CHAPTER I. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET.
[figure description] Page 007.[end figure description]
“WHO can have taken the Ferguses' house, sister?”
said a brisk little old lady, peeping through
the window blinds. “It's taken! Just come here and
look! There's a cart at the door.”
“You don't say so!” said Miss Dorcas, her elder
sister, flying across the room to the window blinds, behind
which Mrs. Betsey sat discreetly ensconced with
her knitting work. “Where? Jack, get down, sir!”
This last remark was addressed to a rough-coated Dandie
Dinmont terrier, who had been winking in a half
doze on a cushion at Miss Dorcas's feet. On the first
suggestion that there was something to be looked at
across the street, Jack had ticked briskly across the
room, and now stood on his hind legs on an old embroidered
chair, peering through the slats as industriously
as if his opinion had been requested. “Get down,
sir!” persisted Miss Dorcas. But Jack only winked
contumaciously at Mrs. Betsey, whom he justly considered
in the light of an ally, planted his toe nails more
firmly in the embroidered chair-bottom, and stuck his
nose further between the slats, while Mrs. Betsey took
up for him, as he knew she would.
“Do let the dog alone, Dorcas! He wants to see as
much as anybody.”
“Now, Betsey, how am I ever to teach Jack not to
-- 008 --
[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]
jump on these chairs if you will always take his part?
Besides, next we shall know, he'll be barking through
the window blinds,” said Miss Dorcas.
Mrs. Betsey replied to the expostulation by making a
sudden diversion of subject. “Oh, look, look!” she
called, “that must be she,” as a face with radiant, dark
eyes, framed in an aureole of bright golden hair, appeared
in the doorway of the house across the street.
“She's a pretty creature, anyway—much prettier than
poor dear Mrs. Fergus.”
“Henderson, you say the name is?” said Miss Dorcas.
“Yes. Simons, the provision man at the corner, told
me that the house had been bought by a young editor, or
something of that sort, named Henderson—somebody
that writes for the papers. He married Van Arsdel's
daughter.”
“What, the Van Arsdels that failed last spring? One
of our mushroom New York aristocracy—up to-day and
down to-morrow!” commented Miss Dorcas, with an air
of superiority. “Poor things!”
“A very imprudent marriage, I don't doubt,” sighed
Mrs. Betsey. “These upstart modern families never
bring up their girls to do anything.”
“She seems to be putting her hand to the plough,
though,” said Miss Dorcas. “See, she actually is lifting
out that package herself! Upon my word, a very pretty
creature. I think we must take her up.”
“The Ferguses were nice,” said Mrs. Betsey, “though
he was only a newspaper man, and she was a nobody;
but she really did quite answer the purpose for a neighbor—
not, of course, one of our sort exactly, but a very
respectable, lady-like little body.”
“Well,” said Miss Dorcas, reflectively, “I always said
it doesn't do to carry exclusiveness too far. Poor dear
Papa was quite a democrat. He often said that he had
-- 009 --
[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]
seen quite good manners and real refinement in people
of the most ordinary origin.”
“And, to be sure,” said Mrs. Betsey, “if one is to be
too particular, one doesn't get anybody to associate with.
The fact is, the good old families we used to visit have
either died off or moved off up into the new streets, and
one does like to have somebody to speak to.”
“Look there, Betsey, do you suppose that's Mr.
Henderson that's coming down the street?” said Miss
Dorcas.
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Betsey, in an anxious flutter.
“Why, there are two of them—they are both taking hold
to lift out that bureau—see there! Now she's put her
head out of the chamber window there, and is speaking
to them. What a pretty color her hair is!”
At this moment the horse on the other side of the
street started prematurely, for some reason best known to
himself, and the bureau came down with a thud; and
Jack, who considered his opinion as now called for,
barked frantically through the blinds.
Miss Dorcas seized his muzzle energetically and
endeavored to hold his jaws together, but he still barked
in a smothered and convulsive manner; whereat the good
lady swept him, vi et armis, from his perch, and disciplined
him vigorously, forcing him to retire to his cushion
in a distant corner, where he still persistently barked.
“Oh, poor doggie!” sighed Mrs. Betsey. “Dorcas,
how can you?”
“How can I?” said Miss Dorcas, in martial tones.
“Betsey Ann Benthusen, this dog would grow up a perfect
pest of this neighborhood if I left him to you. He
must learn not to get up and bark through those blinds.
It isn't so much matter now the windows are shut, but
the habit is the thing. Who wants to have a dog firing a
fusillade when your visitors come up the front steps—
-- 010 --
[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]
barking-enough-to-split-one's-head-open,” added Miss
Dorcas, turning upon the culprit, with a severe staccato
designed to tell upon his conscience.
Jack bowed his head and rolled his great soft eyes at
her through a silvery thicket of hair.
“You are a very naughty dog,” she added, impressively.
Jack sat up on his haunches and waved his front paws
in a deprecating manner to Miss Dorcas, and the good
lady laughed and said, cheerily, “Well, well, Jacky, be a
good dog now, and we 'll be friends.”
And Jacky wagged his tail in the most demonstrative
manner, and frisked with triumphant assurance of restored
favor. It was the usual end of disciplinary struggles
with him. Miss Dorcas sat down to a bit of worsted
work on which she had been busy when her attention was
first called to the window.
Mrs. Betsey, however, with her nose close to the window
blinds, continued to announce the state of things
over the way in short jets of communication.
“There! the gentlemen are both gone in—and there!
the cart has driven off. Now, they 've shut the front
door,” etc.
After this came a pause of a few moments, in which
both sisters worked in silence.
“I wonder, now, which of those two was the husband,”
said Mrs. Betsey at last, in a slow reflective tone, as if
she had been maturely considering the subject.
In the mean time it had occurred to Miss Dorcas
that this species of minute inquisition into the affairs of
neighbors over the way was rather a compromising of her
dignity, and she broke out suddenly from a high moral
perch on her unconscious sister.
“Betsey,” she said, with severe gravity, “I really suppose
it 's no concern of ours what goes on over at the
-- 011 --
[figure description] Page 011.[end figure description]
other house. Poor dear Papa used to say if there was
anything that was unworthy a true lady it was a disposition
to gossip. Our neighbors' affairs are nothing to us.
I think it is Mrs. Chapone who says, `A well-regulated
mind will repress curiosity.' Perhaps, Betsey, it would
be well to go on with our daily reading.”
Mrs. Betsey, as a younger sister, had been accustomed
to these sudden pullings-up of the moral checkrein
from Miss Dorcas, and received them as meekly as
a well-bitted pony. She rose immediately, and, laying
down her knitting work, turned to the book-case. It
appears that the good souls were diversifying their leisure
hours by reading for the fifth or sixth time that
enlivening poem, Young's Night Thoughts. So, taking
down a volume from the book-shelves and opening
to a mark, Mrs. Betsey commenced a sonorous expostulation
to Alonzo on the value of time. The good lady's
manner of rendering poetry was in a high-pitched falsetto,
with inflections of a marvelous nature, rising in
the earnest parts almost to a howl. In her youth she
had been held to possess a talent for elocution, and had
been much commended by the amateurs of her times as
a reader of almost professional merit. The decay of her
vocal organs had been so gradual and gentle that neither
sister had perceived the change of quality in her voice,
or the nervous tricks of manner which had grown upon
her, till her rendering of poetry resembled a preternatural
hoot. Miss Dorcas beat time with her needle and listened
complacently to the mournful adjurations, while
Jack, crouching himself with his nose on his forepaws,
winked very hard and surveyed Miss Betsey with an uneasy
excitement, giving from time to time low growls as
her voice rose in emphatic places; and finally, as if even
a dog's patience could stand it no longer, he chorused a
startling point with a sharp yelp!
-- 012 --
[figure description] Page 012.[end figure description]
“There!” said Mrs. Betsey, throwing down the
book. “What is the reason Jack never likes me to read
poetry?”
Jack sprang forward as the book was thrown down,
and running to Mrs. Betsey, jumped into her lap and
endeavored to kiss her in a most tumultuous and excited
manner, as an expression of his immense relief.
“There! there! Jacky, good fellow—down, down!
Why, how odd it is! I can't think what excites him so in
my reading,” said Mrs. Betsey. “It must be something
that he notices in my intonations,” she added, innocently.
The two sisters we have been looking in upon are
worthy of a word of introduction. There are in every
growing city old houses that stand as breakwaters in the
tide of modern improvement, and may be held as fortresses
in which the past entrenches itself against the
never-ceasing encroachments of the present. The house
in which the conversation just recorded has taken place
was one of these. It was a fragment of ancient primitive
New York known as the old Vanderheyden house, only
waiting the death of old Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden and
her sister, Mrs. Betsey Benthusen, to be pulled down and
made into city lots and squares.
Time was when the Vanderheyden house was the
country seat of old Jacob Vanderheyden, a thriving
Dutch merchant, who lived there with somewhat foreign
ideas of style and stateliness.
Parks and gardens and waving trees had encircled it,
but the city limits had gained upon it through three
generations; squares and streets had been opened
through its grounds, till now the house itself and the
garden-patch in the rear was all that remained of the
ancient domain. Innumerable schemes of land speculators
had attacked the old place; offers had been
insidiously made to the proprietors which would have
-- 013 --
[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]
put them in possession of dazzling wealth, but they gallantly
maintained their position. It is true their income
in ready money was but scanty, and their taxes had,
year by year, grown higher as the value of the land
increased. Modern New York, so to speak, foamed and
chafed like a great red dragon before the old house,
waiting to make a mouthful of it, but the ancient princesses
within bravely held their own and refused to parley
or capitulate.
Their life was wholly in the past, with a generation
whose bones had long rested under respectable tombstones.
Their grandfather on their mother's side had
been a signer of the Declaration of Independence; their
grandfather on the paternal side was a Dutch merchant
of some standing in early New York, a friend and correspondent
of Alexander Hamilton's and a co-worker
with him in those financial schemes by which the treasury
of the young republic of America was first placed on a
solid basis. Old Jacob did good service in negotiating
loans in Holland, and did not omit to avail himself of
the golden opportunities which the handling of a nation's
wealth presents. He grew rich and great in the land,
and was implicitly revered in his own family as being one
of the nurses and founders of the American Republic.
In the ancient Dutch secretary which stood in the corner
of the sitting-room where our old ladies spent their time
were many letters from noted names of a century or so
back—papers yellow with age, but whose contents were
all alive with the foam and fresh turbulence of what was
then the existing life of the period.
Mrs. Betsey Benthusen was a younger sister and a
widow. She had been a beauty in her girlhood, and so
much younger than her sister that Miss Dorcas felt all
the pride and interest of a mother in her success, in her
lovers, in her marriage; and when that marriage proved a
-- 014 --
[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]
miserable failure, uniting her to a man who wasted her
fortune and neglected her person, and broke her heart,
Miss Dorcas received her back to her strong arms and
made a home and a refuge where the poor woman could
gather up and piece together, in some broken fashion,
the remains of her life as one mends a broken Sèvres
china tea cup.
Miss Dorcas was by nature of a fiery, energetic temperament,
intense and original—precisely the one to be a
contemner of customs and proprieties; but a very severe
and rigid education had imposed on her every yoke of
the most ancient and straitest-laced decorum. She had
been nurtured only in such savory treatises as Dr. Gregory's
Legacy to his Daughters, Mrs. Chapone's Letters,
Miss Hannah More's Cœlebs in Search of a Wife, Watts
On the Mind, and other good books by which our great
grandmothers had their lives all laid out for them in
exact squares and parallelograms, and were taught exactly
what to think and do in all possible emergencies.
But, as often happens, the original nature of Miss
Dorcas was apt to break out here and there, all the more
vivaciously for repression, in a sort of natural geyser:
and so, though rigidly proper in the main, she was apt to
fall into delightful spasms of naturalness.
Notwithstanding all the remarks of Mrs. Chapone
and Dr. Watts about gossip, she still had a hearty and
innocent interest in the pretty young housekeeper that
was building a nest opposite to her, and a little quite
harmless curiosity in what was going on over the way.
A great deal of good sermonizing, by the by, is expended
on gossip, which is denounced as one of the
seven deadly sins of society; but, after all, gossip has its
better side: if not a Christian grace, it certainly is one
of those weeds which show a good warm soil.
The kindly heart, that really cares for everything
-- 015 --
[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]
human it meets, inclines toward gossip, in a good way.
Just as a morning glory throws out tendrils, and climbs
up and peeps cheerily into your window, so a kindly
gossip can't help watching the opening and shutting of
your blinds and the curling smoke from your chimney.
And so, too, after all the high morality of Miss Dorcas,
the energetic turning of her sister to the paths of propriety,
and the passage from Young's Night Thoughts, with
its ponderous solemnity, she was at heart kindly musing
upon the possible fortunes of the pretty young creature
across the street, and was as fresh and ready to take up
the next bit of information about her house as a brisk
hen is to discuss the latest bit of crumb thrown from a
window.
Miss Dorcas had been brought up by her father in
diligent study of the old approved English classics. The
book-case of the sitting-room presented in gilded order
old editions of the Rambler, the Tattler, and the Spectator,
the poems of Pope, and Dryden, and Milton, and Shakespeare,
and Miss Dorcas and her sister were well versed
in them all. And in view of the whole of our modern
literature, we must say that their studies might have been
much worse directed.
Their father had unfortunately been born too early to
enjoy Walter Scott. There is an age when a man cannot
receive a new author or a new idea. Like a lilac bush
which has made its terminal buds, he has grown all he
can in this life, and there is no use in trying to force him
into a new growth. Jacob Vanderheyden died considering
Scott's novels as the flimsy trash of the modern
school, while his daughters hid them under their pillows,
and found them all the more delightful from the vague
sensation of sinfulness which was connected with their
admiration. Walter Scott was their most modern landmark;
youth and bloom and heedlessness and
-- 016 --
[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]
impropriety were all delightfully mixed up with their reminiscences
of him—and now, here they were still living in an age
which has shelved Walter Scott among the classics, and
reads Dickens and Thackeray and Anthony Trollope.
Miss Dorcas had been stranded, now and then, on
one of these “trashy moderns”—had sat up all night surreptitiously
reading Nicholas Nickleby, and had hidden
the book from Mrs. Betsey lest her young mind should
be carried away, until she discovered, by an accidental
remark, that Mrs. Betsey had committed the same delightful
impropriety while off on a visit to a distant relative.
When the discovery became mutual, from time
to time other works of the same author crept into the
house in cheap pamphlet editions, and the perusal of
them was apologized for by Miss Dorcas to Mrs. Betsey,
as being well enough, now and then, to see what people
were reading in these trashy times. Ah, what is fame!
Are not Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope on their
inevitable way to the same dusty high shelf in the library,
where they will be praised and not read by the forthcoming
jeunesse of the future?
If the minds of the ancient sisters were a museum of
by-gone ideas, and literature, and tastes, the old Vanderheyden
house was no less a museum of by-gone furniture.
The very smell of the house was ghostly with past
suggestion. Every article of household gear in it had
grown old together with all the rest, standing always in
the same spot, subjected to the same minute daily dusting
and the same semi-annual house-cleaning.
Carlyle has a dissertation on the “talent for annihilating
rubbish.” This was a talent that the respectable
Miss Dorcas had none of. Carlyle thinks it a fine thing
to have; but we think the lack of it may come from very
respectable qualities. In Miss Dorcas it came from a
vivid imagination of the possible future uses to which
-- 017 --
[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]
every decayed or broken household article might be put.
The pitcher without nose or handle was fine china, and
might yet be exactly the thing for something, and so it
went carefully on some high perch of preservation, dismembered;
the half of a broken pair of snuffers certainly
looked too good to throw away—possibly it might be the
exact thing needed to perfect some invention. Miss
Dorcas vaguely remembered legends of inventors who
had laid hold on such chance adaptations at the very
critical point of their contrivances, and so the half snuffers
waited years for their opportunity. The upper shelves
of the closets in the Vanderheyden house were a perfect
crowded mustering ground for the incurables and incapables
of household belongings. One might fancy them
a Hotel des Invalides of things wounded and fractured
in the general battle of life. There were blades of knives
without handles, and handles without blades; there were
ancient tea-pots that leaked—but might be mended, and
doubtless would be of some good in a future day; there
were cracked plates and tea-cups; there were china dishcovers
without dishes to match; a coffee-mill that
wouldn't grind, and shears that wouldn't cut, and snuffers
that wouldn't snuff—in short, every species of decayed
utility.
Miss Dorcas had in the days of her youth been blest
with a brother of an active, inventive turn of mind; the
secret crypts and recesses of the closets bore marks of
his unfinished projections. There were all the wheels
and weights and other internal confusions of a clock,
which he had pulled to pieces with a view of introducing
an improvement into the machinery, which never was introduced;
but the wheels and weights were treasured up
with pious care, waiting for somebody to put them together
again. All this array of litter was fated to come down
from its secret recesses, its deep, dark closets, its high
-- 018 --
[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]
shelves and perches, on two solemn days of the year devoted
to house-cleaning, when Miss Dorcas, like a good
general, looked them over and reviewed them, expatiated
on their probable capabilities, and resisted gallantly any
suggestions of Black Dinah, the cook and maid of all
work, or Mrs. Betsey, that some order ought to be taken
to rid the house of them.
“Dear me, Dorcas,” Mrs. Betsey would say, “what is
the use of keeping such a clutter and litter of things that
nothing can be done with and that never can be used?”
“Betsey Ann Benthusen,” would be the reply, “you
always were a careless little thing. You never understood
any more about housekeeping than a canary bird—
not a bit.” In Miss Dorcas's view, Mrs. Betsey, with
her snow white curls and her caps, was still a frivolous
young creature, not fit to be trusted with a serious opinion
on the nicer points of household management.
“Now, who knows, Betsey, but some time we may meet
some poor worthy young man who may be struggling
along as an inventor and may like to have these wheels
and weights! I'm sure brother Dick said they were
wonderfully well made.”
“Well, but, Dorcas, all those cracked cups and broken
pitchers; I do think they are dreadful!”
“Now, Betsey, hush up! I've heard of a kind of
new cement that they are manufacturing in London, that
makes old china better than new; and when they get it
over here I'm going to mend these all up. You wouldn't
have me throw away family china, would you?”
The word “family china” was a settler, for both Mrs.
Betsey and Miss Dorcas and old Dinah were united in
one fundamental article of faith: that “the Family” was
a solemn, venerable and awe-inspiring reality. What, or
why, or how it was, no mortal could say.
Old Jacob Vanderheyden, the grandfather, had been
-- 019 --
[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]
in his day busy among famous and influential men, and
had even been to Europe as a sort of attaché to the first
American diplomatic corps. He had been also a thriving
merchant, and got to himself houses, and lands, and gold
and silver. Jacob Vanderheyden, the father, had inherited
substance and kept up the good name of the family,
and increased and strengthened its connections. But his
son and heir, Dick Vanderheyden, Miss Dorcas's elder
brother, had seemed to have no gifts but those of dispersing;
and had muddled away the family fortune in all sorts
of speculations and adventures as fast as his father and
grandfather had made it. The sisters had been left with
an income much abridged by the imprudence of the
brother and the spendthrift dissipation of Mrs. Betsey's
husband; they were forsaken by the retreating waves of
rank and fashion; their house, instead of being a center
of good society, was encompassed by those ordinary
buildings devoted to purposes of trade whose presence is
deemed incompatible with genteel residence. And yet,
through it all, their confidence in the rank and position
of their family continued unabated. The old house, with
every bit of old queer furniture in it, the old window
curtains, the old tea-cups and saucers, the old bedspreads
and towels, all had a sacredness such as pertained
to no modern things. Like the daughter of Zion
in sacred song, Miss Dorcas “took pleasure in their dust
and favored the stones thereof.” The old blue willowpatterned
china, with mandarins standing in impossible
places, and bridges and pagodas growing up, as the world
was made, out of nothing, was to Miss Dorcas consecrated
porcelain—even its broken fragments were impregnated
with the sacred flavor of ancient gentility.
Miss Dorcas's own private and personal closets,
drawers, and baskets were squirrel's-nests of all sorts of
memorials of the past. There were pieces of every
-- 020 --
[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]
gown she had ever worn, of all her sister's gowns, and
of the mortal habiliments of many and many a one
beside who had long passed beyond the need of earthly
garments. Bits of wedding robes of brides who had
long been turned to dust; fragments of tarnished gold
lace from old court dresses; faded, crumpled, artificial
flowers, once worn on the head of beauty; gauzes and
tissues, old and wrinkled, that had once set off the triumphs
of the gay—all mingled in her crypts and drawers
and trunks, and each had its story. Each, held in her
withered hand, brought back to memory the thread of
some romance warm with the color and flavor of a life
long passed away.
Then there were collections, saving and medicinal;
for Miss Dorcas had in great force that divine instinct
of womanhood that makes her perceptive of the healing
power inherent in all things. Never an orange or an
apple was pared on her premises when the peeling was
not carefully garnered—dried on newspaper, and neatly
stored away in paper bags for sick-room uses.
There were closets smelling of elderblow, catnip,
feverfew, and dried rose leaves, which grew in a bit of
old garden soil back of the house; a spot sorely retrenched
and cut down from the ample proportions it
used to have, as little by little had been sold off, but still
retaining a few growing things, in which Miss Dorcas
delighted. The lilacs that once were bushes there had
grown gaunt and high, and looked in at the chamber
windows with an antique and grandfatherly air, quite of
a piece with everything else about the old Vanderheyden
house.
The ancient sisters had few outlets into the society
of modern New York. Now and then, a stray visit came
from some elderly person who still remembered the Vanderheydens,
and perhaps about once a year they went to
-- 021 --
[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]
the expense of a carriage to return the call, and rolled
up into the new part of the town like shadows of the
past. But generally their path of life led within the narrow
limits of the house. Old Dinah, the sole black servant
remaining, was the last remnant of a former retinue
of negro servants held by old Jacob when New York was
a slave State and a tribe of black retainers was one of
the ostentations of wealth. All were gone now, and
only Dinah remained, devoted to the relics of the old
family, clinging with a cat-like attachment to the old
place.
She was like many of her race, a jolly-hearted, pig-headed,
giggling, faithful old creature, who said “Yes'm”
to Miss Dorcas and took her own way about most matters;
and Miss Dorcas, satisfied that her way was not on
the whole a bad one in the ultimate results, winked at
her free handling of orders, and consented to accept her,
as we do Nature, for what could be got out of her.
“They are going to have mince-pie and broiled
chicken for dinner over there,” said Mrs. Betsey, when
the two ladies were seated at their own dinner-table
that day.
“How in the world did you know that?” asked Miss
Dorcas.
“Well! Dinah met their girl in at the provision store
and struck up an acquaintance, and went in to help her
put up a bedstead, and so she stopped a while in the
kitchen. The tall gentleman with black hair is the husband—
I thought all the while he was,” said Mrs. Betsey.
“The other one is a Mr. Fellows, a great friend of theirs,
Mary says—”
“Mary!—who is Mary?” said Miss Dorcas.
“Why, Mary McArthur, their girl—they only keep
one, but she has a little daughter about eight years old
to help. I wish we had a little girl, or something that one
-- 022 --
[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]
might train for a waiter to answer door-bells and do
little things.”
“Our door-bells don 't call for much attention, and a
little girl is nothing but a plague,” interposed Miss
Dorcas.
“Dinah has quite fallen in love with Mrs. Henderson,”
said Mrs. Betsey; “she says that she is the handsomest,
pleasantest-spoken lady she's seen for a great
while.”
“We 'll call upon her when they get well settled,” said
Miss Dorcas, definitively.
Miss Dorcas settled this with the air of a princess.
She felt that such a meritorious little person as the one
over the way ought to be encouraged by people of good
old families.
Our readers will observe that Miss Dorcas listened
without remonstrance and with some appearance of interest
to the items about minced pie and broiled chicken;
but high moral propriety, as we all know, is a very cold,
windy height, and if a person is planted on it once or
twice a day, it is as much as ought to be demanded of
human weakness.
For the rest of the time one should be allowed, like
Miss Dorcas, to repose upon one's laurels. And, after
all, it is interesting, when life is moving in a very stagnant
current, even to know what your neighbor has for
dinner!
-- -- p710-032
CHAPTER II. HOW WE BEGIN LIFE.
[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]
MY Dear Belle: Well, here we are, Harry and I,
all settled down to housekeeping quite like old
folks. All is about done but the last things,—those little
touches, and improvements, and alterations that go off into
airy perspective. I believe it was Carlyle that talked
about an “infinite shoe-black” whom all the world could
not quite satisfy so but that there would always be a
next thing in the distance. Well, perhaps it 's going to be
so in housekeeping, and I shall turn out an infinite housekeeper;
for I find this little, low-studded, unfashionable
home of ours, far off in a tabooed street, has kept all my
energies brisk and busy for a month past, and still there
are more worlds to conquer. Visions of certain brackets
and lambrequins that are to adorn my spare chamber
visit my pillow nightly, while Harry is placidly sleeping
the sleep of the just. I have been unable to attain to
them because I have been so busy with my parlor ivies
and my Ward's case of ferns, and some perfectly seraphic
hanging baskets, gorgeous with flowering nasturtiums
that are now blooming in my windows. There is a
dear little Quaker dove of a woman living in the next
house to ours who is a perfect witch at gardening—a
good kind of witch, you understand, one who could
make a broomstick bud and blossom if she undertook it—
and she has been my teacher and exemplar in these
matters. Her parlor is a perfect bower, a drab dove's
nest wreathed round with vines and all a-bloom with
-- 024 --
[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]
geraniums; and mine is coming on to look just like it. So
you see all this has kept me ever so busy.
Then there are the family accounts to keep. You
may think that isn't much for our little concern, but you
would be amazed to find how much there is in it. You
see, I have all my life concerned myself only with figures
of speech and never gave a thought about figures of
arithmetic or troubled my head as to where money came
from, or went to; and when I married Harry I had a general
idea that we were going to live with delightful economy.
But it is astonishing how much all our simplicity
costs, after all. My account-book is giving me a world
of new ideas, and some pretty serious ones too.
Harry, you see, leaves every thing to me. He has
to be off to his office by seven o'clock every morning, and
I am head marshal of the commisariat department—committee
of one on supplies, and all that—and it takes up a
good deal of my time.
You would laugh, Belle, to see me with my matronly
airs and graces going my daily walk to the provisionstore
at the corner, which is kept by a tall, black-browed
lugubrious man, with rough hair and a stiff stubby beard,
who surveys me with a severe gravity over the counter,
as if he wasn't sure that my designs were quite honest.
“Mr. Quackenboss,” I say, with my sweetest smile,
“have you any nice butter?”
He looks out of the window, drums on the counter,
and answers “Yes,” in a tone of great reserve.
“I should like to look at some,” I say, undiscouraged.
“It 's down cellar,” he replies, gloomily chewing a bit
of chip and casting sinister glances at me.
“Well,” I say, cheerfully, “shall I go down there and
look at it?”
“How much do you want?” he asks, suspiciously.
“That depends on how well I like it,” say I.
-- 025 --
[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]
“I s'pose I could get up a cask,” he says in a ruminating
tone; and now he calls his partner, a cheerful, fat,
roly-poly little cockney Englishman, who flings his h's
round in the most generous and reckless style. His alert
manner seems to say that he would get up forty casks a
minute and throw them all at my feet, if it would give me
any pleasure.
So the butter-cask is got up and opened, and my
severe friend stands looking down on it and me as if he
would say, “This also is vanity.”
“I should like to taste it,” I say, “if I had something
to try it with.”
He scoops up a portion on his dirty thumbnail and
seems to hold it reflectively, as if a doubt was arising in
his mind of the propriety of this mode of offering it to
me.
And now my cockney friend interposes with a clean
knife. I taste the butter and find it excellent, and give a
generous order which delights his honest soul; and as he
weighs it out he throws in, gratis, the information that his
little woman has tried it, and he was sure I would like it,
for she is the tidiest little woman and the best judge of
butter; that they came from Yorkshire, where the pastures
round were so sweet with a-many violets and cowslips—
in fact, my little cockney friend strays off into a kind of
pastoral that makes the little grocery store quite poetic.
I call my two grocers familiarly Tragedy and Comedy,
and make Harry a good deal of fun by recounting my
adventures with them. I have many speculations about
Tragedy. He is a married man, as I learn, and I can't
help wondering what Mrs. Quackenboss thinks of him.
Does he ever shave—or does she kiss him in the
rough—or has she given up kissing him at all? How
did he act when he was in love?—if ever he was in love—
and what did he say to the lady to induce her to marry
-- 026 --
[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]
him? How did he look when he did it? It really makes
me shudder to think of such a mournful ghoul coming
back to the domestic circle at night. I should think the
little “Quacks” would all run and hide. But a truce to
scandalizing my neighbor—he may be better than I am,
after all!
I ought to tell you that some of my essays in provisioning
my garrison might justly excite his contempt—they
have been rather appalling to my good Mary McArthur.
You know I had been used to seeing about a ten-pound
sirloin of beef on Papa's table, and the first day I went
into the shop I assumed an air of easy wisdom as if I had
been a housekeeper all my life, and ordered just such a
cut as I had seen Mamma get, with all sorts of vegetables
to match, and walked home with composed dignity.
When Mary saw it she threw up her hands and gave
an exclamation of horror—“Miss Eva!” she said, “when
will we get all this eaten up?” And verily that beef
pursued us through the week most like a ghost. We had
it hot, and we had it cold; we had it stewed and hashed,
and made soup of it; we sliced it and we minced it, and
I ate a great deal more than was good for me on purpose
to “save it.” Towards the close of the week Harry civilly
suggested (he never finds fault with anything I do, but
he merely suggested) whether it wouldn't be better to
have a little variety in our table arrangements; and then
I came out with the whole story, and we had a good
laugh together about it. Since then I have come down
to taking lessons of Mary, and I say to her, “How much
of this, and that, had I better get?” and between us we
make it go quite nicely.
Speaking of neighbors, my dear blessed Aunt Maria,
whom I suppose you remember, has almost broken
her heart about Papa's failing and my marrying Harry
and, finally, our coming to live on an unfashionable street
-- 027 --
[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]
—which in her view is equal to falling out of heaven
into some very suspicious region of limbo. She almost
quarreled with us both because, having got married contrary
to her will, we would also insist on going to housekeeping
and having a whole house to ourselves on a back
street instead of having one little, stuffy room on the
back side of a fashionable boarding house. Well, I made
all up with her at last. If you will have your own way,
and persist in it, people have to make up with you. You
thus get to be like the sun and moon which, though they
often behave very inconveniently, you have to make the
best of; and so Aunt Maria has concluded to make the
best of Harry and me. It came about in this wise: I
went and sat with her the last time she had a sick headache,
and kissed her, and bathed her head, and told her I
wanted to be a good girl and did really love her, though
I couldn't always take her advice now I was a married
woman; and so we made it up.
But the trouble is that now she wants to show me
how to run this poor little unfashionable boat so as to
make a good show with the rest of them, and I don't
want to learn. It 's easier to keep out of the regatta.
My card-receiver is full of most desirable names of people
who have come in their fashionable carriages and
coupés, and they have “oh'd” and “ah'd” in my little
parlors, and declared they were “quite sweet,” and “so
odd,” and “so different, you know;” but, for all that, I
don't think I shall try to keep up all this gay circle of
acquaintances. Carriage-hire costs money; and when
paid for by the hour, one asks whether the acquaintances
are worth it. But there are some real noble-hearted
people that I mean to keep. The Van Astrachans, for
instance. Mrs. Van Astrachan is a solid lump of goodness
and motherliness, and that sweet Mrs. Harry Endicott
is most lovable. You remember Harry Endicott, I
-- 028 --
[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
suppose, and what a trump card he was thought to be
among the girls, one time when you were visiting us, and
afterwards all that scandal about him and that pretty
little Mrs. John Seymour? She is dead now, I hear, and
he has married this pretty Rose Ferguson, a friend of
hers; and since his wife has taken him in hand, he has
turned out to be a noble fellow. They live up on Madison
avenue quite handsomely. They are among the “real
folks” Mrs. Whitney tells about, and I think I must keep
them. The Elmores I don't care much for. They are a
frivolous, fast set, and what's the use? Sophie and her
husband, my old friend Wat Sydney, I keep mainly because
she won't give me up. She is one of the clinging
sort, and is devoted to me. They have a perfect palace
up by the park—it is quite a show-house, and is, I understand,
to be furnished by Harter. So, you see, it's like
a friendship between princess and peasant.
Now, I foresee future conflicts with Aunt Maria in all
these possibilities. She is a nice woman, and bent on
securing what she thinks my interest, but I can't help
seeing that she is somewhat
“A shade that follows wealth and fame.”
The success of my card-receiver delights her, and
not to improve such opportunities would be, in her view,
to bury one's talent in a napkin. Yet, after all, I differ.
I can't help seeing that intimacies between people with a
hundred thousand a year and people of our modest
means will be full of perplexities.
And then I say, Why not try to find all the neighborliness
I can on my own street? In a country village, one
finds a deal in one's neighbors, simply because one must.
They are there; they are all one has, and human nature
is always interesting, if one takes it right side out. Next
door is the gentle Quakeress I told you of. She is
-- 029 --
[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
nobody in the gay world, but as full of sweetness and
loving kindness as heart could desire. Then right across
the way are two antiquated old ladies, very old, very
precise, and very funny, who have come in state and
called on me; bringing with them the most lovely, tyrannical
little terrier, who behaved like a small-sized fiend
and shocked them dreadfully. I spy worlds of interest
in their company if once I can rub the stiffness out of
our acquaintance, and then I hope to get the run of the
delightfully queer old house.
Then there are our set—Jim Fellows, and Bolton,
and my sister Alice, and the girls—in and out all the time.
We sha'n't want for society. So if Aunt Maria puts me
up for a career in the gay world I shall hang heavy on
her hands.
I haven't much independence myself, but it is no
longer I, it is We. Eva Van Arsdel alone was anybody's
property; Mamma talked her one way, her sister Ida
another way, and Aunt Maria a third; and among them
all her own little way was hard to find. But now Harry
and I have formed a firm and compact We, which is a
fortress into which we retreat from all the world. I tell
them all, We don't think so, and We don't do so. Isn't
that nice? When will you come and see us?
Ever your loving Eva.
-- -- p710-039
CHAPTER III. THE FAMILY DICTATOR AT WORK.
[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
FROM the foregoing letter our readers may have conjectured
that the natural self-appointed ruler of the
fortunes of the Van Arsdel family was “Aunt Maria,” or
Mrs. Maria Wouvermans.
That is to say, this lady had always considered such
to be her mission, and had acted upon this supposition
up to the time that Mr. Van Arsdel's failure made shipwreck
of the fortunes of the family.
Aunt Maria had, so to speak, reveled in the fortune
and position of the Van Arsdels. She had dictated the
expenditures of their princely income; she had projected
parties and entertainments; she had supervised lists of
guests to be invited; she had ordered dresses and carriages
and equipages, and hired and dismissed servants at
her sovereign will and pleasure. Nominally, to be sure,
Mrs. Van Arsdel attended to all these matters; but really
Aunt Maria was the power behind the throne. Mrs. Van
Arsdel was a pretty, graceful, self-indulgent woman, who
loved ease and hated trouble—a natural climbing plant
who took kindly to any bean-pole in her neighborhood,
and Aunt Maria was her bean-pole. Mrs. Van Arsdel's
wealth, her station, her éclat, her blooming daughters, all
climbed up, so to speak, on Aunt Maria, and hung their
flowery clusters around her, to her praise and glory. Besides
all this, there were very solid and appreciable
advantages in the wealth and station of the Van Arsdel
family as related to the worldly enjoyment of Mrs. Maria
Wouvermans. Being a widow, connected with an old
-- 031 --
[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]
rich family, and with but a small fortune of her own
and many necessities of society upon her, Mrs. Wouvermans
had found her own means in several ways
supplemented and carried out by the redundant means of
her sister. Mrs. Wouvermans lived in a moderate house
on Murray Hill, within comfortable proximity to the
more showy palaces of the New York nobility. She had
old furniture, old silver, camel's hair shawls and jewelry
sufficient to content her heart, but her yearly income was
far below her soul's desires, and necessitated more economy
than she liked. While the Van Arsdels were in full
tide of success she felt less the confinement of these
limits. What need for her to keep a carriage when a
carriage and horses were always at her command for the
asking—and even without asking, as not infrequently
came to be the case? Then, the Van Arsdel parties and
hospitalities relieved her from all expensive obligations of
society. She returned the civilities of her friends by invitations
to her sister's parties and receptions; and it is an
exceedingly convenient thing to have all the glory of
hospitality and none of the trouble—to have convenient
friends to entertain for you any person or persons with
whom you may be desirous of keeping up amicable relations.
On the whole, Mrs Wouvermans was probably
sincere in the professions, to which Mr. Van Arsdel used
to listen with a quiet amused smile, that “she really enjoyed
Nelly's fortune more than if it were her own.”
“Haven't a doubt of it,” he used to say, with a twinkle
of his eye which he never further explained.
Mr. Van Arsdel's failure had nearly broken Aunt
Maria's heart. In fact, the dear lady took the matter
more sorely than the good man himself.
Mr. Van Arsdel was, in a small dry way, something of
a philosopher. He was a silent man for the most part,
but had his own shrewd comments on the essential worth
-- 032 --
[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]
of men and things—particularly of men in the feminine
gender. He had never checked his pretty wife in any of
her aspirations, which he secretly valued at about their
real value; he had never quarreled with Aunt Maria or
interfered with her sway in his family within certain limits,
because he had sense enough to see that she was the
stronger of the two women, and that his wife could no
more help yielding to her influence than a needle can
help sticking to a magnet.
But the race of fashionable life, its outlays of health
and strength, its expenditures for parties, and for dress
and equipage, its rivalries, its gossip, its eager frivolities,
were all matters of which he took quiet note, and which
caused him often to ponder the words of the wise man
of old, “What profit hath a man of all his labor and the
vexation of his heart, wherein he hath labored under the
sun?”
To Mr. Van Arsdel's eye the only profit of his labor
and travail seemed to be the making of his wife frivolous,
filling her with useless worries, training his daughters to
be idle and self-indulgent, and his sons to be careless and
reckless of expenditure. So when at last the crash came,
there was a certain sense of relief in finding himself once
more an honest man at the bottom of the hill, and he
quietly resolved in his inmost soul that he never would
climb again. He had settled up his affairs with a manly
exactness that won the respect of all his creditors, and
they had put him into a salaried position which insured
a competence, and with this he resolved to be contented;
his wife returned to the economical habits and virtues
of her early life; his sons developed an amount of
manliness and energy which was more than enough to
compensate for what they had lost in worldly prospects.
He enjoyed his small, quiet house and his reduced establishment
as he never had done a more brilliant one, for
-- 033 --
[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]
he felt that it was founded upon certainties and involved
no risks. Mrs. Van Arsdel was a sweet-tempered, kindly
woman, and his daughters had each and every one met
the reverse in a way that showed the sterling quality
which is often latent under gay and apparently thoughtless
young womanhood.
Aunt Maria, however, settled it in her own mind, with
the decision with which she usually settled her relatives'
affairs, that this state of things would be only temporary.
“Of course,” she said to her numerous acquaintances,
“of course, Mr. Van Arsdel will go into business again—
he is only waiting for a good opening—he 'll be up again
in a few years where he was before.”
And to Mrs. Van Arsdel she said, “Nelly, you must
keep him up—you mustn't hear of his sinking down and
doing nothing”—doing nothing being his living contentedly
on a comfortable salary and going without the
“pomps and vanities.” “Your husband, of course, will
go into some operations to retrieve his fortunes, you
know,” she said. “What is he thinking of?”
“Well, really, Maria, I don't see as he has the least
intention—he seems perfectly satisfied to live as we do.”
“You must put him up to it, Nelly—depend upon it,
he 's in danger of sinking down and giving up; and he
has splendid business talents. He should go to operating
in stocks, you see. Why, men make fortunes in that way.
Look at the Bubbleums, and the Flashes, they were all
down two years ago, and now they're up higher than ever,
and they did it all in stocks. Your husband would find
plenty of men ready to go in with him and advance
money to begin on. No man is more trusted. Why,
Nelly, that man might die a millionaire as well as not,
and you ought to put him up to it; it's a wife's business
to keep her husband up.”
“I have tried to, Maria; I have been just as cheerful
-- 034 --
[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
as I knew how to be, and I've retrenched and economized
everywhere, as all the girls do—they are wonderful, those
girls! To see them take hold so cheerfully and help
about household matters, you never would dream that
they had not been brought up to it; and they are so prudent
about their clothes—so careful and saving. And
then the boys are getting on so well. Tom has gone into
surveying with a will, and is going out with Smithson's
party to the Rocky Mountains, and Hal has just got a
good situation in Boston —”
“Oh, yes, that is all very well; but, Nelly, that isn't
what I mean. You know that when men fail in business
they are apt to get blue and discouraged and give up
enterprise, and so gradually sink down and lose their
faculties. That's the way old Mr. Snodgrass did when
he failed.”
“But I don't think, Maria, that there is the least
danger of my husband's losing his mind—or sinking
down, as you call it. I never saw him more cheerful and
seem to take more comfort of his life. Mr. Van Arsdel
never did care for style—except as he thought it pleased
me—and I believe he really likes the way we live now
better than the way we did before; he says he has less
care.”
“And you are willing to sink down and be a nobody,
and have no carriage, and rub round in omnibuses, and
have to go to little mean private country board instead
of going to Newport, when you might just as well get
back the position that you had. Why, it's downright
stupidity, Nelly!”
“As to mean country board,” pleaded Mrs. Van
Arsdel, “I don't know what you mean, Maria. We kept
our old homestead up there in Vermont, and it's a very
respectable place to spend our summer in.”
“Yes, and what chances have the girls up there—
-- 035 --
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
where nobody sees them but oxen? The girls ought to
be considered. For their sakes you ought to put your
husband up to do something. It's cruel to them, brought
up with the expectations they have had, to have to give
all up just as they are coming out. If there is any time
that a mother must feel the want of money it is when she
has daughters just beginning to go into society; and it is
cruel towards young girls not to give them the means of
dressing and doing a little as others do; and dress does
cost so abominably, now-a-days; it's perfectly frightful—
people cannot live creditably on what they used to.”
“Yes, certainly, it is frightful to think of the requirements
of society in these matters,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“Now, when you and I were girls, Maria, you know we
managed to appear well on a very little. We embroidered
our own capes and collars, and wore white a good
deal, and cleaned our own gloves, and cut and fitted our
own dresses; but, then dress was not what it is now.
Why, making a dress now is like rigging a man-of-war—
it's so complicated—there are so many parts, and so
much trimming.”
“Oh, it's perfectly fearful,” said Aunt Maria; “but,
then, what is one to do? If one goes into society with
people who have so much of all these things, why one
must, at least, make some little approach to decent
appearance. We must keep within sight of them. All I
ask,” she added, meekly, “is to be decent. I never expect
to run into the extremes those Elmores do—the
waste and the extravagance that there must be in that
family! And there's Mrs. Wat Sydney coming out with
the whole new set of her Paris dresses. I should like to
know, for curiosity's sake, just what that woman has
spent on her dresses!”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, warming with the subject,
“you know she had all her wardrobe from Worth,
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
and Worth's dresses come to something. Why, Polly
told me that the lace alone on some of those dresses
would be a fortune.”
“And just to think that Eva might have married Wat
Sydney,” said Aunt Maria. “It does seem as if things
in this world fell out on purpose to try us!”
“Well, I suppose they do, and we ought to try and
improve by them,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, who had some
weak, gentle ideas of a moral purpose in existence, to
which even the losses and trials of lace and embroidery
might be made subservient. “After all,” she added, “I
don't know but we ought to be contented with Eva's
position. Eva always was a peculiar child. Under all
her sweetness and softness she has quite a will of her
own; and, indeed, Harry is a good fellow, and doing
well in his line. He makes a very good income, for a
beginning, and he is rising every day in the literary
world, and I don't see but that they have as good an
opportunity to make their way in society as the Sydneys
with all their money.”
“Sophie Sydney is perfectly devoted to Eva,” said
Aunt Maria.
“And well she may be,” answered Mrs. Van Arsdel,
“in fact, Eva made that match; she actually turned him
over to her. You remember how she gave her that prize
croquet-pin that Sydney gave her, and how she talked to
Sydney, and set him to thinking of Sophie—oh, pshaw!
Sydney never would have married that girl in the world
if it had not been for Eva.”
“Well,” said Aunt Maria, “it's as well to cultivate
that intimacy. It will be a grand summer visiting place
at their house in Newport, and we want visiting places
for the girls. I have put two or three anchors out to the
windward, in that respect. I am going to have the
Stephenson girls at my house this winter, and your girls
-- 037 --
[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
must help show them New York, and cultivate them, and
then there will be a nice visiting place for them at Judge
Stephenson's next summer. You see the Judge lives
within an easy drive of Newport, so that they can get
over there, and see and be seen.”
“I'm sure, Maria, it's good in you to be putting yourself
out for my girls.”
“Pshaw, Nelly, just as if your girls were not mine—
they are all I have to live for. I can't stop any longer
now, because I must catch the omnibus to go down to
Eva's; I am going to spend the day with her.”
“How nicely Eva gets along,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel,
with a little pardonable motherly pride; “that girl takes
to housekeeping as if it came natural to her.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Maria; “you know I have had Eva
a great deal under my own eye, first and last, and it
shows that early training will tell.” Aunt Maria picked
up this crumb of self-glorification with an easy matter-of-fact
air which was peculiarly aggravating to her sister.
In her own mind Mrs. Van Arsdel thought it a little
too bad. “Maria always did take the credit of everything
that turned out well in my family,” she said to herself,
“and blamed me for all that went wrong.”
But she was too wary to murmur out loud, and bent
her head to the yoke in silence.
“Eva needs a little showing and cautioning,” said
Aunt Maria; “that Mary of hers ought to be watched,
and I shall tell her so—she mustn't leave everything to
Mary.”
“Oh, Mary lived years with me, and is the most devoted,
faithful creature,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“Never mind—she needs watching. She's getting
old now, and don't work as she used to, and if Eva don't
look out she won't get half a woman's work out of her—
these old servants always take liberties. I shall look into
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
things there. Eva is my girl; I sha'n't let anyone get
around her;” and Aunt Maria arose to go forth. But if
anybody supposes that two women engaged in a morning
talk are going to stop when one of them rises to go,
he knows very little of the ways of womankind. When
they have risen, drawn up their shawls, and got ready to
start, then is the time to call a new subject, and accordingly
Aunt Maria, as she was going out the door, turned round
and said: “Oh! there now! I almost forgot what I came
for:—What are you going to do about the girls' party
dresses?”
“Well, we shall get a dressmaker in the house. If we
can get Silkriggs, we shall try her.”
“Now, Nelly, look here, I have found a real treasure—
the nicest little dressmaker, just set up, and who works
cheap. Maria Meade told me about her. She showed
me a suit that she had had made there in imitation of a
Paris dress, with ever so much trimming, cross-folds
bound on both edges, and twenty or thirty bows, all cut
on the bias and bound, and box-plaiting with double quilling
on each side all round the bottom, and going up the
front—graduated, you know. There was waist, and
overskirt, and a little sacque, and, will you believe me, she
only asked fifteen dollars for making it all.”
“You don't say so!”
“It's a fact. Why, it must have been a good week's
work to make that dress, even with her sewing machine.
Maria told me of her as a great secret, because she really
works so well that if folks knew it she would be swamped
with work, and then go to raising her price—that's what
they all do when they can get a chance—but I've been to
her and engaged her for you.”
“I'm sure, Maria, I don't know what we should do if
you were not always looking out for us.”
“I don't know—I'm getting to be an old woman,”
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
said Aunt Maria. “I'm not what I was. But I consider
your family as my appointed field of labor—just as our
rector said last Sunday, we must do the duty next us. But
tell the girls not to talk about this dressmaker. We shall
want all she can do, and make pretty much our own
terms with her. It's nice and convenient for Eva that
she lives somewhere down in those out-of-the-way regions
where she has chosen to set up. Well, good morning;”
and Aunt Maria opened the house-door and stood upon
the top of the steps, when a second postscript struck her
mind.
“There now!” said she, “I was meaning to tell you
that it is getting to be reported everywhere that Alice and
Jim Fellows are engaged.”
“Oh, well, of course there's nothing in it,” said Mrs.
Van Arsdel. “I don't think Alice would think of him
for a moment. She likes him as a friend, that's all.”
“I don't know, Nelly; you can't be too much on your
guard. Alice is a splendid girl, and might have almost
anybody. Between you and me—now, Nelly, you must
be sure not to mention it—but Mr. Delafield has been
very much struck with her.”
“Oh, Maria, how can you? Why, his wife hasn't
been dead a year!”
“Oh, pshaw! these widowers don't always govern
their eyes by the almanac,” said Aunt Maria, with a
laugh. “Of course, John Delafield will marry again. I
always knew that; and Alice would be a splendid woman
to be at the head of his establishment. At any rate, at
the little company the other night at his sister's, Mrs.
Singleton's, you know, he was perfectly devoted to her,
and I thought Mrs. Singleton seemed to like it.”
“It would certainly be a fine position, if Alice can
fancy him,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel. “Seems to me he is
rather querulous and dyspeptic, is n't he?”
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
“Oh, well, yes; his health is delicate; he needs a
wife to take care of him.”
“He's so yellow!” ruminated Mrs. Van Arsdel, ingenuously.
“I never could bear thin, yellow men.”
“Oh, come, don't you begin, Nelly—it's bad enough
to have girls with their fancies. What we ought to look
at are the solid excellences. What a pity that the marrying
age always comes when girls have the least sense!
John Delafield is a solid man, and if he should take a
fancy to Alice, it would be a great piece of good luck.
Alice ought to be careful, and not have these reports
around, about her and Jim Fellows; it just keeps off advantageous
offers. I shall talk to Alice the first time I
get a chance.”
“Oh, pray don't, Maria—I don't think it would do
any good. Alice is very set in her way, and it might put
her up to make something of it more than there is.”
“Oh, never fear me,” said Aunt Maria, nodding her
head; “I understand Alice, and know just what needs to
be said. I sha'n't do her any harm, you may be sure,”
and Aunt Maria, espying her omnibus afar, ran briskly
down the steps, thus concluding the conference.
Now it happened that adjoining the parlor where this
conversation had taken place was a little writing-cabinet
which Mr. Van Arsdel often used for the purposes of
letter-writing. On this morning, when his wife supposed
him out as usual at his office, he had retired there to attend
to some correspondence. The entrance was concealed
by drapery, and so he had been an unintentional
and unsuspected but much amused listener to Aunt
Maria's adjurations to his wife on his behalf.
All through his subsequent labors of the pen, he might
have been observed to pause from time to time and laugh
to himself. The idea of lying as a quiet dead weight on
the wheels of the progress of his energetic relation was
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
something vastly pleasing to the dry and secretive turn
of his humor—and he rather liked it than otherwise.
“We shall see whether I am losing my faculties,” he
said to himself, as he gathered up his letters and departed.
-- -- p710-051
CHAPTER IV. EVA HENDERSON TO HARRY'S MOTHER.
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
MY Dear Mother: Harry says I must do all the
writing to you and keep you advised of all our
affairs, because he is so driven with his editing and proof-reading
that letter-writing is often the most fatiguing
thing he can do. It is like trying to run after one has
become quite out of breath.
The fact is, dear mother, the demands of this New
York newspaper life are terribly exhausting. It's a sort
of red-hot atmosphere of hurry and competition. Magazines
and newspapers jostle each other, and run races,
neck and neck, and everybody connected with them is
kept up to the very top of his speed, or he is thrown
out of the course. You see, Bolton and Harry have
between them the oversight of three papers—a monthly
magazine for the grown folk, another for the children,
and a weekly paper. Of course there are sub-editors,
but they have the general responsibility, and so you see
they are on the qui vive all the time to keep up; for
there are other papers and magazines running against
them, and the price of success seems to be eternal
vigilance. What is exacted of an editor now-a-days
seems to be a sort of general omniscience. He must
keep the run of everything,—politics, science, religion,
art, agriculture, general literature; the world is alive
and moving everywhere, and he must know just
what's going on and be able to have an opinion ready
made and ready to go to press at any moment. He
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
must tell to a T just what they are doing in Ashantee
and Dahomey, and what they don't do and ought to do
in New York. He must be wise and instructive about
currency and taxes and tariffs, and able to guide
Congress; and then he must take care of the Church,—
know just what the Old Catholics are up to,
the last new kink of the Ritualists, and the right and
wrong of all the free fights in the different denominations.
It really makes my little head spin just to hear
what they are getting up articles about. Bolton and
Harry are kept on the chase, looking up men whose
specialties lie in these lines to write for them. They
have now in tow a Jewish Rabbi, who is going to do
something about the Talmud, or Targums, or something
of that sort; and a returned missionary from the Gaboon
River, who entertained Du Chaillu and can speak authentically
about the gorilla; and a lively young doctor
who is devoting his life to the study of the brain and
nervous system. Then there are all sorts of writing men
and women sending pecks and bushels of articles to be
printed, and getting furious if they are not printed, though
the greater part of them are such hopeless trash that you
only need to read four lines to know that they are good
for nothing; but they all expect them to be re-mailed
with explanations and criticisms, and the ladies sometimes
write letters of wrath to Harry that are perfectly
fearful.
Altogether there is a good deal of an imbroglio, and
you see with it all how he comes to be glad that I have a
turn for letter-writing and can keep you informed of how
we of the interior go on. My business in it all is to
keep a quiet, peaceable, restful home, where he shall
always have the enjoyment of seeing beautiful things and
find everything going on nicely without having to think
why, or how, or wherefore; and, besides this, to do every
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
little odd and end for him that he is too tired or too
busy to do; in short, I suppose some of the ambitious
lady leaders of our time would call it playing second
fiddle. Yes, that is it; but there must be second fiddles
in an orchestra, and it's fortunate that I have precisely
the talent for playing one, and my doctrine is that the
second fiddle well played is quite as good as the first.
What would the first be without it?
After all, in this great fuss about the men's sphere and
the women's, isn't the women's ordinary work just as important
and great in its way? For, you see, it's what the
men with all their greatness can't do, for the life of them.
I can go a good deal further in Harry's sphere than he
can in mine. I can judge about the merits of a translation
from the French, of criticise an article or story, a
great deal better than he can settle the difference between
the effect of tucking and inserting in a dress, or of cherry
and solferino in curtains. Harry appreciates a room
prettily got up as well as any man, but how to get it up—
all the shades of color and niceties of arrangement, the
thousand little differences and agreements that go to it—
he can't comprehend. So this man and woman question
is just like the quarrel between the mountain and the
squirrel in Emerson's poem, where “Bun” talks to the
mountain:
“If I am not so big as you,
You're not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.”
I am quite satisfied that, first and last, I shall crack a
good many nuts for Harry. Not that I am satisfied with
a mere culinary or housekeeping excellence, or even an
artistic and poetic skill in making home lovely; I do want
a sense of something noble and sacred in life—something
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
to satisfy a certain feeling of the heroic that always made
me unhappy and disgusted with my aimless fashionable
girl career. I always sympathized with Ida, and admired
her because she had force enough to do something that
she thought was going to make the world better. It is
better to try and fail with such a purpose as hers than
never to try at all; and in that point of view I sympathize
with the whole woman movement, though I see no
place for myself in it. But my religion, poor as it is, has
always given this excitement to me: I never could see
how one could profess to be a Christian at all and not
live a heroic life—though I know I never have. When I
hear in church of the “glorious company of the apostles,”
the “goodly fellowship of the prophets,” the “noble army
of martyrs,” I have often such an uplift—and the tears
come to my eyes, and then my life seems so poor and
petty, so frittered away in trifles. Then the communion
service of our church always impresses me as something
so serious, so profound, that I have wondered how I dared
go through with it; and it always made me melancholy and
dissatisfied with myself. To offer one's soul and body
and spirit to God a living sacrifice surely ought to mean
something that should make one's life noble and heroic,
yet somehow it didn't do so with mine.
It was one thing that drew me to Harry, that he
seemed to me an earnest, religious man, and I told him
when we were first engaged that he must be my guide;
but he said no, we must go hand in hand, and guide each
other, and together we would try to find the better way.
Harry is very good to me in being willing to go with me
to my church. I told him I was weak in religion at any
rate, and all my associations with good and holy things
were with my church, and I really felt afraid to trust myself
without them. I have tried going to his sort of
services with him, but these extemporaneous prayers
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
don't often help me. I find myself weighing and considering
in my own mind whether that is what I really do
feel or ask; and if one is judging or deciding one can't be
praying at the same time. Now and then I hear a good
man who so wraps me up in his sympathies, and breathes
such a spirit of prayer as carries me without effort, and
that is lovely; but it is so rare a gift! In general I long
for the dear old prayers of my church, where my poor
little naughty heart has learned the way and can go on
with full consent without stopping to think.
So Harry and I have settled on attending an Episcopal
mission church in our part of the city. Its worshipers
are mostly among the poor, and Harry thinks we might
do good by going there. Our rector is a young Mr. St.
John, a man as devoted as any of the primitive Christians.
I never saw anybody go into work for others with more
entire self-sacrifice. He has some property, and he supports
himself and pays about half the expenses of the
mission besides. All this excites Harry's respect, and he
is willing to do himself and have me do all we can to
help him. Both Alice and I, and my younger sisters,
Angelique and Marie, have taken classes in his mission
school, and the girls help every week in a sewing-school,
and, so far as practical work is concerned, everything
moves beautifully. But then, Mr. St. John is very high
church and very stringent in his notions, and Harry,
who is ultra-liberal, says he is good, but narrow; and
so when they are together I am quite nervous about
them. I want Mr. St. John to appear well to Harry,
and I want Harry to please Mr. St. John. Harry is
æsthetic and likes the church services, and is ready
to go as far as anybody could ask in the way of interesting
and beautiful rites and ceremonies, and he likes
antiquities and all that, and so to a certain extent they
get on nicely; but come to the question of church
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
authority, and Lloyd Garrison and all the radicals are
not more untamable. He gets quite wild, and frightens
me lest dear Mr. St. John should think him an infidel.
And, in fact, Harry has such a sort of latitudinarian way
of hearing what all sorts of people have to say, and admitting
bits of truth here and there in it, as sometimes
makes me rather uneasy. He talks with these Darwinians
and scientific men who have an easy sort of matter-of-course
way of assuming that the Bible is nothing but
an old curiosity-shop of by-gone literature, and is so
tolerant in hearing all they have to say, that I quite burn
to testify and stand up for my faith—if I knew enough to
do it; but I really feel afraid to ask Mr. St. John to help
me, because he is so set and solemn, and confines himself
to announcing that thus and so is the voice of the
church; and you see that don't help me to keep up my
end with people that don't care for the church.
But, Mother dear, isn't there some end to toleration;
ought we Christians to sit by and hear all that is dearest
and most sacred to us spoken of as a by-gone superstition,
and smile assent on the ground that everybody must
be free to express his opinions in good society? Now,
for instance, there is this young Dr. Campbell, whom
Harry is in treaty with for articles on the brain and
nervous system—a nice, charming, agreeable fellow, and
a perfect enthusiast in science, and has got so far that
love or hatred or inspiration or heroism or religion is
nothing in his view but what he calls “cerebration”—he
is so lost and absorbed in cerebration and molecules, and
all that sort of thing, that you feel all the time he is observing
you to get facts about some of his theories as they
do the poor mice and butterflies they experiment with.
The other day he was talking, in his taking-for-granted,
rapid way, about the absurdity of believing in
prayer, when I stopped him squarely, and told him that
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
he ought not to talk in that way; that to destroy faith in
prayer was taking away about all the comfort that poor,
sorrowful, oppressed people had. I said it was just like
going through a hospital and pulling all the pillows from
under the sick people's heads because there might be a
more perfect scientific invention by and by, and that I
thought it was cruel and hard-hearted to do it. He
looked really astonished, and asked me if I believed in
prayer. I told him our Saviour had said, “Ask, and ye
shall receive,” and I believed it. He seemed quite
astonished at my zeal, and said he didn't suppose
any really cultivated people now-a-days believed those
things. I told him I believed everything that Jesus
Christ said, and thought he knew more than all the philosophers,
and that he said we had a Father that loved us
and cared for us, even to the hairs of our heads, and that
I shouldn't have courage to live if I didn't believe that.
Harry says I did right to speak up as I did. Dr. Campbell
don't seem to be offended with me, for he comes
here more than ever. He is an interesting fellow, full of
life and enthusiasm in his profession, and I like to hear
him talk.
But here I am, right in the debatable land between
faith and no faith. On the part of a great many of the
intelligent, good men whom Harry, for one reason or
other, invites to our house, and wants me to be agreeable
to, are all shades of opinion, of half faith, and no faith,
and I don't wish to hush free conversation, or to be treated
like a baby who will cry if they make too much noise; and
then on the other hand is Mr. St. John—whom I regard
with reverence on account of his holy, self-denying life—
who stands so definitely entrenched within the limits of the
church, and does not in his own mind ever admit a doubt
of anything which the church has settled; and between them
and Harry and all I don't know just what I ought to do.
-- 049 --
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
I am sure, if there is a man in the world who means
in all things to live the Christian life, it's Harry. There
is no difference between him and Mr. St. John there.
He is ready for any amount of self-sacrifice, and goes
with Mr. St. John to the extent of his ability in his
efforts to do good; and yet he really does not believe a
great many things that Mr. St. John thinks are Christian
doctrines. He says he believes only in the wheat, and
not in the chaff, and that it is only the chaff that will be
blown away in these modern discussions. With all this,
I feel nervous and anxious, and sometimes wish I could
go right into some good, safe, dark church, and pull
down all the blinds, and shut all the doors, and keep out
all the bustle of modern thinking, and pray, and meditate,
and have a lovely, quiet time.
Mr. St. John lends me from time to time some of his
ritualistic books; and they are so refined and scholarly,
and yet so devout, that Harry and I are quite charmed
with their tone; but I can't help seeing that, as Harry
says, they lead right back into the Romish church—and
by a way that seems enticingly beautiful. Sometimes I
think it would be quite delightful to have a spiritual
director who would save you all the trouble of deciding,
and take your case in hand, and tell you exactly what to
do at every step. Mr. St. John, I know, would be just
the person to assume such a position. He is a natural
school-master, and likes to control people, and, although
he is so very gentle, I always feel that he is very stringent,
and that if I once allowed him ascendancy he
would make no allowances. I can feel the “main de fer”
through the perfect gentlemanly polish of his exterior;
but you see I know Harry never would go completely
under his influence, and I shrink from anything that
would divide me from my husband, and so I don't make
any move in that direction.
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
You see, I write to you all about these matters, for my
mamma is a sweet, good little woman who never troubles
her head with anything in this line, and my god-mother,
Aunt Maria, is a dear worldly old soul, whose heart is
grieved within her because I care so little for the pomps
and vanities. She takes it to heart that Harry and I
have definitely resolved to give up party-going, and all
that useless round of calling and dressing and visiting
that is called “going into society,” and she sometimes
complicates matters by trying her forces to get me into
those old grooves I was so tired of running in. I never
pretend to talk to her of the deeper wants or reasons of
my life, for it would be ludicrously impossible to make
her understand. She is a person over whose mind never
came the shadow of a doubt that she was right in her
views of life; and I am not the person to evangelize her.
Well now, dear Mother, imagine a further complication.
Harry is very anxious that we should have an evening
once a week to receive our friends—an informal, quiet,
sociable, talking evening, on a sort of ideal plan of his,
in which everybody is to be made easy and at home, and
to spend just such a quiet, social hour as at one's own
chimney-corner. But fancy my cares, with all the menagerie
of our very miscellaneous acquaintainces! I
should be like the man in the puzzle that had to get the
fox and geese and corn over in one boat without their
eating each other. Fancy Jim Fellows and Mr. St. John!
Dr. Campbell, with his molecules and cerebration, talking
to my little Quaker dove, with her white wings and simple
faith, or Aunt Maria and mamma conversing with a
Jewish Rabbi! I believe our family have a vague impression
that Jews are disreputable, however gentlemanly
and learned; and I don't know but Mr. St. John would
feel shocked at him. Nevertheless, our Rabbi is a very
excellent German gentleman, and one of the most
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
interesting talkers I have heard. Oh! then there are our
rococo antiquities across the street, Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden
and her sister. What shall I do with them all?
Harry has such boundless confidence in my powers of
doing the agreeable that he seems to think I can, out of
this material, make a most piquant and original combination.
I have an awful respect for the art de tenir salon,
and don't wonder that among our artistic French neighbors
it got to be a perfect science. But am I the woman
born to do it in New York?
Well, there's no way to get through the world but to
keep doing, and to attack every emergency with courage.
I shall do my possible, and let you know of my success.
Your daughter,
Eva.
-- -- p710-061
CHAPTER V. A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT.
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
THE housekeeping establishment of Eva Henderson,
née Van Arsdel, was in its way a model of taste,
order, and comfort. There was that bright, attractive,
cosy air about it that spoke of refined tastes and hospitable
feelings—it was such a creation as only the
genius of a thorough home-artist could originate. There
are artists who work in clay and marble, there are artists
in water-colors, and artists in oils, whose works are on
exhibition through galleries and museums: but there are
also, in thousands of obscure homes, domestic artists, who
contrive out of the humblest material to produce in daily
life the sense of the beautiful; to cast a veil over its
prosaic details and give it something of the charm of a
poem.
Eva was one of these, and everybody that entered
her house felt her power at once in the atmosphere of
grace and enjoyment which seemed to pervade her
rooms.
But there was underneath all this an unseen, humble
operator without whom one step in the direction of poetry
would have been impossible; one whose sudden withdrawal
would have been like the entrance of a black
frost into a flower-garden, leaving desolation and unsightliness
around: and this strong pivot on which the
order and beauty of all the fairy contrivances of the
little mistress turned was no other than the Irish Mary
McArthur, cook, chambermaid, laundress, and general
operator and adviser of the whole.
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
Mary was a specimen of the best class of those
women whom the old country sends to our shores. She
belonged to the family of a respectable Irish farmer, and
had been carefully trained in all household economies
and sanctities. A school kept on the estate of their
landlord had been the means of instructing her in the
elements of a plain English education. She wrote a good
hand, was versed in accounts, and had been instructed in
all branches of needle-work with a care and particularity
from which our American schools for girls might take a
lesson. A strong sense of character pervaded her family
life—a sense of the decorous, the becoming, the true and
honest, such as often gives dignity to the cottage of the
laboring man of the old world. But the golden stories
of wealth to be gotten in America had induced her parents
to allow Mary with her elder brother to try their
fortunes on these unknown shores. Mary had been fortunate
in falling into the Van Arsdel family; for Mrs. Van
Arsdel, though without the energy or the patience which
would have been necessary to control or train an inexperienced
and unsteady subject, was, on the whole, appreciative
of the sterling good qualities of Mary, and liberal
and generous in her dealings with her.
In fact, the Van Arsdels were in all things a free,
careless, good natured, merry set, and Mary reciprocated
their kindliness to her with all the warmth of her Irish
heart. Eva had been her particular pet and darling.
She was a pretty, engaging child at the time she first
came into the family. Mary had mended her clothes,
tidied her room, studied her fancies and tastes, and petted
her generally with a whole-souled devotion. “When
you get a husband, Miss Eva,” she would say, “I will
come and live with you.” But before that event had
come to pass, Mary had given her whole heart to an
idle, handsome, worthless fellow, whom she appeared to
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
love in direct proportion to his good-for-nothingness.
Two daughters were the offspring of this marriage, and
then Mary became a widow, and had come with her
youngest child under the shadow of “Miss Eva's” rooftree.
Thus much to give back-ground to the scenery on
which Aunt Maria entered, on the morning when she took
the omnibus at Mrs. Van Arsdel's door.
Eva was gone out when the door-bell of the little
house rang. Mary looking from the chamber window
saw Mrs. Wouvermans standing at the door step. Now
against this good lady Mary had always cherished a
secret antagonism. Nothing so awakens the animosity
of her class as the entrance of a third power into the family,
between the regnant mistress and the servants; and
Aunt Maria's intrusions and dictations had more than
once been discussed in the full parliament of Mrs. Van
Arsdel's servants. Consequently the arrival of a police
officer armed with a search warrant could not have been
more disagreeable or alarming. In an instant Mary's
mental eye ran over all her own demesne and premises—
for when one woman is both chambermaid, cook and laundress,
it may well be that each part of these different
departments cannot be at all times in a state of absolute
perfection. There was a cellar table that she had been
intending this very morning to revise; there were various
short-comings in pantry and closet which she had intended
to set in order.
But the course of Mrs. Wouvermans was straight and
unflinching as justice. A brisk interrogation to the awe-struck
little maiden who opened the door showed her
that Eva was out, and the field was all before her. So
she marched into the parlor, and, laying aside her things,
proceeded to review the situation. From the parlor to
the little dining-room was the work of a moment; thence
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
to the china closet, where she opened cupboards and
drawers and took note of their contents; thence to the
kitchen and kitchen pantry, where she looked into the
flour barrel, the sugar barrel, the safe, the cake box, and
took notes.
When Mary had finished her chamber work and came
down to the kitchen, she found her ancient adversary
emerging from the cellar with several leaves of cabbage
in her hands which she had gathered off from the offending
table. In her haste to make a salad for a sudden
access of company, the day before, Mary had left these
witnesses, and she saw that her sin had found her out.
“Good morning, Mary,” said Mrs. Wouvermans, in
the curt, dry tone that she used in speaking to servants,
“I brought up these cabbage leaves to show you. Nothing
is more dangerous, Mary, than to leave any refuse
vegetables in a cellar; if girls are careless about such
matters they get thrown down on the floor and rot and
send up a poisonous exhalation that breeds fevers. I
have known whole families poisoned by the neglect of
girls in these little matters.”
“Mrs. Wouvermans, I was intending this very morning
to come down and attend to that matter, and all the
other matters about the house,” said Mary. “There has
been company here this week, and I have had a deal to
do.”
“And Mary, you ought to be very careful never to
leave the lid of your cake box up—it dries the cake. I
am very particular about mine.”
“And so am I, ma'am; and if my cake box was open
it is because somebody has been to it since I shut it. It
may be that Mrs. Henderson has taken something
out.”
“I noticed, Mary, a broom in the parlor closet not
hung up; it ruins brooms to set them down in that way.”
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
By this time the hot, combative blood of Ireland rose
in Mary's cheek, and she turned and stood at bay.
“Mrs. Wouvermans, you are not my mistress, and this
is not your house; and I am not going to answer to you,
but to Mrs. Henderson, about my matters.”
“Mary, don't you speak to me in that way,” said Mrs.
Wouvermans, drawing herself up.
“I shall speak in just that way to anybody who comes
meddling with what they have no business with. If you
was my mistress, I'd tell you to suit yourself to a better
girl; and I shall ask Mrs. Henderson if I am to be overlooked
in this way. No lady would ever do it,” said
Mary, with a hot emphasis on the word lady, and tears
of wrath in her eyes.
“There's no use in being impertinent, Mary,” said
Mrs. Wouvermans, with stately superiority, as she turned
and sailed up stairs, leaving Mary in a tempest of impotent
anger.
Just about this time Eva returned from her walk with
a basket full of cut flowers, and came singing into the
kitchen and began arranging flower vases; not having
looked into the parlor on her way, she did not detect the
traces of Aunt Maria's presence.
“Well, Mary,” she called, in her usual cheerful tone,
“come and look at my flowers.”
But Mary came not, although Eva perceived her with
her back turned in the pantry.
“Why, Mary, what is the matter?” said Eva, following
her there and seeing her crying. “Why, you dear
soul, what has happened? Are you sick?”
“Your Aunt Maria has been here.”
“Oh, the horrors, Mary, Poor Aunt Maria! you
mustn't mind a word she says. Don't worry, now—don't—
you know Aunt Maria is always saying things to us
girls, but we don't mind it, and you mustn't; we know
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
she means well, and we just let it pass for what it's
worth.”
“Yes; you are young ladies, and I am only a poor
woman, and it comes hard on me. She's been round
looking into every crack and corner, and picked up those
old cabbage leaves, and talked to me about keeping a
cellar that would give you all a fever—it's too bad. You
know yesterday I hurried and cut up that cabbage to help
make out the dinner when those gentlemen came in and
we had only the cold mutton, and I was going to clear
them away this very morning.”
“I know it, Mary; and you do the impossible for us
all twenty times a day, if you did drop cabbage leaves
once; and Aunt Maria has no business to be poking about
my house and prying into our management; but, you see,
Mary, she's my aunt, and I can't quarrel with her. I'm
sorry, but we must just bear it as well as we can—now
promise not to mind it—for my sake.”
“Well, for your sake, Miss Eva,” said Mary, wiping
her eyes.
“You know we all think you are a perfect jewel,
Mary, and couldn't get along a minute without you. As
to Aunt Maria, she's old, and set in her way, and the
best way is not to mind her.”
And Mary was consoled, and went on her way with
courage, and with about as much charity for Mrs. Wouvermans
as an average good Christian under equal provocation.
Eva went on singing and making up her vases, and
carried them into the parlor, and was absorbed in
managing their respective positions, when Aunt Maria
came down from her tour in the chambers.
“Seems to me, Eva, that your hired girl's room is
furnished up for a princess,” she began, after the morning
greetings had been exchanged.
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
“What, Mary's? Well, Mary has a great deal of
neatness and taste, and always took particular pride in
her room when she lived at mamma's, and so I have
arranged hers with special care. Harry got her those
pictures of the Madonna and infant Jesus, and I gave the
bénitier for holy water, over her bed. We matted the
floor nicely, and I made that toilet table, and draped her
looking-glass out of an old muslin dress of mine. The
pleasure Mary takes in it all makes it really worth while
to gratify her.”
“I never pet servants,” said Mrs. Wouvermans,
briefly. “Depend on it, Eva, when you've lived as long
as I have, you'll find it isn't the way. It makes them
presumptuous and exacting. Why, at first, when I blundered
into Mary's room, I thought it must be yours—it
had such an air.”
“Well, as to the air, it's mostly due to Mary's perfect
neatness and carefulness. I'm sorry to say you wouldn't
always find my room as trimly arranged as hers, for I
am a sad hand to throw things about when I am in a
hurry. I love order, but I like somebody else to keep it.”
“I'm afraid,” said Aunt Maria, returning with persistence
to her subject, “that you are beginning wrong with
Mary, and you'll have trouble in the end. Now I saw
she had white sugar in the kitchen sugar-bowl, and there
was the tea caddy for her to go to. It's abominable to
have servants feel that they must use such tea as we do.”
“Oh, well, aunty, you know Mary has been in the
family so long I don't feel as if she were a servant; she
seems like a friend, and I treat her like one. I believe
Mary really loves us.”
“It don't do to mix sentiment and business,” said
Aunt Maria, with sententious emphasis. “I never do.
I don't want my servants to love me—that is not what I
have them for. I want them to do my work, and take
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
their wages. They understand that there are to be no
favors—everything is specifically set down in the bargain
I make with them; their work is all marked out. I
never talk with them, or encourage them to talk to me,
and that is the way we get along.”
“Dear me, Aunt Maria, that may be all very well for
such an energetic, capable housekeeper as you are, who
always know exactly how to manage, but such a poor
little thing as I am can't set up in that way. Now I
think it's a great mercy and favor to have a trained girl
that knows more about how to get on than I do, and
that is fond of me. Why, I know rich people that would
be only too glad to give Mary double what we give, just
to have somebody to depend on.
“But, Eva, child, you're beginning wrong—you ought
not to leave things to Mary as you do. You ought
to attend to everything yourself. I always do.”
“But you see, aunty, the case is very different with
you and me. You are so very capable and smart, and
know so exactly how everything ought to be done, you
can make your own terms with everybody. And, now I
think of it, how lucky that you came in! I want you to
give me your judgment as to two pieces of linen that
I've just had sent in. You know, Aunty, I am such a
perfect ignoramus about these matters.”
And Eva tripped up stairs, congratulating herself on
turning the subject, and putting her aunt's busy advising
faculties to some harmless and innocent use. So, when
she came down with her two pieces of linen, Aunt Maria
tested and pulled them this way and that, in the approved
style of a domestic expert, and gave judgment at
last with an authoritative air.
“This is the best, Eva—you see it has a round
thread, and very little dressing.”
“And why is the round thread the best, Aunty?”
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
“Oh, because it always is—everybody knows that,
child; all good judges will tell you to buy the round
threaded linen, that's perfectly well understood.”
Eva did not pursue the inquiry farther, and we must
all confess that Mrs. Wouverman's reply was about as
satisfactory as those one gets to most philosophical inquiries
as to why and wherefore. If our reader doubts
that, let him listen to the course of modern arguments on
some of the most profound problems; so far as can be
seen, they consist of inflections of Aunt Maria's style of
statement—as, “Oh, of course everybody knows that,
now;” or, negatively, “Oh, nobody believes that, now-a-days.”
Surely, a mode of argument which very wise
persons apply fearlessly to subjects like death, judgment
and eternity, may answer for a piece of linen.
“Oh, by-the-by, Eva, I see you have cards there for
Mrs. Wat Sydney's receptions this winter,” said Aunt
Maria, turning her attention to the card plate. “They
are going to be very brilliant, I'm told. They say nothing
like their new house is to be seen in this country.”
“Yes,” said Eva, “Sophie has been down here urging
me to come up and see her rooms, and says they depend
on me for their receptions, and I'm going up some day
to lunch with her, in a quiet way; but Harry and I have
about made up our minds that we sha'n't go to parties.
You know, Aunty, we are going in for economy, and
this sort of thing costs so much.”
“But, bless your soul, child, what is money for?”
said Aunt Maria, innocently. “If you have any thing
you ought to improve your advantages of getting on in
society. It's important to Harry in his profession to be
seen and heard of, and to push his way among the notables,
and, with due care and thought and economy, a person
with your air and style, and your taste, can appear as
well as anybody. I came down here, among other
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
things, to look over your dresses, and see what can be
done with them.”
“Oh, thank you a thousand times, Aunty dear, but
what do you think all my little wedding finery would do
for me in an assemblage of Worth's spick-and-span new
toilettes? In our own little social circles I am quite a
leader of the mode, but I should look like an old last
night's bouquet among all their fresh finery!”
“Well, now, Eva, child, you talk of economy and all
that, and then go spending on knick-knacks and mere
fancies what would enable you to make a very creditable
figure in society.”
“Really, Aunty, is it possible now, when I thought
we were being so prudent?”
“Well, there's your wood fire, for instance; very
cheerful, I admit, but it's a downright piece of extravagance.
I know that the very richest and most elegant
people, that have everything they can think of, have
fallen back on the fancy of having open wood fires in
their parlors, just for a sort of ornament to their rooms,
but you don't really need it—your furnace keeps you
warm enough.”
“But, Aunty, it looks so bright and cheerful, and
Harry is so fond of it! We only have it evenings, when
he comes home tired, and he says the very sight of it
rests him.”
“There you go, now, Eva—with wood at fifteen dollars
a cord!—going in for a mere luxury just because it
pleases your fancy, and you can't go into society because
it's so expensive. Eva, child, that's just like you. And
there are twenty other little things that I see about here,”
said Aunt Maria, glancing round, “pretty enough, but
each costs a little. There, for instance, those cut flowers
in the vases cost something.”
“But, Aunty, I got them of a poor little man just
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
setting up a green-house, and Harry and I have made up
our minds that it's our duty to patronize him. I'm
going up to Sophie's to get her to take flowers for her
parties of him.”
“It's well enough to get Sophie to do it, but you
oughtn't to afford it,” said Aunt Maria; “nor need you
buy a new matting and pictures for your servant's room.”
“Oh, Aunty, mattings are so cheap; and those pictures
didn't cost much, and they make Mary so happy!”
“Oh, she'd be happy enough any way. You ought to
look out a little for yourself, child.”
“Well, I do. Now, just look at the expense of going
to parties. To begin with, it annihilates all your dresses,
at one fell swoop. If I make up my mind, for instance,
not to go to parties this winter, I have dresses
enough and pretty enough for all my occasions. The
minute I decide I must go, I have nothing, absolutely
nothing, to wear. There must be an immediate outlay.
A hundred dollars would be a small estimate for all the
additions necessary to make me appear with credit.
Even if I take my old dresses as the foundation, and use
my unparalleled good taste, there are trimmings, and
dressmaker's bills, and gloves, and slippers, and fifty
things; and then a carriage for the evening, at five dollars
a night, and all for what? What does anybody get
at a great buzzing party, to pay for all this? Then Harry
has to use all his time, and all his nerves, and all his
strength on his work. He is driven hard all the time
with writing, making up the paper, and overseeing at
the office. And you know parties don't begin till near
ten o'clock, and if he is out till twelve he doesn't rest
well, nor I either—it's just so much taken out of our
life—and we don't either of us enjoy it. Now, why
should we put out our wood fire that we do enjoy, and
scrimp in our flowers, and scrimp in our home comforts,
-- 063 --
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
and in our servant's comforts, just to get what we don't
want after all?”
“Oh, well, I suppose you are like other new married
folks, you want to play Darby and Joan in your chimney-corner,”
said Aunt Maria, “but, for all that, I think
there are duties to society. One cannot go out of the
world, you know; it don't do, Eva.”
“I don't know about that,” said Eva. “We are going
to try it.'”
“What! living without society?”
“Oh, as to that, we shall see our friends other ways.
I can see Sophie a great deal better in a quiet morning-call
than an evening reception; for the fact is, whoever
else you see at a party you don't see your hostess—she
hasn't a word for you. Then, I'm going to have an
evening here.”
“You an evening?”
“Yes; why not? See if I don't, and we'll have good
times, too.”
“Why, who do you propose to invite?”
“Oh, all our folks, and Bolton and Jim Fellows; then
there are a good many interesting, intelligent men
that write for the magazine, and besides, our acquaintances
on this street.”
“In this street? Why, there isn't a creature here,”
said Aunt Maria.
“Yes, there are those old ladies across the way.”
“What! old Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden and that
Mrs. Benthusen? Well, they belong to an ancient New
York family, to be sure; but they are old as Methusaleh.”
“So much the better, Aunty. Old things, you know,
are all the rage just now; and then there's my little
Quaker neighbor.”
“Why, how odd! They are nice enough, I suppose,
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
and well enough to have for neighbors; but he's
nothing but a watchmaker. He actually works for
Tiffany!”
“Yes; but he is a very modest, intelligent young man,
and very well informed on certain subjects. Harry says
he has learned a great deal from him.”
“Well, well, child, I suppose you must take your own
way,” said Aunt Maria.
“I suppose we must,” said Eva, shaking her head
with much gravity. “You see, Aunty, dear, a wife must
accommodate herself to her husband, and if Harry thinks
this is the best way, you know—and he does think so,
very strongly—and isn't it lucky that I think just as he
does? You wouldn't have me fall in with those strong-minded
Bloomer women, would you, and sail the ship
on my own account, independently of my husband?”
Now, the merest allusion to modern strong-mindedness
in woman was to Aunt Maria like a red rag to a
bull; it aroused all her combativeness.
“No; I am sure I wouldn't,” she said, with emphasis.
“If there's anything, Eva, where I see the use of all my
instructions to you, it is the good sense with which you
resist all such new-fangled, abominable notions about the
rights and sphere of women. No; I've always said that
the head of the woman is the man; and it's a wife's duty
to live to please her husband. She may try to influence
him—she ought to do that—but she never ought to do it
openly. I never used to oppose Mr. Wouvermans. I was
always careful to let him suppose he was having his own
way; but I generally managed to get mine,” and Aunt
Maria plumed herself and nodded archly, as an aged
priestess who is communicating to a young neophyte
secrets of wisdom.
In her own private mind, Eva thought this the most
terrible sort of hypocrisy; but her aunt was so settled
-- 065 --
[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]
and contented in all her own practical views, that there
was not the least use in arguing the case. However,
she couldn't help saying, innocently,
“But, Aunty, I should be afraid sometimes he would
have found me out, and then he'd be angry.”
“Oh, no; trust me for that,” said Aunt Maria, complacently.
“I never managed so bunglingly as that.
Somehow or other, he didn't exactly know how, he found
things coming round my way; but I never opposed him
openly—I never got his back up. You see, Eva, these
men, if they do get their backs up, are terrible, but any
of them can be led by the nose—so I'm glad to find that
you begin the right way. Now, there's your mother—
I've been telling her this morning that it's her duty to
make your father go back into business and retrieve his
fortunes. He's got a good position, to be sure—a respectable
salary; but there's no sort of reason why he
shouldn't die worth his two or three millions as well as
half the other men who fail, and are up again in two or
three years. But Nellie wants force. She is no manager.
If I were your father's wife, I should set him on
his feet again pretty soon. Nellie is such a little dependent
body. She was saying this morning how would she
ever have got along with her family without me! But
there are some things that even I can't do—nobody but
a wife could, and Nelly isn't up to it.”
“Poor, dear little mamma,” said Eva. “But are you
quite sure, Aunt Maria, that her ways are not better
adapted to papa than any one's else could be? Papa is
very positive, though so very quiet. He is devoted to
mamma. Then, again, Aunty, there is a good deal of
risk in going into speculations and enterprises at papa's
age. Of course, you know I don't know anything about
business or that sort of thing; but it seems to me like a
great sea where you are up on the wave to-day and down
-- 066 --
[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
to-morrow. So if papa really won't go into these things,
perhaps it's all for the best.”
“But, Eva, it is so important now for the girls, poor
things, just going into society—for you know they can't
keep out of it, even if you do. It will affect all their
chances of settlement in life—and that puts me in mind,
Eva, something or other must be done about Alice and
Jim Fellows. Everybody is saying if they're not engaged
they ought to be.”
“Oh, Aunty, how exasperating the world is! Can't a
man and woman have a plain, honest friendship? Jim
has shown himself a true friend to our family. He came
to us just in all the confusion of the failure, and helped us
heart and hand in the manliest way—and we all like him.
Alice likes him, and I don't wonder at it.”
“Well, are they engaged?” said Aunt Maria, with an
air of statistical accuracy.
“How should I know? I never thought of asking.
I'm not a police detective, and I always think that if my
friends have anything they want me to know, they'll tell
me; and if they don't want me to know, why should I ask
them?”
“But, Eva, one is responsible for one's relations.
The fact is, such an intimacy stands right in the way
of a girl's having good offers—it keeps other parties off.
Now, I tell you, as a great secret, there is a very fine man,
immensely rich, and every way desirable, who is evidently
pleased with Alice.”
“Dear me, Aunty! how you excite my curiosity.
Pray who is it?” said Eva.
“Well, I'm not at liberty to tell you more particularly;
but I know he's thinking about her; and this
report about her and Jim would operate very prejudicially.
Now shall I have a talk with Alice, or will you?”
“Oh, Aunty dear, don't, for pity's sake, say a word to
-- 067 --
[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
Alice. Young girls are so sensitive about such things.
If it must be talked of, let me talk with Alice.”
“I really thought, if I had a good chance, I'd say
something to the young man himself,” said Aunt Maria,
reflectively.
“Oh, good heavens! Aunty, don't think of it. You
don't know Jim Fellows.”
“Oh, you needn't be afraid of me,” said Aunt Maria.
“I am a great deal older and more experienced than you,
and if I do do anything, you may rest assured it will be
in the most discreet way. I've managed cases of this
kind before you were born.”
“But Jim is the most peculiar”—
“Oh, I know all about him. Do you suppose I've
seen him in and out in the family all this time without
understanding him perfectly?”
“But I don't really think that there is the least of
anything serious between him and Alice.”
“Very likely. He would not be at all the desirable
match for Alice. He has very little property, and is
rather a wild, rattling fellow; and I don't like newspaper
men generally.”
“Oh, Aunty, that's severe now. You forget Harry.”
“Oh, well, your husband is an exception; but, as a
general rule, I don't like 'em—unprincipled lot I believe,”
said Aunt Maria, with a decisive nod of her head.
“At any rate, Alice can do better, and she ought to.”
The ringing of the lunch bell interrupted the conversation,
much to the relief of Eva, who discovered with
real alarm the course her respected relative's thoughts
were taking.
Of old she had learned that the only result of arguing
a point with her was to make her more set in her own
way, and she therefore bent all her forces of agreeableness
to produce a diversion of mind to other topics. On
-- 068 --
[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]
the principle that doctors apply mustard to the feet, to
divert the too abundant blood from the head, Eva started
a brisk controversy with Aunt Maria on another topic,
in hopes, by exhausting her energies there, to put this
out of her mind. With what success her strategy was
crowned, it will remain to be seen.
-- -- p710-078
CHAPTER VI. THE SETTLING OF THE WATERS.
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
IT will not be doubted by those who know the ways of
family dictators that Mrs. Maria Wouvermans left
Eva's house after her day's visit in a state of the most
balmy self-satisfaction, as one who has done a good day's
work.
“Well, I 've been up at Eva's,” she said to her sister,
as she looked in on returning, “and really it was well I
went in. That Mary of hers is getting careless and negligent,
just as all old servants do, and I just went over the
whole house, and had a plain talk with Mary. She flew up
about it, and was impertinent, of course; but I put her
down, and I talked plainly to Eva about the way she 's
beginning with her servants. She 's just like you, Nellie,
slack and good-natured, and needs somebody to keep
her up. I told her the way she is beginning—of petting
Mary, and fussing up her room with carpet and pictures,
and everything, just like any other—would n't work.
Servants must be kept in their places.”
Now, Mrs. Van Arsdel had a spirit of her own; and
the off-hand, matter-of-fact manner in which her sister
was accustomed to speak of her as no manager touched a
vital point. What housekeeper likes to have her capacity
to guide a house assailed? Is not that the spot where
her glory dwells, if she has any? And it is all the more
provoking when such charges are thrown out in perfect
good nature, not as designed to offend, but thrown in
par parenthèse, as something everybody would
-- 070 --
[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
acknowledge, and too evident to require discussion. While proceeding
in the main part of a discourse Mrs. Wouvermans
was quite in the habit of these frank side disclosures of
her opinion of her sister's management, and for the most
part they were submitted to in acquiescent silence, rather
than to provoke a controversy; but to be called “slack”
to her face without protest or rejoinder was more than
she could bear; so Mrs. Van Arsdel spoke up with spirit:
“Maria, you are always talking as if I do n't know
how to manage servants. All I know is that you are
always changing, and I keep mine years and years.”
“That 's because you let them have their own way,”
said her sister. “You can keep servants if you do n't
follow them up, and insist on it that they shall do their
duty. Let them run all over you and live like mistresses,
and you can keep them. For my part, I like to change—
new brooms always sweep clean.”
“Well, it 's a different thing, Maria—you with your
small family, and mine with so many. I 'd rather bear anything
than change.”
“Oh, well, yes; I suppose there 's no help for it,
Nellie. Of course I was n't blaming you, so do n't fire
up about it. I know you can 't make yourself over,”
said Aunt Maria. This was the tone with which she
usually settled discussions with those who differed from
her on modes and measures. After all, they could not
be like her, so where was the use of talking?
Aunt Maria also had the advantage in all such encounters
of a confessed reputation as an excellent manager.
Her house was always elegant, always in order.
She herself was gifted with a head for details that never
failed to keep in mind the smallest item, and a wiry,
compact constitution that never knew fatigue. She held
the keys of everything in her house, and always turned
every key at the right moment. She knew the precise
-- 071 --
[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]
weight, quantity, and quality of everything she had in
possession, where it was and what it might be used for;
and, as she said, could go to anything in her house without
a candle in the darkest night. If her servants did
not love, they feared her, and had such a sense of her
ever vigilant inspection that they never even tried to
evade her. For the least shadow of disobedience she
was ready to send them away at a moment's warning,
and then go to the intelligence office and enter her name
for another, and come home, put on apron and gloves,
and manfully and thoroughly sustain the department till
they came.
Mrs. Wouvermans, therefore, was celebrated and lauded
by all her acquaintances as a perfect housekeeper, and
this added sanction and terror to her pronunciamentos
when she walked the rounds as a police inspector in the
houses of her relations.
It is rather amusing to a general looker-on in this odd
world of ours to contrast the serene, cheerful good faith
with which these constitutionally active individuals go
about criticising, and suggesting, and directing right and
left, with the dismay and confusion of mind they leave
behind them wherever they operate.
They are often what the world calls well-meaning people,
animated by a most benevolent spirit, and have no
more intention of giving offense than a nettle has of
stinging. A large, vigorous, well-growing nettle has no
consciousness of the stings it leaves in the delicate hands
that have been in contact with it; it has simply acted out
its innocent and respectable nature as a nettle. But a
nettle armed with the power of locomotion on an ambulatory
tour, is something the results of which may be
fearful to contemplate.
So, after the departure of Aunt Maria our little
housekeeper, Eva, was left in a state of considerable
-- 072 --
[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
nervousness and anxiety, feeling that she had been
weighed in the balance of perfection and found wofully
wanting. She was conscious, to begin with, that her
characteristic virtues as a housekeeper, if she had any,
were not entirely in the style of her good relative. She
was not by nature statistical, nor given to accounts and
figures. She was not sharp and keen in bargains; she
was, she felt in her inmost, trembling soul, a poor little
mollusk, without a bit of a shell, hiding in a cowardly
way under a rock and ready at any time to be eaten up
by big fishes. She had felt so happy in her unlimited
trust in Mary, who knew more than she did about housekeeping—
but she had been convicted by her aunt's cross-questions
of having resigned the very signet ring and
scepter of her house into her hands. Did she let Mary
go all over the house? Did she put away the washing?
Did Eva allow her to open her drawers? Did n't she
count her towels and sheets every week, and also her
tea-spoons, and keep every drawer and cupboard locked?
She ought to. To all these inquiries Eva had no satisfactory
response, and began to doubt within herself
whether she had begun aright. With sensitive, conscientious
people there is always a residuum of self-distrust
after discussions of the nature we have indicated, however
vigorously and skillfully they may have defended
their courses at the time.
Eva went over and over in her own mind her self-justifications—
she told herself that she and her aunt were
essentially different people, incapable of understanding
each other sympathetically or acting in each other's ways,
and that the well-meant, positive dicta of her relative
were to be let go for what they were worth, and no more.
Still she looked eagerly and anxiously for the return
of her husband, that she might reinforce herself
by talking it over with him. Hers was a nature so
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
TALKING IT OVER
"Come now, Puss, out with it. Why that anxious brow? What
domestic catastrophe?"—p. 73.
[figure description] Illustration page. Image of a man and woman sitting at a dinner table talking. The man has a soup spoon in one hand. The woman is holding her napkin.[end figure description]
-- 073 -- p710-084
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
transparent that, before he had been five minutes in the
house, he felt that something had gone wrong; but, the
dinner-bell ringing, he retired at once to make his
toilet, and did not open the subject till they were fairly
seated at table.
“Well, come now, Puss—out with it! Why that
anxious brow? What domestic catastrophe? Anything
gone wrong with the ivies?”
“Oh, no; the ivies are all right, growing beautifully—
it is n't that—”
“Well, then, what is it? It seems there is something.”
“Oh, nothing, Harry; only Aunt Maria has been
spending the day here.”
Eva said this with such a perplexed and woful face
that Harry leaned back in his chair and laughed.
“What a blessing it is to have relations,” he said;
“but I thought, Eva, that you had made up your mind
not to care for anything Aunt Maria says?”
“Well, she has been all over the house, surveying
and reviewing as if she owned us, and she has lectured
Mary and got her into hysterics, and talked to
me till I am almost bewildered—wondering at everything
we mean to do, and wanting us to take her ways
and not ours.”
“My dearest child, why need you care? Take it as
a rain-storm, when you 've been caught out without your
umbrella. That 's all. Or why can 't you simply and
firmly tell her that she must not go over your house or
direct your servants?”
“Well, you see, that would never do. She would
feel so injured and abused. I 've only just made up
and brought things to going smoothly, and got her pacified
about our marriage. There would be another fuss if
I should talk that way. Aunt Maria always considered
-- 074 --
[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
me her girl, and maintains that she is a sort of special
guardian to me, and I think it very disagreeable
to quarrel with your relations, and get on unpleasant
terms with them.”
“Well, I shall speak to her, Eva, pretty decidedly, if
you don't.”
“Oh, do n't, do n't, Harry! She 'd never forgive
you. No. Let me manage her. I have been managing
her all day to keep the peace, to keep her satisfied and
pleased; to let her advise me to her heart's content,
about things where I can take advice. Aunt Maria is
a capital judge of linens and cottons, and all sorts of
household stuffs, and can tell to a certainty just how
much of a thing you 'd want, and the price you ought
to pay, and the exact place to get it; and I have been
contriving to get her opinion on a dozen points where
I mean to take it; and I think she has left, on the
whole, highly satisfied with her visit, though in the main
I did n't give in to her a bit about our plans.”
“Then why so tragic and tired-looking?”
“Oh, well, after all, when Aunt Maria talks, she says
a great many things that have such a degree of sense
in them that it worries me. Now, there 's a good deal
of sense in what she said about trusting too much to
servants, and being too indulgent. I know mamma's
girls used to get spoiled so that they would be perfect
tyrants. And yet I cannot for the life of me like Aunt
Maria's hard, ungracious way of living with servants,
as if they were machines.
“Ah, well, Eva, it 's always so. Hard, worldly people
always have a good deal of what looks like practical
sense on their side, and kindness and unselfishness certainly
have their weak points; there 's no doubt of that.
The Sermon on the Mount is open to a great deal of
good hard worldly criticism, and so is every attempt
-- 075 --
[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
to live up to it practically; but, never mind. We all
know that the generous way is the strong way, and the
best way, in the long run.”
“And then you know, Harry, I have n't the least
talent for being hard and sharp,” said Eva, “and so I
may as well take the advantages of my sort of nature.”
“Certainly you may; people never succeed out of
their own line.”
“Then there 's another trouble. I 'm afraid Aunt Maria
is going to interfere with Alice, as she tried to do with
me. She said that everybody was talking about her
intimacy with Jim, and that if I didn 't speak to Alice
she must.”
“Confound that woman,” said Harry; “she 's an unmitigated
old fool! She 's as bad as a runaway steam
engine; somebody ought to seize and lock her up.”
“Come, sir, keep a civil tongue about my relations,”
said Eva, laughing.
“Well, I must let off a little to you, just to lower
steam to the limits of Christian moderation.”
“Alice is n't as fond of Aunt Maria as I am, and has
a high spirit of her own, and I 'm afraid it will make a
terrible scene if Aunt Maria attacks her, so I suppose I
must talk to her myself; but what do you think of Jim,
Harry? Is there anything in it, on his part?”
“How can I say? you know just as much as I do and
no more, and you are a better judge of human nature
than I am.”
“Well, would you like it to have Alice take Jim—
supposing there were anything.”
“Why, yes, very well, if she wants him.”
“But Jim is such a volatile creature—would you
want to trust him?”
“He is constant in his affections, which is the main
thing. I 'm sure his conduct when your father failed
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
showed that; and a sensible, dignified woman like Alice
might make a man of him.”
“It 's odd,” said Eva, “that Alice, who is so prudent,
and has such a high sense of propriety, seems so very
indulgent to Jim. None of his escapades seem to offend
her.”
“It 's the doctrine of counterparts,” said Harry; “the
steady sensible nature admires the brilliancy and variety
of the volatile one.”
“For my part,” said Eva, “I can 't conceive of Jim 's
saying anything in serious earnest. The very idea of his
being sentimental seems funny—and how can anybody
be in love without being sentimental?”
“There are diversities of operation,” said Harry.
“Jim must make love in his own way, and it will probably
be an original one.”
“But, really now, do you know,” persisted Eva, “I
think Alice might be mated with a man of much higher
class than Jim. He is amiable, and bright, and funny,
and agreeable. Yet I do n't deny but Alice might do
better.”
“So she might, but the perversity of fate is that the
superior man is n't around and Jim is; and, ten to one,
if the superior man were in the field, Alice would be perverse
enough to choose Jim. And, after all, you must
confess, give Jim Fellows a fortune of a million or two,
a place in Newport, and another on the North River,
and even you would call it a brilliant match, and think
it a fortunate thing for Alice.”
“Oh, dear me, Harry, that's the truth, to be sure.
Am I so worldly?”
“No; but ideal heroes are not plentiful, and there
are few gems that don't need rich setting. The first
questions as to a man are, is he safe, has he no bad habits,
is he kind and affectionate in his disposition and capable
-- 077 --
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
of constant affection? and, secondly, does the woman feel
that sort of love that makes her prefer him even to men
that are quite superior? Now, whether Alice feels in
that way toward Jim is what remains to be seen. I'm
sure I can't tell. Neither can I tell whether Jim has any
serious intentions in regard to her. If they were only let
alone, and not watched and interfered with, I 've no doubt
the thing would adjust itself in the natural course of
things.
“But see here, I must be going to my club, and,
now I think of it, I 've brought some Paris letters from
the girls for you, to pass the evening with.”
“You have? Letters from Ida and Caroline? You
naughty creature, why did n't you give them to me before?”
“Well, your grave face when I first came in put everything
else out of my head; and then came on all this
talk: but it 's just as well, you 'll have them to read while
I 'm gone.”
“Do n't stay late, Harry.”
“No; you may be sure I 've no temptation. I 'd
much rather be here with you watching our own backlog.
But then I shall see several fellows about articles
for the magazine, and get all the late news, and, in short,
take an observation of our latitude and longitude; so,
au revoir!”
-- -- p710-089
CHAPTER VII. LETTERS AND AIR-CASTLES.
[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
AFTER Harry went out, Eva arranged the fire,
dropped the curtains over the window, drew up an
easy chair into a warm corner under the gas-light, and
began looking over the outside of her Parisian letters with
that sort of luxurious enjoyment of delay with which one
examines the post-marks and direction of letters that
are valued as a great acquisition. There was one from
her sister Ida and one from Harry's cousin Caroline.
Ida's was opened first. It was dated from a boarding-house
in the Rue de Clichy, giving a sort of journalised
view of their studies, their medical instructors, their
walks and duties in the hospital, all told with an evident
and vigorous sense of enjoyment. Eva felt throughout
what a strong, cheerful, self-sustained being her sister
was, and how fit it was that a person so sufficient to
herself, so equable, so healthfully balanced and poised
in all her mental and physical conformation, should have
undertaken the pioneer work of opening a new profession
for women. “I never could do as she does, in the
world,” was her mental comment, “but I am thankful
that she can.” And then she cut the envelope of Caroline's
letter.
To a certain extent there were the same details in it—
Caroline was evidently associated in the same studies,
the same plans, but there was missing in the letter the
professional enthusiasm, the firmness, the self-poise, and
calm clearness. There were more bursts of feeling on
-- 079 --
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
the pictures in the Louvre than on scientific discoveries;
more sensibility to the various æsthetic wonders which
Paris opens to an uninitiated guest than to the treasures
of anatomy and surgery. With the letter were sent two or
three poems, contributions to the Magazine—poems full
of color and life, of a subdued fire, but with that undertone
of sadness which is so common in all female poets.
A portion of the letter may explain this:
“You were right, my dear Eva, in saying, in our last
interview, that it did not seem to you that I had the kind
of character that was adapted to the profession I have
chosen. I don't think I have. I am more certain of it
from comparing myself from day to day with Ida, who
certainly is born and made for it, if ever a woman was.
My choice of it has been simply and only for the reason
that I must choose something as a means of self-support,
and more than that, as a refuge from morbid distresses
of mind which made the still monotony of my New England
country life intolerable to me. This course presented
itself to me as something feasible. I thought it,
too, a good and worthy career—one in which one might
do one's share of good for the world. But, Eva, I can
feel that there is one essential difference between Ida and
myself: she is peculiarly self-sustained and sufficient to
herself, and I am just the reverse. I am full of vague
unrest; I am chased by seasons of high excitement, alternating
with deadly languor. Ida has hard work to
know what to do with me. You were right in supposing,
as you intimate in your letter, that a certain common
friend has something to do with this unrest, but you cannot,
unless you know my whole history, know how much.
There was a time when he and I were all the world to
each other—when shall I ever forget that time! I was
but seventeen; a young girl, so ignorant of life! I never
had seen one like him; he was a whole new revelation to
-- 080 --
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
me; he woke up everything there was in me, never to go
to sleep again; and then to think of having all this tide
and current of feeling checked—frozen. My father overwhelmed
him with accusations; every baseness was laid
to his charge. I was woman enough to have stood for
him against the world if he had come to me. I would
have left all and gone to the ends of the earth with him
if he had asked me, but he did not. There was only
one farewell, self-accusing letter, and even that fell into
my father's hands and never came to me till after his
death. For years I thought myself wantonly trifled with
by a man of whose attentions I ought to be ashamed. I
was indignant at myself for the love that might have been
my glory, for it is my solemn belief that if we had been
let alone he would have been saved all those wretched
falls, those blind struggles that have marred a life whose
purpose is yet so noble.
“When the fates brought us together again in New
York, I saw at a glance that whatever may have been the
proud, morbid conscientiousness that dictated his long
silence, he loved me still;—a woman knows that by an
unmistakable instinct. She can feel the reality through
all disguises. I know that man loves me, and yet he does
not now in word or deed make the least profession beyond
the boundaries of friendship. He is my friend;
with entire devotion he is willing to spend and be spent
for me—but he will accept nothing from me. I, who
would give my life to him willingly—I must do nothing
for him!
“Well, it 's no use writing. You see now that I am a
very unworthy disciple of your sister. She is so calm
and philosophical that I cannot tell her all this; but you,
dear little Eva, you know the heart of woman, and you
have a magic key which unlocks everybody's heart in
confidence to you. I seem to see you, in fancy, with
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
good Cousin Harry, sitting cosily in your chimney-corner;
your ivies and nasturtiums growing round your
sunny windows, and an everlasting summer in your
pretty parlors, while the December winds whistle without.
Such a life as you two lead, such a home as your
home, is worth a thousand `careers' that dazzle ambition.
Send us more letters, journals, of all your pretty, lovely
home life, and let me warm myself in the glow of your
fireside.
Your Cousin, Carry.”
Eva finished this letter, and then folding it up sat
with it in her lap,gazing into the fire, and pondering its
contents. If the truth must be told, she was revolving
in her young, busy brain a scheme for restoring Caroline
to her lover, and setting them up comfortably at housekeeping
on a contiguous street, where she had seen a
house to let. In five minutes she had gone through the
whole programme—seen the bride at the altar, engaged
the house, bought the furniture, and had before her a
vision of parlors, of snuggeries and cosy nooks, where
Caroline was to preside, and where Bolton was to lounge
at his ease, while she and Caroline compared housekeeping
accounts. Happy young wives develop an aptitude
for match-making as naturally as flowers spring in a
meadow, and Eva was losing herself in this vision of
Alnaschar, when a loud, imperative, sharp bark of a dog
at the front door of the house called her back to life and
the world.
Now there are as many varieties to dog-barks as to
man-talks. There is the common bow-wow, which
means nothing, only that it is a dog speaking; there is
the tumultuous angry bark, which means attack; the
conversational bark, which, of a moonlight night, means
gossip; and the imperative staccato bark which means
immediate business. The bark at the front door was of
-- 082 --
[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]
this kind: it was loud and sharp, and with a sort of indignant
imperativeness about it, as of one accustomed
to be attended to immediately.
Eva flew to the front door and opened it, and there
sat Jack, the spoiled darling of Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden
and her sister, over the way.
“Why, Jacky! where did you come from?” said Eva.
Jacky sat up on his haunches and waved his forepaws in
a vigorous manner, as was his way when he desired to
be specifically ingratiating.
Eva seized him in her arms and carried him into the
parlor, thinking that as he had accidentally been shut
out for the night she would domesticate him for a while,
and return him to his owners on the morrow. So she
placed him on the ottoman in the corner and attempted
to caress him, but evidently that was not the purpose he
had in view. He sprang down, ran to the door and
snuffed, and to the front windows and barked imperiously.
“Why, Jack, what do you want?”
He sprang into a chair and barked out at the Vanderheyden
house.
Eva looked at the mantel clock—it wanted a few
minutes of ten—without, it was a bright moonlight night.
“I 'll run across with him, and see what it is,” she
said. She was young enough to enjoy something like
an adventure. She opened the front door and Jack
rushed out, and then stopped to see if she would follow;
as she stood a moment he laid hold on the skirt of her
dress, as if to pull her along.
“Well, Jacky, I 'll go,” said Eva. Thereat the creature
bounded across the street and up the steps of the
opposite house, where he stood waiting. She went up
and rang the door-bell, which appeared to be what he
wanted, as he sat down quite contented on the doorstep.
-- 083 --
[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
Nobody came. Eva looked up and down the street.
“Jacky, we shall have to go back, they are all asleep,”
she said. But Jacky barked contradiction, sprang nearer
to the door, and insisted on being let in.
“Well, if you say so, Jacky, I must ring again,” she
said, and with that she pulled the door-bell louder, and
Jack barked with all his might, and the two succeeded
after a few moments in causing a perceptible stir within.
Slowly the door unclosed, and a vision of Miss Dorcas
in an old-fashioned broad-frilled night-cap peeped
out. She was attired in a black water-proof cloak,
donned hastily over her night gear.
“Oh, Jack, you naughty boy!” she exclaimed, stooping
eagerly to the prodigal, who sprung tumultuously
into her arms and began licking her face.
“I 'm so much obliged to you, Mrs. Henderson,” she
said to Eva. “We went down in the omnibus this afternoon,
and we suddenly missed him, the naughty fellow,”
she said, endeavoring to throw severity into her tones.
Eva related Jack's ruse.
“Did you ever!” said Miss Dorcas; “the creature
knew that we slept in the back of the house, and he got
you to ring our door-bell. Jacky, what a naughty fellow
you are!”
Mrs. Betsey now appeared on the staircase in an
equal state of dishabille:
“Oh dear, Mrs. Henderson, we are so shocked!”
“Dear me, never speak of it. I think it was a cunning
trick of Jack. He knew you were gone to bed, and
saw I was up and so got me to ring his door-bell for
him. I do n't doubt he rode up town in the omnibus.
Well, good-night!”
And Eva closed the door and flew back to her own
little nest just in time to let in Harry.
The first few moments after they were fairly by the
-- 084 --
[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
fireside were devoted to a recital of the adventure, with
dramatic representations of Jack and his mistresses.
“It 's a capital move on Jack 's part. It got me into
the very interior of the fortress. Only think of seeing
them in their night-caps! That is carrying all the outworks
of ceremony at a move.”
“To say nothing of their eternal gratitude,” said
Harry.
“Oh, that of course. They were ready to weep on
my neck with joy that I had brought the dear little
plague back to them, and I do n't doubt are rejoicing
over him at this moment. But, oh, Harry, you must
hear the girls' Paris letters.”
“Are they very long?” said Harry.
“Fie now, Harry; you ought to be interested in the
girls.”
“Why, of course I am,” said Harry, pulling out his
watch, “only—what time is it?”
“Only half-past ten—not a bit late,” said Eva. As
she began to read Ida's letter, Harry settled back in the
embrace of a luxurious chair, with his feet stretched out
towards the fire, and gradually the details of Paris life
mingled pleasingly with a dream—a fact of which Eva
was made aware as she asked him suddenly what he
thought of Ida's views on a certain point.
“Now, Harry—you have n't been asleep?”
“Just a moment. The very least in the world,”
said Harry, looking anxiously alert and sitting up very
straight.
Then Eva read Caroline's letter.
“Now, is n't it too bad?” she said, with eagerness, as
she finished.
“Yes, it is,” said Harry, very gravely. “But, Eva
dear, it 's one of those things that you and I can do
nothing to help—it is &sbagr;ν&aacgr;γκη.”
-- 085 --
[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
“What 's ananke?”
“The name the old Greeks gave to that perverse
Something that brought ruin and misery in spite of and
out of the best human efforts.”
“But I want to bring these two together.”
“Be careful how you try, darling. Who knows what
the results may be? It 's a subject Bolton never speaks
of, where he has his own purposes and conclusions; and
it 's the best thing for Caroline to be where she has as
many allurements and distractions as she has in Paris,
and such a wise, calm, strong friend as your sister.
“And now, dear, may n't I go to bed?” he added,
with pathos, “You 've no idea, dear, how sleepy I am.”
“Oh, certainly, you poor boy,” said Eva, bustling
about and putting up the chairs and books preparatory
to leaving the parlor.
`You see,” she said, going up stairs, “he was so imperious
that I really had to go with him.”
“He! Who?”
“Why, Jack, to be sure, he did all but speak,” said
Eva, brush in hand, and letting down her curls before
the glass. “You see I was in a reverie over those letters
when the barking roused me—I don 't think you ever
heard such a barking; and when I got him in, he wouldn't
be contented—kept insisting on my going over with him—
was n't it strange?
Harry, by this time composed for the night and half
asleep, said it was.
In a few moments he was aroused by Eva 's saying,
suddenly,
“Harry, I really think I ought to bring them together.
Now, could n't I do something?”
“With Jack?” said Harry, drowsily.
“Jack!—oh, you sleepy-head! Well, never mind.
Good night.”
-- -- p710-097
CHAPTER VIII. THE VANDERHEYDEN FORTRESS TAKEN.
[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]
“NOW, Harry, I 'll tell you what I 'm going to do
this morning,” said Eva, with the air of a little
general, as she poured his morning coffee.
“And what are you going to do?” replied he, in the
proper tone of inquiry.
“Well, I 'm going to take the old fortress over the
way by storm, this very morning. I 'm going to rush
through the breach that Jack has opened into the very
interior and see what there is there. I 'm perfectly dying
to get the run of that funny old house; why, Harry,
it 's just like a novel, and I should n't wonder if I could
get enough out of it for you to make an article of.”
“Thank you, dear; you enter into the spirit of article-hunting
like one to the manner born.”
“That I do; I 'm always keeping my eyes open when
I go about New York for bits and hints that you can
work up, and I 'm sure you ought to do something with
this old Vanderheyden house. I know there must be
ghosts in it; I 'm perfectly certain.”
“But you would n't meet them in a morning call,”
said Harry, “that 's contrary to all ghostly etiquette.”
“Never mind, I 'll get track of them. I 'll become
intimate with old Miss Dorcas and get her to relate her
history, and if there is a ghost-chamber I 'll be into it.”
“Well, success to you,” said Harry; “but to me it
looks like a formidable undertaking. Those old ladies
are so padded and wadded in buckram.”
“Oh, pshaw! there 's just what Jack has done for me,
-- 087 --
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
he has made a breach in the padding and buckram.
Only think of my seeing them at midnight in their night-caps!
And such funny night-caps! Why, it 's an occasion
long to be remembered, and I would be willing to
wager anything they are talking it over at this minute;
and, of course, you see, it 's extremely proper and quite
a part of the play that I should come in this morning to
inquire after the wanderer, and to hope they did n't catch
cold, and to talk over the matter generally. Now, I like
that old Miss Dorcas; there seems to me to be an immense
amount of character behind all her starch and
stiffness, and I think she 's quite worth knowing. She 'll
be an acquisition if one can only get at her.”
“Well, as I said, success and prosperity go with you!”
said Harry, as he rose and gathered his papers to go to
his morning work.
“I 'll go right out with you,” said Eva, and she
snatched from the hat-tree a shawl and a little morsel of
white, fleecy worsted, which the initiated surname “a
cloud,” and tied it over her head. “I 'm going right in
upon them now,” she said.
It was a brisk, frosty morning, and she went out with
Harry and darted across from the door. He saw her in
the distance, as he went down the street, laughing and
kissing her hand to him on the door-step of the Vanderheyden
house.
Just then the sound of the door-bell—unheard of in
that hour in the morning—caused an excitement in the
back breakfast-parlor, where Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey
were at a late breakfast, with old Dinah standing
behind Miss Dorcas' chair to get her morning orders,
giggling and disputing them inch by inch, as was her
ordinary wont.
The old door-bell had a rustling, harsh, rusty sound,
as if cross with a chronic rheumatism of disuse.
-- 088 --
[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
“Who under the sun!” said Miss Dorcas. “Jack, be
still!”
But Jack would n't be still, but ran and snuffed at
the door, and barked as if he smelt a legion of burglars.
Eva heard, within the house, the dining-room door
open, and then Jack's barking came like a fire of artillery
at the crack of the front door, where she was standing.
It was slowly opened, and old Dinah's giggling countenance
appeared. “Laws bless your soul, Mis' Henderson,”
she said, flinging the door wide open, “is that
you? Jack, be still, sir!”
But Eva had caught Jack up in her arms, and walked
with him to the door of the breakfast room.
“Do pray excuse me,” she said, “but I thought I'd
just run over and see that you had n't taken any cold.”
The scene within was not uninviting. There was a
cheerful wood fire burning on the hearth behind a pair
of gigantic old-fashioned brass fire-irons. The little
breakfast-table, with its bright old silver and India
china, was drawn comfortably up in front. Miss Dorcas
had her chair on one side, and Miss Betsey on the other,
and between them there was a chair drawn up for Jack,
where he had been sitting at the time the door-bell
rang.
“We are ashamed of our late hours,” said Miss Dorcas,
when she had made Eva sit down in an old-fashioned
claw-footed arm-chair in the warmest corner; “we
do n't usually breakfast so late, but, the fact is, Betsey
was quite done up by the adventure last night.”
“Perhaps,” said Eva, “I had better have tried keeping
Jack till morning.”
“Oh no, indeed, Mrs. Henderson,” said Mrs. Betsey,
with energy; “I know it's silly, but I should n't have
slept a wink all night if Jack had n't come home. You
know he sleeps with me,” she added.
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
Eva did not know it before, but she said “Yes” all
the same, and the good lady rushed on:
“Yes; Dorcas thinks it 's rather silly, but I do let
Jack sleep on the foot of my bed. I spread his blanket
for him every night, and I always wash his feet and wipe
them clean before he goes to bed, and when you brought
him back you really ought to have seen him run right up
stairs to where I keep his bowl and towel; and he stood
there, just as sensible, waiting for me to come and wash
him. I wish you could have seen how dirty he was! I
can't think where ever that dog gets his paws so
greasy.”
“'Cause he will eat out o' swill-pails!” interposed
Dinah, with a chuckle. “Greatest dog after swill-pails
I ever see. That's what he's off after.”
“Well, I don't know why. It 's very bad of him
when we always feed him and take such pains with
him,” said Mrs. Betsey, in accents of lamentation.
“Dogs is allers jest so,” said Dinah; “they 's arter
nastiness and carron. You can 't make a Christian out
o' a dog, no matter what you do.”
Old Dinah was the very impersonation of that coarse,
hard literalness which forces actual unpalatable facts
upon unwilling ears. There was no disputing that she
spoke most melancholy truths, that even the most infatuated
dog-lovers could not always shut their eyes to.
But Mrs. Betsey chose wholly to ignore her facts and
treat her communication as if it had no existence, so she
turned her back to Dinah and went on.
“I don't know what makes Jack have these turns of
running away. Sometimes I think it's our system of
dieting him. Perhaps it may be because we don 't allow
him all the meat he wants; but then they say if you do
give these pet dogs meat they become so gross that it is
quite shocking.”
-- 090 --
[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
Miss Dorcas rapped her snuff-box, sat back in her
chair, and took snuff with an air of antique dignity that
seemed to call heaven and earth to witness that she only
tolerated such fooleries on account of her sister, and not
at all in the way of personal approbation.
The nurture and admonition of Jack was the point
where the two sisters had a chronic controversy, Miss
Dorcas inclining to the side of strict discipline and vigorous
repression.
In fact, Miss Dorcas soothed her violated notions of
dignity and propriety by always speaking of Jack as
“Betsey's dog”—he was one of the permitted toys and
amusements of Betsey's more juvenile years; but she
felt called upon to keep some limits of discipline to prevent
Jack's paw from ruling too absolutely in the family
councils.
“You see,” said Mrs. Betsey, going on with her reminiscences
of yesterday, “we had taken Jack down town
with us because we wanted to get his photographs; we 'd
had him taken last week, and they were not ready till
yesterday.”
“Dear me, do show them to me,” said Eva, entering
cheerfully into the humor of the thing; and Mrs. Betsey
trotted up stairs to get them.
“You see how very absurd we are,” said Miss Dorcas;
“but the fact is, Mrs. Henderson, Betsey has had her
troubles, poor child, and I 'm glad to have her have anything
that can be any sort of a comfort to her.”
Betsey came back with her photographs, which she
exhibited with the most artless innocence.
“You see,” said Miss Dorcas, “just how it is. If
people set out to treat a dog as a child, they have to take
the consequences. That dog rules this whole family,
and of course he behaves like spoiled children generally.
Here, now, this morning; Betsey and I both have bad
-- 091 --
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
colds because we were got out of bed last night with that
creature.”
Here Jack, seeming to understand that he was the
subject-matter of some criticism, rose up suddenly on his
haunches before Miss Dorcas and waved his paws in a
supplicatory manner at her. Jack understood this to be
his only strong point, and brought it out as a trump card
on all occasions when he felt himself to be out of favor.
Miss Dorcas laughed, as she generally did, and Jack
seemed delighted, and sprang into her lap and offered to
kiss her with the most brazen assurance.
“Oh, well, Mrs. Henderson, I suppose you see that
we are two old fools about that dog,” she said. “I
do n't know but I am almost as silly as Betsey is, but the
fact is one must have something, and a dog is not so
much risk as a boy, after all. Yes, Jack,” she said, tapping
his shaggy head patronizingly, “after all you 're no
more impudent than puppies in general.”
“I never quarrel with anyone for loving dogs,” said
Eva. “For my part I think no family is complete without
one. I tell Harry we must `set up' our dog as soon
as we get a little more settled. When we get one, we 'll
compare notes.”
“Well,” said Miss Dorcas, “I always comfort myself
with thinking that dear Sir Walter, with all his genius,
went as far in dog-petting as any of us. You remember
Washington Irving's visit to Abbotsford?”
Eva did not remember it, and Miss Dorcas said she
must get it for her at once; she ought to read it. And away
she went to look it up in the book-case in the next room.
“The fact is,” said Mrs. Betsey, mysteriously, “though
Dorcas has so much strength of mind, she is to the full
as silly about Jack as I am. When I was gone to Newburg,
if you 'll believe me, she let Jack sleep on her bed.
Dinah knows it, does n't she?”
-- 092 --
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
Dinah confirmed this fact by a loud explosing, in
which there was a singular mixture of snort and giggle;
and to cover her paroxysm she seized violently on the remains
of the breakfast and bore them out into the kitchen,
and was heard giggling and gurgling in a rill of laughter
all along the way.
Mrs. Betsey began gathering up and arranging the
cups, and filling a lacquered bowl of Japanese fabric
with hot water, she proceeded to wash the china and
silver.
“What lovely china,” said Eva, with the air of a connoisseur.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Betsey, “this china has been in the
family for three generations, and we never suffer a servant
to touch it.”
“Please let me help you,” said Eva, taking up the
napkin sociably, “I do so love old china.”
And pretty soon one might have seen a gay morning
party—Mrs. Betsey washing, Eva wiping, and Miss Dorcas
the while reading scraps out of Abbotsford about
Maida, and Finette, and Hamlet, and Camp, and Percy,
and others of Walter Scott's four-footed friends. The
ice of ceremony and stiffness was not only broken by
this bit of morning domesticity, but floated gaily down-stream
never to be formed again.
You may go further into the hearts of your neighbors
by one-half hour of undressed rehearsal behind the scenes
than a century of ceremonious posing before the foot-lights.
Real people, with anything like heart and tastes and
emotions, do not enjoy being shut up behind barricades,
and conversing with their neighbors only through loopholes.
If any warm-hearted adventurer gets in at the
back door of the heart, the stiffest and most formal are
often the most thankful for the deliverance.
-- 093 --
[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
The advent of this pretty young creature, with her air
of joy and gaiety, into the shadowed and mossy precincts
of the old Vanderheyden house was an event to
be dated from, as the era of a new life. She was to
them a flower, a picture, a poem; and a thousand dear
remembrances and new capabilities stirred in the withered
old hearts to meet her.
Her sincere artlessness and naïf curiosity, her genuine
interest in the old time-worn furniture, relics and
belongings of the house gave them a new sense of possession.
We seem to acquire our things over again when
stimulated by the admiration of a new spectator.
“Dear me,” said Eva, as she put down a tea-cup she
was wiping, “what a pity I have n't some nice old china
to begin on! but all my things are spick and span new;
I do n't think it 's a bit interesting. I do love to see
things that look as if they had a history.”
“Ah! my dear child, you are making history fast
enough,” said Miss Dorcas, with that kind of half sigh
with which people at eighty look down on the aspirants
of twenty; “do n't try to hurry things.”
“But I think old things are so nice,” said Eva.
“They get so many associations. Things just out of
Tiffany's or Collamore's have n't associations—there 's no
poetry in them. Now, everything in your house has its
story. It 's just like the old villas I used to see in Italy
where the fountains were all mossy.”
“We are mossy enough, dear knows,” said Miss Dorcas,
laughing, “Betsey and I.”
“I 'm so glad I 've got acquainted with you,” said
Eva, looking up with clear, honest eyes into Miss Dorcas's
face; “it 's so lonesome not to know one's neighbors,
and I 'm an inexperienced beginner, you know. There
are a thousand questions I might ask, where your experience
could help me.”
-- 094 --
[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
“Well, do n't hesitate, dear Mrs. Henderson,” said
Mrs. Betsey; “do use us if you can. Dorcas is really
quite a doctor, and if you should be ill any time, do n't
fail to let us know. We never have a doctor. Dorcas
always knows just what to do. You ought to see her
herb closet—there 's a little of everything in it; and she
is wonderful for strengthening-mixtures.”
And so Eva was taken to see the herbal, and thence,
by natural progression, through the chambers, where she
admired the old furniture. Then cabinets were unlocked,
old curiosities brought out, snatches and bits of history
followed, and, in fact, lunch time came in the old Vanderheyden
house before any of them perceived whither
the tide of social enthusiasm had carried them. Eva
stayed to lunch. Such a thing had not happened for
years to the desolate old couple, and it really seemed as
if the roses of youth and joy, the flowers of years past,
all bloomed and breathed around her, and it was late in
the day before she returned to her own home to look
back on the Vanderheyden fortress as taken. Two stiff,
ceremonious strangers had become two warm-hearted,
admiring friends—a fortress locked and barred by constraint
had become an open door of friendship. Was it
not a good morning's work?
-- -- p710-106
CHAPTER IX. JIM AND ALICE.
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
THE recent discussions of the marriage question,
betokening unrest and dissatisfaction with the immutable
claims of this institution, are founded, no doubt,
on the various distresses and inconveniences of ill-assorted
marriages.
In times when the human being was little developed,
the elements of agreement and disagreement were simpler,
and marriages were proportionately more tranquil.
But modern civilized man has a thousand points of possible
discord in an immutable near relation where there
was one in the primitive ages.
The wail, and woe, and struggle to undo marriage
bonds, in our day, comes from this dissonance of more
developed and more widely varying natures, and it shows
that a large proportion of marriages have been contracted
without any advised and rational effort to ascertain
whether there was a reasonable foundation for a close
and life-long intimacy.
It would seem as if the arrangements and customs of
modern society did everything that could be done to render
such a previous knowledge impossible.
Good sense would say that if men and women are to
single each other out, and bind themselves by a solemn
oath, forsaking all others to cleave to each other as long
as life should last, there ought to be, before taking vows
of such gravity, the very best opportunity to become
minutely acquainted with each other's dispositions, and
habits, and modes of thought and action. It would
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
seem to be the dictate of reason that a long and intimate
friendship ought to be allowed, in which, without any
bias or commitment, young people might have full opportunity
to study each other's character and disposition,
being under no obligation, expressed or implied, on account
of such intimacy to commit themselves to the
irrevocable union.
Such a kind of friendship is the instinctive desire of
both the parties that make up society. Both young men
and young women, as we observe, would greatly enjoy a
more intimate and friendly intercourse, if the very fact
of that initiatory acquaintance were not immediately
seized upon by busy A, B, and C, and reported as an
engagement. The flower that might possibly blossom
into the rose of love is withered and blackened by the
busy efforts of gossips to pick it open before the time.
Our young friend, Alice Van Arsdel, was what in
modern estimation would be called just the “nicest kind
of a girl.” She had a warm heart, a high sense of justice
and honor, she was devout in her religious profession,
conscientious in the discharge of the duties of
family life. Naturally, Alice was of a temperament
which might have inclined her to worldly ambition. She
had that keen sense of the advantages of wealth and
station which even the most sensible person may have,
and, had her father's prosperity continued, might have
run the gay career of flirtation and conquest supposed to
be proper to a rich young belle.
The failure of her father not only cut off all these
prospects, but roused the deeper and better part of her
nature to comfort and support her parents, and to assist
in all ways in trimming the family vessel to the new navigation.
Her self-esteem took a different form. Had she
been enthroned in wealth and station, it would have taken
pleasure in reigning; thrown from that position, it
-- 097 --
[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]
became her pride to adapt herself entirely to the proprieties
of her different circumstances. Up to that hour, she had
counted Jim Fellows simply as a tassel on her fan, or any
other appendage to her glittering life. When the crash
came, she expected no more of him than of a last summer's
bird, and it was with somewhat of pleased surprise
that, on the first public tidings of the news, she received
from Jim an expensive hot-house bouquet of a kind that
he had never thought of giving in prosperous days.
“The extravagant boy!” she said. Yet she said it
with tears in her eyes, and she put the bouquet into
water, and changed it every day while it lasted. The
flowers and the friends of adversity have a value all their
own.
Then Jim came, came daily, with downright unsentimental
offers of help, and made so much fun and gaiety
for them in the days of their breaking up as almost
shocked Aunt Maria, who felt that a period of weeping
and wailing would have been more appropriate. Jim
became recognized in the family as a sort of factotum,
always alert and ready to advise or to do, and generally
knowing where every body or thing which was wanted
in New York was to be found. But, as Alice was by
no means the only daughter, as Marie and Angelique
were each in their way as lively and desirable young
candidates for admiration, it would have appeared that
here was the best possible chance for a young man to
have a friendship whose buds even the gossips would
not pick open to find if there were love inside of them.
As a young neophyte of the all-powerful press, Jim had
the dispensation of many favors, in the form of tickets to
operas, concerts, and other public entertainments, which
were means of conferring enjoyment and variety, and
dispensed impartially among the sisters. Eva's house,
in all the history of its finding, inception, and
-- 098 --
[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
construction, had been a ground for many a familiar meeting
from whence had grown up a pleasant feeling of comradeship
and intimacy.
The things that specialized this intimacy, as relating
to Alice more than to the other sisters, were things as indefinite
and indefinable as the shade mark between two
tints of the rainbow; and yet there undoubtedly was
a peculiar intimacy, and since the misfortunes of the
family it had been of a graver kind than before, though
neither of them cared to put it into words. Between a
young man and a young woman of marriageable age a
friendship of this kind, if let alone, generally comes to its
bud and blossom in its own season; and there is something
unutterably vexatious and revolting to every fibre
of a girl's nature to have any well-meaning interference
to force this denouement.
Alice enjoyed the unspoken devotion of Jim, which
she perceived by that acute sort of divination of which
women are possessed; she felt quietly sure that she had
more influence over him, could do more with him, than
any other woman; and this consciousness of power over
a man is something most agreeable to girls of Alice's degree
of self-esteem. She assumed to be a sort of mentor;
she curbed the wild sallies of his wit, rebuking him if he
travestied a hymn, or made a smart, funny application of
a text of Scripture. But, as she generally laughed, the
culprit was not really overborne by the censure. She
had induced him to go with her to Mr. St. John's church,
and even to take a class in the Sunday-school, where he
presided with the unction of an apostle over a class of
street “gamins,” who certainly never found a more entertaining
teacher.
Now, although Marie and Angelique were also teachers
in the same school, it somehow always happened that
Jim and Alice walked to the scene of their duties in
-- 099 --
[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]
company. It was one of those quiet, unobserved arrangements
of particles which are the result of laws of chemical
affinity. These street tête-à-têtes gave Alice admirable
opportunity for those graceful admonitions which are so
very effective on young gentlemen when coming from
handsome, agreeable monitors. On a certain Sunday
morning in our history, as Alice was on her way to the
mission school with Jim, she had been enjoining upon
him to moderate his extreme liveliness to suit the duties
of the place and scene.
“It 's all very well, Alice,” he said to her, “so long as
I do n't have to be too much with that St. John. But
I declare that fellow stirs me up awfully: he looks so
meek and so fearfully pious that it 's all I can do to keep
from ripping out an oath, just to see him jump!”
“Jim, you bad fellow! How can you talk so?”
“Well, it 's a serious fact now. Ministers ought n't
to look so pious! It 's too much a temptation. Why,
last Sunday, when he came trailing by so soft and meek
and asked me what books we wanted, I perfectly longed
to rip out an oath and say, `Why in thunder can't you
speak louder.' It 's a temptation of the devil, I know;
but you must n't let St. John and me run too much together,
or I shall blow out.”
“Oh, Jim, you must n't talk so. Why, you really
shock me—you grieve me.”
“Well, you see, I 've given up swearing for ever so
long, but some kinds of people do tempt me fearfully,
and he 's one of 'em, and then I think that he must think
I 'm a wolf in sheep's clothing. But then, you see, a
wolf understands those cubs better than a sheep. You
ought to hear how I put gospel into them. I make 'em
come out on the responses like little Trojans. I 've
promised every boy who is `sharp up' on his Collect
next Sunday a new pop-gun.”
-- 100 --
[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]
“O Jim, you creature!” said Alice, laughing.
“By George, Alice, it 's the best way. You do n't
know anything about these little heathen. You 've got to
take 'em where they live. They put up with the Collect
for the sake of the pop-gun, you see.”
“But, Jim, I really was in hopes that you would look
on this thing seriously,” said Alice, endeavoring to draw
on a face of protest.
“Why, Alice, I am serious; did n't I go round to the
highways and hedges, drumming up those little varmints?
Not a soul of them would have put his head inside a
Sunday-school room if it had n't been for me. I tell you
I ought to be encouraged now. I 'm not appreciated.”
“Oh Jim, you have done beautifully.”
“I should think I had. I keep a long face while
they are there, and do n't swear at Mr. St. John, and
sing like a church robin. So I think you ought to let
me let out a little to you going home. That eases my
mind; it 's the confessional—Mr. St. John believes in
that. I did n't swear, mind you. I only felt like it; maybe
that 'll wear off, by-and-by. So do n't give me up, yet.”
“Oh, I do n't; and I 'm perfectly sure, Jim, that you
are the very person that can do good to these wild boys.
Of course the free experience of life which young men
have, enables them to know how to deal with such cases
better than we girls can.”
“Yes, you ought to hear me expound the commandments,
and put it into them about stealing and lying.
You see Jim knows a thing or two, and is up to their
tricks. They do n't come it round Jim, I tell you. Any
boy that do n't toe the crack gets it. I give 'em C sharp
with the key up.”
“O Jim, you certainly are original in your ways!
But I dare say you 're right,” said Alice. “You know
how to get on with them.”
-- 101 --
[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]
“Indeed I do. I tell you I know what 's what for
these boys, though I do n't know, and do n't care about,
what the old coves did in the first two centuries, and all
that. Do n't you think, Alice, St. John is a little prosy
on that chapter?”
“Mr. St. John is such a good man that I receive
everything he says on subjects where he knows more
than I do,” said Alice, virtuously.
“Oh pshaw, Alice! if a fellow has to swallow every
good man's hobby-horses, hoofs, tail and all, why he 'll
have a good deal to digest. I tell you St. John is too
`other-worldly,' as Charles Lamb used to say. He
ought to get in love, and get married. I think, now,
that if our little Angie would take him in hand she would
bring him into mortal spheres, make a nice fellow of
him.”
“Oh, Mr. St. John never will marry,” said Alice, solemnly;
“he is devoted to the church. He has published
a tract on holy virginity that is beautiful.”
“Holy grandmother!” said Jim; “that 's all bosh,
Ally. Now you are too sensible a girl to talk that way.
That 's going to Rome on a high canter.”
“I don't think so,” said Alice, stoutly. “For my
part, I think if a man, for the sake of devoting himself
to the church, gives up family cares, I reverence him.
I like to feel that my rector is something sacred to the
altar. The very idea of a clergyman in any other than
sacred relations is disagreeable to me.”
“Go it, now! so long as I 'm not the clergyman!”
“You sauce-box!”
“Well, now, mark my words. St. John is a man, after
all, and not a Fra Angelico angel, with a long neck and
a lily in his hand, and, I tell you, when Angie sits there
at the head of her class, working and fussing over those
girls, she looks confoundedly pretty, and if St. John
-- 102 --
[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]
finds it out I shall think the better of him, and I think
he will.”
“Pshaw, Jim, he never looks at her.”
“Do n't he? he does though. I 've seen him go round
and round, and look at her as if she was an electrical
battery, or something that he was afraid might go off
and kill him. But he does look at her. I tell you, Jim
knows the signs of the sky.”
With which edifying preparation of mind, Alice found
herself at the door of the Sunday-school room, where the
pair were graciously received by Mr. St. John.
-- -- p710-114
CHAPTER X. MR. ST. JOHN.
[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]
THAT good man, in the calm innocence of his heart,
was ignorant of the temptations to which he exposed
his tumultuous young disciple. He was serenely
gratified with the sight of Jim's handsome face and alert,
active figure, as he was enacting good shepherd over his
unruly flock. Had he known the exact nature of the
motives which he presented to lead them to walk in the
ways of piety, he might have searched a good while in
primitive records before finding a churchly precedent
Arthur St. John was by nature a poet and idealist
He was as pure as a chrysolite, as refined as a flower;
and, being thus, had been, by the irony of fate, born on
one of the bleakest hillsides of New Hampshire, where
there was a literal famine of any esthetic food. His
childhood had been fed on the dry husks of doctrinal
catechism; he had sat wearily on hard high-backed seats
and dangled his little legs hopelessly through sermons
on the difference between justification and sanctification.
His ultra-morbid conscientiousness had been wrought
into agonized convulsions by stringent endeavors to
carry him through certain prescribed formulæ of conviction
of sin and conversion; efforts which, grating against
natures of a certain delicate fiber, produce wounds and
abrasions which no after-life can heal. To such a one
the cool shades of the Episcopal Church, with its orderly
ways, its poetic liturgy, its artistic ceremonies, were as the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land. No converts are
-- 104 --
[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]
so disposed to be ultra as converts by reaction; and persons
of a poetic and imaginative temperament are peculiarly
liable to these extremes.
Wearied with the intense and noisy clangor of modern
thought, it was not strange if he should come to think
free inquiry an evil, look longingly back on the ages
of simple credulity, and believe that the dark ages of intellect
were the bright ones of faith. Without really
going over to the Romish Church, he proposed to walk
that path, fine as the blade that Mahomet fabled as the
Bridge of Paradise, in which he might secure all the
powers and influences and advantages of that old system
without its defects and corruptions.
So he had established his mission in one of the least
hopeful neighborhoods of New York. The chapel was a
marvel of beauty and taste at small expense, for St. John
was in a certain way an ecclesiastical architect and artist.
He could illuminate neatly, and had at command a good
store of the beautiful forms of the past to choose from.
He worked at diaphanous windows which had all the
effect of painted glass, and emblazoned texts and legends,
and painted in polychrome, till the little chapel dazzled
the eyes of street vagabonds, who never before
had been made welcome to so pretty a place in their
lives. Then, when he impressed it on the minds of these
poor people that this lovely, pretty little church was their
Father's house, freely open to them every day, and that
prayers and psalms might be heard there morning and
evening, and the holy communion of Christ's love every
Sunday, it is no marvel if many were drawn in and impressed.
Beauty of form and attractiveness of color in
the church arrangements of the rich may cease to be
means of grace and become wantonness of luxury—but
for the very poor they are an education, they are means
of quickening the artistic sense, which is twin brother to
-- 105 --
[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]
the spiritual. The rich do not need these things, and the
poor do.
St. John, like many men of seemingly gentle temperament,
had the organizing talent of the schoolmaster. No
one could be with him and not feel him; and the intense
purpose with which he labored, in season and out
of season, carried all before it. He marshaled his forces
like an army; his eye was everywhere and on everyone.
He trained his choir of singing boys for processional
singing; he instructed his teachers, he superintended and
catechised his school. In the life of incessant devotion
to the church which he led, woman had no place except
as an obedient instrument. He valued the young and
fair who flocked to his standard, simply and only for what
they could do in his work, and apparently had no worldly
change with which to carry on commerce of society.
Yet it was true, as Jim said, that his eye had in some
way or other been caught by Angelique; yet, at first, it
was in the way of doubt and inquiry, rather than approval.
Angelique was gifted by nature with a certain air of piquant
vivacity, which gave to her pretty person the effect
of a French picture. In heart and character she was
a perfect little self-denying saint, infinitely humble in her
own opinion, devoted to doing good wherever her hand
could find it, and ready at any time to work her pretty
fingers to the bone in a good cause. But yet undeniably
she had a certain style and air of fashion not a bit
like “St. Jerome's love” or any of the mediæval
saints. She could not help it. It was not her fault
that everything about her had a sort of facility for sliding
into trimly fanciful arrangement—that her little hats
would sit so jauntily on her pretty head, that her foot
and ankle had such a provoking neatness, and that her
daintily gloved hands had a hundred little graceful
-- 106 --
[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]
movements in a moment. Then her hair had numberless mutinous
little curly-wurlies, and flew of itself into the golden
mists of modern fashion; and her almond-shaped hazel
eyes had a trick of glancing like a bird's, and she looked
always as if a smile might break out at any moment, even
on solemn occasions;—all which were traits to inspire
doubt in the mind of an earnest young clergyman, in whose
study the pictures of holy women were always lean, long-favored,
with eyes rolled up, and looking as if they never
had heard of a French hat or a pair of gaiter-boots. He
watched her the first Sunday that she sat at the head of
her class, looking for all the world like a serious-minded
canary bird, and wondered whether so evidently airy and
worldly a little creature would adapt herself to the earnest
work before her; but she did succeed in holding a set of
unpromising street-girls in a sort of enchanted state while
she chippered to them in various little persuasive intonations,
made them say catechism after her, and then told
them stories that were not in any prayer-book. After a
little observation, he was convinced that she would “do.”
But the habit of watchfulness continued!
On this day, as Jim had suggested the subject,
Alice somehow was moved to remark the frequent direction
of Mr. St. John's eyes.
On this Sunday Angelique had had the misfortune to
don for the first time a blue suit, with a blue velvet hat
that gave a brilliant effect to her golden hair. In front
of this hat, nodding with every motion of her head, was
a blue and gold humming bird. She wore a cape of ermine,
and her class seemed quite dazzled by her appearance.
Now Mr. St. John had worked vigorously to get
up his little chapel in blue and gold, gorgeous to behold;
but a blue and gold teacher was something that there
was no churchly precedent for—although if we look into
the philosophy of the thing there may be the same sort of
-- 107 --
[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]
influence exercised over street barbarians by a prettily-dressed
teacher as by a prettily-dressed church. But as
Mr. St. John gazed at Angelique, and wondered whether
it was quite the thing for her to look so striking, he saw a
little incident that touched his heart. There was a poor,
pinched, wan-visaged little girl, the smallest in the class,
whose face was deformed by the scar of a fearful burn.
She seemed to be in a trembling ecstacy at Angie's finery,
and while she was busy with her lesson stealthily laid her
thin little hand upon the ermine cape. Immediately she
was sharply reproved by a coarse, strong, older sister, who
had her in charge, and her hand rudely twitched back.
Angie turned with bright, astonished eyes, and seeing
the little creature cowering with shame, beamed down on
her a lovely smile, stooped and kissed her.
“You like it, dear?” she said frankly. “Sit up and
rest your cheek on it, if you like,” and Angie gathered her
up to her side and went on telling of the Good Shepherd.
Arthur St. John took the whole meaning of the incident.
It carried him back beyond the catacombs to
something more authentic, even to Him who said, “Suffer
little children to come unto me,” and he felt a strange,
new throb under his surplice.
The throb alarmed him to the degree that he did not
look in that direction again through all the services,
though he certainly did remark certain clear, bird-like
tones in the chants with a singular feeling of nearness.
Just about this time, St. John, unconsciously to himself,
was dealing with forces of which no previous experience
of life had given him a conception. He passed
out of his vestry and walked to his solitary study in a
kind of maze of vague reverie, in which golden hair and
hazel eyes seemed strangely blent with moral enthusiasms.
“What a lovely spirit!” he thought; and he felt as if he
would far rather have followed her out of the door than
-- 108 --
[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]
to have come to the cold, solitary sanctities of his own
room.
Mr. St. John's study was not the sanctum of a self-indulgent,
petted clergyman, but rather that of one who
took life in very serious earnest. His first experience of
pastoral life having been among the poor, the sight of the
disabilities, wants, and dangers, the actual terrible facts
of human existence, had produced the effect on him that
they often do on persons of extreme sensibility and conscientiousness.
He could not think of retaining for himself
an indulgence or a luxury while wants so terrible
stared him in the face; and his study, consequently, was
furnished in the ascetic rather than the esthetic style. Its
only ornaments were devotional pictures of a severe medi
æval type and the books of a well-assorted library.
There was no carpet; there were no lounging chairs or
sofas of ease. In place was a prie dieu of approved antique
pattern, on which stood two wax candles and lay
his prayer-book. A crucifix of beautiful Italian workmanship
stood upon it, and it was scrupulously draped
with the appropriate churchly color of the season.
As we have said, this room seemed strangely lonely
as he entered it. He was tired with work which had begun
early in the morning, with scarce an interval of
repose, and a perversely shocking idea presented itself
to his mind—how pleasant it would be to be met on
returning from his labors by just such a smile as he
had seen boaming down on the poor little girl.
When he found himself out, and discovered that this
was where his thoughts were running to, he organized a
manly resistance; and recited aloud, with unction and
emphasis, Moore's exquisite version of St. Jerome's opinion
of what the woman should be whom a true priest
might love.
“Who is the maid my spirit seeks,
Through cold reproof and slander's blight?
-- 109 --
[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]
Has she Love's roses on her cheeks?
Is her's an eye of this world's light?
No—wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if at times a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.
I choose not her, my heart's elect,
From those who seek their Maker's shrine
In gems and garlands proudly deck'd
As if themselves were things divine.
No—Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broider'd vail;
And she who comes in glitt'ring vest
To mourn her frailty, still is frail.
Not so the faded form I prize
And love, because its bloom is gone;
The glory in those sainted eyes
Is all the grace her brow puts on.
And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
So touching, as that form's decay
Which, like the altar's trembling light,
In holy luster wastes away.”
“Certainly, not in the least like her,” he thought, and
he resolved to dismiss the little hat with the humming
bird, the golden mist of hair, and the glancing eyes, into
the limbo of vain thoughts.
Mr. St. John, like many another ardent and sincere
young clergyman, had undertaken to be shepherd and
bishop of souls, with more knowledge on every possible
subject than the nature of the men and women he was to
guide.
A fastidious taste, scholarly habits, and great sensitiveness,
had kept him out of society during all his collegiate
days. His life had been that of a devout recluse.
He knew little of mankind, except the sick and decrepid
old women, whom he freely visited, and who had for
nothing the vision of his handsome face and the charm
-- 110 --
[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]
of his melodious voice amid the dirt and discomforts of
their sordid poverty. But fashionable young women, the
gay daughters of ease and luxury, were to him rather objects
of suspicion and apprehension than of attraction.
If they flocked to his church, and seemed eager to enlist
in church work under his leadership, he was determined
that there should be no sham in it. In sermon after sermon,
he denounced in stringent terms the folly and guilt
of the sentimental religion which makes playthings of
the solemn rituals of the church, which wears the cross
as a glittering bauble on the outside, and shrinks from
every form of the real self-denial which it symbolizes.
Angelique, by nature the most conscientious of beings,
had listened to this eloquence with awful self-condemnation.
She felt herself a dreadfully sinful little
girl, that she had lived so unprofitable a life hitherto, and
she undertook her Sunday-school labors with an intense
ardor. When she came to visit in the poor dwellings
from whence her pupils were drawn, and to see how devoid
their life was of everything which she had been
taught to call comfort, she felt wicked and selfish for enjoying
even the moderate luxuries allowed by her father's
reduced position. The allowance that had been given her
for her winter wardrobe seemed to be more than she had a
right to keep for herself in face of the terrible destitutions
she saw. Secretly she set herself to see how much she
could save from it. She had the gift of a quick eye and
of deft fingers; and so, after running through the fashionable
shops of dresses and millinery to catch the ideal of
the hour, she went to work for herself. A faded merino
was ripped, dyed, and, by the aid of clever patterns and
skillful hands, transformed into the stylish blue suit.
The little blue velvet hat had been gathered from the
trimmings of an old dress. The humming bird had
been a necessary appendage, to cover the piecing of the
-- 111 --
[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]
velvet; and thus the outfit which had called up so many
alarmed scruples in Mr. St. John's mind was as completely
a work of self-denial and renunciation as if
she had come out in the black robe of a Sister of
Charity.
The balance saved was, in her own happy thought,
devoted to a Christmas outfit for some of the poorest of
her scholars, whose mothers struggled hard and sat up
late washing and mending to make them decent to be
seen in Sunday-school.
But how should Mr. St. John know this, which
Angie had not even told to her own mother and sisters?
To say the truth, she feared that perhaps she might be
laughed at as Quixotic, or wanting in good sense, in going
so much beyond the usual standard in thoughtfulness
for others, and, at any rate, kept her own little counsel.
Mr. St. John knew nothing about women in that class of
society, their works and ways, where or how they got
their dresses; but he had a general impression that fashionable
women were in heathen darkness, and spent
on dress fabulous amounts that might be given to the
poor. He had certain floating views in his mind, when
further advanced in his ministry, of instituting a holy
sisterhood, who should wear gray cloaks, and spend all
their money and time in deeds of charity.
On the present occasion, he could see only the very
patent fact that Angelique's dress was stylish and becoming
to an alarming degree; that, taken in connection
with her bright cheeks, her golden hair, and glancing
hazel eyes, she was to the full as worldly an object
as a blue-bird, or an oriole, or any of those brilliant
creatures with which it has pleased the Maker of all to
distract our attention in our pilgrimage through this sinful
and dying world.
Angie was so far from assuming to herself any merit
-- 112 --
[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]
in this sacrifice that her only thought was how little it
would do. Had it been possible and proper, she would
have willingly given her ermine cape to the poor, wan
little child, to whom the mere touch of it was such a
strange, bewildering luxury; but she had within herself
a spice of practical common sense which showed her
that our most sacred impulses are not always to be literally
obeyed.
Yet, while the little scarred cheek was resting on her
ermine in such apparent bliss, there mingled in with the
thread of her instructions to the children a determination
next day to appraise cheap furs, and see if she
could not bless the little one with a cape of her very own.
Angie's quiet common sense always stood her in
good stead in moderating her enthusiasms, and even
carried her at times to the length of differing with the
rector, to whom she looked up as an angel guide. For
example, when he had expatiated on the propriety and
superior sanctity of coming fasting to the holy communion,
sensible Angie had demurred.
“I must teach my class,” she pleaded with herself,
“and if I should go all that long way up to church
without my breakfast, I should have such a sick-headache
that I could n't do anything properly for them. I 'm
always cross and stupid when that comes on.”
Thus Angie concluded by her own little light, in
her own separate way, that “to do good was better than
sacrifice.” Nevertheless, she supposed all this was because
she was so low down in the moral scale, for did
not Mr. St. John fast?—doubtless it gave him headache,
but he was so good he went on just as well with a headache
as without—and Angie felt how far she must rise to
be like that.
“There now,” said Jim Fellows, triumphantly, to
-- 113 --
[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]
Alice, as they were coming home, “did n't you see your
angel of the churches looking in a certain direction this
morning?”
Alice had, as a last resort, a fund of reserved dignity
which she could draw upon whenever she was really
and deeply in earnest.
“Jim,” she said, without a smile, and in a grave tone,
“I have confidence that you are a true friend to us all.”
“Well, I hope so,” said Jim, wonderingly.
“And you are too kind-hearted and considerate to
wish to give real pain.”
“Certainly I am.”
“Well, then, promise me never to make remarks of
that nature again, to me or anybody else, about Angie
and Mr. St. John. It would be more distressing and
annoying to her than anything you could do; and the
dear child is now perfectly simple-hearted and unconstrained,
and cheerful as a bird in her work. The
least intimation of this kind might make her conscious
and uncomfortable, and spoil it all. So promise me
now.”
Jim eyed his fair monitress with the kind of wicked
twinkle a naughty boy gives to his mother, to ascertain
if she is really in earnest, but Alice maintained a brow
of “sweet, austere composure,” and looked as if she expected
to be obeyed.
“Well, I perfectly long for a hit at St. John,” he said,
“but if you say so, so it must be.”
“You promise on your honor?” insisted Alice.
“Yes, I promise on my honor; so there!” said Jim.
“I wont even wink an eyelid in that direction. I 'll
make a perfect stock and stone of myself. But,” he
added, “Jim can have his thoughts for all that.”
Alice was not exactly satisfied with the position assumed
by her disciple, she therefore proceeded to fortify
-- 114 --
[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]
him in grace by some farther observations, delivered in a
very serious tone.
“For my part,” she said, “I think nothing is in such
bad taste, to say the least, as the foolish way in which
some young people will allow themselves to talk and
think about an unmarried young clergyman, while he
is absorbed in duties so serious and has feelings so far
above their comprehension. The very idea or suggestion
of a flirtation between a clergyman and one of his flock
is utterly repulsive and disagreeable.”
Here Jim, with a meek gravity of face, simply interposed
the question:
“What is flirtation?”
“You know, now, as well as I do,” said Alice, with
heightened color. “You need n't pretend you do n't.”
“Oh,” said Jim. “Well, then, I suppose I do.” And
the two walked on in silence, for some way; Jim with an
air of serious humility, as if in a deep study, and Alice
with cheeks getting redder and redder with vexation.
“Now, Jim,” she said at last, “you are very provoking.”
“I 'm sure I give in to everything you say,” said Jim,
in an injured tone.
“But you act just as if you were making fun all the
time; and you know you are.”
“Upon my word I do n't know what you mean. I
have assented to every word you said—given up to you
hook and line—and now you're not pleased. I tell you
it 's rough on a fellow.”
“Oh, come,” said Alice, laughing at the absurdity of
the quarrel; “there 's no use in scolding you.”
Jim laughed too, and felt triumphant; and just then
they turned a corner and met Aunt Maria coming from
church.
-- -- p710-126
CHAPTER XI. AUNT MARIA CLEARS HER CONSCIENCE.
[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
WHEN Mrs. Wouvermans met our young friends,
she was just returning home after performing
her morning devotions in one of the most time-honored
churches in New York. She was as thorough and faithful
in her notions of religion as of housekeeping. She
adhered strictly to her own church, in which undeniably
none but ancient and respectable families worshiped, and
where she was perfectly sure that whatever of dress or
deportment she saw was certain to be the correct thing.
It was a church of eminent propriety. It was large
and lofty, with long-drawn aisles and excellent sleeping
accommodations, where the worshipers were assisted to
dream of heaven by every appliance of sweet music, and
not rudely shaken in their slumbers by any obtrusiveness
on the part of the rector.
In fact, everything about the services of this church
was thoroughly toned down by good breeding. The responses
of the worshipers were given in decorous whispers
that scarcely disturbed the solemn stillness; for
when a congregation of the best-fed and best-bred people
of New York on their knees declare themselves “miserable
sinners,” it is a matter of delicacy to make as little
disturbance about it as possible. A well-paid choir of
the finest professional singers took the whole responsibility
of praising God into their own hands, so that the
respectable audience were relieved from any necessity
of exertion in that department. As the most brilliant
-- 116 --
[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]
lights of the opera were from time to time engaged to
render the more solemn parts of the service, flocks of
sinners who otherwise would never have entered a church
crowded to hear these “morning stars sing together;”
let us hope, to their great edification. The sermons of
the rector, delivered in the dim perspective, had a
plaintive, far-off sound, as a voice of one “crying in the
wilderness,” and crying at a very great distance. This
was in part owing to the fact that the church, having
been built after an old English ecclesiastical model in
days when English churches were used only for processional
services, was entirely unadapted for any purposes
of public speaking, so that a man's voice had about as
good chance of effect in it as if he spoke anywhere in
the thoroughfares of New York.
The rector, the Rev. Dr. Cushing, was a good, amiable
man; middle-aged, adipose, discreet, devoted to “our
excellent liturgy,” and from his heart opposed to anything
which made trouble.
From the remote distances whence his short Sunday
cry was uttered, he appeared moved to send protests
against two things: first, the tendency to philosophical
speculation and the skeptical humanitarian theories of
the age; and second, against Romanizing tendencies in
the church. The young missionary, St. John, who got
up to early services at conventual hours, and had prayers
every morning and evening, and communion every Sunday
and every Saint's day; who fasted on all the Ember
Days, and called on other people to fast, and seemed
literally to pray without ceasing; appeared to him a
bristling impersonation of the Romanizing tendencies of
the age, and one of those who troubled Israel. The
fact that many of the young ladies of the old established
church over which the good Doctor ministered were
drawn to flock up to the services of this disturber gave
-- 117 --
[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]
to him a realizing sense of the danger to which the
whole church was thereby exposed.
On this particular morning he had selected that well-worn
text, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus,
better than all the waters of Jordan? May I not
wash in them and be clean?”
Of course, like everybody who preaches on this text,
he assumed that Jordan was the true faith as he preached
it, and that the rivers of Damascus were any and every
faith that diverged from his own.
These improper and profane rivers were various.
There was, of course, modern skepticism with profuse allusions
to Darwin; there were all sorts of modern humanitarian
and social reforms; and there was in the bosom
of the very church herself, he regretted to state, a disposition
to go off after the Abana and Pharpar of Romish
abominations. All these were to be avoided, and people
were to walk in those quiet paths of godliness in which
they had been brought up to walk, and, in short, do
pretty much as they had been doing, undisturbed by new
notions, or movements, or ideas, whether out of the
church or in.
And as he plaintively recited these exhortations, his
voice coming in a solemn and spectral tone adown the
far-off aisles, it seemed to give a dreamy and unreal effect
even to the brisk modern controversies and disturbances
which formed his theme. The gorgeous, many-colored
lights streamed silently the while through the stained
windows, turning the bald head of one ancient churchwarden
yellow, and of another green, and another purple,
while the white feathers on Mrs. Demas's bonnet
passed gradually through successive tints of the rainbow;
and the audience dosed off at intervals, and awakened
again to find the rector at another head, and talking
about something else; and so on till the closing ascription
-- 118 --
[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]
to the Trinity, when everybody rose with a solemn sense
that something or other was over. The greater part of
the audience in the intervals of somnolency congratulated
themselves that they were in no danger of running after
new ideas, and thanked God that they never speculated
about philosophy. As to turning out to daily morning
and evening prayers, or fasting on any days whatsoever,
or going into any extravagant excesses of devotion and
self-sacrifice, they were only too happy to find that it was
their duty to resist the very suggestion as tending directly
to Romanism.
The true Jordan, they were happy to find, ran directly
through their own particular church, and they had only
to continue their stated Sunday naps on its borders as
before.
Mrs. Wouvermans, however, was not of a dozing or
dreamy nature. Her mind, such as it was, was always
wide awake and cognizant of what she was about. She
was not susceptible of a dreamy state: to use an idiomatic
phrase, she was always up and dressed; everything
in her mental vision was clear cut and exact. The sermon
was intensified in its effect upon her by the state of
the Van Arsdel pew, of which she was on this Sunday
the only occupant. The fact was, that the ancient and
respectable church in which she worshiped had just been
through a contest, in which Mr. Simons, a young assistant
rector, had been attempting to introduce some of
the very practices hinted at in the discourse. This fervid
young man, full of fire and enthusiasm, had incautiously
been made associate rector for this church, at the
time when Dr. Cushing had been sent to Europe to recover
from a bronchial attack. He was young, earnest
and eloquent, and possessed with the idea that all those
burning words and phrases in the prayer-book, which had
dropped like precious gems dyed with the heart's blood of
-- 119 --
[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]
saints and martyrs, ought to mean something more than
they seemed to do for modern Christians. Without introducing
any new ritual, he set himself to make vivid
and imperative every doctrine and direction of the
prayer-book, and to bring the drowsy company of pewholders
somewhere up within sight of the plane of the
glorious company of apostles and the noble army of
martyrs with whose blood it was sealed. He labored
and preached, and strove and prayed, tugging at the
drowsy old church, like Pegasus harnessed to a stone
cart. He set up morning and evening prayers, had communion
every Sunday, and annoyed old rich saints by
suggesting that it was their duty to build mission chapels
and carry on mission works, after the pattern of St. Paul
and other irrelevant and excessive worthies, who in their
time were accused of turning the world upside down.
Of course there was resistance and conflict, and more
life in the old church than it had known for years; but
the conflict became at last so wearisome that, on Mr.
Cushing's return from Europe, the young angel spread
his wings and fled away to a more congenial parish in a
neighboring city.
But many in whom his labors had wakened a craving
for something real and earnest in religion strayed off to
other churches, and notably the younger members of the
Van Arsdel family, to the no small scandal of Aunt Maria.
The Van Arsdel pew was a perfect fort and intrenchment
of respectability. It was a great high, square wallpew,
well cushioned and ample, with an imposing array of
prayer-books; there was room in it for a regiment of
saints, and here Aunt Maria sat on this pleasant Sunday
listening to the dangers of the church, all alone. She
felt, in a measure, like Elijah the Tishbite, as if she
only were left to stand up for the altars of her faith.
Mrs. Wouvermans was not a person to let an evil run
-- 120 --
[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]
on very far without a protest. “While she was musing
the fire burned,” and when she had again mounted guard
in the pew at afternoon service, and still found herself
alone, she resolved to clear her conscience; and so she
walked straight up to Nellie's, to see why none of them
were at church.
“It's a shame, Nellie, a perfect shame! There wasn't
a creature but myself in our pew to-day, and good Dr.
Cushing giving such a sermon this morning!”
This to Mrs. Van Arsdel, whom she found luxuriously
ensconced on a sofa drawn up before the fire in her bedroom.
“Ah, well, the fact is, Maria, I had such a headache
this morning,” replied she, plaintively.
“Well, then, you ought to have made your husband
and family go; somebody ought to be there! It positively
isn't respectable.”
“Ah, well, Maria, my husband, poor man, gets so
tired and worn out with his week's work, I haven't a
heart to get him up early enough for morning service.
Mr. Van Arsdel isn't feeling quite well lately; he hasn't
been out at all to-day.”
“Well, there are the girls, Alice and Angelique and
Marie, where are they? All going up to that old Popish,
ritualistic chapel, I suppose. It's too bad. Now, that's
all the result of Mr. Simons's imprudences. I told you,
in the time of it, just what it would lead to. It leads
straight to Rome, just as I said. Mr. Simons set them
a-going, and now he is gone and they go where they have
lighted candles on the altar every Sunday, and Mr. St.
John prays with his back to them, and has processions,
and wears all sorts of heathenish robes; and your daughters
go there, Nellie.”
The very plumes in Aunt Maria's hat nodded with
warning energy as she spoke
-- 121 --
[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]
“Are you sure the candles are lighted?” said Mrs.
Van Arsdel, sitting up with a weak show of protest, and
looking gravely into the fire. “I was up there once, and
there were candles on the altar, to be sure, but they were
not lighted.”
“They are lighted,” said Mrs. Wouvermans, with
awful precision. “I've been up there myself and seen
them. Now, how can you let your children run at loose
ends so, Nellie? I only wish you had heard the sermon
this morning. He showed the danger of running into
Popery; and it really was enough to make one's blood run
cold to hear how those infidels are attacking the church,
carrying all before them; and then to think that the
only true church should be all getting divided and
mixed up and running after Romanism! It's perfectly
awful.”
“Well, I don't know what we can do,” said Mrs. Van
Arsdel, helplessly.
“And we've got both kinds of trouble in our family.
Eva's husband is reading all What's-his-name's works—
that evolution man, and all that; and then Eva and the
girls going after this St. John—and he's leading them
as straight to Rome as they can go.”
Poor Mrs. Van Arsdel was somewhat fluttered by
this alarming view of the case, and clasped her pretty,
fat, white hands, that glittered with rings like lilies with
dew-drops, and looked the image of gentle, incapable
perplexity.
“I don't believe Harry is an infidel,” she said at last.
“He has to read Darwin and all those things, because
he has to talk about them in the magazine; and as to
Mr. St. John—you know Eva is delicate and can't walk
so far as our church, and this is right round the corner
from her; and Mr. St. John is a good man. He does
ever so much for the poor, and almost supports a mission
-- 122 --
[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]
there; and the Bishop doesn't forbid him, and if the
Bishop thought there was any danger, he would.”
“Well, I can't think, for my part, what our Bishop can
be thinking of,” said Aunt Maria, who was braced up to
an extraordinary degree by the sermon of the morning.
“I don't see how he can let them go on so—with candles,
and processions, and heathen robes, and all that. I'd
process 'em out of the church in quick time. If I were
he, I'd have all that sort of trumpery cleaned out at
once; for just see where it leads to! I may not be as
good a Christian as I ought to be—we all have our short-comings—
but one thing I know, I do hate the Catholics
and all that belongs to them; and I'd no more have such
goings on in my diocese than I'd have moths in my carpet!
I'd sweep 'em right out!” said Aunt Maria, with a
gesture as if she held the besom of destruction.
Mrs. Wouvermans belonged to a not uncommon class
of Christians, whose evidences of piety are more vigorous
in hating than in loving. There is no manner of doubt
that she would have made good her word,had she been a
bishop.
“Oh, well, Maria,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, drawing
her knit zephyr shawl about her with a sort of consolatory
movement, and settling herself cosily back on her
sofa, “it 's evident that the Bishop does n't see just as
you do, and I am content to allow what he does. As to
the girls, they are old enough to judge for themselves,
and, besides, I think they are doing some good by teaching
in that mission school. I hope so, at least. Anyway,
I could n't help it if I would. But, do tell me, did
Mrs. Demas have on her new bonnet?”
“Yes, she did,” said Aunt Maria, with vigor; “and
I can tell you it 's a perfect fright, if it did come from
Paris. Another thing I saw—fringes have come round
again! Mrs. Lamar's new cloak was trimmed with fringe.”
-- 123 --
[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]
“You do n't say so,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, contemplating
all the possible consequences of this change.
“There was another reason why I could n't go out this
morning,” she added, rather irrelevantly—“I had no
bonnet. Adrienne could n't get the kind of ruche necessary
to finish it till next week, and the old one is too
shabby. Were the Stuyvesants out?”
“Oh, yes, in full force. She has the same bonnet she
wore last year, done over with a new feather.”
“Oh, well, the Stuyvesants can do as they please,”
said Mrs. Van Arsdel; “everybody knows who they are,
let them wear what they will.”
“Emma Stuyvesant had a new Paris hat and a sacque
trimmed with bullion fringe,” continued Aunt Maria.
“I thought I'd tell you, because you can use what was on
your velvet dress over again; it 's just as good as ever.”
“So I can”—and for a moment the great advantage
of going punctually to church appeared to Mrs. Van
Arsdel. “Did you see Sophie Sidney?”
“Yes. She was gorgeous in a mauve suit with hat to
match; but she has gone off terribly in her looks—yellow
as a lemon.”
“Who else did you see?” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, who
liked this topic of conversation better than the dangers
of the church.
“Oh, well, the Davenports were there, and the Livingstones,
and of course Polly Elmore, with her tribe,
looking like birds of Paradise. The amount of time and
money and thought that family gives to dress is enormous!
John Davenport stopped and spoke to me
coming out of church. He says, `Seems to me, Mrs.
Wouvermans, your young ladies have deserted us; you
must n't suffer them to stray from the fold,' says he. I
saw he had his eye on our pew when he first came into
church.”
-- 124 --
[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]
“I think, Maria, you really are quite absurd in your
suspicions about that man,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel. “I
do n't think there 's anything in it.”
“Well, just wait now and see. I know more about it
than you do. If only Alice manages her cards right, she
can get that man.”
“Alice will never manage cards for any purpose. She
is too proud for that. She has n't a bit of policy.”
“And there was that Jim Fellows waiting on her
home. I met him this morning, just as I turned the
corner.”
“Well, Alice tries to exert a good influence over Jim,
and has got him to teach in Mr. St. John's Sunday-school.”
“Fiddlesticks! What does he care for Sunday-school?”
“Well, the girls all say that he does nicely. He has
more influence over that class of boys than anybody else
would.”
“Likely! Set a rogue to catch a rogue,” said Aunt
Maria. “It 's his being seen so much with Alice that
I 'm thinking of. You may depend upon it, it has a bad
effect.”
Mrs. Van Arsdel dreaded the setting of her sister's
mind in this direction, so by way of effecting a diversion
she rang and inquired when tea would be ready. As the
door opened, the sound of very merry singing came up
stairs. Angelique was seated at the piano and playing
tunes out of one of the Sunday-school manuals, and the
whole set were singing with might and main. Jim's tenor
could be heard above all the rest.
“Why, is that fellow here?” said Aunt Maria.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel; “he very often stays
to tea with us Sunday nights, and he and the girls sing
hymns together.”
-- 125 --
[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]
“Hymns!” said Aunt Maria. “I should call that a
regular jollification that they are having down there.”
“Oh, well, Maria, they are singing children's tunes
out of one of the little Sunday-school manuals. You
know children's tunes are so different from old-fashioned
psalm tunes!”
Just then the choir below struck up
“Forward, Christian soldier,”
with a marching energy and a vivacity that was positively
startling, and, to be sure, not in the least like the old,
long-drawn, dolorous strains once supposed to be peculiar
to devotion. In fact, one of the greatest signs of
progress in our modern tunes is the bursting forth of religious
thought and feeling in childhood and youth in
strains gay and airy as hope and happiness—melodies
that might have been learned of those bright little “fowls
of the air,” of whom the Master bade us take lessons, so
that a company of wholesome, healthy, right-minded
young people can now get together and express themselves
in songs of joy, and hope, and energy, such as
childhood and youth ought to be full of.
Let those who will talk of the decay of Christian faith
in our day; so long as songs about Jesus and his love are
bursting forth on every hand, thick as violets and apple
blossoms in June, so long as the little Sunday-school song
books sell by thousands and by millions, and spring forth
every year in increasing numbers, so long will it appear
that faith is ever fresh-springing and vital. It was the
little children in the temple who cried, “Hosanna to the
Son of David,” when chief priests and scribes were
scowling and saying, “Master, forbid them,” and doubtless
the same dear Master loves to hear these child-songs
now as then.
At all events, our little party were having a gay and
-- 126 --
[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]
festive time over two or three new collections of Clarion,
Golden Chain, Golden Shower, or what not, of which Jim
had brought a pocketful for the girls to try, and certainly
the melodies as they came up were bright and lively and
pretty enough to stir one's blood pleasantly. In fact,
both Aunt Maria and Mrs. Van Arsdel were content for
a season to leave the door open and listen.
“You see,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, “Jim is such a
pleasant, convenient, obliging fellow, and has done so
many civil turns for the family, that we quite make him
at home here; we don't mind him at all. It's a pleasant
thing, too, and a convenience, now the boys are gone, to
have some young man that one feels perfectly free with
to wait on the girls; and where there are so many
of them, there 's less danger of anything particular.
There 's no earthly danger of Alice's being specially interested
in Jim. He is n't at all the person she would
ever think seriously of, though she likes him as a friend.”
Mrs. Wouvermans apparently acquiesced for the time
in this reasoning, but secretly resolved to watch appearances
narrowly this evening, and if she saw what warranted
the movement to take the responsibility of the
case into her own hands forthwith. Her perfect immutable
and tranquil certainty that she was the proper person
to manage anything within the sphere of her vision
gave her courage to go forward in spite of the fears and
remonstrances of any who might have claimed that they
were parties concerned.
Mr. Jim Fellows was one of those persons in whom a
sense of humor operates as a subtle lubricating oil through
all the internal machinery of the mind, causing all which
might otherwise have jarred or grated to slide easily.
Many things which would be a torture to more earnest
people were to him a source of amusement. In fact,
humor was so far a leading faculty that it was difficult to
-- 127 --
[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]
keep him within limits of propriety and decorum, and
prevent him from racing off at unsuitable periods like a
kitten after a pin-ball, skipping over all solemnities of
etiquette and decorum. He had not been so long intimate
in the family without perfectly taking the measure
of so very active and forth-putting a member as Aunt
Maria. He knew exactly—as well as if she had told
him—how she regarded him, for his knowledge of character
was not the result of study, but that sort of clear
sight which in persons of quick perceptive organs seems
like a second sense. He saw into persons without an
effort, and what he saw for the most part only amused
him.
He perceived immediately on sitting down to tea
that he was under the glance of Mrs. Wouverman's
watchful and critical eye, and the result was that he became
full and ready to boil over with wicked drollery.
With an apparently grave face, without passing the limits
of the most ceremonious politeness and decorum, he
contrived, by a thousand fleeting indescribable turns
and sliding intonations and adroit movements to get all
the girls into a tempest of suppressed gaiety. There are
wicked rogues known to us all who have this magical
power of making those around them burst out into indiscreet
sallies of laughter, while they retain the most edifying
and innocent air of gravity. Seated next to Aunt
Maria, Jim managed, by most devoted attention and
reverential listening, to draw from her a zealous analysis
of the morning sermon, which she gave with the more
heat and vigor, hoping thereby to reprove the stray sheep
who had thus broken boundaries.
Her views of the danger of modern speculation, and
her hearty measures for its repression, were given with
an earnestness that was from the heart.
“I can 't understand what anybody wants to have
-- 128 --
[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]
these controversies for, and listen to these infidel philosophers.
I never doubt. I never have doubted. I do n't
think I have altered an iota of my religious faith since I
was seven years old; and if I had the control of things,
I 'd put a stop to all this sort of fuss.”
“You then would side with his Holiness, the Pope,”
said Jim. “That's precisely the ground of his last allocution.”
“No, indeed, I shouldn't. I think Popery is worse
yet—it's terrible! Dr. Cushing showed that this morning,
and it's the greatest danger of our day; and I think
that Mr. St. John of yours is nothing more than a decoy
duck to lead you all to Rome. I went up there once and
saw 'em genuflecting, and turning to the east, and burning
candles, and that's all I want to know about them.”
“But the east is a pertectly harmless point of the compass,”
said Jim, with suavity; “and though I don't want
candles in the daytime myself, yet I don't see what harm
it does anybody to burn them.”
“Why, that's just what the Catholics do,” said Mrs.
Wouvermans.
“Oh, that 's it, is it!” said Jim, with a submissive air.
“Must n't we do any thing that Catholics do?”
“No, indeed,” said Aunt Maria, falling into the open
trap with affecting naïveté.
“Then we must n't pray at all,” said Jim.
“Oh, pshaw! of course I did n't mean that. You know
what I mean.”
“Certainly, ma'am. I think I understand,” said Jim,
while Alice, who had been looking reprovingly at him,
led off the subject into another strain.
But Mrs. Wouvermans was more gracious to Jim that
evening than usual, and when she rose to go home that
young gentleman offered his attendance, and was accepted
with complacency.
-- 129 --
[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]
Mrs. Wouvermans, in a general way, believed in what
is called Providence. That is to say, when any little
matter fell out in a manner exactly apposite to any of
her schemes, she called it providential. On the present
occasion, when she found herself walking in the streets
of New York alone, in the evening, with a young man
who treated her with flattering deference, it could not
but strike her as a providential opportunity not to be
neglected of fulfilling her long-cherished intentions and
giving a sort of wholesome check and caution to the
youth. So she began with infinite adroitness to prepare
the way. Jim, the while, who saw perfectly what she was
aiming at, assisting her in the most obliging manner.
After passing through sundry truisms about the necessity
of caution and regarding appearances, and thinking
what people will say to this and that, she proceeded
to inform him that the report was in circulation that he
was engaged to Alice.
“The report does me entirely too much honor,” said
Jim. “But of course if Miss Alice is n't disposed to
deny it, I am not.”
“Of course Miss Alice's friends will deny it,” said
Aunt Maria, decisively. “I merely mentioned it to you
that you may see the need of caution. You know, of
course, Mr. Fellows, that such reports stand in the way
of others who might be disposed—well, you understand.”
“Oh, perfectly, exactly, quite so,” said Jim, who could
be profuse of his phrases on occasion, “and I 'm extremely
obliged to you for this suggestion; undoubtedly
your great experience and knowledge of the ways of society
will show you the exact way to deal with such
things.”
“You see,” pursued Mrs. Wouvermans, in a confidential
tone, “there is at present a person every way
admirable and desirable, who is thinking very seriously
-- 130 --
[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]
of Alice; it 's quite confidential, you know; but you must
be aware—of the danger.”
“I perceive—a blight of the poor fellow's budding
hopes and early affections,” said Jim, fluently; “well,
though of course the very suggestion of such a report in
regard to me is flattery far beyond my deserts, so that I
can 't be annoyed by it, still I should be profoundly sorry
to have it occasion any trouble to Miss Alice.”
“I felt sure that you would n't be offended with me
for speaking so very plainly. I hope you 'll keep it entirely
private.”
“Oh, certainly,” said Jim, with the most cheerful
goodwill. “When ladies with your tact and skill in human
nature talk to us young fellows you never give offense.
We take your frankness as a favor.”
Mrs. Wouvermans smiled with honest pride. Had
she not been warned against talking to this youth as
something that was going to be of most explosive tendency?
How little could Nellie, or Eva, or any of them,
appreciate her masterly skill! She really felt in her heart
disposed to regret that so docile a pupil, one so appreciative
of her superior abilities, was not a desirable
matrimonial parti. Had Jim been a youth of fortune
she felt that she could have held up both hands for him.
“He really is agreeable,” was her thought, as she shut
the door upon him.
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
THE DOMESTIC ARTIST.
"A spray of ivy that was stretching towards the window had been drawn
back, and forced to wreath itself around a picture."—p. 131.
[figure description] 710EAF. Illustration page. Image of a woman standing on a chair arranging ivy so that it will grow up the wall around a picture.
Another woman who looks like a housekeeper is holding the chair steady.[end figure description]
-- -- p710-144
CHAPTER XII. WHY CAN'T THEY LET US ALONE?
[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]
HARRY went out to his office, and Eva commenced
the morning labors of a young housekeeper.
What are they? Something in their way as airy and
pleasant as the light touches and arrangements which Eve
gave to her bower in Paradise—gathering up stray roseleaves,
tying up a lily that the rain has bent, looping a
honeysuckle in a more graceful festoon, and meditating
the while whether she shall have oranges and figs and
grapes, or guavas and pineapples, for her first course at
dinner.
Such, according to Father Milton, were the ornamental
duties of the first wife, while her husband went
out to his office in some distant part of Eden.
But Eden still exists whenever two young lovers set
up housekeeping, even in prosaic New York; only our
modern Eves wear jaunty little morning caps and fascinating
wrappers and slippers, with coquettish butterfly
bows. Eva's morning duties consisted in asking Mary
what they had better have for dinner, giving here and
there a peep into the pantry, re-arranging the flower
vases, and flecking the dust from her pictures and statuettes
with a gay and glancing brush of peacock's feathers.
Sometimes the morning arrangements included quite a
change; as, this particular day, when, on mature consideration,
a spray of ivy that was stretching towards the
window had been drawn back and forced to wreathe itself
around a picture, and a spray of nasturtium, gemmed
-- 132 --
[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]
with half-opened golden buds, had been trained in its
place in the window.
One may think this a very simple matter, but whoever
knows all the resistance which the forces of matter and
the laws of gravitation make to the simplest improvement
in one's parlor, will know better.
It required a scaffolding made of a chair and an ottoman
to reach the top of the pictures, and a tack-hammer
and little tacks. Then the precise air of arrangement
and exact position had to be studied from below, after
the tacks were driven, and that necessitated two or three
descents from the perch to review, and the tumbling of
the ottoman to the floor, and the calling of Mary in to
help, and to hold the ottoman firm while the persevering
little artist finished her work. It is by ups and downs
like these, by daily labor of modern Eves, each in their
little paradises, O ye Adams! that your houses have that
“just right” look that makes you think of them all day,
and long to come back to them at night.
“Somehow or other,” you say, “I do n't know how it
is, my wife's things have a certain air; her vines grow
just as they ought to, her flowers blossom in just the
right places, and her parlors always look pleasant.”
You do n't know how many periods of grave consideration,
how many climbings on chairs and ottomans, how
many doings and undoings and shiftings and changes
produce the appearance that charms you. Most people
think that flower vases are very simple affairs; but the
keeping of parlors dressed with flowers is daily work for
an hour or two for any woman. Nor is it work in vain.
No altar is holier than the home altar, and the flowers
that adorn it are sacred.
Eva was sitting, a little tired with her strenuous exertions,
contemplating her finished arrangement with satisfaction,
when the door-bell rang, and Alice came in.
-- 133 --
[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]
“Why, Allie, dear, how nice of you to be down here
so early! I was just wanting somebody to show my
changes to. Look there. See how I 've looped that ivy
round mother's picture; is n't it sweet?” and Eva caressingly
arranged a leaf or two to suit her.
“Charming!” said Alice, but with rather an abstracted,
preoccupied tone.
“And look at this nasturtium; it 's full of buds.
See, the yellow is beginning to show. I 've fastened it
in a wreath around the window, so that the sun will shine
through the blossoms.”
“It 's beautiful,” said Alice, still absently and nervously
playing with her bonnet strings.
“Why, darling, what 's the matter?” said Eva, suddenly
noticing signs of some unusual feeling. “What
ails you?”
“Well,” said Alice, hastily untying her bonnet strings
and throwing it down on the sofa, “I 've come up to talk
with you. I hope,” she said, flushing crimson with vexation,
“that Aunt Maria is satisfied now; she is the most
exasperating woman I ever knew or heard of!”
“Dear me, Allie, what has she done now?”
“Well, what do you think? Last Sunday she came
to our house to tea, drawn up in martial array and ready
to attack us all for not going to the old church—that
stupid, dead old church, where people do nothing but
doze and wake up to criticise each other's bonnets—but
you really would think to hear Aunt Maria talk that there
was a second Babylonian captivity or something of that
sort coming on, and we were getting it up. You see, Dr.
Cushing has got excited because some of the girls are
going up to the mission church, and it 's led him to an
unwonted exertion; and Aunt Maria quite waked up and
considers herself an apostle and prophet. I wish you
could have heard her talk. It 's enough to make any
-- 134 --
[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]
cause ridiculous to have one defend it as she did.
You ought to have heard that witch of a Jim Fellows arguing
with her and respectfully leading her into all sorts
of contradictions and absurdities till I stopped him. I
really would n't let him lead her to make such a fool of
herself.”
“Oh, well, if that 's all, Allie, I do n't think you need
to trouble your head,” said Eva. “Aunt Maria, of
course, will hold on to her old notions, and her style of
argument never was very consecutive.”
“But that is n't all. Oh, you may be sure I did n't
care for what she said about the church. I can have my
opinion and she hers, on that point.”
“Well, then, what is the matter?”
“Well, if you 'll believe me, she has actually undertaken
to tutor Jim Fellows in relation to his intimacy
with me.”
“Oh, Allie,” groaned Eva, “has she done that? I
begged and implored her to let that matter alone.”
“Then she 's been talking with you, too! and I wonder
how many more,” said Alice in tones of disgust.
“Yes, she did talk with me in her usual busy, imperative
way, and told me all that Mrs. Thus-and-so and
Mr. This-and-that said—but people are always saying
things, and if they do n't say one thing they will another.
I tried to persuade her to let it alone, but she seemed to
think you must be talked with; so I finally told her that
if she 'd leave it to me I would say all that was necessary.
I did mean to say something, but I did n't want to
trouble you. I thought there was no hurry.”
“Well, you see,” said Alice, “Jim went home with
her that night, and I suppose she thought the opportunity
too good to be neglected. I do n't know just what
she said to him, but I know it was about me.”
“How do you know? Did Jim tell you?”
-- 135 --
[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]
“No, indeed; catch him telling me! He knows too
much for that. Aunt Maria let it out herself.”
“Let it out herself?”
“Yes; she blundered into it before she knew what
she was saying, and betrayed herself; and then, when I
questioned her,she had to tell me.”
“How came she to commit herself so?”
“It was just this. You know the little party Aunt
Maria had Tuesday evening,—the one you could n't come
to on account of that Stephens engagement.”
“Yes; what of it?”
“I really suspect that was all got up in the interest
of one of Aunt Maria's schemes to bring me and
that John Davenport together. At any rate, there he
was, and his sister; and really, Eva, his treatment of me
was so marked that it was quite disagreeable. Why, the
man seemed really infatuated. His manner was so that
everybody remarked it; and the colder and more distant
I grew, the more it increased. Aunt Maria was delighted.
She plumed herself and rushed round in the most satisfied
way, while I was only provoked. I saw he was
going to ask to wait on me home, and so I fell back on a
standing engagement that I have with Jim, to go with
me whenever anybody asks that I do n't want to go with.
Jim and I have always had that understanding in dancing
and at parties, so that we can keep clear of disagreeable
partners and people. I was determined I would n't walk
home with that man, and I told Jim privately that he
was to be on duty, and he took the hint in a minute. So
when Mr. Davenport wound up his attentions by asking
if he should have the pleasure of seeing me home, I told
him with great satisfaction that I was engaged, and off I
walked with Jim. The girls were in a perfect state of
giggle, to see Aunt Maria's indignation.”
“And so really you don't like this Mr. Davenport?”
-- 136 --
[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]
“Like him! Indeed I don't. In the first place, it
isn 't a year yet since his wife died; and everybody was
pitying him. He could hardly be kept alive, and fainted
away, and had to have hot bottles at his feet, and all
that. All the old ladies were rolling up their eyes; such
a sighing and sympathizing for John Davenport; and
now, here he is!”
“Poor man!” said Eva, “I suppose he is lonesome.”
“Yes. I suppose, as Irving says, the greatest compliment
he can pay to his former wife is to display an
eagerness for another; but his attentions are simply disagreeable
to me.”
“After all, the worst crime you allege seems to be
that he is too sensitive to your attractions.”
“Yes; and shows it in a very silly way—making me
an object of remark! He may be very nice and very
worthy, and all that; but in any such relation as that
he is so unpleasant to me! I can't bear him, and I'm
not going to be talked or maneuvered into anything that
might commit me to even consider him. I remember
the trouble you had for being persuaded to let Wat Sydney
dangle after you. I will not have anything of the
kind. I am a decided young woman, and know my own
mind.”
“Well, how did you learn about Aunt Maria and
Jim?”
“How? Oh, well, the next day comes Aunt Maria
to talk with Mamma, who was n't there, by the bye; Papa
hates so to go out that she has got to staying at home
with him. But the next day came an exaggerated picture
of my triumphs to Mamma and a lecture to me on
my bad behavior. The worst of all, she said, was the
very marked thing of my going home with Jim; and in
her heat she let out that she had spoken to him and
warned him of what folks would think and say of such
-- 137 --
[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]
appearances. I was angry then, and I expressed my
mind freely to Aunt Maria, and we had a downright
quarrel. I said things I ought not to say, just as one
always does, and—now isn't it disagreeable? Isn't it
dreadful?” said Alice, with the earnestness of a young
girl whose whole nature goes into her first trouble.
“Nothing could be nicer and more just what a thing
ought to be than my friendship with Jim. I have influence
over him and I can do him good, and I enjoy
his society, and the kind of easy, frank understanding
that there is between us, that we can say any thing to
each other; and what business is it of anybody's? It's
our own affair, and no one's else.”
“Certainly it is,” said Eva, sympathizingly.
“And Aunt Maria said that folks were saying that if
we were n't engaged we ought to be. What a hateful
thing to say! As if there were any impropriety in a friendship
between a gentleman and a lady. Why may not a
gentleman and a lady have a special friendship as well
one lady with another, or one gentleman with another?
I don't see.”
“Neither do I,” said Eva, responsively.
“Now,” said Alice, “the suggestion of marriage and
all that is disagreeable to me. I'm thinking of nothing
of the kind. I like Jim. Well, I don't mind saying to
you, Eva, who can understand me, that I love him, in a
sort of way. I am interested for him. I know his good
points and I know his faults, and I'm at liberty to speak
to him with perfect freedom, and I think there is nothing
so good for a young man as such a friendship. We girls,
you know, dear, can do a great deal for young men if
we try. We are not tempted as they are; we have not
their hard places and trials to walk through, and we can
make allowances, and they will receive things from us
that they would n't from any one else, and they show us
-- 138 --
[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]
just the best side of their nature, which is the truest side
of everybody.”
“Certainly, Alice. Harry was saying only a little
while ago that your influence would make a man of Jim;
and I certainly think he has wonderfully improved of
late—he seems more serious.”
“We've learned to know him better; that's all,” said
Alice. “Young men rattle and talk idly to girls when
they don't feel acquainted and haven't real confidence
in their friendship, just as a sort of blind. They don't
dare to express their real, deepest feelings.”
“Well, I didn't know that Jim had any,” said Eva,
incautiously.
“Why, Eva, how unjust you are to Jim!” said Alice,
with flushing cheeks. “I should n't have thought it
of you; so many kind things as Jim has done for us
all!”
“My darling, I beg Jim's pardon with all my
heart,” said Eva, laughing to herself at this earnest
championship. “I did n't mean quite what I said, but
you know, Alice, his sort of wild rattling way of talking
over all subjects, so that you can't tell which is jest and
which is earnest.”
“Oh! I can always tell,” said Alice. “I always can
make him come down to the earnest part of him, and
Jim has, after all, really good, sensible ideas of life and
aspirations after what is right and true. He has the
temptation of having been a sort of spoiled child. People
do so like a laugh that they set him on and encourage
him in saying all sorts of things he ought not. People
have very little principle about that. So that anyone
amuses them, they never consider whether he does right
to talk as he does; they 'll set Jim up to talk because it
amuses them, and then go away and say what a rattle he
is, and that he has no real principle or feeling. They
-- 139 --
[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]
just make a buffoon of him, and they know nothing
about the best part of him.”
“Well, Alice, I dare say you do see more of Jim's
real nature than any of us.”
“Oh! indeed I do; and I know how to appeal to it.
Even when I can't help laughing at things he ought not
to say—and sometimes they are so droll I can't help it—
afterwards I have my say and tell him really and soberly
just what I think, and you 've no idea how beautifully
he takes it. Oh, Jim really is good at heart, there 's no
doubt about that.”
“Do you think Aunt Maria's meddling will make
trouble between you?”
“No! only that it 's an awkward, disagreeable thing
to speak of; but I shall speak to Jim about it and let
him understand, if he does n't now, just what Aunt
Maria is, and that he must n't mind anything she says.
I feel rather better, now I 've relieved my mind to you,
and perhaps shall have more charity for Aunt Maria.”
“After all, poor soul,” said Eva, “it 's her love for
us that leads her to vex us in all these ways. She can't
help planning and fussing and lying awake nights for us.
She failed in getting a splendid marriage for me, and
now she 's like Bruce's spider, up and at her web again
weaving a destiny for you. It 's in her to be active;
she has no children; her house do n't half satisfy her as
a field of enterprise, and she, of course, is taking care
of Mamma and our family. If Mamma had not been
just the gentle, lovely, yielding woman she is, Aunt Maria
never would have got such headway in the family and
taken such airs about us.”
“She perfectly tyrannizes over Mamma,” said Alice.
“She 's always coming up to lecture her for not doing
this, that, or the other thing. Now all this talk about
our going to Mr. St. John's church;—poor, dear, little
-- 140 --
[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]
Mamma is as willing to let us do as we please as the
flowers are to blossom, and then Aunt Maria talks as if
she were abetting a conspiracy against the church. I
know that we are all living more serious, earnest lives
for Mr. St. John's influence. It may be that he is
going too far in certain directions; it may be that in the
long run such things tend to dangerous extremes, but
I do n't see any real harm in them so far, and I find real
good.”
“Well, you know, dear, that Harry is n't of our
church—he is a Congregationalist—but his theory is
that Christian people should join with any other Christian
people who they see are really working in earnest to
do good. This church is near by us, where we can conveniently
go, and as I have my house to attend to and
am not strong you know, that is quite a consideration.
I know Harry do n't agree with Mr. St. John at all about
his ideas of the church, and he thinks he carries some
of his ceremonies too far; but, on the whole, he really
is doing a great deal of practical good, and Harry is
willing to help him. I think it 's just lovely in Harry to
do so. It is real liberality.”
“I wish,” said Alice, “that Mr. St. John were a little
freer in his way. There is a sort of solemnity about him
that is depressing, and it seems to set Jim off in a spirit
of contradiction. He says Mr. St. John stirs up the evil
within him, and makes him long to break over bounds
and say something wicked, just to shock him.”
“I 've had that desire to shock very proper people
in the days of my youth,” said Eva. “I do n't know
what it comes from.”
“I think,” said Alice, “that, to be sure, this is an
irreverent age, and New York is an irreverent place; but
yet I think people may carry the outside air of reverence
too far. Do n't you? They impose a sort of
-- 141 --
[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]
constraint on everybody around them that keeps them from
knowing the people they associate with. Mr. St. John,
for instance, knows nothing about Jim, he never acts
himself out before him.”
“Oh, dear me,” said Eva, “fancy what he would think
if he should see Jim in one of his frolics.”
“And yet, Jim, in his queer way, appreciates Mr. St.
John,” said Alice. “He says he 's `a brick' after all, by
which he means that he does good, honest work; and Jim
has been enough around among the poor of New York,
in his quality of newspaper writer, to know when a man
does good among them. If Mr. St. John only could
learn to be indulgent to other people's natures he might
do a great deal for Jim.”
“I rather think Jim will be your peculiar parish for
some time to come,” said Eva with a smile, “but Harry
and I are projecting schemes to draw Mr. St. John into
more general society. That 's one of the things we are
going to try to do in our `evenings.' I do n't believe he
has ever been into general society at all; he ought to
hear the talk of his day—he talks and feels and thinks
more in the past than the present; he 's all the while
trying to restore an ideal age of reverence and devotion,
but he ought to know the real age he lives in. If we
could get him to coming to our house every week, and
meeting real live men, women and girls of to-day and
entering a little into their life, it would do him good.”
“I suppose he 'd be afraid of any indulgence!”
“We must not put it to him as an indulgence, but a
good hard duty,” said Eva; “we should never catch him
with an indulgence.”
“When are you going to begin?”
“I 've been talking with Mary about it, and I rather
think I shall take next Thursday for the first. I shall
depend on you and the girls to help me keep the thing
-- 142 --
[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]
balanced, and going on just right. Jim must be moderated,
and kept from coming out too strong, and everybody
must be made to have a good time, so that they 'll
want to come again. You see we want to get them to
coming every week, so that they will all know one another
by-and-by, and get a sort of home feeling about
our rooms; such a thing is possible, I think.”
The conversation now meandered off into domestic
details, not further traceable in this chapter.
-- --
CHAPTER XIII. OUR “EVENING” PROJECTED.
[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]
“WELL, Harry,” said Eva, when they were seated
at dinner, “Alice was up at lunch with me this
morning, in such a state! It seems, after all, Aunt Maria
could not contain her zeal for management, and has been
having an admonitory talk with Jim Fellows about his
intimacy with Alice.”
“Now, I declare that goes beyond me,” said Harry,
laying down his knife and fork. “That woman's impertinence
is really stupendous. It amounts to the sublime.”
“Does n't it? Alice was in such a state about it;
but we talked the matter down into calmness. Still,
Harry, I 'm pretty certain that Alice is more seriously interested
in Jim than she knows of. Of course she thinks
it 's all friendship, but she is so sensitive about him, and
if you make even the shadow of a criticism she flames
up and defends him. You ought to see.”
“Grave symptoms,” said Harry.
“But as she says she is not thinking nor wanting to
think of marriage—”
“Any more than a certain other young lady was, with
whom I cultivated a friendship some time ago,” said
Harry, laughing.
“Just so,” said Eva; “I plume myself on my forbearance
in listening gravely to Alice and not putting in any
remarks; but I remembered old times and had my suspicions.
We thought it was friendship, did n't we, Harry?
And I used to be downright angry if anybody
suggested anything else. Now I think Allie's friendship
-- 144 -- p710-157
[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]
for Jim is getting to be of the same kind. Oh, she
knows him so well! and she understands him so perfectly!
and she has so much influence over him! and they
have such perfect comprehension of each other! and
as to his faults, oh, she understands all about them!
But, mind you, nobody must criticise him but herself—
that 's quite evident. I did make a blundering remark
or so; but I found it was n't at all the thing, and I had
to beat a rapid retreat, I assure you.”
“Well, poor girl! I hope you managed to console
her.”
“Oh, I was sympathetic and indignant, and after she
had poured out her griefs she felt better; and then I put
in a soothing word for Aunt Maria, poor woman, who is
only monomaniac on managing our affairs.”
“Yes,” said Harry, “forgiveness of enemies used to
be the ultima thule of virtue; but I rather think it will
have to be forgiveness of friends. I call the man a perfect
Christian that can always forgive his friends.”
“The fact is, Aunt Maria ought to have had a great
family of her own—twelve or thirteen, to say the least.
If Providence had vouchsafed her eight or nine ramping,
roaring boys, and a sprinkling of girls, she would
have been a splendid woman and we should have had
better times.”
“She puts me in mind of the story of the persistent
broomstick that would fetch water,” said Harry; “we
are likely to be drowned out by her.”
“Well, we can accept her for a whetstone to sharpen
up our Christian graces on,” said Eva. “So, let her go.
I was talking over our projected evening with Alice, and
we spent some time discussing that.”
“When are you going to begin?” said Henry. “`Well
begun is half done,' you know.”
Said Eva, “I 've been thinking over what day is best,
-- 145 --
[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]
and talking about it with Mary. Now, we can't have it
Monday, there 's the washing, you know; and Tuesday
and Wednesday come baking and ironing.”
“Well, then, what happens Thursday?”
“Well, then, it's precisely Thursday that Mary and I
agreed on. We both made up our minds that it was the
right day. One would n't want it on Friday, you know,
and Saturday is too late; besides, Mr. St. John never
goes out Saturday evenings.”
“But what's the objection to Friday?”
“Oh, the unlucky day. Mary would n't hear of beginning
anything on Friday, you know. Then, besides,
Mr. St. John, I suspect, fasts every Friday. He never
told me so, of course, but they say he does; at all events,
I'm sure he would n't come of a Friday evening, and I
want to be sure and have him, of all people. Now, you
see, I've planned it all beautifully. I'm going to have a
nice, pretty little tea-table in one corner, with a vase of
flowers on it, and I shall sit and make tea. That breaks
the stiffness, you know. People talk first about the tea
and the china, and whether they take cream and sugar,
and so on, and the gentlemen help the ladies. Then
Mary will make those delicate little biscuits of hers
and her charming sponge-cake. It's going to be perfectly
quiet, you see—from half-past seven till eleven—
early hours and simple fare, `feast of reason and flow
of soul.'”
“Quite pastoral and Arcadian,” said Harry. “When
we get it going it will be the ideal of social life. No
fuss, no noise; all the quiet of home life with all the
variety of company; people seeing each other till they
get really intimate and have a genuine interest in meeting
each other; not a mere outside, wild beast show, as
it is when people go to parties to gaze at other people
and see how they look in war-paint.”
-- 146 --
[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]
“I feel a little nervous at first,” said Eva; “getting
people together that are so diametrically opposed to each
other as Dr. Campbell and Mr. St. John, for instance.
I'm afraid Dr. Campbell will come out with some of his
terribly free speaking, and then Mr. St. John will be so
shocked and distressed.”
“Then Mr. St. John must get over being shocked
and distressed. Mr. St. John needs Dr. Campbell,” said
Harry. “He is precisely the man he ought to meet, and
Dr. Campbell needs Mr. St. John. The two men are
intended to help each other: each has what the other
wants, and they ought to be intimate.”
“But you see, Dr. Campbell is such a dreadful unbeliever!”
“In a certain way he is no more an unbeliever than
Mr. St. John. Dr. Campbell is utterly ignorant of the
higher facts of moral consciousness—of prayer and communion
with God—and therefore he doesn't believe in
them. St. John is equally ignorant of some of the most
important facts of the body he inhabits. He does not
believe in them—ignores them.”
“Oh, but now, Harry, I didn't think that of you—
that you could put the truths of the body on a level
with the truths of the soul.”
“Bless you, darling, since the Maker has been pleased
to make the soul so dependent on the body, how can I
help it? Why, just see here; come to this very problem
of saving a soul, which is a minister's work. I insist
there are cases where Dr. Campbell can do more towards
it than Mr. St. John. He was quoting to me only yesterday
a passage from Dr. Wigan, where he says, `I
firmly believe I have more than once changed the moral
character of a boy by leeches applied to the inside of
his nose.'”
“Why, Harry, that sounds almost shocking.”
-- 147 --
[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]
“Yet it's a fact—a physiological fact—that some of
the worst vices come through a disordered body, and
can be cured only by curing the body. So long as we
are in this mortal state, our souls have got to be saved
in our bodies and by the laws of our bodies; and a doctor
who understands them will do more than a minister
who doesn't. Why, just look at poor Bolton. The
trouble that he dreads, the fear that blasts his life, that
makes him afraid to marry, is a disease of the body.
Fasting, prayer, sacraments, couldn't keep off an acute
attack of dipsomania; but a doctor might.”
“Oh, Harry, do you think so? Well, I must say I do
think Mr. St. John is as ignorant as a child about such
matters, if I may judge from the way he goes on about
his own health. He ignores his body entirely, and seems
determined to work as if he were a spirit and could live
on prayer and fasting.”
“Which, as he isn't a spirit, won't do,” said Harry.
“It may end in making a spirit of him before the
time.”
“But do n't you think the disinterestedness he shows
is perfectly heroic?” said Eva.
“Oh, certainly!” said Harry. “The fact is, I should
despair of St. John if he had n't set himself at mission
work. He is naturally so ideal, and so fastidious, and so
fond of rules, and limits, and order, that if he had n't
this practical common-sense problem of working among
the poor on his hands, I should think he would n't be
good for much. But drunken men and sorrowful wives,
ragged children, sickness, pain, poverty, teach a man the
common-sense of religion faster than anything else, and
I can see St. John is learning sense for everybody but
himself. If he only do n't run his own body down, he 'll
make something yet.”
“I think, Harry,” said Eva, “he is a little doubtful
-- 148 --
[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]
of whether you really go with him or not. I do n't think
he knows how much you like him.”
“Go with him! of course I do. I stand up for St.
John and defend him. So long as a man is giving his
whole life to hard work among the poor and neglected
he may burn forty candles, if he wants to, for all I care.
He may turn to any point of the compass he likes, east,
west, north, or south, and wear all the colors of the rainbow
if it suits him, and I won't complain. In fact, I
like processions, and chantings, and ceremonies, if you
do n't get too many of them. I think, generally speaking,
there 's too little of that sort of thing in our American
life. In the main, St. John preaches good sermons; that
is, good, manly, honest talks to people about what they
need to know. But then his mind is tending to a monomania
of veneration. You see he has a mystical, poetic
element in it that may lead him back into the old idolatries
of past ages, and lead weak minds there after him;
that 's why I want to get him acquainted with such fellows
as Campbell. He needs to learn the common sense of
life. I think he is capable of it, and one of the first
things he has got to learn is not to be shocked at hearing
things said from other people's points of view. If these
two men could only like each other, so as to listen tolerantly
and dispassionately to what each has to say, they
might be everything to each other.”
“Well, how to get a mordant to unite these two opposing
colors,” said Eva.
“That 's what you women are for—at least such women
as you. It 's your mission to interpret differing
natures—to bind, and blend, and unite.”
“But how shall we get them to like each other?” said
Eva. “Both are so very intense and so opposite. I
suppose Dr. Campbell would consider most of Mr. St.
John's ideas stuff and nonsense; and I know, as well as
-- 149 --
[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]
I know anything, that if Mr. St. John should hear Dr.
Campbell talking as he talks to you, he would shut up
like a flower—he would retire into himself and not come
here any more.”
“Oh, Eva, that 's making the man too ridiculous and
unmanly. Good gracious! Can 't a man who thinks he
has God's truth—and such truth!—listen to opposing
views without going into fits? It 's like a soldier who
cannot face guns and wants to stay inside of a clean,
nice fort, making pretty stacks of bayonets and piling
cannon balls in lovely little triangles.”
“Well, Harry, I know Mr. St. John is n't like that.
I do n't think he 's cowardly or unmanly, but he is very
reverent, and, Harry, you are very free. You do let Dr.
Campbell go on so, over everything. It quite shocks me.”
“Just because my faith is so strong that I can afford
it. I can see when he is mistaken; but he is a genuine,
active, benevolent man, following truth when he sees it,
and getting a good deal of it, and most important truth,
too. We 've got to get truth as we can in this world,
just as miners dig gold out of the mine with all the
quartz, and dirt, and dross; but it pays.”
“Well, now, I shall try my skill, and do my best to
dispose these two refractory chemicals to a union,” said
Eva. “I 'll tell you how let 's do. I 'll interest Dr.
Campbell in Mr. St. John's health. I 'll ask him to
study him and see if he can 't take care of him. I 'm
sure he needs taking care of.”
“And,” said Harry, “why not interest Mr. St. John
in Dr. Campbell's soul? Why should n't he try to convert
him from the error of his ways?”
“That would be capital,” said Eva. “Let each convert
the other. If we could put Dr. Campbell and Mr.
St. John together, what a splendid man we could make
of them!”
-- 150 --
[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]
“Try your best, my dear; but meanwhile I have
three or four hours' writing to do this evening.”
“Well, then, settle yourself down, and I will run over
and expound my plans to the good old ladies over the
way. I am getting up quite an intimacy over there;
Miss Dorcas is really vastly entertaining. It 's like living
in a past age to hear her talk.”
“You really have established a fashion of rushing in
upon them at all sorts of hours,” said Harry.
“Yes, but they like it. You have no idea what nice
things they say to me. Even old Dinah quivers and
giggles with delight the minute she sees me—poor old
soul! You see they 're shut up all alone in that musty
old house, like enchanted princesses, and gone to sleep
there; and I am the predestined fairy to wake them
up!”
Eva said this as she was winding a cloud of fleecy
worsted around her head, and Harry was settling himself
at his writing-table in a little alcove curtained off
from the parlor.
“Do n't keep the old ladies up too late,” said Harry.
“Never you fear,” said Eva. “Perhaps I shall stay
to see Jack's feet washed and blanket spread. Those are
solemn and impressive ceremonies that I have heard described,
but never witnessed.”
It was a bright, keen, frosty, starlight evening, and
when Eva had rung the door-bell on the opposite side,
she turned and looked at the play of shadow and fire-light
on her own window-curtains.
Suddenly she noticed a dark form of a woman coming
from an alley back of the house, and standing irresolute,
looking at the windows. Then she drew near the
house, and seemed trying to read the name on the doorplate.
There was something that piqued Eva's curiosity
-- 151 --
[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]
about these movements, and just as the door was opening
behind her into the Vanderheyden house, the strange
woman turned away, and as she turned, the light of the
street-lamp flashed strongly on her face. Its expression
of haggard pain and misery was something that struck
to Eva's heart, though it was but a momentary glimpse,
as she turned to go into the house; for, after all, the woman
was nothing to her, and the glimpse of her face was
purely an accident, such as occurs to one hundreds of
times in the streets of a city.
Still, like the sound of a sob or a cry from one unknown,
the misery of those dark eyes struck painfully to
Eva's heart; as if to her, young, beloved, gay and happy,
some of the ever-present but hidden anguish of life—
the great invisible mass of sorrow—had made an appeal.
But she went in and shut the door, gave one sigh and
dismissed it.
-- -- p710-165
CHAPTER XIV. MR. ST. JOHN IS OUT-ARGUED.
[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]
A WOMAN has two vernal seasons in her life. One
is the fresh, sweet-brier, apple-blossom spring of
girlhood—dewy, bird-singing, joyous and transient. The
other is the spring of young marriage, before the austere
labors and severe strains of real life commence.
It is the spring of wedding presents, of first housekeeping,
of incipient, undeveloped matronage. If the
young girl is charming, with her dawning airs of womanhood,
her inexperienced naïve assumptions, her grave,
ignorant wisdom, at which elders smile indulgently—so
is the new-made wife with her little matronly graces, her
pretty sense of responsibility in her new world of power.
In the first period, the young girl herself is the object
of attention and devotion. She is the permitted center
of all eyes, the leading star of her own little drama of
life. But with marriage the center changes. Self begins
to melt away into something higher. The girl recognizes
that it is no longer her individuality that is the chief
thing, but that she is the priestess and minister of a family
state. The home becomes her center, and to her home
passes the charm that once was thrown around her person.
The pride that she may have had in self becomes
a pride in her home. Her home is the new impersonation
of herself; it is her throne, her empire. How often
do we see the young wife more sensitive to the adornment
of her house than the adornment of her person,
willing even to retrench and deny in the last, that her
-- 153 --
[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]
home may become more cheerful and attractive! A
pretty set of china for her tea-table goes farther with her
than a gay robe for herself. She will sacrifice ribbons
and laces for means to adorn the sacred recesses
which have become to her an expansion of her own
being.
The freshness of a new life invests every detail of the
freshly arranged ménage. Her china, her bronzes, her
pictures, her silver, her table cloths and napkins, her
closets and pantries, all speak to her of a new sense of
possession—a new and different hold on life. Once she
was only a girl, moving among things that belonged to
mamma and papa; now she is a matron, surrounded
everywhere by things that are her own—a princess in her
own little kingdom. Nor is the charm lessened that she
no longer uses the possessive singular, but says our. And
behind those pronouns, we and our, what pleasant security!
What innocent pharisaism of self-complacency, as
each congratulates the other on “our” ways, “our” plans,
“our” arrangements; each,the while,sure that they two are
the fortunate among mankind, and that all who are not
blest as they are proper subjects for indulgent pity.
“After all, my dear,” says he, “what can you expect of
poor Snooks?—a bachelor, poor fellow. If he only had a
wife like you, now,” etc., etc. Or, “I can't really blame
Cynthia with that husband of hers, Harry dear. If I
were married to such a man, I should act like a little
fiend. If she had only such a husband as you, now!”
This secret, respectable, mutual admiration society of
married life, of how much courage and hope is it the
parent! For, do not our failures and mistakes often
come from discouragement? Does not every human
being need a believing second self, whose support and
approbation shall reinforce one's failing courage? The
saddest hours of life are when we doubt ourselves. To
-- 154 --
[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]
sensitive, excitable people, who expend nervous energy
freely, must come many such low tides. “Am I really
a miserable failure—a poor, good-for-nothing, abortive
attempt?” In such crises we need another self to restore
our equilibrium.
Our young friends were just in the second spring of
life's new year. They were as fond and proud of their
little house as a prince of his palace—possibly a good
deal more so. They were proud of each other. Eva felt
sure that Harry was destined to the high places of the
literary world. She read his editorials with sincere admiration,
hid his poems away in her heart, and pasted
them carefully in her scrap-book. Fame and success
she felt sure ought to come to him, and would. He was
“such a faithful, noble-hearted fellow, and worked so
steadily.” And he, with what pride he spoke the words
“my wife”! With what exultation repressed under an
air of playful indifference he brought this and that associate
in to dine, and enjoyed the admiration of her and
her pretty home, and graceful, captivating ways. He
liked to see the effect of her gay, sparkling conversation,
her easy grace, on these new subjects; for Eva was, in
truth, a charming woman. The mixture of innocent
shrewdness, of sprightly insight, of bright and airy fancy
about her, made her society a thing to be longed after,
as people long for a pleasant stimulant. Like all bright,
earnest young men, Harry wanted to “lend a hand” to
make the world around him brighter and better, and had
his ideas of what a charming, attractive home might do
as a center to many hearts in promoting mutual brotherhood
and good fellowship. He had not a doubt of their
little social venture in society, nor that Eva was precisely
the person to make of their house a pleasant resort, to
be in herself the blending and interpreting medium
through whom differing and even discordant natures
-- 155 --
[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]
should be brought to understand the good that was in
one another.
As a preparation for the first experiment, Eva had
commenced by inviting Mr. St. John to dinner, that she
might enlist his approbation of her scheme and have
time to set it before him in that charming fireside hour,
when spirits, like flowers, open to catch the dews of influence.
After dinner Harry had an engagement at the
printing-office, and left Eva the field all to herself; and
she managed her cards admirably. Mr. St. John had
been little accustomed to the society of cultured, attractive
women; but he had in his own refined nature every
sensibility to respond agreeably to its influences; and
already this fireside had come to be a place where he
loved to linger. And so, when she had him comfortably
niched in his corner, she opened the first parallel of her
siege.
“Now, Mr. St. John, you have been preaching to us
about self-denial, and putting us all up to deeds of self-sacrifice—
I have some self-denying work to propose to
you.”
Mr. St. John opened his blue eyes wide at this exordium,
and looked an interrogation.
“Well, Mr. St. John,” pursued Eva, “we are going to
have little social reunions at our house every Thursday,
from seven till ten, for the purpose of promoting good
feeling and fellowship, and we want our rector to be one
of us and help us.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Henderson, I have not the least social
tact. My sphere does n't lie at all in that direction,” said
Mr. St. John, nervously. “I have no taste for general
society.”
“Yes, but I think you told us last Sunday we were
not to consult our tastes. You told us that if we felt a
strong distaste for any particular course, it might
-- 156 --
[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]
possibly show that just here the true path of Christian heroism
lay.”
“You turn my words upon me, Mrs. Henderson. I
was thinking then of the distaste that people usually feel
for visiting the poor and making themselves practically
familiar with the unlovely side of life.”
“Well, but may it not apply the other way? You
are perfectly familiar and at home among the poor, but
you have always avoided society among cultured persons
of your own class. May not the real self-denial for you
lie there? You have a fastidious shrinking from strangers.
May it not be your duty to overcome it? There
are a great many I know in our circle who might be the
better for knowing you. Have you a right to shrink
back from them?”
Mr. St. John moved uneasily in his chair.
“Now,” pursued Eva, “there's a young Dr. Campbell
that I want you to know. To be sure, he is n't a believer
in the church—not a believer at all, I fear; but still a
charming, benevolent, kindly, open-hearted man, and I
want him to know you, and come under good influences.”
“I do n't believe I 'm at all adapted,” said Mr. St.
John, hesitatingly.
“Well, dear sir, what do you say to us when we say
the same about mission work? Do n't you tell us that
if we honestly try we shall learn to adapt ourselves?”
“That is true,” said St. John, frankly.
“Besides,” said Eva, “Mr. St. John, Dr. Campbell
might do you good. All your friends feel that you are
too careless of your health. Indeed, we all feel great
concern about it, and you might learn something of Dr.
Campbell in this.”
Thus Eva pursued her advantage with that fluent
ability with which a pretty young woman at her own
-- 157 --
[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]
fireside always gets the best of the argument. Mr. St.
John, attacked on the weak side of conscientiousness,
was obliged at last to admit that to spend an evening
with agreeable, cultivated, well-dressed people might be
occasionally as much a shepherd's duty as to sit in the
close, ill-smelling rooms of poverty and listen to the
croonings and maunderings of the ill-educated, improvident,
and foolish, who make so large a proportion of the
less fortunate classes of society. It had been suggested to
him that a highly-educated, agreeable young doctor, who
talked materialism and dissented from the thirty-nine
articles, might as properly be borne with as a drinking
young mechanic who talked unbelief of a lower and less
respectable order.
Now it so happened, by one of those unexpected coincidences
that fall out in the eternal order of things,
that Eva was reinforced in her course of argument by
a silent and subtle influence, of which she was herself
scarcely aware. The day seldom passed that one or
other of her sisters did not form a part of her family
circle, and on this day of all others the fates had willed
that Angelique should come up to work on her Christmas
presents by Eva's fireside.
Imagine, therefore, as the scene of this conversation,
a fire-lighted room, the evening flicker of the blaze falling
in flecks and flashes over books and pictures, and
Mr. St. John in a dark, sheltered corner, surveying without
being surveyed, listening to Eva's animated logic,
and yet watching a very pretty tableau in the opposite
corner.
There sat Angelique, listening to the conversation,
with the fire-light falling in flashes on her golden hair
and her lap full of worsteds—rosy, pink, blue, lilac, and
yellow. Her little hands were busy in some fleecy wonder,
designed to adorn the Christmas-tree for the
-- 158 --
[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]
mission school of his church; and she knit and turned and
twisted the rosy mystery with an air of grave interest,
the while giving an attentive ear to the conversation.
Mr. St. John was not aware that he was looking at
her; in fact, he supposed he was listening to Eva, who
was eloquently setting forth to him all the good points
in Dr. Campbell's character, and the reasons why it was
his duty to seek and cultivate his acquaintance; but
while she spoke and while he replied he saw the little
hands moving, and a sort of fairy web weaving, and the
face changing as, without speaking a word, she followed
with bright, innocent sympathy the course of the conversation.
When Eva, with a becoming air of matronly gravity,
lectured him for his reckless treatment of his own health,
and his want of a proper guide on that subject, Angelique's
eyes seemed to say the same; and sometimes,
when Eva turned just the faintest light of satire on the
ascetic notions to which he was prone, those same eyes
sparkled with that frank gaiety that her dimpled face
seemed made to express. Now the kitten catches at her
thread, and she stops, and bends over and dangles the
ball, and laughs softly to herself, and St. John from his
dark corner watches the play. There is something of
the kitten in her, he thinks. Even her gravest words
have suggested the air of a kitten on good behavior, and
perhaps she may be a naughty, wicked kitten—who
knows? A kitten lying in wait to catch unwary birds
and mice! But she looked so artless—so innocent!—her
little head bent on one side like a flower, and her eyes
sparkling as if she were repressing a laugh!—a nervous
idea shot through the conversation to Mr. St. John's
heart. What if this girl should laugh at him? St. Jerome
himself might have been vulnerable to a poisoned
arrow like this. What if he really were getting absurd
-- 159 --
[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]
notions and ways in the owl-like recesses and retirements
of his study—growing rusty, unfit for civilized life?
Clearly it was his duty to “come forth into the light of
things,” and before he left that evening he gave his
pledge to Eva that he would be one of the patrons of her
new social enterprise.
It is to be confessed that as he went home that night
he felt that duty had never worn an aspect so agreeable.
It was certainly his place as a good fisher of men to study
the habits of the cultured, refined, and influential portion
of society, as well as of its undeveloped children. Then,
he did n't say it to himself, but the scene where these
investigations were to be pursued rose before him insensibly
as one where Angelique was to be one of the
entertainers. It would give him a better opportunity of
studying the genus and habits of that variety of the
church militant who train in the uniform of fashionable
girls, and to decide the yet doubtful question whether
they had any genuine capacity for church work. Angelique's
evident success with her class was a puzzle to
him, and he thought he would like to know her better,
and see if real, earnest, serious purposes could exist under
that gay exterior.
Somehow, he could not fancy those laughing eyes and
that willful, curly, golden hair under the stiff cap of a
Sister of Charity; and he even doubted whether a gray
cloak would seem as appropriate as the blue robe and
ermine cape where the poor little child had rested her
scarred cheek. He liked to think of her just as she
looked then and there. And why should n't he get acquainted
with her? If he was ever going to form a sisterhood
of good works, certainly it was his duty to
understand the sisters. Clearly it was!
-- -- p710-173
CHAPTER XV. GETTING READY TO BEGIN.
[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]
“HAVING company” is one of those incidents of
life which in all circles, high or low, cause more
or less searchings of heart.
Even the moderate “tea-fight” of good old times
necessitated not only anxious thought in the hostess herself,
but also a mustering and review of best “bibs and
tuckers,” through the neighborhood.
But to undertake a “serial sociable” in New York, in
this day of serials, was something even graver, causing
many thoughts and words in many houses.
Witness the following specimens:
“I confess, Nellie, I can't understand Eva's ways,”
said Aunt Maria, the morning of the first Thursday.
“She don't come to me for advice; but I confess I don't
understand her.”
Aunt Maria was in a gloomy, severe state of mind,
owing to the contumacy and base ingratitude of Alice in
rejecting her interposition and care, and she came down
this morning to signify her displeasure to Nellie at the
way she had been treated.
“I don't know what you mean, sister,” said Mrs. Van
Arsdel, deprecatingly. “I'm sure I don't know of anything
that Eva's been doing lately.”
“Why, these evenings of hers; I don't understand
them. Setting out to have receptions in that little out-of-the-way
shell of hers! Why, who'll go? Nobody
wants to ramble off up there, and not get to anything
after all. It's going to be a sort of mixed-up affair—
-- 161 --
[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]
newspaper men, and people that nobody knows—all well
enough in their way, perhaps; but I shan't be mixed up
in it.” Aunt Maria nodded her head gloomily, and the
bows and feathers on her hat quivered protestingly.
“Oh, they are going to be just unpretending sociable
little gatherings,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel. “Just the
family and a few friends; and I think they are going to
be pleasant. I wish you would go, Maria. Eva will be
disappointed.”
“No, she won't. It's evident, Nelly, that your girls
don't any of them care about me, or regard anything I
say. Well, I only hope they mayn't live to repent it;
that's all.”
Aunt Maria said this with that menacing sniff with
which people in a bad humor usually dispense Christian
charity. The dark awfulness of the hope expressed
really chilled poor little Mrs. Van Arsdel's blood. From
long habits of dependence upon her sister, she had come
to regard her displeasure as one of the severer evils of
life. To keep the peace with Maria, as far as she herself
was concerned, would have been easy. Contention
was fatiguing to her. It was a trouble to have the
responsibility of making up her own mind; and she was
quite willing that Maria should carry her through thé
journey of life, buy her tickets, choose her hotels, and
settle with her cabmen. But, complicated with a husband,
and a family of bright, independent daughters,
each endowed with a separate will of her own, Mrs.
Van Arsdel led on the whole a hard life. People who
hate trouble generally get a good deal of it. It's all
very well for a gentle acquiescent spirit to be carried
through life by one bearer. But when half a dozen
bearers quarrel and insist on carrying one opposite
ways, the more facile the spirit, the greater the trouble.
Mrs. Van Arsdel, in fact, passed a good deal of her
-- 162 --
[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]
life in being talked over to one course of conduct by
Aunt Maria, and talked back again by her girls. She
resembled a weak, peaceable hamlet on the border-land
between France and Germany, taken and retaken with
much wear and tear of spirit, and heartily wishing peace
at any price.
“I don't see how Eva is going to afford all this,”
continued Aunt Maria gloomily.
“Oh! there's to be no evening entertainment, nothing
but a little tea, and biscuit, and sponge cake, in the
most social way,” pleaded Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“But all this, every week, in time comes to a good
deal,” said Aunt Maria. “Now, if Eva would put all the
extra trouble and expense of these evenings into one good
handsome party of select people and have it over with,
why that would be something worth while, and I would
help her get it up. Such a party stands for something.
But she doesn't come to me for advice. I'm a superannuated
old woman, I suppose,” and Aunt Maria sighed in
a way heart-breaking to her peace-loving sister.
“Indeed, Maria, you are wrong. You are provoked
now. You don't mean so.”
“I'm—not provoked. Do you suppose I care? I
don't! but I can see, I suppose! I'm not quite blind yet,
I hope, and I sha'n't go where I'm not wanted. And
now, if you'll give me those samples, Nellie, I'll go to
Arnold's and Stewart's and look up that dress for you,
and then I'll take your laces to the mender's. It's a
good morning's work to go up to that dark alley where
she rooms; but I'll do it, now I'm about it. I'm not so
worn out yet but what I am acceptable to do errands for
you,” said Aunt Maria, with gloomy satisfaction.
“Oh, Maria, how can you talk so!” said little Mrs.
Van Arsdel, with tears in her eyes. “You really are
unjust.”
-- 163 --
[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]
“There's no use in discussing matters, Nellie. Give
me the patterns and the laces,” said Aunt Maria, obdurately.
“Here! I'll sort 'em out. You never have anything
ready,” she said, opening her sister's drawer, and
taking right and left such articles as she deemed proper,
with as much composure as if her sister had been a
seven-year-old child. “There!” she said, shutting the
drawer, “now I'm ready. Good morning!”—and away
she sailed, leaving her sister abased in spirit, and
vaguely contrite for she couldn't tell what.
Aunt Maria had the most disagreeable habit of venting
her indignation on her sister, by going to most uncomfortable
extremes of fatiguing devotion to her service.
With a brow of gloom and an air of martyrdom,
she would explore shops, tear up and down stair-cases,
perform fatiguing pilgrimages for Nellie and the girls;
piling all these coals of fire on their heads, and looking
all the while so miserably abused and heart-broken that
it required stronger discrimination than poor Mrs. Van
Arsdel was gifted with not to feel herself a culprit.
“Only think, your Aunt Maria says she won't go this
evening,” she said in a perplexed and apprehensive tone
to her girls.
“Glad of it,” said Alice, and the words were echoed
by Angelique.
“Oh, girls, you oughtn't to feel so about your aunt!”
“We don't,” said Alice, “but as long as she feels so
about us, it's just as well not to have her there. We
girls are all going to do our best to make the first evening
a success, so that everybody shall have a good time
and want to come again; and if Aunt Maria goes in her
present pet, she would be as bad as Edgar Poe's raven.”
“Just fancy our having her on our hands, saying
`nevermore' at stated intervals,” said Angelique, laughing;
“why, it would upset everything!”
-- 164 --
[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]
“Angelique, you oughtn't to make fun of your aunt,”
said Mrs. Van Arsdel, with an attempt at reproving
gravity.
“I'm sure it's the nicest thing we can make of her,
Mammy dear,” said Angelique; “it's better to laugh
than to cry any time. Oh, Aunt Maria will keep, never
fear. She'll clear off by-and-by, like a northeast rain-storm,
and then we shall like her well as ever; sha'n't
we, girls?”
“Oh, yes; she always comes round after a while,”
said Alice.
“Well, now I'm going up to help Eva get the rooms
ready,” said Angelique, and out she fluttered, like a
flossy bit of thistle-down.
Angelique belonged to the corps of the laughing
saints—a department not always recognized by the
straiter sort in the church militant, but infinitely effective
and to the purpose in the battle of life. Her heart
was a tender but a gay one—perhaps the lovingness of
it kept it bright; for love is a happy divinity, and Angelique
loved everybody, and saw the best side of everything;
besides, just now she was barely seventeen, and
thought the world a very nice place. She was the very
life of the household, the one who loved to run and wait
and tend; who could stop gaps and fill spaces, and liked
to do it: and so, this day, she devoted herself to Eva's
service in the hundred somethings that pertain to getting
a house in order for an evening reception.
On the opposite side of the way, the projected hospitalities
awoke various conflicting emotions.
“Dinah, I don't really know whether I shall go to
that company to-night or not,” said Mrs. Betsey confidentially
to Dinah over her ironing-table.
-- 165 --
[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]
“Land sakes, Mis' Betsey,” said Dinah, with her
accustomed giggle, “how you talk! What you 'feard
on?”
Mrs. Betsey had retreated to the kitchen, to indulge
herself with Dinah in tremors and changes of emotion
which had worn out the patience of Miss Dorcas in the
parlor. That good lady, having made up her mind definitively
to go and take Betsey with her, was indisposed
to repeat every half hour the course of argument by
which she had demonstrated to her that it was the
proper thing to do.
But the fact was, that poor Mrs. Betsey was terribly
fluttered by the idea of going into company again.
Years had passed in that old dim house, with the solemn
clock tick-tocking in the corner, and the sunbeam
streaming duskily at given hours through the same windows,
with no sound of coming or going footsteps. There
the two ancient sisters had been working, reading, talking,
round and round on the same unvarying track, for
weeks, months and years, and now, suddenly, had come
a change. The pretty, gay, little housekeeper across the
way had fluttered in with a whole troop of invisible elves
of persuasion in the very folds of her garments, and had
cajoled and charmed them into a promise to be supporters
of her “evenings,” and Miss Dorcas was determined
to go. But all ye of womankind know that after every
such determination comes a review of the wherewithal,
and many tremors.
Now Miss Dorcas was self-sufficing, and self-sustained.
She knew herself to be Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden,
in the first place; and she had a general confidence,
by right of her family and position, that all her
belongings were the right things. They might be out of
fashion—so much the worse for the fashion; Miss Dorcas
wore them with a cheerful courage. Yet, as she
-- 166 --
[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]
frequently remarked, “sooner or later, if you let things lie,
fashion always comes round to them.” They had come
round to her many times in the course of her life, and
always found her ready for them. But Mrs. Betsey was
timorous, and had a large allowance of what the phrenologists
call “approbativeness.” In her youth she had
been a fashionable young belle, and now she had as many
flutters and tremors about her gray curls and her caps as
in the days when she sat up all night in an arm-chair
with her hair dressed and powdered for a ball. In fact,
an old lady's cap is undeniably a tender point. One
might imagine it to be a sort of shrine or last retreat in
which all her youthful love of dress finds asylum; and,
in estimating her fitness for any scene of festivity, the
cap is the first consideration. So, when Dinah chuckled,
“What ye 'feard on, honey?” Mrs. Betsey came out
with it:
“Dinah, I don't know which of my caps to wear.”
“Lor' sakes, Mis' Betsey, wear yer new one. What's
to hender?”
“Well, you see, it's trimmed with lilac ribbons, and
the shade don't go with my new brown gown; they look
horridly together. Dorcas never does notice such things,
but they don't go well together. I tried to tell Dorcas
about it, but she shut me up, saying I was always
fussy.”
“Well, laws! then, honey, wear your other cap—it's a
right nice un now,” said Dinah in a coaxing tone.
“Trimmed with white ribbon—” said Mrs. Betsey,
ruminating; “but you see, Dinah, that ribbon has really
got quite yellow; and there's a spot on one of the
strings,” she added, in a tone of poignant emotion.
“Well, now, I tell ye what to do,” said Dinah; “you
jest wear your new cap with them laylock ribbins, and
wear your black silk: that are looks illegant now.”
-- 167 --
[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]
“But my black silk is so old; it's pieced under the
arm, and beginning to fray in the gathers.”
“Land sake, Mis' Betsey! who's agoin' to look under
your arm?” said Dinah. “They a'n't agoin' to set you
up under one o' them sterry scopes to be looked at, be
they? You'll do to pass now, I tell ye; now don't go
to gettin' fluttered and 'steriky, Mis' Betsey. Why don't
ye go right along, like Mis' Dorcas? She don't have
no megrims and tantrums 'bout what she's goin' to
wear.”
Dinah's tolerant spirit in admitting this discussion
was, however, a real relief to Mrs. Betsey. Like various
liquors which are under a necessity of working themselves
clear, Mrs. Betsey found a certain amount of talk
necessary to clear her mind when proceeding to act in
any emergency, and for this purpose a listener was essential;
but Dorcas was so entirely above such fluctuations
as hers—so positive and definite in all her judgments and
conclusions—that she could not enjoy in her society the
unlimited amount of discussion necessary to clarify her
mental vision.
It was now about the fifth or sixth time that all the
possibilities with regard to her wardrobe had been up
for consideration that day; till Miss Dorcas, who had
borne with her heroically for a season, had finally closed
the discussion by recommending a chapter in Watts on
the Mind which said a great many unpleasant things
about people who occupy themselves too much with trifles,
and thus Mrs. Betsey was driven to unbosom herself
to Dinah.
“Then, again, there's Jack,” she added; “I'm sure I
don't know what he'll think of our both being out;
there never such a thing happened before.”
“Land sake, Mis' Betsey, jest as if Jack cared! Why,
he'll stay with me. I'll see arter him—I will.”
-- 168 --
[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]
“Well, you must be good to him, Dinah,” said Mrs.
Betsey, apprehensively.
“Ain't I allers good to him? I don't set him up for
a graven image and fall down and washup him, to be
sure; but Jack has good times with me, if I do make him
mind.”
The fact was, that Dinah often seconded the disciplinary
views of Miss Dorcas with the strong arm, pulling
Jack backward by the tail, and correcting him with
vigorous thumps of the broomstick when he fell into
those furors of barking which were his principal weakness.
Dinah had all the sociable instincts of her race; and
it moved her indignation that the few acquaintances
who found their way to the forsaken old house should
be terrified and repelled by such distracted tumults as
Jack generally created when the door-bell rang. Hence
her attitude toward him had so often been belligerent
that poor Mrs. Betsey felt small confidence in leaving
him to the trying separation of the evening under Dinah's
care.
“Well, Dinah, you won't whip Jack if he does bark?
I dare say he'll be lonesome. You must make allowances
for him.”
“Oh, laws, yes, honey, I'll make 'lowance, never you
fear.”
“And you really think the black dress will do?”
“Jest as sartin as I be that I'm here a ironin' this
'ere pillow-bier. Why, honey, you'll look like a pictur,
you will.”
“Oh, Dinah, I'm an old woman.”
“Well, honey, what if you be? Land sakes, don't I
remember when you was the belle of New York city?
Lord love ye! Them was days! When 'twas all comin'
and goin', hosses a-prancin', house full, and fellers fairly
-- 169 --
[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]
a-tumblin' over each other jest to get a look at ye. Laws,
honey, ye was wuth lookin' at in dem days.”
“Oh, Dinah, you silly old soul, what nonsense you
talk!”
“Well, honey, you know you was de handsomest gal
goin'. Now you knows you was,” said Dinah, chuckling
and shaking her portly sides.
“I suppose I wasn't bad looking,” said Mrs. Betsey,
laughing in turn; and the color flushed in her delicate,
faded cheeks, and her pretty bright eyes grew misty with
a thought of all the little triumphs, prides, and regrets
of years ago.
To say the truth, Mrs. Betsey, though past the noontime
of attraction, was a very pretty old woman. Her
hands were still delicate and white, her skin was of lily
fairness, and her hair like fine-spun silver; and she retained
still all the nice instincts and habits of the woman
who has known herself charming. She still felt the discord
of a shade in her ribbons like a false note in music,
and was annoyed by the slightest imperfection of her
dress, however concealed, to a degree which seemed at
times wearisome and irrational to her stronger minded
sister.
But Miss Dorcas, who had carried her in her arms, a
heart-broken wreck snatched from the waves of a defeated
life, bore with her as heroically as we ever can
bear with another whose nature is wholly of a different
make and texture from our own.
In general, she made up her mind with a considerable
share of good sense as to what it was best for
Betsey to do, and then made her do it, by that power
which a strong and steady nature exercises over a weaker
one.
Miss Dorcas had made up her mind that more society,
and some little change in her modes of life, would be a
-- 170 --
[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]
benefit to her sister; she had taken a strong fancy to
Eva, and really looked forward to her evenings as something
to give a new variety and interest in life.
“Now, Jim,” said Alice, in a monitory tone, “you
know we all depend on you to manage this thing just
right to-night. You mustn't be too lively and frighten
the serious folks; but you must keep things moving, just
as you know how.”
“Well, are you going to have `our rector?'” said Jim.
“Certainly. Mr. St. John will be there.”
“And of course, our little Angie,” said Jim.
“Certainly. Angie, and Mamma, and Papa, and I,
shall all be there,” said Alice, with dignity. “Now, Jim!”
The exclamation was addressed not to anything
which this young gentleman had said, but to a certain
wicked sparkle in his eye which Alice thought predicted
coming mischief.
“What's the matter now?” said Jim.
“I know just what you're thinking,” said Alice;
“and now, Jim, you mustn't look that way to-night.”
“Look what way!”
“Well, you mustn't in any way—look, sign, gesture or
word—direct anybody's attention to Mr. St. John and
Angie. Of course there's nothing there; it's all a fancy
of your own—a very absurd one; but I've known people
made very uncomfortable by such absurd suggestions.”
“Well, am I to wear green spectacles to keep my
eyes from looking?”
“You are to do just right, Jim, and nobody knows
how that is to be done better than you do. You know
that you have the gift of entertaining, and there isn't a
mortal creature that you can't please, if you try; and
you mustn't talk to those you like best to-night, but
-- 171 --
[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]
bestow yourself wherever a hand is needed. You must
entertain those old ladies over the way, and get acquainted
with Mr. St. John, and talk to the pretty
Quaker woman; in short, make yourself generally useful.”
“O. K.,” said Jim. “I'll be on hand. I'll make love
to all the old ladies, and let the parson admonish me, as
meek as Moses; and I'll look right the other way, if I see
him looking at Angie. Anything more?”
“No, that'll do,” said Alice, laughing. “Only do
your best, and it will be good enough.”
Eva was busy about her preparations, when Dr.
Campbell came in to borrow a book.
“Now, Dr. Campbell,” said she, “you're just the
man I wanted to see. I must tell you that one grand
reason why I want to be sure and secure you for our
evenings, and this one in particular, is I have caught our
rector and got his promise to come, and I want you to
study him critically, for I'm afraid he's in the way to get
to heaven long before we do, if he isn't looked after.
He's not in the least conscious of it, but he does need
attention.”
Dr. Campbell was a hale young man of twenty-five;
blonde, vigorous, high-strung, active, and self-confident,
and as keen set after medical and scientific facts as a
race-horse for the goal. As a general thing, he had no
special fancy for clergymen; but a clergyman as a physical
study, a possible verification of some of his theories,
was an object of interest, and he readily promised Eva
that he would spare no pains in making Mr. St. John's
acquaintance.
“Now, drolly enough,” said Eva, “we're going to
have a Quaker preacher here. I went in to invite Ruth
and her husband; and lo, they have got a celebrated
-- 172 --
[figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]
minister staying with them, one Sibyl Selwyn. She is as
lovely as an angel in a pressed crape cap and dove-colored
gown; but what Mr. St. John will think about her
I don't know.”
“Oh, Mrs. Henderson, there'll be trouble there, depend
on it,” said Dr. Campbell. “He won't recognize
her ordination, and very likely she won't recognize his.
You see, I was brought up among the Friends. I know
all about them. If your friend Sibyl should have a `concern'
laid on her for your Mr. St. John, she would tell
him some wholesome truths.”
“Dear me,” said Eva. “I hope she won't have a
`concern' the very first evening. It would be embarrassing.”
“Oh, no; to tell the truth, these Quaker preachers are
generally delightful women,” said Dr. Campbell. “I'm
sure I ought to say so, for my good aunt that brought
me up was one of them, and I don't doubt that Sibyl
Selwyn will prove quite an addition to your circle.”
Well, the evening came, and so did all the folks.
But what they said and did, must be told in another
chapter.
-- -- p710-186
CHAPTER XVI. THE MINISTER'S VISIT.
[figure description] Page 173.[end figure description]
MR. ST. JOHN was sitting in his lonely study, contemplating
with some apprehension the possibilities
of the evening.
Perhaps few women know how much of an ordeal
general society is to many men. Women are naturally
social and gregarious, and have very little experience of
the kind of shyness that is the outer bark of many
manly natures, in which they fortify all the more sensitive
part of their being against the rude shocks of the
world.
As we said, Mr. St. John's life had been that of a
recluse and scholar, up to the time of his ordination as
a priest. He was, by birth and education, a New England
Puritan, with all those habits of reticence and
self-control which a New England education enforces.
His religious experiences, being those of reaction from
a sterile and severe system of intellectual dogmatism,
still carried with them a tinge of the precision and narrowness
of his early life. His was a nature like some of
the streams of his native mountains, inclining to cut for
itself straight, deep, narrow currents; and all his religious
reading and thinking had run in one channel. As to
social life, he first began to find it among his inferiors;
among those to whom he came, not as a brother man,
but as an authoritative teacher—a master, divinely appointed,
set apart from the ordinary ways of men. In
his role of priest he felt strong. In the belief of his
divine and sacred calling, he moved among the poor
-- 174 --
[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]
and ignorant with a conscious superiority, as a being of
a higher sphere. There was something in this which
was a protection to his natural diffidence; he seemed
among his parishioners to feel surrounded by a certain
sacred atmosphere that shielded him from criticism.
But to mingle in society as man with man, to lay aside
the priest and be only the gentleman, appeared on near
approach a severe undertaking. As a priest at the altar
he was a privileged being, protected by a kind of divine
aureole, like that around a saint. In general society he
was but a man, to make his way only as other men; and,
as a man, St. John distrusted and undervalued himself.
As he thought it over, he inly assented to the truth of
what Eva had so artfully stated—that this ordeal of
society was indeed, for him, the true test of self-sacrifice.
Like many other men of refined natures, he was nervously
sensitive to personal influences. The social sphere
of those around him affected him, through sympathy,
almost as immediately as the rays of the sun impress the
daguerreotype plate; but he felt it his duty to subject
himself to the ordeal the more because he dreaded it.
“After all,” he said to himself, “what is my faith worth,
if I cannot carry it among men? Do I hold a lamp
with so little oil in it that the first wind will blow it
out?”
It was with such thoughts as these that he started
out on his usual afternoon tour of visiting and ministration
in one of the poorest alleys of his neighborhood.
As he was making his way along, a little piping voice
was heard at his elbow:
“Mr. St. Don; Mr. St. Don.”
He looked hastily down and around, to meet the gaze
of a pair of dark childish eyes looking forth from a
thin, sharp little face. Gradually, he recognized in the
-- 175 --
[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]
thin, barefoot child, the little girl whom he had seen in
Angie's class, leaning on her.
“What do you want, my child?”
“Mother's took bad, and Poll's gone to wash for her.
They told me to watch till you came round, and call
you. Mother wants to see you.”
“Well, show me the way,” said Mr. St. John, affably,
taking the thin, skinny little hand.
The child took him under an alley-way, into a dark,
back passage, up one or two rickety staircases, into
an attic, where lay a woman on a poor bed in the
corner.
The room was such a one as his work made only
too familiar to him—close, dark, bare of comforts, yet
not without a certain lingering air of neatness and self-respect.
The linen of the bed was clean, and the woman
that lay there had marks of something refined and decent
in her worn face. She was burning with fever;
evidently, hard work and trouble had driven her to the
breaking point.
“Well, my good woman, what can I do for you?”
said Mr. St. John.
The woman roused from a feverish sleep and looked
at him.
“Oh, sir, please send her here. She said she would
come any time I needed her, and I want her now.”
“Who is she? Who do you mean?”
“Please, sir, she means my teacher,” said the child,
with a bright, wise look in her thin little face. “It's
Miss Angie. Mother wants her to come and talk to
father; father's getting bad again.”
“He isn't a bad man,” put in the woman, “except
they get him to drink; it's the liquor. God
knows there never was a kinder man than John used
to be.”
-- 176 --
[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]
“Where is he? I will try to see him,” said Mr. St.
John.
“Oh, don't; it won't do any good. He hates ministers;
he wouldn't hear you; but Miss Angie he will
hear; he promised her he wouldn't drink any more, but
Ben Jones and Jim Price have been at him and got him
off on a spree. O dear!”
At this, moment a feeble wail was heard from the
basket cradle in the corner, and the little girl jumped
from the bed, and in an important, motherly way, began
to soothe an indignant baby, who put up his stomach
and roared loudly after the manner of his kind, astonished
and angry at not finding the instant solace and
attention which his place in creation demanded.
Mr. St. John looked on in a kind of silent helplessness,
while the little skinny creature lifted a child who
seemed almost as large as herself and proceeded to
soothe and assuage his ill humor by many inexplicable
arts, till she finally quenched his cries in a suckingbottle,
and peace was restored.
“The only person in the world that can do John any
good,” resumed the woman, when she could be heard,
“is Miss Angie. John would turn any man, specially
any minister, out of the house, that said a word about
his ways; but he likes to have Miss Angie come here.
She has been here Saturday afternoons and read stories
to the children, and taught them little songs, and John
always listens, and she almost got him to promise he
would give up drinking; she has such pretty ways of
talking, a man can't get mad with her. What I want is,
can't you tell her John's gone, and ask her to come to
me? He'll be gone two days or more, and when he
comes back he'll be sorry—he always is then; and then
if Miss Angie will talk to him; you see she's so pretty,
and dresses so pretty. John says she is the brightest,
-- 177 --
[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]
prettiest lady he ever saw, and it sorter pleases him that
she takes notice of us. John always puts his best foot
foremost when she is round. John's used to being with
gentlefolk,” she said, with a sigh; “he knows a lady
when he sees her.”
“Well, my good woman,” said Mr. St. John, “I shall
see Miss Angie this evening, and you may be sure that I
shall tell her all about this. Meanwhile, how are you
off? Do you need money now?”
“I am pretty well off, sir. He took all my last week's
money when he went, but Poll has gone to my washplace
to-day, and I told her to ask for pay. I hope
they'll send it.”
“If they don't,” said Mr. St. John, “here is something
to keep things going,” and he slipped a bill into
the woman's hand.
“Thank you, sir. When I get up, if you'll please give
me some washing, I'll make it square. I've been held
good at getting up linen.”
Poor woman! She had her little pride of independence,
and her little accomplishment—she could
wash and iron! There she felt strong! Mr. St. John
allowed her the refuge, and let her consider the money
as an advance, not a charity.
He turned away, and went down the cracked and
broken stairs with the thought struggling in an undefined
manner in his breast, how much there was of pastoral
work which transcended the power of man, and
required the finer intervention of woman. With all, there
came a glow of shy pleasure that there was a subject of
intercommunication opened between him and Angie,
something definite to talk about; and to a diffident man
a definite subject is a mine of gold.
-- -- p710-191
CHAPTER XVII. OUR FIRST THURSDAY.
[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]
THE Henderson's first “Evening” was a social success.
The little parlors were radiant with the blaze
of the wood-fire, which gleamed and flashed and made
faces at itself in the tall, old-fashioned brass andirons,
and gave picturesque tints to the room.
Eva's tea-table was spread in one corner, dainty with
its white drapery, and with her pretty wedding-present
of china upon it—not china like Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden's,
of the real old Chinese fabric, but china fresh
from the modern improvements of Paris, and so adorned
with violets and grasses and field flowers that it made a
December tea-table look like a meadow where one could
pick bouquets. Every separate tea-cup and saucer was
an artist's study, and a topic for conversation.
The arrangement of the rooms had been a day's
work of careful consideration between Eva and Angelique.
There was probably not a perch or eyrie accessible
by chairs, tables, or ottomans, where these little
persons had not been mounted, at divers times of the
day, trying the effect of various floral decorations. The
amount of fatigue that can be gone through in the mere
matter of preparing one little set of rooms for an evening
reception, is something that men know nothing about;
only the sisterhood could testify to that frantic “fanaticism
of the beautiful” which seizes them when an evening
company is in contemplation, and their house is to
put, so to speak, its best foot forward. Many an aching
back and many a drooping form could testify how the
-- 179 --
[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]
woman spends herself in advance, in this sort of altar
dressing for home worship.
But, as a consequence, the little rooms were bowers of
beauty. The pictures were overshadowed with nodding
wreaths of pressed ferns and bright bitter-sweet berries,
with glossy holly leaves; the statuettes had backgrounds
of ivy which threw out their whiteness. Harry's little
workroom adjoining the parlor had become a green
alcove, where engravings and books were spread out
under the shade of a German student-lamp. Everywhere
that a vase of flowers could make a pretty show,
there was a vase of flowers, though it was December, and
the ground frozen like lead. For the next door neighbor,
sweet Ruth Baxter, had clipped and snipped every
rosebud, and mignonette blossom, and even a splendid
calla lily, with no end of scarlet geranium, and sent
them in to Eva; and Miss Dorcas had cut away about
half of an ancient and well-kept rose-geranium, which
was the apple of her eye, to help out her little neighbor.
So they reveled in flowers, without cutting those which
grew on Eva's own bushes, which were all turned to the
light and arranged in appropriate situations, blossoming
their best. The little dining-room also was thrown
open, and dressed, and adorned with flowers, pressed
ferns, berries, and autumn leaves; with a distant perspective
of light in it, that there might be a place of withdrawal
and quiet chats over books and pictures. In
every spot were disposed objects to start conversation.
Books of autographs, portfolios of sketches, photographs
of distinguished people, stereoscopic views, with stereoscope
to explain them,—all sorts of intervening means and
appliances by which people, not otherwise acquainted,
should find something to talk about in common.
Eva was admirably seconded by her friends, from
long experience versed in the art of entertaining. Mrs.
-- 180 --
[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]
Van Arsdel, gentle, affable, society-loving, and with a
quick tact at reading the feelings of others, was a host
in herself. She at once took possession of Miss Dorcas
Vanderheyden, who came in a very short dress of rich
India satin, and very yellow and mussy but undeniably
precious old lace, and walked the rooms with a high-shouldered
independence of manner most refreshing in
this day of long trains and modern inconveniences.
“Sensible old girl,” was Jim Fellows's comment in
Alice's ear as Miss Dorcas marched in; for which, of
course, he got a reproof, and was ordered to remember
and keep himself under.
As to Mrs. Betsey, with her white hair, and lace cap
with lilac ribbons, and black dress, with a flush of
almost girlish timidity in her pink cheeks, she won an
instant way to the heart of Angelique, who took her arm
and drew her to a cosy arm-chair before a table of engravings,
and began an animated conversation on a book
of etchings of the “Old Houses of New York.” These
were subjects on which Mrs. Betsey could talk, and talk
entertainingly. They carried her back to the days of
her youth; bringing back scenes, persons, and places
long forgotten, her knowledge of which was full of entertainment.
Angelique wonderingly saw her transfigured
before her eyes. It seemed as if an after-glow from the
long set sun of youthful beauty flashed back in the old,
worn face, as her memory went back to the days of
youth and hope. It is a great thing to the old and
faded to feel themselves charming once more, even for
an hour; and Mrs. Betsey looked into the blooming
face and wide open, admiring, hazel eyes of Angelique,
and felt that she was giving pleasure, that this charming
young person was really delighted to hear her talk. It
was one of those “cups of cold water” that Angelique
was always giving to neglected and out-of-the-way
-- 181 --
[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]
people, without ever thinking that she did so, or why she
did it, just because she was a sweet, kind-hearted, loving
little girl.
When Mr. St. John, with an apprehensive spirit, adventured
his way into the room, he felt safe and at ease
in a moment. All was light, and bright, and easy —
nobody turned to look at him, and it seemed the easiest
thing in the world to thread his way through busy chatting
groups to where Eva made a place for him by her
side at the tea-table, passed him his cup of tea, and
introduced him to Dr. Campbell, who sat on her other
side, cutting the leaves of a magazine.
“You see,” said Eva, laughing, “I make our Doctor
useful on the Fourier principle. He is dying to get at
those magazine articles, so I let him cut the leaves and
take a peep along here and there, but I forbid reading—
in our presence, men have got to give over absorbing,
and begin radiating. Doesn't St. Paul say, Mr. St. John,
that if women are to learn anything they are to ask their
husbands at home? and doesn't that imply that their
husbands at home are to talk to them, and not sit reading
newspapers?”
“I confess I never thought of that inference from the
passage,” said Mr. St. John, smiling.
“But the modern woman,” said Dr. Campbell, “scorns
to ask her husband at home. She holds that her husband
should ask her.”
“Oh, well, I am not the modern woman. I go for
the old boundaries and the old privileges of my sex; and
besides, I am a good church woman and prefer to ask
my husband. But I insist, as a necessary consequence,
that he must hear me and answer me, as he cannot do if
he is reading newspapers or magazines. Isn't that case
fairly argued, Mr. St. John?”
“I don't see but it is.”
-- 182 --
[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]
“Well, then, the spirit of it applies to the whole of
your cultured and instructive sex. Men, in the presence
of women, ought always to be prepared to give them
information, to answer questions, and make themselves
generally entertaining and useful.”
“You see, Mr. St. John,” said Dr. Campbell, “that
Mrs. Henderson has a dangerous facility for generalizing.
Set her to interpreting and there's no saying where her
inferences mightn't run.”
“I'd almost release Mr. St. John from my rules, to
allow him to look over this article of yours, though, Dr.
Campbell,” said Eva. “Harry has read it to me, and I
said, along in different parts of it, if ministers only knew
these things, how much good they might do!”
“What is the article?”
“It is simply something I wrote on `Abnormal Influences
upon the Will;' it covers a pretty wide ground as
to the question of human responsibility and the recovery
of criminals, and all that.”
Mr. St. John remembered at this moment the case of
the poor woman whom he had visited that afternoon,
and the periodical fatality which was making her family
life a shipwreck, and he turned to Dr. Campbell a face
so full of eager inquiry and dawning thought that Eva
felt that the propitious moment was come to leave them
together, and instantly she moved from her seat between
them, to welcome a new comer who was entering the
room.
“I've got them together,” she whispered to Harry a
few minutes after, as she saw that the two were turned
towards each other, apparently intensely absorbed in conversation.
The two might have formed a not unapt personification
of flesh and spirit. Dr. Campcell, a broad-shouldered,
deep-breathed, long-limbed man, with the proudly
-- 183 --
[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]
set head and quivering nostrils of a high-blooded horse—
an image of superb physical vitality: St. John, so delicately
and sparely built, with his Greek forehead and clear
blue eye, the delicate vibration of his cleanly cut lips,
and the cameo purity of every outline of his profile.
Yet was he not without a certain air of vigor, the outshining
of spiritual forces. One could fancy Campbell
as the Berserker who could run, race, wrestle, dig, and
wield the forces of nature, and St. John as the poet and
orator who could rise to higher regions and carry souls
upward with him. It takes both kinds to make up a
world.
And now glided into the company the vision of two
women in soft, dove-colored silks, with white crape kerchiefs
crossed upon their breasts, and pressed crape
caps bordering their faces like a transparent aureole.
There was the neighbor, Ruth Baxter, round, rosy, young,
blooming, but dressed in the straitest garb of her sect.
With her back turned, you might expect to see an aged
woman stricken in years, so prim and antique was the
fashion of her garments; but when her face was turned,
there was the rose of youth blooming amid the cool
snows of cap and kerchief. The smooth pressed hair
rippled and crinkled in many a wave, as if it would curl
if it dared, and the round blue eyes danced with a scarce
suppressed light of cheer that might have become mirthfulness,
if set free; but yet the quaint primness of her
attire set off her womanly charms beyond all arts of the
toilet.
Her companion was a matronly person, who might
be fifty or thereabouts. She had that calm, commanding
serenity that comes to woman only from the habitual
exaltation of the spiritual nature. Sibyl Selwyn was
known in many lands as one of the most zealous and
best accepted preachers of her sect. Her life had been
-- 184 --
[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]
an inspiration of pity and mercy; and she had been in
far countries of the earth, where there was sin to be
reproved or sorrow to be consoled, a witness to testify
and a medium through whom guilt and despair might
learn something of the Divine Pity.
She bore about with her a power of personal presence
very remarkable. Her features were cast in large
and noble mould; her clear cut, wide-open gray eyes
had a penetrating yet kind expression, that seemed
adapted both to search and to cheer, and went far to
justify the opinion of her sect, which attributed to Sibyl
in an eminent degree the apostolic gift of the discerning
of spirits. Somehow, with her presence there seemed to
come an atmosphere of peace and serenity, such as one
might fancy clinging about even the raiment of one just
stepped from a higher sphere. Yet, so gliding and so dovelike
was the movement by which the two had come in—so
perfectly, cheerfully, and easily had they entered into the
sympathies of the occasion, that their entrance made no
more break or disturbance in the social circle than the
stealing in of a ray of light through a church window.
Eva had risen and gone to them at once, had seated
them at the opposite side of the little tea-table and
poured their tea, chatting the while and looking into their
serene faces with a sincere cordiality which was reflected
back from them in smiles of confidence.
Sibyl admired the pictures, flowers, and grasses on
her tea-cup with the naïve interest of a child; for one
often remarks, in intercourse with her sect, how the
æsthetic sense, unfrittered and unworn by the petting of
self-indulgence, is prompt to appreciate beauty.
Eva felt a sort of awed pleasure in Sibyl's admiration
of her pretty things, as if an angel guide were
stooping to play with her. She felt in her presence like
one of earth's unweaned babies.
-- 185 --
[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]
St. John, in one of the pauses of the conversation,
looked up and saw this striking head and face opposite
to him; a head reminding him of some of those saintly
portraitures of holy women in which Overbeck delights.
We have described him as peculiarly impressible under
actual social influences. It was only the week before
that an application had been made to him for one
Sibyl Selwyn to hold a meeting in his little chapel, and
sternly refused. His idea of a female preacher had been
largely blended with the mediæval masculine contempt
of woman and his horror of modern woman public
teachers and lecturers. When this serene vision rose
like an exhalation before him, he did not at first recall
the applicant for his chapel, but he looked at her admiringly
in a sort of dazed wonder, and inquired of Dr.
Campbell in a low voice, “Who is that?”
“Oh,” said Dr. Campbell, “don't you know? that's
the Quaker preacher, Sibyl Selwyn; the woman who has
faced and put down the devil in places where you couldn't
and I wouldn't go.”
St. John felt the blood flush in his cheeks, and a dim
idea took possession of him that, if some had entertained
angels unawares, others unawares had rejected them.
“Yes,” said Dr. Campbell, “that woman has been
alone, at midnight, through places where you and I could
not go without danger of our heads; and she has said
words to bar-tenders and brothel-keepers that would cost
us our lives. But she walks out of it all, as calm as you
see her to-night. I know that kind of woman—I was
brought up among them. They are an interesting physiological
study; the over-cerebration of the spiritual
faculties among them occasions some very peculiar facts
and phenomena. I should like to show you a record I
have kept. It gives them at times an almost miraculous
ascendancy over others. I fancy,” he said carelessly,
-- 186 --
[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]
“that your legends of the saints could furnish a good
many facts of the same sort.”
At this moment, Eva came up in her authoritative
way as mistress of ceremonies, took Mr. St. John by the
arm, and, walking across with him, seated him by Sibyl
Selwyn, introduced them to each other, and left them.
St. John was embarrassed, but Sibyl received him with
the perfect composure in which she sat enthroned.
“Arthur St. John,” she said, “I am glad to meet
thee. I am interested in thy work among the poor of
this quarter, and have sought the Lord for thee in it.”
“I am sure I thank you,” said St. John, thus suddenly
reduced to primitive elements and spoken to on the
simple plane of his unvarnished humanity. It is seldom,
after we come to mature years and have gone out into
the world, that any one addresses us simply by our name
without prefix or addition of ceremony. It is the province
only of rarest intimacy or nearest relationship, and
it was long since St. John had been with friend or relation
who could thus address him. It took him back to
childhood and his mother's knee. He was struggling
with a vague sense of embarrassment, when he remembered
the curt and almost rude manner in which he had
repelled her overture to speak in his chapel, and the
contempt he had felt for her at the time. In the presence
of the clear, saintly face, it seemed as if he had
been unconsciously guilty of violating a shrine. He
longed to apologize, but he did not know how to begin.
“I feel,” he said, “that I am inexperienced and that
the work is very great. You,” he added, “have had
longer knowledge of it than I; perhaps I might learn
something of you.”
“Thou wilt be led,” said Sibyl, with the same assured
calmness, “be not afraid.”
“I am sorry—I was sorry,” said St. John, hesitating,
-- 187 --
[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]
“to refuse the help you offered in speaking in my chapel,
but it is contrary to the rules of the church.”
“Be not troubled. Thee follows thy light. Thee
can do no otherways. Thee is but young yet,” she said,
with a motherly smile.
“I did not know you personally then,” he said. “I
should like to talk more with you, some time. I should
esteem it a favor to have you tell me some of your experiences.”
“Some time, if we can sit together in stillness, I might
have something given me for thee; this is not the time,”
said Sibyl, with quiet graciousness.
A light laugh seemed to cut into the gravity of the
conversation.
Both turned. Angelique was the center of a gay
group to whom she was telling a droll story. Angie had
a gift for this sort of thing; and Miss Dorcas and Mrs.
Betsey, Mrs. Van Arsdel and Mr. Van Arsdel were gathered
around her as, with half-pantomime, half-mimicry,
she was giving a street scene in one of her Sunday-school
visitations. St. John laughed too; he could not help
it. In a moment, however, he seemed to recollect himself,
and sighed and said:
“It seems sometimes strange to me that we can allow
ourselves to laugh in a world like this. She is only a
child or she couldn't.”
Sibyl looked tenderly at Angelique. “It is her gift,”
she said. “She is one of the children of the bridechamber,
who cannot mourn because the bridegroom is
with them. It would be better for thee, Arthur St. John,
to be more a child. Where the spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty.”
St. John was impressed by the calm decision of this
woman's manner, and the atmosphere of peace and assurance
around her. The half-mystical character of her
-- 188 --
[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]
words fell in with his devout tendencies, and that strange,
indefinable something that invests some persons with influence
seemed to be with her, and he murmured to himself
the words from Comus—
“She fables not, and I do feel her words
Set off by some superior power.”
Mr. St. John had not for a moment during that
whole evening lost the consciousness that Angelique was
in the room. Through that double sense by which two
trains of thought can be going on at the same time, he
was sensible of her presence and of what she was doing,
through all his talks with other people. He had given
one glance, when he came into the room, to the place
where she was sitting and entertaining Mrs. Betsey, and
without any apparent watchfulness he was yet conscious
of every movement she made from time to time. He
knew when she dropped her handkerchief, he knew when
she rose to get down another book, and when she came
to the table and poured for Mrs. Betsey another cup of
tea. A subtle exhilaration was in the air. He knew not
why everything seemed so bright and cheerful; it is as
when a violet or an orange blossom, hid in a distant part
of a room, fills the air with a vague deliciousness.
He dwelt dreamily on Sibyl's half mystical words,
and felt as if an interpreting angel had sanctioned the
charm that he found in this bright, laughing child. He
liked to call her a child to himself, it was a pleasant little
nook into which he could retreat from a too severe scrutiny
of his feelings towards her; for, quite unknown to
himself, St. John's heart was fast slipping off into the
good old way of Eden.
But we leave him for a peep at other parties. It is
amusing to think how many people in one evening company
are weaving and winding threads upon their own
-- 189 --
[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]
private, separate spools. Jim Fellows, in the dining-room,
was saying to Alice:
“I'm going to bring Hal Stephens and Ben Hubert
to you this evening; and by George, Alice, I want you to
look after them a little, as you can. They are raw newspaper
boys, tumbled into New York; and nobody cares a
hang for them. Nobody does care a hang for any
stranger body, you know. They haven't a decent place
to visit, nor a woman to say a word to them; and yet I
tell you they're good fellows. Everybody curses newspaper
reporters and that sort of fellow. Nobody has a
good word for them. It's small salary, and many kicks
and cuffs they get at first; and yet that's the only way to
get on the papers, and make a man of yourself at last;
and so, as I've got up above the low rounds, I want to
help the boys that are down there, and I'll tell you, Alice,
it'll do 'em lots of good to know you.”
And so Alice was gracious to the new-comers and
made them welcome, and showed them pictures, and
drew them out to talk, and made them feel that they
were entertaining her.
Some women have this power of divining what a man
can say, and giving him courage to say it. Alice was
one of these; people wondered when they left her how
they had been made to talk so well. It was the best and
truest part of every one's nature that she gave courage
and voice to. This power of young girls to ennoble
young men is unhappily one of which too often they are
unconscious. Too often the woman, instead of being a
teacher in the higher life, is only a flatterer of the weaknesses
and lower propensities of the men whose admiration
she seeks.
St. John felt frightened and embarrassed with his
message to Angie. He had dwelt on it, all his way to the
house, as an auspicious key to a conversation which he
-- 190 --
[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]
anticipated with pleasure; yet the evening rolled by, and
though he walked round and round, and nearer and
nearer, and conversed with this and that one, he did not
come to the point of speaking to Angie. Sometimes she
was talking to somebody else and he waited; sometimes
she was not with anybody else, and then he waited lest
his joining her should be remarked. He did not stop to
ask himself why on earth it should be remarked any
more than if he had spoken to Alice or Eva, or anybody
else, but he felt as if it would be.
At last, however, after making several circles about
the table where she sat with Mrs. Betsey, he sat down by
them, and delivered his message with a formal precision,
as if he had been giving her a summons. Angie was all
sympathy and sweetness, and readily said she would go
and see the poor woman the very next day, and then an
awkward pause ensued. She was a little afraid of him as
a preternaturally good man, and began to wonder whether
she had been laughing too loud, or otherwise misbehaving,
in the gaity of her heart, that evening.
So, after a rather dry pause, Mr. St. John uttered some
commonplaces about the books of engravings before them,
and then, suddenly seeming to recollect something he had
forgotten, crossed the room to speak to Dr. Campbell.
“Dear me, child, and so that is your rector,” said
Mrs. Betsey. “Isn't he a little stiff?”
“I believe he is not much used to society,” said
Angie; “but he is a very good man.”
The evening entertainment had rather a curious finale.
A spirit of sociability had descended upon the company,
and it was one of those rare tides that come sometimes
where everybody is having a good time, and nobody looks
at one's watch; and so, ten o'clock was long past, and
eleven had struck, and yet there was no movement for
dissolving the session.
-- 191 --
[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]
Across the way, old Dinah had watched the bright
windows with longing eyes, until finally the spirit of the
occasion was too strong for her, and, bidding Jack lie
down and be a good dog, she left her own precincts and
ran across to the kitchen of the festal scene, to pick up
some crumbs for her share.
Jack looked at her in winking obedience as she closed
the kitchen door, being mindful in his own dog's head of
a small slip of a pantry window which had served his
roving purposes before now. The moment Dinah issued
from the outer door, Jack bounced from the pantry window
and went padding at a discreet distance from her
heels. Sitting down on the front door-mat of the festive
mansion, he occupied himself with his own reflections
till the door opening for a late comer gave him an opportunity
to slip in quietly.
Jack used his entrance ticket with discretion, watched,
waited, reconnoitered, till finally, seeing an unemployed
ottoman next Mrs. Betsey, he suddenly appeared in the
midst, sprang up on the ottoman with easy grace, sat up
on his hind paws, and waved his front ones affably to the
public.
The general tumult that ensued, the horror of Miss
Dorcas, the scolding she tried to give Jack, the storm of
applause and petting which greeted him in all quarters,
confirming him, as Miss Dorcas remarked, in his evil
ways,—all these may better be imagined than described.
“A quarter after eleven, sister!”
“Can it be possible?” said Mrs. Betsey. “No wonder
Jack came to bring us home.”
Jack seconded the remark with a very staccato bark
and a brisk movement towards the door, where, with
much laughing, many hand shakings, ardent protestations
that they had had a delightful evening, and promises
to come again next week, the company dispersed.
-- -- p710-205
CHAPTER XVIII. RAKING UP THE FIRE.
[figure description] Page 192.[end figure description]
THE cream of an evening company is the latter end
of it, after the more ceremonious have slipped
away and only “we and our folks” remain to croon and
rake up the fire.
Mr. and Mrs. Van Arsdel, Angelique, and Marie
went home in the omnibus. Alice staid to spend the
night with Eva, and help put up the portfolios, and put
back the plants, and turn the bower back into a work-room,
and set up the vases of flowers in a cool place
where they could keep till morning; because, you know—
you who are versed in these things—that flowers in
December need to be made the most of, in order to go as
far as possible.
Bolton yet lingered in his arm-chair, in his favorite
corner, gazing placidly at the coals of the fire. Dr.
Campbell was solacing himself, after the unsatisfied longings
of the evening, with seeing how his own article
looked in print, and Jim Fellows was helping miscellaneously
in setting back flower-pots, re-arranging books,
and putting chairs and tables, that had been arranged
festively, back into humdrum household places. Meanwhile,
the kind of talk was going on that usually follows
a social venture—a sort of review of the whole scene and
of all the actors.
“Well, Doctor, what do you think of our rector?”
said Eva, tapping his magazine briskly.
He lowered his magazine and squared himself round
gravely.
-- 193 --
[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]
“That fellow hasn't enough of the abdominal to
carry his brain power,” he said. “Splendid head—a little
too high in the upper stories and not quite heavy
enough in the basement. But if he had a good broad,
square chest, and a good digestive and blood-making
apparatus, he'd go. The fellow wants blood; he needs
mutton and beef, and plenty of it. That's what he
needs. What's called common sense is largely a matter
of good diet and digestion.”
“Oh, Doctor, you materialistic creature!” said Eva,
“to think of talking of a clergyman as if he were a
horse—to be managed by changing his feed!”
“Certainly, a man must be a good animal before he
can be a good man.”
“Well,” said Alice, “all I know is, that Mr. St. John
is perfectly, disinterestedly, heart and soul and body, devoted
to doing good among men; and if that is not noble
and grand and godlike, I don't know what is.”
“Well,” said Dr. Campbell, “I have a profound respect
for all those fellows that are trying to mop out the
Atlantic Ocean; and he mops cheerfully and with good
courage.”
“It's perfectly hateful of you, Doctor, to talk so,”
said Eva.
“Well, you know I don't go in for interfering with
nature—having noble, splendid fellows waste and wear
themselves down, to keep miserable scalawags and illbegotten
vermin from dying out as they ought to. Nature
is doing her best to kill off the poor specimens of
the race, begotten of vice and drunkenness; and what
you call Christian charity is only interference.”
“But you do it, Doctor; you know you do. Nobody
does more of that very sort of thing than you do, now.
Don't you visit, and give medicine and nursing, and all
that, to just such people?”
-- 194 --
[figure description] Page 194.[end figure description]
“I may be a fool for doing it, for all that,” said the
Doctor. “I don't pretend to stick to my principles any
better than most people do. We are all fools, more or
less; but I don't believe in Christian charity: it's all
wrong—this doctrine that the brave, strong good specimens
of the race are to torment and tire and worry their
lives out to save the scum and dregs. Here's a man
who, by economy, honesty, justice, temperance and hard
work, has grown rich, and has houses, and lands, and
gardens, and pictures, and what not, and is having a
good time as he ought to have, and right by him is another
who, by dishonesty, and idleness, and drinking,
has come to rags and poverty and sickness. Shall the
temperate and just man deny himself enjoyment, and
spend his time, and risk his health, and pour out his
money, to take care of the wife and children of this
scalawag? There's the question in a nutshell? and I
say, no! If scalawags find that their duties will be
performed for them when they neglect them, that's all
they want. What should St. John live like a hermit for?
deny himself food, rest and sleep? spend a fortune that
might make him and some nice wife happy and comfortable,
on drunkards' wives and children? No sense in it.”
“That's just where Christianity stands above and
opposite to nature,” said Bolton, from his corner. “Nature
says, destroy. She is blindly striving to destroy
the maimed and imperfect. Christianity says, save. Its
God is the Good Shepherd, who cares more for the
one lost sheep than for the ninety and nine that went
not astray.”
“Yes,” said Eva; “He who was worth more than
all of us put together, came down from heaven to labor
and suffer and die for sinners.”
“That's supernaturalism,” said Dr. Campbell. “I
don't know about that.”
-- 195 --
[figure description] Page 195.[end figure description]
“That's what we learn at church,” said Eva, “and
what we believe; and it's a pity you don't, Doctor.”
“Oh, well,” said Dr. Campbell, lighting his cigar,
previous to going out, “I won't quarrel with you. You
might believe worse things. St. John is a good fellow,
and, if he wants a doctor any time, I told him to call me.
Good night.”
“Did you ever see such a creature?” said Eva.
“He talks wild, but acts right,” said Alice.
“You had him there about visiting poor folks,” said
Jim. “Why, Campbell is a perfect fool about people
in distress—would give a fellow watch and chain, and
boots and shoes, and then scold anybody else that wanted
to go and do likewise.”
“Well, I say such discussions are fatiguing,” said
Alice. “I don't like people to talk all round the points
of the compass so.”
“Well, to change the subject, I vote our evening a
success,” said Jim. “Didn't we all behave beautifully!”
“We certainly did,” said Eva.
“Isn't Miss Dorcas a beauty!” said Jim.
“Come, now, Jim; no slants,” said Alice.
“I didn't mean any. Honest now, I like the old girl.
She's sensible. She gets such clothes as she thinks right
and proper, and marches straight ahead in them, instead
of draggling and draggletailing after fashion; and it's a
pity there weren't more like her.”
“Dress is a vile, tyrannical Moloch,” said Eva. “We
are all too much enslaved to it.”
“I know we are,” said Alice. “I think it's the question
of our day, what sensible women of small means are
to do about dress; it takes so much time, so much
strength, so much money. Now, if these organizing,
convention-holding women would only organize a dress
reform, they would do something worth while.”
-- 196 --
[figure description] Page 196.[end figure description]
“The thing is,” said Eva, “that in spite of yourself
you have to conform to fashion somewhat.”
“Unless you do as your Quaker friends do,” said
Bolton.
“By George,” said Jim Fellows, “those two were the
best dressed women in the room. That little Ruth was
seductive.”
“Take care; we shall be jealous,” said Eva.
“Well,” said Bolton, rising, “I must walk up to the
printing-office and carry that corrected proof to Daniels.”
“I'll walk part of the way with you,” said Harry.
“I want a bit of fresh air before I sleep.”
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
WICKEDNESS, OR MISERY?
."Bolton laid his hand on her shoulder, and, looking down on her,
said: 'Poor child, have you no mother?'"—p. 197.
[figure description] Illustration page. Image of two well dressed men, one of whom is talking to a young woman wrapped in a ragged shawl. He has his hand on her shoulder.[end figure description]
-- -- p710-212
CHAPTER XIX. A LOST SHEEP.
[figure description] Page 197.[end figure description]
THE two sallied out and walked arm in arm up the
street. It was a keen, bright, starlight night, with
everything on earth frozen stiff and hard, and the stars
above sparkling and glinting like white flames in the intense
clear blue. Just at the turn of the second street, a
woman who had been crouching in a doorway rose, and,
coming up towards the two, attempted to take Harry's
arm.
With an instinctive movement of annoyance and disgust,
he shook her off indignantly.
Bolton, however, stopped and turned, and faced the
woman. The light of a street lamp showed a face, dark,
wild, despairing, in which the history of sin and punishment
were too plainly written. It was a young face, and
one that might once have been beautiful; but of all that
nothing remained but the brightness of a pair of wonderfully
expressive eyes. Bolton advanced a step towards
her and laid his hand on her shoulder, and, looking
down on her, said:
“Poor child, have you no mother?”
“Mother! Oh!”
The words were almost shrieked, and then the woman
threw herself at the foot of the lamp-post and sobbed
convulsively.
“Harry,” said Bolton, “I will take her to the St.
Barnabas; they will take her in for the night.”
Then, taking the arm of the woman, he said in a
voice of calm authority, “Come with me.”
-- 198 --
[figure description] Page 198.[end figure description]
He raised her and offered her his arm. “Child, there
is hope for you,” he said. “Never despair. I will take
you where you will find friends.”
A walk of a short distance brought them to the door
of the refuge, where he saw her received, and then turning
he retraced his steps to Harry.
“One more unfortunate,” he said, briefly, and then
immediately took up the discussion of a point in the
proof-sheet just where he had left it. Harry was so
excited by the incident that he could hardly keep up the
discussion which Bolton was conducting.
“I wonder,” he said, after an interval, “who that
woman is, and what is her history.”
“The old story, likely,” said Bolton.
“What is curious,” said Harry, “is that Eva described
such a looking woman as hanging about our house the
other evening. It was the evening when she was going
over to the Vanderheyden house to persuade the old
ladies to come to us this evening. She seemed then
to have been hanging about our house, and Eva spoke
in particular of her eyes—just such singular, wild, dark
eyes as this woman has.”
“It may be a mere coincidence,” said Bolton. “She
may have had some errand on your street. Whatever
the case be, she is safe for the present. They will do
the best they can for her. She's only one more grain in
the heap!”
Shortly after, Harry took leave of Bolton and returned
to his own house. He found all still, Eva waiting
for him by the dying coals and smoking ashes of the
fire. Alice had retired to her apartment.
“We've had an adventure,” he said.
“What! to-night?”
Harry here recounted the scene and Bolton's course,
and immediately Eva broke out: “There, Harry, it must
-- 199 --
[figure description] Page 199.[end figure description]
be that very woman that I saw the night I was going
into the Vanderheyden's; she seems to be hanging round
this neighborhood. What can she be? Tell me, Harry,
had she very brilliant dark eyes, and a sort of dreadfully
haggard, hopeless look?”
“Exactly. Then I was provoked at her assurance in
laying her hand on my arm; but when I saw her face I
was so struck by its misery that I pitied her. You ought
to have seen Bolton; he seemed so calm and commanding,
and his face, as he looked down on her, had a wonderful
expression; and his voice,—you know that heavy,
deep tone of his,—when he spoke of her mother it perfectly
overcame her. She seemed almost convulsed, but
he assumed a kind of authority and led her away to the
St. Barnabas. Luckily he knew all about that, for he
had talked with St. John about it.”
“Yes, indeed, I heard them talking about it this very
evening; so it is quite a providence. I do wonder who
she is or what she is. Would it do for me to go to-morrow
and inquire?”
“I don't know, my dear, as you could do anything.
They will do all that is possible there, and I would not
advise you to interfere merely from curiosity. You can
do nothing.”
“Strange!” said Eva, still looking in the fire while
she was taking the hairpins out of her hair and loosening
her neck ribbon, “strange, the difference in the lot of
women. That girl has been handsome! People have
loved her. She might have been in a home, happy like
me, with a good husband—now there she is in the cold
streets. It makes me very unhappy to think such things
must be. You know how Bolton spoke of God, the
Good Shepherd—how he cared more for one lost one
than for all that went not astray. That is so beautiful—
I do hope she will be saved.”
-- 200 --
[figure description] Page 200.[end figure description]
“Let us hope so, darling.”
“It seems selfish for me to wrap my comforts about
me, and turn away my thoughts, and congratulate myself
on my good luck—don't it?”
“But, darling, if you can't do anything, I don't know
why you should dwell on it. But I'll promise you Bolton
shall call and inquire of the Sisters, and if there is anything
we can do, he will let us know. But now it's late,
and you are tired and need rest.”
-- -- p710-216
CHAPTER XX. EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER.
[figure description] Page 201.[end figure description]
CONGRATULATE us, dear mother; we have had
a success! Our first evening was all one could
hope! Everybody came that we wanted, and, what is
quite as good in such cases, everybody staid away that
we didn't want. You know how it is; when you
intend to produce real acquaintance, that shall ripen
into intimacy, it is necessary that there should be no
non-conductors to break the circle. There are people
that shed around them coldness and constraint, as if they
were made of ice, and it is a mercy when such people
don't come to your parties. As it is, I have had the
happiness to see our godly rector on most conversable
terms with our heretic doctor, and each thinking better
of the other. Oh! and, what was a greater triumph yet,
I managed to introduce a Quaker preacheress to Mr. St.
John, and had the satisfaction to see that he was completely
charmed by her, as well he may be. The way it
came about, you must know, is this:—
Little Ruth Baxter, our next door neighbor, has
received this Sibyl Selwyn at her house, and is going
with her soon on one of her preaching expeditions. I
find it is a custom of their sect for the preachers to associate
with themselves one or more lay sisters, who travel
with them, and for a certain time devote themselves to
works of charity and mercy under their superintendence.
They visit prisons and penitentiaries; they go to houses
of vice and misery, where one would think a woman
would scarcely dare to go; they reprove sin, yet carry
-- 202 --
[figure description] Page 202.[end figure description]
always messages of hope and mercy. Little Ruth is now
preparing to go with Sibyl on such a mission, and I am
much interested in the stories she tells me of the
strange unworldly experiences of this woman. It is true
that these missions are temporary; they seem to be only
like what we could suppose the visits of angels might
be—something to arouse and to stimulate, but not to
exert a continuous influence. What feeling they excite,
what good purposes and resolutions spring up under
their influence, they refer to the organized charities of
Christian churches of whatever name. If Sibyl's penitents
are Romanists, she carries them to the Romish
Sisters; and so with Methodist, Baptist, or Ritualist,
wherever they can find shelter and care. She seems to
regard her mission as like that of the brave Sisters of
Charity who go upon the field of battle amid belching
cannon and bursting shells, to bring away the wounded.
She leaves them in this or that hospital, and is off again
for more.
This she has been doing many years, as the spirit
within leads her, both in England and in this country.
I wish you could see her—I know how you would love
her. As for me, I look up to her with a kind of awe;
yet she has such a pretty, simple-hearted innocence
about her. I felt a little afraid of her at first, and
thought all my pins and rings and little bows and
fixtures would seem so many sins in her sight; but I
found she could admire a bracelet or a gem as much as
I did, and seemed to enjoy all my pretty things for me.
She says so prettily, “If thee acts up to thy light, Eva,
thee can do no more.” I only wish that I were as sure
as she is that I do. It is quite sweet of her, and puts me
at ease in her presence. They are going to be gone all
this week on some mission. I don't know yet exactly
where, but I can't help feeling as if I wished some angel
-- 203 --
[figure description] Page 203.[end figure description]
woman like Sibyl would take me off with her, and let me
do a little something in this great and never finished
work of helping and healing. I have always had a longing
to do a little at it, and perhaps, with some one to
inspire and guide me, even I might do some good.
This reminds me of a strange incident. The other
night, as I was crossing the street, I saw a weird-looking
young woman, very haggard and miserable, who seemed
to be in a kind of uncertain way, hanging about our
house. There was something about her face and eyes
that affected me quite painfully, but I thought nothing
of it at the time. But, the evening after our reception,
as Harry and Bolton were walking about a square
beyond our house, this creature came suddenly upon
them and took Harry's arm. He threw her off with a
sudden impulse, and then Bolton, like a good man, as he
always is, and with that sort of quiet self-possession he
always has, spoke to her and asked where her mother
was. That word was enough, and the poor thing began
sobbing and crying, and then he took her and led her
away to the St. Barnabas, a refuge for homeless people
which is kept by some of our church Sisters, and there he
left her; and Harry says he will tell Mr. St. John about
it, so that he may find out what can be done for her, if
anything.
When I think of meeting any such case personally, I
feel how utterly weak and inexperienced I am, and how
utterly unfit to guide or help, though I wish with my whole
heart I could do something to help all poor desolate
people. I feel a sort of self-reproach for being so very
happy as I am while any are miserable. To take
another subject,—I have been lately more and more
intimate with Bolton. You know I sent you Caroline's
letter about him. Well, really it seemed to me such a
pity that two who are entirely devoted to each other
-- 204 --
[figure description] Page 204.[end figure description]
should be living without the least comfort of intercommunion,
that I could not help just trying the least
little bit to bring them together. Harry rather warned
me not to do it. These men are so prudent; their
counsels seem rather cold to our hearts—is it not so,
mother? Harry advised me not to name the subject to
Bolton, and said he would not dare do it for the world.
Well, that's just because he's a man; he does not know
how differently men receive the approaches of a woman.
In fact, I soon found that there was no subject on which
Bolton was so all alive and eager to hear. When I
had once mentioned Caroline, he kept recurring to the
subject, evidently longing to hear more from her; and
so, one way and another, in firelight talks and moonlight
walks, and times and places when words slip out
before one thinks, the whole of what is to be known of
Caroline's feelings went into his mind, and all that might
be known of his to her passed into mine. I, in short,
became a medium. And do you think I was going to
let her fret her heart out in ignorance of anything I
could tell her? Not if I know myself; in fact, I have
been writing volumes to Caroline, for I am determined
that no people made for each other shall go wandering
up and down this labyrinth of life, missing their way at
every turn, for want of what could be told them by some
friendly good fairy who has the clue.
Say now, mother, am I imprudent? If I am, I can't
help it; the thing is done. Bolton has broken the
silence and written to Caroline; and once letter-writing
is begun, you see, the rest follows. Does it not?
Now the thing is done, Harry is rather glad of it, as
he usually is with the results of my conduct when I go
against his advice and the thing turns out all right; and,
what's of Harry better than that, when I get into a scrape
by going against his counsels, he never says, “I told you
-- 205 --
[figure description] Page 205.[end figure description]
so,” but helps me out, and comforts me in the loveliest
manner. Mother, dear, he does you credit, for you had
the making of him! He never would have been the husband
he is, if you had not been the mother you are.
You say you are interested in my old ladies across the
way.
Yes, I really flatter myself that our coming into this
neighborhood is quite a godsend to them. I don't know
any that seemed to enjoy the evening more than they two.
It was so long since they had been in any society, and their
society power had grown cramped, stiff by disuse; but
the light and brightness of our fireside, and the general
friendly cheerfulness, seemed to wake them up. My sisters
are admirable assistants. They are society girls in
the best sense, and my dear little mamma is never so
much herself as when she is devoting herself to entertaining
others. Miss Dorcas told me, this morning, that she
was thankful on her sister's account to have this prospect
of a weekly diversion opened to her; for that she
had so many sorrows and suffered so much, it was
all she could do at times to keep her from sinking in
utter despondency. What her troubles could have been
Miss Dorcas did not say; but I know that her marriage
was unhappy, and that she has lost all her children.
But, at any rate, this acknowledgement from her that we
have been a comfort and help to them gratifies me. It
shows me that we were right in thinking that we need
not run beyond our own neighborhood to find society
full of interest and do our little part in the kindly
work of humanity. Oh, don't let me forget to tell you
that that lovely, ridiculous Jack of theirs, that they make
such a pet of, insisted on coming to the party to look
after them; waylaid the door, and got in, and presented
himself in a striking attitude on an ottoman in the midst
of the company, to Miss Dorcas's profound horror and
-- 206 --
[figure description] Page 206.[end figure description]
our great amusement. Jack has now become the “dog
of the regiment,” and we think of issuing a season ticket
in his behalf: for everybody pets him; he helps to make
fun and conversation.
After all, my dear mother, I must say a grateful word
in praise of my Mary. I pass for a first-rate housekeeper,
and receive constant compliments for my lovely
house, its charming arrangements, the ease with which I
receive and entertain company, the smoothness and completeness
with which everything goes on; and all the
while, in my own conscience, I feel that almost all the
credit is due to Mary. The taste in combination and
arrangement is mine, to be sure—and I flatter myself on
having some nice domestic theories; but after all, Mary's
knowledge, and Mary's strength, and Mary's neatness
and order, are the foundation on which all the structure
is built. Of what use would be taste and beauty and
refinement, if I had to do my own washing, or cook my
own meals, or submit to the inroads of a tribe of untaught
barbarians, such as come from the intelligence
offices? How soon would they break my pretty teacups,
and overwhelm my lovely bijouterie with a second Goth
and Vandal irruption! So, with you, dear mother, you
see I do justice to Mary, strong and kind, whom nobody
thinks of and nobody praises, and yet who enables me
to do all that I do. I believe she truly loves me with
all the warmth of an Irish heart, and I love her in return;
and I give her this credit with you, to absolve my own
conscience for taking so much more than is due to myself
in the world. But what a long letter I am writing!
Writing to you is talking, and you know what a chatterbox
I am; but you won't be tired of hearing all this
from us.
Your loving Eva.
-- -- p710-222
CHAPTER XXI. BOLTON AND ST. JOHN.
[figure description] Page 207.[end figure description]
ST. JOHN was seated in his study, with a book of
meditations before him on which he was endeavoring
to fix his mind. In the hot, dusty, vulgar atmosphere
of modern life, it was his daily effort to bring
around himself the shady coolness, the calm conventual
stillness, that breathes through such writers as St.
Francis de Sales and Thomas à Kempis, men with a
genius for devotion, who have left to mankind records
of the mile-stones and road-marks by which they traveled
towards the highest things. Nor should the most
stringent Protestant fail to honor that rich and grand
treasury of the experience of devout spirits of which
the Romish Church has been the custodian. The hymns
and prayers and pious meditations which come to us
through this channel are particularly worthy of a cherishing
remembrance in this dusty, materialistic age.
To St. John they had a double charm, by reason of their
contrast with the sterility of the religious forms of his
early life. While enough of the Puritan and Protestant
remained in him to prevent his falling at once into the
full embrace of Romanism, he still regarded the old
fabric with a softened, poetic tenderness; he “took
pleasure in her stones and favored the dust thereof.”
Nor is it to be denied that in the history of the
Romish Church are records of heroism and self-devotion
which might justly inspire with ardor the son of a line
of Puritans. Who can go beyond St. Francis Xavier in
the signs of an apostle? Who labored with more utter
-- 208 --
[figure description] Page 208.[end figure description]
self-surrender than Father Claver for the poor negro
slaves of South America? And how magnificent are those
standing Orders of Charity, composed of men and women
of that communion, that have formed from age to age
a life-guard of humanity, devoted to healing the sick,
sheltering and educating the orphans, comforting the
dying!
A course of eager reading in this direction might
make it quite credible even that a Puritan on the rebound
should wish to come as near such a church as is possible
without sacrifice of conscience and reason.
In the modern Anglican wing of the English Church
St. John thought he had found the blessed medium.
There he believed were the signs of the devotion, the
heroism and self-sacrifice of the primitive Catholic
Church, without the hindrances and incrustations of
superstition. That little record, “Ten Years in St.
George's Mission,” was to him the seal of their calling.
There he read of men of property devoting their entire
wealth, their whole time and strength, to the work of
regenerating the neglected poor of London. He read
of a district that at first could be entered only under the
protection of the police, where these moral heroes began
their work of love amid the hootings and howlings of
the mob and threats of personal violence,—the scoff and
scorn of those they came to save; and how by the might
of Christian love and patience these savage hearts were
subdued, these blasphemies turned to prayers; and how
in this dark district arose churches, schools, homes for
the destitute, reformatories for the lost. No wonder St.
John, reading of such a history, felt, “This is the church
for me.” Perhaps a wider observation might have shown
him that such labors and successes are not peculiar to
the ritualist, that to wear the cross outwardly is not
essential to bearing the cross inwardly, and that without
-- 209 --
[figure description] Page 209.[end figure description]
signs and the symbolism of devout forms, the spirit of
love, patience and self-denial can and does accomplish
the same results.
St. John had not often met Bolton before that evening
at the Henderson's. There, for the first time, he
had had a quiet, uninterrupted conversation with him;
and, from the first, there had been felt between them that
constitutional sympathy that often unites widely varying
natures, like the accord of two different strings of an
instrument.
Bolton was less of an idealist than St. John, with a
wider practical experience and a heavier mental caliber.
He was in no danger of sentimentalism, and yet there
was about him a deep and powerful undertone of feeling
that inclined him in the same direction with Mr. St. John.
There are men, and very strong men, whose natures
gravitate towards Romanism with a force only partially
modified by intellectual convictions: they would be glad
to believe it if they could.
Bolton was an instance of a man of high moral and
intellectual organization, of sensitive conscience and intense
sensibility, who, with the highest ideal of manhood
and of the purposes to which life should be devoted, had
come to look upon himself as an utter failure. An
infirmity of the brain and the flesh had crept upon him
in the unguarded period of youth, had struck its poison
through his system, and weakened the power of the will,
till all the earlier part of his life had been a series of the
most mortifying failures. He had fallen from situation
after situation, where he had done work for a season:
and, each time, the agony of his self-reproach and despair
had been doubled by the reproaches and expostulations
of many of his own family friends, who poured upon bare
nerves the nitric acid of reproach. He had seen the hair
of his mother slowly and surely whitening in the
-- 210 --
[figure description] Page 210.[end figure description]
sickening anxieties and disappointments which he had brought.
Loving her with almost a lover's fondness, desiring above
all things to be her staff and stay, he had felt himself to
be to her only an anxiety and a disappointment.
When, at last, he had gained a foothold and a place
in the press, he was still haunted with the fear of recurring
failure. He who has two or three times felt his
sanity give way, and himself become incapable of rational
control, never thereafter holds himself secure.
And so it was with this overpowering impulse to which
Bolton had been subjected; he did not know at what
time it might sweep over him again.
Of late, his intimacy had been sought by Eva, and
he had yielded to the charm of her society. It was
impossible for a nature at once so sympathetic and so
transparent as hers to mingle intimately with another
without learning and betraying much. The woman's
tact at once divined that his love for Caroline had only
grown with time, and the scarce suppressed eagerness with
which he listened to any tidings from her led on from
step to step in mutual confidence, till there was nothing
more to be told, and Bolton felt that the only woman he
had ever loved, loved him in return with a tenacity and
intensity which would be controlling forces in her life.
It was with a bitter pleasure nearly akin to pain that
this conviction entered his soul. To a delicate moral
organization, the increase of responsibility, with distrust
of ability to meet it, is a species of torture. He feared
himself destined once more to wreck the life and ruin
the hopes of one dearer than his own soul, who was
devoting herself to him with a woman's uncalculating
fidelity.
This agony of self-distrust, this conscious weakness
in his most earnest resolutions and most fervent struggles,
led Bolton to wish with all his heart that the
-- 211 --
[figure description] Page 211.[end figure description]
beautiful illusion of an all-powerful church in which still
resided the visible presence of Almighty God might be a
reality. His whole soul sometimes cried out for such a
visible Helper—for a church with power to bind and
loose, with sacraments which should supplement human
weakness by supernatural grace, with a priesthood competent
to forgive sin and to guide the penitent. It was
simply and only because his clear, well-trained intelligence
could see no evidence of what he longed to believe,
that the absolute faith was wanting.
He was not the only one in this perplexed and hopeless
struggle with life and self and the world who has
cried out for a visible temple, such as had the ancient
Jew; for a visible High-Priest, who should consult the
oracle for him and bring him back some sure message
from a living God.
When he looked back on the seasons of his failures,
he remembered that it was with vows and tears and
prayers of agony in his mouth that he had been swept
away by the burning temptation; that he had been
wrenched, cold and despairing, from the very horns of
the altar. Sometimes he looked with envy at those
refuges which the Romish Church provides for those
who are too weak to fight the battle of life alone, and
thought, with a sense of rest and relief, of entering some
of those religious retreats where a man surrenders his
whole being to the direction of another, and ends the
strife by laying down personal free agency at the feet
of absolute authority. Nothing but an unconvinced intellect—
an inability to believe—stood in the way of this
entire self-surrender. This morning, he had sought Mr.
St. John's study, to direct his attention to the case of the
young woman whom he had rescued from the streets, the
night before.
Bolton's own personal experience of human weakness
-- 212 --
[figure description] Page 212.[end figure description]
and the tyranny of passion had made him intensely pitiful.
He looked on the vicious and the abandoned as a
man shipwrecked and swimming for his life looks on the
drowning who are floating in the waves around him;
and where a hand was wanting, he was prompt to stretch
it out.
There was something in that young, haggard face,
those sad, appealing eyes, that had interested him more
powerfully than usual, and he related the case with much
feeling to Mr. St. John, who readily promised to call and
ascertain if possible some further particulars about her.
“You did the very best possible thing for her,” said
he, “when you put her into the care of the Church. The
Church alone is competent to deal with such cases.”
Bolton ruminated within himself on the wild, diseased
impulses, the morbid cravings and disorders, the
complete wreck of body and soul that comes of such a
life as the woman had led, and then admired the serene
repose with which St. John pronounced that indefinite
power, the CHURCH, as competent to cast out the seven
devils of the Magdalen.
“I shall be very glad to hear good news of her,” he
said; “and if the Church is strong enough to save such
as she, I shall be glad to know that too.”
“You speak in a skeptical tone,” said St. John.
“Pardon me: I know something of the difficulties,
physical and moral, which lie in the way,” said Bolton.
“To them that believe, nothing shall be impossible,”
said St. John, his face kindling with ardor.
“And by the Church do you mean all persons who
have the spirit of Jesus Christ, or simply that portion of
them who worship in the form that you do?”
“Come, now,” said St. John, “the very form of your
question invites to a long historic argument; and I am
sure you did not mean to draw that on your head.”
-- 213 --
[figure description] Page 213.[end figure description]
“Some other time, though,” said Bolton, “if you will
undertake to convince me of the existence in this world
of such a power as you believe in, you will find me certainly
not unwilling to believe. But, this morning, I have
but a brief time to spend. Farewell, for the present.”
And with a hearty hand-shake the two parted.
-- -- p710-229
CHAPTER XXII. BOLTON TO CAROLINE.
[figure description] Page 214.[end figure description]
I HAD not thought to obtrude myself needlessly on
you ever again. Oppressed with the remembrance
that I have been a blight on a life that might otherwise
have been happy, I thought my only expiation was
silence. But it had not then occurred to me that possibly
you could feel and be pained by that silence. But
of late I have been very intimate with Mrs. Henderson,
whose mind is like those crystalline lakes we read of—
a pebble upon the bottom is evident. She loves you so
warmly and feels for you so sympathetically that, almost
unconsciously, when you pour your feelings into her
heart, they are revealed to me through the transparent
medium of her nature. I confess that I am still so selfish
as to feel a pleasure in the thought that you cannot
forget me. I cannot forget you. I never have forgotten
you, I believe, for a waking conscious hour since that
time when your father shut the door of his house between
you and me. I have demonstrated in my own
experience that there may be a double consciousness all
the while going on, in which the presence of one person
should seem to pervade every scene of life. You have
been with me, even in those mad fatal seasons when I
have been swept from reason and conscience and hope—
it has added bitterness to my humiliation in my weak
hours; but it has been motive and courage to rise up
again and again and renew the fight—the fight that must
last as long as life lasts; for, Caroline, this is so. In
-- 215 --
[figure description] Page 215.[end figure description]
some constitutions, with some hereditary predispositions,
the indiscretions and ignorances of youth leave a
fatal irremediable injury. Though the sin be in the
first place one of inexperience and ignorance, it is one
that nature never forgives. The evil once done can
never be undone; no prayers, no entreaties, no resolutions,
can change the consequences of violated law.
The brain and nerve force, once vitiated by poisonous
stimulants, become thereafter subtle tempters and traitors,
forever lying in wait to deceive and urging to ruin;
and he who is saved, is saved so as by fire. Since it is
your unhappy fate to care so much for me, I owe to you
the utmost frankness. I must tell you plainly that I am
an unsafe man. I am like a ship with powder on board
and a smouldering fire in the hold. I must warn my
friends off, lest at any moment I carry ruin to them,
and they be drawn down in my vortex. We can be
friends, dear friends; but let me beg you, think as little
of me as you can. Be a friend in a certain degree, after
the manner of the world, rationally, and with a wise
regard to your own best interests—you who are worth
five hundred times what I am—you who have beauty,
talent, energy—who have a career opening before you,
and a most noble and true friend in Miss Ida; do not
let your sympathies for a very worthless individual lead
you to defraud yourself of all that you should gain in
the opportunities now open to you. Command my services
for you in the literary line when ever they may be
of the slightest use. Remember that nothing in the
world makes me so happy as an opportunity to serve
you. Treat me as you would a loyal serf, whose only
thought is to live and die for you; as the princess of
the middle ages treated the knight of low degree, who
devoted himself to her service. There is nothing you
could ask me to do for you that would not be to me a
-- 216 --
[figure description] Page 216.[end figure description]
pleasure; and all the more so, if it involved any labor
or difficulty. In return, be assured, that merely by being
the woman you are, merely by the love which you have
given and still give to one so unworthy, you are a constant
strength to me, an encouragement never to faint
in a struggle which must last as long as this life lasts.
For although we must not forget that life, in the best
sense of the word, lasts forever, yet this first mortal
phase of it is, thank God, but short. There is another
and a higher life for those whose life has been a failure
here. Those who die fighting—even though they fall,
many times trodden under the hoof of the enemy—will
find themselves there made more than conquerors
through One who hath loved them.
In this age, when so many are giving up religion,
hearts like yours and mine, Caroline, that know the real
strain and anguish of this present life, are the ones to
appreciate the absolute necessity of faith in the great
hereafter. Without this, how cruel is life! How bitter,
how even unjust, the weakness and inexperience with
which human beings are pushed forth amid the grinding
and clashing of natural laws—laws of whose operation
they are ignorant and yet whose penalties are inexorable!
If there be not a Guiding Father, a redeeming
future, how dark is the prospect of this life! and who
can wonder that the ancients, many of the best of them,
considered suicide as one of the reserved rights of human
nature? Without religious faith, I certainly should.
I am making this letter too long; the pleasure of speaking
to you tempts me still to prolong it, but I forbear.
Ever yours, devotedly, Bolton.
My Dear Friend: How can I thank you for the confidence
you have shown me in your letter? You were
-- 217 --
[figure description] Page 217.[end figure description]
not mistaken in thinking that this long silence has been
cruel to me. It is more cruel to a woman than it can
possibly be to a man, because if to him silence be a pain,
he yet is conscious all the time that he has the power to
break it; he has the right to speak at any time, but a
woman must die silent. Every fiber of her being says
this. She cannot speak, she must suffer as the dumb
animals suffer.
I have, I confess, at times, been bitterly impatient of
this long reserve, knowing, as I did, that you had not
ceased to feel what you once felt. I saw, in our brief
interviews in New York, that you loved me still. A
woman is never blind to that fact, with whatever care it
is sought to be hidden. I saw that you felt all you
once professed, and yet were determined to conceal it,
and treat with me on the calm basis of ordinary friendship,
and sometimes I was indignant: forgive me the injustice.
You see that such a course is of no use, as a means of
making one forget. To know one's self passionately beloved
by another who never avows it, is something dangerous
to the imagination. It gives rise to a thousand
restless conjectures, and is fatal to peace. We can
reconcile ourselves in time to any certainty; it is only
when we are called upon to accommodate ourselves to
possibilities, uncertain as vaporous clouds, that we weary
ourselves in fruitless efforts.
Your letter avows what I knew before; what you
often told me in our happy days: and I now say in
return that I, like you, have never forgotten; that your
image and presence have been to me as mine to you,
ever a part of my consciousness through all these years
of separation. And now you ask me to change all this
into a cool and prudent friendship, after the manner of
the world; that is to say, to take all from you, to accept
-- 218 --
[figure description] Page 218.[end figure description]
the entire devotion of your heart and life, but be careful
to risk nothing in return, to keep at a safe distance from
your possible troubles, lest I be involved.
Do you think me capable of this? Is it like me? and
what would you think and say to a friend who should
make the same proposition to you? Put it to yourself:
what would you think of yourself, if you could be so
coldly wary and prudent with regard to a friend who
was giving to you the whole devotion of heart and
life?
No, dear friend, this is all idle talk. Away with it!
I feel that I am capable of as entire devotion to you as I
know you are to me; never doubt it. The sad fatality
which clouds your life makes this feeling only the more
intense; as we feel for those who are a part of our own
hearts, when in suffering and danger. In one respect,
my medical studies are an advantage to me. They have
placed me at a stand-point where my judgment on these
questions and subjects is different from those of ordinary
women. An understanding of the laws of physical
being, of the conditions of brain and nerve forces, may
possibly at some future day bring a remedy for such
sufferings as yours. I look for this among the possible
triumphs of science,—it adds interest to the studies and
lectures I am pursuing. I shall not be to you what
many women are to the men whom they love, an added
weight to fall upon you if you fall, to crush you under
the burden of my disappointments and anxieties and
distresses. Knowing that your heart is resolute and
your nature noble, a failure, supposing such a possibility,
would be to me only like a fever or a paralysis,—a subject
for new care and watchfulness and devotion, not
one for tears or reproaches or exhortations.
There are lesions of the will that are no more to be
considered subject to moral condemnation than a strain
-- 219 --
[figure description] Page 219.[end figure description]
of the spinal column or a sudden fall, from paralysis.
It is a misfortune; and to real true affection, a misfortune
only renders the sufferer more dear and redoubles
devotion.
Your letter gives me courage to live—courage to
pursue the course set before me here. I will make the
most of myself that I can for your sake, since all I am
or can be is yours. Already I hope that I am of use to
you in opening the doors of confidence. Believe me,
dear, nothing is so bad for the health of the mind or the
body as to have a constant source of anxiety and apprehension
that cannot be spoken of to anybody. The
mind thus shut within itself becomes a cave of morbid
horrors. I believe these unshared fears, these broodings,
and dreads unspoken, often fulfill their own prediction
by the unhealthy states of mind that they bring.
The chambers of the soul ought to be daily opened
and aired; the sunshine of a friend's presence ought to
shine through them, to dispel sickly damps and the
malaria of fears and horrors. If I could be with you
and see you daily, my presence should cheer you, my
faith in you should strengthen your faith in yourself.
For my part, I can see how the very sensitiveness of
your moral temperament which makes you so dread a
failure, exposes you to fail. I think the near friends of
persons who have your danger often hinder instead of
helping them by the manifestation of their fears and
anxieties. They think there is no way but to “pile up
the agony,” to intensify the sense of danger and responsibility,
when the fact is, the subject of it is feeling now
all the strain that human nerves can feel without cracking.
We all know that we can walk with a cool head
across a narrow plank only one foot from the ground.
But put the plank across a chasm a thousand feet in
depth, and the head swims. We have the same capacity
-- 220 --
[figure description] Page 220.[end figure description]
in both cases; but, in the latter, the awfulness of the
risk induces a nervous anxiety that amounts to a paralysis
of the will.
Don't, therefore, let this dread grow on you by the
horror of lonely brooding. Treat it as you would the
liability to any other disease, openly, rationally and hopefully;
and keep yourself in the daily light and warmth
of sympathetic intercourse with friends who understand
you and can help you. There are Eva and Harry—
noble, true friends, indebted to you for many favors,
and devoted to you with a loyal faithfulness. Let their
faith and mine in you strengthen your belief in yourself.
And don't, above all things, take any load of responsibility
about my happiness, and talk about being the
blight and shadow on my life. I trust I am learning that
we were sent into this world, not to clamor for happiness,
but to do our part in a life-work. What matter is
it whether I am happy or not, if I do my part? I know
all the risks and all the dangers that come from being
identified, heart and soul, with the life of another as I
am with yours. I know the risks, and am ready to face
them. I am ready to live for you and die for you, and
count it all joy to the last.
I was much touched by what you said of those who
have died defeated yet fighting. Yes, it is my belief
that many a poor soul who has again and again failed
in the conflict has yet put forth more effort, practiced
more self-denial, than hundreds of average Christians;
and He who knows what the trial is, will judge them
tenderly—that is to say, justly.
But for you there must be a future, even in this life.
I am assured of it, and you must believe it: you must
believe with my faith, and hope in my hope. Come
what will, I am, heart and soul and forever,
Yours, Caroline.
-- -- p710-236
CHAPTER XXIII. THE SISTERS OF ST. BARNABAS.
[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]
WHO was St. Barnabas? We are told in the book
of the Acts of the Apostles that he was a man
whose name signified a “son of consolation.” It must
at once occur that such a saint is very much needed in
this weary world of ours, and most worthy to be the
patron of an “order.”
To comfort human sorrow, to heal and help the
desolate and afflicted, irrespective either of their moral
worth or of any personal reward, is certainly a noble and
praiseworthy object.
Nor can any reasonable objection be made to the
custom of good women combining for this purpose into
a class or order, to be known by the name of such a
primitive saint, and wearing a peculiar livery to mark their
service, and having rites and ceremonials such as to
them seem helpful for this end. Surely the work is hard
enough, and weary enough, to entitle the doers thereof to
do it in their own way, as they feel they best can, and
to have any sort of innocent helps in the way of signs
and symbols that may seem to them desirable.
Yet the Sisters of St. Barnabas had been exposed to
a sort of modern form of persecution from certain vigorous-minded
Protestants, as tending to Romanism. A
clamor had been raised about them for wearing large
crosses, for bowing before altars, and, in short, for a
hundred little points of Ritualism; and it was held that
a proper zeal for Protestantism required their ejection
-- 222 --
[figure description] Page 222.[end figure description]
from a children's refuge, where, with much patience and
Christian mildness, they were taking care of sick babies
and teaching neglected street children. Mrs. Maria
Wouvermans, with a committee of ladies equally zealous
for the order of the church and excited about the
dangers of Popery, had visited the refuge and pursued
the inquisition even to the private sleeping apartments of
the Sisters, unearthing every symptom of principle or
practice that savored of approach to the customs of the
Scarlet Woman; and, as the result of relenntless inquisition
and much vigorous catechising, she and her associates
made such reports as induced the Committee of
Supervision to withdraw the charity from the Sisters of
St. Barnabas, and place it in other hands. The Sisters,
thus ejected, had sought work in other quarters of the
great field of human suffering and sorrow. A portion of
them had been enabled by the charity of friends to rent
a house to be devoted to the purposes of nursing destitute
sick children, with dormitories also where homeless
women could find temporary shelter.
The house was not a bit more conventual or mediæ
val than the most common-place of New York houses.
It is true, one of the parlors had been converted into a
chapel, dressed out and arranged according to the
preferences of these good women. It had an altar, with
a gilded cross flanked by candles, which there is no
denying were sometimes lighted in the day-time. The
altar was duly dressed with white, red, green, violet or
black, according as the traditional fasts or feasts of the
Church came round. There is no doubt that this simple
chapel, with its flowers, and candles, and cross, and its
little ceremonial, was an immense comfort and help to
these good women in the work that they were doing.
But the most rigid Protestant, who might be stumbled by
this little attempt at a chapel, would have been melted
-- 223 --
[figure description] Page 223.[end figure description]
into accord when he went into the long bright room full
of little cribs and cradles, where child invalids of different
ages and in different stages of convalescence were
made happy amid flowers, and toys, and playthings, by
the ministration of the good women who wore the white
caps and the large crosses. It might occur to a thoughtful
mind, that devotion to a work so sweetly unselfish
might well entitle them to wear any kind of dress and
pursue any kind of method, unchallenged by criticism.
In a neat white bed of one of the small dormitories
in the upper part of this house, was lying in a delirious
fever the young woman whom Bolton had carried there
on the night of our story. The long black hair had
become loosened by the restless tossing of her head
from side to side; her brow was bent in a heavy frown,
made more intense by the blackness of her eyebrows;
her large, dark eyes were wandering wildly to and fro
over every object in the room, and occasionally fixing
themselves with a strange look of inquiry on the Sister
who, in white cap and black robe, sat by her bedside,
changing the wet cloths on her burning head, and moistening
her parched lips from time to time with a spoonful
of water.
“I can't think who you are,” she muttered, as the
Sister with a gentle movement put a fresh, cool cloth on
her forehead.
“Never mind, poor child,” said the sweet voice in
reply; “try to be quiet.”
“Quiet! me be quiet!—that's pretty well! Me!” and
she burst into weak, hysteric laughter.
“Hush, hush!” said the Sister, making soothing motions
with her hands.
“The wandering eyes closed a few moments in a
feverish drowse. In a moment more, she started with a
wild look.
-- 224 --
[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]
“Mother! mother! where are you? I can't find you.
I've looked and looked till I'm so tired, and I can't find
you. Mother, come to me,—I'm sick!”—and the girl
rose and threw out her arms wildly.
The Sister passed her arm round her tenderly and
spoke with a gentle authority, making her lie down again.
Then, in a sweet low voice, she began singing a hymn:
“Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly,
While the billows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high.”
As she sung, the dark sad eyes fixed themselves upon
her with a vague, troubled questioning. The Sister
went on:
“Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past,
Safe into the haven guide,
Oh, receive my soul at last.”
It was just day-dawn, and the patient had waked
from a temporary stupor produced by a narcotic which
had been given a few hours before to compose her.
The purple-and-rose color of dawn was just touching
faintly everything in the room. Another Sister entered
softly, to take the place of the one who had watched for
the last four hours.
“How is she?” she said.
“Quite out of her head, poor thing. Her fever is
very high.”
“We must have the doctor,” said the other. “She
looks like a very sick girl.”
“That she certainly is. She slept, under the opiate,
but kept starting, and frowning, and muttering in her
sleep; and this morning she waked quite wild.”
“She must have got dreadfully chilled, walking so
late in the street—so poorly clad, too!”
-- 225 --
[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]
With this brief conversation, the second sister assumed
her place by the bedside, and the first went to get
some rest in her own room.
As day grew brighter, the singing of the matins in
the chapel came floating up in snatches; and the sick
girl listened to it with the same dazed and confused air
of inquiry with which she looked on all around.
“Who is singing,” she said to herself. “It's pretty,
and good. But how came I here? I was so cold, so
cold—out there!—and now it's so hot. Oh, my head!
my head!”
A few hours later, Mr. St. John called at the Refuge
to inquire after the new inmate.
Mr. St. John was one of the patrons of the Sisters.
He had contributed liberally to the expenses of the
present establishment, and stood at all times ready to
assist with influence and advice.
The Refuge was, in fact, by the use of its dormitories,
a sort of receiving station for homeless and desolate
people, where they might find temporary shelter, where
their wants might be inquired into, and help found for
them according to their need.
After the interview with Bolton had made him acquainted
with the state of the case, Mr. St. John went
immediately to the Refuge. He was received in the parlor
by a sweet-faced, motherly woman, with her white
cap and black robe, and with a large black cross depending
from her girdle. There was about her an air of innocent
sanctity and seclusion from the out-door bustle of
modern life that was refreshing.
She readily gave him an account of the new inmate,
whose sad condition had excited the sympathy of all
the Sisters.
She had come to them, she said, in a state of most
woeful agitation and distress, having walked the streets
-- 226 --
[figure description] Page 226.[end figure description]
on a freezing night till a late hour, in very insufficient
clothing. Immediately on being received, she began to
have violent chills, followed by burning fever, and had
been all night tossing restlessly and talking wildly.
This morning, they had sent for the doctor, who pronounced
her in a brain fever, and in a condition of
great danger. She was still out of her mind, and could
give no rational account of herself.
“It is piteous to hear her call upon her mother,” said
the Sister. “Poor child! perhaps her mother is distressing
herself about her.”
Mr. St. John promised to secure the assistance and
sympathy of some benevolent women to aid the Sisters
in their charge, and took his leave, promising to call
daily.
-- -- p710-242
CHAPTER XXIV. EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER
[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]
MY Dear Mother: When I wrote you last we were
quite prosperous, having just come through with
our first evening as a great success; and everybody since
has been saying most agreeable things to us about it.
Last Thursday, we had our second, and it was even
pleasanter than the last, because people had got acquainted,
so that they really wanted to see each other again.
There was a most charming atmosphere of ease and
sociability. Bolton and Mr. St. John are getting quite
intimate. Mr. St. John, too, develops quite a fine social
talent, and has come out wonderfully. The side of a
man that one sees in the church and the pulpit is after
all only one side, as we have discovered. I find that he
has quite a gift in conversation, when you fairly get him
at it. Then, his voice for singing comes into play, and
he and Angie and Dr. Campbell and Alice make up a
quartette quite magnificent for non-professionals. Angie
has a fine soprano, and Alice takes the contralto, and the
Doctor, with his great broad shoulders and deep chest,
makes a splendid bass. Mr. St. John's tenor is really
very beautiful. It is one of those penetrating, sympathetic
voices that indicate both feeling and refinement,
and they are all of them surprised and delighted
to find how well they go together. Thursday evening
they went on from thing to thing, and found that they
could sing this and that and the other, till the evening
took a good deal the form of a musical. But never
mind, it brought them acquainted with each other and
-- 228 --
[figure description] Page 228.[end figure description]
made them look forward to the next reunion as something
agreeable. Ever since, the doctor goes round
humming tunes, and says he wants St. John to try the
tenor of this and that, and really has quite lost sight of
his being anything else but a musical brother. So here
is the common ground I wanted to find between them.
The doctor has told Mr. St. John to call on him
whenever he can make him useful in his visits among the
poor. Our doctor loves to talk as if he were a hard-hearted,
unbelieving pirate, who didn't care a straw for
his fellow-creatures, while he loses no opportunity to do
anybody or anything a kindness.
You know I told you in my last letter about a girl
that Harry and Bolton found in the street, the night of
our first reception, and that they took her to the St. Barnabas
Refuge. The poor creature has been lying there
ever since, sick of a brain fever, caught by cold and exposure,
and Dr. Campbell has given his services daily.
If she had been the richest lady in the land, he could
not have shown more anxiety and devotion to her than
he has, calling twice and sometimes three times a day,
and one night watching nearly all night. She is still too
low and weak to give any account of herself; all we
know of her is that she is one of those lost sheep, to
seek whom the Good Shepherd would leave the ninety
nine who went not astray. I have been once or twice to
sit by her, and relieve the good Sisters who have so
much else to do; and Angelique and Alice have also
taken their turns. It seems very little for us to do,
when these good women spend all their time and all
their strength for those who have no more claim on them
than they have on us.
It is a week since I began this letter, and something
quite surprising to me has just developed.
I told you we had been to help nurse the poor girl at
-- 229 --
[figure description] Page 229.[end figure description]
the Sisters', and the last week she has been rapidly
mending. Well, yesterday, as I didn't feel very well,
and my Mary is an excellent nurse, I took her there to
sit with the patient in my place, when a most strange
scene ensued. The moment Mary looked on her, she
recognized her own daughter, who had left her some
years ago with a bad man. Mary had never spoken to
me of this daughter, and I only knew, in a sort of general
way, that she had left her mother under some painful
circumstances. The recognition was dreadfully agitating
to Mary and to the poor girl; indeed, for some
time it was feared that the shock would produce a relapse.
The Sisters say that the poor thing has been
constantly calling for her mother in her distress.
It really seemed, for the time, as if Mary were going
to be wholly unnerved. She has a great deal of that respectable
pride of family character which belongs to the
better class of the Irish, and it has been a bitter humiliation
to her to have to acknowledge her daughter's
shame to me; but I felt that it would relieve her to tell
the whole story to some one, and I drew it all out of
her. This poor Maggie had the misfortune to be very
handsome. She was so pretty as a little girl, her mother
tells me, as to attract constant attention; and I rather
infer that the father and mother both made a pet and
plaything of her, and were unboundedly indulgent. The
girl grew up handsome, and thoughtless, and self-confident,
and so fell an easy prey to a villain who got her to
leave her home, on a promise of marriage which he never
kept. She lived with him a while in one place and
another, and he became tired of her and contrived to
place her in a house of evil, where she was entrapped
and enslaved for a long time. Having by some means
found out where her mother was living, she escaped from
her employers, and hung round the house irresolutely
-- 230 --
[figure description] Page 230.[end figure description]
for some time, wishing but fearing to present herself, and
when she spoke to Harry in the street, the night after
our party, she was going in a wild, desperate way to ask
something about her mother—knowing that he was the
man with whom she was living.
Such seems to be her story; but I suppose, what with
misery and cold, and the coming on of the fever, the
poor thing hardly had her senses, or knew what she was
about—the fever must have been then upon her.
So you see, dear mother, I was wishing in my last
that I could go off with Sibyl Selwyn on her mission to
the lost sheep, and now here is one brought to my very
door. Is not this sent to me as my work? as if the good
Lord had said, “No, child, your feet are not strong
enough to go over the stones and briars, looking for the
lost sheep; you are not able to take them out of the jaws
of the wolf; but here is a poor wounded lamb that I
leave at your door—that is your part of the great work.”
So I understand it, and I have already told Mary that as
soon as Maggie is able to sit up, we will take her home
with us, and let her stay with us till she is strong and
well, and then we will try and put her back into good
respectable ways, and keep her from falling again.
I think persons in our class of life cannot be too considerate
of the disadvantages of poor working women in
the matter of bringing up children.
A very beautiful girl in that walk of life is exposed
to solicitation and temptation that never come near to
people in our stations. We are guarded on all hands by
our very position. I can see in this poor child the wreck
of what must have been very striking beauty. Her hair
is lovely, her eyes are wonderfully fine, and her hands,
emaciated as she is, are finely formed and delicate.
Well, being beautiful, she was just like any other young
girl—her head was turned by flattery. She was silly and
-- 231 --
[figure description] Page 231.[end figure description]
foolish, and had not the protections and barriers that are
around us, and she fell. Well, then, we that have been
more fortunate must help her up. Is it not so?
So, dear Mother, my mission work is coming to me.
I need not go out for it. I shall write more of this in a
day or two.
Ever yours, Eva.
-- -- p710-247
CHAPTER XXV. AUNT MARIA ENDEAVORS TO SET MATTERS RIGHT.
[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]
MRS. MARIA WOUVERMANS was one of those
forces in creation to whom quiet is impossible.
Watchfulness, enterprise and motion were the laws of
her existence, as incessantly operating as any other laws
of nature.
When we last saw her, she was in high ill-humor with
her sister, Mrs. Van Arsdel, with Alice and Eva, and the
whole family. She revenged herself upon them, as such
good creatures know how to do, by heaping coals of fire
on their heads in the form of ostentatiously untiring and
uncalled-for labors for them all. The places she explored
to get their laces mended and their quillings
done up and their dresses made, the pilgrimages she
performed in omnibuses, the staircases she climbed, the
men and women whom she browbeat and circumvented in
bargains—all to the advantage of the Van Arsdel purse—
were they not recounted and told over in a way to appall
the conscience of poor, easy Mrs. Van Arsdel, whom
they summarily convicted of being an inefficient little
know-nothing, and of her girls, who thus stood arraigned
for the blackest ingratitude in not appreciating Aunt
Maria?
“I'll tell you what it is, Alice,” said Eva, when Aunt
Maria's labors had come to the usual climax of such
smart people, and laid her up with a sick-headache,
“we girls have just got to make up with Aunt Maria, or
she'll tear down all New York. I always notice that
-- 233 --
[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]
when she's out with us she goes tearing about in this
way, using herself up for us—doing things no mortal
wants her to do, and yet that it seems black ingratitude
not to thank her for. Now, Alice, you are the one, this
time, and you must just go and sit with her and make up,
as I did.”
“But, Eva, I know the trouble you fell into, letting
her and mother entangle you with Wat Sydney, and I'm
not going to have it happen again. I will not be compromised
in any way or shape with a man whom I never
mean to marry.”
“Oh, well, I think by this time Aunt Maria understands
this, only she wants you to come back and be loving
to her, and say you're sorry you can't, etc. After
all, Aunt Maria is devoted to us and is miserable when
we are out with her.”
“Well, I hate to have friends that one must be always
bearing with and deferring to.”
“Well, Alice, you remember Mr. St. John's sermons
on the trials of the first Christians—when he made us all
feel that it would have been a blessed chance to go to
the stake for our religion?”
“Yes; it was magnificent. I felt a great exaltation.”
“Well, I'll tell you what I thought. It may be as heroic,
and more difficult, to put down our own temper and
make the first concession to an unreasonable old aunt
who really loves us than to be martyrs for Christ. Nobody
wants us to be martyrs now-a-days; but I think
these things that make no show and have no glory are a
harder cross to take up.”
“Well, Eva, I'll do as you say,” said Alice, after a few
moments of silence, “for really you speak the truth. I
don't know anything harder than to go and make concessions
to a person who has acted as ridiculously as Aunt
-- 234 --
[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]
Maria has, and who will take all your concessions and
never own a word on her side.”
“Well, dear, what I think in these cases is, that I am
not perfect. There are always enough things where I
didn't do quite right for me to confess; and as to her
confessing, that's not my affair. What I have to do is to
cut loose from my own sins; they are mine, and hers
are hers.”
“True,” said Alice; “and the fact is, I did speak
improperly to Aunt Maria. She is older than I am. I
ought not to have said the things I did. I'm hot tempered,
and always say more than I mean.”
“Well, Ally, do as I did—confess everything you can
think of and then say, as I did, that you must still be
firm upon one point; and, depend upon it, Aunt Maria
will be glad to be friends again.”
This conversation had led to an amelioration which
caused Aunt Maria to appear at Eva's second reunion in
her best point lace and with her most affable company
manners, whereby she quite won the heart of simple
Mrs. Betsey Benthusen, and was received with patronizing
civility by Miss Dorcas. That good lady surveyed
Mrs. Wouvermans with an amicable scrutiny as a specimen
of a really creditable production of modern New
York life. She took occasion to remark to her sister
that the Wouvermans were an old family of unquestioned
position, and that really Mrs. Wouvermans had acquired
quite the family air.
Miss Dorcas was one of those people who sit habitually
on thrones of judgment and see the children of this
world pass before them, with but one idea, to determine
what she should think of them. What they were likely
to think of her, was no part of her concern. Her scrutinies
and judgments were extremely quiet, tempered with
great moderation and Christian charity, and were so
-- 235 --
[figure description] Page 235.[end figure description]
seldom spoken to anybody else that they did no one any
harm.
She was a spectator at the grand theater of life; it
interested and amused her to watch the acting, but she
kept her opinions, for the most part, to herself. The re-unions
at Eva's were becoming most interesting to her
as widening her sphere of observation. In fact, her
intercourse with her sister could hardly be called society,
it was so habitually that of a nurse with a patient. She
said to her, of the many things which were in her mind,
only those which she thought she could bear. She was
always planning to employ Mrs. Betsey's mind with
varied occupations to prevent her sinking into morbid
gloom, and to say only such things of everybody and
everything to her as would tranquilize and strengthen
her. To Miss Dorcas, the little white-haired lady was
still the beautiful child of past days—the indiscreet,
flighty, pretty pet, to be watched, nursed, governed, restrained
and cared for. As for conversation, in the
sense of an unrestricted speaking out of thoughts as they
arose, it was long since Miss Dorcas had held it with
any human being. The straight, tall old clock in the
corner was not more lonely, more self-contained and reticent.
The next day after the re-union, Aunt Maria came at
the appointed hour, with all due pomp and circumstance,
to make her call upon the two sisters, and was received
in kid gloves in the best parlor, properly darkened, so
that the faces of the parties could scarcely be seen; and
then the three remarked upon the weather, the state of
the atmosphere to-day and its probable state to-morrow.
Mrs. Wouvermans was properly complimented upon her
niece's delightful re-unions; whereat she drew herself
up with suitable modesty, as one who had been the source
and originator of it all—claiming property in charming
-- 236 --
[figure description] Page 236.[end figure description]
Mrs. Henderson as the girl of her bringing up, the work
of her hands, the specimen of her powers, marshalled and
equipped by her for the field of life; and in her delightful
soirées, as in some sort a result of her management.
It may be a consolation to those who are ever called to
wrestle with good angels like Aunt Maria, that if they
only hold on and overcome them, and hold their own
independent way, the angels, so far from being angry,
will immediately assume the whole merit of the result.
On the whole, Aunt Maria, hearing on all sides flattering
things of Mrs. Henderson's lovely house and charming
evenings, was pluming herself visibly in this manner.
Now, as Eva, in one of those bursts of confidence in
which she could not help pouring herself out to those
who looked kindly on her, had talked over with Miss
Dorcas all Aunt Maria's objections to her soirées, and
her stringent advice against them, the good lady was
quietly amused at this assumption of merit.
“My! how odd, Dorcas!” said Mrs. Betsey to her
sister, after Mrs. Wouvermans had serenely courtesied
herself out. “Isn't this the `Aunt Maria' that dear
Mrs. Henderson was telling you about, that made all
those objections to her little receptions?”
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Dorcas.
“But how strange; she really talks now as if she had
started them.”
“People usually adopt a good thing, if they find they
can't hinder it,” said Miss Dorcas.
“I think it is just the oddest thing in the world;
in fact, I don't think it's really honest,” said Mrs. Betsey.
“It's the way people always do,” said Miss Dorcas;
“nothing succeeds like success. Mrs. Wouvermans opposed
the plan because she thought it wouldn't go. Now
that she finds it goes, she is so delighted she thinks she
must have started it herself.”
-- 237 --
[figure description] Page 237.[end figure description]
In fact, Aunt Maria was in an uncommonly loving
and genial frame about this time. Her fits of petulance
generally had the good effect of a clearing-up thunder-shower—
one was sure of clear skies for some time afterwards.
The only difficulty about these charming periods of
general reconciliation was that when the good lady once
more felt herself free of the family, and on easy terms
all around with everybody, she immediately commenced
in some new direction that process of managing other
people's affairs which was an inevitable result of her
nature. Therefore she came, one afternoon not long
after, into her sister's dressing-room with an air of preoccupation
and mystery, which Mrs. Van Arsdel had
learned to dread as a sign that Maria had something new
upon her mind.
Shutting the doors carefully, with an air of great precaution
and importance, she said: “Nellie, I've been
wanting to talk to you; something will have to be done
about Eva: it will never do to let matters go on as they
are going.”
Mrs. Van Arsdel's heart began to sink within her;
she supposed that she was to be required in some way to
meddle or interfere with her daughter. Now, if anything
was to be done of an unpleasant nature, Mrs. Van Arsdel
had always far rather that Maria would do it herself.
But the most perplexing of her applications were when
she began stirring up her ease-loving, indulgent self to
fulfill any such purposes on her children. So she said,
in a faltering voice, “What is the matter now, Maria?”
“Well, what should you think?” said Mrs. Wouvermans,
emphasizing the words. “You know that good-for-nothing
daughter of Mary's that lived with me, years
ago?”
“That handsome girl? To be sure.”
-- 238 --
[figure description] Page 238.[end figure description]
“Handsome! the baggage! I've no patience when I
think of her, with her airs and graces; dressing so that
she really was mistaken for one of the family! And
such impertinence! I made her walk Spanish very
quick—”
“Well?”
“Well, who do you suppose this sick girl is that Angelique
and Alice have been helping take care of in the
new hospital, or whatever you call it, that those Popish
women have started up there?”
Now Mrs. Van Arsdel knew very well what Aunt
Maria was coming to, but she only said, faintly,
“Well?”
“Its just that girl and no other, and a more impudent
tramp and huzzy doesn't live.”
“It really is very shocking,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“Shocking! well I should think it was, but that isn't
all. Eva actually has taken this creature to her house,
and is going to let her stay there.”
“Oh, indeed?” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, faintly.
Now Mrs. Van Arsdel had listened sympathetically
to Eva when, in glowing and tender words, she had
avowed her intention of giving this help to a poor, bewildered
mother, and this chance of recovery to an erring
child, but in the sharp, nipping atmosphere of Aunt
Maria's hard, dry, selfish common sense, the thing looked
so utterly indefensible that she only breathed this faint
inquiry.
“Yes,” said Aunt Maria, “and it's all that Mary's art.
She has been getting old and isn't what she was, and she
means to get both her children saddled upon Eva, who
is ignorant and innocent as a baby. Eva and her husband
are no more fit to manage than two babes in the
woods, and this set of people will make them no end of
trouble. The girl is a perfect witch, and it will never do
-- 239 --
[figure description] Page 239.[end figure description]
in the world. You ought to talk to her and tell her
about the danger.”
“But, Maria, I am not at all sure that it may not be
Eva's duty to help Mary take care of her daughter.”
“Well, if it was a daughter that had behaved herself
decently; but this creature is a tramp—a street-walker!
It is not respectable to have her in the house a minute.”
“But where can she go?”
“That's none of our look out. I suppose there are
asylums, or refuges, or something or other, for such
creatures.”
“But if the Sisters could take her in and take care of
her, I'm sure Eva might keep her awhile; at least till she
gets strong enough to find some place.”
“Oh, those Sisters! Don't tell me! I've no opinion
of them. Wasn't I on the committee, and didn't I find
crucifixes, and rosaries, and prie-dieus, and the Lord
knows what of Popish trinkets in their rooms? They
are regular Jesuits, those women. It's just like 'em to
take in tramps and nurse 'em.
“You know, Nellie, I warned you I never believed in
this Mr. St. John and his goings on up there, and I foresee
just what trouble Eva is going to be got into by
having that sort of creature put in upon her. Maggie
was the most conceited, impertinent, saucy hussy I ever
saw. She had the best of all chances in my house, if
she'd been of a mind to behave herself, for I give good
wages, pay punctually, and mine is about as good a
house for a young woman to be trained in as there is.
Nobody can say that Maggie didn't have a fair chance
with me!”
“But really, Maria, I'm afraid that unless Mary can
take care of her daughter at Eva's she'll leave her altogether
and go to housekeeping, and Eva never would
know how to get along without Mary.”
-- 240 --
[figure description] Page 240.[end figure description]
“Oh, nonsense! I'll engage to find Eva a good,
stout girl—or two of them, for that matter, since she
thinks she could afford two—that will do better than
Mary, who is getting older every year and less capable.
I make it a principle to cut off girls that have sick
friends and all such entanglements and responsibilities,
right away; it unfits them for my service.”
“Yes, but, Maria, you must consider that Eva
isn't like you. Eva really is fond of Mary, and had
rather have her there than a younger and stronger
woman. Mary has been an old servant in the family.
Eva has grown up with her. She loves Eva like a
child.”
“Oh, pshaw!” said Aunt Maria. “Now, of all things,
don't be sentimental about servants. It's a little too
absurd. We are to attend to our own interests!”
“But you see, sister,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, “Eva is
just what you call sentimental, and it wouldn't do the
least good for me to talk to her. She's a married woman,
and she and her husband have a right to manage their
affairs in their own way. Now, to tell the truth, Eva
told me about this affair, and on the whole”—here Mrs.
Van Arsdel's voice trembled weakly—“on the whole, I
didn't think it would do any good, you know, to oppose
her; and really, Maria, I was sorry for poor Mary. You
don't know, you never had a daughter, but I couldn't
help thinking that if I were a poor woman, and a
daughter of mine had gone astray, I should be so glad
to have a chance given her to do better; and so I really
couldn't find it in my heart to oppose Eva.”
“Well, you'll see what'll come of it,” said Aunt
Maria, who had stood, a model of hard, sharp, uncompromising
common sense, looking her sister down during
this weak apology for the higher wisdom. For now, as
in the days of old, the wisdom of the cross is foolishness
-- 241 --
[figure description] Page 241.[end figure description]
to the wise and prudent of the world; and the heavenly
arithmetic, which counts the one lost sheep more than
the ninety and nine that went not astray, is still the
arithmetic, not of earth, but of heaven. There are many
who believe in the Trinity, and the Incarnation, and all
the articles of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, to
whom this wisdom of the Master is counted as folly:
“For the natural man understandeth not the things of
the kingdom of God; they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them.”
Now Aunt Maria was in an eminent degree a specimen
of the feminine sort of “natural man.”
That a young and happy wife, with a peaceful, prosperous
home, should put a particle of her own happiness
to risk, or herself to inconvenience, for the sake of a poor
servant woman and a sinful child, was, in her view, folly
amounting almost to fatuity; and she inly congratulated
herself with the thought that her sister and Eva would
yet see themselves in trouble by their fine fancies and
sentimental benevolence.
“Well, sister,” she said, rising and drawing her cashmere
shawl in graceful folds round her handsome shoulders,
“I thought I should come to you first, as you
really are the most proper person to talk to Eva; but if
you should neglect your duty, there is no reason why I
should neglect mine.
“I hear of a very nice, capable girl that has lived
five years with the Willises, who has had permission to
advertise from the house, and I am going to have an interview
with her, and engage her provisionally, so that, if
Eva has a mind to listen to reason, there may be a way
for her to supply Mary's place at once. I've made up
my mind that, on the whole, it's best Mary should go,”
she added reflectively, as if she were the mistress of Eva's
house and person.
-- 242 --
[figure description] Page 242.[end figure description]
“I'm sorry to have you take so much trouble, Maria;
I'm sure it won't do any good.”
“Did you ever know me to shrink from any trouble
or care or responsibility by which I could serve you and
your children, Nellie? I may not be appreciated—I
don't expect it—but I shall not swerve from my duty to
you; at any rate, it's my duty to leave no stone unturned,
and so I shall start out at once for the Willises. They
are going to Europe for a year or two, and want to find
good places for their servants.”
And so Mrs. Van Arsdel, being a little frightened at
the suggestions of Aunt Maria, began to think with herself
that perhaps she had been too yielding, and made
herself very uncomfortable in reflecting on positive evils
that might come on Eva.
She watched her sister's stately, positive, determined
figure as she went down the stairs with the decision of a
general, gave a weak sigh, wished that she had not come,
and, on the whole, concluded to resume her story where
she had left off at Aunt Maria's entrance.
-- -- p710-258
CHAPTER XXVI. SHE STOOD OUTSIDE THE GATE.
[figure description] Page 243.[end figure description]
THE trial of human life would be a much simpler and
easier thing to meet, if the lines of right and wrong
were always perfectly definite. We are happy so far to
believe in our kind as to think that there are vast multitudes
who, if they only knew exactly what was right and
proper to be done, would do it at all hazards.
But what is right for me, in these particular circumstances?—
in that question, as it constantly rises, lies the
great stress of the trial of life.
We have, for our guidance, a Book of most high and
unworldly maxims and directions, and the life of a
Leader so exalted above all the ordinary conceptions and
maxims of this world that a genuine effort to be a Christian,
after the pattern and directions of Christ, at once
brings us face to face with daily practical inquiries of the
most perplexing nature.
Our friend, Mrs. Maria Wouvermans, was the very
type and impersonation of this world's wisdom of the
ordinary level. The great object of life being to insure
ease, comfort, and freedom from annoyance to one's self
and one's family, her views of duty were all conveniently
arranged along this line. In her view, it was the first
duty of every good housekeeper to look ahead and avoid
every occasion whence might arise a possible inconvenience
or embarrassment. It was nobody's duty, in her
opinion, to have any trouble, if it could be avoided, or
to risk having any. There were, of course, duties to the
poor, which she settled for by a regular annual subscription
to some well-recommended board of charity in her
-- 244 --
[figure description] Page 244.[end figure description]
most respectable church. That done, she regarded herself
as clear for action, and bound to shake off in detail
any troublesome or embarrassing person that threatened
to be a burden to her, or to those of her family that she
felt responsible for.
On the other hand, Eva was possessed by an earnest
desire to make her religious profession mean something
adequate to those startling and constantly recurring
phrases in the Bible and the church service which spoke
of the Christian as a being of a higher order, led by another
Spirit, and living a higher life than that of the
world in general. Nothing is more trying to an ingenuous
mind than the conviction of anything like a sham
and a pretense in its daily life.
Mr. St. John had lately been preaching a series of
sermons on the history and customs of the primitive
church, in hearing which the conviction often forced
itself on her mind that it was the unworldly life of the
first Christians which gave victorious power to the faith.
She was intimately associated with people who seemed
to her to live practically on the same plan. Here was
Sibyl Selwyn, whose whole life was an exalted mission
of religious devotion; there was her neighbor Ruth Baxter,
associated as a lay sister with the work of her more
gifted friend. Here were the Sisters of St. Barnabas,
lovely, cultivated women who had renounced all selfish
ends and occupations in life, to give themselves to the
work of comforting the sorrowful and saving the lost.
Such people, she thought, fully answered to the terms in
which Christians were spoken of in the Bible. But
could she, if she lived only to brighten one little spot of
her own, if she shut out of its charmed circle all sight
or feeling of the suffering and sorrow of the world around
her, and made her own home a little paradise of ease and
forgetfulness, could she be living a Christian life?
-- 245 --
[figure description] Page 245.[end figure description]
When, therefore, she heard from the poor mother
under her roof the tale of her secretly-kept shames,
sorrows, and struggles for the daughter whose fate had
filled her with misery, she accepted with a large-hearted
inconsiderateness a mission of love towards the wanderer.
She carried it to her husband; and, like two kind-hearted,
generous-minded young people, they resolved at
once to make their home sacred by bringing into it this
work of charity.
Now, this work would be far easier in most cases, if
the sinner sought to be saved would step forthwith right
across the line, and behave henceforth like a saint.
But unhappily that is not to be expected. Certain it
was, that Maggie, with her great, black eyes and her
wavy black hair, was no saint. A petted, indulged
child, with a strong, ungovernable nature, she had been
whirled hither and thither in the tides of passion, and
now felt less repentance for sin than indignation at her
own wrongs. It might have been held a hopeful symptom
that Maggie had, at least, so much real truthfulness
in her as not to profess what she did not feel.
It was a fact that the constant hymns and prayers
and services of the pious Sisters wearied her. They
were too high for her. The calm, refined spirituality of
these exalted natures was too far above her, and she
joined their services at best with a patient acquiescence,
feeling the while how sinful she must be to be so bored
by them.
But for Eva she had a sort of wondering, passionate
admiration. When she fluttered into her sick room,
with all her usual little graceful array of ribbons and
fanciful ornament, Maggie's dull eye would brighten,
and she looked after her with delighted wonder. When
she spoke to her tenderly, smoothed her pillow, put
-- 246 --
[figure description] Page 246.[end figure description]
cologne on her laced handkerchief and laid it on her
brow, poor Maggie felt awed and flattered by the attention,
far more, it is to be feared, than if somebody more
resembling the traditional angel had done it. This
lively, sprightly little lady, so graceful, so pretty in all
her motions and in all her belongings, seemed to poor
worldly Maggie much more nearly what she would like
an angel to be, in any world where she would have to
live with them.
The Sisters, with their black robes, their white caps,
and their solemn prayers, seemed to her so awfully good
that their presence chilled her. She felt more subdued,
but more sinful and more hopeless with them than ever.
In short, poor Maggie was yet a creature of this
world, and of sense, and the spiritual world to her was
only one dark, confused blurr, rather more appalling
than attractive. A life like that of the Sisters, given to
prayer and meditation and good works, was too high a
rest for a soul growing so near the ground and with so
few tendrils to climb by. Maggie could conceive of
nothing more dreary. To her, it seemed like being always
thinking of her sins; and that topic was no more
agreeable a subject of meditation to Maggie than it is to
any of us. Many people seem to feel that the only way
of return for those who have wandered from the paths of
virtue is the most immediate and utter self-abasement.
There must be no effort at self-justification, no excusing
one's self, no plea for abatement of condemnation. But
let us Christians who have never fallen, in the grosser
sense, ask ourselves if, with regard to our own particular
sins and failings, we hold the same strict line of reckoning.
Do we come down upon ourselves for our ill temper,
for our selfishness, for our pride, and other respectable
sins, as we ask the poor girl to do who has been led
astray from virtue?
-- 247 --
[figure description] Page 247.[end figure description]
Let us look back and remember how the Master once
coupled an immaculate Pharisee and a fallen woman in
one sentence as two debtors, both owing a sum to a
creditor, and both having nothing to pay,—both freely
forgiven by infinite clemency. It is a summing up of the
case that is too often forgotten.
Eva's natural tact and delicacy stood her in stead in
her dealings with Maggie, and made her touch upon the
wounds of the latter more endurable than any other.
Without reproof for the past, she expressed hope for the
future.
“You shall come and stay with your mother at my
house, Maggie,” she said, cheerfully, “and we will make
you useful. The fact is. your mother needs you; she is
not so strong as she was, and you could save her a great
many steps.”
Now, Maggie still had skillful hands and a good many
available worldly capacities. The very love of finery and
of fine living which had once helped to entrap her, now
came in play for her salvation. Something definite to
do, is, in some crises, a far better medicine for a sick soul
than any amount of meditation and prayer. One step
fairly taken in a right direction, goes farther than any
amount of agonized back-looking.
In a few days, Maggie made for herself in Eva's
family a place in which she could feel herself to be of
service. She took charge of Eva's wardrobe, and was
zealous and efficient in ripping, altering and adapting
articles for the adornment of her pretty mistress; and Eva
never failed to praise and encourage her for every right
thing she did, and never by word or look reminded her
of the past.
Eva did not preach to Maggie; but sometimes, sitting
at her piano while she sat sewing in an adjoining room,
she played and sung some of those little melodies which
-- 248 --
[figure description] Page 248.[end figure description]
Sunday-schools have scattered as a sort of popular ballad
literature. Words of piety, allied to a catching tune, are
like seeds with wings—they float out in the air and drop
in odd corners of the heart, to spring up in good purposes.
One of these little ballads reminded Eva of the
night she first saw Maggie lingering in the street by
her house:
“I stood outside the gate,
A poor wayfaring child;
Within my heart there beat
A tempest fierce and wild.
A fear oppressed my soul
That I might be too late;
And, oh, I trembled sore
And prayed—outside the gate,
“`Mercy,' I loudly cried,
`Oh, give me rest from sin!'
`I will,' a voice replied,
And Mercy let me in.
She bound my bleeding wounds
And carried all my sin;
She eased my burdened soul,
Then Jesus took me in.
“In Mercy's guise I knew
The Saviour long abused,
Who oft had sought my heart,
And oft had been refused.
Oh, what a blest return
For ignorance and sin!
I stood outside the gate
And Jesus let me in.”
After a few days, Eva heard Maggie humming this
tune over her work. “There,” she said to herself,
“the good angels are near her! I don't know what to
say to her, but they do.”
In fact, Eva had that delicacy and self-distrust in
-- 249 --
[figure description] Page 249.[end figure description]
regard to any direct and personal appeal to Maggie which
is the natural attendant of personal refinement. She
was little versed in any ordinary religious phraseology,
such as very well-meaning persons often so freely deal
in. Her own religious experiences, fervent and sincere
though they were, never came out in any accredited set
of phrases; nor had she any store of cut-and-dried pious
talk laid by, to be used for inferiors whom she was called
to admonish. But she had stores of kind artifices to keep
Maggie usefully employed, to give her a sense that she
was trusted in the family, to encourage hope that there
was a better future before her.
Maggie's mother, fond and loving as she was, seconded
these tactics of her mistress but indifferently.
Mary had the stern pride of chastity which distinguishes
the women of the old country, and which keeps most of
the Irish girls who are thrown unprotected on our
shores superior to temptation.
Mary keenly felt that Maggie had disgraced her, and
as health returned and she no longer trembled for her
life, she seemed called upon to keep her daughter's sin
ever before her. Her past bad conduct and the lenity
of her young mistress, her treating her so much better
than she had any reason to expect, were topics on which
Mary took every occasion to enlarge in private, leading
to passionate altercations between herself and her
daughter, in which the child broke over all bounds of
goodness and showed the very worst aspects of her
nature. Nothing can be more miserable, more pitiable,
than these stormy passages between wayward children
and honest, good-hearted mothers, who love them to the
death, and yet do not know how to handle them, sensitive
and sore with moral wounds. Many a time poor Mary
went to sleep with a wet pillow, while Maggie, sullen
and hard-hearted, lay with her great black eyes wide
-- 250 --
[figure description] Page 250.[end figure description]
open, obdurate and silent, yet in her secret heart longing
to make it right with her mother. Often, after such
a passage she would revolve the line of the hymn—
“I stood outside the gate.”
It seemed to her that that gate was her mother's heart,
and that she stood outside of it; and yet all the while
the poor mother would have died for her. Eva could
not at first account for the sullen and gloomy moods
which came upon Maggie, when she would go about the
house with lowering brows, and all her bright, cheerful
ways and devices could bring no smile upon her face.
“What is the matter with Maggie?” she would say to
Mary.
“Oh, nothing, ma'am, only she's bad; she's got to
be brought under, and brought down,—that's what she
has.”
“Mary, I think you had better not talk to Maggie
about her past faults. She knows she has been wrong,
and the best way is to let her get quietly into the right
way. We mustn't keep throwing up the past to her.
When we do wrong, we don't like to have people keep
putting us in mind of it.”
“You're jest an angel, Miss Eva, and it isn't many
ladies that would do as you do. You're too good to her
entirely. She ought to be made sensible of it.”
“Well, Mary, the best way to make her sensible and
bring her to repentance is to treat her kindly and never
bring up the past. Don't you see it does no good, Mary?
It only makes her sullen, and gloomy, and unhappy, so
that I can't get anything out of her. Now please, Mary,
just keep quiet, and let me manage Maggie.”
And then Mary would promise, and Eva would
smooth matters over, and affairs would go on for a day
or two harmoniously. But there was another authority
-- 251 --
[figure description] Page 251.[end figure description]
in Mary's family, as in almost every Irish household,—a
man who felt called to have a say and give a sentence.
Mary had an elder brother, Mike McArtney, who had
established himself in a grocery business a little out of
the city, and who felt himself to stand in position of head
of the family to Mary and her children.
The absolute and entire reverence and deference with
which Irish women look up to the men of their kindred
is something in direct contrast to the demeanor of
American women. The male sex, if repulsed in other
directions, certainly are fully justified and glorified by
the submissive daughters of Erin. Mike was the elder
brother, under whose care Mary came to this country.
He was the adviser and director of all her affairs. He
found her places; he guided her in every emergency.
Mike, of course, had felt and bitterly resented the dishonor
brought on their family by Maggie's fall. In his
view, there was danger that the path of repentance was
being made altogether too easy for her, and he had resolved
on the first leisure Sunday evening to come to
the house and execute a thorough work of judgment on
Maggie, setting her sin in order before her, and, in general,
bearing down on her in such a way as to bring her
to the dust and make her feel it the greatest possible
mercy and favor that any of her relations should speak
to her.
So, after Eva had hushed the mother and tranquilized
the girl, and there had been two or three days of
serenity, came Sunday evening and Uncle Mike.
The result was, as might have been expected, a loud
and noisy altercation. Maggie was perfectly infuriated,
and talked like one possessed of a demon; using, alas!
language with which her sinful life had made her only
too familiar, and which went far to justify the rebukes
which were heaped upon her.
-- 252 --
[figure description] Page 252.[end figure description]
In his anger at such contumacious conduct, Uncle
Mike took full advantage of the situation, and told Maggie
that she was a disgrace to her mother and her relations—
a disgrace to any honest house—and that he wondered
that decent gentle-folks would have her under
their roof.
In short, in one hour, two of Maggie's best friends—
the mother that loved her as her life and the uncle that
had been as a father to her—contrived utterly to sweep
away and destroy all those delicate cords and filaments
which the hands of good angels had been fastening to
her heart, to draw her heavenward.
When a young tree is put in new ground, its roots
put forth fibres delicate as hairs, but in which is all the
vitality of a new phase of existence. To tear up those
roots and wrench off those fibres is too often the destructive
work of well-intending friends; it is done too often
by those who would, if need be, give their very heart's
blood for the welfare they imperil. Such is life as we
find it.
-- -- p710-268
CHAPTER XXVII. ROUGH HANDLING OF SORE NERVES.
[figure description] Page 253.[end figure description]
THE same Sunday evening that Mary and her brother
Mike had devoted to the disciplinary processes
with Maggie, had been spent by Eva and her husband
at her father's house.
Mrs. Van Arsdel, to say the truth, had been somewhat
shaken and disturbed by Aunt Maria's suggestions;
and she took early occasion to draw Eva aside, and
make many doubtful inquiries and utter many admonitory
cautions with regard to the part she had taken for
Maggie.
“Of course, dear, it's very kind in you,” said Mrs.
Van Arsdel; “but your aunt thinks it isn't quite prudent;
and, come to think it over, Eva, I'm afraid it may
get you into trouble. Everything is going on so well in
your house, I don't want you to have anything disagreeable,
you know.”
“Well, after all, mother, how can I be a Christian, or
anything like a Christian, if I am never willing to take
any trouble? If you heard the preaching we do every
Sunday, you would feel so.”
“I don't doubt that Mr. St. John is a good preacher,”
said Mrs. Van Arsdel; “but then I never could go so
far, you know; and your aunt is almost crazy now because
the girls go up there and don't sit in our pew in
church. She was here yesterday, and talked very
strongly about your taking Maggie. She really made
me quite uncomfortable.”
“Well, I should like to know what concern it is of
-- 254 --
[figure description] Page 254.[end figure description]
Aunt Maria's!” said Eva. “It's a matter in which
Harry and I must follow our own judgment and conscience;
Harry thinks we are doing right, and I suspect
Harry knows what is best to do as well as Aunt Maria.”
“Well, certainly, Eva, I must say it's an unusual
sort of thing to do. I know your motives are all right
and lovely, and I stood up for you with your aunt. I
didn't give in to her a bit; and yet, all the while, I
couldn't help thinking that maybe she was right and that
maybe your good-heartedness would get you into difficulty.”
“Well, suppose it does; what then? Am I never to
have any trouble for the sake of helping anybody? I
am not one of the very good women with missions, like
Sibyl Selwyn, and can't do good that way; and I'm not
enterprising and courageous, like sister Ida, to make
new professions for women: but here is a case of a poor
woman right under my own roof who is perplexed and
suffering, and if I can help her carry her load, ought I
not to do it, even if it makes me a good deal of trouble?”
“Well, yes, I don't know but you ought,” said Mrs.
Van Arsdel, who was always convinced by the last
speaker.
“You see,” continued Eva, “the priest and the Levite
who passed by on the other side when a man lay wounded
were just of Aunt Maria's mind. They didn't want
trouble, and if they undertook to do anything for him
they would have a good deal; so they left him. And if I
turn my back on Mary and Maggie I shall be doing
pretty much the same thing.”
“Well, if you only are sure of succeeding. But girls
that have fallen into bad ways are such dangerous
creatures; perhaps you can't do her any good, and will
only get yourself into trouble.”
“Well, if I fail, why then I shall fail. But I think
-- 255 --
[figure description] Page 255.[end figure description]
it's better to try and fail in doing our part for others than
never to try at all.”
“Well, I suppose you are right, Eva; and after all
I'm sorry for poor Mary. She had a hard time with her
marriage all round; and I suppose it's no wonder Maggie
went astray. Mary couldn't control her; and handsome
girls in that walk of life are so tempted. How does she
get on?”
“Oh, nicely, for the most part. She seems to have a
sort of adoration for me. I can say or do anything with
her, and she really is very handy and skillful with her
needle; she has ripped up and made over an old dress
for me so you'd be quite astonished to see it, and seems
really pleased and interested to have something to do.
If only her mother will let her alone, and not keep nagging
her, and bringing up old offenses. Mary is so eager
to make her do right that she isn't judicious, she doesn't
realize how sensitive and sore people are that know they
have been wrong. Maggie is a proud girl.”
“Oh, well, she's no business to be proud,” said Mrs.
Van Arsdel. “I'm sure she ought to be humbled in the
very dust; that's the least one should expect.”
“And so ought we all,” said Eva, “but we are not,
and she isn't. She makes excuses for herself, and feels
as if she had been abused and hardly treated, just as
most of us do when we go wrong, and I tell Mary not to
talk to her about the past, but just quietly let her do better
in future; but it's very hard to get her to feel that
Maggie ought not to be willing to be lectured and
preached to from morning till night.”
“Your Aunt Maria, no doubt, will come up and free
her mind to you about this affair,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“She has a scheme in her head of getting another girl
for you in Mary's place. The Willises are going abroad
for three years and have given their servants leave to
-- 256 --
[figure description] Page 256.[end figure description]
advertise from the house; and your aunt left me Saturday,
saying she was going up there to ascertain all about
them and get you the refusal of one of them, provided
you wished to get rid of Mary.”
“Get rid of Mary! I think I see myself turning
upon my good Mary that loves me as she does her life,
and scheming to get her out of my house because she's
in trouble. No, indeed; Mary has been true and faithful
to me, and I will be a true and faithful friend to her.
What could I do with one of the Willises' servants, with
their airs and their graces? Would they come to a little
house like mine, and take all departments in turn, and do
for me as if they were doing for themselves, as Mary
does?”
“Just so,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel. “That's just what
I told Maria. I told her that you never would consent.
But you know how it is with her when she gets an idea
in her head, there's no turning her. You might as well
talk to a steam engine. She walked off down stairs
straight as a ramrod, and took the omnibus for the
Willises, in spite of all I could say; and, sure as the
world, she'll be up to talk with you about it. She insisted
that it was my duty to interfere; and I told her you
had a right to manage your matters in your own way.
Then she said if I didn't do my duty by you, she
should.”
“Well, you have done your duty, Mamma dear,” said
Eva, kissing her mother. “I'll bear witness to that, and
it isn't your fault if I am not warned. But you, dear
little mother, have sense to let your children sail their
own boat their own way, without interfering.”
“Well, I think your ways generally turn out the best
ways, Eva,” said her mother. “And I think Aunt Maria
herself comes into them finally. She is proud as a peacock
of your receptions, and takes every occasion to tell
-- 257 --
[figure description] Page 257.[end figure description]
people what charming, delightful evenings you have;
and she praises your house and your housekeeping and
you to everybody, so you may put up with a little bother
now and then.”
“Oh, I'll manage Aunt Maria, never you fear,” said
Eva, as she rose confidently and took her husband from
a discussion with Mr. Van Arsdel.
“Come, Harry, it's nine o'clock, and we have a long
walk yet to get home.”
It was brisk, clear winter moonlight in the streets as
Harry and Eva took their way homeward—she the while
relieving her mind by reciting her mother's conversation.
“Don't it seem strange,” she said, “how the minute
one actually tries to do some real Christian work everything
goes against one?”
“Yes,” said Harry; “the world isn't made for the
unfortunate or unsuccessful. In general, the instinct of
society is the same among men as among animals—
anything sickly or maimed is to be fought off and got rid
of. If there is a sick bird, all the rest fly at it and peck
it to death. So in the world, when man or woman
doesn't keep step with respectable people, the first idea
is to get them out of the way. We can't exactly kill
them, but we can wash our hands of them. Saving souls
is no part of the world's work—it interferes with its
steady business; it takes unworldly people to do that.”
“And when one begins,” said Eva, “shrewd, sensible
folks, like Aunt Maria, blame us; and little, tender-hearted
folks, like mamma, think it's almost a pity we
should try, and that we had better leave it to somebody
else; and then the very people we are trying to do for
are really troublesome and hard to manage—like poor
Maggie. She is truly a very hard person to get along
with, and her mother is injudicious, and makes it harder;
-- 258 --
[figure description] Page 258.[end figure description]
but yet, it really does seem to be our work to help take
care of her. Now, isn't it?”
“Well, then, darling, you may comfort your heart with
one thought: when you are doing for pure Christian motives
a thing that makes you a great deal of trouble, and
gets you no applause, you are trying to live just that unworldly
life that the first Christians did. They were
called a peculiar people, and whoever acts in the same
spirit now-a-days will be called the same. I think it is
the very highest wisdom to do as you are doing; but it
isn't the wisdom of this world. It's the kind of thing
that Mr. St. John is sacrificing his whole life to; it is
what Sibyl Selwyn is doing all the time, and your little
neighbor Ruth is helping in. We can at least try to do
a little. We are inexperienced, it may be that we shall
not succeed, it may be that the girl is past saving; but
it's worth while to try, and try our very best.”
Harry was saying this just as he put his latch-key
into the door of his house.
It was suddenly opened from within, and Maggie
stood before them with her bonnet and shawl on, ready
to pass out. There was a hard, sharp, desperate expression
in her face as she pressed forward to pass them.
“Maggie, child,” said Eva, laying hold of her arm,
“where are you going?”
“Away—anywhere—I don't care where,” said Maggie,
fiercely, trying to pull away.
“But you mustn't,” said Eva, laying hold of her.
“Maggie,” said Harry, stepping up to her and speaking
in that calm, steady voice which controls passionate
people, “go into the house immediately with Mrs. Henderson;
she will talk with you.”
Maggie turned, and sullenly followed Eva into a little
sewing room adjoining the parlor, where she had often
sat at work.
-- 259 --
[figure description] Page 259.[end figure description]
“Now, Maggie,” said Eva, “take off your bonnet, for
I'm not going to have you go into the streets at this
hour of the night, and sit down quietly here and tell me
all about it. What has happened? What is the matter?
You don't want to distress your mother and break her
heart?”
“She hates me,” said Maggie. “She says I've disgraced
her and I disgrace you, and that it's a disgrace
to have me here. She and Uncle Mike both said so,
and I said I'd go off, then.”
“But where could you go?” said Eva.
“Oh, I know places enough! They're bad, to be
sure. I wanted to do better, so I came away; but I can
go back again.”
“No, Maggie, you must never go back. You must
do as I tell you. Have I not been a friend to you?”
“Oh, yes, yes, you have; but they say I disgrace
you.”
“Maggie, I don't think so. I never said so. There
is no need that you should disgrace anybody. I hope
you'll live to be a credit to your mother—a credit to us
all. You are young yet; you have a good many years
to live; and if you'll only go on and do the very best you
can from this time, you can be a comfort to your mother
and be a good woman. It's never too late to begin,
Maggie, and I'll help you now.”
Maggie sat still and gazed gloomily before her.
“Come, now, I'll sing you some little hymns,” said
Eva, going to her piano and touching a few chords.
“You've got your mind all disturbed, and I'll sing to
you till you are more quiet.”
Eva had a sweet voice, and a light, dreamy sort of
touch on the piano, and she played and sung with
feeling.
There were truths in religion, higher, holier, deeper
-- 260 --
[figure description] Page 260.[end figure description]
than she felt capable of uttering, which breathed themselves
in these hymns; and something within her gave
voice and pathos to them.
The influence of music over the disturbed nerves and
bewildered moral sense of those who have gone astray
from virtue, is something very remarkable. All modern
missions more or less recognize that it has a power which
goes beyond anything that spoken words can utter, and
touches springs of deeper feeling.
Eva sat playing a long time, going from one thing to
another; and then, rising, she found Maggie crying softly
by herself.
“Come, now, Maggie,” she said, “you are going to be
a good girl, I know. Go up and go to bed now, and
don't forget your prayers. That's a good girl.”
Maggie yielded passively, and went to her room.
Then Eva had another hour's talk, to persuade Mary
that she must not be too exacting with Maggie, and that
she must for the future avoid all such encounters with
her. Mary was, on the whole, glad to promise anything;
for she had been thoroughly alarmed at the altercation
into which their attempt at admonition had grown, and
was ready to admit to Eva that Mike had been too hard
on her. At all events, the family honor had been sufficiently
vindicated, and, if Maggie would only behave herself,
she was ready to promise that Mike should not be
allowed to interfere in future. And so, at last, Eva
succeeded in inducing Mary to go to her daughter's
room with a reconciling word before she went to bed,
and had the comfort of seeing the naughty girl crying in
her mother's arms, and the mother petting and fondling
her as a mother should.
Alas! it is only in the good old Book that the father
sees the prodigal a great way off, and runs and falls on
his neck and kisses him, before he has confessed his sin
-- 261 --
[figure description] Page 261.[end figure description]
or done any work of repentance. So far does God's
heavenly love outrun even the love of fathers and
mothers.
“Well, I believe I've got things straightened out at
last,” said Eva, as she came back to Harry; “and now,
if Mary will only let me manage Maggie, I think I can
make all go smooth.”
-- -- p710-277
CHAPTER XXVIII. REASON AND UNREASON.
[figure description] Page 262.[end figure description]
THE next morning being Monday, Dr. Campbell
dropped in to breakfast. Since he and Eva had
met so often in Maggie's sick room, and he had discussed
the direction of her physical well-being, he had rapidly
grown in intimacy with the Hendersons, and the little
house had come to be regarded by him as a sort of home.
Consequently, when Eva sailed into her dining-room,
she found him quietly arranging a handful of cut flowers
which he had brought in for the center of her
breakfast table.
“Good morning, Mrs. Henderson,” he said, composedly.
“I stepped into Allen's green-house on my way
up, to bring in a few flowers. With the mercury at zero,
flowers are worth something.”
“How perfectly lovely of you, Doctor,” said she.
“You are too good.”
“I don't say, however, that I had not my eye on a
cup of your coffee,” he replied. “You know I have no
faith in disinterested benevolence.”
“Well, sit down then, old fellow,” said Harry, clapping
him on the shoulder. “You're welcome, flowers or
no flowers.”
“How are you all getting on?” he said, seating himself.
“Charmingly, of course,” said Eva, from behind the
coffee-pot, “and as the song says, `the better for seeing
you.'”
“And how's my patient—Maggie?”
-- 263 --
[figure description] Page 263.[end figure description]
“Oh, she's doing well, if only people will let her
alone; but her mother, and uncle, and relations will keep
irritating her with reproaches. You see, I had got her in
beautiful training, and she was sewing for me and making
herself very useful, when, Sunday evening, when I
was gone out, her uncle came to see her, and talked and
bore down upon her so as to completely upset all I had
done. I came home and found her just going out of the
house, perfectly desperate.”
“And ready to go to the devil straight off, I suppose?”
said the Doctor. “His doors are always open.”
“You see,” said Harry, “things seem to be so arranged
in this world that if man, woman or child does
wrong or gets out of the way, all society is armed to the
teeth to prevent their ever doing right again. Their own
flesh and blood pitch into them with reproaches and expostulations,
and everybody else looks on them with
suspicion, and nobody wants them and nobody dares
trust them.”
“Just so,” said Dr. Campbell, “the world is an army—
it can't stop for anything. `Wounded to the rear,' is
the word, and the army must go on and leave the sick
and wounded to die or be taken by the enemy. For my
part, I never thought Napoleon was so much out of the
way when he recommended poisoning the sick and
wounded that could not be moved. I think I should
prefer to be comfortably and decently poisoned myself
in such a case. The world isn't ripe yet for the doctrine;
but I think all people who get broken down, and
don't keep step physically and morally, had better be
killed at once. Then we could get on comfortably, and
in a few generations should have a nice population.”
“Come, now, Doctor; I'm not going to have that sort
of talk,” said Eva. “In short, you've got to keep on as
you have been doing—working for the wounded in the
-- 264 --
[figure description] Page 264.[end figure description]
rear. And now tell me if I could do a better thing for
Maggie than keep her here in our house, under my own
eye and influence, till she gets quite strong and well,
and help her to live down the past?”
“Well, that's a sensible putting of the thing,” said
Dr. Campbell, “if you will be foolish enough to take the
trouble; but I forewarn you that girls that have been
through her experiences are troublesome to manage.
Their nerves are all in a jangle; they are sore everywhere,
and the very good that is in them is turned
wrong side outward; and, as you say, the world will be
against you, in a general way. Relations, as far as ever I
have observed, are rather harder on sinners than anybody
else—especially on a woman that goes astray; and next to
them sensible, worldly-wise, respectable people—people
who live to get rid of trouble, and feel that `bother'
is the sum and substance of evil. Now, taking up a girl
like Maggie, you must count on that. Her relations
will hinder all they can; and the more respectable they
are, the harder they will bear down upon her. Your
relations will think you a sentimental little fool, and do
all they can to hinder you. The rank and file of comfortable,
religious, church-going people will call you imprudent,
and only fanatics, like Mr. St. John and Sibyl
Selwyn, will understand you or stand by you; and, to
crown all, the girl herself is as unreliable as the wind.
The evil done to a woman in this kind of life is the derangement
of her whole nervous system, so that she is
swept by floods of morbid influences, and liable to wild,
passionate gusts of feeling. The cessation from this free
Bohemian life, with its strong excitements, leaves them
in unnatural states of craving for stimulus; and when you
have done all you can for them,—in a moment, off they
go. That's the reason why most prudent people prefer
to wash their hands of them, and stop before they begin.”
-- 265 --
[figure description] Page 265.[end figure description]
“It's all very well to talk so, Doctor, if the case related
to a stranger; but here is my poor, good Mary,
who has been in our family ever since I was a little
girl, and has always loved me and been devoted to me—
shall I now give her the cold shoulder and not help
her in this crisis of her life, because I am afraid of
trouble? Isn't it worth trouble, and a great deal of
trouble, and a great deal of patience, to save this
daughter of hers from ruin? I think it is.”
“I think you and your husband will do it,” said the
Doctor, “because you are just what you are; and I
shall help you, because I'm what I am; but, nevertheless,
I set the reasonable side before you. I think this
Maggie is a fine creature. There are, in a confused
way, the beginnings of a great deal that is right, and
even noble, in her; but nobody ought to begin with her
without taking account of risks.”
“Well,” said Eva, “you know I am a Christian, and
I look in the New Testament for my principles, and
there I find it plainly set down that the Lord values one
sinner that is brought to repentance more than ninety
and nine just persons that need no repentance; and that
he would leave the ninety and nine sheep, and go into
the wilderness to look up one lost lamb.”
“That is the Christian religion, undoubtedly,” said
Dr. Campbell; “but there is exactly where the Christian
religion parts company with worldly prudence. The
world and all its institutions are organized and arranged
for the strong, the wise, the prudent, and the successful.
The weak, the sick, the sinners, and all that sort of thing,
are to have as much care as they can without interfering
with the healthy and strong. Now, in the good old
times of English law, they used to hang summarily anybody
that made trouble in society in any way—the
woman who stole a loaf of bread, and the man who stole
-- 266 --
[figure description] Page 266.[end figure description]
a horse, and the vagrant who picked a pocket; then
there was no discussion and no bother about reformation,
such as is coming down upon our consciences now-a-days.
Good old times those were, when there wasn't
any of this gush over the fallen and lost; the slate was
wiped clean of all the puzzling sums at the yearly assizes
and the account started clear. Now-a-days, there is
such a bother about taking care of criminals that an
honest man has no decent chance of comfort.”
“Well, Doctor,” said Eva, “if the essence of Christianity
is restoration and salvation, I don't see but your
profession is essentially a Christian one. You seek and
save the lost. It is your business by your toil and labor
to help people who have sinned against the laws of nature,
to get them back again to health; isn 't it so?”
“Well, yes, it is,” said the doctor, “though I find
everything going against me in this direction, as much as
you do.”
“But you find mercy in nature,” said Harry. “In
the language of the Psalms: `There is forgiveness with
her that she may be feared.' The first thing, after one
of her laws has been broken, comes in her effort to
restore and save; it may be blind and awkward, but still
it points toward life and not death, and you doctors are
her ministers and priests. You bear the physical gospel;
and we Christians take the same process to the spiritual
realm that lies just above yours, and that has to work
through yours. Our business in both realms seems to be,
by our own labor, self-denial and suffering, to save those
who have sinned against the laws of their being.”
“Well,” said the doctor; “even so, I go in for saving
in my line by an instinct apart from my reason, an instinct
as blind as nature's when she sets out to heal a
broken bone in the right arm of a scalawag, who never
used his arm for anything but thrashing his wife and
-- 267 --
[figure description] Page 267.[end figure description]
children, and making himself a general nuisance; yet I
have been amazed sometimes to see how kindly and
patiently old Mother Nature will work for such a man.
Well, I am something like her. I have the blind instinct
of healing in my profession, and I confess to sitting up
all night, watching to keep the breath of life in sick
babies that I know ought to be dead, and had better be
dead, inasmuch as there's no chance for them to be even
decent and respectable, if they live; but I can't let 'em
die, any more than nature can, without a struggle. The
fact is, reason is one thing and the human heart
another; and, as St. Paul says, `these two are contrary
one to the other, so that ye cannot do the thing ye
would.' You and your husband, Mrs. Henderson, have
got a good deal of this troublesome human heart in you,
so that you cannot act reasonably, any more than I can.”
“That's it, Doctor,” said Eva, with a bright, sudden
movement towards him and laying her hand on his
arm, “let's not act reasonably—let's act by something
higher. I know there is something higher—something
we dare to do and feel able to do in our best moments.
You are a Christian in heart, Doctor, if not in faith.”
“Me? I'm the most terrible heretic in all the continent.”
“But when you sit up all night with a sick baby
from mere love of saving, you are a Christian; for,
doesn't Christ say, `inasmuch as ye did it unto the least
of these, ye did it unto me'? Christians are those who
have Christ's spirit, as I think, and sacrifice themselves
to save others.”
“May the angels be of your opinion when I try the
gate hereafter,” said the Doctor. “But now, seriously,
about this Maggie. I apprehend that you will have
trouble from the fact that, having been kept on stimulants
in a rambling, loose, disorderly life, she will not be
-- 268 --
[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]
able long to accommodate herself to any regular habits.
I don't know how much of a craving for drink there may
be in her case, but it is a usual complication of such
cases. Such people may go for weeks without yielding,
and then the furor comes upon them, and away they go.
Perhaps she may not be one of those worst cases; but,
in any event, the sudden cessation of all the tumultuous
excitement she has been accustomed to, may lead to a
running down of the nervous system that will make her
act unreasonably. Her mother, and people of her class,
may be relied on for doing the very worst thing that the
case admits of, with the very best intentions. And now
if these complications get you into any trouble, rely
upon me so far as I can do anything to help. Don't
hesitate to command me at any hour and to any extent,
because I mean to see the thing through with you.
When spring comes on, if you get her through the winter,
we must try and find her a place in some decent,
quiet farmer's family in the country, where she may feed
chickens and ducks, and make butter, and live a natural,
healthful, out-door life; and, in my opinion, that will
be the best and safest way for her.”
“Come, Doctor,” said Harry, “will you walk up town
with me? It's time I was off.”
“Now, Harry, please remember; don't forget to match
that worsted,” said Eva. “Oh! and that tea must be
changed. You just call in and tell Haskins that.”
“Anything else?” said Harry, buttoning on his overcoat.
“No; only be sure you come back early, for mamma
says Aunt Maria is coming down here upon me, and I
shall want you to strengthen me. The Doctor appreciates
Aunt Maria.”
“Certainly I do,” said the Doctor; “a devoted relation
who carries you all in her heart hourly, and
-- 269 --
[figure description] Page 269.[end figure description]
therefore has an undoubted right to make you as uncomfortable
as she pleases. That's the beauty of relations.
If you have them you are bothered with them, and if
you haven't you are bothered for want of 'em. So it
goes. Now I would give all the world if I had a good
aunt or grandmother to haul me over the coals, and
fight me, out of pure love—a fellow feels lonesome when
he knows nobody would care if he went to the devil.”
“Oh, as to that,” said Eva, “come here whenever
you're lonesome, and we'll fight and abuse you to your
heart's content; and you sha'n't go to that improper person
without our making a fuss about it. We'll abuse
you as if you were one of the family.”
“Good,” said the Doctor, as he stepped towards the
front window; “but here, to be sure, is your aunt, bright
and early.”
-- -- p710-285
CHAPTER XXIX. AUNT MARIA FREES HER MIND.
[figure description] Page 270.[end figure description]
THE door opened, to let out the two gentlemen, just
as Mrs. Wouvermans was coming up the steps,
fresh and crisp as one out betimes on the labors of a
good conscience.
The dear woman had visited the Willises, at the remote
end of the city, had had diplomatic conversations
with both mistress and maid in that establishment, and
had now arrived as minister plenipotentiary to set all
matters right in Eva's establishment. She had looked
all through the subject, made up her mind precisely what
Eva ought to do, revolved it in her own mind as she sat
apparently attending to a rather drowsy sermon at her
church, and was now come, as full of sparkling vigor
and brisk purposes as a well-corked bottle of champagne.
Eva met her at the door with the dutiful affection
which she had schooled herself to feel towards one whose
intentions were always so good, but with a secret reserve
of firm resistance as to the lines of her own proper personality.
“I have a great deal to do, to-day,” said the lady,
“and so I came out early to see you before you should
be gone out or anything, because I had something very
particular I wanted to say to you.”
Eva took her aunt's things and committed them to
the care of Maggie, who opened the parlor-door at this
moment.
Aunt Maria turned towards the girl in a grand superior
way and fixed a searching glance on her.
-- 271 --
[figure description] Page 271.[end figure description]
“Maggie,” she said, “is this you? I'm astonished to
see you here.”
The words were not much, but the intonation and
manner were meant to have all the effect of an awful and
severe act of judgment on a detected culprit—to express
Mrs. Wouvermans' opinion that Maggie's presence
in any decent house was an impertinence and a disgrace.
Maggie's pale face turned a shade paler, and her
black eyes flashed fire, but she said nothing; she went
out and closed the door with violence.
“Did you see that?” said Aunt Maria, turning to Eva.
“I saw it, Aunty, and I must say I think it was more
your fault than Maggie's. People in our position ought
not to provoke girls, if we do not want to excite temper
and have rudeness.”
“Well, Eva, I've come up here to have a plain talk
with you about this girl, for I think you don't know what
you're doing in taking her into your house. I've talked
with Mrs. Willis, and with your Aunt Atkins, and with
dear Mrs. Elmore about it, and there is but just one
opinion—they are all united in the idea that you ought
not to take such a girl into your family. You never can
do anything with them; they are utterly good for nothing,
and they make no end of trouble. I went and talked
to your mother, but she is just like a bit of tow string,
you can't trust her any way, and she is afraid to come
and tell you what she really thinks, but in her heart she
feels just as the rest of us do.”
“Well, now, upon my word, Aunt Maria, I can't see
what right you and Mrs. Willis and Aunt Atkins and
Mrs. Elmore have to sit as a jury on my family affairs
and send me advice as to my arrangements, and I'm not
in the least obliged to you for talking about my affairs to
them. I think I told you, some time ago, that Harry
and I intend to manage our family according to our own
-- 272 --
[figure description] Page 272.[end figure description]
judgment; and, while we respect you, and are desirous
of showing that respect in every proper way, we cannot
allow you any right to intermeddle in our family matters.
I am guided by my husband's judgment (and you yourself
admit that, for a wife, there is no other proper appeal)
and Harry and I act as one. We are entirely united in
all our family plans.”
“Oh, well, I suppose there is no harm in my taking
an interest in your family matters, since you are my god-child,
and I brought you up, and have always cared as
much about you as any mother could do—in fact, I think
I have felt more like a mother to you than Nellie has.”
“Well, Aunty,” said Eva, “of course, I feel how kind
and good you have always been, and I'm sure I thank
you with all my heart; but still, after all, we must be
firm in saying that you cannot govern our family.”
“Who is wanting to govern your family?—what
ridiculous talk that is! Just as if I had ever tried;
but you may, of course, allow your old aunt, that
has had experience that you haven't had, to propose
arrangements and tell you of things to your advantage,
can't you?”
“Oh, of course, Aunty.”
“Well, I went up to the Willises, because they are
going to Europe, to be gone for three years, and I
thought I could secure their Ann for you. Ann is a
treasure. She has been ten years with the Willises, and
Mrs. Willis says she don't know of a fault that she has.”
“Very well, but, Aunty, I don't want Ann, if she were
an angel; I have my Mary, and I prefer her to anybody
that could be named.”
“But, Eva, Mary is getting old, and she is encumbered
with this witch of a daughter, whom she is putting
upon your shoulders and making you carry; and I
perceive that you'll be ridden to death—it's a perfect
-- 273 --
[figure description] Page 273.[end figure description]
Old Man of the Sea on your backs. Now, get rid of
Mary, and you'll get rid of the whole trouble. It isn't
worth while, just because you've got attached to Mary,
to sacrifice your interests for her sake. Just let her go.”
“Well, now, Aunty, the short of the matter is, that I
will do nothing of the kind. I won't let Mary go, and I
don't want any other arrangement than just what I have.
I am perfectly satisfied.”
“Well, you'll see that your keeping that girl in your
house will bring you all into disgrace yet,” said Aunt
Maria, rising hastily. “But it's no use talking. I
spent a good half-day attending to this matter, and
making arrangements that would have given you the
very best of servants; but if you choose to take in
tramps, you must take the consequences. I can't help
it;” and Aunt Maria rose vengefully and felt for her
bonnet.
Eva opened the door of the little sewing-room, where
Maggie had laid it, and saw her vanishing out of the
opposite door.
“I hope she did not hear you, Aunty,” she said, involuntarily.
“I don't care if she did,” was the reply, as the injured
lady resumed her bonnet and departed from the
house, figuratively shaking the dust from her feet.
Eva went out also to attend to some of her morning
business, and, on her return, was met by Mary with an
anxious face. Maggie had gone out and taken all her
things with her, and was nowhere to be found. After
some search, Eva found a paper pinned to the cushion
of her toilet-table, on which was written:
“Dear Mrs. Henderson: You have tried hard to save me; but
it's no use. I am only a trouble to mother, and I disgrace you. So
I am going, and don't try to find me. May God bless you and
mother.
Maggie.”
-- -- p710-289
CHAPTER XXX. A DINNER ON WASHING DAY.
[figure description] Page 274.[end figure description]
THE world cannot wait for anybody. No matter
whose heart breaks or whose limbs ache, the world
must move on. Life always has its next thing to be
done, which comes up imperatively, no matter what happens
to you or me.
So when it appeared that Maggie was absolutely
gone—gone without leaving trace or clue where to look
for her, Mary, though distressed and broken-hearted,
had small time for lamentations.
For just as Maggie's note had been found, read, and
explained to Mary, and in the midst of grief and wonderment,
a note was handed in to Eva by an office-boy,
running thus:
“Dear Little Wifie: I have caught Selby, and we can have him
at dinner to-night; and as I know there's nothing like you for
emergencies, I secured him, and took the liberty of calling in on
Alice and Angie, and telling them to come. I shall ask St. John,
and Jim, and Bolton, and Campbell—you know, the more the merrier,
and, when you are about it, it's no more trouble to have six or
seven than one; and now you have Maggie, one may as well spread
a little.
Your own Harry.”
“Was ever such a man!” said Eva; “poor Mary!
I'm sorry all this is to come upon you just as you have
so much trouble, but just hear now! Mr. Henderson
has invited an English gentleman to dinner, and a whole
parcel of folks with him. Well, most of them are our
folks, Mary—Miss Angie, and Miss Alice, and Mr.
-- 275 --
[figure description] Page 275.[end figure description]
Fellows, and Mr. Bolton, and Mr. St. John—of course we
must have him.”
“Oh, well, we must just do the best we can,” said
Mary, entering into the situation at once; “but really,
the turkey that's been sent in isn't enough for so many.
If you'd be so good as to step down to Simon's, ma'am,
and order a pair of chickens, I could make a chicken
pie, and then there's most of that cold boiled ham left,
and trimmed up with parsley it would do to set on table—
you'll ask him to send parsley—and the celery's not
enough, we shall want two or three more bunches. I'm
sorry Mr. Henderson couldn't have put it off, later in
the week, till the washing was out of the way,” she concluded,
meekly, “but we must do the best we can.”
Now, Christian fortitude has many more showy and
sublime forms, but none more real than that of a poor
working-woman suddenly called upon to change all her
plans of operations on washing day, and more especially
if the greatest and most perplexing of life's troubles
meets her at the same moment. Mary's patience and
self-sacrifice showed that the crucifix and rosary and
prayer-book in her chamber were something more than
ornamental appendages—they were the outward signs
of a faith that was real.
“My dear, good Mary,” said Eva, “it's just sweet of
you to take things so patiently, when I know you're
feeling so bad; but the way it came about is this: this
gentleman is from England, and he is one that Harry
wants very much to show attention to, and he only stays
a short time, and so we have to take him when we can
get him. You know Mr. Henderson generally is so
considerate.”
“Oh, I know,” said Mary, “folks can't always have
things just as they want.”
“And then, you know, Mary, he thought we should
-- 276 --
[figure description] Page 276.[end figure description]
have Maggie here to help us. He couldn't know, you
see—”
Mary's countenance fell, and Eva's heart smote her,
as if she were hard and unsympathetic in forcing her
own business upon her in her trouble, and she hastened
to add:
“We sha'n't give Maggie up I will tell Mr. Henderson
about her when he comes home, and he will know
just what to do. You may be sure, Mary, he will stand
by you, and leave no stone unturned to help you. We'll
find her yet.”
“It's my fault partly, I'm afraid; if I'd only done
better by her,” said Mary; “and Mike, he was hard on
her; she never would bear curbing in, Maggie would n't.
But we must just do the best we can,” she added, wiping
her eyes with her apron. “What would you have for
dessert, ma'am?”
“What would you make easiest, Mary?”
“Well there's jelly, blanc-mange or floating island,
though we didn't take milk enough for that; but I guess
I can borrow some of Dinah over the way. Miss Dorcas
would be willing, I'm sure.”
“Well, Mary, arrange it just as you please. I'll go
down and order more celery and the chickens, and I
know you'll bring it all right; you always do. Meanwhile,
I'll go to a fruit store, and get some handsome
fruit to set off the table.”
And so Eva went out, and Mary, left alone with her
troubles, went on picking celery, and preparing to make
jelly and blanc mange, with bitterness in her soul. People
must eat, no matter whose hearts break, or who go
to destruction; but, on the whole, this incessant drive of
the actual in life is not a bad thing for sorrow.
If Mary had been a rich woman, with nothing to do
but to go to bed with a smelling-bottle, with full leisure
-- 277 --
[figure description] Page 277.[end figure description]
to pet and coddle her griefs, she could not have made
half as good headway against them as she did by help
of her chicken pie, and jelly, and celery and what not,
that day.
Eva had, to be sure, given her the only comfort in
her power, in the assurance that when her husband came
home she would tell him about it, and they would see if
anything could be done to find Maggie and bring her
back. Poor Mary was full of self-reproach for what it
was too late to help, and with concern for the trouble
which she felt her young mistress had been subjected to.
Added to this was the wounded pride of respectability,
even more strong in her class than in higher ones,
because with them a good name is more nearly an only
treasure. To be come of honest, decent folk is with
them equivalent to what in a higher class would be
called coming of gentle blood. Then Mary's brother
Mike, in his soreness at Maggie's disgrace, had not failed
to blame the mother's way of bringing her up, after the
manner of the world generally when children turn out
badly.
“She might have expected this. She ought to have
known it would come. She had n't held her in tight
enough; had given her her head too much; his wife
always told him they were making a fool of the girl.”
This was a sharp arrow in Mary's breast; because
Mike's wife, Bridget, was one on whom Mary had looked
down, as in no way an equal match for her brother, and
her consequent want of cordiality in receiving her had
rankled in Bridget's mind, so that she was forward to
take advantage of Mary's humiliation.
It is not merely professed enemies, but decent family
connections, we are sorry to say, who in time of trouble
sometimes say “aha! so would we have it.” All whose
advice has not been taken, all who have felt themselves
-- 278 --
[figure description] Page 278.[end figure description]
outshone or slighted, are prompt with the style of consolation
exemplified by Job's friends, and eager above
all things to prove to those in trouble that they have
nobody but themselves to thank for it.
So, no inconsiderable part of Mary's bitter herbs this
day, was the prick and sting of all the possible things
which might be said of her and Maggie by Bridget and
Mike, and the rest of the family circle by courtesy included
in the term “her best friends.” Eva, tender-hearted
and pitiful, could not help feeling a sympathetic
cloud coming over her as she watched poor Mary's woestruck
and dejected air. She felt quite sure that Maggie
had listened, and overheard Aunt Maria's philippic
in the parlor, and that thus the final impulse had been
given to send her back to her miserable courses; and
somehow Eva could not help a vague feeling of blame
from attaching to herself, for not having made sure that
those violent and cruel denunciations should not be
overheard.
“I ought to have looked and made sure, when I
found what Aunt Maria was at,” she said to herself. “If
I had kept Maggie up stairs, this would not have happened.”
But then, an English literary man, that Harry
thought a good deal of, was to dine there that night,
and Eva felt all a housekeeper's enthusiasm and pride, to
have everything charming. You know how it is, sisters.
Each time that you have a social enterprise in hand you
put your entire soul into it for the time being, and have
a complete little set of hopes and fears, joys, sorrows and
plans, born with the day and dying with the morrow.
Just as she was busy arranging her flowers, the door-bell
rang, and Jim Fellows came in with a basket of fruit.
“Good morning,” he said; “Harry told me you were
going to have a little blow-out to-night, and I thought
I'd bring in a contribution.”
-- 279 --
[figure description] Page 279.[end figure description]
“Oh! thanks, Jim; they are exactly the thing I was
going out to look for. How lovely of you!”
“Well, they've come to you without looking, then,”
said Jim. “Any commands for me? Can't I help you
in any way?”
“No, Jim, unless—well, you know my good Mary is
the great wheel of this establishment, and if she breaks
down we all go too—for I should n't know what to do a
single day without her.”
“Well, what has happened to this great wheel?” said
Jim. “Has it a cold in its head, or what?”
“Come, Jim, don't make fun of my metaphors; the
fact is, that Mary's daughter, Maggie, has run off again
and left her.”
“Just what she might have expected,” said Jim.
“No; Maggie was doing very well, and I really
thought I should make something of her. She thought
everything of me, and I could get along with her perfectly
well, and I found her very ingenious and capable;
but her relations all took up against her, and her uncle
came in last night and talked to her till she was in a
perfect fury.”
“Of course,” said Jim, “that's the world's way; a
fellow can't repent and turn quietly, he must have his
sins well rubbed into him, and his nose held to the
grindstone. I should know that Maggie would flare up
under that style of operation; those great black eyes of
hers are not for nothing, I can tell you.”
“Well, you see it was last night, while I was up at
papa's, that her uncle came, and they had a stormy time,
I fancy; and when Harry and I came home we found
Maggie just flying out of the door in desperation, and I
brought her back, and quieted her down, and brought her
to reason, and her mother too, and made it all smooth
and right. But, this morning, came in Aunt Maria—”
-- 280 --
[figure description] Page 280.[end figure description]
Jim gave a significant whistle.
“Yes, you may well whistle. You see, Maggie once
lived with Aunt Maria, and she's dead set against her,
and came to make me turn her out of my house, if she
could. You ought to have seen the look of withering
scorn and denunciation she gave Maggie when she
opened the door!—and she talked about her so loud to
me, and said so much to induce me to turn away both
her and Mary, and take another set of girls, that I don't
wonder Maggie went off; and now poor Mary is quite
broken-hearted. It makes me feel sad to see her go
about her work so forlorn and patient, wiping her eyes
every once in a while, and yet doing everything for me,
like the good soul she always is.”
“By George!” said Jim; “I wish I could help her.
Well, I'll put somebody on Maggie's track and we'll find
her out. I know all the detectives and the police—
trust us newspaper fellows for that—and Maggie is a
pretty marked article, and I think I may come on the
track of her; there are not many things that Jim can't
find out, when he sets himself to work. Meanwhile,
have you any errands for me to run, or any message to
send to your folks? I may as well take it, while I'm
about it.”
“Well, yes, Jim; if you'd be kind enough, as you go
by papa's, to ask Angie to come down and help me. She
is always so brisk and handy, and keeps one in such
good spirits, too.”
“Oh, yes, Angie is always up and dressed, whoever
wants her, and is good for any emergency. The little
woman has Christmas tree on her brain just now—for
our Sunday-school; only the other night, she was showing
me the hoods and tippets she had been knitting for
it, like a second Dorcas—”
“Yes,” said Eva, “we must all have a consultation
-- 281 --
[figure description] Page 281.[end figure description]
about that Christmas tree. I wanted to see Mr. St. John
about it.'
“Do you think there were any Christmas trees in the
first centuries,” said Jim, “or any churchly precedent
for them?—else I don't see how St. John is going to allow
such a worldly affair in his chapel.”
“Oh, pshaw! Mr. St. John is sensible. He listened
with great interest to Angie, the other night, while she
was telling about one that she helped get up last year
in Dr. Cushing's Sunday-school room, and he seemed
quite delighted with the idea; and Angie and Alice and
I are on a committee to get a list of children and look
up presents, and that was one thing I wanted to talk
about to-night.”
“Well, get St.John and Angie to talking tree together,
and she'll edify him. St.John is O. K. about all
the particulars of how they managed in the catacombs,
without doubt, and he gets ahead of us all preaching
about the primitive Christians, but come to a Christmas
tree for New York street boys and girls, in the 19th century,
I'll bet on Angie to go ahead of him. He'll have
to learn of her—and you see he won't find it hard to
take, either. Jim knows a thing or two.” And Jim
cocked his head on one side, like a saucy sparrow, and
looked provokingly knowing.
“Now, Jim, what do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing. Alice says I mustn't think anything
or say anything, on pain of her high displeasure. But,
you just watch the shepherd and Angie to-night.”
“Jim, you provoking creature, you mustn't talk
so.”
“Bless your heart, who is talking so? Am I saying
anything? Of course I'm not saying anything. Alice
won't let me. I always have to shut my eyes and look
the other way when Angie and St. John are around, for
-- 282 --
[figure description] Page 282.[end figure description]
fear I should say something and make a remark. Jim
says nothing, but he thinks all the more.”
Now, we'll venture to say that there isn't a happy
young wife in the first months of wifehood that isn't predisposed
to hope for all her friends a happy marriage, as
about the summit of human bliss; and so Eva was not
shocked like Alice by the suggestion that her rector
might become a candidate for the sacrament of matrimony.
On the contrary, it occurred to her at once that
the pretty, practical, lively, efficient little Angie might be
a true angel, not merely of church and Sunday-school,
but of a rector's house. He was ideal and theoretic, and
she practical and common-sense; yet she was pretty
enough, and picturesque, and fanciful enough for an ideal
man to make a poem of, and weave webs around, and
write sonnets to; and as all these considerations flashed
at once upon Eva's mind, she went on settling a spray
of geranium with rose-buds, a pleased dreamy smile on
her face. After a moment's pause, she said:
“Jim, if you see a bird considering whether to build
a nest in the tree by your window, and want him there,
the way is to keep pretty still about it and not go to the
window, and watch, and call people, saying, `Oh, see here,
there's a bird going to build!' Don't you see the sense
of my parable?”
“Well, why do you talk to me? Haven't I kept away
from the window, and walked round on tip-toe like a cat,
and only given the quietest look out of the corner of my
eye?”
“Well, it seems you couldn't help calling my attention
and Alice's. Don't extend the circle of observers, Jim.”
“See if I do. You'll find me discretion itself. I
shall be so quiet that even a humming bird's nerves
couldn't be disturbed. Well, good by, for the present.”
“Oh, but, Jim, don't forget to do what you can about
-- 283 --
[figure description] Page 283.[end figure description]
Maggie. It really seems selfish in me to be absorbed in
my own affairs, and not doing anything to help Mary,
poor thing, when she's so good to me.”
“Well, I don't see but you are doing all you can.
I'll see about it right away and report to you,” said Jim;
“so, au revoir.”
Angie came in about lunch time; the two sisters,
once at their tea and toast, discussed the forthcoming
evening's preparations and the Christmas Sunday-school
operations: and Eva, with the light of Jim's suggestions
in her mind, began to observe certain signs of increasing
intimacy between Angie and Mr. St. John.
“O Eva, I want to tell you: I went to see those
poor Prices, Saturday afternoon; and there was John, just
back from one of those dreadful sprees that he will have
every two or three weeks. You never saw a creature so
humble and so sorry, and so good, and so anxious to
make up with his wife and me, and everybody all round,
as he was. He was sitting there, nursing his wife and
tending his baby, just as handy as a woman,—for she,
poor thing, has had a turn of fever, in part, I think,
brought on by worry and anxiety; but she seemed so
delighted and happy to have him back!—and I couldn't
help thinking what a shame it is that there should be
any such thing as rum, and that there should be people
who make it their business and get their living by tempting
people to drink it. If I were a Queen, I'd shut up
all the drinking-shops right off!”
“I fancy, if we women could have our way, we should
do it pretty generally.”
“Well, I don't know about that,” said Angie. “One
of the worst shops in John's neighborhood is kept by a
woman.”
“Well, it seems so hopeless—this weakness of these
men,” said Eva.
-- 284 --
[figure description] Page 284.[end figure description]
“Oh, well, never despair,” said Angie. “I found
him in such a good mood that I could say anything I
wanted to, and I found that he was feeling terribly because
he had lost his situation in Sanders' store on account
of his drinking habits. He had been a porter and
errand boy there, and he is so obliging and quick that
he is a great favorite; but they got tired of his being so
unreliable, and had sent him word that they didn't want
him any more. Well, you see, here was an opportunity.
I said to him: `John, I know Mr. Sanders, and if you'll
sign a solemn pledge never to touch another drop of
liquor, or go into a place where it is sold, I will try and
get him to take you back again.' So I got a sheet of
paper and wrote a pledge, strong and solemn, in a good
round hand, and he put his name to it; and just
then Mr. St. John came in and I showed it to him, and
he spoke beautifully to him, and prayed with him, and I
really do hope, now, that John will stand.”
“So, Mr. St. John visits them?”
“Oh, to be sure; ever since I had those children in
my class, he has been very attentive there. I often hear
of his calling; and when he was walking home with me
afterwards, he told me about that article of Dr. Campbell's
and advised me to read it. He said it had given
him some new ideas. He called this family my little
parish, and said I could do more than he could. Just
think of our rector saying that.”
Eva did think of it, but forbore to comment aloud.
“Jim was right,” she said to herself.
-- -- p710-300
CHAPTER XXXI. WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT.
[figure description] Page 285.[end figure description]
THE dinner party, like many impromptu social ventures,
was a success. Mr. Selby proved one of
that delightful class of English travelers who travel in
America to see and enter into its peculiar and individual
life, and not to show up its points of difference from
old-world social standards. He seemed to take the sense
of a little family dinner, got up on short notice, in which
the stereotyped doctrine of courses was steadfastly ignored;
where there was no soup or fish, and only a good
substantial course of meat and vegetables, with a slight
dessert of fruit and confectionery; where there was no
black servant, with white gloves, to change the plates,
but only respectable, motherly Mary, who had tidied
herself and taken the office of waiter, in addition to her
services as cook.
A real high-class English gentleman, when he fairly
finds himself out from under that leaden pale of conventionalities
which weighs down elasticity like London
fog and smoke, sometimes exhibits all the hilarity of a
boy out of school on a long vacation, and makes himself
frisky and gamesome to a degree that would astonish the
solemn divinities of insular decorum. Witness the
stories of the private fun and frolic of Thackeray and
Dickens, on whom the intoxicating sense of social freedom
wrought results sometimes surprising to staid Americans;
as when Thackeray rode with his heels out of the
carriage window through immaculate and gaping Boston
and Dickens perpetrated his celebrated walking wager.
-- 286 --
[figure description] Page 286.[end figure description]
Mr. Selby was a rising literary man in the London
writing world, who had made his own way up in the
world, and known hard times and hard commons,
though now in a lucrative position. It would have been
quite possible, by spending a suitable sum and deranging
the whole house, to set him down to a second-rate imitation
of a dull, conventional London dinner, with waiters
in white chokers, and protracted and circuitous courses;
and in that case Mr. Selby would have frozen into a stiff,
well preserved Briton, with immaculate tie and gloves,
and a guarded and diplomatic reserve of demeanor.
Eva would have been nervously thinking of the various
unusual arrangements of the dinner table, and a general
stiffness and embarrassment would have resulted. People
who entertain strangers from abroad often re-enact
the mistake of the two Englishmen who traveled all
night in a diligence, laboriously talking broken French
to each other, till at dawn they found out by a chance
slip of the tongue that they were both English. So,
at heart, every true man, especially in a foreign land, is
wanting what every true household can give him—sincere
homely feeling, the sense of domesticity, the comfort
of being off parade and among friends; and Mr.
Selby saw in the first ten minutes that this was what he
had found in the Hendersons' house.
In the hour before dinner, Eva had shown him her
ivies and her ferns and her manner of training them, and
found an appreciate observer and listener. Mr. Selby
was curious about American interiors and the detail of
domestic life among people of moderate fortune. He
was interested in the modes of warming and lighting,
and arranging furniture, etc.; and soon Eva and he
were all over the house, while she eloquently explained
to him the working of the furnace, the position of
the water pipes, and the various comforts and con
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
CONFIDENCES.
"In due course followed an introduction to 'my wife,' whose photograph
Mr. Selby wore dutifully in his coat-pocket over the exact
region of the heart."—p. 287.
[figure description] Illustration page. Image of a man and a woman sitting in a drawing room. The woman is holding a photograph in one hand and they are both looking at it.[end figure description]
-- 287 -- p710-304
[figure description] Page 287.[end figure description]
veniences which they had introduced into their little
territories.
“I've got a little box of my own at Kentish town,
Mr. Selby said, in a return burst of confidence, “and I
shall tell my wife about some of your contrivances; the
fact is,” he added, “we literary people need to learn all
these ways of being comfortable at small expense. The
problem of our age is, that of perfecting small establishments
for people of moderate means; and I must say, I
think it has been carried further in your country than
with us.”
“In due course followed an introduction to “my
wife,” whose photograph Mr. Selby wore dutifully in his
coat-pocket, over the exact region of the heart; and then
came “my son,” four years old, with all his playthings
round him; and, in short, before an hour, Eva and he
were old acquaintances, ready to tell each other family
secrets.
Alice and Angelique were delightful girls to reinforce
and carry out the home charm of the circle. They had
eminently what belongs to the best class of American
girls,—that noble frankness of manner, that fearless giving
forth of their inner nature, which comes from the atmosphere
of free democratic society. Like most high-bred
American girls, they had traveled, and had opportunities
of observing European society, which added breadth
to their range of conversation without taking anything
from their frank simplicity. Foreign travel produces
two opposite kinds of social effect, according to character.
Persons who are narrow in their education, sensitive
and self-distrustful, are embarrassed by a foreign experience:
they lose their confidence in their home life, in
their own country and its social habitudes, and get nothing
adequate in return; their efforts at hospitality are
repressed by a sort of mental comparison of themselves
-- 288 --
[figure description] Page 288.[end figure description]
with foreign models; they shrink from entertaining
strangers, through an indefinite fear that they shall come
short of what would be expected somewhere else. But
persons of more breadth of thought and more genuine
courage see at once that there is a characteristic American
home life, and that what a foreigner seeks in a
foreign country is the peculiarity of that country, and not
an attempt to reproduce that which has become stupid
and tedious to him by constant repetition at home.
Angelique and Alice talked readily and freely; Alice
with the calm, sustained good sense and dignity which
was characteristic of her, and Angelique in those sunny
jets and flashes of impulsive gaiety which rise like a fountain
at the moment. Given the presence of three female
personages like Eva, Alice, and Angelique, and it would
not be among the possibilities for a given set of the other
sex to be dull or heavy. Then, most of the gentlemen
were more or less habitués of the house, and somewhat
accorded with each other, like instruments that have
been played in unison; and it is not, therefore to be
wondered at that Mr. Selby made the mental comment
that, taken at home, these Americans are delightful, and
that cultivated American women are particularly so
from their engaging frankness of manner.
There would be a great deal more obedience to the
apostolic injunction, “Be not forgetful to entertain
strangers,” if it once could be clearly got into the heads
of well-intending people what it is that strangers want.
What do you want, when away from home, in a strange
city? Is it not the warmth of the home fireside, and
the sight of people that you know care for you? Is it
not the blessed privilege of speaking and acting yourself
out unconstrainedly among those who you know understand
you? And had you not rather dine with an old
friend on simple cold mutton, offered with a warm heart,
-- 289 --
[figure description] Page 289.[end figure description]
than go to a splendid ceremonious dinner party among
people who don't care a rush for you?
Well, then, set it down in your book that other people
are like you; and that the art of entertaining is the art
of really caring for people. If you have a warm heart,
congenial tastes, and a real interest in your stranger,
don't fear to invite him, though you have no best dinner
set, and your existing plates are sadly chipped at the
edges, and even though there be a handle broken off
from the side of your vegetable dish. Set it down in
your belief that you can give something better than a
dinner, however good,—you can give a part of yourself.
You can give love, good will, and sympathy, of which
there has, perhaps, been quite as much over cracked
plates and restricted table furniture as over Sèvres china
and silver.
It soon appeared that Mr. Selby, like other sensible
Englishmen, had a genuine interest in getting below the
surface life of our American world, and coming to the
real “hard-pan” on which our social fabric is founded.
He was full of intelligent curiosity as to the particulars
of American journalism, its management, its possibilities,
its remunerations compared with those of England; and
here was where Bolton's experience, and Jim Fellows's
many-sided practical observations, came out strongly.
Alice was delighted with the evident impression that
Jim made on a man whose good opinion appeared to be
worth having; for that young lady, insensibly perhaps to
herself, held a sort of right of property in Jim, such as
the princesses of the middle ages had in the knights that
wore their colors, and Jim, undoubtedly, was inspired by
the idea that bright eyes looked on, to do his devoir manfully
in the conversation. So they went over all the
chances and prospects of income and living for literary
men and journalists in the two countries; the facilities
-- 290 --
[figure description] Page 290.[end figure description]
for marriage, and the establishment of families, including
salaries, rents, prices of goods, etc. In the course of the
conversation, Mr. Selby made many frank statements of
his own personal experience and observation, which were
responded to with equal frankness on the part of Harry
and Eva and others, till it finally seemed as if the whole
company were as likely to become au courant of each
other's affairs as a party of brothers and sisters. Eva,
sitting at the head, like a skillful steerswoman, turned
the helm of conversation adroitly, now this way and now
that, to draw out the forces of all her guests, and bring
each into play. She introduced the humanitarian questions
of the day; and the subject branched at once upon
what was doing by the Christian world: the high church,
the ritualists, the broad church, and the dissenters all
rose upon the carpet, and St. John was wide awake and
earnest in his inquiries. In fact, an eager talking spirit
descended upon them, and it was getting dark when Eva
made the move to go to the parlor, where a bright fire
and coffee awaited them.
“I always hate to drop very dark shades over my
windows in the evening,” said Eva, as she went in and
began letting down the lace curtains; “I like to have the
firelight of a pleasant room stream out into the dark,
and look cheerful and hospitable outside; for that reason
I don't like inside shutters. Do you know, Mr. Selby,
how your English arrangements used to impress me?
They were all meant to be very delightful to those in
side, but freezingly repulsive to those without. Your
beautiful grounds that one longs to look at, are guarded
by high stone-walls with broken bottles on the top, to
keep one from even hoping to get over. Now, I think
beautiful grounds are a public charity, and a public education;
and a man shouldn't build a high wall round
them, so that even the sight of his trees, and the odor
-- 291 --
[figure description] Page 291.[end figure description]
of his flowers, should be denied to his poor neighbors.”
“It all comes of our national love of privacy,” said
Mr. Selby; “it isn't stinginess, I beg you to believe, Mrs.
Henderson, but shyness,—you find our hearts all right
when you get in.”
“That we do; but, I beg pardon, Mr. Selby, oughtn't
shyness to be put down in the list of besetting sins, and
fought against; isn't it the enemy of brotherly kindness
and charity?”
“Certainly, Mrs. Henderson, you practice so delightfully,
one cannot find fault with your preaching,” said
Mr. Selby; “but, after all, is it a sin to want to keep
one's private life to himself, and unexposed to the comments
of vulgar, uncongenial natures? It seems to me,
if you will pardon the suggestion, that there is too little
of this sense of privacy in America. Your public men,
for instance, are required to live in glass cases, so that
they may be constantly inspected behind and before.
Your press interviewers beset them on every hand, take
down their chance observations, record everything they
say and do, and how they look and feel at every moment
of their lives. I confess that I would rather be comfortably
burned at the stake at once than to be one of your
public men in America; and all this comes of your not
being shy and reserved. It's a state of things impossible
in the kind of country that has high walls with glass bottles
around its private grounds.”
“He has us there, Eva,” said Harry; “our vulgar,
jolly, democratic level of equality over here produces
just these insufferable results; there's no doubt about
it.”
“Well,” said Jim, “I have one word to say about
newspaper reporters. Poor boys! everybody is down
on them, nobody has a bit of charity for them; and yet,
-- 292 --
[figure description] Page 292.[end figure description]
bless you, it isn't their fault if they're impertinent and
prying. That is what they are engaged for and paid for,
and kicked out if they're not up to. Why, look you,
here are four or five big dailies running the general
gossip-mill for these great United States, and if any one
of them gets a bit of news before another, it's a victory—
a “beat.” Well, if the boys are not sharp, if other
papers get things that they don't or can't, off they must
go; and the boys have mothers and sisters to support—
and want to get wives some day—and the reporting business
is the first round of the ladder; if they get pitched
off, it's all over with them.”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Selby; “it is, if you will pardon
my saying it, it is your great American public that wants
these papers and takes them, and takes the most of those
that have the most gossip in them, that are to blame.
They make the reporters what they are, and keep them
what they are, by the demand they keep up for their
wares; and so, I say, if Mrs. Henderson will pardon me,
that, as yet, I am unable to put down our national shyness
in the catalogue of sins to be fought against. I
confess I would rather, if I should ever happen to have
any literary fame, I would rather shut my shutters, evenings,
and have high walls with glass bottles on top around
my grounds, and not have every vulgar, impertinent fellow
in the community commenting on my private affairs.
Now, in England, we have all arrangements to keep
our families to ourselves, and to such intimates as we
may approve.”
“Oh, yes, I knew it to my cost when I was in England,”
said Eva. “You might be in a great hotel with
all the historic characters of your day, and see no more
of them than if you were in America. They came in
close family carriages, they passed to close family rooms,
they traveled in railroad compartments specially secured
-- 293 --
[figure description] Page 293.[end figure description]
to themselves, and you knew no more about them than
if you had stayed at home.”
“Well,” said Mr. Selby, “you describe what I think
are very nice, creditable, comfortable ways of managing.”
“With not even a newspaper reporter to tell the
people what they were talking about, and what gowns
their wives and daughters wore,” said Bolton, dryly. “I
confess, of the two extremes, the English would most
accord with my natural man.”
“So it is with all of us,” said St. John; “the question
is, though, whether this strict caste system which links
people in certain lines and ruts of social life, doesn't
make it impossible to have that knowledge of one another
as human beings which Christianity requires. It struck
me in England that the high clergy had very little practical
comprehension of the feelings of the lower classes,
and their wives and daughters less. They were prepared
to dispense charity to them from above, but not to study
them on the plane of equal intercourse. They never
mingle, any more than oil and water; and that, I think, is
why so much charity in England is thrown away—the
different classes do not understand each other, and never
can.”
“Yes,” said Harry; “with all the disadvantages and
disagreeable results of our democratic jumble in society,
our common cars where all ride side by side, our hotel
parlors where all sit together, and our tables d' hote where
all dine together, we do know each other better, and
there is less chance of class misunderstandings and jealousies,
than in England.”
“For my part, I sympathize with Mr. Selby, according
to the flesh,” said Mr. St. John. “The sheltered
kind of life one leads in English good society is what I
prefer; but, if our Christianity is good for anything, we
cannot choose what we prefer.”
-- 294 --
[figure description] Page 294.[end figure description]
“I have often thought,” said Eva, “that the pressure
of vulgar notoriety, the rush of the crowd around our
Saviour, was evidently the same kind of trial to him that
it must be to every refined and sensitive nature; and yet
how constant and how close was his affiliation with the
lowest and poorest in his day. He lived with them, he
gave them just what we shrink from giving—his personal
presence—himself.”
Eva spoke with a heightened color and with a burst
of self-forgetful enthusiasm. There was a little pause
afterwards, as if a strain of music had suddenly broken
into the conversation, and Mr. Selby, after a moment's
pause, said:
“Mrs. Henderson, I give way to that suggestion.
Sometimes, for a moment, I get a glimpse that Christianity
is something higher and purer than any conventional
church shows forth, and I feel that we nominal
Christians are not living on that plane, and that if we
only could live thus, it would settle the doubts of modern
skeptics faster than any Bampton Lectures.”
“Well,” said Eva, “it does seem as if that which
is best for society on the whole is always gained by a
sacrifice of what is agreeable. Think of the picturesque
scenery, and peasantry, and churches, and ceremonials in
Italy, and what a perfect scattering and shattering of all
such illusions would be made by a practical, common-sense
system of republican government, that would make
the people thrifty, prosperous, and happy! The good
is not always the beautiful.”
“Yes,” said Bolton to Mr. Selby, “and you Liberals
in England are assuredly doing your best to bring on
the very state of society which produces the faults that
annoy you here. The reign of the great average masses
never can be so agreeable to taste as that of the cultured
few.”
-- 295 --
[figure description] Page 295.[end figure description]
But we will not longer follow a conversation which
was kept up till a late hour around the blazing hearth.
The visit was one of those happy ones in which a man
enters a house a stranger and leaves it a friend. When
all were gone, Harry and Eva sat talking it over by the
decaying brands.
“Harry, you venturesome creature, how dared you
send such a company in upon me on washing day?”
“Because, my dear, I knew you were the one woman
in a thousand that could face an emergency and never
lose either temper or presence of mind; and you see I
was right.”
“But it isn't me that you should praise, Harry; it's
my poor, good Mary. Just think how patiently she
turned out of her way and changed all her plans, and
worked and contrived for me, when her poor old heart
was breaking! I must run up now and say how much I
thank her for making everything go off so well.”
Eva tapped softly at the door of Mary's room.
There was no answer. She opened it softly. Mary was
kneeling with clasped hands before her crucifix, and
praying softly and earnestly; so intent that she did not
hear Eva coming in. Eva waited a moment, and then
kneeled down beside her and softly put her arm around
her.
“Oh, dear, Miss Eva!” said Mary, “my heart's just
breaking.”
“I know it, I know it, my poor Mary.”
“It's so cold and dark out-doors, and where is she?”
said Mary, with a shudder. “Oh, I wish I'd been kinder
to her, and not scolded her.”
“Oh, dear Mary, don't reproach yourself; you did it
for the best. We will pray for her, and the dear Father
will hear us, I know he will. The Good Shepherd will
go after her and find her.”
-- -- p710-313
CHAPTER XXXII. A MISTRESS WITHOUT A MAID.
[figure description] Page 296.[end figure description]
Valley of Humiliation.
DEAR Mother: I have kept you well informed of
all our prosperities in undertaking and doing: how
everything we have set our hand to has turned out beautifully;
how “our evenings” have been a triumphant
success; and how we and our neighbors are all coming
into the spirit of love and unity, getting acquainted, mingling
and melting into each other's sympathy and knowledge.
I have had the most delightful run of compliments
about my house, as so bright, so cheerful, so
social and cosy, and about my skill in managing to
always have every thing so nice, and in entertaining with
so little parade and trouble, that I really began to plume
myself on something very uncommon in the way of what
Aunt Prissy Diamond calls “faculty.” Well, you know,
next in course after the Palace Beautiful comes the Valley
of Humiliation—whence my letter is dated—where I
am at this present writing. Honest old John Bunyan
says that, although people do not descend into this place
with a very good grace, but with many a sore bruise and
tumble, yet the air thereof is mild and refreshing, and
many sweet flowers grow here that are not found in more
exalted regions.
I have not found the flowers yet, and feel only the
soreness and bruises of the descent. To drop the metaphor:
I have been now three days conducting my
-- 297 --
[figure description] Page 297.[end figure description]
establishment without Mary, and with no other assistant
than her daughter, the little ten-year-old midget I told
you about. You remember about poor Maggie, and
what we were trying to do for her, and how she fled from
our house? Well, Jim Fellows set the detectives upon
her track, and the last that was heard of her, she had
gone up to Poughkeepsie; and, as Mary has relations
somewhere in that neighborhood, she thought, perhaps,
if she went immediately, she should find her among them.
The dear, faithful soul felt dreadfully about leaving me,
knowing that, as to all practical matters, I am a poor
“sheep in the wilderness;” and if I had made any opposition,
or argued against it, I suppose that I might have
kept her from going, but I did not. I did all I could to
hurry her off, and talked heroically about how I would
try to get along without her, and little Midge swelled
with importance, and seemed to long for the opportunity
to display her latent powers; and so Mary departed
suddenly one morning, and left me in possession of the
field.
The situation was the graver that we had a gentleman
invited to dinner, and Mary had not time even to stuff
the turkey, as she had to hurry off to the cars. “What
will you do, Miss Eva?” she said, ruefully; and I said
cheerily: “Oh, never fear, Mary; I never found a situation
yet that I was not adequate to,” and I saw her out
of the door, and then turned to my kitchen and my turkey.
My soul was fired with energy. I would prove to
Harry what a wonderful and unexplored field of domestic
science lay in my little person. Everything should be so
perfect that the absence of Mary should not even be suspected!
So I came airily upon the stage of action, and took
an observation of the field. This turkey should be
stuffed, of course; turkeys always were stuffed; but
-- 298 --
[figure description] Page 298.[end figure description]
what with? How very shadowy and indefinite my
knowledge grew, as I contemplated those yawning rifts
and caverns which were to be filled up with something
savory—I didn't precisely know what! But the cook-book
came to my relief. I read and studied the
directions, and proceeded to explore for the articles.
“Midge, where does your mother keep the sweet herbs?”
Midge was prompt and alert in her researches and
brought them to light, and I proceeded gravely to measure
and mix, while Midge, delighted at the opportunity
of exploring forbidden territory, began a miscellaneous
system of rummaging and upsetting in Mary's orderly
closets. “Here's the mustard, ma'am, and here's the
French mustard, and here's the vanilla, and the cloves is
here, and the nutmeg-grater, ma'am, and the nutmegs is
here;” and so on, till I was half crazy.
“Midge, put all those things back and shut the cupboard
door, and stop talking,” said I, decisively. And
Midge obeyed.
“Now,” said I, “I wonder where Mary keeps her
needles; this must be sewed up.”
Midge was on hand again, and pulled forth needles,
and thread, and twine, and after some pulling and pinching
of my fingers, and some unsuccessful struggles with
the stiff wings that wouldn't lie down, and the stiff legs
that would kick out, my turkey was fairly bound and
captive, and handsomely awaiting his destiny.
“Now, Midge,” said I, triumphant; “open the oven
door!”
“Oh! please, ma'am, it's only ten o'clock. You
don't want to roast him all day.”
Sure enough; I had not thought of that. Our dinner
hour was five o'clock; and, for the first time in my
life, the idea of time as connected with a roast turkey
rose in my head.
-- 299 --
[figure description] Page 299.[end figure description]
“Midge, when does your mother put the turkey in?”
“Oh! not till some time in the afternoon,” said
Midge, wisely.
“How long does it take a turkey to roast?” said I.
“Oh! a good while,” said Midge, confidently, “'cordin'
as how large they is.”
I turned to my cook-book, and saw that so much
time must be given to so many pounds; but I had not
the remotest idea how many pounds there were in the
turkey. So I set Midge to cleaning the silver, and ran
across the way, to get light of Miss Dorcas.
How thankful I was for the neighborly running-in
terms on which I stood with my old ladies; it stood me
in good stead in this time of need. I ran in at the back
door and found Miss Dorcas in her kitchen, presiding
over some special Eleusinean mysteries in the way of
preserves. The good soul had on a morning-cap calculated
to strike terror into an inexperienced beholder, but
her face beamed with benignity, and she entered into the
situation at once.
“Cookery books are not worth a fly in such cases,”
she remarked, sententiously. “You must use your judgment.”
“But what if you haven't got any judgment to use?”
said I. “I haven't a bit.”
“Well, then, dear child, you must use Dinah's, as I
do. Dinah can tell to a T, how long a turkey takes to
roast, by looking at it. Here, Dinah, run over, and
`talk turkey' to Mrs. Henderson.”
Dinah went back with me, boiling over with giggle.
She laughed so immoderately over my turkey that I began
to fear I had made some disgraceful blunder; but I
was relieved by a facetious poke in the side which she
gave me, declaring:
“Lord's sakes alive, Mis' Henderson, you's dun it
-- 300 --
[figure description] Page 300.[end figure description]
like a bawn cook, you has. Land sake! but it just kills
me to see ladies work,” she added, going into another
chuckle of delight. “Waall, now, Mis' Henderson, dat
'are turkey 'll want a mighty sight of doin'. Tell ye
what—I'll come over and put him in for you, 'bout three
o'clock,” she concluded, giving me a matronizing pat on
the back.
“Besides,” said little Midge, wisely, “there's all the
chambers and the parlors to do.”
Sure enough! I had forgotten that beds do not make
themselves, nor chambers arrange themselves, as always
had seemed to me before. But I went at the work, with
little Midge for handmaid, guiding her zeal and directing
and superintending her somewhat erratic movements,
till bedrooms, parlors, house, were all in wonted order.
In the course of this experience, it occurred to me a
number of times how much activity, and thought, and
care and labor of some one went to make the foundation
on which the habitual ease, quiet and composure of my
daily life was built; and I mentally voted Mary a place
among the saints.
Punctually to appointment, Dinah came over and
lifted my big turkey into the oven, and I shut the door
on him, and thought my dinner was fairly under way.
But the kitchen stove, which always seemed to me
the most matter-of-fact, simple, self-evident verity in
nature, suddenly became an inscrutable labyrinth of
mystery in my eyes. After putting in my turkey, I went
on inspecting my china-closet, and laying out napkins,
and peering into preserve-jars, till half an hour had
passed, when I thought of taking a peep at him. There
he lay, scarcely warmed through, with a sort of chilly
whiteness upon him.
“Midge,” I cried, “why don't this fire burn? This
turkey isn't cooking.”
-- 301 --
[figure description] Page 301.[end figure description]
“Oh, dear me, mum! you've forgot the drafts is
shut,” said Midge, just as if I had ever thought of
drafts, or supposed there was any craft or mystery about
them.
Midge, however, proceeded to open certain mysterious
slides, whereat the stove gave a purr of satisfaction,
which soon broadened into a roar.
“That will do splendidly,” said I; “and now, Midge,
go and get the potatoes and turnips, peel them, and have
them ready.”
The stove roared away merrily, and I went on with
my china-closet arrangements, laying out a dessert, till
suddenly I smelled a smell of burning. I went into the
kitchen, and found the stove raging like a great red
dragon, and the top glowing hot, and, opening the oven
door, a puff of burning fume flew in my face.
“Oh, Midge, Midge,” I cried, “what is the matter?
The turkey is all burning up!” and Midge came running
from the cellar.
“Why, mother shuts them slides part up, when the
fire gets agoing too fast,” said Midge—“so;” and Midge
manipulated the mysterious slides, and the roaring monster
grew calm.
But my turkey needed to be turned, and I essayed to
turn him—a thing which seems the simplest thing in life,
till one tries it and becomes convinced of the utter depravity
of matter. The wretched contrary bird of evil!
how he slipped and slid, and went every way but the
right way! How I wrestled with him, getting hot and
combative, outwardly and inwardly! How I burned my
hand on the oven door, till finally over he flounced,
spattering hot gravy all over my hand and the front
breadth of my dress. I had a view then that I never had
had before of the amount of Christian patience needed
by a cook. I really got into quite a vengeful state of
-- 302 --
[figure description] Page 302.[end figure description]
feeling with the monster, and shut the oven door with a
malignant bang, as Hensel and Gretel did when they
burned the old witch in the fairy story.
But now came the improvising of my dessert! I had
projected an elegant arrangement of boiled custard, with
sponge-cake at the bottom, and feathery snow of eggfroth
on top—a showy composition, which, when displayed
in a high cut-glass dish, strikingly ornaments the
table.
I felt entirely equal to boiled custard. I had seen
Mary make it dozens of times. I knew just how many
eggs went to the quart of milk, and that it must be stirred
gently all the time, in a kettle of boiling water, till the
golden moment of projection arrived. So I stirred and
stirred, with a hot face and smarting hands; for the
burned places burned so much worse in the heat as to
send a doubt through my mind whether I ever should
have grace enough to be a martyr at the stake, for any
faith or cause whatever.
But I bore all for the sake of my custard; when, oh!
from some cruel, mysterious, unexplained cause, just at
the last moment, the golden creamy preparation suddenly
separated into curd and whey, leaving my soul desolate
within me!
What had I done? What had I omitted? I was
sure every rite and form of the incantation had been
performed just as I had seen Mary do it hundreds of
times; yet hers proved a rich, smooth, golden cream,
and mine unsightly curd and watery whey!
The mysteriousness of natural laws was never so
borne in upon me. There is a kink in every one of
them, meant to puzzle us. In my distress, I ran across
to the back door again and consulted Dinah.
“What can be the matter, Dinah? My custard won't
come, when I've mixed everything exactly right,
-- 303 --
[figure description] Page 303.[end figure description]
according to the rules; and it's all turned to curd and
whey!”
“Land sake, missis, it's jest cause it will do so
sometimes—dat are's de reason,” said Dinah, with the
certainty of a philosopher. “Soft custard is jest de aggravatinest
thing! you don't never know when it's goin'
to be contrary and flare up agin you.”
“Well, Dinah,” said Miss Dorcas, “you try your luck
with some of our fresh morning's milk—you always have
luck—and carry it over to Mrs. Henderson.”
The dear old angel! No morning cap, however fearful,
could disguise her. I fell upon her neck and kissed
her, then and there, she was so good! She is the best
old soul, mother, and I feel proud of having discovered
her worth. I told her how I did hope some time she
would let me do something for her, and we had quite a
time, pledging our friendship to each other in the kitchen.
Well, Dinah brought over the custard, thick and
smooth, and I arranged it in my high cut-glass dish and
covered it with foamy billows of whites of egg tipped
off with sparkles of jelly, so that Dinah declared that it
looked as well “as dem perfectioners could do it;” and
she staid to take my turkey out for me at the dinner
hour; and I, remembering my past struggle and burned
fingers, was only too glad to humbly accept her services.
Dinah is not a beauty, by any of the laws of art,
but she did look beautiful to me, when I left her getting
up the turkey, and retired to wash my hot cheeks and
burning hands and make my toilette; for I was to appear
serene and smiling in a voluminous robe, and with unsullied
ribbons, like the queen of the interior, whose morning
had been passed in luxurious ease and ignorant of care.
To say the truth, dear mother, I was so tired and
worn out with the little I had done that I would much
rather have lain down for a nap than to have enacted the
-- 304 --
[figure description] Page 304.[end figure description]
part of charming hostess. Talk about women meeting
men with a smile, when they come in from the cares of
business! I reflected that, if this sort of thing went on
much longer, Harry would have to meet me with a smile,
and a good many smiles, to keep up my spirits at this end
of the lever. However, it was but for once; I summoned
my energies and was on time, nicely dressed, serene
and fresh as if nothing had happened, and we went
through our dinner without a break down, for little
Midge was a well-trained waiter and did heroically.
Only, when I came to pour the coffee after dinner, I
was astonished at its unusual appearance. Our clear,
limpid, golden coffee had always been one of our strong
points, and one on which I had often received special
compliments. People had said, “How do you contrive
to always have such coffee?” and I had accepted with a
graceful humility, declaring, as is proper in such cases,
that I was not aware of any particular merit in it, etc.
The fact is, I never had thought about coffee at all.
I had seen, as I supposed, how Mary made it, and never
doubted that mine would be like hers; so that when a
black, thick, cloudy liquid poured out of my coffee pot,
I was, I confess, appalled.
Harry, like a good fellow, took no notice, and covered
my defect by beginning an animated conversation on the
merits of the last book our gentleman had published.
The good man forgot all about his coffee in his delight
at the obliging things Harry was saying, and took off the
muddy draught with a cheerful zeal, as if it was so much
nectar.
But, on our way to the parlor, Harry contrived to
whisper,
“What has got into Mary about her coffee to-day?”
“O Harry,” I replied, “Mary's gone. I had to get
the dinner all alone.”
-- 305 --
[figure description] Page 305.[end figure description]
“You did! You wonderful little puss!” said the
good boy. “Never mind the coffee! Better luck next
time.”
And, after we were alone that night, Harry praised
and admired me, and I got out the cookery book to see
how I ought to have made my coffee.
The directions, however, were not near as much to
the point as the light I got from Dinah, who came across
on a gossiping expedition to our kitchen that evening,
and to whom I propounded the inquiry, “Why wasn't
my coffee clear and nice like Mary's?”
“Land sakes, Mis' Henderson, ye did n't put in no
fish-skin, nor nothing to clar it.”
“No. I never heard of such a thing.”
“Some uses fish-skin, and some takes an egg,” continued
Dinah. “When eggs is cheap, I takes an egg.
Don't nobody have no clarer coffee 'n mine.”
I made Dinah illustrate her theme by one practical
experiment, after the manner of chemical lecturers, and
then I was mistress of the situation. Coffee was a vanquished
realm, a subjugated province, the power whereof
was vested henceforth, not in Mary, but myself.
Since then, we have been anxiously looking for Mary
every day; for Thursday is coming round, and how are
we to have “our evening” without her? Alice and Angie
are both staying with me now to help me, and on the
whole we have pretty good times, though there isn't any
surplus of practical knowledge among us. We have all
rather plumed ourselves on being sensible domestic girls.
We can all make lovely sponge cake, and Angie excels
in chocolate caramels, and Alice had a great success in
currant jelly. But the thousand little practical points
that meet one in getting the simplest meal, nobody
knows till he tries. For instance, we fried our sausages
in butter, the first morning, to the great scandal of little
-- 306 --
[figure description] Page 306.[end figure description]
Midge, who instructed us gravely that they were made
to fry themselves.
Since “our boys” have found out that we are sole
mistresses of the kitchen, they often drop in to lighten
our labors and to profess their own culinary accomplishments.
Jim Fellows declares that nobody can equal
him in coffee, and that he can cook a steak with tomato
sauce in a manner unequaled; and Bolton professes a
perculiar skill in an omelette; so we agreed yesterday
to let them try their hand, and we had a great
frolic over the getting up of a composition dinner.
Each of us took a particular thing to be responsible
for; and so we got up a pic-nic performance, which we
ate with great jollity. Dr. Campbell came in with a glass
coffee-making machine by which coffee was to be made
on table for the amusement of the guests as well as for the
gratification of appetite; and he undertook, for his part,
to engineer it. Altogether we had a capital time, and
more fun than if we had got the dinner under the usual
auspices; and, to crown all, I got a letter from Mary that
she is coming back to-morrow,—so all's well that ends
well. Meanwhile, dear mother, though I have burned
my hands and greased the front breadth of my new winter
dress, yet I have gained something quite worth
having by the experience of the last few days.
I think I shall have more patience with the faults and
short-comings of the servants after this; and if the custard
is a failure, or the meat is burned, or the coffee
doesn't come perfectly clear, I shall remember that she is
a sister woman of like passions with myself, and perhaps
trying to do her very best when she fails, just as I was
when I failed. I am quite sure that I shall be a better
mistress for having served an apprenticeship as a maid.
So good by, dear mother.
Your loving Eva.
-- -- p710-324
CHAPTER XXXIII. A FOUR-FOOTED PRODIGAL.
[figure description] Page 307.[end figure description]
THERE was dismay and confusion in the old Vanderheyden
house, this evening. Mrs. Betsey sat
abstracted at her tea, as one refusing to be comforted.
The chair on which Jack generally sat alert and cheerful
at meal times was a vacant chair, and poor soft-hearted
Mrs. Betsey's eyes filled with tears every time she looked
that way. Jack had run away that forenoon and had not
been seen about house or premises since.
“Come now, Betsey,” said Miss Dorcas, “eat your
toast; you really are silly.”
“I can't help it, Dorcas; it's getting dark and he
doesn't come. Jack never did stay out so long before;
something must have happened to him.”
“Oh, you go 'way, Miss Betsey!” broke in Dinah,
with the irreverent freedom which she generally asserted
to herself in the family counsels, “never you fear but
what Jack 'll be back soon enough—too soon for most
folks; he knows which side his bread 's buttered, dat dog
does. Bad penny allers sure to come home 'fore you
want it.”
“And there's no sort of reason, Betsey, why you
shouldn't exercise self-control and eat your supper,” pursued
Miss Dorcas, authoritatively. “A well-regulated
mind”—
“You needn't talk to me about a well-regulated mind,
Dorcas,” responded Mrs. Betsey, in an exacerbated tone.
“I haven't got a well-regulated mind and never had, and
never shall have; and reading Mrs. Chapone and Dr.
-- 308 --
[figure description] Page 308.[end figure description]
Watts on the Mind, and all the rest of them, never did
me any good. I'm one of that sort that when I'm anxious
I am anxious; so it don't do any good to talk that
way to me.”
“Well, you know, Betsey, if you'll only be reasonable,
that Jack always has come home.”
“And good reason,” chuckled Dinah. “Don't he
know when he's well off? you jest bet he does. I know
jest where he is; he's jest off a gallivantin' and a prancin'
and a dancin' now 'long o' dem low dogs in Flower
Street, and he'll come back bimeby smellin' 'nuff to
knock ye down, and I shall jest hev the washin' on him,
that's what I shall; and if I don't give him sech a soapin'
and scrubbin' as he never hed, I tell you! So you jest
eat your toast, Mis' Betsey, and take no thought for de
morrer, Scriptur' says.”
This cheerful picture, presented in Dinah's overpoweringly
self-confident way, had some effect on Mrs. Betsey,
who wiped her eyes and finished her slice of toast
without further remonstrance.
“Dinah, if you're sure he's down on Flower Street,
you might go and look him up, after tea,” she added,
after long reflection.
“Oh, well, when my dishes is done up, ef Jack ain't
come round, why, I'll take a look arter him,” quoth
Dinah. “I don't hanker arter no dog in a gineral way,
but since you've got sot on Jack, why, have him you
must. Dogs is nothin' but a plague; for my part I's glad
there won't be no dogs in heaven.”
“What do you know about that?” said Mrs. Betsey,
with spirit.
“Know?” said Dinah. “Hain't I heard my Bible
read in Rev'lations all 'bout de golden city, and how it
says, `Widout are dogs'? Don't no dogs walk de golden
streets, now I tell you; got Bible on dat ar. Jack 'll hev
-- 309 --
[figure description] Page 309.[end figure description]
to take his time in dis world, for he won't get in dere a
promenadin'.”
“Well then, Dinah, we must make the most we can
of him here,” pursued Miss Dorcas, “and so, after you've
done your dishes, I wish you'd go out and look him up.
You know you can find him, if you only set your mind
to it.”
“To think of it!” said Mrs. Betsey. “I had just
taken such pains with him; washed him up in nice warm
water, with scented soap, and combed him with a finetooth
comb till there was n't a flea on him, and tied a
handsome pink ribbon round his neck, because I was
going to take him over to Mrs. Henderson's to call, this
afternoon; and just as I got him all perfectly arranged
out he slipped, and that's the last of him.”
“I'll warrant!” said Dinah, “and won't he trail dat
ar pink ribbon through all sorts o' nastiness, and come
home smellin' wus 'n a sink-drain! Dogs hes total depravity,
and hes it hard; it's no use tryin' to make Christians
on 'em. But I'll look Jack up, never you fear.
I'll bring him home, see if I don't,” and Dinah went out
with an air of decision that carried courage to Mrs. Betsey's
heart.
“Come, now,” said Miss Dorcas, “we'll wash up the
china, and then, you know, it's Thursday—we'll dress
and go across to Mrs. Henderson's and have a pleasant
evening; and by the time we come back Jack 'll be here,
I dare say. Never mind looking out the window after
him now,” she added, seeing Mrs. Betsey peering wistfully
through the blinds up and down the street.
“People talk as if it were silly to love dogs,” said
Mrs. Betsey, in an injured tone. “I don't see why it is.
It may be better to have a baby, but if you haven't got
a baby, and have got a dog, I don't see why you shouldn't
love that; and Jack was real loving, too,” she added,
-- 310 --
[figure description] Page 310.[end figure description]
“and such company for me; he seemed like a reasonable
creature; and you were fond of him, Dorcas, you just
know you were.”
“Of course, I'm very fond of Jack,” said Miss Dorcas,
cheerfully; “but I'm not going to make myself miserable
about him. I know, of course, he'll come back
in good time. But here's Dinah, bringing the water.
Come now, let's do up the china—here's your towel—and
then you shall put on that new cap Mrs. Henderson
arranged for you, and go over and let her see you in it.
It was so very thoughtful in dear Mrs. Henderson to do
that cap for you; and she said the color was very becoming.”
“She is a dear, sweet little woman,” said Mrs. Betsey;
“and that sister of hers, Miss Angelique, looks like
her, and is so lovely. She talked with me ever so long,
the last time we were there. She isn't like some young
girls, she can see something to like in an old woman.”
Poor good Miss Dorcas had, for the most part, a very
exalted superiority to any toilet vanities; but, if the truth
were to be told, she was moved to an unusual degree of
indulgence towards Mrs. Betsey by the suppressed fear
that something grave might have befallen the pet of the
household. In a sort of vague picture, there rose up before
her the old days, when it was not a dog, but a little
child, that filled the place in that desolate heart. When
there had been a patter of little steps in those stiff and
silent rooms; and questions of little shoes, and little
sashes, and little embroidered robes, had filled the mother's
heart. And then there had been in the house the
racket and willful noise of a school-boy, with his tops,
and his skates, and his books and tasks; and then there
had been the gay young man, with his smoking-caps and
cigars, and his rattling talk, and his coaxing, teasing
ways; and then, alas! had come bad courses, and
-- 311 --
[figure description] Page 311.[end figure description]
irregular hours, and watchings, and fears for one who refused
to be guided; night-watchings for one who came late,
and brought sorrow in his coming; till, finally, came a
darker hour, and a coffin, and a funeral, and a grave,
and long weariness and broken-heartedness,—a sickness
of the heart that had lasted for years, that had blanched
the hair, and unstrung the nerves, and made the once
pretty, sprightly little woman a wreck. All these pictures
rose up silently before Miss Dorcas's inner eye as
she busied herself in wiping the china, and there was a
touch of pathos about her unaccustomed efforts to awaken
her sister's slumbering sensibility to finery, and to
produce a diversion in favor of the new cap.
The love of a pet animal is something for which people
somehow seem called upon to apologize to our own
species, as if it were a sort of mésalliance of the affections
to bestow them on anything below the human race; and
yet the Book of books, which reflects most faithfully and
tenderly the nature of man, represents the very height
of cruelty by the killing of a poor man's pet lamb. It
says the rich man had flocks and herds, but the poor man
had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he had
brought and nourished up, which grew up together with
him and his children, which ate of his bread, and drank
of his cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him as a
daughter.
And how often on the unintelligent head of some
poor loving animal are shed the tears of some heart-sorrow;
and their dumb company, their unspoken affection,
solace some broken heart which hides itself to die alone.
Dogs are the special comforters of neglected and forgotten
people; and to hurt a poor man's dog, has always
seemed to us a crime akin to sacrilege.
We are not at all sure, either, of the boasted superiority
of our human species. A dog who lives up to the
-- 312 --
[figure description] Page 312.[end figure description]
laws of his being is, in our view, a nobler creature than
a man who sinks below his: he is certainly a much more
profitable member of the community. We suggest,
moreover, that a much more judicious use could be
made of the city dog-pound in thinning out human brutes
than in smothering poor, honest curs who always lived
up to their light and did just as well as they knew how.
To say the honest truth about poor Jack, his faults
were only those incident to his having been originally
created a dog—a circumstance for which he was in no
way responsible. He was as warm-hearted, loving, demonstrative
a creature as ever wagged a tail, and he was
anxious to please his mistress to the best of his light and
knowledge. But he had that rooted and insuperable objection
to soap and water, and that preference for dirt and
liberty, which is witnessed also in young animals of the
human species, and Mrs. Betsey's exquisite neatness was a
sore cross and burden to him. Then his destiny having
made him of the nature of the flesh-eaters, as the canine
race are generally, and Miss Dorcas having some strict
dietetic theories intended to keep him in genteel figure,
Jack's allowance of meat and bones was far below his
cravings: and so he was led to explore neighboring
alleys, and to investigate swill-pails; to bring home and
bury bones in the Vanderheyden garden-plot, which
formed thus a sort of refrigerator for the preservation of
his marketing. Then Jack had his own proclivities for
society. An old lady in a cap, however caressing and
affectionate, could not supply all the social wants of a
dog's nature; and even the mixed and low company of
Flower Street was a great relief to him from the very
slelect associations and good behavior to which he was restricted
the greater part of his time. In short, Jack, like
the rest of us, had his times when he was fairly tired out
of being good, and acting the part of a cultivated
-- 313 --
[figure description] Page 313.[end figure description]
drawing-room dog; and then he reverted with a bound to his
freer doggish associates. Such an impulse is not confined
to four-footed children of nature. Rachel, when mistress
of all the brilliancy and luxury of the choicest salon in
Paris, had fits of longing to return to the wild freedom
of a street girl's life, and said that she felt within herself a
“besoin de s'encanailler.” This expresses just what Jack
felt when he went trailing his rose-colored bows into the
society of Flower Street, little thinking, as he lolled his
long pink ribbon of a tongue jauntily out of his mouth,
and enjoyed the sensation he excited among the dogs of
the vicinity, of the tears and anxieties his frolic was creating
at home. But, in due time, the china was washed,
and Mrs. Betsey entered with some interest into preparations
for the evening.
Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey were the earliest at the
Henderson fireside, and they found Alice, Angelique and
Eva busy arranging the tea-table in the corner.
“Oh, don't you think, Miss Dorcas, Mary hasn't come
back yet, and we girls are managing all alone,” said Angelique;
“you can't think what fun it is!”
“Why didn't you tell me, Mrs. Henderson?” said
Miss Dorcas. “I would have sent Dinah over to make
your coffee.”
“Oh, dear me, Miss Dorcas, Dinah gave me private
lessons day before yesterday,” said Eva, “and from
henceforth I am personally adequate to any amount of
coffee, I grow so self-confident. But I tried my hand in
making those little biscuit Mary gets up, and they were
a failure. Mary makes them with sour milk and soda,
and I tried to do mine just like hers. I can't tell why,
but they came out of the oven a brilliant grass-green—
quite a preternatural color.”
“Showing that they were the work of a green hand,”
said Angelique.
-- 314 --
[figure description] Page 314.[end figure description]
“It was an evident reflection on me,” said Eva.
“At any rate, I sent to the bakery for my biscuit
to-night, for I would not advertise my greenness in
public.”
“But we are going to introduce a novelty this evening,”
said Angelique; “to wit: boiled chestnuts; anybody
can cook chestnuts.”
“Yes,” said Eva; “Harry's mother has just sent us a
lovely bag of chestnuts, and we are going to present
them as a sensation. I think it will start all sorts of
poetic and pastoral reminiscences of lovely fall days,
and boys and girls going chestnutting and having good
times; it will make themes for talk.”
“By the by,” said Angelique, “where's Jack, Mrs.
Benthusen?”
“Oh! my dear, you touch a sore spot. We are in
distress about Jack. He ran away this morning, and we
haven't seen him all day.”
“How terrible!” said Eva. “This is a neighborhood
matter. Jack is the dog of the regiment. We
must all put our wits together to have him looked up.
Here comes Jim; let's tell him,” continued she, as Jim
Fellows walked up.
“What's up, now?”
“Why, our dog is missing,” said Eva. “The pride
of our hearts, the ornament of our neighborhood, is
gone.”
“Do you think anybody has stolen him?” said Alice.
“I shouldn't wonder,” said Mrs. Betsey; “Jack is a
dog of a very pure breed, and very valuable. A boy
might get quite a sum for him.”
“I'll advertise him in our paper,” said Jim.
“Thank you, Mr. Fellows,” said Mrs. Betsey, with
tears in her eyes.
“I don't doubt he'll get back to you, even if he has
-- 315 --
[figure description] Page 315.[end figure description]
been stolen,” said Harry. “I have known wonderful
instances of the contrivance, and ingenuity, and perseverance
of these creatures in getting back home.”
“Well,” said Jim, “I know a regiment of our press
boys and reporters, who go all up and down the highways
and byways, alleys and lanes of New York, looking
into cracks and corners, and I'll furnish them with a
description of Jack, and tell them I want him; and I'll
be bound we'll have him forthcoming. There's some
use in newspaper boys, now and then.”
And Jim sat down by Mrs. Betsey, and entered into
the topic of Jack's characteristics, ways, manners and
habits, with an interest which went to the deepest heart
of the good little old lady, and excited in her bosom the
brightest hopes.
The evening passed off pleasantly. By this time, the
habitual comers felt enough at home to have the sort of
easy enjoyment that a return to one's own fireside
always brings.
Alice, Jim, Eva, Angelique, and Mr. St. John discussed
the forthcoming Christmas-tree for the Sunday-school,
and made lists of purchases to be made of things to be
distributed among them.
“Let's give them things that are really useful,” said
St. John.
“For my part,” said Eva, “in giving to such poor
children, whose mothers have no time to entertain them,
and no money to buy pretty things, I feel more disposed
to get bright, attractive playthings—dolls with fine, fancy
dresses, and so on; it gives a touch of poetry to the poor
child's life.”
“Well, I've dressed four dolls,” said Angie; “and I
offer my services to dress a dozen more. My innate love
of finery is turned to good account here.”
“I incline more to useful things,” said Alice.
-- 316 --
[figure description] Page 316.[end figure description]
“Well,” said Eva, “suppose we do both, give each
child one useful thing and one for fancy?”
“Well,” said Alice, “the shopping for all this list of
eighty children will be no small item. Jim, we shall
have to call in your services.”
“I'm your man,” said Jim. “I know stores where
the fellows would run their feet off to get a good word
from us of the press. I shall turn my influence in to the
service of the church.”
“Well,” said Alice, “we shall take you with us, when
we go on our shopping tour.”
“I know a German firm where you can get the real
German candles, and glass balls, and all the shiners and
tinklers to glorify your tree, and a little angel to stick on
the top. A tip-top notice from me in the paper will
make them shell out for us like thunder.”
Mr. St. John opened his large, thoughtful, blue eyes
on Jim with an air of innocent wonder. He knew as
little of children and their ways as most men, and was as
helpless about all the details of their affairs as he was
desirous of a good result.
“I leave it all in your hands,” he said, meekly;
“only, wherever I can be of service, command me.”
It was probably from pure accident that Mr. St. John
as he spoke looked at Angie, and that Angie blushed a
little, and that Jim Fellows twinkled a wicked glance
across at Alice. Such accidents are all the while happening,
just as flowers are all the while springing up by
the wayside. Wherever man and woman walk hand in
hand, the earth is sown thick with them.
It was a later hour than usual when Miss Dorcas and
Mrs. Betsey came back to their home.
“Is Jack come home?” was the first question.
No, Jack had not come.
-- -- p710-334
CHAPTER XXXIV. GOING TO THE BAD.
[figure description] Page 317.[end figure description]
IT was the week before Christmas, and all New York
was stirring and rustling with a note of preparation.
Every shop and store was being garnished and furbished
to look its best. Christmas-trees for sale lay at the doors
of groceries; wreaths of ground-pine, and sprigs and
branches of holly, were on sale, and selling briskly.
Garlands and anchors and crosses of green began to
adorn the windows of houses, and were a merchantable
article in the stores. The toy-shops were flaming and
flaunting with a delirious variety of attractions, and
mammas and papas with puzzled faces were crowding
and jostling each other, and turning anxiously from side
to side in the suffocating throng that crowded to the
counters, while the shopmen were too flustered to answer
questions, and so busy that it seemed a miracle
when anybody got any attention. The country-folk
were pouring into New York to do Christmas shopping,
and every imaginable kind of shop had in its window
some label or advertisement or suggestion of something
that might answer for a Christmas gift. Even the grim,
heavy hardware trade blossomed out into festal suggestions.
Tempting rows of knives and scissors glittered
in the windows; little chests of tools for little masters,
with cards and labels to call the attention of papa to the
usefulness of the present. The confectioners' windows
were a glittering mass of sugar frostwork of every fanciful
device, gay boxes of bonbons, marvelous fabrications of
-- 318 --
[figure description] Page 318.[end figure description]
chocolate, and sugar rainbows in candy of every possible
device; and bewildered crowds of well-dressed purchasers
came and saw and bought faster than the two hands
of the shopmen could tie up and present the parcels.
The grocery stores hung out every possible suggestion
of festal cheer. Long strings of turkeys and chickens,
green bunches of celery, red masses of cranberries,
boxes of raisins and drums of figs, artistically arranged,
and garnished with Christmas greens, addressed themselves
eloquently to the appetite, and suggested that the
season of festivity was at hand.
The weather was stinging cold—cold enough to nip
one's toes and fingers, as one pressed round, doing
Christmas shopping, and to give cheeks and nose alike
a tinge of red. But nobody seemed to mind the cold.
“Cold as Christmas” has become a cheery proverb; and
for prosperous, well-living people, with cellars full of
coal, with bright fires and roaring furnaces and well-tended
ranges, a cold Christmas is merely one of the
luxuries. Cold is the condiment of the season; the
stinging, smarting sensation is an appetizing reminder of
how warm and prosperous and comfortable are all within
doors.
But did any one ever walk the streets of New York,
the week before Christmas, and try to imagine himself
moving in all this crowd of gaiety, outcast, forsaken and
penniless? How dismal a thing is a crowd in which you
look in vain for one face that you know! how depressing
the sense that all this hilarity and abundance and
plenty is not for you! Shakespeare has said, “How
miserable it is to look into happiness through another
man's eyes—to see that which you might enjoy and may
not, to move in a world of gaiety and prosperity where
there is nothing for you!”
Such were Maggie's thoughts, the day she went out
-- 319 --
[figure description] Page 319.[end figure description]
from the kindly roof that had sheltered her, and cast
herself once more upon the world. Poor hot-hearted,
imprudent child, why did she run from her only friends?
Well, to answer that question, we must think a little. It
is a sad truth, that when people have taken a certain
number of steps in wrong-doing, even the good that is in
them seems to turn against them and become their
enemy. It was in fact a residuum of honor and generosity,
united with wounded pride, that drove Maggie
into the street, that morning. She had overheard the
conversation between Aunt Maria and Eva; and certain
parts of it brought back to her mind the severe reproaches
which had fallen upon her from her Uncle
Mike. He had told her she was a disgrace to any honest
house, and she had overheard Aunt Maria telling the
same thing to Eva,—that the having and keeping such
as she in her home was a disreputable, disgraceful thing,
and one that would expose her to very unpleasant comments
and observations. Then she listened to Aunt
Maria's argument, to show Eva that she had better send
her mother away and take another woman in her place,
because she was encumbered with such a daughter.
“Well,” she said to herself, “I'll go then. I'm in
everybody's way, and I get everybody into trouble that's
good to me. I'll just take myself off. So there!” and
Maggie put on her things and plunged into the street
and walked very fast in a tumult of feeling.
She had a few dollars in her purse that her mother
had given her to buy winter clothing; enough, she
thought vaguely, to get her a few days' lodging somewhere,
and she would find something honest to do.
Maggie knew there were places where she would be
welcomed with an evil welcome, where she would have
praise and flattery instead of chiding and rebuke; but
she did not intend to go to them just yet.
-- 320 --
[figure description] Page 320.[end figure description]
The gentle words that Eva had spoken to her, the
hope and confidence she had expressed that she might
yet retrieve her future, were a secret cord that held her
back from going to the utterly bad.
The idea that somebody thought well of her, that
somebody believed in her, and that a lady pretty, graceful,
and admired in the world, seemed really to care to
have her do well, was a redeeming thought. She would
go and get some place, and do something for herself,
and when she had shown that she could do something,
she would once more make herself known to her friends.
Maggie had a good gift at millinery, and, at certain odd
times, had worked in a little shop on Sixteenth Street,
where the mistress had thought well of her, and made
her advantageous offers. Thither she went first, and
asked to see Miss Pinhurst. The moment, however,
that she found herself in that lady's presence, she was
sorry she had come. Evidently, her story had preceded
her. Miss Pinhurst had heard all the particulars of her
ill conduct, and was ready to the best of her ability to
act the part of the flaming sword that turned every way
to keep the fallen Eve out of paradise.
“I am astonished, Maggie, that you should even
think of such a thing as getting a place here, after all's
come and gone that you know of; I am astonished that
you could for one moment think of it. None but young
ladies of good character can be received into our work-rooms.
If I should let such as you come in, my respectable
girls would feel insulted. I don't know but they
would leave in a body. I think I should leave, under
the same circumstances. No, I wish you well, Maggie,
and hope that you may be brought to repentance; but,
as to the shop, it isn't to be thought of.”
Now, Miss Pinhurst was not a hard-hearted woman;
not, in any sense, a cruel woman; she was only on that
-- 321 --
[figure description] Page 321.[end figure description]
picket duty by which the respectable and well-behaved
part of society keeps off the ill-behaving. Society has
its instincts of self-protection and self-preservation, and
seems to order the separation of the sheep and the goats,
even before the time of final judgment. For, as a general
thing, it would not be safe and proper to admit
fallen women back into the ranks of those unfallen,
without some certificate of purgation. Somebody must
be responsible for them, that they will not return again
to bad ways, and draw with them the innocent and inexperienced.
Miss Pinhurst was right in requiring an
unblemished record of moral character among her shop-girls.
It was her mission to run a shop and run it well;
it was not her call to conduct a Magdalen Asylum:
hence, though we pity poor Maggie, coming out into the
cold with the bitter tears of rejection freezing her cheek,
we can hardly blame Miss Pinhurst. She had on her
hands already all that she could manage.
Besides, how could she know that Maggie was really
repentant? Such creatures were so artful; and, for
aught she knew, she might be coming for nothing else
than to lure away some of her girls, and get them into
mischief. She spoke the honest truth, when she said she
wished well to Maggie. She did wish her well. She
would have been sincerely glad to know that she had
gotten into better ways, but she did not feel that it was
her business to undertake her case. She had neither
time nor skill for the delicate and difficult business of
reformation. Her helpers must come to her ready-made,
in good order, and able to keep step and time: she
could not be expected to make them over.
“How hard they all make it to do right!” thought
Maggie. But she was too proud to plead or entreat.
“They all act as if I had the plague, and should give it
to them; and yet I don't want to be bad. I'd a great
-- 322 --
[figure description] Page 322.[end figure description]
deal rather be good if they'd let me, but I don't see any
way. Nobody will have me, or let me stay,” and Maggie
felt a sobbing pity for herself. Why should she be
treated as if she were the very off-scouring of the earth,
when the man who had led her into all this sin and sorrow
was moving in the best society, caressed, admired,
flattered, married to a good, pious, lovely woman, and
carrying all the honors of life?
Why was it such a sin for her, and no sin for him?
Why could he repent and be forgiven, and why must
she never be forgiven? There was n't any justice in it,
Maggie hotly said to herself—and there was n't; and
then, as she walked those cold streets, pictures without
words were rising in her mind, of days when everybody
flattered and praised her, and he most of all. There is
no possession which brings such gratifying homage as
personal beauty; for it is homage more exclusively belonging
to the individual self than any other. The
tribute rendered to wealth, or talent, or genius, is far less
personal. A child or woman gifted with beauty has a
constant talisman that turns all things to gold—though,
alas! the gold too often turns out like fairy gifts; it is
gold only in seeming, and becomes dirt and slate-stone
on their hands.
Beauty is a dazzling and dizzying gift. It dazzles
first its possessor and inclines him to foolish action; and
it dazzles outsiders, and makes them say and do foolish
things.
From the time that Maggie was a little chit, running
in the street, people had stopped her, to admire her hair
and eyes, and talk all kinds of nonsense to her, for the
purpose of making her sparkle and flush and dimple,
just as one plays with a stick in the sparkling of a
brook. Her father, an idle, willful, careless creature,
made a show plaything of her, and spent his earnings for
-- 323 --
[figure description] Page 323.[end figure description]
her gratification and adornment. The mother was only
too proud and fond; and it was no wonder that when
Maggie grew up to girlhood her head was a giddy one,
that she was self-willed, self-confident, obstinate. Maggie
loved ease and luxury. Who doesn't? If she had
been born on Fifth Avenue, of one of the magnates of
New York, it would have been all right, of course, for
her to love ribbons and laces and flowers and fine
clothes, to be imperious and self-willed, and to set her
pretty foot on the neck of the world. Many a young
American princess, gifted with youth and beauty and with
an indulgent papa and mamma, is no wiser than Maggie
was; but nobody thinks the worse of her. People laugh
at her little saucy airs and graces, and predict that she
will come all right by and by. But then, for her, beauty
means an advantageous marriage, a home of luxury and
a continuance through life of the petting and indulgence
which every one loves, whether wisely or not.
But Maggie was the daughter of a poor working-woman—
an Irishwoman at that—and what marriage leading
to wealth and luxury was in store for her?
To tell the truth, at seventeen, when her father died
and her mother was left penniless, Maggie was as unfit
to encounter the world as you, Miss Mary, or you, Miss
Alice, and she was a girl of precisely the same flesh and
blood as yourself. Maggie cordially hated everything
hard, unpleasant or disagreeable, just as you do. She
was as unused to crosses and self-denials as you are.
She longed for fine things and pretty things, for fine
sight-seeing and lively times, just as you do, and felt just
as you do that it was hard fate to be deprived of them.
But, when worse came to worst, she went to work with
Mrs. Maria Wouvermans. Maggie was parlor-girl and
waitress, and a good one too. She was ingenious, neathanded,
quick and bright; and her beauty drew favorable
-- 324 --
[figure description] Page 324.[end figure description]
attention. But Mrs. Wouvermans never commended,
but only found fault. If Maggie carefully dusted every
one of the five hundred knick-knacks of the drawingroom
five hundred times, there was nothing said; but if,
on the five hundred and first time, a moulding or a crevice
was found with dust in it, Mrs. Wouvermans would
summon Maggie to her presence with the air of a judge,
point out the criminal fact, and inveigh, in terms of general
severity, against her carelessness, as if carelessness
were the rule rather than the exception.
Mrs. Wouvermans took special umbrage at Maggie's
dress—her hat, her feathers, her flowers—not because
they were ugly, but because they were pretty, a great
deal too pretty and dressy for her station. Mrs. Wouvermans's
ideal of a maid was a trim creature, content
with two gowns of coarse stuff and a bonnet devoid of
adornment; a creature who, having eyes, saw not anything
in the way of ornament or luxury; whose whole
soul was absorbed in work, for work's sake; content with
mean lodgings, mean furniture, poor food, and scanty
clothing; and devoting her whole powers of body and
soul to securing to others elegancies, comforts and luxuries
to which she never aspired. This self-denied sister
of charity, who stood as the ideal servant, Mrs. Wouvermans's
maid did not in the least resemble. Quite another
thing was the gay, dressy young lady who, on Sunday
mornings, stepped forth from the back gate of her
house with so much the air of a Murray Hill demoiselle
that people sometimes said to Mrs. Wouvermans, “Who
is that pretty young lady that you have staying with
you?”—a question that never failed to arouse a smothered
sense of indignation in that lady's mind, and added
bitterness to her reproofs and sarcasms, when she found
a picture-frame undusted, or pounced opportunely on a
cobweb in some neglected corner.
-- 325 --
[figure description] Page 325.[end figure description]
Maggie felt certain that Mrs. Wouvermans was on the
watch to find fault with her—that she wanted to condemn
her, for she had gone to service with the best of
resolutions. Her mother was poor and she meant to
help her; she meant to be a good girl, and, in her own
mind, she thought she was a very good girl to do so
much work, and remember so many different things in so
many different places, and forget so few things.
Maggie praised herself to herself, just as you do, my
young lady, when you have an energetic turn in household
matters, and arrange and beautify, and dust, and
adorn mamma's parlors, and then call on mamma and
papa and all the family to witness and applaud your
notability. At sixteen or seventeen, household virtue is
much helped in its development by praise. Praise is sunshine;
it warms, it inspires, it promotes growth: blame and
rebuke are rain and hail; they beat down and bedraggle,
even though they may at times be necessary. There
was a time in Maggie's life when a kind, judicious,
thoughtful, Christian woman might have kept her from
falling, might have won her confidence, become her
guide and teacher, and piloted her through the dangerous
shoals and quicksands which beset a bright, attractive,
handsome young girl, left to make her own way
alone and unprotected.
But it was not given to Aunt Maria to see this opportunity;
and, under her system of management, it was not
long before Maggie's temper grew fractious, and she used
to such purpose the democratic liberty of free speech,
which is the birthright of American servants, that Mrs.
Wouvermans never forgave her.
Maggie told her, in fact, that she was a hard-hearted,
mean, selfish woman, who wanted to get all she could
out of her servants, and to give the least she could in
return; and this came a little too near the truth ever to
-- 326 --
[figure description] Page 326.[end figure description]
be forgotten or forgiven. Maggie was summarily warned
out of the house, and went home to her mother, who
took her part with all her heart and soul, and declared
that Maggie shouldn't live out any longer—she should
be nobody's servant.
This, to be sure, was silly enough in Mary, since service
is the law of society, and we are all more or less
servants to somebody; but uneducated people never
philosophize or generalize, and so cannot help themselves
to wise conclusions.
All Mary knew was that Maggie had been scolded
and chafed by Mrs. Wouvermans; her handsome darling
had been abused, and she should get into some higher
place in the world; and so she put her as workwoman
into the fashionable store of S. S. & Co.
There Maggie was seen and coveted by the man who
made her his prey. Maggie was seventeen, pretty, silly,
hating work and trouble, longing for pleasure, leisure,
ease and luxury; and he promised them all. He told
her that she was too pretty to work, that if she would
trust herself to him she need have no more care; and
Maggie looked forward to a rich marriage and a home
of her own. To do her justice, she loved the man that
promised this with all the warmth of her Irish heart.
To her, he was the splendid prince in the fairy tale,
come to take her from poverty and set her among
princes; and she felt she could not do too much for him.
She would be such a good wife, she would be so devoted,
she would improve herself and learn so that she might
never discredit him.
Alas! in just such an enchanted garden of love, and
hope, and joy, how often has the ground caved in and
let the victim down into dungeons of despair that never
open!
Maggie thinks all this over as she pursues her cheer
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
GOING TO THE BAD.
"The sweet-faced woman calls the attention of her husband. He
frowns, whips up the horse, and is gone. . . Bitterness possisses
Maggie's soul. . . Why not go to the bad?"—p. 327.
[figure description] Illustration page. Image of a woman walking and watching a carriage drive by with a man, woman, and child in it. It is windy and the womans skirts are blowing against her legs, her arms are crossed as if to warm herself. The people in the carriage are bundled in warm clothes.[end figure description]
-- 327 -- p710-346
[figure description] Page 327.[end figure description]
less, aimless way through the cold cutting wind, and
looks into face after face that has no pity for her.
Scarcely knowing why she did it, she took a car and
rode up to the Park, got out, and wandered drearily up
and down among the leafless paths from which all trace
of summer greenness had passed.
Suddenly, a carriage whirred past her. She looked
up. There he sat, driving, and by his side so sweet a
lady, and between them a flaxen-haired little beauty,
clasping a doll in her chubby arms!
The sweet-faced woman looks pitifully at the haggard,
weary face, and says something to call the attention
of her husband. An angry flush rises to his face. He
frowns, and whips up the horse, and is gone. A sort of
rage and bitterness possess Maggie's soul. What is the
use of trying to do better? Nobody pities her. Nobody
helps her. The world is all against her. Why not go
to the bad?
-- -- p710-347
CHAPTER XXXV. A SOUL IN PERIL.
[figure description] Page 328.[end figure description]
IT will be seen by the way in which we left poor
Maggie that she stood in just one of those critical
steep places of life where a soul is in pain and peril;
where the turning of a hair's breadth may decide between
death and life. And it is something, not only to
the individual, but to the whole community, what a
woman may become in one of these crises of life.
Maggie had a rich, warm, impulsive nature, full of
passion and energy; she had personal beauty and the
power that comes from it; she had in her all that might
have made the devoted wife and mother, fitted to give
strong sons and daughters to our republic, and to bring
them up to strengthen our country. But, deceived,
betrayed, led astray by the very impulses which should
have ended in home and marriage, with even her best
friends condemning her, her own heart condemning her,
the whole face of the world set against her, her feet
stood in slippery places.
There is another life open to the woman whom the
world judges and rejects and condemns; a life short,
bad, desperate; a life of revenge, of hate, of deceit; a
life in which woman, outraged and betrayed by man,
turns bitterly upon him, to become the tempter, the betrayer,
the ruiner of man,—to visit misery and woe on
the society that condemns her.
Many a young man has been led to gambling, and
drinking, and destruction; many a wife's happiness has
been destroyed; many a mother has wept on a sleepless
-- 329 --
[figure description] Page 329.[end figure description]
pillow over a son worse than dead,—only because some
woman, who at a certain time in her life might have been
saved to honor and good living, has been left to be a vessel
of wrath fitted to destruction. For we have seen in
Maggie's history that there were points all along, where
the girl might have been turned into another and a better
way.
If Mrs. Maria Wouvermans, instead of railing at her
love of feathers and flowers, watching for her halting, and
seeking occasion against her, had only had grace to do
for her what lies in the power of every Christian mistress;
if she had won her confidence, given her motherly
care and sympathy, and trained her up under the protection
of household influences, it might have been otherwise.
Or, supposing that Maggie were too self-willed,
too elate with the flatteries that come to young beauty,
to be saved from a fall, yet, after that fall, when she rose,
ashamed and humbled, there was still a chance of retrieval.
Perhaps there is never a time when man or woman
has a better chance, with suitable help, of building a
good character than just after a humiliating fall which
has taught the sinner his own weakness, and given him a
sad experience of the bitterness of sin.
Nobody wants to be sold under sin, and go the whole
length in iniquity; and when one has gone just far
enough in wrong living to perceive in advance all its
pains and penalties, there is often an agonized effort to
get back to respectability, like the clutching of the
drowning man for the shore. The waters of death are
cold and bitter, and nobody wants to be drowned.
But it is just at this point that the drowning hand is
wrenched off; society fears that the poor wet wretch will
upset its respectable boat; it pushes him off, and rows
over the last rising bubbles.
And this is not in the main because men and women
-- 330 --
[figure description] Page 330.[end figure description]
are hard-hearted or cruel, but because they are busy,
every one of them, with their own works and ways, hurried,
driven, with no time, strength, or heart-leisure for
more than they are doing. What is one poor soul struggling
in the water, swimming up stream, to the great
pushing, busy, bustling world?
Nothing in the review of life appears to us so pitiful
as the absolute nothingness of the individual in the great
mass of human existence. To each living, breathing,
suffering atom, the consciousness of what it desires and
suffers is so intense, and to every one else so faint. It is
faint even to the nearest and dearest, compared to what
it is to one's self. “The heart knoweth its own bitterness,
and a stranger intermeddleth not therewith.”
Suppose you were suddenly struck down to-day by
death in any of its dreadful forms, how much were this
to you, how little to the world! how little even to the
friendly world, who think well of you and wish you
kindly! The paper that tells the tale scarcely drops from
their hand; a few shocked moments of pity or lamentation,
perhaps, and then returns the discussion of what
shall be for dinner, and whether the next dress shall be
cut with flounces or folds: the gay waves of life dance
and glitter over the last bubble which marks where you
sank.
So we have seen poor Maggie, with despair and bitterness
in her heart, wandering, on a miserable cold day,
through the Christmas rejoicings of New York, on the
very verge of going back to courses that end in unutterable
degradation and misery; and yet, how little it was
anybody's business to seek or to save her.
“So,” said Mrs. Wouvermans, in a tone of exultation,
when she heard of Maggie's flight, “I hope, I'm sure,
Eva's had enough of her fine ways of managing! Miss
Maggie's off, just as I knew she'd be. That girl is a
-- 331 --
[figure description] Page 331.[end figure description]
baggage! And now, of course, nothing must do but
Mary must be off to look for her, and then Eva is left
with all her house on her hands. I should think this
would show her that my advice wasn't so altogether to
be scorned.”
Now, it is not to be presumed that Mrs. Wouvermans
really was so cruel as to exult in the destruction of
Maggie, and the perplexity and distress of her mother,
or in Eva's domestic discomfort; yet there was something
very like this in the tone of her remarks.
Whence is the feeling of satisfaction which we have
when things that we always said we knew, turn out just
as we predicted? Had we really rather our neighbor
would be proved a thief and a liar than to be proved in
a mistake ourselves? Would we be willing to have
somebody topple headlong into destruction for the sake
of being able to say, “I told you so”?
Mrs. Wouvermans did not ask herself these pointed
questions, and so she stirred her faultless coffee without
stirring up a doubt of her own Christianity—for, like you
and me, Mrs. Wouvermans held herself to be an ordinarily
good Christian.
Gentle, easy Mrs. Van Arsdel heard this news with
acquiescence. “Well, girls, so that Maggie's run off and
settled the question; and, on the whole, I'm not sorry,
for that ends Eva's responsibility for her; and, after
all, I think your aunt was half right about that matter.
One does n't want to have too much to do with such
people.”
“But, mamma,” said Alice, “it seems such a dreadful
thing that so young a girl, not older than I am, should
be utterly lost.”
“Yes, but you can't help it, and such things are happening
all the time, and it isn't worth while making ourselves
unhappy about it. I'm sure Eva acted like a little
-- 332 --
[figure description] Page 332.[end figure description]
saint about it, and the girl can have no one to blame but
herself.”
“I know,” said Alice; “Eva told me about it. It
was Aunt Maria, with her usual vigor and activity, who
precipitated the catastrophe. Eva had just got the girl
into good ways, and all was going smoothly, when Aunt
Maria came in and broke everything up. I must say, I
think Aunt Maria is a nuisance.”
“Oh, Alice, how can you talk so, when you know
that your aunt is thinking of nothing so much as how to
serve and advance you girls?”
“She is thinking of how to carry her own will and
pleasure; and we girls are like so many ninepins that
she wants to set up or knock down to suit her game.
Now she has gone and invited those Stephenson girls to
spend the holidays with her.”
“Well, you know it's entirely on your account, Alice,—
you girls. The Stephensons are a very desirable family
to cultivate.”
“Yes; it's all a sort of artifice, so that they may
have to invite us to visit them next summer at Newport.
Now, I never was particularly interested in those girls.
They always seemed to me insipid sort of people; and
to feel obliged to be very attentive to them and cultivate
their intimacy, with any such view, is a sort of maneuvering
that is very repulsive to me; it doesn't seem
honest.”
“But now your aunt has got them, and we must be
attentive to them,” pleaded Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“Oh, of course. What I am complaining of is that my
aunt can't let us alone; that she is always scheming for
us, planning ahead for us, getting people that we must
be attentive to, and all that; and then, because she's our
aunt and devoted to our interests, our conscience is all
the while troubling us because we don't like her better.
-- 333 --
[figure description] Page 333.[end figure description]
The truth is, Aunt Maria is a constant annoyance to
me, and I reproach myself for not being grateful to her.
Now, Angelique and I are on a committee for buying
the presents for the Christmas-tree of our mission-school,
and we shall have to go and get the tree up; and it's no
small work to dress a Christmas-tree—in fact, we shall
just have our hands full, without the Stephensons. We
are going up to Eva's this very morning, to talk this
matter over and make out our lists of things; and, for
my part, I find the Stephensons altogether de trop.”
Meanwhile, in Eva's little dominion, peace and prosperity
had returned with the return of cook to the
kitchen cabinet. A few days' withdrawal of that important
portion of the household teaches the mistress
many things, and, among others, none more definitely
than the real dignity and importance of that sphere
which is generally regarded as least and lowest.
Mary had come back disheartened from a fruitless
quest. Maggie had indeed been at Poughkeepsie, and
had spent a day and a night with a widowed sister of
Mary's, and then, following a restless impulse, had gone
back to New York—none knew whither; and Mary was
going on with her duties with that quiet, acquiescent
sadness with which people of her class bear sorrow
which they have no leisure to indulge. The girl had
for two or three years been lost to her; but the brief
interval of restoration seemed to have made the pang
of losing her again still more dreadful. Then, the anticipated
mortification of having to tell Mike of it, and
the thought of what Mike and Mike's wife's would say,
were a stinging poison. Though Maggie's flight was
really due in a great measure to Mike's own ungracious
reception of her and his harsh upbraidings, intensified
by what she had overheard from Mrs. Wouvermans, yet
Mary was quite sure that Mike would receive it as a
-- 334 --
[figure description] Page 334.[end figure description]
confirmation of his own sagacity in the opinion he had
pronounced.
The hardness and apathy with which even near relations
will consign their kith and kin to utter ruin is one
of the sad phenomena of life. Mary knew that Mike
would say to her, “Didn't I tell you so? The girl's
gone to the bad; let her go! She's made her bed; let
her lie in it.”
It was only from her gentle, sympathetic mistress
that Mary met with a word of comfort. Eva talked with
her, and encouraged her to pour out all her troubles and
opened the door of her own heart to her sorrows. Eva
cheered and comforted her all she could, though she had
small hopes, herself.
She had told Mr. Fellows, she said, and Mr. Fellows
knew all about New York—knew everybody and everything—
and if Maggie were there he would be sure to
hear of her; “and if she is anywhere in New York I will
go to her,” said Eva, “and persuade her to come back
and be a good girl. And don't you tell your brother
anything about it. Why need he know? I dare say we
shall get Maggie back, and all going right, before he
knows anything about it.”
Eva had just been talking to this effect to Mary in
the kitchen, and she came back into her parlor, to find
there poor, fluttering, worried little Mrs. Betsey Benthusen,
who had come in to bewail her prodigal son, of whom, for
now three days and nights, no tidings had been heard.
“I came in to ask you, dear Mrs. Henderson, if anything
has been heard from the advertising of Jack? I
declare, I haven't been able to sleep since he went, I am
so worried. I dare say you must think it silly of me,”
she said, wiping her eyes, “but I am just so silly. I
really had got so fond of him—I feel so lonesome without
him.”
-- 335 --
[figure description] Page 335.[end figure description]
“Silly, dear friend!” said Eva in her usual warm,
impulsive way, “no, indeed; I think it's perfectly natural
that you should feel as you do. I think, for my
part, these poor dumb pets were given us to love; and
if we do love them, we can't help feeling anxious about
them when they are gone.”
“You see,” said Mrs. Betsey, “if I only knew—but I
don't—if I knew just where he was, or if he was well
treated; but then, Jack is a dog that has been used to
kindness, and it would come hard to him to have to
suffer hunger and thirst, and be kicked about and
abused. I lay and thought about things that might
happen to him, last night, till I fairly cried”—and the
tears stood in the misty blue eyes of the faded little old
gentlewoman, in attestation of the possibility. “I got so
wrought up,” she continued, “that I actually prayed to
my Heavenly Father to take care of my poor Jack. Do
you think that was profane, Mrs. Henderson?—I just
could not help it.”
“No, dear Mrs. Betsey, I don't think it was profane;
I think it was just the most sensible thing you could do.
You know our Saviour says that not a sparrow falls to
the ground without our Father, and I'm sure Jack is a
good deal larger than a sparrow.”
“Well, I didn't tell Dorcas,” said Mrs. Betsey, “because
she thinks I'm foolish, and I suppose I am. I'm a
broken-up old woman now, and I never had as much
strength of mind as Dorcas, anyway. Dorcas has a very
strong mind,” said little Mrs. Betsy in a tone of awe;
“she has tried all she could to strengthen mine, but she
can't do much with me.”
Just at this instant, Eva, looking through the window
down street, saw Jim Fellows approaching, with
Jack's head appearing above his shoulder in that
easy, jaunty attitude with which the restored lamb is
-- 336 --
[figure description] Page 336.[end figure description]
represented in a modern engraving of the Good Shepherd.
There he sat, to be sure, with a free and easy air of
bright, doggish vivacity; perched aloft with his pink
tongue hanging gracefully out of his mouth, and his
great, bright eyes and little black tip of a nose gleaming
out from the silvery thicket of his hair, looking anything
but penitent for all the dismays and sorrows of which he
had been the cause.
“Oh, Mrs. Betsey, do come here,” cried Eva; “here
is Jack, to be sure!”
“You don't say so! Why, so he is; that dear, good
Mr. Fellows! how can I ever thank him enough!”
And, as Jim mounted the steps, Eva hastened to
open the door in anticipation of the door-bell.
“Any dogs to-day, ma'am?” said Jim in the tone of a
pedlar.
“Oh, Mrs. Henderson!” said Mrs. Betsey. But what
further she said was lost in Jack's vociferous barking.
He had recognized Mrs. Betsey and struggled
down out of Jim's arms, and was leaping and capering
and barking, overwhelming his mistress with obstreperous
caresses, in which there was not the slightest recognition
of any occasion for humility or penitence. Jack
was forgiving Mrs. Betsey with all his might and main
for all the trouble he had caused, and expressing his
perfect satisfaction and delight at finding himself at
home again.
“Well,” said Jim, in answer to the numerous questions
showered upon him, “the fact is that Dixon and I
were looking up something to write about in a not very
elegant or reputable quarter of New York, and suddenly,
as we were passing one of the dance houses, that girl
Maggie darted out with Jack in her arms, and calling
after me by name, she said: `This poor dog belongs to
-- 337 --
[figure description] Page 337.[end figure description]
the people opposite Mrs. Henderson's. He has been
stolen away, and won't you take him back?' I said I
would, and then I said, `Seems to me, Maggie, you'd
better come back, too, to your mother, who is worrying
dreadfully about you.' But she turned quickly and said,
`The less said about me the better,' and ran in.”
“Oh, how dreadful that anybody should be so depraved
at her age,” said little Mrs. Betsey, complacently
caressing Jack. “Mrs. Henderson, you have had a fortunate
escape of her; you must be glad to get her out of
your house. Well, I must hurry home with him and get
him washed up, for he's in such a state! And do look at
this ribbon! Would you know it ever had been a ribbon?
it's thick with grease and dirt, and I dare say he's coverved
with fleas. O Jack, Jack, what trouble you have
made me!”
And the little woman complacently took up her criminal,
who went off on her shoulder with his usual waggish
air of impudent assurance.
“See what luck it is to be a dog,” said Jim. “Nobody
would have half the patience with a ragamuffin
boy, now!”
“But, seriously, Jim, what can be done about poor
Maggie? I've promised her mother to get her back, if
she could be discovered.”
“Well, really she is in one of the worst drinking
saloons of that quarter, kept by Mother Mogg, who is,
to put the matter explicitly, a sort of she devil. It isn't
a place where it would do for me or any of the boys to
go. We are not calculated for missionary work in just
that kind of field.”
“Well, who can go? What can be done? I've
promised Mary to save her. I'll go myself, if you'll show
me the way.”
“You, Mrs. Henderson? You don't know what you
-- 338 --
[figure description] Page 338.[end figure description]
are talking about. You never could go there. It isn't
to be thought of.”
“But somebody must go, Jim; we can't leave her
there.”
“Well, now I think of it,” said Jim, “there is a
Methodist minister who has undertaken to set up a mission
in just that part of the city. They bought a place
that used to be kept for a rat-pit, and had it cleaned up,
and they have opened a mission house, and have prayer-meetings
and such things there. I'll look that thing up;
perhaps he can find Maggie for you. Though I must say
you are taking a great deal of trouble about this girl.”
“Well, Jim, she has a mother, and her mother loves
her as yours does you.”
“By George, now, that's enough,” said Jim. “You
don't need to say another word. I'll go right about it,
this very day, and hunt up this Mr. What's-his-name, and
find all about this mission. I've been meaning to write
that thing up this month or so.”
-- -- p710-358
CHAPTER XXXVI. LOVE IN CHRISTMAS GREENS.
[figure description] Page 339.[end figure description]
THE little chapel in one of the out-of-the-way streets
of New York presented a scene of Christmas activity
and cheerfulness approaching to gaiety. The whole
place was fragrant with the spicy smell of spruce and
hemlock. Baskets of green ruffles of ground-pine were
foaming over their sides with abundant contributions
from the forest; and bright bunches of vermilion bitter-sweet,
and the crimson-studded branches of the black
alder, added color to the picture. Of real traditional
holly, which in America is a rarity, there was a scant
supply, reserved for more honorable decorations.
Mr. St. John had been busy in his vestry with paper,
colors, and gilding, illuminating some cards with Scriptural
mottoes. He had just brought forth his last effort
and placed it in a favorable light for inspection. It is the
ill-fortune of every successful young clergyman to stir
the sympathies and enkindle the venerative faculties of
certain excitable women, old and young, who follow his
footsteps and regard his works and ways with a sort of
adoring rapture that sometimes exposes him to ridicule
if he accepts it, and which yet it seems churlish to
decline. It is not generally his fault, nor exactly the
fault of the women, often amiably sincere and unconscious;
but it is a fact that this kind of besetment is
more or less the lot of every clergyman, and he cannot
help it. It is to be accepted as we accept any of the
shadows which are necessary in the picture of life, and
got along with by the kind of common sense with which
we dispose of any of its infelicities.
-- 340 --
[figure description] Page 340.[end figure description]
Mr. St. John did little to excite demonstrations of
this kind; but the very severity with which he held himself
in reserve seemed rather to increase a kind of sacred
prestige which hung around him, making of him a sort
of churchly Grand Llama. When, therefore, he brought
out his illuminated card, on which were inscribed in
Anglo Saxon characters,
“The Word was made flesh
And dwelt among us,”
there was a loud acclaim of “How lovely! how sweet!”
with groans of intense admiration from Miss Augusta
Gusher and Miss Sophronia Vapors, which was echoed
in “ohs!” and “ahs!” from an impressible group of girls
on the right and left.
Angelique stood quietly gazing on it, with a wreath
of ground-pine dangling from her hand, but she said
nothing.
Mr. St. John at last said, “And what do you think,
Miss Van Arsdel?”
“I think the colors are pretty,” Angie said, hesitating,
“but”—
“But what?” said Mr. St. John, quickly.
“Well, I don't know what it means—I don't understand
it.”
Mr. St. John immediately read the inscription in
concert with Miss Gusher, who was a very mediæval
young lady and quite up to reading Gothic, or Anglo
Saxon, or Latin, or any Churchly tongue.
“Oh!” was all the answer Angie made; and then,
seeing something more was expected, she added again,
“I think the effect of the lettering very pretty,” and
turned away, and busied herself with a cross of ground-pine
that she was making in a retired corner.
The chorus were loud and continuous in their ac
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
SKIRMISHING.
"I like your work," he said, "better than you do mine." "I did n't
say that I did n't like yours." said Angie, coloring.—p. 341.
[figure description] 710EAF. Illustration page. Image of a woamn seated and a man standing. The woman has floral wreaths scattered around her feet. The man has his top had in one hand, and with the other is handing the woman an object, possibly a white glove. In the background
two women are frowing and watching the man and woman.[end figure description]
-- 341 -- p710-362
[figure description] Page 341.[end figure description]
claims, and Miss Gusher talked learnedly of lovely
inscriptions in Greek and Latin, offering to illuminate
some of them for the occasion. Mr. St. John thanked
her and withdrew to his sanctum, less satisfied than
before.
About half an hour after, Angie, who was still quietly
busy upon her cross in her quiet corner, under the shade
of a large hemlock tree which had been erected there,
was surprised to find Mr. St. John standing, silently
observing her work.
“I like your work,” he said, “better than you did
mine.”
“I didn't say that I didn't like yours,” said Angie,
coloring, and with that sort of bright, quick movement
that gave her the air of a bird just going to fly.
“No, you did not say, but you left approbation unsaid,
which amounts to the same thing. You have some
objection, I see, and I really wish you would tell me
frankly what it is.”
“O Mr. St. John, don't say that! Of course I
never thought of objecting; it would be presumptuous
in me. I really don't understand these matters at all,
not at all. I just don't know anything about Gothic
letters and all that, and so the card doesn't say anything
to me. And I must confess, I thought”—
Here Angie, like a properly behaved young daughter
of the Church, began to perceive that her very next sentence
might lead her into something like a criticism
upon her rector; and she paused on the brink of a gulf
so horrible, “with pious awe that feared to have offended.”
Mr. St. John felt a very novel and singular pleasure
in the progress of this interview. It interested him to
be differed with, and he said, with a slight intonation of
dictation:
-- 342 --
[figure description] Page 342.[end figure description]
“I must insist on your telling me what you thought,
Miss Angie.”
“Oh, nothing, only this—that if I, who have had
more education than our Sunday-school scholars, can't
read a card like that, why, they could not. I'm quite
sure that an inscription in plain modern letters that I
could read would have more effect upon my mind, and I
am quite sure it would on them.”
“I thank you sincerely for your frankness, Miss
Angie; your suggestion is a valuable one.”
“I think,” said Angie, “that mediæval inscriptions,
and Greek and Latin mottoes, are interesting to educated,
cultivated people. The very fact of their being
in another language gives a sort of piquancy to them.
The idea gets a new coloring from a new language; but
to people who absolutely don't understand a word, they
say nothing, and of course they do no good; so, at least,
it seems to me.”
“You are quite right, Miss Angie, and I shall immediately
put my inscription into the English of to-day.
The fact is, Miss Angie,” added St. John after a silent
pause, “I feel more and more what a misfortune it has
been to me that I never had a sister. There are so many
things where a woman's mind sees so much more clearly
than a man's. I never had any intimate female friend.”
Here Mr. St. John began assiduously tying up little
bunches of the ground-pine in the form which Angie
needed for her cross, and laying them for her.
Now, if Angie had been a sophisticated young lady,
familiar with the tactics of flirtation, she might have had
precisely the proper thing at hand to answer this remark;
as it was, she kept on tying her bunches assiduously and
feeling a little embarrassed.
It was a pity he should not have a sister, she thought.
Poor man, it must be lonesome for him; and Angie's
-- 343 --
[figure description] Page 343.[end figure description]
face at this moment must have expressed some commiseration
or some emotion that emboldened the young
man to say, in a lower tone, as he laid down a bunch of
green by her:
“If you, Miss Angie, would look on me as you do on
your brothers, and tell me sincerely your opinion of me,
it might be a great help to me.”
Now Mr. St. John was certainly as innocent and
translucently ignorant of life as Adam at the first hour
of his creation, not to know that the tone in which he
was speaking and the impulse from which he spoke, at
that moment, was in fact that of man's deepest, most
absorbing feeling towards woman. He had made his
scheme of life; and, as a set purpose, had left love out
of it, as something too terrestrial and mundane to consist
with the sacred vocation of a priest. But, from the
time he first came within the sphere of Angelique, a
strange, delicious atmosphere, vague and dreamy, yet
delightful, had encircled him, and so perplexed and dizzied
his brain as to cause all sorts of strange vibrations.
At first, there was a sort of repulsion—a vague alarm, a
suspicion and repulsion singularly blended with an
attraction. He strove to disapprove of her; he resolved
not to think of her; he resolutely turned his head away
from looking at her in her place in Sunday-school and
church, because he felt that his thoughts were alarmingly
drawn in that direction.
Then came his invitation into society, of which the
hidden charm, unacknowledged to himself, was that he
should meet Angelique; and that mingling in society had
produced, inevitably, modifying effects, which made him
quite a different being from what he was in his recluse
life passed between the study and the altar.
It is not in man, certainly not in a man so finely
fibered and strung as St. John, to associate intimately
-- 344 --
[figure description] Page 344.[end figure description]
with his fellows without feeling their forces upon himself,
and finding many things in himself of which he had
not dreamed.
But if there be in the circle some one female presence
which all the while is sending out an indefinite though
powerful enchantment, the developing force is still more
marked.
St. John had never suspected himself of the ability
to be so agreeable as he found himself in the constant
reunions which, for one cause or another, were taking
place in the little Henderson house. He developed a
talent for conversation, a vein of gentle humor, a turn
for versification, with a cast of thought rising into the
sphere of poetry, and then, with Dr. Campbell and Alice
and Angie, he formed no mean quartette in singing.
In all these ways he had been coming nearer and
nearer to Angie, without taking the alarm. He remembered
appositely what Montalembert in his history of the
monks of the Middle Ages says of the female friendships
which always exerted such a modifying power in the lives
of celebrated saints; how St. Jerome had his Eudochia,
and St. Somebody-else had a sister, and so on. And as
he saw more and more of Angelique's character, and felt
her practical efficiency in church work, he thought it
would be very lovely to have such a friend all to himself.
Now, friendship on the part of a young man of twenty-five
for a young saint with hazel eyes and golden hair,
with white, twinkling hands and a sweet voice, and an
assemblage of varying glances, dimples and blushes, is
certainly a most interesting and delightful relation; and
Mr. St. John built it up and adorned it with all sorts of
charming allegories and figures and images, making a
sort of semi-celestial affair of it.
It is true, he had given up St. Jerome's love, and
concluded that it was not necessary that his “heart's
-- 345 --
[figure description] Page 345.[end figure description]
elect” should be worn and weary and wasted, or resemble
a dying altar-fire; he had learned to admire Angie's
blooming color and elastic step, and even to take an appreciative
delight in the prettinesses of her toilette; and,
one evening, when she dropped a knot of peach-blow
ribbons from her bosom, the young divine had most
unscrupulously appropriated the same, and, taking it
home, gloated over it as a holy relic, and yet he never
suspected that he was in love—oh, no! And, at this
moment, when his voice was vibrating with that strange
revealing power that voices sometimes have in moments
of emotion, when the very tone is more than the words,
he, poor fellow, was ignorant that his voice had said to
Angie, “I love you with all my heart and soul.”
But there is no girl so uninstructed and so inexperienced
as not to be able to interpret a tone like this at
once, and Angie at this moment felt a sort of bewildering
astonishment at the revelation. All seemed to go
round and round in dizzy mazes—the greens, the red
berries—she seemed to herself to be walking in a dream,
and Mr. St. John with her.
She looked up and their eyes met, and at that
moment the veil fell from between them. His great,
deep, blue eyes had in them an expression that could
not be mistaken.
“Oh, Mr. St. John!” she said.
“Call me Arthur,” he said, entreatingly.
“Arthur!” she said, still as in a dream.
“And may I call you Angelique, my good angel, my
guide? Say so!” he added, in a rapid, earnest whisper,
“say so, dear, dearest Angie!”
“Yes, Arthur,” she said, still wondering.
“And, oh, love me,” he added, in a whisper; “a
little, ever so little! You cannot think how precious it
will be to me!”
-- 346 --
[figure description] Page 346.[end figure description]
“Mr. St. John!” called the voice of Miss Gusher.
He started in a guilty way, and came out from behind
the thick shadows of the evergreen which had concealed
this little tête-à-tête. He was all of a sudden
transformed to Mr. St. John, the rector—distant, cold,
reserved, and the least bit in the world dictatorial. In
his secret heart, Mr. St. John did not like Miss Gusher.
It was a thing for which he condemned himself, for she
was a most zealous and efficient daughter of the Church.
She had worked and presented a most elegant set of
altar-cloths, and had made known to him her readiness
to join a sisterhood whenever he was ready to ordain
one. And she always admired him, always agreed with
him, and never criticised him, which perverse little
Angie sometimes did; and yet ungrateful Mr. St. John
was wicked enough at this moment to wish Miss Gusher
at the bottom of the Red Sea, or in any other Scriptural
situation whence there would be no probability of her
getting at him for a season.
“I wanted you to decide on this decoration for the
font,” she said. “Now, there is this green wreath and
this red cross of bitter-sweet. To be sure, there is no
tradition about bitter-sweet; but the very name is symbolical,
and I thought that I would fill the font with
calla lilies. Would lilies at Christmas be strictly
Churchly? That is my only doubt. I have always seen
them appropriated to Easter. What should you say, Mr.
St. John?”
“Oh, have them by all means, if you can,” said Mr.
St. John. “Christmas is one of the Church's highest
festivals, and I admit anything that will make it beautiful.”
Mr. St. John said this with a radiancy of delight
which Miss Gusher ascribed entirely to his approbation
of her zeal; but the heavens and the earth had assumed
-- 347 --
[figure description] Page 347.[end figure description]
a new aspect to him since that little talk in the corner.
For when Angie lifted her eyes, not only had she read
the unutterable in his, but he also had looked far down
into the depths of her soul, and seen something he did not
quite dare to put into words, but in the light of which his
whole life now seemed transfigured.
It was a new and amazing experience to Mr. St. John,
and he felt strangely happy, yet particularly anxious that
Miss Gusher and Miss Vapors, and all the other tribe
of his devoted disciples, should not by any means suspect
what had fallen out; and therefore it was that he
assumed such a cheerful zeal in the matter of the font
and decorations.
Meanwhile, Angie sat in her quiet corner, like a good
little church mouse, working steadily and busily on her
cross. Just as she had put in the last bunch of bitter-sweet,
Mr. St. John was again at her elbow.
“Angie,” he said, “you are going to give me that
cross. I want it for my study, to remember this morning
by.”
“But I made it for the front of the organ.”
“Never mind. I can put another there; but this is
to be mine,” he said, with a voice of appropriation. “I
want it because you were making it when you promised
what you did. You must keep to that promise, Angie.”
“Oh, yes, I shall.”
“And I want one thing more,” he said, lifting Angie's
little glove, where it had fallen among the refuse
pieces.
“What!—my glove? Is not that silly?”
“No, indeed.”
“But my hands will be cold.”
“Oh, you have your muff. See here: I want it,” he
said, “because it seems so much like you, and you don't
know how lonesome I feel sometimes.”
-- 348 --
[figure description] Page 348.[end figure description]
Poor man! Angie thought, and she let him have the
glove. “Oh,” she said, apprehensively, “please don't
stay here now. I hear Miss Gusher calling for you.”
“She is always so busy,” said he, in a tone of discontent.
“She is so good,” said Angie, “and does so much.”
“Oh, yes, good enough,” he said, in a discontented
tone, retreating backward into the shadow of the hemlock,
and so finding his way round into the body of the
church.
But there is no darkness or shadow of death where a
handsome, engaging young rector can hide himself so
that the truth about him will not get into the bill of some
bird of the air.
The sparrows of the sanctuary are many, and they are
particularly wide awake and watchful.
Miss Gusher had been witness of this last little bit of
interview; and, being a woman of mature experience,
versed in the ways of the world, had seen, as she said,
through the whole matter.
“Mr. St. John is just like all the rest of them, my
dear,” she said to Miss Vapors, “he will flirt, if a girl
will only let him. I saw him just now with that Angie
Van Arsdel. Those Van Arsdel girls are famous for
drawing in any man they happen to associate with.”
“You don't say so,” said Miss Vapors; “what did
you see?”
“Oh, my dear, I sha'n't tell; of course, I don't approve
of such things, and it lowers Mr. St. John in my
esteem,—so I'd rather not speak of it. I did hope he
was above such things.”
“But do tell me, did he say anything?” said Miss
Vapors, ready to burst in ignorance.
“Oh, no. I only saw some appearances and expressions—
a certain manner between them that told all.
-- 349 --
[figure description] Page 349.[end figure description]
Sophronia Vapors, you mark my words: there is something
going on between Angie Van Arsdel and Mr. St.
John. I don't see, for my part, what it is in those Van
Arsdel girls that the men see; but, sure as one of them
is around, there is a flirtation got up.”
“Why, they're not so very beautiful,” said Miss
Vapors.
“Oh, dear, no. I never thought them even pretty;
but then, you see, there's no accounting for those things.”
And so, while Mr. St. John and Angie were each wondering
secretly over the amazing world of mutual understanding
that had grown up between them, the rumor
was spreading and growing in all the band of Christian
workers.
-- -- p710-371
CHAPTER XXXVII. THEREAFTER?
[figure description] Page 350.[end figure description]
ACCORDING to the view of the conventional world,
the brief, sudden little passage between Mr. St.
John and Angelique among the Christmas-greens was to
all intents and purposes equivalent to an engagement;
and yet, St.John had not actually at that time any
thought of marriage.
“Then,” says Mrs. Mater-familias, ruffling her plumage,
in high moral style, “he is a man of no principle—
and acts abominably.” You are wrong, dear madam;
Mr. St. John is a man of high principle, a man guided by
conscience, and who would honestly sooner die than do
a wrong thing.
“Well, what does he mean then, talking in this sort
of way to Angie, if he has no intentions? He ought to
know better.”
Undoubtedly, he ought to know better, but he does
not. He knows at present neither his own heart nor
that of womankind, and is ignorant of the real force and
meaning of what he has been saying and looking, and of
the obligations which they impose on him as a man of
honor. Having been, all his life, only a recluse and
student, having planned his voyage of life in a study,
where rocks and waves and breakers and shoals are but
so many points on paper, it is not surprising that he finds
himself somewhat ignorant in actual navigation, where
rocks and shoals are quite another affair. It is one
thing to lay down one's scheme and law of life in a
study, among supposititious men and women, and
-- 351 --
[figure description] Page 351.[end figure description]
another to carry it out in life among real ones, each one
of whom acts upon us with the developing force of sunshine
on the seed-germ.
In fact, no man knows what there is in himself till he
has tried himself under the influence of other men; and
if this is true of man over man, how much more of that
subtle developing and revealing power of woman over
man. St. John, during the first part of his life, had been
possessed by that sort of distant fear of womankind
which a person of acute sensibility has of that which is
bright, keen, dazzling, and beyond his powers of management,
and which, therefore, seems to him possessed
of indefinite powers for mischief. It was something
with which he felt unable to cope. He had, too, the
common prejudice against fashionable girls and women
as of course wanting in earnestness; and he entered
upon his churchly career with a sort of hard determination
to have no trifling, and to stand in no relation to
this suspicious light guerrilla force of the church but
that of a severe drill-sergeant.
To his astonishment, the child whom he had undertaken
to drill had more than once perforce, and from
the very power of her womanly nature, proved herself
competent to guide him in many things which belonged
to the very essence of his profession—church work.
Angie had been able to enter places whence he had been
excluded; able to enter by those very attractions of life
and gaiety and prettiness which had first led him to set
her down as unfit for serious work.
He saw with his own eyes that a bright little spirit,
with twinkling ornaments, and golden hair, and a sweet
voice, could go into the den of John Price in his surliest
mood, could sing, and get his children to singing, till he
was as persuadable in her hands as a bit of wax; that
she could scold and lecture him at her pleasure, and get
-- 352 --
[figure description] Page 352.[end figure description]
him to making all kinds of promises; in fact that he, St.
John himself, owed his entrée into the house, and his
recognition there as a clergyman, to Angie's good offices
and persistent entreaties.
Instead of being leader, he was himself being led.
This divine child was becoming to him a mystery of wisdom;
and, so far from feeling himself competent to be
her instructor, he came to occupy, as regards many of the
details of his work, a most catechetical attitude towards
her, and was ready to accept almost anything she told
him.
St. John was, from first to last, an idealist. It was
ideality that inclined him from the barren and sterile
chillness of New England dogmatism to the picturesque
forms and ceremonies of a warmer ritual. His conception
of a church was a fair ideal; such as a poet might
worship, such as this world has never seen in reality, and
probably never will. His conception of a life work—of
the priestly office, with all that pertains to it—belonged
to that realm of poetry that is above the matter-of-fact
truths of experience, and is sometimes in painful conflict
with them. What wonder, then, if love, the eternal poem,
the great ideal of ideals, came over him without precise
limits and exact definitions—that when the divine cloud
overshadowed him he “wist not what he said.”
St. John certainly never belonged to that class of
clergymen who, on being assured of a settlement and a
salary, resolve, in a general way, to marry, and look up a
wife and a cooking-stove at the same time; who take
lists of eligible women, and have the conditional refusal
of a house in their pockets, when they go to make proposals.
In fact, he had had some sort of semi-poetical ideas
of a diviner life of priestly self-devotion and self-consecration,
in which woman can have no part. He had
-- 353 --
[figure description] Page 353.[end figure description]
been fascinated by certain strains of writing in some of
the devout Anglicans whose works furnished most of the
studies of his library; so that far from setting it down in
a general way that he must some time marry, he had, up
to this time, shaped his ideal of life in a contrary direction.
He had taken no vows; he had as yet taken no
steps towards the practical working out of any scheme;
but there floated vaguely through his head the idea of
a celibate guild—a brotherhood who should revive, in
dusty modern New York, some of the devout conventual
fervors of the middle ages. A society of brothers, living
in a round of daily devotions and holy ministration,
had been one of the distant dreams of his future cloudland.
And now, for a month or two, he had been like a
charmed bird, fluttering in nearer and nearer circles
about this dazzling, perplexing, repellent attraction.
For weeks, unconsciously to himself, he had had but
one method of marking and measuring his days: there
were the days when he expected to see her, and the days
when he did not; and wonderful days were interposed
between, when he saw her unexpectedly—as, somehow,
happened quite often.
We believe it is a fact not yet brought clearly under
scientific investigation as to its causes, but a fact, nevertheless,
that young people who have fallen into the trick
of thinking about each other when separated are singularly
apt to meet each other in their daily walks and
ways. Victor Hugo has written the Idyl of the Rue
Plumette; there are also Idyls of the modern city of
New York. At certain periods in the progress of the
poem, one such chance glimpse, or moment of meeting,
at a street corner or on a door-step, is the event of the
day.
St. John was sure of Angie at her class on Sunday
-- 354 --
[figure description] Page 354.[end figure description]
mornings, and at service afterwards. He was sure of
her on Thursday evenings, at Eva's reception; and then,
besides, somehow, when she was around looking up her
class on Saturday afternoons, it was so natural that he
should catch a glimpse of her now and then, coming out
of that house, or going into that door; and then, in the
short days of winter, the darkness often falls so rapidly
that it often struck him as absolutely necessary that he
should see her safely home: and, in all these moments
of association, he felt a pleasure so strange and new and
divine that it seemed to him as if his whole life until he
knew her had been flowerless and joyless. He pitied
himself, when he thought that he had never known his
mother and had never had a sister. That must be why
he had known so little of what it was so lovely and
beautiful to know.
Love, to an idealist, comes not first from earth, but
heaven. It comes as an exaltation of all the higher
and nobler faculties, and is its own justification in the
fuller nobleness, the translucent purity, the larger generosity,
and warmer piety, it brings. The trees do not
examine themselves in spring-time, when every bud is
thrilling with a new sense of life—they live.
Never had St. John's life-work looked to him so attractive,
so possible, so full of impulse; and he worshiped
the star that had risen on his darkness, without
as yet a thought of the future. As yet, he thought of
her only as a vision, an inspiration, an image of almost
childlike innocence and purity, which he represented to
himself under all the poetic forms of saintly legend.
She was the St. Agnes, the child Christian, the sacred
lamb of Christ's fold. She was the holy Dorothea, who
wore in her bosom the roses of heaven, and had fruits
and flowers of Paradise to give to mortals; and when
he left her, after ever so brief an interview, he fancied
-- 355 --
[figure description] Page 355.[end figure description]
that one leaf from the tree of life had fluttered to his
bosom. He illuminated the text, “Blessed are the pure
in heart,” in white lilies, and hung it over his prie
dieu in memorial of her, and sometimes caught himself
singing:
“I can but know thee as my star,
My angel and my dream.”
As yet, the thought had not yet arisen in him of appropriating
his angel guide. It was enough to love her
with the reverential, adoring love he gave to all that was
holiest and purest within him, to enshrine her as his
ideal of womanhood.
He undervalued himself in relation to her. He
seemed to himself coarse and clumsy, in the light of
her intuitions, as he knew himself utterly unskilled and
untrained in the conventional modes and usages of the
society in which he had begun to meet her, and where
he saw her moving with such deft ability, and touching
every spring with such easy skill.
Still he felt a craving to be something to her. Why
might she not be a sister to him, to him who had never
known a sister? It was a happy thought, one that struck
him as perfectly new and original, though it was—had
he only known it—a well-worn, mossy old mile-stone that
had been passed by generations on the pleasant journey
to Eden. He had not, however, had the least intention
of saying a word of this kind to Angie when he came
to the chapel that morning. But he had been piqued
by her quiet, resolute little way of dissent from the flood
of admiration which his illumination had excited. He
had been a little dissatisfied with the persistent adulation
of his flock, and, like Zeuxis, felt a disposition to go
after the blush of the maiden who fled. It was not the
first time that Angie had held her own opinion against
him, and turned away with that air of quiet resolution
-- 356 --
[figure description] Page 356.[end figure description]
which showed that she had a reserved force in herself
that he longed to fathom. Then, in the little passage
that followed, came one of those sudden overflows that
Longfellow tells of:
“There are moments in life when the heart is so full of emotion
That if by chance it be shaken, or in to its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.”
St. John's secret looked out of his eager eyes; and,
in fact, he was asking for Angie's whole heart, while his
words said only, “love me as a brother.” A man, unfortunately,
cannot look into his own eyes, and does not
always know what they say. But a woman may look
into them; and Angie, though little in person and childlike
in figure, had in her the concentrated, condensed
essence of womanhood—all its rapid foresight; its keen
flashes of intuition; its ready self-command, and something
of that maternal care-taking instinct with which
Eve is ever on the alert to prevent a blunder or mistake
on the part of the less perceiving Adam.
She felt the tones of his voice. She knew that he
was saying more than he was himself aware of, and that
there were prying eyes about: and she knew, too, with a
flash of presentiment, what would be the world's judgment
of so innocent a brotherly and sisterly alliance as
had been proposed and sealed by the sacrifice of her glove.
She laughed a little to herself, fancying her brother
Tom's wanting her glove, or addressing her in the reverential
manner and with the beseeching tones that she
had just heard. Certainly she would be a sister to him,
she thought, and, the next time she met him at Eva's
alone, she would use her liberty to reprove him for his imprudence
in speaking to her in that way when so many
were looking on. The little empress knew her ground;
and that it was hers now to dictate and his to obey.
-- -- p710-378
CHAPTER XXXVIII. “WE MUST BE CAUTIOUS. ”
[figure description] Page 357.[end figure description]
EVA was at the chapel that morning and overheard,
of the conversation between Miss Gusher and Miss
Vapors, just enough to pique her curiosity and rouse her
alarm. Of all things, she dreaded any such report getting
into the whirlwind of gossip that always eddies
round a church door where there is an interesting, unmarried
rector, and she resolved to caution Angie on
the very first opportunity; and so, when her share of
wreaths and crosses was finished, and the afternoon sun
began to come level through the stained windows, she
crossed over to Angie's side, to take her home with her
to dinner.
“I've something to tell you,” she said, “and you
must come home and stay with me to-night.” And so
Angie came.
“Do you know,” said Eva, as soon as the sisters
found themselves alone in her chamber, where they were
laying off their things and preparing for dinner, “do you
know that Miss Gusher?”
“I—no, very slightly,” said Angie, shaking out her
shawl to fold it. “She's a very cultivated woman, I
believe.”
“Well, I heard her saying some disagreeable things
about you and Mr. St. John this morning,” said Eva.
The blood flushed in Angie's cheek, and she turned
quickly to the glass and began arranging her hair.
“What did she say?” she inquired.
“Something about the Van Arsdel girls always getting
up flirtations.”
-- 358 --
[figure description] Page 358.[end figure description]
“Nonsense! how hateful! I'm sure it's no fault of
mine that Mr. St. John came and spoke to me.”
“Then he did come?”
“Oh, yes; I was perfectly astonished. I was sitting
all alone in that dark corner where the great hemlock
tree was, and the first I knew he was there. You see, I
criticised his illuminated card—that one in the strange,
queer letters—I said I couldn't understand it; but Miss
Gusher, Miss Vapors, and all the girls were oh-ing and
ah-ing about it, and I felt quite snubbed and put down.
I supposed it must be my stupidity, and so I just went
off to my tree and sat down to work quietly in the dark
corner, and left Miss Gusher expatiating on mottoes and
illuminations. I knew she was very accomplished and
clever and all that, and that I didn't know anything
about such things.”
“Well, then,” said Eva, “he followed you?”
“Yes, he came suddenly in from the vestry behind
the tree, and I thought, or hoped, he stood so that nobody
noticed us, and he insisted on my telling him why
I didn't like his illumination. I said I did like it, that I
thought it was beautifully done, but that I did not think
it would be of any use to those poor children and folks
to have inscriptions that they didn't understand; and he
said I was quite right, and that he should alter it and
put it in plain English; and then he said, what a help it
was to have a woman's judgment on things, what a misfortune
it was that he had never had a sister or any friend
of that kind, and then he asked me to be a sister to him,
and tell him frankly always just what I thought of him,
and I said I would. And then”—
“What then?”
“Oh, Eva, I can't tell you; but he spoke so earnestly
and quick, and asked me if I couldn't love him just a
little; he asked me to call him Arthur, and then, if you
-- 359 --
[figure description] Page 359.[end figure description]
believe me, he would have me give him my glove, and
so I let him take it, because I was afraid some of those
girls would see us talking together. I felt almost frightened
that he should speak so, and I wanted him to go
away.”
“Well, Angie dear, what do you think of all this?”
“I know he cares for me very much,” said Angie,
quickly, “more than he says.”
“And you, Angie?”
“I think he's good and noble and true, and I love
him.”
“As a sister, of course,” said Eva, laughing.
“Never mind how—I love him,” said Angie; “and I
shall use my sisterly privilege to caution him to be very
distant and dignified to me in future, when those prying
eyes are around.”
“Well now, darling,” said Eva, with all the conscious
dignity of early matronage, “we shall have to manage
this matter very prudently—for those girls have had
their suspicions aroused, and you know how such things
will fly through the air. The fact is, there is nothing so
perplexing as just this state of things; when you know
as well as you know anything that a man is in love with
you, and yet you are not engaged to him. I know all
about the trouble of that, I'm sure; and it seems to me,
what with Mamma, Aunt Maria, and all the rest of them,
it was a perfect marvel how Harry and I ever came together.
Now, there's that Miss Gusher, she'll be on the
watch all the time, like a cat at a mouse-hole; and she's
going to be there when we get the Christmas-tree ready
and tie on the things, and you must manage to keep as
far off from him as possible. I shall be there, and I
shall have my eyes in my head, I promise you. We must
try to lull their suspicions to sleep.”
“Dear me,” said Angie, “how disagreeable!”
-- 360 --
[figure description] Page 360.[end figure description]
“I'm sorry for you, darling, but I've kept it off as
long as I could; I've seen for a long time how things are
going.”
“You have? Oh, Eva!”
“Yes; and I have had all I could do to keep Jim
Fellows from talking, and teasing you, as he has been
perfectly longing to do for a month past.”
“You don't say that Jim has noticed anything?”
“Yes, Jim noticed his looking at you, the very first
thing after he came to Sunday-school.”
“Well, now, at first I noticed that he looked at me
often, but I thought it was because he saw something he
disapproved of—and it used to embarrass me. Then I
thought he seemed to avoid me, and I wondered why.
And I wondered, too, why he always would take occasion
to look at me. I noticed, when your evenings first began,
that he never came near me, and never spoke to
me, and yet his eyes were following me wherever I went.
The first evening you had, he walked round and round
me nearly the whole evening, and never spoke a word;
then suddenly he came and sat down by me, when I
was sitting by Mrs. Betsey, and gave me a message from
the Prices; but he spoke in such a stiff, embarrassed
way, and then there was an awful pause, and suddenly he
got up and went away again; and poor little Mrs. Betsey
said, `Bless me, how stiff and ungracious he is'; and I
said that I believed he wasn't much used to society—
but, after a while, this wore away, and he became very
social, and we grew better and better acquainted all the
time. Although I was a little contradictious, and used
to controvert some of his notions, I fancy it was rather a
novelty to him to find somebody that didn't always give
up to him, for, I must say, some of the women that go to
our chapel do make fools of themselves about him. It
really provokes me past all bearing. If any body could
-- 361 --
[figure description] Page 361.[end figure description]
set me against a man, it would be those silly, admiring
women who have their hands and eyes always raised in
adoration, whatever he does. It annoys him, I can see,
for it is very much against his taste, and he likes me because,
he says, I always will tell him the truth.”
Meanwhile St. John had gone back to his study,
walking as on a cloud. The sunshine streaming into a
western window touched the white lilies over his prie
dieu till they seemed alive. He took down the illumination
and looked at it. He had a great mind to give
this to her as a Christmas present. Why not? Was she
not to be his own sister? And his thoughts strolled
along through pleasant possibilities and all the privileges
of a brother. Certainly, he longed to see her now,
and talk them over with her; and suddenly it occurred
to him that there were a few points in relation to the
arrangement of the tree about which it would be absolutely
necessary to get the opinion of Mrs. Henderson.
Whether this direction of the path of duty had any relation
to the fact that he had last seen her going away
from the vestry arm in arm with Angie, we will not
assume to say; but the solemn fact was that, that evening,
just as it came time to drop the lace curtains over
the Henderson windows, when the blazing wood fire was
winking and blinking roguishly at the brass audirons,
the door-bell rang, and in he walked.
Angelique had her lap full of dolls, and was sitting
like Iris in the rainbow, in a confused mélange of silks,
and gauzes, and tissues, and spangles. Three dressed
dolls were propped up in various attitudes around her,
and she was holding the fourth, while she fitted a sky-blue
mantilla which she was going to trim with silver braid.
Where Angie got all her budget of fineries was a
-- 362 --
[figure description] Page 362.[end figure description]
standing mystery in the household, only that she had an infinitely
persuasive tongue, and talked supplies out of
admiring clerks and milliners' apprentices. It was a
pretty picture to see her there in the warm, glowing
room, tossing and turning her filmy treasures, and cocking
her little head on one side and the other with an air
of profound reflection.
Harry was gone out. Eva was knitting a comforter
in her corner, and everything was as still and as cosy as
heart could desire, when St. John made his way into the
parlor and got himself warmly ensconced in his favorite
niche. What more could mortal man desire? He
talked gravely with Eva, and watched Angie. He thought
of a lean, haggard picture of a St. Mary of Egypt, praying
forlornly in the desert, that had hitherto stood in his
study, and the idea somehow came over him that modern
New York saints had taken a much more agreeable turn
than those of old. Was it not better to be dressing
dolls for poor children than to be rolling up one's eyes
and praying alone out in a desert? In his own mind
he resolved to take down that picture forthwith. He
had, in his overcoat in the hall, his illuminated lilies,
wrapped snugly in tissue paper and tied with a blue ribbon;
and, all the while he was discoursing with Eva, he
was ruminating how he could see Angie alone a minute,
just long enough to place it in her hands. Surely,
somebody ought to make her a Christmas present, she
who was thinking of every one but herself.
Eva was one of the class of diviners, and not at all
the person to sit as Madame de Trop in an exigency of
this sort, and so she had a sudden call to consult with
Mary in the kitchen.
“Now for it,” thought St. John, as he rose and drew
nearer. Angie looked up with a demure consciousness.
-- 363 --
[figure description] Page 363.[end figure description]
He began fingering her gauzes and her scissors unconsciously.
“Now, now! I don't allow that,” she said, playfully,
as she took them altogether from his hand.
“I have something for you,” he said suddenly.
“Something for me!” with a bright, amused look.
“Where is it?”
St. John fumbled a moment in the entry and brought
in his parcel. Angie watched him untying it with a kittenish
gravity. He laid it down before her. “From
your brother, Angie,” he said.
“Oh, how lovely! how beautiful! O Mr. St. John,
did you do this for me?”
“It was of you I was thinking; you, my inspiration
in all that is holy and good; you who strengthen and
help me in all that is pure and heavenly.”
“Oh, don't say that!”
“It's true, Angie, my Angie, my angel. I knew nothing
worthily till I knew you.”
Angie looked up at him; her eyes, clear and bright
as a bird's, looked into his; their hands clasped together,
and then, it was the most natural thing in the world, he
kissed her.
“But, Arthur,” said Angie, “you must be careful not
to arouse disagreeable reports and gossip. What is so
sacred between us must not be talked of. Don't look at
me, or speak to me, when others are present. You don't
know how very easy it is to make people talk.”
Mr. St. John promised all manner of prudence, and
walked home delighted. And thus these two Babes in
the Wood clasped hands with each other, to wander up
and down the great forest of life, as simply and sincerely
as if they had been Hensel and Grettel in the fairy story.
They loved each other, wholly trusted each other without
a question, and were walking in dream-land. There was
-- 364 --
[figure description] Page 364.[end figure description]
no question of marriage settlements, or rent and taxes;
only a joyous delight that they two in this wilderness
world had found each other.
We pity him who does not know that there is nothing
purer, nothing nearer heaven than a young man's firstenkindled
veneration and adoration of womanhood in
the person of her who is to be his life's ideal. It is the
morning dew before the sun arises.
-- -- p710-386
CHAPTER XXXIX. SAYS SHE TO HER NEIGHBOR—WHAT?
[figure description] Page 365.[end figure description]
“MY dear,” said Mrs. Dr. Gracey to her spouse, “I
have a great piece of news for you about Arthur—
they say that he is engaged to one of the Van Arsdel
girls.”
“Good,” said the Doctor, pushing up his spectacles.
“It's the most sensible thing I have heard of him this
long while. I always knew that boy would come right
if he were only let alone. How did you hear?”
“Miss Gusher told Mary Jane. She charged her not
to tell; but, oh, it's all over town! There can be no doubt
about it.”
“Why hasn't he been here, then, like a dutiful nephew,
to tell us, I should like to know?” said Dr. Gracey.
“Well, I believe they say it isn't announced yet; but
there's no sort of doubt of it. There's no doubt, at any
rate, that there's been a very decided intimacy, and that
if they are not engaged, they ought to be; and as I know
Arthur is a good fellow, I know it must be all right.
Those Ritualistic young ladies are terribly shocked.
Miss Gusher says that her idol is broken; that she never
again shall reverence a clergyman.”
“Very likely. A Mrs. St. John will be a great interruption
in the way of holy confidences and confessionals,
and all their trumpery; but it's the one thing needful for
Arthur. A good, sensible woman for a wife will make
him a capital worker. The best adviser in church work
is a good wife; and the best school of the church is a
Christian family. That's my doctrine, Mrs. G.”
-- 366 --
[figure description] Page 366.[end figure description]
Mrs. G. blushed at the implied compliment, while the
Doctor went on:
“Now, I never felt the least fear of how Arthur was
coming out, and I take great credit to myself for not
opposing him. I knew a young man must do a certain
amount of fussing and fizzling before he settles down
strong and clear; and fighting and opposing a crotchety
fellow does no good. I think I have kept hold
on Arthur by never rousing his combativeness and
being sparing of good advice; and you see he is turning
right already. A wife will put an end to all the semimonkish
trumpery that has got itself mixed up with his
real self-denying labor. A woman is capital for sweeping
down cobwebs in Church or State. Well, I shall call
on Arthur and congratulate him forthwith.”
Dr. Gracey was Arthur's maternal uncle, and he had
always kept an eye upon him from boyhood, as the only
son of a favorite sister.
The Doctor, himself rector of a large and thriving
church, was a fair representative of that exact mixture
of conservatism and progress which characterizes the
great, steady middle class of the American Episcopacy.
He was tolerant and fatherly both to the Ritualists, who
overdo on one side, and the Low Church, who underdo
on the other. He believed largely in good nature, good
sense, and the expectant treatment, as best for diseases
both in the churchly and medical practice.
So, when he had succeeded in converting his favorite
nephew to Episcopacy, and found him in danger of using
it only as a half-way house to Rome, he took good heed
neither to snub him, nor to sneer at him, but to give
him sympathy in all the good work he did, and, as far as
possible, to shield him from that species of persecution
which is sure to endear a man's errors to him, by investing
them with a kind of pathos.
-- 367 --
[figure description] Page 367.[end figure description]
“The world isn't in danger from the multitudes rushing
into extremes of self-sacrifice,” the Doctor said, when
his wife feared that Arthur was becoming an ascetic.
“Keep him at work; work will bring sense and steadiness.
Give him his head, and he'll pull in harness all
right by and by. A colt that don't kick out of the
traces a little, at first, can't have much blood in
him.”
It will be seen by the subject-matter of this conversation
that the good seed which had been sown in the
heart of Miss Gusher had sprung up and borne fruit—
thirty, sixty and a hundred fold, as is the wont of the
gourds of gossip,—more rapid by half in their growth
than the gourd of Jonah, and not half as consolatory.
In fact, the gossip plant is like the grain of mustard
seed, which, though it be the least of all seeds, becometh
a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodge in its
branches and chatter mightily there at all seasons.
Miss Gusher, and Miss Vapors, and Miss Rapture,
and old Mrs. Eyelet, and the Misses Glibbett, so well
employed their time, about the season of Christmas, that
there was not a female person in the limits of their
acquaintance that had not had the whole story of all
that had been seen, surmised, or imagined, related as a
profound secret. Notes were collected and compared.
Mrs. Eyelet remembered that she had twice seen Mr.
St. John attending Angie to her door about nightfall.
Miss Sykes, visiting one afternoon in the same district,
deposed and said that she had met them coming out of a
door together. She was quite sure that they must have
met by appointment. Then, oh, the depths of possibility
that the gossips saw in that Henderson house! Always
there, every Thursday evening! On intimate terms with
the family.
“Depend upon it, my dear,” said Mrs. Eyelet, “Mrs.
-- 368 --
[figure description] Page 368.[end figure description]
Henderson has been doing all she could to catch him.
They say he's at her house almost constantly.”
Aunt Maria's plumage rustled with maternal solicitude.
“I don't know but it is as good a thing as we
could expect for Angie,” said she to Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“He's a young man of good family and independent
property. I don't like his ritualistic notions, to be sure;
but one can't have everything. And, at any rate, he
can't become a Roman Catholic if he gets married—
that's one comfort.”
“There he goes!” said little Mrs. Betsey, as she sat
looking through the blinds, with the forgiven Jack on
her knee. “He's at the door now. Dorcas, I do believe
there's something in it.”
“Something in what?” said Miss Dorcas, “and who
are you talking about, Betsey?”
“Why, Mr. St. John and Angie. He's standing at
the door, this very minute. It must be true. I'm glad
of it; only he isn't half good enough for her.”
“Well, it don't follow that there is an engagement because
Mr. St. John is at the door,” said Miss Dorcas.
“But all the things Mrs. Eyelet said, Dorcas!”
“Mrs. Eyelet is a gossip,” said Miss Dorcas, shortly.
“But, Dorcas, I really thought his manner to her last
Thursday was particular. Oh, I'm sure there's something
in it! They say he's such a good young man, and
independently rich. I wonder if they'll take a house up
in this neighborhood? It would be so nice to have
Angie within calling distance! A great favorite of mine
is Angie.”
-- -- p710-390
CHAPTER XL. THE ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCED.
[figure description] Page 369.[end figure description]
MEANWHILE Dr. Gracey found his way to Arthur's
study.
“So, Arthur,” he said, “that pretty Miss Van Arsdel's
engaged.”
The blank expression and sudden change of color in
St. John's face was something quite worthy of observation.
“Miss Van Arsdel engaged!” he repeated with a
gasp, feeling as if the ground were going down under
him.
“Yes, that pretty fairy, Miss Angelique, you know.”
“How did you hear—who told you?”
“How did I hear? Why, it's all over town. Arthur,
you bad boy, why haven't you told me?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you; you are the happy individual. I came
to congratulate you.”
St. John looked terribly confused.
“Well, we are not really exactly engaged.”
“But you are going to be, I understand. So far so
good. I like the family—good stock—nothing could be
better; but, Arthur, let me tell you, you'd better have it
announced and above board forthwith. You are not my
sister's son, nor the man I took you for, if you could
take advantage of the confidence inspired by your position
to carry on a flirtation.”
The blood flushed into St. John's cheeks.
“I'm not flirting, uncle; that vulgar word is no name
-- 370 --
[figure description] Page 370.[end figure description]
for my friendship with Miss Van Arsdel. It is as sacred
as the altar. I reverence her; I love her with all my
heart. I would lay down my life for her.”
“Good! but nobody wants you to lay down your life.
That is quite foreign to the purpose. What is wanting
is, that you step out like a man and define your position
with regard to Miss Van Arsdel before the world; otherwise
all the gossips will make free with her name and
yours. Depend upon it, Arthur, a man has done too
much or too little when a young lady's name is in every
one's mouth in connection with his, without a definite
engagement.”
“It is all my fault, uncle. I hadn't the remotest
idea. It's all my fault—all. I had no thought of what
the world would say; no idea that we were remarked—
but, believe me, our intimacy has been, from first to last,
entirely of my seeking. It has grown on us gradually,
till I find she is more to me than any one ever has been
or can be. Whether I am as much to her, I cannot tell.
My demands have been humble. We are not engaged,
but it shall not be my fault if another day passes and we
are not.”
“Right, my boy. I knew you. You were no nephew
of mine if you didn't feel, when your eyes were open,
the honor of the thing. God made you a gentleman
before he made you a priest, and there's but one way for
a gentleman in a case like this. If there's anything I
despise, it's a priest who uses his priestly influence,
under this fine name and that, to steal from a woman love
that does n't belong to him, and that he never can return,
and never ought to. If a man thinks he can do more
good as a single man and a missionary, well; I honor
him, but let him make the sacrifice honestly. Don't
let him want pretty girls for intimate friends or guardian
angels, or Christian sisters, or any such trumpery. It's
-- 371 --
[figure description] Page 371.[end figure description]
dishonest and disloyal; it is unfair to the woman and
selfish in the man.”
“Well, uncle, I trust you say all this because you
don't think it of me; as I know my heart before God, I
say I have not been doing so mean and cowardly a
thing There was a time when I thought I never should
marry. Those were my days of ignorance. I did not
know how much a true woman might teach me, and how
much I needed such a guide, even in my church work.”
“In short, my boy, you found out that the Lord was
right when he said, `It is not good for man to be alone.'
We pay the Lord the compliment once in a while to believe
he knows best. Depend on it, Arthur, that Christian
families are the Lord's church, and better than any
guild of monks and nuns whatsoever.”
All which was listened to by Mr. St. John with a radiant
countenance. It is all down-hill when you are
showing a man that it is his duty to do what he wants to
do. Six months before, St. John would have fought
every proposition of this speech, and brought up the
whole of the Middle Ages to back him. Now, he was
as tractable as heart could wish.
“After all, Uncle,” he said, at last, “what if she will
not have me? And what if I am not the man to make
her happy?”
“Oh, if you ask prettily, I fancy she won't say nay;
and then you must make her happy. There are no two
ways about that, my boy.”
“I'm not half good enough for her,” said St. John.
“Like enough. We are none of us good enough for
these women; but, luckily, that isn't apt to be their
opinion.”
St. John started out from the conference with an alert
step. In two days more, rumor was met with open confirmation.
St. John had had the decisive interview with
-- 372 --
[figure description] Page 372.[end figure description]
Angie, had seen and talked with her father and mother,
and been invited to a family dinner; and Angie wore on
her finger an engagement-ring. There was no more to
be said now. Mr. St. John was an idol who had stepped
down from his pedestal into the ranks of common men.
He was no longer a mysterious power—an angel of the
churches, but a man of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless,
it is an undoubted fact that, for all the purposes
of this mortal life, a good man is better than an angel.
But not so thought the ecstasia of his chapel. A
holy father, in a long black gown, with a cord round his
waist, and with a skull and hour-glass in his cell, is somehow
thought to be nearer to heaven than a family man
with a market-basket on his arm; but we question
whether the angels themselves think so. There may be
as holy and unselfish a spirit in the way a market-basket
is filled as in a week of fasting; and the oil of gladness
may make the heavenward wheels run more smoothly
than the spirit of heaviness. The first bright day, St.
John took Angie a drive in the park, a proceeding so
evidently of the earth, earthy, that Miss Gusher hid her
face, after the manner of the seraphim, as he passed; but
he and Angie were too happy and too busy in their new
world to care who looked or who didn't, and St. John
rather triumphantly remembered the free assertion of the
great apostle, “Have we not power to lead about a sister
or a wife?” and felt sure that he should have been proud
and happy to show Angie to St. Paul himself.
Alice was at first slightly disappointed, but the compensation
of receiving so very desirable a brother-in-law
reconciled her to the loss of her poetic and distant
ideal.
As to little Mrs. Betsey, she fell upon Angie's neck
in rapture; and her joy was heightened in the convincing
proof that she was now able to heap upon the
-- 373 --
[figure description] Page 373.[end figure description]
unbelieving head of Dorcas that she had been in the right all
along.
When dear little Mrs. Betsey was excited, her words
and thoughts came so thick that they were like a flock
of martins, all trying to get out of a martin-box together,—
chattering, twittering, stumbling over each other, and
coming out at heads and points in a wonderful order.
When the news had been officially sealed to her, she
begged the right to carry it to Dorcas, and ran home and
burst in upon her with shining eyes and two little pink
spots in her cheeks.
“There, Dorcas, they are engaged. Now, didn't I say
so, Dorcas? I knew it. I told you so, that Thursday
evening. Oh, you can't fool me; and that day I saw him
standing on the doorstep! I was just as certain! I saw
it just as plain! What a shame for people to talk about
him as they do, and say he's going to Rome. I wonder
what they think now? The sweetest girl in New York,
certainly. Oh! and that ring he bought! Just as if he
could be a Roman Catholic! It's big as a pea, and
sparkles beautiful, and's got the `Lord is thy keeper' in
Hebrew on the inside. I want to see Mrs. Wouvermans
and ask her what she thinks now. Oh, and he took her
to ride in such a stylish carriage, white lynx lap-robe, and
all! I don't care if he does burn candles in his chapel.
What does that prove? It don't prove anything. I like
to see people have some logic about things, for my part,
don't you, Dorcas? Don't you?”
“Mercy! yes, Betsey,” said Miss Dorcas, delighted
to see her sister so excitedly happy, “though I don't
exactly see my way clear through yours; but no matter.”
“I'm going to crochet a toilet cushion for a wedding
present, Dorcas, like that one in the red room, you know.
I wonder when it will come off? How lucky I have that
sweet cap that Mrs. Henderson made. Wasn't it good
-- 374 --
[figure description] Page 374.[end figure description]
of her to make it? I hope they'll invite us. Don't you
think they will? I suppose it will be in his chapel, with
candles and all sorts of new ways. Well, I don't care,
so long as folks are good people, what their ways are; do
you, Dorcas? I must run up and count the stitches on
that cushion this minute!” And Mrs. Betsey upset her
basket of worsteds in her zeal, and Jack flew round and
round, barking sympathetically. In fact, he was so
excited by the general breeze that he chewed up two
balls of worsted before recovering his composure. Such
was the effect of the news at the old Vanderheyden
house.
-- -- p710-396
CHAPTER XLI. LETTER FROM EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER.
[figure description] Page 375.[end figure description]
MY Dear Mother: I sit down to write to you with
a heart full of the strangest feelings and expeririences.
I feel as if I had been out in some other
world and been brought back again; and now I hardly
know myself or where I am. You know I wrote you all
about Maggie, and her leaving us, and poor Mary's
trouble about her, and how she had been since seen in a
very bad neighborhood: I promised Mary faithfully that
I would go after her; and so, after all our Christmas
labors were over, Harry and I went on a midnight excursion
with Mr. James, the Methodist minister, who has
started the mission there.
It seemed to me very strange that a minister could
have access to all those places where he proposed to
take us, and see all that was going on without insult or
danger but he told me that he was in the constant
habit of passing through the dance-houses, and talking
with the people who kept them, and that he had never
met with any rudeness or incivility.
He told us that in the very center of this worst district
of New York, among drinking saloons and dance-houses,
a few Christian people had bought a house in
which they had established a mission family, with a room
which they use for a chapel; and they hold weekly
prayer-meetings, and seek to draw in the wretched people
there.
On this evening, he said, they were about to give a
midnight supper at the Home to any poor houseless
-- 376 --
[figure description] Page 376.[end figure description]
wanderer whom they could find in those wretched streets, or
who hung about the drinking-saloons.
“Our only hope in this mission,” he said, “is to
make these wretched people feel that we really are their
friends and seek their good; and, in order to do this, we
must do something for them that they can understand.
They can all understand a good supper, when they are
lying about cold and hungry and homeless, on a stinging
cold night like this; and we don't begin to talk to
them till we have warmed and fed them. It surprises
them to have us take all this trouble to do them good;
it awakens their curiosity; they wonder what we do it
for, and then, when we tell them it is because we are
Christians, and love them, and want to save them, they
believe us. After that, they are willing to come to our
meetings, and attend to what we say.”
Now, this seemed to me good philosophy, but I could
not help saying: “Dear Mr. James, how could you have
the courage to begin a mission in such a dreadful place;
and how can you have any hope of saving such people?”
And he answered: With God, all things are possible.
That was what Christ came for—to seek and save the
lost. The Good Shepherd,” he said, “leaves the ninety
and nine safe sheep in the fold, and goes after one that
is lost until he finds it.” I asked him who supported
the Home, and he said it was supported by God, in
answer to prayer; that they made no public solicitation;
had nobody pledged to help them; but that contributions
were constantly coming in from one Christian
person or another, as they needed them; that the superintendent
and matron of the Home had no stated salary,
and devoted themselves to the work in the same faith
that the food and raiment needed would be found for
them; and so far it had not failed.
All this seemed very strange to me. It seemed a
-- 377 --
[figure description] Page 377.[end figure description]
sort of literal rendering of some of the things in the
Bible that we pass over as having no very definite meaning.
Mr. James seemed so quiet, so assured, so calm
and unexcited, that one could n't help believing him.
It seemed a great way that we rode, in parts of the
city that I never saw before, in streets whose names
were unknown to me, till finally we alighted before a
plain house in a street full of drinking-saloons. As we
drove up, we heard the sound of hymn-singing, and
looked into a long room set with benches which seemed
full of people. We stopped a moment to listen to the
words of an old Methhodist hymn;
“Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall,
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.
Not the righteous—
Sinners, Jesus came to call.
“Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify.
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings us nigh,
Without money,
Come to Jesus Christ and buy.”
It was the last hymn, and they were about breaking
up as we went into the house. This building, Mr.
James told us, used to be a rat-pit, where the lowest,
vilest, and most brutal kinds of sport were going on.
It used to be, he said, foul and filthy, physically as well
as morally; but scrubbing and paint and whitewash
had transformed it into a comfortable home. There was
a neat sitting-room, carpeted and comfortably furnished,
a dining-room, a pantry stocked with serviceable china,
a work-room with two or three sewing-machines, and a
kitchen, from which at this moment came a most
-- 378 --
[figure description] Page 378.[end figure description]
appetizing smell of the soup which was preparing for the
midnight supper. Above, were dormitories, in which
were lodging about twenty girls, who had fled to this
refuge to learn a new life. They had known the depth
of sin and the bitterness of punishment, had been
spurned, disgraced and outcast. Some of them had been
at Blackwell's Island—on the street—in the very gutter—
and now, here they were, as I saw some of them, decently
and modestly dressed, and busy preparing for the
supper. When I looked at them setting the tables, or
busy about their cooking, they seemed so cheerful and
respectable, I could scarcely believe that they had been
so degraded. A portion of them only were detailed for
the night service; the others had come up from the
chapel and were going to bed in the dormitories, and we
heard them singing a hymn before retiring. It was very
affecting to me—the sound of that hymn, and the thought
of so peaceful a home in the midst of this dreadful
neighborhood. Mr. James introduced us to the man
and his wife who take charge of the family. They are
converts—the fruits of these labors. He was once a
singer, and connected with a drinking-saloon, but was
now giving his whole time and strength to this work, in
which he had all the more success because he had so
thorough an experience and knowledge of the people to
be reached. We were invited to sit down to a supper
in the dining-room, for Mr. James said we should be out
so late before returning home that we should need something
to sustain us. So we took some of the soup which
was preparing for the midnight supper, and very nice and
refreshing we found it. After this, we went out with
Mr. James and the superintendent, to go through the
saloons and dance-houses and drinking places, and to
distribute tickets of invitation to the supper. What we
saw seems now to me like a dream. I had heard that
-- 379 --
[figure description] Page 379.[end figure description]
such things were, but never before did I see them. We
went from one place to another, and always the same
features—a dancing-room, with girls and women dressed
and ornamented, sitting round waiting for partners; men
of all sorts walking in and surveying and choosing from
among them and dancing, and, afterwards or before,
going with them to the bar to drink. Many of these
girls looked young and comparatively fresh; their
dresses were cut very low, so that I blushed for them
through my veil. I clung tight to Harry's arm, and
asked myself where I was, as I moved round among
them. Nobody noticed us. Everybody seemed to have
a right to be there, and see what they could.
I remember one large building of two or three stories,
with larger halls below, all lighted up, with dancing and
drinking going on, and throngs and throngs of men, old
and young, pouring and crowding through it. These
tawdrily bedizened, wretched girls and women seemed
to me such a sorrow and disgrace to womanhood and to
Christianity that my very heart sunk, as I walked among
them. I felt as if I could have cried for their disgrace.
Yet nobody said a word to us. All the keepers of the
places seemed to know Mr. James and the superintendent.
He spoke to them all kindly and politely, and
they answered with the same civility. In one or two
of the saloons, the superintendent asked leave to sing a
song, which was granted, and he sung the hymn that
begins:
“I love to tell the story
Of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and his glory,
Of Jesus and his love;
I love to tell the story—
It did so much for me—
And that is just the reason
I tell it unto thee.”
-- 380 --
[figure description] Page 380.[end figure description]
At another place, he sung “Home, sweet home,” and
I thought I saw many faces that looked sad. Either our
presence was an embarrassment, or for some other reason
it seemed to me there was no real gaiety, and that the
dancing and the keeping up of a show of hilarity were
all heavy work.
There seems, however, to be a gradation in these
dreadful places. Besides these which were furnished
with some show and pretension, there were cellars where
the same sort of thing was going on—dancing and
drinking, and women set to be the tempters of men. We
saw miserable creatures standing out on the sidewalk, to
urge the passers-by to come into these cellars. It was
pitiful, heart-breaking to see.
But the lowest, the most dreadful of all, was what
they called the bucket shops. There the vilest of liquors
are mixed in buckets and sold to wretched, crazed
people who have fallen so low that they cannot get
anything better. It is the lowest depth of the dreadful
deep.
Oh, those bucket shops! Never shall I forget the
poor, forlorn, forsaken-looking creatures, both men and
women, that I saw there. They seemed crouching in
from the cold—hanging about, or wandering uncertainly
up and down. Mr. James spoke to many of them, as
if he knew them, kindly and sorrowfully. “This is a
hard way you are going,” he said to one. “Ar'n't you
most tired of it?” “Well,” he said to another poor
creature, “when you have gone as far as you can, and
come to the end, and nobody will have you, and nobody
do anything for you, then come to us, and we'll take
you in.”
During all this time, and in all these places, the
Superintendent, who seemed to have a personal knowledge
of many of those among whom he was moving, was
-- 381 --
[figure description] Page 381.[end figure description]
busy distributing his tickets of invitation to the supper.
He knew where the utterly lost and abandoned ones
were most to be found, and to them he gave most
regard.
But as yet, though I looked with anxious eyes, I had
seen nothing of Maggie. I spoke to Mr. James at last,
and he said, “We have not yet visited Mother Moggs's
establishment, where she was said to be. We are going
there now.”
“Mother Moggs is a character in her way,” he told
us. “She has always treated me with perfect respect
and politeness, because I have shown the same to her.
She seems at first view like any other decent woman,
but she is one that, if she were roused, would be as
prompt with knife and pistol as any man in these
streets.” As he said this, we turned a corner, and entered
a dancing-saloon, in its features much like many
others we had seen. Mother Moggs stood at a sort of
bar at the upper end, where liquors were displayed and
sold. She seemed really so respectably dressed, and so
quiet and pleasant-looking, that I could scarcely believe
my eyes when I saw her.
Mr. James walked up with us to where she was
standing, and spoke to her, as he does to every one,
gently and respectfully, inquiring after her health, and
then, in a lower tone, he said, “And how about the health
of your soul?”
She colored, and forced a laugh, and answered with
some smartness: “Which soul do you mean? I've got
two—one on each foot.”
He took no notice of the jest, but went on:
“And how about the souls of these girls? What will
become of them?”
“I ain't hurting their souls,” she said. “I don't
force 'em to stay with me; they come of their own
-- 382 --
[figure description] Page 382.[end figure description]
accord, and they can go when they please. I don't keep
'em. If any of my girls can better themselves anywhere
else, I don't stand in their way.”
The air of virtuous assurance with which she spoke
would have given the impression that she was pursuing,
under difficult circumstances, some praiseworthy branch
of industry at which her girls were apprentices.
Just at this moment, I turned, and saw Maggie standing
behind me. She was not with the other girls, but
standing a little back, toward the bar. Instantly I
crossed over, and, raising my veil, said, “Maggie, poor
child! come back to your mother.”
Her face changed in a moment; she looked pale, as
if she were going to faint, and said only, “Oh! Mrs.
Henderson, you here?”
“Yes, I came to look for you, Maggie. Come right
away with us,” I said. “O Maggie! come,” and I burst
into tears.
She seemed dreadfully agitated, but said:
“Oh, I can't; it's too late!”
“No, it isn't. Mr. James,” I said, “here she is. Her
mother has sent for her.”
“And you, madam,” said Mr. James to the woman,
“have just said you wouldn't stand in the way, if any of
your girls could better themselves.”
The woman was fairly caught in her own trap. She
cast an evil look at us all, but said nothing, as we
turned to leave, I holding upon Maggie, determined not
to let her go.
We took her with us to the Home. She was crying
as if her heart would break. The girls who were getting
the supper looked at her with sympathy and gathered
round her. One of them interested me deeply. She
was very pale and thin, but had such a sweet expression
of peace and humility in her face! She came and sat
-- 383 --
[figure description] Page 383.[end figure description]
down by Maggie and said, “Don't be afraid; this is
Christ's home, and he will save you as he has me. I
was worse than you are—worse than you ever could be—
and He has saved me. I am so happy here!”
And now the miserable wretches who had been invited
to the supper came pouring in. Oh, such a sight!
Such forlorn wrecks of men, in tattered and torn garments,
with such haggard faces, such weary, despairing
eyes! They looked dazed at the light and order and
quiet they saw as they came in. Mr. James and the
superintendent stood at the door, saying, “Come in,
boys, come in; you're welcome heartily! Here you are,
glad to see you,” seating them on benches at the lower
part of the room.
While the supper was being brought in, the table was
set with an array of bowls of smoking hot soup and a
large piece of nice white bread at each place. When all
had been arranged, Mr. James saw to seating the whole
band at the tables, asked a blessing, standing at the
head, and then said, cheerily, “Now, boys, fall to; eat all
you want; there is plenty more where this came from,
and you shall have as much as you can carry.”
The night was cold, and the soup was savory and
hot, and the bread white and fine, and many of them ate
with a famished appetite; the girls meanwhile stood
watchful to replenish the bowls or hand more bread.
All seemed to be done with such a spirit of bountiful,
cheerful good-will as was quite inspiriting.
It was not till hunger was fully satisfied that Mr.
James began to talk to them, and when he did, I wondered
at his tact.
“This is quite the thing, now, is n't it, boys, of a cold
night like this, when a fellow is hungry? See what it is
to have friends.
“I suppose, boys, you get better suppers than these
-- 384 --
[figure description] Page 384.[end figure description]
from those fellows that you buy your drink of. They
make suppers for you sometimes, I suppose?”
“No, indeed,” growled some of the men. “Catch
'em doing it!”
“Why, I should think they ought to, when you spend
all your money on them. You pay all your money to
them, and make yourselves so poor that you have n't a
crust, and then they won't even get you a supper?”
“No, that they won't,” growled some. “They don't
care if we starve.”
“Boys,” said Mr. James, “are n't you fools? Here
these men get rich, and you get poor. You pay all your
earnings to them. You can't have anything, and they
have everything. They can have plate-glass windows,
and they can keep their carriages, and their wives have
their silk dresses and jewels, and you pay for it all; and
then, when you've spent your last cent over their counters,
they kick you into the street. Are n't you fools
to be supporting such men? Your wives do n't get
any silk dresses, I'll bet. O boys, where are your
wives?—where are your mothers?—where are your
children?”
By this time they were looking pretty sober, and some
of them had tears in their eyes.
“Oh, boys, boys! this is a bad way you've been in—
a bad way. Have n't you gone long enough? Don't you
want to give it up? Look here—now, boys, I'll read
you a story.” And then he read from his pocket Testament
the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He read it beautifully:
I thought I had never understood it before.
When he had done, he said, “And now, boys, had n't you
better come back to your Father? Do you remember,
some of you, how your mother used to teach you to say,
`Our Father, who art in heaven?' Come now, kneel
down, every one of you, and let's try it once more.”
-- 385 --
[figure description] Page 385.[end figure description]
They all knelt, and I never heard anything like that
prayer. It was so loving, so earnest, so pitiful. He
prayed for those poor men, as if he were praying for his
own soul. They must have felt how he loved them. It
almost broke my heart to hear him: it did seem for the
time as if the wall were down that separates God's love
from us, and that everybody must feel it, even these poor
wretched creatures.
There were among them some young men, and some
whose heads and features were good, and indicative of
former refinement of feeling. I could not help thinking
how many histories of sorrow, for just so many families,
were written in those faces.
“Is it possible that you can save any of these?” I
said to Mr. James, as they were going out.
“We cannot, but God can,” he said “With God,
all things are possible. We have seen a great many
saved that were as low as these; but it was only by the
power of God converting their souls. That is at all
times possible.”
“But,” said Harry, “the craving for drink gets to be
a physical disease.”
“Yet I have seen that craving all subdued and taken
away by the power of the Holy Spirit. They become
new creatures in Christ.”
“That would be almost miraculous,” said Harry.
“We must expect miracles, and we shall have them,”
replied he.
Meanwhile the girls had gathered around Maggie,
and were talking with her, and when we spoke of going,
she said:
“Dear Mrs. Henderson, let me stay here awhile; the
girls here will help me, and I can do some good here,
and by-and-by, perhaps, when I am stronger, I can come
back to mother. It's better for me here now.”
-- 386 --
[figure description] Page 386.[end figure description]
Mr. James and the matron both agreed that, for the
present, this would be best.
There is a current of sympathy, an energy of Christian
feeling, a sort of enthusiasm, about this house, that
helps one to begin anew.
It was nearly morning before we found ourselves in
our home again—but, for me, the night has not been
spent in vain. Oh, mother, can it be that in a city full
of churches and Christians such dreadful things as I saw
are going on every night? Certainly, if all Christians
felt about it as those do who have begun this Home, there
would be a change. If every Christian would do a little,
a great deal would be done; for there are many Christians.
But now it seems as if a few were left to do all,
while the many do nothing. But Harry and I are resolved
henceforth to do our part in helping this work.
Mary is comforted about Maggie and unboundedly
grateful to me for going.
I think she herself prefers her staying there awhile;
she has felt so keenly what Aunt Maria said about her
being a burden and disgrace to us.
We shall watch over her there, and help her forward
in life as fast as she is strong enough to go. But I am
making this letter too long, so good-by for the present.
Your loving Eva.
-- -- p710-408
CHAPTER XLII. JIM'S FORTUNES.
[figure description] Page 387.[end figure description]
“WELL, hurrah for Jim!” exclaimed our friend
Jim Fellows, making tumultuous entrance into
the Henderson house, with such a whirl and breeze of
motion as to flutter the music on the piano, and the
papers on Harry's writing-desk, while he skipped round
the room, executing an extemporary pas seul.
“Jim, for goodness sake, what now?” said Harry,
rising. “What's up?”
“I've got it! I've got it!—the first place on `the
Forum!' Think of the luck! I've been talking with
Ivison and Sears about it, and the papers are all drawn.
I'm made now, you'd better believe. It's firm land at
last, and I tell you, if I have n't scratched for it!”
“Wish you joy, my boy, with all my heart,” said
Harry, shaking his hand. “It's the top of the ladder.”
“And I, too, Jim,” said Eva, offering her hand frankly.
“Sit down and have a cup of tea with us.”
“You don't care, I suppose, what happens to me,”
said Jim in an abused tone, turning to Alice, who had
sat quietly in a shaded corner through this outburst.
“Bless me, Jim, I've been holding my breath, for I
did n't know what you'd do next. I'm sure I wish you
joy with all my heart. There's my hand on it,” and
Alice reached out her hand as frankly as Eva.
It was a hand as fair, soft and white as a man might
wish to have settle like a dove of peace and rest in his
own; and, as it went into his palm, Jim could not help
giving it a warm, detaining grasp that had a certain
-- 388 --
[figure description] Page 388.[end figure description]
significance, especially as his eyes rested upon her with
a flash of expression before which hers fell.
Alice had come to Eva's to dine, and they were now
just enjoying that pleasant after-dinner hour around the
fireside, when they sat and played with their tea in pretty
teacups, and chatted, and looked into the fire. It is the
hour dear to memory, when the home fireside seems like
a picture, when the gleams of light that fall on one's
plants and pictures and books and statuettes, bring forth
some new charm in each one, giving rise to the exulting
feeling, “Nowhere in the world is there a place so pretty
and so cosy as this.”
Now, Alice had been meditating a return to her own
home that night, trusting to Harry for escort; but, at the
moment that Jim took her hand and she saw the expression
of his eyes, she mentally altered her intentions and
resolved to remain all night. She was sure if she rose
to go Jim would, of course, be her escort. She was not
going to walk home alone with him in his present mood,
and trust herself to hear, and be obliged to answer, anything
he might be led to say.
The fact is well known to observers of mental phenomena,
that an engagement suddenly sprung upon a
circle of intimate acquaintances is often productive of
great searchings of heart, and that it is apt to have a
result similar to the knocking down of one brick at the
extreme of a line of them.
Alice had been startled and astonished by finding
her rector descending from the semi-angelic sphere
where she had, in her imagination, placed him, and
coming into the ranks of mortal and marrying men.
She had seen and handled the engagement ring which
sparkled on Angie's finger, and it looked like any other
ring that a gentleman of good taste might buy, and
she had heard all the comments of the knowing ones
-- 389 --
[figure description] Page 389.[end figure description]
thereon. Already there was activity in the direction of
a prospective trousseau. Aunt Maria, with her usual
alertness, was prizing stuffs and giving records of prices
and of cheap and desirable shopping places, and racing
from one end of the city to the other in self-imposed
pilgrimages of research. There were discussions of
houses for the future rectory. Everything was in a
whirl of preparation. There was marriage in the very
air: and the same style of reflection which occurs when
there is a death, is apposite also to the betrothal—
“Whose turn shall come next?” “Hodie mihi—cras tibi.”
Jim Fellows, the most excitable, sympathetic of all
mortal Jims, may well be supposed to have felt something
of the general impulse.
Now, Miss Alice was as fine a specimen of younglady-hood
at twenty-two as is ordinarily to be met with
in New York or otherwhere. She was well read, well
bred, high-minded and high-principled. She was a little
inclined to the ultra-romantic in her views, and while
living along contentedly, and with a moderate degree of
good sense and comfort, with such people as were to be
found on earth, was a little prone to indulge dreams of
super-celestial people—imaginary heroes and heroines.
In the way of friendship, she imagined she liked many
of her gentlemen associates; but the man she was to
marry was to be a hero—somebody before whom she
and every one else should be irresistibly constrained to
bow down and worship. She knew nobody of this species
as yet.
Harry was all very well; a nice fellow—a bright,
lively, wide-awake fellow—a faultless husband—a desirable
brother-in-law; but still Harry was not a hero.
He was a man subject to domestic discipline for at
times littering the parlor table with too many pamphlets,
for giving imprudent invitations to dinner on an
-- 390 --
[figure description] Page 390.[end figure description]
ill-considered bill of fare, and for confounding solferino
with pink when describing colors or matching worsteds.
All these things brought him down into the sphere of
the actual, and took off the halo. In review of all the
married men of her acquaintance, she was constrained
to acknowledge that the genus hero was rare. Nobody
that she was acquainted with ever had married this kind
of being; and, in fact, within her own mind his lineaments
were cloudy and indistinct, like the magic looking-glass
of Agrippa before the destined image shone out.
She only knew of this or that mortal man of her
acquaintance, that he was not in the least like this ideal
of her dreams.
Meanwhile, Miss Alice was not at all insensible to
the charm of having a friend of the other sex wholly
and entirely devoted to her.
She thought she had with most exemplary frankness
and directness indicated to Jim that they were to be
friends and only friends; she had contended for her right
to be just as intimate with him as he and she pleased, in
the face of Aunt Maria and of all the ranks and orders
of good gossips who make the regulation of other people's
affairs a specialty; and she flattered herself that
she had at last conquered this territory and secured for
herself this independent right.
People had almost done telling her they had heard
that she was engaged to Jim Fellows, and asking her
when it was going to be announced. She plumed herself,
in a quiet way, on the independence and spirit she
had shown in the matter.
Now, Jim was one of those fellows who, in certain
respects, remain a boy forever. The boy in him was certainly
booked for as long a mortal journey as the man;
and, at threescore years and ten, one ought not to expect
to meet in him other than a white-headed, vivacious old
-- 391 --
[figure description] Page 391.[end figure description]
boy. He was a driving, industrious, efficient creature.
He was, in all respects, ideally fitted to success in the
profession he had chosen; the very image and body of
the New York press man—lively, versatile, acute, unsleeping,
untiring, always wide-awake, up and dressed,
and in full command of his faculties, at any hour of day
or night, ready for any emergency, overflowing with
inconsiderate fun and frolic, and, like the public he
served, going for his joke at any price. Since his intimacy
with Alice she had assumed to herself the right of
looking over his ways and acting the part of an exterior
conscience; and Jim had formed the habit of bringing
to her his articles for criticism. And Alice flattered herself
that she was not altogether selfish in accepting his
devotion, but was saving him from many an unwise escapade,
and exciting him to higher standards and nobler
ways of looking at life.
Of all the Christian and becoming rôles in the great
drama of life, there is none that so exactly suits young
ladies of a certain degree of gravity and dignity as that
of guardian angel.
Now, in respect to Jim, Alice certainly was fitted to
sustain this rôle. She was well-poised, decided, sensible
and serious in her conceptions of life, truthful and conscientious;
and the dash of ideality which pervaded all
her views gave to her, in the eyes of the modern New
York boy, a sort of sacred prestige, like the halo around
a saint.
No one sees life on a harder, colder, more utterly
unscrupulous side than the élève of the New York press.
He grinds in a mill of competition. He serves sharp and
severe masters, who in turn are driven up by an exacting,
irresponsible public, panting for excitement, grasping for
the latest sensation. The man of the press sees behind
the scenes in every illusion of life; the shapeless pulleys,
-- 392 --
[figure description] Page 392.[end figure description]
the dripping tallow candles that light up the show, all are
familiar to him.
To him come all the tribes who have axes to grind,
and want him to turn their grindstones. Avarice, ambition,
petty vanity, private piques, mean intrigues, sly
revenges, all unbosom themselves to him as to a father
confessor, and invoke his powerful aid. To him it is
given to see the back door and back stairs of much that
the world venerates, and he finds there filthy sweepings
and foul débris. Even the church of every name and
sect has its back door, its unsightly sweepings. He who
is in so many secrets, who expolres so many cabals, who
sees the wrong side of so many a fair piece of goods, with
all its knots, and jags, and thrums, what wonder if he
come to that worse form of scepticism—the doubt of all
truth, of all virtue, of all honor? When he sees how
reputations can be made and unmade in the secret conclaves
of printing offices, how generous and holy enthusiasms
are assumed as a cloak for low and selfish designs,
how the language which stirs man's deepest nature lies
around loose in the hands of skilled word-experts, to be
used in getting up cabals and carrying party intrigues,
it is scarcely to be wondered at if he come to regard life
as a mere game of skill, where the shrewdest player wins.
It is exactly here that a true, good woman is the moral
salvation of man. Such a woman seems to a man more
than she can ever seem to her female acquaintances.
She is to him the proof of a better world, of a truer life,
of the reality of justice, purity, honor, and unselfishness.
He regards her, to be sure, as unpractical, and ignorant
of the world's ways, but with a holy ignorance which
belongs to a higher region.
Jim had dived into New York life at first with the
mere animal recklessness with which an expert swimmer
shows his skill in difficult navigation. Life was an
-- 393 --
[figure description] Page 393.[end figure description]
adventure, a game, a game at which he was determined
nobody should cheat him, a race in which he was determined
to come out ahead. Nobody should catch him
napping; nobody should outwit him; he would be
nobody's fool. His acquaintance with a certain class of
girls was only a continuation of the bright, quick, adroit
game of fencing which he played in the world. If a girl
would flirt, so would Jim. He was au courant of all the
positions and strategy of that sort of encounter; he had
all the persiflage of flattery and compliment at his
tongue's end, and enjoyed the rustle and flutter of ribbons,
the tapping of fans, and the bustle and mystery of
small secrets, the little “ohs and ahs,” and feminine commotions
that he could stir up in almost any bevy of
nymphs in evening dresses. Speaking of female influence,
there are some exceptions to be taken to the general
theory that woman has an elevating power over
man. It may be doubted whether there goes any of
this divine impulse from giggling, flirting girls, whose
highest aim is to secure the admiration and attention
of men, and who, to get it, will flatter and fawn, profess
to adore tobacco smoke, and even to have a warm
side towards whiskey punch,—girls whose power over
men is based on an indiscriminate deference to what
men themselves feel to be their lower and less worthy
nature.
The woman who really wins for herself a worthy
influence with a man is she who recognizes in him the
divine under all worldly disguises, and invariably and
strongly takes part with his higher against his lower
nature. This was the secret of Alice's power over Jim;
and this was why she had become, in the secret and
inner world of his life, almost a religious image. All his
dawning aspirations to be somewhat better than a mere
chaser of expedients, to be a man of lofty objects and
-- 394 --
[figure description] Page 394.[end figure description]
noble purposes, had come from her acquaintance with
him—an acquaintance begun on both sides in the spirit
of mere flirtation, and passing from that to esteem and
friendship. But, in the case of a marriageable young
man of twenty-five, friendship is like some of those rare
cacti of the greenhouses which, in an unexpected hour,
burst out into blossoms of untold splendor. An engagement
just declared in their circle had breathed a warmer
atmosphere of suggestion around them, and upon that
had come a position in his profession which offered him
both consideration and money; and when Jim was
assured of this, his first thought was of Alice.
“Friendship is a humbug,” was that young gentlemen's
mental decision. “It may do all very well with
some kinds of girls”—and Jim mentally reviewed some of
his lady acquaintances—“but with Alice Van Arsdel, it
is all humbug for me to go on talking friendship. I
can't, and shan't, and WON'T.” And in this mood it was
that he gave to Alice's hand that startling kind of
pressure, and something of this flashed from his eyes
into hers. It was that something, like the gleam of a
steel blade, determined, resolute, assured, that disconcerted
and alarmed her. It was like the sounding of a
horn, summoning a parley at the postern gate of a fortress,
and the lady chatelaine not ready either to surrender
or to defend. So, in a moment, Alice resolved
not to walk the four or five squares between her present
position and home, tête-à-tête with Jim Fellows; and she
sat very composed and very still in her corner, and put
in demand all those quiet, repressive tactics by which
dignified young ladies keep back issues they are not
precisely ready to meet.
The general subject under discussion when Jim came
in, was a party to be given at Aunt Maria's the next
evening in honor of the Stephenses, when Angie and Mr.
-- 395 --
[figure description] Page 395.[end figure description]
St. John would make their first appearance together as
a betrothed couple.
“Now, Jim,” said Eva, “how lucky that you came in,
for I was just going to send a note to you! Here's
Harry has got to give a lecture to-morrow night and
can't come in till towards the end of the evening.
Alice is coming to dine and dress down here with me,
and I want you to dine with us and be our escort to the
party—that is, if you will put up with our dressing time
and not get into such a state of perfect amazement as
Harry always does when we are not ready at the moment.”
“If you ever get a wife, Jim, you'll be made perfect
in this science of waiting,” said Harry. “The only way
to have a woman ready in season for a party is to shut
her up just after breakfast and keep her at it straight
along through the day. Then you may have her before
ten o'clock.”
“You see,” said Eva, “Harry's only idea, when he
is going to a party, is to get home again early. We
almost never go, and then he is in such a hurry to get
there, so as to have it over with and be at home again.”
“Well, I confess, for my part, I hate parties,” said
Harry. “They always get agoing just about my usual
bed-time.”
“Well, Harry, you know Aunt Maria wants an old-fashioned,
early party, at eight o'clock at the latest; and
when she says she wants a thing, she means it. She
would never forgive us for being late.”
“Dear me, Eva, do begin to dress over night then,”
said Harry. “You certainly never will get through to-morrow,
if you don't.”
“Harry, you sauce-box, I think you talk abominably
about me. Just because I have so many more things
to see to than he has! A woman's dress, of course,
-- 396 --
[figure description] Page 396.[end figure description]
takes more time; there's a good deal more to do and
every little thing has to be just right.
“Of course, I know that,” said Harry. “Have n't I
stood, and stood, and stood, while bows were tied, and
picked out, and patted, and flatted, and then pulled out
and tied over, and when we were half an hour behind
time already?”
“I fancy,” said Alice, “that if the secrets of some
young gentlemen's toilets were unveiled, we should see
that we were not alone in tying bows and pulling them
out. I've known Tom to labor over his neck-ties by the
hour together; it took him quite as long to prink as any
of us girls.”
“But do n't you be alarmed, Jim,” said Eva; “we intend
to be on time.”
“No, do n't,” said Harry; “you can have my writing-table,
and get up your editorials, while the conjuration
is going on up-stairs.”
“Just think,” said Alice, “how Aunt Maria is coming
out.”
“Why, yes, it's a larger affair than usual,” said Eva.
“A hundred invitations! That must be on account of
Angie.”
“Oh, yes,” said Alice, “Aunt Maria is pluming herself
on Angie's engagement. Since she has discovered
that Mr. St. John has an independent fortune, there is
no end to her praises and felicitations. Oh, and she
has altered her opinion entirely about his ritualism.
The Bishop, she says, stands by him; and what the
Bishop doesn't condemn, nobody has any right to; and
then she sets forth what a good family he belongs to, and
so well connected! I'd like to see anybody say anything
against Mr. St. John's practices before Aunt Maria now!”
“I'm sure this party is quite an outlay for Aunt
Maria,” said Eva.
-- 397 --
[figure description] Page 397.[end figure description]
“Oh,” said Alice, “she's making all her jellies, and
blanc-manges, and ice creams in the house. You know
how perfectly she always does things. I've been up
helping her. She will have a splendid table. She was
rather glorifying herself to me that she could get up so
fine a show at so little expense.”
“Well, she can,” said Eva. “No one can get more
for a given amount of money than Aunt Maria. I suppose
that is one of the womanly virtues, and one can
learn as much of it from her as anybody.”
“Yes,” said Alice, “if a stylish party is the thing to
be demonstrated, Aunt Maria will get one up more successfully,
more perfect in all points, and for less money,
than any other woman in New York. She will have
exactly the right people, and exactly the right things to
give them. Her rooms will be lovely. She will be
dressed herself to a T, and she will say just the right
thing to everybody. All her nice silver and her pretty
things will come out of their secret crypts and recesses
to do honor to the occasion, and, for one night, all will be
suavity and sociability personified; and then everything
will go back into lavender, the silver to the safe, the
chairs and lounges to their cover, the shades will come
down, and her part of the world's debt of sociability will
be done up for the year. Then she will add up the
expense, and set it down in her account book, and that
thing 'll be finished and checked off.”
“A mode of proceeding which she was very anxious
to engraft upon me,” said Eva; “but I am a poor
stock. My instincts are for what she would call an
expensive, chronic state of hospitality, as we live down
here.”
“Well,” said Jim, “when I get a house of my own,
I'm going to do as you do.”
“Jim has got sight of the domestic tea-kettle in the
-- 398 --
[figure description] Page 398.[end figure description]
future,” said Harry. “That's the first effect of his promotion.”
“Oh, do n't be in a hurry about setting up a house of
your own,” said Eva. “I'm afraid we should miss you
here, and you're an institution, Jim; we could n't get on
without you.”
“Oh, Jim ought not to give up to one what was
meant for mankind,” said Alice, hardily. “I think there
would be a universal protest against his retiring to private
life.”
And Alice looked into the fire, apparently as sweetly
unconscious of anything particular on Jim's part as if
she had not read aright the flash of his eye and the pressure
of his hand.
Jim seemed vexed and nervous, and talked extravaganzas
all the evening, with more than even his usual
fluency, and towards ten o'clock said to Alice:
“I am at your command at any time, when you are
ready to return home.”
“Thank you, Jim,” said Alice, with that demure and
easy composure with which young ladies avoid a crisis
without seeming to see it. “I am going to stay here
to-night, to discuss some important points of party costume
with Eva; so mind you don't fail us to-morrow
night. Au revoir!”
-- -- p710-420
CHAPTER XLIII. A MIDNIGHT CAUCUS OVER THE COALS.
[figure description] Page 399.[end figure description]
“NOW, do n't you girls sit up and talk all night,”
said Harry from the staircase, as he started
bedward, after Jim Fellows had departed, and the
house-door was locked for the night.
Now, Eva was one of that class of household birds
whose eyes grow wider awake and brighter as the small
hours of the night approach; and, just this night, she
felt herself swelling with a world of that distinctively
feminine talk which women keep for each other, when
the lordly part of creation are out of sight and hearing.
Harry, who worked hard in his office all day and came
home tired at night, and who had the inevitable next
day's work ever before him, was always an advocate for
early and regular hours, and regarded these sisterly
night-watches with suspicion.
“You know, now, Eva, that you oughtn't to sit up
late. You're not strong,” he preached from the stair-case
in warning tones, as he slowly ascended.
“Oh, no, dear; we won't be long. We've just got a
few things to talk over.”
“Well, you know you never know what time it is.”
“Oh, never you mind, Harry; you'll be asleep in ten
minutes. I want to talk with Ally.”
“There, now, he's off,” said Eva, gleefully shutting
the door and drawing an easy chair to the remains of the
fire, while she disposed the little unburned brands and
ends so as to make a last blaze; then, leaning back, she
began taking out hair-pins and shaking down curls and
-- 400 -- p710-421
[figure description] Page 400.[end figure description]
untying ribbons, as a sort of preface to a wholly free and
easy conversation. “I think, Ally,” she said, with an air
of profound reflection, “if I were you, I should wear my
white tarletan to-morrow night, with cherry-colored
trimming, and cherry velvet in your hair. You see that
altering the trimming changes the whole effect, so that it
will look exactly like a new dress.”
“I was thinking of doing something with the tarletan,”
said Alice, who had also taken out her hair-pins and
let down her long dark masses of hair around her handsome
oval face, while her great dark eyes were studying
the coals abstractedly. It was quite evident by the deep
intense gaze she fixed before her that it was not the
tarletan or the trimmings that at that moment occupied
her mind, but something deeper.
Eva saw and suspected, and went on designedly:
“How nice and lucky it was that Jim came in just as
he did.”
“Yes, it was lucky,” repeated Alice, abstractedly,
taking off her neck-scarf, and folding and smoothing it
with an unnecessary amount of precision.
“Jim is such a nice fellow,” said Eva. “I am thoroughly
delighted that he has got that situation. It is
really quite a position for him.”
“Yes, Jim is doing very well,” said Alice, with a certain
uneasy motion.
“I really think,” pursued Eva, “that your friendship
has been everything to Jim. We all notice how much he
has improved.”
“It's only that we know him better,” said Alice.
“Jim always was a nice fellow; but it takes a very intimate
acquaintance to get at the real earnest nature there
is under all his nonsense. But after all, Eva, I'm a little
afraid of trouble in that friendship.”
“Trouble—how?” said Eva, with the most innocent
-- --
A MIDNIGHT CAUCUS.
"'There, now he's off,' said Eva. . . then, leaning back, she
began taking out hair-pins and shaking down curls and untying
ribbons as a preface to a wholly free conversation."—p. 400.
[figure description] Illustration page. Image of two women sitting relaxed. One woman is taking pins out of her hair while she chats.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- 401 --
[figure description] Page 401.[end figure description]
air in the world, as if she did not feel perfectly sure of
what was coming next.
“Well, I do think, and I always have said, that an
intimate friendship between a lady and a gentleman is
just the best thing for both parties.”
“Well, is n't it?” said Eva.
“Well, yes. But the difficulty is, it won't stay. It
will get to be something more than you want, and that
makes a trouble. Now, did you notice Jim's manner to
me to-night?”
“Well, I thought I saw something rather suspicious,”
said Eva, demurely; “but then you always have been
so sure that there was nothing, and was to be nothing,
in that quarter.”
“Well, I never have meant there should be. I have
been perfectly honorable and above-board with Jim;
treated him just like a sister, and I thought there was
the most perfect understanding between us.”
“Well, you see, darling,” said Eva, “I've sometimes
thought whether it was quite fair to let any one be so
very intimate with one, unless one were willing to take
the consequences, in case his feelings should become
deeply involved. Now, we should have thought it a bad
thing for Mr. St. John to go on cultivating an intimate
friendship with Angie, if he never meant to marry. It
would be taking from her feelings and affections that
might be given to some one who would make her happy
for life; and I think some women, I don't mean you, of
course, but some women I have seen and heard of, like
to absorb all the feeling and devotion a man has without
in the least intending to marry him. They keep him
from being interested in any one else who might make
him a happy home, and won't have him themselves.”
“Eva, you are too hard,” said Alice.
“Understand me, dear; I said I didn't mean you, for
-- 402 --
[figure description] Page 402.[end figure description]
I think your course has been perfectly honorable and
honest so far; but I do think you have got to a place
that needs care. It's my positive belief that Jim not
only loves you, Alice, but that he is in love with you
in a way that will have the most serious effect on his life
and character.”
“Oh, dear me, that's just what I've been fearing,”
said Alice, “is n't it too bad? I really do n't think it's
my fault. Do you know, Eva, I came here meaning to
go home to-night, and I stayed only because I was afraid
to walk home with Jim. I was sure if I did there would
be a crisis of some kind.”
“For my part, Ally,” said Eva, “I'm not so very sure
that there has n't been some advance in your feelings, as
well as in Jim's. I don't see why you should set it
down among the impossibles that you should marry Jim
Fellows.”
“Oh! well,” said Alice, “I like—yes, I really love
Jim very much; he is very agreeable to me, always. I
know nobody, on the whole, more so; but then, Eva,
he's not at all the sort of man I have ever thought of as
possible for me to marry. Oh! not at all,” and Alice
gazed before her into the coals, as if she saw her hero
through them.
“And what sort of a man is this phenix?”
“Oh! something grave, and deep, and high, and
heroic.”
Eva gave a light, little shrug to her shoulders, and
rippled a laugh. “And when you have got such a man,
you will have to ask him to go to market for beef and
cranberry sauce. You will have to get him to match
your worsted, and carry your parcels, and talk over with
him about how to cure the chimney of smoking and
make the kitchen range draw. Don't you think a hero
will be a rather cumbersome help in housekeeping?
-- 403 --
[figure description] Page 403.[end figure description]
Besides, your heroes like to sit on pedestals and have
you worship them. Now, for my part, I'd rather have a
good kind man that will worship me.
“`A creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food.'
A man like Harry, for instance. Harry isn't a hero;
he's a good, true, noble-hearted boy, though, and I'd
rather have him than the angel Gabriel, if I could choose
now. I don't see what's to object to in Jim, if you
like him and love him, as you say. He's handsome;
he's lively and cheerful; he's kind-hearted and obliging;
and he's certainly true and constant in his affections:
and now he has a good position, and one where he can
do a good work in the world, and your influence might
help him in it.”
“Why, Eva, you seem to be pleading for him like a
lawyer,” said Alice, apparently not at all displeased to
hear that side of the question discussed.
“Well, really,” said Eva, “I do think it would be a
nice thing for us all if you could like Jim, for he's one
of us; we all know him and like him, and he would n't
take you away to the ends of the earth; you might settle
right down here, and live near us, and all go on together
cosily. Jim is just the fellow to make a bright, pleasant,
hospitable home; and he's certain to be a devoted husband
to whomever he marries.”
“Jim ought to be married, certainly,” said Alice, in
a reflective tone. “Just the right kind of a marriage
would be the making of him.”
“Well, look over the girls you know, and see if there's
any one that you would like to have Jim marry.”
“I know,” said Alice, with a quickened flush of
color, “that there is n't a girl he cares a snap of his
finger for.”
“There's Jane Stuyvesant.”
-- 404 --
[figure description] Page 404.[end figure description]
“Oh, nonsense! don't mention Jane Stuyvesant!”
“Well, she's rich, and brilliant, and very gracious to
Jim.”
“Well, I happen to know just how much that
amounts to. Jim never would have a serious thought
of Jane Stuyvesant—that I'm certain of. She's a perfectly
frivolous girl, and he knows it.”
“I've thought sometimes he was quite attentive to
one of those Stephenson girls, at Aunt Maria's.”
“What, Sophia Stephenson! You could n't have got
more out of the way. Why, no! Why, she's nothing
but a breathing wax doll; that's all there is to her. Jim
never could care for her.”
“Well, what was it about that Miss Du Hare?”
“Oh, nothing at all, except that she was a dashing,
flirting young thing that took a fancy to Jim and invited
him to her opera box, and of course Jim went. The fact
is, Jim is good-looking and lively and gay, and will go a
certain way with any nice girl. He likes to have a jolly,
good time; but he has his own thoughts about them all,
as I happen to know. There is n't one of these that he
has a serious thought of.”
“Well, then, darling, since nobody else will suit him,
and it's for his soul's health and wealth to be married,
I don't see but you ought to undertake him yourself.”
Alice smiled thoughtfully, and twisted her sash into
various bows, in an abstracted manner.
“You see,” continued Eva, “that it would be altogether
improper for you to enact the fable of the dog in
the manger—neither take him yourself nor let any one
else have him.”
“Oh, as to that,” said Alice, flushing up, “he has my
free consent to take anybody else he wants to; only I
know there is n't anybody he does want.”
“Except—” said Eva.
-- 405 --
[figure description] Page 405.[end figure description]
“Well, except present company,” said Alice. “I'll
tell you, Eva, if anything could incline me more to such
a decision, it's the way Aunt Maria has talked about Jim
to me—setting him down as if he was the last and most
improbable parti I could choose; and as if, of course, I
never could even think of him. I don't see what right
she has to think so, when there are girls a great deal
richer and standing higher in fashionable society than I
do that would have Jim in a minute, if they could get
him. Jim is constantly beset with more invitations to
parties and to go into society than he can at all meet,
and I know there are plenty that would be glad enough
to take him.”
“Oh, but Aunt Maria has moderated a good deal as
to Jim, lately,” said Eva. “She told me herself, the
other day, that he really was one of the most gentlemanly,
agreeable young fellows she knew of, and said
what a pity it was he hadn't a fortune.”
“Oh, that witch of a creature!” said Alice, laughing.
“He has been just amusing himself with getting round
Aunt Maria.”
“And I dare say,” said Eva, “that, if she finds Jim
has a really good position, she might at last come to a
state of resignation. I will say that for Aunt Maria, that
after fighting you for a while she comes round handsomely—
when she is certain that fighting is in vain; but
the most amusing thing is to see how she has come down
about Mr. St. John's ritualism. Think of her actually
going up there to church last Sunday, and not saying a
word about the candles, or the chantings, or any of the
abominations! She only remarked that she was sure she
never heard a better Gospel sermon than Mr. St. John
preached—which was true enough. Harry and I were
so amused we could hardly keep our faces straight; but
we said not a word to remind her of past denunciations.”
-- 406 --
[figure description] Page 406.[end figure description]
“The danger of going to Rome is sensibly abated, it
appears,” said Alice.
“Oh, yes. I believe Aunt Maria must be cherishing
distant visions of a time when she shall be aunt to Mr.
St. John, and set him all straight.”
“She'll have her match for once,” said Alice, “if she
has any such intentions.”
“One thing is a comfort,” said Eva. “Aunt Maria
has her hands so full, getting up Angie's trousseau, and
buying her sheets and towels and table-cloths, and tearing
all about, up stairs and down, and through dark
alleys, to get everything of the very best at the smallest
expense, that her nervous energies are all used up, and
there is less left to be expended on you and me. A wedding
in the family is a godsend to us all.”
The conversation here branched off into an animated
discussion of some points in Angie's wedding-dress, and
went on with an increasing interest till it was interrupted
by a dolorous voice from the top of the entry
staircase.
“Girls, have you the least idea what time it is?”
“Why, there's Harry, to be sure,” said Eva. “Dear
me, Alice, what time is it?”
“Half-past one! Mercy on us! is n't it a shame?”
“Coming, Harry, coming this minute,” called Eva, as
the two sisters began turning down the gas and raking
up the fire; then, gathering together collars, hair-pains,
ribbons, sashes and scarfs, they flew up the stairway, and
parted with a suppressed titter of guilty consciousness.
“It was abominable of us,” said Eva; “but I never
looked at the clock.”
-- -- p710-430
CHAPTER XLIV. FLUCTUATIONS.
[figure description] Page 407.[end figure description]
MIDNIGHT conversations of the sort we have chronicled
between Alice and Eva, do not generally lead
to the most quiet kind of sleep. Such conversations suggest
a great deal, and settle nothing; and Alice, after
retiring, lay a long time with her great eyes wide open,
looking into the darkness of futurity, and wondering, as
girls of twenty-two or thereabouts do wonder, what she
should do next.
There is no help for it; the fact may as well be confessed
at once, that no care and assiduity in fencing and
fortifying the conditions of a friendship between an
attractive young woman and a lively, energetic young
man, will ensure their always remaining simply and
purely those of companionship and good fellowship, and
never becoming anything more.
In the case of St. John and Angie, the stalk of friendship
had had but short growth before developing the
flower of love; and now, in Alice's mind and conscience,
it was becoming quite a serious and troublesome question
whether a similar result were not impending over her.
The wise man of old said: “He that delicately bringeth
up his servant from a child shall have him for his son
at last.” The proverb is significant, as showing the
gradual growth of kindly relations into something more
and more kindly, and more absorbing.
So, in the night-watches, Alice mentally reviewed all
those looks, words and actions of Jim's which produced
a conviction in her mind that he was passing beyond the
-- 408 --
[figure description] Page 408.[end figure description]
allotted boundaries, and approaching towards a point in
which there would inevitably be a crisis, calling for a
decision on her part which should make him either more
or less than he had been. Her talk with Eva had only
set this possibility more distinctly before her.
Was she, then, willing to give him up entirely, and
to shut the door resolutely on all intimacy tending to
keep up and encourage feelings that could come to no
result? When she proposed this to herself, she was surprised
at her own unwillingness to let him go. She
could scarcely fancy herself able to do without his ready
friendship, his bright, agreeable society—without the
sense of ownership and power which she felt in him.
Reviewing the matter strictly in the night-watches, she
was obliged to admit to herself that she could not afford
to part with Jim; that there was no woman she could
fancy—certainly none in the circle of her acquaintance—
whom she could be sincerely glad to have him married
to; and when she fancied him absorbed in any one else,
there was a dreary sense of loss which surprised her.
Was it possible, she asked herself, that he had become
necessary to her happiness—he whom she never thought
of otherwise than as a pleasant friend, a brother, for
whose success and good fortune she had interested herself?
Well then, was she ready for an engagement? Was
the great ultimate revelation of woman's life—that dark
Eleusinian mystery of fate about which vague conjecture
loves to gather, and which the imagination invests with
all sorts of dim possibilities—suddenly to draw its curtains
and disclose to her neither demi-god nor hero, but
only the well-known, every-day features of one with
whom she had been walking side by side for months
past—“only Jim and nothing more?”
Alice could not but acknowledge to herself that she
-- 409 --
[figure description] Page 409.[end figure description]
knew no man possible or probable that she liked better;
and yet this shadowy, ideal rival—this cross between
saint and hero, this Knight of the Holy Grail—was as
embarrassing to her conclusions as the ghost in “Hamlet”
It was only to be considered that the ideal hero
had not put in an actual appearance. He was nowhere
to be found or heard from; and here was this warm-hearted,
helpful, companionable Jim, with faults as plenty
as blackberries, but with dozens of agreeable qualities to
every fault; and the time seemed to be rapidly coming
when she must make up her mind either to take him or
leave him, and she was not ready to do either! No
wonder she lay awake, and studied the squares of the
dim window and listened to the hours that struck, one
after another, bringing her no nearer to fixed conclusions
than before! A young lady who sees the time coming
when she must make a decision, and who does n't want to
take either alternative presented, is certainly to be pitied.
Alice felt herself an abused and afflicted young woman.
She murmured at destiny. Why would men fall in love?
she queried. Why would n't they remain always devoted,
admiring friends, and get no further? She was having
such good times! and why must they end in a dilemma
of this sort? How nice to have a gentleman friend, all
devotion, all observance, all homage, without its involving
any special consequences!
When she came to shape this feeling into words and
look at it, she admitted that it savored of the worst kind
of selfishness, and might lead to trifling with what is
most precious and sacred. Alice was a conscientious,
honorable girl, and felt all the force of this. She had
justified herself all along by saying that her intimacy
with Jim had so far been for his good; that he had often
expressed to her his sense that she was leading him to a
higher and better life, to more worthy and honorable
-- 410 --
[figure description] Page 410.[end figure description]
aims and purposes: but how if he should claim that
this very ministry had made her necessary to him, and
that, if she threw him off, it would be worse than if she
had never known him? Looking over the history of
the last few months, she could not deny to herself that,
as their acquaintance had grown more and more confidential,
her manners possibly had expressed a degree of
kindness which might justly have inspired hopes. Was
she not bound to fulfill such hopes if she could?
These were most uncomfortable inquiries, and she
was glad of morning and a cheerful breakfast-table to
dispel them. Things never look so desperate by daylight,
and Alice managed a good breakfast with a tolerable
appetite. Then there was the tarlatan dress to be
made over and rearranged, and Eva's toilette to be put
into party order—quite enough to keep two young women
of active fancy and skillful fingers busy for one day. It
was a snowy, unpleasant day, and, as they lived on an
out-of-the-way street, they were secure from callers and
took their work into the parlor so soon as Harry had
gone for the day. The little room soon became a
brilliant maelstrom of gauzy stuffs and bright ribbons,
among which the two sat chatting, arranging, combining,
compounding; as of old, one might imagine a pair of
heathen goddesses in the clouds, getting up rainbows.
No matter how solemn and serious we of womankind
are in our deepest hearts, or how philosophically we
may look down on the vanity of dress, we must all
confess that a party is a party; and the sensible, economical
woman who does not often go, and does not
make a point of having all the paraphernalia in constant
readiness, has to give all the more care and thought to
the exceptional occasion when she does. Even Scripture
recognizes the impossibility of appearing at a feast
without the appropriate garment; and so Eva and Alice
-- 411 --
[figure description] Page 411.[end figure description]
cut and fitted and trimmed and tried experiments in
head-dresses and arrangements of hair, and meanwhile
Alice had the comfort of talking over and over to Eva
all the varying shades of the subject that was on her
mind.
What woman does not appreciate the blessing of a
patient, sympathetic listener, who will hear with unabated
interest the same story repeated over and over as it rises
in one's thoughts? Eva listened complacently and with
the warmest interest to the same things that Alice had
said the night before, and went on repeating to her the
same lessons of matronly wisdom with which she had
then enriched her, neither of them betraying the slightest
consciousness that the things they were saying were not
just fresh from the mint—entirely new and hitherto
unconsidered.
Jim's character was discussed, and with that fine,
skillful faculty of analysis and synthesis which forms
the distinctive interest of feminine conversation. In
the course of these various efforts of character portraitpainting,
it became quite evident to Eva that Alice was
in just that state in which some people's admitted faults
are more interesting and agreeable than the virtues of
some others. When a woman gets thus far, her final
decision is not a matter of doubt to any far-sighted
reader of human nature.
Alice was by nature exact and conscientious as to all
rules, forms, and observances. Her pronunciation,
whether of English or French, was critically perfect; her
hand-writing and composition were faultless to a comma.
She was an enthusiastic and thorough maintainer of all
the boundaries and forms of good society and of churchly
devotion. Jim, without being in any sense really immoral
or wicked, was a sort of privileged Arab, careering
in and out through the boundaries of all departments,
-- 412 --
[figure description] Page 412.[end figure description]
shocking respectable old prejudices and fluttering reverential
usages, talking slang and making light of dignitaries
with a free and easy handling that was alarming.
But it is a fact that very correct people, who would
not violate in their own persons one of the convenances,
are often exceedingly amused and experience a peculiar
pleasure in seeing them tossed hither and thither by
somebody else. Nothing is so tiresome as perfect correctness,
and we all know that everything that amuses
us and makes us laugh lies outside of it; and Alice, if
the truth were to be told, liked Jim all the better for the
very things in which he was most unlike herself. Well,
such being the state of the garrison on the one side,
what was the position of the attacking party?
Jim had gone home discontented at not having a
private interview with Alice, but more and more resolved,
with every revolving hour since the accession of
good fortune which had given him a settled position,
that he would have a home of his own forthwith, and
that the queen of that home should be Alice Van Arsdel.
She must not, she could not, she would not say him
Nay; and if she did, he wouldn't take No for an answer.
He would have her, if he had to serve for her as
long as Jacob did for Rachel. But when Jim remembered
how many times he had persuaded Alice to his
own way, how many favors she had granted him, he was
certain that it was not in her to refuse. He had looked
with new interest at the advertisements of houses to
let, and the furniture stores for the last few days had
worn a new and suggestive aspect. He had commenced
transactions with regard to parlor furniture, and actually
bought a pair of antique brass andirons, which he was
sure would be just the thing for their fireside. Then
he had bought an engagement ring, which lay snugly ensconced
in its satin case in a corner of his vest pocket,
-- 413 --
[figure description] Page 413.[end figure description]
and he was inly resolved that he would make to himself
a chance to lodge it on the proper finger in the
next twenty-four hours. How he was to get an interview
did not yet appear; but he trusted to Providence.
It is a fact on record, that before the twenty-four hours
were up the deed was done, and Jim and Alice were engaged;
but it came about in a way far different from
any foreseen by any party, as we shall proceed to show.
-- -- p710-437
CHAPTER XLV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
[figure description] Page 414.[end figure description]
IT wanted yet twenty minutes to eight o'clock, and Jim
was sitting alone in the glow of the evening fireside.
The warm, red light, flickering and shadowing, made the
room seem like a mysterious grotto. Jim, in best party
trim, sat gazing dreamily into the fire, turning the magic
ring now and then in his vest pocket, and looking at his
watch at intervals, while the mysterious rites of the toilet
were going on upstairs.
Alice had never made a more elaborate or more careful
toilet. Did she want to precipitate that which she
said to herself she dreaded? Certainly she did not spare
one possible attraction. She evidently saw no reason,
under present circumstances, why she should not make
herself look as well as she could.
As the result of the whole day's agitations and discussions,
she had come to the conclusion that if Jim had
anything to say she would listen to it advisedly, and take
it into mature consideration. So she braided her long,
dark hair, and crowned herself therewith, and then earrings
and brooches came twinkling out here and there
like stars, and bits of ribbon and velvet fluttered hither
and thither, and fell into wonderfully apposite places, and
the woman grew and brightened before the glass, as a
picture under the hands of the artist.
It wanted yet a quarter of an hour of the time for the
carriage, when there came a light fluff of gauzy garments,
and the two party goddesses floated in in all misty
splendor, and seemed to fill the whole room with the
flutter of dresses.
-- 415 --
[figure description] Page 415.[end figure description]
Alice was radiant; her eyes were never more brilliant,
and she was full of that subtle brightness which
comes from the tremor of fully-awakened feeling. She
was gayer than was her usual wont as she swept about
the room and courteseyed with much solemnity to Jim,
and turned herself round and round after the manner of
a revolving figure in the shop windows.
Suddenly—and none of them knew how—there was
a quick flash; the gauzy robe had swept into the fire, and,
before any of them could speak, the dress was in flames.
There was a scream, an utterance of agony from all parties
at once, and Eva was just doing the most fatal thing
possible in rushing desperately towards her sister, when
Jim came between them, caught the woolen cloth from the
table, and wrapped it around Alice; then, taking her in
his arms, he laid her on the sofa, and crushed out the fire,
beating it with his hands, and tearing the burning fragments
away and casting them under foot. It all passed
in one fearful, awe-struck moment, while Eva stood still,
with the very shadow of death upon her, and saw Jim
fighting back the fire, which in a moment or two was
entirely extinguished. Alice had fainted, and Jim and
Eva looked at each other as people do who have just
seen death rising up between them.
“She is safe now,” said Jim, as he stood there, pale
as death and quivering from head to foot, while the floor
around was strewed with the blackened remains of the
gauzy material which he had torn away. “She is all
right,” he added; “the cloth has saved her throat and
lungs.”
It seemed now the most natural thing in the world
that Jim should lay Alice's head upon his arm and
administer restoratives; and, when she opened her eyes,
that he should call her his darling, his life, his love.
They had been in the awful valley of the shadow
-- 416 --
[figure description] Page 416.[end figure description]
together—that valley where all that is false perishes and
drops off, and what is true becomes the only reality.
Alice felt that she loved Jim—that she belonged to him,
and she did not dispute his right to speak as he did,
and to care for her as one had a right to care for his own.
“Well,” said Eva, drawing a long breath, when the
bell rang and the carriage was announced, “we cannot
go to the party, that is certain; and, Jim, tell him to go
for Doctor Campbell. Mary, bring down a wrapper;
we'll slip it over your torn finery, Alice, for the present,”
said Eva, endeavoring to be practical and self-possessed,
though with a little hysterical sob every now and then
betraying the shock to her nerves. “Then there must
be a note sent to Aunt Maria, or what will she think?”
pursued Eva, when Alice had been made comfortable on
the sofa, where Jim was devoting himself to her.
“Don't, pray, tell all about it,” said Alice. “One
does n't want to become the talk of all New York.”
“I'll tell her that you have met with an accident
that will detain you and me, but that you are not dangerous,”
said Eva, as she wrote her note and sent Mary
up with it.
It was not until tranquillity had somewhat settled
down on the party that Jim began to feel that his own
hands were blistered; for, though a man under strong
excitement may handle fire for a while and not feel it,
yet nature keeps account and brings in her bill in due
season.
“Why, Jim, you brave fellow,” said Alice, suddenly
raising herself, as she saw an expression of pain on his
face, “here I am thinking only of myself, and you are
suffering.”
“Oh, nothing; nothing at all,” said Jim; but Eva
and Alice, now thoroughly aroused, were shocked at the
state of his hands.
-- 417 --
[figure description] Page 417.[end figure description]
“The doctor will have you to attend to first,” said
Alice, “You have saved me by sacrificing yourself.”
“Thank God for that!” said Jim, fervently.
Well, the upshot of the story is that Eva would not
hear of Jim's leaving them that night. Doctor Campbell
pronounced that the burns on his hands needed
serious attention, and the prospect was that he would
be obliged to rest from using them for a day or two.
But these two or three days of hospital care were not
on the whole the worst of Jim's life, for Alice insisted on
being his amanuensis, and writing his editorials for him,
and, as she wrote with the engagement ring sparkling on
her finger, Jim thought that he had never seen it appear
to so great advantage. It was said that Jim's editorials,
that week, had a peculiar vigor and pungency. We
should not at all wonder, under the circumstances, if
that were the case.
-- -- p710-441
CHAPTER XLVI. WHAT THEY ALL SAID ABOUT IT.
[figure description] Page 418.[end figure description]
AND so Jim Fellows and Alice Van Arsdel were
engaged at last. The reader who has cared to
follow the workings of that young lady's mind has doubtless
seen from the first that she was on the straight highway
to such a result.
Intimate friendship—what the French call “camaraderie”—
is, in fact, the healthiest and the best commencement
of the love that is needed in married life;
because it is more like what the staple of married life
must at last come to. It gives opportunity for the
knowledge of all those minor phases of character under
which a married couple must at last see each other.
Alice and Jim had been side by side in many an
every-day undress rehearsal. They had laughed and
frolicked together like two children; they had known
each other's secrets; they had had their little miffs and
tiffs, and had gotten over them; but, through all, there
had been a steady increase on Jim's part of that deeper
feeling which makes a woman the ideal guide and
governor and the external conscience of life. But his
habit of jesting, and of talking along the line of his most
serious feelings in language running between joke and
earnest, had prevented the pathos and the power of
what was really deepest in him from making itself felt.
There wanted something to call forth the expression of
the deep manly feeling that lay at the bottom of his
heart. There wanted, on her part, something to change
friendship to a warmer feeling. Those few dreadful
-- 419 --
[figure description] Page 419.[end figure description]
moments, when they stood under the cloud of a sudden
and frightful danger, did more to reveal to them how
much they were to each other than years of ordinary
acquaintance. It was as if they had crossed the river of
death together, and saw each other in their higher
natures. Do we not all remember how suffering and
danger will bring out in well-known faces a deep and
spiritual expression never there before? It was a marked
change in the faces of our boys who went to the
recent war. Looking in a photograph book, one sees
first the smooth lines of a boyish face indicating nothing
more than a boy's experience, but, as he turns the following
pages, he sees the same face, after suffering and
danger and death have called up the strength of the
inner man, and imparted a higher and more spiritual
expression to the countenance.
The sudden nearness into which they had come to
the ever possible tragedy that underlies human life, had
given a deep and solemn tenderness to their affection.
It was a baptism into the love which is stronger than
death. Alice felt her whole heart going out, without a
fear or a doubt, in return for the true love that she felt
was ready to die for her.
Those few first days that they spent mostly in each
other's society, were full of the real, deep, enthusiastic
tenderness of that understanding of each other which
had suddenly arisen between them.
So, to her confidential female correspondent—the
one who had always held her promise to be the first
recipient of the news of her engagement—she wrote as
follows:
“Yes, dear Belle, I have to tell you at last that I am engaged—
engaged, with all my heart and soul, to Jim Fellows. I see your
wonder, I hear you saying, `You said it never was to be; that there
never would be anything in it.' Well, dear Belle, when I said that
-- 420 --
[figure description] Page 420.[end figure description]
I thought it; but it seems I did n't know myself or him. But Eva
has told you of the dreadful danger I ran; the shock to my nerves,
the horror, the fright, were something I never shall forget. By
God's mercy he saved my life, and I saw and felt at that time how
dear I was to him, and how much he was willing to suffer for me.
The poor fellow is not yet fully recovered, and I cannot recall that
sudden fright without being almost faint. I cared a good deal for
him before, and knew he cared for me; but this dreadful shock
revealed us to each other as we had never known each other before.
I am perfectly settled now and have not a doubt. There is all the
seriousness and all the depth that is in me in the promise I have at
last given him.
“Jim is not rich, but he has just obtained a good position as one
of the leading editors of the Forum, enough to make it prudent for
him to think of having a home of his own; and I thank God for the
reverses of fortune that have taught me how to be a helpful and sensible
wife. We don't either of us care for show or fashion, but mean
to have another fireside like Eva's. Exactly when this thing is to
be, is not yet settled; but you shall have due notice to get your
bridesmaid's dress ready.”
So wrote Alice to her bridesmaid that was to be.
Meanwhile, the declared engagement went its way, traveling
through the circle, making everywhere its sensation.
We believe there is nothing so generally interesting
to human nature as a newly-declared engagement. It is
a thing that everybody has an opinion of; and the editorial
comments, though they do not go into print, are
fully as numerous and as positive as those following a
new appointment at Washington.
Especially is this the case where the parties, being
long under suspicion and accusation, have denied the
impeachment, and vehemently protested that “there was,
and there would be, nothing in it,” and that “it was only
friendship.” When, after all the strength of such asseveration,
the flag is finally struck, and the suspected parties
walk forth openly, hand in hand, what a number of
people immediately rise in their own opinion, saying with
complacency: “There! what did I tell you? I knew it
-- 421 --
[figure description] Page 421.[end figure description]
was so. People may talk as much as they please, they
can't deceive me!”
Among the first to receive the intelligence was little
Mrs. Betsey, who, having been over with Jack to make a
morning call at the Henderson house, had her very cap
lifted from her head with amazement at the wonderful
news. So, panting with excitement, she rushed back
across the way to astonish Miss Dorcas, and burst in
upon her, with Jack barking like a storming party in the
rear.
“Good gracious, Betsey, what's the matter now?” said
Miss Dorcas. “What has happened?”
“Well, what should you think? You can't guess!
Jack, be still! stop barking! Stop, sir!”—as Jack ran
under a chair in a distant corner of the room, and fired
away with contumacious energy.
“Yes, Dorcas, I have such a piece of news! I
declare, that dog!—I'll kill him if he don't stop!” and
Mrs. Betsey, on her knees, dragged Jack out of his
hiding-place, and cuffed him into silence, and then went
on with her news, which she determined to make the
most of, and let out a bit at a time, as children eat gingerbread.
“Well, now, Betsey, since the scuffle is over between
you and Jack, perhaps you will tell me what all this is
about,” said Miss Dorcas, with dignity.
“Well, Dorcas, it's another engagement; and who do
you guess it is? You never will guess in the world, I
know; now guess.”
“I don't know,” said Miss Dorcas, critically surveying
Mrs. Betsey over her spectacles, “unless it is you
and old Major Galbraith.”
“Are n't you ashamed, Dorcas?” said the little old
lady, two late pink roses coming in either cheek. “Major
Galbraith!—old and deaf and with the rheumatism!”
-- 422 --
[figure description] Page 422.[end figure description]
“Well, you wanted me to guess, and I guessed the
two most improbable people in the circle of our acquaintance.”
Now, Major Galbraith was an old admirer of
Mrs. Betsey's youth, an ancient fossil remain of the
distant period to which Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey
belonged.
He was an ancient bachelor, dwelling in an ancient
house on Murray hill, and subsisting on the dry hay of
former recollections. Once a year, on Christmas or
New Year's, the old major caused himself to be brought
carefully in a carriage to the door of the Vanderheyden
house, creaked laboriously up the steps, pulled the rusty,
jangling old bell, and was shown into the somber twilight
of the front parlor, where he paid his respects to
the ladies with the high-shouldered, elaborate stateliness
and gallantry of a former period. The compliments
which the major brought out on these occasions were of
the most elaborate and well-considered kind, for he had
an abundance of leisure to compose them, and very few
ladies to let them off upon. They had, for the parties to
whom they were addressed, all the value of those late
roses and violets which one now and then finds in the
garden, when the last black frosts have picked off the
blooms of summer. The main difficulty of the interview
always was the fact that the poor major was stone-deaf,
and, in spite of both ladies screaming themselves hoarse,
he carried away the most obviously erroneous impressions,
to last him through the next year. Yet, in ages past, the
major had been a man of high fashion, and he was, if
one only could get at him, on many accounts better
worth talking to than many modern beaux; but as age
and time had locked him in a case and thrown away the
key, the suggestion of tender relations between him and
Mrs. Betsey was impossible enough to answer Miss Dorcas's
purpose.
-- 423 --
[figure description] Page 423.[end figure description]
But Mrs. Betsey was bursting to begin on the contents
of her news-bag, and so, out it came.
“Well now, Dorcas, if you won't go to being ridiculous,
and talking about Major Galbraith, I'll tell you
who it is. It's that dear, good Mr. Fellows that got
Jack back again for us, and I'm sure I never feel as if
I could do enough for him when I think of it, and besides
that, he always is so polite and considerate, and
talks with one so nicely and is so attentive, seems to
think something of you, if you are an old woman, so
that I'm glad with all my heart, for I think it's a
splendid thing, and she's just the one for him, and do
you know I've been thinking a great while that it was
going to be? I have noticed signs, and have had my
own thoughts, but I didn't let on. I despise people that
are always prying and spying and expressing opinions
before they know.”
This lucid exposition might have proceeded at greater
length, had not Miss Dorcas, whose curiosity was now
fully roused, cut into the conversation with an air of
judicial decision.
“Well now, after all, Betsey, will you have the goodness,
since you began to tell the news, to tell it like a
reasonable creature? Mr. Fellows is the happy man,
you say. Now, who—is—the woman?”
“Oh, did n't I tell you? Why, what is the matter
with me to-day? I thought I said Miss Alice Van
Arsdel. Won't she make him a splendid wife? and I'm
sure he'll make a good husband; he's so kind-hearted.
Oh! you ought to have seen how kind he was to Jack
that day he brought him back; and such a sight as Jack
was, too—all dirt and grease! Why it took Dinah and
me at least two hours to get him clean, and there are not
many young gentlemen that would be so patient as he
was. I never shall forget it of him.”
-- 424 --
[figure description] Page 424.[end figure description]
“Patient as who was?” said Miss Dorcas. “I believe
Jack was the last nominative case in that sentence; do
pray compose yourself, Betsey, and do n't take entire
leave of your senses.”
“I mean Mr. Fellows was patient, of course, you
know.”
“Well, then, do take a little pains to say what you
mean,” said Miss Dorcas.
“Well, don't you think it a good thing—and were you
expecting it?”
“So far as I know the parties, it's as good a thing as
engagements in general,” said Miss Dorcas. “They have
my very best wishes.”
“Well, did you ever think it would come about?”
“No; I never troubled my head with speculations
on what plainly is none of my concern,” said Miss
Dorcas.
It was evident that Miss Dorcas was on the highest
and most serene mountain-top of propriety this morning,
and all her words and actions indicated that calm
superiority to vulgar curiosity which, in her view, was
befitting a trained lady. Perhaps a little pique that
Betsey had secured such a promising bit of news in
advance of herself, added to her virtuous frigidity of
demeanor. We are all mortal, and the best of us are apt
to undervalue what we did not ourselves originally
produce. But if Miss Dorcas wished in a gentle manner
to remind Mrs. Betsey that she was betraying too
much of an inclination for gossip, she did not succeed.
The clock of time had gone back on the dial of the little
old lady, and she was as full of chatter and detail as a
school-girl, and determined at any rate to make the
most of her incidents, and to create a sensation in her
sister's mind—for what is more provoking than to have
people sit calm and unexcited when we have a
-- 425 --
[figure description] Page 425.[end figure description]
stimulating bit of news to tell? It is an evident violation of
Christian charity. Mrs. Betsey now drew forth her next
card.
“Oh, and, Dorcas! you've no idea. They've been
having the most dreadful time over there! Miss Alice
has had the greatest escape! The most wonderful
providence! It really makes my blood run cold to think
of it. Don't you think, she was all dressed to go to
Mrs. Wouvermans's party, and her dress caught on fire,
and if it had n't been for Mr. Fellows's presence of mind
she might have been burned to death—really burned to
death! Only think of it!”
“You do n't say so!” said Miss Dorcas, who now
showed excitement enough to fully satisfy Mrs. Betsey.
“How very dreadful! Why, how was it?”
“Yes—she was passing in front of the fire, in a thin
white tarlatan, made very full, with flounces, and it was
just drawn in and flashed up like tinder. Mr. Fellows
caught the cloth from the table, wrapped her in it and
laid her on the sofa, and then tore and beat out the fire
with his hands.”
“Dear—me! dear—me!” said Miss Dorcas, “how
dreadful! But he did just the right thing.”
“Yes, indeed; you ought to have seen! Mrs. Henderson
showed me what was left of the dress, and it was
really awful to see! I could not help thinking, `In the
midst of life we are in death.' All trimmed up with
scarlet velvet and bows, and just hanging in rags and
tatters, where it had been burned and torn away! I
never saw any thing so solemn in my life.”
“A narrow escape, certainly,” said Miss Dorcas.
“And is she not injured at all?”
“Nothing to speak of, only a few slight burns; but
poor Mr. Fellows has to have his hands bandaged and
dressed every day; but of course he does n't mind that
-- 426 --
[figure description] Page 426.[end figure description]
since he has saved her life. But just think of it, Dorcas,
we shall have two weddings, and it'll make two more
visiting places. I'm going to tell Dinah all about it,”
and the little woman fled to the kitchen, with Jack at
her heels, and was soon heard going over the whole
story again.
Dinah's effusion and sympathy, in fact, were the final
refuge of Mrs. Betsey on every occasion, whether of joy
or sorrow or perplexity—and between her vigorous
exclamations and loud responses, and Jack's running
commentary of unrestrained barking, there was as much
noise over the announcement as could be made by an
average town meeting.
Thus were the tidings received across the way. In
the Van Arsdel family, Jim was already an established
favorite. Mr. Van Arsdel always liked him as a bright,
agreeable evening visitor, and, now that he had acquired
a position that promised a fair support, there was no opposition
on his part to overcome. Mrs. Van Arsdel was
one of the motherly, complying sort of women, generally
desirous of doing what the next person to her wanted
her to do; and, though she was greatly confused by
remembering Alice's decided asseverations that “it never
was and never would be anything, and that Jim was not
at all the person she ever should think of marrying,” yet,
since it was evident that she was now determined upon
the affair, Mrs. Van Arsdel looked at it on the bright
side.
“After all, my dear,” she said to her spouse, “if I
must lose both my daughters, it's a mercy to have them
marry and settle down here in New York, where I can
have the comfort of them. Jim will always be an attentive
husband and a good family man. I saw that when
he was helping us move; but I'm sure I don't know
what Maria will say now!”
-- 427 --
[figure description] Page 427.[end figure description]
“No matter what Maria says, my dear,” said Mr.
Van Arsdel. “It don't make one hair white or black.
It's time you were emancipated from Maria.”
But Aunt Maria, like many dreaded future evils,
proved less formidable on this occasion than had been
feared.
The very submissive and edifying manner in which
Mr. Jim Fellows had received her strictures and cautions
on a former occasion, and the profound respect he had
shown for her opinion, had so far wrought upon her as
to make her feel that it was really a pity that he was not
a young man of established fortune. If he only had
anything to live on, why, he might be a very desirable
match; and so, when he had a good position and salary,
he stood some inches higher in her esteem. Besides
this, there was another balm which distilled resignation
in the cup of acquiescence, and that was the grand
chance it gave her to say, “I told you so.” How dear
and precious this privilege is to the very best of people,
we need not insist. There are times when it would
comfort them, if all their dearest friends were destroyed,
to be able to say, “I told you so. It's just as I always
predicted!” We all know how Jonah, though not a
pirate or a cut-throat, yet wished himself dead because a
great city was not destroyed, when he had taken the
trouble to say it would be. Now, though Alice's engagement
was not in any strict sense an evil, yet it was an
event which Aunt Maria had always foreseen, foretold
and insisted on.
So when, with heart-sinkings and infinite precautions,
Mrs. Van Arsdel had communicated the news to her, she
was rather relieved at the response given, with a toss of
the head and a vigorous sniff:
“Oh, that's no news to me; it's just what I have
foreseen all along—what I told you was coming on, and
-- 428 --
[figure description] Page 428.[end figure description]
you would n't believe it. Now I hope all of you will see
that I was right.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, “that it was Jim's
presence of mind in saving her life that decided Alice at
last. She always liked him; but I don't think she really
loved him till then.”
“Well, of course, it was a good thing that there was
somebody at hand who had sense to do the right thing,
when girls will be so careless; but it was n't that. She
meant to have him all along; and I knew it,” said Aunt
Maria. “Well, Jim Fellows, after all, is n't the worst
match a girl could make, either, now that he has some
prospects of his own—but, at any rate, it has turned out
just as I said it would. I knew she'd marry him, six
months ago, just as well as I know it now, unless you
and she listened to my advice then. So now all we have
to do is to make the best of it. You've got two weddings
on your hands, now Nellie, instead of one, and I
shall do all I can to help you. I was out all day yesterday
looking at sheeting, and I think that at Shanks &
Maynard's is decidedly the firmest and the cheapest, and
I ordered three pieces sent home; and I carried back
the napkins to Taggart's, and then went rambling off up
by the Park to find that woman that does marking.”
“I'm sure, Maria, I am ever so much obliged to
you,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel.
“Well, I hope I'm good for something. Though I 'm
not fit to be out; I 've such a dreadful cold in my head,
I can hardly see; and riding in these New York omnibuses
always makes it worse.”
“Dear Maria, why will you expose yourself in that
way?”
“Well, somebody 's got to do it—and your judgment
is n't worth a fip, Nellie. That sheeting that you were
thinking of taking was n't half so good, and cost six cents
-- 429 --
[figure description] Page 429.[end figure description]
a yard more. I could n't think of having things go that
way.”
“But I 'm sure we do n't any of us want you to make
yourself sick.”
“Oh, I sha'n't be sick. I may suffer; but I sha'n't
give up. I 'm not one of the kind. If you had the cold
in your head that I have, Nellie, you 'd be in bed, with
both girls nursing you; but that is n't my way. I keep
up, and attend to things. I want these things of Angie's
to be got up properly, as they ought to be, and there 's
nobody to do it but me.”
And little Mrs. Van Arsdel, used, from long habit, to
be thus unceremoniously snubbed, dethroned, deposed,
and set down hard by her sister when in full career of
labor for her benefit, looked meekly into the fire, and
comforted herself with the reflection that it “was just
like Maria. She always talked so; but, after all, she was
a good soul, and saved her worlds of trouble, and made
excellent bargains for her.”
-- 430 -- p710-453
CHAPTER XLVII. “IN THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. ”
[figure description] Page 430.[end figure description]
THIS article of faith forms a part of the profession
of all Christendom, is solemnly recited every Sunday
and many week-days in the services of all Christian
churches that have a liturgy, whether Roman or
Greek or Anglican or Lutheran, and may, therefore, bid
fair to pass for a fundamental doctrine of Christianity.
Yet, if narrowly looked into, it is a proposition under
which there are more heretics and unbelievers than all
the other doctrines of religion put together.
Mrs. Maria Wouvermans, standing, like a mother in
Israel, in the most eligible pew of Dr. Cushing's church,
has just pronounced these words with all the rest of the
Apostles' Creed, which she has recited devoutly twice a
day every Sunday for forty years or more. She always
recited her creed in a good, strong, clear voice, designed
to rebuke the indolent or fastidious who only mumbled
or whispered, and made a deep reverence in the proper
place at the name of Jesus; and somehow it seemed to feel
as if she were witnessing a good confession, and were part
and parcel with the protesting saints and martyrs that, in
blue and red and gold, were shining down upon her
through the painted windows. This solemn standing
up in her best bonnet and reciting her Christian faith
every Sunday, was a weekly testimony against infidelity
and schism and lax doctrines of all kinds, and the good
lady gave it with unfaltering regularity. Nothing would
have shocked her more than to have it intimated to her
that she did not believe the articles of her own faith; and
-- 431 --
[figure description] Page 431.[end figure description]
yet, if there was anything in the world that Mrs. Maria
Wouvermans practically did n't believe in, and did n't
mean to believe in, it was “the forgiveness of sins.”
As long as people did exactly right, she had fellowship
and sympathy with them. When they did wrong,
she wished to have nothing more to do with them.
Nay, she seemed to consider it a part of public justice
and good morals to clear her skirts from all contact
with sinners. If she heard of penalties and troubles
that befell evil doers, it was with a face of grim satisfaction.
“It serves them right—just what they ought
to expect. I don't pity them in the least,” were familiar
phrases with her. If anybody did her an injury,
crossed her path, showed her disrespect or contumely,
she seemed to feel as free and full a liberty of soul to
hate them as if the Christian religion had never been
heard of. And, in particular, for the sins of women,
Aunt Maria had the true ingrain Saxon ferocity which
Sharon Turner describes as characteristic of the original
Saxon female in the earlier days of English history,
when the unchaste woman was pursued and beaten,
starved and frozen, from house to house, by the merciless
justice of her sisters.
It is the same spirit that has come down through
English law and literature, and shows itself in the old
popular ballad of “Jane Shore,” where, without a word
of pity, it is recorded how Jane Shore, the king's mistress,
after his death, first being made to do public
penance in a white sheet, was thereafter turned out to
be frozen and starved to death in the streets, and died
miserably in a ditch, from that time called Shoreditch.
A note tells us that there was one man who, moved by
pity, at one time sheltered the poor creature and gave
her food, for which he was thrown into prison, to the
great increase of her sorrow and misery.
-- 432 --
[figure description] Page 432.[end figure description]
It was in a somewhat similar spirit that Mrs. Wouvermans
regarded all sinning women. Her uniform ruling
in such cases was that they were to be let alone by all
decent people, and that if they fell into misery and want,
it was only just what they deserved, and she was glad of
it. What business had they to behave so? In her
view, all efforts to introduce sympathy and mercy into
prison discipline—all forbearance and pains-taking with
the sinful and lost in all places in society—was just so
much encouragement given to the criminal classes, and
one of the lax humanitarian tendencies of the age.
It is quite certain that had Mrs. Wouvermans been a
guest in old times at a certain Pharisee's house, where
the Master allowed a fallen woman to kiss His feet, she
would have joined in saying: “If this man were a
prophet he would have known what manner of woman
this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner.” There
was certainly a marked difference of spirit between her
and that Jesus to whom she bowed so carefully whenever
she repeated the creed.
On this particular Sunday, Eva had come to church
with her aunt, and was going to dine with her, intent
on a mission of Christian diplomacy.
Some weeks had now passed since she left Maggie in
the mission retreat, and it was the belief of the matron
there, and the attending clergyman, that a change had
taken place in her, so radical and so deep that, if now
some new and better course of life were opened to her,
she might, under careful guidance, become a useful
member of society. Whatever views modern skepticism
may entertain in regard to what is commonly called the
preaching of the gospel, no sensible person conversant
with actual facts can help acknowledging that it does
produce in some cases the phenomenon called conversion,
and that conversion, when real, is a solution of all
-- 433 --
[figure description] Page 433.[end figure description]
difficulties in our days as it was in those of the first
apostles.
The first Christians were gathered from the dregs of
society, and the Master did not fear to say to the Pharisees,
“The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom
of heaven before you;” and St. Paul addresses those
who he says had been thieves and drunkards and revilers
and extortioners, with the words, “Ye are washed; ye
are sanctified; ye are justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus and by the spirit of God.”
It is on the power of the Divine spirit to effect such
changes, even in the most hopeless and forlorn subjects,
that Christians of every name depend for success; and
by this faith such places as the Home for the Fallen are
undertaken and kept up.
What people look for, and labor for, as is proved by
all experience, is more liable to happen than what they
do not expect and do not labor for. The experiment of
Mr. James was attended by many marked and sudden
instances of conversion and permanent change of character.
Maggie had been entrapped and drawn in by
Mother Moggs in one of those paroxysms of bitter despair
which burned in her bosom, when she saw, as she
thought, every respectable door of life closed upon her
and the way of virtue shut up beyond return. When she
thought how, while she was cast out as utterly beyond
hope, the man who had betrayed her and sinned with her
was respected, flattered, rich, caressed, and joined in
marriage to a pure and virtuous wife, a blind and keen
sense of injustice awoke every evil or revengeful passion
within her. “If they won't let me do good, I can do
mischief,” she thought, and she was now ready to do all
she could to work misery and ruin for a world that
would give her no place to do better. Mother Moggs
saw Maggie's brightness and smartness, and the remains
-- 434 --
[figure description] Page 434.[end figure description]
of her beauty. She flattered and soothed her. To say
the truth, Mother Moggs was by no means all devil.
She had large remains of that motherly nature which is
common to warm-blooded women of easy virtue. She
took Maggie's part, was indignant at her wrongs, and
offered her a shelter and a share in her business. Maggie
was to tend her bar; and by her talents and her
good looks and attractions Mother Moggs hoped to
double her liquor sales. What if it did ruin the men?
What if it was selling them ruin, madness, beggary—so
much the better;—had they not ruined her?
If Maggie had been left to her own ways, she might
have been the ruin of many. It was the Christ in the
heart of a woman who had the Christian love and Christian
courage to go after her and seek for her, that
brought to her salvation. The invisible Christ must be
made known through human eyes; he must speak
through a voice of earthly love, and a human hand
inspired by his spirit must be reached forth to save.
The sight of Eva's pure, sweet face in that den of
wickedness, the tears of pity in her eyes, the imploring
tones of her voice, had produced an electric revulsion in
Maggie's excitable nature. She was not, then, forsaken:
she was cared for, loved, followed even into the wilderness,
by one so far above her in rank and station. It was
an illustration of what Christian love was, which made
it possible to believe in the love of Christ. The hymns,
the prayers, that spoke of hope and salvation, had a vivid
meaning in the light of this interpretation. The enthusiasm
of gratitude that arose first towards Eva, overflowed
and bore the soul higher towards a Heavenly
Friend.
Maggie was now longing to come back and prove by
her devotion ard obedience her true repentance, and Eva
had decided to take her again. With two weddings
-- 435 --
[figure description] Page 435.[end figure description]
impending in the family, she felt that Maggie's skill with
the needle and her facility in matters pertaining to the
female toilet might do good service, and might give her
the sense of usefulness—the strength that comes from
something really accomplished.
Her former experience made her careful, however, of
those sore and sensitive conditions which attend the
return to virtue in those who have sinned, and which are
often severest where there is the most moral vitality, and
she was anxious to prevent any repetition on Aunt
Maria's part of former unwise proceedings. All the
other habitués of the house partook of her own feeling;
Alice and Angie were warmly interested for the poor
girl; and if Aunt Maria could be brought to tolerate the
arrangement, the danger of a sudden domiciliary visit
from her attended with inflammatory results might be
averted.
So Eva was very sweet and very persuasive in her
manner to-day, for Aunt Maria had been devoting herself
so entirely to the family service during the few weeks
past, that she felt in some sort under a debt of obligation
to her. The hardest person in the world to manage is a
sincere, willful, pig-headed, pertinacious friend who will
insist on doing you all sorts of kindnesses in a way that
plagues about as much as it helps you.
But Eva was the diplomatist of the family; the one
with the precise mixture of the suaviter in modo with the
fortiter in re. She had hitherto carried her points with
the good lady in a way that gave her great advantage, for
Aunt Maria was one of those happily self-complacent
people who do not fail to arrogate to themselves the
after the most strenuous efforts, to hinder, and Eva's
credit of all the good things that they have not been able,
housekeeping and social successes, so far, were quite a
feather in her cap. So, after dinner, Eva began with:
-- 436 --
[figure description] Page 436.[end figure description]
“Well, you know, Aunt Maria, what with these two
weddings coming on, there is to be a terrible pressure of
work—both coming the week after Easter, you see. So,”
she added quickly, “I think it quite lucky that I have
found Maggie and got her back again, for she is one of
the quickest and best seamstresses that I know of.”
Aunt Maria's brow suddenly darkened. Every trace of
good-humor vanished from her face as she said:
“Now do tell me, Eva, if you are going to be such a
fool, when you were once fairly quit of that girl, to bring
her back into your family.”
“Yes, Aunt, I thought it my Christian duty to take
care of her, and see that she did not go to utter ruin.”
“I don't know what you mean,” said Aunt Maria.
“I should say she had gone there now. Do you think
it your duty to turn your house into a Magdalen asylum?”
“No, I do not; but I do think it is our duty to try to
help and save this one girl whom we know—who is truly
repentant, and who wants to do well.”
“Repentant!” said Aunt Maria in a scornful tone.
“Do n't tell me. I know their tricks, and you'll just be
imposed on and get yourself into trouble. I know the
world, and I know all about it.” Eva now rose and
played her last card. “Aunt Maria,” she said, “You
profess to be a Christian and to follow the Saviour who
came to seek and save the lost, and I do n't think you do
right to treat with such scorn a poor girl that is trying to
do better.”
“It's pretty well of you, Miss, to lecture me in this
style! Trying to do better!” said Aunt Maria, “then
what did she go off for, when she was at your house and
you were doing all you could for her? It was just that
she wanted to go to the bad.”
“She went off, Aunt Maria,” said Eva, “because she
-- 437 --
[figure description] Page 437.[end figure description]
overheard all you said about her, the day you were at
my house. She heard you advising me to send her
mother away on her account, and saying that she was a
disgrace to me. No wonder she ran off.”
“Well, serves her right for listening! Listeners
never hear any good of themselves,” said Aunt Maria.
“Now, Aunty,” said Eva, “nobody has more respect
for your good qualities than I have, or more sense of
what we all owe you for your kindness to us; but I
must tell you fairly that, now I am married, you must
not come to my house to dictate about or interfere with
my family arrangements. You must understand that
Harry and I manage these matters ourselves and will not
allow any interference; and I tell you now that Maggie
is to be at our house, and under my care, and I request
that you will not come there to say or do anything which
may hurt her mother's feelings or hers.”
“Mighty fine,” said Aunt Maria, rising in wrath,
“when it has come to this, that servants are preferred
before me!”
“It has not come to that, Aunt Maria. It has simply
come to this: that I am to be sole mistress in my own
family, and sole judge of what it is right and proper to
do; and when I need your advice I shall ask it; but I
do n't want you to offer it unless I do.”
Having made this concluding speech while she was
putting on her bonnet and shawl, Eva now cheerfully
wished her aunt good afternoon, and made the best of
her way down-stairs.
“I do n't see, Eva, how you could get up the courage
to face your aunt down in that way,” said Mrs. Van
Arsdel, to whom Eva related the interview.
“Dear Mamma, it'll do her good. She will be as
sweet as a rose after the first week of indignation. Aunt
Maria is a sensible woman, after all, and resigns herself
-- 438 --
[figure description] Page 438.[end figure description]
to the inevitable. She worries and hectors you, my
precious Mammy, because you will let her. If you'd
show a brave face, she would n't do it; but it is n't in
you, you poor, lovely darling, and so she just preys upon
you; but Harry and I are resolved to make her stand
and give the countersign when she comes to our camp.”
And it is a fact that, a week after, Aunt Maria spent
a day with Eva in the balmiest state of grace, and made
no allusion whatever to the conversation above cited.
Nothing operates so healthfully on such moral constitutions
as a good dose of certainty.
-- -- p710-462
CHAPTER XLVIII. THE PEARL CROSS.
[figure description] Page 439.[end figure description]
EVERY thoughtful person who exercises the least
supervision over what goes on within, is conscious
of living two distinct lives—the outward and the inward.
The external life is positive, visible, definable; easily
made the subject of conversation. The inner life is shy,
retiring, most difficult to be expressed in words, often
inexplicable, even to the subject of it, yet no less a positive
reality than the outward.
We have not succeeded in the picture of our Eva
unless we have shown her to have one of those sensitive
moral organizations, whose nature it is to reflect deeply,
to feel intensely, and to aspire after a high moral ideal.
If we do not mistake the age we live in, the perplexities
and anxieties of such natures form a very large
item in our modern life.
It is said that the Christian religion is losing its hold
on society. On the contrary, we believe there never
was a time when faith in Christianity was so deep and
all-pervading, and when it was working in so many
minds as a disturbing force.
The main thing which is now perplexing modern society,
is the effort which is making to reduce the teachings
of the New Testament to actual practice in life and
to regulate society by them. There is no skepticism as
to the ends sought by Jesus in human life. Nobody
doubts that love is the fulfilling of the law, and that to
-- 440 --
[figure description] Page 440.[end figure description]
do as we would be done by, applied universally, would
bring back the golden age, if ever such ages were.
But the problem that meets the Christian student,
and the practical person who means to live the Christian
life, is the problem of redemption and of self-sacrifice.
In a world where there is always ruin and misery,
where the inexperienced are ensnared and the blind
misled, and where fatal and inexorable penalties follow
every false step, there must be a band of redeemers,
seekers and savers of the lost. There must be those
who sacrifice ease, luxury and leisure, to labor for the
restoration of the foolish and wicked who have sold
their birthright and lost their inheritance; and here is
just the problem that our age and day present to the
thoughtful person who, having professed, in whatever
church or creed, to be a Christian, wishes to make a
reality of that profession.
The night that Eva had spent in visiting the worst
parts of New York had been to her a new revelation of
that phase of paganism which exists in our modern city
life, within sound of hundreds of church bells of every
denomination. She saw authorized as a regular trade,
and protected by law, the selling of that poisoned liquor
which brings on insanity worse than death; which engenders
idiocy, and the certainty of vicious propensities
in the brain of the helpless unborn infant; which is the
source of all the poverty, and more than half the crime,
that fills alms-houses and prisons, and of untold miseries
and agonies to thousands of families. She saw woman
degraded as the minister of sin and shame; the fallen
and guilty Eve, forever plucking and giving to Adam
the forbidden fruit whose mortal taste brings death into
the world; and her heart had been stirred by the sight
of those multitudes of poor ruined wrecks of human
beings, men and women, that she had seen crowding in
-- 441 --
[figure description] Page 441.[end figure description]
to that midnight supper, and by the earnest pleadings of
faith and love that she had heard in the good man's
prayers for them. She recalled his simple faith, his undaunted
courage in thus maintaining this forlorn hope
in so hopeless a region, and she could not rest satisfied
with herself, doing nothing to help.
In talking with Mr. James on his prospects, he had
said that he very much wished to enlarge this Home so
as to put there some dormitories for the men who were
willing to take the pledge to abandon drinking, where
they could find shelter and care until some kind of work
could be provided for them. He stated further that he
wished to connect with the enterprise a farm in the
country where work could be found for both men and
women, of a kind which would be remunerative, and
which might prove self-supporting.
Eva reflected with herself whether she had anything
to give or to do for a purpose so sacred. Their income
was already subject to a strict economy. The little
elegancies and adornments of her house were those that
are furnished by thought and care rather than by money.
Even with the most rigorous self-scrutiny, Eva could
not find fault with the home philosophy by which their
family life had been made attractive and delightful, because
she said and felt that her house had been a ministry
to others. It had helped to make others stronger,
more cheerful, happier.
But when she brought Maggie away from the Home,
she longed to send back some helpful token to those
earnest laborers.
On revising her possessions, she remembered that,
once, in the days when she was a rich and rather self-indulgent
daughter of luxury, she had spent the whole
of one quarter's allowance in buying for herself a pearl
cross. It cost her not even a sacrifice, for when with a
-- 442 --
[figure description] Page 442.[end figure description]
kiss or two she confessed her extravagance to her father,
he only pinched her cheek playfully, told her not to do
so again, and gave a check for the amount. There it
lies, at this moment, in Eva's hands; and as she turns it
abstractedly round and round, and marks the play of
light on the beautiful pearls, she thinks earnestly what
that cross means, and wonders that she should ever have
worn it as a mere bauble.
Does it not mean that man's most generous Friend,
the highest, the purest, the sweetest nature that ever
visited this earth, was agonized, tortured, forsaken, and
left to bleed life away, unpitied and unrelieved, for love
of us and of all sinning, suffering humanity? Suddenly
the words came with overpowering force to her mind:
“He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves.”
Immediately she resolved that she would give this
cross to the sacred work of saving the lost. She resolved
to give it secretly—without the knowledge even of her
husband. The bauble was something personal to herself
that never would be missed or inquired for, and she felt
about such an offering that reserve and sacredness which
is proper to natures of great moral delicacy. With the
feeling she had at this moment, it was as much an expression
of personal loyalty and devotion to Jesus Christ
as was the precious alabaster vase of Mary. It satisfied,
moreover, a kind of tender, vague remorse that she
had often felt; as if, in her wedded happiness and her
quiet home, she were too blessed, and had more than
her share of happiness in a world where there were such
sufferings and sorrows.
She had always had a longing to do something towards
the world's work, and, if nothing more, to be a
humble helper of the brave and heroic spirits who press
on in the front ranks of this fight for the good.
-- 443 --
[figure description] Page 443.[end figure description]
She did not wish to be thanked or praised, as if the
giving up of such a toy for such a cause were a sacrifice
worth naming; for, in the mood that she was in, it was
no sacrifice—it was a relief to an over-charged feeling,
an act of sacramental union between her soul and the
Saviour who gave himself wholly for the lost. So she
put the velvet case in its box, and left it at Mr. James's
door, with the following little note:
“My Dear Sir: Ever since that most sad evening when I went
with you in your work of mercy to those unhappy people, I have
been thinking of what I saw, and wishing I could do something to
help you. You say that you do not solicit aid except from the dear
Father who is ever near to those that are trying to do such work
as this; yet, as long as he is ever near to Christian hearts, he will
inspire them with desires to help in a cause so wholly Christ-like. I
send you this ornament, which was bought in days when I thought
little of its sacred meaning. Sell it, and let the avails go towards
enlarging your Home for those poor people who find no place for
repentance in the world. I would rather you would tell nobody
from whom it comes. It is something wholly my own; it is a relief
to offer it, to help a little in so good a work, and I certainly shall not
forget to pray for your success.
“Yours, very truly, E. H.
“P.S.—I am very happy to be able to say that poor M. seems
indeed a changed creature. She is gentle, quiet, and humble; and is
making, in our family, many friends.
“I feel hopeful that there is a future for her, and that the dear
Saviour has done for her what no human being could do.”
We have seen the question raised lately in a religious
paper, whether the sacrifice of personal ornaments for
benevolent objects was not obligatory; and we have seen
the right to retain these small personal luxuries defended
with earnestness.
To us, it seems an unfortunate mode of putting a
very sacred subject.
The Infinite Saviour, in whose hands all the good
works of the world are moving, is rich. The treasures
-- 444 --
[figure description] Page 444.[end figure description]
of the world are his. He is as able now as he was when
on earth to bid us cast in our line and find a piece of
silver in the mouth of the first fish. Our gifts are only
valuable to him for what they express in us.
Had Mary not shed the precious balm upon his head,
she would not have been reproved for the omission; yet
the exaltation of love which so expressed itself was
appreciated and honored by him.
It is written, too, that he looked upon and loved the
young man who had not yet attained to the generous
enthusiasm that is willing to sacrifice all for suffering
humanity.
Religious offerings, to have value in his sight, must
be like the gifts of lovers, not extorted by conscience,
but by the divine necessity which finds relief in giving.
He can wait, as mothers do, till we outgrow our love
of toys and come to feel the real sacredness and significance
of life. The toy which is dear to childhood will
be easily surrendered in the nobler years of maturity.
But Eva's was a nature so desirous of sympathy that
whatever dwelt on her mind overflowed first or last into
the minds of her friends; and, an evening or two after
her visit to the mission home, she told the whole story at
her fireside to Dr. Campbell, St. John, and Angie, Bolton,
Jim, and Alice, who were all dining with her. Eva had
two or three objects in this. In the first place, she
wanted to touch the nerve of real Christian unity which
she felt existed between the heart of St. John and that of
every true Christian worker—that same Christian unity
that associated the Puritan apostle Eliot with the Roman
Catholic missionaries of Canada. She wished him to
see in a Methodist minister the same faith, the same
moral heroism which he had so warmly responded to in
the ritualistic mission of St. George, and which was his
moral ideal in his own work.
-- 445 --
[figure description] Page 445.[end figure description]
She wished to show Dr. Campbell the pure and simple
faith in God and prayer by which so effective a work
of humanity had already been done for a class so hopeless.
“It's all very well,” he said, “and I'm glad, if anybody
can do it; but I don't believe prayer has anything
to do with it.”
“Well, I do,” said Bolton, energetically. “I would n't
think life worth having another minute, if I did n't think
there was a God who would stand by a man whose whole
life was devoted to work like this.”
“Well,” said Campbell, “it is n't, after all, an appeal
to God; it's an appeal to human nature. Nobody that
has a heart in him can see such a work doing and not
want to help it. Your minister takes one and another to
see his Home, and says nothing, and, by-and-by, the
money comes in.”
“But in the beginning,” said Eva, “he had no money,
and nothing to show to anybody. He was going to do
a work that nobody believed in, among people that
everybody thought so hopeless that it was money thrown
away to help him. To whom could he go but God? He
went and asked Him to help him, and began, and has
been helped day by day ever since; and I believe God
did help him. What is the use of believing in God at
all, if we don't believe that?”
“Well,” said Jim, “I'm not much on theology, but
we newspaper fellows get a considerable stock of facts,
first and last; and I've looked through this sort of thing,
and I believe in it. A man don't go on doing a business
of six or seven or eight thousand a year on prayer,
unless prayer amounts to something; and I know, first
and last, the expenses of that concern can't be less than
that.”
“Well,” said Harry, “we have a lasting monument
-- 446 --
[figure description] Page 446.[end figure description]
in the great orphan house of Halle—a whole city square
of solid stone buildings. I have stood in the midst of
them, and they were all built by one man, without fortune
of his own, who has left us his written record how,
day by day, as expenses thickened, he went to God and
asked for his supplies, and found them.”
“But I maintain,” said Dr. Campbell, “that his appeal
was to human nature. People found out what he
was doing, their sympathies were moved, and they sent
him help. The very sight of such a work is an application.”
“I don't think that theory accounts for the facts,”
said Bolton. “Admitting that there is a God who is
near every human heart in its most secret retirement,
who knows the most hidden moods, the most obscure
springs of action, how can you prove that this God did
not inspire the thoughts of sympathy and purposes of
help there recorded? For we have in this Franke's
journal, year after year, records of help coming in when
it was wanted, having been asked for of God, and obtained
with as much regularity and certainty as if checks
had been drawn on a banker.”
“Well,” said Dr. Campbell, “do you suppose that, if
I should now start to build a hospital without money,
and pray every week for funds to settle with my workmen,
it would come?”
“No, Doctor, you 're not the kind of fellow that such
things happen to,” said Jim, “nor am I.”
“It supposes an exceptional nature,” said Bolton,
“an utter renunciation of self, an entire devotion to an
unselfish work, and an unshaken faith in God. It is a
moral genius, as peculiar and as much a gift as the genius
of painting, poetry, or music.”
“It is an inspiration to do the work of humanity,
and it presupposes faith,” said Eva. “You know the
-- 447 --
[figure description] Page 447.[end figure description]
Bible says, `He that cometh to God must believe that HE
IS, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek
him.'”
The result of that fireside talk was not unfruitful.
The next week was a harvest for the Home.
In blank envelopes, giving no names, came various
sums. Fifty dollars, with the added note:
“From a believer in human nature.”
This was from Dr. Campbell.
A hundred dollars was found in another envelope,
with the note:
“To help up the fallen,
From one who has been down.”
This was from Bolton.
Mr. St. John sent fifty dollars, with the words:
“From a fellow-worker.”
And, finally, Jim Fellows sent fifty, with the words:
“From one of the boys.”
None of these consulted with the other; each contribution
was a silent and secret offering. Who can
prove that the “Father that seeth in secret” did not inspire
them?
-- -- p710-471
CHAPTER XLIX. THE UNPROTECTED FEMALE.
[figure description] Page 448.[end figure description]
“THE Squantum and Patuxet Manufacturing Company
have concluded not to make any dividends
for the current year.”
Such was the sum and substance that Miss Dorcas
gathered from a very curt letter which she had just received
from the Secretary of that concern, at the time of
the semi-annual dividend.
The causes of this arrangement were said to be that
the entire income of the concern (which it was cheerfully
stated had never been so prosperous) was to be
devoted to the erection of a new mill and the purchase
of new machinery, which would in the future double the
avails of the stock.
Now, as society is, and, for aught we see, as it must
be, the masculine half of mankind have it all their own
way; and the cleverest and shrewdest woman, in making
investments, has simply the choice between what this or
that man tells her. If she falls by chance into the hands
of an honest man, with good sense, she may make an
investment that will be secure to pay all the expenses of
her mortal pilgrimage, down to the banks of Jordan; but
if, as quite often happens, she falls into the hands of
careless or visionary advisers, she may suddenly find
herself in the character of “the unprotected female” at
some half-way station of life, with her ticket lost and
not a cent to purchase her further passage.
Now, this was precisely the predicament that this
letter announced to Miss Dorcas. For the fact was
-- 449 --
[figure description] Page 449.[end figure description]
that, although she and her sister owned the house they
lived in, yet every available cent of income that supplied
their establishment came from the dividends of these
same Squantum and Patuxet mills.
It is a fact, too, that women, however strong may be
their own sense and ability, do, as a general fact, rely on
the judgment of the men of the family, and consider their
rulings in business matters final.
Miss Dorcas had all this propensity intensified by
the old-world family feeling. Her elder brother, Dick
Vanderheyden, was one of those handsome, plausible,
visionary fellows who seem born to rule over womankind,
and was fully disposed to magnify his office. Miss
Dorcas worshiped him with a faith which none of his
numerous failures abated. The cupboards and closets
of the house were full of the remains of inventions
which, he had demonstrated by figures in the face of
facts, ought to have produced millions, and never did
produce anything but waste of money. She was sure
that he was the original inventor of the principle of the
sewing-machine; and how it happened that he never
perfected the thing, and that somebody else stole in before
him and got it all, Miss Dorcas regarded as one of
the inscrutable mysteries of Providence.
Poor Dick Vanderheyden was one of those permanent
waiters at the world's pool, like the impotent man
in the gospel. When the angel of success came down
and troubled the waters, there was always another who
stepped in before him and got the benefit.
Yet there was one thing that never left him to the last,
and that was a sweet-tempered, sunny hopefulness, in
which, through years when the family fortune had been
growing beautifully less in his hands, Dick was still
making arrangements which were to bring in wonderful
results, till one night a sudden hemorrhage from the
-- 450 --
[figure description] Page 450.[end figure description]
lungs settled all his earthly accounts in an hour, and left
Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey without a male relative in
the world.
One of the last moves of brother Dick had been to
take all the sisters' United States stock and invest it for
them in the Squantum and Patuxet Manufacturing Company,
where, he confidently assured them, it would in
time bring them an income of fifty per cent.
For four years after his death, however, only a moderate
dividend was declared by the company, but always
with brilliant promises for the future; the fifty per cent.,
like the “good time coming” in the song, was a thing to
look forward to, as the end of many little retrenchments
and economies; and now suddenly comes this letter, announcing
to them an indefinite suspension of their income.
Mrs. Betsey could scarcely be made to believe it.
“Why, they've got all our money; are they going to
keep it, and not pay us anything?”
“That seems to be their intention,” said Miss Dorcas
grimly.
“But, Dorcas, I would n't have it so. I'd rather have
our money back again in United States stock.”
“So had I.”
“Well, if you write and ask them for it, and tell
them that you must have it, and can't get along without,
won't they send it back to you?”
“No, they won't think of such a thing. They never
do business that way.”
“Won't? Why, I never heard of such folks. Why,
there's no justice in it.”
“You do n't understand these things, Betsey; nor I,
very well. All I know is, that Dick took our money
and bought stock with it, and we are stockholders of
this company.”
-- 451 --
[figure description] Page 451.[end figure description]
“And what is being a stockholder?”
“As far as I can perceive, it is this: when old women
like you and me are stockholders, it means that a company
of men take our money and use it for their own
purposes, and pay us what they like, when it comes convenient;
and when it's not convenient, they don't pay us
at all. It is borrowing people's money, without paying
interest.”
“Why, that is horrid. Why, it's the most unjust
thing I ever heard of,” said Mrs. Betsey. “Do n't you
think so, Dorcas?”
“Well, it seems so to me; but women never understand
business. Dick used to say so. The fact is, old
women have no business anywhere,” said Miss Dorcas
bitterly. “It's time we were out of the world.”
“I'm sure I have n't wanted to live so very much,”
said Mrs. Betsey, tremulously. “I do n't want to die,
but I had quite as lieve be dead.”
“Come, Betsey, don't let us talk that way,” said Miss
Dorcas. “We sha'n't gain anything by flying in the face
of Providence.”
“But, Dorcas, I do n't think it can be quite as bad as
you think. People could n't be so bad, if they knew just
how much we wanted our money. Why, we haven't
anything to go on—only think! The company has been
making money, you say?”
“Oh, yes, never so large profits as this year; but, instead
of paying the stockholders, they have voted to put
up a new mill and enlarge the business.”
“Who voted so?”
“The stockholders themselves. As far as I can learn,
that means one or two men who have bought all the
stock, and now can do what they like.”
“But could n't you go to the stockholders' meeting
and vote?”
-- 452 --
[figure description] Page 452.[end figure description]
“What good would it do, if I have but ten votes,
where each of these men has five hundred? They have
money enough. They don't need this income to live on,
and so they use it, as they say, to make the property
more valuable; and perhaps, Betsey, when we are both
dead, it will pay fifty per cent. to somebody, just as Dick
always said it would.”
“But,” said Mrs. Betsey, “of what use will that be to us,
when what we want is something to live on now? Why,
we can't get along without income, Dorcas, do'nt you see?”
“I think I do,” said Miss Dorcas, grimly.
“Why, why, what shall we do?”
“Well, we can sell the house, I suppose.”
“Sell the house!” said poor little Mrs. Betsey, aghast
at the thought; “and where could we go? and what
should we do with all our things? I'd rather die, and
done with it; and if we got any money and put it into
anything, people would just take it and use it, and not
pay us income; or else it would all go just as my money
did that Dick put into that Aurora bank. That was
going to make our everlasting fortune. There was no
end to the talk about what it would do—and all of a
sudden the bank burst up, and my money was all gone—
never gave me back a cent! and I should like to know
where it went to. Somebody had that ten thousand dollars
of mine, but it was n't me. No, we wo n't sell the
house; it's all we've got left, and as long as it's here
we've got a right to be somewhere. We can stay here and
starve, I suppose!—you and I and Jack.”
Jack, perceiving by his mistress's tones that something
was the matter, here jumped into her lap and
kissed her.
“Yes, you poor doggie,” said Mrs. Betsey, crying;
“we'll all starve together. How much money have you
got left, Dorcas?”
-- 453 --
[figure description] Page 453.[end figure description]
Miss Dorcas drew out an old porte-monnaie and
opened it.
“Twenty dollars.”
“Oh, go 'way, Miss Dorcas; ye do n't know what a
lot I's got stowed away in my old tea-pot!” chuckled a
voice from behind the scenes, and Dinah's woolly head
and brilliant ivories appeared at the slide of the china-closet,
where she had been an unabashed and interested
listener to the conversation.
“Dinah, I'm surprised,” said Miss Dorcas, with dignity.
“Well, y' can be surprised and git over it,” said
Dinah, rolling her portly figure into the conversation.
“All I's got to say is, dere ain't no use for Mis' Betsey
here to be worritin' and gettin' into a bad spell 'bout
money, so long as I's got three hundred dollars laid up
in my tea-pot. 'Tain't none o' your rags neither,” said
Dinah, who was strong on the specie question—“good
bright silver dollars, and gold guineas, and eagles, I
tucked away years ago, when your Pa was alive, and
money was plenty. Look a-heah now!”—and Dinah emphasized
her statement by rolling a handful of old gold
guineas upon the table—“Dare now; see dar! Do n't
catch me foolin' away no money wid no banks and no
stockholders. I keeps pretty tight grip o'mine. Tell
you, 'fore I'd let dem gemmen hab my money I'd braid it
up in my har—and den I'd know where 'twas when I
wanted it.”
“Dinah, you dear old soul,” said Miss Dorcas, with
tears in her eyes, “you do n't think we'd live on your
money?”
“Dun no why you should n't, as well as me live on
yourn,” said Dinah. “It's all in de family, and turn
about's fair play. Why, good land! Miss Dorcas, I jest
lotted on savin't up for de family. You can use mine
-- 454 --
[figure description] Page 454.[end figure description]
and give it back agin when dat ar good time comes
Massa Dick was allers a-tellin' about.”
Mrs. Betsey fell into Dinah's arms, and cried on her
shoulder, declaring that she could n't take a cent of her
money, and that they were all ruined, and fell into what
Dinah used to call one of her “bad spells.” So she
swept her up in her arms forthwith and carried her up-stairs
and put her to bed, amid furious dissentient barkings
from Jack, who seemed to consider it his duty to
express an opinion in the matter.
“Dar now, ye aggrevatin' critter, lie down and shet
up,” she said to Jack, as she lifted him on to the bed and
saw him cuddle down in Mrs. Betsey's arms and lay his
rough cheek against hers.
Dinah remembered, years before, her young mistress
lying weak and faint on that same spot, and how there
had been the soft head of a baby lying where Jack's
rough head was now nestling, and her heart swelled
within her.
“Now, then,” she said, pouring out some drops and
giving them to her, “you jest hush up and go to sleep,
honey. Miss Dorcas and I, we'll fix up this 'ere. It 'll
all come straight—now you'll see it will. Why, de Lord
ain't gwine to let you starve. Never see de righteous
forsaken. Jest go to sleep, honey, and it 'll be all right
when you wake up.”
Meanwhile, Miss Dorcas had gone across the way to
consult with Eva. The opening of the friendship on the
opposite side of the way had been a relief to her from
the desolateness and loneliness of her life circle, and she
had come to that degree of friendly reliance that she felt
she could state her dilemma and ask advice.
“I don't see any way but I must come to selling the
house at last,” said Miss Dorcas; “but I don't know how
to set about it; and if we have to leave, at our age, life
-- 455 --
[figure description] Page 455.[end figure description]
won't seem worth having. I'm afraid it would kill
Betsey.”
“Dear Miss Dorcas, we can't afford to lose you,” said
Eva. “You don't know what a comfort it is to have you
over there, so nice and handy—why, it would be forlorn
to have you go; it would break us all up!”
“You are kind to say so,” said Miss Dorcas; “but I
can't help feeling that the gain of our being there is all
on one side.”
“But, dear Miss Dorcas, why need you move? See
here. A bright thought strikes me. Your house is so
large! Why could n't you rent half of it? You really
do n't need it all; and I'm sure it could easily be arranged
for two families. Do think of that, please.”
“If it could be done—if anybody would want it!”
said Miss Dorcas.
“Oh, just let us go over this minute and see,” said
Eva, as she threw a light cloud of worsted over her head,
and seizing Miss Dorcas by the arm, crossed back with
her, talking cheerfully.
“Here you have it, nice as possible. Your front parlor—
you never sit there; and it's only a care to have a
room you don't use. And then this great empty office
back here—a dining-room all ready! and there is a back
shed that could have a cooking-stove, and be fitted into
a kitchen. Why, the thing is perfect; and there's your
income, without moving a peg! See what it is to have
real estate!”
“You are very sanguine,” said Miss Dorcas, looking
a little brightened herself. “I have often thought myself
that the house is a great deal larger than we need;
but I am quite helpless about such matters. We are so
out of the world. I know nothing of business; real
estate agents are my horror; and I have no man to advise
me.”
-- 456 --
[figure description] Page 456.[end figure description]
“Oh, Miss Dorcas, wait now till I consult Harry.
I'm sure something nice could be arranged.”
“I dare say,” said Miss Dorcas, “if these rooms were
in a fashionable quarter we might let them; but the
world has long since left our house in the rear.”
“Never mind that,” said Eva. “You see we don't
mind fashion, and there may be neighbors as good as
we, of the same mind.”
Eva already had one of her visions in her head; but
of this she did not speak to Miss Dorcas till she had
matured it.
She knew Jim Fellows had been for weeks on the
keen chase after apartments, and that none yet had
presented themselves as altogether eligible. Alice had
insisted on an economical beginning, and the utmost
prudence as to price; and the result had been, what is
usual in such cases, that all the rooms that would do at
all were too dear.
Eva saw at once in this suite of rooms, right across
the way from them, the very thing they were in search
of. The rooms were large and sunny, with a quaint,
old-fashioned air of by-gone gentility that made them
attractive; and her artist imagination at once went into
the work of brightening up their tarnished and dusky
respectability with a nice little modern addition of pictures
and flowers, and new bits of furniture here and
there.
Just as she returned from her survey, she found Jim
in her own parlor, with a thriving pot of ivy.
“Well, here's one for our parlor window, when we
find one,” said he. “I'm a boy that gets things when
I see them. Now you don't often see an ivy so thrifty
as this, and I've brought it to you to take care of till
I find the room!”
“Jim,” said Eva, “I believe just what you want is to
-- 457 --
[figure description] Page 457.[end figure description]
be found right across the way from us, so that we can
talk across from your windows to ours.”
“What! the old Vanderheyden house? Thunder!”
said Jim.
Now, Jim was one of the class of boys who make
free use of “thunder” in conversation, without meaning
to express anything more by it than a state of slight
surprise.
“What's up now?” he added. “I should as soon
expect Queen Victoria to rent Buckingham Palace as
that the old ladies across the way would come to letting
rooms!”
“Necessity has no law, Jim.” And then Eva told
him Miss Dorcas's misfortune.
“Poor old girls!” said Jim. “I do declare it's too
thundering bad. I'll go right over and rent the rooms;
and I'll pay up square, too, and no mistake.”
“Shall I go with you?”
“Oh, you just leave that to me. Two are all that are
needed in a bargain.”
In a few minutes, Jim was at his ease in front of Miss
Dorcas, saying:
“Miss Dorcas, the fact is, I want to hire a suite of
rooms. You see, I'm going to have a wife before long,
and nothing will suit her so well as this neighborhood.
Now, if you will only rent us half of your house, we shall
behave so beautifully that you never will be sorry you
took us in.”
Miss Dorcas apologized for the rooms and furniture.
They were old, she knew—not in modern style—but
such as they were, would he just go through them? and
Jim made the course with her. And the short of the
matter was, that the bargain was soon struck.
Jim stated frankly the sum he felt able to pay for
apartments; to Miss Dorcas the sum seemed ample
-- 458 --
[figure description] Page 458.[end figure description]
enough to relieve all her embarrassments, and in an hour
he returned to the other side, having completed the
arrangement.
“There, now,—we're anchored, I think. The old
folks and Aunt Maria have been wanting me to marry
on and live with them in the old hive, but Jim does n't
put his foot into that trap, if he knows it. My wife
and I must have our own establishment, if it's only in
two rooms. Now it's all settled, if Allie likes it, and I
know she will. By George, it's a lucky hit! That parlor
will brighten up capitally.”
“You know, old furniture is all the rage now,” said
Eva, “and you can buy things here and there as you
want.”
“Yes,” said Jim; “you know I did buy a pair of
brass andirons when I was going to ask Allie to have
me, and they'll be just the things for the fireplace over
there. Miss Dorcas apologized for the want of those
that belonged there by saying that her brother had taken
them to pieces to try some experiments in brass polishing,
and never found time to put them together again,
and so parts of them got lost. I told her it was a special
providence that I happened to have the very pair that
were needed there; and there's a splendid sunny window
for the ivies on the south corner!”
“That old furniture is lovely,” said Eva. “It's like
a dark, rich background to a picture. All your little
bright modern things will show so well over it.”
“Well, I'm going to bring Allie down to go over it,
this minute,” said Jim, who was not of the class that
allow the grass to grow under their feet.
Meanwhile, when little Mrs. Betsey came down to
dinner, she found the storm over, and clear, shining after
rain.
“What, Mr. Fellows!” she exclaimed; “that dear,
-- 459 --
[figure description] Page 459.[end figure description]
good young man that was so kind to Jack! Why, Dorcas,
what a providence! I'm sure it'll be a mercy to
have a man in the house once more!”
“Why, I'm sure,” said Miss Dorcas, “your great fear
that you wake me up every night about, is that there is
a man in the house!”
“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Betsey, laughing cheerfully;
“you know what I mean. I mean the right kind of a
man. I've thought that those dreadful burglars and
creatures that break into houses where there's old silver
must find us out—because, Dorcas, really, that hat that
we keep on the entry table is so big and dusty, and so
different from what they wear now, they must know that
no man wears a hat like that. I've always told Dinah
that—she knows I have, more than twenty times.”
A snicker from the adjacent china-closet, where
Dinah was listening, confirmed this statement.
“Why, it's such a nice thing. Why, there's no end
to it,” said Mrs. Betsey, whose cheerfulness increased
with reflection. “A real live man in the house!—and a
young man, too!—and such a nice one; and dear Miss
Alice—why, only think, bringing all her wedding clothes
to the house, and I do n't doubt she'll show them all to
me—and it'll be so nice for Jack! won't it, Jack?”
Jack barked his assent vigorously, and a second explosive
chuckle from the china closet betrayed Dinah's
profound sympathy. The faithful creature was rolling
and boiling in waves of triumphant merriment behind
the scenes. The conversation of her mistresses in fact
appeared to be a daily source of amusement to her, and
Miss Dorcas was forced to wink at this espionage, in
consideration of Dinah's limited sources of entertainment,
and generally pretended not to know that she was
there.
On the present occasion, Dinah's contribution to the
-- 460 --
[figure description] Page 460.[end figure description]
interview was too evident to be ignored, but Miss Dorcas
listened to it with indulgence. A good prospect of
regular income does, after all, strengthen one's faith in
Providence, and dispose one to be easily satisfied with
one's fellows.
-- -- p710-484
CHAPTER L. EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER.
[figure description] Page 461.[end figure description]
DEAR Mother: You've no idea how things have
gone on within a short time. I have been so excited
and so busy, and kept in such a state of constant
consultation, for this past week, that I have had no time
to keep up my bulletins to you.
Well, dear mother, it is at last concluded that we are
to have two weddings on one day, the second week after
Easter, when Alice is to be married to Jim Fellows, and
Angie to Mr. St. John.
Easter comes this year about the latest that it ever
does, so that we may hope for sunny spring weather, and
at least a few crocuses and hyacinths in the borders, as
good omens for the future. I wish you could choose
this time to make your long-promised visit and see how
gay and festive we all are. Just now, every one is overwhelmed
with business, and the days go off very fast.
Aunt Maria is in her glory, as generalissimo of the
forces and dictator of all things. It is for just such
crises that she was born; she has now fairly enough to
manage to keep her contented with everybody, and everybody
contented with her—which, by-the-bye, is not always
the case in her history.
It is decreed that the wedding is to be a morning
one, in Mr. St. John's little chapel; and that, after the reception
at mamma's, Jim will start with Alice to visit his
family friends, and Angie and St. John will go immediately
on the steamer to sail for Europe, where they will
spend the summer in traveling and be back again in the
-- 462 --
[figure description] Page 462.[end figure description]
autumn. Meanwhile, they have engaged a house in that
part of the city where their mission work lies, and of
course, like ours, it is on an unfashionable street—a
thing which grieves Aunt Maria, who takes every occasion
to say that Mr. St. John, being a man of independent
fortune, is entitled to live genteelly. I am glad,
because they are within an easy distance of us, which
will be nice. Aunt Maria and mamma are to see to
getting the house all ready for them to go into when they
return.
Bolton is going over with them, to visit Paris! The
fact is, since I opened communication between him and
Caroline, her letters to me have grown short and infrequent,
and her letters to him long and constant, and the
effect on him has been magical. I have never seen him
in such good spirits. Those turns of morbid depression
that he used to have, seem to be fading away gradually.
He has been with us so much that I feel almost as if he
were a member of our family, and I cannot but feel that
our home has been a shelter and a strength to him.
What would it be to have a happy one of his own? I
am sure he deserves it, if ever kindness, unselfishness,
and true nobleness of heart deserved it: and I am sure
that Caroline is wise enough and strong enough to give
him just the support that he needs.
Then there's Alice's engagement to Jim. I have long
foreseen to what her friendship for him would grow, and
though she had many hesitations, yet now she is perfectly
happy in it; and only think how nice it is! They
are to take half the old Vanderheyden house, opposite
to us, so that we can see the lights of each other's hearths
across from each other's windows.
Mother, does n't it seem as if our bright, cosy, happy,
free-and-easy home was throwing out as many side-shoots
as a lilac bush?
-- 463 --
[figure description] Page 463.[end figure description]
Just think; in easy vicinity, we shall have Jim and
Alice, Angie and St. John, and, as I believe, Bolton and
Caroline. We shall be a guild of householders, who hold
the same traditions, walk by the same rule, and mind
the same things. Won't it be lovely? What nice
“droppings in” and visitings and tea-drinkings and consultings
we shall have! And it is not merely having
good times either; but, Mother, the more I think of it,
the more I think the making of bright, happy homes is
the best way of helping on the world that has been discovered
yet. A home is a thing that can 't be for one's
own self alone—at least the kind of home we are thinking
of; it reaches out on all sides and helps and shelters
and comforts others. Even my little experiment of a
few months ago shows me that; and I know that
Angie's and St. John's home will be even more so than
ours. Angie was born to be a rector's wife; to have a
kind word and a smile and a good deed for everybody,
to love everybody dearly, and keep everybody bright and
in good spirits. It is amazing to see the change she has
wrought in St. John. He was fast getting into a sort of
stringent, morbid asceticism; now he is so gracious, so
genial, and so entertaining,—he is like a rock, in June, all
bursting out with anemones and columbines in every
rift.
As to Jim and Alice, you ought to see how happy
they are in consulting me about the arrangements of
their future home in the Vanderheyden house. And the
best of it is, to see how perfectly delighted the two old
ladies are to have them there. You must know that
there was a sudden failure in Miss Dorcas's income
which would have made it necessary to sell the house
had it not been for just this arrangement. But they are
as gracious and kind about it as if they were about to
receive guests; and every improvement and every
-- 464 --
[figure description] Page 464.[end figure description]
additional touch of brightness to the rooms seems to please
them as much as if they were going to be married themselves.
Miss Dorcas said to me that our coming to live in
their neighborhood had been the greatest blessing to
them that ever had happened for years—that it had
opened a new life to them.
As to Maggie, dear Mother, she is becoming a real
comfort to me. I do think that all the poor girl's sorrows
and sufferings have not been in vain, and that she
is now a true and humble Christian.
She has been very useful in this sudden hurry of
work that has fallen upon us, and seems really delighted
to be so. In our group of families, Maggie will always
find friends. Angie wants her to come and live with
them when they begin housekeeping, and I think I shall
let her go.
I shall never forget the dreadful things I saw the
night I went after her. They have sunk deep into my
heart; and I hope, Mother, I see more clearly the deepest
and noblest purpose of life, so as never again to
forget it.
But, meantime, a thousand little cares break and
fritter themselves on my heart, like waves on a rock.
Everybody is running to me, every hour. I am consulter
and sympathizer and adviser, from the shape of a bow
and the positions of trimming up to the profoundest
questions of casuistry. They all talk to me, and I divide
my heart among them all, and so the days fly by with
frightful rapidity, and I fear I shall get little time to
write, so pray come and see for yourself
Your loving
Eva.
-- -- p710-488
CHAPTER LI. THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN.
[figure description] Page 465.[end figure description]
IT is said that Queen Elizabeth could converse in five
languages, and dictate to three secretaries at once, in
different tongues, with the greatest ease and composure.
Perhaps it might have been so—let us not quarrel with
her laurels; it only shows what women can do if they
set about it, and is not a whit more remarkable than
Aunt Maria's triumphant management of all the details
of two weddings at one time.
That estimable individual has not, we fear, always
appeared to advantage in this history, and it is due to
her now to say that nobody that saw her proceedings
could help feeling the beauty of the right person in the
right place.
Many a person is held to be a pest and a nuisance
because there is n't enough to be done to use up his
capabilities. Aunt Maria had a passion for superintending
and directing, and all that was wanting to bring
things right was an occasion when a great deal of superintendence
and direction was wanting.
The double wedding in the family just fulfilled all
the conditions. It opened a field to her that everybody
was more than thankful to have her occupy.
Lovers, we all know, are, ex-officio, ranked among the
incapables; and if, while they were mooning round in
the fairy-land of sentiment, some good, strong, active,
practical head were not at work upon the details of real
life, nothing would be on time at the wedding. Now, if
this be true of one wedding, how much more of two! So
Aunt Maria stepped at once into command by
-- 466 --
[figure description] Page 466.[end figure description]
acclamation and addressed herself to her work as a strong man
to run a race; and while Angie and St. John spent blissful
hours in the back parlor, and Jim and Alice monopolized
the library, Aunt Maria flew all over New York,
and arranged about all the towels and table-cloths and
napkins and doilies, down to the very dish-cloths. She
overlooked armies of sewing women, milliners and
mantua-makers—the most slippery of all mortal creatures—
and drove them all up to have each her quota in
time. She, with Mrs. Van Arsdel, made lists of people
to be invited, and busied herself with getting samples
and terms from fancy stationers for the wedding cards.
She planned in advance all the details of the wedding
feast, and engaged the cake and fruit and ice-cream.
Nor did she forget the social and society exigencies
of the crisis.
She found time, dressed in her best, to take Mrs. Van
Arsdel in full panoply to return the call of Mrs. Dr.
Gracey, who had come, promptly and properly, with the
doctor, to recognize Miss Angelique and felicitate about
the engagement of their nephew.
She arranged for a dinner-party to be given by Mrs.
Van Arsdel, where the doctor and his lady were to be
received into family alliance, and testimonies of high
consideration accorded to them. Aunt Maria took occasion,
in private converse with Mrs. Dr. Gracey, to
assure her of her very great esteem and respect for Mr.
St. John, and her perfect conviction that he was on the
right road now, and that, though he might possibly burn
a few more candles in his chapel, yet, when he came
fully under family influences, they would gradually be
snuffed out,—intimating that she intended to be aunt, not
only to Arthur, but to his chapel and his mission-work.
The extraordinary and serene meekness with which
that young divine left every question of form and
-- 467 --
[figure description] Page 467.[end figure description]
etiquette to her management, and the sort of dazed humility
with which he listened to all her rulings about the
arrangements of the wedding-day, had inspired in Aunt
Maria's mind such hopes of his docility as led to these
very sanguine anticipations.
It is true that, when it came to the question of renting
a house, she found him quietly but unalterably set
on a small and modest little mansion in the unfashionable
neighborhood where his work lay.
“Arthur is going on with his mission,” said Angelique,
“and I'm going to help him, and we must live
where we can do most good”—a reason to which Aunt
Maria was just now too busy to reply, but she satisfied
herself by discussing at length the wedding affairs with
Mrs. Dr. Gracey.
“Of course, Mrs. Gracey,” she said, “we all feel that
if dear Dr. Gracey is to conduct the wedding services,
everything will be in the good old way; there 'll be
nothing objectionable or unusual.”
“Oh, you may rely on that, Mrs. Wouvermans,” replied
the lady. “The doctor is not the man to run
after novelties; he's a good old-fashioned Episcopalian.
Though he always has been very indulgent to Arthur, he
thinks, as our dear bishop does, that if young men are
left to themselves, and not fretted by opposition, they
will gradually outgrow these things.”
“Precisely so,” said Aunt Maria; “just what I have
always thought. For my part I always said that it was
safe to trust the bishop.”
Did Aunt Maria believe this? She certainly appeared
to. She sincerely supposed that this was what she
always had thought and said, and quite forgot the times
when she used to wonder “what our bishop could be
thinking of, to let things go so.”
It was one blessed facility of this remarkable woman
-- 468 --
[figure description] Page 468.[end figure description]
that she generally came to the full conviction of the
axiom that “whatever is, is right,” and took up and
patronized anything that would succeed in spite of her
best efforts to prevent it.
So, in announcing the double wedding to her fashionable
acquaintance, she placed everything, as the
popular saying is, best foot foremost.
Mr. Fellows was a young man of fine talents, great
industry and elegant manners, a great favorite in society,
and likely to take the highest rank in his profession.
Alice had refused richer offers—she might perhaps have
done better in a worldly point of view, but it was purely
a love match, &c., &c. And Mr. St. John, a young man
of fine family and independent fortune, who might command
all the elegancies of life, was going to live in a
distant and obscure quarter, to labor in his work. These
facts brought forth, of course, bursts of sympathy and
congratulation, and Aunt Maria went off on the top of
the wave.
Eva had but done her aunt justice when she told her
mother that Aunt Maria would be all the more amiable
for the firm stand which the young wife had taken against
any interference with her family matters. It was so.
Aunt Maria was as balmy to Eva as if that discussion had
never taken place, though it must be admitted that Eva
was a very difficult person to keep up a long quarrel with.
But just at this hour, when the whole family were at
her feet, when it was her voice that decided every question,
when she knew where everything was and was to
be, and when everything was to be done, she was too
well pleased to be unamiable. She was the spirit of the
whole affair, and she plumed herself joyously when all
the callers at the house said to Mrs. Van Arsdel, “Dear
me! what would you do, if it were not for your sister?”
Verily she had her reward.
-- -- p710-492
CHAPTER LII. EVA'S CONSULTATIONS.
[figure description] Page 469.[end figure description]
“NOW see here,” said Jim, coming in upon Eva as
she sat alone in her parlor, “I've got something
on my mind I want to talk with you about. You see,
Alice and I are to be married at the same time with
Angie and St. John.”
“Yes, I see it.”
“Well, now, what I want to say is, that I really hope
there won't be anything longer and harder and more circumlocutory
to be got through with on the occasion than
just what's in the prayer-book, for that's all I can stand.
I can't stand prayer-book with the variations, now I
really can't.”
“Well, Jim, what makes you think there will be
prayer-book with the variations?”
“Oh, well, I attended a ritualistic wedding once, and
there was such an amount of processing and chanting,
and ancient and modern improvements, that it was just
like a show. There were the press reporters elbowing
and pushing to get the best places to write it up for the
papers, and, for my part, I think it's in confounded bad
taste, and I could n't stand it; you know, now, I'm a
nervous fellow, and if I've got to take part in the exercises,
they 'll have to `draw it mild,' or Allie and I will
have to secede and take it by ourselves. I could n't go
such a thing as that wedding; I never should come out
alive.”
“Well, Jim, I don't believe there's any reason for
apprehension. In the first place, the ceremony, as to its
mode and form, always is supposed to be conducted
-- 470 --
[figure description] Page 470.[end figure description]
according to the preferences of the bride's family, and we
all of us should be opposed to anything which would
draw remark and comment, as being singular and unusual
on such an occasion.”
“I'm glad to hear that,” said Jim.
“And then, Jim, Mr. St. John's uncle, Dr. Gracey, is
to perform the ceremony, and he is one of the most respected
of the conservative Episcopal clergymen in New
York; and it is entirely out of the question to suppose
that he would take part in anything of the sort you fear,
or which would excite comment as an innovation. Then,
again, I think Mr. St. John himself has so much natural
refinement and just taste that he would not wish his own
wedding to become a theme for gossip and a gazing stock
for the curious.”
“Well, I did n't know about St. John; I was a little
afraid we should be obliged to do something or other,
because they did it in the catacombs, or the Middle
Ages, or in Edward the Sixth's time, or some such
dodge. I thought I'd just make sure.”
“Well, I think Mr. St. John has gone as far in those
directions as he ever will go. He has been living alone
up to this winter. He has formed his ideas by himself
in solitude. Now he will have another half to himself;
he will see in part through the eyes, and feel through the
heart, of a sensible and discreet woman—for Angie is
that. The society he has met at our house in such men
as Dr. Campbell and others, has enlarged his horizon,—
given him new points of vision,—so that I think the too
great tendencies he may have had in certain directions
have been insensibly checked.”
“I wish they may,” said Jim, “for he is a good fellow,
and so much like one of the primitive Christians
that I really want him to get all the credit that belongs
to him.”
-- 471 --
[figure description] Page 471.[end figure description]
“Oh, well, you'll see, Jim. When a man is so sincere
and good, and labors with a good wife to help him, you'll
see the difference. But here comes little Mrs. Betsey,
Jim. I promised to get her up a cap for the occasion.”
“Well, I'm off; only be sure you make matters secure
about the ceremony,” and off went Jim, and in came
little Mrs. Betsey.
“It's so good of you, dear Mrs. Henderson, to undertake
to make me presentable. You know Dorcas has n't
the least interest in these things. Dorcas is so independent,
she never cares what the fashion is. Now,
she is n't doing a thing to get ready. She's just going
in that satin gown that she had made twenty years ago,
with a great lace collar as big as a platter; and she sits
there just as easy, reading `Pope's Essay on Man,' and
here I'm all in a worry; but I can't help it. I like to
look a little like other folks, you know. I do n't want
people to think I'm a queer old woman.”
“Certainly, it's the most natural thing in the world,”
said Eva, as she stepped into the little adjoining work-room,
and brought out a filmy cap, trimmed with the
most delicate shade of rosy lilac ribbons. “There!”
she said, settling it on Mrs. Betsey's head, and tying a
bow under her chin, “if anybody says you're not a
beauty in this, I'd like to ask them why?”
“I know it's silly at my age, but I do like pretty
things,” said Mrs. Betsey, looking at herself with approbation
in the glass, “and all the more that it's so very
kind of you, dear Mrs. Henderson.”
“Me? Oh, I like to do it. I'm a born milliner,”
said Eva.
“And now I want to ask a favor. Do you think it
would do for us to take our Dinah to church to see the
ceremony. I do n't know anybody that could enjoy it
more, and Dinah has so few pleasures.”
-- 472 --
[figure description] Page 472.[end figure description]
“Why, certainly. Dinah! my faithful adviser and
help in time of need? Why, of course, give my compliments
to her, and tell her I shall depend on seeing her
there.”
“Dinah is so delighted at the thought that your sister
and Mr. Fellows are coming to live with us, she is busy
cleaning their rooms, and does it with a will. You
know Mr. Fellows has just that gay, pleasant sort of
way that delights all the servants, and she says your
sister is such a beauty!”
“Well, be sure and tell Dinah to come to the wedding,
and she shall have a slice of the cake to dream on.”
“I think I shall feel so much safer when we have a
man in the house,” continued Mrs. Betsey. “You see
we have so much silver, and so many things of that kind,
and Dorcas frightens me to death, because she will have
the basket lugged up into our room at night. I tell her
if she'd only set it outside in the entry, then if the
burglars came they could just go off with it, without
stopping to murder us; but if it was in our room, why,
of course, they would. The fact is, I have got so
nervous about burglars that I am up and down two or
three times a night.”
“But you have Jack to take care of you.”
“Jack is a good watch dog—he's very alert; but the
trouble is, he barks just as loud when there is n't anything
going on as when there is. Night after night, that
dog has started us both up with such a report, and I'd
go all over the house and find nothing there. Sometimes
I think he hears people trying the doors or windows.
Altogether, I think Jack frightens me more than
he helps, though I know he does it all for the best, and I
tell Dorcas so when he wakes her up. You know experienced
people always do say that a small dog is the very
safest thing you can have; but when Mr. Fellows comes
-- 473 --
[figure description] Page 473.[end figure description]
I shall really sleep peaceably. And now, Mrs. Henderson,
you do n't think that light mauve silk of mine will
be too young-looking for me?”
“No, indeed,” said Eva. “Why should n't we all
look as young as we can?”
“I have n't worn it for more than thirty years; but the
silk is good as ever, and your little dress-maker has made
it over with an over-skirt, and Dinah is delighted with it,
and says it makes me look ten years younger!”
“Oh! well I must come over and see it on you.”
“Would you care?” said Mrs. Betsey, delighted.
“How good you are; and then I'll show you the toilette
cushions I've been making for the dear young ladies; and
Dorcas is going to give each of them a pair of real old
India vases that have been in the family ever since we
can remember.”
“Why, you'll be robbing yourselves.”
“No, indeed; it would be robbing ourselves not to
give something, after all the kindness you've shown us.”
And Eva went over to the neighboring house with
Mrs. Betsey; and entered into all the nice little toilette
details with her; and delighted Dinah with an invitation
in person; and took a sympathizing view of Dinah's new
bonnet and shawl, which she pronounced entirely adequate
to the occasion; and thus went along, sewing little
seeds of pleasure to make her neighbors happier—seeds
which were to come up in kind thoughts and actions on
their part by and by.
-- -- p710-497
CHAPTER LIII. WEDDING PRESENTS.
[figure description] Page 474.[end figure description]
ST. JOHN and Angie were together, one evening, in
the room that had been devoted to the reception of
the wedding presents. This room had been Aunt Maria's
pride and joy, and already it had assumed quite the
appearance of a bazar, for the family connections of
the Van Arsdels was large, and numbered many among
the richer classes. Arthur's uncle, Dr. Gracey, and the
family connections through him were also people in
prosperous worldly circumstances, and remarkably well
pleased with the marriage; and so there had been a great
abundance of valuable gifts. The door-bell for the last
week or two had been ringing incessantly, and Aunt
Maria had eagerly seized the parcels from the servant
and borne them to the depository, and fixed their stations
with the cards of the givers conspicuously displayed.
Of course the reader knows that there were the usual
amount of berry-spoons, and pie-knives, and crumbscrapers;
of tea-spoons and coffee-spoons; of silver teaservices;
of bracelets and chains and studs and brooches
and shawl-pins and cashmere shawls and laces. Nobody
could deny that everything was arranged so as to make
the very most of it.
Angie was showing the things to St. John, in one of
those interminable interviews in which engaged people
find so much to tell each other.
“Really, Arthur,” she said, “it is almost too much.
Everybody is giving to me, just at a time when I am so
-- 475 --
[figure description] Page 475.[end figure description]
happy that I need it less than ever I did in my life.
I can't help feeling as if it was more than my share.”
Of course Arthur did n't think so; he was in that
mood that he could n't think anything on land or sea was
too much to be given to Angie.
“And look here,” she said, pointing him to a stand
which displayed a show of needle-books and pincushions,
and small matters of that kind, “just look here—even
the little girls of my sewing-class must give me something.
That needle-book, little Lottie Price made. Where
she got the silk I do n't know, but it's quite touching.
See how nicely she's done it! It makes me almost cry
to have poor people want to make me presents.”
“Why should we deny them that pleasure—the greatest
and purest in the world?” said St. John. “It is more
blessed to give than to receive.”
“Well, then, Arthur, I'll tell you what I was thinking
of. I would n't dare tell it to anybody else, for they'd
think perhaps I was making believe to be better than I
was; but I was thinking it would make my wedding
brighter to give gifts to poor, desolate people who really
need them than to have all this heaped upon me.”
Then Arthur told her how, in some distant ages of
faith and simplicity, Christian weddings were always
celebrated by gifts to the poor.
“Now, for example,” said Angie, “that poor, little,
pale dress-maker that Aunt Maria found for me,—she has
worked day and night over my things, and I can't help
wanting to do something to brighten her up. She has
nothing but hard work and no holidays; no lover to
come and give her pretty things, and take her to Europe;
and then she has a sick mother to take care of—only
think. Now, she told me, one day, she was trying to
save enough to get a sewing-machine.”
“Very well,” said Arthur, “if you want to give her
-- 476 --
[figure description] Page 476.[end figure description]
one, we'll go and look one out to-morrow and send it to
her, with a card for the ceremony, so there will be one
glad heart.”
“Arthur, you—”
But what Angie said to Arthur, and how she rewarded
him, belongs to the literature of Eden—it cannot be
exactly translated.
Then they conferred about different poor families,
whose wants and troubles and sorrows were known to
those two, and a wedding gift was devised to be sent to
each of them; and there are people who may believe
that the devising and executing of these last deeds of
love gave Angie and St. John more pleasure than all the
silver and jewelry in the wedding bazar.
“I have reserved a place for our Sunday-school to
be present at the ceremony,” said Arthur; “and there is
to be a nice little collation laid for them in my study;
and we must go in there a few minutes after the ceremony,
and show ourselves to them, and bid them good-by
before we go to your mother's.”
“Arthur, that is exactly what I was thinking of. I
believe we think the same things always. Now, I want
to say another thing. You wanted to know what piece
of jewelry you should get for my wedding present.”
“Well, darling?”
“Well, I have told Aunt Maria and mamma and all
of them that your wedding gift to me was something I
meant to keep to myself; that I would not have it put
on the table, or shown, or talked about. I did this, in the
first place, as a matter of taste. It seems to me that a marriage
gift ought to be something sacred between us two.”
“Like the white stone with the new name that no
man knoweth save him that receiveth it,” said St. John.
“Yes; just like that. Well, then, Arthur, get me only
a plain locket with your hair in it, and give all the rest
-- 477 --
[figure description] Page 477.[end figure description]
of the money to these uses we talked about, and I
will count it my present. It will be a pledge to me that
I shall not be a hindrance to you in your work, but
a help; that you will do more and not less good for
having me for your wife.”
What was said in reply to this was again in the superangelic
dialect, and untranslatable; but these two children
of the kingdom understood it gladly, for they were,
in all the higher and nobler impulses, of one heart and
one soul.
“As to the ceremony, Arthur,” said Angie, “you
know how very loving and kind your uncle has been to
us. He has been like a real father; and since he is to
perform it, I hope there will be nothing introduced that
would be embarrassing to him or make unnecessary talk
and comment. Just the plain, usual service of the
Prayer-book will be enough, will it not?”
“Just as you say, my darling; this, undoubtedly, is
your province.”
“I think,” said Angie, “that there are many things
in themselves beautiful and symbolic, and that might be
full of interest to natures like yours and mine, that had
better be left alone if they offend the prejudices of
others, especially of dear and honored friends.”
“I do n't know but you are right, Angie; at any rate,
our wedding, so far as that is concerned, shall have nothing
in it to give offense to any one.”
“Sometimes I think,” said Angie, “we please God
by giving up, for love's sake, little things we would
like to do in his service, more than by worship.”
“Well, dear, that principle has a long reach. We
will talk more about it by and by; but now, good-night!—
or your mother will be scolding you again for
sitting up late. Somehow, the time does slip away so
when we get to talking.”
-- -- p710-501
CHAPTER LIV. MARRIED AND A'.
[figure description] Page 478.[end figure description]
WELL, the day of days came at last, and a fairer
May morning never brightened the spire of old
Trinity or woke the sparrows of the park. Even the
dingy back garden of the Vanderheyden house had bubbled
out in golden crocus and one or two struggling
hyacinths, and the old lilacs by the chamber windows
were putting forth their first dusky, sweet-scented buds.
In about half a dozen houses, everybody was up early,
with heads full of wedding dresses, and wedding fusses,
and wedding cake. Aunt Maria, like a sergeant of police,
was on hand, as wide awake and as fully possessed of
the case as it was possible for mortal woman to be.
She was everywhere,—seeing to everything, reproving,
rebuking, exhorting, and pushing matters into line generally.
This was her hour of glory, and she was mistress of
the situation. Mrs. Van Arsdel was sweet and loving,
bewildered and tearful; and wandered hither and thither
doing little bits of things and remorselessly snubbed by
her energetic sister, who, after pushing her out of the way
several times, finally issued the order: “Nellie, I do
wish you'd go to your room and keep quiet. I understand
what I want, and you do n't.”
The two brides, each in their respective dressing-rooms,
were receiving those attentions which belong to
the central figures of the tableau.
-- 479 --
[figure description] Page 479.[end figure description]
Marie, the only remaining unmarried sister, who had
been spending the winter in Philadelphia, had charge,
as dressing-maid, of one bride, and Eva of the other.
There was the usual amount of catastrophes—laces that
broke in critical moments, when somebody had to be
sent tearing out distractedly for another; gloves that
split across the back on trying; coiffures that came
abominably late, after keeping everybody waiting, and
then had to be pulled to pieces and made all over; in
short, no one item of the delightful jumble of confusions,
incident to a wedding, was missing.
The little chapel was dressed with flowers, and was
a bower of sweetness; and, as St. John had planned,
there was space reserved for the Sunday-school children
and the regular attendants of the mission.
Besides those, there was a goodly select show of what
Aunt Maria looked upon as the choice jewels of rank
and fashion.
Dr. Gracey performed the double ceremony with
great dignity and solemnity; but the reporters, who
fought for good places to see the show, and Miss Gusher
and Miss Vapors, were disappointed. There was only
the plain old Church of England service—neither less
nor more.
Mrs. Van Arsdel, and other soft-hearted ladies, in
different degrees of family connection, did the proper
amount of tender weeping upon their best laced pocket
handkerchiefs; and everybody said the brides looked so
lovely.
Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey had excellent situations
to see the whole, and Dinah, standing right behind them,
broke out into ejaculations of smothered rapture, from
time to time, in Mrs. Betsey's ear. Dinah was so boiling
over with delight that, but for this tolerated escape-valve,
there might have been some explosion.
-- 480 --
[figure description] Page 480.[end figure description]
Just as the ceremonies had closed, Mrs. Betsey heard
Dinah whispering hoarsely:
“Good Lor'! if dar ain't Jack!”
And sure enough, Jack was there in the church, sitting
up as composedly as a vestryman, and apparently enjoying
the spectacle. When one of the ushers approached
to take him out, he raised himself on his haunches and
waved his paws with affability.
Jim caught sight of him just as the wedded party
were turning from the altar to leave the church, and the
sight was altogether too much for his risibility.
The fact was that Jack had been the subject of great
discussion and an elaborate locking up that morning.
But divining an intention on the part of his mistresses
to go somewhere, he had determined not to be left. So
he had leaped out of a window upon a back shed, and
thence to the ground, and had followed the coach at discreet
distance, and so was “in at the death.”
Well, courteous reader, a marriage is by common consent
the end of a story, and we have given you two.
“We and Our Neighbors,” therefore, are ready to receive
your congratulations.
THE END.
Back matter
-- --
A List of Books PUBLISHED BY J. B. FORD & CO. , 27 Park Place, New York.
[figure description] Page 001.[end figure description]
For Sale by all Booksellers, or mailed post-paid upon receipt of price
by the Publishers.
ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY, BY AUTHORS.
Amelia E. Barr.
Romances and Realities: Tales, Sketches and Papers.
1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1 50.
“Mrs. Barr's strong and cultivated
pen has secured for her writings a public
welcome and graceful appreciation. She
unites the solidity of scholarly study
with the graces of a style fitted both to
instruct and please her readers.”
—Christian
at Work.
Catharine E. Beecher.
Principles of Domestic Science as Applied to the Duties
and Pleasures of Home. 1 vol. 12mo. Profusely Illustrated.
Cloth, $2.
Prepared with a view to assist in training young women for the
distinctive duties which inevitably come upon them in household
life, this volume has been made with especial reference to the duties,
cares, and pleasures of the family, as being the place where, whatever
the political developments of the future, woman, from her
nature of body and of spirit, will find her most engrossing occupation.
It is full of interest for all intelligent girls and young women.
Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions. The
fruit of more than half a century of unremitting and successful
labor for the education of women, this is of great interest to educators.
16mo. $1 00.
“The book is of course forcibly written, and is full of interest.”
—Hartford
Courant.
-- 002 --
[figure description] Page 002.[end figure description]
Edward Beecher, D.D.
History of Opinions of the Scriptural Doctrine of
Retribution. In Preparation.
The appearance of this book is awaited with very great and manifest
interest. An eminent authority speaks of it as “A series which
opens up the thought of the early Church on the subject of universal
salvation with great clearness, and gives the result of life-long research,
on a subject of great interest to every believer.”
Henry Ward Beecher.
Sermons, from Phonographic Reports by T. J. Ellinwood, for
fifteen years Mr. Beecher's Special Reporter. Uniformly bound
in dark brown English cloth. Each volume contains twenty-six
Sermons, and the Prayers before the Sermons. Ten vols. 8vo.
Cloth, $2 50 each. The Set, $22 50.
Each volume contains six months' sermons (from 450 to 500 pp.),
issued in uniform style. The First Series has an excellent steel portrait
of Mr. Beecher; the Second Series, a fine interior view of
Plymouth Church. The other volumes are not illustrated.
“These corrected sermons of perhaps
the greatest of living preachers—a man
whose heart is as warm and catholic as
his abilities are great, and whose sermons
combine fidelity and scriptural
truth, great power, glorious imagination,
fervid rhetoric, and vigorous reasoning,
with intense human sympathy and robust
common-sense.”
— British Quarterly
Review.
“There is not a discourse in all this
large collection that does not hold passages
of great suggestiveness and power
for the most ordinary, unsympathizing
reader—illustrations of great beauty and
point, eloquent invitations to better life,
touching appeals to nobler purposes and
more generous action.”
— Springfield
Republican.
Yale Lectures on Preaching. Delivered before the classes
of theology and the faculty of the Divinity School of Yale College.
Uniform edition of the Author's Works.
First Series, Winter of 1872—The Personal Elements which bear
an important relation to Preaching. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1 25.
Second Series, Winter of 1873—Social and Religious Machinery
of the Church as related to preaching. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1 50.
Third Series, Winter of 1874—Methods of Using Christian Doctrines,
in their relations to individual dispositions and the wants
of the community. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1 50.
The three volumes in neat box, $4 00.
“Full of common-sense and a knowledge
of human nature, and admirably
adapted to meet wants in preachers
which no other writer can so well supply.”
—Watchman and Reflector.
“Marvelous exhibitions of deep piety,
sound sense, quick wit, and fervid address;
interesting to all Christian readers—
invaluable to the beginning preacher.”
—Prof. H. N. Day, College Courant.
-- 003 --
[figure description] Page 003.[end figure description]
Star Papers: or, Experiences of Art and Nature. New
Edition, with many additional Papers. Uniform Edition of the
Author's Works. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1 75.
“We have nothing in the way of descriptive
writing, not even the best
sketches of Washington Irving, that
exceeds in richness of imagery and perspicuity
of statement these `Star Papers.
'”
—Methodist Home Journal.
“A book to be read and re-read, and
always with a fresh sense of enjoyment.”
—Portland Press.
“So full of rural life, so sparkling with
cheerfulness, so holy in their tenderness,
and so brave in nobility of thought.”
—
Liberal Christian.
Lectures to Young Men on Various Important Subjects.
New Edition, with additional Lectures. Uniform Edition of
the Author's Works. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1 50.
“Wise and elevating in tone, pervaded
by earnestness, and well fitted for its
mission to improve and benefit the youth
of the land.”
—Boston Commonwealth.
“Written with all the vigor of style
and beauty of language which characterize
everything from the pen of this remarkable
man. They are a series of
fearless dissertations upon every-day
subjects, conveyed with a power of eloquence
and a practical illustration so
unique as to be oftentimes startling.”
—
Philadelphia Enquirer.
Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers, and Farming.
New Edition, with much additional matter. Uniform Edition
of the Author's Works. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $2 00.
A delightful book. The poetry and prose of Beecher's Farm and
Garden experiences.
“Not merely readable and instructive,
but singularly fascinating in its
magnetic style.”
—Philadelphia Press.
Norwood: or, Village Life in New England. A Novel.
Uniform Edition of the Author's Works; also, uniform with
J. B. F. & Co.'s Novel Series. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated, $2 00.
“Embodies more of the high art of
fiction than any half dozen of the best
novels of the best authors of the day.
It will bear to be read and re-read as
often as Dickens's `Dombey' or `David
Copperfield.'”
—Albany Evening Journal.
“The book is wholesome and delightful,
to be taken up again and yet again
with fresh pleasure.”
—Chicago Standard.
Lecture Room Talks. A Series of Familiar Discourses, on
Themes of Christian Experience. Phonographically reported
by T. J. Ellinwood. Uniform Edition of the Author's Works.
1 vol. 12mo. With Steel Portrait. Price, $1 75.
“It is easy to see why the old-fashioned
prayer-meeting has been replaced
by that eager and crowded assembly
which throngs the Plymouth Lecture
Room each Friday evening.”
— New
York Evangelist.
-- 004 --
[figure description] Page 004.[end figure description]
The Overture of Angels. A Series of Pictures of the Angelic
Appearances Attending the Nativity of Our Lord. A Chapter
from the “Life of Christ.” Illustrated. 1 vol. 12mo. $2 00.
A beautiful and characteristically interesting treatment of all the
events recorded in the Gospels as occurring about the time of the
Nativity. Full of poetic imagery, beauty of sentiment, and vivid
pictures of the life of the Orient in that day.
“The style, the sentiment, and faithfulness
to the spirit of the Biblical record
with which the narrative is treated are
characteristic of its author.”
—Worcester
(Mass.) Spy.
“A perfect fragment.”
—N.Y. World.
English and American Speeches on Politics, War, and
various miscellaneous topics. Uniform Edition of the Author's
Works. 1 vol. 12mo. In preparation.
This will include all of the more important of Mr. Beecher's
Speeches which have been preserved.
Eyes and Ears: or, Thoughts as They Occur, by One Who
Keeps his Eyes and Ears Open. New Edition. Uniform Edition
of the Author's Works. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth. In preparation.
Royal Truths. This is a selected gathering of papers, passages,
illustrations, descriptions, from sermons, speeches, prayer-meeting
discourses, writings, etc., which has had a large sale both in
England and America. The New Edition will be enlarged by
the addition of much new matter of interest, Uniform Edition
of the Author's Works. 1 vol. 12mo. In preparation.
Views and Experiences of Religious Matters. Originally
published as a second collection of religious “Star Papers,”
these admirable and helpful articles will be added to by others,
heretofore unpublished. Uniform Edition of the Author's
Works. 1 vol. 12mo. In preparation.
Thomas K. Beecher.
Our Seven Churches. Eight Lectures. 1 vol. 16mo. Paper,
50 cts.; Cloth, $1 00.
A most valuable exponent of the doctrines of the leading religious
denominations, and a striking exhibition of the author's magnanimity
and breadth of loving sympathy.
“The sermons are written in a style
at once brilliant, epigrammatic, and
readable.”
—Utica Herald.
“This little book has created considerable
discussion among the religious
journals, and will be read with interest
by all.”
—Phila. Ledger.
“There is hardly a page which does
not offer a fresh thought, a genial touch
of humor, or a suggestion at which the
reader's heart leaps up with grateful
surprise that a minister belonging to a
sect can think and speak so generously
and nobly.”
—Milwaukee Sentinel.
-- 005 --
[figure description] Page 005.[end figure description]
A. H. Bogardus.
Field, Cover, and Trap Shooting. By the Champion Wing
Shot of America. Edited by Chas. J. Foster. 1 vol. 12mo.
With Steel Portrait of the Author, and an Engraving of the
Champion Medal. Cloth, $2 00.
A compendium of many years of experience, giving hints for skilled
marksmen and instructions for young sportsmen, describing the
haunts and habits of game birds, flight and resorts of water fowl,
breeding and breaking of dogs, and everything of interest to the
sportsman. The author is “champion wing-shot of America, who
knows a gun as Hiram Woodruff knew a horse. And he has the
same careful and competent editor who put Woodruff's “Trotting
Horse of America into shape—Chas. J. Foster, so many years sporting
editor of Wilkes' Spirit of the Times.
“No sportsman can peruse this book
without profit and instruction; while to
the young beginner with the gun, and to
the amateur who can spend but a few
months in the year in this healthful and
delightful pursuit, it will be invaluable.”
—Wilkes' Spirit.
Henry Churton.
Toinette: A Tale of Transition. 1 vol. 12mo. Extra Cloth,
Fancy Stamped Ink and Gilt Side. $1.50.
Not only a brilliant picture of individual life, full of stirring scenes
and emotional characters, but a graphic delineation of slave-life and
emancipation, by one who lived under the old régime at the South,
and saw it give place to the new. Companion piece to “Uncle
Tom's Cabin,” this powerful novel finishes what that great work
began.
“Clearly conceived and told with
power..... There is not a prosy
chapter in the book. The author grasps
the elements of his story with a firm
hand and combines them into vivid
scenes.”
—Liberal Christian.
“Absolutely thrilling in some of its
situations and delineations.”
—Chicago
Evening Journal.
“A remarkable book. It is fascinating,
thrilling, and its scenes are vivid
as the lightnings.”
—Atlanta (Ga.,)
Methodist Advocate.
Mrs. S. M. Davis.
The Life and Times of Sir Philip Sidney. A New
and Revised Edition, with Index, etc. Three steel plates; Portrait
of Sidney; View of Penshurst Castle; and Fac-simile of
Sidney's manuscript. 12mo. Silk Cloth, Beveled Boards,
Stamped with Sidney's Coat-of-Arms in Ink and Gold, $1 50.
“An elaborate sketch of a most interesting
character.”
—Chicago Evening
Journal.
“Its binding is exquisitely chaste.”
—
N.Y. World.
“Beautifully complete in every detail.”
—New Haven Journal & Courier.
-- 006 --
[figure description] Page 006.[end figure description]
Edward Eggleston.
The Circuit Rider: A Tale of the Heroic Age. Author of
“The Hoosier Schoolmaster,” etc. Illustrated with over thirty
characteristic drawings by G. G. White and Sol Eytinge. 1 vol.
12mo. Extra Cloth, Gilt, and Ink-Stamped Covers, $1 75.
This story is exciting widespread interest, both as a powerful
novel and genuine love-story, and as a graphic picture of the West in
the adventurous days of saddle-bags and circuit-riding preachers.
“The breezy freshness of the Western
prairie blended with the refinements of
literary culture. It is alive with the
sound of rushing streams and the echoes
of the forest, but shows a certain graceful
self-possession which betrays the
presence of the artist's power.”
—N. Y.
Tribune.
“It is his best work; a grand story; a
true picture of the past and of itinerant
life in the old times of simplicity and
hardship.”
—N. Y. Methodist.
“The best American story, and the
most thoroughly American one, that has
appeared for years.”
—Phila. Evening
Bulletin.
Ferdinand Fabbre.
The Abbe Tigrane, Candidate for the Papacy. Translated
from the French by Rev. Leonard Woolsey Bacon. 18mo.
Cloth, $1 50.
One of the most brilliant satires of the day. An entertaining and
exciting tale, giving the mode of French ecclesiastical life and of
Romish political intrigue in Europe.
Rev. T. A. Goodwin, A.M.
The Mode of Man's Immortality: or, The When, Where
and How of the Future Life. Author of “The Perfect Man,”
and late Editor of “The Indiana Christian Advocate.” 1 vol.
12mo. Cloth, $1 25.
“Certainly shows with great force the
well-nigh insuperable difficulties attending
the common opinions of the resurrection
of the actual body that is placed
in the dust, and develops quite a consistent
and interesting theory in reference
to the nature of the resurrection
life.”
—Zion's Herald.
Robertson Gray.
Brave Hearts. A Novel. By Robertson Gray (R. W. Raymond).
1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. Cloth. $1 75.
A characteristic American tale, with Illustrations by Darley, Stephens,
Frank Beard, and Kendrick.
“About as pure, breezy, and withal,
readable a story of American life as we
have met with this long time.”
—Congregationalist.
“Its pictures of the strange life of
those early California days are simply
admirable, quite as good as anything
Bret Harte has written.”
—Lit. World.
-- 007 --
[figure description] Page 007.[end figure description]
Grace Greenwood.
New Life in New Lands. Notes of Travel Across the
American Continent, from Chicago to the Pacific and Back.
1 vol. 12mo. $2 00.
This is a gathered series of letters, racy, brilliant, piquant; full of
keen observation and pungent statement of facts, picturesque in delineation
of scenes on the plains, in the mountains, and along the
sea.
“Among the best of the author's productions,
and every way delightful.”
—
Boston Post.
“The late William H. Seward characterized
her account of Mormons and
Mormonism as the most graphic and
trustworthy he had ever read.”
—Methodist
Home Journal.
“Grace always finds lots of things no
one else would see; and she has a happy
knack of picking up the mountains and
cities and big trees and tossing them
across the continent right before the
reader's eyes. It's very convenient.”
—
Buffalo Express.
Heads and Tails: Studies and Stories of Pets. Square 16mo.
Illustrated. Extra Cloth, Beveled Boards, Elaborate Gilt and
Ink-Stamped Sides, Gilt Edges, $2 00.
“It consists of a dozen or more of her
delightfully bright sketches, mostly having
the charm of personal experiences,
in which she pictures in her own inimitable
way, so full of wit, of pathos, of
good sense, of tenderness, and of real
rollicking fun, her own adventures, or
those of other young and old folks who
love animals.... The stories are
told in the author's happiest style.”
—
Christian Union.
“Grace Greenwood is gifted with a
special knack at story-telling for young
folks, and Heads and Tails, with its
stories of pet birds, cats, etc., is a delightful
book.”
—Chicago Advance.
“We don't know where there is pleasanter
reading than in these stories of
poets.”
—Boston Commonwealth.
Rev. S. B. Halliday.
Winning Souls. Sketches and Incidents During Forty Years
of Pastoral Work. 1vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1 00.
The author of this volume for some time past has been, and now
is, engaged as assistant in the pastoral labors of Plymouth Church,
Brooklyn (Rev. H. W. Beecher's), where, in visiting among the sick,
the poor, and the afflicted of that large parish, he is continually encountering
new and interesting phases of heart-life. These simple
records of scenes among his earlier labors possess a peculiar interest.
“Full of valuable suggestions to ministers
in the department of active duty.”
—Methodist Recorder.
“The book is tenderly written, and
many of its pathetic scenes will be read
with moistened eyes. We commend the
book to pastors and people.”
—Boston
Christian Era.
The Little Street-Sweeper: or, Life among the Poor. 1 vol.
12mo. Illustrated. In preparation.
-- 008 --
[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]
Joseph W. Long.
American Wild - Fowl Shooting. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated.
Fancy Stamped Cloth, $2 00.
A book of practical specific instruction as to the different species,
habits, haunts and pursuits of wild-fowl, the building and use of
blinds, boats, decoys, &c., the training of water-retrievers, and many
miscellaneous hints of great value to hunters of wild game-fowl.
Full of admirable descriptions, adventure, &c., &c. The only book
of the kind in the English Language.
“We know of no book that treats so
fully as this of the habits of our inland
wild-fowl and the methods of hunting
them.”
—Phila. Enquirer.
Amelia Perrier.
A Good Match. A Novel. Author of “Mea Culpa.” 1 vol.
12mo. Cloth, $1 50.
A clever and amusing Novel, agreeably written, racy, and lively.
“A very readable love story, tenderly
told.”
—Hearth and Home.
“The characters appear and act with
a real life.”
—Providence Press.
S. S. Randall, A.M.
(Superintendent of Public Education in New York City.)
History of the State of New York, from the Date of the
Discovery and Settlements on Manhattan Island to the Present
Time. A Text-Book for High Schools, Academies, and Colleges.
1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. Cloth, $1 75.
Officially adopted by the Boards of Education in the cities of New
York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City, for use in the Public Schools; and
in Private Schools throughout the State.
Rossiter W. Raymond, Ph. D.
U. S. Commissioner Mining Statistics; Pres't. Am. Inst. Mining Engineers;
Editor Engineering and Mining Journal; Author of
“Mines, Mills, and Furnaces,” etc., etc.
Silver and Gold: An Account of the Mining and Metallurgical
Industry of the United States, with reference chiefly to the
Precious Metals. 1 vol. 8vo. Cloth, $3 50.
“Valuable and exhaustive work on a
theme of great import to the world of
industry.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer.
“A repository of much valuable current
information.”
—N. Y. Tribune.
-- 009 --
[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]
Mining Industry of the States and Territories West
of the Rocky Mountains; including Descriptions of Quartz,
Placer, and Hydraulic Mining; Amalgamation, Concentration,
Smelting. etc. Illustrated with nearly one hundred Engravings
and Maps, and a Colored Geological Map of the United States.
1 vol. 8vo. Cloth, $4 50.
“Recognized in this country and in
Europe as professionally authoritative
and interesting to a remarkable degree.”
—Washington Chronicle.
The Man in the Moon and Other People. Square 16mo.,
Illustrated. Extra Cloth, beveled boards, handsome gilt and
ink stamped sides, gilt edges, $2 00.
Twenty of Ros. Raymond's best stories, some published before,
others not. They embrace Fairy Stories, Wonder Stories, Christmas
Stories, Thanksgiving Stories, Stories of Adventure, of War,
of Love, Stories about Dogs, about Birds, about Boys and about
Girls—and all bright, witty, engaging and delightful.
The Brooklyn Eagle says: “His tales
have won great popularity by their
wit, delicate fancy, and admirable good
sense.”
Sarah Bridges Stebbins.
The Poetry of Pets. 1 vol. Square 12mo. Illustrated. In
preparation.
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
My Wife and I: Or, Harry Henderson's History. A Novel.
Illustrated. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
This charming novel is, in some respects, Mrs. Stowe's most
thoughtful and complete book. It is eminently a book for the times,
giving the author's individual ideas about the much-vexed Woman
Question, including marriage, divorce, suffrage, legislation, and all
the rights claimed by the clamorous.
“A capital story, in which fashionable
follies are shown up, fast young ladies
weighed in the balance and found wanting,
and the value of true worth exhibited.”
—Portland Argus.
“Always bright, piquant, and entertaining,
with an occasional touch of tenderness,
strong because subtle, keen in
sarcasm, full of womanly logic directed
against unwomanly tendencies.”
—Boston
Journal.
-- 010 --
[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]
We and Our Neighbors: Or, The Records of an Unfashionable
Street. A Sequel to “My Wife and I.” 1 vol. Illustrated
by Alfred Fredericks. 12mo. Cloth, $1 75.
As fresh, witty and charming in style as all of Mrs. Stowe's
works are.
A Volume of Religious Meditative Articles, very helpful
and spiritual in their tone. In preparation.
T. S. Verdi, A.M., M.D.
Maternity: A Popular Treatise for Wives and Mothers. Fifth
edition. 1 vol. 12mo. $2 25.
This book has arisen from a want felt in the author's own practice,
as a monitor to young wives, a guide to young mothers, and an assistant
to the family physician. It deals skillfully, sensibly and delicately
with the perplexities of married life, giving information which
women must have, either in conversation with physicians or from
such a source as this. Plain and intelligible, but without offence to
the most fastidious taste, the style of this book must commend it to
careful perusal. It treats of the needs, dangers, and alleviations of
the holy duties of maternity, and gives extended, detailed instructions
for the care and medical treatment of infants and children
throughout all the perils of early life.
“The author deserves great credit for
his labor, and the book merits an extensive
circulation.”
—U.S. Medical and
Surgical Journal (Chicago).
“We hail the appearance of this work
with true pleasure. It is dictated by a
pure and liberal spirit, and will be a real
boon to many a young mother.”
—American
Medical Observer (Detroit.)
“There are few intelligent mothers
who will not be benefited by reading
and keeping by them for frequent counsel
a volume so rich in valuable suggestions.
With its tables, prescriptions,
and indexes at the end, this book ought
to do much good.”
—Hearth and Home.
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Free Endpaper.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Free Endpaper.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Paste-Down Endpaper.[end figure description]
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896 [1875], We and our neighbors, or, The records of an unfashionable street (Sequel to "My wife and I"): a novel (J. B. Ford & Company, New York) [word count] [eaf710T].
