said Bolton, from his corner. "Nature says, destroy. She is blindly
striving to destroy the maimed and imperfect. Christianity says, save.
Its God is the Good Shepherd, who cares more for the one lost sheep
than for the ninety and nine that went not astray."
"Yes," said Eva; "He who was worth more than all of us put together,
came down from heaven to labor and suffer and die for sinners."
"That's supernaturalism," said Dr. Campbell. "I don't know about
that."
"That's what we learn at church," said Eva, "and what we believe; and
it's a pity you don't, Doctor."
"Oh, well," said Dr. Campbell, lighting his cigar, previous to going
out, "I won't quarrel with you. You might believe worse things. St.
John is a good fellow, and, if he wants a doctor any time, I told him
to call me. Good night."
"Did you ever see such a creature?" said Eva.
"He talks wild, but acts right," said Alice.
"You had him there about visiting poor folks," said Jim. "Why,
Campbell is a perfect fool about people in distress--would give a
fellow watch and chain, and boots and shoes, and then scold anybody
else that wanted to go and do likewise."
"Well, I say such discussions are fatiguing," said Alice. "I don't
like people to talk all round the points of the compass so."
"Well, to change the subject, I vote our evening a success," said Jim.
"Didn't we all behave beautifully!"
"We certainly did," said Eva.
"Isn't Miss Dorcas a beauty!" said Jim.
"Come, now, Jim; no slants," said Alice.
"I didn't mean any. Honest now, I like the old girl. She's sensible.
She gets such clothes as she thinks right and proper, and marches
straight ahead in them, instead of draggling and draggletailing after
fashion; and it's a pity there weren't more like her."
"Dress is a vile, tyrannical Moloch," said Eva. "We are all too much
enslaved to it."
"I know we are," said Alice. "I think it's _the_ question of our day,
what sensible women of small means are to do about dress; it takes so
much time, so much strength, so much money. Now, if these organizing,
convention-holding women would only organize a dress reform, they
would do something worth while."
"The thing is," said Eva, "that in spite of yourself you have to
conform to fashion somewhat."
"Unless you do as your Quaker friends do," said Bolton.
"By George," said Jim Fellows, "those two were the best dressed women
in the room. That little Ruth was seductive."
"Take care; we shall be jealous," said Eva.
"Well," said Bolton, rising, "I must walk up to the printing-office
and carry that corrected proof to Daniels."
"I'll walk part of the way with you," said Harry. "I want a bit of
fresh air before I sleep."
[Illustration: WICKEDNESS, OR MISERY?
"_Bolton laid his hand on her shoulder, and, looking down on her,
said: 'Poor child, have you no mother?'_"--p. 197.]
_CHAPTER XIX._
A LOST SHEEP.
The two sallied out and walked arm in arm up the street. It was a
keen, bright, starlight night, with everything on earth frozen stiff
and hard, and the stars above sparkling and glinting like white flames
in the intense clear blue. Just at the turn of the second street, a
woman who had been crouching in a doorway rose, and, coming up towards
the two, attempted to take Harry's arm.
With an instinctive movement of annoyance and disgust, he shook her
off indignantly.
Bolton, however, stopped and turned, and faced the woman. The light
of a street lamp showed a face, dark, wild, despairing, in which the
history of sin and punishment were too plainly written. It was a
young face, and one that might once have been beautiful; but of all
that nothing remained but the brightness of a pair of wonderfully
expressive eyes. Bolton advanced a step towards her and laid his hand
on her shoulder, and, looking down on her, said:
"Poor child, have you no mother?"
"Mother! Oh!"
The words were almost shrieked, and then the woman threw herself at
the foot of the lamp-post and sobbed convulsively.
"Harry," said Bolton, "I will take her to the St. Barnabas; they will
take her in for the night."
Then, taking the arm of the woman, he said in a voice of calm
authority, "Come with me."
He raised her and offered her his arm. "Child, there is hope for you,"
he said. "Never despair. I will take you where you will find friends."
A walk of a short distance brought them to the door of the refuge,
where he saw her received, and then turning he retraced his steps to
Harry.
"One more unfortunate," he said, briefly, and then immediately took up
the discussion of a point in the proof-sheet just where he had left
it. Harry was so excited by the incident that he could hardly keep up
the discussion which Bolton was conducting.
"I wonder," he said, after an interval, "who that woman is, and what
is her history."
"The old story, likely," said Bolton.
"What is curious," said Harry, "is that Eva described such a looking
woman as hanging about our house the other evening. It was the evening
when she was going over to the Vanderheyden house to persuade the
old ladies to come to us this evening. She seemed then to have been
hanging about our house, and Eva spoke in particular of her eyes--just
such singular, wild, dark eyes as this woman has."
"It may be a mere coincidence," said Bolton. "She may have had some
errand on your street. Whatever the case be, she is safe for the
present. They will do the best they can for her. She's only one more
grain in the heap!"
Shortly after, Harry took leave of Bolton and returned to his own
house. He found all still, Eva waiting for him by the dying coals and
smoking ashes of the fire. Alice had retired to her apartment.
"We've had an adventure," he said.
"What! to-night?"
Harry here recounted the scene and Bolton's course, and immediately
Eva broke out: "There, Harry, it must be that very woman that I saw
the night I was going into the Vanderheyden's; she seems to be hanging
round this neighborhood. What can she be? Tell me, Harry, had she very
brilliant dark eyes, and a sort of dreadfully haggard, hopeless look?"
"Exactly. Then I was provoked at her assurance in laying her hand
on my arm; but when I saw her face I was so struck by its misery
that I pitied her. You ought to have seen Bolton; he seemed so
calm and commanding, and his face, as he looked down on her, had a
wonderful expression; and his voice,--you know that heavy, deep tone
of his,--when he spoke of her mother it perfectly overcame her. She
seemed almost convulsed, but he assumed a kind of authority and led
her away to the St. Barnabas. Luckily he knew all about that, for he
had talked with St. John about it."
"Yes, indeed, I heard them talking about it this very evening; so it
is quite a providence. I do wonder who she is or what she is. Would it
do for me to go to-morrow and inquire?"
"I don't know, my dear, as you could do anything. They will do all
that is possible there, and I would not advise you to interfere merely
from curiosity. You can do nothing."
"Strange!" said Eva, still looking in the fire while she was taking
the hairpins out of her hair and loosening her neck ribbon, "strange,
the difference in the lot of women. That girl has been handsome!
People have loved her. She might have been in a home, happy like me,
with a good husband--now there she is in the cold streets. It makes me
very unhappy to think such things must be. You know how Bolton spoke
of God, the Good Shepherd--how he cared more for one lost one than for
all that went not astray. That is so beautiful--I do hope she will be
saved."
"Let us hope so, darling."
"It seems selfish for me to wrap my comforts about me, and turn away
my thoughts, and congratulate myself on my good luck--don't it?"
"But, darling, if you can't do anything, I don't know why you should
dwell on it. But I'll promise you Bolton shall call and inquire of the
Sisters, and if there is anything we can do, he will let us know. But
now it's late, and you are tired and need rest."
_CHAPTER XX._
EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER.
Congratulate us, dear mother; we have had a success! Our first evening
was all one could hope! Everybody came that we wanted, and, what is
quite as good in such cases, everybody staid away that we didn't want.
You know how it is; when you intend to produce real acquaintance, that
shall ripen into intimacy, it is necessary that there should be no
non-conductors to break the circle. There are people that shed around
them coldness and constraint, as if they were made of ice, and it is
a mercy when such people don't come to your parties. As it is, I have
had the happiness to see our godly rector on most conversable terms
with our heretic doctor, and each thinking better of the other. Oh!
and, what was a greater triumph yet, I managed to introduce a Quaker
preacheress to Mr. St. John, and had the satisfaction to see that he
was completely charmed by her, as well he may be. The way it came
about, you must know, is this:--
Little Ruth Baxter, our next door neighbor, has received this Sibyl
Selwyn at her house, and is going with her soon on one of her
preaching expeditions. I find it is a custom of their sect for the
preachers to associate with themselves one or more lay sisters, who
travel with them, and for a certain time devote themselves to works
of charity and mercy under their superintendence. They visit prisons
and penitentiaries; they go to houses of vice and misery, where one
would think a woman would scarcely dare to go; they reprove sin,
yet carry always messages of hope and mercy. Little Ruth is now
preparing to go with Sibyl on such a mission, and I am much interested
in the stories she tells me of the strange unworldly experiences
of this woman. It is true that these missions are temporary; they
seem to be only like what we could suppose the visits of angels
might be--something to arouse and to stimulate, but not to exert a
continuous influence. What feeling they excite, what good purposes
and resolutions spring up under their influence, they refer to the
organized charities of Christian churches of whatever name. If Sibyl's
penitents are Romanists, she carries them to the Romish Sisters; and
so with Methodist, Baptist, or Ritualist, wherever they can find
shelter and care. She seems to regard her mission as like that of the
brave Sisters of Charity who go upon the field of battle amid belching
cannon and bursting shells, to bring away the wounded. She leaves them
in this or that hospital, and is off again for more.
This she has been doing many years, as the spirit within leads her,
both in England and in this country. I wish you could see her--I know
how you would love her. As for me, I look up to her with a kind of
awe; yet she has such a pretty, simple-hearted innocence about her.
I felt a little afraid of her at first, and thought all my pins and
rings and little bows and fixtures would seem so many sins in her
sight; but I found she could admire a bracelet or a gem as much as
I did, and seemed to enjoy all my pretty things for me. She says so
prettily, "If thee acts up to thy light, Eva, thee can do no more." I
only wish that I were as sure as she is that I do. It is quite sweet
of her, and puts me at ease in her presence. They are going to be gone
all this week on some mission. I don't know yet exactly where, but I
can't help feeling as if I wished some angel woman like Sibyl would
take me off with her, and let me do a little something in this great
and never finished work of helping and healing. I have always had a
longing to do a little at it, and perhaps, with some one to inspire
and guide me, even I might do some good.
This reminds me of a strange incident. The other night, as I was
crossing the street, I saw a weird-looking young woman, very haggard
and miserable, who seemed to be in a kind of uncertain way, hanging
about our house. There was something about her face and eyes that
affected me quite painfully, but I thought nothing of it at the time.
But, the evening after our reception, as Harry and Bolton were walking
about a square beyond our house, this creature came suddenly upon them
and took Harry's arm. He threw her off with a sudden impulse, and
then Bolton, like a good man, as he always is, and with that sort of
quiet self-possession he always has, spoke to her and asked where her
_mother_ was. That word was enough, and the poor thing began sobbing
and crying, and then he took her and led her away to the St. Barnabas,
a refuge for homeless people which is kept by some of our church
Sisters, and there he left her; and Harry says he will tell Mr. St.
John about it, so that he may find out what can be done for her, if
anything.
When I think of meeting any such case personally, I feel how utterly
weak and inexperienced I am, and how utterly unfit to guide or help,
though I wish with my whole heart I could do something to help all
poor desolate people. I feel a sort of self-reproach for being so very
happy as I am while any are miserable. To take another subject,--I
have been lately more and more intimate with Bolton. You know I sent
you Caroline's letter about him. Well, really it seemed to me such a
pity that two who are entirely devoted to each other should be living
without the least comfort of intercommunion, that I could not help
just trying the least little bit to bring them together. Harry rather
warned me not to do it. These men are so prudent; their counsels seem
rather cold to our hearts--is it not so, mother? Harry advised me not
to name the subject to Bolton, and said _he_ would not dare do it for
the world. Well, that's just because he's a man; he does not know how
differently men receive the approaches of a woman. In fact, I soon
found that there was no subject on which Bolton was so all alive and
eager to hear. When I had once mentioned Caroline, he kept recurring
to the subject, evidently longing to hear more from her; and so, one
way and another, in firelight talks and moonlight walks, and times and
places when words slip out before one thinks, the whole of what is
to be known of Caroline's feelings went into his mind, and all that
might be known of his to her passed into mine. I, in short, became a
medium. And do you think I was going to let her fret her heart out
in ignorance of anything I could tell her? Not if I know myself; in
fact, I have been writing volumes to Caroline, for I am determined
that no people made for each other shall go wandering up and down this
labyrinth of life, missing their way at every turn, for want of what
could be told them by some friendly good fairy who has the clue.
Say now, mother, am I imprudent? If I am, I can't help it; the thing
is done. Bolton has broken the silence and written to Caroline; and
once letter-writing is begun, you see, the rest follows. Does it not?
Now the thing is done, Harry is rather glad of it, as he usually is
with the results of my conduct when I go against his advice and the
thing turns out all right; and, what's of Harry better than that, when
I get into a scrape by going against his counsels, he never says, "I
told you so," but helps me out, and comforts me in the loveliest
manner. Mother, dear, he does you credit, for you had the making of
him! He never would have been the husband he is, if you had not been
the mother you are.
You say you are interested in my old ladies across the way.
Yes, I really flatter myself that our coming into this neighborhood
is quite a godsend to them. I don't know any that seemed to enjoy the
evening more than they two. It was so long since they had been in any
society, and their society power had grown cramped, stiff by disuse;
but the light and brightness of our fireside, and the general friendly
cheerfulness, seemed to wake them up. My sisters are admirable
assistants. They are society girls in the best sense, and my dear
little mamma is never so much herself as when she is devoting herself
to entertaining others. Miss Dorcas told me, this morning, that she
was thankful on her sister's account to have this prospect of a weekly
diversion opened to her; for that she had so many sorrows and suffered
so much, it was all she could do at times to keep her from sinking in
utter despondency. What her troubles could have been Miss Dorcas did
not say; but I know that her marriage was unhappy, and that she has
lost all her children. But, at any rate, this acknowledgement from her
that we have been a comfort and help to them gratifies me. It shows
me that we were right in thinking that we need not run beyond our own
neighborhood to find society full of interest and do our little part
in the kindly work of humanity. Oh, don't let me forget to tell you
that that lovely, ridiculous Jack of theirs, that they make such a
pet of, insisted on coming to the party to look after them; waylaid
the door, and got in, and presented himself in a striking attitude
on an ottoman in the midst of the company, to Miss Dorcas's profound
horror and our great amusement. Jack has now become the "dog of the
regiment," and we think of issuing a season ticket in his behalf: for
everybody pets him; he helps to make fun and conversation.
After all, my dear mother, I must say a grateful word in praise of
my Mary. I pass for a first-rate housekeeper, and receive constant
compliments for my lovely house, its charming arrangements, the
ease with which I receive and entertain company, the smoothness and
completeness with which everything goes on; and all the while, in my
own conscience, I feel that almost all the credit is due to Mary.
The taste in combination and arrangement is mine, to be sure--and
I flatter myself on having some nice domestic theories; but after
all, Mary's knowledge, and Mary's strength, and Mary's neatness and
order, are the foundation on which all the structure is built. Of what
use would be taste and beauty and refinement, if I had to do my own
washing, or cook my own meals, or submit to the inroads of a tribe
of untaught barbarians, such as come from the intelligence offices?
How soon would they break my pretty teacups, and overwhelm my lovely
_bijouterie_ with a second Goth and Vandal irruption! So, with you,
dear mother, you see I do justice to Mary, strong and kind, whom
nobody thinks of and nobody praises, and yet who enables me to do all
that I do. I believe she truly loves me with all the warmth of an
Irish heart, and I love her in return; and I give her this credit with
you, to absolve my own conscience for taking so much more than is due
to myself in the world. But what a long letter I am writing! Writing
to you is talking, and you know what a chatterbox I am; but you won't
be tired of hearing all this from us. Your loving
EVA.
_CHAPTER XXI._
BOLTON AND ST. JOHN.
St. John was seated in his study, with a book of meditations before
him on which he was endeavoring to fix his mind. In the hot, dusty,
vulgar atmosphere of modern life, it was his daily effort to bring
around himself the shady coolness, the calm conventual stillness,
that breathes through such writers as St. Francis de Sales and Thomas
à Kempis, men with a genius for devotion, who have left to mankind
records of the mile-stones and road-marks by which they traveled
towards the highest things. Nor should the most stringent Protestant
fail to honor that rich and grand treasury of the experience of
devout spirits of which the Romish Church has been the custodian. The
hymns and prayers and pious meditations which come to us through this
channel are particularly worthy of a cherishing remembrance in this
dusty, materialistic age. To St. John they had a double charm, by
reason of their contrast with the sterility of the religious forms of
his early life. While enough of the Puritan and Protestant remained in
him to prevent his falling at once into the full embrace of Romanism,
he still regarded the old fabric with a softened, poetic tenderness;
he "took pleasure in her stones and favored the dust thereof."
Nor is it to be denied that in the history of the Romish Church are
records of heroism and self-devotion which might justly inspire with
ardor the son of a line of Puritans. Who can go beyond St. Francis
Xavier in the signs of an apostle? Who labored with more utter
self-surrender than Father Claver for the poor negro slaves of South
America? And how magnificent are those standing Orders of Charity,
composed of men and women of that communion, that have formed from
age to age a life-guard of humanity, devoted to healing the sick,
sheltering and educating the orphans, comforting the dying!
A course of eager reading in this direction might make it quite
credible even that a Puritan on the rebound should wish to come as
near such a church as is possible without sacrifice of conscience and
reason.
In the modern Anglican wing of the English Church St. John thought he
had found the blessed medium. There he believed were the signs of the
devotion, the heroism and self-sacrifice of the primitive Catholic
Church, without the hindrances and incrustations of superstition.
That little record, "Ten Years in St. George's Mission," was to him
the seal of their calling. There he read of men of property devoting
their entire wealth, their whole time and strength, to the work of
regenerating the neglected poor of London. He read of a district that
at first could be entered only under the protection of the police,
where these moral heroes began their work of love amid the hootings
and howlings of the mob and threats of personal violence,--the
scoff and scorn of those they came to save; and how by the might of
Christian love and patience these savage hearts were subdued, these
blasphemies turned to prayers; and how in this dark district arose
churches, schools, homes for the destitute, reformatories for the
lost. No wonder St. John, reading of such a history, felt, "This is
the church for me." Perhaps a wider observation might have shown him
that such labors and successes are not peculiar to the ritualist, that
to wear the cross outwardly is not essential to bearing the cross
inwardly, and that without signs and the symbolism of devout forms,
the spirit of love, patience and self-denial can and does accomplish
the same results.
St. John had not often met Bolton before that evening at the
Henderson's. There, for the first time, he had had a quiet,
uninterrupted conversation with him; and, from the first, there had
been felt between them that constitutional sympathy that often unites
widely varying natures, like the accord of two different strings of an
instrument.
Bolton was less of an idealist than St. John, with a wider practical
experience and a heavier mental caliber. He was in no danger of
sentimentalism, and yet there was about him a deep and powerful
undertone of feeling that inclined him in the same direction with Mr.
St. John. There are men, and very strong men, whose natures gravitate
towards Romanism with a force only partially modified by intellectual
convictions: they would be glad to believe it if they could.
Bolton was an instance of a man of high moral and intellectual
organization, of sensitive conscience and intense sensibility, who,
with the highest ideal of manhood and of the purposes to which life
should be devoted, had come to look upon himself as an utter failure.
An infirmity of the brain and the flesh had crept upon him in the
unguarded period of youth, had struck its poison through his system,
and weakened the power of the will, till all the earlier part of his
life had been a series of the most mortifying failures. He had fallen
from situation after situation, where he had done work for a season:
and, each time, the agony of his self-reproach and despair had been
doubled by the reproaches and expostulations of many of his own family
friends, who poured upon bare nerves the nitric acid of reproach. He
had seen the hair of his mother slowly and surely whitening in the
sickening anxieties and disappointments which he had brought. Loving
her with almost a lover's fondness, desiring above all things to be
her staff and stay, he had felt himself to be to her only an anxiety
and a disappointment.
When, at last, he had gained a foothold and a place in the press, he
was still haunted with the fear of recurring failure. He who has two
or three times felt his sanity give way, and himself become incapable
of rational control, never thereafter holds himself secure. And so it
was with this overpowering impulse to which Bolton had been subjected;
he did not know at what time it might sweep over him again.