The last boat was ready to put off when these children reached the shore. They sat down close together, without much apparent emotion. Their energies were completely prostrated; they had lost, almost, the power to suffer or to weep.

"We were ordered to leave you at the nurseries. Do you wish to go there?" inquired the captain.

Isabel looked at him vacantly, and Mary answered,

"We do not know."

"Would you not rather go back to the city, or to Bellevue?" persisted the man, determined to force them into conversation; but still the child answered,

"We do not know."

This mild and passive sorrow was more touching than their worst agony had been. They seemed like two wounded birds bleeding to death without a struggle.



CHAPTER XX.

THE FATHER'S PROPHECY—THE DAUGHTER'S FAITH.

Oh, faith, how beautiful thou art! Like some pure, snowy-breasted dove, Nested within that gentle heart, Ye filled its softest pulse with love.

Just where the banks of the East River are the most broken and picturesque on the New York shore, and the sunny slopes of Long Island are most verdant in their Arcadian beauty, the river opens its bright waters, and Blackwell's Island rises, green and beautiful, from its azure bosom. Years ago, when this gem of the East River was a private estate, with only one dwelling-house to break its entire seclusion, it must have seemed like a mile's length of paradise dropped into the water. Then, its hollows were fragrant with wild roses, haunted by blackbirds and thrushes. Its shores were hedged in by the snow-white dogwood, wild cherry and maple trees, laced together with native grape-vines and scarlet creepers, that, even a year or two back, hung along its shores, like torn banners left upon a battle-field. Blackwell's Island had other inhabitants than the singing birds and the sweet wild blossoms, when the orphans first landed there. Then its extremities were burdened to the very water's edge, with edifices of massive stone, where human crime and human misery were crowded together in masses appalling to reflect upon.

On one end of the island, naturally so quiet and beautiful, rose the rugged walls of the Penitentiary, flanked by outhouses, hospitals and offices, every stone of which was eloquent of human degradation. Here, a thousand wretched men, bowed with misery and branded with crime, were crowded together. All the day long, herds of these degraded beings might be seen in their coarse and faded uniform, burrowing in the earth, blasting and shaping the rocks that were to form new prison-walls, and filling the sweet air with groans and curses, which once thrilled only to the songs of summer-birds.

At the other extremity of the island stood the Insane Asylum, a beautiful pile, towering over a scene of misery that should fill the heart with awe. There is, perhaps, no spot of its size, throughout the length and breadth of our land, where every variety of human suffering is so closely condensed as it has been for years on this island. The moment your foot touches the shore you feel oppressed with feelings that seem inexplicable. Pity, horror, and a painful blending of both, crowd upon the heart with every breath you draw. Nothing but the air seems free; nothing but the blue sky above seems pure, as you walk from one scene of distress to another. You feel the more oppressed because human effort seems so powerless to alleviate the misery you witness; for who can minister to a mind diseased? What can take away the deformity and sting of guilt? Where lies the power to lift poverty from the degradation that the haughty and evil spirit of man has flung around it? The very heart grows faint as it beats in this wilderness of woe, and finds no fitting answer to questions like these.

But at the time these events happened there was one remnant of beautiful nature left on Blackwell's Island—one spot where the flowers were permitted to bloom in the pure breath of heaven—where the trees were yet rooted to the earth, and filled as of old, with the music of summer birds. On the very centre of the island stood an old mansion house, the residence of its proprietor before the paradise became city property. It was a rambling old building, with wings of unequal length shaded with magnificent willows, and surrounded by shrubbery, and pretty lawns, interspersed with fine old trees. Terraces beautifully lifted from the water's edge; and gravel walks, bordered with the thickest and heaviest box-myrtle, with here and there a grape arbor spanning them with its leafy arch, sloped with picturesque beauty to the river which washed both sides of the island. A neglected and rude old place it was, but perhaps the more lovely for that. Neglect only seemed to give richer luxuriance to every thing around; the hedges and rose-thickets were tangled together. Great snow-ball trees, trumpet vines and honeysuckles seemed to shoot out more rigorously from want of pruning, and the trees had become majestic with age.

From the broad hall you might see the river on either hand, gleaming through the spreading branches. Now and then a snow-white sail glided by, and at sunset the water seemed heaving up waves of gold wherever your eye turned.

This was the Children's Hospital. In the low chambers, and the fine old fashioned rooms, from two hundred and fifty to three hundred children lay upon their little cots, in all stages of suffering to which infancy is subject. It was a painful scene—those helpless little creatures, orphaned, or worse than orphaned, in the morning of life, wearing such looks of pain, and yet so patient. God help them!

It was a touching sight to watch the brightening of those little faces, whenever the good matron passed into the wards ministering to their comfort—poor things—by a kind look and soothing word, where medicine might often less avail. Strange manifestations of character might be witnessed among those little creatures—fortitude that might shame a warrior—patience the most saintlike; and again—but why dwell upon the evil that sometimes exhibits itself fullgrown, in the heart of an infant?

If cries of bitter passion sometimes arose from those little couches they came, alas! from hearts that had never learned that unrestrained passion was a sin. If fierce words were wrung from those infant lips, it was that anger, not kindness had been showered on them from the cradle. To some of these little creatures oaths had been familiar as caresses are to the infancy of others. Such was their household language.

To this place, so beautiful in itself, so full of painful associations, Isabel Chester was brought in less than a week after her mother's burial. Since that day she had drooped like a broken lily. The terrible grief to which her delicate nature had bent and swayed like a reed; the sudden change from a home of quiet and tranquil love, to the most bitter solitude known to the human heart—that of a crowd—had completely prostrated the orphan. A slow fever preyed upon her; she could not speak without feeling the hot tears gush from her eyes.

In this state she came under the observation of the Children's physician, and, touched with compassion, he took her to the Infant Hospital. Mary went also, for she too, was ailing, and the doctor saw that it would be cruelty to part them. At the hospital these helpless creatures had better food and more comfort than could be allowed them among the seven or eight hundred healthy children with which the nurseries on the Long Island shore were crowded. For days and weeks Isabel lay prostrate on her little cot. She had no settled disease. The child only seemed quietly fading away.

Mary Fuller never left her bed-side. She, too, was broken down with grief, and her wearied frame had lost all its power of endurance; but though the hand which held Isabel's drink trembled with weakness, the little creature never complained, nor ever acknowledged that she was ill enough to be in bed. Patient and sweet-tempered as an angel, she watched by the child of those who had done so much for her. The love and gratitude of her whole being seemed centered in that pale, but still lovely orphan.

At length all this patient love had its reward. Isabel was well enough to walk in the grounds, and with their feeble arms around each other, these children might be seen from morning till night, wandering along the shore, or sitting quietly beneath the grape-arbors that overlooked the water. To the other children they were always gentle and kind, but they had no companions, and they clung together with the deep trust and holy love of sisters. They had no future—those hopeless children. Chester had left no relatives that his child ever heard of, and his gentle wife had been an orphan. Mary Fuller possessed only her wretched, wretched mother.

But their gentleness, and Isabel's singular beauty, were sure to win them friends. The Physician and the matron began to love the little girls, and after a time they became the pets of the establishment. While the locks of the other children were cut close to the head, Isabel still possessed her long and flowing tresses. Day by day her exquisite beauty deepened into health again, and the pensive cast which grief had given to her features rendered them ideal as they were lovely.

But as Isabel grew better, Mary Fuller seemed to sink and droop in all her being. She was often found amid the shrubbery, weeping bitterly, and alone. Toward nightfall, and at early morning, she might have been detected stealing softly up the Hospital stairs, and away to a dim corner of the garret, with a handful of berries or a fragment of cake which the matron had given her during the day. Sometimes her voice, low and sweet, as if in tearful entreaties, floated along the garret, and then might have been heard another voice, sometimes rude, sometimes querulous, but very feeble, answering her with sharp reprimands. After this the child would come down in tears and steal away, as we have described, to weep alone.

Thus they entered upon sweet June, literally a month of roses at the Infant's-Hospital. The pale little invalids grew better that month, and were gathered beneath the huge old trees with their nurses, forgetting their pain in the sweet breath of the flowers; but that month, though the butterflies were numerous, and humming-birds came and went through the thickets like flashes from a rainbow, Mary Fuller was seldom abroad with the rest. More and more of her time was spent in the low, dim garret; but when she did come forth, those who observed her saw a new and tranquil light upon her face. She was sometimes seen to smile, as if a pleasant thought possessed her mind. Just before this, Mary had asked permission to carry away a little Bible from the matron's table. It was not brought back, but the matron only smiled, and never inquired the reason. She had learned to love and trust Mary Fuller.

There was a clergyman stationed at Blackwell's Island, to whose spiritual charge was given from four to seven hundred persons at the Penitentiary, four or five hundred of the insane, and nearly a thousand children, at the nursery and its hospital. The welfare of all these souls was entrusted to this meek Christian, and most faithfully has he performed the solemn duties of his office from that day to this. Always busy in behalf of the unhappy creatures, who, amid all their degradation, loved and respected him, always cheerful, always ready with his gentle word and consoling advice, he made this holy mission with the helpless and the prisoner the one great business of his life.

This good clergyman had a family to support on his miserable salary of three hundred dollars a year, voted him by a Common Council that spent ten thousand carousing in their tea-room. Had any one of those city fathers ever been up so early, they might often have seen this good man at daybreak toiling on foot to the city, or perchance miles away to some country town, in search of a service place for some repentant prisoner, or to carry a message from a sick child to its friends. In his gentle humility the good man never complained, never said that the pay awarded to his labors by the Common Council of our most wealthy city, was too little for his wants. You saw it in his garments. You might have read it in his meek sigh, when some object of compassion presented unusual claims to his charity; but in his speech and deportment he seemed ever grateful for the little that was given him. This true-hearted Christian remains upon his post to this day. If a single hundred dollars has been added to his yearly means of support, it was through the intercession of others, and from no discontent expressed by himself. Surely the reward of such men must be hereafter, or in the heaven of their own souls.

It was pleasant to see the eyes of those little children brighten, when the good clergyman entered the hospital. They were fatherless, and he was better than a father to them. They were sick, and he comforted them, even as our Lord comforted little children when they were brought to Him. His hand touched their pale foreheads caressingly; his mild voice sunk into their little hearts like dew upon a bruised flower. His very tread upon the stairs was a blessing to them; when they heard it, all unconsciously the little creatures would smile upon their pillows, and murmur over fragments of the Lord's Prayer, for with its holy language, his own lips had rendered most of them familiar.

To this brave Christian little Isabel and her friend had become greatly attached. He sat with them in the grape arbors; he helped them arrange bouquets for the sick children, and while they were busy at their sweet task, he, in his gentle way, would lead their thoughts from the flowers to the God who gives them to beautify the earth. At such times he would go quietly away, leaving the children happier and better, but without the slightest consciousness that they had been receiving religious instruction.

This was the man to whom Mary Fuller appealed one night, as he paused to speak with her in the garden-path that leads along the water.

"Oh! sir, I have been waiting for you here; I thought you would come this way," cried the child, placing her little hand in his, "I have something to tell you—something that makes me happy as a bird?"

"You look happy, my child, and you look good, too," said the clergyman, shaking her hand with a smile. "Come, now, tell me what it is."

"It is a long story, and one that would make you cry if you knew all. You are not in a hurry sir?"

"No, no! I am never in a hurry, my dear little girl, so if you have much to say come in here, and I will listen an hour if you like."

There was an old summer-house on the bank, dilapidated, and threatening to tumble over the declivity with the first rough wind. The clergyman led his little friend into this open building, and sat down upon the only entire seat that it contained.

The child sat by his side awhile, thoughtful and evidently striving to arrange her ideas.

"Do you remember, sir, a long time ago, when we first came here, you asked me about my father and mother? I told you that my father was dead, but I did not say much of my mother. Sir, she was a prisoner then, and I did not like to mention it; that perhaps was wrong, but I couldn't help being ashamed."

"There was nothing wrong in that feeling," answered the clergyman, gently.

"I am glad you think so," replied the child, "for now I am sure you will not want me to tell you all that has ever happened—how she took to drink when I was a little, little girl. She was not used to it, and I don't know how she was led away—for my poor father never talked of these things to me, but they killed him, sir—it broke his heart at last. One day—I was only seven years old then, but I remember it, oh! how well—she had been drinking, oh, she was dreadful always at those times. I don't know what I did, but I believe that I was only in her way as she crossed the floor—all that I can remember is, that she struck at me with her hand and foot. It seemed as if she had crushed me to the floor. The breath left my body—I was the same as dead for a long, long time."

"Poor child," murmured the clergyman, gazing upon the little creature with a look of profound compassion.

"When I came to myself, people thought I would never be good for anything again, and, sometimes, I thought so too, for after that I almost stopped growing, and all that was bright about me died away. I believe, after that, she hated me, sir."

Mary paused a moment, and went on.

"But my father, oh, he loved me better and better; he only wanted to live for my sake, he told me so many a time. My poor father was a good man, sir; as good as you are, as good as Mr. Chester was; but he was so unhappy that God was very kind not to let him live only for my sake. But, oh, sir, I was all alone when he went. I need not tell you how we lived. We were poor. You never, in your life, saw any persons so poor as we were, after father died. She would not work, and when I did not have enough to eat I couldn't do much. Oh, sir, it was a miserable life; now when I have told you so much, you will not want me to say any more about it than I can help."

"Say only what you wish, my child; I will listen."

"One night—she had been drinking night and day, for a week—two or three women had been in, and while they drank I sat in a corner longing for them to go. They quarreled; my mother struck one of the women, and while they were swearing dreadfully, a policeman came in. It was Mr. Chester—that was the first time I ever saw him. I have told you about him, and how his child, poor, beautiful Isabel, came here with me; but I did not tell you that the nurse at Bellevue was my own mother. The doctors found out that she had been drinking, and sent her away after that night. A few weeks ago she came up here to work for the children. Nobody knew that she was my mother, but, oh! sir, she looked very ill, and I said to myself when she passed me without a word, only with black looks—I said, she is ill, I will take care of her; I will go to her at night with nice things that the matron gives me to eat—I will do without them myself, and, perhaps, this will make her love me.

"I went up into the garret the first night, but she drove me away. I would not give up, but went again. She was very ill that night—living among that fever so long had poisoned all the pure breath she had left. She was crying when I went up to the bed; I knelt down by the bed and began to cry, too. She did not send me away. She did not strike me, though I thought it was for that when she lifted her hand, but she laid the hand on my head. Indeed she did, sir, and then I felt she might be my mother yet!"

The child paused; the big tears that welled up from her heart were choking her.

"I went to see her very often after that, for she was growing worse. I carried her nice things, and tried every way to make her love me. She was not always kind, but I didn't mind a little crossness now and then, for great hopes were in my heart. My father loved his wife, and I thought of him, and what a joy it would be if I, the poor thing he wanted to live for, could do something toward making her good enough to see him once more when she dies.

"Sir, may I ask you one question? If you want a thing very much, and think and pray for it—does not God, sometimes, bring it all about when you least expect anything of the kind? It seemed to me as if He had done it when my mother complained of being so lonesome up there in the Hospital garret, and wished that she had something to read. She was a great reader, sir, once. I went down stairs, trembling like a leaf, and got the matron's Bible. She did not say a word against it, and I read to her a long time. After that she would ask me to read, and every day as she grew weaker and weaker, I could see that she was growing better, too.

"At last I asked her if she would let me bring you up to see her, but she was vexed at the idea of a clergyman. Once or twice after that I mentioned it, but she still answered no. Last night, as I was saying my prayers by her bed, she began to cry softly, and then, sir, she rose up and kissed me on the forehead. Then I asked her again, and she said you might come—only she made me promise to tell you everything about her first. But for that I would not talk of my poor mother's faults, though it is only to you."

The child ceased speaking—she looked earnestly into the clergyman's face.

"You will not go home till you have seen her?" she said.

"No, my child, I only trust that my poor efforts may be blessed as yours have been," and the clergyman went into the Hospital, leading Mary by the hand. It was an hour before he left the building, and when he turned to shake hands with the little girl, you could see by the expression of his face that it had been an important and heart-rending hour to them all; over and over again did that good man's feet tread those worn stairs, and each time his face looked more thankful than it had done before. One evening he remained much longer than usual. Little Mary had been in the garret since morning, and here, about nine o'clock, the physician was called for the fourth time that day. He was absent but a few minutes.

"You had better go up," he said to the matron, who met him in the hall, "that poor woman is gone."

Mary Fuller turned her head as the matron came into that dimly-lighted garret. Tears stood on her cheek, but her eyes were radiant with holy light.

"Oh, madam, she was my mother! She kissed me! with her last breath she kissed me!"

"She died," said the clergyman, in his low mild voice, "she died with her arms round this little girl, calm and peaceful as a child."

"Go," said the matron, gently sending Mary to the stairs, "go, my child, to-morrow you shall see her again."

The child went down, not to weep as they supposed, for there was a higher and more holy feeling than grief in her young heart. She had found her mother.



CHAPTER XXI.

THE TWO OLD MEN

The past, sometimes, comes dimly back, Stealing like shadows on the brain; We see the ruins on its track, And feel the dead flowers bloom again.

Since the day of Chester's death, a great change had fallen upon the Mayor. He went to his office as usual, and performed its duties with habitual exactitude, but he never entered the Aldermen's tea-room again. When his political friends called upon him to accomplish any unfinished business, such as giving out contracts long before they were advertised by law—selling city property for a song to confederates, who were certain to allow a portion of the profits to flow back into greedy official pockets—or empowering some favorite to negotiate worthless real estate, and more worthless goods, for which the ever-enduring people were compelled to pay fabulous prices—for in all these things, directly or indirectly, he had been engaged—Farnham resolutely refused to enter into these transactions more.

He felt in the depths of his heart, that the demoralizing influences consequent upon those half-secret, half-audacious speculations had led him to the brink—nay, had actually plunged him into a great crime.

Again and again he had reconsidered the events of Chester's trial and death, following so closely on each other, with a hope of finding something that might remove the terrible responsibility from his conscience. But his stubborn and acute reason would not be convinced by the sophistry that had so often deceived the public. He had no power to blind his own conscience, and that told him, more and more loudly every hour, that his cruel acts had murdered a blameless fellow creature, directly almost as if the deed had been accomplished by a blow.

Yes, Joseph had uttered the right word—it was murder.

True there was no earthly tribunal to reach his impalpable crime, for the law recognizes only physical violence by which death is accomplished. But there is a just God, before whose high court, sooner or later, will be arraigned the bloodless murderer, whose dagger has been words—low whispers, and assassin machinations—or perchance neglect, and the sweeping back of warm affections on a true heart.

There the all-seeing One, who judges the thought as well as the act will make no distinction between life drained drop by drop from the soul, and that sent forth at a blow with the red hand.

These startling truths fastened themselves at last upon his conviction, breaking through his worldliness and all the hard accumulations which a life of underground politics had heaped upon a nature capable of great good.

It was not without a struggle that the Mayor had yielded himself to this true self-knowledge. But in vain he argued that he had not anticipated this fearful result, from proceedings that after all were only intended as the means of removing an obnoxious person from his path. In vain he reasoned with himself, "I did not wish the man's death, nor use means to bring it about." The fault lay in his own sensitive nature. But his reason answered back, neither does the man who commits murder in his hour of intoxication, mean to become inebriated or to take a human life when he lifts the first cup to his lip; yet even the law, that which takes hold only of actual things, deems this man guilty as if his soul had not been brutalized and made blind before the blow.

There might have been other influences besides poor Chester's death, that aided to accomplish this transfiguration of character; for as Farnham bent beneath the pressure of this truth, other impressions, perhaps not less potent because unrecognized, stole in upon him; angels sometimes come softly and fill a newly aroused soul with love, as the night sheds its dew on the green leaves of an oak, after the storm has passed by.

What was there in the appearance of Joseph to soften the self-upbraiding of this stern man? The boy's words had been, perhaps, the most severe reproof that he had ever met; but they called forth no bitterness. Instead of this arose an attraction so powerful that he could not resist it. Thus he had followed the lad to his own door, and afterwards would turn in the street and gaze on any boy of his size with a yearning desire to see him again.

But the gentle lad was at home, studying his father's beautiful art, and seldom went into the street. His life had always been so secluded that this one event was a great epoch, to which his mind was constantly going back. A spirit of loneliness came upon him after the little girls left the house, and at sunset he might sometimes be found almost in tears, homesick for a sight of them. A beautiful sympathy had sprung up between him and Mary Fuller that filled him with vague uneasiness.

Sometimes, too, he would think of the Mayor, so stern and cold to others, but so full of gentleness to him, and with the warm gratitude of youth he could not help looking forward to the time when he might visit Fred again, and thus see the man who had filled him with so much of terror unseen, and with such strange happiness after.

Once or twice he spoke of this in a timid way, but his father checked him almost with harshness, and with the reserve of a sensitive nature, he buried this strange feeling in his bosom till it became almost a want, which after a time was gratified.

One night, when he had spent the whole day in attempting to copy one of his father's pictures, while the old artist sat by, giving him such help as lay in his power, an unaccountable desire seized upon the lad, and he arose almost with tears in his eyes.

"Father," he said, with great earnestness. "Father I cannot hold the brush, my hand grows unsteady; please let me go and see Frederick; it seems to me as if some one there wanted me very much!"

"If Frederick wanted to see us, he would come here, I should think!" answered the father.

"I believe—I almost think that his father is sick," said Joseph.

"And how did you know this?" asked Mr. Esmond, rather sharply, for he seemed jealous of his son's interest in the Mayor's family.

"I don't know it—but it seemed to me all day yesterday and to-day, that something was the matter."

"And if there is, your mother's child—my child should not trouble himself about it!"

Joseph looked at his father in astonishment. These sharp words were so unlike his usual kindliness, that the lad was bewildered.

"I—I thought you liked Fred so much," he said, at last.

"But it is not Fred—it is his father you are thinking of, unnatural child that you are!"

"Father—oh, father!"

"There—there," said the old man, more gently. "I did not mean it. Go, my son if you wish, I will not stop you, but do not give much love to any one but your father, he has had so little, so very little on earth. Don't let this man get your heart away from me."

"Away from you, my own, own father?" said Joseph, grieved, and deeply hurt.

"Well—well, all this is foolish talk—but I am getting very childish. It ages one so to live alone, Joseph, you would not believe it, but I am a younger man by five years than the Mayor."

"The Mayor has grown very old since I first saw him father, you would be astonished!"

"Then you have seen him more than once?"

"Yes; he comes to Mrs. Peters, now, almost every day, and sometimes I see him."

"In this house—in this house!" exclaimed the artist, "to-morrow we will move—to-night, if another room can be got!"

As the old man spoke, a hesitating knock was heard at the door. Joseph and his father looked at each other wistfully; at length the boy stepped forward and turned the latch.

Mr. Farnham stood on the threshold. The artist drew his tall form up, and remained immovable, with his dark eyes fixed sternly on the Mayor's.

Joseph paused irresolute, with the last dying gold of sunset falling on his head, from a neighboring window.

The artist glanced from him to the Mayor, and a look of sudden pain swept across his face. It was a strange, jealous pang to strike a man of his age.

"Go," said the Mayor gently to the lad; "go, and leave us alone, I wish to speak with your father."

Joseph looked at his father questioningly.

"Go!" said the old man, in a voice so husky that he could only force himself to utter that single word.

Joseph went out, and those two old men—for the Mayor looked very old that night—sat down in the dim chamber, and talked together for the first time in their lives.

Joseph shut himself in the dark hall, and found a seat upon the stairs, filled with vague wonder; for his keen imagination seized upon this event, and his affectionate nature turned lovingly to the old men, whose voices came through the ill-fitting door in indistinct murmurs.

It must have been an hour when the door opened, and Joseph saw the Mayor and his father standing just within the room. The light from a tallow candle fell upon them from behind, striking their side faces with singular effect. Both were pale, but the cheek of the Mayor, on which the light lay strongest, glistened with moisture. Could it be that this was the trace of tears?—and, if so, what power had that humble artist, to make a man weep who had not been known to shed tears since his boyhood!

The artist too had a look of tender sadness on his face, as if all his deeper feelings had been moved.

The two old men—we call them old, but events rather than time had left hoary marks upon them—the two old men held each other by the hand; Joseph arose and drew back, that the Mayor might pass, but when he went by without a word, the boy was seized with a pang of disappointment, and followed him.

"Mayor," he said, "please won't you say good-bye to me, I have wanted to see you so much all day?"

The Mayor turned his face; the light from a street-lamp shone upon it, as he stood in the lower entrance. Surely there had been tears on that stern face.

"Yes," answered Mr. Farnham, looking into those deep earnest eyes, "I will bid you good-bye."

"Mr. Farnham," said Joseph, "won't you stay a little?"

The Mayor stepped back into the hall, but wavered in his walk, and supported himself by the lad. Joseph could feel that the hands which were laid on his shoulders trembled.

"Are you sick?" questioned the lad, with his forehead up lifted in reverential tenderness.

"Sick—no! I think it is not sickness, but, but"—

"Have I or father done anything to hurt you, sir?"

"Hurt me!—no, no—but Joseph you said once that I had murdered Mr. Chester, did you believe it?"

Joseph's head drooped forward. His eyes were suffused with sadness, he could not answer.

"Did you think so, Joseph?" repeated the Mayor, in a voice of strange solicitude.

"I thought so then, but now I am sure you could not have intended to do it."

"No!" answered the Mayor, impressively. "I did not intend it; when you think of me hereafter you will remember this—and remember too, my child, that when a man takes the first step toward an unjust act, he loses a great portion of his power to control the second—great crime grows out of small errors, my boy, remember that, and I charge you, repeat it to my son, when he has need of such warning."

"I will repeat it to him, as you wish me to, sir!"

"And now farewell."

Joseph felt a kiss quiver upon his forehead, like the touch of a spirit that had taken flight. He looked around, the Mayor was gone.

"Farewell—why did not he say good-bye—or good-night, Joseph? Farewell! that is a very solemn word. I wish he had not said farewell!"



CHAPTER XXII.

THE WALK AND THE WILL.

Now do I drop my heavy load of woe, As some wet mantle saturate with rain, And rise as a soft spirit that doth glow In rays of light beyond the realm of pain.

W. W. FORDICK.

The Mayor walked home very slowly, for remorse, while softening into penitence, had sapped the foundations of his life; and he had grown a feeble old man in so short a time, that those who look upon God as an avenger, rather than a chastiser, might have supposed that old age had fallen as a judgment upon him. But the All-wise one knows best how to redeem the souls he has created, and that weary man as he walked home in the darkness, was a thousand times more worthy of respect, than he had ever been in his whole lifetime before.

There was a private room in the lower story of his house, in which Mr. Farnham had usually received his constituents and persons who came to his residence on private business. It had been little used of late, for the routine of his old life was broken up, and when he went to this apartment, it was usually to be secure of the solitude which daily became more necessary to his habits of self-communion. That night he found company in the drawing-room. Mrs. Farnham had guests from the South; other friends were invited to meet them, and the lower portion of the house was in a blaze of magnificence. This scene was so at variance with his state of feelings, that the Mayor recoiled from its glitter, as the sick man shrinks from a noonday sun.

His wife, who was standing in the centre of a group near the door, resplendent with jewels and brocade, saw him pass through the hall, and playfully shaking her fan called after him.

Either he did not hear, or he did not heed her, and with the usual obstinacy of a silly woman, she called to her son and bade him go bring his father back.

Frederick went and found Mr. Farnham in his private room, looking cold and weary. The greatest retribution that had fallen upon this man for his evil act had been the effect it had produced upon his own son. Frederick had known and loved Chester. With his energy and quickness of character, it was impossible that he should not have gathered all the facts regarding his trial and death. The very silence which he maintained on the subject was a proof of this. His manner too had changed so completely that it was a constant reproach to the suffering man. There had always existed a certain reserve between the father and son, but now it amounted almost to coldness. Perhaps this repulsion had driven the unhappy man to seek sympathy in the child of another, for it became a weary trial to seek his home day after day, and find all affection chilled there.

That night Farnham's heart was softened toward the whole world, and most of all did he yearn for the old look of confidence from the now constantly averted eyes of his son. Just as these feelings were strongest in his bosom, Frederick entered the room where he sat. The Mayor looked up wistfully.

"My mother wishes me to call you, sir; she has company in the drawing room." The cold respectfulness of his manner fell like snow upon the Mayor.

"I cannot come, Frederick; tell your mother that I am not well enough for company," he said, so mournfully that the warm heart of the lad was touched.

"Are you really ill, father?" he said.

The Mayor could not answer. It was the first time that his son had called him father since Chester's burial.

The boy was struck by his silence.

"Tell me—speak to me father, are you ill?"

The Mayor held out his hands.

"Frederick!"

It was enough—the boy fell upon his knees and kissed those trembling hands.

"Father, forgive me, I had no right to make myself your judge."

"God bless you, my boy, and remember this night you have made your father very happy."

After Frederick left him, Mr. Farnham began to write. His strength had returned, and his whole energies of soul and body were concentrated in the work he was doing. After he had written an hour, pausing now and then in deep thought, there lay before him a legal document, carefully drawn up, which he read twice. Then he arose and rang the bell; a servant came, and he directed her to go to the drawing-room and tell two gentlemen who were his guests at the time, that he wished to see them. The gentlemen came up flushed and laughing. Champagne had freely circulated below, and they were in splendid spirits.

"I will only detain you a moment," said the Mayor, "but here is a document which requires witnesses. Will you sign it?"

The gentlemen laughed gaily.

The Mayor laid his finger on the signature. Again the gentlemen laughed.

"What is it, a marriage contract, or your last will and testament?" said one, delighted with his own wit.

"It is my last will and testament," answered the Mayor, quietly.

Again the men laughed; they did not believe him.

"Well, well, give us hold here, at any rate, we know it's all right, so here goes!"

They signed their names and went out laughing. The next morning they started South without seeing their host, and with a confused sense of what they had signed over night.

But with all these sources of agitation the Mayor was breaking down. He went up to his bed-room after signing the will, greatly exhausted. His wife passed through the room an hour after, and saw the document on the table. It was late, and she resolved to read it over at leisure in the morning before her husband was up; so dropping it quietly into her pocket she went up stairs.

Three days after the city was in mourning. The public building and military banners were all draped with black. It was the first time in years that a Mayor of New York had died in office, and the people were lavish of funereal honors to Farnham's memory.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE FESTIVAL OF ROSES.

A ring—a ring of roses, Laps full of posies; Awake—awake! Now come and make A ring—a ring of roses.

The month of June had littered its path with roses, and now came July, with its crimson berries, its ruddier blossoms, and its profuse foliage. On the Fourth of this luxurious month some gleams and glimpses of the great National Jubilee are sure to reach even the prisoners and the poor on Blackwell's Island. The sick children at the Hospital had a share of enjoyment; presents of toys, cake and fruit were liberally distributed. The grounds produced an abundance of flowers, and it was marvellous how these little creatures managed to amuse themselves. The matron, the nurses, and many of the little patients, were busy as so many bees that morning, before the sun had changed his first rose-tints to the shower of vivid gold with which he soon boldly deluged the water. Among the first and the busiest were Mary Fuller and Isabel. They sat beneath a great elm tree back of the Hospital, with a heap of flowers between them, out of which they twined a world of bouquets, fairy garlands, and pretty crowns. Half-a-dozen little girls, lame, or among the convalescent sick, volunteered to gather the flowers, and some of the larger boys were up among the branches of the elm tree, garlanding them with ropes of the coarser blossoms. The birds were in full force that morning, as became the little republican rovers, absolutely rioting among the leaves, and pouring forth their music with a wild abandon that made the foliage thrill again.

"Now, now the sun will be up in no time. Run, Isabel, with the flowers—here they are, a whole apron full—I will be tying up more while you leave these!" said Mary Fuller, heaping Isabel's apron with the pretty bouquets she had been preparing; "don't leave a pillow without them!"

Isabel gathered up her apron and ran into the house. Up the stairs she went with a fairy footstep, and glided into the wards. Stealing softly from one little cot to another, she left upon each pillow her pretty tribute, where the sick child was sure to see it the moment its languid eyes were unclosed. When her store was exhausted she ran down for more.

"Did any of them wake up? Did they see the flowers?" inquired Mary, eagerly.

"Some were awake—they hadn't slept all night, poor things—but the flowers made them smile," was the cheerful reply. "Come, fill my apron again, and give me those large ones, with the white lilies, for the mantel-pieces. Won't the doctor be astonished when he goes up? They're better than medicine, I can tell him."

Again Isabel's apron was heaped full, and again she glided, in all her bright, young beauty, through the sick wards. When she came down, an earthern pitcher, crowded with great white lilies, honeysuckles and sweetbriar, stood on the windows or mantel-pieces of every room. There was not a pillow without its pretty garland, or bouquet of buds, tied with the spray of some fragrant shrub. She had made the atmosphere of those sick wards redolent with fragrance.

"Now for the boys' hats!" said Mary, "here are plenty of soldier's feathers."

The boys cast down their straw-hats from the tree, shouting for her to make soldiers of them, each one clamoring for a red plume.

But the red hollyhocks did not quite hold out, so, perforce some of the slender plumes were of yellow, some of snow-white—for you never saw such hollyhocks as grew in the Hospital-gardens—and Mary had all variety of tints around her, even to some of a deep maroon.

When each straw hat had its plume, the little girls fell to ornamenting three or four large paper kites, and then they began forming garlands for their own heads. Mary twined a beautiful wreath of white clematis around the dark tresses of Isabel's hair.

"Nothing but white," she said with a gentle sigh, "for that is almost mourning."

The others arrayed themselves according to their own fancy, and when the sun rose high it kindled up a happy and picturesque group beneath that old elm tree.

A company of boys, with a red silk handkerchief streaming over them for a banner, their hollyhock plumes rising jauntily in the sunshine, the tallest mounting an epaulette of red, yellow, and purple flowers, marched out with gallant parade from the shelter of the old tree. Tin trumpets, an old milk pail, and various similar instruments, made the air ring again as this warlike band sallied forth.

A score of little pale creatures watched them from the Hospital stoop and the upper windows. Some of the boys were lame; some were blind; while others bore evidence of recent disease; but if they looked in these things like a company of volunteers returning from Mexico, it only gave them a more warlike appearance, and of this they were very ambitious.

Then the little girls began to seek their own amusements. They played "hide and seek," "ring, ring a rosy," and a thousand wild and pretty games; for the place was so beautiful, and the day so bright, the little rogues quite forgot that they were in the Poor House, or had ever been sick in the whole course of their lives.

Mary and Isabel were a little pensive at times, but when all the rest seemed so happy, they could not choose but smile with them—and so the Fourth of July wore over.

There was a great tumult and glorious time on Long Island shore that day. The children had a festival of flowers over there also; crowds of people were walking along the banks of the river; and you could see hundreds of gaily-dressed visitors landing every minute from the water, while the children huzzaed, and flung up their hats till you could hear them across the broad river. Still it is to be doubted if there was more real enjoyment among them than our little band of convalescents experienced among the flowery nooks of the old Hospital.

The hour for cakes and fruit to be served under the elm surprised our little warriors down by the river. When the signal was given, they marched along the broad walk, lined on each side with box-myrtle of twenty years' growth. They paraded superbly up the terrace steps—down again—through the grape arbors, and around the end of the Hospital, in gallant array, with colors flying, sixpenny trumpets blowing, and the tin pails doing their best to glorify the occasion.

Our little troop bivouacked under the old elm, amid a storm of fire-crackers, and a shout from the little girls. Here gingerbread and fruit were served, and the girls began their games again. Little Mary Fuller sat upon the grass, singing, while the rest formed a ring, darting, with their garlands and bouquets, like a chain of flowers, through an arch made by the uplifted hands of Isabel Chester and a little lame girl who could not run. Nothing on earth could be more beautiful than Isabel was just then, with the white spray dancing in her hair, a pleasant smile in her dark eyes, and the faintest rose-tint breaking over her cheek.

"She is delicate as a flower, beautiful as a star!"

The speaker was a lady dressed in the deepest possible mourning. The long widow's veil reached to her knees, and was double two-thirds of the way up. Her bombazine dress was so heavily trimmed with broad folds of crape, that you could not judge of the original material; from head to foot she was shrouded in black, till you felt quite gloomy to look on her. She seemed to have measured off her grief in so many yards of crape. Still, as if to show that there was a gleam of hope about her, she wore an immense diamond on the black ribbon at her throat. A large cluster ring that gleamed through the net glove, covering a small and withered hand, with the gem sparkling at her throat, bespoke uncommon wealth; and there was a tone of almost pampered sentimentality in her voice and manner.

"It is indeed a very lovely child," answered the gentleman whom she addressed, gazing with a smile upon Isabel.

"Was ever anything so perfect found in a poorhouse! Oh, if the policeman's daughter proves only half as pretty as she is," the lady exclaimed again.

"Let us inquire something about her," answered the gentleman, gravely, "with all her beauty she may be a common-place child!"

"No—no, I am quite certain she is everything that is charming. If your protege is only half as lovely, I shall be reconciled to the duty Mr. Farnham has so unreasonably—I must say, imposed upon me," persisted the lady.

The gentleman observed gravely that the idea of adopting a child was no trifling matter, and walked on till they surprised the little girls at their play. The chain broke, the girls scattered through the thickets like a flock of frightened birds. The lame girl dropped Isabel's hand and limped away, leaving the beautiful child all alone save Mary Fuller, who had stopped singing and sat quietly on the grass.

"I am afraid we have frightened your little friends away," said the gentleman, addressing the child, with a bland and gentle manner; "we did not intend to do that!"

His voice seemed to startle the children.

Isabel turned to her friend, with a glad smile.

"Oh, Mary, it is he!"

Mary started up from the grass.

"Oh, sir, we are so glad to see you!"

Judge Sharp took her hand—"You must be glad to see this lady, too."

Mary blushed, and looked timidly at the lady.

Mrs. Farnham stepped back, holding up both hands, as if to prevent the child approaching.

"Judge—Judge Sharp, you don't mean to say that this is the child? Little girl, is your name Chester!"

"No," answered Mary, "that is Isabel Chester—I am only Mary Fuller."

Isabel drew close to her friend.

"She's just the same as me—just like my own, own sister, ma'am."

The lady turned to Judge Sharp, and shook her mourning parasol at him.

"Oh, you naughty wicked man, to frighten me so; but is this dear, pretty darling really the policeman's daughter? I won't believe it yet—how providential, isn't it?"

"I thought you would like her," answered the Judge.

"Like her, indeed; won't she be a lovely pet!" answered the lady, much as she would have spoken of a King Charles spaniel; "how brave she is, too; when all the others ran off she remained!"

"Mary stayed, too," said Isabel, gliding one arm around her friend's waist; "besides, I dare say they were not afraid, ma'am, they only felt a little strange to play before people they didn't know, I suppose! They don't mind the doctor or the matrons in the least!"

"But you are not afraid of strangers!" said the lady. "You didn't run away and hide in the bushes when we came up, but stood all alone like a dear love of a little girl."

Isabel glanced at Mary Fuller.

"She was here, ma'am, just as much as I was."

The gentleman turned and looked earnestly at Mary. There was something in her face that pleased him even more than Isabel's beauty. From the first she had been his favorite.

"And what is this little girl to you?" he said, very kindly.

"Oh, she is everything, everything in the wide world to me now!" answered Isabel with tears in her eyes.

"You know, sir, Mr. and Mrs. Chester died," said Mary, with gentle humility. "And now we are left alone together."

"I knew that the poor lady was dead," answered the Judge, feelingly.

Isabel was weeping; she could not reply, but Mary answered in a faltering voice,

"Yes, sir, we are both orphans!"

"And would you not like to go away from here where you will have a new fine home, with pretty clothes and books and birds to amuse yourself with?" said Mrs. Farnham, bending over Isabel and kissing her.

The child did not answer. She only turned very pale, and drew back toward Mary.

"Would you not be pleased with all those pretty things?" said the Judge, who observed that Mary Fuller turned white as death when they spoke of taking Isabel away.

"If she can have them, too. Will you take her, sir? if not I would rather stay here!"

"But we do not wish to adopt more than one little girl," said the lady, hastily. "You have no mother, I will be one to you. In a little time you will forget all about the people here."

"I shall never forget her, ma'am," replied Isabel, firmly, "never."

"Lead the child away and talk with her alone. This little creature seems intelligent, I will gather something of their history from her," said the Judge.

When Mary saw that the gentleman was about to address her, she arose and stood meekly before him, as he leaned against the elm.

"So, you would not like to have the little girl go away and leave you here?"

Mary struggled bravely with herself, her bosom heaved, she could not keep the tears from swelling to her eyes, but she answered truly and from her aching heart.

"If she will be better off. If you will love her as—as I do, as they did, I will try to think it best!"

"You will try to think it best," repeated the gentleman, and the smile that trembled across his lips was beautiful; "if she goes, my little girl, you shall go with her!"

"Me!" said Mary, lifting up her meek eyes to his face. "Oh, sir, don't make fun of me. Nobody would ever think of making a pet of me!"

"No, not a pet, that is not the word, but, if God prospers us, we will make a good and noble woman of you!" said the gentleman, with generous energy.

"Oh, don't, don't—if you are not in earnest—don't say this!" said the child, almost panting for breath.

"I am in earnest, heaven forbid that I should trifle with you for a moment. If we take the other child you go also. Now, sit down and tell me about yourself."

Mary obeyed with a swelling heart. She told him simply that they were both orphans—that no one on earth could claim them; but with the first few words her voice broke. So the gentleman arose, sought Isabel and led her back to the elm tree, then he took the lady aside and conversed with her long and earnestly. The little girls watched her countenance in breathless suspense. It was dissatisfied,—angry, but she had the will of a strong mind to contend against, and Judge Sharp was resolute.

"As the legal guardian of your son, chosen by the Court and yourself, I have the power to sanction this adoption, and, to own the truth, gave my consent to it before Fred went to College; I doubt if we could have got him off without that!"

"Fred never could find a medium; he is always in extremes. The idea of adopting an ugly little thing like that, and he a mere lad yet! I declare it's too ridiculous; but he need not expect me to take charge of her. There is a medium in all things, Judge, and that is beyond endurance."

"That is all considered; I will see that Mary has a home and proper protection."

"Very well, I wash my hands of the whole affair; poor dear Mr. Farnham was very anxious about this pretty little Isabel. I don't choose to ask why, Judge, I hope I've got pride enough not to stoop so low as that; but, as I was saying, he made a point of it, and you see how resolute I am to perform my duty. It's hard, but I've had to endure a great deal, indeed I have."

"I did hope—in fact, I had reason," said the Judge, "to believe that Mr. Farnham would have provided for that child by will."

Mrs. Farnham colored violently.

"Then you had a reason. He said something to you about it, perhaps?"

"Yes, he certainly did; but then his death at last was so sudden. I don't remember when anything has shocked me so much."

Mrs. Farnham lifted her handkerchief to her eyes; there was something very pathetic in the action, and the deep black border which was intended to impress the Judge with a sense of her combined martyrdom and widowhood.

"Well madam," said that gentleman, heartily weary of her airs, "I hope Fred has your consent to adopt this child. Remember the expense will be nothing compared to the great wealth which he inherits. My word for it, the young fellow will find much worse methods of spending his money if you thwart his generous impulses."

"I have nothing to say. It is my destiny to make sacrifices; of course, if my son chooses to incumber himself with a miserable thing like that, he need not ask his mother. Why should he, she is nobody now."

"Then you consent," said the Judge, impatiently, for he saw the anxious looks of the little girls and pitied their suspense.

Mrs. Farnham removed the handkerchief with its sable border from her eyes, and shook her head disconsolately.

"Yes, I consent. What else can I do—a poor heart-broken widow is of no account anywhere."

The Judge turned away rather abruptly.

"Well, now that it is settled let us go; the poor children are suffering a martyrdom of suspense. The Commissioner is on the other side; we can settle the whole thing at once."

"I fancy he'll wonder a little at your taste. But I wash my hands of it—this is your affair. I submit, that is a woman's destiny, especially a widow's."

Judge Sharp advanced toward the children.

"Say to your matron that we may call for you at any minute, and shall hope to find you ready. Tell her that you are both adopted!"

"Together, oh, Mary! we are going away, and together!" cried Isabel, casting herself into the arms of her friend. Mary answered nothing, her heart was too full.



CHAPTER XXIV.

WILD WOODS AND MOUNTAIN PASSES.

Oh, give me a home on the mountains high, Where the wind sweeps wild and free, Where the pine-tops wave 'gainst a crimson sky,— Oh, a mountain home for me!

A travelling carriage, drawn by four grey horses, toiled up an ascent of the mountains some twenty miles back of Catskill. It was a warm day in September, and though the load which those fine animals drew was by no means a heavy one, they had been ascending the mountains for more than two hours, and now their sleek coats were dripping with sweat, and drops of foam fell like snow-flakes along the dusty road as they passed upward. This carriage contained Judge Sharp, the two orphans, and Mrs. Farnham, looking very slender, very fair, but faded, and with a sort of restless self-complacency in her countenance, which seemed ever on the alert to make itself recognized by those about her.

The gentleman had been reading, or rather holding a book before his face, but it would seem rather as an excuse for not keeping up the incessant talk, for conversation it could not be called, which the lady had kept in constant flow all the morning, than from any particular desire to read.

True, he did now and then glance at the book, but much oftener his fine deep eyes were looking out of the carriage window and wandering over the broad expanse of scenery that began to unfold beneath them, as the carriage mounted higher and higher up the mountains. Sometimes, when he appeared most intent on the volume, those eyes were glancing over it towards a little wan face opposite, that began to blush and half smile whenever the thoughtful but kindly look of those eyes fell upon it.

The carriage at last reached a platform on the spur of a mountain ridge where the road made a bold curve, commanding one of the finest views, perhaps—nay, we will not have perhaps, but certainly, in the civilized world.

You should have seen that little pale face then, how it sparkled and glowed with intelligence, nay, with something more than intelligence. The deep, grey eyes lighted up like lamps suddenly kindled, the wide but shapely mouth broke into a smile that spread and brightened over every feature of her face. She started forward, grasped the window-frame, and looked out with an expression of such eager joy that the judge who was gazing upon her, glanced down at his book with a well-pleased smile. "I thought so—I was sure of it. She feels all the grandeur, all the beauty," he said to himself, inly, but to all appearance intent on his book. "Now let us see how the others take it."

"Isabel, Isabel, look out—look look," whispered the excited child, turning with that sort of wild earnestness peculiar to persons of vivid imaginations, when once set on fire with some beautiful thing that God has created. "Look out, Isabel, I do believe that the sky you see yonder is heaven."

"Heaven!" cried Isabel, starting forward and struggling to reach the door, "Heaven! oh, Mary, it makes me think of mamma"—

Mary fell back in her chair, frightened by the effect of her enthusiasm.

"There is nothing, I can see nothing but hills, corn, lots, and sky," said the beautiful child, drawing back and looking at Mary with her great, reproachful eyes half full of tears.

"Oh, Isabel, I did not mean that, not the real heaven, where your—where our mother is, where they all are—but it was so beautiful over yonder, the sky and all, I could not help saying what I did."

Isabel drew back to her seat half petulant, half sorrowful; she was not really child enough to think that Mary could have spoken of heaven as a place actually within view; still it was not wonderful that the thought had for a moment flashed across her brain. Heaven itself could not have seemed more strange to those children than the magnificent mountain scenery through which they were passing. Born in the city, they were thrown for the first time among the most beautiful scenery that man ever dreamed of, with all their wild, young ideas afloat. Is it wonderful, then, that an imaginative child like Mary should have cried out the name of heaven in her admiration, or that Isabel, so lately made an orphan, should have sent forth the cry of mother, mother, from the depths of her poor little heart when she heard the heaven mentioned, where she believed her mother was still longing for her child?

She sat down cowering close in a corner of the seat, and in order to conceal her tears turned her face to the cushions.

"Sit up," the lady interposed, "my beauty, sit up; don't you see how your pretty marabouts are being crushed against the side of the carriage? Nonsense, child, what can you be crying about?"

"My mother, oh, she made me think of my mother. I thought—it seemed as if she must be there."

The lady frowned and looked toward the Judge with a pettish movement of the head.

"Be quiet, child, I am your mother, now; remember that, I am your mother."

Isabel looked up and gazed through her tears at the pale, characterless face, bent in weak displeasure upon her.

"I am your mother," repeated the lady, in a tone that she intended to be impressive, but it was only snappish; "your benefactress, your more than mamma; forget that you ever had any but me."

"I can't, oh, dear, I never can," cried the child, bursting into a passion of tears, and casting her face back upon the cushion.

Mrs. Farnham seized the child by the shoulder, and placed her, with a slight shake, upright.

"Stop crying; I never could endure crying children," she said. "See how you have crushed the pretty Leghorn, you ungrateful thing! Better be thanking heaven that I took you from that miserable poor-house, than fly in the face of Providence in this manner, crushing Leghorn flats and marabout feathers that cost me mints of money, as if they were city property."

"She did not mean to spoil the feathers, ma'am, it was all my fault," said Mary Fuller; "Isabel loved her poor mother so much."

"And am not I her mother? Can't you children let the poor woman rest in her pine coffin at Potter's Field, without tormenting me with all this sobbing and crying? Remember my little lady, it is not too late yet; a few more scenes like this and it will be an easy matter to send you back where I took you from. Then, perhaps, you will find it worth while to cry after your new mother a little."

The two little girls looked at each other through their tears. Perhaps at the moment they thought of the Infants' Hospital, where Mrs. Farnham had found them, with something of regret. The contrast of a carriage cushioned with velvet and four superb horses, had not impressed them as it might have done older persons. Shut up with strangers, while their hearts were full of regret, they had not found the change for which they were expected to be grateful, quite so happy as she fancied.

Up to the hour we mention they had kept their places demurely, and in silence, drawing their little feet up close to the seats, fearful of being found in the way, and stealing their hands together now and then with a silent clasp, which spoke a world of feeling to the noble man who sat regarding them over his book.

He had watched the scene we have described in silence, and with a sort of philosophical thoughtfulness, using it as a means of studying the souls of those two little girls. When Mrs. Farnham ceased speaking and turned to him for concurrence in her mode of drawing out the affections and settling the preliminaries of a life-time for that little soul, he only answered by leaning from the window and calling out.

"Ralph, draw up and let the horses have a rest under the shadow of this high rock. Come, children, get out, and let's take a look around us; your little limbs will be all the better for a good run among the underbrush."

Suiting the action to his words, Judge Sharp sprang from the carriage, took Isabel in his arms, set her carefully down, then more gently, and with a touch of tenderness, drew Mary Fuller forward, and folded her little form to his bosom.

"We will leave you to rest in the carriage, Mrs. Farnham," he said, with off-hand politeness, as if studying that lady's comfort more than anything on earth. "We will see what wild flowers can be found among the rocks. Take care of yourself; that's right, Ralph, let the horses wet their mouths at this little brook—not too much though, it is a warm day. Now, Isabel, let's see which will climb this rock first—you, or little Mary and I."

Isabel's eyes brightened through her tears. There was something in the cordial goodness of Judge Sharp that no grief could have resisted.

"Please, sir," said Mary, struggling faintly in the arms of her noble friend—"please, sir, I can walk very well."

"And I can carry you very well—why not? Come, now for a climb."

And away strode the great-hearted man, holding her up that she might gaze on the scenery over his shoulder.

Isabel followed close, helping herself up the steep rocks, now by catching hold of a spice-bush and shaking off all its ripe golden blossoms; now drawing down the loops of a grape-vine and swinging forward on it, encouraged in each new effort by the hearty commendations of her new friend.

At last they reached the summit of a detached ridge of rocks that rose like a fortification back of the highway. Judge Sharp sat down upon a shelf cushioned like an easy-chair with the greenest moss and placed the children at his feet.

A true lover of nature himself, he did not speak, or insist upon forcing exclamations of delight from the children who shared the glorious view with him. But he looked now and then into Mary Fuller's face, and was satisfied with all that he saw there.

He turned and glanced also into the beautiful eyes of little Isabel. They were wandering dreamily from object to object, searching, as it were, along the misty horizon for some sign of her dead mother. It was her heart rather than her intellect that wandered over that magnificent scenery for something to dwell upon.

"Are you sure, sir?" said Mary Fuller, timidly, looking up; "are you quite sure that this is the same world that Isabel and I were in yesterday?"

"Why not? Doesn't it seem like the same?"

"No," answered Mary, kindling up and looking eagerly around; "it is a thousand times larger, so vast, so grand, so—. Pray help me out, I wish to say so much and can't. Something chokes me here when I try to say how beautiful all this seems."

Mary folded her hands over her bosom, and began to waver to and fro on the moss seat, struck with a pang of that exquisite pleasure which so closely approaches pain when we fully appreciate the beautiful.

"You like this?" said the Judge, watching her face more than the landscape, that had been familiar to him when almost a wilderness.

"I should like to stay here for ever. It seems as if every one that we have loved so much, is resting near the sky away off yonder falling close down upon the mountains."

"It is a noble view," said the Judge, standing up, and pointing to the right. "Have you ever learned anything of geography, children?"

"A little," they both answered, glancing at each other as if ashamed of confessing so much knowledge.

"Then you have heard of the Green Mountains yonder; they are like thunder-clouds under the horizon?"

The children shaded their eyes, and looked searchingly at what seemed to them a dark embankment of clouds, and then Mary turned, holding her breath almost with awe, and gathered in with one long glance the broad horizon, sweeping its circle of a hundred miles from right to left, closed by the mountain spur on which they stood.

Where distance levelled small inequalities of surface, and made great ones indistinct and cloudy, the whole aspect of the scenery took an air of high cultivation and abundant richness. Thousands and thousands of farms, cut up and colored with their ripened crops, lay before them—golden rye stubbles; hills white with buckwheat and rich with snowy blossoms; meadows, orchards, and groves of primeval timber, all brightened those luxuriant valleys and plains that open upon the Hudson. Deep into New York State, and far, far away among the mountains of New England the eye ranged, charmed and satisfied with a fullness of beauty.

Mary saw it, and all the deep feelings as fervent, but less understood in the child than in the woman, swelled and grew rich in her bosom. Not a tint of those luxuriously colored hills ever left her memory—not a shadow upon the distant mountains ever died from her brain. It is such memories, vivid as painting, and burnt upon the mind like enamel, from childhood to maturity, that feed and invigorate the soul of genius.

Enoch Sharp had been a man of enterprise. Action had ever followed quick upon his thought. Placed by accident in certain avenues of life, he had exerted strong energies, and a will firm as it was kindly, in doing all things thoroughly that he undertook; in no circumstances would he have been an ordinary man. Had destiny placed his field of action among scientific or military men, he would have proven himself first among the foremost; as it was, much of the talent that would have distinguished him there, grew and throve upon those domestic affections which were to him the poetry of life.

Thrown into constant communion with nature in her most noble aspects, he became her devotee, and was more learned in all the beautiful things which God has created, than many a celebrated savant who studies with his brain only.

True to the unearthed poetry lying in rich veins throughout his whole nature, Enoch Sharp sat keenly regarding the effect this grand panorama of scenery produced on the two children.

He looked on Isabel in her bright, half-restless beauty, with a smile of affectionate forbearance. There was everything in her face to love, but it had to answer to the glow and enthusiasm of his own nature.

But it was far otherwise with little Mary. His own deep grey eye kindled as it perused her sharp features, lighted up, as it were, with some inward flame. His heart warmed toward the little creature, and without uttering a word he stooped down and patted her head in silent approbation.

The child had given him pleasure, for there is nothing more annoying to the true lover of nature than want of sympathy, when the heart is in a glow of fervent admiration; alive with a feeling which is so near akin to religion itself, that we sometimes doubt where the dividing line exists which separates love of God from love of the beautiful objects He has created.

Thus it was that Mary with her plain face and small person found her way to the great, warm heart of Enoch Sharp; and as he sat upon the rock a faint struggle arose in his bosom regarding her destination.

An impulse to take her into his own house and cultivate the latent talent so visible in every gesture and look, took possession of him, but his natural strong sense prevailed over this impulse. Many reasons which we will not pause to mention here, arose in contest with his heart, and he muttered thoughtfully,

"Neither men nor women become what they were intended to be by carpeting their progress with velvet; real strength is tested by difficulties. Still I must keep an eye upon the girl."

Isabel soon became weary of gazing on the landscape. Impatient of the stillness, she arose softly and moved to a ledge close by, under which a wild gooseberry bush drooped beneath a harvest of thorny fruit.

"That is right," said Enoch Sharp, starting up; "let me break off a handful of the branches, they will make peace with Mrs. Farnham for leaving her in the carriage so long."

Directly a heap of thorny branches purple with fruit lay at Isabel's feet, and Enoch Sharp was clambering up the rocks after some tufts of tall blue flowers that shed an azure tinge down one of the clefts; then a cluster of brake leaves mottled with brown spots tempted him on, while Mary Fuller stood eagerly watching his progress.

"Oh, see, see how beautiful—do look, Isabel, if he could only get up so high?"

She broke off with an exclamation of delight. Enoch Sharp had glanced downward at the sound of her voice, and directed by the eager look which accompanied it, made a spring higher up the rock.

A mountain ash, perfectly red with great clusters of berries, shot out from a little hollow between two ledges, and overhung the place where Mr. Sharp had found foothold. As if its own wealth of berries were not enough, a bitter-sweet vine had sprung up in the same hollow, and coiling itself around the tree, deluged it with a shower of golden clusters that mingled upon the same branch with the bright red fruit of the ash.

"Oh, was there ever on earth anything so beautiful?" cried Mary, disentangling the delicate ends of the vines flung down by her benefactor. "Oh, look, Isabel, look!"

She held up a natural wreath, to which three or four clusters hung like drops of burnt gold.

"Only see!"

With this exclamation she wove a handful of the blue autumn flowers in with the berries and long slender leaves.

"Let me put it around your hat, Isabel. Oh, Mr. Sharp, may I wind this around Isabel's hat; it is so pretty, I'm sure Mrs. Farnham will not mind?"

"Put it anywhere you like," cried the kind man, holding on to a branch of the bitter-sweet, and swinging himself downward till the ash bent almost double. It rushed back to its place, casting off a shower of loose berries and leaves that rattled around the girls in red and golden rain. Directly Mr. Sharp was by them once more, gathering up a handful of gooseberry branches, bitter-sweet and ash, admiring Mary's wreath at the same time.

"Come, now for a scramble down the hill," he cried. "Here, let me go first, for we may all expect a precious blessing, and I fancy my shoulders are the broadest."

The children looked at each other and the smiles left their lips. The "blessing," with which he so carelessly threatened them was enough to quench all their gay spirits, and they crept on after their benefactor with clouded faces.

"See, Mrs. Farnham, see what a world of beautiful things we have found for you up the mountain," cried Mr. Sharp, throwing two or three branches through the carriage window. "The little folks have discovered wonders among the bush—don't you think so?"

Mrs. Farnham drew back and gathered her ample skirts nervously about her.

"What on earth have the creatures brought? Bitter-sweet, gooseberries, with thorns like darning needles! Why, Mr. Sharp, what can you mean by bringing such things here to stain the cushions with?"

"Oh, never mind the cushions," answered the gentleman, lifting Isabel up with a toss, and landing her on the front seat, while Mary stood trembling by his side, with her eyes fixed ruefully on the wreath which surrounded the crown of her companion's Leghorn flat.

"Oh, what will become of us when she sees that?" thought the child in dismay.

But she was allowed no time to ask unpleasant questions, even of herself, for Enoch Sharp took her in his arms and set her carefully down opposite Mrs. Farnham, whose glance had just taken in the unlucky wreath.

"My goodness, if the little wretches have not destroyed that love of a hat with their trash! Oh, dear, put a beggar on horseback and only see how he will ride! Mr. Sharp, I did hope that the child could appreciate an article of millinery like that; but you see how it is, no just medium can be expected with this pauper taste; a long course of refinement is, I fear necessary to a just comprehension of the beautiful. Only think! two of Jarvis' most expensive marabouts crushed into nothingness by a good-for-nothing heap of, I don't know what, tangled about them! Really, it is enough to discourage one from ever doing a benevolent act again."

Judge Sharp strove to look decorously concerned, but spite of himself a quiet smile would tremble at the corners of the mouth, as he looked at the two marabout feathers flattened and crushed beneath the impromptu wreath.

"Whose work is it? Which of you twisted that thing over those feathers?" cried the lady angrily.

Isabel looked at Mary, but did not speak.

"It was me; I did it," said Mary, meekly. "The berries were so pretty, we never saw any before. Please, ma'am, look again, and see if the blue flowers there against the yellow don't look beautiful."

"Beautiful, indeed! What should you know of beauty, I wonder?" was the scornful answer, for Mrs. Farnham was by no means pleased that Mary had been forced into her company even for a single day's travel. "What on earth possesses a child like you, brought up, no matter where, to speak of this or that thing as pretty? What beautiful thing can you ever have seen?"

"I have seen the sky, ma'am, when it was full of bright stars. God lets poor people as well as rich ones look on the sky, you know; and isn't that beautiful?"

"Indeed! You think so, then?" said the lady.

"And we have seen many, many beautiful things besides that, haven't we, Isabel? One night, when it had been raining, in the winter—I remember it, oh, how well—while the great trees were dripping wet, out came the moon and stars bright, with a sharp frost, and then all the branches were hung with ice, in the moonshine, glittering and bending low toward the ground, just as if the starlight had all settled on the limbs and was loading them down with brightness. Oh, ma'am, I wish you could have seen it. I remember the ground was all one glare of ice; but I didn't mind that."

"I'm afraid your ward will find his protege rather forward, Judge," said the lady, as Mary Fuller drew back, blushing at her own eager description.

"I really don't know," answered the gentleman; "she seems to have made pretty good use of the few privileges awarded to her, and, really, there is some philosophy in it. When one finds nothing but God's sky unmonopolized, it is something for a child to make so much of that. She has a pretty knack of sorting flowers, too, as you may see by the fashion in which that is twisted. After all, madam, let us each make the most of our favorites. Yours is pretty enough, in all conscience Fred's will give satisfaction where she goes, I dare say."

Judge Sharp was becoming rather weary of his companion again, and so leaned out of the window, as was his usual habit, amusing himself by searching for the first red leaves among the maple foliage, and watching the shadows as they fell softly down the hemlock hollows.



CHAPTER XXV.

A PLEASANT CONVERSATION.

Like the patter of rain in a damp heavy day, Or the voice of a brook when its waters are low, That murmurs and murmurs and murmurs away— Was the sound of her words in their meaningless flow.

After a while, finding that Mrs. Farnham was still talking at the children, and dealing him a sharp sentence or two over their shoulders, for preferring the scenery to her conversation, the Judge quietly drew in his head, and gathering up a quantity of the flowers, arranged a pretty bouquet for each of the little girls, who received them with shy satisfaction.

Then with more effort at arrangement, he completed a third bouquet, and laid it on Mrs. Farnham's lap with affected diffidence, that went directly to that very weak portion of the lady's system, which she dignified with the name of heart.

Enoch Sharp smiled at the effect of his adroit attention, while the lady, appeased into a state of gentle self-complacency, rewarded him with beaming smiles and a fresh avalanche of those soft frothy words, which she solemnly believed were conversation. From time to time she refreshed herself with the perfume of his mountain flowers, descanted on their beauties with sentimental warmth, and murmured snatches of poetry over them, very soft, very sentimental, and particularly annoying to a man filled in all the depths of his soul with an honest love of nature.

"I wish my ward could have seen the old place before he went to college," observed the Judge, adroitly seizing upon a pause in this cataract of words, and making a desperate effort to change the subject. "He will find Harvard rather dull, I fear, at first."

The Judge was unfortunate. His choice of subject reminded Mrs. Farnham of an old grievance, and that day she was ambitious to establish herself a character for martyrdom.

"Yes," she answered, "I'm sure he will, but Fred would go. I knew they'd make a Unitarian of him or something of that sort, and the way I pleaded would have touched a heart of stone, I'm sure.

"'It was in your father's family,' said I, 'to lean towards what they called liberal views, but I, your mother, Fred, I am firm on the other side, orthodox, settled like a rock in that particular—though it has been said that in other things, the affections for instance—I'm more like a dove.'"

Here Mrs. Farnham settled the folds of her travelling dress with both hands, as if the dove had taken a fancy to smooth its plumage.

"Well, as I was saying to Fred, sir, 'go to Yale, don't think of Harvard, but go to Yale. There you will get a granite foundation for your religion—everything solid and sound there—go to Yale, my son.'

"It was in this way I reasoned, sir, but Fred has a good deal of his father in him, stubborn, Judge—stubborn as a—a mule, if you will excuse me mentioning that animal to a gentleman who keeps such horses as you do."

The Judge bowed. The love of a fine horse was one of his characteristics; he rather enjoyed the compliment.

His bow set Mrs. Farnham off again with double power.

"'You won't go to Yale,' said I, 'and you will go to Harvard. Let us strike a medium, Fred, a happy medium is the most pleasant thing in the world—go to Harvard one year, the next to Yale, then, sir, I thought of your church—' and, said I, 'finish off at old Columbia, it'll be a compliment to your guardian.'"

"Thank you," said the Judge, with a demure smile; "thank you for remembering my church so kindly; but what did my ward say to this?"

"Why, sir, would you believe it, he answered in the most disrespectful manner, that he went to college to got an education, and Harvard was good enough for that.

"'But,' said I, 'take my medium and you will try Harvard, and Yale, and old Columbia, too; only think what an introduction it would be into all sorts of the best religious society.'

"Well, sir, what do you think he did but laugh in the most irreverent manner, and ask me if I couldn't point out a Universalist institution that he could finish up at. I declare, Judge, it almost broke my heart."

"Well, well, let us hope it will all turn out right," answered the Judge, consolingly—"look, madam, look, what a lovely hollow that is!"

They were now descending the mountain passes. Broken hills and lovely green valleys rose and sunk along their rapid progress. Never on earth was scenery more varied and lovely. Little emerald hollows shaded with hemlock, overhanging brooklets that came stealing like broken diamond threads down the mountain sides to hide beneath their shadows, were constantly appearing and disappearing along the road.

It was impossible for little Mary to sit still when these heavenly glimpses presented themselves. Her cheeks burned, her eyes kindled; her very limbs trembled with suppressed impatience; but she dared not lean forward, and could only obtain tantalizing glances of the sparkling brooks, and the soft, green mosses that clung around the mountain cliffs where they shot over the road.

They passed through several villages, winding in and out through mountain passes, where the hills were so interlapped that it seemed impossible to guess how the carriage would extricate itself from the green labyrinth.

Nothing could be more delicate and vivid than the foliage that clothed the hill-sides, for the primeval growth of hemlocks had been cut away from the hills, and a second crop of luxuriant young trees, beech, oak, and maple, mottled with rich clusters of mountain ash, and the deep green of white pines, covered the whole country.

All at once the coachman drew up his horses on a curve of the highway. The carriage was completely buried in a valley along which wound the river, whose sweet noise they had long heard among the trees.

"Now children, look out," said the Judge, laughing pleasantly; "look out and tell me how we are to get through the hills."

Both the little girls sprang forward and looked abroad breathlessly, like birds at the open door of a cage in which they had been imprisoned. The Judge watched them with smiling satisfaction as they cast puzzled glances from side to side, meeting nothing but shoulders and angles and ridges of the mountains heaving over each other in huge green waves that seemed to be endless, and to crowd close to each other, though many a lovely valley lay between, little dreamed of by the wondering children.

"Well, then, tell me how you expect to get out, little ones?" repeated the Judge.

"Sure enough, how?" repeated Isabel, drawing back, and looking from the Judge to Mrs. Farnham.

But Mary was still gazing abroad. Her eyes wandered from hill to hill, and grew more and more luminous as each new beauty broke upon her. At last she drew back with a deep breath, and the loveliest of human smiles upon her face.

"Indeed, sir, indeed I shouldn't care if we never did get out, the river would be company enough."

"Yes, company enough," replied the Judge, smiling. "But would it feed us when we are hungry?"

"It don't seem as if I ever should be hungry here," replied the child.

"But I am hungry now," replied Enoch Sharp; "and so is Mrs. Farnham, I dare say!"

"No," replied that lady, who prided herself on a delicate appetite, "I never am hungry; dew and flowers, my friends used to say, were intended to support sensitive nerves like mine."

"Very likely," thought Enoch Sharp; "I am certain no human being could support them," but he drowned this ungallant thought in a loud call for Ralph to drive on.

The horses made a leap forward, swept round a huge rock that concealed the highway where it curved suddenly with a bend of the river, and before them lay one of the most beautiful mountain villages you ever beheld. The horses knew their old home. Away they went sweeping up the broad winding sheet between double columns of young maple trees, through which the white houses gleamed tranquilly and dream-like on the eyes of those city children.



CHAPTER XXVI

A VALLEY IN THE MOUNTAINS.

High up among the emerald breasted hills, There lay a village, cradled in their green. Surrounded by such loveliness as thrills The poetry within us—and the sheen Of a broad river kissed the mountain's foot Where stately hemlocks found primeval root.

Judge Sharp's carriage stopped in front of a noble mansion near the centre of the village. I think it must have been one of the oldest houses in the place. But modern improvements had so transfigured and beautified it, that it bore the aspect of a noble suburban villa, rather than a mountain residence. The roof lifted in a pointed gable, and supported by brackets, shot several feet over the front, resting on a row of tall, slender columns which formed a noble portico along the entire front.

In order to leave the first family homestead ever built in those mountains entire in its simple architecture, this portico shaded the double row of windows first introduced into the dwelling; and the main building remained entire within and without, as it had been left years before by its primitive architect. But modern wings had been united to the old building on the left and in the rear pointed with gables, and so interspersed with chimneys that the whole mass formed a gothic exterior singular and beautiful as it was picturesque.

Noble old trees, maple, elm and ash, shaded the green lawn which fell far back from the house, terminating on one side in a fine fruit orchard bending with ripened peaches and purple plums, and broken up on the south by a flower-garden gorgeous with late summer blossoms, shaded with grape arbors and clumps of mountain ash, all flushed and red with berries.

This noble garden lost itself in the deep green of an apple orchard full of singing birds. The waters of a mountain brook came leaping down from the broken hills beyond, and gleamed through the thick foliage, mingling their sweet perpetual chime with the rising breath of that little wilderness of flowers.

This was the dwelling at which Judge Sharp's carriage stopped. It seemed like a Paradise to the little girls, who longed to get out and enjoy a full view of its beauties from the lawn. But Mrs. Farnham was a guest, for the time; and well disposed to use her privileges, she refused to descend, though hospitably pressed, and seemed to think the few moments required by the Judge to enter his own home, an encroachment on her rights and privileges.

But the Judge cared little for this, and was far more engaged with a venerable old house-dog, toothless, grey and dim-eyed, who arose from his sunny nook upon the grass, and came soberly down to welcome his master, than he was with the lady's discontent.

"Ha, Carlo, always on hand, old fellow," he said, patting the grizzly head of his old favorite, "glad to see me, ha!"

Carlo looked up through his dim eyes and gave a feeble whine, which, in his young days, would have been a deep-mouthed bay of welcome. Then, with grave dignity, he tottered onward by his master's side, escorted him up to the entrance door, and lay down in a sunny spot which broke through the honeysuckle branches on the balcony, satisfied by the soft rush of feet and the glad female voices within, that his master was in good hands.

"I wonder," said Mrs. Farnham, leaning back with an air of ineffable disgust, and talking to no one in particular—"I wonder how the Judge can allow that old brute to prowl after him in that manner, but there is no medium in some people. I'm sure if he were at my house I would have him shot before morning—laying down on the portico indeed!"

"But he seems so glad," said Mary Fuller, struck with a thrill of sympathy for the dog, rendered repulsive to that silly woman by his age, as she was by her homeliness.

"Isn't it the duty of every ugly thing to be still?" replied Mrs. Farnham, casting a look of feeble spite at the child. "But the Judge has a fancy for uncouth pets."

"Perhaps because they feel kindness so much," answered Mary, in a trembling voice.

"Indeed!" drawled the lady; "then I wish he would be kind enough to send us on. This tiresome waiting, when one is worn out and half famished, is too much."

Just then the Judge appeared at the front door cheerful and smiling, and, in the shaded background of the hall, two fair forms were visible, hovering near, as if reluctant to part with him again so soon.

"Not quite out of patience, I hope?" he said, leaning into the carriage, while the ladies of his family came forth with offers of hospitality. But Mrs. Farnham muttered something about fatigue, dust, and the strong desire she had to see her own home—a desire in which the ladies soon heartily, but silently, joined, for it needed only a first sentence to convince them that the interesting widow would make but a sorry acquisition to the neighborhood.

"Then, if you absolutely insist, madam, the next best thing is to proceed," cried Enoch Sharp, and, springing into his seat, he waved an adieu to his family, and the rather reluctant horses proceeded briskly down the street.

The river which we have mentioned, skirted the village with its bright waters; two or three fine manufacturing buildings stood back from its banks, and, having supplied them with its sparkling strength, it swept on wildly as before, curving and deepening between its green or rocky banks with low, pleasant murmurs, like a troop of children let loose from school.

The highway ran along its banks, sometimes divided from the waters by clumps of hoary old hemlocks, that had escaped the axe from their isolation perhaps, and again separated only by thickets of wild blackberries and mountain shrubs.

As they proceeded the hills crowded down close to the highway, that ran along the steep banks of the river; here the stream rushed on with fresh impetuosity, and gathering up its waves in a sudden curve of the channel, leaped down the valley in one of the most beautiful waterfalls you ever saw.

"Oh, one minute; do, do stop one minute," cried Mary, as the broad crescent of the fall flashed before her. "Isabel, Isabel, did you ever see any thing like that?"

"Really, Judge, your pet is very forward, and so tiresome," said Mrs. Farnham, gazing down upon the waters with a weak sneer; "one would think she had never seen a mill-dam before."

This sent the poor child back to her corner again. But Mrs. Farnham had struck the Judge on a sensitive point when she sneered at that beautiful crescent-shaped fall, rolling in a sheet of crystal over its native rocks, the sparkling waters all in sunshine; the still basin beneath, green with stilly shadows cast over it from masses of tall trees that crowded around the brink.

"Madam," he said, "that mill-dam made its channel when the hills around had their first foundation. You must not find fault with the workmanship, for God himself made it."

"Indeed, you surprise me," cried the lady, taking out her glass and leaning forward, "I really supposed it must be the result of some of those logging bees that we hear of in these back settlements. I quite long to witness something of the kind; it must be gratifying, Judge, to see your peasantry enjoy themselves on these rustic occasions."

"My peasantry," laughed the Judge, as much ashamed of the angry feelings with which his last speech had been given, as if he had been caught whipping a lap-dog—"my constituents, you mean."