"Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," I faltered out, for her sorrow filled me with a respect that was new.

"Yes," she returned, as gently as hopelessly; "and whom he does not love as well."

"You have no ground for saying so," I answered. "The apostle does not."

"My lamp is gone out," she said; "gone out in darkness, utter darkness. You warned me, and I did not heed the warning. I thought I knew better, but I was full of self-conceit. And now I am wandering where there is no way and no light. My iniquities have found me out."

I did not say what I thought I saw plain enough,—that her lamp was just beginning to burn. Neither did I try to persuade her that her iniquities were small.

"But the Bridegroom," I said, "is not yet come. There is time to go and get some oil."

"Where am I to get it?" she returned, in a tone of despair.

"From the Bridegroom himself," I said.

"No," she answered. "I have talked and talked and talked, and you know he says he abhors talkers. I am one of those to whom he will say 'I know you not.'"

"And you will answer him that you have eaten and drunk in his presence, and cast out devils, and—?"

"No, no: I will say he is right; that it is all my own fault; that I thought I was something when I was nothing, but that I know better now."

A dreadful fit of coughing interrupted her. As soon as it was over, I said,—

"And what will the Lord say to you, do you think, when you have said so to him?"

"Depart from me," she answered in a hollow, forced voice.

"No," I returned. "He will say, 'I know you well. You have told me the truth. Come in.'"

"Do you think so?" she cried. "You never used to think well of me."

"Those who were turned away," I said, avoiding her last words, "were trying to make themselves out better than they were: they trusted, not in the love of Christ, but in what they thought their worth and social standing. Perhaps, if their deeds had been as good as they thought them, they would have known better than to trust in them. If they had told him the truth; if they had said, 'Lord, we are workers of iniquity; Lord, we used to be hypocrites, but we speak the truth now: forgive us,'—do you think he would then have turned them away? No, surely. If your lamp has gone out, make haste and tell him how careless you have been; tell him all, and pray him for oil and light; and see whether your lamp will not straightway glimmer,—glimmer first and then glow."

"Ah, Mrs. Percivale!" she cried: "I would do something for His sake now if I might, but I cannot. If I had but resisted the disease in me for the sake of serving him, I might have been able now: but my chance is over; I cannot now; I have too much pain. And death looks such a different thing now! I used to think of it only as a kind of going to sleep, easy though sad—sad, I mean, in the eyes of mourning friends. But, alas! I have no friends, now that my husband is gone. I never dreamed of him going first. He loved me: indeed he did, though you will hardly believe it; but I always took it as a matter of course. I never saw how beautiful and unselfish he was till he was gone. I have been selfish and stupid and dull, and my sins have found me out. A great darkness has fallen upon me; and although weary of life, instead of longing for death, I shrink from it with horror. My cough will not let me sleep: there is nothing but weariness in my body, and despair in my heart. Oh how black and dreary the nights are! I think of the time in your house as of an earthly paradise. But where is the heavenly paradise I used to dream of then?" "Would it content you," I asked, "to be able to dream of it again?"

"No, no. I want something very different now. Those fancies look so uninteresting and stupid now! All I want now is to hear God say, 'I forgive you.' And my husband—I must have troubled him sorely. You don't know how good he was, Mrs. Percivale. He made no pretences like silly me. Do you know," she went on, lowering her voice, and speaking with something like horror in its tone, "Do you know, I cannot bear hymns!"

As she said it, she looked up in my face half-terrified with the anticipation of the horror she expected to see manifested there. I could not help smiling. The case was not one for argument of any kind: I thought for a moment, then merely repeated the verse,—

"When the law threatens endless death, Upon the awful hill, Straightway, from her consuming breath, My soul goes higher still,— Goeth to Jesus, wounded, slain, And maketh him her home, Whence she will not go out again, And where Death cannot come."

"Ah! that is good," she said: "if only I could get to him! But I cannot get to him. He is so far off! He seems to be—nowhere."

I think she was going to say nobody, but changed the word.

"If you felt for a moment how helpless and wretched I feel, especially in the early morning," she went on; "how there seems nothing to look for, and no help to be had,—you would pity rather than blame me, though I know I deserve blame. I feel as if all the heart and soul and strength and mind, with which we are told to love God, had gone out of me; or, rather, as if I had never had any. I doubt if I ever had. I tried very hard for a long time to get a sight of Jesus, to feel myself in his presence; but it was of no use, and I have quite given it up now."

I made her lie on the sofa, and sat down beside her.

"Do you think," I said, "that any one, before he came, could have imagined such a visitor to the world as Jesus Christ?"

"I suppose not," she answered listlessly.

"Then, no more can you come near him now by trying to imagine him. You cannot represent to yourself the reality, the Being who can comfort you. In other words, you cannot take him into your heart. He only knows himself, and he only can reveal himself to you. And not until he does so, can you find any certainty or any peace."

"But he doesn't—he won't reveal himself to me."

"Suppose you had forgotten what some friend of your childhood was like—say, if it were possible, your own mother; suppose you could not recall a feature of her face, or the color of her eyes; and suppose, that, while you were very miserable about it, you remembered all at once that you had a portrait of her in an old desk you had not opened for years: what would you do?"

"Go and get it," she answered like a child at the Sunday school.

"Then why shouldn't you do so now? You have such a portrait of Jesus, far truer and more complete than any other kind of portrait can be,—the portrait his own deeds and words give us of him."

"I see what you mean; but that is all about long ago, and I want him now. That is in a book, and I want him in my heart."

"How are you to get him into your heart? How could you have him there, except by knowing him? But perhaps you think you do know him?"

"I am certain I do not know him; at least, as I want to know him," she said.

"No doubt," I went on, "he can speak to your heart without the record, and, I think, is speaking to you now in this very want of him you feel. But how could he show himself to you otherwise than by helping you to understand the revelation of himself which it cost him such labor to afford? If the story were millions of years old, so long as it was true, it would be all the same as if it had been ended only yesterday; for, being what he represented himself, he never can change. To know what he was then, is to know what he is now."

"But, if I knew him so, that wouldn't be to have him with me."

"No; but in that knowledge he might come to you. It is by the door of that knowledge that his Spirit, which is himself, comes into the soul. You would at least be more able to pray to him: you would know what kind of a being you had to cry to. You would thus come nearer to him; and no one ever drew nigh to him to whom he did not also draw nigh. If you would but read the story as if you had never read it before, as if you were reading the history of a man you heard of for the first time"—

"Surely you're not a Unitarian, Mrs. Percivale!" she said, half lifting her head, and looking at me with a dim terror in her pale eyes.

"God forbid!" I answered. "But I would that many who think they know better believed in him half as much as many Unitarians do. It is only by understanding and believing in that humanity of his, which in such pain and labor manifested his Godhead, that we can come to know it,—know that Godhead, I mean, in virtue of which alone he was a true and perfect man; that Godhead which alone can satisfy with peace and hope the poorest human soul, for it also is the offspring of God."

I ceased, and for some moments she sat silent. Then she said feebly,—

"There's a Bible somewhere in the room."

I found it, and read the story of the woman who came behind him in terror, and touched the hem of his garment. I could hardly read it for the emotion it caused in myself; and when I ceased I saw her weeping silently.

A servant entered with the message that Mr. Percivale had called for me.

"I cannot see him to-day," she sobbed.

"Of course not," I replied. "I must leave you now; but I will come again,—come often if you like."

"You are as kind as ever!" she returned, with a fresh burst of tears. "Will you come and be with me when—when—?"

She could not finish for sobs.

"I will," I said, knowing well what she meant.

This is how I imagined the change to have come about: what had seemed her faith had been, in a great measure, but her hope and imagination, occupying themselves with the forms of the religion towards which all that was highest in her nature dimly urged. The two characteristics of amicability and selfishness, not unfrequently combined, rendered it easy for her to deceive herself, or rather conspired to prevent her from undeceiving herself, as to the quality and worth of her religion. For, if she had been other than amiable, the misery following the outbreaks of temper which would have been of certain occurrence in the state of her health, would have made her aware in some degree of her moral condition; and, if her thoughts had not been centred upon herself, she would, in her care for others, have learned her own helplessness; and the devotion of her good husband, not then accepted merely as a natural homage to her worth, would have shown itself as a love beyond her deserts, and would have roused the longing to be worthy of it. She saw now that he must have imagined her far better than she was: but she had not meant to deceive him; she had but followed the impulses of a bright, shallow nature.

But that last epithet bids me pause, and remember that my father has taught me, and that I have found the lesson true, that there is no such thing as a shallow nature: every nature is infinitely deep, for the works of God are everlasting. Also, there is no nature that is not shallow to what it must become. I suspect every nature must have the subsoil ploughing of sorrow, before it can recognize either its present poverty or its possible wealth.

When her husband died, suddenly, of apoplexy, she was stunned for a time, gradually awaking to a miserable sense of unprotected loneliness, so much the more painful for her weakly condition, and the overcare to which she had been accustomed. She was an only child, and had become an orphan within a year or two after her early marriage. Left thus without shelter, like a delicate plant whose house of glass has been shattered, she speedily recognized her true condition. With no one to heed her whims, and no one capable of sympathizing with the genuine misery which supervened, her disease gathered strength rapidly, her lamp went out, and she saw no light beyond; for the smoke of that lamp had dimmed the windows at which the stars would have looked in. When life became dreary, her fancies, despoiled of the halo they had cast on the fogs of selfish comfort, ceased to interest her; and the future grew a vague darkness, an uncertainty teeming with questions to which she had no answer. Henceforth she was conscious of life only as a weakness, as the want of a deeper life to hold it up. Existence had become a during faint, and self hateful. She saw that she was poor and miserable and blind and naked,—that she had never had faith fit to support her.

But out of this darkness dawned at least a twilight, so gradual, so slow, that I cannot tell when or how the darkness began to melt. She became aware of a deeper and simpler need than hitherto she had known,—the need of life in herself, the life of the Son of God. I went to see her often. At the time when I began this history, I was going every other day,—sometimes oftener, for her end seemed to be drawing nigh. Her weakness had greatly increased: she could but just walk across the room, and was constantly restless. She had no great continuous pain, but oft-returning sharp fits of it. She looked genuinely sad, and her spirits never recovered themselves. She seldom looked out of the window; the daylight seemed to distress her: flowers were the only links between her and the outer world,—wild ones, for the scent of greenhouse-flowers, and even that of most garden ones, she could not bear. She had been very fond of music, but could no longer endure her piano: every note seemed struck on a nerve. But she was generally quiet in her mind, and often peaceful. The more her body decayed about her, the more her spirit seemed to come alive. It was the calm of a gray evening, not so lovely as a golden sunset or a silvery moonlight, but more sweet than either. She talked little of her feelings, but evidently longed after the words of our Lord. As she listened to some of them, I could see the eyes which had now grown dim with suffering, gleam with the light of holy longing and humble adoration.

For some time she often referred to her coming departure, and confessed that she "feared death; not so much what might be on the other side, as the dark way itself,—the struggle, the torture, the fainting; but by degrees her allusions to it became rarer, and at length ceased almost entirely. Once I said to her,—

"Are you afraid of death still, Eleanor?"

"No—not much," she replied, after a brief pause. "He may do with me whatever He likes."

Knowing so well what Marion could do to comfort and support, and therefore desirous of bringing them together, I took her one day with me. But certain that the thought of seeing a stranger would render my poor Eleanor uneasy, and that what discomposure a sudden introduction might cause would speedily vanish in Marion's presence, I did not tell her what I was going to do. Nor in this did I mistake. Before we left, it was plain that Marion had a far more soothing influence upon her than I had myself. She looked eagerly for her next visit, and my mind was now more at peace concerning her.

One evening, after listening to some stories from Marion about her friends, Mrs. Cromwell said,—

"Ah, Miss Clare! to think I might have done something for Him by doing it for them! Alas! I have led a useless life, and am dying out of this world without having borne any fruit! Ah, me, me!"

"You are doing a good deal for him now," said Marion, "and hard work too!" she added; "harder far than mine."

"I am only dying," she returned—so sadly!

"You are enduring chastisement," said Marion. "The Lord gives one one thing to do, and another another. We have no right to wish for other work than he gives us. It is rebellious and unchildlike, whatever it may seem. Neither have we any right to wish to be better in our way: we must wish to be better in his."

"But I should like to do something for him; bearing is only for myself. Surely I may wish that?"

"No: you may not. Bearing is not only for yourself. You are quite wrong in thinking you do nothing for him in enduring," returned Marion, with that abrupt decision of hers which seemed to some like rudeness. "What is the will of God? Is it not your sanctification? And why did he make the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering? Was it not that he might in like manner bring many sons into glory? Then, if you are enduring, you are working with God,—for the perfection through suffering of one more: you are working for God in yourself, that the will of God may be done in you; that he may have his very own way with you. It is the only work he requires of you now: do it not only willingly, then, but contentedly. To make people good is all his labor: be good, and you are a fellow-worker with God in the highest region of labor. He does not want you for other people—yet."

At the emphasis Marion laid on the last word, Mrs. Cromwell glanced sharply up. A light broke over her face: she had understood, and with a smile was silent.

One evening, when we were both with her, it had grown very sultry and breathless.

"Isn't it very close, dear Mrs. Percivale?" she said.

I rose to get a fan; and Marion, leaving the window as if moved by a sudden resolve, went and opened the piano. Mrs. Cromwell made a hasty motion, as if she must prevent her. But, such was my faith in my friend's soul as well as heart, in her divine taste as well as her human faculty, that I ventured to lay my hand on Mrs. Cromwell's. It was enough for sweetness like hers: she yielded instantly, and lay still, evidently nerving herself to suffer. But the first movement stole so "soft and soullike" on her ear, trembling as it were on the border-land between sound and silence, that she missed the pain she expected, and found only the pleasure she looked not for. Marion's hands made the instrument sigh and sing, not merely as with a human voice, but as with a human soul. Her own voice next evolved itself from the dim uncertainty, in sweet proportions and delicate modulations, stealing its way into the heart, to set first one chord, then another, vibrating, until the whole soul was filled with responses. If I add that her articulation was as nearly perfect as the act of singing will permit, my reader may well believe that a song of hers would do what a song might.

Where she got the song she then sung, she always avoids telling me. I had told her all I knew and understood concerning Mrs. Cromwell, and have my suspicions. This is the song:—

"I fancy I hear a whisper As of leaves in a gentle air: Is it wrong, I wonder, to fancy It may be the tree up there?— The tree that heals the nations, Growing amidst the street, And dropping, for who will gather, Its apples at their feet?

"I fancy I hear a rushing As of waters down a slope: Is it wrong, I wonder, to fancy It may be the river of hope? The river of crystal waters That flows from the very throne, And runs through the street of the city With a softly jubilant tone?

"I fancy a twilight round me, And a wandering of the breeze, With a hush in that high city, And a going in the trees. But I know there will be no night there,— No coming and going day; For the holy face of the Father Will be perfect light alway.

"I could do without the darkness, And better without the sun; But, oh, I should like a twilight After the day was done! Would he lay his hand on his forehead, On his hair as white as wool, And shine one hour through his fingers, Till the shadow had made me cool?

"But the thought is very foolish: If that face I did but see, All else would be all forgotten,— River and twilight and tree; I should seek, I should care, for nothing, Beholding his countenance; And fear only to lose one glimmer By one single sideway glance.

"'Tis but again a foolish fancy To picture the countenance so. Which is shining in all our spirits, Making them white as snow. Come to me, shine in me, Master, And I care not for river or tree,— Care for no sorrow or crying, If only thou shine in me.

"I would lie on my bed for ages, Looking out on the dusty street, Where whisper nor leaves nor waters, Nor any thing cool and sweet; At my heart this ghastly fainting, And this burning in my blood,— If only I knew thou wast with me,— Wast with me and making me good."

When she rose from the piano, Mrs. Cromwell stretched out her hand for hers, and held it some time, unable to speak. Then she said,—

"That has done me good, I hope. I will try to be more patient, for I think He is teaching me."

She died, at length, in my arms. I cannot linger over that last time. She suffered a good deal, but dying people are generally patient. She went without a struggle. The last words I heard her utter were, "Yes, Lord;" after which she breathed but once. A half-smile came over her face, which froze upon it, and remained, until the coffin-lid covered it. But I shall see it, I trust, a whole smile some day.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

ANCESTRAL WISDOM.

I did think of having a chapter about children before finishing my book; but this is not going to be the kind of chapter I thought of. Like most mothers, I suppose, I think myself an authority on the subject; and, which is to me more assuring than any judgment of my own, my father says that I have been in a measure successful in bringing mine up,—only they're not brought up very far yet. Hence arose the temptation to lay down a few practical rules I had proved and found answer. But, as soon as I began to contemplate the writing of them down, I began to imagine So-and-so and So-and-so attempting to carry them out, and saw what a dreadful muddle they would make of it, and what mischief would thence lie at my door. Only one thing can be worse than the attempt to carry out rules whose principles are not understood; and that is the neglect of those which are understood, and seen to be right. Suppose, for instance, I were to say that corporal punishment was wholesome, involving less suffering than most other punishments, more effectual in the result, and leaving no sting or sense of unkindness; whereas mental punishment, considered by many to be more refined, and therefore less degrading, was often cruel to a sensitive child, and deadening to a stubborn one: suppose I said this, and a woman like my Aunt Millicent were to take it up: her whippings would have no more effect than if her rod were made of butterflies' feathers; they would be a mockery to her children, and bring law into contempt; while if a certain father I know were to be convinced by my arguments, he would fill his children with terror of him now, and with hatred afterwards. Of the last-mentioned result of severity, I know at least one instance. At present, the father to whom I refer disapproves of whipping even a man who has been dancing on his wife with hob-nailed shoes, because it would tend to brutalize him. But he taunts and stings, and confines in solitude for lengthened periods, high-spirited boys, and that for faults which I should consider very venial.

Then, again, if I were to lay down the rule that we must be as tender of the feelings of our children as if they were angel-babies who had to learn, alas! to understand our rough ways, how would that be taken by a certain French couple I know, who, not appearing until after the dinner to which they had accepted an invitation was over, gave as the reason, that it had been quite out of their power; for darling Desiree, their only child, had declared they shouldn't go, and that she would cry if they did; nay, went so far as to insist on their going to bed, which they were, however reluctant, compelled to do. They had actually undressed, and pretended to retire for the night; but, as soon as she was safely asleep, rose and joined their friends, calm in the consciousness of abundant excuse.

The marvel to me is that so many children turn out so well.

After all, I think there can be no harm in mentioning a few general principles laid down by my father. They are such as to commend themselves most to the most practical.

And first for a few negative ones.

1. Never give in to disobedience; and never threaten what you are not prepared to carry out.

2. Never lose your temper. I do not say never be angry. Anger is sometimes indispensable, especially where there has been any thing mean, dishonest, or cruel. But anger is very different from loss of temper. [Footnote: My Aunt Millicent is always saying, "I am grieeeved with you." But the announcement begets no sign of responsive grief on the face of the stolid child before her. She never whipped a child in her life. If she had, and it had but roused some positive anger in the child, instead of that undertone of complaint which is always oozing out of every one of them, I think It would have been a gain. But the poor lady is one of the whiny-piny people, and must be in preparation for a development of which I have no prevision. The only stroke of originality I thought I knew of her was this; to the register of her children's births, baptisms, and confirmations, entered on a grandly-ornamented fly-leaf of the family Bible, she has subjoined the record of every disease each has had, with the year, month, and day (and in one case the hour), when each distemper made its appearance. After most of the main entries, you may read, "Cut his (or her) first tooth"—at such a date. But, alas for the originality! she has just told me that her maternal grandmother did the same. How strange that she and my father should have had the same father I If they had had the same mother, too, I should have been utterly bewildered.]

3. Of all things, never sneer at them; and be careful, even, how you rally them.

4. Do not try to work on their feelings. Feelings are far too delicate things to be used for tools. It is like taking the mainspring out of your watch, and notching it for a saw. It may be a wonderful saw, but how fares your watch? Especially avoid doing so in connection with religious things, for so you will assuredly deaden them to all that is finest. Let your feelings, not your efforts on theirs, affect them with a sympathy the more powerful that it is not forced upon them; and, in order to do this, avoid being too English in the hiding of your feelings. A man's own family has a right to share in his good feelings.

5. Never show that you doubt, except you are able to convict. To doubt an honest child is to do what you can to make a liar of him; and to believe a liar, if he is not altogether shameless, is to shame him.

The common-minded masters in schools, who, unlike the ideal Arnold, are in the habit of disbelieving boys, have a large share in making the liars they so often are. Certainly the vileness of a lie is not the same in one who knows that whatever he says will be regarded with suspicion; and the master, who does not know an honest boy after he has been some time in his class, gives good reason for doubting whether he be himself an honest man, and incapable of the lying he is ready to attribute to all alike.

This last is my own remark, not my father's. I have an honest boy at school, and I know how he fares. I say honest; for though, as a mother, I can hardly expect to be believed, I have ground for believing that he would rather die than lie. I know I would rather he died than lied.

6. Instil no religious doctrine apart from its duty. If it have no duty as its necessary embodiment, the doctrine may well be regarded as doubtful.

7. Do not be hard on mere quarrelling, which, like a storm in nature, is often helpful in clearing the moral atmosphere. Stop it by a judgment between the parties. But be severe as to the kind of quarrelling, and the temper shown in it. Especially give no quarter to any unfairness arising from greed or spite. Use your strongest language with regard to that.

Now for a few of my father's positive rules:

1. Always let them come to you, and always hear what they have to say. If they bring a complaint, always examine into it, and dispense pure justice, and nothing but justice.

2. Cultivate a love of giving fair-play. Every one, of course, likes to receive fair-play; but no one ought to be left to imagine, therefore, that he loves fair-play.

3. Teach from the very first, from the infancy capable of sucking a sugar-plum, to share with neighbors. Never refuse the offering a child brings you, except you have a good reason,—and give it. And never pretend to partake: that involves hideous possibilities in its effects on the child.

The necessity of giving a reason for refusing a kindness has no relation to what is supposed by some to be the necessity of giving a reason with every command. There is no such necessity. Of course there ought to be a reason in every command. That it may be desirable, sometimes, to explain it, is all my father would allow.

4. Allow a great deal of noise,—as much as is fairly endurable; but, the moment they seem getting beyond their own control, stop the noise at once. Also put a stop at once to all fretting and grumbling.

5. Favor the development of each in the direction of his own bent. Help him to develop himself, but do not push development. To do so is most dangerous.

6. Mind the moral nature, and it will take care of the intellectual. In other words, the best thing for the intellect is the cultivation of the conscience, not in casuistry, but in conduct. It may take longer to arrive; but the end will be the highest possible health, vigor, and ratio of progress.

7. Discourage emulation, and insist on duty,—not often, but strongly.

Having written these out, chiefly from notes I had made of a long talk with my father, I gave them to Percivale to read.

"Rather—ponderous, don't you think, for weaving into a narrative?" was his remark.

"My narrative is full of things far from light," I returned. "I didn't say they were heavy, you know. That is quite another thing."

"I am afraid you mean generally uninteresting. But there are parents who might make them useful, and the rest of my readers could skip them."

"I only mean that a narrative, be it ever so serious, must not intrench on the moral essay or sermon."

"It is much too late, I fear, to tell me that. But, please, remember I am not giving the precepts as of my own discovery, though I have sought to verify them by practice, but as what they are,—my father's."

He did not seem to see the bearing of the argument.

"I want my book to be useful," I said. "As a mother, I want to share the help I have had myself with other mothers."

"I am only speaking from the point of art," he returned.

"And that's a point I have never thought of; any farther, at least, than writing as good English as I might."

"Do you mean to say you have never thought of the shape of the book your monthly papers would make?"

"Yes. I don't think I have. Scarcely at all, I believe."

"Then you ought."

"But I know nothing about that kind of thing. I haven't an idea in my head concerning the art of book-making. And it is too late, so far at least as this book is concerned, to begin to study it now."

"I wonder how my pictures would get on in that way."

"You can see how my book has got on. Well or ill, there it all but is. I had to do with facts, and not with art."

"But even a biography, in the ordering of its parts, in the arrangement of its light and shade, and in the harmony of the"—

"It's too late, I tell you, husband. The book is all but done. Besides, one who would write a biography after the fashion of a picture would probably, even without attributing a single virtue that was not present, or suppressing a single fault that was, yet produce a false book. The principle I have followed has been to try from the first to put as much value, that is, as much truth, as I could, into my story. Perhaps, instead of those maxims of my father's for the education of children, you would have preferred such specimens of your own children's sermons as you made me read to you for the twentieth time yesterday?"

Instead of smiling with his own quiet kind smile, as he worked on at his picture of St. Athanasius with "no friend but God and Death," he burst into a merry laugh, and said,—

"A capital idea! If you give those, word for word, I shall yield the precepts."

"Are you out of your five wits, husband?" I exclaimed. "Would you have everybody take me for the latest incarnation of the oldest insanity in the world,—that of maternity? But I am really an idiot, for you could never have meant it!"

"I do most soberly and distinctly mean it. They would amuse your readers very much, and, without offending those who may prefer your father's maxims to your children's sermons, would incline those who might otherwise vote the former a bore, to regard them with the clemency resulting from amusement."

"But I desire no such exercise of clemency. The precepts are admirable; and those need not take them who do not like them."

"So the others can skip the sermons; but I am sure they will give a few mothers, at least, a little amusement. They will prove besides, that you follow your own rule of putting a very small quantity of sage into the stuffing of your goslings; as also that you have succeeded in making them capable of manifesting what nonsense is indigenous in them. I think them very funny; that may be paternal prejudice: you think them very silly as well; that may be maternal solicitude. I suspect, that, the more of a philosopher any one of your readers is, the more suggestive will he find these genuine utterances of an age at which the means of expression so much exceed the matter to be expressed."

The idea began to look not altogether so absurd as at first; and a little more argument sufficed to make me resolve to put the absurdities themselves to the test of passing leisurely through my brain while I copied them out, possibly for the press.

The result is, that I am going to risk printing them, determined, should I find afterwards that I have made a blunder, to throw the whole blame upon my husband.

What still makes me shrink the most is the recollection of how often I have condemned, as too silly to repeat, things which reporting mothers evidently regarded as proofs of a stupendous intellect. But the folly of these constitutes the chief part of their merit; and I do not see how I can be mistaken for supposing them clever, except it be in regard of a glimmer of purpose now and then, and the occasional manifestation of the cunning of the stump orator, with his subterfuges to conceal his embarrassment when he finds his oil failing him, and his lamp burning low.



CHAPTER XL.

CHILD NONSENSE.

One word of introductory explanation.

During my husband's illness, Marion came often, but, until he began to recover, would generally spend with the children the whole of the time she had to spare, not even permitting me to know that she was in the house. It was a great thing for them; for, although they were well enough cared for, they were necessarily left to themselves a good deal more than hitherto. Hence, perhaps, it came that they betook themselves to an amusement not uncommon with children, of which I had as yet seen nothing amongst them.

One evening, when my husband had made a little progress towards recovery, Marion came to sit with me in his room for an hour.

"I've brought you something I want to read to you," she said, "if you think Mr. Percivale can bear it."

I told her I believed he could, and she proceeded to explain what it was.

"One morning, when I went into the nursery, I found the children playing at church, or rather at preaching; for, except a few minutes of singing, the preaching occupied the whole time. There were two clergymen, Ernest and Charles, alternately incumbent and curate. The chief duty of the curate for the time being was to lend his aid to the rescue of his incumbent from any difficulty in which the extemporaneous character of his discourse might land him."

I interrupt Marion to mention that the respective ages of Ernest and Charles were then eight and six.

"The pulpit," she continued, "was on the top of the cupboard under the cuckoo-clock, and consisted of a chair and a cushion. There were prayer-books in abundance; of which neither of them, I am happy to say, made other than a pretended use for reference. Charles, indeed, who was preaching when I entered, can't read; but both have far too much reverence to use sacred words in their games, as the sermons themselves will instance. I took down almost every word they said, frequent embarrassments and interruptions enabling me to do so. Ernest was acting as clerk, and occasionally prompted the speaker when his eloquence failed him, or reproved members of the congregation, which consisted of the two nurses and the other children, who were inattentive. Charles spoke with a good deal of unction, and had quite a professional air when he looked down on the big open book, referred to one or other of the smaller ones at his side, or directed looks of reprehension at this or that hearer. You would have thought he had cultivated the imitation of popular preachers, whereas he tells me he has been to church only three times. I am sorry I cannot give the opening remarks, for I lost them by being late; but what I did hear was this."

She then read from her paper as follows, and lent it me afterwards. I merely copy it.

"Once" (Charles was proceeding when Marion entered), "there lived an aged man, and another who was a very aged man; and the very aged man was going to die, and every one but the aged man thought the other, the very aged man, wouldn't die. I do this to explain it to you. He, the man who was really going to die, was—I will look in the dictionary" (He looks in the book, and gives out with much confidence), "was two thousand and eighty-eight years old. Well, the other man was—well, then, the other man 'at knew he was going to die, was about four thousand and two; not nearly so old, you see." (Here Charles whispers with Ernest, and then announces very loud),—"This is out of St. James. The very aged man had a wife and no children; and the other had no wife, but a great many children. The fact was—this was how it was—the wife died, and so he had the children. Well, the man I spoke of first, well, he died in the middle of the night." (A look as much as to say, "There! what do you think of that?"); "an' nobody but the aged man knew he was going to die. Well, in the morning, when his wife got up, she spoke to him, and he was dead!" (A pause.) "Perfectly, sure enough—dead!" (Then, with a change of voice and manner), "He wasn't really dead, because you know" (abruptly and nervously)—"Shut the door!—you know where he went, because in the morning next day" (He pauses and looks round. Ernest, out of a book, prompts—"The angels take him away"), "came the angels to take him away, up to where you know." (All solemn. He resumes quickly, with a change of manner), "They, all the rest, died of grief. Now, you must expect, as they all died of grief, that lots of angels must have come to take them away. Freddy will go when the sermon isn't over! That is such a bother!"

At this point Marion paused in her reading, and resumed the narrative form.

"Freddy, however, was too much for them; so Ernest betook himself to the organ, which was a chest of drawers, the drawers doing duty as stops, while Freddy went up to the pulpit to say 'Good-by,' and shake hands, for which he was mildly reproved by both his brothers."

My husband and I were so much amused, that Marion said she had another sermon, also preached by Charles, on the same day, after a short interval; and at our request she read it. Here it is.

"Once upon a time—a long while ago, in a little—Ready now?—Well, there lived in a rather big house, with quite clean windows: it was in winter, so nobody noticed them, but they were quite white, they were so clean. There lived some angels in the house: it was in the air, nobody knew why, but it did. No: I don't think it did—I dunno, but there lived in it lots of children—two hundred and thirty-two—and they—Oh! I'm gettin' distracted! It is too bad!" (Quiet is restored.) "Their mother and father had died, but they were very rich. Now, you see what a heap of children,—two hundred and thirty-two! and yet it seemed like one to them, they were so rich. That was it! it seemed like one to them because they were so rich. Now, the children knew what to get, and I'll explain to you now why they knew; and this is how they knew. The angels came down on the earth, and told them their mother had sent messages to them; and their mother and father—Don't talk! I'm gettin' extracted!" (Puts his hand to his head in a frenzied manner.) "Now, my brother" (This severely to a still inattentive member), "I'll tell you what the angels told them—what to get. What—how—now I will tell you how,—yes, how they knew what they were to eat. Well, the fact was, that—Freddy's just towards my face, and he's laughing! I'm going to explain. The mother and father had the wings on, and so, of course—Ernest, I want you!" (They whisper.)—"they were he and she angels, and they told them what to have. Well, one thing was—shall I tell you what it was? Look at two hundred and two in another book—one thing was a leg of mutton. Of course, as the mother and father were angels, they had to fly up again. Now I'm going to explain how they got it done. They had four servants and one cook, so that would be five. Well, this cook did them. The eldest girl was sixteen, and her name was Snowdrop, because she had snowy arms and cheeks, and was a very nice girl. The eldest boy was seventeen, and his name was John. He always told the cook what they'd have—no, the girl did that. And the boy was now grown up. So they would be mother and father." (Signs of dissent among the audience.) "Of course, when they were so old, they would be mother and father, and master of the servants. And they were very happy, but—they didn't quite like it. And—and"—(with a great burst) "you wouldn't like it if your mother were to die! And I'll end it next Sunday. Let us sing."

"The congregation then sung 'Curly Locks,'" said Marion, "and dispersed; Ernest complaining that Charley gave them such large qualities of numbers, and there weren't so many in the whole of his book. After a brief interval the sermon was resumed."

"Text is No. 66. I've a good congregation! I got to where the children did not like it without their mother and father. Well, you must remember this was a long while ago, so what I'm going to speak about could be possible. Well, their house was on the top of a high and steep hill; and at the bottom, a little from the hill, was a knight's house. There were three knights living in it. Next to it was stables with three horses in it. Sometimes they went up to this house, and wondered what was in it. 'They never knew, but saw the angels come. The knights were out all day, and only came home for meals. And they wondered what on earth the angels were doin', goin' in the house. They found out what—what, and the question was—I'll explain what it was. Ernest, come here." (Ernest remarks to the audience, "I'm curate," and to Charles, "Well, but, Charles, you're going to explain, you know;" and Charles resumes.) "The fact was, that this was—if you'd like to explain it more to yourselves, you'd better look in your books, No. 1828. Before, the angels didn't speak loud, so the knights couldn't hear; now they spoke louder, so that the knights could visit them, 'cause they knew their names. They hadn't many visitors, but they had the knights in there, and that's all."

I am still very much afraid that all this nonsense will hardly be interesting, even to parents. But I may as well suffer for a sheep as a lamb; and, as I had an opportunity of hearing two such sermons myself not long after, I shall give them, trusting they will occupy far less space in print than they do in my foolish heart.

It was Ernest who was in the pulpit and just commencing his discourse when I entered the nursery, and sat down with the congregation. Sheltered by a clothes-horse, apparently set up for a screen, I took out my pencil, and reported on a fly-leaf of the book I had been reading:—

"My brother was goin' to preach about the wicked: I will preach about the good. Twenty-sixth day. In the time of Elizabeth there was a very old house. It was so old that it was pulled down, and a quite new one was built instead. Some people who lived in it did not like it so much now as they did when it was old. I take their part, you know, and think they were quite right in preferring the old one to the ugly, bare, new one. They left it—sold it—and got into another old house instead."

Here, I am sorry to say, his curate interjected the scornful remark,—

"He's not lookin' in the book a bit!"

But the preacher went on, without heeding the attack on his orthodoxy.

"This other old house was still more uncomfortable: it was very draughty; the gutters were always leaking; and they wished themselves back in the new house. So, you see, if you wish for a better thing, you don't get it so good after all."

"Ernest, that is about the bad, after all!" cried Charles.

"Well, it's silly," remarked Freddy severely.

"But I wrote it myself," pleaded the preacher from the pulpit; and, in consideration of the fact, he was allowed to go on.

"I was reading about them being always uncomfortable. At last they decided to go back to their own house, which they had sold. They had to pay so much to get it back, that they had hardly any money left; and then they got so unhappy, and the husband whipped his wife, and took to drinking. That's a lesson." (Here the preacher's voice became very plaintive), "that's a lesson to show you shouldn't try to get the better thing, for it turns out worse, and then you get sadder, and every thing."

He paused, evidently too mournful to proceed. Freddy again remarked that it was silly; but Charles interposed a word for the preacher.

"It's a good lesson, I think. A good lesson, I say," he repeated, as if he would not be supposed to consider it much of a sermon.

But here the preacher recovered himself and summed up.

"See how it comes: wanting to get every thing, you come to the bad and drinking. And I think I'll leave off here. Let us sing."

The song was "Little Robin Redbreast;" during which Charles remarked to Freddy, apparently by way of pressing home the lesson upon his younger brother,—

"Fancy! floggin' his wife!"

Then he got into the pulpit himself, and commenced an oration.

"Chapter eighty-eight. The wicked.—Well, the time when the story was, was about Herod. There were some wicked people wanderin' about there, and they—not killed them, you know, but—went to the judge. We shall see what they did to them. I tell you this to make you understand. Now the story begins—but I must think a little. Ernest, let's sing 'Since first I saw your face.'

"When the wicked man was taken then to the good judge—there were some good people: when I said I was going to preach about the wicked, I did not mean that there were no good, only a good lot of wicked. There were pleacemans about here, and they put him in prison for a few days, and then the judge could see about what he is to do with him. At the end of the few days, the judge asked him if he would stay in prison for life or be hanged."

Here arose some inquiries among the congregation as to what the wicked, of whom the prisoner was one, had done that was wrong; to which Charles replied,—

"Oh! they murdered and killed; they stealed, and they were very wicked altogether. Well," he went on, resuming his discourse, "the morning came, and the judge said, 'Get the ropes and my throne, and order the people not to come to see the hangin'.' For the man was decided to be hanged. Now, the people would come. They were the wicked, and they would persist in comin'. They were the wicked; and, if that was the fact, the judge must do something to them.

"Chapter eighty-nine. The hangin'.—We'll have some singin' while I think."

"Yankee Doodle" was accordingly sung with much enthusiasm and solemnity. Then Charles resumed.

"Well, they had to put the other people, who persisted in coming, in prison, till the man who murdered people was hanged. I think my brother will go on."

He descended, and gave place to Ernest, who began with vigor.

"We were reading about Herod, weren't we? Then the wicked people would come, and had to be put to death. They were on the man's side; and they all called out that he hadn't had his wish before he died, as they did in those days. So of course he wished for his life, and of course the judge wouldn't let him have that wish; and so he wished to speak to his friends, and they let him. And the nasty wicked people took him away, and he was never seen in that country any more. And that's enough to-day, I think. Let us sing 'Lord Lovel he stood at his castle-gate, a combing his milk-white steed.'"

At the conclusion of this mournful ballad, the congregation was allowed to disperse. But, before they had gone far, they were recalled by the offer of a more secular entertainment from Charles, who re-ascended the pulpit, and delivered himself as follows:—

"Well, the play is called—not a proverb or a charade it isn't—it's a play called 'The Birds and the Babies.' Well!

"Once there was a little cottage, and lots of little babies in it. Nobody knew who the babies were. They were so happy! Now, I can't explain it to you how they came together: they had no father and mother, but they were brothers and sisters. They never grew, and they didn't like it. Now, you wouldn't like not to grow, would you? They had a little garden, and saw a great many birds in the trees. They were happy, but didn't feel happy—that's a funny thing now! The wicked fairies made them unhappy, and the good fairies made them happy; they gave them lots of toys. But then, how they got their living!

"Chapter second, called 'The Babies at Play.'—The fairies told them what to get—that was it!—and so they got their living Very nicely. And now I must explain what they played with. First was a house. A house. Another, dolls. They were very happy, and felt as if they had a mother and father; but they hadn't, and couldn't make it out. Couldn't—make—it—out!

"They had little pumps and trees. Then they had babies' rattles. Babies' rattles.—Oh! I've said hardly any thing about the birds, have I? an' it's called 'The Birds and the Babies!' They had lots of little pretty robins and canaries hanging round the ceiling, and—shall I say?"—

Every one listened expectant during the pause that followed.

"—And—lived—happy—ever—after."

The puzzle in it all is chiefly what my husband hinted at,—why and how both the desire and the means of utterance should so long precede the possession of any thing ripe for utterance. I suspect the answer must lie pretty deep in some metaphysical gulf or other.

At the same time, the struggle to speak where there is so little to utter can hardly fail to suggest the thought of some efforts of a more pretentious and imposing character.

But more than enough!



CHAPTER XLI.

"DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE."

I had for a day or two fancied that Marion was looking less bright than usual, as if some little shadow had fallen upon the morning of her life. I say morning, because, although Marion must now have been seven or eight and twenty, her life had always seemed to me lighted by a cool, clear, dewy morning sun, over whose face it now seemed as if some film of noonday cloud had begun to gather. Unwilling at once to assert the ultimate privilege of friendship, I asked her if any thing was amiss with her friends. She answered that all was going on well, at least so far that she had no special anxiety about any of them. Encouraged by a half-conscious and more than half-sad smile, I ventured a little farther.

"I am afraid there is something troubling you," I said.

"There is," she replied, "something troubling me a good deal; but I hope it will pass away soon."

The sigh which followed, however, was deep though gentle, and seemed to indicate a fear that the trouble might not pass away so very soon.

"I am not to ask you any questions, I suppose," I returned.

"Better not at present," she answered. "I am not quite sure that"—

She paused several moments before finishing her sentence, then added,—

"—that I am at liberty to tell you about it."

"Then don't say another word," I rejoined. "Only when I can be of service to you, you will let me, won't you?"

The tears rose to her eyes.

"I'm afraid it may be some fault of mine," she said. "I don't know. I can't tell. I don't understand such things."

She sighed again, and held her peace.

It was enigmatical enough. One thing only was clear, that at present I was not wanted. So I, too, held my peace, and in a few minutes Marion went, with a more affectionate leave-taking than usual, for her friendship was far less demonstrative than that of most women.

I pondered, but it was not of much use. Of course the first thing that suggested itself was, Could my angel be in love? and with some mortal mere? The very idea was a shock, simply from its strangeness. Of course, being a woman, she might be in love; but the two ideas, Marion and love, refused to coalesce. And again, was it likely that such as she, her mind occupied with so many other absorbing interests, would fall in love unprovoked, unsolicited? That, indeed, was not likely. Then if, solicited, she but returned love for love, why was she sad? The new experience might, it is true, cause such commotion in a mind like hers as to trouble her greatly. She would not know what to do with it, nor where to accommodate her new inmate so as to keep him from meddling with affairs he had no right to meddle with: it was easy enough to fancy him troublesome in a house like hers. But surely of all women she might be able to meet her own liabilities. And if this were all, why should she have said she hoped it would soon pass? That might, however, mean only that she hoped soon to get her guest brought amenable to her existing household economy.

There was yet a conjecture, however, which seemed to suit the case better. If Marion knew little of what is commonly called love, that is, "the attraction of correlative unlikeness," as I once heard it defined by a metaphysical friend of my father's, there was no one who knew more of the tenderness of compassion than she; and was it not possible some one might be wanting to marry her to whom she could not give herself away? This conjecture was at least ample enough to cover the facts in my possession—which were scanty indeed, in number hardly dual. But who was there to dare offer love to my saint? Roger? Pooh! pooh! Mr. Blackstone? Ah! I had seen him once lately looking at her with an expression of more than ordinary admiration. But what man that knew any thing of her could help looking at her with such an admiration? If it was Mr. Blackstone—why, he might dare—yes, why should he not dare to love her?—especially if he couldn't help it, as, of course, he couldn't. Was he not one whose love, simply because he was a true man from the heart to the hands, would honor any woman, even Saint Clare—as she must be when the church has learned to do its business without the pope? Only he mustn't blame me, if, after all, I should think he offered less than he sought; or her, if, entertaining no question of worth whatever, she should yet refuse to listen to him as, truly, there was more than a possibility she might.

If it were Mr. Blackstone, certainly I knew no man who could understand her better, or whose modes of thinking and working would more thoroughly fall in with her own. True, he was peculiar; that is, he had kept the angles of his individuality, for all the grinding of the social mill; his manners were too abrupt, and drove at the heart of things too directly, seldom suggesting a by-your-leave to those whose prejudices he overturned: true, also, that his person, though dignified, was somewhat ungainly,—with an ungainliness, however, which I could well imagine a wife learning absolutely to love; but, on the whole, the thing was reasonable. Only, what would become of her friends? There, I could hardly doubt, there lay the difficulty! Ay, there was the rub!

Let no one think, when I say we went to Mr. Blackstone's church the next Sunday, that it had any thing to do with these speculations. We often went on the first Sunday of the month.

"What's the matter with Blackstone?" said my husband as we came home.

"What do you think is the matter with him?" I returned.

"I don't know. He wasn't himself."

"I thought he was more than himself," I rejoined; "for I never heard even him read the litany with such fervor."

"In some of the petitions," said Percivale, "it amounted to a suppressed agony of supplication. I am certain he is in trouble."

I told him my suspicions.

"Likely—very likely," he answered, and became thoughtful.

"But you don't think she refused him?" he said at length.

"If he ever asked her," I returned, "I fear she did; for she is plainly in trouble too."

"She'll never stick to it," he said.

"You mustn't judge Marion by ordinary standards," I replied. "You must remember she has not only found her vocation, but for many years proved it. I never knew her turned aside from what she had made up her mind to. I can hardly imagine her forsaking her friends to keep house for any man, even if she loved him with all her heart. She is dedicated as irrevocably as any nun, and will, with St. Paul, cling to the right of self-denial."

"Yet what great difficulty would there be in combining the two sets of duties, especially with such a man as Blackstone? Of all the men I know, he comes the nearest to her in his devotion to the well-being of humanity, especially of the poor. Did you ever know a man with such a plentiful lack of condescension? His feeling of human equality amounts almost to a fault; for surely he ought sometimes to speak as knowing better than they to whom he speaks. He forgets that too many will but use his humility for mortar to build withal the Shinar-tower of their own superiority."

"That may be; yet it remains impossible for him to assume any thing. He is the same all through, and—I had almost said—worthy of Saint Clare. Well, they must settle it for themselves. We can do nothing."

"We can do nothing," he assented; and, although we repeatedly reverted to the subject on the long way home, we carried no conclusions to a different result.

Towards evening of the same Sunday, Roger came to accompany us, as I thought, to Marion's gathering, but, as it turned out, only to tell me he couldn't go. I expressed my regret, and asked him why. He gave me no answer, and his lip trembled. A sudden conviction seized me. I laid my hand on his arm, but could only say, "Dear Roger!" He turned his head aside, and, sitting down on the sofa, laid his forehead on his hand.

"I'm so sorry!" I said.

"She has told you, then?" he murmured.

"No one has told me any thing."

He was silent. I sat down beside him. It was all I could do. After a moment he rose, saying,—

"There's no good whining about it, only she might have made a man of me. But she's quite right. It's a comfort to think I'm so unworthy of her. That's all the consolation left me, but there's more in that than you would think till you try it."

He attempted to laugh, but made a miserable failure of it, then rose and caught up his hat to go. I rose also.

"Roger," I said, "I can't go, and leave you miserable. We'll go somewhere else,—anywhere you please, only you mustn't leave us."

"I don't want to go somewhere else. I don't know the place," he added, with a feeble attempt at his usual gayety.

"Stop at home, then, and tell me all about it. It will do you good to talk. You shall have your pipe, and you shall tell me just as much as you like, and keep the rest to yourself."

If you want to get hold of a man's deepest confidence, tell him to smoke in your drawing-room. I don't know how it is, but there seems no trouble in which a man can't smoke. One who scorns extraneous comfort of every other sort, will yet, in the profoundest sorrow, take kindly to his pipe. This is more wonderful than any thing I know about our kind. But I fear the sewing-machines will drive many women to tobacco.

I ran to Percivale, gave him a hint of how it was, and demanded his pipe and tobacco-pouch directly, telling him he must content himself with a cigar.

Thus armed with the calumet, as Paddy might say, I returned to Roger, who took it without a word of thanks, and began to fill it mechanically, but not therefore the less carefully. I sat down, laid my hands in my lap, and looked at him without a word. When the pipe was filled I rose and got him a light, for which also he made me no acknowledgment. The revenge of putting it in print is sweet. Having whiffed a good many whiffs in silence, he took at length his pipe from his mouth, and, as he pressed the burning tobacco with a forefinger, said,—

"I've made a fool of myself, Wynnie."

"Not more than a gentleman had a right to do, I will pledge myself," I returned.

"She has told you, then?" he said once more, looking rather disappointed than annoyed.

"No one has mentioned your name to me, Roger. I only guessed it from what Marion said when I questioned her about her sad looks."

"Her sad looks?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?" he asked eagerly.

"She only confessed she had had something to trouble her, and said she hoped it would be over soon."

"I dare say!" returned Roger dryly, looking gratified, however, for a moment.

My reader may wonder that I should compromise Marion, even so far as to confess that she was troubled; but I could not bear that Roger should think she had been telling his story to me. Every generous woman feels that she owes the man she refuses at least silence; and a man may well reckon upon that much favor. Of all failures, why should this be known to the world?

The relief of finding she had not betrayed him helped him, I think, to open his mind: he was under no obligation to silence.

"You see, Wynnie," he said, with pauses, and puffs at his pipe, "I don't mean I'm a fool for falling in love with Marion. Not to have fallen in love with her would have argued me a beast. Being a man, it was impossible for me to help it, after what she's been to me. But I was worse than a fool to open my mouth on the subject to an angel like her. Only there again, I couldn't, that is, I hadn't the strength to help it. I beg, however, you won't think me such a downright idiot as to fancy myself worthy of her. In that case, I should have deserved as much scorn as she gave me kindness. If you ask me how it was, then, that I dared to speak to her on the subject, I can only answer that I yielded to the impulse common to all kinds of love to make itself known. If you love God, you are not content with his knowing it even, but you must tell him as if he didn't know it. You may think from this cool talk of mine that I am very philosophical about it; but there are lulls in every storm, and I am in one of those lulls, else I shouldn't be sitting here with you."

"Dear Roger!" I said, "I am very sorry for your disappointment. Somehow, I can't be sorry you should have loved"—

"Have loved!" he murmured.

"Should love Marion, then," I went on. "That can do you nothing but good, and in itself must raise you above yourself. And how could I blame you, that, loving her, you wanted her to know it? But come, now, if you can trust me, tell me all about it, and especially what she said to you. I dare not give you any hope, for I am not in her confidence in this matter; and it is well that I am not, for then I might not be able to talk to you about it with any freedom. To confess the real truth, I do not see much likelihood, knowing her as I do, that she will recall her decision."

"It could hardly be called a decision," said Roger. "You would not have thought, from the way she took it, there was any thing to decide about. No more there was; and I thought I knew it, only I couldn't be quiet. To think you know a thing, and to know it, are two very different matters, however. But I don't repent having spoken my mind: if I am humbled, I am not humiliated. If she had listened to me, I fear I should have been ruined by pride. I should never have judged myself justly after it. I wasn't humble, though I thought I was. I'm a poor creature, Ethelwyn."

"Not too poor a creature to be dearly loved, Roger. But go on and tell me all about it. As your friend and sister, I am anxious to hear the whole."

Notwithstanding what I had said, I was not moved by sympathetic curiosity alone, but also by the vague desire of rendering some help beyond comfort. What he had now said, greatly heightened my opinion of him, and thereby, in my thoughts of the two, lessened the distance between him and Marion. At all events, by hearing the whole, I should learn how better to comfort him.

And he did tell me the whole, which, along with what I learned afterwards from Marion, I will set down as nearly as I can, throwing it into the form of direct narration. I will not pledge myself for the accuracy of every trifling particular which that form may render it necessary to introduce; neither, I am sure, having thus explained, will my reader demand it of me.



CHAPTER XLII.

ROGER AND MARION.

During an all but sleepless night, Roger had made up his mind to go and see Marion: not, certainly, for the first time, for he had again and again ventured to call upon her; but hitherto he had always had some pretext sufficient to veil his deeper reason, and, happily or unhappily, sufficient also to prevent her, in her more than ordinary simplicity with regard to such matters, from suspecting one under it.

She was at home, and received him with her usual kindness. Feeling that he must not let an awkward silence intervene, lest she should become suspicious of his object, and thus the chance be lost of interesting, and possibly moving her before she saw his drift, he spoke at once.

"I want to tell you something, Miss Clare," he said as lightly as he could.

"Well?" she returned, with the sweet smile which graced her every approach to communication.

"Did my sister—in—law ever tell you what an idle fellow I used to be?"

"Certainly not. I never heard her say a word of you that wasn't kind."

"That I am sure of. But there would have been no unkindness in saying that; for an idle fellow I was, and the idler because I was conceited enough to believe I could do any thing. I actually thought at one time I could play the violin. I actually made an impertinent attempt in your presence one evening, years and years ago, I wonder if you remember it."

"I do; but I don't know why you should call it impertinent."

"Anyhow, I caught a look on your face that cured me of that conceit. I have never touched the creature since,—a Cremona too!"

"I am very sorry, indeed I am. I don't remember—Do you think you could have played a false note?"

"Nothing more likely."

"Then, I dare say I made an ugly face. One can't always help it, you know, when something unexpected happens. Do forgive me."

"Forgive you, you angel!" cried Roger, but instantly checked himself, afraid of reaching his mark before he had gathered sufficient momentum to pierce it. "I thought you would see what a good thing it was for me. I wanted to thank you for it."

"It's such a pity you didn't go on, though. Progress is the real cure for an overestimate of ourselves."

"The fact is, I was beginning to see what small praise there is in doing many things ill and nothing well. I wish you would take my Cremona. I could teach you the A B C of it well enough. How you would make it talk! That would be something to live for, to hear you play the violin! Ladies do, nowadays, you know."

"I have no time, Mr. Roger. I should have been delighted to be your pupil; but I am sorry to say it is out of the question."

"Of course it is. Only I wish—well, never mind, I only wanted to tell you something. I was leading a life then that wasn't worth leading; for where's the good of being just what happens,—one time full of right feeling and impulse, and the next a prey to all wrong judgments and falsehoods? It was you made me see it. I've been trying to get put right for a long time now. I'm afraid of seeming to talk goody, but you will know what I mean. You and your Sunday evenings have waked me up to know what I am, and what I ought to be. I am a little better. I work hard now. I used to work only by fits and starts. Ask Wynnie."

"Dear Mr. Roger, I don't need to ask Wynnie about any thing you tell me. I can take your word for it just as well as hers. I am very glad if I have been of any use to you. It is a great honor to me."

"But the worst of it is, I couldn't be content without letting you know, and making myself miserable."

"I don't understand you, I think. Surely there can be no harm in letting me know what makes me very happy! How it should make you miserable, I can't imagine."

"Because I can't stop there. I'm driven to say what will offend you, if it doesn't make you hate me—no, not that; for you don't know how to hate. But you must think me the most conceited and presumptuous fellow you ever knew. I'm not that, though; I'm not that; it's not me; I can't help it; I can't help loving you—dreadfully—and it's such impudence! To think of you and me in one thought! And yet I can't help it. O Miss Clare! don't drive me away from you."

He fell on his knees as he spoke, and laid his head on her lap, sobbing like a child who had offended his mother. He almost cried again as he told me this. Marion half started to her feet in confusion, almost in terror, for she had never seen such emotion in a man; but the divine compassion of her nature conquered: she sat down again, took his head in her hands, and began stroking his hair as if she were indeed a mother seeking to soothe and comfort her troubled child. She was the first to speak again, for Roger could not command himself.

"I'm very sorry, Roger," she said. "I must be to blame somehow."

"To blame!" he cried, lifting up his head. "You to blame for my folly! But it's not folly," he added impetuously: "it would be downright stupidity not to love you with all my soul."

"Hush! hush!" said Marion, in whose ears his language sounded irreverent. "You couldn't love me with all your soul if you would. God only can be loved with all the power of the human soul."

"If I love him at all, Marion, it is you who have taught me. Do not drive me from you—lest—lest—I should cease to love him, and fall back into my old dreary ways."

"It's a poor love to offer God,—love for the sake of another," she said very solemnly.

"But if it's all one has got?"

"Then it won't do, Roger. I wish you loved me for God's sake instead. Then all would be right. That would be a grand love for me to have."

"Don't drive me from you, Marion," he pleaded. It was all he could say.

"I will not drive you from me. Why should I?"

"Then I may come and see you again?"

"Yes: when you please."

"You don't mean I may come as often as I like?"

"Yes—when I have time to see you."

"Then," cried Roger, starting to his feet with clasped hands, "—perhaps—is it possible?—you will—you will let me love you? O my God!"

"Roger," said Marion, pale as death, and rising also; for, alas! the sunshine of her kindness had caused hopes to blossom whose buds she had taken only for leaves, "I thought you understood me! You spoke as if you understood perfectly that that could never be which I must suppose you to mean. Of course it cannot. I am not my own to keep or to give away. I belong to this people,—my friends. To take personal and private duties upon me, would be to abandon them; and how dare I? You don't know what it would result in, or you would not dream of it. Were I to do such a thing, I should hate and despise and condemn myself with utter reprobation. And then what a prize you would have got, my poor Roger!"

But even these were such precious words to hear from her lips! He fell again on his knees before her as she stood, caught her hands, and, hiding his face in them, poured forth the following words in a torrent,—

"Marion, do not think me so selfish as not to have thought about that. It should be only the better for them all. I can earn quite enough for you and me too, and so you would have the more time to give to them. I should never have dreamed of asking you to leave them. There are things in which a dog may help a man, doing what the man can't do: there may be things in which a man might help an angel."

Deeply moved by the unselfishness of his love, Marion could not help a pressure of her hands against the face which had sought refuge within them. Roger fell to kissing them wildly.

But Marion was a woman; and women, I think, though I may be only judging by myself and my husband, look forward and round about, more than men do: they would need at all events; therefore Marion saw other things. A man-reader may say, that, if she loved him, she would not have thus looked about her; and that, if she did not love him, there was no occasion for her thus to fly in the face of the future. I can only answer that it is allowed on all hands women are not amenable to logic: look about her Marion did, and saw, that, as a married woman, she might be compelled to forsake her friends more or less; for there might arise other and paramount claims on her self-devotion. In a word, if she were to have children, she would have no choice in respect to whose welfare should constitute the main business of her life; and it even became a question whether she would have a right to place them in circumstances so unfavorable for growth and education. Therefore, to marry might be tantamount to forsaking her friends.

But where was the need of any such mental parley? Of course, she couldn't marry Roger. How could she marry a man she couldn't look up to? And look up to him she certainly did not, and could not.

"No, Roger," she said, this last thought large in her mind; and, as she spoke, she withdrew her hands, "it mustn't be. It is out of the question: I can't look up to you," she added, as simply as a child.

"I should think not," he burst out. "That would be a fine thing! If you looked up to a fellow like me, I think it would almost cure me of looking up to you; and what I want is to look up to you every day and all day long: only I can do that whether you let me or not."

"But I don't choose to have a—a—friend to whom I can't look up."

"Then I shall never be even a friend," he returned sadly. "But I would have tried hard to be less unworthy of you."

At this precise moment, Marion caught sight of a pair of great round blue eyes, wide open under a shock of red hair, about three feet from the floor, staring as if they had not winked for the last ten minutes. The child looked so comical, that Marion, reading perhaps in her looks the reflex of her own position, could not help laughing. Roger started up in dismay, but, beholding the apparition, laughed also.

"Please, grannie," said the urchin, "mother's took bad, and want's ye."

"Run and tell your mother I shall be with her directly," answered Marion; and the child departed.

"You told me I might come again," pleaded Roger.

"Better not. I didn't know what it would mean to you when I said it."

"Let it mean what you meant by it, only let me come."

"But I see now it can't mean that. No: I will write to you. At all events, you must go now, for I can't stop with you when Mrs. Foote"—

"Don't make me wretched, Marion. If you can't love me, don't kill me. Don't say I'm not to come and see you. I will come on Sundays, anyhow."

The next day came the following letter:—

Dear Mr. Roger,—I am very sorry, both for your sake and my own, that I did not speak more plainly yesterday. I was so distressed for you, and my heart was so friendly towards you, that I could hardly think of any thing at first but how to comfort you; and I fear I allowed you, after all, to go away with the idea that what you wished was not altogether impossible. But indeed it is. If even I loved you in the way you love me, I should yet make every thing yield to the duties I have undertaken. In listening to you, I should be undermining the whole of my past labors; and the very idea of becoming less of a friend to my friends is horrible to me.

But much as I esteem you, and much pleasure as your society gives me, the idea you brought before me yesterday was absolutely startling; and I think I have only to remind you, as I have just done, of the peculiarities of my position, to convince you that it could never become a familiar one to me. All that friendship can do or yield, you may ever claim of me; and I thank God if I have been of the smallest service to you: but I should be quite unworthy of that honor, were I for any reason to admit even the thought of abandoning the work which has been growing up around me for so many years, and is so peculiarly mine that it could be transferred to no one else. Believe me yours most truly,

MARION CLARE



CHAPTER XLIII.

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ROGER, AND ABOUT MR. BLACKSTONE.

After telling me the greater part of what I have just written, Roger handed me this letter to read, as we sat together that same Sunday evening.

"It seems final, Roger?" I said with an interrogation, as I returned it to him.

"Of course it is," he replied. "How could any honest man urge his suit after that,—after she says that to grant it would be to destroy the whole of her previous life, and ruin her self-respect? But I'm not so miserable as you may think me, Wynnie," he went on; "for don't you see? though I couldn't quite bring myself to go to-night, I don't feel cut off from her. She's not likely, if I know her, to listen to anybody else so long as the same reasons hold for which she wouldn't give me a chance of persuading her. She can't help me loving her, and I'm sure she'll let me help her when I've the luck to find a chance. You may be sure I shall keep a sharp lookout. If I can be her servant, that will be something; yes, much. Though she won't give herself to me—and quite right, too!—why should she?—God bless her!—she can't prevent me from giving myself to her. So long as I may love her, and see her as often as I don't doubt I may, and things continue as they are, I sha'n't be down-hearted. I'll have another pipe, I think." Here he half-started, and hurriedly pulled out his watch, "I declare, there's time yet!" he cried, and sprung to his feet. "Let's go and hear what she's got to say to-night."

"Don't you think you had better not? Won't you put her out?" I suggested.

"If I understand her at all," he said, "she will be more put out by my absence; for she will fear I am wretched, caring only for herself, and not for what she taught me. You may come or stay—I'm off. You've done me so much good, Wynnie!" he added, looking back in the doorway. "Thank you a thousand times. There's no comforter like a sister!"

"And a pipe," I said; at which he laughed, and was gone.

When Percivale and I reached Lime Court, having followed as quickly as we could, there was Roger sitting in the midst, as intent on her words as if she had been, an old prophet, and Marion speaking with all the composure which naturally belonged to her.

When she shook hands with him after the service, a slight flush washed the white of her face with a delicate warmth,—nothing more. I said to myself, however, as we went home, and afterwards to my husband, that his case was not a desperate one.

"But what's to become of Blackstone?" said Percivale.

I will tell my reader how afterwards he seemed to me to have fared; but I have no information concerning his supposed connection with this part of my story. I cannot even be sure that he ever was in love with Marion. Troubled he certainly was, at this time; and Marion continued so for a while,—more troubled, I think, than the necessity she felt upon her with regard to Roger will quite account for. If, however, she had to make two men miserable in one week, that might well cover the case.

Before the week was over, my husband received a note from Mr. Blackstone, informing him that he was just about to start for a few weeks on the Continent. When he returned I was satisfied from his appearance that a notable change had passed upon him: a certain indescribable serenity seemed to have taken possession of his whole being; every look and tone indicated a mind that knew more than tongue could utter,—a heart that had had glimpses into a region of content. I thought of the words, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High," and my heart was at rest about him. He had fared, I thought, as the child who has had a hurt, but is taken up in his mother's arms and comforted. What hurt would not such comforting outweigh to the child? And who but he that has had the worst hurt man can receive, and the best comfort God can give, can tell what either is?

I was present the first time he met Marion after his return. She was a little embarrassed: he showed a tender dignity, a respect as if from above, like what one might fancy the embodiment of the love of a wise angel for such a woman. The thought of comparing the two had never before occurred to me; but now for the moment I felt as if Mr. Blackstone were a step above Marion. Plainly, I had no occasion to be troubled about either of them.

On the supposition that Marion had refused him, I argued with myself that it could not have been on the ground that she was unable to look up to him. And, notwithstanding what she had said to Roger, I was satisfied that any one she felt she could help to be a nobler creature; must have a greatly better chance of rousing all the woman in her; than one whom she must regard as needing no aid from her. All her life had been spent in serving and sheltering human beings whose condition she regarded with hopeful compassion: could she now help adding Roger to her number of such? and if she once looked upon him thus tenderly, was it not at least very possible, that, in some softer mood, a feeling hitherto unknown to her might surprise her consciousness with its presence,—floating to the surface of her sea from its strange depths, and leaning towards him with the outstretched arms of embrace?

But I dared not think what might become of Roger should his divine resolves fail,—should the frequent society of Marion prove insufficient for the solace and quiet of his heart. I had heard how men will seek to drown sorrow in the ruin of the sorrowing power,—will slay themselves that they may cause their hurt to cease, and I trembled for my husband's brother. But the days went on, and I saw no sign of failure or change. He was steady at his work, and came to see us as constantly as before; never missed a chance of meeting Marion: and at every treat she gave her friends, whether at the house of which I have already spoken, or at Lady Bernard's country-place in the neighborhood of London, whether she took them on the river, or had some one to lecture or read to them, Roger was always at hand for service and help. Still, I was uneasy; for might there not come a collapse, especially if some new event were to destroy the hope which he still cherished, and which I feared was his main support? Would his religion then prove of a quality and power sufficient to keep him from drifting away with the receding tide of his hopes and imaginations? In this anxiety perhaps I regarded too exclusively the faith of Roger, and thought too little about the faith of God. However this may be, I could not rest, but thought and thought, until at last I made up my mind to go and tell Lady Bernard all about it.



CHAPTER XLIV.

THE DEA EX.

"And you think Marion likes him?" asked Lady Bernard, when she had in silence heard my story.

"I am sure she likes him. But you know he is so far inferior to her,—in every way."

"How do you know that? Questions are involved there which no one but God can determine. You must remember that both are growing. What matter if any two are unequal at a given moment, seeing their relative positions may be reversed twenty times in a thousand years? Besides, I doubt very much if any one who brought his favors with him would have the least chance with Marion. Poverty, to turn into wealth, is the one irresistible attraction for her; and, however duty may compel her to act, my impression is that she will not escape loving Roger."

I need not say I was gratified to find Lady Bernard's conclusion from Marion's character run parallel with my own.

"But what can come of it?" I said.

"Why, marriage, I hope."

"But Marion would as soon think of falling down and worshipping Baal and Ashtoreth as of forsaking her grandchildren."

"Doubtless. But there would be no occasion for that. Where two things are both of God, it is not likely they will be found mutually obstructive."

"Roger does declare himself quite ready to go and live amongst her friends, and do his best to help her."

"That is all as it should be, so far as he—as both of them are concerned; but there are contingencies; and the question naturally arises, How would that do in regard of their children?"

"If I could imagine Marion consenting." I said, "I know what she would answer to that question. She would say, Why should her children be better off than the children about them? She would say that the children must share the life and work of their parents."

"And I think she would be right, though the obvious rejoinder would be, 'You may waive your own social privileges, and sacrifice yourselves to the good of others; but have you a right to sacrifice your children, and heap disadvantages on their future?'"

"Now give us the answer on the other side, seeing you think Marion would be right after all."

"Marion's answer would, I think, be, that their children would be God's children; and he couldn't desire better for them than to be born in lowly conditions, and trained from the first to give themselves to the service of their fellows, seeing that in so far their history would resemble that of his own Son, our Saviour. In sacrificing their earthly future, as men would call it, their parents would but be furthering their eternal good."

"That would be enough in regard of such objections. But there would be a previous one on Marion's own part. How would her new position affect her ministrations?"

"There can be no doubt, I think," Lady Bernard replied, "that what her friends would lose thereby—I mean, what amount of her personal ministrations would be turned aside from them by the necessities of her new position—would be far more than made up to them by the presence among them of a whole well-ordered and growing family, instead of a single woman only. But all this jet leaves something for her more personal friends to consider,—as regards their duty in the matter. It naturally sets them on the track of finding out what could be done to secure for the children of such parents the possession of early advantages as little lower than those their parents had as may be; for the breed of good people ought, as much as possible, to be kept up. I will turn the thing over in my mind, and let you know what comes of it."

The result of Lady Bernard's cogitations is, in so far, to be seen in the rapid rise of a block of houses at no great distance from London, on the North-western Railway, planned under the instructions of Marion Clare. The design of them is to provide accommodation for all Marion's friends, with room to add largely to their number. Lady Bernard has also secured ground sufficient for great extension of the present building, should it prove desirable. Each family is to have the same amount of accommodation it has now, only far better, at the same rent it pays now, with the privilege of taking an additional room or rooms at a much lower rate. Marion has undertaken to collect the rents, and believes that she will thus in time gain an additional hold of the people for their good, although the plan may at first expose her to misunderstanding. From thorough calculation she is satisfied she can pay Lady Bernard five per cent for her money, lay out all that is necessary for keeping the property in thorough repair, and accumulate a fund besides to be spent on building more houses, should her expectations of these be answered. The removal of so many will also make a little room for the accommodation of the multitudes constantly driven from their homes by the wickedness of those, who, either for the sake of railways or fine streets, pull down crowded houses, and drive into other courts and alleys their poor inhabitants, to double the wretchedness already there from overcrowding.

In the centre of the building is a house for herself, where she will have her own private advantage in the inclusion of large space primarily for the entertainment of her friends. I believe Lady Bernard intends to give her a hint that a married couple would, in her opinion, be far more useful in such a position than a single woman. But although I rejoice in the prospect of greater happiness for two dear friends, I must in honesty say that I doubt this.

THE END