CHAPTER XIII.

DURING the garden scene, Mr. Vane had begged Mrs. Woffington to let him

accompany her. She peremptorily refused, and said in the same breath

she was going to Triplet, in Hercules Buildings, to have her portrait

finished.

Had Mr. Vane understood the sex, he would not have interpreted her

refusal to the letter; when there was a postscript, the meaning of which

was so little enigmatical.

Some three hours after the scene we have described, Mrs. Woffington sat

in Triplet's apartment; and Triplet, palette in hand, painted away upon

her portrait.

Mrs. Woffington was in that languid state which comes to women after

their hearts have received a blow. She felt as if life was ended, and

but the dregs of existence remained; but at times a flood of bitterness

rolled over her, and she resigned all hope of perfect happiness in this

world--all hope of loving and respecting the same creature; and at these

moments she had but one idea--to use her own power, and bind her lover

to her by chains never to be broken; and to close her eyes, and glide

down the precipice of the future.

“I think you are master of this art,” said she, very languidly, to

Triplet, “you paint so rapidly.”

“Yes, madam,” said Triplet, gloomily; and painted on. “Confound this

shadow!” added he; and painted on.

His soul, too, was clouded. Mrs. Woffington, yawning in his face, had

told him she had invited all Mr. Vane's company to come and praise his

work; and ever since that he had been _morne et silencieux._

“You are fortunate,” continued Mrs. Woffington, not caring what she

said; “it is so difficult to make execution keep pace with conception.”

“Yes, ma'am;” and he painted on.

“You are satisfied with it?”

“Anything but, ma'am;” and he painted on.

“Cheerful soul!--then I presume it is like?”

“Not a bit, ma'am;” and he painted on.

Mrs. Woffington stretched.

“You can't yawn, ma'am--you can't yawn.”

“Oh, yes, I can. You are such good company;” and she stretched again.

“I was just about to catch the turn of the lip,” remonstrated Triplet.

“Well, catch it--it won't run away.”

“I'll try, ma'am. A pleasant half-hour it will be for me, when they all

come here like cits at a shilling ordinary--each for his cut.”

“At a sensitive goose!”

“That is as may be, madam. Those critics flay us alive!”

“You should not hold so many doors open to censure.”

“No, ma'am. Head a little more that way. I suppose you _can't_ sit

quiet, ma'am?--then never mind!” (This resignation was intended as a

stinging reproach.) “Mr. Cibber, with his sneering snuff-box! Mr. Quin,

with his humorous bludgeon! Mrs. Clive, with her tongue! Mr. Snarl, with

his abuse! And Mr. Soaper, with his praise!--arsenic in treacle I call

it! But there, I deserve it all! For look on this picture, and on this!”

“Meaning, I am painted as well as my picture!”

“Oh, no, no, no! But to turn from your face, madam--on which the

lightning of expression plays, continually--to this stony, detestable,

dead daub!--I could--And I will, too! Imposture! dead caricature of

life and beauty, take that!” and he dashed his palette-knife through the

canvas. “Libelous lie against nature and Mrs. Woffington, take that!”

and he stabbed the canvas again; then, with sudden humility: “I beg your

pardon, ma'am,” said he, “for this apparent outrage, which I trust you

will set down to the excitement attendant upon failure. The fact is, I

am an incapable ass, and no painter! Others have often hinted as much;

but I never observed it myself till now!”

“Right through my pet dimple!” said Mrs. Woffington, with perfect

_nonchalance._ “Well, now I suppose I may yawn, or do what I like?”

“You may, madam,” said Triplet, gravely. “I have forfeited what little

control I had over you, madam.”

So they sat opposite each other, in mournful silence. At length the

actress suddenly rose. She struggled fiercely against her depression,

and vowed that melancholy should not benumb her spirits and her power.

“He ought to have been here by this time,” said she to herself. “Well, I

will not mope for him. I must do something. Triplet,” said she.

“Madam.”

“Nothing.”

“No, madam.”

She sat gently down again, and leaned her head on her hand, and thought.

She was beautiful as she thought!--her body seemed bristling with

mind! At last, her thoughtful gravity was illumined by a smile. She had

thought out something _excogitaverat._

“Triplet, the picture is quite ruined!”

“Yes, madam. And a coach-load of criticism coming!”

“Triplet, we actors and actresses have often bright ideas.”

“Yes, ma am.”

“When we take other people's!”

“He, he!” went Triplet. “Those are our best, madam!”

“Well, sir, I have got a bright idea.”

“You don't say so, ma'am!”

“Don't be a brute, dear!” said the lady gravely.

Triplet stared!

“When I was in France, taking lessons of Dumesnil, one of the actors of

the Theatre Francais had his portrait painted by a rising artist. The

others were to come and see it. They determined, beforehand, to mortify

the painter and the sitter, by abusing the work in good set terms. But

somehow this got wind, and the patients resolved to be the physicians.

They put their heads together, and contrived that the living face should

be in the canvas, surrounded by the accessories; these, of course, were

painted. Enter the actors, who played their little prearranged farce;

and, when they had each given the picture a slap, the picture rose and

laughed in their faces, and discomfited them! By the by, the painter

did not stop there; he was not content with a short laugh, he laughed at

them five hundred years!”

“Good gracious, Mrs. Woffington!”

“He painted a picture of the whole thing; and as his work is immortal,

ours an April snow-flake, he has got tremendously the better of those

rash little satirists. Well, Trip, what is sauce for the gander is sauce

for the goose; so give me the sharpest knife in the house.”

Triplet gave her a knife, and looked confused, while she cut away the

face of the picture, and by dint of scraping, cutting, and measuring,

got her face two parts through the canvas. She then made him take his

brush and paint all round her face, so that the transition might not be

too abrupt. Several yards of green baize were also produced. This was to

be disposed behind the easel, so as to conceal her.

Triplet painted here, and touched and retouched there. While thus

occupied, he said, in his calm, resigned way: “It won't do, madam. I

suppose you know that?”

“I know nothing,” was the reply: “life is a guess. I don't think we

could deceive Roxalana and Lucy this way, because their eyes are

without colored spectacles; but, when people have once begun to see by

prejudices and judge by jargon what can't be done with them? Who knows?

do you? I don't; so let us try.”

“I beg your pardon, madam; my brush touched your face.”

“No offense, sir; I am used to that. And I beg, if you can't tone the

rest of the picture up to me, that you will instantly tone me down to

the rest. Let us be in tune, whatever it costs, sir.”

“I will avail myself of the privilege, madam, but sparingly. Failure,

which is certain, madam, will cover us with disgrace.”

“Nothing is certain in this life, sir, except that you are a goose.

It succeeded in France; and England can match all Europe for fools.

Besides, it will be well done. They say Davy Garrick can turn his eyes

into bottled gooseberries. Well, Peg Woffington will turn hers into

black currants. Haven't you done? I wonder they have not come. Make

haste!”

“They will know by its beauty I never did it.”

“That is a sensible remark, Trip. But I think they will rather argue

backward; that, as you did it, it cannot be beautiful, and so cannot be

me. Your reputation will be our shield.”

“Well, madam, now you mention it, they are like enough to take that

ground. They despise all I do; if they did not--”

“You would despise them.”

At this moment the pair were startled by the sound of a coach. Triplet

turned as pale as ashes. Mrs. Woffington had her misgivings; but, not

choosing to increase the difficulty, she would not let Triplet, whose

self-possession she doubted, see any sign of emotion in her.

“Lock the door,” said she, firmly, “and don't be silly. Now hold up my

green baize petticoat, and let me be in a half-light. Now put that table

and those chairs before me, so that they can't come right up to me; and,

Triplet, don't let them come within six yards, if you can help it. Say

it is unfinished, and so must be seen from a focus.”

“A focus! I don't know what you mean.”

“No more do I; no more will they, perhaps; and if they don't they will

swallow it directly. Unlock the door. Are they coming?”

“They are only at the first stair.”

“Mr. Triplet, your face is a book, where one may read strange matters.

For Heaven's sake, compose yourself. Let all the risk lie in one

countenance. Look at me, sir. Make your face like the Book of Daniel in

a Jew's back parlor. Volto Sciolto is your cue.”

“Madam, madam, how your tongue goes! I hear them on the stairs. Pray

don't speak!”

“Do you know what we are going to do?” continued the tormenting Peggy.

“We are going to weigh goose's feathers! to criticise criticism, Trip--”

“Hush! hush!”

A grampus was heard outside the door, and Triplet opened it. There was

Quin leading the band.

“Have a care, sir,” cried Triplet; “there is a hiatus the third step

from the door.”

“A _gradus ad Parnassum_ a wanting,” said Mr. Cibber.

Triplet's heart sank. The hole had been there six months, and he had

found nothing witty to say about it, and at first sight Mr. Cibber had

done its business. And on such men he and his portrait were to attempt

a preposterous delusion. Then there was Snarl, who wrote critiques on

painting, and guided the national taste. The unlucky exhibitor was in a

cold sweat. He led the way, like a thief going to the gallows.

“The picture being unfinished, gentlemen,” said he, “must, if you would

do me justice, be seen from a--a focus; must be judged from here, I

mean.”

“Where, sir?” said Mr. Cibber.

“About here, sir, if you please,” said poor Triplet faintly.

“It looks like a finished picture from here,” said Mrs. Clive.

“Yes, madam,” groaned Triplet.

They all took up a position, and Triplet timidly raised his eyes along

with the rest. He was a little surprised. The actress had flattened

her face! She had done all that could be done, and more than he had

conceived possible, in the way of extracting life and the atmosphere of

expression from her countenance. She was “dead still!”

There was a pause. Triplet fluttered. At last some of them spoke as

follows:

_Soaper._ “Ah!”

_Quin._ “Ho!”

_Clive._ “Eh!”

_Cibber._ “Humph!”

These interjections are small on paper, but as the good creatures

uttered them they were eloquent; there was a cheerful variety of

dispraise skillfully thrown into each of them.

“Well,” continued Soaper, with his everlasting smile.

Then the fun began.

“May I be permitted to ask whose portrait this is?” said Mr. Cibber

slyly.

“I distinctly told you, it was to be Peg Woffington's,” said Mrs. Clive.

“I think you might take my word.”

“Do you act as truly as you paint?” said Quin.

“Your fame runs no risk from me, sir!” replied Triplet.

“It is not like Peggy's beauty! Eh?” rejoined Quin.

“I can't agree with you,” cried Kitty Clive. “I think it a very pretty

face; and not at all like Peg Woffington's.”

“Compare paint with paint,” said Quin. “Are you sure you ever saw down

to Peggy's real face?”

Triplet had seen with alarm that Mr. Snarl spoke not; many satirical

expressions crossed his face, but he said nothing. Triplet gathered from

this that he had at once detected the trick. “Ah!” thought Triplet, “he

means to quiz them, as well as expose me. He is hanging back; and, in

point of fact, a mighty satirist like Snarl would naturally choose to

quiz six people rather than two.”

“Now I call it beautiful!” said the traitor Soaper. “So calm and

reposeful; no particular expression.”

“None whatever,” said Snarl.

“Gentlemen,” said Triplet, “does it never occur to you that the fine

arts are tender violets, and cannot blow when the north winds--”

“Blow!” inserted Quin.

“Are so cursed cutting?” continued Triplet.

“My good sir, I am never cutting!” smirked Soaper. “My dear Snarl,”

whined he, “give us the benefit of your practiced judgment. Do justice

to this ad-mirable work of art,” drawled the traitor.

“I will!” said Mr. Snarl; and placed himself before the picture.

“What on earth will he say?” thought Triplet. “I can see by his face he

has found us out.”

Mr. Snarl delivered a short critique. Mr. Snarl's intelligence was

not confined to his phrases; all critics use intelligent phrases and

philosophical truths. But this gentleman's manner was very intelligent;

it was pleasant, quiet, assured, and very convincing. Had the reader or

I been there, he would have carried us with him, as he did his hearers;

and as his successors carry the public with them now.

“Your brush is by no means destitute of talent, Mr. Triplet,” said

Mr. Snarl. “But you are somewhat deficient, at present, in the great

principles of your art; the first of which is a loyal adherence to

truth. Beauty itself is but one of the forms of truth, and nature is our

finite exponent of infinite truth.”

His auditors gave him a marked attention. They could not but acknowledge

that men who go to the bottom of things like this should be the best

instructors.

“Now, in nature, a woman's face at this distance--ay, even at this short

distance--melts into the air. There is none of that sharpness; but, on

the contrary, a softness of outline.” He made a lorgnette of his two

hands; the others did so too, and found they saw much better--oh, ever

so much better! “Whereas yours,” resumed Snarl, “is hard; and, forgive

me, rather tea-board like. Then your _chiaro scuro,_ my good sir, is

very defective; for instance, in nature, the nose, intercepting the

light on one side the face, throws, of necessity, a shadow under the

eye. Caravaggio, Venetians generally, and the Bolognese masters, do

particular justice to this. No such shade appears in this portrait.”

“'Tis so, stop my vitals!” observed Colley Cibber. And they all looked,

and, having looked, wagged their heads in assent--as the fat, white

lords at Christie's waggle fifty pounds more out for a copy of

Rembrandt, a brown levitical Dutchman, visible in the pitch-dark by some

sleight of sun Newton had not wit to discover.

Soaper dissented from the mass.

“But, my dear Snarl, if there are no shades, there are lights, loads of

lights.”

“There are,” replied Snarl; “only they are impossible, that is all.

You have, however,” concluded he, with a manner slightly supercilious,

“succeeded in the mechanical parts; the hair and the dress are well, Mr.

Triplet; but your Woffington is not a woman, not nature.”

They all nodded and waggled assent; but this sagacious motion was

arrested as by an earthquake.

The picture rang out, in the voice of a clarion, an answer that outlived

the speaker: “She's a woman! for she has taken four men in! She's

nature! for a fluent dunce doesn't know her when he sees her!”

Imagine the tableau! It was charming! Such opening of eyes and mouths!

Cibber fell by second nature into an attitude of the old comedy. And all

were rooted where they stood, with surprise and incipient mortification,

except Quin, who slapped his knee, and took the trick at its value.

Peg Woffington slipped out of the green baize, and, coming round from

the back of the late picture, stood in person before them; while they

looked alternately at her and at the hole in the canvas. She then came

at each of them in turn, _more dramatico._

“A pretty face, and not like Woffington. I owe you two, Kate Clive.”

“Who ever saw Peggy's real face? Look at it now if you can without

blushing, Mr. Quin.”

Quin, a good-humored fellow, took the wisest view of his predicament,

and burst into a hearty laugh.

“For all this,” said Mr. Snarl, peevishly, “I maintain, upon the

unalterable principles of art--” At this they all burst into a roar,

not sorry to shift the ridicule. “Goths!” cried Snarl, fiercely.

“Good-morning, ladies and gentlemen,” cried Mr. Snarl, _avec intention,_

“I have a criticism to write of last night's performance.” The laugh

died away to a quaver. “I shall sit on your pictures one day, Mr.

Brush.”

“Don't sit on them with your head downward, or you'll addle them,” said

Mr. Brush, fiercely. This was the first time Triplet had ever answered

a foe. Mrs. Woffington gave him an eloquent glance of encouragement. He

nodded his head in infantine exultation at what he had done.

“Come, Soaper,” said Mr. Snarl.

Mr. Soaper lingered one moment to say: “You shall always have my good

word, Mr. Triplet.”

“I will try--and not deserve it, Mr. Soaper,” was the prompt reply.

“Serve 'em right,” said Mr. Cibber, as soon as the door had closed upon

them; “for a couple of serpents, or rather one boa-constrictor. Soaper

slavers, for Snarl to crush. But we were all a little too hard on

Triplet here; and, if he will accept my apology--”

“Why, sir,” said Triplet, half trembling, but driven on by looks from

Mrs. Woffington, “'Cibber's Apology' is found to be a trifle wearisome.”

“Confound his impertinence!” cried the astounded laureate. “Come along,

Jemmy.”

“Oh, sir,” said Quin, good-humoredly, “we must give a joke and take a

joke. And when he paints my portrait--which he shall do--”

“The bear from Hockley Hole shall sit for the head!”

“Curse his impudence!” roared Quin. “I'm at your service, Mr. Cibber,”

added he, in huge dudgeon.

Away went the two old boys.

“Mighty well!” said waspish Mrs. Clive. “I did intend you should have

painted Mrs. Clive. But after this impertinence--”

“You will continue to do it yourself, ma'am!”

This was Triplet's hour of triumph. His exultation was undignified,

and such as is said to precede a fall. He inquired gravely of Mrs.

Woffington, whether he had or had not shown a spirit. Whether he had or

had not fired into each a parting shot, as they sheered off. To repair

which, it might be advisable for them to put into friendly ports.

“Tremendous!” was the reply. “And when Snarl and Soaper sit on your next

play, they won't forget the lesson you have given them.”

“I'll be sworn they won't!” chuckled Triplet. But, reconsidering her

words, he looked blank, and muttered: “Then perhaps it would have been

more prudent to let them alone!”

“Incalculably more prudent!” was the reply.

“Then why did you set me on, madam?” said Triplet, reproachfully.

“Because I wanted amusement, and my head ached,” was the cool answer,

somewhat languidly given.

“I defy the coxcombs!” cried Triplet, with reviving spirit. “But real

criticism I respect, honor, and bow to. Such as yours, madam; or such as

that sweet lady's at Mr. Vane's would have been; or, in fact, anybody's

who appreciates me. Oh, madam, I wanted to ask you, was it not strange

your not being at Mr. Vane's, after all, to-day?”

“I was at Mr. Vane's, Triplet.”

“You were? Why, I came with my verses, and she said you were not there!

I will go fetch the verses.”

“No, no! Who said I was not there?”

“Did I not tell you? The charming young lady who helped me with her own

hand to everything on the table. What wine that gentleman possesses!”

“Was it a young lady, Triplet?”

“Not more than two-and-twenty, I should say.

“In a traveling-dress?”

“I could not see her dress, madam, for her beauty--brown hair, blue

eyes, charming in conversation--”

“Ah! What did she tell you?”

“She told me, madam--Ahem!”

“Well, what did you tell her? And what did she answer?”

“I told her that I came with verses for you, ordered by Mr. Vane. That

he admired you. I descanted, madam, on your virtues, which had made him

your slave.”

“Go on,” said Mrs. Woffington, encouraging him with a deceitful smile.

“Tell me all you told her.”

“That you were sitting to me for your portrait, the destination of which

was not doubtful. That I lived at 10, Hercules Buildings.”

“You told that lady all this?”

“I give my honor. She was so kind, I opened my heart to her. But tell

me now, madam,” said Triplet, joyously dancing round the Woffington

volcano, “do you know this charming lady?”

“Yes.”

“I congratulate you, madam. An acquaintance worthy even of you; and

there are not many such. Who is she, madam?” continued Triplet, lively

with curiosity.

“Mrs. Vane,” was the quiet, grim answer.

“Mrs. Vane? His mother? No--am I mad? His sister! Oh, I see, his--”

“His wife!”

“His wife! Why, then, Mr. Vane's married?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, look there!--Oh, look here now! Well, but, good Heavens! she wasn't

to know you were there, perhaps?”

“No.”

“But then I let the cat out of the bag?”

“Yes.”

“But, good gracious! there will be some serious mischief!”

“No doubt of it.”

“And it is all my fault?”

“Yes.”

“I've played the deuce with their married happiness?”

“Probably.”

“And ten to one if you are not incensed against me too?”

Mrs. Woffington replied by looking him in the face, and turning her back

upon him. She walked hastily to the window, threw it open, and looked

out of it, leaving poor Triplet to very unpleasant reflections. She was

so angry with him she dared not trust herself to speak.

“Just my luck,” thought he. “I had a patron and a benefactress; I have

betrayed them both.” Suddenly an idea struck him. “Madam,” said he,

timorously, “see what these fine gentlemen are! What business had he,

with a wife at home, to come and fall in love with you? I do it forever

in my plays--I am obliged--they would be so dull else; but in _real_

life to do it is abominable.”

“You forget, sir,” replied Mrs. Woffington, without moving, “that I

am an actress--a plaything for the impertinence of puppies and the

treachery of hypocrites. Fool! to think there was an honest man in the

world, and that he had shone on me!”

With these words she turned, and Triplet was shocked to see the change

in her face. She was pale, and her black, lowering brows were gloomy and

terrible. She walked like a tigress to and fro, and Triplet dared not

speak to her. Indeed she seemed but half conscious of his presence. He

went for nobody with her. How little we know the people we eat and go to

church and flirt with! Triplet had imagined this creature an incarnation

of gayety, a sportive being, the daughter of smiles, the bride of mirth;

needed but a look at her now to see that her heart was a volcano, her

bosom a boiling gulf of fiery lava. She walked like some wild creature;

she flung her hands up to heaven with a passionate despair, before

which the feeble spirit of her companion shrank and cowered; and, with

quivering lips and blazing eyes, she burst into a torrent of passionate

bitterness.

“But who is Margaret Woffington,” she cried, “that she should pretend

to honest love, or feel insulted by the proffer of a stolen regard? And

what have we to do with homes, or hearts, or firesides? Have we not the

playhouse, its paste diamonds, its paste feelings, and the loud applause

of fops and sots--hearts?--beneath loads of tinsel and paint? Nonsense!

The love that can go with souls to heaven--such love for us? Nonsense!

These men applaud us, cajole us, swear to us, flatter us; and yet,

forsooth, we would have them respect us too.”

“My dear benefactress,” said Triplet, “they are not worthy of you.”

“I thought this man was not all dross; from the first I never felt his

passion an insult. Oh, Triplet! I could have loved this man--really

loved him! and I longed so to be good. Oh, God! oh, God!”

“Thank Heaven, you don't love him!” cried Triplet, hastily. “Thank

Heaven for that!”

“Love him? Love a man who comes to me with a silly second-hand affection

from his insipid baby-face, and offers me half, or two-thirds, or a

third of his worthless heart? I hate him! and her! and all the world!”

“That is what I call a very proper feeling,” said poor Triplet, with a

weak attempt to soothe her. “Then break with him at once, and all will

be well.”

“Break with him? Are you mad? No! Since he plays with the tools of my

trade I shall fool him worse than he has me. I will feed his passion

full, tempt him, torture him, play with him, as the angler plays a fish

upon his hook. And, when his very life depends on me, then by degrees

he shall see me cool, and cool, and freeze into bitter aversion. Then he

shall rue the hour he fought with the Devil against my soul, and played

false with a brain and heart like mine!”

“But his poor wife? You will have pity on her?”

“His wife! Are wives' hearts the only hearts that throb, and burn, and

break? His wife must defend herself. It is not from me that mercy can

come to her, nor from her to me. I loathe her, and I shall not forget

that you took her part. Only, if you are her friend, take my advice,

don't you assist her. I shall defeat her without that. Let her fight

_her_ battle, and _I_ mine.

“Ah, madam! she cannot fight; she is a dove.”

“You are a fool! What do you know about women? You were with her five

minutes, and she turned you inside out. My life on it, while I have been

fooling my time here, she is in the field, with all the arts of our sex,

simplicity at the head of them.”

Triplet was making a futile endeavor to convert her to his view of her

rival, when a knock suddenly came to his door. A slovenly girl, one of

his own neighbors, brought him a bit of paper, with a line written in

pencil.

“'Tis from a lady, who waits below,” said the girl.

Mrs. Woffington went again to the window, and there she saw getting out

of a coach, and attended by James Burdock, Mabel Vane, who had sent up

her name on the back of an old letter.

“What shall I do?” said Triplet, as soon as he recovered the first

stunning effects of this _contretemps._ To his astonishment, Mrs.

Woffington bade the girl show the lady upstairs. The girl went down on

this errand.

“But _you_ are here,” remonstrated Triplet. “Oh, to be sure, you can

go into the other room. There is plenty of time to avoid her,” said

Triplet, in a very natural tremor. “This way, madam!”

Mrs. Woffington stood in the middle of the room like a statue.

“What does she come here for?” said she, sternly. “You have not told me

all.”

“I don't know,” cried poor Triplet, in dismay; “and I think the Devil

brings her here to confound me. For Heaven's sake, retire! What will

become of us all? There will be murder, I know there will!”

To his horror, Mrs. Woffington would not move. “You are on her side,”

said she slowly, with a concentration of spite and suspicion. She looked

frightful at this moment. “All the better for me,” added she, with a

world of female malignity.

Triplet could not make head against this blow; he gasped, and pointed

piteously to the inner door. “No; I will know two things: the course she

means to take, and the terms you two are upon.”

By this time Mrs. Vane's light foot was heard on the stair, and Triplet

sank into a chair. “They will tear one another to pieces,” said he.

A tap came to the door.

He looked fearfully round for the woman whom jealousy had so speedily

turned from an angel to a fiend; and saw with dismay that she had

actually had the hardihood to slip round and enter the picture again.

She had not quite arranged herself when her rival knocked.

Triplet dragged himself to the door. Before he opened it, he looked

fearfully over his shoulder, and received a glance of cool, bitter,

deadly hostility, that boded ill both for him and his visitor. Triplet's

apprehensions were not unreasonable. His benefactress and this sweet

lady were rivals!

Jealousy is a dreadful passion, it makes us tigers. The jealous always

thirst for blood. At any moment when reason is a little weaker than

usual, they are ready to kill the thing they hate, or the thing they

love.

Any open collision between these ladies would scatter ill consequences

all round. Under such circumstances, we are pretty sure to say or do

something wicked, silly, or unreasonable. But what tortured Triplet

more than anything was his own particular notion that fate doomed him

to witness a formal encounter between these two women, and of course

an encounter of such a nature as we in our day illustrate by “Kilkenny

cats.”

To be sure Mrs. Vane had appeared a dove, but doves can peck on certain

occasions, and no doubt she had a spirit at bottom. Her coming to

him proved it. And had not the other been a dove all the morning and

afternoon? Yet, jealousy had turned her to a fiend before his eyes. Then

if (which was not probable) no collision took place, what a situation

was his! Mrs. Woffington (his buckler from starvation) suspected him,

and would distort every word that came from Mrs. Vane's lips.

Triplet's situation was, in fact, that of AEneas in the storm.

“Olim et haec meminisse juvabit--” “But, while present, such things

don't please any one a bit.”

It was the sort of situation we can laugh at, and see the fun of it six

months after, if not shipwrecked on it at the time.

With a ghastly smile the poor quaking hypocrite welcomed Mrs. Vane, and

professed a world of innocent delight that she had so honored his humble

roof.

She interrupted his compliments, and begged him to see whether she was

followed by a gentleman in a cloak.

Triplet looked out of the window.

“Sir Charles Pomander!” gasped he.

Sir Charles was at the very door. If, however, he had intended to mount

the stairs he changed his mind, for he suddenly went off round the

corner with a businesslike air, real or fictitious.

“He is gone, madam,” said Triplet.

Mrs. Vane, the better to escape detection or observation, wore a

thick mantle and a hood that concealed her features. Of these Triplet

debarrassed her.

“Sit down, madam;” and he hastily drew a chair so that her back was to

the picture.

She was pale, and trembled a little. She hid her face in her hands a

moment, then, recovering her courage, “she begged Mr. Triplet to pardon

her for coming to him. He had inspired her with confidence,” she said;

“he had offered her his services, and so she had come to him, for she

had no other friend to aid her in her sore distress.” She might have

added, that with the tact of her sex she had read Triplet to the bottom,

and came to him, as she would to a benevolent, muscular old woman.

Triplet's natural impulse was to repeat most warmly his offers of

service. He did so; and then, conscious of the picture, had a misgiving.

“Dear Mr. Triplet,” began Mrs. Vane, “you know this person, Mrs.

Woffington?”

“Yes, madam,” replied Triplet, lowering his eyes, “I am honored by her

acquaintance.”

“You will take me to the theater where she acts?”

“Yes, madam; to the boxes, I presume?”

“No! oh, no! How could I bear that? To the place where the actors and

actresses are.”

Triplet demurred. This would be courting that very collision, the dread

of which even now oppressed him.

At the first faint sign of resistance she began to supplicate him, as if

he was some great, stern tyrant.

“Oh, you must not, you cannot refuse me. You do not know what I risk

to obtain this. I have risen from my bed to come to you. I have a fire

here!” She pressed her hand to her brow. “Oh, take me to her!”

“Madam, I will do anything for you. But be advised; trust to my

knowledge of human nature. What you require is madness. Gracious

Heavens! you two are rivals, and when rivals meet there's murder or

deadly mischief.”

“Ah! if you knew my sorrow, you would not thwart me. Oh, Mr. Triplet!

little did I think you were as cruel as the rest.” So then this cruel

monster whimpered out that he should do any folly she insisted upon.

“Good, kind Mr. Triplet!” said Mrs. Vane. “Let me look in your face?

Yes, I see you are honest and true. I will tell you all.” Then she

poured in his ear her simple tale, unadorned and touching as Judah's

speech to Joseph. She told him how she loved her husband; how he had

loved her; how happy they were for the first six months; how her heart

sank when he left her; how he had promised she should join him, and on

that hope she lived. “But for two months he had ceased to speak of this,

and I grew heart-sick waiting for the summons that never came. At last

I felt I should die if I did not see him; so I plucked up courage and

wrote that I must come to him. He did not forbid me, so I left our

country home. Oh, sir! I cannot make you know how my heart burned to be

by his side. I counted the hours of the journey; I counted the miles.

At last I reached his house; I found a gay company there. I was a little

sorry, but I said: 'His friends shall be welcome, right welcome. He has

asked them to welcome his wife.'”

“Poor thing!” muttered Triplet.

“Oh, Mr. Triplet! they were there to do honor to ----, and the wife

was neither expected nor desired. There lay my letters with their seals

unbroken. I know all _his_ letters by heart, Mr. Triplet. The seals

unbroken--unbroken! Mr. Triplet.”

“It is abominable!” cried Triplet fiercely. “And she who sat in my

seat--in his house, and in his heart--was this lady, the actress you so

praised to me?”

“That lady, ma'am,” said Triplet, “has been deceived as well as you.”

“I am convinced of it,” said Mabel.

“And it is my painful duty to tell you, madam, that, with all her

talents and sweetness, she has a fiery temper; yes, a very fiery

temper,” continued Triplet, stoutly, though with an uneasy glance in

a certain direction; “and I have reason to believe she is angry, and

thinks more of her own ill-usage than yours. Don't you go near her.

Trust to my knowledge of the sex, madam; I am a dramatic writer. Did you

ever read the 'Rival Queens'?”

“No.”

“I thought not. Well, madam, one stabs the other, and the one that is

stabbed says things to the other that are more biting than steel. The

prudent course for you is to keep apart, and be always cheerful, and

welcome him with a smile--and--have you read 'The Way to keep him'?”

“No, Mr. Triplet,” said Mabel, firmly, “I cannot feign. Were I to

attempt talent and deceit, I should be weaker than I am now. Honesty and

right are all my strength. I will cry to her for justice and mercy. And

if I cry in vain, I shall die, Mr. Triplet, that is all.”

“Don't cry, dear lady,” said Triplet, in a broken voice.

“It is impossible!” cried she, suddenly. “I am not learned, but I can

read faces. I always could, and so could my Aunt Deborah before me. I

read you right, Mr. Triplet, and I have read her too. Did not my heart

warm to her among them all? There is a heart at the bottom of all her

acting, and that heart is good and noble.”

“She is, madam! she is! and charitable too. I know a family she saved

from starvation and despair. Oh, yes! she has a heart--to feel for the

_poor,_ at all events.”

“And am I not the poorest of the poor?” cried Mrs. Vane. “I have

no father nor mother, Mr. Triplet; my husband is all I have in the

world--all I _had,_ I mean.”

Triplet, deeply affected himself, stole a look at Mrs. Woffington. She

was pale; but her face was composed into a sort of dogged obstinacy.

He was disgusted with her. “Madam,” said he, sternly, “there is a wild

beast more cruel and savage than wolves and bears; it is called 'a

rival,' and don't you get in its way.”

At this moment, in spite of Triplet's precaution, Mrs. Vane, casting

her eye accidentally round, caught sight of the picture, and instantly

started up, crying, “She is there!” Triplet was thunderstruck. “What

likeness!” cried she, and moved toward the supposed picture.

“Don't go to it!” cried Triplet, aghast; “the color is wet.”

She stopped; but her eye and her very soul dwelt upon the supposed

picture; and Triplet stood quaking. “How like! It seems to breathe. You

are a great painter, sir. A glass is not truer.”

Triplet, hardly knowing what he said, muttered something about “critics

and lights and shades.”

“Then they are blind!” cried Mabel, never for a moment removing her eye

from the object. “Tell me not of lights and shades. The pictures I see

have a look of paint; but yours looks like life. Oh, that she were here,

as this _wonderful_ image of hers is. I would speak to her. I am not

wise or learned; but orators never pleaded as I would plead to her

for my Ernest's heart.” Still her eye glanced upon the picture; and I

suppose her heart realized an actual presence, though her judgment did

not; for by some irresistible impulse she sank slowly down and stretched

her clasped hands toward it, while sobs and words seemed to break direct

from her bursting heart. “Oh, yes! you are beautiful, you are gifted,

and the eyes of thousands wait upon your very word and look. What wonder

that he, ardent, refined, and genial, should lay his heart at your feet?

And I have nothing but my love to make him love me. I cannot take him

from you. Oh, be generous to the weak! Oh, give him back to me! What is

one heart more to you? You are so rich, and I am so poor, that without

his love I have nothing, and can do nothing but sit me down and cry till

my heart breaks. Give him back to me, beautiful, terrible woman! for,

with all your gifts, you cannot love him as his poor Mabel does; and I

will love you longer perhaps than men can love. I will kiss your feet,

and Heaven above will bless you; and I will bless you and pray for you

to my dying day. Ah! it is alive! I am frightened! I am frightened!” She

ran to Triplet and seized his arm. “No!” cried she, quivering close to

him; “I'm not frightened, for it was for me she--Oh, Mrs. Woffington!”

and, hiding her face on Mr. Triplet's shoulder, she blushed, and wept,

and trembled.

What was it had betrayed Mrs. Woffington? _A tear!_

During the whole of this interview (which had taken a turn so unlooked

for by the listener) she might have said with Beatrice, “What fire is in

mine ears?” and what self-reproach and chill misgiving in her heart too.

She had passed through a hundred emotions, as the young innocent wife

told her sad and simple story. But, anxious now above all things to

escape without being recognized--for she had long repented having

listened at all, or placed herself in her present position--she fiercely

mastered her countenance; but, though she ruled her features, she could

not rule her heart. And when the young wife, instead of inveighing

against her, came to her as a supplicant, with faith in her goodness,

and sobbed to her for pity, a big tear rolled down her cheek, and proved

her something more than a picture or an actress.

Mrs. Vane, as we have related, screamed and ran to Triplet.

Mrs. Woffington came instantly from her frame, and stood before them in

a despairing attitude, with one hand upon her brow. For a single moment

her impulse was to fly from the apartment, so ashamed was she of having

listened, and of meeting her rival in this way; but she conquered

this feeling, and, as soon as she saw Mrs. Vane too had recovered some

composure, she said to Triplet, in a low but firm voice:

“Leave us, sir. No living creature must hear what I say to this lady!”

Triplet remonstrated, but Mrs. Vane said, faintly:

“Oh, yes, good Mr. Triplet, I would rather you left me.”

Triplet, full of misgivings, was obliged to retire.

“Be composed, ladies,” said he piteously. “Neither of you could help

it;” and so he entered his inner room, where he sat and listened

nervously, for he could not shake off all apprehension of a personal

encounter.

In the room he had left there was a long, uneasy silence. Both ladies

were greatly embarrassed. It was the actress who spoke first. All trace

of emotion, except a certain pallor, was driven from her face. She spoke

with very marked courtesy, but in tones that seemed to freeze as they

dropped one by one from her mouth.

“I trust, madam, you will do me the justice to believe I did not know

Mr. Vane was married?”

“I am sure of it!” said Mabel, warmly. “I feel you are as good as you

are gifted.”

“Mrs. Vane, I am not!” said the other, almost sternly. “You are

deceived!”

“Then Heaven have mercy on me! No! I am not deceived, you pitied me. You

speak coldly now; but I know your face and your heart--you pity me!”

“I do respect, admire, and pity you,” said Mrs. Woffington, sadly; “and

I could consent nevermore to communicate with your--with Mr. Vane.”

“Ah!” cried Mabel; “Heaven will bless you! But will you give me back his

heart?”

“How can I do that?” said Mrs. Woffington, uneasily; she had not

bargained for this.

“The magnet can repel as well as attract. Can you not break your own

spell? What will his presence be to me, if his heart remain behind?”

“You ask much of me.”

“Alas! I do.”

“But I could do even this.” She paused for breath. “And perhaps if you,

who have not only touched my heart, but won my respect, were to say

to me, 'Do so,' I should do it.” Again she paused, and spoke with

difficulty; for the bitter struggle took away her breath. “Mr. Vane

thinks better of me than I deserve. I have--only--to make him believe

me--worthless--worse than I am--and he will drop me like an adder--and

love you better, far better--for having known--admired--and despised

Margaret Woffington.”

“Oh!” cried Mabel, “I shall bless you every hour of my life.”

Her countenance brightened into rapture at the picture, and Mrs.

Woffington's darkened with bitterness as she watched her.

But Mabel reflected. “Rob you of your good name?” said this pure

creature. “Ah, Mabel Vane! you think but of yourself.”

“I thank you, madam,” said Mrs. Woffington, a little touched by this

unexpected trait; “but some one must suffer here, and--”

Mabel Vane interrupted her. “This would be cruel and base,” said she

firmly. “No woman's forehead shall be soiled by me. Oh, madam! beauty is

admired, talent is adored; but virtue is a woman's crown. With it, the

poor are rich; without it, the rich are poor. It walks through life

upright, and never hides its head for high or low.”

Her face was as the face of an angel now; and the actress, conquered by

her beauty and her goodness, actually bowed her head and gently kissed

the hand of the country wife whom she had quizzed a few hours ago.

Frailty paid this homage to virtue!

Mabel Vane hardly noticed it; her eye was lifted to heaven, and her

heart was gone there for help in a sore struggle.

“This would be to assassinate you; no less. And so, madam,” she sighed,

“with God's help, I do refuse your offer; choosing rather, if needs be,

to live desolate, but innocent--many a better than I hath lived so--ay!

if God wills it, to die, with my hopes and my heart crushed, but my

hands unstained; for so my humble life has passed.”

How beautiful, great, and pure goodness is! It paints heaven on the face

that has it; it wakens the sleeping souls that meet it.

At the bottom of Margaret Woffington's heart lay a soul, unknown to the

world, scarce known to herself--a heavenly harp, on which ill airs of

passion had been played--but still it was there, in tune with all that

is true, pure, really great and good. And now the flush that a great

heart sends to the brow, to herald great actions, came to her cheek and

brow.

“Humble!” she cried. “Such as you are the diamonds of our race. You

angel of truth and goodness, you have conquered!”

“Oh, yes! yes! Thank God, yes!”

“What a fiend I must be could I injure you! The poor heart we have both

overrated shall be yours again, and yours for ever. In my hands it

is painted glass; in the luster of a love like yours it may become a

priceless jewel.” She turned her head away and pondered a moment, then

suddenly offered to Mrs. Vane her hand with nobleness and majesty; “Can

you trust me?” The actress too was divinely beautiful now, for her good

angel shone through her.

“I could trust you with my life!” was the reply.

“Ah! if I might call you friend, dear lady, what would I not

do--suffer--resign--to be worthy that title!”

“No, not friend!” cried the warm, innocent Mabel; “sister! I will call

you sister. I have no sister.”

“Sister!” said Mrs. Woffington. “Oh, do not mock me! Alas! you do not

know what you say. That sacred name to me, from lips so pure as yours.

Mrs. Vane,” said she, timidly, “would you think me presumptuous if I

begged you to--to let me kiss you?”

The words were scarce spoken before Mrs. Vane's arms were wreathed round

her neck, and that innocent cheek laid sweetly to hers.

Mrs. Woffington strained her to her bosom, and two great hearts, whose

grandeur the world, worshiper of charlatans, never discovered, had found

each other out and beat against each other. A great heart is as quick to

find another out as the world is slow.

Mrs. Woffington burst into a passion of tears and clasped Mabel tighter

and tighter in a half-despairing way. Mabel mistook the cause, but she

kissed her tears away.

“Dear sister,” said she, “be comforted. I love you. My heart warmed

to you the first moment I saw you. A woman's love and gratitude are

something. Ah! you will never find me change. This is for life, look

you.”

“God grant it!” cried the other poor woman. “Oh, it is not that, it is

not that; it is because I am so little worthy of this. It is a sin to

deceive you. I am not good like you. You do not know me!”

“You do not know yourself if you say so!” cried Mabel; and to her hearer

the words seemed to come from heaven. “I read faces,” said Mabel. “I

read yours at sight, and you are what I set you down; and nobody must

breathe a word against you, not even yourself. Do you think I am blind?

You are beautiful, you are good, you are my sister, and I love you!”

“Heaven forgive me!” thought the other. “How can I resign this angel's

good opinion? Surely Heaven sends this blessed dew to my parched heart!”

And now she burned to make good her promise and earn this virtuous

wife's love. She folded her once more in her arms, and then, taking her

by the hand, led her tenderly into Triplet's inner room. She made her

lie down on the bed, and placed pillows high for her like a mother, and

leaned over her as she lay, and pressed her lips gently to her forehead.

Her fertile brain had already digested a plan, but she had resolved that

this pure and candid soul should take no lessons of deceit. “Lie there,”

said she, “till I open the door: then join us. Do you know what I am

going to do? I am not going to restore you your husband's heart, but

to show you it never really left you. You read faces; well, I read

circumstances. Matters are not as you thought,” said she, with all a

woman's tact. “I cannot explain, but you will see.” She then gave Mrs.

Triplet peremptory orders not to let her charge rise from the bed until

the preconcerted signal.

Mrs. Vane was, in fact, so exhausted by all she had gone through

that she was in no condition to resist. She cast a look of childlike

confidence upon her rival, and then closed her eyes, and tried not to

tremble all over and listen like a frightened hare.

*****

It is one great characteristic of genius to do great things with little

things. Paxton could see that so small a matter as a greenhouse could be

dilated into a crystal palace, and with two common materials--glass

and iron--he raised the palace of the genii; the brightest idea and the

noblest ornament added to Europe in this century--the koh-i-noor of the

west. Livy's definition of Archimedes goes on the same ground.

*****

Peg Woffington was a genius in her way. On entering Triplet's studio her

eye fell upon three trifles--Mrs. Vane's hood and mantle, the back of

an old letter, and Mr. Triplet. (It will be seen how she worked these

slight materials.) On the letter was written in pencil simply these two

words, “Mabel Vane.” Mrs. Woffington wrote above these words two more,

“Alone and unprotected.” She put this into Mr. Triplet's hand, and bade

him take it down stairs and give it Sir Charles Pomander, whose retreat,

she knew, must have been fictitious. “You will find him round the

corner,” said she, “or in some shop that looks this way.” While uttering

these words she had put on Mrs. Vane's hood and mantle.

No answer was returned, and no Triplet went out of the door.

She turned, and there he was kneeling on both knees close under her.

“Bid me jump out of that window, madam; bid me kill those two gentlemen,

and I will not rebel. You are a great lady, a talented lady; you have

been insulted, and no doubt blood will flow. It ought--it is your due;

but that innocent lady, do not compromise her!”

“Oh, Mr. Triplet, you need not kneel to me. I do not wish to force you

to render me a service. I have no right to dictate to you.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Triplet, “don't talk in that way. I owe you my life,

but I think of your own peace of mind, for you are not one to be happy

if you injure the innocent!” He rose suddenly, and cried: “Madam,

promise me not to stir till I come back!”

“Where are you going?”

“To bring the husband to his wife's feet, and so save one angel from

despair, and another angel from a great crime.”

“Well, I suppose you are wiser than I,” said she. “But, if you are in

earnest, you had better be quick, for somehow I am rather changeable

about these people.”

“You can't help that, madam, it is your sex; you are an angel. May I

be permitted to kiss your hand? you are all goodness and gentleness at

bottom. I fly to Mr. Vane, and we will be back before you have time to

repent, and give the Devil the upper hand again, my dear, good, sweet

lady!”

Away flew Triplet, all unconscious that he was not Mrs. Woffington's

opponent, but puppet. He ran, he tore, animated by a good action, and

spurred by the notion that he was in direct competition with the fiend

for the possession of his benefactress. He had no sooner turned the

corner than Mrs. Woffington, looking out of the window, observed Sir

Charles Pomander on the watch, as she had expected. She remained at

the window with Mrs. Vane's hood on, until Sir Charles's eye in its

wanderings lighted on her, and then, dropping Mrs. Vane's letter from

the window, she hastily withdrew.

Sir Charles eagerly picked it up. His eye brightened when he read the

short contents. With a self-satisfied smile he mounted the stair.

He found in Triplet's house a lady who seemed startled at her late

hardihood. She sat with her back to the door, her hood drawn tightly

down, and wore an air of trembling consciousness. Sir Charles smiled

again. He knew the sex, at least he said so. (It is an assertion often

ventured upon.) Accordingly Sir Charles determined to come down from

his height, and court nature and innocence in their own tones. This he

rightly judged must be the proper course to take with Mrs. Vane. He fell

down with mock ardor upon one knee.

The supposed Mrs. Vane gave a little squeak.

“Dear Mrs. Vane,” cried he, “be not alarmed; loveliness neglected, and

simplicity deceived, insure respect as well as adoration. Ah!” (A sigh.)

“Oh, get up, sir; do, please. Ah!” (A sigh.)

“You sigh, sweetest of human creatures. Ah! why did not a nature like

yours fall into hands that would have cherished it as it deserves? Had

Heaven bestowed on me this hand, which I take--”

“Oh, please, sir--”

“With the profoundest respect, would I have abandoned such a treasure

for an actress?--a Woffington! as artificial and hollow a jade as ever

winked at a side box!”

“Is she, sir?”

“Notorious, madam. Your husband is the only man in London who does not

see through her. How different are you! Even I, who have no taste for

actresses, found myself revived, refreshed, ameliorated by that engaging

picture of innocence and virtue you drew this morning; yourself

the bright and central figure. Ah, dear angel! I remember all your

favorites, and envy them their place in your recollections. Your Barbary

mare--”

“Hen, sir!

“Of course I meant hen; and Gray Gillian, his old nurse--”

“No, no, no! she is the mare, sir. He! he! he!”

“So she is. And Dame--Dame--”

“Best!”

“Ah! I knew it. You see how I remember them all. And all carry me back

to those innocent days which fleet too soon--days when an angel like

you might have weaned me from the wicked pleasures of the town, to the

placid delights of a rural existence!”

“Alas, sir!”

“You sigh. It is not yet too late. I am a convert to you; I swear it

on this white hand. Ah! how can I relinquish it, pretty fluttering

prisoner?”

“Oh, please--”

“Stay a while.”

“No! please, sir--”

“While I fetter thee with a worthy manacle.” Sir Charles slipped a

diamond ring of great value upon his pretty prisoner.

“La, sir, how pretty!” cried innocence.

Sir Charles then undertook to prove that the luster of the ring was

faint, compared with that of the present wearer's eyes. This did not

suit innocence; she hung her head and fluttered, and showed a bashful

repugnance to look her admirer in the face. Sir Charles playfully

insisted, and Mrs. Woffington was beginning to be a little at a loss,

when suddenly voices were heard upon the stairs.

_“My husband!”_ cried the false Mrs. Vane, and in a moment she rose and

darted into Triplet's inner apartment.

Mr. Vane and Mr. Triplet were talking earnestly as they came up the

stair. It seems the wise Triplet had prepared a little dramatic scene

for his own refreshment, as well as for the ultimate benefit of all

parties. He had persuaded Mr. Vane to accompany him by warm, mysterious

promises of a happy _denouement;_ and now, having conducted that

gentleman as far as his door, he was heard to say:

“And now, sir, you shall see one who waits to forget grief,

suspicion--all, in your arms. Behold!” and here he flung the door open.

“The devil!”

“You flatter me!” said Pomander, who had had time to recover his

_aplomb,_ somewhat shaken, at first, by Mr. Vane's inopportune arrival.

Now it is to be observed that Mr. Vane had not long ago seen his wife

lying on her bed, to all appearance incapable of motion.

Mr. Vane, before Triplet could recover his surprise, inquired of

Pomander why he had sent for him. “And what,” added he, “is the grief,

suspicion, I am, according to Mr. Triplet, to forget in your arms?”

Mr. Vane added this last sentence in rather a testy manner.

“Why, the fact is--” began Sir Charles, without the remotest idea of

what the fact was going to be.

“That Sir Charles Pomander--” interrupted Triplet.

“But Mr. Triplet is going to explain,” said Sir Charles, keenly.

“Nay, sir; be yours the pleasing duty. But, now I think of it,” resumed

Triplet, “why not tell the simple truth? it is not a play! She I brought

you here to see was not Sir Charles Pomander; but--”

“I forbid you to complete the name!” cried Pomander.

“I command you to complete the name!” cried Vane.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen! how can I do both?” remonstrated Triplet.

“Enough, sir!” cried Pomander. “It is a lady's secret. I am the guardian

of that lady's honor.”

“She has chosen a strange guardian of her honor!” said Vane bitterly.

“Gentlemen!” cried poor Triplet, who did not at all like the turn

things were taking, “I give you my word, she does not even know of Sir

Charies's presence here!”

“Who?” cried Vane, furiously. “Man alive! who are you speaking of?”

“Mrs. Vane.”

“My wife!” cried Vane, trembling with anger and jealousy. “She here! and

with this man?”

“No!” cried Triplet. “With me, with me! Not with him, of course.”

“Boaster!” cried Vane, contemptuously. “But that is a part of your

profession!”

Pomander, irritated, scornfully drew from his pocket the ladies' joint

production, which had fallen at his feet from Mrs. Woffington's hand.

He presented this to Mr. Vane, who took it very uneasily; a mist swam

before his eyes as he read the words: “Alone and unprotected--Mabel

Vane.” He had no sooner read these words, than he found he loved his

wife; when he tampered with his treasure, he did not calculate on

another seeking it.

This was Pomander's hour of triumph! He proceeded coolly to explain to

Mr. Vane, that, Mrs. Woffington having deserted him for Mr. Vane,

and Mr. Vane his wife for Mrs. Woffington, the bereaved parties had,

according to custom, agreed to console each other.

This soothing little speech was interrupted by Mr. Vane's sword flashing

suddenly out of its sheath; while that gentleman, white with rage and

jealousy, bade him instantly take to his guard, or be run through the

body like some noxious animal.

Sir Charles drew his sword, and, in spite of Triplet's weak

interference, half a dozen passes were rapidly exchanged, when suddenly

the door of the inner room opened, and a lady in a hood pronounced, in

a voice which was an excellent imitation of Mrs. Vane's, the word,

“False!”

The combatants lowered their points.

“You hear, sir!” cried Triplet.

“You see, sir!” said Pomander.

“Mabel!--wife!” cried Mr. Vane, in agony. “Oh, say this is not true! Oh,

say that letter is a forgery! Say, at least, it was by some treachery

you were lured to this den of iniquity! Oh, speak!”

The lady silently beckoned to some person inside.

“You know I loved you--you know how bitterly I repent the infatuation

that brought me to the feet of another!”

The lady replied not, though Vane's soul appeared to hang upon her

answer. But she threw the door open and there appeared another lady,

the real Mrs. Vane. Mrs. Woffington then threw off her hood, and, to

Sir Charles Pomander's consternation, revealed the features of that

ingenious person, who seemed born to outwit him.

“You heard that fervent declaration, madam?” said she to Mrs. Vane. “I

present to you, madam, a gentleman who regrets that he mistook the real

direction of his feelings. And to you, sir,” continued she, with great

dignity, “I present a lady who will never mistake either her feelings or

her duty.”

“Ernest! dear Ernest!” cried Mrs. Vane, blushing as if she was the

culprit. And she came forward all love and tenderness.

Her truant husband kneeled at her feet of course. No! he said, rather

sternly, “How came you here, Mabel?”

“Mrs. Vane,” said the actress, “fancied you had mislaid that

weathercock, your heart, in Covent Garden, and that an actress had seen

in it a fit companion for her own, and had feloniously appropriated it.

She came to me to inquire after it.”

“But this letter, signed by you?” said Vane, still addressing Mabel.

“Was written by me on a paper which accidentally contained Mrs. Vane's

name. The fact is, Mr. Vane--I can hardly look you in the face--I had a

little wager with Sir Charles here; his diamond ring--which you may

see has become my diamond ring”--a horrible wry face from Sir

Charles--“against my left glove that I could bewitch a country

gentleman's imagination, and make him think me an angel. Unfortunately

the owner of his heart appeared, and, like poor Mr. Vane, took our play

for earnest. It became necessary to disabuse her and to open your eyes.

Have I done so?”

“You have, madam,” said Vane, wincing at each word she said. But at

last, by a mighty effort, he mastered himself, and, coming to Mrs.

Woffington with a quivering lip, he held out his hand suddenly in a

very manly way. “I have been the dupe of my own vanity,” said he, “and

I thank you for this lesson.” Poor Mrs. Woffington's fortitude had

well-nigh left her at this.

“Mabel,” he cried, “is this humiliation any punishment for my folly? any

guaranty for my repentance? Can you forgive me?”

“It is all forgiven, Ernest. But, oh, you are mistaken.” She glided to

Mrs. Woffington. “What do we not owe you, sister?” whispered she.

“Nothing! that word pays all,” was the reply. She then slipped her

address into Mrs. Vane's hand, and, courtesying to all the company, she

hastily left the room.

Sir Charles Pomander followed; but he was not quick enough. She got a

start, and purposely avoided him, and for three days neither the public

nor private friends saw this poor woman's face.

Mr. and Mrs. Vane prepared to go also; but Mrs. Vane would thank good

Mr. Triplet and Mrs. Triplet for their kindness to her.

Triplet the benevolent blushed, was confused and delighted; but

suddenly, turning somewhat sorrowful, he said: “Mr. Vane, madam, made

use of an expression which caused a momentary pang. He called this a den

of iniquity. Now this is my studio! But never mind.”

Mr. Vane asked his pardon for so absurd an error, and the pair left

Triplet in all the enjoyment which does come now and then to an honest

man, whether this dirty little world will or not.

A coach was called and they went home to Bloomsbury. Few words were

said; but the repentant husband often silently pressed this angel to his

bosom, and the tears which found their way to her beautiful eyelashes

were tears of joy.

This weakish, and consequently villainous, though not ill-disposed

person would have gone down to Willoughby that night; but his wife had

great good sense. She would not take her husband off, like a school-boy

caught out of bounds. She begged him to stay while she made certain

purchases; but, for all that, her heart burned to be at home. So in less

than a week after the events we have related they left London.

Meantime, every day Mrs. Vane paid a quiet visit to Mrs. Woffington (for

some days the actress admitted no other visitor), and was with her but

two hours before she left London. On that occasion she found her very

sad.

“I shall never see you again in this world,” said she; “but I beg of you

to write to me, that my mind may be in contact with yours.”

She then asked Mabel, in her half-sorrowful, half-bitter way, how many

months it would be ere she was forgotten.

Mabel answered by quietly crying. So then they embraced; and Mabel

assured her friend she was not one of those who change their minds. “It

is for life, dear sister; it is for life,” cried she.

“Swear this to me,” said the other, almost sternly. “But no. I have more

confidence in that candid face and pure nature than in a human being's

oath. If you are happy, remember you owe me something. If you are

unhappy, come to me, and I will love you as men cannot love.”

Then vows passed between them, for a singular tie bound these two women;

and then the actress showed a part at least of her sore heart to her new

sister; and that sister was surprised and grieved, and pitied her truly

and deeply, and they wept on each other's neck; and at last they were

fain to part. They parted; and true it was, they never met again in this

world. They parted in sorrow; but when they meet again, it shall be with

joy.

Women are generally such faithless, unscrupulous and pitiless humbugs

in their dealings with their own sex--which, whatever they may say, they

despise at heart--that I am happy to be able to say, Mrs. Vane proved

true as steel. She was a noble-minded, simple-minded creature; she was

also a constant creature. Constancy is a rare, a beautiful, a godlike

virtue.

Four times every year she wrote a long letter to Mrs. Woffington; and

twice a year, in the cold weather, she sent her a hamper of country

delicacies that would have victualed a small garrison. And when

her sister left this earthly scene--a humble, pious, long-repentant

Christian--Mrs. Vane wore mourning for her, and sorrowed over her; but

not as those who cannot hope to meet again.

*****

My story as a work of art--good, bad or indifferent--ends with that last

sentence. If a reader accompanies me further, I shall feel flattered,

and he does so at his own risk.

My reader knows that all this befell long ago. That Woffington is gay,

and Triplet sad, no more. That Mabel's, and all the bright eyes of that

day, have long been dim, and all its cunning voices hushed. Judge

then whether I am one of those happy story-tellers who can end with

a wedding. No! this story must wind up, as yours and mine

must--to-morrow--or to-morrow--or to-morrow! when our little sand is

run.

Sir Charles Pomander lived a man of pleasure until sixty. He then

became a man of pain; he dragged the chain about eight years, and died

miserably.

Mr. Cibber not so much died as “slipped his wind”--a nautical expression

that conveys the idea of an easy exit. He went off, quiet and genteel.

He was past eighty, and had lived fast. His servant called him at seven

in the morning. “I will shave at eight,” said Mr. Cibber. John brought

the hot water at eight; but his master had taken advantage of this

interval in his toilet to die!--to avoid shaving?

Snarl and Soaper conducted the criticism of their day with credit and

respectability until a good old age, and died placidly a natural death,

like twaddle, sweet or sour.

The Triplets, while their patroness lived, did pretty well. She got a

tragedy of his accepted at her theater. She made him send her a copy,

and with her scissors cut out about half; sometimes thinning, sometimes

cutting bodily away. But, lo! the inherent vanity of Mr. Triplet came

out strong. Submissively, but obstinately, he fought for the discarded

beauties. Unluckily, he did this one day that his patroness was in one

of her bitter humors. So she instantly gave him back his manuscript,

with a sweet smile owned herself inferior in judgment to him, and left

him unmolested.

Triplet breathed freely; a weight was taken off him. The savage steel

(he applied this title to the actress's scissors) had spared his

_purpurei panni._ He was played, pure and intact, a calamity the rest of

us grumbling escape.

But it did so happen that the audience were of the actress's mind, and

found the words too exuberant, and the business of the play too scanty

in proportion. At last their patience was so sorely tried that they

supplied one striking incident to a piece deficient in facts. They gave

the manager the usual broad hint, and in the middle of Triplet's third

act a huge veil of green baize descended upon “The Jealous Spaniard.”

Failing here, Mrs. Woffington contrived often to befriend him in his

other arts, and moreover she often sent Mr. Triplet what she called a

snug investment, a loan of ten pounds, to be repaid at Doomsday, with

interest and compound interest, according to the Scriptures; and,

although she laughed, she secretly believed she was to get her ten

pounds back, double and treble. And I believe so too.

Some years later Mrs. Triplet became eventful. She fell ill, and lay

a dying; but one fine morning, after all hope had been given up, she

suddenly rose and dressed herself. She was quite well in body now, but

insane.

She continued in this state a month, and then, by God's mercy, she

recovered her reason; but now the disease fell another step, and lighted

upon her temper--a more athletic vixen was not to be found. She had

spoiled Triplet for this by being too tame, so when the dispensation

came they sparred daily. They were now thoroughly unhappy. They were

poor as ever, and their benefactress was dead, and they had learned to

snap. A speculative tour had taken this pair to Bristol, then the second

city in England. They sojourned in the suburbs.

One morning the postman brought a letter for Triplet, who was showing

his landlord's boy how to plant onions. (N. B.--Triplet had never

planted an onion, but he was one of your _a priori_ gentlemen, and could

show anybody how to do anything.) Triplet held out his hand for the

letter, but the postman held out his hand for a half crown first. Trip's

profession had transpired, and his clothes inspired diffidence. Triplet

appealed to his good feeling.

He replied with exultation, “That he had none left.” (A middle-aged

postman, no doubt.)

Triplet then suddenly started from entreaty to King Cambyses' vein. In

vain!

Mrs. Triplet came down, and essayed the blandishments of the softer sex.

In vain! And, as there were no assets, the postman marched off down the

road.

Mrs. Triplet glided after him like an assassin, beckoning on Triplet,

who followed, doubtful of her designs. Suddenly (truth compels me to

relate this) she seized the obdurate official from behind, pinned

both his arms to his side, and with her nose furiously telegraphed her

husband.

He, animated by her example, plunged upon the man and tore the letter

from his hand and opened it before his eyes.

It happened to be a very windy morning, and when he opened the letter an

inclosure, printed on much finer paper, was caught into the air and went

down the wind. Triplet followed in kangaroo leaps, like a dancer making

a flying exit.

The postman cried on all good citizens for help. Some collected and

laughed at him; Mrs. Triplet explaining that they were poor, and could

not pay half a crown for the freight of half an ounce of paper. She held

him convulsively until Triplet reappeared.

That gentleman on his return was ostentatiously calm and dignified. “You

are, or were, in perturbation about half a crown,” said he. “There,

sir, is a twenty-pound note, oblige me with nineteen pounds seventeen

shillings and sixpence. Should your resources be unequal to such a

demand, meet me at the 'Green Cat and Brown Frogs,' after dinner, when

you shall receive your half-crown, and drink another upon the occasion

of my sudden accession to unbounded affluence.”

The postman was staggered by the sentence and overawed by the note, and

chose the “Cat and Frogs,” and liquid half-crown.

Triplet took his wife down the road and showed her the letter and

inclosure. The letter ran thus:

“SIR--We beg respectfully to inform you that our late friend and client,

James Triplet, Merchant, of the Minories, died last August, without a

will, and that you are his heir.

“His property amounts to about twenty thousand pounds, besides some

reversions. Having possessed the confidence of your late uncle we

should feel honored and gratified if you should think us worthy to act

professionally for yourself.

“We inclose twenty pounds, and beg you will draw upon us as far as five

thousand pounds, should you have immediate occasion.

“We are, sir,

“Your humble servants,

“JAMES AND JOHN ALLMITT.”

It was some time before these children of misfortune could realize this

enormous stroke of compensation; but at last it worked its way into

their spirits, and they began to sing, to triumph, and dance upon the

king's highway.

Mrs. Triplet was the first to pause, and take better views. “Oh, James!”

she cried, “we have suffered much! we have been poor, but honest, and

the Almighty has looked upon us at last!”

Then they began to reproach themselves.

“Oh, James! I have been a peevish woman--an ill wife to you, this many

years!”

“No, no!” cried Triplet, with tears in his eyes. “It is I who have been

rough and brutal. Poverty tried us too hard; but we were not like the

rest of them--we were always faithful to the altar. And the Almighty has

seen us, though we often doubted it.”

“I never doubted that, James.”

So then the poor things fell on their knees upon the public road, and

thanked God. If any man had seen them, he would have said they were mad.

Yet madder things are done every day by gentlemen with faces as grave as

the parish bull's. And then they rose and formed their little plans.

Triplet was for devoting four-fifths to charity, and living like a

prince on the remainder. But Mrs. Triplet thought the poor were entitled

to no more than two-thirds, and they themselves ought to bask in a

third, to make up for what they had gone through; and then suddenly she

sighed, and burst into tears. “Lucy! Lucy!” sobbed she.

Yes, reader, God had taken little Lucy! And her mother cried to think

all this wealth and comfort had come too late for her darling child.

“Do not cry. Lucy is richer, a thousand times, than you are, with your

twenty thousand pounds.”

Their good resolutions were carried out, for a wonder. Triplet lived

for years, the benefactor of all the loose fish that swim in and round

theaters; and, indeed, the unfortunate seldom appealed to him in vain.

He now predominated over the arts, instead of climbing them. In his

latter day he became an oracle, as far as the science of acting was

concerned; and, what is far more rare, he really got to know _something_

about it. This was owing to two circumstances: first, he ceased to run

blindfold in a groove behind the scenes; second, he became a frequenter

of the first row of the pit, and that is where the whole critic, and

two-thirds of the true actor, is made.

On one point, to his dying day, his feelings guided his judgment. He

never could see an actress equal to his Woffington. Mrs. Abington

was grace personified, but so was Woffington, said the old man: and

Abington's voice is thin, Woffington's was sweet and mellow. When Jordan

rose, with her voice of honey, her dewy freshness, and her heavenly

laugh, that melted in along with her words, like the gold in the quartz,

Triplet was obliged to own her the goddess of beautiful gayety; but

still he had the last word: “Woffington was all _she_ is, except her

figure. Woffington was a Hebe; your Nell Jordan is little better than a

dowdy.”

Triplet almost reached the present century. He passed through great

events, but they did not excite him; his eye was upon the arts. When

Napoleon drew his conquering sword on England, Triplet's remark was:

“Now we shall be driven upon native talent, thank Heaven!” The storms

of Europe shook not Triplet. The fact is, nothing that happened on the

great stage of the world seemed real to him. He believed in nothing

where there was no curtain visible. But even the grotesque are not good

in vain. Many an eye was wet round his dying bed, and many a tear fell

upon his grave. He made his final exit in the year of grace 1799. And I,

who laugh at him, would leave this world to-day to be with him; for I am

tossing at sea--he is in port.

*****

A straightforward character like Mabel's becomes a firm character

with years. Long ere she was forty, her hand gently but steadily ruled

Willoughby House, and all in it. She and Mr. Vane lived very happily; he

gave her no fresh cause for uneasiness. Six months after their return,

she told him what burned in that honest heart of hers, the truth about

Mrs. Woffington. The water rushed to his eyes, but his heart was now

wholly his wife's; and gratitude to Mrs. Woffington for her noble

conduct was the only sentiment awakened.

“You must repay her, dearest,” said he. “I know you love her, and until

to-day it gave me pain; now it gives me pleasure. We owe her much.”

The happy, innocent life of Mabel Vane is soon summed up. Frank as the

day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew, she passed the golden years

preparing herself and others for a still brighter eternity. At home, it

was she who warmed and cheered the house, and the hearth, more than all

Christmas fires. Abroad, she shone upon the poor like the sun. She led

her beloved husband by the hand to Heaven. She led her children the same

road; and she was leading her grandchildren when the angel of death came

for her; and she slept in peace.

Many remember her. For she alone, of all our tale, lived in this present

century; but they speak of her as “old Madam Vane”--her whom we knew so

young and fresh.

She lies in Willoughby Church--her mortal part; her spirit is with the

spirits of our mothers and sisters, reader, that are gone before us;

with the tender mothers, the chaste wives, the loyal friends, and the

just women of all ages.

RESURGET.

I come to her last, who went first; but I could not have stayed by the

others, when once I had laid my darling asleep. It seemed for a while as

if the events of our tale did her harm; but it was not so in the end.

Not many years afterward, she was engaged by Mr. Sheridan, at a very

heavy salary, and went to Dublin. Here the little girl, who had often

carried a pitcher on her head down to the Liffey, and had played Polly

Peachum in a booth, became a lion; dramatic, political and literary, and

the center of the wit of that wittiest of cities.

But the Dublin ladies and she did not coalesce. They said she was a

naughty woman, and not fit for them morally. She said they had but two

topics, “silks and scandal,” and were unfit for her intellectually.

This was the saddest part of her history. But it is darkest just before

sunrise. She returned to London. Not long after, it so happened that she

went to a small church in the city one Sunday afternoon. The preacher

was such as we have often heard; but not so this poor woman, in her day

of sapless theology, ere John Wesley waked the snoring church. Instead

of sending a dry clatter of morality about their ears, or evaporating

the Bible in the thin generalities of the pulpit, this man drove God's

truths home to the hearts of men and women. In his hands the divine

virtues were thunderbolts, not swans' down. With good sense, plain

speaking, and a heart yearning for the souls of his brethren and his

sisters, he stormed the bosoms of many; and this afternoon, as he

reasoned like Paul of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,

sinners trembled--and Margaret Woffington was of those who trembled.

After this day, she came ever to the narrow street where shone this

house of God; and still new light burst upon her heart and conscience.

Here she learned why she was unhappy; here she learned how alone she

could be happy; here she learned to know herself; and, the moment she

knew herself, she abhorred herself, and repented in dust and ashes.

This strong and straightforward character made no attempt to reconcile

two things that an average Christian would have continued to reconcile.

Her interest fell in a moment before her new sense of right. She flung

her profession from her like a poisonous weed.

Long before this, Mrs. Vane had begged her to leave the stage. She had

replied, that it was to her what wine is to weak stomachs. “But,” added

she, “do not fear that I will ever crawl down hill, and unravel my own

reputation; nor will I ever do as I have seen others--stand groaning at

the wing, to go on giggling and come off gasping. No! the first night

the boards do not spring beneath my feet, and the pulse of the public

beat under my hand, I am gone! Next day, at rehearsal, instead

of Woffington, a note will come, to tell the manager that

henceforth Woffington is herself--at Twickenham, or Richmond, or

Harrow-on-the-Hill, far from his dust, his din, and his glare--quiet,

till God takes her. Amid grass, and flowers, and charitable deeds.”

This day had not come. It was in the zenith of her charms and her fame

that she went home one night after a play, and never entered a theater,

by the front door or back door, again. She declined all leave-taking and

ceremony.

“When a publican shuts up shop and ceases to diffuse liquid poison, he

does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I.

Actors overrate themselves ridiculously,” added she; “I am not of that

importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old

glove instead of soiling my fingers filling it with more guineas, and

the world loses in me, what? another old glove, full of words; half

of them idle, the rest wicked, untrue, silly, or impure. _Rougissons,

taisons-nous, et partons.”_

She now changed her residence, and withdrew politely from her old

associates, courting two classes only, the good and the poor. She had

always supported her mother and sister; but now charity became her

system. The following is characteristic:

A gentleman who had greatly admired this dashing actress met one day, in

the suburbs, a lady in an old black silk gown and a gray shawl, with a

large basket on her arm. She showed him its contents--worsted stockings

of prodigious thickness--which she was carrying to some of her

_proteges._

“But surely that is a waste of your valuable time,” remonstrated her

admirer. “Much better buy them.”

“But, my good soul,” replied the representative of Sir Harry Wildair,

“you can't buy them. Nobody in this wretched town can knit worsted hose

except Woffington.”

Conversions like this are open to just suspicion, and some did not fail

to confound her with certain great sinners, who have turned austere

self-deceivers when sin smiled no more. But this was mere conjecture.

The facts were clear, and speaking to the contrary. This woman left

folly at its brightest, and did not become austere. On the contrary,

though she laughed less, she was observed to smile far oftener than

before. She was a humble and penitent, but cheerful, hopeful Christian.

Another class of detractors took a somewhat opposite ground. They

accused her of bigotry for advising a young female friend against the

stage as a business. But let us hear herself. This is what she said to

the girl:

“At the bottom of my heart, I always loved and honored virtue. Yet the

tendencies of the stage so completely overcame my good sentiments that

I was for years a worthless woman. It is a situation of uncommon and

incessant temptation. Ask yourself, my child, whether there is nothing

else you can do, but this. It is, I think, our duty and our wisdom to

fly temptation whenever we can, as it is to resist it when we cannot

escape it.”

Was this the tone of bigotry?

Easy in fortune, penitent, but cheerful, Mrs. Woffington had now but one

care--to efface the memory of her former self, and to give as many years

to purity and piety as had gone to folly and frailty. This was not

to be! The Almighty did not permit, or perhaps I should say, did not

require this.

Some unpleasant symptoms had long attracted her notice, but in the

bustle of her profession had received little attention. She was now

persuaded by her own medical attendant to consult Dr. Bowdler, who had a

great reputation, and had been years ago an acquaintance and an admirer.

He visited her, he examined her by means little used in that day, and he

saw at once that her days were numbered.

Dr. Bowdler's profession and experience had not steeled his heart as

they generally do and must do. He could not tell her this sad news, so

he asked her for pen and paper, and said, I will write a prescription

to Mr. ----. He then wrote, not a prescription, but a few lines, begging

Mr. ---- to convey the cruel intelligence by degrees, and with care and

tenderness. “It is all we can do for her,” said he.

He looked so grave while writing the supposed prescription, that it

unluckily occurred to Mrs. Woffington to look over him. She stole archly

behind him, and, with a smile on her face--read her death warrant.

It was a cruel stroke! A gasping sigh broke from her. At this Dr.

Bowdler looked up, and to his horror saw the sweet face he had doomed

to the tomb looking earnestly and anxiously at him, and very pale and

grave. He was shocked, and, strange to say, she, whose death-warrant

he had signed, ran and brought him a glass of wine, for he was quite

overcome. Then she gave him her hand in her own sweet way, and bade him

not grieve for her, for she was not afraid to die, and had long learned

that “life is a walking shadow, a poor, poor player, who frets and

struts his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.”

But no sooner was the doctor gone than she wept bitterly. Poor soul!

she had set her heart upon living as many years to God as she had to the

world, and she had hoped to wipe out her former self.

“Alas!” she said to her sister, “I have done more harm than I can ever

hope to good now; and my long life of folly and wickedness will be

remembered--will be what they call famous; my short life of repentance

who will know, or heed, or take to profit?”

But she soon ceased to repine. She bowed to the will of Heaven, and set

her house in order, and awaited her summons. The tranquillity of her

life and her courageous spirit were unfavorable to the progress of

disease, and I am glad to say she was permitted to live nearly three

years after this, and these three years were the happiest period of her

whole life. Works of piety and love made the days eventful. She was at

home now--she had never been at home in folly and loose living. All her

bitterness was gone now, with its cause.

Reader, it was with her as it is with many an autumn day; clouds darken

the sun, rain and wind sweep over all--till day declines. But then comes

one heavenly hour, when all ill things seem spent. There is no more

wind, no more rain. The great sun comes forth--not fiery bright indeed,

but full of tranquil glory, and warms the sky with ruby waves, and the

hearts of men with hope, as, parting with us for a little space, he

glides slowly and peacefully to rest.

So fared it with this humble, penitent, and now happy Christian.

A part of her desire was given her. She lived long enough to read a firm

recantation of her former self, to show the world a great repentance,

and to leave upon indelible record one more proof, what alone is true

wisdom, and where alone true joys are to be found.

She endured some physical pain, as all must who die in their prime. But

this never wrung a sigh from her great heart; and within she had the

peace of God, which passes all understanding.

I am not strong enough to follow her to her last hour; nor is it needed.

Enough that her own words came true. When the great summons came, it

found her full of hope, and peace, and joy; sojourning, not dwelling,

upon earth; far from dust and din and vice; the Bible in her hand,

the Cross in her heart; quiet; amid grass, and flowers, and charitable

deeds.

“NON OMNEM MORITURAM.”