Chapter XVIII (2)

In another moment Hero was singing in the unrivalled songstress, charming and subduing every heart. The play proceeded; its incidents, its characters developed. Melice outshone, out-sang herself; warbling like a bird, thrilling with entreaty, pouring forth her soul in passion. Her voice commanded an enthusiastic silence, her silence drew down thunders of enthusiastic applause. She acknowledged the honour with majestic courtesy; then, for the first time, trembled, changed colour: would have swept from the presence like a queen, but merely wept like a woman.

It was her hour of supreme triumph.

Next day she set out for her uncle’s residence, her own selected home.

Many a long day’s journey separated her from her mother’s village, and her transit thither assumed the aspect of a ceremonial progress. At every town on her route orations and emblems awaited her; whilst from the capital she was quitting, came, pursuing her, messages of farewell, congratulation, entreaty. Often an unknown cavalier rode beside her carriage some stage of the journey; often a high-born lady met her on the road, and, taking a last view of her countenance, obtained a few more last words from the most musical mouth in the world.

At length the goal was reached. The small cottage, surrounded by its disproportionately extensive garden, was there; the complex forcing-houses, pits, refrigerators, were there; Uncle Treeh was there, standing at the open door to receive his newly-found relative.

Uncle Treeh was rather old, rather short, not handsome; with an acute eye, a sensitive mouth, and spectacles. With his complexion of sere brown, and his scattered threads of white hair, he strikingly resembled certain plants of the cactus tribe, which, in their turn, resemble withered old men.

All his kind face brightened with welcome as he kissed his fair niece, and led her into his sitting-room. On the table were spread for her refreshment the choicest products of his gardens: ponderous pine-apples, hundred-berried vine clusters, currants large as grapes and sweet as honey. For a moment his eyes dwelt on a human countenance with more admiration than on a vegetable; for a moment, on comparing Malice’s complexion with an ole-ander, he awarded the palm to the former.

But a week afterwards, when Melice, leaning over his shoulder, threatened to read what he was writing, Treeh looked good-naturedly conscious, and, abandoning the letter to her mercy, made his escape into a neighbouring conservatory.

She read as follows:—

My Friend,—

You will doubtless have learned how my solitude has been invaded by my sister’s long-lost daughter, a peach-coloured damsel, with commeline eyes, and hair darker than chestnuts. For one whole evening I suspended my beloved toils and devoted myself to her: alas! next day, on revisiting Lime Alley, house B, pot 37, I found that during my absence a surreptitious slug had devoured three shoots of a tea-rose. Thus nipped in the bud, my cherished nursling seemed to upbraid me with neglect; and so great was my vexation, that, on returning to company, I could scarcely conceal it. From that hour I resolved that no mistaken notions of hospitality should ever again seduce me from the true aim of my existence. Nerved by this resolution, I once more take courage; and now write to inform you that I am in hourly expectation of beholding pierce the soil (loam, drenched with liquid manure) the first sprout from that unnamed alien seed, which was brought to our market, three months ago, by a seafaring man of semi-barbarous aspect. I break off to visit my hoped-for seedling.

At this moment the door, hastily flung open, startled Melice, who, looking up, beheld Treeh, radiant and rejoicing, a flowerpot in his hand. He hurried up to her, and, setting his load on the table, sank upon his knees. ‘Look!’ he cried.

‘Why, uncle,’ rejoined Melice, when curious examination revealed to her eyes a minute living point of green, ‘this marvel quite eclipses me!’

A pang of humiliation shot through Hero, an instantaneous sharp pang; the next moment she was burrowing beneath the soil in the thirsty sucking roots of a plant not one-eighth of an inch high.

Day by day she grew, watched by an eye unwearied as that of a lover. The green sheath expanded fold after fold, till from it emerged a crumpled leaf, downy and notched. How was this first-born of an unknown race tended; how did fumigations rout its infinitesimal foes, whilst circles of quicklime barricaded it against the invasion of snails! It throve vigorously, adding leaf to leaf and shoot to shoot: at length, a minute furry-bud appeared.

Uncle Treeh, the most devoted of foster-fathers, revelled in ecstasy; yet it seemed to Hero that his step was becoming feebler, and his hand more tremulous. One morning he waited on her as usual, but appeared out of breath and unsteady: gradually he bent more and more forward, till, without removing his eyes from the cherished plant, he sank huddled on the conservatory floor.

Three hours afterwards hurried steps and anxious faces sought the old man. There, on the accustomed spot, he lay, shrunk together, cold, dead; his glazed eyes still riveted on his favourite nursling.

They carried away the corpse—could Treeh have spoken he would have begged to lie where a delicate vine might suck nourishment from his remains—and buried it a mile away from the familiar garden; but no one had the heart to crush him beneath a stone. The earth lay lightly upon him; and though his bed was unvisited by one who would have tended it—for Melice, now a wife, had crossed the sea to a distant home—generations of unbidden flowers, planted by winds and birds, blossomed there.

During one whole week Hero and her peers dwelt in solitude, uncared for save by a mournful gardener, who loved and cherished the vegetable family for their old master’s sake. But on the eighth day came a change: all things were furbished up, and assumed their most festive aspect; for the new owners were hourly expected.

The door opened. A magnificently attired lady, followed by two children and a secondary husband, sailed into the narrow passage, casting down with her robe several flower-pots. She glanced around with a superior air, and was about to quit the scene without a word, when the gardener ventured to remark, ‘Several very rare plants, madam.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she cried, ‘we knew his eccentric tastes, poor dear old man!’ and stepped doorwards.

One more effort: ‘This madam,’ indicating Hero, ‘is a specimen quite unique.’

‘Really,’ said she; and observed to her husband as she left the house, ‘These useless buildings must be cleared away. This will be the exact spot for a ruin: I adore a ruin!’

A ruin?—Hero’s spirit died in the slighted plant. Was it to such taste as this she must condescend? such admiration as this she must court? Merely to receive it would be humiliation. A passionate longing for the old lost life, the old beloved love, seized her; she grew tremulous, numbed: ‘Ah,’ she thought, ‘this is death!’

A hum, a buzz, voices singing and speaking, the splash of fountains, airy laughter, rustling wings, the noise of a thousand leaves and flower-cups in commotion. Sparks dancing in the twilight, dancing feet, joy and triumph; unseen hands loosing succous, interlacing stalks from their roots beneath the water; towing a lily-raft across the lake, down a tortuous inland creek, through Fairy-harbour, out into the open sea.

On the lily-raft lay Hero, crowned with lilies, at rest. A swift tide was running from Fairycoast to Man-side: every wave heaving her to its silver crest bore her homewards; every wind whistling from the shore urged her homewards. Seals and unicorns dived on either hand, unnoticed. All the tumbling porpoises in the ocean could not have caught her eye.

At length, the moon-track crossed, she entered the navigable sea. There all was cold, tedious, dark; not a vessel in sight, not a living sound audible. She floated farther: something black loomed through the obscurity; could it be a boat? yes, it was certainly a distant boat; then she perceived a net lowered into the water; then saw two fishermen kindle a fire, and prepare themselves to wait, it might be for hours. Their forms thrown out against the glare struck Hero as familiar: that old man, stooping more than his former wont; that other strong and active figure, not so broad as in days of yore;—Hero’s heart beat painfully: did they remember yet? did they love yet? was it yet time?

Nearer and nearer she floated, nearer and nearer. The men were wakeful, restless; they stirred the embers into a blaze, and sat waiting. Then softly and sadly arose the sound of a boat-song:—

PETER GRUMP. If underneath the water You comb your golden hair With a golden comb, my daughter, Oh, would that I were there. If underneath the wave You fill a slimy grave, Would that I, who could not save, Might share.

FORSS. If my love Hero queens it In summer Fairyland, What would I be But the ring on her hand? Her cheek when she leans it Would lean on me:— Or sweet, bitter-sweet, The flower that she wore When we parted, to meet On the hither shore Anymore? nevermore.

Some caught Forss’s eye; he tried the nets, and finding them heavily burdened began to haul them in, saying, ‘It is a shoal of white fish; no, a drift of white seaweed;’—but suddenly he cried out: ‘Help, old father! it is a corpse, as white as snow!’

Peter ran to the nets, and with the younger man’s aid rapidly drew them in. Hero lay quite still, while very gently they lifted the body over the boat-side, whispering one to another: ‘It is a woman—she is dead!’ They laid her down where the fire-light shone full upon her face—her familiar face.

Not a corpse, O Peter Grump: not a corpse, O true Forss, staggering as from a death-blow. The eyes opened, the face dimpled into a happy smile; with tears, and clinging arms, and clinging kisses, Hero begged forgiveness of her father and her lover.

I will not tell you the questions asked and answered, the return home, the wonder and joy which spread like wildfire through the colony. Nor how in the moonlight Forss wooed and won his fair love; nor even how at the wedding danced a band of strangers, gay and agile, recognised by none save the bride. I will merely tell you how in after years, sitting by her husband’s fireside, or watching on the shingle for his return, Hero would speak to her children of her own early days. And when their eyes kindled while she told of the marvellous splendour of Fairyland, she would assure them, with the convincing smile, that only home is happy: and when, with flushed cheeks and quickened breath, they followed the story of her brief pre-eminence, she would add, that though admiration seems sweet at first, only love is sweet first, and last, and always.

VANNA’S TWINS.

There I stood on the platform at H—, girt by my three boxes, one carpet-bag, strapful of shawls and bundle of umbrellas; there I stood, with a courteous station-master and two civil porter assuring me that not one lodging was vacant throughout H—. At another time such an announcement might not have greatly signified, for London, whence I came, was less than three hours off; but on this particular occasion it did matter because I was weakened by recent illness, the journey down had shaken me, I was hungry and thirsty for my tea, and, through fear of catching cold, I had wrapped up overmuch; so that when those polite officials states that they could not point out a lodging for me I felt more inclined to cry than I hope anybody suspected. One of the porters, noticing how pale and weak I looked, good-naturedly volunteered to go to the three best hotels, and see whether in one of them, I could be housed for the moment; and though the expensiveness of such a plan secretly dismayed me, I saw nothing better than to accept his offer. Meanwhile, I retreated into the waiting-room wishing him success; but wondering, should he not succeed, what would become of me for the night.

Happily for me, my troubles were not aggravated by imaginary difficulties. I was turned forty-five, and looked not a day younger; an age at which there is nothing alarming in finding oneself in a strange place, or compelled to take a night journey by rail. So I sat on the waiting-room sofa, shut my eyes to ease, if possible, a racking headache, and made up my mind that, at the worst, I could always take the mail-train back to London.

After all, I had not long to wait. Within ten minutes of leaving me my porter returned with the news that, if I did not mind a very unfashionable, but quite respectable, quarter of H—, he had just heard of a first floor vacated half-an-hour before my arrival, and ready, if I pleased, to receive me. I merely asked, was it clean? and being assured that there was not a tidier young woman in all H—than ‘Fanny,’ that her husband was a decent optician and stone-cutter, and that for cleanliness any of their floors might be eaten off, I felt only too thankful to step into a fly, and accompany my boxes to an abiding place. Before starting, I happened to ask the name of my landlord, and was answered, somewhat vaguely, by my porter, ‘We call them Cole.’

The report of a coming lodger had travelled before me, and I found Mr. Cole and his Fanny awaiting me at their shop-door. But what a Mr. Cole and what a Fanny. He was a tall, stout foreigner, about thirty years of age, ready with tucked-up shirt-sleeves and athletic arms to bear my boxes aloft; she was the comeliest of young matrons, her whole face one smile, her ears adorned by weighty gold pendents, and with an obvious twin baby borne in each arm. Husband and wife alike addressed me as ‘Meess,’ and displayed teeth of an enviable regularity and whiteness as they smiled or spoke. Thus much I saw at a first glance.

Too tired for curiosity, I toiled up the narrow staircase after my boxes, washed my dusty face and hot hands, and stepped into my little sitting room, intending to lie down on the soda, and wait as patiently as might be whilst tea, which I had already ordered, was got ready. A pleasant surprise met me. I suppose the good-natured porter may have forewarned Mr. Cole of my weakness and wants; be this as it may, there stood the tea ready brewed, and flanked by pats of butter, small rolls, a rasher, and three eggs wrapped up in a clean napkin. After this, my crowning pleasure for the day was to step into a bed soft as down could make it, and drop to sleep between sheets fragrant of lavender.

A few days’ convalescence at H—did more for me than as many weeks’ convalescence in London had effected. Soon I strolled about the beach without numbering the breakwaters, or along the country roads, taking no count of the milestones; and went home to meals as hungry as a school-girl, and slept at nights like a baby. One of my earliest street-discoveries was that my landlord’s name, as inscribed over his window, was not Cole, but Cola (Nicola) Piccirillo; and a very brief sojourn under his roof instructed me that the Fanny of my friend the porter was called Vanna (Giovanna) by her husband. They were both Neapolitans of the ex-kingdom, though not of the city, Naples; whenever I asked either of them after the name of their native place, they invariably answered me in a tone of endearment, by what sounded more like ‘Vascitammò’ than aught else I know how to spell; but when my English tongue uttered ‘Vascitammò’ after them, they would shake their heads and repeat the uncatchable word; at last it grew to be a standing joke between us that when I became a millionaire my courier Cola and my maid Vanna should take the twins and me to see Vascitammò.

I never thought of changing my lodgings, though, as time went on, it would have been easy to do so, and certainly the quarter we inhabited was not fashionable. A laborious, not an idle, community environed our doors and furnished customers to the shop: it was some time before I discovered that l’amico Piccirillo held a store for polished stones and marine curiosities in the bazaar of H—. He liked to be styled an optician; but whilst he sold and repaired spectacles, driving a prosperous trade amongst the fishing population who surrounded us, and supplying them with cheap telescopes, compasses, and an occasional magic-lantern, he was not too proud to eke out his gains by picking up and preparing marine oddities, pebbles, or weeds. After we became intimate I more than once rose at three or four in the morning, as the turn of the ride dictated, and accompanied him on a ramble of exploration. He scrambled about slippery, jagged rocks as sure-footed as a wild goat; and if ever my climbing powers failed at some critical pass, thought nothing of lifting me over the difficulty, with that courteous familiarity which, in an Italian, does not cease to be respectful. I was rather lucky in spying eligible stones, which I contributed to his basket; and then, when we got home, he would point out to his wife what ‘la Signora’ had found ‘per noi due e per li piccini.’ I understood a little Italian and they a little English, so we generally, in spite of the Neapolitan blurring accent, made out each other’s meaning.

Vanna was one of the prettiest women I ever saw, if indeed I ought to term merely pretty a face which, with good features, contained eyes softer and more lustrous than any others I remember; their colour I never made out, but when she lowered the large eyelids, their long black lashes seemed to throw half her face into shadow. I don’t know that she was clever except as a housewife, but in this capacity she excelled, and was a dainty cook over her shining pots and pans: her husband’s ‘due maccheroni’ often set me hankering, as I spied them done to a turn and smoking hot; though I confess that when Cola brought home a cuttle-fish and I saw it dished up as a ‘calamarello’ my English prejudice asserted itself.

‘Mr. and Mrs. Cole’ were unique in my small experience of people, but surely the twins must have remained unique in anybody’s experience. What other babies were ever so fat or so merry? To see their creased arms was enough till one saw their creased legs, and then their arms grew commonplace. I never once heard them cry: a clothes-basket formed their primitive bassinette, and there they would sprawl, tickling each other and chuckling. They chuckled at their father, mother, myself, or any stranger who would toss them, or poke a finger into their cushions of fat. They crowed over their own teething, and before they could speak seemed to bandy intuitive jokes, and chuckled in concert. Well were they name Felice Maria and Maria Gioconda. At first sight, they were utterly indistinguishable apart; but experiment proved that Felice was a trifle heavier than his sister, and that fingers could go a hair’s-breadth farther round her fat waist than round his. When I made their acquaintance their heads were thickly plaistered with that scurf which apparently an Italian custom leaves undisturbed; but as this wore off, curly black down took its place, and balanced the large, dark eyes and silky eyebrows and lashes, which both inherited from their mother. What we, in our insularity, term the English love of soap and water was shared by Vanna, and it was one of my amusements to see the twins in their tub. Often, if hastily summoned to serve behind the counter, Vanna would leave them in the tub to splash about, and throw each other down and pick each other up, for a quarter of an hour, together; and if I hinted that this might not be perfectly safe for them, she invariably assured me that in her ‘paese’ all the babies toddled about the shore, and into the sea and out again so soon as ever they could toddle. ‘E che male vi potrebb essere? non vi son coccodrilli:’ an argument no less apposite to the tub than to the sea.

As I possessed a small competence and no near home-ties, I felt under no constraint to leave H—sooner than suited my humour; so, though I had originally intended to remain there no longer than seven or eight weeks, month after month slipped away till a whole year had elapsed, and found me there still. In a year one becomes thoroughly acquainted with daily associates, and from being prepossessed by their engaging aspect, I had come to love and respect Piccirillo and his wife. Both were good Catholics, and evinced their orthodoxy as well by regularity at mass and confession as by strict uprightness towards customers and kindliness towards neighbours. Once when a fishing-boat was lost at sea, and its owner, Ned Gough, lift well-nigh penniless, Cola, who was ingenious in preparing marine oddities, arranged a group of young skate in their quaint hoods and mantles, and mounted them on a green board amongst seaweed bushes as a party of gipsies; this would have been raffled for, and the proceeds given to the ruined boatman, had I not taken a fancy to the group, and purchased it. And the first time the twins walked out alone was when they crossed over the road hand in hand, each holding an orange as a present to a little sick girl opposite. Both parents watched them safe over, and I heard one remark to the other, that ‘Nossignore’ would bless them.

It was mid-May when I arrived at H—, and about mid-May of the year following I returned to London. A legal question had meanwhile arisen touching my small property; and this took so long to settle, that during many and many months I remained in doubt whether I should continue adequately provided for, or be reduced to work in some department or other for my living. The point was ultimately decided in my favour, but not before much vexation and expense had been incurred on both sides. At the end of three years from quitting H—I made up my mind to return and settle there for good: no special ties bound me to London, and I knew of no people under whose roof I would so gladly make my solitary home as with Piccirillo and his wife; besides, the twins were an attraction. As to the optician’s shop being in an out-of-the-way quarter, that I cared nothing for, having neither the tastes nor the income for fashionable society: so, after a preliminary letter or two had passed between us, I found myself one glowing afternoon in June standing once again on the H—platform, not in the forlorn position I so vividly remembered, but met by Cola, broader than ever in figure, and smiling his broadest, who whipped up my trunks with his own hands on to the fly, and took his place by the driver.

Vanna came running out to meet me at the carriage door, seizing and kissing both my hands; and before I even alighted two sturdy urchins had been made to kiss ‘la Signora’s hand. Ten minutes more and I was seated at tea, chatting to Vanna, and renewing acquaintance with my old friends Felice and Gioconda. This was effected by the presentation to them of a lump of sugar apiece, for which each again kissed my hand, fortunately before their mouths had become sticky by suction.

They were the funniest little creatures imaginable, and two of the prettiest. Felice was still just ahead of Gioconda in bulk, but so much like her that (as I found afterwards) if for fun they exchanged hats I got into a complete mental muddle as to which was which, confused by the discrepant hats and frocks. There was no paid Roman Catholic school in H—, but the good nuns of St. L—taught the little boys and girl of their congregation; and morning after morning I used to see the twins start for school hand in hand, with dinner as well as books in their bags; for St. L—was too far from their home to admit of going and returning twice in one day. All the neighbours were fond of them; and often before their destination was reached a hunch of cake from some good-natured rough hand had found its way into one or other bag, to be shared in due course.

At their books they were ‘proprio maravigliosi,’ as Vanna phrased it; whilst Cola, swelling with paternal pride under a veil of humility, would observe, ‘Non c’è male, nè lui nè lei.’ I believe they really were clever children and fond of their books: at any rate, one Holy Innocents’ Day they brought home a prize, a little story in two volumes, one volume apiece; for, as the kind nuns had remarked, they were like one work in two volumes themselves, and should have one book between them. That night they went to bed and feel asleep hand in hand as usual, but each holding in the other hand a scarlet-bound volume, so proud were they. They were but seven years old, and had never yet slept apart: never yet, and, as it turned out, never at all.

The Christmas when this happened was one of the brightest and pleasantest I recollect; night after night slight frost visited us, but day after day it melted away, whilst sea and sky spread clear and blue in the sunshine. In other countries much snow had fallen and was still falling, but snow had not yet reached our shores.

Christmas, as usual, brought a few bills to me, and likewise to my friends. Of theirs the heaviest was the doctor’s bill, for the twins had caught scarlatina in the summer, and had got well on a variety of pills and draughts. Then Cola bethought himself of certain money due to him at a coast-guard station not many miles from H—, and which would just suffice to pay the doctor; and one Saturday, a day or two after Twelfth Day, he took the first afternoon train to E—, this being the nearest point on the line to his destination, and went to look after his debtor, telling Vanna that he might not be back before the latest train came into H—.

So Vanna took her seat behind the counter, and looked up the road towards St. L—, watching for her little ones to come racing home from school, for school broke up early on Saturdays. At she sat, she knitted something warm and useful, for she was never idle, and hummed in her low, sweet voice the first words of a Christmas carol. I only know those first words, so pathetic in their devout simplicity:—

‘Tu scendi dalle stelle, O Re del Cielo, E vieni in una grotta al freddo al gelo: O Bambino mio divino Io Ti voglio sempre amar! O Dio beato E quanto Ti costò l’avermi amato.’

She was thus occupied as I crossed the shop on my way upstairs, and whilst I paused to say a word in passing, a young woman, her face swollen with crying, came up, who, almost without stopping, called out: ‘O Fanny, Fanny, my three are down with the fever, and I’m running for the doctor!’ and in speaking she was gone.

Sympathetic tears had gathered in Vanna’s kind eyes when I looked at her. ‘Non hanno padre,’ she said, half apologetically; and I then recollected who the young woman was, and that her children were worse than fatherless. Poor Maggie Crowe! deserted by a good-for-nothing husband she worked hard to keep her little ones out of the workhouse; did charing, took in needlework, went out nursing when she could get a job, and now her three children were ‘down with the fever,’ and she had had to leave them alone in her wretched hovel on the east cliff to run a mile and more into H—to fetch the parish doctor. We soon saw her tearing back as she had come, not stopping now to speak.

I went to my room, and looking into my charity-purse found that I could afford five shillings out of it for this poor family, and settled mentally that I would take them round next day after church. At the moment I was feeling tired and disinclined to stir, and I concluded the parish doctor, who bore a character for kindness, would certainly for that night supply his patients with necessaries.

Just after the clock struck three I heard a bustle below; the twins had come home and were talking eagerly to their mother in their loud, childish voices. I heard Vanna answer them once or twice; then she spoke continuously, seeming to tell them something, and I heard both reply, ‘Mamma sì.’ A few minutes later I was surprised to see them from my window trotting along the street, but not in the direction from which they had just come, and bearing between them a market-basket, each of them holding it by one handle.

A suspicion of their errand crossed my mind, and I hurried downstairs to warn Vanna that a few snowflakes had already fallen and more hung floating about in the still air. She had noticed this of herself, but replied that they knew their way quite well, and it was not far to go; indeed, she could not feel easy without sending up a few oranges left from Twelfth Day for the sick children. Her own had had the fever, they had promised her to go straight and return straight without loitering, and though she looked somewhat anxious, she concluded bravely: ‘Nossignore avrà cura di loro.’

I went back to my room thoroughly mortified at the rebuke which her alacrity administered to my laziness. How much less would it not have cost me to set off at once with my five shillings than it cost poor Vanna to send her little ones, tired as perhaps they were, to what, for such short legs, was a considerable distance. From my window, moreover, I soon could not help perceiving that not only the snow, rare at first, had begun to fall rapidly and in large flakes, but that the sky lowered dense and ominous over the east cliff. I felt sure that there, and thither it was that the twins were bound, it must already be snowing heavily.

Four o’clock struck, but Felice and Gioconda had not come back. I heard Vanna closing the shop. In another five minutes she came up to me dressed in bonnet and shawl, with a pale face that told its own story of alarm. Still she would not acknowledge herself frightened, but tried to laugh, as she apologized for leaving me alone in the house, assured me that no one could possibly calling at that hour, and protested that she would not be out long. If the twins arrived in her absence she was sure I would kindly let them sit by my fire till her return; then, fairly breaking down and crying, she left me, repeating, ‘Non son che piccini, poveri piccini, poveri piccini miei.’

A couple of men with lighted lanterns stood waiting for her in the street; one of them made her take his arm, and I knew by the voice that it was Ned Gough. Hour after hour struck, and they did not return.

About seven o’clock I heard a loud knocking; and running down to open the door, for being left alone in the house I had locked up and made all safe, I found Piccirillo, who on account of the snow had hastened home by an earlier train than he had mentioned, and was now much amazed at finding the house closed and no light burning below. When he understood what had happened he seemed beside himself with agitation and terror. Flinging up his arms he rushed from the house, calling out, ‘Vanna, Vanna mia! dove sei? rispondimi: figli miei, rispondetemi.’ Neighbours came about him, offering what comfort they could think of: but what comfort could there be? He, too, must set off in the snow to seek his poor lost babies and their mother; and soon he started, lantern and stick in hand, ejaculating, and making vows as he went. ‘Dio mio Dio mio, abbi pietà di noi.’

All through the long night it snowed and snowed: at daybreak it was snowing still. Soon after daybreak the seekers returned, cold, silent, haggard; Piccirillo carrying his wife, who lay insensible in his arms. After hours of wandering they had met somewhere out towards the east cliff, and Vanna, at the sight of her husband, had dropped down utterly spent. She had gone straight to Maggie Crowe’s cottage, and found that the twins had safely left the oranges there and started homewards; Felice tired but manful, poor little Gioconda trudging wearily along, and clinging to her brother. Maggie had tried to keep them at the cottage as it was already snowing heavily, and the little girl had cried and wanted to stay to warm herself; but her brother said ‘No;’ they had promised not to loiter, his sister would be good and not cry, he would take care of her; so whilst Maggie was busy with her own sick children, the twins had started. Beyond this, not one of the searching party could trace them; the small footmarks must have been effaced almost as soon as imprinted on the snow; and any one of the surface inequalities of that snow-waste, which now stretched right and left for miles, might be the mound to cover two such feeble wayfarers.

For three days the frost held and our suspense lasted; then the wind veered from north round to west, a rapid thaw set in, and a few hours ended hope and fear alike. The twins were found huddled together in a chalky hollow close to the edge of the cliff, and almost within sight of Maggie’s hovel: Gioconda with her head thrust into the market-basket, Felice with one arm holding the basket over his sister, and with the other clasping her close to him. Her fat hands met round his waist, and clasped between them was a small silver cross I had given her at Christmas, and which she had worn around her neck.

Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their death they were not divided; but as they had always shared one bed, they now shared one coffin and one grave.

After a while Piccirillo and his wife recovered from their passionate grief; but Vanna drooped more and more as spring came on, and clothed the small grave with greenness. They had no other child, and the house was silent indeed and desolate. Once I heard them talking to each other of ‘Vascitammò:’ Vanna said something I did not catch, and then Cola answered her, ‘Sì, Vanna mia, ritorneremo; tolga Iddio che io perda te ancora.’

So I knew that we should soon have to part. They came upstairs together to me one evening, and with real kindliness explained that all their plans were altered on account of Vanna’s failing health, and that they must go home to their own country lest she should die. Vanna cried and I cried, and poor Cola fairly cried too. I promised them that the little grave shall never fall into neglect whilst I live, and in thanking me they manage to say through their tears,—‘Nossignore è buono, e certo li avrà benedetti.’

The business was easily disposed of, for though small, it was a thriving concern, and capable of extension. Other affairs did not take long to settle; and one morning I saw my kind friends off by an early train, on their road through London to ‘Vascitammò,’ which now neither the twins nor I shall ever see.

A SAFE INVESTMENT.

It was a pitchy dark night. Not the oldest inhabitant remembered so black a night, so moonless, so utterly starless; and whispering one to another, men said with a shiver that longer still, not for a hundred years back—at, or for a thousand years—ay, or even since the world was—had such gross darkness covered the land. Yet those who counted the time protested that morning must now be at hand, ready to break, even while East and West were massed in one common indistinguishable blot of blackness; and those who discerned the signs of the times, those who waited for the morning, looked often towards one house which could not be hid, for it was set upon a hill, nor overturned, for it was founded upon a rock, and from which a light streamed pure and steady, shaming the flickering gas-lamps of the town, the dim glare of shops and private dwellings, and the flaring, smoking torches of such wayfarers as thought, by compassing themselves about with sparks, to find safety in their transit to and fro.

On this cheerless night a solitary traveller entered the town by the eastern gate. He rode a white horse: about both the beast and his rider there was something foreign, or if not foreign, at any rate unusual. The man was keen and military of aspect, and had the air of one bound on some mission of importance. The horse seemed to know his road without guidance, to turn hither or thither by instinct, not to loiter, yet not to make haste. They passed through the eastern gate, which was opened wide before them: without let or hindrance they entered in, and the horse’s hoofs struck once on the paved road.

In an instant, at the western outskirts of the city a flare of red light shot up. Out came houses into view from the night darkness; to right and left they flashed out for a moment: for a moment you could spy through the windows people sitting at table, reading, working, dancing, as the case might be: you could not a bird’s cage hanging here or there, a cat or two creeping along the gutter, a few foot-passengers arrested by the unexpected glare looking round them in all direction for its source, a single carriage threading its way cautiously along the dangerous street: for a moment—then a cry went up, then there came the crash and crush of a tremendous explosion, and then darkness settled once more over its own dominion; whilst through the darkness those who could not see each other’s faces heard each other’s groans, cries for help, shrieks of terror or of agonizing pain. All the gas-maps of the city had gone out as though at a single whiff, for it was an explosion of the great central gasworks which had taken place. And the darkness deepened.

To the south of the city lay the sea. Day and night its surges were never still nor silent; day and night ships heaven on its bosom, passing in or out of harbour, laden with passengers, with gold, silks, provisions, merchandise of all sorts. On this night, if any one had had owl’s eyes to peer with, he might have discerned that the deep boiled like a pot of ointment; he would have seen in a score, yea, in a hundred vessels, the sailors at their wits’ end reeling to and fro, and staggering like drunken men; whilst the strong masts snapped like straws, and the tough, hollow ship-sides stove in as though they had been of paper—till captains, crews, and passengers, were fain to cast overboard freights and treasures, rarities from the ends of the earth, corn, and wine, and oil—to cast these overboard, and at length, abandoning the ship, to flee for their lives in boats, on planks, on pieces of the vessel, too happy if with bare life they escaped to land, beggared but alive. Meanwhile those on the quays could guess, though they could not see, the ruin, as wretch after poor wretch struggled to shore; but for one who came, a score at least were seen no more for ever.

In a central quarter of the town stood the old-established county bank, concerning which the townspeople had long boasted that not the national bank itself was safer. In panic years it had remained unaffected by the surrounding pressure; it had stood firm, and stand it would whilst the town was a town: so said its directors, its shareholders, the public voice in unison. But on this certain night of all nights in the year, when ship after ship went down with entire costly cargoes, and scores and hundreds of hands on board; when the gasworks exploded, to the obvious utter ruin of the shareholders; when a report spread that the treasurer of the chief railway company had absconded with all the funds in his hands, a report confirmed as night wore, and soon established as a fact; on this night of all nights, the dismayed citizens turned in thought to their bank. Every man beheld an enemy in his neighbour, an enemy who would forestall others and save himself at all costs; and in the panic of accumulated losses man after man bent his steps towards the bank. The doors were besieged; with loud cries the men—and the women too, for many of these had flocked thither impelled by the instinct of self-preservation—men and women beset the doors, demanding instant admittance, and clamouring for their money deposits to be restored to them then and there. The pressure waxed irresistible; the doors yielded; a terrified clerk or two strove vainly with plausible words to appease the foremost applicants; then desperately discharged claim after claim in notes, sovereigns, silver, till the last sixpence—down to the last penny—was disbursed. When it became known that the old-established secure bank had stopped payment before it had met a tithe of its liabilities, it was as much as the clerks could do to escape with whole skins from the infuriated, disappointed populace.

But more trouble were to come. At the railway station a telegram had been received early in the evening intimating that a branch bank in an adjacent town had been constrained by sudden pressure to stop payment, though, as it was hoped, only momentarily. This disastrous news had been studiously confined to one or two parties, who hoped to profit by being in advance of their neighbours; but soon a second telegram of like import came in from another quarter; then a third; and it became impossible any longer to suppress the facts. A terrible commotion ensued on ’Change; there was scarcely a house in all the town where ruin, or at the least reverse, had not entered.

But what, after all, were these partial local failures? Before the night was over another telegram arrived, and it transpired that the main national bank itself had broken.

Then a cry went up through the length and breadth of the land.

When our wayfarer reached the Exchange it was crowded by persons of all ranks and ages, brought together by the bond of a common disaster. He dismounted, tethered his white horse to the railings outside, and entering joined the concourse within, apparently with no further object than to observe and listen, passing from group to group, pausing sometimes a longer, sometimes a shorter period, here or there as the case might demand. Most of the persons present—of those at least who were not simply paralysed and struck dumb by their misfortunes—stood disputing in loud, excited tones, as to the causes and details of the present public calamities;—whose carelessness it was which had occasioned the gas explosion; how many vessels and lives, and what value of cargo, had perished in the storm, some rating the probable loss at millions and some at tens of millions; what hope there might still be of a dividend from the local bank; whether any of the reported failures had been without fraud; what head the country could make against the vast smash of the national bank. But here and there some one man or woman seemed, in the hubbub of rage and dismay, to be wrapped in private, personal grief, alien from the general cares.

One such, a half-frantic elderly woman, huddled in a corner, was tearing her hair and crying out in broken, half-articulate speech. The strange traveller approached her, and in a voice of great sympathy inquired into the source of her passionate sorrow. Then, weeping and gnashing her teeth, she shrieked her answer: ‘My son, my son, he has been cashiered to-day from his regiment! His commission was all we had in the world, and he was all I loved in the world.’ An old sullen man, accosted by the traveller, replied shortly that his strong-box had been broken open and rifled by thieves, and that as he was removing a small remnant of money left to him from his own house to a place of security, the few precious coins had slipped through a hole in the bag and been lost. Another man, being questioned, seemed to find some relief in complaint, and answered readily that he had embarked enormous capital in constructing a reservoir for water, on a scale amply sufficient for the supply of the whole town, but that, at the very moment when he hoped to realise cent per cent upon his original outlay, a flaw had been discovered in the main aqueduct, and it was then perceived, too late, that all the cisterns were broken and could hold no water. Every tale was diverse, yet, in fact, every one was the same. Each speaker had sunk all that he had in some plausible investment, the investment had burst like a bubble, and now one and all in desperate sorrow could but bewail their ruin as without remedy. They had no eyes, no thought, no sympathy, save each man for himself; none stretched a helping hand to his neighbour, or spoke a word of comfort, or cared who sank or who swam in this desolation which had come like a flood.

From such as these it was vain to demand hospitality. The traveller went out from amongst them, remounted his horse, and pursued his way along the darkened, deserted streets, between rows of tall houses, in which the voice of mirth and music seemed silenced for ever. Now at one door, now at another, he knocked to ask for refreshment, but always without success. Sometimes no answer was vouchsafed to his summons; sometimes he was turned away with churlish indifference, or even with abuse for having ventured to disturb the household in its night of distress.

At last he observed one cottage, which, detached from other residences, stood alone it its trim garden-plot. In this only, amongst all the dwellings he had passed, there shone a light. He dismounted once more, tethered his horse to the wicket-gate, followed the gravel-path, and knocked gently at the house-door. A calm, cheerful-looking woman opened to him, and seeing a stranger at that late hour, conceived at once that he was a wayfarer n quest of repose and refreshment, and bade him enter and be welcome. Then, while he sat down by the fire, she hastened to set before him milk and bread, meat, win, and butter. This done, she ran out and led the horse under an open shed (she had no stable), and there provided it with clean straw and fodder.

Now when the traveller had eaten and drunk and sat awhile, he began to question her concerning her prosperity and cheerfulness in that night of ruin; and she, as the others had done, answered him all that he would know.

‘My money,’ said she, ‘is not invested as so many in this town have invested theirs. When I was yet young, One told me that riches do certainly make to themselves wings and fly away; and that gold perisheth, though it be purified seven times in the fire. Nevertheless He added that, if I chose, there could with my gold and silver be made ready for me an everlasting habitation, to receive me when the present fashion shall have passed away; and that I might lay up for myself treasure where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. So, when I was willing, He further informed me by what mean I should send my deposits to that secure house whereof the Owner will be no man’s debtor. One the first day of the week I was to go up to the branch-house upon the hill—you see it, sir, out to the East yonder; there, where a light shines to lighten every one that goeth into the house; and according as I had been prospered, I was to drop somewhat into the money-chest kept there. All such sums would be placed to my account, and would bear interest. But besides this, I was apprised that the Owner of the house employs many collectors, who may call at any moment, often at the most unlikely moments, for deposits. From these I was to take heed never to turn away my face, but I was to give to them freely, being well assured that they would carry all entrusted to them safely to my account. Thus, sometimes a fatherless child calls on me, sometimes a distressed widow; sometimes a sick case comes before me; sometimes a stranger, sir, as you have done this very night, demands my hospitality. And as I know whom I have trusted, and am persuaded that He will keep that which I commit to Him, I gladly spend and am spent, being a succourer of many, and looking for the recompense of the reward.’

So when the strange traveller had rested awhile, his horse also having been refreshed, he rose before daybreak, mounted, and rode away. Whence he came and whither he went I know not, but he rode as one that carries back tidings to Him that sent him. Also this I know, that some, being mindful to entertain strangers, have entertained angels unawares.

PROS AND CONS.

‘But, my dear doctor,’ cried Mrs. Plume, ‘you never can seriously mean it.’

The scene was the Rectory drawing-room—tea-time; some dozen parishioners drinking tea with their Rector and his wife. Mrs. Goodman looked down; her husband, the Rector, looked up.

‘I really did mean it,’ said he, courteously; ‘and, with your permission, I mean it still. Let us consider the matter calmly, my dear Mrs. Plume, calmly and fairly; and to start us fairly I will restate my proposal, which is that we should all combine to do our best towards bringing about the abolition of pews from our parish church.’

‘Then I,’ returned Mrs. Plume, shaking her head airily, ‘must really restate my protest. You never seriously can mean it.’

‘Nay,’ resumed the Rector, ‘don’t think that I am unmindful of your feelings on this point;’ and he glanced round the circle. ‘If I spoke hastily I ask your pardon and patience; but this matter of pews and pew-rents is on my conscience, and that I must lighten at all costs; even, Mr. Sale,’—for Mr. Sale frowned—‘at the cost of my income. However, why should we conclude ourselves to be at variance before we have ventilated the matter in hand? I for one will never take for granted that any good Christian is against the acknowledgment of our absolute equality before God.’

‘Sir,’ interposed Mr. Blackman, ‘we are equals, whatever may be our colour or our country. But whilst the Zenana counts its victims by thousands, whilst the Japanese make boast of their happy despatch, whilst the Bushman, dwindling before our face, lives and dies as the beasts that perish, shall we divert our attention from such matters of life and death to fix it on a petty question of appearance? Pardon me if tears for our benighted brethren blind me to such a matter as this.’

‘Our benighted brethren,’ said the Rector, gravely, ‘have my pity, have my prayers, have my money in some measure. Of your larger gifts in these several kinds I will not ask you to divert one throb, or one word, or one penny in favour of our poor fellow-parishioners. No, dear friend, help us by your good example to enlarge our field of charitable labour; to stretch full handed towards remote spots; but not meanwhile to fail in breaking up our own fallow ground at home. We all know that if at this moment either our foreign or our native ragged brother were to present himself in church, however open our hearts may be to him, our pew-doors would infallibly be shut against him, and he would find himself looked down upon both literally and figuratively. This, I own to you, were I he, would discomfit me, and put a stumbling-block in my way as a worshipper.’

‘Pooh! pooh!’ broke in Mr. Wood, testily: ‘My dear fellow, I really thought you a wiser man. What hardship is it for a flunky or a clodhopper to sit in a seat without a door?’