Chapter XV: Introduction (13)

He had barely disposed of the three or four waiting messengers that arose from their chairs against the corridor wall, and was still reading the anxious lines left in various handwritings on his slate, when the young man entered. He was of fair height, slenderly built, with soft auburn hair, a little untrimmed, neat dress, and a diffident, yet expectant and courageous, face.

“Dr. Sevier?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Doctor, my wife is very ill; can I get you to come at once and see her?”

“Who is her physician?”

“I have not called any; but we must have one now.”

“I don’t know about going at once. This is my hour for being in the office. How far is it, and what’s the trouble?”

“We are only three squares away, just here in Custom-house Street.” The speaker began to add a faltering enumeration of some very grave symptoms. The Doctor noticed that he was slightly deaf; he uttered his words as though he did not hear them.

“Yes,” interrupted Dr. Sevier, speaking half to himself as he turned around to a standing case of cruel-looking silver-plated things on shelves; “that’s a small part of the penalty women pay for the doubtful honor of being our mothers. I’ll go. What is your number? But you had better drive back with me if you can.” He drew back from the glass case, shut the door, and took his hat.

“Narcisse!”

On the side of the office nearest the corridor a door let into a hall-room that afforded merely good space for the furniture needed by a single accountant. The Doctor had other interests besides those of his profession, and, taking them altogether, found it necessary, or at least convenient, to employ continuously the services of a person to keep his accounts and collect his bills. Through the open door the bookkeeper could be seen sitting on a high stool at a still higher desk――a young man of handsome profile and well-knit form. At the call of his name he unwound his legs from the rounds of the stool and leaped into the Doctor’s presence with a superlatively highbred bow.

“I shall be back in fifteen minutes,” said the Doctor. “Come, Mr. ――――,” and went out with the stranger.

Narcisse had intended to speak. He stood a moment, then lifted the last half inch of a cigarette to his lips, took a long, meditative inhalation, turned half round on his heel, dashed the remnant with fierce emphasis into a spittoon, ejected two long streams of smoke from his nostrils, and, extending his fist toward the door by which the Doctor had gone out, said:――

“All right, ole hoss!” No, not that way. It is hard to give his pronunciation by letter. In the word “right” he substituted an a for the r, sounding it almost in the same instant with the i, yet distinct from it: “All a-ight, ole hoss!”

Then he walked slowly back to his desk, with that feeling of relief which some men find in the renewal of a promissory note, twined his legs again among those of the stool, and, adding not a word, resumed his pen.

FAMOUS WOMEN NOVELISTS.

Illustration: NOTED WOMEN NOVELISTS.

OCTAVE THANET • AMELIA E. BARR • ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS (WARD)
JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN • HARRIET BEECHER STOWE • CHAS. EGBERT CRADDOCK
MARION HARLAND • FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT • HELEN HUNT JACKSON

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

AUTHOR OF “UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.”

FEW names are more indelibly written upon our country’s history than that of Harriet Beecher Stowe. “No book,” says George William Curtis, “was ever more a historical event than ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ ... It was the great happiness of Mrs. Stowe not only to have written many delightful books, but to have written one book which will always be famous not only as the most vivid picture of an extinct evil system, but as one of the most powerful influences in overthrowing it.... If all whom she has charmed and quickened should unite to sing her praises, the birds of summer would be outdone.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe was the sixth child of Reverend Lyman Beecher,――the great head of that great family which has left so deep an impress upon the heart and mind of the American people. She was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in June, 1811,――just two years before her next younger brother, Henry Ward Beecher. Her father was pastor of the Congregational Church in Litchfield, and her girlhood was passed there and at Hartford, where she attended the excellent seminary kept by her elder sister, Catharine E. Beecher. In 1832 her father accepted a call to the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary, at Cincinnati, and moved thither with his family. Catharine Beecher went also, and established there a new school, under the name of the Western Female Institute, in which Harriet assisted.

In 1833 Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery brought to her personal notice by taking a trip across the river from Cincinnati into Kentucky in company with Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in the Western Institute. They visited the estate that afterward figured as that of Mr. Shelby, in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and here the young authoress first came into personal contact with the slaves of the South.

Among the professors in Lane Seminary was Calvin E. Stowe, whose wife, a dear friend of Miss Beecher, died soon after Dr. Beecher’s removal to Cincinnati. In 1836 Professor Stowe and Harriet Beecher were married. They were admirably suited to each other. Professor Stowe was a typical man of letters,――a learned, amiable, unpractical philosopher, whose philosophy was like that described by Shakespeare as “an excellent horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.” Her practical ability and cheerful, inspiring courage were the unfailing support of her husband.

The years from 1845 to 1850 were a time of severe trial to Mrs. Stowe. She and her husband both suffered from ill health, and the family was separated. Professor Stowe was struggling with poverty, and endeavoring at the same time to lift the Theological Seminary out of financial difficulties. In 1849, while Professor Stowe was ill at a water-cure establishment in Vermont, their youngest child died of cholera, which was then raging in Cincinnati. In 1850 it was decided to remove to Brunswick, Maine, the seat of Bowdoin College, where Professor Stowe was offered a position.

Illustration: UNCLE TOM AND HIS BABY.

“’Ain’t she a peart young ’un?’”

The year 1850 is memorable in the history of the conflict with slavery. It was the year of Clay’s compromise measures, as they were called, which sought to satisfy the North by the admission of California as a free State, and to propitiate the South by the notorious “Fugitive Slave Law.” The slave power was at its height, and seemed to hold all things under its feet; yet in truth it had entered upon the last stage of its existence, and the forces were fast gathering for its final overthrow. Professor Cairnes and others said truly, “The Fugitive Slave Law has been to the slave power a questionable gain. Among its first fruits was ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’”

The story was begun as a serial in the _National Era_, June 5, 1851, and was announced to run for about three months, but it was not completed in that paper until April 1, 1852. It had been contemplated as a mere magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters, but once begun it could no more be controlled than the waters of the swollen Mississippi, bursting through a crevasse in its levees. The intense interest excited by the story, the demands made upon the author for more facts, the unmeasured words of encouragement to keep on in her good work that poured in from all sides, and, above all, the ever-growing conviction that she had been intrusted with a great and holy mission, compelled her to keep on until the humble tale had assumed the proportions of a large volume. Mrs. Stowe repeatedly said, “I could not control the story, it wrote itself;” and, “I the author of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’? No, indeed. The Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instruments in his hand. To him alone should be given all the praise.”

For the story as a serial the author received $300. In the meantime, however, it had attracted the attention of Mr. John P. Jewett, a Boston publisher, who promptly made overtures for its publication in book form. He offered Mr. and Mrs. Stowe a half share in the profits, provided they would share with him the expense of publication. This was refused by the Professor, who said he was altogether too poor to assume any such risk; and the agreement finally made was that the author should receive a ten per cent. royalty upon all sales.

In the meantime the fears of the author as to whether or not her book would be read were quickly dispelled. Three thousand copies were sold the very first day, a second edition was issued the following week, a third a few days later; and within a year one hundred and twenty editions, or over three hundred thousand copies, of the book had been issued and sold in this country. Almost in a day the poor professor’s wife had become the most talked-of woman in the world; her influence for good was spreading to its remotest corners, and henceforth she was to be a public character, whose every movement would be watched with interest, and whose every word would be quoted. The long, weary struggle with poverty was to be hers no longer; for, in seeking to aid the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that within four months from the time her book was published it had yielded her $10,000 in royalties.

In 1852 Professor Stowe received a call to the professorship of Sacred Literature in Andover Theological Seminary, and the family soon removed to their Massachusetts home. They were now relieved from financial pressure; but Mrs. Stowe’s health was still delicate; and in 1853 she went with her husband and brother to England, where she received, much to her surprise, a universal welcome. She made many friends among the most distinguished people in Great Britain, and on the continent as well. On her return she wrote the “Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and began “Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp.” In fact, her literary career was just beginning. With “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” her powers seemed only to be fairly awakened. One work after another came in quick succession. For nearly thirty years after the publication of “Uncle Tom,” her pen was never idle. In 1854 she published “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands,” and then, in rapid succession, “The Minister’s Wooing,” “The Pearl of Orr’s Island,” “Agnes of Sorrento,” “House and Home Papers,” “Little Foxes,” and “Oldtown Folks.” These, however, are but a small part of her works. Besides more than thirty books, she has written magazine articles, short stories, and sketches almost without number. She has entertained, instructed, and inspired a generation born long after the last slave was made free, and to whom the great question which once convulsed our country is only a name. But her first great work has never been surpassed, and it will never be forgotten.

Illustration: A SCENE IN UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.

_Little Eva._――“‘Oh, Uncle Tom! what
funny things you _are_ making there.’”

After the war which accomplished the abolition of slavery, Mrs. Stowe lived in Hartford, Connecticut, in summer, and spent the winters in Florida, where she bought a luxurious home. Her pen was hardly ever idle; and the popularity of her works seemed to steadily increase. She passed away on the 1st of July, 1896, amid the surroundings of her quiet, pretty home at Hartford, Connecticut. The whole reading world was moved at the news of her death, and many a chord vibrated at the remembrance of her powerful, and we may even say successful, advocacy of the cause of the slave. The good which “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” achieved can never be estimated, and the noble efforts of its author have been interwoven in the work of the world.

* * * * *

THE LITTLE EVANGELIST.

FROM “UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.”

IT was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a bamboo lounge in the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar. Marie lay reclined on a sofa, opposite the window opening on the verandah, closely secluded under an awning of transparent gauze from the outrages of the mosquitoes, and languidly holding in her hand an elegantly-bound prayer-book. She was holding it because it was Sunday, and she imagined she had been reading it――though, in fact, she had been only taking a succession of short naps with it open in her hand.

Miss Ophelia, who, after some rumaging, had hunted up a small Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, with Tom as driver, to attend it, and Eva accompanied them.

“I say, Augustine,” said Marie, after dozing awhile, “I must send to the city after my old doctor, Posey; I’m sure I’ve got the complaint of the heart.”

“Well; why need you send for him? This doctor that attends Eva seems skillful.”

“I would not trust him in a critical case,” said Marie; “and I think I may say mine is becoming so! I’ve been thinking of it these two or three nights past; I have such distressing pains and such strange feelings.”

“Oh, Marie, you are blue! I don’t believe it’s heart-complaint.”

“I daresay _you_ don’t,” said Marie; “I was prepared to expect _that_. You can be alarmed enough if Eva coughs, or has the least thing the matter with her; but you never think of me.”

“If it’s particularly agreeable to you to have heart-disease, why, I’ll try and maintain you have it,” said St. Clare; “I didn’t know it was.”

“Well, I only hope you won’t be sorry for this when it’s too late!” said Marie. “But, believe it or not, my distress about Eva, and the exertions I have made with that dear child, have developed what I have long suspected.”

What the _exertions_ were which Marie referred to it would have been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted wretch of a man as he was, till a carriage drove up before the verandah, and Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted.

Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before she spoke a word on any subject; while Eva came at St. Clare’s call, and was sitting on his knee, giving him an account of the services they had heard.

They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia’s room (which, like the one in which they were sitting, opened to the verandah), and violent reproof addressed to somebody.

“What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing?” asked St. Clare. “That commotion is of her raising, I’ll be bound!”

And in a moment after, Miss Ophelia, in high indignation, came dragging the culprit along.

“Come out here, now!” she said. “I _will_ tell your master!”

“What’s the case now?” asked Augustine.

“The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child any longer! It’s past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure it! Here, I locked her up, and gave her a hymn to study and what does she do but spy out where I put my key, and has gone to my bureau and got a bonnet-trimming and cut it all to pieces to make dolls’ jackets! I never saw anything like it in my life.”

Illustration: MISS OPHELIA AND TOPSY.

“I cannot be plagued with this child any longer!”

“I told you, cousin,” said Marie, “that you’d find out that these creatures can’t be brought up without severity. If I had _my_ way, now,” she said, looking reproachfully at St. Clare, “I’d send that child out and have her thoroughly whipped; I’d have her whipped till she couldn’t stand!”

“I don’t doubt it,” said St. Clare. “Tell me of the lovely rule of woman! I never saw above a dozen women that wouldn’t half kill a horse, or a servant either, if they had their own way with them――let alone a man.”

“There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St. Clare!” said Marie. “Cousin is a woman of sense, and she sees it now as plain as I do.”

Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that belongs to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been pretty actively roused by the artifice and wastefulness of the child; in fact, many of my lady readers must own that they would have felt just so in her circumstances; but Marie’s words went beyond her, and she felt less heat.

“I wouldn’t have the child treated so for the world,” she said; “but I am sure, Augustine, I don’t know what to do. I’ve taught and taught, I’ve talked till I’m tired, I’ve whipped her, I’ve punished her in every way I can think of; and still she’s just what she was at first.”

“Come here, Tops, you monkey!” said St. Clare, calling the child up to him.

Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery.

“What makes you behave so?” said St. Clare who could not help being amused with the child’s expression.

“’Spects it’s my wicked heart,” said Topsy, demurely; “Miss Feely says so.”

“Don’t you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you? She says, she has done everything she can think of.”

“Lor, yes, mas’r! old missis used to say so, too. She whipped me a heap harder, and used to pull my ha’r, and knock my head agin the door; but it didn’t do me no good! I ’spects if they’s to pull every spear o’ ha’r out o’ my head it wouldn’t do no good neither――I’s so wicked! Laws! I’s nothin’ but a nigger, no ways!”

“Well, I shall have to give her up,” said Miss Ophelia; “I can’t have that trouble any longer.”

“Well, I’d just like to ask one question,” said St. Clare.

“What is it?”

“Why, if your Gospel is not strong enough to save one heathen child, that you can have at home here, all to yourself, what’s the use of sending one or two poor missionaries off with it among thousands of just such? I suppose this child is about a fair sample of what thousands of your heathen are.”

Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer; and Eva, who had stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a silent sign to Topsy to follow her. There was a little glass-room at the corner of the verandah, which St. Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy disappeared into this place.

“What’s Eva going about now?” said St. Clare; “I mean to see.”

And, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat the two children on the floor, with their side faces towards them――Topsy with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes.

“What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won’t you try and be good? Don’t you love _anybody_, Topsy?”

“Dun no nothin’ ’bout love; I loves candy and sich, that’s all,” said Topsy.

“But you love your father and mother?”

“Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva.”

“Oh, I know,” said Eva, sadly; “but hadn’t you any brother, or sister, or aunt, or――――”

“No, none on ’em――never had nothing nor nobody.”

“But, Topsy, if you’d only try to be good, you might――――”

“Couldn’t never be nothin’ but a nigger, if I was ever so good,” said Topsy. “If I could be skinned, and come white, I’d try then.”

“But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would love you if you were good.”

Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of expressing incredulity.

“Don’t you think so?” said Eva.

“No; she can’t b’ar me, ’cause I’m a nigger!――she’d’s soon have a toad touch her. There can’t nobody love niggers, and niggers can’t do nothin’. I don’t care,” said Topsy, beginning to whistle.

“Oh, Topsy, poor child, _I_ love you!” said Eva, with a sudden burst of feeling, and laying her little thin, white hand on Topsy’s shoulder. “I love you because you haven’t had any father, or mother, or friends――because you’ve been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I sha’n’t live a great while; and it really grieves me to have you be so naughty. I wish you would try to be good for my sake; it’s only a little while I shall be with you.”

The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears; large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul! She laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed; while the beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

“Poor Topsy!” said Eva, “don’t you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as I do, only more, because He is better. He will help you to be good, and you can go to heaven at last, and be an angel for ever, just as much as if you were white. Only think of it, Topsy, _you_ can be one of those ’spirits bright’ Uncle Tom sings about.”

“Oh, dear Miss Eva! dear Miss Eva!” said the child, “I will try! I will try! I never did care nothin’ about it before.”

St. Clare at this moment dropped the curtain. “It puts me in mind of mother,” he said to Miss Ophelia. “It is true what she told me: if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did――call them to us and _put our hands on them_.”

“I’ve always had a prejudice against negroes,” said Miss Ophelia; “and it’s a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me; but I didn’t think she knew it.”

“Trust any child to find that out,” said St. Clare: “there’s no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude while that feeling of repugnance remains in the heart; it’s a queer kind of fact, but so it is.”

“I don’t know how I can help it,” said Miss Ophelia; “they _are_ disagreeable to me――this child in particular. How can I help feeling so?”

“Eva does, it seems.”

“Well, she’s so loving! After all, though, she’s no more than Christ-like,” said Miss Ophelia: “I wish I were like her. She might teach me a lesson.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a little child had been used to instruct an old disciple, if it _were_ so,” said St. Clare.

* * * * *

THE OTHER WORLD.

IT lies around us like a cloud,
The world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.

Its gentle breezes fan our cheek,
Amid our worldly cares;
Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.

Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred;
And palpitates the veil between,
With breathings almost heard.

The silence, awful, sweet, and calm,
They have no power to break;
For mortal words are not for them
To utter or partake.

So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide,
So near to press they seem,
They lull us gently to our rest,
They melt into our dream.

And, in the hush of rest they bring,
’Tis easy now to see,
How lovely and how sweet to pass
The hour of death may be;――

To close the eye and close the ear,
Wrapped in a trance of bliss,
And, gently drawn in loving arms,
To swoon from that to this:――

Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,
Scarce asking where we are,
To feel all evil sink away,
All sorrow and all care!

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE.

(MARION HARLAND.)

_Popular Novelist and Domestic Economist._

MARION HARLAND combines a wide variety of talent. She is probably the first writer to excel in the line of fiction and also to be a leader in the direction of domestic economy. She is one of the most welcomed contributors to the periodicals, and her books on practical housekeeping, common sense in the household, and several practical cookery books have smoothed the way for many a young housekeeper and probably promoted the cause of peace in numerous households.

Mary Virginia Hawes was the daughter of a native of Massachusetts who was engaged in business in Richmond, Virginia. She was born in 1831, and received a good education. She began in early childhood to display her literary powers. She wrote for the magazines in her sixteenth year and her first contribution, “Marrying Through Prudential Motives,” was so widely read that it was published in nearly every journal in England, was translated and published throughout France, found its way back to England through a retranslation, and finally appeared in a new form in the United States.

In 1856 she became the wife of Rev. Edward P. Terhune, afterwards pastor of the Puritan Congregational Church in Brooklyn, where in recent years they have lived. Mrs. Terhune has always been active in charitable and church work, and has done an amount of writing equal to that of the most prolific authors. She has been editor or conducted departments of two or three different magazines and established and successfully edited the “Home Maker.” Some of her most noted stories are “The Hidden Path;” “True as Steel;” “Husbands and Homes;” “Phemie’s Temptation;” “Ruby’s Husband;” “Handicap;” “Judith;” “A Gallant Fight;” and “His Great Self.” Besides these books and a number of others, she has written almost countless essays on household and other topics. Her book, “Eve’s Daughters,” is a standard work of counsel to girls and young women. She takes an active part in the literary and philanthropic organizations of New York City, and has been prominent in the Woman’s Councils held under the auspices of a Chautauquan association. She was the first to call attention to the dilapidated condition of the grave of Mary Washington and started a movement to put the monument in proper condition. For the benefit of this movement, she wrote and published “The Story of ♦Mary Washington.”

♦ Title truncated in text.

* * * * *

A MANLY HERO.¹

(FROM “A GALLANT FIGHT.”)

¹ Copyright, Dodd, Mead & Co.

AFTER donning velvet jacket and slippers he sat down, and, lighting his cigar, leaned back to watch the fire and dream of Salome and their real home.

Not until the weed was half consumed did he observe an envelope on the table at his elbow. It was sealed and addressed to him in a “back-hand” he did not recognize:

“_In the Library. Nine O’clock, P. M._

“MY OWN LOVE――You say in your letter (burned as soon as I had committed the contents to memory) that I must never call you that again. There is a higher law than that of man’s appointment, binding our hearts together, stronger even than that of your sweet, wise lips. Until you are actually married to the man whom you confess you do not love, you will, according to that divine law, be my own Marion――”

With a violent start, the young man shook the sheet from his fingers as he would a serpent.

This was what he had promised not to read, or so much as to touch! The veins stood out high and dark on his forehead; he drew in the air hissingly. Had a basilisk uncoiled from his bosom and thrust a forked tongue in his face the shock would not have been greater. This was “the letter written to Marion!” He had thrown away six of the best years of his life upon the woman whom another man called his “own love;” the man to whom she had confessed that she did not love her betrothed husband! Who was he?

“If they are genuine, respect for the dead and mercy to the living require that they should be suppressed and destroyed,” Mrs. Phelps had said of “papers written _a little while_ before Marion’s death.” His word was pledged. But what name would he see if he reversed the sheet before destroying it? With a bound of the heart that would have assured him, had proof been needed, what his bonnie living girl-love was to him, he put away all tender memories of the dead, false betrothed. He had worshipped and mourned the thinnest of shadows. He might owe respect――abstractly――to the dead, but no reverence to a wild dream from which he had been awakened. Who was the “living” to whom he was entreated to show mercy? Where was the man who had first robbed him, then let him play the sad-visaged dupe and fool, while the heyday of youth slipped forever beyond his reach?

To learn that――to remember the name with execration――to despise with the full force of a wronged and honest soul――perhaps to brand him as a cur and blackguard, should he ever cross his path――would not break his word. Was it not his right――the poor rag of compensation he might claim for the incalculable, the damnable evil the traitor had wrought? He would confess to Salome’s mother to-morrow――but this one thing he would do.

He stooped for the letter.

“Peace! let him rest! God knoweth best!
And the flowing tide comes in!
And the flowing tide comes in!”

It was only his beloved stepmother on her nightly round of nursery and Gerald’s chamber, singing to her guileless self in passing her stepson’s door to prove her serenity of spirit; but Rex staggered back into his seat, put his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands.

He smelled the balsam-boughs slanting to the water, the trailing arbutus Salome wore in her belt; heard the waves lapping the prow and sides of the bounding boat. God’s glorious heaven was over them, and the sun was rising, after a long, long night, in his heart. The fresh, tender young voice told the tale of love and loss and patient submission....

Aye, and could not he, affluent in heaven’s best blessings, loving and beloved by the noble, true daughter of the Christian heroine who expected her “son” to stand fast by his plighted word――the almost husband of a pure, high-souled woman――afford to spare the miserable wretch whose own mind and memory must be a continual hell?

He pitied, he almost forgave him, as he took up the sheets from the floor, the scrap of paper from the table, and, averting his eyes lest the signature might leap out at him from the twisting flame, laid them under the forestick and did not look that way again until nothing was left of them but cinder and ashes.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

MARY ABIGAIL DODGE.

THE FAMOUS ESSAYIST, CRITIC, AND NOVELIST, “GAIL HAMILTON.”

AMONG the female writers of America, perhaps there is no one who has covered a more diversified field and done her work more thoroughly, in the several capacities of essayist, philosopher, political writer, child-writer and novelist, than has Miss Mary Abigail Dodge, widely known by her pen-name, “Gail Hamilton.” Miss Dodge commanded a terse, vigorous and direct style; and with a courage manifested by few contemporaneous authors, she cut right through shams and deceits with an easy and convincing blow that left no room for doubt.

Mary Abigail Dodge was born in Hamilton, Massachusetts, in the year 1830. Her pen-name is composed of the last syllable of the word “Abigail” and her native city, “Hamilton.” Her education was thorough, and in 1857 she was made instructor of physical science in the High School of Hartford, Connecticut. Some years after she became a governess in the family of Doctor Bailey the editor of the “National Era,” in Washington, D. C., and begun her career as a writer by contributing to his journal. For two years, from 1865 to 1867, she was one of the editors of “Our Young Folks,” and from that time to the close of her life she was a constant contributor to prominent magazines and newspapers――the name “Gail Hamilton” attached to an essay was always a guarantee that it was full of wit and aggressiveness.

The published volumes of this author in order of their publication are as follows: “Country Living and Country Thinking” (1862); “Gala-Days” (1863); “Stumbling Blocks” and “A New Atmosphere” (1864); “Skirmishes and Sketches” (1865); “Summer Rest” and “Red-letter Days in Applethorpe” (1866); “Wool Gathering,” (1867); “Woman’s Wrongs, a Counter-Irritant” (1868); “Battle of the Books” (1870); “Woman’s Worth and Worthlessness” (1871). For a period of three years Miss Dodge devoted herself to the little folks, producing in 1872 “Little Folk Life,” and the next year two other volumes, entitled “Child World.” In the same year, 1873, came her humorous book, entitled “Twelve Miles from a Lemon,” and in 1874 “Nursery Noonings,” another book for and about children. In 1875 appeared two volumes very unlike, but both of which attracted considerable attention. The first was entitled “Sermons to the Clergy,” in which she gave some wholesome advice and pointed out many of the shortcomings of ministers. The other book was entitled “First Love Is Best.” In 1876 Miss Dodge’s mind seemed to take on a more religious, moral and still more practical turn as evinced by the title of the following books: “What Think Ye of Christ?” (1876); “Our Common School System” (1880); “Divine Guidance” (1881); “The Insuppressible Book” (1885); and “The Washington Bible Class” (1891).

Miss Dodge was a cousin to the distinguished statesman, James G. Blaine, of whom she was very fond. Much of her time during the last few years of his life was spent with his family at Washington, and when Mr. Blaine died in January, 1893, she undertook, in the interest of the family, to write his life, which work she finished and the book was published in 1894. It is the only authoritative life of the statesman endorsed by the family. This was Miss Hamilton’s last book. It was a congenial theme to which she devoted perhaps the most painstaking and best work of her life. The last years of the busy author were marked by failing health. She died at Washington in 1896.

* * * * *

FISHING.

(FROM “GALA DAYS.”)

SOME people have conscientious scruples about fishing. I respect them. I had them myself. Wantonly to destroy, for mere sport, the innocent life in lake or river, seemed to me a cruelty and a shame. But people must fish. Now, then, how shall your theory and practice be harmonized? Practice can’t yield. Plainly, theory must. A year ago I went out on a rock in the Atlantic Ocean, held a line――just to see how it seemed――and caught eight fishes; and every time a fish came up, a scruple went down. * * * * Which facts will partially account for the eagerness with which I, one morning, seconded a proposal to go a-fishing in a river about fourteen miles away.

* * * * *

They go to the woods, I hang my prospective trout on my retrospective ♣rod and march riverward. Halicarnassus, according to the old saw, “leaves this world and climbs a tree,” and, with ♦jackknife, cord and perseverance, manufactures a fishing-rod, which he courteously offers to me, which I succinctly decline, informing him in no ambiguous phrase that I consider nothing beneath the best as good enough for me. Halicarnassus is convinced by my logic, overpowered by my rhetoric, and meekly yields up the best rod, though the natural man rebels. The bank of the river is rocky, steep, shrubby, and difficult of ascent or descent. Halicarnassus bids me tarry on the bridge, while he descends to reconnoitre. I am acquiescent, and lean over the railing awaiting the result of investigation. Halicarnassus picks his way over rocks, sideways and zigzaggy along the bank, and down the river in search of fish. I grow tired of playing leasa-bianca and steal behind the bridge, and pick my way over the rocks sidewise and zigzaggy along the bank and up the river, in search of “fun;” practice irregular and indescribable gymnastics with variable success for half an hour or so. Shout from the bridge. I look up. Too far off to hear the words, but see Halicarnassus gesticulating furiously, and evidently laboring under great excitement. Retrograde as rapidly as circumstances will permit. Halicarnassus makes a speaking trumpet of his hands and roars, “I’ve found――a fish! Left――him for――you――to catch! come quick!”――and plunging headlong down the bank disappears. I am touched to the heart by this sublime instance of self-denial and devotion, and scramble up to the bridge, and plunge down after him. Heel of boot gets entangled in hem of dress every third step――fishing-line in tree-top every second; progress therefore not so rapid as could be desired. Reach the water at last. Step cautiously from rock to rock to the middle of the stream――balance on a pebble just large enough to plant both feet on, and just firm enough to make it worth while to run the risk――drop my line into the spot designated――a quiet, black little pool in the rushing river――see no fish, but have faith in ♠Halicarnassus.

♣ ‘cod’ replaced with ‘rod’

♦ ‘jacknife’ replaced with ‘jackknife’

♠ ‘Harlicarnassus’ replaced with ‘Halicarnassus’

“Bite?” asks Halicarnassus eagerly.

“Not yet,” I answer sweetly. Breathless expectation. Lips compressed. Eyes fixed. Five minutes gone.

“Bite?” calls Halicarnassus from down the river.

“Not yet,” hopefully.

“Lower your line a little. I’ll come in a minute.” Line is lowered. Arms begin to ache. Rod suddenly bobs down. Snatch it up. Only an old stick. Splash it off contemptuously.

“Bite?” calls Halicarnassus from afar.

“No,” faintly responds Marius, amid the ruins of Carthage.

“Perhaps he will by and by,” suggests Halicarnassus encouragingly. Five minutes more. Arms breaking. Knees trembling. Pebble shaky. Brain dizzy. Everything seems to be sailing down stream. Tempted to give it up, but look at the empty basket, think of the expectant party, and the eight cod-fish, and possess my soul in patience.

“Bite?” comes the distant voice of Halicarnassus, disappearing by a bend in the river.

“No!” I moan, trying to stand on one foot to rest the other, and ending by standing on neither; for the pebble quivers, convulses, and finally rolls over and expires; and only a vigorous leap and a sudden conversion of the fishing-rod into a balancing-pole save me from an ignominious bath. Weary of the world, and lost to shame, I gather all my remaining strength, wind the line about the rod, poise it on high, hurl it out in the deepest and most unobstructed part of the stream, * * * lie down upon the rock, pull my hat over my face, and dream, to the furling of the river, the singing of the birds, and the music of the wind in the trees, of another river, far, far, away.

* * * * *

“Hullo! how many?”

I start up wildly, and knock my hat off into the water. Jump after it, at the imminent risk of going in myself, catch it by one of the strings, and stare at Halicarnassus.

“Asleep, I fancy?” says Halicarnassus, interrogatively.

* * * * *

We walk silently towards the woods. We meet a small boy with a tin pan and thirty-six fishes in it. We accost him.

“Are these fishes for sale?” asks Halicarnassus.

“Bet they be!” says small boy with energy.

Halicarnassus looks meaningly at me. I look meaningly at Halicarnassus, and both look meaningly at our empty basket. “Won’t you tell?” says Halicarnassus. “No; won’t you?” Halicarnassus whistles, the fishes are transferred from pan to basket, and we walk away “chirp as a cricket,” reach the sylvan party, and are speedily surrounded.

“O what beauties! Who caught them? How many are there?”

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

HELEN MARIA FISKE HUNT JACKSON.

“THE FRIEND OF THE RED MAN.”

ONE of the sights pointed out to a traveler in the West is Cheyenne Canyon, a wild and weird pass in the Rocky Mountains a short distance from Colorado Springs. Some years ago the writer, in company with a party of tourists, drove as far as a vehicle could pass up the mountain-road that wound along a little stream which came tumbling down the narrow ravine splitting the mountain in twain. Soon we were compelled to abandon the wagon, and on foot we climbed the rugged way, first on one side and then on the other of the rushing rivulet where the narrow path could find space enough to lay its crooked length along. Suddenly a little log-cabin in a clump of trees burst on our view. A boy with a Winchester rifle slung over his shoulder met us a few rods from the door and requested a fee of twenty-five cents each before permitting us to pass.

“What is it?” inquired one of the party pointing at the cabin. “This is the house Helen Hunt lived in and away above there is where she is buried,” answered the boy. We paid the fee, inspected the house, and then, over more rocky steeps, we climbed to the spot indicated near a falling cataract and stood beside a pile of stones thrown together by hundreds of tourists who had preceded us. It was the lonely grave of one of the great literary women of our age. We gathered some stones and added them to the pile and left her alone by the singing cataract, beneath the sighing branches of the firs and pines which stood like towering sentinels around her on Mount Jackson――for this peak was named in her honor. “What a monument!” said one, “more lasting than hammered bronze!” “But not moreso,” said another, “than the good she has done. Her influence will live while this mountain shall stand, unless another dark age should sweep literature out of existence.” “I wonder the Indians don’t convert this place into a shrine and come here to worship,” ventured a third person. “Her ‘Romona,’ written in their behalf, must have been produced under a divine inspiration. She was among all American writers their greatest benefactor.”

Helen Maria Fiske was born in Amherst, Mass., October 18, 1831. She was the daughter of Professor Nathan Fiske of Amherst College, and was educated at ♦Ipswich (Mass.) Female Seminary. In 1852 she married Captain Edward B. Hunt of the U. S. Navy, and lived with him at various posts until 1863, when he died. After this she removed to Newport, R. I., with her children, but one by one they died, until 1872 she was left alone and desolate. In her girlhood she had contributed some verses to a Boston paper which were printed. She wrote nothing more until two years after the death of her husband, when she sent a number of poems to New York papers which were signed H. H. and they attracted wide and favorable criticism. These poems were collected and published under the title of “Verses from H. H.” (1870). After the death of her children she decided to devote herself to literature, and from that time to the close of her life――twelve years later――her books came in rapid succession and she gained wide distinction as a writer of prose and verse. Both her poetry and prose works are characterized by deep thoughtfulness and a rare grace and beauty of diction.

♦ ‘Ipswick’ replaced with ‘Ipswich’

In 1873 Mrs. Hunt removed to Colorado for the benefit of her health, and in 1875 became the wife of Wm. S. Jackson, a merchant of Colorado Springs; and it was in this beautiful little city, nestling at the foot of Pike’s Peak, with the perpetual snow on its summit always in sight, that she made her home for the remainder of her life, though she spent considerable time in traveling in New Mexico, California and the Eastern States gathering material for her books.

Briefly catalogued, the works of Helen Hunt Jackson are: “Verses by H. H.” (1870); “Bits of Travel” (1873); “Bits of Talk About Home Matters” (1873); “Sonnets and Lyrics” (1876); “Mercy Philbrick’s Choice” (1876); “Hettie’s Strange History” (1877); “A Century of Dishonor” (1881); “Romona” (1884).

Besides the above, Mrs. Jackson wrote several juvenile books and two novels in the “No Name” series; and that powerful series of stories, published under the pen-name of “Saxe Holme,” has also been attributed to her, although there is no absolute proof that she wrote them. “A Century of Dishonor” made its author more famous than anything she produced up to that time, but critics now generally agree that “Romona,” her last book, is her most powerful work, both as a novel and in its beneficent influence. It was the result of a most profound and exhaustive study of the Indian problem, to which she devoted the last and best years of her life. It was her most conscientious and sympathetic work. It was through Helen Hunt Jackson’s influence that the government instituted important reforms in the treatment of the red men.

In June, 1884, Mrs. Jackson met with a painful accident, receiving a bad fracture of her leg. She was taken to California while convalescing and there contracted malaria, and at the same time developed cancer. The complication of her ailments resulted in death, which occurred August 12, 1885. Her remains were carried back to Colorado, and, in accordance with her expressed wish, buried on the peak looking down into the Cheyenne Canyon. The spot was dear to her. The cabin below had been built for her as a quiet retreat, where, when she so desired, she could retire with one or two friends, and write undisturbed, alone with the primeval forest and the voices which whispered through nature, and the pure, cool mountain-air.

* * * * *

CHRISTMAS NIGHT AT SAINT PETER’S.

LOW on the marble floor I lie:
I am alone:
Though friendly voices whisper nigh,
And foreign crowds are passing by,
I am alone.
Great hymns float through
The shadowed aisles. I hear a slow Refrain,
“Forgive them, for they know
Not what they do!”

With tender joy all others thrill;
I have but tears:
The false priest’s voices, high and shrill,
Reiterate the “Peace, good will;”
I have but tears.
I hear anew
The nails and scourge; then come the low
Sad words, “Forgive them, for they know
Not what they do!”

Close by my side the poor souls kneel;
I turn away;
Half-pitying looks at me they steal;
They think, because I do not feel,
I turn away;
Ah! if they knew,
How following them, where’er they go,
I hear, “Forgive them, for they know
Not what they do!”

Above the organ’s sweetest strains
I hear the groans
Of prisoners, who lie in chains,
So near and in such mortal pains,
I hear the groans.
But Christ walks through
The dungeon of St. Angelo,
And says, “Forgive them, for they know
Not what they do!”

And now the music sinks to sighs;
The lights grow dim:
The Pastorella’s melodies
In lingering echoes float and rise;
The lights grow dim;
More clear and true,
In this sweet silence, seem to flow
The words, “Forgive them, for they know
Not what they do!”

The dawn swings incense, silver gray;
The night is past;
Now comes, triumphant, God’s full day;
No priest, no church can bar its way:
The night is past:
How on this blue
Of God’s great banner, blaze and glow
The words, “Forgive them, for they know
Not what they do!”

* * * * *

CHOICE OF COLORS.

THE other day, as I was walking on one of the oldest and most picturesque streets of the old and picturesque town of Newport, R. I., I saw a little girl standing before the window of a milliner’s shop. It was a very rainy day. The pavement of the sidewalks on this street is so sunken and irregular that in wet weather, unless one walks with very great care, he steps continually into small wells of water. Up to her ankles in one of these wells stood the little girl, apparently as unconscious as if she were high and dry before a fire. It was a very cold day too. I was hurrying along, wrapped in furs, and not quite warm enough even so. The child was but thinly clothed. She wore an old plaid shawl and a ragged knit hood of scarlet worsted. One little red ear stood out unprotected by the hood, and drops of water trickled down over it from her hair. She seemed to be pointing with her finger at articles in the window, and talking to some one inside. I watched her for several moments, and then crossed the street to see what it all meant. I stole noiselessly up behind her, and she did not hear me. The window was full of artificial flowers, of the cheapest sort, but of very gay colors. Here and there a knot of ribbon or a bit of lace had been tastefully added, and the whole effect was really remarkably gay and pretty. Tap, tap, tap, went the small hand against the window-pane; and with every tap the unconscious little creature murmured, in a half-whispering, half-singing voice, “I choose _that_ color.” “I choose _that_ color.” “I choose _that_ color.”

I stood motionless. I could not see her face; but there was in her whole attitude and tone the heartiest content and delight. I moved a little to the right, hoping to see her face, without her seeing me; but the slight movement caught her ear, and in a second she had sprung aside and turned toward me. The spell was broken. She was no longer the queen of an air-castle, decking herself in all the rainbow hues which pleased her eye. She was a poor beggar child, out in the rain, and a little frightened at the approach of a stranger. She did not move away, however; but stood eyeing me irresolutely, with that pathetic mixture of interrogation and defiance in her face which is so often seen in the prematurely developed faces of poverty-stricken children. “Aren’t the colors pretty?” I said. She brightened instantly.

“Yes’m. I’d like a goon av thit blue.”

“But you will take cold standing in the wet,” said I. “Won’t you come under my umbrella?”

She looked down at her wet dress suddenly, as if it had not occurred to her before that it was raining. Then she drew first one little foot and then the other out of the muddy puddle in which she had been standing, and, moving a little closer to the window, said, “I’m not jist goin’ home, mem. I’d like to stop here a bit.”

So I left her. But, after I had gone a few blocks, the impulse seized me to return by a cross street, and see if she were still there. Tears sprang to my eyes as I first caught sight of the upright little figure, standing in the same spot, still pointing with the rhythmic finger to the blues and reds and yellows, and half chanting under her breath, as before, “I choose _that_ color.” “I choose _that_ color.” “I choose _that_ color.”

I went quietly on my way, without disturbing her again. But I said in my heart, “Little Messenger, Interpreter, Teacher! I will remember you all my life.”

Why should days ever be dark, life ever be colorless? There is always sun; there are always blue and scarlet and yellow and purple. We cannot reach them, perhaps, but we can see them, if it is only “through a glass,” and “darkly,”――still we can see them. We can “choose” our colors. It rains, perhaps; and we are standing in the cold. Never mind. If we look earnestly enough at the brightness which is on the other side of the glass, we shall forget the wet and not feel the cold. And now and then a passer-by, who has rolled himself up in furs to keep out the cold, but shivers nevertheless,――who has money in his purse to buy many colors, if he likes, but, nevertheless, goes grumbling because some colors are too dear for him,――such a passer-by, chancing to hear our voice, and see the atmosphere of our content, may learn a wondrous secret,――that pennilessness is not poverty, and ownership is not possession; that to be without is not always to lack, and to reach is not to attain; that sunlight is for all eyes that look up, and color for those who “choose.”

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.

FAMOUS AUTHOR OF “LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.”