The Guardian Angel...........................................................................................................................................1

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. .....................................................................................................................1

"A new Preface" is, I find, promised with my story. If there are any among my readers who loved Aesop's

Fables chiefly on account of the Moral appended, they will perhaps be pleased to turn backward and learn

This tale forms a natural sequence to a former one, which some may remember, entitled "Elsie Venner." Like

that,it is intended for two classes of readers, of which the smaller one includes the readers of the "Morals"

The first of the two stories based itself upon an experiment which some thought cruel, even on paper. It

imagined an alien element introduced into the blood of a human being before that being saw the light. It

showed a human nature developing itself in conflict with the ophidian characteristics and instincts impressed

upon it during the prenatal period. Whether anything like this ever happened, or was possible, mattered

little: it enabled me, at any rate, to suggest the limitations of human responsibility in a simple and effective

The story which follows comes more nearly within the range of common experience. The successive

development of inherited bodily aspects and habitudes is well known to all who have lived long enough to

see families grow up under their own eyes. The same thing happens, but less obviously to common

observation, in the mental and moral nature. There is something frightful in the way in which not only

characteristic qualities, but particular manifestations of them, are repeated from generation to generation.

Jonathan Edwards the younger tells the story of a brutal wretch in New Haven who was abusing his father,

when the old man cried out, "Don't drag me any further, for I did n't drag my father beyond this tree." [ The

original version of this oftenrepeated story may be found in Aristotle's Ethics, Book 7th, Chapter 7th.] I

have attempted to show the successive evolution of some inherited qualities in the character of Myrtle

Hazard, not so obtrusively as to disturb the narrative, but plainly enough to be kept in sight by the small class

If I called these two stories Studies of the Reflex Function in its higher sphere, I should frighten away all but

the professors and the learned ladies. If I should proclaim that they were protests against the scholastic

tendency to shift the total responsibility of all human action from the Infinite to the finite, I might alarm the

jealousy of the cabinetkeepers of our doctrinal museums. By saying nothing about it, the large majority of

those whom my book reaches, not being prefacereaders, will never suspect anything to harm them beyond

Should any professional alarmist choose to confound the doctrine of limited responsibility with that which

denies the existence of any selfdetermining power, he may be presumed to belong to the class of intellectual

halfbreeds, of which we have many representatives in our new country, wearing the garb of civilization, and

even the gown of scholarship. If we cannot follow the automatic machinery of nature into the mental and

moral world, where it plays its part as much as in the bodily functions, without being accused of laying "all

that we are evil in to a divine thrusting on," we had better return at once to our old demonology, and reinstate

As fiction sometimes seems stranger than truth, a few words may be needed here to make some of my

characters and statements appear probable. The longpending question involving a property which had

become in the mean time of immense value finds its parallel in the great De Haro landcase, decided in the

Supreme Court while this story was in progress (May 14th, 1867). The experiment of breaking the child's will

by imprisonment and fasting is borrowed from a famous incident, happening long before the case lately

before one of the courts of a neighboring Commonwealth, where a little girl was beaten to death because she

would not say her prayers. The mental state involving utter confusion of different generations in a person yet

capable of forming a correct judgment on other matters, is almost a direct transcript from nature. I should not

have ventured to repeat the questions of the daughters of the millionaires to Myrtle Hazard about her family

conditions, and their comments, had not a lady of fortune and position mentioned to me a similar

circumstance in the school history of one of her own children. Perhaps I should have hesitated in reproducing

Myrtle Hazard's "Vision," but for a singular experience of his own related to me by the late Mr. Forceythe

Gifted Hopkins (under various alliasis) has been a frequent correspondent of mine. I have also received a

good many communications, signed with various names, which must have been from near female relatives of

that young gentleman. I once sent a kind of encyclical letter to the whole family connection; but as the

delusion under which they labor is still common, and often leads to the wasting of time, the contempt of

honest study or humble labor, and the misapplication of intelligence not so far below mediocrity as to be

incapable of affording a respectable return when employed in the proper direction, I thought this picture from

life might also be of service. When I say that no genuine young poet will apply it to himself, I think I have so

It is lamentable to be forced to add that the Reverend Joseph Bellamy Stoker is only a softened copy of too

many originals to whom, as a regular attendant upon divine worship from my childhood to the present time, I

have respectfully listened, while they dealt with me and mine and the bulk of their fellowcreatures after the

manner of their sect. If, in the interval between his first showing himself in my story and its publication in a

separate volume, anything had occurred to make me question the justice or expediency of drawing and

exhibiting such a portrait, I should have reconsidered it, with the view of retouching its sharper features. But

its essential truthfulness has been illustrated every month or two, since my story has been in the course of

publication, by a fresh example from real life, stamped in darker colors than any with which I should have

There are a great many good clergymen to one bad one, but a writer finds it hard to keep to the true

proportion of good and bad persons in telling a story. The three or four good ministers I have introduced in

this narrative must stand for many whom I have known and loved, and some of whom I count today among

my most valued friends. I hope the best and wisest of them will like this story and approve it. If they cannot

all do this, I know they will recognize it as having been written with a right and honest purpose.

It is a quarter of a century since the foregoing Preface was written, and that is long enough to allow a story to

be forgotten by the public, and very possibly by the writer of it also. I will not pretend that I have forgotten

all about "The Guardian Angel," but it is long since I have read it, and many of its characters and incidents

are far from being distinct in my memory. There are, however, a few points which hold their place among my

recollections. The revolt of Myrtle Hazard from the tyranny of that dogmatic dynasty now breaking up in all

directions has found new illustrations since this tale was written. I need only refer to two instances of many.

The first is from real life. Mr. Robert C. Adams's work, "Travels in Faith from Tradition to Reason," is the

outcome of the teachings of one of the most intransigeant of our New England Calvinists, the late Reverend

Nehemiah Adams. For an example in fiction,fiction which bears all the marks of being copied from real

life,I will refer to "The Story of an African Farm." The boy's honest, but terrible outburst, "I hate God,"

was, I doubt not, more acceptable in the view of his Maker than the lying praise of many a hypocrite who,

having enthroned a demon as Lord of the Universe, thinks to conciliate his favor by using the phrases which

the slaves of Eastern despots are in the habit of addressing to their masters. I have had many private letters

showing the same revolt of reasoning natures against doctrines which shock the more highly civilized part of

mankind in this nineteenth century and are leading to those dissensions which have long shown as cracks, and

are fast becoming lines of cleavage in some of the largest communions of Protestantism.

The principle of heredity has been largely studied since this story was written. This tale, like "Elsie Venner,"

depends for its deeper significance on the antenatal history of its subject. But the story was meant to be

readable for those who did not care for its underlying philosophy. If it fails to interest the reader who ventures

upon it, it may find a place on an unfrequented bookshelf in common with other "medicated novels."

Perhaps I have been too hard with Gifted Hopkins and the tribe of rhymesters to which he belongs. I ought

not to forget that I too introduced myself to the reading world in a thin volume of verses; many of which had

better not have been written, and would not be reprinted now, but for the fact that they have established a

right to a place among my poems in virtue of long occupancy. Besides, although the writing of verses is often

a mark of mental weakness, I cannot forget that Joseph Story and George Bancroft each published his little

book, of rhymes, and that John Quincy Adams has left many poems on record, the writing of which did not

On Saturday, the 18th day of June, 1859, the "State Banner and Delphian Oracle," published weekly at

Oxbow Village, one of the principal centres in a thriving rivertown of New England, contained an

advertisement which involved the story of a young life, and stained the emotions of a small community. Such

faces of dismay, such shaking of heads, such gatherings at corners, such halts of complaining, rheumatic

wagons, and driedup, chirruping chaises, for colloquy of their stillfaced tenants, had not been known since

the rainy November Friday, when old Malachi Withers was found hanging in his garret up there at the lonely

The number of the " Banner and Oracle" which contained this advertisement was a fair specimen enough of

the kind of newspaper to which it belonged. Some extracts from a stray copy of the issue of the date referred

to will show the reader what kind of entertainment the paper was accustomed to furnish its patrons, and also

serve some incidental purposes of the writer in bringing into notice a few personages who are to figure in this

The copy in question was addressed to one of its regular subscribers,"B. Gridley, Esq." The sarcastic

annotations at various points, enclosed in brackets and italicised that they may be distinguished from any

other comments, were taken from the pencilled remarks of that gentleman, intended for the improvement of a

member of the family in which he resided, and are by no means to be attributed to the harmless pen which

Byles Gridley, A. M., as he would have been styled by persons acquainted with scholarly dignities, was a

bachelor, who had been a schoolmaster, a college tutor, and afterwards for many years professor,a man of

learning, of habits, of whims and crotchets, such as are hardly to be found, except in old, unmarried students,

the double flowers of college culture, their stamina all turned to petals, their stock in the life of the race all

funded in the individual. Being a man of letters, Byles Gridley naturally rather undervalued the literary

acquirements of the good people of the rural district where he resided, and, having known much of college

and something of city life, was apt to smile at the importance they attached to their little local concerns. He

was, of course, quite as much an object of rough satire to the natural observers and humorists, who are never

wanting in a New England village,perhaps not in any village where a score or two of families are brought

together,enough of them, at any rate, to furnish the ordinary characters of a reallife stock company.

The old Master of Arts was a permanent boarder in the house of a very worthy woman, relict of the late

Ammi Hopkins, by courtesy Esquire, whose handsome monumentin a finished and carefully colored

lithograph, representing a finely shaped urn under a very nicely groomed willowhung in her small,

welldarkened, and, as it were, monumental parlor. Her household consisted of herself, her son, nineteen

years of age, of whom more hereafter, and of two small children, twins, left upon her doorstep when little

more than mere marsupial possibilities, taken in for the night, kept for a week, and always thereafter

cherished by the good soul as her own; also of Miss Susan Posey, aged eighteen, at school at the "Academy"

What the old scholar took the village paper for it would be hard to guess, unless for a reason like that which

carried him very regularly to hear the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, colleague of the old

minister of the village parish; namely, because he did not believe a word of his favorite doctrines, and liked to

go there so as to growl to himself through the sermon, and go home scolding all the way about it.

The leading article of the "Banner and Oracle" for June 18th must have been of superior excellence, for, as

Mr. Gridley remarked, several of the "metropolitan" journals of the date of June 15th and thereabout had

evidently conversed with the writer and borrowed some of his ideas before he gave them to the public. The

Foreign News by the Europa at Halifax, 15th, was spread out in the amplest dimensions the type of the office

could supply. More battles! The Allies victorious! The King and General Cialdini beat the Austrians at

Palestro! 400 Austrians drowned in a canal! AntiFrench feeling in Germany! Allgermine Zeiturg talks of

conquest of Allsatia and Loraine and the occupation of Paris! [Vicious digs with a pencil through the above

proper names.] Race for the Derby won by Sir Joseph Hawley's Musjid! [That's what England cares for!

Hooray for the Darby! Italy be deedeed!] Visit of Prince Alfred to the Holy Land. Letter from our, own

Correspondent. [Oh! Oh! A West Minkville ?] Cotton advanced. Breadstuffs declining. Deacon Rumrill's

barn burned down on Saturday night. A pig missing; supposed to have �� fallen a prey to the devouring

element." [Got roasted.] A yellow mineral had been discovered on the Doolittle farm, which, by the report of

those who had seen it, bore a strong resemblance to California gold ore. Much excitement in the

neighborhood in consequence [Idiots! Iron pyrites!] A hen at Four Corners had just laid an egg measuring 7

by 8 inches. Fetch on your biddies! [Editorial wit!] A man had shot an eagle measuring six feet and a half

from tip to tip of his wings. Crops suffering for want of rain [Always just so. "Dry times, Father Noah!"]

The editors had received a liberal portion of cake from the happy couple whose matrimonial union was

recorded in the column dedicated to Hymen. Also a superior article of [article of! bah!] steel pen from the

enterprising merchant [shopkeeper] whose advertisement was to be found on the third page of this paper.

An interesting Surprise Party [cheap theatricals] had transpired [bah!] on Thursday evening last at the

house of the Rev. Mr. Stoker. The parishioners had donated [donated! GIVE is a good word enough for the

Lord's Prayer. DONATE our daily bread!] a bag of meal, a bushel of beans, a keg of pickles, and a quintal of

saltfish. The worthy pastor was much affected, etc., etc. [Of course. Call'em. SENSATION parties and done

with it!] The Rev. Dr. Pemberton and the venerable Dr. Hurlbut honored the occasion with their presence.

We learn that the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, rector of St. Bartholomew's Chapel, has returned from his

Then came strings of advertisements, with a luxuriant vegetation of capitals and notes of admiration. More of

those PRIME GOODS! Full Assortments of every Article in our line! [Except the one thing you want!]

Auction Sale. Old furniture, featherbeds, bedspreads [spreads! ugh!], setts [setts!] crockeryware, odd

vols., ullage bbls. of this and that, with other household goods, etc., etc., etc.,the etceteras meaning all sorts

of insane movables, such as come out of their bedlamholes when an antiquated domestic establishment

disintegrates itself at a country "vandoo." Several announcements of "Feed," whatever that may be,not

restaurant dinners, anyhow,also of "Shorts,"terms mysterious to city ears as jute and cudbear and

gunnybags to such as drive oxen in the remote interior districts. Then the marriage column above alluded

to, by the fortunate recipients of the cake. Right opposite, as if for matrimonial groundbait, a Notice that

Whereas my wife, Lucretia Babb, has left my bed and board, I will not be responsible, etc., etc., from this

date. Jacob Penhallow (of the late firm Wibird and Penhallow) had taken Mr. William Murray Bradshaw

into partnership, and the business of the office would be carried on as usual under the title Penhallow and

Bradshaw, Attorneys at Law. Then came the standing professional card of Dr. Lemuel Hurlbut and Dr.

Fordyce Hurlbut, the medical patriarch of the town and his son. Following this, hideous quack

advertisements, some of them with the certificates of Honorables, Esquires, and Clergymen. Then a cow,

strayed or stolen from the subscriber. Then the advertisement referred to in our first paragraph:

MYRTLE HAZARD has been missing from her home in this place since Thursday morning, June 16th. She

is fifteen years old, tall and womanly for her age, has dark hair and eyes, fresh complexion, regular features,

pleasant smile and voice, but shy with strangers. Her common dress was a black and white gingham check,

straw hat, trimmed with green ribbon. It is feared she may have come to harm in some way, or be wandering

at large in a state of temporary mental alienation. Any information relating to the missing child will be

MISS SILENCE WITHERS, Residing at the Withers Homestead, otherwise known as "The Poplars," in this

The publication of the advertisement in the paper brought the village fever of the last two days to its height.

Myrtle Hazard's disappearance had been pretty well talked round through the immediate neighborhood, but

now that fortyeight hours of search and inquiry had not found her, and the alarm was so great that the young

girl's friends were willing to advertise her in a public journal, it was clear that the gravest apprehensions were

felt and justified. The paper carried the tidings to many who had not heard it. Some of the farmers who had

been busy all the week with their fields came into the village in their wagons on Saturday, and there first

learned the news, and saw the paper, and the placards which were posted up, and listened, openmouthed, to

Saturday was therefore a day of much agitation in Oxbow Village, and some stir in the neighboring

settlements. Of course there was a great variety of comment, its character depending very much on the sense,

knowledge, and disposition of the citizens, gossips, and young people who talked over the painful and

The Withers Homestead was naturally the chief centre of interest. Nurse Byloe, an ancient and voluminous

woman, who had known the girl when she was a little brighteyed child, handed over "the baby" she was

holding to another attendant, and got on her things to go straight up to The Poplars. She had been holding

"the baby" these forty years and more, but somehow it never got to be more than a month or six weeks old.

She reached The Poplars after much toil and travail. Mistress Fagan, Irish, houseservant, opened the door, at

which Nurse Byloe knocked softly, as she was in the habit of doing at the doors of those who sent for her.

"Niver a blissed word," said she. "Miss Withers is upstairs with Miss Bathsheby, a cryin' and a lamentin'.

Miss Badlam's in the parlor. The men has been draggin' the pond. They have n't found not one thing, but only

jest two, and that was the old coffeepot and the gray cat,it's them nigger boys hanged her with a string they

tied round her neck and then drownded her." [P. Fagan, Jr., Aet. 14, had a snarl of similar string in his

Mistress Fagan opened the door of the best parlor. A woman was sitting there alone, rocking back and

"Nuss Byloe, is that you? Well, to be sure, I'm glad to see you, though we 're all in trouble. Set right down,

A handkerchief which was in readiness for any emotional overflow was here called on for its function.

Nurse Byloe let herself drop into a flaccid squab chair with one of those soft cushions, filled with slippery

feathers, which feel so fearfully like a very young infant, or a nest of little kittens, as they flatten under the

The woman in the rockingchair was Miss Cynthia Badlam, secondcousin of Miss Silence Withers, with

whom she had been living as a companion at intervals for some years. She appeared to be thirtyfive years

old, more or less, and looked not badly for that stage of youth, though of course she might have been

handsomer at twenty, as is often the case with women. She wore a not unbecoming cap; frequent headaches

had thinned her locks somewhat of late years. Features a little too sharp, a keen, gray eye, a quick and restless

glance, which rather avoided being met, gave the impression that she was a wideawake, cautious,

"I could n't help comin'," said Nurse Byloe, "we do so love our babies,how can we help it, Miss Badlam?"

The spinster colored up at the nurse's odd way of using the possessive pronoun, and dropped her eyes, as was

"I never tended children as you have, Nuss," she said. "But I 've known Myrtle Hazard ever since she was

three years old, and to think she should have come to such an end,'The heart is deceitful above all things

"Why, Cynthy Badlam, what do y' mean?" said Nurse Byloe. "Y' don't think anything dreadful has come o'

"Child!" said Cynthia Badlam,"child enough to wear this very gown I have got on and not find it too big

for her neither." [It would have pinched Myrtle here and there pretty shrewdly.]

The two women looked each other in the eyes with subtle interchange of intelligence, such as belongs to their

sex in virtue of its specialty. Talk without words is half their conversation, just as it is all the conversation of

the lower animals. Only the dull senses of men are dead to it as to the music of the spheres.

Their minds travelled along, as if they had been yoked together, through whole fields of suggestive

speculation, until the dumb growths of thought ripened in both their souls into articulate speech,

consentingly, as the movement comes after the long stillness of a Quaker meeting.

Their lips opened at the same moment. "You don't mean"began Nurse Byloe, but stopped as she heard

"They need n't drag the pond," she said. "They need n't go beating the woods as if they were hunting a

patridge,though for that matter Myrtle Hazard was always more like a patridge than she was like a pullet.

Nothing ever took hold of that girl,not catechising, nor advising, nor punishing. It's that dreadful will of

hers never was broke. I've always been afraid that she would turn out a child of wrath. Did y' ever watch her

at meetin' playing with posies and looking round all the time of the long prayer? That's what I've seen her do

many and many a time. I'm afraidOh dear! Miss Byloe, I'm afraid to saywhat I'm afraid of. Men are so

wicked, and young girls are full of deceit and so ready to listen to all sorts of artful creturs that take

advantage of their ignorance and tender years." She wept once more, this time with sobs that seemed

"Dear suz!" said the nurse, "I won't believe no sech thing as wickedness about Myrtle Hazard. You mean

she's gone an' run off with some goodfornothin' man or other? If that ain't what y' mean, what do y' mean?

It can't be so, Miss Badlam: she's one o' my babies. At any rate, I handled her when she fust come to this

village,and none o' my babies never did sech a thing. Fifteen year old, and be bringin' a whole family into

disgrace! If she was thirty year old, or fivean'thirty or more, and never'd had a chance to be married, and if

one o' them artful creturs you was talkin' of got hold of her, then, to be sure,why, dear me!law! I never

thought, Miss Badlam!but then of course you could have had your pickin' and choosin' in the time of it;

and I don't mean to say it's too late now if you felt called that way, for you're better lookin' now than some

A sort of hysteric twitching that went through the frame of Cynthia Badlam dimly suggested to the old nurse

that she was not making her slightly indiscreet personality much better by her explanations. She stopped

short, and surveyed the not uncomely person of the maiden lady sitting before her with her handkerchief

pressed to her eyes, and one hand clenching the arm of the reekingchair, as if some spasm had clamped it

there. The nurse looked at her with a certain growing interest she had never felt before. It was the first time

for some years that she had had such a chance, partly because Miss Cynthia had often been away for long

periods,partly because she herself had been busy professionally. There was no occasion for her services, of

course, in the family at The Poplars; and she was always following round from place to place after that

There was not a more knowing pair of eyes, in their way, in a circle of fifty miles, than those kindly tranquil

orbs that Nurse Byloe fixed on Cynthia Badlam. The silver threads in the side fold of hair, the delicate lines

at the corner of the eye, the slight drawing down at the angle of the mouth,almost imperceptible, but the

nurse dwelt upon it,a certain moulding of the features as of an artist's clay model worked by delicate

touches with the fingers, showing that time or pain or grief had had a hand in shaping them, the contours, the

adjustment of every fold of the dress, the attitude, the very way of breathing, were all passed through the

searching inspection of the ancient expert, trained to know all the changes wrought by time and circumstance.

It took not so long as it takes to describe it, but it was an analysis of imponderables, equal to any of Bunsen's

Miss Badlam removed her handkerchief and looked in a furtive, questioning way, in her turn, upon the nurse.

"It's dreadful close here,I'm 'most smothered," Nurse Byloe said; and, putting her hand to her throat,

unclasped the catch of the necklace of gold beads she had worn since she was a baby,a bead having been

added from time to time as she thickened. It lay in a deep groove of her large neck, and had not troubled her

At this moment Miss Silence Withers entered, followed by Bathsheba Stoker, daughter of Rev. Joseph

She was the friend of Myrtle, and had come to comfort Miss Silence, and consult with her as to what further

search they should institute. The two, Myrtle's aunt and her friend, were as unlike as they could well be.

Silence Withers was something more than forty years old, a shadowy, pinched, sallow, dispirited, bloodless

woman, with the habitual look of the people in the funeral carriage which follows next to the hearse, and the

tone in speaking that may be noticed in a household where one of its members is lying white and still in a

cool, darkened chamber overhead. Bathsheba Stoker was not called handsome; but she had her mother's

youthful smile, which was so fresh and full of sweetness that she seemed like a beauty while she was

speaking or listening; and she could never be plain so long as any expression gave life to her features. In

perfect repose, her face, a little prematurely touched by sad experiences,for she was but seventeen years

old,had the character and decision stamped in its outlines which any young man who wanted a companion

to warn, to comfort, and command him, might have depended on as warranting the courage, the sympathy,

and the sense demanded for such a responsibility. She had been trying her powers of consolation on Miss

Silence. It was a sudden freak of Myrtle's. She had gone off on some foolish but innocent excursion. Besides,

she was a girl that would take care of herself; for she was afraid of nothing, and nimbler than any boy of her

age, and almost as strong as any. As for thinking any bad thoughts about her, that was a shame; she cared for

none of the young fellows that were round her. Cyprian Eveleth was the one she thought most of; but Cyprian

To all this Miss Silence answered only by sighing and moaning, For two whole days she had been kept in

constant fear and worry, afraid every minute of some tragical message, perplexed by the conflicting advice of

all manner of officious friends, sleepless of course through the two nights, and now utterly broken down and

Bathsheba had said all she could in the way of consolation, and hastened back to her mother's bedside, which

"If I only knew that she was dead, and had died in the Lord," Miss Silence answered,"if I only knew that

but if she is living in sin, or dead in wrongdoing, what is to become of me? Oh, what is to become of

"Cousin Silence," said Miss Cynthia, "it is n't your fault, if that young girl has taken to evil ways. If going to

meeting three times every Sabbath day, and knowing the catechism by heart, and reading of good books, and

the best of daily advice, and all needful discipline, could have corrected her sinful nature, she would never

have run away from a home where she enjoyed all these privileges. It's that Indian blood, Cousin Silence. It's

a great mercy you and I have n't got any of it in our veins! What can you expect of children that come from

heathens and savages? You can't lay it to yourself, Cousin Silence, if Myrtle Hazard goes wrong"

"The Lord will lay it to me,the Lord will lay it to me," she moaned. "Did n't he say to Cain, 'Where is

Nurse Byloe was getting very red in the face. She had had about enough of this talk between the two women.

"I hope the Lard 'll take care of Myrtle Hazard fust, if she's in trouble, 'n' wants help," she said; "'n' then look

out for them that comes next. Y' 're too suspicious, Miss Badlam; y' 're too easy to believe stories. Myrtle

Hazard was as pretty a child and as good a child as ever I see, if you did n't rile her; 'n' d' d y' ever see one o'

them hearty lively children, that had n't a sperrit of its own? For my part, I'd rather handle one of 'em than a

dozen o' them little waxy, weakeyed, slim necked creturs that always do what they tell 'em to, and die

afore they're a dozen year old; and never was the time when I've seen Myrtle Hazard, sence she was my baby,

but what it's always been, 'Good mornin', Miss Byloe,' and 'How do you do, Miss Byloe? I'm so glad to see

you.' The handsomest young woman, too, as all the old folks will agree in tellin' you, s'ence the time o' Judith

Pride that was,the Pride of the County they used to call her, for her beauty. Her greatgrandma, y' know,

Miss Cynthy, married old King David Withers. What I want to know is, whether anything has been heerd,

and jest what's been done about findin' the poor thing. How d' ye know she has n't fell into the river? Have

they fired cannon? They say that busts the gall of drownded folks, and makes the corpse rise. Have they

looked in the woods everywhere? Don't believe no wrong of nobody, not till y' must,least of all of them

that come o' the same folks, partly, and has lived with yo all their days. I tell y', Myrtle Hazard's jest as

innocent of all what y' 've been thinkin' about,bless the poor child; she's got a soul that's as clean and

sweetwell, as a pondlily when it fust opens of a mornin', without a speck on it no more than on the fust

That gave a turn to the two women's thoughts, and their handkerchiefs went up to their faces. Nurse Byloe

turned her eyes quickly on Cynthia Badlam, and repeated her close inspection of every outline and every light

and shadow in her figure. She did not announce any opinion as to the age or good looks or general aspect or

special points of Miss Cynthia; but she made a sound which the books write humph! but which real folks

make with closed lips, thus: m'!a sort of halfsuppressed labiopalatonasal utterance, implying that there

is a good deal which might be said, and all the vocal organs want to have a chance at it, if there is to be any

Friends and neighbors were coming in and out; and the next person that came was the old minister, of whom,

and of his colleague, the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, some account may here be introduced.

The Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton Father Pemberton as brother ministers called him, Priest Pemberton as he was

commonly styled by the country peoplewould have seemed very old, if the medical patriarch of the village

had not been so much older. A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors: he is a

picketguard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by

him before he can come near their camp. Dr. Hurlbut, at ninetytwo, made Priest Pemberton seem

comparatively little advanced; but the college catalogue showed that he must be seventyfive years old, if, as

He was a man of noble presence always, and now, in the grandeur of his flowing silver hair and with the gray

shaggy brows overhanging his serene and solemn eyes, with the slow gravity of motion and the measured

dignity of speech which gave him the air of an old pontiff, he was an imposing personage to look upon, and

could be awful, if the occasion demanded it. His creed was of the sternest: he was looked up to as a bulwark

against all the laxities which threatened New England theology. But it was a creed rather of the study and of

the pulpit than of everyday application among his neighbors. He dealt too much in the lofty abstractions

which had always such fascinations for the higher class of New England divines, to busy himself as much as

he might have done with the spiritual condition of individuals. He had also a good deal in him of what he

used to call the Old Man, which, as he confessed, he had never succeeded in putting off, meaning thereby

certain qualities belonging to humanity, as much as the natural gifts of the dumb creatures belong to them,

In the olden time he would have lived and died king of his parish, monarch, by Divine right, as the noblest,

grandest, wisest of all that made up the little nation within hearing of his meetinghouse bell. But Young

Calvinism has less reverence and more love of novelty than its forefathers. It wants change, and it loves

young blood. Polyandry is getting to be the normal condition of the Church; and about the time a man is

becoming a little overripe for the livelier human sentiments, he may be pretty sure the women are looking

round to find him a colleague. In this way it was that the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker became the colleague

If one could have dived deep below all the Christian gracesthe charity, the sweetness of disposition, the

humilityof Father Pemberton, he would have found a small remnant of the "Old Man," as the good

clergyman would have called it, which was never in harmony with the Rev. Mr. Stoker. The younger divine

felt his importance, and made his venerable colleague feel that he felt it. Father Pemberton had a fair chance

at rainy Sundays and hot summerafternoon services; but the junior pushed him aside without ceremony

whenever he thought there was like to be a good show in the pews. As for those courtesies which the old

need, to soften the sense of declining faculties and failing attractions, the younger pastor bestowed them in

Good old Father Pemberton could not love this man, but he would not hate him, and he never complained to

him or of him. It would have been of no use if he had: the women of the parish had taken up the Rev. Mr.

Stoker; and when the women run after a minister or a doctor, what do the men signify?

Why the women ran after him, some thought it was not hard to guess. He was not illlooking, according to

the village standard, parted his hair smoothly, tied his white cravat carefully, was fluent, plausible, had a gift

in prayer, was considered eloquent, was fond of listening to their spiritual experiences, and had a sickly wife.

Father Pemberton visited his people but rarely. Like Jonathan Edwards, like David Osgood, he felt his call to

be to studywork, and was impatient of the egotisms and spiritual megrims, in listening to which, especially

from the younger females of his flock, his colleague had won the hearts of so many of his parishioners. His

presence had a wonderful effect in restoring the despondent Miss Silence to her equanimity; for not all the

hard divinity he had preached for half a century had spoiled his kindly nature; and not the gentle

Melanchthon himself, ready to welcome death as a refuge from the rage and bitterness of theologians, was

more in contrast with the disputants with whom he mingled, than the old minister, in the hour of trial, with

It was well that there were no tithingmen about on that next day, Sunday; for it shone no Sabbath day for the

young men within half a dozen miles of the village. They were out on Bear Hill the whole day, beating up the

bushes as if for game, scaring old crows out of their ragged nests, and in one dark glen startling a

fierceeyed, growling, bobtailed catamount, who sat spitting and looking all ready to spring at them, on the

tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a young fellow came up with a gun and shot him

dead. They went through and through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than a

wicked old snappingturtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if

his horny jaws were near enough to spring their mantrap on the curious experimenter. At WoodEnd there

were some Indians, ill conditioned savages in a dirty tent, making baskets, the miracle of which was that

they were so clean. They had seen a young lady answering the description, about a week ago. She had bought

a basket. Asked them if they had a canoe they wanted to sell. Eyes like hers (pointing to a squaw with a

At Pocasset the young men explored all the thick woods,some who ought to have known better taking their

guns, which made a talk, as one might well suppose it would. Hunting on a Sabbath day! They did n't mean to

shoot Myrtle Hazard, did they? it was keenly asked. A good many said it was all nonsense, and a mere excuse

to get away from meeting and have a sort of frolic on pretence that it was a work of necessity and mercy, one

While they were scattering themselves about in this way, some in earnest, some rejoicing in the unwonted

license, lifting off for a little while that enormous Sabbathday pressure which weighs like forty atmospheres

on every trueborn Puritan, two young men had been since Friday in search of the lost girl, each following a

Cyprian Eveleth made for the village of Mapleton, where his sister Olive was staying, trusting that, with her

William Murray Bradshaw struck for a railroad train going to the great seaport, at a station where it stops for

In the mean time, a third young man, Gifted Hopkins by name, son of the good woman already mentioned,

sat down, with tears in his eyes, and wrote those touching stanzas, "The Lost Myrtle," which were printed in

The Withers Homestead was the oldest mansion in town. It was built on the east bank of the river, a little

above the curve which gave the name to Oxbow Village. It stood on an elevation, its west gable close to the

river's edge, an old orchard and a small pond at the foot of the slope behind it, woods at the east, open to the

south, with a great row of Lombardy poplars standing guard in front of the house. The Hon. Selah Withers,

Esq., a descendant of one of the first colonists, built it for his own residence, in the early part of the last

century. Deeply impressed with his importance in the order of things, he had chosen to place it a little

removed from the cluster of smaller dwellings about the Oxbow; and with some vague fancy in his mind of

the castles that overlook the Rhine and the Danube, he had selected this eminence on which to place his

substantial gambrel roofed dwellinghouse. Long afterwards a bay window, almost a little room of itself,

had been thrown out of the second story on the west side, so that it looked directly down on the river running

beneath it. The chamber, thus half suspended in the air, had been for years the special apartment of Myrtle

Hazard; and as the boys paddling about on the river would often catch glimpses, through the window, of the

little girl dressed in the scarlet jacket she fancied in those days, one of them, Cyprian Eveleth had given it a

name which became current among the young people, and indeed furnished to Gifted Hopkins the subject of

If we would know anything about the persons now living at the Withers Homestead, or The Poplars, as it was

more commonly called of late years, we must take a brief inventory of some of their vital antecedents. It is by

no means certain that our individual personality is the single inhabitant of these our corporeal frames. Nay,

there is recorded an experience of one of the living persons mentioned in this narrative,to be given in full

in its proper place, which, so far as it is received in evidence, tends to show that some, at least, who have long

been dead, may enjoy a kind of secondary and imperfect, yet selfconscious life, in these bodily tenements

which we are in the habit of considering exclusively our own. There are many circumstances, familiar to

common observers, which favor this belief to a certain extent. Thus, at one moment we detect the look, at

another the tone of voice, at another some characteristic movement of this or that ancestor, in our relations or

others. There are times when our friends do not act like themselves, but apparently in obedience to some

other law than that of their own proper nature. We all do things both awake and asleep which surprise us.

Perhaps we have cotenants in this house we live in. No less than eight distinct personalities are said to have

coexisted in a single female mentioned by an ancient physician of unimpeachable authority. In this light we

may perhaps see the meaning of a sentence, from a work which will be repeatedly referred to in this narrative,

viz.: "This body in which we journey across the isthmus between the two oceans is not a private carriage, but

The ancestry of the Withers family had counted a martyr to their faith before they were known as Puritans.

The record was obscure in some points; but the portrait, marked "Ann Holyoake, burned by ye bloudy

Papists, ano 15.." (figures illegible), was still hanging against the panel over the fireplace in the west parlor at

The Poplars. The following words were yet legible on the canvas: "Thou hast made a covenant O Lord with

The story had come down, that Ann Holyoake spoke these words in a prayer she offered up at the stake, after

the fagots were kindled. There had always been a secret feeling in the family, that none of her descendants

There had been also a legend in the family, that the martyred woman's spirit exercised a kind of supervision

over her descendants; that she either manifested herself to them, or in some way impressed them, from time

to time; as in the case of the first pilgrim before he cast his lot with the emigrants,of one Mrs. Winslow, a

descendant in the third generation, when the Indians were about to attack the settlement where she

There was a remarkable resemblance between the features of Ann Holyoake, as shown in the portrait, and the

miniature likeness of Myrtle's mother. Myrtle adopted the nearly obsolete superstition more readily on this

account, and loved to cherish the fancy that the guardian spirit which had watched over her ancestors was

The wife of Selah Withers was accused of sorcery in the evil days of that delusion. A careless expression in

one of her letters, that "ye Parson was as lyke to bee in league with ye Divell as anie of em," had got abroad,

and given great offence to godly people. There was no doubt that some odd "manifestations," as they would

be called nowadays, had taken place in the household when she was a girl, and that she presented many of the

Major Gideon Withers, her son, was of the very common type of hearty, loud, portly men, who like to show

themselves at militia trainings, and to hear themselves shout orders at musters, or declaim patriotic

sentiments at townmeetings and in the General Court. He loved to wear a crimson sash and a military cap

with a large red feather, in which the village folk used to say he looked as "hahnsome as a piny,"meaning a

favorite flower of his, which is better spelt peony, and to which it was not unnatural that his admirers should

If he had married a wife like himself, there might probably enough have sprung from the alliance a family of

moonfaced children, who would have dropped into their places like posts into their holes, asking no

questions of life, contented, like so many other honest folks, with the part of supernumeraries in the drama of

being, their wardrobe of flesh and bones being furnished them gratis, and nothing to do but to walk across the

stage wearing it. But Major Gideon Withers, for some reason or other, married a slender, sensitive, nervous,

romantic woman, which accounted for the fact that his son David, "King David," as he was called in his time,

had a very different set of tastes from his father, showing a turn for literature and sentiment in his youth,

reading Young's "Night Thoughts," and Thomson's "Seasons," and sometimes in those early days writing

verses himself to Celia or to Chloe, which sounded just as fine to him as Effie and Minnie sound to young

people now, as Musidora, as Saccharissa, as Lesbia, as Helena, as Adah and Zillah, have all sounded to

young people in their time,ashes of roses as they are to us now, and as our endearing Scotch diminutives

King David Withers, who got his royal prefix partly because he was rich, and partly because he wrote hymns

occasionally, when he grew too old to write lovepoems, married the famous beauty before mentioned, Miss

Judith Pride, and the race came up again in vigor. Their son, Jeremy, took for his first wife a delicate,

melancholic girl, who matured into a sadeyed woman, and bore him two children, Malachi and Silence.

When she died, he mourned for her bitterly almost a year, and then put on a ruffled shirt and went across the

river to tell his grief to Miss Virginia Wild, there residing. This lady was said to have a few drops of genuine

aboriginal blood in her veins; and it is certain that her cheek had a little of the russet tinge which a Seckel

pear shows on its warmest cheek when it blushes. Love shuts itself up in sympathy like a knifeblade in its

handle, and opens as easily. All the rest followed in due order according to Nature's kindly programme.

Captain Charles Hazard, of the ship Orient Pearl, fell desperately in love with the daughter of this second

wife, married her, and carried her to India, where their first and only child was born, and received the name

of Myrtle, as fitting her cradle in the tropics. So her earliest impressions,it would not be exact to call them

recollections,besides the smiles of her father and mother, were of dusky faces, of loose white raiment, of

waving fans, of breezes perfumed with the sweet exhalations of sandalwood, of gorgeous flowers and

glowing fruit, of shady verandas, of gliding palanquins, and all the languid luxury of the South. The

pestilence which has its natural home in India, but has journeyed so far from its birth place in these later

years, took her father and mother away, suddenly, in the very freshness of their early maturity. A relation of

Myrtle's father, wife of another captain, was returning to America on a visit, and the child was sent back,

under her care, while still a mere infant, to her relatives at the old homestead. During the long voyage, the

strange mystery of the ocean was wrought into her consciousness so deeply, that it seemed to have become a

part of her being. The waves rocked her, as if the sea had been her mother; and, looking over the vessel's side

from the arms that held her with tender care, she used to watch the play of the waters, until the rhythm of

their movement became a part of her, almost as much as her own pulse and breath.

The instincts and qualities belonging to the ancestral traits which predominated in the conflict of mingled

lives lay in this child in embryo, waiting to come to maturity. It was as when several grafts, bearing fruit that

ripens at different times, are growing upon the same stock. Her earlier impulses may have been derived

directly from her father and mother, but all the ancestors who have been mentioned, and more or less

obscurely many others, came uppermost in their time, before the absolute and total result of their several

forces had found its equilibrium in the character by which she was to be known as an individual. These

inherited impulses were therefore many, conflicting, some of them dangerous. The World, the Flesh, and the

Devil held mortgages on her life before its deed was put in her hands; but sweet and gracious influences were

also born with her; and the battle of life was to be fought between them, God helping her in her need, and her

own free choice siding with one or the other. The formal statement of this succession of ripening

This was the child who was delivered into the hands of Miss Silence Withers, her mother's halfsister,

keeping house with her brother Malachi, a bachelor, already called Old Malachi, though hardly entitled by his

years to such a venerable prefix. Both these persons had inherited the predominant traits of their sadeyed

mother. Malachi, the chief heir of the family property, was rich, but felt very poor. He owned this fine old

estate of some hundreds of acres. He had moneys in the bank, shares in various companies, woodlots in the

town; and a large tract of Western land, the subject of a lawsuit which seemed as if it would never be settled,

Some said he hoarded gold somewhere about the old house, but nobody knew this for a certainty. In spite of

his abundant means, he talked much of poverty, and kept the household on the narrowest footing of economy.

One Irishwoman, with a little aid from her husband now and then, did all their work; and the only company

they saw was Miss Cynthia Badlam, who, as a relative, claimed a home with them whenever she was so

The "little Indian," as Malachi called her, was an awkward accession to the family. Silence Withers knew no

more about children and their ways and wants than if she had been a female ostrich. Thus it was that she

found it necessary to send for a woman well known in the place as the first friend whose acquaintance many

Thirty years of practice had taught Nurse Byloe the art of handling the young of her species with the soft

firmness which one may notice in cats with their kittens,more grandly in a tawny lioness mouthing her

cubs. Myrtle did not know she was held; she only felt she was lifted, and borne up, as a cherub may feel upon

a whitewoolly cloud, and smiled accordingly at the nurse, as if quite at home in her arms.

"As fine a child as ever breathed the breath of life. But where did them black eyes come from? Born in

Injy,that 's it, ain't it? No, it's her poor mother's eyes to be sure. Does n't it seem as if there was a kind of

Injin look to 'em? She'll be a lively one to manage, if I know anything about childun. See her clinchin' them

This was when Miss Silence came near her and brought her rather severe countenance close to the child for

inspection of its features. The ungracious aspect of the woman and the defiant attitude of the child prefigured

It was not a great while before the two parties in that wearing conflict of alien lives, which is often called

education, began to measure their strength against each other. The child was bright, observing, of restless

activity, inquisitively curious, very hard to frighten, and with a will which seemed made for mastery, not

The stern spinster to whose care this vigorous life was committed was disposed to discharge her duty to the

girl faithfully and conscientiously; but there were two points in her character and belief which had a most

important bearing on the manner in which she carried out her laudable intentions. First, she was one of that

class of human beings whose one single engrossing thought is their own welfare,in the next world, it is

true, but still their own personal welfare. The Roman Church recognizes this class, and provides every form

of specific to meet their spiritual condition. But in so far as Protestantism has thrown out works as a means of

insuring future safety, these unfortunates are as badly off as nervous patients who have no drops, pills,

potions, no doctors' rules, to follow. Only tell a poor creature what to do, and he or she will do it, and be

made easy, were it a pilgrimage of a thousand miles, with shoes full of split peas instead of boiled ones; but if

once assured that doing does no good, the drooping Littlefaiths are left at leisure to worry about their souls,

as the other class of weaklings worry about their bodies. The effect on character does not seem to be very

different in the two classes. Metaphysicians may discuss the nature of selfishness at their leisure; if to have all

her thoughts centring on the one point of her own wellbeing by and by was selfishness, then Silence Withers

was supremely selfish; and if we are offended with that form of egotism, it is no more than ten of the twelve

Apostles were, as the reader may see by turning to the Gospel of St. Matthew, the twentieth chapter and the

The next practical difficulty was, that she attempted to carry out a theory which, whatever might be its

success in other cases, did not work kindly in the case of Myrtle Hazard, but, on the contrary, developed a

mighty spirit of antagonism in her nature, which threatened to end in utter lawlessness. Miss Silence started

from the approved doctrine, that all children are radically and utterly wrong in all their motives, feelings,

thoughts, and deeds, so long as they remain subject to their natural instincts. It was by the eradication, and

not the education, of these instincts, that the character of the human being she was moulding was to be

determined. The first great preliminary process, so soon as the child manifested any evidence of intelligent

There is no doubt that this was a legitimate conclusion from the teaching of Priest Pemberton, but it required

a colder and harder nature than his own to carry out many of his dogmas to their practical application. He

wrought in the pure mathematics, so to speak, of theology, and left the working rules to the good sense and

Miss Silence had been waiting for her opportunity to apply the great doctrine, and it came at last in a very

"Myrtle does n't want brown bread. Myrtle won't have brown bread. Myrtle will have white bread."

"Myrtle is a wicked child. She will have what Aunt Silence says she shall have. She won't have anything but

Thereupon the bright red lip protruded, the hot blood mounted to her face, the child untied her little "tire," got

down from the table, took up her one forlorn, featureless doll, and went to bed without her supper. The next

morning the worthy woman thought that hunger and reflection would have subdued the rebellious spirit. So

there stood yesterday's untouched supper waiting for her breakfast. She would not taste it, and it became

necessary to enforce that extreme penalty of the law which had been threatened, but never yet put in

execution. Miss Silence, in obedience to what she felt to be a painful duty, without any passion, but filled

with high, inexorable purpose, carried the child up to the garret, and, fastening her so that she could not

wander about and hurt herself, left her to her repentant thoughts, awaiting the moment when a plaintive

entreaty for liberty and food should announce that the evil nature had yielded and the obdurate will was

The garret was an awful place. All the skeletonlike ribs of the roof showed in the dim light, naked overhead,

and the only floor to be trusted consisted of the few boards which bridged the lath and plaster. A great,

mysterious brick tower climbed up through it,it was the chimney, but it looked like a horrible cell to put

criminals into. The whole place was festooned with cobwebs,not light films, such as the housewife's

broom sweeps away before they have become a permanent residence, but vast gray draperies, loaded with

dust, sprinkled with yellow powder from the beams where the worms were gnawing day and night, the home

of old, hairy spiders who had, lived there since they were eggs and would leave it for unborn spiders who

would grow old and huge like themselves in it, long after the human tenants had left the mansion for a

narrower home. Here this little criminal was imprisoned, six, twelve,tell it not to mothers, eighteen

dreadful hours, hungry until she was ready to gnaw her hands, a prey to all childish imaginations; and here at

her stern guardian's last visit she sat, pallid, chilled, almost fainting, but sullen and unsubdued. The

Irishwoman, poor stupid Kitty Fagan, who had no theory of human nature, saw her over the lean shoulders of

the spinster, and, forgetting all differences of condition and questions of authority, rushed to her with a cry of

maternal tenderness, and, with a tempest of passionate tears and kisses, bore her off to her own humble realm,

where the little victorious martyr was fed from the best stores of the house, until there was as much danger

from repletion as there had been from famine. How the experiment might have ended but for this empirical

and most unphilosophical interference, there is no saying; but it settled the point that the rebellious nature

The untamed disposition manifested itself in greater enormities as she grew older. At the age of four years

she was detected in making a cat'scradle at meeting, during sermontime, and, on being reprimanded for so

doing, laughed out loud, so as to be heard by Father Pemberton, who thereupon bent his threatening, shaggy

brows upon the child, and, to his shame be it spoken, had such a sudden uprising of weak, foolish,

grandfatherly feelings, that a mist came over his eyes, and he left out his "ninthly" altogether, thereby

spoiling the logical sequence of propositions which had kept his large forehead knotty for a week.

At eight years old she fell in love with the highcolored picture of Major Gideon Withers in the crimson sash

and the red feather of his exalted military office. It was then for the first time that her aunt Silence remarked a

shade of resemblance between the child and the portrait. She had always, up to this time, been dressed in sad

colors, as was fitting, doubtless, for a forlorn orphan; but happening one day to see a small negro girl

peacocking round in a flaming scarlet petticoat, she struck for bright colors in her own apparel, and carried

her point at last. It was as if a ground sparrow had changed her gray feathers for the burning plumage of

some tropical wanderer; and it was natural enough that Cyprian Eveleth should have called her the

firehangbird, and her little chamber the firehangbird's nest,using the country boy's synonyme for the

At ten years old she had one of those great experiences which give new meaning to the life of a child.

Her uncle Malachi had seemed to have a strong liking for her at one time, but of late years his delusions had

gained upon him, and under their influence he seemed to regard her as an encumbrance and an extravagance.

He was growing more and more solitary in his habits, more and more negligent of his appearance. He was up

late at night, wandering about the house from the cellar to the garret, so that, his light being seen flitting from

One dreary, rainy Friday in November, Myrtle was left alone in the house. Her uncle had been gone since the

day before. The two women were both away at the village. At such times the child took a strange delight in

exploring all the hidingplaces of the old mansion. She had the mysterious dwellingplace of so many of the

dead and the living all to herself. What a fearful kind of pleasure in its silence and loneliness! The old clock

that Marmaduke Storr made in London more than a hundred years ago was clicking the steady pulsebeats of

its second century. The featured moon on its dial had lifted one eye, as if to watch the child, as it had watched

so many generations of children, while the swinging pendulum ticked them along into youth, maturity, gray

hairs, deathbeds,ticking through the prayer at the funeral, ticking without grief through all the still or noisy

woe of mourning,ticking without joy when the smiles and gayety of comforted heirs had come back again.

She looked at herself in the tall, bevelled mirror in the best chamber. She pulled aside the curtains of the

stately bedstead whereon the heads of the house had slept until they died and were stretched out upon it, and

the sheet shaped itself to them in vague, awful breadth of outline, like a block of monumental marble the

She groped her way up to the dim garret, the scene of her memorable punishment. A rusty hook projected

from one of the joists a little higher than a man's head. Something was hanging from it,an old garment,

was it? She went bravely up and toucheda cold hand. She did what most children of that age would

do,uttered a cry and ran downstairs with all her might. She rushed out of the door and called to the man

Patrick, who was doing some work about the place. What could be done was done, but it was too late.

Uncle Malachi had made away with himself. That was plain on the face of thing. In due time the coroner's

verdict settled it. It was not so strange as it seemed; but it made a great talk in the village and all the country

round about. Everybody knew he had money enough, and yet he had hanged himself for fear of starving to

For all that, he was found to have left a will, dated some years before, leaving his property to his sister

Silence, with the exception of a certain moderate legacy to be paid in money to Myrtle Hazard when she

The household seemed more chilly than ever after this tragical event. Its depressing influence followed the

child to school, where she learned the common branches of knowledge. It followed her to the Sabbathday

catechisings, where she repeated the answers about the federal headship of Adam, and her consequent

personal responsibilities, and other technicalities which are hardly milk for babes, perhaps as well as other

children, but without any very profound remorse for what she could not help, so far as she understood the

matter, any more than her sex or stature, and with no very clear comprehension of the phrases which the New

England followers of the Westminster divines made a part of the elementary instruction of young people.

At twelve years old she had grown tall and womanly enough to attract the eyes of the youth and older boys,

several of whom made advances towards her acquaintance. But the dreary discipline of the household had

sunk into her soul, and she had been shaping an internal life for herself, which it was hard for friendship to

penetrate. Bathsheba Stoker was chained to the bedside of an invalid mother. Olive Eveleth, a kind,

truehearted girl, belonged to another religious communion; and this tended to render their meetings less

frequent, though Olive was still her nearest friend. Cyprian was himself a little shy, and rather held to Myrtle

through his sister than by any true intimacy directly with herself. Of the other young men of the village

Gifted Hopkins was perhaps the most fervent of her admirers, as he had repeatedly shown by effusions in

William Murray Bradshaw, ten years older than herself, a young man of striking aspect and claims to

exceptional ability, had kept his eye on her of late; but it was generally supposed that he would find a wife in

the city, where he was in the habit of going to visit a fashionable relative, Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24 Carat

Place. She, at any rate, understood very well that he meant, to use his own phrase, "to go in for a corner

lot,"understanding thereby a young lady with possessions and without encumbrances. If the old man had

only given his money to Myrtle, William Murray Bradshaw would have made sure of her; but she was not

likely ever to get much of it. Miss Silence Withers, it was understood, would probably leave her money as the

Rev. Mr. Stoker, her spiritual director, should indicate, and it seemed likely that most of it would go to a

rising educational institution where certain given doctrines were to be taught through all time, whether

disproved or not, and whether those who taught them believed them or not, provided only they would say

Nobody had promised to say masses for her soul if she made this disposition of her property, or pledged the

word of the Church that she should have plenary absolution. But she felt that she would be making friends in

Influential Quarters by thus laying up her treasure, and that she would be safe if she had the goodwill of the

Myrtle Hazard had nearly reached the age of fourteen, and, though not like to inherit much of the family

property, was fast growing into a large dower of hereditary beauty. Always handsome, her features shaped

themselves in a finer symmetry, her color grew richer, her figure promised a perfect womanly development,

and her movements had the grace which highbreeding gives the daughter of a queen, and which Nature now

and then teaches the humblest of village maidens. She could not long escape the notice of the lovers and

At this period of her life she made two discoveries which changed the whole course of her thoughts, and

Ever since the dreadful event of November, 1854, the garret had been a fearful place to think of, and still

more to visit. The stories that the house was haunted gained in frequency of repetition and detail of

circumstance. But Myrtle was bold and inquisitive, and explored its recesses at such times as she could creep

among them undisturbed. Hid away close under the eaves she found an old trunk covered with dust and

cobwebs. The mice had gnawed through its leather hinges, and, as it had been hastily stuffed full, the cover

had risen, and two or three volumes had fallen to the floor. This trunk held the papers and books which her

greatgrandmother, the famous beauty, had left behind her, records of the romantic days when she was the

belle of the county,storybooks, memoirs, novels, and poems, and not a few loveletters,a strange

collection, which, as so often happens with such deposits in old families, nobody had cared to meddle with,

and nobody had been willing to destroy, until at last they had passed out of mind, and waited for a new

The other discovery was of a small hoard of coin. Under one of the boards which formed the imperfect

flooring of the garret was hidden an old leather mitten. Instead of a hand, it had a fat fist of silver dollars, and

Thus knowledge and power found their way to the simple and secluded maiden. The books were hers to read

as much as any other's; the gold and silver were only a part of that small provision which would be hers by

and by, and if she borrowed it, it was borrowing of herself. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil had

shaken its fruit into her lap, and, without any serpent to tempt her, she took thereof and did eat.

The old Master of Arts was as notable a man in his outside presentment as one will find among five hundred

college alumni as they file in procession. His strong, squared features, his formidable scowl, his

solidlooking head, his irongray hair, his positive and as it were categorical stride, his slow, precise way of

putting a statement, the strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and highstepping

conservatism in others, which made it impossible to calculate on his unexpressed opinions, his testy ways and

his generous impulses, his hard judgments and kindly actions, were characteristics that gave him a very

He had all the aspects of a man of books. His study, which was the best room in Mrs. Hopkins's house, was

filled with a miscellaneous looking collection of volumes, which his curious literary taste had got together

from the shelves of all the libraries that had been broken up during his long life as a scholar. Classics,

theology, especially of the controversial sort, statistics, politics, law, medicine, science, occult and overt,

general literature,almost every branch of knowledge was represented. His learning was very various, and

of course mixed up, useful and useless, new and ancient, dogmatic and rational,like his library, in short;

for a library gathered like his is a lookingglass in which the owner's mind is reflected.

The common people about the village did not know what to make of such a phenomenon. He did not preach,

marry, christen, or bury, like the ministers, nor jog around with medicines for sick folks, nor carry cases into

court for quarrelsome neighbors. What was he good for? Not a great deal, some of the wiseacres

thought,had "all sorts of sense but common sense,""smart mahn, but not prahctical." There were others

who read him more shrewdly. He knowed more, they said, than all the ministers put together, and if he'd stan'

for Ripresentative they 'd like to vote for him,they hed n't hed a smart mahn in the Gineral Court sence

They may have overdone the matter in comparing his knowledge with that of all the ministers together, for

Priest Pemberton was a real scholar in his special line of study,as all D. D.'s are supposed to be, or they

would not have been honored with that distinguished title. But Mr. Byles Gridley not only had more learning

than the deepsea line of the bucolic intelligence could fathom; he had more wisdom also than they gave him

In his capacity of schoolmaster he had sharpened his wits against those of the lively city boys he had in

charge, and made such a reputation as "Master" Gridley, that he kept that title even after he had become a

college tutor and professor. As a tutor he had to deal with many of these same boys, and others like them, in

the still more vivacious period of their early college life. He got rid of his police duties when he became a

professor, but he still studied the pupils as carefully as he used once to watch them, and learned to read

character with a skill which might have fitted him for governing men instead of adolescents. But he loved

quiet and he dreaded mingling with the brawlers of the marketplace, whose stock in trade is a voice and a

vocabulary. So it was that he had passed his life in the patient mechanical labor of instruction, leaving too

The alluvium of all this experience bore a nearer resemblance to worldly wisdom than might have been

conjectured; much nearer, indeed, than it does in many old instructors, whose eyes get fishlike as their blood

grows cold, and who are not fit to be trusted with anything more practical than a gerund or a cosine. Master

Gridley not only knew a good deal of human nature, but he knew how to keep his knowledge to himself upon

occasion. He understood singularly well the ways and tendencies of young people. He was shrewd in the

detection of trickery, and very confident in those who had once passed the ordeal of his wellschooled

observing powers. He had no particular tendency to meddle with the personal relations of those about him;

but if they were forced upon him in any way, he was like to see into them at least as quickly as any of his

In leaving the duties of his office he considered himself, as he said a little despondently, like an old horse

unharnessed and turned out to pasture. He felt that he had separated himself from human interests, and was

henceforth to live in his books with the dead, until he should be numbered with them himself. He had chosen

this quiet village as a place where he might pass his days undisturbed, and find a peaceful restingplace in its

churchyard, where the gravel was dry, and the sun lay warm, and the glowing woods of autumn would spread

their manycolored counterpane over the bed where he would be taking his rest. It sometimes came over him

painfully that he was never more to be of any importance to his fellowcreatures. There was nobody living to

whom he was connected by any very near ties. He felt kindly enough to the good woman in whose house he

lived; he sometimes gave a few words of counsel to her son; he was not unamiable with the few people he

met; he bowed with great consideration to the Rev. Dr. Pemberton; and he studied with no small interest the

physiognomy of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, to whose sermons he listened, with a black scowl now and

then, and a nostril dilating with ominous intensity of meaning. But he said sadly to himself, that his life had

been a failure,that he had nothing to show for it, and his one talent was ready in its napkin to give back to

He owed something of this sadness, perhaps, to a cause which many would hold of small significance.

Though he had mourned for no lost love, at least so far as was known, though he had never suffered the pang

of parting with a child, though he seemed isolated from those joys and griefs which come with the ties of

family, he too had his private urn filled with the ashes of extinguished hopes. He was the father of a dead

Why "Thoughts on the Universe, by Byles Gridley, A. M.," had not met with an eager welcome and a

permanent demand from the discriminating public, it would take us too long to inquire in detail. Indeed; he

himself was never able to account satisfactorily for the state of things which his bookseller's account made

evident to him. He had read and reread his work; and the more familiar he became with it, the less was he

able to understand the singular want of popular appreciation of what he could not help recognizing as its

excellences. He had a special copy of his work, printed on large paper and sumptuously bound. He loved to

read in this, as people read over the letters of friends who have long been dead; and it might have awakened a

feeling of something far removed from the ludicrous, if his comments on his own production could have been

heard. "That's a thought, now, for you!See Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay's Essay printed six years after

thus book." "A felicitous image! and so everybody would have said if only Mr. Thomas Carlyle had hit upon

it." "If this is not genuine pathos, where will you find it, I should like to know? And nobody to open the book

where it stands written but one poor old manin this generation, at leastin this generation!" It may be

doubted whether he would ever have loved his book with such jealous fondness if it had gone through a

dozen editions, and everybody was quoting it to his face. But now it lived only for him; and to him it was

wife and child, parent, friend, all in one, as Hector was all in all to his spouse. He never tired of it, and in his

more sanguine moods he looked forward to the time when the world would acknowledge its merits, and his

genius would find full recognition. Perhaps he was right: more than one book which seemed dead and was

dead for contemporary readers has had a resurrection when the rivals who triumphed over it lived only in the

It followed from the way in which he lived that he must have some means of support upon which he could

depend. He was economical, if not over frugal in some of his habits; but he bought books, and took

newspapers and reviews, and had money when money was needed; the fact being, though it was not generally

known, that a distant relative had not long before died, leaving him a very comfortable property.

His money matters had led him to have occasional dealings with the late legal firm of Wibird and Penhallow,

which had naturally passed into the hands of the new partnership, Penhallow and Bradshaw. He had entire

confidence in the senior partner, but not so much in the young man who had been recently associated in the

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, commonly called by his last two names, was the son of a lawyer of some

note for his acuteness, who marked out his calling for him in having him named after the great Lord

Mansfield. Murray Bradshaw was about twentyfive years old, by common consent goodlooking, with a

finely formed head, a searching eye, and a sharpcut mouth, which smiled at his bidding without the slightest

reference to the real condition of his feeling at the moment. This was a great convenience; for it gave him an

appearance of goodnature at the small expense of a slight muscular movement which was as easy as

winking, and deceived everybody but those who had studied him long and carefully enough to find that this

He had been a good scholar in college, not so much by hard study as by skilful veneering, and had taken great

pains to stand well with the Faculty, at least one of whom, Byles Gridley, A. M., had watched him with no

little interest as a man with a promising future, provided he were not so astute as to outwit and overreach

himself in his excess of contrivance. His classmates could not help liking him; as to loving him, none of them

would have thought of that. He was so shrewd, so keen, so full of practical sense, and so goodhumored as

long as things went on to his liking, that few could resist his fascination. He had a way of talking with people

about what they were interested in, as if it were the one matter in the world nearest to his heart. But he was

commonly trying to find out something, or to produce some impression, as a juggler is working at his miracle

while he keeps people's attention by his voluble discourse and make believe movements. In his lightest talk

he was almost always edging towards a practical object, and it was an interesting and instructive amusement

to watch for the moment at which he would ship the belt of his colloquial machinery on to the tight pulley. It

was done so easily and naturally that there was hardly a sign of it. Master Gridley could usually detect the

He was a favorite with the other sex, who love poetry and romance, as he well knew, for which reason he

often used the phrases of both, and in such a way as to answer his purpose with most of those whom he

wished to please. He had one great advantage in the sweepstakes of life: he was not handicapped with any

burdensome ideals. He took everything at its marked value. He accepted the standard of the street as a final

His whole plan of life was laid out. He knew that law was the best introduction to political life, and he meant

to use it for this end. He chose to begin his career in the country, so as to feel his way more surely and

gradually to its ultimate aim; but he had no intention of burning his shining talents in a grazing district,

however tall its grass might grow. His business was not with these stiffjointed, slowwitted graziers, but

with the supple, dangerous, farseeing men who sit scheming by the gaslight in the great cities, after all the

lamps and candles are out from the Merrimac to the Housatonic. Every strong and every weak point of those

who might probably be his rivals were laid down on his charts, as winds and currents and rocks are marked

on those of a navigator. All the young girls in the country, and not a few in the city, with which, as

mentioned, he had frequent relations, were on his list of possible availabilities in the matrimonial line of

speculation, provided always that their position and prospects were such as would make them proper matches

Master Gridley had made a careful study of his old pupil since they had resided in the same village. The old

professor could not help admiring him, notwithstanding certain suspicious elements in his character; for after

muddy village talk, a clear stream of intelligent conversation was a great luxury to the hardheaded scholar.

The more he saw of him, the more he learned to watch his movements, and to be on his guard in talking with

him. The old man could be crafty, with all his simplicity, and he had found out that under his goodnatured

manner there often lurked some design more or less worth noting, and which might involve other interests

For some reason or other the old Master of Arts had of late experienced a certain degree of relenting with

regard to himself, probably brought about by the expressions of gratitude from worthy Mrs. Hopkins for acts

of kindness to which he himself attached no great value. He had been kind to her son Gifted; he had been

fatherly with Susan Posey, her relative and boarder; and he had shown himself singularly and unexpectedly

amiable with the little twins who had been adopted by the good woman into her household. In fact, ever since

these little creatures had begun to toddle about and explode their first consonants, he had looked through his

great round spectacles upon them with a decided interest; and from that time it seemed as if some of the

human and social sentiments which had never leafed or flowered in him, for want of their natural sunshine,

had begun growing up from roots which had never lost their life. His liking for the twins may have been an

illustration of that singular law which old Dr. Hurlbut used to lay down, namely, that at a certain period of

life, say from fifty to sixty and upward, the grand paternal instinct awakens in bachelors, the rhythms of

Nature reaching them in spite of her defeated intentions; so that when men marry late they love their autumn

However this may be, there is no doubt that Mr. Byles Gridley was beginning to take a part in his neighbors'

welfare and misfortunes, such as could hardly have been expected of a man so long lost in his books and his

scholastic duties. And among others, Myrtle Hazard had come in for a share of his interest. He had met her

now and then in her walks to and from school and meeting, and had been taken with her beauty and her

apparent unconsciousness of it, which he attributed to the forlorn kind of household in which she had grown

up. He had got so far as to talk with her now and then, and found himself puzzled, as well he might be, in

talking with a girl who had been growing into her early maturity in antagonism with every influence that

"Love will reach her by and by," he said, "in spite of the dragons up at the den yonder.

'Centum fronte oculos, centum cervice gerebat Argus, et hos unus saepe fefellit amor.'"

But there was something about Myrtle,he hardly knew whether to call it dignity, or pride, or reserve, or the

mere habit of holding back brought about by the system of repression under which she had been

educated,which kept even the old Master of Arts at his distance. Yet he was strongly drawn to her, and had

a sort of presentiment that he might be able to help her some day, and that very probably she would want his

help; for she was alone in the world, except for the dragons, and sure to be assailed by foes from without and

He noticed that her name was apt to come up in his conversations with Murray Bradshaw; and, as he himself

never introduced it, of course the young man must have forced it, as conjurers force a card, and with some

special object. This set him thinking hard; and, as a result of it, he determined the next time Mr. Bradshaw

"It was a demonish hard case," he said, "that old Malachi had left his money as he did. Myrtle Hazard was

going to be the handsomest girl about, when she came to her beauty, and she was coming to it mighty fast. If

they could only break that will, but it was no use trying. The doctors said he was of sound mind for at least

two years after making it. If Silence Withers got the land claim, there'd be a pile, sure enough. Myrtle Hazard

ought to have it. If the girl had only inherited that propertywhew? She'd have been a match for any fellow.

That old Silence Withers would do just as her minister told her,even chance whether she gives it to the

Parsonfactory, or marries Bellamy Stoker, and gives it to him after his wife's dead. He'd take it if he had to

"Why, you don't seem to think very well of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker?" said Mr. Gridley, smiling.

"Think well of him? Too fond of using the Devil's pitchfork for my fancy! Forks over pretty much all the

world but himself and his lot intothe bad place, you know; and toasts his own cheese with it with very

much the same kind of comfort that other folks seem to take in that business. Besides, he has a weakness for

pretty saintsand sinners. That's an odd name he has. More belle amie than Joseph about him, I rather

The old professor smiled again. "So you don't think he believes all the mediaeval doctrines he is in the habit

"No, sir; I think he belongs to the class I have seen described somewhere. 'There are those who hold the

opinion that truth is only safe when diluted,about one fifth to four fifths lies,as the oxygen of the air is

Byles Gridley colored and started a little. This was one of his own sayings in "Thoughts on the Universe."

"I don't remember. Some paper, I rather think. It's one of those good things that get about without anybody's

"That's what I call a compliment worth having," said Byles Gridley to himself, when he got home. "Let me

He took down "Thoughts on the Universe," and got so much interested, reading on page after page, that he

did not hear the little teabell, and Susan Posey volunteered to run up to his study and call him down to tea.

Miss Suzan Posey knocked timidly at his door and informed him that tea was waiting. He rather liked Susan

Posey. She was a pretty creature, slight, blonde, a little too light, a village beauty of the second or third grade,

effective at picnics and by moonlight,the kind of girl that very young men are apt to remember as their first

love. She had a taste for poetry, and an admiration of poets; but, what was better, she was modest and simple,

and a perfect sister and mother and grandmother to the two little forlorn twins who had been stranded on the

These little twins, a boy and girl, were now between two and three years old. A few words will make us

acquainted with them. Nothing had ever been known of their origin. The sharp eyes of all the spinsters had

been through every household in the village and neighborhood, and not a suspicion fixed itself on any one. It

was a dark night when they were left; and it was probable that they had been brought from another town, as

the sound of wheels had been heard close to the door where they were found, had stopped for a moment, then

How the good woman of the house took them in and kept them has been briefly mentioned. At first nobody

thought they would live a day, such little absurd attempts at humanity did they seem. But the young doctor

came and the old doctor came, and the infants were laid in cottonwool, and the room heated up to keep them

warm, and baby teaspoonfuls of milk given them, and after being kept alive in this way, like the young of

opossums and kangaroos, they came to a conclusion about which they did not seem to have made up their

thinkingpulps for some weeks, namely, to go on trying to cross the sea of life by tugging at the

fourandtwenty oars which must be pulled day and night until the unknown shore is reached, and the oars

As it was not very likely that the parents who left their offspring round on doorsteps were of saintly life, they

were not presented for baptism like the children of churchmembers. Still, they must have names to be

known by, and Mrs. Hopkins was much exercised in the matter. Like many New England parents, she had a

decided taste for names that were significant and sonorous. That which she had chosen for her oldest child,

the young poet, was either a remarkable prophecy, or it had brought with it the endowments it promised. She

had lost, or, in her own more pictorial language, she had buried, a daughter to whom she had given the

As for them poor little creturs, she said, she believed they was rained down out o' the skies, jest as they say

toads and tadpoles come. She meant to be a mother to 'em for all that, and give 'em jest as good names as if

they was the governor's children, or the minister's. If Mr. Gridley would be so good as to find her some kind

of a real handsome Chris'n name for 'em, she'd provide 'em with the other one. Hopkinses they shall be bred

and taught, and Hopkinses they shall be called. Ef their father and mother was ashamed to own 'em, she was

n't. Couldn't Mr. Gridley pick out some pooty sounding names from some of them great books of his. It's jest

as well to have 'em pooty as long as they don't cost any more than if they was Tom and Sally.

A grim smile passed over the rugged features of Byles Gridley. "Nothing is easier than that, Mrs. Hopkins,"

he said. "I will give you two very pretty names that I think will please you and other folks. They're new

names, too. If they shouldn't like to keep them, they can change them before they're christened, if they ever

are. Isosceles will be just the name for the boy, and I'm sure you won't find a prettier name for the girl in a

Mrs. Hopkins was delighted with the dignity and novelty of these two names, which were forthwith adopted.

As they were rather long for common use in the family, they were shortened into the easier forms of Sossy

and Minthy, under which designation the babes began very soon to thrive mightily, turning bread and milk

into the substance of little sinners at a great rate, and growing as if they were put out at compound interest.

This short episode shows us the family conditions surrounding Byles Gridley, who, as we were saying, had

"I am coming, my dear," he said,which expression quite touched Miss Susan, who did not know that it was

a kind of transferred caress from the delicious page he was reading. It was not the living child that was

kissed, but the dead one lying under the snow, if we may make a trivial use of a very sweet and tender

Not long after this, happening to call in at the lawyer's office, his eye was caught by the corner of a book

lying covered up by a pile of papers. Somehow or other it seemed to look very natural to him. Could that be a

copy of "Thoughts on the Universe"? He watched his opportunity, and got a hurried sight of the volume. His

own treatise, sure enough! Leaves Uncut. Opened of itself to the one hundred and twentieth page. The axiom

Murray Bradshaw had quotedhe did not remember from what,"sounded like Coleridge"was staring

him in the face from that very page. When he remembered how he had pleased himself with that compliment

the other day, he blushed like a schoolgirl; and then, thinking out the whole trick,to hunt up his forgotten

book, pick out a phrase or two from it, and play on his weakness with it, to win his good opinion,for what

purpose he did not know, but doubtless to use him in some way,he grinned with a contempt about equally

"Ah ha!" he muttered scornfully. "Sounds like Coleridge, hey? Niccolo Macchiavelli Bradshaw!"

>From this day forward he looked on all the young lawyer's doings with even more suspicion than before.

Yet he would not forego his company and conversation; for he was very agreeable and amusing to study; and

this trick he had played him was, after all, only a diplomatist's way of flattering his brother plenipotentiary.

Who could say? Some time or other he might cajole England or France or Russia into a treaty with just such a

trick. Shallower men than he had gone out as ministers of the great Republic. At any rate, the fellow was

The old Master of Arts had a great reputation in the house where he lived for knowing everything that was

going on. He rather enjoyed it; and sometimes amused himself with surprising his simplehearted landlady

and her boarders with the unaccountable results of his sagacity. One thing was quite beyond her

comprehension. She was perfectly sure that Mr. Gridley could see out of the back of his head, just as other

people see with their natural organs. Time and again he had told her what she was doing when his back was

turned to her, just as if he had been sitting squarely in front of her. Some laughed at this foolish notion; but

others, who knew more of the nebulous sciences, told her it was like's not jes' so. Folks had read letters laid

ag'in' the pits o' their stomachs, 'n' why should n't they see out o' the backs o' their heads?

Now there was a certain fact at the bottom of this belief of Mrs. Hopkins; and as it world be a very small

thing to make a mystery of so simple a matter, the reader shall have the whole benefit of knowing all there is

in it,not quite yet, however, of knowing all that came of it. It was not the mirror trick, of course, which

Mrs. Felix Lorraine and other dangerous historical personages have so long made use of. It was nothing but

this: Mr. Byles Gridley wore a pair of formidable spectacles with large round glasses. He had often noticed

the reflection of objects behind him when they caught their images at certain angles, and had got the habit of

very often looking at the reflecting surface of one or the other of the glasses, when he seemed to be looking

through them. It put a singular power into his possession, which might possibly hereafter lead to something

A short time before Myrtle Hazard's disappearance, Mr. Byles Gridley had occasion to call again at the office

of Penhallow and Bradshaw on some small matter of business of his own. There were papers to look over,

and he put on his great roundglassed spectacles. He and Mr. Penhallow sat down at the table, and Mr.

Bradshaw was at a desk behind them. After sitting for a while, Mr. Penhallow seemed to remember

something he had meant to attend to, for he said all at once: "Excuse me, Mr. Gridley. Mr. Bradshaw, if you

are not busy, I wish you would look over this bundle of papers. They look like old receipted bills and

memoranda of no particular use; but they came from the garret of the Withers place, and might possibly have

something that would be of value. Look them over, will you, and see whether there is anything there worth

The young man took the papers, and Mr. Penhallow sat down again at the table with Mr. Byles Gridley.

This lastnamed gentleman felt just then a strong impulse to observe the operations of Murray Bradshaw. He

could not have given any very good reason for it, any more than any of us can for half of what we do.

"I should like to examine that conveyance we were speaking of once more," said he. "Please to look at this

Master Gridley held the document up before him. He did not seem to find it quite legible, and adjusted his

spectacles carefully, until they were just as he wanted them. When he had got them to suit himself, sitting

there with his back to Murray Bradshaw, he could see him and all his movements, the desk at which he was

standing, and the books in the shelves before him,all this time appearing as if he were intent upon his own

The young man began in a rather indifferent way to look over the papers. He loosened the band round them,

and took them up one by one, gave a careless glance at them, and laid them together to tie up again when he

had gone through them. Master Gridley saw all this process, thinking what a fool he was all the time to be

watching such a simple proceeding. Presently he noticed a more sudden movement: the young man had found

something which arrested his attention, and turned his head to see if he was observed. The senior partner and

his client were both apparently deep in their own affairs. In his hand Mr. Bradshaw held a paper folded like

the others, the back of which he read, holding it in such a way that Master Gridley saw very distinctly three

large spots of ink upon it, and noticed their position. Murray Bradshaw took another hurried glance at the two

gentlemen, and then quickly opened the paper. He ran it over with a flash of his eye, folded it again, and laid

it by itself. With another quick turn of his head, as if to see whether he were observed or like to be, he

reached his hand out and took a volume down from the shelves. In this volume he shut the document,

whatever it was, which he had just taken out of the bundle, and placed the book in a very silent and as it were

stealthy way back in its place. He then gave a look at each of the other papers, and said to his partner: "Old

bills, old leases, and insurance policies that have run out. Malachi seems to have kept every scrap of paper

Byles Gridley had got through reading the document he held,or pretending to read it. He took off his

"We all grow timid and cautious as we get old, Mr. Penhallow." Then turning round to the young man, he

"'Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda, vel quod Quaerit et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti; Vel quod

While he was reciting these words from Horace, which he spoke slowly as if he relished every syllable, he

kept his eyes on the young man steadily, but with out betraying any suspicion. His old habits as a teacher

Murray Bradshaw's face was calm as usual, but there was a flush on his cheek, and Master Gridley saw the

"Something is going on inside there," the old man said to himself. He waited patiently, on the pretext of

business, until Mr. Bradshaw got up and left the office. As soon as he and the senior partner were alone,

Master Gridley took a lazy look at some of the books in his library. There stood in the bookshelves a copy

of the Corpus Juris Civilis,the fine Elzevir edition of 1664. It was bound in parchment, and thus readily

distinguishable at a glance from all the books round it. Now Mr. Penhallow was not much of a Latin scholar,

and knew and cared very little about the civil law. He had fallen in with this book at an auction, and bought it

to place in his shelves with the other "properties" of the office, because it would look respectable. Anything

shut up in one of those two octavos might stay there a lifetime without Mr. Penhallow's disturbing it; that

We often move to the objects of supreme curiosity or desire, not in the lines of castle or bishop on the

chessboard, but with the knight's zigzag, at first in the wrong direction, making believe to ourselves we are

not after the thing coveted. Put a lump of sugar in a canarybird's cage, and the small creature will illustrate

the instinct for the benefit of inquirers or sceptics. Byles Gridley went to the other side of the room and took a

volume of Reports from the shelves. He put it back and took a copy of "Fearne on Contingent Remainders,"

and looked at that for a moment in an idling way, as if from a sense of having nothing to do. Then he drew

the back of his forefinger along the books on the shelf, as if nothing interested him in them, and strolled to

the shelf in front of the desk at which Murray Bradshaw had stood. He took down the second volume of the

Corpus Juris Civilis, turned the leaves over mechanically, as if in search of some title, and replaced it.

He looked round for a moment. Mr. Penhallow was writing hard at his table, not thinking of him, it was plain

enough. He laid his hand on the FIRST volume of the Corpus Juris Civilis. There was a document shut up in

it. His hand was on the book, whether taking it out or putting it back was not evident, when the door opened

"Ah, Mr. Gridley," he said, "you are not studying the civil law, are you?" He strode towards him as he spoke,

"It always interests me, Mr. Bradshaw," he answered, "and this is a fine edition of it. One may find a great

He looked impenetrable, and whether or not he had seen more than Mr. Bradshaw wished him to see, that

gentleman could not tell. But there stood the two books in their place, and when, after Master Gridley had

gone, he looked in the first volume, there was the document he had shut up in it.

"You know all about it, Olive?" Cyprian Eveleth said to his sister, after a brief word of greeting.

"Why, sister, don't you know that Myrtle Hazard is missing,gone! gone nobody knows where, and that

Olive turned very pale and was silent for a moment. At the end of that moment the story seemed almost old to

her. It was a natural ending of the prisonlife which had been round Myrtle since her earliest years. When she

got large and strong enough, she broke out of jail,that was all. The nurserybar is always climbed sooner

or later, whether it is a wooden or an iron one. Olive felt as if she had dimly foreseen just such a finishing to

the tragedy of the poor girl's home bringingup. Why could not she have done something to prevent it?

"Come over to the postoffice with me; perhaps we may find a letter. I think we shall."

Olive's sagacity and knowledge of her friend's character had not misled her. She found a letter from Myrtle to

MY DEAREST OLIVE:Think no evil of me for what I have done. The firehangbird's nest, as Cyprian

I can live as I have lived no longer. This place is chilling all the life out of me, and I must find another home.

It is far, far away, and you will not hear from me again until I am there. Then I will write to you.

You know where I was born,under a hot sun and in the midst of strange, lovely scenes that I seem still to

remember. I must visit them again: my heart always yearns for them. And I must cross the sea to get

there,the beautiful great sea that I have always longed for and that my river has been whispering about to

me ever so many years. My life is pinched and starved here. I feel as old as aunt Silence, and I am only

fifteen,a child she has called me within a few days. If this is to be a child, what is it to be a woman?

I love you dearly,and your brother is almost to me as if he were mine. I love our sweet, patient

Bathsheba,yes, and the old man that has spoken so kindly with me, good Master Gridley; I hate to give you

pain,to leave you all,but my way of life is killing me, and I am too young to die. I cannot take the

comfort with you, my dear friends, that I would; for it seems as if I carried a lump of ice in my heart, and all

I have had a strange warning to leave this place, Olive. Do you remember how the angel of the Lord appeared

to Joseph and told him to flee into Egypt? I have had a dream like that, Olive. There is an old belief in our

family that the spirit of one who died many generations ago watches over some of her descendants. They say

it led our first ancestor to come over here when it was a wilderness. I believe it has appeared to others of the

family in times of trouble. I have had a strange dream at any rate, and the one I saw, or thought I saw, told me

to leave this place. Perhaps I should have stayed if it had not been for that, but it seemed like an angel's

Nobody will know how I have gone, or which way I have taken. On Monday, you may show this letter to my

friends, not before. I do not think they will be in danger of breaking their hearts for me at our house. Aunt

Silence cares for nothing but her own soul, and the other woman hates me, I always thought. Kitty Fagan will

cry hard. Tell her perhaps I shall come back by and by. There is a little box in my room, with some keepsakes

marked,one is for poor Kitty. You can give them to the right ones. Yours is with them.

Goodby, dearest. Keep my secret, as I told you, till Monday. And if you never see me again, remember how

much I loved you. Never think hardly of me, for you have grown up in a happy home, and do not know how

much misery can be crowded into fifteen years of a young girl's life. God be with you!

Olive could not restrain her tears, as she handed the letter to Cyprian. "Her secret is as safe with you as with

me," she said. "But this is madness, Cyprian, and we must keep her from doing herself a wrong.

What she means to do, is to get to Boston, in some way or other, and sail for India. It is strange that they have

not tracked her. There is no time to be lost. She shall not go out into the world in this way, child that she is.

No; she shall come back, and make her home with us, if she cannot be happy with these people. Ours is a

happy and a cheerful home, and she shall be to me as a younger sister, and your sister too, Cyprian. But you

must see her; you must leave this very hour; and you may find her. Go to your cousin Edward, in Boston, at

once; tell him your errand, and get him to help you find our poor dear sister. Then give her the note I will

write, and say I know your heart, Cyprian, and I can trust that to tell you what to say."

In a very short time Cyprian Eveleth was on his way to Boston. But another, keener even in pursuit than he,

Ever since the day when Master Gridley had made that overcurious observation of the young lawyer's

proceedings at the office, Murray Bradshaw had shown a far livelier interest than before in the conditions and

feelings of Myrtle Hazard. He had called frequently at The Poplars to talk over business matters, which

seemed of late to require a deal of talking. He had been very deferential to Miss Silence, and had wound

himself into the confidence of Miss Badlam. He found it harder to establish any very near relations with

Myrtle, who had never seemed to care much for any young man but Cyprian Eveleth, and to care for him

quite as much as Olive's brother as for any personal reason. But he carefully studied Myrtle's tastes and ways

of thinking and of life, so that, by and by, when she should look upon herself as a young woman, and not as a

Thus, she corresponded with a friend of her mother's in India. She talked at times as if it were her ideal home,

and showed many tastes which might well be vestiges of early Oriental impressions. She made herself a rude

hammock,such as are often used in hot climates,and swung it between two elms. Here she would lie in

the hot summer days, and fan herself with the sandalwood fan her friend in India had sent her,the

perfume of which, the women said, seemed to throw her into daydreams, which were almost like trances.

These circumstances gave a general direction to his ideas, which were presently fixed more exactly by two

circumstances which he learned for himself and kept to himself; for he had no idea of making a hue and cry,

The first fact was this. He found among the copies of the city newspaper they took at The Poplars a recent

number from which a square had been cut out. He procured another copy of this paper of the same date, and

found that the piece cut out was an advertisement to the effect that the A 1 Ship Swordfish, Captain Hawkins,

The second fact was the following. On the windowsill of her little hanging chamber, which the women

allowed him to inspect, he found some threads of long, black, glossy hair caught by a splinter in the wood.

They were Myrtle's of course. A simpleton might have constructed a tragedy out of this trivial

circumstance,how she had cast herself from the window into the waters beneath it,how she had been

thrust out after a struggle, of which this shred from her tresses was the dreadful witness,and so on. Murray

Bradshaw did not stop to guess and wonder. He said nothing about it, but wound the shining threads on his

finger, and, as soon as he got home, examined them with a magnifier. They had been cut off smoothly, as

with a pair of scissors. This was part of a mass of hair, then, which had been shorn and thrown from the

window. Nobody would do that but she herself. What would she do it for? To disguise her sex, of course. The

The wily young man put all these facts and hints together, and concluded that be would let the rustics drag the

ponds and the river, and scour the woods and swamps, while he himself went to the seaport town from which

she would without doubt sail if she had formed the project he thought on the whole most probable.

Thus it was that we found him hurrying to the nearest station to catch the train to Boston, while they were all

looking for traces of the missing girl nearer home. In the cars he made the most suggestive inquiries he could

frame, to stir up the gentlemanly conductor's memory. Had any young fellow been on the train within a day

or two, who had attracted his notice? Smooth, handsome face, black eyes, short black hair, new clothes, not

fitting very well, looked away when he paid his fare, had a soft voice like a woman's, had he seen anybody

answering to some such description as this? The gentlemanly conductor had not noticed,was always taking

up and setting down waypassengers,might have had such a young man aboard,there was two or three

students one day in the car singing college songs,he did n't care how folks looked if they had their tickets

ready,and minded their own business,and, so saying, he poked a young man upon whose shoulder a

ringleted head was reclining with that delightful abandon which the railroad train seems to provoke in lovely

It is a fine thing to be set down in a great, overcrowded hotel, where they do not know you, looking dusty,

and for the moment shabby, with nothing but a carpetbag in your hand, feeling tired, and anything but clean,

and hungry, and worried, and every way miserable and mean, and to undergo the appraising process of the

gentleman in the office, who, while he shoves the book round to you for your name, is making a hasty

calculation as to how high up he can venture to doom you. But Murray Bradshaw's plain dress and

carpetbag were more than made up for by the air and tone which imply the habit of being attended to. The

clerk saw that in a glance, and, as he looked at the name and address in the book, spoke sharply in the

When Cyprian Eveleth reached the same hotel late at night, he appeared in his best clothes and with a new

valise; but his amiable countenance and gentle voice and modest manner sent him up two stories higher,

where he found himself in a room not much better than a garret, feeling lonely enough, for he did not know

he had an acquaintance in the same house. The two young men were in and out so irregularly that it was not

The young lawyer was far more likely to find Myrtle if she were in the city than the other, even with the help

of his cousin Edward. He was not only older, but sharper, better acquainted with the city and its ways, and,

whatever might be the strength of Cyprian's motives, his own were of such intensity that he thought of

nothing else by day, and dreamed of nothing else by night. He went to work, therefore, in the most systematic

manner. He first visited the ship Swordfish, lying at her wharf, saw her captain, and satisfied himself that as

yet nobody at all corresponding to the description of Myrtle Hazard had been seen by any person on board.

He visited all the wharves, inquiring on every vessel where it seemed possible she might have been looking

about. Hotels, thoroughfares, every place where he might hear of her or meet her, were all searched. He took

some of the police into his confidence, and had half a dozen pairs of eyes besides his own opened pretty

On Sunday, the 19th, he got the first hint which encouraged him to think he was on the trail of his fugitive.

He had gone down again to the wharf where the Swordfish, advertised to sail the next day, was lying. The

captain was not on board, but one of the mates was there, and he addressed his questions to him, not with any

great hope of hearing anything important, but determined to lose no chance, however small. He was startled

with a piece of information which gave him such an exquisite pang of delight that he could hardly keep the

usual quiet of his demeanor. A youth corresponding to his description of Myrtle Hazard in her probable

disguise had been that morning on board the Swordfish, making many inquires as to the hour at which she

was to sail, and who were to be the passengers, and remained some time on board, going all over the vessel,

examining her cabin accommodations, and saying he should return tomorrow before she sailed,doubtless

intending to take passage in her, as there was plenty of room on board. There could be little question, from

the description, who this young person was. It was a rather delicatelooking, dark haired youth,

smoothfaced, somewhat shy and bashful in his ways, and evidently excited and nervous. He had apparently

been to look about him, and would come back at the last moment, just as the vessel was ready to sail, and in

Murray Bradshaw returned to his hotel, and, going to his chamber, summoned all his faculties in state council

to determine what course he should follow, now that he had the object of his search certainly within reaching

distance. There was no danger now of her eluding him; but the grave question arose, what was he to do when

he stood face to face with her. She must not go,that was fixed. If she once got off in that ship, she might be

safe enough; but what would become of certain projects in which he was interested,that was the question.

But again, she was no child, to be turned away from her adventure by cajolery, or by any such threats as

common truants would find sufficient to scare them back to their duty. He could tell the facts of her disguise

and the manner of her leaving home to the captain of the vessel, and induce him to send her ashore as a stray

girl, to be returned to her relatives. But this would only make her furious with him; and he must not alienate

her from himself, at any rate. He might plead with her in the name of duty, for the sake of her friends, for the

good name of the family. She had thought all these things over before she ran away. What if he should

address her as a lover, throw himself at her feet, implore her to pity him and give up her rash scheme, and, if

things came to the very worst, offer to follow her wherever she went, if she would accept him in the only

relation that would render it possible. Fifteen years old,he nearly ten years older,but such things had

He worked out the hypothesis of the matrimonial offer as he would have reasoned out the probabilities in a

1. He would rather risk that than lose all hold upon her. The girl was handsome enough for his ambitious

future, wherever it might carry him. She came of an honorable family, and had the great advantage of being

free from a tribe of disagreeable relatives, which is such a drawback on many otherwise eligible parties. To

these considerations were to be joined other circumstances which we need not here mention, of a nature to

add greatly to their force, and which would go far of themselves to determine his action.

2. How was it likely she would look on such an extraordinary proposition? At first, no doubt, as Lady Anne

looked upon the advances of Richard. She would be startled, perhaps shocked. What then? She could not help

feeling flattered at such an offer from him,him, William Murray Bradshaw, the rising young man of his

county, at her feet, his eyes melting with the love he would throw into them, his tones subdued to their most

sympathetic quality, and all those phrases on his lips which every day beguile women older and more discreet

than this romantic, longimprisoned girl, whose rash and adventurous enterprise was an assertion of her

womanhood and her right to dispose of herself as she chose. He had not lived to be twentyfive years old

without knowing his power with women. He believed in himself so thoroughly, that his very confidence was

3. In case all his entreaties, arguments, and offers made no impression, should he make use of that supreme

resource, not to be employed save in extreme need, but which was of a nature, in his opinion, to shake a

resolution stronger than this young girl was like to oppose to it? That would be like Christian's coming to his

weapon called Allprayer, he said to himself, with a smile that his early readings of Bunyan should have

furnished him an image for so different an occasion. The question was one he could not settle till the time

The next morning found him early waking after a night of feverish dreams. He dressed himself with more

than usual care, and walked down to the wharf where the Swordfish was moored. The ship had left the wharf,

and was lying out in the stream: A small boat had just reached her, and a slender youth, as he appeared at that

Murray Bradshaw called to a boatman near by and ordered the man to row him over as fast as he could to the

vessel lying in the stream. He had no sooner reached the deck of the Swordfish than he asked for the young

His heart beat, in spite of his cool temperament, as he went down the steps leading to the cabin. The young

person was talking earnestly with the captain, and, on his turning round, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had

Look at the flower of a morningglory the evening before the dawn which is to see it unfold. The delicate

petals are twisted into a spiral, which at the appointed hour, when the sunlight touches the hidden springs of

its life, will uncoil itself and let the day into the chamber of its virgin heart. But the spiral must unwind by its

own law, and the hand that shall try to hasten the process will only spoil the blossom which would have

We may take a hint from Nature's handling of the flower in dealing with young souls, and especially with the

souls of young girls, which, from their organization and conditions, require more careful treatment than those

of their tougherfibred brothers. Many parents reproach themselves for not having enforced their own

convictions on their children in the face of every inborn antagonism they encountered. Let them not be too

severe in their selfcondemnation. A want of judgment in this matter has sent many a young person to

Bedlam, whose nature would have opened kindly enough if it had only been trusted to the sweet influences of

morning sunshine. In such cases it may be that the state we call insanity is not always an unalloyed evil. It

may take the place of something worse, the wretchedness of a mind not yet dethroned, but subject to the

perpetual interferences of another mind governed by laws alien and hostile to its own. Insanity may perhaps

be the only palliative left to Nature in this extremity. But before she comes to that, she has many expedients.

The mind does not know what diet it can feed on until it has been brought to the starvation point. Its

experience is like that of those who have been long drifting about on rafts or in longboats. There is nothing

out of which it will not contrive to get some sustenance. A person of note, long held captive for a political

offence, is said to have owed the preservation of his reason to a pin, out of which he contrived to get exercise

and excitement by throwing it down carelessly on the dark floor of his dungeon, and then hunting for it in a

Perhaps the most natural thing Myrtle Hazard could have done would have been to go crazy, and be sent to

the nearest asylum, if Providence, which in its wisdom makes use of the most unexpected agencies, had not

made a special provision for her mental welfare. She was in that arid household as the prophet in the land

where there was no dew nor rain for these long years. But as he had the brook Cherith, and the bread and

flesh in the morning and the bread and flesh in the evening which the ravens brought him, so she had the river

The river was light and life and music and companionship to her. She learned to row herself about upon it, to

swim boldly in it, for it had sheltered nooks but a little way above The Poplars. But there was more than that

in it,it was infinitely sympathetic. A river is strangely like a human soul. It has its dark and bright days, its

troubles from within, and its disturbances from without. It often runs over ragged rocks with a smooth

surface, and is vexed with ripples as it slides over sands that are level as a floor. It betrays its various moods

by aspects which are the commonplaces of poetry, as smiles and dimples and wrinkles and frowns. Its face is

full of winking eyes, when the scattering raindrops first fall upon it, and it scowls back at the stormcloud,

as with knitted brows, when the winds are let loose. It talks, too, in its own simple dialect, murmuring, as it

were, with busy lips all the way to the ocean, as children seeking the mother's breast and impatient of delay.

Prisoners who know what a flower or an insect has been to them in their solitary cell, invalids who have

employed their vacant minds in studying the patterns of paperhangings on the walls of their sickchambers,

can tell what the river was to the lonely, imaginative creature who used to sit looking into its depths, hour

Of late a thought had mingled with her fancies which had given to the river the aspect of something more

than a friend and a companion. It appeared all at once as a Deliverer. Did not its waters lead, after long

wanderings, to the great highway of the world, and open to her the gates of those cities from which she could

take her departure unchallenged towards the lands of the morning or of the sunset? Often, after a freshet, she

had seen a child's miniature boat floating down on its side past her window, and traced it in imagination back

to some crystal brook flowing by the door of a cottage far up a blue mountain in the distance. So she now

began to follow down the stream the airy shallop that held her bright fancies. These dreams of hers were

colored by the rainbows of an enchanted fountain,the books of adventure, the romances, the stories which

fortune had placed in her hands,the same over which the heart of the Pride of the County had throbbed in

the last century, and on the pages of some of which the traces of her tears might still be seen.

The literature which was furnished for Myrtle's improvement was chiefly of a religious character, and,

however interesting and valuable to those to whom it was adapted, had not been chosen with any wise regard

to its fitness for her special conditions. Of what use was it to offer books like the "Saint's Rest" to a child

whose idea of happiness was in perpetual activity? She read "Pilgrim's Progress," it is true, with great delight.

She liked the idea of travelling with a pack on one's back, the odd shows at the House of the interpreter, the

fighting, the adventures, the pleasing young ladies at the palace the name of which was Beautiful, and their

very interesting museum of curiosities. As for the allegorical meaning, it went through her consciousness like

But the very first book she got hold of out of the hidden treasury threw the "Pilgrim's Progress" quite into the

shade. It was the story of a youth who ran away and lived on an island,one Crusoe, a homely narrative,

but evidently true, though full of remarkable adventures. There too was the history, coming much nearer

home, of Deborah Sampson, the young woman who served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, with a

portrait of her in man's attire, looking intrepid rather than lovely. A virtuous young female she was, and

married well, as she deserved to, and raised a family with as good a name as wife and mother as the best of

them. But perhaps not one of these books and stories took such hold of her imagination as the tale of

Rasselas, which most young persons find less entertaining than the "Vicar of Wakefield," with which it is

nowadays so commonly bound up. It was the prince's discontent in the Happy Valley, the iron gate opening

to the sound of music, and closing forever on those it admitted, the rocky boundaries of the imprisoning

valley, the visions of the world beyond, the projects of escape, and the long toil which ended in their

accomplishment, which haunted her sleeping and waking. She too was a prisoner, but it was not in the Happy

Valley. Of the romances and the loveletters we must take it for granted that she selected wisely, and read

There were mysterious reminiscences and hints of her past coming over her constantly. It was in the course of

the long, weary spring before her disappearance, that a dangerous chord was struck which added to her

growing restlessness. In an old closet were some seashells and coralfans, and dried starfishes and sea,

horses, and a natural mummy of a roughskinned dogfish. She had not thought of them for years, but now

she felt impelled to look after them. The dim sea odors which still clung to them penetrated to the very

inmost haunts of memory, and called up that longing for the ocean breeze which those who have once

breathed and salted their blood with it never get over, and which makes the sweetest inland airs seem to them

at last tame and tasteless. She held a tigershell to her ear, and listened to that low, sleepy murmur, whether in

the sense or in the soul we hardly know, like that which had so often been her lullaby, a memory of the

"You are getting to look like your father," Aunt Silence said one day; "I never saw it before. I always thought

you took after old Major Gideon Withers. Well, I hope you won't come to an early grave like poor

It did not seem very likely that the girl was going out of the world at present, but she looked Miss Silence in

the face very seriously, and said, "Why not an early grave, Aunt, if this world is such a bad place as you say it

For some months Miss Cynthia Badlam, who, as was said, had been an habitual visitor at The Poplars, had

lived there as a permanent resident. Between her and Silence Withers, Myrtle Hazard found no rest for her

soul. Each of them was for untwisting the morningglory without waiting for the sunshine to do it. Each had

her own wrenches and pincers to use for that purpose. All this promised little for the nurture and admonition

of the young girl, who, if her will could not be broken by imprisonment and starvation at three years old, was

not likely to be overtractable to any but gentle and reasonable treatment at fifteen.

Aunt Silence's engine was responsibility,her own responsibility, and the dreadful consequences which

would follow to her, Silence, if Myrtle should in any way go wrong. Ever since her failure in that moral coup

d'etat by which the sinful dynasty of the natural self determining power was to be dethroned, her attempts in

the way of education had been a series of feeble efforts followed by plaintive wails over their utter want of

success. The face she turned upon the young girl in her solemn expostulations looked as if it were inscribed

with the epitaphs of hope and virtue. Her utterances were pitched in such a forlorn tone, that the little bird in

his cage, who always began twittering at the sound of Myrtle's voice, would stop in his song, and cock his

head with a look of inquiry full of pathos, as if he wanted to know what was the matter, and whether he could

The specialty of Cynthia Badlam was to point out all the dangerous and unpardonable trangressions into

which young people generally, and this young person in particular, were likely to run, to hold up examples of

those who had fallen into evil ways and come to an evil end, to present the most exalted standard of ascetic

virtue to the lively girl's apprehension, leading her naturally to the conclusion that a bright example of

excellence stood before her in the irreproachable relative who addressed her. Especially with regard to the

allurements which the world offers to the young and inexperienced female, Miss Cynthia Badlam was severe

and eloquent. Sometimes poor Myrtle would stare, not seeing the meaning of her wise caution, sometimes

look at Miss Cynthia with a feeling that there was something about her that was false and forced, that she had

nothing in common with young people, that she had no pity for them, only hatred of their sins, whatever these

might be,a hatred which seemed to extend to those sources of frequent temptation, youth and beauty, as if

Both the lone women at The Poplars were gifted with a thin vein of music. They gave it expression in

psalmody, of course, in which Myrtle, who was a natural singer, was expected to bear her part. This would

have been pleasantry if the airs most frequently selected had been cheerful or soothing, and if the favorite

hymns had been of a sort to inspire a love for what was lovely in this life, and to give some faint foretaste of

the harmonies of a better world to come. But there is a fondness for minor keys and wailing cadences

common to the monotonous chants of cannibals and savages generally, to such warsongs as the wild,

implacable "Marseillaise," and to the favorite tunes of lowspirited Christian pessimists. That mournful

"China," which one of our most agreeable storytellers has justly singled out as the cry of despair itself, was

often sung at The Poplars, sending such a sense of utter misery through the house, that poor Kitty Fagan

would cross herself, and wring her hands, and think of funerals, and wonder who was going to die,for she

On the first Saturday of June, a fortnight before her disappearance, Myrtle strolled off by the river shore,

along its lonely banks, and came dome with her hands full of leaves and blossoms. Silence Withers looked at

them as if they were a kind of melancholy manifestation of frivolity on the part of the wicked old earth. Not

that she did not inhale their faint fragrance with a certain pleasure, and feel their beauty as none whose souls

are not wholly shriveled and hardened can help doing, but the world was, in her estimate, a vale of tears, and

it was only by a momentary forgetfulness that she could be moved to smile at anything.

Miss Cynthia, a sharperedged woman, had formed the habit of crushing everything for its moral, until it lost

its sweetness and grew almost odious, as flowerdeluces do when handled roughly. "There's a worm in that

leaf, Myrtle. He has rolled it all round him, and hidden himself from sight; but there is a horrid worm in it, for

"But there is not a worm in every leaf, Miss Cynthia. Look," she said," all these are open, and you can see all

over and under them, and there is nothing there. Are there never any worms in the leaves after they get old

That was a pretty fair hit for a simple creature of fifteen, but perhaps she was not so absolutely simple as one

It was on the evening of this same day that they were sitting together. The sweet season was opening, and it

seemed as if the whispering of the leaves, the voices of the birds, the softness of the air, the young life stirring

in everything, called on all creatures to join the universal chorus of praise that was going up around them.

"Give me one of the books, if you please, Cousin Silence," said Miss Cynthia." It is Saturday evening. Holy

She took the book, one well known to the schools and churches of this nineteenth century.

"Book Second. Hymn 44. Long metre. I guess 'Putney' will be as good a tune as any to sing it to."

and got through the first verse together pretty well. Then came the second verse:

"Far in the deep where darkness dwells, The land of horror and despair, Justice has built a dismal hell, And

Myrtle's voice trembled a little in singing this verse, and she hardly kept up her part with proper spirit.

"Eternal plagues and heavy chains, Tormenting racks and fiery coals, And darts t' inflict immortal pains,

This last verse was a duet, and not a trio. Myrtle closed her lips while it was singing, and when it was done

threw down the book with a look of anger and disgust. The hunted soul was at bay.

"I won't sing such words," she said, "and I won't stay here to hear them sung. The boys in the streets say just

such words as that, and I am not going to sing them. You can't scare me into being good with your cruel

She could not swear: she was not a boy. She would not cry: she felt proud, obdurate, scornful, outraged. All

these images, borrowed from the holy Inquisition, were meant to frighten herand had simply irritated her.

The blow of a weapon that glances off, stinging, but not penetrating, only enrages. It was a moment of fearful

Without heeding the cries of the two women, she sprang upstairs to her hanging chamber. She threw open

the window and looked down into the stream. For one moment her head swam with the sudden,

overwhelming, almost maddening thought that came over her,the impulse to fling herself headlong into

those running waters and dare the worst these dreadful women had threatened her with. Something she often

thought afterwards it was an invisible hand held her back during that brief moment, and the paroxysmjust

such a paroxysm as throws many a young girl into the Thames or the Seinepassed away. She remained

looking, in a misty dream, into the water far below. Its murmur recalled the whisper of the ocean waves. And

through the depths it seemed as if she saw into that strange, halfremembered world of palmtrees and

white robes and dusky faces, and amidst them, looking upon her with ineffable love and tenderness, until all

else faded from her sight, the face of a fair woman,was it hers, so long, long dead, or that dear young

Could it have been this vision that soothed her, so that she unclasped her hands and lifted her bowed head as

if she had heard a voice whispering to her from that unknown world where she felt there was a spirit

watching over her? At any rate, her face was never more serene than when she went to meeting with the two

maiden ladies on the following day, Sunday, and heard the Rev. Mr. Stoker preach a sermon from Luke vii.

48, which made both the women shed tears, but especially so excited Miss Cynthia that she was in a kind of

After that Myrtle was quieter and more docile than ever before. Could it be, Miss Silence thought, that the

Rev. Mr. Stoker's sermon had touched her hard heart? However that was, she did not once wear the stormy

look with which she had often met the complaining remonstrances Miss Silence constantly directed against

all the spontaneous movements of the youthful and naturally vivacious subject of her discipline.

June is an uncertain month, as everybody knows, and there were frosts in many parts of New England in the

June of 1859. But there were also beautiful days and nights, and the sun was warm enough to be fast ripening

the strawberries,also certain plans which had been in flower some little time. Some preparations had been

going on in a quiet way, so that at the right moment a decisive movement could be made. Myrtle knew how

to use her needle, and always had a dexterous way of shaping any article of dress or ornament,a natural

On the morning of the 15th of June she was wandering by the shores of the river, some distance above The

Poplars, when a boat came drifting along by her, evidently broken loose from its fastenings farther up the

stream. It was common for such waifs to show themselves after heavy rains had swollen the river. They

might have run the gauntlet of nobody could tell how many farms, and perhaps passed by half a dozen towns

and villages in the night, so that, if of common, cheap make, they were retained without scruple, by any who

might find them, until the owner called for them, if he cared to take the trouble.

Myrtle took a knife from her pocket, cut down a long, slender sapling, and coaxed the boat to the side of the

bank. A pair of old oars lay in the bottom of the boat; she took one of these and paddled it into a little cove,

where it could lie hid among the thick alders. Then she went home and busied herself about various little

She was never more amiable and gracious than on this day. But she looked often at the clock, as they

remembered afterwards, and studied over a copy of the Farmer's Almanac which was lying in the kitchen,

with a somewhat singular interest. The days were nearly at their longest, the weather was mild, the night

The household was, to all appearance, asleep at the usual early hour. When all seemed quiet, Myrtle lighted

her lamp, stood before her mirror, and untied the string that bound her long and beautiful. dark hair, which

She lifted its heavy masses with one hand, and severed it with a strong pair of scissors, with remorseless

exaction of every wandering curl, until she stood so changed by the loss of that outward glory of her

womanhood, that she felt as if she had lost herself and found a brother she had never seen before.

"Goodby, Myrtle!" she said, and, opening her window very gently, she flung the shining tresses upon the

running water, and watched them for a few moments as they floated down the stream. Then she dressed

herself in the character of her imaginary brother, took up the carpetbag in which she had placed what she

chose to carry with her, stole softly downstairs, and let herself out of a window on the lower floor, shutting

She glided along, looking all about her, fearing she might be seen by some curious wanderer, and reached the

cove where the boat she had concealed was lying. She got into it, and, taking the rude oars, pulled herself into

the middle of the swollen stream. Her heart beat so that it seemed to her as if she could hear it between the

strokes of the oar. The lights were not all out in the village, and she trembled lest she should see the figure of

some watcher looking from the windows in sight of which she would have to pass, and that a glimpse of this

boat stealing along at so late an hour might give the clue to the secret of her disappearance, with which the

Presently she came abreast of The Poplars. The house lay so still, so peaceful,it would wake to such

"No song tomorrow from the Firehangbird's Nest!" she said. So she floated by the slumbering village, the

flow of the river carrying her steadily on, and the careful strokes of the oars adding swiftness to her flight.

At last she came to the "Broad Meadows," and knew that she was alone, and felt confident that she had got

away unseen. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to point out which way she had gone. Her boat came

from nobody knew where, her disguise had been got together at different times in such a manner as to lead to

no suspicion, and not a human being ever had the slightest hint that she had planned and meant to carry out

Not till the last straggling house had been long past, not till the meadows were stretched out behind her as

well as before her, spreading far off into the distance on each side, did she give way to the sense of wild

exultation which was coming fast over her. But then, at last, she drew a long, long breath, and, standing up in

the boat, looked all around her. The stars were shining over her head and deep down beneath her. The cool

wind came fresh upon her cheek over the long grassy reaches. No living thing moved in all the wide level

circle which lay about her. She had passed the Red Sea, and was alone in the Desert.

She threw down her oars, lifted her hands like a priestess, and her strong, sweet voice burst into song,the

song of the Jewish maiden when she went out before the chorus of, women and sang that grand solo, which

"Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free!"

The poor child's repertory was limited to songs of the religious sort mainly, but there was a choice among

these. Her aunt's favorites, beside "China," already mentioned, were "Bangor," which the worthy old New

England clergyman so admired that he actually had the down east city called after it, and "Windsor," and

"Funeral Hymn." But Myrtle was in no mood for these. She let off her ecstasy in "Balerma," and "Arlington,"

and "Silver Street," and at last in that most riotous of devotional hymns, which sounds as if it had been

composed by a saint who had a cellar under his chapel,"Jordan." So she let her wild spirits run loose; and

then a tenderer feeling stole over her, and she sang herself into a more tranquil mood with the gentle music of

"Dundee." And again she pulled quietly and steadily at her oars, until she reached the wooded region through

The tumult in her blood was calmed, yet every sense and faculty was awake to the manifold delicious,

mysterious impressions of that wonderful June night, The stars were shining between the tall trees, as if all

the jewels of heaven had been set in one belt of midnight sky. The voices of the wind, as they sighed through

the pines, seemed like the breath of a sleeping child, and then, as they lisped from the soft, tender leaves of

beeches and maples, like the half articulate whisper of the mother hushing all the intrusive sounds that

might awaken it. Then came the pulsating monotone of the frogs from a faroff pool, the harsh cry of an owl

from an old tree that overhung it, the splash of a mink or musquash, and nearer by, the light step of a

woodchuck, as he cantered off in his quiet way to his hole in the nearest bank. The laurels were just coming

into bloom, the yellow lilies, earlier than their fairer sisters, pushing their golden cups through the water,

not content, like those, to float on the surface of the stream that fed them, emblems of showy wealth, and, like

that, drawing all manner of insects to feed upon them. The miniature forests of ferns came down to the edge

of the stream, their tall, bending plumes swaying in the night breeze. Sweet odors from oozing pines, from

dewy flowers, from spicy leaves, stole out of the tangled thickets, and made the whole scene more

By and by the banks of the river grew lower and marshy, and in place of the larger foresttrees which had

covered them stood slender tamaracks, sickly, mossy, looking as if they had been moonstruck and were out

of their wits, their tufts of leaves staring off every way from their spindling branches. The winds came cool

and damp out of the hidingplaces among their dark recesses. The country people about here called this

region the "Witches' Hollow," and had many stories about the strange things that happened there. The Indians

used to hold their "powwows," or magical incantations, upon a broad mound which rose out of the common

level, and where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark grove, which served them as a temple for

their demonworship. There were many legends of more recent date connected with this spot, some of them

hard to account for, and no superstitious or highly imaginative person would have cared to pass through it

She knew nothing of all these fables and fancies. Her own singular experiences in this enchanted region were

certainly not suggested by anything she had heard, and may be considered psychologically curious by those

who would not think of attributing any mystical meaning to them. We are at liberty to report many things

without attempting to explain them, or committing ourselves to anything beyond the fact that so they were

told us. The reader will find Myrtle's "Vision," as written out at a later period from her recollections, at the

The night was passing, and she meant to be as far away as possible from the village she had left, before

morning. But the boat, like all craft on country rivers, was leaky, and she had to work until tired, bailing it

out, before she was ready for another long effort. The old tin measure, which was all she had to bail with,

leaked as badly as the boat, and her task was a tedious one. At last she got it in good trim, and sat down to her

oars with the determination to pull steadily as long as her strength would hold out.

Hour after hour she kept at her work, sweeping round the long bends where the river was hollowing out one

bank and building new shore on the opposite one, so as gradually to shift its channel; by clipper shaped

islands, sharp at the bows looking up stream, sharp too at the stern, looking down,their shape solving the

navigator's problem of least resistance, as a certain young artist had pointed out; by slumbering villages; by

outlying farmhouses; between cornfields where the young plants were springing up in little thready

fountains; in the midst of stumps where the forest had just been felled; through patches, where the fire of the

last great autumnal drought had turned all the green beauty of the woods into brown desolation; and again

amidst broad expanses of open meadow stretching as far as the eye could reach in the uncertain light. A faint

yellow tinge was beginning to stain the eastern horizon. Her boat was floating quietly along, for she had at

last taken in her oars, and she was now almost tired out with toil and excitement. She rested her head upon

her hands, and felt her eyelids closing in spite of herself. And now there stole upon her ear a low, gentle,

distant murmur, so soft that it seemed almost to mingle with the sound of her own breathing, but so steady, so

uniform, that it soothed her to sleep, as if it were the old cradlesong the ocean used to sing to her, or the

So she glided along, slowly, slowly, down the course of the winding river, and the flushing dawn kindled

around her as she slumbered, and the low, gentle murmur grew louder and louder, but still she slept,

It was already morning when a young man living in the town of Alderbank, after lying awake for an hour

thinking the unutterable thoughts that nineteen years of life bring to the sleeping and waking dreams of young

people, rose from his bed, and, half dressing himself, sat down at his desk, from which he took a letter, which

he opened and read. It was written in a delicate, though hardly formed female hand, and crossed like a

checkerboard, as is usual with these redundant manuscripts. The letter was as follows:

MY DEAREST CLEMENT,You was so good to write me such a sweet little bit of a letter,only, dear,

you never seem to be in quite so good spirits as you used to be. I wish your Susie was with you to cheer you

up; but no, she must be patient, and you must be patient too, for you are so ambitious! I have heard you say

so many times that nobody could be a great artist without passing years and years at work, and growing pale

and lean with thinking so hard. You won't grow pale and lean, I hope; for I do so love to see that pretty color

in your cheeks you have always had ever since I have known you; and besides, I do not believe you will have

to work so very hard to do something great,you have so much genius, and people of genius do such

beautiful things with so little trouble. You remember those beautiful lines out of our newspaper I sent you?

Well, Mr. Hopkins told me he wrote those lines in one evening without stopping! I wish you could see Mr.

Hopkins,he is a very talented person. I cut out this little piece about him from the paper on purpose to

show you, for genius loves genius,and you would like to hear him read his own poetry,he reads it

beautifully. Please send this piece from the paper back, as I want to put it in my scrapbook, under his

"Our young townsman, Mr. Gifted Hopkins, has proved himself worthy of the name he bears. His poetical

effusions are equally creditable to his head and his heart, displaying the highest order of genius and powers of

imagination and fancy hardly second to any writer of the age. He is destined to make a great sensation in the

Mrs. Hopkins is the same good soul she always was. She is very proud of her son, as is natural, and keeps a

copy of everything he writes. I believe she cries over them every time she reads them. You don't know how I

take to little Sossy and Minthy, those two twins I have written to you about before. Poor little

creatures,what a cruel thing it was in their father and mother not to take care of them! What do you think?

Old bachelor Gridley lets them come up into his room, and builds forts and castles for them with his big

books! "The world's coming to an end," Mrs. Hopkins said the first time he did so. He looks so savage with

that scowl of his, and talks so gruff when he is scolding at things in general, that nobody would have believed

he would have let such little things come anywhere near him. But he seems to be growing kind to all of us

and everybody. I saw him talking to the Firehangbird the other day. You know who the Firehangbird is,

don't you? Myrtle Hazard her name is. I wish you could see her. I don't know as I do, though. You would

want to make a statue of her, or a painting, I know. She is so handsome that all the young men stand round to

see her come out of meeting. Some say that Lawyer Bradshaw is after her; but my! he is ten years older than

she is. She is nothing but a girl, though she looks as if she was eighteen. She lives up at a place called The

Poplars, with an old woman that is her aunt or something, and nobody seems to be much acquainted with her

except Olive Eveleth, who is the minister's daughter at Saint Bartholomew's Church. She never has beauxs

round her, as some young girls dothey say that she is not happy with her aunt and another woman that

stays with her, and that is the reason she keeps so much to herself. The minister came to see me the other

day,Mr. Stoker his name is. I was all alone, and it frightened me, for he looks, oh, so solemn on Sundays!

But he called me "My dear," and did n't say anything horrid, you know, about my being such a dreadful,

dreadful sinner, as I have heard of his saying to some people,but he looked very kindly at me, and took my

hand, and laid his hand on my shoulder like a brother, and hoped I would come and see him in his study. I

I hope you love me as well as ever you did. I can't help feeling sometimes as if you was growing away from

me,you know what I mean, getting to be too great a person for such a small person as I am.

I know I can't always understand you when you talk about art, and that you know a great deal too much for

such a simple girl as I am. Oh, if I thought I could never make you happy!... There, now! I am almost

ashamed to send this paper so spotted. Gifted Hopkins wrote some beautiful verses one day on "A Maiden

Weeping." He compared the tears falling from her eyes to the drops of dew which one often sees upon the

I wish I loved art as well as I do poetry; but I am afraid I have not so much taste as some girls have. You

remember how I liked that picture in the illustrated magazine, and you said it was horrid. I have been afraid

since to like almost anything, for fear you should tell me some time or other it was horrid. Don't you think I

Oh, dear Clement, I wish you would do one thing to please me. Don't say no, for you can do everything you

try to,I am sure you can. I want you to write me some poetry,just three or four little verses TO SUZIE.

Oh, I should feel so proud to have some lines written all on purpose for me. Mr. Hopkins wrote some the

other day, and printed them in the paper, "To M e." I believe he meant them for Myrtle, the first and

Your letter was a dear one, only so short! I wish yon would tell me all about what you are doing at

Alderbank. Have you made that model of Innocence that is to have my forehead, and hair parted like mine!

Now don't make a face at my letter. It is n't a very good one, I know; but your poor little Susie does the best

Now do be nice and write me one little bit of a mite of a poem,it will make me just as happy!

The envelope of this letter was unbroken, as was before said, when the young man took it from his desk. He

did not tear it with the hot impatience of some lovers, but cut it open neatly, slowly, one would say sadly. He

read it with an air of singular effort, and yet with a certain tenderness. When he had finished it, the drops

were thick on his forehead; he groaned and put his hands to his face, which was burning red.

This was what the impulse of boyhood, years ago, had brought him to! He was a stately youth, of noble

bearing, of high purpose, of fastidious taste; and, if his broad forehead, his clear, large blue eyes, his

commanding features, his lips, firm, yet plastic to every change of thought and feeling, were not an empty

mask, might not improbably claim that Promethean quality of which the girl's letter had spoken,the

This poor, simple, innocent, trusting creature, so utterly incapable of coming into any true relation with his

aspiring mind, his large and strong emotions,this mere child, all simplicity and goodness, but trivial and

shallow as the little babbling brooklet that ran by his window to the river, to lose its insignificant being in the

swift torrent he heard rushing over the rocks,this pretty idol for a weak and kindly and easily satisfied

worshipper, was to be enthroned as the queen of his affections, to be adopted as the companion of his labors!

The boy, led by the commonest instinct, the mere attraction of biped to its female, which accident had

favored, had thrown away the dearest possession of manhood,liberty,and this bauble was to be his

lifelong reward! And yet not a bauble either, for a pleasing person and a gentle and sweet nature, which had

once made her seem to him the very paragon of loveliness, were still hers. Alas! her simple words were

true,he had grown away from her. Her only fault was that she had not grown with him, and surely he could

"No," he said to himself, "I will never leave her so long as her heart clings to me. I have been rash, but she

shall not pay the forfeit. And if I may think of myself, my life need not be wretched because she cannot share

all my being with me. The common human qualities are more than all exceptional gifts. She has a woman's

heart; and what talent of mine is to be named by the love a true woman can offer in exchange for these

divided and cold affections? If it had pleased God to mate me with one more equal in other ways, who could

share my thoughts, who could kindle my inspiration, who had wings to rise into the air with me as well as

"What! cast away the flower I took in the bud because it does not show as I hoped it would when it opened? I

will stand by my word; I will be all as a man that I promised as a boy. Thank God, she is true and pure and

He drew one long sigh, and the cloud passed from his countenance. He must answer that letter now, at once.

There were reasons, he thought, which made it important. And so, with the cheerfulness which it was kind

and becoming to show, so far as possible, and yet with a little excitement on one particular point, which was

MY DEAR SUSIE,I have just been reading your pleasant letter; and if I do not send you the poem you ask

for so eloquently, I will give you a little bit of advice, which will do just as well,won't it, my dear? I was

interested in your account of various things going on at Oxbow Village. I am very glad you find young Mr.

Hopkins so agreeable a friend. His poetry is better than some which I see printed in the village papers, and

seems generally unexceptionable in its subjects and tone. I do not believe he is a dangerous companion,

though the habit of writing verse does not always improve the character. I think I have seen it make more

than one of my acquaintances idle, conceited, sentimental, and frivolous,perhaps it found them so already.

Don't make too much of his talent, and particularly don't let him think that because he can write verses he has

nothing else to do in this world. That is for his benefit, dear, and you must skilfully apply it.

Now about yourself. My dear Susie, there was something in your letter that did not please me. You speak of a

visit from the Rev. Mr. Stoker, and of his kind, brotherly treatment, his cordiality of behavior, and his asking

you to visit him in his study. I am very glad to hear you say that you "don't seem to like him." He is very

familiar, it seems to me, for so new an acquaintance. What business had he to be laying his hand on your

shoulder? I should like to see him try these freeandeasy ways in my presence! He would not have taken

that liberty, my dear! No, he was alone with you, and thought it safe to be disrespectfully familiar. I want you

to maintain your dignity always with such persons, and I beg you not to go to the study of this clergyman,

unless some older friend goes with you on every occasion, and sits through the visit. I must speak plainly to

you, my dear, as I have a right to. If the minister has anything of importance to say, let it come through the

lips of some mature person. It may lose something of the fervor with which it would have been delivered at

first hand, but the great rules of Christian life are not so dependent on the particular individual who speaks

them, that you must go to this or that young man to find out what they are. If to any man, I should. prefer the

old gentleman whom you have mentioned in your letters, Father Pemberton. You understand me, my dear

girl, and the subject is not grateful. You know how truly I am interested in all that relates to you,that I

A cry as of a young person's voice was heard faintly, coming from the direction of the river. Something in the

tone of it struck to his heart, and he sprang as if he had been stabbed. He flung open his chamber window and

leaped from it to the ground. He ran straight to the bank of the river by the side of which the village of

Alderbank was built, a little farther down the stream than the house in which he was living.

Everybody that travels in that region knows the beautiful falls which break the course of the river just above

the village; narrow and swift, and surrounded by rocks of such picturesque forms that they are sought and

admired by tourists. The stream was now swollen, and rushed in a deep and rapid current over the ledges,

through the rocky straits, plunging at last in tumult and foam, with loud, continuous roar, into the depths

A short distance above the fall there projected from the water a rock which had, by parsimonious saving

during a long course of years, hoarded a little soil, out of which a small tuft of bushes struggled. to support a

decent vegetable existence. The high waters had nearly submerged it, but a few slender twigs were seen

A skiff was lying close to this rock, between it and the brink of the fall, which was but a few rods farther

down. In the skiff was a youth of fourteen or fifteen years, holding by the slender twigs, the boat dragging at

them all the time, and threatening to tear them away and go over the fall. It was not likely that the boy would

come to shore alive if it did. There were stories, it is true, that the Indians used to shoot the fall in their canoes

with safety; but everybody knew that at least three persons had been lost by going over it since the town was

settled; and more than one dead body had been found floating far down the river, with bruises and fractured

There was no time to lose. Clement ran a little way up the river bank, flung off his shoes, and sprang from

the bank as far as he could leap into the water. The current swept him toward the fall, but he worked nearer

and nearer the middle of the stream. He was making for the rock, thinking he could plant his feet upon it and

at the worst hold the boat until he could summon other help by shouting. He had barely got his feet upon the

rock, when the twigs by which the boy was holding gave way. He seized the boat, but it dragged him from his

uncertain footing, and with a desperate effort he clambered over its side and found himself its second doomed

"Sit still," he said, "and, just as we go over, put your arms round me under mine, and don't let go for your

He caught up the single oar, and with a few sharp paddlestrokes brought the skiff into the blackest centre of

They rose, as if with one will, and stood for an instant, the arms of the younger closely embracing the other as

A sliding away from beneath them of the floor on which they stood, as the drop fails under the feet of a felon.

A great rush of air, and a mighty, awful, stunning roar,an involuntary gasp, a choking flood of water that

came bellowing after them, and hammered them down into the black depths so far that the young man,

though used to diving and swimming long distances underwater, had wellnigh yielded to the fearful need of

The boat came up to the surface, broken in twain, splintered, a load of firewood for those who raked the river

lower down. It had turned crosswise, and struck the rocks. A cap rose to the surface, such a one as boys

wear,the same that boy had on. And thenafter how many seconds by the watch cannot be known, but

after a time long enough, as the young man remembered it, to live his whole life over in memoryClement

Lindsay felt the blessed air against his face, and, taking a great breath, came to his full consciousness. The

arms of the boy were still locked around him as in the embrace of death. A few strokes brought him to the

He unclasped the arms that held him so closely encircled, and laid the slender form of the youth he had

almost died to save gently upon the grass. It was as if dead. He loosed the ribbon that was round the neck, he

The story of Myrtle Hazard's sex was told; but she was deaf to his cry of surprise, and no blush came to her

cold cheek. Not too late, perhaps, to save her,not too late to try to save her, at least!

He placed his lips to hers, and filled her breast with the air from his own panting chest. Again and again he

renewed these efforts, hoping, doubting, despairing,once more hoping, and at last, when he had almost

ceased to hope, she gasped, she breathed, she moaned, and rolled her eyes wildly round her, she was born

He caught her up in his arms, bore her to the house, laid her on a sofa, and, having spent his strength in this

last effort, reeled and fell, and lay as one over whom have just been whispered the words,

The first thing Clement Lindsay did, when he was fairly himself again, was to finish his letter to Susan Posey.

He took it up where it left off, "with an affection which " and drew a long dash, as above. It was with great

effort he wrote the lines which follow, for he had got an ugly blow on the forehead, and his eyes were "in

"An adventure! Just as I was writing these last words, I heard the cry of a young person, as it sounded, for

help. I ran to the river and jumped in, and had the pleasure of saving a life. I got some bruises which have laid

me up for a day or two; but I am getting over them very well now, and you need not worry about me at all. I

will write again soon; so pray do not fret yourself, for I have had no hurt that will trouble me for any time."

Of course, poor Susan Posey burst out crying, and cried as if her heart would break. Oh dear! Oh dear! what

should she do! He was almost killed, she knew he was, or he had broken some of his bones. Oh dear! Oh

dear! She would go and see him, there!she must and would. He would die, she knew he would,and so

It was a singular testimony to the evident presence of a human element in Mr. Bytes Gridley that the poor

girl, on her extreme trouble, should think of him as a counsellor. But the wonderful relenting kind of look on

his grave features as he watched the little twins tumbling about his great books, and certain marks of real

sympathy he had sometimes shown for her in her lesser woes, encouraged her, and she went straight to his

study, letter in hand. She gave a timid knock at the door of that awful sanctuary.

"Come in, Susan Posey," was its answer, in a pleasant tone. The old master knew her light step and the

What a sight! 'there were Sossy and Minthy intrenched in a Sebastopol which must have cost a good

halfhour's engineering, and the terrible Bytes Gridley besieging the fortress with hostile manifestations of

the most singular character. He was actually discharging a large sugarplum at the postern gate, which

having been left unclosed, the missile would certainly have reached one of the garrison, when he paused as

the door opened, and the great round spectacles and four wide, staring infants' eyes were levelled at Miss

She almost forgot her errand, grave as it was, in astonishment at this manifestation. The old man had emptied

his shelves of half their folios to build up the fort, in the midst of which he had seated the two delighted and

uproarious babes. There was his Cave's "Historia Literaria," and Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World,"

and a whole array of Christian Fathers, and Plato, and Aristotle, and Stanley's book of Philosophers, with

Effigies, and the Junta Galen, and the Hippocrates of Foesius, and Walton's Polyglot, supported by Father

Sanchez on one side and Fox's "Acts and Monuments" on the other,an odd collection, as folios from lower

The besieger discharged his sugarplum, which was so well aimed that it fell directly into the lap of Minthy,

He saw at once, on looking up, that there was trouble. "What now, Susan Posey, my dear?"

She turned back the name and the bottom of the letter in such a way that Mr. Gridley could read nothing but

"So Mr. Clement Lindsay has been saving a life, has he, and got some hard knocks doing it, hey, Susan

Posey? Well, well, Clement Lindsay is a brave fellow, and there is no need of hiding his name, my child. Let

me take the letter again a moment, Susan Posey. What is the date of it? June 16th. Yes,yes,yes!"

He read the paragraph over again, and the signature too, if he wanted to; for poor Susan had found that her

secret was hardly opaque to those round spectacles and the eyes behind them, and, with a not unbecoming

"No, no, Susan Posey. He will come all right. His writing is steady, and if he had broken any bones he would

have mentioned it. It's a thing his wife will be proud of, if he is ever married, Susan Posey," (blushes,) "and

his children too," (more blushes running up to her back hair,) "and there 's nothing to be worried about. But

I'll tell you what, my dear, I've got a little business that calls me down the river tomorrow, and I shouldn't

mind stopping an hour at Alderbank and seeing how our young friend Clement Lindsay is; and then, if he was

going to have a long time of it, why we could manage it somehow that any friend who had any special

interest in him could visit him, just to while away the tiresomeness of being sick. That's it, exactly. I'll stop at

Alderbank, Susan Posey. Just clear up these two children for me, will you, my dear? Isosceles, come now,

that 's a good child. Helminthia, carry these sugarplums down stairs for me, and take good care of them,

It was a case of gross bribery and corruption, for the fortress was immediately, evacuated on the receipt of a

large paper of red and white comfits, and the garrison marched downstairs much like conquerors, under the

lead of the young lady, who was greatly eased in mind by the kind words and the promise of Mr. Byles

But he, in the mean time, was busy with thoughts she did not suspect. "A young person," he said to

himself,"why a young person? Why not say a boy, if it was a boy? What if this should be our handsome

truant?'June 16th, Thursday morning!'About time to get to Alderbank by the river, I should think. None

of the boats missing? What then? She may have made a raft, or picked up some stray skiff. Who knows? And

then got shipwrecked, very likely. There are rapids and falls farther along the river. It will do no harm to go

On Saturday morning, therefore, Mr. Byles Gridley set forth to procure a conveyance to make a visit, as he

said, dawn the river, and perhaps be gone a day or two. He went to a stable in the village, and asked if they

The man looked at him with that air of native superiority which the companionship of the generous steed

"Wal, I hain't got nothin' in the shape of a h'oss, Mr. Gridley. I've got a mare I s'pose I could let y' have."

"Oh, very well," said the old master, with a twinkle in his eye as sly as the other's wink,he had parried a

That was a new view of the subject. It rather took the wind out of the stablekeeper, and set a most

ammoniacal fellow, who stood playing with a currycomb, grinning at his expense. But he rallied presently.

"Wal, I b'lieve they do for some mares, when they let 'em to some folks; but this here ain't one o' them mares,

and you ain't one o' them folks. All my cattle's out but this critter, 'n' I don't jestly want to have nobody drive

her that ain't pretty car'ful,she's faast, I tell ye,don't want no whip. How fur d' d y' want t' go?"

Mr. Gridley was quite serious now, and let the man know that he wanted the mare and a light covered wagon,

at once, to be gone for one or two days, and would waive the question of sex in the matter of payment.

Alderbank was about twenty miles down the river by the road. On arriving there, he inquired for the house

where a Mr. Lindsay lived. There was only one Lindsay family in town,he must mean Dr. William

Lindsay. His house was up there a little way above the village, lying a few rods back from the river.

He found the house without difficulty, and knocked at the door. A motherlylooking woman opened it

"He is staying here for the present. He is a nephew of ours. He is in his bed from an injury."

"A bruise on his head,not very bad, but the doctor was afraid of erysipelas. Seems to be doing well enough

"There is such a young person here. Do you come with any authority to make inquiries?"

"I do. A young friend of mine is missing, arid I thought it possible I might learn something here about it. Can

The matron came nearer to Byles Gridley, and said: "This person is a young woman disguised as a boy. She

was rescued by my nephew at the risk of his life, and she has been delirious ever since she has recovered her

consciousness. She was almost too far gone to be resuscitated, but Clement put his mouth to hers and kept her

"Not now. No; she is quiet enough, but wandering,wants to know where she is, and whose the strange

faces are,mine and my husband's,that 's Dr. Lindsay,and one of my daughters, who has watched with

"If that is so, I think I had better see her. If she is the person I suspect her to be, she will know me; and a

familiar face may bring back her recollections and put a stop to her wanderings. If she does not know me, I

will not stay talking with her. I think she will, if she is the one I am seeking after. There is no harm in trying."

Mrs. Lindsay took a good long look at the old man. There was no mistaking his grave, honest, sturdy,

wrinkled, scholarly face. His voice was assured and sincere in its tones. His decent black coat was just what a

scholar's should be,old, not untidy, a little shiny at the elbows with much leaning on his studytable, but

neatly bound at the cuffs, where worthy Mrs. Hopkins had detected signs of fatigue and come to the rescue.

His very hat looked honest as it lay on the table. It had moulded itself to a broad, noble head, that held

nothing but what was true and fair, with a few harmless crotchets just to fill in with, and it seemed to know it.

The good woman gave him her confidence at once. "Is the person you are seeking a niece or other relative of

(Why did not she ask if the girl was his daughter? What is that look of paternity and of maternity which

observing and experienced mothers and old nurses know so well in men and in women?)

She returned presently. "Follow me softly, if you please. She is asleep,so beautiful,so innocent!"

Byles Gridley, Master of Arts, retired professor, more than sixty years old, childless, loveless, stranded in a

lonely study strewed with wrecks of the world's thought, his work in life finished, his one literary venture

gone down with all it held, with nobody to care for him but accidental acquaintances, moved gently to the

side of the bed and looked upon the pallid, still features of Myrtle Hazard. He strove hard against a strange

feeling that was taking hold of him, that was making his face act rebelliously, and troubling his eyes with

sudden films. He made a brief stand against this invasion. "A weakness,a weakness!" he said to himself.

"What does all this mean? Never such a thing for these twenty years! Poor child! poor child! Excuse me,

madam," he said, after a little interval, but for what offence he did not mention. A great deal might be

forgiven, even to a man as old as Byles Gridley, looking upon such a face,so lovely, yet so marked with

the traces of recent suffering, and even now showing by its changes that she was struggling in some fearful

dream. Her forehead contracted, she started with a slight convulsive movement, and then her lips parted, and

the cry escaped from them, how heartbreaking when there is none to answer it,"Mother!"

Gone back again through all the weary, chilling years of her girlhood to that hardly remembered morning of

her life when the cry she uttered was answered by the light of loving eyes, the kiss of clinging lips, the

"It is better to wake her," Mrs. Lindsay said; "she is having a troubled dream. Wake up, my child, here is a

She laid her hand very gently on Myrtle's forehead. Myrtle opened her eyes, but they were vacant as yet.

"Are we dead?" she said. "Where am I? This is n't heaventhere are no angelsOh, no, no, no! don't send

me to the other placefifteen years,only fifteen years oldno father, no mothernobody loved me.

Was it wicked in me to live? "Her whole theological training was condensed in that last brief question.

The, old man took her hand and looked her in the face, with a wonderful tenderness in his squared features.

"Wicked to live, my dear? No indeed! Here! look at me, my child; don't you know your old friend Byles

She was awake now. The sight of a familiar countenance brought back a natural train of thought. But her

"Where is the boat I was in?" she said. "I have just been in the water, and I was dreaming that I was drowned.

"No, my dear, but you are out of it, and safe and sound: that is the main point. How do you feel now you are

She yawned, and stretched her arms and looked round, but did not answer at first. This was all natural, and a

sign that she was coming right. She looked down at her dress. It was not inappropriate to her sex, being a

"I feel pretty well," she answered, "but a little confused. My boat will be gone, if you don't run and stop it

Master Byles Gridley found himself suddenly possessed by a large and luminous idea of the state of things,

and made up his mind in a moment as to what he must do. There was no time to be lost. Every day, every

hour, of Myrtle's absence was not only a source of anxiety and a cause of useless searching but it gave room

for inventive fancies to imagine evil. It was better to run some risk of injury to health, than to have her

"No, we thought it best to wait until she could tell her own story, expecting her return to consciousness every

hour, and thinking there might be some reason for her disguise which it would be kinder to keep quiet about."

"Not a word. It was a great question whether to tell the story and make inquiries; but she was safe, and could

hardly bear disturbance, and, my dear sir, it seemed too probable that there was some sad story behind this

escape in disguise, and that the poor child might need shelter and retirement. We meant to do as well as we

"No, sir, and perhaps it is as well that I should not know. Then I shall not have to answer any questions about

"Very good, madam,just as it should be. And your family, are they as discreet as yourself?"

"Not one word of the whole story has been or will be told by any one of us. That was agreed upon among us."

Now then, madam. My name, as you heard me say, is Byles Gridley. Your husband will know it, perhaps; at

any rate I will wait until he comes back. This child is of good family and of good name. I know her well, and

mean, with your kind help, to save her from the consequences which her foolish adventure might have

brought upon her. Before the bells ring for meeting tomorrow morning this girl must be in her bed at her

home, at Oxbow Village, and we must keep her story to ourselves as far as may be. It will all blow over, if we

do. The gossips will only know that she was upset in the river and cared for by some good people,good

people and sensible people too, Mrs. Lindsay. And now I want to see the young man that rescued my friend

Clement was not a beauty for the moment, but Master Gridley saw well enough that he was a young man of

the right kind. He knew them at sight, fellows with lime enough in their bones and iron enough in their blood

to begin with,shapely, largenerved, firmfibred and finefibred, with wellspread bases to their heads for

the ground floor of the faculties, and wellvaulted arches for the upper range of apprehensions and

combinations. "Plenty of basements," he used to say, "without attics and skylights. Plenty of skylights

without rooms enough and space enough below." But here was "a threestory brain," he said to himself as he

looked at it, and this was the youth who was to find his complement in our pretty little Susan Posey! His

judgment may seem to have been hasty, but he took the measure of young men of twenty at sight from long

and sagacious observation, as Nurse Byloe knew the "heft" of a baby the moment she fixed her old eyes on it.

Clement was well acquainted with Byles Gridley, though he had never seen him, for Susan's letters had had a

good deal to say about him of late. It was agreed between them that the story should be kept as quiet as

possible, and that the young girl should not know the name of her deliverer,it might save awkward

complications. It was not likely that she would be disposed to talk of her adventure, which had ended so

The effect of the violent shock she had experienced was to change the whole nature of Myrtle for the time.

Her mind was unsettled: she could hardly recall anything except the plunge over the fall. She was perfectly

docile and plastic,was ready to go anywhere Mr. Gridley wanted her to go, without any sign of reluctance.

And so it was agreed that he should carry her back in his covered wagon that very night. All possible

arrangements were made to render her journey comfortable. The fast mare had to trot very gently, and the old

master would stop and adjust the pillows from time to time, and administer the restoratives which the

physician had got ready, all as naturally and easily as if he had been bred a nurse, vastly to his own surprise,

and with not a little gain to his selfappreciation. He was a serviceable kind of body on occasion, after all,

At half past four o'clock on Sunday morning the shepherd brought the stray lamb into the paved yard at The

It was the Irishwoman, Kitty Fagan, huddled together in such amorphous guise, that she looked as if she had

been fitted in a tempest of petticoats and a whirlwind of old shawls, who presented herself at the door.

But there was a very warm heart somewhere in that queerlooking bundle of clothes, and it was not one of

those that can throb or break in silence. When she saw the long covered wagon, and the grave face of the old

master, she thought it was all over with the poor girl she loved, and that this was the undertaker's wagon

bringing back only what had once been Myrtle Hazard. She screamed aloud,so wildly that Myrtle lifted her

The Irishwoman looked at her for a moment to assure herself that it was the girl she loved, and not her ghost.

Then it all came over her,she had been stolen by thieves, who had carried her off by night, and been

rescued by the brave old man who had brought her back. What crying and kisses and prayers and blessings

were poured forth, in a confusion of which her bodily costume was a fitting type, those who know the

vocabulary and the enthusiasm of her eloquent race may imagine better than we could describe it.

The welcome of the two other women was far less demonstrative. There were awful questions to be answered

before the kind of reception she was to have could be settled. What they were, it is needless to suggest; but

while Miss Silence was weeping, first with joy that her "responsibility" was removed, then with a fair share

of pity and kindness, and other lukewarm emotions,while Miss Badlam waited for an explanation before

giving way to her feelings,Mr. Gridley put the essential facts before them in a few words. She had gone

down the river some miles in her boat, which was upset by a rush of the current, and she had come very near

being drowned. She was got out, however, by a person living near by, and cared for by some kind women in a

house near the river, where he had been fortunate enough to discover her. Who cut her hair off? Perhaps

those good people, she had been out of her head. She was alive and unharmed, at any rate, wanting only a

few days' rest. They might be very thankful to get her back, and leave her to tell the rest of her story when she

had got her strength and memory, for she was not quite herself yet, and might not be for some days.

And so there she was at last laid in her own bed, listening again to the ripple of the waters beneath her, Miss

Silence sitting on one side looking as sympathetic as her insufficient nature allowed her to look; the

Irishwoman uncertain between delight at Myrtle's return and sorrow for her condition; and Miss Cynthia

Badlaxn occupying herself about housematters, not unwilling to avoid the necessity of displaying her

Before he left the house, Mr. Gridley repeated the statement is the most precise manner,some miles down

the riverupset and nearly drownedrescued almost deadbrought to and cared for by kind women in the

house where he, Byles Gridley, found her. These were the facts, and nothing more than this was to be told at

present. They had better be made known at once, and the shortest and best way would be to have it

announced by the minister at meeting that forenoon. With their permission, he would himself write the note

for Mr. Stoker to read, and tell the other ministers that they might announce it to their people.

The bells rang for meeting, but the little household at The Poplars did not add to the congregation that day. In

the mean time Kitty Fagan had gone down with Mr. Byles Gridley's note, to carry it to the Rev. Mr. Stoker.

But, on her way, she stopped at the house of one Mrs. Finnegan, a particular friend of hers; and the great

event of the morning furnishing matter for large discourse, and various social allurements adding to the

fascination of having a story to tell, Kitty Fagan forgot her note until meeting had begun and the minister had

read the text of his sermon. "Bless my soul! and sure I 've forgot ahl about the letter!" she cried all at once,

and away she tramped for the meetinghouse. The sexton took the note, which was folded, and said he would

hand it up to the pulpit after the sermon, it would not do to interrupt the preacher.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker had, as was said, a somewhat remarkable gift in prayer,an endowment by no means

confined to profoundly spiritual persons,in fact, not rarely owing much of its force to a strong animal

nature underlying the higher attributes. The sweet singer of Israel would never have written such petitions

and such hymns if his manhood had been less complete; the flavor of remembered frailties could not help

giving a character to his most devout exercises, or they would not have come quite home to our common

humanity. But there is no gift more dangerous to the humility and sincerity of a minister. While his spirit

ought to be on its knees before the throne of grace, it is too apt to be on tiptoe, following with admiring look

the flight of its own rhetoric. The essentially intellectual character of an extemporaneous composition spoken

to the Creator with the consciousness that many of his creatures are listening to criticise or to admire, is the

The congregation on this particular Sunday was made up chiefly of women and old men. The young men

were hunting after Myrtle Hazard. Mr. Byles Gridley was in his place, wondering why the minister did not

read his notice before the prayer. This prayer, was never reported, as is the questionable custom with regard

to some of these performances, but it was wrought up with a good deal of rasping force and broad pathos.

When he came to pray for "our youthful sister, missing from her pious home, perhaps nevermore to return to

her afflicted relatives," and the women and old men began crying, Byles Gridley was on the very point of

getting up and cutting short the whole matter by stating the simple fact that she had got back, all right, and

suggesting that he had better pray for some of the older and tougher sinners before him. But on the whole it

would be more decorous to wait, and perhaps he was willing to hear what the object of his favorite antipathy

had to say about it. So he waited through the prayer. He waited through the hymn, "Life is the time"He

The minister gave out his text from the Book of Esther, second chapter, seventh verse: "For she had neither

father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful." It was to be expected that the reverend gentleman,

who loved to produce a sensation, would avail himself of the excitable state of his audience to sweep the

keyboard of their emotions, while, as we may, say, all the stops were drawn out. His sermon was from

notes; for, though absolutely extemporaneous composition may be acceptable to one's Maker, it is not

considered quite the thing in speaking to one's fellowmortals. He discoursed for a time on the loss of

parents, and on the dangers to which the unfortunate orphan is exposed. Then he spoke of the peculiar risks of

the tender female child, left without its natural guardians. Warming with his subject, he dilated with

wonderful unction on the temptations springing from personal attractions. He pictured the "fair and beautiful"

women of Holy Writ, lingering over their names with loverlike devotion. He brought Esther before his

audience, bathed and perfumed for the royal presence of Ahasuerus. He showed them the sweet young Ruth,

lying down in her innocence at the feet of the lord of the manor. He dwelt with special luxury on the charms

which seduced the royal psalmist,the soldier's wife for whom he broke the commands of the decalogue,

and the maiden for whose attentions, in his cooler years, he violated the dictates of prudence and propriety.

All this time Byles Gridley had his stern eyes on him. And while he kindled into passionate eloquence on

these inspiring themes, poor Bathsheba, whom her mother had sent to church that she might get a little respite

from her home duties, felt her blood growing cold in her veins, as the pallid image of the invalid wife, lying

on her bed of suffering, rose in the midst of the glowing pictures which borrowed such warmth from her

The sermon, with its hinted application to the event of the past week, was over at last. The shoulders of the

nervous women were twitching with sobs. The old men were crying in their vacant way. But all the while the

face of Byles Gridley, firm as a rock in the midst of this lachrymal inundation, was kept steadily on the

preacher, who had often felt the look that came through the two round glasses searching into the very marrow

As the sermon was finished, the sexton marched up through the broad aisle and handed the note over the door

of the pulpit to the clergyman, who was wiping his face after the exertion of delivering his discourse. Mr.

Stoker looked at it, started, changed color,his vision of "The Dangers of Beauty, a Sermon printed by

Request," had vanished,and passed the note to Father Pemberton, who sat by him in the pulpit. With much

pains he deciphered its contents, for his eyes were dim with years, and, having read it, bowed his head upon

his hands in silent thanksgiving. Then he rose in the beauty of his tranquil and noble old age, so touched with

the message he had to proclaim to his people, that the three deep furrows on his forehead, which some said he

owed to the three dogmas of original sin, predestination, and endless torment, seemed smoothed for the

"Sisters and Brethren,Rejoice with us, for we have found our lamb which had strayed from the fold. This

our daughter was dead and is alive again; she was lost and is found. Myrtle Hazard, rescued from great peril

of the waters, and cared for by good Samaritans, is now in her home. Thou, O Lord, who didst let the

waterflood overflow her, didst not let the deep swallow her up, nor the pit shut its mouth upon her. Let us

return our thanks to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, who is our God and Father, and

After his prayer, which it tried him sorely to utter in unbroken tones, he gave out the hymn,

but it was hardly begun when the leading female voice trembled and stopped,and another,and then a

third,and Father Pemberton, seeing that they were all overcome, arose and stretched out his arms, and

The village was soon alive with the news. The sexton forgot the solemnity of the Sabbath, and the bell acted

as if it was crazy, tumbling heels over head at such a rate, and with such a clamor, that a good many thought

there was a fire, and, rushing out from every quarter, instantly caught the great news with which the air was

A few of the young men who had come back went even further in their demonstrations. They got a small

cannon in readiness, and without waiting for the going down of the sun, began firing rapidly, upon which the

Rev. Mr. Stoker sallied forth to put a stop to this violation of the Sabbath. But in the mean time it was heard

on all the hills, far and near. Some said they were firing in the hope of raising the corpse; but many who

heard the bells ringing their crazy peals guessed what had happened. Before night the parties were all in, one

detachment bearing the body of the bobtailed catamount swung over a pole, like the mighty cluster of

grapes from Eshcol, and another conveying with wise precaution that monstrous snappingturtle which those

of our friends who wish to see will find among the specimens marked Chelydra, Serpentine in the great

It was necessary at once to summon a physician to advise as to the treatment of Myrtle, who had received a

shock, bodily and mental, not lightly to be got rid of, and very probably to be followed by serious and varied

disturbances. Her very tranquillity was suspicious, for there must be something of exhaustion in it, and the

Old Dr. Lemuel Hurlbut, at the age of ninetytwo, very deaf, very nearly blind, very feeble, liable to odd

lapses of memory, was yet a wise counsellor in doubtful and difficult cases, and on rare occasions was still

called upon to exercise his ancient skill. Here was a case in which a few words from him might soothe the

patient and give confidence to all who were interested in her. Miss Silence Withers went herself to see him.

"Miss Withers, father, wants to talk with you about her niece, Miss Hazard," said Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut.

"Miss Withers, Miss Withers?Oh, Silence Withers,lives up at The Poplars. How's the Deacon, Miss

"Dead, is he? Well, it isn't long since he was with us; and they come and go,they come and go. I remember

his father, Major Gideon Withers. He had a great red feather on trainingdays,that was what made me

"Myrtle Hazard, father,she has had a narrow escape from drowning, and it has left her in a rather nervous

state. They would like to have you go up to The Poplars and take a look at her. You remember Myrtle

He had to wait a minute before his thoughts would come to order; with a little time, the proper answer would

After the silent moment: "Myrtle Hazard, Myrtle Hazard,yes, yes, to be sure! The old Withers

stock,good constitutions,a little apt to be nervous, one or two of 'em. I've given 'em a good deal of

valerian and assafoetida,not quite so much since the new blood came in. There is n't the change in folks

people think,same thing over and over again. I've seen six fingers on a child that had a six fingered

greatuncle, and I've seen that child's grandchild born with six fingers. Does this girl like to have her own

"A little too well, I suspect, father. You will remember all about her when you come to see her and talk with

her. She would like to talk with you, and her aunt wants to see you too; they think there's nobody like the 'old

He was not too old to be pleased with this preference, and said he was willing to go when they were ready.

With no small labor of preparation he was at last got to the house, and crept with his son's aid up to the little

There was a little too much color in Myrtle's cheeks and a glistening lustre in her eyes that told of unnatural

excitement. It gave a strange brilliancy to her beauty, and might have deceived an unpractised observer. The

old man looked at her long and curiously, his imperfect sight excusing the closeness of his scrutiny.

He laid his trembling hand upon her forehead, and then felt her pulse with his shriveled fingers. He asked her

various questions about herself, which she answered with a tone not quite so calm as natural, but willingly

and intelligently. They thought she seemed to the old Doctor to be doing very well, for he spoke cheerfully to

her, and treated her in such a way that neither she nor any of those around her could be alarmed. The younger

physician was disposed to think she was only suffering from temporary excitement, and that it would soon

"It does not amount to much, I suppose, father," said Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut. "You made the pulse about

ninety,a little hard,did n't you; as I did? Rest, and low diet for a day or two, and all will be right, won't

Was it the feeling of sympathy, or was it the pride of superior sagacity, that changed the look of the old man's

wrinkled features? "Not so fast,not so fast, Fordyce," he said. "I've seen that look on another face of the

same blood,it 's a great many years ago, and she was dead before you were born, my boy,but I've seen

that look, and it meant trouble then, and I'm afraid it means trouble now. I see some danger of a brain fever.

And if she doesn't have that, then look out for some hysteric fits that will make mischief. Take that

handkerchief off of her head, and cut her hair close, and keep her temples cool, and put some drawing

plasters to the soles of her feet, and give her some of my pilulae compositae, and follow them with some

doses of sal polychrest. I've been through it all beforein that same house. Live folks are only dead folks

warmed over. I can see 'em all in that girl's face, Handsome Judith, to begin with. And that queer woman, the

Deacon's mother,there 's where she gets that hystericky look. Yes, and the blackeyed woman with the

Indian blood in her,look out for that,look out for that. Andandmy son, do you remember Major

"Why no, father, I can't say that I remember the Major; but I know the picture very well. Does she remind

He paused again, until the thoughts came slowly straggling, up to the point where the question left him. He

Four generationsfour generations; man and wife,yes, five generations, for old Selah Withers took me in

his arms when I was a child, and called me 'little gal,' for I was in girl's clothes,five generations before this

Hazard child I 've looked on with these old eyes. And it seems to me that I can see something of almost every

one of 'em in this child's face, it's the forehead of this one, and it's the eyes of that one, and it's that other's

mouth, and the look that I remember in another, and when she speaks, why, I've heard that same voice

beforeyes, yes as long ago as when I was first married; for I remember Rachel used to think I praised

Handsome Judith's voice more than it deserved,and her face too, for that matter. You remember Rachel,

"No, father, I don't remember her, but I know her portrait." (As he was the son of the old Doctor's second

The old Doctor's sagacity was not in fault about the somewhat threatening aspect of Myrtle's condition. His

directions were followed implicitly; for with the exception of the fact of sluggishness rather than loss of

memory, and of that confusion of dates which in slighter degrees is often felt as early as middle life, and

increases in most persons from year to year, his mind was still penetrating, and his advice almost as

It was very fortunate that the old Doctor ordered Myrtle's hair to be cut, and Miss Silence took the scissors

and trimmed it at once. So, whenever she got well and was seen about, there would be no mystery about the

loss of her locks,the Doctor had been afraid of brain fever, and ordered them to cut her hair.

Many things are uncertain in this world, and among them the effect of a large proportion of the remedies

prescribed by physicians. Whether it was by the use of the means ordered by the old Doctor, or by the efforts

of nature, or by both together, at any rate the first danger was averted, and the immediate risk from brain

fever soon passed over. But the impression upon her mind and body had been too profound to be dissipated

by a few days' rest. The hysteric stage which the wise old man had apprehended began to manifest itself by

its usual signs, if anything can be called usual in a condition the natural order of which is disorder and

And now the reader, if such there be, who believes in the absolute independence and selfdetermination of

the will, and the consequent total responsibility of every human being for every irregular nervous action and

illgoverned muscular contraction, may as well lay down this narrative, or he may lose all faith in poor

The mental excitement so long sustained, followed by a violent shock to the system, coming just at the period

of rapid development, gave rise to that morbid condition, accompanied with a series of mental and moral

perversions, which in ignorant ages and communities is attributed to the influence of evil spirits, but for the

better instructed is the malady which they call hysteria. Few households have ripened a growth of

womanhood without witnessing some of its manifestations, and its phenomena are largely traded in by

scientific pretenders and religious fanatics. Into this cloud, with all its risks and all its humiliations, Myrtle

Hazard is about to enter. Will she pass through it unharmed, or wander from her path, and fall over one of

After the ancient physician had settled the general plan of treatment, its details and practical application were

left to the care of his son. Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut was a widower, not yet forty years old, a man of a fine

masculine aspect and a vigorous nature. He was a favorite with his female patients,perhaps many of them

would have said because he was goodlooking and pleasant in his manners, but some thought in virtue of a

special magnetic power to which certain temperaments were impressible, though there was no explaining it.

But he himself never claimed any such personal gift, and never attempted any of the exploits which some

thought were in his power if he chose to exercise his faculty in that direction. This girl was, as it were, a child

to him, for he had seen her grow up from infancy, and had often held her on his knee in her early years. The

first thing he did was to get her a nurse, for he saw that neither of the two women about her exercised a

quieting influence upon her nerves. So he got her old friend, Nurse Byloe, to come and take care of her.

The old nurse looked calm enough at one or two of his first visits, but the next morning her face showed that

something had been going wrong. "Well, what has been the trouble, Nurse?" the Doctor said, as soon as he

"She's been attackted, Doctor, sence you been here, dreadful. It's them high stirricks, Doctor, 'n' I never see

'em higher, nor more of 'em. Laughin' as ef she would bust. Cryin' as ef she'd lost all her friends, 'n' was a

follerin' their corpse to their graves. And spassums,sech spassums! And ketchin' at her throat, 'n' sayin'

there was a great ball a risin' into it from her stommick. One time she had a kind o' lockjaw like. And one

time she stretched herself out 'n' laid jest as stiff as ef she was dead. And she says now that her head feels as

ef a nail had been driv' into it,into the left temple, she says, and that's what makes her look so distressed

The Doctor came once more to her bedside. He saw that her forehead was contracted, and that she was

She moved her hand very slowly, and pressed it on her left temple. He laid his hand upon the same spot, kept

it there a moment, and then removed it. She took it gently with her own, and placed it on her temple again. As

he sat watching her, he saw that her features were growing easier, and in a short time her deep, even

"It beats all," the old nurse said. "Why, she's been a complainin' ever sence daylight, and she hain't slep' not a

wink afore, sence twelve o'clock las' night! It's j es' like them magnetizers,I never heerd you was one o'

"I can't say how it is, Nurse,I have heard people say my hand was magnetic, but I never thought of its

"Not a wink, 'n' actin' as ef she was possessed a good deal o' the time. You read your Bible, Doctor, don't

you? You're pious? Do you remember about that woman in Scriptur' out of whom the Lord cast seven devils?

Well, I should ha' thought there was seventy devils in that gal last night, from the way she carr'd on. And now

she lays there jest as peaceful as a newborn babe,that is, accordin' to the sayin' about 'em; for as to

peaceful newborn babes, I never see one that come t' anything, that did n't screech as ef the haouse was afire

The Doctor smiled, but he became thoughtful in a moment. Did he possess a hitherto unexercised personal

power, which put the key of this young girl's nervous system into his hands? The remarkable tranquillizing

effect of the contact of his hand with her forehead looked like an immediate physical action.

It might have been a mere coincidence, however. He would not form an opinion until his next visit.

At that next visit it did seem as if some of Nurse Byloe's seventy devils had possession of the girl. All the

strange spasmodic movements, the chokings, the odd sounds, the wild talk, the laughing and crying, were in

full blast. All the remedies which had been ordered seemed to have been of no avail. The Doctor could hardly

refuse trying his quasi magnetic influence, and placed the tips of his fingers on her forehead. The result was

the same that had followed the similar proceeding the day before,the storm was soon calmed, and after a

Here was an awkward affair for the physician, to be sure! He held this power in his hands, which no remedy

and no other person seemed to possess. How long would he be chained to her; and she to him, and what

would be the consequence of the mysterious relation which must necessarily spring up between a man like

him, in the plenitude of vital force, of strongly attractive personality, and a young girl organized for victory

Every day after this made matters worse. There was something almost partaking of the miraculous in the

influence he was acquiring over her. His "Peace, be still!" was obeyed by the stormy elements of this young

soul, as if it had been a supernatural command. How could he resist the dictate of humanity which called him

to make his visits more frequent, that her intervals of rest might be more numerous? How could he refuse to

sit at her bedside for a while in the evening, that she might be quieted, instead of beginning the night

The Doctor was a man of refined feeling as well as of principle, and he had besides a sacred memory in the

deepest heart of his affections. It was the common belief in the village that he would never marry again, but

that his first and only love was buried in the grave of the wife of his youth. It did not easily occur to him to

suspect himself of any weakness with regard to this patient of his, little more than a child in years. It did not

at once suggest itself to him that she, in her strange, excited condition, might fasten her wandering thoughts

upon him, too far removed by his age, as it seemed, to strike the fancy of a young girl under almost any

Thus it was that many of those beautiful summer evenings found him sitting by his patient, the river rippling

and singing beneath them, the moon shining over them, sweet odors from the thickets on the banks of the

stream stealing in on the soft air that came through the open window, and every time they were thus together,

the subtile influence which bound them to each other bringing them more and more into inexplicable

But all this did not hinder the development of new and strange conditions in Myrtle Hazard. Her will was

losing its power. "I cannot help it"the hysteric mottowas her constant reply. It is not pleasant to confess

the truth, but she was rapidly undergoing a singular change of her moral nature. She had been a truthful child.

If she had kept her secret about what she had found in the garret, she thought she was exercising her rights,

But now she seemed to have lost the healthy instincts for veracity and honesty. She feigned all sorts of odd

symptoms, and showed a wonderful degree of cunning in giving an appearance of truth to them. It became

next to impossible to tell what was real and what was simulated. At one time she could not be touched ever so

lightly without shrinking and crying out. At another time she would squint, and again she would be half

paralyzed for a time. She would pretend to fast for days, living on food she had concealed and took secretly

The nurse was getting worn out. Kitty Fagan would have had the priest come to the house and sprinkle it with

holy water. The two women were beginning to get nervous themselves. The Rev. Mr. Stoker said in

confidence to Miss Silence, that there was reason to fear she might have been given over for a time to the

buffetings of Satan, and that perhaps his (Mr. Stoker's) personal attentions might be useful in that case. And

so it appeared that the "young doctor" was the only being left with whom she had any complete relations and

absolute sympathy. She had become so passive in his hands that it seemed as if her only healthy life was, as it

were, transmitted through him, and that she depended on the transfer of his nervous power, as the plant upon

The two young men who had met in so unexpected a manner on board the ship Swordfish had been

reasonably discreet in relating their adventures. Myrtle Hazard may or may not have had the plan they

attributed to her; however that was, they had looked rather foolish when they met, and had not thought it

worth while to be very communicative about the matter when they returned. It had at least given them a

chance to become a little better acquainted with each other, and it was an opportunity which the elder and

Of all Myrtle's few friends only one was in the habit of seeing her often during this period, namely, Olive

Eveleth, a girl so quiet and sensible that she, if anybody, could be trusted with her. But Myrtle's whole

character seemed to have changed, and Olive soon found that she was in some mystic way absorbed into

another nature. Except when the physician's will was exerted upon her, she was drifting without any

selfdirecting power, and then any one of those manifold impulses which would in some former ages have

been counted as separate manifestations on the part of distinct demoniacal beings might take possession of

her. Olive did little, therefore, but visit Myrtle from time to time to learn if any change had occurred in her

condition. All this she reported to Cyprian, and all this was got out of him by Mr. William Murray Bradshaw.

That gentleman was far from being pleased with the look of things as they were represented. What if the

Doctor, who was after all in the prime of life and youngerlooking than some who were born half a dozen

years after him, should get a hold on this young woman,girl now, if you will, but in a very few years

certain to come within possible, nay, not very improbable, matrimonial range of him? That would be

pleasant, wouldn't it? It had happened sometimes, as he knew, that these magnetizing tricks had led to

infatuation on the part of the subjects of the wonderful influence. So he concluded to be ill and consult the

The next question was, what to be ill with. Some not ungentlemanly malady, not hereditary, not incurable,

not requiring any obvious change in habits of life. Dyspepsia would answer the purpose well enough: so Mr.

Murray Bradshaw picked up a medical book and read ten minutes or more for that complaint. At the end of

this time he was an accomplished dyspeptic; for lawyers half learn a thing quicker than the members of any

He presented himself with a somewhat forlorn countenance to Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut, as suffering from some

of the less formidable symptoms of that affection. He got into a very interesting conversation with him,

especially about some nervous feelings which had accompanied his attack of indigestion. Thence to nervous

complaints in general. Thence to the case of the young lady at The Poplars whom he was attending. The

Doctor talked with a certain reserve, as became his professional relations with his patient; but it was plain

enough that, if this kind of intercourse went on much longer, it would be liable to end in some emotional

Murray Bradshaw was afraid to meddle directly. He knew something more about the history of Myrtle's

adventure than any of his neighbors, and, among other things, that it had given Mr. Byles Gridley a peculiar

interest in her, of which he could take advantage. He therefore artfully hinted his fears to the old man, and left

However suspicious Master Gridley was of him and his motives, he thought it worth while to call up at The

Poplars and inquire for himself of the nurse what was this new relation growing up between the physician and

She imparted her opinion to him in a private conversation with great freedom. "Sech doin's! sech doin's! The

gal's jest as much bewitched as ever any gal was sence them that was possessed in Scriptur'. And every day it

's wus and wus. Ef that Doctor don't stop comin', she won't breathe without his helpin' her to before long.

And, Mr. Gridley, I don't like to say so,but I can't help thinkin' he's gettin' a little bewitched too. I don't

believe he means to take no kind of advantage of her; but, Mr. Gridley, you've seen them millers fly round

and round a candle, and you know how it ginerally comes out. Men is men and gals is gals. I would n't trust

"Mulieri ne mortuae quidem credendum est," said Mr. Gridley. "You wouldn't trust a woman even if she was

"Not till she was buried, 'n' the grass growin' a foot high over her," said Nurse Byloe, "unless I'd know'd her

sence she was a baby. I've know'd this one sence she was two or three year old; but this gal ain't Myrtle

Hazard no longer,she's bewitched into somethin' different. I'll tell ye what, Mr. Gridley; you get old Dr.

Hurlbut to come and see her once a day for a week, and get the young doctor to stay away. I'll resk it. She 'll

have some dreadful tantrums at fust, but she'll come to it in two or three, days."

Master Byles Gridley groaned in spirit. He had come to this village to end his days in peace, and here he was

just going to make a martyr of himself for the sake of a young person to whom he was under no obligation,

except that he had saved her from the consequences of her own foolish act, at the expense of a great overturn

of all his domestic habits. There was no help for it. The nurse was right, and he must perform the disagreeable

duty of letting the Doctor know that he was getting into a track which might very probably lead to mischief,

"Mr. Byles Gridley would be much obliged to Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut if he would call at his study this evening."

"Odd, is n't it, father, the old man's asking me to come and see him? Those old stubtwist constitutions never

"Old man! old man! Who's that you call old,not Byles Gridley, hey? Old! old! Sixty year, more or less!

How old was Floyer when he died, Fordyce? Ninetyodd, was n't it? Had the asthma though, or he'd have

lived to be as old as Dr. Holyoke,a hundred year and over. That's old. But men live to be a good deal more

"I'm sure I can't tell, father; I'll go and find out." So he went over to Mrs. Hopkins's in the evening, and was

Master Gridley treated the Doctor to a cup of such tea as bachelors sometimes keep hid away in mysterious

caddies. He presently began asking certain questions about the grand climacteric, which eventful period of

life he was fast approaching. Then he discoursed of medicine, ancient and modern, tasking the Doctor's

knowledge not a little, and evincing a good deal of acquaintance with old doctrines and authors.

He had a few curious old medical books in his library, which he said he should like to show Dr. Hurlbut.

There, now! What do you say to this copy of Joannes de Ketam, Venice, 1522? Look at these woodcuts,the

first anatomical pictures ever printed, Doctor, unless these others of Jacobus Berengarius are older! See this

scene of the plaguepatient, the doctor smelling at his pouncetbox, the old nurse standing square at the

bedside, the young nurse with the bowl, holding back and turning her head away, and the old burialhag

behind her, shoving her forward, a very curious book, Doctor, and has the first phrenological picture in it ever

made. Take a look, too, at my Vesalius,not the Leyden edition, Doctor, but the one with the grand old

original figures,so good that they laid them to Titian. And look here, Doctor, I could n't help getting this

great folio Albinus, 1747,and the nineteenth century can't touch it, Doctor,can't touch it for

completeness and magnificence, so all the learned professors tell me! Brave old fellows, Doctor, and put their

lives into their books as you gentlemen don't pretend to do nowadays. And good old fellows,

Doctor,highminded, scrupulous, conscientious, punctilious, remembered their duties to man and to

woman, and felt all the responsibilities of their confidential relation to families. Did you ever read the oldest

"It 's worth reading, Doctor,it's worth remembering; and, old as it is, it is just as good today as it was

when it was laid down as a rule of conduct four hundred years before the Sermon on the Mount was

There was something in Master Gridley's look that made the Doctor feel a little nervous; he did not know just

Master Gridley took out his great Hippocrates, the edition of Foesius, and opened to the place. He turned so

as to face the Doctor, and read the famous Oath aloud, Englishing it as he went along. When he came to these

"I will abstain from inflicting any voluntary injury, and from leading away any, whether man or woman, bond

The Doctor changed color as he listened, and the moisture broke out on his forehead.

Master Gridley saw it, and followed up his advantage. "Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut, are you not in danger of

violating the sanctities of your honorable calling, and leading astray a young person committed to your sacred

While saying these words, Master Gridley looked full upon him, with a face so charged with grave meaning,

so impressed with the gravity of his warning accents, that the Doctor felt as if he were before some dread

tribunal, and remained silent. He was a member of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's church, and the words he had just

listened to were those of a sinful old heathen who had never heard a sermon in his life; but they stung him,

He spoke at length, for the plain honest words had touched the right spring of consciousness at the right

moment; not too early, for he now saw whither he was tending,not too late, for he was not yet in the inner

spirals of the passion which whirls men and women to their doom in evernarrowing coils, that will not

He spoke as one who is humbled by selfaccusation, yet in a manly way, as became his honorable and

"Master Gridley," he said, "I stand convicted before you. I know too well what you are thinking of. It is true,

I cannot continue my attendance on Myrtleon Miss Hazard, for you mean herwithout peril to both of us.

She is not herself. God forbid that I should cease to be myself! I have been thinking of a summer tour, and I

will at once set out upon it, and leave this patient in my father's hands. I think he will find strength to visit her

The Doctor went off the next morning without saying a word to Myrtle Hazard, and his father made the

That night the spirit tare her, as may well be supposed, and so the second night. But there was no help for it :

her doctor was gone, and the old physician, with great effort, came instead, sat by her, spoke kindly to her,

left wise directions to her attendants, and above all assured them that, if they would have a little patience,

On the third night after his visit, the spirit rent her sore, and came out of her, or, in the phrase of today, she

had a fierce paroxysm, after which the violence of the conflict ceased, and she might be called convalescent

But all this series of nervous disturbances left her in a very impressible and excitable condition. This was just

the state to invite the spiritual manipulations of one of those theological practitioners who consider that the

treatment of all morbid states of mind short of raving madness belongs to them and not to the doctors. This

same condition was equally favorable for the operations of any professional experimenter who would use the

flame of religious excitement to light the torch of an earthly passion. So many fingers that begin on the black

If Myrtle Hazard was in charge of any angelic guardian, the time was at hand when she would need all

celestial influences; for the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker was about to take a deep interest in her spiritual

"So the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker has called upon you, Susan Posey, has he? And wants you to come and

talk religion with him in his study, Susan Posey, does he? Religion is a good thing, my dear, the best thing in

the world, and never better than when we are young, and no young people need it more than young girls.

There are temptations to all, and to them as often as to any, Susan Posey. And temptations come to them in

places where they don't look for them, and from persons they never thought of as tempters. So I am very glad

to have your thoughts called to the subject of religion. 'Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.'

"But Susan Posey, my dear, I think you hard better not break in upon the pious meditations of the Rev.

Joseph Bellamy Stoker in his private study. A monk's cell and a minister's library are hardly the places for

young ladies. They distract the attention of these good men from their devotions and their sermons. If you

think you must go, you had better take Mrs. Hopkins with you. She likes religious conversation, and it will do

her good too, and save a great deal of time for the minister, conversing with two at once. She is of discreet

age, and will tell you when it is time to come away,you might stay too long, you know. I've known young

persons stay a good deal too long at these interviews,a great deal too long, Susan Posey!"

Susan was not very quick of apprehension, but she could not help seeing the justice of Master Gridley's

remark, that for a young person to go and break in on the hours that a minister requires for his studies,

without being accompanied by a mature friend who would remind her when it was time to go, would be

taking an unfair advantage of his kindness in asking her to call upon him. She promised, therefore, that she

would never go without having Mrs. Hopkins as her companion, and with this assurance her old friend rested

It is altogether likely that he had some deeper reason for his advice than those with which he satisfied the

simple nature of Susan Posey. Of that it will be easier to judge after a glance at the conditions and character

The Rev. Mr. Stoker had, in addition to the personal advantages already alluded to, some other qualities

which might prove attractive to many women. He had, in particular, that art of sliding into easy intimacy with

them which implies some knowledge of the female nature, and, above all, confidence in one's powers. There

was little doubt, the gossips maintained, that many of the younger women of his parish would have been

willing, in certain contingencies, to lift for him that other end of his yoke under which poor Mrs. Stoker was

That lady must have been some years older than her husband,how many we need not inquire too

curiously,but in vitality she had long passed the prime in which he was still flourishing. She had borne him

five children, and cried her eyes hollow over the graves of three of them. Household cares had dragged upon

her; the routine of village life wearied her; the parishioners expected too much of her as the minister's wife;

she had wanted more fresh air and more cheerful companionship; and her thoughts had fed too much on death

and sin,good bitter tonics to increase the appetite for virtue, but not good as food and drink for the spirit.

But there was another grief which lay hidden far beneath these obvious depressing influences. She felt that

she was no longer to her husband what she had been to him, and felt it with something of

selfreproach,which was a wrong to herself, for she had been a true and tender wife. Deeper than all the

rest was still another feeling, which had hardly risen into the region of inwardly articulated thought, but lay

The minister was often consulted by his parishioners upon spiritual matters, and was in the habit of receiving

in his study visitors who came with such intent. Sometimes it was old weakeyed Deacon Rumrill, in great

ironbowed spectacles, with hanging nether lip and tremulous voice, who had got his brain onto a muddle

about the beast with two horns, or the woman that fled into the wilderness, or other points not settled to his

mind in Scott's Commentary. The minister was always very busy at such times, and made short work of his

deacon's doubts. Or it might be that an ancient woman, a mother or a grandmother in Israel, came with her

questions and her perplexities to her pastor; and it was pretty certain that just at that moment he was very

But it would also happen occasionally that one of the tenderer ewe lambs of the flock needed comfort from

the presence of the shepherd. Poor Mrs. Stoker noticed, or thought she noticed, that the good man had more

leisure for the youthful and blooming sister than for the more discreet and venerable matron or spinster. The

sitting was apt to be longer; and the worthy pastor would often linger awhile about the door, to speed the

parting guest, perhaps, but a little too much after the fashion of young people who are not displeased with

each other, and who often find it as hard to cross a threshold single as a witch finds it to get over a running

stream. More than once, the pallid, faded wife had made an errand to the study, and, after a keen look at the

bright young cheeks, flushed with the excitement of intimate spiritual communion, had gone back to her

chamber with her hand pressed against her heart, and the bitterness of death in her soul.

The end of all these bodily and mental trials was, that the minister's wife had fallen into a state of habitual

invalidism, such as only women, who feel all the nerves which in men are as insensible as telegraphwires,

The doctor did not know what to make of her case,whether she would live or die,whether she would

languish for years, or, all at once, roused by some strong impression, or in obedience to some unexplained

movement of the vital forces, take up her bed and walk. For her bed had become her home, where she lived

as if it belonged to her organism. There she lay, a not unpleasing invalid to contemplate, always looking

resigned, patient, serene, except when the one deeper grief was stirred, always arrayed with simple neatness,

and surrounded with little tokens that showed the constant presence with her of tasteful and thoughtful

affection. She did not know, nobody could know, how steadily, how silently all this artificial life was

draining the veins and blanching the cheek of her daughter Bathsheba, one of the everyday, airbreathing

angels without nimbus or aureole who belong to every story which lets us into a few households, as much as

Bathsheba's devotion to her mother brought its own reward, but it was not in the shape of outward

commendation. Some of the more censorious members of her father's congregation were severe in their

remarks upon her absorption in the supreme object of her care. It seems that this had prevented her from

attending to other duties which they considered more imperative. They did n't see why she shouldn't keep a

Sabbathschool as well as the rest, and as to her not comin' to meetin' three times on Sabbath day like other

folks, they couldn't account for it, except because she calculated that she could get along without the means

of grace, bein' a minister's daughter. Some went so far as to doubt if she had ever experienced religion, for all

she was a professor. There was a good many indulged a false hope. To this, others objected her life of utter

selfdenial and entire surrender to her duties towards her mother as some evidence of Christian character.

But old Deacon Rumrill put down that heresy by showing conclusively from Scott's Commentary on Romans

xi. 16, that this was altogether against her chance of being called, and that the better her disposition to

perform good works, the more unlikely she was to be the subject of saving grace. Some of these severe critics

were good people enough themselves, but they loved active work and stirring companionship, and would

have found their real cross if they had been called to sit at an invalid's bedside.

As for the Rev. Mr. Stoker, his duties did not allow him to give so much time to his suffering wife as his

feelings would undoubtedly have prompted. He therefore relinquished the care of her (with great reluctance

we may naturally suppose) to Bathsheba, who had inherited not only her mother's youthful smile, but that

selfforgetfulness which, born with some of God's creatures, is, if not "grace," at least a manifestation of

The intimacy of mother and daughter was complete, except on a single point. There was one subject on which

no word ever passed between them. The excuse of duties to others was by a tacit understanding a mantle to

cover all shortcomings in the way of attention from the husband and father, and no word ever passed

between them implying a suspicion of the loyalty of his affections. Bathsheba came at last so to fill with her

tenderness the space left empty in the neglected heart, that her mother only spoke her habitual feeling when

she said, "I should think you were in love with me, my darling, if you were not my daughter."

This was a dangerous state of things for the minister. Strange suggestions and unsafe speculations began to

mingle with his dreams and reveries. The thought once admitted that another's life is becoming superfluous

and a burden, feeds like a ravenous vulture on the soul. Woe to the man or woman whose days are passed in

watching the hourglass through which the sands run too slowly for longings that are like a skulking

procession of bloodless murders! Without affirming such horrors of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, it would not be

libellous to say that his fancy was tampering with future possibilities, as it constantly happens with those who

are getting themselves into training for some act of folly, or some crime, it may be, which will in its own time

It must not be taken for granted that he was actually on the road to some fearful deed, or that he was an

utterly lost soul. He was ready to yield to temptation if it came in his way; he would even court it, but he did

not shape out any plan very definitely in his mind, as a more desperate sinner would have done. He liked the

pleasurable excitement of emotional relations with his pretty lambs, and enjoyed it under the name of

religious communion. There is a border land where one can stand on the territory of legitimate instincts and

affections, and yet be so near, the pleasant garden of the Adversary, that his dangerous fruits and flowers are

within easy reach. Once tasted, the next step is like to be the scaling of the wall. The Rev. Mr. Stoker was

very fond of this border land. His imagination was wandering over it too often when his pen was travelling

almost of itself along the weary parallels of the page before him. All at once a blinding flash would come

over him the lines of his sermon would run together, the fresh manuscript would shrivel like a dead leaf, and

the rows of hardhearted theology on the shelves before him, and the brokenbacked Concordance, and the

Holy Book itself, would fade away as he gave himself up to the enchantment of his delirious dream.

The reader will probably consider it a discreet arrangement that pretty Susan Posey should seek her pastor in

grave company. Mrs. Hopkins willingly consented to the arrangement which had been proposed, and agreed

to go with the young lady on her visit to the Rev. Mr. Stoker's study. They were both arrayed in their

fieldday splendors on this occasion. Susan was lovely in her light curls and blue ribbons, and the becoming

dress which could not help betraying the modestly emphasized crescendos and gently graded diminuendos of

her figure. She was as round as if she had been turned in a lathe, and as delicately finished as if she had been

modelled for a Flora. She had naturally an airy toss of the head and a springy movement of the joints, such as

some girls study in the glass (and make dreadful work of it), so that she danced all over without knowing it,

like a little lively bobolink on a bulrush. In short, she looked fit to spoil a homily for Saint Anthony himself.

Mrs. Hopkins was not less perfect in her somewhat different style. She might be called impressive and

imposing in her grandcostume, which she wore for this visit. It was a black silk dress, with a crape shawl, a

firmly defensive bonnet, and an alpaca umbrella with a sternlooking and decided knob presiding as its

handle. The dried leaf rustle of her silk dress was suggestive of the ripe autumn of life, bringing with it

those golden fruits of wisdom and experience which the grave teachers of mankind so justly prefer to the idle

It is needless to say that the visit was conducted with the most perfect propriety in all respects. Mrs. Hopkins

was disposed to take upon herself a large share of the conversation. The minister, on the other hand, would

have devoted himself more particularly to Miss Susan, but, with a very natural makebelieve obtuseness, the

good woman drew his fire so constantly that few of his remarks, and hardly any of his insinuating looks,

reached the tender object at which they were aimed. It is probable that his features or tones betrayed some

impatience at having thus been foiled of his purpose, for Mrs. Hopkins thought he looked all the time as if he

wanted to get rid of her. The three parted, therefore, not in the best humor all round. Mrs. Hopkins declared

she'd see the minister in Jericho before she'd fix herself up as if she was goin' to a weddin' to go and see him

again. Why, he did n't make any more of her than if she'd been a tabbycat. She believed some of these

ministers thought women's souls dried up like peas in a pod by the time they was forty year old; anyhow, they

did n't seem to care any great about 'em, except while they was green and tender. It was all Miss Seusan,

Miss Se usan, Miss Seusan, my dear! but as for her, she might jest as well have gone with her apron on, for

any notice he took of her. She did n't care, she was n't goin' to be left out when there was talkin' goin' on,

Susan Posey, on her part, said she did n't like him a bit. He looked so sweet at her, and held his head on one

side,law! just as if he had been a young beau! And,don't tell,but he whispered that he wished the next

It would not be fair to repeat what the minister said to himself; but we may own as much as this, that, if

worthy Mrs. Hopkins had heard it, she would have treated him to a string of adjectives which would have

In tracing the history of a human soul through its commonplace nervous perturbations, still more through its

spiritual humiliations, there is danger that we shall feel a certain contempt for the subject of such weakness. It

is easy to laugh at the erring impulses of a young girl; but you who remember when_______ _________,

only fifteen years old, untouched by passion, unsullied in name, was found in the shallow brook where she

had sternly and surely sought her death, (too true! too true!ejus animae Jesu miserere!but a

Myrtle Hazard no longer required the physician's visits, but her mind was very far from being poised in the

just balance of its faculties. She was of a good natural constitution and a fine temperament; but she had been

overwrought by all that she had passed through, and, though happening to have been born in another land, she

was of American descent. Now, it has long been noticed that there is something in the influences, climatic or

other, here prevailing, which predisposes to morbid religious excitement. The graver reader will not object to

seeing the exact statement of a competent witness belonging to a bygone century, confirmed as it is by all

"There is no Experienced Minister of the Gospel who hath not in the Cases of Tempted Souls often had this

Experience, that the ill Cases of their distempered Bodies are the frequent Occasion and Original of their

Temptations." "The Vitiated Humours in many Persons, yield the Steams whereinto Satan does insinuate

himself, till he has gained a sort of Possession in them, or at least an Opportunity to shoot into the Mind as

many Fiery Darts as may cause a sad Life unto them; yea, 't is well if SelfMurder be not the sad end into

which these hurred (?) People are thus precipitated. New England, a country where Splenetic Maladies are

prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any other, hath afforded Numberless Instances, of even pious

People, who have contracted these Melancholy Indispositions which have unhinged them from all Service or

Comfort; yea, not a few Persons have been hurried thereby to lay Violent Hands upon themselves at the last.

The minister had hardly recovered from his vexatious defeat in the skirmish where the Widow Hopkins was

his principal opponent, when he received a note from Miss Silence Withers, which promised another and

more important field of conflict. It contained a request that he would visit Myrtle Hazard, who seemed to be

in a very excitable and impressible condition, and who might perhaps be easily brought under those

influences which she had resisted from her early years, through inborn perversity of character.

When the Rev. Mr. Stoker received this note, he turned very pale, which was a bad sign. Then he drew a

long breath or two, and presently a flush tingled up to his cheek, where it remained a fixed burning glow.

This may have been from the deep interest he felt in Myrtle's spiritual welfare; but he had often been sent for

by aged sinners in more immediate peril, apparently, without any such disturbance of the circulation.

To know whether a minister, young or still in flower; is in safe or dangerous paths, there are two

psychometers, a comparison between which will give as infallible a return as the dry and wet bulbs of the

ingenious "Hygrodeik." The first is the black broadcloth forming the knees of his pantaloons; the second, the

patch of carpet before his mirror. If the first is unworn and the second is frayed and threadbare, pray for him.

If the first is worn and shiny, while the second keeps its pattern and texture, get him to pray for you.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker should have gone down on his knees then and there, and sought fervently for the grace

which he was like to need in the dangerous path just opening before him. He did not do this; but he stood up

before his lookingglass and parted his hair as carefully as if he had been separating the saints of his

congregation from the sinners, to send the list to the statistical columns of a religious newspaper. He selected

a professional neckcloth, as spotlessly pure as if it had been washed in innocency, and adjusted it in a tie

which was like the white rose of Sharon. Myrtle Hazard was, he thought, on the whole, the handsomest girl

he had ever seen; Susan Posey was to her as a buttercup from the meadow is to a tiger lily. He, knew the

nature of the nervous disturbances through which she had been passing, and that she must be in a singularly

impressible condition. He felt sure that he could establish intimate spiritual relations with her by drawing out

her repressed sympathies, by feeding the fires of her religious imagination, by exercising all those lesser arts

of fascination which are so familiar to the Don Giovannis, and not always unknown to the San Giovannis.

As for the hard doctrines which he used to produce sensations with in the pulpit, it would have been a great

pity to worry so lovely a girl, in such a nervous state, with them. He remembered a savory text about being

made all things to all men, which would bear application particularly well to the case of this young woman.

He knew how to weaken his divinity, on occasion, as well as an old housewife to weaken her tea, lest it

The Rev. Mr. Stoker was a man of emotions. He loved to feel his heart beat; he loved all the forms of

nonalcoholic drunkenness, which are so much better than the vinous, because they taste themselves so

keenly, whereas the other (according to the statement of experts who are familiar with its curious phenomena)

has a certain sense of unreality connected with it. He delighted in the reflex stimulus of the excitement he

produced in others by working on their feelings. A powerful preacher is open to the same sense of

enjoymentan awful, tremulous, gooseflesh sort of state, but still enjoymentthat a great tragedian feels

Mr. Stoker was noted for the vividness of his descriptions of the future which was in store for the great bulk

of his fellowtownsmen and fellowworldsmen. He had three sermons on this subject, known to all the

country round as the sweating sermon, the fainting sermon, and the convulsionfit sermon, from the various

effects said to have been produced by them when delivered before large audiences. It might be supposed that

his reputation as a terrorist would have interfered with his attempts to ingratiate himself with his young

favorites. But the tragedian who is fearful as Richard or as Iago finds that no hindrance to his success in the

part of Romeo. Indeed, women rather take to terrible people; prizefighters, pirates, highwaymen, rebel

generals, Grand Turks, and Bluebeards generally have a fascination for the sex; your virgin has a natural

instinct to saddle your lion. The fact, therefore, that the young girl had sat under his tremendous pulpitings,

through the sweating sermon, the fainting sermon, and the convulsionfit sermon, did not secure her against

Myrtle was naturally surprised at receiving a visit from him; but she was in just that unbalanced state in

which almost any impression is welcome. He showed so much interest, first in her health, then in her

thoughts and feelings, always following her lead in the conversation, that before he left her she felt as if she

had made a great discovery; namely, that this man, so formidable behind the guns of his wooden bastion, was

a most tenderhearted and sympathizing person when he came out of it unarmed. How delightful he was as he

sat talking in the twilight in low and tender tones, with respectful pauses of listening, in which he looked as if

he too had just made a discovery,of an angel, to wit, to whom he could not help unbosoming his tenderest

It was a new experience to Myrtle. She was all ready for the spiritual manipulations of an expert. The

excitability which had been showing itself in spasms and strange paroxysms had been transferred to those

nervous centres, whatever they may be, cerebral or ganglionic, which are concerned in the emotional

movements of the religious nature. It was taking her at an unfair disadvantage, no doubt. In the old

communion, some priest might have wrought upon her while in this condition, and we might have had at this

very moment among us another Saint Theresa or Jacqueline Pascal. She found but a dangerous substitute in

People think the confessional is unknown in our Protestant churches. It is a great mistake. The principal

change is, that there is no screen between the penitent and the father confessor. The minister knew his rights,

and very soon asserted them. He gave aunt Silence to understand that he could talk more at ease if he and his

young disciple were left alone together. Cynthia Badlam did not like this arrangement. She was afraid to

speak about it; but she glared at them aslant, with the look of a biting horse when his eyes follow one

It was not very long before the Rev. Mr. Stoker had established pretty intimate relations with the household at

The Poplars. He had reason to think, he assured Miss Silence, that Myrtle was in a state of mind which

promised a complete transformation of her character. He used the phrases of his sect, of course, in talking

with the elderly lady; but the language which he employed with the young girl was free from those

As to his rougher formulae, he knew better than to apply them to a creature of her fine texture. If he had been

disposed to do so, her simple questions and answers to his inquiries would have made it difficult. But it was

in her bright and beautiful eyes, in her handsome features, and her winning voice, that he found his chief

obstacle. How could he look upon her face in its loveliness, and talk to her as if she must be under the wrath

and curse of God for the mere fact of her existence? It seemed more natural and it certainly was more

entertaining, to question her in such a way as to find out what kind of theology had grown up in her mind as

the result of her training in the complex scheme of his doctrinal school. And as he knew that the merest child,

so soon as it begins to think at all, works out for itself something like a theory of human nature, he pretty

What was her own idea; he would be pleased to know, about her natural condition as one born of a sinful

Myrtle smiled like a little heathen, as she was, according to the standard of her earlier teachings. That kind of

talk used to worry her when she was a child, sometimes. Yes, she remembered its coming back to her in a

dream she had, whenwhen(She did not finish her sentence.) Did he think she hated every kind of

goodness and loved every kind of evil? Did he think she was hateful to the Being who made her?

The minister looked straight into the bright, brave, tender eyes, and answered, "Nothing in heaven or on earth

Myrtle saw nothing but pious fervor in this florid sentiment. But as she was honest and clearsighted, she

could not accept a statement which seemed so plainly in contradiction with his common teachings, without

Did he suppose, she asked, that any persons could be Christians, who could not tell the day or the year of

The shrewd clergyman, whose creed could be lax enough on occasion, had provided himself with authorities

of all kinds to meet these awkward questions in casuistical divinity. He had hunted up recipes for spiritual

neuralgia, spasms, indigestion, psora, hypochondriasis, just as doctors do for their bodily counterparts.

To be sure they could. Why, what did the great Richard Baxter say in his book on Infant Baptism? That at a

meeting of many eminent Christians, some of them very famous ministers, when it was desired that every one

should give an account of the time and manner of his conversion, there was but one of them all could do it.

And as for himself, Mr. Baxter said, he could not remember the day or the year when he began to be sincere,

as he called it. Why, did n't President Wheelock say to a young man who consulted him, that some persons

All this was so very different from the uncompromising way in which religious doctrines used to be presented

to the young girl from the pulpit, that it naturally opened her heart and warmed her affections. Remember, if

she needs excuse, that the defeated instincts of a strong nature were rushing in upon her, clamorous for their

rights, and that she was not yet mature enough to understand and manage them. The paths of love and

religion are at the fork of a road which every maiden travels. If some young hand does not open the turnpike

gate of the first, she is pretty sure to try the other, which has no toll bar. It is also very commonly noticed

that these two paths, after diverging awhile, run into each other. True love leads many wandering souls into

the better way. Nor is it rare to see those who started in company for the gates of pearl seated together on the

banks that border the avenue to that other portal, gathering the roses for which it is so famous.

It was with the most curious interest that the minister listened to the various heresies into which her

reflections had led her. Somehow or other they did not sound so dangerous coming from her lips as when

they were uttered by the coarser people of the less rigorous denominations, or preached in the sermons of

heretical clergymen. He found it impossible to think of her in connection with those denunciations of sinners

for which his discourses had been noted. Some of the sharp old churchmembers began to complain that his

exhortations were losing their pungency. The truth was, he was preaching for Myrtle Hazard. He was getting

bewitched and driven beside himself by the intoxication of his relations with her.

All this time she was utterly unconscious of any charm that she was exercising, or of being herself subject to

any personal fascination. She loved to read the books of ecstatic contemplation which he furnished her. She

loved to sing the languishing hymns which he selected for her. She loved to listen to his devotional

rhapsodies, hardly knowing sometimes whether she were in the body, or out of the body, while he lifted her

upon the wings of his passionkindled rhetoric. The time came when she had learned to listen for his step,

when her eyes glistened at meeting him, when the words he uttered were treasured as from something more

than a common mortal, and the book he had touched was like a saintly relic. It never suggested itself to her

for an instant that this was anything more than such a friendship as Mercy might have cultivated with

GreatHeart. She gave her confidence simply because she was very young and innocent. The green tendrils

The seasons had been changing their scenery while the events we have told were occurring, and the loveliest

days of autumn were now shining. To those who know the "Indian summer" of our Northern States, it is

needless to describe the influence it exerts on the senses and the soul. The stillness of the landscape in that

beautiful time is as if the planet were sleeping, like a top, before it begins to rock with the storms of autumn.

All natures seem to find themselves more truly in its light; love grows more tender, religion more spiritual,

memory sees farther back into the past, grief revisits its mossy marbles, the poet harvests the ripe thoughts

The minister had got into the way of taking frequent walks with Myrtle, whose health had seemed to require

the open air, and who was fast regaining her natural look. Under the canopy of the scarlet, orange, and

crimson leaved maples, of the purple and violet clad oaks, of the birches in their robes of sunshine, and the

beeches in their clinging drapery of sober brown, they walked together while he discoursed of the joys of

heaven, the sweet communion of kindred souls, the ineffable bliss of a world where love would be immortal

and beauty should never know decay. And while she listened, the strange light of the leaves irradiated the

youthful figure of Myrtle, as when the stained window let in its colors on Madeline, the rose bloom and the

"Yes! we shall be angels together," exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Stoker. "Our souls were made for immortal

union. I know it; I feel it in every throb of my heart. Even in this world you are as an angel to me, lifting me

into the heaven where I shall meet you again, or it will not be heaven. Oh, if on earth our communion could

He stretched out his hands as if to clasp hers between them in the rapture of his devotion. Was it the light

reflected from the glossy leaves of the poison sumach which overhung the path that made his cheek look so

Myrtle turned her dark eyes on him with a simple wonder that saw an excess of saintly ardor in these

"I think of heaven always as the place where I shall meet my mother," she said calmly.

These words recalled the man to himself for a moment and he was silent. Presently he seated himself on a

stone. His lips were tremulous as he said, in a low tone, "Sit down by me, Myrtle."

"No," she answered, with something which chilled him in her voice, " we will not stay here any longer; it is

"Full time!" muttered Cynthia Badlam, whose watchful eyes had been upon them, peering through a screen of

Miss Cynthia Badlam was in the habit of occasionally visiting the Widow Hopkins. Some said but then

people will talk, especially in the country, where they have not much else to do, except in haying time. She

had always known the widow, long before Mr. Gridley came there to board, or any other special event

Miss Badlam called to see Mrs. Hopkins, then, and the two had a long talk together, of which only a portion

"What would I do about it? Why, I'd put a stop to such carry'n's on, mighty quick, if I had to tie the girl to the

bedpost, and have a bulldog that world take the seat out of any pair of black pantaloons that come within

forty rod of her,that's what I'd do about it! He undertook to be mighty sweet with our Susan one while, but

ever sence he's been talkin' religion with Myrtle Hazard he's let us alone. Do as I did when he asked our

Susan to come to his study,stick close to your girl and you 'll put a stop to all this business. He won't make

love to two at once, unless they 're both pretty young, I 'll warrant. Follow her round, Miss Cynthy, and keep

"I have watched her like a cat, Mrs. Hopkins, but I can't follow her everywhere,she won't stand what Susan

Posey 'll stand. There's no use our talking to her,we 've done with that at our house. You never know what

that Indian blood of hers will make her do. She's too highstrung for us to bit and bridle. I don't want to see

her name in the paper again, alongside of that" (She did not finish the sentence.) "I'd rather have her fished

"You don't think, Miss Cynthy, that the man means to inveigle the girl with the notion of marryin' her by and

"The Lord in heaven forbid!" exclaimed Miss Cynthia, throwing up her hands. "A child of fifteen years old, if

"It's too bad,it's too bad to think of, Miss Cynthy; and there's that poor woman dyin' by inches, and Miss

Bathsheby settin' with her day and night, she has n't got a bit of her father in her, it's all her mother,and

that man, instead of bein' with her to comfort her as any man ought to be with his wife, in sickness and in

health, that's what he promised. I 'm sure when my poor husband was sick.... To think of that man goin' about

to talk religion to all the prettiest girls he can find in the parish, and his wife at home like to leave him so

soon,it's a shame,so it is, come now! Miss Cynthy, there's one of the best men and one of the learnedest

men that ever lived that's a real friend of Myrtle Hazard, and a better friend to her than she knows of,for

ever sence he brought her home, he feels jest like a father to her,and that man is Mr. Gridley, that lives in

this house. It's him I 'll speak to about the minister's carry'in's on. He knows about his talking sweet to our

Susan, and he'll put things to rights! He's a master hand when he does once take hold of anything, I tell you

that! Jest get him to shet up them books of his, and take hold of anybody's troubles, and you'll see how he 'll

There was a pattering of little feet on the stairs, and the two small twins, "Sossy" and "Minthy," in the home

dialect, came hand in hand into the room, Miss Susan leaving them at the threshold, not wishing to interrupt

the two ladies, and being much interested also in listening to Mr. Gifted Hopkins, who was reading some of

The good woman rose to take them from Susan, and guide their uncertain steps. "My babies, I call 'em, Miss

Cynthy. Ain't they nice children? Come to go to bed, little dears? Only a few minutes, Miss Cynthy."

She took them into the bedroom on the same floor, where they slept, and, leaving the door open, began

undressing them. Cynthia turned her rockingchair round so as to face the open door. She looked on while

the little creatures were being undressed; she heard the few words they lisped as their infant prayer, she saw

A lone woman to whom all the sweet cares of maternity have been denied cannot look upon a sight like this

without feeling the void in her own heart where a mother's affection should have nestled. Cynthia sat

perfectly still, without rocking, and watched kind Mrs. Hopkins at her quasi parental task. A tear stole down

her rigid face as she saw the rounded limbs of the children bared in their white beauty, and their little heads

laid on the pillow. They were sleeping quietly when Mrs. Hopkins left the room for a moment on some errand

of her own. Cynthia rose softly from her chair, stole swiftly to the bedside, and printed a long, burning kiss

When Mrs. Hopkins came back, she found the maiden lady sitting in her place just as she left her, but rocking

"It is a great trouble, Miss Cynthy," she said,"a great trouble to have such a child as Myrtle to think of and

to care for. If she was like our Susan Posey, now!but we must do the best we can; and if Mr. Gridley once

sets himself to it, you may depend upon it he 'll make it all come right. I wouldn't take on about it if I was

you. You let me speak to our Mr. Gridley. We all have our troubles. It is n't everybody that can ride to heaven

in a Cspring shay, as my poor husband used to say; and life 's a road that 's got a good many

Miss Badlam acquiesced in the philosophical reflections of the late Mr. Ammi Hopkins, and left it to his

widow to carry out her own suggestion in reference to consulting Master Gridley. The good woman took the

first opportunity she had to introduce the matter, a little diffusely, as is often the way of widows who keep

"There's something going on I don't like, Mr. Gridley. They tell me that Minister Stoker is following round

after Myrtle Hazard, talking religion at her jest about the same way he'd have liked to with our Susan, I

calculate. If he wants to talk religion to me or Silence Withers,well, no, I don't feel sure about

Silence,she ain't as young as she used to be, but then ag'in she ain't so fur gone as some, and she's got

money,but if he wants to talk religion with me, he may come and welcome. But as for Myrtle Hazard, she's

been sick, and it's left her a little flighty by what they say, and to have a minister round her all the time ravin'

about the next world as if he had a latchkey to the front door of it, is no way to make her come to herself

again. I 've seen more than one young girl sent off to the asylum by that sort of work, when, if I'd only had

'em, I'd have made 'em sweep the stairs, and mix the puddin's, and tend the babies, and milk the cow, and

keep 'em too busy all day to be thinkin' about themselves, and have 'em dress up nice evenin's and see some

young folks and have a good time, and go to meetin' Sundays, and then have done with the minister, unless it

was old Father Pemberton. He knows forty times as much about heaven as that Stoker man does, or ever 's

like to,why don't they run after him, I should like to know? Ministers are men, come now; and I don't want

to say anything against women, Mr. Gridley, but women are women, that's the fact of it, and half of 'em are

hystericky when they're young; and I've heard old Dr. Hurlbut say many a time that he had to lay in an extra

stock of valerian and assafaetida whenever there was a young minister round, for there's plenty of religious

[Mr. Fronde thinks that was the trouble with Bloody Queen Mary, but the old physician did not get the idea

"Well, and what do you propose to do about the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker and his young proselyte, Miss

Myrtle Hazard?" said Mr. Gridley, when Mrs. Hopkins at last gave him a chance to speak.

"Mr. Gridley,"Mrs. Hopkins looked full upon him as she spoke," people used to say that you was a

good man and a great man and one of the learnedest men alive, but that you didn't know much nor care for

much except books. I know you used to live pretty much to yourself when you first came to board in this

house. But you've been very good to my son; ...and if Gifted lives till you ...till you are in ...your grave, ...he

"Scindentur vestes gemmae frangentur et aurum, Carmina quam tribuent fama perennis erit."

"And if ever Gifted makes a book,don't say anything about it, Mr. Gridley, for goodness' sake, for he

wouldn't have anybody know it, only I can't help thinking that some time or other he will print a book,and

if he does, I know whose name he'll put at the head of it,'Dedicated to B. G., with the gratitude and

respect' There, now, I had n't any business to say a word about it, and it's only jest in case he does, you

know. I'm sure you deserve it all. You've helped him with the best of advice. And you've been kind to me

when I was in trouble. And you've been like a grandfather" [Master Gridley winced,why could n't the

woman have said father?that grand struck his ear like a spade going into the gravel] "to those babes, poor

little souls! left on my doorstep like a couple of breakfast rolls,only you know it's the baker left then. I

believe in you, Mr. Gridley, as I believe in my Maker and in Father Pemberton,but, poor man, he's old, and

[Master Gridley shook his head as if to say that was n't so, but felt comforted and refreshed.]

"You've got to help Myrtle Hazard again. You brought her home when she come so nigh drowning. You got

the old doctor to go and see her when she come so nigh being bewitched with the magnetism and nonsense,

whatever they call it, and the young doctor was so nigh bein' crazy, too. I know, for Nurse Byloe told me all

about it. And now Myrtle's gettin' run away with by that pesky Minister Stoker. Cynthy Badlam was here

yesterday crying and sobbing as if her heart would break about it. For my part, I did n't think Cynthy cared so

much for the girl as all that, but I saw her takin' on dreadfully with my own eyes. That man's like a henhawk

among the chickens, first he picks up one, and then he picks up another. I should like to know if nobody but

"Tell me all you know about Myrtle Hazard and Joseph Bellamy Stoker," said Master Gridley.

Thereupon that good lady related all that Miss Badlam had imparted to her, of which the reader knows the

worst, being the interview of which the keen spinster had been a witness, having followed them for the

It is not to be supposed that Myrtle had forgotten the discreet kindness of Master Gridley in bringing her back

and making the best of her adventure. He, on his part, had acquired a kind of right to consider himself her

adviser, and had begun to take a pleasure in the thought that he, the wornout and useless old pedant, as he

had been in the way of considering himself, might perhaps do something even more important than his

previous achievement to save this young girl from the dangers that surrounded her. He loved his classics and

his old books; he took an interest, too, in the newspapers and periodicals that brought the fermenting thought

and the electric life of the great world into his lonely study; but these things just about him were getting

strong hold on him, and most of all the fortunes of this beautiful young woman. How strange! For a whole

generation he had lived in no nearer relation to his fellowcreatures than that of a halffossilized teacher; and

all at once he found himself face to face with the very most intense form of life, the counsellor of threatened

innocence, the champion of imperilled loveliness. What business was it of his? growled the lower nature, of

which he had said in "Thoughts on the Universe,""Every man leads or is led by something that goes on

Then he remembered the grand line of the African freedman, that makes all human interests everybody's

business, and had a sudden sense of dilatation and evolution, as it were, in all his dimensions, as if he were a

head taller, and a foot bigger round the chest, and took in an extra gallon of air at every breath, Thenyou

who have written a book that holds your heartleaves between its pages will understand the movementhe

took down "Thoughts on the Universe" for a refreshing draught from his own wellspring. He opened as

"The true American formula was well phrased by the late Samuel Patch, the Western Empedocles, 'Some

things can be done as well as others.' A homely utterance, but it has virtue to overthrow all dynasties and

hierarchies. These were all built up on the OldWorld dogma that some things can NOT be done as well as

"There, now!" he said, talking to himself in his usual way, "is n't that good? It always seems to me that I find

something to the point when I open that book. 'Some things can be done as well as others,' can they? Suppose

I should try what I can do by visiting Miss Myrtle Hazard? I think I may say I am old and incombustible

enough to be trusted. She does not seem to be a safe neighbor to very inflammable bodies?"

Myrtle was sitting in the room long known as the Study, or the Library, when Master Byles Gridley called at

The Poplars to see her. Miss Cynthia, who received him, led him to this apartment and left him alone with

Myrtle. She welcomed him very cordially, but colored as she did so,his visit was a surprise. She was at

work on a piece of embroidery. Her first instinctive movement was to thrust it out of sight with the thought of

concealment; but she checked this, and before the blush of detection had reached her cheek, the blush of

ingenuous shame for her weakness had caught and passed it, and was in full possession. She sat with her

worsted pattern held bravely in sight, and her cheek as bright as its liveliest crimson.

"Miss Cynthia has let me in upon you," he said, "or I should not have ventured to disturb you in this way. A

"Oh! oh! That is well. A good old man. I have a great regard for the Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton. I wish all

ministers were as good and simple and purehearted as the Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton. And I wish all the

young people thought as much about their elders as you do, Miss Myrtle Hazard. We that are old love little

acts of kindness. You gave me more pleasure than you knew of, my dear, when you worked that handsome

"But, Mr. Gridley, I must not let you think these are for Father Pemberton. They are forMr. Stoker."

"The Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker! He is not an old man, the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker. He may perhaps be

a widower before a great while. Does he know that you are working those slippers for him?"

"Dear me! no, Mr. Gridley. I meant them for a surprise to him. He has been so kind to me, and understands

me so much better than I thought anybody did. He is so different from what I thought; he makes religion so

perfectly simple, it seems as if everybody would agree with him, if they could only hear him talk."

"Too much, almost, I am afraid. He says he has been too hard in his sermons sometimes, but it was for fear he

"Don't you think he worries himself about the souls of young women rather more than for those of old ones,

There was something in the tone of this question that helped its slightly sarcastic expression. Myrtle's

"How can you ask that, Mr. Gridley? I am sure I wish you or anybody could have heard him talk as I have.

There is no age in souls, he says; and I am sure that it would do anybody good to hear him, old or young."

"No age in souls,no age in souls. Souls of forty as young as souls of fifteen; that 's it." Master Gridley did

not say this loud. But he did speak as follows: "I am glad to hear what you say of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy

Stoker's love of being useful to people of all ages. You have had comfort in his companionship, and there are

others who might be very glad to profit by it. I know a very excellent person who has had trials, and is greatly

interested in religious conversation. Do you think he would be willing to let this friend of mine share in the

"I hope it is so, my dear young lady. But listen to me one moment. I love you, my dear child, do you know, as

if I were your own grandfather." (There was moral heroism in that word.) "I love you as if you were of my

own blood; and so long as you trust me, and suffer me, I mean to keep watch against all dangers that threaten

you in mind, body, or estate. You may wonder at me, you may sometimes doubt me; but until you say you

distrust me, when any trouble comes near you, you will find me there. Now, my dear child, you ought to

know that the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker has the reputation of being too fond of prosecuting religious

"He wanted to get up a spiritual intimacy with our Susan Posey,a very pretty girl, as you know."

"I suppose there are a dozen young people that have been talked about with him. He preaches cruel sermons

in his pulpit, cruel as death, and coldblooded enough to freeze any mother's blood if nature did not tell her

he lied, and then smooths it all over with the first goodlooking young woman he can get to listen to him."

"Tell me, my dear, would you be willing to give up meeting this man alone, and gratify my friend, and avoid

"Of course I would," said Myrtle, her eyes flashing, for her doubts, her shame, her pride, were all excited.

"An excellent woman,Mrs. Hopkins. You know her, Gifted Hopkins's mother, with whom I am residing.

Shall the minister be given to understand that you will see him hereafter in her company?"

Myrtle came pretty near a turn of her old nervous perturbations. "As you say," she answered. "Is there nobody

that I can trust, or is everybody hunting me like a bird?" She hid her face in her hands.

"You can trust me, my dear," said Byles Gridley. "Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern,it

will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that, Myrtle, one stitch at a time, taken patiently, and the pattern

will come out all right like the embroidery. You can trust me. Goodby, my dear."

"Let her finish the slippers," the old man said to himself as he trudged home, "and make 'em big enough for

Father Pemberton. He shall have his feet in 'em yet, or my name is n't Byles Gridley!"

Myrtle Hazard waited until the steps of Master Byles Gridley had ceased to be heard, as he walked in his

emphatic way through the long entry of the old mansion. Then she went to her little chamber and sat down in

a sort of revery. She could not doubt his sincerity, and there was something in her own consciousness which

responded to the suspicions he had expressed with regard to the questionable impulses of the Rev. Joseph

It is not in the words that others say to us, but in those other words which these make us say to ourselves, that

we find our gravest lessons and our sharpest rebukes. The hint another gives us finds whole trains of thought

which have been getting themselves ready to be shaped in inwardly articulated words, and only awaited the

touch of a burning syllable, as the mottoes of a pyrotechnist only wait for a spark to become letters of fire.

The artist who takes your photograph must carry you with him into his "developing" room, and he will give

you a more exact illustration of the truth just mentioned. There is nothing to be seen on the glass just taken

from the camera. But there is a potential, though invisible, picture hid in the creamy film which covers it.

Watch him as he pours a wash over it, and you will see that miracle wrought which is at once a surprise and a

charm,the sudden appearance of your own features where a moment before was a blank without a vestige

In some such way the grave warnings of Master Byles Gridley had called up a fully shaped, but hitherto

unworded, train of thought in the consciousness of Myrtle Hazard. It was not merely their significance, it was

mainly because they were spoken at the fitting time. If they had been uttered a few weeks earlier, when

Myrtle was taking the first stitch on the embroidered slippers, they would have been as useless as the artist's

developing solution on a plate which had never been exposed in the camera. But she had been of late in

training for her lesson in ways that neither she nor anybody else dreamed of. The reader who has shrugged

his (or her) shoulders over the last illustration will perhaps hear this one which follows more cheerfully. The

physician in the Arabian Nights made his patient play at ball with a bat, the hollow handle of which contained

drugs of marvellous efficacy. Whether it was the drugs that made the sick man get well, or the exercise, is not

These walks which Myrtle had taken with her reverend counsellor had given her a new taste for the open air,

which was what she needed just now more than confessions of faith or spiritual paroxysms. And so it

happened that, while he had been stimulating all those imaginative and emotional elements of her nature

which responded to the keys he loved to play upon, the restoring influences of the sweet autumnal air, the

mellow sunshine, the soothing aspects of the woods and fields and sky, had been quietly doing their work.

The color was fast returning to her cheek, and the discords of her feelings and her thoughts gradually

resolving themselves into the harmonious and cheerful rhythms of bodily and mental health. It needed but the

timely word from the fitting lips to change the whole programme of her daily mode of being. The word had

been spoken. She saw its truth; but how hard it is to tear away a cherished illusion, to cast out an unworthy

intimate! How hard for any!but for a girl so young, and who had as yet found so little to love and trust,

She sat, still and stony, like an Egyptian statue. Her eyes were fixed on a vacant chair opposite the one on

which she was sitting. It was a very singular and fantastic old chair, said to have been brought over by the

first emigrant of her race. The legs and arms were curiously turned in spirals, the suggestions of which were

half pleasing and half repulsive. Instead of the clawfeet common in furniture of a later date, each of its legs

rested on a misshapen reptile, which it seemed to flatten by its weight, as if it were squeezing the breath out

of the ugly creature. Over this chair hung the portrait of her beautiful ancestress, her neck and arms, the

specialty of her beauty, bare, except for a bracelet on the left wrist, and her shapely figure set off by the

ample folds of a rich crimson brocade. Over Myrtle's bed hung that other portrait, which was to her almost as

the pictures of the Mater Dolorosa to trustful souls of the Roman faith. She had longed for these pictures

while she was in her strange hysteric condition, and they had been hung up in her chamber.

The night was far gone, as she knew by the declining of the constellations which she bad seen shining

brightly almost overhead in the early evening, when she awoke, and found herself still sitting in the very

attitude in which she was sitting hours before. Her lamp had burned out, and the starlight but dimly

illuminated her chamber. She started to find herself sitting there, chilled and stiffened by long remaining in

one posture; and as her consciousness returned, a great fear seized her, and she sprang for a match. It broke

with the quick movement she made to kindle it, and she snatched another as if a fiend were after her. It

flashed and went out. Oh the terror, the terror! The darkness seemed alive with fearful presences. The lurid

glare of her own eyeballs flashed backwards into her brain. She tried one more match; it kindled as it should,

and she lighted another lamp. Her first impulse was to assure herself that nothing was changed in the familiar

objects around her. She held the lamp up to the picture of Judith Pride. The beauty looked at her, it seemed as

if with a kind of lofty recognition in her eyes; but there she was, as always. She turned the light upon the pale

face of the martyrportrait. It looked troubled and faded, as it seemed to Myrtle, but still it was the same face

she remembered from her childhood. Then she threw the light on the old chair, and, shuddering, caught up a

shawl and flung it over the spiralwound arms and legs, and the flattened reptiles on which it stood.

In those dead hours of the night which had passed over her sitting there, still and stony, as it should seem, she

had had strange visitors. Two women had been with her, as real as any that breathed the breath of life,so it

appeared to her,yet both had long been what is called, in our poor language, dead. One came in all the

glory of her ripened beauty, barenecked, barearmed, full dressed by nature in that splendid animal

equipment which in its day had captivated the eyes of all the lusty lovers of complete muliebrity. The

other,how delicate, how translucent, how aerial she seemed! yet real and true to the lineaments of her

The beautiful woman turned, and, with a face full of loathing and scorn, pointed to one of the reptiles beneath

the feet of the chair. And while Myrtle's eyes followed hers, the flattened and halfcrushed creature seemed

to swell and spread like his relative in the old fable, like the black dog in Faust, until he became of tenfold

size, and at last of colossal proportions. And, fearful to relate, the batrachian features humanized themselves

as the monster grew, and, shaping themselves more and more into a remembered similitude, Myrtle saw in

them a hideous likeness ofNo! no! it was too horrible, was that the face which had been so close to hers

but yesterday? were those the lips, the breath from which had stirred her growing curls as he leaned over her

while they read together some passionate stanza from a hymn that was as much like a lovesong as it dared to

be in godly company? A shadow of disgustthe natural repugnance of loveliness for deformityran all

through her, and she shrieked, as she thought, and threw herself at the feet of that other figure. She felt herself

lifted from the floor, and then a cold thin hand seemed to take hers. The warm life went out of her, and she

was to herself as a dimly conscious shadow that glided with passive acquiescence wherever it was led.

Presently she found herself in a halflighted apartment, where there were books on the shelves around, and a

desk with loose manuscripts lying on it, and a little mirror with a worn bit of carpet before it. And while she

looked, a great serpent writhed in through the halfopen door, and made the circuit of the room, laying one

huge ring all round it, and then, going round again, laid another ring over the first, and so on until he was

wound all round the room like the spiral of a mighty cable, leaving a hollow in the centre; and then the

serpent seemed to arch his neck in the air, and bring his head close down to Myrtle's face; and the features

were not those of a serpent, but of a man, and it hissed out the words she had read that very day in a little note

Again she was back in her little chamber, she did not know how, and the two women were looking into her

eyes with strange meaning in their own. Something in them seemed to plead with her to yield to their

influence, and her choice wavered which of them to follow, for each would have led her her own

way,whither she knew not. It was the strife of her "Vision," only in another form,the contest of two

lives her blood inherited for the mastery of her soul. The might of beauty conquered. Myrtle resigned herself

to the guidance of the lovely phantom, which seemed so much fuller of the unextinguished fire of life, and so

like herself as she would grow to be when noon should have ripened her into maturity.

Doors opened softly before them; they climbed stairs, and threaded corridors, and penetrated crypts, strange

yet familiar to her eyes, which seemed to her as if they could see, as it were, in darkness. Then came a

confused sense of eager search for something that she knew was hidden, whether in the cleft of a rock, or

under the boards of a floor, or in some hidingplace among the skeleton rafters, or in a forgotten drawer, or

in a heap of rubbish, she could not tell; but somewhere there was something which she was to find, and

which, once found, was to be her talisman. She was in the midst of this eager search when she awoke.

The impression was left so strongly on her mind that with all her fears she could not resist the desire to make

an effort to find what meaning there was in this frightfully real dream. Her courage came back as her senses

assured her that all around her was natural, as when she left it. She determined to follow the lead of the

In one of the upper chambers of the old mansion there stood a tall, upright desk of the ancient pattern, with

folding doors above and large drawers below. "That desk is yours, Myrtle," her uncle Malachi had once said

to her; "and there is a trick or two about it that it will pay you to study." Many a time Myrtle had puzzled

herself about the mystery of the old desk. All the little drawers, of which there were a considerable number,

she had pulled out, and every crevice, as she thought, she had carefully examined. She determined to make

one more trial. It was the dead of the night, and this was a fearful old place to be wandering about; but she

was possessed with an urgent feeling which would not let her wait until daylight.

She stole like a ghost from her chamber. She glided along the narrow entries as she had seemed to move in

her dream. She opened the folding doors of the great upright desk. She had always before examined it by

daylight, and though she had so often pulled all the little drawers out, she had never thoroughly explored the

recesses which received them. But in her newborn passion of search, she held her light so as to illuminate

all these deeper spaces. At once she thought she saw the marks of pressure with a finger. She pressed her own

finger on this place, and, as it yielded with a slight click, a small mahogany pilaster sprang forward, revealing

its wellkept secret that it was the mask of a tall, deep, very narrow drawer. There was something heavy in it,

and, as Myrtle turned it over, a golden bracelet fell into her hand. She recognized it at once as that which had

been long ago the ornament of the fair woman whose portrait hung in her chamber. She clasped it upon her

wrist, and from that moment she felt as if she were the captive of the lovely phantom who had been with her

"The old man walked last night, God save us!" said Kitty Fagan to Biddy Finnegan, the day after Myrtle's

It seems probable enough that Myrtle's whole spiritual adventure was an unconscious dramatization of a few

simple facts which her imagination tangled together into a kind of vital coherence. The philosopher who goes

to the bottom of things will remark that all the elements of her fantastic melodrama had been furnished her

while waking. Master Byles Gridley's penetrating and stinging caution was the text, and the grotesque

carvings and the portraits furnished the "properties" with which her own mind had wrought up this scenic

The philosopher who goes to the bottom of things might not find it so easy to account for the change which

came over Myrtle Hazard from the hour when she clasped the bracelet of Judith Pride upon her wrist. She felt

a sudden loathing of the man whom she had idealized as a saint. A young girl's caprice? Possibly. A return of

the natural instincts of girlhood with returning health? Perhaps so. An impression produced by her dream? An

effect of an influx from another sphere of being? The working of Master Byles Gridley's emphatic warning?

We may safely leave these questions for the present. As we have to tell, not what Myrtle Hazard ought to

have done, and why she should have done it, but what she did do, our task is a simpler one than it would be to

lay bare all the springs of her action. Until this period, she had hardly thought of herself as a born beauty. The

flatteries she had received from time to time were like the chips and splinters under the green wood, when the

chill women pretended to make a fire in the best parlor at The Poplars, which had a way of burning

themselves out, hardly warming, much less kindling, the fore stick and the backlog.

Myrtle had a tinge of what some call superstition, and she began to look upon her strange acquisition as a

kind of amulet. Its suggestions betrayed themselves in one of her first movements. Nothing could be soberer

than the cut of the dresses which the propriety of the severe household had established as the rule of her

costume. But the girl was no sooner out of bed than a passion came over her to see herself in that less jealous

arrangement of drapery which the Beauty of the last century had insisted on as presenting her most fittingly

to the artist. She rolled up the sleeves of her dress, she turned down its prim collar and neck, and glanced

from her glass to the portrait, from the portrait back to the glass. Myrtle was not blind nor dull, though young,

and in many things untaught. She did not say in so many words, "I too am a beauty," but she could mot help

seeing that she had many of the attractions of feature and form which had made the original of the picture

before her famous. The same stately carriage of the head, the same fullrounded neck, the same more than

hinted outlines of figure, the same finely shaped arms and hands, and something very like the same features

startled her by their identity in the permanent image of the canvas and the fleeting one of tile mirror.

The world was hers then,for she had not read romances and love letters without finding that beauty

governs it in all times and places. Who was this middleaged minister that had been hanging round her and

talking to her about heaven, when there was not a single joy of earth that she had as yet tasted? A man that

had been saying all his fine things to Miss Susan Posey, too, had he, before he had bestowed his attentions on

The revulsion was a very sadden one. Such changes of feeling are apt to be sudden in young people whose

nerves have been tampered with, and Myrtle was not of a temperament or an age to act with much

deliberation where a pique came in to the aid of a resolve. Master Gridley guessed sagaciously what would be

the effect of his revelation, when he told her of the particular attentions the minister had paid to pretty Susan

The Rev. Mr. Stoker had parted his hair wonderfully that morning, and made himself as captivating as his

professional costume allowed. He had drawn down the shades of his windows so as to let in that subdued

light which is merciful to crow'sfeet and similar embellishments, and wheeled up his sofa so that two could

At eleven o'clock he was pacing the room with a certain feverish impatience, casting a glance now and then at

the mirror as he passed it. At last the bell rang, and he himself went to answer it, his heart throbbing with

Myrtle Hazard appeared by an envoy extraordinary, the bearer of sealed despatches. Mistress Kitty Fagan

was the young lady's substitute, and she delivered into the hand of the astonished clergyman the following

Reverend Sir,I shall not come to your study this day. I do not feel that I have any more need of religious

counsel at this time, and I am told by a friend that there are others who will be glad to hear you talk on this

subject. I hear that Mrs. Hopkins is interested in religious subjects, and would have been glad to see you in

my company. As I cannot go with her, perhaps Miss Susan Posey will take my place. I thank you for all the

good things you have said to me, and that you have given me so much of your company. I hope we shall sing

hymns together in heaven some time, if we are good enough, but I want to wait for that awhile, for I do not

feel quite ready. I am not going to see you any more alone, reverend sir. I think this is best, and I have good

advice. I want to see more of young people of my own age, and I have a friend, Mr. Gridley, who I think is

older than you are, that takes an interest in me; and as you have many others that you must be interested in,

he can take the place of a father better than you can do. I return to you the hymnbook, I read one of those

The Rev. Mr. Stoker uttered a cry of rage as he finished this awkwardly written, but tolerably intelligible

letter. What could he do about it? It would hardly do to stab Myrtle Hazard, and shoot Byles Gridley, and

strangle Mrs. Hopkins, every one of which homicides he felt at the moment that he could have committed.

And here he was in a frantic paroxysm, and the next day was Sunday, and his morning's discourse was

unwritten. His savage mediaeval theology came to his relief, and he clutched out of a heap of yellow

manuscripts his wellworn "convulsionfit" sermon. He preached it the next day as if it did his heart good,

but Myrtle Hazard did not hear it, for she had gone to St. Bartholomew's with Olive Eveleth.

It happened a little after this time that the minister's invalid wife improvedsomewhat unexpectedly in

health, and, as Bathsheba was beginning to suffer from imprisonment in her sickchamber, the physician

advised very strongly that she should vary the monotony of her life by going out of the house daily for fresh

air and cheerful companionship. She was therefore frequently at the house of Olive Eveleth; and as Myrtle

wanted to see young people, and had her own way now as never before, the three girls often met at the

parsonage. Thus they became more and more intimate, and grew more and more into each other's affections.

These girls presented three types of spiritual character which are to be found in all our towns and villages.

Olive had been carefully trained, and at the proper age confirmed. Bathsheba had been prayed for, and in due

time startled and converted. Myrtle was a simple daughter of Eve, with many impulses like those of the other

two girls, and some that required more watching. She was not so safe, perhaps, as either of the other girls, for

this world or the next; but she was on some accounts more interesting, as being a more genuine representative

of that inexperienced and too easily deluded, yet always cherished, mother of our race, whom we must after

all accept as embodying the creative idea of woman, and who might have been alive and happy now (though

The Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, Rector of Saint Bartholomew's, Olive's father, was one of a class numerous in the

Anglican Church, a cultivated man, with pure tastes, with simple habits, a good reader, a neat writer, a safe

thinker, with a snug and wellfenced mental pasturage, which his sermons kept cropped moderately close

without any exhausting demand upon the soil. Olive had grown insensibly into her religious maturity, as into

her bodily and intellectual developments, which one might suppose was the natural order of things in a

wellregulated Christianhousehold, where the children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the

Bathsheba had been worried over and perplexed and depressed with vague apprehensions about her

condition, conveyed in mysterious phrases and graveyard expressions of countenance, until about the age of

fourteen years, when she had one of those emotional paroxysms very commonly considered in some

Protestant sects as essential to the formation of religious character. It began with a shivering sense of

enormous guilt, inherited and practised from her earliest infancy. Just as every breath she ever drew had been

malignantly poisoning the air with carbonic acid, so her every thought and feeling had been tainting the

universe with sin. This spiritual chill or rigor had in due order been followed by the feverflush of hope, and

that in its turn had ushered in the last stage, the free opening of all the spiritual pores in the peaceful

Good Christians are made by many very different processes. Bathsheba had taken her religion after the

fashion of her sect; but it was genuine, in spite of the cavils of the formalists, who could not understand that

the spirit which kept her at her mother's bedside was the same as that which poured the tears of Mary of

Magdala on the feet of her Lord, and led her forth at early dawn with the other Mary to visit his sepulchre.

Myrtle was a child of nature, and of course, according to the out worn formulae which still shame the

distorted religion of humanity, hateful to the Father in Heaven who made her. She had grown up in

antagonism with all that surrounded her. She had been talked to about her corrupt nature and her sinful heart,

until the words had become an offence and an insult. Bathsheba knew her father's fondness for young

company too well to suppose that his intercourse with Myrtle had gone beyond the sentimental and poetical

stage, and was not displeased when she found that there was some breach between them. Myrtle herself did

not profess to have passed through the technical stages of the customary spiritual paroxysm. Still, the gentle

daughter of the terrible preacher loved her and judged her kindly. She was modest enough to think that

perhaps the natural state of some girls might be at least as good as her own after the spiritual change of which

she had been the subject. A manifest heresy, but not new, nor unamiable, nor inexplicable.

The excellent Bishop Joseph Hall, a painful preacher and solid divine of Puritan tendencies, declares that he

prefers goodnature before grace in the election of a wife; because, saith he, "it will be a hard Task, where

the Nature is peevish and froward, for Grace to make an entire Conquest whilst Life lasteth." An opinion

apparently entertained by many modern ecclesiastics, and one which may be considered very encouraging to

those young ladies of the politer circles who have a fancy for marrying bishops and other fashionable

clergymen. Not of course that "grace" is so rare a gift among the young ladies of the upper social sphere; but

they are in the habit of using the word with a somewhat different meaning from that which the good Bishop

It was impossible for Myrtle to be frequently at Olive's without often meeting Olive's brother, and her

reappearance with the bloom on her cheek was a signal which her other admirers were not likely to overlook

as a hint to recommence their flattering demonstrations; and so it was that she found herself all at once the

centre of attraction to three young men with whom we have made some acquaintance, namely, Cyprian

When the three girls were together at the house of Olive, it gave Cyprian a chance to see something of Myrtle

in the most natural way. Indeed, they all became used to meeting him in a brotherly sort of relation; only, as

he was not the brother of two of them, it gave him the inside track, as the sporting men say, with reference to

any rivals for the goodwill of either of these. Of course neither Bathsheba nor Myrtle thought of him in any

other light than as Olive's brother, and would have been surprised with the manifestation on his part of any

other feeling, if it existed. So he became very nearly as intimate with them as Olive was, and hardly thought

of his intimacy as anything more than friendship, until one day Myrtle sang some hymns so sweetly that

Cyprian dreamed about her that night; and what young person does not know that the woman or the man once

idealized and glorified in the exalted state of the imagination belonging to sleep becomes dangerous to the

sensibilities in the waking hours that follow? Yet something drew Cyprian to the gentler and more subdued

nature of Bathsheba, so that he often thought, like a gayer personage than himself, whose divided affections

are famous in song, that he could have been blessed to share her faithful heart, if Myrtle had not bewitched

him with her unconscious and innocent sorceries. As for poor, modest Bathsheba, she thought nothing of

herself, but was almost as much fascinated by Myrtle as if she had been one of the sex she was born to make

The first rival Cyprian was to encounter in his admiration of Myrtle Hazard was Mr. Gifted Hopkins. This

young gentleman had the enormous advantage of that allsubduing accomplishment, the poetical endowment.

No woman, it is pretty generally understood, can resist the youth or man who addresses her in verse. The

thought that she is the object of a poet's love is one which fills a woman's ambition more completely than all

that wealth or office or social eminence can offer. Do the young millionnaires and the members of the

General Court get letters from unknown ladies, every day, asking for their autographs and photographs?

Mr. Gifted Hopkins, being a poet, felt that it was so, to the very depth of his soul. Could he not confer that

immortality so dear to the human heart? Not quite yet, perhaps,though the "Banner and Oracle" gave him

already "an elevated niche in the Temple of Fame," to quote its own words,but in that glorious summer of

his genius, of which these spring blossoms were the promise. It was a most formidable battery, then, which

His second rival, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, had made a half playful bet with his fair relative, Mrs.

Clymer Ketchum, that he would bag a girl within twelve months of date who should unite three desirable

qualities, specified in the bet, in a higher degree than any one of the five who were on the matrimonial

programme which she had laid out for him,and Myrtle was the girl with whom he meant to win the bet.

When a young fellow like him, cool and clever, makes up his mind to bring down his bird, it is no joke, but a

very serious and a tolerably certain piece of business. Not being made a fool of by any boyish

nonsense,passion and all that,he has a great advantage. Many a woman rejects a man because he is in

love with her, and accepts another because he is not. The first is thinking too much of himself and his

emotions,the other makes a study of her and her friends, and learns what ropes to pull. But then it must be

remembered that Murray Bradshaw had a poet for his rival, to say nothing of the brother of a bosom friend.

The qualities of a young poet are so exceptional, and such interesting objects of study, that a narrative like

this can well afford to linger awhile in the delineation of this most envied of all the forms of genius. And by

contrasting the powers and limitations of two such young persons as Gifted Hopkins and Cyprian Eveleth, we

may better appreciate the nature of that divine inspiration which gives to poetry the superiority it claims over

Gifted Hopkins had shown an ear for rhythm, and for the simpler forms of music, from his earliest childhood.

He began beating with his heels the accents of the psalm tunes sung at meeting at a very tender age,a habit,

indeed, of which he had afterwards to correct himself, as, though it shows a sensibility to rhythmical impulses

like that which is beautifully illustrated when a circle join hands and emphasize by vigorous downward

movements the leading syllables in the tune of Auld Lang Syne, yet it is apt to be too expressive when a large

number of boots join in the performance. He showed a remarkable talent for playing on one of the less

complex musical instruments, too limited in compass to satisfy exacting ears, but affording excellent

discipline to those who wish to write in the simpler metrical forms,the same which summons the hero from

By the time he was twelve years old he was struck with the pleasing resemblance of certain vocal sounds

which, without being the same, yet had a curious relation which made them agree marvellously well in

couples; as eyes with skies; as heart with art, also with part and smart; and so of numerous others, twenty or

thirty pairs, perhaps, which number he considerably increased as he grew older, until he may have had fifty or

The union of so extensive a catalogue of words which matched each other, and of an ear so nice that it could

tell if there were nine or eleven syllables in an heroic line, instead of the legitimate ten, constituted a rare

combination of talents in the opinion of those upon whose judgment he relied. He was naturally led to try his

powers in the expression of some just thought or natural sentiment in the shape of verse, that wonderful

medium of imparting thought and feeling to his fellowcreatures which a bountiful Providence had made his

It was at about this period of his life, that is to say, when he was of the age of thirteen, or we may perhaps say

fourteen years, for we do not wish to overstate his precocity, that he experienced a sensation so entirely

novel, that, to the best of his belief, it was such as no other young person had ever known, at least in anything

like the same degree. This extraordinary emotion was brought on by the sight of Myrtle Hazard, with whom

he had never before had any near relations, as they had been at different schools, and Myrtle was too reserved

Then it was that he broke forth in his virgin effort, "Lines to Me," which were published in the village

paper, and were claimed by all possible girls but the right one; namely, by two Mary Annes, one Minnie, one

Mehitable, and one Marthie, as she saw fit to spell the name borrowed from her who was troubled about

The success of these lines, which were in that form of verse known to the hymnbooks as "common metre,"

was such as to convince the youth that, whatever occupation he might be compelled to follow for a time to

obtain a livelihood or to assist his worthy parent, his true destiny was the glorious career of a poet. It was a

most pleasing circumstance, that his mother, while she fully recognized the propriety of his being diligent in

the prosaic line of business to which circumstances had called him, was yet as much convinced as he himself

that he was destined to achieve literary fame. She had read Watts and Select Hymns all through, she said, and

she did n't see but what Gifted could make the verses come out jest as slick, and the sound of the rhymes jest

as pooty, as Izik Watts or the Selectmen, whoever they was,she was sure they couldn't be the selectmen of

this town, wherever they belonged. It is pleasant to say that the young man, though favored by nature with

this rarest of talents, did not forget the humbler duties that Heaven, which dresses few singing birds in the

golden plumes of fortune, had laid upon him. After having received a moderate amount of instruction at one

of the less ambitious educational institutions of the town, supplemented, it is true, by the judicious and

gratuitous hints of Master Gridley, the young poet, in obedience to a feeling which did him the highest credit,

relinquished, at least for the time, the Groves of Academus, and offered his youth at the shrine of Plutus, that

is, left off studying and took to business. He became what they call a "clerk" in what they call a "store" up in

the huckleberry districts, and kept such accounts as were required by the business of the establishment. His

principal occupation was, however, to attend to the details of commerce as it was transacted over the counter.

This industry enabled him, to his great praise be it spoken, to assist his excellent parent, to clothe himself in a

becoming manner, so that he made a really handsome figure on Sundays and was always of presentable

aspect, likewise to purchase a book now and then, and to subscribe for that leading periodical which furnishes

the best models to the youth of the country in the various modes of composition.

Though Master Gridley was very kind to the young man, he was rather disposed to check the exuberance of

his poetical aspirations. The truth was, that the old classical scholar did not care a great deal for modern

English poetry. Give him an Ode of Horace, or a scrap from the Greek Anthology, and he would recite it with

great inflation of spirits; but he did not think very much of "your Keatses, and your Tennysons, and the whole

Hasheesh crazy lot," as he called the dreamily sensuous idealists who belong to the same century that brought

in ether and chloroform. He rather shook his head at Gifted Hopkins for indulging so largely in metrical

"Better stick to your ciphering, my young friend," he said to him, one day. "Figures of speech are all very

well, in their way; but if you undertake to deal much in them, you'll figure down your prospects into a mighty

small sum. There's some danger that it will take all the sense out of you, if you keep writing verses at this

rate. You young scribblers think any kind of nonsense will do for the public, if it only has a string of rhymes

tacked to it. Cut off the bobs of your kite, Gifted Hopkins, and see if it does n't pitch, and stagger, and come

down headforemost. Don't write any stuff with rhyming tails to it that won't make a decent show for itself

after you've chopped all the rhyming tails off. That's my advice, Gifted Hopkins. Is there any book you would

He had tried, the young man answered, on the recommendation of Cyprian Eveleth, but had found it rather

Master Gridley lifted his eyebrows very slightly, remembering that some had called Spenser the poet's poet.

"What a pity," he said to himself, "that this Gifted Hopkins has n't got the brains of that William Murray

Bradshaw! What's the reason, I wonder, that all the little earthen pots blow their covers off and froth over in

rhymes at such a great rate, while the big iron pots keep their lids on, and do all their simmering inside?"

That is the way these old pedants will talk, after all their youth and all their poetry, if they ever had any, are

gone. The smiles of woman, in the mean time, encouraged the young poet to smite the lyre. Fame beckoned

him upward from her templed steep. The rhymes which rose before him unbidden were as the rounds of

Master Gridley threw cold water on the young man's too sanguine anticipations of success. "All up with the

boy, if he's going to take to rhyming when he ought to be doing up papers of brown sugar and weighing out

pounds of tea. Poorhouse,that 's what it'll end in. Poets, to be sure! Sausagemakers ! Empty skins of old

phrases,stuff 'em with odds and ends of old thoughts that never were good for anything,cut 'em up in

And if they ain't big fools enough to buy 'em, give'em away; and if you can't do that, pay folks to take'em.

Bah! what a fine style of genius commonsense is! There's a passage in the book that would fit half these

"Where there is one man who squints with his eyes, there are a dozen who squint with their brains. It is an

infirmity in one of the eyes, making the two unequal in power, that makes men squint. Just so it is an

inequality in the two halves of the brain that makes some men idiots and others rascals. I knows a fellow

whose right half is a genius, but his other hemisphere belongs to a fool; and I had a friend perfectly honest on

one side, but who was sent to jail because the other had an inveterate tendency in the direction of picking

The poetical faculty which was so freely developed in Gifted Hopkins had never manifested itself in Cyprian

Eveleth, whose look and voice might, to a stranger, have seemed more likely to imply an imaginative nature.

Cyprian was dark, slender, sensitive, contemplative, a lover of lonely walks,one who listened for the

whispers of Nature and watched her shadows, and was alive to the symbolisms she writes over everything.

He was on the pleasantest terms with the young poet, and being somewhat older, and having had the

advantage of academic and college culture, often gave him useful hints as to the cultivation of his powers,

such as genius frequently requires at the hands of humbler intelligences. Cyprian was incapable of jealousy;

and although the name of Gifted Hopkins was getting to be known beyond the immediate neighborhood, and

his autograph had been requested by more than one young lady living in another county, he never thought of

That the poet himself was flattered by these marks of public favor may be inferred from the growing

confidence with which he expressed himself in his conversations with Cyprian, more especially in one which

"I become more and more assured, Cyprian," he said, leaning over the counter, "that I was born to be a poet. I

feel it in my marrow. I must succeed. I must win the laurel of fame. I must taste the sweets of"

" Molasses," said a bareheaded girl of ten who entered at that moment, bearing in her hand a cracked pitcher,

Gifted Hopkins dropped his subject and took up a tin measure. He served the little maid with a benignity

quite charming to witness, made an entry on a slate of .08, and resumed the conversation.

"Yes, I am sure of it, Cyprian. The very last piece I wrote was copied in two papers. It was 'Contemplations

in Autumn,' anddon't think I am too vainone young lady has told me that it reminded her of Pollok. You

"I never wrote at all, Gifted, except school and college exercises, and a letter now and then. Do you find it an

Pleasant! Poetry is to me a delight and a passion. I never know what I am going to write when I sit down.

And presently the rhymes begin pounding in my brain,it seems as if there were a hundred couples of them,

paired like so many dancers,and then these rhymes seem to take possession of me, like a surprise party,

and bring in all sorts of beautiful thoughts, and I write and write, and the verses run measuring themselves out

"Ribbins,any narrer blue ribbins, Mr. Hopkins? Five eighths of a yard, if you please, Mr. Hopkins. How's

your folks?" Then, in a lower tone, "Those last verses of yours in the Bannernoracle were sweet pooty."

Gifted Hopkins meted out the five eighths of blue ribbon by the aid of certain brass nails on the counter. He

gave good measure, not prodigal, for he was loyal to his employer, but putting a very moderate strain on the

ribbon, and letting the thumbnail slide with a contempt of infinitesimals which betokened a large soul in its

The young lady departed, after casting upon him one of those bewitching glances which the young poetlet

us rather say the poet, without making odious distinctionsis in the confirmed habit of receiving from dear

Mr. Gifted Hopkins resumed: "I do not know where this talent, as my friends call it, of mine, comes from.

My father used to carry a chain for a surveyor sometimes, and there is a tenfoot pole in the house he used to

measure land with. I don't see why that should make me a poet. My mother was always fond of Dr. Watts's

hymns; but so are other young men's mothers, and yet they don't show poetical genius. But wherever I got it,

it comes as easy to me to write in verse as to write in prose, almost. Don't you ever feel a longing to send

"I wish I had a greater facility of expression very often," Cyprian answered; "but when I have my best

thoughts I do not find that I have words that seem fitting to clothe them. I have imagined a great many

poems, Gifted, but I never wrote a rhyming verse, or verse of any kind. Did you ever hear Olive play 'Songs

without Words'? If you have ever heard her, you will know what I mean by unrhymed and unversed poetry."

"I am sure I don't know what you mean, Cyprian, by poetry without rhyme or verse, any more than I should if

you talked about pictures that were painted on nothing, or statues that were made out of nothing. How can

you tell that anything is poetry, I should like to know, if there is neither a regular line with just so many

syllables, nor a rhyme? Of course you can't. I never have any thoughts too beautiful to put in verse: nothing

Cyprian left the conversation at this point. It was getting more suggestive than interpenetrating, and he

thought he might talk the matter over better with Olive. Just then a little boy came in, and bargained with

Gifted for a Jewsharp, which, having obtained, he placed against his teeth, and began playing upon it with a

"A little too much like my friend Gifted Hopkins's poetry," Cyprian said, as he left the "store." "All in one

note, pretty much. Not a great many tunes, 'Hi Betty Martin,' ' Yankee Doodle,' and one or two more like

them. But many people seem to like them, and I don't doubt it is as exciting to Gifted to write them as it is to

Cyprian was, perhaps, too exacting. He loved too well the sweet intricacies of Spenser, the majestic and

subtly interwoven harmonies of Milton. These made him impatient of the simpler strains of Gifted Hopkins.

Though he himself never wrote verses, he had some qualities which his friend the poet may have undervalued

in comparison with the talent of modelling the symmetries of verse and adjusting the correspondences of

rhyme. He had kept in a singular degree all the sensibilities of childhood, its simplicity, its reverence. It

seemed as if nothing of all that he met in his daily life was common or unclean to him, for there was no

mordant in his nature for what was coarse or vile, and all else he could not help idealizing into its own

conception of itself, so to speak. He loved the leaf after its kind as well as the flower, and the root as well as

the leaf, and did not exhaust his capacity of affection or admiration on the blossom or bud upon which his

friend the poet lavished the wealth of his verse. Thus Nature took him into her confidence. She loves the men

of science well, and tells them all her family secrets,who is the father of this or that member of the group,

who is brother, sister, cousin, and so on, through all the circle of relationship. But there are others to whom

she tells her dreams; not what species or genus her lily belongs to, but what vague thought it has when it

dresses in white, or what memory of its birthplace that is which we call its fragrance. Cyprian was one of

these. Yet he was not a complete nature. He required another and a wholly different one to be the

complement of his own. Olive came as near it as a sister could, butwe must borrow an old

imagemoonlight is no more than a cold and vacant glimmer on the sundial, which only answers to the

great flaming orb of day. If Cyprian could but find some true, sweettempered, well balanced woman,

richer in feeling than in those special imaginative gifts which made the outward world at times unreal to him

in the intense reality of his own inner life, how he could enrich and adorn her existence,how she could

"Bathsheba," said Olive, "it seems to me that Cyprian is getting more and more fascinated with Myrtle

Hazard. He has never got over the fancy he took to her when he first saw her in her red jacket, and called her

the firehangbird. Wouldn't they suit each other by and by, after Myrtle has come to herself and grown into

"Myrtle is very lovely," Bathsheba answered, "but is n't she a little tooflightyfor one like your brother?

Cyprian isn't more like other young men than Myrtle is like other young girls. I have thought sometimesI

wondered whether outoftheway people and common ones do not get along best together. Does n't

Cyprian want some more everyday kind of girl to keep him straight? Myrtle is beautiful,

beautiful,fascinates everybody. Has Mr. Bradshaw been following after her lately? He is taken with her

too. Didn't you ever think she would have to give in to Murray Bradshaw at last? He looks to me like a man

If Myrtle Hazard, instead of being a halffinished schoolgirl, hardly sixteen years old, had been a young

woman of eighteen or nineteen, it would have been plain sailing enough for Murray Bradshaw. But he knew

what a distance their ages seemed just now to put between them,a distance which would grow practically

less and less with every year, and he did not wish to risk anything so long as there was no danger of

interference. He rather encouraged Gifted Hopkins to write poetry to Myrtle. "Go in, Gifted," he said, "there's

Murray Bradshaw did not write poetry himself, but he read poetry with a good deal of effect, and he would

sometimes take a hint from one of Gifted Hopkins's last productions to recite a passionate lyric of Byron or

Moore, into which he would artfully throw so much meaning that Myrtle was almost as much puzzled, in her

simplicity, to know what it meant, as she had been by the religious fervors of the Rev. Mr. Stoker.

He spoke well of Cyprian Eveleth. A good young man,limited, but exemplary. Would succeed well as

rector of a small parish. That required little talent, but a good deal of the humbler sort of virtue. As for

himself, he confessed to ambition,yes, a great deal of ambition. A failing, he supposed, but not the worst of

failings. He felt the instinct to handle the larger interests of society. The village would perhaps lose sight of

him for a time; but he meant to emerge sooner or later in the higher spheres of government or diplomacy.

Myrtle must keep his secret. Nobody else knew it. He could not help making a confidant of her,a thing he

had never done before with any other person as to his plans in life. Perhaps she might watch his career with

more interest from her acquaintance with him. He loved to think that there was one woman at least who

would be pleased to hear of his success if he succeeded, as with life and health he would,who would share

his disappointment if fate should not favor him. So he wound and wreathed himself into her thoughts.

It was not very long before Myrtle began to accept the idea that she was the one person in the world whose

peculiar duty it was to sympathize with the aspiring young man whose humble beginnings she had the honor

of witnessing. And it is not very far from being the solitary confidant, and the single source of inspiration, to

the growth of a livelier interest, where a young man and a young woman are in question.

Myrtle was at this time her own mistress as never before. The three young men had access to her as she

walked to and from meeting and in her frequent rambles, besides the opportunities Cyprian had of meeting

her in his sister's company, and the convenient visits which, in connection with the great lawsuit, Murray

It was not long before Cyprian perceived that he could never pass a certain boundary of intimacy with Myrtle.

Very pleasant and sisterly always she was with him; but she never looked as if she might mean more than she

said, and cherished a little spark of sensibility which might be fanned into the flame of love. Cyprian felt this

so certainly that he was on the point of telling his grief to Bathsheba, who looked to him as if she would

sympathize as heartily with him as his own sister, and whose sympathy would have a certain flavor in

it,something which one cannot find in the heart of the dearest sister that ever lived. But Bathsheba was

herself sensitive, and changed color when Cyprian ventured a hint or two in the direction of his thought, so

that he never got so fax as to unburden his heart to her about Myrtle, whom she admired so sincerely that she

As for Gifted Hopkins, the roses that were beginning to bloom fresher and fresher every day in Myrtle's

cheeks unfolded themselves more and more freely, to speak metaphorically, in his song. Every week she

would receive a delicately tinted note with lines to "Myrtle awaking," or to "Myrtle retiring," (one string of

verses a little too Musidoraish, and which soon found itself in the condition of a cinder, perhaps reduced to

that state by spontaneous combustion,) or to "The Flower of the Tropics," or to the "Nymph of the

Riverside," or other poetical alias, such as bards affect in their sieges of the female heart.

Gifted Hopkins was of a sanguine temperament. As he read and reread his verses it certainly seemed to him

that they must reach the heart of the angelic being to whom they were addressed. That she was slow in

confessing the impression they made upon her, was a favorable sign; so many girls called his poems "sweet

pooty," that those charming words, though soothing, no longer stirred him deeply. Myrtle's silence showed

that the impression his verses had made was deep. Time would develop her sentiments; they were both

young; his position was humble as yet; but when he had become famous through the landoh blissful

thought!the bard of Oxbow Village would bear a name that any woman would be proud to assume, and the

M. H. which her delicate hands had wrought on the kerchiefs she wore would yet perhaps be read, not Myrtle

There seems no reasonable doubt that Myrtle Hazard might have made a safe thing of it with Gifted Hopkins,

(if so inclined,) provided that she had only been secured against interference. But the constant habit of

reading his verses to Susan Posey was not without its risk to so excitable a nature as that of the young poet.

Poets were always capable of divided affections, and Cowley's "Chronicle" is a confession that would fit the

whole tribe of them. It is true that Gifted had no right to regard Susan's heart as open to the wiles of any

newcomer. He knew that she considered herself, and was considered by another, as pledged and plighted.

Yet she was such a devoted listener, her sympathies were so easily roused, her blue eyes glistened so tenderly

at the least poetical hint, such as "Never, oh never," "My aching heart," "Go, let me weep,"any of those

touching phrases out of the long catalogue which readily suggests itself, that her influence was getting to be

such that Myrtle (if really anxious to secure him) might look upon it with apprehension, and the owner of

Susan's heart (if of a jealous disposition) might have thought it worth while to make a visit to Oxbow Village

It may seem not impossible that some friend had suggested as much as this to the young lady's lover.

The caution would have been unnecessary, or at least premature. Susan was loyal as ever to her absent friend.

Gifted Hopkins had never yet presumed upon the familiar relations existing between them to attempt to shake

her allegiance. It is quite as likely, after all, that the young gentleman about to make his appearance in Oxbow

Village visited the place of his own accord, without a hint from anybody. But the fact concerns us more than

"Who do you think is coming, Mr. Gridley? Who do you think is coming?" said Susan Posey, her face

covered with a carnation such as the first season may see in a city belle, but not the second.

"Well, Susan Posey, I suppose I must guess, though I am rather slow at that business. Perhaps the Governor.

No, I don't think it can be the Governor, for you would n't look so happy if it was only his Excellency. It must

be the President, Susan Posey,President James Buchanan. Have n't I guessed right, now, tell me, my dear?"

"O Mr. Gridley, you are too bad,what do I care for governors and presidents? I know somebody that's

worth fifty million thousand presidents,and he 's coming,my Clement is coming," said Susan, who had

by this time learned to consider the awful Byles Gridley as her next friend and faithful counsellor.

Susan could not stay long in the house after she got her note informing her that her friend was soon to be with

her. Everybody told everything to Olive Eveleth, and Susan must run over to the parsonage to tell her that

there was a young gentleman coming to Oxbow Village; upon which Olive asked who it was, exactly as if

she did not know; whereupon Susan dropped her eyes and said, "Clement,I mean Mr. Lindsay."

That was a fair piece of news now, and Olive had her bonnet on five minutes after Susan was gone, and was

on her way to Bathsheba's,it was too bad that the poor girl who lived so out of the world shouldn't know

anything of what was going on in it. Bathsheba had been in all the morning, and the Doctor had said she must

take the air every day; so Bathsheba had on her bonnet a little after Olive had gone, and walked straight up to

The Poplars to tell Myrtle Hazard that a certain young gentleman, Clement Lindsay, was coming to Oxbow

It was perhaps fortunate that there was no special significance to Myrtle in the name of Clement Lindsay.

Since the adventure which had brought these two young persons together, and, after coming so near a

disaster, had ended in a mere humiliation and disappointment, and but for Master Gridley's discreet kindness

might have led to foolish scandal, Myrtle had never referred to it in any way. Nobody really knew what her

plans had been except Olive and Cyprian, who had observed a very kind silence about the whole matter. The

common version of the story was harmless, and near enough to the truth, down the river,boat

upset,pulled out,taken care of by some women in a house farther down,sick, brain fever,pretty

near it, anyhow,old Dr. Hurlbut called in,had her hair cut,hystericky, etc., etc.

Myrtle was contented with this statement, and asked no questions, and it was a perfectly understood thing

that nobody alluded to the subject in her presence. It followed from all this that the name of Clement Lindsay

had no peculiar meaning for her. Nor was she like to recognize him as the youth in whose company she had

gone through her mortal peril, for all her recollections were confused and dreamlike from the moment when

she awoke and found herself in the foaming rapids just above the fall, until that when her senses returned, and

she saw Master Byles Gridley standing over her with that look of tenderness in his square features which had

lingered in her recollection, and made her feel towards him as if she were his daughter.

Now this had its advantage; for as Clement was Susan's young man, and had been so for two or three years, it

would have been a great pity to have any such curious relations established between him and Myrtle Hazard

Why, Myrtle, don't you remember about Susan Posey's istobe,the young man that has been well, I don't

"Yes, yes, I remember now. Oh dear! I have forgotten so many things, I should think I had been dead and was

coming back to life again. Do you know anything about him, Bathsheba? Did n't somebody say he was very

handsome? I wonder if he is really in love with Susan Posey. Such a simple thing? I want to see him. I have

As Myrtle said these words, she lifted the sleeve a little on her left arm, by a halfinstinctive and

halfvoluntary movement. The glimmering gold of Judith Pride's bracelet flashed out the yellow gleam

which has been the reddening of so many hands and the blackening of so, many souls since that innocent

sinbreeder was first picked up in the land of Havilah. There came a sudden light into her eye, such as

Bathsheba had never seen there before. It looked to her as if Myrtle were saying unconsciously to herself that

she had the power of beauty, and would like to try its influence on the handsome young man whom she was

soon to meet, even at the risk of unseating poor little Susan in his affections. This pained the gentle and

humbleminded girl, who, without having tasted the world's pleasures, had meekly consecrated herself to the

lowly duties which lay nearest to her. For Bathsheba's phrasing of life was in the monosyllables of a rigid

faith. Her conceptions of the human soul were all simplicity and purity, but elementary. She could not

conceive the vast license the creative energy allows itself in mingling the instincts which, after long conflict,

may come into harmonious adjustment. The flash which Myrtle's eye had caught from the gleam of the

golden bracelet filled Bathsheba with a sudden fear that she was like to be led away by the vanities of that

world lying in wickedness of which the minister's daughter had heard so much and seen so little.

Not that Bathsheba made any fine moral speeches, to herself. She only felt a slight shock, such as a word or a

look from one we love too often gives us,such as a child's trivial gesture or movement makes a parent

feel,that impalpable something which in the slightest possible inflection of a syllable or gradation of a tone

will sometimes leave a sting behind it, even in a trusting heart. This was all. But it was true that what she saw

meant a great deal. It meant the dawning in Myrtle Hazard of one of her as yet unlived secondary lives.

Bathsheba's virgin perceptions had caught a faint early ray of its glimmering twilight.

She answered, after a very slight pause, which this explanation has made seem so long, that she had never

seen the young gentleman, and that she did not know about Susan's sentiments. Only, as they had kept so

Myrtle fell into a revery, with certain tableaux glowing along its perspectives which poor little Susan Posey

would have shivered to look upon, if they could have been transferred from the purple clouds of Myrtle's

imagination to the pale silvery mists of Susan's pretty fancies. She sat in her daydream long after Bathsheba

had left her, her eyes fixed, not on the faded portrait of her beatified ancestress, but on that other canvas

where the dead Beauty seemed to live in all the splendors of her fullblown womanhood.

The young man whose name had set her thoughts roving was handsome, as the glance at him already given

might have foreshadowed. But his features had a graver impress than his age seemed to account for, and the

sober tone of his letter to Susan implied that something had given him a maturity beyond his years. The story

was not an uncommon one. At sixteen he had dreamedand told his dream. At eighteen he had awoke, and

found, as he believed, that a young heart had grown to his so that its life was dependent on his own. Whether

it would have perished if its filaments had been gently disentangled from the object to which they had

attached themselves, experienced judges of such matters may perhaps question. To justify Clement in his

estimate of the danger of such an experiment, we must remember that to young people in their teens a first

passion is a portentous and unprecedented phenomenon. The young man may have been mistaken in thinking

that Susan would die if he left her, and may have done more than his duty in sacrificing himself; but if so, it

was the mistake of a generous youth, who estimated the depth of another's feelings by his own. He measured

the depth of his own rather by what he felt they might be, than by that of any abysses they had yet sounded.

Clement was called a "genius" by those who knew him, and was consequently in danger of being spoiled

early. The risk is great enough anywhere, but greatest in a new country, where there is an almost universal

He was by nature an artist; a shaper with the pencil or the chisel, a planner, a contriver capable of turning his

hand to almost any work of eye and hand. It would not have been strange if he thought he could do

everything, having gifts which were capable of various application,and being an American citizen. But

though he was a good draughtsman, and had made some reliefs and modelled some figures, he called himself

only an architect. He had given him. self up to his art, not merely from a love of it and talent for it, but with a

kind of heroic devotion, because he thought his country wanted a race of builders to clothe the new forms of

religious, social, and national life afresh from the forest, the quarry, and the mine. Some thought he would

"Grand notions,grand notions," the master with whom he studied said. "Large ground plan of

life,splendid elevation. A little wild in some of his fancies, perhaps, but he's only a boy, and he's the kind

of boy that sometimes grows to be a pretty big man. Wait and see,wait and see. He works days, and we can

let him dream nights. There's a good deal of him, anyhow." His fellowstudents were puzzled. Those who

thought of their calling as a trade, and looked forward to the time when they should be embodying the ideals

of municipal authorities in brick and stone, or making contracts with wealthy citizens, doubted whether

Clement would have a sharp eye enough for business. "Too many whims, you know. All sorts of queer ideas

No doubt there was something of youthful extravagance in his plans and expectations. But it was the untamed

enthusiasm which is the source of all great thoughts and deeds,a beautiful delirium which age commonly

tames down, and for which the cold showerbath the world furnishes gratis proves a pretty certain cure.

Creation is always preceded by chaos. The youthful architect's mind was confused by the multitude of

suggestions which were crowding in upon it, and which he had not yet had time or developed mature strength

sufficient to reduce to order. The young American of any freshness of intellect is stimulated to dangerous

excess by the conditions of life into which he is born. There is a double proportion of oxygen in the New

World air. The chemists have not found it out yet, but human brains and breathingorgans have long since

Clement knew that his hasty entanglement had limited his possibilities of happiness in one direction, and he

felt that there was a certain grandeur in the recompense of working out his defeated instincts through the

ambitious medium of his noble art. Had not Pharaohs chosen it to proclaim their longings for immortality,

Caesars their passion for pomp and luxury, and priests to symbolize their conceptions of the heavenly

mansions? His dreams were on a grand scale; such, after all, are the best possessions of youth. Had he but

been free, or mated with a nature akin to his own, he would have felt himself as truly the heir of creation as

any young man that lived. But his lot was cast, and his youth had all the serious aspect to himself of

thoughtful manhood. In the region of his art alone he hoped always to find freedom and a companionship

Clement meant to have visited his beloved before he left Alderbank, but was called unexpectedly back to the

city. Happily Susan was not exacting; she looked up to him with too great a feeling of distance between them

to dare to question his actions. Perhaps she found a partial consolation in the company of Mr. Gifted

Hopkins, who tried his new poems on her, which was the next best thing to addressing them to her. "Would

that you were with us at this delightful season," she wrote in the autumn; "but no, your Susan must not repine.

"Oh would, oh would that thou wast here, For absence makes thee doubly dear; Ah! what is life while thou 'rt

The poet referred to, it need hardly be said, was our young and promising friend G. H., as he sometimes

modestly signed himself. The letter, it is unnecessary to state, was voluminous,for a woman can tell her

love, or other matter of interest, over and over again in as many forms as another poet, not G. H., found for

The answers to Susan's letters were kind, but not very long. They convinced her that it was a simple

impossibility that Clement could come to Oxbow Village, on account of the great pressure of the work he had

to keep him in the city, and the plans he must finish at any rate. But at last the work was partially got rid of,

and Clement was coming; yes, it was so nice, and, oh dear! should n't she be real happy to see him?

To Susan he appeared as a kind of divinity, almost too grand for human nature's daily food. Yet, if the

simplehearted girl could have told herself the whole truth in plain words, she would have confessed to

certain doubts which from time to time, and oftener of late, cast a shadow on her seemingly bright future.

With all the pleasure that the thought of meeting Clement gave her, she felt a little tremor, a certain degree of

awe, in contemplating his visit. If she could have clothed her selfhumiliation in the gold and purple of the

"Portuguese Sonnets," it would have been another matter; but the trouble with the most common sources of

disquiet is that they have no wardrobe of flaming phraseology to air themselves in; the inward burning goes

"A friend of mine is coming to the village," she said to Mr. Gifted Hopkins. "I want you to see him. He is a

genius,as some other young men are." (This was obviously personal, and the youthful poet blushed with

ingenuous delight.) "I have known him for ever so many years. He and I are very good friends." The poet

knew that this meant an exclusive relation between them; and though the fact was no surprise to him, his

countenance fell a little. The truth was, that his admiration was divided between Myrtle, who seemed to him

divine and adorable, but distant, and Susan, who listened to his frequent poems, whom he was in the habit of

seeing in artless domestic costumes, and whose attractions had been gaining upon him of late in the enforced

He retired pensive from this interview, and, flinging himself at his desk, attempted wreaking his thoughts

upon expression, to borrow the language of one of his brother bards, in a passionate lyric which he began thus

"Another's! Oh the pang, the smart! Fate owes to Love a deathless grudge, The barbed fang has rent a heart

"judgejudge,no, not judge. Budge, drudge, fudgeWhat a disgusting language English is! Nothing fit

to couple with such a word as grudge! And the gush of an impassioned moment arrested in full flow, stopped

While the poet, headed off in this way by the poverty of his native tongue, sought inspiration by retiring into

the world of dreams, went to bed, in short, his more fortunate rival was just entering the village, where he

was to make his brief residence at the house of Deacon Rumrill, who, having been a loser by the devouring

element, was glad to receive a stray boarder when any such were looking about for quarters.

For some reason or other he was restless that evening, and took out a volume he had brought with him to

beguile the earlier hours of the night. It was too late when he arrived to disturb the quiet of Mrs. Hopkins's

household, and whatever may have been Clement's impatience, he held it in check, and sat tranquilly until

midnight over the pages of the book with which he had prudently provided himself.

"Hope you slept well last night," said the old Deacon, when Mr. Clement came down to breakfast the next

"Very well, thank you,that ' is, after I got to bed. But I sat up pretty late reading my favorite Scott. I am apt

"You couldn't find better reading, young man. Scott is my favorite author. A great man. I have got his

likeness in a giltframe hanging up in the other room. I have read him all through three times."

The young man's countenance brightened. He had not expected to find so much taste for elegant literature in

"What are your favorites among his writings, Deacon? I suppose you have your particular likings, as the rest

The Deacon was flattered by the question. "Well," he answered, "I can hardly tell you. I like pretty much

everything Scott ever wrote. Sometimes I think it is one thing, and sometimes another. Great on Paul's

The honest fact was, that Clement remembered very little about "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk,"a book of

Sir Walter's less famous than many of his others; but he signified his polite assent to the Deacon's statement,

rather wondering at his choice of a favorite, and smiling at his queer way of talking about the Letters as

"I am afraid Scott is not so much read nowadays as he once was, and as he ought to be," said Mr. Clement:

"That's it,that's it, young man," the Deacon broke in,"Natur' and Grace,Natur' and Grace. Nobody

ever knew better what those two words meant than Scott did, and I'm very glad to seeyou've chosen such

good wholesome reading. You can't set up too late, young man, to read Scott. If I had twenty children, they

should all begin reading Scott as soon as they were old enough to spell sin,and that's the first word my

little ones learned, next to 'pa' and I 'ma.' Nothing like beginning the lessons of life in good season."

"What a grim old satirist!" Clement said to himself. "I wonder if the old man reads other novelists. Do tell

"Not exactly," Clement answered, smiling, and quite delighted to find such an unexpected vein of grave

pleasantry about the demurelooking churchdignitary; for the Deacon asked his question without moving a

muscle, and took no cognizance whatever of the young man's tone and smile. Firstclass humorists are, as is

well known, remarkable for the immovable solemnity of their features. Clement promised himself not a little

amusement from the curiously sedate drollery of the venerable Deacon, who, it was plain from his

conversation, had cultivated a literary taste which would make him a more agreeable companion than the

After breakfast, Mr. Clement walked forth in the direction of Mrs. Hopkins's house, thinking as he went of

the pleasant surprise his visit would bring to his longing and doubtless pensive Susan; for though she knew he

As he drew near the house, the first thing he saw was Susan Posey, almost running against her just as he

turned a corner. She looked wonderfully lively and rosy, for the weather was getting keen and the frosts had

begun to bite. A young gentleman was walking at her side, and reading to her from a paper he held in his

hand. Both looked deeply interested,so much so that Clement felt half ashamed of himself for intruding

But lovers are lovers, and Clement could not help joining them. The first thing, of course, was the utterance

of two simultaneous exclamations, "Why, Clement!" "Why, Susan!" What might have come next in the

programme, but for the presence of a third party, is matter of conjecture; but what did come next was a

mighty awkward look on the part of Susan Posey, and the following short speech: "Mr. Lindsay, let me

introduce Mr. Hopkins, my friend, the poet I 've written to you about. He was just reading two of his poems

The poet did not require much urging, and began at once reciting over again the stanzas which were

afterwards so much admired in the "Banner and Oracle,"the first verse being, as the readers of that paper

"She moves in splendor, like the ray That flashes from unclouded skies, And all the charms of night and day

Clement, who must have been in an agony of impatience to be alone with his beloved, commanded his

feelings admirably. He signified his approbation of the poem by saying that the lines were smooth and the

rhymes absolutely without blemish. The stanzas reminded him forcibly of one of the greatest poets of the

Gifted flushed hot with pleasure. He had tasted the blood of his own rhymes; and when a poet gets as far as

that, it is like wringing the bag of exhilarating gas from the lips of a fellow sucking at it, to drag his piece

"Perhaps you will like these lines still better," he said; "the style is more modern:

'O daughter of the spiced South, Her bubbly grapes have spilled the wine That staineth with its hue divine

And so on, through a series of stanzas like these, with the pulp of two rhymes between the upper and lower

Clement was cornered. It was necessary to say something for the poet's sake,perhaps for Susan's; for she

was in a certain sense responsible for the poems of a youth of genius, of whom she had spoken so often and

"Very good, Mr. Hopkins, and a form of verse little used, I should think, until of late years. You modelled

"Indeed I did not, Mr. Lindsay,I never imitate. Originality is, if I may be allowed to say so much for

myself, my peculiar forte. Why, the critics allow as much as that. See here, Mr. Lindsay."

Mr. Gifted Hopkins pulled out his pocketbook, and, taking therefrom a cutting from a newspaper,which

dropped helplessly open of itself, as if tired of the process, being very tender in the joints or creases, by

"The bard of Oxbow Pillageour valued correspondent who writes over the signature of G. H.is, in our

opinion, more remarkable for his originality than for any other of his numerous gifts."

Clement was apparently silenced by this, and the poet a little elated with a sense of triumph. Susan could not

help sharing his feeling of satisfaction, and without meaning it in the least, nay, without knowing it, for she

was as simple and pure as new milk, edged a little bitthe merest infinitesimal atomnearer to Gifted

Hopkins, who was on one side of her, while Clement walked on the other. Women love the conquering

party,it is the way of their sex. And poets, as we have seen, are wellnigh irresistible when they exert their

dangerous power of fascination upon the female heart. But Clement was above jealousy; and, if be perceived

He saw a good deal of his pretty Susan that day. She was tender in her expressions and manners as usual, but

there was a little something in her looks and language from time to time that Clement did not know exactly

what to make of. She colored once or twice when the young poet's name was mentioned. She was not so full

of her little plans for the future as she had sometimes been, "everything was so uncertain," she said. Clement

asked himself whether she felt quite as sure that her attachment would last as she once did. But there were no

reproaches, not even any explanations, which are about as bad between lovers. There was nothing but an

undefined feeling on his side that she did not cling quite so closely to him, perhaps, as he had once thought,

and that, if he had happened to have been drowned that day when he went down with the beautiful young

woman, it was just conceivable that Susan, who would have cried dreadfully, no doubt, would in time have

listened to consolation from some other young man,possibly from the young poet whose verses he had

been admiring. Easycrying widows take new husbands soonest; there is nothing like wet weather for

transplanting, as Master Gridley used to say. Susan had a fluent natural gift for tears, as Clement well knew,

after the exercise of which she used to brighten up like the rose which had been washed, just washed in a

As for the poet, he learned more of his own sentiments during this visit of Clement's than he had ever before

known. He wandered about with a dreadfully disconsolate look upon his countenance. He showed a

fallingoff in his appetite at teatime, which surprised and disturbed his mother, for she had filled the house

with fragrant suggestions of good things coming, in honor of Mr. Lindsay, who was to be her guest at tea.

And chiefly the genteel form of doughnut called in the native dialect cymbal ( Qu. Symbol? B. G.) which

graced the board with its plastic forms, suggestive of the most pleasing objects,the spiral ringlets pendent

from the brow of beauty; the magic circlet, which is the pledge of plighted affection,the indissoluble knot,

which typifies the union of hearts, which organs were also largely represented; this exceptional delicacy

would at any other time have claimed his special notice. But his mother remarked that he paid little attention

to these, and his, "No, I thank you," when it came to the preserved "damsels," as some call them, carried a

pang with it to the maternal bosom. The most touching evidence of his unhappinesswhether intentional or

the result of accident was not evident was a broken heart, which he left upon his plate, the meaning of which

was as plain as anything in the language of flowers. His thoughts were gloomy during that day, running a

good deal on the more picturesque and impressive methods of bidding a voluntary farewell to a world which

had allured him with visions of beauty only to snatch them from his impassioned gaze. His mother saw

something of this, and got from him a few disjointed words, which led her to lock up the clothesline and

hide her late husband's razors,an affectionate, yet perhaps unnecessary precaution, for selfelimination

contemplated from this point of view by those who have the natural outlet of verse to relieve them is rarely

followed by a casualty. It may rather be considered as implying a more than average chance for longevity; as

those who meditate animposing finish naturally save themselves for it, and are therefore careful of their

health until the time comes, and this is apt to be indefinitely postponed so long as there is a poem to write or a

Miss Eveleth requests the pleasure of Mr. Lindsay's company to meet a few friends on the evening of the

It was the luckiest thing in the world. They always made a little festival of that evening at the Rev. Ambrose

Eveleth's, in honor of his canonized namesake, and because they liked to have a good time. It came this year

just at the right moment, for here was a distinguished stranger visiting in the place. Oxbow Village seemed to

be running over with its one extra young man,as may be seen sometimes in larger villages, and even in

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had called on Clement the day after his arrival. He had already met the

A very interesting young man, the Deacon said, much given to the reading of pious books. Up late at night

after he came, reading Scott's Commentary. Appeared to be as fond of serious works as other young folks

were of their novels and romances and other immoral publications. He, the Deacon, thought of having a few

religious friends to meet the young gentleman, if he felt so disposed; and should like to have him, Mr.

Bradshaw, come in and take a part in the exercises. Mr. Bradshaw was unfortunately engaged. He thought

the young gentleman could hardly find time for such a meeting during his brief visit.

Mr. Bradshaw expected naturally to see a youth of imperfect constitution, and cachectic or dyspeptic

tendencies, who was in training to furnish one of those biographies beginning with the statement that, from

his infancy, the subject of it showed no inclination for boyish amusements, and so on, until he dies out, for

the simple reason that there was not enough of him to live. Very interesting, no doubt, Master Byles Gridley

would have said, but had no more to do with good, hearty, sound life than the history of those very little

When Mr. Clement Lindsay presented himself, Mr. Bradshaw was a good deal surprised to see a young

fellow of such a mould. He pleased himself with the idea that he knew a man of mark at sight, and he set

down Clement in that category at his first glance. The young man met his penetrating and questioning look

with a frank, ingenuous, open aspect, before which he felt himself disarmed, as it were, and thrown upon

"I hope you like these people you are with. What sort of a man do you find my old friend the Deacon?"

Clement laughed. "A very queer old character. Loves his joke as well, and is as sly in making it, as if he had

Mr. Bradshaw looked at the young man to know what he meant. Mr. Lindsay talked in a very easy way for a

serious young person. He was puzzled. He did not see to the bottom of this description of the Deacon. With a

lawyer's instinct, he kept his doubts to himself and tried his witness with a new question.

"To be sure I did. Would you believe it,that aged saint is a great novelreader. So he tells me. What is

more, he brings up his children to that sort of reading, from the time when they first begin to spell. If anybody

else had told me such a story about an old country deacon, I wouldn't have believed it; but he said so himself,

Mr. Bradshaw felt as if either he or Mr. Lindsay must certainly be in the first stage of mild insanity, and he

did not think that he himself could be out of his wits. He must try one more question. He had become so

mystified that he forgot himself, and began putting his interrogation in legal form.

"Will you state, if you pleaseI beg your pardonmay I ask who is your own favorite author?"

Clement stared at Mr. Bradshaw, and wondered whether he was trying to make a fool of him. The young

"Oh!" said Mr. Bradshaw. He saw that there had been a slight misunderstanding between the young man and

his worthy host, but it was none of his business, and there were other subjects of interest to talk about.

"You know one of our charming young ladies very well, I believe, Mr. Lindsay. I think you are an old

Poor Clement! The question pierced to the very marrow of his soul, but it was put with the utmost suavity

and courtesy, and honeyed with a compliment to the young lady, too, so that there was no avoiding a direct

"Yes," he said, "I have known the young lady you speak of for a long time, and very well,in fact, as you

must have heard, we are something more than friends. My visit here is principally on her account."

"You must give the rest of us a chance to see something of you during your visit, Mr. Lindsay. I hope you are

"Yes, I got a note this morning. Tell me, Mr. Bradshaw, who is there that I shall meet if I go? I have no doubt

there are girls here in the village I should like to see, and perhaps some young fellows that I should like to

"Oh, we're a little place, Mr. Lindsay. A few nice people, the rest comme Va, you know. Highbush

blackberries and lowbush black berries,you understand,just so everywhere,highbush here and

there, lowbush plenty. You must see the two parsons' daughters, Saint Ambrose's and Saint

Joseph's,and another girl I want particularly to introduce you to. You shall form your own opinion of her. I

call her handsome and stylish, but you have got spoiled, you know. Our young poet, too, one we raised in this

place, Mr. Lindsay, and a superior article of poet, as we think,that is, some of us, for the rest of us are

jealous of him, because the girls are all dying for him and want his autograph. And Cyp,yes, you must talk

to Cyp,he has ideas. But don't forget to get hold of old Byles Master Gridley I meanbefore you go. Big

head. Brains enough for a cabinet minister, and fit out a college faculty with what was left over. Be sure you

see old Byles. Set him talking about his book, 'Thoughts on the Universe.' Did n't sell much, but has got

knowing things in it. I'll show you a copy, and then you can tell him you know it, and he will take to you.

Come in and get your dinner with me tomorrow. We will dine late, as the city folks do, and after that we

will go over to the Rector's. I should like to show you some of our village people."

Mr. Bradshaw liked the thought of showing the young man to some of his friends there. As Clement was

already "done for," or "bowled out," as the young lawyer would have expressed the fact of his being pledged

in the matrimonial direction, there was nothing to be apprehended on the score of rivalry. And although

Clement was particularly goodlooking, and would have been called a distinguishable youth anywhere, Mr.

Bradshaw considered himself far more than his match, in all probability, in social accomplishments. He

expected, therefore, a certain amount of reflex credit for bringing such a fine young fellow in his company,

and a second instalment of reputation from outshining him in conversation. This was rather nice calculating,

but Murray Bradshaw always calculated. With most men life is like backgammon, half skill, and half luck,

but with him it was like chess. He never pushed a pawn without reckoning the cost, and when his mind was

least busy it was sure to be half a dozen moves ahead of the game as it was standing.

Mr. Bradshaw gave Clement a pretty dinner enough for such a place as Oxbow Village. He offered him some

good wine, and would have made him talk so as to show his lining, to use one of his own expressions, but

Clement had apparently been through that trifling experience, and could not be coaxed into saying more than

he meant to say. Murray Bradshaw was very curious to find out how it was that he had become the victim of

such a rudimentary miss as Susan Posey. Could she be an heiress in disguise? Why no, of course not; had not

he made all proper inquiries about that when Susan came to town? A small inheritance from an aunt or uncle,

or some such relative, enough to make her a desirable party in the eyes of certain villagers perhaps, but

nothing to allure a man like this, whose face and figure as marketable possessions were worth say a hundred

thousand in the girl's own right, as Mr. Bradshaw put it roughly, with another hundred thousand if his talent is

what some say, and if his connection is a desirable one, a fancy price,anything he would fetch. Of course

not. Must have got caught when he was a child. Why the diavolo didn't he break it off, then?

There was no fault to find with the modest entertainment at the Parsonage. A splendid banquet in a great

house is an admirable thing, provided always its getting up did not cost the entertainer an inward conflict, nor

its recollection a twinge of economical regret, nor its bills a cramp of anxiety. A simple evening party in the

smallest village is just as admirable in its degree, when the parlor is cheerfully lighted, and the board prettily

spread, and the guests are made to feel comfortable without being reminded that anybody is making a painful

We know several of the young people who were there, and need not trouble ourselves for the others. Myrtle

Hazard had promised to come. She had her own way of late as never before; in fact, the women were afraid

of her. Miss Silence felt that she could not be responsible for her any longer. She had hopes for a time that

Myrtle would go through the customary spiritual paroxysm under the influence of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's

assiduous exhortations; but since she had broken off with him, Miss Silence had looked upon her as little

better than a backslider. And now that the girl was beginning to show the tendencies which seemed to come

straight down to her from the belle of the last century, (whose rich physical developments seemed to the

undervitalized spinster as in themselves a kind of offence against propriety,) the forlorn woman folded her

thin hands and looked on hopelessly, hardly venturing a remonstrance for fear of some new explosion. As for

Cynthia, she was comparatively easy since she had, through Mr. Byles Gridley, upset the minister's

questionable arrangement of religious intimacy. She had, in fact, in a quiet way, given Mr. Bradshaw to

understand that he would probably meet Myrtle at the Parsonage if he dropped in at their small gathering.

Clement walked over to Mrs. Hopkins's after his dinner with the young lawyer, and asked if Susan was ready

to go with him. At the sound of his voice, Gifted Hopkins smote his forehead, and called himself, in subdued

tones, a miserable being. His imagination wavered uncertain for a while between pictures of various modes of

ridding himself of existence, and fearful deeds involving the life of others. He had no fell purpose of actually

doing either, but there was a gloomy pleasure in contemplating them as possibilities, and in mentally

sketching the "Lines written in Despair" which would be found in what was but an hour before the pocket of

the youthful bard, G. H., victim of a hopeless passion. All this emotion was in the nature of a surprise to the

young man. He had fully believed himself desperately in love with Myrtle Hazard; and it was not until

Clement came into the family circle with the right of eminent domain over the realm of Susan's affections,

that this unfortunate discovered that Susan's pretty ways and morning dress and love of poetry and liking for

his company had been too much for him, and that he was henceforth to be wretched during the remainder of

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had asked the privilege of waiting upon Myrtle to the little party at the

Eveleths. Myrtle was not insensible to the attractions of the young lawyer, though she had never thought of

herself except as a child in her relations with any of these older persons. But she was not the same girl that

she had been but a few months before. She had achieved her independence by her audacious and most

dangerous enterprise. She had gone through strange nervous trials and spiritual experiences which had

matured her more rapidly than years of common life would have done. She had got back her health, bringing

with it a riper wealth of womanhood. She had found her destiny in the consciousness that she inherited the

beauty belonging to her blood, and which, after sleeping for a generation or two as if to rest from the glare of

the pageant that follows beauty through its long career of triumph, had come to the light again in her life, and

Myrtle's wardrobe had very little of ornament, such as the modistes of the town would have thought essential

to render a young girl like her presentable. There were a few heirlooms of old date, however, which she had

kept as curiosities until now, and which she looked over until she found some lace and other convertible

material, with which she enlivened her costume a little for the evening. As she clasped the antique bracelet

around her wrist, she felt as if it were an amulet that gave her the power of charming which had been so long

obsolete in her lineage. At the bottom of her heart she cherished a secret longing to try her fascinations on the

young lawyer. Who could blame her? It was not an inwardly expressed intention,it was the simple

instinctive movement to subjugate the strongest of the other sex who had come in her way, which, as already

said, is as natural to a woman as it is to a man to be captivated by the loveliest of those to whom he dares to

Before William Murray Bradshaw and Myrtle Hazard had reached the Parsonage, the girl's cheeks were

flushed and her dark eyes were flashing with a new excitement. The young man had not made love to her

directly, but he had interested her in herself by a delicate and tender flattery of manner, and so set her fancies

working that she was taken with him as never before, and wishing that the Parsonage had been a mile farther

from The Poplars. It was impossible for a young girl like Myrtle to conceal the pleasure she received from

listening to her seductive admirer, who was trying all his trained skill upon his artless companion. Murray

Bradshaw felt sure that the game was in his hands if he played it with only common prudence. There was no

need of hurrying this child,it might startle her to make downright love abruptly; and now that he had an

ally in her own household, and was to have access to her with a freedom he had never before enjoyed, there

was a refined pleasure in playing his fish, this gamest of goldenscaled creatures,which had risen to his

fly, and which he wished to hook, but not to land, until he was sure it would be worth his while.

They entered the little parlor at the Parsonage looking so beaming, that Olive and Bathsheba exchanged

glances which implied so much that it would take a full page to tell it with all the potentialities involved.

"How magnificent Myrtle is this evening, Bathsheba!" said Cyprian Eveleth, pensively.

Cyprian sighed. "She always fascinates me whenever I look upon her. Is n't she the very picture of what a

poet's love should be,a poem herself,a glorious lyric,all light and music! See what a smile the

creature has! And her voice! When did you ever hear such tones? And when was it ever so full of life before."

Bathsheba sighed. "I do not know any poets but Gifted Hopkins. Does not Myrtle look more in her place by

Just then the poet made his appearance. He looked depressed, as if it had cost him an effort to come. He was,

however, charged with a message which he must deliver to the hostess of the evening.

"They 're coming presently," he said. "That young man and Susan. Wants you to introduce him, Mr.

The bell rang presently, and Murray Bradshaw slipped out into the entry to meet the two lovers.

"How are you, my fortunate friend?" he said, as he met them at the door. "Of course you're well and happy as

mortal man can be in this vale of tears. Charming, ravishing, quite delicious, that way of dressing your hair,

Miss Posey! Nice girls here this evening, Mr. Lindsay. Looked lovely when I came out of the parlor. Can't

say how they will show after this young lady puts in an appearance." In reply to which florid speeches Susan

blushed, not knowing what else to do, and Clement smiled as naturally as if he had been sitting for his

He felt, in a vague way, that he and Susan were being patronized, which is not a pleasant feeling to persons

with a certain pride of character. There was no expression of contempt about Mr. Bradshaw's manner or

language at which he could take offence. Only he had the air of a man who praises his neighbor without stint,

with a calm consciousness that he himself is out of reach of comparison in the possessions or qualities which

he is admiring in the other. Clement was right in his obscure perception of Mr. Bradshaw's feeling while he

was making his phrases. That gentleman was, in another moment, to have the tingling delight of showing the

grand creature he had just begun to tame. He was going to extinguish the pallid light of Susan's prettiness in

the brightness of Myrtle's beauty. He would bring this young man, neutralized and rendered entirely harmless

by his irrevocable pledge to a slight girl, face to face with a masterpiece of young womanhood, and say to

him, not in words, but as plainly as speech could have told him, "Behold my captive!"

It was a proud moment for Murray Bradshaw. He had seen, or thought that he had seen, the assured evidence

of a speedy triumph over all the obstacles of Myrtle's youth and his own present seeming slight excess of

maturity. Unless he were very greatly mistaken, he could now walk the course; the plate was his, no matter

what might be the entries. And this youth, this handsome, spiritedlooking, noble aired young fellow,

whose artisteye could not miss a line of Myrtle's proud and almost defiant beauty, was to be the witness of

his power, and to look in admiration upon his prize! He introduced him to the others, reserving her for the

last. She was at that moment talking with the worthy Rector, and turned when Mr. Bradshaw spoke to her.

"Miss Hazard, will you allow me to present to you my friend, Mr. Clement Lindsay?"

They looked full upon each other, and spoke the common words of salutation. It was a strange meeting; but

we who profess to tell the truth must tell strange things, or we shall be liars.

In poor little Susan's letter there was some allusion to a bust of Innocence which the young artist had begun,

but of which he had said nothing in his answer to her. He had roughed out a block of marble for that

impersonation; sculpture was a delight to him, though secondary to his main pursuit. After his memorable

adventure, the image of the girl he had rescued so haunted him that the pale ideal which was to work itself

out in the bust faded away in its perpetual presence, andalas, poor Susan! in obedience to the impulse that

he could not control, he left Innocence sleeping in the marble, and began modelling a figure of proud and

The original which had inspired his conception was before him. These were the lips to which his own had

clung when he brought her back from the land of shadows. The hyacinthine curl of her lengthening locks had

added something to her beauty; but it was the same face which had haunted him. This was the form he had

borne seemingly lifeless in his arms, and the bosom which heaved so visibly before him was that which his

eyes they were the calm eyes of a sculptor, but of a sculptor hardly twenty years old.

Yes,her bosom was heaving. She had an unexplained feeling of suffocation, and drew great breaths,she

could not have said why, but she could not help it; and presently she became giddy, and had a great noise

in her ears, and rolled her eyes about, and was on the point of going into an hysteric spasm. They called Dr.

Hurlbut, who was making himself agreeable to Olive just then, to come and see what was the matter with

Open the window. Loose the ribbon round her neck. Rub her hands. Sprinkle some water on her forehead.

Myrtle came to herself after a time without anything like a regular paroxysm. But she was excitable, and

whatever the cause of the disturbance may have been, it seemed prudent that she should go home early; and

the excellent Rector insisted on caring for her, much to the discontent of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw.

"Demonish odd," said this gentleman, "was n't it, Mr. Lindsay, that Miss Hazard should go off in that way.

"I met her in the Valley of the Shadow of Death," Clement answered, very solemnly. "I leave this place

"Knows how to shut a fellow up pretty well for a young one, doesn't he?" Mr. Bradshaw thought to himself.

"Thank you, no," he answered, recovering himself. "Rather a melancholy place to make acquaintance in, I

Mr. Clement had the power of looking steadily into another person's eyes in a way that was by no means

encouraging to curiosity or favorable to the process of crossexamination. Mr. Bradshaw was not disposed to

press his question in the face of the calm, repressive look the young man gave him.

"If he was n't bagged, I shouldn't like the shape of things any too well," he said to himself.

The conversation between Mr. Clement Lindsay and Miss Susan Posey, as they walked home together, was

not very brilliant. "I am going to morrow morning," he said, "and I must bid you goodby tonight." Perhaps

Before he went he spoke to his worthy host, whose moderate demands he had to satisfy, and with whom he

"And by the way, Deacon, I have no use for this book, and as it is in a good type, perhaps you would like it.

Your favorite, Scott, and one of his greatest works. I have another edition of it at home, and don't care for this

Thank you, thank you, Mr. Lindsay, much obleeged. I shall read that copy for your sake, the best of books

After Mr. Lindsay had gone, the Deacon looked at the back of the book. "Scott's Works, Vol. IX." He opened

it at hazard, and happened to fall on a wellknown page, from which he began reading aloud, slowly,

The whole hymn pleased the grave Deacon. He had never seen this work of the author of the Commentary.

No matter; anything that such a good man wrote must be good reading, and he would save it up for Sunday.

The consequence of this was, that, when the Rev. Mr. Stoker stopped in on his way to meeting on the

"Sabbath," he turned white with horror at the spectacle of the senior Deacon of his church sitting,

openmouthed and wideeyed, absorbed in the pages of "Ivanhoe," which he found enormously interesting;

but, so far as he had yet read, not occupied with religious matters so much as he had expected.

Myrtle had no explanation to give of her nervous attack. Mr. Bradshaw called the day after the party, but did

not see her. He met her walking, and thought she seemed a little more distant than common. That would

never do. He called again at The Poplars a few days afterwards, and was met in the entry by Miss Cynthia,

with whom he had a long conversation on matters involving Myrtle's interests and their own.

Mr. Clement Lindsay returned to the city and his usual labors in a state of strange mental agitation. He had

received an impression for which he was unprepared. He had seen for the second time a young girl whom, for

the peace of his own mind, and for the happiness of others, he should never again have looked upon until

Time had taught their young hearts the lesson which all hearts must learn, sooner or later.

What shall the unfortunate person do who has met with one of those disappointments, or been betrayed into

one of those positions, which do violence to all the tenderest feelings, blighting the happiness of youth, and

If the person is a young man, he has various resources. He can take to the philosophic meerschaum, and

nicotine himself at brief intervals into a kind of buzzing and blurry insensibility, until he begins to "color" at

last like the bowl of his own pipe, and even his mind gets the tobacco flavor. Or he can have recourse to the

more suggestive stimulants, which will dress his future up for him in shining possibilities that glitter like

Masonic regalia, until the morning light and the waking headache reveal his illusion. Some kind of spiritual

anaesthetic he must have, if he holds his grief fast tied to his heartstrings. But as grief must be fed with

thought, or starve to death, it is the best plan to keep the mind so busy in other ways that it has no time to

attend to the wants of that ravening passion. To sit down and passively endure it, is apt to end in putting all

Clement Lindsay had thought that his battle of life was already fought, and that he had conquered. He

believed that he had subdued himself completely, and that he was ready, without betraying a shadow of

disappointment, to take the insufficient nature which destiny had assigned him in his companion, and share

with it all of his own larger being it was capable, not of comprehending, but of apprehending.

He had deceived himself. The battle was not fought and won. There had been a struggle, and what seemed to

be a victory, but the enemy intrenched in the very citadel of lifehad rallied, and would make another

The haste with which the young man had quitted the village was only a proof that he felt his danger. He

believed that, if he came into the presence of Myrtle Hazard for the third time, he should be no longer master

of his feelings. Some explanation must take place between them, and how was it possible that it should be

without emotion? and in what do all emotions shared by a young man with such a young girl as this tend to

Clement determined to stun his sensibilities by work. He would give himself no leisure to indulge in idle

dreams of what might have been. His plans were never so carefully finished, and his studies were never so

continuous as now. But the passion still wrought within him, and, if he drove it from his waking thoughts,

haunted his sleep until he could endure it no longer, and must give it some manifestation. He had covered up

the bust of Liberty so closely, that not an outline betrayed itself through the heavy folds of drapery in which it

was wrapped. His thoughts recurred to his unfinished marble, as offering the one mode in which he could

find a silent outlet to the feelings and thoughts which it was torture to keep imprisoned in his soul. The cold

stone would tell them, but without passion; and having got the image which possessed him out of himself into

a lifeless form, it seemed as if he might be delivered from a presence which, lovely as it was, stood between

He uncovered the bust which he had but half shaped, and struck the first flake from the glittering marble. The

toil, once begun, fascinated him strangely, and after the day's work was done, and at every interval he could

"Clement is graver than ever," the young men said at the office. �� What's the matter, do you suppose?

Turned off by the girl they say he means to marry by and by? How pale he looks too! Must have something

The master with whom he studied saw that he was losing color, and looking very much worn; and determined

to find out, if he could, whether he was not overworking himself. He soon discovered that his light was seen

burning late into the night, that he was neglecting his natural rest, and always busy with some unknown task,

"Something is wearing on you, Clement," he said. "You are killing yourself with undertaking too much. Will

you let me know what keeps you so busy when you ought to be asleep, or taking your ease and comfort in

Nobody but himself had ever seen his marble or its model. He had now almost finished it, laboring at it with

such sleepless devotion, and he was willing to let his master have a sight of his first effort of the kind,for

he was not a sculptor, it must be remembered, though he had modelled in clay, not without some success,

The master climbed the stairs with him up to his modest chamber. A closely shrouded bust stood on its

"That is my ideal personage," Clement said. "Wait one moment, and you shall see how far I have caught the

The master expected, very naturally, to see the conventional young woman with classical wreath or feather

headdress, whom we have placed upon our smallest coin, so that our children may all grow up loving Liberty.

As Clement withdrew the drapery that covered his work, the master stared at it in amazement. He looked at it

long and earnestly, and at length turned his eyes, a little moistened by some feeling which thus betrayed

"This is no ideal, Clement. It is the portrait of a very young but very beautiful woman. No common feeling

could have guided your hand in shaping such a portrait from memory. This must be that friend of yours of

whom I have often heard as an amiable young person. Pardon me, for you know that nobody cares more for

you than I do,I hope that you are happy in all your relations with this young friend of yours. How could

It was hard to bear, very hard. He forced a smile. "You are partly right," he said. "There is a resemblance, I

"Did n't you tell me once, Clement, that you were attempting a bust of Innocence? I do not see any block in

"Done with!" Clement answered; and, as he said it, the thought stung through him that this was the very stone

which was to have worn the pleasant blandness of pretty Susan's guileless countenance. How the new

In a few days more Clement had finished his bust. His hours were again vacant to his thickcoming fancies.

While he had been busy with his marble, his hands had required his attention, and he must think closely of

every detail upon which he was at work. But at length his task was done, and he could contemplate what he

had made of it. It was a triumph for one so little exercised in sculpture. The master had told him so, and his

own eye could not deceive him. He might never succeed in any repetition of his effort, but this once he most

certainly had succeeded. He could not disguise from himself the source of this extraordinary good fortune in

so doubtful and difficult an attempt. Nor could he resist the desire of contemplating the portrait bust,

It was too nearly like the story of the ancient sculptor; his own work was an overmatch for its artist.

Clement had made a mistake in supposing that by giving his dream a material form he should drive it from

the possession of his mind. The image in which he had fixed his recollection of its original served only to

keep her living presence before him. He thought of her as she clasped her arms around him, and they were

swallowed up in the rushing waters, coming so near to passing into the unknown world together. He thought

of her as he stretched her lifeless form upon the bank, and looked for one brief moment on her unsunned

loveliness,"a sight to dream of, not to tell." He thought of her as his last fleeting glimpse had shown her,

beautiful, not with the blossomy prettiness that passes away with the spring sunshine, but with a rich vitality

of which noble outlines and winning expression were only the natural accidents. And that singular impression

which the sight of him had produced upon her, how strange! How could she but have listened to him,to

him, who was, as it were, a second creator to her, for he had bought her back from the gates of the unseen

realm,if he had recalled to her the dread moments they had passed in each other's arms, with death, not

love, in all their thoughts. And if then he had told her how her image had remained with him, how it had

colored all his visions, and mingled with all his conceptions, would not those dark eyes have melted as they

were turned upon him? Nay, how could he keep the thought away, that she would not have been insensible to

his passion, if he could have suffered its flame to kindle in his heart? Did it not seem as if Death had spared

them for Love, and that Love should lead them together through life's long journey to the gates of Death?

Never! never! never! Their fates were fixed. For him, poor insect as he was, a solitary flight by day, and a

Could he give her up to the cold embraces of that passionless egotist, who, as he perceived plainly enough,

was casting his shining net all around her? Clement read Murray Bradshaw correctly. He could not perhaps

have spread his character out in set words, as we must do for him, for it takes a long apprenticeship to learn to

describe analytically what we know as soon as we see it; but he felt in his inner consciousness all that we

must tell for him. Fascinating, agreeable, artful, knowing, capable of winning a woman infinitely above

himself, incapable of understanding her,oh, if he could but touch him with the angel's spear, and bid him

take his true shape before her whom he was gradually enveloping in the silken meshes of his subtle web! He

would make a place for her in the world,oh yes, doubtless. He would be proud of her in company, would

dress her handsomely, and show her off in the best lights. But from the very hour that he felt his power over

her firmly established, he would begin to remodel her after his own worldly pattern. He would dismantle her

of her womanly ideals, and give her in their place his table of marketvalues. He would teach her to submit

her sensibilities to her selfish interest, and her tastes to the fashion of the moment, no matter which world or

halfworld it came from. "As the husband is, the wife is,"he would subdue her to what he worked in.

All this Clement saw, as in apocalyptic vision, stored up for the wife of Murray Bradshaw, if he read him

rightly, as he felt sure he did, from the few times he had seen him. He would be rich by and by, very

probably. He looked like one of those young men who are sharp, and hard enough to come to fortune. Then

she would have to take her place in the great social exhibition where the gilded cages are daily opened that

the animals may be seen, feeding on the sight of stereotyped toilets and the sound of impoverished tattle. O

misery of semiprovincial fashionable life, where wealth is at its wit's end to avoid being tired of an

existence which has all the labor of keeping up appearances, without the piquant profligacy which saves it at

least from being utterly vapid! How many fashionable women at the end of a long season would be ready to

welcome heaven itself as a relief from the desperate monotony of dressing, dawdling, and driving!

This could not go on so forever. Clement had placed a red curtain so as to throw a rosebloom on his marble,

and give it an aspect which his fancy turned to the semblance of life. He would sit and look at the features his

own hand had so faithfully wrought, until it seemed as if the lips moved, sometimes as if they were smiling,

sometimes as if they were ready to speak to him. His companions began to whisper strange things of him in

the studio,that his eye was getting an unnatural light,that he talked as if to imaginary listeners,in

short, that there was a look as if something were going wrong with his brain, which it might be feared would

spoil his fine intelligence. It was the undecided battle, and the enemy, as in his noblest moments he had

He was sitting one afternoon before the fatal bust which had smiled and whispered away his peace, when the

postman brought him a letter. It was from the simple girl to whom he had given his promise. We know how

she used to prattle in her harmless way about her innocent feelings, and the trifling matters that were going on

in her little village world. But now she wrote in sadness. Something, she did not too clearly explain what, had

grieved her, and she gave free expression to her feelings. "I have no one that loves me but you," she said;

"and if you leave me I must droop and die. Are you true to me, dearest Clement,true as when we promised

each other that we would love while life lasted? Or have you forgotten one who will never cease to remember

Clement dropped the letter from his hand, and sat a long hour looking at the exquisitely wrought features of

At length he arose, and, lifting the bust tenderly from its pedestal, laid it upon the cloth with which it had

been covered. He wrapped it closely, fold upon fold, as the mother whom man condemns and God pities

wraps the child she loves before she lifts her hand against its life. Then he took a heavy hammer and shattered

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw was in pretty intimate relations with Miss Cynthia Badlam. It was well

understood between them that it might be of very great advantage to both of them if he should in due time

become the accepted lover of Myrtle Hazard. So long as he could be reasonably secure against interference,

he did not wish to hurry her in making her decision. Two things he did wish to be sure of, if possible, before

asking her the great question;first, that she would answer it in the affirmative; and secondly, that certain

contingencies, the turning of which was not as yet absolutely capable of being predicted, should happen as he

expected. Cynthia had the power of furthering his wishes in many direct and indirect ways, and he felt sure of

her cooperation. She had some reason to fear his enmity if she displeased him, and he had taken good care to

make her understand that her interests would be greatly promoted by the success of the plan which he had

He kept the most careful eye on every possible source of disturbance to this quietly maturing plan. He had no

objection to have Gifted Hopkins about Myrtle as much as she would endure to have him. The youthful bard

entertained her very innocently with his bursts of poetry, but she was in no danger from a young person so

intimately associated with the yardstick, the blunt scissors, and the brown paper parcel. There was Cyprian

too, about whom he did not feel any very particular solicitude. Myrtle had evidently found out that she was

handsome and stylish and all that, and it was not very likely she would take up with such a bashful, humble,

country youth as this. He could expect nothing beyond a possible rectorate in the remote distance, with one of

those little pony chapels to preach in, which, if it were set up on a stout pole, would pass for a goodsized

martinhouse. Cyprian might do to practise on, but there was no danger of her looking at him in a serious

way. As for that youth, Clement Lindsay, if he had not taken himself off as he did, Murray Bradshaw

confessed to himself that he should have felt uneasy. He was too goodlooking, and too clever a young

fellow to have knocking about among fragile susceptibilities. But on reflection he saw there could be no

"All up with him,poor diavolo! Can't understand itsuch a little sixpenny misspretty enough boiled

parsnip blonde, if one likes that sort of thingpleases some of the old boys, apparently. Look out, Mr. L.

"Safe enough if something new doesn't turn up. Youngish. Sixteen's a little early. Seventeen will do. Marry a

girl while she's in the gristle, and you can shape her bones for her. Splendid creature without her trimmings.

Mr. Bradshaw began humming the hymn, "When I can read my title clear," adding some variations of his

In the mean time Myrtle seemed to be showing some new developments. One would have said that the

instincts of the coquette, or at least of the city belle, were coming uppermost in her nature. Her little nervous

attack passed away, and she gained strength and beauty every day. She was becoming conscious of her gifts

of fascination, and seemed to please herself with the homage of her rustic admirers. Why was it that no one of

them had the look and bearing of that young man she had seen but a moment the other evening? To think that

he should have taken up with such a weakling as Susan Posey! She sighed, and not so much thought as felt

how kind it would have been in Heaven to have made her such a man. But the image of the delicate blonde

stood between her and all serious thought of Clement Lindsay. She saw the wedding in the distance, and very

But Clement Lindsay was gone, and she must content herself with such worshippers as the village afforded.

Murray Bradshaw was surprised and confounded at the easy way in which she received his compliments, and

played with his advances, after the fashion of the trained ball room belles, who know how to be almost

caressing in manner, and yet are really as far off from the deluded victim of their suavities as the topmost

statue of the Milan cathedral from the peasant that kneels on its floor. He admired her all the more for this,

and yet he saw that she would be a harder prize to win than he had once thought. If he made up his mind that

he would have her, he must go armed with all implements, from the red hackle to the harpoon.

The change which surprised Murray Bradshaw could not fail to be noticed by all those about her. Miss

Silence had long ago come to pantomime, rolling up of eyes, clasping of hands, making of sad mouths, and

the rest,but left her to her own way, as already the property of that great firm of World Co. which drives

such sharp bargains for young souls with the better angels. Cynthia studied her for her own purposes, but had

never gained her confidence. The Irish servant saw that some change had come over her, and thought of the

great ladies she had sometimes looked upon in the old country. They all had a kind of superstitious feeling

about Myrtle's bracelet, of which she had told them the story, but which Kitty half believed was put in the

drawer by the fairies, who brought her ribbons and partridge feathers, and other slight adornments with which

she contrived to set off her simple costume, so as to produce those effects which an eye for color and cunning

Gifted Hopkins was now in a sad, vacillating condition, between the two great attractions to which he was

exposed. Myrtle looked so immensely handsome ere Sunday when he saw her going to church, not to

meeting, for she world not go, except when she knew Father Pemberton was going to be the preacher, that the

young poet was on the point of going down on his knees to her, and telling her that his heart was hers and

hers alone. But he suddenly remembered that he had on his best trousers, and the idea of carrying the marks

of his devotion in the shape of two dusty impressions on his most valued article of apparel turned the scale

against the demonstration. It happened the next morning, that Susan Posey wore the most becoming ribbon

she had displayed for a long time, and Gifted was so taken with her pretty looks that he might very probably

have made the same speech to her that he had been on the point of making to Myrtle the day before, but that

he remembered her plighted affections, and thought what he should have to say for himself when Clement

Lindsay, in a frenzy of rage and jealousy, stood before him, probably armed with as many deadly instruments

Cyprian Eveleth looked very differently on the new manifestations Myrtle was making of her tastes and

inclinations. He had always felt dazzled, as well as attracted, by her; but now there was something in her

expression and manner which made him feel still more strongly that they were intended for different spheres

of life. He could not but own that she was born for a brilliant destiny,that no ball room would throw a

light from its chandeliers too strong for her, that no circle would be too brilliant for her to illuminate by

her presence. Love does not thrive without hope, and Cyprian was beginning to see that it was idle in him to

think of folding these wide wings of Myrtle's so that they would be shut up in any cage he could ever offer

her. He began to doubt whether, after all, he might not find a meeker and humbler nature better adapted to his

own. And so it happened that one evening after the three girls, Olive, Myrtle, and Bathsheba, had been

together at the Parsonage, and Cyprian, availing himself of a brother's privilege, had joined them, he found he

had been talking most of the evening with the gentle girl whose voice had grown so soft and sweet, during

her long ministry in the sickchamber, that it seemed to him more like music than speech. It would not be fair

to say that Myrtle was piqued to see that Cyprian was devoting himself to Bathsheba. Her ambition was

already reaching beyond her little village circle, and she had an inward sense that Cyprian found a form of

sympathy in the minister's simpleminded daughter which he could not ask from a young woman of her own

Such was the state of affairs when Master Byles Gridley was one morning surprised by an early call from

Myrtle. He had a volume of Walton's Polyglot open before him, and was reading Job in the original, when

"Why, bless me, is that my young friend Miss Myrtle Hazard?" he exclaimed. "I might call you

KerenHappuch, which is Hebrew for Child of Beauty, and not be very far out of the way, Job's youngest

daughter, my dear. And what brings my young friend out in such good season this morning? Nothing going

"I want to talk with you, dear Master Gridley," she answered. She looked as if she did not know just how to

"Anything that interests you, Myrtle, interests me. I think you have some project in that young head of yours,

my child. Let us have it, in all its dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness. I think I can guess, Myrtle, that

we have a little plan of some kind or other. We don't visit Papa Job quite so early as this without some special

"I want to go to the cityto school," Myrtle said, with the directness which belonged to her nature.

"That is precisely what I want you to do myself, Miss Myrtle Hazard. I don't like to lose you from the village,

"You're the best and dearest man that ever lived. What could have made you think of such a thing for me, Mr.

"Because you are ignorant, my child,partly I want to see you fitted to take a look at the world without

feeling like a little country miss. Has your aunt Silence promised to bear your expenses while you are in the

"I have not said a word to her about it. I am sure I don't know what she would say. But I have some money,

She showed him a purse with gold, telling him how she came by it. "There is some silver besides. Will it be

"No, no, my child, we must not meddle with that. Your aunt will let me put it in the bank for you, I think,

where it will be safe. But that shall not make any difference. I have got a little money lying idle, which you

may just as well have the use of as not. You can pay it back perhaps some time or other; if you did not, it

would not make much difference. I am pretty much alone in the world, and except a book now and

thenAut liberos aut libros, as our valiant heretic has it,you ought to know a little Latin, Myrtle, but

never mindI have not much occasion for money. You shall go to the best school that any of our cities can

offer, Myrtle, and you shall stay there until we agree that you are fitted to come back to us an ornament to

Oxbow Village, and to larger places than this if you are called there. We have had some talk about it, your

aunt Silence and I, and it is all settled. Your aunt does not feel very rich just now, or perhaps she would do

more for you. She has many pious and poor friends, and it keeps her funds low. Never mind, my child, we

will have it all arranged for you, and you shall begin the year 1860 in Madam Delacoste's institution for

young ladies. Too many rich girls and fashionable ones there, I fear, but you must see some of all kinds, and

there are very good instructors in the school,I know one,he was a college boy with me,and you will

find pleasant and good companions there, so he tells me; only don't be in a hurry to choose your friends, for

Myrtle was bewildered with the suddenness of the prospect thus held out to her. It is a wonder that she did

not bestow an embrace upon the worthy old master. Perhaps she had too much tact. It is a pretty way enough

of telling one that he belongs to a past generation, but it does tell him that not overpleasing fact. Like the

title of Emeritus Professor, it is a tribute to be accepted, hardly to be longed for.

When the curtain rises again, it will show Miss Hazard in a new character, and surrounded by a new world.

Mr. Bradshaw was obliged to leave town for a week or two on business connected with the great landclaim.

On his return, feeling in pretty good spirits, as the prospects looked favorable, he went to make a call at The

"Bliss your soul, Mr. Bridshaw," answered Mistress Kitty Fagan, "she's been gahn nigh a wake. It's to the

This announcement seemed to make a deep impression on Murray Bradshaw, for his feelings found utterance

in one of the most energetic forms of language to which ears polite or impolite are accustomed. He next

asked for Miss Silence, who soon presented herself. Mr. Bradshaw asked, in a rather excited way, "Is it

possible, Miss Withers, that your niece has quitted you to go to a city school?"

Miss Silence answered, with her chiefmourner expression, and her deathchamber tone: "Yes, she has left

us for a season. I trust it may not be her destruction. I had hoped in former years that she would become a

missionary, but I have given up all expectation of that now. Two whole years, from the age of four to that of

six, I had prevailed upon her to give up sugar,the money so saved to go to a graduate of our

institutionwho was afterwardshe labored among the cannibalislanders. I thought she seemed to take

pleasure in this small act of selfdenial, but I have since suspected that Kitty gave her secret lumps. It was by

Mr. Gridley's advice that she went, and by his pecuniary assistance. What could I do? She was bent on going,

and I was afraid she would have fits, or do something dreadful, if I did not let her have her way. I am afraid

she will come back to us spoiled. She has seemed so fond of dress lately, and once she spoke of

learningyes, Mr. Bradshaw, of learning todance! I wept when I heard of it. Yes, I wept."

That was such a tremendous thing to think of, and especially to speak of in Mr. Bradshaw's presence, for the

most pathetic image in the world to many women is that of themselves in tears,that it brought a return of

the same overflow, which served as a substitute for conversation until Miss Badlam entered the apartment.

Miss Cynthia followed the same general course of remark. They could not help Myrtle's going if they tried.

She had always maintained that, if they had only once broke her will when she was little, they would have

kept the upper hand of her; but her will never was broke. They came pretty near it once, but the child would

Miss Cynthia went to the door with Mr. Bradshaw, and the conversation immediately became short and

Can't tell you. She'll write to Olive and Bathsheba, and I'll find out all about it."

Murray Bradshaw went home and wrote a long letter to Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24 Carat Place, containing

many interesting remarks and inquiries, some of the latter relating to Madam Delacoste's institution for the

While this was going on at Oxbow Village, Myrtle was establishing herself at the rather fashionable school to

which Mr. Gridley had recommended her. Mrs. or Madam Delacoste's boardingschool had a name which on

the whole it deserved pretty well. She had some very good instructors for girls who wished to get up useful

knowledge in case they might marry professors or ministers. They had a chance to learn music, dancing,

drawing, and the way of behaving in company. There was a chance, too, to pick up available acquaintances,

for many rich people sent their daughters to the school, and it was something to have been bred in their

There was the usual division of the scholars into a first and second set, according to the social position,

mainly depending upon the fortune, of the families to which they belonged. The wholesale dealer's daughter

very naturally considered herself as belonging to a different order from the retail dealer's daughter. The

keeper of a great hotel and the editor of a widely circulated newspaper were considered as ranking with the

wholesale dealers, and their daughters belonged also to the untitled nobility which has the dollar for its

armorial bearing. The second set had most of the good scholars, and some of the prettiest girls; but nobody

knew anything about their families, who lived off the great streets and avenues, or vegetated in country

Myrtle Hazard's advent made something like a sensation. They did not know exactly what to make of her.

Hazard? Hazard? No great firm of that name. No leading hotel kept by any Hazard, was there? No newspaper

of note edited by anybody called Hazard, was there? Came from where? Oxbow Village. Oh, rural district.

Yes. Still they could not help owning that she was handsome, a concession which of course had to be

"Don't you think she's vuiry goodlookin'?" said a Boston girl to a New York girl. "I think she's real pooty."

"I dew, indeed. I didn't think she was haaf so handsome the feeest time I saw her," answered the New York

"And married a sarsaparilla man, and lived in Fiff Avenoo, and moved in the fust society."

"Better dew that than be strongmainded, and dew your own cook'n, and live in your own kitch'n."

"Indeed I shaan't. What's the name of the alley, and which bell?" The New York girl took out a

"Had n't you better let me write it for you, dear?" said the Boston girl. "It is as well to have it legible, you

"Take it," said the New York girl. "There 's tew York shill'ns in it when I hand it to you."

Elegant manners, correct deportment, and propriety of language will be strictly attended to in this institution.

The most correct standards of pronunciation will be inculcated by precept and example. It will be the special

aim of the teachers to educate their pupils out of all provincialisms, so that they may be recognized as well

bred English scholars wherever the language is spoken in its purity." Extract from the Prospectus of

Myrtle Hazard was a puzzle to all the girls. Striking, they all agreed, but then the criticisms began. Many of

the girls chattered a little broken French, and one of them, Miss Euphrosyne De Lacy, had been half educated

in Paris, so that she had all the phrases which are to social operators what his cutting instruments are to the

surgeon. Her face she allowed was handsome; but her style, according to this oracle, was a little bourgeoise,

and her air not exactly comme il faut. More specifically, she was guilty of contours fortement

prononces,corsage de paysanne,quelque chose de sauvage, etc., etc. This girl prided herself on her

Miss Bella Pool, (La Belle Poule as the demiParisian girl had christened her,) the beauty of the school, did

not think so much of Myrtle's face, but considered her figure as better than the De Lacy girl's.

The two sets, first and second, fought over her as the (Greeks and Trojans over a dead hero, or the Yale

College societies over a live freshman. She was nobody by her connections, it is true, so far as they could find

out, but then, on the other hand, she had the walk of a queen, and she looked as if a few stylish dresses and a

season or two would make her a belle of the first water. She had that air of indifference to their little looks

and whispered comments which is surest to disarm all the critics of a small tattling community. On the other

hand, she came to this school to learn, and not to play; and the modest and more plainly dressed girls, whose

fathers did not sell by the cargo, or keep victualling establishments for some hundreds of people, considered

her as rather in sympathy with them than with the daughters of the roughandtumble millionnaires who

were grappling and rolling over each other in the golden dust of the great city markets.

She did not mean to belong exclusively to either of their sets. She came with that sense of manifold

deficiencies, and eager ambition to supply them, which carries any learner upward, as if on wings, over the

heads of the mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned, therefore, in a way to surprise

the experienced instructors. Her somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's touch.

Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest melodies, after a little training began to show

its force and sweetness and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawingroom audiences. She caught with great

readiness the manner of the easiest girls, unconsciously, for she inherited old social instincts which became

nature with the briefest exercise. Not much license of dress was allowed in the educational establishment of

Madam Delacoste, but every girl had an opportunity to show her taste within the conventional limits

prescribed. And Myrtle soon began to challenge remark by a certain air she contrived to give her dresses, and

"Tell you what, girls," said Miss Berengaria Topping, female representative of the great dynasty that ruled

over the worldfamous Planet Hotel, "she's got style, lots of it. I call her perfectly splendid, when she's got up

in her swell clothes. That oriole's wing she wears in her bonnet makes her look gorgeous, she'll be a stunning

Miss Rose Bugbee, whose family opulence grew out of the only merchantable article a Hebrew is never

known to seek profit from, thought she could be made presentable in the first circles if taken in hand in good

season. So it came about that, before many weeks had passed over her as a scholar in the great educational

establishment, she might be considered as on the whole the most popular girl in the whole bevy of them. The

studious ones admired her for her facility of learning, and her extraordinary appetite for every form of

instruction, and the showy girls, who were only enduring school as the purgatory that opened into the

celestial world of society, recognized in her a very handsome young person, who would be like to make a

There were, however, it must be confessed, a few who considered themselves the thickest of the cream of the

schoolgirls, who submitted her to a more trying ordeal than any she had yet passed.

"How many horses does your papa keep?" asked Miss Florence Smythe." We keep nine, and a pony for

Myrtle had to explain that she had no papa, and that they did not keep any horses. Thereupon Miss Florence

Smythe lost her desire to form an acquaintance, and wrote home to her mother (who was an ex

bonnetmaker) that the school was getting common, she was afraid, they were letting in persons one knew

Miss Clare Browne had a similar curiosity about the amount of plate used in the household from which

Myrtle came. Her father had just bought a complete silver service. Myrtle had to own that they used a good

deal of china at her own home,old china, which had been a hundred years in the family, some of it.

"A hundred years old!" exclaimed Miss Clare Browne. "What queer looking stuff it must be! Why,

everything in our house is just as new and bright! Papaa had all our pictures painted on purpose for us. Have

"We have a good many portraits of members of the family," she said, "some of them older than the china."

"Another was a young woman who was put to death for her religion, burned to ashes at the stake in Queen

"How very very wicked! It was n't nice a bit, was it? Ain't you telling me stories? Was that a hundred years

ago? But you 've got some new pictures and things, have n't you? Who furnished your parlors?"

"Our woman, Kitty Fagan, told somebody once we didn't keep any horse but a cow."

Myrtle put out as neat a little foot as a shoemaker ever fitted with a pair of number two. What she would have

been tempted to do with it, if she had been a boy, we will not stop to guess. After all, the questions amused

her quite as much as the answers instructed Miss Clara Browne. Of that young lady's ancestral claims to

distinction there is no need of discoursing. Her "papaa" commonly said sir in talking with a gentleman, and

her "mammaa" would once in a while forget, and go down the area steps instead of entering at the proper

door; but they lived behind a brown stone front, which veneers everybody's antecedents with a facing of

Miss Clara Browne wrote home to her mother in the same terms as Miss Florence Smythe,that the school

Still another trial awaited Myrtle, and one which not one girl in a thousand would have been so unprepared to

meet. She knew absolutely nothing of certain things with which the vast majority of young persons were

There were literary young ladies, who had read everything of Dickens and Thackeray, and something at least

of Sir Walter, and occasionally, perhaps, a French novel, which they had better have let alone. One of the

The girl stared at her as if she were a crazy creature. "Tasted any! Why, I mean the 'Pickwick Papers,'

Poor Myrtle had to confess that she had never read them, and did n't know anything about them.

"Oh, to be sure I have," said Myrtle, blushing as she thought of the great trunk and its contents. "I have read

'Caleb Williams,' and 'Evelina,' and 'Tristram Shandy'" (naughty girl!), "and the 'Castle of Otranto,' and the '

The young lady burst out laughing. "Stop! stop! for mercy's sake," she cried. "You must be somebody that's

been dead and buried and come back to life again. Why you're Rip Van Winkle in a petticoat! You ought to

"We've got the oddest girl here," this young lady wrote home. "She has n't read any book that is n't a thousand

years old. One of the girls says she wears a trilobite for a breastpin; some horrid old stone, I believe that is,

that was a bug ever so long ago. Her name, she says, is Myrtle Hazard, but I call her Rip Van Myrtle."

Notwithstanding the quiet life which these young girls were compelled to lead, they did once in a while have

their gatherings, at which a few young gentlemen were admitted. One of these took place about a month after

Myrtle had joined the school. The girls were all in their best, and by and by they were to have a tableau.

Myrtle came out in all her force. She dressed herself as nearly as she dared like the handsome woman of the

past generation whom she resembled. The very spirit of the dead beauty seemed to animate every feature and

every movement of the young girl whose position in the school was assured from that moment. She had a

good solid foundation to build upon in the jealousy of two or three of the leading girls of the style of

pretensions illustrated by some of their talk which has been given. There is no possible success without some

opposition as a fulcrum: force is always aggressive, and crowds something or other, if it does not hit or

The cruelest cut of all was the remark attributed to Mr. Livingston Jerkins, who was what the opposition girls

just referred to called the great "swell" among the privileged young gentlemen who were present at the

"Rip Van Myrtle, you call that handsome girl, do you, Miss Clara? By Jove, she's the stylishest of the whole

lot, to say nothing of being a firstclass beauty. Of course you know I except one, Miss Clara. If a girl can go

to sleep and wake up after twenty years looking like that, I know a good many who had better begin their nap

without waiting. If I were Florence Smythe, I'd try it, and begin now,eh, Clara?"

Miss Browne felt the praise of Myrtle to be slightly alleviated by the depreciation of Miss Smythe, who had

long been a rival of her own. A little later in the evening Miss Smythe enjoyed almost precisely the same

sensation, produced in a very economical way by Mr. Livingston Jenkins's repeating pretty nearly the same

sentiments to her, only with a change in the arrangement of the proper names. The two young ladies were left

feeling comparatively comfortable with regard to each other, each intending to repeat Mr. Livingston

Jenkins's remark about her friend to such of her other friends as enjoyed clever sayings, but not at all

comfortable with reference to Myrtle Hazard, who was evidently considered by the leading "swell" of their

circle as the most noticeable personage of the assembly. The individual exception in each case did very well

It seemed to Myrtle Hazard, that evening, that she felt the bracelet on her wrist glow with a strange,

unaccustomed warmth. It was as if it had just been unclasped from the arm of a yohng woman full of red

blood and tingling all over with swift nervecurrents. Life had never looked to her as it did that evening. It

was the swan's first breasting the water,bred on the desert sand, with vague dreams of lake and river, and

strange longings as the mirage came and dissolved, and at length afloat upon the sparkling wave. She felt as if

she had for the first time found her destiny. It was to please, and so to command, to rule with gentle sway in

virtue of the royal gift of beauty,to enchant with the commonest exercise of speech, through the rare

quality of a voice which could not help being always gracious and winning, of a manner which came to her as

an inheritance of which she had just found the title. She read in the eyes of all that she was more than any

other the centre of admiration. Blame her who may, the world was a very splendid vision as it opened before

her eyes in its long vista of pleasures and of triumphs. How different the light of these bright saloons from the

glimmer of the dim chamber at The Poplars! Silence Withers was at that very moment looking at the portraits

of Anne Holyoake and of Judith Pride. "The old picture seems to me to be fading faster than ever," she was

thinking. But when she held her lamp before the other, it seemed to her that the picture never was so fresh

before, and that the proud smile upon its lips was more full of conscious triumph than she remembered it. A

reflex, doubtless, of her own thoughts, for she believed that the martyr was weeping even in heaven over her

lost descendant, and that the beauty, changed to the nature of the malignant spiritual company with which she

had long consorted in the underworld, was pleasing herself with the thought that Myrtle was in due time to

bring her news from the Satanic province overhead, where she herself had so long indulged in the profligacy

The evening at the schoolparty was to terminate with some tableaux. The girl who had suggested that

Myrtle would look "stunning" or "gorgeous" or "jolly," or whatever the expression was, as Pocahontas, was

not far out of the way, and it was so evident to the managing heads that she would make a fine appearance in

that character, that the "Rescue of Captain John Smith" was specially got up to show her off.

Myrtle had sufficient reason to believe that there was a hint of Indian blood in her veins. It was one of those

family legends which some of the members are a little proud of, and others are willing to leave

uninvestigated. But with Myrtle it was a fixed belief that she felt perfectly distinct currents of her ancestral

blood at intervals, and she had sometimes thought there were instincts and vague recollections which must

have come from the old warriors and hunters and their dusky brides. The Indians who visited the

neighborhood recognized something of their own race in her dark eyes, as the reader may remember they told

the persons who were searching after her. It had almost frightened her sometimes to find how like a wild

creature she felt when alone in the woods. Her senses had much of that delicacy for which the red people are

noted, and she often thought she could follow the trail of an enemy, if she wished to track one through the

It was a strange feeling that came over Myrtle, as they dressed her for the part she was to take. Had she never

worn that painted robe before? Was it the first time that these strings of wampum had ever rattled upon her

neck and arms? And could it be that the plume of eagle's feathers with which they crowned her dark,

fastlengthening locks had never shadowed her forehead until now? She felt herself carried back into the dim

ages when the wilderness was yet untrodden save by the feet of its native lords. Think of her wild fancy as we

may, she felt as if that dusky woman of her midnight vision on the river were breathing for one hour through

her lips. If this belief had lasted, it is plain enough where it would have carried her. But it came into her

imagination and vivifying consciousness with the putting on of her unwonted costume, and might well leave

her when she put it off. It is not for us, who tell only what happened, to solve these mysteries of the seeming

admission of unhoused souls into the fleshly tenements belonging to airbreathing personalities. A very little

more, and from that evening forward the question would have been treated in full in all the works on medical

jurisprudence published throughout the limits of Christendom. The story must be told or we should not be

TABLEAU 1. Captain John Smith (Miss Euphrosyne de Lacy) was to be represented prostrate and bound,

ready for execution; Powhatan (Miss Florence Smythe) sitting upon a log; savages with clubs (Misses Clara

Browne, A. Van Boodle, E. Van Boodle, Heister, Booster, etc., etc.) standing around; Pocahontas holding the

knife in her hand, ready to cut the cords with which Captain John Smith is bound. Curtain.

TABLEAU 2. Captain John Smith released and kneeling before Pocahontas, whose hand is extended in the

act of raising him and presenting him to her father. Savages in various attitudes of surprise. Clubs fallen from

This was a portion of the programme for the evening, as arranged behind the scenes. The first part went off

with wonderful eclat, and at its close there were loud cries for Pocahontas. She appeared for a moment.

Bouquets were flung to her; and a wreath, which one of the young ladies had expected for herself in another

"Put the wreath on her for the next tableau," some of them whispered, just as the curtain was going to rise,

The disappointed young lady could not endure it, and, in a spasm of jealous passion, sprang at Myrtle,

snatched it from her head, and trampled it under her feet at the very instant the curtain was rising. With a cry

which some said had the bloodchilling tone of an Indian's battleshriek, Myrtle caught the knife up, and

raised her arm against the girl who had thus rudely assailed her. The girl sank to the ground, covering her

eyes in her terror. Myrtle, with her arm still lifted, and the blade glistening in her hand, stood over her, rigid

as if she had been suddenly changed to stone. Many of those looking on thought all this was a part of the

show, and were thrilled with the wonderful acting. Before those immediately around her had had time to

recover from the palsy of their fright Myrtle had flung the knife away from her, and was kneeling, her head

bowed and her hands crossed upon her breast. The audience went into a rapture of applause as the curtain

came suddenly down; but Myrtle had forgotten all but the dread peril she had just passed, and was thanking

God that his angelher own protecting spirit, as it seemed to her had stayed the arm which a passion such as

her nature had never known, such as she believed was alien to her truest self, had lifted with deadliest

purpose. She alone knew how extreme the danger had been. "She meant to scare her,that 's all," they said.

But Myrtle tore the eagle's feathers from her hair, and stripped off her colored beads, and threw off her

painted robe. The metempsychosis was far too real for her to let her wear the semblance of the savage from

whom, as she believed, had come the lawless impulse at the thought of which her soul recoiled in horror.

"Pocahontas has got a horrid headache," the managing young ladies gave it out, "and can't come to time for

the last tableau." So this all passed over, not only without loss of credit to Myrtle, but with no small addition

to her local fame,for it must have been acting; "and was n't it stunning to see her with that knife, looking as

As Master Gridley had predicted, and as is the case commonly with newcomers at colleges and schools,

Myrtle had come first in contact with those who were least agreeable to meet. The lowbred youth who

amuse themselves with scurvy tricks on freshmen, and the vulgar girls who try to show off their gentility to

those whom they think less important than themselves, are exceptions in every institution; but they make

themselves odiously prominent before the quiet and modest young people have had time to gain the new

scholar's confidence. Myrtle found friends in due time, some of them daughters of rich people, some poor

girls, who came with the same sincerity of purpose as herself. But not one was her match in the facility of

acquiring knowledge. Not one promised to make such a mark in society, if she found an opening into its

loftier circles. She was by no means ignorant of her natural gifts, and she cultivated them with the ambition

During her stay at the great school, she made but one visit to Oxbow Village. She did not try to startle the

good people with her accomplishments, but they were surprised at the change which had taken place in her.

Her dress was hardly more showy, for she was but a schoolgirl, but it fitted her more gracefully. She had

gained a softness of expression, and an ease in conversation, which produced their effect on all with whom

she came in contact. Her aunt's voice lost something of its plaintiveness in talking with her. Miss Cynthia

listened with involuntary interest to her stories of school and schoolmates. Master Byles Gridley accepted

her as the great success of his life, and determined to make her his chief heiress, if there was any occasion for

so doing. Cyprian told Bathsheba that Myrtle must come to be a great lady. Gifted Hopkins confessed to

Susan Posey that he was afraid of her, since she had been to the great city school. She knew too much and

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw tried all his fascinations upon her, but she parried compliments so well, and

put off all his nearer advances so dexterously, that he could not advance beyond the region of florid courtesy,

and never got a chance, if so disposed, to risk a question which he would not ask rashly, believing that, if

Not long after the tableau performance had made Myrtle Hazard's name famous in the school and among the

friends of the scholars, she received the very flattering attention of a call from Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24

Carat Place. This was in consequence of a suggestion from Mr. Livingston Jenkins, a particular friend of the

"They've got a demonish splendid schoolgirl over there," he said to that lady, "made the stunningest looking

Pocahontas at the show there the other day. Demonish plucky looking filly as ever you saw. Had a row with

another girl,gave the warwhoop, and went at her with a knife. Festive,hey? Say she only meant to

scare her,looked as if she meant to stick her, anyhow. Splendid style. Why can't you go over to the shop

The lady promised Mr. Livingston Jenkins that she certainly would, just as soon as she could find a moment's

leisure,which, as she had nothing in the world to do, was not likely to be very soon. Myrtle in the mean

time was busy with her studies, little dreaming what an extraordinary honor was awaiting her.

That rare accident in the lives of people who have nothing to do, a leisure morning, did at last occur. An

elegant carriage, with a coachman in a wonderful cape, seated on a box lofty as a throne, and wearing a

hatband as brilliant as a coronet, stopped at the portal of Madam Delacoste's establishment. A card was sent

in bearing the. open sesame of Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, the great lady of 24 Carat Place. Miss Myrtle Hazard

was summoned as a matter of course, and the fashionable woman and the young girl sat half an hour together

Myrtle was fascinated by her visitor, who had that flattering manner which, to those not experienced in the

world's ways, seems to imply unfathomable depths of disinterested devotion. Then it was so delightful to look

upon a perfectly appointed woman,one who was as artistically composed as a poem or an opera,in

whose costume a kind of various rhythm undulated in one fluent harmony, from the spray that nodded on her

bonnet to the rosette that blossomed on her sandal. As for the lady, she was captivated with Myrtle. There is

nothing that your fashionable woman, who has ground and polished her own spark of life into as many and as

glittering social facets as it will bear, has a greater passion for than a large rough diamond, which knows

nothing of the sea of light it imprisons, and which it will be her pride to have cut into a brilliant under her

own eye, and to show the world for its admiration and her own reflected glory. Mrs. Clymer Ketchum had

taken the entire inventory of Myrtle's natural endowments before the interview was over. She had no

marriageable children, and she was thinking what a killing bait Myrtle would be at one of her stylish parties.

She soon got another letter from Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, which explained the interest he had taken in

Madam Delacoste's school,all which she knew pretty nearly beforehand, for she had found out a good part

"I had a particular reason for my inquiries about the school," he wrote. "There is a young girl there I take an

interest in. She is handsome and interesting; andthough it is a shame to mention such a thing has

possibilities in the way of fortune not to be undervalued. Why can't you make her acquaintance and be civil to

her? A country girl, but fine old stock, and will make a figure some time or other, I tell you. Myrtle

Hazard,that's her name. A mere schoolgirl. Don't be malicious and badger me about her, but be polite to

her. Some of these country girls have got 'blue blood' in them, let me tell you, and show it plain enough."

("In huckleberry season!") said Mrs. Ciymer Ketchum, in a parenthesis,and went on reading.

"Don't think I'm one of your loveinacottage sort, to have my head turned by a village beauty. I've got a

career before me, Mrs. K., and I know it. But this is one of my pets, and I want you to keep an eye on her.

Perhaps when she leaves school you wouldn't mind asking her to come and stay with you a little while.

Possibly I may come and see how she is getting on if you do,won't that tempt you, Mrs. C. K.?"

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum wrote back to her relative how she had already made the young lady's acquaintance.

"Livingston Jerkins (you remember him) picked her out of the whole lot of girls as the 'prettiest filly in the

stable.' That's his horrid way of talking. But your young milkmaid is really charming, and will come into

form like a Derby threeyearold. There, now, I've caught that odious creature's horsetalk, myself. You're

"After all, I don't know but you're right. You would make a good country lawyer enough, I don't doubt. I used

to think you had your ambitions, but never mind. If you choose to risk yourself on 'possibilities,' it is not my

"There are some desirable partis at the school with your dulcinea. There 's Rose Bugbee. That last name is a

good one to be married from. Rose is a nice girl,there are only two of them. The estate will cut up like one

of the animals it was made out of, you know, the sandwichquadruped. Then there 's Berengaria. Old

Topping owns the Planet Hotel among other things,so big, they say, there's always a bell ringing from

somebody's room day and night the year round. Only childunit and six ciphers carries diamonds loose in

her pocketthat's the storygoodlookinglivelya little slangy called Livingston Jerkins 'Living Jingo'

to his face one day. I want you to see my lot before you do anything serious. You owe something to the

family, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw! But you must suit yourself, after all: if you are contented with a

humble position in life, it is nobody's business that I know of. Only I know what life is, Murray B. Getting

married is jumping overboard, any way you look at it, and if you must save some woman from drowning an

old maid, try to find one with a cork jacket, or she 'll carry you down with her."

Murray Bradshaw was calculating enough, but he shook his head over this letter. It was too demonish

coldblooded for him, he said to himself. (Men cannot pardon women for saying aloud what they do not

hesitate to think in silence themselves.) Never mind,he must have Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's house and

influence for his own purposes. Myrtle Hazard must become her guest, and then if circumstances were

The opportunity to invite Myrtle to the great mansion presented itself unexpectedly. Early in the spring of

1861 there were some cases of sickness in Madam Delacoste's establishment, which led to closing the school

for a while. Mrs. Clymer Ketchum took advantage of the dispersion of the scholars to ask Myrtle to come and

spend some weeks with her. There were reasons why this was more agreeable to the young girl than returning

It was very remarkable that a man living as Master Byles Gridley had lived for so long a time should all at

once display such liberality as he showed to a young woman who had no claim upon him, except that he had

rescued her from the consequences of her own imprudence and warned her against impending dangers.

Perhaps he cared more for her than if the obligation had been the other way,students of human nature say it

is commonly so. At any rate, either he had ampler resources than it was commonly supposed, or he was

imprudently giving way to his generous impulses, or he thought he was making advances which would in due

time be returned to him. Whatever the reason was, he furnished her with means, not only for her necessary

expenses, but sufficient to afford her many of the elegances which she would be like to want in the

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum was so well pleased with the young lady she was entertaining, that she thought it

worth while to give a party while Myrtle was staying with her. She had her jealousies and rivalries, as women

of the world will, sometimes, and these may have had their share in leading her to take the trouble a large

party involved. She was tired of the airs of Mrs. Pinnikle, who was of the great Apex family, and her terribly

accomplished daughter Rhadamartha, and wanted to crush the young lady, and jaundice her mother, with a

girl twice as brilliant and ten times handsomer. She was very willing, also, to take the nonsense out of the

Capsheaf girls, who thought themselves the most stylish personages of their city world, and would bite their

In the mean time circumstances were promising to bring into Myrtle's neighborhood several of her old friends

and admirers. Mrs. Clymer Ketchum had written to Murray Bradshaw that she had asked his pretty milkmaid

to come and stay awhile with her, but he had been away on business, and only arrived in the city a day or two

before the party. But other young fellows had found out the attractions of the girl who was "hanging out at

the Clymer Ketchum concern," and callers were plenty, reducing teteatetes in a corresponding ratio. He

did get one opportunity, however, and used it well. They had so many things to talk about in common, that

she could not help finding him good company. She might well be pleased, for he was an adept in the curious

art of being agreeable, as other people are in chess or billiards, and had made a special study of her tastes, as

a physician studies a patient's constitution. What he wanted was to get her thoroughly interested in himself,

and to maintain her in a receptive condition until such time as he should be ready for a final move. Any day

might furnish the decisive motive; in the mean time he wished only to hold her as against all others.

It was well for her, perhaps, that others had flattered her into a certain consciousness of her own value. She

felt her veins full of the same rich blood as that which had flushed the cheeks of handsome Judith in the long

summer of her triumph. Whether it was vanity, or pride, or only the instinctive sense of inherited force and

attraction, it was the best of defences. The golden bracelet on her wrist seemed to have brought as much

But far away in Oxbow Village other events were in preparation. The "fugitive pieces" of Mr. Gifted Hopkins

had now reached a number so considerable, that, if collected and printed in large type, with plenty of what the

unpleasant printers call "fat,"meaning thereby blank spaces,upon a good, substantial, not to say thick

paper, they might perhaps make a volume which would have substance enough to bear the title, printed

lengthwise along the back, "Hopkins's Poems." Such a volume that author had in contemplation. It was to be

He could not mature such a project, one which he had been for some time contemplating, without consulting

Mr. Byles Gridley, who, though he had not unfrequently repressed the young poet's too ardent ambition, had

Mr. Gridley was seated in his large armchair, indulging himself in the perusal of a page or two of his own

work before repeatedly referred to. His eye was glistening, for it had dust rested on the following passage:

"There is infinite pathos in unsuccessful authorship. The book that perishes unread is the deaf mute of

literature. The great asylum of Oblivion is full of such, making inaudible signs to each other in leaky garrets

He shut the book, for the page grew a little dim as he finished this elegiac sentence, and sighed to think how

much more keenly he felt its truth than when it was written,than on that memorable morning when he saw

the advertisement in all the papers, "This day published, 'Thoughts on the Universe.' By Byles Gridley, A.

At that moment he heard a knock at his door. He closed his eyelids forcibly for ten seconds, opened them,

Gifted Hopkins entered. He had a collection of manuscripts in his hands which it seemed to him would fill a

vast number of pages. He did not know that manuscript is to type what fresh dandelions are to the dish of

greens that comes to table, of which last Nurse Byloe, who considered them very wholesome spring grazing

"I have brought the autographs of my poems, Master Gridley, to consult you about making arrangements for

publication. They have been so well received by the public and the leading critics of this part of the State, that

I think of having them printed in a volume. I am going to the city for that purpose. My mother has given her

consent. I wish to ask you several business questions. Shall I part with the copyright for a downright sum of

money, which I understand some prefer doing, or publish on shares, or take a percentage on the sales? These,

Mr. Gridley was altogether too considerate to reply with the words which would most naturally have come to

his lips. He waited as if he were gravely pondering the important questions just put to him, all the while

looking at Gifted with a tenderness which no one who had not buried one of his soul's children could have

felt for a young author trying to get clothing for his newborn intellectual offspring.

"I think," he said presently, "you had better talk with an intelligent and liberal publisher, and be guided by his

advice. I can put you in correspondence with such a person, and you had better trust him than me a great deal.

"What, Mr. Gridley? Trust my poems, some of which are unpublished, to the postoffice? No, sir, I could

never make up my mind to such a risk. I mean to go to the city myself, and read them to some of the leading

publishers. I don't want to pledge myself to any one of them. I should like to set them bidding against each

Mr. Gridley gazed upon the innocent youth with a sweet wonder in his eyes that made him look like an angel,

"It will cost you something to make this trip, Gifted. Have you the means to pay for your journey and your

Gifted blushed. "My mother has laid by a small sum for me," he said. "She knows some of my poems by

Master Gridley closed his eyes very firmly again, as if thinking, and opened them as soon as the foolish film

had left them. He had read many a page of "Thoughts on the Universe" to his own old mother, long, long

years ago, and she had often listened with tears of modest pride that Heaven had favored her with a son so

"I 'll tell you what, Gifted," he said. "I have been thinking for a good while that I would make a visit to the

city, and if you have made up your mind to try what you can do with the publishers, I will take you with me

as a companion. It will be a saving to you and your good mother, for I shall bear the expenses of the

Gifted Hopkins came very near going down on his knees. He was so overcome with gratitude that it seemed

"Take it quietly," said Master Gridley. "Don't make a fool of yourself. Tell your mother to have some clean

shirts and things ready for you, and we will be off day after tomorrow morning."

Gifted hastened to impart the joyful news to his mother, and to break the fact to Susan Posey that he was

about to leave them for a while, and rush into the deliriums and dangers of the great city.

Susan smiled. Gifted hardly knew whether to be pleased with her sympathy, or vexed that she did not take his

leaving more to heart. The smile held out bravely for about a quarter of a minute. Then there came on a little

twitching at the corners of the mouth. Then. the blue eyes began to shine with a kind of veiled glimmer. Then

the blood came up into her cheeks with a great rush, as if the heart had sent up a herald with a red flag from

the citadel to know what was going on at the outworks. The message that went back was of discomfiture and

capitulation. Poor Susan was overcome, and gave herself up to weeping and sobbing.

The sight was too much for the young poet. In a wild burst of passion he seized her hand, and pressed it to his

lips, exclaiming, "Would that you could be mine forever!" and Susan forgot all that she ought to have

remembered, and, looking half reproachfully but half tenderly through her tears, said, in tones of infinite

It was settled that Master Byles Gridley and Mr. Gifted Hopkins should leave early in the morning of the day

appointed, to take the nearest train to the city. Mrs. Hopkins labored hard to get them ready, so that they

might make a genteel appearance among the great people whom they would meet in society. She brushed up

Mr. Gridley's best black suit, and bound the cuffs of his dresscoat, which were getting a little worried. She

held his honestlooking hat to the fire, and smoothed it while it was warm, until one would have thought it

had just been ironed by the hatter himself. She had his boots and shoes brought into a more brilliant condition

than they had ever known: if Gifted helped, it was to his credit as much as if he had shown his gratitude by

When she had got Mr. Gridley's encumbrances in readiness for the journey, she devoted herself to fitting out

her son Gifted. First, she had down from the garret a capacious trunk, of solid wood, but covered with leather,

and adorned with brassheaded nails, by the cunning disposition of which, also, the paternal initials stood out

on the rounded lid, in the most conspicuous manner. It was his father's trunk, and the first thing that went into

it, as the widow lifted the cover, and the smothering shutup smell struck an old chord of associations, was a

single teardrop. How well she remembered the time when she first unpacked it for her young husband, and

But women decant their affection, sweet and sound, out of the old bottles into the new ones,off from the

lees of the past generation, clear and bright, into the clean vessels just made ready to receive it. Gifted

Hopkins was his mother's idol, and no wonder. She had not only the common attachment of a parent for him,

as her offspring, but she felt that her race was to be rendered illustrious by his genius, and thought proudly of

the time when some future biographer would mention her own humble name, to be held in lasting

So she took great pains to equip this brilliant but inexperienced young man with everything he could by any

possibility need during his absence. The great trunk filled itself until it bulged with its contents like a

boaconstrictor who has swallowed his blanket. Best clothes and common clothes, thick clothes and thin

clothes, flannels and linens, socks and collars, with handkerchiefs enough to keep the pickpockets busy for a

week, with a paper of gingerbread and some lozenges for gastralgia, and "hot drops," and ruled paper to write

letters on, and a little Bible, and a phial with hiera picra, and another with paregoric, and another with

Gifted went forth equipped for every climate from the tropic to the pole, and armed against every malady

from Ague to Zoster. He carried also the paternal watch, a solid silver bull'seye, and a large pocketbook,

tied round with a long tape, and, by way of precaution, pinned into his breastpocket. He talked about having

a pistol, in case he were attacked by any of the ruffians who are so numerous in the city, but Mr. Gridley told

him, No! he would certainly shoot himself, and he shouldn't think of letting him take a pistol.

They went forth, Mentor and Telemachus, at the appointed time, to dare the perils of the railroad and the

snares of the city. Mrs. Hopkins was firm up to near the last moment, when a little quiver in her voice set her

eyes off, and her face broke up all at once, so that she had to hide it behind her handkerchief. Susan Posey

showed the truthfulness of her character in her words to Gifted at parting. "Farewell," she said, "and think of

me sometimes while absent. My heart is another's, but my friendship, Giftedmy friendship"

Both were deeply affected. He took her hand and would have raised it to his lips; but she did not forget

herself, and gently withdrew it, exclaiming, "O Gifted!" this time with a tone of tender reproach which made

him feel like a profligate. He tore himself away, and when at a safe distance flung her a kiss, which she

Master Byles Gridley must have had some good dividends from some of his property of late. There is no

other way of accounting for the handsome style in which he did things on their arrival in the city. He went to

a tailor's and ordered a new suit to be sent home as soon as possible, for he knew his wardrobe was a little

rusty. He looked Gifted over from head to foot, and suggested such improvements as would recommend him

to the fastidious eyes of the selecter sort of people, and put him in his own tailor's hands, at the same time

saying that all bills were to be sent to him, B. Gridley, Esq., parlor No. 6, at the Planet Hotel. Thus it came to

pass that in three days from their arrival they were both in an eminently presentable condition. In the mean

time the prudent Mr. Gridley had been keeping the young man busy, and amusing himself by showing him

such of the sights of the city and its suburbs as he thought would combine instruction with entertainment.

When they were both properly equipped and ready for the best company, Mr. Gridley said to the young poet,

who had found it very hard to contain his impatience, that they would now call together on the publisher to

"My name is Gridley," he said with modest gravity, as he entered the publisher's private room. "I have a note

of introduction here from one of your authors, as I think he called himself, a very popular writer for whom

The publisher rose and came forward in the most cordial and respectful manner. "Mr. Gridley? Professor

The bravehearted old man colored as if he had been a young girl. His dead book rose before him like an

apparition. He groped in modest confusion for an answer. "A child I buried long ago, my dear sir," he said.

"Its titlepage was its tombstone. I have brought this young friend with me,this is Mr. Gifted Hopkins of

"Hopkins, if you please, sir," Gifted suggested mildly, proceeding to extract the manuscript, which had got

wedged into his pocket, and seemed to be holding on with all its might. He was wondering all the time over

the extraordinary clairvoyance of the publisher, who had looked through so many thick folds, broadcloth,

lining, brown paper, and seen his poems lying hidden in his breastpocket. The idea that a young person

coming on such an errand should have to explain his intentions would have seemed very odd to the publisher.

He knew the look which belongs to this class of enthusiasts just as a horse dealer knows the look of a green

purchaser with the equine fever raging in his veins. If a young author had come to him with a scrap of

manuscript hidden in his boots, like Major Andre's papers, the publisher would have taken one glance at him

While he was battling for the refractory scroll with his pocket, which turned half wrong side out, and acted as

things always do when people are nervous and in a hurry, the publisher directed his conversation again to

"A remarkable book, that of yours, Mr. Gridley, would have a great run if it were well handled. Came out

twenty years too soon,that was the trouble. One of our leading scholars was speaking of it to me the other

day. 'We must have a new edition,' he said; people are just ripe for that book.' Did you ever think of that?

Change the form of it a little, and give it a new title, and it will be a popular book. Five thousand or more,

Mr. Gridley felt as if he had been rapidly struck on the forehead with a dozen distinct blows from a hammer

not quite big enough to stun him. He sat still without saying a word. He had forgotten for the moment all

about poor Gifted Hopkins, who had got out his manuscript at last, and was calming the disturbed corners of

it. Coming to himself a little, he took a large and beautiful silk handkerchief, one of his new purchases, from

his pocket, and applied it to his face, for the weather seemed to have grown very warm all at once. Then he

remembered the errand on which he had come, and thought of this youth, who had got to receive his first hard

lesson in life, and whom he had brought to this kind man that it should be gently administered.

"You surprise me," he said,"you surprise me. Dead and buried. Dead and buried. I had sometimes thought

thatat some future period, after I was gone, it mightbut I hardly know what to say about your

suggestions. But here is my young friend, Mr. Hopkins, who would like to talk with you, and I will leave him

in your hands. I am at the Planet Hotel, if you should care to call upon me. Good morning. Mr. Hopkins will

Master Gridley could not quite make up his mind to stay through the interview between the young poet and

the publisher. The flush of hope was bright in Gifted's eye and cheek, and the good man knew that young

hearts are apt to be oversanguine, and that one who enters a showerbath often feels very differently from

"I have brought you my Poems in the original autographs, sir," said Mr. Gifted Hopkins.

He laid the manuscript on the table, caressing the leaves still with one hand, as loath to let it go.

"What disposition had you thought of making of them?" the publisher asked, in a pleasant tone. He was as

"I wish to read you a few specimens of the poems," he said, "with reference to their proposed publication in a

"By all means," said the kind publisher, who determined to be very patient with the protege of the hitherto

littleknown, but remarkable writer, Professor Gridley. At the same time he extended his foot in an

accidental sort of way, and pressed it on the right hand knob of three which were arranged in a line beneath

the table. A little bell in a distant apartmentthe little bell marked Cgave one slight note; loud enough to

start a small boy up, who looked at the clock, and knew that he was to go and call the publisher in just

twentyfive minutes. "A, five minutes; B, ten minutes; C, twentyfive minutes ";that was the youngster's

working formula. Mr. Hopkins was treated to the full allowance of time, as being introduced by Professor

The young man laid open the manuscript so that the titlepage, written out very handsomely in his own hand,

"Shall I read you some of the rhymed pieces first, or some of the blankverse poems, sir?" Gifted asked.

"Read what you think is best,a specimen of your firstclass style of composition."

I met that goldhaired maiden, all too dear; And I to her: Lo! thou art very fair, Fairer than all the ladies in

the world That fan the sweetened air with scented fans, And I am scorched with exceeding love, Yea, crisped

till my bones are dry as straw. Look not away with that higharched brow, But turn its whiteness that I may

behold, And lift thy great eyes till they blaze on mine, And lay thy finger on thy perfect mouth, And let thy

lucent ears of careen pearl Drink in the murmured music of my soul, As the lush grass drinks in the globed

dew; For I have many scrolls of sweetest rhyme I will unroll and make thee glad to hear.

"Then she: O shaper of the marvellous phrase That openeth woman's heart as Both a key, I dare not hear

theelest the bolt should slide That locks another's heart within my own. Go, leave me,and she let her

"Then I: If thou not hear me, I shall die, Yea, in my desperate mood may lift my hand And do myself a hurt

That maiden heard no more, But spike: Alas! my heart is very weak, And but forStay! And if some

missing,strangled,drowned i' the mere, Then should I go distraught and be clean mad!

O poet, read! read all thy wondrous scrolls. Yea, read the verse that maketh glad to hear! Then I began and

"Itno, sirnot exactly from real lifethat is, the leading female person is not wholly fictitiousand the

incident is one which might have happened. Shall I read you the poems referred to in the one you have just

"Allow me, one moment. Two hours' reading, I think, you said. I fear I shall hardly be able to spare quite

time to hear them a11. Let me ask what you intend doing with these productions, Mr. rr Poplins."

"Hopkins, if you please, sir, not Poplins," said Gifted, plaintively. He expressed his willingness to dispose of

the copyright, to publish on shares, or perhaps to receive a certain percentage on the profits.

"Suppose we take a glass of wine together, Mr.Hopkins, before we talk business," the publisher said,

opening a little cupboard and taking therefrom a decanter and two glasses. He saw the young man was

looking nervous. He waited a few minutes, until the wine had comforted his epigastrium, and diffused its

Gifted followed him into a dingy apartment in the attic, where one sat at a great table heaped and piled with

manuscripts. By him was a huge basket, ha'f full of manuscripts also. As they entered he dropped another

"Tell me," said Gifted, " what are these papers, and who is he that looks upon them and drops them into the

"These are the manuscript poems that we receive, and the one sitting at the table is commonly spoken of

among us as The Butcher. The poems he drops into the basket are those rejected as of no account"

"If they are not claimed by their author in proper season, they go to the devil."

"To the paper factory, where they have a horrid machine they call the devil, that tears everything to bits,as

After this instructive sight they returned together to the publisher's private room. The wine had now warmed

the youthful poet's praecordia, so that he began to feel a renewed confidence in his genius and his fortunes.

"I should like to know what that critic of yours would say to my manuscript," he said boldly.

"You can try it if you want to," the publisher replied, with an ominous dryness of manner which the sanguine

"Oh, I'll arrange that. He always goes to his luncheon about this time. Raw meat and vitriol punch,that 's

what the authors say. Wait till we hear him go, and then I will lay your manuscript so that he will come to it

among the first after he gets back. You shall see with your own eyes what treatment it gets. I hope it may

They went back to the publisher's private room and talked awhile. Then the little officeboy came up with

some vague message about a gentlemanbusinesswants to see you, sir, etc., according to the established

programme; all in a vacant, mechanical sort of way, as if he were a talkingmachine just running down.

The publisher told the boy that he was engaged, and the gentleman must wait. Very soon they heard The

Now, then," said the publisher, and led forth the confiding literary lamb once more, to enter the fatal door of

"Hand me your manuscript, if you please, Mr. Hopkins. I will lay it so that it shall be the third of these that

are coming to hand. Our friend here is a pretty good judge of verse, and knows a merchantable article about

as quick as any man in his line of business. If he forms a favorable opinion of your poems, we will talk over

Gifted was conscious of a very slight tremor as he saw his precious manuscript deposited on the table, under

two others, and over a pile of similar productions. Still he could not help feeling that the critic would be

struck by his title. The quotation from Gray must touch his feelings. The very first piece in the collection

could not fail to arrest him. He looked a little excited, but he was in good spirits.

"We will be looking about here when our friend comes back," the publisher said." He is a very methodical

person, and will sit down and go right to work just as if we were not here. We can watch him, and if he

should express any particular interest in your poems, I will, if you say so, carry you up to him and reveal the

They waited patiently until The Butcher returned, apparently refreshed by his ferocious refection, and sat

down at his table. He looked comforted, and not in ill humor. The publisher and the poet talked in low tones,

The Butcher took the first manuscript that came to hand, read a stanza here and there, turned over the leaves,

turned back and tried again,shook his headheld it for an instant over the basket, as if doubtful,and let

it softly drop. He took up the second manuscript, opened it in several places, seemed rather pleased with what

He took up the third. "Blossoms of the Soul," etc. He glared at it in a dreadfully ogreish way. Both the

lockerson held their breath. Gifted Hopkins felt as if half a glass more of that warm sherry would not hurt

him. There was a sinking at the pit of his stomach, as if he was in a swing, as high as he could go, close up to

the swallows' nests and spiders' webs. The Butcher opened the manuscript at random, read ten seconds, and

gave a short low grunt. He opened again, read ten seconds, and gave another grunt, this time a little longer

and louder. He opened once more, read five seconds, and, with something that sounded like the snort of a

dangerous animal, cast it impatiently into the basket, and took up the manuscript that came next in order.

"Safe, perfectly safe," the publisher said to him in a whisper." I'll get it for you presently. Come in and take

"No, I thank you," he said faintly, "I can bear it. But this is dreadful, sir. Is this the way that genius is

The publisher explained to him, in the kindest manner, that there was an enormous overproduction of verse,

and that it took a great part of one man's time simply to overhaul the cartloads of it that were trying to get

themselves into print with the imprimatur of his famous house. "You are young, Mr. Hopkins. I advise you

not to try to force your article of poetry on the market. The B, our friend, there, that is, knows a thing that

will sell as soon as he sees it. You are in independent circumstances, perhaps? If so, you can print at your

Gifted explained that he was "clerk" in a "store," where they sold dry goods and West India goods, and goods

"Oh, well, then," the publisher said, "you will understand me. Do you know a good article of brown sagas

Gifted Hopkins rather thought he did. He knew at sight whether it was a fair, salable article or not.

"Just so. Now our friend, there, knows verses that are salable and unsalable as well as you do brown sugar.

"There, Mr. Hopkins, take your poems,they will give you a reputation in your village, I don't doubt, which,

is pleasant, but it will cost you a good deal of money to print them in a volume. You are very young: you can

afford to wait. Your genius is not ripe yet, I am confident, Mr. Hopkins. These verses are very well for a

beginning, but a man of promise like you, Mr. Hopkins, must n't throw away his chance by premature

publication! I should like to make you a present of a few of the books we publish. By and by, perhaps, we can

work you into our series of poets; but the best pears ripen slowly, and so with genius. Where shall I send

Gifted answered, to parlor No. 6, Planet Hotel, where he soon presented himself to Master Gridley, who

"I would n't, my young friend, I would n't. You have seen the best one of themall. He is right about it,

quite right: you are young, and had better wait. Look here, Gifted, here is something to please you. We are

going to visit the gay world together. See what has been left here this forenoon."

He showed him two elegant notes of invitation requesting the pleasure of Professor Byles Gridley's and of

Mr. Gifted Hopkins's company on Thursday evening, as the guests of Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, of 24 Carat

Myrtle Hazard had flowered out as beyond question the handsomest girl of the season, There were hints from

different quarters that she might possibly be an heiress. Vague stories were about of some contingency which

might possibly throw a fortune into her lap. The young men about town talked of her at the clubs in their

freeand easy way, but all agreed that she was the girl of the new crop," best filly this grass," as

Livingston Jenkins put it. The general understanding seemed to be that the young lawyer who had followed

her to the city was going to capture her. She seemed to favor him certainly as much as anybody. But Myrtle

saw many young men now, and it was not so easy as it would once have been to make out who was an

There had been times when Murray Bradshaw would have offered his heart and hand to Myrtle at once, if he

had felt sure that she would accept him. But he preferred playing the safe game now, and only wanted to feel

sure of her. He had done his best to be agreeable, and could hardly doubt that he had made an impression. He

dressed well when in the city,even elegantly,he had many of the lesser social accomplishments, was a

good dancer, and compared favorably in all such matters with the more dashing young fellows in society. He

was a better talker than most of them, and he knew more about the girl he was dealing with than they could

know. "You have only got to say the word, Murray," Mrs. Clymer Ketchum said to her relative, "and you can

have her. But don't be rash. I believe you can get Berengaria if you try; and there 's something better there

than possibilities." Murray Bradshaw laughed, and told Mrs. Clymer Ketchum not to worry about him; he

It so happened that Myrtle met Master Byles Gridley walking with Mr. Gifted Hopkins the day before the

party. She longed to have a talk with her old friend, and was glad to have a chance of pleasing her poetical

admirer. She therefore begged her hostess to invite them both to her party to please her, which she promised

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, though her acquaintances were chiefly in the world of fortune and of fashion, had yet

a certain weakness for what she called clever people. She therefore always variegated her parties with a

streak of young artists and writers, and a literary lady or two; and, if she could lay hands on a firstclass

"There's a demonish clever young fellow by the name of Lindsay," Mr. Livingston Jenkins said to her a little

before the day of the party. "Better ask him. They say he 's the rising talent in his line, architecture mainly,

but has done some remarkable things in the way of sculpture. There's some story about a bust he made that

was quite wonderful. I'll find his address for you." So Mr. Clement Lindsay got his invitation, and thus Mrs.

Clymer Ketchum's party promised to bring together a number of persons with whom we are acquainted, and

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum knew how to give a party. Let her only have carte blanche for flowers, music, and

champagne, she used to tell her lord, and she would see to the rest,lighting the rooms, tables, and toilet. He

Subdivision of labor is one of the triumphs of modern civilization. Labor was beautifully subdivided in this

lady's household. It was old Ketchum's business to make money, and he understood it. It was Mrs. K.'s

business to spend money, and she knew how to do it. The rooms blazed with light like a conflagration; the

flowers burned like lamps of manycolored flame; the music throbbed into the hearts of the promenaders and

Mrs. Clymer Ketchum was in her glory. Her point d'Alenyon must have spoiled ever so many French girls'

eyes. Her bosom heaved beneath a kind of breastplate glittering with a heavy dew of diamonds. She glistened

and sparkled with every movement, so that the admirer forgot to question too closely whether the eyes

matched the brilliants, or the cheeks glowed like the roses. Not far from the great lady stood Myrtle Hazard.

She was dressed as the fashion of the day demanded, but she had added certain audacious touches of her own,

reminiscences of the time when the dead beauty had flourished, and which first provoked the question and

then the admiration of the young people who had a natural eye for effect. Over the long white glove on her

left arm was clasped a rich bracelet, of so quaint an antique pattern that nobody had seen anything like it, and

as some one whispered that it was "the last thing out," it was greatly admired by the fashionplate multitude,

as well as by the few who had a taste of their own. If the soul of Judith Pride, long divorced from its once

beautifully moulded dust, ever lived in dim consciousness through any of those who inherited her blood, it

was then and there that she breathed through the lips of Myrtle Hazard. The young girl almost trembled with

the ecstasy of this new mode of being, soliciting every sense with light, with perfume, with melody, all

that could make her feel the wonderful complex music of a fresh life when all its chords first vibrate together

in harmony. Miss Rhadamantha Pinnikle, whose mother was an Apex (of whose race it was said that they

always made an obeisance when the family name was mentioned, and had all their portraits painted with

halos round their heads), found herself extinguished in this new radiance. Miss Victoria Capsheaf stuck to the

wall as if she had been a fresco on it. The fiftyyearold dynasties were dismayed and dismounted. Myrtle

The guests in whom we may have some interest were in the mean time making ready for the party, which was

expected to be a brilliant one; for 24 Carat Place was well known for the handsome style of its

Clement Lindsay was a little surprised by his invitation. He had, however, been made a lion of several times

of late, and was very willing to amuse himself once in a while with a peep into the great world.

It was but an empty show to him at best, for his lot was cast, and he expected to lead a quiet domestic life

Master Byles Gridley had known what society was in his earlier time, and understood very well that all a

gentleman of his age had to do was to dress himself in his usual plain way, only taking a little more care in

his arrangements than was needed in the latitude of Oxbow Village. But Gifted must be looked after, that he

should not provoke the unamiable comments of the city youth by any defect or extravagance of costume. The

young gentleman had bought a light sky blue neckerchief, and a very large breastpin containing a gem

which he was assured by the vender was a genuine stone. He considered that both these would be eminently

effective articles of dress, and Mr. Gridley had some trouble to convince him that a white tie and plain

On the morning of the day of the great party Mr. William Murray Bradshaw received a brief telegram, which

seemed to cause him great emotion, as he changed color, uttered a forcible exclamation, and began walking

up and down his room in a very nervous kind of way. It was a foreshadowing of a certain event now pretty

sure to happen. Whatever bearing this telegram may have had upon his plans, he made up his mind that he

would contrive an opportunity somehow that very evening to propose himself as a suitor to Myrtle Hazard.

He could not say that he felt as absolutely certain of getting the right answer as he had felt at some previous

periods. Myrtle knew her price, he said to himself, a great deal better than when she was a simple country

girl. The flatteries with which she had been surrounded, and the effect of all the new appliances of beauty,

which had set her off so that she could not help seeing her own attractions, rendered her harder to please and

to satisfy. A little experience in society teaches a young girl the arts and the phrases which all the Lotharios

have in common. Murray Bradshaw was ready to land his fish now, but he was not quite sure that she was yet

hooked, and he had a feeling that by this time she knew every fly in his book. However, as he had made up

his mind not to wait another day, he addressed himself to the trial before him with a determination to succeed,

if any means at his command would insure success. He arrayed himself with faultless elegance: nothing must

be neglected on such an occasion. He went forth firm and grave as a general going into a battle where all is to

be lost or won. He entered the blazing saloon with the unfailing smile upon his lips, to which he set them as

The rooms were pretty well filled when he arrived and made his bow before the blazing, rustling, glistening,

waving, blushing appearance under which palpitated, with the pleasing excitement of the magic scene over

which its owner presided, the heart of Mrs. Clymer Ketchum. He turned to Myrtle Hazard, and if he had ever

doubted which way his inclinations led him, he could doubt no longer. How much dress and how much light

can a woman bear? That is the way to measure her beauty. A plain girl in a simple dress, if she has only a

pleasant voice, may seem almost a beauty in the rosy twilight. The nearer she comes to being handsome, the

more ornament she will bear, and the more she may defy the sunshine or the chandelier.

Murray Bradshaw was fairly dazzled with the brilliant effect of Myrtle in full dress. He did not know before

what handsome arms she had,Judith Pride's famous armswhich the highcolored young men in

topboots used to swear were the handsomest pair in New England right over again. He did not know

before with what defiant effect she would light up, standing as she did directly under a huge lustre, in full

flower of flame, like a burning azalea. He was not a man who intended to let his sentiments carry him away

from the serious interests of his future, yet, as he looked upon Myrtle Hazard, his heart gave one throb which

made him feel in every pulse that this way a woman who in her own right, simply as a woman, could

challenge the homage of the proudest young man of her time. He hardly knew till this moment how much of

passion mingled with other and calmer motives of admiration. He could say I love you as truly as such a man

could ever speak these words, meaning that he admired her, that he was attracted to her, that he should be

proud of her as his wife, that he should value himself always as the proprietor of so rare a person, that no

appendage to his existence would take so high a place in his thoughts. This implied also, what is of great

consequence to a young woman's happiness in the married state, that she would be treated with uniform

politeness, with satisfactory evidences of affection, and with a degree of confidence quite equal to what a

If Myrtle could have looked through the window in the breast against which only authors are privileged to

flatten their features, it is for the reader to judge how far the programme would have satisfied her.

Less than this, a great deal less, does appear to satisfy many young women; and it may be that the interior just

drawn, fairly judged, belongs to a model lover and husband. Whether it does or not, Myrtle did not see this

picture. There was a beautifully embroidered shirt bosom in front of that window through which we have

just looked, that intercepted all sight of what was going on within. She only saw a man, young, handsome,

courtly, with a winning tongue, with an ambitious spirit, whose every look and tone implied his admiration of

herself, and who was associated with her past life in such a way that they alone appeared like old friends in

the midst of that cold alien throng. It seemed as if he could not have chosen a more auspicious hour than this;

for she never looked so captivating, and her presence must inspire his lips with the eloquence of love. And

shewas not this delirious atmosphere of light and music just the influence to which he would wish to

subject her before trying the last experiment of all which can stir the soul of a woman? He knew the

mechanism of that impressionable state which served Coleridge so excellently well,

"All impulses of soul and sense Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve The music, and the doleful tale, The rich

though he hardly expected such startling results as happened in that case,which might be taken as an awful

warning not to sing moving ballads to young ladies of susceptible feelings, unless one is prepared for very

serious consequences. Without expecting that Myrtle would rush into his arms, he did think that she could not

help listening to him in the intervals of the delicious music, in some recess where the roses and jasmines and

heliotropes made the air heavy with sweetness, and the crimson curtains drooped in heavy folds that half hid

their forms from the curious eyes all round them. Her heart would swell like Genevieve's as he told her in

simple phrase that she was his life, his love, his all,for in some two or three words like these he meant to

put his appeal, and not in fine poetical phrases: that would do for Gifted Hopkins and rhyming tomtits of

Full of his purpose, involving the plans of his whole life, implying, as he saw clearly, a brilliant future or a

disastrous disappointment, with a great unexploded mine of consequences under his feet, and the spark ready

to fall into it, he walked about the gilded saloon with a smile upon his lips so perfectly natural and pleasant,

that one would have said he was as vacant of any aim, except a sort of superficial goodmatured disposition

to be amused, as the blankesteyed simpleton who had tied himself up in a white cravat and come to bore and

Yet under this pleasant smile his mind was so busy with its thoughts that he had forgotten all about the guests

from Oxbow Village who, as Myrtle had told him, were to come this evening. His eye was all at once caught

by a familiar figure, and he recognized Master Byles Gridley, accompanied by Mr. Gifted Hopkins, at the

Mr. Gridley in evening costume made an eminently dignified and respectable appearance. There was an

unusual lock of benignity upon his firmly moulded features, and an air of ease which rather surprised Mr.

Bradshaw, who did not know all the social experiences which had formed a part of the old Master's history.

The greeting between them was courteous, but somewhat formal, as Mr. Bradshaw was acting as one of the

masters of ceremony. He nodded to Gifted in an easy way, and led them both into the immediate Presence.

This is my friend Professor Gridley, Mrs. Ketchum, whom I have the honor of introducing to you,a very

distinguished scholar, as I have no doubt you are well aware. And this is my friend Mr. Gifted Hopkins, a

young poet of distinction, whose fame will reach you by and by, if it has not come to your ears already."

The two gentlemen went through the usual forms, the poet a little crushed by the Presence, but doing his best.

While the lady was making polite speeches to them, Myrtle Hazard came forward. She was greatly delighted

to meet her old friend, and even looked upon the young poet with a degree of pleasure she would hardly have

expected to receive from his company. They both brought with them so many reminiscences of familiar

scenes and events, that it was like going back for the moment to Oxbow Village. But Myrtle did not belong to

herself that evening, and had no opportunity to enter into conversation just then with either of them. There

was to be dancing by and by, and the younger people were getting impatient that it should begin. At last the

music sounded the wellknown summons, and the floors began to ring to the tread of the dancers. As usual

on such occasions there were a large number of noncombatants, who stood as spectators around those who

were engaged in the campaign of the evening. Mr. Byles Gridley looked on gravely, thinking of the minuets

and the gavots of his younger days. Mr. Gifted Hopkins, who had never acquired the desirable

accomplishment of dancing, gazed with dazzled and admiring eyes at the wonderful evolutions of the

graceful performers. The music stirred him a good deal; he had also been introduced to one or two young

persons as Mr. Hopkins, the poet, and he began to feel a kind of excitement, such as was often the prelude of

a lyric burst from his pen. Others might have wealth and beauty, he thought to himself, but what were these to

the gift of genius? In fifty years the wealth of these people would have passed into other hands. In fifty years

all these beauties would be dead, or wrinkled and doublewrinkled greatgrandmothers. And when they were

all gone and forgotten, the name of Hopkins would be still fresh in the world's memory. Inspiring thought! A

smile of triumph rose to his lips; he felt that the village boy who could look forward to fame as his

inheritance was richer than all the millionnaires, and that the words he should set in verse would have an

enduring lustre to which the whiteness of pearls was cloudy, and the sparkle of diamonds dull.

He raised his eyes, which had been cast down in reflection, to look upon these less favored children of

Fortune, to whom she had given nothing but perishable inheritances. Two or three pairs of eyes, he observed,

were fastened upon him. His mouth perhaps betrayed a little selfconsciousness, but he tried to show his

features in an aspect of dignified selfpossession. There seemed to be remarks and questionings going on,

Which is it? Which is it? Why, that one, there,that young fellow,don't you see? What young fellow

are you two looking at? Who is he? What is he? Why, that is Hopkins, the poet. Hopkins, the poet! Let

Gifted Hopkins did not hear these words except in fancy, but he did unquestionably find a considerable

number of eyes concentrated upon him, which he very naturally interpreted as an evidence that he had

already begun to enjoy a foretaste of the fame of which he should hereafter have his full allowance. Some

seemed to be glancing furtively, some appeared as if they wished to speak, and all the time the number of

those looking at him seemed to be increasing. A vision came through his fancy of himself as standing on a

platform, and having persons who wished to look upon him and shake hands with him presented, as he had

heard was the way with great people when going about the country. But this was only a suggestion, and by no

Gifted Hopkins was quite right in believing that he attracted many eyes. At last those of Myrtle Hazard were

called to him, and she perceived that an accident was making him unenviably conspicuous. The bow of his

rather large white necktie had slid round and got beneath his left ear. A not very goodnatured or wellbred

young fellow had pointed out the subject of this slight misfortune to one or two others of not much better

taste or breeding, and thus the unusual attention the youthful poet was receiving explained itself. Myrtle no

sooner saw the little accident of which her rural friend was the victim than she left her place in the dance with

And the courageous young lady not only told Gifted what had happened to him, but found a pin somehow, as

women always do on a pinch, and had him in presentable condition again almost before the bewildered young

man knew what was the matter. On reflection it occurred to him, as it has to other provincial young persons

going to great cities, that he might perhaps have been hasty in thinking himself an object of general curiosity

as yet. There had hardly been time for his name to have become very widely known. Still, the feeling had

been pleasant for the moment, and had given him an idea of what the rapture would be, when, wherever he

went, the monster digit (to hint a classical phrase) of the collective admiring public would be lifted to point

him out, and the whisper would pass from one to another, "That's him! That's Hopkins!"

Mr. Murray Bradshaw had been watching the opportunity for carrying out his intentions, with his pleasant

smile covering up all that was passing in his mind, and Master Byles Gridley, looking equally unconcerned,

had been watching him. The young man's time came at last. Some were at the suppertable, some were

promenading, some were talking, when he managed to get Myrtle a little apart from the rest, and led her

towards one of the recesses in the apartment, where two chairs were invitingly placed. Her cheeks were

flushed, her eyes were sparkling,the influences to which he had trusted had not been thrown away upon

her. He had no idea of letting his purpose be seen until he was fully ready. It required all his selfmastery to

avoid betraying himself by look or tone, but he was so natural that Myrtle was thrown wholly off her guard.

He meant to make her pleased with herself at the outset, and that not by pointblank flattery, of which she

had had more than enough of late, but rather by suggestion and inference, so that she should find herself

feeling happy without knowing how. It would be easy to glide from that to the impression she had produced

upon him, and get the two feelings more or less mingled in her mind. And so the simple confession he meant

to make would at length evolve itself logically, and hold by a natural connection to the first agreeable train of

thought which he had called up. Not the way, certainly, that most young men would arrange their great trial

scene; but Murray Bradshaw was a lawyer in love as much as in business, and considered himself as pleading

a cause before a jury of Myrtle Hazard's conflicting motives. What would any lawyer do in a jury case but

begin by giving the twelve honest men and true to understand, in the first place, that their intelligence and

virtue were conceded by all, and that he himself had perfect confidence in them, and leave them to shape their

Myrtle had, perhaps, never so seriously inclined her ear to the honeyed accents of the young pleader. He

flattered her with so much tact, that she thought she heard an unconscious echo through his lips of an

admiration which he only shared with all around him. But in him he made it seem discriminating, deliberate,

not blind, but very real. This it evidently was which had led him to trust her with his ambitions and his

plans,they might be delusions, but he could never keep them from her, and she was the one woman in the

The dread moment was close at hand. Myrtle was listening with an instinctive premonition of what was

coming,ten thousand mothers and grandmothers and greatgrandmothers, and so on, had passed through it

all in preceding generations until time reached backwards to the sturdy savage who asked no questions of any

kind, but knocked down the primeval greatgrandmother of all, and carried her off to his hole in the rock, or

into the tree where he had made his nest. Why should not the coming question announce itself by stirring in

the pulses and thrilling in the nerves of the descendant of all these grandmothers?

She was leaning imperceptibly towards him, drawn by the mere blind elemental force, as the plummet was

attracted to the side of Schehallion. Her lips were parted, and she breathed a little faster than so healthy a girl

ought to breathe in a state of repose. The steady nerves of William Murray Bradshaw felt unwonted thrills

and tremors tingling through them, as he came nearer and nearer the few simple words with which he was to

make Myrtle Hazard the mistress' of his destiny. His tones were becoming lower and more serious; there

were slight breaks once or twice in the conversation; Myrtle had cast down her eyes.

A grave voice interrupted him. "Excuse me, Mr. Bradshaw," said Master Bytes Gridley, "I wish to present a

young gentleman to my friend here. I promised to show him the most charming young person I have the

honor to be acquainted with, and I must redeem my pledge. Miss Hazard, I have the pleasure of introducing

Once mere, for the third time, these two young persons stood face to face. Myrtle was no longer liable to

those nervous seizures which any sudden impression was liable to produce when she was in her half

hysteric state of mind and body. She turned to the newcomer, who found himself unexpectedly submitted to

a test which he would never have risked of his own will. He must go through it, cruel as it was, with the easy

selfcommand which belongs to a gentleman in the most trying social exigencies. He addressed her,

therefore, in the usual terms of courtesy, and then turned and greeted Mr. Bradshaw, whom he had never met

since their coming together at Oxbow Village. Myrtle was conscious, the instant she looked upon Clement

Lindsay, of the existence of some peculiar relation between them; but what, she could not tell. Whatever it

was, it broke the charm which had been weaving between her and Murray Bradshaw. He was not foolish

enough to make a scene. What fault could he find with Clement Lindsay, who had only done as any

gentleman would do with a lady to whom he had just been introduced, addressed a few polite words to her?

After saying those words, Clement had turned very courteously to him, and they had spoken with each other.

But Murray Bradshaw could not help seeing that Myrtle had transferred her attention, at least for the moment,

from him to the newcomer. He folded his arms and waited,but he waited in vain. The hidden attraction

which drew Clement to the young girl with whom he had passed into the Valley of the Shadow of Death

overmastered all other feelings, and he gave himself up to the fascination of her presence.

The inward rage of Murray Bradshaw at being interrupted just at the moment when he was, as he thought,

about to cry checkmate and finish the first great game he had ever played may well be imagined. But it could

not be helped. Myrtle had exercised the customary privilege of young ladies at parties, and had turned from

talking with one to talking with another,that was all. Fortunately, for him the young man who had been

introduced at such a most critical moment was not one from whom he need apprehend any serious

interference. He felt grateful beyond measure to pretty Susan Posey, who, as he had good reason for

believing, retained her hold upon her early lover, and was looking forward with bashful interest to the time

when she should become Mrs. Lindsay. It was better to put up quietly with his disappointment; and, if he

could get no favorable opportunity that evening to resume his conversation at the interesting point where he

He called accordingly the next morning, but was disappointed in not seeing Myrtle. She had hardly slept that

night, and was suffering from a bad headache, which last reason was her excuse for not seeing company.

He called again, the following day, and learned that Miss Hazard had just left the city, and gone on a visit to

What the nature of the telegram was which had produced such an effect on the feelings and plans of Mr.

William Murray Bradshaw nobody especially interested knew but himself. We may conjecture that it

announced some fact, which had leaked out a little prematurely, relating to the issue of the great landcase in

which the firm was interested. However that might be,. Mr. Bradshaw no sooner heard that Myrtle had

suddenly left the city for Oxbow Village,for what reason he puzzled himself to guess,than he

determined to follow her at once, and take up the conversation he had begun at the party where it left off. And

as the young poet had received his quietus for the present at the publisher's, and as Master Gridley had

nothing specially to detain him, they too returned at about the same time, and so our old acquaintances were

once more together within the familiar precincts where we have been accustomed to see them.

Master Gridley did not like playing the part of a spy, but it must be remembered that he was an old college

officer, and had something of the detective's sagacity, and a certain cunning derived from the habit of keeping

an eye on mischievous students. If any underhand contrivance was at work, involving the welfare of any one

in whom he was interested, he was a dangerous person for the plotters, for he had plenty of time to attend to

them, and would be apt to take a kind of pleasure in matching his wits against another crafty person's, such

Perhaps he caught some words of that gentleman's conversation at the party; at any rate, he could not fail to

observe his manner. When he found that the young man had followed Myrtle back to the village, he

suspected something more than a coincidence. When he learned that he was assiduously visiting The Poplars,

and that he was in close communication with Miss Cynthia Badlam, he felt sure that he was pressing the

siege of Myrtle's heart. But that there was some difficulty in the way was equally clear to him, for he

ascertained, through channels which the attentive reader will soon have means of conjecturing, that Myrtle

had seen him but once in the week following his return, and that in the presence of her dragons. She had

various excuses when he called,headaches, perhaps, among the rest, as these are staple articles on such

occasions. But Master Gridley knew his man too well to think that slight obstacles would prevent his going

"I think he will get her; if he holds on," the old man said to himself, "and he won't let go in a hurry, if there

were any real love about itbut surely he is incapable of such a human weakness as the tender passion.

What does all this sudden concentration upon the girl mean? He knows something about her that we don't

know,that must be it. What did he hide that paper for, a year ago and more? Could that have anything to do

Master Gridley paused as he asked this question of himself, for a luminous idea had struck him. Consulting

daily with Cynthia Badlam, was he? Could there be a conspiracy between these two persons to conceal some

important fact, or to keep something back until it would be for their common interest to have it made known?

Now Mistress Kitty Fagan was devoted, heart and soul, to Myrtle Hazard, and ever since she had received the

young girl from Mr. Gridley's hands, when he brought her back safe and sound after her memorable

adventure, had considered him as Myrtle's best friend and natural protector. These simple creatures, whose

thoughts are not taken up, like those of educated people, with the care of a great museum of dead phrases, are

very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them. Mr. Gridley had met her, more or less

accidentally, several times of late, and inquired very particularly about Myrtle, and how she got along at the

house since her return, and whether she was getting over her headaches, and how they treated her in the

"Bliss your heart, Mr. Gridley," Kitty said to him on one of these occasions, "it's ahltogither changed intirely.

Sure Miss Myrtle does jist iverythin' she likes, an' Miss Withers niver middles with her at ahl, excip' jist to

roll up her eyes an' look as if she was the hid moorner at a funeril whiniver Miss Myrtle says she wants to

do this or that, or to go here or there. It's Miss Badlam that's ahlwiz after her, an' awatchin' her,she thinks

she's cunnin'er than a cat, but there 's other folks that's got eyes an' ears as good as hers. It's that Mr. Bridshaw

that's a puttin' his head together with Miss Badlam for somethin' or other, an' I don't believe there's no good in

it, for what does the fox an' the cat be a whisperin' about, as if they was thaves an' incind'ries, if there ain't no

"Why, Kitty," he said, "what mischief do you think is going on, and who is to be harmed?"

"O Mr. Gridley," she answered, "if there ain't somebody to be chated somehow, then I don't know an honest

man and woman from two rogues. An' have n't I heard Miss Myrtle's name whispered as if there was

somethin' goin' on agin' her, an' they was afraid the tahk would go out through the doors, an' up through the

chimbley? I don't want to tell no tales, Mr. Gridley, nor to hurt no honest body, for I'm a poor woman, Mr.

Gridley, but I comes of dacent folks, an' I vallies my repitation an' character as much as if I was dressed in

silks and satins instead of this mane old gown, savin' your presence, which is the best I 've got, an' niver a

dollar to buy another. But if I iver I hears a word, Mr. Gridley, that manes any kind of a mischief to Miss

Myrtle,the Lard bliss her soul an' keep ahl the divils away from her!I'll be runnin' straight down here to

"Nothing must happen to Myrtle," he said," that we can help. If you see anything more that looks wrong, you

had better come down here at once and let me know, as you say you will. At once, you understand. And,

Kitty, I am a little particular about the dress of people who come to see me, so that if you would just take the

trouble to get you a tidy pattern of gingham or calico, or whatever you like of that sort for a gown, you would

please me; and perhaps this little trifle will be a convenience to you when you come to pay for it."

Kitty thanked him with all the national accompaniments, and trotted off to the store, where Mr. Gifted

Hopkins displayed the native amiability of his temper by fumbling down everything in the shape of ginghams

and calicoes they had on the shelves, without a murmur at the taste of his customer, who found it hard to get a

pattern sufficiently emphatic for her taste. She succeeded at last, and laid down a fivedollar bill as if she

were as used to the pleasing figure on its face as to the sight of her own five digits.

Master Byles Gridley had struck a spade deeper than he knew into his first countermine, for Kitty had none of

those delicate scruples about the means of obtaining information which might have embarrassed a diplomatist

"What's the meaning of that, Kitty? Here is the third time within three days you've told me I could n't see her.

"Y' must ask Miss Myrtle what the rason is, it's none o' my business, Mr. Bridshaw. That's the order she give

"Bedad," said Kitty Fagan to herself, "the cat an' the fox is goin' to have another o' thim big tahks togither, an'

Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Cynthia went into the parlor together, and Mistress Kitty retired to her kitchen. There

was a deep closet belonging to this apartment, separated by a partition from the parlor. There was a round

hole high up in this partition through which a stovepipe had once passed. Mistress Kitty placed a stool just

under this opening, upon which, as on a, pedestal, she posed herself with great precaution in the attitude of

the goddess of other people's secrets, that is to say, with her head a little on one side, so as to bring her

liveliest ear close to the opening. The conversation which took place in the hearing of the invisible third party

"That's more than I can tell you, Mr. Bradshaw. I can watch her goings on, but I can't account for her

"You say she has had some of her old nervous whims,has the doctor been to see her?"

"No indeed. She has kept to herself a good deal, but I don't think there's anything in particular the matter with

her. She looks well enough, only she seems a little queer,as girls do that have taken a fancy into their

heads that they're in love, you know,absent minded,does n't seem to be interested in things as you

Mr. Bradshaw looked as if this did not please him particularly. If he was the object of her thoughts she would

["Depind on Kitty, is it? Oh, an' to be sure ye can depind on Kitty to kape watch at the stovepipe hole, an' to

tell all y'r plottin's an' contrivin's to them that'll get the cheese out o' y'r mousetrap for ye before ye catch any

"Of course I can depend on her as far as I trust her. All she knows is that she must look out for the girl to see

that she does not run away or do herself a mischief. The Biddies don't know much, but they know enough to

[" An' on the foxes, an' the cats, an' the wazels, an' the henhahks, an' ahl the other bastes," added the

"I ain't sure whether she's quite as stupid as she looks," said the suspicious young lawyer. "There's a little

cunning twinkle in her eye sometimes that makes me think she might be up to a trick on occasion. Does she

"Don't trouble yourself about Kitty Fagan,' for pity's sake, Mr. Bradshaw. The Biddies are all alike, and

they're all as stupid as owls, except when you tell 'em just what to do, and how to do it. A pack of

The hot Celtic blood in Kitty Fagan's heart gave a leap. The stout muscles gave an involuntary jerk. The

substantial frame felt the thrill all through, and the rickety stool on which she was standing creaked sharply

Murray Bradshaw started. He got up and opened softly all the doors leading from the room, one after another,

"I thought I heard a noise as if somebody was moving, Cynthia. It's just as well to keep our own matters to

"If you wait till this old house keeps still, Mr. Bradshaw, you might as well wait till the river has run by. It's

as full of rats and mice as an old cheese is of mites. There's a hundred old rats in this house, and that's what

"I told you, Cynthia, I must be off on this business tomorrow. I want to know that everything is safe before I

go. And, besides, I have got something to say to you that's important, very important, mind you."

He got up once more and opened every door softly and looked out. He fixed his eye suspiciously on a large

sofa at the other side of the room, and went, looking half ashamed of his extreme precaution, and peeped

under it, to see if there was any one hidden thereto listen. Then he came back and drew his chair close up to

the table at which Miss Badlam had seated herself. The conversation which followed was in a low tone, and a

portion of it must be given in another place in the words of the third party. The beginning of it we are able to

"Look here, Cynthia; you know what I am going for. It's all right, I feel sure, for I have had private means of

finding out. It's a sure thing; but I must go once more to see that the other fellows don't try any trick on us.

You understand what is for my advantage is for yours, and, if I go wrong, you go overboard with me. Now I

must leave theyou knowbehind me. I can't leave it in the house or the office: they might burn up. I won't

have it about me when I am travelling. Draw your chair a little more this way. Now listen."

["Indade I will," said the third party to herself. The reader will find out in due time whether she listened to

In the mean time Myrtle, who for some reason was rather nervous and restless, had found a pair of

halffinished slippers which she had left behind her. The color came into her cheeks when she remembered

the state of mind she was in when she was working on them for the Rev. Mr. Stoker. She recollected Master

Gridley's mistake about their destination, and determined to follow the hint he had given. It would please him

better if she sent them to good Father Pemberton, she felt sure, than if he should get them himself. So she

enlarged them somewhat, (for the old man did not pinch his feet, as the younger clergyman was in the habit

of doing, and was, besides, of portly dimensions, as the old orthodox threedeckers were apt to be,) and

worked E. P. very handsomely into the pattern, and sent them to him with her love and respect, to his great

delight; for old ministers do not have quite so many tokens of affection from fair hands as younger ones.

What made Myrtle nervous and restless? Why had she quitted the city so abruptly, and fled to her old home,

She had not betrayed herself at the third meeting with the young man who stood in such an extraordinary

relation to her,who had actually given her life from his own breath,as when she met him for the second

time. Whether his introduction to her at the party, just at the instant when Murray Bradshaw was about to

make a declaration, saved her from being in another moment the promised bride of that young gentleman, or

not, we will not be so rash as to say. It looked, certainly, as if he was in a fair way to carry his point; but

perhaps she would have hesitated, or shrunk back, when the great question came to stare her in the face.

She was excited, at any rate, by the conversation, so that, when Clement was presented to her, her thoughts

could not at once be all called away from her other admirer, and she was saved from all danger of that sudden

disturbance which had followed their second meeting. Whatever impression he made upon her developed

itself gradually, still, she felt strangely drawn towards him. It was not simply in his good looks, in his good

manners, in his conversation, that she found this attraction, but there was a singular fascination which she felt

might be dangerous to her peace, without explaining it to herself in words. She could hardly be in love with

this young artist; she knew that his affections were plighted to another, a fact which keeps most young

women from indulging unruly fancies; yet her mind was possessed by his image to such an extent that it left

Myrtle Hazard had been just ready to enter on a career of worldly vanity and ambition. It is hard to blame her,

for we know how she came by the tendency. She had every quality, too, which fitted her to shine in the gay

world; and the general law is, that those who have the power have the instinct to use it. We do not suppose

that the bracelet on her arm was an amulet, but it was a symbol. It reminded her of her descent; it kept alive

the desire to live over the joys and excitements of a bygone generation. If she had accepted Murray

Bradshaw, she would have pledged herself to a worldly life. If she had refused him, it would perhaps have

This new impression saved her for the time. She had come back to her nest in the village like a frightened

bird; her heart was throbbing, her nerves were thrilling, her dreams were agitated; she wanted to be quiet, and

It was a strong will and a subtle intellect that had arrayed their force and skill against the illdefended citadel

of Myrtle's heart. Murray Bradshaw was perfectly determined, and not to be kept back by any trivial

hindrances, such as her present unwillingness to accept him, or even her repugnance to him, if a freak of the

moment had carried her so far. It was a settled thing: Myrtle Hazard must become Mrs. Bradshaw; and

nobody could deny that, if he gave her his name, they had a chance, at least, for a brilliant future.

"I 'd like to go down to the store this mornin', Miss Withers, plase. Sure I've niver a shoe to my fut, only jist

these two that I've got on, an' one other pair, and thim is so full of holes that whin I 'm standin' in 'em I'm

Thereupon Kitty Fagan proceeded to array herself in her most tidy apparel, including a pair of shoes not

exactly answering to her description, and set out straight for the house of the Widow Hopkins. Arrived at that

respectable mansion, she inquired for Mr. Gridley, and was informed that he was at home. Had a message for

him,could she see him in his study? She could if she would wait a little while. Mr. Gridley was busy just at

Mistress Kitty accepted Mrs. Hopkins's hospitable offer, and presently began orienting herself, and getting

ready to make herself agreeable. The kindhearted Mrs. Hopkins had gathered about her several other

pensioners besides the twins. These two little people, it may be here mentioned, were just taking a morning

airing in charge of Susan Posey, who strolled along in company with Gifted Hopkins on his way to the store."

Mistress Kitty soon began the conversational blandishments so natural to her goodhumored race. "It's a little

blarney that'll jist suit th' old lady," she said to herself, as she made her first conciliatory advance.

"An' sure an' it's a beautiful kitten you've got there, Mrs. Hopkins. An' it's a splendid mouser she is, I'll be

bound. Does n't she look as if she'd clans the house out o'them little bastes, bad luck to em.

Mrs. Hopkins looked benignantly upon the more than middleaged tabby, slumbering as if she had never

known an enemy, and turned smiling to Mistress Kitty. "Why, bless your heart, Kitty, our old puss would n't

know a mouse by sight, if you showed her one. If I was a mouse, I'd as lieves have a nest in one of that old

"Indade, an' to be sure she's too big an' too handsome a pussy to be after wastin' her time on them little bastes.

It's that little tarrier dog of yours, Mrs. Hopkins, that will be after worryin' the mice an' the rats, an' the thaves

too, I 'll warrant. Is n't he a fustratelookin' watchdog, an' a rig'ler rathound?"

Mrs. Hopkins looked at the little shortlegged and shortwinded animal of miscellaneous extraction with an

expression of contempt and affection, mingled about half and half. "Worry 'em! If they wanted to sleep, I

rather guess he would worry 'em! If barkin' would do their job for 'em, nary a mouse nor rat would board free

gratis in my house as they do now. Noisy little goodfornothing tike,ain't you, Fret?"

Mistress Kitty was put back a little by two such signal failures. There was another chance, however, to make

her point, which she presently availed herself of,feeling pretty sure this time that she should effect a

lodgement. Mrs. Hopkins's parrot had been observing Kitty, first with one eye and then with the other,

evidently preparing to make a remark, but awkward with a stranger. "That 's a beautiful part y 've got there,"

Kitty said, buoyant with the certainty that she was on safe ground this time; "and tahks like a book, I 'll be

She put forth her hand to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which, instead of responding as expected,

"squawked," as our phonetic language has it, and, opening a beak imitated from a toothdrawing instrument

of the good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it back with a jerk.

"Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot hasn't said a word this ten year. He used to say Poor Poll! when we

first had him, but he found it was easier to squawk, and that's all he ever does nowadays, except bite once

"Well, an' to be sure," Kitty answered, radiant as she rose from her defeats, " if you'll kape a cat that does n't

know a mouse when she sees it, an' a dog that only barks for his livin', and a part that only squawks an' bites

an' niver spakes a word, ye must be the best hearted woman that's alive, an' bliss ye, if ye was only a good

So Mistress Kitty Fagan got in her bit of Celtic flattery, in spite of her three successive discomfitures.

"You may come up now, Kitty," said Mr. Gridley over the stairs. He had just finished and sealed a letter.

"Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars? And how does our young lady seem to be of late?"

Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on his attentive listener. She opened every door in the

room, "by your lave," as she said. She looked all over the walls to see if there was any old stovepipe hole or

other avenue to eye or ear. Then she went, in her excess of caution, to the window. She saw nothing

noteworthy except Mr. Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and small, in the distance. The

whole living fleet was stationary for the moment, he leaning on the fence with his cheek on his hand, in one

of the attitudes of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, listening, apparently, in the pose of Mignon

Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to Mr. Gridley, who told her to sit down, which she

did, first making a catch at her apron to dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left that part

Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the meeting between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of

the arrangements she made for herself as the reporter of the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own

way, that part of the conversation which has been already laid before the reader. There is no need of going

over the whole of this again in Kitty's version, but we may fit what followed into the joints of what has been

"He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an' tahked to her jist as asy as if they was two rogues, and she

knowed it as well as he did. An' so, says he, I'm goin' away, says he, an' I'm goin' to be gahn siveral days, or

"Keep what, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to keep?" said Mr. Gridley, who no longer doubted that he was

on the trail of a plot, and meant to follow it. He was getting impatient with the "says he's" with which Kitty

"An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as fast as my breath will let me? An' so, says he, you'd

better kape it, says he, mixed up with your other paupers, says he," (Mr. Gridley started,) "an' thin we can

find it in the garret, says he, whinever we want it, says he. An' if it all goes right out there, says he, it won't be

lahng before we shall want to find it, says he. And I can dipind on you, says he, for we're both in the same

boat, says he, an' you knows what I knows, says he, an' I knows what you knows, says be. And thin he taks a

stack o' paupers out of his pocket, an' he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to her, says he, that's the pauper,

says he, an' if you die, says be, niver lose sight of that day or night, says he, for it's life an' dith to both of us,

says he. An' thin he asks her if she has n't got one o' them pauperswhat is 't they cahls 'em? divilops, or

some sich kind of a namethat they wraps up their letters in; an' she says no, she has n't got none that's big

enough to hold it. So he says, give me a shate o' pauper, says he. An' thin he takes the pauper that she give

him, an' he folds it up like one o' themdivilops, if that's the name of 'em; and thin he pulls a stick o'

salin'wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an' he takes the pauper an' puts it into th' other pauper, along with

the rest of the paupers, an' thin he folds th' other pauper over the paupers, and thin he lights a candle, an' he

milts the salin'wax, and he sales up the pauper that was outside th' other paupers, an' he writes on the back

"Did you see the paper that he showed her before he fastened it up with the others, Kitty?"

"I did, indade, Mr. Gridley. It was a longish kind of a pauper, and there was some blotches of ink on the back

of it,an' they looked like a face without any mouth, for, says I, there's two spots for the eyes, says I, and

there's a spot for the nose, says I, and there's niver a spot for the mouth, says I"

This was the substance of what Master Byles Gridley got out of Kitty Fagan. It was enough, yes, it was too

much. There was some deep laid plot between Murray Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the

interests of some of the persons connected with the late Malachi Withers; for that the paper described by

Kitty was the same that he had seen the young man conceal in the Corpus Juris Civilis, it was impossible to

doubt. If it had been a single spot an the back of it, or two, he might have doubted. But three large spots

"blotches" she had called them, disposed thus *.* would not have happened to be on two different papers,

After grave consultation of all his mental faculties in committee of the whole, he arrived at the following

conclusion,that Miss Cynthia Badlam was the depositary of a secret involving interests which he felt it his

business to defend, and of a document which was fraudulently withheld and meant to be used for some unfair

purpose. And most assuredly, Master Gridley said to himself, he held a master key, which, just so certainly

as he could make up his mind to use it, would open any secret in the keeping of Miss Cynthia Badlam.

He proceeded, therefore, without delay, to get ready for a visit to that lady at The Poplars. He meant to go

thoroughly armed, for he was a very provident old gentleman. His weapons were not exactly of the kind

which a housebreaker would provide himself with, but of a somewhat peculiar nature.

Weapon number one was a slip of paper with a date and a few words written upon it. "I think this will fetch

the document," he said to himself, "if it comes to the worst. Not if I can help it,not if I can help it. But if I

cannot get at the heart of this thing otherwise, why, I must come to this. Poor woman!Poor woman!"

Weapon number two was a small phial containing spirits of hartshorn, sal volatile, very strong, that would

stab through the nostrils, like a stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain. Excellent in

cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes require the opening of windows, the dashing on of

cold water, the cutting of stays, perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous perturbation and afflux of

So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected innocence, grasped his ivoryhandled cane and

MISS Cynthia Badlam was seated in a small parlor which she was accustomed to consider her own during

her long residences at The Poplars. The entry stove warmed it but imperfectly, and she looked pinched and

cold, for the evenings were still pretty sharp, and the old house let in the chill blasts, as old houses are in the

habit of doing. She was sitting at her table, with a little trunk open before her. She had taken some papers

from it, which she was looking over, when a knock at her door announced a visitor, and Master Byles Gridley

As he came into the room, she gathered the papers together and replaced them in the trunk, which she locked,

throwing an unfinished piece of needlework over it, putting the key in her pocket, and gathering herself up

for company. Something of all this Master Gridley saw through his round spectacles, but seemed not to see,

A visitor at such an hour, of the male sex, without special provocation, without social pretext, was an event in

the life of the desolate spinster. Could it beNo, it could notand yetand yet! Miss Cynthia threw back

the rather commonlooking but comfortable shawl which covered her shoulders, and showed her quite

presentable figure, arrayed with a still lingering thought of that remote contingency which might yet offer

itself at some unexpected moment; she adjusted the carefully plaited cap, which was not yet of the lasciate

ogni speranza pattern, and as she obeyed these instincts of her sex, she smiled a welcome to the respectable,

learned, and independent bachelor. Mr. Gridley had a frosty but kindly age before him, with a score or so of

years to run, which it was after all not strange to fancy might be rendered more cheerful by the

companionship of a wellconserved and amiably disposed woman, if any such should happen to fall in his

That smile came very near disconcerting the plot of Master Byles Gridley. He had come on an inquisitor's

errand, his heart secure, as he thought, against all blandishments, his will steeled to break down all resistance.

He had come armed with an instrument of torture worse than the thumbscrew, worse than the pulleys which

attempt the miracle of adding a cubit to the stature, worse than the brazier of live coals brought close to the

naked soles of the feet,an instrument which, instead of trifling with the nerves, would clutch all the

nervecentres and the heart itself in its gripe, and hold them until it got its answer, if the white lips had life

enough left to shape one. And here was this unfortunate maiden lady smiling at him, setting her limited

attractions in their best light, pleading with him in that natural language which makes any contumacious

bachelor feel as guilty as Cain before any single woman. If Mr. Gridley had been alone, he would have taken

a good sniff at his own bottle of sal volatile; for his kind heart sunk within him as he thought of the errand

upon which he had come. It would not do to leave the subject of his vivisection under any illusion as to the

Good evening, Miss Badlam," he said, "I have come to visit you on a matter of business."

What was the internal panorama which had unrolled itself at the instant of his entrance, and which rolled up

as suddenly at the sound of his serious voice and the look of his grave features? It cannot be reproduced,

though pages were given to it; for some of the pictures were near, and some were distant; some were clearly

seen, and some were only hinted; some were not recognized in the intellect at all, and yet they were implied,

as it were, behind the others. Many times we have all found ourselves glad or sorry, and yet we could not tell

what thought it was that reflected the sunbeam or cast the shadow. Took into Cynthia's suddenly exalted

consciousness and see the picture, actual and potential, unroll itself in all its details of the natural, the

ridiculous, the selfish, the pitiful, the human. Glimpses, hints, echoes, suggestions, involving tender

sentiments hitherto unknown, we may suppose, to that unclaimed sister's breast,pleasant excitement of

receiving congratulations from suddenly cordial friends; the fussy delights of buying furniture and shopping

for new dresses,(it seemed as if she could hear herself saying, "Heavy silks,best goods, if you

please,")with delectable thumping down of flatsided pieces of calico, cambric, "rep," and other stiffs, and

rhythmic evolution of measured yards, followed by sharp snip of scissors, and that cry of rending tissues

dearer to woman's ear than any earthly sound until she hears the voice of her own firstborn,(much of this

potentially, remember,) thoughts of a comfortable settlement, an imposing social condition, a cheerful

household, and by and by an Indian summer of serene widowhood,all these, and infinite other involved

possibilities had mapped themselves in one long swift flash before Cynthia's inward eye, and all vanished as

the old man spoke those few words. The look on his face, and the tone of his cold speech, had instantly swept

What could be the "business" on which he had come to her with that solemn face?she asked herself, as she

returned his greeting and offered him a chair. She was conscious of a slight tremor as she put this question to

"Are we like to be alone and undisturbed?" Mr. Gridley asked. It was a strange question,men do act

"Yes, there is nobody like to come in at present," she answered. She did not know what to make of it. What

"My business," Mr. Gridley said, very gravely, "relates to this. I wish to inspect papers which I have reason to

believe exist, and which have reference to the affairs of the late Malachi Withers. Can you help me to get

sight of any of these papers not to be found at the Registry of Deeds or the Probate Office?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Gridley, but may I ask you what particular concern you have with the affairs of my relative,

"Perhaps it would take some time to answer that question fully, Miss Badlam. Some of these affairs do

"May I ask who the person or persons may be on whose account you wish to look at papers belonging to my

"You can ask me almost anything, Miss Badlam, but I should really be very much obliged if you would

answer my question first. Can you help me to get a sight of any papers relating to the estate of Malachi

Withers, not to be found at the Registry of Deeds or the Probate Office,any of which you may happen to

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gridley; but I don't understand why you come to me with such questions. Lawyer

Penhallow is the proper person, I should think, to go to. He and his partner that wasMr. Wibird, you

knowsettled the estate, and he has got the papers, I suppose, if there are any, that ain't to be found in the

Mr. Gridley moved his chair a little, so as to bring Miss Badlam's face a little more squarely in view.

"Does Mr. William Murray Bradshaw know anything about any papers, such as I am referring to, that may

The lady felt a little moisture stealing through all her pores, and at the same time a certain dryness of the

vocal organs, so that her answer came in a slightly altered tone which neither of them could help noticing.

"You had better ask Mr. William Murray Bradshaw yourself about that," she answered. She felt the hook

now, and her spines were rising, partly with apprehension, partly with irritation.

"Has that young gentleman ever delivered into your hands any papers relating to the affairs of the late

"What do you mean by asking me these questions, Mr. Gridley? I don't choose to be catechised about Murray

Bradshaw's business. Go to him, if you please, if you want to find out about it."

"Excuse my persistence, Miss Badlam, but I must prevail upon you to answer my question. Has Mr. William

Murray Bradshaw ever delivered into your hands any papers relating to the affairs of the late Malachi

"Do you suppose I am going to answer such questions as you are putting me because you repeat them over,

Mr. Gridley? Indeed I cha'n't. Ask him, if you please, whatever you wish to know about his doings."

She drew herself up and looked savagely at him. She had talked herself into her courage. There was a color in

"Miss Cynthia Badlam," Master Gridley said, very deliberately, "I am afraid we do not entirely understand

each other. You must answer my question precisely, categorically, pointblank, and on the instant. Will you

do this at once, or will you compel me to show you the absolute necessity of your doing it, at the expense of

"You can't say six words, nor sixty, Mr. Gridley, that will make me answer one question I do not choose to. I

"I will not say one, Miss Cynthia Badlam. There are some things one does not like to speak in words. But I

will show you a scrap of paper, containing just six words and a date; not one word more nor one less. You

shall read them. Then I will burn the paper in the flame of your lamp. As soon after that as you feel ready, I

Master Gridley took out from his pocketbook a scrap of paper, and handed it to Cynthia Badlam. Her hand

shook as she received it, for she was frightened as well as enraged, and she saw that Mr. Gridley was in

She read the six words, he looking at her steadily all the time, and watching her as if he had just given her a

No cry. No sound from her lips. She stared as if half stunned for one moment, then turned her head and

glared at Mr. Gridley as if she would have murdered him if she dared. In another instant her face whitened,

the scrap of paper fluttered to the floor, and she would have followed it but for the support of both Mr.

Gridley's arms. He disengaged one of them presently, and felt in his pocket for the sal volatile. It served him

excellently well, and stung her back again to her senses very quickly. All her defiant aspect had gone.

"Look!" he said, as he lighted the scrap of paper in the flame." You understand me, and you see that I must be

She opened her lips as if to speak. It was as when a bell is rung in a vacuum,no words came from

them,only a faint gasping sound, an effort at speech. She was caught tight in the heartscrew.

"Don't hurry yourself, Miss Cynthia," he said, with a certain relenting tenderness of manner. " Here, take

another sniff of the smellingsalts. Be calm, be quiet,I am well disposed towards you, I don't like to

give you trouble. There, now, I must have the answer to that question; but take your time, take your time."

"Give me some water,some water!" she said, in a strange hoarse whisper. There was a pitcher of water and

a tumbler on an old marble sideboard near by. He filled the tumbler, and Cynthia emptied it as if she had just

"I wish to know all that you can tell me about a certain paper, or certain papers, which I have reason to

"There is only one paper of any consequence. Do you want to make him kill me? or do you want to make me

"Neither, Miss Cynthia, neither. I wish to see that paper, but not for any bad purpose. Don't you think, on the

whole, you have pretty good reason to trust me? I am a very quiet man, Miss Cynthia. Don't be afraid of me;

She thrust her trembling hand into her pocket, and took out the key of the little trunk. She drew the trunk

towards her, put the key in the lock, and opened it. It seemed like pressing a knife into her own bosom and

turning the blade. That little trunk held all the records of her life the forlorn spinster most cherished;a few

letters that came nearer to loveletters than any others she had ever received; an album, with flowers of the

summers of 1840 and 1841 fading between its leaves; two papers containing locks of hair, half of a broken

ring, and other insignificant mementos which had their meaning, doubtless, to her,such a collection as is

often priceless to one human heart, and passed by as worthless in the auctioneer's inventory. She took the

papers out mechanically, and laid them on the table. Among them was an oblong packet, sealed with what

"Will you allow me to take that envelope containing papers, Miss Badlam? "Mr. Gridley asked, with a

suavity and courtesy in his tone and manner that showed how he felt for her sex and her helpless position.

She seemed to obey his will as if she had none of her own left. She passed the envelope to him, and stared at

him vacantly while he examined it. He read on the back of the package : "Withers Estate old papersof

"Have pity on me, Mr. Gridley,have pity on me. I am a lost woman if you do not. Spare me! for God's

sake, spare me! There will no wrong come of all this, if you will but wait a little while. The paper will come

to light when it is wanted, and all will be right. But do not make me answer any more questions, and let me

"Has there not been some understanding between you that he should become the approved suitor of Miss

Cynthia wrung her hands and rocked herself backward and forward in her misery, but answered not a word.

What could she answer, if she had plotted with this "dreadful man" against a young and innocent girl, to

deliver her over into his hands, at the risk of all her earthly hopes and happiness?

Master Gridley waited long and patiently for any answer she might have the force to make. As she made

none, he took upon himself to settle the whole matter without further torture of his helpless victim.

"This package must go into the hands of the parties who had the settlement of the estate of the late Malachi

Withers. Mr. Penhallow is the survivor of the two gentlemen to whom that business was intrusted. How long

"Perhaps a few days,perhaps weeks,and then he will come back and kill me,ororworse! Don't

take that paper, Mr. Gridley,he isn't like you! you would n'tbut he wouldhe would send me to

everlasting misery to gain his own end, or to save himself. And yet he is n't every way bad, and if he did

marry Myrtle she'd think there never was such a man,for he can talk her heart out of her, and the wicked in

him lies very deep and won't ever come out, perhaps, if the world goes right with him." The last part of this

sentence showed how Cynthia talked with her own conscience; all her mental and moral machinery lay open

His thoughts wandered a moment from the business before him; he had just got a new study of human nature,

which in spite of himself would be shaping itself into an axiom for an imagined new edition of "Thoughts on

the Universe," something like this,"The greatest saint may be a sinner that never got down to " hard pan." It

"Poh! poh!" he said to himself; "what are you about making phrases, when you have got a piece of work like

this in hand?" Then to Cynthia, with great gentleness and kindness of manner: "Have no fear about any

consequences to yourself. Mr. Penhallow must see that paperI mean those papers. You shall not be a loser

Master Gridley, treating her, as far as circumstances permitted, like a gentleman, had shown no intention of

taking the papers either stealthily or violently. It must be with her consent. He had laid the package down

upon the table, waiting for her to give him leave to take it. But just as he spoke these last words, Cynthia,

whose eye had been glancing furtively at it while he was thinking out his axiom, and taking her bearings to it

pretty carefully, stretched her hand out, and, seizing the package, thrust it into the sanctuary of her bosom.

"Mr. Penhallow must see those papers, Miss Cynthia Badlam," Mr. Gridley repeated calmly. "If he says they

or any of them can be returned to your keeping, well and good. But see them he must, for they have his office

seal and belong in his custody, and, as you see by the writing on the back, they have not been examined. Now

there may be something among them which is of immediate importance to the relatives of the late deceased

Malachi Withers, and therefore they must be forthwith submitted to the inspection of the surviving partner of

the firm of Wibird and Penhallow. This I propose to do, with your consent, this evening. It is now

twentyfive minutes past eight by the true time, as my watch has it. At half past eight exactly I shall have the

honor of bidding you good evening, Miss Cynthia Badlam, whether you give me those papers or not. I shall

go to the office of Jacob Penhallow, Esquire, and there make one of two communications to him; to wit, these

papers and the facts connected therewith, or another statement, the nature of which you may perhaps

There is no need of our speculating as to what Mr. Byles Gridley, an honorable and humane man, would have

done, or what would have been the nature of that communication which he offered as an alternative to the

perplexed woman. He had not at any rate miscalculated the strength of his appeal, which Cynthia interpreted

as he expected. She bore the heartscrew about two minutes. Then she took the package from her bosom, and

gave it with averted face to Master Byles Gridley, who, on receiving it, made her a formal but not unkindly

"One would think it had been lying out in the dew," he said, as he left the house and walked towards Mr.

Lawyer Penhallow was seated in his study, his day's work over, his feet in slippers, after the comfortable but

inelegant fashion which Sir Walter Scott reprobates, amusing himself with a volume of old Reports. He was a

knowing man enough, a keen country lawyer but honest, and therefore less ready to suspect the honesty of

others. He had a great belief in his young partner's ability, and, though he knew him to be astute, did not think

It was at his request that Mr. Bradshaw had undertaken his journey, which, as he believed,and as Mr.

Bradshaw had still stronger evidence of a strictly confidential nature which led him to feel sure,would end

in the final settlement of the great land claim in favor of their client. The case had been dragging along from

year to year, like an English chancery suit; and while courts and lawyers and witnesses had been sleeping, the

property had been steadily growing. A railroad had passed close to one margin of the township, some mines

had been opened in the county, in which a village calling itself a city had grown big enough to have a

newspaper and Fourth of July orations. It was plain that the successful issue of the long process would make

the heirs of the late Malachi Withers possessors of an ample fortune, and it was also plain that the firm of

Penhallow and Bradshaw were like to receive, in such case, the largest fee that had gladdened the

Mr. Penhallow had his book open before him, but his thoughts were wandering from the page. He was

thinking of his absent partner, and the probable results of his expedition. What would be the consequence if

all this property came into the possession of Silence Withers? Could she have any liberal intentions with

reference to Myrtle Hazard, the young girl who had grown up with her, or was the common impression true,

that she was bent on endowing an institution, and thus securing for herself a favorable consideration in the

higher courts, where her beneficiaries would be, it might be supposed, influential advocates? He could not

help thinking that Mr. Bradshaw believed that Myrtle Hazard would eventually come to apart at least of this

inheritance. For the story was, that he was paying his court to the young lady whenever he got an opportunity,

and that he was cultivating an intimacy with Miss Cynthia Badlam. "Bradshaw would n'tmake a move in that

direction," Mr. Penhallow said to himself, "until he felt pretty sure that it was going to be a paying business.

If he was only a young minister now, there'd be no difficulty about it. Let any man, young or old, in a clerical

white cravat, step up to Myrtle Hazard, and ask her to be miserable in his company through this wretched life,

and aunt Silence would very likely give them her blessing, and add something to it that the man in the white

cravat would think worth even more than that was. But I don't know what she'll say to Bradshaw. Perhaps he

'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little more regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he's about."

He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced, and Mr. Byles Gridley entered the study.

"Good evening, Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley said, wiping his forehead. "Quite warm, is n't it, this evening?"

"Warm!" said Mr. Penhallow, "I should think it would freeze pretty thick tonight. I should have asked you

to come up to the fire and warm yourself. But take off your coat, Mr. Gridley,very glad to see you. You

don't come to the house half as often as you come to the office. Sit down, sit down."

Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down. "He does look warm, does n't he?" Mr. Penhallow

thought. "Wonder what has heated up the old gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes

"Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley began at once, "I have come on a very grave matter, in which you are

interested as well as myself, and I wish to lay the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may

settle this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good standing of your partner, Mr. William

Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in the matter. Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his acuteness in

some particular case like the one I am to mention beyond the prescribed limits?"

The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an indignant denial of the possibility of

"It is possible," he answered, "that Bradshaw's keen wits may have betrayed him into sharper practice than I

should altogether approve in any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but I

can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to make any false step of the kind you seem to

hint. I think he might on occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross it."

"Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled the estate of the late Malachi Withers, did you not?"

"Have you received any papers from any of the family since the settlement of the estate?"

"Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers Place, and so forth,not of much use, but labelled and

kept. An old trunk with letters and accountbooks, some of them in Dutch,mere curiosities. A year ago or

more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she had found in an odd corner,the old man hid

things like a magpie. I looked over most of them,trumpery not worth keeping, old leases and so forth."

"Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported to me, if I remember right, that they amounted to

"If any of those papers were of importance, should you think your junior partner ought to keep them from

"I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will you be so good as to come at once to the facts on which

Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly the singular behavior of Murray Bradshaw in taking one

paper from a number handed to him by Mr. Penhallow, and concealing it in a volume. He related how he was

just on the point of taking out the volume which contained the paper, when Mr. Bradshaw entered and

disconcerted him. He had, however, noticed three spots on the paper by which he should know it anywhere.

He then repeated the substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact that she too noticed three remarkable

spots on the paper which Mr. Bradshaw had pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one so important to both of

Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something questionable in the aspect of this business. It did

obviously suggest the idea of an underhand arrangement with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very

grave consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said, to have ascertained what these papers, or

rather this particular paper, to which so much importance was attached, amounted to. Without that knowledge

there was nothing, after all, which it might not be possible to explain. He might have laid aside the spotted

paper to examine for some object of mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that the one the Fagan woman had

seen should present three spots so like those on the other paper, but people did sometimes throw treys at

backgammon, and that which not rarely happened with two dice of six faces might happen if they had sixty or

six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was any ground, so far, for anything more than a

vague suspicion. He thought it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the young lady up at

The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of

suitors. She was young for Bradshaw,very young,but he knew his own affairs. If he chose to make love

Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in a most discreditable inward discussion as to whether

Laura Penhallow was probably one or two years older than Mr. Bradshaw. That was his way, he could not

help it. He could not think of anything without these mental parentheses. But he came back to business at the

"I can lay the package before you at this moment, Mr. Penhallow. I have induced that woman in whose

charge it was left to intrust it to my keeping, with the express intention of showing it to you. But it is

protected by a seal, as I have told you, which I should on no account presume to meddle with."

"How damp it is!" Mr. Penhallow said; " must have been lying in some very moist neighborhood."

"Very," Mr. Gridley answered, with a peculiar expression which said, "Never mind about that."

"Did the party give you possession of these documents without making any effort to retain them?" the lawyer

"Not precisely. It cost some effort to induce Miss Badlam to let them go out of her hands. I hope you think I

was justified in making the effort I did, not without a considerable strain upon my feelings, as well as her

"That will depend something on what the papers prove to be, Mr. Gridley. A man takes a certain

responsibility in doing just what you have done. If, for instance, it should prove that this envelope contained

matters relating solely to private transactions between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, concerning no one

but themselves,and if the words on the back of the envelope and the seal had been put there merely as a

protection for a package containing private papers of a delicate but perfectly legitimate character"

The lawyer paused, as careful experts do, after bending the bow of an hypothesis, before letting the arrow go.

Mr. Gridley felt very warm indeed, uncomfortably so, and applied his handkerchief to his face. Could n't be

anything in such a violent supposition as that, and yet such a crafty fellow as that Bradshaw,what trick was

he not up to? Absurd! Cynthia was not acting,Rachel would n't be equal to such a performance!" why

then, Mr. Gridley," the lawyer continued, "I don't see but what my partner would have you at an advantage,

and, if disposed to make you uncomfortable, could do so pretty effectively. But this, you understand, is only a

supposed case, and not a very likely one. I don't think it would have been prudent in you to meddle with that

seal. But it is a very different matter with regard to myself. It makes no difference, so far as I am concerned,

where this package came from, or how it was obtained. It is just as absolutely within my control as any piece

of property I call my own. I should not hesitate, if I saw fit, to break this seal at once, and proceed to the

examination of any papers contained within the envelope. If I found any paper of the slightest importance

relating to the estate, I should act as if it had never been out of my possession.

"Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the package, and, having ascertained, act my judgment

about returning it to the party from whom you obtained it. In such case I might see fit to restore or cause it to

be restored, to the party, without any marks of violence having been used being apparent. If everything is not

right, probably no questions would be asked by the party having charge of the package. If there is no

underhand work going on, and the papers are what they profess to be, nobody is compromised but yourself,

so far as I can see, and you are compromised at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good graces of the party

from whom you obtained the documents. Tell that party that I took the package without opening it, and shall

return it, very likely, without breaking the seal. Will consider of the matter, say a couple of days. Then you

shall hear from me, and she shall hear from you. So. So. Yes, that's it. A nice business. A thing to sleep on.

You had better leave the whole matter of dealing with the package to me. If I see fit to send it back with the

seal unbroken, that is my affair. But keep perfectly quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the whole matter.

Mr. Bradshaw is off, as you know, and the business on which he is gone is important,very important. He

can be depended on for that; he has acted all along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our firm

Mr. Penhallow's light burned very late in the office that night, and the following one. He looked troubled and

absentminded, and when Miss Laura ventured to ask him how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone, he

answered her in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded that he did n't mean to have Miss

Laury keep company with Mr. Bradshaw, or he'd never have spoke so dreadful hash to her when she asked

A day or two after Myrtle Hazard returned to the village, Master Byles Gridley, accompanied by Gifted

Hopkins, followed her, as has been already mentioned, to the same scene of the principal events of this

narrative. The young man had been persuaded that it would be doing injustice to his talents to crowd their

fruit prematurely upon the market. He carried his manuscript back with him, having relinquished the idea of

publishing for the present. Master Byles Gridley, on the other hand, had in his pocket a very flattering

proposal, from the same publisher to whom he had introduced the young poet, for a new and revised edition

of his work, "Thoughts on the Universe," which was to be remodelled in some respects, and to have a new

It would be hardly fair to Susan Posey to describe with what delight and innocent enthusiasm she welcomed

back Gifted Hopkins. She had been so lonely since he was away? She had read such of his poems as she

possessedduplicates of his printed ones, or autographs which he had kindly written out for herover and

over again, not without the sweet tribute of feminine sensibility, which is the most precious of all testimonials

to a poet's power over the heart. True, her love belonged to another,but then she was so used to Gifted! She

did so love to hear him read his poems,and Clement had never written that "little bit of a poem to Susie,"

which she had asked him for so long ago! She received him therefore with open arms,not literally, of

course, which would have been a breach of duty and propriety, but in a figurative sense, which it is hoped no

The young poet was in need of consolation. It is true that he had seen many remarkable sights during his visit

to the city; that he had got "smarted up," as his mother called it, a good deal; that he had been to Mrs. Clymer

Ketchum's party, where he had looked upon life in all its splendors; and that he brought back many

interesting experiences, which would serve to enliven his conversation for a long time. But he had failed in

the great enterprise he had undertaken. He was forced to confess to his revered parent, and his esteemed

friend Susan Posey, that his genius, which was freely acknowledged, was not thought to be quite ripe as yet.

He told the young lady some particulars of his visit to the publisher, how he had listened with great interest to

one of his poems, "The Triumph of Song,"how he had treated him with marked and flattering attention;

but that he advised him not to risk anything prematurely, giving him the hope that by and by he would be

admitted into that series of illustrious authors which it was the publisher's privilege to present to the reading

public. In short, he was advised not to print. That was the net total of the matter, and it was a pang to the

susceptible heart of the poet. He had hoped to have come home enriched by the sale of his copyright, and

with the prospect of seeing his name before long on the back of a handsome volume.

Gifted's mother did all in her power to console him in his disappointment. There was plenty of jealous people

always that wanted to keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she did n't believe but what

Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them that they kept such a talk about. She had a fear that he

might pine away in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through, and solicited his appetite

with her choicest appliances,of which he partook in a measure which showed that there was no immediate

But Susan Posey was more than a consoler,she was an angel to him in this time of his disappointment.

"Read me all the poems over again," she said,"it is almost the only pleasure I have left, to hear you read

your beautiful verses." Clement Lindsay had not written to Susan quite so often of late as at some former

periods of the history of their love. Perhaps it was that which had made her look paler than usual for some

little time. Something was evidently preying on her. Her only delight seemed to be in listening to Gifted as he

read, sometimes with fine declamatory emphasis, sometimes in low, tremulous tones, the various poems

enshrined in his manuscript. At other times she was sad, and more than once Mrs. Hopkins had seen a tear

steal down her innocent cheek, when there seemed to be no special cause for grief. She ventured to speak of it

"Our Susan's in trouble, Mr. Gridley, for some reason or other that's unbeknown to me, and I can't help

wishing you could jest have a few words with her. You're a kind of a grandfather, you know, to all the young

folks, and they'd tell you pretty much everything about themselves. I calc'late she is n't at ease in her mind

about somethin' or other, and I kind o' think, Mr. Gridley, you could coax it out of her."

"Was there ever anything like it?" said Master Byles Gridley to himself. "I shall have all the young folks in

Oxbow Village to take care of at this rate. Susan Posey in trouble, too! Well, well, well, it's easier to get a

birchbark canoe off the shallows than a big ship off the rocks. Susan Posey's trouble will be come at easily

enough; but Myrtle Hazard floats in deeper water. We must make Susan Posey tell her own story, or let her

"I am going to dust the books in the open shelves this morning. I wonder if Miss Susan Posey would n't like

The amiable girl's very pleasant countenance lighted up at the thought of obliging the old man who had been

so kind to her and so liberal to her friend, the poet. She would be delighted to help him; she would dust them

all for him, if he wanted her to. No, Master Gridley said, he always wanted to have a hand in it; and, besides,

such a little body as she was could not lift those great folios out of the lower shelves without overstraining

herself; she might handle the musketry and the light artillery, but he must deal with the heavy guns himself.

"As low down as the octavos, Susan Posey, you shall govern; below that, the Salic law."

Susan did not low much about the Salic law; but she knew he meant that he would dust the big books and she

A very young and a very pretty girl is sometimes quite charming in a costume which thinks of nothing less

than of being attractive. Susan appeared after breakfast in the study, her head bound with a kerchief of bright

pattern, a little jacket she had outgrown buttoned, in spite of opposition, close about her up to the throat,

round which a white handkerchief was loosely tied, and a pair of old gauntlets protecting her hands, so that

she suggested something between a gypsy, a jaunty soubrette, and the fille du regiment.

Master Gridley took out a great volume from the lower shelf,a folio in massive oaken covers with clasps

Like prison hinges, bearing the stately colophon, white on a ground of vermilion, of Nicholas Jenson and his

associates. He opened the volume,paused over its blue, and scarlet initial letter,he turned page after

page, admiring its brilliant characters, its broad, white marginal rivers, and the narrower white creek that

separated the blacktyped twincolumns, he turned back to the beginning and read the commendatory

paragraph," Nam ipsorum omnia fidgent tum correctione dignissima, tum cura imprimendo splendida ac

miranda,' and began reading, "Incipit proemium super apparatum decretalium...." when it suddenly occurred

to him that this was not exactly doing what he had undertaken to do, and he began whisking an ancient

bandanna about the ears of the venerable volume. All this time Miss Susan Posey was catching the little

books by the small of their backs, pulling them out, opening them, and clapping them together, 'p'p'p!

'p'p'p! and carefully caressing all their edges with a regular professional dustingcloth, so persuasively that

they yielded up every particle that a year had drifted upon them, and came forth refreshed and rejuvenated.

This process went on for a while, until Susan had worked down among the octavos and Master Gridley had

worked up among the quartos. He had got hold of Calmet's Dictionary, and was caught by the article

Solomon, so that he forgot his occupation again. All at once it struck him that everything was very

silent,the 'p'p'p! of clapping the books had ceased, and the light rustle of Susan's dress was no longer

heard. He looked up and saw her standing perfectly still, with a book in one hand and her duster in the other.

She was lost in thought, and by the shadow on her face and the glistening of her blue eyes he knew it was her

hidden sorrow that had just come back to her. Master Gridley shut up his book, leaving Solomon to his fate,

like the worthy Benedictine he was reading, without discussing the question whether he was saved or not.

Poor Susan was in the state of unstable equilibrium which the least touch upsets, and fell to crying. It took her

some time to get down the waves of emotion so that speech would live upon them. At last it ventured

out,showing at intervals, like the boat rising on the billow, sinking into the hollow, and climbing again into

"O Mr. GridleyI can'tI can'ttell you oranybodywhat 's the matmatmatter. My heart will

"No, no, no, child," said Mr. Gridley, sympathetically stirred a little himself by the sight of Susan in tears and

sobbing and catching her breath, "that mustn't be, Susan Posey. Come off the steps, Susan Posey, and stop

dusting the books,I can finish them, and tell me all abort your troubles. I will try 'to help you out of

them, and I have begun to think I know how to help young people pretty well. I have had some experience at

But Susan cried and sobbed all the more uncontrollably and convulsively. Master Gridley thought he had

better lead her at once to what he felt pretty sure was the source of her grief, and that, when she had had her

cry out, she would probably make the hole in the ice he had broken big enough in a very few minutes.

I think something has gone wrong between you and your friend, the young gentleman with whom you are in

intimate relations, my child, and I think you had better talk freely with me, for I can perhaps give you a little

Susan cried herself quiet at last. "There's nobody in the world like you, Mr. Gridley," she said, "and I've been

wanting to tell you something ever so long. My friendMr. ClemClement Lindsay does n't care for me as

he used to,I know he does n't. He hasn't written to me forI don't know but it's a month. And O Mr.

Gridley! he's such a great man, and I am such a simple person,I can't help thinkinghe would be happier

This last touch of selfpity overcame her, as it is so apt to do those who indulge in that delightful misery, and

she broke up badly, as a horsefancier would say, so that it was some little time before she recovered her

"O Mr. Gridley," she began again, at length, "if I only dared to tell him what I think,that perhaps it would

be happier for us bothif we could forget each other! Ought I not to tell him so? Don't you think he would

find another to make him happy? Wouldn't he forgive me for telling him he was free? Were we not too young

to know each other's hearts when we promised each other that we would love as long as we lived? Sha'n't I

write him a letter this very day and tell him all? Do you think it would be wrong in me to do it? O Mr.

Gridley, it makes me almost crazy to think about it. Clement must be free! I cannot, cannot hold him to a

There were so many questions in this eloquent rhapsody of Susan's that they neutralized each other, as one

might say, and Master Gridley had time for reflection. His thoughts went on something in this way:

"Pretty clear case! Guess Mr. Clement can make up his mind to it. Put it well, did n't she? Not a word about

our little Gifted! That's the trouble. Poets! how they do bewitch these schoolgirls! And having a chance every

day, too, how could you expect her to stand it?" Then aloud: "Susan Posey, you are a good, honest little girl

as ever was. I think you and Clement were too hasty in coming together for life before you knew what life

meant. I think if you write Clement a letter, telling him that you cannot help fearing that you two are not

perfectly adapted to each other, on account of certain differences for which neither of you is responsible, and

that you propose that each should release the other from the pledge given so long ago,in that case, I say, I

believe he will think no worse of you for so doing, and may perhaps agree that it is best for both of you to

The bookdusting came to as abrupt a close as the reading of Lancelot. Susan went straight to her room,

dried her tears so as to write in a fair hand, but had to stop every few lines and take a turn at the

"dustlayers," as Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's friend used to call the fountains of sensibility. It would seem like

betraying Susan's confidence to reveal the contents of this letter, but the reader may be assured that it was

simple and sincere and very sweetly written, without the slightest allusion to any other young man, whether

It was not long before Susan received a reply from Clement Lindsay. It was as kind and generous and noble

as she could have asked. It was affectionate, as a very amiable brother's letter might be, and candidly

appreciative of the reasons Susan had assigned for her proposal. He gave her back her freedom, not that he

should cease to feel an interest in her, always. He accepted his own release, not that he would ever think she

could be indifferent to his future fortunes. And within a very brief period of time after sending his answer to

Susan Posey, whether he wished to see her in person, or whether he had some other motive, he had packed

his trunk, and made his excuses for an absence of uncertain length at the studio, and was on his way to

The spring of 1861 had now arrived,that eventful spring which was to lift the curtain and show the first

scene of the first act in the mighty drama which fixed the eyes of mankind during four bloody years. The little

schemes of little people were going on in all our cities and villages without thought of the fearful convulsion

which was soon coming to shatter the hopes and cloud the prospects of millions. Our little Oxbow Village,

which held itself by no means the least of human centres, was the scene of its own commotions, as intense

and exciting to those concerned as if the destiny of the nation had been involved in them.

Mr. Clement Lindsay appeared suddenly in that important locality, and repaired to his accustomed quarters at

the house of Deacon Rumrill. That worthy person received him with a certain gravity of manner, caused by

his recollections of the involuntary transgression into which Mr. Lindsay had led him by his present of

"Ivanhoe." He was, on the whole, glad to see him, for his finances were not yet wholly recovered from the

injury inflicted on them by the devouring element. But he could not forget that his boarder had betrayed him

into a breach of the fourth commandment, and that the strict eyes of his clergyman had detected him in the

very commission of the offence. He had no sooner seen Mr. Clement comfortably installed, therefore, than he

presented himself at the door of his chamber with the book, enveloped in strong paper and very securely tied

"Here is your vollum, Mr. Lindsay," the Deacon said. "I understand it is not the work of that great and good

mahn who I thought wrote it. I did not see anything immoral in it as fur as I read, but it belongs to what I

consider a very dangerous class of publications. These novels and romances are awfully destructive to our

youth. I should recommend you, as a young man of principle, to burn the vollum. At least I hope you will not

leave it about anywhere unless it is carefully tied up. I have written upon the paper round it to warn off all the

True enough, Mr. Clement saw in strong black letters on the back of the paper wrapping his unfortunate

"I thought you said you had Scott's picture hung up in your parlor, Deacon Rumrill," he said, a little amused

"It is the great Scott's likeness that I have in my parlor," he said; "I will show it to you if you will come with

"That is the portrait of the great Scott," he said, pointing to an engraving of a heavylooking person whose

phrenological developments were a somewhat striking contrast to those of the distinguished Sir Walter.

"I will take good care that none of your young people see this volume," Mr. Clement said; "I trust you read it

yourself, however, and found something to please you in it. I am sure you are safe from being harmed by any

"Well, IIperused a consid'able portion of the work," the Deacon answered, in a way that led Mr.

Clement to think he had not stopped much short of Finis. "Anything new in the city?"

"Nothing except what you've all had,Confederate States establishing an army and all that,not very new

"Well, Mr. Lindsay, not a great deal. My new barn is pretty nigh done. I've got as fine a litter of pigs as ever

you see. I don't know whether you're a judge of pigs or no. The Hazard gal's come back, spilt, pooty much, I

guess. Been to one o' them fashionable schools,I 've heerd that she 's learnt to dance. I've heerd say that

that Hopkins boy's round the Posey gal, come to think, she's the one you went with some when you was

here,I 'm gettin' kind o' forgetful. Old Doctor Hurlbut's pretty low,ninetyfour year old, born in

'67,folks ain't ginerally very spry after they're ninety, but he held out wonderful."

"Well, the young squire, he's off travellin' somewhere in the West, or to Washin'ton, or somewhere else,I

don't jestly know where. They say that he's follerin' up the courts in the business about old Malachi's estate. I

The news got round Oxbow Village very speedily that Mr. Clement Lindsay, generally considered the

accepted lover of Miss Susan Posey, had arrived in that place. Now it had come to be the common talk of the

village that young Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were getting to be mighty thick with each other, and the

prevailing idea was that Clement's visit had reference to that state of affairs. Some said that Susan had given

her young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his services as a suitor were dispensed

with. Others thought there was only a wavering in her affection for her lover, and that he feared for her

Some of the young fellows, who were doubtless envious of Gifted's popularity with the fair sex, attempted in

the most unjustifiable manner to play upon his susceptible nature. One of them informed him that he had seen

that Lindsay fellah raound taown with the darndest big stick y' ever did see. Looked kind o' savage and wild

like. Another one told him that perhaps he'd better keep a little shady; that are chap that had got the mittin

was praowlin' abaout with a pistil,one o' them Darringers,abaout as long as your thumb, an' fire a

bullet as big as a p'tatahball,'a fellah carries one in his breechespocket, an' shoots y' right threugh his

own pahnts, withaout ever takin' on it aout of his pocket. The stablekeeper, who, it may be remembered,

once exchanged a few playful words with Mr. Gridley, got a hint from some of these unfeeling young men,

"I 've got a faast colt, Mr. Hopkins, that 'll put twenty mild betwixt you an' this here village, as quick as any

four huffs 'll dew it in this here caounty, if you should want to get away suddin. I've heern tell there was some

lookin' raound here that wouldn't be wholesome to meet,jest say the word, Mr. Hopkins, an' I 'll have ye on

that are colt's back in less than no time, an' start ye off full jump. There's a good many that's kind o' worried

for fear something might happen to ye, Mr. Hopkins,y' see fellahs don't like to have other chaps cuttin' on

Gifted Hopkins had become excessively nervous by this time. It is true that everything in his intimacy with

Susan Posey, so far, might come under the general head of friendship; but he was conscious that something

more was in both their thoughts. Susan had given him mysterious hints that her relations with Clement had

undergone a change, but had never had quite courage enough, perhaps had too much delicacy, to reveal the

Gifted was walking home, deeply immersed in thoughts excited by the hints which hail been thus wantonly

thrown out to inflame his imagination, when all at once, on lifting his eyes, he saw Clement Lindsay coming

straight towards him. Gifted was unarmed, except with a pair of blunt scissors, which he carried habitually in

his pocket. What should he do? Should he fly? But he was never a good runner, being apt to find himself

scant o' breath, like Hamlet, after violent exercise. His demeanor on the occasion did credit to his sense of his

own virtuous conduct and his selfpossession. He put his hand out, while yet at a considerable distance, and

marched up towards Clement, smiling with all the native amiability which belonged to him.

To his infinite relief, Clement put out his hand to grasp the one offered him, and greeted the young poet in the

"And how is Miss Susan Posey, Mr. Hopkins?" asked Clement, in the most cheerful tone. "It is a long while

since I have seen her, and you must tell her that I hope I shall not leave the village without finding time to

call upon her. She and I are good friends always, Mr. Hopkins, though perhaps I shall not be quite so often at

Gifted felt somewhat as the subject of one of those oldfashioned forms of argument, formerly much

employed to convince men of error in matters of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended

He told Mr. Clement all about Susan, and was on the point of saying that if he, Mr. Clement, did not claim

any engrossing interest in her, he, Gifted, was ready to offer her the devotion of a poet's heart. Mr. Clement,

however, had so many other questions to ask him about everybody in the village, more particularly

concerning certain young persons in whom he seemed to be specially interested, that there was no chance to

Clement Lindsay had come to Oxbow Village with a single purpose. He could now venture to trust himself in

the presence of Myrtle Hazard. He was free, and he knew nothing to show that she had lost the liberty of

disposing of her heart. But after an experience such as he had gone through, he was naturally distrustful of

himself, and inclined to be cautious and reserved in yielding to a new passion. Should he tell her the true

relations in which they stood to each other,that she owed her life to him, and that he had very nearly

sacrificed his own in saving hers? Why not? He had a claim on her gratitude for what he had done in her

behalf, and out of this gratitude there might naturally spring a warmer feeling.

No, he could not try to win her affections by showing that he had paid for them beforehand. She seemed to be

utterly unconscious of the fact that it was he who had been with her in the abyss of waters. If the thought

came to her of itself, and she ever asked him, it would be time enough to tell her the story. If not, the moment

might arrive when he could reveal to her the truth that he was her deliverer, without accusing himself of

bribing her woman's heart to reward him for his services. He would wait for that moment.

It was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Lindsay, a young gentleman from the city, should call to

see Miss Hazard, a young lady whom he had met recently at a party. To that pleasing duty he addressed

"The young gentleman's goin' a courtin', I calc'late," was the remark of the Deacon's wife when she saw what

"A very hahnsome young mahn," the Deacon replied, "and looks as if he might know consid'able. An

architect, you know,a sort of a builder. Wonder if he has n't got any good plans for a hahnsome pigsty. I

suppose he 'd charge somethin' for one, but it couldn't be much, an' he could take it out in board."

"Better ask him," his wifesaid; "he looks mighty pleasant; there's nothin' lost by askin', an' a good deal got

The Deacon followed her advice. Mr. Clement was perfectly good natured about it, asked the Deacon the

number of snouts in his menagerie, got an idea of the accommodations required, and sketched the plaza of a

neat, and appropriate edifice for the Porcellarium, as Master Gridley afterwards pleasantly christened it,

which was carried out by the carpenter, and stands to this day a monument of his obliging disposition, and a

"What'll be your charge for the plan of the pigsty, Mr. Lindsay?" the Deacon inquired with an air of

interest,he might have become involved more deeply than he had intended. "How much should you call

"Oh, you're quite welcome to my sketch of a plan, Deacon. I've seen much showier buildings tenanted by

Mr. Clement found the three ladies sitting together in the chill, dim parlor at The Poplars. They had one of

the city papers spread out on the table, and Myrtle was reading aloud the last news from Charleston Harbor.

She rose as Mr. Clement entered, and stepped forward to meet him. It was a strange impression this young

man produced upon her, not through the common channels of the intelligence, not exactly that "magnetic "

influence of which she had had experience at a former time. It did not over come her as at the moment of

their second meeting. But it was something she must struggle against, and she had force and pride and

training enough now to maintain her usual tranquillity, in spite of a certain inward commotion which seemed

Myrtle, it must be remembered, was no longer the simple country girl who had run away at fifteen, but a

young lady of seventeen, who had learned all that more than a year's diligence at a great school could teach

her, who had been much with girls of taste and of culture, and was familiar with the style and manners of

those who came from what considered itself the supreme order in the social hierarchy. Her natural love for

picturesque adornment was qualified by a knowledge of the prevailing modes not usual in so small a place as

Oxbow Village. All this had not failed to produce its impression on those about her. Persons who, like Miss

Silence Withers, believe, not in education, inasmuch as there is no healthy nature to be educated, but in

transformation, worry about their charges up to a certain period of their lives. Then, if the transformation

does not come, they seem to think their cares and duties are at an end, and, considering their theories of

human destiny, usually accept the situation with wonderful complacency. This was the stage which Miss

Silence Withers had reached with reference to Myrtle. It made her infinitely more agreeable, or less

disagreeable, as the reader may choose one or the other statement, than when she was always fretting about

her "responsibility." She even began to take an interest in some of Myrtle's worldly experiences, and

something like a smile would now and then disarrange the chiefmourner stillness of her features, as Myrtle

would tell some lively story she had brought away from the gay society she had frequented.

Cynthia Badlam kept her keen eyes on her like a hawk. Murray Bradshaw was away, and here was this

handsome and agreeable youth coming in to poach on the preserve of which she considered herself the

gamekeeper. What did it mean? She had heard the story about Susan's being off with her old love and on with

Clement Lindsay passed not so much a pleasant evening, as one of strange, perplexed, and mingled delight

and inward conflict. He had found his marble once more turned to flesh and blood, and breathing before him.

This was the woman he was born for; her form was fit to model his proudest ideal from, her eyes melted him

when they rested for an instant on his face,her voice reached the hidden sensibilities of his inmost nature;

those which never betray their existence until the outward chord to which they vibrate in response sends its

message to stir them. But was she not already pledged to that other,that coldblooded, contriving, venal,

cynical, selfish, polished, fascinating man of the world, whose artful strategy would pass with nine women

If he had known the impression he made, he would have felt less anxiety with reference to this particular

possibility. Miss Silence expressed herself gratified with his appearance, and thought he looked like a good

young man,he reminded her of a young friend of hers who[It was the same who had gone to one of the

cannibal islands as a missionary,and stayed there.] Myrtle was very quiet. She had nothing to say about

Clement, except that she had met him at a party in the city, and found him agreeable. Miss Cynthia wrote a

letter to Murray Bradshaw that very evening, telling him that he had better come back to Oxbow Village as

quickly as he could, unless he wished to find his place occupied by an intruder.

In the mean time, the country was watching the garrison in Charleston Harbor. All at once the first gun of the

four years' cannonade hurled its ball against the walls of Fort Sumter. There was no hamlet in the land which

the reverberations of that cannonroar did not reach. There was no valley so darkened by overshadowing

hills that it did not see the American flag hauled down on the 13th of April. There was no loyal heart in the

North that did not answer to the call of the country to its defenders which went forth two days later. The great

tide of feeling reached the locality where the lesser events of our narrative were occurring. A meeting of the

citizens was instantly called. The venerable Father Pemberton opened it with a prayer that filled every soul

with courage and high resolve. The young farmers and mechanics of that whole region joined the companies

to which they belonged, or organized in squads and marched at once, or got ready to march, to the scene of

The contagion of warlike patriotism reached the most peacefully inclined young persons.

"My country calls me," Gifted Hopkins said to Susan Posey, "and I am preparing to obey her summons. If I

can pass the medical examination, which it is possible I may, though I fear my constitution may be thought

too weak, and if no obstacle impedes me, I think of marching in the ranks of the Oxbow Invincibles. If I go,

Susan, and I fall, will you not remember me . . . as one who . . . cherished the tenderest . . . sentiments . . .

Susan forgot all the rules of reserve to which she had been trained. What were cold conventionalities at such

a moment? "Never! never!" she said, throwing her arms about his neck and mingling her tears with his, which

were flowing freely. "Your country does not need your sword .... but it does need . . . your pen. Your poems

will inspire . . . our soldiers. . . . The Oxbow Invincibles will march to victory, singing your songs . . . . If you

go . . . and if you.. . fall . . . O Gifted! . . . I . . . I . . . yes, I shall die too!"

"Susan," he said, "my own Susan, I yield to your wishes at every sacrifice. Henceforth they will be my law.

Yes, I will stay and encourage my brave countrymen to go forward to the bloody field. My voice shall urge

them on to the battleground. I will give my dearest breath to stimulate their ardor.

While these interesting events had been going on beneath the modest roof of the Widow Hopkins, affairs had

been rapidly hastening to a similar conclusion under the statelier shadow of The Poplars. Clement Lindsay

was so well received at his first visit that he ventured to repeat it several times, with so short intervals that it

implied something more than a common interest in one of the members of the household. There was no room

for doubt who this could be, and Myrtle Hazard could not help seeing that she was the object of his

undisguised admiration. The belief was now general in the village that Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were

either engaged or on the point of being so; and it was equally understood that, whatever might be the

Love works very strange transformations in young women. Sometimes it leads them to try every mode of

adding to their attractions,their whole thought is how to be most lovely in the eyes they would fill so as to

keep out all other images. Poor darlings! We smile at their little vanities, as if they were very trivial things

compared with the last Congressman's speech or the great Election Sermon; but Nature knows well what she

is about. The maiden's ribbon or ruffle means a great deal more for her than the judge's wig or the priest's

It was not in this way that the gentle emotion awaking in the breast of Myrtle Hazard betrayed itself. As the

thought dawned in her consciousness that she was loved, a change came over her such as the spirit that

protected her, according to the harmless fancy she had inherited, might have wept for joy to behold, if tears

could flow from angelic eyes. She forgot herself and her ambitions,the thought of shining in the great

world died out in the presence of new visions of a future in which she was not to be her own,of feelings in

the depth of which the shallow vanities which had drawn her young eyes to them for a while seemed less than

nothing. Myrtle had not hitherto said to herself that Clement was her lover, yet her whole nature was

expanding and deepening in the light of that friendship which any other eye could have known at a glance for

Cynthia Badlam wrote a pressing letter to Murray Bradshaw. "There is no time to be lost; she is bewitched,

Love moves in an accelerating ratio; and there comes a time when the progress of the passion escapes from

all human formulae, and brings two young hearts, which had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer

together, into complete union, with a suddenness that puts an infinity between the moment when all is told

They were sitting together by themselves in the dimly lighted parlor. They had told each other many

experiences of their past lives, very freely, as two intimate friends of different sex might do. Clement had

happened to allude to Susan, speaking very kindly and tenderly of her. He hoped this youth to whom she was

attached would make her life happy. "You know how simplehearted and good she is; her image will always

Myrtle ought, according to the common rules of conversation, to have asked, What other? but she did not.

She may have looked as if she wanted to ask,she may have blushed or turned pale, perhaps she could not

trust her voice; but whatever the reason was, she sat still, with downcast eyes. Clement waited a reasonable

"Your image is the one other,the only one, let me say, for all else fades in its presence,your image fills

all my thought. Will you trust your life and happiness with one who can offer you so little beside his love?

Whether Myrtle said anything in reply or not, whether she acted like Coleridge's Genevieve,that is, "fled to

him and wept," or suffered her feelings to betray themselves in some less startling confession, we will leave

untold. Her answer, spoken or silent, could not have been a cruel one, for in another moment Clement was

She looked at him in wonder. What did he mean? The second time! How assuredly he spoke! She looked him

"I have a singular story to tell you. On the morning of the 16th of June, now nearly two years ago, I was

sitting in my room at Alderbank, some twenty miles down the river, when I heard a cry for help coming from

When it came to the "boy" in the old boat, Myrtle's cheeks flamed so that she could not bear it, and she

covered her face with both her hands. But Clement told his story calmly through to the end, sliding gently

over its later incidents, for Myrtle's heart was throbbing violently, and her breath a little catching and sighing,

They sat in silence, lost in the sense of that new life which had suddenly risen on their souls.

The doorbell rang sharply. Kitty Fagan answered its summons, and presently entered the parlor and

"May I not be Clement, dearest? I would not see him at all, Myrtle. I don't believe you will find much

"I cannot endure it. Kitty, tell him I am engaged, and cannot see him this evening. No, no! don't say

Kitty departed, communing with herself in this wise:" Ockipied, is it? An' that's what ye cahl it when ye 're

kapin' company with one young gintleman an' don't want another young gintleman to come in an' help the

two of ye? Ye won't get y'r pigs to market today, Mr. Bridshaw, no, nor tomorrow, nayther, Mr. Bridshaw.

It's Mrs. Lindsay that Miss Myrtle is goin' to be,an' a big cake there'll be at the weddin' frosted all

With these reflections in her mind, Mistress Kitty delivered her message, not without a gleam of malicious

intelligence in her look that stung Mr. Bradshaw sharply. He had noticed a hat in the entry, and a little stick

by it which he remembered well as one he had seen carried by Clement Lindsay. But he was used to

concealing his emotions, and he greeted the two older ladies who presently came into the library so

pleasantly, that no one who had not studied his face long and carefully would have suspected the bitterness of

heart that lay hidden far down beneath his deceptive smile. He told Miss Silence, with much apparent

interest, the story of his journey. He gave her an account of the progress of the case in which the estate of

which she inherited the principal portion was interested. He did not tell her that a final decision which would

settle the right to the great claim might be expected at any moment, and he did not tell her that there was very

little doubt that it would be in favor of the heirs of Malachi Withers. He was very sorry he could not see Miss

Hazard that evening,hoped he should be more fortunate tomorrow forenoon, when he intended to call

again,had a message for her from one of her former school friends, which he was anxious to give her. He

exchanged certain looks and hints with Miss Cynthia, which led her to withdraw and bring down the papers

he had entrusted to her. At the close of his visit, she followed him into the entry with a lamp, as was her

"What's the meaning of all this, Cynthia? Is that fellow making love to Myrtle?"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Bradshaw. He's been here several times, and they seem to be getting intimate. I couldn't do

Cynthia pulled the package from her pocket. Murray Bradshaw looked sharply at it. A little

"I shall come again tomorrow forenoon. Another day and it will be all up. The decision of the court will be

known. It won't be my fault if one visit is not enough. You don't suppose Myrtle is in love with this

"She acts asif she might be. You know he's broke with Susan Posey, and there's nothing to hinder. If you

ask my opinion, I think it's your last chance: she is n't a girl to half do things, and if she has taken to this man

it will be hard to make her change her mind. But she's young, and she has had a liking for you, and if you

Two notes passed between Myrtle Hazard and Master Byles Gridley that evening. Mistress Kitty Fagan, who

Murray Bradshaw went home in a very desperate state of feeling. He had laid his plans, as he thought, with

perfect skill, and the certainty of their securing their end. These papers were to have been taken from the

envelope, and found in the garret just at the right moment, either by Cynthia herself or one of the other

members of the family, who was to be led on, as it were accidentally, to the discovery. The right moment

must be close at hand. He was to offer his handand heart, of courseto Myrtle, and it was to be accepted.

As soon as the decision of the land case was made known, or not long afterwards, there was to be a search in

the garret for papers, and these were to be discovered in a certain dusty recess, where, of course, they would

And now the one condition which gave any value to these arrangements seemed like to fail. This obscure

youththis poor fool, who had been on the point of marrying a simpleton to whom he had made a boyish

promisewas coming between him and the object of his long pursuit,the woman who had every attraction

to draw him to herself. It had been a matter of pride with Murray Bradshaw that he never lost his temper so as

to interfere with the precise course of action which his cool judgment approved; but now he was almost

beside himself with passion. His labors, as he believed, had secured the favorable issue of the great case so

long pending. He had followed Myrtle through her whole career, if not as her avowed lover, at least as one

whose friendship promised to flower in love in due season. The moment had come when the scene and the

characters in this village drama were to undergo a change as sudden and as brilliant as is seen in those fairy

spectacles where the dark background changes to a golden palace and the sober dresses are replaced by robes

of regal splendor. The change was fast approaching; but he, the enchanter, as he had thought himself, found

He could not sleep during that night. He paced his room, a prey to jealousy and envy and rage, which his

calm temperament had kept him from feeling in their intensity up to this miserable hour. He thought of all

that a maddened nature can imagine to deaden its own intolerable anguish. Of revenge. If Myrtle rejected his

suit, should he take her life on the spot, that she might never be another's,that neither man nor woman

should ever triumph over him, the proud ambitious man, defeated, humbled, scorned? No! that was a

meanness of egotism which only the most vulgar souls could be capable of. Should he challenge her lover? It

was not the way of the people and time, and ended in absurd complications, if anybody was foolish enough to

try it. Shoot him? The idea floated through his mind, for he thought of everything; but he was a lawyer, and

not a fool, and had no idea of figuring in court as a criminal. Besides, he was not a murderer,cunning was

his natural weapon, not violence. He had a certain admiration of desperate crime in others, as showing nerve

During the night he made every arrangement for leaving the village the next day, in case he failed to make

any impression on Myrtle Hazard and found that his chance was gone. He wrote a letter to his partner, telling

him that he had left to join one of the regiments forming in the city. He adjusted all his business matters so

that his partner should find as little trouble as possible. A little before dawn he threw himself on the bed, but

he could not sleep; and he rose at sunrise, and finished his preparations for his departure to the city.

The morning dragged along slowly. He could not go to the office, not wishing to meet his partner again. After

breakfast he dressed himself with great care, for he meant to show himself in the best possible aspect. Just

before he left the house to go to The Poplars, he took the sealed package from his trunk, broke open the

envelope, took from it a single paper,it had some spots on it which distinguished it from all the rest,put

it separately in his pocket, and then the envelope containing the other papers. The calm smile be wore on his

features as he set forth cost him a greater effort than he had ever made before to put it on. He was moulding

his face to the look with which he meant to present himself; and the muscles had been sternly fixed so long

that it was a task to bring them to their habitual expression in company,that of ingenuous goodnature.

He was shown into the parlor at The Poplars; and Kitty told Myrtle that he had called and inquired for her and

"Tell him I will be down presently," she said. "And, Kitty, now mind just what I tell you. Leave your kitchen

door open, so that you can hear anything fall in the parlor. If you hear a book fall,it will be a heavy one,

and will make some noise,run straight up here to my little chamber, and hang this red scarf out of the

window. The left hand sidesash, mind, so that anybody can see it from the road. If Mr. Gridley calls, show

Kitty Fagan looked amazingly intelligent, and promised that she would do exactly as she was told. Myrtle

followed her down stairs almost immediately, and went into the parlor, where Mr. Bradshaw was waiting.

Never in his calmest moments had he worn a more insinuating smile on his features than that with which he

now greeted Myrtle. So gentle, so gracious, so full of trust, such a completely natural expression of a kind,

genial character did it seem, that to any but an expert it would have appeared impossible that such an effect

could be produced by the skilful balancing of half a dozen pairs of little muscles that manage the lips and the

corners of the mouth. The tones of his voice were subdued into accord with the look of his features; his whole

manner was fascinating, as far as any conscious effort could make it so. It was just one of those artificially

pleasing effects that so often pass with such as have little experience of life for the genuine expression of

character and feeling. But Myrtle had learned the look that shapes itself on the features of one who loves with

a love that seeketh not its own, and she knew the difference between acting and reality. She met his

insinuating approach with a courtesy so carefully ordered that it was of itself a sentence without appeal.

Artful persons often interpret sincere ones by their own standard. Murray Bradshaw thought little of this

somewhat formal address,a few minutes would break this thin film to pieces. He was not only a suitor with

a prize to gain, he was a colloquial artist about to employ all the resources of his specialty.

He introduced the conversation in the most natural and easy way, by giving her the message from a former

schoolmate to which he had referred, coloring it so delicately, as he delivered it, that it became an

innocentlooking flattery. Myrtle found herself in a rose colored atmosphere, not from Murray Bradshaw's

admiration, as it seemed, but only reflected by his mind from another source. That was one of his arts,

always, if possible, to associate himself incidentally, as it appeared, and unavoidably, with an agreeable

So Myrtle was betrayed into smiling and being pleased before he had said a word about himself or his affairs.

Then he told her of the adventures and labors of his late expedition; of certain evidence which at the very last

moment he had unearthed, and which was very probably the turningpoint in the case. He could not help

feeling that she must eventually reap some benefit from the good fortune with which his efforts had been

attended. The thought that it might yet be so had been a great source of encouragement to him,it would

always be a great happiness to him to remember that he had done anything to make her happy.

Myrtle was very glad that he had been so far successful,she did not know that it made much difference to

her, but she was obliged to him for the desire of serving her that he had expressed.

"My services are always yours, Miss Hazard. There is no sacrifice I would not willingly make for your

benefit. I have never had but one feeling toward you. You cannot be ignorant of what that feeling is."

"I know, Mr. Bradshaw, it has been one of kindness. I have to thank you for many friendly attentions, for

"Kindness is not all that I feel towards you, Miss Hazard. If that were all, my lips would not tremble as they

He sprang the great confession on Myrtle a little sooner than he had meant. It was so hard to go on making

The seemingly involuntary movement she made brought her arm against a large dictionary, which lay very

near the edge of the table on which it was resting. The book fell with a loud noise to the floor.

There it lay. The young man awaited her answer; he did not think of polite forms at such a moment.

"It cannot be, Mr. Bradshaw,it must not be. I have known you long, and I am not ignorant of all your

brilliant qualities, but you must not speak to me of love. Your regard,your friendly interest, tell me that I

"I do not ask you to give me your love in return; I only ask you not to bid me despair. Let me believe that the

time may come' when you will listen to me,no matter how distant. You are young,you have a tender

heart,you would not doom one who only lives for you to wretchedness,so long that we have known each

"Do you mean, Myrtle Hazard, that you have cast me aside for another? for this strangerthis

artistwho was with you yesterday when I came, bringing with me the story of all I had done for you, yes,

for you,and was ignominiously refused the privilege of seeing you?" Rage and jealousy had got the better

of him this time. He rose as he spoke, and looked upon her with such passion kindling in his eyes that he

"I have thanked you for any services you may have rendered me, Mr. Bradshaw," Myrtle answered, very

calmly, "and I hope you will add one more to them by sparing me this rude questioning. I wished to treat you

He had recovered himself for one more last effort. "I was impatient overlook it, I beg you. I was thinking of

all the happiness I have labored to secure for you, and of the ruin to us both it would be if you scornfully

rejected the love I offer you,if you refuse to leave me any hope for the future,if you insist on throwing

yourself away on this man, so lately pledged to another. I hold the key of all your earthly fortunes in my

hand. My love for you inspired me in all that I have done, and, now that I come to lay the result of my labors

at your feet, you turn from me, and offer my reward to a stranger. I do not ask you to say this day that you

will be mine,I would not force your inclinations,but I do ask you that you will hold yourself free of all

others, and listen to me as one who may yet be more than a friend. Say so much as this, Myrtle, and you shall

have such a future as you never dreamed of. Fortune, position, all that this world can give, shall be yours."

"Never! never! If you could offer me the whole world, or take away from me all that the world can give, it

would make no difference to me. I cannot tell what power you hold over me, whether of life and death, or of

wealth and poverty; but after talking to me of love, I should not have thought you would have wronged me by

suggesting any meaner motive. It is only because we have been on friendly terms so long that I have listened

to you as I have done. You have said more than enough, and I beg you will allow me to put an end to this

She rose to leave the room. But Murray Bradshaw had gone too far to control himself,he listened only to

"Not yet!" he said. "Stay one moment, and you shall know what your pride and selfwill have cost you!"

Myrtle stood, arrested, whether by fear, or curiosity, or the passive subjection of her muscles to his imperious

Murray Bradshaw took out the spotted paper from his breastpocket, and held it up before her. "Look here!"

he exclaimed. "This would have made you rich,it would have crowned you a queen in society, it would

have given you all, and more than all, that you ever dreamed of luxury, of splendor, of enjoyment; and I, who

won it for you, would have taught you how to make life yield every bliss it had in store to your wishes. You

Murray Bradshaw walked deliberately to the fireplace, and laid the spotted paper upon the burning coals. It

writhed and curled, blackened, flamed, and in a moment was a cinder dropping into ashes. He folded his

arms, and stood looking at the wreck of Myrtle's future, the work of his cruel hand. Strangely enough, Myrtle

herself was fascinated, as it were, by the apparent solemnity of this mysterious sacrifice. She had kept her

eyes steadily on him all the time, and was still gazing at the altar on which her happiness had been in some

way offered up, when the door was opened by Kitty Fagan, and Master Byles Gridley was ushered into the

"Too late, old man! "Murray Bradshaw exclaimed, in a hoarse and savage voice, as he passed out of the

room, and strode through the entry and down the avenue. It was the last time the old gate of The Poplars was

to open or close for him. The same day he left the village; and the next time his name was mentioned it was

as an officer in one of the regiments just raised and about marching to the seat of war.

What Master Gridley may have said to Myrtle Hazard that served to calm her after this exciting scene cannot

now be recalled. That Murray Bradshaw thought he was inflicting a deadly injury on her was plain enough.

That Master Gridley did succeed in convincing her that no great harm had probably been done her is equally

Like all bachelors who have lived a lonely life, Master Byles Gridley had his habits, which nothing short of

some terrestrial convulsion or perhaps, in his case, some instinct that drove him forth to help somebody in

troublecould possibly derange. After his breakfast, he always sat and read awhile,the paper, if a new

one came to hand, or some pleasant old author,if a little neglected by the world of readers, he felt more at

But on the morning after his interview with Myrtle Hazard, he had received a letter which made him forget

newspapers, old authors, almost everything, for the moment. It was from the publisher with whom he had had

a conversation, it may be remembered, when he visited the city, and was to this effect: That Our Firm

propose to print and stereotype the work originally published under the title of "Thoughts on the Universe";

said work to be remodelled according to the plan suggested by the Author, with the corrections, alterations,

omissions, and additions proposed by him; said work to be published under the following title, to wit:

________ _________: said work to be printed in 12mo, on paper of good quality, from new types, etc., etc.,

Master Gridley sat as in a trance, reading this letter over and over, to know if it could be really so. So it really

was. His book had disappeared from the market long ago, as the elm seeds that carpet the ground and never

germinate disappear. At last it had got a certain value as a curiosity for bookhunters. Some one of them,

keenereyed than the rest, had seen that there was a meaning and virtue in this unsuccessful book, for which

there was a new audience educated since it had tried to breathe before its time. Out of this had grown at last

the publisher's proposal. It was too much: his heart swelled with joy, and his eyes filled with tears.

How could he resist the temptation? He took down his own particular copy of the book, which was yet to do

him honor as its parent, and began reading. As his eye fell on one paragraph after another, he nodded

approval of this sentiment or opinion, he shook his head as if questioning whether this other were not to be

modified or left out, he condemned a third as being no longer true for him as when it was written, and he

sanctioned a fourth with his hearty approval. The reader may like a few specimens from this early edition,

now a rarity. He shall have them, with Master Gridley's verbal comments. The book, as its name implied,

contained "Thoughts" rather than consecutive trains of reasoning or continuous disquisitions. What he read

and remarked upon were a few of the more pointed statements which stood out in the chapters he was turning

over. The worth of the book must not be judged by these almost random specimens.

Develop that. Ideas at compound interest in the mind. Be aye sticking in an idea,while you're

sleeping it'll be growing. Seed of a thought today,flower tomorrownext weekten years from now,

"FISH AND DANDIES ONLY KEEP ON ICE. Who will take? Explain in note how all warmth

"Put in my telegraph project. Central station. Cables with insulated wires running to it from different quarters

of the city. These form the centripetal system. From central station, wires to all the livery stables, messenger

stands, provision shops, etc., etc. These form the centrifugal system. Any house may have a wire in the

He fell into a revery as he finished reading this last sentence. He thought of the dim and dread future,all

the changes that it would bring to him, to all the living, to the face of the globe, to the order of earthly things.

He saw men of a new race, alien to all that had ever lived, excavating with strange, vast engines the old

oceanbed now become habitable land. And as the great scoops turned out the earth they had fetched up from

the unexplored depths, a relic of a former simple civilization revealed the fact that here a tribe of human

beings had lived and perished. Only the coffeecup he had in his hand half an hour ago. Where would

he be then? and Mrs. Hopkins, and Gifted, and Susan, and everybody? and President Buchanan? and the

Boston StateHouse? and Broadway? O Lord, Lord, Lord! And the sun perceptibly smaller, according to

the astronomers, and the earth cooled down a number of degrees, and inconceivable arts practised by men of

a type yet undreamed of, and all the fighting creeds merged in one great universal

A knock at his door interrupted his revery. Miss Susan Posey informed him that a gentleman was waiting

Mr. Penhallow presented himself at Mr. Gridley's door with a countenance expressive of a very high state of

"First, that my partner has left very unexpectedly to enlist in a regiment just forming. Second, that the great

"He did, even before I knew it. He thought himself possessed of a very important document, as you know, of

which he has made, or means to make, some use. You are aware of the artifice I employed to prevent any

possible evil consequences from any action of his. I have the genuine document, of course. I wish you to go

over with me to The Poplars, and I should be glad to have good old Father Pemberton go with us; for it is a

They walked together to the old house, where the old clergyman had lived for more than half a century. He

was used to being neglected by the people who ran after his younger colleague; and the attention paid him in

asking him to be present on an important occasion, as he understood this to be, pleased him greatly. He

smoothed his long white locks, and called a granddaughter to help make him look fitly for such an occasion,

and, being at last got into his grandest Sunday aspect, took his faithful staff, and set out with the two

gentlemen for The Poplars. On the way, Mr. Penhallow explained to him the occasion of their visit, and the

general character of the facts he had to announce. He wished the venerable minister to prepare Miss Silence

Withers for a revelation which would materially change her future prospects. He thought it might be well,

also, if he would say a few words to Myrtle Hazard, for whom a new life, with new and untried temptations,

was about to open. His business was, as a lawyer, to make known to these parties the facts just come to his

own knowledge affecting their interests. He had asked Mr. Gridley to go with him, as having intimate

relations with one of the parties referred to, and as having been the principal agent in securing to that party

the advantages which were to accrue to her from the new turn of events. "You are a second parent to her, Mr.

Gridley," he said. "Your vigilance, your shrewdness, and yourspectacles have saved her. I hope she knows

the full extent of her obligations to you, and that she will always look to you for counsel in all her needs. She

What had happened, when she saw the three grave gentlemen at the door early in the forenoon, Mistress Kitty

Fagan could not guess. Something relating to Miss Myrtle, no doubt: she wasn't goin' to be married right off

to Mr. Clement,was she,and no church, nor cake, nor anything? The gentlemen were shown into the

parlor. "Ask Miss Withers to go into the library, Kitty," said Master Gridley. "Dr. Pemberton wishes to speak

with her." The good old man was prepared for a scene with Miss Silence. He announced to her, in a kind and

delicate way, that she must make up her mind to the disappointment of certain expectations which she had

long entertained, and which, as her lawyer, Mr. Penhallow, had come to inform her and others, were to be

To his great surprise, Miss Silence received this communication almost cheerfully. It seemed more like a

relief to her than anything else. Her one dread in this world was her "responsibility "; and the thought that she

might have to account for ten talents hereafter, instead of one, had often of late been a positive distress to her.

There was also in her mind a secret disgust at the thought of the hungry creatures who would swarm round

her if she should ever be in a position to bestow patronage. This had grown upon her as the habits of lonely

life gave her more and more of that fastidious dislike to males in general, as such, which is not rare in

maidens who have seen the roses of more summers than politeness cares to mention.

Father Pemberton then asked if he could see Miss Myrtle Hazard a few moments in the library before they

went into the parlor, where they were to meet Mr. Penhallow and Mr. Gridley, for the purpose of receiving

What change was this which Myrtle had undergone since love had touched her heart, and her visions of

worldly enjoyment had faded before the thought of sharing and ennobling the life of one who was worthy of

her best affections,of living for another, and of finding her own noblest self in that divine office of

woman? She had laid aside the bracelet which she had so long worn as a kind of charm as well as an

ornament. One would have said her features had lost something of that look of imperious beauty which had

added to her resemblance to the dead woman whose glowing portrait hung upon her wall. And if it could be

that, after so many generations, the blood of her who had died for her faith could show in her descendants

veins, and the soul of that elect lady of her race look out from her farremoved offspring's dark eyes, such a

transfusion of the martyr's life and spiritual being might well seem to manifest itself in Myrtle Hazard.

The largehearted old man forgot his scholastic theory of human nature as he looked upon her face. He

thought he saw in her the dawning of that grace which some are born with; which some, like Myrtle, only

reach through many trials and dangers; which some seem to show for a while and then lose; which too many

never reach while they wear the robes of earth, but which speaks of the kingdom of heaven already begun in

the heart of a child of earth. He told her simply the story of the occurrences which had brought them together

in the old house, with the message the lawyer was to deliver to its inmates. He wished to prepare her for what

But Myrtle was not wholly unprepared for some such revelation. There was little danger that any such

announcement would throw her mind from its balance after the inward conflict through which she had been

passing. For her lover had left her almost as soon as he had told her the story of his passion, and the relation

in which he stood to her. He, too, had gone to answer his country's call to her children, not driven away by

crime and shame and despair, but quitting allhis newborn happiness, the art in which he was an

enthusiast, his prospects of success and honorto obey the higher command of duty. War was to him, as to

so many of the noble youth who went forth, only organized barbarism, hateful but for the sacred cause which

alone redeemed it from the curse that blasted the first murderer. God only knew the sacrifice such young men

How brief Myrtle's dream had been! She almost doubted, at some moments, whether she would not awake

from it, as from her other visions, and find it all unreal. There was no need of fearing any undue excitement

of her mind after the alternations of feeling she had just experienced. Nothing seemed of much moment to her

which could come from without,her real world was within, and the light of its day and the breath of its life

came from her love, made holy by the selfforgetfulness on both sides which was born with it.

Only one member of the household was in danger of finding the excitement more than she could bear. Miss

Cynthia knew that all Murray Bradshaw's plans, in which he had taken care that she should have a personal

interest, had utterly failed. What he had done with the means of revenge in his power,if, indeed, they were

still in his power,she did not know. She only knew that there had been a terrible scene, and that he had

gone, leaving it uncertain whether he would ever return. It was with fear and trembling that she heard the

summons which went forth, that the whole family should meet in the parlor to listen to a statement from Mr.

Penhallow. They all gathered as requested, and sat round the room, with the exception of Mistress Kitty

Fagan, who knew her place too well to be sittin' down with the likes o' them, and stood with attentive ears in

Mr. Penhallow then read from a printed paper the decision of the Supreme Court in the land case so long

pending, where the estate of the late Malachi Withers was the claimant, against certain parties pretending to

"This gives a great property to the heirs," Mr. Penhallow remarked, "and the question as to who these heirs

are has to be opened. For the will under which Silence Withers, sister of the deceased, has inherited is dated

some years previous to the decease, and it was not very strange that a will of later date should be discovered.

Myrtle Hazard opened her eyes very widely, for the paper Mr. Penlallow held looked exactly like that which

Murray Bradshaw had burned, and, what was curious, had some spots on it just like some she had noticed on

"This will," Mr. Penhallow said, "signed by witnesses dead or absent from this place, makes a disposition of

the testator's property in some respects similar to that of the previous one, but with a single change, which

Mr. Penhallow proceeded to read the will. The important change in the disposition of the property was this: in

case the land claim was decided in favor of the estate, then, in addition to the small provision made for

Myrtle Hazard, the property so coming to the estate should all go to her. There was no question about the

genuineness and the legal sufficiency of this instrument. Its date was not very long after the preceding one, at

a period when, as was well known, he had almost given up the hope of gaining his case, and when the

A long silence followed this reading. Then, to the surprise of all, Miss Silence Withers rose, and went to

Myrtle Hazard, and wished her joy with every appearance of sincerity. She was relieved of a great

responsibility. Myrtle was young and could bear it better. She hoped that her young relative would live long

to enjoy the blessings Providence had bestowed upon her, and to use them for the good of the community,

and especially the promotion of the education of deserving youth. If some fitting person could be found to

advise Myrtle, whose affairs would require much care, it would be a great relief to her.

They all went up to Myrtle and congratulated her on her change of fortune. Even Cynthia Badlam got out a

phrase or two which passed muster in the midst of the general excitement. As for Kitty Fagan, she could not

say a word, but caught Myrtle's hand and kissed it as if it belonged to her own saint; and then, suddenly

applying her apron to her eyes, retreated from a scene which was too much for her, in a state of complete

Then Silence asked the old minister to make a prayer, and he stretched his hands up to Heaven, and called

down all the blessings of Providence upon all the household, and especially upon this young handmaiden,

who was to be tried with prosperity, and would need all aid from above to keep her from its dangers.

Then Mr. Penhallow asked Myrtle if she had any choice as to the friend who should have charge of her

affairs. Myrtle turned to Master Byles Gridley, and said, "You have been my friend and protector so far, will

Master Gridley tried very hard to begin a few words of thanks to her for her preference, but finding his voice

a little uncertain, contented himself with pressing her hand and saying, "Most willingly, my dear daughter!"

The same day the great news of Myrtle Hazard's accession to fortune came out, the secret was told that she

had promised herself in marriage to Mr. Clement Lindsay. But her friends hardly knew how to congratulate

her on this last event. Her lover was gone, to risk his life, not improbably to lose it, or to come home a wreck,

Some of them wondered to see her so cheerful in such a moment of trial. They could not know how the

manly strength of Clement's determination had nerved her for womanly endurance. They had not learned that

a great cause makes great souls, or reveals them to themselves,a lesson taught by so many noble examples

in the times that followed. Myrtle's only desire seemed to be to labor in some way to help the soldiers and

their families. She appeared to have forgotten everything for this duty; she had no time for regrets, if she were

disposed to indulge them, and she hardly asked a question as to the extent of the fortune which had fallen to

The next number of the "Banner and Oracle" contained two announcements which she read with some

"A fair and accomplished daughter of this village comes, by the late decision of the Supreme Court, into

possession of a property estimated at a million of dollars or more. It consists of a large tract of land purchased

many years ago by the late Malachi Withers, now become of immense value by the growth of a city in its

neighborhood, the opening of mines, etc., etc. It is rumored that the lovely and highly educated heiress has

formed a connection looking towards matrimony with a certain distinguished artist."

"Our distinguished young townsman, William Murray Bradshaw, Esq., has been among the first to respond to

the call of the country for champions to defend her from traitors. We understand that he has obtained a

captaincy in the _th regiment, about to march to the threatened seat of war. May victory perch on his

The two lovers, parted by their own selfsacrificing choice in the very hour that promised to bring them so

much happiness, labored for the common cause during all the terrible years of warfare, one in the camp and

the field, the other in the not less needful work which the good women carried on at home, or wherever their

services were needed. Clementnow Captain Lindsayreturned at the end of his first campaign charged

with a special office. Some months later, after one of the great battles, he was sent home wounded. He wore

the leaf on his shoulder which entitled him to be called Major Lindsay. He recovered from his wound only

too rapidly, for Myrtle had visited him daily in the military hospital where he had resided for treatment; and it

was bitter parting. The telegraph wires were thrilling almost hourly with messages of death, and the long pine

Once more he came, detailed on special duty, and this time with the eagle on his shoulder,he was Colonel

Lindsay. The lovers could not part again of their own free will. Some adventurous women had followed their

husbands to the camp, and Myrtle looked as if she could play the part of the Maid of Saragossa on occasion.

So Clement asked her if she would return with him as his wife; and Myrtle answered, with as much

willingness to submit as a maiden might fairly show under such circumstances, that she would do his bidding.

Thereupon, with the shortest possible legal notice, Father Pemberton was sent for, and the ceremony was

performed in the presence of a few witnesses in the large parlor at The Poplars, which was adorned with

flowers, and hung round with all the portraits of the dead members of the family, summoned as witnesses to

the celebration. One witness looked on with unmoved features, yet Myrtle thought there was a more heavenly

smile on her faded lips than she had ever seen before beaming from the canvas,it was Ann Holyoake, the

martyr to her faith, the guardian spirit of Myrtle's visions, who seemed to breathe a holier benediction than

They went back together to the camp. From that period until the end of the war, Myrtle passed her time

between the life of the tent and that of the hospital. In the offices of mercy which she performed for the sick

and the wounded and the dying, the dross of her nature seemed to be burned away. The conflict of mingled

lives in her blood had ceased. No lawless impulses usurped the place of that serene resolve which had grown

strong by every exercise of its high prerogative. If she had been called now to die for any worthy cause, her

race would have been ennobled by a second martyr, true to the blood of her who died under the cruel Queen.

Many sad sights she saw in the great hospital where she passed some months at intervals,one never to be

forgotten. An officer was brought into the ward where she was in attendance. "Shot through the

She went softly to his bedside. He was breathing with great difficulty; his face was almost convulsed with the

effort, but she recognized him in a moment; it was Murray Bradshaw,Captain Bradshaw, as she knew by

She addressed him by name, tenderly as if he had been a dear brother; she saw on his face that hers were to

He started. "You by my bedside! You caring for me!for me, that burned the title to your fortune to ashes

before your eyes! You can't forgive that,I won't believe it! Don't you hate me, dying as I am?"

Myrtle was used to maintaining a perfect calmness of voice and countenance, and she held her feelings firmly

down. "I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Bradshaw. You may have meant to do me wrong, but Providence

raised up a protector for me. The paper you burned was not the original,it was a copy substituted for it"

"And did the old man outwit me after all?" he cried out, rising suddenly in bed, and clasping his hands behind

his head to give him a few more gasps of breath. "I knew he was cunning, but I thought I was his match. It

must have been Byles Gridley,nobody else. And so the old man beat me after all, and saved you from ruin!

Thank God that it came out so! Thank God! I can die now. Give me your hand, Myrtle."

She took his hand, and held it until it gently loosed its hold, and he ceased to breathe. Myrtle's creed was a

simple one, with more of trust and love in it than of systematized articles of belief. She cherished the fond

hope that these last words of one who had erred so miserably were a token of some blessed change which the

influences of the better world might carry onward until he should have outgrown the sins and the weaknesses

Soon after this she rejoined her husband in the camp. From time to time they received stray copies of the

"Banner and Oracle," which, to Myrtle especially, were full of interest, even to the last advertisement. A few

paragraphs may be reproduced here which relate to persons who have figured in this narrative.

"Married, on the 6th instant, Fordyce Hurlbut, M. D., to Olive, only daughter of the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth.

The editor of this paper returns his acknowledgments for a bountiful slice of the wedding cake. May their

"Died in this place, on the 28th instant, the venerable Lemuel Hurlbut, M. D., at the great age of XCVI years.

Myrtle recalled his kind care of her in her illness, and paid the tribute of a sigh to his memory,there was

The usual routine of small occurrences was duly recorded in the village paper for some weeks longer, when

she was startled and shocked by receiving a number containing the following paragraph:

"It is known to our readers that the steeple of the old meetinghouse was struck by lightning about a month

ago. The frame of the building was a good deal jarred by the shock, but no danger was apprehended from the

injury it had received. On Sunday last the congregation came together as usual. The Rev. Mr. Stoker was

alone m the pulpit, the Rev. Doctor Pemberton having been detained by slight indisposition. The sermon was

from the text, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid." (Isaiah

xi. 6.) The pastor described the millennium asthe reign of love and peace, in eloquent and impressive

language. He was in the midst of the prayer which follows the sermon, and had jest put up a petition that the

spirit of affection and faith and trust might grow up and prevail among the flock of which he was the

shepherd, more especially those dear lambs whom he gathered with his arm, and carried in his bosom, when

the old soundingboard, which had hung safely for nearly a century,loosened, no doubt by the bolt which

had fallen on the church,broke from its fastenings, and fell with a loud crash upon the pulpit, crushing the

Rev. Mr. Stoker under its ruins. The scene that followed beggars description. Cries and shrieks resounded

through the horse. Two or three young women fainted entirely away. Mr. Penhallow, Deacon Rumrill, Gifted

Hopkins, Esq., and others, came forward immediately, and after much effort succeeded in removing the

wreck of the soundingboard, and extricating their unfortunate pastor. He was not fatally injured, it is hoped;

but, sad to relate, he received such a violent blow upon the spine of the back, that palsy of the lower

extremities is like to ensue. He is at present lying entirely helpless. Every attention is paid to him by his

Myrtle had hardly got over the pain which the reading of this unfortunate occurrence gave her, when her eyes

were gladdened by the following pleasing piece of intelligence, contained in a subsequent number of the

"The Reverend Doctor Pemberton performed the impressive rite of baptism upon the firstborn child of our

distinguished townsman, Gifted Hopkins, Esq., the Bard of Oxbow Village, and Mrs. Susan P. Hopkins, his

amiable and respected lady. The babe conducted himself with singular propriety on this occasion. He

received the Christian name of Byron Tennyson Browning. May be prove worthy of his name and his

The end of the war came at last, and found Colonel Lindsay among its unharmed survivors. He returned with

Myrtle to her native village, and they established themselves, at the request of Miss Silence Withers, in the

old family mansion. Miss Cynthia, to whom Myrtle made a generous allowance, had gone to live in a town

not many miles distant, where she had a kind of home on sufferance, as well as at The Poplars. This was a

convenience just then, because Nurse Byloe was invited to stay with them for a month or two; and one nurse

and two single women under the same roof keep each other in a stew all the time, as the old dame somewhat

Master Byles Gridley had been appointed Myrtle's legal protector, and, with the assistance of Mr. Penhallow,

had brought the property she inherited into a more manageable and productive form; so that, when Clement

began his fine studio behind the old mansion, he felt that at least he could pursue his art, or arts, if he chose to

give himself to sculpture, without that dreadful hag, Necessity, standing by him to pinch the features of all his

Silence Withers was more cheerful now that she had got rid of her responsibility. She embellished her spare

person a little more than in former years. These young people looked so happy! Love was not so unendurable,

perhaps, after all. No woman need despair, especially if she has a house over her, and a snug little

property. A worthy man, a former missionary, of the best principles, but of a slightly jocose and

goodhumored habit, thought that he could piece his widowed years with the not insignificant, fraction of life

left to Miss Silence, to their mutual advantage. He came to the village, therefore, where Father Pemberton

was very glad to have him supply the pulpit in the place of his unfortunate disabled colleague. The courtship

soon began, and was brisk enough; for the good man knew there was no time to lose at his period of life,or

hers either, for that matter. It was a rather odd specimen of lovemaking; for he was constantly trying to

subdue his features to a gravity which they were not used to, and she was as constantly endeavoring to be as

lively as possible, with the innocent desire of pleasing her lighthearted suitor.

"Vieille fille fait jeune mariee." Silence was ten years younger as a bride than she had seemed as a lone

woman. One would have said she had got out of the coach next to the hearse, and got into one some half a

dozen behind it,where there is often good and reasonably cheerful conversation going on about the virtues

of the deceased, the probable amount of his property, or the little slips he may have committed, and where

occasionally a subdued pleasantry at his expense sets the four waistcoats shaking that were lifting with sighs

a half hour ago in the house of mourning. But Miss Silence, that was, thought that two families, with all the

possible complications which time might bring, would be better in separate establishments. She therefore

proposed selling The Poplars to Myrtle and her husband, and removing to a house in the village, which would

be large enough for them, at least for the present. So the young folks bought the old house, and paid a mighty

good price for it; and enlarged it, and beautified and glorified it, and one fine morning went together down to

the Widow Hopkins's, whose residence seemed in danger of being a little crowded,for Gifted lived there

with his Susan,and what had happened might happen again,and gave Master Byles Gridley a formal and

most persuasively worded invitation to come up and make his home with them at The Poplars.

Now Master Gridley has been betrayed into palpable and undisguised weakness at least once in the presence

of this assembly, who are looking upon him almost for the last time before they part from him, and see his

face no more. Let us not inquire too curiously, then, how he received this kind proposition. It is enough, that,

when he found that a new study had been built on purpose for him, and a sleepingroom attached to it so that

he could live there without disturbing anybody if he chose, he consented to remove there for a while, and that

Cynthia Badlam had fallen of late into poor health. She found at last that she was going; and as she had a

little property of her own,as almost all poor relations have, only there is not enough of it,she was much

exercised in her mind as to the final arrangements to be made respecting its disposition. The Rev. Dr.

Pemberton was one day surprised by a message, that she wished to have an interview with him. He rode over

to the town in which she was residing, and there had a long conversation with her upon this matter. When this

was settled, her mind seemed too be more at ease. She died with a comfortable assurance that she was going

to a better world, and with a bitter conviction that it would be hard to find one that would offer her a worse

Her little property was left to Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton and Jacob Penhallow, Esq., to be by them employed

for such charitable purposes as they should elect, educational or other. Father Pemberton preached an

admirable funeral sermon, in which he praised her virtues, known to this people among whom she had long

lived, and especially that crowning act by which she devoted all she had to purposes of charityand

The old clergyman seemed to have renewed his youth since the misfortune of his colleague had incapacitated

him from labor. He generally preached in the forenoon now, and to the great acceptance of the people,for

the truth was that the honest minister who had married Miss Silence was not young enough or goodlooking

enough to be an object of personal attentions like the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, and the old minister

appeared to great advantage contrasted with him in the pulpit. Poor Mr. Stoker was now helpless, faithfully

and tenderly waited upon by his own wife, who had regained her health and strength,in no small measure,

perhaps, from the great need of sympathy and active aid which her unfortunate husband now experienced. It

was an astonishment to herself when she found that she who had so long been served was able to serve

another. Some who knew his errors thought his accident was a judgment; but others believed that it was only

a mercy in disguise,it snatched him roughly from his sin, but it opened his heart to gratitude towards her

whom his neglect could not alienate, and through gratitude to repentance and better thoughts. Bathsheba had

long ago promised herself to Cyprian Eveleth; and, as he was about to become the rector of a parish in the

How beautifully serene Master Byles Gridley's face was growing! Clement loved to study its grand lines,

which had so much strength and fine humanity blended in them. He was so fascinated by their noble

expression that he sometimes seemed to forget himself, and looked at him more like an artist taking his

portrait than like an admiring friend. He maintained that Master Gridley had a bigger bump of benevolence

and as large a one of cautiousness as the two people most famous for the size of these organs on the

phrenological chart he showed him, and proved it, or nearly proved it, by careful measurements of his head.

Master Gridley laughed, and read him a passage on the pseudosciences out of his book.

The disposal of Miss Cynthia's bequest was much discussed in the village. Some wished the trustees would

use it to lay the foundations of a public library. Others thought it should be applied for the relief of the

families of soldiers who had fallen in the war. Still another set would take it to build a monument to the

memory of those heroes. The trustees listened with the greatest candor to all these gratuitous hints. It was,

however, suggested, in a well written anonymous article which appeared in the village paper, that it was

desirable to follow the general lead of the testator's apparent preference. The trustees were at liberty to do as

they saw fit; but, other things being equal, same educational object should be selected.

If there were any orphan children in the place, it would seem to be very proper to devote the moderate sum

bequeathed to educating them. The trustees recognized the justice of this suggestion. Why not apply it to the

instruction and maintenance of those two pretty and promising children, virtually orphans, whom the

charitable Mrs. Hopkins had cared for so long without any recompense, and at a cost which would soon

become beyond her means? The good people of the neighborhood accepted this as the best solution of the

difficulty. It was agreed upon at length by the trustees, that the Cynthia Badlam Fund for Educational

Purposes should be applied for the benefit of the two foundlings, known as Isosceles and Helminthia

Master Bytes Gridley was greatly exercised about the two "preposterous names," as he called them, which in

a moment of eccentric impulse he had given to these children of nature. He ventured to hint as much to Mrs.

Hopkins. The good dame was vastly surprised. She thought they was about as pooty names as anybody had

had given 'em in the village. And they was so handy, spoke short, Sossy and Minthy,she never should

"But my dear Mrs. Hopkins," Master Gridley urged, "if you knew the meaning they have to the ears of

scholars, you would see that I did very wrong to apply such absurd names to my little fellowcreatures, and

that I am bound to rectify my error. More than that, my dear madam, I mean to consult you as to the new

names; and if we can fix upon proper and pleasing ones, it is my intention to leave a pretty legacy in my will

"Mr. Gridley," said Mrs. Hopkins, "you're the best man I ever see, or ever shall see, . . . except my poor dear

Ammi . . . . I 'll do jest as you say about that, or about anything else in all this livin' world."

"Good Lord!" said Mr. Gridley, "think a minute, my dear madam. I will not say one word,only think a

minute, and mention some name that will not suggest quite so many winks and whispers."

She did think something less than a minute, and then said aloud, "Abraham Lincoln Hopkins."

"Fifteen thousand children have been so christened during the past year, on a moderate computation."

"Do think of some name yourself, Mr. Gridley; I shall like anything that you like. To think of those dear

babes having a fundif that's the right nameon purpose for 'em, and a promise of a legacy, I hope they

"What if we change Isosceles to Theodore, Mrs. Hopkins? That means the gift of God, and the child has been

Mrs. Hopkins seized her apron, and held it to her eyes. She was weeping. "Theodore!" she said, "Theodore!

My little brother's name, that I buried when I was only eleven year old. Drownded. The dearest little child

that ever you see. I have got his little mug with Theodore on it now. Kep' o' purpose. Our little Sossy shall

"Doesn't P. stand for Pemberton, and isn't Father Pemberton the best man in the worldnext to you, Mr.

"Well, well, Mrs. Hopkins, let it be so, if you are suited, I am. Now about Helminthia; there can't be any

doubt about what we ought to call her,surely the friend of orphans should be remembered in naming one of

"Cynthia Badlam Fund Hopkins," said the good woman triumphantly,"is that what you mean?"

"Suppose we leave out one of the names,four are too many. I think the general opinion will be that

Hehninthia should unite the names of her two benefactresses,Cynthia Badlam Hopkins."

"Why, law! Mr. Gridley, is n't that nice?Minthy and Cynthy,there ain't but one letter of difference! Poor

Cynthy would be pleased if she could know that one of our babes was to be called after her. She was dreadful

On one of the sweetest Sundays that ever made Oxbow Village lovely, the Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Pembertan was

summoned to officiate at three most interesting ceremonies,a wedding and two christenings, one of the

The first was celebrated at the house of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, between the Rev. Cyprian Eveleth and

Bathsheba, daughter of the firstnamed clergyman. He could not be present on account of his great infirmity,

but the door of his chamber was left open that he might hear the marriage service performed. The old,

whitehaired minister, assisted, as the papers said, by the bridegroom's father, conducted the ceremony

according to the Episcopal form. When he came to those solemn words in which the husband promises

fidelity to the wife so long as they both shall live, the nurse, who was watching, near the poor father, saw him

bury his face in his pillow, and heard him murmur the words, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

The christenings were both to take place at the same service, in the old meetinghouse. Colonel Clement

Lindsay and Myrtle his wife came in, and stout Nurse Byloe bore their sturdy infant in her arms. A slip of

paper was handed to the Reverend Doctor on which these words were written:"The name is Charles

The solemn and touching rite was then performed; and Nurse Byloe disappeared with the child, its forehead

Then, hand in hand, like the babes in the wood, marched up the broad aislemarshalled by Mrs. Hopkins in

front, and Mrs. Gifted Hopkins bringing up the rearthe two children hitherto known as Isosceles and

Helminthia. They had been well schooled, and, as the mysterious and to them incomprehensible ceremony

was enacted, maintained the most stoical aspect of tranquillity. In Mrs. Hopkins's words, "They looked like

That evening, Sunday evening as it was, there was a quiet meeting of some few friends at The Poplars. It was

such a great occasion that the Sabbatical rules, never strict about Sunday evening,which was, strictly

speaking, secular time,were relaxed. Father Pemberton was there, and Master Byles Gridley, of course,

and the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, with his son and his daughterinlaw, Bathsheba, and her mother, now in

comfortable health, aunt Silence and her husband, Doctor Hurlbut and his wife (Olive Eveleth that was),

Jacob Penhallow, Esq., Mrs. Hopkins, her son and his wife (Susan Posey that was), the senior deacon of the

old church (the admirer of the great Scott), the Editorinchief of the "Banner and Oracle," and in the

background Nurse Byloe and the privileged servant, Mistress Kitty Fagan, with a few others whose names we

The evening was made pleasant with sacred music, and the fatigues of two long services repaired by such

simple refections as would not turn the holy day into a day of labor. A large paper copy of the new edition of

Byles Gridley's remarkable work was lying on the table. He never looked so happy,could anything fill his

cup fuller? In the course of the evening Clement spoke of the many trials through which they had passed in

common with vast numbers of their countrymen, and some of those peculiar dangers which Myrtle had had to

encounter in the course of a life more eventful, and attended with more risks, perhaps, than most of them

imagined. But Myrtle, he said, had always been specially cared for. He wished them to look upon the

semblance of that protecting spirit who had been faithful to her in her gravest hours of trial and danger. If

they would follow him into one of the lesser apartments up stairs they would have an opportunity to do so.

Myrtle wondered a little, but followed with the rest. They all ascended to the little projecting chamber,

through the window of which her scarlet jacket caught the eyes of the boys paddling about on the river in

those early days when Cyprian Eveleth gave it the name of the Firehangbird's Nest.

The light fell softly but clearly on the dim and faded canvas from which looked the saintly features of the

martyred woman, whose continued presence with her descendants was the old family legend. But underneath

it Myrtle was surprised to see a small table with some closely covered object upon it. It was a mysterious

Kitty Fagan, who had evidently been taught her part, stepped forward, and removed the cloth which

concealed the unknown object. It was a lifelike marble bust of Master Byles Gridley.

"And this is what you have been working at so long,is it, Clement?" Myrtle said.

Myrtle Hazard Lindsay walked up to the bust and kissed its marble forehead, saying, "This is the face of my