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diff --git a/30668.txt b/30668.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..604fce1 --- /dev/null +++ b/30668.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4966 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daisy's Necklace, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Daisy's Necklace + And What Came of It + +Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +Release Date: December 13, 2009 [EBook #30668] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY'S NECKLACE *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Woodie4 and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + DAISY'S NECKLACE: + And What Came of It. + + (A LITERARY EPISODE.) + + + BY + + T. B. ALDRICH. + + + The little dogs and all, + ........ see, they bark at me! + + KING LEAR. + + + NEW-YORK: + DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET. + CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY & CO. + + 1857. + + + Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, + BY DERBY & JACKSON, + in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the + Southern District of New-York. + + + TO + C. L. F., + THE NOBLE MERCHANT AND THE GOOD FRIEND, + THIS BURLESQUE OF THINGS IN GENERAL, + IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + PROLOGUE. + + CHAPTER I. + + THE LITTLE CASTLE-BUILDERS. + + The House by the Sea--The Round Window--God's eyes in Flowers--The + Day-Dreamers--A Picture--An Angel--Old Nanny--On the Sea-Shore-- + Shell-Hunting--Bell's Freak and Mortimer's Dream--Asleep. + + CHAPTER II. + + THE DEAD HOPE. + + Time's Changes--Fall-down Castles--Little Bell waiting--When will + Father come Home?--Little Bell weary--What the Sea said--Nevermore. + + CHAPTER III. + + SOUL-LAND. + + Autumn and Winter--By the Fireside--Where little Bell is going--Nanny + sings about Chloe--Bell reads a poem--The flight of an Angel--The + Funeral--The good Parson--The two Grave-stones. + + CHAPTER IV. + + A FEW SPECIMENS OF HUMANITY. + + Down Town--Messrs. Flint & Snarle--Tim, the Office Boy, and the pale + Book-keeper--The Escritoire--The Purloined Package--Mr. Flint goes + Home--Midnight--Miss Daisy Snarle--The Poor Author. + + CHAPTER V. + + DAISY SNARLE. + + Sunday morning--Harvey Snarle and Mortimer--A Tale of Sorrow--The + Snow-child--Mortimer takes Daisy's hand--Snarle's death. + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE PHANTOM AT SEA. + + A Storm in the Tropics--The Lone Ship--The Man at the Wheel--How + he sang strange Songs--The Apparition--The drifting Bark. + + CHAPTER VII. + + IN WHICH THERE IS A MADMAN. + + Mr. Flint sips _vino d'oro_--The Stranger--The Letter--Mr. Flint + Outwitted--Mr. Flint's Photograph--The Madman's Story--The Wrecked + Soul--How Mr. Flint is troubled by his Conscience, and dreams of a + Pair of Eyes. + + CHAPTER VIII. + + MR. FLINT IS PERFECTLY ASTONISHED, AND MORTIMER HAS A VISION. + + The Light Heart--A Scene--The Sunny Heart--A Dream of Little + Bell--A Hint. + + CHAPTER IX. + + DAISY AND THE NECKLACE. + + Our _petite_ Heroine--How she talked to the Poets--The Morocco + Case--Daisy's Eyes make Pictures--Tears, idle Tears! + + CHAPTER X. + + ST. AGNES' EVE. + + The Old Year--St. Agnes--Keats' Poem--The Circlet of Pearls--A + Cloud--The Promise--Mrs. Snarle continues her Knitting. + + CHAPTER XI. + + MORTIMER HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GREAT PUBLISHER, AND MR. FLINT + MAKES A DISCOVERY. + + H. H. Hardwill, Publisher--Criminal Literature--Alliterative + Titles--Goldwood--Poor Authors--A Heaven for them in the + Perspective--Flint's Discovery, and the Horns of his Dilemma. + + CHAPTER XII. + + WHAT DAISY DID. + + The Arrest--Doubt and Love--Daisy and the Necklace--The Search--The + Heart of Daisy Snarle. + + CHAPTER XIII. + + IN THE TOMBS. + + The Author's Summer Residence--The Egyptian Prison--Without and + Within--A Picture--Sunshine in shadow--Joe Wilkes and his unique + Proposal--Gloomy Prospects--The Face at the Cell-window. + + CHAPTER XIV. + + A CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING. + + The Strange Visit--The Lawyer--Walters and Mr. Flint--The Clouds--A + Strip of Sunshine--Mortimer. + + CHAPTER XV. + + IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES. + + A Picture--The Lawyer's Note--Mr. Hardwill once more--The Scene at the + Law Office--Mr. Flint _Hors du Combat_--Face to Face. + + CHAPTER XVI. + + THE OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA. + + Clap-trap--John Flint--The Old House--Joe Wilkes--Strephon and + Chloe--Tim enjoying himself--Edward Walters and Little Bell--A Last + Word + + EPILOGUE. + + + + +TO THE + +UNFORTUNATE READER. + + +In this little Extravaganza, I have done just what I intended. + +I have attempted to describe, in an auto-biographical sort of way, a +well-meaning, but somewhat vain young gentleman, who, having flirted +desperately with the Magazines, takes it into his silly head to write a +novel, all the chapters of which are laid before the reader, with some +running criticism by T. James Barescythe, Esquire, the book-noticer of "The +Morning Glory," ("a journal devoted to the Fine Arts and the Amelioration +of all Mankind,") and the type of a certain class which need not be +distinctly specified for recognition. I have endeavored to make the novel +of my literary hero such a one as a young man with fine taste and crude +talent might produce; and I think I have succeeded. It is certainly +sufficiently unfinished. + +In drawing the character of Barescythe, the point of my quill may have +pierced a friend; and if you ask, like Ludovico, + + "What shall be said of thee?" + +I shall answer, like Othello, + + "Why, anything: + An honorable murderer, if you will; + For nought I did in hate, but all in honor." + +The only audacious thing I have done is the writing of this preface. If +there is anything more stupid than a "preface," it is a book-critic. If +anything _could_ be more stupid than a book-critic, it would be a preface. +But, thank heaven, there is not. In saying this, I refer to a particular +critic; for I would not, for the sake of a tenth edition, malign in such a +wholesale manner those capital good fellows of the press--those _verbal +accoucheurs_ who are so pleasantly officious at the birth of each new +genius. Not I. I have + + "A fellow-feeling" + +and a love for them, which would seem like a bid for their good nature, if +expressed here. + +I have put my name on the title-page of this trifle from principle. My +pen-children are all mine, and I cannot think of disowning one, though it +may happen to be born hump-backed. But I beg of you, gentlest of +unfortunate readers, not to take DAISY'S NECKLACE as a serious exponent of +my skill at story-telling. It is _not_ printed at the "urgent request of +numerous friends"--I am so fortunate as not to have many--but a seductive +little argument in the shape of a _cheque_ is the sole cause of its present +form; otherwise, I should be content to let it die an easy death in the +columns of the journal which first had the temerity to publish it. If the +world could always know, as it may in this case, why a book is printed, it +would look with kindlier eyes on dullness bound in muslin. It would say, +with honest Sancho Panza: "Let us not look the gift-horse in the mouth." + +When the sunshine of this dear old world has reddened the wine in my +heart--melted down its sparkles to a creamy flavor, I will give you a +richer draught--mayhap a beaker of Hippocrene. + +Till then, may God's blessing be on us both, though neither of us deserve +it. + +CLINTON PLACE, 1856. + + + + +PROLOGUE. + + _It hath beene sayed, and it seemeth soe untoe me, that ye man who + writes a booke maist have much vanitie and vexation of spirite._ + + YE TWO POORE AUTHORS. + +PROLOGUE. + + +"Mrs. Muggins!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Say that I am sick. Say I am dead--buried--out of town. In short, say +anything you will; but deny my existence to every one who calls, with the +exception of Mr. Barescythe." + +"Yes, sir." + +"I am going to write a novel, Mrs. Muggins!" + +That lady did not exhibit much emotion. + +"Yes, sir." + +And Mrs. Muggins ambled out of the room-door, to which she had been +summoned by some peremptory appeals of my bell. I was somewhat shocked at +the cool manner with which Mrs. Muggins received the literary intelligence; +but she, poor, simple soul, did not know that my greatness was a-ripening. + +"Some of these days," said I to myself, turning toward the window, "some of +these days, mayhap a hundred years hence, as the stranger passes through +Washington Parade Ground, this house--wrinkled and old then--will be +pointed out to his wonder-loving eyes as the one in which my novel was +written; and the curious stranger will cut his name on the walls of the +room which I never occupied, and carry away a slice of the door-step!" + +I immediately fell in love with this fascinating thought, and followed it +up. + +The slender trees which now inhabit the Parade Ground had grown +immensely--the trunks of some were three feet in diameter, and around them +all was a massive iron railing. The brick and brownstone houses on Waverly +Place and Fourth-street had long been removed, and huge edifices with +cast-iron fronts supplanted them. I looked in vain for the little +drug-store on the corner with its red and green bottles, and the +fruit-man's below with its show of yellow bananas and sour oranges. The +University, dimly seen through the interlacing branches, was a classic +ruin. + +Everything was changed and new. + +All the old land-marks were gone, save the Parade Ground, and one quaint +old house facing Mac Dougal-street: the which house was propped up with +beams, for, long and long ago, before "the memory of the oldest inhabitant" +even, an author, a sweet quiet man, once wrote a famous book there, and the +world of 1956 would preserve the very floors he trod on! + +And so I sat there by my window in the autumnal sunshine, and watched the +golden clouds as the wind blew them against the square white turrets of the +University, which peered above the trees. + +Ah, Mrs. Muggins, thought I, though you only said "yes, sir," when I spoke +of my novel--though your name is carved in solid brass on the hall-door, +yet you will be forgotten like a rain that fell a thousand years ago, when +_my_ name, only stamped with printer's ink, on ephemeral slips of paper, is +a household word. + +So I came to pity Mrs. Muggins, and harbored no ill feelings toward the +simple creature who was so speedily to be gathered under the dusty wings of +oblivion. I wondered how she could be cheerful. I wondered if she ever +thought of being "dead and forgotten," and if it troubled her. + +Lost in the aromatic fumes of a regalia, I sat waiting the advent of my +friend Barescythe--Barry for short--to whom I had addressed a laconic +note, begging him to visit me at my rooms without delay. + +I like Barescythe. + +He is conceited, but that's a small fault with genius. His idea of +literature does not exactly chime with mine, for he believes that there +have been no novels, to speak of, since Scott's, and little poetry since +Pope's. But, aside from this, he is a noble fellow; he carries his heart, +like a falcon, on his hand, where everybody can see it. Barry is fond of +wine--but that's a failing _not_ peculiar to genius, and _not_ confined to +book-critics. He is a trifle rough in speech, not always the thing in +manners; but "the elements so mix in him"--that I have a great mind to +finish that excellent quotation. + +I heard his familiar step on the stairs, and a second afterwards he kicked +open my room-door with his characteristic disregard of ceremony. + +"Ralph," said he, with some anxiety, "what's up?" + +"Sit down!" + +"Are you sick?" + +"No." + +"Are you going to be?" + +"No." + +"Then why, in the name of the many-headed Hydra, did you send me such an +article as this? Read it." + +The note ran as follows: + + _"Mac Dougal-street,_ + _"June 30, 18--._ + + "DEAR BARRY,-- + + "Come and see me without delay. I have got a-- + + "Eternally, + "RALPH." + +"O, yes!" said I, laughing; "I left out a word. I meant to have said, 'I +have got an idea.'" + +"Humph! I thought it was a colic." + +Mr. Barescythe had left a host of editorial duties in the middle and +busiest time of the day, expecting to find me lying at the point of death, +and was quite out of humor because I was not. + +There is something extremely human in Barescythe. + +"Criticus," I spoke as deliberately as the subject would allow, "I am going +to write a novel." + +This unfortunate avowal was the rose-leaf which caused the cup of his +indignation to overflow. + +"If it had been a case of cholera," commenced Barescythe, with visible +emotion, "or the measles, or the croup, or the chicken-pox--if you had +broken your thigh, spine, or neck, I wouldn't have complained. But a +_novel_--" + +And Barry began whistling wildly, + +[Illustration: Musical score] + +as he invariably does when annoyed. After using up a variety of popular +airs, the shadow of his good-humor returned to him. + +"Ralph," he said, taking my hand, "I have a great respect for you. I don't +know why, to be frank, but I have. I like your little song of--what do you +call it?--in Putnam's Monthly, and your prose sketches in the +Knickerbocker; but don't be a fool, Ralph!" + +With which piece of friendly advice, he put on his brown felt hat, drew it +over his brows, and stalked out of the room, with + + "A countenance more + In sorrow than in anger," + +like Mr. Hamlet's father. + +I saw no more of Barescythe for two weeks. + +The summer months flew away. + +The nights were growing longer. The air had a vein of sparkling cold in it; +at every gust the trees in the Parade Ground shook down golden ingots; and +the grass-plots, and the graveled walks, and the marble bowl of the +fountain, were paved with emerald and amethyst--a mosaic flooring of tinted +leaves. The clouds were haggard faces, and the wind wailed like a broken +heart. Indeed, + + "The melancholy days had come, + The saddest of the year," + +and Mrs. Muggins had made a fire in my grate! + +Blessings on him who invented fire-places! A poor day-dreamer's benediction +go with him! The world in the grate! I have watched its fantastic palaces +and crimson inhabitants--dipped my pen, as it were, into its stained +rivers, and written their grotesqueness! Dizzy bridges, feudal castles, +great yawning caves, and red-hot gnomes, are to be found in the grate; +mimic volcanos, and ships that sail into sparry grottos, and delicate +fire-shells with pink and blue lips! + +Crash! + +The coals sink down, and new figures are born, like the transient pictures +in a kaleidescope. So it came to pass that I dozed over the metempsychosis +of my fire-world, and commenced the novel. + +Give me crisp winter days for writing, and the long snowy nights for dreamy +slumber. + +O antique humorist, quaint-mouthed Sancho Panza! with you, I say, +"Blessings on the man who invented sleep!" Sleep, pleasant sleep!--that +little airy nothing on the eyelids!--that little spell of thought which +comes from no place and goes nowhere!--which comes upon us silently and +splendidly, like a falling star, and trails its golden fancies on our +waking hours. Sleep for the young--fresh, dewy sleep! Sleep for the sick! +Sleep for the weary and disconsolate--sweet dreams and sweet forgetfulness +for _them_! Smooth the white hairs of the old; place thy invisible fingers +on their lips; close their eyes gently, gently. Sleep, and let them pass +into nothingness! + +In a dreamy mood, half awake and half asleep, I filled sheet after sheet +with my curious back-handed chirography. The white feathery snow came down +cygnet-soft, and I wrote. I heard the wind ditties in the chimney, the +merry wrangling of sleigh-bells, the sonorous clash of fire-bells, and the +manuscript grew under my pen, as if by magic. I came to love the nurslings +of my fancy as no one else will. I liked the cold, cynical features of Mr. +Flint, with his undertaker's aspect; the child-spirit, Bell; Daisy Snarle's +eyes; the heart-broken old sailor; the pale book-keeper; Tim, the office +boy; Mr. Hardwill, the great publisher; Joe Wilkes, and all of them! + +Mrs. Muggins occasionally looked in on me. + +Mrs. Muggins' regard for me was increasing. She never left the coal-scuttle +on the stairs for my benefit, as she used to; she was eternally hearing my +bell ring when it didn't, and answering it so promptly when it did, that I +began to think that she lived night and day just outside my door. + +Pleasant Mrs. Muggins! + +I tried not to feel elated at these little widowy attentions; but _los +hombres son mortales_. + +She handed me my coffee with a motherly tenderness that was perfectly +touching. She looked at me with the eyes of Solicitude, and spoke with the +lips of culminating Respect; and once, in a burst of confidence, she told +me that she had six orphan sons, who were "sealurs." + +_My_ respect increased for Mrs. Muggins. My novel might run through only +one edition, but she,--she had six editions of herself afloat! And I +thought that, after all, a woman like her who had produced a half a dozen +Neptunes, founded perhaps a half a dozen races, was rendering more service +to this apple-like globe, than one poor devil of an author prolifically +pregnant with indifferent books. + +I spoke to Barescythe about it, and it was pleasant to have him coincide +with me once. + +It is an agreeable fact, that + + "The world goes up and the world goes down, + And the sunshine follows the rain." + +The new year was four months old. The flowers were teething: the tiny +robins were able to go alone, and above the breezy hum of many thousand +voices, above the monotonous and ocean-like jar of omnibus wheels, I could +hear the babbling of hyaline rills in pleasant woodland places! I could not +see the silver threads of water winding in and out among the cool young +grass; I could not guess where they were; but through the city smoke, over +the dingy chimney-tops, they spake to me with kindly voices! + +I knew that daisies were fulling in sunny meadows, and that the dandelion +trailed its gold by the dusty road-sides: for + + "The delicate-footed Spring was come." + +I knew it by the geranium at my window. It had put forth two sickly leaves. +Two sickly leaves for me, and the world alive with vernal things! Spring, +thou Queen of the Twelve! Dainty, dewy Spring-- + + "Give me a golden pen, and let me lean + On heaped-up flowers," + +when I write of thee! Thy breath is the amber sunshine, and thy +foot-prints are violets! Hide Winter in thy mantle: crown his cold brow +with mignionette: hang morning-glories on his icicles: keep him from me +forever! + + "For winter maketh the light heart sad, + And thou--thou makest the sad heart gay!" + +"Barry," said I, "the sunshine has taken me by the hand, to lead me into a +sweet New-England village. There is my manuscript. Read it, if you can, +condemn it, if you will, and tell me what you think of it when I return." + +That awful critic put DAISY'S NECKLACE under his arm, and walked away--a +victim to friendship, a literary Damon of the Nineteenth Century. + + + + +I. + + _As children gathering pebbles on the shore._ + + MILTON. + + _No daintie flower or herbe that growes on grownd, + No arborett with painted blossomes drest + And smelling sweete, but there it might be found + To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al around._ + + EDMUND SPENCER. + +I. + +THE LITTLE CASTLE-BUILDERS. + + _The House by the Sea--the Round Window--God's Eyes in Flowers--the + Day-Dreamers--A Picture--An Angel--Old Nanny--On the + Sea-Shore--Shell-Hunting--Bell's Freak and Mortimer's Dream--Asleep._ + + +Imagine, if you will, one of the quaintest old country mansions that was +ever built--a big-chimneyed, antique-gabled, time-browned old pile, and you +have a picture of the Ivyton House as it was in summers gone by. + +The pillars of the porch were not to be seen for the fragrant vines which +clambered over them; lip-tempting grapes purpled[A] on the southern gable +of the house, and the full, bright cherries clustered thicker than stars +among the leaves. The walks of the garden were white with pebbles brought +from the sea-shore; the dewy clover-beds, on each side, lay red with +luscious strawberries, as if some one had sprinkled drops of fire over +them; and among the larches and the cherry trees there was a salt sea-smell +pleasantly mingled with the breathing of wild roses. + +A large, round window in one of the gables looked toward the ocean--a fine +place for a summer view, or to watch, of a gusty afternoon, the billows as +they swell and break in long waving battalions on the beach. + +One evening near the end of summer, two children were sitting at this +circular window. Ten Aprils had half ripened them. The boy had dark hair, +and a touch of sunlight in his darker eyes. The girl was light and +delicate--with a face of spiritual beauty, dream-like, heavenly, like the +pictures of the Madonna which genius has hung on the chapel walls of the +Old World. + +"Bell," said the boy, "we never grow weary of looking at the sea." + +"No; because while we are watching, we think that father may be coming home +to us across its bosom; and we count the waves as if they were moments. We +like to see them roll away, and feel that time grows shorter between father +and us." + +"Yes, that is so," he replied; "but then, we love night almost as much as +the sea." + +"That is because we have a Father in heaven as well as one at sea," and the +girl shaded her angel face with a dainty little hand. + +"And we love the sunbeams and the flowers, Bell!" + +"We do, indeed!" cried Bell, and the sunshine nestled among her curls. "We +do, indeed! because God, like the good fairy in our story-book, comes in +sunlight, or hides in flowers; and he reveals himself in ever so many ways, +to all who love him." + +"Hides in flowers," repeated the boy, musingly; "I never thought of that. +Then, perhaps--only perhaps--the dew-drops which I showed you last night in +the white japonica were God's eyes!" + +"May be so," returned Bell, simply. + +They were two strange children--nature, and, perhaps, circumstances had +made them so. They were born and had always lived in the old house. Their +mother was in heaven, and their father was one of those who go down to the +sea in ships. With no one to teach them, save the old house-keeper Nanny, +their minds had taken odd turns and conceits; they had grown up old people +in a hundred ways. + +The roar of the winds and the sea had been in their ears from infancy. In +the summer months they wandered late on the sandy beaches, or slept with +the silent sunshine under the cherry trees. They had grown up with nature, +and nature beat in them like another heart. She had imbued them with her +richer and tenderer moods. + +Bell was the wildest and strangest of the two. She was one of those aerial +little creatures who, somehow or other, get into this world sometimes--it +must be by slipping through the fingers of the angels, for they seem +strangely out of place, and I am sure that they are missed somewhere! They +never stay long! They come to earth and sometimes ripen for heaven in a +twelve month! The sweetest flowers are those that die in the spring-time: +they touch the world with beauty, and are gone, before a ruder breath than +that of God scatters their perfume. Bell was a _Gipsy angel_--one of those +who wander, for awhile, outside the walls of heaven, in the shady pastures +and by-ways of the world. + +"Mortimer," said Bell, after a long silence, "how nice it is to sit here +and watch the bits of sails coming and going--coming and going, never +weary! I wonder how long we have sat at this window and watched the white +specks? I wonder if it will always be so; if you and I will still be here, +loving the sea and stars, when our heads are as white as Nanny's?" + +"No!" cried the boy, impetuously. "I am going out into the broad, deep +world, and write books full of wonderful thought, like the Arabian Nights!" + +And he repeated it, the broad, deep world! Ah, child! what have such +dreamers as you to do in the broad, deep world--the wonderful, restless +sea, where men cast the net of thought and bring up pebbles? + +"I would like that, Mort!" cried Bell, clapping her hands. "But then, what +a grand place this would be to write them in! You can have your desk by the +open window here; and when your eyes are tired, you can rest them on the +sea. And I will be _so_ quiet--as gentle as pussy, even, and do nothing but +make pens for you all the time. Wouldn't that be fine?" + +"Yes! and father should go no more away in ships. He might have a yacht to +leap over the surge in, to sail around all those little islands and in the +green bays; but never go off to sea. The books I am going to write will +bring us money enough." + +So the little castle-builders talked until the sun had melted into the +waves, and twilight, like a pilgrim that had been resting by the roadside, +rose up from the beach, and came slowly toward the old house. + +Mortimer, who had been gazing dreamily at the beach--which grew fainter and +fainter, till it seemed like a white thread running through the selvage of +blue drapery--turned his eyes on Bell. + +"Bell," said he, quietly, "as you sit there in the shadows, with your +beautiful hair folded over your forehead, you look like an angel!" + +"Do I?" + +"I can put my hand on your neck, yet you seem far away from me." + +"Come, rest your head in my lap, Mort," said the girl, tenderly, "and I +will tell you of a real true angel who once came into this world." + +The chestnut locks of the boy looked darker against her white dress, as +Bell bent over him, and commenced, in a low, silvery voice, an old angel +legend. She was in the midst of a strange description of Paradise, when a +tremulous voice came up the stairway-- + +"Come to tea, children!" + +Then the two looked at each other curiously. It was so odd to be called to +tea, and they in Heaven! It was a long step from Paradise to the +supper-table; but the dream was shattered. Bell laughed. Then they closed +the window, and descended to the room below, where Nanny had prepared the +evening meal of snowy bread and milk, and ripe purple whortleberries. It +was very queer to see the three sitting at table--to see homely-looking, +but kind-hearted Nanny, between the two children, like a twilight between +two pleasant mornings. + +When supper was over, and while Nanny was washing the tea-things, the +children went down to the beach, shell hunting. The white moon stood +directly over the sea, and the waves were full of silvery arrows, as if +Diana had scattered them from her quiver. Mortimer's eyes drank in the +sight, as they had a thousand times before, for Nature is ever new to her +lovers. In the measured roll of the sea, he heard the diapason of a grand +poem, and the far-off thunder, heard now and then, was the chorus of the +gods. + +But Heaven rapt the heart of little Bell! The waves fell on her finer ear +like subtlest music; to her they were harps, and the fingers of angels were +touching them, while the thunder was "God walking overhead!" + +They wandered along the sands, picking up curious shells and cream-white +pebbles, dashed with red or clouded with mazarine. Bell would hold them up +to her ear, and listen to the "little whispers," as she called them; but +the boy would skim them along the wave-tips, and shout when some great +billow caught one, and hurled it back scornfully at his feet. + +Bell saw a ridge of rocks which looked like the back of a whale, running +out some distance into the sea, where the water was whiter and leaped +higher than anywhere else; and soon her dainty feet picked a way over the +jagged rocks. The boy was about to send a light shell skipping through the +surf, when his glance caught Bell standing on the highest jut of the ledge, +the wind lifting her long hair and the folds of her dress. + +"Bell! Bell!" + +"The stars are in the sea, brother," she replied, "and the winds are wild +here." + +"Bell! Bell!" + +"I cannot come to you. I fear to walk over the rocks again! But it is +beautiful here, and I am not afraid!" + +"Ah, Bell!" he spoke sadly, "that's what I dreamt. I thought that there was +a gulf between us, and when I called, 'Bell! Bell!' you answered, '_I +cannot come to you, brother; but you can come to me!_' O, Bell--sister +Bell! as you love me, come back. I tremble when you look so like an angel. +Come to me, sister." + +Mortimer ran out on the slender bridge of stone and led Bell back by the +hand. After a little while they heard Nanny calling them to come home. + +The children occupied a small chamber over the front door. A scented vine +clomb all about the window, and taught the ruddy sun at morning to throw a +subdued light into the room; and it broke the orange stream of sunset. At +night the dreamers from their bed could see the stars hanging like fruit +among its cloudy leaves. + +When Bell and Mortimer came up from the sea-beach, the moonlight, breaking +through this leafy lattice, made the chamber as that of Abon Ben +Adhem--"like a lily in bloom." Nanny brought a lamp, and kissed them +good-night. + +"O, we don't want a lamp all this moon!" cried Bell. + +The boy sat half undressed at the window. "Bell loves moonlight like a +fairy," he said. + +Bell's robe fell to her knees in snowy folds, and she stood like a _petite_ +Venus rising from the froth. Then brother and sister braided their voices +in a simple prayer to Our Father in Heaven. They prayed for kind old Nanny, +and for one on the wide sea. + +"When will father come home?" asked Bell, for the hundredth time that day. + +"It will not be long now. When the boughs of the cherry trees are an inch +deep with ice, and the logs crackle in the fire-place--then he will come. +Let us go to sleep, and dream of him." + +And thus, hand in hand, the two went in to Dream-land-- + + The world of Sleep, + The beautiful old World! + The dreamy Palestine of pilgrim Thought! + The Lotus Garden, where the soul may lie + Lost in elysium, while the music moan + Of some unearthly river, faintly caught, + Seems like the whispering of Angels, blown + Upon aeolian harp-strings! And we change + Into a seeming something that is not! + + + + +II. + + _Ah, yes! with joy the April rain + Thrills nature's breast; but mine with pain + Sigheth: "He will not come again!"_ + + ALBERT LAIGHTON. + +II. + +THE DEAD HOPE. + +_Time's Changes--Fall-down Castles--Little Bell Waiting--When will Father +Come Home?--Little Bell Weary--What the Sea said--Never more._ + + +Longfellow beautifully asks in Hyperion, "What is Time, but the shadow of +the hour-hand on a dial-plate?" + +The flowers of the earth and the hearts of men are dial-plates. The shadows +coming and going on them are the hour-hands; when a flower fades, or a +heart ceases to beat, it is only a weight run down. The whole universe is +but one immense time-piece, throbbing with innumerable wheels, heavy with +weights, and wearing itself away! Desire is a restless pendulum, one end +linked to the heart, and the other pointing downward! + +A year had added another link to that chain which stretches through +eternity. A year! Battles lost and won: nations in mourning for their dead: +ships gone down at sea; and new paths worn to graveyards! + +O, for the castles that blow down in a year! + +But time fell gently on the inmates of the Old House. The trees and vines +were a little larger; and winter had somewhat browned the gables. Bell was +paler and more beautiful, and Mortimer was still the same dreamer. + +There was a question which haunted the Old House. It was heard in the +garden, at "the round window," and on the stair. + +"When will father come home?" + +The months flew away, like carrier doves, with memories beneath their +wings. + +"When will father come home?" + +And the question was asked again and again, till the little lips and heart +of Bell grew weary. Then she folded her hands, and said: + +"He will never come!" + +Her blue eyes became more dreamy, and her slight form--so very +slight--glided about the house. She would listen to the sea. Once she said, +"Never more!" and the sea repeated it with a human voice. In the still +night she asked,-- + +"When will father come home?" + +"Never more," said the sea--and she heard it through the open +window--"Never more!" + +She waited, and the months went by. + +Was the child Bell the only one in this world waiting? + +Who has not some hope at sea? Who has not waited, and watched, and grown +weary? + +Who has not a question in his heart, to which a low spirit-voice replies: + +"Never more!" + + + + +III. + + _I saw our little Gertrude die: + She left off breathing, and no more + I smoothed the pillow beneath her head. + She was more beautiful than before, + Like violets faded were her eyes; + By this we knew that she was dead! + Through the open window looked the skies + Into the chamber where she lay, + And the wind was like the sound of wings, + As if Angels came to bear her away._ + + THE GOLDEN LEGEND. + +III. + +SOUL-LAND. + +_Autumn and Winter--By the Fireside--Where little Bell is going--Nanny +sings about Cloe--Bell reads a Poem--The flight of an Angel--The +Funeral--The good Parson--The two Grave-stones._ + + +It was autumn. The wind, with its chilly fingers, picked off the sere +leaves, and made mounds of them in the garden walks. The boom of the sea +was heavier, and the pale moon fell oftener on stormy waves than in the +summer months. Change and decay had come over the face of Earth even as +they come over the features of one dead. In woods and hollow places vines +lay rotting, and venturesome buds that dared to bloom on the hem of winter; +and the winds made wail over the graves of last year's flowers. + +Then Winter came--Winter, with its beard of snow--Winter, with its frosty +breath and icy fingers, turning everything to pearl. The wind whistled odd +tunes down the chimney; the plum-tree brushed against the house, and the +hail played a merry tattoo on the window-glass. How the logs blazed in the +sitting room! + +Bell did not leave her room _now_. + +Her fairy foot-steps were never heard tripping, nor her voice vibrating +through the entry in some sweet song. She scarcely ever looked out at the +window--all was dreary there; besides, she fancied that the wind "looked at +her." It was in her armchair by the antique fire-place that she was most +comfortable. She never wearied of watching the pictured tiles; and one, +representing the infant Christ in the manger, was her favorite. There she +sat from sunny morn until shadowy twilight, with her delicate hands crossed +on her lap, while Mortimer read to her. Sometimes she would fix her large, +thoughtful eyes on the fantastic grouping of the embers at her feet, and +then she did not hear him reading. + +She was wandering in Soul-land. + +Heaven's gates are open when the world's are shut. The gates of this world +were closing on Bell, and her feet were hesitating at the threshold of +Heaven, waiting only for the mystic word to enter! + +Very beautiful Bell was. Her perfect soul could not hide itself in the +pale, spiritual face. It was visible in her thought and in her eyes. There +was a world of tender meaning in her smile. The Angel of Patience had +folded her in its wings, and she was meek, holy. As Mortimer sat by her +before the evening lamps were lighted, and watched the curious pictures +which the flickering drift-wood painted on the walls, he knew that she +could not last till the violets came again. She spoke so gently of death, +the bridge which spans the darkness between us and Heaven--so softened its +dark, dreadful outlines, that it seemed as beautiful as a path of flowers +to the boy and Nanny. + +"Death," said Bell one day, "is a folding of the hands to sleep. How quiet +is death! There is no more yearning, no more waiting in the grave. It comes +to me pleasantly, the thought that I shall lie under the daisies, God's +daisies! and the robins will sing over me in the trees. Everything is so +holy in the church-yard--the moss on the walls, the willows, and the long +grass that moves in the wind!" + +Poor Nanny tried to hum one of her old ditties about Cloe and her lover; +then suddenly she found something interesting at the window. But it would +not do. The tears would come, and she knelt down by Bell's side, and +Bell's little hand fell like a strip of white moonlight on Nanny's hair. + +"We shall miss you, darling!" sobbed Mortimer. + +"At first, won't you?" and Bell smiled, and who knows what sights she saw +in the illumined fire-place? Were they pictures of Heaven, little Bell? + +"What shall I read to you, pet?" asked Mortimer one morning. She had been +prattling for an hour in her wise, child-like way, and was more than +usually bright. + +"You shall not read to me at all," replied Bell, chirpingly, "but sit at my +feet, and _I_ will read to you." + +She took a slip of paper from her work-basket, and her voice ran along the +sweetest lines that the sweetest poet ever wrote. They are from Alfred +Tennyson's "May Queen." + + "I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, + There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet; + + But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine, + And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. + + All in the wild March morning I heard the angels call; + It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; + + The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, + And in the wild March morning I heard them call my soul. + + For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; + I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here; + + With all my strength I prayed for both, and so I felt resigned, + And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind. + + I thought that it was fancy, and I listened in my bed, + And then did something speak to me--I know not what was said; + + For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, + And up the valley came again the music on the wind. + + But you were sleeping; and I said, 'It's not for them: its mine,' + And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign; + + And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, + Then seemed to go right up to Heaven, and die among the stars. + + So now I think my time is near--I trust it is. I know + The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go; + + And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day, + But, Effie, you must comfort _her_ when I am past away; + + And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret-- + There's many worthier than I would make him happy yet;-- + + If I had lived--I cannot tell--I might have been his wife; + But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life. + + Oh look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; + He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know; + + And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine-- + Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. + + O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done, + The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun-- + + To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast-- + And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!" + +When Bell had finished reading, she took Mortimer's hand in her own. + +"I shall not die until the violet comes--the beautiful violet, with its +clouded bell!" + +March melted into April--the month of tears! Then came blossoming May, and +still Bell lingered, like a strain of music so sweet that the echoes will +not let it die. + +One morning in June, the sun with noiseless feet came creeping into the +room--and Bell was dying. Mortimer was telling her of some sea-side walk, +when the unseen angel came between them. Bell's voice went from her, her +heart grew chilly, and she knew that it was death. The boy did not notice +the change; but when her hand lay cold in his, he looked up with fear. He +saw her beautiful eyes looking heavenward, and those smiles which wreathe +the lips of the young after death--the sunset of smiles. + +"Bell! Bell! Bell!" + +But she did not hear him. + +The viewless spirits of flowers came through the open window into the quiet +room; and the winds, which made the curtains tremble, gently lifted the +tresses of the sleeping angel. Then the chiming of village bells came and +went in pulses of soft sound. How musical they were that morning! How the +robins showered their silvery notes, like rain-drops among the leaves! +There was holy life in everything--the lilac-scented atmosphere, the +brooks, the grass, and the flowers that lay budding on the bosom of +delicious June! And thus it was, in the exquisite spring-time, that the +hand of death led little Bell into Soul-land. + + * * * * * + +One afternoon, the blinds were turned down: not a ray of light stole +through them, only the spicy air. There was something solemn stalking in +the entries, and all through the house. It seemed as if there was a corpse +in every room. + +The way the chairs were placed, the darkened parlor, the faded flowers on +the mantel-piece, and the brooding silence said it--said that Bell was +dead! + +Yes! In the little parlor she lay, in her white shroud. Bell? No; it was +_not_ Bell. It was only the beautiful robe which her spirit in its flight +had cast aside! + +There was a moving of feet to and fro. Gradually, the room became full of +forms. The village parson stood among them. His hair had the white touch of +age, and his heart knew the chastening hand of God. "Exceeding peace" was +written on his meek face. He lifted up his soul on the arms of prayer. He +spoke of the dead, whose life had been as pure as a new snow. He spoke +cheerfully and tenderly, and sometimes smiled, for his + + "Faith was large in Time, + And that which shapes it to some perfect end." + +He had drank at the fountain of God's word; his soul had been refreshed, +and his were not the lips to preach the doctrine of an endless wail. He +knew that there are many mansions in our Father's house; and he said that +Bell was happier there than here. He glanced back upon her infant days, and +ran along the various threads of her life, to the moment death disentangled +them from the world. "This little one in her shroud," he said, "is an +eloquent sermon. She passed through the dark valley without fear; and sits, +like Mary, at the feet of our Saviour." Of this life, he said: "It is but +an imperfect prelude to the next." Of death: "It is only a brief sleep: +some sunny morning we shall wake up with the child Bell, and find ourselves +in Heaven!" + +The coffin was closed, and the train passed through the gravelled walk. + +Then came that dull, heavy sound of earth falling on the coffin-lid, which +makes one's heart throb. Did you ever hear it? + + * * * * * + +When Bell had been a year in Heaven, a plain head-stone was placed over +Nanny. She lingered only a little while after her darling. She folded her +arms and fell asleep one summer twilight, and never again opened her kind +old eyes on this world. Age had weakened her frame, and the parting of soul +and body was only the severing of a fragile cord. + +Mortimer did not remain long in the old house; its light and pleasantness +had passed away. The little stock of money which his father had left +previous to his last voyage, was exhausted; he could earn nothing in the +village. His early dream of the great city came over him again. He yearned +for its ceaseless excitement, its grandeur--he never thought of its misery, +its sin and pollution. Through the length of one July night he lay awake in +bed, while his eyes were like kaleidoscopes, taking a thousand arabesque +forms and fancies. Toward morning he fell asleep, having built some +fall-down castles in the air. The next day he took a last, lingering look +at the old rooms; a last ramble on the sea-shore; he sat an hour under the +braided branches of the cherry trees, gave a parting look at the white caps +of the sea, and turned his eyes to the city in the dim distance--the great +city-ocean, with no one to point out to him its sunken reefs, its +quicksands, and maelstroms. + +Next to Bell's grave he placed a simple tablet to the memory of his father. + +"This sod does not enfold him," said Mortimer to himself; "but it will be +pleasant for me to think, when I am far away, that their names are near +together." + +So he left them in the quiet church-yard at Ivyton--left them sleeping +among the thick musk-roses, in the warm sunshine; and the same berylline +moss was creeping over the two mounds. One head-stone said "LITTLE BELL," +and the other: + + SACRED + TO THE MEMORY + OF + OUR FATHER, + LOST AT SEA, + 18--. + + + + +IV. + + _The Almighty Dollar._ + + WASHINGTON IRVING. + + _The age is dull and mean. Men creep, + Not walk; with blood too pale and tame + To pay the debt they owe to shame; + Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep + Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; + Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep + Six days to Mammon, one to Cant._ + + J. G. WHITTIER. + + _Every one is as God made him, and oftentimes + A great deal worse._ + + MIGUEL DE CERVANTES. + +IV. + +A FEW SPECIMENS OF HUMANITY. + + _Down Town--Messrs. Flint & Snarle--Tim, the Office Boy, and the pale + Book-Keeper--The Escritoire--The Purloined Package--Mr. Flint goes + Home--Midnight--Miss Daisy Snarle--The Poor Author._ + + +In one of those thousand and one vein-like streets which cross and recross +the mercantile heart of Gotham, is situated a red brick edifice, which, +like the beggar who solicits your charity in the Park, has seen better +days. + +In the time of our Knickerbocker sires, it was an aristocratic dwelling +fronting on a fashionable street, and "Jeems," in green livery, opened the +hall door. The street was a quiet, orderly street in those days--a certain +air of conscious respectability hung about it. Sometimes a private +cabriolet rolled augustly along; and of summer evenings the city beaux, +with extraordinary shoe-buckles, might have been seen promenading the +grass-fringed sidewalks. To-day it is a miasmatic, miserable, muddy +thoroughfare. Your ears are startled by the "Extray 'rival of the 'Rabia," +and the omnibuses dash through the little confined street with a perfect +madness. Instead of the white-kidded, be-ruffled gallants of Eld, you meet +a hurrying throng of pale, anxious faces, with tare, tret and speculation +in their eyes. + +It is a business street, for Mammon has banished Fashion to the golden +precincts of Fifth Avenue. The green of Jeems' livery is, like himself, +invisible. He has departed this life--gone, like Hiawatha, to the Land of +the Hereafter--to the land of spirits, where we can conceive him to be in +his element; but he has a "town residence" in an obscure graveyard, with +his name and "recommendation" on a stone door-plate. His mundane superiors +are reclining beneath the shadow of St. Paul's steeple, where they are +regaled with some delectable music (if you would only think so) from the +balcony of the Museum opposite, and have the combined benefit of Barnum's +scenic-artist and the Drummond light. + +The massive door-plate, and highly polished, distorted knocker, no longer +grace the oaken panels of number 85; but a republican sign over the +family-looking doorway tells you that "the front room, second floor," is +occupied by Messrs. Flint & Snarle. After passing up a flight of broad, +uncarpeted stairs, you again see the name of that respectable firm painted +on a light of ground glass set in the office door. Once on the other side +of that threshold, you breathe mercantile air. There have been so many +brain-trying interest calculations worked out on those high desks, that the +very atmosphere, figuratively speaking, is mathematical. + +The sign should not read Flint & Snarle, for Snarle has been dead six +months, and it is not pleasant to contemplate a name without an owner--it +is not to every one, but Mr. Flint likes to read the sign, and think that +Snarle is dead. He was the reverse of Flint, and that his name should have +been _Snarle_ at all is odd, for in life he was the quintessence of +quietness, and the oil of good nature. But Flint is well named; he is +chalcedony at heart. Nobody says this, but everybody knows it. Nell, the +pretty match-girl, who sells her wares in Wall-street, never approaches +him, nor the newsboys; and blind men, with sagacious, half-fed dogs, steer +clear of him by instinct. _He_ doesn't tolerate paupers, and Italian +hand-organs with monkey accompaniments--not he. + +The man who has not as much money as the surviving senior of Flint & +Snarle, is a dog--in Flint's distinguished estimation. His God is not that +divine Presence, whose thought + + "Shaped the world, + And laid it in the sunbeams." + +Flint's God is Gold.-- + + "Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! + Bright and yellow, hard and cold, + Molten, graven, hammered and rolled; + Heavy to get, and light to hold; + Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold; + Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled; + Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old + To the very verge of the church-yard mould; + Price of many a crime untold: + Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!" + +Flint is about fifty-three years of age; but if you could forget his gray +hair, and look only at those small, piercing black eyes, you would hardly +think him forty. His black dress-coat is buttoned around his somewhat +attenuated form, and he wears a stiff white cravat because it looks +religious. In this respect, and perhaps in others, you will find Flint's +prototype on every corner--people who look religious, if religion can be +associated with the aspect of an undertaker. + +It is Monday morning. + +Mr. Flint sits in his private office reading the letters. There is a window +cut in the wall, and he glances through it now and then, eyeing the +book-keeper as if the poor careworn fellow were making false entries. On a +high consumptive-looking stool sits the office boy, filing away answered +letters and sundry bills paid. The stool seems so high and the boy so +small, that he at once suggests some one occupying a dangerous position--at +a mast-head or on the golden ball of a church-steeple. For thus risking his +life, he receives "thirty dollars per year, _and_ clothing." We like to +have forgotten that. The said clothing consists of one white cravat full of +hinges, and a dilapidated coat, twelve sizes too large for him, his widowed +mother supplying the deficiency. + +Save the monotonous ticking of a thick-set, croupy clock, and the nervous +scratching of pens, not a sound is heard. + +Mr. Flint in deep thought, with his thumbs lost in the arm-holes of a white +vest, paces up and down his limited sanctum, just as a thoughtful-eyed, +velvet-mouthed leopard walks its confined cage, only waiting for a chance +to put its paws on somebody. The stool on which the boy is sitting is a +rickety concern, and its creakings annoy Mr. Flint, who comes out, and +looks over the orphan's shoulder. If his lynx eyes discover a document +incorrectly filed, he pinches the delinquent's ears, till he (the orphan) +is as red in the face as an August sunset. Mr. Flint chuckles when he gets +back to his desk, and seems to enjoy it immensely, for he drums out an +exhilarating dead march with his long, wiry fingers on the cover of the +letter-book. The pale book-keeper--his hair and eyes are darker than when +we first saw him sitting with little Bell at "the round window" in the Old +House--continues to write assiduously; and the orphan thinks that he hears +fire-bells, his ears ring so. + +He's an unfortunate atom of humanity, that office-boy. He was never young. +He never passed through the degrading cycles of infancy--never had any +marbles or hoops: _his_ limbs were never ignominiously confined by those +"triangular arrangements" incidental to babyhood. At five, when other +children are bumping their heads over steep stairs, he smoked cinnamon +segars, and was a precocious, astute little villain at seven. For +thirty-six months he folded books for Harper & Brothers, and at the +advanced age of ten years three months, was bound over to the tender +mercies of Flint & Snarle for "thirty dollars per year _and_ clothing," (so +the indentures read;) but as he is charged with all the inkstands +demolished during the term, and one gross of imaginary lead pencils, he +generally has about twenty-five dollars to his credit on the 1st of +January, which Flint generously offers to keep for him at four per cent. +interest, and which offer the ungrateful orphan "firmly but respectfully" +declines. + +"Mortimer!" cries Mr. Flint, in a quick, snarly voice from the inner +office. + +The book-keeper lays down the pen which he has just dipped in the ink, and +disappears in the little room. Mr. Flint is turning over the leaves of the +invoice book. + +"In thirteen pages there are no less than two blots and five erasures. You +have grown careless in your penmanship lately;" and Mr. Flint closes the +book with a report like that of a pocket-pistol, and opens it again. One +would suppose the office-boy to be shot directly through the heart; but he +survives, and is attacked with a wonderful fit of industry. + +"Do you write in your sleep?" inquires Mr. Flint, with a quiet insolence. + +Mortimer thinks how often he has toiled over those same pages at hours when +he should have been sleeping--hours taken from his life. But he makes no +reply. He only bites his lips, and lets his eyes flash. Suddenly a thought +strikes him, and, bending over Mr. Flint's shoulder, as if to examine more +closely his careless chirography, he takes a small key from an open drawer +in the _escritoire_ behind him, and drops it into his vest-pocket. After +receiving a petulant reprimand, Mortimer returns to his desk; and again +that weary, weary pen scratches over the paper. + +After the bank deposit is made up, and Mr. Flint looks over the bill-book, +and startles the orphan from a state of semi-somnolency, he goes on +'Change. He is no sooner out, than Mortimer throws Tim a bit of silver +coin. + +"Get some apples for yourself, Tim." + +Tim (he's small of his age) slides down from the high stool with agility, +while his two eyes look like interrogation points. He is wondering at this +sudden outbreak of munificence, for though "Mr. Mortimer" always had a kind +word for Tim, and tried to extricate him from the web of mistakes which Tim +was forever spinning around himself, yet Tim never knew him to come down +with the "block tin" before, as he eloquently expressed it; and he looks at +Mortimer all the time he is getting his cap, and pauses a moment at the +door to see if he doesn't repent. + +When Tim's feet cease sounding on the stairs, Mortimer goes into the back +office, and with the key which he had taken from the drawer, unlocks a +small iron hand-safe. His trembling fingers turn over package after +package; at last he finds one which seems to be the object of his search. +This he hastily conceals in the bosom of his coat. After carefully +re-locking the safe, he approaches the _escritoire_ to return the purloined +key, but to his dismay he finds the drawer locked. The one above it, +however, is unfastened. Drawing this out, he places the key in its right +compartment. + +Mortimer, in searching for the paper which he has hidden in his bosom, had +removed several others from the safe; but in his nervousness he had +neglected to replace a small morocco case. He discovers his negligence, and +hears foot-falls on the stairs at the same moment. There is no time to +re-open the chest: he wraps the case in his handkerchief, and resumes his +place at the desk. + +Tim returns munching the remains of a gigantic apple, and bearing about him +a convicting smell of peanuts. Suddenly Mr. Flint enters, and Tim is +necessitated to swallow the core of his russet without that usual +preparatory mastication which nature's kindly law suggests. Mr. Flint has +made a capital bargain on 'Change, and his face is lighted up with a smile, +if fancy can coax such an expression into one. It looks like a gas-light in +an undertaker's window. + +It is five o'clock. Mr. Flint goes home to doze over a diminutive glass of +sherry. He holds it up between his eyes and the light, smiling to see the +liquid jewels, and wishes that they were real rubies. Flint! they are red +tears, and not jewels which glisten in your glass, for you crushed the +poor, and took advantage of the unfortunate to buy this pleasant blood +which pulses in your brittle chalice! + +That night he thought of a pair of blue, innocent eyes which once looked +pleadingly in his--of two tiny arms that were once wound fondly around his +neck. Those eyes haunted him into the misty realm of dreams, where myriads +of little arms were stretched out to him; and he turned restlessly on his +pillow. Ah, Flint, there is an invisible and powerful spirit in the heart +of every man that _will_ speak. It whispers to the criminal in his cell; +and the downy pillows and sumptuous drapery around the couch of Wealth +cannot keep it away at midnight. + +There is not a house but has its skeleton. There is a ghastly one in +Flint's. + +The silvery lips in Trinity steeple chime the hour of eleven; St. Paul's +catch it up, and hosts of belfrys toss the hour to and fro like a +shuttle-cork. Then the goblin bells hush themselves to sleep again in their +dizzy nests, murmuring, murmuring!--and the pen of the pale book-keeper +keeps time with the ticking of the office time-piece. + +It is nearly twelve o'clock when he reaches the door of a common two-story +house in Marion-street. The door is opened before he can turn the bolt with +his night-key, and the whitest possible little hand presses his. He draws +it within his own, and places his arm around the daintiest little waist +that ever submitted to the operation. Then the two enter the front parlor, +where the dim light falls on Mortimer and a beautiful girl on the verge of +womanhood. She looks into his face, and his lips touch a tress of chestnut +hair which has fallen over his shoulder. + +"You are very pale. Have you been unwell to-day?" + +"No, Daisy," and he bends down and kisses her. + +"Why do you persist in sitting up for me? I shall scold if you spoil your +cheeks. Kiss me, Daisy." + +The girl pouts, and declares she won't, as she coquettishly twines her arms +around his neck, and Mortimer has such a kiss as all Flint's bank stock +could not buy him--a pure, earnest kiss. He was rich, poor in the world's +eye, richer than Flint, with his corpulent money bags, God pity him! + +They sit a long while without speaking. Mortimer breaks the silence. + +"We are very poor, Daisy." + +"Yes, but happy." + +"Sometimes. To-night I am not; I am weary of this daily toiling. The world +is not a workshop to wear out souls in. Man has perverted its use. Life, +and thought, and brain, are but crucibles to smelt gold in. Nobleness is +made the slave of avarice, just as a pure stream is taught to turn a +mill-wheel and become foul and muddied. The rich are scornful, and the poor +sorrowful. O, Daisy, such things should not be! My heart beats when I think +how poorly you and your mother are living." + +"O, how much we owe you, Mortimer! you are selling your life for us. From +morning till night, day after day, you have been our slave. Poor, dear +Mortimer, how can we thank you? We can only give you love and prayers. You +will not let me help you. Last night, when you found me embroidering a +collar, a bit of work which Mrs. Potiphar had kindly given me, you +pleasantly cut it in pieces with your pen-knife, and then pawned your gold +pencil to pay for ruining Mrs. Potiphar's muslin--too proud to have me +work!" + +"Why will you pain me, darling? I was complaining for others, not myself. I +do not toil as thousands do. I am impulsive and irascible, and do not mean +all I say. I am ungrateful; my heart should be full of gratitude to-night, +for the cloud which has hung over me the last six months has shown its +silver lining." + +"What do you mean?" cries Daisy. + +"Do you know that you are an heiress?" asks Mortimer, gaily. + +Daisy laughs at the idea, and mockingly says, "Yes." + +"An heiress to a good name, Daisy! which is better than purple, and linen, +and fine gold." + +Daisy looks mystified, but forbears to question him, for he complains of +sleep. The lovers part at the head of the stairs. Mortimer, on reaching his +room, draws a paper from his bosom; he weeps over it, reads it again and +again; then he holds it in the flame of a candle. When the ashes have +fallen at his feet, he exclaims: + +"I have kept my promise, Harvey Snarle! Peace to your memory!" + +From a writing-desk in a corner of the room he takes a pile of manuscript, +and weary as he is, adds several pages to it. The dream of his boyhood has +grown with him--that delightful dream of authorship! How this +will-o'-the-wisp of the brain entices one into mental fogs! How it coaxes +and pets one, cheats and ruins one! And so that appalling pile of +closely-written manuscript is Mortimer's romance? Wasted hours and wasted +thought--who would buy or read it? + +A down-town clock strikes the hour of two so gently, that it sounds like +the tinkling of sheep-bells coming through the misty twilight air from the +green meadows. With which felicitous simile we will give our hero a little +sleep, after having kept him up two hours after midnight. + +Slumber touches his eyelids gently; but Daisy lies awake for hours; at +last, falling into a trouble sleep, she dreams that she is an heiress. + +Oh, Daisy Snarle! + + + + +V. + + _The bitter cups of Death are mixed, + And we must drink and drink again._ + + R. H. STODDARD. + +V. + +DAISY SNARLE. + + _Sunday Morning--Harvey Snarle and Mortimer--A Tale of Sorrow--The + Snow-child--Mortimer takes Daisy's hand--Snarle's death._ + + +Six months previous to the commencement of the last chapter, Mr. Harvey +Snarle lay dying, slowly, in a front room of the little house in +Marion-street. + +It was Sunday morning. + +The church bells were ringing--speaking with musical lips to "ye goode +folk," and chiming a sermon to the pomp and pride of the city. As Mortimer +sat by the window, the houses opposite melted before his vision; and again +he saw the old homestead buried in a world of leaves--heard the lapping of +the sea, and a pleasant chime of bells from the humble church at Ivytown. +And more beautiful than all, was a child with clouds of golden hair, +wandering up and down the sea-shore. + +"Mortimer?" said the sick man. + +Then the dream melted, and the common-looking brick buildings came back +again. + +"The doctor thought I could not live?" said the man, inquiringly. + +"He thought there was little hope," replied Mortimer. "But doctors are not +fortune-tellers," he added, cheerfully. + +"I feel that he is right--little hope. Where is Daisy?" + +"She has lain down for a moment. Shall I call her?" + +"Wearied! Poor angel; she watched me last night. I did not sleep much. I +closed my eyes, and she smiled to think that I was slumbering quietly. No; +do not call her." + +After a pause, the sick man said: + +"Wet my lips, I have something to tell you." + +Mortimer moistened his feverish lips, and sat on the bed-side. + +"It comes over me," said the consumptive. + +"What? That pain?" + +"No; my life. There is something drearier than death in the world." + +"Sometimes life," thought Mortimer, half aloud. + +The sick man looked at him. + +"Why did you say that?" + +"I thought it. Life is a bitter gift sometimes. An ambition or a passion +possess us, flatters and mocks us. Death is not so dreary a thing as life +then." + +"He felt that." + +"Who?" + +"The devil." + +"His mind is wandering," murmured Mortimer--"wandering." + +"It isn't," said Snarle, slowly. "A passion, a love, made Flint's life +bitter." + +"Flint! Did he ever love anything but gold?" + +"Yes; but it was long ago! We are cousins. We were schoolmates and friends, +sharing our boyish sports and troubles with that confiding friendship which +leaves us in our teens. We lived together. I can see the old white frame +house at Hampton Falls!" and the man passed his emaciated hand over his +eyes, as if to wipe out some unpleasant picture. "A niece of my father's +came to spend a winter with us. Young men's thoughts run to love. I could +but love her, she was so beautiful and good; and while she did a thousand +kind things to win my affection, she took a strange aversion to my cousin +Flint, who grew rude and impetuous. We were married. But long before that, +Flint packed up his little trunk, and, without a word of farewell, left us +one night for a neighboring city. Years went by, and from time to time +tidings reached us of his prosperity and growing wealth. We were proud of +his industry, and thought of him kindly. We, too, were prospering. But the +tide of our fortune changed. My father's affairs and mine became +complicated. He died, and the farm was sold. One day I stood at Flint's +office door, and asked for employment. Evil day! better for me if I had +toiled in the fields from morning till night, wringing a reluctant +livelihood from the earth, which is even more human than Flint. Wet my +lips, boy, and come near to me, that I may tell you how I became his slave; +softly, so the air may not hear me." + +Mortimer drew nearer to him. + +"It was a hard winter for the poor. My darling wife was suffering from the +mere want of proper medicines and food. I asked Flint for a little more +than the pitiable salary which he allowed me. He smiled, and said that I +was extravagant. We had not clothes enough to shield us from the cold! I +told him that my wife was sick; and he replied, bitterly, 'poor men should +not have wives.' Wet my lips again. Can you love me, boy, after what I +shall tell you? I forged a check for a trivial amount!" and Snarle's voice +sunk to a hoarse whisper. "Can you love me?" + +"Can I love you?" cried Mortimer. He could not see the sick man for his +tears. "Can I forget all your kindness. Years ago, when I was a mere child, +toiling early and late in Flint's office, did you not take me to your home, +a poor hope-broken boy? Have I not grown up with Daisy, like your own +child? Not love you?" + +Mortimer laid his face on the same pillow with the sick man's. + +"I was not sent to prison," continued Snarle, with a shudder; "only my own +mind, and soul, and actions were prisoners. I was Flint's! Flint owned me! +That little paper which he guards so carefully is the title-deed. O, +Mortimer, as you hold my memory dear, destroy that paper--tear it, burn it, +trample it out of the world!" + +With these words Snarle sank back upon the pillow, from which he had half +risen. He went on speaking in a lower tone: + +"I have suffered so much that I am sure God will forgive me. Never let the +world know--never let my wife and Daisy know that I was a----" + +"O, I will promise you, dear father," cried Mortimer, before he could +finish the dreadful word. "I will destroy the paper, though twenty Flints +guarded it. The man who steals a loaf of bread for famishing lips, is not +such a criminal in God's sight as he who steals a million times its value +by _law_ to feed his avarice. Think no more of it. The angel who records in +his book, has written a hundred good deeds over that unfortunate one. The +world's frown is not God's frown, and His heart is open when man's is +barred with unforgiveness." + +"Thank you, thank you," said Snarle, brightening up a little. "Your words +give me comfort. I have not much more to tell. Flint took me into the firm, +but I was the same slave. I worked, and worked, and the reapings were his. +You have seen it--you know it. And this was his revenge. His wounded love +and pride have wrecked themselves on me. He has never crossed the threshold +of our door--never laid his eyes on my wife since the time when we were +thoughtless boys together. O, how cruel he has been to me! Evening after +evening, in midwinter, he has made me bring the last editions of the +_Express_ to his house, and never asked me in!" + +This was said with such a ludicrous expression, that Mortimer would have +laughed if it had been anybody but poor Snarle. Exhausted with talking, the +sick man sank into a quiet slumber. + +Mortimer sat by his bed-side for an hour, watching the change of +expressions in the sleeper's face--the shadow of his dreams coming and +going! Then his head drooped upon his bosom, and he slept so soundly that +he did not know that Daisy came in the room, and stood beside him, looking +in his face with her fond, quiet eyes. + +When he awoke, one long dark shadow from the houses opposite slanted into +the apartment. + +Snarle was looking at him. + +"I have been asleep," said Snarle, "and have had such pleasant thoughts +that it is painful to find myself in this poor little world again. Ah, me, +what will wife and Daisy do in it all alone?" + +"Not alone," said Mortimer. "I will watch over them--love them." Then, +after a pause: "Father, I love Daisy--I would make her my wife." + +"Ah, I wished that; but I did not think it:" and Snarle paused a moment. +"Have you told Daisy so?" + +"Yes--but----" + +"Well," said Snarle, waiting. + +"But she does not love me; and that is why I said love would make life +bitter." + +"Perhaps she does." + +"No." + +"What did Daisy say?" + +"She said there were clouds in the morning of her life--(these were her own +words)--which had no sunshine in them. Then she called me brother and +kissed me, and told me that I must never think of her as my wife. She would +be my sister always. And when I speak to her of this, she turns away or +hums a pleasant air to mock me." + +"She is not our child, Mortimer." + +"What?" + +"No, I am not wandering," said Snarle, in reply to Mortimer's look. "She is +not our child. We adopted her under strange circumstances. I have not told +you this before. Daisy did not wish me to; but it is right that you should +know it now. Sit nearer to me." + +Mortimer obeyed mechanically. + +"One stormy night we were sitting, my wife and I, in the room below. I +remember as if it were yesterday, how the wind slammed the window-blinds, +and blew out the street-lamps. It was just a year ago that night we lost +our little Maye, and we were very sad. We sat in silence, while without the +storm increased. The hail and snow dashed against the window-panes, and +down the chimney. Every now and then the wind lulled, and everything was +still." + +Heaven knows why Mr. Snarle ceased speaking just then; but he did, and +seemed lost in reverie. + +"What was I saying?" + +"You were speaking of the storm." + +"Yes, yes. It was in one of those pauses of the wind that we heard a low +sob under our windows. We did not heed it at first, for sometimes a storm +moans like a human voice. It came again so distinctly as to leave no doubt. +I opened the hall-door, and groped about in the snow. When I returned to +the sitting-room, I held little Daisy in my arms. She was no larger than +our Maye who died--our little three-year-old. The child was half frozen, +and nothing but a coarse cloak thrown over her night-dress, had saved her +from perishing. I reported the circumstance at the police-station, but such +things were of too common occurrence to excite much interest. Weeks passed, +and then months, and no one answered the advertisements. At last we had +learned to love the child so dearly, that we dreaded the thought of parting +with it. I asked and obtained permission to adopt the pet, and so Daisy +became ours. She is very proud, and the mystery of her birth troubles her; +and this----" + +Before Snarle could finish the sentence, Daisy herself opened the room +door, and came tripping up to the bed-side. + +Mortimer took her hand very quietly. + +"Daisy," he said, "I love you." + +Daisy hid her face in the pillow. + +"He has told me everything, and I love you, Daisy!" + +Daisy looked up with the tears and sunshine of April in her eyes. + +"Do you love me?" he asked. + +The girl was silent for a moment, then a sweet little "yes" budded on her +lips. + +Then Mortimer kissed Daisy, and poor Snarle died happy; for that evening +his life-stream ebbed with the tide, and mingled with that ocean which is +forever and forever. + + REQUIESCAT IN PACE. + + + + +VI. + + _A lone ship sailing on the sea: + Before the north 'twas driven like a cloud; + High on the poop a man sat mournfully: + The wind was whistling through mast and shroud, + And to the whistling wind thus did he sing aloud._ + + SMITH'S "BARBARA." + +VI. + +THE PHANTOM AT SEA. + + _A Storm in the Tropics--The Lone Ship--The Man at the Wheel--How he + sang strange Songs--The Apparition--The Drifting Bark._ + + +The blood-red sun had gone down into the Atlantic. Faint purple streaks +streamed up the western horizon, like the fingers of some great shadowy +hand clutching at the world. + +Huge masses of dark, agate-looking clouds were gathering in the zenith, and +the heavy, close atmosphere told the coming of a storm. Now and then the +snaky lightning darted across the heavens and coiled itself away in a +cloud. + +A lone ship stood almost motionless in the twilight. + +The sails were close-reefed. Here and there on the forecastle were groups +of lazy-looking seamen; and a man walked the quarter-deck, glancing +anxiously aloft. The sea was as smooth as a mirror, and that dreadful +stillness was in the air which so often preludes a terrific storm in the +tropics. A rumbling was heard in the sky like the sound of distant +artillery, or heavy bodies of water falling from immense heights. + +Then the surface of the sea was broken by mimic waves tipped with froth, +and the vast expanse seemed like a prairie in a snow fall. + +The lightning became more frequent and vivid, and the thunder seemed +breaking on the very topmasts of the vessel. Then the starless night sunk +down on the ocean, and the sea raved in the gathering darkness. The storm +was at its height: the wind, + + "Through unseen sluices of the air," + +tore the shrouds to strings, and bent the dizzy, tapering masts till they +threatened to snap. But the bark bore bravely through it, while the huge +waves seemed bearing her down to those coral labyrinths, where nothing goes + + "But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange." + +The thunder sent forth peal after peal, and the heaven was like "a looming +bastion fringed with fire." On through the slanting rain sped the ship, +creaking and groaning, with its ribs warped and its great oaken spine +trembling. The sailors on deck clung to the bulwarks; and below not a soul +could sleep, for the thunder and the creaking of cordage filled their ears. + +At midnight the storm abated; but the sea still ran dangerously high, and +the wind sobbed through the rigging mournfully. The heaven was spangled +with tremulous stars, and at the horizon the clouds hung down in gossamer +folds--God's robe trailing in the sea! + +Toward morning the waves grew suddenly calm, as if they had again heard +that voice which of old said, "Peace, be still!" There was no one above +decks, save the man at the wheel, who ever and anon muttered to himself, or +hummed bits of poetry. He was a man in the mellow of life, in the Indian +summer of manhood, which comes a little while before one falls "into the +sere and yellow leaf." Once he must have been eminently handsome; but there +were furrows on his intellectual forehead not traced by time's fingers. His +eyes were peculiarly wild and restless. + +The slightest tinge of red fringed the East, and as the man watched it +grow deeper and deeper, he sang snatches of those odd sea-songs which +Shakespeare scatters through his plays: + + "The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I, + The gunner and his mate, + Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian and Margary, + But none of us cared for Kate. + For she had a tongue with a twang, + Would cry to a sailor, go hang! + She loved not the savor of tar or of pitch,-- + Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!" + +Then his sonorous voice rang out these quaint words to the night: + + "Full fathom five thy father lies: + Of his bones are coral made: + Those are pearls that were his eyes: + Nothing of him that doth fade--" + +He abruptly broke off, and commenced: + + "Break, break, break + On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! + And I would that my tongue could utter + The thoughts that arise in me. + + O, well for the fisherman's boy, + That he shouts with his sister at play! + O, well for the sailor lad, + That he sings in his boat on the bay! + + And the stately ships go on, + To the haven under the hill; + But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still! + + Break, break, break, + At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! + But the tender grace of a day that is dead + Will never come back to me." + +Suddenly he paused, while a paleness like death overspread his face; the +spokes of the wheel slipped from his hold, and he called for help; but the +wind went moaning through the shrouds, and drowned his voice. The sea +moaned and the ship drifted with the wind. + +"It comes again!" he cried; "the graveyard face! Go! I cannot bear those +sad, reproachful eyes--those arms outstretched, asking mercy! Send foul +fiends to torture me, and make my dreams hideous nightmares, but not this +beautiful form to mock me with its purity, and kill me with its mild +reproach. It has gone. But it will come again! It steals on me in the awful +hours of night, when the air seems supernatural, and the mind is accessible +to fear. It stood by my hammock last night; my conscious soul looked +through my closed eyelids, and sleep felt its dreadful presence. If it +comes again I will throw myself into the sea! Hush!" he whispered, "it +stands by the cabin door, so pale! so pale! Come not near me, pensive +ghost. Give me help, somebody! help! help!" + +He sunk down by the wheel. + +The stars, at the approach of morning, had grown as white as pond-lilies, +and the wind had died away; but the same moan came up from the sea. On in +the morning twilight drifted the ship for an hour, without a helmsman, save +that unseen hand which guides all things--which balances with equal love +and tenderness a dew-drop or a world. + + + + +VII. + + _I was not always a man of woe._ + + WALTER SCOTT. + +VII. + +IN WHICH THERE IS A MADMAN. + + _Mr. Flint sips vino d'oro--The Stranger--The Letter--Mr. Flint + Outwitted--Mr. Flint's Photograph--The Madman's Story--The wrecked + Soul--How Mr. Flint is troubled by his Conscience, and dreams of a + Pair of Eyes._ + + +The same night on which Mortimer was writing in the books of Flint & +Snarle, Mr. Flint sat in the library of his bachelor home, sipping a glass +of _vino d'oro_; and as the bells of Trinity Church fell faintly on his +ear, he drew a massive gold watch from his fob, and, patting it +complacently on the back, scrutinized its face as if he would look it out +of countenance. Then he yawned a couple of times and thought of bed. + +"There's a gintleman without, sur," said Michel, putting his comical head +in at the library door, "there's a gintleman without, sur," and he +emphasized the 'gintleman.' + +"What sort of a person, Michel?" + +"A very quare one indade. 'Is Mr. Flint in?' sez he. 'He is sur,' sez I. 'I +want to see him,' sez he. 'Your kard, sur,' sez I. He stared at me a minit, +and laughed. Then, sez he, without the least riverence for your worship, +'Give this _to owld Flint_!'" And Michel, exploding with laughter, handed +Flint a knave of clubs very much soiled. + +"Michel!" said Mr. Flint, drawing himself up to his full altitude, "kick +him down the steps!" + +"Thanks!" said a voice directly behind Michel, who had retreated to the +doorway. The voice was so near and unexpected that Michel's crisp hair +stood on end with fright. + +The door was thrown wide open, and a fine looking man, with the bearing of +a sailor, stood between them. Mr. Flint turned as white as his immaculate +shirt-bosom; and Michel, whose love of fun had got the better of his scare, +regarded the intruder with a quizzical, inquiring air, peculiarly Irish. + +"Michel," said Mr. Flint, "you may go." + +That gentleman, not expecting such an order, hesitated. + +"Yes, sur." + +"Michel," said the stranger, "your master speaks to you." + +"Sure I heard him, sur." + +Michel left the room and carefully closed the door after him; but Flint, +who knew his inquiring proclivities, opened it suddenly, and found Michel +on all fours with his ear to the key-hole. The door was opened so +unexpectedly that the listener did not discover the fact for the space of +ten seconds. When he looked up and beheld his master, the intense +expression of his face was superbly ludicrous. To say that he shot to the +subterranean regions of the kitchen like a flash of lightning, does not +border on fiction. + +The man laughed--it was a low, peculiar laugh, sadder than some men's +tears. + +"Flint!" + +"Well." + +"Are you glad to see me?" and the man repeated his laugh. + +"No: you are a devil!" + +"I have been away three years, as I promised you." + +"Well, what do you want?" + +"Money." + +"Have I ever seen you when you did not?" + +"No, Flint, you never did. But you saw me once when I had an unstained +soul--when I could have looked up to Heaven and said, 'I am poor, Father, +but I am honest.' Have you enough money to pay for a lost soul? Oh Flint, +I am a wrecked man! If it had only been murder--if I had killed _a man_ in +the heat of passion--but a poor innocent babe in the cold snow! The child! +the little babe! Ah, Flint, I never see the white snow coming down but I +think of it. Those eyes are always with me. They follow me out to sea. They +haunt me in the long watches. One night, when a storm had torn our rigging +to tatters, and we heard the breakers on the lee-shore, I saw her standing +by the binnacle light, and, so help me Heaven! she had grown to be a woman. +I fainted at the wheel. You heard of the shipwreck. How could a ship keep +clear of the rocks and the helmsman in a trance? Forty souls went down, +down! Hist! who said that? Not I. No, not I! I am a maniac!" + +"Don't go on that way," pleaded Flint, giving uneasy looks toward the door, +which he regretted having locked. + +"Why?" + +"It is not pleasant." + +"What isn't?" + +"Your eyes--your words. What can I do for you?" + +The man's excitement lulled for a moment. He replied, carelessly: + +"I am not a chameleon; I cannot live on air; I can earn no money. The +elements are against me--storms and shipwrecks follow me.... I have not +found him yet," he said, abruptly. + +"Who?" + +"My boy." + +Flint turned aside his head, and laughed quietly. + +"I am tired of searching for him," said the man, sorrowfully. "I am not +going to sea any more." After a pause--"I wish to live among the fishermen +off Nantucket. You ask me what I want?" + +"Yes." + +"I want two or three hundred dollars to fit up a fishing-smack. Give me +this, and I will not trouble you again. God knows I don't want to look on +your face!" + +"And the letter--will you give me the letter?" + +"Yes; when I take the money." + +The man drew from his bosom several letters, and selected one more worn and +crumpled than the rest. + +Flint's eyes fed upon it. + +"Of course," said Flint, "I have not such an amount in the house. I have a +hundred dollars up stairs, and will give you a check for the remainder. +Will that do?" + +"No and yes; but get the money, and I'll see." + +Flint left him alone. From a safe in his bed-chamber he took a small bag +of gold, and caressed it for a moment very much as one's grandmother would +a pet cat; then he filled up a check, and called Michel. + +"Run to the police station, Michel, and tell Captain L.----to send me +three or four men." + +Michel shot down stairs, and his master followed him leisurely, patting the +gold-bag lovingly at every other step. + +"Does he think," said Flint's visitor to himself, as the library door +closed--"_can_ he think I would part with this paper? He, so full of +worldly shrewdness, so simple?" + +After awhile the door opened. + +"There!" gasped Flint, placing the bag on the table before the man; "the +letter! the letter!" + +The stranger carelessly threw a rumpled paper toward Flint, who grasped it +convulsively. His hand touched a bell-rope, and before the bell had ceased +tinkling, a heavy measured tramp came through the entry. Four policemen +entered the room in single file, with Michel behind them making comical +efforts to keep step. + +"Arrest him!" cried Flint, hoarse with passion and triumph, "he has +extorted money from me!" + +"Flint," said the man, walking toward him, "you know that's a lie!" + +Mr. Flint retreated behind the policeman. + +"This person," he cried, "is a stranger to me; he forced his way into my +house and has threatened my life. Arrest him quickly, for he is no doubt +armed!" + +"Gentlemen," said the stranger, turning to the officers, "Mr. Flint, I +fear, has given you useless trouble. Michel, more glasses!" + +At this, that astonished individual went off like a rocket. + +"For the love you bear your good name, Mr. Flint", he continued, "look at +the paper which you so innocently put in your pocket." + +An idea struck Flint, which caused him to turn pale. He tore open the +letter; but it was not the one for which he would have given half his +fortune. Oh! sagacious, wily, clear-sighted Mr. Flint! + +"You had better tell these gentlemen that you have made a mistake, Flint. +But, before they go, they must have a glass of wine." + +Michel had failed to appear with the extra glasses; but the want of them +was elegantly supplied by three silver goblets which stood on the +_beaufait_. And poor, collapsed Flint! he could only bid the officers go, +with a wave of his hand. + +They were alone. + +The sailor, with a scornful curl in his lip, stood by the chair of the +merchant, whose dejected countenance, taken in connection with his white +cravat, was delightfully comical. + +"Flint," commenced the man, "your verdancy is refreshing. Your sweet and +child-like simplicity is like a draught of your old wine--it's rare, it's +rare." + +If anything touched Flint, it was sarcasm. He stood in dread of ridicule, +as most men do whose foibles and vices deserve lashing. + +"Edward Walters!" he cried, springing to his feet, "you have outwitted me. +Well, you are a knave; it is your pride to be one. Your companions will +shout to-night, in some obscure den of this city, as you tell them of your +ingenuity, and you will be a hero among----" + +"Stop, John Flint! For sixteen years to-night my life has been as pure as a +child's. The vices of passion and avarice have not touched me. I have borne +a sorrow in my heart which shrunk instinctively from sin. During these +years I have been poor, very poor." The man paused. "There is a link lost +somewhere in my life--was I an age in a madhouse? Let it go. I have loved +my fellow-man; I have lingered at the hammock of a sick mess-mate, and +closed his eyes kindly when he died; I have spoken words of cheer when my +heart was bitterness. I do not say this boastfully, for God's eyes are +upon us all. I have done these things to atone for the one great sin of my +life, which has stalked through memory like a plague. John Flint, I have +had the misfortune to know you for twenty years, and during that time you +never have, to my knowledge, performed a single act worthy of being +remembered. You have a narrow, malicious mind; you have been tyrannical +when you should have been generous; you have been the devil's emissary +under the cant of religion. You call Jesus master, but you crucify him +daily! There is your photograph, John Flint!" + +"You flatter me," remarked that personage, sarcastically; "but go on." + +"It is seldom that a rich man has the truth spoken to him plainly--the poor +man hears it often enough. Consider yourself favored. You have called me a +knave. I will draw some pictures, and I wish you to look at them: + +"Many years ago, a seafaring man who had just lost his ship in which his +little fortune had been invested, returned to this city sick at heart, and +weak from a wound which he had received in the wreck. He had battled many a +year against misfortune, and his utmost exertions had barely found bread +for his children. He owed money to a heartless and exacting man. He stood +before his creditor and said, 'I am beggared, but I will work for you.' +The merchant replied, 'Come to my house to-night, and I will find means by +which this debt can be liquidated.' The sailor expected reproaches and hard +words; so he was surprised at the softness of this speech, and his heart +was full of gratitude. + +"That night he sat in the parlor of the merchant, who plied him with rare +wines, until his mind went from him. Then he made a proposal to the sailor, +who, if he had had his senses, would have felled him to the floor. The +merchant had been appointed guardian to a motherless babe, which his +brother, dying, begged him to love and educate. His ship on the sea, and +the bales of merchandize in his warehouses, were not enough to feed his +hungry avarice. He needs must have the little inheritance of the babe. +Well, while he was speaking, making artful pictures in the eyes of his +drugged dupe, the child ran into the room, and twined her arms around the +neck of him who should have worshiped her. But he coldly unclasped the +little hands and pushed her from him. John Flint, when that man, on +Judgment Day, shall cringe before the throne of God, the Evil Angel will +trample him down!" + +Flint was as white as the marble mantel-piece on which he leaned. Edward +Walters stood a short distance in front of him; his eyes were fixed, and he +spoke like one who sees what he is describing. + +"Then the man--the merchant--wrapped the child in the sailor's cloak. In a +few minutes the sailor stood in the stormy street, with a frightened little +heart throbbing against his own. The cutting sleet and snow beat in his +face, and the wine made a veil before his eyes. It was a fearful night. Not +a human form was to be seen; the street lamps were blown out, and the poor +mariner drifted to and fro like a deserted ship. He had become mad; the +strange events had eaten into his brain. He wrapped the babe closer in his +cloak, and placed her in a doorway, out of the cold. He wandered from +street to street, then he sank down in the snow. When his senses came to +him he had been in a madhouse--God, how many years! Was it ten? The June +wind broke through the barred window; it touched his forehead, and it was +like a human hand rousing one from a dreamless sleep. One evening soon +after, he stood before the merchant, who was sipping his choice cordials, +as you were to-night, Flint, and the sailor asked for the child. The man +replied: 'The child is dead; you left it in the cold, and it died, or you +threw it into the river. I saw a body at the dead-house, weeks afterward, +which looked like the child. You committed murder; it was your own act. +Suppose you were to be hung for it!' Have I a good memory, John Flint?" + +And the man turned his wild eyes on Mr. Flint, who gave no other evidence +of not being a statue than a slight tremor of his upper lip. + +"What did the madman say to the merchant? He took the cool, calculating +villain by the throat, and cried, 'Write me out, in your round, clerkly +hand, a full avowal of your guilt in this matter, or I'll strangle you!' +The merchant knew he would, so he wrote this document with trembling +fingers, and he signed it JOHN FLINT!" + +Then the sailor drew from his pocket an old stained letter, and held it up +to the light. He looked at it sadly, and then his mind seemed to wander off +through a gloomy mist of memories, for his eyes grew gentle and dreamy. + +He spoke softly, almost tenderly: + +"John Flint, you never saw me weep. Look at me, then. I am thinking of an +old country-house which stood in a cluster of trees near a sea-shore. It +once held everything that was dear to me--my children. Three years ago I +stood with my hand on the gate, and looked into the little garden. It had +gone to waste; the wind had beaten down the flower frames; the honeysuckle +vines were running wild, and there was the moss of ten years' growth on the +broken chimney-pots. The rain had washed the paint off the house, and the +windows were boarded up. There was something in the ruin and stillness of +the place which spoke to me. Twilight added a gloomy background to the +picture. I broke the rusty fastenings of a side door, and entered the +deserted building. It may have been fancy, but I saw two forms wandering +from room to room, and through the darkened entries; now they would pause, +as if listening for foot-steps, then they would move on again, sorrowfully, +sorrowfully. In the bedroom over the front door, I saw the shadow of a +little coffin! _She_ used to sleep there. Where were my children? Where was +trustful old Nanny, that she did not come to me? The house was full of +strange shadows, and I fled from it. I did not dare go to the village hard +by. There were too many who might have known me. I sat down in the quiet +church-yard where my wife had slept many a long year. I sat by a little +mound on which a wreath of flowers had been laid--nothing remained of them +but stems and the rotting string that had bound them. It had a peaceful +look, the grave, and I wished that I had died when my mound would not have +been made longer than the one at my side. What did the simple head-stone +say? It said: 'LITTLE BELL!'--that was all!" + +The sailor grasped Flint's arm. + +"Only little Bell!--that was all. But it was all the world to me! What a +tale it told! What a tale of weary waiting, and despair, and death! Did +her little heart wait for me! Did she sicken and die when I did not come to +her? Aye, it said all this and more. And my boy--was he living? was he +searching for me? No, not searching, for close by my child's grave, a white +stone had these words carved on it:" and the man repeated them slowly, + + SACRED + TO THE MEMORY + OF + OUR FATHER, + LOST AT SEA. + +"Not lost at sea," he said, almost inaudibly, "but lost! Ah, I could have +died in that quiet place, with the moonlight on me! But I was startled from +my grief by the shouts of some men on the roadside, and I turned and fled. +Have you looked at the picture, John Flint?" + +He spoke so mournfully, that Flint raised his little, sharp eyes, which all +this time had been fixed on the carpet; but he made no reply. + +"I'll have none of your gold, man. I was weak to want it. Give it to the +poor. The shining round pieces may fall like sunlight into some wretched +home. To me they are like drops of blood!" + +And he pushed the gold from him, and went to the window. He saw the dim +eyes of Heaven looking down through the mist--heard the murmurs of the city +dying away, and the calm of night entered his soul. + +"May you be a better man when we meet again," he said, turning to Flint. + +"But the letter," cried Flint, fearfully, "you won't----" + +The sailor's lips curled, and something of his former severity returned. + +"Take off your sanctimonious cravat," he answered, "wrap charity around you +like a robe, that you may be pleasing in God's sight. You sent some gold to +convert the Hindoos--the papers said so. Why, man! there is a Heathen Land +at your door-step! John Flint, good night!" + +The merchant stood alone. + +The night wind swayed the heavy curtains to and fro, and half extinguished +the brilliant jets of gas. He threw himself into a chair, and a vision of +the Past rose up before him--the terrible Past. The ghosts of dead years +haunted his brain, and remorse sat on his heart, boding and mysterious, +like the Raven of the sweet poet-- + + "That unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster + Followed fast, and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore!" + +That night, as we have said, he dreamt of two blue, innocent eyes, which +once looked confidingly in his--of two infant arms which encircled his +neck. Those eyes haunted him into the realm of sleep, where myriads of +little arms were stretched out to him, and he turned restlessly on his +pillow! + + + + +VIII. + + _He trudged along, unknowing what he sought, + And whistled as he went, for want of thought._ + + DRYDEN. + +VIII. + +MR. FLINT IS PERFECTLY ASTONISHED, AND MORTIMER HAS A VISION. + + _The Light Heart--A Scene--The Sunny Heart--A Dream of Little Bell--A + Hint._ + + +Now that Mortimer Walters had destroyed the record of poor Snarle's guilt, +he determined to be no longer a subject of Flint's authority. He had +watched for months for an opportunity to become possessed of the forged +cheque; and it was with a heart as light as a singing bird's that he +tripped up the office stairs an hour before his time the next morning. + +Tim was sweeping out. + +Sleep had left no cobwebs in his young eyes; but when he saw Mortimer throw +open the office door, humming a light-hearted air, he rubbed his eyelids +with the sleeve of his dusty coat, as if it were a question in his mind +whether or not he was dreaming. + +"My last day here!" said Mortimer gaily to himself. "Weary, tiresome old +books! my soul has grown sick over you for the last time." + +He brushed the dust from off the dull-looking ledger, and went to work. +"Won't I astonish him?" he thought, looking up; and he laughed so +pleasantly that Tim, who was sweeping the rubbish into a dust-pan, +suspended operations, and expressed his surprise in a somewhat dubious +ejaculation: + +"I vum!" + +When Mr. Flint came in, he saw the same tall form bending over the +accustomed desk that had met his eyes every morning for the last ten years; +but he did not see the heart that was leaping with new life. And when, in +his usual snarly way, he gave Mortimer orders to make up certain invoices, +which would have employed the clerk till midnight, he opened a brief +conversation which ended in his utter amazement. + +"You will render Bowen & Cleet their account current, and make up the pork +sale; it has been standing open long enough. And," added Mr. Flint, "fill +up bills of lading for the D. D. coffee." + +"I don't think I will," was the quiet reply. + +Mr. Flint did not believe his ears. + +"Mr. Walters!" + +"Mr. Flint." + +"You will fill up those bills of lading immediately." + +"I won't!" plumply. + +This caused Mr. Flint to sink in a chair with astonishment; and Mortimer +went on writing. + +"Did you say that you wouldn't?" asked Mr. Flint, looking at him. + +"Yes, sir." + +"You did!" + +"My year," said Mortimer, leisurely, "expires to-day, and with it, I am +happy to state, my connection with Flint & Snarle." + +Mr. Flint hunted twenty seconds for his lost voice. + +"You insolent----" + +"Sir!" cried Mortimer, turning to him abruptly, "until now I have borne +your tyranny with meekness. We are no longer employer and clerk. We are man +and man, with the advantage on my side. If you apply an insulting epithet +to me, I shall pull your ears!" + +O Tim, how you rubbed your hands, you little villain! How your limbs seemed +to be receiving a series of galvanic shocks from an invisible battery! How +your eyes sparkled, and your proclivity for fight got uppermost, till you +cried out, "Pitch into him, old boy!" + +"Go!" hissed Flint, through his closed teeth; "go!" that was all the word +he could master. + +Mortimer passed out of the office. + +The genial sunshine slid from the house-tops, and fell under his feet; a +thousand airy forms walked with him, and he felt their presence, though he +could not see them. + +He wandered through the Park. April had breathed on the cold ground, and +the green grass was springing up to welcome her. The leaves were unfolding +themselves, and the air was full of spring. The fountain had thrown off its +icy manacles, and leaped up with a sense of freedom. + +His dreamy eyes saw it all. The black shadows had fallen from him; he had +left them with Flint; and a bright day had dawned within him and without +him. Everything was tinged with iridescent light, for he looked at the +world, as it were, through dew-drops. Happy morning--happy life! when one +can put aside the trailing vines of painful memory, and let the warm +sunshine of Heaven find its way into the heart. + +In this sunny mood he turned his way homeward. He passed Mrs. Snarle on the +stairs with a smile; he heard Daisy singing in the sitting-room; and he sat +himself down in the yellow light which streamed through the window of his +bedroom, making a hundred golden fancies on the worn carpet: + + "The shadows of the coming flowers! + The phantoms of forget-me-nots, + And roses red and sweet!" + +His eyes made pictures; his fancy inverted the hour-glass of his life, and +the old sands ran back! He floated down the stream of time, instead of +onward. + +The sunshine grew deeper and broader, and filled the little room. Then it +became condensed and brighter. Gradually it moulded itself into form, and +little Bell, in her golden ringlets, stood at the side of Mortimer. Her +white hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up--not in surprise, but +with tenderness--with the air of a man who can gaze with unclouded eyes +into the spiritual world and lose himself. + +"I knew you were near," he said, dreamily. "I thought you would come. You +have something to tell me. What is it, my little Bell? Thus you stood at my +side, thus you looked into my eyes, the day on which I told Daisy that I +loved her. Thus you come to me whenever the current of my life changes, to +love and advise me. What is it, Bell--dainty little Bell?" + +A sunny lip rested on his for a moment. + +"Be strong!" said little Bell. + +A cloud of sunlight floated around Mortimer, slipped down at his feet, and +lost itself in the orange stream which flooded the window. + +"He is dreaming of Bell," said Daisy, as she bent over him--"dreaming of +lost Bell!" + +And she closed the door after her softly. + +Then Mortimer's vision of sister Bell was a dream? Perhaps it was not. +Perhaps this real world is linked more closely to the invisible sphere than +in our guesses. It may be an angel's hand which touches our cheek, when we +think that it is only the breeze. _?Quien sabe?_ Who can say that in sleep +we do not touch hands with the spirits of another world--the angels of +hereafter? And what may death be but an intellectual dream!--Who knows? + +Nobody knows. "But," suggests the gentle reader, "suppose you dispense with +your Hamlet-like philosophy, and go on with your story, like the pleasant +author that you are, instead of putting us to sleep, as you have your +hero." + +Reader, the hint was merited. + + + + +IX. + + "_My eyes make pictures when they are shut._" + + COLERIDGE. + +IX. + +DAISY AND THE NECKLACE. + + _Our petite Heroine--How she talked to the Poets--The Morocco + Case--Daisy's Eyes make Pictures--Tears, idle Tears!_ + + +Mortimer was still sleeping an "azure-lidded sleep," as Keats has it, when +Daisy again came softly to the door. + +A pretty little woman was Daisy Snarle. + +She had one of those faces which you sometimes pass in the street and +remember afterward, ever connecting it with some exquisite picture, or, if +you happen to be in a poetical mood, a dainty bit of music. That face was +very sweet in the coquettish red and white "kiss-me-quick" which used to +shade it sunny mornings, when Daisy went to market--a very beautiful face +when she looked up earnestly--a very holy face when she sat thoughtfully +in her room at twilight. Her hair was dark chestnut, and she wore it in one +heavy braid over her forehead. Her eyes were so gentle and saucy by turns +that I could never tell whether they were gray or hazel; but her smile was +frank, her laugh musical, and her whole presence so purely womanly, that +one could not but be better for knowing her. Yet Daisy was not faultless. +She had a wild little will of her own--none the worse for that, however. +She could put her foot down--and a sweet little foot it was!--a temptation +of a foot, cased in a tight boot--high in the instep, and arched like the +proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And +then the heel of said boot!--But I daren't trust myself further. + +Daisy stood looking at Mortimer with her fond, thoughtful eyes. Soon she +grew tired of this, and, placing a stool by his chair, sat down and +commenced sewing. From time to time she looked up from her work and smiled +quietly. + +"How he sleeps!" said Daisy, with a low laugh. "Will he be cross if I +disturb him?"--and she laughed again. "I wonder," she said, at length, "if +a tiny song would awaken him?" + +So she sang in a gentle voice those touching lines of Barry Cornwall, +commencing with-- + + "Touch us gently, Father Time! + As we glide adown the stream." + +She sang them bewitchingly. The music must have stolen into Mortimer's +dream, for he slept a quieter sleep than before. Miss Daisy did not like +that, and pouted quite prettily, and shook her finger at him. + +"O, how tiresome you are!" she said. Then she sewed for ten minutes quite +steadily. + +"I guess I'll arrange your books, Rip Van Winkle! and when you wake up, a +half century hence, you won't know them, they'll be in such good order!" + +And facetious Miss Daisy broke out in such a wild, merry laugh, that an +early robin, perched on a tree beside the window, ceased chirping, and +listened to her. + +Her fingers grew very busy with Mortimer's books. Having dusted them +carefully, she commenced to place them in an old black-walnut book-case, +which must have had an antique look fifty years ago. And Daisy went on +laughing and talking to herself in a most comical manner. + +"Here, Mr. Theocritus!" she cried, taking up that venerable poet, and +placing him upside down, "I'll just set you on your head for absorbing all +that stupid boy's attention one live-long evening, when I wanted to chat +with him." + +An author is supposed to know everything about his characters; but I cannot +tell why Daisy placed Mortimer's poet in such an uncomfortable position, +unless she thought that the blood might run into the head of Mr. +Theocritus, and cause him to be taken off with a brain fever! + +"And you, Mr. Byron," Daisy continued, "you're a very wicked young fellow! +and I won't let you sit next to Mrs. Hemans!" so she placed Plutarch +between them. "But you and Shelly," Daisy said, resting her hand on Keats, +"you are different sort of persons; you are too earnest and beautiful to be +impure; and you shall sit side by side between L. E. L. and our own Alice +Cary. And Chatterton! poor boy Chatterton! I'll place you in that shadowy +corner of the book-case, where the sunshine never comes!" + +So Daisy made merry or sad, as the case might be, over her lover's few +volumes; and when she had arranged them to suit her capricious self, she +kissed her hand to Tom Hood, and locked them all--poets, romancers, and +historians--in the black, sombre old book-case. + +Our friend Daisy was in one of those playful, half-childish moods, which +came upon her not unfrequently. + +Now she looked around the room for some other piece of useful mischief to +do. She would turn over Mortimer's papers. Ah, what made her blush and +laugh so prettily then? It was only a sheet of note-paper, on which +Mortimer, in a dreamy moment, had written her name innumerable times--for +know, good world, that true love takes the silliest ways to express itself. + +Now she was curious. + +She stood thoughtfully, with a small morocco case in her hand. The reader +has seen it once in Flint's office. An undefined feeling stole over her; +and it was some time before she thought of opening the case. She did so, +however, and took from it a pearl necklace of rare design and workmanship. +The necklace was in three parts, linked together by exquisitely carved +clasps, from the largest of which hung a + +[Illustration: Cross] + +composed of smaller and more costly pearls. + +"How beautiful!" and she grew more thoughtful. Something within her +recognized the jewels. It was not her sight, it was not her touch, but an +intuitive something which is finer and subtler than either. + +"I have seen this somewhere--somewhere," she said; "but where?" + +And she closed her eyes, as if the sunlight blinded some timid memory that +was stealing through her brain. Her fancy painted pictures of strange +places and things. Now she saw a country-house, among cool, quiet trees; +then a man dying--some one she loved--but who? Now she was in a large city, +and heard the rumbling of wheels and confused voices. Now the snow was +coming down, flake after flake, and everything was white; then it was +night--dark, stormy, and dreadful--and she was cold, bitter cold! Some one +had left her in the white, clinging snow, and she was freezing! + +Daisy opened her eyes. The snow and wind were gone, and April's sunny +breath blew shadows through the open window. The house, the death, the +storm--how were they connected with the string of pearls? And Daisy held +the necklace on her finger-tips and wondered. + +"Somewhere, somewhere--but where?" + +Daisy could not tell where. + +"I may have seen one like it," Daisy thought. "Perhaps this was Bell's, and +these stones may have rested many a time on her little neck. I wish I had +known Bell!" + +With this she placed the necklace in the case again, and tears gathered in +her eyes, she knew not why. + + "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean." + +She laid the box in the place where she had found it, and thought she would +not speak to Mortimer of the necklace; he might be displeased to have her +touch it. + +Her gaiety had given place to sadness, and when she knelt by Mortimer's +chair she could not help sobbing. Mortimer awoke and bent over her. + +"What, weeping, Daisy?" + + + + +X. + + _Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, + And the winter winds are wearily sighing: + Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, + And tread softly and speak low, + For the old year lies a-dying. + Old year, you must not die: + You came to us so readily, + You lived with us so steadily, + Old year you must not die. + He lieth still: he doth not move: + He will not see the dawn of day, + He hath no other life above. + He gave me a friend and a true love, + And the new year will take 'em away. + Old year, you must not go: + So long as you have been with us, + Such joy as you have seen with us, + Old year, you shall not go. + He frothed his bumpers to the brim: + A jollier year we shall not see; + But though his eyes are waxing dim, + And though his foes speak ill of him, + He was a friend to me. + Old year, you shall not die: + We did so laugh and cry with you, + I've half a mind to die with you, + Old year, if you must die._ + + ALFRED TENNYSON. + +X. + +ST. AGNES' EVE. + + _The Old Year--St. Agnes--Keats' Poem--The Circlet of Pearls--A + Cloud--The Promise--Mrs. Snarle continues her Knitting._ + + +The Old Year had just gone by--the dear, sad Old Year! He died in the +blustering wind, out in the cold! He lay down in the shadows, moaned, and +died! Something has gone with thee, Old Year, which will never come again: +kind words, sweet smiles, warm lips--ah, no, they will never come again! +Hold them near your heart for love of us, Old Year! They came with you, +they went with you! _Kyrie eleyson!_ + +"I wish you could tarry with us," said Mortimer. "You were kind to us, +merry and sad with us." And he repeated the lines, + + "Old year, you shall not die: + We did so laugh and cry with you, + I've half a mind to die with you, + Old year, if you must die." + +"To-night, Daisy, will be St. Agnes' Eve, and if I sell my prose sketch to +Filberty's Magazine, I'll be in a good humor to read you Keats' poem." + +Since leaving Mr. Flint's employ, Mortimer had entirely supported himself +with his pen. His piquant paragraphs and touching verses over the signature +of "Il Penseroso," had attracted some attention; and he found but little +difficulty in disposing of his articles, at starving prices, it is true; +but he bore up, seeing a brighter time ahead. He had been so occupied in +writing short stories and essays, that his romance, which lacked but one +chapter of completion, was still unfinished. + +Filberty's Magazine paid him so generously for the "prose article," that he +could afford to devote himself to a task which did not promise immediate +profit. He completed the novel at sundown that day; and after supper Daisy +reminded him of his promise to read Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes." + +"I sometimes think," said Mortimer, as good Mrs. Snarle seated herself in a +low rocking-chair, preparatory to a dose, while Daisy sat on a stool at +his feet, "I sometimes think that this poem is the most exquisite +definition of one phase of poetry in our language. Musical rhythm, imperial +words, gorgeous color and luxurious conceit, seem to have culminated in it. +And the story itself is so touching that it would be poetical even if +narrated in the plainest prose. How surpassingly beautiful is it, then, +worked out with all the richness of that sweetest poet, who, in intricate +verbal music and dreamy imagery, stands almost alone!" + +Mrs. Snarle's head was inclined on one side, and the whole pose of her form +was one of profound attention. + +She was fast asleep. + +The busy knitting-needles were placid in her motionless fingers; and Pinky, +the kitten, was 'spinning a yarn' on her own account from the ball in Mrs. +Snarle's lap. + +"Who was St. Agnes?" asked Daisy. + +"She was a saint who suffered martyrdom for her religious views during the +persecution of the Christians in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. But +let us read the poem, which will make her more immortal than her heroism." + +Mortimer opened the book, and his voice touched the verse with new music +for Daisy's ears. Now his tones would be low and sad, as he read of the +old Beadsman, who told his beads in the cold night air, + + "While his frosted breath, + Like pious incense from a censer old, + Seemed taking flight for heaven." + +Then his voice grew as tender as a lover's, when he came to the place where +Porphyro, concealed, beholds Madeline as she disrobes: + + "Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; + Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; + Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees + Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees." + +"How few poets know how to handle color!" said Mortimer. "Azure, red, +orange, and all poetic hues are mixed up in their pictures like a shattered +rain-bow! But how artist-like is Keats! His famous window scene has not +been surpassed: + + "A casement high and triple-arched there was, + All garlanded with carven imageries + Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, + And diamonded with panes of quaint device, + _Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes_, + _As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings_; + And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, + _And twilight saints and dim emblazonings_, + _A shielded 'scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings_. + + "Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, + And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, + As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon: + _Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed_, + _And on her silver cross soft amethyst_, + _And on her hair a glory, like a saint_: + She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed, + Save wings, for heaven!" + +"Is it not exquisite?" asked Mortimer, looking in Daisy's face. + +She nodded assent. + +Mortimer fixed his eyes on a pearl necklace which gently clasped the girl's +neck, and started. The cross undulated on her bosom, which rose and fell +like two full white roses in the wind. + +"Where did you get that?" and Mortimer laid his hand on her arm nervously. + +"It was a freak," said Daisy, blushing. "Are you angry?" + +"Not angry, Daisy." + +"But you look so." + +"Do I? I am not. I grow unhappy when I see that necklace." + +"It was Bell's, then?" + +"Yes--no--don't ask me, Daisy." + +"Why?" + +A shadow came over Mortimer's face. + +That morning Daisy had been tempted to open the morocco case, and a desire +to clasp the white necklace on her neck became irresistible. Something drew +her to it, and the same feeling of mystery and longing which stole on her +when she first held the circlet in her hand while Mortimer was sleeping, +overpowered her. Almost unconsciously she fastened the gold clasp, and when +the little cross sunk down on her bosom, her heart grew lighter, and she +went over the house singing like a canary. She wore it the whole day, +pausing at times in her household duties to admire the pearls. After a +while she forgot its existence, and her intention to replace it before +Mortimer returned. + +When Mortimer's eye caught sight of the necklace, Daisy was much +embarrassed, for she could, in no intelligible way, account for having +taken it. Mortimer was equally pained. He had unwillingly become possessed +of the ornament, and saw no means by which he could return it to Mr. Flint +without acknowledging that he had also taken the _check_. He dreaded to +make so humiliating a confession, and, perhaps, he stood a little in fear +of Mr. Flint's anger. The circumstance had caused him many moments of +anxiety, and an unpleasant thought came to him, as he saw the purloined +necklace on Daisy's innocent bosom. + +"But you _are_ angry?" said Daisy, looking up with dimmed eyes. + +"No, pet." + +"Then you will kiss me?" said Daisy, in a most winning way. + +Mortimer did what most every one would have done "in the premises"--an act +which was quite sufficient to make one break that part of the commandment +which refers to envy. Surely a man would be inhuman not to, having once +seen Daisy Snarle! + +"I am not angry, but pained; I cannot tell you why. I wish you to promise +me something." + +"I will. What is it?" + +"That you will not doubt me, whatever may occur in connection with this +necklace--that you will love me, though I may be unable to explain +condemning circumstances, or dispel the doubts of others." + +"I promise that. But how strange," thought Daisy. "I am sorry that I was so +childish as to take the necklace. Put it away, Mortimer, and forget that I +did so." + +Mortimer's cheerfulness returned, and he commenced reading the poem at the +place where he had interrupted himself. Just as he finished the last verse, +telling how, ages long ago, + + "The lovers fled away into the storm," + +Mrs. Snarle awoke with a jerk, and went to knitting as though she had been +doing nothing else the whole evening--a harmless subterfuge peculiar to old +people. + + + + +XI. + + _Of making many books there is no end._ + + ECCLESIASTES XII., 12. + +XI. + +MORTIMER HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GREAT PUBLISHER, AND MR. FLINT MAKES A +DISCOVERY. + + _H. H. Hardwill, Publisher--Criminal Literature--Alliterative + Titles--Goldwood--Poor Authors--A Heaven for them in the + Perspective--Flint's Discovery, and the Horns of his Dilemma._ + + +Mortimer looked up and read the sign--"H. H. Hardwill, Publisher." His +heart half-failed him, and he stood looking in the large, book-filled +window, with that romance which was to startle the literary world folded +quietly under his arm, like any common paper. What kind of a man is Mr. +Hardwill? he thought. Is he a large man, with a heavy watch-chain, or a +thin, sky-rockety piece of humanity, dressed in black, and tipped off with +red hair? Was he a cold, cast-iron man, like Flint? or a simple, sorrowful +one, like Snarle that was? But this last idea melted of itself. How could +the famous publisher resemble the poor, unobtrusive Snarle? He, Mr. +Hardwill, who received notes from the great Hiawatha, and hob-nobbed with +Knickerbocker Irving; he, who owned a phial of yellow sand, which had been +taken from a scorching desert with an unpronounceable name, and presented +to him by the Oriental Bayard; he, who chatted with genial Mr. +Sparrow-grass--God bless him!--(Sparrow-grass,) and joked with Orpheus +Stoddard,--he like simple Snarle? Pooh! + +"Is Mr. Hardwill in?" asked Mortimer. He came near adding, "the great +publisher." + +The clerk, to whom his eyes looked, said he believed he was, and went on +calling off from a slip of paper: + +"'Murdered Milkmaid,' two copies; 'Bloody Hatchet,' twelve copies; 'The +Seducer's Victim,' thirty copies; 'The Young Mother,' five copies; 'The +Deranged Daughter,' seven copies; 'Hifiluten and _other_ poems,' one copy." + +"Can I speak with him?" ventured Mortimer, as the clerk, who was calling +off the _criminal literature_, paused for breath. + +"'The Merry Maniacs,' ten copies--Yes, sir; but he's engaged. Wait awhile," +continued the clerk, as Mortimer turned to go. "'The Wizard of Wehawkin,' +six copies; 'The Phantom of Philadelphia,' twelve copies, etc., etc." + +So our author seated himself on a case of books, and looked at the wall of +volumes which encompassed him. Somehow or another, it suggested the Great +Wall of China and the Cordilleras. He could give no reason why. No more can +I. Perhaps he felt that light literature, paradoxical as it may seem, is +always heavy, and so his mind ran on the prodigious freaks of man and +nature. + +After the clerk had finished calling off from the slip of paper, that +promising young gentleman suddenly discovered that Mr. Hardwill was _not_ +engaged, and offered to conduct our friend into his august presence. +Mortimer gathered up his heart, as it were, and his loosened manuscript at +the same moment--"Her heart and morning broke together!"--and followed the +clerk through an avenue of literature, to a snug inner office--that +literary Sebastopol, which is forever being stormed by seedy poets and +their allies, historians, romancers, and strong-minded Eves. + +Could it be possible? + +Was that middle-sized, dark-eyed, light-haired, pleasant-looking man the +Napoleon of publishers? However, there was something shrewd in his dark +eye, or rather eyes--for he had two of them--and a certain expression of +the mouth, which seemed full of dealings with the world. + +"Is this Mr. Hardwill?" asked Mortimer. + +"Yes, sir. Will you be seated?" + +"I have a romance," commenced Mortimer, with hesitation, "which I would +offer you for publication. I have written it carefully, and I think it +possesses several new features----" + +Here his voice broke down, for he felt those dark, scrutinizing eyes in his +face; besides, the intense attention with which he was listened to +disconcerted him. Mr. Hardwill came to his relief. + +"What is the title of your book?" + +"It is called 'Goldwood.'" + +"That is not happy." + +"No?" + +"No," said Mr. Hardwill, "it should be something striking--something to +catch the eye in an advertisement. For instance, the--the----" + +"Frantic Father," suggested Mortimer, quietly; and he gazed at the carpet +to keep from smiling. + +Mr. Hardwill eyed him, and displayed his white teeth. There was a little +satire in our author's remark which pleased Mr. H., who could not be hired +to read the spasmodic books which he published. It was policy in him to +cater for that largest class of readers whose tastes are morbid or +inflamed, and he did so. + +Mortimer had thrown aside his timidity. He gave a concise sketch of the +plot, touching here and there on some supposed-to-be felicitous incident, +and grew so autorially eloquent over his romance, that the careful Mr. +Hardwill requested Mortimer to leave his manuscript with him, saying: + +"I cannot give you much hope. I have more books ready for press than I can +well attend to. If you will call on me the latter part of next week, you +shall have my decision." + +With these words, spoken in an off-hand, business-like way, Mr. Hardwill +made a bow, which said, as kindly as such a thing _can_ be said, "You +needn't stay any longer." + +Mortimer returned his bland smile frankly, and retired, though he would +fain have called Mr. Hardwill's attention to that delightful and exciting +scene in which Mr. Adine St. Clair meets Arabella Clementina after an +estrangement of two weeks! but he didn't. He again threaded his way through +the labyrinth of literature, and the last sound which fell on his ear, as +he turned from the book-store into the street, was, + +"'The Ruined Cigar Girl,' twenty copies!" + +"What on earth could anybody want of a 'Ruined Cigar Girl,' or a 'Young +Mother?'" and Mortimer laughed outright. + +The wand of Prospero is neither more cunning nor more powerful than the pen +of a well bred author. It creates something out of nothing, (more +frequently nothing out of something), changes time, place, and human +nature; it lifts up the blue roofing of ocean, and gives you a glimpse of +fish-life; and deeper still, shows you the coral forests of the Naiads, and +their aquatic palaces. It draws back the curtain of cloud-land, and feeds +your fancy with forms that never have been, and never will be; summons +spirits from the air, and gives melodious voices to all vernal things. + +Pleasant magician that waves this wand! what curious people are walking in +the chambers of your brain! What dreams are yours, and what cruel cuts this +real world sometimes gives you! You have no right to be here, poor devil! +You are somewhat misplanted; you belong to some sphere between earth and +heaven, and not very near either. That such a place is provided for you I +am certain. There it is that all your books will run through countless +editions; there it is you can afford to hire some one to write your +autograph for besieging admirers, and feed, as you should, + + "On the roses, and lay in the lilies of life." + +But I was speaking of pen-magic. It is not my present mood to do anything +fantastical in that way. I only wish to give you a sight of Mr. Flint, as +he appeared one afternoon some months after Mortimer had left his office. +He was standing in that inner-room of his counting-house to which I have +introduced the reader. I change my mind--he was not standing. He had just +thrown himself into a chair, in which he did not seem at all easy. + +I take peculiar delight in placing Mr. Flint in uncomfortable positions. + +He was surprised, alarmed, and angry. He missed the forged check and the +morocco case which he had watched so many years. That they had been +purloined, he could not doubt, and his keen thought fell on Mortimer. The +loss of the check troubled him; he liked to look at it occasionally, for +Snarle's sake; but the necklace--that gave him strange alarm. + +"Snake!" he hissed, "you have crawled into my affairs, and I'll tread on +you--tread on you and kill you! You stole the check to save Snarle's name; +and the necklace--why did you steal that? Was it valuable? Yes, that is it. +I'll grind you in the dust. I'll put you in a prison, and let your +brainless father look at you through the bars!" + +This humane idea caused Mr. Flint to rub his dry hands, and chuckle +violently. + +"But"--here Mr. Flint's countenance fell. "If I do this, won't Walters ruin +me with that unfortunate letter? O, I was a fool to write it; yet he would +have murdered me if I had not." + +And Mr. Flint thought and thought. + +To obtain the letter was impossible. Walters might have left the city; even +if he had not, there was a method in his madness which Flint knew he could +not circumvent. He could not lose such a chance of crushing Mortimer as +presented itself; and yet to attempt it while Walters had possession of the +letter was unwise. + +Mr. Flint was in a brown study. + +He walked up and down his sanctum solemnly, neglecting to watch Tim and the +book-keeper who had succeeded Mortimer. An half hour passed, and still he +continued his walk and reverie, without any visible intention of stopping. +His face lights up; he rubs his knuckles with ecstacy. He has got it! got +it at last. He will have Mortimer arrested; he will have Mortimer's name +suppressed, or give the newspapers a fictitious one. This will shield him +from Walters, whose heart he will wring some of these days. Ah! that will +be revenge. + +It may strike the ingenious reader as strange that Mortimer, having charge +of Flint & Snarle's books, never came across his father's name. This would +have been the case, and somewhat interfered with our novel, if Mortimer, +when he applied for a clerkship with the firm, had not given Mr. Flint all +the particulars of his life. For reasons best known to himself, Mr. Flint +took every opportunity to strengthen Mortimer in the belief of his father's +death, and every precaution to keep Walters from meeting him. Once, indeed, +they stood face to face in the office; but, taking into consideration the +number of years they had been separated, and the circumstances under which +they met, it would have been most strange if a recognition had taken place. +As to Mr. Snarle, being profoundly ignorant of Mortimer's early history, he +could throw no light on Mortimer's mind; and everything worked to Flint's +satisfaction. Every circumstance seemed to mould itself to his will. + +There is an evil spirit, and a very powerful one, that holds the wires +which move some of us puppets. The good are made to take the humblest seats +in the world's Synagogue, and the wily and the evil-hearted are clothed in +purple, fed on honey, and throned in the highest places. There will be a +surprising revolution some of these times. + +As Mr. Sparrow-grass would say, a revolution is "a good thing to have in +the country." + + + + +XII. + + _Why, true, her heart was all humanity, + Her soul all God's; in spirit and in form, + Like fair. Her cheek had the pale, pearly pink + Of sea-shells, the world's sweetest tint, as though + She lived, one-half might deem, on roses sopped + In silver dew; she spoke as with the voice + Of spheral harmony which greets the soul, + When, at the hour of death, the saved one knows + His sister angel's near: her eye was as + The golden pane the setting sun doth just + Imblaze, which shows, till heaven comes down again, + All other lights but grades of gloom; her dark, + Long rolling locks were as a stream the slave + Might search for gold, and searching find._ + + FESTUS. + +XII. + +WHAT DAISY DID. + + _The Arrest--Doubt and Love--Daisy and the Necklace--The Search--The + heart of Daisy Snarle._ + + +In an upper room of a miserable, dingy house which faced the spot where the +old Brewery used to stand, Edward Walters sat one January evening reading +the _Express_. There was one paragraph among the city items which he had +read several times, and each reading seemed to strengthen a determination +which had, at the first perusal, grown up with him. + +"Right or wrong, I'll do it!" + +With which words he folded the paper, and placed it in his pocket. + +Daisy, too, read the paragraph that night, and the blood rushed into her +cheeks, then left them very pale. + +It was simply a police report--such as you read over your morning coffee, +without thinking how many hearts may be broken by the sight of that little +cluster of worn-out type. A young man, no name given, recently a clerk in +the house of Messrs. Flint & Snarle, had been arrested on the charge of +stealing a case of jewels from his employers. + +Daisy, with dry eyes, read it again and again. Dark doubt and trusting love +were at conflict for a moment; for doubt had pride for its ally, and love +was only love. But the woman conquered. Mortimer, who had been arrested +early in the forenoon, found means to send Daisy a note, in which he simply +said--"I am charged with stealing the necklace, but I am as guiltless of +the crime as you, Daisy." + +Mrs. Snarle came in the room while our little heroine held the note in her +hand. + +"Mother," said Daisy, averting her head, "Mortimer will not come home +to-night." + +With this she threw the note into the fire, and left Mrs. Snarle alone, +before the good lady asked any questions. + +"That's very odd!" soliloquized Mrs. Snarle, briefly. + +"You tell me that you are innocent," said Daisy, looking at a small +portrait of Mortimer which hung over the fire-place--"I do not question, I +only believe you!" + +And then Daisy did a very strange thing, and yet it was very like Daisy. +She untied the brown ribbon which bound her dark lengths of hair, allowing +them to fall over her shoulders; then she braided the string of pearls with +her tresses, and brought the whole in a beautiful band over her forehead. +And she looked like a little queen with this coronal of jet and pearl +shading her brows. + +Daisy next picked the jewel-case to pieces, and threw the minute shreds +into the street. This was scarcely done, when the door-bell rang +impatiently. + +The girl peeped from the window. + +The two men at the door-step were not to be mistaken. Daisy's fingers +trembled as she undid the fastenings of the door. + +"We have orders to search this house, miss," said one of the officers, +touching the vizor of his cap respectfully. + +Daisy choked down a sob, and led them with an unnatural calmness from room +to room. + +Every place in the little house was investigated, but in vain; no necklace +was to be found. Yet twice the breath of one of the searchers fell on the +pearls in Daisy's hair. The two officers left the house in evident chagrin. + +When they had gone, the girl sat on the stairs and sobbed. + +Happily for her wishes, Mrs. Snarle had been absent during the search; and +thus far had been kept in ignorance of Mortimer's disgrace. But Daisy could +not hope to keep it a secret from her long, for they both would probably be +summoned as witnesses in open court. The thought of giving evidence against +Mortimer went through Daisy's heart like an intense pain. It terrified her, +and her warm little heart was floating on tears all day. + +The cloud which had fallen on her seemed to have no silver lining; all was +cold, black and sunless. But there is no mortal wound to which some unseen +angel does not bring a balm-- + + "There are gains for all our losses!" + +Daisy remembered Mortimer's words: _"Promise that you will not doubt me, +whatever may occur in connection with this necklace--that you will love +me, though I may be unable to explain condemning circumstances, or dispel +the doubts of others_"--and the words came to her freighted with such hope +and tenderness, that her sleep that night was deep and refreshing. Doubt +had folded its wings in the heart of Daisy Snarle. + + + + +XIII. + + LUDWICK.--_Now here's a man half ruined by ill luck, + As true a man as breathes the summer air._ + + LAUNCELOT.--_Ill luck, erratic jade! but yesterday + She might have made him king!_ + + OLD PLAY. + +XIII. + +IN THE TOMBS. + + _The Author's Summer Residence--The Egyptian Prison--Without and + Within--A Picture--Sunshine in Shadow--Joe Wilkes and his unique + Proposal--Gloomy Prospects--The face at the cell-window._ + + +There is not a pleasanter place in the world for a summer residence than +Blackwell's Island! The chief edifices are substantial, and the grounds are +laid out with exceeding care. The water-scape is delightfully invigorating, +and the sojourners at this watering-place are not of that transient class +which one finds at Nahant, Newport, and other pet resorts. Indeed, it is +usual to spend from six to eight months on the "Island," and one has the +advantage of contracting friendships which are not severed at the first +approach of the "cold term"--for the particulars of which "cold term," see +that funny old _savant_ of Brooklyn Heights, who has a facetious way of +telling us that it has been raining, after the shower is over.--Bless him! + +Such institutions as "Blackwell's Island" are godsends to the _literati_. A +poor devil of an author, who has a refined taste for suburban air, but +whose finances preclude his dreaming of Nahant, has only to mix himself up +in a street fight, or some other interesting city episode, to be entitled +to a country-seat at the expense of his grateful admirers! Owing to a +little oversight on his part, the author of this veracious history took a +passage for "Blackwell's Island" a trifle earlier in the season than he had +anticipated; and it is at that delightful region these pages are indited. + +But the Tombs--heaven save us from that! + +There are many pleasanter places in New-York than the Tombs; for that +clumsy piece of Egyptian architecture--its dingy marble walls, its +nail-studded doors and sickening atmosphere--is uncommonly disagreeable as +a dwelling. Many startling tragedies have been enacted there--scenes of +eternal farewells and lawful murders. I could not count on my fingers the +number of men who have entered its iron gates full of life, and come out +cold, still and dreadful! + +It was here that Mortimer was brought. + +Within, all was sombre and repulsive. Without, there was hum of voices, and +the frosty rails which ran in front of the prison creaked dismally as the +heavy freight cars passed over them; but these sounds of life were not +heard inside. + +The cell of Mortimer and its occupants, the morning after his arrest, +presented a scene of gloomy picturesqueness. + +Through a grated window, some six feet from the stone floor, a strip of +sunshine came and went, falling on Mortimer, who leaned thoughtfully +against the damp wall. The room, if we may call it one, was devoid of +furniture, with the exception of a low iron bedstead, whose straw-stuffed +mattress and ragged coverlid suggested anything but sleep. Daisy Snarle was +standing with downcast eyes near the door which a few minutes before had +closed on its creaking hinges, and outside of which the jailor stood +listening. + +The long, dark lashes were resting on her cheek; the pearls of the +necklace, which gleamed here and there in the queenly braid, looked whiter +by contrast with Daisy's chestnut hair. In one hand she had gathered the +folds of her shawl, the other hung negligently at her side. From beneath +the skirt of her simple dress, peeped one of the loveliest feet ever seen, +and her whole attitude was unconsciously exquisite. She had just ceased +speaking, and the faintest possible tinge of crimson was on her cheeks. + +"Daisy, you are one of God's good angels, or you would never have come to +me in this repulsive place." + +Daisy's eyes were still bent on the floor. + +"Speak to me again, Daisy," said Mortimer, taking her hand. "Your voice +gives me heart, and your words make me forget everything but you." + +Daisy lifted her dreamy hands, and said, softly:--"They could not find it." + +"Could not find what, Daisy?" + +"The necklace," said Daisy, smiling. + +"No," she continued, in a low, musical voice, "they searched in all the +rooms, in all the trunks--turned over your papers and mother's +work-basket--but they could not find it." + +And Daisy smiled again. + +"Where was it, Daisy?" + +"Here!" + +And Daisy, smiling all the while, lifted Mortimer's hand in hers, and +placed it on the braid of hair. + +Mortimer started. + +"O, Daisy! Daisy! why did you do that?" + +The little foot tapped gently on the stone floor. + +"Because," said Daisy, dropping her eyes, "because, when I read your note +yesterday, I doubted you for a moment: but when I looked at the portrait in +your room, I believed you; and I hid the necklace in my hair, and came to +ask your pardon." + +"Let any misfortune come to me, darling!" said Mortimer, touched with this +ingenious act, "let come what will, I am strong! As sure as little Bell +looks down from Heaven, you do not wear a stolen necklace. How it came into +my hands I cannot tell, without wronging the dead. But, Daisy, it was +imprudent for you to run this risk." + +"Oh, no; they hunted for something hidden, and could not see what was +before their eyes," replied Daisy, giving a quick, low laugh, and then she +grew thoughtful again. + +"But if they _had_ seen it, Daisy?" + +"Well." + +"You would have been implicated in this unhappy affair to your certain +ruin, without benefiting me. You must leave the necklace here." + +"But I won't!" + +This time the pretty little foot was set firmly on the flagging. + +The jailor, who had been an attentive listener to the foregoing +conversation, thrust his hands into the capacious pockets of his overcoat +with the bearing of a man who is completely satisfied. + +"I knowed it," he said, emphatically; "the boy is misfortunate somehow, and +the young girl's a trump--_she_ is. Lord help 'em! But time's up, and I +must stop their talk." + +With this the man tapped on the door. Mortimer held Daisy in his arms for a +moment, and then sat down on the bed. + +Daisy was gone, and it seemed as if the sunlight had gone with her, the +cell grew so gloomy to the prisoner. + +"Young man," said the jailor, with a solemn look, "the young lady is very +unprudent to go circumventing round with that necklace twisted up on the +top ov her skull--_she_ is." + +Mortimer groaned. + +"You heard all, then, and you will betray us!" + +"Part ov what you say _is_ true," returned the man, bluntly, "and part +isn't. I heard yer talk, but my name _isn't_ Joe Wilkes ef I blow on yer!" + +Mortimer looked at the ruddy, honest face of Joe Wilkes, and gave him his +hand. + +"I believe you, my good man." + +That individual appeared to be turning something over in his mind which +refused to be turned over. + +"Them keys, young man," he said at length, drawing forth from his pocket a +bunch weighing some four pounds, "opens the door at the end ov the passage, +and this one opens the street gate; now jist take that bit ov wood and bang +me on one side ov my hed--not savagely, you know, but jist enough to +flatten me, and make me look stunned--like----" + +At this novel proposition Mortimer broke into a loud laugh, but Mr. Wilkes +was in earnest, and insisted on being "flattened." + +"I couldn't think of it, Mr. Wilkes!" cried Mortimer, weak with laughter; +"I couldn't strike you systematically; I should be certain to demolish your +head." + +And Mr. Wilkes retired, perforce, with the air of an injured man. + +Mortimer sat on the edge of the bed reflecting on the strange chain of +circumstances which had placed him in his present position, and boldly +facing the fact of how little chance he had of escaping Mr. Flint's malice. +The excitement attending his arrest had passed away, and the reality of his +utter helplessness came full upon him. For himself he dreaded little, for +no punishment for a supposed crime, however disgraceful, could make him +guilty; but a prolonged imprisonment would leave Daisy and Mrs. Snarle +without means of support. This caused him more anxiety than the thought of +any suffering attendant on his conviction. + +More than this troubled him. It was Daisy's devotion. He had, indeed, +wished her to believe him innocent, but his generous mind revolted at +holding her to promises made in happier moments. He could not make Daisy +his wife while a blemish remained on his honor; and the circumstances +relative to the forged check, with which the reader is conversant, he could +not think of revealing, for Snarle's dying words haunted him strangely. + +While Mortimer was thus meditating, two hands grasped the iron bars of the +window, which was directly opposite the bed, and a moment afterwards a +man's head threw a shadow into the cell. + +Mortimer, absorbed in thought, had failed to notice it. + +The first expression of the face was that of mere curiosity; this was +followed by a startled look, and then an intense emotion distorted the +features. The face grew deathly pale, and the eyeballs glowed into the +cell, more resembling those of a wild-cat than a human being's. + +A deep groan came from the window, and the head disappeared +instantaneously. + +Mortimer looked up and glanced around the narrow room suspiciously, and +then smiled to think how his fancy had cheated him. + +The face was Edward Walters. + + + + +XIV. + + _Where more is meant than meets the ear._ + + IL PENSEROSO. + +XIV. + +A CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING. + + _The Strange Visit--The Lawyer--Walter and Mr. Flint--The Clouds--A + Strip of Sunshine--Mortimer._ + + +About two hours after the incident related at the close of our last +chapter, Edward Walters stepped from the door of Mrs. Snarle's house, +waving his hand kindly to Daisy, who stood on the steps, and watched him +till he turned out of Marion-street. + +But we must turn back a little. + +After leaving the Tombs, our friend went in search of Mortimer's residence, +actuated by an impulse which he neither attempted to control nor +understand--an impulse like that which had prompted him to visit the +prison. He was led into the little parlor by Mrs. Snarle, to whom he +represented himself as one deeply interested in the misfortunes of +Mortimer, and desirous of assisting him. His own astonishment surpassed +that of Mrs. Snarle, when he found her entirely ignorant of the arrest. +While he was speaking, and Mrs. Snarle--who stood with her hand on the back +of a chair, from which she had just risen--was regarding him with a vacant +stare, Daisy stepped into the room, without knowing that it was occupied. + +Edward Walters ceased speaking, and fixed his eyes on what, to him, seemed +an apparition. He had seen that pale, pensive face in his dreams for years. +It had followed him out to sea, and in far lands where he sought to avoid +it. He arose from the sofa, and approached Daisy with hesitating steps, as +if he were afraid she would vanish into thin air before he reached her. +Daisy shrunk from him, and looked inquiringly at her mother. Walters laid +his hand on the girl's arm. + +"Sometimes," he said, looking her full in the eyes--"sometimes the mind +wanders back to childhood, and we have visions of pleasant fields and +familiar places. Something we had forgotten comes back to us in +shadow--voices, faces, incidents! Did you ever see a snow-storm in your +thought?" + +Daisy started as if in sudden pain. + +Walters watched the effect of his question with unconcealed emotion. + +"Yes," said Daisy, lifting up her eyes wonderingly. + +"I knew it," said the man, abstractedly, taking Daisy's hand. + +The girl drew back in fear, and Mrs. Snarle stepped between them. + +"My words seem strange, lady; but I knew her when she was a babe." + +And he turned his frank face to Daisy. + +"What do you know of me?" cried Daisy, grasping his arm eagerly. + +"Everything." + +"O, sir, do not deal in mystery! If you know aught of this child's life, in +mercy speak!" and Mrs. Snarle caught his hand. + +"I can tell nothing now." + +And with this he abruptly put on his hat, strode into the hall and out of +the front door, waving his hand to Daisy, who, as we have said, stood on +the steps, and watched him till he was out of sight. + +We will leave Mrs. Snarle and Daisy to their astonishment, and follow on +the quick foot-steps of our marine friend, to whom that day seemed crowded +with wonderful events. + +It did not take long for Walters to reach Wall-street, where he +disappeared in one of those many law offices which fringe that somewhat +suspected and much-abused locality. On the door through which Mr. Walters +passed was a tin sign, bearing, in gilt letters, + +[Illustration: J. G. BURBANK, _Attorney at Law._] + +What transpired between him and that gentleman we will leave to the +surmises of the reader. After being closeted for an hour in a room whose +only furniture consisted of one or two green baize-covered tables, piled +with papers, and a book-case crowded with solid-looking volumes, our friend +turned his thoughtful face toward the office of Messrs. Flint & Snarle. + +Mr. Flint looked up from his writing, and found Edward Walters quietly +seated beside him. They had not met since the interview we described at Mr. +Flint's house; and the captain's presence at the present time was not a +thing to be desired by Mr. Flint. The visit looked ominous. Whatever doubts +he entertained respecting its object were immediately dispelled. + +"I read the arrest in yesterday's paper," said Walters. + +Flint, with an effort, went on writing. + +"And this morning I visited the boy in his cell." + +"Well!" cried Flint, nervously. + +"And I found my son, John Flint!" + +Mr. Flint found himself cornered, and, like a rat or any small animal, he +grew cowardly desperate. + +"You found a thief, sir--a miserable thief." + +We will do Mr. Flint the justice to say that he considered Mortimer in that +light. + +"I am not sure of that," was the calm reply. "A man may be in prison, and +yet be no felon; and I should doubt the guilt of any man whom _you_ +persecuted. But I did not come here to quarrel. The boy is my son, and he +must be released." + +"_Must_ be, Mr. Walters!" + +"I think I said so." + +Flint regarded him with his cold, cynical smile. + +"John Flint, there is nothing I would not do to serve the boy. There is +nothing I will not do to crush you if you persist in convicting him. I do +not know that he is innocent--I do not know that he is worthy of my love. I +only know that he is my child." + +There was an agony in the tone with which these words were spoken that was +music to Mr. Flint. He smiled that undertaker's smile of his. + +"The law must take its course," he said. "It is impossible to stop +_that_." + +"Not so. The examination takes place this afternoon. If you do not appear +against him, Mortimer will be discharged. You have forgotten that I have +_the letter_." + +"Stop!" cried Flint, as Walters turned to the door, and he assumed his +usual, fawning, hypocritical air. + +"If I do as you wish, what then?" + +"You shall have the letter." + +"What assurance have I of that?" + +"My word." + +"Is that all?" said Flint. "Would you take mine, in such a case?" + +"No," replied Walters, with delightful candor. "Your word is worthless. +Mine was never broken. Do we understand each other?" + +"Yes." + +"There must be another stipulation." + +"What is it?" + +"You are not to mention my name to Mortimer. He does not know of my +existence." + +"I shall not be likely to meet him," returned Flint, a little surprised. "I +thought you had seen him." + +"I did--through the bars of his cell." + +And Mr. Flint was left alone in no enviable state of mind. So absorbed was +he in his disappointment, that Tim several times that afternoon whistled +snatches from "Poor Dog Tray," with impunity. + +The twilight came stealing into the room in which Mrs. Snarle and Daisy +were sitting. The food on the supper table remained untouched. Neither of +them had spoken for the last half hour; the twilight grew denser and +denser, and the shadows on their faces deepened. Daisy had told her mother +all--the search of the officers for the necklace, her visit to the Tombs, +and Mortimer's protestation of innocence. Mrs. Snarle never doubted it for +a moment; but she saw how strong their evidence might be against him. + +"God only knows how it will end, Daisy." + +"As God wills it, mother!" + +As these words were said, a shadow fell across the entry, and a pair of +arms was thrown tenderly around Daisy's neck. + +"Mortimer!" + + + + +XV. + + QUIN.--_Is all our company here?_ + + MID-SUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM. + +XV. + +IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES. + + _A Picture--The Lawyer's Note--Mr. Hardwill once more--The Scene at + the Law Office--Mr. Flint Hors du Combat--Face to Face._ + + +"Mortimer!" + +That was all Daisy said. + +The candles were lighted, the dim, sad twilight driven out of the room, and +a happy trio sat around the supper table. Mrs. Snarle smoothed her silk +apron complacently; Daisy's eyes and smiles were full of silent happiness; +and Mortimer, in watching the variations of her face, all so charming, +forgot the misfortunes which had so recently threatened him. + +Daisy gave Mortimer an account of the unknown's strange visit; and, +inexplicable to himself, Mortimer connected it in some way with his +unexpected release. + +Soon after Mrs. Snarle had retired, the lovers sat in the little room, +which was only lighted by a pleasant fire in the grate. Wavering fingers of +flame drew grotesque pictures on the papered walls; then a thin puff of +smoke would break the enchantment, and the fire-light tracery fled into the +shadows of the room. + +It was a delicate picture. + +Mortimer was sitting at Daisy's feet, playing with the fingers of a very +diminutive and dainty hand; Daisy was bending over him; and as the glow +from the fire came and went in their eyes, one could see that a long brown +tress of Daisy's hair rested on Mortimer's. + +What if their lips touched? + +"O!" cried Daisy, drawing back, "a note was left here this afternoon, while +you were in----" + +"The Tombs," finished Mortimer, smiling. + +"Yes," replied Daisy. "I was afraid to open it, though." + +"Were you?" + +"Yes," she said, laughing. "I thought it might be from that charming young +lady whom you assisted to cross Broadway last month; and of whom you speak +so pleasantly when I am the least bit out of humor." + +And the girl looked at him quizzically with her impudent eyes. + +Mortimer, by kneeling close to the fire, was enabled to read the note. + +"That is strange--read it, Daisy." + +Daisy read: + + "SIR,--By calling at my office, No. ---- Wall-street, to-morrow, at + 4 P. M., you will learn something of importance. It is necessary that + Mrs. Snarle and her daughter should accompany you. + + "Respectfully, + "J. C. BURBANK, + "_Attorney at Law._" + +About the same hour that evening, Mr. Flint received a communication of +similar import, after reading which, he said: + +"Hum!" and thrust the note into his vest-pocket. + +Hum, indeed, Mr. Flint. There was something in store for you. + +The next morning Mortimer bethought himself of his "Romance," and directed +his steps toward the sanctum of Mr. Hardwill. + +He found that gentleman talking with three new geniuses in pantelets, who +were attempting to convince the great Pub of his mistake in refusing to +"bring out" a pregnant-looking manuscript which the authoress was holding +in her hand with a tenderness that was touching to behold. + +When they had retired, Mr. Hardwill extended his hand to Mortimer. + +"Sharp young man," he said, displaying his white teeth. "You didn't wish to +appear anxious about your book; I was on the point of sending for you. You +were to have called on me three days since. Well, sir, I like the story." + +Mortimer bowed. + +"Did you read it all, sir?" + +"I? Not a line of it," returned Mr. Hardwill. "I never look at anything but +the size of the manuscript." + +"Then you buy by the _weight_," said Mortimer, smiling. + +"Not precisely. I never publish anything of less than four hundred pages. +As to weight, I sometimes find a MS. of the right size altogether too +heavy; but yours is not, my reader says." + +"Your reader, sir?" + +"Yes, I am a mere business man," quoth Mr. Hardwill, explanatorily. "I +seldom read my publications. I merely sell them--sometimes I don't do +_that_. I have a reader who looks over sizeable MSS., and I abide by his +judgment." + +"Ah!" + +"He is a man of fine scholarship and literary attainments." + +Mr. Hardwill might have added--"and has the sway of 'The Morning Rabid' and +'The Evening Twilight,'" but he did not. + +Arrangements were made to publish "Goldwood," with the euphonious and +"striking title" of "Picklebeet Papers." Now, whether "Picklebeet" was a +vegetable in vinegar, or the name of some charming country-place, I cannot +say; but "Picklebeet," whatever it was, had as much to do with the contents +of the book as the biography of my reader's grandmother. + +On what terms the "Picklebeet Papers" were published, concern neither the +reader nor myself; but, while remarking, _en passant_, that the book, owing +to some extraordinary freak on the part of the public, never went to a +"second edition," we will fix the hands of the city clock to suit +ourselves. + +It is 4 P. M. + +Without further preamble, we will lead the reader (mine, not Mr. +Hardwill's) to Mr. Burbank's law office, at which place the threads of our +story become somewhat disentangled. We are not sorry at this, (we doubt if +the reader is,) for there is a satisfaction in rounding off a plot--in +coming to the last page, where the author can write "FINIS"--which no one +but a scribbler may know. But this pleasure is not a little touched with +regret, as he sweeps the carefully-moved images from the chess-board of his +brain, and tells you in those five letters that the game is finished. + +The personages in the law office are not strangers to us, if we except the +lawyer. + +Mrs. Snarle and Daisy, with their veils down, are sitting in the back part +of the room, and Mortimer stands behind them, speaking in a low voice to +Daisy. + +Edward Walters is seated at a desk, the screen around which prevents him +from being observed by the first-described group. + +Mr. Burbank, a dark-eyed, large-mouthed man, occupies a table in the centre +of the apartment, near which is a chair for Mr. Flint, who has not yet made +his appearance. + +This was the position of the parties on Mr. Flint's entrance. + +The merchant gave the lawyer three bony fingers, bestowed a stiff, +surprised bow on Mortimer, and glanced suspiciously around him, evidently +not liking the company he was in. + +Mr. Flint glanced inquiringly at the lawyer. + +"As all the parties concerned in this meeting are present," commenced the +devotee of Blackstone, "I will at once proceed to business. You are too +much of a business man, Mr. Flint, to require a prelude to interrogations +which will explain themselves." + +Mr. Flint looked very doubtful. + +The lawyer ran his fingers through a crop of shaggy hair with professional +dignity. + +"It is something over twenty years since your brother, Henry Flint, died, +is it not?" + +The merchant nodded. + +"He left no heirs--I believe," continued the lawyer, with a delightful +appearance of hesitation. + +"He left one child," said Flint, nervously. Mr. Flint did not like the turn +which the conversation was taking. + +"Ah, yes! A daughter, if I remember correctly. Let me see, Maude Flint was +the name." + +(This slight dialogue caused Daisy's breath to come and go quickly.) + +"Maude Flint!" she whispered hastily to Mortimer. "Listen! M. F.,--the +initials in the necklace!" + +"I drew up the will at the time," said Mr. Burbank, thoughtfully; "but my +memory has been tasked with more important things." + +He turned abruptly to Mr. Flint. + +"What became of this child--Maude?" + +"Died," returned Flint, briefly, with an uncomfortable air. + +"And the property----?" + +"Came to me--the child having no other relative," said Flint, rallying. + +The lawyer was silent for a moment. + +"Now, Mr. Flint, suppose I should tell you that your brother's child is +still living, what would you say?" + +"I should say, sir," cried the startled merchant, springing to his feet, "I +should say, sir, that it was a lie! I see through it all. This is a +miserable conspiracy to force money from me. Your plot, sir, is +transparent, and I see that snaky individual crawling at the bottom of it." +He pointed at Mortimer. "But it won't do!" he thundered, "it _won't_ do!" + +"Of course it won't for you to get in a passion. The man who gets into a +passion," continued Mr. Burbank, philosophically, "never acts with +judgment. And what is the use, Mr. Flint? I am acquainted with all the +circumstances of the child's disappearance; indeed, I have a full account +of them in your own handwriting." + +Mr. Flint turned white. + +"This letter, which I shall give you by and by," said the man of law, +"divulges a plot of villainy which heaven happily thought fit to prostrate; +and I'll prove the truth of what I say." + +And the lawyer motioned for Daisy to approach him. + +She did so, mechanically. + +"This lady," said Mr. Burbank, smiling blandly, "is my first witness. Will +you raise your veil?" + +Daisy complied with the request, and looked Mr. Flint in the face. Flint +turned his eyes on her with such earnestness that she shrunk back. Then he +staggered to a chair, and exclaimed involuntarily: + +"So help me God, it is Henry's child!" + +Edward Walters rested his hands on the desk, and looked over the baize +screen. + +Mortimer stepped to Daisy's side. + +"This necklace," he said, in a trembling voice, "I return to the owner. It +was my misfortune to take it by mistake, and it is happiness to return it +to one who does not require any proof of my innocence." + +Daisy pressed his hand. + +"Let me go!" exclaimed Mr. Flint. + +"Presently, Mr. Flint. You must first witness the _denouement_ of our +little drama." + +With this the lawyer turned to Mortimer, and handed him a paper. + +"What this fails to explain relative to your father, you must seek from his +own lips." + +"My father!--his lips!"--repeated Mortimer, bewildered. + +He opened the paper. + +"My father! where is he?" + +"Mortimer!" cried Walters, pushing aside the screen. + +And they stood face to face. + + + + +XVI. + + _Our revels now are ended: these our actors, + As I foretold you, were all spirits, and + Are melted into air, thin air: + And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, + The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, + The solemn temples, the great globe itself, + Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, + And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, + Leave not a rack behind!_ + + SHAKESPEARE. + +XVI. + +THE OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA. + + _Clap-Trap--John Flint--The Old House by the Sea--Joe Wilkes--Strephon + and Chloe--Tim Enjoying Himself--Edward Walters and Little Bell--A + Last Word._ + + +It is an artistic little weakness we scribblers have of seducing our +dramatis personae into _tableaux vivants_, and deserting them abruptly. In a +story of this kind, which depends rather on action than fine writing for +interest, this species of autorial clap-trap is very effective, if cleverly +done. So we will make no excuse for leaving _nuestros amigos_ at the +lawyer's office, and drawing a green curtain, as it were, on the actors of +this humble comedy. + +Some six years are supposed to have elapsed since the drop-scene fell on +our last act. + +From this out our story is rather a pantomime than a play. We give pictures +and figures, instead of dialogues and soliloquies. Will the reader follow +us? + +I. + +Time has not touched Mr. Flint gently. His hair is grayer, his step more +feeble, and his eyes have a lack-lustre look. His cravat is whiter and +stiffer, if possible, than ever; and he looks more religious. God grant +that he is so. But we doubt it. For to such as he, nor April, with its +purple-mouthed violets, nor red ripe summer, with its wealth of roses, nor +the rich fruit-harvest of autumnal suns, bring wisdom's goodness. The +various months teach him no lesson. Let him go. He came like a shadow into +our plot, so let him depart. He is not a myth, however, but flesh and blood +mortality; and though we have only outlined his weakness--his love of gold, +his cold, intriguing spirit--yet the sketch is such that, if he looks at +it, he will have the felicity of seeing himself as others see him! + +II. + +It is a day in June, an hour before sunset. The lanes leading to an old +house situated between Ivyton and the sea, are fringed with pink peach +blossoms, and the air is freighted with their odors. The violets, with dew +in their azure eyes, peep from every possible nook; and those sweet peris +of the summer wood, wild roses, are grouping everywhere. Surely Titania has +been in this spot, breathing exquisite beauty upon the flowers, or, +perhaps, Flora's dainty self. The blue-bells, these yellow-chaliced +butter-cups, are fit haunts for fairies, and, perchance, wild Puck, or +Prospero's good Ariel has been slumbering in them. But let us draw near to +the fine old house which stands in this new Eden. It was here that we first +met the little castle-builders--the child Bell and Mortimer. The place is +not changed much. The same emerald waves break on the white beach; the same +cherry-trees are spreading their green tresses, and the simple church-yard +sleeps, as it used, in sunshine and shadow. + +The house has been newly painted, and the fresh green blinds make one feel +a sense of shade and coolness. The garden in front has been re-made with a +careful eye to its old beauties. The white pebbled walks, the strawberry +and clover beds, the globes of pansies, and the clambering honeysuckle +vines, are all as they were years ago. Even the groups of wild roses, by +the door, bud and bloom as if the autumn winds had never beaten them down. + +We shall accuse the reader with having a bad memory, if he does not +recognise Joe Wilkes in the stalwart form and honest face of the gardener, +who occupies himself with tying up a refractory vine, which persists in +running wild over the new summer-house. It is he, indeed--the whilome +jailor of the Tombs, who has laid aside his ponderous prison-keys, and +taken up the shovel and the hoe. + +III. + +Two persons are standing at the "round window," where Bell and her brother +used to linger, dreamily, in the twilights of long ago. The rays of the +setting sun glance over the waves, and fall on the faces of Mortimer and +Daisy--Daisy Snarle no more, but little Maude Walters. Their honey-moon has +been of six years' duration, and to such as they, that sweet moon of +tenderness never wanes, but runs from full to full--never new and never +old! Strephon woos Chloe as of yore. The lover, as in some antique picture, +is ever kneeling at the feet of his mistress, and she, through the +gathering of years, looks down on him with the olden tenderness and the +April blushes of womanhood! To such as they, life plays on a dulcimer. The +golden age is not dead to them. They see the shepherd Daphnis seated on the +slopes of AEtna, and hear him pipe to the nymph Eschenais. This "bank-note +world," to them, is Arcady, and their lives are sweet and simple as +pastoral hymns! + +But we, the author of this MS., are growing pastoral ourselves, and Heaven +forbid that we should venture into a field which one of our poets has +recently brought into disrepute by his indifferent blank verse. + +Mortimer, leaning on the sill of the window, is looking at Daisy, who +stands a little in the background, with that kissable white hand of hers +shading the sun from as dangerous a pair of black eyes as ever looked "no" +when they meant "yes." She is watching a speck of a boat, which is dancing +up and down on the waves like a cork. Mortimer has just brought a telescope +to bear on the distant object, and we, with that lack of good-breeding +which has characterized all romancers from time immemorial, will look over +his shoulder. The delighted occupant of the boat is that audacious fellow, +Tim, who has taken a trip up to Ivyton from the great city, to spend a week +with "Mr. Mortimer." It may be well to say that Tim--Timothy Jones, Esq., +Mr. Reader--has ceased to have a proclivity for the "machine;" and +now-a-days, the City Hall alarm bell never disturbs his equanimity. Indeed, +he is so metamorphosed by time and a respectable tailor, that the gentle +reader stands in some danger of not recognizing him at all. Hence the +above formal introduction. Just notice the set of those cream-colored +pants, falling without a wrinkle over those mirror-like patent leathers, +and the graceful curve of that Shanghai over the hips! Just notice! And +more than all, that incipient _moustache_, which only the utmost +perseverance on the part of Tim and _Mr. Phalon_ has coaxed out into +mundane existence! + +The writer of this veritable history has a great mind to drown Tim for his +impudence; but as that young gentleman has a good situation in a +Front-street commission-house, he refrains, for a capsize a mile from land +would considerably interfere with Young America's prospects. + +IV. + +CAPTAIN EDWARD WALTERS sits on the door-step of the old house; and through +a curtain of honeysuckle vines, which he draws aside, is watching the +fawn-like motions of + + "A six years loss to Paradise!" + +Is it little Bell come back again? It is very like her. Walters thinks so, +as the child runs from flower to flower like a golden-belted bee, and a +mist comes over his fine eyes, and he can scarcely see his grandchild for +tears. + +His lips move, and perhaps he is saying: "Little Bell! Little Bell!" + +And he thinks of the angel whom he left years ago, playing on the +_partarre_, in front of the gate. He hears her clear, crystal laugh, and +sees her golden ringlets floating among the flowers, and cannot tell if +they be curls or sunshine! + +The child in the garden resembles the dead Bell as one white lily does +another. She has the same wavy tresses, shading the same dreamy eyes, with +their longing, languid expression. Her form has the _abandon_ of childhood, +with a certain shadow of dignity that is charming. She is very fragile and +spiritual; and it seems to us as if Heaven, in moulding the child, had +hesitated whether to make her an Angel or a Flower, and so gave her the +better parts of each! + +Let us take one more look at her sweet young face-- + + "A thing of beauty is a joy forever! + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness; but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing." + +Little Bell holds an armful of lilacs against her bosom; and, with her eyes +running over with childish merriment, trips toward the house; but two arms +stretching out from the vines catch her. She utters a pretty scream, and +then sits quietly on Walters' knee. He kisses her laughingly; but his face +grows serious as his eyes fall on a string of almond-shaped pearls which +encircle the child's delicate neck; on the innocent white bosom lies a + +[Illustration: Cross] + +It is DAISY'S NECKLACE; that is WHAT CAME OF IT; and here, gentle reader, +is + + THE END OF THE CHAIN. + + + + +EPILOGUE. + + DON SEBASTIAN.--_You have no plot._ + + FABRICIO.--_But such characters! and every one is as true + as truth: copied right off from nature._ + + DON SEBASTIAN.--_Badly done, sir Poet._ + + LOPE DE VEGA. + +EPILOGUE. + + +"What a mournful glory falls upon the October woods! It seems as if a +broken rain-bow were strained through a sieve of gray clouds, and sprinkled +over the crisp leaves. Ochre, vermillion, dappled russet, and all rare +tintings! And then the wind that rushes so gloriously through the +woodlands, bearing with it a rich, earthy smell, and scattering the purple +wealth, the hoarded gold of the autumnal days! Pleasant Forest, with your +oaken harps! Pleasant little Town, lying quietly in sunshine and +moonlight--how sad I was to leave ye! Pleasant River, that stealest up from +the sea, past the fort and into the old weather-beaten seaport +town--crawling lazily among the rotting piers of deserted wharves, then +gliding off through the shaky bridge, squirming and curveting into a world +of greenery, like a great serpent with an emerald back! And the girls! +Village belles, rustic flirts--eyes, lips, shady curls, white hands, little +feet, enchanting pouts--ah, me! + + "Pleasant it was when woods were green, + And winds were soft and low--" + +This rhapsodical soliloquy was interrupted one fine October morning, two +days after my return from the sea-side, by a voice there was no mistaking. +It was Barescythe, who startled Mrs. Muggins with the following pertinent +inquiry: + +"Prolific producer of sea-prodigies, is Ralph at home?" + +I could not see Mrs. Muggins' face, for that good soul was standing at the +foot of the stairs; but I knew her feelings were injured, and I hastened +out of my room to prevent any verbal combat that might ensue. + +MRS. MUGGINS, (_after a long silence, and with some asperity_)--"What, +sir?" + +BARESCYTHE, (_petulantly_)--"Is Ralph in, Sycorax?" + +What reply the "relick" of Joshua Muggins might have made to this +interrogation, is only to be imagined; for I immediately "discovered" +myself, to use a theatrical phrase, and led my solemn friend from hostile +ground. + +"My dear Barry," said I, after greeting him cordially, "you shouldn't--" + +"Shouldn't what?" + +"Call Mrs. Muggins names." + +"Sycorax? She deserved it. Women are Cleopatras until they are thirty, then +they are old witches with broomstick propensities! Don't interrupt me. +Don't speak to me." + +I choked down a panegyric on Woman, for I knew that Barry was thinking of a +cold, heartless piece of femininity that, years and years ago, forgot her +troth to an honest man, and ran away with a moustache and twenty-four gilt +buttons. I could never see why he regretted it, for Mrs. Captain Mary +O'Donehugh never stopped growing till she could turn down a two hundred +weight; and she looks anything but interesting, with her long file of +little O'Donehughs--nascent captains and middies in the bud! + +I knew that Barescythe was not in a mood to be critically just, yet, for +the sake of turning his thoughts into different channels, I glanced +significantly at the MS. under his arm. + +"My Novel," I ventured. + +"Like the man in the play," said Barescythe, "the world should ask somebody +to write it down an ass!" + +With which, he threw the manuscript on the table before me. + +His remark was uttered with such an air of logic, that I nodded assent, for +I never disagree with logicians. + +"The world is wide-mouthed, long-eared, and stupid--it will probably like +that affair of yours, though I doubt if the book sells." + +And Barry pointed to the curled up novel on the table. + +I bowed with, "I hope it will." + +"The world," he continued, "that gave Milton L10 for _Paradise Lost_, ought +surely to be in ecstacies over DAISY'S NECKLACE." + +"Barry," said I, somewhat nettled, "is it my good nature, or your lack of +it, that seduces you into saying such disagreeable things?" + +"Neither, Ralph, for I no more lack good nature than you possess it. But we +won't quarrel. I am sore because the day of great books has gone by! Once +we could boast of giant minds: we have only pigmies now." + +"But let them speak, Barry. There may be some among us that are not for a +day. Who foresaw in the strolling player, in the wild, thoughtless Will +Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, the Dramatist of all time? Your pet +Homer was a mendicant. Legions of our best poets were not acknowledged, +until the brain that thought, was worn out, the hand that toiled, cold, and +the lips that murmured, patient forever! + + 'So angels walked unknown on earth, + But when they flew were recognized!' + +What if my poor story is stale and flat beside the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Sir +Walter Scott's genius? Barry, there is a little bird in our New-England +woods known only by its pleasant chirp; yet who would break its amber bill +because the nightingales in eastern lands warble so deliciously?" + +Barry laughed. + +"There you come, Ralph, with your bird-conceits! You flap the wings of some +thread-bare metaphor in my face, and I cannot see for the feathers! You are +not a man to argue with. Poetical men never are: they make up in sentiment +what they lack in sense; and very often it happens that a bit of poetry is +more than a match for a piece of logic. 'No more of that, Hal, an' thou +lovest me.' Your book is a miserable one. All your voluble ingenuity +cannot controvert _that_." + +Barry's better nature had slipped out of him for a moment into the +sunshine, like a turtle's head; but it slipped back again, and the speech +that commenced with a laugh ended with a snarl. + +"It shows," he said, rumpling the manuscript with a careless hand, "a want +of Art. The construction of the tale is crude: the characters are all old +friends with new names--broken down stage-horses with new harnesses--and +the prose throughout is uneven. How can it be otherwise, since it is only +an intolerable echo of Hood, Dickens, and Charles Reade? Your want of +artistic genius is shown in taking three chapters to elaborate "little +Bell," who has no kind of influence in working out the plot, and who dies +conveniently at Chapter III. Your imitative proclivities are prominent in +the chapter headed 'A Few Specimens of Humanity.' Was ever anything more +like the author of 'The Old Curiosity Shop?' Your short, jerky sentences +are modeled after Reade's 'Peg Woffington,' and 'Christie Johnstone,' or +any of Dumas' thefts. As to the plot, _that_ is altogether too improbable +and silly for serious criticism. And then the title, 'Daisy's +Necklace'--'Betsy's Garter!'" + +"Ah, Barry, this is only Fadladeen and Feramorz over again! Do you +remember that after all the strictures of the eastern _savant_, Feramorz +turned out to be not only a Poet but a Prince? I could take you to be +'Blackwood' slashing an American book, rather than a Yankee editor looking +over a friend's virgin novel. You are like all critics, Barry. They ignore +what might please them greatly if they had not their critical behavior on, +and grow savage over that part of an author which they should speedily +forget--like a dog on a country highway, that turns up his cold nose at the +delicate hedge-blossoms, and growls over a decayed bone! So you find +nothing to admire in my sixteen chapters?" + +"Not much." + +"Then say a good word for that little." + +"There are some lines, Ralph, some whole paragraphs, may be, that would be +very fine in a poem; but in an every-day novel they are strikingly out of +place. Your jewels, (heart-jewels I suppose you call 'em,) seem to me like +diamonds on the bosom of a calicoed and untidy chambermaid. That +sentimental chapter with 'The Dead Hope' caption, is quite as good as your +blank verse, and I would wager a copy of Griswold's 'Poets of America,' +against a doubtful three-cent piece, that you wrote it in rhyme--it's not +very difficult, you know, to turn your poetry into prose. You needn't +stare. In a word, your book is as tame as a sick kitten--I hate kittens: +there's something diabolical in a yellow cat!" + +I nipped a smile in the bud, and said, quietly: + +"I intended to write a tame, simple domestic story. The facts are garnered +from my own experience, and--" + +"Garnered from your maternal grandparent, Ralph! Very much I believe it. +Very much anybody will. It's a wonder to me that you didn't call the book +'Heart-life by an Anatomy'!" + +"I will acknowledge, Barescythe, that I have not done my best in this +affair. 'Yet consider,' as Fabricio says in the play, ''twas done at a +sitting: a single sitting, by all the saints! I will do better when I have +those pistoles, and may use time.' Local tales of this school have been +popular. I wrote mine to sell." + +"But it won't." + +"Why?" + +"Let's see. How many 'sunsets' have you in the book?" + +"Not many, I think." + +"That was an oversight. There should be one at the end of each +chapter--twenty 'sunsets' at least. Then you have no seduction." + +"A seduction?" horrified. + +"Of course. What modern novel is complete without one? It gives a spicy +flavor to the story. People of propriety like it. Prim ladies of an +uncertain age always 'dote' on the gallant, gay Lothario, and wish that he +wasn't so _very_ wicked!" + +And Barry raised his eye-brows, and broke out in such a clear, bell-like, +canorous laugh--so contagious in its merriment, that I joined him; and I +fancied I heard Mrs. Muggins beating a hasty retreat down the front stairs. +It seems improbable to me that Mrs. Muggins had been listening at the +key-hole of my door--respectable Mrs. Muggins. + +"Then, sir," said Barry, re-assuming his mock-serious air, "there should be +a dreadful duel, in which the hero is shot in his hyacinthine curls, falls +mortally wounded, dripping all over with gory blood, and is borne to his +ladye-love on a shutter! You have none of these fine points. Then the names +of your characters are absurdly commonplace. Mortimer Walters should be +Montaldo St. Clare: Daisy Snarle, (how plebeian!) should be Gertrude +Flemming: John Flint, Clarence Lester, and so on to the end of the text. +How Mrs. Mac Elegant will turn up her celestial nose at a book written all +about common people!" + +"Mrs. Mac Elegant be shot!" I exclaimed. I used to be sweet on Mrs. Mac +Elegant, and Barescythe has a disagreeable way of referring to that +delicate fact. "It was not for such as she I wrote. I sought to touch that +finer pulse of humanity which throbs the wide world over. The sequel will +prove whether or not I have failed." + +Barry laughed at my ill-concealed chagrin. + +"Barry," said I, carelessly, meditating a bit of revenge, and unfolding at +the same time a copy of the 'Morning Glory,' "did you write the book +criticisms in to-day's paper?" + +"Yes," returned Barry, coloring slightly. + +"They are very fine." + +Barry's blood went up to his forehead. + +"So consistent," I continued, "with what you have been saying. I have +neither read '_The Scavenger's Daughter_,' nor '_The Life of Obadiah +Zecariah Jinkings_;' but, judging from the opinion here expressed, I take +them to be immortal works. I could never be led to think so by reading the +extracts you have made from the volumes, for the prose is badly +constructed. Indeed, Barry, here's a sentence which lacks a personal +pronoun and a verb." + +"I see what you are aiming at," replied Barescythe, sharply. "You twit me +with praising these books so extravagantly. I grant you that worse trash +was never in type, (DAISY is not printed yet, you know,) but will you +allow me to ask you a question?" + +"_Si usted gusta_, my dear fellow." + +"Do you think that Gabriel Ravel, at Niblo's, turns spasmodic summersets on +a chalked rope for the sake of any peculiar pleasure derived therefrom?" + +"Why, Barry, I can scarcely imagine anything more unpleasant than to be +turned upside down, fifteen feet from maternal earth, with an undeniable +chance of breaking one's neck, on a four-inch rope. But why do you ask?" + +"M. Ravel distorts himself for a salary, and no questions asked. I do the +same. I throw literary summersets for a golden consideration. It is a very +simple arrangement"--here Barescythe drew a diagram on the palm of his +hand--"Messrs. Printem & Sellem (my thumb) give us, 'The Morning Glory,' +(my forefinger) costly advertisements, and I, Barescythe, (the little +finger) am expected to laud all the books they publish." + +Out of respect to Barescythe, I restrained my laughter. + +He went on, with a ruthful face: + +"Here is '_The Life of Jinkings_'--the life of a puppy!--an individual of +whom nobody ever heard till now, a very clever, harmless, good man _in his +way_, no doubt,--the big gun of a little village, but no more worthy of a +biography than a printer's devil!" + +With which words, Barescythe hit an imaginary Mr. Jinkings in the stomach +with evident satisfaction. + +"Yet I am called upon to tell the world that this individual, this what do +you call him?--Jinkings--is one of the luminaries of the age, a mental +Hercules, a new Prometheus--the clown! Why on earth did his friends want to +resurrectionize the insipid incidents of this man's milk-and-water +existence! If he made a speech on the introduction of a 'Town-pump,' or +delivered an essay at the 'Bell Tavern'--it was very kind of him, to be +sure: but why not bury his bad English with him in the country church-yard? +I wish they had, for I am expected to say that ten thousand copies of the +'work' have been sold, when I know that only five hundred were printed; or +else Messrs. Printem & Sellem withdraw their advertisements, in which case +my occupation's gone! And this '_Scavenger's Daughter_'--a book written by +a sentimental schoolgirl, and smelling of bread-and-butter--see how I have +plastered it all over with panegyric!" + +"And so, Barry," I said, with some malice, "you wantingly abuse _my_ book, +because I cannot injure _you_ pecuniarily." + +"Perhaps I do," growled Barescythe. "It is a relief to say an honest thing +now and then; but wait, Ralph, till I start _The Weekly Critique_, then +look out for honest, slashing criticism. No longer hedged in by the +interests and timidity of 'the proprietors,' I shall handle books for +themselves, and not their advertisements-- + + 'Friendly to all, save caitiffs foul and wrong, + But stern to guard the Holy Land of Song.'" + +"What a comment is this on American criticism! O, Barry, it is such men as +you, with fine taste and fine talent, who bring literature into disrepute. +Your genius gives you responsible places in the world of letters, and how +you wrong the trust!" + +"Thank you," returned Barescythe, coldly, "you blend flattery and insult so +ingeniously, that I hesitate whether to give you the assurance of my +distinguished consideration, or knock you down." + +"Either you please, Barry. I have spoken quite as honestly, if not so +bluntly as you; and I regret that I have so little to say in favor of your +inconsistent criticism. I am sorry you dislike my novel, but--" + +I looked toward the chair in which Barescythe had been sitting. + +He was gone. + +I was not surprised, for Barry does few things "after the manner of men," +and a ceremonious departure is something he never dreams of. I sat and +thought of what had been said. I wondered if we were the dregs of time, the +worthless leaves of trees that had borne their fruit--if there were none +among us, + + "Like some of the simple great ones gone + Forever and ever by!" + +And lastly, I wondered if any of our city papers had such a critical +appendage as T. J. Barescythe. + + =?= + + * * * * * + +It is pleasant to have your friend Mr. Smith pat you patronisingly on the +back, and say, "My dear fellow, when is your book coming out?" + +Of course, you send Mrs. Smith a copy after that--and all Mrs. Smith's +relations. + +"DAISY'S NECKLACE" is nearly ready. The following advertisement, which I +cut from "The Evening Looking Glass" of last Thursday, illustrates the +manner in which "my publishers," Messrs. Printem & Sellem, make their +literary announcements: + + "_We have in Press, and shall publish in the course of a few days, a + New Work of rare merit, entitled_-- + + DAISY'S NECKLACE, + And what came of it. + + A THRILLING NOVEL, SURPASING, in pathos and quiet satire, the most + felicitous efforts of Dickens!! + + PRINTEM & SELLEM, + _Publishers_." + +That was rather modest and pleasant; but it is pleasanter than all to have +an early copy of your book placed on the breakfast-table, unexpectedly, +some sunshiny morning--to behold, for the first time, the darling of your +meditation in a suit of embossed muslin. How your heart turns over--if you +are not used to the thing. How you make pauses between your coffee and +muffins, to admire the clear typography, the luxurious paper, the gold +letters on the back! + +Messrs. Printem & Sellem sent me two out-of-town papers, containing notices +of "DAISY." These notices were solicited by advance copies of the work, for +the purpose of being used in the publication advertisement. It is curious +to remark how great minds will differ. + + [_From the Blundertown Journal._] + + "NEW PUBLICATIONS. + + "DAISY'S NECKLACE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. _New-York: Printem and + Sellem._ + + THIS production is an emanation from the culminating mind of glorious + genius! Nothing like it has been produced in this century. It + possesses all the fine elements of Dickens' novels, without any of + their numerous defects. Its scope, its pathos, and wit, is[B] beyond + all praise. Our Britannic brethren will no longer ask, 'Who reads an + American book?' For we can reply, 'The World!' + + "We learn, from good authority, that the publishers have received + orders for twenty thousand copies of the work, in advance of its + publication. We have no doubt of it; for 'Daisy's Necklace' will shed + new lustre on the name of American Literature! Envious authors will + abuse the work. As the immortal Goethe says, '_De gustibus non est + disputandum!_' Our rush of advertisements prevents us from making + voluminous extracts from the novel; this, however, would be useless, + as _everybody_ will read it for _themselves_. + + "Orders addressed to HIGGINS & CO., of this town, will be promptly + filled." + +I should take the editor of the "Blundertown Journal" to be a man of +cultured taste, appreciative and discriminating. The second review was not +quite so "favorable," and can scarcely be called "a first-rate notice." + + [_From the Frogpond Gazette._] + + "DAISY'S NECKLACE" is the silly title of an absurd novel about to be + issued by Printem & Sellem, of New-York. From the fact that the + author's name is withheld from the title-page, we infer that he had + _some_ friends--some few who were not wholly willing that he should + make a donkey of himself. We have read a great deal of trash in our + day; but 'Daisy's Necklace' is the king of all vapid + novels,--sentimental in sentiment, flaccid in fiction, and entirely + intolerable from beginning to end. The first forty pages put us to + sleep. We advise all druggists to keep the book for sale,--as an + _anodyne_. + + "The binding is good, and that is all the praise we can give so + contemptible an abortion. A reading public that tolerates a novel like + this, must be made up of very good-natured persons--assinine in + temperament, and mentally obtuse. + + "This 'work,' we presume, is written by that much-abused and prolific + myth--'a young gentleman of this city,' distinguished, _of course_. We + believe that he writes all of Printem & Sellem's books. At all events, + those enterprising gentlemen always have 'a startling novel' in + press, from his immortal pen. What a long string of sins these + gentlemen have to answer for! What a commotion there would be among + the shelves of their book-store, if dead authors could come back and + reclaim stolen property! If the shade of _Lindley Murray_ could stalk + among them! + + "For our part, we had rather see the Hudson River Railroad's list of + 'dead and wounded,' than Printem & Sellem's list of 'Popular + Publications!' But it is consoling to know that books like 'Daisy's + Necklace,' in spite of 'purchased puffery,' find their level at last + as linings for portmanteaus and third-rate trunks. We shall make + cigar-lighters of our copy, and thank the stars that we were not born + a book-making genius!" + +Not a line quoted to prove the justice of the unstrained censure! I could +not account for the malignant personality of this _critique_, until Barry +informed me that my publishers never advertised their books in the columns +of the "Frogpond Gazette." This, of course, explained it. I only wish I had +the stubborn editor of the "Frogpond" at arm's length, I would try the +consistency of his ears. + +I was somewhat astonished, the next day, to find how ingeniously Messrs. +Printem & Sellem made the adverse criticism subservient to their interests. + +My lucubration was out. + +The "Post" said so; the "Morning Rabid" said it; the "Evening +Looking-Glass" said it; and a host of small fry echoed the important fact. +I unfolded "The Rabid," and beheld the following advertisement: + + "PUBLISHED THIS DAY, + _A Novel of Unprecedented Power, entitled_, + + DAISY'S NECKLACE, + AND WHAT CAME OF IT. + + THE 'FROGPOND GAZETTE,' (high authority), in a long review of this + work says: '_Daisy's Necklace is the King of all Novels_.' + + 'The Blundertown Journal' (also high authority) remarks: + + '_This Book is an emanation from the culminating mind of glorious + genius!_' + + '_Nothing like it has been produced in this century!_' + + '_It has all the fine elements of Dickens' Novels, without any of + their numerous defects!_' + + Our first edition (20,000 copies) is exhausted, and we beg our friends + to have patience for a few days. + + WANTED, 4,000 Agents to sell the above work!! + + PRINTEM & SELLEM, + _Publishers_." + +"Four thousand agents!" quoth Barry, looking over my shoulder; "I rather +think it would take _forty_ thousand to sell an edition of 'DAISY!'" + +I laughed at my irate friend, and, igniting a fresh regalia, crossed my +feet on the mantel-piece, and remarked, composedly, + +"Now for the Critics!" + +FINIS. + + + + +ERRATUM. + +The Greek of my book-making genius, Ralph ---- Esq., seems decidedly rusty. +He has evidently given his lexicon an icy shoulder. Will the intellectual +and erudite reader substitute _kyrie eleyson_ for _kyrie elyson_ on page +131? + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] Mr. Barescythe, with his characteristic word-catching spirit, wishes to +know if grapes and cherries are ripe at one and the same time in +New-England. + +[B] Barescythe says, that the wrong verb used in this paragraph is what +editors call "a typographical error." + + + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note. | + | | + | Italics have been indicated in this text version by underscores | + | | + | The following changes have been carried out:-- | + | | + | Page 22 comma changed to period. | + | 'gently, gently. Sleep,' | + | | + | Page 60. 'distroted' to 'distorted' | + | 'highly polished, distorted knocker' | + | | + | 'kided' to 'kidded' | + | 'white-kidded, be-ruffled gallants' | + | | + | Incorrectly positioned parenthesis moved from before | + | the phrase 'the Museum opposite' to what appears to | + | be a more logical position at the begining of the phrase | + | 'if you would only' | + | | + | Page 98. 'Snarle' to 'Flint' | + | '"Don't go on that way," pleaded Flint,' | + | | + | Page 133. 'rythm' to 'rhythm' | + | 'Musical rhythm' | + | | + | Page 198. 'woes' to 'woos' | + | 'Strephon woos Chloe as of yore' | + | | + | Page 209. 'Shakspeare' to 'Shakespeare' | + | 'thoughtless Will Shakespeare' | + | | + | Unusual spelling has been retained as in the original publication | + | | + | Erratum. This has been carried out in the text. | + | | + +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Daisy's Necklace, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY'S NECKLACE *** + +***** This file should be named 30668.txt or 30668.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/6/30668/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Woodie4 and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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