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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40114 ***
+
++-------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcriber's note:                              |
+|                                                 |
+|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |
+|                                                 |
++-------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+FASHION AND FAMINE.
+
+BY
+
+MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+
+     There is no sorrow for the earnest soul
+     That looketh up to God in perfect faith.
+
+
+TWENTY-FIFTH THOUSAND.
+
+New York:
+
+BUNCE & BROTHER, PUBLISHERS, 134 NASSAU STREET.
+
+MDCCCLIV.
+
+
+ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
+MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court,
+for the Southern District of New York.
+
+Republished in London by RICHARD BENTLEY, through special arrangement
+with the Author
+
+W. H. TINSON,
+STEREOTYPER,
+24 Beckman Street.
+
+TAWS, RUSSELL & CO., Printers,
+26 Beekman and 18 Spruce St., N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+To
+
+MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY,
+
+OF HARTFORD, CONN.,
+
+THE MOST VALUED FRIEND THAT I HAVE,
+
+AND ONE OF THE BEST WOMEN I EVER KNEW, THIS BOOK
+
+Is Most Respectfully Dedicated.
+
+ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+What shall I say in this Preface to my book? Shall I make the usual
+half-sincere, half-affected apology of haste and inexperience, with
+hints of improvement in future efforts? Indeed I cannot, for though this
+volume really is the first novel ever printed in book form under my
+name, its imperfections, whatever they are, arise from no inexperience
+or undue haste, but from absolute lack of power to accomplish that which
+I have undertaken. Nor is it probable that the points in which I have
+failed here, would be very greatly improved were the same book to be
+written again.
+
+I have endeavored to make this book a good one. If I have failed it is
+because the power has not been granted to me by the Source of all power,
+and for deficiency like this, the only admissible apology would be for
+having written at all. But excuses are out of place here. The book, with
+all its faults, is frankly surrendered to the public judgment, asking
+neither favoritism or forbearance, save that favoritism which deals
+gently with unintentional error, and that forbearance which no American
+ever withholds from a woman. Shall I say that this volume is launched on
+the world with fear and trembling? That would express an ungrateful want
+of faith in a class of readers who have generously sustained me through
+years of literary toil, and have nobly supported not only Peterson's
+Ladies' National Magazine now under my charge, but every periodical with
+which I have been connected. It would be ungrateful to the press that,
+without a single respectable exception, has always dealt generously by
+me, and would betray a weakness of character which I am not willing to
+acknowledge, for I have lived long enough to tremble at nothing which
+results from an honest intention, and to fear nothing but deserved
+disgrace--the death of beloved objects--or change in those affections
+that no literary fame or misfortune can ever reach.
+
+But it is not without emotions that I present this book to the public,
+grateful and sweet emotions that liberal minds must respect more than a
+thousand insincere apologies. The thoughts of an author are the perfume
+of her own soul going forth on the winds of heaven to awaken other souls
+and renew itself in their kindred sympathies. I am more anxious for the
+effect which these thoughts, so long a portion of my own being, will
+have upon others, than for the return they may bring to myself. The
+American people are, in the mass, just and intelligent judges; always
+generous and perhaps over-indulgent to their authors. In writing this
+book I have endeavored to deserve their approbation and to cast no
+discredit upon a profession that I honor more than any other upon the
+broad earth. If I have succeeded, no human being can be more grateful
+than I shall be for the public opinion that assures me of it; but, to
+satisfy even my humble ambition, it must be an opinion honestly earned
+and frankly given. Popularity won without merit, and lost without blame,
+would be valueless to me, even while it lasted.
+
+New York, May 22, 1854.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                       PAGE
+
+      I. The Strawberry Girl and Market Woman                    9
+
+     II. The Old Couple in the Back Basement                    26
+
+    III. The Lone Mansion and its Mistress                      43
+
+     IV. The Astor House--the Ride--the Attic Room              54
+
+      V. Mistress and Servant in Consultation                   72
+
+     VI. The Tempter and the Tempted--the young heart yields    81
+
+    VII. The Old Homestead and Home Memories                    89
+
+   VIII. The City Cottage and its Strange Inmate               110
+
+     IX. Mrs. Gray's Thanksgiving Dinner--Julia and Robert     126
+
+      X. The Brother's Return--Questions and Answers           141
+
+     XI. The Mother's Letter and the Son's Commentary          158
+
+    XII. Strife for an Earl--Mrs. Sykes and Mrs. Nash          163
+
+   XIII. The Morning Lesson--Doubt--Sympathy--Misery           179
+
+    XIV. A Wedding Foreshadowed--Sunshine of the Heart         187
+
+     XV. The Mother's Appeal--the Son's Falsehood              194
+
+    XVI. The Bridal Wreath--Roses and Cypress                  211
+
+   XVII. An Hour before the Ball--Strides of Destiny           222
+
+  XVIII. The Forged Check--Uncle and Nephew                    228
+
+    XIX. Night and Morning--Wild Heart Strife                  234
+
+     XX. The Last Interview--Parting--Death                    251
+
+    XXI. The City Prison--Examination for Murder               266
+
+   XXII. The Imprisoned Witness in the Female Ward             282
+
+  XXIII. The Three Old Women in Fulton Market                  299
+
+   XXIV. The First Night in Prison--Prayers--Tears--Dreams     311
+
+    XXV. Little Georgie--his Mother and Julia Warren           319
+
+   XXVI. Mrs. Gray and the Prison Woman                        330
+
+  XXVII. Struggles and Revels--Unquenched Anguish              338
+
+ XXVIII. Ada Leicester and Jacob Strong                        344
+
+   XXIX. Ada's Solitary Breakfast--Desolation of Heart         350
+
+    XXX. The Prison Woman in Ada's Dressing-Room               354
+
+   XXXI. The Tombs Lawyer and his Client Mrs. Gray             366
+
+  XXXII. The Lawyer's Visit to his Client                      372
+
+ XXXIII. The Trial for Murder--Opening Scenes                  380
+
+  XXXIV. The Two Witnesses--Recognition too Late               388
+
+   XXXV. The Verdict--Stillness--Death-Shadows                 399
+
+  XXXVI. The Parents, the Child and Grandchild                 405
+
+ XXXVII. The Dawning of Light--Angelic Missions                412
+
+XXXVIII. Gathering for the Execution                           414
+
+  XXXIX. Hearts and Consciences at Rest                        422
+
+
+
+
+FASHION AND FAMINE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE STRAWBERRY GIRL.
+
+     Like wild flowers on the mountain side,
+       Goodness may be of any soil;
+     Yet intellect, in all its pride,
+       And energy, with pain and toil,
+     Hath never wrought a holier thing
+       Than Charity in humble birth.
+     God's brightest angel stoops his wing,
+       To meet so much of Heaven on earth.
+
+
+The morning had not fully dawned on New York, yet its approach was
+visible everywhere amid the fine scenery around the city. The dim
+shadows piled above Weehawken, were warming up with purple, streaked
+here and there with threads of rosy gold. The waters of the Hudson
+heaved and rippled to the glow of yellow and crimson light, that came
+and went in flashes on each idle curl of the waves. Long Island lay in
+the near distance like a thick, purplish cloud, through which the dim
+outline of house, tree, mast and spire loomed mistily, like half-formed
+objects on a camera obscura.
+
+Silence--that strange, dead silence that broods over a scene crowded
+with slumbering life--lay upon the city, broken only by the rumble of
+vegetable carts and the jar of milk-cans, as they rolled up from the
+different ferries; or the half-smothered roar of some steamboat putting
+into its dock, freighted with sleeping passengers.
+
+After a little, symptoms of aroused life became visible about the
+wharves. Grocers, carmen, and huckster-women began to swarm around the
+provision boats. The markets nearest the water were opened, and soon
+became theatres of active bustle.
+
+The first market opened that day was in Fulton street. As the morning
+deepened, piles of vegetables, loads of beef, hampers of fruit, heaps of
+luscious butter, cages of poultry, canary birds swarming in their wiry
+prisons, forests of green-house plants, horse-radish grinders with their
+reeking machines, venders of hot coffee, root beer and dough nuts, all
+with men, women and children swarming in, over and among them, like so
+many ants, hard at work, filled the spacious arena, but late a range of
+silent, naked and gloomy looking stalls. Then carts, laden and groaning
+beneath a weight of food, came rolling up to this great mart, crowding
+each avenue with fresh supplies. All was life and eagerness. Stout men
+and bright-faced women moved through the verdant chaos, arranging,
+working, chatting, all full of life and enterprise, while the rattling
+of carts outside, and the gradual accumulation of sounds everywhere,
+bespoke a great city aroused, like a giant refreshed, from slumber.
+
+Slowly there arose out of this cheerful confusion, forms of homely
+beauty, that an artist or a thinking man might have loved to look upon.
+The butchers' stalls, but late a desolate range of gloomy beams, were
+reddening with fresh joints, many of them festooned with fragrant
+branches and gorgeous garden flowers. The butchers standing, each by his
+stall, with snow-white apron, and an eager, joyous look of traffic on
+his face, formed a display of comfort and plenty, both picturesque and
+pleasant to contemplate.
+
+The fruit and vegetable stands were now loaded with damp, green
+vegetables, each humble root having its own peculiar tint, often
+arranged with a singular taste for color, unconsciously possessed by the
+woman who exercised no little skill in setting off her stand to
+advantage.
+
+There was one vegetable stand to which we would draw the reader's
+particular attention; not exactly as a type of the others, for there was
+something so unlike all the rest, both in this stall and its occupant,
+that it would have drawn the attention of any person possessed of the
+slightest artistical taste. It was like the arrangement of a picture,
+that long table heaped with fruit, the freshest vegetables, and the
+brightest flowers, ready for the day's traffic. Rich scarlet radishes
+glowing up through their foliage of tender green, were contrasted with
+young onions swelling out from their long emerald stalks, snowy and
+transparent as so many great pearls. Turnips, scarcely larger than a
+hen's egg, and nearly as white, just taken fresh and fragrant from the
+soil, lay against heads of lettuce, tinged with crisp and greenish gold,
+piled against the deep blackish green of spinach and water-cresses, all
+moist with dew, or wet with bright water-drops that had supplied its
+place, and taking a deeper tint from the golden contrast. These with the
+red glow of strawberries in their luscious prime, piled together in
+masses, and shaded with fresh grape leaves; bouquets of roses,
+hyacinths, violets, and other fragrant blossoms, lent their perfume and
+the glow of their rich colors to the coarser children of the soil, and
+would have been an object pleasant to look upon, independent of the fine
+old woman who sat complacently on her little stool, at one end of the
+table, in tranquil expectation of customers that were sure to drop in as
+the morning deepened.
+
+And now the traffic of the day commenced in earnest. Servants,
+housekeepers and grocers swarmed into the market. The clink of
+money--the sound of sharp, eager banter--the dull noise of the butcher's
+cleaver, were heard on every hand. It was a pleasant scene, for every
+face looked smiling and happy. The soft morning air seemed to have
+brightened all things into cheerfulness.
+
+With the earliest group that entered Fulton market that morning was a
+girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, but tiny in her form, and
+appearing far more juvenile than that. A pretty quilted hood, of
+rose-colored calico, was turned back from her face, which seemed
+naturally delicate and pale; but the fresh air, and perhaps a shadowy
+reflection from her hood, gave the glow of a rose-bud to her cheeks.
+Still there was anxiety upon her young face. Her eyes of a dark violet
+blue, drooped heavily beneath their black and curling lashes, if any one
+from the numerous stalls addressed her; for a small splint basket on her
+arm, new and perfectly empty, was a sure indication that the child had
+been sent to make purchase; while her timid air--the blush that came and
+went on her face--bespoke as plainly that she was altogether
+unaccustomed to the scene, and had no regular place at which to make her
+humble bargains. The child seemed a waif cast upon the market; and she
+was so beautiful, notwithstanding her humble dress of faded and darned
+calico, that at almost every stand she was challenged pleasantly to
+pause and fill her basket. But she only cast down her eyes and blushed
+more deeply, as with her little bare feet she hurried on through the
+labyrinth of stalls, toward that portion of the market occupied by the
+huckster-women. Here she began to slacken her pace, and to look about
+her with no inconsiderable anxiety.
+
+"What do you want, little girl; anything in my way?" was repeated to her
+once or twice, as she moved forward. At each of these challenges she
+would pause, look earnestly into the face of the speaker, and then pass
+on with a faint wave of the head, that expressed something of sad and
+timid disappointment.
+
+At length the child--for she seemed scarcely more than that--was growing
+pale, and her eyes turned with a sort of sharp anxiety from one face to
+another, when suddenly they fell upon the buxom old huckster-woman,
+whose stall we have described. There was something in the good dame's
+appearance that brought an eager and satisfied look to that pale face.
+She drew close to the stand, and stood for some seconds, gazing timidly
+on the old woman. It was a pleasant face, and a comfortable, portly form
+enough, that the timid girl gazed upon. Smooth and comely were the full
+and rounded cheeks, with their rich autumn color, dimpled like an
+over-ripe apple. Fat and good humored enough to defy wrinkles, the face
+looked far too rosy for the thick, gray hair that was shaded, not
+concealed, by a cap of clear white muslin, with a broad, deep border,
+and tabs that met like a snowy girth to support the firm, double chin.
+Never did your eyes dwell upon a chin so full of health and good humor
+as that. It sloped with a sleek, smiling grace down from the plump
+mouth, and rolled with a soft, white wave into the neck, scarcely
+leaving an outline, or the want of one, before it was lost in the white
+of that muslin kerchief, folded so neatly beneath the ample bosom of her
+gown. Then the broad linen apron of blue and white check, girding her
+waist, and flowing over the smooth rotundity of person, was a living
+proof of the ripeness and wholesome state of her merchandise.--I tell
+you, reader, that woman, take her for all in all, was one to draw the
+attention, aye, and the love of a child, who had come forth barefooted
+and alone in search of kindness.
+
+At length the huckster-woman saw the child gazing upon her with a look
+so earnest, that she was quite startled by it. She also caught a glance
+at the empty basket, and her little brown eyes twinkled at the promise
+of a new customer.
+
+"Well, my dear, what do you want this morning?" she said, smoothing her
+apron with a pair of plump, little hands, and casting a well satisfied
+look over her stall, and then at the girl, who grew pale at her notice,
+and began to tremble visibly--"all sorts of vegetables, you
+see--flowers--strawberries--radishes--what will you have, child?"
+
+The little girl crept round to where the woman stood, and speaking in a
+low, frightened voice, said--
+
+"Please, ma'm, I want you to trust me!"
+
+"Trust you!" said the woman, with a soft laugh that shook her double
+chin, and dimpled her cheeks. "Why, I don't know you, little one--what
+on earth do you want trust for? Lost the market money, hey, and afraid
+of a scolding--is that it?"
+
+"No, no, I haven't lost any money," said the child eagerly; "please
+ma'm, just stoop down one minute, while I tell you!"
+
+The little girl in her earnestness took hold of the woman's apron, and
+she, kind soul, sunk back to her stool: it was the most comfortable way
+of listening.
+
+"I--I live with grandfather and grandmother, ma'm; they are old and
+poor--you don't know how poor; for he, grandpa, has been sick, and--it
+seems strange--I eat as much as any of them. Well, ma'm, I tried to get
+something to do, but you see how little I am; nobody will think me
+strong enough, even to tend baby; so we have all been without anything
+to eat, since day before yesterday."
+
+"Poor thing!" muttered the huckster-woman, "poor thing!"
+
+"Well, ma'm, I must do something. I can bear anything better than seeing
+them hungry. I did not sleep a wink all last night, but kept thinking
+what I should do. I never begged in my life; _they_ never did; and it
+made me feel sick to think of it; but I could have done it rather than
+see them sit and look at each other another day. Did you ever see an old
+man cry for hunger, ma'm?"
+
+"No, no, God forbid!" answered the dame, brushing a plump hand across
+her eyes.
+
+"I have," said the child, with a sob, "and it was this that made me
+think that begging, after all, was not so very, very mean. So, this
+morning, I asked them to let me go out; but grandpa said he might go
+himself, if he were strong enough; but I never should--never--never!"
+
+"Nice old man--nice old man!" said the huckster-woman.
+
+"I did not ask again," resumed the child, "for an idea had come into my
+head in the night. I have seen little girls, no older than I am, selling
+radishes and strawberries, and things."
+
+"Yes--yes, I understand!" said the old woman, and her eyes began to
+twinkle the more brightly that they were wet before.
+
+"But I had no strawberries to sell, nor a cent of money to buy them
+with!"
+
+"Well! well!"
+
+"Not even a basket!"
+
+"Poor thing!"
+
+"But I was determined to do something. So I went to a grocery, where
+grandpa used to buy things when he had money, and they trusted me with
+this basket."
+
+"That was very kind of them!"
+
+"Wasn't it very kind?" said the child, her eyes brightening, "especially
+as I told them it was all myself--that grandpa knew nothing about it.
+See what a nice new basket it is--you can't think how much courage it
+gave me. When I came into the market it seemed as if I shouldn't be
+afraid to ask anybody about trusting me a little."
+
+"And yet you came clear to this side without stopping to ask anybody?"
+
+"I was looking into their faces to see if it would do," answered the
+child, with meek simplicity, "but there was something in every face that
+sent the words back into my throat again."
+
+"So you stopped here because it was almost the last stand."
+
+"No, no, I did not think of that," said the child eagerly. "I stopped
+because something seemed to tell me that this was the place. I thought
+if you would not trust me, you would, any way, be patient and listen."
+
+The old huckster-woman laughed--a low, soft laugh--and the little girl
+began to smile through her tears. There was something mellow and
+comfortable in that chuckle, that warmed her to the heart.
+
+"So you were sure that I would trust you--hey, quite sure?"
+
+"I thought if you wouldn't, there was no chance for me anywhere else,"
+replied the child, lifting her soft eyes to the face of the matron.
+
+Again the old woman laughed.
+
+"Well, well, let us see how many strawberries will set you up in
+business for the day. Six, ten--a dozen baskets--your little arms will
+break down with more than that. I will let you have them at cost, only
+be sure to come back at night with the money. I would not for fifty
+dollars have you fail."
+
+"But I may not sell them all!" said the child, anxiously.
+
+"I should not wonder, poor thing. That sweet voice of yours will hardly
+make itself heard at first; but never mind, run down into the areas and
+look through the windows--people can't help but look at your face, God
+bless it!"
+
+As the good woman spoke, she was busy selecting the best and most
+tempting strawberries from the pile of little baskets that stood at her
+elbow. These she arranged in the orphan's basket, first sprinkling a
+layer of damp, fresh grass in the bottom, and interspersing the whole
+with young grape leaves, intended both as an embellishment, and to keep
+the fruit fresh and cool. When all was arranged to her satisfaction, she
+laid a bouquet of white and crimson moss rose-buds at each end of the
+basket, and interspersed little tufts of violets along the side, till
+the crimson berries were wreathed in with flowers.
+
+"There," said the old woman, lifting up the basket with a sigh of
+satisfaction, "between the fruit and flowers you must make out. Sell the
+berries for sixpence a basket, and the roses for all you can get. People
+who love flowers well enough to buy them, never cavil about the price;
+just let them pay what they like."
+
+The little girl took the basket on her arm; her pretty mouth grew
+tremulous and bright as the moss rose-bud that blushed against her hand;
+her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Oh, ma'm, I want to thank you so much, only I don't know how," she
+said, in a voice that went to the good woman's heart.
+
+"There, there!--never mind--be punctual, that's a good girl. Now, my
+dear, what is your name?"
+
+"Julia--Julia Warren, ma'm!"
+
+"A pretty name--very well--stop a moment, I had forgotten."
+
+The child sat her basket down upon the stool which the huckster-woman
+hastily vacated, and waited patiently while the good dame disappeared in
+some unknown region of the market, eager to accomplish an object that
+had just presented itself to her mind.
+
+"Here," she said, coming back with her face all in a glow, a small tin
+pail in one hand, and her apron gathered up in the other. "Just leave
+the strawberries, and run home with these. It will be a long time for
+the old folks to wait, and you will go about the day's work with a
+lighter heart, when you know that they have had a breakfast, to say
+nothing of yourself, poor thing! There, run along, and be back in no
+time."
+
+Julia took the little tin pail and the rolls that her kind friend
+hastily twisted up in a sheet of brown paper.
+
+"Oh! they will be _so_ glad," broke from her, and with a sob of joy she
+sprang away with her precious burden.
+
+"Well now, Mrs. Gray, you are a strange creature, trusting people like
+that, and absolutely laying out money too; I only wonder how you ever
+got along at all!" said a little, shrewish woman from a neighboring
+stand, who had been watching this scene from behind a heap of
+vegetables.
+
+"Poh! it's my way; and I can afford it," answered the huckster-woman,
+rubbing her plump palms together, and twinkling her eyelashes to
+disperse the moisture that had gathered under them. "I haven't sat in
+this market fourteen years for nothing. The child is a good child, I'll
+stake my life on it!"
+
+"I hope you may never see the pail again, that's all," was the terse
+reply.
+
+"Well, well, I may be wrong--maybe I am--we shall know soon. At any rate
+I can afford to lose half a dozen pails, that's one comfort."
+
+"Always chuckling over the money she has saved up," muttered the little
+woman, with a sneer; "for my part I don't believe that she is half as
+well off as she pretends to be."
+
+The conversation was here cut short by several customers, who crowded up
+to make their morning purchases. During the next half hour good Mrs.
+Gray was so fully occupied, that she had no opportunity for thought of
+her protégé; but just as she obtained a moment's breathing time, up came
+the little girl panting for breath; her cheeks glowing like June roses;
+and her eyes sparkling with delight.
+
+"They have had their breakfast; I told them all about it!" she said, in
+a panting whisper, drawing close up to the huckster-woman, and handing
+back the empty pail. "I wish you could have seen grandpa when I took off
+the cover, and let the hot coffee steam into the room. I only wish you
+could have seen him!"
+
+"And he liked it, did he?"
+
+"Liked it! Oh! if you had been there to see!"
+
+The child's eyes were brimful of tears, and yet they sparkled like
+diamonds.
+
+Mrs. Gray looked over her stall to see if there was anything else that
+could be added to the basket. That pretty, grateful look expanded her
+warm heart so pleasantly, that she felt quite like heaping everything at
+hand upon the little girl. But the basket was already quite heavy enough
+for that slender arm, and the addition of a single handful of fruit or
+tuft of flowers, would have destroyed the symmetry of its arrangement.
+So with a sigh, half of disappointment, half of that exquisite
+satisfaction that follows a kind act, she patted little Julia on the
+head, lifted the basket from the stool, and kindly bade her begone to
+her day's work.
+
+The child departed with a light tread and a lighter heart, smiling upon
+every one she met, and looking back, as if she longed to point out her
+benefactress to the whole world.
+
+Mrs. Gray followed her with moist and sunny eyes; then shaking the empty
+pail at her cynical neighbor, in the good-humored triumph of her
+benevolence, she carried it back to the coffee-stand whence it had been
+borrowed.
+
+"Strawberries!--strawberries!"
+
+Julia Warren turned pale, and looked around like a frightened bird, when
+this sweet cry first broke from her lips in the open street. Nobody
+seemed to hear--that was one comfort; so she hurried round a corner, and
+creeping into the shadow of a house, leaned, all in a tremor, against an
+iron railing, quite confident, for the moment, that she should never
+find courage to open her mouth again. But a little reflection gave her
+strength. Mrs. Gray had told her that the morning was her harvest hour.
+She could not stand there trembling beneath the weight of her basket.
+The fruity scent--the fragrant breath of the violets that floated up
+from it, seemed to reproach her.
+
+"Strawberries!--strawberries!"
+
+The sound rose from those red lips more cheerily now. There was ripeness
+in the very tones that put you in mind of the fruit itself. The cry was
+neither loud nor shrill, but somehow people were struck by it, and
+turned unconsciously to look upon the girl. This gave her fresh courage,
+for the glances were all kind, and as she became accustomed to her own
+voice, the novelty of her position began to lose its terror. A woman
+called to her from the area of a house, and purchased two baskets of the
+strawberries, without asking any reduction in the price. Poor child, how
+her heart leaped when the shilling was placed in her hand! How important
+the whole transaction seemed to her; yet with what indifference the
+woman paid for the strawberries, and turned to carry them into the
+basement.
+
+Julia looked through the railings and thanked this important customer.
+She could not help it; her little heart was full. A muttered reply that
+she was "welcome," came back; that was all. Notwithstanding the gruff
+answer, Julia took up her basket with a radiant face.
+
+"Strawberries!--strawberries!"
+
+Now the words came forth from red and smiling lips--nay, once or twice
+the little girl broke into a laugh, as she went along, for the bright
+shilling lay in the bottom of her basket. She wandered on unacquainted
+with the streets, but quite content; for though she found herself down
+among warehouses only, and in narrow, crowded streets, the gentlemen who
+hurried by would now and then turn for a bunch of violets, and she kept
+on bewildered, but happy as a bird.
+
+All at once the strawberry girl found herself among the shipping; and a
+little terrified at the coarse and barren appearance of the wharves, she
+paused close by the water, irresolute what direction to pursue. It was
+now somewhat deep in the morning, and everything was life and bustle in
+that commercial district; for the child was but a few streets above the
+Battery, and could detect the cool wave of its trees through a vista in
+the buildings. The harbor, glowing with sunshine and covered with every
+species of water craft, lay spread before her gaze. Brooklyn Heights,
+Jersey City, and the leafy shores of Hoboken, half veiled in the golden
+haze of a bright June morning, rose before her like soft glimpses of the
+fairy land she had loved to read about. Never in her life had she been
+in that portion of the city before; and she forgot everything in the
+strange beauty of the scene, which few ever looked upon unmoved. The
+steamboats ploughing the silvery foam of the waters, curving around the
+Battery, darting in and out from every angle of the shore; the fine
+national vessels sleeping upon the waters, with their masts pencilled
+against the sky, and their great, black hulls, so imposing in their
+motionless strength; the ferry-boats, the pretty barges and smaller kind
+of water craft shooting with arrowy speed across the waves--all these
+things had a strange and absorbing effect on the girl.
+
+As she stood gazing upon the scene, there came looming up in the distant
+horizon, an ocean steamer, riding majestically on the waters, that
+seemed to have suddenly heaved the monster up into the bright June
+atmosphere. At first, the vast proportions of this sea monarch were lost
+in the distance; but it came up with the force and swiftness of some
+wild steed of the desert, and each moment its vast size became more
+visible. Up it came, black, swift, and full of majestic strength,
+ploughing the waters with a sort of haughty power, as if spurning the
+element which had become its slave. Its great pipes poured forth a
+whirlwind of black, fleecy smoke, now and then flaked and lurid with
+fire, that whirled and whirled in the curling vapor, till all its glow
+went out, rendering the thick volumes of smoke that streamed over the
+water still more dense and murky.
+
+At first the child gazed upon this imposing object with a sensation of
+affright. Her large eyes dilated; her cheek grew pale with excitement;
+she felt a disposition to snatch up her basket, and flee from the
+water's edge. But curiosity, and something akin to superstitious dread
+kept her motionless. She had heard of these great steamships, and knew
+that this must be one; yet it seemed to her like some dangerous monster
+tortured with black, fiery venom. She turned to an old sailor that stood
+near, his countenance glowing with enthusiasm, and muttering eagerly to
+himself--
+
+"Oh! sir, it is only a ship--you are sure of that!" she said, for her
+childish dread of strangers was lost in wonder at a sight so new and
+majestic.
+
+The man turned and gave one glance at the mild, blue eyes and earnest
+face of the child.
+
+"Why, bless your heart, what else should it be? A ship, to be sure it
+is--or at any rate, a sort of one, going by wind and fire both together;
+but arter all, a clean rigged taut merchantman for me--that's the sort
+of craft for an old salt that's been brought up to study wind and water,
+not fire and smoke! But take care of your traps, little one, she'll be
+up to her berth in no time."
+
+The child snatched up her basket and gave a hurried glance around,
+seeking for some means of egress from the wharf; but while she was
+occupied by the steamer, a crowd had gathered down to the water's edge,
+and she shrunk from attempting a passage through the mass of carts,
+carriages and people that blocked up her way to the city.
+
+"Poh! there's nothing to be afeared of!" said the good-natured tar,
+observing her terrified look; "only take care of your traps, and it's
+worth while waiting."
+
+By this time the steamer was opposite Governor's Island. She made a bold
+curve around the Battery, and came up to her berth with a slow and
+measured beat of the engine, blowing off steam at intervals, like a
+racer drawing breath after sweeping his course.
+
+The deck of the steamer was alive with passengers, an eager crowd full
+of cheerfulness and expectation. Most of them were evidently from the
+higher classes of society; for their rich attire and a certain air of
+refined indifference was manifest, even in the excitement of an arrival.
+
+Among the rest, Julia saw two persons that fascinated her attention in
+a most singular degree, drawing it from the whole scene, till she heeded
+nothing else.
+
+One of these was a woman somewhat above the common size, and of superb
+proportions, who leaned against the railing of the steamer with a heavy,
+drooping bend, as if occupied with some deep and painful feeling. One
+glove was off, and her eager grasp upon the black wood-work seemed to
+start the blue veins up to the snowy surface of a hand, whose symmetry
+was visible, even from the shore. Julia could not remove her eyes from
+the strange and beautiful face of this woman. Deep, but subdued agony
+was at work in every lineament. There was wildness in her very motion,
+as she lifted her superb form from the railing, and drew the folds of a
+cashmere shawl over her bosom, pressing her hand hard upon the rich
+fabric, as if to relieve some painful feeling that it covered.
+
+The steamer now lay close in her berth. A sort of movable staircase was
+flung from the side of the wharf, and down this staircase came the
+passengers, eager to touch the firm earth once more. Among the foremost
+was the woman who had so riveted the attention of Julia Warren; and,
+behind her, bearing a silver dressing-case and a small embroidered
+satchel, came a tall and singular looking man. Though his form was
+upright enough in itself, he bent forward in his walk; and his arms,
+long and awkward, seemed like the members of some other body, that had,
+by mistake, been given up to his ungainly use. His dress was fine in
+material, but carelessly put on, ill-fitting and badly arranged in all
+its tints. A hat of fine beaver and foreign make, seemed flung on the
+back of his head, and settled tightly there by a blow on the crown; his
+great hands were gloveless; and his boots appeared at least a size too
+large for the feet they encased.
+
+This man would now and then cast a glance from his small, gray eyes on
+the superb woman who preceded him; and it was easy to see by his
+countenance, that he observed, and after his fashion shared the anguish
+visible in her features. His own face deepened in its expression of
+awkward sadness with every glance; and he hugged the dressing case to
+his side with unconscious violence, which threatened to crush the
+delicate frost-work that enriched it.
+
+With a wild and dry brightness in her large, blue eyes, the lady
+descended to the wharf, a few paces from the spot occupied by the
+strawberry girl. As her foot touched the earth, Julia saw that the white
+hand dropped from its hold on the shawl, and the costly garment half
+fell from her shoulders, trailing the dirty wharf with its embroidery.
+In the whole crowd there was no object but this woman to the girl. With
+a pale cheek and suspended breath she watched every look and motion.
+There was something almost supernatural in the concentration of her
+whole being on this one person. An intense desire to address the
+stranger--to meet the glance of her eyes--to hear her voice, seized upon
+the child. She sprang forward, obeying this strange impulse, and lifting
+the soiled drapery of the shawl, held it up grasped in her trembling
+hands.
+
+"Lady, your shawl!"
+
+The child could utter no more. Those large, blue eyes were bent upon her
+face. Her own seemed fascinated by the gaze. Slowly, sadly they filled
+with tears, drop by drop, and the eyes of that strange, beautiful woman
+filled also. Still she gazed upon the child--her clean, poverty-stricken
+dress--her meek face, and the basket of fruit and flowers upon her arm;
+and as she gazed, a faint smile crept around her mouth.
+
+"This sweet voice--the flowers--is it not a beautiful welcome?" she
+said, glancing through her tears upon the man who stood close by her
+side; but the uncouth friend, or servant, whatever he might be, did not
+answer. His eyes were riveted on the child, and some strange feeling
+seemed to possess him.
+
+"Give me," said the lady, passing her hand over Julia's head with a
+caressing motion--"give me some of these roses; it is a long time since
+I have touched a flower grown in home soil!"
+
+Julia selected her freshest bouquet and held it up. The lady's hand
+trembled as she drew forth her purse, and dropping a bright coin into
+the basket, received the flowers.
+
+"Take a few of the strawberries, lady, they are so ripe and cool!" said
+the little girl, lifting one of the baskets from its leafy nest.
+
+Again the lady smiled through her tears, and taking the little basket,
+poured a few of the strawberries into her ungloved hand.
+
+"Would not he like some?" questioned the child, offering the basket with
+its scarcely diminished contents to the man, who still kept his eyes
+fixed on her face.
+
+"No, not them--but give me a bunch of the blue flowers--they grew around
+the rock-spring at the old homestead, thousands and thousands on 'em!"
+cried the man, with a strong Down East pronunciation, and securing a
+tuft of the violets he turned aside, as if ashamed of the emotion he had
+betrayed.
+
+The lady turned away. Something in his words seemed to have disturbed
+her greatly. She gathered the shawl about her, and moved towards a
+carriage that had drawn close up to the wharf.
+
+Julia's heart beat quick; she could not bear to see that strange,
+beautiful woman depart without speaking to her again.
+
+"Lady, will you take this one little bunch?--some people love violets
+better than anything!"
+
+"No, no, I cannot--I----" The lady paused, tears seemed choking her. She
+drew down the folds of a rich blonde veil over her face, and moved on.
+
+Julia laid the violets back into her basket with a sigh. Feelings of
+vague disappointment were saddening her heart. When she looked up again,
+the lady had taken her seat in the carriage, and leaning out was
+beckoning to her.
+
+"I will take the violets!" she said, reaching forth her hand, that
+trembled as the simple blossoms were placed in it.--"Heaven forbid that
+I should cast the sweet omen from me. Thank you child--thank you."
+
+The lady drew back into the carriage. Her face was clouded by the veil,
+but tears trembled in her voice, and that voice lingered upon Julia
+Warren's ear many a long month afterward. It had unlocked the deepest
+well-spring of her life.
+
+The strawberry girl stood upon the wharf motionless and lost in thought
+minutes after the carriage drove away. She had forgotten the basket on
+her arm, everything in the strange regret that lay upon her young heart.
+Never, never would she meet that beautiful woman again. The thought
+filled her soul with unutterable loneliness. She was unconscious that
+another carriage had driven up, and that a Southern vessel, arrived that
+morning, was pouring forth luggage and passengers on the opposite side
+of the pier. She took no heed of anything that was passing around her,
+till a sweet, low voice close by, exclaimed--
+
+"Oh! see those flowers--those beautiful, beautiful moss rose-buds!"
+
+Julia looked up. A young girl with soft, dark eyes, and lips dewy and
+red as the buds she coveted, stood a few paces off, with her hand
+grasped by a tall and stately looking man, approaching middle age, if
+not a year or two on the other side, who seemed anxious to hurry his
+companion into the carriage.
+
+"Step in, Florence, the girl can come to us!" said the man, restraining
+the eager girl, who had withdrawn her foot from the carriage steps.
+"Come, come, lady-bird, this is no place for us: see, half the crowd are
+looking this way."
+
+The young lady blushed and entered the carriage, followed by her
+impatient companion, who beckoned Julia towards him.
+
+"Here," he said, tossing a silver coin into her basket, "give me those
+buds, quick, and then get out of the way, or you will be trampled down."
+
+Julia held up her basket, half terrified by the impatience that broke
+from the dark eyes bent upon her.
+
+"There, sweet one, these might have ripened on your own smile: kiss them
+for my sake!" said the man, gently bending with his fragrant gift toward
+his lovely companion.
+
+His voice, soft, sweet and harmonious, fell upon the child's heart
+also; and while the tones melted into her memory, she shuddered as the
+flower may be supposed to shrink when a serpent creeps by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE OLD COUPLE.
+
+     There is no spot so dark on earth,
+       But love can shed bright glimmers there,
+     Nor anguish known, of human birth,
+       That yieldeth not to faith and prayer.
+
+
+In the basement of a rear building in one of those cross streets that
+grow more and more squalid as they stretch down to the water's edge, sat
+an aged couple, at nightfall, on the day when our humble heroine was
+presented to the reader. The room was damp, low and dark; a couple of
+rude chairs, a deal table, and a long wooden chest were all the
+furniture it contained. A rough shelf ran over the mantel-piece, on
+which were arranged a half dozen unmatched cups and saucers, and a
+broken plate or two, and a teapot, minus half its spout, all
+scrupulously washed, and piled together with some appearance of
+ostentation.
+
+A brown platter, which stood on the table, contained the only approach
+to food that the humble dwelling afforded. A bone of bacon thrice
+picked, and preserved probably from a wretched desire to possess
+something in the shape of food, though that something was but a mockery,
+this and a fragment of bread lay upon the platter, covered with a neat
+crash towel.
+
+A straw bed made up on one corner of the floor partook of the general
+neatness everywhere visible in the wretched dwelling; the sheets were of
+homespun linen, such as our Down East house-wives loved to manufacture
+years ago, and the covering a patch-work quilt, formed of rich,
+old-fashioned chintz, was neatly turned under the edges. One might have
+known how more than precious was that fine old quilt, by the great care
+taken to preserve it. The whole apartment bespoke extreme poverty in its
+most respectable form. Perfect destitution and scrupulous neatness were
+so blended, that it made the heart ache with compassion.
+
+The old couple drew their seats closer together on the hearth-stone, and
+looked wistfully in each other's faces as the darkness of coming night
+gathered around them. The bright morning had been succeeded by a chill,
+uncomfortable rain, and this increased tenfold the gloomy and dark
+atmosphere of the basement. Thus they sat gazing at each other, and
+listening moodily to the rain as it beat heavier and heavier upon the
+sidewalks.
+
+"Come, come!" said the old woman, with a smile that she intended to be
+cheerful, but which was only a wan reflection of what she wished. "This
+is all very wrong; once to-day the Lord has sent us food, and here we
+are desponding again. Julia will be cold and wet, poor thing; don't let
+her find us looking so hungry when she comes in."
+
+"I was thinking of her," muttered the old man, in a sad voice. "Yes, the
+poor thing will be cold and wet and wretched enough, but that is nothing
+to the disappointment; she had built up such hopes this morning."
+
+"Well, who knows after all; something may have happened!" said the old
+woman, with an effort at hopefulness.
+
+"No, no," replied the man, in a voice of touching despondency, "if she
+had done anything, the child would have been home long ago. She has no
+heart to come back."
+
+The old man passed his hand over his eyes, and then flung a handful of
+chips and shavings on the fire from a scant pile that lay in a corner.
+The blaze flamed up, revealing the desolate room for a moment, and then
+died away, flashing over the pale and haggard faces that bent over it,
+with a wan brilliancy that made them look absolutely corpse-like.
+
+Those two wrinkled faces were meagre and wrinkled from lack of
+sustenance; still, in the faded lineaments there was nothing to revolt
+the heart. Patience, sweet and troubled affection, were blended with
+every grief-written line. But the wants of the body had stamped
+themselves sharply there. The thin lips were pale and fixed in an
+expression of habitual endurance. Their eyes were sharp and eager, dark
+arches lay around them, and these were broken by wrinkles that were not
+all of age.
+
+As the flame blazed up, the old man turned and looked earnestly on his
+wife, a look of keen want, of newly whetted hunger broke from her eyes,
+naturally so meek and tranquil, and the poor old man turned his glance
+another way with a faint groan. It was a picture of terrible famine. Yet
+patience and affection flung a thrilling beauty over it.
+
+One more furtive glance that old man cast on his wife, as the flame went
+down, and then he clasped his withered fingers, wringing them together.
+
+"You are starving--you are more hungry than ever," he said, "and I have
+nothing to give you."
+
+The poor woman lifted up her head and tried to smile, but the effort was
+heart-rending.
+
+"It is strange," she said, "but the food we had this morning only seems
+to make me more hungry. Is it so with you, Benjamin? I keep thinking of
+it all the time. The rain as it plashes on the pavement seems like that
+warm coffee boiling over on the hearth; those shavings as they lie in
+the corner are constantly shifting before my eyes, and seem like rolls
+and twists of bread, which I have only to stoop forward and take."
+
+The old man smiled wanly, and a tear started to his eyes, gliding down
+his cheek in the dim light.
+
+"Let us try the bone once more," he said, after a brief silence, "there
+may be a morsel left yet."
+
+"Yes, the bone! there may be something on the bone yet! In our good
+fortune this morning we must have forgotten to scrape it quite clean!"
+cried the old woman, starting up with eager haste, and bringing the
+platter from the table.
+
+The husband took it from her hands, and setting it down before the
+fire, knelt on one knee, and began to scrape the bone eagerly with a
+knife. "See, see!" he said, with a painful effort at cheerfulness, as
+some strips and fragments fell on the platter, leaving the bone white
+and glistening like ivory. "This is better than I expected! With a crust
+and a cup of clear cold water, it will go a good way."
+
+"No, no," said the woman, turning her eyes resolutely away, "we had
+forgotten Julia. She scarcely ate a mouthful this morning!"
+
+"I know," said the old man, dropping his knife with a sigh.
+
+"Put it aside, and let us try and look as if we had been eating all day.
+She would not touch it if--if----" Here the good old woman's eyes fell
+upon the little heap of food--those precious fragments which her husband
+had scraped together with his knife. The animal grew strong within her
+at the sight; she drew a long breath, and reaching forth her bony hand,
+clutched them like a bird of prey; her thin lips quivered and worked
+with a sort of ferocious joy, as she devoured the little morsel, then,
+as if ashamed of her voracity, she lifted her glowing eyes to her
+husband, and cast the fragment of food still between her fingers back
+upon the platter.
+
+"I could not help it! Oh, Benjamin, I could _not_ help it!" Big tears
+started in her eyes, and rolled penitently down her cheek. "Take it
+away! take it away!" she said, covering her face with both hands. "You
+see how ravenous the taste of food makes me!"
+
+"Take it!" said the old man, thrusting the platter into her lap.
+
+"No! no! You haven't had a taste; you--you--I am better now, much
+better!"
+
+For one instant the old man's fingers quivered over the morsel still
+left upon the platter, for he was famished and craving more food, even
+as his wife had been; but his better nature prevailed, and dashing his
+hand away, he thrust the plate more decidedly into her lap.
+
+"Eat!" he said. "Eat! I can wait, and God will take care of the child!"
+
+But the poor woman waved the food away, still keeping one hand
+resolutely over her eyes. "No--no!" she said faintly, "no--no!"
+
+Her husband lifted the plate softly from her lap: she started, looked
+eagerly around, and sunk back in her chair with a hysterical laugh.
+
+"The strawberries! the strawberries, Benjamin! Only think, if Julia
+could not sell the strawberries she will eat them, you know, all--all.
+Only think what a feast the child will have when she has all those
+strawberries! Bring back the meat; what will she care for that?"
+
+The old man brought back the plate, but with a sorrowful look. He
+remembered that the strawberries entrusted to his grandchild were the
+property of another; but he could not find the heart to suggest this to
+the poor famished creature before him, and he rejoiced at the brief
+delusion that would induce her to eat the little that was left. With
+martyr-like stoicism he stifled his own craving hunger, and sat by while
+his wife devoured the remainder of the precious store.
+
+"And you have had none," she said, with a piteous look of self-reproach,
+when her own sharp want was somewhat appeased.
+
+"Oh, I can wait for Julia and the strawberries."
+
+"And if that should fail," answered the poor wife, filled with remorse
+at her selfishness, or what she began to condemn as such, "if anything
+should have happened, you may pawn or sell the quilt to-morrow--I will
+say nothing against it--not a word. It was used for the first time
+when--when _she_ was a baby, and--"
+
+"And we have starved and suffered rather than part with it!" cried the
+old man, moving gloomily up and down the room, "while she--"
+
+"Is dead and buried, I am afraid," said the woman, interrupting him.
+
+"No," answered the old man, solemnly, "or we should not have been left
+behind. It is not for nothing, wife, that you and I, and her child too,
+have starved and pined, and prayed in this cellar. God has an end to
+accomplish, and we are His instruments; how, I cannot tell. It is dark,
+as yet; but all in His good time, His work will be done. Let us be
+patient."
+
+"Patient!" said the old woman, dolefully; "I haven't strength to be
+anything but patient."
+
+"She will yet return to us--our beautiful prodigal--our lost child,"
+continued the old man, lifting his meek eyes heavenward. "We have waited
+long; but the time will come."
+
+"If I could only think so," said the woman, shaking her head
+drearily--"If I could but think so!"
+
+"I know it," said the old man, lifting his clasped hands upward, while
+his face glowed with the holy faith that was in him; "God has filled my
+soul with this belief. It has given me life when food was wanting. It
+grows stronger with each breath that I draw. The time will come when I
+shall be called to redeem our child, even to the laying down of life, it
+may be. I sometimes had a thought, wife, that her regeneration will be
+thus accomplished."
+
+"How? What do you mean to say, husband?"
+
+"How, I cannot tell that; but the God of heaven will, in His own good
+time. Let us wait and watch."
+
+"Oh! if she comes at last, I could be so patient! But think of the years
+that are gone, and no news, not a word. While we have suffered so much,
+every month, more and more--ah, husband, how can I be patient?"
+
+"Wait," said the old man, solemnly; "keep still while God does his work.
+We know that our child has committed a great sin; but she was good once,
+and--"
+
+"Oh, how kind, how good she was! I think she was more like an angel than
+any thing on earth, till _he_ came."
+
+"Hush! When he is mentioned, bitter wrath rises in my bosom; I cannot
+crush it out--I cannot pray it out. God help me! Oh, my God, help me to
+hear this one name with charity."
+
+"Benjamin--my husband!" cried the old woman, regarding the strong
+anguish in his face with affright, as his uplifted hands shook in their
+tight grip on each other, and his whole frame began to tremble.
+
+He did not heed her pathetic cry, but sat down again by the hearth, and
+with a thin hand pressed hard upon each knee, bent forward, gazing into
+the smouldering fire, gloomy and silent. The old woman stole one hand
+over his and pressed it gently. It returned no answering token of her
+sympathy, but still rigidly held its grasp on his knee.
+
+Again she touched his hand, and the loved name, that had been so sweet
+to her in youth, filled his ear with pathetic tenderness.
+
+"Benjamin!"
+
+He lifted his head, looked earnestly in her face, and then sunk slowly
+to his knees. With his locked hands pressed down upon the hearth, and
+his head bent low like one preparing to cast off a heavy weight, he
+broke forth in a prayer of such stern, passionate entreaty, that the
+very storm seemed to pause and listen to the outbreak of a soul more
+impetuous than itself. Never in God's holiest temple has the altar been
+sanctified by a prayer, more full of majestic eloquence, than that which
+rose from the hearth of the miserable cellar that night. The old man
+truly wrestled with the angels, and called for help against his own
+rebellious nature, till his forehead was beaded with drops of anguish,
+and every word seemed to burn and quiver like fire upon his meagre lips.
+
+She, in her weaker and more timid nature, fell down by his side, pouring
+faint ejaculations and low moans into the current of his eloquence. But
+while he prayed for strength to endure, for divine light by which he
+could tread on beneath the burden of life, she now and then broke forth
+into a moaning cry, which was,
+
+"Bread! bread! oh God, give us this day our daily bread!"
+
+All at once, in the midst of his pleading, the old man's voice broke; a
+glorious smile spread over his features, and dropping his forehead
+between both hands, he murmured in the fulness of a heart suddenly
+deluged with love,
+
+"Oh, my God, I thank thee, thou hast indeed rendered me worthy to redeem
+our child!"
+
+Then he arose feebly from his knees, and sat down with her withered hand
+in his, and gazed tranquilly on the sparks of fire that shot, at
+intervals, through the black shaving ashes.
+
+"Wife," he said, and his voice was so changed from its sharp accents,
+that she lifted her eyes to his in wonder; "wife, you may speak of him
+now, God has given me strength; I can hear it without a vengeful wish."
+
+"But I don't want to mention his name, I didn't mean to do it, then,"
+answered the wife with a shudder.
+
+"You see," rejoined Father Warren, with a grave, sweet smile, "You see,
+wife, how long the Lord has been chastening us before he would drive the
+fiend from my heart. How could I expect God to make me the instrument to
+save our child while this hate of her husband lay coiled up like a viper
+in my bosom?"
+
+"And did you hate him so terribly?" she asked, not able to comprehend
+the strength of a nature like his.
+
+"Hate!" exclaimed the old man, "did you not see how I toiled and
+wrestled to cast that hate out from my soul?"
+
+"Yes, I saw," answered the wife, timidly, and they sunk into silence.
+Thus minutes stole on; the rain came down more furiously; the winds
+shook the loose window panes, and the fire grew fainter and fainter,
+only shedding a smoky gloom over those two pale faces.
+
+All at once there came a faint noise in the area--the moist plash of a
+footstep mingled with the sound of falling rain. Then the outer door
+opened, admitting a gush of damp wind into the hall that forced back the
+door of the basement, and there stood little Julia Warren, panting for
+breath, but full of wild and beautiful animation. The rain was dripping
+from her hood, and down the heavy braids of her hair, and her little
+feet left a wet print on the floor at every step.
+
+The old man started up, and flung some fresh fuel on the fire, which
+instantly filled the basement with a brilliant but transitory light.
+There she stood, that brave little girl, dripping with wet, and deluged
+with sudden light. Her cheeks were all in a glow, warm and wet, like
+roses in a storm. Her eyes were absolutely star-like in their
+brilliancy, and her voice broke through the room in a joyful gush that
+made everything cheerful again.
+
+"Did you think I was lost, grandpa, or drowned in the rain--don't it
+pour, though? Here, grandma, come help me with the basket. Stop, till I
+light a candle, though."
+
+The child knelt down in her dripping garments to ignite the candle,
+which she had taken somewhere from the depths of her basket. But her
+little hands shook, and the flame seemed to dance before her; she really
+could not hold the candle still enough for her purpose, that little form
+thrilled and shook so with her innocent joy.
+
+"Here, grandpa, you try," she said, surrendering the candle, while her
+laugh filled the room like the carol of birds, when all the trees are in
+blossom, "I never shall make it out; but don't think, now, that I am
+shivering with the wet, or tired out--don't think anything till I have
+told you all about it. There, now, we have a light; come, come!"
+
+The little girl dragged her basket to the hearth, and no fairy, telling
+down gold and rubies to a favorite, ever looked more lovely. Down by the
+basket the old grandparents fell upon their knees--one holding the
+light--the other crying like a child.
+
+"See, grandpa, see; a beef-steak--a great, thick beef-steak, and
+pickles, and bread, and--and--do look, grandmother, this paper--what do
+you think is in it? oh! ha! I thought you would brighten up! tea, green
+tea, and sugar, and--why grandfather, is that you crying so? Dear, dear,
+how can you? Don't you see how happy I am? Why, as true as I live, if I
+ain't crying myself all the time! Now, ain't it strange; every one of us
+crying, and all for what? I--I believe I shall die, I'm so happy!"
+
+The excited little creature dropped the paper of tea from her hands, as
+she uttered these broken words, and flinging herself on the old woman's
+bosom, clung to her, bathed in tears, and shaking like an aspen leaf,
+literally strengthless with the joy that her coming had brought to that
+desolate place.
+
+While her arms were around the poor woman's neck, the grandmother kept
+her eyes fixed upon the basket, and she contrived to break a fragment
+from one of the loaves it contained, and greedily devour it amid those
+warm caresses.
+
+Joy is often more restless than grief; Julia was soon on her feet again.
+
+"There, there, grandmother! just let the bread alone, what is that to
+the supper we will have by-and-bye. I'll get three cents' worth of
+charcoal, and borrow a gridiron, and--and--now don't eat any more till I
+come back, because of the supper!"
+
+The little girl darted out of the room as she uttered this last
+injunction, and her step was heard like the leap of a fawn, as she
+bounded through the passage. When she returned, the larger portion of a
+loaf had disappeared, and the old couple were in each other's arms,
+while fragments of prayer and thanksgiving fell from their lips. It was
+a beautiful picture of the human heart, when its holiest and deepest
+feelings are aroused. Gratitude to God and to his creatures shed a
+touching loveliness over it all.
+
+Julia, with her bright eyes and eager little hands, bustled about, quite
+too happy for a thought of the fatigue she had endured all the day. She
+drew forth the little table. She furbished and brightened up the cups
+and saucers, and gave an extra rub to the iron candlestick, which was,
+for the first time in many a day, warmed up by a tall and snowy candle.
+The scent of the beef-steak as it felt the heat, the warm hiss of the
+tea-kettle, the crackling of the fire, made a cheerful accompaniment to
+her quick and joyous movements. The cold rain pattering without--the
+light gusts of wind that shook the windows, only served to render the
+comfort within more delightful.
+
+"There now," said Julia, wiping the bottom of her broken-spouted
+tea-pot, and placing it upon the table, "there now, all is ready! I'm to
+pour out the tea, grandpa must cut the steak, and you, grandma--oh, you
+are company to-night. Come, every thing is warm and nice."
+
+The old people drew up to the humble board. A moment their gray heads
+were bent, while the girl bowed her forehead gently downward, and veiled
+her eyes with their silken lashes, as if the joy sparkling there were
+suddenly clouded by a thought of her own forgetfulness in taking a seat
+before the half-breathed blessing was asked.
+
+But her heart was only subdued for a moment. Directly her hands began to
+flutter about the tea-pot, like a pair of humming birds, busy with some
+great, uncouth flower. She poured the rich amber stream forth with a
+dash, and as each lump of sugar fell into the cups, her mouth dimpled
+into fresh smiles. It was quite like a fairy feast to her. Too happy for
+thoughts of her own hunger, she was constantly dropping her knife and
+fork to push the bread to her grandfather, or heap the old grandma's
+plate afresh, and it seemed as if the broken tea-pot was perfectly
+inexhaustible, so constantly did she keep it circulating around the
+table.
+
+"Isn't it nice, grandma, green tea, and such sugar. What, grandpa! you
+haven't got through yet?" she was constantly saying, if either of the
+old people paused in the enjoyment of their meal, for it seemed to her
+as if such unusual happiness ought to last a long, long time.
+
+"Yes," said the old man at length, pushing back his plate with a
+pleasant sigh, and more pleasant smile; "yes, Julia; now let us see you
+eat something, then tell us how all these things came about. You must
+have been very lucky to have earned a meal like this with one day's
+work."
+
+"A meal!" cried the child; "oh, the supper. You relished the supper,
+grandpa?"
+
+"Yes; you couldn't have guessed how hungry we were, or how keenly we
+should have relished anything."
+
+"But--but, you are wondering where the next will come from. You think
+me like a child in having spent so much in this one famous supper."
+
+"Yes, like a child, a good, warm-hearted child--who could blame you?"
+
+"Blame!" cried the grandmother, with tears in her eyes;--"blame! God
+bless her!"
+
+"But then," said the child, shaking her head and forcing back a tear
+that broke through the sunshine in her eyes, "one should not spend
+everything at once; grandpa means that, I suppose?"
+
+"No, no!" answered the old woman, eagerly, "he does not mean to find the
+least fault. How should he?"
+
+"It would have been childish, though; but perhaps I should have done it,
+who knows?--one don't stop to think with a bright half dollar in one's
+hand, and a poor old grandfather and grandmother, hungry at home. But
+then look here!"
+
+The child drew a coin from her bosom, and held it up in the
+candle-light.
+
+"Gold!" cried the astonished grandfather, absolutely turning pale with
+surprise.
+
+"A half eagle, a genuine half eagle, as I am alive!" exclaimed the old
+woman, taking the coin between her fingers and examining it eagerly.
+
+"Yes, gold--a half eagle," said the exulting child, clasping her small
+hands on the table, "worth five dollars--the old woman in the market
+told me so!--five dollars! only think of that!"
+
+"But you did not earn it," said the old man, gravely.
+
+"Earn it--oh, no," answered the little girl with a joyous laugh, "who
+ever thought of a little girl like me earning five dollars in a day?
+Still I don't know. That good woman at the market told me to let every
+one give what he liked for the flowers, and so I did. The most beautiful
+lady you ever set eyes on, took a bunch of rose-buds from my basket, and
+flung that money in its place."
+
+"But who was this lady? There may be some mistake. She might not have
+known that it was gold!" said the old man, reaching over, and taking the
+half eagle from his wife.
+
+"I think she knew; indeed I am quite sure she did," answered the child,
+"for she looked at the piece as she took it from her purse. She knew
+what it was worth, but I didn't."
+
+"Well, that we may know what to think, tell us more about this wonderful
+day," said the old man, still examining the gold with an anxious
+expression of countenance. "Your grandmother has finished her tea, and
+will listen now."
+
+Julia was somewhat subdued by her grandfather's grave air; but spite of
+this, tears and smiles struggled in her eyes, and her mouth, now
+tremulous, now dimpling, could hardly be trained into anything like
+serious narrative.
+
+"Well," she said, shaking back the braids of her hair, and resolutely
+folding both hands in her lap. "Very well; please don't ask any
+questions till I have got through, and I'll do my best to tell
+everything just as it happened. You know how I went out this morning,
+about the basket that I got trusted for at the grocery, and all that.
+Well, I went off with the new basket on my arm, making believe to myself
+as bold as a lion. Still I couldn't but just keep from
+crying--everything felt so strange, and I was frightened too--you don't
+know how frightened!
+
+"Grandma, I think the babes in the woods must have felt as I did, only I
+had no brother with me, and it is a great deal more lonesome to wander
+through lots of cold looking men and women that you never saw before,
+than to be lost among the green woods, where flowers lie everywhere in
+the moss, and the trees are all sorts of colors, with birds hopping and
+singing about--dear little birds, such as covered the poor babes with
+leaves, and--and--finally grandmother, as I was saying, I felt more
+lonesome and down-hearted than these children could have done, for they
+had plenty of blackberries, you know, but I was dreadful hungry--I was
+indeed, though I would not own it to you; and then all the windows were
+full of nice tarts and candies, just as if the people had put them
+there to see how bad they could make me feel. Well, I have told you
+about going into the market, and how my heart seemed to get colder and
+colder, till I saw that good woman--that dear, blessed woman----"
+
+"God bless her, for that one kind act!" exclaimed the old man,
+fervently.
+
+"He _will_ bless her; be sure of that," chimed in the good grandame.
+
+"I wish you could have seen her--I only wish you could!" cried the
+child, in her sweet, eager gratitude, "perhaps you will some day, who
+knows?"
+
+And in the same sweet, disjointed language, the child went on relating
+her adventures along the streets, and on the wharf, where for the first
+time she had seen an ocean steamer.
+
+When she spoke of the lady and her strange attendant, the old people
+seemed to listen with more absorbing interest. They were keenly excited
+by the ardent admiration expressed by the child, yet to themselves even
+this feeling was altogether unaccountable. When the little girl spoke of
+the strange man whom she had met on the wharf also, her voice become
+subdued, and there was a half terrified look in her eyes. The singular
+impression which that man had left upon her young spirit seemed to haunt
+it like a fear; she spoke almost in whispers, and looked furtively
+toward the door, as if afraid of being overheard; but the moment she
+related how he drove away with his beautiful companion, her courage
+seemed to return, she glanced brightly around, and went on with her
+narrative with renewed spirit.
+
+"He had just gone," she said, "and I was beginning to look around for
+some way to leave the wharf, when I saw a handkerchief lying at my feet.
+The carriage wheel had run over it, and it was crushed down in the mud.
+I picked it up, and run after the carriage, for the handkerchief was
+fine as a cobweb, and worth ever so much, I dare say. In and out,
+through the carts, and trunks, and people, I ran with my basket on my
+arm, and the muddy handkerchief in one hand. Twice I saw the carriage,
+but it was too far ahead, and at last I turned a corner--I lost it
+there, and stood thinking what I should do, when the very carriage which
+I had seen go off with the lady in it, passed by; the lady had stopped
+for something, I suppose, and that kept her back. She was looking from
+the window that minute. I thought perhaps the handkerchief was hers,
+after all; so I ran off the sidewalk and shook it, that she might take
+notice. The carriage stopped; down came the driver and opened the door,
+and then the lady leaned out, and smiling with a sort of mournful smile,
+said--
+
+"'Well, my girl, what do you want now?'"
+
+"I held up the handkerchief, but was quite out of breath, and could only
+say, 'this--this--is it yours, ma'am?'
+
+"She took the handkerchief, and turned to a corner where a name was
+marked. Then her cheek turned pale as death, and her mouth, so full, so
+red, grew white. I should have thought that she was dying, she fixed her
+eyes on me so wildly.
+
+"'Come in, come in, this instant,' she said, and before I could speak,
+she caught hold of my arm, and drew me--basket and all--into the
+carriage. The door was shut, and in my fright I heard her tell the man
+to drive fast. I did not speak; it seemed like dreaming. There sat the
+lady, so pale, so altered, with the handkerchief, all muddy as it was,
+crushed hard in her white hand--sometimes looking with a sort of wild
+look at me, sometimes seeming to think of nothing on earth. The carriage
+went faster and faster; I was frightened and began to cry. She looked at
+me very kindly then, and said--
+
+"'Hush, child, hush! no one will harm you.' Still I could not keep from
+sobbing, for it all seemed very wild and strange.
+
+"Then the carriage stopped before a great stone house, with so many long
+windows, and iron-work fence all before it. A good many trees stood
+around it, and a row of stone steps went up half way from the gate to
+the front door. The windows of the house were painted all sorts of
+colors, and at one corner was a kind of steeple, square at the top and
+full of narrow windows, and half covered with a green vine that crept
+close to the stone-work almost to the top.
+
+"No one came to the door. The strange man who rode with the driver let
+us in with a key that he had, and everything was as still as a
+meeting-house. When we got inside, the lady took my hand and led me into
+a great square entry-way, with a marble floor checked black and white;
+then she led me up a great high stair-case, covered from top to bottom
+with a carpet that seemed made of roses and wood-moss. Everything was
+still and half dark, for all the windows were covered deep with silk
+curtains, and it had begun to cloud up out of doors.
+
+"The lady opened a door, and led me into a room more beautiful that
+anything I ever set my eyes on. But this was dark and dim like the rest.
+My feet sunk into the carpet, and everything I touched seemed made of
+flowers, the seats were so silken and downy.
+
+"The lady flung off her shawl, and sat down upon a little sofa covered
+with blue silk. She drew me close to her, and tried to smile.
+
+"'Now,' she said, 'you must tell me, little girl, exactly where you got
+the handkerchief!'
+
+"'I found it--indeed I found it on the wharf,' I said, as well as I
+could, for crying. 'At first I thought it must belong to the tall
+gentleman, but he drove away so fast; then I saw your carriage, and
+thought----'
+
+"She stopped me before I could say the rest--her eyes were as bright as
+diamonds, and her cheeks grew red again.
+
+"'The tall gentleman! What tall gentleman?' she said.
+
+"I told her about the man with the beautiful lady. Before I had done,
+she let go of my hand and fell back on the sofa; her eyes were shut, but
+down through the black lashes the great tears kept rolling till the silk
+cushion under her head was wet with them. I felt sorry to see her so
+troubled, and took the handkerchief from the floor--for it fell from her
+hand as she sunk down. With one corner that the wheel had not touched, I
+tried to wipe away the tears from her face, but she started up, all in
+a tremble, and pushed me away; but not as if she were angry with me;
+only as if she hated the handkerchief to touch her face.
+
+"She walked about the room a few times, and then seemed to get quite
+natural again. By-and-bye the queer looking man came up with a satchel
+and a silver box, under his arm; and she talked with him in a low voice.
+He seemed not to like what she said; but she grew positive, and he went
+out. Then she lay down on the sofa again, as if I had not been by; her
+two hands were clasped under her head; she breathed very hard, and the
+tears now and then came in drops down her cheeks.
+
+"It was getting dark, and I could hear the rain pattering outside. I
+spoke softly, and said that I must go; she did not seem to hear; so I
+waited and spoke again. Still she took no notice. Then I took up my
+basket and went out. Nobody saw me. The great house seemed
+empty--everything was grand, but so still that it made me afraid.
+Nothing but the rain dripping from the trees made the least noise. All
+around was a garden, and the house stood mostly alone, among the trees
+on the top of a hill and lifted up from the street. I had no idea where
+I was, for it seemed almost like the country, trees all around, and
+green grass and rose bushes growing all about the house!
+
+"A long wide street stretched down the hill toward the city. I noticed
+the street lamp posts standing in a line each side, and just followed
+them till I got into the thick of the houses once more. After this I
+went up one street and down another, inquiring the way, till after a
+long, long walk, I got back to the market, quite tired out and anxious.
+
+"The good market woman was _so_ pleased to see me again. I gave her all
+my money, and she counted it, and took out pay for the flowers and
+strawberries. There was enough without the gold piece; she would not let
+me change that, but filled the basket with nice things, just to
+encourage me to work hard next week. There, now, grandfather, I have
+told you all about this wonderful day. Isn't it quite like a fairy
+tale?"
+
+The old man sat gazing on the sweet and animated face of his
+grandchild; his hands were clasped upon the table, and his aged face
+grew luminous with Christian gratitude. Slowly his forehead bent
+downward, and he answered her in the solemn and beautiful words of
+Scripture, "I have been young, and now I am old; yet I have never seen
+the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread." There was pathos and
+fervency in the old man's voice, solemn even as the words it syllabled.
+The little strawberry girl bowed her head with gentle feeling, and the
+grandmother whispered a meek "Amen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE LONE MANSION.
+
+     There are some feelings all too deep,
+       For grief to shake, or torture numb,
+     Sorrows that strengthen as they sleep,
+       And struggle though the heart is dumb.
+
+
+Little Julia Warren had given a very correct description of the house to
+which she had been so strangely conveyed. Grand, imposing, and
+unsurpassed for magnificence by anything known in our city, it was
+nevertheless filled with a sort of gorgeous gloom that fell like a
+weight upon the beholder. Most of the shutters were closed, and where
+the glass was not painted, rich draperies muffled and tinted the light
+wherever it penetrated a crevice, or struggled through the reversed fold
+of a blind.
+
+As you passed through those sumptuous rooms, so vast, so still, it
+seemed like traversing a flower-garden by the faintest starlight; you
+knew that beautiful objects lay around you on every side, without the
+power of distinguishing them, save in shadowy masses. All this
+indistinctness took a strong hold on the imagination, rendered more
+powerful, perhaps, by the profound stillness that reigned in the
+dwelling.
+
+Since the great front door had fallen softly to its latch after the
+little girl left the building, no sound had broken the intense hush that
+surrounded it. Still the lady, who had so marvelously impressed herself
+upon the heart of that child, lay prone upon the couch in her boudoir in
+the second story. She was the only living being in that whole dwelling,
+and but for the quick breath that now and then disturbed her bosom, she
+appeared lifeless as the marble Flora that seemed scattering lilies over
+the cushion where she rested.
+
+After a time the stillness seemed to startle her. She lifted her head
+and looked around the room.
+
+"Gone!" she said, in a tone of disappointment, which had something of
+impatience in it--"gone!"
+
+The lady started up, pale and with an imperious motion, as one whose
+faintest wish had seldom been opposed. She approached a window, and
+flinging back the curtains of azure damask, cast another searching look
+over the room. But the pale, sweet features of the Flora smiling down
+upon her lilies, was the only semblance to a human being that met her
+eye. She dropped the curtain impatiently. The statue seemed mocking her
+with its cold, classic smile. It suited her better when the wind came
+with a sweep, dashing the rain-drops fiercely against the window.
+
+The irritation which this sound produced on her nerves seemed to animate
+her with a keen wish to find the child who had disappeared so
+noiselessly. She went to the door, traversed the hall and the great
+stair-case; and her look grew almost wild when she found no signs of the
+little girl! Two or three times she parted her lips, as if to call out;
+but the name that she would have uttered clung to her heart, and the
+parted lips gave forth no sound.
+
+It was strange that a name, buried in her bosom for years, unuttered,
+hidden as the miser hides his gold, at once the joy, and agony of his
+life, should have sprung to her memory there and then; but so it was,
+and the very attempt to syllable that name seemed to freeze up the
+animation in her face. She grew much paler after that, and her white
+fingers clung to the silver knob like ice as she opened the great
+hall-door and looked into the street.
+
+The entrance to the mansion was sheltered, and though the rain was
+falling, it had not yet penetrated to the threshold. Up and down the
+broad street no object resembling the strawberry girl could be seen; and
+with an air of disappointment, the lady was about to close the door,
+when she saw upon the threshold a broken rose-bud, which had evidently
+fallen from the child's basket, and beside it the prints of a little,
+naked foot left in damp tracery on the granite. These foot-prints
+descended the steps, and with a sigh the lady drew back, closing the
+door after her gently as she had opened it.
+
+She stood awhile musing in the vestibule, then slowly mounting the
+stairs, entered the boudoir again. She sat down, but it was only for a
+minute; the solitude of the great house might have shaken the nerves of
+a less delicate woman, now that the rain was beating against the
+windows, and the gloom thickening around her, but she seemed quite
+unconscious of this. Some new idea had taken possession of her mind, and
+it had power to arouse her whole being. She paced the room, at first
+gently, then with rapid footsteps, becoming more and more excited each
+moment; though this was only manifested by the brilliancy of her eyes,
+and the breathless eagerness with which she listened from time to time.
+No sound came to her ears, however--nothing but the rain beating,
+beating, beating against the plate-glass.
+
+The lady took out her watch, and a faint, mocking smile stole over her
+lips. It seemed as if she had been expecting the return of her servant
+for hours; and lo! only half an hour had passed since he went forth.
+
+"And this," she said, with a gesture and look of self-reproach--"this is
+the patience--this the stoicism which I have attained--Heaven help me!"
+She walked slower then, and at length sunk upon the couch with her eyes
+closed resolutely, as one who forced herself to wait and be still. Thus
+she remained, perhaps fifteen minutes, and the marble statue smiled
+upon her through its chill, white flowers.
+
+She had wrestled with herself and conquered. So much time! Only fifteen
+minutes, but it seemed an hour. She opened her eyes, and there was that
+smiling face of marble peering down into hers; it seemed as if something
+human were scanning her heart. The fancy troubled her, and she began to
+walk about again.
+
+As the lady was pacing to and fro in her boudoir, her foot became
+entangled in the handkerchief which she had so passionately wrested from
+the strawberry-girl, when in her gentle sympathy the child would have
+wiped the tears from her eyes. She took the cambric in her hand, not
+without a shudder; it might be of pain; it might be that some hidden joy
+blended itself with the emotion; but with an effort at self-control she
+turned to a corner of the handkerchief, and examined a name written
+there with attention.
+
+Again some powerful change of feeling seemed to sweep over her; she
+folded the handkerchief with care, and went out of the room, still
+grasping it in her hand. Slowly, and as if impelled against her wishes,
+this singular woman mounted a flight of serpentine stairs, which wound
+up the tower that Julia had described as a steeple, and entered a remote
+room of the dwelling. Even here the same silent splendor, the same
+magnificent gloom that pervaded the whole dwelling, was darkly visible.
+Though perfectly alone, carpets thick as forest moss muffled her
+foot-steps, till they gave forth no echo to betray her presence. Like a
+spirit she glided on, and but for her breathing she might have been
+taken for something truly supernatural, so singular was her pale beauty,
+so strangely motionless were her eyes.
+
+For a moment the lady paused, as if calling up the locality of some
+object in her mind, then she opened the door of a small room and
+entered.
+
+A wonderful contrast did that little chamber present to the splendor
+through which she had just passed. No half twilight reigned there; no
+gleams of rich coloring awoke the imagination; everything was chaste and
+almost severe in its simplicity. Half a shutter had been left open, and
+thus a cold light was admitted to the chamber, revealing every object
+with chilling distinctness:--the white walls; the faded carpet on the
+floor; and the bed piled high with feathers, and covered with a
+patch-work quilt pieced from many gorgeously colored prints, now
+somewhat faded and mellowed by age. Half a dozen stiff maple chairs
+stood in the room. In one corner was a round mahogany stand, polished
+with age, and between the windows hung a looking-glass framed in curled
+maple. No one of these articles bore the slightest appearance of recent
+use, and common-place as they would have seemed in another dwelling, in
+that house they looked mysteriously out of keeping.
+
+The lady looked around as she entered the room, and her face expressed
+some new and strong emotion; but she had evidently schooled her
+feelings, and a strong will was there to second every mental effort.
+After one quick survey her eyes fell upon the carpet. It was an humble
+fabric, such as the New England housewives manufacture with their own
+looms and spinning wheels; stripes of hard, positive colors contrasted
+harshly together, and even time had failed to mellow them into harmony;
+though faded and dim, they still spread away from the feet harsh and
+disagreeable. No indifferent person would have looked upon that
+cheerless object twice; but it seemed to fascinate the gaze of the
+singular woman, as no artistic combination of colors could have done.
+Her eyes grew dim as she gazed; her step faltered as she moved across
+the faded stripes; and reaching a chair near the bed, she sunk upon it
+pale and trembling. The tremor went off after a few minutes, but her
+face retained its painful whiteness, and she fell into thought so deep
+that her attitude took the repose of a statue.
+
+Thus an hour went by. The storm had increased, and through the window
+which opened upon a garden, might be seen the dark sway of branches
+tossed by the roaring wind, and blackened with the gathering night. The
+rain poured down in sheets, and beat upon the spacious roof like the
+rattle of artillery. Gloom and commotion reigned around. The very
+elements seemed vexed with new troubles as that beautiful woman entered
+the room whose humble simplicity seemed so unsuited to her.
+
+Ada saw nothing of the storm, or if she did, the wildness and gloom
+seemed but a portion of the tumult in her own heart. Yet how still and
+calm she was--that strange being! At length the chain of iron thought
+seemed broken; she turned toward the bed, laid her hand gently down upon
+the quilt, and gazed at the faded colors till some string in her proud
+heart gave way, and sinking down with her face buried in the scant
+pillows, she wept like a child. Every limb in her body began to tremble.
+The bed shook under her, and notwithstanding the stormy elements, the
+noise of her bitter sobs filled the room. The voice of her grief was
+soon broken by another sound--the sound of passionate kisses lavished
+upon the pillows, the quilt, and the homespun linen upon the bed. She
+looked at them through her tears; she smoothed them out with her
+trembling hands; she laid her cheek against them lovingly, as a punished
+child will sometimes caress the very garments of a mother whose
+forgiveness it craves; yet in all this you saw that this strange, almost
+insane excitement was not usual to the woman--that she was not one to
+yield her strength to a light passion; and this made her grief the more
+touching. You felt that if such storms often swept across her track of
+life, she did not bow herself to them without a fierce struggle.
+
+She lay upon the bed weeping and faint with exhausted emotion, when the
+sound of a closing door rang through the building. This was followed by
+stumbling footsteps so heavy that even the turf-like carpets could not
+muffle them. The lady started up, listened an instant, and then hurried
+from the room, closing the door carefully after her. It was now almost
+dark, and but for the angular figure and ungainly attitude of the person
+she found in her boudoir, she might not have recognized her own servant,
+who stood waiting her approach.
+
+"Jacob, you have come--well!" said the lady in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, and a pretty time I have had of it," said the man, drawing back
+from the hand which she had almost placed upon his arm, and shaking
+himself with much of the surliness, and all the indifference of a
+mastiff, till the rain fell in showers from his coat. "I am soaking wet,
+ma'm, and dangerous to come near--it might give you a cold."
+
+"It is raining then?" said the lady, subduing her impatience.
+
+"Raining! I should think it was, and blowing too. Why, don't you hear
+the wind yelling and tusseling with the trees back of the house?"
+
+"I have not noticed," answered the lady, mournfully; "I was thinking of
+other things."
+
+"Of _him_, I suppose!" There was something husky in the man's voice as
+he spoke, the more remarkable that his strong Down East pronunciation
+was usually prompt, and clear from any signs of feeling.
+
+"Yes, of him and of them! Jacob, this has been a terrible day to me."
+
+"And to me, gracious knows!" muttered the man, giving his coat another
+rough shake.
+
+"Yes, you have been upon your feet all day--you are wet through, my kind
+friend, and all to serve me--I know that it is hard!"
+
+"Nothing of the sort!--nothing of the sort! Who on earth complained, I
+should like to know? A little rain, poh!" exclaimed the man, evidently
+annoyed that his vexation, uttered in an under tone, should have reached
+the lady's ear.
+
+"No, you never do complain, Jacob; and yet you have often found me an
+exacting mistress--or friend, I should rather say--for it is long since
+I have considered you as anything else. I have often taxed your strength
+and patience too far!"
+
+"There it is again!" answered the man, with a sort of rough impatience,
+which, however, had nothing unkind or disrespectful in it--"jist as if I
+was complaining or discontented--jist as if I wasn't your hired
+man--no, servant, that is the word--to serve, wait, tend on you; and
+hadn't been ever since the day--but no matter about that--jist now I've
+been down town as you ordered."
+
+"Well!"
+
+Oh! how much of exquisite self-control was betrayed by the low, steady
+tone in which that little word was uttered.
+
+"Of course," said the man, "I could do nothing without help. The little
+girl's story was enough to prove that--that he was in town, but it only
+went so far. She neither knew which way he drove, or how the coach was
+numbered; so it seemed very much like searching for a needle in a
+hay-mow. But you wanted to know where he was, and I determined to find
+out. Wal, this morning, as we left the steamer, I saw a man in the crowd
+with a great, gilt star on his breast, and as the thing looked rather
+odd for a republican, I asked what it meant. It was a policeman; they
+have got up a new system here in the city, it seems, and from what was
+said on the wharf, I thought it no bad idea to get some of these men to
+help me to search for Mr. Leicester."
+
+"Hush, hush; don't speak so loud," said the lady, starting as a name her
+lips had not uttered for years was thus suddenly pronounced.
+
+"I inquired the way, and went to the police office at once: it is in the
+Park, ma'm, under the City Hall. Wal, there I found the chief, a smart,
+active fellow as I ever set eyes on; I told him what brought me there,
+and who I wanted to find. He called a young man from the out room; wrote
+on a slip of paper; gave it to the man, and asked me to sit down. Wal, I
+sat down, and we began to talk about my travels, and things in gineral,
+like old acquaintances, till by-and-bye in came the very policeman that
+I had seen on the wharf.
+
+"'Mr. Johnson,' says the chief, 'a Southern vessel arrived to-day at the
+same wharf where the steamer lies. Did you observe a tall gentlemen with
+a young lady on his arm, leave that vessel?'
+
+"'Dark hair; large eyes; a black coat?' says the man, looking at me.
+
+"'Exactly,' says I.
+
+"'The lady beautiful; eyes you could hardly tell the color of; lashes
+always down; black silk dress; cashmere scarf; cottage-bonnet!' says he,
+again.
+
+"'Jist so!' says I.
+
+"'Yes,' says he to the chief, 'I saw them.'
+
+"'Where did they go?' questions the chief.
+
+"'Hack No. 117 took three fares from the vessel and steamer, one to the
+City Hall, one to the New York, one to the Astor. This was the second,
+he went to the Astor.'"
+
+"And the young girl--did she go with him?" cried the lady, striving in
+vain to conceal the keen interest which prompted the question.
+
+"That was just what the chief asked," was the reply.
+
+"And the answer--was she with him?"
+
+"Wal, the chief put that question, only a little steadier; and the man
+answered that the young lady----"
+
+"Well."
+
+"That the coachman first took the young lady to a house in--I believe it
+was Ninth street, or Tenth, or----"
+
+"No matter, so she was not with him," answered the lady, drawing a deep
+breath, while an expression of exquisite relief, came to her features;
+"and he is there alone at the Astor House. And I in the same city! Does
+nothing tell him?--has his heart no voice that clamors as mine does? The
+Astor House! Jacob, how far is the Astor House from this?"
+
+"More than a mile--two miles. I don't exactly know how far it is."
+
+"A mile, perhaps two, and that is all that divides us. Oh! God, would
+that it were all!" she cried, suddenly clasping her hands with a burst
+of wild agony.
+
+The servant man recoiled as he witnessed this burst of passion,
+wherefore it were difficult to say; for he remained silent, and the
+twilight had gathered fast and deep in the room. For several minutes no
+word was spoken between the two persons so unlike in looks, in mind, in
+station, and yet linked together by a bond of sympathy strong enough to
+sweep off these inequalities into the dust. At length the lady lifted
+her head, and looked at the man almost beseechingly through the
+twilight.
+
+The storm was still fierce. The wind shook and tore through the foliage
+of the trees; and the rain swept by in sheets, now and then torn with
+lightning, and shaken with loud bursts of thunder.
+
+"The weather is terrible!" said the lady, with a sad, winning smile, and
+with her beautiful eyes bent upon the man.
+
+He thought that she was terrified by the lightning, and this brought his
+kind nature back again.
+
+"This--oh! this is nothing, madam. Think of the storms we used to have
+in the Alps, and at sea."
+
+A beautiful brilliancy came into the lady's eyes.
+
+"True, this is nothing compared to them: and the evening, it is not yet
+entirely dark!"
+
+"The storm makes it dark--that is all. It isn't far off from sun-down by
+the time!" answered Jacob, taking out an old silver watch, and examining
+it by the window.
+
+"Jacob, are you very tired?"
+
+"Tired, ma'm! What on earth should make me tired? One would think I had
+been hoeing all day, to hear such questions!"
+
+The lady hesitated. She seemed ashamed to speak again, and her voice
+faltered as she at length forced herself to say--
+
+"Then, Jacob, as you are not quite worn out--perhaps you will get me a
+carriage--there must be stables in the neighborhood."
+
+"A carriage!" answered the man, evidently overwhelmed with surprise: "a
+carriage, madam, to-night, in all this rain!"
+
+"Jacob--Jacob, I must see him--I must see him now, to-night--this hour!
+The thought of delay suffocates me--I am not myself--do you not see it?
+All power over myself is gone. Jacob, I must see him now, or die!"
+
+"But the storm, madam," urged poor Jacob, from some cause almost as pale
+as his mistress.
+
+"The better--all the better. It gives me courage. How can we two meet,
+save in storm and strife? I tell you the tempest will give me strength."
+
+"I beg of you, I--I----"
+
+"Jacob, be kind--get me the carriage!" pleaded the lady, gently
+interrupting him: "urge nothing more, I entreat you; but instead of
+opposing, help me. Heaven knows, but for you I am helpless enough!"
+
+There was no resisting that voice, the pleading eloquence of those eyes.
+A deep sigh was smothered in that faithful breast, and then he went
+forth perfectly heedless of the rain; which, to do him justice, had
+never been considered in connection with his own personal comfort.
+
+He returned after a brief absence; and a dark object before the iron
+gate, over which the rain was dripping in streams, bespoke the success
+of his errand. The lady had meantime changed her dress to one of black
+silk, perfectly plain, and giving no evidence of position, by which a
+stranger might judge to what class of society she belonged; a neat straw
+bonnet and a shawl completed her modest costume.
+
+"I am ready, waiting!" she cried, as Jacob presented himself at the
+door, and drawing down her veil that he might not see all that was
+written in her face, she passed him and went forth.
+
+But Jacob caught one glance of that countenance with all its eloquent
+feeling, for a small lamp had been lighted in the boudoir during his
+absence; and that look was enough. He followed her in silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ASTOR HOUSE AND THE ATTIC ROOM.
+
+     When woman sinneth with her heart,
+       Some trace of heaven still lingers there;
+     The angels may not all depart
+       And yield her up to dark despair.
+
+     But man--alas, when thought and brain
+       Can sin, and leave the soul at ease:
+     Can sneer at truth and scoff at pain!--
+       God's angels shrink from sins like these!
+
+
+Alone in one of the most sumptuous chambers of the Astor House, sat the
+man who had made an impression so powerful upon little Julia Warren that
+morning. Though the chill of that stormy night penetrated even the
+massive walls of the hotel, it had no power to throw a shadow upon the
+comforts with which this man had found means to surround himself. A fire
+blazed in the grate, shedding a glow upon the rug where his feet were
+planted, till the embroidered slippers that encased them seemed buried
+in a bed of forest moss.
+
+The curtains were drawn close, and the whole room had an air of snugness
+and seclusion seldom found at a hotel. Here stood an open dressing-case
+of ebony, with its gold mounted and glittering equipments exposed; there
+was a travelling desk of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, opal-tinted
+and glittering like gems in the uncertain light. Upon the mantel-piece
+stood a small picture-frame, carved to a perfect net-work, and
+apparently of pure gold, circling the miniature of a female, so
+exquisitely painted, so beautiful in itself, that the heart warmed to a
+glow while gazing upon it. It was a portrait of the very girl whom Julia
+had seen supported by that man's arm in the morning--new and fresh was
+every tint upon the ivory. Alas! no female face ever had time to grow
+shadowy and mellow in that little frame; with almost every change of the
+moon some new head was circled by the glittering net-work--and this
+spoke eloquently of one dark trait in the character of the man.
+
+He sat before the fire, leaning back in his cushioned easy-chair, now
+glancing with an indolent smile at the picture--now leaning toward a
+small table at his elbow, and helping himself to the fragments of some
+tiny game-birds from a plate where several were lying, all somewhat
+mutilated, as if he had tried each without perfectly satisfying his
+fastidious appetite. Various foreign condiments, and several flasks of
+wine stood on the table, with rich china and glasses of unequal shape
+and variously tinted. For at the hotel this man was known to be as
+fastidious in his taste as in his appetite; with him the appointments of
+a meal were equally important with the viands.
+
+No lights were in the room, save two wax tapers in small candle-sticks
+of frosted silver, which, with various articles of plate upon the table,
+composed a portion of his travelling luxuries. If we have dwelt long
+upon these small objects, it is because they bespoke the character of
+the man better than any philosophical analysis of which we are capable,
+and from a feeling of reluctance to come in contact with the hard and
+selfish, even in imagination.
+
+Oh! if the pen were only called upon to describe the pure and the good,
+what a pleasant task might be this of authorship; but while human life
+is made up of the evil and the good, in order to be true, there must be
+many dark shadows in every picture of life as it exists now, and has
+existed from the beginning of the world. In humanity, as in nature
+herself, there is midnight darkness contrasting with the bright and pure
+sunshine.
+
+There was nothing about the person of Leicester that should make the
+task of describing him an unpleasant one. He had reached the middle age,
+at least was fast approaching it: and on a close scrutiny, his features
+gave indication of more advanced years than the truth would justify; for
+his life had been one that seldom leaves the brow smooth, or the mouth
+perfectly flexible. Still to a casual observer, Leicester was a
+noble-looking and elegant man. The dark gloss and luxuriance of his
+hair was in nothing impaired by the few threads of silver that begun to
+make themselves visible; his forehead was high, broad and white; his
+teeth perfect, and though the lips were somewhat heavy, the smile that
+at rare intervals stole over them was full of wily fascination, wicked,
+but indescribably alluring. That smile had won many a new face to the
+little frame from which poor Florence Craft seemed to gaze upon him with
+mournful tenderness.
+
+As he looked upward it deepened, spread and quivered about his mouth,
+that subtle and infatuating smile. There was something of tenderness,
+something of indolent scorn blended with it then, for his eyes were
+lifted to that beautiful face gazing upon him so immovably from the
+ivory. He caught the mournful expression, cast, perhaps, by the position
+of the candles, and it was this that gave a new character to his smile.
+He stretched himself languidly back in his chair, clasped both hands
+behind his head, and still gazed upward with half closed eyes.
+
+This change of position loosened the heavy cord of silk with which a
+dressing-gown, lined with crimson velvet, and of a rich cashmere
+pattern, had been girded to his waist, thus exposing the majestic
+proportions of a person strong, sinewy and full of flexible vigor. His
+vest was off, and the play of his heart might have been counted through
+the fine and plaited linen that covered his bosom. Something more than
+the rise and fall of a base heart, had that loosened cord exposed.
+Protruding from an inner pocket of his dressing-gown the inlaid butt of
+a revolver was just visible.
+
+Thus surrounded by luxuries, with a weapon of death close to his heart,
+William Leicester sat gazing with half-shut eyes upon the mute shadow
+that returned his look with such mournful intensity. At length the smile
+upon his lip gave place to words full of meaning, treacherous and more
+carelessly cruel than the smile had foreshadowed.
+
+"Oh! Flor, Flor," he said, "your time will soon come. This excessive
+devotion--this wild love--it tires me, child--you are unskilful, Flor--a
+little spice of the evil-one--a storm of anger--now a dash of
+indifference--anything but this eternal tenderness. It gets to be a bore
+at last, Flor, indeed it does."
+
+And Leicester waved his head at the picture, smiling gently all the
+time. Then he unsealed one of the wine-flasks, filled a glass and lifted
+it to his mouth. After tasting the wine with a soft, oily smack of the
+lips, and allowing a few drops to flow down his throat, he put aside the
+glass with a look of disgust, and leaning forward, rang the bell.
+
+Before his hand left the bell-tassel, a servant was at the door, not in
+answer to his summons, but with information that a carriage had stopped
+at the private entrance, and that some one within wished to speak with
+him.
+
+Leicester seemed annoyed. He drew the cords of his dressing-gown, and
+stood up.
+
+"Who is in the carriage? What does he seem like, John?"
+
+The mulatto smiled till his teeth glistened in the candle-light.
+
+"Why don't you speak, fellow?"
+
+The waiter cast a shy glance toward the picture on the mantel-piece, and
+his teeth shone again.
+
+"The night is dark as pitch, sir; I couldn't see a yard from the door;
+but I heard a voice. It wasn't a man's voice."
+
+"A woman!--in all this storm too. Surely _she_ cannot have been so
+wild," cried Leicester, casting aside his dressing-gown, and hurriedly
+replacing it with garments more befitting the night, "Go, John, and say
+that I will be down presently, and listen as you give the message; try
+and get a glimpse of the lady."
+
+John disappeared, and threaded his way to the entrance with wonderful
+alacrity. A man stood upon the steps, apparently indifferent to the rain
+that beat in his face. By changing his position he might have avoided
+half the violence of each new gust, but he seemed to feel a sort of
+pleasure in braving it, for a stern pallor lay upon the face thus
+steadily turned to the storm.
+
+This was the man who had first spoken to the servant, but instead of
+addressing him, John was passing to the carriage, intent on learning
+something of its inmate. But as he went down the steps a strong grasp
+was fixed on his arm, and he found himself suddenly wheeled, face to
+face, with the powerful man upon the upper flag.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+There was something in the man's voice that made the mulatto shake.
+
+"I was going to the carriage, sir, with Mr. Leicester's message to
+the--the----" Here John began to stammer, for he felt the grasp upon his
+arm tighten like a vice.
+
+"I sent for Mr. Leicester to come down; give _me_ his answer!"
+
+"Yes--yes, sir, certainly. Mr. Leicester will be down in a minute,"
+stammered John, shaking the rain from his garments, and drawing back to
+the doorway the moment he was released, but casting a furtive glance
+into the darkness, anxious, if possible, to learn something of the
+person in the carriage.
+
+That moment, as if to reward his vigilance, the carriage window was let
+down, and by the faint light that struggled from the lanterns, the
+mulatto saw a white hand thrust forth; and a face of which he could
+distinguish nothing, save that it was very pale, and lighted by a pair
+of large eyes fearfully brilliant, gleamed on him through the
+illuminated mist.
+
+"What is it? Will he not come? Open the door--open the door," cried a
+voice that rang even through his inert heart.
+
+It was a female's voice, full and clear, but evidently excited to an
+unnatural tone by some powerful feeling.
+
+Again the mulatto attempted to reach the carriage.
+
+"Madam--Mr. Leicester will----"
+
+Before the sentence was half uttered, the mulatto found himself reeling
+back against the door, and the man who hurled him there, darted down the
+steps.
+
+"Shut the window--sit further back, for gracious' sake."
+
+"Is he coming? Is he here?" was the wild rejoinder.
+
+"He _is_ coming; but do be more patient."
+
+"I will--I will!" cried the lady, and without another word she drew back
+into the darkness.
+
+Meanwhile the mulatto found his way back to the chamber, where Mr.
+Leicester was waiting with no little impatience. The very imperfect
+report which he was enabled to give, relieved Leicester from his first
+apprehension, and excited a wild spirit of adventure in its place.
+
+"Who in the name of Heaven can it be?" broke from him as he was looking
+for his hat. "The face, John, you saw the face, ha!"
+
+"Only something white, sir; and the eyes--such eyes, large and
+shining--a great deal brighter than the lamp, that was half put out by
+the rain!"
+
+"It cannot be Florence, that is certain," muttered Leicester, as he took
+up his dressing-gown from the floor and transferred the revolver to an
+inner pocket of his coat--"some old torment, perhaps, or a new one.
+Well, I'm ready."
+
+Leicester found the carriage at the entrance, its outlines only defined
+in the surrounding darkness by the pale glimmer of a lamp, whose
+companion had been extinguished by the rain. Upon the steps, but lower
+down, and close by the carriage, stood the immovable figure of that self
+constituted sentinel. As Leicester presented himself, on the steps
+above, this man threw open the carriage door, but kept his face turned
+away, even from the half dying lamp-light.
+
+Leicester saw that he was expected to enter; but though bold, he was a
+cautious man, and for a moment held back with a hand upon his revolver.
+
+"Step in--step in, sir," said the man, who still held the door; "the
+rain will wet you to the skin."
+
+"Who wishes to see me?--what do you desire?" said Leicester, with one
+foot on the steps. "I was informed that a lady waited. Is she within the
+carriage?"
+
+A faint exclamation broke from the carriage, as the sound of his voice
+penetrated there.
+
+"Step in, sir, at once, if you would be safe!" was the stern answer.
+
+"I am always safe," was the haughty reply, and Leicester touched his
+side pocket significantly.
+
+"You are safe here. Indeed, indeed you are!" cried a sweet and tremulous
+voice from the carriage. "In Heaven's name, step in, it is but a woman."
+
+He was ashamed of the hesitation that might have been misunderstood for
+cowardice, and sprang into the vehicle. The door was instantly closed;
+another form sprang up through the darkness and placed itself by the
+driver. The carriage dashed off at a rapid pace, for, drenched in that
+pitiless rain, both horses and driver were impatient to be housed for
+the night.
+
+Within the carriage all was profound darkness. Leicester had placed
+himself in a corner of the back seat. He felt that some one was by his
+side shrinking back as if in terror or greatly agitated. It was a
+female, he knew by the rustling of a silk dress--by the quick
+respiration--by the sort of thrill that seemed to agitate the being so
+mysteriously brought in contact with him. His own sensations were
+strange and inexplicable; accustomed to adventure, and living in
+intrigue of one kind or another continually, he entered into this
+strange scene with absolute trepidation. The voice that had invited him
+into the carriage was so clear, so thrillingly plaintive, that it had
+stirred the very core of his heart like an old memory of youth, planted
+when that heart had not lost all feeling.
+
+He rode on then in silence, disturbed as he had not been for many a day,
+and full of confused thought. His hearing seemed unusually acute.
+Notwithstanding the rain that beat noisily on the roof, the grinding
+wheels, and loud, splashing tread of the horses, he could hear the
+unequal breath of his companion with startling distinctness. Nay, it
+seemed to him as if the very beating of a heart all in tumult reached
+his ear also: but it was not so. That which he fancied to be the voice
+of another soul, was a powerful intuition knocking at his own heart.
+
+Leicester had not attempted to speak; his usual cool self-possession
+was lost. His audacious spirit seemed shamed down in that unknown
+presence. But this was not a state of things that could exist long with
+a man so bold and so unprincipled. After the carriage had dashed on,
+perhaps ten minutes, he thought how singular this silence must appear,
+and became ashamed of it. Even in the darkness he smiled in self
+derision; a lady had called at his hotel--had taken him almost per force
+into her carriage--was he to sit there like a great school-boy, without
+one gallant word, or one effort to obtain a glimpse at the face of his
+captor? He almost laughed as this thought of his late awkward confusion
+presented itself. All his audacity returned, and with a tone of half
+jeering gallantry he drew closer to the lady.
+
+"Sweet stranger," he said, "this seems a cold reception for your
+captive. If one consents to be taken prisoner on a stormy night like
+this, surely he may expect at least a civil word."
+
+He had drawn close to the lady, her hand lay in his cold as ice. Her
+breath floated over his cheek--that, too, seemed chilly, but familiar as
+the scent of a flower beloved in childhood. There was something in the
+breath that brought that strange sensation to his heart again. He was
+silent--the gallant words seemed freezing in his throat. The hand
+clasped in his grew warmer, and began to tremble like a half frozen bird
+taking life from the humane bosom that has given it shelter. Again he
+spoke, but the jeering tone had left his voice. He felt to his innermost
+soul that this was no common adventure, that the woman by his side had
+some deeper motive than idle romance or ephemeral passion for what she
+was doing.
+
+"Lady," he said, in a tone harmonious with gentle respect, "at least
+tell me why I am thus summoned forth. Let me hear that voice again,
+though in this darkness to see your face is impossible. It seemed to me
+that your voice was familiar. Is it so? Have we ever met before?"
+
+The lady turned her head, and it seemed that she made an effort to
+speak; but a low murmur only met his ear, followed by a sob, as if she
+was gasping for words.
+
+With the insidious tenderness which made this man so dangerous, he
+threw his arm gently around the strangely agitated woman, not in a way
+to arouse her apprehensions had she been the most fastidious being on
+earth, but respectfully, as if he felt that she required support. She
+was trembling from head to foot. He uttered a few soothing words, and
+bending down, kissed her forehead. Then her head fell upon his shoulder,
+and she burst into a passion of tears. Her being seemed shaken to its
+very centre; she murmured amid her tears soft words too low for him to
+hear. Her hand wove itself around his tighter and more passionately; she
+clung to him like a deserted child restored to its mother's bosom.
+
+Libertine as he was, Leicester could not misunderstand the agitation
+that overwhelmed the stranger. It aroused all the sleeping romance--all
+the vivid imagination of his nature; unprincipled he certainly was, but
+not altogether without feeling. Surprise, gratified vanity, nay, some
+mysterious influence of which he was unaware, held the deep evil of his
+nature in abeyance. Strange as this woman's conduct had been, wild,
+incomprehensible as it certainly was, he could not think entirely ill of
+her. He would have laughed at another man in his place, had he
+entertained a doubt of her utter worthlessness; but there she lay
+against his heart, and spite of that, spite of a nature always ready to
+see the dark side of humanity, he could not force himself to treat her
+with disrespect. After all, there must have been some few sparks of
+goodness in that man's heart, or he could not so well have comprehended
+the better feelings of another.
+
+She lay thus weeping and passive, circled by his arm; her tears seemed
+very sweet and blissful. Now and then she drew a deep, tremulous sigh,
+but no words were uttered. At length he broke the spell that controlled
+her with a question.
+
+"Will you not tell me now, why you came for me, and your name? If not
+that, say where we have ever met before?"
+
+She released herself gently from his arm at these words, and drew back
+to a corner of the seat. He had aroused her from the sweetest bliss ever
+known to a human heart. This one moment of delusion was followed by a
+memory of who she was, and why she sought him, so bitter and sharp that
+it chilled her through and through. There was no danger that he could
+recognize her voice then, even if he had known it before. Nothing could
+be more faint and changed than the tone in which she answered--
+
+"In a little time you shall know all."
+
+He would have drawn her toward him again, but she resisted the effort
+with gentle decision; and, completely lost in wonder, he waited the
+course this strange adventure might take.
+
+The horses stopped before some large building, but even the outline was
+lost in that inky darkness; something more gloomy and palpable than the
+air loomed before them, and that was all Leicester could distinguish. He
+sat still and waited.
+
+The carriage door was opened on the side where the female sat, and some
+words passed between her and a person outside, but she leaned forward,
+and had her tones been louder, they would have been drowned by the rain
+dashing over the carriage. The man to whom she had spoken closed the
+door and seemed to mount a flight of steps. Then followed the sound of
+an opening door, and after that a gleam of light now and then broke
+through a chink in that black mass, up and up, till far over head it
+gleamed through the blinds of a window, revealing the casement and
+nothing more.
+
+Again the carriage door was opened. The lady arose and was lifted out.
+Leicester followed, and without a word they both went through an iron
+gate and mounted the granite steps of a dwelling. The outer door stood
+open, and, taking his hand, she led him through the profound darkness of
+what appeared to be a spacious vestibule. Then they ascended a flight of
+stairs winding up and up, as if confined within a tower; a door was
+opened, and Leicester found himself in a small chamber, furnished after
+a fashion common to country villages in New England, but so unusual in a
+large city that it made him start.
+
+We need not describe this chamber, for it is one with which the reader
+is already acquainted. The woman who now stood upon the faded carpet,
+over which the rain dripped from her cloak, had visited it before that
+day.
+
+One thing seemed strange and out of keeping. A small lamp that stood
+upon the bureau was of silver, graceful in form, and ornamented with a
+wreath of flowers chased in frosted silver, and raised from the surface
+after a fashion peculiar to the best artists of Europe. Leicester was a
+connoisseur in things of this kind, and his keen eye instantly detected
+the incongruity between this expensive article and the cheap adornments
+of the room.
+
+"Some waiting maid or governess," he thought, with a sensation of angry
+scorn, for Leicester was fastidious even in his vices. "Some
+waiting-maid or governess who has borrowed the lamp from her mistress'
+drawing-table; faith! the affair is getting ridiculous!"
+
+When Leicester turned to look upon his companion, all the arrogant
+contempt which this thought had given to his face still remained there.
+But the lady could not have seen it distinctly; she had thrown off her
+cloak, and stood with her veil of black lace, so heavily embroidered
+that no feature could be recognized through it, grasped in her hand, as
+if reluctant to fling it aside. She evidently trembled from head to
+foot: and even through the heavy folds of her veil, he felt the
+thrilling intensity of the gaze she fixed upon him.
+
+The look of scornful disappointment left his face; there was something
+imposing in the presence of this strange being that crushed his
+suspicions and his sneers at once. Enough of personal beauty was
+revealed in the superb proportions of her form to make him more anxious
+for a view of her face. He advanced toward her eagerly, but still
+throwing an expression of tender respect into his look and manner. They
+stood face to face--she lifted her veil.
+
+He started, and a look of bewilderment came upon his face. Those
+features were familiar, so familiar that every nerve in his strong frame
+seemed to quiver under the partial recognition. She saw that he did not
+fully recognize her, and flinging away both shawl and bonnet, stood
+before him.
+
+He knew her then! You could see it in the look of keen surprise--in the
+color as it crept from his lips--in the ashy pallor of his cheek. It was
+not often that this strong man was taken by surprise. His
+self-possession was marvellous at all times; but now, even the lady
+herself did not seem more profoundly agitated. She was the first to
+speak. Her voice was clear and full of sweetness.
+
+"You know me, William?"
+
+"Yes!" he said, after a brief struggle, and drawing a deep
+breath--"yes."
+
+She looked at him: her large eyes grew misty with tenderness, and yet
+there was a proud reserve about her as if she waited for him to say
+more. She was keenly hurt that he answered her only with that brief
+"yes."
+
+"It is many years since we met," she said at length, and in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, many years," was his cold reply; "I thought you dead."
+
+"And mourned for me! Oh! Leicester, for the love of Heaven, say that I
+was mourned when you thought me dead!"
+
+Leicester smiled--oh, that cruel smile! It pierced that proud woman's
+heart like the sting of a venomous insect, she seemed withered by its
+influence. He was gratified, gratified that his smile could still make
+that haughty being cower and tremble. He was rapidly gaining command
+over himself. Quick in association of ideas, even while he was smiling
+he had began to calculate. Selfish, haughty, cruel, with a heart fearful
+in the might of its passion, yet seldom gaining mastery over nerves that
+seemed spun from steel, even at this trying moment he could reason and
+plan. That power seldom left him. With all his evil might, he was
+cautious. Now he resolved to learn more, and deal warily as he learned.
+
+"And if I did mourn, of what avail was it, Ada?" He uttered the name on
+purpose, knowing that, unless she were marvellously changed, it would
+stir her heart to yield more certain signs of his power. He was not
+mistaken. She moved a step toward him as he uttered the name in the
+sweet, olden tone that slept ever in her heart. The tears swelled to her
+eyes--she half extended her arms.
+
+Again he was pleased. The chain of his power had not been severed. Years
+might have rusted but not broken it--thus he calculated, for he could
+reason now before that beautiful, passionate being, coldly as a
+mathematician in his closet. The dismay of her first presence
+disappeared with the moment.
+
+"Oh! had I but known it! Had I but dreamed that you cared for me in the
+least!" cried the poor lady, falling into one of the hard chairs, and
+pressing a hand to her forehead.
+
+"What then, Ada--what then?"
+
+He took her hand in his: she lifted her eyes--a flood of mournful
+tenderness clouded them.
+
+"What then, William?"
+
+"Yes, what then? How would any knowledge of my feelings have affected
+your destiny?"
+
+"How? Did I not love--worship--idolize? Oh! Heavens, how I did love you,
+William!"
+
+Her hands were clasped passionately: a glorious light broke through the
+mist of her unshed tears.
+
+"But you abandoned me!"
+
+"Abandoned _you_--oh, William!"
+
+"Well, we will not recriminate--let us leave the past for a moment. It
+has not been so pleasant that we should wish to dwell upon it."
+
+"Pleasant! oh! what a bitter, bitter past it has been to me!"
+
+"But the present. If you and I can talk of anything, it must be that.
+Where have you been so many years?"
+
+"You know--you know--why ask the cruel question?" she answered.
+
+"True, we were not to speak of the past."
+
+"And yet it must be before we part," she said, gently, "else how can we
+understand the present?"
+
+"True enough; perhaps it is as well to swallow the dose at once, as we
+shall probably never meet again."
+
+She cast upon him a wild upbraiding look. The speech was intended to
+wound her, and it did--that man was not content with making victims, he
+loved to tease and torture them. He sat down in one of the maple chairs,
+and drew it nearer to her.
+
+"Now," he said, "tell me all your history since we parted--your motive
+for coming here."
+
+She lifted her eyes to his; and smiled with mournful bitterness; the
+task that she had imposed upon herself was a terrible one. She had
+resolved to open her heart, to tell the whole harrowing, mournful truth,
+but her courage died in his presence. She could not force her lips to
+speak all.
+
+He smiled; the torture that she was suffering pleased him--for, as I
+have said, he loved to play with his victims, and the anguish of shame
+which she endured had something novel and exciting in it. For some time
+he would not aid her, even by a question, but he really wished to learn
+a portion of her history, for during the last three years he had lost
+all trace of her, and there might be something in the events of those
+three years to affect his interest. It was his policy, however, to
+appear ignorant of _all_ that had transpired.
+
+But she was silent; her ideas seemed paralyzed. How many times she had
+fancied this meeting--with what eloquence she had pleaded to him--how
+plausible were the excuses that arose in her mind--and now where had
+they fled? The very power of speech seemed abandoning her. She almost
+longed for some taunting word, another cold sneer--at least they would
+have stung her into eloquence--but that dull, quiet silence chained up
+her faculties. She sat gazing on the floor, mute and pale; and he
+remained in his seat coldly regarding her.
+
+At length the stillness grew irksome to him.
+
+"I am waiting patiently, Ada; waiting to hear why you abandoned your
+husband!"
+
+She started: her eye kindled, and the fiery blood flashed into her
+cheek.
+
+"I did _not_ abandon my husband. He left me."
+
+"For a journey, but for a journey!" was the calm reply.
+
+"Yes, such journeys as you had taken before, and with a like motive,
+leaving me young, penniless, beset with temptation, tortured with
+jealousy. On that very journey you had a companion."
+
+She looked at him as if eager even then, against her own positive
+knowledge, to hear a denial of her accusations; but he only smiled, and
+murmured softly--
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember. It was a pleasant journey."
+
+"It drove me wild--I was not myself--suspicions, such suspicions haunted
+me. I thought--I believed, nay, believe now that you wished me to
+go--that you longed to get rid of me--nay, that you encouraged--I cannot
+frame words for the thought even now. He had lent you money, large
+sums--William, William, in the name of Heaven, tell me that it was not
+for this I was left alone in debt and helpless. Say that you did not
+yourself thrust me into that terrible temptation!"
+
+She laid her hand upon his arm and grasped it hard; her eyes searched
+his to the soul. He smiled--her hand dropped--her countenance fell--and
+oh! such bitter disappointment broke through her voice.
+
+"It has been the vulture preying on my heart ever since. A word would
+have torn it away, but you will not take the trouble even to deceive me.
+You smile, only smile!"
+
+"I only smile at the absurdity of your suspicion."
+
+She looked up eagerly, but with doubt in her face. She panted to believe
+him, but lacked the necessary faith.
+
+"I asked _him_ to deny this on his death-bed, and he could not!"
+
+"Then he _is_ dead," was the quick rejoinder. "He _is_ dead!"
+
+"Yes, he is dead," she answered in a low voice.
+
+"And the daughter, his heiress?"
+
+"She too is dead!"
+
+He longed to ask another question. His eyes absolutely gleamed with
+eagerness, but his self-control was wonderful. A direct question might
+expose the unutterable meanness of his hope. He must obtain what he
+panted to know by circuitous means.
+
+"And you staid by him to the last?"
+
+She turned upon him a sharp and penetrating look. He felt the whole
+force of her glance, and assumed an expression well calculated to
+deceive a much less excitable observer.
+
+"I thought," he said, "that you had been living in retirement. That you
+left the noble villain without public disgrace. It was a great
+satisfaction for me to know this."
+
+"I did leave him. I did live in retirement, toiled for my own bread; by
+wrestling with poverty I strove to win back some portion of content."
+
+"Yet you were with him when he died!"
+
+"It was a mournful death-bed--he sent for me, and I went. Oh! it was a
+mournful death-bed!"
+
+Tears rolled down her cheeks; she covered her face with both hands.
+
+"I had been the governess of his daughter--her nurse in the last
+sickness."
+
+"And you lived apart, alone--you and this daughter."
+
+"She died in Florence. We were alone. She was sent home for burial."
+
+"And to be a governess to this young lady you abandoned your own
+child--_only_ to be governess. Can you say to me, Ada, that it was only
+to be a governess to this young lady?"
+
+There was feeling in his voice, something of stern dignity--perhaps at
+the moment he did feel--she thought so, and it gave her hope.
+
+She had not removed her hands; they still covered her face, and a faint
+murmur only broke through the fingers--oh! what cowards sin makes of us!
+That poor woman dared not tell the truth--she shrunk from uttering a
+positive falsehood, hence the humiliating murmur that stole from her
+pallid lips--the sickening shudder that ran through her frame.
+
+"You do not answer," said the husband, for Leicester _was_ her
+husband--"you do not answer."
+
+She had gathered courage enough to utter the falsehood, and dropping
+her hands, replied in a firm voice, disagreeably firm, for the lie cost
+her proud spirit a terrible effort, and she could not utter it naturally
+as he would have done.
+
+"Yes, I can answer. It was to be the young lady's governess that I
+went--only to be her governess!--penniless, abandoned, what else could I
+do?"
+
+He did not believe her. In his soul he knew that she was not speaking
+the truth; but there was something yet to learn, and in the end it might
+be policy to feign a belief which he could not feel.
+
+"So after wasting youth and talent on his daughter--paling your beauty
+over her death-bed and his--this pitiful man could leave you to poverty
+and toil. Did he expect that I would receive you again after that
+suspicious desertion?"
+
+"No, no. The wild thought was mine--you once loved me, William!"
+
+The tears were swelling in her eyes again; few men could have resisted
+the look of those eyes, the sweet pleading of her voice--for the
+contrast with her usual imperious pride had something very touching in
+it.
+
+"You were very beautiful then," he said--"very beautiful."
+
+"And am I so much changed?" she answered, with a smile of gentle
+sweetness.
+
+In his secret heart he thought the splendid creature handsomer than
+ever. If the freshness of youth was gone, there was grace, maturity,
+intellect, everything requisite to the perfection of womanhood, in
+exchange for the one lost attraction.
+
+It was a part of Leicester's policy to please her until he had mastered
+all the facts of her position; so he spoke for once sincerely, and in
+the rich tones that he knew so well how to modulate, he told how
+superbly her beauty had ripened with time. She blushed like a girl. He
+could feel even that her hand was glowing with the exquisite pleasure
+given by his praise. But he had a point to gain--all her loveliness was
+nothing to him, unless it could be made subservient to his interest.
+What was her present condition?--had she obtained wealth abroad?--or
+could she insanely fancy that he would receive her penniless? This was
+the point that he wished to arrive at, but so far she had evaded it as
+if unconsciously.
+
+He looked around the room, hoping to draw some conclusion by the objects
+it contained. The scrutiny was followed by a faint start of surprise;
+the hard carpet, the bureau, the bed, all were familiar. They had been
+the little "setting out" that his wife had received from her parents in
+New England. How came they there, so well kept, so neatly arranged in
+that high chamber! Was she a governess in some wealthy household,
+furnishing her own room with the humble articles that had once been
+their own household goods? He glanced at her dress. It was simple and
+entirely without ornament; this only strengthened the conclusion to
+which he was fast arriving. He remembered the marble vestibule through
+which they had reached the staircase, the caution used in admitting him
+to the house. The hackney-coach, everything gave proof that she would be
+an incumbrance to him. She saw that he was regarding the patch-work
+quilt that covered the bed; the tears began to fall from her eyes.
+
+"Do you remember, William, we used it first when our darling was a baby?
+Have you ever seen her since--since?"
+
+He dropped her hand and stood up. His whole manner changed.
+
+"Do not mention her, wretched, unnatural mother--is she not
+impoverished, abandoned? Can you make atonement for this?"
+
+"No, no, I never hoped it--I feel keenly as you can how impossible it
+is. Oh, that I had the power!"
+
+These words were enough; he had arrived at the certainty that she was
+penniless.
+
+"Now let this scene have an end. It can do no good for us to meet again,
+or to dwell upon things that are unchangeable. You have sought this
+interview, and it is over. It must never be repeated."
+
+She started up and gazed at him in wild surprise.
+
+"You do not mean it," she faltered, making an effort to smile away her
+terror--"your looks but a moment since--your words. You have not so
+trifled with me, William!"
+
+He was gone--she followed him to the door--her voice died away--she
+staggered back with a faint wail, and fell senseless across the bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MISTRESS AND SERVANT.
+
+     With hate in every burning thought,
+       There, shrouded in the midnight gloom,
+     While every pulse its anguish brought,
+       He guarded still that attic room.
+
+
+Jacob stood upon the steps of that tall mansion, till his mistress
+disappeared in the darkness that filled it. His eyes followed her with
+an intense gaze, as if the fire smouldering at his heart could empower
+his vision to penetrate the black night that seemed to engulf her,
+together with the man to whose hand she was clinging. The rain was
+pouring around him. The winds sweeping through the drops, lulled a
+little, but were still violent. He stood motionless in the midst,
+allowing both rain and wind to beat against him without a thought. He
+was listening for another sound of their footsteps, from the marble
+floor, and seemed paralyzed upon the great stone flags, over which the
+water was dripping.
+
+The carriage wheels grinding upon the pavement, as the coachman
+attempted to turn his vehicle, aroused Jacob from his abstraction. He
+turned, and running down the steps, caught one of the horses by the bit.
+
+"Not yet--you will be wanted again!" he shouted.
+
+"Wanted or not, I am going home," answered the driver gruffly; "as for
+sitting before any lady's door on a night like this, nobody knows how
+long--I won't, and wouldn't for twice the money you'll pay me."
+
+Jacob backed the horses, till one of the carriage wheels struck the
+curbstone.
+
+"There," he said resolutely, "get inside if you are afraid of the rain;
+but as for driving away, that's out of the question!"
+
+"We'll see, that's all," shouted the driver, giving his dripping reins a
+shake.
+
+"Stop," said Jacob, springing up on one of the fore-wheels, and
+thrusting a silver dollar into the man's hand. "This is for yourself
+beside the regular pay! Will that satisfy you for now waiting?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," answered the man, with a broad grin, thrusting the
+coin into the depths of a pocket that seemed unfathomable, "that's an
+argument to reconcile one to cold water: because, do you mind, there's a
+prospect of something stronger after it. Hallo, what are you about
+there?"
+
+"Only looking to the lamp," answered Jacob, holding the little glass
+door open as he spoke.
+
+"But it's out!"
+
+"So it is!" answered Jacob, dismounting from the wheel.
+
+"And what's worse, there isn't a lamp left burning in the neighborhood
+to light up by!" muttered the driver, peering discontentedly into the
+darkness.
+
+"Exactly!" was the terse rejoinder.
+
+"I shall break my neck, and smash the carriage."
+
+"Keep cool--keep cool," said Jacob, "and when we get safely back to the
+Astor, there'll be another dollar to pay for the mending--do you hear?"
+
+"Of course I do!" answered the man, with a chuckle, and gathering
+himself up in his overcoat like a turtle in its shell, he cowered down
+in his seat quite contented to be drenched at that price to any possible
+extent.
+
+Relieved from all anxiety regarding the carriage, Jacob fell back into
+the state from which this little contention had, for the moment,
+diverted him. He looked upward--far, in a gable overhead a single beam
+of light quivered and broke amid the rain-drops--it entered his heart
+like a poignard.
+
+What was he saying to her?--was he harsh?--or worse, oh, a thousand
+times worse, could that light be gleaming upon their reconciliation?
+Jacob writhed with the thought; he tried to be calm; to quench the fire
+that broke up from the depths of his heart. His nature strong, and but
+slowly excited, grew ungovernable when fully aroused. Never till that
+hour had his imagination been so glowing, so terribly awake. A thousand
+fears flashed athwart his usually cool brain. Alone, in that great,
+silent house, with a man like Leicester, was she safe?--his
+mistress--was she? This thought--the latest and least selfish--goaded
+him to action.
+
+He strode hurriedly up the steps, crossed the vestibule and groped his
+way up through the darkness till he reached the attic. A single ray of
+light penetrating a key-hole, guided him to the door of that singular
+chamber. He drew close and listened, unconscious of the act, for his
+anxiety had become intense, and Jacob thought of no forms then.
+
+The rain beating upon the roof overpowered all other sounds; but now and
+then a murmur reached his ear, broken, but familiar as the pulses of his
+own heart. This was followed by tones that brought his teeth sharply
+together. They might be mellowed by distance, but to him they seemed
+soft and persuasive to a degree of fascination. He could not endure
+them; they glided through his heart like serpents distilling poison from
+every coil. He laid his hand upon the latch, hesitated, and turning
+away, crept through the darkness, ashamed of what he had done. He an
+eaves-dropper, and with her, his mistress! He paused on the top of the
+winding staircase beyond ear-shot, but with his eyes fixed upon that ray
+of light, humbled and crushed in spirit, for he had awoke as from a
+dream, and found himself listening. There the poor man sat down pale and
+faint with self-reproach.
+
+Poor Jacob; his punishment was terrible! Minute after minute crept by,
+and each second seemed an hour. Sometimes he sat with both hands
+clasped over his face, and both knees pressed hard by his elbows. Then
+he would stand up in the darkness quiet as a statue; not a murmur could
+possibly reach his ear from the room. Still he held his breath, and bent
+forward like one listening. Cruel anxiety forced the position upon him,
+but it could not impel him one step nearer the door.
+
+He was standing thus, bending forward with his eyes, as it were,
+devouring the little gleam of light that fell so tranquilly through the
+key-hole, when the door was suddenly opened and Leicester came out. With
+the abrupt burst of light rushed a cry, wild and quivering with anguish.
+Jacob sprang forward, seized Leicester by the arm, and after one or two
+fruitless efforts--for every word choked him as it rose--he said--
+
+"Have you killed her? Is it murder?"
+
+"A fit of hysterics, friend, nothing more!" was the cool reply.
+
+Jacob strode into the chamber. His mistress lay prone upon the bed, her
+face pale as death, and a faint convulsion stirring her limbs.
+
+He bent over her, and gently put the hair back from her temples with his
+great, awkward hand.
+
+"She is not dead, nor hurt!" he murmured, and though his face expressed
+profound compassion, a gleam of wild joy broke through it all. "His
+scorn has wounded her, not his hand."
+
+Still the poor lady remained insensible. There was a faint quivering of
+the eyelids, but no other appearance of life. Jacob looked around for
+some means of restoration, but none were there. He flung up the window,
+and dashing open a shutter, held out his palm. It was soon full of
+water-drops, and with these he bathed her forehead and her pale mouth,
+while a gust of rain swept through the open sash. This aroused her; a
+shudder crept through her limbs, and her eyes opened. Jacob was bending
+over her tenderly, as a mother watches her child.
+
+She saw who it was, and rising feebly to her elbow, put him back with
+one hand, while her eyes wandered eagerly around the room.
+
+"Where--where is he?" she questioned; "oh, Jacob, call him back."
+
+"No!" answered the servant, firmly, notwithstanding that his voice
+shook--"no, I will not call him back! To-morrow you would not thank me
+for doing it!"
+
+She turned her head upon the pillow, and closing her eyes, murmured--
+
+"Leave me then--leave me!"
+
+Jacob closed the window, and folding the quilt softly over her, went
+out. He had half descended the coil of steps, when a voice from below
+arrested his attention.
+
+"Here yet!" he muttered, springing down into the darkness, and like a
+wild beast guided by the instinct of his passion, he seized Leicester by
+the arm.
+
+"Softly, softly, friend," exclaimed that gentleman, with a low calm
+intonation, though one hand was upon his revolver all the time. "Oblige
+me by relaxing your hand just the least in the world; my arm is tender
+as a lady's, and your fingers seem made of iron."
+
+"We grasp rattlesnakes hard when we do touch them," muttered Jacob,
+fiercely, "and close to the throat, it strangles back the poison."
+
+"Never touch a rattlesnake at all, friend, it is a desperate business, I
+assure you; they are beautiful reptiles, but rather dangerous to play
+with. Oh, I am glad that your fingers relax, it would have been
+unpleasant to shoot a fellow creature here in the dark, and with a
+gentle lady close by."
+
+"Would it?" muttered Jacob, between his teeth.
+
+The answer was a light laugh, that sounded strangely in that silent
+dwelling.
+
+"Your hand once more, friend; after all, this darkness makes me quite
+dependent on your guidance," said the voice again.
+
+There was a fierce struggle in Jacob's bosom; but at last his hand was
+stretched forth and clasped with the soft, white fingers, whose bare
+touch filled his soul with loathing.
+
+"This way--I will lead you safely!"
+
+"Why, how you tremble, friend--not with fear, I hope."
+
+"No, with hate!" were the words that sprang to the honest lips of Jacob
+Strong; but he conquered the impulse to utter them, and only
+answered--"I'm not afraid!"
+
+"Faith, but it requires courage to grope one's way through all this
+darkness--every step puts our necks in danger."
+
+Jacob made no observation; he had reached the lower hall, and moved
+rapidly across the tessellated floor toward the front entrance. The
+moment they gained the open air, Jacob wrenched his hand from the
+other's grasp, and hurrying down the steps, opened the carriage door.
+The rain prevented any further questioning on the part of Leicester, and
+he took his seat in silence.
+
+Jacob climbed up to the driver's seat, and took possession of the reins.
+The man submitted quietly, glad to gather himself closer in his
+overcoat. A single crack of the whip, and off went the dripping horses,
+plunging furiously onward through the darkness, winding round whole
+blocks of buildings, doubling corners, and crossing one street half a
+dozen times, till it would have puzzled a man in broad daylight to guess
+where he was going, or whence he came. At length the carriage dashed
+into Broadway, and downward to the Astor House.
+
+The coachman kept his seat, and Jacob once more let down the carriage
+steps. The drive had given him time for deliberation. He was no longer a
+slave to the rage that an hour before seemed to overpower his
+strength--rage that had changed his voice, and even his usual habits of
+language.
+
+"Come in--come in!" said Leicester, as he ran up the steps. "I wish to
+ask a question or two."
+
+Jacob made no answer, but followed in a heavy indifferent manner. All
+his faculties were now under control, and he was prepared to act any
+part that might present itself.
+
+Leicester paused in the lobby, and turning round, cast a glance over
+Jacob's person. It was the first time he had obtained a full view of
+those harsh features. Leicester was perplexed. Was this the man who had
+guided him through the dark passages of the mansion-house, or was it
+only the coachman? The profound darkness had prevented him seeing that
+another person occupied the driver's seat when he left the carriage; and
+Jacob's air was so like a brother of the whip, that it puzzled even his
+acute penetration. The voice--Leicester had a faultless ear, and was
+certain that in the speech he should detect the man. He spoke,
+therefore, in a quiet, common way, and took out his purse.
+
+"How much am I to pay you, my fine fellow?"
+
+"What you please. The lady paid, but then it's a wet night, and----"
+
+"Yes, yes, will that do?" cried Leicester, drawing forth a piece of
+silver. The voice satisfied him that it was the coachman only. The
+former tone had been quick, peremptory, and inspired with passion; now
+it was calm, drawling, and marked with something of a Down-East twang.
+Nothing could have been more unlike than that voice then, and an hour
+before.
+
+Jacob took the money, and moving toward the light, examined it closely.
+
+"Thank you, sir; I suppose it's a genuine half dollar," he said, turning
+away with the business-like air he had so well assumed.
+
+Leicester laughed--"Of course it is--but stop a moment, and tell me--if
+it is within the limits of your geographical knowledge--where I have
+been travelling to night?"
+
+"Sir!" answered Jacob, turning back with a perplexed look.
+
+"Where have I been? What number and street was it to which you drove
+me?"
+
+"The street. Wal, I reckon it was nigh upon Twenty Eighth street, sir."
+
+"And the number?"
+
+"It isn't numbered just there, sir, I believe."
+
+"But you know the house?"
+
+"Yes, sir, that is, I suppose I know it. The man told me when to stop,
+so I didn't look particularly myself."
+
+"The man, what was he, a servant or a gentleman?"
+
+"Now raly, sir, in a country where all are free and equal, it is
+dreadful difficult to tell which is which sometimes. He acted like a
+hired man to the lady, and like a gentleman to me, that is in the way of
+renunciation!"
+
+"Renunciation--remuneration, you mean!"
+
+"Wal, yes, maby I do!" answered Jacob, shaking the rain from his hat,
+"one word is jest as good as t'other, I calculate, so long as both on
+'em are about the same length."
+
+"So you could find the house again?" persisted Leicester, intent upon
+gaining some information regarding his late adventure.
+
+"Wal, I guess so."
+
+"Very well--come here to-morrow, and I will employ you again."
+
+"Thank you, sir!"
+
+"Stop a moment, leave me your card--the number of your hack, and----"
+
+A look of profound horror came over Jacob's face. "Cards, sir, I never
+touched the things in my hull life."
+
+Leicester laughed.
+
+"I mean the tickets you give to travellers, that they may know where to
+get a carriage."
+
+Jacob began to search his pockets with great fervor, but in vain, as the
+reader may well suppose.
+
+"Wal, now, did you ever--I hain't got the least sign of one about me."
+
+"No matter, tell me your number, that will do!"
+
+The first combination of figures that entered Jacob's head, was given
+with a quiet simplicity that left no suspicion of their truthfulness.
+
+"Very well--come to-morrow, say at two o'clock."
+
+Jacob made an awkward bow. In truth, with his loose joints and ungainly
+figure, this was never a very difficult exploit.
+
+"A minute more. Should you know that lady again?"
+
+"Should I know her!" almost broke from Jacob's lips; but he forced back
+the exclamation, and though his frame trembled at the mention of his
+mistress, he answered naturally as before.
+
+"Wal, it was dark, but I guess that face ain't one to forget easy."
+
+"You may be sent for again, perhaps, by the same person."
+
+"Jest as likely as not!"
+
+"You seem a shrewd, sensible fellow, friend!"
+
+"Wal, yes, our folks used to say I was a cute chap."
+
+"And pick up a little information about almost everybody, I dare say!"
+
+"Sartainly, I am generally considered purty wide awake!"
+
+"Very well, just keep an eye on this lady--make a little inquiry in the
+shops and groceries about the neighborhood--I should like to learn more
+about her. You understand!"
+
+Jacob nodded his head.
+
+"You shall be well paid for the trouble--remember that!"
+
+"Jest so!" was the composed answer.
+
+"Very well, call to-morrow--the man will bring you to my rooms," said
+Leicester, turning away.
+
+"I will," muttered Jacob, in a voice so changed, that Leicester's
+suspicions must have returned, had it reached his ear.
+
+The next moment the fictitious driver came rushing down the Astor House
+steps. He dashed the silver impetuously upon the pavement, and plunged
+into the carriage.
+
+"Drive up the Fifth avenue, till I tell you to stop and let me out," he
+shouted to the coachman; then sinking back in the seat and knitting his
+great hands hard together, he muttered through his teeth--"the
+villain!--oh the villain, how cool, how etarnally cool he was!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPTED.
+
+     The serpent, coiled within the grass,
+       With open jaw and eager eyes,
+     Watches the careless wild bird pass,
+       And lures him from his native skies.
+
+
+Leicester went to his room humming a tune as he moved along the
+passages. Soft and low the murmurs fell from his lips, like the
+suppressed cooing of a bird. Now and then he paused to brush the
+moisture from his coat. Once he fell into thought, and stood for more
+than a minute with his eyes beat upon the floor. One of those lone
+wanderers in hotels, that sit up to help off early travellers, happened
+to pass just then, and interrupted his reverie.
+
+"Oh, is it you Jim," said Leicester, starting, "I hope there is a fire
+still in my room."
+
+"Yes, sir, I just looked in to see if the young gentleman was
+comfortable," answered the man.
+
+"What young gentleman, Jim?"
+
+"Why, one that called just after you went out, sir. I told him you left
+no word, and might be in any minute, so he has been waiting ever since."
+
+This information seemed to disturb Leicester, but he checked a visible
+impulse to speak again, and moved on.
+
+Leicester found in his chamber a young man, or rather lad, for the
+intruder did not seem to be more than nineteen. His complexion was fair
+as an infant's, and silky as an infant's were the masses of chestnut
+curls, rich with a tinge of gold, that lay upon his white forehead. The
+boy was sound asleep in the large, easy chair. One cheek lay against the
+crimson dressing-gown, which Leicester had flung across the back of this
+chair on going out. The other was warmed to a rich rose tint by the
+heat. His lips, red and lustrous as over-ripe cherries, were just
+parted, till the faintest gleam of his teeth became visible. The lad was
+tall for his age, and every limb was rounded almost to a tone of
+feminine symmetry. His hands, snowy, somewhat large, and dimpled at the
+joints, lay on his chest indolently, as if they had been clasped and
+were falling apart in his slumber, while each elbow fell against, rather
+than rested upon the arms of his seat.
+
+An air of voluptuous quiet hung about the boy. Wine gleamed redly in the
+half filled glasses, fragments of Leicester's supper were scattered
+about, and all the rich tints that filled the room floated around him,
+like the atmosphere in a warmly toned picture. Leicester observed this,
+as he entered the room, and, with the feelings of an artist, changed one
+of the candles, that its beams might fall more directly on the boy's
+face, and fling a deeper shadow in the background.
+
+The deep, sweet slumber of youth possessed the boy, and even the
+increased light did not arouse him; he only stretched himself more
+indolently, and, while one of his hands fell down, began to breathe deep
+and freely again. The motion loosened several folds of the
+dressing-gown, adding a more picturesque effect to the position.
+
+Leicester smiled, and leaning against the mantel-piece, began to study
+the effect quietly; for he was one of those men whose refinement in
+selfishness, forbade the abridgment of a pleasurable sensation, however
+ill-timed it might be. The boy smiled in his sleep. He was evidently
+dreaming, and the glow that spread over his cheek grew richer, as if the
+slumbering thought was a joyous one.
+
+Leicester's brow darkened. There was something in that soft sleep, in
+the warm smile, that seemed to awake memories of his own youth. He gazed
+on, but his eye grew vicious in its expression, as if he were beginning
+to loathe the youth for the innocence of his look. Again the boy moved
+and muttered in his sleep--something about a picture; Leicester heard
+it, and laughed softly.
+
+At another time, Leicester would not have hesitated to arouse the
+youth, for it was deep in the night, and he was not one to break his own
+rest for the convenience of another; but he had been greatly excited,
+notwithstanding that cool exterior. Old memories were stirred up in his
+heart--pure as some memories of youth ever must be, even though breaking
+through a nature vile as his--like water-lilies dragged up from the
+depths of a dark pool. Those memories disturbed the very dregs of his
+heart, and when thus disturbed, some pure waters gushed up, mingled with
+much that was black and bitter. He had no inclination for sleep, none
+for solitude, and with his whole being thus aroused, anything which
+promised to occupy thought, without touching upon feeling, was a relief.
+
+It would not do. The exquisite taste, the intense love of artistical
+effect that brightened his nature, could not long rob his spirit of
+those thoughts that found in everything a stimulus. In vain he strove to
+confine himself to simple admiration, as he gazed upon each new posture
+assumed by the sleeping boy. His own youth rose before him in the
+presence of youth asleep. He made a powerful effort at self-control. He
+said to his thought, so far shalt thou go and no farther. But the light
+which gleamed across the throat of that sleeping boy, exposed by the low
+collar and simple black ribbon, was something far more intense than the
+beams of a waxen candle. Spite of himself, it illuminated the many dark
+places in his own soul, and forced him to see that which existed there.
+
+Thus he fell into a reverie, dark and sombre, from which he awoke at
+length with a profound sigh. The boy still smiled in his sleep.
+Leicester could no longer endure this blooming human life, so close to
+him, and yet so unconscious. He laid his hand on the youth's shoulder
+and aroused him.
+
+"Robert!"
+
+"Ha! Mr. Leicester--is it you?" cried the boy starting up and opening a
+pair of large gray eyes to their fullest extent.--"Really, I must have
+been asleep in your chair, and dreaming too. It was not the wine, upon
+my honor. I only drank half a glass."
+
+"And so you were dreaming?" said Leicester, with a sort of chilly
+sadness. "The vision seemed a very pleasant one!"
+
+The lad glanced at the miniature on the mantel-piece, and his eyes
+flashed under their long lashes.
+
+"The last object I saw was that," he said. "It haunted me, I suppose."
+
+"You think it pretty, then?" was the quiet rejoinder.
+
+"Pretty! beautiful! I dreamed she was with me in one of those far off
+isles of the ocean, which Tom Moore talks about. Such fruit, ripe,
+luscious, and bursting with fragrance--flowers moist with dew, and
+fairly dripping with sunshine--grass upon the banks softer than moss,
+and greener than emerald--water so pure, leaping----"
+
+"It was a pleasant dream, no doubt," said Leicester, quietly
+interrupting the lad.
+
+"Pleasant--it was Heavenly. That lovely creature, so bright, so----"
+
+"Do you know how late it is?" said Leicester, seating himself in the
+easy chair, and bringing the boy down from his fancies with the most
+ruthless coldness.
+
+"No, really. I had been waiting some time, that is certain. Then the
+dream--but one never guesses at the length of time when----"
+
+"It is near one o'clock!"
+
+"And you are sleepy--wish me away--well, good bye then!"
+
+"No; but I wish to talk of something beside childish visions!"
+
+"Childish!" The boy's cheek reddened.
+
+"Well, youthful, then; that is the term, I believe. Now tell me what you
+have been doing. How do you like the counting-house?"
+
+"Oh, very well. I'm sure it seems impossible to thank you enough for
+getting me in."
+
+"Has the firm raised your salary yet?"
+
+"No--I have not ventured to mention it."
+
+"You have won confidence, I trust."
+
+"I have tried my best to deserve it," answered the boy modestly.
+
+Leicester frowned. The frank honesty of this speech seemed to displease
+him.
+
+"They are beginning to trust you in things of importance--with the bank
+business, perhaps?"
+
+"Yes, sometimes!"
+
+"That looks very well, and your writing--I hope you have attended to the
+lessons I gave you. Without faultless penmanship, a clerk is always at
+disadvantage."
+
+"I think you will not be displeased with my progress, sir."
+
+"I am glad of it. It would grieve me, Robert, should you fall short in
+anything, after the recommendation I procured for your employers."
+
+"I never will, sir, depend upon it--I never will if study and hard work
+will sustain me," answered the youth, earnestly.
+
+"I do not doubt it. Now tell me about your companions, your amusements."
+
+"Amusements, sir, how can I afford them?"
+
+"Certainly the salary is too small!"
+
+"I did not complain. In fact, I suppose it is large enough for the
+services!"
+
+"Still you work all the time?"
+
+"Of course I do!"
+
+"And those who receive twice--nay, three times your salary do no more."
+
+"That is true," answered the boy, thoughtfully, "but then I am so
+young!"
+
+"But you have more abilities than many of those above you who are far
+better paid."
+
+"Do you think so--really think so, Mr. Leicester?" said the youth,
+blushing with honest pleasure.
+
+"I never say what I do not think!" answered the crafty man with quiet
+dignity, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the boy, for he was reading
+every impulse of that warm young heart. "You have abilities of a high
+order, industry, talent, everything requisite for success--but
+remember, Robert, the reward for those qualities comes slowly as society
+is regulated, and sometimes never comes at all. The rich blockhead often
+runs far in advance of the poor genius."
+
+The youth looked grave. A spirit of discontent was creeping into his
+heart. "I thought that with integrity and close application, I should be
+sure to succeed like others," he said, "but I suppose poverty will stand
+in the way. Strange that I did not see that before."
+
+"See what, Robert?"
+
+"Why, that starting poor I am only the more likely to be kept in
+poverty. I remember now one of our clerks, no older than I am, was
+promoted only last week. His father was a rich man, and it was whispered
+that he would sometime be a junior partner in the concern."
+
+"You see, then, what money can do."
+
+"Well, after all, my good old aunt has money, more than people imagine,
+I dare say!" cried the boy, brightening up.
+
+"What, the old lady in the market? Take my advice, Robert, and never
+mention her."
+
+"And why not?" questioned the boy.
+
+"Because selling turnips and cabbage sprouts might not be considered the
+most aristocratic way of making money among your fellow clerks."
+
+The boy changed countenance; his eye kindled and his lip began to curve.
+
+"I shall never be ashamed of my aunt, sir. She is a good, generous
+woman----"
+
+"No doubt, no doubt. Go and proclaim her good qualities among your
+companions, and see the result. For my part, I think the state of
+society which makes any honest occupation a cause of reproach, is to be
+condemned by all honorable men. But you and I, Robert, cannot hope to
+change the present order of things, and without the power to remedy we
+have only to submit. So take my advice and never talk of that fine old
+huckster-woman among your fellow clerks."
+
+Robert was silent. He stood gazing upon the floor, his cheeks hot with
+wounded feeling, and his eyes half full of tears. When he spoke again
+there was trouble in his voice.
+
+"Thank you for the advice, Mr. Leicester, though I must say it seems
+rather cold-hearted. I will go now; excuse me for keeping you up so
+late."
+
+"You need not go on that account," said Leicester, "I am not certain of
+going to sleep at all before morning!"
+
+"And I," said Robert, with a faint smile, "somehow this conversation
+makes me restless. That sweet dream from which you aroused me, will not
+be likely to come back again to-night!"
+
+Robert glanced at the miniature as he spoke, and a glow of admiration
+kindled the mist still hanging about his eyes.
+
+"Perhaps," said Leicester, quietly, and with his keen glance fixed upon
+the boy, "perhaps I may introduce you to her some day."
+
+"To her," cried the youth. "Alive! is there any being like that alive?"
+
+His face was in a glow, and a bright smile flashed over it. Nothing
+could have been more beautiful than the boy that moment.
+
+Leicester regarded him with a faint smile. Like a chemist, he was
+experimenting upon the beautiful nature before him, and like a chemist
+he watched the slow, subtle poison that he had administered.
+
+"Alive and breathing, Robert; the picture does not quite equal her in
+some things. It is a little too sad. The quick sparkle of her more
+joyous look no artist can embody. But you shall see her."
+
+"I shall see her," muttered Robert, turning his eyes from the miniature.
+"What if my dream were to prove correct?"
+
+"What--the lone island, the flowers, the magical fruit!" said Leicester
+with a soft laugh that had a mocking tone in it.
+
+"That was not all my dream. It seemed to me that she was in trouble,
+and in all her beauty and her grief, became my guardian angel."
+
+"You could not select anything more lovely for the office, I assure
+you," answered Leicester.
+
+"She must be good as she is beautiful," answered the boy, turning an
+earnest glance on his companion; for without knowing it, his sensitive
+nature had been stung by the sarcasm lurking beneath the soft tones in
+which Leicester had spoken.
+
+"At your age, all women are angels," was the rejoinder.
+
+"And at yours, what are they then?" questioned the lad.
+
+"Women!" answered Leicester with a scornful curve of the lip, and a
+depth of sarcasm in his voice, that made the youth shrink.
+
+The arch hypocrite saw the impression his unguarded bitterness had made,
+and added, "but this one really is an angel. I may not admire her as
+much as you would, Robert, but she is an exquisite creature, timid as a
+young fawn, delicate as a flower!"
+
+"I was sure of it!" exclaimed Robert with enthusiasm, for this frank
+praise had obliterated all impression made by the sarcasm in Leicester's
+voice.
+
+"And now," said Leicester taking his hat from the table, "as you seem
+quite awake, and as I positively cannot sleep, what if we take a
+stroll?"
+
+"Where could we go at this time of night?" said Robert, surprised by the
+proposition.
+
+"I have a great fancy to let you see the inside of a gambling house for
+once," was the quiet reply.
+
+"A gambling house? Oh, Mr. Leicester!"
+
+"I have often thought," said Leicester, as if speaking to himself, "that
+the best way of curing that ardent curiosity with which youth always
+regards the unseen, is to expose evil at once, in all its glare and
+iniquity. The gambling house is sometimes a fine moral school. Robert,
+have you never heard grave men assert as much?"
+
+Robert did not answer, but a cloud settled on his white forehead, and
+taking his cap from Leicester, who held it toward him, he began to crush
+it nervously with his hand.
+
+"The storm is over, I believe," observed Leicester, without seeming to
+observe his agitation. "Come, we shall be in time for the excitement
+when it is most revolting."
+
+Robert grew pale and shrunk back.
+
+"Not with me?" cried Leicester, turning his eyes full upon the boy with
+a look of overwhelming reproach, "are you afraid to go with _me_,
+Robert?"
+
+"No. I will go anywhere with you!" answered the youth, almost with a
+sob, for that look of reproach from his benefactor wounded him to the
+heart. "I will go anywhere with you!"
+
+And he went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE OLD HOMESTEAD.
+
+     There was not about her birth-place,
+       A thicket, or a flower,
+     But childish game, or friendly face,
+       Had given it a power
+     To haunt her in her after life,
+       And be to her again,
+     A sweet and bitter memory
+       Of mingled joy and pain.
+
+
+It was a wild and lovely spot in the heart of Maine, a state where the
+rural and the picturesque are more beautifully blended than can be found
+elsewhere upon the face of the earth. The portion we speak of is broken,
+and torn up, as it were, by undulating ridges of the White Mountains,
+that seem to cast their huge shadows half over the state. The valleys
+are bright with a wealth of foliage, which, in the brief summer time, is
+of a deeper and richer green than ever was found elsewhere on this side
+the Atlantic. Hills, some of them bold and black with naked rocks,
+others clothed down the side with soft waving ridges of cultivation,
+loomed over fields of Indian corn, with buckwheat, all in a sea of snowy
+blossoms. Patches of earth newly ploughed for the next year's crop,
+blended their brown tints with mountain slopes, rich with rye and oats.
+Wild, deep lakes, sleeping in their green basins among the hills;
+mountain streams plunging downward, and threading the dark rocks
+together as with a thousand diamond chains closely entangled and
+struggling to get free, shed brightness and music among these hills; and
+the Androscoggin, gliding calmly on, winding through the hills, and
+rolling softly beneath the willows that here and there give its banks a
+park-like beauty, and a thousand broken hollows--sheltered and secluded
+nooks of cultivated ground, sometimes containing a single farm,
+sometimes a small village; such is the country, and such are the scenes
+to which our story tends.
+
+In one spot the mountainous banks loomed close and dark over the river;
+but there was a considerable depth of rich soil among the rocks, and
+thrifty trees crowded the poverty-stricken yellow pine up to the very
+summit of each beautiful acclivity; for half a mile the shadows of this
+rough bank fell nearly across the river, but all at once it parted as if
+some earthquake had torn it, centuries before, and there lay a little
+valley opening upon the stream, walled on one hand by an abrupt
+precipice, and on the other by a steep and broken hill, its crevices
+choked up by wild grape-vines, mosses, and every species of forest tree
+that can be found among the high grounds of Maine. This little valley
+was perhaps half a mile in width, and cut back into the mountains twice
+that distance. From thence the highway wound up the broken bank, and was
+lost sight of among the pine trees bristling along the horizon.
+
+The river was broad at this point, as a rich flat of groves and meadow
+land lay on the opposite side. This was threaded by a turnpike,
+connected with the road we have mentioned by a ferry-boat, or rather
+ancient scow, in which two old men of the neighborhood picked up a
+tolerable subsistence.
+
+A few weeks after the events already related in the course of our
+story, a plain, one-horse chaise came slowly along the highway, and bent
+its course toward the ferry. The scow had been hauled up beneath a clump
+of willows, and two old men sat in the shade, waiting for customers.
+They saw the chaise, and instantly sprang to work, pushing the scow out
+into the stream, and bringing it up with a clumsy sweep against the
+carriage track.
+
+The chaise contained two persons; one was a female, in a neat,
+unostentatious travelling dress, and with her face partially concealed
+by a green veil. The old men had never travelled far beyond the river
+which afforded them support, but there was something in the air and
+general appearance of the lady, which aroused them to an unusual degree
+of curiosity.
+
+The man, too--there was much in his air and dress to attract
+observation; a degree of rustic awkwardness, mingled with
+self-confidence and a sort of rude strength, that struck the old men as
+unnatural and foreign. The chaise was soon recognized as belonging to
+the landlord in a neighboring village; but the two persons who rode in
+it puzzled them exceedingly. The man in the chaise drove at once into
+the scow, and, stepping out, he took his horse by the bit.
+
+"Now move on!" he said, addressing the old men with the air of one who
+understood the place and its customs. "If the horse stands steady, I
+will lend a hand directly."
+
+"Oh, he's steady enough; we've rowed the critter across here more than
+once; he ain't shiey, that horse ain't," answered one of the men, ready
+to open a conversation on any subject.
+
+"That may be, but I'll hold him just now and see how he stands the
+water."
+
+There was nothing in this to open a fresh vein of conversation; so,
+taking up their poles, the two old men pushed their lumbering craft into
+the river, casting now and then a furtive glance at the lady, who had
+drawn her veil aside, and sat with her eyes fixed on the opposite shore,
+apparently unmindful of their scrutiny.
+
+"Purty, ain't she?" whispered one of the men.
+
+The other nodded his head.
+
+"A sort of nat'ral look about her," continued the man, drawing back, as
+if to give a fresh plunge with his pole.
+
+"Just so," was the rejoinder.
+
+The lady, who had, up to this time, kept her eyes eagerly bent on the
+little village to which they seemed creeping over the water, suddenly
+addressed them--
+
+"There are three houses in the valley now--that nearest the water, to
+whom does it belong?"
+
+"That, ma'am! oh, that's the new tavern; the sign isn't so well seen
+when the leaves are out, yet if you look close, it's swinging to that ar
+willow agin the house."
+
+The lady cast a glance toward the willow, then her eyes seemed to pierce
+into the depths of the valley. Beyond the tavern lay an apple orchard,
+and back of that rose the roof of an old gray house. The ridge and heavy
+stone chimney alone were visible; but the old building seemed to
+fascinate her gaze--she bent forward, her hands were clasped, her
+features grew visibly pale. She cast an earnest look at the old man, and
+attempted to speak; but the effort only made her parted lips turn a
+shade whiter. She uttered no sound.
+
+"You needn't be afraid, ma'am, there's no arthly danger here!" said one
+of the men, mistaking the source of her emotion. "I've been on this
+ferry sixteen years, and no accident, has ever happened in my time. You
+couldn't drown here if you was to try."
+
+The lady looked at him with a faint quivering smile, that died gently
+away as her gaze became more earnest. She dwelt upon his withered old
+face, as if trying to study out some familiar feature in its hard lines.
+
+"Sixteen years!" she said, and the smile returned, but with an
+additional tinge of sadness, "sixteen years!"
+
+"It seems a long time to you, like enough; but wait till you get old as
+I am, and see how short it is."
+
+The lady did not reply; but sinking back into her seat, drew the veil
+over her face.
+
+All this time, the traveller, who still held the horse by the bit, had
+been regarding the lady with no ordinary appearance of anxiety. He
+overheard the whispers passing between the ferrymen, and seemed annoyed
+by their import. He was evidently ill at ease. When the scow ran with a
+grating noise upon the shore, he gave the usual fare in silence, and
+entering the chaise with a swinging leap, drove toward the tavern.
+
+The landlord, who had just arisen from an early supper, washed down by a
+cup of hard cider, came indolently from the front stoop and held the
+horse while the travellers dismounted.
+
+"Want to bait the horse?" he inquired, pointing toward a wooden trough
+built against the huge trunk of the willow.
+
+"Put him up--we shall stay all night, replied the guest."
+
+The landlord's face expanded; it was not often that his house was
+honored by travellers of a higher grade than the teamsters, who brought
+private fare for man and horse with them; the same bag usually
+containing oats or corn in one end, and a box of baked beans, a loaf of
+bread, and a wedge of dried beef in the other--man and beast dividing
+accommodations equally on the journey.
+
+"Oats or grass?" cried the good man, excited by the rich prospects
+before him.
+
+"Both, with two rooms--supper for the lady in her own chamber--for me,
+anywhere."
+
+"Supper!" cried the landlord, with a crest-fallen look, "supper! We
+haven't a morsel of fresh meat, nor a chicken on the place."
+
+"But there is trout in the brook, I suppose," answered the traveller.
+
+"Wal, how did you know that? Been in these parts afore mebby."
+
+"These hills are full of trout streams, everybody knows that, who ever
+heard of the state," was the courteous reply. "If you have a pole and
+line handy perhaps I can help you."
+
+"There is one in the porch--I'll just turn out the horse, and show you
+the way."
+
+The traveller seemed glad to be relieved from observation. He turned
+hurriedly away, and taking a rude fishing-rod from the porch went round
+the house, and crossing a meadow behind it, came out upon the banks of a
+mountain stream, that marked the precipitous boundaries of the valley. A
+wild, sparkling brook it was--broken up by rocks sinking into deep,
+placid pools, and leaping away through the witch-hazels and brake leaves
+that overhung it with a soft, gushing murmur so sweet and cheerful, that
+it seemed like the sunshine laughing, as it was drawn away to the hill
+shadows.
+
+Jacob Strong looked up and down the stream with a sad countenance. "How
+natural everything seems," he muttered. "She used to sit here on this
+very stone, with her little fish-pole, and send me off yonder after
+box-wood blossoms and wild honeysuckles, while she dipped her feet in
+and out of the water, just to hurry me back again. Those white little
+feet--how I did love to see her go barefooted! By and by, as she grew
+older, how she would laugh at my awkward way of baiting her hook--she
+didn't know what made my hand tremble--no, nor never will!"
+
+Jacob sat down upon the stone on which his eyes had been riveted. With
+his face resting between his hands, an elbow supported by each knee, and
+his feet buried in a hollow choked up with wood moss, he fell into one
+of those profound reveries, that twine every fibre of the heart around
+the past. The fishing rod lay at his feet, unheeded. Just beneath his
+eye, was a deep pool, translucent as liquid diamond, and sleeping at the
+bottom, were three or four fine trout, floating upon their fins, with
+their mottled sides now and then sending a soft rainbow gleam through
+the water.
+
+At another time, Jacob, who had been a famous angler in his day, would
+have been excited by this fine prospect of sport; but now those delicate
+creatures, balancing themselves in the waves, scarcely won a passing
+notice. They only served to remind him more vividly of the long ago.
+
+He was aroused by the landlord, who came up the stream, pole in hand,
+baiting his hook as he walked along. He cast two fine trout, strung upon
+a forked hazel twig, on the moss at Jacob's feet, and dropped his hook
+into the pool.
+
+Jacob watched him with singular interest. His eyes gleamed as he saw the
+man pull his fly with a calm, steady hand over the surface of the water,
+now dropping it softly down, now aiding it to float lazily on the
+surface, then allowing it to sink insidiously before the graceful
+creatures, that it had as yet failed to excite.
+
+All at once, a noble trout, that had been sleeping beneath a tuft of
+grass over which the water flowed, darted into the pool with a swiftness
+that left a ripple behind him, and leaped to the fly. Jacob almost
+uttered a groan, as he saw the beautiful creature lifted from the wave,
+his fins quivering, his jewelled sides glistening with water drops, and
+every wild evolution full of graceful agony. He was drawing a parallel
+between the tortured trout and a human being, whose history filled his
+heart. This it was that wrung the groan from his heart.
+
+"This will do!" said the landlord, gently patting the damp sides of his
+prize, and thrusting the hazel twig under his gills. "You're sartin of a
+supper, sir, and a good one too--they'll be hissing on the gridiron long
+before you get to the house, I reckon, without you make up your mind to
+go along with me."
+
+"Not yet; I will try my luck further up the stream," answered Jacob, and
+snatching up the rod, he plunged through a clump of elders, and
+disappeared on the opposite bank. But the man was scarcely out of sight,
+when he returned again and resumed his old position.
+
+Again he fell into thought--deep and painful thought. You could see it
+in the quiver of his rude features, in the mistiness that gathered over
+his eyes.
+
+The afternoon shadows were beginning to lengthen across the valley, but
+they only served to plunge poor Jacob into memories still more bitter
+and profound. Everything within sight seemed clamoring to him of the
+past. Near by was a clover-field ruddy with blossoms, and broken with
+clumps and ridges of golden butter-cups and swamp lilies. Again the
+little girl stood before him--a fair, sweet child, with chestnut curls
+and large earnest eyes, who had waited in a corner of the fence, while
+he gathered armsful of these field-blossoms, for her to toss about in
+the sunshine. On the other hand lay an apple orchard, with half a dozen
+tall pear trees, ranging along the fence. He remembered climbing those
+trees a hundred times up to the very top, where the pears were most
+golden and ripe. He could almost hear the rich fruit as it went tumbling
+and rustling through the leaves, down to the snow-white apron held up to
+receive it. That ringing shout of laughter, as the apron gave way
+beneath its luscious burden--it rang through his heart again, and made a
+child of him.
+
+The shadows grew deeper upon the valley, dew began to fall, and every
+gush of air that swept over the fields, became more and more fragrant.
+Still Jacob dwelt with the past. The lady at the inn was forgotten. He
+was roaming amid those sweet scenes with that wild, mischievous,
+beautiful girl, when a hand fell upon his shoulder.
+
+He started up and began to tremble as if caught in some deep offence.
+
+"Madam--oh, madam! what brought you here?"
+
+"I could not stay in that new house, Jacob. It was so close I could not
+breathe. The air of this valley penetrates my very heart--but I cannot
+shed a tear. Is it so with you, Jacob Strong?"
+
+Jacob turned his head away; he could not all at once arouse himself from
+the deep delirium of his memories; his strong brain ached with the
+sudden transition her presence had forced upon it. Ada looked
+searchingly up the valley, and made a step forward.
+
+"Where are you going, madam, not up yonder--not to the old house?"
+
+"I must go, Jacob--this suspense is choking me--I could not live another
+hour without learning something of them."
+
+"No, not yet, I beg of you, do not go yet."
+
+Ada Leicester turned abruptly toward her humble friend; her lips grew
+very pale.
+
+"Why, why? have you inquired? have you heard anything?"
+
+"No, I did not like to ask questions at first."
+
+"Then you know absolutely nothing?"
+
+"Nothing yet!"
+
+"But you have seen the old house. It should be visible from this
+hollow!"
+
+"Not now, madam. The orchard has grown round since--since----"
+
+"Have the saplings grown into trees since then, Jacob? Indeed it seems
+but like yesterday to me," said the lady, with a sad wave of the hand.
+"I thought to get a view of the house from this spot, just as one
+ponders over the seal of a letter, afraid to read the news within. Let
+me sit down, I feel tired and faint."
+
+Jacob moved back from the stone, and tears absolutely came into his eyes
+as she sat down.
+
+"How strangely familiar everything is," said the lady, looking around,
+"this tuft of white flowers close by the stone--it scarcely seems to
+have been out of blossom since I was here last, I remember. But why have
+you crushed them with your feet, Jacob?"
+
+"Because _I_ remember!" answered the man, removing his heavy foot from
+the bruised flowers, and regarding them with a stern curve of the lip,
+which on his irregular mouth was strangely impressive. The lady raised
+her eyes, filled with vague wonder, to his features. Jacob was troubled
+by that questioning glance.
+
+"I never loved flowers," he faltered.
+
+"You never loved flowers! Oh, Jacob, how can you say so?"
+
+"Not that kind, at any rate, ma'am," answered Jacob, almost vehemently,
+pointing down with his finger. "The last time I came this way, a snake
+was creeping round among those very flowers. That snake left poison on
+everything it touched, at least in this valley."
+
+The lady gazed on his excited face a moment very earnestly. Then the
+broad, white lids drooped over her eyes, and she only answered with a
+profound sigh.
+
+The look of humble repentance that fell upon Jacob's face was painful to
+behold. He stood uneasily upon his feet, gazing down upon the tuft of
+flowers his passion had trampled to the earth. His large hands, with
+their loosely knit joints, became nervously restless, and he cast
+furtive glances at the face and downcast features of the lady. He could
+not speak, but waited for her to address him again, in his heart of
+hearts sorry for the painful thoughts his words had aroused. At length
+he ventured to speak, and the humble, deprecating tones of his voice
+were almost painful to hear.
+
+"The dews are falling, ma'am, and you are not used to sitting in the
+damp."
+
+"There was a time," said the lady, "when a little night dew would not
+drive me in doors."
+
+"But now you are tired and hungry."
+
+"No, Jacob, I can neither taste food nor take rest till we have been
+yonder--perhaps not then, for Heaven only knows what tidings may reach
+us. Go in and get some supper for yourself, my good friend."
+
+Jacob shook his head.
+
+"I _am_ wrong," persisted the lady; "let me sit here till the dusk comes
+on; then I will find my way to the house--perhaps I may sleep there
+to-night, Jacob, who knows?" She paused a moment, and added, "If they
+are alive, but surely I need not say if. They must be alive."
+
+"I hope so," answered Jacob, pitying the wistful look with which the
+poor lady searched his features, hoping to gather confidence from their
+expression.
+
+"And yet my heart is so heavy, so full of this terrible pain, Jacob.
+Leave me now; if any thing can make me cry, it will be sitting here
+alone."
+
+Jacob turned away, without a word of remonstrance. His own rude, honest
+heart was full, and the sickening anxiety manifest in every tone and
+look of his mistress was fast undermining his own manhood. He did not
+return to the tavern, however, but clambering over a fence, leaped into
+the clover field, and wading, knee-deep, through the fragrant blossoms,
+made his way toward the old farm-house, whose chimney and low, sloping
+roof became more and more visible with each step.
+
+On he went, with huge, rapid strides, resolute to carry back some
+tidings to the unhappy woman he had just left. "I will see them first,"
+he muttered; "they might not know her, or may have heard. It ain't
+likely, though--who could bring such news into these parts? Anyhow, I
+will see that nothing is done to hurt her feelings."
+
+Full of these thoughts, Jacob drew nearer and nearer to the old house.
+He crossed the clover lot, and a fine meadow, whose thick, waving grass
+was still too green for the scythe, lay before him, bathed in the last
+rays of a midsummer sunset. Beyond this meadow rose the farm-house,
+silent and picturesque in the waning day, with gleams of golden light
+here and there breaking over the mossed old roof. Jacob paused, with his
+hand upon an upper rail of the fence. His heart misgave him. Every
+object was so painfully familiar, that he shrunk from approaching
+nearer. There was the garden sloping away from the old dwelling, with a
+line of cherry trees running along the fence, and shading triple rows of
+currant and gooseberry bushes, now bent to the ground with a load of
+crimson and purple fruit. There was the well sweep, with its long, round
+bucket swinging to the breeze, and the pear tree standing by, like an
+ancient sentinel staunch at his post, and verdant in its thrifty old
+age. A stone or two had fallen from the rough chimney, and on the
+sloping roof lay a greenish tinge, betraying the velvety growth of moss
+with which time had dotted the decayed shingles, while clumps of
+house-leeks clustered here and there in masses from under their warped
+edges.
+
+Silent and solemnly quiet stood that old dwelling amid the dying light
+which filled the valley. A few jetty birds were fluttering in and out of
+a martin-box at one end, and that was all the sign of life that
+appeared to the strained eyes of Jacob Strong. He stood, minute after
+minute, waiting for a sight of some other living object--a horse grazing
+at the back door--a human being approaching the well, anything alive
+would have given relief to his full heart.
+
+He could contain himself no longer: a desperate wish to learn at once
+all that could give joy or pain to his mistress possessed him. He sprang
+into the meadow, found a path trodden through the grass, and sweeping
+the tall, golden lilies aside, where they fell over the narrow way, he
+strode eagerly forward, and soon found himself in a garden. It was full
+of coarse vegetables, and gay with sun-flowers; tufts of
+"love-lies-bleeding" drooped around the gate, and flowering beans,
+tangled with morning-glories, half clothed the worm-eaten fence.
+
+Coarse and despised as some of these flowers are, how eloquently they
+spoke to the heart of Jacob Strong! The very sun-flowers, as they turned
+their great dials to the West, seemed to him redolent and golden with
+the light of other days. They filled his heart with new hope; since the
+earliest hour of his remembrance, those massive blossoms had never been
+wanting at the old homestead.
+
+Again the objects became more and more familiar. The plantain leaves
+about the well seemed to have kept their greenness for years. The
+grindstone, with a trough half full of water, stood in its old place by
+the back porch. Surely, while such things remained, the human beings
+that had lived and breathed in that lone dwelling, could not be entirely
+swept away!
+
+Jacob Strong entered the porch and knocked gently at the door. A voice
+from within bade him enter, and, lifting the latch, he stood in a long,
+low kitchen, where two men, a woman, and a chubby little girl, sat at
+supper. One of the men, a stout, sun-burned fellow, arose, and placing a
+splint-bottomed chair for his guest, quietly resumed his place at the
+table, while the child sat with a spoon half way to its mouth, gazing
+with eyes full of wonder at the strange man.
+
+Jacob stood awkwardly surveying the group. A chill of keen
+disappointment fell upon him. Of the four persons seated around that
+table, not one face was familiar. He sat down and looked ruefully
+around. A single tallow candle standing on the table shed its faint
+light through the room, but failed to reveal the troubled look that fell
+upon the visitor. The silence that he maintained seemed to astonish the
+family. The farmer turned in his chair, and at last opened a discourse
+after his own hospitable fashion.
+
+"Sit by and take a bite of supper," he said, while his wife arose and
+went to a corner cupboard.
+
+"No, I thank you," answered Jacob, with an effort; for the words seemed
+blocking up his throat.
+
+"You had better sit by," observed the wife, modestly, coming from the
+cupboard with a plate and knife in her hands. "There's nothing very
+inviting, but you'll be welcome."
+
+"Thank you," said Jacob, rising, "I'm not hungry; but if you've got a
+cup handy, I will get a drink at the well."
+
+The farmer took a white earthen bowl from the table, and, reaching
+forward, handed it to his guest.
+
+"And welcome! but you'll find the well-pole rather hard to pull, I
+calculate."
+
+Jacob took the bowl and went out. It seemed to him that a draught from
+that moss-covered bucket would drive away the chill that had fallen on
+his heart at the sight of those strange faces.
+
+He sat the bowl down among the plantain leaves, and seizing the pole,
+plunged the old bucket deep into the well. When it came up again, full
+and dripping, he balanced it on the curb and drank. After this, he
+lingered a brief time by the well, filled with disappointment, and
+striving to compose his thoughts. At length he entered the house again
+with more calm and fixed resolution.
+
+"This seems to be a fine place of yours," he said, taking the chair once
+more offered to his acceptance, and addressing the farmer. "That was as
+pretty a meadow I just crossed as one might wish to see!"
+
+"Yes, there is some good land between this and the brook," answered the
+man, pleased with these commendations of his property.
+
+"You keep it in good order, too; such timothy I have not seen these five
+years."
+
+"Wal, true enough, one may call that grass a little mite superior to the
+common run, I do think!" answered the farmer, taking his chubby little
+daughter on one knee, and smoothing her thick hair with both his hard
+palms. "Considering how the old place was run down when we took it, we
+haven't got much to be ashamed of, anyhow."
+
+"You have not always owned the farm?" Jacob's voice shook as he asked
+the question, but the farmer was busy caressing his child, and only
+observed the import of his words, not the tone in which they were
+uttered.
+
+"I rayther think you must be a stranger in these parts, for everybody
+knows how long I've been upon the place; nigh upon ten years, isn't it,
+Mabel?"
+
+"Ten years last spring," replied the woman, in a pleasant, low tone;
+"jist three years before Lucy was born."
+
+"That's it! she's as good as an almanac at dates; could beat a hull
+class of us boys at cyphering when we went to school together, couldn't
+you, Mabel?"
+
+The wife answered with a blush, and a good-humored smile divided
+cordially between her husband and Jacob.
+
+"You must not think us over-shiftless," she said, "for living in the old
+house so long; we've talked of building every year, but somehow the
+right time hasn't come yet; besides, my old man don't exactly like to
+tear the old house down."
+
+"Tear it down!" cried Jacob, with a degree of feeling that surprised the
+worthy couple--"tear the old homestead down! don't do it--don't do it,
+friend. There are people in the world who would give a piece of gold for
+every shingle on the roof rather than see a beam loosened."
+
+"I guess you must have been in this neighborhood afore this," said the
+farmer, looking at his wife with shrewd surprise; "know something about
+the old homestead, I shouldn't wonder!"
+
+"Yes, I passed through here many years ago; a man at that time, older
+than you are now, lived on the place; his name was--let me think----"
+
+"Wilcox--was that the name?"
+
+"Yes, that was it--a tall man, with dark eyes."
+
+"That's the man, poor old fellow; why we bought the farm of him."
+
+"I wonder he ever brought himself to part with it! His wife seemed so
+fond of the place, and--and his daughter: he had a daughter, if I
+recollect right?"
+
+"Yes, we heard so; I never saw her; but the folks around here talk about
+her wild, bright ways, and her good looks, to this day; a harnsome,
+smart gal she was if what they say can be relied on."
+
+"But what became of her? Did she settle anywhere in these parts?"
+
+"Wal, no, I reckon not. A young fellow from somewhere about Boston or
+York, come up the river one summer to hunt and fish in the hills, he
+married the gal, and carried her off to the city."
+
+"And did she never come back?"
+
+"No; but a year or two after, the young man come and brought a little
+girl with him, the purtyest creature you ever sat eyes on. Hard words
+passed between him and the old man, for Wilcox wouldn't let any human
+being breathe a whisper agin his daughter. Nobody ever knew exactly what
+happened, but the young man went away and left his child with the old
+people. It wasn't long after this before the old man kinder seemed to
+give up, he and his wife too, just as if that bright little grandchild
+had brought a canker into the house.
+
+"After that things went wrong, nothing on earth could make the old
+people neighborly; they gin up going to meeting, and sat all Sunday long
+on the hearth, there, looking into the fire. Wal, you know the best of
+us will talk when anything happens that is not quite understood. Some
+said one thing, and some another, and Wilcox, arter a while, got so shy
+of his neighbors that they took a sort of distaste to him."
+
+"Did the old people live alone after their daughter went away?" asked
+Jacob, in a husky voice. "There was a young man or boy in the family
+when I knew anything about it."
+
+"Oh, yes, I jist remember, there was a young chap that Mr. Wilcox
+brought up--a clever critter as ever lived. He went away just arter the
+gal was married, and nobody ever knew what became of him. People thought
+the old man pined about that too: at any rate, one thing and another
+broke him down, and his wife with him."
+
+"You do not mean to say that Mr. Wilcox and his wife are dead?"
+
+The farmer turned his eyes suddenly on the form of Jacob Strong, as
+these words were uttered, for there was something in the tone that took
+his honest heart by surprise. Jacob sat before him like a criminal,
+pale, and shrinking in his chair.
+
+"No, I did not mean to say that they died, but when a tough, cheerful
+man, like Wilcox, gives up, it is worse than death."
+
+"What happened then--where did he go? is the child living?" almost
+shouted Jacob Strong, unable to control the agony of his impatience a
+moment longer; but the astonished look of his auditors checked the burst
+of impetuous feeling, and he continued more quietly----
+
+"I took an interest in this family long ago, and stopped in the valley
+over night, on purpose to visit the old gentleman. I had no idea he
+would ever leave the farm, and was surprised to find strangers here,
+more so than you could have been at seeing me. Tell me now where the
+Wilcox family can be found?"
+
+"That is more, by half, than I know myself," answered the farmer. "I
+bought the farm, paid cash down for everything, land, stock, furniture,
+and all."
+
+"But where did they go?" cried Jacob, breathless with suspense.
+
+"To Portland; they took one wagon load of things, and when the teamster
+came back, he said they were left in the hold of a schooner lying at the
+wharf."
+
+"But where was she bound?--what was her name?"
+
+"That was exactly what we asked the teamster, but he could tell nothing
+about it; and from that day to this, no person in these parts has ever
+heard a word about them!"
+
+Jacob arose and supported himself by his chair.
+
+"And is this all? Gone, no one knows where? Is this all?"
+
+"All that I or any one else can tell you," answered the kind-hearted
+farmer.
+
+"But the teamster, where is he?"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+Jacob left the house without another word. He knew that these tidings
+would be more terrible to another than they had been to him, and yet
+that seemed scarcely possible, for all the rude strength of his nature
+was prostrated by the news that he heard.
+
+The twilight had given place to a full moon, and all the valley lay
+flooded in a sea of silver. The meadows were full of fireflies, and a
+whip-poor-will on the mountain-side poured his mournful cry upon the
+air. Jacob could not endure the thought of meeting his friend and
+mistress, with tidings that he knew would rend her heart. He left the
+homestead, tortured by all that he had heard, and plunged into a hollow
+which opened to the trout stream. In this hollow stood a tall elm tree,
+with great, sweeping branches, that drooped almost to the ground. A
+spring of never-failing water gushed out from a rocky bank, which it
+shaded, and the sweet gurgle of its progress as it flowed away through
+the cowslips and blue flag that choked up the outlet to the mountain
+streams, fell like the memory of an old love upon his senses.
+
+He drew near the tree, and there, sitting upon the fragment of rock,
+with her head resting against the rugged trunk of the elm, sat Ada
+Leicester. Her face shone white in the moonbeams, and Jacob could hear
+her sobs long before she was conscious of his presence.
+
+She heard his approach, and starting to her feet, came out into the
+full light. The hand with which she wildly seized his was damp and cold,
+and he could see that heavy tear-drops were trembling on her cheek.
+
+"You--you have seen them--are they alive? I saw you go in, and have been
+waiting all this time. Tell me, Jacob, will they let me sleep in the old
+house to-night?"
+
+"They are all gone; no one of the whole family are there!" answered
+Jacob Strong, too much excited for ordinary prudence.
+
+A wild cry, scarcely louder than the scream of a bird, but oh, how full
+of agony! rang down the valley, and terror-stricken at what he had done,
+Jacob saw his mistress lying at his feet, her deathly face, her lifeless
+hands, and the white shawl which she had flung about her, huddled
+together in the pale moonlight.
+
+The strong man lost all self-control. He looked fiercely around, as if
+some one might attempt to stop him; then gathered Ada Leicester up in
+his huge arms, and folded her close to his bosom. It was not a light
+burden to carry; but he neither wavered nor paused, but strode down the
+hollow, folding her tighter and tighter against his heart; and a joy
+broke over his features, as the moonlight fell upon them, that seemed
+scarcely human.
+
+"Ada Wilcox--little Ada--I have carried you so a thousand times. Then,
+Ada, you would lift up your little arms, and fold them over my neck, and
+lay your cheek against mine, as it is now, Ada."
+
+His face sunk slowly toward hers. He gave a sudden start.
+
+"God forgive me! oh, Ada, forgive me!" broke from him, as he looked down
+upon the pale forehead which his lips had almost pressed.
+
+He stood still, holding his breath, trembling in all his limbs, and
+beginning to move to and fro, as he perceived that her pale eyelids
+began to quiver in the moonlight.
+
+It was a delusion; the fainting fit had been too sudden; the exhaustion
+complete. She lay in his arms like one from whom life had just
+departed--her pale limbs relaxed--her eyelids closed. He stood thus
+awhile, and then she began to move in his arms.
+
+"Do not move, Ada--Ada Wilcox; it is Jacob, your father's bound boy. We
+are all alone, in the home meadow. He has carried you down to the brook
+a thousand times, when you knew all about it and laughed and--and----;
+not yet--not yet," he said passionately; "you are not strong enough to
+stand alone."
+
+Still she struggled, for in his excitement he girded her form with those
+strong arms, till the pain restored her to consciousness.
+
+"Not yet--oh, not yet," he pleaded, feeling the strong heart within him
+sink with each faint struggle that she made; "you cannot stand--the
+grass is deep and damp--be still--I am strong as an ox, Ada--I can carry
+you."
+
+"Is it you, Jacob Strong?" she said, but half conscious.
+
+"Yes," said Jacob in a choked voice, "it's me, your father's bound boy;
+we are in the old home lot again. I--I--it is a long time since I have
+carried you in my arms, Ada Wilcox."
+
+"Ada Wilcox!" said the woman, with a start; "let me down, Jacob Strong;
+my name is not Ada Wilcox; all that bore that name are gone; the
+homestead is full of strangers; Wilcox is a dead name; that of Leicester
+has crept over it like night-shade over a grave."
+
+Jacob Strong unfolded his arms so abruptly, that Ada almost fell to the
+earth.
+
+"I had forgotten that name," he said with mournful sternness.
+
+The poor woman attempted to stand up, but she wavered, and her pale face
+was lifted with piteous helplessness toward him.
+
+"No, Jacob, I tremble--this blow has taken all my life. Help me to stand
+up, that I may look on the old homestead once more. How often have we
+looked upon it from this spot!"
+
+"I remember," answered Jacob, "the moonlight lies upon the roof as it
+did that night; the old pear tree had stretched its shadow just to the
+garden fence."
+
+Jacob Strong grew pale in the moonlight. Ada felt his arm shake beneath
+the grasp of her hand.
+
+"You shiver with the cold," she said.
+
+"It is cold, madam; the dew is heavy; I will go forward and break a path
+through the grass. It will not be the first time."
+
+Jacob moved on, tramping down the grass, and casting his long, uncouth
+shadow before her, in the moonlight. She followed him in silence,
+casting back mournful glances at the old homestead.
+
+Jacob paused to let down a heavy set of bars that divided the meadow
+from the trout stream. He jerked them fiercely from their sockets in the
+tall chestnut posts, dropping them down on each other with a noise that
+rang strangely through the stillness. Ada Leicester passed through the
+opening, and moved slowly toward the tavern. She reached the door, but
+turned again to her attendant.
+
+"Jacob," she said, very sorrowfully, "I am all alone now, in the wide
+world; you will not leave me?"
+
+"Ada Wilcox, I have not deserved that question," said Jacob, pushing
+open the door.
+
+She shrunk through timidly, perhaps expecting her servant to follow; but
+he closed the door and rushed away, leaping the pile of bars with a
+bound, and plunging back into the meadow.
+
+"Leave her!" he said, dashing the tall herds-grass aside with his hand;
+"Leave her, as if I warn't her slave--her dog--her jackall, and had been
+ever since I was a shaver, so small that this very grass would have
+closed over my head; and yet she don't know why--thinks it's the wages,
+may be. It never enters her head that I've got a soul to love and hate
+with. What did I follow her and that man to foreign parts for, but to
+stand ready when her time of trouble came? What did I give up my
+freeborn American birthright for, and put that gold lace, and darn'd
+etarnal cockade over my hat, like an English white nigger, only because
+I couldn't stand by her in any other way? What is it that makes me
+humble as a rabbit, sometimes, and then, again, snarling around like a
+dog? She don't see it; she believes me when I tell her that it was a
+hankering to see foreign parts, that sent me over sea; and that I, a
+freeborn American citizen, have a nat'ral fancy to gold bands and
+cockades, as if the thing wasn't jist impossible! True enough, she don't
+want me to wear them now; but if she did, it's my solemn belief that I
+should do it, jist here, in sight of the old homestead.
+
+"The old homestead," he continued, standing still in the grass, and
+looking toward the old home, till the bitter mood passed from his heart,
+and his eyes filled with tears. "Oh, if I was only his bound boy again,
+and she a little girl, and the old folks up yonder. I would be a
+nigger--a hound--anything, if she could only stand here, as she did
+then--as innocent and sweet a critter as ever drew breath. But he did
+it--that villain! Oh, if he could be extarminated from the face of the
+earth! It wan't her fault--I defy the face of man to say that. It was
+the original sin in her own heart."
+
+Poor Jacob! All his massive strength was exhausted now. He even ceased
+to mutter over the sad, sad memories that crowded on him. But all that
+night he wandered about the old homestead--now lost beneath its pear
+trees--now casting his uncouth shadow across the barn-yard, where half a
+dozen slumbering cows lifted their heads and gazed earnestly after him,
+as if waiting for the intruder to be gone. There was not a nook or
+corner of the old place that he did not visit that night, and the
+morning found him cold, sad and pale, waiting for his mistress at the
+tavern door.
+
+Just after daylight, the one-horse chaise crossed the ferry again. The
+old boatmen would gladly have conversed a little with its inmates, but
+Jacob only answered them in monosyllables, and they could not see the
+lady's face, so closely was it shrouded with the folds of her travelling
+veil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE CITY COTTAGE.
+
+     Alas, that woman's love should cling
+       To hearts that never feel its worth,
+     As prairie roses creep and fling
+       Their richest bloom upon the earth.
+
+
+Overlooking one of those small parks or squares that lie in the heart of
+our city like tufts of wild flowers in a desert, stands one of those
+miniature palaces, too small for the very wealthy, and too beautiful in
+its appointments for any idea but that of perfect taste, which wealth
+does not always give. A cottage house it was, or rather an exquisite
+mockery of what one sees named as cottages in the country. The front, of
+a pale stone color, was so ornamented and netted over with the lace-work
+of iron balconies and window-gratings, that it had all the elegance of a
+city mansion, with much of the rustic beauty one sees in a rural
+dwelling.
+
+A little court, full of flowers, lay in front, with a miniature fountain
+throwing up a slender column of water from the centre of a tiny
+grass-plat, that, in the pure dampness always raining over it, lay like
+a mass of crushed emeralds hidden among the flowers. The netted
+iron-work that hung around the doors, the windows, and fringed the
+eaves, as it were, with a valance of massive lace, was luxuriously
+interwoven with creeping plants. Prairie roses, crimson and white, clung
+around the lower balconies. Ipomas wove a profusion of their great
+purple and rosy bells around the upper windows; cypress vines, with
+their small crimson bells; petunias of every tint; rich passion flowers,
+and verbenas with their leaves hidden in the light balconies, wove and
+twined themselves with the coarser vines, blossoming each in its turn,
+and filling the leaves with their gorgeous tints. Crimson and fragrant
+honeysuckles twined in massive wreaths up to the very roof, where they
+grew and blossomed in the lattice-work, now in masses, now spreading
+out like an embroidery, and everywhere loading the atmosphere with
+fragrance.
+
+The cool, bell-like dropping of the fountain, that always kept the
+flowers fresh; the fragrance of half a dozen orange trees, snowy with
+blossoms and golden with heavy fruit; the gleam of white lilies; the
+glow of roses, and the graceful sway of a slender labarnum tree, all
+crowded into one little nook scarcely large enough for the
+pleasure-grounds of a fairy, were enough to draw general attention to
+the house, though another and still more beautiful object had never
+presented itself at the window.
+
+On a moonlight evening, especially when a sort of pearly veil fell upon
+the little flower nook, an air of quiet beauty impossible to describe,
+rested around this dwelling--beauty not the less striking that it was so
+still, so lost in profound repose, that the house might have been deemed
+uninhabited but for the gleam of light that occasionally broke through
+the vines about one or another of the windows. Sometimes it might be
+seen struggling through the roses around the lower balcony, but far
+oftener it came in faint gleams from a window in the upper story, and at
+such times the shadow of a person stooping over a book, or lost in deep
+thought, might be seen through the muslin curtains.
+
+No sashes, flung open in the carelessness of domestic enjoyment, were
+ever seen in the dwelling; no voices of happy childhood were ever heard
+to ring through those clustering vines. Sometimes a young female would
+steal timidly out upon the balconies, and return again, like a bird
+afraid to be detected beyond the door of its cage. Sometimes an old lady
+in mourning might be seen passing in and out, as if occupied with some
+slight household responsibility. This was all the neighborhood ever knew
+of the cottage or its inmates. The face of the younger female, though
+always beautiful, was not always the same, but no person knew when one
+disappeared and another took her place.
+
+The cottage had been built by a private gentleman, and its first
+occupant was the old lady. She might have been his mother, his tenant,
+or his housekeeper, no one could decide her exact position. He seldom
+visited the house. Sometimes during months together he never crossed the
+threshold. But the old lady was always there, scarcely ever without a
+young and lovely companion; and, what seemed most singular, year after
+year passed and her mourning garments were never changed.
+
+Servants, the universal channel through which domestic gossip circulates
+in the basement strata of social life, were never seen in the cottage.
+An old colored woman came two or three times a week and performed
+certain household duties; but she spoke only in a foreign language, and
+probably had been selected for that very reason. Thus all the usual
+avenues of intelligence were closed around the cottage. True, a colored
+man came occasionally to prune and trim the little flower nook, but he
+was never seen to enter the house, and appeared to be profoundly
+ignorant of its history and its inmates. Some of the most curious had
+ventured far enough into the fairy garden to read the name on a silver
+plate within the latticed entrance. It was a single name, and seemed to
+be foreign; at any rate, it had no familiar sound to those who read it,
+and whether it belonged to the owner of the cottage or the old lady,
+still continued a mystery.
+
+Thus the cottage remained a tiny palace, more isolated amid the
+surrounding dwellings than it could have been if buried in the green
+depths of the country. But at the season when our story commences, the
+profound quietude of the place was broken by the appearance of a new
+inmate. A fair young girl about this time was often noticed early in the
+morning, and sometimes after dusk hovering about the little fountain, as
+if enticed there by the scent of the orange trees; still, though her
+white garments were often seen fluttering amid the shrubbery, which she
+seemed to haunt with the shy timidity of a wild bird, few persons ever
+obtained a distinct view of her features.
+
+On the night, and at the very hour when Ada Leicester and Jacob Strong
+met beneath the old elm tree in sight of the farm-house which had once
+sheltered them, two men gently approached this cottage and paused before
+the gate. This was nothing singular, for it was no unusual thing, when
+that lovely fountain was tossing its cool shower of water-drops into the
+air, and the flowers were bathed in the moonlight, for persons to pause
+in their evening walk and wonder at the gem-like beauty of the place.
+But these two persons seemed about to enter the little gate. One held
+the latch in his hand, and appeared to hesitate only while he examined
+the windows of the dwelling. The other younger by far and more
+enthusiastic, grasped the iron railing with one hand, while he leaned
+over and inhaled the rich fragrance of the flower garden with intense
+gratification.
+
+"Come," said Leicester, gently opening the gate, "I see a light in the
+lower rooms--let us go in!"
+
+"What, here? Is it here you are taking me?" cried the youth, in accents
+of joyful surprise--"how beautiful--how very, very beautiful. It must be
+some queen of the fairies you are leading me to!"
+
+"You like the house then?" said Leicester, in his usual calm voice,
+gently advancing along the walk. "It does look well just now, with the
+moonlight falling through the leaves, but these things become tiresome
+after a while!"
+
+"Tiresome!" exclaimed the youth, casting his glance around. "Tiresome!"
+
+"I much doubt," added Leicester, turning as he spoke, and gliding, as if
+unconsciously, along the white gravel walk that curved around the
+fountain--"I much doubt if any thing continues to give entire
+satisfaction, even the efforts of our own mind, or the work of our own
+hands, after it is once completed. It is the progress, the love of
+change, the curiosity to see how this touch will affect the whole, that
+gives zest to enjoyment in such things. I can fancy the owner of this
+faultless little place now becoming weary of its prettiness."
+
+"Weary of a place like this--why the angels might think themselves at
+home in it!"
+
+"They would find out their mistake, I fancy!"
+
+As Leicester uttered these words the moonlight fell full upon his face,
+and the worm-like curl of his lip which the light revealed, had
+something unpleasant in it. The youth happened to look up at the moment,
+and a sharp revulsion came over his feelings. For the moment he fell
+into thought, and when he spoke, the change in his spirit was very
+evident.
+
+"I can imagine nothing that is not pure and good, almost as the angels
+themselves, living here!" he said, half timidly, as if he feared the
+scoff that might follow his words.
+
+"We shall see," answered Leicester, breaking a cluster of orange flowers
+from one of the plants. He was about to fasten the fragrant sprig in his
+button-hole, but some after-thought came over him, such as often
+regulated his most trivial actions, and he gave the branch to his
+companion.
+
+"Put it in your bosom," he said, with a sort of jeering good humor, as
+one trifles with a child: "who knows but it may win your first
+conquest?"
+
+The youth took the blossoms, but held them carelessly in his hand. There
+was something in Leicester's tone that wounded his self-love; and
+without reply he moved from the fountain. They ascended to the richly
+latticed entrance, and Leicester touched the bell knob.
+
+The door was opened by a quiet, pale old lady, who gravely bent her head
+as she recognised Leicester. After one glance of surprise at his young
+companion, which certainly had no pleasure blended with it, she led the
+way into a small parlor.
+
+Nothing could be more exquisitely chaste than that little room. The
+ceilings and the enamelled walls were spotless as crusted snow, and like
+snow was the light cornice of grape leaves and fruit, that scarcely
+seemed to touch the ceiling around which they were entwined. No
+glittering chandelier, no gilded cornices or gorgeous carpets disturbed
+the pure harmony of this little room; delicate India matting covered the
+floor; the chairs, divans and couches were of pure white enamel.
+Curtains of soft, delicate lace, embroidered, as it were, with
+snow-flakes, draped the sashes. Those at the bay window, which opened on
+the flower-garden, were held apart by two small statues of Parian marble
+that stood guarding the tiny alcove, half veiled in clouds of
+transparent lace.
+
+Upon a massive table of pure alabaster, inlaid with softly clouded
+agate, stood a Grecian vase, in which a lamp was burning, and through
+its sculpture poured a subdued light that seemed but a more lustrous
+kindling of the moonbeams that lay around the dwelling.
+
+The youth had not expressed himself amiss. It did seem as if an angel
+might have mistaken this dwelling, so chaste, so tranquilly cool, for
+his permanent home. The clouds of Heaven did not seem more free from
+earthly taint than everything within it. Robert paused at the threshold;
+a vague feeling of self-distrust came over him. It seemed as if his
+presence would soil the mysterious purity of the room. The old lady,
+with her grave face and black garments, was so at variance with the
+dwelling, that the very sight of her moving so noiselessly across the
+room chilled him to the heart.
+
+Leicester sat down on a divan near the window.
+
+"Tell Florence I am here!" he said, addressing the old lady.
+
+For a moment the lady hesitated; then, without having spoken a word, she
+went out. Directly there was a faint rustling sound on the stairs, a
+quick, light footstep near the door, and with every appearance of eager
+haste a young girl entered the room. A morning dress of white muslin,
+edged with a profusion of delicate lace, clad her slender form from head
+to foot; a tiny cameo of blood-red coral fastened the robe at her
+throat, and this was all the ornament visible upon her person.
+
+She entered the room in breathless haste, her dark eyes sparkling, her
+cheeks warm with a rich crimson, and with both hands extended,
+approached Leicester. Before she reached the divan the consciousness
+that a stranger was present fell upon her. She paused, her hands fell,
+and all the beautiful gladness faded from her countenance.
+
+"A young friend of mine," said Leicester, with an indolent wave of the
+hand toward Robert. "The evening was so fine, we have been rambling in
+the park, and being near, dropped in to rest awhile."
+
+The young lady turned with a very slight inclination, and Robert saw the
+face he had so admired in Leicester's chamber, the beautiful, living
+original of a picture still engraven on his heart. The surprise was
+overpowering. He could not speak; and Leicester, who loved to study the
+human heart in its tumults, smiled softly as he marked the change upon
+his features.
+
+As if overcome by the presence of a stranger, the young lady sat down
+near the divan which Leicester occupied. The color had left her cheek;
+and Robert, who was gazing earnestly upon her, thought that he could see
+tears gathering in her eyes.
+
+"It is a long time since you have been here," she said, in a low voice,
+bending with a timid air toward Leicester. "I--I--that is, we had begun
+to think you had forgotten us."
+
+"No, I have been very busy, that is all!" answered Leicester,
+carelessly. "I sent once or twice some books and things--did you get
+them?"
+
+"Yes; thank you very much--but for them I should have been more sad
+than, than--"
+
+She checked herself, in obedience to the quick glance that he cast upon
+her; but, spite of the effort, a sound of rising tears was in her voice;
+the poor girl seemed completely unnerved with some sudden
+disappointment.
+
+"And your lessons, Florence, how do you get along with them?"
+
+"I cannot study," answered the girl, shaking her head mournfully.
+"Indeed I cannot, I am so, so----"
+
+"Homesick!" said Leicester, quietly interrupting her. "Is that it?"
+
+"Homesick!" repeated the girl, with a faint shudder. "No, I shall never
+be that!"
+
+"Well--well, you must learn to apply yourself," rejoined Leicester,
+with an affectation of paternal interest; "we must have a good report of
+your progress to transmit when your father writes."
+
+Florence turned very white, and, hastily rising, lifted the lace
+drapery, and concealing herself in the recess behind, seemed to be
+gazing out upon the flower-garden. A faint sound now and then broke from
+the recess; and Robert, who keenly watched every movement, fancied that
+she must be weeping.
+
+Leicester arose, and sauntering to the window, glided behind the lace. A
+few smothered words were uttered in what Robert thought to be a tone of
+suppressed reproof, then he came into the room again, making some
+careless observation about the beauty of the night. Florence followed
+directly, and took her old seat with a drooping and downcast air, that
+filled the youth with vague compassion.
+
+"Now that we are upon this subject," said Leicester, quietly resuming
+the conversation, "you should, above all things, attend to your drawing,
+my dear young lady. I know it is difficult to obtain really competent
+masters; but here is my young friend, who has practised much, and has
+decided genius in the arts; he will be delighted to give you a lesson
+now and then."
+
+Florence lifted her eyes suddenly to the face of the youth. She saw him
+start and change countenance, as if from some vivid emotion. A faint
+glow tinged her own cheek, and, as it were, obeying the glance of
+Leicester's eye, which she felt without seeing, she murmured some gentle
+words of acknowledgment.
+
+"I shall be most happy," said the poor youth, blushing, and all in a
+glow of joyous embarrassment--"that is, if I thought--if I dreamed that
+my imperfect knowledge--that--that any little talent of mine could be of
+service."
+
+"Of course it will!" said Leicester, quietly interrupting him; "do you
+not see that Miss Craft is delighted with the arrangement? I was sure
+that it would give her pleasure!"
+
+Florence turned her dark eyes on the speaker with a look of gratitude
+that might have warmed a heart of marble.
+
+"Ah, how kind you are to think of me thus!" she said, in a low tone,
+that, sweet as it was, sent a painful thrill through the listener. "I
+was afraid that you had forgotten those things that I desire most."
+
+"It is always the way with very young ladies; they are sure to think a
+guardian too exacting or too negligent," said Leicester, with a smile.
+
+Again Florence raised her eyes to his face, with a look of vague
+astonishment; she seemed utterly at a loss to comprehend him, and though
+a faint smile fluttered on her lip, she seemed ready to burst into
+tears.
+
+You should have seen Leicester's face as he watched the mutations of
+that beautiful countenance. It was like that of an epicure who loves to
+shake his wine, and amuse himself with its rich sparkle, long after his
+appetite is satiated. It seemed as if he were striving to see how near
+he could drive that young creature to a passion of tears, and yet forbid
+them flowing.
+
+"Now," he said, turning upon her one of his most brilliant smiles, "now
+let us have some music. You must not send us away without that, pretty
+lady; run and get your guitar."
+
+"It is here," said Florence, starting up with a brightened look. "At
+least, I think so--was it not in this room I played for you last?"
+
+"And have you not used the poor instrument since?" questioned Leicester,
+as she brought a richly inlaid guitar from the window recess.
+
+"I had no spirits for music," she answered softly, as he bent over the
+ottoman on which she seated herself, and with an air of graceful
+gallantry, threw the broad ribbon over her neck.
+
+"But you have the spirits now," he whispered.
+
+A glance of sudden delight and a vivid blush was her only reply, unless
+the wild, sweet burst of music that rose from the strings of her guitar
+might be deemed such.
+
+"What will you have?" she said, turning her radiant face toward him,
+while her small hand glided over the strings after this brilliant
+prelude. "What shall it be?"
+
+It was a fiendish pleasure, that of torturing a young heart so full of
+deep emotions; but the pleasures of that man were all fiendish; the cold
+refinement of his intellect made him cruel. With his mind he tortured
+the soul over which that mind had gained ascendancy. He named the song
+very gently which that poor young creature was to sing. It was her
+father's favorite air. The last time she had played it--oh! with what a
+pang she remembered that time. It sent the color from her lips. Her hand
+seemed turning to marble on the strings.
+
+This was what Leicester expected. He loved to see the hot, passionate
+flashes of a heart all his own thus frozen by a word from his lip or a
+glance of his eye. A moment before she had been radiant with
+happiness--now she sat before him drooping and pale as a broken lily.
+That was enough. He would send the fire to her cheek again.
+
+"No, let me think, there was a pretty little air you sometimes gave us
+on shipboard--do you remember I wrote some lines for it! Let me try and
+catch the air."
+
+He began to hum over a note or two, as if trying to catch an almost
+forgotten air, regarding her all the while through his half-closed eyes.
+But even the mention of that song did not quite arouse her; it is easier
+to give pain than pleasure; easier to dash the cup of joy from a
+trembling hand than to fill it afterward. She sighed deeply, and sat
+with her eyes bent upon the floor. That bad man was half offended. He
+looked upon her continued depression as an evidence of his waning power,
+and was not content unless the heart-strings of his victim answered to
+every glowing or icy touch of his own evil spirit.
+
+"Ah, you have forgotten the air--I expected it," he said, in a tone of
+thrilling reproach, but so subdued that it only reached the ear for
+which it was intended. He had stricken that young heart cruelly. Even
+this but partially aroused her. His vicious pride was pained. He leaned
+back on the divan, and the words of a song, sparkling, passionate and
+tender with love broke from his lips. His voice was superb; his
+features lighted up; his dark eyes flashed like diamonds beneath the
+half-closed lashes.
+
+You should have seen Florence Leicester then. That voice flowed through
+her chilled heart like dew upon a perishing lily--like sunshine upon a
+rose that the storm has shaken; her drooping form became more erect; her
+hand began to tremble; her pale lips were softly parted, and grew red as
+if the warm breath, flashing through, kindled a richer glow with each
+short, eager gasp. Deeper and deeper those mellow notes penetrated her
+soul; for the time, her very being was given up to the wild delusion
+that had perverted it.
+
+All the time that his spirit seemed pouring forth its tender memories,
+he was watching the effect, coldly as the physician counts the pulse of
+his patient. She was very beautiful as the bloom came softly back to her
+cheek like a smile growing vivid there; it was like watching a flower
+blossom, or the escape of sunbeams from underneath a summer cloud. He
+loved a study like this; it gratified his morbid taste; it gave him
+mental excitement, and yielded a keen relish to his inordinate vanity.
+
+A doubt that his hitherto invincible powers of attraction might fall
+away with the approach of age, had began to haunt him about this time,
+and the thought stimulated his hungry self-love into more intense
+action. He was testing his own powers in the beautiful agitation of that
+young creature. The rich vibrations of his voice were still trembling
+upon the air, when the old lady returned to the room. Her manner was
+still quiet, but her large and very black eyes were brighter than they
+had been, and her tread, though still, was more firm as she crossed the
+room. She advanced directly toward Leicester, whose back was partly
+turned toward her, and touched his shoulder.
+
+"William!"
+
+Leicester started from his half reclining position and sat upright; his
+song was hushed the instant that low, but ringing voice fell upon his
+ear, and, with some slight display of embarrassment, he looked in the
+old lady's face. Its profound gravity seemed to chill even his
+self-possession.
+
+"Not here, William; you know I do not like music!" added the old lady,
+in her firm, gentle tones.
+
+Florence leaned back in her seat and drew a deep breath. It seemed as if
+she had been disturbed in the sweet bewilderment of some dream; Robert
+was gazing fixedly upon her, wondering at all he saw. To him she
+appeared like the birds he had read of fluttering around the jaws of a
+serpent; spite of himself, this delusion would come upon him. Yet he had
+boundless faith in the honor and goodness of the man on whom her eyes
+were fixed, while she was a profound stranger.
+
+"I did not know--indeed, madam, I thought you liked music" said
+Florence, casting the ribbon from her neck, and addressing the old lady.
+
+"Only when we are alone; then I love to hear you both sing and play,
+dear child; but William--Mr. Leicester's voice; it is that I do not
+like."
+
+"Not like _his_ voice?" exclaimed Florence, turning her eyes upon him
+with a look that made Robert press his lips hard together--"not like
+that--oh, madam?"
+
+"Well--well, madam, you shall not be annoyed by it again," said
+Leicester, with a slight shrug of their shoulders, "I forgot myself,
+that is all!"
+
+The old lady bent her head and sat down, but her coming cast a restraint
+upon the little group, and though she attempted to open a conversation
+with Robert, he was too much pre-occupied for anything more than a few
+vague replies that were sadly out of place.
+
+From the moment of the old lady's entrance, Leicester changed his whole
+demeanor. He joined in the efforts she was making to draw the youth out,
+and that with a degree of quiet gravity that seemed by its respect to
+win upon her favor. He took no further notice of Florence, and seemed
+unconscious that she was sitting near watching this change with anxious
+eyes and drooping spirits.
+
+"I have," said Leicester, after a few common-place remarks, "I have
+just been proposing that the young gentleman should give our pretty
+guest here some drawing lessons during the season, always under your
+sanction, madam, of course."
+
+The old lady cast a more searching glance at the youth than she had
+hitherto bestowed on him, then bending her eyes upon the floor, she
+seemed to ponder over the proposal that had been made. After this her
+keen glance was directed to Leicester; then she seemed once more lost in
+thought.
+
+"Yes," she said, at length, looking full and hard at Leicester, "it will
+occupy her--it will be a benefit, perhaps to them both."
+
+Leicester simply bent his head. He conquered even the expression of his
+face, that the keen eyes bent upon him might not detect the hidden
+reason which urged this proposal. That some motive of self interest was
+there, the old lady well knew, but she resolved to watch closer. His
+projects were not to be fathomed in a moment. She did not leave the room
+again, and her presence threw a constraint upon the group, which
+prompted the visitors to depart.
+
+Florence rose as they prepared to go out. Her dark eyes were
+beseechingly turned upon Leicester. With a mute glance she sought to
+keep him a few minutes longer, though she had no courage to utter the
+wish. He took her soft, little hand gently in his, held it a moment, and
+went away, followed by Robert and the old lady, who accompanied her
+guests to the door.
+
+Florence had crept into the window recess, and while her panting breath
+clouded the glass, gazed wistfully at these two dark shadows as they
+glided through the flower-garden. She was keenly disappointed; his
+visit, the one great joy for which she had so waited and watched, was
+over; and how had it passed? With the keen, cold eyes of that old lady
+upon them--beneath the curious scrutiny of a stranger. Tears of vexation
+gathered in her eyes; she heard the old lady return, and tried to crush
+them back with a pressure of the silken lashes, shrinking still behind
+the cloud of lace that her discomposure might not be observed.
+
+The old lady entered the room, and, believing it empty, sat down in a
+large easy-chair. She sighed profoundly, shading her face with one of
+the thin delicate hands, that still bore an impress of great beauty. Her
+eyes were thus shrouded, and, though she did not appear to be weeping,
+one deep sigh after another heaved the black neckerchief folded over her
+bosom. As these sighs abated, Florence saw that the old lady was sinking
+into a reverie so deep, that she fancied it possible to steal away,
+unnoticed, to her room. So, timidly creeping out from the drapery, that
+in its cloud-like softness fell back without a rustle, she moved toward
+the door. The old lady looked suddenly up, and the startled girl could
+see that the usual serious composure of her countenance was greatly
+disturbed.
+
+"Is it you, my dear?" she said, in her usual kindly tones, "I thought
+you had gone up stairs."
+
+Florence was startled by the suddenness of this address, and turned
+back, for there was something in the old lady's look that seemed to
+desire her stay.
+
+"No," she said, "I was looking out upon--upon the night. It is very
+lovely!"
+
+"Paradise was more lovely, and yet serpents crept among the flowers,
+even there!" said the old lady, thoughtfully.
+
+A vivid blush came into Florence's pale cheek.
+
+"I--I do not understand you," she said, in a faltering voice.
+
+"No, I think not--I hope not," answered the lady, bending her eyes
+compassionately on the young girl, "come here, and sit by me."
+
+Florence sat down upon the light ottoman which the old lady drew near
+her chair. The blushes, a moment before warm upon her cheeks, had burned
+themselves out. She felt herself growing calm and sad under the
+influence of those serious, but kind eyes.
+
+"You love Mr. Leicester!" This was uttered quietly, and rather as an
+assertion, than from any desire for a reply. As she spoke, the old lady
+pressed her hand upon the coil of raven hair that bound that graceful
+head; the motion was almost a caress, and it went to the young
+creature's heart. "Has he ever said that he loved you?"
+
+"Loved me, oh yes! a thousand times," cried the young creature, her eyes
+and her cheek kindling again, "else how could you know--how could any
+one guess how very, very much I think of him?"
+
+"And how do you expect this to end?" questioned the old lady, while a
+deeper shade settled on her pale brow.
+
+"End?" repeated Florence, and her face was bathed with blushes to the
+very temples; "I have never really thought of that--he loves me!"
+
+"Have you never doubted that?" questioned the old lady, with a faint
+wave of the head.
+
+"What, his love? I--I--how could any one possibly doubt?"
+
+"And yet to-night--this very evening?"
+
+"No--no, it was only disappointment--regret, the--the flurry of his
+sudden visit--not doubt--oh, not doubt of his love!"
+
+"Has this man--has Leicester ever spoken to you of marriage? Have his
+professions of love ever taken this form?" persisted the old lady,
+becoming more and more earnest.
+
+"Of marriage? yes--no--not in words."
+
+"Not in words then?"
+
+"No, I never thought of that before--but what then?"
+
+"Then," said the old lady, impressively--"then he is one shade less a
+villain than I had feared!"
+
+"Madam!" exclaimed the young girl, all pallid and gasping with anger and
+affright.
+
+"My child," said the old lady, taking both those small, trembling hands
+in hers, "William Leicester will never marry you, nor any one."
+
+"How do you know, madam? how can you know? Who are you that tells me
+this with so much authority?"
+
+"I am his mother, poor child. God help me, I am his mother!"
+
+The young girl sat gazing up into that aged face, so pale, so still,
+that her very quietude was more painful than a burst of passion could
+have been.
+
+"His mother!" broke from her parted lips. "It is his mother who calls
+him a villain!"
+
+"Even so," said the old lady, with mournful intensity. "Look up, girl,
+and see what it costs a mother to say these things of an only son!"
+
+Florence did look up, and when she saw the anguish upon that face
+usually so calm, her heart filled with tender pity, notwithstanding the
+tumult already there, and taking the old lady's hands in hers, she bent
+down and kissed them.
+
+"If you are indeed his mother," she said, with a sort of fond anguish,
+"to-morrow you will unsay these bitter words--you are only angry with
+him now--something has gone wrong. You will not repeat such things of
+him to-morrow--for oh, they have made me wretched."
+
+"I am cruel only that I may be kind!" said the old lady with mournful
+earnestness. "And now, dear child, let us talk no more, you are grieved,
+and I suffer more than you think."
+
+With these words, the old lady arose and led her guest from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+MRS. GRAY'S THANKSGIVING DINNER.
+
+     Oh, I love an old-fashioned thanksgiving,
+       When the crops are all safe in the barn;
+     When the chickens are plump with good living,
+       And the wool is all spun into yarn.
+
+     It is pleasant to draw round the table,
+       When uncles and cousins are there,
+     And grandpa, who scarcely is able,
+       Sits down in his old oaken chair!
+
+     It is pleasant to wait for the blessing,
+       With a heart free from malice and strife,
+     While a turkey, that's portly with dressing,
+       Lies, meekly awaiting the knife.
+
+
+Amid all the varieties of architecture--Grecian, Gothic, Swiss, Chinese,
+and even Egyptian, to be met with on Long Island, there yet may be found
+some genuine old farms, with barns instead of carriage-houses, and cow
+sheds in the place of pony stables. To these old houses are still
+attached generous gardens, hedged in with picket fences, and teeming
+with vegetables, and front yards full of old-fashioned shrubbery, with
+thick grass half a century old mossing them over. These things,
+primitive, and full of the olden times, are not yet crowded out of sight
+by sloping lawns, gravel walks, and newly acclimated flowers; and if
+they do not so vividly appeal to the taste, those, who have hearts,
+sometimes find them softened by these relicts of the past, to warmer and
+sweeter feelings than mere fancy ever aroused.
+
+One of these old houses, a low roofed, unpretending dwelling, exhibiting
+unmistakable evidence of what had once been white paint on the edges of
+its clap-boards, and crowned by a huge stone chimney, whose generous
+throat seemed half choked up with swallows' nests, belonged to a
+character in our story which the reader cannot have forgotten without
+breaking the author's heart.
+
+It was autumn--but a generous, balmy autumn, that seemed to cajole and
+flatter the summer into keeping it company close up to Christmas. True,
+the gorgeous tints of a late Indian summer lay richly among the trees,
+but some patches of bright green were still left, defying the season,
+and putting aside, from day to day, the red and golden veil which the
+frost was constantly endeavoring to cast over them.
+
+In front of the old house stood two maples--noble trees, such as have
+had no time to root themselves around your modern cottages. These
+maples, symmetrical as a pair of huge pine cones, rose against the house
+a perfect cloud of gorgeous foliage. One was red as blood, and with a
+dash of the most vivid green still keeping its hold down the centre of
+each leaf--the other golden all over, as if its roots were nourished in
+the metallic soil of California, and its leaves dusted by the winds that
+drift up gold in the valley of Sacramento. These superb trees blended
+and wove their ripe leaves together, now throwing out a wave of red, now
+a mass of gold, and here a tinge of green in splendid confusion.
+
+All around, under these maples, the grass was littered with a fantastic
+carpet of leaves, showered down from their branches. They hung around
+the huge old lilac bushes. They fluttered down to the rose thickets, and
+lay in patches of torn crimson and crumpled gold among the house-leeks
+and mosses on the roof.
+
+In and out, through this shower of ripe leaves, fluttered the swallows.
+In and out along the heavy branches, darted a pair of red squirrels, who
+owned a nest in one of the oldest and most stately trees. In and out,
+through the long, low kitchen, the parlor, the pantries, and the
+milk-room, went and came our old friend, Mrs. Gray, the comely
+huckster-woman of Fulton market. That house was hers. That great square
+garden at the back door was hers. How comfortable and harvest-like it
+lay, sloping down toward the south, divided into sections, crowded with
+parsnips, beets, onions, potatoes, raspberry thickets, and strawberry
+patches; in short, running over with a stock in trade that had furnished
+her market stall during the year.
+
+The season was late. The frost had been there nipping, biting and
+pinching up the noble growth of vegetables that was to supply Mrs.
+Gray's stall in the winter months. Half the great white onions lay above
+ground, with their silvery coats exposed. The beet beds were of a deep
+blackish crimson; and the cucumber vines had yielded up their last
+delicate gherkins. All her neighbors had gathered in their crops days
+ago, but the good old lady only laughed and chuckled over the example
+thus offered for her imitation. New England born and accustomed to the
+sharp east winds of Maine, she cared nothing for the petty frosts that
+only made the leaves of her beet and parsnip beds gorgeous, while their
+precious bulbs lay safely bedded in the soil. No matter what others did,
+she never gathered her garden crop till Thanksgiving. That was her
+harvest time, her great yearly jubilee--the season when her accounts
+were reckoned up--when her barns and cellars were running over with the
+wealth of her little farm.
+
+Christmas, New Year, the Fourth of July, in short, all the holidays of
+the year were crowded into one with Mrs. Gray. During the whole twelve
+months, she commemorated Thanksgiving only. The reader must not, for a
+moment, suppose that the Thanksgiving Mrs. Gray loved to honor, was the
+miserable counterfeit of a holiday proclaimed by the governor of New
+York. No! Mrs. Gray scorned this poor attempt at imitation. It made her
+double chin quiver only to think of it. If ever a look of contempt crept
+into those benevolent eyes, it was when people would try to convince her
+that any governor out of New England, could enter into the spirit of a
+regular Down East Thanksgiving; or, that any woman, south of old
+Connecticut, could be educated into the culinary mysteries of a mince
+pie. Her faith was boundless, her benevolence great, but in these things
+Mrs. Gray could not force herself to believe.
+
+You should have seen the old lady as Thanksgiving week drew near--not
+the New York one, but that solemnly proclaimed by the governor of Maine.
+Mrs. Gray heeded no other. That week the woman of a neighboring stall
+took charge of Mrs. Gray's business. The customers were served by a
+strange hand; the brightness of her comely face was confined to her own
+roof tree. She gave thanks to God for the bounties of the earth,
+heartily, earnestly; but it was her pleasure to render these thanks
+after the fashion of her ancestors.
+
+You should have seen her then, surrounded by raisins, black currants,
+pumpkin sauce, peeled apples, sugar boxes, and plates of golden butter,
+her plump hand pearly with flour dust, the whole kitchen redolent with
+ginger, allspice, and cloves! You should have seen her grating orange
+peel and nutmegs, the border of her snow-white cap rising and falling to
+the motion of her hands, and the soft gray hair underneath, tucked
+hurriedly back of the ear on one side, where it had threatened to be in
+the way.
+
+You should have seen her in that large, splint-bottomed rocking-chair,
+with a wooden bowl in her capacious lap, and a sharp chopping-knife in
+her right hand; with what a soft, easy motion the chopping-knife fell!
+with what a quiet and smiling air the dear old lady would take up a
+quantity of the powdered beef on the flat of her knife, and observe, as
+it showered softly down to the tray again, that "meat chopped too fine
+for mince pies was sure poison." Then the laugh--the quiet, mellow
+chuckle with which she regarded the astonished look of the Irish girl,
+who could not understand the mystery of this ancient saying.
+
+Yes, you should have seen Mrs. Gray at this very time, in order to
+appreciate fully the perfections of an old-fashioned New England
+housewife. They are departing from the land. Railroads and steamboats
+are sweeping them away. In a little time, providing our humble tale is
+not first sent to oblivion, this very description will have the dignity
+of an antique subject. Women who cook their own dinners and take care of
+the work hands are getting to be legendary even now.
+
+The day came at last, bland as the smile of a warm heart, a breath of
+summer seemed whispering with the over-ripe leaves. The sunshine was of
+that warm, golden yellow which belongs to the autumn. A few hardy
+flowers glowed in the front yard, richly tinted dahlias, marigolds,
+chrysanthemums, and China-asters, with the most velvety amaranths, still
+kept their bloom, for those huge old maples sheltered them like a tent,
+and flowers always blossomed later in that house than elsewhere. No
+wonder! Inside and out, all was pleasant and genial. The fall flowers
+seemed to thrive upon Mrs. Gray's smiles. Her rosy countenance, as she
+overlooked them, seemed to warm up their leaves like a sunbeam.
+Everything grew and brightened about her. Everything combined to make
+this particular Thanksgiving one to be remembered.
+
+Now, all was in fine progress, nothing had gone wrong, not even the
+awkward Irish girl, for she had only to see that the potatoes were in
+readiness, and for that department she was qualified by birth.
+
+Mrs. Gray had done wonders that morning. The dinner was in a most
+hopeful state of preparation. The great red crested, imperious looking
+turkey, that had strutted away his brief life in the barn-yard, was now
+snugly bestowed in the oven--Mrs. Gray had not yet degenerated down to a
+cooking-stove--his heavy coat of feathers was scattered to the wind. His
+head, that arrogant, crimson head, that had so often awed the whole
+poultry yard, lay all unheeded in the dust, close by the horse-block.
+There he sat, the poor denuded monarch--turned up in a dripping pan,
+simmering himself brown in the kitchen oven. Never, in all his pomp, had
+that bosom been so warmed and distended--yet the huge turkey had been a
+sad gourmand in his time. A rich thymy odor broke through every pore of
+his body; drops of luscious gravy dripped down his sides, filling the
+oven with an unctuous stream that penetrated a crevice in the door, and
+made the poor Irish girl cross herself devoutly. She felt her spirit so
+yearning after the good things of earth, and never having seen
+Thanksgiving set down in the calendar, was shy of surrendering her
+heart to a holiday that had no saint to patronize it.
+
+No wonder! the odor that stole so insidiously to her nostrils was
+appetising, for the turkey had plenty of companionship in the oven. A
+noble chicken-pie flanked his dripping pan on the right; a delicate
+sucking pig was drawn up to the left wing; in the rear towered a
+mountain of roast beef, while the mouth of the oven was choked up with a
+generous Indian pudding. It was an ovenful worthy of New England, worthy
+of the day.
+
+The hours came creeping on when guests might be expected. Mrs. Gray, who
+had been invisible a short time after filling the oven, appeared in the
+little parlor perfectly redolent with good humor, and a fresh toilet. A
+cap of the most delicate material, trimmed with satin ribbons, cast a
+transparent brightness over her bland and pleasant features. A dress of
+black silk, heavy and ample in the skirt, rustled round her portly
+figure as she walked. Folds of the finest muslin lay upon her bosom, in
+chaste contrast with the black dress, and just revealing a string of
+gold beads which had reposed for years beneath the caressing protection
+of her double chin.
+
+Mrs. Gray, was ready for company, and tried her best to remain with
+proper dignity in the great rocking chair, that she had drawn to a
+window commanding a long stretch of the road; but every few moments she
+would start up, bustle across the room, and charge Kitty, the Irish
+girl, to be careful and watch the oven, to keep a sharp eye on the
+sauce-pans in the fire-place, and, above all, to have the mince pies
+within range of the fire, that they might receive a gradual and gentle
+warmth by the time they were wanted. Then she would return to the room,
+arrange the branches of asparagus that hung laden with red berries over
+the looking glass, or dust the spotless table with her handkerchief,
+just to keep herself busy, as she said.
+
+At last she heard the distant sound of a wagon, turning down the cross
+road toward the house. She knew the tramp of her own market horse even
+at that distance, and seated herself by the window ready to receive her
+expected guests with becoming dignity.
+
+The little one-horse wagon came down the road with a sort of dash quite
+honorable to the occasion. Mrs. Gray's hired man was beginning to enter
+into the spirit of a holiday; and the old horse himself made every thing
+rattle again, he was so eager to reach home, the moment it hove in
+sight.
+
+The wagon drew up by the door yard gate with a flourish worthy of the
+Third avenue. The hired man sprang out, and with some show of awkward
+gallantry, lifted a young girl in a pretty pink calico and a cottage
+bonnet, down from the front seat. Mrs. Gray could maintain her position
+no longer; for the young girl glanced that way with a look so eloquent,
+a smile so bright, that it warmed the dear old lady's heart like a flash
+of fire in the winter time. She started up, hastily shook loose the
+folds of her dress, and went out, rustling all the way like a tree in
+autumn.
+
+"You are welcome, dear, welcome as green peas in June, or radishes in
+March," she cried, seizing the little hand held toward her, and kissing
+the heavenly young face.
+
+The girl turned with a bright look, and making a graceful little wave of
+the hand toward an aged man who was tenderly helping a female from the
+wagon, seemed about to speak.
+
+"I understand, dear, I know all about it! the good old people--grandpa
+and grandma, of course. How could I help knowing them?" Mrs. Gray went
+up to the old people as she spoke, with a bland welcome in every feature
+of her face.
+
+"Know them, of course I do!" she said, enfolding the old gentleman's
+hand with her plump fingers. "I--I--gracious goodness, now, it really
+does seem as if I had seen that face somewhere!" she added, hesitating,
+and with her eyes fixed doubtingly on the stranger, as if she were
+calling up some vague remembrance, "strange, now isn't it? but he looks
+natural as life."
+
+The old man turned a warming glance toward his wife, and then answered,
+with a grave smile, "that, at any rate, Mrs. Gray could never be a
+stranger to them, she who had done so much----"
+
+She interrupted him with one of her mellow laughs. Thanks for a kind
+act always made the good woman feel awkward, and she blushed like a
+girl. "No, no; but somehow I can't give it up; this isn't the first time
+we have seen each other!"
+
+"I hope that it will not be the last!" said old Mrs. Warren, coming
+gently forward to her husband's assistance. "Julia has seen you so
+often, and talked of you so much--no wonder we seem like old
+acquaintances. I always thought Julia looked very much like her
+grandfather!"
+
+"Yes, I reckon it must be that," answered Mrs. Gray, evidently but half
+giving up her prepossession. "Her face isn't one to leave the mind: I
+dreamed about it the first night after she came into the market, poor
+thing--poor thing!"
+
+Mrs. Gray repeated the last words with great tenderness, for Julia
+Warren had crept close to her, and taking one of her hands, softly
+lifted it to her lips.
+
+"Come, come, let us go in," cried the good woman, gently withdrawing her
+hand, with which she patted Julia on the shoulder. "There, there, pick
+your grandmother a handful of China-asters. I believe the frost left
+them just for you."
+
+Julia was about to obey the welcome command, but her glance happened to
+fall on the face of her grandfather, and she hesitated. There was
+something troubled in his look, an expression of anxiety that struck her
+as remarkable.
+
+"Grandpa, what is the matter?--you look pale!" she said, in a low voice,
+for, with delicate tact, she saw he wished to escape observation.
+
+"Nothing, child, nothing," he answered hurriedly, but with kindness. "Do
+not mind me."
+
+Julia cast one more anxious look into his face, and then stooped to the
+flowers. The old gentleman followed Mrs. Gray and his wife into the
+house.
+
+"A sweet, pretty creature, isn't she?" said Mrs. Gray, watching Julia
+from the parlor window, after she had put aside Mrs. Warren's things;
+"and handsome as a picture! Just watch her now as she turns her face
+this way."
+
+"You are kind to praise her," said Mrs. Warren, with a gentle smile;
+"you know how much it pleases us."
+
+Mrs. Gray laughed and shook her head. "I know how much it pleases me,
+and that's all I think about it," she answered; and the two warm-hearted
+women stood together watching Julia as she gathered and arranged her
+humble bouquet.
+
+The child did indeed look very lovely in her pink dress--only a shilling
+calico, but fresh and becoming for all that. You never saw a more
+interesting picture in your life. The long ringlets of her hair swept
+from underneath her bonnet, while its delicate rose-colored tinge and
+the ride had given her cheek a bloom fresh as an almond flower when it
+first opens. Still she was a slender, fragile little creature, and you
+saw that the rude winds of life had swept too early over her. Feeling
+and intellect had prematurely developed themselves in her nature. In her
+face--in her smile--in her eyes, with their beautiful curling lashes,
+there was something painfully spiritual. Within the last few months this
+expression had grown upon her wonderfully. Her loveliness was of a kind
+to make you thoughtful, sometimes even sad. Mrs. Gray felt all this
+without understanding it, and her heart yearned strangely toward the
+child.
+
+"It's a truth," she said, addressing the grandmother. "I feel almost as
+if she were my own daughter, and yet I never had a child, and didn't use
+to care for other people's children much. I really believe that some day
+I shall up and give her these. It's come into my mind more than once, I
+can tell you, and yet they were my mother's, and her mother's before
+that." Here Mrs. Gray ran her fingers along the gold beads on her neck.
+"It's strange, but I always want to be giving her something."
+
+"You _are_ always giving her something," said Mrs. Warren, gratefully.
+
+"No, no, nothing to speak of."
+
+"That pretty dress and the bonnet--are they nothing?"
+
+"And who told you that?--who told you they came from me?"
+
+"We have not so many friends that there could be much doubt," answered
+Mrs. Warren, with a sigh. "Julia was sure of it from the first; and the
+other things!" continued the old lady, in a low voice, glancing at her
+own neat dress, "who else would have thought of them?"
+
+All truly benevolent persons shrink from spoken thanks. The gratitude
+expressed by looks and actions may give pleasure, but there is something
+too material in words--they destroy all the refinement of a generous
+action. Good Mrs. Gray felt this the more sensitively, because her own
+words had seemed to challenge the thanks of her guest. The color came
+into her smooth cheek, and she began to arrange the folds of her dress
+with both hands, exhibiting a degree of awkwardness quite unusual to
+her. When she lifted her eyes again, they fell upon a young man coming
+down the cross road on foot, with an eager and buoyant step.
+
+"There he comes, I thought he would not be long on the way," she cried,
+while a flash of gladness radiated her face. "It's my nephew; you see
+him there, Mrs. Warren--no, the maple branch is in the way! Here he is
+again--now look! a noble fellow, isn't he?"
+
+Mrs. Warren looked, and was indeed struck by the free air and superior
+appearance of the youth. He had evidently walked some distance, for a
+light over-sacque hung across his arm, and his face was flushed with
+exercise. Seeing his aunt, the boy waved his hand; his lips parted in a
+joyous smile, and he hastened his pace almost to a run.
+
+Mrs. Gray's little brown eyes glistened; she could not turn them from
+the youth, even while addressing her guest.
+
+"Isn't he handsome?--not like your girl, but handsome for a boy," she
+exclaimed with fond enthusiasm, "and good--you have no idea, ma'am,
+_how_ good he is. There, that is just like him, the wild creature!" she
+continued, as the youth laid one hand upon the door yard fence, and
+vaulted over, "right into my flower-beds, trampling over the grass
+there--did you ever?"
+
+"Couldn't help it, Aunt Sarah," shouted the youth, with a careless
+laugh, "I'm in a hurry to get home, and the gate is too far off. Three
+kisses for every flower I tramp down--will that do? Ha, what little lady
+is this?"
+
+The last exclamation was drawn forth by Julia Warren, who had seated
+herself at the root of the largest maple, and with her lap full of
+flowers, was arranging them into bouquets. On hearing Robert's voice she
+looked up with a glance of pleasant surprise, and a smile broke over her
+lips. There was something so rosy and joyous in his face, and in the
+tones of his voice, that it rippled through her heart as if a bird
+overhead had just broken into song. The youth looked upon her for a
+moment with his bright, gleeful eyes, then, throwing off his hat and
+sweeping back the damp chestnut curls from his forehead, he sat down by
+her side, and cast a glance of laughing defiance at his relative.
+
+"Come out here and get the kisses, Aunt Sarah, I have made up my mind to
+stay among the flowers!"
+
+Mrs. Gray laughed at the young rogue's impudence, as she called it, and
+came out to meet him.
+
+"Now this is too bad," exclaimed the youth, starting up: "don't box my
+ears, aunt, and besides paying the kisses, I will embrace you
+dutifully--upon my life I will--that is if my arms are long enough," and
+with every appearance of honest affection, the youth cast one arm around
+the portly person of his aunt, and pressed a warm kiss on her cheek.
+
+"You are welcome home, Robert, always welcome; and I wish you a happy
+Thanksgiving with my whole heart. Julia dear, this is my nephew, Mr.
+Robert Otis. His mother and I were sisters--only sisters; there were
+three of us in all, two daughters and a son. He is the only child among
+us, that is the reason I spoil him so."
+
+Julia, who had just recovered from the blush that crimsoned her cheek at
+his first approach, came forward and extended her hand to the youth
+with a timid and gentle grace, that seemed too composed for her years.
+
+"And Miss Julia Warren, who is she, dear aunt?" questioned the youth, in
+a half whisper, as the girl moved toward the house, holding the loose
+flowers to her bosom with one hand.
+
+"The dearest and best little girl that ever lived, Robert; that is all I
+know about her!" was the earnest reply.
+
+"And enough, who wants to know any more about any one," returned the
+youth; "and yet Mr. Leicester would say that something else is wanting
+before we invite strangers to eat Thanksgiving dinners with us. _He_
+would say that all this is imprudent."
+
+"Mr. Leicester is very wise, I dare say, and I am but a simple old
+woman, Robert; but somehow that which seems right for me to do always
+turns out for the best."
+
+"Because what seems right to the good always is best, my darling old
+aunt. I only wanted to prove how prudent and wise a city life has made
+me."
+
+"Prudent and wise--don't set up for that character, Bob. These things
+never did run in our family, and never will. Just content yourself with
+being good and happy as you can!"
+
+All at once Robert became grave. Some serious thought seemed pressing
+upon his mind.
+
+"I always was happy when you were my only adviser," he said, looking in
+her face with a thoughtful sort of gloom.
+
+"Now don't, Robert, don't joke with your old aunt. One would think by
+your looks that there was something in it. I'm sure it would break my
+heart to think you unhappy in earnest!"
+
+"I know it would!" answered the affectionate youth, casting aside his
+momentary depression. "Just box my ears for teasing you, and let us go
+in--I must help the little girl tie up her flowers."
+
+Mrs. Gray seemed about to press the conversation a little more
+earnestly; but that moment the Irish girl came through the front door
+with an expression of solemn import in her face. She whispered in a
+flustered manner to her mistress, and the words "spoilt entirely,"
+reached Robert's ear.
+
+Away went the aunt all in a state of excitement to the kitchen. The
+nephew watched her depart, and then turning thoughtfully back, begun to
+pace up and down the footpath leading from the front door to the gate.
+The first wild flash of spirits consequent on a return home had left
+him, and from that time the joyousness of his look grew dim. He was gay
+only by starts, and at times fell into thought that seemed unnatural to
+his youth, and his usual merry spirit.
+
+Whatever mischief had happened in the kitchen, the dinner turned out
+magnificently. The turkey came upon the table a perfect miracle of
+cookery. The pig absolutely looked more beautiful than life, crouching
+in his bed of parsely, with his head up, and holding a lemon daintily
+between his jaws. The chicken-pie, pinched around the edge into a
+perfect embroidery by the two plump thumbs of Mrs. Gray, and then
+finished off by an elaborate border done in key work, would have charmed
+the most fastidious artist.
+
+You have no idea, reader mine, how beautiful colors may be blended on a
+dinner-table, unless you have seen just the kind of feast to which Mrs.
+Gray invited her guests. The rich brown of the meats; the snow white
+bread; the fresh, golden butter; the cranberry sauce, with its bright,
+ruby tinge, were daintily mingled with plates of pies, arranged after a
+most tempting fashion. Golden custard; the deep red tart; the brown
+mince and tawny orange color of the pumpkin, were placed in alternate
+wedges, and radiating from the centre of each plate like a star, stood
+at equal distances round the table. Water sparkling from the well;
+currant wine brilliantly red--contrasted with the sheeted snow of the
+table-cloth; and the gleam of crystal; then that old arm-chair at the
+head of the table, with its soft crimson cushions. I tell you again,
+reader, it was a Thanksgiving dinner worthy to be remembered. That poor
+family from the miserable basement in New York, did remember it for many
+a weary day after. Mrs. Gray remembered it, for she had given delicious
+pleasure to those old people. She had, for that one day at least, lifted
+them from their toil and depression. Besides, the good woman had other
+cause to remember the day, and that before she closed her eyes in sleep.
+
+Robert too. In his heart there lingered a remembrance of this dinner
+long after such things are usually forgotten. And Julia! even with her
+it was an epoch, a mile-stone in the path of her life--a mile-stone
+wreathed with blossoms, to which in after days she loved to wander back
+in her imagination, as pilgrims journey to visit a shrine.
+
+When old Mr. Warren took the great crimson easy-chair at the head of the
+table, and folding his hands earnestly and solemnly, asked a blessing on
+the food, Mrs. Gray could not forbear stealing another, and more
+searching glance at his face. She could not be mistaken, somewhere those
+features had met her eye before; it might be years ago, she could not
+fix the time or place, but she had seen that forehead and heard the
+voice--of that she became certain.
+
+I will not dwell upon that dinner--the warm, almost too warm
+hospitality! No wine was wanted to keep up the general cheerfulness; the
+sparkle of champagne; the dash of crystals; the gush of song were all
+unnecessary there.
+
+Everything was fresh, earnest, and full of pure enjoyment; even old Mr.
+Warren smiled happily more than once; and as for Robert, he was
+perfectly brilliant during the whole meal, saying the drollest things to
+his aunt, and making Julia laugh every other minute with his sparkling
+nonsense.
+
+There was one thing that, for a moment, cast a shadow upon the general
+hilarity. By the great easy-chair occupied by Mr. Warren, stood an empty
+seat; a plate, knife, and glass was before it; but when Mr. Warren asked
+if any other guest was expected, a profound sigh arose from the recesses
+of Mrs. Gray's bosom, and she answered sadly that one guest was always
+expected on Thanksgiving day, but he never came. All the company saw
+that this was a painful subject, and no more questions were asked; but
+after dinner, when Robert and Julia were under the old maples, he told
+her in a low voice that this seat was always kept standing for an uncle
+of his--Mrs. Gray's only brother--who left home when a youth, and had
+been a wanderer ever since. For him this empty seat was ever in
+readiness.
+
+Mrs. Gray, with all her good common sense, had a dash of romance buried
+deep somewhere in her capacious bosom. It was an old-fashioned, hearty
+sort of romance, giving depth and vigor to her affections; people might
+smile at it, but what then? It beautified, and gave wholesome refinement
+to a character which required something of this kind to tone down its
+energies, and soften even its best impulses.
+
+Thanksgiving, in New England, is a holiday of the hearth-stone, a yearly
+Sabbath, where friends that are scattered meet with a punctuality that
+seems almost religious. It is a season of little, pleasant surprises;
+unexpected friends often drop in to partake of the festival. It was not
+very singular, considering all these things, that good Mrs. Gray should
+have cherished a fancy, as each of these festive holidays came round,
+that her long absent brother might return to claim his seat at her
+table. They were orphans--and her home was all that he could claim in
+his native land. She did hope--and there was something almost of
+religious faith in the idea--that some day her only brother would
+surprise them with his presence.
+
+And now the day was over, the landmark of another year was planted, her
+guests had departed, and Mrs. Gray sat down in her little parlor alone.
+There was something melancholy in the solitude to which she was left.
+Every footfall of the old market horse as he bore away those whom she
+had made so happy, seemed to trample out a sweet hope from her heart.
+There stood the chair--empty, empty, empty--her brother, her only
+brother, would he never come again? As these thoughts stole through her
+mind, Mrs. Gray folded her arms, and, leaning back in the old arm-chair
+that had been her father's, wept, but so gently that one sitting by her
+would hardly have been aware of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BROTHER'S RETURN.
+
+     My soul is faint beneath its unshed tears;
+       The earth seems desolate amid its flowers;
+     Oh, better far wild hope and racking fears,
+       Than all this leaden weight of weary hours.
+
+
+Miss Landon says, in one of her exquisite novels, that the history of a
+book--the feelings, sufferings, and experience of its author--would, if
+truly revealed, be often more touching, more romantic, and full of
+interest, than the book itself. Alas, alas, how true this is with me!
+How mournful would be the history of these pages, could I write of that
+solemn under-current of grief that has swept through my heart, while
+each word has fallen, as it were, mechanically from my pen. I have
+written in a dream; my mind has been at work while my soul dwelt wholly
+with another. Between every sentence fear, and grief, and keen anxiety
+have broken up, known only to myself, and leaving no imprint on the page
+which my hand was tracing. My brother, my noble young brother, so good,
+so strong, once so full of hopeful life! How many times have I said to
+my heart, as each chapter was commenced, Will he live to see the end? By
+his bedside I have written--with every sentence I have turned to see if
+he slept, or was in pain. We had began to count his life by months then,
+and as each period of mental toil came round, the wing of approaching
+death fell more darkly over my page and over my heart. Reader, do you
+know how we may live and suffer while the business of life goes
+regularly on, giving no token of the tears that are silently shed?
+
+Here, here! between this chapter and the last he died. The flowers we
+laid upon his coffin are scarcely withered; the vibrations of the
+passing bell have but just swept through the beautiful valley where we
+laid him down to sleep. While I am yet standing bewildered and
+grief-stricken in "the valley and shadow of death,"--for we followed
+that loved one even to the brink of eternity, rendering him up to God
+when we might go no further,--even there comes this cry from the outer
+world, "Write--write!"
+
+And I must write--my work, like his young life, must not be broken off
+in the middle. Here, in the desolate room, where he was an object of so
+much care, I must gather up the tangled thread of my story. There is
+nothing to interrupt me now--no faint moan, no gentle and patient call
+for water or for fruit. The couch is empty--the room silent; nothing is
+here to interrupt thought save the swell of my own heart--the flow of my
+own tears.
+
+And she sat waiting for _her_ brother, that kind-hearted old
+huckster-woman, waiting for him on that Thanksgiving night, with the
+beautiful faith which will not yield up hope even when everything that
+can reasonably inspire it has passed away.
+
+The hired man had escorted the Irish girl on a visit to some "cousin
+from her own country," and Robert was acting as charioteer to the Warren
+family. Thus it happened that Mrs. Gray was left entirely alone in the
+old farm-house.
+
+The twilight deepened, but the good woman, lost in profound memories,
+sat gazing in the fire, unconscious of the gathering darkness; even her
+housewife thrift was forgotten, and she sat quiet and unconscious for
+the time as it passed. There stood the table, still loaded with the
+Thanksgiving supper--nothing had been removed--for Mrs. Gray had no idea
+of more than one grand course at her festive board. Pies, puddings,
+beef, fowl, everything came on at once, a perfect deluge of hospitality,
+and thus everything remained. It was a feast in ruins. When her guests
+went away, the good lady, partly from fatigue, partly from the rush of
+thick-coming memories, forgot that the table was to be cleared. The
+lonesome stillness suited her frame of mind, and thus she sat,
+motionless and sorrowful, brooding amid the vestiges of her Thanksgiving
+supper.
+
+She was aroused from this unusual state of abstraction by a slight
+noise among the dishes, and supposing that the slack old house cat had
+broken bounds for once, she stamped her foot upon the hearth too gently
+for much effect, and brushing the tears from her eyes, uttered a faint
+"get out," as if that hospitable heart smote her for attempting to
+deprive the cat of a reasonable share in the feast.
+
+Still the noise continued, and added to it was the faint creaking of a
+chair. She looked around, eagerly arose from her seat, and stood up
+motionless, with her eyes bent on the table. A man sat in the vacant
+chair--not the hired man--for his life he dared not have touched that
+seat. The apartment was full of shadows, but through them all Mrs. Gray
+could detect something in the outline of that tall figure that made her
+heart beat fast. The face turned toward her was somewhat pale, and even
+through the gloom she felt the flash of two dark eyes riveted upon her.
+
+Mrs. Gray had no thought of robbers--what highwayman could be fancied
+bold enough to seat himself in that chair? She had no fear of any kind,
+still her stout limbs began to shake, and when she moved toward the
+table it was with a wavering step. As she came opposite her brother's
+chair the intruder leaned forward, threw his arms half across the table,
+and bent his face toward her. That moment the hickory fire flashed up;
+she rushed close to the table, seized both the large hands stretched
+toward her, and cried out, "Jacob, brother Jacob--is that you?"
+
+"Well, Sarah, I reckon it isn't anybody else!" said Jacob Strong,
+holding his sister's hand with a firm grip, though she was trying to
+shake his over the table with all her might. "You didn't expect me, I
+suppose?"
+
+It would not do; with all his eccentricity, the warm, rude love in Jacob
+Strong's heart would force its way out. His voice broke; he suddenly
+planted his elbows on the table, and covering his face with both hands,
+sobbed aloud.
+
+"Jacob, brother Jacob, now don't!" cried Mrs. Gray, coming round the
+table, her buxom face glistening with tears. "I'm sure it seems as if I
+should never feel like crying again. Why, Jacob, _is_ it you? I can't
+seem to have a realizing sense of it yet."
+
+Jacob arose, opened his large arms, and gathered the stout form of Mrs.
+Gray to his bosom, as if she had been a child.
+
+"Sarah, it is the same heart, with a great deal of love in it yet. Does
+not that seem real?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Gray, in a soft, deep whisper, "yes, Jacob, that is
+nat'ral, but I want to cry more than ever. It seems as if I couldn't
+stop! I always kind of expected it, but now that you are here, it seems
+as if I had got you right back from heaven."
+
+Jacob Strong held his sister still closer to his bosom, and putting up
+his hand, he attempted to smooth her hair with a sort of awkward caress,
+probably an old habit of his boyhood, but his hand fell upon the muslin
+and ribbons of her cap, and the touch smote him like a reproach. "Oh,
+Sarah," he said, in a broken voice, "you have grown old. _Have_ I been
+away so many years?"
+
+"Never mind that now," answered Mrs. Gray, whose kindly heart was moved
+by the sigh that seemed lifting her from the bosom of her brother. "I
+have had trouble, and, sure enough, I have grown old, but it seems to me
+as if I was never so happy as I am now."
+
+Jacob tightened his embrace a moment, and then released his sister.
+
+"Get a light, Sarah, let us look at each other."
+
+Mrs. Gray took a brass candlestick from the mantel-piece and kindled a
+light. Her face was paler than usual, and bathed with tears as she
+turned it toward Jacob. For a time the two gazed on each other with a
+look of intense interest; an expression of regretful sadness settled on
+their features, and, without a word, Mrs. Gray sat down the light.
+
+"Is it age, Sarah, or trouble, that has turned your hair so grey?" said
+Jacob, a moment after, when both were seated at the hearth. He paused, a
+choking sensation came in his throat, and he added with an effort,
+"have I helped to do it? was it mourning because I went off and never
+wrote?"
+
+"No, no, do not think that," was the kind reply, "I always knew that
+there must be some good reason for it; I always expected that you would
+come back, and that we should grow old together."
+
+"Then it was not trouble about me?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind; I knew that you would never do anything really
+wrong; something in my heart always told me that you were alive and
+about some good work, what, I could not tell; but though I longed to see
+you, and wondered often where you were, I was just as sure that all
+would end right, and that you would come back safe, as if an angel from
+heaven had told me so!"
+
+"Yet I was doing wrong all the time, Sarah," answered Jacob, smitten to
+the heart by the honest sisterly faith betrayed in Mrs. Gray's speech.
+"It was cruel to leave you--cruel not to write. But it appeared to me as
+if I had some excuse. You were settled in life--and so much older. It
+did not seem as if you could care so much for me with a husband to think
+of. I was a boy, you know, and could not realize that two full grown
+married women really could care much about me."
+
+"You knew when poor Eunice died?" answered Mrs. Gray. "You heard, I
+suppose, that she was buried by her husband not three months after the
+fever took him off; and about the baby?"
+
+"No, no, I never heard of it, I was too full of other things. I did not
+even know that your husband was gone, till a man up yonder called you
+the Widow Gray, when I inquired if you lived here. The last news I heard
+was years ago, when your husband left home and settled here on the
+Island."
+
+"He died that very year," answered Mrs. Gray, with a gentle fall of her
+voice; "I have been alone ever since--all but little Robert."
+
+"Little Robert--have you a child, then, Sarah? I did not know that!"
+
+"No, it wasn't my child, poor Eunice left a boy behind her, the
+dearest, little fellow. I wish you could have seen him when he first
+came here, a nussing baby, not three months old, so feeble and helpless.
+In his mother's sickness he hadn't been tended as children ought to be;
+and he was the palest thinnest little creature. I wasn't much used to
+babies, but somehow God teaches us a way when we have the will--and no
+creature ever prayed for knowledge as I did. Sometimes when the little
+thing fell to sleep, moaning in my arms, it sounded as if it must wake
+up with its mother in heaven; but good nussing and new milk, warm from
+the cow, soon brought out its roses and dimples. He grew, I never did
+see a child grow like him, when he once took a start--and so
+good-natured too!"
+
+"But now--where is the boy now?" questioned Jacob.
+
+"He was here this forenoon, almost a man grown. You have been away _so_
+long, Jacob. He was here and ate his Thanksgiving dinner. A perfect
+gentleman, too; I declare, I was almost ashamed to kiss him, he's grown
+so."
+
+"Then you have brought him up on the place?"
+
+"No, Jacob, we never had a gentleman in our family that I ever heard on,
+so I determined to make one of Robert."
+
+"And how did you go to work?" questioned Jacob, with a grim smile, "I've
+tried it myself; but we're a tough family to mould over; I never could
+do more than make a tolerably honest man out of my share of the old
+stock."
+
+"Oh, Robert was naturally gifted," answered Mrs. Gray, with great
+complacency.
+
+"He did not get it from our side of the house, that's certain," muttered
+Jacob; "the very gates on the old farm always swung awkwardly."
+
+"But his father--he was an 'Otis,' you know--Robert looks a good deal
+like his father, and took to his learning just as naturally as he did to
+the new milk. He was born a gentleman. I remember Mr. Leicester said
+these very words the first time he came here."
+
+Jacob gave a start, and clenching his hand, said, only half letting out
+his breath--"Who, who?"
+
+"Mr. Leicester, the best friend Robert ever had. He used to come over to
+the Island to board sometimes for weeks together, for there was deer in
+the woods then, and fish in the ponds, enough to keep a sportsman busy
+at least four months in the year. He took a great notion to Robert from
+the first, and taught him almost everything--no school could have made
+Robert what he is."
+
+"And this man has had the teaching of my sister's child!" muttered
+Jacob, shading his face with one hand. "Everywhere--everywhere, he
+trails himself in my path."
+
+Mrs. Gray looked at her brother very earnestly. "You are tired," she
+said.
+
+"No, I was listening. So this man, this Mr. Leicester--you like him
+then? he has been good to you?"
+
+Mrs. Gray hesitated, and bent her eyes upon the fire. "Good--yes he has
+been good to us; as for liking him I ought to. I know how ungrateful it
+is, but somehow, Jacob, I'll own it to you, I never did like Mr.
+Leicester with my whole heart, I'm ashamed to look you in the face and
+say this, but it's the living truth: perhaps it was his education, or
+something."
+
+"No, Sarah, it was your heart, your own upright heart, that stirred
+within you. I have felt it a thousand times, struggled against it, been
+ashamed of it, but an honest heart is always right. When it shrinks and
+grows cold at the approach of a stranger, depend on it, that stranger
+has some thing wrong about him. Never grieve or blush for this heart
+warning. It is only the honest who feel it. Vile things do not tremble
+as they touch each other."
+
+"Why, Jacob, Jacob, you do not mean to say that it was right for me to
+dislike Mr. Leicester--to dread his coming--to feel sometimes as if I
+wanted to snatch Robert from his side and run off with him! I'm sure it
+has been a great trouble to me, and I've prayed and prayed not to be so
+ungrateful. Now you speak as if it was right all the time; but you don't
+know all; you will blame me as I blame myself after I tell you it was
+through Mr. Leicester that Robert got his situation with one of the
+richest and greatest merchants in New York, and that he was paid a
+salary from the first, though hundreds and hundreds of rich men's sons
+would have jumped at the place without pay; now, Jacob, I'm sure you'll
+think me an ungrateful creature."
+
+"Ungrateful!" repeated Jacob with emphasis, "but no matter now; the time
+has gone by when it would do good to talk all this over. But tell me,
+Sarah, what studies did he seem most earnest that Robert should
+understand? What books did they read together? What was the general
+discourse?"
+
+"I'm sure it's impossible for me to tell; they read all sorts of books,
+some of 'em are on the swing shelf--you can look at 'em for yourself."
+
+Jacob arose, and taking up a light, examined the books pointed out to
+him, while his sister stood by, gazing alternately upon his face and the
+volumes, as if some new and vague fear had all at once possessed her.
+
+There was nothing in the volumes which Jacob beheld to excite
+apprehension, even in the most rigid moralist. Some of the books were
+elementary; the rest purely classical; a few were in French, but they
+bore no taint of the loose morals or vicious philosophy which has
+rendered the modern literature of France the shame of genius.
+
+Jacob drew a deep breath, and replacing the light on the mantel-piece,
+sat down. His feelings and suspicions were not in the least changed, but
+the inspection of those books had baffled him. Mrs. Gray sat watching
+him with great anxiety.
+
+"There is nothing wrong in the books, is there?" she said, at length.
+
+"No!" was the absent reply.
+
+"You could tell, I suppose, for it seemed as if you were reading. It is
+foreign language, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you can read it?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"But how--where did you get so much learning?"
+
+Jacob did not hear her. He was lost in profound thought, striving to
+search out some clue which would reveal the motives of that evil man for
+the interest he had taken in Robert Otis.
+
+"And these were all my nephew studied?" he said, at length, still
+pondering upon what had been told him.
+
+"No, not all. Those were the books; but then Mr. Leicester thought a
+good deal of music and drawing, but most of all, writing. Hours and
+hours he would spend over that. Every kind of writing, not coarse hand
+and fine hand as you and I learned to write--but everything was given
+him to copy. Old letters, names. I remember he practised one whole month
+writing over different names from a great pile of letters that Mr.
+Leicester brought for copies."
+
+"Ha!" ejaculated Jacob Strong, now keenly interested, "so he was taught
+to copy these names?"
+
+"Yes, and he did it so beautifully, sometimes, you could not have known
+one from the other. The more exactly alike he made them, the more Mr.
+Leicester was pleased. I used to tell Robert to beat the copy if he
+could, and some of the names were crabbed enough, but Mr. Leicester said
+that wasn't the object."
+
+"No, it wasn't the object," muttered Jacob, and now his eyes flashed,
+for he had obtained the clue.
+
+"One week, I remember," persisted Mrs. Gray, "he wrote and wrote, and
+all the time on one name. I fairly got tired of the sight of it, and
+Robert too; but Mr. Leicester said that he would never be a clerk
+without perfect penmanship."
+
+"And this one name, what was it?" inquired Jacob, with keen interest.
+
+Mrs. Gray opened a stand drawer, and took out a copy-book filled with
+loose scraps of paper.
+
+Jacob examined the book and the scraps of paper separately and together.
+Mrs. Gray was wrong when she said it was a single name only. In the
+book, and on loose fragments were notes of hand, evidently imitated
+from some genuine original, with checks on various city banks,
+apparently drawn at random, and merely as a practice in penmanship; but
+one bank was more frequently mentioned than the others, and this fact
+Jacob treasured in his mind.
+
+"This name," he said, touching a signature to one of these
+papers--"whose is it?"
+
+"Why it is the merchant that Robert is with," answered Mrs. Gray. "That
+is the one he wrote over so often!"
+
+"I thought so," said Jacob, dryly; and laying the copy-book down, he
+seemed to cast it from his mind.
+
+Mrs. Gray had become unfamiliar with the features of her relative, or
+she would have seen that deep and stern feelings were busy within him;
+but now she only thought him anxious and tired out with the excitement
+of returning home after so many years of absence.
+
+They sat together on the hearth, more silent than seemed natural to
+persons thus united, when a footstep upon the crisp leaves brought a
+smile to Mrs. Gray's face.
+
+"I thought there was a sound of wheels," she said, eagerly. "It is
+Robert come back from the ferry--how he will be surprised!"
+
+"Not now!" said Jacob Strong. "I would rather not see him to-night--do
+not tell him that I am here!"
+
+"But he will stay all night!" pleaded Mrs. Gray, whose kind heart was
+overflowing with the hope of presenting the youth to his uncle without
+delay.
+
+"So much the better; I can see something of him without being known.
+Where does that door lead?"
+
+"To a spare bed-room!"
+
+"His bed-room?"
+
+"No. Robert will sleep up stairs in his own chamber--he always does."
+
+"Very well, I will take that room; say nothing of my return. When he is
+in bed I will come out again."
+
+"Dear me, how strange all this is--how can I keep still?--how can I
+help telling him?" murmured the good woman, half following Jacob into
+the dark bedroom; "I never kept a secret in my life. He will certainly
+find me out."
+
+"Hush!" said Jacob in an emphatic whisper, from the bed-room; "I will
+lay down upon the bed--leave the door partly open--now take your seat
+again where the light will fall on you both. Go--go!"
+
+Mrs. Gray took her seat again, looking very awkward and
+conscience-stricken. Robert came in flushed with his ride. It was a
+sharp autumnal evening, and his drive home had been rapid; a brilliant
+color lay in his cheeks, and the rich hair was blown about his forehead.
+He flung off his sacque, and cast it down with the heavy whip he carried
+in one hand.
+
+"Well, aunt, I am back again--that old horse, like wine I have tasted,
+grows stronger and brighter as he gets old."
+
+"But where is he? the hired-man went away at dark," said Mrs. Gray,
+anxious for the comfort of her horse.
+
+"Never mind him. I put the blessed pony up myself. You should have heard
+the old fellow whinney as I gave out his oats. He knew me again."
+
+"Of course he did. I should like to see anything on the place forget
+you, Robert; it wouldn't stay here long, I give my word for it."
+
+"Oh, aunt, I would not have even a horse or dog sent from the old place
+for a much greater sin--I know what it is!"
+
+"But you never were sent off, Robert."
+
+"No, aunt, but I went. Instead of superintending the place, and taking
+the labor from your shoulders, who have no one else to depend on--I must
+set up for a gentleman--see city life, aunt. I wish from the bottom of
+my heart that I had never left you!"
+
+"Why, Robert--what makes you wish this? or if you really are homesick,
+why not come back again?"
+
+"Come back again, aunt!" said the youth, with sudden and bitter
+earnestness. "Is there any coming back in this life? When we are
+changed, and places are changed--always ourselves most--how can a return
+to one spot be called coming back?"
+
+"But I am not changed--the place is just as it was," pleaded the kind
+aunt.
+
+"But I am changed, aunt--I can throw myself by your side, and lay my
+head upon your lap as if I were a petted child still, but it would not
+be natural--we could not force ourselves into believing it natural."
+
+"How strangely you talk, Robert; to me you are a child yet."
+
+"But to myself I am _not_ a child, I have thought, felt--yes, I have
+suffered only as men think, feel and suffer. Oh, aunt, if I had never
+lived with any one but you, how much better it would have been!"
+
+The youth had cast himself on the hearth by his aunt, and rested his
+beautiful head upon her knee. Tears--those warm bright tears that youth
+alone can shed--filled his eyes without impairing their brightness.
+
+The old lady pressed her hand upon his hair, and looked lovingly into
+those brimming eyes. "And this comes of being a gentleman!" she
+whispered, shaking her head with a gentle motion.
+
+The youth gave a faint shudder, and turning his head so that his eyes
+were buried in the folds of her dress, sobbed aloud.
+
+"Why, Robert, Robert, what is this?--what trouble is upon you?"
+
+"None, aunt--nothing. I am only in a fit of the blues just now. It makes
+me home-sick to see you all alone here, that is all!" answered the
+youth, lifting his face, and shaking back the curls from his forehead,
+while he attempted one of his old careless smiles, but vainly enough.
+
+The old lady was distressed. "Is it money, Robert?--have you been
+extravagant? The salary is a very nice one; but if you want more
+clothes, or anything, I wouldn't mind giving you twenty or thirty
+dollars. There, now, will that do?"
+
+Blessed old woman, she did not understand the half sad, half comic smile
+that curled those young lips, and thinking, in her innocence, that she
+had dived to the heart of his mystery, her own face beamed with
+satisfaction.
+
+"That is it; I see through it all now; come, how much shall it
+be--twenty, thirty, forty? It's extravagant, I know, but this day, of
+all others, I feel as if it would do me good to give somebody everything
+I've got in the world; there, nephew, there--two tens--three fives--a
+three, and, and--yes, I have it--here is a two. Now brighten up, and
+next time don't be afraid to come and tell me; only, Robert, remember
+the fate of the prodigal son--the husks, the tears--not that I wouldn't
+kill the fatted calf--not that I wouldn't forgive you, Bob--I couldn't
+help it; but it would break my heart. If I was to be called on for the
+sacrifice, I couldn't eat a morsel of the animal, I'm sure. So you won't
+be extravagant and spend the hard earnings of your old aunt, at any
+rate, till after she's dead and gone."
+
+The good woman had worked herself up to a state of almost ludicrous
+sorrow with the future her fancy was coloring. Her hands shook as she
+drew an old black pocket-book from some mysterious place in the folds of
+her dress, and counting out the bank-notes as they were enumerated,
+crowded them into Robert's hand.
+
+The youth had altered very strangely while she was speaking. His face
+was pale and red in alternate flashes; his lips quivered, and with a
+convulsive movement he pressed his eyelids down, thus crushing back the
+tears that swelled against them. Mrs. Gray attempted to press the
+bank-notes upon him, but his hand was cold, and his fingers refused to
+clasp the money. Drawing back with a faint struggle, he said, "No, no,
+aunt, I do not want it! Indeed it would do me no good!"
+
+"Do you no good! What! is it not money that you want?" cried the kind
+woman. "Nonsense, nonsense, Robert; here, take it--take it. I wouldn't
+mind ten dollars more--it does seem as if I was crazy, but then really I
+would not mind it scarcely at all."
+
+Robert was more composed now. The hot flushes had left his face very
+pale, and with a look of firm resolve upon it.
+
+"No, aunt, he said," gently putting back the money, "I will not take it.
+The salary I receive ought to be enough for my support, and it shall;
+besides, I tell you but the simple truth, that money would do me no good
+whatever."
+
+The old lady took up the crushed notes, smoothed them across her knee
+with both hands, over and over, in a puzzled and dissatisfied way.
+
+"What is it that you are worried about, if money will not answer?" she
+said, at length.
+
+"Nothing, aunt--why should you think it?" He spoke slowly and in a
+wavering voice at first, then with a sort of reckless impetuosity he
+broke into a laugh. It was not his old gleeful laugh, and Mrs. Gray only
+looked startled by it.
+
+"There, now, put up the old pocket-book, and give me a hearty good-night
+kiss," he said hurriedly, "I shall be off in the morning before you are
+up."
+
+"Good night, Robert," said Mrs. Gray, with a meek and disappointed air.
+"That kiss is the first one that ever fell heavily on your old aunt's
+heart. You are keeping something back from me."
+
+"No, aunt, no!" The words were uttered faintly, and Mrs. Gray felt that
+the ardor of truth was not there. For a moment both were silent; Robert
+had lighted a candle, and stood on the hearth looking hard into the
+blaze; he turned his eyes slowly upon his aunt. She sat with one hand
+upon the pocket-book, gazing into the fire. There was anxiety and doubt
+in her features. Robert sighed heavily.
+
+"Good night, aunt."
+
+"Good night."
+
+She listened to each slow footstep, as her nephew went up stairs. When
+his chamber door closed, she buckled the strap around her pocket-book,
+and dropped it with a deep sigh into its repository among her voluminous
+skirts.
+
+"I can't understand it," she murmured--"I can't make out what ails
+him!"
+
+All at once she remembered the presence of her brother, and her face
+brightened up. "Jacob will know what it means. Jacob, Jacob!"
+
+Mrs. Gray uttered the name of her brother in a whisper, but it brought
+him forth at once.
+
+"Well Jacob, you have seen him--you have heard him talk. Isn't he
+something worth loving?"
+
+"He is worth loving and worth saving too," answered Jacob. "Sarah, I do
+not think anything on earth could make my heart beat as the sight of
+that boy did."
+
+"He is in trouble, you see that, Jacob, and would not take money! What
+can it mean?"
+
+"I saw all--heard all. His nature is noble--his will strong--have no
+fear. He needs a firmer hand than yours, Sarah; I will take care of
+him."
+
+"I did not give a hint about you."
+
+"That was right. It is best that he shouldn't know about me, at any
+rate, jest now."
+
+"But I should so like to tell him!" said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"And you shall in time, but not yet. I must know more and see more
+first."
+
+"Well, you ought to know best," answered the sister, in a tone of gentle
+submission. "I'm sure he puzzles me!"
+
+"Now," said Jacob, seating himself, "let us leave the boy to his rest. I
+wish to talk with you about old times--about the people Down East."
+
+"It is a good while since I was in Maine, Jacob; I've almost forgotten
+all about the folks."
+
+"But there was one family that you will remember. Old Mr. Wilcox's, I
+want to hear about him."
+
+There was something constrained and unnatural in Jacob's manner; he had
+evidently forced himself to appear calm when every word was sharpened
+with anxiety.
+
+Mrs. Gray shook her head; Jacob's heart fell as he saw the motion.
+"Nothing--can you tell me nothing?" he said, with an expression of deep
+anguish. "Oh, Sarah, try, try! you do not know how much happiness a word
+from you would bring!"
+
+"If I could but speak it," said Mrs. Gray, "how glad I should be. Mr.
+Wilcox sold out and left Maine about the time we moved on to the Island;
+where he went, no one ever heard. It was a very strange thing, everybody
+thought so at the time; but that story about his daughter set people
+a-talking, and I suppose he couldn't bear it."
+
+Jacob uttered a faint groan--her words had taken the last hope from his
+heart. "And this is all you know, Sarah?"
+
+"It is all anybody knows of old Mr. Wilcox or his family. As for his
+daughter--let me think, that was just before you left the old gentleman;
+nobody ever heard of her either. What is the matter, are you going away,
+Jacob?"
+
+"Yes, I will talk over these things another time. Good night, Sarah. I
+will just throw myself on the bed till daybreak."
+
+"But you are not going away to live?"
+
+"Yes; but you will see me every now and then; I shall stay near you--in
+the city, may be."
+
+"Why not here? I have enough for us both, and we two are all that is
+left, almost. It seems kind of hard for you to leave me so soon."
+
+"Not now, Sarah, by and by we will settle down and grow old together;
+but the time has not come yet."
+
+"I forgot to ask, are you married, Jacob?"
+
+"Married!" answered Jacob Strong, and a grim, hard smile crept over his
+lips. "No, I was never married. Good night, Sarah."
+
+"There, now, I suppose I've been inquisitive, and worried him," thought
+Mrs. Gray, as the bed-room door closed upon her brother. "What a
+Thanksgiving it has been? Who would have thought this morning that _he_
+would sleep under my roof to-night and Robert close by, without knowing
+a word of it? Well, faith is a beautiful thing after all--I was certain
+that he would come back alive, and sure enough he has!"
+
+Thus Mrs. Gray ruminated, unconscious of the lapse of time, till a sense
+of fatigue crept over her. Still she was keenly wakeful, for, unused to
+excitement of any kind, the agitation that crowded upon her that day
+forbade all inclination to sleep. There was a large moreen couch in the
+room, and as the night wore on she lay down upon it, still thoughtful
+and oppressed with the weight of her over-wrought feelings. Thus she lay
+till the candle burned out, and there was no light in the room save that
+which came from a bed of embers and the rays of a waning moon, half
+exhausted in the maple boughs.
+
+A sleepy sensation was at length conquering the excitement that had kept
+her so long watchful, when she was aroused by the soft tread of a foot
+upon the stairs. Quietly, and with frequent pauses, it came downward;
+the door opened, and Mrs. Gray saw her nephew, in his night clothes, and
+barefooted, glide across the room. He went directly to an old-fashioned
+work-stand near the bed-room door, and opened one of the drawers. Then
+followed a faint rustle of papers, and he stole back again softly, and
+with something in his hand.
+
+It was strange that Mrs. Gray did not speak, but some unaccountable
+feeling kept her silent, and after she heard him cautiously enter his
+room again, the reflection that there was nothing but his own little
+property in the stand, tranquilized her. "He wanted something from the
+drawer, and so came down softly, that I might not be disturbed," she
+thought.
+
+Thus the kind lady reassured herself, and with these gentle thoughts in
+her mind she fell asleep.
+
+Mrs. Gray awoke early in the morning, and softly entered the spare
+bed-room. It was empty. No vestige of her brother's visit remained. Like
+a ghost he came, like a ghost he had departed. She went up stairs--the
+nephew was gone. Some time during that day she happened to think of his
+visit to the work-stand. It was only the old copy book that he had
+taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE MOTHER'S LETTER.
+
+     What though her gentle heart is breaking!
+       What though her form grows pale and thin!
+     His iron heart knows no awaking,
+       Nor tears nor anguish moveth him.
+
+
+It was two nights after Thanksgiving. Leicester had thrown himself upon
+a couch in his chamber. A little sofa-table was by his elbow, and upon
+it a small and richly chased salver, overflowing with notes and letters.
+Most of them were unopened, for he had been absent several days, and it
+often happened that when he once knew a handwriting, and did not fancy
+the correspondence, letters remained for weeks unread, on that little
+table, even when he was at home.
+
+But this morning Leicester seemed to have nerved himself to read
+everything that came to hand. Bills, letters heavy with red wax from the
+counting-room, and even dirty, square-shaped missives, stamped with keys
+or thimbles, passed successively through his hands. These coarse letters
+he took up first, sorting them out with his white fingers from the
+rose-tinted and azure notes, glittering with gold and fancy seals, with
+which they were interspersed. These notes, breathing a voluptuous odor,
+eloquent of that sentimental foppery from which deep, pure feeling
+recoils, Leicester flung aside in disgust.
+
+When all the business letters were read, he selected from this perfumed
+mass three little snow-white notes, traced in delicate characters, that
+seemed yet unsteady with the trembling hand that had written them. A
+single drop of pale green wax, stamped with a gem, held the envelopes,
+and in all things these notes were singularly chaste, and unlike those
+he had left so contemptuously unread. He broke the seals coldly, and
+perused each note according to its date. The contents must have been
+full of eloquence, wild and passionate; for they brought the color even
+to his hardened cheek, and toward the last he became somewhat excited.
+
+"By Jove, it is a pity these could not be published. How the creature
+writes--a perfect nightingale pouring forth her heart in tears. After
+all, it is amusing to see downright, earnest love like this.
+One--two--three--I wonder if there are no more!"
+
+He began tossing over the notes again. "Yes, yes, here is another, like
+a snow-drop in a cloud of buttercups. How is this?--the seal black, the
+handwriting delicately rigid--that of my lady mother."
+
+He spoke a little anxiously, and, unfolding the note, read the few lines
+it contained with a darkened brow.
+
+"Ill--is she, poor girl?--ill, and delirious at times--unfortunate
+that--physicians must be called, nurses--all a torment and a plague. My
+friend Robert has been of little use here, after all; I did think his
+handsome face might have helped me safely out of the whole business.
+Now, here is the question--shall I go up--re-assure her--take her away
+from the old lady--brave her friends? No, it is not worth while; a
+bullet through the brain must be unpleasant, especially to a reflecting
+mind; and these haughty southerners make short settlements. Besides, I
+hate scenes. But then the girl is ill, has fretted herself to the brink
+of the grave. These are the very words--I wonder my stately mamma ever
+brought herself to utter anything so pathetic. Well, she _has_
+suffered--the worst is over. When all hope is extinguished she will find
+consolation, or die. Die--that would end all; but then death is so
+gloomy, and she does write exquisite letters."
+
+If is lips ceased to utter these cold thoughts, and falling back on his
+couch he closed his eyes, still holding the open note in one hand. It
+was terrible to see how calm and passionless his features remained while
+he settled in his mind the destiny of one who had loved him so much.
+After some ten minutes, he opened his eyes, turned softly on the couch,
+and laid down his mother's letter.
+
+"No, I will not go near her," he said, "and yet this is another heart
+that I am casting away--another that has loved me. How soon--how soon
+shall I have need of affection? A whole life--conquest upon conquest,
+and yet never truly loved save by these two women--the first and the
+last. It is strange but this moment my heart softens toward them both.
+What, a tear in Leicester's eye!" and with a look of thrilling
+self-contempt the bad man started up, scoffing at the only pure feeling
+that had swelled his bosom for months.
+
+A waiter stood in the door. "Sir, there is a man below, who says you
+told him to call."
+
+"What does he seem like?"
+
+"A hack-driver. He says you employed him one rainy night, a long time
+ago, and ordered him to come again when he had news to bring?"
+
+"What, a tall, awkward fellow, with a stoop in the shoulders--tremendous
+feet and hands?"
+
+"That's the man, sir."
+
+"Send him up, I did tell him to call."
+
+A few minutes, and Jacob Strong stood in Leicester's chamber,
+self-possessed even in his exaggerated awkwardness, and with a look of
+shrewd intelligence which recommended itself to Leicester at once. In
+their previous acquaintance, the man of the world had seen this applied
+solely to self-interest in the supposed hackman, and he hoped to make
+this rude, sharp intellect useful to himself.
+
+It would have been a strange contrast to one acquainted with them
+both--the deep, wily, elegant man of the world--the honest, firm, shrewd
+man of the people. These two were pitted together in the game of life;
+and though one was unconscious, looking upon his antagonist as an
+instrument--nothing more--and though the other was often compelled to
+grapple hard with his passions, that they might lead him to no false
+move--the game was a trial of skill worth studying.
+
+"You told me to find out who the lady was, and where she lived, sir. It
+took time, for these great people are always moving about, but I have
+done it."
+
+"I was sure that you were to be depended on, my good fellow; there is
+your money. Now tell me all about her. Who is she? Where does she live,
+and when have you seen her?"
+
+Jacob took the offered piece of gold, turned it over in his palm, as if
+estimating its value, and then laid it on the table, before Leicester.
+
+"I don't jest like to give up the money," he said--eyeing the gold with
+well-acted greed; "but perhaps you will help me in a way I like better."
+
+"How!--what can be better than money?" questioned Leicester. "I thought
+you Yankees considered the almighty dollar above all things."
+
+"Once in a while there may be things that we like better than that,
+though we do love to plant the root of evil whenever we can get seed,
+jest as I want to plant that are gold eagle where it will bring a crop
+of the same sort."
+
+"Oh, that is it!" said Leicester, laughing, "I thought there must be
+something to come. But do you remember the old proverb about a 'bird in
+the hand?'"
+
+"Wal, yes. It seems to me as if I did remember something about it,"
+answered Jacob, putting his huge hand to his forehead; "'a bird in the
+hand is worth two in the bush,' isn't that the poetry you mean?"
+
+"Yes, that is quite near enough. Now tell me about this lady, and we
+will talk of the reward after. You found the number of the house?"
+
+"No. It wasn't numbered; but that made no difference, she didn't live
+there; only staid there one night. Besides, she wasn't a lady, only a
+kind of help, you know!"
+
+"A governess or waiting-maid--I thought so," exclaimed Leicester. "Very
+well, where is she now?"
+
+"She went away with the folks that she had been living with, up to
+Saratoga, and about; then she came back, and they all went off together
+across the water, to where she came from."
+
+"What, to Europe? Then that is the last of her! Very well, my good
+fellow, you have earned the money."
+
+Jacob looked keenly at the gold, but did not take it.
+
+"Maybe," said he, shifting his weight from one foot to the other--"maybe
+you can tell me of some one that wants a hired-man, to drive carriage,
+or do almost any kind of chores. I'm out of work jest now, and it costs
+all creation to live here in New York."
+
+Leicester was interested. His personal habits rendered an attendant
+necessary, and yet he had of late been unable to supply himself with one
+that could at the same time be useful and discreet. Here was a person,
+evidently new to the world, honest and with a degree of shrewdness that
+might be invaluable, ready to accept any situation that might offer.
+Could he but attach this man to his person, interest his affections,
+what more useful agent, or more serviceable dependent could be found?
+Still there was risk in it. Leicester with his lightning habit of
+thought revolved the idea in his mind, while Jacob stood looking upon
+the floor, inly a-fire with intense excitement, but to all outward
+appearance calm.
+
+"You don't know of any one then?" he said, at last, with assumed
+indifference. "Wal, I don't see how on arth I shall get along."
+
+Leicester looked at him searchingly. Jacob felt the glance, and met it
+with a calm, dull expression of the eye, that completely deceived the
+man who was trying with such art to read him to the soul.
+
+"What if I were to engage you myself?"
+
+"Wal, now, I should be awful glad!"
+
+"Do you read? Of course! what Down Easter does not? But are you fond of
+reading?--in the habit of picking up books and papers?"
+
+Jacob saw the drift of this question at once.
+
+"Wal, yes. I can read a chapter in the Bible, or a piece in the English
+reader, I suppose, as well as most folks, though I haven't tried much of
+late years. But then, if you want a feller to read books for you, why I
+don't think we should agree. I was set agin them at school, and haven't
+got over it yet."
+
+"You know how to write, of course?"
+
+He made one of his shuffling bows, and began to brush his hat with the
+sleeve of his coat.
+
+"You need not wait; we will talk about the wages to-morrow," said
+Leicester. "Meantime if you can gather any more information about--about
+the lady, you know it would be a praiseworthy introduction to your new
+duties."
+
+Jacob bowed again and edged himself toward the door. "I will do my best,
+you may be sartain. What time o' day shall I come to-morrow?"
+
+"At ten or two, it does not signify. If I am not in, wait!"
+
+"I will!" muttered Jacob, when he found himself alone. "It is something
+to have learned how to wait, as you shall find, my new
+master--_master_!" and Jacob laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+STRIFE FOR AN EARL.
+
+     Thistledown--Thistledown!--join the pursuit;
+       While fashion flies onward, let wisdom be mute.
+     All pleasure is fleeting, and life's but a span,
+       Come gather up, Thistledown, souls, while you can!
+
+
+It had been a brilliant season in the fashionable world that year.
+Saratoga and Newport were perfect hot-beds of gaiety, splendor and
+trivial ambition. A thorough bred nobleman or two from England--a German
+countess--the greatest and most popular statesmen of our own land, had
+flung a dazzling splendor over these places. But even amid all this
+false life and _éclat_ there was one person whose dress, wit and beauty
+became the theme of general comment. She had taken rooms at Saratoga
+late in the season. Accommodations for half a dozen servants--stabling
+for almost as many horses, all was in preparation long before the lady
+herself appeared.
+
+There was something about this to puzzle and bewilder the most
+thorough-bred gossip of a watering-place. The servants were foreign, and
+thoroughly educated to their vocation. When questioned regarding their
+mistress, they spoke of her without apparent restraint, and always as my
+lady. But there was no title attached to the name under which the superb
+suite of apartments had been engaged. Mrs. Gordon! Nothing could be more
+simple and unpretending. If there was a title behind it, as the
+indiscretion of the servants seemed to intimate, she was only the more
+interesting.
+
+Mrs. Gordon's servants had lounged about the United States a whole
+fortnight; her horses had been exercised by the grooms often enough to
+attract attention to their superb beauty, and to keep the spirit of
+gossip and curiosity alive. A lady's maid had for days been making a
+sensation at the servant's table by her broken English and Parisian
+finery. Yet no one had obtained a sight of the lady. At last she
+appeared in the drawing-room, very simply dressed, quiet and
+self-reliant, neither courting attention nor seeming in the least
+desirous of avoiding it. She presented no letters, sought no
+introductions. The various fashionable cliques, with their reigning
+queens, seemed scarcely to attract the notice of this singular woman,
+though a mischievous smile would sometimes dawn upon her beautiful
+mouth, as some petty manoeuvering for superiority passed before her.
+
+A creature so calm, so tranquil, so quietly regardless of contending
+cliques and fashionable factions, was certain to become an object of
+peculiar attention, even though rare personal beauty, and all the
+appliances of great wealth had been wanting. The reputation of a title,
+the graceful repose of manners just enough tinged with foreign grace to
+be piquant, and, above all, the novelty of a face and position
+singularly unlike anything known at the Springs that season, could not
+fail to excite a sensation.
+
+If the lady had designed to secure for herself with one graceful fling a
+place among the _élite_ of American fashion, she could not have managed
+more adroitly. But even the design was doubtful; she scarcely seemed
+conscious of the position after it had been awarded to her, and accepted
+it with a sort of graceful scorn at last, as if yielding herself to the
+caprice of others, not to her own wishes.
+
+In less than three weeks after her domestication at the Springs, this
+stranger, announced without introduction, and with no seeming effort,
+became the reigning belle and toast of the higher circles. Her dress was
+copied--her wit quoted--her manners became a model to aspiring young
+ladies, and, with all her power, she was the most popular creature in
+the world, for she was affable to all, and peculiarly gentle and
+unassuming to those whom other fashionable leaders were ready to crush
+with a look and wither by a frown. Sometimes a dash of haughty contempt
+was visible in her manner, but this was only when thrown in contact with
+assumption and innate coarseness, which soon shrunk from her keen wit
+and smiling sarcasms. She was feared by the few, but loved, nay, almost
+worshipped, by the many.
+
+When the season broke up and the waves of high life ebbed back to the
+cities, this woman had attained a firm social position, unassailable
+even by the most envious and the most daring. Still she was as
+completely unknown as on the first day of her appearance. Of herself she
+never spoke, and from the strange serving-man, who, maintaining the most
+profound respect, always hovered about her, nothing but vague hints
+could be obtained. These hints, apparently won from a simple and
+hesitating nature, always served to inflame rather than satisfy
+curiosity. One thing was certain. The lady had seen much of foreign
+life--had travelled in every penetrable country, and her wealth seemed
+as great as her beauty. More than this no one knew; and this very
+ignorance, strange as it may seem, added strength to her position.
+
+The way in which Mrs. Gordon shrouded herself had its own fascination.
+True, it might conceal low birth, even shame, but it had pleased the
+fashionable world to bury a high European title under all this mystery,
+and this belief the lady neither aided nor contradicted, for she seemed
+profoundly unconscious of its existence. With no human being had she
+become so intimate that a question on the subject might be directly
+hazarded. With all her graceful kindliness, there was some thing about
+her that forbade intrusion or scrutiny. She came to Saratoga beautiful,
+wealthy, unknown. She left it a brilliant enigma, only the more
+brilliant that she continued to be mysterious, though a title still
+loomed mistily in the public mind.
+
+This mysteriousness was rather increased in its effect, and her position
+wholly established at the annual fancy ball given the last week of her
+stay at the springs.
+
+During the whole of that season the United States Hotel had been kept in
+a state of delightful commotion by the rivalry of two leaders in the
+fashionable world, who had taken up their head-quarters in that noble
+establishment.
+
+Never was a warfare carried on with such amiable bitterness, such
+caressing home-thrusts. Everything was done regally, and with that
+sublime politeness which duellists practice when most determined to
+exterminate each other. Of course, each lady had her position and her
+followers, and no military chieftains ever managed their respective
+forces more adroitly.
+
+Mrs. Nash was certainly the oldest incumbent, and had a sort of
+preëmption right as a fashionable leader. She had won her place exactly
+as her husband had obtained his wealth, first plodding his way from the
+work-shop to the counting-room, thence into the stock market, where, by
+two or three dashing speculations worthy of the gambling-table, and
+entered upon in the same spirit, he became a millionaire.
+
+Exactly by the same method Mrs. Nash worked her way upward as a leader
+of ton. Originally uneducated and assuming, she had exercised unbounded
+sway over her husband's work-people, patronizing their wives, and
+practising diligently the airs that were to be transferred with her
+husband's advancement into higher circles.
+
+Through the rapid gradations of her husband's fortune, she held her own
+in the race, and grew important, dressy, and presuming, but not a whit
+better informed or more refined. When her husband became a millionaire,
+she made one audacious leap into the midst of the upper ten thousand,
+hustled her way upward, and facing suddenly about, proclaimed herself a
+leader in the fashionable world.
+
+People looked on complacently. Some smiled in derision; some sneered
+with scorn; others, too indolent or gentle for dispute, quietly admitted
+her charms; while to that portion of society worth knowing, she retained
+her original character--that of a vulgar, fussy, ignorant woman, from
+whom persons of refinement shrunk instinctively. Thus, through the
+forbearance of some, the sneers of others, and the carelessness of all,
+she fought her way to a position which soon became legitimate and
+acknowledged.
+
+But this year Mrs. Nash met with a very formidable rival, who disputed
+the ground she had usurped inch by inch. If Mrs. Nash was insolent, Mrs.
+Sykes was sly and fascinating. With tact that was more than a match for
+any amount of arrogant presumption, and education which gave keenness to
+art, founded upon the same hard purpose and coarse-grained character
+that distinguished Mrs. Nash, she was well calculated to make a contest
+for fashionable superiority, exciting and piquant.
+
+Women of true refinement never enter into these miserable rivalries for
+notoriety, but they sometimes look on amused. In this case the ladies
+were beautifully matched. The audacity of one was met with the artful
+sweetness of the other. If Mrs. Nash had power and the prestige of
+established authority, Mrs. Sykes opposed novelty, unmatched art, and a
+species of serpent-like fascination difficult to cope with; and much to
+her astonishment, the former lady found her laurels dropping away leaf
+by leaf before she began to feel them wither.
+
+Always on the alert for partisans, both these ladies had looked upon
+Mrs. Gordon with calculating eyes. Beautiful, undoubtedly wealthy, and
+with that slight foreign air--above all, with a title dropping now and
+then unconsciously from the lips of her servants--she promised to be an
+auxiliary of immense value to either faction.
+
+For a week or two they hovered about her, much as two cautious trouts
+might coquette with a fly on the surface of a mountain pool. Both were
+afraid to dart at the fly, and yet each was vigilant to keep the other
+from securing the precious morsel.
+
+Thus, while they were manoeuvering around her, drawing public attention
+that way, Mrs. Gordon became an object of very general admiration, and
+bade fair, without an effort, and wholly against her will, to rival both
+the combatants, and like the dancing horse of a Russian chariot, to
+carry away all the admiration, while the other two bore the toil and
+burden of the road.
+
+But a few days before the fancy ball, a new fly was cast into the
+fashionable current, that quite eclipsed anything that had appeared
+before. An English earl, fresh from the continent, came up to Saratoga,
+one day, in a train from New York, and would be present at the fancy
+ball.
+
+Here was new cause for strife between the Nashes and the Sykeses. Which
+of these ladies should secure the nobleman for the fancy ball? True, the
+earl was very young, awkward as the school-boy he was, and really looked
+more like a juvenile horse-jockey than a civilized gentleman. But he was
+an _earl_; would assuredly have a seat in the House of Lords, if ever he
+became old enough; besides, he had already lost thirty thousand dollars
+at the gaming-table, and bore it like a prince.
+
+Here was an object worth contending for. What American lady would be
+immortalized by leaning upon the arm of an earl as she entered the
+assembly room? No minor claims could be put in here. The earl
+undoubtedly belonged to Mrs. Nash or Mrs. Sykes--which should it be?
+This was the question that agitated all fashionable life at the Springs
+to its centre. Partisans were brought into active operation. Private
+ambassadors went and came from the gambling saloons to the
+drawing-rooms, looking more portentous than any messenger ever sent from
+the allied powers to the Czar.
+
+The innocent young lord, who had escaped from his tutor for a lark at
+the Springs, was terribly embarrassed by so many attentions. Too young
+for any knowledge of society in his own land, he made desperate efforts
+to appear a man of the world, and feel himself at home in a country
+where men are set aside, while society is converted into a paradise for
+boys. It is rumored that some professional gentlemen took advantage of
+this confusion in the young lordling's ideas, and his losses at the
+gambling-table grew more and more princely.
+
+But the important night arrived. The mysterious operations of many a
+private dressing-room became visible. A hundred bright and fantastic
+forms trod their way to music along the open colonnade of the hotel
+toward the assembly-room. The brilliant procession entered the
+folding-doors, and swept down the room two rivers of human life, flowing
+on, whirling and retiring, beneath a shower of radiance cast from the
+wall, and the chandeliers that seemed literally raining light. In her
+toilet, the American lady is not a shade behind our neighbors of Paris;
+and no saloon in the world ever surpassed this in picturesque effect and
+richness of costume. Diamonds were plentiful as dew-drops on a rose
+thicket. Pearls embedded in lace that Queen Elizabeth would have
+monopolised for her own toilet, gleamed and fluttered around those
+republican fairies, a decided contrast to the checked handkerchief that
+Ben. Franklin used at the European court, or the bare feet with which
+our revolutionary fathers trod the way to our freedom through the winter
+snows. After the gay crowd had circulated around the room awhile, there
+was a pause in the music, a breaking up of the characters into groups;
+then glances were cast toward the door, and murmurs ran from lip to lip.
+Neither Mrs. Nash or her rival had yet appeared; as usual their entrance
+was arranged to make a sensation. How Dodsworth's leader knew the exact
+time of this fashionable's advent, I do not pretend to say. Certain it
+is, just as the band struck up an exhilarating march, Mrs. Z. Nash
+entered the room with erect front and pompous triumph, holding the
+English earl resolutely by the arm. Mrs. Theodore Sykes came in a good
+deal subdued and crestfallen, after the dancing commenced. She was
+escorted by one of the most illustrious of our American statesmen, which
+somewhat diminished the bitterness of her defeat. Her fancy dress was
+one blaze of diamonds, and when Mrs. Nash sailed by, holding the young
+earl triumphantly by the arm, she seemed oblivious of the noble
+presence, but was smiling up into the eyes of her august companion, as
+if an American statesman really were some small consolation for the loss
+of a schoolboy nobleman, who looked as if he would give his right arm,
+which however, belonged to Mrs. Nash just then, to be safe at home, even
+with his tutor. When Mrs. Gordon entered the room, no one could have
+told. When first observed, she was sitting at an open window which
+looked into the public grounds. The light was striking aslant the white
+folds of a brocaded silk, and on the delicate marabout feathers in her
+hair, with the brilliancy of sunshine, playing upon wreaths of newly
+fallen snow. She evidently had no desire to enter into the spirited
+competition going on between the rival factions. When a crowd of
+admirers gathered around the window, she received them quietly, but
+without empressment. At length, as if weary with talking, she took the
+first arm offered, and sauntered into the crowd, searching it with her
+eyes, as if she feared or expected some one. The first dance had broken
+up; all was gay confusion, when unwittingly she came face to face with
+Mrs. Nash, who was sailing down the room with her captive. The young
+earl, who had remained awkwardly shy since his entrance, gave a start of
+recognition, his sullen features lighted up, and freeing his arm from
+the grasp of Mrs. Nash, with an unceremonious "Excuse me, Madam!" he
+advanced with both hands extended.
+
+"My dear, dear lady, I am so glad to see you!"
+
+The lady reached out her hand, smiling and cordial. "You, here?" she
+answered, shaking her head, "and alone, ah truant!"
+
+"It wasn't my fault; I was deluded off--kidnapped--but by the best
+fellow in the world; I will tell you all about it." With a hurried bow
+to the party he was about to leave. The youth placed himself in a
+position to converse with Mrs. Gordon, as she passed with her previous
+escort, quite unconscious of her triumph, or of the rage it had
+occasioned. The lady bent her head with matronly grace, and resumed her
+walk. "And so you have run away from the good tutor?" she said.
+
+"Run away? oh, nothing of the sort; he consented to let me come.
+Leicester can do anything with him. A deuced clever fellow, that
+Leicester; you know him of course! Everybody knows Leicester, I believe.
+Ha, what is the matter? Did I tread on your dress?"
+
+"No no! you were saying something of--"
+
+"Yes, yes, of Leicester--a wonderful fellow--we have only known him a
+week or two, and he can do anything with my tutor--got me off up here
+like magic!"
+
+"And do you like him?"
+
+"Well, now, you'll confess it's rather hard to like a man who has won
+ten thousand dollars from you, in one night; but I do rather fancy him,
+in spite of it."
+
+"Has he won this money from you?" inquired the lady, in a low
+voice--"you, a minor!"
+
+"_Entre nous_, yes; but it was all above-board, and in the most
+gentlemanly manner."
+
+"Is Mr. Leicester at the hotel? Has he ever presented himself in the
+drawing-room?"
+
+"No; he thinks the ladies a bore. I thought so myself, ten minutes ago;
+but now, with an old friend, it is different. The sight of you brought
+me back to Florence. You were kind to me there: I shall never, never
+forget the days and nights of that terrible fever; but for you, I must
+have died."
+
+"I was used to sickness, you know," answered the lady, in a faltering
+voice.
+
+"I remember," answered the earl, "that lovely girl--your relative, I
+believe--did she recover in Florence?"
+
+"She died there," was the low reply.
+
+"As I might have done, but for you," he answered, with feeling. "It was
+the first idea I ever had of a mother's kindness."
+
+"And do you really feel this little service so much?"
+
+"I only wish it were in my power to prove how much!"
+
+"You can, easily."
+
+"How, lady?"
+
+"Return to your tutor in the morning--break off all acquaintance with
+this gentleman."
+
+"What--Leicester?"
+
+"Yes, Leicester."
+
+"That is easy; he left for New York this evening, and I go forward to
+Canada. Is there nothing more difficult by which I can prove my
+gratitude?"
+
+"Yes; tell me all that has passed between you and this Mr. Leicester,
+but not here--let us walk down into the drawing-room."
+
+A few moments after, Mrs. Sykes drew softly up to Mrs. Nash, with one of
+her sweetest smiles: "His lordship, after all, glides back to his own
+countrywomen; we Americans stand no chance," she said.
+
+Mrs. Nash bit her lip, and gave the folds of her gold-colored moire a
+backward sweep with her hand.
+
+"I fancy the earl is not anxious to extend his attention beyond its
+present limit; I always said she was worth knowing. Mrs. Gordon seems an
+old acquaintance. We may, perhaps, now find out who she really is; I
+will ask him in the morning."
+
+"Do!" cried half a dozen voices--"we always thought her somebody, but
+really, she quite patronises the earl himself: do ask all about her,
+when his lordship comes back."
+
+It was a vain request--the young earl had left the ball-room for good;
+and long before the persons grouped around Mrs. Nash had left their beds
+in the morning, he was passing up Lake Champlain, sleepily regarding the
+scenery along its shore.
+
+That same morning, Mrs. Gordon left Saratoga, so early that no one
+witnessed her departure. But two or three young men, who had finished up
+their fancy ball in the open air, reported that she was seen at
+daybreak, on the colonnade, talking very earnestly to her tall, awkward
+serving-man, for more than half an hour.
+
+Mrs. Gordon--for thus the lady continued to be known--came to New York
+early in the autumn, and in the great emporium began a new phase of her
+erratic and brilliant life.
+
+A mansion, in the upper part of the city, had been in the course of
+erection during the previous year. It was a castellated villa in the
+very suburbs, standing upon the gentle swell of a hill, and commanding a
+fine view both of the city, and the beautiful scenery that lies upon the
+North and East Rivers.
+
+A few ancient trees, rooted when New York was almost a distant city,
+stood around this dwelling, sheltering with their old and leafy branches
+the glowing flowers and rare shrubbery with which grounds of
+considerable extent were crowded.
+
+This dwelling, so graceful in its architecture, so fairy-like in its
+grounds, had risen as if by magic among those old trees. Lavish was the
+cost bestowed upon it; rich and faultless was the furniture that arrived
+from day to day after the masons and artists had completed their work.
+Statues of Parian marble, rich bronzes, antique carvings in wood, and
+the most sumptuous upholstery were arranged by the architect who had
+superintended the building, and who acted under directions from some
+person abroad.
+
+When all was arranged, drawing-rooms, library, ladies' boudoir and
+sleeping chambers, that might have sheltered the repose of an Eastern
+princess, the house was closed. Those who passed it could now and then
+catch a glimpse of rich fresco paintings, upon the walls, through a
+half-fastened shutter; and through the hot-house windows might be seen
+a little world of exotic plants, dropping their rich blossoms to waste;
+while the walls beyond were laden with fruit ripening in the artificial
+atmosphere. Grapes and nectarines fell from bough and vine, untasted, or
+only to be gathered stealthily by the old man who had temporary charge
+of the grounds.
+
+Thus everything remained close and silent, like some enchanted palace of
+fairy land, week after week, till the autumn came on. Since the
+architect left it, no person save the old gardener, had ever been
+observed to enter even the delicate iron railing that encompassed the
+grounds. True, the neighbors, to whom this dwelling had become an object
+of great interest, were heard to assert that at a time, early in the
+summer, lights had been observed one stormy night, in the second-story,
+and even high up in the principal tower. Some even persisted that before
+it was quite dark, a close carriage had been driven up to the door and
+away again, leaving two or three persons, who certainly entered the
+house. After that, carriage wheels had more than once been heard above
+the storm, rolling to and fro, as if people were coming and going all
+night.
+
+The next morning, when all the neighborhood was alive with curiosity,
+this dwelling stood as before--stately and silent, amid the old forest
+trees. The shutters were closed; the gate locked. Not a trace could be
+found proving that any human being had entered the premises. So the
+whole story was generally set down as an Irish fiction, though the
+servant girl, who originated it, persisted stoutly that she had not only
+seen lights and heard the wheels, but had caught glimpses of a cashmere
+shawl within the door; and of a little barefooted girl, with a basket on
+her arm, coming out half an hour after, and alone. But there stood the
+closed and silent house--and there was the talkative old gardener in
+contradiction of this marvellous tale. Besides, carriages were always
+going up and down the avenue upon which the dwelling stood, and out of
+this the girl had probably found material for her fiction. Certain it
+was, that from this time till October no being was seen to enter the
+silent palace.
+
+Then, in the first golden flush of autumn, the house was flung open.
+Carriages came to and fro almost every hour. Saddle horses, light
+phætons, and an equipage yet more stately, drove in and out of the
+stables. The windows, with all their wealth of gorgeously tinted glass,
+were open to the hazy atmosphere; grooms hung around the stables;
+footmen glided over the tesselated marble of the entrance-hall.
+
+Conspicuous among the rest, was one tall, awkwardly-shaped man, who came
+and went apparently at pleasure. His duties seemed difficult to define,
+even by the curious neighbors. Sometimes he drove the carriage, but
+never unless the lady of the mansion rode in it. Sometimes he opened the
+door. Again he might be seen in the conservatory, grouping flowers with
+the taste and delicacy of a professed artist; or in the hot-houses,
+gathering fruit and arranging it in rich masses for the table. It was
+marvellous to see the beautiful effect produced by those great, awkward
+hands. The very japonicas and red roses seemed to have become more
+glowing and delicate beneath his touch. But after the first week this
+man almost wholly disappeared from the dwelling. Sometimes he might be
+seen stealing gently in at nightfall, or very early in the morning; but
+his active superintendence was over; he seemed to be no longer an
+inmate, but one who came to the place occasionally to inquire after old
+friends.
+
+But the mistress of all this splendor--the beautiful woman who sometimes
+came smilingly forth to enter her carriage, who sauntered now and then
+into the conservatory, blooming as the flowers that surrounded her,
+mature in her loveliness as the fruit that hung upon the walls bathed in
+the golden sunshine--who was this woman, with her unparalleled
+attractions, her almost fabulous wealth? The world asked this question
+without an answer, for the Mrs. Gordon of Saratoga, and the Ada
+Leicester of our story, satisfied no curiosity regarding her personal
+history. She visited no one who did not first seek her companionship,
+and thus deprived society of its right to question her.
+
+We, who know this woman by her right name, and in her true
+character--that of a disappointed, erring, but still affectionate
+being--might wonder at her bloom, her smiling cheerfulness, her easy and
+gentle repose of look and manner; but human nature is full of such
+contradictions, teeming with serpents, absolutely hidden and bathed in
+the perfume of flowers.
+
+If Ada Leicester smiled, she was not the less sad at heart. If her
+manners were easy and her voice sweet, it was habit--the necessity of
+pleasing others--that had rendered these things a second nature to her.
+With one great, and, we may add, almost holy object at heart, she
+pursued it earnestly, while all the routine of life went on as if she
+had no thought but for the world, and no pleasure or aim beyond the
+luxurious life which seemed to render her existence one continued gleam
+of Paradise.
+
+Hitherto we have seen this woman in the agony of perverted
+love--perverted, though legal, for its object was vile; and worship of a
+base thing is hideous according to its power. We have seen her bowed
+down with grief, grovelling to the very soil of her native valley, in
+passionate agony. But these were phases in her life, and extremes of
+character which seldom appeared before the world.
+
+It is a mistake when people fancy that any life can be made up of
+unmitigated sorrow. Even evil has its excitement and its gleams of wild
+pleasure, vivid and keen. The sting of conscience is sometimes
+forgotten; the viper, buried so deeply in flowers that his presence is
+scarcely felt, till, uncoiling with a fling, he dashes them all aside,
+withered by his hot breath and spotted with venom. This heart-shock,
+while it lasts, is terrible; but those who have no strength to cast
+forth the serpent bury him again in fresh flowers, and lull him to a
+poisonous sleep in some secret fold of the heart, till he grows restless
+and fierce once more.
+
+With all her splendor, Ada Leicester was profoundly unhappy. The deep
+under-current of her heart always welled up bitter waters. Let the
+surface sparkle as it would, tears were constantly sleeping beneath.
+There is no agony like that of a heart naturally pure and noble, which
+circumstance, weakness, or temptation has warped from its integrity. To
+know yourself possessed of noble powers, to appreciate all the sublimity
+of goodness, and yet feel that you have undermined your own strength,
+and cast a veil over the beautiful through which you can never see
+clearly, this is deep sorrow--this is the darkness and punishment of
+sin. If we could but know how evil is punished in the heart of the
+evil-doer, charity would indeed cover a multitude of sins.
+
+Ada Leicester was unhappy--so unhappy that the beggar at her gate might
+have pitied her. The pomp, the adulation which surrounded her, had
+become a habit; thus all the zest and novelty of first possession was
+gone, and these things became necessary, without gratifying the hungry
+cry of her soul.
+
+At this period of her life she was utterly without objects of
+attachment; and what desolation is equal to this in a woman's heart? The
+thwarted affections and warm sympathies of her nature became clamorous
+for something to love. Her whole being yearned over the blighted
+affections of other days; maternal love grew strong within her. She
+absolutely panted to fold the child, abandoned in a delirium of
+passionate resentment, once more to her bosom. But that child could
+nowhere be found. Her parents, too--that noble, kind old man, who had
+loved her so--that meek and loving woman, her mother--had the earth
+opened and swallowed them up? was she never to see them more?--to what
+terrible destitution might her sin have driven them.
+
+The time had been when this proud woman shrunk from meeting persons so
+deeply injured--but oh, how fervently loved! Now she absolutely panted
+to fling herself at their feet, and crave forgiveness for all the shame
+and anguish her madness had cast upon them. In all this her exertions
+had been cruelly thwarted; parents, child, everything that had loved her
+and suffered for her, seemed swept into oblivion. The past was but a
+painful remembrance, not a wreck of it remained save in her own mind.
+
+Another feeling more powerful than filial or maternal love--more
+absorbing--more ruthlessly adhesive, was the love she could not conquer
+for the man who had been the first cause of all the misery and wrong
+against which she was struggling. It was the one passion of a
+life-time--the love of a warm, impulsive heart--of a vivid intellect,
+and, say what we will, this is a love that never changes--never dies. It
+may be perverted--it may be wrestled with and cast to the earth for a
+time; but such love once planted in a woman's bosom, burns there so long
+as a spark is left to feed its vitality; burns there, it may be, for
+ever and ever, a blessing or a curse.
+
+To Ada Leicester it was a curse, for it outlived scorn. It crushed her
+self-respect--it fell like a mildew upon all the good resolutions that,
+about this time, began to spring up and brighten in her nature. You
+would not have supposed that proud, beautiful woman so humble in her
+love--her hopeless love--of a bad man, and that man the husband whom she
+had wronged! Yet so it was. Notwithstanding the past: notwithstanding
+all the perfidy and cruel scorn with which he had deliberately urged her
+on to ruin, she would have given up anything, everything for one
+expression of affection, such as had won the love of her young heart.
+But even here, where the accomplishment of her wish would surely have
+proved a punishment, her affections were flung rudely back.
+
+And now, when all her efforts were in vain, when no one could be found
+to accept her penitence, or return some little portion of the yearning
+tenderness that filled her heart, she plunged recklessly into the world
+again. The arrow was in her side; but she folded her silken robes over
+it, and strove to feed her great want with the husks of fashionable
+life; alas, how vainly! To persons of her passionate nature, the very
+attempt thus to appease the soul's hunger is a mockery. Ada Leicester
+felt this, and at times she grew faint amid her empty splendor. She had
+met with none of the usual retributions which are the coarser and more
+common result of faults like hers. No disgrace clung to her name: she
+had wealth, beauty, position, homage. But who shall say that the
+punishment of her sin was not great even then? for there is no pain to
+some hearts so great as a consciousness of undeserved homage. Still this
+was but the silver edging to the cloud that had begun to rise and darken
+over her life. Her own proud, warm heart was doomed to punish itself to
+the utmost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE MORNING LESSON.
+
+     Like some poor cherub gone astray,
+       From out his native paradise,
+     Her gentle soul had lost its way,
+       And fed itself on tears and sighs.
+
+
+Jacob Strong was alone in Mr. Leicester's chamber. His master had gone
+out hurriedly, and left the room in considerable disarray. Papers were
+scattered about loose upon the table. The small travelling desk, which
+usually stood upon it, was open, and on the purple lining lay an open
+letter, bearing a Southern post-mark, that had evidently arrived by the
+morning mail.
+
+We do not pretend to justify our friend Jacob, though he is an especial
+favorite, in the course he pursued on that occasion. His reasons may
+possibly be deemed justifiable by the reader, but in our minds there
+still rests a doubt. Be this as it may, Jacob took up the open letter,
+and glanced hurriedly over its contents: then he read it more
+deliberately, while a new and singular expression stole over his
+features. This did not seem sufficient gratification of his curiosity,
+for he even opened a compartment of the desk, and pursued his research
+among notes, visiting cards, bills and business papers, for a good half
+hour, dotting down a hasty memorandum now and then, with a gold and
+amethyst pen, which he took from Leicester's inkstand. Then he read the
+open letter a third time, muttering over the words as if anxious to fix
+them on his mind by the additional aid of sound.
+
+"That will do--that will clinch the matter; he will never let this
+escape!" he said, at last, replacing the letter. "Cautious, subtle as he
+is, this temptation will be too strong. Then, then--"
+
+Jacob's eyes flashed; he pressed the knuckles of one large hand hard
+upon the desk, and firmly shut his teeth.
+
+That moment a stealthy tread was heard near the door. Jacob instantly
+commenced making a terrible noise and confusion among the chairs, and
+while he was occupied in setting things right, after his awkward
+fashion, Leicester glided into the chamber. Remembering the letter, he
+had hurried back to secure it from the possible curiosity of his
+servant. But Jacob was busy with the furniture, muttering his discontent
+against the untidy chamber-maid, and seemed so completely occupied with
+an old silk handkerchief, which he was flourishing from one object to
+another, that all suspicion forsook Leicester. He quietly closed the
+desk, therefore, and placing the letter in his pocket, sunk into an easy
+chair, which Jacob had just left clouded in a dusky haze, while he
+commenced operations on a neighboring sofa.
+
+Something more exciting than usual must have occupied Leicester's
+thoughts; or, with his fastidious habits, he would not for a moment have
+endured the perpetual clouds of dust that floated over his hair and
+clothes, whenever Jacob discovered a new object upon which to exercise
+his handkerchief. As it was, he sat lost in thought, apparently quite
+unconscious of the annoyance, or of the keen glances which the servant
+now and then cast upon him.
+
+"It will do," thought Jacob, gathering the duster up in his hand, with
+an eager clutch; and while he seemed looking around for something to
+employ himself with, those keen grey eyes were bent upon Leicester's
+face. "I was sure of it; he has almost made up his mind. Let me hear the
+tone of his voice, and I shall know how."
+
+Jacob had not long to wait. After a reverie that was disturbed by many
+an anxious thought, Leicester turned in his chair, opened the little
+travelling desk, and began to write, pausing now and then, as if the
+construction of his language was more than usually difficult. The note
+did not please him. He tore it in two, and casting the fragments upon
+the hearthrug, selected another sheet from the perfumed paper that lay
+at his elbow. This time he was more successful. The note was carefully
+folded, secured with a little antique seal, and directed in a light and
+flowing hand. Leicester smiled as he wrote, and his face brightened as
+if he had flung off a load of annoying doubts. "Here," he said, holding
+the letter over his shoulder with a carelessness that was certainly more
+than half assumed, "take this note, and observe how it is received. You
+understand?"
+
+Jacob took the snowy little billet, and bent over it wistfully, as if
+the direction could only be made out with great effort.
+
+"Well!" said Leicester, turning sharply upon him, "what keeps you?
+Surely you understand enough to make out the address?"
+
+"Well, yes!" answered Jacob, holding the note at arm's length, and
+eyeing it askance; "it's rather too fine, that are handwriting; but then
+I can manage to cipher it out if you give me time enough."
+
+"Very well--you have had time enough. Go! and remember to observe all
+that passes when you deliver it."
+
+Jacob took up his drab beaver, planted it firmly on the back of his
+head, and disappeared, holding the note between his thumb and finger.
+
+While our friend Jacob is making his way up town, we will precede him,
+and enter the pretty cottage which, with its fairy garden, has before
+been an object of description.
+
+In the parlor of this beautiful but monotonous dwelling sat Florence
+Craft. Cold as it was becoming, she still wore the pretty morning dress
+of fine India muslin, with its profusion of soft lace, but over it was a
+scarf of scarlet cashmere, that gave to her cheek its rosy shadow, as a
+crimson camilla sometimes casts a trace of its presence on the marble
+urn against which it falls. But for this warm shadow her face was coldly
+white, and even traced with mournful lines, as if she had been suffering
+from illness or some grief unnatural to her youth, and weighing sadly
+upon her gentle nature. Her soft brown eyes seemed misty and dulled by
+habitual tears, and the long curling lashes flung a deeper shadow on the
+cheek just beneath; for a faint circle, such as disease or grief often
+pencils, was becoming definitely marked around those sad and beautiful
+eyes. The imprint of many a heavy heart-ache might have been read in
+those shadowy circles, and the paler redness of a mouth that smiled
+still--but oh, how mournfully!
+
+Florence sat by a sofa-table, one foot, too small now for the satin
+slipper that had so beautifully defined its proportions a little while
+before, rested upon the richly carved supporter. She had become
+painfully fragile, and the folds of her dress fell around her drooping
+form like a white cloud, so transparent that but for the red scarf, you
+might have defined the slender arms and marble neck underneath with
+startling distinctness. She was occupied with her drawing lesson, but
+even the pencil seemed too heavy for the slender and waxen fingers that
+guided it; and to one that understood the signification, there was
+something ominous in the bright, feverish tinge that spread over her
+palm, as if she had been crushing roses in that little hand, and might
+not hope to wash the stain away.
+
+Robert Otis leaned over the unhappy girl. He too was changed, but not
+like her. The flesh had not wasted from his limbs; the fire of youth had
+not burned out prematurely in those bright eyes; but his look was
+unsettled, restless, nay, sometimes wild. His very smile was hurried and
+passed quickly away; all its soft, mellow warmth was gone. The change
+was different, but terribly perceptible both in the youth and the young
+girl.
+
+It was no boyish passion which marked the features of that noble face as
+it bent lower and lower over the drooping girl. Tenderness, keen, deep
+sympathy was there, but none of the ardent feeling that had fired his
+whole being when only the semblance of that beautiful form first met his
+eye. If Robert Otis loved Florence Craft, it was with the tender
+earnestness of a brother, not with the fiery ardor natural to his age
+and temperament.
+
+"You seem tired; how your hand trembles; rest awhile, Miss Craft. This
+stooping posture must be oppressive," said Robert, gently attempting to
+remove the pencil from the fair hand that could really guide it no
+longer.
+
+"No, no," said Florence, raising her eyes with a sad smile, "you do not
+give lessons every day, now, and we must improve the time. When Mr.
+Leicester comes he should find me quite an artist, I must not disgrace
+you with my idleness. He would feel hurt if we did not meet his
+expectations. Don't you think so?"
+
+"Perhaps, I cannot exactly tell. Mr. Leicester is so unlike other men,
+it is difficult to decide what his wishes really are," said Robert. "He
+certainly did take great interest in your progress at first!"
+
+"And now that interest has ceased! Is that what you mean to say,
+Robert?" questioned the young girl, and even the scarlet reflection of
+her shawl failed to relieve the deadly paleness of her countenance.
+
+"No, I did not say that!" answered Robert, gently, "he questions me of
+your progress often."
+
+Florence drew a deep breath, and now there was something more than a
+scarlet reflection on her cheek.
+
+"But then," continued Robert, "he contents himself with questions; he
+does not come to witness the progress you are making."
+
+"You have noticed it, then?--you have thought it strange?" said
+Florence, while the red upon her cheek began to burn painfully, and
+tears rushed to her eyes. "Yet you do not know--you cannot even guess
+how hard this is to bear!"
+
+"Perhaps I can guess," answered Robert, casting down his eyes and
+trembling visibly.
+
+Florence started from her chair, and stood upright. In the violence of
+her agitation, she lost the languid, willowy stoop of frame that had
+become habitual. For a moment the full energies of her nature were
+lighted up, stung into sharp vitality by surprise and terror. But she
+did not speak, she only stood upright a single moment, and then sunk to
+the couch helplessly and sobbing like a child. Robert knelt by her
+greatly agitated, for he had anticipated no such violent effect from his
+words.
+
+"Do not weep, Miss Craft, I did not intend to pain you thus. What have I
+said?--what have I done that it should bring so much grief?"
+
+She looked at him earnestly, and whispered in a low voice, while the
+lashes fell over her eyes, sweeping the tears downward in fresh gushes.
+"What was it that you said? Something that you could guess, was not that
+it? Now tell me all you guess. What is it that you think?"
+
+"Nothing that should overwhelm you in this manner," said Robert,
+struggling against the convictions her agitation was calculated to
+produce. "I thought--I have long thought--that you were greatly attached
+to Mr. Leicester, more than a ward usually is to her guardian."
+
+"You are with him so much--surely you did not think that my love--for I
+do not deny it, Robert--was unwelcome or unsought?"
+
+Robert hesitated; he could not find it in his heart to give utterance to
+his thoughts.
+
+"No, I did not think that," he said; "but Mr. Leicester is a strange
+man, so much older than we are--so much wiser. I can fathom neither his
+motives nor his feelings."
+
+"And I--I have felt this so often--that is, of late," said Florence, "at
+times I am almost afraid of him, and yet this very fear has its
+fascination."
+
+"Yes," answered Robert, thoughtless of the meaning that might be given
+to his words, "the bird shivers with fear even as the serpent lures it,
+and in this lies some subtle mystery; for while the poor thing seems to
+know its danger, the knowledge yields it no power of resistance. Here
+lies the serpent with its eyes burning and its jaws apart, exposing all
+its venom; but the spell works in spite of this."
+
+"Hush! hush!" said Florence, with a look of terror, "this is a cruel
+comparison. It makes me shudder!"
+
+"I did not intend it as a comparison," answered Robert. "With you it can
+never be one, and with me such ideas would be very ungrateful, applied
+to my oldest friend. I wish to heaven, no thought against him would ever
+enter my head again."
+
+"Conquer them--never breathe them even to yourself!" said Florence, with
+sudden impetuosity. "They have killed me--those weary, base
+suspicions--not mine! not mine! Oh, I am so thankful that they were not
+formed in my heart?--they were whispered to me--forced on me. I would
+not believe them--but the evil thing is here. I have no strength to cast
+it out alone, and he never comes to help me."
+
+"Perhaps he does not know how deeply you feel for him," said Robert,
+anxious to console her.
+
+Florence shook her head, and leaning forward, shrouded her eyes with one
+hand. After a while, she turned her gaze upon Robert, and addressed him
+more quietly.
+
+"You must not think ill of him," she said, with a dim smile. "See what
+suspicion and pining thoughts can do, when they have crept into the
+heart." The poor girl drew up the muslin sleeve from her arm, and Robert
+was startled to see how greatly the delicate limb was attenuated. Tears
+came into his eyes, and bending down he touched the snowy wrist with his
+lips. "I must tell him that you are ill--that you suffer--surely he
+cannot dream of this!"
+
+"Not yet--we must not importune him; besides, I am becoming used to this
+desolate feeling. You will come oftener now. It is something to know
+that he has been near you--touched your clothes--held your hand--the
+atmosphere of his presence hangs about your very garments, and does me
+good. This seems childish, does it not? but it is true. Sometime, when
+you have given up your being to another, this will appear less strange.
+Oh, how I sometimes envy you!"
+
+"I might have loved, young as you think me, even as you love this man,"
+said Robert, annoyed, spite of his sympathy, by the words which she had
+unconsciously applied to his youth; "but that which has wounded you,
+saved me. You do not know, Miss Craft, all that I have felt since the
+evening when Mr. Leicester brought me here. What I saw that night awoke
+me from the first sweet dream of passion I ever knew. I could have loved
+you then, even as you loved Mr. Leicester."
+
+"_Me!_" said Florence, and a momentary smile lighted her eyes--as if the
+very thought of his young love amused her, sad as she was; "how strange!
+to me you seemed so young and embarrassed--a mere boy--now----"
+
+"Now I am changed, you would say--now I am a different person--older,
+firmer, more self-possessed; yet it is only a few months ago. I may seem
+older and less timid--for in this little time I have thought and
+suffered--but then, I was more worthy of your love, for I had not
+learned to distrust my oldest friend. Like you, I have struggled against
+suspicion--and like you, I have failed to cast it forth. It has withered
+your gentle nature--mine it has embittered."
+
+"Ah! but you had not my temptation. It was not his own mother who
+poisoned your mind against him."
+
+"His mother? I did not know that either of his parents were living."
+
+"That quiet, cold lady; the woman whom you have seen here! Did he never
+tell you that she was his mother?"
+
+"He never even hinted it!" said Robert, greatly surprised.
+
+"She told me so with her own lips: she warned me against him--she, his
+mother."
+
+"Indeed!" said Robert, thoughtfully. "Yet with what coldness she
+received him!"
+
+"It is not her nature," answered Florence, and her eyes filled with
+grateful tears. "To me, her kindness has been unvaried; there is
+something almost holy in her calm, sweet affection: but for this I had
+not been so unhappy. Had I detected prejudice, temper, anything selfish
+mingled with her words, they would never have reached my heart; but now,
+I cannot turn from her. With all her stately coldness she had something
+of his power--I dare not doubt her. But I will not believe the warning
+she gave me."
+
+Robert walked up and down the room. New and stern thoughts were making
+their way in his mind. Gratitude is a powerful feeling, but it possesses
+none of the infatuation and blindness which characterizes the grand
+passion. Suspicions that had haunted his conscience like crimes, were
+beginning to shape themselves into stubborn facts. Still he would not
+yield to them. Like the gentle girl, drooping before his eyes, he dared
+not believe anything against William Leicester. Humiliation, nay, almost
+ruin, lay in the thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A WEDDING FORESHADOWED.
+
+     When her heart was all dreary and burdened with fears,
+       Hope came like a seraph and touched it with light,
+     Like sunshine or rain-drops it kindled her tears
+       Till they trembled like stars 'mid her soul's quick delight.
+
+
+Florence had taken up her pencil again, but still remained inactive,
+gazing wistfully through the lace curtains, at the little fountain
+flinging up a storm of spray amid flowers gorgeous with autumn tints and
+the crisp brown that had settled on the little grass-plat.
+Notwithstanding the dahlias were in a glow of rich tints, and the
+chrysanthemums sheeted with white, rosy, and golden blossoms, there was
+a tinge of decay upon the leaves, very beautiful, but always productive
+of mournful feelings. Florence had felt this influence more than usual
+that morning, and now to her excited nerves there was something in the
+glow of those flowers, and the soft rush of water-drops, that made her
+heart sink.
+
+If the autumn and summer had been so dreary, with all the warmth and
+brightness of sunshine and blossoms, what had the winter of promise to
+her? Spite of herself she looked down to the thin, white hand that lay
+so listlessly on the paper, and gazed on it till tears swelled once more
+against those half-closed eye-lids. "How desolate to be buried in the
+winter, and away from all----" These were the thoughts that arose in
+that young heart. The objects that gave rise to them were flowers,
+autumn flowers, the richest and most beautiful things on earth. Thus it
+often happens in life, that lovely things awake our most painful and
+bitter feelings, either by a mocking contrast with the sorrow that is
+within us, or because they are associated with the memory of wasted
+happiness.
+
+As Florence sat gazing upon the half veiled splendor of the garden
+flowers, she saw a man open the little gate, and move with a slow, heavy
+step toward the door. The face was unfamiliar, and the fact of any
+strange person seeking that dwelling was rare enough to excite some
+nervous trepidation in a young and fragile creature like Florence.
+
+"There is some one coming," she said, addressing Robert, who was
+thoughtfully pacing the room, with a tone and look of alarm quite
+disproportioned to the occasion. "Will you go to the door, I believe
+every one is out except us?"
+
+Robert shook off the train of thought that had made him unconscious of
+the heavy footsteps now plainly heard in the veranda, and went to the
+door.
+
+Jacob Strong did not seem in the least embarrassed, though nothing could
+be supposed further from his thoughts than an encounter with the young
+man in that place. Perhaps he lost something of the abruptness
+unconsciously maintained during his walk, for his mien instantly assumed
+a loose, almost slouching carelessness, such as had always characterized
+it in the presence of Leicester or his protégé.
+
+"Well, how do you do, Mr. Otis? I didn't just expect to find you here!
+Hain't got much to do down at the store, I reckon?"
+
+"Never mind that, Mr. Strong," answered the youth, good-humoredly, "but
+tell me what brought you here. Some message from Mr. Leicester, ha!"
+
+"Well, now, you do beat all at guessing," answered Jacob, drawing forth
+the billet-doux with which he was charged. "Ain't there a young gal
+a-living here, Miss Flo--Florence Craft? If that ain't the name, I can't
+cipher it out any how!"
+
+"Yes, that is the name--Miss Craft does live here," said Robert. "Let me
+have the note--I will deliver it."
+
+"Not as you know on, Mr. Otis," replied Jacob, with a look of shrewd
+determination. "Mr. Leicester told me to give this ere little concern
+into the gal's own hand, and I always obey orders though I break owners.
+Jest be kind enough to show me where the young critter is, and I'll do
+my errand and back again in less than no time."
+
+"Very well, come this way; Miss Craft will receive the note herself."
+
+Florence was standing near the window, her bright, eager eyes were
+turned upon the door, she had overheard Leicester's name, and it
+thrilled through every nerve of her body.
+
+Jacob entered with his usual heavy indifference. He looked a moment at
+the young girl, and then held out the note. Robert fancied that a shade
+of feeling swept over that usually composed face, but the lace curtains
+were waving softly to a current of air let in through the open doors,
+and it might be the transient shadows thus flung upon his face. Still
+there was something keen and intelligent in the glance with which Jacob
+regarded the young girl while she bent over the note.
+
+Suddenly he bent those keen, grey eyes, now full of meaning, and almost
+stern in their searching power, upon the youth himself. Robert grew
+restless beneath that strict scrutiny, the color mounted to his
+forehead, and as a relief he turned toward Florence.
+
+She was busy reading the note, apparently unconscious of the person,
+but oh, how wildly beautiful her face had become! Her eyes absolutely
+sparkled through the drooping lashes; her small mouth was parted in a
+glowing smile--you could see the pearly edges of her teeth behind the
+bright red of lips that seemed just bathed in wine. She trembled from
+head to foot, not violently, but a blissful shiver, like that which
+stirs a leaf at noonday, in the calm summer time, wandered over her
+delicate frame. Twice--three times, she read the note, and then her soft
+eyes were uplifted and turned upon Robert, in all their glorious joy.
+
+"See!" she said, and her voice was one burst of melody--"Oh, what
+ingrates we have been to doubt him!" In her bright triumph, she held
+forth the note, but as Robert advanced to receive it, she drew back. "I
+had forgotten," she said, "I alone was to know it; but you can
+guess--you can see how happy it has made me."
+
+Robert Otis turned away, somewhat annoyed by this half confidence.
+Florence, without heeding this, sat down by the table, and, with the
+open note before her, prepared to answer it, but her excitement was too
+eager--her hand too unsteady. After several vain efforts, she took the
+note and ran up stairs.
+
+Thus Jacob and Robert were left alone together. The youth, possessed by
+his own thoughts, seemed quite unconscious of the companionship forced
+upon him. He sat down on the couch which Florence had occupied, and,
+leaning upon the table, supported his forehead with one hand. Jacob
+stood in his old place, regarding the varied expressions that came and
+went on that young face. His own rude features were greatly disturbed,
+and at this moment bore a look that approached to anguish. Twice he
+moved, as if to approach Robert--and then fell back irresolute; but at
+last, he strode forward, and before the youth was aware of the movement,
+a hand lay heavily upon his shoulder.
+
+"So you love her, my boy?"
+
+Robert started. The drawling tone, the rude Down East enunciation was
+gone. The man who stood before him seemed to have changed his identity.
+Rude and uncouth he certainly was--but even in this, there was something
+imposing. Robert looked at him with parted lips and wondering
+eyes--there was something even of awe in his astonishment.
+
+"Tell me, boy," continued Jacob, and his voice was full of
+tenderness--"tell me, is it love for this girl, that makes you
+thoughtful? Are you jealous of William Leicester?"
+
+Robert lost all presence of mind--he did not answer--but sat motionless,
+with his eyes turned upon the changed face bending close to his.
+
+"Will you not speak to me, Robert Otis? You may--you should, for I am an
+honest man."
+
+"I believe you are!" said Robert, starting up and reaching forth his
+hand--"I know that you are, for my heart leaps toward you. What was the
+question? I will answer it now. Did you ask if I loved Florence Craft?"
+
+"Yes, that was it--I would know; otherwise events may shape themselves
+unluckily. I trust, Robert, that in this you have escaped the snare."
+
+"I do not understand you, but can answer your question a great deal
+better than I could have done three days ago. I do love Miss Craft as it
+has always seemed to me that I should love a sister, had one been made
+an orphan with me: I would do any thing for her, sacrifice anything for
+her. Once I thought this love, but now I know better. There was another
+question--am I jealous of William Leicester? I do not know; my heart
+sinks when I see them together--I cannot force myself to wish her his
+wife, and yet this repugnance is unaccountable to myself. He is my
+friend--she something even dearer than a sister; but my very soul
+revolts at the thought of their union. It was this that made me
+thoughtful: I do not love Florence in your meaning of the word; I am not
+jealous of Mr. Leicester; but God forgive me! there is something in my
+heart that rises up against him! There, sir, you have my answer. I may
+be imprudent--I may be wrong; but it cannot be helped now."
+
+"You have been neither imprudent nor wrong," answered Jacob, laying his
+hand on the bent head of the youth. "I am a plain man, but you will find
+in me a safer counsellor than you imagine--a wiser one--though not more
+sincere--than your good aunt."
+
+"Then you know my aunt?" cried Robert, profoundly astonished.
+
+"It would have been well had you confided even in her, on Thanksgiving
+night, when you were so near confessing the difficulties that seem so
+terrible to you. A few words then, might have relieved all your
+troubles."
+
+"Then Mr. Leicester has told--has betrayed me to--to his servant, I
+would not have believed it!" Robert grew pale as he spoke; there was
+shame and terror in his face; deep bitterness in his tone; he was
+suffering the keen pangs which a first proof of treachery brings to
+youth.
+
+"No, you wrong Mr. Leicester there--he has not betrayed you, never will,
+probably, nor do I know the exact nature of your anxieties."
+
+"But who are you then? An hour ago I could have answered this question,
+or thought so. Now, you bewilder me; I can scarcely recognize any look
+or tone about you--which is the artificial? which the real?"
+
+"Both are real; I _was_ what you have hitherto seen me, years ago. I
+_am_ what you see now; but I can at will throw off the present and
+identify myself with the past. You see, Robert Otis, I give confidence
+when I ask it--a breath of what you have seen or heard to-day, repeated
+to Mr. Leicester, would send me from his service. But I do not fear to
+trust you!"
+
+"There is no cause of fear--I never betrayed anything in my life--only
+convince me that you mean no evil to him."
+
+"I only mean to prevent evil! and I will!"
+
+"All this perplexes me," said Robert, raising one hand to his
+forehead--"I seem to have known you many years; my heart warms toward
+you as it never did to any one but my aunt."
+
+"That is right; an honest heart seldom betrays itself. But hush! the
+young lady is coming; God help her, _she_ loves that man."
+
+"It is worship--idolatry--not love; that seems but a feeble word; it
+gives one the heart-ache to witness its ravages on her sweet person."
+
+"And does she feel so much?" said Jacob, with emotion.
+
+Before Robert could answer, the light step of Florence was heard on the
+stairs; when she entered the room, Jacob stood near the window, holding
+his hat awkwardly between both hands, and with his eyes bent upon the
+floor.
+
+"You will give this to Mr. Leicester," she said, still radiant and
+beautiful with happiness, placing a note in Jacob's hand--"here is
+something for yourself, I only wish it could make you as happy
+as--as--that it may be of use, I mean." Blushing and hesitating thus in
+her speech, she placed a small gold coin upon the note. Poor girl, it
+was a pocket-piece given by her father, but in her wild gratitude she
+would have cast thousands upon the man whose coming had brought so much
+happiness.
+
+Jacob received the coin, looked at her earnestly for a moment, half
+extended his hand, and then thrust it into his pocket.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am, a thousand times--I will do the errand right off!"
+and putting on his hat, Jacob strode from the house, muttering, as he
+cast a hurried glance around the little garden, "It seems like shooting
+a robin on her nest--I must think it all over again."
+
+Robert would have followed Jacob Strong, for his mind was in tumult, and
+he panted for some more perfect elucidation of the mystery that
+surrounded this singular man. But Florence laid her hand gently on his
+arm, and drew him into the window recess: her face was bright with
+smiles and bathed in blushes. "You were ready to go without wishing me
+joy," she said; "and yet you must have guessed what was in that
+precious, precious note!"
+
+Robert felt a strange thrill creep through his frame. He turned his eyes
+from the soft orbs looking into his, for their brilliancy pained him.
+
+"No," he said, almost bitterly, "I cannot guess--perhaps I do not care
+to guess!"
+
+"Oh, Robert! you do not know what happiness is; no human being ever was
+so happy before. How cold--how calm you are! You could feel for me when
+I was miserable, but now--now it is wrong: he charged me to keep it
+secret, but my heart is so full, Robert; stoop and let me whisper
+it--tell nobody, he would be very angry--but this week we are to be
+married!"
+
+"Now," said Robert, drawing a deep breath, and speaking in a voice so
+calm that it seemed like prophecy--"now I feel for you more than ever."
+
+The little, eager hand fell from his arm, and in a voice that thrilled
+with disappointment, Florence said,
+
+"Then you will not wish me joy!"
+
+Robert took her hand, grasped it a moment in his, and flinging aside the
+cloud of lace that had fallen over them, left the room. Florence
+followed him with her eyes, and while he was in sight a shade of sadness
+hung upon her sweet face--but her happiness was too perfect even for
+this little shadow to visit it more than a moment. She sunk upon an
+ottoman in the recess, and, with her eyes fixed upon the autumn flowers
+without, subsided into a reverie, the sweetest, the brightest that ever
+fell upon a youthful heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE MOTHER'S APPEAL.
+
+     Wrong to one's self but wrongs the world;
+       God linketh soul so close to soul,
+     That germs of evil, once unfurled,
+       Spread through the life and mock control.
+
+
+Pen, ink, and paper lay upon the table. The curtains were flung back,
+admitting the broad sunshine that revealed more clearly than the usual
+soft twilight with which Leicester was in the habit of enveloping
+himself, the lines which time and passion sometimes allowed to run wild,
+sometimes curbed with an iron will, had left on his handsome features.
+Papers were on the table, not letters, but scraps that bore a business
+aspect, some half printed, others without signature, but still in legal
+form, as notes of hand or checks are given.
+
+Leicester took one of these checks--a printed blank--and gazed on it
+some moments with a fixed and thoughtful scrutiny. He laid it gently
+down, took up a pen, and held the drop of ink on its point up to the
+light, as if even the color were an object of interest. He wrote a word
+or two, merely filling up the blank before him, but simple as the act
+seemed, that hand, usually firm as marble, quivered on the paper,
+imperceptibly, it is true, but enough to render the words unsteady. His
+face, too, was fiercely pale, if I may use the term, for there was
+something in the expression of those features that sent a sort of hard
+glow through their whiteness. It was the glow of a desperate will
+mastering fear.
+
+With a quick and scornful quiver of the lip, he tore the half-filled
+check in twain, and cast the fragments into the fire. "Am I growing
+old?" he said aloud, "or is this pure cowardice? Fear!--what have I to
+fear?" he continued, hushing his voice. "It _cannot_ be brought back to
+me. A chain that has grown, link by link, for years, will not break with
+any common wrench. Still, if it could be avoided, the boy loves
+me!--well, and have not others loved me? Of what use is affection, if it
+adds nothing to one's enjoyments? If the old planter had left my pretty
+Florence the property at once, why then--but till she is of age--that is
+almost two years--till she is of age we must live."
+
+Half in thought, half in words, these ideas passed through the brain and
+upon the lip of William Leicester. When his mind was once made up to the
+performance of an act, it seldom paused even to excuse a sin to his own
+soul, but this was not exactly a question of right and wrong: that had
+been too often decided with his conscience to admit of the least
+hesitation. There was peril in the act he meditated--peril to
+himself--this made his brow pale and his hand unsteady. During a whole
+life of fraud and evil-doing, he had never once placed himself within
+the grasp of the law. His instruments, less guilty, and far less
+treacherous than himself, had often suffered for crimes that his keen
+intellect had suggested. For years he had luxuriated upon the fruit of
+iniquities prompted by himself, but with which his personal connection
+could never be proved. But for once his subtle forethought in selecting
+and training an agent who should bear the responsibility of crime while
+he reaped the benefit, had failed. The time had arrived when Robert Otis
+was, if ever, to become useful to his teacher. But evil fruit in that
+warm, generous nature had been slow in ripening. With all his subtle
+craft, Leicester dared not propose the fraud which was to supply him
+with means for two years' residence in Europe.
+
+There was something in the boy too clear-sighted and prompt even for his
+wily influence, and now, after years of training worthy of Lucifer
+himself, Leicester, for the first time, was afraid to trust his chosen
+instrument. Robert might be deluded into wrong--might innocently become
+his victim, but Leicester despaired of making him, with his bright
+intellect and honorable impulses, the principal or accomplice of an act
+such as he meditated.
+
+A decanter of brandy stood upon the table--Leicester filled a goblet and
+half drained it. This in no way disturbed the pallor of his countenance,
+but his hand grew firm, and he filled up several of the printed checks
+with a rapidity that betrayed the misgivings that still beset him.
+
+He examined the papers attentively after they were written, and,
+selecting one, laid it in an embroidered letter-case which he took from
+his bosom; the others he placed in an old copy-book that had been lying
+open before him all the time; it was the same book that Robert Otis had
+taken from his aunt's stand-drawer on Thanksgiving night.
+
+When these arrangements were finished, Leicester drew out his watch,
+and seemed to be waiting for some one that he expected.
+
+Again he opened the copy-book and compared the checks with other papers
+it contained. The scrutiny seemed to satisfy him, for a smile gleamed in
+his eyes as he closed the book.
+
+Just then, Robert Otis came in. His step had become quiet, and the rosy
+buoyancy of look and manner that had been so interesting a few months
+before, was entirely gone. There was restraint--nay, something amounting
+almost to dislike in his air as he drew a seat to the table.
+
+"You are looking pale, Robert; has anything gone amiss at the
+counting-house?" said Leicester, regarding his visitor with interest.
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"Are you ill then?"
+
+"No, I am well--quite well!"
+
+"But something distresses you; those shadows under the eye, the rigid
+lines about the mouth--there is trouble beneath them. Tell me what it
+is--am I not your friend?"
+
+Robert smiled a meaning, bitter smile, that seemed strangely unnatural
+on those fresh lips. Leicester read the meaning of that silent reproach,
+and it warned him to be careful.
+
+"Surely," he said, "you have not been at F---- street, without your
+friend?--you have not indulged in high play, and no prudent person to
+guide you?"
+
+"No!" said Robert, with bitter energy--"that night I did play--how, why,
+it is impossible for me to remember. Those few hours of wild sin were
+enough--they have stained my soul--they have plunged me into debt--they
+have made me ashamed to look a good man in the face."
+
+"But I warned, I cautioned you!"
+
+Robert did not answer, but by the gleam of his eyes and the quiver of
+his lips, you could see that words of fire were smothered in his heart.
+
+"You would have plunged into the game deeper and deeper, but for me."
+
+"Perhaps I should--it was a wild dream--I was mad--the very memory
+almost makes me insane. I, so young, so cherished, in debt--and how--to
+what amount?"
+
+"Enough--I am afraid," said Leicester, gently--"enough to cover that
+pretty farm, and all the bank stock your nice old aunt has scraped
+together. But what of that?--she is in no way responsible, and gambling
+debts are only debts of honor--no law reaches them?"
+
+"I will not make sin the shelter of meanness," answered the youth, with
+a wild flash of feeling; "these men may be villains, but they did not
+force themselves upon me. I sought them of my own free choice; no--I
+cannot say that either, for heaven knows I never wished to enter that
+den!"
+
+"It was I that invited, nay, urged you!"
+
+"Else I had never been there!"
+
+"But I intended it as a warning--I cautioned you, pleaded with you."
+
+"Yes, I remember--you said I was ignorant, awkward, a novice--Mr.
+Leicester; your advice was like a jeer--your caution a taunt; your words
+and manner were at variance; I played that night, but not of my own free
+will. I say to you, it was _not_ of my free will!"
+
+"Is it me, upon whom your words reflect?" said Leicester, with every
+appearance of wounded feeling.
+
+Robert was silent.
+
+"Do you know," continued Leicester, in that deep, musical tone, that was
+sure to make the heart thrill--"do you know, Robert Otis, why it is that
+you have not been openly exposed?--why this debt has not been demanded
+long ago?"
+
+"Because the note which I gave is not yet due!"
+
+"The note--a minor's note--what man in his senses would receive a thing
+so worthless? No, Robert--it was my endorsement that made the paper
+valuable. It is from me, your old friend, Robert, that the money must
+come to meet the paper at its maturity."
+
+Tears gushed into the young man's eyes--he held out his hand across the
+table--Leicester took the hand and pressed it very gently.
+
+"You know," he said, "this note becomes due almost immediately."
+
+"I know--I know. It seems to me that every day has left a mark on my
+heart; oh, Mr. Leicester, how I have suffered!"
+
+"I will not say that suffering is the inevitable consequence of a wrong
+act, because that just now would be unkind," said Leicester, with a soft
+smile, "but hereafter you must try and remember that it is so."
+
+Robert looked upon his friend; his large eyes dilated, and his lips
+began to tremble; you could see that his heart was smitten to the core.
+How he had wrought that man! Tears of generous compunction rushed to his
+eyes.
+
+"It will be rather difficult, but I have kept this thing in my mind,"
+said Leicester. "To-morrow I shall draw a large sum; a portion must
+redeem your debt, but on condition that you never play again!"
+
+Robert shuddered. "Play again!" he said, and tears gushed through the
+fingers which he had pressed to his eyes. "Do you fear that a man who
+has been racked would of his own free will seek the wheel again? But how
+am I to repay you?"
+
+"Confide in me; trust me. Robert, the suspicions that were in your heart
+but an hour since--they will return."
+
+Robert shook his head, and swept the tears from his eyes.
+
+"No, no! even then I hated myself for them: how good, how forgiving, how
+generous you are! I am young, strong, have energy. In time this shameful
+debt can be paid--but kindness like this--how can I ever return that?"
+
+"Oh! opportunities for gratitude are never wanting: the bird we tend
+gives back music in return for care, yet what can be more feeble? Give
+me love, Robert, that is the music of a young heart--do not distrust me
+again!"
+
+"I never will!"
+
+Leicester wrung the youth's hand. They both arose.
+
+"If you are going to the counting-room, I will accompany you," he said,
+"my business must be negotiated with your firm."
+
+"I was first going to my room," said Robert.
+
+"No matter, I will walk slowly--by the way, here is your old copy-book;
+I have just been examining it. Those were pleasant evenings, my boy,
+when I taught you how to use the pen."
+
+"Yes," said Robert, receiving the book, "my dear aunt claims the old
+copies as a sort of heir-loom. I remembered your wish to see it, and so
+took it quietly away. I really think she would not have given it up,
+even to you."
+
+"Then she did not know when you took it?"
+
+"No, I had forgotten it, and so stole down in the night. She was sound
+asleep, and I came away very early in the morning."
+
+"Dear old lady," said Leicester, smiling; "you must return her treasure
+before it is missed. Stay; fold your cloak over it. I shall see you
+again directly."
+
+Leicester's bed-chamber communicated with another small room, which was
+used as a dressing-closet. From some caprice he had draped the entrance
+with silken curtains such as clouded the windows. Scarcely had he left
+the room when this drapery was flung aside, revealing the door which had
+evidently stood open during his interview with Robert Otis.
+
+Jacob Strong closed the door very softly, but in evident haste; dropped
+the curtains over it, and taking a key from his pocket, let himself out
+of the bed-chamber. He overtook Robert Otis, a few paces from the hotel,
+and touched him upon the shoulder.
+
+"Mr. Otis, that copy-book--my master wishes to see it again--will you
+send it back?"
+
+"Certainly," answered Robert, producing the book. "But what on earth can
+he want it for?"
+
+"Come back with me, and I will tell you!"
+
+"I will," said Robert; "but remember, friend, no more hints against Mr.
+Leicester, I cannot listen to them."
+
+"I don't intend to _hint_ anything against him now!" said Jacob, dryly,
+and they entered the hotel together.
+
+Jacob took the young man to his own little room, and the two were locked
+in together more than an hour. When the door opened, Jacob appeared
+composed and awkward as ever, but a powerful change had fallen upon the
+youth. His face was not only pale, but a look of wild horror disturbed
+his countenance.
+
+"Yet I will not believe it," he said, "it is too fiendish. In what have
+I ever harmed him?"
+
+"I do not ask you to _believe_, but to know. Keep out of the way a
+single week, it can do harm to no one."
+
+"But in less than a week this miserable debt must be paid!"
+
+"Then pay it!"
+
+Robert smiled bitterly.
+
+"How? by ruining my aunt? Shall I ask her to sell the old homestead?"
+
+"She would do it--she would give up the last penny rather than see you
+disgraced, Robert Otis!"
+
+"How can you know this?"
+
+"I do know it, but this is not the question. Here is money to pay your
+debt, I have kept it in my pocket for weeks."
+
+Robert did not reach forth his hand to receive the roll of bank-notes
+held toward him, for surprise held him motionless.
+
+"Take the money, it is the exact sum," said Jacob, in a voice that
+carried authority with it. "I ask no promise that you never enter
+another gambling hall--you never will!"
+
+"Never!" said Robert, receiving the money; "but how--why have you done
+this?"
+
+"Ask me no questions now; by-and-bye you will know all about it; the
+money is mine. I have earned it honestly; as much more is all that I
+have in the world. No thanks! I never could bear them, besides it will
+be repaid in time!"
+
+"If I live," said Robert, with tears in his eyes.
+
+"This week, remember--this week you must be absent. A visit to the old
+homestead, anything that will take you out of town."
+
+"I will go," said Robert, "it can certainly do no harm."
+
+And they parted.
+
+Ada Leicester fled from the keen disappointment which almost crushed her
+for a time, and sought to drown all thought in the whirl of fashionable
+life. Her reception evenings were splendid. Beauty, talent, wit,
+everything that could charm or dazzle gathered beneath her roof. She
+gave herself no time for grief. Occasionally a thought of her husband
+would sting her into fresh bursts of excitement--sometimes the memory of
+her parents and her child passed over her heart, leaving a swell behind
+like that which followed the angels when they went down to trouble the
+still waters. Her wit grew more sparkling, her graceful sarcasm keener
+than ever it had been. She was the rage that season, and exhausted her
+rich talent in efforts to win excitement. She did not hope for happiness
+from the homage and splendor that her beauty and wealth had secured;
+excitement was all she asked.
+
+When all other devices for amusement failed to keep up the fever of her
+artificial life, she bethought her of a new project. Her talent, her
+wealth must achieve something more brilliant than had yet been dreamed
+of, she would give a fancy ball, something far more picturesque than had
+ever been known in Saratoga or Newport.
+
+At first Ada thought of this ball only as a something that should pass
+like a rocket through the upper ten thousand; but as the project grew
+upon her, she resolved to make it an epoch in her own inner life. The
+man whom she had loved, the husband who had so coldly trampled her to
+the earth in her seeming poverty--he should witness this grand gala--he
+should see her in the fall blaze of her splendid career. There was
+something of proud retaliation in this; she fancied that it was
+resentful hate that prompted this desire to see and triumph over the man
+who had scorned her. Alas! poor woman, was there no lurking hope?--no
+feeling that she dared not call by its right name in all that wild
+excitement?
+
+She sent for Jacob, and besought him to devise some means by which
+Leicester should be won to attend the ball, without suspecting her
+identity.
+
+"Let it be superb--let it surpass everything hitherto known in
+elegance," she said--"he shall be here--he shall see the poor governess,
+the scorned wife in a new phase."
+
+There was triumph in her eyes as she spoke.
+
+"You love this man, even now, in spite of all that he has done?" said
+Jacob Strong, who stood before her while she spoke.
+
+"No," she answered--"no, I hate--oh! how I do hate him!"
+
+Jacob regarded her with a steady, fixed glance of the eye; he was afraid
+to believe her. He would not have believed her but for the powerful wish
+that gave an unnatural impulse to his faith.
+
+"He may be dazzled by all this splendor; the knowledge of so much wealth
+will make him humble--he will be your slave again!"
+
+Ada glanced around the sumptuous array of her boudoir. Her eyes
+sparkled; her lip quivered with haughty triumph.
+
+"And I would spurn him even as he spurned me in that humble room
+over-head--that room filled with its wealth of old memories."
+
+Jacob turned away to hide the joy that burned in his eyes.
+
+"Oh! my mistress, say it again. In earnest truth, you hate this man; do
+not deceive yourself. Have you unwound the adder from your heart? Did
+that night do its work?"
+
+Ada Leicester paused; she was ashamed to own, even before that devoted
+servant, how closely the adder still folded himself in her bosom. She
+turned pale, but still answered with unfaltering voice, "Jacob, I hate
+him!"
+
+"Not yet--not as you ought to hate him," answered Jacob, regarding her
+pallid face so searchingly that his own cheek whitened, "but when you
+see him in all his villany, as I have seen him; when you know all!"
+
+"And do I not know all? What is it you keep from me? What is there to
+learn more vile--more terrible than the past?"
+
+"What if I tell you that within a month, William Leicester, your
+husband, will be married to another woman?"
+
+"Married! married to another!--Leicester--my----" she broke off, for her
+white lips refused to utter another syllable. After a momentary struggle
+she started up--"does he think that I am dead?--does he hope that night
+has killed me?"
+
+"He knows that you are living; but thinks you have returned to England."
+
+"But this is crime--punishable crime."
+
+"I know that it is."
+
+A faint, incredulous smile stole over her lips, and she waved her hand.
+"He will not violate the law; never was a bad man more prudent."
+
+"He will be married to-morrow night."
+
+"And to that girl? Does he love her so much? Is her beauty so
+overpowering? What has she to tempt Leicester into this crime?"
+
+"Her father is dead. By his will a large property falls to this poor
+girl. The letter came under cover to Leicester; he opened it. After the
+marriage they will sail for the north of Europe--there the letter will
+follow them, telling the poor orphan of her father's death. How can she
+guess that her husband has seen it before!"
+
+"But I--I am not dead!"
+
+"You love him, he knows that better than you do. Death is no stronger
+safeguard than that knowledge. In your love or in your death he is
+equally safe."
+
+"God help me; but I will not be a slave to this abject love forever. If
+this last treachery be true, my soul will loathe him as he deserves."
+
+"It is true."
+
+"But my ball is to-morrow night. He accepted the invitation. You are
+certain that he will come?"
+
+"He accepted the invitation eagerly enough," said Jacob, dryly; "but
+what then?"
+
+"Why, to-morrow night--this cannot happen before to-morrow night--then I
+shall see him; after that--no, no, he dare not. You see, Jacob, it is in
+order to save him from deeper crime; we must not sit still and allow
+this poor girl to be sacrificed; that would be terrible. It must be
+prevented."
+
+"Nothing easier. Let him know that the brilliant, the wealthy Mrs.
+Gordon, is his wife; say that she has millions at her disposal; this
+poor girl has only one or two hundred thousand, the choice would be soon
+made."
+
+"Do you believe it? can you think it was belief in my poverty, and
+not--not a deeper feeling that made him so cruel that night? would he
+have accepted me for this wealth?"
+
+A painful red hovered in Ada's cheek, as she asked this question; it was
+shaping a humiliating doubt into words. It was exposing the scorpion
+that stung most keenly at her heart.
+
+Jacob drew closer to his mistress; he clasped her two hands between his,
+and his heavy frame bent over her, not awkwardly, for deep feeling is
+never awkward.
+
+"Oh, my mistress, say to me that you will give up this man--utterly give
+him up; even now you cannot guess how wicked he is; do not, by your
+wealth, help him to make new victims; do not see him and thus give him a
+right over yourself and your property--a right he will not fail to use;
+give up this ball; leave the city--this is no way to find that poor old
+man, that child----"
+
+"Jacob! Jacob!" almost shrieked the unhappy woman, "do you see how such
+words wound and rankle? I may be wild--the wish may be madness--but once
+more let me meet him face to face----"
+
+Jacob dropped her hands; two great tears left his eyes, and rolled
+slowly down his cheeks.
+
+"How she loves that man!" he said, in a tone of despondency.
+
+"Remember, Jacob, it is to serve another. What if, thinking himself
+safe, he marries that poor girl?" said Ada, in an humble, deprecating
+tone.
+
+"Madam," answered Jacob, "do you know that the law gives this man power
+over you--a husband's power--if he chooses to claim it?" Jacob broke
+off, and clenched his huge hand in an agony of impatience, for his words
+had only brought the bright blood into that eloquent face. Through those
+drooping lashes he saw the downcast eyes kindle.
+
+"She hopes it! she hopes it!" he said, in the bitterness of his thought;
+"but I will save her--with God's help I will save them both!"
+
+When Ada Leicester looked up to address her servant, he had left the
+room.
+
+Among other things, Jacob had been commissioned to procure a quantity of
+hot-house flowers; for the conservatories at Mrs. Gordon's villa were to
+be turned into perfect bowers. Besides, Ada was prodigal of flowers in
+every room of her dwelling, even when no company was expected. In order
+to procure enough for this grand gala evening, Jacob had resource to
+Mrs. Gray, who trafficked at times in everything that has birth in the
+soil.
+
+Mrs. Gray was delighted with this commission, for it promised a rich
+windfall to her pretty favorite, Julia Warren. So, after the market
+closed that day, she went up to Dunlap's, and bargained for all the
+exotics his spacious greenhouse could produce. She informed Julia of her
+good luck, and returned home with a warmth about the heart worth half a
+dozen Thanksgiving suppers, bountiful as hers always were.
+
+The next day Julia was going up town, with a basket loaded with exotics
+on her arm. It was late in the afternoon, for the blossoms had been left
+on the stalk to the latest hour, that no sweet breath of their perfume
+should be wasted before they reached the boudoir they were intended to
+embellish.
+
+It was a sweet task that Julia had undertaken. With her love of flowers,
+it was a delicious luxury to gaze down upon her dewy burden, as she
+walked along, surrounded by a cloud of fragrance invisible as it was
+intoxicating. A life of privation had rendered her delicate organization
+keenly susceptible of this delicate enjoyment. It gratified the hunger
+of sensations almost ethereal. She loitered on her way, she touched the
+flowers with her hands, that, like the blossoms, were soon bathed in
+odor. Rich masses of heliotrope, the snowy cape jessamine, clusters of
+starry daphne, crimson and white roses, with many other blossoms strange
+as they were sweet, made every breath she drew a delight. A glow of
+exquisite satisfaction spread over her face, her dreamy eyes were never
+lifted from the blossoms, except when a corner was to be turned or an
+obstacle avoided.
+
+"Where are you going, girl? Are those flowers for sale?"
+
+Julia started and looked up. She was just then before a cottage house,
+laced with iron balconies and clouded with creeping vines, red with the
+crimson and gold of a late Indian summer. The garden in front was
+gorgeous with choice dahlias and other autumn flowers that had not yet
+felt the frost, and on the basin of a small marble fountain in the
+centre stood several large aquatic lilies, from which the falling
+water-drops rained with a constant and sleepy sound.
+
+Julia did not see all this at once, for the glance that she cast around
+was too wild and startled. She clasped the basket of flowers closer to
+her side, and stood motionless. Some potent spell seemed upon her.
+
+"Can't you speak, child? Are those flowers for sale?"
+
+Julia remained gazing in the man's face; her eyes, once fixed on those
+features, seemed immoveable. He stood directly before her, holding the
+iron gate which led to the cottage open with his hand.
+
+"No--no--if you please, sir, they are ordered. A lady wants them."
+
+"Then they are not paid for--only ordered. Come in here. There is a lady
+close by who may fancy some of those orange blossoms."
+
+"No, no, sir--the other lady might be angry!"
+
+"Nonsense! I want the flowers--not enough to be missed, though--just a
+handful of the white ones. Here is a piece of gold worth half your load.
+Let me have what I ask, and I dare say your customer will give just as
+much for the rest."
+
+"I can't, sir--indeed I can't," said Julia, drawing a corner of her
+little plaid shawl over the basket; "but if you are not in a hurry--if
+the lady can wait an hour--I will leave these and get some more from the
+greenhouse."
+
+The man did not answer, but, placing his hand on her shoulder, pushed
+the frightened child through the open gate.
+
+"Let your customer wait--during the next hour you must stay here. It is
+not so much the flowers that I want as yourself!"
+
+"Myself!" repeated poor Julia, with quivering lips.
+
+"Go in--go in--I want nothing that should frighten you. Stay--just now I
+remember that face. Do you know I am an old customer?"
+
+"I remember," answered Julia, and tears of affright rushed into her
+eyes.
+
+"Then you recognise me again?--it was but a moment--how can you remember
+so long and so well?"
+
+"By my feelings, sir. I wanted to cry then--I can't help crying now!"
+
+"This is strange! Young ladies are not apt to be so much shocked when I
+speak to them. No matter. I want both your flowers and your services
+just now: oblige me, and I will pay you well for the kindness."
+
+Julia had no choice, for as he spoke the gentleman closed the gate, and
+completely obstructed her way out.
+
+"Pass on--pass on!" he said, with an imperative wave of the hand.
+
+Julia obeyed, walking with nervous quickness as he drew close to her.
+The gentleman rang, a faint noise came from within, and the door was
+opened by a quiet old lady in mourning.
+
+"Then you have come; you persist!" she said, addressing the gentleman!
+
+"Step this way a moment," he answered in a subdued voice, opening the
+parlor door; "but first send this little girl up to Florence; if you
+still refuse, she must answer for a witness. Besides, she has flowers in
+her basket, and my sweet bride would think a wedding ominous without
+them!"
+
+"Ominous indeed!" said the lady, pointing with her finger that Julia
+should ascend the stairs. "William, I will not allow this to go on; to
+witness the sin would be to share it."
+
+"Mother," answered Leicester, gently taking the lady's hand, while he
+led her to the parlor, "tell me your objections, and I will answer them
+with all respect. Why is my marriage with Florence Craft opposed?"
+
+"You have no right to marry--you are not free--cannot be so while Ada
+lives."
+
+"But Ada is dead! Mother, say now if I am not free to choose a wife?"
+
+"Dead! Ada Wilcox dead! Oh William, if this be true!"
+
+"If! It is true. See, here are letters bearing proof that even you must
+acknowledge."
+
+He held out some letters bearing an European post-mark. The old lady
+took them, put on her glasses, and suspiciously scrutinized every line.
+
+"Are you convinced, mother, or must I go over sea, and tear the dead
+from her grave before your scruples yield?"
+
+The old lady lifted her face; a tear stole from beneath her glasses.
+
+"Go on," she said, in a deep solemn voice--"go on, add victim to victim,
+legally or illegally, it scarce matters--that which you touch dies. But
+remember--remember, William, every new sin presses its iron mark hard on
+your mother's heart, the weight will crush her at length."
+
+"Why is maternal love so strong in your bosom that Scripture is revised
+in my behalf? Must my iniquities roll back on past generations?" said
+the son, with a faint sneer.
+
+"No, it is because my own sin originates yours. Your father was a bad
+man, William Leicester, profligate, treacherous, fascinating as you are.
+I married him; wo, wo upon the arrogant pride; I married him, and said,
+in wicked self-confidence--'My love shall be his redemption." My son--my
+son, you cannot understand me; you cannot think how terrible iniquity is
+when it folds you in its bosom. There is no poison like the love of a
+profligate; the fang of an adder is not more potent. It spreads through
+the whole being; it lives in the moral life of our children. I said 'My
+love is all powerful, it shall reform this man whom I love so madly.' I
+made the effort; I planted my soul beneath the Upas tree, and expected
+not only to escape but conquer the poison. Look at me, William; can you
+ever remember me other than I am, still, cold, hopeless? Yet I only
+lived with your father three years. Before that I was bright and joyous
+beyond your belief.
+
+"He died as he had lived. Did the curse of my arrogance end there? No,
+it found new life in his son--his son and mine. In you, William--in you
+my punishment embodied itself. Still I hoped and strove against the evil
+entailed upon you. Heaven bear me witness, I struggled unceasingly; but
+as you approached maturity, with all the beauty and talent of your
+father, the moral poison revealed itself also.
+
+"Then the love that I felt for you changed to fear, and as one who has
+turned a serpent loose among the beautiful things of earth, I said, 'Let
+my life be given to protect society from the evil spirit which my
+presumption has forced upon it.' It was an atonement acceptable of God.
+How many deserted victims my roof has sheltered you know--how many I
+have saved from the misery of your influence it is needless to say. This
+one, so gentle, so rich in affection, I hoped to win from her
+enthralment, or, failing that, resign her to the arms of death, more
+merciful, more gentle than yours. I have pleaded with her, warned her,
+but she answers as I answered when those who loved me said of your
+father, 'It is a sin to marry him!' Must she suffer as I have suffered?
+Oh! William, my son, turn aside this once from your prey. She is
+helpless--save her young heart from the stain that has fallen upon
+mine!"
+
+"Nay, gentle mother, this is scarcely a compliment--you forget that I
+wish to marry the young lady."
+
+How cold, how insulting were the tones of his voice--how relentless was
+the spirit that gleamed in his eyes! The unhappy mother stood before
+him, her pale hands clasped and uplifted, and words of thrilling
+eloquence hushed upon her lips, that no syllable of his answer might be
+lost. It came, that dry, insolent rejoinder; her hands fell; her figure
+shrunk earthward.
+
+"I have done!" broke from her lips, and she walked slowly from the room.
+
+"Madam, shall we expect you at the ceremony?" said Leicester, following
+her to the door.
+
+She turned upon the stairs, and gave him a look so sad, so earnest, that
+even his cold heart beat slower.
+
+"It is not important!" he muttered, turning back; "we can do without
+her. This little girl and the servant must answer, though I did hope to
+trust no one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE BRIDAL WREATH.
+
+     The wreath of white jasmines is torn from her brow,
+     The bride is alone, and, oh, desolate now.
+
+
+Julia Warren mounted the stairs in wild haste, as the caged bird springs
+from perch to perch when terrified by strange faces. Then she paused in
+her fright, doubtful where to turn or what room to enter. As she stood
+thus irresolute, a door was softly pushed open, and a fair young face
+looked out. The eyes were bent downward; the cheek and temples shaded
+with masses of loose ringlets, that admitted snowy glimpses of a
+graceful neck and shoulders, uncovered save by these bright tresses and
+a muslin dressing-down, half falling off, and huddled to the bosom with
+a fair little hand.
+
+Imperceptibly the door swung more and more open, till Julia caught the
+outline of a figure, slender, flexible, and so fragile in its beauty,
+that to her excited imagination it seemed almost ethereal. Like a spirit
+that listens for some kindred sympathy, the young creature bent in the
+half-open door. The faint murmur of voices from below rose and fell upon
+her ear. No words could be distinguished; nothing but the low, deep
+tones of a voice, familiar and dear as the pulsations of her own heart,
+blended with the strangely passionate accents of another. The gentle
+listener could hardly convince herself that some strange woman had not
+entered the house, so thrilling and full of pathos was that voice,
+usually so calm and frigid.
+
+Julia stood motionless, holding her breath. She saw nothing but the
+outline of a slender person, the shadowy gleam of features through
+masses of wavy hair, but it seemed as if she had met that graceful
+vision before--it might be in a dream--it might be--stay, the young girl
+lifted her head, and swept back the ringlets with her hand. A pair of
+dark, liquid eyes fell upon the flower girl, and she knew the glance.
+The eyes were larger, brighter, more densely circled with shadows than
+they had been, but the tender expression, the soft loveliness, nothing
+could change that.
+
+The hand dropped from among the ringlets it held, away from that pale
+cheek, and a glow, as of freshly-gathered roses, broke through them as
+Florence drew her form gently up, and stood with her eyes fixed upon the
+intruder.
+
+Julia came forward, changing color with every step.
+
+"A gentleman--the lady, I mean--I--I was sent up here. If they want the
+flowers for you, I would not mind, though the other lady has spoken for
+them!"
+
+Florence cast her eyes on the basket of flowers; a bright smile kindled
+over her face, and drawing the girl into the chamber, she took the heavy
+basket in her arms, and, overpowered by its weight, sunk softly down to
+the carpet, resting it in her lap. Thus, with the blossoms half buried
+in the white waves of her dressing-gown, she literally buried her face
+in them, while her very heart seemed to drink in the perfume that
+exhaled again in broken and exquisite sighs.
+
+"And he sent them?--how good, how thoughtful! Oh! I am too--too happy!"
+
+She gathered up a double handful of the blossoms, and rained them back
+into the basket. Their perfume floated around her; some of the buds fell
+in the folds of her snowy muslin, that drooped like waves of foam over
+her limbs. She was happy and beautiful as an angel gathering blossoms in
+some chosen nook of Paradise.
+
+There was something contagious in all this--something that sent the dew
+to Julia's eyes, and a glow of love to her heart.
+
+"I am glad--I am almost glad that he made me come in," she said,
+dropping on her knees, that she might gather up some buds that had
+fallen over the basket. "How I wish you could have them all! He offered
+a large gold piece, but you know I could not take it. If we--that is, if
+grandpa and grandma were rich, I never would take a cent for flowers; it
+seems as if God made them on purpose to give away."
+
+"So they are not mine, after all?" said Florence, with a look and tone
+of disappointment.
+
+"Yes--oh, yes, a few. That glass thing on the toilet, I will crowd it
+quite full, the prettiest too--just take out those you like best."
+
+"Still he ordered them--he tried to purchase the whole, in that lies
+happiness enough." The sweet, joyous look stole back to her face again;
+that thought was more precious than all the fragrance and bloom she had
+coveted.
+
+The door-bell rang. Florence heard persons coming from the parlor, she
+started up leaving the basket at her feet.
+
+"Oh, I shall delay him--I shall be too late; will no one come to help
+me?" she exclaimed. "I dare not ask her, but you, surely you could stay
+for half an hour?"
+
+"I must stay if you wish it; he will not let me go; but indeed, indeed,
+I am in haste. It will be quite dark."
+
+"I do not wish to keep you by force," said Florence, gently; "but you
+seem kind, and I have no one to help me dress. Besides, she, his mother,
+will not stay in the room, and the thought of being quite alone, with no
+bridesmaid--no woman even for a witness--it frightens me!"
+
+"What--what is it that you wish of me?" questioned Julia while a sudden
+and strange thrill ran through her frame.
+
+"I wish you to stay a little while to help to put on my dress, and then
+go down with me. You look very young, but no one else will come near me,
+and it seems unnatural to be married without a single female standing
+by."
+
+Florence grew pale as she spoke; there was indeed something lonely and
+desolate in her position, which all at once came over her with
+overwhelming force. Julia, too, from surprise or some deeper feeling,
+seemed struck with a sudden chill; her lips were slightly parted, the
+color fled from her cheek.
+
+"Married! married!" she repeated, in a voice that fell upon the heart of
+Florence like an omen.
+
+"To-night, in an hour, I shall be his wife!" How pale the poor bride was
+as these words fell from her lips! How coldly lay the heart in her
+bosom! She bent her head as if waiting for the guardian angel who should
+have kept better watch over a being so full of trust and gentleness.
+
+"His wife! _his!_" said Julia, recoiling a step, "oh! how can you--how
+can you!"
+
+A crimson flush shot over that pale forehead, and Florence drew up her
+form to its full height.
+
+"Will you help me--will you stay?"
+
+"I dare not say no!" answered the child; "I would not, if I dare."
+
+Again the door-bell rang. "Hush!" said Florence, breathlessly; "it is
+the clergyman; that is a strange voice, and he--Leicester--admits him.
+How happy I thought to be at this hour; but I am chilly, chilly as
+death; oh, help me, child!"
+
+She had been making an effort to arrange her hair, but her hands
+trembled, and at length fell helplessly down. She really seemed
+shivering with cold.
+
+"Sit down, sit down in this easy-chair, and let _me_ try," said Julia,
+shaking off the chill that had settled on her spirits, and wheeling a
+large chair, draped with white dimity, toward the toilet. Lights were
+burning in tall candlesticks on each side of a swing mirror, whose frame
+of filagreed and frosted silver gleamed ghastly and cold on the pale
+face of the bride.
+
+"How white I am; will nothing give me a color?" cried the young
+creature, starting up from the chair. "Warmth--that is what I want! My
+dress--let us put on that first; then I can muffle myself in something
+while you curl my hair."
+
+She took up a robe of costly Brussels lace. "Isn't it beautiful?" she
+said, with a smile, shaking out the soft folds. "He sent it." She then
+threw off her dressing-gown, and arrayed herself in the bridal robe; the
+exertion seemed to animate her; a bright bloom rose to her cheek, and
+her motions became nervous with excitement.
+
+"Some orange blossoms to loop up the skirt in front," she said, after
+Julia had fastened the dress; "here, just here!" and she gathered up
+some folds of the soft lace in her hand, watching the child as she fell
+upon one knee to perform the task. Florence was trembling from head to
+foot with the wild, eager excitement that had succeeded the chill of
+which she had complained, and could do nothing for herself. When the
+buds were all in place, she sunk into the easy-chair, huddling her snowy
+arms and bosom in a rose-colored opera cloak; for, though her cheeks
+were burning, cold shivers now and then seemed to ripple through her
+veins. The soft trimming of swan's down, which she pressed to her bosom
+with both hands, seemed devoid of all warmth one moment, and the next
+she flung it aside glowing with over-heat. There was something more than
+agitation in all this, but it gave unearthly splendor to her beauty.
+
+"Now--now," said Julia, laying the last ringlet softly down upon the
+neck of the bride; "look at yourself, sweet lady, see how beautiful you
+are."
+
+Florence stood up, and smiled as she saw herself in the mirror; an angel
+from heaven could not have looked more delicately radiant. Masses of
+raven curls fell upon the snowy neck and the bridal dress. Circling her
+head, and bending with a soft curve to the forehead, was a light wreath
+of starry jessamine flowers, woven with the deep, feathery green of some
+delicate spray, that Julia selected from her basket because it was so
+tremulous and fairy-like. All at once the smile fled from the lips of
+Florence Craft; a look of mournful affright came to her eyes, and she
+raised both hands to tear away the wreath.
+
+"Did you know it? Was this done on purpose?" she said, turning upon the
+child.
+
+"What--what have I done?"
+
+"This wreath--these jessamines--you have woven them with cypress
+leaves." Florence sunk into the chair shuddering; she had no strength to
+unweave the ominous wreath from her head.
+
+"I--I did not know it," said the child greatly distressed; "they were
+beautiful--I only thought of that. Shall I take them off, and put roses
+in the place?"
+
+"Yes! yes--roses, roses--these make me feel like death!"
+
+That instant there was a gentle knock at the chamber door; Julia opened
+it, and there stood Mr. Leicester. The child drew back: he saw Florence
+standing before the toilet.
+
+"Florence, love, we are waiting!"
+
+He advanced into the chamber and drew her arm through his. She looked
+back into the mirror, and shuddered till the cypress leaves trembled
+visibly in her curls.
+
+"My beautiful--my wife!" whispered Leicester, pressing her hand to his
+lips.
+
+What woman could withstand that voice--those words? The color came
+rushing to her cheek again, the light to her eyes; she trembled, but not
+with the ominous fear that possessed her a moment before. Those
+words--sweeter than hope--shed warmth, and light, and joy where terror
+had been.
+
+"Follow us!" said Leicester addressing the child.
+
+Julia moved forward: a thought seemed to strike the bridegroom; he
+paused--
+
+"You can write--at least well enough to sign your name?" he said.
+
+"Yes, I can write," she answered, timidly.
+
+"Very well--come!"
+
+The parlor was brilliantly illuminated, every shutter was closed, and
+over the long window, hitherto shaded only with lace, fell curtains of
+amber damask, making the seclusion more perfect.
+
+A clergyman was in the room, and Leicester had brought his servant as a
+witness. This man stood near the window, leaning heavily against the
+wall, his features immovable, his eyes bent upon the door. Julia started
+as she saw him, for she remembered the time they had met before upon the
+wharf, on that most eventful day of her life. His glance fell on her as
+she came timidly in behind the bridegroom and the bride; there was a
+slight change in his countenance, then a gleam of recognition, which
+made the child feel less completely among strangers.
+
+It was a brief ceremony; the clergyman's voice was monotonous; the
+silence chilling. Julia wept; to her it seemed like a funeral.
+
+The certificate was made out. Jacob signed his name, but so bunglingly
+that no one could have told what it was. Mr. Leicester did not make the
+effort. Julia took the pen, her little hand trembled violently, but the
+name was written quite well enough for a girl of her years.
+
+"Now, sir--now, please, may I go?" she said, addressing Leicester.
+
+"Yes, yes--here is the piece of gold. I trust your employer will find no
+fault--but first tell me where you live?"
+
+Julia told him where to find her humble abode, and hurried from the
+room. Her basket of flowers had been left in the chamber above; she ran
+up to get it, eager to be gone. In her haste she opened the nearest
+door; it was a bed-room, dimly lighted, and by a low couch knelt the old
+lady she had seen in the hall. Her hands were clasped, her white face
+uplifted; there was anguish in her look, but that tearless anguish that
+can only be felt after the passions are quenched. Julia drew softly
+back. She found her basket in the next room, and came forth again,
+bearing it on her arm. She heard Leicester's voice while passing through
+the hall, and hurried out, dreading that he might attempt to detain her.
+
+Scarcely had the child passed out when Leicester came forth, leading
+Florence by the hand. He spoke a few words to her in a low voice: "Try
+and reconcile her, Florence. She never loved me, I know that, but who
+could resist you? To-morrow, if she proves stubborn, I will take you
+hence, or, at the worst, in a few days we will be ready for our voyage
+to Europe."
+
+Florence listened with downcast eyes. "My father, my kind old father! he
+will not be angry; he must have known how it would end when he gave me
+to your charge. Still it may offend him to hear that I am married, when
+he thinks me at school."
+
+"He will not be angry, love," said Leicester, and he thought of the
+letter announcing old Mr. Craft's death. "But the good lady up stairs;
+you must win her into a better mood before we meet again; till then,
+sweet wife, adieu!"
+
+He kissed her hand two or three times--cast a hurried glance up stairs,
+as if afraid of being seen, and then pressed her, for one instant, to
+his bosom.
+
+"Sweet wife!" the name rang through and through her young heart like a
+chime of music. She held her breath, and listened to his footsteps as he
+left the house, then stole softly up the stairs.
+
+The clergyman went out while Julia was up stairs in search of her
+flowers. Jacob Strong left the parlor at the same time, but instead of
+returning, he let the clergyman out, and, moving back into the darkened
+extremity of the hall, stood there, concealed and motionless. He
+witnessed the interview between Leicester and Florence, and, so still
+was everything around, heard a little of the conversation.
+
+Before Florence was half way up the stairs he came out of the darkness
+and spoke to her.
+
+"Only a little while, dear lady, pray come back; I will not keep you
+long."
+
+Florence, thinking that Leicester had left some message with his
+servant, descended the stairs and entered the parlor. Jacob followed her
+and closed the door; a few minutes elapsed--possibly ten, and there came
+from the closed room a wild, passionate cry of anguish. The door was
+flung open--the bride staggered forth, and supported herself against the
+frame-work.
+
+"Mother! mother! oh, madam!" Her voice broke, and ended in gasping sobs.
+
+A door overhead opened, and the old lady whom Julia had seen upon her
+knees came gliding like a black shadow down the stairs.
+
+"I thought that he had gone," she said, and her usually calm accent was
+a little hurried. "Would he kill you under my roof? William Leicester!"
+
+"He is not here--he is gone," sobbed Florence, "but that man----" She
+pointed with her finger toward Jacob Strong, who stood a little within
+the door. He came forward, revealing a face from which all the stolid
+indifference was swept away. It was not only troubled, but wet with
+tears.
+
+"It is cruel--I have been awfully cruel," he said, addressing the old
+lady--"but she must be told. I could not put it off. She thought herself
+his wife."
+
+"I am his wife!--I am his wife!--_his wife_, do you hear?" almost
+shrieked the wretched girl. "He called me so himself. _You_ saw us
+married, and yet dare to slander him!"
+
+"Lady, she is not his wife!" said Jacob, sinking his voice, but speaking
+earnestly, as if the task he had undertaken were very painful. "He is
+married already!"
+
+"He told me--and gave me letters from abroad to prove that Ada, his
+wife, was dead." The old lady spoke in her usual calm way, but her face
+was paler than it had been, and her eyes were full of mournful
+commiseration as she bent them upon the wretched bride.
+
+"Then he _was_ married--he has been married before!" murmured Florence,
+and her poor, pale hands, fell helplessly down. The old lady drew close
+to her, as if to offer some comfort, but she had so long held all
+affectionate impulses in abeyance, that even this action was constrained
+and chilling, though her heart yearned toward the poor girl.
+
+"Madam, did you believe him when he said his wife was no more?"
+questioned Jacob Strong.
+
+The old lady shook her head, and a mournful smile stole across her thin
+lips; pain is fearfully impressive when wrung from the heart in a smile
+like that. Florence shuddered.
+
+"And you--you also, his mother!" burst from her quivering lips.
+
+"God forgive me! I am," answered the old lady.
+
+"Then," said Jacob Strong, turning his face resolutely from the poor,
+young creature, whose heart his words were crushing: "Then, madam, you
+have seen his wife--you would know her again?"
+
+"Yes, I should know her."
+
+"This night, this very night, you shall see her then. Come with me; this
+poor young lady will not believe what I have said. Come and be a witness
+that Mrs. Ada Leicester is alive--alive with his knowledge. Two hours
+from this you shall see them together--Leicester and his wife, the
+mother of his child. Will you come? there seems no other way by which
+this poor girl can be saved."
+
+"I--I will go! let me witness this meeting," cried Florence, suddenly
+arousing herself, and standing upright. "I will not take his word nor
+yours; you slander him, you slander him! If he has a wife, let me look
+upon her with my own eyes."
+
+The old lady and Jacob looked at each other. Florence stood before
+them, her soft eyes flashing, her cheeks fired with the blood grief had
+driven from her heart.
+
+"You dare not--I know it, you dare not!"
+
+Still her auditors looked at each other in painful doubt.
+
+"I knew that it was false!" cried Florence, with a laugh of wild
+exultation. "You hesitate, this proves it. To-morrow, madam, I will
+leave this roof--I will go to my husband. The very presence of those who
+slander him is hateful to me. To-night; yes, this instant, I will go."
+
+"Let her be convinced," said the old lady.
+
+The strong nerves of Jacob gave way. He looked at that young face, so
+beautiful in its wild anguish, and shrunk from the consequences of the
+conviction that awaited her.
+
+"It would be her death," he said. "I cannot do it!"
+
+"Better death than that which might follow this unbelief."
+
+The old lady placed her hand upon Jacob's arm, and drew him aside. They
+conversed together in low voices, and Florence regarded them with her
+large, wild eyes, as a wounded gazelle might gaze upon its pursuers.
+
+"Come!" said Leicester's mother, attempting to lay her hand upon the
+shrinking arm of the bride; "it needs some preparation, but you shall
+go. God help us both, this is a fearful task!"
+
+Florence was strong with excitement. She turned, and almost ran up the
+stairs. Jacob went out, and during the next two hours, save a slight
+sound in the upper rooms, from time to time, the cottage seemed
+abandoned.
+
+At length a carriage stopped at the gate. Jacob entered, and seating
+himself in the parlor, waited. They came down at last, but so changed,
+that no human penetration could have detected their identity. The old
+lady was still in black, but so completely enveloped in a veil of glossy
+silk, that nothing but her eyes could be seen. A diamond crescent upon
+the forehead, a few silver stars scattered among the sombre folds that
+flowed over her person, gave sufficient character to a dress that was
+only chosen as a disguise.
+
+Florence was in a similar dress, save that everything about her was
+snowy white. A veil of flowing silk had been cast over her bridal array,
+glossy and wave-like, but thick enough to conceal her features. Gleams
+of violet and rosy tulle floated over this, like the first tints of
+sunrise and the morning star, sparkling with diamonds, gathered up the
+veil on her left temple, leaving it to flow, like the billows of a
+cloud, over her form, and downward till it swept her feet. Without a
+word the three went forth and entered the carriage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+AN HOUR BEFORE THE BALL.
+
+     The child stands, meekly, by her mother.
+       Look, woman, in those earnest eyes!
+     Say, canst thou understand, or smother
+       The deep maternal mysteries
+
+     That rise and swell within thy breast;
+       That throb athwart thy aching brain,
+     Till, with deep tenderness oppressed,
+       Hope, thought, and feeling turn to pain?
+
+
+We take the reader once more to the residence of Ada Leicester--not as
+formerly, when the tempest raged around its walls, and darkness slept in
+its sumptuous rooms--when the wail of tortured hearts and sobs of
+anguish alone broke the gloomy stillness--not as then do we revisit this
+stately mansion. Now it is lighted up like a fairy palace; through the
+richly stained sashes, from the gables, and the ivy-clad tower, clouds
+of tinted light kindle the bland autumnal atmosphere to a soft golden
+haze. The tall old trees that surround the mansion seem bending beneath
+a fruitage of stars, so thickly are they beset with lamps that light up
+the depths of their ripe foliage. So broad is the illumination, so rich
+the tinted rays, you might see to gather fall flowers from the ground,
+even to their shaded extremity. White dahlias are amber-hued in that
+mellow light; wax balls hang like drops of gold in the thickets; the ivy
+leaves about the narrow windows of the tower seem dripping with
+starlight; and a woodbine that has crept up one of the young maples, a
+little way off, glows out along the golden foliage so vividly, that the
+branches seem absolutely on fire.
+
+Julia Warren approached this mansion with wonder. It seemed like
+something she had read of in a fairy tale--the lamps gleaming among the
+trees and in the thickets; the foliage so strangely luminous; the crisp
+grass tinged with a brownish and golden green; all these things were
+like enchantment to the child whose life had been spent in a comfortless
+basement. She looked around in delighted bewilderment; the very basket
+upon her arm seemed filled with strange blossoms as she entered the
+lofty vestibule, and changed the richly hued atmosphere, without for the
+flood of pure gas-light that filled the dwelling.
+
+"Oh! here she is at last--why, child, what has kept you?"
+
+A pretty young woman, in a jaunty cap and pink ribbons, made this
+exclamation, while Julia stood looking about for some one to address.
+Her manner, her quick but graceful movements, had an imposing effect
+upon the child.
+
+"Are you the lady?" she said.
+
+"No--no!" answered the girl, with a pretty laugh, for the compliment
+pleased her. "Come up stairs--quick, quick--my lady has been _so_
+impatient."
+
+They went up a flight of steps, the waiting-maid exchanging words with a
+footman who passed them, Julia treading lightly under her load of
+flowers. Her little feet sunk into the carpet at every step; once only
+in her life had she felt the same elastic swell follow her tread. Yet
+nothing could be more unlike than the dark mansion that rose upon her
+memory, and the vision-like beauty of everything upon which her eyes
+rested. The floors seemed literally trodden down with flowers. Rich
+draperies of silk met her eye wherever she turned. A door swung open to
+the touch of the waiting-maid. Julia remembered the room which they
+entered--the couch of carved ivory and azure damask--the lace curtains
+that hung against the windows like floating frost-work, and the rich
+blue waves that fell over them. Clearer than all she recognised the
+marble Flora placed near the couch, bending from its pedestal, with pure
+and classic grace, and gazing so intently on the white lilies in its
+hand, as if it doubted that the flowers were indeed but a beautiful
+mockery of nature.
+
+Julia drew a quick breath as she recognised all these objects, but the
+waiting maid gave her but little time even for surprise. She crossed the
+room and opened a door on the opposite side. They entered a
+dressing-room, leading evidently to a sumptuous bed-chamber, for through
+the open door Julia could see glimpses of rose-colored damask sweeping
+from the windows, and a snow white bed, over which masses of embroidered
+lace fell in transparent waves to the floor. The dressing-room
+corresponded with the chamber, but Julia saw nothing of its splendor.
+Her eyes were turned upon a toilet richly draped with lace, and littered
+with jewels; a standing-glass set in frosted silver, was lighted on each
+side by a small alabaster lamp, which hung against the exquisite chasing
+like two great pearls, each with perfumed flame breaking up from its
+heart.
+
+It was not the sight of this superb toilet, though a fortune had been
+flung carelessly upon it, that made the child's heart beat so
+tumultuously, but the lady who stood before it. Her back was toward the
+door, but Julia _felt_ who she was, though the beautiful features were
+only reflected upon her from the mirror.
+
+The lady turned. Her eyes were bent upon the diamond bracelet she was
+attempting to clasp on her arm. Oh! how different was that face from the
+tear-stained features Julia had seen that dark night. How radiant, how
+more than beautiful she was now! Every movement replete with grace;
+every look brilliant with flashes of exultant loveliness!
+
+How great was the contrast between that superb creature, in her robe of
+rich amber satin, heightened by the floating lustre of soft Brussels
+lace, which fell around her like a web of woven moonlight, and the
+humble child who stood there so motionless, with the flower-basket at
+her feet. The pink hood, faded with much washing, shaded her eyes; her
+hands were folded beneath the little plaid shawl that half concealed her
+cheap calico dress. Notwithstanding this contrast between the proud and
+mature beauty of the woman and the meek loveliness of the child, there
+was an air, a look--something indeed indescribable in one, which
+reminded you of the other. Ada turned suddenly, and moved a step toward
+the child; a thousand rainbow gleams flashed from the folds of her lace
+overdress as she moved; a massive wreath of gems lighted up the golden
+depths of her tresses, but its brilliancy was not more beautiful than
+the smile with which she recognized the little girl.
+
+"And so you have found me again," she said, untying the pink hood, and
+smoothing the bright hair thus exposed with her two palms, much to the
+surprise of the waiting-maid. "Look, Rosanna, is she not lovely, with
+her meek eyes and that smile?"
+
+The waiting-maid turned her eyes from the lady to the child.
+
+"Beautiful! why, madam the smile is your own."
+
+"Rosanna!" cried the lady, "this is flattery; never again speak of my
+resemblance to any one, especially to a child of that age. It offends,
+it pains me!"
+
+"I did not think to offend, madam; the little girl is so pretty--how
+could I?"
+
+Ada did not heed her; she was gazing earnestly on the little girl. The
+smile had left her face, and this made a corresponding change in the
+sensitive child. She felt as if some offence had been given, else why
+should the lady look into her eyes with such earnest sadness?
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+The question was given in a low and hesitating voice.
+
+"Julia--Julia Warren."
+
+"That is enough. Rosanna, never speak in this way again!"
+
+"Never, if madam desires it. But the flowers: see what quantities the
+little thing has brought. No wonder she was late--such a load."
+
+"True, we were waiting for the flowers; here, fill my bouquet
+holder--the choicest, remember--and let every blossom be fragrant."
+
+Rosanna took a bouquet-holder, whose delicate network of gold seemed too
+fragile for all the jewels with which it was enriched, and kneeling upon
+the floor, began to arrange a cluster of flowers. Her active fingers had
+just wound the last crimson and white roses together, when a footman
+knocked at the door. She started up, and went to see what was wanted.
+
+"Madam, the company are arriving; two carriages have set down their
+loads already."
+
+Ada had been too long in society for this announcement to confuse or
+hurry her, had no other cause of excitement arisen; as it was, the
+superb repose, usual to her manner, was disturbed.
+
+"Who are they? have you seen them before?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, madam, often."
+
+"No stranger--no gentleman who never came before--you are certain?"
+
+"None, madam."
+
+There was something more in this than the usual anxiety of a hostess to
+receive her guests.
+
+"I am insane to loiter here," she murmured, drawing on her gloves; "he
+might come and I not there; for the universe I would not miss his first
+look. The bouquet, Rosanna, and handkerchief--where is my handkerchief?"
+
+"Is this it, ma'am?" said Julia, raising a soft mass of gossamer cambric
+and costly lace from the carpet, where it had fallen.
+
+This drew Ada's notice once more to the child.
+
+"Oh! I had forgotten," she said, going back to the toilet and taking up
+a purse that lay among the jewel cases; "I have not time to count it;
+take the money, but some day you must bring back the purse--remember."
+
+She took her bouquet hastily from the waiting-maid, and went out,
+leaving the purse in Julia's hand. After crossing the boudoir, she
+turned back.
+
+"Remember, the flowers are for these rooms," she said, addressing the
+maid, and waving her hand, with a motion that indicated the bed-chamber
+and boudoir. "Let me find them everywhere."
+
+With this command, she disappeared, leaving the doors open behind her.
+
+Julia drew a deep breath, as the wave of her garments was lost in
+descending the stairs; turning sorrowfully away, her eyes fell upon the
+purse; several gold pieces gleamed through the crimson net work.
+
+"What shall I do--these cannot be all mine? the flowers did not cost
+half so much."
+
+"No matter," was the cheerful reply; "she gave it to you. It is her way;
+keep it."
+
+The child still hesitated.
+
+"If you think it is not all right, say so when you bring back the
+purse," said the maid, good naturedly. "Who knows but it may prove a
+fairy gift? I'm sure her presents often do."
+
+Julia was not quite convinced, even by this kind prophecy. Still, she
+had no choice but obedience, and so, bidding pretty Rosanna a gentle
+good night, she stole through the boudoir and away through the front
+entrance, for she knew of no other; and folding her shawl closer, as she
+encountered crowds of brilliantly dressed people she passed through the
+vestibule.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE FORGED CHECK.
+
+     Secure in undiscovered crime
+       The callous soul grows bold at length.
+     Stern justice sometimes bides her time,
+       But strikes at last with double strength.
+
+
+Leicester went to the Astor House after his marriage, for though he had
+accepted an invitation to Mrs. Gordon's fancy ball, which was turning
+the fashionable world half crazy, matters more important demanded his
+attention. Premeditating a crime which might bring its penalty directly
+upon his own person, he had made arrangements to evade all possible
+chance of this result, by embarking at once for Europe with his falsely
+married bride. In order to prepare funds for this purpose, the project
+for which Robert Otis had been so long in training, had been that day
+put in action. The old copy-book, with its mass of evidence, was, as he
+supposed, safe in Robert's apartment. The check, forged with marvellous
+accuracy, which we have seen placed in his letter case, passed that
+morning into the hands of his premeditated victim, and at night the
+youth was to meet him with the money. Thus everything seemed secure.
+True, his own hands had signed the check, but Robert had presented it at
+the bank, _he_ would draw the money. When the fraud became known, _his_
+premises would be searched, and there was the old copy-book bearing
+proofs of such practice in penmanship as would condemn any one. Over and
+over again might the very signature of that forged check be found in the
+pages of this book, on scraps of loose paper, and even on other checks
+bearing the same imprint, and on the same paper. With proof so strong
+against the youth, how was suspicion to reach Leicester? Would the
+simple word of an accused lad be taken? And what other evidence existed?
+None--none. It was a fiendishly woven plot, and at every point seemed
+faultless. Still Leicester was ill at ease. The consciousness that the
+act of this day had placed him within possible reach of the law, was
+unpleasant to a man in whom prudence almost took the place of
+conscience. The hour had arrived, but Robert was not at Leicester's
+chamber when he returned. This made the evil-doer anxious and restless.
+He walked the room, he leaned from the window and looked out upon the
+crowd below. He drank off glass after glass of wine, and for once
+suffered all the fierce tortures of dread and suspense which he had so
+ruthlessly inflicted on others.
+
+At this time Robert Otis was in the building, waiting for Jacob Strong.
+That strange personage came at last, but more agitated than Robert had
+ever seen him. Well he might be; an hour before he had left Leicester's
+wretched bride but half conscious of her misery, and making
+heart-rending struggles to disbelieve the wrong that had been practised
+upon her. In an hour more he was to conduct her where she would learn
+all the sorrow of her destiny. Jacob had a feeling heart, and these
+thoughts gave him more pain than any one would have deemed possible.
+
+"Here is the money; go down at once and give it to him; I heard his step
+in the chamber," he said, addressing Robert. "The count is correct, I
+drew it myself from the bank this morning."
+
+"Tell me, is this money yours?" questioned the youth, "I would do
+nothing in the dark."
+
+"You are right, boy; no, the money is not mine, I am not worth half the
+sum. I have no time for a long story, but there is one--a lady, rich
+beyond anything you ever dreamed of--who takes a deep interest in this
+bad man."
+
+"What, Florence--Miss Craft?" exclaimed Robert.
+
+"No, an older and still more noble victim. I had but to tell her the
+money would be used for him, and, behold, ten thousand dollars--the sum
+he thought enough to pay for your eternal ruin. My poor nephew!"
+
+"Nephew, did you say, nephew, Jacob?"
+
+"Yes, call me Jacob--Jacob Strong--Uncle Jacob--call me anything you
+like, for I have loved you, I have tried you--kiss me! kiss me! I
+haven't had you in my arms since you were a baby--and I want something
+to warm my heart. I never thought it could ache as it has to-night."
+
+"Uncle Jacob--my mother's only brother--I do not understand it, but to
+know this is enough!"
+
+The youth flung himself upon Jacob's bosom, and for a moment was almost
+crushed in those huge arms.
+
+"Now that has done me lots of good!" exclaimed the uncle, brushing a
+tear from his eyes with the cuff of his coat, a school-boy habit that
+came back with the first powerful home feeling. "Now go down and feed
+the serpent with this money. You won't be afraid to mind me now."
+
+"No, if you were to order me to jump out of the window I would do it."
+
+"You might, you might, for I would be at the bottom to catch you in my
+arms! Here is the money, I will be in the drawing-room as a witness: it
+won't be the first time, I can tell you."
+
+Leicester started and turned pale, even to his lips, as Robert entered
+his chamber, for a sort of nervous dread possessed him; and in order to
+escape from this, his anxiety to obtain means of leaving the country
+became intense. He looked keenly at Robert, but waited for him to speak.
+The youth was also pale, but resolute and self-possessed.
+
+"The bank was closed before I got there," he said, in a quiet, business
+tone, placing a small leathern box on the table, and unlocking it, "but
+I found a person who was willing to negotiate the check. He will not
+want the money at once, and so it saves him the trouble of making a
+deposit."
+
+Leicester could with difficulty suppress the exclamation of relief that
+sprang to his lips, as Robert opened the box, revealing it half full of
+gold; but remembering that any exhibition of pleasure would be out of
+place, he observed, with apparent composure--
+
+"You have counted it, I suppose? Were you obliged to exchange bills
+with any of the brokers, as I directed, to get the gold?"
+
+"No, it was paid as you see it," answered the youth, moving toward the
+door; for his heart so rose against the man, that he could not force
+himself to endure the scene a moment longer than was necessary.
+
+"Stay, take the box with you," said Leicester, pouring the gold into a
+drawer of his desk; "I will not rob you of that."
+
+Robert understood the whole; a faint smile curved his lip, and taking
+the box, he went out.
+
+"No evidence--nothing but pure gold," muttered Leicester, exultingly, as
+he closed the drawer. "It is well for you, my young friend, that the
+holder of that precious document does not wish to present his check at
+once. Liberty is sweet to the young, and this secures a few more days of
+its enjoyment for you--and for me! Ah, there everything happens most
+fortunately. Why, a good steamer will put us half over the Atlantic
+before this little mistake is suspected."
+
+Leicester was a changed man after this; his spirits rose with unnatural
+exhilaration.
+
+"Now for this grand ball," he said aloud, surveying his fine person in
+the glass. "Surely a man's wedding garments ought to be fancy dress
+enough. Another pair of gloves, though. This comes of temptation. I must
+finger the gold, forsooth."
+
+The ruthless man smiled, and muttered these broken fragments of thought,
+as he took off the scarcely soiled gloves, and replaced them with a pair
+still more spotlessly white. He was a long time fitting them on his
+hand. He fastidiously rearranged other portions of his dress. All sense
+of the great fraud, that ought to have borne his soul to the earth, had
+left him when the gold appeared. You could see, by his broken words, how
+completely lighter fancies had replaced the black deed.
+
+"This Mrs. Gordon--I wonder if she really is the creature they represent
+her to be. If it were not for this voyage to Europe, now, one
+might--no, no, there is no chance now; but I'll have a sight at her."
+Thus muttering and smiling, Leicester left the hotel.
+
+The evening was very beautiful, and Leicester always loved to enter a
+fashionable drawing-room after the guests had assembled. He reflected
+that a quiet walk would bring him to Mrs. Gordon's mansion about the
+time he thought most desirable, and sauntered on, resolved, at any rate,
+not to reach his destination too early. But sometimes he fell into
+thought, and then his pace became unconsciously hurried. He reached the
+upper part of the city earlier than he had intended, and had taken out
+his watch before a lighted window, to convince himself of the time, when
+a timid voice addressed him--
+
+"Sir, will you please tell me the name of this street?"
+
+He turned, and saw the little girl whom he had forced to become a
+witness to his marriage. She shrunk back, terrified, on recognizing him.
+
+"I did not know--I did not mean it," she faltered out.
+
+"What, have you lost your way?" said Leicester, in a voice that made her
+shiver, though it was low and sweet enough.
+
+"Yes, sir, but I can find it!"
+
+"Where do you live?--oh, I remember. Well, as I have time enough, what
+if I walk a little out of my way, and see that nothing harms you?"
+
+"No, no--the trouble!"
+
+"Never mind the trouble. You shall show me where you live, pretty one;
+then I shall be certain where to find you again."
+
+Still Julia hesitated.
+
+"Besides," said Leicester, taking out his purse, "you forget, I have not
+paid for robbing your basket of all those pretty flowers."
+
+"No!" answered the child, now quite resolutely. "I am paid. The poor
+young lady is welcome to them."
+
+Leicester laughed. "The poor young lady!--my own pretty bride! Well, I
+like that."
+
+Julia walked on. She hoped that he would forget his object, or only
+intended to frighten her. But he kept by her side, and was really amused
+by the terror inflicted on the child. He had half an hour's time on his
+hand--how could he kill it more pleasantly? Besides, he really was
+anxious to know with certainty where the young creature lived. She was
+one of his witnesses. She had, in a degree, become connected with his
+fate. Above all, she was terrified to death, and like Nero, Leicester
+would have amused himself with torturing flies, if no larger or fiercer
+animal presented itself. His evil longing to give pain was insatiable as
+the Roman tyrant's, and more cruel; for while Nero contented himself
+with physical agony, Leicester appeased his craving spirit with nothing
+but keen mental feeling. The Roman emperor would sometimes content
+himself with a fiddle; but the music that Leicester loved best was the
+wail of sensitive heart-strings.
+
+"I live here," said Julia, stopping short, before a low, old house, in a
+close side street, breathless with the efforts she had made to escape
+her tormentor. "Do not go any farther, Grandpa never likes to see
+strangers."
+
+"Go on--go on," answered Leicester, in a tone that was jeeringly
+good-natured; "grandpa will be delighted."
+
+Julia ran desperately down the area steps. She longed to close the
+basement door after her and hold it against the intruder, but as this
+idea flashed across her mind, Leicester stood by her side in the dark
+hall. She ran forward and opened the door of that poor basement room
+which was her home. Still he kept by her side. The basement was full of
+that dusky gloom which a handful of embers had power to shed through the
+darkness; for the old people, whose outlines were faintly seen upon the
+hearth, were still too poor for a prodigal waste of light when no work
+was to be done by it.
+
+"Is it you, darling, and so out of breath?" said the voice of an old
+man, who rose and began to grope with his hand upon the mantel-piece.
+"What kept you so long? poor grandma has been in a terrible way about
+it." While he spoke, the grating of a match that would not readily
+ignite, was heard against the chimney piece.
+
+"The gentleman, grandpa--here is a gentleman. He would come!" cried the
+child, artlessly.
+
+This seemed to startle the old man. The match would not kindle; he
+stooped down and touched it to a live ember; as he rose again the pale
+blue flames fell upon the face of his wife, and rose to his own
+features. The illumination was but for a moment--then the wick began to
+fuse slowly into flame, but it was nearly half a minute before the
+miserable candle gave out its full complement of light. The old man
+turned toward the open door, shading the candle with his hand.
+
+"Where, child? I see no gentleman."
+
+Julia looked around. A moment before, Leicester had stood at her side.
+"He is gone--he is gone," she exclaimed, springing forward. "Oh,
+grandma--oh, grandpa, how he did frighten me; it was the man I saw on
+the wharf, that day!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING.
+
+     We think to conquer circumstance, and sometimes win
+       A hold upon events that seemeth power.
+     But nothing stable waiteth upon sin;
+       God holds the cords of life, and in an hour
+     The strongest fabric built by human mind
+       Falls with a crash, and leaves a wreck behind.
+
+
+Splendid beyond anything hitherto known in American life, was the ball,
+of which our readers have obtained but partial glimpses. At least a
+dozen rooms, some of them palatial in dimensions, others bijoux of
+elegance, were thrown open to the brilliant throng that had begun to
+assemble when the flower-girl left the mansion. The conservatory was
+filled with blossoming plants, and lighted entirely by lamps, placed in
+alabaster vases, or swinging-like moons, from the waves of crystal that
+formed the roof. Masses of South American plants sheeted the sides with
+blossoms. Passion flowers crept up the crystal roof, and drooped their
+starry blossoms among the lamps. Trees, rich with the light feathery
+foliage peculiar to the tropics, bent over and sheltered the blossoming
+plants. An aquatic lily floated in the marble basin of a tiny fountain,
+spreading its broad green leaves on the water, and sheltering a host of
+arrowy, little gold-fish, that flashed in and out from their shadows.
+The air was redolent with heliotrope, daphnes, and cape-jessamines. Soft
+mosses crept around the marble basin, and dropped downward to the
+tesselated floor. It was like entering fairy land, as you came into this
+star-lit wilderness of flowers, from a noble picture-gallery, which
+divided it from the reception room. It was one of Dunlap's
+master-pieces. No artist ever arranged a more noble picture--no peri
+ever found a lovelier paradise. The silken curtains that divided the
+picture-gallery from the reception rooms were drawn back; thus a vista
+was formed down which the eye wandered till the perspective lost itself
+in the star-lighted masses of foliage; and on entering the first
+drawing-room, which was flooded with gas-light, a scene was presented
+that no European palace could rival, save in extent. Each of the tall,
+stained windows, had a corresponding recess, filled with mirrors that
+multiplied and reflected back every beautiful object within its range.
+Fresco paintings gleamed from the ceilings, but so delicately managed
+and enwrought in the light golden scrolls, that all over-gorgeousness
+was avoided. Each room possessed distinct colors, and had its own style
+of ornament; but natural contrasts were so strictly maintained, and
+harmonies so managed, that the rooms, when all thrown open, presented
+one brilliant whole, that might have been studied like the work of a
+great artist, and always found to present new beauties.
+
+The rooms filled rapidly. The fancy dresses gave new éclat to the rooms.
+No royal court day ever presented a scene of greater magnificence. The
+flash of jewels--the wave of feathers--the glitter of brocades, had
+something regal in it, quite at variance with the simple republican
+habits with which our young country began its career among the nations
+of the earth. But in all this dazzling throng, our story deals more
+particularly with the four persons toward whom destiny was making rapid
+strides through all this glitter and gaiety.
+
+William Leicester entered among the latest guests. The evening had been
+so full of events, that even his iron nerves were shaken, and he entered
+the mansion with pale cheeks and glittering eyes, as if conscious that
+he was rushing forward to his fate.
+
+What was it that prompted the tantalizing wish to follow that young girl
+home, till she led him into the presence of that old couple, cowering
+over the fire in that dark basement? What evil spirit was crowding
+events so closely around him? He began to feel a sort of self-distrust;
+something like superstition crept over him, and he panted to place the
+Atlantic between himself and all these haunting perplexities.
+
+A few distinguished persons had been allowed to attend the ball in
+citizens' dress, and among these, was Leicester, who appeared in the
+elegant but unostentatious suit worn at his wedding ceremony.
+
+"Why, Leicester, you are pale! Has anything happened; or is it only the
+effect of that white vest?" said a young Turk, who stood near the
+entrance, removing his admiring eyes from the point of his own
+embroidered slipper, to regard his friend.
+
+"Pale! No, I am only tired, making preparations for Europe, you know."
+
+"A great bore, isn't it?" answered the young man, adjusting his cashmere
+scarf. "Isn't Mrs. Gordon beautiful to-night; the handsomest woman in
+the room, not to speak of uncounted pyramids! She'd be a catch--even for
+you, Leicester."
+
+"She must have demolished some of her pyramids, before this paradise was
+created, I fancy," answered Leicester, looking down the vista of open
+rooms, now crowded with life and beauty.
+
+"Yes, three at least," replied the juvenile Turk, planting one foot
+forward on the carpet, that he might admire the flow of his ample
+trousers; "one hundred and fifty thousand never paid for a place like
+this."
+
+"So you, young gentleman, set fifty thousand down as a pyramid. Now,
+what if a lady chances to have only the half of that sum; how do you
+estimate her?"
+
+"Twenty-five thousand!" repeated the exquisite; "a woman with no more
+than that isn't worth estimating; at any rate, till after a fellow gets
+to be an old fogy of two or three and twenty."
+
+A quiet, mocking smile curved Leicester's lip. Though rather sensitive
+regarding his own age, he was really amused by this specimen of Young
+America.
+
+"So, this widow, with so many pyramids--you think she would be a match
+worth looking after. What if I make the effort?"
+
+"If you were twenty or twenty-five years younger, it might do."
+
+Leicester laughed outright.
+
+"Well, as I am too old for a rival, perhaps you will show me where the
+lady is; I have never seen her yet."
+
+"What--never seen Mrs. Gordon, the beautiful Mrs. Gordon! I thought you
+old chaps were keener on the scent. I know half a hundred young
+gentlemen dead in for it."
+
+"Then there is certainly no chance for me."
+
+"I should rather think not," replied the youth, smiling complacently at
+his own reflection in an opposite mirror; "especially without costume. A
+dress like this, now, is a sort of thing that takes with women."
+
+Leicester was getting weary of the youth.
+
+"Well," he said, "if you will not aid me, I must find the lady myself."
+
+"Oh, wait till the crowd leaves us an opening. There, the music strikes
+up--they are off for the waltz; now you have a good view; isn't she
+superb?"
+
+For one moment a cloud came over Leicester's eyes. He swept his gloved
+hand over them, and now he saw clearly.
+
+"Which--which is Mrs. Gordon?" he said in a sharp voice, that almost
+startled the young exquisite out of his oriental propriety.
+
+"Why, how dull you are--as if there ever existed another woman on earth
+to be mistaken for her."
+
+"Is that the woman?" questioned Leicester, almost extending his arm
+toward a lady dressed as Ceres, who stood near the door of an adjoining
+room.
+
+"Of course it is. Come, let me present you, while there is a chance,
+though how the deuce you got here without a previous introduction, I
+cannot tell. Come, she is looking this way."
+
+"Not yet," answered Leicester, drawing aside, where he was less liable
+to observation.
+
+"Why, how strangely you look all at once. Caught with the first glance,
+ha?" persisted his tormentor.
+
+Leicester attempted to smile, but his lips refused to move. He would
+have spoken, but for once speech left him.
+
+"Come, come, I am engaged for the next polka."
+
+"Excuse me," answered Leicester, drawing his proud figure to its full
+height; "I was only jesting; Mrs. Gordon and I are old acquaintances."
+
+"Then I will go find my partner," cried the Turk, half terrified by the
+flash of those fierce eyes.
+
+"Do," said Leicester, leaning upon the slab of a music table that stood
+near.
+
+And now, with a fiend at his heart and fire in his eye, William
+Leicester stood regarding his wife.
+
+Ada had given this ball for a purpose. It was here, surrounded by all
+the pomp and state secured by position and immense wealth, that she
+intended once more to meet her husband. What hidden motive lay in the
+depths of her mind, I do not know. Perhaps--for love like hers will
+descend to strange humiliations--she expected to win back a gleam of his
+old tenderness, by the magnificence which she knew he loved so well.
+Perhaps she really intended to startle him by her queenly presence, load
+him with scornful reproaches, and so separate forever. This, probably,
+was the reason she gave to her own heart; but I still think a dream of
+reconciliation slept at the bottom of it all.
+
+At another time Ada would have been dressed with less magnificence under
+her own roof: for her taste was perfect, and the elegant simplicity of
+her style was at all times remarkable. But now she had an object to
+accomplish--a proud soul to humble to the dust; and she loaded herself
+with pomp, as a warrior encases himself in armor just before a battle.
+
+The character of Ceres, in which she appeared, was peculiarly adapted to
+the perfection of her beauty and the natural grace of her person. In
+order to increase the magnificence of this costume, she had ordered all
+her jewels to be reset at Ball & Black's, in wreaths, bouquets, and
+clusters, adapted to the character; and as Leicester gazed upon her from
+the distance, his eyes were absolutely dazzled with flashes of rainbow
+light that followed every movement of her person.
+
+Her over-skirt of fine Brussels point was gathered up in soft clouds
+from the amber satin dress, by clusters of fruit, grass, and leaves, all
+of precious stones. Cherries, the size of life, cut from glowing
+carbuncles; grapes in amethyst clusters, or amber hued, from the
+Oriental topaz; stems of ruby currants; crab-apples, cut from the red
+coral of Naples; with wheat ears, barbed with gold, and set thick with
+diamond grain; all mingled with leaves and bending grass, lighted with
+emeralds, were grouped among the gossamer lace, whence the light came
+darting forth with a thousand sunset glories.
+
+Her fair, round arms were exposed almost to the shoulder, where a
+quantity of soft lace, that fell like a mist across her bosom, was
+gathered up with clusters of fruit-like jewels. Her hair, arranged after
+the fashion of a Greek statue, flowed back from the head in waves and
+ringlets, and was crowned by a garland of jewels that shot rays of
+tinted light through all her golden tresses. The choicest jewels she
+possessed had been reserved for this garland, wreathed in both fruit and
+flowers. Here diamond fuschias, veined with rubies, and forget me-nots
+of torquoise, each with a yellow pearl at the heart, were grouped with
+diamond wheat ears and stems of currants, some heavy with ruby fruit,
+others beset with yellow diamonds. The grape leaves that fell around her
+temples were green with emeralds, and a single cluster of cherries,
+formed from carbuncles, that seemed to have a drop of wine floating at
+the heart, drooped over her white forehead. Great diamond drops were
+scattered like dew over these dazzling clusters, and fell away down the
+ringlets of her hair.
+
+Ada stood beneath the blaze of a chandelier, that poured its light over
+the singular wreath, and struck the jewels of her girdle, till they sent
+it back in broken flashes. Waves of lace were gathered beneath this
+girdle, as we find the drapery around those antique statues of Ceres,
+still existing in fragments at Athens.
+
+Leicester stood motionless, gazing upon his wife. Every gem about her
+person seemed to fix its value upon his mind. This surprise had
+overpowered him for a moment, but no event had the power to disturb him,
+even for the brief time he had been regarding her.
+
+His resolution was taken. Self-possessed, and, but for a wild brilliancy
+of the eyes and a slight paleness about the mouth, tranquil as if they
+had parted but yesterday, he moved down the room.
+
+The crowd was drawn off toward the dancing saloon, and at that moment
+the reception room, in which Ada stood, was somewhat relieved of the
+glittering crowd that had pressed around her but a moment before.
+
+Still several persons were grouped near her, glad to seize upon every
+disengaged moment of the hostess; for never in her brightest mood had
+she been half so brilliant as now. Her lips grew red with the flashes
+of wit that passed through them. Her eyes flashed with animation, and a
+warm scarlet flush lay upon her cheek, burning there like flame, but
+growing more and more brilliant as the evening wore on. Sometimes she
+would pause in the midst of a sentence, and look searchingly in the
+crowd. Then a frown would contract her forehead, as if the jewelled
+garland were beset with hidden thorns that pierced her temples; but when
+reminded of this her smile grew brilliant again, and some flash of wit
+displaced the impression her countenance had made the moment before.
+
+She had just made some laughing reply to a gentleman who stood near her,
+and turning away, cast another of those anxious looks over the room. She
+gave a faint start; her eye flashed, and drawing her form up to its full
+height, she stood with curved lips and burning cheeks, ready to receive
+her husband. He came down the room, slowly moving forward with his usual
+noiseless grace. He paused now and then as the crowd pressed on him, and
+it was a full minute after she first saw him, before he approached her
+near enough to speak.
+
+"My dear lady, I shall never forgive myself for coming so late," he
+said, reaching forth his hand. "Why did not your invitations say at once
+that we were invited to paradise?"
+
+For one moment Ada turned pale and lost her self-possession. The
+audacious coolness of the man astonished her. She had expected to take
+him by surprise, and promised herself the enjoyment of his confusion;
+but before his speech was finished the blood rushed to her cheek, her
+lips grew red again, and her eyes seemed showering fire into his. He had
+taken her hand, while speaking, and pressed it gently, but with a
+meaning that aroused all the pride of her nature.
+
+Did he hope to practice his old arts upon her? Was she a school girl to
+be won back by a pressure of the hand and frothy compliments to her
+dwelling? The crafty man had mistaken her for once. She withdrew her
+hand with a laugh.
+
+"So you were ignorant that the goddess of plenty reigned here."
+
+There was meaning in the light words, and for an instant Leicester's
+audacious eyes fell beneath the glance of hers; but he recovered himself
+with a breath.
+
+"The character is badly chosen. I could have selected better."
+
+"What, pray--what would you have selected?" she asked, with breathless
+haste.
+
+He stooped forward, and with a smile upon his lips, as if he had been
+uttering a compliment, whispered "A Niobe."
+
+The tone in which this was uttered, more than the words, stung her.
+
+She drew back with a suddenness that scattered the light like sunbeams
+from her jewelled garland.
+
+"Everything that Niobe loved turned to stone. In that we are alike," she
+said, in a suppressed voice that trembled with feeling.
+
+He bent his head and was about to answer in the same undertone, but she
+drew back with a low defiant laugh.
+
+"No--no. It is a sad character, and I have long since done with tears,"
+she answered, turning to a gay group that had gathered around her, "What
+say you, gentlemen, our friend here prefers a mournful character; do I
+look like a woman who ever weeps?"
+
+"Not unless the angels weep," answered one of the group.
+
+"Angels do weep when they leave the homes assigned to them," whispered
+Leicester, again bending towards her, "and it is fitting that they
+should."
+
+She did not recoil that time. His words rather stung her into strength,
+and strange to say, Leicester seemed less hateful to her while uttering
+these covert reproaches, than his first adroit compliment had rendered
+him. A retort was on her lip, but that instant a group came in from the
+dancing saloon, laughing and full of excitement.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Gordon, such a droll character!" cried a flower girl, pressing
+her way to the hostess; "a postman with bundles of letters, real
+letters; you never saw anything like it. I'm sure Mr. Willis and some
+other poets here, that I could point out, have had a hand in getting up
+this mail, for some of the letters are full of delightful poetry. Only
+look here, isn't this sweet?"
+
+The girl held up an open paper, in which half a dozen lines of poetry
+were visible.
+
+"Read it aloud--read it aloud," cried several voices at once. "No one
+has secrets here!"
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't for anything," answered the young lady, tossing the
+flowers about in her basket, with a simper; "Mrs. Gordon won't insist, I
+am sure."
+
+Ada saw what was expected of her, and held the letter aloof, when the
+young lady made feints at snatching it away.
+
+"But what if Mrs. Gordon does insist?" she said. "The postman has no
+business to bring letters here that are not for the public amusement."
+
+"Well, now, isn't it too bad," cried the flower girl, striving to
+conceal her satisfaction with a pout. "I am sure it's not my fault."
+
+"Read, read," cried voices from the crowd.
+
+"No," said Ada, weary with the scene, and mischievously inclined to
+punish the girl for her affectation; "all amusement must be voluntary
+here."
+
+The young lady took her note with a pout that was genuine, this time,
+and hid it in her basket.
+
+During this brief scene, Leicester had glided from the room unobserved,
+and two strange characters took his place. This would hardly have been
+remarked in so large an assembly, but the costumes in which these
+persons appeared, were so arranged that they amounted to a disguise. One
+was robed as Night, the other as Morning; but the cloud-like drapery
+that fell around them, was of glossy, Florence silk, which allowed them
+to see what was passing, while their own features were entirely
+concealed. Neither of them spoke, and their presence cast a restraint
+upon the crowd close around the hostess. They seemed conscious of this,
+and gradually drew back, stationing themselves at last close by a
+pillar, that separated two rooms directly behind Ada and the group that
+surrounded her.
+
+Leicester had only been to the gentleman's dressing-room, which was at
+that hour quite empty. He seemed hurried and somewhat agitated on
+entering. Going up to a light he took a letter-case from his bosom, and
+hastily shuffling over some papers it contained, selected one from the
+parcel. He opened this hurriedly, glanced at the first lines, and then
+looked around the room, as if in search of something.
+
+Evidently the letters and poems from which the mock postman was
+supplied, had been arranged there, for a writing table stood in one
+corner littered with pens, fancy note-paper and envelopes.
+
+"How fortunate," broke from Leicester, as he saw these accommodations;
+and he began to search among the envelopes for one of the size he
+wanted. Having accomplished this, he placed the paper taken from his
+letter-case open upon the table; and the light of a wax taper, that
+stood ready for use, revealed a tress of hair that lay curled within it.
+
+Leicester pushed the curl aside with his finger, while he directed the
+envelope, refering to the paper every other letter, as if to compare his
+work with the writing it contained.
+
+When this was accomplished and his hand removed, the light fell upon his
+own name written in a feminine running hand. He smiled as if satisfied
+with the address, replaced the lock of hair in the paper, and folded
+both in the envelope, which he carefully sealed. He left the room with a
+crafty smile on his lip, and beckoned to an attendant.
+
+"Take this and give it to the postman you will find somewhere in the
+second drawing-room. Tell him Mrs. Gordon wishes him to deliver it when
+she is present; you understand."
+
+"Oh, yes," said the French servant, charmed with a mission so congenial
+to his taste, "I've had a good many to carry down before to-night."
+
+"Do this quietly--you understand--and here is something for the
+postage."
+
+"Monsieur is magnificent," said the man, taking the piece of gold with
+a profound bow. "He shall see how invisible I shall become."
+
+Leicester stole back to the reception rooms again, and glided into the
+group that still surrounded the hostess, unobserved as he thought; but
+those who watched Ada closely, would have seen the apathy, that had
+crept over her during his absence, suddenly flung off, while her manner
+and look became wildly brilliant once more. At this moment Night and
+Morning drew closer to the pillar, and sheltered themselves behind it.
+
+"Here he comes--here comes the postman," cried half a dozen young ladies
+at once; "who will get a letter now? Mrs. Gordon, of course!"
+
+One of the first lawyers of the State entered the room, acting the
+postman with great diligence and exactitude. He carried a bundle of
+letters on his arm, and held some loose in his hands. There was a great
+commotion among the young ladies when he presented himself, a flirting
+of fans and waving of curls that might have tempted any man from his
+course. He turned neither to the right nor left, but marching directly
+up to Leicester, presented a letter with "Two cents, sir, if you
+please."
+
+Leicester as gravely took the letter, drew a five-cent piece from his
+pocket, and placed it in the outstretched hand of the postman, with,
+"The change, if you please."
+
+A burst of laughter followed this scene; but the postman, no way
+disconcerted, placed the five-cent piece between his teeth, while he
+searched his pocket for the change. Drawing forth three cents, he
+counted them into Leicester's palm, and strode on again, as if every
+mail in the United States depended on his diligence. Leicester stood a
+moment with the letter in his hand, smiling and seemingly a little
+embarrassed about opening it!
+
+Ada glanced sharply from the letter to his face. Even then she was
+struck with a jealous pang that made her recoil with self-contempt.
+
+"No! no--that will never do," called out voices all around, as
+Leicester seemed about to place the note in his pocket--"All letters are
+public property here--break the seal--break the seal!"
+
+With a derisive smile on his lip, as if coerced into doing a silly
+thing, he broke the seal and unfolded the missive. A tress of golden
+hair dropped to his feet, which he snatched up hurriedly, and grasped in
+his hand. A burst of gay laughter followed the act.
+
+"Read--read--it is poetry--we can see that--give us the poetry!" broke
+merrily around him.
+
+"Spare me," said Leicester, apparently annoyed; "but if the fair lady
+chooses to enlighten you, she has my consent."
+
+Ada reached forth her hand for the paper. A strange sensation crept over
+her, with the first sight of it in the mock postman's hand, and it was
+with an effort that she conquered this feeling sufficiently to open the
+paper, with her usual careless ease.
+
+She glanced at the first line. Her lips moved as if she were trying to
+speak; but they uttered no sound, and by slow degrees the red died out
+from them.
+
+Leicester watched her closely with his half averted eyes, and those
+around him looked on in gay expectation; for no one else observed the
+change in her countenance. To the crowd, she seemed only gathering up
+the spirit of the lines, before she commenced reading them aloud. The
+paper contained a wild, impulsive appeal to him, after the first jealous
+outbreak that had disturbed their married life. As usual, when a warm
+heart has either done or suffered wrong, it matters little which, she
+had been the first to make concessions, and lavish in self-blame, poured
+forth her passionate regret, as if all the fault had been hers. In her
+first jealous indignation, she had demanded a tress of hair, for which
+he had importuned her one night at the old homestead.
+
+He rendered it coldly back without a word. Wild with affright, lest this
+was the seal of eternal separation, she had sent back the tress of hair
+now grasped in Leicester's hand, with the lines which, with the plotting
+genius of a fiend, he had placed in her hand.
+
+Poor Ada, she was unconscious of the crowd. The days of her youth came
+back--the old homestead--the pangs and joys of her first married life.
+While she seemed to read, a life-time of memories swept through her
+brain, which ached with the sudden rush of thought.
+
+Leicester stood regarding her with apparent unconcern; but it was as the
+spider watches the fly in his net.
+
+"She cannot read it aloud--I thought so," he said inly, "let her
+struggle--while her lips pale in that fashion she is mine; I knew it
+would smite her to the heart. Let the fools clamor, she is struck dumb
+with old memories."
+
+Unconsciously a cold smile of triumph crept over his lips, as these
+thoughts gained strength from Ada's continued silence. With her eyes on
+the paper, she still seemed to read.
+
+At length her guests became politely impatient.
+
+"We are all attention," cried a voice.
+
+She did not hear it; but others set in with laughing clamor; and at
+length she looked up, as if wondering what all the noise was about. Her
+eyes fell upon Leicester. She saw the smile of which he was probably
+unconscious, and the present flashed back to her brain.
+
+"He hopes to crush me with these memories," she thought with lightning
+intuition.
+
+The life came back to her eyes, the strength to her limbs, and without
+hesitation or pause, her voice broke forth. As she went on, the fire of
+a wounded nature flashed over her face. Her voice swelled out rich and
+passionately. Her woman's heart seemed beating in every word.
+
+
+     Take back the tress! the broken chain,
+       Its fragile folds have linked around us,
+     May never re-unite again!
+       And every gentle tie that bound us,
+     The madness of a single hour--
+       The madness of a word--has parted,
+     Leaving the marble in thy power:
+       And me, ah more than broken hearted.
+
+     Take back the tress! I cannot bear
+       To hold the link my hand has scattered;
+     It mocks me, in my dark despair,
+       With scenes and hopes forever shatter'd;
+     It haunts me with a thousand things--
+       A thousand words, half felt, half spoken--
+     When thy proud soul with eagle wings
+       Stoop'd to the heart now almost broken.
+
+     It haunts me with the deep, low tones,
+       That stir'd my soul to more than gladness
+     When we seemed in the world, alone,
+       And joy grew deep almost to sadness.
+     Is there no charm to win thee back,
+       To wake the love thy pride is crushing?
+     Has mem'ry left no golden track--
+       No music which thy heart is hushing?
+
+     Is there within this little tress
+       No thought but that which wakes thy scorning?
+     Oh say, was there no happiness
+       Within thy breast that summer morning,
+     When from my brow the curl was shred
+       With hand that shook in joy, and terror;
+     And love, half hush'd in trembling dread,
+       Shrunk back, as if to feel were error?
+
+     My soul is filled with deep regret,
+       That I who loved thee so, could doubt thee!
+     Sweep back thy pride, forgive, forget!
+       Life is so desolate without thee.
+     I will not keep this tress of hair:
+       As ravens from their gloomy wings
+     Cast shadows, it but leaves despair
+       Upon the weary heart it wrings.
+
+     Where hope, and life, and faith are given,
+       I send it back, perchance too late;
+     Go cast it to the winds of heaven,
+       If it but rouse more bitter hate.
+     _I_ will not rend a single thread
+       That binds my willing soul to thine:
+     Take then the task; if love has fled,
+       Despoil love's desolated shrine.
+
+
+Her voice ceased to vibrate over the throng full half a minute, before
+the listeners breathed freely. The mesmeric influence of her hidden
+grief spread from heart to heart, till in its earnestness, the crowd
+forgot to applaud. Thus it happened that for some moments after she had
+done, there was silence all around her. The paper began to tremble in
+her hand--she tossed it carelessly toward Leicester.
+
+"The lady is too much in earnest--she quite takes away my breath," she
+said, with an air of gay mockery; "a grand passion like that must be
+very fatiguing."
+
+A flash rose to Leicester's brow. He took the paper, and refolding the
+curl of hair in it, placed both in his bosom. His manner was
+grave--almost humble. She had baffled him for once. But the game was not
+played out yet.
+
+The crowd that observed nothing but the surface of this scene, was still
+somewhat subdued by it; but the ringing notes of a waltz that swept in
+from the dancing saloon, set the gay current in motion again.
+
+"Who was it that engaged me for this waltz?" cried the hostess, glancing
+around the throng of distinguished men that surrounded her.
+
+Half a dozen voices gaily answered the challenge; but still, with a
+purpose at heart, she selected the most distinguished of the group, and
+was followed to the dancing saloon.
+
+Leicester remained behind. Even his strong nerves were ready to break
+down under the excitement crowded upon him that evening. Never had he
+been placed in a position of such difficulty. With two important crimes,
+perpetrated almost the same hour, urging immediate flight to Europe, he
+found himself constrained to remain and secure the still richer prize,
+the discovery of that evening seemed to place within his grasp. He
+leaned against the pillar near which Ada had been stationed to receive
+her guests, and made a prompt review of his position.
+
+"I must go," he thought, locking his teeth hard, as the necessity was
+forced upon him; "they must have time to put the boy up in Sing-Sing.
+The girl, too--fool that I was--she is the most troublesome part of the
+business. I will get her over sea, at once--the witnesses are
+nothing--she can't live over a few months--if she does----"
+
+A fiendish expression crept over his face, and after a moment, he
+muttered, so audibly, that the two shrouded females close by the pillar
+heard him; "But women's hearts never do break; if they did, Wilcox's
+daughter would have been in her grave long ago."
+
+A faint sob close by him, drove these evil thoughts inward again. There
+was a slight rustling near the pillar, and raising his eyes, he saw the
+two characters, Night and Morning, gliding away toward the dancers. He
+did not give the circumstance a second thought; but moved down the rooms
+toward the conservatory, where he could plot and think alone.
+
+"Yes, I _must_ go off and find a safe place for Florence. Thanks to my
+icy-hearted mother, who never had a visitor, there is no chance for
+gossip. Robert will be snugly-housed when I come back, and my man shall
+go with me."
+
+But a new obstacle arose in his mind--the flower-girl, his other
+witness. The old people, whose faces he had so dimly seen--what if Ada
+should learn all from them? The thought was formidable; but at last he
+thrust it aside, as undeserving of anxiety.
+
+"They will not meet; she has been years searching for them, and in vain;
+besides, I shall be back in a month or two. If that girl is obstinate
+and won't die, let her stay behind--that will settle it probably--the
+hectic is on her cheek now. But I must see this proud witch to-night.
+Poor Ada, how much trouble she takes to prove her love--I see it all;
+this grand display was for me--I was to be astonished, braved, taunted
+awhile, and after a tragic scene or two, my lady is meek as a lamb once
+more. The handsome wretch--she did outwit me with those lines; I thought
+they would have touched her to the heart. It was our first love quarrel.
+How the creature did go on then! Now I shall find her more difficult to
+bring under; but the same heart is at the bottom. I didn't think she
+could have read those lines aloud--so dauntlessly too. Jove! I almost
+loved her as she did it. Fool that I was, to make this trip across the
+ocean necessary. But for that, I might take possession now. Ada
+Wilcox--my pretty rustic Ada, reigning here like a queen! Mrs.
+Gordon--Mrs. Gordon! Faith, it's a capital joke. She's managed it
+splendidly--out-generaled Mrs. Nash and Mrs. Sykes both. More than that,
+she has half out-generaled Leicester too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE LAST INTERVIEW.
+
+     Thy race is run--thy fate is sealed,
+       Trust not the ties that bound thee;
+     A thousand snares, still unrevealed,
+       Are woven close around thee.
+
+     Nor strength, nor craft availeth now;
+       Thy stubborn will is riven;
+     The death drops hang upon thy brow,
+       There's justice yet in Heaven.
+
+
+It was over at last. The saloon, the banquet hall, the conservatory,
+sleeping in the moonlight shed from many a sculptured vase--all were
+deserted; wax candles flared and went out in their silver sockets;
+garlands grew dim and shadowy in the diminished light; half a dozen
+yawning footmen glided about extinguishing wax lights, and turning off
+gas, but they seemed ghost-like and dreary, wandering through the vast
+mansion.
+
+But Ada Leicester felt no fatigue; she saw nothing of the gloom that
+was so rapidly spreading over the splendor of her mansion. Her boudoir
+was still lighted by those two pearl-like lamps. It was a dim, luxurious
+twilight, that seemed hazy with the perfume stealing up from a dozen
+snowy vases scattered through the dressing-room, the bed-chamber, and
+the boudoir. The doors connecting these apartments were ajar, but closed
+enough to conceal one room from the other.
+
+Ada entered the boudoir. Her step was imperious; her cheek burning.
+Pride, anger and haughty scorn swelled in her bosom, as she seated
+herself to wait. One of those mysterious revulsions of feeling that are
+so frequent to a passionate and ill-disciplined nature, had swept over
+her heart. For the first time in her life she felt disposed to sting the
+foot that had trampled so ruthlessly upon her. In that moment, all the
+strong love of a lifetime seemed kindling into a fiery hate.
+
+It was one of those hours when we defy destiny--defy our own souls. A
+few hours earlier and she could not have met him thus with scorn on her
+brow, rebellion in her heart. A few hours after she might repent in
+tears, but now she waited his approach without a thrill of pleasure or
+of fear. The very memory of former tenderness filled her with
+self-contempt. The marble Flora stood over her--crimson roses and
+heliotrope had been mingled with the sculptured lilies in its hand. A
+few hours before she had stolen away from her guests, to place these
+blossoms among the marble counterfeits, for they breathed his favorite
+perfume; now, she sickened as the fragrance floated over her, and
+tearing them from the statue, tossed them amid a bed of coals still
+burning in the silver grate.
+
+She did not go back to the couch, but remained upon the ermine rug, with
+one arm resting upon the jetty marble of the mantel-piece. No footstep
+could be heard in that sumptuously carpeted house, but the proud spirit
+within her seemed to know when he stole softly forth from the
+conservatory, and approached the room where she was waiting.
+
+Leicester was self-possessed; he had a game to play, more intricate,
+more difficult than his experience had yet coped with, but this only
+excited his intellect. With a heart of stone the nerves hold no
+sympathy, and are obedient to the will alone: what or who had ever
+resisted Leicester's will!
+
+But she also was self-possessed, and this took him by surprise. He moved
+toward the grate and leaned his elbow on the mantel-piece, directly
+opposite her. She held a superb fan, half open, against her bosom: it
+was fringed deep with the gorgeous plumage of some tropical bird, but no
+tumult of the heart stirred a feather. She held it there, as she had
+often done that evening, when homage floated around her, gracefully and
+quietly waiting to be addressed. This mood was one he had not expected;
+it deranged all his premeditated plan of attack. Instead of reproaching
+him, with that passionate anger that pants for reconciliation, she was
+silent.
+
+"Ada!" The name was uttered in a voice that no heart that had loved the
+speaker could entirely resist. A faint shiver and an irregular breath
+were perceptibly ruffling, as it were, the plumage of her fan, but the
+proud woman only bent her head.
+
+"Was it delicate--was it honorable to deceive your husband thus?" he
+said, "to grant him one interview after so many years, and then conceal
+yourself from his search under this disguise? I have sought for you,
+Ada, Heaven only knows how anxiously."
+
+She smiled a cold incredulous smile, for well she knew how he had
+searched for her.
+
+"You do not believe me," said Leicester, attempting to take her hand;
+but she drew back, pressing the fan harder to her bosom, till the
+delicately wrought ivory broke. The demon of pride grew strong within
+her. For the first time in her life she felt a knowledge of power over
+the man who had been her fate.
+
+"Was I to seek you that your foot might be planted on my heart once
+more? Was I to offer my bosom to the serpent fang again and again? Have
+you forgotten our interview in the chamber overhead?--that chamber
+where I had hoarded every thing connected with the only happy months you
+ever permitted me to know--so full of precious memories? I thought they
+would touch even your heart."
+
+He attempted to speak, but she would not permit him. "I did not know
+you, notwithstanding past experience. Your heart has blacker shades than
+I imagined! Not up there--not among objects holy from association with
+my child, should I have taken you, but here! here! do not these things
+betoken great wealth?" A scornful smile curved her lips, and she glanced
+around the boudoir.
+
+There was one word in this speech that Leicester seized upon. "_Your_
+child, Ada. Great Heaven! would you exclude me from all share even in
+the love of our child!"
+
+Even this did not soften her, though she was fearfully moved at the
+mention of her lost infant. He saw this, and his manner instantly
+changed.
+
+"Why should I plead with you--why waste words thus?" he said, casting
+aside all affectation of tenderness:--"you are my wife--lawfully
+married--the mother of my child. If you have property, by the laws of
+this land that property is mine! I plead no longer, madam! Being the
+master of this house, if it is yours, my province is to command. Tell
+me, then! this wealth--for which people give their idol, _Mrs. Gordon_,
+so much credit--this mansion; are they real?--are they yours?--and
+therefore mine?"
+
+The scorn that broke over Ada's face was absolutely sublime.
+
+"Yes," she said, "this wealth is mine, yours, if the law makes it so;
+but listen--then say if you will use it!"
+
+She bent forward; her lips and cheek were pale as death, but across the
+snow of her forehead a crimson flush came and went, like an arrow
+shooting back and again.
+
+"You asked me that night in the room above, if I had lived in Europe as
+the governess of that man's daughter--the governess only--I answered
+yes; a governess only. It was false! Every dollar of the millions I
+possess comes from this man; he bequeathed them on his death-bed, that I
+might not again become your slave!" The haughty air gave way as she
+uttered this confession; her limbs trembled so violently that she was
+obliged to lean on the mantel-piece to keep from sinking to the floor.
+Pride, that treacherous demon, left her then, helpless as a child.
+
+"This," said Leicester, with a stern, clear enunciation, "this in no way
+interferes with my claim on the property. Were it double, that would be
+poor atonement for the outrage to my affections--the disgrace brought
+upon my name."
+
+She did not speak, but listened in breathless silence, trying to
+comprehend the moral enormity before her, with a confused sense that
+even yet she had not fathomed the black depths of his heart.
+
+Leicester had paused, thinking that she would answer; but as she
+remained silent he spoke again, still calmly, and with measured
+intonation.
+
+"But that which you have confessed becomes important in another sense.
+If the law gives me your property, it also enables me to divest it of
+the only incumbrance that would be unpleasant. Your confession, madam,
+entitles me to a divorce."
+
+"You would not--oh, Heavens, no!" gasped the wretched woman.
+
+"Now you seem natural--now you are meek again," he said with a laugh
+that cut to the heart. "So, you thought to dazzle me with your
+wealth--wither me with haughty pride--fool! miserable fool!"
+
+"Mercy, mercy! Will no one save me from this man?" shrieked the wretched
+woman, flinging her clasped hands wildly upward.
+
+Leicester was about to speak again, something fearfully bitter--you
+could see it in the curve of his lip--but her cry had reached other
+ears, and while the taunt was yet unspoken, Jacob Strong entered the
+boudoir. Leicester gazed upon him in utter amazement, for he advanced
+directly toward Ada, and taking the clasped hands she held out in both
+his, led her to the couch, trembling, and so faint that she was
+incapable of uttering a word.
+
+"What is this? how came you here, fellow?" said Leicester, the moment he
+could break from the astonishment occasioned by Jacob's presence.
+
+"My mistress called for help, and I came," was the steady answer.
+
+"Your mistress! where--who?"
+
+"This lady--your _first_ wife! the other----"
+
+"Villain! who are you?"
+
+Jacob looked into his master's eyes with a calm stare: "Look at me, Mr.
+Leicester! I have grown since you saw me at old Mr. Wilcox's! No doubt
+you have forgotten the awkward boy, who tended your horse, and pointed
+out the best trout streams for you? But I--I shall never forget! No
+angry looks--no frowns, sir! The rocks we climbed together would feel
+them more than I do."
+
+"Go on--go on--I would learn more," said Leicester, paling fearfully
+about the mouth. "You have been a spy in my service!"
+
+"Yes--a spy--a keeper of your most dangerous secrets! I read the letter
+from Georgia--I have that old copy-book, which was to have sent Robert
+Otis, my own nephew, to state prison. There is a check of ten thousand,
+which I can lay my hand on at any moment--you comprehend! I saw it
+written--I saw it pass from your hand to his. I was in the back room.
+Villain! I am your master."
+
+The palor spread up from Leicester's mouth to his temples, leaving a
+dusky ring around his eyes. For the first time in his life, this man of
+evil and stern will was terrified. Yet wrath was stronger in his heart
+than fear, even then. His white lips curled in fierce disdain. He turned
+towards Ada, who lay with her face buried in the silken pillows,
+conscious of nothing but her own unutterable wretchedness. She did not
+feel the fiendish glance that he cast upon her; but Jacob saw it, and
+his grey eyes kindled, till they seemed black as midnight: "If you wish
+to see another, come in here--come, I say! Victims are plenty about you;
+come in."
+
+Jacob looked terribly imposing in this burst of indignation. His awkward
+form dilated into rude grandeur--his wrath, ponderous and intense,
+rolled forth like some fathomless stream, whose very tranquillity is
+terrible. He flung his powerful arm around Leicester, and drew him
+forward as if he had been a child.
+
+Through the dressing-room, still flooded with soft light and redolent of
+flowers, and into the bed-chamber beyond, Jacob strode, grasping his
+companion firmly with one arm. He paused close by the bed. With an
+upward motion of his arms, he flung aside the cloud of lace that fell
+over it, and pointed to a form that lay underneath, pillowed, as it
+were, upon a snow drift. "Look! here is another!" said Jacob, towering
+above the man who had been his master--for there was no stoop in his
+shoulders then--"look! it is your last victim--to all eternity, the
+last!"
+
+Leicester did look, for his gaze was fascinated by the soft eyes lifted
+to his from the pillow; the sweet, sweet smile that played around that
+lovely mouth. It went to his soul--that impenetrable soul--that Ada's
+anguish had failed to reach.
+
+"She heard it all. She saw everything that passed between you and your
+wife," said Jacob.
+
+"What--and smiles upon me thus?" There was something of human feeling in
+his voice. He stooped down, and put back some raven tresses that fell
+over the eyes that were searching for his.
+
+Then the smile broke into a laugh so wild with insane glee, that even
+Leicester shuddered and drew back. Florence started up in the bed. The
+lace of her wedding garments was crushed around her form--her arms were
+entangled in the rich white veil which still clung, torn and ragged, to
+the diamond star fastened over her temple. The cypress and jessamine
+wreath, half torn away, hung in fragments among her black tresses. She
+saw that Leicester avoided her, and tearing the veil fiercely, set both
+her arms free. She leaned half over the bed, holding them out, as a
+child aroused from sleep, pleads for its mother. Leicester drew near,
+for a fiend could not have resisted that look. She caught both his
+hands, drew herself up to his bosom, and then began to laugh again.
+
+That moment a female, whose black garments contrasted gloomily with the
+drift-like whiteness of the couch, came from the shadowy part of the
+room, and taking Florence in her arms laid her gently back upon the
+pillows. She had seen that of which Leicester and Jacob were
+unconscious--Ada Leicester, standing in the gorgeous gloom of her
+dressing-chamber, and watching the scene.
+
+"Mother, you here also!" exclaimed Leicester, and his voice had, for the
+instant, something of human anguish in it. His mother pointed toward the
+dressing-room, and only answered--
+
+"Would you drive her mad also?"
+
+"Would to Heaven it were possible," answered Leicester, with a cold
+sneer. He bowed low, and with a gesture full of sarcastic defiance moved
+toward the dressing-room. Jacob followed him.
+
+"Stay," said Ada, standing before them--"what is this--who are the
+persons you have left in my chamber?"
+
+"One of them," answered Leicester, with calm audacity, "one of them is
+of little consequence, though you may find in her, my dear madam, an old
+acquaintance. The other is a young lady, very beautiful, as you may see
+even from here--to whom I had the honor of being married last evening.
+How she became your guest I do not know, but treat her with all
+hospitality, I beseech you, if it were only for the love that I bear
+her--love that I never felt for mortal woman before."
+
+"Go," said Ada, stung into some degree of strength by his insolence,
+"or, rather let me go, if you are indeed the master here."
+
+She took a shawl which had been flung across a chair, and folded it
+around her.
+
+"Take everything, but let me go in peace. Jacob, oh, my friend, _you_
+will not abandon me now?"
+
+"No," answered Jacob, with a degree of respectful tenderness that gave
+to his rude features something more touching than beauty. "Take off your
+shawl, madam--he has lost all power to harm you--there is desperation in
+his insolence, nothing more. His own crimes have disabled him."
+
+"How? how? Not that which he hinted--not marriage with another? Tell me,
+that it was only bravado. Rather, much rather, could I go forth
+penniless and bare-headed into the street."
+
+She approached Leicester, holding out her hands. He saw all the
+unquenched love that shed anguish over that beautiful face, and took
+courage. In this weakness, lay some hope of safety.
+
+"Ada let me see you alone," he said, with an abrupt change of voice and
+manner. She looked at Jacob irresolutely. He saw the danger at once, and
+taking her hand, led her with gentle force into the bed-chamber. "Look,"
+he said, pointing to Florence, who lay upon the couch--"ask her, she
+will tell you what it means."
+
+Ada advanced toward the old lady, who came to meet her as one who
+receives the mourners who gather to a funeral.
+
+"It is Leicester's mother," broke from the pale lips of Leicester's
+wife.
+
+"My poor daughter," said the old lady, wringing the trembling hand that
+Ada held out.
+
+"Will you--can you, call me daughter? oh madam, how long it is since
+that sweet word has fallen on my ear." The pathos of her words--the
+humility of her manner--melted the old lady almost to tears. She opened
+her arms, and received the wretched woman to her bosom.
+
+Jacob went out and found Leicester in the boudoir.
+
+"Will she come? I am tired of waiting," he said, as Jacob closed and
+locked the door leading to the dressing-room.
+
+"Expect nothing from her weakness--never hope to see her again. It is
+with me--not a weak, loving, forgiving woman, you have to deal."
+
+"With you--her father's clownish farmer-boy--my own servant."
+
+"I have no words to throw away, and you will need them to defend
+yourself," answered Jacob, with firm self-possession. "You have
+committed, within the last twenty-four hours, two crimes against the
+law. You have married a woman, knowing your wife to be alive. I am the
+witness, I, her playmate when she was a little girl, her protector and
+faithful servant in the trouble and sin which you heaped upon her after
+she was a woman. I went with her to the hotel that night, I witnessed
+all--all--to the scene last evening. Let that pass, for it _should_
+pass, rather than have her history connected with yours before the
+world. But another crime. This forged check--this attempt to ruin as
+warm-hearted and honest a boy as ever lived. In this, her name cannot,
+from necessity, appear; for this you shall suffer to the extent of the
+law; for this, you shall live year after year in prison, not from
+revenge, mark, but that she, Ada Wilcox, may breathe in peace. Leave
+this house, sir, quietly, for I must not have a felon arrested beneath
+her roof. Go anywhere you like, for a few hours, not to the hotel, for
+Robert Otis is waiting in your chamber with an officer; not to ferry, or
+steamboat, in hopes of escaping; men are placed everywhere to stop you;
+but till noon you are safe from arrest."
+
+"I will not leave this house without speaking with Ada," said Leicester,
+in a whisper so deep and fierce, that it came through his clenched teeth
+like the hiss of a wounded adder.
+
+"Five minutes you have for deliberation; go forth quietly, and as a
+departing guest, or remain to be marshalled out by half a dozen men,
+whom the chief of police has sent to protect the grounds--you
+understand, to protect the grounds."
+
+Leicester did not speak, but a sharp, fiendish gloom shot into his eyes,
+and he thrust one hand beneath his snowy vest, and drew it slowly out;
+then came the sharp click of a pocket pistol. Jacob watched the motion,
+and his heavy features stirred with a smile.
+
+"You forget that I am your servant; that I laid out your wedding dress,
+and loaded the pistol; put it up, sir--as I told you before, when I play
+with rattlesnakes, I take a hard grip on the neck."
+
+Leicester drew his hand up deliberately, and dashed the pistol in
+Jacob's face. The stout man recoiled a step, and blood flowed from his
+lips. It was fortunate for him that Leicester had found the revolver
+which he was in the habit of wearing too heavy for his wedding garments.
+As it was, he took out a silk handkerchief, and coolly wiped the blood
+from his mouth, casting now and then a look at the tiny clock upon the
+mantel-piece. The fiendish smile excited by the sight of his enemy's
+blood was just fading from Leicester's lip, when Jacob put the
+handkerchief back in his pocket.
+
+"You will save a few hours of liberty by departing at once," he said.
+"To a man, who has nothing but prison walls before him, they should be
+worth something."
+
+"Yes, much can be done in a few hours," muttered Leicester to himself,
+and gently settling his hat, he turned to go.
+
+"Open the door," he said, turning coolly to Jacob; "your wages are paid
+up to this time, at any rate."
+
+Jacob bowed gravely, and dropping into his awkward way, followed his
+master down stairs. He opened the principal door, and Leicester stepped
+into the street quietly, as if the respectful attendance had been real.
+
+The morning had just dawned, cold, comfortless, and humid; a slippery
+moisture lay upon the pavements, dark shadows hung like drapery along
+the unequal streets; Leicester threaded them with slow and thoughtful
+step. For once, his great intellect, his plotting fiend, refused to
+work. What should he do? how act? His hotel, the very street which he
+threaded perhaps, beset with officers; his garments elegantly
+conspicuous; his arms useless, and in his pockets only a little silver
+and one piece of gold. Never was position more desperate.
+
+Hour after hour wore on, and still he wandered through the streets. As
+daylight spread over the sky, kindling up the fog that still clung
+heavily around the city, Leicester saw two men walking near him. He
+quickened his pace, he loitered, turned again, down one street and up
+another; with their arms interlaced, their bodies sometimes enfolded in
+the fog, distinct or shadowy, those strange wanderers had a power to
+make Leicester's heart quail within him.
+
+All at once he started, and stood up motionless in the street. That
+child--those two old people! He had recognized them at once the night
+before as Mr. Wilcox and his wife, poor, friendless; he had striven to
+cast them from his mind, to forget that they lived. The after events of
+that night had come upon him like a thunder-clap; in defending himself
+or attacking others, he had found little time to calculate on the
+discovery of his daughter and her old grand parents. Now, the thought
+came to his brain like lightning. He would secure the young girl--Ada's
+lost child. The secret of her existence was his; it should redeem him
+from the consequence of his great crime. The old people were poor--they
+would give up the child to a rich father, and ask no questions. With
+this last treasure in his power, Ada would not refuse to bribe it from
+him at any price. Her self-constituted guardian, too, that man of rude
+will, and indomitable strength, he who had sacrificed a lifetime to the
+mother of this child, who had tracked his own steps like a hound, could
+he, who had given up so much, refuse to surrender his vengeance, also?
+This humble girl, from whom Leicester had turned so contemptuously, how
+precious she became as these thoughts flashed through his brain.
+
+Leicester proceeded with a rapid step to the neighborhood that he had
+visited the previous night. He descended to the area, glided through the
+dim hall, and entered the back basement just as old Mr. Warren, or
+Wilcox we must now call him, was sitting down to breakfast with his wife
+and grandchild. A look of poverty was about the room, warded off by care
+and cleanliness, but poverty still. Leicester had only time to remark
+this, when his presence was observed. Old Mr. Wilcox rose slowly from
+his chair, his thin face grew pale as he gazed upon the elegant person
+of his visitor, and the rich dress, so strongly at variance with the
+place. A vague terror seized him, for he did not at once recognize the
+features, changed by time, and more completely still, by a night of
+agonizing excitement. At length he recognized his son-in-law, and
+sinking to his chair, uttered a faint groan.
+
+Julia started up, and flung her arms around the old man's neck.
+Leicester came quietly forward.
+
+"Have you forgotten me, sir?" he said, laying one hand softly upon the
+table.
+
+"No," gasped the old man, "no."
+
+"And the little girl, she seems afraid of me, but when she knows--"
+
+"Hush," said the old man, rising, with one arm around the child, "not
+another word till we are alone. Wife, Julia, leave the room."
+
+The old woman hesitated. She, too, had recognized Leicester, and dreaded
+to leave him alone with her husband. Julia looked from one to the other,
+amazed and in trouble.
+
+"As you wish. I have no time to spare. Send them away, and we can more
+readily settle my demands and your claims."
+
+"Go!" replied the old man, laying his hand on Julia's head.
+
+That withered hand shook like a leaf.
+
+Julia and her grandmother went out, but not beyond the hall. There they
+stood, distant as the space would permit, but still within hearing of
+the voices within. Now and then a word rose high, and old Mrs. Wilcox
+would draw Julia's head against her side, and press a hand upon her ear,
+as if she dreaded that even those indistinct murmurs should reach her.
+
+While these poor creatures stood trembling in the hall, a strange,
+fierce scene was going on over that miserable breakfast-table. Leicester
+had been persevering and plausible at first; with promises of wealth,
+and protestations of kindness, he had endeavored to induce the poor old
+man to render up the child. When this failed, he became irritated, and,
+with fiercer passions, attempted to intimidate the feeble being whom he
+had already wronged almost beyond all hopes of human forgiveness. The
+old man said little, for he was terrified, and weak as a child; but his
+refusal to yield up the little girl was decided. "If the law takes her
+away, I cannot help it," he said, "but nothing else ever shall." Tears
+rolled down the old man's face as he spoke, but his will had been
+expressed, and the man who came to despoil him saw that it was
+immovable.
+
+Despairing at last, and fiercely desperate, Leicester rushed from the
+basement. Julia and her grandmother shrunk against the wall, for the
+palor of his face was frightful. He did not appear to see them, but went
+quickly through the outer door and up to the side-walk. Here stood the
+two men, arm-in-arm, ready to follow him. He turned back, and retraced
+his steps, with a dull, heavy footfall, utterly unlike the elasticity of
+his usual tread. Further and further back crowded the frightened
+females. The old man was so exhausted that he could not arise from the
+chair to which he had fallen. He looked up when Leicester entered the
+room, and said, beseechingly, "Oh, let me alone! See how miserable you
+have made us! Do let us alone!"
+
+"Once more--once more I ask, will you give up the child?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+A knife lay upon the table, long and sharp, one that Mrs. Wilcox had
+been using in her household work. Leicester's eye had been fixed on the
+knife while he was speaking. His hand was outstretched toward it before
+the old man could find voice to answer. Simultaneous with the brief
+"no," the knife flashed upward, down again, and Leicester fell dead at
+the old man's feet. Mr. Wilcox dropped on his knees, seized the knife,
+and tore it from the wound. Over his withered hands, over the white
+vest, down to his feet, gushed the warm blood. It paralyzed the old man;
+he tried to cry aloud, but had no power. A frightful stillness reigned
+over him; then many persons came rushing into the room.
+
+A light shone in that pretty cottage--a single light from the chamber
+where Julia had robed Florence Nelson in her bridal dress. A bed was
+there, shrouded in drapery, that hung motionless, like marble, and as
+coldly white; glossy linen swept over the bed, frozen, as it were, over
+the outline of a human form. Death--death--the very atmosphere was full
+of death. On one corner of the bed, crushing the cold linen, wrinkled
+with her weight, Florence Nelson had seated herself, and with her black
+ringlets falling over the dead, sung to him as no human being ever sung
+before. Sometimes she laughed--sometimes wept. Every variation of her
+madness was full of pathos, sweet with tenderness, save when there came
+from the opposite room a pallid and grief-stricken creature, with
+drooping hands, and eyes heavy with unshed tears.
+
+If this unhappy woman attempted to approach the bed, or even enter the
+room, Florence would spring up with the fierce cry of a wounded eagle;
+the song rose to a wail, then, with her waxen hands, she would gather up
+the linen in waves, over the dead, and if Ada came nearer, shriek after
+shriek rose through the cottage. Thus poor Ada Leicester, driven from
+the death-couch of her husband, would creep back to where his mother
+knelt in her calm, still grief. There, with her stately head bowed down,
+her limbs prone upon the floor, she would murmur, "Oh, God help me! It
+is just--but help me, help me! Oh, my God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE CITY PRISON.
+
+     He was a man of simple heart,
+     Patient and meek, the Christian part
+     Came to his soul as came the air
+     That heaved his bosom; hope, despair,
+     Were chastened by a holy faith!--
+     Meek in his life he feared not death.
+
+
+Perhaps in the whole world there is not a building where all the horror,
+the wild poetry of sin and grief is so forcibly written out in black
+shadows and hard stone, as in the city prison of New York. A stranger
+passing that massive pile would unconsciously feel saddened, though
+entirely ignorant of its painful uses, for the very atmosphere fills him
+with a vague sensation of alarm. The Egyptian architecture, so heavy and
+imposing; the thick walls which no sunshine can penetrate, and against
+which cries of anguish might, unheard, exhaust themselves forever, chill
+the very heart. The ponderous columns, lost in a perspective of black
+shadows in the front entrance--piles of granite sweeping toward
+Broadway, and interlocking with the black prison that rises up, like a
+solid wall, gloomy, windowless, and penetrated only with loop-holes,
+like a fort which has nothing but misery to protect--fills the
+imagination with gloom.
+
+The moment you come in sight of the building, your breath draws heavily;
+the atmosphere seems humid with tears--oppressive with sighs--a storm of
+human suffering appears gathering around. The air seems eddying with
+curses which have exhausted their sound against those walls; you feel as
+if sin, shame, and grief were palpable spirits, walking behind and
+around you; and all this is the more terrible, because the waves of life
+gather close up to the building, swelling against its walls on every
+side.
+
+The prison sits like a monster, crouching in the very heart of a great
+city; the veins and arteries of social evil weave and coil close around
+it, like serpents born in the same foul atmosphere with itself. Placed
+on foundations lower than the graded walks, nestled in a dried up swamp
+that has exchanged the miasma of decayed nature for the miasma of human
+guilt; the neighborhood close at hand sunk, like this building, deep in
+the grade of human existence; is there on earth another spot so eloquent
+of suffering, so populous with sin?
+
+"The Tombs," this name was given to the prison years ago, when its
+foundations were first sunk in the swampy moisture of the soil. Then you
+could see the vast structure sinking, day by day, into its murky
+foundations, and enveloped in clouds of palpable miasma. There the poor
+wretches huddled within its walls, died like herds of poisoned cattle;
+pine coffins were constantly passing in and out of those ponderous
+doors. Pauper death-carts might be seen every day lumbering up Centre
+street, on their road to Potter's Field. The man, innocent or guilty,
+who entered those walls, breathed his death warrant as he passed in.
+
+This only continued for a season; it was not long before the tramp of
+human feet, and the weight of that ponderous mass of stone crushed the
+poisonous moisture from the earth, but the name which death had left
+still remained--a name deeply and solemnly significant of the place to
+all who deem moral evil and moral death as mournful as the physical
+suffering which had baptized it.
+
+The main building, which fronts on Centre street, opens to a dusky and
+pillared vestibule, that leads to various rooms, occupied by the courts
+and officials connected with the prison. At the right, as you enter, is
+the police court, a spacious apartment, with deep casements. A raised
+platform, railed in from the people, upon which the magistrates sit,
+contains a desk or two, and beyond are several smaller rooms, used for
+private examinations.
+
+In one of these rooms, the smallest and most remote, sat a mournful
+group, early one morning, before the magistrates had taken their seats
+upon the bench. One was an old man, thin, haggard and care-worn, but
+with a placid and even exalted cast of countenance, such as a stricken
+man wears when he has learned "to suffer and be strong." He sat near a
+round table covered with worn baize, upon which one elbow rested rather
+heavily, for he had tasted little food for several days; and the languor
+of habitual privation, joined to strong nervous reaction, after a scene
+of horror, impressed his person even more than his face. That, as I have
+said, was pale and worn, but tranquil and composed to a degree that
+startled those who looked upon him, for the old man was waiting there to
+be examined on a charge of murder, and men shuddered to see the calmness
+upon his features. It seemed to them nothing but hardened indifference,
+the composure of guilt that had ceased to feel its own enormity.
+
+Close by this man sat two females, an old woman and a girl, not weeping,
+they had no tears left, but they sat with heavy, mournful eyes gazing
+upon the floor. Marks of terrible suffering were visible in their faces,
+and in the dull, hopeless apathy of their motionless silence. Now and
+then a low sigh rose and died upon the pale lips of the girl, but it was
+faint as that which exhales from a flower which has been trodden to
+death, and the poor girl was only conscious that the pain at her heart
+was a little sharper that instant than it had been.
+
+The woman, pale, still, and grief-stricken in every feature and limb,
+did not even sigh. It seemed as if the breath must have frozen upon her
+cold lips, she seemed so utterly chilled, body and soul.
+
+An officer of the police stood just within the room, not one of those
+burly, white-coated characters we find always in English novels, but a
+tall, slender and gentlemanly person, who regarded the group it had been
+his duty to arrest with a grave and compassionate glance. True, he
+searched the old man's face as those who have studied the human
+lineaments strive to read the secrets of a soul in their expression--but
+there was nothing rude either in his look or manner.
+
+After awhile the officer remembered that his prisoners had not tasted
+food since the day previous, and, with a pang of self-reproach, he
+addressed them.
+
+"You are worn out for want of food--I should have remembered this!" he
+said, approaching the table; "I will order some coffee."
+
+The old man raised his head, and turned his grateful eyes upon the
+officer.
+
+"Yes," he said, with a gentle smile, "they are hungry; a little coffee
+will do them good."
+
+The young female looked up and softly waved her head; but the other
+continued motionless, she had heard nothing.
+
+The officer whispered to a person outside the door, and then began to
+pace up and down the room like a sentinel, but treading very lightly, as
+if subdued by the silent grief over which he kept guard.
+
+Directly the coffee was brought in, with bread and fragments of cold
+meat.
+
+"Come now," said the officer, cheerfully, "take something to give you
+strength. The examination may be a long one, and I have seen powerful
+men sink under a first examination--take something to keep you up, or
+you will get nervous, and admit more than a wise man should."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, meekly, "you are right, they will want
+strength--so shall I." He took one of the tin-cups which had been
+brought half full of coffee, and reached it toward the woman.
+
+"Wife!" he said, bending toward her.
+
+The poor woman started, and looked at him through her wild, heavy eyes.
+
+"What is it, Wilcox? What is it you want of me?"
+
+"You observe she is almost beside herself," said the old man addressing
+the officer, and his face grew troubled--"what can I do?"
+
+"Oh! these things are very common. She must be roused!" answered the
+man, kindly. "Speak to her again."
+
+The old man stooped over his wife, and laid his hand gently upon hers.
+She did not move. He grasped her thin fingers, and tears stood in his
+eyes; still she did not move. He stood a moment gazing in her face, the
+tears running down his cheeks. He hesitated, looked at the officer half
+timidly, and bending down, kissed the old woman on the forehead.
+
+That kiss broke up the ice in her heart. She stood up and began to weep.
+
+"You spoke to me, Wilcox--what was it you wanted? I am better now--quite
+well. What is it you wanted me to do?"
+
+"He only wishes you to eat and drink something," said the officer,
+deeply moved.
+
+"Eat and drink--have we got anything to eat and drink? That is always
+his way when we are short, urging us, and hungry himself."
+
+"But there is enough for all," said the old man. "See, I too will eat,
+and Julia!"
+
+"Why, if there is enough we will all eat, why not," said the poor woman,
+with a dim smile.
+
+She took the coffee, tasted it, and looked around the room with vague
+curiosity.
+
+"What is all this?--where are we now, Wilcox?" she said, in a low,
+frightened voice.
+
+The old man kept his eyes bent on hers, they were full of trouble, and
+this stimulated her to question him again.
+
+"Where are we? I remember walking, wading, it seemed to me, neck deep
+through a crowd, trying to keep up with you. Some one said they were
+taking us to prison; that I had done nothing, and they would not keep
+me. That you and Julia would stay, but I must go into the street,
+because a wife could not bear witness against her husband, but a
+grandchild could. Have I been crazy, or walking in my sleep, Wilcox?"
+
+"No, wife, you are worn out--frightened; drink some more of the coffee,
+by and bye all will be clear to you."
+
+The old woman obeyed him, and drank eagerly from the cup in her hand.
+Then she looked on her husband, on Julia, and the officer, as if
+striving to make out why they were all together in that strange place.
+All at once she set down the cup and drew a heavy breath.
+
+"I remember," she said, mournfully--"I remember now that dead man, with
+his open eyes and white clenched teeth; I know who he was--I knew it at
+first."
+
+The officer drew a step nearer and listened, the spirit of his vocation
+was strong within him. There might be important evidence in her words,
+and for a moment the humane man was lost in the acute officer. The
+prisoner remarked this movement, and looked on the man with an
+expression of mild rebuke.
+
+"Would you take advantage of her unsettled state, or of the words it
+might wring from me?" he said.
+
+"No," answered the officer, stepping back, abashed. "No, I would not do
+anything of the kind, at least deliberately."
+
+But this remonstrance had aroused distrust in the old woman, she drew
+close to her husband, and whispered to him--
+
+"I cannot quite make it out, Wilcox. The people--the crowd said over and
+over again that they were taking us to prison. This is no prison!
+carpets on the floor, chairs, window blinds, all so pretty and snug,
+with us eating and drinking together. This is no prison, Wilcox, we have
+not had so nice a home these ten years."
+
+"This is only a room in the prison, not the one they will give me by and
+bye!" answered the old man with a faint smile, "that will be smaller
+yet."
+
+"You say _me_!" said the wife, holding tight to the hand that clasped
+hers. "Why do you not say that the room--let it be what it will--is
+large enough for us both, husband? I say you did not mean that it will
+not hold your wife too."
+
+The old man turned away from those earnest eyes; he could not bear the
+look of mingled terror and entreaty that filled them.
+
+"Remember, Wilcox, we have not spent one night apart in thirty years!"
+
+"I know it," answered the old man with quivering lips.
+
+"And now will you let me stay with you?"
+
+"Ask him," said the old man, turning his face away, "ask him!"
+
+She let go her hold of the prisoner's hand with great reluctance, and
+went up to the officer.
+
+"You heard what he said, you must know what I want. We have lived
+together a great many years, more than your whole life. We have had
+trouble--great trouble, but always together. Tell me--can we stay
+together yet?"
+
+"I do not know," said the man, deeply moved. "Your husband is charged
+with a crime that requires strict prison rules."
+
+"I know, he is charged with murder! but you see how innocent he is,"
+answered the wife, and all the holy faith, the pure, beautiful love born
+in her youth and strengthened in her age, kindled over those wrinkled
+features--"you see how innocent he is!"
+
+The man checked a slight wave of the head, for he would not appear to
+doubt that old man's innocence, strong as the evidence was against him.
+
+"You will not send me away!" said the old woman, still regarding him
+with great anxiety.
+
+"I have no power--it is not for me to decide--such things have been
+done. In minor offences, I have known wives to remain in prison, but
+never in capital cases that I remember."
+
+"But some one has the power. It is only for a little while--it cannot be
+for more than a week or two that they will keep him, you know."
+
+"It may be--from my heart I hope so--but I can answer for nothing, I
+have no power."
+
+"Who has the power?--what can we do?"
+
+It was the young girl who spoke now. The entreaties of her
+grandmother--the tremulous voice of her grandsire, at length aroused her
+feelings from the icy stillness that had crept over them. The mist
+cleared away from her eyes, and though heavy with sleeplessness and
+grief, they began to kindle with aroused animation.
+
+"No one at present, my poor girl--nothing can be done till after the
+examination."
+
+Julia had drawn close to her grandmother, and grasped a fold of her
+faded dress with one hand. The officer could not turn his eyes from her
+face, so sad, so mournfully beautiful. He was about to utter some vague
+words of comfort, but while they were on his lips a door from the
+police-court opened, and a man looked through, saying in a careless,
+off-hand manner, "bring the old man in."
+
+The court-room was crowded with witnesses ready to be examined, lawyers,
+eager for employment, and others actuated by curiosity alone, all
+crowded and jostled together outside the bar. As the prisoner entered,
+the throng grew denser, pouring in through the open door, and spreading
+out into the vestibule to the granite pillars, all pressing forward with
+strained eyes to obtain a view of one feeble old man.
+
+They made a line for him to pass, crushing against each other with their
+heads thrown back, and staring in the old man's face as if he had been
+some wild animal, till his thin hand clutched the bar. There he stood as
+meek as a child, with all those bright, staring eyes bent upon him. A
+faint crimson flush broke through the wrinkles on his forehead; and his
+hand stirred upon the railing with a slight shiver, otherwise his gentle
+composure was unbroken.
+
+The crowd closed up as he passed, but the two females clinging together,
+breathless and wild with fear, least they should be separated from him,
+pressed close upon his steps, forcing their way impetuously one moment,
+and looking helplessly around the next. Still resolutely following the
+prisoner, they won some little space at each step, not once losing sight
+of his grey head as it moved through the sea of faces, all turned, as
+they thought, menacingly upon him. At length they stood close behind the
+old man, and, unseen by the crowd, clung to his garments with their
+hands.
+
+The judge bent forward in his leathern easy-chair, and looked in the
+prisoner's face, not harshly, not even with sternness. Had a lighter
+offence been charged upon the old man, his face might have borne either
+of these expressions, but the very magnitude of the charge under
+investigation gave dignity to the judge, and true dignity is always
+gentle.
+
+He stooped forward, therefore, not smiling, but kindly in look and
+voice, informed the prisoner of his right, and cautioned him not to
+criminate himself ignorantly in any answer he might make to
+interrogations of the court.
+
+The old man raised his eyes, thanked the judge in a low voice, and
+waited.
+
+"Your name?"
+
+"I am known in the city as Benjamin Warren, but it is not my real name."
+
+"What is the real name then?"
+
+"I would rather not answer."
+
+The old man spoke mildly, but with great firmness. The judge bent his
+head. A dozen pens could be heard at the reporters' desk taking down the
+answer. A hush was on the crowd; every man leaned forward, breathless
+and listening. Those even in the vestibule kept still while the old
+man's reply ran among them in whispers.
+
+"Did you know the man who was found dead in your house on the nineteenth
+of this month?"
+
+"Yes, I knew the man well!"
+
+"Where and when had you met before!"
+
+"I do not wish to answer!"
+
+"Did you see him on the evening of the eighteenth?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Did evil feeling exist between you?"
+
+The old man turned a shade paler, and his hand shook upon the railing;
+he hesitated as if at a loss for words which might convey an exact
+answer.
+
+"I cannot say what his feelings were--but of my own I can speak, having
+asked this same question of my soul many times. William Leicester had
+wronged me and mine--but I forgave the wrong; I had no evil feeling
+against him."
+
+"Were there not high words and angry defiance between you that
+morning?"
+
+"He was angry--I was not; agitated, alarmed, I was--but not angry."
+
+"Were you alone with him?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Maybe ten minutes!"
+
+"Once more," said the judge; "once more let me remind you that in
+another court these answers may be used to your prejudice. Now take
+time, you have no counsel, so take time for reflection before you reply.
+What business had Leicester with you?--what was the subject of
+conversation between you?"
+
+The old man bent his forehead to the railing, and thus stood motionless
+without answering. His own honest sense told him that every question
+that he refused to answer gave rise to doubt, and kindled some new
+prejudice against him. His obvious course was silence, or a frank
+statement of the truth. He raised his head, and addressed the judge
+gently as he might have consulted with a friend.
+
+"If I have a right to refuse answers to a part of what you ask me, may I
+not, by the same right, remain silent?"
+
+"There is no law which forces you to answer where a reply will prejudice
+your cause."
+
+"Will anything I can say help my cause?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then I will be silent. But I never lifted my hand against that
+man--never, so help me God!"
+
+The judge felt this to be a wise conclusion, and a faint gleam of
+satisfaction came to his lips. The meek dignity of that old men, the
+beautiful pale face now and then peering out from behind his
+poverty-stricken garments--the feeble old woman crowding close to his
+side, all had aroused his sympathy. It was impossible to look on that
+group and believe any one of those feeble creatures guilty of the blood
+that had reddened their poverty-stricken hearth, and yet the evidence
+had been fearfully strong before the coroner's inquest.
+
+Some commotion arose in the crowd after this. Men began to whisper
+opinions to each other--now and then a rude joke or laugh rose from the
+vestibule. People began to circulate in and out at the various doors,
+and during all this several witnesses were examined. These persons had
+seen a gentleman, well, nay, elegantly dressed, enter the miserable
+basement occupied by the prisoner and his family, very early on the
+morning of the nineteenth. One, a person who lived in the front
+basement, testified to high words, and a sound as if some one had
+stamped several times on the floor. Then he heard quick footsteps along
+the entry; saw the stranger an instant in the front area, and then heard
+him go back again. This excited considerable curiosity in the witness,
+who opened the door of his own room and looked out. He caught a glimpse
+of the stranger going, quickly, through the next door, and saw two
+females.
+
+The old woman and girl now standing behind the prisoner were crouching
+in the back end of the entry, apparently much frightened, for both were
+pale; and the old woman wrung her hands while the girl wept bitterly. A
+little after, perhaps two minutes, this man heard a sound from the next
+room, as if of some heavy body falling; this was followed by a _hush_
+that made him shiver from head to foot. He went out and saw the two
+females clinging together, and creeping pale and terror-stricken up to
+the door, which the old woman tried to open, but could not, her hands
+shook so violently.
+
+The witness himself turned the latch and looked in, leaning over the
+females, who, uttering a low cry, stood motionless, blocking up the
+entrance. He saw the stranger lying upon the floor, stretched back in
+the agony of a fierce death pang; his teeth were clenched; his eyes wide
+open; the chin protruded upward; and both hands were groping and
+clutching at the bare boards.
+
+While the witness looked on, the limbs, half gathered up and strained
+against the floor, gave way, and settled down like ridges of withered
+grass. The room was badly lighted, but it seemed to the witness that
+there was some faint motion, after this a shudder, or it might be a fold
+of the dead man's clothes settling around him, but except this all signs
+of life went out from the body.
+
+Then the witness had time to see the other objects in the room. The
+first thing that his eyes fell upon was the face of old Mr. Warren, the
+palest, the most deathly face he ever saw on a living man; he was
+stooping over the corpse, grasping what seemed a handful of snow,
+stained through and through with blood which he pressed down upon the
+dead man's side.
+
+The witness grew wild with the terror of this scene. He pushed the two
+females forward and went in. The prisoner looked up, still pressing his
+hand upon the dead man; his lips moved, and he tried to speak, but could
+not. On stooping down, the witness saw that the stained mass clenched in
+the old man's fingers was one side of a white silk vest, clutched up
+with masses of fine linen, which the dead man had worn. He also saw a
+knife lying on the floor wet to the haft. After a minute or so, the
+prisoner spoke, apparently feeling the body grow stiff under his hand;
+he turned his head with a piteous look, and whispered--"What can we do?"
+
+The witness stated that his answer was "Nothing--the man is dead!"
+
+Then the old man got up, and went to a bed huddled on the floor in one
+corner of the room, where his wife and grand-daughter had dropped, when
+the witness pushed them with unconscious violence from the threshold. He
+said something in a low voice to the woman, and she answered--
+
+"Oh, Wilcox, tell me that you did not do it!"
+
+The prisoner looked at her--at first he seemed amazed as if some horrid
+thought had just struck him, then he looked grieved, wounded to the
+heart. The expression that came upon his face was enough to make one
+cry, but his voice, when he spoke, was even worse than the look; it
+seemed choked up with tears, that he could not shed.
+
+"My wife!" he said nothing more, but that was enough to make the old
+woman cover her face with both hands and sob like a child. Julia, his
+grandchild, who had been sitting white and still as death till then,
+lifted her eyes to the old man's face, and you could see them deepen
+with sorrowful astonishment, as if she too had been suddenly wounded.
+The look of horror died on her features, leaving them full of
+tenderness. She arose with the look of an angel, and clasping her hands
+over the old man's arm, as he stood gazing mournfully upon his wife,
+pressed her head against his side.
+
+"Grandfather, she did not think it. It was the terror that spoke, not
+her, not my grandmother!"
+
+The old man would have laid his hand upon her head, but it was crimson
+and wet. He saw this, and dropped it again.
+
+The dim light, the pale faces, the man stark and dead upon the floor,
+made the scene too painful even for a strong man. The witness went out
+and aroused the neighborhood. He did not go back; more courageous men
+would have shrunk from the scene as he did.
+
+I have given this man's evidence, not in his own words. He was a German,
+and spoke rude English; but the scene he described was only the more
+graphic for that. It impressed the judges and the crowd; it gratified
+that intense love of the horrible that is becoming a passion in the
+masses, and yet softened it with touches of rude pathos, that also
+gratified the populace. Here and there you saw a wet eye in the crowd.
+Men who were strangers to each other, exchanged whispered wishes that
+the prisoner might be found innocent. The old woman and her
+grand-daughter became objects of unceasing curiosity. Men pressed
+forward to get a sight at them. The reporters paused to study their
+features, and to take an inventory of their poverty-stricken garments.
+
+Other witnesses were called, all testifying to like facts, that served
+to fasten the appearances of guilt more closely upon that fallen old
+man. When all had been examined but the grand-daughter, the excitement
+became intense; the crowd pressed closer to the bar; those in the
+vestibule rushed in, filling every corner of the room.
+
+The poor girl moved when her name was pronounced, and with difficulty
+mounted the step which lifted her white face to a level with the judge.
+The little hands grasped the railing till every drop of blood was driven
+from the strained fingers; but for this she must have fallen to the
+earth, for there was no strength in her limbs, no strength at her heart,
+save that which one fixed solemn thought gave. There was something
+deeper than the pallor of fear in those beautiful features--something
+more sublime than sorrow in the clear violet eyes which she lifted to
+the magistrate. He saw her lips move, and bent forward to catch the
+sound of words that she seemed to be uttering,--
+
+"I cannot answer any questions; don't ask me, sir, please don't!"
+
+He caught these words. He saw the look of meek courage that spoke even
+more forcibly than the tremulous lips. No one saw the look, or heard the
+voice, but himself, not even the prisoner; for age had somewhat dulled
+his ear. The face, the look, the gentle bearing of this poor girl,
+filled the judge with compassion. It is a horrible thing for any law to
+force evidence from one loving heart that may cast another into the
+grave. The magistrate had never felt the cruelty so much before. The
+questions that he should have propounded sunk back upon his heart. It
+seemed like torturing a lamb with all the flock looking on.
+
+Still, the magistrates of our courts learn hard lessons even of juvenile
+depravity; not to be suspicious would, in them, be a living miracle.
+This girl might be prompted by advice, and thus artfully acting as the
+tool of some lawyer. You would not look in her eyes and believe it, but
+soft eyes sometimes brood over falsehood that would make you tremble. No
+one is better aware of this than the acute magistrate; still there is
+something in pure simplicity that convinces the heart long before the
+judgment has power to act.
+
+"Who told you not to answer my questions?" he said, in a low voice.
+
+"No one!"
+
+"Then why refuse?"
+
+"Because my grandfather never killed the man, but what I should say,
+might make it seem as if he did."
+
+"But do you know that is contempt of court--a punishable offence."
+
+"I did not know it!"
+
+"That I have power to make you answer?"
+
+A faint beautiful smile flitted across her face. You might fancy a
+youthful martyr smiling thus when threatened with death by fire. It
+disturbed in no degree the humility of her demeanor, but that one gleam
+of the strength within her satisfied the magistrate.
+
+Not even the reporters had been able to catch a word of the
+conversation. His dignity was in no way committed. He resolved to waive
+the cruel power, which would have wrung accusation from that helpless
+creature unnecessarily; for the evidence that had gone before was quite
+sufficient to justify a commitment.
+
+"We shall not require the evidence of this young girl," he said,
+addressing a fellow-magistrate, who had been writing quietly during the
+proceedings.
+
+"No," answered the magistrate, without checking his pen or raising his
+head, "what is the use? The story of that German was enough. I should
+have committed him after that. The poor girl is frightened to death. Let
+her go!"
+
+"But in the other court, there she will be wanted!"
+
+"True, she must be kept safe. Anybody forthcoming with the bonds?"
+
+"I fear not. It seems hard to keep the poor thing in prison!"
+
+"Like caging a blackbird!" answered the man, racing over the paper with
+his gold-mounted pen. "Hard, but necessary; bad laws must be kept the
+same as good ones, my dear fellow! Disgrace to civilization, and all
+that, but the majesty of the law must be maintained, even though it
+does shut up nice little girls with the offscourings of the earth."
+
+"It goes against my heart!" answered the sitting magistrate with a sigh.
+"It seems like casting newly fallen snow before a herd of wild animals.
+I never hated to sign my name so much!"
+
+"Must be done though. You have stretched a point to save her. Just now,
+the reporters were eyeing you. Another step of leniency, and down comes
+the press!"
+
+"I shall act rightly according to my own judgment, notwithstanding the
+press."
+
+"A beautiful sentiment, only don't let those chaps hear it. Would not
+appreciate the thing at all!"
+
+The sitting magistrate spoke the truth. Never in his life had he signed
+papers of commitment so reluctantly; but they were made out at length,
+and handed to the officer. The old man was conducted from the bar one
+way, and a strange officer took Julia by the hand, forcing her through
+the crowd in another direction. At first she supposed that they were
+going with her grandfather. When they were separated in the crowd, she
+began to struggle; a faint wail broke from her lips, and the officer was
+compelled to cast his arm around her waist, thus half carrying her
+through the crowd.
+
+The woman had followed her husband and grandchild mechanically, but when
+they were separated, the cry that broke from Julia's lips made her turn
+and rush back; the crowd closed in around her; she cast one wild look
+after the prisoner, another toward the spot whence the wail came. They
+both were lost through a door in the dark vistas of the prison. She saw
+an arm flung wildly up as if beckoning her, and rushed forward, blindly
+struggling against the crowd. In the press of people, she was hurried
+forth into the vestibule, and there leaning, in dreary helplessness,
+against one of the massy stone pillars, she stood looking vaguely around
+for her husband and child. It was a heart-rending sight, but every day
+those ponderous walls witness scenes equally mournful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE IMPRISONED WITNESS.
+
+     When souls come freshly from their God,
+       They breathe the very air of Heaven!
+     To children on this earthly sod,
+       Angelic trusts are sometimes given.
+
+     And like bright spirits wandering through
+       The haunted depths of tears and sin,
+     Their gentle words drop down like dew,
+       Where wisdom fails, they charm and win.
+
+
+It is strange--nay, it is horrible--that so much of barbarism still
+lingers in the laws and customs of a free land. Without crime or offence
+of any kind, a person may be taken, here in the city of New York, and
+confined for months among the most hideous malefactors; his self-respect
+broken down; his associations brutalized; and all, that the law may be
+fulfilled. What must that law be which requires oppression, that it may
+render justice?
+
+In New York, the poor witness--a man who has the misfortune to know
+anything of a crime before the courts, is himself exactly in the place
+of a criminal. Like the malefactor, he must give bonds for his prompt
+appearance on the day of trial, or lacking the influence to obtain
+these, must himself share the prison of the very felon his evidence will
+condemn. Strangers thus--sea-faring men, and persons destitute of
+friends--are often imprisoned for months among the very dregs of
+humanity; innocent, and yet suffering the severest penalties of guilt.
+
+This injustice, so glaring that a savage would blush to acknowledge it,
+exists almost unnoticed in a city overrun with benevolent societies,
+crowded with churches, and inundated with sympathies for the wronged of
+every nation or city on earth. If ostentatious charity would, for a
+time, give way to simple justice, New York like all the American cities
+we know of, would obtain for itself more respect abroad and more real
+prosperity at home.
+
+It was under this law that Julia Warren, a young creature, just
+bursting into the first bloom of girlhood, pure, sensitive, and
+guileless as humanity can be, was dragged like a thief into the city
+prison. She had known the deepest degradation of poverty, and that is
+always so closely crowded against crime in cities, that it seems almost
+impossible to keep the dew upon an innocent nature. But Julia had been
+guarded in her poverty by principle so firm, by love so holy, that
+neither the close neighborhood of sin nor the gripe of absolute want had
+power to stain the sweet bloom of a nature that seemed to fling off evil
+impressions as the swan casts off waterdrops from its snowy bosom,
+though its whole form is bathed in them.
+
+This young creature, in all her gentle innocence, without crime, without
+even the suspicion of a fault, was now the inmate of a prison, the
+associate of felons, hand-in-hand with guilt of a kind and degree that
+had never entered even her imagination.
+
+At first, when the officer separated the poor girl from her
+grandparents, she struggled wildly, shrieked for help, and at last fell
+to imploring the man, with eyes so wild and eloquence so startling, that
+he paused in one of the dark corridors leading from the court, and
+strove to soothe her, supposing that she was terrified by the gloom of
+the place.
+
+"No, no!" she answered. "It is not that. I did not see that it was dark.
+I did not look at anything. My grandfather--poor grandma! Let me go with
+them. I'm not afraid. I don't care for being in prison, only let me stay
+where they are!"
+
+"Your grandmother is not here!"
+
+"Not here--not here!" answered the poor creature, wildly and aghast.
+"Then what has become of her? Let me go--let me go, I say. She will
+die!"
+
+Julia unlocked the hands that she had clasped, flung back the hair from
+her face, and fled down the corridor so swiftly, that the keeper, taken
+by surprise, was left far behind. An officer, coming in from the court,
+seized her by the arm as she was passing him.
+
+"Not so fast, canary bird; not quite so fast. It takes swifter wings
+than yours to get out of this cage."
+
+Julia looked at the man, breathless with affright.
+
+"What do you hold me for? Why can't I go?" she gasped forth.
+
+"Because you are a prisoner, little one!"
+
+"But I have done nothing!"
+
+"Nobody ever does anything that comes here," said this man, with a
+contemptuous smile. "Never were so many innocent people crowded
+together."
+
+As he spoke, the man tightened his hold on her arm, and moved forward,
+forcing her along with him.
+
+The poor creature winced under the pain of his grasp.
+
+"You hurt my arm," she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Do I?" replied the man, affected by the despondency of her tone. "I did
+not mean to do that; but it would be difficult to touch a little,
+delicate thing like you without leaving a mark. Come, don't cry. I did
+not hurt you on purpose."
+
+"I know it. It is not that," answered the girl, lifting her eyes, from
+which the big tears were dropping like rain.
+
+"Well, well, go quietly to the women's department. They will not keep
+you long, unless you have been stealing, or something of that sort."
+
+"Stealing!" faltered the girl, "stealing!" The color flashed into her
+pale, wet cheeks; a faint, scornful smile quivered over her lips.
+
+The officer from whom she had fled now came up. "Come," he said, with a
+shade of impatience, "I cannot be kept waiting in this way."
+
+"I am ready!" answered the poor girl, in a voice of utter despondency,
+while her head dropped upon her bosom. "If I am a prisoner, take me
+away. But what--what have I done?"
+
+"Never mind; settle that with the court. I am in a hurry, so come
+along!"
+
+Julia neither expostulated nor attempted to resist.
+
+She gave her hand to the officer, who led her quickly forward. They
+threaded the dim, vault-like passage, and paused before a grated door,
+through which the trembling girl could see dark, squalid figures moving
+about in the dusky twilight that filled the prison. Two or three faces,
+haggard and fiend like, were pressed up against the bars. One was that
+of a negro woman, scarred with many a street brawl, whose inflamed eyes
+glared wickedly upon the innocent creature whom the laws had sent to be
+her companion.
+
+"Get back--back with you!" commanded the officer, dashing his keys
+against the grating. "Your hideous faces frighten the poor thing!"
+
+The faces flitted away, grinning defiance, and sending back a burst of
+hoarse laughter that made Julia shiver from head to foot. She drew close
+to the man, clinging to his garments, while he turned the heavy lock and
+thrust the door half open. The dim vista of a hall, with cells yawning
+on one side, and filled with gloomy light, through which wild, impish
+figures wandered restlessly to and fro, or sat motionless against the
+walls, met Julia's gaze. She shrank back, clinging desperately to her
+conductor--
+
+"Oh, mercy, mercy! Not here--not here!" she cried, pallid and shivering.
+
+The man raised her firmly in his arms, and passing through the door, set
+her down. She heard the clank of keys; the shooting of a heavy bolt. She
+saw the shadow of this, her last friend, fall across the grating; and
+then, in dreary desolation, she sat down upon a wooden bench, and
+leaning her cold cheek against the wall, closed her eyes. The tears
+pressed through those long, dark eyelashes, and rolled, one by one, in
+heavy drops, over her face. Her arms hung helplessly down; all the
+energies of her young life seemed utterly prostrated.
+
+The hall was full of women of all ages, and bearing every stamp that
+vice or sorrow impresses on the countenance. Some, old and hardened in
+evil, stood aloof looking upon the heart-stricken girl with their stony,
+pitiless eyes; others, younger, more reckless and fierce in their
+sympathies, gathered around in a crowd, commenting upon her grief, some
+mockingly, others with a touch of feeling. Black and white, all huddled
+around the bench she occupied, pouring their hot breath out, till she
+sickened and grew faint, as if the boughs of a Upas tree were drooping
+over her.
+
+"She's sick--she's fainting away!" cried one of the women. "Bring some
+water!"
+
+"No," cried another. "If we had a drop of brandy now. But water, bah!"
+
+"It's the horrors--see how she trembles," exclaimed a third, with a
+chuckle and a toss of the head.
+
+"No such thing. She's too young--too handsome!"
+
+"Oh, get away! Don't I know the symptoms?" interrupted the first
+speaker, with a coarse laugh. "Ain't I young--ain't I handsome? Who says
+no to that? And yet haven't you heard me yell--haven't you heard me rave
+with the horrors?"
+
+"That was because the doctor prescribes brandy," interposed a
+sly-looking mulatto woman, folding her arms and turning her head saucily
+on one side. "When that medicine comes, you are still enough."
+
+This retort was followed by a general laugh, in which the object joined,
+till the tears rolled down her cheeks.
+
+In the midst of this coarse glee, Julia had fallen like a withered
+flower, upon the bench. That moment, the huge negress, who had so
+terrified the poor creature at the grating, plunged out from a cell in
+the upper end of the hall, and came toward the group with a tin cup full
+of water in her hand.
+
+Had a fiend come forth on an errand of mercy, it would not have seemed
+more out of place than that hideous creature under the influence of a
+kind impulse. She came down the hall as rapidly as her naked feet,
+hampered by an old pair of slip-shod shoes, could move. The dress hung
+in rents and festoons of dirty and faded calico around her gaunt limbs,
+trailing the stone floor on one side, and lifted high above her clumsy
+ankles on the other.
+
+The women scattered as she approached, giving her a full view of the
+fainting girl.
+
+"So you've done it among you--smothered her. How dare you? Didn't you
+see that I took a fancy to her, before she came in? Let her alone. I
+want a pet, and she's mine."
+
+"Yours!" "Why, it was your face that frightened her to death. There
+hasn't been a bit of color in her lips since she saw you," answered the
+woman that had so eagerly recommended brandy, and who kept her place in
+spite of the formidable negress. "Here, give me the water, and get out
+of my sight."
+
+The negress pushed this woman roughly aside, and kneeling down by the
+senseless girl, bathed her forehead with the water. Julia did not stir.
+Her face continued deathly white; a faint violet tinge lay upon her lips
+and around her eyes; her little hands fell down to the stone floor; her
+feet dropped heavily from the bench. This position, more than the still
+face even, was fearfully like death.
+
+"Call a keeper," cried half a dozen voices, "she is scared to death!"
+
+"The doctor!" urged as many more voices. "It will take a doctor to bring
+her out of that fit!"
+
+"We won't have a doctor," exclaimed the old negress, stoutly. "He'd call
+it tremens, and give her brandy or laudanum. I tell you, she isn't one
+of that sort! Don't believe a drop of the ardent ever touched her lips!"
+
+Again a coarse laugh broke up from among the prisoners.
+
+The negress dashed a handful of water across the poor face over which
+that laughter floated like the orgies of fiends around a death couch.
+She rose to one knee, and turned her fierce eyes upon the scoffers.
+
+I have never stained a page in my life with profane language, even when
+describing a profane person; never have placed the name of God
+irreverently into the lips of an ideal character. Sooner would I feel an
+oath burning upon my own soul, than register one where it might
+familiarize itself to a thousand souls, surprised into its use by their
+confidence in the author. Even here, where profanity is the common
+language of the place, I will risk a feebler description in my own
+language, rather than for one instant break through the rule of a life.
+Yet amid language and scenes which I could not force this pen to write,
+and creatures, most of them, brutalized by vice to a degree that I
+shrink from describing, this young guileless creature was plunged by the
+laws of an enlightened people. When she opened her eyes, that scarred,
+black face, less repulsive from a touch of kindly feeling, but hideous
+still, was the first object that greeted them.
+
+The woman, as I have said, had risen to one knee. The holy name of God
+trembled on her coarse lips, prefacing a torrent of abusive
+expostulation that broke from them in the rudest and most repulsive
+language.
+
+"You needn't laugh, don't I know better--fifty times better than any of
+you? Haven't I been here--this is the fifteenth time? Don't I go to my
+country-seat on Blackwell's Island every summer of my life? How many
+times have you been there, the best of you, I should like to ask? Twice,
+three times. Bah! what should you know of life? Stand out of the way.
+She's beginning to sob. You shan't stifle her again, I promise you. It
+was the water did it. Which of you could be got out of a fit with
+water--tell me that? Here, just come one of you and feel her breath,
+while the tears are in it--sweet as a rose, moist as dew. I tell you,
+she never tasted anything stronger than bread and milk in her life!"
+
+The woman clenched this truth with an imprecation on herself which made
+the young girl start up and look wildly around, as if she believed
+herself encompassed by a band of demons.
+
+"What is the matter? Are you afraid?" said the white prisoner, that had
+formerly spoken, bending over her.
+
+"Get out of the way," said the negress, with another oath. "It's my pet,
+I tell you."
+
+The terrible creature, whose very kindness was brutal, reached forth
+her arm and attempted to draw Julia to her side, but the poor girl
+recoiled, shuddering from the touch, and fell upon her knees, covering
+her ears with both hands.
+
+"Are you afraid of _me_? Is that it?" shouted the negress, almost
+touching the strained fingers with her mouth.
+
+"Yes, yes!" broke from her tremulous lips, and Julia kept her eyes upon
+the woman in a wild stare. "I am afraid."
+
+"This is gratitude," said the woman, fiercely. "I brought her to, and
+she looks at me as if I was a mad dog."
+
+Julia cowered under the fiery glance with which these words were
+accompanied. This only exasperated her hideous friend, and with an angry
+grip of the teeth, she seized one little hand, forcing it away from the
+ear, that was on the instant filled with a fresh torrent of curses.
+
+"Oh, don't! Pray, pray. It is dreadful to swear so!"
+
+"Swear! Why, I didn't swear--not a word of it. Have been talking milk
+and water all the time just for your sake. Leave it all to these ladies,
+if I haven't!" said the woman, evidently impressed with the truth of her
+assertion, and appealing, with an air of simple confidence, to her
+fellow-prisoners: for profanity had become with her a fixed habit, and
+she was really unconscious of it.
+
+A laugh of derision answered this singular appeal, and a dozen voices
+gave mocking assurance that there had been a mistake about the matter,
+saying,
+
+"Oh, no! old Mag never swore in her life."
+
+Tortured by the wild tumult, and driven to the very confines of
+insanity, Julia could scarcely forbear screaming for help. She started
+up, avoiding the negress with a desperate spring sidewise, and staggered
+toward the grated door. It seemed to her impossible to draw a deep
+breath, in the midst of those wretched beings!
+
+"Mamma, mamma!" said a soft, sweet voice, from one of the cells, and as
+Julia turned her face, she saw through the narrow iron door-way the head
+of a child, bending eagerly forward and radiant with joyous surprise.
+
+Julia paused, held forth both her trembling hands, and entered the
+cell, smiling through her tears as if an angel had called.
+
+The child arose from the floor, for it had been upon its hands and
+knees, and putting back its golden hair, that broke into waves and curls
+in spite of neglect, with two soiled and dimpled hands, it gazed upon
+the intruder in speechless disappointment. Julia saw this, and her heart
+sank again.
+
+"It was not me you wanted," she said, laying her hand tremblingly on the
+child's shoulder. "You are sorry that I came?"
+
+"Yes," answered the child, and his soft, brown eyes filled with tears.
+"I thought it was mamma. It was dark, and I could not see, but it seemed
+as if you were mamma."
+
+Julia stooped down and kissed the child. In that dim light, it was
+difficult to say which of those beautiful faces seemed the most angelic.
+
+"But I love you. I am glad to see you," she said, in a voice that made
+the little boy smile through his tears. He fixed his eyes upon her in a
+long, earnest gaze, and then nestling close to her side, murmured, "And
+I love you!"
+
+There was a narrow bed in the cell, and Julia sat down upon it, lifting
+the child to her knee. In return, she felt a little arm steal around her
+neck and a warm cheek laid against her own. The innocent nature of the
+child blended with that of the maiden, as blossoms in a strange
+atmosphere may be supposed to lean toward each other.
+
+"Do they shut up children in this wicked place? How came you here,
+darling?"
+
+"I don't know!" answered the child, shaking its beautiful head.
+
+"But did you come alone?"
+
+"Oh, no! _She_ came with me."
+
+"Who--your mamma?" questioned Julia, so deeply interested in the child,
+that for the moment, her own grief was forgotten.
+
+"No, not her. They call her my mamma, but she isn't. Come here, softly,
+and I will let you see."
+
+He drew Julia to the entrance, and pointed with his finger toward a
+female, who sat cowering by a stove a little distance up the passage.
+There was something so picturesque in the bold, Roman outlines of this
+woman's face, that it riveted Julia's attention. The large head was
+covered with masses of dull, black hair, gathered up in a loose coil
+behind, and falling down the cheeks in dishevelled waves. The nose,
+rising in a haughty and not ungraceful curve; the massive forehead and
+heavy chin, with a large mouth coral red and full of sensual expression,
+gave to that head, bending downward with its side-face toward the light,
+the interest and effect of some old picture, which, without real beauty,
+haunts the memory like an unforgotten sin.
+
+This woman had evidently received some injury on the forehead, for a
+scarlet silk handkerchief was knotted across it, the ends mingling
+behind with the neglected braids of her hair, which, but for it, must
+have fallen in coils over her neck and shoulders.
+
+Her dress, of blue barége, had once been elegant, if not rich; but in
+that place, faded and soiled, with the flounces half torn away, and the
+rents gathered rudely up with pins that she had found upon the
+stone-floor of her prison, it had a look of peculiar desolation. Every
+fold bespoke that flash poverty which profligacy makes hideous.
+
+A book with yellow covers, soiled and torn, lay open upon this woman's
+lap; and with her large, full arms loosely folded on her bosom, she bent
+over it with a look of gloating interest, that betrayed all the
+intensity of her evil nature. You could see her black eyes kindle
+beneath their inky lashes, as she impatiently dashed over a leaf, or was
+molested in any way by the noise around.
+
+You could not look upon this woman for an instant without feeling the
+influence which a strong character, even in repose, fixes upon the mind.
+Powerful intellect and strong passions--the one utterly untrained, the
+other curbless and fierce--broke through every curve of her sensual
+person and every line of her face.
+
+As Julia stood in the cell-door, with one arm around the child, this
+woman chanced to look up, and caught those beautiful eyes fixed so
+steadily upon her. She returned the glance with a hard, impudent stare,
+which filled the young creature with alarm, while it served to fascinate
+her gaze.
+
+The woman seemed enraged that her glance had not made the stranger cower
+at once. Crushing her book in one hand, she arose and came forward,
+sweeping her way through the prisoners with that sort of undulating
+swagger into which vice changes what was originally grace. She came up
+to Julia with an oath upon her lips, demanding why she had been staring
+at her so?
+
+Julia did not answer, but shrunk close to the child, who cringed against
+her, evidently terrified by the menacing attitude and fierce looks that
+his temerity had provoked.
+
+"Come here, you little wretch," exclaimed the termagant, securing him by
+the arm, and jerking him fiercely through the cell-door. "How dare you
+speak to anybody here without leave? Come along, or I'll break every
+bone in your body."
+
+With a swing of the arm, that sent the child whirling forward in fierce
+leaps, she landed him at her old seat, and sitting down, crowded the
+beautiful creature between her and the hot stove, setting one foot,
+bursting through a white slipper of torn and dirty satin, heavily in his
+lap to hold him quiet, while she went on with her French novel.
+
+The poor little fellow bent his head, dropped his pretty hands on the
+floor, each side of him, and sat motionless and meek, like some heavenly
+cherub crushed beneath the foot of a demon. Once he struggled a little,
+and made an effort to creep back, for the heat pouring from the huge
+mass of iron which stood close before him, had become insupportable.
+
+The woman, without lifting her eyes from the book, put her hand down
+upon his shoulder with a fierce imprecation, and ordered him to be
+quiet. The poor infant dared not move again, though his face, his neck,
+and his little arms became scarlet with the heat, and perspiration stood
+upon his forehead like rain, saturating his golden hair, and even his
+garments. He lifted his soft eyes, full of terror and of entreaty, to
+the hard face above him, but it was gloating over one of those foul
+passages with which Eugene Sue has cursed the world, and the innocent
+creature shrank from the expression as he had cowered from the heat.
+Tears now crowded into his eyes, and he turned them, with a look of
+helpless misery, upon the young girl who stood regarding him, with looks
+of unutterable pity.
+
+Julia Warren could not withstand this look. She was no longer timid; the
+prison was forgotten now; her very soul went forth in compassion for the
+one being more helpless than herself, whom she might have the power to
+protect. She went softly up to the woman, and touched her upon the arm.
+Compassion gave the young creature that exquisite tact which makes
+generous impulses so beautiful.
+
+"Please, madam, let the child stay with me a little longer; I will keep
+him very quiet while you read!"
+
+The meek demeanor, the soft, sweet tone in which this was uttered, fell
+upon the sense like a handful of freshly gathered violets. The woman had
+loved pure things once, and this voice started her heart as if a gush of
+perfumed air had swept through it. She looked up suddenly, and fixing
+her large, bold eyes upon the girl, seemed wondering alike at her
+loveliness and courage in thus addressing her.
+
+Julia endured the gaze with gentle forbearance, but she could not keep
+her eyes from wandering toward the child, who, seizing her dress with
+one hand, was shrouding his face in the folds.
+
+"How came you here?" demanded the woman, rudely.
+
+"I don't know," was the meek answer.
+
+"Don't know, bah! What have you done?"
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"Nothing!" repeated the woman, with a sickening sneer; "so you're not a
+chicken after all; know the ropes, ha! nothing! I never give that
+answer--despise it--always have the courage to own what I have the
+courage to act; it's original; I like it. Take my advice, girl, own the
+truth and shame the--the old gentleman. He's an excellent friend of
+mine, no doubt, but I love to put the old fellow out of countenance with
+the truth now and then. The rest of them never do it; not one of them
+ever committed a crime in their lives--unfortunate, nothing more."
+
+"Will you let me take up the child?" said Julia, with a pleading smile;
+"see, the heat is killing him!"
+
+The woman glanced sharply at the little creature, half moved her foot,
+and then pressed it down again, and drew back a little, dragging the
+child with her; but she resisted the effort which Julia made to release
+him.
+
+"Not now, the child's mine; I'll make him as wicked as I like myself,
+but he shan't run wild among the prisoners!"
+
+"Are you really his mother?" said Julia.
+
+"Yes, I am really his mother!" was the mocking reply; "what have you
+against it?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing--only I should think you would be afraid to have him
+here!"
+
+"And your mother--she isn't afraid to have you here, I suppose."
+
+"I have no mother!" said Julia, in a tone of sadness, that made itself
+felt even upon the bad nature of her listener.
+
+"No mother, well don't mourn for that," said the woman, with a touch of
+passionate feeling. "Thank God for it, if you believe in a God; she
+won't follow you here with her white, miserable face; she won't starve
+to keep you from sin--or die--die by inches, I tell you, because all is
+of no use. You won't see her crowded into a pine coffin, and tumbled
+into Potter's Field, and feel--feel in the very core of your heart that
+you have sent her there. Thank God--thank God, I say, miserable girl,
+that you have no mother!"
+
+The woman had risen as she spoke, her imposing features, her whole form
+quivering with passion. Tears crowded into her lurid eyes, giving them
+fire, depth, and expression. She ceased speaking, fell upon the seat
+again, and, covering her face with the soiled novel, sobbed aloud.
+
+The child, released from the bondage of her foot, stood up, trembling
+beneath the storm of her words; but when she fell down and began to
+weep, his lips grew tremulous, his little chest began to heave, and
+climbing up the stool upon which his mother crouched, he leaned over and
+kissed her temple.
+
+This angel kiss fell upon her forehead like a drop of dew; she dashed
+the novel from her face, and flung her arm over the child.
+
+"Look!" she cried, with a fierce sob, turning her dusky and tear-stained
+face upon the young girl. "He has got a mother; look on her, and then
+dare to mourn because you have none!"
+
+"But I have a grandfather and grandmother that love me as if I were
+their own child," said Julia, deeply moved by the fierce anguish thus
+revealed to her.
+
+"And where are they?"
+
+"My grandfather is here."
+
+"Here! How came it about? What is he charged with?"
+
+Julia's lips grew pale at the word "murder!" Even the woman seemed
+appalled by the mention of a crime so much more serious than she had
+expected.
+
+"But you--they do not charge you with murder?" she questioned, in a
+subdued voice.
+
+"No!" said Julia, innocently. "They charge me with being a witness!"
+
+Once more a torrent of fiery imprecations burst from the lips of that
+miserable woman--imprecations against a law hideous almost as her own
+sins. Julia recoiled, aghast, beneath this profane violence. The child
+dropped down from the stool, and crept to her side, weeping. The woman
+saw this, and checked herself.
+
+"Then you have really done nothing?"
+
+Julia shook her head and smiled sadly.
+
+"A beautiful country--beautiful laws, that send an innocent child to
+take lessons in life here, and from women like us. Oh, my dear, it's a
+great pity you haven't been in the Penitentiary half a dozen times;
+lots of benevolent people would be ready to reform you at any expense
+then."
+
+Julia smiled dimly. She did not quite understand what the woman was
+saying.
+
+"It makes my heart burn to see you here," continued the woman,
+vehemently; "it's a sin--a wicked shame; but I'll take care of you.
+There's some good left in me yet. Just get acquainted with that little
+wretch, and no one else; stay in your cell; the keeper won't let them
+crowd in upon you. The matron will be here by-and-bye. She'll be a
+mother to you; she's a Christian--a thorough, cheerful, hard-working
+Christian. I believe in these things, though I would not own it to every
+one. Kind, because she can't help it without going against her own
+nature. I like that woman--there isn't a creature here wicked enough not
+to like her."
+
+"When shall I see her?" questioned Julia, brightening beneath this first
+gleam of hope.
+
+"To-morrow morning--perhaps before--I don't know exactly. She's in and
+out whenever there is good to be done. But come, go into my cell--they
+haven't given you one yet, I suppose--the whole gang of them are coming
+this way again."
+
+Julia looked up and saw a crowd of women coming up from the grated door,
+where they had been drawn by some noise in the outer passage. Terrified
+by the dread of meeting that horrible old negress again, she grasped the
+little hand that still held to her garments, and absolutely fled after
+the woman, who entered the cell where she had first seen the child.
+
+The prisoners were amused by her evident terror, and gathered around the
+entrance; but as Julia sat down upon the bed, pale and panting with
+affright, her self-constituted guardian started forward and dashed the
+iron door in their faces, with a clang that sounded from one hollow
+corridor to another, like the sudden clang of a bell.
+
+"There," she said, with a smile that for a moment swept away the fierce
+expression from her face, "I'd like to see one of them bold enough to
+come within arm's length of that. My home's my castle, if it is in a
+prison. I've been here often enough to know my rights. If the laws won't
+keep you free from that gang, I will!"
+
+It was wonderful the influence that gentle girl had won over the
+depraved being who protected her thus. After she entered the cell, no
+rude or profane word passed the woman's lips. She seemed to have shut
+out half that was wicked in her own nature when she dashed the iron door
+against her fellow-prisoners. Her large, black eyes brightened with a
+sort of rude pleasure as she saw her child creep into Julia's lap, and
+lay his head on her bosom.
+
+"How naturally you take to one another," she said, letting down the
+black masses of her hair, and beginning to disentangle the braids with
+her fingers, as if the pure eyes of her guest had reproached their
+untidy state. "When I was a little girl, we had plenty of wild roses in
+a swamp near the house. It is strange, I have not thought of them in ten
+years; but when I saw you and the child sitting there together, it
+seemed as if I could reach out my hands and fill them."
+
+Julia did not answer; her eyes were bent on the child, who had ceased to
+cry, and lay quietly in her arms--so quietly that she could detect a
+drowsy mist stealing over his eyes. The woman went on threading out her
+long hair in silence. After awhile Julia, who had been watching the
+soft, brown eyes of the child as the white lids dropped over them
+gradually like the closing petals of a flower, looked up with a smile,
+so pure, so bright, that the woman unconsciously smiled also.
+
+"He is sound asleep," said the young girl, putting back the moist curls
+from his forehead. "See what a smile, I have been watching it deepen on
+his face since his eyes began to close."
+
+The woman put back her hair with both hands, and turned her eyes with a
+sort of stern mournfulness upon the sleeping boy.
+
+"He never goes to sleep on my bosom like that," she said, at last, with
+a bitter smile, and more bitter tone. "How could he? My heart beats
+sometimes loud enough to scare myself; I wonder if wild flowers really
+do blossom over Mount Etna? If they do, why should not my own child
+rest over my own heart?"
+
+"My grandfather has told me that flowers _do_ grow around volcanoes,"
+said Julia, with a soft smile, "but it is because the fire never reaches
+them; if scorched once they would perish!"
+
+"And my heart scorches everything near it. Is that what you mean?" said
+the woman, with a degree of mildness that was peculiarly impressive in a
+voice usually so stern and loud.
+
+"When you were angry to-day, he trembled; when you wept he kissed you,"
+answered the gentle girl, looking mildly into the dark face of her
+companion, whose fierce nature yielded both respect and attention to the
+moral courage that spoke from those young lips.
+
+"Well, what if I do frighten him? We love that best which we fear most.
+It is human nature; at any rate it was my nature, and should be my
+child's," said the woman, striving to cast off the influence of which
+she was becoming ashamed.
+
+"And did you ever fear any one?"
+
+"Did I ever _love_ any one?" was the answer, given in a voice so deep,
+so earnest, that it seemed to ring up from the very bottom of a heart
+where it had been buried for years.
+
+"I hope so, I trust so--do you not love your child?"
+
+The woman dashed back the entire weight of her hair with an impetuous
+sweep of one hand; then, with the whole Roman contour of her face
+exposed, she turned a keen look upon the young face lifted so innocently
+to hers. Long and searching was that look. The shadows of terrible
+thoughts swept over that face. Some words, it might be of passion, it
+might be of prayer--for bitterness, grief and repentance, all were
+blended in that look--trembled unuttered on her lips. Then she suddenly
+flung up her arms and falling across the bed, cried out in bitter
+anguish--"Oh, my God!--my God! can I never again be like her?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE THREE OLD WOMEN.
+
+     Why have we three gathered here,
+       With aching hearts and aching brain?
+     Death must fill another bier,
+       Before we three shall meet again.
+
+
+"How do you do, madam? Anything in my way? Capital beets these--the most
+delicious spinach. Celery, bright and crisp enough to suit an
+alderman--sold five bunches for the supper-room at the City Hall, not
+half an hour since. Everything on the stand fresh as spring water, sweet
+as a rose. Two bunches of the celery, yes ma'am: anything else? not a
+small measure of the potatoes? Luscious things, always come out of the
+saucepan bursting their jackets; only one measure? Very well--thank you!
+Cranberries, certainly!"
+
+Thus extolling her merchandise, busy as a bee, and radiant with good
+humor, stood our old huckster woman, by her vegetable stand in Fulton
+Market, on the morning after Julia Warren was cast into prison. No
+customer left her stand without adding something to the weight of his or
+her market-basket. There was something so hearty and cheerful in her
+appearance, that people paused spite of themselves, to examine her
+nicely arranged merchandise; and though all the adjoining stalls were
+deserted, Mrs. Gray was sure to have her hands full every morning of the
+week.
+
+On this particular day she had been busy as a mother bird, serving
+customers, making change, and arranging her stall, now and then pausing
+to bandy a good-humored jest with her neighbors, or toss a handful of
+vegetables into some beggar's basket. The words with which our chapter
+opens, were addressed to a quiet old lady in deep mourning, who carried
+a small willow basket on her arm, and appeared to be selecting a few
+dainty trifles from various stalls as she passed along.
+
+"Cranberries! Oh, yes, the finest you have seen this year, plump as
+June cherries; see, madam, judge for yourself."
+
+The good woman took up a quantity of the berries as she spoke, and began
+pouring them from one plump hand to the other, smiling blandly now at
+the fruit, now at her quiet customer.
+
+"Yes, they are very fine," said the old lady; "do up a small measure
+neatly, they are for a sick person."
+
+Mrs. Gray looked over her stand for some paper, but her supply was
+exhausted. Nothing presented itself but the Morning Express, with which
+she usually occupied any little time that might be hers, between the
+coming and departure of her customers. This morning she had been too
+busy even for a glance at its columns; but as her neighbor seemed to be
+out of wrapping paper also, she took up the journal, and was about to
+tear off the advertising half, when something in its columns arrested
+her eye. She held the paper up and read eagerly. The rich color faded
+from her cheeks, and you might have detected a faint motion disturbing
+the repose of her double chin, a sure sign of unusual agitation in her.
+
+"You have forgotten the cranberries!" said the customer, at length,
+looking with some surprise at the paper, as it began to rustle violently
+in the huckster woman's hands.
+
+Mrs. Gray did not seem to hear, but read on with increased agitation. At
+length she sat down heavily upon her stool, her hands that still grasped
+the paper, dropped into her lap, and she seemed completely bewildered.
+
+"Are you ill?" inquired the old lady, moving softly around the stand.
+"Something in the paper must have distressed you."
+
+"Yes," answered the huckster woman, taking up the journal, and pointing
+with her unsteady finger to the paragraph she had been reading, "I am
+heart sick; see, I know all these people; I loved some of them. It has
+taken away my breath. Do you believe that it is true?"
+
+The lady reached forth her hand, and taking the paper, read the account
+of Leicester's murder and Mr. Warren's arrest, to the end. Mrs. Gray
+was looking anxiously in her face, and, though it was white and still as
+the coldest marble, it seemed to the good woman as if it contracted
+about the mouth, and a look of subdued pain deepened around the eyes.
+
+"Do you believe it?" questioned Mrs. Gray, forgetting that the person
+she addressed was an entire stranger.
+
+"Yes," answered the lady, speaking with apparent effort--"yes, he is
+dead!"
+
+"What! murdered by that old man? I don't believe it. It's against
+nature!"
+
+"He died a violent death," answered the lady, shrinking as if with pain.
+
+"Then he killed himself," answered Mrs. Gray, recovering something of
+her natural energy, "it was like him."
+
+"Oh! God forbid!"
+
+The lady uttered these words in a low, gasping tone, as if Mrs. Gray's
+speech had confirmed some unspoken dread in her own heart. The noble old
+huckster woman saw that she was giving pain, and did not press the
+subject.
+
+"Then some other person must be guilty; it was not old Mr. Warren; I
+haven't seen much of him, true enough, but he's a good man, my life on
+it! He's sat at my table--a Thanksgiving dinner, ma'am! I remember the
+blessing he asked, so meek, so full of gratitude, with as fine a turkey
+as ever came from a barn-yard tempting him to be short, and he with
+hunger stamped deep into every line of his face. I haven't heard such a
+blessing since I was a girl. This man charged with murder! I wouldn't
+believe it though every minister in New York swore against him."
+
+The old lady opened her lips to speak again, but Mrs. Gray suddenly laid
+a hand upon her arm.
+
+"Hush! you see that old woman coming up the market, it is his wife!--Mr.
+Warren's wife!--see how broken-heartedly she looks about from stall to
+stall; maybe it is this one she wants. Yes! how her poor eyes brighten.
+A friend in need is a friend indeed; she knows where to look, you see."
+
+By this time the forlorn old woman, who came wandering like a ghost up
+the market, caught a glimpse of the portly figure and radiant
+countenance, that always made the huckster woman an object of attention.
+Her pale face did indeed brighten up, and she forced her way through the
+people, putting them aside with her hands in reckless haste.
+
+Mrs. Gray left her customer by the stall, and went down the market in
+benevolent haste, the snowy strings of her cap floating out, and the
+broad expanse of her apron rippling with the rapidity of her steps. She
+met Mrs. Warren with a kindly, but subdued greeting, and, without
+releasing the thin hand she had grasped, led the heart-stricken woman up
+to her stall.
+
+"There, now, sit down upon my stool," she said, giving another gentle
+shake of the withered hand, before she relinquished it. "You are tired
+and out of breath; there, there, keep quiet; cry away, if you like, I'll
+stand before you!"
+
+The good woman had seen tears gathering into the wild eyes of her
+visitor from the first--for if tears are locked in a grateful, heart,
+kindness will bring them forth--and with that intuitive delicacy which
+made all her acts so genial, she left the poor creature to weep in
+peace, shielding her from notice by the breast-work of her own ample
+person.
+
+"Oh, the cranberries! I have kept you waiting!" she said to the customer
+who stood motionless by the stall, apparently unconscious of all that
+was passing, but keenly interested, notwithstanding this seeming apathy.
+
+The lady started at this address, and without answer watched Mrs. Gray
+as she twisted half of the torn newspaper over her hand, and afterward
+filled it with berries. She took the paper, mechanically laid down a
+piece of silver, and waited for the change. All this was done in a cold,
+strengthless way, like one who does every thing well from habit, and who
+omits no detail of a life that has lost all interest. She stood a moment
+after receiving the parcel, and then drawing close to Mrs. Gray,
+whispered--
+
+"Ask her where she lives!"
+
+Mrs. Gray looked around, and saw that the pale face was bowed still,
+and that tears were pouring down it like rain. She leaned forward and
+whispered--
+
+"Do you live in the old place yet?"
+
+"No," was the broken answer, "I could not stay there alone, if the rent
+were paid. As it is they would not let me, I suppose."
+
+"Where is your home, then? Where is your family?" said the lady, in her
+gentle way.
+
+"They are in prison; my home is the street!"
+
+"But where do you sleep?"
+
+"Nowhere, I have not wanted to sleep since they took _him_!" was the sad
+reply. "I walk up and down all night; it is a little chilly sometimes,
+but a great deal better than sitting alone to think."
+
+"She will go home with me," said Mrs. Gray, addressing her customer, and
+drawing one hand across her eyes, for their soft brown was becoming
+misty. "Of course she will--I don't know you, ma'am, but somehow it
+seems as if you would like to help this poor, unfortunate woman. She
+needs friends, and has got one, at any rate, but the more the better!"
+
+"If--if you could only persuade the judge to let me stay in prison with
+them," said Mrs. Warren, lifting her face to the lady with an air of
+pleading humility. "I don't want a better home than that."
+
+"They! Was it not they you said?" questioned the huckster woman. "Who is
+in prison besides Mr. Warren? Not Julia--not my little flower-angel--you
+do not mean that?"
+
+"They let all go in but me!" answered Mrs. Warren, with a look of
+pitiful desolation.
+
+"I never said it before!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, untying her apron,
+rolling it up and twisting the strings around it with a degree of energy
+quite disproportioned to this simple operation--"I never said it before,
+but I'm ashamed of my country--it's a disgrace to humanity. I only wish
+Jacob knew it, that's all!"
+
+"Hush!" said the lady, with her cold, low voice. "There's one stronger
+than the laws who permits these things for his own wise purposes."
+
+Mrs. Warren looked up. A wan smile quivered over her face. "That is so
+like him--he said these very words."
+
+"He is right! you must not feel so hopeless, or be altogether
+miserable--have faith! have charity!" added the gentle speaker, turning
+from the mournful eyes of Mrs. Warren, and addressing the huckster
+woman. "You cannot know how many other persons are suffering from this
+very cause. Let us all be patient--let us all trust in God."
+
+She glided away as she spoke, and was lost in the crowd, leaving behind
+the hushed passion of grief and a feeling of awe, for the calm dignity
+of her own sorrow subdued the resentment which Mrs. Gray had felt, like
+the rebuke of an angel.
+
+"Did you know her?" she questioned, drawing a deep breath, as the black
+garments disappeared. "One would think she understood the whole case."
+
+Mrs. Warren shook her head.
+
+"I suppose she was right," continued the huckster woman--"I _know_ she
+was right, but we can't always feel the pious faith she wants us to
+have; if we did there would be no sorrow. Who minds wading a river when
+certain just how deep the water is, and while banks covered with flowers
+lie in full sight on the other side? It is plunging into a dark stream,
+with clouds hiding the shore, and not a star asleep in the bottom, that
+tries the faith. But after all, she speaks like one who knows what such
+things mean. So be comforted my poor friend, the river is dark, the
+clouds are heavy, but somewhere we shall find a gleam of God's mercy
+folded up in the blackness. Isn't there a hymn--I think there is--that
+says, 'earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure?'"
+
+"Oh! if they would let me stay with him!" answered the poor old woman,
+with her wan smile, "I could have faith then, that is heaven to me!"
+
+"You shall see him--you shall stay with him from morning till night, if
+you would rather! I'll go into court myself. I'll haunt the alderman
+like an office-seeker, till some of them lets you in. I'll--yes, I'll go
+after Jacob, he can do anything; you never saw Jacob--my brother Jacob,
+he's a man to deal with these courts. Strong as a lion, honest as a
+house-dog; been half his life in foreign parts. Knows more in ten
+minutes than his sister does in a whole year; he'll set things to rights
+in no time. Your husband is innocent--innocent as I am--we must prove
+it, that's all!"
+
+Mrs. Warren did not speak the thanks that beamed in every lineament of
+her face; but she took the hand which Mrs. Gray had laid upon hers, and
+pressing it softly between her thin palms, raised it to her lips.
+
+"Poh--poh, they will see you! Cheer up now, and let us consider how to
+begin. If Jacob were only here now, or even my nephew, Robert Otis, he
+would be better than nobody!"
+
+"Thank you, aunt Gray--thank you a thousand times for this estimate of
+modest merit," said a voice at her elbow, whose cheerfulness was
+certainly somewhat assumed.
+
+Mrs. Gray turned with a degree of eagerness that threatened to destroy
+the equilibrium of her stately person.
+
+"Robert--Robert Otis," she cried, addressing the noble-looking youth,
+who stood with his hand extended, ready for the warm greeting that was
+sure to be his. "I was just wishing for you--so was poor Mrs. Warren;
+you remember Mrs. Warren's grand-daughter--she is in trouble--great
+trouble!"
+
+"Yes, I know," said young Otis, remarking the painful expression that
+came and went on that withered face. "I have been to the prison!"
+
+"Did you see him? Did they let you in?" exclaimed Mrs. Warren, beginning
+to tremble. "Oh! tell me how he was--did he miss me very much? Was he
+anxious about his poor wife?"
+
+"I was too early--they did not let me in," replied the young man,
+bending a pair of fine eyes, full of noble compassion, on the old
+woman; "but I learned from one of the keepers that your husband was more
+composed than persons usually are the first night of confinement."
+
+The old woman sunk back to her seat, with an air of meek disappointment.
+
+"And Julia, my grandchild--did you inquire about her?"
+
+Robert's countenance changed; there was something unsteady in his voice,
+as he replied; it seemed embarrassed with some tender recollection.
+
+"I saw her!"
+
+"You saw her! How did she look?--what did she say?"
+
+"I got admission to speak with Mrs. Foster, the matron, a fine, pleasant
+woman, you will be glad to know; but it was early for visitors, and I
+only saw your grand-daughter through the grating."
+
+"Was she ill?--was she crying?--did she look pale?"
+
+"She looked pale, certainly, but calm and quiet as an angel in heaven."
+
+"Oh! she is like an angel, that dear grand-daughter!"
+
+"She was leading a little child by the hand, up and down the lower
+passage--a beautiful creature, who kept his quiet, soft eyes fixed on
+hers, as we sometimes see a house-dog gaze on its owner. I had but one
+glimpse, and came away."
+
+"Then she did not seem unhappy?" questioned the old woman.
+
+"I could not say that. Her eyes were heavy, as if she had cried a good
+deal in the night, but she was calm when I saw her."
+
+"Would they let me look at her as you did, if I promised not to speak a
+word?"
+
+"There is no reason why you should not speak with her and your husband
+too. If the keepers refuse, I will obtain an order from the sheriff."
+
+"Do you think so, really? Can I see them to-day?"
+
+"Be at rest; you will see them within a few hours, no doubt," replied
+the young man. "But your grand-daughter, at least, will, I trust, be at
+liberty. It was on this subject that I came to see you, aunt."
+
+"And right glad I am you did come, nephew," replied the huckster woman.
+"I wanted to help the poor things somehow, but didn't know what on earth
+to begin with. I know just about as much of the law as a spring gosling,
+and no more. It costs heaps of money, that every one can tell you; but
+how it is to be spent, and what for, is the question I want answered."
+
+"Well, aunt, the first step, I fancy, is to get the poor woman's
+grandchild out of that horrid place. I can tell you it made my blood run
+cold to see her among those women!"
+
+"Yes--yes. But how is it to be done?"
+
+"You must go up to court and give bonds for her appearance; that is, you
+agree to give five hundred dollars to the treasury, if this young girl
+fails to appear when her grandfather is put on trial. If she appears,
+you are free from all obligation. If she fails, the money must be paid."
+
+"Fails! I thought better of you, nephew. How can you mention the word?
+Haven't I trusted her with fruit? Didn't I go security for half the
+flowers in Dunlap's green-house at one time within this very month?
+Robert, Robert, the world is spoiling you. How could you speak as if
+that girl--I love her as if she were my own niece. Robert--how could you
+speak as if she could fail, and her poor grandmother sitting by?"
+
+Was it this energetic rebuke that brought the blood so richly into the
+young man's cheek, or was it the little word "niece" that fell so
+affectionately from the old huckster woman's lips? It could not be the
+former, for a bright smile kindled up the flush, and that, a rebuke,
+however kindly intended, was not likely to excite.
+
+"You cannot feel more confidence in her than I do, dear Aunt Gray," he
+said; "but I thought it right to place the responsibility clearly before
+you!"
+
+"That was right--that was like a man of business. Never mind what I
+said, nephew," cried the great hearted woman, shaking the youth's hand
+till the motion flushed his face once more. "Aunt Gray always was an old
+fool, seeing faults where they never existed, and making herself
+ridiculous every way, but never mind her--she'll give bonds for the poor
+child, of course; but then the old gentleman, how much will the law ask
+for him?"
+
+"I'm afraid it will be out of your power to free him, aunt."
+
+"What, they ask too much, ha? You think Aunt Gray must not run the risk;
+but she will, though. I tell you that old man is honest, honest as
+steel. They might trust him with the prison doors open; he will do what
+is right without fear or favor. I'll give bonds for him up to the last
+shilling of my savings, if the court asks it. He's innocent as a
+creeping babe, and I, for one, will let the world, yes, the whole world,
+know that this is my opinion."
+
+"You will not hear me, out. Aunt Gray, I did not advise you against
+giving bonds, far from it; but Mr. Warren is charged with a crime for
+which no bonds can be received."
+
+"I did not know that," answered Mrs. Gray, sinking her voice, "still
+something can be done; see how earnestly she is looking at us! My heart
+aches for her, Robert."
+
+"Heaven knows I pity her," said the young man, "for I tell you fairly,
+aunt, the evidence against her husband is terribly strong."
+
+"But you, Robert--you cannot think him guilty?"
+
+"No, aunt, I solemnly believe Mr. Leicester killed himself. But what is
+my belief without evidence?"
+
+"Then you solemnly believe him innocent?"
+
+"As I believe myself innocent, good aunt."
+
+"I won't ask you to kiss me, Robert, because we are in the open market,
+and people might laugh--but shake hands again. Next to faith in God I
+love to see trust in human nature--faith in God's creatures--it's a
+beautiful thing! The good naturally have confidence in the good. That
+old man is a Christian, treat him reverently in his prison, nephew, as
+you would have bowed before one of the apostles; his blessing would do
+you good, though it came from the gallows."
+
+"I believe all this, aunt; something of mystery there is about the man,
+but it would be impossible to think him guilty of murder! Still there
+must have been some connection between him and Mr. Leicester yet
+unexplained."
+
+"I know nothing of this--nothing but what the papers tell me; but one
+thing is certain, Robert, no one ever had anything to do with Mr.
+Leicester without suffering for it. He was kind to you once, but somehow
+it seemed to wear out your young life. The flesh wasted from your limbs;
+the red went out from your cheeks. It made me heart-sick to see the boy
+I loved to pet like a child, shooting up into a thoughtful man so
+unnaturally. I remember once, when Leicester boarded at our house,
+Robert, there was a cabbage-rose growing in one corner of the garden. I
+haven't much time for flowers, but still I could always find a minute
+every morning before coming to market for these rose-buds when the
+blossom season came. That summer the bush was heavy with leaves, still
+there was but a single bud, a noble one, though, plump as a strawberry,
+and with as deep a red breaking through the green leaves. I loved to
+watch the bud swell day by day. Every morning I went out while the dew
+was heavy upon it, and saw the leaves part softly, as if they were
+afraid of the sunshine.
+
+"One morning, just as this bud was opening itself to the heart, I found
+Mr. Leicester bending over the bush, tearing open the poor rose with his
+fingers. His hands were bathed in the sweet breath that came pouring out
+all at once upon the air. The soft leaves curled round his fingers,
+trying to hide, it seemed to me, the havoc his hands had made. It was
+hard to condemn a man for tearing open a half-blown rose, nephew, but
+somehow this thing left a prejudice in my heart against Mr. Leicester.
+The flower did not live till another morning. I told him of this, and he
+laughed.
+
+"'Well, what then? I had all the fragrance at a breath,' he said. 'Never
+let your roses distil their essence to the sun, drop by drop, Mrs.
+Gray, when you can tear open the hearts and drink their sweet lives in a
+moment.'
+
+"I remember his answer, word for word, for it came fresh to my mind many
+times, when I saw you, my dear boy, pining away as it were, under his
+kindness. It seemed to me as if he were softly parting the leaves of
+your young heart, and draining its life away!"
+
+"And you really thought my fate like that of your rose, dear aunt?"
+
+The youth uttered these words with a pale cheek and downcast eyes. The
+good woman's words had impressed him strangely.
+
+"It kept me awake many a long night, Robert."
+
+"But you did not think that Uncle Jacob was at hand? Had he been in your
+garden, Leicester would not have found an opportunity to kill your pet
+rose--he might have breathed upon it, nothing more."
+
+The huckster woman looked earnestly into that noble young face; and
+Robert met her glance with a frank, but somewhat regretful smile.
+
+"And Jacob, my brother, stood between you and this bad man," she said at
+length, with a degree of emotion that made the folds of her double chin
+quiver.
+
+"He made me wiser and better--he was my salvation, Aunt Gray."
+
+"God bless my brother--God bless Jacob Strong!" cried the huckster
+woman, softly clasping her hands, while her eyes were flooded with
+tears--grateful tears, that hung upon them like dew in the husks of a
+ripe hazelnut.
+
+"Amen!" said the young man, in a low voice.
+
+"Now, aunt, let us go to this poor woman--observe how earnestly she is
+watching us."
+
+The aunt and nephew had stepped aside as their conversation became
+personal; and old Mrs. Warren had been eagerly regarding them all the
+time. They were the only friends she had on earth. To her broken spirit,
+they seemed to hold the power of life and death over the beings she
+loved so devotedly. Robert had promised that she should see her husband
+and her grandchild; the heart-stricken woman asked for nothing more. She
+never, for an instant, questioned his power, but sat with her eyes
+turned reverently upon his fine person and noble features, as if he had
+been an angel empowered to unlock the gates of heaven for her.
+
+Robert and his aunt approached her as their conference ended, and the
+young man took out his watch.
+
+"Is it time? Would they let me in now?" questioned the poor woman, half
+rising as she saw the movement.
+
+"Are you strong enough?" he answered, observing that she trembled.
+
+"Oh, yes! I am strong--very strong. Let us go!"
+
+With her thin, eager hands, she folded the shawl over her bosom and
+stood up, strong in her womanly affections, in her Christian humility,
+but oh, how weak every way else!
+
+Mrs. Gray folded herself in an ample blanket shawl, and tying on her
+bonnet, led the way out of the market, forgetting for the first time in
+her life, that her stall was unattended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE FIRST NIGHT IN PRISON.
+
+     With the gloom of a prison, above and around,
+       He lay down at night, like a child to its sleep;--
+     His soul was at rest and his faith was profound,
+       His anchor was strong and God's mercy is deep!
+
+
+If there is any portion of the city prison more cheerful than another,
+it is the double line of cells looking upon Elm street. Plenty of pure
+light pours in through the glazed roof, filling the space open from
+pavement to ceiling, with a pleasant atmosphere. The walls that form
+this spacious parade-ground are pierced with cells up to the very
+skylights. Each tier of cells is marked by a narrow iron gallery; and
+each gallery is bridged with that opposite, by a narrow causeway, upon
+which a keeper usually sits smoking his cigar, and idly reading some
+city journal.
+
+In the day time the prisoners, who inhabit these various cells, take
+exercise and air upon the galleries. Even those committed for the
+highest crimes often enjoy this privilege, for the ponderous strength of
+the walls, and the vigilance of the authorities, render a degree of
+freedom safe here, which could not be dreamed of in less secure
+buildings.
+
+I do not know that there is any rule requiring that persons charged with
+capital crime should be confined in the upper cells, but usually they
+are found somewhere in the third gallery, enjoying some degree of
+liberty till after sentence; but closed between that time and death, as
+it were, in a living tomb. Thick walls encompass them on every side.
+Doors of ponderous iron bolted to the stone, shut them in from the
+galleries. A slit in the walls, five or six feet deep, lets in all the
+breath and light of heaven which the wretched man must enjoy till he is
+violently plunged into a closer cell, whence breath and light are for
+ever excluded. A narrow bed, and perhaps a small, rude table, are all
+the furniture that can be crowded in with the prisoner. But books are
+seldom if ever denied him; and occasionally these little cells take a
+domestic air that renders them less prison-like, and less gloomy as the
+tastes and habits of the inmates develop themselves.
+
+Old Mr. Warren was placed in one of these cells the day of his
+examination. He followed the officers along those dizzy galleries,
+submitting to the curious gaze of his fellow-prisoners with unshrinking
+humility, that won upon the kind feelings of his keepers. He entered the
+cell, looked calmly around, and then with a grateful and patient smile,
+thanked the officer for giving him a place so much better than he had
+expected.
+
+The officer was touched by the grateful and meek air with which he
+spoke these simple thanks, and replied kindly, "that he was willing to
+render any comfort consistent with the prison rules." After this he
+looked around to see that everything was in order, and went out, closing
+the heavy door with a kind regard to the noise, shooting the bolt as
+softly as so much iron could be moved.
+
+And now the old man was alone, utterly alone, locked and bolted deep
+into that solitude which must be worse than death to the guilty soul. At
+first his brain was dizzy; the tragic events that cast him into prison
+had transpired too rapidly for realization. They rose and eddied through
+his mind like the phantasmagoria of a dream. He could not think--he
+could not even pray.
+
+He sat down on the hard pallet, and bowing his forehead to his hands,
+made an effort to realize his exact situation. His eyes were bent on the
+floor. Once or twice his lips moved with a faint tremor, for in all the
+confusion of his ideas he could recollect one thing vividly enough. His
+wife and grandchild--the two beings for whom he had toiled and suffered,
+were torn from his side. His poor old wife--her cry, as she strove to
+follow him, still rang in his ear. She had not even the comforts of a
+prison.
+
+He looked around the cell--it was clean and dry--the walls snowy with
+whitewash--the stone flags swept scrupulously. In everything but size it
+was more comfortable than the basement from which the officers had taken
+them. True, it was but a hole dug into the ponderous walls of a prison,
+but if she had been there the poor old man would have been content--nay,
+grateful, for as yet he had found no strength to realize the terrible
+danger that hung over him.
+
+Thus, hour after hour went by, and he sat motionless, pondering over all
+the incidents of his examination like one in a dream. None of them
+seemed real--but the voice of his wife--the wild, white face of his
+grandchild as she was borne away through the crowd--these things were
+palpable enough. He tried to conjecture where his wife would go; what
+place of refuge she would find; not to their old home, the floor was
+still red with blood. She was a timid woman, dependent as a child.
+Without his calm strength to sustain her, what could she do? Perish in
+the street, perhaps; lie down, softly, upon some door-stone, and grieve
+herself to death.
+
+There is nothing on earth more touchingly holy than the tenderness which
+an old man feels for his old wife. The most ardent love of youth is
+feeble compared to the solemn devotion into which time purifies passion.
+The mere habit of domestic intercourse is much, independent of those
+deeper and more subtle feelings which give us our first glimpses of
+Paradise through the joys of home affection. It was not the prison--it
+was not the charge of murder that held that old man spell-bound and
+motionless so long. His desolation was of the heart; his spirit fled out
+from those huge walls, and followed the lone woman who had been thrust
+rudely from his side, for the first time in more than thirty years.
+
+It was not with this keen anguish that he thought of Julia, for in her
+character there was freshness, energy, something of moral strength
+beyond her years. She might suffer terribly, but something convinced the
+grandfather that the sublime purity of her nature would protect itself.
+She was not a feeble, broken-spirited woman like his wife. Yet his heart
+yearned as he thought of this young creature so pure, so beautiful, so
+full of sensitive sympathies, among the inmates of that gloomy dwelling.
+
+It was of these two beings the old man pondered, not of himself. After
+awhile, this keen anxiety goaded him into motion. He stood up and began
+to pace back and forth in his cell. A narrow strip of the floor lay
+between his bed and the wall, and along this a little footpath had been
+worn in the stone by former prisoners.
+
+Who had thus worn the prints of his solitary misery into the hard
+granite? What foot had trodden there the last sad step of destiny! This
+question drew the old man's attention for a moment from those he had
+lost. He became curious to know something of his predecessor--what was
+his crime? How did he look? Had he a wife and child to mourn? Did he
+leave the cell for liberty, other confinement, or death?
+
+The word death brought a sense of his own condition for the first time
+before him. He became thoroughly conscious that a terrible charge had
+been made against him, and that appearances must sustain that charge.
+From that instant he stood still, with his eyes bent upon the floor,
+pondering the subject clearly in his mind. At length a faint smile
+parted his lips, and he began to pace the narrow cell again, but more
+calmly than before.
+
+I will tell you why that old man smiled there, alone, in his prison
+cell, because it will convince you that nothing but guilt can make one
+utterly wretched. He had thought over the whole matter--the charge of
+murder--the impossibility of disproving a single point of the evidence.
+Nothing could be more apparent than the danger in which he
+stood--nothing more certain than the penalty that would follow
+conviction. But it was this very truth that sent the smile to those aged
+lips. What was death to him but the threshold of heaven? Death, he had
+never prayed for it, for his Christianity was too holy and humble for
+selfish importunity, even though the thing asked for was death. He was
+not one to cast himself at the footstool of the Almighty, and point out
+to His all-seeing wisdom the mercies that would please him best. No--no,
+the religion of that noble old man--for true religion is always
+noble--was of that humble, trusting nature that says, "Nevertheless, not
+my will, but thine, be done." He was only thinking when he smiled so
+gently, how much greater sorrow he had encountered than death could
+bring.
+
+This gave him comfort when he thought of his wife also. She would go
+with him, he was certain of that as he could be of anything in the
+future. He remembered, with pleasure, that old people, long married, and
+very much attached, were almost certain to die within a few weeks or
+months of each other. How many instances of this came within his own
+memory. It was a comforting theme, and he dwelt upon it with solemn
+satisfaction.
+
+The keeper, when he came to bring the old man's dinner, gazed upon his
+benign and tranquil features with astonishment. Never in his life had he
+seen a prisoner so calm on the first day of confinement. It was
+impossible for philosophy or hardihood to assume an expression so
+gentle, and full of dignity.
+
+"Tell me," said the old man, as the keeper lingered near the door, "tell
+me who occupied this cell last? It is a strange thing, but with so much
+to distract my thoughts, a curiosity haunts me to know something of the
+man whose bed I have taken."
+
+The officer hesitated. It was an ominous question, and he shrunk from a
+subject well calculated to depress a prisoner.
+
+"I have made out a portion of the history," said the prisoner; "enough
+to know that he was a sea-faring man, and had talent."
+
+"And how did you find this out?" inquired the officer.
+
+"There, upon the wall, is a rough picture, but one can read a great deal
+in it!"
+
+The old man pointed to the wall, where a few unequal lines, drawn with a
+pencil, gave a rude idea of waves in motion. In their midst was a ship,
+with her masts broken, plunging downward, with her bows already engulfed
+in the water.
+
+"Poor fellow! I thought it had been whitewashed over," said the officer.
+"He did that the very week before--before his execution."
+
+"Then he was executed?"
+
+"Yes; nothing could have saved him."
+
+"Was he guilty, then?"
+
+"It was as clear a case of piracy as I ever saw tried; the man confessed
+his guilt."
+
+"Guilty! Death must be terrible in that case--very terrible!" said the
+old man, with a mournful shake of the head.
+
+"He was a reckless fellow, full of wild glee to the last, but a coward,
+I do believe. I found his pillow wet almost every morning. The last
+month he kept a calendar of the days over his bed there, pencilled on
+the wall. The first thing every morning he would strike out a day with
+his finger; but if any one seemed to pity him, he frequently broke into
+a volley of curses, or jeered at sympathy that he did not want."
+
+"Have you ever seen an innocent man executed?" said the prisoner,
+greatly disturbed by this account; "that is, a man who met death calmly,
+neither as a stoic, a bravo, or a coward?"
+
+"I have no doubt innocent men have been executed again and again, all
+over the world; but I have never seen one die, knowing him to be such."
+
+The officer went out after this, leaving the old man alone once more.
+His face was sad now, and he watched the closing door wistfully.
+
+"Why should I seek other examples?" he said, at length. "Was not _he_
+executed innocently? Is it not enough to know how my Lord and Saviour
+died?"
+
+It was a singular thing, but, from the first, old Mr. Wilcox never
+seemed to entertain a hope of escaping from the prison by any means but
+a violent death. It was to this that all his Christian energies were
+bent from the earliest hour of confinement.
+
+The night came on, but its approach was perceptible only by the shadows
+that crept across the loop-hole which served as a window. In the
+darkness that soon filled the cell the old man lay down in his clothes
+and tried to sleep. Now it was that his soul yearned toward the poor old
+wife who had been so long sheltered in his bosom; the fair
+grand-daughter too--it seemed as if his heart would break as their
+condition rose before him in all its fearful desolation.
+
+Deep in the night he fell asleep, and then his brain was haunted with
+dreams, bright, heavenly dreams, such as irradiate the face of an infant
+when the mother believes it whispering with angels. But this sweet sleep
+was of brief duration. He awoke in the darkness, and, unconscious where
+he was, reached out his arm. It struck the cold, hard wall, and the
+vibration went through his heart like a knife. She was not by his side.
+Where, where was his poor wife? He asked this question aloud; his sobs
+filled the cell; the miserable pillow under his head soaked up the tears
+as they rained down his face. A dread of death could not have wrung
+drops from those aching eyes; but tears of affection reveal the strength
+of a good man. There are times when the proudest being on earth might be
+ashamed not to weep.
+
+He did not close his eyes again that night, but wept himself calm with
+broken prayers. Low, humble entreaties for strength, for patience and
+for charity, rose from his hard bed. Slowly the cell filled with light,
+and then he saw, for the first time, a book lying on a small shelf,
+fastened beneath the window. He arose, eagerly, and took it down. A glow
+spread over his face. It was one of those cheap Bibles, which the Tract
+Society scatters through our prisons. As he opened the humble book, a
+sunbeam shot through the loop-hole, and broke in a shower of light over
+the page. Was it chance that sent the golden sunbeam? Was it chance that
+opened the book to one of the most hopeful and comforting passages of
+Scripture?
+
+He took an old pair of steel spectacles from his pocket, and sat down to
+read. Hours wore away, still he bent over those holy pages as if they
+had never met his eyes before. And so it really seemed, for we must
+suffer before all the strength and beauty of the book of books can
+penetrate the heart. A noise at the door made him look up. His breath
+came fast. It required something heavier than that iron door, to lock
+out the sympathies of two hearts that had grown old in affection. His
+hands began to tremble; he took off the spectacles, and hastily put them
+between the pages of his Bible. It was of no use trying to read then.
+
+The bolt was shot, the door swung open with a clang, and there stood a
+group of persons ready to enter.
+
+"Husband! oh, husband!" cried old Mrs. Wilcox, reaching both hands
+through the door as she stooped to come in.
+
+The prisoner took her hands in his, and kissed them as he had done years
+ago, when those poor withered fingers were rosy with youth. The door
+closed softly then, for old Mrs. Gray was not one to force herself upon
+an interview so mournful and so sacred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+LITTLE GEORGIE.
+
+     As ivy clingeth round a ruin,
+       Still green within the darkest cleft,
+     The human soul in its undoing
+       Has still some lingering virtue left.
+
+
+Julia slept little during the night. The state of nervous terror in
+which she had been thrown, the shrinking dread which made her quail and
+tremble at the approach of her fellow prisoners--even the rude kindness
+of the strange being who took a sort of tiger-like interest in
+her--frightened sleep from her eyes.
+
+A cell had been arranged for her, and the woman, who still shielded her
+from the other prisoners, much as a wild beast might protect her young,
+consented that the infant boy should be her companion through the night.
+This was a great comfort to the poor girl. To her belief there was
+protection in the sleeping innocence of the child, who lay with his
+delicately veined temples pressing that coarse prison pillow, softly as
+if it had been fragrant with rose-leaves.
+
+Julia could not sleep, but it was pleasant in her sad wakefulness to
+feel the sweet breath of this child floating over her face, and his soft
+arms clinging to her neck. To her poetic imagination it seemed as if a
+cherub from heaven had been left to cheer her in the darkness. Sometimes
+she would start and listen, or cringe breathlessly down to her pretty
+companion, for strange, fierce voices occasionally broke from some of
+the cells on either side--smothered sounds as of spirits chained in
+torment--wailing and wild shouts of laughter; for with some of those
+wretched inmates, memory grew sharp in the midnight of a prison, and
+others dreamed as they had lived--shouting fiercely in the sleep which
+was not rest, but the dregs of lingering inebriation.
+
+Of the mind and heart of this young girl, we have said but little. The
+few simple acts of her life have been allowed to speak for her extreme
+youth; the utter isolation of her life, even more than her youth, would,
+in ordinary characters, have kept her still ignorant and uninformed. But
+Julia was not an ordinary character; there was depth, earnestness, and
+that extreme simplicity in her nature which goes to make up the beauty
+and strength of womanhood. Suffering had made her precocious, nothing
+more--it sent thought hand in hand with feeling. It threw her forward in
+life some three or four years. Gratitude, so early and so deeply
+enkindled in her young heart, foreshadowed the intensity of affection,
+nay, of passion, when it should once be aroused.
+
+In this country, the most abject poverty need not preclude the craving
+mind from its natural aliment, books. Julia had read more and thought
+more than half the girls of her age in the very highest walks of life.
+Her first love of poetry was drawn from the most beautiful of all
+sources, the Bible. Her grandfather was a good reader, and possessed no
+small degree of natural eloquence. Gushes of poetry, of solemn, sweet
+feeling were constantly breaking through the prayers which she had
+listened to every night and morning of her life; the very sublimity of
+his faith, the simple trust which never forsook him in the goodness of
+his Creator--the cheerful humility of his entire character, all this had
+aroused sympathetic emotions in his grandchild's heart. It is the good
+alone who thoroughly feel how keen and sweet intellectual joys may
+become. When we water the blossoms of a strong mind with dew from the
+fountains of a good heart, the whole being is harmonious, and the rarest
+joys of existence are secured.
+
+But though the Bible contains the safest and most beautiful groundwork
+of all literature, history, biography, ethics, poetry, and even that
+pure fiction, which shadows forth truth in the parables, the mind that
+has first tasted thought there, will crave other sources of knowledge. A
+few old volumes, so shabby that the pawnbrokers refused loans upon them,
+and the second-hand book-stalls rejected them at any price, still
+remained in her basement home. These she had read with the keen relish
+of a mind hungry for knowledge. Then old Mrs. Gray had a few books at
+her farm-house. She had never read them herself, good soul, and whenever
+the beauties of "Paradise Lost," were mentioned, had only a vague
+professional idea that our first parents had been driven forth from a
+remarkably fine vegetable and fruit garden just before the harvest
+season. Still she had great respect for the man who could mourn so great
+a loss in verse, and delighted in lending the volumes to her young
+friend whenever she had time to read.
+
+From these resources and the patient teachings of her grandfather, Julia
+had managed to obtain the most desirable of all educations. She had
+learned to think clearly and to feel rightly; but she felt keenly also,
+and a vivid imagination kindling up these acute feelings at midnight in
+the depth of a prison, made every nerve quiver with dread that was more
+than superstitious. One picture haunted her very sleep. It was her
+grandfather's white and agonized face stooping over that dead man. Never
+had the beautiful, stern face of the stranger beamed upon her so vividly
+before. She saw every lineament enameled on the midnight blackness.
+
+She longed to arouse the child and ask it if the face were really
+visible, but was afraid to speak or move. The very sound of his soft
+breath as the boy slept terrified her. But while this wild dread was
+strongest upon her, the child awoke and began to feel over her face with
+his little hands. Softly, and with the touch of falling rose-leaves, his
+fingers wandered over her eyes, her forehead, and her mouth. They were
+like sunbeams playing upon ice, those warm, rosy fingers. The young girl
+ceased to feel frightened or alone. She began to weep. She pressed his
+hands to her lips, and drew the child close to her bosom, whispering
+softly to him, and pressing her lips to his eyes now and then, to be
+sure they were open. But all her gentle wiles were insufficient to keep
+the little fellow awake; he began to breathe more and more deeply, and,
+overcome by the soft mesmerism of his breath, she fell asleep also.
+
+It would have been a lovely sight had any one looked upon those two
+calm, beautiful faces pillowed together upon that prison bed. Smiles
+dimpled round the rosy lips, upon which the breath floated like mist
+over a cluster of ripe cherries. The bright ringlets of the child fell
+over the tresses that shadowed the fair temple close to his, lighting
+them up as with threads, and gleams of gold. It was a picture of
+innocent sleep those green walls had perhaps never sheltered before
+since their foundation. It was natural that Julia should smile in her
+sleep, and that a glow like the first beams of morning when they
+penetrate a rose, should light up her face. She was dreaming, and
+slumber cast a fairy brightness over thoughts that had perhaps vaguely
+haunted her before that night. Memories mingled with the vision and the
+scenes which wove themselves in her slumbering thought had been
+realities--the first joyous realities of her young life. She was at an
+old farm-house, half hid in the foliage of two noble maples, all golden
+and crimson with a touch of frost. Her grandparents stood upon the
+door-stone with old Mrs. Gray, talking together, and smiling upon her as
+she sat down beneath the maples, and began to arrange a lapful of
+flowers that somehow had filled her apron, as bright things will fall
+upon us in our sleep. These blossoms breathed a perfume more delicate
+than anything she had ever seen or imagined, and, though coarse garden
+flowers, their breath was intoxicating.
+
+Dreams are independent of detail, and the sleeper only knew that a young
+man whose face was familiar, and yet strange, stood by her side, and
+smiled gently upon her as she bent over her treasure. Was her slumbering
+imagination more vivid than the reality had been, or had her nerves ever
+answered human look with the delicious thrill that pervaded them in this
+dream? Was it the shadow of a memory haunting her sleep? Oh, yes, she
+had dreamed before--dreamed when those soft eyes had nothing but their
+curling lashes to veil them, and when the thoughts that were now
+floating through her vision left a glow upon that young cheek. It was
+true the angel of love haunted Julia in her prison.
+
+The real and the imaginary still blended itself in her vision but
+indistinctly, and with that vague cloudiness that makes one sigh when
+the dream becomes a memory. An harassing sense that her grandfather was
+in trouble seemed to blend with the misty breath of the flowers. She
+still sat beneath the tree, and saw an old man in the distance,
+struggling with a throng of people, half engulphed in a storm-cloud that
+rolled up from the horizon. She could not move, for the blossoms in her
+lap seemed turning to lead, which she had no power to fling off. She
+struggled, and cried out wildly, "Robert--Robert Otis!"
+
+The blossoms breathed in her lap again; flashes of silver broke up the
+distant cloud, and stars seemed dropping, one by one, from its writhing
+folds. Robert Otis was now in the distance, now at her side; she could
+not turn her eyes without encountering the deep smiling fervor of his
+glance. His name trembled and died on her lips in broken whispers, then
+all faded away. Balmy quiet settled on the spirit of the young girl, and
+she slept softly as the flowers slumber when their cups are overflowing
+with dew.
+
+From this sweet rest she was aroused by a sharp clang of iron, and the
+tread of feet in the passage. The door of her own cell was flung open,
+and a tin cup full of coffee, with coarse, wholesome bread, was set
+inside for her breakfast. The dream still left its balm upon her heart,
+which all that prison noise had not power to frighten away. She smoothed
+her own hair, arranged her dress, and then arousing the child from its
+sleep with kisses, bathed and dressed him also. He was sitting upon her
+lap, his fresh rosy face lifted to hers, while she smoothed his tresses,
+and twisted them in ringlets around her fingers, when his mother entered
+the cell. She scarcely glanced at the child; but sat down, and
+supporting her forehead with one hand, remained in sombre stillness
+gazing on the floor. There was nothing reckless or coarse in her manner.
+Her heavy forehead was clouded, but with gloom that partook more of
+melancholy than of anger.
+
+She spoke at length, but without changing her position or lifting her
+eyes from the floor.
+
+"Will you tell me the name?--will you tell me who the man was they
+charge your grandfather with murdering? Was it--was it----" The low
+husky tones died in her throat; she made another effort, and added,
+almost in a whisper, "was it William Leicester?"
+
+The question arrested Julia in her graceful task; her hands dropped as
+if smitten down from those golden tresses, and she answered in a faint
+voice, "that it was the name."
+
+"Then he is dead; are you sure--quite sure?"
+
+"They all said so; the doctor, all that saw him!"
+
+"You did not see him then?"
+
+"Yes--yes!" answered the young girl, closing her eyes with a pang. "I
+saw him--I saw him!"
+
+"Why did your grandfather kill him? Had Leicester done him any wrong?"
+
+"I do not know what wrong he had ever done," answered Julia; "but I am
+certain if he had injured him ever so much, grandpa would not have
+harmed a hair of his head."
+
+"Who did kill him then?" said the woman sharply.
+
+"I think," said Julia, in a low, firm voice--"I think that he killed
+himself!"
+
+"No. It could not be that!" muttered the woman, gloomily. "No doubt the
+old man did what others had better cause for doing; tell me how it
+happened!"
+
+Julia saw that the woman was growing pale around the lips as she spoke;
+her hand also looked blue and cold as it shaded her face.
+
+"Don't be afraid of me. Go on, I could not harm a mouse this morning,"
+she said, observing that Julia hesitated, and sat gazing earnestly upon
+her. "I have been in prison here two weeks, and never heard of his death
+till now!"
+
+"Did you know Mr. Leicester?" questioned Julia.
+
+"Yes, I knew him!"
+
+There was something in the tone of her voice that surprised Julia; more
+of bitterness than grief, and yet something of both.
+
+"Will you tell me what I asked you?" said the woman, with a touch of her
+usual impetuosity.
+
+"Yes," answered Julia. "It distresses me to talk of it; but if you are
+really anxious to hear, I will!"
+
+She went on with painful hesitation, and told the woman all those
+details that are so well known to the reader. The woman listened
+attentively, sometimes holding her breath with intense interest; again
+breathing quick and sharp, as if some strong feeling were curbed into
+silence with difficulty. When Julia ceased speaking, she folded both
+hands over her face, and lowering it down to her knees, rocked to and
+fro without sob or tear; but the very stillness was eloquent.
+
+She got up after a little and went out. Half an hour after, Julia took
+the child to his mother's cell. The strange woman was lying with her
+face to the wall, motionless as the granite upon which her large eyes
+were fixed. She did not turn as they approached, but waved her hand
+impatiently that they should leave the cell.
+
+Holding the child by his hand, Julia lingered in the passage. After a
+few careless, and in some cases, rude manifestations of interest, the
+prisoners left her unmolested, to seek what consolation might be found
+in observation and exercise.
+
+Thus the day crept on. The confusion which her youth and terror created
+the day before, had settled down in that sullen apathy which is the most
+depressing feature of prison life. The women moved about with a dull,
+heavy tread; some sat motionless against the wall, gazing into the air,
+to all appearance void of sensation, almost of life; some slept away the
+weary time but depression lay heavily upon them all.
+
+Julia lingered near the grating, for the gleams of sunshine that shot
+into the broad hall beyond, whenever the outer door was opened to allow
+access and egress to the officers, had something cheerful in it that
+filled her with hope. The child, too, felt this pleasant influence, and
+his prattle, now and then broken with a soft laugh, was music to the
+poor girl.
+
+"Come, love--come, let us go away. People are at the door!" she cried
+all at once, striving to lead the child away.
+
+"No--no. It is brighter here, I will stay," answered the little fellow,
+leaping roguishly on one side. "It's only the matron; don't you hear her
+keys jingle? She will take me up into her pretty room, and you as well.
+Just wait till I ask her."
+
+The door opened and a black-eyed little woman, full of animation and
+cheerful energy, stepped into the passage. She paused, for Julia stood
+in her way, making gentle efforts to free her dress from the grasp which
+the little boy had fixed upon it. The beauty of the young girl, her
+shrinking manner, and the crimson that came and went on her sweet face,
+all interested the matron at once. She smiled a motherly, cheering
+smile, and said at once--
+
+"Ah, you have found one another out. George is a safe little
+playmate--ain't you, darling? Come, now, tell me what her name is,
+that's a man."
+
+"She hasn't told me yet," lisped the child, freeing Julia from his
+grasp, and nestling himself against the matron.
+
+"My name is Julia--Julia Warren, ma'am," said the young prisoner,
+blushing to hear the sound of her name in that place.
+
+"I thought so; I was sure of it from the first; there, there, don't be
+frightened, and don't cry. Come up to my room--come, George! Tell your
+young friend that somebody is waiting for her up there--some one that
+she will be very glad to meet."
+
+"Tell me--oh! tell me who!" cried the poor girl, breathlessly.
+
+"Your grandmother, so she calls herself--and----"
+
+Julia waited for no more, but darted forward.
+
+"There--there. You will never get on alone!" cried the matron,
+laughing, while she turned a heavy key bright with constant use in its
+lock, and opened the grated door. "Come, now, I and Georgie will lead
+the way."
+
+Julia stood in the outer passage while the heavy door was secured again,
+her cheeks all in a glow of joy, her limbs trembling with impatience.
+Little George, too, seemed to partake of her eagerness; he ran up and
+down in the bright atmosphere like a bird revelling in the first gleams
+of morning. He seized the matron by her dress as she locked the door,
+and shaking his soft curls gleefully, attempted to draw her away. His
+sympathy was so graceful and cheering that it made both Julia and the
+matron smile, and though they mounted the stairs rapidly, he ran up and
+down a dozen steps while they ascended half the number.
+
+Neither Julia nor her grandmother spoke when they met, but there was joy
+upon their faces, and the most touching affection in the eyes that
+constantly turned upon each other.
+
+"And now," said old Mrs. Gray, coming forward with her usual bland
+kindness, "as neither of you seem to have much to say just now, what if
+Robert and I come in for a little notice?"
+
+Julia looked up as the kind voice reached her, and there, half hidden by
+the portly figure of his aunt, she saw Robert Otis looking upon her with
+the very expression that had haunted her dream that night, in the
+prison. Their eyes met, the white lids fell over hers as if weighed down
+by the lashes, through which the lustrous eyes, kindling beneath,
+gleamed like diamond flashes. She forgot Mrs. Gray, everything but the
+glory of her dream, the power of those eloquent eyes.
+
+"And so you will not speak to me--you will not look at me!" said the
+huckster woman, a little surprised by this reception, but speaking with
+great cordiality, for she was not one of those very troublesome persons
+who fancy affronts in everything.
+
+"Not speak to you!" cried the young girl, starting from her pleasant
+reverie to the scarcely less pleasant reality. "Oh! Mrs. Gray, you knew
+better!"
+
+"Of course I did," cried the good woman, with a laugh that made her
+neckerchief tremble, and she shook the little hand that Julia gave with
+grateful warmth, over and over again. "Come, now, get your bonnet and
+things."
+
+Julia looked at the matron.
+
+"But I am a prisoner!"
+
+"Nothing of the sort. I've bought you out; given bonds, or something.
+Robert can tell you all about it; but the long and short is, you're free
+as a blackbird. Can go home with me--grandma too, I'm old--I'm getting
+lonesome--want her to keep house when I'm in market, and you to take
+care of her."
+
+"But grandfather--where is he? Oh! where is he?"
+
+Mrs. Gray's countenance fell, and she seemed ready to burst into tears.
+
+"Don't ask me; Robert must tell you about that. I did my best; offered
+to mortgage the whole farm to those crusty old judges, but it was of no
+use."
+
+"We couldn't leave him here alone!" said Julia, with one of her faint,
+beautiful smiles.
+
+Robert Otis came forward now.
+
+"It would be useless for either of you to remain here on his account,
+even if the laws would permit it. You will be allowed to see him quite
+as frequently if you live with my aunt, and with freedom you may find
+means of aiding him."
+
+Julia raised her eyes to his face; her glance, instead of embarrassing,
+seemed to animate the young man.
+
+"It admits of no choice," he added, with a smile. "Your grandfather
+himself desires that you should accept my aunt's offer, and she--bless
+her--it would break her heart to be refused."
+
+"Grandfather desires it--Mr. Otis desires it. Shall we not go, grandma?"
+
+"Certainly, child; he wishes it, that is enough; but I shall see him
+every day, you remember, ma'am. Every day when you come over, I come
+also. It was a promise!"
+
+"Do exactly as you please--that's my idea of helping folks," answered
+Mrs. Gray, to whom the latter part of this address had been made. "The
+kindness that forces people to be happy, according to a rule laid down
+by the self-conceit of a person who happens to have the means you want,
+is the worst kind of slavery, because it is a slavery for which you are
+expected to be very grateful. I have heard brother Jacob say this a
+hundred times, and so have you, Robert."
+
+"Uncle Jacob never said anything that was not wise and generous in his
+life!" answered the young man, with kindling eyes.
+
+"If ever an angel lived on earth, he is one!" rejoined Mrs. Gray,
+looking around upon her audience, as if to impress them fully with this
+estimate of her brother's character.
+
+A sparkling smile broke over Robert's face.
+
+"Well, aunt, I hope you never fancied the angels dressing exactly after
+Uncle Jacob's fashion!" he said, casting a look full of comic meaning on
+the old lady.
+
+"Oh, Robert, you are always laughing at me!" replied the good-humored
+lady, turning from the young man to her other auditors. "It was always
+so; the most mischievous little rogue you ever saw. I thought he had
+grown out of it for a while, but nature is nature the world through."
+
+Robert blushed. His aunt's encomiums did not quite please him, for the
+character of a mischievous boy was not that which he was desirous of
+maintaining just then. In the dark eyes turned so earnestly upon his
+face, he read a depth and earnestness of feeling that made his attempt
+at cheerfulness seem almost sacrilegious. Julia saw this, and smiled
+softly. She had not intended to rebuke him by the seriousness of her
+face, and her look expressed this more eloquently than words could have
+done.
+
+When the heart is sorrowful, there are times when cheerfulness in those
+around us has a healthful influence. The joyous laugh, the pleasant word
+may fall harshly upon a riven heart at first, but imperceptibly they
+become familiar again, and at length sweep aside the gloom with which
+the mourner loves to envelope himself. Give the soul plenty of
+sunshine, and it grows vigorous to withstand the storm. When grief is
+pampered and cultivated as a duty, it often degenerates into intense
+selfishness. Sorrow has its vanity as well as joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+MRS. GRAY AND THE PRISON WOMAN.
+
+     Come with thy warm and genial heart--
+       Bring sunshine to the prison cell;
+     True goodness, without book or chart,
+       Sees the right path, and treads it well.
+
+
+It was decided that Julia and her grandmother should accompany Mrs. Gray
+at once to her old homestead on Long Island. They were about to leave
+the room, when Julia remembered, with a pang, that she must surrender
+the little boy to his mother again. Her cheek blanched at the thought.
+The child had kept by her side since she first entered the room, and now
+grasped a fold of her dress in his hand almost fiercely. His cheeks were
+flushed, and his dimpled chin was beginning to quiver, as if he were
+ready to burst into tears at some wrong premeditated against him.
+
+Tears swelled into Julia's eyes as she bent them upon the child.
+
+"What shall I do? He seems to know that we are about to leave him," she
+murmured.
+
+"Come with me, I will take you to mamma," said the matron, laying her
+hand on his head. "There, Georgie, be a little gentleman, dear!"
+
+The tears that had been swelling in the little fellow's bosom broke
+forth now. He began to sob violently, and shaking off the matron's hand,
+clung to his new friend.
+
+"Take me up, take me up--I will go too," he sobbed, lifting his little
+hands and his tearful face to the young girl.
+
+Julia took him in her arms, and putting the curls back from his
+forehead, pressed a kiss upon it.
+
+"What can I do?" she said, turning her eyes unconsciously upon Robert
+Otis.
+
+Robert smiled and shook his head; but old Mrs. Gray, whose heart was
+forever creaming over with the milk of human kindness, came forward at
+once.
+
+"What can you do? Why, take him along; the homestead is large enough for
+us all. It will seem like old times to have a little shaver like that
+running around, now that Robert is away."
+
+"But he has a mother in the prison," said the matron--"a strange, fierce
+woman, who, somehow or other, has persuaded the authorities to leave him
+with her for the few days she will be here."
+
+"His mother a prisoner, poor thing. Let me go to her, I dare say she
+will be glad enough to get a nice home for the boy," answered the good
+woman, hopefully.
+
+"I'm afraid not," was the matron's reply; "she seems to have a sort of
+fierce love for the child, and is very jealous that he may become
+attached to some one beside herself. It was from this feeling she forced
+him from the poor woman who took him to nurse when only a few weeks old.
+He was very fond of her, and always fancies that any new face must be
+hers. I wonder she submits to his fancy for this young girl!"
+
+"But it's wrong, it's abominable to keep the little fellow here. I'll
+tell her so, I'll expostulate," persisted Mrs. Gray; "just let me talk
+with this woman--just let me into her cell, madam."
+
+The matron shook her head, and gave the bright key in her hand a little,
+quiet twirl, which said plainly as words, that it was of no use; but she
+led the way down stairs, and conducted Mrs. Gray to the prisoner's cell.
+
+The woman was still lying with her forehead against the wall, quite
+motionless, but she turned her face as the matron spoke, and Mrs. Gray
+saw that it was drenched with tears.
+
+The huckster woman sat down upon the bed, and took one of the
+prisoner's hands in hers. It was a large, but beautifully formed hand,
+full of natural vigor, but now it lay nerveless and inert in that kind
+clasp, and, for a moment, Mrs. Gray smoothed down the languid fingers
+with her own plump palm.
+
+The woman, at first, shrunk from this mute kindness, and, half rising,
+fixed her great black eyes upon her visitor in sudden and almost fierce
+astonishment, but she shrunk back from the rosy kindness of that face
+with a deep breath, and lay motionless again.
+
+Mrs. Gray spoke then in her own frank, cheerful way, and asked
+permission to take the little boy home with her. She described her
+comfortable old house, the garden, the poultry, the birds that built
+their nests in the twin maples, the quantity of winter apples laid up in
+the cellar. All the elements of happiness to a bright and healthy child
+she thus lay temptingly before the mother. Again the woman started up.
+
+"Are you a moral reformer?" she said, with a sharp sneer.
+
+"No!" answered Mrs. Gray, with a puzzled look. "At any rate not as I
+know of, but in these times you have so many new fangled names for
+simple things, that I may be one without having the least idea of it!"
+
+"A philanthropist then--are you that?"
+
+"Haven't the least notion what the thing is," cried Mrs. Gray, with
+perfect simplicity.
+
+"Are you one of those women who hang around prisons to pick up other
+people's children, while their own are running wild at home--who give a
+garret-bed and second-hand crusts to these poor creatures, and then
+scream out through society and newspaper reports for the world to come
+and see what angels you are? Who pick up a poor wretch from the cells
+here, and impose her off upon some kind fool from the country, whom she
+robs, of course; and before she has been tried three weeks, blaze out
+her reformation to the whole world, forgetting to tell the robbery when
+it comes?
+
+"Do you want my boy for a pattern? Do you intend to have it shouted in
+some paper or anniversary report, how great a thing your society has
+done in snatching this poor little imp from his mother's bosom as a
+brand from the burning fire? In short, do you want to hold him up as a
+lure for the innocent country people who pour money into your laps,
+honestly believing that it all goes for the cause, and never once asking
+how yourselves are supported all the while? Are you one of these, I
+say?"
+
+"Goodness gracious knows I ain't anything of the kind," answered Mrs.
+Gray. "Never set up for an angel in my life, never expect to on this
+side of the grave."
+
+"Then you are not a lady president?"
+
+"In our free and glorious country," answered Mrs. Gray, now more at
+home, for she had listened to a good many Fourth of July orations in her
+time; "in this country it's against the law for old women to be
+Presidents. At any rate, I never heard of one in a cap and white apron!"
+
+A gleam of rich humor shot over the prisoner's face.
+
+"Then you are not a member of any society?" she said, won into more
+kindly temper by the frank cordiality of her visitor.
+
+Mrs. Gray's face became very serious, and her brown eyes shone with
+gentle lustre.
+
+"It's my privilege to be a humble member of the Baptist church; but
+unless you have a conscience against immersion, I don't know as that
+ought to stand in the poor boy's way, especially as he may have been
+baptized already."
+
+"Then you are not a charitable woman by profession? You are willing to
+take my boy for his own good? What will you do with him if I say yes?"
+
+"Why, pretty much as I did with nephew Robert; let him run in the
+garden, hunt eggs, drive the geese home when he knows the way himself;
+and do all sorts of chores that will keep him out of mischief, and in
+health; as he grows old enough I will send him to school, and teach him
+the Lord's prayer myself. In short, I shall do pretty much like other
+people; scold him when he is bad, kiss him when he is good; in the end
+make him just such a handsome, honest, noble chap as my Robert is--that
+nephew of mine. Everybody admits that he is the salt of the earth, and I
+brought him up myself, every inch of him!"
+
+"And among the rest you will teach him to forget and despise his
+mother," said the woman, bending her wet eyes upon Mrs. Gray, with a
+look of passionate scrutiny.
+
+"I never wilfully went against the Bible in my life. When the child
+learns to read, he will find it written there, 'Honor thy father and thy
+mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God
+giveth thee.'"
+
+"Can I see him when I please?"
+
+"Certainly--why not?"
+
+"But I am a prisoner; I have been here more than once."
+
+"You are his mother," was the soft answer.
+
+"You will be ashamed to have me coming to your house."
+
+"Why so? I have been a quiet neighbor--an upright woman, so far as my
+light went, all my life. Why should I fear to have any one come to my
+own house?"
+
+"But he will be ashamed of me! With a comfortable home, with friends,
+schooling--my own child, will learn to scorn and hate his mother!"
+
+"No," answered Mrs. Gray, and her fine old face glowed with the pious
+prophecy--"no, because his mother will herself be a good woman,
+by-and-bye, _it is sure_. You are not dead at the root yet; want care,
+pruning, sunshine; will live to be a useful member of society before
+long--I have faith to believe it. God help you--God bless you. Now speak
+out at once, can I take the little fellow?"
+
+"Yes," answered the woman, casting herself across the bed, and pressing
+both hands hard against her eyes--"yes, take him--take him!"
+
+And so Mrs. Gray returned to her old homestead with three new inmates
+that night. It was a bleak, sharp day, and the maple leaves were
+whirling in showers about the old house as they drove up. A crisp frost
+had swept every flower from the beds, and all the soft tints of green
+from the door-yard and garden. Still there was nothing gloomy in the
+scene; the sitting-room windows were glowing with petted
+chrysanthemums, golden, snow-tinted and rosy, all bathed and nodding in
+a flood of light that poured up from the bright hickory-wood fire.
+
+Robert had ridden on before the rest, bearing household directions from
+Mrs. Gray to the Irish servant girl. A nice supper stood ready upon the
+table, and a copper tea-kettle was before the fire, pouring out a thin
+cloud of steam from its spout, and starting off now and then in a quick,
+cheerful bubble, as if quite impatient to be called into active service.
+The fine bird's-eye diaper that flowed from the table--the little
+old-fashioned china cups, and the tall, plated candlesticks, from which
+the light fell in long, rich gleams, composed one of the most cheering
+pictures in the world.
+
+Then dear old Mrs. Gray was so happy herself, so full of quiet, soothing
+kindness; the very tones of her voice were hopeful. When she laughed,
+all the rest were sure to smile, very faintly it is true; but still
+these smiles were little gleams won from the most agonizing grief.
+Altogether it was one of those evenings when we say to one another,
+"well, I cannot realize all this sorrow when the soul becomes dreamy,
+and softly casts aside the shafts of pain that goad it so fiercely at
+other times."
+
+Little George fell asleep after tea, and Julia sat upon the crimson
+moreen couch under the windows, pillowing his head on her lap. The
+chrysanthemums rose in a flowery screen behind her, their soft shadows
+pencilling themselves on her cheek, and lying in the deeper blackness of
+her hair. Robert Otis spoke but little that night, and his dear, simple
+old aunt felt quite satisfied that the gaze which he turned so steadily
+toward the windows was dwelling in admiration on her flowers.
+
+Be this as it may, his glance brought roses to that pale cheek, and
+kindled up the soft eyes that lay like violets shrouded beneath their
+thick lashes, with a brilliancy that had never burned there before.
+Julia's heart was far too sorrowful for _thoughts_ of love, but there
+was something thrilling in her bosom deeper than grief, and more
+exquisite than any joy she had yet known.
+
+But Robert Otis was more self-possessed. His thoughts took a more
+tangible form, and though he could not account to himself for the
+feeling of vague regret that mingled with his admiration, as he gazed
+upon the young girl, it was strong enough to fill his heart with
+sadness. Mrs. Gray noticed the gloom upon his brow as she sat in her
+arm-chair, basking in the glow of that noble wood fire. A dish of the
+finest crimson apples had just been placed on the little round stand
+before her, and she began testing their mellowness with her fingers, as
+a hint for her nephew to circulate them among her guests. Robert saw
+nothing of this, for he was pondering over the miserable position of
+that young girl, in his mind, and had no idea that his abstraction was
+noticed.
+
+"Come--come," said Mrs. Gray, "you have been moping there long enough,
+nephew, forgetting manners and everything else. Here are the apples
+waiting, and no one to hand them round, for when I once get settled in
+this easy-chair"--here the good woman gave a smiling survey of her ample
+person, which certainly overflowed the chair at every point, leaving all
+but a ridge of the back and the curving arms quite invisible--"it isn't
+a very easy thing to get up again. Now bustle about, and while we old
+women rest ourselves, you and Julia, there, can try your luck with the
+apple-seeds.
+
+"I remember the first time I ever surmised that Mr. Gray had taken a
+notion to me, was once when we were at an apple-cutting together down in
+Maine. Somehow Mr. Gray got into my neighborhood when we ranged round
+the great basket of apples. I felt my cheeks burn the minute he drew his
+seat so close to mine, and took out his jack-knife to begin work. He
+pared and I quartered. I never looked up but once--then his cheek was
+redder than mine, and he held the jack-knife terribly unsteady.
+By-and-bye he got a noble, great apple, yellow as gold, and smooth as a
+baby's cheek. I was looking at his hands sidewise from under my lashes,
+and saw that he was paring it carefully, as if every round of the skin
+was a strip of gold. At last he cut it off at the seed end, and the
+soft rings fell down over his wrist as I took the apple from his
+fingers.
+
+"'Now,' says he, in a whisper, bending his head a little, and raising
+the apple-peel carefully with his right hand, 'I'm just as sure this
+will be the first letter of a name that I love, as I am that we are
+alive.' He began softly whirling the apple-peel round his head; the
+company was all busy with one another, and I was the only one who saw
+the yellow links quivering around his head, once, twice, three times.
+Then he held it still a moment, and sat looking right into my eyes. I
+held my breath, and so did he.
+
+"'Now,' says he, and his breath came out with a quiver, 'what if it
+should be your name?'
+
+"I did not answer, and we both looked back at the same time. Sure enough
+it was a letter S. No pen ever made one more beautifully. 'Just as I
+expected,' says he, and his eyes grew bright as diamonds--'just as I
+expected.' That was all he said."
+
+"And what answer did you make, aunt?" asked Robert Otis, who had been
+listening with a flushed face, "What did you say?"
+
+"I didn't speak a word, but quartered on just as fast as I could. As for
+Mr. Gray, he kept paring, and paring, like all possessed. I thought he
+would never stop paring, or speak a word more. By-and-bye he stuck the
+point of his knife into an apple, and unwinding the skin from around it,
+he handed it over to me. It was a red skin, I remember, and cut as
+smooth as a ribbon.
+
+"'I shouldn't a bit wonder if that dropped into a letter G,' says Mr.
+Gray. 'Supposing you try it.'
+
+"Well, I took the red apple-skin, and whirled it three times round my
+head, and down it went on to the floor, curled up into the nicest
+capital G that you ever sat eyes on.
+
+"Mr. Gray, he looked at the letter, and then sort of sidewise into my
+face. 'S. G.,' says he, taking up the apple-skin, and eating it, as if
+it had been the first mouthful of a Thanksgiving dinner. 'How would you
+like to see them two letters on a new set of silver teaspoons?'
+
+"I re'lly believe you could have lit a candle at my face, it burned so;
+but I couldn't speak more than if I'd been born tongue-tied."
+
+"But did you never answer about the spoons?" asked Julia.
+
+"Well, yes, I believe I did, the next Sunday night," said the old lady,
+demurely, smoothing her apron.
+
+What was there in Mrs. Gray's simple narrative that should have brought
+confusion and warm blushes into those two young faces? Why, after one
+hastily withdrawn glance, did neither Robert Otis nor Julia Warren look
+at each other again that night?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+STRUGGLES AND REVELS.
+
+     Wine, wine for the heart, in its struggle of pride,
+       And music to drown all this with'ring pain!
+     The arrow, the arrow is deep in her side!
+       Bring music and wine with their madness again.
+
+
+The passions take their distinctive expression from the nature in which
+they find birth. The grief that rends one heart like an earthquake,
+sinks with dead, silent weight into another, uttering no sound, giving
+no outward sign, and yet is powerful, perhaps, as that which exhausts
+itself in tumult. Some flee from grief, half defying, half evading it,
+pausing, breathless, in the race, now and then, to find the arrow still
+buried in the side, rankling deeper and deeper with each fierce effort
+to cast it out.
+
+Thus it was with the woman to whom our story tends--Ada, the insulted
+and suffering widow of Leicester. There had been mutual wrong between
+the two; both had sinned greatly; both had tasted deep of the usual
+consequences of sin. During his life her love for him had been the one
+wild passion of existence; now that he was dead, her grief partook of
+the same stormy nature. It was wild, fierce, brilliant; it thirsted for
+change; it was bitter with regrets that stung her into the very madness
+of sorrow.
+
+As an unbroken horse plunges beneath the rider's heel, the object of
+grief like this seeks for amelioration in excitement. It is a sorrow
+that thirsts for action; that arouses some kindred passion, and feeds
+itself with that.
+
+Ada Leicester was not known to be connected, even remotely, with the man
+for whose murder old Mr. Warren was now awaiting his trial. She was a
+leader in the fashionable world; her very anguish must be concealed; her
+groans must be uttered in private; her tears quenched firmly till they
+turned to fire in her heart. All her life that man had been a pain and a
+torment to her. The last breath she had seen him draw was a taunt, his
+last look an insult; and yet these very memories embittered her grief.
+He had turned the silver thread of her life into iron, but it broke with
+his existence, leaving her appalled and objectless. She never had, never
+could love another; and what is a woman on earth without love as a
+memory, a passion, or a hope?
+
+Her grief became a wild passion. She strove to assuage it in reckless
+gaiety, and plunged into all the excitements of artificial life with a
+fervor that made every hour of her existence a tumult. The opera season
+was at its full height. Society had once more concentrated itself in New
+York, and still Ada was the brightest of its stars. Morning dances by
+gas-light took place in some few houses where novelty was an object. Not
+long after Leicester's death her noble mansion was closed for a morning
+revel; every pointed window was sealed with shutters and muffled with
+the richest draperies. Light in every form of beauty--the pure
+gas-flame--the soft glow of wax-candles--the moonlight gleam of
+alabaster lamps flooded the sumptuous rooms, excluding every ray of the
+one glorious lamp which God has kindled in the sky. Dancers flitted to
+and fro in those lofty rooms; garlands of choice green-house flowers
+scattered fragrance from the walls, and veiled many a classic statue
+with their impalpable mist.
+
+Never in her whole life had Ada appeared more wildly brilliant.
+Reckless, sparkling, scattering smiles and wit wherever she passed; now
+whirling through the waltz; now exchanging bright repartees with her
+guests amid the pauses of the music; fluttering from group to group like
+a bird of Paradise, dashing perfume from its native flower thickets, she
+flitted from room to room; now sitting alone in a dark corner of the
+conservatory, her hands falling languidly down, her face bowed upon her
+bosom, the fire quenched in her eyes, she felt the very life ebbing, as
+it were, from her parted and pale lips.
+
+Thus with the strongest contrasts, fierce alike in her gaiety and her
+grief, she spent that miserable morning. The transition from one state
+to another would have been startling to a close observer, but the
+changes in her mood were like lightning; the pale cheek became instantly
+so red; the dull eye so bright, that her guests saw nothing but the most
+fascinating coquetry in all this, and each new shade or gleam that
+crossed her beautiful face brought down fresh showers of adulation upon
+her. The usual quiet elegance of her manner was for the time forgotten.
+
+More than once her wild, clear laugh rang from one room to another,
+chiming in or rising above the music, and this only charmed her guests
+the more. It was a new feature in their idol. It was not for her wealth
+or her beauty alone that Ada Leicester became an object of worship that
+day. Like a wounded bird that makes the leaves tremble all around with
+its anguish, she startled society into more intense admiration by the
+splendor of her agony.
+
+At mid-day her guests began to depart, pouring forth from those
+sumptuous rooms into the noontide glare, when delicate dresses, flushed
+cheeks and languid eyes were exposed in all the disarray which is
+sometimes picturesque when enveloped in night shadows, but becomes
+meretricious in the broad sunshine.
+
+A few of her most distinguished guests remained to dinner that day, for
+Ada dreaded to be alone, and so kept up the excitement that was burning
+her life out. If her spirits flagged, if the smile fled from her lips
+even for an instant, those lips were bathed with the rich wines that
+sparkled on her board, kindling them into smiles and bloom again. The
+resources of her intellect seemed inexhaustible; the flashes of her
+delicate wit grew keener and brighter as the hours wore on.
+
+Her table was surrounded by men and women who flash like meteors now and
+then through the fashionable circles of New York, intellectual
+aristocrats that enliven the insipid monotony of those changing circles,
+as stars give fire and beauty to the blue of a summer sky. But
+keen-sighted as these people were, they failed to read the heart that
+was delighting them with its agony. All but one, and he was not seated
+at the table, he spoke no word, and won no attention from that haughty
+circle, save by the subdued and even solemn awkwardness of look and
+manner, which was too remarkable for entire oblivion.
+
+Behind Ada's seat there stood a tall man, with huge, ungainly limbs, and
+a stoop in the shoulders. He was evidently a servant, but wore no livery
+like the others; and those who gave a thought to the subject saw that he
+waited only upon his mistress, and that once or twice he stooped down
+and whispered a word in her ear, which she received with a quick and
+imperious motion of the head, which was either rejection or reproof of
+something he had urged.
+
+Nothing could be more touching than the sadness of this man's face as
+the spirits of his mistress rose with the contest of intellect that was
+going on around her. He saw the bitter source from which all this
+brightness flowed, and every smile upon those red lips deepened the
+gloom so visible in his face.
+
+"Now," said Ada, rising from the table, and leading the way to her
+boudoir, for it had been an impromptu dinner, and the drawing-room was
+yet in confusion after the dance; "now let us refresh ourselves with
+music. An hour's separation, a fresh toilet, and we will all meet at the
+opera--then to-morrow--what shall we do to-morrow?"
+
+She entered the boudoir while speaking, and as if smitten by some keen
+memory, lifted one hand to her forehead, reflecting languidly,
+"To-morrow--yes, what shall we do to-morrow?"
+
+"You are pale; what is the matter?" inquired one of the lady guests, in
+that hurried tone of sympathy which is usually superficial as sweet. "We
+have oppressed you with all this gaiety!"
+
+"Not in the least--nothing of the kind!" exclaimed the hostess, with a
+clear laugh. "It was the perfume from those vases. It put me in mind--it
+made me faint!"
+
+She rang the bell while speaking, and the servant, who stood all
+dinner-time behind her chair, entered.
+
+"Take these flowers away, Jacob," she said, pointing to the vases,
+"there is heliotrope among them, and you know the scent of heliotrope
+affects me--kills me. Never allow flowers to be put in these rooms
+again. Not a leaf, not a bud--do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, madam," answered the servant, with calm humility, "I understand!
+It was not I that placed them there now!"
+
+Ada seated herself on the couch, resting her forehead upon one hand, as
+if the faintness still continued. Her lips and all around her mouth grew
+pallid. Though the flowers were gone, their effect still seemed to
+oppress her more and more. At length she started up with a hysterical
+laugh and went into the bed-chamber. When she came forth her cheeks were
+damask again, and her lips red as coral; but a dusky circle under the
+eyes, and a faint, spasmodic twitching about the mouth, revealed how
+artificial the bloom was. From that moment all her gaiety returned, and
+in her graceful glee her guests forgot the agitation that had for a
+moment surprised them.
+
+Later in the evening, Ada drove to the Opera House, where she again met
+the gay friends who had thronged her dwelling at mid-day. Still did she
+surpass them all in the superb but hasty toilet which she had assumed,
+after the morning revel. Many an eye was turned admiringly upon her sofa
+that night, little dreaming that the opera-cloak of rose-colored
+cashmere, with its blossom-tinted lining and border of snowy
+swan's-down, covered a bosom throbbing with suppressed anguish. Little
+could that admiring crowd deem that the brilliants interlinked with
+burning opal stones that glowed with ever-restless light upon her arms,
+her bosom, and down the corsage of her brocade dress, were to the
+wretched woman as so many pebbles that the rudest foot might tread upon.
+Her cheeks were in a glow; her eyes sparkled, and the graceful unrest
+which left her no two minutes in the same position, seemed but a pretty
+feminine wile to exhibit the splendor of her dress. How could the crowd
+suppose that the heart over which those jewels burned, was aching with a
+burden of crushed tears.
+
+She sat amid the brilliant throng, unmindful of its admiration. The
+music rushed to her ear in sweet gushes of passion. But she sat
+smilingly there, unconscious of its power or its pathos. It sighed
+through the building soft and low as the spring air in a bed of violets;
+but even then it failed to awake her attention. Unconsciously the notes
+stole over her heart, and feeling a rush of emotions sweeping over her,
+she started up, waved an adieu to her friends, and left the Opera House.
+Half a dozen of the most distinguished gentlemen of her party sprang up
+to lead her out. She took the nearest arm and left the house, simply
+uttering a hurried good-night as she stepped into the carriage. There
+was no eye to look upon her then. Those who had followed her with
+admiring glances as she left the opera, little thought how keen was her
+agony as she rolled homeward in that sumptuous carriage, her cheek
+pressed hard against the velvet lining; her fingers interlocked and
+wringing each other in the wild anguish to which she abandoned herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+ADA LEICESTER AND JACOB STRONG.
+
+     We drove him to that fearful gulf,
+       In the sharp pangs of his despair,
+     As angry hunters chase a wolf
+       From open field and hidden lair.
+
+
+The servant who sat waiting in the vestibule was startled by the hard,
+tearless misery of Ada's face, as she entered her own dwelling that
+night. He looked at her earnestly, and seemed about to speak, but she
+swept by him with averted eyes and ascended the stairs.
+
+It was the same man who had stood beside her chair at dinner that day.
+The look of anxiety was on his features yet, and he pressed his lips
+hard together as she passed him, evidently curbing some sharp sensation
+that the haughty bearing of his mistress aroused. He stood looking after
+her as she glided with a swift, noiseless tread over the richly carpeted
+stairs, her pale hand now and then gleaming out in startling relief from
+the ebony balustrade, and her stony face mocking the artificial scarlet
+of her mouth. She turned at the upper landing, and he saw her glide away
+in the soft twilight overhead. He stood a moment with his eyes riveted
+on the spot where she had disappeared, then he followed up the stairs
+with a step as firm and rapid as hers had been. Even his heavy foot left
+no sound on the mass of woven flowers that covered the steps, and the
+shadow cast by his ungainly figure moved no more silently than himself.
+
+He opened several doors, but they closed after him without noise, and
+Ada was unconscious of his presence for several moments after he stood
+within her boudoir. A fire burned in the silver grate, casting a sunset
+glow over the room, but leaving many of its objects in shadow; for save
+a moonlight gleam that came from a lamp in the dressing-room, no other
+light was near.
+
+Ada had flung her mantle on the couch, and with her arms folded on the
+black marble of the mantel-piece, bent her forehead upon them, and stood
+thus statue-like gazing into the fire. A clear amethystine flame
+quivered over the coal, striking the opals and brilliants that
+ornamented her dress, till they burned like coals of living fire upon
+the snow of her arms and bosom. Thus with the same prismatic light
+spreading from the jewels to her rigid face, she seemed more like a
+fallen angel mourning over her ruin than a living woman.
+
+At length the servant made a slight noise. Ada lifted up her head, and a
+frown darkened her face.
+
+"I did not ring--I do not require anything of you to-night," she said.
+
+"I know it. I know well enough that you require nothing of me--that my
+very devotion is hateful to you. Why is it? I came up here, to-night, on
+purpose to ask the question--why is it?" answered the man, with a grave
+dignity, which was very remote from the manner which a servant, however
+favored, is expected to maintain toward his mistress. "What have I done
+to deserve this treatment?"
+
+Ada looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then her lip curled with a
+bitter smile.
+
+"What have you done, Jacob Strong! Can you ask that question of William
+Leicester's wife, so soon after your own act has made her a widow?"
+
+"But how?--how did I make you a widow?" said he, turning pale with
+suppressed feeling.
+
+"How?" cried Ada, almost with a shriek, for the passion of her nature
+had been gathering force all day, and now it burst forth with a degree
+of violence that shook her whole frame. "Who sat like a great, hideous
+spider in his web, watching him as he wove and entangled the meshes of
+crime around him? Who stung my pride, spurred on all that was
+unforgiving and haughty in my nature, till I too--unnatural wretch--who
+had wronged and sinned against him--turned in my unholy pride, and
+drove him into deeper evil? It was you, Jacob Strong, who did this. It
+was you who urged him into the fearful strait, that admitted of no
+escape but death. The guilt of this self-murder rests with you, and with
+me. My heart is black with his blood; my brain reels when the thought
+presses on it. I hate you--and oh! a thousand times more do I hate
+myself--the pitiful tool of my own menial!"
+
+"Your menial, Ada Wilcox--have I ever been that?"
+
+"No," was the passionate answer, "I have been _your_ menial, your dupe.
+You have made me his murderer. I loved him, oh! Father of mercies, how I
+loved him!"
+
+The wretched woman wrung her hands, and waved them up and down in the
+firelight so rapidly, that the restless brilliants upon them seemed
+shooting out sparks of lightning.
+
+"I thought he would come back. He was cruel--he was insolent--but what
+was that? We might have known his haughty spirit would never bend. If he
+had died any other death--oh! anything, anything but this rankling
+knowledge, that I, his wife, drove him to self-murder!"
+
+Jacob Strong left his position at the door, and coming close up to his
+mistress, took both her hands in his. He could not endure her
+reproaches. Her words stung his honest heart to the core.
+
+"Sit down," he said, with gentle firmness--"sit down, Ada Wilcox, and
+listen to me. There is yet something that I have to say. If it will
+remove any of the bitterness that you harbor against me, if it can
+reconcile you to yourself, I can tell you that there is great doubt if
+your--if Mr. Leicester did commit suicide. Thinking it might grieve you
+more deeply, I kept the papers away that said anything of the matter;
+but even now a man lies in prison charged with his murder!"
+
+"Charged with his murder!" repeated Ada, starting. "How?--when? She--his
+mother--said it was self-destruction!"
+
+"She believes it, perhaps believes it yet, but others think
+differently. He was found dead in a miserable basement, alone with the
+old man they have imprisoned. Why he went there no one can guess; but it
+is known that he was in that basement the night before, but a little
+earlier than the time when he appeared at your ball. If he had any
+portion of the money obtained from us about him, that may have tempted
+the old man, who is miserably poor."
+
+Jacob was going on, but his mistress, who had listened with breathless
+attention, interrupted him.
+
+"Do you believe this? Do you believe that he was murdered?"
+
+"Very strong proofs exist against the old man," replied Jacob--"the
+public think him guilty."
+
+Ada drew a deep breath.
+
+"You have taken a terrible load from my heart," she said, pressing one
+hand to her bosom, and sinking down upon the couch with a low,
+hysterical laugh. "He is dead, but there is a chance that I did not kill
+him. I begin to loathe myself less."
+
+"And me!--_me_ you will never cease to hate?"
+
+"You have been a good friend to me, Jacob Strong, better than I
+deserved," answered Ada, reaching forth her hand, which the servant
+wrung rather than pressed.
+
+"And this last act," he said, "when I tried to free you from the grasp
+of a vile man, was the most kind, the most friendly thing I ever did!"
+
+Ada started up and drew her hand from his grasp.
+
+"Hush, not a word more," she said, "if we are to be anything to each
+other hereafter. He was my husband--he is dead!"
+
+She sunk back to the cushions of her couch a moment after, and veiling
+her eyes with one hand, fell into thought. Jacob stood humbly before
+her; for though they spoke and acted as friends, nay, almost as brother
+and sister, he never lost the respectful demeanor befitting his position
+in Ada's household.
+
+She sat up, at length, with a calmer and more resolute expression of
+countenance.
+
+"Now tell me all that relates to his death," she said. "Who is charged
+with it? What is the evidence?"
+
+Jacob related all that he knew regarding the arrest of old Mr. Warren.
+In his own heart he did not believe the poor man guilty, but he
+abstained from expressing this, for it was an intuition rather than a
+belief, and Jacob could not but see that his own exculpation in the eyes
+of the fair creature to whom he spoke, would depend upon her belief in
+another's guilt. Jacob had no courage to express more than known facts
+as they appeared in the case. The vague impressions that haunted him
+were, in truth, too indefinite for words.
+
+Ada listened with profound attention. She had not been so still or so
+firm before, since her husband's death. It required time for feelings
+strong as hers to turn into a new channel, and the passage from
+self-hatred to revenge was still as it was terrible.
+
+She remained silent for some minutes after Jacob had told her all, and
+when she did speak, the whole character of her face was changed.
+
+"If this man is guilty, Leicester's death lies not here!" she said,
+pressing one hand hard upon her heart, as she walked slowly up and down
+the boudoir. "When he is arraigned for trial, I am acquitted or
+convicted. You also, Jacob Strong; for if this old man is not
+Leicester's murderer, you and I drove him to suicide."
+
+Jacob did not reply. In his soul he believed every step that he had
+taken against William Leicester to be right, and he felt guiltless of
+his death, no matter in what form it came; but he knew that argument
+would never remove the belief that had fixed like a monomania upon that
+unhappy woman, and wisely, therefore, he attempted none.
+
+"I have told you all," he said, moving toward the door. "In any case my
+conscience is at rest!"
+
+She did not appear to heed his words, but asked abruptly,
+
+"Are the laws of America strict and searching? Do murderers ever escape
+here?"
+
+"Sometimes they do, no doubt," answered Jacob, with a grim smile, "but
+then probably quite as many innocent men are hung, so that the balance
+is kept about equal."
+
+"And how do the guilty escape?"
+
+"Oh, by any of the thousand ways that a smart lawyer can invent. With
+money enough it is easy to evade the law, or tire it out with exceptions
+and appeals."
+
+"Then money can do this?"
+
+"What is there that money _cannot_ do?"
+
+A wan smile flitted over Ada's face.
+
+"Oh! who should know its power better than myself?" she said. Then she
+resumed. "But this man, this grey-headed murderer--has he this
+power?--can he control money enough to screen the blood he has shed?"
+
+"He is miserably poor!"
+
+"Then the trial will be an unprejudiced one. If proven guilty he must
+atone for the guilt. If acquitted fairly, openly, without the aid of
+money or influence, then are we guilty, Jacob Strong, guilty as those
+who hurl a man to the brink of a precipice, which he is sure to plunge
+down."
+
+"No man who simply pursues his duty should reproach himself for the
+crime of another," was the grave reply.
+
+"But have _I_ done my duty? Can I be guiltless of my husband's desperate
+act?"
+
+Jacob was silent.
+
+"You cannot answer me, my friend," said Ada mournfully.
+
+"Yes! I can. William Leicester's death, if he in fact fell by his own
+hand, was the natural end of a vicious life."
+
+Ada waved her hand sharply, thus forbidding him to proceed with the
+subject, and entering her dressing-room, closed the door.
+
+Jacob stood for a time gazing vacantly at the door through which she had
+disappeared, then heaving a deep sigh, the strange being left the
+boudoir, but a vague feeling of self-reproach at his heart, rendered
+him more than usually sad all the next day. True, he had changed the
+current of Ada's grief, had lifted a burden of self-reproach from her
+heart; but had he not filled it with other and not less bitter passions?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+ADA'S SOLITARY BREAKFAST.
+
+     My tortured soul is sick, and every nerve
+       Answers its promptings with an aching strain,
+     Yet from my task I may not pause or swerve--
+       Rest is a curse, and every thought a pain.
+
+
+For the first time since her husband's death, Ada slept soundly, till
+deep in the morning. But her slumber was haunted by dreams that sent
+shadows painful and death-like over her beautiful face. More than once
+her maid stole from the dressing-room into the rosy twilight of the
+bed-chamber, and stooped anxiously over her mistress as she slept, for
+the faint moans that broke from her lips, pallid even in that rich
+light, and parted with a sort of painful smile--startled the servant as
+she prepared her mistress's toilet.
+
+It was almost mid-day when this unearthly slumber passed off, but the
+brightest sun could only fill those richly draped chambers with a
+twilight atmosphere, that allowed the sleeper to glide dreamily from her
+couch to the pursuits of life. When the mechanics throughout the city
+were at their noonday meal, Ada crept into her dressing-room, pale and
+languid as if she had just risen from a sick-bed. Upon a little ebony
+table near the fire, a breakfast service of frosted silver, and the most
+delicate Sèvres china stood ready. Ada sunk into the great easy-chair,
+which stood near it, cushioned with blossom-colored damask, which
+gleamed through an over drapery of heavy point lace. The maid came in
+with chocolate, snowy little rolls, just from the hands of her French
+cook, and two crystal dishes, the one stained through with the ruby tint
+of some rich foreign jelly, the other amber-hued with the golden
+honeycomb that lay within it. Delicate butter, moulded like a handful of
+strawberries, lay in a crystal grape-leaf in one corner of the salver,
+and a soft steam floated from the small chocolate urn, veiling the whole
+with a gossamer cloud.
+
+Altogether, that luxurious room, the repast so delicate, but evidently
+her ordinary breakfast; the lady herself in all the beautiful disarray
+of a muslin wrapper, half hidden, half exposed by the loosely knotted
+silk cord that confined a dressing-gown, quilted and lined with soft
+white silk--all this composed a picture of the most sumptuous enjoyment.
+But look in that woman's face! See the dark circles beneath those heavy
+violet eyes. Mark how languidly that mouth uncloses, when she turns to
+speak. See the nervous start which she makes when the crystal and silver
+jar against each other, as the maid places them upon the table. Is there
+not something in all this that would make the rudest mechanic pause,
+before he consented to exchange the comforts won by his honest toil, for
+the splendor that seemed so tempting at the first glance?
+
+Ada broke a roll in two, allowed one of the golden strawberries to melt
+away in its fragments, then laid it down untasted. Her heart was sick,
+her appetite gone, and after drinking one cup of the chocolate, she
+turned half loathing from that exquisite repast.
+
+"Move the things away!" she said, to the waiting-woman.
+
+"Will madam chose nothing else?" said the servant, hesitating and
+looking back as she carried off the tray.
+
+"Nothing," replied her mistress.
+
+The tone was one that forbade further inquiry; so the maid left the
+apartment; and Ada was alone, restless, feverish, unhappy.
+
+She rose, and walking to the window, looked out; but a few minutes spent
+thus appeared to tire her; and throwing herself again into her chair,
+she took up a book and attempted to read. But she still found no
+occupation for her thoughts. At last she flung down the volume, and
+rising, paced the chamber.
+
+The reflection grew and grew upon her, that if the old man should be
+convicted of the murder, she would be free from the guilt of Leicester's
+death. Her mind had been in a morbid condition ever since that event, or
+she would not now have thought this, nor have before regarded herself as
+criminal. That the old man should be proved guilty, became an insane
+wish on her part. She clutched at it with despairing hope. The more she
+thought of this means of escape from her remorse, the wilder became her
+desire to see the prisoner convicted. Soon the belief in his criminality
+became as fixed in her mind as the persuasion of her own existence.
+
+A stern, passionate desire for revenge now took possession of her. The
+very idea that the accused might yet escape, through some technicality,
+drove her almost to madness; and as she conjured up this picture, her
+eyes flashed like those of an angry tigress, and the workings of her
+countenance betrayed the tumult of her soul.
+
+At last, catching the reflection of her person in a mirror, she started
+at her wild appearance; a bitter smile passed over her face, and she
+said--
+
+"Why do I seek this old man's blood? Am I crazed, or a woman no longer?
+But heaven knows," she added, clasping her forehead with her hands,
+"that I have endured enough to transform me out of humanity."
+
+With a heavy movement she rang the bell, ordered her maid to dress her,
+and directed the carriage to be in waiting.
+
+When Ada Leicester descended to her carriage, radiant in majestic
+beauty, the last thought that would have presented itself to a spectator
+must have been that this queenly woman was unhappy. But the color in her
+cheek; the blaze of her brilliant eyes; and the proud, almost disdainful
+step with which she crossed the sidewalk, were deceptive as the fever
+of disease. The excitement which so increased her lofty beauty, was
+purchased with inexpressible pangs, as the hues of the dying dolphin are
+procured by intolerable anguish.
+
+The day was bright; the breeze was fresh; everything around was
+beautiful and exhilarating. But the pleasant face of nature failed to
+allay the fever of Ada Leicester's soul. One thought only possessed her;
+"What if the old man should be acquitted?" This idea grew upon her, and
+still grew. She tried to shake it off. She endeavored to become
+interested in the equipages driving past on the Bloomingdale road, and
+failing there, turned her heavy eyes on the green fields along the North
+River, or the sailing vessels ploughing up and down its water. But it
+was all in vain; Ada had no interest in anything so quiet as those
+scenes.
+
+That dark thought clung to her. Now it rose into a terror, and a new
+idea crossed her mind. If the murderer should escape, and her husband be
+unavenged, would not her guilt be then almost as great as if she had
+driven Leicester to suicide?
+
+Everything became a blank around her; she was only conscious of this one
+thought. She saw nothing, heard nothing; for her entire soul was
+absorbed in one morbid idea. It became a monomania. Finally she pulled
+the check string, and, in a sharp tone, directed the coachman to drive
+back to the city.
+
+The man looked around, startled by her voice; he was alarmed at the
+aspect of her countenance, which was almost livid. She did not notice
+it, but closed the curtain, and threw herself back on the cushions.
+
+This terror was visible in his look. As they entered the city, the
+coachman asked if he should drive home.
+
+This roused her from her stupor. A distance of five miles had been
+traversed since she had last spoken, yet the interval appeared to her
+scarcely a minute. She looked out with surprise. Recognizing the place,
+she pulled the check-string and directed the servant to drive to the
+office of an advocate, renowned, especially in criminal cases, for his
+acute cross-examinations, not less than for his eloquence.
+
+The lawyer was at home when the carriage drew up at his door. He knew
+Ada Leicester as a leading star in society, and was surprised to see her
+enter his office so abruptly. He rose, bowed profoundly, and handed her
+a chair.
+
+His visitor hesitated a moment, and then said,
+
+"There is a man now in prison, charged with the murder of one William
+Leicester--you know the case, perhaps--and I have called on you to make
+it impossible for the prisoner to escape unless he is really innocent."
+She uttered these last words slowly, with her eye fixed on the advocate
+as she spoke.
+
+"There is such a thing, I believe, as the friends of a guilty man
+securing legal assistance when the commonwealth proves lax or
+indifferent."
+
+"Oh! yes, madam," said the lawyer. "The thing is of common occurrence."
+
+"Very well," said Ada, slowly, taking a note of large value from her
+_porte-monnaie_. "I wish you to see the district-attorney, and assist
+him in this trial."
+
+"You would retain me--I understand your wish," said the lawyer, too
+polite to touch the note which she laid before him, yet unable to
+prevent a glance at its denomination; and bowing again profoundly, as
+his visitor rose to go, he continued, "the guilty man shall not escape,
+madam."
+
+Ada Leicester drove home with a lighter heart, feeling as if a great
+duty had been discharged.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE PRISON WOMAN IN ADA'S DRESSING-ROOM.
+
+     Look not so haughtily, imperious dame;
+       Chance digs the gulf that lies between us two:
+     Mine is the open, yours the hidden shame;
+       The vulture soars with me, but skulks with you.
+
+
+Ada Leicester had scarcely gained her apartment, when Jacob Strong
+entered it. He came in with a tread so heavy, that it made itself heard
+even through the turf-like swell of the carpet. She looked up at him
+wearily, yet with surprise. Jacob, so phlegmatic, so sturdy in all other
+cases, never was self-possessed with his mistress; one glance of those
+eyes, one wave of that hand was enough to confuse his brain, and make
+the strong heart flutter in his bosom like the wings of a wild bird.
+
+"Madam," he stammered, shifting his huge feet unsteadily to and fro on
+the carpet, "there is a woman down stairs who wants to see you."
+
+"I can see no one this morning; send her away!"
+
+"I tried that, madam, but she answers that her business is important,
+and, in short, that she _will_ see you."
+
+Ada opened her eyes wide, and half turned in her chair. This insolent
+message aroused her somewhat.
+
+"Indeed! What does she look like? Who can it be?"
+
+"She is a very common-looking person, handsome enough, but unpleasant."
+
+"You never saw her before, then?"
+
+"No, never!"
+
+"Let her come up; I cannot well give the next ten minutes to anything
+more miserable than myself," said Ada; "let her come up!"
+
+Jacob left the room, and Ada, aroused to some little interest in the
+person who had so peremptorily demanded admission to her presence, threw
+off something of her languor as she saw the door swing open to admit her
+singular guest.
+
+A woman entered, with a haughty, almost rude air. Her dress was clean,
+but of cheap material, and put on with an effort at tidiness, as if in
+correction of some long-acquired habits which she had found it difficult
+to fling off. A black hood, lined with faded crimson silk, was thrown
+back from her face, revealing large Roman features, fierce dark eyes,
+and a mouth that, in its heavy fullness, struck the beholder more
+unpleasantly even than the ferocious brightness of those large eyes.
+
+The woman looked around her as she entered the dressing-room, and a
+faint sneer curled her lip, while she took in, with a contemptuous
+glance, all the elegant luxury of that little room. Ada had not for an
+instant dreamed of inviting a creature so unprepossessing to sit down in
+the room so exquisitely fitted up for her own enjoyment; but the woman
+waited for no indication of the kind. She cast one keen glance on the
+surprised and somewhat startled face turned upon her as she entered,
+another around the room, which contained only two chairs beside the one
+occupied by its mistress, and seizing one, a frail thing of carved
+ebony, cushioned with the most delicate embroidery on white moire, she
+took possession of it.
+
+At another time Ada would have rung the bell and ordered the woman to be
+put from the room; but now there was a sort of fascination in this
+audacious coolness that aroused a reckless feeling in her own heart. She
+allowed the woman to seat herself, therefore, without a word; nay, a
+slight smile quivered about her lip as she heard the fragile ebony
+crack, as if about to give way beneath the heavy burden cast so roughly
+upon it.
+
+The strange being sat in silence for some moments, examining Ada with a
+bold, searching glance, that, spite of herself, brought the blood to
+that haughty woman's cheek. After her fierce black eyes had roved up and
+down two or three times, from the pretty lace cap to the embroidered
+slipper, that began to beat with impatience against the cushion which it
+had before so languidly pressed, the woman at last condescended to
+speak.
+
+"You are rich, madam; people say so, and all this looks like it. They
+say, too, that you are generous, good to the poor; that you give away
+money by handsful. I want a little of this money!"
+
+Ada looked hard at the woman, who returned the glance almost fiercely.
+
+"You need not search my face so sharply," she said, "I don't want the
+money for myself. One gets along on a little in New York, and I can
+always have that little without begging of rich women. I would scrub
+anybody's kitchen floor from morning till night, rather than ask you or
+any other proud aristocrat for a red cent! It isn't for myself I've
+come, but for a fellow prisoner, or rather one that was a
+fellow-prisoner, for I'm out of the cage just now. It's for an old man I
+want the money, a good old man that the night-hawks have taken up for
+murder!"
+
+Ada started, but the woman did not observe it, and went on with
+increasing warmth.
+
+"The old fellow is a saint on earth--a holy saint, if such things ever
+are. I know what crime is. I can find guilt in a man's eye, let it be
+buried ever so deep; but this old man is not guilty; a summer morning is
+not more serene than his face! Men who murder from malice or accident do
+not sit so peacefully in their cells, with that sort of prayerful
+tenderness brooding over the countenance."
+
+"Of whom are you speaking, woman? Who is this old man?" demanded Ada,
+sharply. "What is his innocence or his guilt to me?"
+
+"What is his innocence or guilt to you? Are you a woman?--have you a
+heart and ask that question? As for me I _might_ ask it--I who know what
+crime is, and who should feel most for the criminal! But you, pampered
+in wealth, beautiful, loving, worshipped--who never had even a
+temptation to sin--it is for you to feel for a man unjustly accused--the
+innocent for the innocent, the guilty for the guilty. Sympathy should
+run thus, if it does not!"
+
+"This is an outrage--mockery!" said Ada starting from her chair. "Who
+sent you here, woman?--how dare you talk to me of these things?--I know
+nothing of the old man you are raving about; wish to know less. If you
+want money, say so, but do not talk of him, of crime, of--of murder!"
+
+She sunk back to her chair again, pale and breathing heavily. Her
+strange visitor stood up, evidently surprised by a degree of agitation
+that seemed to her without adequate cause.
+
+"So the rich can feel," she said; "but this is not compassion. My
+presence annoys you--the close mention of sin makes you shudder. You
+look, yes, you do look like that angel child when I first laid my hand
+upon her shoulder."
+
+"What child?--of whom do you speak?" questioned Ada, faintly, for the
+woman was bending over her, and she was fascinated by the power of those
+wild eyes.
+
+"It is the grandchild of that old man--the old murderer they call
+him--the old saint _I_ call him; it is his grandchild that your look
+reminded me of a moment ago; it is gone, now, but I shall always like
+you the better for having seemed like her only for a minute!"
+
+"Her name, what is her name?" cried Ada, impelled to the question by
+some intuitive impulse, that she neither comprehended nor cared to
+conceal. "What is the child's name, I say?"
+
+"Julia Warren."
+
+"A fair, gentle girl, with eyes that seems to crave affection, as
+violets open their leaves for the dew when they are thirsty; a frail,
+delicate little thing, toiling under a burden of flowers! I have seen a
+young creature like this more than once. She haunts me--her name itself
+haunts me--and why, why!--she is nothing to me--I am nothing to her?"
+
+Ada spoke in low tones, communing with herself; and the woman looked on,
+wondering at the words as they dropped so unconsciously from those
+beautiful lips.
+
+"It is the same girl, I am sure of it," said the woman, at last. "She
+had no flowers when I saw her tottering with her poor wet eyes into the
+prison; but her face might have been bathed in their perfume, it was so
+full of sweetness. It was so--so holy I was near saying, but the word is
+a strange one for me. Well, madam, this young girl has been in prison
+with me, and the like of me!"
+
+"She must come out--she shall not remain there an hour!" said Ada,
+searching eagerly among the folds of her dress for a purse, which was
+not to be found. "It is not here, I will ring for Jacob; you want money
+to get this young girl out of prison; that is kind, very kind; you shall
+have it. Oh, heavens! the thought suffocates me--that angel child--that
+beautiful flower spirit in prison! Woman, why did you not come to me
+before?"
+
+"I was in prison myself--the officers don't let us out so easily. We
+are not exactly expected to make calls; besides, how should I know
+anything about you, except as one of those proud women who gather up
+their silken garments when we come near, as if it were contagion to
+breathe the same atmosphere with us."
+
+"But how is it that you have come to me at last?"
+
+"She told me about you!"
+
+"_She_ sent you to me then?" questioned Ada, with sparkling eyes; "bless
+her, she sent you!"
+
+"No, she told me about you. I came of my own accord."
+
+Ada's countenance fell; she was silent for a moment, subdued by a
+strange feeling of disappointment.
+
+"But she is in that horrid place; no matter how you came; not another
+hour must she stay in prison, if money or influence can release her."
+
+"But she is not in prison now!" said the woman.
+
+"Not in prison!--how is this. What can you desire of me if she is not in
+prison?"
+
+"But her grandfather--the good old man, he is in prison, helpless as a
+babe--innocent as a babe. It is the old man who is in prison."
+
+"Why am I tormented with this old man? Do not mention him to me
+again--his crime is fearful; _I_ am not the one to save him, the
+murderer of--of----"
+
+"He is the young girl's grandfather!"
+
+Ada had started from her chair, and was pacing rapidly up and down the
+room, her arms folded tightly under the loose sleeves of her
+dressing-gown, and the silken tassels swaying to and fro with the
+impetuosity of her movements. There seemed to be a venomous fascination
+in that old man's name that stung her whole being into action. She had
+not comprehended before that it was connected with that of the
+flower-girl; but the words "he is the young girl's grandfather,"
+arrested her like the shaft from a bow. Her lips grew white, she stood
+motionless gazing almost fiercely upon the woman who had uttered these
+words.
+
+"That girl the grandchild of Leicester's murderer!" she exclaimed. "Why
+the very flowers I tread on turn to serpents beneath my feet!"
+
+"The old man did not kill this Leicester," answered the woman, and her
+rude face grew white also; "or if he did, it was but as the instrument
+of God's vengeance on a monster--a hideous, vile monster, who crawled
+over everything good in his way, crushing it as he went. If he _had_
+killed him--if I believed it, no Catholic saint was ever idolized as I
+would worship that old man!"
+
+"Woman, what had Leicester done to you that you should thus revile him
+in his grave?"
+
+A cloud of inexplicable passion swept over the woman's face. She drew
+close to Ada, and as she answered, her breath, feverish with the dregs
+of intoxication, and laden with words that stung like reptiles, sickened
+the wretched woman to the heart's core. She had no strength to check the
+fierce torrent that rushed over her; but folded her white arms closer
+and closer over her heart, as if to shield it somewhat from the storm of
+bitter eloquence her question had provoked.
+
+"What has Leicester done to me?" said the woman. "Look, look at me, I am
+his work from head to foot, body and soul, all of his fashioning!"
+
+"How? Did _you_ love him also?"
+
+A glow of fierce disgust broke over the woman's features, gleaming in
+her eye and curling her lip.
+
+"Love him, I never sunk so low as that; he scarcely disturbed the froth
+upon my heart, the wine below was not for him. Had I loved him, he might
+have been content with my ruin only; as it was, madam, it is a short
+story, very short, you shall have it--but I'll have drink after."
+
+"Compose yourself--do not be so violent," said Ada, shrinking from the
+storm she had raised, with that sensitiveness which makes the wounded
+bird shield its bosom from a threatened arrow, "I do not wish to give
+you pain!"
+
+"Pain!" exclaimed the woman, with a wild sneer, "I am beyond that. No
+one need know pain while the drug stores are open! You ask what
+Leicester has ever done to me. You knew him, perhaps--no matter, you are
+not the first woman whose face has lost its color at the sound of his
+name; but he will do no more mischief, the blood is wrung from his heart
+now."
+
+Ada sunk back in her chair, holding up both hands with the palms
+outward, as if warding off a blow. But the woman had become fierce in
+her passion, and would not be checked.
+
+"You ask if I loved him, I, who worshipped my own husband, my noble,
+beautiful, young husband, with a worship strong as death, holy as
+religion. Leicester, this fiend, who is now doing a fiend's penance in
+torment--this demon was my husband's friend, he was my friend too, for I
+loved everything that brightened the eye, or brought smiles to the lip
+of my husband--a husband whom I worshipped as a devotee lavishes homage
+on a saint--loved as a woman loves when her whole life is centered in
+one object. I was never good like him--but I loved him--I loved him! You
+look at me in astonishment--you cannot understand the love that turns to
+such fierce madness when it is but a past thing--that drugs itself with
+opium, drowns itself in brandy!"
+
+Ada answered with a faint sob, and her eyes grew wild as the great black
+orbs flashing upon her. The woman saw this, and took compassion on what
+she believed to be purely terror at her own violence. She made a strong
+effort and spoke more calmly, but still with a suppressed, husky voice
+that was like the hush of a storm.
+
+"We were poor, madam. I kept a little school; my husband was a clerk, at
+very low pay, with very hard labor. It was a toilsome life, but oh, how
+happy we were! I don't know where James first saw Mr. Leicester, but
+they came home together one evening, and I remember we had a little
+supper, with wine, and some game that Leicester had ordered on the way.
+If you have never seen that man, nothing can convey to you the power,
+the fascination of his presence. Soft, persuasive, gentle as an angel
+in seeming; deep, crafty, cruel as a fiend in reality--if you had a
+foible or a weakness, he was certain to detect it with a glance, and
+sure to use it, though it might be to your own destruction. I was young,
+vain, new to the world, and not altogether without beauty. I doubt if
+Leicester ever saw a woman without calculating her weaknesses, and
+playing upon them if it were only for mere amusement, or in the wanton
+test of his own diabolical powers.
+
+"I was strong, for heart and soul I loved my husband; he saw this and it
+provoked his pride; else in my humility I might have escaped his
+pursuit; but I was vain, capricious, passionate. A little time he
+obtained some influence over me, for his subtle flattery, his artful
+play upon every bad feeling of my nature had its effect. But the woman
+who loves one man with her whole strength, has a firm anchorage. My
+vanity was gratified by this man's homage, nothing more--still he
+attained all that he worked for, a firmer influence over my husband. Had
+I been his enemy he could not have wormed himself around that simple,
+honest nature. I helped him, I was a dupe, a tool, used for the ruin of
+my own husband. It is this thought that brandy is not strong enough to
+drown, or morphine to kill!
+
+"He was our benefactor--you understand--without himself directly
+appearing in the business, except to us upon whom his agency was
+impressed; a place, with much higher salary, was procured for my
+husband. We were very grateful, and looked upon Leicester as a guardian
+angel. Very well--a few months went on, still binding us closer to the
+man who had benefited us so much. One day he stood by my husband's desk.
+It was a rich firm that he served, and James had charge of the funds. It
+was just before the hour of deposit; ten thousand dollars lay beneath
+the bank-book. Leicester seemed in haste; he had need of a large sum of
+money that day, which he could easily replace in the morning, five
+thousand; something had gone wrong in his financial matters, and he
+proposed that James should lend that sum from the amount before him.
+
+"My husband hesitated, and at length refused. Leicester did not urge
+it, but went away apparently grieved. By that time it was too late for
+the bank, and James brought the money home, thinking to deposit it early
+the next day. Leicester came in while we were at dinner, he looked sad
+and greatly distressed. I insisted upon knowing the cause, and at last
+he told me of his embarrassment, dwelling with gentle reproach on the
+refusal of my husband to aid him.
+
+"I was never a woman of firm principle; the holiest feeling known to me
+was the love I bore my husband; all else was passion, impulse, generous
+or unjust as circumstances warranted. I did not understand the rectitude
+of my husband's conduct. To me it seemed ingratitude; my influence over
+him was fatal. When Leicester left the house, five thousand dollars--not
+ours nor his--went with him.
+
+"The next day we did not see him. My poor husband grew nervous, but it
+was not till a week had passed that I could force myself to believe that
+the money would not be promptly repaid. Then James inquired for
+Leicester at his hotel. He had gone south.
+
+"My husband had embezzled his employers' money. He was tried, found
+guilty, sentenced to the state prison for seven years. I--I had done it!
+When he went up to Sing Sing, linked wrist to wrist with a band of the
+lowest felons, I followed to the wharf, and my little boy, his child and
+mine, only a few weeks old, lay crying against my bosom. I watched the
+boat through the burning tears that seemed to scorch my eyes, and when
+it was lost, I turned away still as the grave, but the most desolate
+wretch that ever trod the earth. Seven years, it was an eternity to me!
+I had no moral strength--I was mad. But his child was there, and I
+struggled for that!"
+
+The woman paused. Her voice, full of rude strength before, grew soft
+with mournful desolation.
+
+"I went often to see him; I struggled for a pardon, it was his first
+offence, but he must stay a year or two in prison; there was no hope
+before then--I have told you how innocent he really was. But a sense of
+shame, the hard fare, the toil--he drooped under these things! Every
+visit I found him thinner; his smile more sad; his brow more pallid. One
+day I went to see him with the child, and they told me to go home, for
+my husband was dead.
+
+"I went home quietly as a lamb that has been numbed by the frost. That
+night I drank laudanum, intending to be nearer my husband before
+morning, but there was not enough. It threw me into a sleep, profound as
+death, except that I could not find him in it. The potion did not kill,
+but it taught me where to seek for relief, how to chain sleep. It was my
+slave then, we have changed places since."
+
+Ada sat cowering in her chair, while the woman went on with her
+narrative. It seemed as if she herself were the person who had inflicted
+the great wrong to which she had listened; as if the fierce anger, the
+just reproaches of that woman were levelled at her own conscience.
+
+"What atonement can be made? What can be done for you?" she faltered,
+weaving her pale fingers together, and lifting her eyes beseechingly to
+the woman's face, which was bent down and haggard with exhausted
+anguish.
+
+"What atonement can be made?" cried the woman, throwing back her head
+till the crimson hood fell half away from her dark tresses. "He is
+making atonement now--now--ha! ha!"
+
+The laugh which followed this speech made Ada cower as if a mortal hand
+had fallen upon her heart. She looked piteously at the woman, and after
+a faint struggle to speak, fell back in her chair quite insensible.
+
+This utter prostration--this deathly helplessness, touched the still
+living heart of the woman. She could not understand why her terrible
+story had taken such effect upon a person, lifted as it seemed so far
+above all sympathy for one of her wretched cast; but she was a woman,
+had suffered and could still feel for the sufferings of others. A gush
+of gentle compassion broke up through the blackness and rubbish which
+had almost choked up the pure waters of her heart, humanising her
+countenance, and awaking her womanhood once more.
+
+She stole into the bed-chamber, and taking a crystal flask full of
+water from a marble slab, dashed a portion of its contents over the pale
+face still lying so deathly white against the damask cushions.
+
+This, however, had no effect. She now took the cold hands in hers,
+chafing them tenderly, removed the dainty cap and scattered water-drops
+over the pale lips and forehead. With a degree of tact that no one would
+have expected from her, she refrained from calling the household, and
+continued her own efforts till life came slowly back to the bosom that a
+moment before seemed as marble.
+
+Ada opened her eyes heavily, and closed them again with a shudder, when
+she saw the woman bending over her.
+
+"Go!" she said, still pressing her long eyelashes together; "leave word
+where you live, and I will send you money."
+
+"For the old man?"
+
+"No; for yourself, not for _his_ murderer?"
+
+"I did not ask money for myself," answered the woman, sullenly. "If you
+give it, I shall pay the lawyers to save him!"
+
+"Then go, I have nothing for you or him--go," answered Ada, faintly, but
+in a voice that admitted no dispute; and, rising from her chair, she
+went into the bed-room and closed the door.
+
+The woman looked after her with some anger and more astonishment; then
+drawing down her hood she tied it deliberately, and strode into the
+boudoir, down the stairs, and so out of the house, without deigning to
+notice the servants, who took no pains to conceal their astonishment,
+that a creature of her appearance should be admitted to the presence of
+their mistress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE TOMBS LAWYER.
+
+     As reptiles haunt a prison wall,
+       And search its broken cliffs for food;
+     Some human beings cringe and crawl
+       For daily bread where sorrows brood.
+
+
+Mrs. Gray found more difficulty in performing her benevolent intentions
+with regard to the Warrens, than she had ever before encountered.
+Ignorant as a child of all legal proceedings, she found no aid either in
+the old prisoner, his wife, or his grandchild, who were more uninformed
+and far less hopeful than herself. Her brother Jacob, on whom she had
+depended for aid and counsel, much to her surprise, not only refused to
+take any responsibility in her kind efforts, but looked coldly upon the
+whole affair.
+
+It was not in Jacob Strong's nature to shrink from a kind action; for
+his rude exterior covered a heart true and warm as ever beat. But the
+part he had already taken in those events that led to William
+Leicester's death; the almost insane fear that haunted his mistress,
+lest the murderer should escape punishment; the taunts that had wrung
+his strong heart to the core, but which she had so ruthlessly heaped
+upon him--all these things conspired in rendering him more than
+indifferent to the fate of a man whom he had never seen, and whom he
+wished to find guilty. He received his good sister's entreaties for
+counsel, therefore, with reproof, and a stern admonition not to meddle
+with affairs beyond her knowledge.
+
+Thus thrown upon her own resources, the good woman, by no means daunted,
+resolved to conduct the affair after her own fashion. Robert, it is
+true, had volunteered to aid her, and had already applied to an eminent
+lawyer to conduct old Mr. Warren's defence; but the retainer demanded,
+and the large sum of money expected, when laid before the good huckster
+woman, quite horrified her. The amount seemed enormous to one who had
+gathered up a fortune in pennies and shillings. She had heard of the
+extortions of legal gentlemen, of their rapacity and heartlessness, and
+resolved to convince them that one woman, at least, had her wisdom teeth
+in excellent condition.
+
+So Mrs. Gray quietly refused all aid from Robert, and went into the
+legal market as she would have boarded a North River craft laden with
+poultry and vegetables. Many a grave lawyer did she astonish by her
+shrewd efforts to strike a bargain for the amount of eloquence necessary
+to save her old friend. Again and again did her double chin quiver with
+indignation at the hard-heartedness and rapacity of the profession.
+
+Thus time wore on; the day of trial approached, and, with all her good
+intentions, Mrs. Gray had only done a great deal of talking, which by no
+means promised to regenerate the legal profession, and the prisoner was
+still without better counsel than herself.
+
+One day the good huckster woman was passing down the steps of the City
+Prison--for she invariably accompanied Mrs. Warren to her husband's cell
+every morning, though it interfered greatly with her harvest hour in the
+market--she was slowly descending the prison steps, as I have said, when
+a man whom she had passed, leaning heavily against one of the pillars in
+the vestibule, followed and addressed her.
+
+On hearing her name pronounced, Mrs. Gray turned and encountered a man,
+perhaps thirty-five or forty years of age, with handsome but unhealthy
+features, and eyes black and keen, that seemed capable of reading your
+soul at a glance, but too weary with study or dissipation for the
+effort.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the stranger, lifting his hat with a degree of
+graceful deference that quite charmed the old lady. "I believe you are
+Mrs. Gray, the benevolent friend of that poor man lodged up yonder on a
+charge of murder. My young man informed me that a lady--it must have
+been you, none other could have so beautifully answered the
+description--had called at my office in search of counsel. I regretted
+so much not being in. This is a peculiar case, madam, one that enlists
+all the sympathies. You look surprised. I know that feeling is not usual
+in our profession, but there are hearts, madam--hearts so tender
+originally, that they resist the hard grindstone of the law. It is this
+that has kept me poor, when my brother lawyers are all growing rich
+around me."
+
+"Sir," answered Mrs. Gray--her face all in a glow of delight--reaching
+forth her plump hand, with which she shook that of her new acquaintance,
+which certainly trembled in her grasp, but from other causes than the
+sympathy for which she gave him credit, "Sir, I am happy to see
+you--very happy to find one lawyer that has a heart. I don't remember
+calling at your office without finding you in, though I certainly have
+found a good many other lawyers out."
+
+Here the blessed old lady gave a mellow chuckle over what she considered
+a marvellous play upon words, which was echoed by the lawyer, who held
+one hand to his side, as if absolutely compelled thus to restrain the
+mirth excited by her facetiousness.
+
+"And now, my dear lady, let us to business. The most exquisite wit, you
+know must give place to the calls of humanity. My young man informed me
+of your noble intentions with regard to this unhappy prisoner. That out
+of your wealth so honorably won, you were determined to wrest justice
+from the law. I am here with my legal armor on, ready to aid in the good
+cause. If I were rich now--if I had not exhausted my life in attempting
+to aid humanity, nothing would give me so much pleasure as to go
+hand-in-hand with you to his rescue, without money and without price; as
+it is, my dear madam--as it is, 'the laborer is worthy of his hire.'"
+
+This quotation quite won the already vacillating heart of poor Mrs.
+Gray. She shook the lawyer's thin hand again, with increased cordiality,
+and answered--
+
+"True enough--true enough, my dear sir. I declare it is refreshing to
+hear Bible words in the mouth of a lawyer. It's what I didn't expect."
+
+"Ah, madam," cried the lawyer, drawing a white handkerchief from a side
+pocket, and returning it as if he had determined to suppress his
+emotions at any cost--"ah, madam, do not apply a general rule too
+closely. Our profession is bad enough, I do not defend it. What man with
+a conscience void of offence, could make the attempt? But there exist
+exceptions--honorable exceptions. Permit me to hope that your clear mind
+can distinguish between the sharper and the man who sacrifices the
+world's goods for conscience's sake. Believe me, dear lady, there are
+such things as honest lawyers, as pious men in the profession."
+
+"Well, I must say the idea never struck me before," answered Mrs. Gray,
+with honest simplicity.
+
+"Permit me to hope, that from this hour you will no longer doubt it,"
+answered the lawyer, gently passing one hand over the place which
+anatomists allot to the human heart. "And now, madam, suppose we walk to
+my office and settle the preliminaries of our engagement. A cool head
+and warm heart, that is what you want; fortunately such things may be
+found. Pray allow me to help you; the steps are a little damp, accidents
+frequently happen up this avenue; my office is close at hand; many a
+poor unfortunate has learned to bless the way there--take my arm!"
+
+Mrs. Gray hesitated; a blush swept over her comely cheek at the thought
+of walking arm-in-arm with so perfect a gentleman, and that in the open
+streets of New York. It was a thing she had not dreamed of since the
+death of poor Mr. Gray. But there was a leaven of feminine vanity still
+left in the good woman's nature. The shrewd swindler, who stood there so
+gracefully presenting his arm, had not altogether miscalculated the
+effect of his flattery, and he clenched it adroitly, with this act of
+personal attention.
+
+Mrs. Gray hesitated, blushed, drew on her glove a little tighter, and
+then placed her substantial arm through the comparatively fragile limb
+of the lawyer, softly, as if she quite appreciated the danger of bearing
+him down with her weight. Thus the blessed old woman was borne along,
+sweeping half the pavement with her massive person, and crowding the
+poor lawyer unconsciously out to the curb-stone every other minute.
+
+He, exemplary man, bore it all with gentle complacency, cautioned her
+against every little impediment that came in her way, and consoled
+himself for the somewhat remarkable figure he made in the eyes of the
+police-officers that haunt that neighborhood, by a significant twirl of
+his disengaged hand in the direction of his own face, and a quick
+drooping of the left eyelid, by which they all understood that the Tombs
+lawyer had brought down his game handsomely that morning.
+
+Mrs. Gray was certainly somewhat disappointed in the style of the
+lawyer's office into which she was ushered with so much ceremony. A
+rusty old leathern chair; a table with the green baize half worn off,
+with a bundle or two of dusty papers upon it; a standish full of dry
+ink, and a steel pen rusted down to the nib, all veiled thickly with
+dust, did not entirely meet her ideas of the prosperous business she had
+anticipated. The lawyer saw this, and hastened to sweep away all
+unfavorable impressions from her mind.
+
+"This is my work-shop, you see, madam, the tread-mill in which I grind
+out my humble bread and my blessed charities--no foppery, no carpets,
+nothing but the barest necessaries of the profession. I leave
+easy-chairs, &c., for those who have the conscience to wring them from
+needy clients. You comprehend, dear lady. Oh! it is pleasant to feel
+that now and then in this cold world, a good life meets with
+appreciation. John, bring me another chair?"
+
+"My young man," whom the lawyer had mentioned so ostentatiously, came
+forward in the shape of a lank Irish lad, taller than his master by
+three inches, which might be accurately measured by the space visible
+between the knee of his nether garments and the top of his gaiter boots.
+The closet door, from which he issued, revealed a lurking encampment of
+dusty bottles, a broken washstand, and two enormous demijohns, the
+wickerwork suspiciously moist, and with a stopper of blue glass chained
+to the neck.
+
+The lawyer made a quiet motion with his hand, which sent the Irish boy
+in haste to close the door. Then taking the unstable chair which the lad
+had disinterred from the closet, he sat down cautiously, as a cat steals
+to the lap of her mistress, whose temper is somewhat doubtful, and
+glided into the business on hand. The Irish boy stood meekly by,
+profiting by the scene with a knowing look, which deepened into a grin
+of delight as he saw Mrs. Gray draw forth her pocket-book, and place
+bank-notes of considerable amount into the lawyer's hand. When the good
+woman had thus deposited half the sum which the lawyer assured her would
+save old Mr. Warren's life, she arose with a sigh of profound
+satisfaction, shook out her voluminous skirts, and left the office,
+fully satisfied with the whole transaction.
+
+The lawyer and "his man" followed her to the door. When she disappeared
+down the street, the lawyer turned briskly, and in the joy of his heart
+seized the Irish boy by the collar that had lately graced his own neck,
+and gave him a vigorous shake.
+
+"What are you grinning at, you dog? How dare you laugh at my clients?
+There now, get along; take that and fill both the demijohns; buy a clean
+pack of cards, and a new supply of everything. Do you hear?"
+
+The Irish boy shook himself back into his coat, and seizing the money,
+plunged into the street, resolved not to return a shilling of change
+without first securing the month's wages, for which his master was, as
+usual, in arrears.
+
+The lawyer threw himself into the leathern chair which Mrs. Gray had
+just left, stretched forth his limbs, half closed his eyes, and rubbing
+his palms softly together, sat thus full ten minutes caressing himself,
+and chuckling over the morning's business.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE LAWYER'S VISIT TO HIS CLIENT.
+
+     I am his wife; full forty years
+       This head was pillowed on his breast;
+     I shared his joy, I shared his tears,
+       And in deep sorrow loved him best.
+
+     Yes, tempter, I am still his wife!
+       I hold the glory of his name!
+     To purchase liberty or life
+       I would not dim its light with shame!
+
+
+If those who think that happiness exists only in those external
+circumstances that surround a man, could have seen old Mr. Warren in his
+prison, they would have been astonished at the placidity of his
+countenance, at the calm and holy atmosphere that had made his cell
+emphatically a home. His wife and grandchild haunted it with their love,
+and it seemed to him--so the old man said--that God had never been quite
+so near to him as since he entered these gloomy walls. He might die; the
+laws might sacrifice him, innocent as he was; but should this happen, he
+only knew that God permitted it for some wise purpose, which might never
+be explained till the sacrifice was made.
+
+True, life was sweet to the old man; for in his poverty and his trouble
+two souls had clung to him with a degree of love that would have made
+existence precious to any one. All that earth knows of heaven, strong,
+pure affection had always followed him. It is only when the soul looks
+back upon a waste of buried affection, a maze of broken ties, that it
+thirsts to die. Resignation is known to every good Christian, but the
+wild desire which makes men plunge madly toward eternity, comes of
+exhausted affections and an insane use of life. Good and wise men are
+seldom eager for death. They wait for it with still, solemn faith in
+God, whose most august messenger it is.
+
+There was nothing of bravado in the old man's heart; he made no
+theatrical exhibition of the solemn faith that was in him; but when
+visitors passed the open door of his cell--for, being upon the third
+corridor, there was little chance of escape--and saw him sitting there
+with that meek old woman at his feet, and an open Bible on his lap, a
+huge, worn book that had been his father's, they paused involuntarily,
+with that intuitive homage which goodness always wins, even from
+prejudice.
+
+A few comforts had been added to his prison furniture; for Mrs. Gray was
+always bringing some cherished thing from her household stores. A
+breadth of carpet lay before the bed; a swing shelf hung against the
+wall, upon which two cups and saucers of Mrs. Gray's most antique and
+precious china, stood in rich relief; while a pot of roses struggled
+into bloom beneath the light which came through the narrow loop-hole cut
+through the deep outer wall.
+
+Altogether that prison-cell had a home-like and pleasant look. The old
+man believed that it might prove the gate to death, but he was not one
+to turn gloomily from the humble flowers with which God scattered his
+way to the grave. He lifted his eyes gratefully to every sunbeam that
+came through the wall; and when darkness surrounded him, and that
+blessed old woman was forced to leave him alone, he would sit down upon
+his bed, and murmur to himself, "Oh! it is well God can hear in the
+dark!"
+
+Thus as I have said, the time of trial drew near. The prisoner was
+prepared and tranquil. The wife and grandchild were convinced of his
+innocence, and full of gentle faith that the laws could never put a
+guiltless man to death. Thus they partook somewhat of his own heavenly
+composure. Mrs. Gray was always ready to cheer them with her genial
+hopefulness; and Robert Otis was prompt at all times with such aid as
+his youth, his strength, and his fine, generous nature enabled him to
+give.
+
+One morning, just after Mrs. Gray had left the cell--for she made a
+point of accompanying the timid old woman to the prison of her
+husband--Mr. Warren was disturbed by a visitor that he had never seen
+before. It was a quiet demure sort of personage, clothed in black, and
+with an air half-clerical, half-dissipated, that mingled rather
+incongruously upon his person. He sat down by the prisoner, as a hired
+nurse might cajole a child into taking medicine, and after uttering a
+soft good morning, with his palm laid gently on the withered hand of the
+old man, he took a survey of the cell.
+
+Mrs. Warren stood in one corner, filling the old china cup from which
+her husband had just taken his breakfast, with water; two or three
+flowers, gathered from the plants in Mrs. Gray's parlor windows, lay on
+the little table, whose gentle bloom this water was to keep fresh. To
+another man it might have been pleasant to observe with what care this
+old woman arranged the tints, and turned the cup that its brightest side
+might come opposite her husband.
+
+But the lawyer only saw that she was a woman, and reflected that the sex
+might always be found useful if properly managed. Instead of being
+struck by the womanly sweetness of her character, and the affection so
+beautifully proved by her occupation, he began instantly to calculate
+upon the uses of which she might be capable.
+
+"Rather snug box this that they have got you in, my good friend," said
+the lawyer, turning his eyes with a sidelong glance on the old man's
+face, and keeping them fixed more steadily than was usual with him, for
+it was seldom a face like this met his scrutiny within the walls of a
+prison. "Trust that we shall get you out soon. Couldn't be in better
+hands, that fine old friend of yours, a woman in a thousand, isn't
+she?--confides you to my legal keeping entirely!"
+
+"Did Mrs. Gray send you? Are you the gentleman she spoke to about my
+case?" inquired the old man, turning his calm eyes upon the lawyer,
+while Mrs. Warren suspended her occupation and crept to the other side
+of her husband. "She wished me to talk with you. I am glad you have
+come!"
+
+"Well, my dear old friend, permit me to call you so--for if the lawyer
+who saves the man from the gallows isn't his friend, I should like to
+know who is. When shall we have a little quiet chat together?"
+
+"Now, there will be no better time!"
+
+"But this lady; in such cases one must have perfect confidence. Would
+she have the goodness just to step out while we talk a little?"
+
+"She is my wife. I have nothing to say which she does not know!"
+answered the old man, turning an affectionate look upon the grateful
+eyes lifted to his face.
+
+"Your wife, ha!" cried the lawyer, rubbing his palms softly together, as
+was his habit when a gleam of villainy more exquisite than usual dawned
+upon him. "Perhaps not, we shall see! may want her for a witness! but we
+can tell better when the case is laid out. Now go on; remember that your
+lawyer is your physician; must have all the symptoms of a case, all its
+parts, all its capabilities. Now just consider me as your conscience;
+not exactly that, because one sometimes cheats conscience, you
+know--after all there is nothing better--think that I am your
+lawyer--that I have your life in my hands--that I must know the truth in
+order to save it--cheat conscience, if you like, but never cheat the
+lawyer who tries your case, or the doctor who feels your pulse."
+
+"I have nothing to conceal. I am ready to tell you all," answered the
+old man.
+
+The calmness with which this was said took the lawyer somewhat aback. He
+had expected that more of his cajoling eloquence would be necessary,
+before his client would be won to speak frankly. His astonishment was
+greatly increased, therefore, when the old man in his grave and truthful
+way related everything connected with the death of William Leicester
+exactly as it had happened. Nothing could be more discouraging than this
+narrative, as it presented itself to the lawyer. Had the man been
+absolutely guilty, his counsel would have found far less difficulty in
+arranging some grounds of defence. Without some opening for legal
+chicanery the lawyer felt himself lost. Unprincipled as he was, there
+still existed in his mind some little feeling of interest in any case
+he undertook, independent of the money to be received. He loved the
+excitement, the trickery, the manoeuvering of a desperate defence. He
+had a sort of fellow feeling for the clever criminal that sharpened his
+talent, and sent him into court with the spirit of an old gambler.
+
+But a case like this was something new. He did not for a moment doubt
+the old man's story; there was truth breathing in every word, and
+written in every line of that honest countenance. Indeed it was this
+very conviction that dampened the lawyer's ardor in the case. It seemed
+completely removed from his line of position. He had so long solemnly
+declared his belief in the innocence of men whom he knew to be steeped
+in guilt, that he felt how impossible it was for him to utter the truth
+before a jury with any kind of gravity. His only resource was to make
+this plain, solemn case as much like a falsehood as possible.
+
+"And so you were entirely alone in the room?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+The lawyer shook his head.
+
+"You have no witnesses of his coming in, or of the conversation, except
+this old lady and your grandchild?"
+
+"None!"
+
+"Your neighbors, how were you situated there? No kind fellow in the next
+casement who heard a noise, and peeped through the key-hole, ha?"
+
+The old man looked up gravely, but made no answer.
+
+"I tell you," said the lawyer sharply, for he was nettled by the old
+man's look, "yours is a desperate case!"
+
+"I believe it is," was the gentle reply.
+
+"A desperate case, to be cured only with desperate measures. Some person
+must be found who saw this man strike the blow himself."
+
+"But who did see it, save God and myself?"
+
+"Your wife there, she must have seen it. The door was not quite closed;
+she was curious--women always are; she looked through, saw the man
+seize the knife; you tried to arrest his hand; he was a strong man; you
+old and feeble. You saw all this, madam!"
+
+The old woman was stooping forward, her thin fingers had locked
+themselves together while the lawyer was speaking, and her eyes were
+fixed on him, dilating like those of a bird when the serpent begins its
+charm. At first she waved her head very faintly, thus denying that she
+had witnessed what he described; then she began to stoop forward,
+assenting, as it were, to the force and energy of his words, almost
+believing that she had actually looked through the door and saw all that
+the lawyer asserted.
+
+"No, she did not see all this," answered the prisoner, quietly; "and if
+she had, how would it be of use?"
+
+"You did see it, madam!" persisted the lawyer, without removing his eyes
+from the old woman's face, but fascinating her, as it were, with his
+gaze--"you did see it!"
+
+"I don't know. I--I, perhaps--yes, I think."
+
+"But you did see it; your husband's life depends on the fact. Refresh
+your memory; his life, remember--his life!"
+
+"Yes--yes. I--I saw!"
+
+It was not a deliberate falsehood; the weak mind was held and moulded by
+a strong will. For the moment that old woman absolutely believed that
+she had witnessed the scene, which had been so often impressed upon her
+fancy. The lawyer saw his power, and a faint smile stole over his lip,
+half undoing the work his craft had accomplished. The old woman began to
+shrink slowly back; she met the calm, sorrowful gaze of her husband, and
+her eyes fell under the reproach it conveyed.
+
+The lawyer saw all this, and without giving her time to retract, went
+on.
+
+"By remembering this you have saved his life--saved him from the
+gallows--his name from dishonor--his body from being mangled at the
+medical college."
+
+The old woman wove her wrinkled fingers together; the kerchief on her
+bosom quivered with the struggle of her breath.
+
+"I saw it--I saw it all!" she cried, lifting up her clasped hands and
+dropping them heavily on her lap. "God forgive me, I saw it all!"
+
+"Wife!" said the old man, in a voice so solemn that it made even the
+lawyer shrink. "Wife!"
+
+She did not answer; her head dropped upon her bosom; those old hands
+unlocked and fell apart in her lap, but she muttered still, "God forgive
+me, I saw it all!"
+
+It _was_ a falsehood now, and as she uttered it the poor creature shrunk
+guiltily from her husband's side, and attempted to steal out of the
+cell.
+
+"One moment," said the lawyer, beginning to kindle up in his unholy
+work. "Another thing is to be settled, and then you have the proud
+honor, the glorious reflection that it is to you this good, this
+innocent man owes his life. How long have you been married?"
+
+The old woman looked at a gold ring on her finger, worn almost to a
+thread, and answered--
+
+"It is near on forty years."
+
+"Where?"
+
+The old woman looked at her husband, but his eyes were bent sorrowfully
+downward, giving her neither encouragement or reproach, so she answered
+with some hesitation--
+
+"We were married Down East, in Maine!"
+
+"So much the better. Is the marriage registered anywhere?"
+
+"I don't know!"
+
+"The witnesses, where are they?"
+
+"All dead!"
+
+The lawyer rubbed his hands with still greater energy.
+
+"Very good, very good indeed; nothing could be better! Just tell me,
+could you prove the thing yourselves?"
+
+"Prove what?" said Mrs. Warren, half in terror, while the prisoner
+remained motionless, paralyzed, as it seemed, by the weakness of his
+wife.
+
+"Prove?--why, that you were ever married. The truth is, madam, you could
+not have been married to the prisoner--never where the thing is
+impossible. It spoils you for a witness--do you understand?"
+
+"No," said the old woman--"no, how should I? What does it mean?"
+
+"Mean?--you are not his wife!"
+
+"Not his wife--not his wife! Why, didn't I tell you we had lived
+together above forty years?"
+
+"Certainly; no objection to that, a beautiful reproof to the slander
+that there is no constancy in woman. Still you are not his
+wife--remember that!"
+
+"But I _am_ his wife. Look up, husband, and tell him if I am not your
+own lawfully married wife."
+
+"Madam," said the lawyer, in a voice that he intended should reach her
+heart. "In order to save this man's life you must learn to forget as
+well as to remember. You saw Leicester kill himself, that is settled. I
+shall place you on the stand to prove the fact--a fact which saves your
+husband from the gallows. His _wife_ would not be permitted to give this
+evidence; the laws forbid it--therefore you are not his wife. They
+cannot prove that you are; probably you could not easily prove it
+yourself. I assert, and will maintain it, no marriage ever existed
+between you and the prisoner."
+
+"But we have lived together forty years; more than forty years!" cried
+the old woman, and a blush crept slowly over her wrinkled features till
+it was lost in the soft grey of her hair. "What am I then?"
+
+"What matters a name at your time of life. Besides, the moment he is
+clear you may prove your marriage before all the courts in America for
+aught I care; they can't put him on trial a second time."
+
+"And you wish me to deny that we are married--to say that I am not his
+wife."
+
+The old woman, so weak, so frail, grew absolutely stern as she spoke;
+the blush fled from her face, leaving it almost sublime. The lawyer
+even, felt the moral force of that look, and said, half in apology--
+
+"It is the only way to save his life!"
+
+"Then let him die; I could bear it better than to say he is not my
+husband--I not his wife." She sunk to the floor as she spoke, and bowing
+her forehead to the old man's knee, sobbed out, "Oh, husband--husband,
+say that I am right now--did you hear--did you hear?"
+
+The old man sat upright. A holy glow came over his face, and his lips
+parted with a smile that was heavenly in its sweetness. He raised the
+feeble woman from his feet, and putting the grey hair gently back from
+her forehead, kissed it with tender reverence. Then, holding her head to
+his bosom, he turned to the lawyer. "You may be satisfied, she does not
+think her husband's poor life worth that price," he said. "Now leave us
+together."
+
+The lawyer went out rebuked and crest-fallen, muttering to himself as he
+passed from one flight of steps to another, "Well, let the stubborn old
+fellow hang, it will do him good; the prettiest case I ever laid out
+spoiled for an old woman's fancy. It was badly managed, I should have
+taken her alone! I verily believe the old wretch is innocent, but they
+will hang him high as Haman, if the woman persists."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE TRIAL FOR MURDER.
+
+     It is a wrong and monstrous thing,
+       That from young hearts where love is deep
+     Justice herself the words should sing
+       That sends a kindred soul to sleep.
+
+
+The day of trial came at last. Such cases are frequent in New York, and,
+unless there is something in the position or history of the criminal to
+excite public attention, they pass off almost unnoticed. Still there is
+not a single case that does not sweep with it the very heart-strings of
+some person or family, linked either to the prisoner or his victim;
+there is not one that does not wring tears from some eyes and groans
+from some innocent bosom. We read a brief record of these things; we
+learn that a murderer has been tried, convicted, sentenced; we shudder
+and turn away without being half conscious that the history thus briefly
+recorded embraces persons innocent as ourselves, who must endure more
+than the tortures of death for the sin that one man is doomed to
+expiate.
+
+Old Mrs. Warren and her grand-daughter stood at the prison doors early
+that morning. It was before the hour when visitors could be admitted,
+but they wandered up and down in sight of the entrance with that
+feverish unrest to which keen anxiety subjects one. All was busy life
+about the neighborhood. It was nothing to the multitude that passed up
+and down the steps, that a fellow being was that morning to be placed on
+trial for his life. A few remembered it, but with the exception of old
+Mrs. Gray and her nephew, it passed heavily upon the heart of no living
+being save those two helpless females.
+
+How strange all this seemed to them! With every thought and feeling
+occupied, they looked upon the indifferent throng with a pang; the
+smiling faces, the bustle, the cheerfulness, all seemed mocking the
+heaviness of their own hearts.
+
+The hour came at last, and they entered the prison. Old Mr. Warren
+received them affectionately as usual; he exhibited no anxiety, and
+seemed even more cheerful than he had been for some days. The Bible lay
+open upon the bed, and there was an indentation near the pillow, as if
+his arms had rested heavily there while reading upon his knees.
+
+He spent more than an hour conversing gently with his wife and
+grand-daughter, striving to give them consolation rather than hope; for,
+from the first, he had believed and expressed a belief that the trial
+would go against him. With no faith in his counsel, and no evidence to
+sustain his innocence, how could he doubt it? Perhaps this very
+conviction created that holy composure, which seemed so remarkable in a
+man just to be placed on a trial of life and death.
+
+When the officers came to conduct him to the City Hall he followed them
+calmly, solemnly, as a good man might have gone up to a place of
+worship. It was a bright, frosty morning, and he had been some weeks in
+prison. Still his heart must have been wonderfully at ease when the
+clear air, and the busy life around could thus kindle up his eye and
+irradiate his face. A crowd gathered around the prison to see the old
+murderer come forth, but the people were disappointed. Instead of a
+fierce haggard being, wild with the terrors of his situation, ready to
+dart away through any opening like a wild animal from its keepers, they
+saw only a meek old man, neatly clad, and walking quietly between the
+officers with neither the bravado or the abject humility of guilt. The
+fresh air did him good; you could see that in his face, and so grateful
+was he for this little blessing, that he almost forgot the gaze and
+wonder of the crowd.
+
+"This is very beautiful," he observed to one of the officers, and the
+man stared to see how simple and unaffected was this expression of
+enjoyment. "Had I never been in prison, how could I have relished a
+morning like this?"
+
+"You expect to be acquitted?" answered the man, unable to account for
+this strange composure in any other way.
+
+"No," replied the old man, a little sadly--"no, I think they will find
+me guilty--I am almost sure they will!"
+
+"You take it calmly, upon my honor--very calmly!" exclaimed the man.
+"Have you made up your mind, then, to plead guilty at once?"
+
+"No, that would be false--they must do it--I will not help them. All in
+my power I must do to prevent the crime they will commit in condemning
+me. Not to do that would be suicide!"
+
+There was something in this reply that struck the officer more than a
+thousand protestations could have done. Indeed the entire bearing of his
+charge surprised him not a little. Seldom had he conducted a man to
+trial that walked with so firm a step, or spoke so calmly.
+
+"Have you no dread of the sentence--no fear of dying, that you speak so
+quietly?"
+
+The old man turned his head and looked back. Two females were following
+him a little way off. They had gone across the street to avoid the crowd
+of men and boys that hung like a pack of hounds about the prisoner, but
+were gazing after him with anxious faces, that touched even the officer
+with pity, as his glance fell upon them. The old man saw where his eyes
+rested, and answered very mournfully--
+
+"Yes, I have a dread of the sentence. It will reach _them_! Besides, it
+is a solemn thing to die--a very solemn thing to know that at a certain
+hour you will stand face to face with God!"
+
+"Still, I dare say, you would meet death like a hero!"
+
+"When death comes, I will try and meet it like a Christian," was the
+mild answer.
+
+As the old man spoke, they were crossing Chambers street to a corner of
+the Park, but their progress was checked by a carriage, drawn by a pair
+of superb horses, and mounted by two footmen in livery, that dashed by,
+scattering the crowd in every direction.
+
+Mrs. Warren and her grand-daughter were on the opposite side, and had
+just left Centre street to cross over. Julia uttered a faint scream, and
+attempted to draw her grandmother back, for the horses were dashing
+close upon them, and the old woman stood as if paralyzed in the middle
+of the street. She did not move; the horses plunged by, and the wheels
+made her garments flutter with the air they scattered in passing. The
+old woman uttered a cry as the carriage disappeared, and ran forward a
+step or two, as if impelled by some wild impulse to follow it; Julia
+darted forward and caught hold of her arm.
+
+"Grandmother, grandmother, where are you going? What is the matter?"
+
+"Did you see that?" said the old woman.
+
+"What, grandmother?"
+
+"That face--the lady in the carriage. Did you see it?"
+
+"No, grandmother; I was looking at you. It seemed as if the horses
+would trample you down."
+
+The old woman listened, evidently without comprehending. Her eyes were
+wild, and her manner energetic.
+
+"Where is your grandfather?--I must tell him. It was _her_ face!"
+
+"Whose face, grandmother?"
+
+"Whose! Why, did you not see?" The old woman seemed all at once to
+recollect herself. "But how should you know--you, my poor child, who
+never had a mother?"
+
+"Oh! grandmother, has trouble driven you wild?" cried the poor girl,
+struck with new terror, for there was something almost insane in the
+woman's look.
+
+"No, I am not wild; but it was her--see how I tremble. Could anything
+else make me tremble so?"
+
+"I have been trembling all the morning," said Julia.
+
+"True enough, but not deep in the heart--not--oh! where is your
+grandfather? They have taken him off while we are standing here. Come,
+child, come--how could we lose sight of him?"
+
+They hurried into the Park, and across to the City Hall, which they
+reached in time to secure a single glance of the prisoner as he was
+conducted up the staircase, still followed by the rabble.
+
+The court-room became crowded immediately after the prisoner was led in,
+and it was with considerable difficulty that an officer forced a passage
+for the unhappy pair to the seats reserved for witnesses. Mrs. Gray was
+already in court, a little more serious than usual, but still so
+confident of her protégé's innocence, and filled with such reverence for
+the infallibility of the law, that she had almost religious faith in his
+acquittal. She smiled cheeringly when Mrs. Warren and Julia came up, and
+her black silk gown rustled again as she moved her ponderous person that
+they might find room near her. Mrs. Warren was a good deal excited. She
+even made an effort to reach her husband, as they were conducting him
+through the court, but the crowd was too dense, and, spite of herself,
+she was borne forward to the witnesses' seats, without obtaining an
+opportunity to whisper a word of what was passing in her heart. The
+judges were upon the bench; the lawyers took their places, and all the
+preliminaries of an important trial commenced. The prisoner remained
+calm as he had been all the morning, but there was nothing stupid or
+indifferent in his manner. When informed of his right of challenge to
+the jury, he examined each man as he came up; with a searching glance,
+and two or three times gave a peremptory challenge. He listened with
+interest to the questions put by the court, and sunk back in his seat,
+breathing deeply, as if an important duty was over, when the jury was at
+length empannelled.
+
+The district attorney opened his case with great ability. He was a keen,
+eloquent man, who pursued his course against any person unfortunate
+enough to be placed before him, with the relentless zeal of a
+bloodhound, yielding nothing to compassion, feeling no weakness, and
+forgiving none. His duty was to convict--his reputation might be
+lessened or enhanced by the decision of a jury--that thought was ever in
+his mind--he was struggling for position, for forensic fame. The jury
+before him was to add a leaf to his yet green laurels, or tear one away.
+What was a human life in the balance with this thought?
+
+To have watched this man one might have supposed that the feeble old
+prisoner, who sat so meekly beneath the fiery flash of his eyes, and the
+keen scourge of his eloquence, had been his bitterest enemy. Even in
+opening the case, where little of eloquence is expected, he could not
+forbear many a sharp taunt and cruel invective against the old man, who
+met it all with a sort of rebuking calmness, that might have shamed the
+dastardly eloquence which was in no way necessary to justice.
+
+You should have seen dear Mrs. Gray, as the lawyer went on. No winter
+apple ever glowed more ruddily than her cheek; no star ever flashed more
+brightly than her fine eyes. The folds of her silken dress rustled with
+the indignation that kept her in constant motion; and she would bend
+first to old Mrs. Warren, and then to Julia, whispering--
+
+"Never mind, dears--never mind his impudence! Our lawyer will have a
+chance soon, then won't that fellow catch it! Don't mind what he says;
+it's his business; the State pays for it--more shame for the people. Our
+man will be on his feet soon. I ain't the State of New York, but then
+he's got a fee that ought to sharpen his tongue, and expects more when
+it's over. Only let him give that fellow his own again with
+interest--compound interest--and if I don't throw in an extra ten
+dollars, my name isn't Sarah Gray. Oh, if I could but give him a piece
+of my mind now! There, there, Mrs. Warren, don't look so white! it's
+only talk. They won't convict him--it's only talk!"
+
+Mrs. Gray was drawn from this good-natured attempt to cheer her friends
+by the proceedings of the court, that each moment became more and more
+impressive.
+
+The prosecution brought forth its witnesses, those who had appeared in
+the preliminary trial, with many others hunted out by the indefatigable
+attorney. Never was a chain of evidence more complete--never did guilt
+appear so hideous or more firmly established. Every witness, as he
+descended from the stand, seemed to have thrown a darker stain of guilt
+upon that old man. The sharp cross-examinations of the prisoner's
+counsel, only elucidated some new point against him. His acute wit and
+keen questioning brought nothing to light that did not operate against
+the cause--a better man might have been excused for abandoning his case
+in despair.
+
+It seemed impossible that anything could overthrow all this weight of
+evidence; even the desperate plea of insanity would be of no avail. No
+one could look on the solemn, and yet serene face of that old man,
+without giving him credit for a steadiness of mind that no legal
+eloquence could distort.
+
+Among the last witnesses brought up was Julia Warren. Her determination
+not to give evidence, which had just escaped legal censure on the
+examination, had been reasoned away by her grandfather who, believing,
+himself that the laws should be obeyed in all things, leaving the result
+with God, had succeeded in convincing the mind of this young girl that
+her duty was obedience. She arose, therefore, when summoned to the
+stand, turned her eyes upon her grandfather, as if to gather courage
+from his strength, and moved forward tremulously, it is true, but with
+more fortitude than might have been expected in a creature so young and
+so delicately sensitive.
+
+With her usual good sense, Mrs. Gray had taken care that her protégé
+should be neatly dressed, but spite of the little cottage bonnet with
+its rose-colored lining, that face was colorless as a snow-drop.
+
+A thrill of sympathy passed through the crowd, as this young girl stood
+up in the public gaze. She was known as the grandchild of the accused,
+and to possess knowledge that could but deepen the charges against him.
+This of itself was enough to enlist the generous impulses of a people,
+more keenly alive than any on earth, to the claims and dependencies of
+womanhood. But the shrinking modesty of her demeanor--the exquisite
+purity of her loveliness--her youth, the innate refinement that breathed
+about her like an atmosphere, all conspired to make her an object of
+generous pity. There was not a face present, even to the officers, that
+did not exhibit some sign of this feeling when the first view of her
+features was obtained. The face in which this tender compassion beamed
+most eloquently was that of the old prisoner. For the first time that
+day tears came into his eyes, but when her glance was turned upon him
+with a look that pleaded for strength and for pardon, eloquently as eyes
+ever pleaded to a human soul, the grandfather answered it with a smile
+that kindled up her pale face, as if an angel had passed by, which no
+one had the power to see, save her and the old man.
+
+She touched her lips to the sacred volume, and turned with a look of
+angelic obedience toward the judges. When the prosecuting attorney
+commenced his examination, she answered his questions with a degree of
+modest dignity that checked any desire he might have felt to excite or
+annoy her with useless interrogations. Nothing could be more absorbing
+than the attention paid to every word that dropped from her lips. She
+spoke low, and faltered a little now and then; but the tones of her
+voice were so sadly sweet, the tears seemed so close to her eyes without
+reaching them, that even the judges and the jury leaned forward to catch
+those tones, rather than break them by a request that she should speak
+louder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE TWO WITNESSES.
+
+     Woman, thy haughty pride shall fall--
+       Thy very soul shall quake and quail.
+     Those words are weaving shroud and pall,
+       And truth itself may not avail.
+     To save the life thy sin has taken--
+       To save thy father's whitened head--
+     Thy soul to its proud depth is shaken--
+       Say, canst thou raise him from the dead.
+
+
+I will not give Julia's entire evidence as she uttered it in detail,
+because most of my readers know already the events which she had to
+relate; I have attempted no melodramatic effect by an effort at mystery.
+The truth which that court could not know, is already made manifest to
+those who have followed my story up to this point. When questioned if
+she had known the deceased, Julia answered that she had seen him three
+times in her life. Once upon a wharf near the Battery, where she had
+wandered with flowers and fruit, which she wished to sell. He then
+purchased a few of her flowers, and presented them to a lady who had
+left a southern vessel with him but a few moments before. She described
+how he had driven away with the lady at his side, and said at that time
+she never expected to have seen him again.
+
+"But you did see him again," said the examining counsel. "Tell us where
+and how?"
+
+"It was in October, the evening before he--before he died. I was going
+up town with some flowers, which a lady had ordered for a ball she gave
+that night. It was rather late when I started from Dunlap's, and I
+walked fast, fearing to lose my way after dark. This man saw me as I was
+passing a house with a flower-garden in front, and a pretty fountain
+throwing up water among the dahlias and chrysanthemums; I was out of
+breath, and walked a little slower just then, for the water-drops as
+they fell were like music, and everything around was so lovely that I
+could not find it in my heart to walk fast. I did not stop; but Mr.
+Leicester saw me and wanted me to sell my flowers. I told him no; but he
+_would_ have them, and almost pushed me, basket and all, through the
+gate and into the house."
+
+"Well, what passed in the house?"
+
+"He took me up stairs into a chamber, and there I saw the same lady that
+was with him on the wharf, alone, and dressing herself in some beautiful
+clothes that lay about. She asked me to help her, and I did. She took
+some of my flowers for her hair and her dress. I was in a great hurry,
+and wished to go, but she begged me to stay a few minutes longer, and I
+could not refuse. After she was dressed, we went down stairs, and this
+lady was married to Mr. Leicester in a room below. The wedding seemed
+like a funeral; the lady cried all the time, and so did I.
+
+"When it was all over they let me go, and I carried the rest of my
+flowers to the lady who had ordered them. It was getting late when I
+went back; I lost my way; a gentleman stood looking into a window at the
+corner of some street; I asked him to tell me the way home without
+looking in his face; he turned. It was Mr. Leicester; he _would_ go home
+with me; I did not like it, and would rather have been lost in the
+streets all night; but all that I could say against it did no good. He
+followed me home, down the basement steps, and to the door of
+grandfather's room. There was no light in the room; and while grandpa
+was kindling a match, Mr. Leicester went away. I do not know how, but
+when the candle was lighted I looked round for him, and he was gone!"
+
+"Did you tell your grandfather that he had followed you?"
+
+"Yes, I always tell grandfather everything!"
+
+"So you told him that this man had followed you home against your will?"
+
+"Yes, I told him."
+
+"Was he angry?"
+
+"My grandfather never is angry!"
+
+"But what did he say?"
+
+"Nothing particular. He kept his arm around me a good while, I remember,
+as I was warming myself, and seemed to feel sorrowful about something.
+He asked several questions about the man, how he looked, and what he
+said."
+
+"And was that all he said or did?"
+
+"No. He prayed for me that night before we went to bed more earnestly
+than I had ever heard him before. I remember, he asked God to protect me
+from harm, and said that he was old, so old that he was of no use, and
+well stricken in years. It was not the first time I had heard him say
+this, but that night I remember well, for it made me cry!"
+
+"When was the next time you saw Mr. Leicester?"
+
+Julia grew pale as she replied to this question, and her voice became so
+faint that she could scarcely be heard.
+
+"I saw him the next morning!"
+
+"At what hour?"
+
+"I do not know exactly; but we had just done breakfast when he came into
+the basement where we lived, and attempted to speak with my
+grandfather!"
+
+"Did your grandfather know him? Did he call Mr. Leicester by name?"
+
+"He did not call him by name; but I think they must have known each
+other!"
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"Because grandfather turned so pale and looked so dreadfully; I never
+saw him look so before."
+
+"Well, what passed after he came in?"
+
+"I don't know--he sent us both out of the room, grandma and me."
+
+"Where did you go?"
+
+"Into the entry; we had no other place!"
+
+"Did you hear nothing after?"
+
+"Yes, the sound of voices, but no words; then Mr. Leicester rushed
+through the door, and out to the area; we thought he was gone, but in a
+minute he came back and went into the basement again; we heard no words
+after that, but a heavy fall. We went in, Mr. Leicester lay on the
+floor; grandpa was close by; there was blood about: but I do not know
+anything else, my head grew dizzy; I remember clinging to grandmother
+that I might not fall."
+
+"And this is all you know?"
+
+"Yes, it is all!"
+
+It is impossible to describe the effect this young girl's evidence
+produced upon the court. She did not weep or blush as most girls of her
+age might have done. The feelings that gave her voice those tones of
+thrilling sadness, the subdued pain so visible in her sweet countenance,
+were all too strong and deep for these more common manifestations. You
+saw that this young creature was performing a solemn duty, when she
+stood up there to testify against the being whom she loved better than
+anything on earth--that the single hour which she occupied on the stand
+would leave behind it such memories as weigh upon the heart forever.
+
+Julia descended from the gaze of that crowd, older at heart by ten years
+than ordinary events would have left her. Great suffering brings painful
+precocity with it. It takes but a few moments to harden iron into steel;
+but the fire is hot, and the blows hard which accomplish the
+transformation.
+
+The defence refused all cross-examination, and Julia was told that she
+might leave the stand. As the permission was given, she lifted her
+heavy eyes and turned them once more upon her grandfather. Oh, what a
+world of anguish lay in that look. The old man answered it with another
+smile. She saw it but dimly, for her eyes were filling with tears, but
+its sad sweetness made her faint. She tottered back to the seat by her
+grandmother, leaned her head against the wall, and without a sigh or a
+motion became as insensible as the wall itself.
+
+It was strange, but the evidence of this young girl, strongly as it bore
+against the prisoner in fact, created a feeling in his favor with the
+jury, and disposed the crowd to more charitable thoughts of the old man
+who could make himself so beloved by a creature like that. As for Mrs.
+Gray, she absolutely sobbed till the chair shook under her, all the time
+that Julia was speaking. But the grandmother sat motionless, only
+turning her eyes slowly from her husband to the jury, and from them to
+the judges, striving, poor creature, to gather some ray of hope from
+their faces.
+
+It was a strong proof of the influence which the truthfulness of this
+young creature had upon the court, that there was a good deal of legal
+informality permitted in the examination. She had been allowed to tell
+her story after her own gentle fashion, without undue interference from
+the lawyers; and for a little time after she left the stand, there was
+profound silence in the crowd, as if no one could break, even by a
+whisper, the impressions which her evidence had left.
+
+This silence was broken by the prisoner, who arose, all at once, and
+attempted to move toward his grand-daughter. While all others were
+absorbed, he had seen her head droop against the wall, the heavy lids
+settle like snow-flakes over her eyes, and the color quenched around her
+mouth. The sight was too much for him, and he started up, as I have
+described, but only to feel the officer's gripe upon his arm.
+
+"See, see, you have killed her," said the old man, pointing with his
+finger to the insensible girl. "Let me go to her, I say--one
+minute--only a minute! No one else can bring her to life!"
+
+The officer attempted to resist the old man.
+
+"Sit down--sit down," he said, "it disturbs the court. She shall have
+care, only be quiet."
+
+The prisoner resisted this friendly violence, and struggled against the
+man with all his feeble strength.
+
+"She is dead; I tell you it has killed her, poor thing! Poor darling,
+she is dead!" he repeated, and tears rolled heavily down his face. "Will
+no one see if she is quite, quite gone?"
+
+As if in answer to this pathetic cry for aid, a young man forced his way
+up from a corner of the room, where he had stood all day regarding every
+stage of the trial with the keenest interest, and taking Julia in his
+arms, carried her to an open window.
+
+"Give me water," he said to the officer; "there is some before the
+judge;" then turning toward Mrs. Gray, who, occupied by the prisoner,
+had been quite insensible to Julia's situation, he said, abruptly, "Have
+you no hartshorn?--nothing about you, aunt, that will be of use?"
+
+"Dear me, yes," answered the good lady, producing a vial of camphor from
+the depths of her pocket, "I thought something of the kind might happen;
+here is the water too; there, her eyelids begin to move."
+
+"She is better--she will soon be well," said Robert Otis, turning his
+face toward the prisoner, who stood up in the midst of the court,
+looking after his grandchild, with eyes that might have touched a heart
+of stone.
+
+"Thank you, thank you!" said the old man; and without another word, he
+sat down, covered his face with both hands, and wept like a child.
+
+After a little, Julia was led back to her seat, and Robert Otis withdrew
+into the crowd again. Another witness was examined and dismissed. Then
+there came a pause in the proceedings. The witnesses' stand was for a
+time unoccupied. The district attorney sat restlessly on his chair,
+casting anxious glances toward the door, as if waiting for some person
+important to his cause. The judge was just bending forward to desire
+the proceedings to go on, when a slight bustle near the door caused a
+movement through the whole crowd. Those persons near the entrance were
+pressed back against their neighbors by two officers in authority, who
+thus made a lane up to the witnesses' stand, through which a lady
+passed, with rapid footsteps, and evidently much excited by the position
+in which she found herself.
+
+A whisper of surprise, not unmingled with admiration, ran through the
+crowd, as this lady took her place upon the stand. She hesitated an
+instant, then, with a graceful motion, swept the veil of heavy lace back
+upon her bonnet, and turned toward the judges. The face thus exposed had
+something far more striking in it than beauty. It was a haughty face,
+full of determination, and with a calmness upon the features that was
+too rigid not to have been forced. Notwithstanding this, you could see
+that the woman trembled in every limb, as she bared her features to the
+crowd.
+
+It was not the bashful tremor which might have brought crimson to the
+brow of any female, while so many eyes were bent upon her, but a strong
+nervous excitement, which lifted her above all these considerations. The
+contrast of a black velvet dress flowing to her feet, and fitted high at
+the throat, might have added somewhat to the singular effect produced by
+a face at once so stern and so beautiful. Certain it is, that a thrill
+of that respect which strong feeling always carries with it, passed
+through the crowd; and though she was strikingly lovely, people forgot
+that, in sympathy for the emotions that she suppressed with such
+fortitude. The rapidity with which she had entered the court, and the
+position which she took on the stand, prevented a full view of her face
+to Mrs. Warren and Julia; but as she turned slowly toward them, in
+throwing back her veil, the effect upon these two persons was startling
+enough.
+
+The old woman half rose from her chair, her lips moved, as if a
+smothered cry had died upon them, and she sat down again, grasping a
+fold of Mrs. Gray's gown in her hands. It was the face she had seen in
+the carriage that morning.
+
+Julia also recognized the lady, with a start. It was the woman who had
+purchased flowers of her so often, who had been so invariably kind, and
+whose fate had been strongly blended with her own since the first day
+when she had purchased violets from her flower basket.
+
+There was something startling to the young girl in this sudden
+apparition of a person who had been to her almost like fate itself. At
+that solemn moment she drew her breath heavily, and listened with
+painful attention for the first words that might fall upon the court.
+Mrs. Gray also was filled with astonishment, for she saw her own
+brother, Jacob Strong, enter the court, walking close behind the lady,
+until she mounted the stand, with the air and manner of an attendant.
+When the lady took her position, he drew back toward the door, and stood
+motionless, gazing anxiously upon her face, without turning his eyes
+aside even for an instant. It was in vain Mrs. Gray motioned with her
+hand that he should approach her; all his senses seemed swallowed up by
+keen interest in the lady. He had no existence for the time but in her.
+
+Of all the persons in that court-room, there was not one who did not
+exhibit some unusual interest in the woman placed so unexpectedly upon
+the witnesses' stand, except the prisoner himself. He had been, during
+some moments, sitting with his forehead bent upon his clasped hands,
+lost in thought, or, it might be, in silent prayer to the God who had,
+as it seemed, almost abandoned him. He did not look up when the lady
+entered, and not till the examination had proceeded to some considerable
+length, was he aware of her presence.
+
+It was worthy of remark, that the prosecuting attorney addressed this
+witness with a degree of respect which he had extended to no other
+person. His voice, hitherto so sharp and biting, took a subdued tone.
+His manner became deferential, and the opening questions, in which he
+was usually abrupt, almost to rudeness, were now rather insinuated than
+demanded.
+
+He waived the usual preliminaries regarding the age and name of the
+witness, and even apologized for the necessity which had compelled him
+to bring her before the court.
+
+The lady listened to all this with a little impatience; she was
+evidently in no state of mind for commonplace gallantries, and seemed
+relieved when he commenced those direct questions which were to place
+her evidence before the court.
+
+"Mrs. Gordon, that is your name, I believe!"
+
+The lady bent her head.
+
+"Did you know Mr. William Leicester when he was living?"
+
+A faint tremor passed over the lady's lips, but she answered clearly,
+though in a very subdued voice--
+
+"Yes, I knew him!"
+
+"He visited at your house sometimes?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"When did you see him last?"
+
+"On the----" Her voice became almost inaudible as she uttered the date;
+but the lawyer had keen ears, and forbore to ask a repetition of the
+words, for her face changed suddenly, and it seemed with a violent
+effort that she was able to go on.
+
+"At what hour did he leave your house?"
+
+"I do not know the exact hour!"
+
+"Was it late?"
+
+"Yes, I gave a ball that night, and my guests generally remained late!"
+
+"Did you observe anything peculiar in his manner that night? Did he act
+like a man that was likely to commit suicide in the morning?"
+
+It was half a minute before the lady gave any reply to this question;
+then she spoke with an effort, as if some nervous affection were almost
+choking her.
+
+"I cannot judge--I do not know. It is a strange question to ask me!"
+
+"I regret its necessity!" said the attorney, with a deferential bend of
+the head; "our object is," he added, addressing the judge, "to show by
+this witness, how the deceased was occupied during the night before his
+murder. I believe it is the intention of the defence to claim that
+William Leicester killed himself; that it was a case of suicide instead
+of the foul murder we will prove it to have been. I wish to show by this
+lady that he was a guest in her mansion up to a late hour; that he
+joined in the festivities of a ball, and was among the most cheerful
+revellers present. I must repeat the question, madam--did you remark
+anything singular in his manner--anything to distinguish him from other
+guests?"
+
+The lady parted her lips, struggled, and answered--
+
+"No, I saw nothing!" She lifted her eyes after this, as if impelled by
+some magnetic power, and met those of the tall, gaunt man, who had
+followed her into court. His look of sorrowful reproach seemed to sting
+her, and she spoke again, louder and more resolutely. "There was nothing
+in the words or acts of William Leicester, that night, which warranted
+an idea of suicide--nothing!"
+
+A faint sound, not quite a groan, but deeper than a sigh, broke from
+Jacob Strong; and he shrunk back into the crowd, with his head drooping
+like some animal stricken with an arrow, and anxious to hide the wound.
+That moment, as if actuated by one of those impulses that seem like the
+strides of fate toward an object, the district attorney said, as it
+seemed in the very wantonness of his professional privilege,
+
+"Look at the prisoner, madam. Did you ever see him before?"
+
+The lady turned partly round and looked toward the prisoner's seat. The
+old man had his head bowed, for the sight of his insensible grandchild
+had left him strengthless, and she could only distinguish the soft wave
+of grey hairs around his temples, and the stoop of a figure venerable
+from age.
+
+"Stand up," commanded the judge, addressing the old man; "stand up that
+the witness may look upon your face!"
+
+The old man arose and stood upright. His eyes were lifted slowly, and
+met those of the woman, which were filled with cold abhorrence of the
+being she was forced to look upon. I cannot describe those two faces as
+their eyes were riveted upon each other; both were instantly pale as
+death. After a moment, in which something of doubt mingled with its
+corpse-like pallor, that of the woman took an expression of almost
+terrible affright. Her pale lips quivered; her eyes distended with wild
+brilliancy. She lifted one hand that shook like an aspen, and swept it
+across her eyes once, twice, as if to clear their vision. She did not
+attempt to speak; the sight of that old man chilled her through and
+through, body and soul. She seemed freezing into marble.
+
+The change that came upon the prisoner was not less remarkable. At first
+there settled upon his face a look of the most painful astonishment. It
+deepened, changed, and as snow becomes luminous when the sunshine
+strikes it, the very pallor of his features brightened. Affection,
+tenderness, the most thrilling gratitude beamed through their whiteness,
+and while her gaze was fascinated by his, he stretched forth his arms.
+This scene was so strange, the agitation of these persons so
+unaccountable, that it held the whole court breathless. You might have
+heard an insect stir in any part of that vast room. It seemed with every
+breath as if some cry must burst from the old man--as if the lady would
+sink to the earth, dead, so terrible was her agitation. But the prisoner
+only stretched forth his arms, and it seemed as if this slight motion
+restored the lady to herself. Her face hardened; she turned away,
+withdrawing her gaze slowly, as if the effort cost her a mortal pang.
+Then she answered,
+
+"No, I do not recognize him!"
+
+Her lips were like marble, and her voice so husky that it made the
+hearers shrink, but every word was clearly enunciated.
+
+The old man fell back to his seat; his arms dropped heavily down; he too
+seemed frozen into stone.
+
+For a moment the witness stood mute and still; then she started all at
+once, turned and descended into the crowd.
+
+Mrs. Warren, whom no one had observed during this scene, arose from her
+seat as the lady passed, and followed her. The crowd closed around them,
+but the old woman struggled through, and laid a trembling grasp upon the
+velvet dress that floated before her like the waves of a pall. The lady
+turned her white face sharply round, and it came close to that of the
+old woman. A convulsion stirred her features; she lifted her arm as if
+to fling it around that frail form, then dashed it down, tearing her
+dress from that feeble grasp, and walked steadily out of the court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE VERDICT.
+
+     Tread lightly here--let outraged justice weep!
+
+
+There had been a severe change in the weather since morning. The pure
+frosty air, that invigorated everything it touched, hardened toward
+night, into one of those cold storms--half snow, half ice--that chill
+you to the vitals. A coating of this sleety snow lay upon the Park,
+icing the trees with crystal, and bending every twig as with a fruitage
+of pearls. The stone pavement and the City Hall steps were carpeted an
+inch deep by the storm; and the hail crackled sharply under foot if any
+one attempted to pass over them. In short, it was one of those nights
+when everything living seeks shelter, and no human being is seen abroad,
+save those given up to wild desolation, either of body or mind.
+
+Miserable and stormy as the night was, two persons had been wandering in
+it for hours, sometimes lost in the blackness of the storm, sometimes
+gliding by the lamps that seemed struggling to keep themselves
+alive--and again stealing up the curving staircase within the City
+Hall, ghost-like and shadowy, only to come forth in the tempest and
+wander as before.
+
+In the darkness, it would have been difficult to judge of the sex or
+condition of those persons. Both were muffled in garments black as the
+clouds that hung over them. Both were tall, and, sometimes as they
+walked, the outlines of their persons blended together, till they seemed
+scarcely more than a mass of moving darkness. It was remarkable that,
+standing or walking, they never lost sight of a range of windows in one
+wing of the City Hall, where lights shone gloomily into the mist, not
+wandering about as the lamps of a happy household often do, but
+motionless, like watchfires, half smothered by the dense atmosphere.
+
+Once more these two persons ascended the steps and entered the
+vestibule, from which the horse-shoe staircase diverges. A shower of
+sleet followed them, and the wind swept wailing over their heads as they
+went in. A lamp burned near the staircase, and for a moment, the faces
+of those two wanderers became visible. The one that struck you first,
+was that of a female. Tresses, that had of late been curled, hung in
+dripping masses down each side of her face, that was not only as white,
+but seemed cold also as marble. A pair of wild eyes, really blue, but
+blackened with the smothered fire that protracted suspense leaves behind
+it, gleamed out from the shadow of her bonnet, around which the folds of
+a heavy lace veil dripped in sodden masses to her shoulders. The velvet
+cloak which shrouded her was heavy with rain; its lustre all gone, and
+its rich fringes, frozen together with sleet, rattled against the
+balustrades as she pressed them in passing. Her companion--but even as
+we attempt to describe him, the woman turns, with her hand upon the
+balustrade, and addresses him--thus giving his identity better than any
+description could convey.
+
+"What was that, Jacob? A noise--the stirring of feet! Oh, my God--my
+God--they are coming in!"
+
+She caught hold of Jacob's rough over-coat with one hand. The gleam of
+her teeth, as they knocked together, made the strong man recoil. It
+gave an expression of fearful agony to her face. He listened.
+
+"No, it is the wind breaking through the hall."
+
+"How it sobs! How like a human voice it is! Do you hear it?
+Death!--death!--that is what it says!"
+
+"You shudder--you are cold. How your teeth chatter!" said Jacob, folding
+the half-frozen cloak about her. "What can I do? If you would only go
+home, I will come the first minute after the verdict. Do--do go!"
+
+"Hush! it is there again. Are the winds human, that they moan so?"
+
+"It is a fierce storm, nothing more," said Jacob.
+
+A woman came down the steps that moment. She had no cloak on, and a thin
+shawl hung in limp folds over her shoulders. An old hood lay back from
+her face, revealing features large and stern, but for the instant
+softened with sorrow. She came from the vestibule overhead. In that
+direction lay the court-room. Ada saw the woman, and holding out both
+her hands, shivering and purple with cold, walked slowly up to meet her.
+These two females had seen each other but once in the world. One was
+from a prison, the other from a palatial home; yet they stood face to
+face, on equal terms, now. I am wrong; the woman of the prison looked
+down with something of stern rebuke upon the lady. She said in her
+heart, "The blood of this old man be upon her head! Did she not deny me
+the gold that might have saved him?" But when she looked upon that face,
+her resentment gave way. She paused on the steps, instead of pushing
+roughly by, and said, in a tone that sounded peculiarly gentle from its
+contrast with her appearance and bearing--
+
+"This is a bitter night, madam."
+
+"Tell me--tell me," gasped Ada, seizing the woman's shawl, and raising
+her hand toward the court-room, "have they--have they--"
+
+"Poor thing! so you repent at last," answered the woman, comprehending
+her gesture with that quick magnetism which is the lightning of some
+hearts. "No, they have not come in; but it is of no use waiting--the
+poor old man is as good as hung, depend on it."
+
+Ada uttered a faint cry, very faint, but it seemed to her that it
+sounded through the whole building, ringing above the storm like a yell.
+She dropped the woman's shawl, and stood motionless, looking helplessly
+in her face.
+
+"You had better take the lady home," said the woman, turning kindly to
+Jacob; "she is wet through--the ice rattles on her clothes; she will
+catch her death of cold. I would stay and help her, for she seems in
+trouble; but there is worse trouble coming for the poor creature
+overhead. I thought I had seen hard sights before; but this--there is no
+brandy strong enough to make me forget this!"
+
+"There is no news--the jury are still out?" questioned Jacob. "Tell me!"
+
+"No, no--I have nothing to say--the jury are out yet--the judge
+waiting--the old man--"
+
+"Hush!" said Jacob, "she is listening."
+
+"Stay--tell me all--the old man--tell me all!" cried Ada, hurrying down
+two or three steps after the woman.
+
+"I cannot wait, lady; the jury may come in any moment. Those poor
+watchers will want a carriage. I must find one somewhere. Nobody thought
+of that but me. They might not feel the storm, for the verdict will numb
+them; but it is a piercing night."
+
+"You have no cloak--scarcely more than summer clothes. I will go," said
+Jacob.
+
+"I am used to battling with the weather," was the answer. "Thank you,
+though."
+
+"Stay with her," answered Jacob, and he hurried down the steps.
+
+"How the wind blows!--it is a terrible night," said the woman, drawing
+her scant shawl together, and sitting down by Ada, who had sunk upon the
+cold steps, as if all the strength had withered from her limbs the
+moment Jacob left her. "You tremble--your teeth chatter--these poor
+hands are like ice; there, there, let me rub them between mine."
+
+Ada submitted her shivering hands meekly as a child, and a drop, that
+was not rain, stole down her face.
+
+"You told me once," she said, "that money would save him; will
+thousands--hundreds of thousands do it now?"
+
+"It is too late," answered the woman, sadly.
+
+The tempest rose just then, and, to Ada's almost frenzied mind, it
+seemed as if every swell of the wind answered back, "too late--too
+late!" She shuddered, and cowered down by the woman, as if a death
+sentence were ringing over her.
+
+When Jacob returned, he found the two women sitting together, upon the
+steps. Ada rose to her feet, and, without speaking, began rapidly to
+mount them. Jacob followed.
+
+"Where are you going! Not there, I hope--not there!"
+
+"Yes, _there_!"
+
+She rushed forward, her frozen garments crackling and shedding ice-drops
+as she moved. All the high-bred dignity of her mien was gone; all the
+richness of her toilet drenched away. The woman who followed her
+scarcely looked more poverty stricken--did not look so utterly desolate.
+She opened the court-room door, and crept in. All the audience was gone.
+Empty benches flung their long, gloomy shadows athwart the room. Dim
+lamps flared across the wall, leaving patches of blackness in the angles
+and around every object that could catch and break the weak gleams of
+light. The judge was upon his seat, pale and still as a statue of
+marble. Weary with excitement and the protracted trial, he sat there in
+the gloomy midnight, waiting for the death-word, face to face with that
+old man, whose life lay in the breath on his lip. Constantly his eyes
+turned upon the prisoner, and always they were met with a glance that
+penetrated his heart to the core. A light, overhead, fell upon the old
+man's temple, silvering the broad, high forehead, gleaming through the
+white locks and glancing downward, shedding faint rays upon his beard
+and bosom. I have seen a picture of Rembrandt's, so like my idea of the
+old man, that it has haunted me ever since. The calm, deep-set eyes,
+the holy strength slumbering within them--the expanse of forehead, the
+whole head, were so perfectly the embodiment of my thought, that it
+startled me. That which I saw in the picture, it was, which penetrated
+to the heart of the judge, as he gazed upon the living man.
+
+A group of police-officers hung about the door; some asleep, with their
+caps down over their eyes, others yawning and stretched at full length
+upon the benches, making the scene more gloomy by the contrast of their
+indifference with the anguish that surrounded them.
+
+Away, in the darkest corner, was another group of persons--three females
+and a man. No word, no whisper passed among them. It scarcely seemed as
+if they drew breath; but as you looked that way, the glitter of wild
+eyes struck you with a sort of terror; and if the least sound arose, the
+shadows around those women changed sharply, as if they felt something of
+the anguish which made their principals start. Ada Leicester crept
+noiselessly along the darkened wall, followed by the prison woman, and
+sat down a little way from the rest. No one seemed to regard her, and
+there she remained in the gloom, motionless as the figures upon which
+her dull eyes were now and then turned. Thus an hour went by; all within
+the court room was silent as death; without was the storm, wailing and
+sobbing around the windows, shaking them angrily, like evil spirits
+striving to break in, then rushing off with a hoarse disappointed howl.
+This terrible contrast--the stillness within--the wild tumult
+without--made even the officers cower closer together, and filled the
+other persons present with intense awe. It seemed as if heaven and earth
+had combined in hurling denunciations against that hapless old man. It
+was after midnight, and for an instant there was a hush in the storm--a
+hush in the vast building. Then came the sharp closing of a door, the
+tramp of heavy feet, and twelve figures glided, one after another, into
+the court-room. They ranged themselves in a dark line along the
+jury-box, and stood motionless, their cloaks huddled around them, like
+folds of a thunder-cloud, their faces white as marble.
+
+The judge arose, leaning heavily with one hand upon the desk before him.
+His lips moved, but it was not till a second effort that they gave forth
+a sound; but when it did come, his voice broke through the room like a
+trumpet.
+
+"Prisoner, stand up and look upon the jury!"
+
+The old man arose, and turning meekly around, lifted his eyes to the
+twelve jurors. * * *
+
+"Guilty or not guilty?"
+
+"Guilty!"
+
+The storm began to howl again, but all was still in the court-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE PARENTS, THE CHILD AND GRANDCHILD.
+
+     Nor sin, nor shame, nor sense of wrong
+       Can yet a mother's love control;
+     It waiteth, watcheth, hopeth long,
+       And grows immortal with the soul.
+
+
+The next morning, a carriage, one of the few superb equipages that give
+an air of elegance to Broadway, equal to that of any public drive I have
+yet seen, stopped at the corner of Franklin street. The grey horses and
+deep green of the carriage were well known in that thoroughfare, and it
+had been too often seen before Stewart's, and Ball & Black's, for any
+one to remark the time during which it remained in that unusual place.
+
+Had any one seen Ada Leicester as she descended from the carriage and
+walked hurriedly toward the City Prison, it might have been a matter of
+wonder, how a creature so elegant and so fastidious had forced herself
+to enter a neighborhood which few women visit, except from force or
+objects of philanthropy.
+
+Jacob Strong walked by the side of his mistress. Few words passed
+between them, for both seemed painfully preoccupied. Jacob betrayed this
+state of mind by a more decided stoop of the shoulders, and by knocking
+his great feet against every loose brick in the sidewalk, as he stumbled
+along. The lady moved on as one walks in a dream, her eyes bent upon the
+pavement, her ungloved hand grasping the purple velvet of her cloak and
+holding it against her bosom. The people who passed her thought it a
+pretty piece of coquetry, by which she might reveal the jewels that
+flashed upon the snow of that beautiful hand. Alas, how little we can
+judge of one another! The delicate primrose gloves had dropped from her
+grasp unheeded, and lay trampled in the mud close by her own door. The
+maid had placed them in her palsied hand, as she had performed all other
+duties of the toilet that morning, but the wretched woman was quite
+unconscious of it all.
+
+They entered the prison. A few words passed between Jacob and the warden
+in an outer office; then a door was flung open, and they entered an open
+court within the walls; stone buildings ranged all around, casting gaunt
+shadows athwart them. They crossed the court, passed through a low door,
+and entered the hall where male prisoners are kept. Ada was scarcely
+conscious that a score of eyes were bent on her from the galleries
+overhead, along which prisoners charged with lighter offences were
+allowed to range. At that moment a regiment of soldiers might have stood
+in her way, and she would have passed through their midst, unconscious
+of the obstruction. She mounted to the third gallery, following after
+Jacob, until he paused at one of the heavy iron doors which pierced the
+whole wall at equal distances from pavement to ceiling. An officer, who
+had preceded them, turned the key in the lock, and flung the door open,
+with a clang that made Ada start, as if some one had struck her.
+
+"Shall I go in with you?" said Jacob.
+
+She did not answer, save by a short breath, that seemed to tear her own
+bosom without yielding a sound, and entered the cell. Jacob leaned
+forward, and closing the door after her, began to walk up and down the
+gallery, but never passing more than six or eight paces from the cell.
+
+Ada Leicester stood face to face with her father. He had been reading,
+and had laid the old Bible on the bed by his side as the noise of her
+approach disturbed him. His steel-mounted spectacles were still before
+his eyes, dimmed, it may be, by traces of tears, shed unconsciously, for
+he could not distinguish clearly through them, and with a motion so
+familiar that it made her tremble, he folded them up and placed them
+within the pages of the book.
+
+She paused, motionless, after taking one step into the room, and but for
+the shiver of her silk dress, which the trembling of her limbs
+disturbed, as the leaves are shaken in autumn, she might have been a
+draped statue, her face and hands were so marble-like.
+
+The old man looked at her, and she at him. He did not attempt to speak,
+and a single word died on her lip again and again, without giving forth
+a sound. At length that one word broke forth, and rushed like an arrow
+from her heart to his--
+
+"Father!"
+
+It was the first word that her infant lips had ever uttered. The old man
+was blinded by it. He saw nothing of the stately pale woman, the
+gleaming eyes, the rich drapery; but a little girl, some twelve months
+old, seemed to have crept to his knees. He saw the ringlet of soft
+golden hair, the large blue eyes, the little dimpled shoulder peeping
+out from its calico dress; he reached forth his hands to press them down
+upon these pretty shoulders, for the vision was palpable as life. They
+descended upon the bowed head of the woman, for she had fallen crouching
+to his feet. He drew those hands back with a moan. The innocent child
+had vanished; the prostrate woman was there.
+
+"Father!"
+
+He held his hands one instant, quivering like withered leaves, over her
+head, and then dropped them gently down upon her shoulders.
+
+"My daughter!"
+
+Then came a rush of tears, a wild clinging of arms, a shaking of silken
+garments, and deep sobs, that seemed like the parting of soul and body.
+Ada clung to her father. She laid her cold face upon his knees, and drew
+herself up to his bosom.
+
+"Forgive me! forgive me!--oh, my father, forgive me!"
+
+The old man lifted her gently in his arms, and seated her upon the bed.
+He took off her bonnet, and smoothed the rich hair it had concealed
+between his hands.
+
+"And so you have come home again, my child!"
+
+"Home!"
+
+She looked around the cell, and then into the eyes of her father.
+
+"I have given you this home--I, who have sought for you--prayed--prayed,
+father, not as you pray, but madly, wildly prayed for one look, one
+word--pardon, pardon! I have got it--I see it--you pardon me with your
+eyes, my father; but oh, how wretched I am--I, who gave you a home like
+this!"
+
+"No, not you, but God!" answered the old man. "I knew from the first
+that our Father who is in heaven had not afflicted his servant for
+nothing. All will be well at last, Ada."
+
+"But you will die! Even to-day will they sentence you!"
+
+"I know it, and am ready; for now I begin to see how wisely God has
+willed that the last remnant of an old man's life shall be the
+restoration of his child."
+
+"But you are innocent, and they will kill you!"
+
+"They cannot kill more than this old body, my child. Even now it feels
+the breath of eternity. What though the withered leaf is shaken a moment
+earlier from its bough!"
+
+Ada held her breath, and gazed upon her father, filled with strange awe.
+The quiet tone, the gentle resignation in his words, tranquillized her
+like music. She could not realize that he was to die. Her soul was
+flooded with love; her eyes answered back the holy affection that
+beamed in his. For that moment she was happy. Her childhood came softly
+back. She forgot her own sin alike with her father's danger.
+
+"Now," said the old man, "tell me all that I do not know. By what means
+has God sent you here?"
+
+At these words Ada half arose; all the joy went out from her face; her
+eyes drooped; the lines about her mouth hardened again; she attempted to
+look up, failed, and with both hands shrouded her guilty features.
+
+"How much do you know?" she inquired, in a hoarse voice.
+
+"I know," said the old man, "that you left an unworthy husband and a
+happy child, to follow a stranger to a strange land."
+
+"But you did not know," said Ada, still veiling her face, "you did not
+know how cruelly, how dreadfully I was treated; how I was left days and
+weeks together in hotels and boarding houses, without money, without
+friends, exposed to all sorts of temptation. You cannot know all the
+circumstances that combined to drive me mad. Still do not say I
+abandoned the child. Did I not send her to you? Did I not give her up
+when she was dear as the pulses of my own heart, rather than cast the
+stain of my example upon her? Oh, father, was this nothing?"
+
+"We took the child, and strove to forget the mother," said the old man
+sadly.
+
+"But could not--oh, you could not! This thought was the one anchor which
+kept me from utter shipwreck, you could not curse an only child--wicked,
+erring, cruel though she was!"
+
+"No, we did not curse her--we had no power to forget."
+
+"I came back--Jacob Strong will bear me witness--I lost no time in
+searching for you at the homestead. Strangers were there. Had we met
+then--had I found the old place as it was--you, my mother, my daughter
+there--how different all this might have been!"
+
+"God disposes all things," muttered the prisoner. "We left our home when
+disgrace fell upon us. We who had been sinfully proud of you, Ada, went
+forth burdened by your shame to hide ourselves among strangers; we could
+not look our old neighbors in the face, and so left them and gave up the
+name our child had disgraced."
+
+"Father--father, spare me--I am wretched--I am punished--spare me, spare
+me!"
+
+"Ada," said the old man solemnly, "do you heartily repent and forsake
+your sin?"
+
+"I do repent--I have forsaken--he is dead for whom I left you; it was a
+solitary fault, bitterly, oh, bitterly atoned for."
+
+The old man looked at her earnestly--at the glowing purple of her
+garments--at the delicate veil she had gathered up to her face with one
+hand. The other had fallen nervelessly down. The old man took it from
+her lap and gazed sadly on the jewels that sparkled on her fingers. She
+felt the touch, and the trembling hand became crimson in his clasp.
+
+"And yet you wear these things!"
+
+She shrunk away, and the glow of her shame spread and burned over every
+visible part of her person.
+
+"Cast them from you, daughter--come to me in the pretty calico dress
+that became you so well--give up these wages of shame--become poor,
+honest and humble, as we are; then will your mother receive you; then
+your child may know that she has a mother living; then your old father
+can die in peace, knowing that his life has not been sacrificed in
+vain."
+
+The old man looked wistfully at her, as he spoke. He saw the struggle in
+her face--the reluctance with which she understood him, and tightened
+his grasp on her hand.
+
+"What--what would you have me do?" she said.
+
+"Cast aside all that you possess, save that which comes of honest labor,
+and earn the forgiveness you ask."
+
+"Father, I cannot do this; the wealth that I possess is vast; it was
+devised to me by will upon his death-bed; it was an atonement upon his
+part."
+
+"The wages of sin are death."
+
+"Death, father, death! Surely you are right. Leicester is dead; they
+will murder you. Nothing but this money, this very wealth that I am
+ordered to cast aside, can save you."
+
+"And that never shall save me!" answered the old man with grave dignity;
+"the price of my daughter's sin, let it be millions, shall never buy an
+hour of life for me, were it possible thus to bribe the law."
+
+"Oh father, father, do not say this; it crushes my last hope."
+
+"Daughter," and the old man stood up, while his face glowed as with the
+light of prophecy, "it is not this ill-gotten wealth that shall purchase
+my life; but it is the death I shall suffer, which will purchase the
+salvation of my child. The way of providence is made clear to me now; I
+see it plainly, as if written upon the wall that has seemed so blank to
+my eyes till now."
+
+The hand fell from her face. She gazed upon him with awe, for the solemn
+faith that beamed in his eyes held her breathless. That moment the cell
+door was opened, and Mrs. Warren came in, followed by her
+grand-daughter. The old woman paused motionless upon the threshold,
+hesitating and pallid. Ada stood up trembling and afraid in the presence
+of her mother. A moment the two stood face to face, gazing at each
+other; then the old woman stretched forth her arms, and tears rolled
+down her cheeks. Ada would have thrown herself forward, but the old
+prisoner interposed.
+
+"No, wife, not yet; the time is at hand when our child shall come back
+to your bosom, like the lamb that was lost; but God has a work to
+accomplish first; have patience and let her depart."
+
+"Patience, patience! Oh, Wilcox, she is our child Ada, Ada!"
+
+He was not strong enough to keep them apart. Their arms were interwoven;
+they clung together, filling the cell with soft murmurs and smothered
+sobs. Broken syllables of endearment--all the pathetic language with
+which heart speaks to heart in defiance of words, gave power to the
+scene. Remember, reader, it was a mother meeting her only child--her
+sinful, erring child--for the first time in years. They met in a
+prison, with death shadows all around. Was it wonderful that, forgiving,
+forgetting, they clung together? Or that the turnkey, as he looked in,
+felt the tears bathing his cheek?
+
+It is a mercy that intense feeling has its limits, else a scene like
+this might have broken the two hearts that rushed together, as torrents
+meet in a storm. Their arms unlocked at length, and the two women only
+held by each other from weakness.
+
+"And this is my child, my little Julia," said Ada, turning her eyes upon
+the young girl who stood by, troubled and amazed by all she saw.
+
+She bent forward, and would have kissed the girl, but the old man
+interposed again solemnly, almost sternly.
+
+"Not yet--the lip must be purified, the kiss made holy, which touches
+the forehead of this innocent one."
+
+"I will go, father, I will go--this is bitter, but perhaps just. I will
+go while I have the strength."
+
+Ada left the cell. We will not follow her to the scene of her solitary
+and splendid anguish. We will not remain in the prisoner's cell. The
+scene passing there was too holy and too pathetic for description; yet
+was there more happiness that day in the prison, than Ada Leicester
+found in her palace-home. Truly it is much better to suffer wrong, than
+to do wrong!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE DAWNING OF LIGHT.
+
+     As sunshine falls upon a flower
+       That storms have beaten to the ground,
+     Her heart began to feel the power
+       Of his deep love and faith profound.
+
+
+The sentence was pronounced; the time of execution fixed. Each morning,
+as the prisoner awoke, he said to himself, another is gone; so many,
+and so many days are left. I dare not say that this man did not
+occasionally shrink from the agony that awaited him; or that the clouds
+of doubt did not grow black above his head, more than once; but at all
+times his mien was tranquil, his words full of resignation. Some hope,
+some sublime faith, stronger than death, seemed to bear him up.
+
+His daughter came to him more than once, and always left the cell with a
+changed manner and subdued aspect. While there was a hope of saving the
+prisoner, she had been excited and almost wild in her demeanor. She
+appealed to the governor in person. She lavished gold. On every hand the
+great power of her personal influence was all tested to the utmost, but
+in vain. There exist cases in which the fangs of the law fasten deep,
+and no human power can unloose them. In this instance, mercy veiled her
+face, and justice became cruelty.
+
+At no time did the old man sanction or partake of his daughter's
+efforts. Shall I say, that he did not even desire them to succeed? One
+sublime idea had taken possession of his mind, and when he prayed, it
+was not that he might be saved from death, but that the pang which sent
+him into eternity might open the gates of paradise to his child.
+
+I have said that the old man was feeble, and scenes through which no
+human being could pass with unshaken nerves, had gradually undermined
+the little strength that age and privation had spared. Those who saw him
+every day scarcely noticed this, the change was so gradual; but the
+sheriff, who came but once each week, remarked how frail he was
+becoming, and how difficult it was for him to support the irons with
+which they had manacled his limbs. More than once he said to himself,
+"It will scarcely be more than a shadow that they force me to strangle."
+Still, as his strength gave way, the holy faith within him beamed out
+stronger and brighter, as a flame becomes more brilliant from increased
+purity of the oil on which it feeds.
+
+All hope was gone--and Ada saw her father every day, always alone, and
+her visits lasted for hours. At such times, Jacob Strong, who kept
+sentinel at the door, would pause and hold his breath, struck, as it
+were, by the sweet, solemn tones that came through the door. Sometimes
+you might have seen him brush one huge hand across his eyes; and then,
+bowing his head upon his bosom, pace slowly to and fro, with a mournful
+but not altogether dissatisfied look.
+
+After these visits, Ada would come forth with a subdued and gentle air,
+which no person had ever witnessed in her before. The entire character
+of her beauty changed. Her features became thin; her person lost
+something of its roundness, but gained in that refined grace which is
+indescribable. Her eyes grew darker and softer from the shadows that
+deepened under them. Something of holy light there was too, that brooded
+sadly there in place of the brilliancy that had kindled them so often
+almost into wildness. If Ada had been beautiful when we first knew her,
+she was far lovelier now. The heart yearned toward her as it felt the
+glance of her eyes. The earthly was becoming purified from her being,
+and the resemblance between her and the old man seemed to have found a
+spiritual link. Truly the solemn faith within him was near its reward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+GATHERING FOR THE EXECUTION.
+
+     He was a man of simple heart,
+     Patient and meek; the Christian part
+     Came to his soul as came the air
+     That heaved his bosom; hope, despair,
+     Were chastened by a holy faith!
+     Meek in his life he feared not death.
+
+
+The day of execution arrived, and every hearth-stone in the great
+metropolis was shadowed by a knowledge that at an hour to be fixed
+between sunrise and sunset, a human being was to be strangled to
+death--forced brutally into the presence of his Maker. Children
+whispered to one another in the grey dawn as they crept awe-stricken
+from their little couches. Mothers--those who had hearts--grew sad as
+they thought of the household ties which the law would that day tear
+asunder.
+
+I do not say that this law of blood for blood, which some good men cling
+to so tenaciously, should be altogether abolished. Women who from the
+natural and just arrangement of social life, have no share in forming
+laws, can scarcely arrogate to themselves the right of advancing or of
+condemning those which owe their existence to the greatest masculine
+intellect; and we, who reason so much from the heart, can never be sure
+that the angel of mercy, whom we worship, may not sometimes crowd
+Justice from her seat. But there is no law that should permit a solemn
+act of justice to become a jubilee for the mob. Executions, if they must
+darken the history of a nation, should be still as the grave--solemn as
+the eternity to which they lead.
+
+Two wardens had been placed over the prisoner that night, for the
+sheriff feared that the poor old man might attempt suicide. It was a
+useless precaution for one who was so close to death, and yet slept so
+calmly. There he lay in the deep slumber which is so sweet to old age.
+The men kept a light in the cell, and it streamed softly over those
+calm, pale features, revealing a faint smile upon the lips, and the
+impalpable shadows scattered over his forehead by the white hair that
+lay around his temples. Sometimes, as the men gazed upon this picture,
+and thought of the morrow, with all its death horrors, they turned from
+each other with a sort of terror, and sat with downcast eyes, gazing
+upon the floor, for it made them heart-sick--the contrast of that
+peaceful slumber and the brutal death-sleep into which they were
+guarding the old man.
+
+At the most, it was but a brief gleam of life that the law claimed; and
+even that had grown faint within the last few days, so faint that it
+seemed doubtful if the officers of the law would not be compelled to
+lift its victim to the scaffold, when the hour of sacrifice came. The
+day dawned quietly, and shed a sort of still, holy light over the
+slumbering man. Then, for the first time, his keepers remarked hew
+deathly pale was the serene countenance--how feeble was the breath that
+scarcely stirred the coarse linen on his bosom.
+
+Everything was still. The cold dawn, the quiet city, and the prison
+lying heavy and grim in its bosom. All at once this stillness was broken
+by the fall of a hammer, distinct and sharp as the beat of a
+death-watch. It made the officers start and look at each other with
+meaning eyes; but the old man slept on, and the sound might have been
+the sigh of an angel, instead of the hideous death-signal that it was,
+for it only disturbed that tranquil slumber pleasantly, as it would
+seem. A faint smile dawned upon the face, and he folded his hands softly
+upon his bosom, with a deeper breath, as if some vision of ineffable
+happiness filled his thought.
+
+It seemed a cruelty to disturb the last sleep he was ever to know on
+earth, and so the morning deepened, and the prison was filled with that
+sort of muffled tumult which bespeaks the opening day within those
+walls, before the old man awoke.
+
+Other persons than the keepers were in the cell then. The wife, who was
+so soon to be a widow, and the grandchild, half orphaned at heart, were
+seated at the foot of the bed, watching him dimly through their tears.
+He held forth his hands on seeing them, and with the same smile that had
+haunted his slumber, asked after their welfare. You should have seen
+that aged couple, in their humble but sublime sorrow, that day, for it
+was a beautiful sight, and one which is not often witnessed within the
+walls of a felon's cell. There they sat, hand in hand, linked together
+by that beautiful love that outlives all things, comforting each other
+with gentle earnestness--he reading passages from the Bible to her now
+and then, and she more than once smiling hopefully through her tears,
+when he spoke of their great age, and of the little time that they could
+possibly be kept asunder. It did not seem as if they were talking of
+death, but of some important and not unpleasant journey, in which the
+wife would soon follow her husband to a new home.
+
+The grandchild sat by in silent grief. It seemed a long time for her to
+wait, she was so young, so cruelly full of life. She could not, with her
+sensitive feelings and quick imagination, cast off the consciousness of
+all the horrors that would that day overwhelm her grandfather. Her eyes
+were heavy with weeping. At every sound a shiver of terrible
+apprehension ran through her frame, and she would grasp at the old man's
+hand, as if scared with dread that they might tear him away before the
+appointed time.
+
+Then came another--and that prison cell was crowded full of grief. Ada
+Leicester, modestly clad, with all the jewels stripped from her hands,
+and her superb beauty veiled and toned down by suffering, such as wrings
+all bitterness from the heart, stood with her parents once more, a
+portion of the household her own errors had desolated. Then the old man
+arose in his bed, and his benign features lighted up with such joy as
+the angels know over a sinner that repenteth.
+
+"My child," he said, opening his arms to receive her, "my child, who was
+lost and is found!" For a moment he held her to his bosom; then lifting
+his head, he reached forth one hand, and drew his grandchild forward.
+
+"It is your mother, Julia, your own mother; she has been far away for
+many years; God has sent her back. Ada, kiss your daughter; Julia, my
+grandchild, love your mother, reverence her, for this day shall I be one
+of those that rejoice over her in heaven."
+
+Ada turned to her daughter, and timidly held forth her arms. A thrill so
+exquisite that it swept all the tears from her heart, passed over the
+bereaved girl. She moved forward; she nestled close to the bosom of her
+mother; she murmured the name over and over again,
+"Mother--mother--mother!"
+
+I have dwelt upon this scene, perhaps, tediously, and only, gentle
+reader, because my heart and nerves shrink from a description of that
+which was going on without the prison. It is so much better to describe
+that which is holy and strong in human nature, than to yield oneself up
+to scenes that shock and revolt every pure feeling, every gentle
+affection. But in portraying life as it is, an author cannot always
+choose the flower nooks, or keep back the clouds that darken human
+nature.
+
+It was a winter's day, cold and drear, without being stormy. The sky was
+clouded a little, and of that pale, hard blue which is more desolate
+than absolute storm. The air seemed full of snow, but none fell; and the
+sunshine, when it did penetrate the atmosphere, streamed mournfully to
+the brown, frozen earth. Had you gone into the streets that day,
+something in the aspect of the populace would have told you that an
+event of no common interest was about to transpire. Men were grouped at
+the corners and around the doors. Business was in a degree suspended.
+But few females were abroad, and they walked hurriedly, as if necessity
+alone had called them from home.
+
+The time of execution was fixed at five in the afternoon, an hour when
+the gay world usually throngs Broadway. But for once that noble
+promenade was deserted; and though the cross streets began to fill long
+before noon, it was not by the class who usually make the great
+thoroughfare so full of life.
+
+It was a singular thing; but that day, a little after twelve, a star
+became visible, hanging, pale and dim, like a funereal lamp in the cold
+sky. At every corner you saw groups of men and boys gazing upward, with
+superstitious awe, as if there must be some connection between this star
+and the human soul about to be launched into eternity. It might have
+been only the grey light; but every one who went forth that morning must
+have noticed how pallid were the faces that met his view in the streets.
+It is difficult to excite the masses of a great city; but in this case
+there had been so much to interest the public, that for once the
+multitude seemed perfectly aroused. The age of the prisoner, the
+exceeding beauty and touching loveliness of his grandchild, the position
+and fashionable associations of William Leicester--all conspired to
+arouse public interest to a state of unusual excitement. Hours before
+the time of execution, the city prison was besieged by an eager mob.
+Mechanics left their work; women of the lower classes went forth, some
+with infants in their arms, some leading sons and daughters by the hand,
+all eager and full of open-mouthed curiosity to see a fellow-creature
+strangled to death in the face of high heaven.
+
+It had been given forth that this execution would be private, in the
+court of the prison; that is, three or four hundred persons, favorites
+of the sheriff, or members of the press, might have the exquisite
+satisfaction of seeing how an old man could die, and these would duly
+report his struggles and his agonies, the next morning, through the
+daily press, that the crowd, heaving, swearing, and jostling together
+without the walls, might have their horrid curiosity satisfied.
+
+All the cross streets around the prison filled rapidly up; and Centre
+street, down to Reade and above White, was crowded full of human beings.
+Then they began to swarm closer, filling the housetops and windows,
+choking up the door passages and alleys, till every standing place
+within sight of the prison was crowded full of eager, brutal life. I am
+saying now what might be deemed a cruel perversion of probability in
+fiction, but which many of my readers well know to be a disgraceful
+truth. But in the windows, and on the roofs of almost every house that
+overlooked the prison, appeared that day women _not_ of the lowest
+classes, who came there to witness a scene at which the very soul
+revolts--women whom, with all the proud love of country thrilling at the
+heart, an American blushes to call countrywomen. When the time drew
+near, this ocean of human life began to heave and swell tumultuously
+against the prison walls. Many climbed upwards, fierce for a sight of
+bloodshed, though at the peril of life and limb, creeping like animals
+along the massive stonework, or hoisted up on the shoulders of those
+below, till they hung on the gateway and walls, literally swarming
+there, like bees seeking for a hive.
+
+As the hour drew near, the mob became more compact and more eager.
+Excitement grew ferocious; faces, before only curious, now gleamed
+upwards in groups and masses, haggard with impatient brutality. Ten
+minutes had gone by--ten minutes beyond the time, and the gallows still
+loomed up from the prison yard empty. Then the crowd began to murmur and
+bandy rude jests, like men who had paid for an exhibition, and feared to
+be baffled out of their amusement. Shouts went up; oaths ran from lip to
+lip; those upon the walls leaned over, with open mouths and gloating
+eyes, gazing down into the yard, then telegraphed their companions, or
+shouted their disappointment to the mob, while others crept up from the
+mass, crowding the possessors from their places, and occasionally
+casting one headlong downward.
+
+All at once, when the whole mob was tumultuous with impatience, a cry of
+fire rung up from the prison walls. The crowd caught the sound, and
+echoed it fiercely, heaving to and fro, and trampling each other down,
+eager to see the flames burst forth. There was a wooden steeple or
+watch-tower, over the front building of the prison. Through the huge
+timbers of this structure the flames leaped upward, flinging long gleams
+of light over the upturned faces of the multitude, and adding another
+horrid feature to a scene already terrible. The alarm bells sounded; the
+crowd rushed to and fro, shouting, heaving up in waves, beating itself
+fiercely against the prison walls. Through the masses thundered three or
+four engines, and a stream of firemen swept through the tumult, pouring
+noise upon noise, with their trumpets and their voices.
+
+The prison gates were flung open, and as the firemen entered, a portion
+of the crowd, now furious with excitement, forced through after them,
+with a sudden rush, filling the inner courts like a torrent let loose.
+
+With nothing but bare timbers to feed upon--for the prison itself was
+fire-proof--the flames soon burned themselves out, after scattering
+brands and sparks among the throng, leaving a red glare and a cloud of
+smoke hovering luridly over the scene. When the mob saw the fire dying
+away, its attention was once more turned upon the execution, and the
+clamor became deafening both within and without the prison walls. The
+hour of death had gone by. Were the people to be cheated and put off
+with a burning watch-tower? Were mechanics, who had lost half a day's
+time, in order to see a man hanged, to be kept waiting, when their
+appetite was whetted for a sight of blood? They packed the prison courts
+more densely; they swarmed close up to the gallows, and pushed forward
+into the prison corridors, abusing the sheriff, and calling on him
+vociferously to come forth and explain the meaning of all this delay.
+
+He did come forth, at last, looking white as death; but this was
+nothing. All were pale then, either from compassion or wrath. He came
+slowly forth from the prisoner's cell, and standing upon the third
+gallery, looked down upon the mob.
+
+"Bring the old fellow out--let's see him--no put off with us!" Shouted a
+man near the staircase.
+
+"I cannot bring him out, he is ----"
+
+They drowned the sheriff's voice with clamor.
+
+"Cheated the gallows--stabbed himself."
+
+The sheriff again attempted to speak, but the tumult grew louder.
+
+"Bring him out--dead or alive, bring him out!"
+
+The officer waved his hand and pointed into the cell. Half a dozen men
+sprang up from the masses, and ran from one gallery to another, shouting
+to the crowd below.
+
+"We'll see for ourselves--it's all sham--they mean to let him escape!"
+
+Like a troop of wild animals they plunged forward, pushed themselves
+past the sheriff, and entered the cell. There they stood motionless, all
+their brutal ferocity struck dumb within them. They had their wish. The
+old man was before them; the last gleam of life in his eyes; the last
+breath freezing upon his lips. God had been very merciful, more merciful
+than the law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+HEARTS AND CONSCIENCES AT REST.
+
+     The storms of life with her are passed,
+       Stern memory leaves her soul at rest;
+     She finds a tranquil home at last,
+       Content with blessing, to be blessed.
+
+
+Mrs. Gordon never appeared again in the gay world. The reason was a
+mystery that no one could explain. The rich furniture, the statues and
+pictures that had made her home a palace, were quietly sold, and the
+rooms filled with everything essential to comfort, without the slightest
+approach to former profuse luxuriousness. Plain carriages and less
+spirited horses, took the place of her former superb equipage. The
+grounds still bloomed with flowers, the hot-houses teemed with fruit,
+but Ada seldom tasted the one or inhaled the other. She was far too busy
+and useful for the indulgence, even of her most harmless love of the
+beautiful. She had literally gone out by the wayside and hedges, forcing
+the poor to come in and partake of her hospitality. For months Jacob
+Strong might have been observed, side by side with his mistress,
+threading the alleys, searching in attic chambers, for objects of just
+charity. Old men and women, generally of the educated poor, who could
+not work, and were too proud for begging, soon became the inmates of
+those splendid saloons. Any day, when you passed that mansion, some old
+lady in her snow-white cap might be seen looking quietly from the
+casement, while others strolled in the gardens, or amused themselves in
+the marble vestibule. Occasionally Jacob Strong might be seen loitering
+about the door, but all the servants were changed. The very atmosphere
+of the place seemed that of another region. No French maids, no liveried
+footman, lent a foreign and meretricious air to the dwelling now. In the
+place of former splendor, gay tumult and heartless display, reigned a
+calm and pure tranquillity. Every face was serene; every being you met
+looked soberly content.
+
+In truth, the little paradise--for still the beautiful reigned
+throughout that dwelling--did indeed at times seem haunted by an angel;
+for flitting about, now in the sunshine of the garden, now in the more
+bland sunshine of her mother's smile, Julia grew in beauty and in all
+those sweet qualities which are the essence of loveliness. If painful
+memories sometimes haunted the maiden--if a prison cell and an old man
+blessing her with his last breath--a tumult of people, and wild shouts
+that seemed terrible to her, even then, sometimes broke upon her in the
+still morning, or the more stilly night, it was but a passing cloud; and
+with tears in her eyes, she would thank God, that those who loved that
+good old man had been saved the crowning horror of his death.
+
+And the old grandmother--it should have been no cause of grief when the
+meek woman went softly to sleep one night and awoke with her husband in
+heaven. It was the home she had pined for even when surrounded closest
+by her children's love. They laid her by his side in Greenwood, with
+many tears, for though certain that happiness awaits the departed, those
+who are left must mourn, or they cannot have loved.
+
+Now we have one scene to describe, and our story is done. It was three
+years after the death of old Mr. Wilcox, and once more the home of Ada
+Leicester was lighted up for guests. The boudoir which we have so often
+mentioned was redolent with flowers, and the pure muslin curtains
+floated to and fro in the summer air that came balmily through the open
+windows. Beyond, was the bed-chamber. You could hear the rustle of light
+footsteps on the India matting, and see the gleam of snowy drapery,
+waving like a cloud in the distance. All was exquisitely chaste and full
+of simplicity. How unlike the gorgeous luxuriousness of those rooms, in
+other days!
+
+The rooms filled, not with guests such as had made them brilliant once,
+but with persons who may interest the reader far more. The first person
+whom Jacob Strong ushered into the boudoir, was his own sister, Mrs.
+Gray. Never in her whole life had the good lady appeared so radiantly
+happy. Her gown of silver grey silk rustled cheerfully as she walked,
+white satin ribbons knotted the lace cap under her chin and floated in
+glistening streamers adown the white muslin kerchief folded over her
+bosom. A pair of gloves--man's size, but white as snow--were neatly
+buttoned about her plump wrists. This, with her beautiful grey hair, her
+cheeks softly red like a mellow winter apple, and the double chin that
+had taken a triple fold since we last saw her, would have warmed your
+heart had you been a guest at that house, as she was. Then there was a
+quiet little old lady in black, who glided in like a shadow, and was
+completely lost behind the rotundity of Mrs. Gray's person; and another
+gentle creature clothed in black also, but of a beauty that made your
+heart ache, the sweet face was so touchingly sad, the countenance so
+waxen in its whiteness, and every movement was so painfully shy. It
+seemed as if the poor young creature might turn and flee, like a
+frightened doe, if an unfamiliar eye were turned upon her. Reader, these
+two persons are no strangers to you; they are the mother and the victim
+of William Leicester. Poor Florence, her mind was shaken yet, but not as
+it had been. She was gentle and mournfully sad, but not insane. Still it
+was a painful thing to see a creature so young, with that utter
+hopelessness of countenance. She sat down close to the little, aged
+woman, and looked up in her face, with meek, trusting eyes, holding
+shyly to a fold of her dress all the while. Not even the sunny smile of
+Mrs. Gray, could win a gleam of joy to those large eyes. Then there was
+a large woman with black eyes and an abundance of raven hair, that kept
+bustling in and out of the bed-chamber with a look of happy importance,
+that made her strong features quite handsome. You would hardly have
+recognized the prison woman, in that neatly clad rosy cheeked female,
+the expression and whole appearance was so changed. Home and care had
+done everything for her, and at this time she was housekeeper in the
+mansion. Had you asked her character of the old ladies who found an
+asylum there, the account would have astonished you. After all, where
+real strength of character exists, there is always hope of reformation.
+It is your weak sinner for whom one despairs the most. As this woman
+passed through the room, she always turned her eyes, beaming with
+fondness, on a little boy, half concealed by the flow of Mrs. Gray's
+gown. It was quite wonderful how much that gown could shelter; and the
+mother spoke in that glance eloquently as ever love was uttered in
+words.
+
+Then there was Jacob Strong himself, with a new coat in its first gloss,
+too short for his long arms, and cut after a fashion of his own, which
+made him look more round-shouldered and ungainly than ever. A buff vest,
+and gloves of a deeper yellow, gave an air of peculiar smartness to his
+costume, which bespoke some very important occasion; for it was not
+often that Jacob gave way to weaknesses regarding his toilet; and when
+he did, the effect was indisputably striking.
+
+Besides the persons we have mentioned, were a score of nice aged women
+in snowy caps and chintz dresses, looking the very pictures of contented
+old age, who whispered cosily together, and watched a door that led to
+the stairs with the greatest interest, as if some very important person
+was expected to enter from that way.
+
+Their impatience was gratified at last; for a clergyman with flowing
+robes came sweeping through, escorted by Jacob Strong, who had been
+wandering about the dim vestibule during the last ten minutes. Directly
+after, the room opposite was flung open, and Robert Otis came forth,
+leading a fair young girl by the hand. There was something heavenly in
+the loveliness of that gentle bride, as the blush deepened and faded
+away beneath the gossamer sheen of her veil.
+
+Jacob Strong rubbed his yellow gloves softly together, as he gazed upon
+her; and the rustle of Mrs. Gray's dress was absolutely eloquent of all
+the restless pride she felt in seeing the two beings she most loved
+united for ever.
+
+Of all the persons present, Ada Leicester alone was sad. She remembered
+her own marriage, and the shadow of many a painful thought swept across
+her face, as the solemn benediction was uttered over her child.
+
+When the ceremony was complete Florence arose, and quietly placing a
+folded paper in the lap of the bride, stole away, as if terrified by the
+strange eyes that followed her movement. Julia took up the paper, half
+unfolded it, and then, with a blush and a smile, placed it in the hand
+of her young husband. With that paper Florence had conveyed two thirds
+of her fine property to the daughter of William Leicester--the man who
+had swept every blossom from the pathway of her own life.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fashion and Famine, by Ann S. Stephens
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40114 ***