engaged_--engaged, with all my heart and soul, to Jim
Fellows. I see your wonder, I hear you saying, 'You said it
never was to be; that there _never_ would be anything in
it.' Well, dear Belle, when I said that I thought it; but
it seems I didn't know myself or him. But Eva has told you
of the dreadful danger I ran; the shock to my nerves, the
horror, the fright, were something I never shall forget. By
God's mercy he saved my life, and I saw and felt at that
time how dear I was to him, and how much he was willing to
suffer for me. The poor fellow is not yet fully recovered,
and I cannot recall that sudden fright without being
almost faint. I cared a good deal for him before, and knew
he cared for me; but this dreadful shock revealed us to
each other as we had never known each other before. I am
perfectly settled now and have not a doubt. There is all
the seriousness and _all the depth that is in me_ in the
promise I have at last given him.
"Jim is not rich, but he has just obtained a good position
as one of the leading editors of the _Forum_, enough to
make it prudent for him to think of having a home of his
own; and I thank God for the reverses of fortune that have
taught me how to be a helpful and sensible wife. We don't
either of us care for show or fashion, but mean to have
another fireside like Eva's. Exactly when this thing is to
be, is not yet settled; but you shall have due notice to
get your bridesmaid's dress ready."
So wrote Alice to her bridesmaid that was to be. Meanwhile, the
declared engagement went its way, traveling through the circle, making
everywhere its sensation.
We believe there is nothing so generally interesting to human nature
as a newly-declared engagement. It is a thing that everybody has an
opinion of; and the editorial comments, though they do not go into
print, are fully as numerous and as positive as those following a new
appointment at Washington.
Especially is this the case where the parties, being long under
suspicion and accusation, have denied the impeachment, and vehemently
protested that "there was, and there would be, nothing in it," and
that "it was only friendship." When, after all the strength of such
asseveration, the flag is finally struck, and the suspected parties
walk forth openly, hand in hand, what a number of people immediately
rise in their own opinion, saying with complacency: "There! what did I
tell you? I knew it was so. People may talk as much as they please,
they can't deceive me!"
Among the first to receive the intelligence was little Mrs. Betsey,
who, having been over with Jack to make a morning call at the
Henderson house, had her very cap lifted from her head with amazement
at the wonderful news. So, panting with excitement, she rushed back
across the way to astonish Miss Dorcas, and burst in upon her, with
Jack barking like a storming party in the rear.
"Good gracious, Betsey, what's the matter now?" said Miss Dorcas.
"What has happened?"
"Well, what should you think? You can't guess! Jack, be still! stop
barking! Stop, sir!"--as Jack ran under a chair in a distant corner of
the room, and fired away with contumacious energy.
"Yes, Dorcas, I have such a piece of news! I declare, that dog!--I'll
_kill_ him if he don't stop!" and Mrs. Betsey, on her knees, dragged
Jack out of his hiding-place, and cuffed him into silence, and then
went on with her news, which she determined to make the most of, and
let out a bit at a time, as children eat gingerbread.
"Well, now, Betsey, since the scuffle is over between you and Jack,
perhaps you will tell me what all this is about," said Miss Dorcas,
with dignity.
"Well, Dorcas, it's another engagement; and who _do_ you guess it is?
You never will guess in the world, I know; now guess."
"I don't know," said Miss Dorcas, critically surveying Mrs. Betsey
over her spectacles, "unless it is you and old Major Galbraith."
"Aren't you ashamed, Dorcas?" said the little old lady, two late pink
roses coming in either cheek. "Major Galbraith!--old and deaf and with
the rheumatism!"
"Well, you wanted me to guess, and I guessed the two most improbable
people in the circle of our acquaintance." Now, Major Galbraith was an
old admirer of Mrs. Betsey's youth, an ancient fossil remain of the
distant period to which Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey belonged.
He was an ancient bachelor, dwelling in an ancient house on Murray
hill, and subsisting on the dry hay of former recollections. Once a
year, on Christmas or New Year's, the old major caused himself to be
brought carefully in a carriage to the door of the Vanderheyden house,
creaked laboriously up the steps, pulled the rusty, jangling old bell,
and was shown into the somber twilight of the front parlor, where he
paid his respects to the ladies with the high-shouldered, elaborate
stateliness and gallantry of a former period. The compliments which
the major brought out on these occasions were of the most elaborate
and well-considered kind, for he had an abundance of leisure to
compose them, and very few ladies to let them off upon. They had, for
the parties to whom they were addressed, all the value of those late
roses and violets which one now and then finds in the garden, when
the last black frosts have picked off the blooms of summer. The main
difficulty of the interview always was the fact that the poor major
was stone-deaf, and, in spite of both ladies screaming themselves
hoarse, he carried away the most obviously erroneous impressions, to
last him through the next year. Yet, in ages past, the major had been
a man of high fashion, and he was, if one only could get at him, on
many accounts better worth talking to than many modern beaux; but
as age and time had locked him in a case and thrown away the key,
the suggestion of tender relations between him and Mrs. Betsey was
impossible enough to answer Miss Dorcas's purpose.
But Mrs. Betsey was bursting to begin on the contents of her news-bag,
and so, out it came.
"Well now, Dorcas, if you won't go to being ridiculous, and talking
about Major Galbraith, I'll tell you who it is. It's that dear, good
Mr. Fellows that got Jack back again for us, and I'm sure I never feel
as if I could do enough for him when I think of it, and besides that,
he always is so polite and considerate, and talks with one so nicely
and is so attentive, seems to think something of you, if you _are_
an old woman, so that I'm glad with all my heart, for I think it's a
splendid thing, and she's just the one for him, and do you know I've
been thinking a great while that it was going to be? I have noticed
signs, and have had my own thoughts, but I didn't let on. I despise
people that are always prying and spying and expressing opinions
before they know."
This lucid exposition might have proceeded at greater length, had
not Miss Dorcas, whose curiosity was now fully roused, cut into the
conversation with an air of judicial decision.
"Well now, after all, Betsey, _will_ you have the goodness, since you
began to tell the news, to tell it like a reasonable creature? Mr.
Fellows is the happy man, you say. Now, _who_--is--the _woman_?"
"Oh, didn't I tell you? Why, what is the matter with me to-day? I
thought I said Miss Alice Van Arsdel. Won't she make him a splendid
wife? and I'm sure he'll make a good husband; he's so kind-hearted.
Oh! you ought to have seen how kind he was to Jack that day he brought
him back; and such a sight as Jack was, too--all dirt and grease! Why
it took Dinah and me at least two hours to get him clean, and there
are not many young gentlemen that would be so patient as he was. I
never shall forget it of him."
"Patient as _who_ was?" said Miss Dorcas. "I believe Jack was the last
nominative case in that sentence; do pray compose yourself, Betsey,
and don't take entire leave of your senses."
"I mean Mr. Fellows was patient, of course, you know."
"Well, then, do take a little pains to say what you mean," said Miss
Dorcas.
"Well, don't you think it a good thing--and were you expecting it?"
"So far as I know the parties, it's as good a thing as engagements in
general," said Miss Dorcas. "They have my very best wishes."
"Well, did you ever think it would come about?"
"No; I never troubled my head with speculations on what plainly is
none of my concern," said Miss Dorcas.
It was evident that Miss Dorcas was on the highest and most serene
mountain-top of propriety this morning, and all her words and actions
indicated that calm superiority to vulgar curiosity which, in her
view, was befitting a trained lady. Perhaps a little pique that Betsey
had secured such a promising bit of news in advance of herself, added
to her virtuous frigidity of demeanor. We are all mortal, and the
best of us are apt to undervalue what we did not ourselves originally
produce. But if Miss Dorcas wished in a gentle manner to remind Mrs.
Betsey that she was betraying too much of an inclination for gossip,
she did not succeed. The clock of time had gone back on the dial of
the little old lady, and she was as full of chatter and detail as
a school-girl, and determined at any rate to make the most of her
incidents, and to create a sensation in her sister's mind--for what
is more provoking than to have people sit calm and unexcited when we
have a stimulating bit of news to tell? It is an evident violation of
Christian charity. Mrs. Betsey now drew forth her next card.
"Oh, and, Dorcas! you've no idea. They've been having the most
dreadful time over there! Miss Alice has had the greatest escape! The
most wonderful providence! It really makes my blood run cold to think
of it. Don't you think, she was all dressed to go to Mrs. Wouvermans's
party, and her dress caught on fire, and if it hadn't been for Mr.
Fellows's presence of mind she might have been burned to death--really
burned to death! Only think of it!"
"You don't say so!" said Miss Dorcas, who now showed excitement enough
to fully satisfy Mrs. Betsey. "How very dreadful! Why, how was it?"
"Yes--she was passing in front of the fire, in a thin white tarlatan,
made very full, with flounces, and it was just drawn in and flashed up
like tinder. Mr. Fellows caught the cloth from the table, wrapped her
in it and laid her on the sofa, and then tore and beat out the fire
with his hands."
"Dear--me! dear--me!" said Miss Dorcas, "how dreadful! But he did just
the right thing."
"Yes, indeed; you ought to have seen! Mrs. Henderson showed me what
was left of the dress, and it was really awful to see! I could not
help thinking, 'In the midst of life we are in death.' All trimmed up
with scarlet velvet and bows, and just hanging in rags and tatters,
where it had been burned and torn away! I never saw any thing so
solemn in my life."
"A narrow escape, certainly," said Miss Dorcas. "And is she not
injured at all?"
"Nothing to speak of, only a few slight burns; but poor Mr. Fellows
has to have his hands bandaged and dressed every day; but of course he
doesn't mind that since he has saved her life. But just think of it,
Dorcas, we shall have two weddings, and it'll make two more visiting
places. I'm going to tell Dinah all about it," and the little woman
fled to the kitchen, with Jack at her heels, and was soon heard going
over the whole story again.
Dinah's effusion and sympathy, in fact, were the final refuge of Mrs.
Betsey on every occasion, whether of joy or sorrow or perplexity--and
between her vigorous exclamations and loud responses, and Jack's
running commentary of unrestrained barking, there was as much noise
over the announcement as could be made by an average town meeting.
Thus were the tidings received across the way. In the Van Arsdel
family, Jim was already an established favorite. Mr. Van Arsdel always
liked him as a bright, agreeable evening visitor, and, now that he
had acquired a position that promised a fair support, there was no
opposition on his part to overcome. Mrs. Van Arsdel was one of the
motherly, complying sort of women, generally desirous of doing what
the next person to her wanted her to do; and, though she was greatly
confused by remembering Alice's decided asseverations that "_it_ never
was and never would be anything, and that Jim was not at all the
person she ever should think of marrying," yet, since it was evident
that she was now determined upon the affair, Mrs. Van Arsdel looked at
it on the bright side.
"After all, my dear," she said to her spouse, "if I must lose both my
daughters, it's a mercy to have them marry and settle down here in
New York, where I can have the comfort of them. Jim will always be
an attentive husband and a good family man. I saw _that_ when he was
helping us move; but I'm sure I don't know what Maria will say now!"
"No matter what Maria says, my dear," said Mr. Van Arsdel. "It don't
make one hair white or black. It's time you were emancipated from
Maria."
But Aunt Maria, like many dreaded future evils, proved less formidable
on this occasion than had been feared.
The very submissive and edifying manner in which Mr. Jim Fellows had
received her strictures and cautions on a former occasion, and the
profound respect he had shown for her opinion, had so far wrought upon
her as to make her feel that it was really a pity that he was not a
young man of established fortune. If he only had anything to live
on, why, he might be a very desirable match; and so, when he had a
good position and salary, he stood some inches higher in her esteem.
Besides this, there was another balm which distilled resignation in
the cup of acquiescence, and that was the grand chance it gave her
to say, "I told you so." How dear and precious this privilege is to
the very best of people, we need not insist. There are times when it
would comfort them, if all their dearest friends were destroyed, to
be able to say, "I told you so. It's just as I always predicted!" We
all know how Jonah, though not a pirate or a cut-throat, yet wished
himself dead because a great city was not destroyed, when he had taken
the trouble to say it would be. Now, though Alice's engagement was not
in any strict sense an evil, yet it was an event which Aunt Maria had
always foreseen, foretold and insisted on.
So when, with heart-sinkings and infinite precautions, Mrs. Van Arsdel
had communicated the news to her, she was rather relieved at the
response given, with a toss of the head and a vigorous sniff:
"Oh, that's no news to me; it's just what I have foreseen all
along--what I told you was coming on, and you wouldn't believe it.
_Now_ I hope all of you will see that I was right."
"I think," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "that it was Jim's presence of mind
in saving her life that decided Alice at last. She always liked him;
but I don't think she really loved him till then."
"Well, of course, it was a good thing that there was somebody at hand
who had sense to do the right thing, when girls will be so careless;
but it wasn't that. She meant to have him all along; and I knew it,"
said Aunt Maria. "Well, Jim Fellows, after all, isn't the worst match
a girl could make, either, now that he has some prospects of his
own--but, at any rate, it has turned out just as I said it would. I
knew she'd marry him, six months ago, just as well as I know it now,
unless you and she listened to my advice then. So now all we have to
do is to make the best of it. You've got two weddings on your hands,
now Nellie, instead of one, and I shall do all I can to help you. I
was out all day yesterday looking at sheeting, and I think that at
Shanks & Maynard's is decidedly the firmest and the cheapest, and I
ordered three pieces sent home; and I carried back the napkins to
Taggart's, and then went rambling off up by the Park to find that
woman that does marking."
"I'm sure, Maria, I am ever so much obliged to you," said Mrs. Van
Arsdel.
"Well, I hope I'm good for something. Though I'm not fit to be out;
I've such a dreadful cold in my head, I can hardly see; and riding in
these New York omnibuses always makes it worse."
"Dear Maria, why will you expose yourself in that way?"
"Well, somebody's got to do it--and your judgment isn't worth a fip,
Nellie. That sheeting that you were thinking of taking wasn't half
so good, and cost six cents a yard more. I couldn't think of having
things go that way."
"But I'm sure we don't any of us want you to make yourself sick."
"Oh, I sha'n't be sick. I may suffer; but I sha'n't give up. I'm not
one of the kind. If you had the cold in your head that I have, Nellie,
you'd be in bed, with both girls nursing you; but that isn't my way.
I keep up, and attend to things. I want these things of Angie's to be
got up properly, as they ought to be, and there's nobody to do it but
me."
And little Mrs. Van Arsdel, used, from long habit, to be thus
unceremoniously snubbed, dethroned, deposed, and set down hard by her
sister when in full career of labor for her benefit, looked meekly
into the fire, and comforted herself with the reflection that it "was
just like Maria. She always talked so; but, after all, she was a good
soul, and saved her worlds of trouble, and made excellent bargains for
her."
_CHAPTER XLVII._
"IN THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS."
This article of faith forms a part of the profession of all
Christendom, is solemnly recited every Sunday and many week-days in
the services of all Christian churches that have a liturgy, whether
Roman or Greek or Anglican or Lutheran, and may, therefore, bid fair
to pass for a fundamental doctrine of Christianity.
Yet, if narrowly looked into, it is a proposition under which there
are more heretics and unbelievers than all the other doctrines of
religion put together.
Mrs. Maria Wouvermans, standing, like a mother in Israel, in the
most eligible pew of Dr. Cushing's church, has just pronounced these
words with all the rest of the Apostles' Creed, which she has recited
devoutly twice a day every Sunday for forty years or more. She always
recited her creed in a good, strong, clear voice, designed to rebuke
the indolent or fastidious who only mumbled or whispered, and made a
deep reverence in the proper place at the name of Jesus; and somehow
it seemed to feel as if she were witnessing a good confession, and
were part and parcel with the protesting saints and martyrs that, in
blue and red and gold, were shining down upon her through the painted
windows. This solemn standing up in her best bonnet and reciting
her Christian faith every Sunday, was a weekly testimony against
infidelity and schism and lax doctrines of all kinds, and the good
lady gave it with unfaltering regularity. Nothing would have shocked
her more than to have it intimated to her that she did not believe
the articles of her own faith; and yet, if there was anything in the
world that Mrs. Maria Wouvermans practically didn't believe in, and
didn't mean to believe in, it was "_the forgiveness of sins_."
As long as people did exactly right, she had fellowship and sympathy
with them. When they did wrong, she wished to have nothing more to do
with them. Nay, she seemed to consider it a part of public justice and
good morals to clear her skirts from all contact with sinners. If she
heard of penalties and troubles that befell evil doers, it was with a
face of grim satisfaction. "It serves them right--just what they ought
to expect. I don't pity them in the least," were familiar phrases
with her. If anybody did her an injury, crossed her path, showed her
disrespect or contumely, she seemed to feel as free and full a liberty
of soul to hate them as if the Christian religion had never been heard
of. And, in particular, for the sins of women, Aunt Maria had the true
ingrain Saxon ferocity which Sharon Turner describes as characteristic
of the original Saxon female in the earlier days of English history,
when the unchaste woman was pursued and beaten, starved and frozen,
from house to house, by the merciless justice of her sisters.
It is the same spirit that has come down through English law and
literature, and shows itself in the old popular ballad of "Jane
Shore," where, without a word of pity, it is recorded how Jane Shore,
the king's mistress, after his death, first being made to do public
penance in a white sheet, was thereafter turned out to be frozen and
starved to death in the streets, and died miserably in a ditch, from
that time called Shoreditch. A note tells us that there was one man
who, moved by pity, at one time sheltered the poor creature and gave
her food, for which he was thrown into prison, to the great increase
of her sorrow and misery.
It was in a somewhat similar spirit that Mrs. Wouvermans regarded
all sinning women. Her uniform ruling in such cases was that they
were to be let alone by all decent people, and that if they fell into
misery and want, it was only just what they deserved, and she was
glad of it. What business had they to behave so? In her view, all
efforts to introduce sympathy and mercy into prison discipline--all
forbearance and pains-taking with the sinful and lost in all places
in society--was just so much encouragement given to the criminal
classes, and one of the lax humanitarian tendencies of the age. It is
quite certain that had Mrs. Wouvermans been a guest in old times at a
certain Pharisee's house, where the Master allowed a fallen woman to
kiss His feet, she would have joined in saying: "If this man were a
prophet he would have known what manner of woman this is that toucheth
him, for she is a sinner." There was certainly a marked difference
of spirit between her and that Jesus to whom she bowed so carefully
whenever she repeated the creed.
On this particular Sunday, Eva had come to church with her aunt, and
was going to dine with her, intent on a mission of Christian diplomacy.
Some weeks had now passed since she left Maggie in the mission
retreat, and it was the belief of the matron there, and the attending
clergyman, that a change had taken place in her, so radical and so
deep that, if now some new and better course of life were opened to
her, she might, under careful guidance, become a useful member of
society. Whatever views modern skepticism may entertain in regard
to what is commonly called the preaching of the gospel, no sensible
person conversant with actual facts can help acknowledging that it
does produce in some cases the phenomenon called _conversion_, and
that conversion, when real, is a solution of all difficulties in our
days as it was in those of the first apostles.
The first Christians were gathered from the dregs of society, and
the Master did not fear to say to the Pharisees, "The publicans and
harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you;" and St. Paul
addresses those who he says had been thieves and drunkards and
revilers and extortioners, with the words, "Ye are washed; ye are
sanctified; ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the
spirit of God."
It is on the power of the Divine spirit to effect such changes, even
in the most hopeless and forlorn subjects, that Christians of every
name depend for success; and by this faith such places as the Home for
the Fallen are undertaken and kept up.
What people look for, and labor for, as is proved by all experience,
is more liable to happen than what they do not expect and do not
labor for. The experiment of Mr. James was attended by many marked
and sudden instances of conversion and permanent change of character.
Maggie had been entrapped and drawn in by Mother Moggs in one of those
paroxysms of bitter despair which burned in her bosom, when she saw,
as she thought, every respectable door of life closed upon her and
the way of virtue shut up beyond return. When she thought how, while
_she_ was cast out as utterly beyond hope, the man who had betrayed
her and sinned with her was respected, flattered, rich, caressed,
and joined in marriage to a pure and virtuous wife, a blind and keen
sense of injustice awoke every evil or revengeful passion within her.
"If they won't let me do good, I _can_ do mischief," she thought, and
she was now ready to do all she could to work misery and ruin for a
world that would give her no place to do better. Mother Moggs saw
Maggie's brightness and smartness, and the remains of her beauty. She
flattered and soothed her. To say the truth, Mother Moggs was by no
means all devil. She had large remains of that motherly nature which
is common to warm-blooded women of easy virtue. She took Maggie's
part, was indignant at her wrongs, and offered her a shelter and a
share in her business. Maggie was to tend her bar; and by her talents
and her good looks and attractions Mother Moggs hoped to double her
liquor sales. What if it did ruin the men? What if it was selling them
ruin, madness, beggary--so much the better;--had they not ruined her?
If Maggie had been left to her own ways, she might have been the
ruin of many. It was the Christ in the heart of a woman who had the
Christian love and Christian courage to go after her and seek for her,
that brought to her salvation. The invisible Christ must be made known
through human eyes; he must speak through a voice of earthly love, and
a human hand inspired by his spirit must be reached forth to save.