Chapter IV: Part 4

EDITH, (_walking with her mother._) You knew all this, and you sent the child away from your home, to wander houseless, and be led into all kinds of evil. You love me, and take care of me, your own child, and yet you let so many children suffer and do wrong, and do nothing to save or help them. O mother!

MRS. L. I have been very thoughtless. I have never realized these things until now.

EDITH. But, mother, now that you do, you will not send this poor child away. Let her live in Jane's cottage; you know there are spare rooms there; and I can teach her to read and sew, and she will be so good! Will you not let her stay?

MRS. L. Yes, Edith, have it as you please.

EDITH. Lisa, you are going to live in a nice cottage of ours in the grove, and I shall teach you to read and write, and we will walk and play together, and be so happy.

LISA. And mother too?

MRS. L. No, I cannot have the gypsy woman about the place. What could she do here?

EDITH. But she will not be a gypsy woman if she lives here. She will become like one of us, and be very happy here with Lisa.

MRS. L. These gypsies never change; their vagabond ways are in the blood. You can do nothing with them. She will be for wandering off, east, west, and north, and be like a caged lioness when she is in the house.

EDWARD. They are not real gypsies, mother. I have heard the neighbors say they are poor people, who have assumed the gypsy mode of life to tell fortunes, and impose upon the country people.

EDITH. O, yes, mother, they do not seem like real gypsies. I know you can make of her what you will, if you will only let her come.

LISA. Do let her come--she is so good to me! I will not leave her. I will go wherever she goes.

MRS. L. Well, she may come too; we will try it, and see how it will answer.

EDITH. Dear mother, how can I thank you enough? She shall come this very night. Edward, cannot we get her out of jail?

EDWARD. It will be impossible, I think.

ELINOR. (_rushes in_.) Lisa! my child!

LISA. Mother, mother, have you come? (_Throws herself into Elinor's arms_.)

MRS. L. How did you come here, woman?

ELINOR. O, I ran away; they have not caught me this time. Come, Lisa, we must be off like lightning.

LISA. Mother, we are going to stay here, and live in a nice cottage, near Edith.

ELINOR. Who said so? They are laughing at you.

EDITH. Yes, it is true. Lisa is to be my little scholar.

EARNING ONE'S OWN LIVING.

“What a shame, girls!” exclaimed Anna; “Clara Morton's things have been sent for, and she is not coming to school any longer. Her father has failed, and they are to give up house and furniture, horses and carriage, and the girls are going out to earn their own living.”

“Not really?” said Fanny.

“Why, every one knows it.”

“You do not mean to say that Clara Morton is going to earn her own living,” said little Effie. “The last person in the world! Why, I do not believe she ever sewed a stitch in her life. She never even brought her own books to school, but had them carried for her by a boy.”

“But there are other ways of earning a living besides sewing. Clara plays beautifully, and could give music lessons as well as----; well--perhaps not as well as Mr. Cantari.”

“No, indeed! Can you not see one of his queer smiles at the idea of one of us girls giving lessons?”

“I know it. How flat one feels, after playing a piece so splendidly, to turn round and meet, for one's only applause, that incomprehensible smile! Poor Clara! I hope that smile will not meet her, wherever she goes in the world. I am sure it will haunt me, for I can never see it without a dim apprehension of the possible fate that awaits our lessons and accomplishments in that formidable ocean into which our school days are to empty.”

“Your geographical comparison is very natural for you; but as I do not pride myself upon my acquirements in that branch, I confess I do not see what it has to do with Mr. Cantari's smile.”

“You do not take music lessons, I believe, Miss Erudition; and perhaps the forebodings of examination day would be a comparison in which you would be more at home. I only hope poor Clara will not be reminded of it by the world into which she has fallen.”

“Now do tell us, Anna, what you mean by the world.”

“Why, the world is--the people that laugh at every thing we school girls do. Not exactly that, but the people who know how every thing should be done, and give one of Mr. Cantari's smiles at our way of doing it; they do not always know how, either. It is not that--it is--it is--you girls sitting there, calmly watching me extricating myself from my definition. Well now, into this world, whatever it is, Clara has dropped, just as if she had been riding in something, and the bottom had come out, leaving her standing on the actual ground; and the poor child must walk on her feet which any little barefooted beggar girl can do better than she.”

“That reminds me of a funny adventure which happened to me, when I was a little girl, in India,” said Effie.

“In India! O, do tell us about it.”

“You know I was born in India, where the people--that is, the people who are any body--never think of walking, but ride in palanquins carried on men's shoulders. These coolies, as they are called, are just like horses here, and one never thinks of their having any will of their own, or any thought, but of trotting patiently all day under the palanquin. As for me, I hardly knew there was such a thing as the ground, till one day the palanquin bearers, for some reason which I never understood,--a quarrel among themselves I believe,--suddenly set the palanquin down on the ground, and left me all alone in a strange part of the city, crying, and begging the passers by (who did not understand a word I said) to carry me home; but I never should have reached there if I had not been found by some one who knew our family.”

“What a wonderful adventure, to be sure!”

“Well, I thought I had something to tell when I began. I am sure I know now what you mean by Mr. Cantari's smile. But it was not so much my little adventure in itself, though that always seemed something till now; but after that I never could get the palanquin out of my head. It seemed to me that all the people in India lived in palanquins, except the poor people, and that they were nothing but bearers. No one did any work, not even the servants, for every servant seemed to have another under him, though, to be sure, there must have been some at last with their feet on the ground, trudging along to carry on the household. But this was always a puzzle to me, and I used to wonder if some time every thing would come down to the ground, like the palanquin; for the bearers were human beings after all, and I had found, for once, at least, that they had wills of their own. But this was, I suppose, something like the fear of the Indians, which some of you say you always had when little children. I do not think it could have troubled me much, however, for I remember I used to lie all day in a hammock, reading story books, with a half-waking and half-sleeping sense of the poor story writers being palanquin bearers, to carry us about so delightfully, without any thought or trouble on our part. But really, now, was it not natural to be reminded of all this by Clara's situation? Was it not, Miss Revere?”

“Yes, Effie,” answered Miss Revere. “And probably we could each of us remember a similar impression, if we would recall the circumstance in our lives which brought us into closest contact with the reality of life, which Clara is now finding, I fear, so different from her school-girl ideas of it For my own part, you have reminded me of my earliest years, when my palanquin, also, was set down with a shock I have never forgotten.”

“Why, were you ever in India, Miss Revere?” asked Fanny.

“No, dear, but Effie has already hinted that the country of palanquins is not so far from us as that.”

“Do tell us about it, Miss Revere. I have always longed to know your history, for I was sure you had one. You seem to be so apart from us girls, and to do every thing as if you had done it before, and as if you stood so far back, that things which make us happy or unhappy are only things to be looked at by you, just like Leonora, who is always quietly sketching us, when the greatest excitement is going on.”

“I will tell you, if you wish, all that is to be told of a life, which, with one exception, has been without events, that would appear such to any one but myself. It will only, therefore, be the result, and not the history of my life, which I can tell you, and that rather for the pleasure I shall have in exacting the same of you, than for any I shall take in recalling my own. I say there has been but one event in my life; it was that which left me an orphan. O girls, we speak of Clara's coming down to the ground; we speak of seeing our way clear, and treading on solid ground; these are expressions of those whose feet only would walk upon the ground, while their hearts and eyes are on a level with those about them, who have never known how hard to the forehead is the ground, when all we love lie beneath it; how one hides her face in terror from the vacant air, finding her only refuge in the earth, where lies all her grief. But I do not wish to bring my dark robe among your gay dresses.”

“O Miss Revere!”

“Tell me if you think it possible for one who is absolutely alone in the world to be happy, after having once been so with others?”

“I cannot imagine being alone, any more than I can imagine a sound, without being there to hear it,” answered Anna.

“Poor Mr. Polanco, in the Darien expedition! Was not that absolute solitude? After being left to die alone by his companions, who were forced by starvation to desert him, think of his bones being found long after, stretched on the grave of his friend, who had been buried a day's march behind!” said Miss Revere.

“I know. Was it not frightful?” said Anna. “Can you imagine a solitude so appalling, that a dying man would drag himself a whole day's march (poor men! it was but a few miles in their condition) to find in a grave some semblance of human society.”

“As if a drowning sailor, in an Arctic sea, should swim to an island of ice,” said Kate.

“Only think how many have gone down in the sea with nothing in sight but the waves; and people have fallen down precipices, and known they were going, and no one has ever known what they have felt. We only hear about those who are saved. I would give any thing to know the last thoughts of those who have never been heard of.”

“But, Anna, is it not the same to every one at the last moment?”

“Perhaps so; but it seems different.”

“Ah, Anna,” said Miss Revere, “that _seems_ is the old story of the palanquin again. Just as we _seemed_ safer the other night, when we all huddled together in one room, in the thunder storm.”

“What an awful night that was!”

“And yet here we all are, safe. I never could have believed, years ago, when I was lying alone in a heavier night than that, that I should ever be sitting here tranquilly telling of it.”

“O, yes, do tell us the rest.”

“If I should tell you all, it would only be answering my own question, 'whether one could be happy after being left alone in the world by all whom she loved.' Little thing as I was then, I learned that there is no comfort from others, no diversion from a great calamity. Every thing that one clings to for help is only the sailor's block of ice, which is itself water. May you never know how utterly alone one is in a great sorrow; but if you ever should, may you find yourselves, as I did at last, taking root in the very ground on which you fall, and drawing a new life from the reality of your desolation. Thus I had to earn my own living; and you can judge if Clara's lot can seem a hard one to me, who have known so well what poverty is.”

“Why, Miss Revere, how can you speak of poverty? I thought you had every thing you wished,” exclaimed Effie.

“Dear child, I believe it is only those who have been unhappy, or in some way thrown out of their natural life, who can understand comparisons. We must all earn our own living in some way, and always in the way in which our life is different from all others.”

“I wish, Anna, you had not told about the sailor swimming to that awful ice. I do not see the use of thinking of such things before they happen. I am sure I shall never dare to go to sea,” said Kate.

“How did you feel, Fanny, when you were out in the boat, in the middle of the ocean?” asked Linda.

“Why, was she ever at sea?”

“And in a real shipwreck, my dear.”

“What, Fanny here? Do, pray, tell us all about it.”

“I thought every one knew about it. And yet I remember when we landed,--for we were picked up by another ship,--and I thought every one in the city would be thinking of nothing else, how strange it seemed that no one thought much about it. We went up to a hotel, and every one was seeing to his own baggage, and every thing going on just as if nothing had happened. I suppose this is why I have never talked more about it.”

“But tell us; you know we shall be interested in it. I have always wanted to hear about a shipwreck from some one who had actually been in it.”

“And then it was not so much the actual wreck. I think I rather enjoyed it,--what I remember of it,--and I suppose I was too ill most of the time to take much notice. But the voyage I remember distinctly, or rather after a certain time, for I was so young that my first recollections were about that ship, so that it seems to me as if I had been born upon the ocean. I remember playing dolls in the cabin just as if I had been in a house; and although it rocked about terribly, the vessel was so large, with all kinds of other cabins and forecastles, and holds, which I heard them speak of, but had never seen, that I never thought of it as actually floating on a deep sea, and separate from every thing else; for we were really, you know, thousands of miles out on this immense ocean. But I always thought of it as something like the floating bridge at the salt water bath, fastened in some way, at one end, to the place we had left,--of which, however, I had no recollection,--and at the other end to the place to which we were going, about which I had almost as little idea.

“I must have been kept in the cabin, I think, by my nurse, for I remember so distinctly the first time I climbed up the steep stairs, and found myself alone by the side of the ship. Now I think of it, I must have been on deck before, for I have a confused sense of the glittering of the sun on the waves, which seemed very near, and the spray, and the wind in the ropes, and altogether like a city or a band of music; perhaps there was music on board, though I don't remember hearing it again. But now it was after sunset, and there were no little sparkling waves, but great, solemn swells rolling, as if their loneliness, out there in the middle of the ocean, was too awful to think of, out to the gray edge of the sky, so far and vast all around, with nothing to hold on to, and then swelling up so deep against the side of the ship, and lifting it up,--that great, heavy vessel,--as they passed under; and then I felt for the first time the motion of the whole ship, and the depth of the sea beneath it, and understood what some one meant who had said one day at table, that there 'was but a plank between us and eternity.' I had some sense of what he meant when he said it; but there were so many planks in the ship, so many decks, one below the other, that I never thought till now, that, last of all, there must be one plank along which the deep water was always washing, and if this should give way, we should go down 'with every soul on board!' These words I had heard said by a very solemn man, a passenger, who was also, I think, the one who spoke of the plank and eternity. After this they were always sounding in my ears, and at night, after lying awake, trying not to listen to the wash of the water against the side of the ship, and not to feel it heaving up on a great wave and then sinking down--down--till I felt certain something would give way, and we never should come up, I would fall asleep, and dream the ship had sunk, and 'every soul on board' was tossing alone on the waves, with 'only a plank between him and eternity.'

“I forgot to say that we had a captain whom I loved very much; he was so kind and polite to us all, and at the table particularly, was so attentive to me, that I thought the ship would be safe so long as he was in it. He was very young and handsome, and I thought he sat at the head of the dinner table like a real nobleman. And so I believe he was, as I heard one of the sailors say one day,--a gruff old fellow he was,--that nobody but a lord's son would ever have given such an order as that, whatever it was. I heard him say, too, one day, to a passenger who looked as if he had something to do with vessels, that if the captain had earned his own living, as he had, at the ropes, he would have known something or other from a marline-spike. He said, too, that ships never would be safe so long as captains who had never 'served up' were appointed over the heads of old salts, like himself.

“I felt dreadfully troubled to learn that the ship was not considered safe by an old sailor; but I could not make out what he meant by saying the captain had not 'served up,' the only use of those words which I had ever known being in reference to the dinner, about which the captain was always very particular with the steward. I at last asked one of the sailors, who laughed, and said it meant that the captain had not come up from the forecastle, but had come in at the cabin windows. After this I gave up asking questions of the crew, and puzzled myself alone over their queer sea terms; but I took all the more notice of their ways towards the captain, and soon found that he was not so great a man with them as with the passengers. What knowing looks they would give each other, when obeying his orders! There!--I knew when you were speaking of Mr. Cantari's smile, it reminded me of something like it that had happened years ago; it was that look, of those sun-browned, good-natured sailors. I seem to see the captain now, standing so handsome and gentlemanly on the deck, the color mounting into his face as he gave some order about taking in sails, or tightening ropes, or such things, and the crew going about this way and that, and looking sidewise at each other, with that good-natured, wicked smile; I do believe the captain was more afraid of that than he would have been of a pirate ship. There was one old man, in particular, who was more grave than any of them, and never moved his face, but had an odd way of smiling with his eyes at the men, and putting out his cheek with his tongue; and the captain's voice always seemed to be a little tremulous when he was giving an order while this man was standing by. I was very fond of him still; but it was a great shock to me to find the crew thought so little of one in whom I had placed such unbounded confidence. What was to become of us now in case of danger?--though of that I thought less than of that awful sea which lay day and night beneath us; and now, more than ever, there seemed to be but 'a plank' between me and it, now that the captain was no longer between the plank and me.

“Then I thought how safe and careless of danger the sailors seemed to be, and that it must be because they knew the ship so well, knew every timber in it, and where it was, and how strong it was; and I determined I would learn too, and asked the captain to tell me all about it; but I found his knowledge of it did not reach much below the cabin floor, and the passengers could tell me little. Then I said to myself, I will go to the forecastle and 'serve up,' for I had found out by this time what that meant; and this, Miss Revere, was really what you would call 'earning my living.' I learned from the crew, and particularly from the same old man who troubled the captain so much with his silent smile, and who would cut little ships, and parts of ships, and put them together for me, so much, that at last I could stand upon the upper deck and know every deck below, and the principal timbers of the frame down to the very keel. I suppose I could not have known all this very well, such a child as I was; but I had learned enough to feel safer and to feel the motion of the waves through the whole ship, up to the planks on which I stood; so that I felt no longer like a loose piece of ballast, rolling helpless about, but as if the ship were a great living thing, and I was its spirit and life. About that time I used to go to the bow of the ship, when great waves were buoying it up, and repeat, with my hair streaming behind my head,--

'And the waves bound beneath me, as a steed
That knows his rider!'--

some lines that I had heard from a passenger; till one day I turned round, and there was the old sailor putting out his cheek, and winking to one of the men; and I ran off as if I had seen a shark, and I believe I never went forward of the cabin after that.”

“But, Fanny, how could you remember so well what happened when you were such a mere child as you must have been then? What you say does not sound like a very little child,” said Effie.

“I dare say many of the things I am telling were at the time very indistinct and confused; but if I should tell them in the same way, they would not have form enough for you to see them. Then I cannot remember the voyage in course,--day after day,--but particular times I remember just as distinctly as if they had happened yesterday. If I should confuse a little what I felt then with what I have felt since, it would be perfectly natural; for I do feel sometimes as if I had never left that ship. I wonder if we never have but one thought all our lives? That ship was then the whole world to me, and now the whole world seems the ship. And that carries me back to one splendid night,--the only perfectly beautiful night in the voyage,--in fact it is the only night I remember; I suppose the nurse usually kept me below for fear of the night air. That night there was a great deal of noise and talking in the cabin, and I stole away to the deck. All was stillness and starlight, with a gentle sound in the sails like the cooing of a dove, and every thing as if it had been going on so for hours. A few long swells reached to the horizon, and I could see their waving lines against the sky, and the light came up from beyond them, so that the whole world seemed to be ocean, and the ship the only living thing, swaying on its bosom as lightly as Anna's cross, (what a beauty it is, Anna!) and the top of the masts sweeping over whole tracts of stars, and the stars blinking as if keeping time with the dipping of the vessel, till it all seemed a dance, ship and stars together, the stars seeming ships in an ocean of space, and the ship to hang in a liquid sky, and I,--there I was alone on the deck, my world under my feet; and who knew but that in each of the stars was a being whose steed bounded beneath him as intelligently as mine? Would not these sometimes speak each other, as the passing ships? Perhaps they do now, I thought, in a way as much finer as the ocean on which they all sail is larger than ours; and by listening attentively perhaps my ear will become fine enough to hear them. Now, what are you laughing at Kate?”

“Only to think how Humboldt would look, to hear you describing the world which you had conquered so scientifically.”

“Just as if I felt so now, and did not know that only a little child as I then was would ever have such magnificent ideas of itself. I don't believe even then I looked any wiser than you, when you came to school with your new Geology, walking as grand as if you were treading on the old red sandstone.”

“Now don't, Fanny! We all feel proud enough of our new studies; it seems like having attained the greater part of a science to have bought the books; but we feel humble enough to make up for it on examination day.”

“But all the time you have not said a word about the shipwreck,” suggested Effie.

“O, yes, the shipwreck!” exclaimed the girls.

“I know that is all you want to hear; but you have put me out, so that I shall make but a short story of it. Besides, as I said before, that was the least part of it.”

“Not long after that splendid night, I was called up on deck by the cry of a sail in sight, which, you know, is the great event at sea. It passed at some distance, though near enough for us to see it distinctly; but it was a clouded sky, and the waves, dark and foreboding, left such a dreary space of water between it and us, and the poor ship looked so forlorn and helpless, tumbling about on the great loose waves, that all my old fear came back. I thought perhaps there were those on board that dismal little bark who thought, as I had, that they were carrying the centre of the world along with them; and perhaps there were hundreds of other such, scattered all over the sea in their poor little cockleshells, and our great ship would seem as little and helpless to them as theirs to us. After the ship was out of sight, and I was looking off indifferently in that direction, all at once the back of an immense fish arose out of the sea and disappeared. Perhaps it was the coming up of a storm which spread a gloom over the sea, and made that huge black thing so awfully distinct and lonely; but it was the most fearful sight I had ever seen. There was that creature, out there in the middle of the ocean, in a security frightful to think of, and we in an artificial fabric, which, at best, was only the 'single plank.' To feel as safe as the fish, was now my only desire, and I tried to give up all thought of the ship, and commit myself boldly to the waves,--as I had heard Arion did, who was saved by the dolphin,--not really, you know, but I could not even imagine it; when it came to the last point, I could not even think of plunging into the deep sea, and I went to bed dreadfully depressed, partly owing, I dare say, to the mournful sound of the rising storm in the rigging. All I remember afterwards was dreaming the fish had changed into a mermaid, and was holding out her arms to me, and waiting for me to make up my mind, and I was thinking that if I leaped into them, the sea would have no power over me, and then plunging down and finding not her arms, but the cold sea, then waking up and actually feeling the cold water dashing over me, and a moment after, some one seizing me, and hurrying me on deck amid shrieks and screams,--and then finding myself in a little boat, crowded with wet people, and tossing about in the dark, not knowing which was sea, which was sky. Only one thing I remember after this, and that is--after the storm had gone down, and the boat was rising and falling on the great swells, the sailors resting on their oars, and a clergyman in the boat offering up a prayer, and then reading from a little wet Bible about Jesus walking on the water and holding out his hand to Peter, telling him if he had faith he could walk on the sea, as he did. I thought this was better than Arion and the dolphin, and I could really understand how it could be, though it is all gone now. I can only remember lying, crying, in the bottom of the boat. I was so happy and weak,--for I think we had nothing to eat after we left the ship,--and I would keep falling asleep and seeing some one stretching out his hand to me, and saying 'It is I; be not afraid;' then half waking up, and hearing some one say, in a solemn tone, 'But a plank between us and eternity,' and if it had not been for something, 'every soul on board'--and that is the last recollection I have of any thing, until we were coming into port in another ship; and every thing, as I said, was just as if nothing had happened, only I was very weak, for I had been quite ill; and the captain, when he saw me coming on deck, caught me in his arms and kissed me, which he had never done before, and the grave old sailor with the queer smile gave me _such_ a hug. The smile was all gone now, and when we left the ship I saw him shaking hands with the captain, with the most serious face I ever saw. I had overheard the old man telling some one the captain had shown he had the real grit in him, and if he had not had the misfortune to be born a gentleman he would have been as good a sailor as ever did something or other, I forget what; as if he had said he would have been as good a sailor as he had shown himself a brave man.”

“Is that all?” said Effie. “I thought when you came to the shipwreck it would be something grand and dangerous.”

“I suppose you would like to hear that the ship was struck by lightning, and went down in the middle of the ocean, with every soul on board but me, and that I drifted for days on a single oar, and at last came to a savage coast with a horde of wild Arabs ready to pounce upon me the moment I should be dashed upon the beach.”

“That would be nice.”

“Or to have had me swallowed by a shark, thousands of miles out of sight of land, and then you might have told the story for yourself.”

“O, I did not mean to complain of your story; and I dare say if it had happened to one of us, it would have been the greatest event in our lives.”

“Just like my night in the woods which Fanny's starlight night reminded me of. I have been thinking of it ever since she came to that part.”

“There, Linda! I knew you were thinking of something else than my story, and I believe that is the reason it began to sound so flat towards the end.”

“But I should not have thought of it, if it had not been for what you were telling; so that it shows I really was interested, as you would believe, if you knew how much it was like that night of my own.”

“Do tell us about it, Linda; were you out all night alone?”

“The whole night long. But I begin to think it was not so much of an event after-all; you girls are so critical. It seems to me sometimes we are like those stones which are full of caves, and grottoes of crystal inside, to ourselves, while to others we are only common paving stones.”

“But you must remember it is just so with all, and not contrast the inside of your paving stone with the outside of others',” said Anna.

“I was thinking whether there was outside enough to my little adventure to make it worth telling. But if it is thinner than that of the rest, it will be easier to break open.”

“There, Linda, you have let that stone roll long enough; now let it rest with me and gather moss.”

“I understand you, Ella. You are off now on one of your fairy stories, and I shall have one listener the less. Well, I am glad of it, for I shall not have you looking at me in your calm way all the time, and thinking how much better you could tell the story.”

“O Ella, let us have the fairy story, and call it the paving stone if you please. Never mind if it is not clear to you yet, but think as you go along,” said Fanny.

“No; leave me alone. Perhaps it is nothing, and I know too well that no story is good for any thing, unless one knows what it is going to be before one begins.”

“I hate stories with morals; they are just like going in the cars, where all you think of is the end of your journey,” said Kate.

“But unless you know where you are going, you would never go at all.”

“But it is so pleasant to go off for a day's walk without knowing where you are going, and with nothing to do but to enjoy what you see.”

“Exactly as I thought when I set out on the adventure which led to that eventful night. But you were about to say something, Ella.”

“I was only going to say that things never look so well to me as when I have some place to go to, and see them on the way. But the adventure.”

“O, I set out without knowing whither I was going, though I found something so like a moral before I was through with it, that my story would be nothing without it.”

“That may be, but you will not tell it in the same way.”

“No, for I know well enough where it leads to, and my only fear now is, that incidents on the way will not seem interesting enough to make it worth the telling.”

“Leave that to us, Linda; and now for the adventure.”

“You remember what a time I had with Madam Irving, three or four years ago; you were here, Fanny, and you, Miss Revere--you remember, of course.”

“When you ran away from school and frightened Madam Irving almost to death, and were so glad to get back again?” said Fanny.

“Well, I will not dispute you.”

“But do not look so resigned about it. If you could only have seen the contrast between yourself leaving the school room with the air of Queen Catharine leaving the court, and your first appearance on the morning after your return!”

“I suppose I did look rather cowed; but if you had gone through what I did! It was all very well the first night, though I slept on the floor of a miserable little hut,--well, I may as well compress it, for I see you know something about it,--in the bed, then, of that little ragged berry girl who lives up on the mountain. I slept on the floor at first, but it was so cold that I had to give in.”

“You might have foreseen, then, how long you would hold out with Madam Irving.”

“Now, Fanny, you know I have always said--but it's no use. Well, girls, I lay awake most all that night arranging my plans for the next day. When I left the school, I had some vague idea of going home on foot,--three hundred miles, you know,--with nothing but that little bundle, (how long it took me to make up that bundle! I thought I never should get off;) but then I feared I should be sent back, and the idea of facing Madam Irving after taking leave of her as I had done--”

“Yes, it did come hard; I really pitied you.”

“Fanny, you are too bad. Well, my mind was made up that night, and every thing was clear before me for the next day's campaign. It seems that word made a great impression on that little, impertinent Jenny. She was here the other day at the door with her berry basket; and when she saw me, do you think, she looked up sidewise, with the smile those girls have, and said, in a subdued way, 'Campaign.' I wished she were in Guinea. To think of the solemn way in which I had talked to that girl about the importance of the step I was to take, and confided to her all the reasons for my leaving a society with which I could not agree, and giving up all the associations in which I had been born, and which were at variance with my views of life, and living henceforth dependent upon no one but myself; for I was really quite eloquent, I assure you, and inspired her with such enthusiasm that she readily agreed to follow me, and share, as my servant, the fortunes of the new life which opened before me. Poor thing! She had nothing to lose, and every thing was gain to her. She had nothing to come down to, either; for with her bare feet she was as near the ground as she could be, and I had still a pair of shoes between me and the rough fields over which we rambled all that day, though I did think of taking them off at first, as I did not wish to have any advantage over her. I found, however, before night, the advantage was altogether on her side, for she made nothing of stones, and brambles, and bushes, that put me out of breath, and tore me all to pieces. What a sight I was that evening as we came to an overhanging rock on the mountain side, and chose it as our camp for the night. The sun was just setting over an immense tract of country, entirely new to me; and I might have been on the Cordilleras for any thing that I recognized in that scene. It occurred to me, that, although, when out on a ride or a walk before, I always took notice of every thing, here I had been a whole day, and had actually never thought of looking up from the ground. And even now, with all that splendid view and sunset before me, and the feeling of being fairly embarked on a new life, where school and civilization were already so distant that they were not to be thought of, yet I am ashamed to say, the great subject that occupied my thoughts was our supper. We had provided against that event, which we had looked forward to half the afternoon--a great store of blackberries, which I had conscientiously refrained from touching, though I was as hungry as a bear.”

“What an expression for a young lady!” said Kate.

“I really believe we all should be bears if we lived out doors, as I did, for any length of time. Besides, any one who has seen you look at the baskets when we have a picnic!”

“Ah, yes! On the mountain when I'm tired of gazing at a great, vague view.”

“You know I think as little of such things as any one when we are at home; but when we are out for the day, I declare a biscuit on a rock looks more picturesque than any thing in the landscape,” said Kate.

“That's a confession!”

“I believe you would all say the same, if you would acknowledge the truth, except Leonora; and I suppose a tree or a rock looks just the same to her as a luncheon basket would to us.”

“You are always talking about the picturesque, Kate, like every one else except Leonora. Now, once for all, what do you mean by it?” asked Anna.

“Leonora, you must answer for me, for I am sure you ought to know, if any one.”

“I was thinking that you had already defined it as well, perhaps, as it could be. But if I should tell you all you have reminded me of by your comparison, we should never hear the end of Linda's story, in which I was becoming quite interested. I was thinking what a good sketch she would have made, sitting a little way down that mountain side with the ragged berry girl, and that great sunset before them. So you must let me go on quietly with my drawing, and while Linda is finishing her adventure, I will be finding a point of view for my thoughts, which are just now rather indefinite. If I knew precisely what the picturesque is, perhaps I should not be sketching it; but if you must have a definition, perhaps this will do for the present--to say it is the look of home which things have in a strange place; and perhaps, to a party of hungry girls, a prettily-arranged lunch on a rock, in the shade of a beech tree, with the light glancing up under it from a bend of brook below, would be as near an approach to that look as the circumstances would permit.”

“I wish you had been with me, Leonora, instead of that little imp of a berry girl. It was just that sense of not being at home that made that mountain life, at last, so unbearable to me. Yet home without that seemed so flat and lifeless, down on a dead level, with not a street or garden but could be counted and measured. I thought if I could only have a hut on the mountain side, with a goat or a dog, or something to give life to it.”

“With a little girl or an old woman to do the work,” said Effie.

“And some of us to come and take tea with you every other afternoon,” said Kate, “out in front of the house, with that great view before us. Would it not be charming?”

“Would you believe it! I talked with that child as if she had been my dearest friend, and I should be afraid to tell you how near I crept to her side that night, as we slept under the shelf of rock. What I should have done without her I do not know. I knew the next night, as you shall hear; for, do you believe, that creature, after all I had done for her--”

“What had you done for her?” asked Kate.

“Why, I had--well, I had treated her like a friend, besides giving her fourpence for carrying my bundle, and another for her share of the blackberries, though I never thought of it till this moment, I believe she had picked them all. In the morning, after waking rather cold and with a feeling as if I had been jolted all night on a rough road, though nothing could be more different from travelling than that still rock,--how still it was, and every thing else too in that early dawn, every thing gray and unsocial!--I tried to call out to break the silence; but the sound of my voice frightened me. Just then the sun began to stream over the tops of the trees, and a blue-jay pierced the air with a scream, as if from the heart of the wilderness, and yet as if he had a right there which I had not--as if he was at home while I was only thinking of it. There was a harsh warmth in that single note, as if the sunlight was to him what a good fire would have been to me, which I believe I needed sadly, for it was at that time in the autumn, when the nights are cold, though the days are so warm. I said that the sense of not being at home was at last unbearable; I had not come to that point yet, and I resolved, come what might, that I would stay on the mountain till I should feel as much at home as the blue-jay, for I felt how really splendid such a life was, even though I had had no breakfast; for I forgot to say that, seeing a house at a distance, down the mountain, and having a little money left, after what I had given the day before to that ungrateful girl, I gave it all to her, to go down and buy something for us to eat. Just this once, I thought, and then we will live like the birds and the squirrels. Yes, said I to the distant house, as if it were the civilized world, I have now parted with the last link that binds me to thee, and repeated aloud, in the excitement of the moment, 'I have burned the ships behind me! I have cast the die, and passed the Rubicon!' I must tell you that after I had given utterance to these words, I turned round involuntarily to see if there were not half a dozen of you girls behind me; and nothing can give a better idea of the solitude of the place than that you were not. My only auditor was a little striped squirrel, who disappeared with a chit, leaving an acorn with the marks of his teeth upon it, which I picked up, wondering if I could not also live upon acorns. I bit it, and found it could be eaten in case of necessity. Now, I thought, I can be entirely independent of all the unnecessary comforts of civilized life. Wherever I may be, I can earn my own living by adapting myself to the place, and assimilating to myself the fruit of every situation.”

“The what?” said Effie.

“Well, I cannot remember exactly what I was philosophizing about. The other day I found in one of my old dresses that very acorn with the marks of my teeth and those of the squirrel upon it; I tried to bite it again, but it was so hard that I could make no impression upon it. Then it brought all that day's questioning back to me, and I thought if I had only finished and settled it then, while it was new and soft, I could have made it clear for my whole life perhaps, instead of letting it go as I did, till it is so hard now that I must leave it where it is, and go back to that girl, for whom I waited and waited until I was almost famished. Then I looked around, and there were the rocks all waiting so silently, and looking as if they had been waiting for ages, and could wait ages longer; and there was I, like that single blade of grass growing in the crevice of one of them, with only a summer to see and know them all. I could bear it no longer, and rushed wildly down the mountain in hopes to meet the girl; for any human face, even hers, would be better than that eternal silence. The motion restored my courage, and before I had gone far I felt ashamed of what seemed a retreat. I wonder if any of you ever feel so about any thing that you particularly dread, that if you do not meet it then and overcome it, it will come up again and again all your life, each time more fearful than before, and harder to conquer. I felt so then, and determined I would not give way; so I turned to retrace my steps; but I had rushed down at such a rate, that I could not remember the way, and taking, as I thought, the general direction, I went up and up, till I lost myself in a labyrinth of rocks, that grew higher and higher, and I saw that I had taken entirely the wrong way. But I was too tired to go farther, and finding some bushes covered with blackberries, which I suppose no one but myself had ever seen, I began to pick them for my late breakfast. When I had picked enough,--and if you ever want to know how good blackberries are, you must pick them, as I did, when there is nothing else to be had,--thinking I had time enough before me to find my way out, I sat down in the shade of a rock, and gradually lost myself in that great dream of a day. What a day it was! I wondered if they were always such on the mountains; it seemed to have an existence of its own, and I could understand how a day can be as a thousand years. The insects murmured, and buzzed, and chirped about me, as if they had such a sense of it, and were concentrating all life into their little existence, perhaps as long to them as my life to me, which I am sure would not be long enough to remember and tell all that I thought of in that day.