She held her hands out to us both, and we mingled our tears of gratitude with those that filled her eyes.

"Thank you," I said.

"God bless your true heart," said Louis, "and may your last days be your happiest."

"Amen," said Jane, and she passed into the next room, Matthias putting the present in a corner where it would take less space. Mr. Davis followed her, and beside him stood a clock which father had helped him to bring in.

"This clock, my young friends, is the one which has stood in the corner of my study for years. I have taken an especial pride in its unvarying correctness, and the man in the moon is unfailing in his calculation, showing his face at the appropriate season. The clock's tick is strong and well becomes the old veteran, and the coat of mahogany he wears is one that can never need a stitch. To you, above all others, I would yield this treasure; it is worth far more to me than any gift I might purchase, and I know that you," turning to Louis, "rejoice in keeping bright the old-time landmarks linking forever the past and the present."

This brought Louis to his feet, and Clara and myself rose too, for his arms encircled us.

"Mr. Davis," he said, grasping his outstretched hand, "you have done me great honor; may I have the pleasure to retain through endless ages the confidence you place in me and my blessed wife, my Emily."

"The years will brighten the lustre of your true heart," said Mr. Davis; and here his wife handed me a patchwork quilt, while her husband said:

"May your lives and loves be welded by a double chain as long as my wife's handiwork shall last."

It seemed to me I could not bear all this, and when father came forward at this moment and handed me a deed of some of his best land, I should, I believe, have screamed had not Louis' hand held me tightly. Gifts multiplied like flakes of falling snow, until we were surrounded by them. I can only mention a few more, and before me rise plainly now the faces of Aunt Peg and Matthias, as bowing low before me they laid at our feet their offerings.

"Only jest a little intment; that's all they is when we looks at the rest; but we wanted to bring you sunthin'," said Aunt Peg.

A beautiful mat bordered with her own choice of bright colors, a clothes-basket made by Matthias, and in the latter three pairs of beautifully-knitted wool stockings for Louis.

"Peg spun dis wool," said Matthias, "an' de stockins is good: dis baskit," he added despairingly, "I tried my bes' to put some sky color on, but I reckin ef de bluin' bottle had jes' spill over it 'twould do more colorin' and better too. May de Lord help ye to live an' war it out, and then I'll make another."

"That was a good speech," said Louis, and we shook hands with these two white-hearted friends, and they also passed on out of sight, leaving me still at the mercy of the coming.

It seemed to me there could be nothing more to come, when a loud "baa, baa" started us, and Ben appeared, leading the whitest little lamb you ever saw. He had tied a blue ribbon about its neck, and it trotted along up to us as if pleased with the novelty of its situation.

"Your namesake and my gift," said Ben. I was truly surprised, but thanked him heartily, and the friends about us laughed immoderately. This caused the lamb to look for some way out, and Ben went with it at a quick pace, shouting back, "I raised Emily myself, and she's a beauty." The next surprise was from Hal and Mary—two pieces from the hand of my artist brother, "Love's Fawn," and "Aunt Hildy." Duplicates of these were at that time hastening across the water with Mr. Hanson, who was anxious to take a venture over for Hal. When they were placed before us, Louis and myself exclaimed admiringly:

"How beautiful!"

Aunt Hildy, who stood near, said, "There, Halbert Minot, you've done it now!" and passed, like a swift wind through the room. I feared she felt hurt, but was disarmed of this thought, for she returned in a moment, and over the statuette she threw her old Camlet cloak.

"That is my present to you two," she said, standing beside it as if empowered with authority. "To God's children I give this, and you shall share it with 'em. I make one provision," she added. "Mis' Hungerford-Dayton is to have the sleeves for carpet-rags; you can cut it up when she comes. It's all I've got to give; but the Lord will make it blest." We took this as a crowning joke; and still to me it seemed to embrace a solid something, and set me dreaming.

When the hour of ten arrived the last of our guests were leaving; and, as I stood at the door with Louis saying "Good-night," the echo of the words went ringing over the hills; and when it fluttered back, seemed to my heart to say, "It will be morning soon."

As we went into the sitting-room, Clara said: "Now that the guests have all examined my gifts, it will do for my dear ones to look also," and she led the way into our old middle-room, and pointing to the antique service, said:

"These are yours; I have them for my boy. There are false bottoms to the three largest pieces, and within them you will find the gift your father left you, Louis, to be given to you when you should become a man. I did not tell the others of this," she added. "Here, my Emily, is something you I know will prize,—the set of pearls my Louis Robert gave me on my wedding day. They are very valuable. Keep them; and if changes should ever bring want before you, you have a fortune here. See how beautiful they are." And she held up a string of large, round pearls to which clung an ornament, in shape somewhat like an anchor, of the same precious gems, two of which were pear-shaped and very large. The ear-rings and brooch were of the most exquisite pattern. I had never seen anything so beautiful, and had no word for expression, and Clara said:

"Your eyes tell it all, my royal Emily; you are tired, and the night is here."

Then, kissing us both good-night, Louis gathered her in his arms and carried her over the stairs, saying, as he turned to come down:

"Pleasant dreams, my fairy mother; your hand is a magic wand."



CHAPTER XIX.

MARRIED LIFE.

I could hardly see where we had room for all the gifts that came to us, for Clara's part of the house was well filled, and Aunt Hildy's belongings took nearly all the upstairs room we could spare; but by moving and shifting, and using a little gumption, as Aunt Hildy expressed it, they were all disposed of properly.

The clock occupied a corner in Louis' room, which had been Hal's studio, and was now to belong, with one other on Clara's side, to us two. Mother had said before our marriage:

"I can never let Emily go unless it be absolutely necessary. The boys are both settled, and I desire Emily to remain here. It would be lonely for her father and myself should she leave us."

I had no wish to do so, and Louis and Clara were as one in this matter; so we were to live right on together, and the convenient situation of the rooms made it pleasant for all concerned.

"Don't want no men folks round under foot," Aunt Hildy said, and there was no need for it, for Louis' room, while accessible, was out of the way, and it seemed to me as if the plan had fallen from a hand that knew our wants better than we knew ourselves. What Louis' work would be, I could not say, neither could he. To use his own language, as we talked together of the coming days, "I am to be ready to do daily all that my hand finds to do; and the work for which I am fitted will, I trust, fall directly before me." He had a right to be called the "Town's Friend," I thought, for his active brain and tender heart were constantly bringing before him some errand of mercy, or act of charity, all of which were willingly and well performed.

It was not long after our marriage that he was called on to fill Mr. Davis' place in the pulpit. I trembled to think of it; but you should have seen Clara when, as we entered the church together, he passed the pew door to follow Mr. Davis to the pulpit; for the latter, though from weakness of the bronchial tubes unable to speak, was anxious to be by the side of his friend, as he verified his prediction. There was a glory covering Clara's face, and her eyes turned full upon her boy with an unwavering light of steadfast faith in his power and goodness, as from his lips fell the text, "If a man die shall he live again?"

His opening prayer was impressively simple, and the text, it seemed to me, just like a door which, swinging on its hinges, brought full before his vision the picture of the life that is and the life that is to come. His illustrations were so naturally drawn, and so beautifully fitted to the needs of our earthly and spiritual existence, that I knew no words had ever thrown around the old church people so wondrous a garment of well-fitted thought.

"If this is all," he said, "this living from day to day, oppressed with the needs of the flesh, we have nothing to be thankful for; but if, as I can both see and know, man lives again, we have all to give great praise, and also rejoice through our deeds, that we are the children of the eternal Father."

Not a word of utter darkness, not a terrifying picture of a wrathful and impatient God did he draw, but it was all tenderness and love that found its way to the hearts of all his hearers; and when, in his own blessed way, he pronounced the benediction, I felt that a full wave of kindness covered us all, and I said in my heart:

"Oh, Louis, Emily will help you; Emily will do it!"

Mr. Davis' eyes were bright with gratitude and great joy as he greeted us after the service, and he whispered to me:

"You are the wife of a minister."

This was only a beginning, and for months after, every other Sabbath Louis occupied the pulpit, and to the surprise of Mr. Davis, all those who had become interested in the dispensation of Mr. Ballou, and who had now for a long time been to the church where we had heard the sermon which came as dew to my hungry soul, began to come again to the old church. Louis' preaching drew them there, and they settled in their old place to hear, as they expressed it, "the best sermons that ever were preached." This was pleasant. Louis had said:

"I cannot subscribe to the articles of your creed, or of any other, but am willing and anxious to express to others the thoughts that are within me."

This made no difference, for they knew he spoke truly, and also that the armor of his righteousness was made of the good deeds which he performed daily. It helped Mr. Davis along, and after a time his health became better; but even then he insisted on Louis preaching often, which he gladly did.

On the Christmas of this year, 1846, there was service as usual at our church, and both Mr. Davis and Louis occupied the pulpit. A Christmas service was not usual save in the Episcopal church, but Mr. Davis asked this privilege. His father had been a strict Episcopalian, and he had learned in his early years to love that church. Our people were not loth to grant his request, and I think this Christmas will never be forgotten.

We took supper at Hal's with Aunt Phebe, who had come with her husband to pay us, what Mr. Dayton termed, "a young visit." He had perfect knowledge of the English language, and power to express himself not only with words, but with a most characteristic combination of them. He said his wife felt anxious that he should be on amicable terms with her consanguineous friends, but he expected we should attribute less of goodness to him than to her, for "Phebe Ann" was a remarkable woman. "And this," he added, "is why she appreciates me."

Ben tried in vain to interest him more than a few moments at a time, even though he displayed his young stock and invited him into the broom-corn room.

It was not till he espied a Daboll's Arithmetic in Hal's studio that he became interested in the belongings of that house, albeit Hal and Mary had shown him the statuary they so much prized. He looked at the statuettes and remarked to Hal:

"You do that better than I do, but what after all does it amount to? It never will save a man from sin; never break a fetter, or dash away a wine-cup. But what do you know about figures? Do you think you know very much?"

"Not as much as I wish," Ben answered, as Hal smiled at the plain question.

"I thought so," said Mr. Dayton; "and the very best thing you can do, young man, is to come down to my house, or perhaps I can come up here, and gather some really useful and necessary information about figures. It will make a man of you. I guess you're a pretty good boy, and you only need brightening up a little."

Hal replied: "I wish you would, Uncle Dayton; that is just what I should like."

"Well," said he, "it wouldn't do you any hurt to come with him."

"I should come, too," said Mary.

"Come right along," was the reply. At supper time he said he preferred a simple dish of bread and milk, which he seemed to enjoy greatly, and all the niceties Mary had prepared were set aside unnoticed.

"Do you know what day you were born on, Ben?" he said.

"I know the day of the month, sir, but not the day of the week."

"Tell me the day of the month and year and I will tell you the day of the week."

"September 6, 1828."

"Let's see," said the philosopher, turning his eyes to the ceiling; "that came on Saturday."

We all asked the solving of this problem, and the instantaneous result seemed wonderful. After supper, at our request, he told us his history, and when we realized that this man had gained for himself all his knowledge, we looked on him as one coming from wonderland. It was hardly credible that he should have power to solve the most difficult mathematical problems, calculate eclipses, as well as do all that could be required in civil or hydraulic engineering, and that he had accomplished this by his own will, which, pushing aside all obstacles, fought for the supremacy of his brain life. His father desired him to have no book knowledge, and he told us that when a young boy he would wait for sleep to close his father's eyes, and would then, by the light of pitch-pine knots and birch-bark in the fireplace, pursue his studies. This was pursuing knowledge under difficulties which would have proved insurmountable to many. But not so to Mr. Dayton, for he steadily gained; and though to an utter disregard for his unquenchable thirst for knowledge was added the daily fight for bread, he rose triumphantly above these difficulties, and mastered the most intricate mathematical calculation with the ease which is born only of a superior development of brain. Matthias had told us truly, and when he left us for his home we felt that in him we found new strength for much that was good and true, and for abhorrence of evil.

During this visit the Camlet cloak was brought out, and Aunt Phebe and I together ripped out the sleeves. She said they would make a splendid green stripe in a carpet, and in her quiet, careful way she sat removing their linings, when she started as if frightened, exclaiming:

"Why, Emily, what on earth does this mean?"

"What is it?" I said, and she held before me in her hand a long brown paper, and within its folds were two bills of equal denomination.

"I wonder if this one has anything in it?" I said, and even as I said it my fingers came upon a similarly folded paper, and two more bills were brought to light. They were a valuable gift, and Aunt Phebe's gratitude gave vent in a forcible way, I knew, for Aunt Hildy told me afterward she thanked her "e'en a'most to death." I could hardly wait to rip the body of the cloak, and my surprise was unbounded when I discovered its contents.

There were two sums of money left in trust with us, and in her dear, good way she had made us wondrously grateful to her for the faith she had reposed in us; a deed of some of her land, which the street had cut into, which she desired us to use for some one who was needy, unless we ourselves needed it; and in the last sentences of her message to us she said:

"If ever anybody belongin' to me comes in your path, give 'em a lift. I can trust you to do it, and the Lord will spare your lives, I know. Don't tell any livin' soul, Emily." This was a sacred message to both Louis and myself, and I should feel it sacrilege to write it all out here, even though I much desire to.

Dear Aunt Hildy! when we essayed to thank her, she said:

"There, there, don't say a word; I've allus said I'd be my own executioner, (I did not correct her mistake), and I know that's the way. You see, some day I'll go out like a candle, for all my mother's folks died that way, so I want to be ready. The other side of the house live longer, more pity for it too. They've handed down more trouble than you know, but I aint like one of 'em; it's my mother I belong to."

It seemed to me now that the years went like days and the first five after our marriage, that ended with the summer of 1851, were filled for the most part with pleasant cares. I was still my mother's girl, and helped about the house as always before. Of course, some sorrows came to us in these years, for changes cannot be perfectly like clear glass. Hal and Mary had held to their hearts one beautiful Baby blossom, who only lived four months to cheer them, and then passed from their brooding tenderness on to the other side. We sorrowed for this, and "Love's Fawn" had pale cheeks for a long time. Hal feared she would follow her child, and it might have been had not a somewhat necessary journey across the Atlantic brought great benefit to her.

The venture Mr. Hanson had made had proved so eminently successful, that when, this year, he again went to the Old World, it was deemed wise and right for them to accompany himself and family. I almost wanted to go, too, and when Hal sent back to us his beautifully written account of all he saw, I stood in spirit beside him, and anticipated many of his proposed visits. They both returned with improved health and added fortune.

The mining fever of 1849 took a few of our townspeople from us. Aunt Phebe wrote us that her second son had gone to find gold, and Ben had a little idea of trying the life of a pioneer; but the sight of the waiting acres, which he hoped some day to call his, detained him, and he still kept on making a grand success of farming, for he was doing the work he desired and that which he was capable of carrying to a successful end.

Louis' work had lain in all directions; helping Mr. Davis still as his varying strength required, interesting himself in the improvements about us, etc. Gradually widening the sphere of his influence, slowly but surely feeling his way among human hearts, he could not fail to be recognized, and after a time to be sought for among such as needed help. No appeal was ever made in vain from this quarter.

Capitalists, who had reared in the village below us a huge stone mill designed for the manufacture of woolens, had made advances which he did not meet as desired, for their system of operating was disloyal, he said, to all true justice, encroaching, as it did, upon the liberties of a class largely represented in this, as well as in all other towns. Three gentlemen, who represented the main interests, called on Louis, and he expressed to them what seemed to him to be the truth regarding this, and said:

"The years to come will be replete with suffering, and vice, degradation, and misery are sure to follow in the steps you are taking. I do not say that you realize this, but if you will think of it as I have, you cannot fail to reach the same conclusion. You cause to be rung a morning bell at five o'clock, that rouses not only men from their slumbers, but the little growing children who need their unbroken morning dreams. These children must work all day in the close and stifling rooms of your mill. Their tender life must feel the daily dropping seed of disease, and with each recurring nightfall, overworked bodies fall into a heavy slumber, instead of slipping gradually over into the realm of peace. The mothers and fathers of these children suffer in this strife for daily bread. Fathers knowing not their children, and entire families living to feel only the impetus of a desire to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and to shield themselves from the cold of winter or the summer's heat. What does all this mean? If we look at the elder among your employees we shall find men, who, not being strong enough to work twelve hours a day, naturally, and almost of necessity, have resorted to the stimulant of tobacco, and the strength of spirituous liquors.

"I can personally vouch for the truth of all I say regarding it. The practice of fathers is already adopted or soon will be adopted by their children, and by this means the little substance they may gain through hard toil, for you well know their gain is small if your profit is what you desire, falls through the grated bars of drunkenness and waste, into the waiting pit of penury and pauperism. Bear with me, gentlemen, if I speak thus plainly, and believe me it is for your own comfort as well as for the cultivation of the untouched soil in the minds of your workmen, that I feel called upon to address you earnestly.

"You do not ask, neither would you permit, your wives and children to work in the mill beside these people, and only the line of gold draws the distinction between you. There are sweet faces in your mill, there are tender hearts and there is intellect which might grow to be a power in our midst. But the sweet faces have weary eyes, the tender hearts beat without pity, and the strength which might exalt these men and us as their brothers, becomes the power of a consuming fire, which as time flies, and our population increases, will burn out all the true and loyal life that might have developed among us. When our village becomes a city, we, like other denizens of cities, must see prison houses rise before us, and to-day we are educating inmates for these walls. Remember also, that the laces our wives shall wear in those days of so-called prosperity, will be bought with human life. I will not stand amenable before God for crime like this.

"If you will drop your present schemes, if you will be content to share with these men and children a portion of your profits, to let them toil eight hours instead of twelve per day, and if on every Saturday you will give to them one full long day in God's dear sunlight, I will invest the amount of capital necessary to cover all which you as a body have invested, and I will stand beside you in your mill. I would to God, gentlemen, you were ready to accept this offer, for it comes from my heart, but I can anticipate your reply. You will say I am speaking ahead of my time, that the world is not ready for these theories, much less for the practice I desire. And in return I would ask, when will it ever be? Has any new and valuable dispensation sought us through time, when hands were not raised in holy horror, and the voice of the majority has not sounded against it. You are to-day enjoying, in the machinery you use, the benefit of thought which against much opposition fought its way to the front. And shall we rest on our oars, and say we cannot even try to do what we know to be right, because the world, the unthinking, unmindful world, sees no good in it? It would be easier for many acting as one man, to move the wheels, but if this cannot be, I must wait as other hearts have waited, but I will work in any and in all ways to break the yokes which encircle the necks of our people."

He paused and looking still earnestly at them, waited a reply. The eldest said in answer:

"Mr. Desmonde, while you have spoken that which we have never before heard, I think I may say for my friends as well as myself, that your sentiments do not fall on entirely barren soil. While you were talking, it seemed to me the way looked plain, and I felt to say, Amen. But I know we are not ready for such a movement as this. Perhaps we ought to be, and if your picture is a true one, I say from the bottom of my heart I will for myself try to be of some good. I am willing to be taught how."

Louis crossed the room, and offering his hand, said with emotion:

"Thank God, the truth I uttered found soil. May the years water with the dews of their love, the one seed fallen on rich ground, and may we, sir, live to be a unit in our thought and action, and you too, gentlemen," turning to the two who were silent.

A short and pleasant conversation followed, and they took their departure. As they left us, Clara said:

"Well done, Louis. Here is a work and Emily will help you do it."

Louis had grown grandly beautiful through these years, and never had he seemed for one moment careless or unmindful of any simplest need. We walked together truly, keeping pace through the years whose crown we wore as yet lightly. He said I grew young all the time, and often, when thoughts of his work filled his mind, as he sat looking on into the future, finding one by one the paths which, like small threads running through a garment, led to the unfoldment of life, he would hold my hands in his, and when, like a picture, the way and means all made plain, he would say:

"My Emily, do you see it? Oh? you have helped me to find it, and still you see it not; then I must tell you," and he would unfold to me the work not of a coming day only—but sometimes even that of months and years.

He kept the promise made to the mill-owners, and the hearts of the little operatives knew him as their friend. When the work he was doing for them commenced, Aunt Hildy had said:

"That's it; put not your light under a bushel but where men can see it, Louis, for I tell you the candles you carry to folks' hearts are run in the mould of the Lord's love, and every gleam on 'em is worth seein'."

Aunt Hildy's step we knew was growing less firm, and now and then she rode to the village. Matthias got on bravely, and gloried in the deposit of some "buryin' money," as he called it, with Louis, who took it to the bank and brought him a bank-book.

"Who'd a thought on't, Mas'r Louis, me, an old nigger slave, up heah in de Norf layin' up money."

Ben had a saw-mill now of his own, and was an honest and thrifty young man. Many new houses had been built in our midst, and with them came of course new people and their needs.

We had, up to this time, heard often from our Southern Mary, and her letters grew stronger, telling us how noble a womanhood had crowned her life, and the latter part of 1851 she wrote us of a true marriage with one who loved her dearly. Her gifts to Mrs. Goodwin had been munificent, and well appreciated by this good woman. We hoped some time to see her in the North. She had never lost sight of Mr. Benton, and he still lived with his wife and boys. This delighted the heart of Mary, and I grew to think of him as one who perhaps had been refined through the fire of suffering, which I secretly hoped had done its work so well that he would not need, as Matthias thought Mas'r Sumner would, "dat eternal fire."



CHAPTER XX.

LIFE PICTURES AND LIFE WORK.

The pictures Louis painted were not on canvas, but living, breathing entities, and my heart rejoiced as the years rolled over us that the brush he wielded with such consummate skill was touched also by my hand; that it had been able to verify Clara's "Emily will do it," and that now in the days that came I heard her say "Louis and Emily are doing great good." I think nothing is really pleasure as compared with the blessedness of benefitting others.

My experience in my earliest years had taught me to believe gold could buy all we desired, but after Clara came to us and one by one the burden of daily planning to do much with very little fell out of our lives, and the feeling came to us that we had before us a wider path, with more privileges than we had ever before known, I found the truth under it all, that the want of a dollar is not the greatest one in life, neither the work and struggle "to make both ends meet," as we said, the hardest to enforce.

It was good to know my parents were now free from petty anxieties, that no unsettled bills hung over my father's head like threatening clouds, and that my mother could, if she would, take more time; to herself. Indeed she was forced to be less busy with hard work, for Aunt Hildy worked with power and reigned supreme here, and I helped her in every way. It was the help that came in these ways, I firmly believed, that saved mother's life and kept her with us. This was a great comfort, but none of us could say our desires ended here.

No, as soon as the vexed question of how to live had settled itself, then within our minds rose the great need of enlarged understanding. Millions of dollars could not have rendered me happy when my mind was clouded, and now it seemed to me, while strength lasted, no work, however hard it might be, could deprive me of the happiness and love that filled my heart. I loved to read and think, and I loved to work also.

Sometimes when my hands were filled with work and I could not stop to write, beautiful couplets would come to me, and after a time stanzas which I thought enough of to copy. In this way I "wrote myself down," as Louis termed it, and occasionally he handed me a paper with my verses printed, saying always:

"Another piece of my Emily."

May, 1853, brought Southern Mary and her husband to us. We met them with our own carriage, and within her arms there nestled a dainty parcel called "our baby," of whose coming we had not been apprised. What a beautiful picture she was, this little lady, nine months old, the perfect image of her mother, with little flaxen rings that covered her head like a crown. I heeded not the introduction to her father, but, reaching my hands to her, said:

"Let me have her, Mary, let me take her. I cannot wait a minute."

Louis gently reminded me that Mr. Waterman was speaking to me, and I apologized hastily, as I gathered the blossom to my heart, where she sat just as quiet as a kitten all the way home. Clara was delighted with the "little bud," as she called her.

"Tell me her name," I said.

"Oh! guess it," said Mary.

"Your own?"

"No, no, you can never guess, for we called her Althea, after kind Mrs. Goodwin, who nursed me so tenderly, and Emily, for another lady we know"—and she looked at me with her bright eyes, while an arch smile played over her face. I only kissed the face of the beautiful child, and Louis said:

"My Emily's name is fit for the daughter of a king. God bless the little namesake," and Althea Emily gave utterance to a protracted "goo," which meant, of course, yes.

You should have heard her talk, though, when Matthias came over to see "Miss Molly."

"Come shufflin' over to see you," he said, "an' O my! but aint she jest as pooty. O"—and at this moment she realized his presence, both her little hands were stretched forth in welcome, and "ah goo! ah goo!" came a hundred times from her sweet mouth as she tried to spring out of her mother's lap.

"Take her, Matthias," I said.

"Wall, wall, she 'pears as ef she know me, Miss Emily—reckon she's got a mammy down thar."

"She has, indeed," said Mary, "and I know she will miss Mammy Lucy. She was my nurse, and she cried bitterly when we left, but I do not need her, Allie is just nothing to care for, and I like to be with her myself, for I am her mother, you know," she added proudly.

"I mus' know that ole Mammy Lucy, doesn't I, Miss Molly?"

"Certainly you do, Matthias, and she has sent a bandanna turban for your wife, and a pair of knitted gloves for you. She told me to say she didn't forget you, and was mighty glad for your freedom. Father long since gave her her's and she has quite a sum of money of her own."

All this time white baby fingers were pawing Matthias' face, as if in pity, and losing their little tips among his woolly hair.

When he rose to leave she cried bitterly, and turning back he said:

"Kin I tote her over to see Peg to-morrer?"

"Oh! yes," said Mary "give her my love and tell her I am coming over."

"Look out for breakers," said Aunt Hildy, when she saw the child, "this house'll be a bedlam now, but then we were all as leetle as that once, I spos'e," and her duty evidently spoke at that moment, saying, "You must bear with it." But she was not troubled.

Allie never troubled us, she was as sweet and sunny as a May morning all through, and even went to meeting and behaved herself admirably. She never said a word till the service ended, when she uttered one single "goo" as if well pleased. Aunt Hildy said at the supper-table she didn't believe any such thing ever happened before in the annals of our country's history,

"She's the best baby I ever see. Wish she'd walk afore you leave."

"She has never deigned to creep," said Mary; "the first time I tried to have her, she looked at me and then at her dress as if to say, "That isn't nice," and could not be coaxed to crawl. She hitches along instead, and even that is objectionable. I imagine some nice morning she will get right up and walk." At that moment Allie threw back her head of dainty yellow rings, and laughed heartily, as if she knew what we said.

Mrs. Goodwin claimed the trio for one-half of the six weeks allotted to their stay, and she said afterward:

"They were three beautiful weeks with three beautiful folks."

Louis at this time was working hard with the brush of his active goodness, and had before him much canvas to work upon. The days were placing it in his view, and we both dreamed at night of the work which had come and was coming.

It was a sunny day in June when he said: "Will my Emily go with me to-day? The colors are waiting on the pallet of the brain, and our hands must use them to-day."

"Your Emily is ready," I replied, "and Gipsy (our horse) will take us, I guess."

We went first to Jane North's, and Louis said to her;

"Jane, are you ready now to help us as you have promised?"

"Yes, sir," she replied; "I am."

"Will you take two boys to care for; one eleven years of age, and the other twelve?"

"I'll do just what you say, or try to, and if my patience gives out I can tell you, I 'spose, but I'm bound to do my duty, for I scolded and fretted and tended to other folk's business fifteen years jist because my own plans was upset, and I couldn't bear to see anybody happy. Well, 'twas the power of sin that did it, and if some of the old Apostles fell short I can't think I'm alone, though that don't make it any better for me. When are they coming?"

"To-night, I think. Give them a good room and good food, and I will remunerate you as far as money goes. I would like you to take them; you are so neat and thrifty, and will treat them well. When they get settled we will see just what to do for them," said Louis, and we drove on to the village. Our next stopping-place was found in the narrowest street there, and where a few small and inconvenient dwellings had been erected by the mill owners for such of their help as could afford to pay only for these miserable homes. They looked as if they had fallen together there by mistake. And the plot of ground which held the six houses seemed to me to be only a good-sized house lot. We stopped at the third one and were admitted by a careworn woman, who looked about fifty years of age. She greeted us gladly, though when Louis introduced me, I knew she felt the meager surroundings and wished he had been alone, for her face flushed and her manner was nervous. I spoke kindly and took the chair she proffered, being very careful not to appear to notice the scantily furnished room.

"Well," said Louis, "Mrs. Moore, are you ready to let your boy go with me?"

"Oh, sir," she said, "only too willing; but I have been afraid you would not come. It seemed so strange that you should make us such an offer—so strange that you can afford to do it, and be willing, too, for experience has taught us to expect nothing, especially from those who have money. But Willie's clothes, sir, are sadly worn. I have patched them beyond holding together, almost; but I could get no new ones."

"Never mind that," said Louis. "We will go to the mill for him and his little friend, too, if he can go."

"Oh! yes, sir; he can, and I am so glad, for the father is a miserably discouraged man. He drinks to drown trouble, and it seems to me he will drown them all after a little. A pleasant man, too. His wife says poor health first caused him to use liquor."

We then called on the woman in question and obtained her tearful consent, for while the promise of a home for her boy was a bright gleam, she said:

"He is the oldest. Oh! I shall miss him when we are sick."

"He shall come to you any time," said Louis, "and you shall visit him."

And in a few moments we were at the mill. Entering the office, Louis was cordially greeted by one of the three gentlemen who had called on us. He evidently anticipated his errand, for he said:

"So, you are come for Willie Moore and Burton Brown?"

"Yes, sir," Louis replied. "Can I go to the room for them?"

"As you please, Mr. Desmonde, I can call them down. Their room is not a very desirable place for a lady to visit."

Louis looked at him as if to remind him of something, while I said:

"My place is beside my husband."

"Yes," added Louis, "we work together. Come, Emily," and he led the way to the fourth floor, where, under the flat roof in a long, low room, were the little wool pickers. I thought at first I could not breathe, the air was so close and sickening. And here were twenty boys, not one of them more than twelve or thirteen years old, working through long hours. The heat was stifling, and the fuzz from the wool made it worse. They wore no stockings or shoes, nothing but a shirt and overalls, and these were drenched as with rain.

As we entered Louis whispered, "See the pictures," and it was a bright, glad light that came suddenly into all their eyes at sight of their friend. He spoke to them all, introducing me as we passed through the long line that lay between the two rows of boys. When we came to Willie and Burton, Louis whispered to them:

"Get ready to go with me."

They went into the adjoining hall to put on the garments which they wore to and from the mill, and in less time than it takes me to write it, they stood ready for a start. As we passed again between the lines of boys Louis dropped into every palm a silver piece, saying, as he did so:

"Hold on, boys, work with good courage, and we will see you all in a different place one of these days."

"Thank you, sir;" and "yes, sir, we will," fell upon our ears as we passed out. Our two little proteges ran out in advance. And as I looked back a moment, standing on the threshold of the large door, I said:

"It is a beautiful picture, Louis. You are a master artist."

After again stopping in the office for a few words of conversation with Mr. Damon, Louis was ready, the boys clambered into our carriage, and we were on our way to their homes, first stopping to purchase for each of them a suit of clothes, a large straw hat, and a black cap. The boys said nothing, but looked a world of wondering thanks.

Louis made an arrangement for the boys to live with Jane, and to go to our town school when it began in the fall.

"This summer," he said to their mothers, "they need all the out-door air and free life they can have to help their pale cheeks grow rosy, and to give to their weak muscles a little of the strength they require. I desire no papers to pass between us, for I am not taking your children from you, only helping you to give them the rest and change they need to save their lives. They are the weakest boys in the mill and this is why I chose them first. Every Saturday they shall come home to you, and stay over the Sabbath if you desire, and they shall also bring to you as much as they could earn in the mill. Will this be satisfactory?"

Both these mothers bowed their heads in silent appreciation of the real service he was rendering, and I knew his labor was not lost. I felt like adding my tribute to his, and said:

"Your boys will be well cared for, and you shall come often to see us. We expect you to enjoy a little with them."

"Oh! mother, will you come over and bring the children?" said Willie.

"And you, too, mother," echoed Burton.

Weary Mrs. Moore said:

"I would like to breathe again in the woods and on the mountains, but I have five little ones left here to care for;" and Mrs. Brown added:

"I could only come on Saturday, and the mill lets out an hour earlier, and your father needs me on that day more than any other."

Her sad face and tearful eyes told my woman's heart that this was the day he was tempted more than all others, and I afterward gathered as much from Burton.

"Well, we must turn toward home," said Louis, and the boys kissed their mothers and their little brothers and sisters, and said "good-bye," and each with his bundles turned to the carriage. Louis untied Gipsy, and I said to the mothers:

"Were they ever away over night?"

"No, never," said both at once.

"I will arrange for them. You shall hear to-morrow how the first night passes with them."

"I was just thinking of that," said Mrs. Brown; "God bless you for your thoughtfulness," and getting into the carriage, we all waved our good-byes, and turned toward home. We told Jane all we could to interest her, and particularly asked her to make everything pleasant for them, that they should not be homesick. Louis went to their room with them, and when we left them at Jones' gate, Willie Moore shouted after us:

"It's just heaven here, ain't it?"

He was an uncommonly bright little boy, and yet had no education whatever beyond spelling words of three letters. He was twelve years of age, and for three years he had worked in the mill. Clara and all at home were delighted with our work, and Aunt Hildy said:

"Ef Jane North does well by them boys, she oughter have a pension from the Gov'ment, and sence I know that'll never give her a cent, I'll do it myself. I've got an idee in my head."

Then Southern Mary and her husband laughed, not in derision, for they admired Aunt Hildy, and Mr. Waterman said:

"If men had your backbone, Mrs. Patten, there would be a different state of things altogether."

"My husband is almost an Abolitionist," said Mary. "Some of our people dislike him greatly; but my father is a good man and he does not illtreat one of his people. He is one of the exceptional cases. But the system is, I know, accursed by God. I believe it to be a huge scale that fell from the serpent's back in the Garden, and I feel the day will dawn when the accursed presence of slavery will be no longer known."

"Good!" said Aunt Hildy, "and there's more kinds than one. Them little children is slaves—or was."

"When you get ready to make out your pension papers, Mrs. Patten," said Mary, "let me help jest a little; I would like to lay a corner-stone somewhere in this village for some one's benefit. You know this is the site of a drama in my life; I pray never to enact its like again."

"I'll give you a chance," said Aunt Hildy.

Louis went over to Jane's in the morning, and the boys returned with him to tell us what a good supper and breakfast they had had.

"And such a nice bed," added Burton. "When we looked out of the window this morning I wished mother could come."

"Poor little soul!" I said, "your mother shall come. We will move every obstacle from her path."

"If father could find work here it would be nice," and a little while after, he said in a low tone:

"There ain't any rum shops here, is there?"

He was a tender plant, touchingly sensitive, and when I told him we were to send word to his mother that he liked his home, his joy was a pleasure to witness.

"Miss North says we may have some flowers, and we'd better go back, Willie, and see about getting the spot ready—she had her seed box out last night, but I guess she'll give us plants too, to put in the ground."

He was very thoughtful, and would not stay too long for anything, he said. Aunt Hildy looked after them, and sighed with the thoughts that rose within, but said no word.

The three weeks of Mr. and Mrs. Waterman's stay were at an end.

"On the morrow," said Mary, "we go to Aunty Goodwin's. I want to go, and dread to leave. But is that Matthias coming over the hill? It is, and I have something to tell him. I have meant to do it before, but there was really no opportunity. Come out with me, and let's sit down under the elm tree while I tell him. Come, Allie," and she lifted the blue-eyed baby tenderly. Oh, how sweet she was! and I wondered how we could bear to lose her. She crowed with delight at Matthias' approach, and at Mary's suggestion he took a seat beside us.

"I have something to tell you now; open wide your ears, Uncle Peter."

"What's dat you say, Miss Molly; got some news from home?"

"Yes, I have news for you from your own."

"Oh, Miss Molly, don't for de Lord's sake wait a minit!"

"Your wife, whom Mr. Sumner so cruelly sold for you, is very happy now, for she is free, Matthias."

"Done gone to hevin, does you mean? Tell it all," said the old man, who trembled visibly.

"She did not live two months, but she was in good hands. I accidentally met her mistress, who told me about her. She said she had kept her in the house to wait on her, for she liked her very much. But she seemed sad, and grew tired, and one morning she did not appear, and they found her in her little room, next that of Mrs. Sanders, quite dead and looking peaceful and happy. Her mistress felt badly, for she meant to do well by her. They thought some heart trouble caused her death."

"Oh, my! oh, my! dat heart ob hern was done broke when dat man sold our little gal. Oh, I knowed it ud neber heal up agin! but tank de Lord she's free up dar. Oh, Miss Emily! can't no murderers go in troo de gate? Dat Mas'r Sumner can't neber get dar any more, Miss Molly?"

"Yes, Matthias. Dry your tears, for I've something good to tell. Your oldest boy, John, has a good master, and is buying his freedom. They help him along. He drives a team, and is a splendid fellow. He will be free soon, and will come to see you, perhaps to live with you. This is all I know, but isn't it a great deal?"

Matthias stood on his feet, his eyes dilating as they turned full on Mary, his hands clenched, his form raised as erect as it was possible for him, and his breast heaving with great emotion, as from his lips came slowly these words:

"Do you mean it, Miss Molly? Is you foolin, or is you in dead earnest for sartin?"

"It is truth, every word I say."

"Oh, oh, oh!" and he sank on the seat beside us, covering his face with both hands, while tears fell at his feet, and as they touched the grass they shone in the sun like large round drops of dew. I thought they were as white and pure as though his skin was fair. And he wept not alone, for we wept with him.

Allie reached to bury her fingers in his mass of woolly, curling hair, and as he felt their tender tips, he raised his head and put out his hands to her, saying:

"Come, picaninny, come and help me be glad. Oh, Canaan, bright Canaan! Oh, de Lord has hearn my prayer an' what kin I say, what kin I do, an' how kin I wait fur to see dat chile? He's jes like his mother, pooty, I know. Oh, picaninny, holler louder! le's tell it to the people that my John is a comin' fur to see me, dat he haint got no use fur a mas'r any more," and up and down he walked before us, while Allie made demonstrations of joy.

It was a strange picture. "Oh, Canaan!" still he sang, and "De New Jerusalem," until I really feared his joy would overcome him, and was glad to see Louis coming toward us. He took a seat beside me, and I was about to tell him the wonderful news, when Matthias, who noticed him, handed Allie to her mother, and falling on his knees before Louis, cried aloud:

"Oh, Mas'r Louis, help me, for de good Lord's sake! will you help me, Mas'r Louis?"

"Oh, yes, my dear fellow!" and he laid his hand on him tenderly; "tell me just what you want me to do."

"Oh, my boy! Miss Molly tells me my own boy John have got his freedom mos out, an' he's comin' to find me. I can't wait, Mas'r Louis; 'pears like a day'll be a year. I mout die, he mout die too. I'll sen' him my buryin' money, an' ef tant enough, can't you sen' a little more? an' I'll work it out, I will, sure, an' no mistake; fur de sake of the right, Mas'r Louis, an' for to make my ole heart glad. Will you do it?"

"I certainly will, Matthias; but you are excited now."

"Bless ye. May de heavins open fur to swallow me in ef I don't clar up ebery cent you pays fur me. But you can't tell. Oh, ye don't know!" and again he walked, clapped his hands, and sang, "Oh, Canaan, bright Canaan!" till, pausing suddenly, he said, "Guess I better shuffle ober to tell Peg—'pears like I'm done gone clar out whar I can't know nothin';" and with "good arternoon" he left us, swinging his hat in his hand, and singing still "Oh, Canaan!" as he traveled over the hill toward home.

We were all glad for Matthias, and Clara said:

"Let us rejoice with them that rejoice; and Louis, my dear boy, write at once to the gentleman who owns John, and pay him whatever he says is due. We can do it, and we should, for the poor, tired heart of his father cannot afford to wait when a promise lies so near. Let us help him to lay hold upon it."

"Amen," said Aunt Hildy. "I'll help ten dollars' worth; taint much."

"But you shall keep it for John," said Clara; "he will need something after he gets here."

The next morning Matthias came to deliver his bank-book to Louis, saying:

"Get the buryin' money; get it and send it fur me, please."

Louis told him to keep his bank-book.

"You shall see your boy as soon as money can get him here."

"Oh, Mas'r Louis!" and he grasped both his hands; "de Lord help this ole nigger to pay you. I's willin' to work dese fingers clean to de bone."

Our two boys got on bravely. The first Saturday night we sent them home with loaded baskets, and each with a pail of new milk, which we knew would be a treat to the children, and in their little purses the amount promised by Louis. Matthias took them to their homes, and Louis went for them on Monday morning, and when he returned he said:

"The pictures are growing, Emily. Bright eyes and rosy cheeks will come soon."

Mr. and Mrs. Waterman were leaving us. We were kissing "our baby" good-bye. How we disliked to say the word! And when looking back at Matthias after we started, she cried, "Mah, mah!" I laughed and cried together. Louis and I parted with them reluctantly at the depot, and our last words were:

"Send John right along."

"We will," they answered, as the train rode away and baby Allie pressed her shining face against the window. It was only two weeks and two days from that day that Louis, Clara and I (she said after our marriage "Call me Clara, for we are sisters—never say 'mother Desmonde;' to say mother when you have such a blessed one of your own is robbery to her") drove to the depot to meet John. Matthias said to us,

"You go fur him, ef you please, fur I can never meet him in de crowd; I want to wait by de road an' see him cum along. Mighty feared I'll make a noony o' myself."

The train stopped, and Louis left us in the carriage and went to find him. My heart jumped as I thought he might not be there, but ere I had time to say it to Clara, he came in sight, walking proudly erect by the side of Louis, as handsome a colored man as could be seen. He was quite light, tall as Louis, and well proportioned, his mouth pleasantly shaped and not large, his nose suited to a Greek rather than to a negro, and over his forehead, which was broad and full, black hair fell in tight-curling rings,—resembling Matthias in nothing save perhaps his eyes. It did not seem possible this could be a man coming from the power of a master—how I dislike that term, a slave—this noble looking fellow; I shuddered involuntarily, and grasped his hand in welcome with a fervent "God bless you, John; I welcome you heartily." Clara stretched forth her little hand also, saying:

"John, you can never know how glad we are." He stood with his hat raised, and his large beautiful eyes turned toward us filled with feeling as he answered:

"Ladies, you can never realize the debt I have to pay you. It seems a dream that I am here, a free man with an old father waiting to see his son; oh, sir," and he turned to Louis, "my heart is full!"

"We do not doubt it, dear fellow, but get into the carriage and let Gipsy take us to the hills. She knows your father waits. Now go, Gipsy," and the willing creature seemed inspired, going at a quick pace as if she understood her mission.

I saw Matthias sitting on a log a little this side of our home, shading his eyes with his hand, and when John spied him, he laid his hand on his heart and said:

"Please let me get out and walk; excuse me, sir, but I cannot sit here."

We respected his feelings and held Gipsy back, that he might with his long strides reach his father before us, which he did. When Matthias saw him walking toward him, he rose to his feet and the two men approached each other with uncovered heads. At last, when about ten feet apart, Matthias stopped and cried:

"John, oh, John!"

"Father, father, I am here," and with one bound he reached him, threw his arms about him, while Matthias' head fell on his shoulder; and here, as we reached them, they stood speechless with the great joy that had come to them. Two souls delivered from bondage—two white souls bathed in pure sunlight of my native skies. I can never forget this scene. We spoke no word to them, but as we passed them John spoke, saying:

"Sir, will you take my father's arm? He feels weak and I am not strong." I took the reins and Louis, springing to the ground, stepped between, and each taking his arm they walked together up to the door of our home where Aunt Hildy, mother, father, Ben, Hal and Mary, Mrs. Davis, Jane North and Aunt Peg, waited to receive them. When Matthias saw Peg he said:

"Come, Peg, come and kiss him; this is my John sure enuf." Supper waited and the table was spread for all. Mr. Davis gave thanks and spoke feelingly of the one among us who had been delivered from the yoke of bondage, saying:

"May we be able to prove ourselves worthy of his great love, and confidence, and be forever mindful of all those both in the North and South who wait, as he has waited, for deliverance." Matthias grew calm, and when they left us to walk home, Louis and I went with them. On the road over John said to Louis:

"Sir, I am greatly indebted to you, and I am anxious to go to work at once and pay my debt."

"You owe me nothing," said Louis; "I have no claim upon your money or time; I will help you in every way possible, and my reward will be found in the great joy and comfort you will bring to your father in his old age."

"This is too much," said John.

"Not enough," said Louis, and at Aunt Peg's vine-covered lattice 'neath which he stood, we said good-night and turned toward home, while in our hearts lay mirrored, another fadeless picture.



CHAPTER XXI.

JOHN JONES.

How the days of this year flew past us, we were borne along swiftly on their wings, and every week was filled to overflowing with pleasant care and work. John was called in the South after his master's name, but now he said, inasmuch as he had left him and the old home in Newbern, it would seem better to him to be called by his father's name, and so he took his place among us as John Jones. He went to work with a will, became a great friend to Ben and helped him wonderfully, for between the saw-mill, the farm with its stock-raising and broom trade, which really was getting to be a good business, Ben was more than busy.

John was a mechanic naturally; he was clever at most anything he put his mind on, "and never tried to get shet of work;" and his daily work proved his worth among us. Matthias worked and sang the long days through, and all was bright and beautiful before him. He tried to think John's angel mother could look down from "hevin" on him, and it gave him pleasure to feel so.

When the fall came John said to Louis:

"I want to know something. I promised the boys and gals that when I got free I'd speak a few words for them, and I must learn something."

So he came regularly to Louis through the winter evenings, and in a little time he could send a readable letter to the friends down South. Newbern was a nice place, had nice people, he told us, and he had been well treated and permitted to learn to read, but the writing he could not find time to master; he was skilful in figures, and Louis was very proud of his rapid improvement.

In our meetings he gradually came to feel at home, and at last surprised us one evening by a recital of his life, and an earnest appeal to Christians to forget not those who looked to the star in the North as to a light that promised them freedom and the comforts of a home. His large, expressive eyes grew luminous with feeling, and as he stood, rapt in his own thought, which carried him back to the old home, he seemed like a tower of strength in our midst, and when at the close of the meeting, as we walked behind them, he took his father's arm, I heard Matthias say:

"John, you's done made me proud as Loosfer."

And his handsome son bowed his head as he answered:

"Thank the God who made us all to be brothers that I have the power to tell these thoughts that rise within me. You feel just as I do, father, only you can't express it, because they did not let you grow. The heavy weight of slavery has held you close to the ground, and this is the foundation of the system. The ignorance of the chattel is the life that feeds the master's power. Like horses, if slaves knew this power, they could break their bondage, and no hand on earth could stop them."

Among the pleasant occurrences of this summer were the picnics of the mill children, who enjoyed two days in July and two days in August rambling in the woods and taking dinner in the old hemlock grove, where the trees had been so lavish of their gifts that a soft carpet of their fallen leaves covered the ground the long year through. The coolness of this beautiful shelter was most refreshing, and it seemed as if nature knew just how much room was needed to spread our lunch-cloth, for there was the nicest spot in the world right in the heart of the grove, and as we sat around our lowly table every third or fourth person had a splendid hemlock tree to lean against. This was a rare treat to the mill children, and oh, the faces of the pictures we painted in these days.

Willie and Burton both had their own friends with them, and when in conversation Louis spoke of the work of repairing the church and putting in new pews, Burton Brown said:

"My father can do such work."

"Can you, Mr. Brown?" said Louis.

"Yes, sir," he replied; "working in lumber is my trade; change and hard luck forced me into the mill."

I cannot tell you of all the events that occurred among us, but when the smoke from a new chimney rose in the very spot almost where Aunt Hildy's cottage stood, it was due to the fact that a new double house had been erected on a splendid lot, and Willie and Burton were living there with their parents.

Mrs. Moore had grown young looking, though the grey hairs that mingled with the brown still held their places. Mr. Brown did not meet temptations here, and as Aunt Hildy said:

"Headin' him off in a Christian way was the thing that saved him; poor critter, his stomach gnawed, and he needed just them bitters I made for him, and Louis' kind treatment and planning to help him be born agin, and its done good and strong, jest as I knew it would be."

Two more little mill boys were brought to Jane to take the places of Willie and Burton, and Louis kept walking forward, turning neither to the right nor left, bringing the comforts of living to the hearts that had known only the gathering of crumbs from the tables of the rich, and the few scattering pennies that chanced occasionally to fall from their selfish palms.

Clara's glad smile and happy words made a line of sunshine in our lives, and the three years following this one, which had brought so many pleasant changes, were as jewels in the coronet of active thought and work, which we were day by day weaving for ourselves and each other.

When Southern Mary left us, she gave to Aunt Hildy something to help make out Jane North's pension papers, and the first step Aunt Hildy took toward doing this was in the fall of 1853, when she painted Jane's house inside and out. Then in the next year she built a new fence for her, and insisted on helping Louis make some improvements needed to give more room, and from this time the old homestead where Jane's father and mother had lived and died, became the children's home, with Jane as its presiding genius, having help to do the work. From six to eight children were with her; three darling little girls whom Louis found in the streets of a city in the winter of 1855, were brought to the Home by him, and he considered them prizes.

To be independent in thought and action was Louis' wisdom. He had regard for the needs of children as well as of adults, for he remembered that the girls and boys are to be the men and women of the years to come, and to help them help themselves was his great endeavor.

"For this," he would say, "is just what our God does for us, Emily. He teaches the man who constantly observes all things around him, that the proper use of his bounty is what he most needs to know, and to live by the side of natural laws, moving parallel with them, is the only way to truthfully solve life's master problem. Yea, Emily, painting pictures is grand work; to see the ideal growing as a reality about us, to know we are the instruments in God's hands for doing great good; and are not the years verifying the truth of what I said to you, when a boy I told you I needed your help, and also that you did not know yourself? I knew the depth of your wondrous nature. My own Emily, you are a glorious woman," and as tenderly as in the olden days, with the great strength of his undying love, he gathered me in silence to his heart. How many nights I passed to the land of dreams thinking, "Oh, if my Louis should die!"

Father and mother were enjoying life, and when Aunt Phebe came to see us, bringing a wee bit of a blue-eyed daughter, she said, "If I should have to leave her, I should die with the knowledge that she would find a home among you here."

"I don't see why we haint thought out sooner," said Aunt Hildy; "you see folks are ready, waitin', only they don't know whar to begin such work, and now there's Jane North, I'll be bound she'd a gone deeper and deeper into tattlin', ef the right one hadn't teched her in a tender spot, and now she's jest sot her heart into the work, and as true as you live, she's growin' handsome in doin' it. I'm ashamed of myself to think I have wasted so much time. Oh, ef I'd got my eyes open thirty years ago."

"Better late than never," said Aunt Phebe; "live and learn; it takes one life to teach us how to prize it, but the days to come will be full of fruit to our children, I hope."

"Wall ef we sow the wind we reap the whirlwind sure, Miss Dayton."

Aunt Phebe was very desirous that John should see Mr. Dayton, which he did, and an offer to study with him the higher mathematics was gladly accepted, and between these two men sprang a friendship which was enduring.

Uncle Dayton had helped many a one through the tangled maze of Euclid problems and their like, and when John walked along by his side in ease and pleasure, Mr. Dayton was delighted; and when he came to see us, he said:

"The fellow is a man, he's a man clear through.

"Why," said he, "I was just the one to carry him along all right. I was the first man to take a colored boy into a private school, and I did it under protest, losing some of the white boys, whose parents would not let them stay; not much of a loss either," he added, "though they behaved nearly as well as the colored boys I took. I belonged at the time to the Baptist Church; the colored woman, whose two sons I received into my school, was a member of the same church; three boys, whose parents were my brothers and sisters in the faith, were withdrawn, and the minister who had baptized us all, and declared us to be one in the name of the humble Nazarene, also withdrew his son from my school, being unwilling to have him recite in the class with these two boys, whose skin was almost as white as his own. The natural inference was, that he considered himself of more consequence than the Almighty, for he certainly had given us all to him, and I had verily thought the man meant to help God do part of his work, but this proved conclusively that the Lord had it all to do—at any rate that which was not nice enough for the parson—and it took a large piece of comfort out of my heart. I was honest in trying to do my duty, and it grieved me to think he was not. Another young colored boy whom I took, is a physician in our city to-day, and another who came to my house to be instructed has been graduated at the Normal School of our State with high honors, being chosen as the valedictorian of the class, and he is to-day principal of a Philadelphia school.

"I tell you this truth has always been before me, and I have run the risk of my life almost daily in practising upon it. My school was really injured for a time, and dwindled down to a few scholars, but I kept right along, and the seed which was self-sowing, sprang up around me, and to-day I have more than I can do, and the people know I am right."

The blue eyes of Mr. Dayton sparkled as he paused in his recital, running his fingers through his hair, and for a time evidently wandering in the labyrinthine walks of the soul's mathematics, whose beautifully defined laws might make all things straight, and it was only the sight of John's towering form in the doorway that roused him, and he said:

"I have brought to you Davies' Legendre. I thought he would receive more thanks in the years to come than now, for is it not always so? Are not those who move beyond the prescribed limits of the circle of to-day, unappreciated, and must we not often wait for the grave to cover their bodies, and their lives to be written, ere we realize what their hearts tried to do for us? It is a sad fact, and one which shapes itself in the mould of a selfish ignorance, which covers as a crust the tender growing beauty of our inner natures.

It was a cold day in December, 1856, when we were startled to see Jane coming over the hill in such a hurried way that we feared something was the matter with the children. These children were dear to me. Hal and Mary had a beautiful boy two and a half years old, but no bud had as yet nestled against my heart.

I met her at the gate and asked, "What's the matter with the children?"

"Go into the house, Emily De-mond, 'taint the children, it's me." She wanted us all to sit down together.

"Oh! dear, dear me, what can I do? I'm out of my head almost."

We gathered together in the middle room, and waited for her to tell us, but she sat rocking, as if her life depended on it, full five minutes before she could speak—it seemed an hour to me—finally she screamed out:

"He's come back!"

"Whom do you mean?" I cried, while mother and Aunt Hildy exchanged glances.

"He came last night; he's over to the Home, Miss Patten, d'ye hear?"

"Jane," said Aunt Hildy in a voice that sounded so far away it frightened me, "do you mean Daniel?"

"Yes, yes; he's come back, and he wants me to forgive him, and I must tell it, he wants me to marry him. I sat up all night talkin' and thinkin' what I can do."

"Jane," said Aunt Hildy, in that same strange voice, "has he got any news?"

"Both of 'em dead. Oh, Miss Patten, you'll die, I know you'll die!"

"No, I shan't. I died when they went away."

"What can I do, Miss Patten? Oh, some of you do speak! Mis' De-mond, you tell; you are allus right."

Clara crossed the room, and kneeling on the carpet before her, said:

"My dear soul, is it the one you told me of?"

"Yes, yes," said Jane, "the very one; gall and worm-wood I drank, and all for him; he ran away and—"

"Yes," added Aunt Hildy, "tell it all. Silas and our boy went with him, father and son, and Satan led 'em all."

"Has he suffered much?" said Clara.

"Oh, yes, marm, but he says he can't live without me! He hain't never been married; I'm fifty-four, and he's the same age."

"Jane," said Clara, "I guess it will be all right; let him stay with you."

"How it looks," interrupted Jane; "they'll all know him."

"Never mind. The Home is a sort of public institution now; let him stay, and in three weeks I'll tell you all about it."

"Get right up off this floor, you angel woman, and lemme set on the sofy with you," said Jane.

Louis and I left the room, and after an hour or so Jane went over the hill, and Aunt Hildy stepped as firmly as before she came. Poor Aunt Hildy, this was the sorrow she had borne. I was glad she knew they were dead, for uncertainty is harder to bear than certainty. I wondered how it came that I should never have known and dimly remembered something about some one's going away strangely, when I was a little girl. My mother had, like all Aunt Hildy's friends, kept her sorrow secret, and she told me it was a rare occurrence for Aunt Hildy to mention it even to her, whom she had always considered her best friend.

If Jane had not herself been interested, it would have leaked out probably, but these two women, differing so strangely from each other, had held their secrets close to their hearts, and for twenty-five long years had nightly prayed for the wanderers.

Aunt Hildy's husband was a strange man; their boy inherited his father's peculiarities, and when he went away with him was only sixteen years of age.

Daniel Turner was twenty-nine, and the opinion prevailed that he left home because he was unwilling to marry Jane, although they had been for several years engaged, and she had worked hard to get all things ready for housekeeping. He was not a bad-looking man, and evidently possessed considerable strength.

Clara managed it all nicely, and when the three weeks' probation ended, they were quietly married at Mr. Davis', and Mr. Turner went to work on the farm which Jane had for many years let out on shares. He worked well through the rest of the winter, and the early spring found him busy doing all that needed to be done.

He was interested in our scheme, and felt just pride in the belongings of the Home, which was really settling into a permanency. We sometimes had letters of interrogation and of encouragement as well, from those who, hearing of us, were interested.

Louis often said the day would come when many institutions of this kind would be established, for the object was a worthy one, and no great need can cry out and not finally be heard, even though the years may multiply ere the answer comes.

"Changes on every hand," said Mr. Davis, "and now that the pulpit has come down nearer to the people, and I can send my thoughts directly into their hearts, instead of over their heads, as I have been so often forced to do, we may hope that the chain of our love will weld us together as a unit in strength and feeling. I almost wish our town could be called New Light, for it seems to me the world looks new as it lies about us. The lantern of love, we know, is newly and well trimmed, and I feel its light can never die; it may give place to one which is larger, and whose rays can be felt further, but it can never die. I really begin to believe there is no such thing as death. I dislike the word, for it only signifies decay. I call it change, and that seems nearer right."

"So it is, Mr. Davis," said Clara, as he talked earnestly with us of his interest in the children and the people about us, "for, even as children are gradually changing into men and women, so shall our expanding lives forever climb to reach the stature of our angelhood, which must come to us when we let the perishable garments fall, and the mortal puts on its immortality. If we all could only see that our Father will help us to shape these garments even here; could we know that stitches daily taken in the garment that our soul desires are necessary that it may be ready for us when we enter there,—how great would be the blessing! This would relieve death of its clinging fears, and our exit from earth and entrance to the waiting city would be made as a pleasant journey.

"Louis, dear boy, feels all this, and if the cold hearts of speculative men could be warmed and softened into an unfolding life, he would not constantly do battle with the wrong; but truth is mightier than error. God's love must at last be felt, and when the delay is over, how many hearts, now deaf to his entreaties, will say with one accord, 'we are sorry, if we could live our days over, we would help you!'"

Louis did do battle, that is true; he paid due respect to people of all classes, but fearlessly and trustfully he dealt, both by word and practice, vigorous blows against all enslaving systems. He said to us sometimes, that when he went to the mill—as he constantly did, working until every one of the twenty boys to whom he promised liberty, found it—he came in contact with three different conditions; he classified them as mind, heart and soul. "When I talk to them," he said, "or if I go there on my mission and speak no words, I hear their souls say 'he is right and we are wrong;' I hear the earthly hearts whisper hoarsely, 'curse the plans of that fellow, he is in our way;' and the worldly policy of the mind steps forth upon the balcony of the brain and says, 'treat him well, it is the best policy to pursue, for he has money.' Yes, my Emily, I thank God for the fortune my father left me, hidden in the silver service. It shall all be used. You and I will use it all. And was the bequest not typical, its very language being 'a fortune in thy service, oh, my father!'"

"I never thought of this; how wonderful you are, Louis," I said.

"And you, my Emily, my companion, may our work be the nucleus around which shall gather the work of ages yet to be, for it takes an age, you know, to do the work of a year—almost of a day."

Our lives ran on like a strong full tide, and all our ships were borne smoothly along for four full years. An addition had been made to Jane's house, and her husband proved loyal and true, so good and kind and earnest in his work that Aunt Hildy said:

"I have forgotten to remember his dark days, and I really don't believe he'd ever have cut up so ef Silas had let him alone."

Good Mrs. Davis had sought rest and found it, and a widowed niece came as house-keeper. John Jones was growing able to do the work he promised the girls and boys down South, and lectured in the towns around us, telling his own story with remarkable eloquence for one who had no early advantages. He was naturally an orator, and only needed a habit of speaking to make apparent his exceptional mental capacity. Aunt Hildy was not as strong when 1860 dawned upon us, and she said on New Year's evening, which with us was always devoted to a sort of recalling of the past:

"Don't believe I'll be here when sixty-one comes marchin' in."

Clara looked at her with a strange light in her eyes, and said:

"Dear Aunt Hildy, wait for me, please; I'd like to go just when you do."

It was the nineteenth day of April this year, when an answer to a prayer was heard, and a little wailing sound caused my heart to leap in gratitude and love. A little dark-eyed daughter came to us, and Louis and I were father and mother. She had full dark eyes like his, Clara's mouth, and a little round head that I knew would be covered with sunny curls, because this would make her the picture I had so longed to see.

"Darling baby-girl, why did you linger so long? We have waited till our hope had well-nigh vanished," and the dark eyes turned on me for an answer, which my heart read, "It is well."

Louis named her "Emily Minot Desmonde." It was his wish, and while, as I thought, it ill suited the little fairy, I only said:

"May she never be called 'Emily did it.'"

"May that be ever her name," said Louis, "for have you not yourself done that of which she will be always proud, and when we are gone will they who are left not say of you, 'Emily did it'?

"Ah! my darling, you have lost and won your title, and it comes back shaped and gilded anew, for scores of childish lips have echoed it, and 'Emily did it' is written in the indelible ink of the great charity which has given them shelter."

"Louis, too," I said, and he answered:

"Had I not found my Emily, I could never have undertaken it. You cannot know how I gathered lessons from your happy home. In my earliest years I was dissatisfied with the life which money could buy. I did not know the comforts of work and pleasure mingled, and it was here, under these grand old hills, while communing with nature, I sought and found the presence of its Infinite Creator; and your smile, your presence, was a promise to me which has been verified to the letter."

When Clara held our wondrous blessing in the early days of its sweet life, she looked sometimes so pensively absent that I one day asked her if she did not wish Emily had come sooner.

"Ah! my Emily, mother; 'tis a wrong, wrong thought, still I cannot deny it;" and a mist covered her tender eyes. My heart stood still, for I knew she felt that her hand would not lead our little one in the first steps she should take, and the thought embittered my joy. I suppose everybody's baby is the sweetest, and I must forbear and let every mother think how we cared for and tended the little one, and how our heartstrings all vibrated at the touch of her little hand, and if she was ill or worrisome, which she was earthly enough to be, we were all robbed of our comfort till her smiles came back.

Aunt Hildy was an especial favorite, and she would sit with her so contentedly, while that dear old face, illumined by the sun of love, told our hearts it was good for baby's breath to moisten the cheek of age.

Little Halbert, as we called Hal's boy, was as proud of his cousin as could be, and my old apple tree, which was still dear, dropped leaves and blossoms on the heads of the children, who loved to sit beneath its branches.



CHAPTER XXII.

CLARA LEAVES US.

The year 1861 had dawned upon us, and Aunt Hildy had not left us as she had expected to.

I said to her, "I believe you are better to-day than you were one year ago." She folded her hands and looking at me, said:

"Appearances is often deceitful, Emily; I haint long to stay, neither has the saint among us. Her eyes have a strange look in them nowadays, and the veins in the lids show dreadful plain; we must be prepared for it."

I could not talk about this, and how was I to prepare for it? I should never love her less, and could I ever bear to lose her, or realize how it would be without her? "Over there" was so far beyond me, I could only think and sigh and wait; but the symptoms of which Aunt Hildy spoke I noticed afterward, and it was true her eyelids seemed more transparent, and her eyes had a watery light.

I knew she was weak, and since the snow had fallen was chilled more easily than before, and had ventured out but little. I did not desire to pain Louis, but feeling uneasy, could not rest until I talked with him, and he said his heart had told him the little mother would leave us ere long. "If she lives till the fall, we will go down and see Southern Mary, if we can." Little Emily clung very closely to Clara, and if I had not insisted on having the care of her, I believe she never would have asked for me. Mother said we should spoil her, and Ben declared she "would make music for us by and by." Ben was still interested in his work, and as busy as a bee the long days through.

"Thirty-three years old," I said to him, "are you never to be married?"

"Guess not," he would reply laughingly, "I can't see how Hal could get on without me, and I, in my turn, need John. What a splendid fellow he is! They all like him around us here, and I believe I shall sell out the mill to him and buy another farm to take care of. He handles logs as easily as if they were matches. He is a perfect giant in strength."

"Yes, I know, Ben, but he never will live in a saw-mill. John is destined to be a public man; he will have calls and by and bye will stand in the high places and pour forth his eloquence. He may buy a saw-mill, but he will never keep himself in it, no matter how hard he tries."

"So my cake is all dough, you think, so be it, sister mine;" and baby Emily received a bear hug from Uncle Ben, who, a moment later, was walking thoughtfully over the hill.

The eighteenth of March was a cold day, extraordinarily so, tempestuous and stormy. Louis had been in Boston three days, and we thought the winds were gathering a harsh welcome for his return. His visits to Boston were getting to be quite frequent nowadays, for he had found some warm friends there, who had introduced themselves by letter, and now they were making united efforts to found a home for children,—foundlings who were to be kept and well cared for, until opportunities were presented to place them with kind people in good homes. He was getting on wonderfully, and I could hardly wait for the news he would bring to us.

He came at last, and with him an immense square package looking in shape very like a large mirror or a painting, and I wondered what it could be. Baby Emily had to be saluted cordially, and both her little arms were entwined around his neck.

"Now, now, little lady," said Louis, "go to thy royal mother, I have something to show thee," and taking off the wrappings of the mysterious package, he placed two life-size portraits before us, saying as he did so:

"Companion pieces, my life's saving angels—behold yourself, my Emily, see my fairy mother," and sure enough there we were. A glance at Clara caused me to exclaim:

"Wilmur Benton painted them."

"Yes, both," he replied. "Are they not beautiful?"

"Mine is not, I am sure, Louis; but your mother's,—oh, how lovely it is, and as natural as life! It must be the one to which Mary referred."

"It is, my Emily. I secured it long ago, and Mr. Benton has been a long time at work on yours. He is sadly afflicted, and does not look like the same man. His wife is dead, and I think he will not himself stay long. I have been to see him always when in Boston, and would have told you all before, had I not feared you might, by getting hold of one thread, find another; Hal knows all about it. But see, Emily, just see yourself as you are. I told you your eyes should speak from the canvas, and is it not as well as if my own hand had held the brush?"

I looked the words I could not say, and wondered how it came that this likeness should have been painted without my being before the artist. It was years since Wilmur Benton left us, and the picture represented me at my present age, I thought, and I asked:

"How did he get the expression, Louis?"

"Oh, Emily, he remembered every outline of your face, and with the greatest ease defined them! Then from time to time, I sat near and suggested here or there a change, until at last the work was perfected, which in all its beauty only tells the truth; you do not see yourself when your face lights up with glorious thought; the depth of your eyes was to me always a study, and this man, Emily, carries in his heart to-day the knowledge of your worth; he holds you and my little mother in fond remembrance. His soul is purified by suffering, and this last visit I made him has given him strength to tell me his whole life. When with a sigh he ended his story, he looked at me sorrowfully, and said:

"'I suppose you will despise me now, but I feel that after all your kindness I must tell you, for it is right you should know. Halbert, I have never told—it is as well not to do so.'"

"Poor fellow," I said, "and we knew it all before."

"No, not all; his life has been a drama with wonderfully wild, sad scenes, and the great waves of his troubles and errors have, at times, driven him nearly crazy. His eldest son is an artist like himself, and finely organized. The other is in the West with an uncle of his mother's. Are you sorry I have done all this? Speak, my beloved."

My eyes told him that my heart was glad for the little comfort he could give this man whose perfidy had given me sorrow, and Clara said:

"To help one lost lamb to find the fold is the blessed work my boy should always do."

Aunt Hildy raised both hands at sight of our pictures, exclaiming:

"Beautiful! beautiful! Splendid! Louis could not have brought us all a greater surprise, or one that would have been more highly valued."

Little Emily patted and kissed the faces, and soon learned to designate them, "pit mam and mam Cla," for pretty mamma and mamma Clara.

A few weeks after this we were sitting together in earnest conversation; the small, dark cloud hung over us that threatened civil war, and while I could hardly believe it possible, Louis and Clara said it must come. Matthias came in of an errand, and sat down to hear us talk, and when father said, "Oh, no, we shall not have war; those Southerners are too lazy to fight," he raised both his hands and exclaimed:

"Excoose me fur conterdictin' ye, but, Mr. Minot, ye dunno 'bout dat; dey'll fight to de end ob time for dar stock. A good many on 'em owns morin' two hundred, an' its money; it's whar de living comes from. Ef you gib 'em a chance dey'll show you a big streak, an' fight dey will for sartin."

The words had hardly left his lips, when Clara said:

"Oh! take me quick, dear boy!"

We all sprang to her side. Ere Louis could put his arms around her, she fell from her chair like dead.

"Fainted! Water!" said Louis.

"Camfire!" said Aunt Hildy, and I stood powerless to move or speak. I saw Louis lay her on the sofa, and thought she was dead; the room grew dark, and I forced myself to feel my way to the door, and leaning against it would have fallen had not father put his arm about me and led me through into the entry where I could get some air. When the sickening swimming feeling left me, and the mist fell from my eyes, I was strong enough to do something, and kneeling by the side of the motionless figure, felt her pulse, or rather tried vainly to find it, and put my cheek to her mouth, whence came no breath.

"Oh! Clara darling, little mother, speak to us, our hearts are breaking! Oh, Louis! get hot water and flannels, chafe her limbs, put a hot cloth over the stomach and chest; she is not dead," and putting my head down, I breathed full, long breaths into her nostrils.

"'Taint no use," said Aunt Hildy, "but we must do it," and she worked with a will.

"That poor angel woman is done gone," said Matthias. "She couldn't stan' it. Oh, de Lord!" and he looked the picture of despair.

We were losing hope of resuscitation, and I sank on the floor beside Louis, who still knelt at the head of the lounge, when a faint sound came from her lips. We held our breath and listened, and now in a low, weak voice she said:

"I'll go back, Louis Robert, to say good-bye; I can stay a little longer; oh! they feel so badly—yes, I must go back," and then long, deep sighing breaths were taken. A little longer and her eyes opened—"Louis, Emily, baby, friends, I am here."

"Oh! little mother," said Louis, "where is the trouble?"

She tried to smile, as if to cover all our fears, and said with effort:

"I am weak; I could not hold together; get some of Aunt Hildy's bitters," and when the glass containing it was held to her lips, she drank eagerly.

"Take both hands, Louis; let the baby touch me."

"Oh, Clara, don't go!" I said, as I held little Emily near her.

"No, no, not now, but I want help to stay; keep the baby close.

"Matthias, don't go home," she said, and then, closing her eyes, lay so still and motionless I feared she would never move again.

A half hour had passed and she still looked so cold and white, when suddenly her eyes opened, and her voice was strong as she said:

"I am better now, I have come clear back,—help me to get up, dear boy," and Louis put his arms around her to raise her; as he did so I saw a strange look pass over her face, and her hands were laid on her limbs. She turned her beautiful eyes upon me, as if to say "don't be frightened," and said, "Please move my limbs, there is no feeling there—they are paralyzed, and I am so glad it is not my hands." I moved them gently, and thought when she was really herself she would be able to use them. She seemed now bright and cheerful as before.

The evening wore on; Matthias went home, and at Clara's request Aunt Hildy occupied a room with her down stairs, Louis carrying her tenderly to her couch as if she were a child.

Sleep came toward us with laggard steps through the long night; Louis seemed to realize it all so plainly, and my heart was in my throat. I tried to hope, and when at last I fell asleep I wandered in dreams to a wondrous fountain, whose silvery spray fell before me as a gleaming promise, and I thought its murmuring music whispered, "she will live," and her Louis Robert, who stood near me, constantly sang the same sweet words. I believe my dream really comforted me, for when I woke it clung to me still, and "she will live" rang in my ears like a sweet bell chime.

We found her better and like herself, but the lower limbs were cold as marble, heavy also and without feeling, and we knew it was, as she had said, "paralysis."

"Now I am to be a burden, my Emily mother, and oh, if you had not called me back, I would have gone to the hills with Louis Robert! It was not fancy nor delirium, for I knew that my body was falling. I saw him when he came and whispered 'now, darling, now,' and when I lost your faces, he raised me in his arms, and I was going, oh! till somebody breathed upon me, and warm drops like rain touched my cheek, and I heard your hearts all say, 'we cannot have it.' This like a strong hand drew me back, and I thought I must come and say good-bye for a comfort to you all. So Louis Robert, with his great love waiting for me there, drew himself away and kindly said, 'I will wait,'—then a mist came between us, and I opened my eyes to see you all around me."

"Oh, Clara! how can we ever let you go?"

"Ah, my beloved ones! I only go a little before you, and if you knew how sweet it will be to be strong, you would say, because you love me, 'I may go.' I have many things to say—and I shall remain with you a time, and may, I fear, weary you. I am glad Louis is strong."

It was pitiful to see the patience with which she bore her suffering. There was no pain, she said, but it was a strange feeling not to be alive—and she would look at her limbs and say, "Poor flesh, you are not warm any more." We had one of her crimson-cushioned easy chairs arranged to suit her needs, and in this she could be rolled about. She sat at the table with us and I kept constantly near her, and tried to shield her from any extra excitement. When on the thirteenth day of April, news reached us of the blow which, the day before, had fallen on Sumter, we feared to let her know it. But her spirit quickened into the clearest perception possible, divined something, and obliged us to tell her.

She said: "I knew it would come, I have felt it for years, and when the cruel sacrifice is finished, liberty will arise, and over the ashes of the slain will say, 'Let the bond go free.'"

Ben's eyes looked as Hal's did, when he left us for Chicago, and he whispered to me:

"I must go. Hal must stay here; Louis cannot go. John will see to every thing for me, and I am going."

Six days later he had enlisted, and oh! how filled these days were! When Matthias heard of it, he came over, and happening to meet me where he could talk freely, he said:

"Dis is jes' what I knowed was a comin', an' I have tole Ben fur to kill dat Mas'r Sumner, de fus' ting, for he's the one dat ort fur to be killed."

"Why, Matthias, you are in a great hurry to kill him, and you really believe he is to drop right into that terrible fire; why, I could not hurry a dog out of existence if I thought everlasting torment awaited him."

"Look a yere, Miss Em'ly, ef dat dog wuz mad, you'd kill him mighty quick, wouldn't ye?"

I did not know what to say, and he answered the question himself:

"Yas, de Lord knows, dat man needs tendin' to, an I'se mighty anxious fur de good Lord to take him in han'. We'll live to see ebery black man free, Miss Em'ly,—we shall, shure,—an' dere'll be high times down in Charleston. Wonder what little Molly'll do?"

"I have been thinking about her," I said. "You know the last letter we received they were fearful of war, and thinking of coming to her husband's friends in Pennsylvania; but she feared her mother would die; she has been poorly for a long time."

"Reckin she'll die, then, fur de 'sitement'll kill her, ef nuffin else don't."

The days wore on and Clara still lingered with us. Ben was as yet unhurt, and first lieutenant of his company. He wrote us that battle was not what he had thought it; he was not shaky at all, and the smell of powder covered every fear; he had only one thought and that was to do his duty. A letter full of sorrow came from Mary. Her mother had passed from earth, and her father was going on to a little farm they owned a few miles from the city, and she, with her husband and Althea Emily was, trying to get into Pennsylvania. "I am in momentary fear," she wrote, "for my husband is watched so closely, his principles are so well known, I think we shall have great trouble in getting through, but we cannot stay here."

The dewy breath of May was rising about us; violet angle was alive with its blossoms, and the birds sang sweetly as if there were no sorrowing hearts in the land.

Clara had failed of late, and the evening of the fifteenth we were gathered together at her request in her sitting-room.

"Do not feel troubled," she said, "for when I am out of sight, you will sorrow if you feel I have not told it all. Come, baby Emily, sweet bird sit close to mam Cla, while she tells the story."

Louis and I sat on either side, Aunt Hildy with mother and father very near, so that we formed a semi-circle.

"I am losing my strength, as you all know," said Clara "and the day is very near when I shall reach for the hand that will lead me to the hills. Now, Louis, my dear boy, here is the paper I have written, wherein I give to you all the things I believe you will prize. I believe I have remembered all who have been so kind and so dear to me, and I know you will comply with every wish, and I desire no form of the law to cover my words." Louis took the papers with a trembling hand, and she continued: "It is wise and right for me to tell you about the laying away of this frame of mine, for I know if I do not tell you about it many questions will arise, and we will have them all settled now before I go beyond your hearing. I shall hear you and see you all the time.

"First, buy for me a cedar coffin, since it will please you to remember that this wood lasts longer in the ground than any other. Do not have any unnecessary trimmings for it, and I would like to wear in this last resting-place the blue dress I prize the most. You will find in my large trunk the little pillow I have made for my head; just let me lie there a little on one side, and put a few of Emily's sweet violets in my hand that I may be pleasant to look upon. Leave no rings upon my fingers; these I wear, my Louis Robert gave me, and you must keep them for his grandchild," and as she said this, she unfastened the shining chain that she had worn hidden so many years, and putting it around our little Emily's neck, said: "Let her always wear the chain and the locket," and while the baby's eyes reflected the gleam of the gold that dazzled them, we were all weeping. "Do not feel so," said Clara; "it is beautiful to go; let me tell you the rest. All these people whom I have known will desire to look at my face, and for their sakes let me be carried into the old church which has become to me so dear. I have asked Mr. Davis to preach from the text, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'