"I have advised you for your own good!" he said at length, "if you choose to let the law take its course there is nothing more to be said."

Chester wiped away the heavy drops from his forehead and his upper lip, where they had gathered like rain.

"You are then decided. You will not be advised!" persisted the Mayor, after a moment's silence, observing that Chester was about to rise.

"No, I will not resign. Not to save my life would I give this cowardly recognition of your act. If I am sent from the police, you, sir, must take the responsibility!"

Chester took up his hat and walking-stick.

"I will wait still longer. You may think better of this?" said the Mayor, rising also.

Chester turned back, leaning for support upon his walking stick.

"I have given my answer, I am ready to meet my fate!" and without another word the unhappy man walked forth trembling in every limb, and girded as it were by a band of iron across the chest.

The Mayor watched him depart with an uneasy glance. He had failed in his usual game of securing a resignation when the responsibility threatened to become heavy. In this case the presence of the Chief of Police at Chester's trial—the character of the man, and above all his own knowledge of the means by which his ruin had been procured, rendered the worthy magistrate peculiarly anxious. It was one of those cases that the public might question, especially when it became known that the principal witness was to receive the place made vacant by Chester's ruin. He found most men willing to redeem some fragment of a lost character by resignation, and thus had craftily frightened many an honest man from his place whom he would not have ventured to condemn openly. The Mayor had summoned Chester to his presence with this hope. But the high and courageous nature of the policeman, the simplicity, the energy and deep true feeling inherent in him formed a character entirely above the level of his honor's comprehension. His craft and subtle policy were completely thrown away here. Following the noble young man, with hatred in his eye, the Mayor arose muttering—

"Though it cost me my seat, he shall go!" and he followed the policeman, calling him by name.

"It needs no longer time for a decision," he said, touching his hat as he passed out of the City Hall, "to-morrow you can bring your star and your book to the Chief's office; they will be wanted for another!"

"To-night—I will bring them at once!" said Chester, with a start, for he was very weak, and the Mayor's voice struck his ear suddenly. "Then," he murmured to himself, "God help me, to-morrow I may not have the strength."

When Chester went out in the morning, his wife had complained of illness, and this added to his depression as he returned home. "Oh, what news do I bring to make her better," he thought. "What but sorrow and pain shall I ever have to offer her on this side the grave? Feeble as a child—disgraced. Oh, Jane, my wife, how will she live through all that must too surely come upon her!"

Saddened by these thoughts, Chester mounted the stairs. He entered the chamber formerly the scene of so much innocent happiness, and found Isabel sitting by the fire alone and crying. Chester loved his beautiful child, and her tears sent a fresh pang through his heart. The idea crossed his mind that she might be hungry and crying for food. He had often thought of late, that this want must come upon them all at last, but now that it seemed close at hand, it made him faint as death. He sat down and attempted to lift the little girl to his knee, but he had not strength to raise her from the floor, and, abandoning the attempt with a mournful look, he drew her close to his bosom; his forehead fell upon her shoulder, and he wept like a child.

Isabel wiped away his tears, and put her arm softly around his neck. "Oh, papa, don't take on so, I wish I had not cried."

"And what are you grieving about?" said Chester, struggling with himself, "were—were you hungry, darling?"

"No, it was not that, but mamma, you know, had such a headache, and we wanted to do something for her, but Mary find I could find no camphor nor cologne nor anything in the house, and poor mamma kept growing worse, so we made it up between us, Mary and I, to sell the Canary bird. There was not a bit of seed, nothing but husks in the cage, and the poor thing begun to hang its head; so don't blame us, we had no money for seed, and now that you and mamma are both sick, Mary thought we had better sell the bird."

Chester groaned, and his face fell once more upon the child's shoulder.

"Papa, are you angry," said Isabel, while the tears came afresh to her beautiful eyes.

"No, my child, no. It was right, it was best. But your mother, is she so very ill?"

"She is asleep now! That was the reason I only cried very softly when Mary Fuller went away with the bird—Mary made me promise not to cry out loud, for fear of waking her."

Chester arose and moved softly toward the bedroom. It had a desolate and poverty-stricken look—that little room—but still was neatly arranged and tidy in every part. The bureau was gone, and the straw-bed, though made with care, looked comfortless in comparison with the couch in which we first saw Isabel.

Mrs. Chester was lying upon the bed sleeping heavily, her cheeks were crimson, and there was some difficulty in her breathing which seemed unnatural. Still there did not seem to be cause for apprehension. Since her troubles came on, the poor wife had often been a sufferer from nervous headaches, and this seemed but a more violent attack than usual.

Chester put the hair away from her forehead, and kissing it, softly went out, thankful that she was not awake to hear his evil news.

He sat down by the window, for it was now early spring, and Isabel crept to his side. The little creature found in his presence consolation for the loss of her bird. They had been sitting together perhaps half an hour, when Mary Fuller came in; her face bore a look of keen disappointment, and her eyes were full of tears.

"You have told him?" she said, addressing Isabel, "you have told him about it?"

"Yes, my good little girl, she told me. You were very right to sell the bird," said Chester, reaching forth his hand.

The child came close to him and looked earnestly in his face.

"You look very bad—you are in pain?" she said, "something is the matter with you, Mr. Chester."

"I have a little pain here," said Chester, with a sad smile, pressing one hand upon his breast. "It seems, Mary, as if an iron girdle were about me, straining tighter and tighter. Sometimes it troubles me to breathe at all?"

Mary touched his hand, it seemed as if a glowing coal were buried in the palm. Her eyes filled with strange terror, and without a word she sat down at Chester's feet, burying her troubled face in her garments.

"Did—did you sell the bird?" asked Isabel, touching Mary's shoulder.

"Yes," replied Mary, in a smothered voice, "I sold it, but they would only give me half a dollar. They saw that we wanted money—but I would not let it go for ever—sometime they will let us buy it back again."

"Oh, that is so much better! When papa gets his place again, we can have birdy back," said Isabel, relieved from her most pressing grief; but the hope so innocently expressed struck upon the poor father's heart like a knife. When he got his place back! That time would never, never come! He was disgraced—a branded, ruined man. The full conviction had been cruelly brought home to him by the words of that hopeful little girl. A smothered groan broke from him. Little Mary lifted her head, regarding him sadly, as he paced up and down the floor.

"Mr. Chester," she said, following him, and speaking in a troubled under-tone, "don't look so sorrowful. I wish you could only cry a little—just a little, it will do you good; come in and see her, perhaps that will bring the tears."

"It is here, my girl, it is here!" said Chester, laying one hand upon his chest. "I cannot breathe."

"Perhaps—oh, I am almost sure it is only the tears that cannot get to your eyes lying heavy there. That does give dreadful pain—I know."

"It is something worse than that," said Chester, and the tears gushed into his eyes. "I feel—I feel that it is"—

"Is what, sir? oh you may tell me!"

"No, it is nothing, God may yet spare me!"

Mary gazed at him a moment, and then turned away. She entered the little closet where her bed was, and closing the door, knelt down. She did not weep as other children of her age might have done, but clasping her hands, and lifting her meek forehead to Heaven, prayed in her heart; a little time and the words came gushing to her lips, earnest, eloquent, and full of deep, simple pathos. Her eyelids quivered; her mouth grew bright with the soul that troubled it. Her diminutive frame seemed to dilate and straighten with the energy of her prayer.

"Oh, God, oh, my Father, who art in Heaven, Thou who hast made these, Thy children, so good and so beautiful, look down upon me—bend for one moment from the bright home where Thou hast taken my own father, and listen to me, his only child—I am feeble, helpless, and all alone. Oh, God, no one need grieve or shed a tear upon the earth if I am laid in my little grave before morning. Look upon me, oh, Lord, see if I am not a useless and unsightly thing, whom Thy creatures may look upon with pity, but no love save that which bringeth tears. Take me, oh, Father, take me from the earth, and leave the good man with his wife and with his child. I am ready, I am willing, this night, to lie down in the deepest grave, so this, my kind friend, live for those who love him so much. Father—oh, my own father, who art nearer unto God than I am, plead for me, plead for him; plead that thy little unseemly child, may be taken up to the home where her father is—and that he who saved, and fed, and sheltered thy child, may be left to feed and shelter his own."

It seemed as if the holy spirit of self-sacrifice that possessed this child, had sublimated both her language and her countenance. Her face, so thin, so pallid, beamed with the spirit of an angel—the subdued pathos of her voice, was like the fall of water-drops upon pure marble. Long after her lips ceased to move her face and hands were uplifted to Heaven.

Chester heard the murmur of her voice, and his heart was soothed by it. He went into his wife's bed-room, and bent gently over her as she slept. The fever was still hot upon her cheek, and she murmured in her unrest as Chester took her hand softly in his and pressed his pale brow upon it. Long and mournfully did the heart-stricken man gaze upon those loved features. He smoothed the pillow, he spread the cool linen softly over her arms, he bathed her forehead with cold water, and afterward with his tears, as he bent down to kiss it before he went out.

Then he went into the outer room, and took from a drawer his star, and his official book. These he folded up carefully and placed in his pocket. Still he lingered in the room, moving from window to window, and looking sadly upon his child.

"Isabel, I am going out, come and kiss me."

The child came up, cheerful and smiling, with her arms extended. Chester sat down, and taking her upon his knee, and gathering her little hands in his, gazed mournfully into her eyes.

"Isabel!" he said, with a degree of solemnity that filled the child with awe.

She looked up wonderingly; he said no more, but sat gazing upon her. His bosom heaved with a sort of gasping struggle, sob after sob broke from his lips, and he removed her gently from his knee. He was turning to go out when Mary Fuller came from her little bedroom. Chester turned, laid both hands upon her head, and, as she lifted her gentle eyes to his, he bent down and kissed her—the first time in his life, and the last.

With a feeble and slow step, Chester entered the Chief's office, and rendered up his book and star. He stayed for no conversation, and only answered the words of sympathy with which he was received by a faint smile. It was raining when he went forth, and a thick fog fell low upon the ground. The night was drawing on dark and dreary, and everything seemed full of gloom. Chester walked on; he took no heed of the way, but turned corner after corner with reckless haste, one hand working in his bosom as if he could thus wrest away the pain that seemed strangling him, and the other grasping his walking-stick upon which he paused and leaned heavily from time to time.

It was now quite dark, and Chester found himself in one of those murky streets that lead out among the shipping. The air came in from the river struggling through a forest of tall masts, and, as it flowed over his face, Chester drew almost a deep breath, not quite, for a sharp pain followed the effort—a cough that cut through his lungs like a knife—and then gushed from his mouth and nostrils a torrent of blood, frothy, vividly red, that fell upon his hands and garments in waves of crimson foam.

Chester was standing upon the pier. Beyond him was the water—close by the tall and silent ships. He cast one wild glance on these pulseless objects and sat down upon the timbers of the pier, grasping the head of his walking-stick with both hands and leaning his damp forehead upon them. Faster and faster gurgled up the vital blood to his lips. Like wine from the press it gushed, and every fresh wave bore with it a portion of his life.

Chester thought of his home—his wife, his child—he would die with them, he would struggle yet with the death fiend and wrest back the life that should suffice to reach them. He pressed one hand to his mouth, he staggered to his feet—the staff bent under him to and fro like a sapling swayed by the wind. He advanced a single step; faltered, and, reeling back, fell upon the timbers. A sob, a faint moaning sound, answered only by the dull, heavy surge of the waters below, as they lapsed against the timbers of the pier. Another moan—a shudder of all the limbs, and then the fog rolled down upon him like a winding-sheet.



CHAPTER X

WAKING AND WATCHING.

Burning with thirst and wild with fever, She tossed and moaned on her couch of pain; With an aching heart he must go and leave her; Never shall they two meet again! Never? Oh, yes, where the stars are burning O'er his path to Heaven with a golden glow, His soul turns back with its human yearning To watch her anguish and soothe her woe.

When Mrs. Chester awoke from her slumber, which had been one wild and harrowing dream, she inquired of the children, who were early to her bed, if their father had not come back, and if there was yet no tidings from the Mayor's office. They answered that he had but just left the house, and that he had been with her nearly an hour as she slept. She smiled gently, and closing her heavy eyes, turned her head upon the pillow, moaning with the pain this slight motion gave.

Mary went to the little supper table which she had spread in anticipation of Mr. Chester's return, and came back with a bowl of warm tea in her hand.

"If you can only drink a little of this ma'am," she said, stirring the tea with a bright silver teaspoon, the last they had left of a full set, "it always does your head so much good!"

Mrs. Chester rose upon her elbow and attempted to take the tea, but her head was dizzy, and after the first spoonful she turned away in disgust.

"I cannot drink it. Oh, for a glass of cold, cold water!"

Mary ran into the next room and came back with some water. But it tasted tepid to the poor invalid, and she only bathed her parched mouth with it.

"You are ill, you are very ill, ma'am," said Mary; "this does not seem like nothing but a slight headache. May I run for a doctor?"

"We have no money to pay doctors with, my child," said the poor invalid, clasping her hot fingers together, "now that I am sick, who will earn bread for you all? who will comfort him?"

"I will do my best, and so will Isabel!" replied Mary, "besides, perhaps—"

The child paused and her eyes fell. She was about to say that perhaps the Mayor might not be so very hard on Mr. Chester, after all; but remembering the look and manner of that unhappy man, she could not say this with truth, knowing well, as if it had been told her in words, that her benefactor had no hope. "Perhaps," she added, "something may happen. When it was at the worst with me, you know something happened."

"And surely it is at the worst with us now," murmured Mrs. Chester, meekly folding her hands, "no, not the worst," she added, with a wild start, "for I am not a widow yet."

God help the poor woman. She was a widow, even then.

The two children sat up that night watching by the sick, and waiting for the father to return, who lay so cold and still upon the sodden timber of that dismal pier. They had eaten nothing all day—at least Mary had not—and now they cut the sixpenny loaf in slices and partook of it, leaving a small covered dish, which had been prepared for Chester, untouched. His supper was sacred to those little girls. Hungry and worn-out as they were, neither of them even once glanced at it longingly. They were quite content with the dry bread, and even ate of that sparingly, for Mrs. Chester had asked for ice, and various little things in her delirium—she was delirious then—and the children ran out after everything she mentioned, hoping to relieve the terrible state she was in, till they had but one shilling left.

So they made a sparing meal of the bread—those poor little creatures—and a cup of cold water, for the tea must be saved for him and for her. "Children," they said, with tears in their eyes, "ought not to want such things."

With all her brave effort to sit up till her father came, poor little Isabel dropped to sleep with her head upon the table, weary and almost heartbroken, for she was not used to suffering like Mary Fuller, and her childish strength yielded more readily. After this, Mary sat watching quite alone, for Mrs. Chester had muttered herself into a feverish sleep, and the house was in profound silence.

Then came upon Mary Fuller a terrible sense of the desolation that had overtaken them. Dark and shadowy thoughts swept over her soul, leaving it calm, but oh, how unutterably miserable. This foreshadowing of evil fastened upon her like a conviction. She felt in the very depths of her being that some solemn event was approaching its consummation that very moment. She ceased to listen for Chester's coming, but hushing her tread, as if in the close presence of death, crept away to a corner and prayed silently.

There are moments in human life when persons linked together in a series of events may form tableaux, which stand out from ordinary grouping, like an illustration stamped in strong light and shadow on the book of destiny. Thus was Chester's household revealed on that solemn midnight.

Mary Fuller, upon her knees, her small hands uplifted, her face turned to the wall; Isabel, with her lovely head pillowed on her arms; and, through an open door, Jane Chester, in her feverish sleep, with the pale lamplight glimmering over them all—this was one picture.

Another, equally distinct in its mournful outline, was revealed to the all-seeing One alone.

Upon that dark wharf, among the motionless ships, that seemed like spectres gazing upon his hushed agony, Chester still lay, shrouded by the heavy clinging fog. The tide rose slowly lapping the sodden timbers which formed his death-bed, and creeping upwards, inch by inch, like the weltering folds of a pall. The whisper of these waters, black and sluggish, gurgling and creeping toward him, was the last sound poor Chester ever heard on earth.

Oh, it was a wretched picture that might have won pity from the ghostlike shrouds and spars which hedged it in as with a forest of blasted trees.

One more picture, and the night closes. The Common Council was in session. Both marble wings of the City Hall were brilliantly illuminated, and crowds of eager spectators gathered around the two council chambers. Some fifty or sixty poor and efficient men were to be turned out of office, and the populace were eager to witness the jocose and delicate way in which the New York city fathers decapitated their children. To have witnessed the smiling jests that passed to and fro in the Board, the quiet and sneering pleasure of one man—the careless tone of another—the indifferent air of a third—you would have supposed that these wise men had met to perform some great public benefit. It seemed like a gala night, the majority were so full of generous glee.

And why should they not be jovial and happy in the legislative halls? What was there to dampen their spirits in these gay proceedings? True, the heads of fifty or sixty families were thus playfully deprived of the means of an honest support. Efficient and experienced men were taken from almost all the city departments, and cast without occupation upon the world. Men who had toiled in the city's service, for years, for a bare livelihood, were suddenly cast forth to want and penury. It was in the season of a terrible epidemic, and physicians who had braved pestilence and death, heaped together in the great hospitals of the city—who had made a home of the lazar-house, when to breathe its atmosphere was almost to die—were among those who were to be given up as victims to party.

These men, some of them yet trembling upon the brink of the grave from pestilence, inhaled while nobly performing duties for which they were scarcely better paid than the commonest soldier—these were the men whom our city fathers were so blandly and pleasantly removing from their field of duty. Was it wonderful, then, that the whole affair seemed quite like pastime to those engaged in it; or that they made themselves jocosely eloquent upon the subject, whenever one of the grave minority ventured to lift his voice against the proceedings?

When the two Boards broke up for recess, nothing could exceed the spirit and good fellowship with which they went down to supper. The Mayor was present, for having been an Alderman himself, he always knew when anything peculiarly agreeable to his taste was coming off at the hall. The President of the Upper Board was in splendid spirits, and altogether it was a brilliant scene when the Mayor took his seat next the President, and the aldermen and assistants ranged themselves on either side the groaning board.

With what relish the city fathers ate their supper that night! Birds worth their weight in gold vanished from their plates as if they had taken wing. Great, luscious oysters, delicately cooked after every conceivable fashion—canvas-backed ducks, swimming in foreign jellies—turkeys and roasted chickens, that went from the table whole, being too common for men who had learned to indulge in wild game and condiments at the cost of ten thousand a year—decanters, through which the wine gleamed red and bright, interspersed here and there with others of a darker tinge and more potent flavor—brandied fruit and rich sweetmeats, all shed their dull sickening fragrance through the tea-room. The flash of glasses in the light; the flash of coarse wit that followed the drained glasses; the clatter of plates; the noiseless tread of the waiters—why it was enough to make the silver urn and curious old pitchers start of themselves from the side-board to claim a share in the feast. It was enough to make the public documents, prisoned in the surrounding book-cases, shiver and rustle with an effort to free themselves from bondage.

The very fragments of that official supper would have fed many a poor family for weeks; but the city fathers really did enjoy it so much it would have been a pity to dampen their spirits by an idea so at variance with their action. They had consigned at least fifty blameless families to poverty that night, and surely that was labor enough without troubling themselves about the means by which they were to be kept from perishing.

You could see by the quiet smile upon the Mayor's lip, as he arose from the supper table, and helped himself to a handful of cigars from a box on the side-board, that he was in excellent spirits. A distinguished guest from the country partook of the city's hospitality that night, and as the two lighted their cigars, they conversed together on city matters.

"To-morrow—to-morrow," said his honor, "you must go over our institutions—Bellevue, the Island, and the various Asylums."

The stranger shook his head.

"Not to Bellevue, if that is where your people are dying off so rapidly of ship-fever," he said. "I have a terror of the disease; why I saw it stated that half the physicians at your Alms House were down with it, and that three or four out of the number have died this season."

"Yes," said the Mayor, lighting a cigar, "the mortality has been very great at Bellevue, especially among the young doctors. They are peculiarly exposed, however."

"I should think," said the stranger, laying down his cigar, for he could not find the heart to smoke quietly, when conversing on a subject so painful, "I should suppose it would be difficult to find persons ready to meet almost certain death, as these young men are sure to do. It must be a painful task to you, sir, when you sign their appointments. It would seem to me like attaching my name to a death warrant."

"Yes," replied the Mayor, taking out his cigar and examining the end, for it did not burn readily; "it is very disagreeable. Why, sir, the city has paid, already, nearly five hundred dollars for funeral expenses; and there is no knowing how far it may be carried."

The stranger looked up in surprise; he could not believe that he had heard aright—that the Mayor of New York was absolutely counting, as a subject of regret, the funeral cost attending the death of those brave young men who had perished amid the pestilence, more bravely a thousand times, than warriors that fall on the battle-field.

But as he was about to speak again, several aldermen who still lingered at the table, called loudly for the Mayor.

"I say," said the Alderman, who has been particularly presented to the reader, leaning over the back of his chair, with a glass of wine in one hand—"I say, have you settled that Chester yet? My man is getting impatient."

"Hush!" said his honor; "not so loud, my good friend. Bring in the nomination to-morrow—I gave Chester his quietus this afternoon."

And so he had; for while this scene was going on at the City Hall, the two pictures we have given, were stamped upon the eternal pages of the Past, and so was this.



CHAPTER XI.

CHESTER'S HOME IN THE MORNING

It is dancing—dancing—dancing, Oh, the little purplish sprite! Now moving, shining, glancing Through the mazes of the light.

The grey morning dawned gloomily on Chester's desolated home. Isabel awoke and looked around with dull and heavy eyes. The beauty of her young face was clouded by a night of sharp anxiety and broken rest. Mary sat opposite, leaning with both elbows on the table, and regarding the poor child with a haggard and sorrowful countenance.

"Has he not come back—oh, Mary, is he not here yet?"

Mary shook her head. "I have been awake all night, every moment. He has not come!"

"And I—how could I sleep with my poor father away, and mamma so ill? I did not think that anything could make me sleep at such a time, Mary!"

"But, you were so tired; oh, I was glad when your head drooped on the table; it looked so pitiful to see you growing paler and paler, while she kept muttering to herself. I was glad that you could sleep at all, Isabel."

"I feel now as if I should never sleep again," replied the child, looking at the covered plate where her father's supper had been standing all night. "He will never come back, Mary Fuller, I feel sure of it now!"

Mary did not answer—she only covered her eyes with one hand and sat still.

Isabel arose, took the covered plate in both her hands and placed it in the cupboard, weeping bitterly. This act showed even plainer than her words that she really did not expect to see her father again. She crept back to Mary, and, leaning upon her shoulder, began to cry with low and suppressed passion. Poor thing, it is a hard lesson when childhood first learns to curb its natural grief.

"What shall we do, Mary?" whispered the poor child, burying her wet face upon Mary's shoulder that received its burden unshrinkingly; "oh, what can we do?"

"Isabel," said Mary, solemnly, "what should we do if—if your father should be dead?"

"He is dead—or very, very sick—I am sure of that; what else could keep him from home, and mamma calling for him so pitifully? Mary, I am sure that he is dead; we shall never, never see him again!" and, with a burst of terrible grief, the poor child flung her arms around Mary Fuller, and sunk to the floor, almost dragging the little girl with her. "Mary, he is dead—he is dead!"

"Who is dead—who is dead, I say? Why do you crowd the room with those little dancing creatures, all in loose clothes—scarlet, gold, purple, green—why do you not send them away?" cried the voice of Mrs. Chester, and there was a rustling of the bed-clothes, as if she were trying to cast them from her.

The children held their breath, and cowered close together. Again Mrs. Chester spoke:

"Leave the children, leave them; I did not tell you to drive the children away; Chester, Chester, they are taking our children off; Isabel—Mary Fuller, come back!"

"I am here—no one shall take me away," said Mary Fuller, bending over the bed; "Isabel, too, is close by your pillow—she has been crying to see you so sick; do not mind her eyes, they will grow bright again when you are well!"

Mrs. Chester started up in the bed. A moment of consciousness seemed to come over her. She looked at Mary and at Isabel, and spoke to them in a whisper, leaning half out of bed—

"Girls, where is he? tell me now, Mary, that's a good little girl—what have they done with him?"

The children looked at each other, and Isabel began to sob.

"How long is it since I went to sleep? He was here, you know!" said the invalid.

"Only a little while!" answered Mary, quickly. "You have not slept long."

"Oh! I thought—but then people will dream such things—I say, just tell me—come, will he be back soon—can't you tell me that, little folks?"

"Lie down, there, now take a glass of ice-water, and I will go after him," said Mary, exerting all her little strength to persuade the invalid back to her pillow.

"Ice, ice! give me a whole handful—no water, but clear cold ice!"

They gave it to her; in her burning hands and her parched mouth they placed the crystal coldness; and it slaked the burning fever. It melted in her hand, dripping in soft rain down her arms and over her bosom, where the hand lay clenched tightly upon its cool treasure. With her white teeth she crushed the diamond fragments in her mouth, and laughed to feel the drops flowing down her throat.

"Now, Mary, little Mary Fuller, go and tell him that I am wide awake, and waiting for him! Go now, while the ice is plenty, he shall have a share."

"I will go!" said Mary, and drawing Isabel from the room, she told her to stay close by her mother, and let her have anything she wanted. While giving these directions she put on her hood and shawl.

"I will find him; I will not come back without news; but, oh! Isabel, I have little hope of anything but news that will kill her, and almost kill us; I would not say this, but it has been in my heart since ten o'clock last night. I was all alone, and—don't cry again, Isabel—it seemed to me as if he died then!"

Isabel turned very pale, and gazed upon Mary in terrible silence.

"And I was asleep then?" she said, with a pang of self reproach.

"Hush!" said Mary, "in our sleep we must be nearest to Heaven; why should you feel bad because you were closer to him than I was?"

"I dreamed of him!" answered Isabel, as if struck by some sudden remembrance, and her eyes so heavy the moment before, lighted up; "I dreamed of him!"

"And what did you dream, tell me, Isabel—what did you dream?"

"I don't know all—but he was away in such a beautiful, beautiful place; the hills were all purple and gold and crimson with light, or flowers or something that made them more lovely than anything you ever set eyes on. The rivers were so clear that you could see down, down into the water—and the banks, all covered with flowers, seemed to slope down and line the bottom with soft colors that broke up through; it was all shifting and rolling before me like a cloud. But as true as you live, Mary, I saw my father there, and—yes—now I am sure—mamma was with him—she was, Mary Fuller; and so you see they will meet again, if there is anything in dreams. You will find him, I am sure you will find him. Oh, Mary. I am so glad that I fell asleep, while you were watching!"

Mary did not speak, but threw her arms around the beautiful child, kissing her tenderly before she went forth.

"It was a sweet dream!" she murmured, going down the stairs; "I had many such before my father died. I suppose God sends them to comfort little children when he makes orphans of them—but I never saw my mother and father together; oh, if I had but seen that only once!" With these thoughts Mary Fuller passed into the street, pursuing her mournful errand with a heavy spirit. "I will go," she said, communing with herself; "I will go first to the Chief's office—Mr. Chester took away the star and book in his pocket, and must have gone there. They will know something of him at the Chief's office;" and she bent her way to the Park.

It was a bright spring morning. The fog which had hung upon the city over night, was swept upward by the sun, and lay upon the horizon in a host of fleecy clouds. The trees around the Park fountain and the City Hall, were in the first tender green of their foliage, and the damp night had left them vivid with moisture, through which the sun was shining. The fountain was in full force at the time, shooting up its columns of diamond spray to the very tree-tops. Gleams of sunshine laced the myriads and myriads of liquid threads together, with a rainbow that seemed to tremble and break every instant, but always shone out again brighter than before. The rush and hum of the waters, the showers of cool and broken spray, the soft shiver of the leaves and the young grass just peeping from the earth all around, were enough to make a happy heart beat happier tenfold, under the influence of so much beauty. But poor little Mary looked upon the scene with a heavy eye; all the fresh growth of nature seemed but to mock her as she passed through it. She would have given worlds for power to convey the sweet air that swept with such cool prodigality by her face, to the close room of Mrs. Chester. It seemed a sin to breathe that delicious spring breeze, while her benefactress lay panting on her sick-bed.

The chief received the little girl very kindly, and gave her all the information he possessed regarding Chester; but that was very little, only dating half an hour from the time that unhappy man left home.

Mary turned away with an aching heart—where should she go? of whom might she inquire? The broad city was before her, but to what part must her search be directed?

Mary crossed the Park and moved down towards the corner of Ann street. She paused for a moment, pondering over the heavy doubt in her mind, when a cart, over which an old blanket had been flung, guarded by two policemen, drove by her. Something smote her heart as the rude vehicle passed her; it seemed as if she could detect the outline of a human form beneath the blanket. She started, and followed the cart. It rolled slowly up Broadway and turned into Chambers street—along the whole length of the old Alms House buildings it went, and still the little girl followed, trembling in every limb and scarcely drawing a full breath.

The cart stopped at the point nearest to that building, where the unrecognized dead were carried. The two policemen drew away the blanket, and there, outstretched upon a piece of carpet, Mary saw her benefactor. She moved slowly forward; she clung with her cold hands to the side of the cart, and bent her eyes upon that still, white face. The sunshine lay upon it, and the breeze swept back from that marble forehead the bright hair that she had seen Mrs. Chester arrange so often. It might have been the sunshine—or perhaps that God, "who careth for the fall of a sparrow," had left a smile upon those white lips to comfort the little girl; for it is in small things often that the goodness of our Heavenly Father is most visible.

"He is smiling—oh, he smiles on me," cried the child, with a burst of tears, lifting her face to the policeman, with a look that went to his heart. "He has not smiled like that, not once since his birth-day," and overcome with all the sweet recollections of that day, the child covered her face and wept aloud while the bystanders stood, lost in sympathy, gazing upon her.

"Did you know this man?" questioned one of the officers, addressing the child, and motioning the driver to be quiet, for he had other work to do, and was in haste to get the body of Chester into the dead-house.

"Did I know him?" repeated the child, looking up through her tears with an expression of wonder that he should ask the question. "Did I know him?"

"If you did," rejoined the man, "tell us his name, and perhaps we need not carry him in there."

"In where?" said the child, looking wildly at the building to which the man pointed. "That is not his home."

"No, it is the dead house," replied the man.

"The dead house?" repeated the child, and her lips grew pale with horror. "And must he go in there?"

"Not if you can point out his home; perhaps he is your father?"

"He was more than that—he was—oh, sir, you do not know how much he was to me!"

"Well, what was his name? if you can tell us that, we will take him home at once. The coroner has seen him—there is nothing to prevent."

"His name, sir," answered the little girl, making a brave effort to speak calmly. "His name was John Chester."

"John Chester! that is the man who held the place that Smith has got this very morning. I saw him at the Mayor's office not half an hour ago with the appointment in his hand," said the officer, addressing his companion.

"Poor fellow, poor fellow, it was a hard case!" and the policeman reverently settled the body upon the cart and bade the driver go to the Chief's office and bring a cloak which he had left there.

While the man was absent, there came along Chambers street two persons walking close together and conversing earnestly. They were passing the cart without seeming to heed its mournful burden, when Mary Fuller looked up and saw them. A faint cry broke from her lips, her eyes kindled through the tears that filled them, and drawing her bent form almost proudly upright, she stood directly before the gate, through which the Mayor and his companion were about to pass on their way to the City Hall.

"Sir," she said, with dignity which was almost solemn from its contrast with her frail person, pointing with one pale and trembling finger toward the cart, "turn and look."

The Mayor at first stepped back, for the sight of that little creature was loathsome to him, but there was something in her attitude and in her eye which he could not resist. He turned in spite of himself, and his eyes fell upon the dead form of Chester. For an instant his face changed, a pallor stole over his lips, and he trembled in the presence of the wronged dead; but he was a man whom emotion never entirely conquered, and turning coldly from the child, he went up to the cart and addressed the policeman in charge of the corpse.

"How and where did this man die?" he said, in his usual cold voice.

"He died in the street—alone upon a pier unfrequented after dark. Last night somewhere between nine o'clock and morning was the time. The coroner renders in his verdict, hemorrhage of the lungs."

"He died," said the little girl, solemnly gazing upon the dead, "he died of a broken heart. I know that it was of a broken heart he died."

"Men do not die of broken hearts in these days," said the Mayor, turning away. "It is only women and children that talk of such things. See," he continued, addressing the officer, "that the body is taken to his house and properly cared for. This should be a warning to all in your department, sir."

The policeman bit his lip and his eyes flashed. The only answer that he made was given in a stern voice.

"I will do my duty, sir!"

The Mayor passed on, joining his companion. The ruddy face of the Alderman was many shades paler than usual, and his voice faltered as he addressed his friend.

"This is very shocking. If I had known that it would end so, I, for one, would have had nothing to do with it."

"I am sorry that you are dissatisfied," answered his honor, coldly. "The case you brought against the man seemed a very clear one—nothing could have been stronger than the evidence, otherwise, with all my disposition to serve you, I should not have acted as I did."

The Alderman paused in profound astonishment, his eyes wide open, and his heavy lips parted, gazing upon the impassive form of his friend.

"But, sir, but"—he could not go on, the profound composure of the Mayor paralyzed him. He really began to think that the whole guilt of this innocent man's death rested with himself, that he had altogether misunderstood his honor from the first.

Having deepened and settled this conviction upon his conscience-stricken dupe by a lengthened and grave silence, the Mayor added, consolingly:

"In political life these things must be expected; of course no one is responsible for the casualties that may occur; no doubt this man was consumptive long before you ever saw him!"

"I wish that he had never crossed my path, at any rate," replied the Alderman, almost sternly. "To my dying day I shall never forget that face! I do not know, I cannot think, how I was ever led into persecuting him. Smith wanted the appointment, true enough, and he had done something toward my election, but so had fifty others; how on earth did I ever come to take all this interest in his claim?"

An expression that was almost a smile stole over the Mayor's lip, as he received this compliment to his consummate craft, and the two passed on.

Meantime, the policeman returned from the Chief's office with a cloak, which was placed reverently over the body of poor Chester. The little girl crept close to the cart, and arranged the hair upon that cold forehead as the poor wife had loved to see it best. The cart moved on with its mournful lead, at last, and she followed after.

How sad and heavy was that young creature's heart, as she drew near the once happy home! She began to weep as they stopped by the door.

"Let me! oh, let me go up first. It will kill them to see him all of a sudden, in this way," she pleaded.

The driver had lost much time, but he could not resist that touching appeal.

"It is a dreadful thing," he said,—"let her go up first."

Poor child! Heavy was her heart, and heavy was her step as she mounted the stairs. She paused at the door. Her hand trembled upon the latch; her strength was giving way before the terrible trial that awaited her. But, she heard them from below lifting in the dead. She heard the heavy cloak sweeping along the hall, and, wild with fear that it would all come upon poor Mrs. Chester while she was unprepared, she turned the latch and went in.

The chamber was empty. Mary ran to the little bedroom. It was as still as a grave. The tumbled bed was unoccupied; the bed-clothes falling half upon the floor. Upon the stand was a glass of water, and a lump of ice lay near it. The loose night-dress which Mrs. Chester had worn, lay trailing across the door-sill, and a pillow rested upon the side of the bed, indented in the centre, as if some one sitting upon the floor had rested against it.

When the three men came in, bearing Chester's body between them, Mary stood gazing upon this desolation in speechless and pale astonishment.

"They are gone," she said, turning her wild eyes upon the men. "Some one must have told her what was coming, and she could not bear it."

"No one here?" questioned one of the officers, "only this little girl to watch over him?—this is strange!" And the three men paused in the midst of the room, gazing upon each other over their mournful burden.

"Smooth up the bed a little, and let us lay him there!" said the driver, becoming impatient with the delay.

"Not there—she will come back—she could not go far—on my bed—lay him here, on my bed and Isabel's. It is made up—no one slept in it last night!" exclaimed Mary, opening the door of her little room.

They laid poor Chester upon the bed that his noble benevolence had supplied to the orphan who stood weeping over him. The rustle of that poor straw, as it shrunk to meet his body, was a nobler tribute to his memory than a thousand minute guns could have been.

They were about to arrange his head upon the bolster, but Mary went into the next room, in haste, and brought forth the pillow which still revealed the pressure that Mrs. Chester had left upon it.

"Lay him upon her pillow," said the child. "He would have asked for it, I know."

Those stout men looked upon the child with a feeling of profound respect. They drew back, and allowed her to arrange the death-couch according to her own will. She could not bear the stiff and rigid position in which they had placed him, but laid the hands gently and naturally down. When she turned away, the cold look had been softened somewhat, and in the solemn repose of death there was blended the sweetness of that calm, deep slumber, when the soul is dreaming of Heaven.

The three men went forth, and Mary followed them, closing the door reverently after her.

"I must stay with him," she said, "Mrs. Chester and Isabel are gone; he must not be left alone, or I ought to go in search of them. She was very, very ill, and out of her head I am afraid, and poor Isabel is only a little girl that would not know what to do!"

"I will search for them," said one of the policemen, kindly. "Stay here till some one comes—I am far more certain to find them than such a little thing as you would be."

They left the child alone. For a little time she sat down and wept, but her grief was not of a kind to waste itself in tears, while anything remained undone that could give comfort to others.

"They will bring her back—they will both come," she said, inly, checking her tears. "I will make up her bed, and find something for Isabel to eat; she had no breakfast, and did not relish the bread last night. If they find everything snug and tidy it will not seem so bad."

So the little girl went to work, putting everything in its place, and noiselessly removing the dust that had settled on the scant furniture. Alas, there was not much for her to do, for those desolated rooms contained few of the comforts that had once rendered them so cheerful. When the bed was arranged and the outer room swept, Mary sat down a moment, for grief and watching rendered her very weary, and she was so young that the profound stillness appalled her. Then there came a faint knock at the door, and she was arising to open it when Joseph stood on the threshold.

"I saw it all from the window, and thought that you might be glad to have some one sit with you," said the gentle boy, moving across the room.

Mary looked up, and these low words unsealed her grief again.

"Oh, Joseph! Joseph! they are gone. He is dead. He is lying in there, all alone!"

"I know it," answered the boy, sitting down by her, "and I was just thinking how strange it was that people so handsome and so good, should be sick and die off, when such poor creatures as you and I are left."

Mary looked up eagerly through her tears.

"Oh, you don't know how I prayed, and prayed that God would only take me, and let him live! But He wouldn't; He didn't think it best; here I am, stronger than ever, and there he is!"

The boy sat still and mused, with his eyes bent on the floor.

"It does seem strange," he said, after a time, "but then God ought to know best, because He knows every thing."

"I said that to myself, when I saw him on the cart with that wicked, wicked Mayor looking on," answered Mary.

"I dare say Mr. Chester was so good to every body that perhaps he had done enough, and ought to be in Heaven, and it may be that there is a great deal for you to do, yet, little and weak as you seem. I shouldn't wonder!"

"What could I do, compared to him?" answered Mary, meekly.

"I don't know, I am sure, but I dare say that God does," replied the little boy.

Mary did not answer. Oppressed by the mournful solitude of the place, worn out by long watching and excitement, she could hardly find strength to speak. Still it was a comfort to have the boy in the same room, and his gentle efforts at consolation comforted her greatly.

"That—that is Isabel's step," she said, at length, lifting her eyes and fixing them upon the door. "How slow—how heavy! She is alone, too. Oh, Joseph, do not go away, I cannot bear to tell her yet."

"I will stay!" said the boy.

The door opened, and Isabel came in. She was hardly beautiful then. Her cheeks were pale; her eyes heavy and swollen, and the raven hair fell in dishevelled waves over her shoulders. She crossed the room to where the two children sat, and seating herself wearily on the floor, laid her head in Mary's lap.

"She is gone, Mary, I cannot find her anywhere," said the child. "I have been walking, walking, walking, and no mother—no father. I don't know where I have been, Mary, I don't know what I said to the people, but they couldn't tell me anything about them."

"Poor Isabel!—poor little Isabel!" said Mary, laying her thin hand upon the child's head, and turning her mournful look on Joseph, who met the glance with a sorrowful shake of the head.

"I am tired out, Mary. It seemed to me a little while ago, that I was dying; and if it hadn't been for thinking that you would be left alone, I should have been glad of it."

"Oh, don't, Isabel, don't talk in that way!" said Mary, "you are tired and hungry—she must be hungry," and Mary looked at the boy. "See how the shadows are slanting this way, and she hasn't tasted a mouthful since last night."

"I don't know; I hadn't thought of it—but I believe I am hungry," and the big tears rolled over Isabel's cheeks.

Mary arose and placed that little weary head upon the seat of her chair.

"She isn't used to it, like us," she said, addressing the boy.

"No," he answered, "she can't be expected to stand it as we should. I hope you have got something for her to eat; we haven't a mouthful up stairs, I'm afraid!"

Mary went to the cupboard. It was empty—not a crust was there save the supper which had been put away for poor Chester the night before. Mary hesitated—it seemed terrible to offer that food to the poor child, and yet there was nothing else. Mary went up to Isabel, and whispered to her.

"Have you a sixpence—or only a penny or two left of the money?"

"No," replied Isabel, with a sob. "I spent the last for ice, and when I came back with it, she wasn't in the room. I flung the ice on the stand, and ran out into the street after her, but you know how it was—she has gone like him."

Mary turned toward the cupboard; she placed the cold supper on another plate, and bringing it forth, spread a clean cloth upon the table, and placed a knife and fork.

"Come," she said, bending over the sorrow-stricken child. "Isabel, dear, get up, and try if you can eat this—it will give you strength."

The child arose, put back the dishevelled hair that had fallen over her face, and sat down by the table. She took up the knife and fork, but as her heavy eyes fell upon the contents of the plate, she laid them down again.

"Oh! Mary, I mustn't eat that; he may come home yet, and what shall we have to give him?"

Again the lame boy and Mary exchanged glances—both were pale, and the soft eyes of the boy glistened, with coming tears. He beckoned Mary to him, and whispered—

"Tell her now—she must know; if those men come back while she is hoping on, it will kill her."

Mary stood for a moment, mustering strength for this new trial; then she crept slowly up to Isabel, and laid her thin arm around the child's neck. That little arm shook, and the low speech of Mary Fuller trembled more painfully still.

"Isabel, your father will never want food again—they have brought him home—he is lying in there."

"Asleep!" said Isabel, starting to her feet, while a flash of wild joy came to her face.

"No, Isabel, he is dead!"

Isabel stood motionless. Her arms fell downward, her parted lips grew white, and closed slowly together. The life seemed freezing in her young veins.

"Come, and you shall see, Isabel, it is like sleep, only more beautiful," and Mary drew the heart-stricken child into the chamber of death.

Chilled with grief and shivering with awe, Isabel gazed upon her father, the tears upon her cheek seemed freezing; a feeble shudder passed over her limbs, and after the first long gaze she turned her eyes upon Mary with a look of helpless misery. Mary wound her arms around the child, her tears fell like rain, while the expression that lay upon her lip was full of holy sweetness.

"Isabel, dear, let us kneel down and say our prayers, he will know it."

"I can't, I am frozen." Isabel shook her head.

"Don't—don't, heaven is but a little way off," answered Mary: "you and I have both got a father there now!"

The two little girls knelt down together, and truly it seemed as if that marble face smiled upon them.

The door was closed between them and the outer room where the boy sat. He heard the low tone of their voices; he heard sobs and a passionate outbreak of sorrow; these ebbed mournfully away, and then arose a low silvery voice, deep, clear, angel-like, and with it came words—simple in their pathos—such as springs from the heart of a child when it overflows with love and tears. The boy bent his head reverently; his meek blue eyes filled with unshed drops; he sunk to his knees and wept, softly, as he listened.

Thus the children were found a little time after, when an undertaker came by orders of the Chief of Police to prepare the dead for honorable burial. Following his example, a few noble fellows about his office had contributed out of their pay, and thus poor Chester was saved from a pauper's grave.

A little before night they carried Chester out through the hall that his light foot had trod so often. Behind him went the two little girls, hand in hand, looking very sorrowful but weeping no longer. Upon Mary's head was an old but well kept mourning bonnet—a little too large—which Joseph had brought down from the scant wardrobe of his aunt, and around Isabel's little straw cottage lay a band of black crape, which had served her as a neck-tie. The boy watched them from the window while these mournful objects could be seen, and then crept to his own home.

Surely Mary Fuller's father was right when he said that no human being was so weak or poor that she could not contribute something to the happiness of others. With an old black bonnet, and a scrap of sable crape, Joseph had managed to comfort the two orphan girls as they went forth on their mournful duty. Now he was ready for a braver work. As the limbs grow sinewy and powerful by muscular action, so the soul becomes stronger with each beneficent act that it performs. Joseph began to feel this truth and his whole being brightened under it.

As Joseph went up stairs he met his father coming in from the street. The old man looked tired and disappointed, for he had been walking all the morning in search of Mrs. Chester; but having obtained no trace of her, came home disconsolate.

"You are tired, father, come up and rest; this is too much for you; keep quiet, and let me go."

"But what can you do, Joseph, without hardly knowing a street in the city, and so much weaker than I am?"

"Did you go to the Mayor's?" questioned the boy, without answering.

"Did I go to the Mayor!—I to James Farnham!" exclaimed the artist almost sternly. "No, not for the whole universe."

The artist checked himself, and added—"What could I have done with him?"

"He is head of the police, Mrs. Chester told me, and might have put you in the way of tracking her, poor lady. I would not go to him after his cruelty; but that handsome young man, I know he would help me."

"Yes, yes," exclaimed the artist with animation, "go to him; he is noble-hearted, God bless the boy, go to him, Joseph."

"The last time he was here, father, you were not at home; but he made me promise to find him out if anything happened, especially if we found it hard to get along without your working too hard for your eyes."

"Did he? Heaven bless the boy."

"Why father, you seem to love him so much, almost more than you love me," said the boy with a faint pang. "Don't do that father, for he has so much, and I have nothing in the wide world but my father!"

"No, no, I don't love him so much—not more than his bright goodness deserves, Joseph; but you are my son—my only son sent to me from your sweet mother's death-bed—how could I love anything so well!"

"Forgive me, father," cried the boy, and his blue eyes sparkled through pendent tears. "Forgive me; I was jealous only a little, and it is all gone; I will go and tell Frederick that you want him to help me!"

"But you are weak, my boy."

"No, father, Mary Fuller has shamed my weakness all away. She is no stronger than I am, but what would that poor family do without her? I will never be so feeble again."

"Yes I will go and rest, and these boys shall do my work," said the old man proudly; "they will find her, together, I think; I could do nothing."

"We will find her, never fear," answered Joseph hopefully and putting on his straw hat he went out.



CHAPTER XII.

THE MAYOR AND HIS SON.

Nature hath many voices, and the soul Speaks, with a power, when first it feels the thrill Of buried Love. Then breaking all control, She claims her own, against man's haughty will.

The Mayor was alone in his office—alone with his conscience. Cold as he had seemed, the face of that murdered man haunted him. There was no subterfuge for his conscience; now it was wide awake, stinging him like a serpent. The sensation was so new, that the Mayor writhed under it in absolute anguish; his hand was lifted to his forehead unconsciously, as if to hide the brand of Cain, that seemed to be burning there.

This was a sudden shock of conscience that he could neither shake off nor endure. His act of injustice against the man Chester had been followed so close by his death, that with all his subtle reasoning he could not separate the two events in his mind. He began to wonder about the family so terribly bereaved, and more than once the form of Mary Fuller rose before him, with her little hand extended, exclaiming, "He died of a broken heart—he died of a broken heart."

The Mayor almost repeated these words with his lips, for his conscience kept echoing them over and over, till they haunted him worse even than that pale dead face.

As he sat with one hand shrouding his forehead, the office door opened, and a boy stood in the entrance.

A strange thrill rushed through every nerve and pulse of Farnham's frame, even before he looked up. It seemed as if a gush of pure mountain wind had swept in upon him when he was struggling for breath.

It was a strange thing, but Farnham did not remove the hand from his forehead, even when he looked up, and when his eyes fell upon the gentle boy that stood with his straw hat in one hand, and his soft golden hair falling in waves down his shoulders—for Joseph followed the artistic taste of his father—the hand was pressed more tightly, and the proud man felt as if he were thus concealing the stain upon his brow from those pure blue eyes.

As Joseph looked at the Mayor, whose sternness had all departed, the small hand that grasped the rim of his hat began to tremble, and an expression full of gentleness shone over his face.

"I beg pardon, sir," he said, and the strong man was thrilled again by his voice, "but I wish to see your son, and thought perhaps you would be good enough to tell me where I can find him."

"My son, my son!" repeated the Mayor, with a sort of tender exclamation. "Oh, I had forgotten, you wish to see Frederick."

"Yes, Frederick," said the boy.

"He is at home—at least I think so," answered Farnham, speaking with kindly respect, as if he had not regarded the torn hat and humble garb in which his visitor came, but thought it the most natural thing in life that a boy like that should inquire thus familiarly after his son, "I am almost certain that Fred is at home."

"I do not know where he lives," said the lad, hesitating, and drawing a step forward as if held in that presence by some irresistible influence.

"Indeed," said the Mayor, holding out his hand, "but you know my son!"

Joseph came forward and placed his little slender hand in that so irresistibly, as it seemed, held towards him. The same tremor, too keen for pleasure and too exquisite for pain, ran through the proud man and the gentle boy while their fingers came lovingly together.

"He visits us sometimes, and you cannot think how much my father loves him."

"But he must love you better," said Farnham, sweeping his hand down the boy's golden hair with caressing gentleness.

"I don't know," said Joseph with a faint sigh, "but he loves me a great deal, I am sure of that!"

"And where do you live?" questioned Farnham, rather as an excuse to keep the boy's hand in his, than from a desire for information.

Joseph mentioned the street and number of his residence.

The Mayor started. "Great Heavens, you cannot be his child?"

"Who are you speaking of?" inquired Joseph.

"Is—is—was your father's name Chester?"

The tears rushed into Joseph's eyes. He drew his hand suddenly from the Mayor's clasp, and his voice was broken as he answered:

"No, sir, it was my father's best friend that you killed!"

Farnham fell back in his chair, his hand dropped heavily upon the table, he strove to disclaim the guilt so mournfully imputed to him, but his eyes fell, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. The strong man was dumb in the presence of that rebuking child.

"I must go now," said Joseph, moving backward, "Mrs. Chester is lost, and we must find her."

The Mayor did not hear him; he did not even know when the lad glided from his office; the last words had stunned him.

After a little he looked up and saw that Joseph was gone. As if drawn by some powerful magnetic force, he arose, took his hat and followed the lad.

Joseph was half across the park, but Farnham saw him at once, and followed with a sort of hushed feeling, as the wise men looked upon the star which led them to a Saviour.

Meantime, Fred Farnham had heard of Chester's death and was preparing to go out, hoping to give some comfort to his family. To this end he had gone to his mother for money. The Chesters had refused aid of him before, but now he was resolved to deceive them into accepting it through his Uncle Peters.

"What do you want money for, Fred—twenty dollars—if you are in for a champagne supper or something of that sort, I don't mind; but I must know where the money goes?"

Mrs. Farnham was arranging a tiny French cap on the back of her head, as she made these motherly demonstrations, and its graceful lightness threw her into a charming state of liberality.

"As a mother, you know, Fred, I am bound to see that the money which you ask rather liberally, I must say, is judiciously spent; now tell me where this is going?"

"I intend to help a poor family, who have been wronged and are in trouble," said the generous boy.

Mrs. Farnham closed her pearl portmonnaie with a fierce snap of the clasp.

"Frederick," she said, with a degree of energy that made the delicate spray in her cap tremble, as if it shared her indignation, "I cannot encourage this extravagance, you are getting into low society, sir, and—oh! Fred, you will break your mother's heart if you persist in following after these low people."

"Why, they live in the house with my Aunt Peters, mamma."

"There it is—I do believe you intend to drive me into hysterics; will you never learn that your Aunt Peters is not to be spoken of, and only visited in a quiet way? There is a medium, Fred, a medium, do you comprehend?"

"But what has my Aunt Peters done?"

"She has been ungrateful, Fred, so very ungrateful after I gave up—that is, after I set them up in business; she would keep claiming me as a sister, just as much as ever. Oh! it is heart-rending to know that my own son is encouraging this impertinence."

"Will you give me a portion of the money, ten dollars? I shall be very grateful for that."

"Not a shilling, sir," exclaimed the lady, putting the portmonnaie into the pocket of her rustling silk-dress; "I will not pay you for going among poor people and degrading yourself; only keep a proper medium, my son, and you have a most indulgent mamma, but without that I'm granite."

A very soft and unstable sort of granite the lady seemed, as she shook her head and rustled across the room, repeating the hard word, more and more emphatically, as Frederick resumed his pleading.

Whether the granite would have given way at last, it is impossible to guess; for while Fred was urging his request with the eloquence of desperation, the street-door opened, and the tall gentleman, whom we have met in the tea-room, as the Mayor's guest, was seen in the hall.

"Do be quiet, Fred, here is Judge Sharp," said Mrs. Farnham, fretfully; "I won't be teased in this way about a parcel of vagabonds!"

Fred Farnham was a passionate boy, and he stood with burning cheeks and flashing eyes in the midst of the floor when the country-gentleman came in.

"I will go to my father, then, or pawn my watch—something desperate I'm sure to do," he muttered, walking to a window and half-concealing himself behind the waves of crimson damask that swept over it.

Mrs. Farnham shook her head at him, reprovingly, as she advanced to receive her visitor, with a torrent of superficial compliments and frothy welcomes.

Before the Judge could recover from this overwhelming reception, the door-bell rang, and a boy was admitted to the hall.

Frederick had seen the new-comer through the window, and went eagerly forward to meet him, at which his lady-mother drew herself up with imposing state, and called out—

"Frederick Farnham! will you never learn the just medium proper to your father's position?"

Frederick did not heed this remonstrance, but, after a few eager words in the hall, came forward, leading Joseph Esmond by the hand. The boy had taken off his straw-hat, and the entire beauty of his countenance, shaded by that rich golden hair, was exposed to the best advantage, notwithstanding his poverty-stricken garments; even the volubility of Mrs. Farnham was checked, as her eyes fell upon that delicate face. She caught the glance of those large blue eyes, and ceased speaking. It was the greatest proof of interest possible for her to exhibit.

Fred led his friend directly up to his mother.

"This is the boy—this is Joseph, dear mother; he tells me that those two little girls are suffering—that they have not a cent to get food with; now will you refuse me?"

Mrs. Farnham kept her eyes bent upon Joseph.

"What is it you have been telling my son about these poor people?"

"Oh, they have suffered so much, Madam—not a morsel to eat nor a house to rest in when they come home from poor Mr. Chester's funeral; but worst of all, the good lady who was so very, very ill, has got up when the girls were out, and gone away. She wasn't in her head, ma'am, raving with fever, and may be killed in the street."

It seemed impossible to look into those pleading eyes, and resist them. Mrs. Farnham took out her portmonnaie again, rather ostentatiously, for vanity always mingled with the best feelings and most trivial acts of her life.

"There," she said, presenting a bank-note to the lad, "take this, and give it to the poor family," and she looked consequentially round upon the stranger, as if to claim his approbation for her charity.

The Judge smiled rather constrainedly, and Mrs. Farnham added, turning to Joseph,

"See now that the money is spent for comforts, nothing else; I would have given it to you, Fred, only as I was saying, there is a medium to be observed—you will remember, my boy."

Joseph's eyes shone like sapphires.

"I will give it to your sister, Mrs. Peters, ma'am; she lives down stairs in the same house, and will take care of it for the little girls," he said, giving a terrible blow to Mrs. Farnham's pride, in the innocence of his gratitude.

Mrs. Farnham blushed up to the temples, shaded by her pale, flaxen curls, at this exposure, and the Judge smiled a little more decidedly, which turned the mean crimson of her shame into a flush of anger.

"You are a very forward little boy," she was about to say, but the words faltered on her lips, and she merely turned away, overwhelming poor Joseph with her stateliness.

"Mother, I am going with him to look for this poor lady," exclaimed Frederick. "The police must help us."

"You will do no such thing," answered Mrs. Farnham, sharply; "I declare, sir, the boy torments my life out with his taste for running after low people."

"They are not low people."

Fred broke off abruptly, for his father entered very quietly, and with a look so at variance with his usual cold reserve, that even his vixenish and very silly wife observed it.

"What is the matter?—you have been walking home in the heat!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Farnham, will you never remember that there is a medium?"

For once Farnham deigned to answer his wife.

"I walked very slowly, and am not tired," he said, "but what is this? what is it Frederick proposes to do?"

"Mrs. Chester has escaped from her house, sir, in a raving fever, and cannot be found. I was going with Joseph, here, to search for her," answered Frederick, looking anxiously into his father's face.

"What, another!" muttered the Mayor, with a pang of remorse. "Yes, go my son, I will help you; the whole police shall be put on the search if necessary."

Joseph lifted his eyes to the Mayor as he was speaking, and as Farnham caught the look, a smile broke over his face, one of those powerful smiles that transfigure the very features of some men.

"Thank you! oh! thank you!" exclaimed the boy, "we shall find her now."

Here Judge Sharp stepped forward and held out his hand, for the Mayor had not seen him till then.

"Let me go with these young people, perhaps I can help them better than the whole police," he said, kindly.

"I wish you would," answered the Mayor, "for I feel very strangely to-day." He certainly was pale, and seemed much shaken, as if some powerful feeling had seized upon his vitality.

"Then I will leave you to your wife, while I go with these boys on their merciful errand," said the Judge. "Come, my lads."

"One moment," said the Mayor, taking Joseph by the hand, while he led him away from the group, and whispered in his ear. His lips were pale with intense feeling, as he listened for the answer.

"My name is Joseph Esmond, that is his name also."

"I knew it—I was sure of it," muttered Farnham, and he sat down in an easy chair, and watched the boy wistfully as he left the room.

God had reached the conscience of that man at last, and his granite heart was breaking up with the force of old memories and sudden remorse. That day, his past and present life had been linked forcibly together. The shock made him look inward, and he saw clearly that the hard, barren track of politics had led him to become a murderer. The law did not recognize this, but his soul did.



CHAPTER XIII

JANE CHESTER AND THE STRANGER.

Disease, thou art a fearful thing When, half disarmed by household care, Thou sweepest with thy poison wing, O'er the loved forms to which we cling, And bending to the sweet and fair, Leav'st thy corroding mildew there!

But if thou treadst the plundered track, Where poverty has swept before, Leaving his victim on the rack, Then, then, thou art a demon black, That steals within the poor man's door. Crushing his hopes forevermore!

And Jane Chester—where was she while strangers were bearing away the husband of her youth to his lone grave? Amid her fever that day, amid all her delirium, one idea had been vivid and prominent before her. The woman's heart remained true to its anchorage amid the storm and fire of approaching ship-fever. Long after reason had failed, the love that was stronger than reason told her that some great evil was befalling her husband. Time was to her a vague idea; she thought that he had been gone for weeks—that he was seeking for her and the children along the wharves and in the dim alleys of the city, and that the Mayor had forbidden him to come home. She would find him—she would take food and clean garments to him in the street. He should not wander there so poverty-stricken and neglected, without her. In defiance of the Mayor, in defiance of the whole world, she would go to him.

This thought ran through her burning brain, and trembled wildly on her tongue. Her husband—her husband—he could not come to her, and she must go to him. But the two little girls—they appeared to her like guards—great gaunt creatures dressed in fantastic uniform, stationed by her bed to coerce and frighten her. They held her back; they seemed to smother her in the bed-clothes, and gird her head down to the pillow with the hot clasp of their united hands. Those two little creatures became to her an object of terrible dread. She longed for strength to tear them down from the towering altitude which her imagination gave, and blindfold them, as they, in her wild fancy, had blindfolded her with their scorching hands.

She saw little Mary Fuller put on her hood and go forth with a thrill of insane delight. That wild, uncouth form had seemed far more terrible than the other, and yet now the petite figure of her own child seemed to rise and swell over her like a fiend.

"Ice—ice!"

She knew, in her delirium, that this cry sometimes sent her dreaded jailors from the room. If they were absent, she could find her clothes—she could steal softly down stairs, and away after him.

"Ice—ice!" she cried, "I will drink nothing unless the ice rattles in the glass—cold, cold. It must be cold as death, I say."

Isabel rose up in terror, and taking their last sixpence, went forth for the ice. Then the mother laughed beneath the bedclothes—alone, all alone. She started up—tore off her cap and her night-dress, and thrust her unstockinged feet in a pair of slippers that stood near the bed.

Several dresses hung in the room. With her eager and burning hands she took them down, cast all but one on the floor, and put that on, laughing low and dismally all the while. A bandbox stood at the foot of the bed. She crept to it, took out a bonnet, and drew it with her trembling hands over the disordered masses of her hair, which she tried vainly to smooth with her hot palms. Strong with fever, wild with apprehension that her guard might return, the poor woman arose to her feet, and after steadying herself by the door-frame awhile, staggered from the room down the stairs and into the broad city.

Filled with the one idea, that of finding her husband, she passed on, turning a corner—another, pausing now and then by an iron railing, to which she clung, with a desperate effort to keep herself upright.

Many persons saw her as she passed, reeling in her walk, and with her sweet face flushed crimson; but, alas! these sights are not uncommon in our city, from causes far more heart-rending than illness, and with passing wonder that a person of her appearance should be thus exposed at mid-day. Those who noticed her went by, some smiling in scorn, others filled with such pity as the truly good feel for erring humanity. But the poor invalid tottered forward, unconscious of their pity or their scorn. She had but one object—one fixed thought among all the wild ideas that floated through her brain—her husband. She was in search of him, and, in her fever-strength, she walked on and on, murmuring his name over and over to herself, as a lost child mutters the name of its parents.

At last, her strength gave way. She was upon a broad sidewalk, to which the granite steps swept down from many a lordly mansion. Her head reeled; the sunshine fell upon her eyes like sparks of fire; she clung to an iron balustrade, swung half round with a feeble effort to sustain herself, and sunk upon the pavement, moaning as she fell.

Many persons passed by the poor invalid as she lay thus helpless upon the stones. At last, one more thoughtful and more humane than the rest, bent down and spoke to her. She opened her eyes, looked at him with a dull, vacant gaze, and besought him, in husky tones, to go away and tell Chester that she was there, waiting. The man saw that she was suffering, and, let the cause be what it might, incapable of moving. He called to a woman, who was passing by with a basket on her arm, and gave her a shilling to sit down and hold the invalid's head in her lap, while he went for help.

"She may be only ill," said the benevolent Samaritan to the officer of police, whom he met on a corner. "There is no look about her of habitual intemperance; at any rate, she cannot be hardened."

The officer followed this kind man, and they found Mrs. Chester moaning bitterly, and much exhausted by the exertion she had made.

"It is a singular case," said the policeman, "her language is good, her appearance might be ladylike. But, see." The man pointed with a meaning smile at the symmetrical feet in their loose slippers. The blue veins were swelling under the white surface, and there was a faint spasmodic quiver of the muscles that seemed to spread over her whole frame.

"I can hardly believe that this is intoxication," said the stranger, gazing compassionately on the prostrate woman. "She must be ill—taken down suddenly in the street."

"But how came she barefooted? and her hair, it has not been done up in a week? I'm afraid we can't make out a clear case, sir."

"But where will you take her?"

"Home, if she can tell us where it is—to the Tombs, if she is so far gone as not to know," replied the man.

"The Tombs!"

"Oh, that is the City Prison, sir."

"I know, but the City Prison is no place for a person like this!"

"Well, if you can point out anything better."

"If I had a home in the city, this poor creature should never sleep in a prison," was the answer.

"Oh, I thought you must be a stranger," was the half compassionating reply. "It takes some time before one gets used to these sights, but they are common enough, I can tell you, sir. Now let us see if she can be made to comprehend what we say."

With that sort of half-contemptuous interest with which the insane are sometimes cajoled, the policeman began to question the invalid; but she only asked him very earnestly if her husband had come; and turning her face from the hot sunshine that was pouring upon her, began to complain piteously that they had laid her down there to be consumed by a storm of fire-flakes that was dropping upon her neck and forehead.

"You see the poor creature can tell us nothing; she is quite beside herself," said the policeman. "I must take her to the prison—it is the best I can do—to-morrow her friends may claim her, perhaps. At the worst she will only be committed for a day or two."

"Wait here," said the stranger, hurriedly, "wait till I get a carriage; she must not be taken through the streets in this state," and the kind man went off in haste.

The officer looked after him smiling.

"You might know that he was from the country, poor fellow," he muttered, turning his back upon the sun, and good-naturedly sheltering Mrs. Chester from its rays. "After all, I hope he is right; there is something about her that one does not often meet with! upon my word I hope she is only sick."

The stranger came back with a carriage, a showy and rather expensive affair, the cushions covered with fresh linen, and the driver quite an aristocrat in his way.

"So that is the fun, is it?" he said, eyeing poor Mrs. Chester with a look of superb disdain. "I don't, as a usual thing, take people up from the sidewalks in this carriage, my good friend."

"But I will pay you—I have paid you in advance," urged the stranger.

"Not for a job like this. Gentlemen who have an interest in keeping these little affairs quiet, should be ready to pay well—couldn't think of starting without another dollar at the least!"

"There is the dollar—now help lift the lady in!"

"The lady—a pretty place this for a lady!" muttered the man, dismounting from his seat with a look of magnificent condescension, and approaching Mrs. Chester.

"Gently—lift her with great care!" said the stranger, placing his arm under Mrs. Chester's head. "There, my good woman, get in first, and be ready to receive her."

The poor woman who had given her lap to the invalid as a pillow, attempted to get up, but the driver, after eyeing her from head to foot, turned to the stranger:

"I couldn't think of taking in that sort of person; the sick woman seems clean enough; but, as for the other, she'll have to walk if she goes at all! Carriages wasn't made for the like of her."

The noble face of the stranger flushed with something akin to indignation, but, relinquishing Mrs. Chester to the policeman, he stepped into the carriage, and received the poor invalid in his own arms.

The policeman had become more and more charitable in his opinion of the unhappy lady. He hesitated a moment, with his hand on the carriage window.

"I say, sir, there does seem to be a doubt if this poor lady is not really ill. Perhaps, you might as well take her to the Alms House Commissioner first. He may think it right to send her up to the Hospital, and, then, she need not go before a magistrate."

"And can we do this? can she be taken directly to a hospital?"

"If the Commissioner pleases, he has the power to send her there at once."

"Then order the man to drive to the Commissioner's office," cried the stranger, eagerly. "I thought that in this great city the unfortunate might find shelter short of a prison. Tell him to drive on."

The door was closed; the carriage moved on; and in it sat the generous stranger, with the head of that poor invalid resting on his shoulder, supporting her with all the benign gentleness of a father. He felt that the hot breath floating across his cheek was heavy with contagion; he knew that fever raged and burned in the blue veins that swelled over those drooping arms and the unstockinged feet, but, he neither shrank nor trembled at the danger. Possessed of that pure and holy courage which tranquilly meets all peril when it presents itself—a courage utterly beyond that selfish bravado which mocks at death and exults in carnage—he scarcely gave his own position a thought. Bravery, with this man, was a principle, not an excitement. He was fearless because he was good; and, from this cause, also, was kindly and unpretending.

The carriage drew up in Chambers street, not far from the place where the cart had stood with poor Chester's body upon it, not an hour before. The stranger composed Mrs. Chester on the seat, and placed a cushion against the carriage for her head to rest on; then, opening a gate, he hurried through the narrow flower-garden that ran between the old Alms House and Chambers street, crossed through one of those broad halls to be found in the basement, lined on each side with public officers, and, mounting half a dozen steps, he found himself in the Park. An Irish woman sat upon the steps of the nearest entrance, holding a forlorn bundle in her lap, and with a ragged baby playing with its little soiled feet on the pavement before her. This woman turned her head, and nodded toward the door when he inquired for the Commissioner's office, then bent her eyes again with a dead heavy gaze upon the pavement. The stranger, mounting the steps, found himself in a place utterly new and bewildering to him.

It happened to be "pay-day" for the out-door poor, and, into the ante-room of the Alms House, the alleys, rear buildings and dens of the city, once a fortnight, pour forth their human misery. The room was nearly full, and, amid this mass of poverty—such as he, fresh from the pure country air, had never even dreamed of—the stranger stood overpowered.

There is something horrible in the aspect of poverty when it reaches that low and bitter level that seeks relief in the lobby of an Alms House! The stranger looked around, and the philanthropy within him was put to its severest test. For the first time in his whole life he saw poverty in one dark, struggling mass clamoring for money! money! money! coarse, grasping poverty, such as crushes and kills all the honest pride of man's nature.

The room, large as it was, appeared more than half full, and not a single happy face was there. At the upper end was a platform, reached by two or three steps, and fenced in by a low wooden railing, along which ran a continuous desk. At this desk half a dozen clerks and visitors sat, with ponderous and soiled books spread open before them.