy blossoms, or beaded over with scarlet berries, and with the hazel, with its gracefully pendent catkins, or nuts dear to the school-boy. It scarcely seems possible to imagine an English landscape without its flower-scented hedge-rows, and yet, when the armed knights of Edward the Third's reign rode abroad from their castles, few lofty hedges barred their progress across the country; no hazel-crowned rampart stopped the way of the Malvern monk as he took his way to the "bourne's side"; and when the ploughman "whistled o'er the furrowed land," the line of division at which he turned his back on his neighbor's acres was generally but a narrow trench instead of a ditch and hedge. Thus the covetous man confesses,

"If I yede[32] to the plow, I pinched so narrow That a foot land or a furrow Fetchen I would Of my next neighbor, And nymen[33] of his earth. And if I reap, overreach."

As might have been expected, the monkish dreamer, unusually liberal as he was in his views, had but a slighting opinion of women. Rarely does he refer to them except to rate them for their extravagance in dress and love of finery. The humbler class of women, he shrewdly insinuates, were fond of drink, and the husbands of such were advised to cudgel them home to their domestic duties. He credited the long-standing slander about woman's inability to keep a secret:—

"For that that women wotteth May not well be concealed."

His opinion of the proper sphere of women in that time, and some knowledge of their ordinary feminine occupations, can be acquired from the answer made to the question of a lady as to what her sex should do:—

"Some should sew the sack, quoth Piers, For shedding of the wheat; And ye, lovely ladies, With your long fingers, That ye have silk and sendal To sew, when time is, Chasubles for chaplains, Churches to honor. Wives and widows Wool and flax spinneth; Make cloth, I counsel you, And kenneth[34] so your daughters; The needy and the naked, Nymeth[35] heed how they lieth, And casteth them clothes, For so commanded Truth."

Marriage is an honorable estate, and should be entered into with proper motives, and in a decent and regular manner. It is desirable that most men should marry, for

"The wife was made the way For to help work; And thus was wedlock wrought With a mean person, First by the father's will And the friends counsel; And sithens[36] by assent of themselves, As they two might accord."

This is the essentially worldly way of making marriage arrangements yet practised in some aristocratic circles, but the more democratic and natural way is to reverse the process, and commence with the agreement between the two persons most concerned. Such unequal matches as age and wealth on one side, and youth and desire of wealth on the other, bring about, are sternly reprobated.

"It is an uncomely couple, By Christ! as me thinketh, To give a young wench To an old feeble, Or wedden any widow For wealth of her goods, That never shall bairn bear But if it be in her arms."

Such marriages lead to jealousy, bickerings, and open rupture, disgraceful to husband and wife, and annoying to others. Therefore Piers counsels

"all Christians, Covet not to be wedded For covetise of chattels. Not of kindred rich; But maidens and maidens Make you together; Widows and widowers Worketh the same; For no lands, but for love, Look you be wedded";—

adding the sound bit of spiritual and worldly advice,

"And then get ye the grace of God; And goods enough, to live with."

The touch of shrewd humor in the last line finds its counterpart in many other passages. Thus, when the dreamer sits down to rest by the wayside, his iteration of the prescribed prayers makes him drowsy:—

"So I babbled on my beads; They brought me asleep."

The Franciscan friars, his especial aversion, get a sly thrust when he says of Charity that

"in a friar's frock He was founden once; But it is far ago, In Saint Francis's time: In that sect since Too seldom hath he been found."

When Covetousness has confessed his numerous misdeeds, and is asked if he ever repented and made restitution, he replies,

"Yes, once I was harbored With a heap of chapmen.[37] I rose when they were at rest And rifled their males[38]";—

and on being told that this was no restitution, but another robbery, he replies, with assumed innocence of manner,

"I wened[39] rifling were restitution, quoth he, For I learned never to read on book; And I ken no French, in faith, But of the farthest end of Norfolk."

Even the Pope is not exempt from a touch of satire:—

"He prayed the Pope Have pity on holy Church, And ere he gave any grace, Govern first himself."

The prejudice against doctors and lawyers was as strong five hundred years ago as now, judging from Piers Plowman, who says, that

"Murderers are many leeches, Lord them amend! They do men die through their drinks Ere destiny it would."

Of lawyers he says they pleaded

"for pennies And pounds, the law; And not for the love of our Lord Unclose their lips once. Thou mightest better meet mist On Malvern hills Than get a mum of their mouth Till money be showed."

No class of people suffered more in the Middle Ages than the Jews. They were abhorred by the poor, despised by the wealthy, and cruelly oppressed by the powerful. But through all their sufferings and trials they were true to each other; and the monk holds up their fraternal charity as an example to shame Christians into similar virtues. He says:—

"A Jew would not see a Jew Go jangling[40] for default. For all the mebles[41] on this mould[42] And he amend it might. Alas! that a Christian creature Shall be unkind to another; Since Jews, that we judge Judas's fellows, Either of them helpeth other Of that that him needeth. Why not will we Christians Of Christ's good be as kind As Jews, that be our lores-men[43]? Shame to us all!"

With one more curious passage, giving a glimpse of the belief of that age concerning the future state, we will close our extracts from "Piers Plowman." Discussing the condition of the thief upon the cross who was promised a seat in heaven, the dreamer says:—

"Right as some man gave me meat, And amid the floor set me, And had meat more than enough, But not so much worship As those that sitten at the side-table, Or with the sovereigns of the hall; But set as a beggar boardless, By myself on the ground. So it fareth by that felon That on Good Friday was saved, He sits neither with Saint John, Simon, nor Jude, Nor with maidens nor with martyrs, Confessors nor widows; But by himself as a sullen,[44] And served on earth. For he that is once a thief Is evermore in danger, And, as law him liketh, To live or to die. And for to serven a saint And such a thief together, It were neither reason nor right To reward them both alike."

"Piers Plowman" is supposed to have been written in 1362. It became instantly popular, and manuscript copies were rapidly distributed over England. Imitations preserving the peculiar form, and aiming at the same objects as the "Vision," though without the genius exhibited in that work, appeared in quick succession. The hatred of the oppressed people for their oppressors was intensified by the inflammatory harangues of John Ball, the deposed priest. The preaching of Wycliffe probed still deeper the festering corruption of the dominant Church. At last, in 1381, a popular rising, under Wat Tyler, attempted to right the wrongs of generations at the sword's point. The result of that attempt is well known,—its temporary success, sudden overthrow, and the terrible revenge taken by the ruling power in the enactment of laws that made the burden of the people still more intolerable.

But the seed of political and religious freedom had been sown. It had been watered with the blood of martyrs; and, although the tender shoots had been trodden down with an iron heel as soon as they appeared, they gathered additional strength and vigor from the repression, and soon sprang up with a vitality that defied all efforts to crush them.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Garment.

[2] Vagabond.

[3] Clothes.

[4] Shepherd.

[5] Vision.

[6] Brook.

[7] Pigs.

[8] A kind of very coarse cloth.

[9] Buttoned.

[10] Pushed.

[11] Mud.

[12] Worn out.

[13] Oxen.

[14] Meagre.

[15] Kneading-trough.

[16] Oat cake.

[17] Children.

[18] A lean hen.

[19] Parley and leeks.

[20] Cabbages.

[21] Vagabonds.

[22] Workingmen.

[23] Market.

[24] Piecemeal.

[25] Belly.

[26] Built.

[27] Lands or tenements in towns.

[28] Commanded.

[29] Remain.

[30] Unlearned.

[31] Dressing.

[32] Went.

[33] Rob him.

[34] Teach.

[35] Take.

[36] Afterwards.

[37] Pedlers.

[38] Boxes.

[39] Thought.

[40] Complaining.

[41] Goods.

[42] Earth.

[43] Teachers.

[44] One left alone.



KATHARINE MORNE.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

One day, near the middle of a June about twenty years ago, my landlady met me at the door of my boarding-house, and began with me the following dialogue.

"Miss Morne, my dear, home a'-ready? Goin' to be in, a spell, now?"

"Yes, Mrs. Johnson, I believe so. Why?"

"Well, someb'dy's been in here to pay ye a call, afore twelve o'clock, in a tearin' hurry. Says I, 'Ye've got afore yer story this time, I guess,' says I. Says he, 'I guess I'll call again,' says he. He's left ye them pinies an' snowballs in the pitcher."

"But who was it?"

"Well, no great of a stranger, it wa'n't,—Jim!"

"O, thank you."

"He kind o' seemed as if he might ha' got somethin' sort o' special on his mind to say to ye. My! how he colored up at somethin' I said!"

I walked by, and away from her, into the house, but answered that I should be happy to see Jim if he came back. Well I might. Through all the months of school-keeping that followed my mother's death,—in the little country village of Greenville, so full of homesickness for me,—he had been my kindest friend. My old schoolmate, Emma Holly, from whose native town he came, assured me beforehand that he would be so. She wrote to me that he was the best, most upright, well-principled, kind-hearted fellow in the world. He was almost like a brother to her, (this surprised me a little, because I had never heard her speak of him before,) and so he would be to me, if I would only let him. She had told him all about me and our troubles and plans,—how I winced at that when I read it!—and he was very much interested, and would shovel a path for me when it snowed, or go to the post-office for me, or do anything in the world for me that he could. And so he had done.

He had little chance, indeed, to devote himself to me abroad; for I seldom went out, except now and then, when I could not refuse without giving offence, to drink tea with the family of some pupil. But when I did that, he always found it out through Mrs. Johnson, whose nephew he was, and came to see me home. He usually brought some additional wrappings or thick shoes for me; and even if they were too warm, or otherwise in my way, I could be, and was, grateful for his kindness in thinking of them. He was very attentive to his aunt also, and came to read aloud to her, while she napped, almost every evening. At every meal which he took with us, he was constantly suggesting to her little comforts and luxuries for me, till I was afraid she would really be annoyed. She took his hints, however, in wonderfully good part, sometimes acted upon them, and often said to me, "How improvin' it was for young men to have somebody to kind o' think for! It made 'em so kind o' thoughtful!" Many a flower, fruit, and borrowed book he brought me. He tried to make me walk with him; and, whenever he could, he made me talk with him. But for him, I should have studied almost all the time that I was not teaching or sleeping; for when I began to teach, I first discovered how little I had learned. Thus nearly all the indulgences and recreations of the rather grave, lonely, and hard-working little life I was leading at that time were associated with him and his kind care; and so I really think it was no great wonder if his peonies and snowballs that day made the bare little parlor, with the row of staring, uncouth daguerreotypes on the mantel-piece, look very pretty to me, or that to know that he had been there, and was coming back again, made it a very happy place.

I walked across it, took off my hot black bonnet, threw up the western window, and sat down beside it in the rocking-chair. The cool breeze struggled through the tree that nestled sociably up to it, and made the little knobs of cherries nod at me, as if saying, "You would not like us now, but you will by and by." The oriole gurgled and giggled from among them, "Wait! Come again! Come again! Ha, ha!" The noise of the greedy canker-worms, mincing the poor young green leaves over my head, seemed a soothing sound; and even the sharp headache I had brought with me from the school-room, only a sort of sauce piquante to my delicious rest. I did not ask myself what Jim would say. I scarcely longed to hear him come. I did not know how anything to follow could surpass that perfect luxury of waiting peace.

He did come soon. I heard a stealthy step, not on the gravel-walk, but on the rustling hay that lay upon the turf beside it. He looked, and then sprang, in at the window. He was out of breath. He caught my hand, and looked into my face, and asked me to go out and walk with him. Before I had time to answer, he snatched up my bonnet, and almost pressed it down upon my head. As I tied it, he hurried out and looked back at me eagerly from the road. I followed, though more slowly than he wished. The sun was bright and hot, and almost made me faint; but everything was very beautiful.

He wrenched out the topmost bar of a fence, jumped me over it into a meadow, led me by a forced march into the middle of the field, seated me on a haycock, and once more stood before me, looking me in the face with his own all aglow.

Then he told me that he had been longing for weeks, as I must have seen, to open his mind to me; but, till that day, he had not been at liberty. He had regarded me, from almost the very beginning of our acquaintance, as his best and trustiest friend,—in short, as just what dear Emma had told him he should find me. My friendship had been a blessing to him in every way; and now my sympathy, or participation, was all he wanted to render his happiness complete. He had just been admitted as a partner in the store of the village, in which he had hitherto been only a salesman; and now, therefore, he was at last free to offer himself, before all the world, to the girl he loved best; and that was—I must guess who. He called me "dearest Katy," and asked me if he might not "to-day, at last."

I bowed, but did not utter my guess. He seemed to think I had done so, notwithstanding; for he hurried on, delighted. "Of course it is, 'Katy darling,' as we always call you! I never knew your penetration out of the way. It is Emma Holly! It couldn't be anybody but Emma Holly!"

Then he told me that she had begged hard for leave to tell me outright, what she thought she had hinted plainly enough, about their hopes; but her father was afraid that to have them get abroad would hurt her prospects in other quarters, and made silence towards all others a condition of her correspondence with Jim. Mr. Holly was "aristocratic," and in hopes Emma would change her mind, Jim supposed; but all danger was over now. He could maintain her like the lady she was; and their long year's probation was ended. Then he told me in what agonies he had passed several evenings a fortnight before, (when I must have wondered why he did not come and read,) from hearing of her illness. The doctors were right for once, to be sure, as it proved, in thinking it only the measles; but it might just as well have been spotted fever, or small-pox, or anything fatal, for all they knew.

And then I rather think there must have been a pause, which I did not fill properly, because my head was aching with a peculiar sensation which I had never known before, though I have sometimes since.—It is like the very hand of Death, laid with a strong grasp on the joint and meeting-point of soul and body, and makes one feel, for the time being, as Dr. Livingstone says he did when the lion shook him,—a merciful indifference as to anything to come after.—And Jim was asking me, in a disappointed tone, what the matter was, and if I did not feel interested.

"Yes," I said, "Mr. Johnson—"

"Mr. Johnson!" interrupted he, "How cold! I thought it would be Jim at least, to-day, if you can't say dear Jim."

"Yes, 'dear Jim,'" I repeated; and my voice sounded so strangely quiet in my own ears, that I did not wonder that he called me cold. "Indeed, I am interested. I don't know when I have heard anything that has interested me so much. I pray God to bless you and Emma. But the reason I came from school so early to-day was, that I had a headache; and now I think perhaps the sun is not good for it, and I had better go in."

I stood up; but I suspect I must have had something like a sunstroke, sitting there in the meadow so long with no shade, in the full blaze of June. I was almost too dizzy to stand, and could hardly have reached the house, if I had not accepted Jim's arm. He offered, in the joy of his heart, to change head-dresses with me,—which luckily made me laugh,—declaring that mine must be a perfect portable stove for the brains. Thus we reached the door cheerfully, and there shook hands cordially; while I bade him take my kindest love and congratulations to Emma,—to whom he was going on a three days' visit, as fast as the cars could carry him,—and charged him to tell her I should write as soon as I recovered the use of my head.

He looked concerned on being reminded of it, and shouted for Mrs. Johnson to bring me some lavender-water to bathe it with. I had told him, on a former occasion, that the smell of lavender always made it worse; but it was natural that, when he was so happy, he should forget. Whistling louder than the orioles, whose songs rang wildly through and through my brain, he hastened down the road, and was gone.

CHAPTER II.

Jim was gone; but I was left. I could have spared him better if I could only have got rid of myself.

However, for that afternoon the blessed pain took such good care of me that I lay upon my bed still and stunned, and could only somewhat dimly perceive, not how unhappy I was, but how unhappy I was going to be. It quieted Mrs. Johnson, too. She had seen me suffering from headache before, and knew that I could never talk much while it lasted. Her curiosity was at once satisfied and gratified by hearing what Jim had left me at liberty to tell her,—the news of his partnership in the firm. The engagement was not to be announced in form till the next week; though I, as the common friend of both parties, had been made an exceptional confidante; and Jim, afraid of betraying himself, had not trusted himself to take leave of his aunt, but left his love for her, and his apologies for outstaying his time so far in the meadow as to leave himself none for the farm-house.

Thus I had a reprieve. When towards midnight my head grew easier, I was worn out and slept; so that it was not till the birds began to rehearse for their concert at sunrise the next morning, that I came to myself and looked things in the face in the clear light of the awful dawn.

If you can imagine a very heavy weight let somewhat gradually, but irresistibly, down upon young and tender shoulders, then gently lifted again, little by little, by a sympathizing and unlooked-for helper, and lastly tossed by him unexpectedly into the air, only to fall back with redoubled weight, and crush the frame that was but bowed before, you can form some idea of what had just happened to me. My mother's death, our embarrassments, my loneliness, the hard and to me uncongenial work I had to do, all came upon me together more heavily than at any time since the first fortnight that I spent at Greenville.

But that was not all. Disappointment is hardly the right word to use; for I can truly say that I never made any calculations for the future upon Jim's attentions to me. They were offered so honestly and respectfully that I instinctively felt I could accept them with perfect propriety, and perhaps could scarcely with propriety refuse. I had never once asked myself what they meant, nor whither they tended. But yet I was used to them now, and had learned to prize them far more than I knew; and they must be given up. My heart-strings had unconsciously grown to him, and ought to be torn away. And I think that, beyond grief, beyond the prospect of lonely toil and poverty henceforth, beyond all the rest, was the horror of an idea which came upon me, that I had lost the control of my own mind,—that my peace had passed out of my keeping into the power of another, who, though friendly to me, neither would nor could preserve it for me,—that I was doomed to be henceforward the prey of feelings which I must try to conceal, and perhaps could not for any length of time, which lowered me in my own eyes, and would do so in those of others if they were seen by them, which were wrong, and which I could not help.

These thoughts struck and stung me like so many hornets. Crying, "Mother! mother!" I sprang from my bed, and fell on my knees beside it. I did not suppose it would do much good for me to pray; but I said over and over, if only to stop myself from thinking, "O God, help me! God have mercy on me!" as fast as I could, till the town clock struck five, and I knew that I must begin to dress, and compose myself, if I would appear as usual at six o'clock at the breakfast-table.

My French grammar, was, as usual, set up beside my looking-glass. As usual, I examined myself aloud in one of the exercises, while I went through my toilet. If I did make some mistakes it was no matter. I made so much haste, that I had time before breakfast to correct some of the compositions which I had brought with me from school. The rest, as I often did when hurried, I turned over while I tried to eat my bread and milk. This did not encourage conversation. During the meal, I was only asked how my head was, and answered only that it was better. I had taken care not to shed a tear, so that my eyes were not swollen; and as I had eaten nothing since the morning of the day before, nobody could be surprised to see me pale.

Mrs. Johnson left her seat, too, almost as soon as I took mine. She was in a great bustle, getting her covered wagon under way, and stocked with eggs, butter, cheese, and green vegetables for her weekly trip to the nearest market-town. She was, however, sufficiently mindful of her nephew's lessons to regret that she must leave me poorly when he would not be there to cheer me up, and to tell me to choose what I liked best for my dinner while she was gone.

I chose a boiled chicken and rice. It was what my mother used to like best to have me eat when I was not well. I often rebelled against it when a child; but now I sought by means of it to soothe myself with the fancy that I was still under her direction.

Mrs. Johnson also offered to do for me what I forgot to ask of her,—to look in at the post-office and see if there was not a letter there for me from my only sister. Fanny, for once, had sent me none the week before. Mrs. Johnson went to town, and I to school.

I worked and worried through the lessons,—how, I never knew; but I dare say the children were forbearing; children are apt to be when one is not well. I came home and looked at the chicken and rice. But that would not do. They would have made me cry. So I hurried out again, away from them, and away from the meadow, and walked in the woods all that Saturday afternoon, thinking to and fro,—not so violently as in the morning, for I was weaker, but very confusedly and in endless perplexity. How could I stay in Greenville? I should have to be with Jim! But how could I go? What reason had I to give? and what would people think was my reason? But would it not be wrong to stay and see Jim? But it would be wrong to break my engagement to the school committee!

At length again the clock struck five, which was supper-time, and I saw myself no nearer the end of my difficulties; and I had to say once again, "God help me! God have mercy on me!" and so went home.

Mrs. Johnson was awaiting me, with this letter for me in her pocket. It is not in Fanny's handwriting, however, but in that of a friend of ours with whom she was staying, Mrs. Physick, the wife of the most eminent of the younger physicians in Beverly, our native town. I opened it hastily and read:—

"Friday.

"MY DEAR KATIE:—

"You must not be uneasy at my writing instead of Fannie, as the Doctor thinks it too great an effort for her. She has had an attack of influenza, not very severe, but you know she is never very strong, and I am afraid she is too much afraid of calling on me for any little thing she wants done. So we think, the Doctor and I, it would do her good to have a little visit from you. She wanted us to wait for the summer vacation, so as not to alarm you; but you know that is three whole weeks off, and nobody knows how much better she may be within that time. The Doctor says, suggest to Katie that the committee might, under the circumstances, agree to her ending the spring term a little earlier than usual, and beginning a little earlier in the fall.

"Yours as ever,

"JULIA.

"P. S. You must not be anxious about dear Fannie. She has brightened up very much already at the mere thought of seeing you. Her cough is not half so troublesome as it was a week ago, and the Doctor says her very worst symptom is weakness. She says she must write one word herself."

O what a tremulous word!

"DEAR KATY:—

"Do come if you can, and don't be anxious. Indeed I am growing stronger every day, and eating so much meat, and drinking so much whiskey. It does me a great deal of good, and would a great deal more if I could only tell how we were ever to [pay for it, I knew she would have said; but Dr. Physick had evidently interposed; for the signature,]

"Your mutinous and obstreperous

"SISTER FANNY,"

was prefaced with a scratched-out involuntary "Rx," and looked like a prescription.

I might be as sad as I would now; and who could wonder? I sat down where I was standing on the door-step, and held the letter helplessly up to Mrs. Johnson. It did seem to me now as if Fate was going to empty its whole quiver of arrows at once upon me, and meant to kill me, body and soul. But I have since thought sometimes, when I have heard people say, Misfortunes never came single, and How mysterious it was! that God only dealt with us, in that respect somewhat as some surgeons think it best to do with wounded men,—perform whatever operations are necessary, immediately after the first injury, so as to make one and the same "shock" take the place of more. In this way of Providence, I am sure I have repeatedly seen accumulated sorrows, which, if distributed through longer intervals, might have darkened a lifetime, lived through, and in a considerable degree recovered from, even in a very few years.

Mrs. Johnson's spectacles, meantime, were with eager curiosity peering over the letter. "Dear heart!" cried she. "Do tell! My! What a providence! There's Sister Nancy Newcome's Elviry jest got home this arternoon from her situation to the South, scairt off with the insurrections as unexpected as anything. She's as smart a teacher as ever was; an' the committee'd ha' gin her the school in a minute, an' thank you, too; but she wuz alwuz a kind o' lookin' up'ards; an' I s'pose she cal'lated it might for'ard her prospects to go down an' show herself among the plantations. There's better opportoonities, they say, sometimes for young ladies to git settled in life down there, owin' to the scurcity on 'em. She'll be glad enough to fill your place, I guess, till somethin' else turns up, for a fortni't or a month, or a term. It'll give her a chance to see her folks, an' fix up her cloes, an' look round her a spell. An' you can step into the cars o' Monday mornin' an' go right off an' close that poor young creator's eyes, an' take your time for 't. Seems as if I hearn tell your ma went off in a kind of a gallopin' decline, didn't she?"

"No, she did not!" cried I, springing up with a renewal of energy that must have surprised Mrs. Johnson. "Nothing of the kind! I will take my letter again, if you please. My sister has a cold,—only a cold. But where can I see Miss Newcome?"

"To home; but I declare, you can't feel hardly fit to start off ag'in. Jest you step in an' sup your tea afore it's any colder, I've had mine; an' I'll step right back over there, an' see about it for ye."

Mrs. Johnson, if coarse, was kind; and that time it would be hard to say whether her kindness or her coarseness did me the most good; for the latter roused me, between indignation and horror, to a strong reaction.

Mrs. Johnson, I said to myself, knew no more of the matter than I. Nobody said a word, in the letter, of Fanny's being very ill; and there had been, as I now considered, to the best of my recollection and information, no consumption in our family. My father died when I was five years old, as I had always heard of chronic bronchitis and nervous dyspepsia, or, in other words, of over-work and under-pay. An early marriage to a clergyman, who had no means of support but a salary of five hundred dollars dependent on his own health and the tastes of a parish, early widowhood, two helpless little girls to rear, years of hard work, anxieties, and embarrassments, a typhoid fever, with no physician during the precious first few days, during which, if she had sent for him, Dr. Physick always believed he might have saved her, a sudden sinking and no rallying,—it took all that to kill poor, dear, sweet mamma! She had a magnificent constitution, and bequeathed much of it to me.

Else I do not think I could have borne, and recovered from, those three days even as well as I did. The cars did not run on Sunday. That was so dreadful! But there was no other hindrance in my way. Everybody was very kind. The school committee could not meet in form "on the Sabbath"; but the chairman, who was Miss Elvira Newcome's brother-in-law, "sounded the other members arter meetin', jest as he fell in with 'em, casooally as it were," and ascertained that they would offer no objection to my exchange. He advanced my pay himself, and brought it to me soon after sunrise Monday morning; so that I was more than sufficiently provided with funds for my journey.

Mrs. Johnson forced upon me a suspicious-looking corked bottle of innocent tea,—one of the most sensible travelling companions, as I found before the day was over, that a wayfarer can possibly have,—and a large paper of doughnuts. Feverish as I was, I would right willingly have given her back, not only the doughnuts, but the tea, to bribe her not to persecute me as she did for a message for Jim. But I could leave my thanks for all his kindness, and my regrets—sincere, though repented of—that I could not see him again, before I went, to say good-by; and, already in part effaced by the impression of the last blow that had fallen upon me, that scene in the dreadful meadow seemed months and miles away. The engine shrieked. The cars started. My hopes and spirits rose; and I was glad, because I was going home,—that is, where, when I had a home, it used to be.

CHAPTER III.

The rapid motion gratified my restlessness, and, together with the noise, soothed me homoeopathically. I slept a great deal. The midsummer day was far shorter than I feared it would be; and I found myself rather refreshed than fatigued when the conductor roused me finally by shouting names more and more familiar, as we stopped at way-stations. I sat upright, and strained my cinderful eyes, long surfeited with undiluted green, for the first far blue and silver glimpses of my precious sea. Then well-known rocks and cedars came hurrying forward, as if to meet me half-way.

As the cars stopped for the last time with me, I caught sight of a horse and chaise approaching at a rapid rate down the main street of the town. The driver sprang out and threw the reins to a boy. He turned his face—a grave face—up, and looked searchingly along the row of car-windows. It was Dr. Physick. I darted out at the nearest door. He saw me, smiled, and was at it in an instant, catching both my hands in his to shake them and help me down by them at the same time.

"Little Katy!"—he always would call me so, though, as I sometimes took the liberty to tell him, I was very sure I had long left off being that, even if I was not yet quite the size of some giants I had seen,—"Little Katy! How jolly! 'Fanny?' O, Fanny's pretty comfortable,—looking out for you and putting her head out of the window, I dare say, the minute my back's turned. I look to you now to keep her in order. Baggage? Only bag? Give it to me. Foot,—now hand,—there you are!"

And there I was,—where I was most glad to be once more,—in his gig, and driving, in the cool, moist twilight, down the dear old street, shaded with dear old elms, with the golden and amber sunset still glowing between their dark boughs; where every quiet, snug, old wooden house, with its gables and old-fashioned green or white front-door with a brass or bronze knocker, and almost every shop and sign even, seemed an old friend.

The lingering glow still lay full on the front of our old home, which now had "Philemon Physick, M. D." on the corner. As we stopped before it, I thought I spied a sweet little watching face, for one moment, behind a pane of one of the second-story windows. But if I did, it was gone before I was sure.

"Here she is!" called out the Doctor. "Julia!—Wait a minute, Kate, my dear,—no hurry. Julia!" Up he ran, while "Julia" ran down, said something, in passing, to him on the stairs, kissed me at the foot three times over,—affectionately, but as if to gain time, I thought,—led me into the parlor to take off my bonnet, and told me Fanny was not quite ready to see me just then, but would be, most likely, in two or three minutes. The Doctor had gone up to see about it, and would let me know.

"O, didn't I see her at the window?"

"Yes, dear, you did; and that was just the trouble. She saw you were there; and she was so pleased, it made her a little faint. The Doctor will give her something to take; and as soon as she is a little used to your being here, of course you can be with her all the time."

The Doctor came down, speaking cheerily. "She is all right now. Run up, as fast as you like, and kiss her, Kate, my child; but tell her I forbid your talking till to-morrow. In five minutes, by my watch, I shall call you down to tea; and when you are called, you come. That will give her time to think about it and compose herself. Julia's help shall stay with her in the mean while. Afterwards, you shall share your own old chamber with her. Julia has it, as usual, all ready for you."

Fanny had sunk back on her white pillows, upon the little couch before the window from which she watched for me. How inspired and beautiful she looked!—she who was never thought of as beautiful before,—the very transfigured likeness of herself, as I hope one day to behold her in glory,—and so like our mother, too! She lay still, as she had been ordered, lest she should faint again; but by the cheerful lamp that stood on the stand beside her, I saw her smile as she had never used to smile. The eyes, that I left swollen and downcast, were raised large and bright. But as she slowly opened her arms and clasped me to her, I felt tears on my cheek; and her voice was broken as she said, "Katy, Katy! O, thank God! I was afraid I never should see you again. Now I have everything that I want in the world!"

It was hard to leave her when I was called so soon; but she knew that it was right, and made me go; and when I was allowed to return to her, she lay in obedient but most happy silence for all the rest of the evening, with those new splendid eyes fixed on my face, her dim complexion glowing, and her hands clasping mine. After I had put her to bed, and laid myself down in my own beside her, I felt her reach out of hers and touch me with a little pat two or three times, as a child will a new doll, to make sure that it has not been merely dreaming of it. At first, I asked her if she wanted anything; but she said, "Only to feel that you are really there"; and when, after a very sound and long rest, I awoke, there was her solemn, peaceful gaze still watching me, like that of an unsleeping guardian angel. She had slept too, however, remarkably long and well, whether for joy, as she thought, or from the opium which I had been startled to see given her the night before. She said she had had many scruples about taking it; but the Doctor insisted; and she did not think it her duty on the whole to make him any trouble by opposing his prescriptions, when we owed him so much. Poor Fanny! How hard it was for her to owe any one "anything, but to love one another."

The Doctor's bulletin that morning was, "Remarkably comfortable." But in the forenoon, while Fanny after breakfast took a nap, I snatched an opportunity to cross-question Mrs. Physick, from whom I knew I could sooner or later obtain all she knew,—the sooner it would be, if she had anything good to tell; as, in my inexperience, I was almost sure she must have.

Fanny's "influenza," I now discovered, dated back to May. She kept her room a few days, did not seem so ill as many fellow-patients who were now quite well again, and soon resumed her usual habits, but was never quite rid of her cough. Two or three weeks after, there was a Sunday-school festival in the parish to which we belonged. She was called upon to sing and assist in various ways, over-tasked her strength, was caught in a shower, looked very sick, and being, on the strength of Mrs. Physick's representations, formally escorted into the office, was found to have a quick pulse and sharp pain in one side. This led to a careful examination of the chest, and the discovery not only of "acute pleurisy," but of "some mischief probably of longer standing in the lungs," yet "no more," the Doctor said, "than many people carried about with them all their lives without knowing it, nor than others, if circumstances brought it to light, recovered from by means of good care and good spirits, and lived to a good old age."

"How long ago was that?"

"The pleurisy? About the beginning of June. The Doctor said last week he 'could scarcely discover a vestige of it.' And now, Katy," continued kind, cheery Mrs. Physick, "you see, your coming back has put her in the best of spirits; and you and the Doctor and I are all going to take the best of care of her; and so we may all hope the best."

"The best of care"? Ah, there was little doubt of that! But even "good spirits"! who could hope to see Fanny enjoying them for any length of time, till she had done with time? Good, uncomplaining, patient, I had always seen her,—happy, how seldom!—when, indeed, till now? There was not enough of earth about her for her to thrive and bloom.

My mother, I believe, used to attribute in part to Fanny's early training her early joylessness. In her early days,—so at least I have understood,—it was thought right even by some good people of our "persuasion," to lose no opportunity of treating the little natural waywardnesses of children with a severity which would now be called ferocity. Mamma could never have practised this herself; but perhaps she suffered it to be practised to a greater extent than she would have consented to endure, had she foreseen the consequences. My poor father must have been inexperienced, too; and I suppose his nerves, between sickness and poverty, might at times be in such a state that he scarcely knew what he did.

I was four years younger than Fanny, and know nothing about it, except a very little at second-hand. But at any rate I have often heard my mother say, with a glance at her, and a gravity as if some sad association enforced the lesson on her mind, that it was one of the first duties of those who undertook the charge of children to watch over their cheerfulness, and a most important rule, never, if it was possible to put it off, so much as to reprimand them when one's own balance was at all disturbed. This was a rule that she never to my knowledge broke; though she was naturally rather a high-strung person, as I think the pleasantest and most generous people one meets with generally are.

From whatever cause or causes,—to return to Fanny,—she grew up, not fierce, sullen, nor yet hypocritical, but timid and distrustful, miserably sensitive and anxious, and morbidly conscientious.

There was another pleasure in store for her, however; for, the afternoon following that of my return, Mrs. Julia, looking out as usual for her husband,—with messages from four different alarmingly or alarmed sick persons, requesting him to proceed without delay in four different directions,—saw him at length driving down the road with such unprofessional slowness that she feared some accident to himself or his harness. When he came before the door, the cause appeared. It was a handsome Bath chair, with a basket of strawberries on the floor and a large nosegay on the seat, fastened to the back of his gig, and safely towed by it.

"What is that for?" cried I from Fanny's window.

"Fanny's coach," said he, looking up. "Miss Dudley has sent it to be taken care of for her. She does not want it herself for the present; and you can draw your dolly out in it every fine day."

"O," cried Fanny, sitting upright on the couch by the window,—where she spent the greater part of the day,—to see for herself, with the tears in her eyes. "O, how lovely! That is the very kindest thing she has done yet;—and you don't know how she keeps sending me everything, Katy!"

"Miss Dudley? Who is she?"

"O, don't you know? The great naturalist's sister. He lives in that beautiful place, on the shore, in the large stone cottage. The ground was broken for it before you went to Greenville. She is very sick, I am afraid,—very kind, I am sure. I never saw her. She has heard about me. I am afraid the Doctor told her. I hope she does not think I meant he should."

"Of course, dear, she does not."

"Do you really think so?"

"Certainly."

"Why?"

"Why,—I know I should not like being begged of in that underhand way myself; and if I did not like it, I might send something once, but after that I should never keep on sending."

"I am very glad you think so; for I like her kindness, though I scarcely like to have her show it in this way, because I am afraid I can never do anything for her. But I hope she does like to send; for Dr. Physick says she always asks after me, almost before he can after her, and looks very much pleased if she hears that I have been so. I suppose the Doctor will think it is too late to take me down to-night. Katy, don't you want to go and see the wagon, and tell me about it, and pour the strawberries into a great dish on the tea-table, and all of you have some, and bring up the flowers when you come back after tea?"

When I came back with the flowers, Fanny smiled rather pensively, and did not ask me about the chair.

"Fanny," said I, "the Doctor says you may go out to-morrow forenoon, and stay as long as you like, if it is fair; and the sun is going down as red as a Baldwin apple. The chair is contrived so, with springs and the cushions, that you can lie down in it, as flat as you do on your sofa, when you are tired of sitting up."

"O Katy," cried she, with a little quiver in her voice, for she was too weak to bear anything, "I have been seeing how inconsiderate I was! To think of letting you exert and strain yourself in that way!"

In came the Doctor, looking saucy. "Fanny won't go, I suppose? I thought so. I said so to De Quincey [his horse], as I drove him down the street at a creep, sawing his mouth to keep him from running away, till he foamed at it epileptically, while all the sick people were sending north, south, east, and west after all the other doctors. I hope you won't mention it, said I to the horse; but Fanny is always getting up some kind of a row. But there is Katy now,—Katy is a meek person, and always does as she is bid. She has been cooped up too much, and bleached her own roses with teaching the Greenville misses to sickly o'er with the pale cast of thought. Katy needs gentle exercise. So does Deacon Lardner." Deacon Lardner was the fat inhabitant of the town, and ill of the dropsy. "I will send Katy out a-walking, with Deacon Lardner in Miss Dudley's chair."

I laughed. Fanny smiled. The Doctor saw his advantage, and followed it up. "Julia, my dear, get my apothecary's scales out of the office. Put an ounce weight into one, and Fanny into the other. Then put the ounce weight into the chair. If Katy can draw that, she can draw Fanny."

This time, it was poor Fanny who had the laugh to herself.

The next day, the Doctor carried her down stairs, as soon as she could bear it after her breakfast, and left her on a sofa, in the little parlor, to rest. About ten o'clock, he came back from his early rounds. I was dressed and waiting for him, with Fanny's bonnet and shawl ready. I put them on her, while he drew out the chair from its safe stable in the hall. Once again he took her up; and thus by easy stages we got her into "her coach." I pulled, and he pushed it, "to give me a start." How easy and light and strong it was! How delighted were both she and I!

Fanny was too easily alarmed to enjoy driving much, even when she was well; and she had not walked out for weeks. During that time, the slow, late spring had turned into midsummer; and the mere change from a sick-room to the fresh, outer world is always so very great! For me, it was the first going abroad since my return to Beverly. We went in the sun till my charge's little snowdrop hands were warm, and then drew up under the shade of an elm, on a little airy knoll that commanded a distant view of the sea, and was fanned by a soft air, which helped poor Fanny's breathing. She now insisted on my resting myself; and I turned the springs back and arranged the cushions so that she could lie down, took a new handkerchief of my guardian's from my pocket, and hemmed it, as I sat at her side on a stone, while she mused and dozed. When she awoke, I gave her her luncheon from a convenient little box in the chair, and drew her home by dinner-time.

In this way we spent much of the month of July—shall I say it?—agreeably. Nobody will believe it, who has not felt or seen the marvellous relief afforded by an entire change of scene and occupation to a person tried as I had been. If I had but "one idea," that idea was now Fanny. Instinctively in part, and partly of set purpose, I postponed to her every other consideration and thought. It was delightful to me to be able, in my turn, to take her to one after another of the dear old haunts, in wood or on beach, where she had often led me, when a child, to play. I always did love to have something to take care of; and the care of Fanny wore upon me little. She was the most considerate of invalids.

Besides, she was better, or at any rate I thought so, after she began to go out in Miss Dudley's chair. Her appetite improved; her nerves grew more firm; and her cough was sometimes so quiet at night that her laudanum would stand on her little table in the morning, just as it was dropped for her the evening before.

Not only were my spirits amended by the fresh air in which, by Dr. Physick's strict orders, I lived with her through the twenty-four hours, but my health too. He had declared her illness to be "probably owing in great part to the foul atmosphere in which," he found, "she slept"; and now she added that, since she had known the comfort of fresh air at night, she should be very sorry ever to give it up. In windy weather she had a large folding-screen, and in raw, more blankets and a little fire.

Besides the chair, another thing came in our way which gave pleasure to both of us, though it was not very pleasantly ushered in, as its pioneer was a long visit from Fanny's old "Sabbath school-ma'am," Miss Mehitable Truman, who would come up stairs. Towards the close of this visit her errand came out. It was to inquire whether "Fanny wouldn't esteem it a privilege to knit one or two of her sets of toilet napkins for Miss Mehitable's table at the Orphans' Fair, jest by little and little, as she could gether up her failin' strength." Fanny could not promise the napkins, since, luckily for her, she was past speech from exhaustion, as I was with indignation; and Miss Truman, hearing the Doctor's boots creak below, showed the better part of valor, and departed.

The next day, it rained. We were kept in-doors; and Fanny could not be easy till I had looked up her cotton and knitting-needles. She could not be easy afterwards, either; for they made her side ache; and when Dr. Physick paid his morning visit, he took them away.

I knew she would be sorry to have nothing to give to that fair. It was one of the few rules of life which my mother had recommended us to follow, never from false shame either to give or to withhold. "If you are asked to give," she would say, "to any object, and are not satisfied that it is a good one, but give to it for fear that somebody will think you stingy, that is not being faithful stewards. But when you do meet with a worthy object, always give, if you honestly can. Even if you have no more than a cent to give, then give a cent; and do not care if the Pharisees see you. That is more than the poor widow in the Gospels gave";—how fond she always was of that story!—"and you remember who, besides the Pharisees, saw her, and what he said? His objects would not have to go begging so long as they do now, if every one would follow her example." From pride often, and sometimes from indolence, I am afraid I had broken that rule; but Fanny, I rather think, never had; and now I would try to help her to keep it.

My mother's paint-box was on a shelf in our closet, with three sheets of her drawing-paper still in it. Painting flowers was one of her chief opiates to lull the cares of her careful life. I think a person can scarcely have too many such, provided they are kept in their proper place, I have often seen her, when sadly tired or tried, sit down, with a moisture that was more like rain than dew in her eyes, and paint it all away, till she seemed to be looking sunshine over her lifelike blossoms. Then she would pin them up against the wall, for a week or two, for us to enjoy them with her; and, afterwards, she would give them away to any one who had done her any favor. Her spirit was in that like Fanny's,—she shrank so painfully from the weight of any obligation! She wished to teach me to paint, when I was a child. I wished to learn; and many of her directions were still fresh in my memory. But the inexperienced eye and uncertain hand of thirteen disheartened me. I thought I had no talent. My mother was not accustomed to force any task upon me in my play-hours. The undertaking was given up.

But I suppose many persons, like me not precocious in the nursery or the school-room, but naturally fond, as I was passionately, of beautiful forms and colors, would be surprised, if they would try their baffled skill again in aftertimes, to find how much the years had been unwittingly preparing for them, in the way of facility and accuracy of outline and tint, while they supposed themselves to be exclusively occupied with other matters. What the physiologists call "unconscious cerebration" has been at work. Scatter the seeds of any accomplishment in the mind of a little man or woman, and, even if you leave them quite untended, you may in some after summer or autumn find the fruit growing wild. Accordingly, when, within the last twelvemonth, I had been called upon to teach the elements of drawing in my school, it astonished me to discover the ease with which I could either sketch or copy. And now it occurred to me that perhaps, if I would take enough time and pains, I could paint something worthy of a place on Miss Mehitable's table.

Fanny's gladness at the plan, and interest in watching the work, in her own enforced inaction, were at once reward and stimulus. I succeeded, better than we either of us expected, in copying the frontispiece of a "picture-book," as Dr. Physick called it, which he had brought up from his office to amuse her. It was a scientific volume, sent him by the author,—an old fellow-student,—from the other side of the world. Lovely ferns, flowers, shells, birds, butterflies, and insects, that surrounded him there, were treated further on separately, in rigid sequence; but as if to make himself amends by a little play for so much work, he had not been able to resist the temptation of grouping them all together on one glowing and fascinating page. I framed my copy as tastefully as I could, in a simple but harmonious passe-partout, and sent it to Miss Mehitable, with Fanny's love. Fanny's gratitude was touching; and as for me, I felt quite as if I had found a free ticket to an indefinitely long private picture-gallery.

Fanny's satisfaction was still more complete after the fair, when Miss Mehitable reported that the painting had brought in what we both thought quite a handsome sum. "It was a dreadful shame," she added, "you hadn't sent two of 'em; for at noon, while I was home, jest takin' a bite, my niece, Letishy, from Noo York, had another grand nibble for that one after 'twas purchased. Letishy said a kind o' poor, pale-lookin', queer-lookin' lady, who she never saw before, in an elegint camel's-hair,"—("Poor-lookin', in a camel's-hair shawl!" was my inward ejaculation; "don't I wish, ma'am, I could catch you and 'Letishy' in my composition class, once!")—"she come up to the table an' saw that, an' seemed to feel quite taken aback to find she'd lost her chance at it. Letishy showed her some elegint shell-vases with artificial roses; but that wouldn't do. I told Letishy," continued Miss Mehitable, "that she'd ought to ha' been smart an' taken down the lady's name; an' then I could ha' got Kathryne to paint her another. But you mu't do it now, Kathryne, an' put it up in the bookseller's winder; an' then, if she's anybody that belongs hereabouts, she'll be likely to snap at it, an' the money can go right into the orphans' fund all the same."