"That's just what I tell her," said her grandmother. "She's got too many airs for a girl in her condition. She talks about writing a book, and she is always trying to make up what she calls poetry. I expect that she will go crazy some of these days. She is all the time talking to herself, and I just think it is a sin for her to be so much taken up with her poetry."

"You had better put her to work; had she not better go out to service?"

"No, I am going to let her graduate first."

"What's the use of it? When she's through, if she wants to teach, she will have to go away."

"Yes, I know that, but Mrs. Lasette has persuaded me to let Annette graduate, and I have promised that I would do so, and besides I think to take Annette from school just now would almost break her heart."

"Well, mother, that is just like you; you will work yourself almost to death to keep Annette in school, and when she is through what good will it do her?"

"Maybe something will turn up that you don't see just now. When a good thing turns up if a person ain't ready for it they can't take hold of it."

"Well, I hope a good husband will turn up for my Alice."

"But maybe the good husband won't turn up for Annette."

"That is well said, for they tell me that Annette is not very popular, and that some of the girls are all the time making fun of her."

"Well, they had better make fun of themselves and their own bad manners. Annette is poor and has no father to stand by her, and I cannot entertain like some of their parents can, but Annette, with all her faults, is as good as any of them. Talk about the prejudice of the white people, I think there is just as much prejudice among some colored as there is among them, only we do not get the same chance to show it; we are most too mixed up and dependent on one another for that." Just then Mrs. Lasette entered the room and Mrs. Hanson, addressing her, said, "We were just discussing Annette's prospects. Mother wants to keep Annette at school till she graduates, but I think she knows enough now to teach a country school and it is no use for mother to be working as she does to keep Annette in school for the sake of letting her graduate. There are lots of girls in A.P. better off than she who have never graduated, and I don't see that mother can afford to keep Annette at school any longer."

"But, Eliza, Annette is company for me and she does help about the house."

"I don't think much of her help; always when I come home she has a book stuck under her nose."

"Annette," said Mrs. Lasette, "is a favorite of mine; I have always a warm place in my heart for her, and I really want to see the child do well. In my judgment I do not think it advisable to take her from school before she graduates. If Annette were indifferent about her lessons and showed no aptitude for improvement I should say as she does not appreciate education enough to study diligently and has not aspiration enough to keep up with her class, find out what she is best fitted for and let her be instructed in that calling for which she is best adapted."

"I think," said Mrs. Hanson, "you all do wrong in puffing up Annette with the idea that she is something extra. You think, Mrs. Lasette, that there is something wonderful about Annette, but I can't see it, and I hear a lot of people say she hasn't got good sense."

"They do not understand the child."

"They all say that she is very odd and queer and often goes out into the street as if she never saw a looking glass. Why, Mrs. Miller's daughter just laughed till she was tired at the way Annette was dressed when she went to call on an acquaintance of hers. Why, Annette just makes herself a perfect laughing stock."

"Well, I think Mary Miller might have found better employment than laughing at her company."

"Now, let me tell you, Mary Miller don't take her for company, and that very evening Annette was at my house, just next door, and when Mary Miller went to church she never asked her to go along with her, although she belongs to the same church."

"I am sorry to say it," said grandmother Harcourt, "but your Alice hardly ever comes to see Annette, and never asks her to go anywhere with her, but may be in the long run Annette will come out better than some who now look down upon her. It is a long road that has no turn and Annette is like a singed cat; she is better than she looks."

"I think," said Mrs. Lasette, "while Annette is very bright and intelligent as a pupil, she has been rather slow in developing in some other directions. She lacks tact, is straightforward to bluntness and has not any style about her and little or no idea of company manners, but she is never coarse nor rude. I never knew her to read a book whose author I would blush to name, and I never heard her engage in any conversation I would shrink to hear repeated. I don't think there is a girl of purer lips in A.P. than Annette, and I do not think your set, as you call it, has such a monopoly of either virtue or intelligence that you can afford to ridicule and depress any young soul who does not happen to come up to your social standard. Where dress and style are passports Annette may be excluded, but where brain and character count Annette will gain admittance. I fear," said Mrs. Lasette, rising to go, "that many a young girl has gone down in the very depths who might have been saved if motherly women, when they saw them unloved and lonely, had reached out to them a helping hand and encouraged them to live useful and good lives. We cry am I my sister's keeper? I will not wipe the blood off our hands if through pride and selfishness we have stabbed by our neglect souls we should have helped by our kindness. I always feel for young girls who are lonely and neglected in large cities and are in danger of being ensnared by pretended sympathies and false friendship, and, to-day, no girl is more welcome at any social gathering than Annette."

"Mrs. Lasette," said Mrs. Hanson, "you are rich and you can do as you choose in A.P. You can set the fashion."

"No; I am not rich, but I hope that I will always be able to lend a hand to any lonely girl who is neglected, slighted and forgotten while she is trying to do right, who comes within my reach while I live in A.P. Good morning."

"Annette," said Mrs. Hanson,[12] "has a champion who will stand by her."

"Yes," said Mrs. Harcourt,[13] "Anna is true as steel; the kind of woman you can tie to. When my great trouble came, she was good as gold, and when my poor heart was almost breaking, she always had a kind word for me. I wish we had ten thousand like her."

"Well, mother, I must go, but if Annette does graduate don't let her go on the stage looking like a fright. General H's daughter has a beautiful new silk dress and a lovely hat which she got just a few weeks before her mother's death; as she has gone in black she wants to sell it, and if you say so, and will pay for it on installments, I can get if for Annette, and I think with a little alteration it would be splendid for her graduation dress."

"No; Eliza, I can't afford it."

"Why, mother, Annette will need something nice for the occasion, and it will not cost any more than what you intend to pay for her dress and hat. Why not take them?"

"Because Annette is not able to wear them. Suppose she had that one fine dress and hat, would she not want more to match with them? I don't want her to learn to dress in a style that she cannot honestly afford. I think this love of dress is the ruination of many a young girl. I think this straining after fine things when you are not able to get them, is perfectly ridiculous. I believe in cutting your coat according to your cloth. I saw Mrs. Hempstead's daughter last Sunday dressed up in a handsome light silk, and a beautiful spring hat, and if she or her mother would get sick to-morrow, they would, I suppose, soon be objects of public charity or dependent on her widowed sister, who is too proud to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else's. You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved. You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows, you had better be laying up for a rainy day. You have no more need for a sealskin cloak than a cat has for a catechism. Now you do as you please, I have had my say."



Chapter XI

It has been quite a length of time since we left Mr. Thomas and his young friend facing an uncertain future. Since then he has not only been successful in building up a good business for himself, but in opening the gates to others. His success has not inflated him with pride. Neither has he become self-abashed and isolated from others less fortunate, who need his counsel and sympathy. Generous and noble in his character, he was conservative enough to cling to the good of the past and radical enough to give hospitality to every new idea which was calculated to benefit and make life noble and better. Mr. Thomas, in laying the foundation of his education, was thoughtful enough to enter a manual labor school, where he had the double advantage of getting an education and learning a trade, through which he was enabled to rely on himself without asking aid from any one, which in itself was an education in manliness, self-respect and self-reliance, that he could not have obtained had he been the protege of the wealthiest philanthropist in the land. As he had fine mechanical skill and ingenuity, he became an excellent carpenter. But it is one thing to have a trade and another thing to have an opportunity to exercise that trade. It was a time when a number of colored churches were being erected. To build large and even magnificent churches seemed to be a ruling passion with the colored people. Their homes might be very humble, their walls bare of pictured grace, but by united efforts they could erect large and handsome churches in which they had a common possession and it was one of the grand satisfactions of freedom that they were enabled to build their own churches and carry on their own business without being interfered with, and overlooked by a class of white ecclesiastics whose presence was a reminder of their implied inferiority. The church of which Mr. Thomas was a member was about to erect a costly edifice. The trustees would probably have willingly put the work in the hands of a colored man, had there been a sufficient number to have done the work, but they did not seem to remember that white prejudice had barred the Northern workshops against the colored man, that slavery, by degrading and monopolizing labor had been the means of educating colored men in the South to be good mechanics, and that a little pains and search on their part might have brought to light colored carpenters in the South who would have done the work as efficiently as those whom they employed, but as the trustees were not very farsighted men, they did the most available thing that came to hand; they employed a white man. Mr. Thomas' pastor applied to the master builder for a place for his parishioner.

"Can you give employment to one of my members, on our church?" Rev. Mr. Lomax asked the master builder.

"I would willingly do so, but I can not."

"Why not?"

"Because my men would all rise up against it. Now, for my part, I have no prejudice against your parishioner, but my men will not work with a colored man. I would let them all go if I could get enough colored men to suit me just as well, but such is the condition of the labor market, that a man must either submit to a number of unpalatable things or run the risk of a strike and being boycotted. I think some of these men who want so much liberty for themselves have very little idea of it for other people."

After this conversation the minister told Mr. Thomas the result of his interview with the master builder, and said,

"I am very sorry; but it is as it is, and it can't be any better."

"Do you mean by that that things are always going to remain as they are?"

"I do not see any quick way out of it. This prejudice is the outgrowth of ages; it did not come in a day, nor do I expect that it will vanish in an hour."

"Nor do I; but I do not think the best way for a people to mend their pastures is to sit down and bewail their fate."

"No; we must be up and going for ourselves. White people will——"

"White people," exclaimed Mr. Thomas somewhat impatiently. "Is there not a great deal of bosh in the estimate some of us have formed of white people. We share a common human feeling, from which the same cause produces the same effect. Why am I today a social Pariah, begging for work, and refused situation after situation? My father is a wealthy Southerner; he has several other sons who are inheritors of his name and heirs of his wealth. They are educated, cultured and occupy high social positions. Had I not as good a right to be well born as any of them? And yet, through my father's crime, I was doomed to the status of a slave with its heritage of ignorance, poverty and social debasement. Talk of the heathenism of Africa, of hostile tribes warring upon each other and selling the conquered foes into the hands of white men, but how much higher in the scale of moral progression was the white man who doomed his own child, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, to a life of slavery? The heathen could plead in his defence the fortunes of war, and the hostility of an opposing tribe, but the white man who enslaved his child warred upon his hapless offspring and wrote chattel upon his condition when his hand was too feeble to hurl aside the accursed hand and recognize no other ownership but God. I once felt bitterly on this subject, and although it is impossible for my father to make full reparation for the personal wrong inflicted on me, I owe him no grudge. Hating is poor employment for any rational being, but I am not prepared to glorify him at the expense of my mother's race. She was faithful to me when he deserted me to a life of ignorance and poverty, and although three-fourths of the blood in my veins belongs to my father's face, I feel a kinship with my mother's people that I do not with his, and I will defend that race from the aspersions of the meanest Negro hater in the land. Heathenism and civilization live side by side on American soil, but all the heathenism is not on the side of the Negro. Look at slavery and kukluxism with their meanness and crimes, mormonism with its vile abominations, lynch law with its burnings and hangings, our national policy in regard to the Indians and Chinese."

"I do not think," said the minister, "that there is another civilized country in the world where men are lynched for real or supposed crimes outside of America."

"The Negro need not bow his head like a bulrush in the presence of a race whose records are as stained by crime and dishonor as theirs. Let others decry the Negro, and say hard things about him, I am not prepared to join in the chorus of depreciation."

After parting with the minister, Mr. Thomas resolved, if pluck and energy were of any avail, that he would leave no stone unturned in seeking employment. He searched the papers carefully for advertisements, walked from one workshop to the other looking for work, and was eventually met with a refusal which meant, no negro need apply. At last one day when he had tried almost every workshop in the place, he entered the establishment of Wm. C. Nell, an Englishman who had not been long enough in America to be fully saturated by its Christless and inhuman prejudices. He was willing to give Mr. Thomas work, and put tools in his hands, and while watching how deftly he handled them, he did not notice the indignant scowls on the faces of his workmen, and their murmurs of disapprobation as they uttered their dissatisfaction one to the other. At length they took off their aprons, laid down their tools and asked to be discharged from work.

"Why, what does this mean?" asked the astounded Englishman.

"It means that we will not work with a nigger."

"Why, I don't understand? what is the matter with him?"

"Why, there's nothing the matter, only he's a nigger, and we never put niggers on an equality with us, and we never will."

"But I am a stranger in this country, and I don't understand you."

"Well, he's a nigger, and we don't want niggers for nothing; would you have your daughter marry a nigger?"

"Oh, go back to your work; I never thought of such a thing. I think the Negro must be an unfortunate man, and I do not wish my daughter to marry any unfortunate man, but if you do not want to work with him I will put him by himself; there is room enough on the premises; will that suit you any better?"

"No; we won't work for a man who employs a nigger."

The builder bit his lip; he had come to America hearing that it was a land of liberty but he had found an undreamed of tyranny which had entered his workshop and controlled his choice of workmen, and as much as he deprecated the injustice, it was the dictum of a vitiated public opinion that his field of occupation should be closed against the Negro, and he felt that he was forced, either to give up his business or submit to the decree.

Mr. Thomas then thought, "my money is vanishing, school rooms and workshops are closed against me. I will not beg, and I can not resort to any questionable means for bread. I will now take any position or do any work by which I can make an honest living." Just as he was looking gloomily at the future an old school mate laid his hand upon his shoulder and said, "how do you do, old fellow? I have not seen you for a week of Sundays. What are you driving at now?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. I am looking for work."

"Well, now this is just the ticket. I have just returned from the Pacific coast and while I was there I did splendidly; everything I touched turned to gold, and now I have a good job on hand if you are not too squeamish to take it. I have just set up a tiptop restaurant and saloon, and I have some of the best merchants of the city as my customers, and I want a first rate clerk. You were always good at figures and if you will accept the place come with me right away. Since high license went into operation, I am making money hand over fist. It is just like the big fish eating up the little fish. I am doing a rushing business and I want you to do my clerking."

The first thought which rushed into Mr. Thomas' mind was, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" but he restrained his indignation and said,

"No, Frank, I cannot accept your offer; I am a temperance man and a prohibitionist, and I would rather have my hands clean than to have them foul."

"You are a greater milksop than I gave you credit for. Here you are hunting work, and find door after door closed against you, not because you are not but because you are colored, and here am I offering you easy employment and good wages and you refuse them."

"Frank," said Mr. Thomas, "I am a poor man, but I would rather rise up early, and sit up late and eat the bread of carelessness, than to roll in wealth by keeping a liquor saloon, and I am determined that no drunkard shall ever charge me with having helped drag him down to misery, shame and death. No drunkard's wife shall ever lay the wreck of her home at my door."

"My business," said Frank Miller, "is a legitimate one; there is money in it, and I am after that. If people will drink too much and make fools of themselves I can't help it; it is none of my business, and if I don't sell to them other people will. I don't think much of a man who does not know how to govern himself, but it is no use arguing with you when you are once set in your ways; good morning."



Chapter XII

It was a gala day in Tennis Court. Annette had passed a highly successful examination, and was to graduate from the normal school, and as a matter of course, her neighbors wanted to hear Annette "speak her piece" as they called the commencement theme, and also to see how she was going to behave before all "them people." They were, generally speaking, too unaspiring to feel envious toward any one of their race who excelled them intellectually, and so there was little or no jealousy of Annette in Tennis Court; in fact some of her neighbors felt a kind of pride in the thought that Tennis Court would turn out a girl who could stand on the same platform and graduate alongside of some of their employers' daughters. If they could not stand there themselves they were proud that one of their race could.

"I feel," said one, "like the boy when some one threatened to slap off his face who said 'you can slap off my face, but I have a big brother and you can't slap off his face;'" and strange as it may appear, Annette received more encouragement from a class of honest-hearted but ignorant and well meaning people who knew her, than she did from some of the most cultured and intelligent people of A.P. Nor was it very strange; they were living too near the poverty, ignorance and social debasement of the past to have developed much race pride, and a glowing enthusiasm in its progress and development. Although they were of African descent, they were Americans whose thoughts were too much Americanized to be wholly free from imbibing the social atmosphere with which they were in constant contact in their sphere of enjoyments. The literature they read was mostly from the hands of white men who would paint them in any colors which suited their prejudices or predilections. The religious ideas they had embraced came at first thought from the same sources, though they may have undergone modifications in passing through their channels of thought, and it must be a remarkable man or woman who thinks an age ahead of the generation in which his or her lot is cast, and who plans and works for the future on the basis of that clearer vision. Nor is it to be wondered at, if under the circumstances, some of the more cultured of A.P. thought it absurd to look for anything remarkable to come out of the black Nazareth of Tennis court. Her neighbors had an idea that Annette was very smart; that she had a great "head piece," but unless she left A.P. to teach school elsewhere, they did not see what good her education was going to do her. It wasn't going to put any meal in the barrel nor any potatoes in the bin. Even Mrs. Larkins relaxed her ancient hostility to Annette and opened her heart to present her with a basket of flowers. Annette within the last year had become very much changed in her conduct and character. She had become friendly in her manner and considerate in her behavior to Mrs. Larkins since she had entered the church, during a protracted meeting. Annette was rather crude in her religious views but here again Mrs. Lasette became her faithful friend and advisor. In dealing with a young convert she thought more was needed than getting her into the church and making her feel that the moment she rose from the altar with rejoicing on her lips, that she was a full blown christian. That, to Mrs. Lasette was the initial step in the narrow way left luminous by the bleeding feet of Christ, and what the young convert needed was to be taught how to walk worthy of her high calling, and to make her life a thing of usefulness and faithfulness to God and man, a growth in grace and in the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Simply attired in a dress which Mrs. Lasette thought fitted for the occasion, Annette took her seat quietly on the platform and calmly waited till her turn came. Her subject was announced: "The Mission of the Negro." It was a remarkable production for a girl of her age. At first she portrayed an African family seated beneath their bamboo huts and spreading palms; the light steps of the young men and maidens tripping to music, dance and song; their pastimes suddenly broken upon by the tramp of the merchants of flesh and blood; the capture of defenceless people suddenly surprised in the midst of their sports, the cries of distress, the crackling of flames, the cruel oaths of reckless men, eager for gold though they coined it from tears and extracted it from blood; the crowding of the slaveships, the horrors of the middle passage, the landing of the ill-fated captives were vividly related, and the sad story of ages of bondage. It seemed as if the sorrow of centuries was sobbing in her voice. Then the scene changed, and like a grand triumphal march she recounted the deliverance of the Negro, and the wondrous change which had come over his condition; the slave pen exchanged for the free school, the fetters on his wrist for the ballot in his right hand. Then her voice grew musical when she began to speak of the mission of the Negro, "His mission," she said, "is grandly constructive." Some races had been "architects of destruction," but their mission was to build over the ruins of the dead past, the most valuable thing that a man or woman could possess on earth, and that is good character. That mission should be to bless and not to curse. To lift up the banner of the Christian religion from the mire and dust into which slavery and pride of caste had trailed it, and to hold it up as an ensign of hope and deliverance to other races of the world, of whom the greater portion were not white people. It seemed as if an inspiration lit up the young face; her eye glowed with unwonted fervor; it seemed as if she had fused her whole soul into the subject, which was full of earnestness and enthusiasm. Her theme was the sensation of the hour. Men grew thoughtful and attentive, women tender and sympathetic as they heard this member of a once despised people, recount the trials and triumphs of her race, and the hopes that gathered around their future. The day before Annette graduated Mr. Thomas had met a friend of his at Mrs. Lasette's, who had lately returned from an extensive tour. He had mingled with many people and had acquired a large store of information. Mr. Thomas had invited him to accompany him to the commencement. He had expected that Annette would acquit herself creditably, but she had far exceeded his most sanguine expectations. Clarence Luzerne had come because his friend Mr. Thomas had invited him and because he and Mrs. Lasette had taken such great interest in Annette's welfare, and his curiosity was excited to see how she would acquit herself and compare with the other graduates. He did not have much faith in graduating essays. He had heard a number of such compositions at commencements which had inspired him with glowing hopes for the future of the authors, which he had never seen realized, and he had come more to gratify Mr. Thomas than to please himself. But if he came through curiosity, he remained through interest, which had become more and more absorbing as she proceeded.

"Clarence," said Mr. Thomas to his friend, noticing the deep interest he was manifesting, "Are you entranced? You appear perfectly spell-bound."

"Well, I am; I am really delighted and indebted to you for a rare and unexpected pleasure. Why, that young lady gave the finest production that I have heard this morning. I hardly think she could have written it herself. It seems wonderful that a girl of her age should have done it so well. You are a great friend of hers; now own up, are not your finger marks upon it? I wouldn't tell it out of our ranks, but I don't think she wrote that all herself."

"Who do you think wrote it for her?"

"Mrs. Lasette."

"I do not think so; Mrs. Lasette is a fine writer, but that nervous, fervid and impassioned style is so unlike hers, that I do not think she wrote one line of it, though she might have overlooked it, and made some suggestions, but even if it were so that some one else wrote it, we know that no one else delivered it, and that her delivery was excellent."

"That is so; why, she excelled all the other girls. Do you know what was the difference between her and the other girls?"

"No; what was it?" said Mr. Thomas.

"They wrote from their heads, she wrote from her heart. Annette has begun to think; she has been left a great deal to herself, and in her loneliness, she has developed a thoughtfulness past her years, and I think that a love for her race and a desire to serve it has become a growing passion in her soul; her heart has supplied her intellect."

"Ah, I think from what you say that I get the true clue to the power and pathos with which she spoke this morning and that accounts for her wonderful success."

"Yes," said Mr. Luzerne,[14] "it is the inner life which develops the outer life, and just such young people as Annette make me more hopeful of the future of the race."

Mrs. Lasette witnessed Annette's graduation with intense interest and pleasure. Grandmother Harcourt looked the very impersonation of satisfaction as she gathered up the floral gifts, and modestly waited while Annette received the pleasant compliments of admiring friends.

At his request Mr. Thomas introduced Mr. Luzerne to Annette, who in the most gracious and affable manner, tendered to Annette his hearty congratulations which she modestly received, and for the time being all went merry as a marriage bell.



Chapter XIII

"What a fool he is to refuse my offer," thought the saloon-keeper. "What a pity it is," said Mr. Thomas to himself, "that a man of his education and ability should be engaged in such accursed business."

After refusing the saloonkeeper's offer Mr. Thomas found a job of work. It was not a job congenial to his feelings, but his motto was, "If I do not see an opening I will make one." After he had turned from Mr. Englishman's workshop, burning with a sense of wrong which he felt powerless to overcome, he went on the levee and looked around to see if any work might be picked up by him as a day laborer. He saw a number of men singing, joking and plying their tasks with nimble feet and apparently no other care upon their minds than meeting the demands of the present hour, and for a moment he almost envied their lightheartedness, and he thought within himself, where all men are born blind, no man misses the light. These men are contented with privileges, and I who have fitted myself for a different sphere in life, am chaffing because I am denied rights. The right to sell my labor in any workshop in this city same as the men of other nationalities, and to receive with them a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. But he was strong and healthy and he was too high spirited to sit moping at home depending upon his mother to divide with him her scanty means till something should turn up. The first thing that presented itself to him was the job of helping unload a boat which had landed at the wharf, and a hand was needed to assist in unloading her. Mr. Thomas accepted the position and went to work and labored manfully at the unaccustomed task. That being finished the merchant for whom he had done the work, hired him to labor in his warehouse. He showed himself very handy in making slight repairs when needed and being ready to turn his hand to any service out of his routine of work, hammering a nail, adjusting a disordered lock and showing a general concern in his employer's interests. One day his employer had engaged a carpenter to make him a counter, but the man instead of attending to his work had been off on a drunken spree, and neglected to do the job. The merchant, vexed at the unnecessary delay, said to Mr. Thomas in a bantering manner, "I believe you can do almost anything, couldn't you make this counter?"

Mr. Thomas answered quite modestly, "I believe I could if I had my tools."

"Tools! What do you mean by tools?"

Mr. Thomas told him how he learned to be a carpenter in the South and how he had tried so unsuccessfully in the North to get an opportunity to work at his trade until discouraged with the attempt, he had made up his mind to take whatever work came to hand till he could see farther.

The merchant immediately procured the materials and set Mr. Thomas to work, who in a short time finished the counter, and showed by his workmanship that he was an excellent carpenter. The merchant pleased with his work and satisfied with his ability, entrusted him with the erection of a warehouse and, strange as it may appear, some of those men who were too proud or foolish to work with him as a fellow laborer, were humble enough to work under him as journeymen. When he was down they were ready to kick him down. When he was up they were ready to receive his helping hand. Mr. Thomas soon reached that "tide in his affairs which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." Against the odds which were against him his pluck and perseverance prevailed, and he was enabled not only to build up a good business for himself, but also to help others, and to teach them by his own experience not to be too easily discouraged, but to trust to pluck more than luck, and learn in whatever capacity they were employed to do their work heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.

Anxious to do what she could to benefit the community in which she lived, Mrs. Lasette threw open her parlors for the gathering together of the best thinkers and workers of the race, who choose to avail themselves of the privilege of meeting to discuss any question of vital importance to the welfare of the colored people of the nation. Knowing the entail of ignorance which slavery had left them, she could not be content by shutting up herself to mere social enjoyments within the shadow of her home. And often the words would seem to ring within her soul, "my people is destroyed for lack of knowledge," and with those words would come the question, am I doing what I can to dispel the darkness which has hung for centuries around our path? I have been blessed with privileges which were denied others; I sat 'mid the light of knowledge when some of my ill-fated sisters did not know what it was to see daylight in their cabins from one week's end to the other. Sometimes when she met with coldness and indifference where she least expected it, she would grow sad but would not yield to discouragement. Her heart was in the right place. "Freely she had received and freely she would give." It was at one of Mrs. Lasette's gatherings that Mr. Thomas met Rev. Mr. Lomax on whose church he had been refused a place, and Mr. Thurman, a tradesman who also had been ousted from his position through pride of caste and who had gone into another avocation, and also Charley Cooper, of whom we have lost sight for a number of years. He is now a steady and prosperous young man, a constant visitor at Mrs. Lasette's. Rumor says that Mrs. Lasette's bright-eyed and lovely daughter is the magnet which attracts him to their pleasant home. Rev. Lomax has also been absent for several years on other charges, but when he meets Mr. Thomas, the past flows back and the incidents of their latest interviews naturally take their place in the conversation. "It has been some time since we met," said Mr. Thomas, heartily shaking the minister's hand.

"How has life used you since last we met?" said Rev. Lomax to Mr. Thomas. "Are you well?"

"Perfectly well, I have had a varied experience since I met you, but I have no reason to complain, and I think my experience has been invaluable to me, and with this larger experience and closer observation, I feel that I am more able to help others, and that, I feel, has been one of my most valued acquirements. I sometimes think of members of our people in some directions as sheep without a shepherd, and I do wish from the bottom of my heart that I knew the best way to help them."

"You do not," said the minister, somewhat anxiously, "ignore the power of the pulpit."

"No, I do not; I only wish it had tenfold force. I wish we had ten thousand ministers like Oberlin who was not ashamed to take the lead in opening a road from Bande Roche to Strasburgh, a distance of several miles to bring his parishioners in contact with the trade and business of a neighboring village. I hope the time will come when every minister in building a church which he consecrates to the worship of God will build alongside of it or under the same roof, parish buildings or rooms to be dedicated to the special wants of our people in their peculiar condition."

"I do wish, Brother Lomax, those costly buildings which you erect will cover more needs and wants of our people than some of them do now."

"What would you have in them?"

"I would have a parish building to every church, and I would have in them an evening home for boys. I would have some persons come in and teach them different handicrafts, so as at least to give them an opportunity to be more expert in learning how to use their hands. I would have that building a well warmed and well lighted room in winter, where all should be welcome to come and get a sandwich and a warm cup of tea or coffee and a hot bowl of soup, and if the grogshops were selling liquor for five cents, I would sell the soup for three or four cents, with a roll. I would have a room reserved for such ladies as Mrs. Lasette, who are so willing to help, for the purpose of holding mother's meetings. I would try to have the church the great centre of moral, spiritual and intellectual life for the young, and try to present counter attractions to the debasing influence of the low grogshops, gambling dens and houses of ill fame."

"Part of our city (ought I confine myself to saying part of the city) has not the whole city been cursed by rum? But I now refer to a special part. I have seen church after church move out of that part of the city where the nuisance and curse were so rife, but I never, to my knowledge, heard of one of those churches offering to build a reading room and evening home for boys, or to send out paid and sustained by their efforts, a single woman to go into rum-cursed homes and teach their inmates a more excellent way. I would have in that parish building the most earnest men and women to come together and consult and counsel with each other on the best means to open for ourselves, doors which are still closed against us."

"I am sure," said the minister, "I am willing to do what I can for the temporal and spiritual welfare of our people, and in this I have the example of the great Physician who did not consider it beneath him to attend to physical maladies as well as spiritual needs, and who did not consider the synagogue too holy, nor the Sabbath day too sacred to administer to the destitute and suffering."

"I was very sorry when I found out, Brother Thomas, that I could not have you employed on my church, but I do not see what else I could have done except submit."

"That was all you could have done in that stage of the work when I applied, and I do not wish to bestow the slightest censure on you or the trustees of your church, but I think, if when you were about to build had you advertised for competent master-builders in the South, that you could have gotten enough to have built the church without having employed Mr. Hoog the master-builder. Had you been able to have gone to him and said, 'we are about to build a church and it is more convenient for us to have it done by our citizens than to send abroad for laborers. We are in communication with a colored master builder in Kentucky, who is known as an efficient workman and who would be glad to get the job, and if your men refuse to work with a colored man our only alternative will be to send for colored carpenters and put the building in their hands.' Do you think he would have refused a thirty thousand dollar job just because some of his men refused to work with colored men? I think the greater portion of his workmen would have held their prejudices in abeyance rather than let a thirty thousand dollar job slip out of their hands. Now here is another thing in which I think united effort could have effected something. Now, here is my friend Mr. Thurman; he was a saddler versed in both branches of harness making. For awhile he got steady work in a saddler's shop, but the prejudice against him was so great that his employer was forced to dismiss him. He took work home, but that did not heal the dissatisfaction, and at last he gave it up and went to well-digging. Now, there were colored men in that place who could have, as I think, invested some money in buying material and helped him, not as a charity, but as a mere business operation to set up a place for himself; he had the skill; they had the money, and had they united both perhaps to-day there would be a flourishing business carried on by the man who is now digging wells for a living. I do hope that some time there will be some better modes of communication between us than we now possess; that a labor bureau will be established not as a charity among us, but as a business with capable and efficient men who will try to find out the different industries that will employ men irrespective of color and advertise and find steady and reliable colored men to fill them. Colored men in the South are largely employed in raising cotton and other produce; why should there not be more openings in the South for colored men to handle the merchandize and profit by it?"

"What hinders?" said Rev. Lomax.

"I will not say what hinders, but I will say what I think you can try to do to help. Teach our young to dedicate their young lives to the noble service of devoting them to the service of our common cause; to throw away their cigars, dash down the foaming beer and sparkling wine and strive to be more like those of whom it was said, 'I write unto you, young men, because you are strong.'"



Chapter XIV

Grandmother Harcourt was failing. Annette was rising towards life's summit. Her grandmother was sinking to death's vale.

The hours are rifting day by day Strength from the walls of living clay.

Her two children who were living in A.P. wished her to break up her home and come and live with them. They had room in their hearts and homes for her, but not for Annette. There was something in Annette's temperament with which other members of the family could not harmonize. They were not considerate enough to take into account her antenatal history, and to pity where they were so ready to condemn. Had Annette been born deficient in any of her bodily organs, they could have made allowance for her, and would have deemed it cruel to have demanded that she should have performed the same amount of labor with one hand that she could have done with both. They knew nothing of heredity, except its effects, which they were not thoughtful enough to trace back to the causes over which Annette had no control, and instead of trying to counteract them as one might strive to do in a case of inherited physical tendencies, they only aggravated, and constantly strengthened all the unlovely features in Annette's character, and Annette really seemed like an anomalous contradiction. There was a duality about her nature as if the blood of two races were mingling in her veins. To some persons Annette was loving and love-able, bright, intelligent, obliging and companionable; to others, unsociable, unamiable and repelling. Her heart was like a harp which sent out its harmonious discords in accordance with the moods of the player who touched its chords. To some who swept them it gave out tender and touching melody, to others its harshest and saddest discords. Did not the Psalmist look beneath the mechanism of the body to the constitution of the soul when he said that "We are fearfully and wonderfully made?"

But the hour came when all discussion was ended as to who was to shelter the dear old grandmother in her declining years. Mrs. Harcourt was suddenly paralyzed, and in a few days Annette stood doubly orphaned. Grandmother Harcourt's children gathered around the bedside of their dying mother. She was conscious but unable to speak. Occasionally her eyes would rest lovingly upon Annette and then turn wistfully to her children. Several times she assayed to speak, but the words died upon her lips. Her eldest son entered the room just as life was trembling on its faintest chords. She recognized him, and gathering up her remaining strength she placed his hand on Annette's, and tried again to speak. He understood her and said very tenderly,

"Mother, I will look after Annette."

All the care faded from the dear old face. Amid the shadows that never deceive flitted a smile of peace and contentment. The fading eye lit up with a sudden gaze of joy and wonder. She reached out her hand as if to meet a welcome and precious friend, and then the radiant face grew deathly pale; the outstretched hands relaxed their position, and with a smile, just such a smile as might greet a welcoming angel, her spirit passed out into the eternities, and Annette felt as she had never felt before, that she was all alone. The love that had surrounded and watched over her, born with her perverseness, and sheltered her in its warm clasp, was gone; it had faded suddenly from her vision, and left in its stead a dull and heavy pain. After the funeral, Mrs. Harcourt's children returned to the house where they quietly but earnestly discussed the question what shall be done with Annette. Mrs. Hanson's house was rather small; that is, it was rather small for Annette. She would have found room in her house if she only had room in her heart for her. She had nursed her mother through her sickness, and said with unnatural coldness, "I have got rid of one trouble and I do not want another." Another sister who lived some distance from A.P., would have taken Annette, but she knew that other members of her family would object, as they would be fearful that Annette would be an apple of discord among them. At length, her uncle Thomas decided that she should go with him. He felt that his mother had died with the assurance on her mind that he would care for Annette, and he resolved to be faithful in accepting what was to him the imposition of a new burden on his shoulders. His wife was a cold and unsympathizing woman. She was comfortably situated but did not wish that comfort invaded by her husband's relations. In household matters her husband generally deferred to her judgment, but here was no other alternative than that of taking Annette under the shadow of his home, or leaving her unprotected in the wide world, and he was too merciful and honorable to desert Annette in her saddest hour of need. Having determined that Annette should share his home, he knew that it was advisable to tell his wife about his decision, and to prepare her for Annette's coming.

"Well," said Dr. Harcourt's wife after her husband's return from the funeral, "what are you going to do with Annette?"

"She is coming here," said Dr. Harcourt quietly and firmly.

"Coming here?" said Mrs. Harcourt, looking aghast. "I think at least you might have consulted me."

"That is true, my dear, I would have gladly done so had you been present when the decision was made."

"But where are her aunts, and where was your brother, John; why didn't they take her?"

"John was at home sick with the rheumatism and sister Jane did not appear to be willing to have her come."

"I guess Jane is like I am; got enough to do to look after her own family."

"And sister Eliza said she hadn't any room."

"No room; when she has eight rooms in her house and only two children? She could have made room for her had she chosen."

"May be her husband wasn't willing."

"Oh, it is no such thing. I know John Hanson[15] better than that; Liza is the head man of that house, and just leads him by the nose wherever she wants him to go, and besides, Mrs. Lord's daughter is there pretending to pay board, but I don't believe that she pays it one-half the time."

"She is company for Alice and they all seem very fond of her."

"I do get so sick of that girl, mambying and jambying about that family; calling Liza and her husband 'Ma and Pa,' I haven't a bit of faith in her."

"Well, I confess that I am not very much preposessed in her favor. She just puts me in mind of a pussy cat purring around you."

"Well, now as to Annette. You do not want her here?"

"Not if I can help it."

"But can't she help you to work?"

"She could if she knew how. If wishes were horses beggars might ride. Your mother made a great mistake in bringing Annette up. Annette has a good education, but when that is said, all is said."

"Why, my dear mother was an excellent housekeeper. Did she not teach Annette?"

"Your mother was out a great deal as a sick nurse, and when she went away from home she generally boarded Annette with a friend, who did not, as your mother paid her good board, exact any service from Annette, and while with her she never learned to make a loaf of bread or to cook a beefsteak, and when your mother was at home when she set Annette to do any work, if she did it awkwardly and clumsily she would take it out of her hand and do it herself rather than bother with her, and now I suppose I am to have all the bother and worry with her."

"Well my dear."

"Oh don't come dearing me, and bringing me all this trouble."

"Well my dear, I don't see how it could be helped. I could not leave Annette in the house all by herself. I couldn't afford to make myself the town's talk. May be things will turn out better than you expect. We've got children of our own, and we don't know when we are gone, how they will fare."

"That is true, but I never mean to bring my children up in such a way that they will be no use anywhere, and no one will want them."

"Well, I don't see any other way than bringing Annette here."

"Well, if I must, I must," she said with an air of despondency.

Dr. Harcourt rode over to his sister's where Annette was spending the day and brought the doubly orphaned girl to his home. As she entered the room, it seemed as though a chill struck to her heart when her Aunt bade her good morning. There was no warm pressure in the extended hand. No loving light in the cold unsympathizing eyes which seemed to stab her through and through. The children eyed her inquisitively, as if wishing to understand her status with their parents before they became sociable with her. After supper Annette's uncle went out and her aunt sat quietly and sewed till bed time, and then showed Annette to her room and left the lonely girl to herself and her great sorrow. Annette sat silent, tearless, and alone. Grief had benumbed her faculties. She had sometimes said when grandmother had scolded her that "she was growing cross and cold." But oh, what would she not have given to have had the death-created silence broken by that dear departed voice, to have felt the touch of a vanished hand, to have seen again the loving glance of the death darkened eye. But it was all over; no tears dimmed her eye, as she sat thinking so mournfully of her great sorrow, till she unfastened from her neck a little keepsake containing a lock of grandmother's hair, then all the floodgates of her soul were opened and she threw herself upon her bed and sobbed herself to sleep. In the morning she awoke with that sense of loss and dull agony which only they know, who have seen the grave close over all they have held dearest on earth. The beautiful home of her uncle was very different from the humble apartments; here she missed all the freedom and sunshine that she had enjoyed beneath the shelter of her grandmother's roof.

"Can you sew?" said her aunt to Annette, as she laid on the table a package of handkerchiefs.

"Yes ma'm."

"Let me see how you can do this," handing her one to hem. Annette hemmed the handkerchief nicely; her aunt examined it, put it down and gave her some others to hem, but there was no word of encouragement for her, not even a pleasant, "well done." They both relapsed into silence; between them there was no pleasant interchange of thought. Annette was tolerated and endured, but she did not feel that she was loved and welcomed. It was no place to which she could invite her young friends to spend a pleasant evening. Once she invited some of her young friends to her home, but she soon found that it was a liberty which she should be careful never to repeat. Soon after Annette came to live with her aunt her aunt's mother had a social gathering and reunion of the members of her family. All Dr. Harcourt's children were invited, from the least to the greatest, but poor Annette was left behind. Mrs. Lasette, who happened in the house the evening before the entertainment, asked, "Is not Annette going?" when Mrs. Harcourt replied, very coldly, "She is not one of the family," referring to her mother's family circle.

A shadow flitted over the face of Mrs. Lasette; she thought of her own daughter and how sad it would be to have her live in such a chilly atmosphere of social repression and neglect at a period of life when there was so much danger that false friendship might spread their lures for her inexperienced feet. I will criticize, she said to herself, by creation. I, too, have some social influence, if not among the careless, wine-bibbing, ease-loving votaries of fashion, among some of the most substantial people of A.P., and as long as Annette preserves her rectitude at my house she shall be a welcome guest and into that saddened life I will bring all the sunshine that I can.



Chapter XV

"Well mama," said Mrs. Lasette's daughter to her mother, "I cannot understand why you take so much interest in Annette. She is very unpopular. Scarcely any of the girls ever go with her, and even her cousin never calls for her to go to church or anywhere else, and I sometimes feel so sorry to see her so much by herself, and some of the girls when I went with her to the exposition, said that they wouldn't have asked her to have gone with them, that she isn't our set."

"Poor child," Mrs. Lasette replied; "I am sorry for her. I hope that you will never treat her unkindly, and I do not think if you knew the sad story connected with her life that you would ever be unkind enough to add to the burden she has been forced to bear."

"But mamma, Annette is so touchy. Her aunt says that her tear bags must lay near her eyes and that she will cry if you look at her, and that she is the strangest, oddest creature she ever saw, and I heard she did not wish her to come."

"Why, my dear child, who has been gossipping to you about your neighbors?"

"Why, Julia Thomas."

"Well, my daughter, don't talk after her; gossip is liable to degenerate into evil speaking and then I think it tends to degrade and belittle the mind to dwell on the defects and imperfections of our neighbors. Learn to dwell on the things that are just and true and of good report, but I am sorry for Annette, poor child."

"What makes her so strange, do you know?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Lasette somewhat absently.

"If you do, won't you tell me?"

Again Mrs. Lasette answered in the same absent manner.

"Why mama, what is the matter with you; you say yes to everything and yet you are not paying any attention to anything that I say. You seem like someone who hears, but does not listen; who sees, but does not look. Your face reminds me of the time when I showed you the picture of a shipwreck and you said, 'My brother's boat went down in just such a fearful storm.'"

"My dear child," said Mrs. Lasette, rousing up from a mournful reverie, "I was thinking of a wreck sadder, far sadder than the picture you showed me. It was the mournful wreck of a blighted life."

"Whose life, mama?"

"The life of Annette's [grand]mother. We were girls together and I loved her dearly," Mrs. Lasette replied as tears gathered in her eyes when she recalled one of the saddest memories of her life.

"Do tell me all about it, for I am full of curiosity."

"My child, I want this story to be more than food for your curiosity; I want it to be a lesson and a warning to you. Annette's grandmother was left to struggle as breadwinner for a half dozen children when her husband died. Then there were not as many openings for colored girls as there are now. Our chief resource was the field of domestic service, and circumstances compelled Annette's mother to live out, as we called it. In those days we did not look down upon a girl and try to ostracize her from our social life if she was forced to be a servant. If she was poor and respectable we valued her for what she was rather than for what she possessed. Of course we girls liked to dress nicely, but fine clothes was not the chief passport to our society, and yet I think on the whole that our social life would compare favorably with yours in good character, if not in intellectual attainments. Our dear old mothers were generally ignorant of books, but they did try to teach good manners and good behavior; but I do not think they saw the danger around the paths of the inexperienced with the same clearness of vision we now do. Mrs. Harcourt had unbounded confidence in her children, and as my mother thought, gave her girls too much rein in their own hands. Our mother was more strict with her daughters and when we saw Mrs. Harcourt's daughters having what we considered such good times, I used to say, 'O, I wish mother wasn't so particular!' Other girls could go unattended to excursions, moonlight drives and parties of pleasure, but we never went to any such pleasure unless we were attended by our father, brother or some trusted friend of the family. We were young and foolish then and used to chafe against her restrictions; but to-day, when I think of my own good and noble husband, my little bright and happy home, and my dear, loving daughter, I look back with gratitude to her thoughtful care and honor and bless her memory in her grave. Poor Lucy Harcourt was not so favored; she was pretty and attractive and had quite a number of admirers. At length she became deeply interested in a young man who came as a stranger to our city. He was a fine looking man, but there was something about him from which I instinctively shrank. My mother felt the same way and warned us to be careful how we accepted any attention from him; but poor Lucy became perfectly infatuated with him and it was rumored that they were to be shortly married. Soon after the rumor he left the city and there was a big change in Lucy's manner. I could not tell what was the matter, but my mother forbade me associating with her, and for several months I scarcely saw her, but I could hear from others that she was sadly changed. Instead of being one of the most light-hearted girls, I heard that she used to sit day after day in her mother's house and wring her hands and weep and that her mother's heart was almost broken. Friends feared that Lucy was losing her mind and might do some desperate deed, but she did not. I left about that time to teach school in a distant village, and when I returned home I heard sad tidings of poor Lucy. She was a mother, but not a wife. Her brothers had grown angry with her for tarnishing their family name, of which they were so proud; her mother's head was bowed with agony and shame. The father of Lucy's child had deserted her in her hour of trial and left her to bear her burden alone with the child like a millstone around her neck. Poor Lucy; I seldom saw her after that, but one day I met her in the Park. I went up to her and kissed her, she threw her arms around me and burst into a flood of tears. I tried to restrain her from giving such vent to her feelings. It was a lack of self-control which had placed her where she was."

"'Oh Anna!' she said, 'it does me so much good to hold your hand in mine once more. I reminds me of the days when we used to be together. Oh, what would I give to recall those days.'"

"I said to her, Lucy, you can never recall the past, but you can try to redeem the future. Try to be a faithful mother. Men may build over the wreck and ruin of their young lives a better and brighter future, why should not a woman? Let the dead past bury its dead and live in the future for the sake of your child. She seemed so grateful for what I had said. Others had treated her with scorn. Her brother Thomas had refused to speak to her; her betrayer had forsaken her; all the joyousness had faded from her life and, poor girl, I was glad that I was able to say a helpful and hopeful word to her. Mother, of course, would not let us associate with her, but she always treated her kindly when she came and did what she could to lighten the burden which was pressing her down to the grave. But, poor child, she was never again the same light-hearted girl. She grew pale and thin and in the hectic flush and faltering tread I read the death sign of early decay, and I felt that my misguided young friend was slowly dying of a broken heart. Then there came a day when we were summoned to her dying bed. Her brothers and sisters were present; all their resentment against her had vanished in the presence of death. She was their dear sister about to leave them and they bent in tearful sorrow around her couch. As one of her brothers, who was a good singer, entered the room, she asked him to sing 'Vital spark of heavenly flame.' He attempted to sing, but there were tremors in his voice and he faltered in the midst of the hymn. 'Won't you sing for your dying sister.'"

"Again he essayed to sing, but [his?] voice became choked with emotion, and he ceased, and burst into tears. Her brother Thomas who had been so hard and cold, and had refused to speak to her, now wept and sobbed like a child, but Lucy smiled as she bade them good bye, and exclaimed, 'Welcome death, the end of fear. I am prepared to die.' A sweet peace settled down on her face, and Lucy had exchanged, I hope, the sorrow and pain of life for the peace and rest of heaven, and left Annette too young to know her loss. Do you wonder then my child that I feel such an interest in Annette and that knowing as I do her antenatal history that I am ever ready to pity where others condemn, and that I want to do what I can to help round out in beauty and usefulness the character of that sinned against and disinherited child, whose restlessness and sensitiveness I trace back to causes over which she had no control."

"What became of Frank Miller? You say that when he returned to A.P. that society opened its doors to him while they were closed to Annette's mother. I don't understand it. Was he not as guilty as she was?"

"Guiltier, I think. If poor Lucy failed as a woman, she tried to be faithful as a mother, while he, faithless as a man, left her to bear her burden alone. She was frail as a woman, but he was base, mean, and selfish as a man."

"How was it that society received him so readily?"

"All did not receive him so readily, but with some his money, like charity, covered a multitude of sins. But from the depths of my heart I despised him. I had not then learned to hate the sin with all my heart, and yet the sinner love. To me he was the incarnation of social meanness and vice. And just as I felt I acted. We young folks had met at a social gathering, and were engaged in a pastime in which we occasionally clasped hands together. Some of these plays I heartily disliked, especially when there was romping and promiscuous kissing. During the play Frank Miller's hand came in contact with mine and he pressed it. I can hardly describe my feelings. It seemed as if my very veins were on fire, and that every nerve was thrilling with repulsion and indignation. Had I seen him murder Lucy and then turn with blood dripping hands to grasp mine, I do not think that I should have felt more loathing than I did when his hand clasped mine. I felt that his very touch was pollution; I immediately left the play, tore off my glove, and threw it in the fire."

"Oh, mother, how could you have done so? You are so good and gentle."

Mrs. Lasette replied, "I was not always so. I do not hate his sin any less now than I did then but I think that I have learned a Christian charity which would induce me to pluck such as he out of the fire while I hated the garments spotted by his sins. I sat down trembling with emotion. I heard a murmur of disapprobation. There was a check to the gayety of the evening. Frank Miller, bold and bad as he was looked crestfallen and uneasy. Some who appeared to be more careful of the manners of society than its morals, said that I was very rude. Others said that I was too prudish, and would be an old maid, that I was looking for perfection in young men, and would not find it. That young men sow their wild oats, and that I was more nice than wise, and that I would frighten the gentlemen away from me. I told them if the young men were so easily frightened, that I did not wish to clasp hands for life with any such timid set, and that I was determined that I would have a moral husband or none; that I was not obliged to be married, but that I was obliged to be true to my conscience. That when I married I expected to lay the foundation of a new home, and that I would never trust my future happiness in the hands of a libertine, or lay its foundations over the reeling brain of a drunkard, and I determined that I would never marry a man for whose vices I must blush, and whose crimes I must condone; that while I might bend to grief I would not bow to shame; that if I brought him character and virtue, he should give me true manhood and honor in return."

"And I think mother that you got it when you married father."

"I am satisfied that I did, and the respect and appreciation my daughter has for her father is only part of my life's reward, but it was my dear mother who taught me to distinguish between the true and the false, and although she was [not?] what you call educated, she taught me that no magnificence of fortune would atone for meanness of spirit, that without character the most wealthy and talented man is a bankrupt in soul. And she taught me how to be worthy of a true man's love."

"And I think you have succeeded splendidly."

"Thank you, my darling. But mother has become used to compliments."



Chapter XVI

"I do not think she gets any more than she deserves," said Mr. Lasette, entering the room. "She is one of whom it may be said, 'Her children arise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her; many daughters have done virtuously but thou excellest them all.'"

"I do not think you will say that I am excelling if I do not haste about your supper; you were not home to dinner and must be hungry by this time, and it has been said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"Oh, isn't that a libel on my sex!"

"Papa," said Laura Lasette, after her mother had left the room, "did you know Frank Miller? Mother was telling me about him but she did not finish; what became of him?"

"Now, you ask me two questions in one breath; let me answer one at a time."

"Well, papa, I am all attention."

"Do I know Frank Miller, the saloon keeper? Yes; he is connected with a turning point in my life. How so? Well, just be patient a minute and I will tell you. I was almost a stranger in A.P. when I first met your mother. It was at a social where Frank Miller was a guest. I had heard some very damaging reports concerning his reputation, but from the manner in which he was received in society, I concluded that I had been misinformed. Surely, I thought, if the man is as vicious as he has been represented, good women, while they pity him, will shrink instinctively from him, but I saw to my surprise, that with a confident and unblushing manner, he moved among what was called the elite of the place, and that instead of being withheld, attentions were lavished upon him. I had lived most of my life in a small inland town, where people were old fashioned enough to believe in honor and upright conduct, and from what I had heard of Frank Miller I was led to despise his vices and detest his character, and yet here were women whom I believed to be good and virtuous, smiling in his face, and graciously receiving his attentions. I cannot help thinking that in their case,

"Evil is wrought by want of thought" As well as want of heart.

They were not conscious of the influence they might exert by being true to their own womanhood. Men like Frank Miller are the deadliest foes of women. One of the best and strongest safe guards of the home is the integrity of its women, and he who undermines that, strikes a fearful blow at the highest and best interests of society. Society is woman's realm and I never could understand how, if a woman really loves purity for its own worth and loveliness, she can socially tolerate men whose lives are a shame, and whose conduct in society is a blasting, withering curse."

"But, papa, tell me how you came to love my mother; but I don't see how you could have helped it."

"That's just it, my daughter. I loved her because I could not help it; and respected her because I knew that she was worthy of respect. I was present at a social gathering where Frank was a guest, and was watching your mother attentively when I saw her shrink instinctively from his touch and leave the play in which she was engaged and throw her glove in the fire. Public opinion was divided about her conduct. Some censured, others commended her, but from that hour I learned to love her, and I became her defender. Other women would tolerate Frank Miller, but here was a young and gracious girl, strong enough and brave enough to pour on the head of that guilty culprit her social disapprobation and I gloried in her courage. I resolved she should be my wife if she would accept me, which she did, and I have never regretted my choice and I think that I have had as happy a life as usually falls to the lot of mortals."



Chapter XVII

"Papa," said Laura Lasette, "all the girls have had graduating parties except Annette and myself. Would it not be nice for me to have a party and lots of fun, and then my birthday comes next week; now wouldn't it be just the thing for me to have a party?"

"It might be, darling, for you, but how would it be for me who would have to foot the bill?"

"Well, papa, could you not just give me a check like you do mama sometimes?"

"But mama knows how to use it."

"But papa, don't I know how also?"

"I have my doubts on that score, but let me refer you to your mother. She is queen of this realm, and in household matters I as a loyal subject, abide by her decisions."

"Well, I guess mama is all right on this subject."

Mrs. Lasette was perfectly willing to gratify her daughter, and it was decided to have an entertainment on Laura's birthday.

The evening of Mrs. Lasette's entertainment came bringing with it into her pleasant parlors a bright and merry throng of young people. It was more than a mere pleasure party. It was here that rising talent was encouraged, no matter how humble the garb of the possessor, and Mrs. Lasette was a model hostess who would have thought her entertainment a failure had any one gone from it smarting under a sense of social neglect. Shy and easily embarrassed Annette who was very seldom invited anywhere, found herself almost alone in that gay and chattering throng. Annette was seated next to several girls who laughed and chatted incessantly with each other without deigning to notice her. Mrs. Lasette entering the room with Mr. Luzerne whom she presented to the company, and noticing the loneliness and social isolation of Annette, gave him a seat beside her, and was greatly gratified that she had found the means to relieve the tedium of Annette's position. Mrs. Lasette had known him as a light hearted boy, full of generous impulses, with laughing eyes and a buoyant step, but he had been absent a number of years, and had developed into a handsome man with a magnificent physique, elegant in his attire, polished in his manners and brilliant in conversation. Just such a man as is desirable as a companion and valuable as a friend, staunch, honorable and true, and it was rumored that he was quite wealthy. He was generally cheerful, but it seemed at times as if some sad memories came over him, dashing all the sunshine from his face and leaving in its stead, a sadness which it was touching to behold. Some mystery seemed to surround his life, but being reticent in reference to his past history, there was a dignity in his manner which repelled all intrusion into the secrecy over which he choose to cast a veil. Annette was not beautiful, but her face was full of expression and her manner winsome at times. Lacking social influence and social adaptation, she had been ignored in society, her faults of temper made prominent her most promising traits of character left unnoticed, but this treatment was not without some benefit to Annette. It threw her more entirely on her own resources. At first she read when she had leisure, to beguile her lonely hours, and fortunately for her, she was directed in her reading by Mrs. Lasette, who gave and lent her books, which appealed to all that was highest and best in her nature, and kindled within her a lofty enthusiasm to make her life a blessing to the world. With such an earnest purpose, she was not prepared to be a social favorite in any society whose chief amusement was gossip, and whose keenest weapon was ridicule.

Mr. Luzerne had gone to Mrs. Lasette's with the hope of meeting some of the best talent in A.P., and had come to the conclusion that there was more lulliancy than depth in the intellectual life with which he came in contact; he felt that it lacked earnestness, purpose and grand enthusiasms and he was astonished to see the social isolation of Annette, whose society had interested and delighted him, and after parting with her he found his mind constantly reverting to her and felt grateful to Mrs. Lasette for affording him a rare and charming pleasure. Annette sat alone in her humble room with a new light in her eyes and a sense of deep enjoyment flooding her soul. Never before had she met with such an interesting and congenial gentleman. He seemed to understand as scarcely as any one else had done or cared to do. In the eyes of other guests she had been treated as if too insignificant for notice, but he had loosened her lips and awakened within her a dawning sense of her own ability, which others had chilled and depressed. He had fingered the keys of her soul and they had vibrated in music to his touch. Do not smile, gentle reader, and say that she was very easily impressed, it may be that you have never known what it is to be hungry, not for bread, but for human sympathy, to live with those who were never interested in your joys, nor sympathized in your sorrows. To whom your coming gave no joy and your absence no pain. Since Annette had lost her grandmother, she had lived in an atmosphere of coldness and repression and was growing prematurely cold. Her heart was like a sealed fountain beneath whose covering the bright waters dashed and leaped in imprisoned boundary. Oh, blessed power of human love to lighten human suffering, well may we thank the giver of every good and perfect gift for the love which gladdens hearts, brightens homes and sets the solitary in the midst of families. Mr. Luzerne frequently saw Annette at the house of Mrs. Lasette and occasionally called at her uncle's, but there was an air of restraint in the social atmosphere which repressed and chilled him. In that home he missed the cordial freedom and genial companionship which he always found at Mrs. Lasette's but Annette's apparent loneliness and social isolation awakened his sympathy, and her bright intelligence and good character commanded his admiration and respect, which developed within him a deep interest for the lovely girl. He often spoke admiringly of her and never met her at church, or among her friends that he did not gladly avail himself of the opportunity of accompanying her home. Madame rumor soon got tidings of Mr. Luzerne's attentions to Annette and in a shout the tongues of the gossips of A.P. began to wag. Mrs. Larkins who had fallen heir to some money, moved out of Tennis court, and often gave pleasant little teas to her young friends, and as a well spread table was quite a social attraction in A.P., her gatherings were always well attended. After rumor had caught the news of Mr. Luzerne's interest in Annette, Mrs. Larkins had a social at her house to which she invited him, and a number of her young friends, but took pains to leave Annette out in the cold. Mr. Luzerne on hearing that Annette was slighted, refused to attend. At the supper table Annette's prospects were freely discussed.

"I expected that Mr. Luzerne would have been here this evening, but he sent an apology in which he declined to come."

"Did you invite Annette?" said Miss Croker.

"No, I did not. I got enough of her when I lived next door to her."

"Well that accounts for Mr. Luzerne's absence. They remind me of the Siamese twins; if you see one, you see the other."

"How did she get in with him?"

"She met him at Mrs. Lasette's party, and he seemed so taken up with her that for a while he had neither eyes nor ears for any one else."

"That girl, as quiet as she looks, is just as deep as the sea."

"It is not that she's so deep, but we are so shallow. Miss Booker and Miss Croker were sitting near Annette and not noticing her, and we girls were having a good time in the corner to ourselves, and Annette was looking so lonely and embarrassed I think Mr. Luzerne just took pity on her and took especial pains to entertain her. I just think we stepped our feet into it by slighting Annette, and of course, as soon as we saw him paying attention to her, we wouldn't change and begin to make much of her."

"I don't know what he sees in Annette with her big nose and plain face."

"My father," said Laura Lasette, "says that Annette is a credit to her race and my mother is just delighted because Mr. Luzerne is attracted to her, but, girls, had we not better be careful how we talk about her? People might say that we are jealous of her and we know that we are taught that jealousy is as cruel as the grave."

"We don't see anything to be jealous about her. She is neither pretty nor stylish."

"But my mother says she is a remarkable girl," persisted Laura.

"Your mother," said Mrs. Larkins, "always had funny notions about Annette, and saw in her what nobody else did."

"Well, for my part, I hope it will be a match."

"It is easy enough for you to say so, Laura. You think it is a sure thing between you and Charley Cooper, but don't be too sure; there's many a slip between the cup and the lip."

There was a flush on Laura's cheek as she replied, "If there are a thousand slips between the cup and the lip and Charlie and I should never marry, let me tell you that I would almost as soon court another's husband as a girl's affianced lover. I can better afford to be an old maid than to do a dishonorable thing."

"Well, Laura, you are a chip off the old block; just like your mother, always ready to take Annette's part."

"I think, Mrs. Larkins, it is the finest compliment you can pay me, to tell me that I am like my dear mother."



Chapter XVIII

"Good morning," said Mr. Luzerne, entering Mr. Thomas' office. "Are you busy?"

"Not very; I had just given some directions to my foreman concerning a job I have undertaken, and had just settled down to read the paper. Well how does your acquaintance with Miss Harcourt prosper? Have you popped the question yet?"

"No, not exactly; I had been thinking very seriously of the matter, but I have been somewhat shaken in my intention."

"How so," said Mr. Thomas, laying down his paper and becoming suddenly interested.

"You know that I have had an unhappy marriage which has overshadowed all my subsequent life, and I cannot help feeling very cautious how I risk, not only my own, but another's happiness in a second marriage. It is true that I have been thinking of proposing to Miss Harcourt and I do prefer her to any young lady I have ever known; but there is a depreciatory manner in which people speak of her, that sorely puzzles me. For instance, when I ask some young ladies if they know Annette, they shrug their shoulders, look significantly at each other and say, 'Oh, yes, we know her; but she don't care for anything but books; oh she is so self conceited and thinks she knows more than any one else.' But when I spoke to Mrs. Larkins about her, she said Annette makes a fine appearance, but all is not gold that glitters. By this time my curiosity was excited, and I asked, 'What is the matter with Miss Harcourt? I had no idea that people were so ready to pick at her.' She replied, 'No wonder; she is such a spitfire.'"

"Well," said Mr. Thomas, a little hotly, "if Annette is a spitfire, Mrs. Larkins is a lot of combustion. I think of all the women I know, she has the greatest genius for aggravation. I used to board with her, but as I did not wish to be talked to death I took refuge in flight."

"And so you showed the white feather that time."

"Yes, I did, and I could show it again. I don't wonder that people have nick-named her 'Aunty talk forever.' I have known Annette for years and I known that she is naturally quick tempered and impulsive, but she is not malicious and implacable and if I were going to marry to-morrow I would rather have a quick, hot-tempered woman than a cold, selfish one, who never thought or cared about anyone but herself. Mrs. Larkins' mouth is not a prayer-book; don't be uneasy about anything she says against Annette."

Reassured by Mr. Thomas, Clarence Luzerne decided that he would ask Dr. Harcourt's permission to visit his niece, a request which was readily granted and he determined if she would consent that she should be his wife. He was wealthy, handsome and intelligent; Annette was poor and plain, but upright in character and richly endowed in intellect, and no one imagined that he would pass by the handsome and stylish girls of A.P. to bestow his affections on plain, neglected Annette. Some of the girls who knew of his friendship for Annette, but who never dreamed of its termination in marriage would say to Annette, "Speak a good word for me to Mr. Luzerne;" but Annette kept her counsel and would smile and think: I will speak a good word for myself. Very pleasant was the growing friendship between Annette and Mr. Luzerne. Together they read and discussed books and authors and agreed with wonderful unanimity, which often expressed itself in the words:

"I think as you do." Not that there was any weak compliance for the sake of agreement, but a unison of thought and feeling between them which gave a pleasurable zest to their companionship.

"Miss Annette," said Luzerne, "do you believe that matches are made in heaven?"

"I never thought anything about it."

"But have you no theory on the subject?"

"Not the least; have you?"

"Yes; I think that every human soul has its counterpart, and is never satisfied till soul has met with soul and recognized its spiritual affinity."

"Affinity! I hate the word."

"Why?"

"Because I think it has been so wrongly used, and added to the social misery of the world."

"What do you think marriage ought to be?"

"I think it should be a blending of hearts, an intercommunion of souls, a tie that only love and truth should weave, and nothing but death should part."

Luzerne listened eagerly and said, "Why, Miss Annette, you speak as if you had either loved or were using your fine imaginative powers on the subject with good effect. Have you ever loved any one?"

Annette blushed and stammered, and said, "I hardly know, but I think I have a fine idea of what love should be. I think the love of a woman for the companion of her future life should go out to him just as naturally as the waves leap to the strand, or the fire ascends to the sun."

"And this," said Luzerne, taking her hand in his, "is the way I feel towards you. Surely our souls have met at last. Annette," said he, in a voice full of emotion, "is it not so? May I not look on your hand as a precious possession, to hold till death us do part?"

"Why, Mr. Luzerne," said Annette, recovering from her surprise, "this is so sudden, I hardly know what to say. I have enjoyed your companionship and I confess have been pleased with your attentions, but I did not dream that you had any intentions beyond the enjoyment of the hour."

"No, Annette, I never seek amusement in toying with human hearts. I should deem myself a villain if I came into your house and stole your purse, and I should think myself no better if I entered the citadel of a woman's heart to steal her affections only to waste their wealth. Her stolen money I might restore, but what reparation could I make for wasted love and blighted affections? Annette, let there be truth between us. I will give you time to think on my proposal, hoping at the same time that I shall find favor in your eyes."

After Mr. Luzerne left, Annette, sat alone by the fireside, a delicious sense of happiness filling her soul with sudden joy. Could it be that this handsome and dignified man had honored her above all the girls in A.P., by laying his heart at her feet, or was it only a dream from which would come a rude awakening? Annette looked in the glass, but no stretch of imagination could make her conceive that she was beautiful in either form or feature. She turned from the glass with a faint sigh, wishing for his sake that she was as beautiful as some of the other girls in A.P., whom he had overlooked, not thinking for one moment that in loving her for what she was in intellect and character he had paid her a far greater compliment than if she had been magnificently beautiful and he had only been attracted by an exquisite form and lovely face. In a few days after Mr. Luzerne's proposal to Annette he came for the answer, to which he looked with hope and suspense.

"I am glad," he said, "to find you at home."

"Yes; all the rest of the family are out."

"Then the coast is clear for me?" There was tenderness and decision in his voice as he said, "Now, Annette, I have come for the answer which cannot fail to influence all my future life." He clasped the little hand which lay limp and passive in his own. His dark, handsome eyes were bent eagerly upon her as if scanning every nook and corner of her soul. Her eye fell beneath his gaze, her hand trembled in his, tears of joy were springing to her eyes, but she restrained them. She withdrew her hand from his clasp; he looked pained and disappointed. "Have I been too hasty and presumptuous?"

Annette said no rather faintly, while her face was an enigma he did not know how to solve.

"Why did you release your hand and avert your eyes?"

"I felt that my will was succumbing to yours, and I want to give you an answer untrammeled and uncontrolled by your will."

Mr. Luzerne smiled, and thought what rare thoughtfulness and judgment she has evinced. How few women older than herself would have thought as quickly and as clearly, and yet she is no less womanly, although she seems so wise.