Chapter III: Part 3

“Yes, you have been a great success,” said the thin and careworn wife, who had shared his struggles and did not possess his buoyant temperament to throw off the wear of daily life. “I almost dread to have a house-warming, for it will cost so much and bring no end of work. I should like to have the people see our beautiful home, but you know I cannot shine in society.”

Mrs. Midland looked up to her husband as the great factor in their worldly gains, and so he was; but he owed much to the economy and good sense of the quiet woman who was glad to be his helper.

“Oh, you will shine enough, Martha, so that I shall be proud of you! After the furniture is once in the house we will invite everybody—yes, everybody, rich and poor. It’s great folly for a man to make social distinctions for himself as soon as he has a few thousands. I want to have them all enjoy the house. It’s the handsomest house in the village, and they’ll all be glad to come. The caterer will provide the supper, and you’ll just have to shake hands with the guests and look pleased.”

“What do you think I had better wear, Josiah?”

“Oh, you must have a new dress for the occasion! I like garnet. Get a garnet silk with a good deal of velvet, and you’ll look handsome;” and Mr. Midland smiled in his big-hearted way that had won him friends from his boyhood.

The new moon had risen in the west, and the stars were coming out brightly, as if all nature even was glad at Mr. Midland’s success. As they left the house the church bell rang out.

“Let us go,” said Mr. Midland. “The minister told me the other day that an evangelist was coming here. I forgot all about it, but it might pay us to go and hear him once. Religion isn’t a thing of emotion to me, but I like to hear good preaching. I’ve never had any notion of joining a church myself, but I don’t know what the community would be without the churches. Property would go down pretty quickly.”

The minister, as was human, felt the blood quicken in his veins as the successful railroad-man and his wife entered. Not that they were more important than poor people, but he knew that money consecrated to good ends is a power almost unlimited. He could only silently pray that some word would be uttered which would touch Mr. Midland’s heart.

The young evangelist preached not an extraordinary sermon, but a simple talk upon the power of a good life—a life that came but once and was spent so quickly. Mr. Midland sat like one awakened out of sleep. True, he had made money; he had a good moral character; but he would go through life but once, and he was living entirely for himself. He had never realized what a wonderful gift from heaven this life is, with all its possibilities to help others, to make the poor comfortable, the sad happy, to remove the causes of crime and discontent. He seemed, all at once, to have made a voyage of discovery, and to have found a new land.

He said little on the way home, except to tell Martha that he felt strangely, and that she must go to bed and sleep, but he would sit up awhile and think. Mr. Midland did think long and carefully by the shaded lamp. He thought over his whole past experience. He had been prospered, and he owed all to a Higher Power. And after he had thought, he prayed.

In the morning he said: “Martha, I have given up the house-warming. I have decided to use the money to send a boy to college to become a preacher;” and then he added, “for a man who turns the life of another heavenward does the greatest work in the world, and I must help to do the greatest hereafter.”

Mrs. Midland looked confused for a minute, and then she said, half audibly, “I am very glad, Josiah.” After that night Mr. Midland’s face took on an expression that was noted till his death, years afterward. It was as though he had talked with the angels, and joined a new brotherhood. The genial man became more genial, more considerate, more self-controlled. It became literally true that, like his Master, “he went about doing good.” Without children of his own, he devoted his property to the giving of the Gospel to the people. He joined heartily, by voice and money, in all that elevated mankind. He built houses for the poor; he educated orphans; he held prayer-meetings in sparsely-settled districts; he labored for temperance; he became the idol and ideal man of the community. He carried out his plan of using the house-warming money to educate a young man for the ministry, and lived to see his gift return a thousand-fold interest.

HANNAH AND JOE.

IN THE YEAR 1851 Captain Budington, of Groton, Conn., passed the winter in Cumberland inlet, west of Greenland. Here he met Joe and Hannah on the island of Kim-ick-su-ic, so called because its flat centre, covered with grass, resembles a dogskin. Hannah was twelve years old, dressed in fur pantaloons and short fur overdress, and bore the name of Too-koo-li-too in her own language. Joe was a good deal older, and his real name was Ebierbing.

A few years afterward a merchant from Hull, England, Mr. Bolby, met them at Cumberland gulf, where they had come off the island to trade, and prevailed upon them to take the long journey to England. When he reached home he made a large company, and in the presence of these guests the young woman Hannah was married to Joe. Mr. Bolby took them to several places in England and Scotland, and they were finally presented to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Queen was deeply interested in these people from the far North in British America, and asked them to dine with her. If the Queen was pleased with the sincere, uneducated, fur-dressed pair, Hannah was no less pleased with the gracious Queen in her elegant home, so entirely different from a snow hut. She always said Victoria was “very kind, very much lady.” After two years they returned to Cumberland inlet, and in 1860 Charles F. Hall, the explorer, met them.

Everybody in both England and America had become deeply interested in the fate of Sir John Franklin. He had left England in 1845 with two ships, the “Erebus” and “Terror,” with one hundred and thirty-four persons, in search of the North Pole. After two years relief parties were sent out to find them. Lady Franklin spent all her large fortune in sending out ships to search for her missing husband.

Finally, in 1850, the graves of three of the men were found at the far North, on Beechy island, west of Hannah’s home, so that the course which Franklin took was known. Four years later Dr. Rae, of England, heard from the Eskimos that a large company of white men had starved on King William Land, far to the northwest of Baffin’s bay, and he obtained from the Eskimos many articles which belonged to Franklin and his men.

After England had spent over five million dollars in searching for Franklin it was ascertained that both his ships had gone to pieces in the ice off the west coast of King William Land, and that his poor men had starved and frozen, as they wandered over the ice in a vain search for food or friends. Then skeletons were found in boats or in snowbanks, and their boots, watches, and silver had become the property of the Eskimos. Sir John died two years after the ships left England, and must have been buried in the ocean.

Some persons believed that the Franklin party were not all dead. Charles Francis Hall was an engraver at Cincinnati, O. He was poor, and with no influential friends, but he felt that the Lord had called him to the work of finding some of the Franklin men. He read all he could find about Arctic life. He asked money of prominent men and learned societies, and finally, after enough obstacles to discourage any other man, obtained funds to build a boat and put up twelve hundred pounds of food for the journey. A New London firm gave him a free passage on one of their ships, and he went, in 1860, to the far North, discovering relics of Sir Martin Frobisher’s expedition, made three hundred years before. His boat was lost, so he had to return to America, and brought with him Joe and Hannah, who had been with him two years, and who were devotedly attached to him.

In 1864 Hall started again with Joe and Hannah, and north of Hudson bay lived five years among the Eskimos, eating their raw food and living in their igloos or snow huts. Joe, with great skill, would kill a walrus, which sometimes weighs two thousand pounds, or would watch two whole nights near a hole in the ice where the seal comes up to breathe, that he might spear it for his master.

In 1866, May 14, the only child of Joe and Hannah died, while on one of Hall’s journeys. According to custom, the distracted mother at the plain funeral carried the dead baby in a fur blanket suspended from her neck. Captain Hall put this note in the fur cap covering the head of the child: “These are the mortal remains of little King William, the only child of Ebierbing and Too-koo-li-too, the interpreters of the lost Franklin Research Expedition. God hath its soul now, and will keep it from harm.”

Later, Hall visited King William Land, and brought away one hundred and twenty-five pounds of relics of Franklin and his men. Among these was a complete skeleton, proved from the filling of a tooth to be that of an officer of the ship “Erebus.” Hall felt sure now that all the party were dead. Joe and Hannah came back to the States with Hall, bringing a little three-year-old girl whom they adopted. They bought her of her parents for a sled. Hannah named her Sylvia Grinnell, after the Grinnell family, celebrated for their gifts towards Arctic research, but her real name was Punna.

Captain Hall made his third voyage in the ship “Polaris” in 1871 for the North Pole, taking his devoted Joe and Hannah and little Punna. He reached a higher point in Smith sound than had been reached by any other vessel at that time, and anchored in a harbor protected by an iceberg four hundred and fifty feet long and three hundred broad, calling the place Thank God harbor. In the autumn of this year Hall died very suddenly, and his men spent two days in digging a grave only two feet deep. He was buried at eleven in the forenoon, but so dark was it in that high latitude that lanterns were carried. Poor Hannah sobbed aloud at the death of her best friend. The party on the “Polaris” determined to return, but, being caught in the ice, were obliged to abandon her and throw the provisions and clothing out on the ice-floe. In the midst of this work, in the night, the ship drifted away, with fourteen persons on board, leaving on a piece of ice one hundred yards long and seventy-five broad Captain Tyson and eight white men and nine Eskimos, including three women and a baby eight weeks old. Hannah and Punna were among them.

A dreadful snow-storm came on, and the shivering creatures huddled together under some musk-ox skins. Later they built a little house from materials thrown out of the ship, and floated down Baffin’s bay and Davis strait, the ice constantly crumbling and the sea washing over them. They used all their boats save one for fuel, and were only kept alive through the heroic efforts of Joe and another Eskimo, Hans, who caught some seals for them, which were eagerly eaten uncooked, without removing the hairy skin. They had only a little mouldy bread, and the sufferings of the children from hunger were painful to witness.

Once, when nearly all were dead from starvation, Joe saved them by killing a bear. He and Hannah refused to leave Captain Tyson and the party when they were drifting past their homes at Cumberland inlet, even when it was probable that the Eskimos themselves must be used for food by the famished white men. After drifting one thousand five hundred miles in six months (one hundred and ninety-six days), one of the most thrilling journeys on record, the party were rescued off the coast of Labrador by the English ship “Tigress.”

Hannah and Joe settled at Groton in 1873, in a little house purchased for them by their good friend, “Father Hall.” Joe became a carpenter, and Hannah made up furs and other articles on her sewing-machine.

The next year Hannah, at the age of thirty-eight, died of consumption, her health broken by the exposure on the ice-floe. She had long been an earnest Christian, loving and reading her Bible daily. She was tenderly cared for by Mrs. Captain Budington and others, saying at the last, “Come, Lord Jesus, and take thy poor creature home!” A handsome stone marks the grave of the faithful Hannah in the cemetery. Joe came often to the graves on the hillside of Groton, and said at last, “Hannah gone! Punna gone! Me go now again to King William Land; I have to fight; me no care.” He went with Lieutenant Schwatka in the Franklin search party, June 19, 1878, and never returned to the United States.

BURTON CONE’S REASON.

YEARS after Coleridge wrote the beautiful “Hymn before Sunrise in the Valley of Chamouni,” which Felicia Hemans said she would give all her poems to have written,—among a group of strangers standing in awe before Mont Blanc was a man who seemed forty-five, from his hair fully half gray and his quiet, dignified bearing, though he must have been younger. He was absorbed in his own thoughts. He did not look at any face about him, but seemed spell-bound by the sublimity of the scene. In that vast mountain, white with eternal snows, with the rivers, fed by the glaciers, turbulent at its base, the sun clothing it with rainbows, he saw the same God who had compassed his life, as the stalwart pines hedged in the grand mount before him.

After a time, as through that as yet undeveloped science of unseen power between mind and mind, he felt a presence. He was conscious of eyes fixed upon him, conscious that somebody he had known and loved was near him. A hand was laid on his shoulder.

“Burton, you’re the last man in all the world I thought of seeing. Ten years since you and I travelled together, and you yet on the wing? I supposed you had settled down to some life-work, and was surrounded by loves and cares ere this. You and I have stood here together before.”

The speaker was a genial, generous man, somewhat Cone’s junior in look and manner, whose sorrows, whether many and great or not, could not long crush his happy heart. His sympathies were quick, his hopes naturally bright, and his nature ardent. The decade that had passed since the former companionship had aged one more than the other. The one had been giving time and heart to business, but had lived alone, though a crowded world was about him. The other had been kept young and fresh by the love of a cheerful wife and sunny daughter, and the years had gone by rapidly and more than ordinarily well stored with good deeds.

“Come, Burton, I am tiring of this road and grandeur. Let’s go back to the hotel and have one of the old friendly talks. Nature has lost half its beauty now that only one pair of eyes sees it—and I have no one to tell of the beautiful or strange things I have seen. You don’t need friendship as I do. You are made of sterner stuff. You are Mont Blanc personified.”

Cone’s mind was full of the grandeur before him, but his heart, cold as he was, was keenly alive to the needs of those who had been friends, so together they walked arm in arm to their lodgings.

“Now, let’s talk over the ten years, Cone. Ten years make a fool or a wise man of a fellow—carry him up to the gates or down to the depths.”

“Tell me what they have done for you, Marsh. You know how much I have to thank you and your young wife for the sunshine you put into my life when we travelled together before. She seemed like a sister to me. She understood me; and that is where most women fail. They do not know us, or we do not know them, so our true natures never come side by side; but she seemed to feel the pulse of my life. She knew just when I needed jovial words and when I needed sympathy or quiet. She had the tact I have heard so often described, but seldom seen, and a pure, good heart back of it. I fear all hasn’t gone right with you. Can it be that you are walking alone, like myself?”

Tears gathered in Marsh’s eyes. He had almost a woman’s heart and a woman’s love. “It isn’t hard for you to stand alone, but for me it is crushing. I buried my wife in England six months ago. We came for her health, but she failed rapidly and went away soon after we arrived. Our little girl is boarding with friends, and I wander anywhere, everywhere,—so I can forget. I cannot go back to America. Nothing binds me there. I seem unfit for labor, and I am adrift. You know she was like an anchor. I depended upon her judgment, upon her help, upon her love. When a woman leans entirely upon a man, and she is taken away, he may feel as though something dear and beautiful had gone out from him; but when a woman has strength enough to be a companion, a counsellor, in the deeds and plans of every day,—when she is not a pet merely, but a guide to everything noble,—when, whether you will or not, you are kept upon a plane of right and duty and manhood,—what shall a poor relying heart do?”

“Would you wish to forget, Marsh? I would put such a blessing away in my heart and grow strong from daily looking at it.”

“I can’t keep it, Cone. I must get away from such memories. I feel as though I drifted hither and thither, because there is no hand on the helm. To remember is misery: to forget might be relief.”

“And yet, do you not owe such a wife a loving, yearning remembrance? One might forget a flower that blossomed for his pleasure for a day or a week; but hold in grateful memory a spring that opened in the desert of a parched life and became an unfailing supply. Memories sometimes are almost as sweet as present realities, and sometimes we are made even stronger by the one than by the other.”

“That may be good philosophy for those who have never loved and lost. No one can know till he has the trial. I have one left, I know, but that does not fill the place of the other, and perchance no one ever could.”

“You must go back with me to our fatherland. I am nearly through my journeying, for it seems idle work for me now. Besides, I have had premonitions that I should make ready for another journey. You seem startled. Ten years have worn upon me, for they have been years of constant and hard labor. I could not forget, and would not; but hope will fade into fruition by and by.”

“Cone, you ought to tell me of your life. Much as you respected my wife, you never raised the curtain from the scenes which transpired before we met you. Why have you lived to your age, and taken no heart into your own to bless and hold? Your principles are like adamant, and would keep you anywhere, but every man and woman needs to have his or her heart uncloistered, that others may grow strong and unselfish with him. This working out life’s plan alone, with no giving or receiving of loves, seems a mistake to me. Has your heart anything hidden away in it, or are you proof to what you may think the weaker acts of life?”

Cone’s face seemed a little troubled. Not one man or woman out of ten thousand reaches the age of forty without having loved or been loved, and felt blessed joy or bitter pain in one or the other. Was he indeed different from the rest of mankind? He manifested no partiality for women, except a deference that everybody pays to what it supposes exalted and ennobling. He had received numerous proofs of their esteem for him, and indications that they would not repel his attentions. He was often the subject of remark, from his striking face and manner, but when all the queries had been asked and unanswered they said, “There must be a reason for all this, and time will tell it.”

He had been touched in heart by Marsh’s utter helplessness. He knew better than anybody else what a centre she had been to his thought and his affections. He sympathized with him. Perhaps the doors of his own inner sanctuary, locked for a half-score years, might swing back just once, and let a weary friend come in and find consolation.

“Come to-night, Marsh, and I will talk with you. Good-by till then.”

Alone and unperceived he stole out to sit under the majestic shadows of Mont Blanc, and worship. Nobody with a God in his heart ever stands there without holding communion with Him. No wonder that the lofty peaks, echoing cañons, and wondrous waterfalls of our own country have written the names of more than one poet on the pages of American literature! Such scenes are the nurseries in which great minds develop. Such grand handiwork of the Builder draws every man very near to Him.

Burton Cone had never forgotten the scenes through which he had passed. Though some things had been laid away and sealed with the seal of silence for over a dozen years, they were fresh to him as though they had taken place that very morning. Perhaps he did not need sympathy as some need it; perhaps he did not wish to burden others with his feelings.

It seemed almost twilight in the room, the lights were turned down so low.

“Sit down, Marsh, till we talk of the past. You have wondered if there is anything back of this life you have known. Aye, much, very much! You have wondered if I ever loved, and why I did not love some one now, when I so reverence woman. Away back in New England, in a little town near a beautiful city on the Connecticut, is the home of my childhood. That is precious to me, though I have not seen it for years. Near it is a large brick house, painted white, with long rows of firs and pines leading to it. It looks like an old castle. In that home was a young girl who from her childhood was my ideal. We played together as children, we roamed through the woods and meadows, we read and sang and talked of things beyond our years, because her nature held me above myself. She was not beautiful to others, perchance; but to me her large dark eyes, high brow, and glossy hair, with her quiet, dignified manner, made her a queen. She never seemed to do wrong. She had to ask no one’s forgiveness. She never made mistakes. She had no need for regrets. Nobody thought to be rude or rough to Mary Fairchild, or in her presence. She was always calm, always genial and kind, always considerate. She never seemed like the rest of us. I fancied she had been sent from heaven to keep our earthly minds and tastes somewhat akin to theirs. I always feared she might at any time take her departure to the land where she seemed rightly to belong.

“She went away to receive her education, and I studied hard to make myself, if possible, some day worthy of her. Occasionally she wrote me, and those letters seemed to me of peculiar value. I read each one over and over again, till I knew every word and how every letter was made. The slightest allusion to friendship for me seemed a mine of joy, and I put the letter next my heart to read as often as I should get a little leisure. She never gave me encouragement that she loved me more than others, always treating us all in the same gracious, kindly way. I was naturally timid, and though I did not tell her I loved her my desire to be in her company, my extreme joy when I met her, my blushing cheeks and my glad eyes, must have told her over and over again that I idolized her. I was active, energetic, ardent, but I lacked her spirituality and finer qualities of soul. She revelled in all that was beautiful and artistic. I never expected that she could love me as I did her. I thought her nature too ethereal, but I hoped that I might sometime live in her presence and be guided by her blessed spirit in my daily life.

“Nothing could have been farther removed from coarseness or passion than my love for Mary; I never pressed my lips to hers. So I could be near her, hear her voice, and live in the sunshine of herself, I was content. I went out from her society a better man each time. I would go any distance, endure any exposure, so I might but feel the blessed light of her eyes come into mine. I never joked with her as I might others. I never used her name before any person. I never wrote it carelessly. Everything pertaining to her was sacred as the heaven which I sometime expected to enter. My highest thought was her happiness, not mine. My ambition, my hopes, my prayers, all centred in that one desire to walk beside her in the beautiful journey of life. When any person coupled my name with hers in pleasantry I felt as though they had touched a name that was hallowed, and changed the subject. I longed to be constantly in her presence, yet dared not trouble her too much; so between desire to hover near and fear of being an annoyance rather than a joy my soul was constantly harassed. I had often pledged myself to ask her to accept my homage, and though I had means and social position and education, everything seemed unworthy of her. What if she refused to be my guide forever? Life then would be worse than useless; so, hoping and praying, I waited, and my worship grew as the months went by. Every flower that she loved I pressed and laid away in the books I had seen her read. Every kindly word she gave me made me joyful for days. Every touch of her hand thrilled me with delight, and I lived over the bliss a thousand times in memory. Once, I remember, when I gave her a picture of myself, and she looked at it long and earnestly I thought, and her dark hair touched mine, I was too happy for words to express it.

“Other young men called upon her, and, like myself, showed her the deference that belonged to a pure, beautiful woman, girl though she was in years. Among them was a noble young man, the perfection of manly grace and the embodiment of manly virtues. Alfred Trumbull was a preacher, a genial, earnest, eloquent young man, as spiritual as herself. I had met him there and had learned to love him. He admired her, we all plainly saw, but she treated him as the rest, with a cordiality that was blended with reserve and that kept us all removed just far enough to worship her.

“Weeks went by. I was growing wretched. I was coming to know how entirely dependent I was upon her for happiness. If a day passed by and I did not see her, it was a lost day. I must tell her and have her all my own. Oh, Marsh, those were glad days, after all,—when I could see her, if no more,—but God and time shape things differently from what we will!

“It was just such a night as this. I remember her so plainly—how I stood by the gate and watched the shadows of the pines flicker on the walk, and, man though I was, trembled to take the final step. She met me so cordially, more than was her wont, I thought. She was so lovely on that calm summer evening; so doubly frail, too, that my solicitude for her kept pace with my love. She was alone. With no sound save the rustle of the pines, and no one to hear save God and her, I told her all my heart. I told her how I worshipped her with all the strength of my being. I told her how I would struggle to the end of life to make myself worthy of her.

“She waited a full minute before she answered me. In that minute it seemed as though my reason would give way. She was so white with the moonlight streaming in upon her, as she put her hand in mine and said, with an irrepressible tenderness, ‘Burton’ (and nobody else spoke my name as she did), ‘Burton, I have promised to help Alfred Trumbull win souls.’

At first I was dumb; then I buried my face in my hands and groaned aloud, then I wept like a child that cannot be comforted. Oh, Marsh, there is nothing that bends a man’s soul like that! I felt alone—no support, no guide, no love, no hope. Life was worse than a blank; a dull, dread certainty of sorrow. It would be torture to die if death were to remove me from her sight—it would be torture to live and never have her love or presence. Those were bitter days, full of the depths of sorrow. Those days made me grow old a score of years. I was never young afterward.

“At last, when I could command myself, I begged to be allowed to love her till my life went out. If any one could win her instead of me, I was thankful to have it one so good as Alfred Trumbull. I conquered self. I found my highest happiness was still to see her happy. Sometimes when I visited her the old love, the yearning to claim her for myself, would sweep over me till my head grew dizzy and my heart sank within me, and then my better nature said: ‘Rejoice in her joy, and be content only to love.’

“I came at last to be resigned—yes, happy in my idol-worship. From her I could hope for nothing but kindness and tenderness, but I could never love any other. The time drew near when she and Alfred Trumbull were to commence their grand life-work. Suddenly his health failed. She went to him—she cared for him day and night with the same intensity of love that I had given her. It could not arrest disease. He longed for returning health, because they would have been so happy and congenial in their love and work; but one day in early spring he died in her arms, and was laid away among the first flowers, to rest from his labors.

“I never saw a life so blighted as hers. Her whole heart lay beside his in the grave. She lost all interest in life. She grew quiet and sad and more ethereal. She never mentioned his name, but we knew she longed to live with him, even though she must pass through the valley of the shadow.

“Against all my struggling I found my old desire to claim her coming back into my soul. I showed her all the delicate yet unobtrusive kindness possible. Her very sorrow made her unspeakably dear.

“After Alfred had been in heaven a year, and knowing that she loved no one else, I told her again the old burden of my heart. She seemed moved to pity as she laid her hand on mine, just as she did once before, and said in tones I shall never forget, ‘Burton, I am Alfred’s!’

“I lived over again the old days of torture, and again conquered self to minister to her happiness. I should have died if I could not have loved her, and I was almost happy that she did not deny me this. I gathered beautiful and rare things for her, and in all ways made her life less sad, if possible. I must have her to care for and love and serve, and again I laid my affection at her feet. With the same sad smile she had borne for three years, she said, looking down at the mourning robes she had worn for him, ‘Burton, I am Alfred’s still; but if I can make your life any happier I will be your wife!’

“Those words staggered me. I had not dared hope for this, though I prayed for it. Joy seemed to take away my senses; and seeing me so beside myself the old look came back once or twice to her face. I was as one who, shipwrecked in mid-ocean, after clinging for days to a floating plank, at last picked up by a stray ship, is helpless through joy and gratitude. I was more dead than alive with my wealth of happiness. Mary and I were made one. Marsh, how I live over again those beautiful days. I used to look at your pretty wife beside you as we journeyed, and think of my precious Mary.

“My cup of joy was full to the brim. She accepted my homage, and was grateful. I spared no pains to make her life complete. To have her in my home, to have the blessed influence of her presence evening after evening, was the crowning joy of a man who had loved for years in silence and unreturned affection.

“I was so entranced with my joy that another summer had come round again before I began to realize that she was fully mine, and then the next winter flew so rapidly, and a little son came into the household. We were both very grateful—I all the more because I thought it might fill Mary’s heart something as the old love had done.

“I watched her cheeks grow brighter as she fondled the boy, whom I named Alfred for her sake. They were so beautiful in my home, mother and child. I worked with redoubled energy, and well nigh forgot that there was any heaven beyond, my joy was so complete below.

“Spring came and I gathered wild flowers to wreathe the brows of both. One day, while absent from home, a message came for me that my wife was ill and desired me to come. I grew palsied with fear. I hastened home to find her just able to speak to me. She had had a violent hæmorrhage of the lungs. I was wild. I knelt before her, and clasping her in my arms begged her not to die, but live for my sake and her boy’s. She put her white arm about my neck, drawing me to his little face and hers, as she said faintly, ‘Burton, keep the darling child, who is ours,—but I—I am Alfred’s!’—and was gone.

“For months I did not know what happened. All was a blank. My boy died before I came to myself, and I was alone again in the world. I travelled till my health permitted work, and then I labored incessantly.

“I love Mary now as I loved her so long ago. No other can ever fill her place. She is as much mine to love as ever. All this has whitened my hair, you see. I must lock up my heart again, lest the world look in upon my idols. Do you see that I have reason for not loving again?”

Marsh’s head was bowed. He loved Cone as a brother, and he had suffered all this and loved on, and was brave and strong.

“Let us take my little girl and go back to yours and Mary’s home,” said Marsh.

“Yes, and Mary has an only sister strangely like your wife. You need another heart to lean upon. Your nature is different from mine.”

Not many years after Marsh had taken the sister to be a mother to his pretty daughter, and Burton Cone, leaving his property to this little one, had been laid to rest by the side of Mary.

UNSUITABLE.

“IT NEVER will happen,” said Jane Holcomb to her sister Nancy, as they sat together before an open fire. “Justus is too bright a young man to fall in love with a woman nearly twice his own age. Think of our educating our only nephew at a most expensive college, having all our hopes centred in his future prominence, and then have him make an unsuitable marriage!”

“But we have never seen this woman he seems to love,” said Nancy quietly. “Perhaps we should like her. I think she must have some admirable qualities, or Justus would never be fond of her. Besides, he is a favorite with ladies, and could marry surely a pretty girl of his own age.”

Jane and Nancy Holcomb were sisters, well-to-do in the world, very necessary to each other, but not especially necessary to the rest of the community. Nancy was half an invalid, who repaid the care of her sister with a nearly perfect affection. She would have made a lovely wife had she been married some years before.

It was fortunate that Jane had never married. Her continual worry lest a particle of dust adhere to table or chair, her constant picking up of book, or shawl, or gloves, if anything were left for a moment out of place, would have made her an annoyance to any man who wished to enjoy his home. If a picture had been painted of Jane Holcomb, it would not have been complete without a broom in her hand. There was one good servant in the house who kept things reasonably neat, but Jane was forever cleaning. If she had married, and had been the mother of children, probably she would have been less fussy, and a pleasanter woman to live with.

Both women idolized the bright nephew, Justus, who loved his aunts in the abstract, but usually kept as far away from Aunt Jane’s broom as possible.

He was a handsome young fellow, cheery, cordial, earnest, sympathetic, and withal possessed of excellent common-sense. He had just graduated from a medical school, and was coming home for a visit to the aunts. Jane swept and dusted more than ever, till the carpets and furniture would have protested, if that were possible. Nancy grew fresher and better in health from the expected arrival.

Finally the young man came, and was kissed and petted as young men are apt to be by women older than themselves. Aunt Jane looked him over from head to foot. Yes, he was clean and attractive, even to her practised eye.

“Now, Justus,” she said, as they were sitting by the open fire after supper, “tell your aunts about the love matter which we hear of. I think this lady is a little older than you.” Jane controlled herself and became diplomatic, because a young man cannot usually be driven, but must be gently led.

“If you mean Miss Watterson—yes, she is a charming woman. She is thirty-five, just ten years older than I. I confess she attracts me more than any of the girls of my own age. She is not handsome, but very intelligent, has read widely, and is a noble woman.”

“But you surely would be the subject of much remark in society if you married her. And we are so proud of you, Justus, we naturally wish you could marry rich, and some one who could help you in your profession. You know a woman can help to make her husband popular or unpopular.”

“I know it, aunt; but, after all, I need the right kind of companionship when I marry. I have not decided the matter yet, and perhaps I shall grow wiser.”

“You must not forget also, Justus, that as a rule a woman grows old faster than a man, or she used to. I cannot say that she does exactly in this new age, when American men are killing themselves in business, and the women are living in luxury. But when you are forty-five and in your prime, your wife will be fifty-five; and the disparity will be more apparent then than now. Besides, you will see so many attractive faces in your profession.”

“That would not influence me, Aunt Jane. If I loved her once, I should hope to be man enough to love her always. But I will wait awhile before I”—

“That is right,” said Nancy; “you know we shall make you our heir, that is, sister Jane will, and we want you to be a leader socially and in your profession. You know men have such a wide sphere of influence. All our lives centre in you.”

“Don’t build too much upon my future, Aunt Nancy, though I will do my best.”

“Do you correspond with Miss Watterson?” said Jane half hesitatingly.

“We have done so, but we have discontinued it, as I am sure she thinks the difference in our ages a possible obstacle to our future happiness.”

“Well, she is a wise woman not to let a boy be captured even in accord with his own wishes. Why it is that young men so often like older women I’m sure I can’t tell.”

“Because they are natural and not simpering, feel an interest and dare to show it, are vivacious without flippancy, and usually well-enough read to be companionable to an educated man. You know, Aunt Jane, a man doesn’t want simply a pretty face to look on forever. He must have something besides a vine nowadays.”

“Well, tell us about Miss Watterson?”

“She has travelled abroad, plays delightfully, loves to do charitable work, has tact enough to know when to talk and when to be silent, likes to look well, but does not spend all her time in dress as do some whom I know, whether their fathers can afford it or not, and doesn’t seem to make any especial effort to win my affections, but is thoroughly appreciative.”

“Why hasn’t she married before this? Been in love and been disappointed, I warrant.”

“That I don’t know. She has never told me. I suppose, like yourself, Aunt Jane, she hasn’t found a man good enough.”

Jane Holcomb smiled in a pleased kind of way at this delicate allusion to her superior judgment.

“Well, Justus, I wish you would promise me that you won’t write to Miss Watterson for one year, and by that time you will probably have found some one more suitable to your age.”

“I promise, but I shall be so busy with my profession that I fear no other lady will command my time.”

When Justus departed Jane kissed him with not only maternal fondness, but with that woman’s pride that feels she has for once circumvented an attractive woman, doubtless in love with a bright and handsome nephew.

“One year will fix matters,” she said to Nancy, after Justus had gone. “Few loves can bear such a silence as that.”

“I fear Justus will be lonesome,” said Nancy, who still had a little longing in her heart that the youth might have the woman of his choice, even though “unsuitable,” as Jane had said. There was a touch of romance in Nancy that would have made her an interesting woman if circumstances had been permitted to develop her.

Long letters came from Justus. He was busy and successful. Jane was happy, but Nancy thought she detected a depressed feeling in the letters. He was lonely, of course. Who can enjoy the companionship of a cultivated and womanly woman and not miss it? Who that has had one sincere affection, especially if it have something of reverence in it, can readily supply its place with another?

One morning, after a year had passed, a square envelope came, and a full, kind, but decided letter. It contained cards announcing the marriage of Justus Holcomb and Miss Watterson. What society would say, what even his good aunts would say, had been weighed in the balance and been found wanting.

Jane was sadly disappointed. “Another instance of a woman’s power,” she said. “I never knew a woman that couldn’t do what she set out to do, if a man’s heart were at stake. I feared it all the while. Men will do such foolish things. I fear Justus will regret, but he is so manly he will never say so.”

“But she may be better for him than a fly-away-girl,” Nancy suggested. “I hope it will turn out well. We must be kind to them and write them to come to see us.”

Jane set the house in order, and swept and dusted, and made herself ready for the inevitable. When the visit was made and Justus was found to be happy with a wife ten years his senior, Jane was in a measure reconciled. “It could have been worse,” she said to Nancy. “She seems a very clever person.”

“I like her,” said Nancy; “she has a very sweet smile, and this makes even a plain face attractive. I don’t believe she tried to get him, for he seems more in love than she does.”

“Ah! that’s a woman’s skill in covering,” said Jane. “But men will be foolish, I suppose, till the end of the world.”

PLAYING WITH HEARTS.

SEVERAL instances, showing the results of playing with hearts, have come under my notice, which have emphasized in my mind the danger of being careless in such matters.

That it is natural for young men to admire and love young women goes without saying. As well argue that we must not love flowers and music and sunlight, as to say one must not love the beauty and grace and sweetness of young womanhood.

A home to many if not most young men means all that is restful and delightful; a place for comfort after the toil of the day; a place of companionship with some one whose interests are identical with his, and whose tastes are congenial to his own. He does not wait, as does a woman, to see if love be reciprocal. He loves, and hopes for and asks for a return.

The girl is apt to be less impulsive. She, or her mother for her, is perhaps worldly wise, and considers well whether the man can support her, and whether he will probably make her happy. She accepts the attentions of one or a dozen, and decides among them. This is right according to our modern society, but she too often forgets whether she is giving pain needlessly.

It is too much the fashion to argue that men are not deeply touched in such matters; that, full of business as they are, a refusal is easily borne, and another love takes the place.

True, we read in the daily press quite often of a suicide resulting from a rebuff or a broken promise, but we seem to forget, unless perchance it touches our own home circle, and then the mother’s heart breaks for her tenderly reared son or daughter.

I believe the history of the world shows that men love deeply, and with an affection as lasting as that of women. Who can ever forget the undying affection of Sir Walter Scott for fair young Margaret? He met and loved her at nineteen, and for six years worked at his law drudgery, looking forward to a happy union with her. He said to a friend, “It was a proud night with me when I first found that a pretty young woman could think it worth while to sit and talk with me hour after hour, in a corner of the ball-room, while all the world were capering in our view.”

As his first year’s practice brought him but $125, his second $290, and his third $420, the young lady counselled waiting for better days.

Two years later Margaret was married to the eldest son of a baronet, afterward Sir William Forbes, and died thirteen years after her marriage. The cause of her change of mind is not known.

At first Scott felt that he had been wronged, but this feeling against Margaret soon subsided, and was replaced by an unchangeable affection. She became the heroine of “Rokeby” and of “Woodstock.”

Thirty years later, when Europe and America were filled with praise of Scott, he met the mother of his early love. He writes in his diary, after the meeting:

“I went to make a visit, and fairly softened myself like an old fool, with recalling old stories till I was fit for nothing but shedding tears and repeating verses for the whole night. This is sad work. The very grave gives up its dead, and time rolls back thirty years to add to my perplexities. I don’t care. I begin to grow case-hardened, and, like a stag turning at bay, my naturally good temper grows fierce and dangerous. Yet what a romance to tell, and told, I fear, it will one day be. And then my three years of dreaming and my two years of awakening will be chronicled, doubtless. But the dead will feel no pain.”

When he visited St. Andrews he recalled how thirty-four years before he had carved her name in runic characters on the turf beside the castle gate, and asked himself why, at fifty-six, that name “should still agitate his heart.”

I never read of stern and fearless Andrew Jackson without recalling his devoted love for Rachel Robards. With the world he was thought to be domineering and harsh, and was often profane; but with her he was patient, gentle, and deferential. Having no children, they adopted her nephew when but a few days old. When Jackson conquered at New Orleans and young ladies strewed flowers along the path of the hero, to have the commendation of Rachel was more than that of all the world beside. When he was elected President she said, “Well, for Mr. Jackson’s sake I am glad; for my own part I never wished it.”

Earnest in her religious convictions, he built a small brick church for her in the Hermitage grounds, that she might gather her neighbors and servants about her for worship. Mrs. Jackson died suddenly just after her husband’s election to the presidency. He could not believe that she was dead. When they brought a table to lay her body upon, “Spread four blankets upon it. If she does come to, she will lie so hard upon the table.”

All night long he sat beside the form of his beloved Rachel, often feeling of her heart and pulse. In the morning he was wholly inconsolable, and when he found that she was really dead the body could scarcely be forced from his arms. He prepared a tomb for her like an open summer-house, and buried her under the white dome supported by marble pillars.

While Jackson lived he wore her miniature constantly about his neck, and every night laid it open beside her prayer-book at his bedside. Her face was the last thing upon which his eyes rested before he slept, and the first thing upon which his eyes opened in the morning, through those eight years at the White House. He made his will bequeathing all his property to his adopted son, because, said he, “If she were alive she would wish him to have it all, and to me her wish is law.”

Two days before he died he said, “Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not find my wife there.” He used to say, “All I have achieved—fame, power, everything—would I exchange, if she could be restored to me for a moment.”

Washington Irving cherished forever the memory of Matilda Hoffman, who died at the age of seventeen. He could never hear her name mentioned afterward. After his death a package was found marked “Private Mems.” In a faded manuscript of his own writing were a lovely miniature of Matilda and a braid of fair hair. For years Irving kept her Bible and prayer-book under his pillow, and to the end of his life these were always carried with him on his journeys.

In the faded manuscript one reads: