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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Modern Cinderella, by Louisa May Alcott
+
+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: A Modern Cinderella
+       or The Little Old Show and Other Stories
+
+Author: Louisa May Alcott
+
+Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3806]
+Release Date: March, 2003
+First Posted: September 16, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN CINDERELLA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joe Hogan.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A Modern Cinderella
+
+or The Little Old Shoe
+
+And Other Stories
+
+
+by
+
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  A MODERN CINDERELLA: OR, THE LITTLE OLD SHOE
+  DEBBY'S DEBUT
+  BROTHERS
+  NELLY'S HOSPITAL
+
+
+
+
+A MODERN CINDERELLA
+
+OR,
+
+THE LITTLE OLD SHOE
+
+
+HOW IT WAS LOST
+
+Among green New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled,
+mossy-roofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to the
+eye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed it
+about, a garden-plat stretched upward to the whispering birches on the
+slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had
+stood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way and
+found them young.
+
+One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowers
+in the meadow, black-birds by the brook, and the low of kine upon the
+hill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certain
+humble history began.
+
+"Nan!"
+
+"Yes, Di."
+
+And a head, brown-locked, blue-eyed, soft-featured, looked in at the
+open door in answer to the call.
+
+"Just bring me the third volume of 'Wilhelm Meister,' there's a dear.
+It's hardly worth while to rouse such a restless ghost as I, when I'm
+once fairly laid."
+
+As she spoke, Di PUlled up her black braids, thumped the pillow of the
+couch where she was lying, and with eager eyes went down the last page
+of her book.
+
+"Nan!"
+
+"Yes, Laura," replied the girl, coming back with the third volume for
+the literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too content upon
+the "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a certain
+plain sinner.
+
+"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's
+the only thing fit for me this hot weather."
+
+And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more
+gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she was
+drawing.
+
+"Little daughter!"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at once;
+and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;--I shall be
+in the lower garden."
+
+The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that
+domestic purgatory on a summer day,--the kitchen.  There were vines
+about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it
+was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied
+incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which
+such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the
+priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories of
+wasted temper, time, and toil.
+
+Nan was tired, having risen with the birds,--hurried, having many cares
+those happy little housewives never know,--and disappointed in a hope
+that hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined." She was too young to make
+the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too patient to
+be burdened with the labor others should have shared, too light of
+heart to be pent up  when earth and sky were keeping a blithe holiday.
+But she was one of that meek sisterhood who, thinking humbly of
+themselves, believe they are honored by being spent in the service of
+less conscientious souls, whose careless thanks seem quite reward
+enough.
+
+To and fro she went, silent and diligent, giving the grace of
+willingness to every humble or distasteful task the day had brought
+her; but some malignant sprite seemed to have taken possession of her
+kingdom, for rebellion broke out everywhere. The kettles would boil
+over most obstreperously,--the mutton refused to cook with the meek
+alacrity to be expected from the nature of a sheep,--the stove, with
+unnecessary warmth of temper, would glow like a fiery furnace,--the
+irons would scorch,--the linens would dry,--and spirits would fail,
+though patience never.
+
+Nan tugged on, growing hotter and wearier, more hurried and more
+hopeless, till at last the crisis came; for in one fell moment she tore
+her gown, burnt her hand, and smutched the collar she was preparing to
+finish in the most unexceptionable style.  Then, if she had been a
+nervous woman, she would have scolded; being a gentle girl, she only
+"lifted up her voice and wept."
+
+"Behold, she watereth her linen with salt tears, and bewaileth herself
+because of much tribulation. But, lo! Help cometh from afar: a strong
+man bringeth lettuce wherewith to stay her, plucketh berries to comfort
+her withal, and clasheth cymbals that she may dance for joy."
+
+The voice came from the porch, and, with her hope fulfilled, Nan looked
+up to greet John Lord, the house-friend, who stood there with a basket
+on his arm; and as she saw his honest eyes, kind lips, and helpful
+hands, the girl thought this plain young man the comeliest, most
+welcome sight she had beheld that day.
+
+"How good of you, to come through all this heat, and not to laugh at my
+despair!" she said, looking up like a grateful child, as she led him in.
+
+"I only obeyed orders, Nan; for a certain dear old lady had a motherly
+presentiment that you had got into a domestic whirlpool, and sent me as
+a sort of life-preserver. So I took the basket of consolation, and came
+to fold my feet upon the carpet of contentment in the tent of
+friendship."
+
+As he spoke, John gave his own gift in his mother's name, and bestowed
+himself in the wide window-seat, where morning-glories nodded at him,
+and the old butternut sent pleasant shadows dancing to and fro.
+
+His advent, like that of Orpheus in hades, seemed to soothe all
+unpropitious powers with a sudden spell. The Fire began to slacken, the
+kettles began to lull, the meat began to cook, the irons began to cool,
+the clothes began to behave, the spirits began to rise, and the collar
+was finished off with most triumphant success.  John watched the
+change, and, though a lord of creation, abased himself to take
+compassion on the weaker vessel, and was seized with a great desire to
+lighten the homely tasks that tried her strength of body and soul.  He
+took a comprehensive glance about the room; then, extracting a dish
+from he closet, proceeded to imbrue his hands in the strawberries'
+blood.
+
+"Oh,  John, you needn't do that; I shall have time when I've turned the
+meat, made the pudding and done these things.  See, I'm getting on
+finely now:--you're a judge of such matters; isn't that nice?"
+
+As she spoke, Nan offered the polished absurdity for inspection with
+innocent pride.
+
+"Oh that I were a collar, to sit upon that hand!" sighed John,--adding,
+argumentatively,
+
+"As to the berry question, I might answer it with a gem from Dr. Watts,
+relative to 'Satan' and idle hands,' but will merely say, that, as a
+matter of public safety, you'd better leave me alone; for such is the
+destructiveness of my nature, that I shall certainly eat something
+hurtful, break something valuable, or sit upon something crushable,
+unless you let me concentrate my energies by knocking on these young
+fellows' hats, and preparing them for their doom."
+
+Looking at the matter in a charitable light, Nan consented, and went
+cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought
+ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for the blessings of her
+lot.
+
+"Where's Sally?" asked John, looking vainly for the functionary who
+usually pervaded that region like a domestic police-woman, a terror to
+cats, dogs, and men.
+
+"She has gone to her cousin's funeral, and won't be back till Monday.
+There seems to be a great fatality among her relations; for one dies,
+or comes to grief in some way, about once a month. But I don't blame
+poor Sally for wanting to get away from this place now and then.  I
+think I could find it in my heart to murder an imaginary friend or two,
+if I had to stay here long."
+
+And Nan laughed so blithely, it was a pleasure to hear her.
+
+"Where's Di?" asked John, seized with a most unmasculine curiosity all
+at once.
+
+"She is in Germany with 'Wilhelm Meister'; but, though 'lost to sight,
+to memory clear'; for I was just thinking, as I did her things, how
+clever she is to like all kinds of books that I don't understand at
+all, and to write things that make me cry with pride and delight.  Yes,
+she's a talented dear, though she hardly knows a needle from a crowbar,
+and will make herself one great blot some of these days, when the
+'divine afflatus' descends upon her, I'm afraid."
+
+And Nan rubbed away with sisterly zeal at Di's forlorn hose and inky
+pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+"Where is Laura?" proceeded the inquisitor.
+
+"Well, I might say that she was in Italy; for she is copying some fine
+thing of Raphael's or Michael Angelo's, or some great creatures or
+other; and she looks so picturesque in her pretty gown, sitting before
+her easel, that it's really a sight to behold, and I've peeped two or
+three times to see how she gets on."
+
+And Nan bestirred herself to prepare the dish Wherewith her picturesque
+sister desired to prolong her artistic existence.
+
+"Where is your father?" John asked again, checking off each answer with
+a nod and a little frown.
+
+"He is down in the garden, deep in some plan about melons, the
+beginning of which seems to consist in stamping the first proposition
+in Euclid all over the bed, and then poking a few seeds into the middle
+of each.  Why, bless the dear man!  I forgot it was time for the cider.
+Wouldn't you like to take it to him, John? He'd love to consult you;
+and the lane is so cool, it does one's heart good to look at it."
+
+John glanced from the steamy kitchen to the shadowy path, and answered
+with a sudden assumption of immense industry,--
+
+"I couldn't possibly go, Nan,--I've so much on my hands.  You'll have
+to do it yourself.  'Mr. Robert of Lincoln' has something for your
+private ear; and the lane is so cool, it will do one's heart good to
+see you in it.  Give my regards to your father, and, in the words of
+'Little Mabel's' mother, with slight variation,--
+
+  'Tell the dear old body
+  This day I cannot run,
+  For the pots are boiling over
+  And the mutton isn't done.'"
+
+"I will; but please, John, go in to the girls and be comfortable; for I
+don't like to leave you here," said Nan.
+
+"You insinuate that I should pick at the pudding or invade the cream,
+do you?  Ungrateful girl, leave me!" And, with melodramatic sternness,
+John extinguished her in his broad-brimmed hat, and offered the glass
+like a poisoned goblet.
+
+Nan took it, and went smiling away.  But the lane might have been the
+Desert of Sahara, for all she knew of it; and she would have passed her
+father as unconcernedly as if he had been an apple-tree, had he not
+called out,--
+
+"Stand and deliver, little woman!"
+
+She obeyed the venerable highwayman, and followed him to and fro,
+listening to his plans and directions with a mute attention that quite
+won his heart.
+
+"That hop-pole is really an ornament now, Nan; this sage-bed needs
+weeding,--that's good work for you girls; and, now I think of it, you'd
+better water the lettuce in the cool of the evening, after I'm gone."
+
+To all of which remarks Nan gave her assent; the hop-pole took the
+likeness of a tall figure she had seen in the porch, the sage-bed,
+curiously enough, suggested a strawberry ditto, the lettuce vividly
+reminded her of certain vegetable productions a basket had brought, and
+the bobolink only sung in his cheeriest voice, "Go home, go home! he is
+there!"
+
+She found John--he having made a free-mason of himself, by assuming her
+little apron--meditating over the partially spread table, lost in amaze
+at its desolate appearance; one half its proper paraphernalia having
+been forgotten, and the other half put on awry.  Nan laughed till the
+tears ran over her cheeks, and John was gratified at the efficacy of
+his treatment; for her face had brought a whole harvest of sunshine
+from the garden, and all her cares seemed to have been lost in the
+windings of the lane.
+
+"Nan, are you in hysterics?" cried Di, appearing, book in hand. "John,
+you absurd man, what are you doing?"
+
+"I'm helpin' the maid of all work, please marm." And John dropped a
+curtsy with his limited apron.
+
+Di looked ruffled, for the merry words were a covert reproach; and with
+her usual energy of manner and freedom of speech she tossed "Wilhelm"
+out of the window, exclaiming, irefully.--
+
+"That's always the way; I'm never where I ought to be, and never think
+of anything till it's too late; but it's all Goethe's fault.  What does
+he write books full of smart 'Phillinas' and interesting 'Meisters'
+for?  How can I be expected to remember that Sally's away, and people
+must eat, when I'm hearing the 'Harper' and little 'Mignon?' John, how
+dare you come here and do my work, instead of shaking me and telling me
+to do it myself?  Take that toasted child away, and fan her like a
+Chinese mandarin, while I dish up this dreadful dinner."
+
+John and Nan fled like chaff before the wind, while Di, full of
+remorseful zeal, charged at the kettles, and wrenched off the potatoes'
+jackets, as if she were revengefully pulling her own hair. Laura had a
+vague intention of going to assist; but, getting lost among the lights
+and shadows of Minerva's helmet, forgot to appear till dinner had been
+evoked from chaos and peace was restored.
+
+At three o'clock, Di performed the coronation ceremony with her
+father's best hat; Laura retied his old-fashioned neckcloth, and
+arranged his white locks with an eye to saintly effect; Nan appeared
+with a beautifully written sermon, and suspicious ink-stains on the
+fingers that slipped it into his pocket; John attached himself to the
+bag; and the patriarch was escorted to the door of his tent with the
+triumphal procession which usually attended his out-goings and
+in-comings.  Having kissed the female portion of his tribe, he ascended
+the venerable chariot, which received him with audible lamentation, as
+its rheumatic joints swayed to and fro.
+
+"Good-bye, my dears! I shall be back early on Monday morning; so take
+care of yourselves, and be sure you all go and hear Mr. Emerboy preach
+to-morrow.  My regards to your mother. John.  Come, Solon!"
+
+But Solon merely cocked one ear, and remained a fixed fact; for long
+experience had induced the philosophic beast to take for his motto the
+Yankee maxim, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead! He knew things were
+not right; therefore he did not go ahead.
+
+"Oh, by the way, girls, don't forget to pay Tommy Mullein for bringing
+up the cow: he expects it to-night.  And Di, don't sit up till
+daylight, nor let Laura stay out in the dew.  Now, I believe I'm off.
+Come, Solon!"
+
+But Solon only cocked the other ear, gently agitated his mortified
+tail, as premonitory symptoms of departure, and never stirred a hoof,
+being well aware that it always took three "comes" to make a "go."
+
+"Bless me! I've forgotten my spectacles. They are probably shut up in
+that volume of Herbert on my table.  Very awkward to find myself
+without them ten miles away.  Thank you, John.  Don't neglect to water
+the lettuce, Nan, and don't overwork yourself, my little 'Martha.'
+Come--"
+
+At this juncture Solon suddenly went off, like "Mrs. Gamp," in a sort
+of walking swoon, apparently deaf and blind to all mundane matters,
+except the refreshments awaiting him ten miles away; and the benign old
+pastor disappeared, humming "Hebron" to the creaking accompaniment of
+the bulgy chaise.
+
+Laura retired to take her siesta; Nan made a small carbonaro of herself
+by sharpening her sister's crayons, and Di, as a sort of penance for
+past sins, tried her patience over a piece of knitting, in which she
+soon originated a somewhat remarkable pattern, by dropping every third
+stitch, and seaming ad libitum.  If John bad been a gentlemanly
+creature, with refined tastes, he would have elevated his feet and made
+a nuisance of himself by indulging in a "weed;" but being only an
+uncultivated youth, with a rustic regard for pure air and womankind in
+general, he kept his head uppermost, and talked like a man, instead of
+smoking like a chimney.
+
+"It will probably be six months before I sit here again, tangling your
+threads and maltreating your needles, Nan.  How glad you must feel to
+hear it!" he said, looking up from a thoughtful examination of the
+hard-working little citizens of the Industrial Community settled in
+Nan's work-basket.
+
+"No, I'm very sorry; for I like to see you coming and going as you used
+to, years ago, and I miss you very much when you are gone, John,"
+answered truthful Nan, whittling away in a sadly wasteful manner, as
+her thoughts flew back to the happy times when a little lad rode a
+little lass in a big wheelbarrow, and never spilt his load,--when two
+brown heads bobbed daily side by side to school, and the favorite play
+was "Babes in the Wood," with Di for a somewhat peckish robin to cover
+the small martyrs with any vegetable substance that lay at hand. Nan
+sighed, as she thought of these things, and John regarded the battered
+thimble on his finger-tip with increased benignity of aspect as he
+heard the sound.
+
+"When are you going to make your fortune, John, and get out of that
+disagreeable hardware concern?" demanded Di, pausing after an exciting
+"round," and looking almost as much exhausted as if it had been a
+veritable pugilistic encounter.
+
+"I intend to make it by plunging still deeper into 'that disagreeable
+hardware concern;' for, next year, if the world keeps rolling, and John
+Lord is alive, he will become a partner, and then--and then--"
+
+The color sprang up into the young man's cheek, his eyes looked out
+with a sudden shine, and his hand seemed involuntarily to close, as if
+he saw and seized some invisible delight.
+
+"What will happen then, John?" asked Nan, with a wondering glance.
+
+"I'll tell you in a year, Nan, wait till then." and John's strong hand
+unclosed, as if the desired good were not to be his yet.
+
+Di looked at him, with a knitting-needle stuck into her hair, saying,
+like a sarcastic unicorn,--
+
+"I really thought you had a soul above pots and kettles, but I see you
+haven't; and I beg your pardon for the injustice I have done you."
+
+Not a whit disturbed, John smiled, as if at some mighty pleasant fancy
+of his own, as he replied,--
+
+"Thank you, Di; and as a further proof of the utter depravity of my
+nature, let me tell you that I have the greatest possible respect for
+those articles of ironmongery.  Some of the happiest hours of my life
+have been spent in their society; some of my pleasantest associations
+are connected with them; some of my best lessons have come to me among
+them; and when my fortune is made, I intend to show my gratitude by
+taking three flat-irons rampant for my coat of arms."
+
+Nan laughed merrily, as she looked at the burns on her hand; but Di
+elevated the most prominent feature of her brown countenance, and
+sighed despondingly,--
+
+"Dear, dear, what a disappointing world this is! I no sooner build a
+nice castle in Spain, and settle a smart young knight therein, than
+down it comes about my ears; and the ungrateful youth, who might fight
+dragons, if he chose, insists on quenching his energies in a saucepan,
+and making a Saint Lawrence of himself by wasting his life on a series
+of gridirons.  Ah, if I were only a man, I would do something better
+than that, and prove that heroes are not all dead yet. But, instead of
+that, I'm only a woman, and must sit rasping my temper with absurdities
+like this." And Di wrestled with her knitting as if it were Fate, and
+she were paying off the grudge she owed it.
+
+John leaned toward her, saying, with a look that made his plain face
+handsome,--
+
+"Di, my father began the world as I begin it, and left it the richer
+for the useful years he spent here,--as I hope I may leave it some
+half-century hence.  His memory makes that dingy shop a pleasant place
+to me; for there he made an honest name, led an honest life and
+bequeathed to me his reverence for honest work.  That is a sort of
+hardware, Di, that no rust can corrupt, and which will always prove a
+better fortune than any your knights can achieve with sword and shield.
+I think I am not quite a clod, or quite without some aspirations above
+money-getting; for I sincerely desire that courage that makes daily
+life heroic by self-denial and cheerfulness of heart; I am eager to
+conquer my own rebellious nature, and earn the confidence of innocent
+and upright souls; I have a great ambition to become as good a man and
+leave as good a memory behind me as old John Lord."
+
+Di winked violently, and seamed five times in perfect silence; but
+quiet Nan had the gift of knowing when to speak, and by a timely word
+saved her sister from a thunder-shower and her stocking from
+destruction.
+
+"John, have you seen Philip since you wrote about your last meeting
+with him?"
+
+The question was for John, but the soothing tone was for Di, who
+gratefully accepted it, and perked up again with speed.
+
+"Yes; and I meant to have told you about it," answered John, plunging
+into the subject at once.
+
+"I saw him a few days before I came home, and found him more
+disconsolate than ever,--' just ready to go to the Devil,' as he
+forcibly expressed himself. I consoled the poor lad as well as I could,
+telling him his wisest plan was to defer his proposed expedition, and
+go on as steadily as he had begun,--thereby proving the injustice of
+your father's prediction concerning his want of perseverance, and the
+sincerity of his affection.  I told him the change in Laura's health
+and spirits was silently working in his favor, and that a few more
+months of persistent endeavor would conquer your father's prejudice
+against him, and make him a stronger man for the trial and the pain.  I
+read him bits about Laura from your own and Di's letters, and he went
+away at last as patient as Jacob ready to serve another 'seven years'
+for his beloved Rachel."
+
+"God bless you for it, John!" cried a fervent voice; and, looking up,
+they saw the cold, listless Laura transformed into a tender girl, all
+aglow with love and longing, as she dropped her mask, and showed a
+living countenance eloquent with the first passion and softened by the
+first grief of her life.
+
+John rose involuntarily in the presence of an innocent nature whose
+sorrow needed no interpreter to him.  The girl read sympathy in his
+brotherly regard, and found comfort in the friendly voice that asked,
+half playfully, half seriously,--
+
+"Shall I tell him that he is not forgotten, even for an Apollo? that
+Laura the artist has not conquered Laura the woman? and predict that
+the good daughter will yet prove the happy wife?"
+
+With a gesture full of energy, Laura tore her Minerva from top to
+bottom, while two great tears rolled down the cheeks grown wan with
+hope deferred.
+
+"Tell him I believe all things, hope all things, and that I never can
+forget."
+
+Nan went to her and held her fast, leaving the prints of two loving but
+grimy hands upon her shoulders; Di looked on approvingly, for, though
+stony-hearted regarding the cause, she fully appreciated the effect;
+and John, turning to the window, received the commendations of a robin
+swaying on an elm-bough with sunshine on its ruddy breast.
+
+The clock struck five, and John declared that he must go; for, being an
+old-fashioned soul, he fancied that his mother had a better right to
+his last hour than any younger woman in the land,--always remembering
+that "she was a widow, and he her only son."
+
+Nan ran away to wash her hands, and came back with the appearance of
+one who had washed her face also: and so she had; but there was a
+difference in the water.
+
+"Play I'm your father, girls, and remember that it will be six months
+before 'that John' will trouble you again."
+
+With which preface the young man kissed his former playfellows as
+heartily as the boy had been wont to do, when stern parents banished
+him to distant schools, and three little maids bemoaned his fate.  But
+times were changed now; for Di grew alarmingly rigid during the
+ceremony; Laura received the salute like a graceful queen; and Nan
+returned it with heart and eyes and tender lips, making such an
+improvement on the childish fashion of the thing that John was moved to
+support his paternal character by softly echoing her father's
+words,--"Take care of yourself, my little 'Martha.'"
+
+Then they all streamed after him along the garden-path, with the
+endless messages and warnings girls are so prone to give; and the young
+man, with a great softness at his heart, went away, as many another
+John has gone, feeling better for the companionship of innocent
+maidenhood, and stronger to wrestle with temptation, to wait and hope
+and work.
+
+"Let's throw a shoe after him for luck, as dear old 'Mrs.  Gummage' did
+after 'David' and the 'willin' Barkis!' Quick, Nan! you always have old
+shoes on; toss one, and shout, 'Good luck!'" cried Di, with one of her
+eccentric inspirations.
+
+Nan tore off her shoe, and threw it far along the dusty road, with a
+sudden longing to become that auspicious article of apparel, that the
+omen might not fail.
+
+Looking backward from the hill-top, John answered the meek shout
+cheerily, and took in the group with a lingering glance: Laura in the
+shadow of the elms, Di perched on the fence, and Nan leaning far over
+the gate with her hand above her eyes and the sunshine touching her
+brown hair with gold.  He waved his hat and turned away; but the music
+seemed to die out of the blackbird's song, and in all the summer
+landscape his eyes saw nothing but the little figure at the gate.
+
+"Bless and save us! here's a flock of people coming; my hair is in a
+toss, and Nan's without her shoe; run! fly, girls! or the Philistines
+will be upon us!" cried Di, tumbling off her perch in sudden alarm.
+
+Three agitated young ladies, with flying draperies and countenances of
+mingled mirth and dismay, might have been seen precipitating themselves
+into a respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; but the squirrels
+were the only witnesses of this "vision of sudden flight," and, being
+used to ground-and-lofty tumbling, didn't mind it.
+
+When the pedestrians passed, the door was decorously closed, and no one
+visible but a young man, who snatched something out of the road, and
+marched away again, whistling with more vigor of tone than accuracy of
+tune, "Only that, and nothing more."
+
+
+
+HOW IT WAS FOUND.
+
+Summer ripened into autumn, and something fairer than
+
+  "Sweet-peas and mignonette
+  In Annie's garden grew."
+
+Her nature was the counterpart of the hill-side grove, where as a child
+she had read her fairy tales, and now as a woman turned the first pages
+of a more wondrous legend still. Lifted above the many-gabled roof, yet
+not cut off from the echo of human speech, the little grove seemed a
+green sanctuary, fringed about with violets, and full of summer melody
+and bloom.  Gentle creatures haunted it, and there was none to make
+afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped their shrill
+roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the moss that kissed
+the wanderer's feet. Warm airs were all afloat, full of vernal odors
+for the grateful sense, silvery birches shimmered like spirits of the
+wood, larches gave their green tassels to the wind, and pines made airy
+music sweet and solemn, as they stood looking heavenward through veils
+of summer sunshine or shrouds of wintry snow.
+
+Nan never felt alone now in this charmed wood; for when she came into
+its precincts, once so full of solitude, all things seemed to wear one
+shape, familiar eyes looked at her from the violets in the grass,
+familiar words sounded in the whisper of the leaves, grew conscious
+that an unseen influence filled the air with new delights, and touched
+earth and sky with a beauty never seen before.  Slowly these Mayflowers
+budded in her maiden heart, rosily they bloomed and silently they
+waited till some lover of such lowly herbs should catch their fresh
+aroma, should brush away the fallen leaves, and lift them to the sun.
+
+Though the eldest of the three, she had long been overtopped by the
+more aspiring maids.  But though she meekly yielded the reins of
+government, whenever they chose to drive, they were soon restored to
+her again; for Di fell into literature, and Laura into love.  Thus
+engrossed, these two forgot many duties which even bluestockings and
+inamoratos are expected to perform, and slowly all the homely humdrum
+cares that housewives know became Nan's daily life, and she accepted it
+without a thought of discontent.  Noiseless and cheerful as the
+sunshine, she went to and fro, doing the tasks that mothers do, but
+without a mother's sweet reward, holding fast the numberless slight
+threads that bind a household tenderly together, and making each day a
+beautiful success.
+
+Di, being tired of running, riding, climbing, and boating, decided at
+last to let her body rest and put her equally active mind through what
+classical collegians term "a course of sprouts."  Having undertaken to
+read and know everything, she devoted herself to the task with great
+energy, going from Sue to Swedenborg with perfect impartiality, and
+having different authors as children have sundry distempers, being
+fractious while they lasted, but all the better for them when once
+over.  Carlyle appeared like scarlet-fever, and raged violently for a
+time; for, being anything but a "passive bucket," Di became prophetic
+with Mahomet, belligerent with Cromwell, and made the French Revolution
+a veritable Reign of Terror to her family.  Goethe and Schiller
+alternated like fever and ague; Mephistopheles became her hero, Joan of
+Arc her model, and she turned her black eyes red over Egmont and
+Wallenstein. A mild attack of Emerson followed, during which she was
+lost in a fog, and her sisters rejoiced inwardly when she emerged
+informing them that
+
+  "The Sphinx was drowsy,
+  Her wings were furled."
+
+Poor Di was floundering slowly to her proper place; but she splashed up
+a good deal of foam by getting out of her depth, and rather exhausted
+herself by trying to drink the ocean dry.
+
+Laura, after the "midsummer night's dream" that often comes to girls of
+seventeen, woke up to find that youth and love were no match for age
+and common sense.  Philip had been flying about the world like a
+thistle-down for five-and-twenty years, generous-hearted, frank, and
+kind, but with never an idea of the serious side of life in his
+handsome head.  Great, therefore, were the wrath and dismay of the
+enamored thistle-down, when the father of his love mildly objected to
+seeing her begin the world in a balloon with a very tender but very
+inexperienced aeronaut for a guide.
+
+"Laura is too young to 'play house' yet, and you are too unstable to
+assume the part of lord and master, Philip.  Go and prove that you have
+prudence, patience, energy, and enterprise, and I will give you my
+girl,--but not before. I must seem cruel, that I may be truly kind;
+believe this, and let a little pain lead you to great happiness, or
+show you where you would have made a bitter blunder."
+
+The lovers listened, owned the truth of the old man's words, bewailed
+their fate, and yielded,--Laura for love of her father, Philip for love
+of her. He went away to build a firm foundation for his castle in the
+air, and Laura retired into an invisible convent, where she cast off
+the world, and regarded her sympathizing sisters through a grate of
+superior knowledge and unsharable grief. Like a devout nun, she
+worshipped "St. Philip," and firmly believed in his miraculous powers.
+She fancied that her woes set her apart from common cares, and slowly
+fell into a dreamy state, professing no interest in any mundane matter,
+but the art that first attracted Philip. Crayons, bread-crusts, and
+gray paper became glorified in Laura's eyes; and her one pleasure was
+to sit pale and still before her easel, day after day, filling her
+portfolios with the faces he had once admired. Her sisters observed
+that every Bacchus, Piping Faun, or Dying Gladiator bore some likeness
+to a comely countenance that heathen god or hero never owned; and
+seeing this, they privately rejoiced that she had found such solace for
+her grief.
+
+Mrs. Lord's keen eye had read a certain newly written page in her son's
+heart,--his first chapter of that romance, begun in paradise, whose
+interest never flags, whose beauty never fades, whose end can never
+come till Love lies dead. With womanly skill she divined the secret,
+with motherly discretion she counselled patience, and her son accepted
+her advice, feeling that, like many a healthful herb, its worth lay in
+its bitterness.
+
+"Love like a man, John, not like a boy, and learn to know yourself
+before you take a woman's happiness into your keeping.  You and Nan
+have known each other all your lives; yet, till this last visit, you
+never thought you loved her more than any other childish friend.  It is
+too soon to say the words so often spoken hastily,--so hard to be
+recalled. Go back to your work, dear, for another year; think of Nan in
+the light of this new hope: compare her with comelier, gayer girls; and
+by absence prove the truth of your belief.   Then, if distance only
+makes her dearer, if time only strengthens your affection, and no doubt
+of your own worthiness disturbs you, come back and offer her what any
+woman should be glad to take,--my boy's true heart."
+
+John smiled at the motherly pride of her words, but answered with a
+wistful look.
+
+"It seems very long to wait, mother.  If I could just ask her for a
+word of hope, I could be very patient then."
+
+"Ah, my dear, better bear one year of impatience now than a lifetime of
+regret hereafter. Nan is happy; why disturb her by a word which will
+bring the tender cares and troubles that come soon enough to such
+conscientious creatures as herself? If she loves you, time will prove
+it; therefore, let the new affection spring and ripen as your early
+friendship has done, and it will be all the stronger for a summer's
+growth.  Philip was rash, and has to bear his trial now, and Laura
+shares it with him. Be more generous, John; make your trial, bear your
+doubts alone, and give Nan the happiness without the pain.  Promise me
+this, dear,--promise me to hope and wait."
+
+The young man's eye kindled, and in his heart there rose a better
+chivalry, a truer valor, than any Di's knights had ever known.
+
+"I'll try, mother," was all he said; but she was satisfied, for John
+seldom tried in vain.
+
+"Oh, girls, how splendid you are!  It does my heart good to see my
+handsome sisters in their best array," cried Nan, one mild October
+night, as she put the last touches to certain airy raiment fashioned by
+her own skilful hands, and then fell back to survey the grand effect.
+
+"Di and Laura were preparing to assist at an event of the season," and
+Nan, with her own locks fallen on her shoulders, for want of sundry
+combs promoted to her sisters' heads and her dress in unwonted
+disorder, for lack of the many pins extracted in exciting crises of the
+toilet, hovered like an affectionate bee about two very full-blown
+flowers.
+
+"Laura looks like a cool Undine, with the ivy-wreaths in her shining
+hair; and Di has illuminated herself to such an extent with those
+scarlet leaves that I don't know what great creature she resembles
+most," said Nan, beaming with sisterly admiration.
+
+"Like Juno, Zenobia, and Cleopatra simmered into one, with a touch of
+Xantippe by way of spice. But, to my eye, the finest woman of the three
+is the dishevelled young person embracing the bed-post: for she stays
+at home herself, and gives her time and taste to making homely people
+fine,--which is a waste of good material, and an imposition on the
+public."
+
+As Di spoke, both the fashion-plates looked affectionately at the
+gray-gowned figure; but, being works of art, they were obliged to nip
+their feelings in the bud, and reserve their caresses till they
+returned to common life.
+
+"Put on your bonnet, and we'll leave you at Mrs. Lord's on our way.  It
+will do you good, Nan; and perhaps there may be news from John," added
+Di, as she bore down upon the door like a man-of-war under full sail.
+
+"Or from Philip," sighed Laura, with a wistful look.
+
+Whereupon Nan persuaded herself that her strong inclination to sit down
+was owing to want of exercise, and the heaviness of her eyelids a freak
+of imagination; so, speedily smoothing her ruffled plumage, she ran
+down to tell her father of the new arrangement.
+
+"Go, my dear, by all means. I shall be writing; and you will be lonely
+if you stay.  But I must see my girls; for I caught glimpses of certain
+surprising phantoms flitting by the door."
+
+Nan led the way, and the two pyramids revolved before him with the
+rapidity of lay-figures, much to the good man's edification: for with
+his fatherly pleasure there was mingled much mild wonderment at the
+amplitude of array.
+
+"Yes, I see my geese are really swans, though there is such a cloud
+between us that I feel a long way off, and hardly know them.  But this
+little daughter is always available, always my 'cricket on the hearth.'"
+
+As he spoke, her father drew Nan closer, kissed her tranquil face, and
+smiled content.
+
+"Well, if ever I see picters, I see 'em now, and I declare to goodness
+it's as interestin' as playactin', every bit.  Miss Di with all them
+boughs in her head, looks like the Queen of Sheby, when she went
+a-visitin' What's-his-name; and if Miss Laura ain't as sweet as a
+lally-barster figger, I should like to know what is."
+
+In her enthusiasm, Sally gambolled about the girls, flourishing her
+milk-pan like a modern Miriam about to sound her timbrel for excess of
+joy.
+
+Laughing merrily, the two Mont Blancs bestowed themselves in the family
+ark, Nan hopped up beside Patrick, and Solon, roused from his lawful
+slumbers, morosely trundled them away. But, looking backward with a
+last "Good-night!" Nan saw her father still standing at the door with
+smiling countenance, and the moonlight falling like a benediction on
+his silver hair.
+
+"Betsey shall go up the hill with you, my dear, and here's a basket of
+eggs for your father.  Give him my love, and be sure you let me know
+the next time he is poorly," Mrs. Lord said, when her guest rose to
+depart, after an hour of pleasant chat.
+
+But Nan never got the gift; for, to her great dismay, her hostess
+dropped the basket with a crash, and flew across the room to meet a
+tall shape pausing in the shadow of the door.  There was no need to ask
+who the new-comer was; for, even in his mother's arms, John looked over
+her shoulder with an eager nod to Nan, who stood among the ruins with
+never a sign of weariness in her face, nor the memory of a care at her
+heart.--for they all went out when John came in.
+
+"Now tell us how and why and when you came. Take off your coat, my
+dear!  And here are the old slippers.  Why didn't you let us know you
+were coming so soon?  How have you been? and what makes you so late
+to-night?  Betsey, you needn't put on your bonnet.  And--oh, my dear
+boy, have you been to supper yet?"
+
+Mrs. Lord was a quiet soul, and her flood of questions was purred
+softly in her son's ear; for, being a woman, she must talk, and, being
+a mother, must pet the one delight of her life, and make a little
+festival when the lord of the manor came home. A whole drove of fatted
+calves were metaphorically killed, and a banquet appeared with speed.
+
+John was not one of those romantic heroes who can go through three
+volumes of hair-breadth escapes without the faintest hint of that
+blessed institution, dinner; therefore, like "Lady Letherbridge," he
+partook, copiously of everything, while the two women beamed over each
+mouthful with an interest that enhanced its flavor, and urged upon him
+cold meat and cheese, pickles and pie, as if dyspepsia and nightmare
+were among the lost arts.
+
+Then he opened his budget of news and fed them.
+
+"I was coming next month, according to custom; but Philip fell upon and
+so tempted me, that I was driven to sacrifice myself to the cause of
+friendship, and up we came to-night.  He would not let me come here
+till we had seen your father, Nan; for the poor lad was pining for
+Laura, and hoped his good behavior for the past year would satisfy his
+judge and secure his recall.  We had a fine talk with your father; and,
+upon my life, Philip seemed to have received the gift of tongues, for
+he made a most eloquent plea, which I've stored away for future use, I
+assure you.  The dear old gentleman was very kind, told Phil he was
+satisfied with the success of his probation, that he should see Laura
+when he liked, and, if all went well, should receive his reward in the
+spring. It must be a delightful sensation to know you have made a
+fellow-creature as happy as those words made Phil to-night."
+
+John paused, and looked musingly at the matronly tea-pot, as if he saw
+a wondrous future in its shine.
+
+Nan twinkled off the drops that rose at the thought of Laura's joy, and
+said, with grateful warmth,--
+
+"You say nothing of your own share in the making of that happiness,
+John; but we know it, for Philip has told Laura in his letters all that
+you have been to him, and I am sure there was other eloquence beside
+his own before father granted all you say he has.  Oh, John, I thank
+you very much for this!"
+
+Mrs. Lord beamed a whole midsummer of delight upon her son, as she saw
+the pleasure these words gave him, though he answered simply,--
+
+"I only tried to be a brother to him, Nan; for he has been most kind to
+me.  Yes, I said my little say to-night, and gave my testimony in
+behalf of the prisoner at the bar; a most merciful judge pronounced his
+sentence, and he rushed straight to Mrs. Leigh's to tell Laura the
+blissful news. Just imagine the scene when he appears, and how Di will
+open her wicked eyes and enjoy the spectacle of the dishevelled lover,
+the bride-elect's tears, the stir, and the romance of the thing.
+She'll cry over it to-night, and caricature it to-morrow."
+
+And John led the laugh at the picture he had conjured up, to turn the
+thoughts of Di's dangerous sister from himself.
+
+At ten Nan retired into the depths of her old bonnet with a far
+different face from the one she brought out of it, and John, resuming
+his hat, mounted guard.
+
+"Don't stay late, remember, John!" And in Mrs. Lord's voice there was a
+warning tone that her son interpreted aright.
+
+"I'll not forget, mother."
+
+And he kept his word; for though Philip's happiness floated temptingly
+before him, and the little figure at his side had never seemed so dear,
+he ignored the bland winds, the tender night, and set a seal upon his
+lips, thinking manfully within himself. "I see many signs of promise in
+her happy face; but I will wait and hope a little longer for her sake."
+
+"Where is father, Sally?" asked Nan, as that functionary appeared,
+blinking owlishly, but utterly repudiating the idea of sleep.
+
+"He went down the garding, miss, when the gentlemen cleared, bein' a
+little flustered by the goin's on.  Shall I fetch him in?" asked Sally,
+as irreverently as if her master were a bag of meal.
+
+"No, we will go ourselves." And slowly the two paced down the
+leaf-strewn walk.
+
+Fields of yellow grain were waving on the hill-side, and sere corn
+blades rustled in the wind, from the orchard came the scent of ripening
+fruit, and all the garden-plots lay ready to yield up their humble
+offerings to their master's hand.  But in the silence of the night a
+greater Reaper had passed by, gathering in the harvest of a righteous
+life, and leaving only tender memories for the gleaners who had come so
+late.
+
+The old man sat in the shadow of the tree his own hands planted; its
+fruit boughs shone ruddily, and its leaves still whispered the low
+lullaby that hushed him to his rest.
+
+"How fast he sleeps! Poor father! I should have come before and made it
+pleasant for him."
+
+As she spoke, Nan lifted up the head bent down upon his breast, and
+kissed his pallid cheek.
+
+"Oh, John, this is not sleep."
+
+"Yes, dear, the happiest he will ever know."
+
+For a moment the shadows flickered over three white faces and the
+silence deepened solemnly. Then John reverently bore the pale shape in,
+and Nan dropped down beside it, saying, with a rain of grateful tears,--
+
+"He kissed me when I went, and said a last good-night!'"
+
+For an hour steps went to and fro about her, many voices whispered near
+her, and skilful hands touched the beloved clay she held so fast; but
+one by one the busy feet passed out, one by one the voices died away,
+and human skill proved vain.
+
+Then Mrs. Lord drew the orphan to the shelter of her arms, soothing her
+with the mute solace of that motherly embrace.
+
+"Nan, Nan! here's Philip! come and see!" The happy call re-echoed
+through the house, and Nan sprang up as if her time for grief were past.
+
+"I must tell them. Oh, my poor girls, how will they bear it?--they have
+known so little sorrow!"
+
+But there was no need for her to speak; other lips had spared her the
+hard task.  For, as she stirred to meet them, a sharp cry rent the air,
+steps rang upon the stairs, and two wild-eyed creatures came into the
+hush of that familiar room, for the first time meeting with no welcome
+from their father's voice.
+
+With one impulse, Di and Laura fled to Nan, and the sisters clung
+together in a silent embrace, more eloquent than words. John took his
+mother by the hand, and led her from the room, closing the door upon
+the sacredness of grief.
+
+"Yes, we are poorer than we thought; but when everything is settled, we
+shall get on very well.  We can let a part of this great house, and
+live quietly together until spring; then Laura will be married, and Di
+can go on their travels with them, as Philip wishes her to do.  We
+shall be cared for; so never fear for us, John."
+
+Nan said this, as her friend parted from her a week later, after the
+saddest holiday he had ever known.
+
+"And what becomes of you, Nan?" he asked, watching the patient eyes
+that smiled when others would have wept.
+
+"I shall stay in the dear old house; for no other place would seem like
+home to me.  I shall find some little child to love and care for, and
+be quite happy till the girls come back and want me."
+
+John nodded wisely, as he listened, and went away prophesying within
+himself,--
+
+"She shall find something more than a child to love; and, God willing,
+shall be very happy till the girls come home and--cannot have her."
+
+Nan's plan was carried into effect.  Slowly the divided waters closed
+again, and the three fell back into their old life.  But the touch of
+sorrow drew them closer; and, though invisible, a beloved presence
+still moved among them, a familiar voice still spoke to them in the
+silence of their softened hearts.  Thus the soil was made ready, and in
+the depth of winter the good seed was sown, was watered with many
+tears, and soon sprang up green with a promise of a harvest for their
+after years.
+
+Di and Laura consoled themselves with their favorite employments,
+unconscious that Nan was growing paler, thinner, and more silent, as
+the weeks went by, till one day she dropped quietly before them, and it
+suddenly became manifest that she was utterly worn out with many cares
+and the secret suffering of a tender heart bereft of the paternal love
+which had been its strength and stay.
+
+"I'm only tired, dear girls.  Don't be troubled, for I shall be up
+to-morrow," she said cheerily, as she looked into the anxious faces
+bending over her.
+
+But the weariness was of many months' growth, and it was weeks before
+that "to-morrow" came.
+
+Laura installed herself as nurse, and her devotion was repaid
+four-fold; for, sitting at her sister's bedside, she learned a finer
+art than that she had left.  Her eye grew clear to see the beauty of a
+self-denying life, and in the depths of Nan's meek nature she found the
+strong, sweet virtues that made her what she was.
+
+Then remembering that these womanly attributes were a bride's best
+dowry, Laura gave herself to their attainment, that she might become to
+another household the blessing Nan had been to her own; and turning
+from the worship of the goddess Beauty, she gave her hand to that
+humbler and more human teacher, Duty,--learning her lessons with a
+willing heart, for Philip's sake.
+
+Di corked her inkstand, locked her bookcase, and went at housework as
+if it were a five-barred gate; of course she missed the leap, but
+scrambled bravely through, and appeared much sobered by the exercise.
+Sally had departed to sit under a vine and fig-tree of her own, so Di
+had undisputed sway; but if dish-pans and dusters had tongues, direful
+would have been the history of that crusade against frost and fire,
+indolence and inexperience. But they were dumb, and Di scorned to
+complain, though her struggles were pathetic to behold, and her sisters
+went through a series of messes equal to a course of "Prince
+Benreddin's" peppery tarts. Reality turned Romance out of doors; for,
+unlike her favorite heroines in satin and tears, or helmet and shield,
+Di met her fate in a big checked apron and dust-cap, wonderful to see;
+yet she wielded her broom as stoutly as "Moll Pitcher" shouldered her
+gun, and marched to her daily martyrdom in the kitchen with as heroic a
+heart as the "Maid of Orleans" took to her stake.
+
+Mind won the victory over matter in the end, and Di was better all her
+days for the tribulations and the triumphs of that time; for she
+drowned her idle fancies in her wash-tub, made burnt-offerings of
+selfishness and pride, and learned the worth of self-denial, as she
+sang with happy voice among the pots and kettles of her conquered realm.
+
+Nan thought of John, and in the stillness of her sleepless nights
+prayed Heaven to keep him safe, and make her worthy to receive and
+strong enough to bear the blessedness or pain of love.
+
+Snow fell without, and keen winds howled among the leafless elms, but
+"herbs of grace" were blooming beautifully in the sunshine of sincere
+endeavor, and this dreariest season proved the most fruitful of the
+year; for love taught Laura, labor chastened Di, and patience fitted
+Nan for the blessing of her life.
+
+Nature, that stillest, yet most diligent of housewives, began at last
+that "spring cleaning" which she makes so pleasant that none find the
+heart to grumble as they do when other matrons set their premises
+a-dust.  Her hand-maids, wind and rain and sun, swept, washed, and
+garnished busily, green carpets were unrolled, apple-boughs were hung
+with draperies of bloom, and dandelions, pet nurslings of the year,
+came out to play upon the sward.
+
+From the South returned that opera troupe whose manager is never in
+despair, whose tenor never sulks, whose prima donna never fails, and in
+the orchard bona fide matinees were held, to which buttercups and
+clovers crowded in their prettiest spring hats, and verdant young
+blades twinkled their dewy lorgnettes, as they bowed and made way for
+the floral belles.
+
+May was bidding June good-morrow, and the roses were just dreaming that
+it was almost time to wake, when John came again into the quiet room
+which now seemed the Eden that contained his Eve. Of course there was a
+jubilee; but something seemed to have befallen the whole group, for
+never had they appeared in such odd frames of mind.  John was restless,
+and wore an excited look, most unlike his usual serenity of aspect.
+
+Nan the cheerful had fallen into a well of silence and was not to be
+extracted by any Hydraulic power, though she smiled like the June sky
+over her head.  Di's peculiarities were out in full force, and she
+looked as if she would go off like a torpedo at a touch; but through
+all her moods there was a half-triumphant, half-remorseful expression
+in the glance she fixed on John.  And Laura, once so silent, now sang
+like a blackbird, as she flitted to and fro; but her fitful song was
+always, "Philip, my king."
+
+John felt that there had come a change upon the three, and silently
+divined whose unconscious influence had wrought the miracle.  The
+embargo was off his tongue, and he was in a fever to ask that question
+which brings a flutter to the stoutest heart; but though the "man" had
+come, the "hour" had not.  So, by way of steadying his nerves, he paced
+the room, pausing often to take notes of his companions, and each pause
+seemed to increase his wonder and content.
+
+He looked at Nan.  She was in her usual place, the rigid little chair
+she loved, because it once was large enough to hold a curly-headed
+playmate and herself.  The old work-basket was at her side, and the
+battered thimble busily at work; but her lips wore a smile they had
+never worn before, the color of the unblown roses touched her cheek,
+and her downcast eyes were full of light.
+
+He looked at Di.  The inevitable book was on her knee, but its leaves
+were uncut; the strong-minded knob of hair still asserted its supremacy
+aloft upon her head, and the triangular jacket still adorned her
+shoulders in defiance of all fashions, past, present, or to come; but
+the expression of her brown countenance had grown softer, her tongue
+had found a curb, and in her hand lay a card with "Potts, Kettel & Co."
+inscribed thereon, which she regarded with never a scornful word for
+the "Co."
+
+He looked at Laura.  She was before her easel as of old; but the pale
+nun had given place to a blooming girl, who sang at her work, which was
+no prim Pallas, but a Clytie turning her human face to meet the sun.
+
+"John, what are you thinking of?"
+
+He stirred as if Di's voice had disturbed his fancy at some pleasant
+pastime, but answered with his usual sincerity,--
+
+"I was thinking of a certain dear old fairy tale called 'Cinderella.'"
+
+"Oh!" said Di; and her "Oh" was a most impressive monosyllable.  "I see
+the meaning of your smile now; and though the application of the story
+is not very complimentary to all parties concerned, it is very just and
+very true."
+
+She paused a moment, then went on with softened voice and earnest
+mien:--
+
+"You think I am a blind and selfish creature. So I am, but not so blind
+and selfish as I have been; for many tears have cleared my eyes, and
+much sincere regret has made me humbler than I was. I have found a
+better book than any father's library can give me, and I have read it
+with a love and admiration that grew stronger as I turned the leaves.
+Henceforth I take it for my guide and gospel, and, looking back upon
+the selfish and neglectful past, can only say, Heaven bless your dear
+heart, Nan!"
+
+Laura echoed Di's last words; for, with eyes as full of tenderness, she
+looked down upon the sister she had lately learned to know, saying,
+warmly,--
+
+"Yes, 'Heaven bless your dear heart, Nan!' I never can forget all you
+have been to me; and when I am far away with Philip, there will always
+be one countenance more beautiful to me than any pictured face I may
+discover, there will be one place more dear to me than Rome.  The face
+will be yours, Nan, always so patient, always so serene; and the dearer
+place will be this home of ours, which you have made so pleasant to me
+all these years by kindnesses as numberless and noiseless as the drops
+of dew."
+
+"Dear girls, what have I ever done, that you should love me so?" cried
+Nan, with happy wonderment, as the tall heads, black and golden, bent
+to meet the lowly brown one, and her sisters' mute lips answered her.
+
+Then Laura looked up, saying, playfully,--
+
+"Here are the good and wicked sisters;-where shall we find the Prince?"
+
+"There!" cried Di, pointing to John; and then her secret went off like
+a rocket; for, with her old impetuosity, she said,--
+
+"I have found you out, John, and am ashamed to look you in the face,
+remembering the past. Girls, you know when father died, John sent us
+money, which he said Mr. Owen had long owed us and had paid at last?
+It was a kind lie, John, and a generous thing to do; for we needed it,
+but never would have taken it as a gift.  I know you meant that we
+should never find this out; but yesterday I met Mr. Owen returning from
+the West, and when I thanked him for a piece of justice we had not
+expected of him, he gruffly told me he had never paid the debt, never
+meant to pay it, for it was outlawed, and we could not claim a
+farthing.  John, I have laughed at you, thought you stupid, treated you
+unkindly; but I know you now, and never shall forget the lesson you
+have taught me.  I am proud as Lucifer, but I ask you to forgive me,
+and I seal my real repentance so--and so."
+
+With tragic countenance, Di rushed across the room, threw both arms
+about the astonished young man's neck and dropped an energetic kiss
+upon his cheek.  There was a momentary silence; for Di finally
+illustrated her strong-minded theories by crying like the weakest of
+her sex.  Laura, with "the ruling passion strong in death," still tried
+to draw, but broke her pet crayon, and endowed her Clytie with a
+supplementary orb, owing to the dimness of her own.  And Nan sat with
+drooping eyes, that shone upon her work, thinking with tender
+pride,--"They know him now, and love him for his generous heart."
+
+Di spoke first, rallying to her colors, though a little daunted by her
+loss of self-control.
+
+"Don't laugh, John,--I couldn't help it; and don't think I'm not
+sincere, for I am,--I am; and I will prove it by growing good enough to
+be your friend.  That debt must all be paid, and I shall do it; for
+I'll turn my books and pen to some account, and write stories full of
+clear old souls like you and Nan; and some one, I know, will like and
+buy them, though they are not 'works of Shakespeare.' I've thought of
+this before, have felt I had the power in me; now I have the motive,
+and now I'll do it."
+
+If Di had Proposed to translate the Koran, or build a new Saint Paul's,
+there would have been many chances of success; for, once moved, her
+will, like a battering-ram, would knock down the obstacles her wits
+could not surmount.  John believed in her most heartily, and showed it,
+as he answered, looking into her resolute face,--
+
+"I know you will, and yet make us very proud of our 'Chaos,' Di.  Let
+the money lie, and when you have a fortune, I'll claim it with enormous
+interest; but, believe me, I feel already doubly repaid by the esteem
+so generously confessed, so cordially bestowed, and can only say, as we
+used to years ago,--'Now let's forgive and so forget."
+
+But proud Di would not let him add to her obligation, even by returning
+her impetuous salute; she slipped away, and, shaking off the last
+drops, answered with a curious mixture of old freedom and new respect,--
+
+"No more sentiment, please, John.  We know each other now; and when I
+find a friend, I never let him go.  We have smoked the pipe of peace;
+so let us go back to our wigwams and bury the feud.  Where were we when
+I lost my head? and what were we talking about?"
+
+"Cinderella and the Prince."
+
+As she spoke, John's eye kindled, and, turning, he looked down at Nan,
+who sat diligently ornamenting with microscopic stitches a great patch
+going on, the wrong side out.
+
+"Yes,--so we were; and now taking pussy for the godmother, the
+characters of the story are well personated,--all but the slipper,"
+said Di, laughing, as she thought of the many times they had played it
+together years ago.
+
+A sudden movement stirred John's frame, a sudden purpose shone in his
+countenance, and a sudden change befell his voice, as he said,
+producing from some hiding-place a little wornout shoe,--
+
+"I can supply the slipper;--who will try it first?"
+
+Di's black eyes opened wide, as they fell on the familiar object; then
+her romance-loving nature saw the whole plot of that drama which needs
+but two to act it. A great delight flushed up into her face, as she
+promptly took her cue, saying--
+
+"No need for us to try it, Laura; for it wouldn't fit us, if our feet
+were as small as Chinese dolls; our parts are played out; therefore
+'Exeunt wicked sisters to the music of the wedding-bells.'"
+
+And pouncing upon the dismayed artist, she swept her out and closed the
+door with a triumphant bang.
+
+John went to Nan, and, dropping on his knee as reverently as the herald
+of the fairy tale, he asked, still smiling, but with lips grown
+tremulous,--
+
+"Will Cinderella try the little shoe, and--if it fits--go with the
+Prince?"
+
+But Nan only covered up her face, weeping happy tears, while all the
+weary work strayed down upon the floor, as if it knew her holiday had
+come.
+
+John drew the hidden face still closer, and while she listened to his
+eager words, Nan heard the beating of the strong man's heart, and knew
+it spoke the truth.
+
+"Nan, I promised mother to be silent till I was sure I loved you
+wholly,--sure that the knowledge would give no pain when I should tell
+it, as I am trying to tell it now.  This little shoe has been mv
+comforter through this long year, and I have kept it as other lovers
+keep their fairer favors. It has been a talisman more eloquent to me
+than flower or ring; for, when I saw how worn it was, I always thought
+of the willing feet that came and went for others' comfort all day
+long; when I saw the little bow you tied, I always thought of the hands
+so diligent in serving any one who knew a want or felt a pain; and when
+I recalled the gentle creature who had worn it last, I always saw her
+patient, tender, and devout,--and tried to grow more worthy of her,
+that I might one day dare to ask if she would walk beside me all my
+life and be my 'angel in the house.' Will you, dear?  Believe me, you
+shall never know a weariness or grief I have the power to shield you
+from."
+
+Then Nan, as simple in her love as in her life, laid her arms about his
+neck, her happy face against his own, and answered softly,--
+
+"Oh, John, I never can be sad or tired any more!"
+
+
+
+DEBBY'S DEBUT.
+
+On a cheery June day Mrs. Penelope Carroll and her niece Debby Wilder,
+were whizzing along on their way to a certain gay watering-place, both
+in the best of humors with each other and all the world beside.  Aunt
+Pen was concocting sundry mild romances, and laying harmless plots for
+the pursuance of her favorite pastime, match-making; for she had
+invited her pretty relative to join her summer jaunt, ostensibly that
+the girl might see a little of fashionable life, but the good lady
+secretly proposed to herself to take her to the beach and get her a
+rich husband, very much as she would have proposed to take her to
+Broadway and get her a new bonnet: for both articles she considered
+necessary, but somewhat difficult for a poor girl to obtain.
+
+Debby was slowly getting her poise, after the excitement of a first
+visit to New York; for ten days of bustle had introduced the young
+philosopher to a new existence, and the working-day world seemed to
+have vanished when she made her last pat of butter in the dairy at
+home.  For an hour she sat thinking over the good-fortune which had
+befallen her, and the comforts of this life which she had suddenly
+acquired. Debby was a true girl, with all a girl's love of ease and
+pleasure; it must not be set down against her that she surveyed her
+pretty travelling-suit with much complacency, rejoicing inwardly that
+she could use her hands without exposing fractured gloves, that her
+bonnet was of the newest mode, needing no veil to hide a faded ribbon
+or a last year's shape, that her dress swept the ground with
+fashionable untidiness, and her boots were guiltless of a patch,--that
+she was the possessor of a mine of wealth in two of the eight trunks
+belonging to her aunt, that she was travelling like any lady of the
+land with man- and maid-servant at her command, and that she was
+leaving work and care behind her for a month or two of novelty and rest.
+
+When these agreeable facts were fully realized, and Aunt Pen had fallen
+asleep behind her veil, Debby took out a book, and indulged in her
+favorite luxury, soon forgetting past, present, and future in the
+inimitable history of Martin Chuzzlewit. The sun blazed, the cars
+rattled, children cried, ladies nodded, gentlemen longed for the solace
+of prohibited cigars, and newspapers were converted into sun-shades,
+nightcaps, and fans; but Debby read on, unconscious of all about her,
+even of the pair of eves that watched her from the Opposite corner of
+the car.  A Gentleman with a frank, strong-featured face sat therein,
+and amused himself by scanning with thoughtful gaze the countenances of
+his fellow-travellers.  Stout Aunt Pen, dignified even in her sleep,
+was a "model of deportment" to the rising generation; but the student
+of human nature found a more attractive subject in her companion, the
+girl with an apple-blossom face and merry brown eyes, who sat smiling
+into her book, never heeding that her bonnet was awry, and the wind
+taking unwarrantable liberties with her ribbons and her hair.
+
+Innocent Debby turned her pages, unaware that her fate sat opposite in
+the likeness of a serious, black-bearded gentleman, who watched the
+smiles rippling from her lips to her eyes with an interest that
+deepened as the minutes passed.  If his paper had been full of anything
+but "Bronchial Troches" and "Spalding's Prepared Glue," he would have
+found more profitable employment; but it wasn't, and with the usual
+readiness of idle souls he fell into evil ways, and permitted
+curiosity, that feminine sin, to enter in and take possession of his
+manly mind. A great desire seized him to discover what book his pretty
+neighbor; but a cover hid the name, and he was too distant to catch it
+on the fluttering leaves. Presently a stout Emerald-Islander, with her
+wardrobe oozing out of sundry paper parcels, vacated the seat behind
+the two ladies; and it was soon quietly occupied by the individual for
+whom Satan was finding such indecorous employment.  Peeping round the
+little gray bonnet, past a brown braid and a fresh cheek, the young
+man's eye fell upon the words the girl was reading, and forgot to look
+away again.  Books were the desire of his life; but an honorable
+purpose and an indomitable will kept him steady at his ledgers till he
+could feel that he had earned the right to read.  Like wine to many
+another was an open page to his; he read a line, and, longing for more,
+took a hasty sip from his neighbor's cup, forgetting that it was a
+stranger's also.
+
+Down the page went the two pairs of eyes, and the merriment from
+Debby's seemed to light up the sombre ones behind her with a sudden
+shine that softened the whole face and made it very winning.  No wonder
+they twinkled, for Elijah Pogram spoke, and "Mrs. Hominy, the mother of
+the modern Gracchi, in the classical blue cap and the red cotton
+pocket-handkerchief, came down the room in a procession of one." A low
+laugh startled Debby, though it was smothered like the babes in the
+Tower; and, turning, she beheld the trespasser scarlet with confusion,
+and sobered with a tardy sense of his transgression. Debby was not a
+starched young lady of the "prune and prism" school, but a frank,
+free-hearted little body, quick to read the sincerity of others, and to
+take looks and words at their real value.  Dickens was her idol; and
+for his sake she could have forgiven a greater offence than this.
+
+The stranger's contrite countenance and respectful apology won her
+good-will at once; and with a finer courtesy than any Aunt Pen would
+have taught, she smilingly bowed her pardon, and, taking another book
+from her basket, opened it, saying, pleasantly,--
+
+"Here is the first volume if you like it, Sir.  I can recommend it as
+an invaluable consolation for the discomforts of a summer day's
+journey, and it is heartily at your service."
+
+As much surprised as gratified, the gentleman accepted the book, and
+retired behind it with the sudden discovery that wrongdoing has its
+compensation in the pleasurable sensation of being forgiven. Stolen
+delights are well known to be specially saccharine: and much as this
+pardoned sinner loved books, it seemed to him that the interest of the
+story flagged, and that the enjoyment of reading was much enhanced by
+the proximity of a gray bonnet and a girlish profile. But Dickens soon
+proved more powerful than Debby, and she was forgotten, till, pausing
+to turn a leaf, the young man met her shy glance, as she asked, with
+the pleased expression of a child who has shared an apple with a
+playmate,--
+
+"Is it good?"
+
+"Oh, very!"--and the man looked as honestly grateful for the book as
+the boy would have done for the apple.
+
+Only five words in the conversation, but Aunt Pen woke, as if the
+watchful spirit of propriety had roused her to pluck her charge from
+the precipice on which she stood.
+
+"Dora, I'm astonished at you! Speaking to strangers in that free manner
+is a most unladylike thing.  How came you to forget what I have told
+you over and over again about a proper reserve?" The energetic whisper
+reached the gentleman's ear, and he expected to be annihilated with a
+look when his offence was revealed; but he was spared that ordeal, for
+the young voice answered, softly,--
+
+"Don't faint, Aunt Pen: I only did as I'd be done by; for I had two
+books, and the poor man looked so hungry for something to read that I
+couldn't resist sharing my 'goodies.' He will see that I'm a
+countrified little thing in spite of my fine feathers, and won't be
+shocked at my want of rigidity and frigidity; so don't look dismal, and
+I'll be prim and proper all the rest of the way,--if I don't forget it."
+
+"I wonder who he is; may belong to some of our first families, and in
+that case it might be worth while to exert ourselves, you know. Did you
+learn his name, Dora?" whispered the elder lady.
+
+Debby shook her head, and murmured, "Hush!"--but Aunt Pen had heard of
+matches being made in cars as well as in heaven; and as an experienced
+general, it became her to reconnoitre, when one of the enemy approached
+her camp. Slightly altering her position, she darted an
+all-comprehensive glance at the invader, who seemed entirely absorbed,
+for not an eyelash stirred during the scrutiny. It lasted but an
+instant, yet in that instant he was weighed and found wanting; for that
+experienced eye detected that his cravat was two inches wider than
+fashion ordained, that his coat was not of the latest style, that his
+gloves were mended, and his handkerchief neither cambric nor silk.
+That was enough, and sentence was passed forthwith,--"Some respectable
+clerk, good-looking, but poor, and not at all the thing for Dora"; and
+Aunt Pen turned to adjust a voluminous green veil over her niece's
+bonnet, "To shield it from the dust, dear," which process also shielded
+the face within from the eye of man.
+
+A curious smile, half mirthful, half melancholy, passed over their
+neighbor's lips; but his peace of mind seemed undisturbed, and he
+remained buried in his book Till they reached -----, at dusk.  As he
+returned it, he offered his services in procuring a carriage or
+attending to luggage; but Mrs. Carroll, with much dignity of aspect,
+informed him that her servants would attend to those matters, and,
+bowing gravely, he vanished into the night.
+
+As they rolled away to the hotel, Debby was wild to run down to the
+beach whence came the solemn music of the sea, making the twilight
+beautiful.  But Aunt Pen was too tired to do anything but sup in her
+own apartment and go early to bed; and Debby might as soon have
+proposed to walk up the great Pyramid as to make her first appearance
+without that sage matron to mount guard over her; so she resigned
+herself to pie and patience, and fell asleep, wishing it were to-morrow.
+
+At five, a. m., a nightcapped head appeared at one of the myriad
+windows of the ----- Hotel, and remained there as if fascinated by the
+miracle of sunrise over the sea.  Under her simplicity of character and
+girlish merriment Debby possessed a devout spirit and a nature full of
+the real poetry of life, two gifts that gave her dawning womanhood its
+sweetest charm, and made her what she was. As she looked out that
+summer dawn upon the royal marriage of the ocean and the sun, all petty
+hopes and longings faded out of sight, and her young face grew luminous
+with thoughts too deep for words.  Her day was happier for that silent
+hour, her life richer for the aspirations that uplifted her like
+beautiful strong angels, and left a blessing when they went.  The smile
+of the June sky touched her lips, the morning red seemed to linger on
+her cheek, and in her eye arose a light kindled by the shimmer of that
+broad sea of gold; for Nature rewarded her young votary well, and gave
+her beauty, when she offered love.  How long she leaned there Debby did
+not know; steps from below roused her from her reverie, and led her
+back into the world again.  Smiling at herself, She stole to bed, and
+lay wrapped in waking dreams as changeful as the shadows, dancing on
+her chamber-wall.
+
+The advent of her aunt's maid, Victorine, some two hours later, was the
+signal to be "up and doing"; and she meekly resigned herself into the
+hands of that functionary, who appeared to regard her in the light of
+an animated pin-cushion, as she performed the toilet-ceremonies with an
+absorbed aspect, which impressed her subject with a sense of the
+solemnity of the occasion.
+
+"Now, Mademoiselle, regard yourself, and pronounce that you are
+ravishing," Victorine said at length, folding her hands with a sigh of
+satisfaction, as she fell back in an attitude of serene triumph.
+
+Debby obeyed, and inspected herself with great interest and some
+astonishment; for there was a sweeping amplitude of array about the
+young lady whom she beheld in the much-befrilled gown and embroidered
+skirts, which somewhat alarmed her as to the navigation of a vessel
+"with such a spread of sail," while a curious sensation of being
+somebody else pervaded her from the crown of her head, with its shining
+coils of hair, to the soles of the French slippers, whose energies
+seemed to have been devoted to the production of marvellous rosettes.
+
+"Yes, I look very nice, thank you; and yet I feel like a doll, helpless
+and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a
+knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now.  Aunt Pen was very kind to
+get me all these pretty things; but I'm afraid my mother would look
+horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so
+little room to breath internally."
+
+"Your mamma would not flatter me, Mademoiselle; but come now to Madame;
+she is waiting to behold you, and I have yet her toilet to make "; and,
+with a pitying shrug, Victorine followed Debby to her aunt's room.
+
+"Charming! really elegant!" cried that lady, emerging from her towel
+with a rubicund visage.
+
+"Drop that braid half an inch lower, and pull the worked end of her
+handkerchief out of the right-hand pocket, Vic.  There! Now, Dora,
+don't run about and get rumpled, but sit quietly down and practice
+repose till I am ready."
+
+Debby obeyed, and sat mute, with the air of a child in its Sunday-best
+on a week-day, pleased with the novelty, but somewhat oppressed with
+the responsibility of such unaccustomed splendor, and utterly unable to
+connect any ideas of repose with tight shoes and skirts in a rampant
+state of starch.
+
+
+"Well, you see, I bet on Lady Gay against Cockadoodle, and if you'll
+believe me--Hullo! there's Mrs. Carroll, and deuse take me if she
+hasn't got a girl with her!  Look, Seguin!"--and Joe Leavenworth, a
+"man of the world," aged twenty, paused in his account of an exciting
+race to make the announcement.
+
+Mr. Seguin, his friend and Mentor, as much his, senior in worldly
+wickedness as in years, tore himself from his breakfast long enough to
+survey the new-comers, and then returned to it, saying, briefly,--
+
+"The old lady is worth cultivating,--gives good suppers, and thanks you
+for eating them. The girl is well got up, but has no style, and blushes
+like a milkmaid.  Better fight shy of her, Joe."
+
+"Do you think so?  Well, now I rather fancy that kind of thing.  She's
+new, you see, and I get on with that sort of girl the best, for the old
+ones are so deused knowing that a fellow has no chance of a--By the
+Lord Harry, she's eating bread and milk!"
+
+Young Leavenworth whisked his glass into his eye, and Mr. Seguin put
+down his roll to behold the phenomenon.  Poor Debby! her first step had
+been a wrong one.
+
+All great minds have their weak points.  Aunt Pen's was her breakfast,
+and the peace of her entire day depended upon the success of that meal.
+Therefore, being down rather late, the worthy lady concentrated her
+energies upon the achievement of a copious repast, and, trusting to
+former lessons, left Debby to her own resources for a few fatal
+moments. After the flutter occasioned by being scooped into her seat by
+a severe-nosed waiter, Debby had only courage enough left to refuse tea
+and coffee and accept milk.  That being done, she took the first
+familiar viand that appeared, and congratulated herself upon being able
+to get her usual breakfast. With returning composure, she looked about
+her and began to  enjoy the buzz of voices, the clatter of knives and
+forks, and the long lines of faces all intent upon the business of the
+hour; but her peace was of short duration. Pausing for a fresh relay of
+toast, Aunt Pen glanced toward her niece with the comfortable
+conviction that her appearance was highly creditable; and her dismay
+can be imagined, when she beheld that young lady placidly devouring a
+great cup of brown-bread and milk before the eyes of the assembled
+multitude.  The poor lady choked in her coffee, and between her gasps
+whispered irefully behind her napkin,--
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Dora, put away that mess! The Ellenboroughs are
+directly opposite, watching everything you do.  Eat that omelet, or
+anything respectable, unless you want me to die of mortification."
+
+Debby dropped her spoon, and, hastily helping herself from the dish her
+aunt pushed toward her, consumed the leathery compound with as much
+grace as she could assume, though unable to repress a laugh at Aunt
+Pen's disturbed countenance. There was a slight lull in the clatter,
+and the blithe sound caused several heads to turn toward the quarter
+whence it came, for it was as unexpected and pleasant a sound as a
+bobolink's song in a cage of shrill-voiced canaries.
+
+"She's a jolly little thing and powerful pretty, so deuse take me if I
+don't make up to the old lady and find out who the girl is.  I've been
+introduced to Mrs. Carroll at our house: but I suppose she won't
+remember me till I remind her."
+
+The "deuse" declining to accept of his repeated offers (probably
+because there was still too much honor and honesty in the boy,) young
+Leavenworth sought out Mrs. Carroll on the Piazza, as she and Debby
+were strolling there an hour later.
+
+"Joe Leavenworth, my dear, from one of our first families,--very
+wealthy,--fine match,--pray, be civil,--smooth your hair, hold back
+your shoulders, and put down your parasol," murmured Aunt Pen, as the
+gentleman approached with as much pleasure in his countenance as it was
+consistent with manly dignity to express upon meeting two of the
+inferior race.
+
+"My niece, Miss Dora Wilder.  This is her first season at the beach,
+and we must endeavor to make it pleasant for her, or she will be
+getting homesick and running away to mamma," said Aunt Pen, in her
+society-tone, after she had returned his greeting, and perpetrated a
+polite fiction, by declaring that she remembered him perfectly, for he
+was the image of his father.
+
+Mr. Leavenworth brought the heels of his varnished boots together with
+a click, and executed the latest bow imported, then stuck his glass in
+his eye and stared till it fell out, (the glass, not the eye,) upon
+which he fell into step with them, remarking,--
+
+"I shall be most happy to show the lions: they are deused tame ones, so
+you needn't be alarmed. Miss Wilder."
+
+Debby was good-natured enough to laugh; and, elated with that success,
+he proceeded to pour forth his stores of wit and learning in true
+collegian style, quite unconscious that the "jolly little thing" was
+looking him through and through with the smiling eyes that were
+producing such pleasurable sensations under the mosaic studs.  They
+strolled toward the beach, and, meeting an old acquaintance, Aunt Pen
+fell behind, and beamed upon the young pair as if her prophetic eye
+even at this early stage beheld them walking altarward in a proper
+state of blond white vest and bridal awkwardness.
+
+"Can you skip a stone, Mr. Leavenworth? asked Debby, possessed with a
+mischievous desire to shock the piece of elegance at her side.
+
+"Eh? what's that?" he inquired, with his head on one side, like an
+inquisitive robin.
+
+Debby repeated her question, and illustrated it by sending a stone
+skimming over the water in the most scientific manner.  Mr. Joe was
+painfully aware that this was not at all "the thing," that his sisters
+never did so, and that Seguin would laugh confoundedly, if he caught
+him at it; but Debby looked so irresistibly fresh and pretty under her
+rose-lined parasol that he was moved to confess that he had done such a
+thing, and to sacrifice his gloves by poking in the sand, that he might
+indulge in a like unfashionable pastime.
+
+"You'll be at the hop to-night, I hope, Miss Wilder," he observed,
+introducing a topic suited to a young lady's mental capacity.
+
+"Yes, indeed; for dancing is one of the joys of my life, next to
+husking and making hay"; and Debby polked a few steps along the beach,
+much to the edification of a pair of old gentlemen, serenely taking
+their first constitutional.
+
+"Making what?" cried Mr. Joe, poking after her.
+
+"Hay; ah, that is the pleasantest fun in the world,--and better
+exercise, my mother says, for soul and body, than dancing till dawn in
+crowded rooms, with everything in a state of unnatural excitement.  If
+one wants real merriment, let him go into a new-mown field, where all
+the air is full of summer odors, where wild-flowers nod along the
+walls, where blackbirds make finer music than any band, and sun and
+wind and cheery voices do their part, while windrows rise, and great
+loads go rumbling through the lanes with merry brown faces atop.  Yes,
+much as I like dancing, it is not to be compared with that; for in the
+one case we shut out the lovely world, and in the other we become a
+part of it, till by its magic labor turns to poetry, and we harvest
+something better than dried buttercups and grass."
+
+As she spoke, Debby looked up, expecting to meet a glance of
+disapproval; but something in the simple earnestness of her manner had
+recalled certain boyish pleasures as innocent as they were hearty,
+which now contrasted very favorably with the later pastimes in which
+fast horses, and that lower class of animals, fast men, bore so large a
+part.  Mr. Joe thoughtfully punched five holes in the sand, and for a
+moment Debby liked the expression of his face; then the old
+listlessness returned, and, looking up, he said, with an air of ennui
+that was half sad, half ludicrous, in one so young and so generously
+endowed with youth, health, and the good gifts of this life,--
+
+"I used to fancy that sort of thing years ago, but I'm afraid I should
+find it a little slow now, though you describe it in such an inviting
+manner that I would be tempted to try it, if a hay-cock came in my way;
+for, upon my life, it's deused heavy work loafing about at these
+watering-places all summer.  Between ourselves, there's a deal of
+humbug about this kind of life, as you will find, when you've tried it
+as long as I have."
+
+"Yes, I begin to think so already; but perhaps you can give me a few
+friendly words of warning from the stones of your experience, that I
+may be spared the pain of saying what so many look,--'Grandma, the
+world is hollow; my doll is stuffed with sawdust; and I should 'like to
+go into a convent, if you please.'"
+
+Debby's eyes were dancing with merriment; but they were demurely
+down-cast, and her voice was perfectly serious.
+
+The milk of human kindness had been slightly curdled for Mr. Joe by
+sundry college-tribulations; and having been "suspended," he very
+naturally vibrated between the inborn jollity of his temperament and
+the bitterness occasioned by his wrongs.
+
+He had lost at billiards the night before, had been hurried at
+breakfast, had mislaid his cigar-case, and splashed his boots;
+consequently the darker mood prevailed that morning, and when his
+counsel was asked, he gave it like one who bad known the heaviest
+trials of this "Piljin Projiss of a wale."
+
+"There's no justice in the world, no chance for us young people to
+enjoy ourselves, without some penalty to pay, some drawback to worry us
+like these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free
+and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till
+you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the
+Devil take the hindmost'; that's the principle they go on, and you have
+to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are
+done for before you know it.  I've seen a good deal of this sort of
+thing, and hope you'll get on better than some do, when it's known that
+you are the rich Mrs. Carroll's niece; though you don't need that fact
+to enhance your charms,--upon my life, you don't."
+
+Debby laughed behind her parasol at this burst of candor; but her
+independent nature prompted her to make a fair beginning, in spite of
+Aunt Pen's polite fictions and well-meant plans.
+
+"Thank you for your warning, but I don't apprehend much annoyance of
+that kind," she said, demurely.  "Do you know, I think, if young ladies
+were truthfully labelled when they went into society, it would be a
+charming fashion, and save a world of trouble? Something in this
+style:--'Arabella Marabout, aged nineteen, fortune $100,000, temper
+warranted'; 'Laura Eau-de-Cologne, aged twenty-eight, fortune $30,000,
+temper slightly damaged'; Deborah Wilder, aged eighteen, fortune, one
+pair of hands, one head, indifferently well filled, one heart, (not in
+the market,) temper decided, and no expectations.' There, you see, that
+would do away with much of the humbug you lament, and we poor souls
+would know at once whether we were sought for our fortunes or
+ourselves, and that would be so comfortable!"
+
+Mr. Leavenworth turned away, with a convicted sort of expression, as
+she spoke, and, making a spyglass of his hand, seemed to be watching
+something out at sea with absorbing interest.  He had been guilty of a
+strong desire to discover whether Debby was an heiress, but had not
+expected to be so entirely satisfied on that important subject, and was
+dimly conscious that a keen eye had seen his anxiety, and a quick wit
+devised a means of setting it at rest forever.  Somewhat disconcerted,
+he suddenly changed the conversation, and, like many another distressed
+creature, took to the water, saying briskly,--
+
+"By-the-by, Miss Wilder, as I've engaged to do the honors, shall I have
+the pleasure of bathing with you when the fun begins?  As you are fond
+of hay-making, I suppose you intend to pay your respects to the old
+gentleman with the three-pronged pitchfork?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt Pen means to put me through a course of salt water, and any
+instructions in the art of navigation will be gratefully received; for
+I never saw the ocean before, and labor under a firm conviction, that,
+once in, I never shall come out again till I am brought, like Mr.
+Mantilini, a 'damp, moist, unpleasant body.'"
+
+As Debby spoke, Mrs. Carroll hove in sight, coming down before the wind
+with all sails set, and signals of distress visible long before she
+dropped anchor and came along-side.  The devoted woman had been
+strolling slowly for the girl's sake, though oppressed with a mournful
+certainty that her most prominent feature was fast becoming a fine
+copper-color; yet she had sustained herself like a Spartan matron, till
+it suddenly occurred to her that her charge might be suffering a like
+
+  "sea-change
+  Into something rich and strange."
+
+Her fears, however, were groundless, for Debby met her without a
+freckle, looking all the better for her walk; and though her feet were
+wet with chasing the waves, and her pretty gown the worse for salt
+water, Aunt Pen never chid her for the destruction of her raiment, nor
+uttered a warning word against an unladylike exuberance of spirits, but
+replied to her inquiry most graciously,--
+
+"Certainly, my love, we shall bathe at eleven, and there will be just
+time to get Victorine and our dresses; so run on to the house, and I
+will join you as soon as I have finished what I am saying to Mrs.
+Earl,"--then added, in a stage-aside, as she put a fallen lock off the
+girl's forehead, "You are doing beautifully!  He is evidently struck;
+make yourself interesting, and don't burn your nose, I beg of you."
+
+Debby's bright face clouded over, and she walked on with so much
+stateliness that her escort wondered "what the deuse the old lady had
+done to her," and exerted himself to the utmost to recall her merry
+mood, but with indifferent success.
+
+
+"Now I begin to feel more like myself, for this is getting back to
+first principles, though I fancy I look like the little old woman who
+fell asleep on the king's highway and woke up with abbreviated drapery;
+and you look funnier still, Aunt Pen," said Debby, as she tied on her
+pagoda-hat, and followed Mrs. Carroll, who walked out of her
+dressing-room an animated bale of blue cloth surmounted by a gigantic
+sun-bonnet.
+
+Mr. Leavenworth was in waiting, and so like a blond-headed lobster in
+his scarlet suit that Debby could hardly keep her countenance as they
+joined the groups of bathers gathering along the breezy shore.
+
+For an hour each day the actors and actresses who played their
+different roles at the ----- Hotel with such precision and success put
+off their masks and dared to be themselves.  The ocean wrought the
+change, for it took old and young into its arms, and for a little while
+they played like children in their mother's lap.  No falsehood could
+withstand its rough sincerity; for the waves washed paint and powder
+from worn faces, and left a fresh bloom there.  No ailment could
+entirely resist its vigorous cure; for every wind brought healing on
+its wings, endowing many a meagre life with another year of health.  No
+gloomy spirit could refuse to listen to its lullaby, and the spray
+baptized it with the subtile benediction of a cheerier mood.  No rank
+held place there; for the democratic sea toppled down the greatest
+statesman in the land, and dashed over the bald pate of a millionnaire
+with the same white-crested wave that stranded a poor parson on the
+beach and filled a fierce reformer's mouth with brine.  No fashion
+ruled, but that which is as old as Eden,--the beautiful fashion of
+simplicity.  Belles dropped their affectations with their hoops, and
+ran about the shore blithe-hearted girls again. Young men forgot their
+vices and their follies, and were not ashamed of the real courage,
+strength, and skill they had tried to leave behind them with their
+boyish plays.  Old men gathered shells with the little Cupids dancing
+on the sand, and were better for that innocent companionship; and young
+mothers never looked so beautiful as when they rocked their babies on
+the bosom of the sea.
+
+Debby vaguely felt this charm, and, yielding to it, splashed and sang
+like any beach-bird, while Aunt Pen bobbed placidly up and down in a
+retired corner, and Mr. Leavenworth swam to and fro, expressing his
+firm belief in mermaids, sirens, and the rest of the aquatic
+sisterhood, whose warbling no manly ear can resist.
+
+"Miss Wilder, you must learn to swim.  I've taught quantities of young
+ladies, and shall be delighted to launch the 'Dora,' if you'll accept
+me as a pilot.  Stop a bit; I'll get a life-preserver," and leaving
+Debby to flirt with the waves, the scarlet youth departed like a flame
+of fire.
+
+A dismal shriek interrupted his pupil's play, and looking up, she saw
+her aunt beckoning wildly with one hand, while she was groping in the
+water with the other. Debby ran to her, alarmed at her tragic
+expression, and Mrs. Carroll, drawing the girl's face into the privacy
+of her big bonnet, whispered one awful word, adding, distractedly,--
+
+"Dive for them! oh, dive for them! I shall be perfectly helpless, if
+they are lost!"
+
+"I can't dive, Aunt Pen; but there is a man, let us ask him," said
+Debby, as a black head appeared to windward.
+
+But Mrs. Carroll's "nerves" had received a shock, and, gathering up her
+dripping garments, she fled precipitately along the shore and vanished
+into her dressing-room.
+
+Debby's keen sense of the ludicrous got the better of her respect, and
+peal after peal of laughter broke from her lips, till a splash behind
+her put an end to her merriment, and, turning, she found that this
+friend in need was her acquaintance of the day before.  The gentleman
+seemed pausing for permission to approach, with much the appearance of
+a sagacious Newfoundland, wistful and wet.
+
+"Oh, I'm very glad it's you, Sir!" was Debby's cordial greeting, as she
+shook a drop off the end of her nose, and nodded, smiling.
+
+The new-comer immediately beamed upon her like an amiable Triton,
+saying, as they turned shoreward,--
+
+"Our first interview opened with a laugh on my side, and our second
+with one on yours.  I accept the fact as a good omen.  Your friend
+seemed in trouble; allow me to atone for my past misdemeanors by
+offering my services now.  But first let me introduce myself; and as I
+believe in the fitness of things, let me present you with an
+appropriate card"; and, stooping, the young man wrote "Frank Evan" on
+the hard sand at Debby's feet.
+
+The girl liked his manner, and, entering into the spirit of the thing,
+swept as grand a curtsy as her limited drapery would allow saying,
+merrily,--
+
+"I am Debby Wilder, or Dora, as aunt prefers to call me; and instead of
+laughing, I ought to be four feet under water, looking for something we
+have lost; but I can't dive, and my distress is dreadful, as you see."
+
+"What have you lost?  I will look for it, and bring it back in spite of
+the kelpies, if it is a human possibility," replied Mr. Evan, pushing
+his wet locks out of his eyes, and regarding the ocean with a
+determined aspect.
+
+Debby leaned toward him, whispering with solemn countenance,--
+
+"It is a set of teeth, Sir."
+
+Mr. Evan was more a man of deeds than words, therefore he disappeared
+at once with a mighty splash, and after repeated divings and much
+laughter appeared bearing the chief ornament of Mrs. Penelope Carroll's
+comely countenance.  Debby looked very pretty and grateful as she
+returned her thanks, and Mr.  Evan was guilty of a secret wish that all
+the worthy lady's features were at the bottom of the sea, that he might
+have the satisfaction of restoring them to her attractive niece; but
+curbing this unnatural desire, he bowed, saying, gravely,--
+
+"Tell your aunt, if you please, that this little accident will remain a
+dead secret, so far as I am concerned, and I am very glad to have been
+of service at such a critical moment."
+
+Whereupon Mr. Evan marched again into the briny deep, and Debby trotted
+away to her aunt, whom she found a clammy heap of blue flannel and
+despair. Mrs. Carroll's temper was ruffled, and though she joyfully
+rattled in her teeth, she said, somewhat testily, when Debby's story
+was done,--
+
+"Now that man will have a sort of claim on us, and we must be civil,
+whoever he is. Dear! dear! I wish it had been Joe Leavenworth instead.
+Evan,--I don't remember any of our first families with connections of
+that name, and I dislike to be under obligations to a person of that
+sort, for there's no knowing how far he may presume; so, pray, be
+careful, Dora."
+
+"I think you are very ungrateful, Aunt Pen; and if Mr. Evan should
+happen to be poor, it does not become me to turn up my nose at him, for
+I'm nothing but a make-believe myself just now. I don't wish to go down
+upon my knees to him, but I do intend to be as kind to him as I should
+to that conceited Leavenworth boy; yes, kinder even; for poor people
+value such things more, as I know very well."
+
+Mrs. Carroll instantly recovered her temper, changed the subject, and
+privately resolved to confine her prejudices to her own bosom, as they
+seemed to have an aggravating effect upon the youthful person whom she
+had set her heart on disposing of to the best advantage.
+
+Debby took her swimming-lesson with much success, and would have
+achieved her dinner with composure, if white-aproned gentlemen had not
+effectually taken away her appetite by whisking bills-of-fare into her
+hands, and awaiting her orders with a fatherly interest, which induced
+them to congregate mysterious dishes before her, and blandly rectify
+her frequent mistakes. She survived the ordeal, however, and at four
+p.m. went to drive with "that Leavenworth boy" in the finest turnout
+----- could produce.  Aunt Pen then came off guard, and with a sigh of
+satisfaction subsided into a peaceful doze, still murmuring, even in
+her sleep,--
+
+"Propinquity, my love, propinquity works wonders."
+
+
+
+"Aunt Pen, are you a modest woman?" asked the young crusader against
+established absurdities, as she came into the presence-chamber that
+evening ready for the hop.
+
+"Bless the child, what does she mean?" cried Mrs. Carroll, with a start
+that twitched her back-hair out of Victorine's hands.
+
+"Would you like to have a daughter of yours go to a party looking as I
+look?" continued her niece, spreading her airy dress, and standing very
+erect before her astonished relative.
+
+"Why, of course I should, and be proud to own such a charming
+creature," regarding the slender white shape with much
+approbation,--adding, with a smile, as she met the girl's eye,--
+
+"Ah, I see the difficulty, now; you are disturbed because there is not
+a bit of lace over these pretty shoulders of yours.  Now don't be
+absurd, Dora; the dress is perfectly proper, or Madame Tiphany never
+would have sent it home. It is the fashion, child; and many a girl with
+such a figure would go twice as decolletee, and think nothing of it, I
+assure you."
+
+Debby shook her head with an energy that set the pink heather-bells
+a-tremble in her hair, and her color deepened beautifully as she said,
+with reproachful eyes,--
+
+"Aunt Pen, I think there is a better fashion in every young girl's
+heart than any Madame Tiphany can teach.  I am very grateful for all
+you have done for me, but I cannot go into public in such an undress as
+this; my mother would never allow it, and father never forgive it.
+Please don't ask me to, for indeed I cannot do it even for you."
+
+Debby looked so pathetic that both mistress and maid broke into a laugh
+which somewhat reassured the young lady, who allowed her determined
+features to relax into a smile, as she said,--
+
+"Now, Aunt Pen, you want me to look pretty and be a credit to you; but
+how would you like to see my face the color of those geraniums all the
+evening?"
+
+"Why, Dora, you are out of your mind to ask such a thing, when you know
+it's the desire of my life to keep your color down and make you look
+more delicate," said her aunt, alarmed at the fearful prospect of a
+peony-faced protegee.
+
+"Well, I should be anything but that, if I wore this gown in its
+present waistless condition; so here is a remedy which will prevent
+such a calamity and ease my mind."
+
+As she spoke, Debby tied on her little blonde fichu with a gesture
+which left nothing more to be said.
+
+Victorine scolded, and clasped her hands; but Mrs. Carroll, fearing to
+push her authority too far, made a virtue of necessity, saying,
+resignedly,--
+
+"Have your own way, Dora, but in return oblige me by being agreeable to
+such persons as I may introduce to you; and some day, when I ask a
+favor, remember how much I hope to do for you, and grant it cheerfully."
+
+"Indeed I will, Aunt Pen, if it is anything I can do without disobeying
+mother's 'notions' as you call them.  Ask me to wear an orange-colored
+gown, or dance with the plainest, poorest man in the room, and I'll do
+it; for there never was a kinder aunt than mine in all the world,"
+cried Debby, eager to atone for her seeming wilfulness, and really
+grateful for her escape from what seemed to her benighted mind a very
+imminent peril.
+
+Like a clover-blossom in a vase of camellias little Debby looked that
+night among the dashing or languid women who surrounded her; for she
+possessed the charm they had lost,--the freshness of her youth.
+Innocent gayety sat smiling in her eyes, healthful roses bloomed upon
+her cheek, and maiden modesty crowned her like a garland. She was the
+creature that she seemed, and, yielding to the influence of the hour,
+danced to the music of her own blithe heart. Many felt the spell whose
+secret they had lost the power to divine, and watched the girlish
+figure as if it were a symbol of their early aspirations dawning
+freshly from the dimness of their past. More than one old man thought
+again of some little maid whose love made his boyish days a pleasant
+memory to him now. More than one smiling fop felt the emptiness of his
+smooth speech, when the truthful eyes looked up into his own; and more
+than one pale woman sighed regretfully with herself, "I, too, was a
+happy-hearted creature once!"
+
+"That Mr. Evan does not seem very anxious to claim our acquaintance,
+after all, and I think better of him on that account.  Has he spoken to
+you to-night, Dora?" asked Mrs. Carroll, as Debby dropped down beside
+her after a "splendid polka."
+
+"No, ma'am, he only bowed.  You see some people are not so presuming as
+other people thought they were; for we are not the most attractive
+beings on the planet; therefore a gentleman can be polite and then
+forget us without breaking any of the Ten Commandments.  Don't be
+offended with him yet, for he may prove to be some great creature with
+a finer pedigree than any of your first families.' Mr. Leavenworth, as
+you know everybody, perhaps you can relieve Aunt Pen's mind, by telling
+her something about the tall, brown man standing behind the lady with
+salmon-colored hair."
+
+Mr. Joe, who was fanning the top of Debby's head with the best
+intentions in life, took a survey, and answered readily,--
+
+"Why, that's Frank Evan.  I know him, and a deused good fellow he
+is,--though he don't belong to our set, you know."
+
+"Indeed! pray, tell us something about him, Mr. Leavenworth.  We met in
+the cars, and he did us a favor or two.  Who and what is the man?"
+asked Mrs. Carroll, relenting at once toward a person who was favorably
+spoken of by one who did belong to her "set."
+
+"Well, let me see," began Mr. Joe, whose narrative powers were not
+great. "He is a bookkeeper in my Uncle Josh Loring's importing concern,
+and a powerful smart man, they say.  There's some kind of clever story
+about his father's leaving a load of debts, and Frank's working a
+deused number of years till they were paid.  Good of him, wasn't it?
+Then, just as he was going to take things easier and enjoy life a bit,
+his mother died, and that rather knocked him up, you see.  He fell
+sick, and came to grief generally, Uncle Josh said; so he was ordered
+off to get righted, and here he is, looking like a tombstone. I've a
+regard for Frank, for he took care of me through the smallpox a year
+ago, and I don't forget things of that sort; so, if you wish to be
+introduced, Mrs. Carroll, I'll trot him out with pleasure, and make a
+proud man of him."
+
+Mrs. Carroll glanced at Debby, and as that young lady was regarding Mr.
+Joe with a friendly aspect, owing to the warmth of his words, she
+graciously assented, and the youth departed on his errand.  Mr. Evan
+went through the ceremony with a calmness wonderful to behold,
+considering the position of one lady and the charms of the other, and
+soon glided into the conversation with the ease of a most accomplished
+courtier.
+
+"Now I must tear myself away, for I'm engaged to that stout Miss
+Bandoline for this dance. She's a friend of my sister's, and I must do
+the civil, you know; powerful slow work it is, too, but I pity the poor
+soul,--upon my life, I do;" and Mr. Joe assumed the air of a martyr.
+
+Debby looked up with a wicked smile in her eyes, as she said,--
+
+"Ah, that sounds very amiable here; but in five minutes you'll be
+murmuring in Miss Bandoline's earm--'I've been pining to come to you
+this half hour, but I was obliged to take out that Miss Wilder, you
+see--countrified little thing enough, but not bad-looking, and has a
+rich aunt; so I've done my duty to her, but deuse take me if I can
+stand it any longer."
+
+Mr. Evan joined in Debby's merriment; but Mr. Joe was so appalled at
+the sudden attack that he could only stammer a remonstrance and beat a
+hasty retreat, wondering how on earth she came to know that his
+favorite style of making himself agreeable to one young lady was by
+decrying another.
+
+"Dora, my love, that is very rude, and 'Deuse' is not a proper
+expression for a woman's lips. Pray, restrain your lively tongue, for
+strangers may not understand that it is nothing but the sprightliness
+of your disposition which sometimes runs away with you."
+
+"It was only a quotation, and I thought you would admire anything Mr.
+Leavenworth said, Aunt Pen," replied Debby, demurely.
+
+Mrs. Carroll trod on her foot, and abruptly changed the conversation,
+by saying, with an appearance of deep interest,--
+
+"Mr. Evan, you are doubtless connected with the Malcoms of Georgia; for
+they, I believe, are descended from the ancient Evans of Scotland. They
+are a very wealthy and aristocratic family, and I remember seeing their
+coat-of-arms once: three bannocks and a thistle."
+
+Mr. Evan had been standing before them with a composure which impressed
+Mrs. Carroll with a belief in his gentle blood, for she remembered her
+own fussy, plebeian husband, whose fortune had never been able to
+purchase him the manners of a gentleman.  Mr. Evan only grew a little
+more erect, as he replied, with an untroubled mien,--
+
+"I cannot claim relationship with the Malcoms of Georgia or the Evans
+of Scotland, I believe, Madam.  My father was a farmer, my grandfather
+a blacksmith, and beyond that my ancestors may have been
+street-sweepers, for anything I know; but whatever they were, I fancy
+they were honest men, for that has always been our boast, though, like
+President Jackson's, our coat-of-arms is nothing but 'a pair of
+shirt-sleeves.'"
+
+From Debby's eyes there shot a bright glance of admiration for the
+young man who could look two comely women in the face and serenely own
+that he was poor.  Mrs. Carroll tried to appear at ease, and, gliding
+out of personalities, expatiated on the comfort of "living in a land
+where fame and fortune were attainable by all who chose to earn them,"
+and the contempt she felt for those "who had no sympathy with the
+humbler classes, no interest in the welfare of the race," and many more
+moral reflections as new and original as the Multiplication-Table or
+the Westminster Catechism. To all of which Mr. Evan listened with
+polite deference, though there was something in the keen intelligence
+of his eye that made Debby blush for shallow Aunt Pen, and rejoice when
+the good lady got out of her depth and seized upon a new subject as a
+drowning mariner would a hen-coop.
+
+"Dora, Mr. Ellenborough is coming this way; you have danced with him
+but once, and he is a very desirable partner; so, pray, accept, if he
+asks you," said Mrs. Carroll, watching a far-off individual who seemed
+steering his zigzag course toward them.
+
+"I never intend to dance with Mr. Ellenborough again, so please don't
+urge me, Aunt Pen;" and Debby knit her brows with a somewhat irate
+expression.
+
+"My love, you astonish me!  He is a most agreeable and accomplished
+young man,--spent three years in Paris, moves in the first circles, and
+is considered an ornament to fashionable society.
+
+"What can be your objection, Dora?" cried Mrs. Carroll, looking as
+alarmed as if her niece had suddenly announced her belief in the Koran.
+
+"One of his accomplishments consists in drinking champagne till he is
+not a 'desirable partner' for any young lady with a prejudice in favor
+of decency.  His moving in 'circles' is just what I complain of; and if
+he is an ornament, I prefer my society undecorated.  Aunt Pen, I cannot
+make the nice distinctions you would have me, and a sot in broadcloth
+is as odious as one in rags. Forgive me, but I cannot dance with that
+silver-labelled decanter again."
+
+Debby was a genuine little piece of womanhood; and though she tried to
+speak lightly, her color deepened, as she remembered looks that had
+wounded her like insults, and her indignant eyes silenced the excuses
+rising to her aunt's lips.  Mrs. Carroll began to rue the hour she ever
+undertook the guidance of Sister Deborah's headstrong child, and for an
+instant heartily wished she had left her to bloom unseen in the shadow
+of the parsonage; but she concealed her annoyance, still hoping to
+overcome the girl's absurd resolve, by saying, mildly,--
+
+"As you please, dear; but if you refuse Mr. Ellenborough, you will be
+obliged to sit through the dance, which is your favorite, you know."
+
+Debby's countenance fell, for she had forgotten that, and the Lancers
+was to her the crowning rapture of the night.  She paused a moment, and
+Aunt Pen brightened; but Debby made her little sacrifice to principle
+as heroically as many a greater one had been made, and, with a wistful
+look down the long room, answered steadily, though her foot kept time
+to the first strains as she spoke,--
+
+"Then I will sit, Aunt Pen; for that is preferable to staggering about
+the room with a partner who has no idea of the laws of gravitation."
+
+"Shall I have the honor of averting either calamity?" said Mr. Evan,
+coming to the rescue with a devotion beautiful to see; for dancing was
+nearly a lost art with him, and the Lancers to a novice is equal to a
+second Labyrinth of Crete.
+
+"Oh, thank you!" cried Debby, tumbling fan, bouquet, and handkerchief
+into Mrs. Carroll's lap, with a look of relief that repaid him fourfold
+for the trials he was about to undergo.  They went merrily away
+together, leaving Aunt Pen to wish that it was according to the laws of
+etiquette to rap officious gentlemen over the knuckles, when they
+introduce their fingers into private pies without permission from the
+chief cook.  How the dance went Debby hardly knew, for the conversation
+fell upon books, and in the interest of her favorite theme she found
+even the "grand square" an impertinent interruption, while her own
+deficiences became almost as great as her partner's; yet, when the
+music ended with a flourish, and her last curtsy was successfully
+achieved, she longed to begin all over again, and secretly regretted
+that she was engaged four deep.
+
+"How do you like our new acquaintance, Dora?" asked Aunt Pen, following
+Joe Leavenworth with her eye, as the "yellow-haired laddie" whirled by
+with the ponderous Miss Flora.
+
+"Very much; and I'm glad we met as we did, for it makes things free and
+easy, and that is so agreeable in this ceremonious place," replied
+Debby, looking in quite an opposite direction.
+
+"Well, I'm delighted to hear you say so, dear, for I was afraid you had
+taken a dislike to him, and he is really a very charming young man,
+just the sort of person to make a pleasant companion for a few weeks.
+These little friendships are part of the summer's amusement, and do no
+harm; so smile away. Dora, and enjoy yourself while you may."
+
+"Yes, Aunt, I certainly will, and all the more because I have found a
+sensible soul to talk to. Do you know, he is very witty and well
+informed, though he says he never had much time for self-cultivation?
+But I think trouble makes people wise, and he seems to have had a good
+deal, though he leaves it for others to tell of.  I am glad you are
+willing I should know him, for I shall enjoy talking about my pet
+heroes with him as a relief from the silly chatter I must keep up most
+of the time."
+
+Mrs. Carroll was a woman of one idea; and though a slightly puzzled
+expression appeared in her face, she listened approvingly, and
+answered, with a gracious smile,--
+
+"Of course, I should not object to your knowing such a person, my love;
+but I'd no idea Joe Leavenworth was a literary man, or had known much
+trouble, except his father's death and his sister Clementina's
+runaway-marriage with her drawing-master."
+
+Debby opened her brown eyes very wide, and hastily picked at the down
+on her fan, but had no time to correct her aunt's mistake, for the real
+subject of her commendations appeared at that moment, and Mrs. Caroll
+was immediately absorbed in the consumption of a large pink ice.
+
+"That girl is what I call a surprise-party, now," remarked Mr. Joe
+confidentially to his cigar, as he pulled off his coat and stuck his
+feet up in the privacy of his own apartment. "She looks as mild as
+strawberries and cream till you come to the complimentary, then she
+turns on a fellow with that deused satirical look of hers, and makes
+him feel like a fool.  I'll try the moral dodge to-morrow and see what
+effect that will have; for she is mighty taking, and I must amuse
+myself somehow, you know."
+
+"How many years will it take to change that fresh-hearted little girl
+into a fashionable belle, I wonder?" thought Frank Evan, as he climbed
+the four flights that led to his "sky-parlor."
+
+"What a curious world this is!" mused Debby, with her nightcap in her
+hand.  "The right seems odd and rude, the wrong respectable and easy,
+and this sort of life a merry-go-round, with no higher aim than
+pleasure.  Well, I have made my Declaration of Independence, and Aunt
+Pen must be ready for a Revolution if she taxes me too heavily."
+
+As she leaned her hot cheek on her arm, Debby's eye fell on the quaint
+little cap made by the motherly hands that never were tired of working
+for her.  She touched it tenderly, and love's simple magic swept the
+gathering shadows from her face, and left it clear again, as her
+thoughts flew home like birds into the shelter of their nest.
+
+"Good night, mother! I'll face temptation steadily. I'll try to take
+life cheerily, and do nothing that shall make your dear face a
+reproach, when it looks into my own again."
+
+Then Debby said her prayers like any pious child, and lay down to dream
+of pulling buttercups with Baby Bess, and singing in the twilight on
+her father's knee.
+
+
+
+The history of Debby's first day might serve as a sample of most that
+followed, as week after week went by with varying pleasures and
+increasing interest to more than one young debutante.
+
+Mrs. Carroll did her best, but Debby was too simple for a belle, too
+honest for a flirt, too independent for a fine lady; she would be
+nothing but her sturdy little self, open as daylight, gay as a lark,
+and blunt as any Puritan.  Poor Aunt Pen was in despair, till she
+observed that the girl often "took" with the very peculiarities which
+she was lamenting; this somewhat consoled her, and she tried to make
+the best of the pretty bit of homespun which would not and could not
+become velvet or brocade.  Seguin, Ellenborough, & Co. looked with
+lordly scorn upon her, as a worm blind to their attractions.  Miss
+MacRimsy and her "set" quizzed her unmercifully behind her back, after
+being worsted in several passages of arms; and more than one successful
+mamma condoled with Aunt Pen upon the terribly defective education of
+her charge, till that stout matron could have found it in her heart to
+tweak off their caps and walk on them, like the irascible Betsey
+Trotwood.
+
+But Debby had a circle of admirers who loved her with a sincerity few
+summer queens could boast; for they were real friends, won by gentle
+arts, and retained by the gracious sweetness of her nature.  Moon-faced
+babies crowed and clapped their chubby hands when she passed by their
+wicker-thrones; story-loving children clustered round her knee, and
+never were denied; pale invalids found wild-flowers on their pillows;
+and forlorn papas forgot the state of the moneymarket when she sang for
+them the homely airs their daughters had no time to learn.  Certain
+plain young ladies poured their woes into her friendly ear, and were
+comforted; several smart Sophomores fell into a state of chronic
+stammer, blush, and adoration, when she took a motherly interest in
+their affairs; and a melancholy old Frenchman blessed her with the
+enthusiasm of his nation, because she put a posy in the button-hole of
+his rusty coat, and never failed to smile and bow as he passed by.  Yet
+Debby was no Edgworth heroine preternaturally prudent, wise, and
+untemptable; she had a fine crop of piques, vanities, and dislikes
+growing up under this new style of cultivation. She loved admiration,
+enjoyed her purple and fine linen, hid new-born envy, disappointed
+hope, and wounded pride behind a smiling face, and often thought with a
+sigh of the humdrum duties that awaited her at home.  But under the
+airs and graces Aunt Pen cherished with such sedulous care, under the
+flounces and furbelows Victorine daily adjusted with groans, under the
+polish which she acquired with feminine ease, the girl's heart still
+beat steadfast and strong, and conscience kept watch and ward that no
+traitor should enter in to surprise the citadel which mother-love had
+tried to garrison so well.
+
+In pursuance of his sage resolve,  Mr. Joe tried the "moral dodge," as
+he elegantly expressed it, and, failing in that, followed it up with
+the tragic, religious, negligent, and devoted ditto; but acting was not
+his forte, so Debby routed him in all; and at last, when he was at his
+wit's end for an idea, she suggested one, and completed her victory by
+saying pleasantly,--
+
+"You took me behind the curtain too soon, and now the paste-diamonds
+and cotton-velvet don't impose upon me a bit.  Just be your natural
+self, and we shall get on nicely, Mr. Leavenworth."
+
+The novelty of the proposal struck his fancy, and after a few relapses
+it was carried into effect and thenceforth, with Debby, he became the
+simple, good-humored lad Nature designed him to be, and, as a proof of
+it, soon fell very sincerely in love.
+
+Frank Evan, seated in the parquet of society, surveyed the dress-circle
+with much the same expression that Debby had seen during Aunt Pen's
+oration; but he soon neglected that amusement to watch several actors
+in the drama going on before his eyes, while a strong desire to perform
+a part therein slowly took possession of his mind.
+
+Debby always had a look of welcome when he came, always treated him
+with the kindness of a generous woman who has had an opportunity to
+forgive, and always watched the serious, solitary man with a great
+compassion for his loss, a growing admiration for his upright life.
+More than once the beach-birds saw two figures pacing the sands at
+sunrise with the peace of early day upon their faces and the light of a
+kindred mood shining in their eyes.  More than once the friendly ocean
+made a third in the pleasant conversation, and its low undertone came
+and went between the mellow bass and silvery treble of the human voices
+with a melody that lent another charm to interviews which soon grew
+wondrous sweet to man and maid.  Aunt Pen seldom saw the twain
+together, seldom spoke of Evan; and Debby held her peace, for, when she
+planned to make her innocent confessions, she found that what seemed
+much to her was nothing to another ear  and scarcely worth the telling;
+so, unconscious as yet whither the green path led, she went on her way,
+leading two lives, one rich and earnest, hoarded deep within herself,
+the other frivolous and gay for all the world to criticize.  But those
+venerable spinsters, the Fates, took the matter into their own hands,
+and soon got the better of those short-sighted matrons, Mesdames Grundy
+and Carroll; for, long before they knew it, Frank and Debby had begun
+to read together a book greater than Dickens ever wrote, and when they
+had come to the fairest part of the sweet story Adam first told Eve,
+they looked for the name upon the title-page, and found that it was
+"Love."
+
+Fight weeks came and went,--eight wonderfully happy weeks to Debby and
+her friend; for "propinquity" had worked more wonders than poor Mrs.
+Carroll knew, as the only one she saw or guessed was the utter
+captivation of Joe Leavenworth. He had become "himself" to such an
+extent that a change of identity would have been a relief; for the
+object of his adoration showed no signs of relenting, and he began to
+fear, that, as Debby said, her heart was "not in the market." She was
+always friendly, but never made those interesting betrayals of regard
+which are so encouraging to youthful gentlemen "who fain would climb,
+yet fear to fall." She never blushed when he pressed her hand, never
+fainted or grew pale when he appeared with a smashed trotting-wagon and
+black eye, and actually slept through a serenade that would have won
+any other woman's soul out of her body with its despairing quavers.
+Matters were getting desperate; for horses lost their charms, "flowing
+bowls" palled upon his lips, ruffled shirt-bosoms no longer delighted
+him, and hops possessed no soothing power to allay the anguish of his
+mind.  Mr. Seguin, after unavailing ridicule and pity, took compassion
+on him, and from his large experience suggested a remedy, just as he
+was departing for a more congenial sphere.
+
+"Now don't be an idiot, Joe, but, if you want to keep your hand in and
+go through a regular chapter of flirtation, just right about face, and
+devote yourself to some one else.  Nothing like jealousy to teach
+womankind their own minds, and a touch of it will bring little Wilder
+round in a jiffy.  Try it, my boy, and good luck to you!"--with which
+Christian advice Mr. Seguin slapped his pupil on the shoulder, and
+disappeared, like a modern Mephistopheles, in a cloud of cigar-smoke.
+
+"I'm glad he's gone, for in my present state of mind he's not up to my
+mark at all.  I'll try his plan, though, and flirt with Clara West;
+she's engaged, so it won't damage her affections; her lover isn't here,
+so it won't disturb his; and, by Jove!  I must do something, for I
+can't stand this suspense."
+
+Debby was infinitely relieved by this new move, and infinitely amused
+as she guessed the motive that prompted it; but the more contented she
+seemed, the more violently Mr. Joe flirted with her rival, till at last
+weak-minded Miss Clara began to think her absent George the most
+undesirable of lovers, and to mourn that she ever said "Yes" to a
+merchant's clerk, when she might have said it to a merchant's son.
+Aunt Pen watched and approved this stratagem, hoped for the best
+results, and believed the day won when Debby grew pale and silent, and
+followed with her eyes the young couple who were playing battledore and
+shuttle-cock with each other's hearts, as if she took some interest in
+the game. But Aunt Pen clashed her cymbals too soon; for Debby's
+trouble had a better source than jealousy, and in the silence of the
+sleepless nights that stole her bloom she was taking counsel of her own
+full heart, and resolving to serve another woman as she would herself
+be served in a like peril, though etiquette was outraged and the
+customs of polite society turned upside down.
+
+
+
+"Look, Aunt Pen! what lovely shells and moss I've got! Such a splendid
+scramble over the rocks as I've had with Mrs. Duncan's boys! It seemed
+so like home to run and sing with a troop of topsy-turvy children that
+it did me good; and I wish you had all been there to see." cried Debby,
+running into the drawing-room, one day, where Mrs. Carroll and a circle
+of ladies sat enjoying a dish of highly flavored scandal, as they
+exercised their eyesight over fancy-work.
+
+"My dear Dora, spare my nerves; and if you have any regard for the
+proprieties of life, don't go romping in the sun with a parcel of noisy
+boys.  If you could see what an object you are, I think you would try
+to imitate Miss Clara, who is always a model of elegant repose."
+
+Miss West primmed up her lips, and settled a fold in her ninth flounce,
+as Mrs. Carroll spoke, while the whole group fixed their eyes with
+dignified disapproval on the invader of their refined society.  Debby
+had come like a fresh wind into a sultry room; but no one welcomed the
+healthful visitant, no one saw a pleasant picture in the bright-faced
+girl with windtossed hair and rustic hat heaped with moss and
+many-tinted shells; they only saw that her gown was wet, her gloves
+forgotten, and her scarf trailing at her waist in a manner no well-bred
+lady could approve.  The sunshine faded out of Debby's face, and there
+was a touch of bitterness in her tone, as she glanced at the circle of
+fashion-plates, saying with an earnestness which caused Miss West to
+open her pale eyes to their widest extent,--
+
+"Aunt Pen, don't freeze me yet,--don't take away my faith in simple
+things, but let me be a child a little longer,--let me play and sing
+and keep my spirit blithe among the dandelions and the robins while I
+can; for trouble comes soon enough, and all my life will be the richer
+and the better for a happy youth."
+
+Mrs. Carroll had nothing at hand to offer in reply to this appeal, and
+four ladies dropped their work to stare; but Frank Evan looked in from
+the piazza, saying, as he beckoned like a boy,--
+
+"I'll play with you, Miss Dora; come and make sand pies upon the shore.
+Please let her, Mrs. Carroll; we'll be very good, and not wet our
+pinafores or feet."
+
+Without waiting for permission, Debby poured her treasures into the lap
+of a certain lame Freddy, and went away to a kind of play she had never
+known before.  Quiet as a chidden child, she walked beside her
+companion, who looked down at the little figure, longing to take it on
+his knee and call the sunshine back again.  That he dared not do; but
+accident, the lover's friend, performed the work, and did him a good
+turn beside.  The old Frenchman was slowly approaching, when a
+frolicsome wind whisked off his hat and sent it skimming along the
+beach.  In spite of her late lecture, away went Debby, and caught the
+truant chapeau just as a wave was hurrying up to claim it. This
+restored her cheerfulness, and when she returned, she was herself again.
+
+"A thousand thanks; but does Mademoiselle remember the forfeit I might
+demand to add to the favor she has already done me?" asked the gallant
+old gentleman, as Debby took the hat off her own head, and presented it
+with a martial salute.
+
+"Ah, I had forgotten that; but you may claim [text missing in original
+copy] do something more to give you pleasure;" and Debby looked up into
+the withered face which had grown familiar to her, with kind eyes, full
+of pity and respect.
+
+Her manner touched the old man very much; he bent his gray head before
+her, saying, gratefully,--
+
+"My child, I am not good enough to salute these blooming checks; but I
+shall pray the Virgin to reward you for the compassion you bestow on
+the poor exile, and I shall keep your memory very green through all my
+life."
+
+He kissed her hand, as if it were a queen's, and went on his way,
+thinking of the little daughter whose death left him childless in a
+foreign land.
+
+Debby softly began to sing, "Oh, come unto the yellow sands!" but
+stopped in the middle of a line, to say,--
+
+"Shall I tell you why I did what Aunt Pen would call a very unladylike
+and improper thing, Mr. Evans?"
+
+"If you will be so kind;" and her companion looked delighted at the
+confidence about to be reposed in him.
+
+"Somewhere across this great wide sea I hope I have a brother," Debby
+said, with softened voice and a wistful look into the dim horizon.
+"Five years ago he left us, and we have never heard from him since,
+except to know that he landed safely in Australia.  People tell us he
+is dead; but I believe he will yet come home; and so I love to help and
+pity any man who needs it, rich or poor, young or old, hoping that as I
+do by them some tender-hearted woman far away will do by Brother Will."
+
+As Debby spoke, across Frank Evan's face there passed the look that
+seldom comes but once to any young man's countenance; for suddenly the
+moment dawned when love asserted its supremacy, and putting pride,
+doubt, and fear underneath its feet, ruled the strong heart royally and
+bent it to its will.  Debby's thoughts had floated across the sea; but
+they came swiftly back when her companion spoke again, steadily and
+slow, but with a subtile change in tone and manner which arrested them
+at once.
+
+"Miss Dora, if you should meet a man who had known a laborious youth, a
+solitary manhood, who had no sweet domestic ties to make home beautiful
+and keep his nature warm, who longed most ardently to be so blessed,
+and made it the aim of his life to grow more worthy the good gift,
+should it ever come,--if you should learn that you possessed the power
+to make this fellow-creature's happiness, could you find it in your
+gentle heart to take compassion on him for the love of 'Brother Will'?"
+
+Debby was silent, wondering why heart and nerves and brain were stirred
+by such a sudden thrill, why she dared not look up, and why, when she
+desired so much to speak, she could only answer, in a voice that
+sounded strange to her own ears,--
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+Still, steadily and slow, with strong emotion deepening and softening
+his voice, the lover at her side went on,--
+
+"Will you ask yourself this question in some quiet hour?  For such a
+man has lived in the sunshine of your presence for eight happy weeks,
+and now, when his holiday is done, he finds that the old solitude will
+be more sorrowful than ever, unless he can discover whether his summer
+dream will change into a beautiful reality.  Miss Dora, I have very
+little to offer you; a faithful heart to cherish you, a strong arm to
+work for you, an honest name to give into your keeping,--these are all;
+but if they have any worth in your eyes, they are most truly yours
+forever."
+
+Debby was steadying her voice to reply, when a troop of bathers came
+shouting down the bank, and she took flight into her dressing-room,
+there to sit staring at the wall, till the advent of Aunt Pen forced
+her to resume the business of the hour by assuming her aquatic attire
+and stealing shyly down into the surf.
+
+Frank Evan, still pacing in the footprints they had lately made,
+watched the lithe figure tripping to and fro, and, as he looked,
+murmured to himself the last line of a ballad Debby sometimes sang,--
+
+  "Dance light! for my heart it lies under your feet, love!"
+
+Presently a great wave swept Debby up, and stranded her very near him,
+much to her confusion and his satisfaction. Shaking the spray out of
+her eyes, she was hurrying away, when Frank said,--
+
+"You will trip, Miss Dora; let me tie these strings for you;" and,
+suiting the action to the word, he knelt down and began to fasten the
+cords of her bathing shoe.
+
+Debby stood Looking down at the tall head bent before her, with a
+curious sense of wonder that a look from her could make a strong man
+flush and pale, as he had done; and she was trying to concoct some
+friendly speech, when Frank, still fumbling at the knots, said, very
+earnestly and low,--
+
+"Forgive me, if I am selfish in pressing for an answer; but I must go
+to-morrow, and a single word will change my whole future for the better
+or the worse.  Won't you speak it, Dora?"
+
+If they had been alone, Debby would have put her arms about his neck,
+and said it with all her heart; but she had a presentiment that she
+should cry, if her love found vent; and here forty pairs of eyes were
+on them, and salt water seemed superfluous.  Besides, Debby had not
+breathed the air of coquetry so long without a touch of the infection;
+and the love of power, that lies dormant in the meekest woman's breast,
+suddenly awoke and tempted her.
+
+"If you catch me before I reach that rock, perhaps I will say 'Yes,'"
+was her unexpected answer; and before her lover caught her meaning, she
+was floating leisurely away.
+
+Frank was not in bathing-costume, and Debby never dreamed that he would
+take her at her word; but she did not know the man she had to deal
+with; for, taking no second thought, he flung hat and coat away, and
+dashed into the sea.  This gave a serious aspect to Debby's foolish
+jest.  A feeling of dismay seized her, when she saw a resolute face
+dividing the waves behind her, and thought of the rash challenge she
+had given; but she had a spirit of her own, and had profited well by
+Mr. Joe's instructions: so she drew a long breath, and swam as if for
+life, instead of love. Evan was incumbered by his clothing, and Debby
+had much the start of him; but, like a second Leander, he hoped to win
+his Hero, and, lending every muscle to the work, gained rapidly upon
+the little hat which was his beacon through the foam.  Debby heard the
+deep breathing drawing nearer and nearer, as her pursuer's strong arms
+cleft the water and sent it rippling past her lips, something like
+terror took possession of her; for the strength seemed going out of her
+limbs, and the rock appeared to recede before her; but the
+unconquerable blood of the Pilgrims was in her veins, and "Nil
+desperandum" her motto; so, setting her teeth, she muttered,
+defiantly,--
+
+"I'll not be beaten, if I go to the bottom!"
+
+A great splashing arose, and when Evan recovered the use of his eyes,
+the pagoda-hat had taken a sudden turn, and seemed making for the
+farthest point of the goal. "I am sure of her now," thought Frank; and,
+like a gallant seagod, he bore down upon his prize, clutching it with a
+shout of triumph.  But the hat was empty, and like a mocking echo came
+Debby's laugh, as she climbed, exhausted, to a cranny in the rock.
+
+"A very neat thing, by Jove! Deuse take me if you a'n't 'an honor to
+your teacher, and a terror to the foe,' Miss Wilder," cried Mr. Joe, as
+he came up from a solitary cruise and dropped anchor at her side.
+"Here, bring along the hat, Evan; I'm going to crown the victor with
+appropriate what-d'ye-call-'ems," he continued, pulling a handful of
+sea-weed that looked like well-boiled greens.
+
+Frank came up, smiling; but his lips were white, and in his eye a look
+Debby could not meet; so, being full of remorse, she naturally assumed
+an air of gayety, and began to sing the merriest air she knew, merely
+because she longed to throw herself upon the stones and cry violently.
+
+"It was 'most as exciting as a regatta, and you pulled well, Evan; but
+you had too much ballast aboard, and Miss Wilder ran up false colors
+just in time to save her ship.  What was the wager?" asked the lively
+Joseph, complacently surveying his marine millinery, which would have
+scandalized a fashionable mermaid.
+
+"Only a trifle," answered Debby, knotting up her braids with a
+revengeful jerk.
+
+"It's taken the wind out of your sails, I fancy, Evan, for you look
+immensely Byronic with the starch minus in your collar and your hair in
+a poetic toss.  Come, I'll try a race with you; and Miss Wilder will
+dance all the evening with the winner.  Bless the man, what's he doing
+down there?  Burying sunfish, hey?"
+
+Frank had been sitting below them on a narrow strip of sand, absently
+piling up a little mound that bore some likeness to a grave.  As his
+companion spoke, he looked at it, and a sudden flush of feeling swept
+across his face, as he replied,--
+
+"No, only a dead hope."
+
+"Deuse take it, yes, a good many of that sort of craft founder in these
+waters, as I know to my sorrow;" and, sighing tragically.  Mr. Joe
+turned to help Debby from her perch, but she had glided silently into
+the sea, and was gone.
+
+For the next four hours the poor girl suffered the sharpest pain she
+had ever known; for now she clearly saw the strait her folly had
+betrayed her into. Frank Evan was a proud man, and would not ask her
+love again, believing she had tacitly refused it; and how could she
+tell him that she had trifled with the heart she wholly loved and
+longed to make her own?  She could not confide in Aunt Pen, for that
+worldly lady would have no sympathy to bestow. She longed for her
+mother; but there was no time to write, for Frank was going on the
+morrow,--might even then be gone; and as this fear came over her, she
+covered up her face and wished that she were dead.  Poor Debby! her
+last mistake was sadder than her first, and she was reaping a bitter
+harvest from her summer's sowing.  She sat and thought till her cheeks
+burned and her temples throbbed; but she dared not ease her pain with
+tears.  The gong sounded like a Judgment-Day trump of doom, and she
+trembled at the idea of confronting many eyes with such a telltale
+face; but she could not stay behind, for Aunt Pen must know the cause.
+She tried to play her hard part well; but wherever she looked, some
+fresh anxiety appeared, as if every fault and folly of those months had
+blossomed suddenly within the hour. She saw Frank Evan more sombre and
+more solitary than when she met him first, and cried regretfully within
+herself, "How could I so forget the truth I owed him?"--She saw Clara
+West watching with eager eyes for the coming of young Leavenworth, and
+sighed,--"This is the fruit of my wicked vanity!" She saw Aunt Pen
+regarded her with an anxious face, and longed to say, "Forgive me, for
+I have not been sincere!" At last, as her trouble grew, she resolved to
+go away and have a quiet "think,"--a remedy which had served her in
+many a lesser perplexity; so, stealing out, she went to a grove of
+cedars usually deserted at that hour.  But in ten minutes Joe
+Leavenworth appeared at the door of the summer house, and, looking in,
+said, with a well-acted start of pleasure and surprise,--
+
+"Beg pardon, I thought there was no one here, My dear Miss Wilder, you
+look contemplative; but I fancy it wouldn't do to ask the subject of
+your meditations, would it?"
+
+He paused with such an evident intention of remaining that Debby
+resolved to make use of the moment, and ease her conscience of one care
+that burdened it; therefore she answered his question with her usual
+directness,--
+
+"My meditations were partly about you."
+
+Mr. Joe was guilty of the weakness of blushing violently and looking
+immensely gratified; but his rapture was of short duration, for Debby
+went on very earnestly,--
+
+"I believe I am going to do what you may consider a very impertinent
+thing; but I would rather be unmannerly than unjust to others or untrue
+to my own sense of right.  Mr. Leavenworth, if you were an older man, I
+should not dare to say this to you; but I have brothers of my own, and,
+remembering how many unkind things they do for want of thought, I
+venture to remind you that a woman's heart is a perilous plaything, and
+too tender to be used for a selfish purpose or an hour's pleasure.  I
+know this kind of amusement is not considered wrong; but it is wrong,
+and I cannot shut my eyes to the fact, or sit silent while another
+woman is allowed to deceive herself and wound the heart that trusts
+her. Oh, if you love your own sisters, be generous, be just, and do not
+destroy that poor girl's happiness, but go away before your sport
+becomes a bitter pain to her!"
+
+Joe Leavenworth had stood staring at Debby with a troubled countenance,
+feeling as if all the misdemeanors of his life were about to be paraded
+before him; but, as he listened to her plea, the womanly spirit that
+prompted it appealed more loudly than her words, and in his really
+generous heart he felt regret for what had never seemed a fault before.
+Shallow as he was, nature was stronger than education, and he admired
+and accepted what many a wiser, worldlier man would have resented with
+anger or contempt.  He loved Debby with all his little might; he meant
+to tell her so, and graciously present his fortune and himself for her
+acceptance; but now, when the moment came, the well-turned speech he
+had prepared vanished from his memory, and with the better eloquence of
+feeling he blundered out his passion like a very boy.
+
+"Miss Dora, I never meant to make trouble between Clara and her lover;
+upon my soul, I didn't, and wish Seguin had not put the notion into my
+head, since it has given you pain.  I only tried to pique you into
+showing some regret, when I neglected you; but you didn't, and then I
+got desperate and didn't care what became of any one. Oh, Dora, if you
+knew how much I loved you, I am sure you'd forgive it, and let me prove
+my repentance by giving up everything that you dislike. I mean what I
+say; upon my life I do; and I'll keep my word, if you will only let me
+hope."
+
+If Debby had wanted a proof of her love for Frank Evan, she might have
+found it in the fact that she had words enough at her command now, and
+no difficulty in being sisterly pitiful toward her second suitor.
+
+"Please get up," she said; for Mr. Joe, feeling very humble and very
+earnest, had gone down upon his knees, and sat there entirely
+regardless of his personal appearance.
+
+He obeyed; and Debby stood looking up at him with her kindest aspect,
+as she said, more tenderly than she had ever spoken to him before,--
+
+"Thank you for the affection you offer me, but I cannot accept it, for
+I have nothing to give you in return but the friendliest regard, the
+most sincere good-will.  I know you will forgive me, and do for your
+own sake the good things you would have done for mine, that I may add
+to my esteem a real respect for one who has been very kind to me."
+
+"I'll try,--indeed, I will, Miss Dora, though it will be powerful hard
+without yourself for a help and a reward."
+
+Poor Joe choked a little, but called up an unexpected manliness, and
+added, stoutly,--
+
+"Don't think I shall be offended at your speaking so or saying 'No' to
+me,--not a bit; it's all right, and I'm much obliged to you.  I might
+have known you couldn't care for such a fellow as I am, and don't blame
+you, for nobody in the world is good enough for you.  I'll go away at
+once, I'll try to keep my promise, and I hope you'll be very happy all
+your life."
+
+He shook Debby's bands heartily, and hurried down the steps, but at the
+bottom paused and looked back. Debby stood upon the threshold with
+sunshine dancing on her winsome face, and kind words trembling on her
+lips; for the moment it seemed impossible to part, and, with an
+impetuous gesture, he cried to her,--
+
+"Oh, Dora, let me stay and try to win you! for everything is possible
+to love, and I never knew how dear you were to me till now!"
+
+There were sudden tears in the young man's eyes, the flush of a genuine
+emotion on his cheek, the tremor of an ardent longing in his voice,
+and, for the first time, a very true affection strengthened his whole
+countenance.  Debby's heart was full of penitence; she had given so
+much pain to more than one that she longed to atone for it--longed to
+do some very friendly thing, and soothe some trouble such as she
+herself had known.  She looked into the eager face uplifted to her own
+and thought of Will, then stooped and touched her lover's forehead with
+the lips that softly whispered, "No."
+
+If she had cared for him, she never would have done it; poor Joe knew
+that, and murmuring an incoherent "Thank you!" he rushed away, feeling
+very much as he remembered to have felt when his baby sister died and
+he wept his grief away upon his mother's neck.  He began his
+preparations for departure at once, in a burst of virtuous energy quite
+refreshing to behold, thinking within himself, as he flung his
+cigar-case into the grate, kicked a billiard-ball into a corner, and
+suppressed his favorite allusion to the Devil,--
+
+"This is a new sort of thing to me, but I can bear it, and upon my life
+I think I feel the better for it already."
+
+And so he did; for though he was no Augustine to turn in an hour from
+worldly hopes and climb to sainthood through long years of inward
+strife, yet in aftertimes no one knew how many false steps had been
+saved, how many small sins repented of, through the power of the memory
+that far away a generous woman waited to respect him, and in his secret
+soul he owned that one of the best moments of his life was that in
+which little Debby Wilder whispered "No," and kissed him.
+
+As he passed from sight, the girl leaned her head upon her hand,
+thinking sorrowfully to herself,--
+
+"What right had I to censure him, when my own actions are so far from
+true?  I have done a wicked thing, and as an honest girl I should undo
+it, if I can.  I have broken through the rules of a false propriety for
+Clara's sake; can I not do as much for Frank's?  I will. I'll find him,
+if I search the house,--and tell him all, though I never dare to look
+him in the face again, and Aunt Pen sends me home to-morrow."
+
+Full of zeal and courage, Debby caught up her hat and ran down the
+steps, but, as she saw Frank Evan coming up the path, a sudden panic
+fell upon her, and she could only stand mutely waiting his approach.
+
+It is asserted that Love is blind; and on the strength of that popular
+delusion novel heroes and heroines go blundering through three volumes
+of despair with the plain truth directly under their absurd noses: but
+in real life this theory is not supported; for to a living man the
+countenance of a loving woman is more eloquent than any language, more
+trustworthy than a world of proverbs, more beautiful than the sweetest
+love-lay ever sung.
+
+Frank looked at Debby, and "all her heart stood up in her eyes," as she
+stretched her hands to him, though her lips only whispered very low,--
+
+"Forgive me, and let me say the 'Yes' I should have said so long ago."
+
+Had she required any assurance of her lover's truth, or any reward for
+her own, she would have found it in the change that dawned so swiftly
+in his face, smoothing the lines upon his forehead, lighting the gloom
+of his eye, stirring his firm lips with a sudden tremor, and making his
+touch as soft as it was strong.  For a moment both stood very still,
+while Debby's tears streamed down like summer rain; then Frank drew her
+into the green shadow of the grove, and its peace soothed her like a
+mother's voice, till she looked up smiling with a shy delight her
+glance had never known before.  The slant sunbeams dropped a
+benediction on their heads, the robins peeped, and the cedars
+whispered, but no rumor of what further passed ever went beyond the
+precincts of the wood; for such hours are sacred, and Nature guards the
+first blossoms of a human love as tenderly as she nurses May-flowers
+underneath the leaves.
+
+
+
+Mrs. Carroll had retired to her bed with a nervous headache, leaving
+Debby to the watch and ward of friendly Mrs. Earle, who performed her
+office finely by letting her charge entirely alone. In her dreams Aunt
+Pen was just imbibing a copious draught of champagne at the
+wedding-breakfast of her niece, "Mrs. Joseph Leavenworth," when she was
+roused by the bride elect, who passed through the room with a lamp and
+a shawl in her hand.
+
+"What time is it, and where are you going, dear?" she asked, dozily
+wondering if the carriage for the wedding-tour was at the door so soon.
+
+"It's only nine, and I am going for a sail, Aunt Pen."
+
+As Debby spoke, the light flashed full into her face, and a sudden
+thought into Mrs. Carroll's mind.  She rose up from her pillow, looking
+as stately in her night-cap as Maria Theresa is said to have done in
+like unassuming head-gear.
+
+"Something has happened, Dora!  What have you done?  What have you
+said?  I insist upon knowing immediately," she demanded, with somewhat
+startling brevity.
+
+"I have said 'No' to Mr. Leavenworth and 'Yes' to Mr. Evan; and I
+should like to go home to-morrow, if you please," was the equally
+concise reply.
+
+Mrs. Carroll fell flat in her bed, and lay there stiff and rigid as
+Morlena Kenwigs.  Debby gently drew the curtains, and stole away
+leaving Aunt Pen's wrath to effervesce before morning.
+
+The moon was hanging luminous and large on the horizon's edge, sending
+shafts of light before her till the melancholy ocean seemed to smile,
+and along that shining pathway happy Debby and her lover floated into
+that new world where all things seem divine.
+
+
+
+THE BROTHERS.
+
+Doctor Franck came in as I sat sewing up the rents in an old shirt,
+that Tom might go tidily to his grave.  New shirts were needed for the
+living, and there was no wife or mother to "dress him handsome when he
+went to meet the Lord," as one woman said, describing the fine funeral
+she had pinched herself to give her son.
+
+"Miss Dane, I'm in a quandary," began the Doctor, with that expression
+of countenance which says as plainly as words, "I want to ask a favor,
+but I wish you'd save me the trouble."
+
+"Can I help you out of it?
+
+"Faith!  I don't like to propose it, but you certainly can, if you
+please."
+
+"Then give it a name, I beg."
+
+"You see a Reb has just been brought in crazy with typhoid; a bad case
+every way; a drunken, rascally little captain somebody took the trouble
+to capture, but whom nobody wants to take the trouble to cure.  The
+wards are full, the ladies worked to death, and willing to be for our
+own boys, but rather slow to risk their lives for a Reb. Now you've had
+the fever, you like queer patients, your mate will see to your ward for
+a while, and I will find you a good attendant.  The fellow won't last
+long, I fancy; but he can't die without some sort of care, you know.
+I've put him in the fourth story of the west wing, away from the rest.
+It is airy, quiet, and comfortable there. I'm on that ward, and will do
+my best for you in every way. Now, then, will you go?"
+
+"Of course I will, out of perversity, if not common charity; for some
+of these people think that because I'm an abolitionist I am also a
+heathen, and I should rather like to show them, that, though I cannot
+quite love my enemies, I am willing to take care of them."
+
+"Very good; I thought you'd go; and speaking of abolition reminds me
+that you can have a contraband for servant, if you like. It is that
+fine mulatto fellow who was found burying his Rebel master after the
+fight, and, being badly cut over the head, our boys brought him along.
+Will you have him?"
+
+"By all means,--for I'll stand to my guns on that point, as on the
+other; these black boys are far more faithful and handy than some of
+the white scamps given me to serve, instead of being served by. But is
+this man well enough?"
+
+"Yes, for that sort of work, and I think you'll like him.  He must have
+been a handsome fellow before he got his face slashed; not much darker
+than myself; his master's son, I dare say, and the white blood makes
+him rather high and haughty about some things.  He was in a bad way
+when he came in, but vowed he'd die in the street rather than turn in
+with the black fellows below; so I put him up in the west wing, to be
+out of the way, and he's seen to the captain all the morning. When can
+you go up?"
+
+"As soon as Tom is laid out, Skinner moved, Haywood washed, Marble
+dressed, Charley rubbed, Downs taken up, Upham laid down, and the whole
+forty fed."
+
+We both laughed, though the Doctor was on his way to the dead-house and
+I held a shroud on my lap.  But in a hospital one learns that
+cheerfulness is one's salvation; for, in an atmosphere of suffering and
+death, heaviness of heart would soon paralyze usefulness of hand, if
+the blessed gift of smiles had been denied us.
+
+In an hour I took possession of my new charge, finding a
+dissipated-looking boy of nineteen or twenty raving in the solitary
+little room, with no one near him but the contraband in the room
+adjoining. Feeling decidedly more interest in the black man than in the
+white, yet remembering the Doctor's hint of his being "high and
+haughty," I glanced furtively at him as I scattered chloride of lime
+about the room to purify the air, and settled matters to suit myself.
+I had seen many contrabands, but never one so attractive as this.  All
+colored men are called "boys," even if their heads are white; this boy
+was five-and-twenty at least, strong-limbed and manly, and had the look
+of one who never had been cowed by abuse or worn with oppressive labor.
+He sat on his bed doing nothing; no book, no pipe, no pen or paper
+anywhere appeared, yet anything less indolent or listless than his
+attitude and expression I never saw.  Erect he sat with a hand on
+either knee, and eyes fixed on the bare wall opposite, so rapt in some
+absorbing thought as to be unconscious of my presence, though the door
+stood wide open and my movements were by no means noiseless.  His face
+was half averted, but I instantly approved the Doctor's taste, for the
+profile which I saw possessed all the attributes of comeliness
+belonging to his mixed race. He was more quadroon than mulatto, with
+Saxon features, Spanish complexion darkened by exposure, color in lips
+and cheek, waving hair, and an eye full of the passionate melancholy
+which in such men always seems to utter a mute protest against the
+broken law that doomed them at their birth.  What could he be thinking
+of? The sick boy cursed and raved, I rustled to and fro, steps passed
+the door, bells rang, and the steady rumble of army-wagons came up from
+the street, still he never stirred.  I had seen colored people in what
+they call "the black sulks," when, for days, they neither smiled nor
+spoke, and scarcely ate.  But this was something more than that; for
+the man was not dully brooding over some small grievance,--he seemed to
+see an all-absorbing fact or fancy recorded on the wall, which was a
+blank to me. I wondered if it were some deep wrong or sorrow, kept
+alive by memory and impotent regret; if he mourned for the dead master
+to whom he had been faithful to the end; or if the liberty now his were
+robbed of half its sweetness by the knowledge that some one near and
+dear to him still languished in the hell from which he had escaped.  My
+heart quite warmed to him at that idea; I wanted to know and comfort
+him; and, following the impulse of the moment, I went in and touched
+him on the shoulder.
+
+In an instant the man vanished and the slave appeared.  Freedom was too
+new a boon to have wrought its blessed changes yet, and as he started
+up, with his hand at his temple and an obsequious "Yes, Ma'am," any
+romance that had gathered round him fled away, leaving the saddest of
+all sad facts in living guise before me.  Not only did the manhood seem
+to die out of him, but the comeliness that first attracted me; for, as
+he turned, I saw the ghastly wound that had laid open cheek and
+forehead. Being partly healed, it was no longer bandaged, but held
+together with strips of that transparent plaster which I never see
+without a shiver and swift recollections of scenes with which it is
+associated in my mind. Part of his black hair had been shorn away, and
+one eye was nearly closed; pain so distorted, and the cruel sabre-cut
+so marred that portion of his face, that, when I saw it, I felt as if a
+fine medal had been suddenly reversed, showing me a far more striking
+type of human suffering and wrong than Michel Angelo's bronze prisoner.
+By one of those inexplicable processes that often teach us how little
+we understand ourselves, my purpose was suddenly changed, and though I
+went in to offer comfort as a friend, I merely gave an order as a
+mistress.
+
+"Will you open these windows? this man needs more air."
+
+He obeyed at once, and, as he slowly urged up the unruly sash, the
+handsome profile was again turned toward me, and again I was possessed
+by my first impression so strongly that I involuntarily said,--
+
+"Thank you, Sir."
+
+Perhaps it was fancy, but I thought that in the look of mingled
+surprise and something like reproach which he gave me there was also a
+trace of grateful pleasure. But he said, in that tone of spiritless
+humility these poor souls learn so soon,--
+
+"I ain't a white man, Ma'am, I'm a contraband."
+
+"Yes, I know it; but a contraband is a free man, and I heartily
+congratulate you."
+
+He liked that; his face shone, he squared his shoulders, lifted his
+head, and looked me full in the eye with a brisk--
+
+"Thank ye, Ma'am; anything more to do fer yer?"
+
+"Doctor Franck thought you would help me with this man, as there are
+many patients and few nurses or attendants.  Have you had the fever?"
+
+"No, Ma'am."
+
+"They should have thought of that when they put him here; wounds and
+fevers should not be together. I'll try to get you moved."
+
+He laughed a sudden laugh,--if he had been a white man, I should have
+called it scornful; as he was a few shades darker than myself, I
+suppose it must be considered an insolent, or at least an unmannerly
+one.
+
+"It don't matter, Ma'am. I'd rather be up here with the fever than down
+with those niggers; and there ain't no other place fer me."
+
+Poor fellow! that was true.  No ward in all the hospital would take him
+in to lie side by side with the most miserable white wreck there.  Like
+the bat in Aesop's fable, he belonged to neither race; and the pride of
+one, the helplessness of the other, kept him hovering alone in the
+twilight a great sin has brought to overshadow the whole land.
+
+"You shall stay, then; for I would far rather have you than any lazy
+Jack.  But are you well and strong enough?"
+
+"I guess I'll do, Ma'am."
+
+He spoke with a passive sort of acquiescence,--as if it did not much
+matter, if he were not able, and no one would particularly rejoice, if
+he were.
+
+"Yes, I think you will.  By what name shall I call you?"
+
+"Bob, Ma'am."
+
+Every woman has her pet whim; one of mine was to teach the men
+self-respect by treating them respectfully.  Tom, Dick, and Harry would
+pass, when lads rejoiced in those familiar abbreviations; but to
+address men often old enough to be my father in that style did not suit
+my old-fashioned ideas of propriety.  This "Bob" would never do; I
+should have found it as easy to call the chaplain "Gus" as my
+tragical-looking contraband by a title so strongly associated with the
+tail of a kite.
+
+"What is your other name?" I asked. "I like to call my attendants by
+their last names rather than by their first."
+
+"I've got no other, Ma'am; we have our masters' names, or do without.
+Mine's dead, and I won't have anything of his about me."
+
+"Well, I'll call you Robert, then, and you may fill this pitcher for
+me, if you will be so kind."
+
+He went; but, through all the tame, obedience years of servitude had
+taught him, I could see that the proud spirit his father gave him was
+not yet subdued, for the look and gesture with which he repudiated his
+master's name were a more effective declaration of independence than
+any Fourth-of-July orator could have prepared.
+
+We spent a curious week together.  Robert seldom left his room, except
+upon my errands; and I was a prisoner all day, often all night, by the
+bedside of the Rebel.  The fever burned itself rapidly away, for there
+seemed little vitality to feed it in the feeble frame of this old young
+man, whose life had been none of the most righteous, judging from the
+revelations made by his unconscious lips; since more than once Robert
+authoritatively silenced him, when my gentler bushings were of no
+avail, and blasphemous wanderings or ribald camp-songs made my cheeks
+burn and Robert's face assume an aspect of disgust.  The captain was a
+gentleman in the world's eye, but the contraband was the gentleman in
+mine;--I was a fanatic, and that accounts for such depravity of taste,
+I hope. I never asked Robert of himself, feeling that somewhere there
+was a spot still too sore to bear the lightest touch; but, from his
+language, manner, and intelligence, I inferred that his color had
+procured for him the few advantages within the reach of a quick-witted,
+kindly treated slave.  Silent, grave, and thoughtful, but most
+serviceable, was my contraband; glad of the books I brought him,
+faithful in the performance of the duties I assigned to him, grateful
+for the friendliness I could not but feel and show toward him.  Often I
+longed to ask what purpose was so visibly altering his aspect with such
+daily deepening gloom.  But I never dared, and no one else had either
+time or desire to pry into the past of this specimen of one branch of
+the chivalrous "F.F.Vs."
+
+On the seventh night, Dr. Franck suggested that it would be well for
+some one, besides the general watchman of the ward, to be with the
+captain, as it might be his last.  Although the greater part of the two
+preceding nights had been spent there, of course I offered to
+remain,--for there is a strange fascination in these scenes, which
+renders one careless of fatigue and unconscious of fear until the
+crisis is passed.
+
+"Give him water as long as he can drink, and if he drops into a natural
+sleep, it may save him. I'll look in at midnight, when some change will
+probably take place. Nothing but sleep or a miracle will keep him now.
+Good night."
+
+Away went the Doctor; and, devouring a whole mouthful of grapes, I
+lowered the lamp, wet the captain's head, and sat down on a hard stool
+to begin my watch.  The captain lay with his hot, haggard face turned
+toward me, filling the air with his poisonous breath, and feebly
+muttering, with lips and tongue so parched that the sanest speech would
+have been difficult to understand. Robert was stretched on his bed in
+the inner room, the door of which stood ajar, that a fresh draught from
+his open window might carry the fever-fumes away through mine.  I could
+just see a long, dark figure, with the lighter outline of a face, and,
+having little else to do just then, I fell to thinking of this curious
+contraband, who evidently prized his freedom highly, yet seemed in no
+haste to enjoy it. Doctor Franck had offered to send him on to safer
+quarters, but he had said, "No, thank yer, Sir, not yet," and then had
+gone away to fall into one of those black moods of his, which began to
+disturb me, because I had no power to lighten them.  As I sat listening
+to the clocks from the steeples all about us, I amused myself with
+planning Robert's future, as I often did my own, and had dealt out to
+him a generous hand of trumps wherewith to play this game of life which
+hitherto had gone so cruelly against him, when a harsh, choked voice
+called,--
+
+"Lucy!"
+
+It was the captain, and some new terror seemed to have gifted him with
+momentary strength.
+
+"Yes, here's Lucy," I answered, hoping that by following the fancy I
+might quiet him,--for his face was damp with the clammy moisture, and
+his frame shaken with the nervous tremor that so often precedes death.
+His dull eye fixed upon me, dilating with a bewildered look of
+incredulity and wrath, till he broke out fiercely.--
+
+"That's a lie! she's dead,--and so's Bob, damn him!"
+
+Finding speech a failure, I began to sing the quiet tune that had often
+soothed delirium like this; but hardly had the line,
+
+  "See gentle patience smile on pain,"
+
+passed my lips, when he clutched me by the wrist, whispering like one
+in mortal fear,--
+
+"Hush! she used to sing that way to Bob, but she never would to me. I
+swore I'd whip the Devil out of her, and I did; but you know before she
+cut her throat she said she'd haunt me, and there she is!"
+
+He pointed behind me with an aspect of such pale dismay, that I
+involuntarily glanced over my shoulder and started as if I had seen a
+veritable ghost; for, peering from the gloom of that inner room, I saw
+a shadowy face, with dark hair all about it, and a glimpse of scarlet
+at the throat. An instant showed me that it was only Robert leaning
+from his bed's-foot, wrapped in a gray army-blanket, with his red shirt
+just visible above it, and his long hair disordered by sleep.  But what
+a strange expression was on his face!  The unmarred side was toward me,
+fixed and motionless as when I first observed it,--less absorbed now,
+but more intent.  His eye glittered, his lips were apart like one who
+listened with every sense, and his whole aspect reminded me of a hound
+to which some wind had brought the scent of unsuspected prey.
+
+"Do you know him, Robert?  Does he mean you?"
+
+"Lord, no, Ma'am; they all own half a dozen Bobs: but hearin' my name
+woke me; that's all."
+
+He spoke quite naturally, and lay down again, while I returned to my
+charge, thinking that this paroxysm was probably his last.  But by
+another hour I perceived a hopeful change, for the tremor had subsided,
+the cold dew was gone, his breathing was more regular, and Sleep, the
+healer, had descended to save or take him gently away. Doctor Franck
+looked in at midnight, bade me keep all cool and quiet, and not fail to
+administer a certain draught as soon as the captain woke. Very much
+relieved, I laid my head on my arms, uncomfortably folded on the little
+table, and fancied I was about to perform one of the feats which
+practice renders possible,--"sleeping with one eye open," as we say: a
+half-and-half doze, for all senses sleep but that of hearing; the
+faintest murmur, sigh, or motion will break it, and give one back one's
+wits much brightened by the permission to "stand at ease." On this
+night, the experiment was a failure, for previous vigils, confinement,
+and much care had rendered naps a dangerous indulgence, Having roused
+half a dozen times in an hour to find all quiet, I dropped my heavy
+head on my arms, and, drowsily resolving to look up again in fifteen
+minutes, fell fast asleep.
+
+The striking of a deep-voiced clock woke me with a start.  "That is
+one," thought I, but, to my dismay, two more strokes followed; and in
+remorseful haste I sprang up to see what harm my long oblivion had
+done.  A strong hand put me back into my seat, and held me there.  It
+was Robert.  The instant my eye met his my heart began to beat, and all
+along my nerves tingled that electric flash which foretells a danger
+that we cannot see.  He was very pale, his mouth grim, and both eyes
+full of sombre fire,--for even the wounded one was open now, all the
+more sinister for the deep scar above and below.  But his touch was
+steady, his voice quiet, as he said,--
+
+"Sit still, Ma'am; I won't hurt yer, nor even scare yer, if I can help
+it, but yer waked too soon."
+
+"Let me go, Robert,--the captain is stirring,--I must give him
+something."
+
+"No, Ma'am, yer can't stir an inch.  Look here!"
+
+Holding me with one hand, with the other he took up the glass in which
+I had left the draught, and showed me it was empty.
+
+"Has he taken it?" I asked, more and more bewildered.
+
+"I flung it out o' winder, Ma'am; he'll have to do without."
+
+"But why, Robert? why did you do it?"
+
+"Because I hate him!"
+
+Impossible to doubt the truth of that; his whole face showed it, as he
+spoke through his set teeth, and launched a fiery glance at the
+unconscious captain.  I could only hold my breath and stare blankly at
+him, wondering what mad act was coming next.  I suppose I shook and
+turned white, as women have a foolish habit of doing when sudden danger
+daunts them; for Robert released my arm, sat down upon the bedside just
+in front of me, and said, with the ominous quietude that made me cold
+to see and hear,--
+
+"Don't yer be frightened, Ma'am: don't try to run away, fer the door's
+locked an' the key in my pocket; don't yer cry out, fer yer'd have to
+scream a long while, with my hand on yer mouth, before yer was heard.
+Be still, an' I'll tell yer what I'm goin' to do."
+
+"Lord help us! he has taken the fever in some sudden, violent way, and
+is out of his head.  I must humor him till some one comes"; in
+pursuance of which swift determination, I tried to say, quite
+composedly,--
+
+"I will be still and hear you; but open the window.  Why did you shut
+it?"
+
+"I'm sorry I can't do it, Ma'am; but yer'd jump out, or call, if I did,
+an' I'm not ready yet. I shut it to make yer sleep, an' heat would do
+it quicker'n anything else I could do."
+
+The captain moved, and feebly muttered, "Water!" Instinctively I rose
+to give it to him, but the heavy hand came down upon my shoulder, and
+in the same decided tone Robert said,-=
+
+"The water went with the physic; let him call."
+
+"Do let me go to him! he'll die without care!"
+
+"I mean he shall;--don't yer interfere, if yer please, Ma'am."
+
+In spite of his quiet tone and respectful manner, I saw murder in his
+eyes, and turned faint with fear; yet the fear excited me, and, hardly
+knowing what I did, I seized the hands that had seized me, crying,--
+
+"No, no, you shall not kill him! it is base to hurt a helpless man.
+Why do you hate him? He is not your master?"
+
+"He's my brother."
+
+I felt that answer from head to foot, and seemed to fathom what was
+coming, with a prescience vague, but unmistakable.  One appeal was left
+to me, and I made it.
+
+"Robert, tell me what it means? Do not commit a crime and make me
+accessory to it--There is a better way of righting wrong than by
+violence;--let me help you find it."
+
+My voice trembled as I spoke, and I heard the frightened flutter of my
+heart; so did he, and if any little act of mine had ever won affection
+or respect from him, the memory of it served me then.  He looked down,
+and seemed to put some question to himself; whatever it was, the answer
+was in my favor, for when his eyes rose again, they were gloomy, but
+not desperate.
+
+"I will tell you, Ma'am; but mind, this makes no difference; the boy is
+mine.  I'll give the Lord a chance to take him fust; if He don't, I
+shall."
+
+"Oh, no! remember, he is your brother."
+
+An unwise speech; I felt it as it passed my lips, for a black frown
+gathered on Robert's face, and his strong hands closed with an ugly
+sort of grip. But he did not touch the poor soul gasping there before
+him, and seemed content to let the slow suffocation of that stifling
+room end his frail life.
+
+"I'm not like to forget that, Ma'am, when I've been thinkin' of it all
+this week.  I knew him when they fetched him in, an' would 'a' done it
+long 'fore this, but I wanted to ask where Lucy was; he knows,--he told
+to-night,--an' now he's done for."
+
+"Who is Lucy?" I asked hurriedly, intent on keeping his mind busy with
+any thought but murder.
+
+With one of the swift transitions of a mixed temperament like this, at
+my question Robert's deep eyes filled, the clenched hands were spread
+before his face, and all I heard were the broken words,--
+
+"My wife,--he took her--"
+
+In that instant every thought of fear was swallowed up in burning
+indignation for the wrong, and a perfect passion of pity for the
+desperate man so tempted to avenge an injury for which there seemed no
+redress but this. He was no longer slave or contraband, no drop of
+black blood marred him in my sight, but an infinite compassion yearned
+to save, to help, to comfort him. Words seemed so powerless I offered
+none, only put my hand on his poor head, wounded, homeless, bowed down
+with grief for which I had no cure, and softly smoothed the long
+neglected hair, pitifully wondering the while where was the wife who
+must have loved this tender-hearted man so well.
+
+The captain moaned again, and faintly whispered, "Air!" but I never
+stirred.  God forgive me! just then I hated him as only a woman
+thinking of a sister woman's wrong could hate.  Robert looked up; his
+eyes were dry again, his mouth grim.  I saw that, said, "Tell me more,"
+and he did,--for sympathy is a gift the poorest may give, the proudest
+stoop to receive.
+
+"Yer see, Ma'am, his father,--I might say ours, if I warn't ashamed of
+both of 'em,--his father died two years ago, an' left us all to Marster
+Ned,--that's him here, eighteen then.   He always hated me, I looked so
+like old Marster: he don't--only the light skin an' hair.  Old Marster
+was kind to all of us, me 'specially, an' bought Lucy off the next
+plantation down there in South Car'lina, when he found I liked her.  I
+married her, all I could, Ma'am; it warn't much, but we was true to one
+another till Marster Ned come home a year after an' made hell fer both
+of us. He sent my old mother to be used up in his rice swamp in Georgy;
+he found me with my pretty Lucy, an' though young Miss cried, an' I
+prayed to him on my knees, an' Lucy run away, he wouldn't have no
+mercy; he brought her back, an'--took her, Ma'am."
+
+"Oh! what did you do?" I cried, hot with helpless pain and passion.
+
+How the man's outraged heart sent the blood flaming up into his face
+and deepened the tones of his impetuous voice, as he stretched his arm
+across the bed, saying, with a terribly expressive gesture,--
+
+"I half murdered him, an' to-night I'll finish."
+
+"Yes, yes,--but go on now; what came next?"
+
+He gave me a look that showed no white man could have felt a deeper
+degradation in remembering and confessing these last acts of brotherly
+oppression.
+
+"They whipped me till I couldn't stand, an' then they sold me further
+South. Yer thought I was a white man once;--look here!"
+
+With a sudden wrench he tore the shirt from neck to waist, and on his
+strong brown shoulders showed me furrows deeply ploughed, wounds which,
+though healed, were ghastlier to me than any in that house.  I could
+not speak to him, and, with the pathetic dignity a great grief lends
+the humblest sufferer, he ended his brief tragedy by simply saying,--
+
+"That's all.  Ma'am.  I've never seen her since, an' now I never shall
+in this world,--maybe not in t' other."
+
+"But, Robert, why think her dead?  The captain was wandering when he
+said those sad things; perhaps he will retract them when he is sane.
+Don't despair; don't give up yet."
+
+"No, Ma'am, I guess he's right; she was too proud to bear that long.
+It's like her to kill herself.  I told her to, if there was no other
+way; an' she always minded me, Lucy did.  My poor girl!  Oh, it warn't
+right! No, by God, it warn't!"
+
+As the memory of this bitter wrong, this double bereavement, burned in
+his sore heart, the devil that lurks in every strong man's blood leaped
+up; he put his hand upon his brother's throat, and, watching the white
+face before him, muttered low between his teeth,--
+
+"I'm lettin' him go too easy; there's no pain in this; we a'n't even
+yet.  I wish he knew me. Marster Ned! it's Bob; where's Lucy?"
+
+From the captain's lips there came a long faint sigh, and nothing but a
+flutter of the eyelids showed that he still lived.  A strange stillness
+filled the room as the elder brother held the younger's life suspended
+in his hand, while wavering between a dim hope and a deadly hate.  In
+the whirl of thoughts that went on in my brain, only one was clear
+enough to act upon.  I must prevent murder, if I could,--but how?  What
+could I do up there alone, locked in with a dying man and a
+lunatic?--for any mind yielded utterly to any unrighteous impulse is
+mad while the impulse rules it. Strength I had not, nor much courage,
+neither time nor wit for stratagem, and chance only could bring me help
+before it was too late.  But one weapon I possessed,--a tongue,--often
+a woman's best defence: and sympathy, stronger than fear, gave me power
+to use it.  What I said Heaven only knows, but surely Heaven helped me;
+words burned on my lips, tears streamed from my eyes, and some good
+angel prompted me to use the one name that had power to arrest my
+hearer's hand and touch his heart. For at that moment I heartily
+believed that Lucy lived, and this earnest faith roused in him a like
+belief.
+
+He listened with the lowering look of one in whom brute instinct was
+sovereign for the time,--a look that makes the noblest countenance
+base. He was but a man,--a poor, untaught, outcast, outraged man.  Life
+had few joys for him; the world offered him no honors, no success, no
+home, no love.  What future would this crime mar? and why should he
+deny himself that sweet, yet bitter morsel called revenge?  How many
+white men, with all New England's freedom, culture, Christianity, would
+not have felt as he felt then? Should I have reproached him for a human
+anguish, a human longing for redress, all now left him from the ruin of
+his few poor hopes?  Who had taught him that self-control,
+self-sacrifice, are attributes that make men masters of the earth and
+lift them nearer heaven?  Should I have urged the beauty of
+forgiveness, the duty of devout submission? He had no religion, for he
+was no saintly "Uncle Tom," and Slavery's black shadow seemed to darken
+all the world to him and shut out God.  Should I have warned him of
+penalties, of judgments, and the potency of law?  What did he know of
+justice, or the mercy that should temper that stern virtue, when every
+law, human and divine, had been broken on his hearthstone? Should I
+have tried to touch him by appeals to filial duty, to brotherly love?
+How had his appeals been answered? What memories had father and brother
+stored up in his heart to plead for either now?  No,--all these
+influences, these associations, would have proved worse than useless,
+had I been calm enough to try them.  I was not; but instinct, subtler
+than reason, showed me the one safe clue by which to lead this troubled
+soul from the labyrinth in which it groped and nearly fell. When I
+paused, breathless, Robert turned to me, asking, as if human assurances
+could strengthen his faith in Divine Omnipotence,--
+
+"Do you believe, if I let Marster Ned live, the Lord will give me back
+my Lucy?"
+
+"As surely as there is a Lord, you will find her here or in the
+beautiful hereafter, where there is no black or white, no master and no
+slave."
+
+He took his hand from his brother's throat, lifted his eyes from my
+face to the wintry sky beyond, as if searching for that blessed
+country, happier even than the happy North.  Alas, it was the darkest
+hour before the dawn!--there was no star above, no light below but the
+pale glimmer of the lamp that showed the brother who had made him
+desolate.  Like a blind man who believes there is a sun, yet cannot see
+it, he shook his head, let his arms drop nervously upon his knees, and
+sat there dumbly asking that question which many a soul whose faith is
+firmer fixed than his has asked in hours less dark than this,--
+
+"Where is God?" I saw the tide had turned, and strenuously tried to
+keep this rudderless lifeboat from slipping back into the whirlpool
+wherein it had been so nearly lost.
+
+"I have listened to you, Robert; now hear me, and heed what I say,
+because my heart is full of pity for you, full of hope for your future,
+and a desire to help you now.  I want you to go away from here, from
+the temptation of this place, and the sad thoughts that haunt it.  You
+have conquered yourself once, and I honor you for it, because, the
+harder the battle, the more glorious the victory; but it is safer to
+put a greater distance between you and this man.  I will write you
+letters, give you money, and send you to good old Massachusetts to
+begin your new life a freeman,--yes, and a happy man; for when the
+captain is himself again, I will learn where Lucy is, and move heaven
+and earth to find and give her back to you.  Will you do this, Robert?"
+
+Slowly, very slowly, the answer came; for the purpose of a week,
+perhaps a year, was hard to relinquish in an hour.
+
+"Yes, Ma'am, I will."
+
+"Good! Now you are the man I thought you, and I'll work for you with
+all my heart.  You need sleep, my poor fellow; go, and try to forget.
+The captain is still alive, and as yet you are spared the sin.  No,
+don't look there; I'll care for him. Come, Robert, for Lucy's sake."
+
+Thank Heaven for the immortality of love! for when all other means of
+salvation failed, a spark of this vital fire softened the man's iron
+will until a woman's hand could bend it.  He let me take from him the
+key, let me draw him gently away and lead him to the solitude which now
+was the most healing balm I could bestow.  Once in his little room, he
+fell down on his bed and lay there as if spent with the sharpest
+conflict of his life. I slipped the bolt across his door, and unlocked
+my own, flung up the window, steadied myself with a breath of air, then
+rushed to Doctor Franck. He came; and till dawn we worked together,
+saving one brother's life, and taking earnest thought how best to
+secure the other's liberty.  When the sun came up as blithely as if it
+shone only upon happy homes, the Doctor went to Robert.  For an hour I
+heard the murmur of their voices; once I caught the sound of heavy
+sobs, and for a time a reverent hush, as if in the silence that good
+man were ministering to soul as well as sense.  When he departed he
+took Robert with him, pausing to tell me he should get him off as soon
+as possible, but not before we met again.
+
+Nothing more was seen of them all day; another surgeon came to see the
+captain, and another attendant came to fill the empty place.  I tried
+to rest, but could not, with the thought of poor Lucy tugging at my
+heart, and was soon back at my post again, anxiously hoping that my
+contraband had not been too hastily spirited away. Just as night fell
+there came a tap, and opening, I saw Robert literally "clothed and in
+his right mind." The Doctor had replaced the ragged suit with tidy
+garments, and no trace of that tempestuous night remained but deeper
+lines upon the forehead, and the docile look of a repentant child.  He
+did not cross the threshold, did not offer me his hand,--only took off
+his cap, saying, with a traitorous falter in his voice,--
+
+"God bless you, Ma'am!  I'm goin'."
+
+I put out both my hands, and held his fast.
+
+"Good-bye, Robert! Keep up good heart, and when I come home to
+Massachusetts we'll meet in a happier place than this.  Are you quite
+ready, quite comfortable for your journey?
+
+"Yes, Ma'am, Yes; the Doctor's fixed everything; I'm goin' with a
+friend of his; my papers are all right, an' I'm as happy as I can be
+till I find,--"
+
+He stopped there; then went on, with a glance into the room,--
+
+"I'm glad I didn't do it, an' I thank yer, Ma'am, fer hinderin'
+me,--thank yer hearty; but I'm afraid I hate him jest the same."
+
+Of course he did; and so did I; for these faulty hearts of ours cannot
+turn perfect in a night, but need frost and fire, wind and rain, to
+ripen and make them ready for the great harvest-home. Wishing to divert
+his mind, I put my poor mite into his hand, and, remembering the magic
+of a certain little book, I gave him mine, on whose dark cover whitely
+shone the Virgin Mother and the Child, the grand history of whose life
+the book contained.  The money went into Robert's pocket with a
+grateful murmur, the book into his bosom with a long took and a
+tremulous--
+
+"I never saw my baby, Ma'am."
+
+I broke down then; and though my eyes were too dim to see, I felt the
+touch of lips upon my hands, heard the sound of departing feet, and
+knew my contraband was gone.
+
+When one feels an intense dislike, the less one says about the subject
+of it the better; therefore I shall merely record that the captain
+lived,--in time was exchanged; and that, whoever the other party was, I
+am convinced the Government got the best of the bargain.  But long
+before this occurred, I had fulfilled my promise to Robert; for as soon
+as my patient recovered strength of memory enough to make his answer
+trustworthy, I asked, without any circumlocution,--
+
+"Captain Fairfax, where is Lucy?"
+
+And too feeble to be angry, surprised, or insincere, he straightway
+answered,--
+
+"Dead, Miss Dane."
+
+"And she killed herself, when you sold Bob?"
+
+"How the Devil did you know that?" he muttered, with an expression
+half-remorseful, half-amazed; but I was satisfied, and said no more.
+
+Of course, this went to Robert, waiting far away there in a lonely
+home,--waiting, working, hoping for his Lucy.  It almost broke my heart
+to do it; but delay was weak, deceit was wicked; so I sent the heavy
+tidings, and very soon the answer came,--only three lines; but I felt
+that the sustaining power of the man's life was gone.
+
+"I thought I'd never see her any more; I'm glad to know she's out of
+trouble.  I thank yer, Ma'am; an' if they let us, I'll fight fer yer
+till I'm killed, which I hope will be 'fore long."
+
+Six months later he had his wish, and kept his word.
+
+Every one knows the story of the attack on Fort Wagner; but we should
+not tire yet of recalling how our Fifty-Fourth, spent with three
+sleepless nights, a day's fast, and a march under the July sun, stormed
+the fort as night fell, facing death in many shapes, following their
+brave leaders through a fiery rain of shot and shell, fighting
+valiantly for God and Governor Andrew,--how the regiment that went into
+action seven hundred strong came out having had nearly half its number
+captured, killed, or wounded, leaving their young commander to be
+buried, like a chief of earlier times, with his body-guard around him,
+faithful to the death. Surely, the insult turns to honor, and the wide
+grave needs no monument but the heroism that consecrates it in our
+sight; surely, the hearts that held him nearest see through their tears
+a noble victory in the seeming sad defeat; and surely, God's
+benediction was bestowed, when this loyal soul answered, as Death
+called the roll, "Lord, here I am, with the brothers Thou hast given
+me!"
+
+The future must show how well that fight was fought; for though Fort
+Wagner still defies us, public prejudice is down; and through the
+cannon smoke of that black night the manhood of the colored race shines
+before many eyes that would not see, rings in many ears that would not
+hear, wins many hearts that would not hitherto believe.
+
+When the news came that we were needed, there was none so glad as I to
+leave teaching contrabands, the new work I had taken up, and go to
+nurse "our boys," as my dusky flock so proudly called the wounded of
+the Fifty-Fourth. Feeling more satisfaction, as I assumed my big apron
+and turned up my cuffs, than if dressing for the President's levee, I
+fell to work on board the hospital-ship in Hilton-Head harbor.  The
+scene was most familiar, and yet strange; for only dark faces looked up
+at me from the pallets so thickly laid along the floor, and I missed
+the sharp accent of my Yankee boys in the slower, softer voices calling
+cheerily to one another, or answering my questions with a stout, "We'll
+never give it up, Ma'am, till the last Reb's dead," or, "If our
+people's free, we can afford to die."
+
+Passing from bed to bed, intent on making one pair of hands do the work
+of three, at least, I gradually washed, fed, and bandaged my way down
+the long line of sable heroes, and coming to the very last, found that
+he was my contraband. So old, so worn, so deathly weak and wan, I never
+should have known him but for the deep scar on his cheek.  That side
+lay uppermost, and caught my eye at once; but even then I doubted, such
+an awful change had come upon him, when, turning to the ticket just
+above his head, I saw the name, "Robert Dane." That both assured and
+touched me, for, remembering that he had no name, I knew that he had
+taken mine.  I longed for him to speak to me, to tell how he had fared
+since I lost sight of him, and let me perform some little service for
+him in return for many he had done for me; but he seemed asleep; and as
+I stood re-living that strange night again, a bright lad, who lay next
+him softly waving an old fan across both beds, looked up and said,--
+
+"I guess you know him, Ma'am?"
+
+"You are right.  Do you?"
+
+"As much as any one was able to, Ma'am."
+
+"Why do you say 'was,' as if the man were dead and gone?"
+
+"I s'pose because I know he'll have to go. He's got a bad jab in the
+breast, an' is bleedin' inside, the Doctor says. He don't suffer any,
+only gets weaker 'n' weaker every minute.  I've been fannin' him this
+long while, an' he's talked a little; but he don't know me now, so he's
+most gone, I guess."
+
+There was so much sorrow and affection in the boy's face, that I
+remembered something, and asked, with redoubled interest,--
+
+"Are you the one that brought him off?  I was told about a boy who
+nearly lost his life in saving that of his mate."
+
+I dare say the young fellow blushed, as any modest lad might have done;
+I could not see it, but I heard the chuckle of satisfaction that
+escaped him, as he glanced from his shattered arm and bandaged side to
+the pale figure opposite.
+
+"Lord, Ma'am, that's nothin'; we boys always stan' by one another, an'
+I warn't goin' to leave him to be tormented any more by them cussed
+Rebs.  He's been a slave once, though he don't look half so much like
+it as me, an' was born in Boston."
+
+He did not; for the speaker was as black as the ace of spades,--being a
+sturdy specimen, the knave of clubs would perhaps be a fitter
+representative,--but the dark freeman looked at the white slave with
+the pitiful, yet puzzled expression I have so often seen on the faces
+of our wisest men, when this tangled question of Slavery presents
+itself, asking to be cut or patiently undone.
+
+"Tell me what you know of this man; for, even if he were awake, he is
+too weak to talk."
+
+"I never saw him till I joined the regiment, an' no one 'peared to have
+got much out of him.  He was a shut-up sort of feller, an' didn't seem
+to care for anything but gettin' at the Rebs.  Some say he was the fust
+man of us that enlisted; I know he fretted till we were off, an' when
+we pitched into old Wagner, he fought like the Devil."
+
+"Were you with him when he was wounded? How was it?"
+
+"Yes, Ma'am.  There was somethin' queer about it; for he 'peared to
+know the chap that killed him, an' the chap knew him.  I don't dare to
+ask, but I rather guess one owned the other some time,--for, when they
+clinched, the chap sung out, 'Bob!' an' Dane, 'Marster Ned! then they
+went at it."
+
+I sat down suddenly, for the old anger and compassion struggled in my
+heart, and I both longed and feared to hear what was to follow.
+
+"You see, when the Colonel--Lord keep an' send him back to us!--it
+a'n't certain yet,  you know, Ma'am, though it's two days ago we lost
+him--well, when the Colonel shouted, 'Rush on, boys, rush on!' Dane
+tore away as if he was goin' to take the fort alone; I was next him,
+an' kept close as we went through the ditch an' up the wall. Hi! warn't
+that a rusher!" and the boy flung up his well arm with a whoop, as if
+the mere memory of that stirring moment came over him in a gust of
+irrepressible excitement.
+
+"Were you afraid?" I said,--asking the question women often put, and
+receiving the answer they seldom fail to get.
+
+"No, Ma'am!"--emphasis on the "Ma'am,"--"I never thought of anything
+but the damn Rebs, that scalp, slash, an' cut our ears off, when they
+git us.  I was bound to let daylight into one of 'em at least, an' I
+did.  Hope he liked it!"
+
+"It is evident that you did, and I don't blame you in the least.  Now
+go on about Robert, for I should be at work."
+
+"He was one of the fust up; I was just behind, an' though the whole
+thing happened in a minute. I remember how it was, for all I was
+yellin' an' knockin' round like mad.  Just where we were, some sort of
+an officer was wavin' his sword an' cheerin' on his men; Dane saw him
+by a big flash that come by; he flung away his gun, give a leap, an'
+went at that feller as if he was Jeff, Beauregard, an' Lee, all in one.
+I scrabbled after as quick as I could, but was only up in time to see
+him git the sword straight through him an' drop into the ditch.  You
+needn't ask what I did next, Ma'am, for I don't quite know myself; all
+I 'm clear about is, that I managed somehow to pitch that Reb into the
+fort as dead as Moses, git hold of Dane, an' bring him off.  Poor old
+feller! we said we went in to live or die; he said he went in to die,
+an' he 's done it."
+
+I had been intently watching the excited speaker; but as he regretfully
+added those last words I turned again, and Robert's eyes met
+mine,--those melancholy eyes, so full of an intelligence that proved he
+had heard, remembered, and reflected with that preternatural power
+which often outlives all other faculties. He knew me, yet gave no
+greeting; was glad to see a woman's face, yet had no smile wherewith to
+welcome it; felt that he was dying, yet uttered no farewell.  He was
+too far across the river to return or linger now; departing thought,
+strength, breath, were spent in one grateful look, one murmur of
+submission to the last pang he could ever feel.  His lips moved, and,
+bending to them, a whisper chilled my cheek, as it shaped the broken
+words,--
+
+"I would have done it,--but it 's better so,--I'm satisfied."
+
+Ah! well he might be,--for, as he turned his face from the shadow of
+the life that was, the sunshine of the life to be touched it with a
+beautiful content, and in the drawing of a breath my contraband found
+wife and home, eternal liberty and God.
+
+
+
+NELLY'S HOSPITAL
+
+Nelly sat beside her mother picking lint; but while her fingers flew,
+her eyes often looked wistfully out into the meadow, golden with
+buttercups, and bright with sunshine.  Presently she said, rather
+bashfully, but very earnestly, "Mamma, I want to tell you a little plan
+I've made, if you'll please not laugh."
+
+"I think I can safely promise that, my dear," said her mother, putting
+down her work that she might listen quite respectfully.
+
+Nelly looked pleased, and went on confidingly,
+
+"Since brother Will came home with his lame foot, and I've helped you
+tend him, I've heard a great deal about hospitals, and liked it very
+much. To-day I said I wanted to go and be a nurse, like Aunt Mercy; but
+Will laughed, and told me I'd better begin by nursing sick birds and
+butterflies and pussies before I tried to take care of men.  I did not
+like to be made fun of, but I've been thinking that it would be very
+pleasant to have a little hospital all my own, and be a nurse in it,
+because, if I took pains, so many pretty creatures might be made well,
+perhaps.  Could I, mamma?"
+
+Her mother wanted to smile at the idea, but did not, for Nelly looked
+up with her heart and eyes so full of tender compassion, both for the
+unknown men for whom her little hands had done their best, and for the
+smaller sufferers nearer home, that she stroked the shining head, and
+answered readily: "Yes, Nelly, it will be a proper charity for such a
+young Samaritan, and you may learn much if you are in earnest.  You
+must study how to feed and nurse your little patients, else your pity
+will do no good, and your hospital become a prison.  I will help you,
+and Tony shall be your surgeon."
+
+"O mamma, how good you always are to me! Indeed, I am in truly earnest;
+I will learn, I will be kind, and may I go now and begin?"
+
+"You may, but tell me first where will you have your hospital?"
+
+"In my room, mamma; it is so snug and sunny, and I never should forget
+it there," said Nelly.
+
+"You must not forget it anywhere.  I think that plan will not do.  How
+would you like to find caterpillars walking in your bed, to hear sick
+pussies mewing in the night, to have beetles clinging to your clothes,
+or see mice, bugs, and birds tumbling downstairs whenever the door was
+open?" said her mother.
+
+Nelly laughed at that thought a minute, then clapped her hands, and
+cried: "Let us have the old summer-house!  My doves only use the upper
+part, and it would be so like Frank in the storybook. Please say yes
+again, mamma."
+
+Her mother did say yes, and, snatching up her hat, Nelly ran to find
+Tony, the gardener's son, a pleasant lad of twelve, who was Nelly's
+favorite playmate. Tony pronounced the plan a "jolly" one, and, leaving
+his work, followed his young mistress to the summer-house, for she
+could not wait one minute.
+
+"What must we do first?" she asked, as they stood looking in at the
+dusty room, full of garden tools, bags of seeds, old flower-pots, and
+watering-cans.
+
+"Clear out the rubbish, miss," answered Tony.
+
+"Here it goes, then," and Nelly began bundling everything out in such
+haste that she broke two flower-pots, scattered all the squash-seeds,
+and brought a pile of rakes and hoes clattering down about her ears.
+
+"Just wait a bit, and let me take the lead, miss.  You hand me things,
+I'll pile 'em in the barrow and wheel 'em off to the barn; then it will
+save time, and be finished up tidy."
+
+Nelly did as he advised, and very soon nothing but dust remained.
+
+"What next?" she asked, not knowing in the least.
+
+"I'll sweep up while you see if Polly can come and scrub the room out.
+It ought to be done before you stay here, let alone the patients."
+
+"So it had," said Nelly, looking very wise all of a sudden. "Will says
+the wards--that means the rooms, Tony--are scrubbed every day or two,
+and kept very clean, and well venti-something--I can't say it; but it
+means having a plenty of air come in.  I can clean windows while Polly
+mops, and then we shall soon be done." Away she ran, feeling very busy
+and important. Polly came, and very soon the room looked like another
+place. The four latticed windows were set wide open, so the sunshine
+came dancing through the vines that grew outside, and curious roses
+peeped in to see what frolic was afoot.  The walls shone white again,
+for not a spider dared to stay; the wide seat which encircled the room
+was dustless now,--the floor as nice as willing hands could make it;
+and the south wind blew away all musty odors with its fragrant breath.
+
+"How fine it looks!" cried Nelly, dancing on the doorstep, lest a
+foot-print should mar the still damp floor.
+
+"I'd almost like to fall sick for the sake of staying here," said Tony,
+admiringly.  "Now, what sort of beds are you going to have, miss?
+
+"I suppose it won't do to put butterflies and toads and worms into beds
+like the real soldiers where Will was?" answered Nelly, looking anxious.
+
+Tony could hardly help shouting at the idea; but, rather than trouble
+his little mistress, he said very soberly: "I'm afraid they wouldn't
+lay easy, not being used to it.  Tucking up a butterfly would about
+kill him; the worms would be apt to get lost among the bed-clothes; and
+the toads would tumble out the first thing."
+
+"I shall have to ask mamma about it.  What will you do while I'm gone?"
+said Nelly, unwilling that a moment should be lost.
+
+"I'll make frames for nettings to the windows, else the doves will come
+in and eat up the sick people.
+
+"I think they will know that it is a hospital, and be too kind to hurt
+or frighten their neighbors," began Nelly; but as she spoke, a plump
+white dove walked in, looked about with its red-ringed eyes, and
+quietly pecked up a tiny bug that had just ventured out from the crack
+where it had taken refuge when the deluge came.
+
+"Yes, we must have the nettings.  I'll ask mamma for some lace," said
+Nelly, when she saw that; and, taking her pet dove on her shoulder,
+told it about her hospital as she went toward the house; for, loving
+all little creatures as she did, it grieved her to have any harm befall
+even the least or plainest of them. She had a sweet child-fancy that
+her playmates understood her language as she did theirs, and that
+birds, flowers, animals, and insects felt for her the same affection
+which she felt for them. Love always makes friends, and nothing seemed
+to fear the gentle child; but welcomed her like a little sun who shone
+alike on all, and never suffered an eclipse.
+
+She was gone some time, and when she came back her mind was full of new
+plans, one hand full of rushes, the other of books, while over her head
+floated the lace, and a bright green ribbon hung across her arm.
+
+"Mamma says that the best beds will be little baskets, boxes, cages,
+and any sort of thing that suits the patients; for each will need
+different care and food and medicine. I have not baskets enough, so, as
+I cannot have pretty white beds, I am going to braid pretty green nests
+for my patients, and, while I do it, mamma thought you'd read to me the
+pages she has marked, so that we may begin right."
+
+"Yes, miss; I like that.  But what is the ribbon for?" asked Tony.
+
+"O, that's for you.  Will says that, if you are to be an army surgeon,
+you must have a green band on your arm; so I got this to tie on when we
+play hospital."
+
+Tony let her decorate the sleeve of his gray jacket, and when the
+nettings were done, the welcome books were opened and enjoyed. It was a
+happy time, sitting in the sunshine, with leaves pleasantly astir all
+about them, doves cooing overhead, and flowers sweetly gossiping
+together through the summer afternoon.  Nelly wove her smooth, green
+rushes.  Tony pored over his pages, and both found something better
+than fairy legends in the family histories of insects, birds, and
+beasts. All manner of wonders appeared, and were explained to them,
+till Nelly felt as if a new world had been given her, so full of
+beauty, interest, and pleasure that she never could be tired of
+studying it. Many of these things were not strange to Tony, because,
+born among plants, he had grown up with them as if they were brothers
+and sisters, and the sturdy, brown-faced boy had learned many lessons
+which no poet or philosopher could have taught him, unless he had
+become as child-like a s himself, and studied from the same great book.
+
+When the baskets were done, the marked pages all read, and the sun
+began to draw his rosy curtains round him before smiling "Good night,"
+Nelly ranged the green beds round the room, Tony put in the screens,
+and the hospital was ready. The little nurse was so excited that she
+could hardly eat her supper, and directly afterwards ran up to tell
+Will how well she had succeeded with the first part of her enterprise.
+Now brother Will was a brave young officer, who had fought stoutly and
+done his duty like a man.  But when lying weak and wounded at home, the
+cheerful courage which had led him safely through many dangers seemed
+to have deserted him, and he was often gloomy, sad, or fretful, because
+he longed to be at his post again, and time passed very slowly. This
+troubled his mother, and made Nelly wonder why he found lying in a
+pleasant room so much harder than fighting battles or making weary
+marches. Anything that interested and amused him was very welcome, and
+when Nelly, climbing on the arm of his sofa, told her plans, mishaps,
+and successes, he laughed out more heartily than he had done for many a
+day, and his thin face began to twinkle with fun as it used to do so
+long ago.  That pleased Nelly, and she chatted like any affectionate
+little magpie, till Will was really interested; for when one is ill,
+small things amuse.
+
+"Do you expect your patients to come to you, Nelly?" he asked.
+
+"No, I shall go and look for them. I often see poor things suffering in
+the garden, and the wood, and always feel as if they ought to be taken
+care of, as people are."
+
+"You won't like to carry insane bugs, lame toads, and convulsive
+kittens in your hands, and they would not stay on a stretcher if you
+had one. You should have an ambulance and be a branch of the Sanitary
+Commission," said Will.
+
+Nelly had often heard the words, but did not quite understand what they
+meant.  So Will told her of that great never-failing charity, to which
+thousands owe their lives; and the child listened with lips apart, eyes
+often full, and so much love and admiration in her heart that she could
+find no words in which to tell it.  When her brother paused, she said
+earnestly: "Yes, I will be a Sanitary. This little cart of mine shall
+be my amb'lance, and I'll never let my water-barrels go empty, never
+drive too fast, or be rough with my poor passengers, like some of the
+men you tell about.  Does this look like an ambulance, Will?"
+
+"Not a bit, but it shall, if you and mamma like to help me.  I want
+four long bits of cane, a square of white cloth, some pieces of thin
+wood, and the gum-pot," said Will, sitting up to examine the little
+cart, feeling like a boy again as he took out his knife and began to
+whittle. Upstairs and downstairs ran Nelly till all necessary materials
+were collected, and almost breathlessly she watched her brother arch
+the canes over the cart, cover them with the cloth, and fit an upper
+shelf of small compartments, each lined with cotton-wool to serve as
+beds for wounded insects, lest they should hurt one another or jostle
+out.  The lower part was left free for any larger creatures which Nelly
+might find.  Among her toys she had a tiny cask which only needed a peg
+to be water-tight; this was filled and fitted in before, because, as
+the small sufferers needed no seats, there was no place for it behind,
+and, as Nelly was both horse and driver, it was more convenient in
+front.  On each side of it stood a box of stores. In one were minute
+rollers, as bandages are called, a few bottles not yet filled, and a
+wee doll's jar of cold-cream, because Nelly could not feel that her
+outfit was complete without a medicine-chest. The other box was full of
+crumbs, bits of sugar, bird-seed, and grains of wheat and corn, lest
+any famished stranger should die for want of food before she got it
+home.  Then mamma painted "U.S. San. Com." in bright letters on the
+cover, and Nelly received her charitable plaything with a long sigh of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Nine o'clock already.  Bless me, what a short evening this has been,"
+exclaimed Will, as Nelly came to give him her good-night kiss.
+
+"And such a happy one," she answered.
+
+"Thank you very, very much, dear Will.  I only wish my little amb'lance
+was big enough for you to go in,--I'd so like to give you the first
+ride."
+
+"Nothing I should like better, if it were possible, though I've a
+prejudice against ambulances in general.  But as I cannot ride, I'll
+try and hop out to your hospital to-morrow, and see how you get
+on,"--which was a great deal for Captain Will to say, because he had
+been too listless to leave his sofa for several days.
+
+That promise sent Nelly happily away to bed, only stopping to pop her
+head out of the window to see if it was likely to be a fair day
+to-morrow, and to tell Tony about the new plan as he passed below.
+
+"Where shall you go to look for your first load of sick folks, miss?"
+he asked.
+
+"All round the garden first, then through the grove, and home across
+the brook.  Do you think I can find any patients so?" said Nelly.
+
+"I know you will.  Good night, miss," and Tony walked away with a merry
+look on his face, that Nelly would not have understood if she had seen
+it.
+
+Up rose the sun bright and early, and up rose Nurse Nelly almost as
+early and as bright.  Breakfast was taken in a great hurry, and before
+the dew was off the grass this branch of the S. C. was all astir.
+Papa, mamma, big brother and baby sister, men and maids, all looked out
+to see the funny little ambulance depart, and nowhere in all the summer
+fields was there a happier child than Nelly, as she went smiling down
+the garden path, where tall flowers kissed her as she passed and every
+blithe bird seemed singing a "Good speed!"
+
+"How I wonder what I shall find first," she thought, looking sharply on
+all sides as she went. Crickets chirped, grasshoppers leaped, ants
+worked busily at their subterranean houses, spiders spun shining webs
+from twig to twig, bees were coming for their bags of gold, and
+butterflies had just begun their holiday.  A large white one alighted
+on the top of the ambulance, walked over the inscription as if spelling
+it letter by letter, then floated away from flower to flower, like one
+carrying the good news far and wide.
+
+"Now every one will know about the hospital and be glad to see me
+coming," thought Nelly. And indeed it seemed so, for just then a
+black-bird, sitting on a garden wall, burst out with a song full of
+musical joy, Nelly's kitten came running after to stare at the wagon
+and rub her soft side against it, a bright-eyed toad looked out from
+his cool bower among the lily-leaves, and at that minute Nelly found
+her first patient.  In one of the dewy cobwebs hanging from a shrub
+near by sat a fat black and yellow spider, watching a fly whose
+delicate wings were just caught in the net.  The poor fly buzzed
+pitifully, and struggled so hard that the whole web shook: but the more
+he struggled, the more he entangled himself, and the fierce spider was
+preparing to descend that it might weave a shroud about its prey, when
+a little finger broke the threads and lifted the fly safely into the
+palm of a hand, where he lay faintly humming his thanks.
+
+Nelly had heard much about contrabands, knew who they were, and was
+very much interested in them; so, when she freed the poor black fly she
+played he was her contraband, and felt glad that her first patient was
+one that needed help so much.  Carefully brushing away as much of the
+web as she could, she left small Pompey, as she named him, to free his
+own legs, lest her clumsy fingers should hurt him; then she laid him in
+one of the soft beds with a grain or two of sugar if he needed
+refreshment, and bade him rest and recover from his fright, remembering
+that he was at liberty to fly away whenever he liked, because she had
+no wish to male a slave of him.
+
+Feeling very happy over this new friend, Nelly went on singing softly
+as she walked, and presently she found a pretty caterpillar dressed in
+brown fur, although the day was warm. He lay so still she thought him
+dead, till he rolled himself into a ball as she touched him.
+
+"I think you are either faint from the heat of this thick coat of
+yours, or that you are going to make a cocoon of yourself, Mr. Fuzz,"
+said Nelly.
+
+"Now I want to see you turn into a butterfly, so I shall take you, and
+if get lively again I will let you go. I shall play that you have given
+out on a march, as the soldiers sometimes do, and been left behind for
+the Sanitary people to see to."
+
+In went sulky Mr. Fuzz, and on trundled the ambulance till a golden
+green rose-beetle was discovered, lying on his back kicking as if in a
+fit.
+
+"Dear me, what shall I do for him?" thought Nelly. "He acts as baby did
+when she was so ill, and mamma put her in a warm bath.  I haven't got
+my little tub here, or any hot water, and I'm afraid the beetle would
+not like it if I had.  Perhaps he has pain in his stomach; I'll turn
+him over, and pat his back, as nurse does baby's when she cries for
+pain like that."
+
+She set the beetle on his legs, and did her best to comfort him; but he
+was evidently in great distress, for he could not walk, and instead of
+lifting his emerald overcoat, and spreading the wings that lay
+underneath, be turned over again, and kicked more violently than
+before.  Not knowing what to do,  Nelly put him into one of her soft
+nests for Tony to cure if possible.  She found no more patients in the
+garden except a dead bee, which she wrapped in a leaf, and took home to
+bury.  When she came to the grove, it was so green and cool she longed
+to sit and listen to the whisper of the pines, and watch the
+larch-tassels wave in the wind.  But, recollecting her charitable
+errand, she went rustling along the pleasant path till she came to
+another patient, over which she stood considering several minutes
+before she could decide whether it was best to take it to her hospital,
+because it was a little gray snake, with bruised tail.  She knew it
+would not hurt her, yet she was afraid of it; she thought it pretty,
+yet could not like it: she pitied its pain, yet shrunk from helping it,
+for it had a fiery eye, and a keep quivering tongue, that looked as if
+longing to bite.
+
+"He is a rebel, I wonder if I ought to be good to him," thought Nelly,
+watching the reptile writhe with pain.  "Will said there were sick
+rebels in his hospital, and one was very kind to him.  It says, too, in
+my little book, 'Love your enemies.' I think snakes are mine, but I
+guess I'll try and love him because God made him.  Some boy will kill
+him if I leave him here, and then perhaps his mother will be very sad
+about it.  Come, poor worm, I wish to help you, so be patient, and
+don't frighten me."
+
+Then Nelly laid her little handkerchief on the ground, and with a stick
+gently lifted the wounded snake upon it, and, folding it together, laid
+it in the ambulance. She was thoughtful after that, and so busy
+puzzling her young head about the duty of loving those who hate us, and
+being kind to those who are disagreeable or unkind, that she went
+through the rest of the wood quite forgetful of her work.  A soft
+"Queek, queek!" made her look up and listen. The sound came from the
+long meadow-grass, and, bending it carefully back, she found a
+half-fledged bird, with one wing trailing on the ground, and its eyes
+dim with pain or hunger.
+
+"You darling thing, did you fall out of your nest and hurt your wing?"
+cried Nelly, looking up into the single tree that stood near by.  No
+nest was to be seen, no parent birds hovered overhead, and little Robin
+could only tell its troubles in that mournful "Queek, queek, queek!"
+
+Nelly ran to get both her chests, and, sitting down beside the bird,
+tried to feed it. To her joy it ate crumb after crumb, as if it were
+half starved, and soon fluttered nearer a confiding fearlessness that
+made her very proud. Soon baby Robin seemed quite comfortable, his eye
+brightened, he "queeked" no more, and but for the drooping wing would
+have been himself again.  With one of her bandages Nelly bound both
+wings closely to his sides for fear he should hurt himself by trying to
+fly; and though he seemed amazed at her proceedings, he behaved very
+well, only staring at her, and ruffling up his few feathers in a funny
+way that made her laugh. Then she had to discover some way of
+accommodating her two larger patients so that neither should hurt nor
+alarm the other.  A bright thought came to her after much pondering.
+Carefully lifting the handkerchief, she pinned the two ends to the roof
+of the cart, and there swung little Forked-tongue, while Rob lay easily
+below.
+
+By this time, Nelly began to wonder how it happened that she found so
+many more injured things than ever before.  But it never entered her
+innocent head that Tony had searched the wood and meadow before she was
+up, and laid most of these creatures ready to her hands, that she might
+not be disappointed.  She had not yet lost her faith in fairies, so she
+fancied they too belonged to her small sisterhood, and presently it did
+really seem impossible to doubt that the good folk had been at work.
+
+Coming to the bridge that crossed the brook, she stopped a moment to
+watch the water ripple over the bright pebbles, the ferns bend down to
+drink, and the funny tadpoles frolic in quieter nooks, where the sun
+shone, and the dragon-flies swung among the rushes.  When Nelly turned
+to go on, her blue eyes opened wide, and the handle of the ambulance
+dropped with a noise that caused a stout frog to skip into the water
+heels over head. Directly in the middle of the bridge was a pretty
+green tent, made of two tall burdock leaves. The stems were stuck into
+cracks between the boards, the tips were pinned together with a thorn,
+and one great buttercup nodded in the doorway like a sleepy sentinel.
+Nelly stared and smiled, listened, and looked about on every side.
+Nothing was seen but the quiet meadow and the shady grove, nothing was
+heard but the babble of the brook and the cheery music of the bobolinks.
+
+"Yes," said Nelly softly to herself, "that is a fairy tent, and in it I
+may find a baby elf sick with whooping-cough or scarlet-fever.  How
+splendid it would be! only I could never nurse such a dainty thing."
+
+Stooping eagerly, she peeped over the buttercup's drowsy head, and saw
+what seemed a tiny cock of hay. She had no time to feel disappointed,
+for the haycock began to stir, and, looking nearer, she beheld two
+silvery gray mites, who wagged wee tails, and stretched themselves as
+if they had just waked up.  Nelly knew that they were young field-mice,
+and rejoiced over them, feeling rather relieved that no fairy had
+appeared, though she still believed them to have had a hand in the
+matter.
+
+"I shall call the mice my Babes in the Wood, because they are lost and
+covered up with leaves," said Nelly, as she laid them in her snuggest
+bed, where they nestled close together, and fell fast asleep again.
+
+Being very anxious to get home, that she might tell her adventures, and
+show how great was the need of a sanitary commission in that region,
+Nelly marched proudly up the avenue, and, having displayed her load,
+hurried to the hospital, where another applicant was waiting for her.
+On the step of the door lay a large turtle, with one claw gone, and on
+his back was pasted a bit of paper, with his name,--"Commodore Waddle,
+U.S.N." Nelly knew this was a joke of Will's, but welcomed the ancient
+mariner, and called Tony to help her get him in.
+
+All that morning they were very busy settling the new-comers, for both
+people and books had to be consulted before they could decide what diet
+and treatment was best for each.  The winged contraband had taken Nelly
+at her word, and flown away on the journey home.  Little Rob was put in
+a large cage, where he could use his legs, yet not injure his lame
+wing.  Forked-tongue lay under a wire cover, on sprigs of fennel, for
+the gardener said that snakes were fond of it. The Babes in the Wood
+were put to bed in one of the rush baskets, under a cotton-wool
+coverlet. Greenback, the beetle, found ease for his unknown aches in
+the warm heart of a rose, where he sunned himself all day. The
+Commodore was made happy in a tub of water, grass, and stones, and Mr.
+Fuzz was put in a well-ventilated glass box to decide whether he would
+be a cocoon or not.
+
+Tony had not been idle while his mistress was away, and he showed her
+the hospital garden he had made close by, in which were cabbage,
+nettle, and mignonette plants for the butterflies, flowering herbs for
+the bees, chick-weed and hemp for the birds, catnip for the pussies,
+and plenty of room left for whatever other patients might need.  In the
+afternoon, while Nelly did her task at lint-picking, talking busily to
+Will as she worked, and interesting him in her affairs, Tony cleared a
+pretty spot in the grove for the burying-ground, and made ready some
+small bits of slate on which to write the names of those who died.  He
+did not have it ready an hour too soon, for at sunset two little graves
+were needed, and Nurse Nelly shed tender tears for her first losses as
+she laid the motherless mice in one smooth hollow, and the gray-coated
+rebel in the other. She had learned to care for him already, and when
+she found him dead, was very glad she had been kind to him, hoping that
+he knew it, and died happier in her hospital than all alone in the
+shadowy wood.
+
+The rest of Nelly's patients prospered, and of the many added afterward
+few died, because of Tony's skilful treatment and her own faithful
+care. Every morning when the day proved fair the little ambulance went
+out upon its charitable errand; every afternoon Nelly worked for the
+human sufferers whom she loved; and every evening brother Will read
+aloud to her from useful books, showed her wonders with his microscope,
+or prescribed remedies for the patients, whom he soon knew by name and
+took much interest in.  It was Nelly's holiday; but, though she studied
+no lessons, she learned much, and unconsciously made her pretty play
+both an example and a rebuke for others.
+
+At first it seemed a childish pastime, and people laughed.  But there
+was something in the familiar words "sanitary," "hospital" and
+"ambulance" that made them pleasant sounds to many ears.  As reports of
+Nelly's work went through the neighborhood, other children came to see
+and copy her design. Rough lads looked ashamed when in her wards they
+found harmless creatures hurt by them, and going out they said among
+themselves, "We won't stone birds, chase butterflies, and drown the
+girls' little cats any more, though we won't tell them so." And most of
+the lads kept their word so well that people said there never had been
+so many birds before as all that summer haunted wood and field.
+Tender-hearted playmates brought their pets to be cured; even busy
+farmers bad a friendly word for the small charity, which reminded them
+so sweetly of the great one which should never be forgotten; lonely
+mothers sometimes looked out with wet eyes as the little ambulance went
+by, recalling thoughts or absent sons who might be journeying painfully
+to some far-off hospital, where brave women waited to tend them with
+hands as willing, hearts as tender, as those the gentle child gave to
+her self-appointed task.
+
+At home the charm worked also.  No more idle days for Nelly, or fretful
+ones for Will, because the little sister would not neglect the helpless
+creatures so dependent upon her, and the big brother was ashamed to
+complain after watching the patience of these lesser sufferers, and
+merrily said he would try to bear his own wound as quietly and bravely
+as the "Commodore" bore his.  Nelly never knew how much good she had
+done Captain Will till he went away again in the early autumn.  Then he
+thanked her for it, and though she cried for joy and sorrow she never
+forgot it, because he left something behind him which always pleasantly
+reminded her of the double success her little hospital had won.
+
+When Will was gone and she had prayed softly in her heart that God
+would keep him safe and bring him home again, she dried her tears and
+went away to find comfort in the place where he had spent so many happy
+hours with her.  She had not been there before that day, and when she
+reached the door she stood quite still and wanted very much to cry
+again, far something beautiful had happened.  She had often asked Will
+for a motto for her hospital, and he had promised to find her one.  She
+thought he had forgotten it; but even in the hurry of that busy day he
+had found time to do more than keep his word, while Nelly sat indoors,
+lovingly brightening the tarnished buttons on the blue coat that had
+seen so many battles.
+
+Above the roof, where the doves cooed in the sun, now rustled a white
+flag with the golden "S.C." shining on it as the wind tossed it to and
+fro.  Below, on the smooth panel of the door, a skilful pencil had
+drawn two arching ferns, in whose soft shadow, poised upon a mushroom,
+stood a little figure of Nurse Nelly, and underneath it another of Dr.
+Tony bottling medicine, with spectacles upon his nose.  Both hands of
+the miniature Nelly were outstretched, as if beckoning to a train of
+insects, birds and beasts, which was so long that it not only circled
+round the lower rim of this fine sketch, but dwindled in the distance
+to mere dots and lines.  Such merry conceits as one found there!  A
+mouse bringing the tail it had lost in some cruel trap, a dor-bug with
+a shade over its eyes, an invalid butterfly carried in a tiny litter by
+long-legged spiders, a fat frog with gouty feet hopping upon crutches,
+Jenny Wren sobbing in a nice handkerchief, as she brought dear dead
+Cock Robin to be restored to life.  Rabbits, lambs, cats, calves, and
+turtles, all came trooping up to be healed by the benevolent little
+maid who welcomed them so heartily.
+
+Nelly laughed at these comical mites till the tears ran down her
+cheeks, and thought she never could be tired of looking at them.  But
+presently she saw four lines clearly printed underneath her picture,
+and her childish face grew sweetly serious as she read the words of a
+great poet, which Will had made both compliment and motto:--
+
+  "He prayeth best who loveth best
+  All things, both great and small;
+  For the dear God who loveth us,
+  He made and loveth all."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Modern Cinderella, by Louisa May Alcott
+
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