PART II.

"God's work is soon done."

It is a weary day when the youth first discovers that after all he will

only become a man; and this discovery came with a depressing weight one

morning to David, after he had been counting bank notes for three hours.

It was noon, but the gas was lit, and in the heavy air a dozen men sat

silent as statues, adding up figures and making entries. He thought of

the college courts, and the college green, of the crowded halls, and the

symposia, where both mind and body had equal refection. There had been

days when he had a part in these things, and when to "strive with things

impossible," or "to pluck honor from the pale-faced moon," had not been

unreasonable or rash; but now it almost seemed as if Mr. Buckle's dreary

gospel was a reality, and men were machines, and life was an affair to

be tabulated in averages.

He had just had a letter from Willie Caird, too, and it had irritated

him. The wounds of a friend may be faithful, but they are not always

welcome. David determined to drop the correspondence. Willie was going

one way and he another. They might never see each other again; and--

If they should meet one day,

If _both_ should not forget

They could clasp hands the accustomed way.

For by simply going with the current in which in great measure, subject

yet to early influences, he found himself, David Lockerby had drifted in

one twelve months far enough away from the traditions and feelings of

his home and native land. Not that he had broken loose into any flagrant

sin, or in any manner cast a shadow on the perfect respectability of his

name. The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned

nothing of the kind. They belonged to the best society, and were of

those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom Canon Kingsley described as

"the sitters in pews."

In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to opera

and theatre. On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George's Church; on

fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and eaten their

dinner at Richmond. Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy, but there

were none of David's companions to whom these things were sins in the

same degree as they were to David.

To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to

him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of

wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven.

Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames

and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could

recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping

crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many thousand

hearthstones:

O God of Bethel, by whose hand

Thy people still are led.

He alone, as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the

witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the tearful

tenderness of "Communion."

To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of

course, as a part of their daily life and education. David had been

obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father's counsels and his

mother's pleadings, before he could enjoy them. He had had, in fact, to

cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he

frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was

harder work getting to hell than to heaven.

But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and

begin a new life. Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had

not heard from Mary for nearly three weeks. A fear seized him that

while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and

suffering. He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing

but sickness would have made Mary forget him.

The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her,

full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their

future life. He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not

fail to notice what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of

self-denial gave him. He determined that he would that very night write

long letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father. "There was

a good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his

marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep

the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer

communion with it."

Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle's private room, and said

cheerily, "Good morning, uncle."

"Good morning, Davie. Your father is here."

Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with outstretched

hands and paling cheeks. "What is it, father? Mother? Mary? Is she

dead?"

"'Deed, no, my lad. There's naething wrang but will turn to right. Mary

Moir was married three days syne, and I thocht you wad rather hear the

news from are that loved you. That's a', Davie; and indeed it's a loss

that's a great gain."

"Who did she marry?"

"Just a bit wizened body frae the East Indies, a'most as yellow as his

gold, an' as auld as her father. But the Deacon is greatly set up wi'

the match--or the settlements--and Mary comes o' a gripping kind.

There's her brother Gavin, he'd sell the ears aff his head, an' they

werena fastened on."

Then David went away with his father, and after half-an-hour's talk on

the subject together it was never mentioned more between them. But it

was a blow that killed effectually all David's eager yearnings for a

loftier and purer life. And it not only did this, but it also caused to

spring up into active existence a passion which was to rule him

absolutely--a passion for gold. Love had failed him, friendship had

proved an annoyance, company, music, feasting, amusements of all kinds

were a weariness now to think of. There seemed nothing better for him

than to become a rich man.

"I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's

name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to

David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon. Love is refused, and

wisdom is scorned, but everybody is glad to take money; then money is

best of all things."

Thus David reasoned, and his father said nothing against his arguments.

Indeed, they had never understood one another so well. David, for the

first time, asked all about the lands of Ellenmount, and pledged

himself, if he lived and prospered, to fulfill his father's hope.

Indeed, Andrew was altogether so pleased with his son that he told his

brother-in-law that the £20,000 would be forthcoming as soon as ever he

choose to advance David in the firm.

"I was only waiting, Lockerby, till Davie got through wi' his playtime.

The lad's myself o'er again, an' I ken weel he'll ne'er be contented

until he settles cannily doon to his interest tables."

So before Andrew Lockerby went back to Glasgow David was one of the firm

of Gordon & Co., sat in the directors' room, and began to feel some of

the pleasant power of having money to lend. After this he was rarely

seen among men of his own age--women he never mingled with. He removed

to his uncle's stately house in Baker street, and assimilated his life

very much to that of the older money maker. Occasionally he took a run

northward to Glasgow, or a month's vacation on the Continent, but

nearly all such journeys were associated with some profitable loan or

investment. People began to speak of him as a most admirable young man,

and indeed in some respects he merited the praise. No son ever more

affectionately honored his father and mother, and Janet had been made an

independent woman by his grateful consideration.

He was so admirable that he ceased to interest people, and every time he

visited Glasgow fewer and fewer of his old acquaintances came to see

him. A little more than ten years after his admission to the firm of

Gordon & Co. he came home at the new year, and presented his father with

the title-deeds of Ellenmount and Netherby. The next day old Andrew was

welcomed on the City Exchange as "Lockerby of Ellenmount, gentleman." "I

hae lived lang enough to hae seen this day," he said, with happy tears;

and David felt a joy in his father's joy that he did not know again for

many years. For while a man works for another there is an ennobling

element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become

the greatest of all slaves. This slavery David now willingly assumed;

the accumulation of money became his business, his pleasure, the sum of

his daily life.

Ten years later both his uncle and father were dead, and both had left

David every shilling they possessed. Then he went on working more

eagerly than ever, turning his tens of thousands into hundreds of

thousands and adding acre to acre, and farm to farm, until Lockerby was

the richest estate in Annandale. When he was forty-five years of age

fortune seemed to have given him every good gift except wife and

children, and his mother, who had nothing else to fret about, worried

Janet continually on this subject.

"Wife an' bairns, indeed!" said Janet; "vera uncertain comforts, ma'am,

an' vera certain cares. Our Master Davie likes aye to be sure o' his

bargains."

"Weel, Janet, it's a great cross to me--an' him sae honored, an' guid

an' rich, wi' no a shilling ill-saved to shame him."

"Tut, tut, ma'am! The river doesna' swell wi' clean water. Naebody's

charged him wi' wrangdoing--that's enough. There's nae need to set him

up for a saint."

"An' you wanted him to be a minister, Janet."

"I was that blind--ance."

"We are blind creatures, Janet."

"Wi' _excepts_, ma'am; but they'll ne'er be found amang mithers."

This conversation took place one lovely Sabbath evening, and just at the

same time David was standing thoughtfully on Princes street, Edinburgh,

wondering to which church he had better turn his steps. For a sudden

crisis in the affairs of a bank in that city had brought him hurriedly

to Scotland, and he was not only a prudent man who considered public

opinion, but was also in a mood to conciliate that opinion so long as

the outward conditions were favorable. Whatever he might do in London,

in Scotland he always went to morning and evening service.

He was also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask questions

or advice from anyone. Though a comparative stranger he would not have

allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him better than he

could choose for himself. He looked up and down the street, and finally

followed a company which increased continually until they entered an old

church in the Canongate.

Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased

than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place

consecrated it in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their

purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church

on the Doo Hill in Glasgow--just such a large, bare, solemn-looking

house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the

precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not

notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he

was holding a session with his own soul.

A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was

beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had

been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old

Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in

the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you to-night: '_What

shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own

soul_?'"

For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found

him out again--it was Willie Caird's. At first interested and curious,

David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn,

thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.

Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious of

the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs the

trees in the forest: for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and

smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.

_What shall it profit? What shall it profit? What shall it profit_?

David was quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here

was a question beyond his computation. He went silently out of the

church, and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony's Chapel to

the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags. There was no answer in

nature for him. The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.

Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a

hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question. When he

looked in the mirror his own face queried of him, "What profit?" and he

was compelled to make a decided effort to prevent his tongue uttering

the ever present thought.

But at noon he would meet the defaulting bank committee, "and doubtless

his lawful business would take its proper share of his thought!" He told

himself that it was the voice and face of his old friend that had

affected him so vividly, and that if he went and chatted over old times

with Willie, he would get rid of the disagreeable influence.

The influence, however, went with him into the creditors' committee

room. The embarrassed officials had dreaded greatly the interview. No

one hoped for more than bare justice from David Lockerby. "Clemency,

help, sympathy! You'll get blood out o' a stane first, gentlemen," said

the old cashier, with a dour, hopeless face.

And yet that morning David Lockerby amazed no one so much as himself.

He went to the meeting quite determined to have his own--only his

own--but something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave up

his lawful increase and even offered help. He went determined to speak

his mind very plainly about mismanagement and the folly of having

losses; and something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave

such sympathy with his help that the money came with a blessing in its

hand.

The feeling of satisfaction was so new to him that it embarrassed and

almost made him ashamed. He slipped ungraciously away from the thanks

that ought to have been pleasant, and found himself, almost

unconsciously, looking up Willie's name in the clerical directory, "Dr.

William Caird, 22 Moray place." David knew enough of Edinburgh to know

that Moray place contained the handsomest residences in the city, and

therefore he was not astonished at the richness and splendor of Willie's

library; but he was astonished to see him surrounded by five beautiful

boys and girls, and evidently as much interested in their lessons and

sports as if he was one of them.

"Ech! Davie man! but I'm glad to see you!" That was all of Willie's

greeting, but his eyes filled, and as the friends held each other's

hands Davie came very near touching for a moment a David Lockerby no one

had seen for many long years. But he said nothing during his visit of

Willie's sermon, nor indeed in several subsequent ones. Scotsmen are

reticent on all matters, and especially reticent about spiritual

experience; and though Davie lingered in Edinburgh a week, he was

neither able to speak to Willie about his soul, nor yet in all their

conversations get rid of that haunting, uncomfortable influence Willie

had raised.

But as they stood before the Queen's Hotel at midnight bidding each

other an affectionate farewell, David suddenly turned Willie round and

opened up his whole heart to him. And as he talked he found himself able

to define what had been only hitherto a vague, restless sense of want.

"I am the poorest rich man and the most miserable failure, Willie Caird,

that ever you asked yon fearsome question of--and I know it. I have

achieved millions, and I am a conscious bankrupt to my own soul. I have

wasted my youth, neglected my talents and opportunities, and whatever

the world may call me I am a wretched breakdown. I have made

money--plenty of it--and it does not pay me. What am I to do?"

"You ken, Davie, my dear, dear lad, what advice the Lord Jesus gave to

the rich man--'distribute unto the poor--and come, follow me!'"

Then up and down Princes street, and away under the shadow of the Castle

Hill, Willie and David walked and talked, till the first sunbeams

touched St. Leonard's Crags. If it was a long walk a grand work was laid

out in it.

"You shall be more blessed than your namesake," said Willie, "for though

David gathered the gold, and the wood, and the stone, Solomon builded

therewith. Now, an' it please God, you shall do your ain work, and see

the topstone brought on with rejoicing."

Then at David's command, workmen gathered in companies, and some of the

worst "vennels" in old Glasgow were torn down; and the sunshine flooded

"wynds" it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a noble building

arose that was to be a home for children that had no home. And the farms

of Ellenmount fed them, and the fleeces of Lockerby clothed them, and

into every young hand was put a trade that would win it honest bread.

In a short time even this undertaking began to be too small for David's

energies and resources, and he joined hands with Willie in many other

good works, and gave not only freely of his gold, but also of his time

and labor. The old eloquence that stirred his classmates in St. Andrew's

Hall, "till they would have followed him to the equator" began to stir

the cautious Glasgow traders to the bottom of their hearts, and their

pocketbooks; and men who didn't want to help in a crusade against

drunkenness, or in a crusade for the spread of the Gospel, stopped away

from Glasgow City Hall when David Lockerby filled the chair at a public

meeting and started a subscription list with £1000 down on the table.

But there were two old ladies that never stopped away, though one of

them always declared "Master Davie had fleeched her last bawbee out o'

her pouch;" and the other generally had her little whimper about Davie

"waring his substance upon ither folks' bairns."

"There's bonnie Bessie Lament, Janet; an' he would marry her we might

live to see his ain sons and daughters in the old house."

"'Deed, then, ma'am, our Davie has gotten him a name better than that o'

sons an' dochters; and though I am sair disappointed in him--"

"You shouldn't say that, Janet; he made a gran' speech the day."

"A speech isna' a sermon, ma'am; though I'll ne'er belittle a speech wi'

a £1000 argument."

"And there was Deacon Moir, Janet, who didna approve o' the scheme, and

who would therefore gie nothing at a'."

"The Deacon is sae godly that God doesna get a chance to improve his

condition, ma'am. But for a' o' Deacon Moir's disapproval I'se count on

the good work going on."

"'Deed yes, Janet, and though our Davie should ne'er marry at a'--"

"There'll be generations o' lads an' lasses, ma'am, that will rise up in

auld Scotland an' go up an' down through a' the warld a' ca' David

Lockerby 'blessed.'"

FRANZ MÜLLER'S WIFE.

"Franz, good morning. Whose philosophy is it now? Hegel, Spinosa, Kant

or Dugald Stewart?"

"None of them. I am reading _Faust_."

"Worse and worse. Better wrestle with philosophies than lose yourself in

the clouds. At any rate, if the poets are to send the philosophers to

the right about, stick to Shakespeare."

"He is too material. He can't get rid of men and women."

"They are a little better, I should think, than Mephisto. Come, Franz,

condescend to cravats and kid gloves, and let us go and see my cousin

Christine Stromberg."

"I do not know the young lady."

"Of course not. She has just returned from a Munich school. Her brother

Max was at the Lyndons' great party, you remember?"

"I don't remember, Louis. In white cravats and black coats all men look

alike."

"But you will go?"

"If you wish it, yes. There are some uncut reviews on the table: amuse

yourself while I dress."

"Thanks, I have my cigar case. I will take a smoke and think of

Christine."

For some reason quite beyond analysis, Franz did not like this speech.

He had never seen Christine Stromberg, but yet he half resented the

careless use of her name. It fell upon some soul consciousness like a

familiar and personal name, and yet he vainly recalled every phase of

his life for any clew to this familiarity.

He was a handsome fellow, with large, clearly-cut features and gray,

thoughtful eyes. In a conversation that interested him his face lighted

up with a singularly beautiful animation, but usually it was as still

and passionless as if the soul was away on a dream or a visit. Even the

regulation cravat and coat could not destroy his individuality, and

Louis looked admiringly at him, and said, "You are still Franz Müller.

No one is just like you. I should think Cousin Christine will fall in

love with you."

Again Franz's heart resented this speech. It had been waiting for love

for many a year, but he could not jest or speculate about it. No one but

the thoughtless, favored Louis ever dared to do it before Franz, and no

one ever spoke lightly of women before him, for the worst of men are

sensitive to the presence of a pure and lofty nature, and are generally

willing to respect it.

Franz dreamed of women, but only of noble women, and even for those who

fell below his ideal he had a thousand apologies and a world of pity. It

was strange that such a man should have lived thirty years, and never

have really loved any mortal woman. But his hour had come at last. As

soon as he saw Christine Stromberg he loved her. A strange exaltation

possessed him; his face was radiant; he talked and sung with a

brilliancy that amazed even those most familiar with his rare

exhibitions of such moods. And Christine seemed fascinated by his beauty

and wit. The hours passed like moments; and when the girl stood watching

him down the moon-lit avenue, she almost trembled to remember what

questions Franz's eyes had asked her and how strangely familiar the

clasp of his hand and the sound of his voice had seemed to her.

"I wonder where I have seen him before," she murmured--"I wonder where

it was?" and to this thought she slowly took off one by one her jewels,

and brushed out her long black hair; nay, when she fell asleep, it was

only to take it up again in dreams.

As for Franz, he was in far too ecstatic a mood to think of sleep. "One

has too few of such godlike moments to steep them in unconsciousness,"

he said to himself. And so he sat smoking and thinking and watching the

waning moon sink lower and lower, until it was no longer night, but

dawning day.

"In a few hours now I can go and see Christine." At this point in his

love he had no other thought. He was too happy to speculate on any

probability as yet. It was sufficient at present to know that he had

found his love, that she lived at a definite number on a definite

avenue, and that in six or seven hours more he might see her again.

He chose the earlier number. It was just eleven o'clock when he rung Mr.

Stromberg's bell. Mrs. Stromberg passed through the hall as he entered,

and greeted him pleasantly. "Christine and I are just going to have

breakfast," she said, in her jolly, hearty way. "Come in Mr. Müller, and

have a cup of coffee with us."

Nothing could have delighted Franz so much. Christine was pouring it out

as he entered the pretty breakfast parlor. How beautiful she looked in

her long loose morning dress! How, bewitching were its numerous bows of

pale ribbon! He had a sense of hunger immediately, and he knew that he

made an excellent breakfast; but of what he ate or what he drank he had

not the slightest conception.

A cup of coffee passing through Christine's, hands necessarily suffered

some wonderful change. It could not, and it did not, taste like

ordinary coffee. In the same mysterious way chicken, eggs and rolls

became sublimated. So they ate and laughed and chatted, and I am quite

sure that Milton never imagined a meal in Eden half so delightful as

that breakfast on the avenue.

When it was over, it came into Franz's heart to offer Christine a ride.

They were standing together among the flowers in the bay window, and the

trees outside were in their first tender green, and the spring skies and

the spring airs were full of happiness and hope. Christine was arranging

and watering her lilies and pansies, and somehow in helping her Franz's

hands and hers had lingered happily together. So now love gave to this

mortal an immortal's confidence. He never thought of sighing and fearing

and trembling. His soul had claimed Christine, and he firmly believed

that sooner or later she would hear and understand what he had to say to

her.

"Shall we ride?" he said, just touching her fingers, and looking at her

with eyes and face glowing with a wonderful happiness.

Alas, Christine could think of mamma, and of morning calls and of what

people would say. But Franz overruled every scruple; he conquered mamma,

and laughed at society; and before Christine had decided which of her

costumes was most becoming, Franz was waiting at the door.

How they rattled up the avenue and through the park! How the green

branches waved in triumph, and how the birds sang and gossiped about

them! By the time they arrived at Mount St. Vincent they had forgotten

they were mortal. Then the rest in the shady gallery, and the subsidence

of love's exaltation into love's silent tender melancholy, were just as

blissful.

They came slowly home, speaking only in glances and monosyllables, but

just before they parted Franz said, "I have been waiting thirty years

for you, Christine; to-day my life has blossomed."

And though Christine did not make any audible answer, he thought her

blush sufficient; besides, she took the lilies from her throat and gave

them to him.

Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the gods favor. Franz

must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet

weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and

laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite

engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as

surely as the end of the season.

Money matters and housekeeping must eventually intrude themselves, but

the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched.

And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. His father, a shrewd

business man, had early seen that his son was a poet and a dreamer. "It

is not the boy's fault," he said to his partner, "he gets it from his

grandfather, who was always more out of this world than in it."

So he wisely allowed Franz to follow his natural tastes, and contented

himself with carefully investing his fortune in such real estate and

securities as he believed would insure a safe, if a slow increase. He

had bought wisely, and Franz's income was a certain and handsome one,

with a tendency rather to increase than decrease, and quite sufficient

to maintain Christine in all the luxury to which she had been

accustomed.

So when he returned to the city he intended to speak to Mr. Stromberg.

All he had should be Christine's and her father should settle the matter

just as he thought best for his daughter. In a general way this was

understood by all parties, and everyone seemed inclined to sympathize

with the happy feeling which led the lovers to deprecate during these

enchanted days any allusion which tended to dispel the exquisite charm

of their young lives' idyl.

Perhaps it would have been better if they had remembered the ancient

superstition and themselves done something to mar their perfect

happiness. Polycrates offered his ring to avert the calamity sure to

follow unmitigated pleasure or success, and Franz ought, perhaps, to

have also made an effort to propitiate his envious Fate.

But he did not, and toward the very end of the season, when the October

days had thrown a kind of still melancholy over the world that had been

so green and gay, Franz's dream was rudely broken--broken by a Mr. James

Barker Clarke, a blustering, vulgar man of fifty, worth _three

millions_. In some way or other he seemed to have a great deal of

influence over Mr. Stromberg, who paid him unqualified respect, and over

Mrs. Stromberg, who seemed to fear him.

Mr. Stromberg's "private ledger" alone knew the whole secret; for of

course money was at the foundation. Indeed, in these days, in all public

and private troubles, it is proper to ask, not "Who is she?" but "How

much is it?" Franz Müller and James Barker Clarke hated each other on

sight. Still Franz had no idea at first that this ugly, uncouth man

could ever be a rival to his own handsome person and passionate

affection.

In a few days, however, he was compelled to actually consider the

possibility of such a thing. Mr. Stromberg had assumed an attitude of

such extreme politeness, and Mrs. Stromberg avoided him if possible, and

if not possible, was constrained and unhappy in the familiar relations

that she had accepted so happily all summer. As for Christine, she had

constant headaches, and her eyes were often swollen and red with

weeping.

At length, without notice, the family left Newport, and went to stay a

month with some relative near Boston. A pitiful little note from

Christine informed him of this fact; but as he received no information

as to the locality of her relative's house, and no invitation to call,

he was compelled for the present to do as Christine asked him--wait

patiently for their return.

At first he got a few short tender notes, but they were evidently

written in such sorrow that he was almost beside himself with grief and

anger. When these ceased he went to Boston, and without difficulty found

the house where Christine was staying. He was received at first very

shyly by Mrs. Stromberg, but when Franz poured out his love and misery,

the poor old lady wept bitterly, and moaned out that she could not help

it, and Christine could not help it, and that they were all very

miserable.

Finally she was persuaded to let him see Christine, "just for five

minutes." The poor girl came to him, a shadow of her gay self, and,

weeping in his arms, told him he must bid her good-by forever. The five

minutes were lengthened into a long, terrible hour, and Franz went back

to New York with the knowledge that in that hour his life had been

broken in two for this life.

One night toward the close of November his friend Louis called. "Franz,"

he said, "have you heard that Christine Stromberg is to marry old

Clarke?"

"Yes."

"No one can trust a woman. It is a shame of Christine."

"Louis, speak of what you know. Christine is an angel. If a woman

appears to do wrong, there is probably some brute of a man behind her

forcing her to do it."

"I thought she was to be your wife."

"She is my wife in soul and feeling. No one, thank God, can help that.

If I was Clarke, I would as willingly marry a corpse as Christine

Stromberg. Do not speak of her again, Louis. The poor innocent child!

God bless her!" And he burst into a passion of weeping that alarmed his

friend for his reason, but which was probably its salvation.

In a week Franz had left for Europe, and the next Christmas, Christine

and James Barker Clarke were married, and began housekeeping in a style

of extravagant splendor. People wondered and exclaimed at Christine's

reckless expenditure, her parents advised, her husband scolded; but

though she never disputed them, she quietly ignored all their

suggestions. She went to Paris, and lived like a princess; Rome, Vienna

and London wondered over her beauty and her splendor; and wherever she

went Franz followed her quietly, haunting her magnificent salons like a

wretched spectre.

They rarely or never spoke. Beyond a grave inclination of the head, or a

look whose profound misery he only understood, she gave him no

recognition. The world held her name above reproach, and considered that

she had done very well to herself.

Ten years passed away, but the changes they brought were such as the

world regards as natural and inevitable. Christine's mother died and her

father married again; and Christine had a son and a daughter. Franz

watched anxiously to see if this new love would break up the icy

coldness of her manners. Sometimes he was conscious of feeling angrily

jealous of the children, but he always crushed down the wretched

passion. "If Christine loved a flower, would I not love it also?" he

asked himself; "and these little ones, what have they done?" So at last

he got to separate them entirely from every one but Christine, and to

regard them as part and portion of his love.

But at the end of ten years a change came, neither natural nor expected.

Franz was walking moodily about his library one night, when Louis came

to tell him of it, Louis was no longer young, and was married now, for

he had found out that the beaten track is the safest.

"Franz," he said, "have you heard about Clarke? His affairs are

frightfully wrong, and he shot himself an hour ago."

"And Christine? Does she know? Who has gone to her?"

"My wife is with her. Clarke shot himself in his own room. Christine was

the first to reach him. He left a letter saying he was absolutely

ruined."

"Where will Christine and the children go?"

"I suppose to her father's. Not a pleasant place for her now.

Christine's step-mother dislikes both her and the children."

Franz said no more, and Louis went away with a feeling of

disappointment. "I thought he would have done something for her," he

said to his wife. "Poor Christine will be very poor and dependent."

Ten days after he came home with a different story. "There never was a

woman as lucky about money as Cousin Christine," he said. "Hardy & Hall

sent her notice to-day that the property at Ryebeach settled on her

before her marriage by Mr. Clarke was now at her disposal. It seems the

old gentleman anticipated the result of his wild speculations, and in

order to provide for his wife, quietly bought and placed in Hardy's

charge two beautifully furnished cottages. There is something like an

accumulation of sixteen thousand dollars of rentage; and as one is

luckily empty, Christine and the children are going there at once. I

always thought the property was Hardy's own before. Very thoughtful in

Clarke."

"It is not Clarke one bit. I don't believe he ever did it. It is some

arrangement of Franz Müller's."

"For goodness' sake don't hint such a thing, Lizzie! Christine would not

go, and we should have her here very soon. Besides, I don't believe it.

Franz took the news very coolly, and he has kept out of my way since."

The next day Louis was more than ever of his wife's opinion. "What do

you think, Lizzie?" he said. "Franz came to me to-day and asked if

Clarke did not once loan me two thousand dollars. I told him Clarke gave

me two thousand about the time we were married."

"'Say _loaned_, Louis,' he answered, 'to oblige me. Here is two

thousand and the interest for six years. Go and pay it to Christine; she

must need money.' So I went."

"Is she settled comfortably?"

"Oh, very. Go and see her often. Franz is sure to marry her, and he is

growing richer every day."

It seemed as if Louis's prediction would come true. Franz began to drive

out every afternoon to Ryebeach. At first he contented himself with just

passing Christine's gate. But he soon began to stop for the children,

and having taken them a drive, to rest a while on the lawn, or in the

parlor, while Christine made him a cup of tea.

For Franz tired very easily now, and Christine saw what few others

noticed: he had become pale and emaciated, and the least exertion left

him weary and breathless. She knew in her heart that it was, the last

summer he would be with her. Alas! what a pitiful shadow of their first

one! It was hard to contrast the ardent, handsome lover of ten years ago

with the white, silently happy man who, when October came, had only

strength to sit and hold her hand, and gaze with eager, loving eyes into

her face.

One day his physician met Louis on Broadway. "Mr. Curtin," he said,

"your friend Müller is very ill. I consider his life measured by days,

perhaps hours. He has long had organic disease of the heart. It is near

the last."

"Does he know it?"

"Yes, he has known it long. Better see him at once."

So Louis went at once. He found Franz calmly making his last

preparations for the great event. "I am glad you are come, Louis," he

said; "I was going to send for you. See this cabinet full of letters. I

have not strength left to destroy them; burn them for me when--when I am

gone.

"This small packet is Christine's dear little notes: bury them with me:

there are ten of them, every one ten years old."

"Is that all, dear Franz?"

"Yes; my will has long been made. Except a legacy to yourself, all goes

to Christine--dear, dear Christine!"

"You love her yet, then, Franz?"

"What do you mean? I have loved her for ages. I shall love her forever.

She is the other half of my soul. In some lives I have missed her

altogether let me be thankful that she has come so near me in this one."

"Do you know what you are saying, Franz?"

"Very clearly, Louis. I have always believed with the oldest

philosophers that souls were created in pairs, and that it is permitted

them in their toilsome journey back to purity and heaven sometimes to

meet and comfort each other. Do you think I saw Christine for the first

time in your uncle's parlor? Louis, I have fairer and grander memories

of her than any linked to this life. I must leave her now for a little.

God knows when and where we meet again; but _He does know_; that is my

hope and consolation."

Whatever were Louis's private opinions about Franz's theology it was

impossible to dissent at that hour, and he took his friend's last

instructions and farewell with such gentle, solemn feelings as had long

been strange to his-heart.

In the afternoon Franz was driven out to Christine's. It was the last

physical effort he was capable of. No one saw the parting of those two

souls. He went with Christine's arms around him, and her lips whispering

tender, hopeful farewells. It was noticed however, that after Franz's

death a strange change came over Christine--a beautiful nobility and

calmness of character, and a gentle setting of her life to the loftiest

aims.

Louis said she had been wonderfully moved by the papers Franz left. The

ten letters she had written during the spring-time of their love went to

the grave with him, but the rest were of such an extraordinary nature

that Louis could not refrain from showing them to his cousin, and then

at her request leaving them for her to dispose of. They were indeed

letters written to herself under every circumstance of her life, and

directed to every place in which she had sojourned. In all of them she

was addressed as "Beloved Wife of my Soul," and in this way the poor

fellow had consoled his breaking, longing heart.

To some of them he had written imaginary answers, but as these all

referred to a financial secret known only to the parties concerned in

Christine's and his own sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had

written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into

Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the

simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and

child-like submission as the goal of its duties.

Seven years after Franz's death Christine and her daughter died together

of the Roman fever, and James Barker Clarke, junior, was left sole

inheritor of Franz's wealth.

"A German dreamer!"

Ah, well, there are dreamers and dreamers. And perchance he that seeks

fame, and he that seeks gold, and he that seeks power, may all alike,

when this shadowy existence is over, look back upon life "as a dream

when one awaketh."

THE VOICE AT MIDNIGHT.

"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers

are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes

of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."

It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander,

and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats.

Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days

and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling

together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush

of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the

Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to

relate.

After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God

by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the

Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he

became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his

knowledge of the Scriptures.

Circumstances, that summer, had thrown us together; I, a young woman,

just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing

on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray

summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What

hast thou, then, on thy mind?"

"I had a strange dream. I cannot shake off its influence. Of course it

is folly, and I don't believe in dreams at all." And it was then he said

to me, "It is the King's highway that we are in, and know this, His

messengers are on it."

"But it was only a dream."

"Well, God speaks to His children 'in dreams, and by the oracles that

come in darkness.'"

"He used to do so."

"Wilt thou then say that He has ceased so to speak to men? Now, I will

tell thee a thing that happened; I will tell thee just the bare facts; I

will put nothing to, nor take anything away from them.

"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in

the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,

cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the

night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together

talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that

I have heard from landsmen when it would be the same trouble with them.

So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good

hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told

me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was

busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the

next day I left for the Preachings, and I thought no more of him, good

or bad.

"On the first of September I was in Oban. I had walked far and was very

tired, but I went to John MacNab's cottage, and, after I had eat my

kippered herring and drank my tea, I felt better. Then I talked with

John about the resurrection of the body, for he was in a tribulation of

thoughts and doubts as to whether our Lord had a permanent humanity or

not.

"And I said to him, John, Christ redeemed our whole nature, and it is

this way: the body being ransomed, as well as the spirit, by no less a

price than the body of Christ, shall be equally cleansed and glorified.

Now, then, after I had gone to my room, I was sitting thinking of these

things, and of no other things whatever. There was not a sound but that

of the waves breaking among the rocks, and drawing the tinkling pebbles

down the beach after them. Then the ears of my spiritual body were

opened, and I heard these words, _'I will go with thee to Glasgow!'_

Instead of saying to the heavenly message, 'I am ready!' I began to

argue with myself thus: 'Whatever for should I go to Glasgow? I know not

anyone there. No one knows me. I have duties at Portsee not to be left.

I have no money for such a journey--'

"I fell asleep to such thoughts. Then I dreamed of--or I saw--a woman

fair as the daughters of God, and she said, _'I will go with thee to

Glasgow!'_ With a strange feeling of being hurried and pressed I

awoke--wide awake, and without any conscious will of my own, I answered,

'I am ready. I am ready now.'

"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means

of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to

the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was

blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he

called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait

for thee?'

"I soon perceived that there was a mistake, and that it was not John

Balmuto he had been instructed to wait for. But I heeded not that; I was

under orders I durst not disobey. She was a trading steamer, with a

perishable cargo of game and lobsters, and so she touched at no place

whatever till we reached Glasgow. One of her passengers was David

MacPherson of Harris, a very good man, who had known me in my

visitations. He was going to Glasgow as a witness in a case to be tried

between the Harris fishers and their commission house in Glasgow.

"As we walked together from the steamer, he said to me, 'Let us go round

by the court house, John, and I'll find out when I'll be required.' That

was to my mind; I did not feel as if I could go astray, whatever road

was taken, and I turned with him the way he desired to go. He found the

lawyer who needed him in the court house, and while they talked together

I went forward and listened to the case that was in hand.

"It was a trial for murder, and I could not keep my eyes off the young

man who was charged with the crime. He seemed to be quite broken down

with shame and sorrow. Before MacPherson called me the court closed and

the constables took him away. As he passed me our eyes met, and my heart

dirled and burned, and I could not make out whatever would be the matter

with me. All night his face haunted me. I was sure I had seen it some

place; and besides it would blend itself with the dream which had

brought me to Glasgow.

"In the morning I was early at the court house and I saw the prisoner

brought in. There was the most marvelous change in his looks. He walked

like a man who has lost fear, and his face was quite calm. But now it

troubled me more than ever. Whatever had I to do with the young man? Yet

I could not bear to leave him.

"I listened and found out that he was accused of murdering his uncle.

They had been traveling together and were known to have been at Ullapool

on the thirtieth of May. On the first of June the elder man was found in

a lonely place near Oban, dead, and, without doubt, from violence. The

chain of circumstantial evidence against his nephew was very strong. To

judge by it I would have said myself to him, 'Thou art certainly

guilty.'

"On the other side the young man declared that he had quarreled with his

uncle at Ullapool and left him clandestinely. He had then taken passage

in a Manx fishing smack which was going to the Lews, but he had

forgotten the name of the smack. He was not even certain if the boat was

Manx. The landlord of the inn, at which he said he stayed when in the

Lews, did not remember him. 'A thing not to be expected,' he told the

jury, 'for in the summer months, what with visitors, and what with the

fishers, a face in Stornoway was like a face on a crowded street. The

young man might have been there'--

"The word _Stornoway_ made the whole thing clear to me. The prisoner was

the man I had noticed with a pencil and paper among the fishers in

Donald Brae's cottage. Yes, indeed he was! I knew then why I had been

sent to Glasgow. I walked quickly to the bar, and lifting my bonnet from

my head, I said to the judge, 'My lord, the prisoner _was_ in Stornoway

on the first of June. I saw him there!'

"He gave a great cry of joy and turned to me; and in a moment he called

out: 'You are the man who read the Bible to the fishers. I remember you.

I have your likeness among my drawings.' And I said, 'I am the man.'

"Then my lord, the judge, made them swear me, and he said they would

hear my evidence. For one moment I was a coward. I thought I would hide

God's share in the deliverance, lest men should doubt my whole

testimony. The next, I was telling the true story: how I had been called

at midnight--twice called; how I had found Evan Conochie's boat waiting

for me; how on the boat I had met David MacPherson, and been brought to

the court house by him, having no intention or plan of my own in the

matter.

"And there was a great awe in the room as I spoke. Every one believed

what I said, and my lord asked for the names of the fishers who were

present in Donald Brae's cottage on the night of the first of June. Very

well, then, I could give many of them, and they were sent for, and the

lad was saved, thank God Almighty!"

"How do you explain it, John?"

"No, I will not try to explain it; for it is not to be hoped that anyone

can explain by human reason the things surpassing human reason."

"Do you know what became of the young man?"

"I will tell thee about him. He is a very rich young man, and the only

child of a widow, known like Dorcas of old for her great goodness to the

Lord's poor. But when his mother died it did not go well and peaceably

between him and his uncle; and it is true that he left him at Ullapool

without a word. Well, then, he fell into this sore strait, and it seemed

as if all hope of proving his innocence was over.

"But that very night on which I saw him first, he dreamed that his

mother came to him in his cell and she comforted him and told him,

'To-morrow, surely, thy deliverer shall speak for thee.' He never

doubted the heavenly vision. 'How could I?' he asked me. 'My mother

never deceived me in life; would she come to me, even in a dream, to

tell me a lie? Ah, no!'"

"Is he still alive?"

"God preserve him for many a year yet! I'll only require to speak his

name"--and when he had done so, I knew the secret spring of thankfulness

that fed the never-ceasing charity of one great, good man.

"And yet, John," I urged, "how can spirit speak with spirit?"

"'_How?_' I will tell thee, that word 'how' has no business in the mouth

of a child of God. When I was a boy, who had dreamed 'how' men in London

might speak with men in Edinburgh through the air, invisible and

unheard? That is a matter of trade now. Can thou imagine what subtle

secret lines there may be between the spiritual world and this world?"

"But dreams, John?"

"Well, then, dreams. Take the dream life out of thy Bible and, oh, how

much thou wilt lose! All through it this side of the spiritual world

presses close on the human side. I thank God for it. Yes, indeed! Many

things I hear and see which say to me that Christians now have a kind of

shame in what is mystical or supernatural. But thou be sure of this--the

supernaturalism of the Bible, and of every Christian life is not one of

the difficulties of our faith, _it is the foundation of our faith_. The

Bible is a supernatural book, the law of a supernatural religion; and to

part with this element is to lose out of it the flavor of heaven, and

the hope of immortality. Yes, indeed!"

This conversation occurred thirty years ago. Two years since, I met the

man who had experienced such a deliverance, and he told me again the

wonderful story, and showed me the pencil sketch which he had made of

John Balmuto in Donald Brae's cottage. He had painted from it a grand

picture of his deliverer, wearing the long black camlet cloak and

head-kerchief of the order of evangelists to which he belonged. I stood

reverently before the commanding figure, with its inspired eyes and rapt

expression; for, during those thirty years, I also had learned that it

was only those

Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours

Weeping upon their bed have sate,

Who know you not, Ye Heavenly Powers.

SIX, AND HALF-A-DOZEN.

Slain in the battle of life. Wounded and fallen, trampled in the mire

and mud of the conflict, then the ranks closed again and left no place

for her. So she crawled aside to die. With a past whose black despair

was as the shadow of a starless night, a future which her early

religious training lit up with the lurid light of hell, and the strong

bands of a pitiless death dragging her to the grave--still she craved,

as the awful hour drew near, to see once more the home of her innocent

childhood. Not that she thought to die in its shelter--any one who knew

David Todd knew also that was a hopeless dream; but if, IF her

father should say one pardoning word, then she thought it would help her

to understand the love of God, and give her some strength to trust in

it.

Early in the evening, just as the sun was setting and the cows were

coming lowing up the little lane, scented with the bursting lilac

bushes, she stood humbly at the gate her father must pass in order to go

to the hillside fold to shelter the ewes and lambs. Very soon she saw

him coming, his Scotch bonnet pulled over his brows, his steps steadied

by his shepherd's staff. His lips were firmly closed, and his eyes

looked far over the hills; for David was a mystic in his own way, and

they were to him temples not made with hands in which he had seen and

heard wonderful things. Here the storehouses of hail and lightning had

been opened in his sight, and he had watched in the sunshine the tempest

bursting beneath his feet. He had trod upon rainbows and been waited

upon by spectral mists. The voices of winds and waters were in his

heart, and he passionately believed in God. But it was the God of his

own creed--jealous, just and awful in that inconceivable holiness which

charges his angels with folly and detects impurity in the sinless

heavens. So, when he approached the gate he saw, but would not see, the

dying girl who leaned against it. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He

closed it without hurry, and then passed on the other side.

"Father! O, father! speak one word to me."

Then he turned and looked at her, sternly and awfully.

"Thou art nane o' my bairn. I ken naught o' thee."

Without another glance at the white, despairing face, he walked rapidly

on; for the spring nights were chilly, and he must gather his lambs into

the fold, though this poor sheep of his own household was left to

perish.

But, if her father knew her no more, the large sheep-dog at his side was

not so cruel. No theological dogmas measured Rover's love; the stain on

the spotless name of his master's house, which hurt the old man like a

wound, had not shadowed his memory. He licked her hands and face, and

tried with a hospitality and pity which made him so much nearer the

angels than his master to pull her toward her home. But she shook her

head and moaned pitifully; then throwing her arms round the poor brute

she kissed him with those passionate kisses of repentance and love which

should have fallen on her father's neck. The dog (dumb to all but God)

pleaded with sorrowful eyes and half-frantic gestures; but she turned

wearily away toward a great circle of immense rocks--relics of a

religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor

forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die

unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive

howling of a dog, found her on the ground, dead.

There are set awful hours between every soul and heaven. Who knows what

passed between Lettice Todd and her God in that dim forsaken temple of a

buried faith? Death closes tenderly even the eyes full of tears, and

her face was beautiful with a strange peace, though its loveliness was

marred and its youth "seared with the autumn of strange suffering."

At the inquest which followed, her stern old father neither blamed nor

excused himself. He accepted without apology the verdict of society

against him; only remarking that its reproof was "a guid example o'

Satan correcting sin."

Scant pity and less ceremony was given to her burial. Death, which draws

under the mantle of Charity the pride, cruelty and ambition of men,

covering them with those two narrow words _Hic jacet_! gives also to the

woman who has been a sinner all she asks--oblivion. In no other way can

she obtain from man toleration. The example of the whitest, purest soul

that ever breathed on earth, in this respect, is ignored in the church

He founded. The tenderest of human hearts, "when lovely woman stooped to

folly," found no way of escape for her but to "die;" and those closet

moralists, with filthy fancies and soiled souls, who abound in every

community, regard her with that sort of scorn which a Turk expresses

when he says "Dog of a Christian." Poor Lettice! She had procured this

doom--first by sacrificing herself to a blind and cruel love, and then

to the importunate demands of hunger, "oldest and strongest of

passions." Ah! if there was no pity in Heaven, no justice beyond the

grave, what a cruel irony this life would be! For, while the sexton

shoveled hastily over the rude coffin the obliterating earth, there

passed the graveyard another woman equally fallen from all the apostle

calls "lovely and of good report." One whose youth and hopes and

marvelous beauty had been sold for houses and lands and a few thousand

pounds a year. But, though her life was a living lie, the world praised

her, because she "had done well unto herself." Yet, at the last end, the

same seed brought forth the same fruit, and the Lady of Hawksworth Hall

learned, with bitter rapidity, that riches are too poor to buy love.

Scarcely had she taken possession of her splendid home before she longed

for the placid happiness of her mother's cottage, and those evening

walks under the beech-trees, whose very memory was now a sin. Over her

beautiful face there crept a pathetic shadow, which irritated the rude

and noisy squire like a reproach. He had always had what he wanted. Not

even the beauty of all the border counties had been beyond his means to

buy but somehow he felt as if in this bargain he had been overreached.

Her better part eluded his possession, and he felt dissatisfied and

angry. Expostulations grew into cruel words; cruel words came to cruder

blows. _Yes, blows_. English gentlemen thirty years ago knew their

privileges; and that was one of them. She was as much and as lawfully

his as the horses in his stables or the hounds in his kennels. He beat

them, too, when they did not obey him. Her beauty had betrayed her into

the hands of misery. She had wedded it, and there was no escape for her.

One day, when her despair and suffering was very great, some tempting

devil brought her a glass of brandy, and she drank it. It gave her back

for a few hours her departed sceptre; but at what a price! Her slave

soon became her master. Stimulus and stupefaction, physical exhaustion

and mental horrors, the abandonment of friends and the brutality of a

coarse and cruel husband, brought her at last to the day of reckoning.

She died, seven years after her marriage, in the delirium of opium.

There were physicians and servants around her, and an unloving husband

waiting for the news of his release. I think I would rather have died

where Lettice did--under the sky, with the solemn mountains lifting

their heads in a perpetual prayer around me, and that faithful dog

licking my hands, and mourning my wasted life.

Now, wherein did these two women differ? One sinned through an intense

and self-sacrificing love, and in obedience to the strongest calls of

want. Her sin, though it was beyond the pale of the world's toleration,

was yet one _according to Nature_. The other, in a cold spirit of

barter, voluntarily and deliberately exchanged her youth and beauty, the

hopes of her own and another's life, for carriages, jewels, fine

clothing and a luxurious table. She loathed the price she had to pay,

and her sin was an unnatural one. For this kind of prostitution, which

religion blesses and society praises, there seems to be no redress; but

for that which results as the almost inevitable sequence of one lapse of

chastity _we_, the pious, the virtuous, the irreproachable, are all to

blame. Who or what make it impossible for them to retrace their steps?

Do they ever have reason to hope that the family hearth will be open to

them if they go back? Prodigal sons may return, and are welcomed with

tears of joy and clasped by helping hands; but alas! how few parents

would go to meet a sinning daughter. Forgetting our Master's precepts,

forgetting our human frailty, forgetting our own weakness, we turn

scornfully from the weeping Magdalen, and leave her "alone with the

irreparable." Marriage is a holy and a necessary rite. We would

deprecate _any_ loosening of this great house-band of society; but we

do say that where it is the _only distinction_ between two women, one of

whom is an honored matron, and the other a Pariah and an outcast, there

is "something in the world amiss"--something beyond the cure of law or

legislation, and that they can only be reached by the authority of a

Christian press and the influence of Christian example.

THE STORY OF DAVID MORRISON.

I think it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the

face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a

man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with

something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe

of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of the Rob

Roryson fashion.

The bonnet had come with him from the little Highland clachan, where he

and his brother Sandy had scrambled through a hard, happy boyhood

together. It had sometimes been laid aside for a more pretentious

headgear, but it had never been lost; and in his old age and poverty had

been cheerfully--almost affectionately--resumed.

"Sandy had one just like it," he would say. "We bought them thegither in

Aberdeen. Twa braw lads were we then. I'm wonderin' where poor Sandy is

the day!"

So, if anybody remembers the little spare man, with the child-like,

candid face and the big blue bonnet, let them recall him kindly. It is

his true history I am telling to-day.

Davie had, as I said before, a hard boyhood. He knew what cold, hunger

and long hours meant as soon as he knew anything; but it was glorified

in his memory by the two central figures in it--a good mother, for whom

he toiled and suffered cheerfully, and a big brother who helped him

bravely over all the bits of life that were too hard for his young feet.

When the mother died, the lads sailed together for America. They had a

"far-awa'" cousin in New York, who, report said, had done well in the

plastering business, and Sandy never doubted but that one Morrison would

help another Morrison the wide world over. With this faith in their

hearts and a few shillings in their pockets, the two lads landed. The

American Morrison had not degenerated. He took kindly to his kith and

kin, and offered to teach them his own craft.

For some time the brothers were well content; but Sandy was of an

ambitious, adventurous temper, and was really only waiting until he felt

sure that wee Davie could take care of himself. Nothing but the Great

West could satisfy Sandy's hopes; but he never dreamt of exposing his

brother to its dangers and privations.

"You're nothing stronger than a bit lassie, Davie," he said, "and you're

no to fret if I don't take you wi' me. I'm going to make a big fortune,

and when I have gotten the gold safe, I'se come back to you, and we'll

spend it thegither dollar for dollar, my wee lad."

"Sure as death! You'll come back to me?"

"Sure as death, I'll come back to you, Davie!" and Sandy thought it no

shame to cry on his little brother's neck, and to look back, with a

loving, hopeful smile at Davie's sad, wistful face, just as long as he

could see it.

It was Davie's nature to believe and to trust. With a pitiful confidence

and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother's promise.

After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings

after his work was over, and wonder "how Sandy and he had lost each

other." For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered

his loyal heart.

He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years

of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble

as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was

scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very

frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places,

so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.

Then seven years after Sandy's departure the very house in which they

had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and

probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have

told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should

come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a

letter reaching him less and less likely.

Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of

a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple

little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They

had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom

Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were

faithfully reproduced.

It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.

Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little

Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself

became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's

pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet

through it ran one golden thread of romance.

In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in

winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his

wife and child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for

fortune in the great West. The simplicity of the elder two and the

enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.

Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with

a glorious possibility. Any night they might come home and find Uncle

Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no

end of them in some safe bank, besides.

But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and

began to go sweethearting, more tangible hopes and dreams agitated all

their hearts; for young Sandy Morrison opened a carpenter's shop in his

own name, and began to talk of taking a wife and furnishing a home.

He did not take just the wife that pleased his father and mother. There

was nothing, indeed, about Sallie Barker of which they could complain.

She was bright and capable, but they _felt_ a want they were not able to

analyze; the want was that pure unselfishness which was the ruling

spirit of their own lives.

This want never could be supplied in Sallie's nature. She did right

because it was her duty to do right, not because it gave her pleasure to

do it. When they had been married three years the war broke out, and

soon afterward Alexander Morrison was drafted for the army. Sallie, who

was daily expecting her second child, refused all consolation; and,

indeed, their case looked hard enough.

At first the possibility of a substitute had suggested itself; but a

family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without

hopelessly straitening both houses. Everyone knows that dreary silence

which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an

irremediable misfortune. Davie broke it in this case in a very

unexpected manner.

"Let me go in your place, Sandy. I'd like to do it, my lad. Maybe I'd

find your uncle. Who knows? What do you say, old wife? We've had more

than twenty years together. It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now,

isn't it?"

He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was

asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer

into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic

than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.

The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been

practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie

went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.

This was the break-up of Davie's life. His wife went to live with Sandy

and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.

Few people could have taken these events as Davie did. He even affected

to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting

came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad

enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.

In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of

romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost

brother. He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and

he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed

possible in its atmosphere. But reality and romance are wide enough

apart.

Davie's military experience was a very dull and weary one. He grew

poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for

all his sacrifices in the thought that "at least he had spared poor

Sandy."

Neither was his home-coming what he had pictured it in many a reverie.

There was no wife to meet him--she had been three months in the grave

when he got back to New York--and going to his daughter-in-law's home

was not--well, it was not like going to his own house.

Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she was grateful to Davie, but she

did not _love_ the old man.

He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless.

He had grown very old with three years' exposure and hard duty. Other

men could do twice the work he could, and do it better. He must step out

from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as

his failing strength permitted him to fill.

Sandy objected strongly to this at first. "He could work for both," he

said, "and he thought father had deserved his rest."

But Davie shook his head--"he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn

it now, just as he could. Any honest way was honorable enough." He was

still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of

his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many

others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I

am not going to write its history.

It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite

of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place--not

pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass,

when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed

down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.

It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely

claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the

tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks,

threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's

wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom

they once were very tender.

David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted

grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little

newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer

papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little

losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it

would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is

now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."

This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through

the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's

plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later,

and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought

which haunted his own--_would they commit him, then, to the care of

public charities?_

"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite

and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll

speak to Sandy myself about it--poor lad! It will come hard on him to

say the first word."

The thought once realized began to take shape in his mind, and that

night, contrary to his usual custom, he could not go to sleep. Sandy

came in early, and the children went wearily off to bed. Then Sallie

began to talk on the very subject which lay so heavy on his own heart,

and he could tell from the tone of the conversation that it was one that

had been discussed many times before.

"He only made bare expenses last week and there's a loss of seventy

cents this week already. Oh, Sandy, Sandy! there is no use putting off

what is sure to come. Little Davie had to do without a drink of coffee

to-night, and _his_ bread, you know, comes off theirs at every meal. It

is very hard on us all!"

"I don't think the children mind it, Sallie. Every one of them loves the

old man--God bless him! He was a good father to me."

"I would love him, too, Sandy, if I did not see him eating my children's

bread. And neither he nor they get enough. Sandy, do take him down

to-morrow, and tell him as you go the strait we are in. He will be

better off; he will get better food and every other comfort. You must do

it, Sandy; I can bear this no longer."

"It's getting near Christmas, Sallie. Maybe he'll get New Year's

presents enough to put things straight. Last year they were nearly

eighteen dollars, you know."

"Don't you see that Jamie could get that just as well? Jamie can take

the business and make something of it. Father is letting it get worse

and worse every week. We should have one less to feed, and Jamie's

earnings besides. Sandy, _it has got to be_! Do it while we can make

something by the step."

"It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie. God will never forgive me if I

take it," and David could hear that his son's voice trembled.

In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy's eyes, and his

father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad's heart was

yet so tender. And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a

happy sleep.

In the morning he remembered all. He had not heard the end of the

argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither

astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day

and asked him to "go down the avenue a bit."

He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the

sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it. In the first

place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the

gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets

gave him a new sense of exhilaration. Sandy fell almost unconsciously

into his humor. He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly

determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with

his father.

Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of

days long past crowded into both men's minds, and they ate and drank,

and then wandered on almost happily. Davie knew very well where they

were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the

last moment. He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never

have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it.

As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent;

his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and

the smile with which he answered Davie's pleasant prattle was almost

more pitiful than tears.

At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a

start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep. His words were

sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he

turned Davie quickly round, and said:

"We must go back now, father. I will not go another step this road--no,

by heaven! though I die for it!"

"Just a little further, Sandy."

And Davie's thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very

well understood.

"No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!"

Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and

resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been

going.

Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and

the trouble there was likely to be. But somehow it seemed a light thing

to him. He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the

father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their

lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand,

they climbed the dark tenement stair together.

Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside

hastily, and come to meet them. She had been crying, too, and her very

first words were, "Oh, father!' I am so glad!--so glad!"

She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and

he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for

the little extras with which she celebrated his return at supper. He

understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep

that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and

come out conqueror.

The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie's heart

there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the

poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the

children. But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still

softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his

papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of

coffee and a bit of bread and bacon.

Davie's eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them. So then

he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and

drank.

In a few minutes a sudden sharp cry escaped him. He put the paper in his

pocket, and, hastily resuming his old army cloak and Scotch bonnet, went

out without a word to anyone.

The truth was that he had read a personal notice which greatly disturbed

him. It was to the effect that, "If David Morrison, who left Aberdeen in

18--, was still alive, and would apply to Messrs. Morgan & Black, Wall

street, he would hear of something to his advantage."

His long-lost brother was the one thought in his heart. He was going

now to hear something about Sandy.

"He said 'sure as death,' and he would mind that promise at the last

hour, if he forgot it before; so, if he could not come, he'd doubtless

send, and this will be his message. Poor Sandy! there was never a lad

like him!"

When he reached Messrs. Morgan & Black's, he was allowed to stand

unnoticed by the stove a few minutes, and during them his spirits sank

to their usual placid level. At length some one said:

"Well, old man, what do _you_ want?"

"I am David Morrison, and I just came to see what _you_ wanted."

"Oh, you are David Morrison! Good! Go forward--I think you will find

out, then, what we want."

He was not frightened, but the man's manner displeased him, and, without

answering, he walked toward the door indicated, and quietly opened it.

An old gentleman was standing with his back to the door, looking into

the fire, and one rather younger, was writing steadily away at a desk.

The former never moved; the latter simply raised his head with an

annoyed look, and motioned to Davie to close the door.

"I am David Morrison, sir."

"Oh, Davie! Davie! And the old blue bonnet, too! Oh, Davie! Davie,

lad!"

As for Davie, he was quite overcome. With a cry of joy so keen that it

was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor. When he became

conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two

physicians by his side, and Sandy's face was full of anguish and

anxiety.

"He will do now, sir. It was only the effect of a severe shock on a

system too impoverished to bear it. Give him a good meal and a glass of

wine."

Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it

what a confiding session these two hearts held! Davie told his sad

history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices,

and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy's girls and boys.

But the light in his brother's eyes, and the tender glow of admiration

with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood

pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.

"However, I am o'erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy," said Davie,

in conclusion, "since I have seen your face again, and you're just

handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too."

Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander Morrison was still a very

handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor

and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.

For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle

to him. During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie

had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.

When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie,

carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his

brother. Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle

equally hopeless and poor.

But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy. Some call

of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania

village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was

successful. He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm,

and went into the oil business.

"And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie. Half of it

is yours, and half mine. See! Fifteen thousand has been entered from

time to time in your name. I told you, Davie, that when I came back we

would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your

share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury."

It was a part of Davie's simple nature that he accepted it without any

further protestation. Instinctively he felt that it was the highest

compliment he could pay his brother. It was as if he said: "I firmly

believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly

believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it." So Davie

looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to

fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the

credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a

schoolboy:

"And what will you do wi' yours, Sandy?"

"I am going to buy a farm in New Jersey, Davie. I was talking with Mr.

Black about it this morning. It will cost twelve thousand dollars, but

the gentleman says it will be worth double that in a very few years. I

think that myself, Davie, for I went yesterday to take a good look at

it. It is never well to trust to other folks' eyes, you know."

"Then, Sandy, I'll go shares wi' you. We'll buy the farm together and

we'll live together--that is, if you would like it."

"What would I like better?"

"Maybe you have a wife, and then--"

"No, I have no wife, Davie. She died nearly thirty years ago. I have no

one but you."

"And we will grow small fruits, and raise chickens and have the finest

dairy in the State, Sandy."

"That is just my idea, Davie."

Thus they talked until the winter evening began to close in upon them,

and then Davie recollected that his boy, Sandy, would be more than

uneasy about him.

"I'll not ask you there to-night, brother; I want them all to myself

to-night. 'Deed, I've been selfish enough to keep this good news from

them so long."

So, with a hand-shake that said what no words could say, the brothers

parted, and Davie made haste to catch the next up-town car. He thought

they never had traveled so slowly; he was half inclined several times to

get out and run home.

When he arrived there the little kitchen was dark, but there was a fire

in the stove and wee Davie--his namesake--was sitting, half crying,

before it.

The child lifted his little sorrowful face to his grandfather's, and

tried to smile as he made room for him in the warmest place.

"What's the matter, Davie?"

"I have had a bad day, grandfather. I did not sell my papers, and Jack

Dacey gave me a beating besides; and--and I really do think my toes are

frozen off."

Then Davie pulled the lad on to his knee, and whispered

"Oh, my wee man, you shall sell no more papers. You shall have braw new

clothes, and go to school every day of your life. Whist! yonder comes

mammy."

Sallie came in with a worried look, which changed to one of reproach

when she saw Davie.

"Oh, father, how could you stay abroad this way? Sandy is fair daft

about you, and is gone to the police stations, and I don't know where--"

Then she stopped, for Davie had come toward her, and there was such a

new, strange look on his face that it terrified her, and she could only

say: "Father! father! what is it?"

"It is good news, Sallie. My brother Sandy is come, and he has just

given me fifteen thousand dollars; and there is a ten-dollar bill, dear

lass, for we'll have a grand supper to-night, please God."

By and by they heard poor Sandy's weary footsteps on the stair, and

Sallie said:

"Not a word, children. Let grandfather tell your father."

Davie went to meet him, and, before he spoke, Sandy saw, as Sallie had

seen, that his father's countenance was changed, and that something

wonderful had happened.

"What is the matter, father?"

"Fifteen thousand dollars is the matter, my boy; and peace and comfort

and plenty, and decent clothes and school for the children, and a happy

home for us all in some nice country place."

When Sandy heard this he kissed his father, and then covering his face

with his hands, sobbed out:

"Thank God! thank God!"

It was late that night before either the children or the elders could go

to sleep. Davie told them first of the farm that Sandy and he were going

to buy together, and then he said to his son:

"Now, my dear lad, what think you is best for Sallie and the children?"

"You say, father, that the village where you are going is likely to grow

fast."

"It is sure to grow. Two lines of railroad will pass through it in a

month."

"Then I would like to open a carpenter's shop there. There will soon be

work enough; and we will rent some nice little cottage, and the children

can go to school, and it will be a new life for us all. I have often

dreamed of such a chance, but I never believed it would come true."

But the dream came more than true. In a few weeks Davie and his brother

were settled in their new home, and in the adjoining village Alexander

Morrison, junior, had opened a good carpenter and builder's shop, and

had begun to do very well.

Not far from it was the coziest of old stone houses, and over it Sallie

presided. It stood among great trees, and was surrounded by a fine fruit

garden, and was prettily furnished throughout; besides which, and best

of all, _it was their own_--a New Year's gift from the kindest of

grandfathers and uncles. People now have got well used to seeing the

Brothers Morrison.

They are rarely met apart. They go to market and to the city together.

What they buy they buy in unison, and every bill of sale they give bears

both their names. Sandy is the ruling spirit, but Davie never suspects,

for Sandy invariably says to all propositions, "If my brother David

agrees, I do," or, "If brother David is satisfied, I have no more to

say," etc.

Some of the villagers have tried to persuade them that they must be

lonely, but they know better than that. Old men love a great deal of

quiet and of gentle meandering retrospection; and David and Sandy have

each of them forty years' history to tell the other. Then they are both

very fond of young Sandy and the children.

Sandy's projects and plans and building contracts are always well talked

over at the farm before they are signed, and the children's lessons and

holidays, and even their new clothes, interest the two old men almost as

much as they do Sallie.

As for Sallie, you would scarcely know her. She is no longer cross with

care and quarrelsome with hunger. I always did believe that prosperity

was good for the human soul, and Sallie Morrison proves the theory. She

has grown sweet tempered in its sunshine, is gentle and forbearing to

her children, loving and grateful to her father-in-law, and her

husband's heart trusts in her.

Therefore let all those fortunate ones who are in prosperity give

cheerfully to those who ask of them. It will bring a ten-fold blessing

on what remains, and the piece of silver sent out on its pleasant errand

may happily touch the hand that shall bring the giver good fortune

through all the years of life.

TOM DUFFAN'S DAUGHTER.

Tom Duffan's cabinet-pictures are charming bits of painting; but you

would cease to wonder how he caught such delicate home touches if you

saw the room he painted in; for Tom has a habit of turning his wife's

parlor into a studio, and both parlor and pictures are the better for

the habit.

One bright morning in the winter of 1872 he had got his easel into a

comfortable light between the blazing fire and the window, and was

busily painting. His cheery little wife--pretty enough in spite of her

thirty-seven years--was reading the interesting items in the morning

papers to him, and between them he sung softly to himself the favorite

tenor song of his favorite opera. But the singing always stopped when

the reading began; and so politics and personals, murders and music,

dramas and divorces kept continually interrupting the musical despair of

"Ah! che la morte ognora."

But even a morning paper is not universally interesting, and in the very

middle of an elaborate criticism on tragedy and Edwin Booth, the parlor

door partially opened, and a lovelier picture than ever Tom Duffan

painted stood in the aperture--a piquant, brown-eyed girl, in a morning

gown of scarlet opera flannel, and a perfect cloud of wavy black hair

falling around her.

"Mamma, if anything on earth can interest you that is not in a

newspaper, I should like to know whether crimps or curls are most

becoming with my new seal-skin set."

"Ask papa."

"If I was a picture, of course papa would know; but seeing I am only a

poor live girl, it does not interest him."

"Because, Kitty, you never will dress artistically."

"Because, papa, I must dress fashionably. It is not my fault if artists

don't know the fashions. Can't I have mamma for about half an hour?"

"When she has finished this criticism of Edwin Booth. Come in, Kitty; it

will do you good to hear it."

"Thank you, no, papa; I am going to Booth's myself to-night, and I

prefer to do my own criticism." Then Kitty disappeared, Mrs. Duffan

skipped a good deal of criticism, and Tom got back to his "Ah! che la

morte ognora" much quicker than the column of printed matter warranted.

"Well, Kitty child, what do you want?"

"See here."

"Tickets for Booth's?"

"Parquette seats, middle aisle; I know them. Jack always does get just

about the same numbers."

"Jack? You don't mean to say that Jack Warner sent them?"

Kitty nodded and laughed in a way that implied half a dozen different

things.

"But I thought that you had positively refused him, Kitty?"

"Of course I did mamma--I told him in the nicest kind of way that we

must only be dear friends, and so on."

"Then why did he send these tickets?"

"Why do moths fly round a candle? It is my opinion both moths and men

enjoy burning."

"Well, Kitty, I don't pretend to understand this new-fashioned way of

being 'off' and 'on' with a lover at the same time. Did you take me from

papa simply to tell me this?"

"No; I thought perhaps you might like to devote a few moments to papa's

daughter. Papa has no hair to crimp and no braids to make. Here are all

the hair-pins ready, mamma, and I will tell you about Sarah Cooper's

engagement and the ridiculous new dress she is getting."

It is to be supposed the bribe proved attractive enough, for Mrs. Duffan

took in hand the long tresses, and Kitty rattled away about wedding

dresses and traveling suits and bridal gifts with as much interest as if

they were the genuine news of life, and newspaper intelligence a kind of

grown-up fairy lore.

But anyone who saw the hair taken out of crimps would have said it was

worth the trouble of putting it in; and the face was worth the hair, and

the hair was worth the exquisite hat and the rich seal-skins and the

tantalizing effects of glancing silk and beautiful colors. Depend upon

it, Kitty Duffan was just as bright and bewitching a life-sized picture

as anyone could desire to see; and Tom Duff an thought so, as she

tripped up to the great chair in which he was smoking and planning

subjects, for a "good-by" kiss.

"I declare, Kitty! Turn round, will you? Yes, I declare you are dressed

in excellent taste. All the effects are good. I wouldn't have believed

it."

"Complimentary, papa. But 'I told you so.' You just quit the antique,

and take to studying _Harper's Bazar_ for effects; then your women will

look a little more natural."

"Natural? Jehoshaphat! Go way, you little fraud!"

"I appeal to Jack. Jack, just look at the women in that picture of

papa's, with the white sheets draped about them. What do they look

like?"

"Frights, Miss Kitty."

"Of course they do. Now, papa."

"You two young barbarians!" shouted Tom, in a fit of laughter; for Jack

and Kitty were out in the clear frosty air by this time, with the fresh

wind at their backs, and their faces steadily set toward the busy bustle

and light of Broadway. They had not gone far when Jack said, anxiously,

"You haven't thought any better of your decision last Friday night,

Kitty, I am afraid."

"Why, no, Jack. I don't see how I can, unless you could become an Indian

Commissioner or a clerk of the Treasury, or something of that kind. You

know I won't marry a literary man under any possible circumstances. I'm

clear on that subject, Jack."

"I know all about farming, Kitty, if that would do."

"But I suppose if you were a farmer, we should have to live in the

country. I am sure that would not do."

Jack did not see how the city and farm could be brought to terms; so he

sighed, and was silent.

Kitty answered the sigh. "No use in bothering about me, Jack. You ought

to be very glad I have been so honest. Some girls would have 'risked

you, and in a week, you'd have been just as miserable!"

"You don't dislike me, Kitty?"

"Not at all. I think you are first-rate."

"It is my profession, then?"

"Exactly."

"Now, what has it ever done to offend you?"

"Nothing yet, and I don't mean it ever shall. You see, I know Will

Hutton's wife: and what that woman endures! Its just dreadful."

"Now, Kitty!"

"It is Jack. Will reads all his fine articles to her, wakes her up at

nights to listen to some new poem, rushes away from the dinner table to

jot down what he calls 'an idea,' is always pointing out 'splendid

passages' to her, and keeps her working just like a slave copying his

manuscripts and cutting newspapers to pieces. Oh, it is just dreadful!"

"But she thoroughly enjoys it."

"Yes, that is such a shame. Will has quite spoiled her. Lucy used to be

real nice, a jolly, stylish girl. Before she was married she was

splendid company; now, you might just as well mope round with a book."

"Kitty, I'd promise upon my honor--at the altar, if you like--never to

bother you with anything I write; never to say a word about my

profession."

"No, no, sir! Then you would soon be finding some one else to bother,

perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual 'friend.' What is the use

of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the

manger? I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were

_mine_, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was."

Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed. He squeezed

Kitty's hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was

forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.

"I'll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am

quite sure I could make plenty of money for you."

"Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not

go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in

calicos for love, people say she's mercenary. Well, then, I am

mercenary. I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm

fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the

time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms

of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty

occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us

they are."

"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"

"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that

loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every

summer to see views."

"To see views?"

"Yes. I am sick to death of fine scenery and mountains, 'scarped and

jagged and rifted,' and all other kinds. I've seen so many grand

landscapes, I never want to see another. I want to stay at the Branch or

the Springs, and have nice dresses and a hop every night. And you know

papa _will_ go to some lonely place, where all my toilettes are thrown

away, and where there is not a soul to speak to but famous men of one

kind or another."

Jack couldn't help laughing; but they were now among the little crush

that generally gathers in the vestibule of a theatre, and whatever he

meant to say was cut in two by a downright hearty salutation from some

third party.

"Why, Max, when did you get home?"

"To-day's steamer." Then there were introductions and a jingle of merry

words and smiles that blended in Kitty's ears with the dreamy music, the

rustle of dresses, and perfume of flowers, and the new-comer was gone.

But that three minutes' interview was a wonderful event to Kitty Duffan,

though she did not yet realize it. The stranger had touched her as she

had never been touched before. His magnetic voice called something into

being that was altogether new to her; his keen, searching gray eyes

claimed what she could neither understand nor withhold. She became

suddenly silent and thoughtful; and Jack, who was learned in love lore,

saw in a moment that Kitty had fallen in love with his friend Max

Raymond.

It gave him a moment's bitter pang; but if Kitty was not for him, then

he sincerely hoped Max might win her. Yet he could not have told whether

he was most pleased or angry when he saw Max Raymond coolly negotiate a

change of seats with the gentleman on Kitty's right hand, and take

possession of Kitty's eyes and ears and heart. But there is a great deal

of human nature in man, and Jack behaved, upon the whole, better than

might have been expected.

For once Kitty did not do all the talking. Max talked, and she listened;

Max gave opinions, and she indorsed them; Max decided, and she

submitted. It was not Jack's Kitty at all. He was quite relieved when

she turned round in her old piquant way and snubbed him.

But to Kitty it was a wonderful evening--those grand old Romans walking

on and off the stage, the music playing, the people applauding and the

calm, stately man on her right hand explaining this and that, and

looking into her eyes in such a delicious, perplexing way that past and

present were all mingled like the waving shadows of a wonderful dream.

She was in love's land for about three hours; then she had to come back

into the cold frosty air, the veritable streets, and the unmistakable

stone houses. But it was hardest of all to come back and be the old

radiant, careless Kitty.

"Well, pussy, what of the play?" asked Tom Duffan; "you cut ----'s

criticism short this morning. Now, what is yours?"

"Oh, I don't know papa. The play was Shakespeare's, and Booth and

Barrett backed him up handsomely."

"Very fine criticism indeed, Kitty. I wish Booth and Barrett could hear

it."

"I wish they could; but I am tired to death now. Good night, papa; good

night, mamma. I'll talk for twenty in the morning."

"What's the matter with Kitty, mother?"

"Jack Warner, I expect."

"Hum! I don't think so."

"Men don't know everything, Tom."

"They don't know anything about women; their best efforts in that line

are only guesses at truth."

"Go to bed, Tom Duffan; you are getting prosy and ridiculous. Kitty will

explain herself in the morning."

But Kitty did not explain herself, and she daily grew more and more

inexplicable. She began to read: Max brought the books, and she read

them. She began to practice: Max liked music, and wanted to sing with

her. She stopped crimping her hair: Max said it was unnatural and

inartistic. She went to scientific lectures and astronomical lectures

and literary societies: Max took her.

Tom Duffan did not quite like the change, for Tom was of that order of

men who love to put their hearts and necks under a pretty woman's foot.

He had been so long used to Kitty dominant, to Kitty sarcastic, to Kitty

willful, to Kitty absolute, that he could not understand the new Kitty.

"I do not think our little girl is quite well, mother," he said one day,

after studying his daughter reading the _Endymion_ without a yawn.

"Tom, if you can't 'think' to better purpose, you had better go on

painting. Kitty is in love."

"First time I ever saw love make a woman studious and sensible."

"They are uncommon symptoms; nevertheless, Kitty's in love. Poor child!"

"With whom?"

"Max Raymond;" and the mother dropped her eyes upon the ruffle she was

pleating for Kitty's dress, while Tom Duffan accompanied the new-born

thought with his favorite melody.

Thus the winter passed quickly and happily away. Greatly to Kitty's

delight, before its close Jack found the "blonde, sentimental,

intellectual friend," who could appreciate both him and his writings;

and the two went to housekeeping in what Kitty called "a large dry-goods

box." The merry little wedding was the last event of a late spring, and

when it was over the summer quarters were an imperative question.

"I really don't know what to do, mother," said Tom. "Kitty vowed she

would not go to the Peak this year, and I scarcely know how to get along

without it."

"Oh, Kitty will go. Max Raymond has quarters at the hotel lower down."

"Oh, oh! I'll tease the little puss."

"You will do nothing of the kind, Tom, unless you want to go to Cape May

or the Branch. They both imagine their motives undiscovered; but you

just let Kitty know that you even suspect them, and she won't stir a

step in your direction."

Here Kitty, entering the room, stopped the conversation. She had a

pretty lawn suit on, and a Japanese fan in her hand. "Lawn and fans,

Kitty," said Tom: "time to leave the city. Shall we go to the Branch, or

Saratoga?"

"Now, papa, you know you are joking; you always go to the Peak."

"But I am going with you to the seaside this summer, Kitty. I wish my

little daughter to have her whim for once."

"You are better than there is any occasion for, papa. I don't want

either the Branch or Saratoga this year. Sarah Cooper is at the Branch

with her snobby little husband and her extravagant toilettes; I'm not

going to be patronized by her. And Jack and his learned lady are at

Saratoga. I don't want to make Mrs. Warner jealous, but I'm afraid I

couldn't help it. I think you had better keep me out of temptation."

"Where must we go, then?"

"Well, I suppose we might as well go to the Peak. I shall not want many

new dresses there; and then, papa, you are so good to me all the time,

you deserve your own way about your holiday."

And Tom Duffan said, "_Thank you, Kitty_," in such a peculiar way that

Kitty lost all her wits, blushed crimson, dropped her fan, and finally

left the room with the lamest of excuses. And then Mrs. Duffan said,

"Tom, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! If men know a thing past

ordinary, they must blab it, either with a look or a word or a letter; I

shouldn't wonder if Kitty told you to-night she was going to the

Branch, and asked you for a $500 check--serve you right, too."

But if Kitty had any such intentions, Max Raymond changed them. Kitty

went very sweetly to the Peak, and two days afterward Max Raymond,

straying up the hills with his fishing rod, strayed upon Tom Duffan,

sketching. Max did a great deal of fishing that summer, and at the end

of it Tom Duffan's pretty daughter was inextricably caught. She had no

will but Max's will, and no way but his way. She had promised him never

to marry any one but him; she had vowed she would love him, and only

him, to the end of her life.

All these obligations without a shadow or a doubt from the prudent

little body. Yet she knew nothing of Max's family or antecedents; she

had taken his appearance and manners, and her father's and mother's

respectful admission of his friendship, as guarantee sufficient. She

remembered that Jack, that first night in the theatre, had said

something about studying law together; and with these items, and the

satisfactory fact that he always had plenty of money, Kitty had given

her whole heart, without conditions and without hostages.

Nor would she mar the placid measure of her content by questioning; it

was enough that her father and mother were satisfied with her choice.

When they returned to the city, congratulations, presents and

preparations filled every hour. Kitty's importance gave her back a great

deal of her old dictatorial way. In the matter of toilettes she would

not suffer even Max to interfere. "Results were all men had to do with,"

she said; "everything was inartistic to them but a few yards of linen

and a straight petticoat."

Max sighed over the flounces and flutings and lace and ribbons, and

talked about "unadorned beauty;" and then, when Kitty exhibited results,

went into rhapsodies of wonder and admiration. Kitty was very triumphant

in those days, but a little drop of mortification was in store for her.

She was exhibiting all her pretty things one day to a friend, whose

congratulations found their climax in the following statement:

"Really, Kitty, a most beautiful wardrobe! and such an extraordinary

piece of luck for such a little scatter-brain as you! Why, they do say

that Mr. Raymond's last book is just wonderful."

"_Mr. Raymond's last book_!" And Kitty let the satin-lined morocco case,

with all its ruby treasures, fall from her hand.

"Why, haven't you read it, dear? So clever, and all that, dear."

Kitty had tact enough to turn the conversation; but just as soon as her

visitor had gone, she faced her mother, with blazing eyes and cheeks,

and said, "What is Max's business--a lawyer?"

"Gracious, Kitty! What's the matter? He is a scientist, a professor, and

a great--"

"_Writer?_"

"Yes."

"Writes books and magazine articles and things?"

"Yes."

Kitty thought profoundly for a few moments, and then said, "_I thought

so._ I wish Jack Warner was at home."

"What for?"

"Only a little matter I should like to have out with him; but it will

keep."

Jack, however, went South without visiting New York, and when he

returned, pretty Kitty Duffan had been Mrs. Max Raymond for two years.

His first visit was to Tom Duffan's parlor-studio. He was painting and

singing and chatting to his wife as usual. It was so like old times that

Jack's eyes filled at the memory when he asked where and how was Mrs.

Raymond.

"Oh, the professor had bought a beautiful place eight miles from the

city. Kitty and he preferred the country. Would he go and see them?"

Certainly Jack would go. To tell the truth, he was curious to see what

other miracles matrimony had wrought upon Kitty. So he went, and came

back wondering.

"Really, dear," says Mrs. Jack Warner, the next day, "how does the

professor get along with that foolish, ignorant little wife of his?"

"Get along with her? Why, he couldn't get along without her! She sorts

his papers, makes his notes and quotations, answers his letters, copies

his manuscripts, swears by all he thinks and says and does, through

thick and thin, by day and night. It's wonderful, by Jove! I felt

spiteful enough to remind her that she had once vowed that nothing on

earth should ever induce her to marry a writer."

"What did she say?"

"She turned round in her old saucy manner, and answered, 'Jack Warner,

you are as dark as ever. I did not marry the writer, I married _the

man_.' Then I said, 'I suppose all this study and reading and writing is

your offering toward the advancement of science and social

regeneration?'"

"What then?"

"She laughed in a very provoking way, and said, 'Dark again, Jack; _it

is a labor of love_.'"

"Well I never!"

"Nor I either."

THE HARVEST OF THE WIND.