Chapter IV: Part II: "God's work is soon done." (2)

"God preserve him for many a year yet! I'll only require to speak his name"--and when he had done so, I knew the secret spring of thankfulness that fed the never-ceasing charity of one great, good man.

"And yet, John," I urged, "how can spirit speak with spirit?"

"'_How?_' I will tell thee, that word 'how' has no business in the mouth of a child of God. When I was a boy, who had dreamed 'how' men in London might speak with men in Edinburgh through the air, invisible and unheard? That is a matter of trade now. Can thou imagine what subtle secret lines there may be between the spiritual world and this world?"

"But dreams, John?"

"Well, then, dreams. Take the dream life out of thy Bible and, oh, how much thou wilt lose! All through it this side of the spiritual world presses close on the human side. I thank God for it. Yes, indeed! Many things I hear and see which say to me that Christians now have a kind of shame in what is mystical or supernatural. But thou be sure of this--the supernaturalism of the Bible, and of every Christian life is not one of the difficulties of our faith, _it is the foundation of our faith_. The Bible is a supernatural book, the law of a supernatural religion; and to part with this element is to lose out of it the flavor of heaven, and the hope of immortality. Yes, indeed!"

This conversation occurred thirty years ago. Two years since, I met the man who had experienced such a deliverance, and he told me again the wonderful story, and showed me the pencil sketch which he had made of John Balmuto in Donald Brae's cottage. He had painted from it a grand picture of his deliverer, wearing the long black camlet cloak and head-kerchief of the order of evangelists to which he belonged. I stood reverently before the commanding figure, with its inspired eyes and rapt expression; for, during those thirty years, I also had learned that it was only those

Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon their bed have sate,
Who know you not, Ye Heavenly Powers.

SIX, AND HALF-A-DOZEN.

Slain in the battle of life. Wounded and fallen, trampled in the mire and mud of the conflict, then the ranks closed again and left no place for her. So she crawled aside to die. With a past whose black despair was as the shadow of a starless night, a future which her early religious training lit up with the lurid light of hell, and the strong bands of a pitiless death dragging her to the grave--still she craved, as the awful hour drew near, to see once more the home of her innocent childhood. Not that she thought to die in its shelter--any one who knew David Todd knew also that was a hopeless dream; but if, IF her father should say one pardoning word, then she thought it would help her to understand the love of God, and give her some strength to trust in it.

Early in the evening, just as the sun was setting and the cows were coming lowing up the little lane, scented with the bursting lilac bushes, she stood humbly at the gate her father must pass in order to go to the hillside fold to shelter the ewes and lambs. Very soon she saw him coming, his Scotch bonnet pulled over his brows, his steps steadied by his shepherd's staff. His lips were firmly closed, and his eyes looked far over the hills; for David was a mystic in his own way, and they were to him temples not made with hands in which he had seen and heard wonderful things. Here the storehouses of hail and lightning had been opened in his sight, and he had watched in the sunshine the tempest bursting beneath his feet. He had trod upon rainbows and been waited upon by spectral mists. The voices of winds and waters were in his heart, and he passionately believed in God. But it was the God of his own creed--jealous, just and awful in that inconceivable holiness which charges his angels with folly and detects impurity in the sinless heavens. So, when he approached the gate he saw, but would not see, the dying girl who leaned against it. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He closed it without hurry, and then passed on the other side.

"Father! O, father! speak one word to me."

Then he turned and looked at her, sternly and awfully.

"Thou art nane o' my bairn. I ken naught o' thee."

Without another glance at the white, despairing face, he walked rapidly on; for the spring nights were chilly, and he must gather his lambs into the fold, though this poor sheep of his own household was left to perish.

But, if her father knew her no more, the large sheep-dog at his side was not so cruel. No theological dogmas measured Rover's love; the stain on the spotless name of his master's house, which hurt the old man like a wound, had not shadowed his memory. He licked her hands and face, and tried with a hospitality and pity which made him so much nearer the angels than his master to pull her toward her home. But she shook her head and moaned pitifully; then throwing her arms round the poor brute she kissed him with those passionate kisses of repentance and love which should have fallen on her father's neck. The dog (dumb to all but God) pleaded with sorrowful eyes and half-frantic gestures; but she turned wearily away toward a great circle of immense rocks--relics of a religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive howling of a dog, found her on the ground, dead.

There are set awful hours between every soul and heaven. Who knows what passed between Lettice Todd and her God in that dim forsaken temple of a buried faith? Death closes tenderly even the eyes full of tears, and her face was beautiful with a strange peace, though its loveliness was marred and its youth "seared with the autumn of strange suffering."

At the inquest which followed, her stern old father neither blamed nor excused himself. He accepted without apology the verdict of society against him; only remarking that its reproof was "a guid example o' Satan correcting sin."

Scant pity and less ceremony was given to her burial. Death, which draws under the mantle of Charity the pride, cruelty and ambition of men, covering them with those two narrow words _Hic jacet_! gives also to the woman who has been a sinner all she asks--oblivion. In no other way can she obtain from man toleration. The example of the whitest, purest soul that ever breathed on earth, in this respect, is ignored in the church He founded. The tenderest of human hearts, "when lovely woman stooped to folly," found no way of escape for her but to "die;" and those closet moralists, with filthy fancies and soiled souls, who abound in every community, regard her with that sort of scorn which a Turk expresses when he says "Dog of a Christian." Poor Lettice! She had procured this doom--first by sacrificing herself to a blind and cruel love, and then to the importunate demands of hunger, "oldest and strongest of passions." Ah! if there was no pity in Heaven, no justice beyond the grave, what a cruel irony this life would be! For, while the sexton shoveled hastily over the rude coffin the obliterating earth, there passed the graveyard another woman equally fallen from all the apostle calls "lovely and of good report." One whose youth and hopes and marvelous beauty had been sold for houses and lands and a few thousand pounds a year. But, though her life was a living lie, the world praised her, because she "had done well unto herself." Yet, at the last end, the same seed brought forth the same fruit, and the Lady of Hawksworth Hall learned, with bitter rapidity, that riches are too poor to buy love. Scarcely had she taken possession of her splendid home before she longed for the placid happiness of her mother's cottage, and those evening walks under the beech-trees, whose very memory was now a sin. Over her beautiful face there crept a pathetic shadow, which irritated the rude and noisy squire like a reproach. He had always had what he wanted. Not even the beauty of all the border counties had been beyond his means to buy but somehow he felt as if in this bargain he had been overreached. Her better part eluded his possession, and he felt dissatisfied and angry. Expostulations grew into cruel words; cruel words came to cruder blows. _Yes, blows_. English gentlemen thirty years ago knew their privileges; and that was one of them. She was as much and as lawfully his as the horses in his stables or the hounds in his kennels. He beat them, too, when they did not obey him. Her beauty had betrayed her into the hands of misery. She had wedded it, and there was no escape for her. One day, when her despair and suffering was very great, some tempting devil brought her a glass of brandy, and she drank it. It gave her back for a few hours her departed sceptre; but at what a price! Her slave soon became her master. Stimulus and stupefaction, physical exhaustion and mental horrors, the abandonment of friends and the brutality of a coarse and cruel husband, brought her at last to the day of reckoning. She died, seven years after her marriage, in the delirium of opium. There were physicians and servants around her, and an unloving husband waiting for the news of his release. I think I would rather have died where Lettice did--under the sky, with the solemn mountains lifting their heads in a perpetual prayer around me, and that faithful dog licking my hands, and mourning my wasted life.

Now, wherein did these two women differ? One sinned through an intense and self-sacrificing love, and in obedience to the strongest calls of want. Her sin, though it was beyond the pale of the world's toleration, was yet one _according to Nature_. The other, in a cold spirit of barter, voluntarily and deliberately exchanged her youth and beauty, the hopes of her own and another's life, for carriages, jewels, fine clothing and a luxurious table. She loathed the price she had to pay, and her sin was an unnatural one. For this kind of prostitution, which religion blesses and society praises, there seems to be no redress; but for that which results as the almost inevitable sequence of one lapse of chastity _we_, the pious, the virtuous, the irreproachable, are all to blame. Who or what make it impossible for them to retrace their steps? Do they ever have reason to hope that the family hearth will be open to them if they go back? Prodigal sons may return, and are welcomed with tears of joy and clasped by helping hands; but alas! how few parents would go to meet a sinning daughter. Forgetting our Master's precepts, forgetting our human frailty, forgetting our own weakness, we turn scornfully from the weeping Magdalen, and leave her "alone with the irreparable." Marriage is a holy and a necessary rite. We would deprecate _any_ loosening of this great house-band of society; but we do say that where it is the _only distinction_ between two women, one of whom is an honored matron, and the other a Pariah and an outcast, there is "something in the world amiss"--something beyond the cure of law or legislation, and that they can only be reached by the authority of a Christian press and the influence of Christian example.

THE STORY OF DAVID MORRISON.

I think it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of the Rob Roryson fashion.

The bonnet had come with him from the little Highland clachan, where he and his brother Sandy had scrambled through a hard, happy boyhood together. It had sometimes been laid aside for a more pretentious headgear, but it had never been lost; and in his old age and poverty had been cheerfully--almost affectionately--resumed.

"Sandy had one just like it," he would say. "We bought them thegither in Aberdeen. Twa braw lads were we then. I'm wonderin' where poor Sandy is the day!"

So, if anybody remembers the little spare man, with the child-like, candid face and the big blue bonnet, let them recall him kindly. It is his true history I am telling to-day.

Davie had, as I said before, a hard boyhood. He knew what cold, hunger and long hours meant as soon as he knew anything; but it was glorified in his memory by the two central figures in it--a good mother, for whom he toiled and suffered cheerfully, and a big brother who helped him bravely over all the bits of life that were too hard for his young feet.

When the mother died, the lads sailed together for America. They had a "far-awa'" cousin in New York, who, report said, had done well in the plastering business, and Sandy never doubted but that one Morrison would help another Morrison the wide world over. With this faith in their hearts and a few shillings in their pockets, the two lads landed. The American Morrison had not degenerated. He took kindly to his kith and kin, and offered to teach them his own craft.

For some time the brothers were well content; but Sandy was of an ambitious, adventurous temper, and was really only waiting until he felt sure that wee Davie could take care of himself. Nothing but the Great West could satisfy Sandy's hopes; but he never dreamt of exposing his brother to its dangers and privations.

"You're nothing stronger than a bit lassie, Davie," he said, "and you're no to fret if I don't take you wi' me. I'm going to make a big fortune, and when I have gotten the gold safe, I'se come back to you, and we'll spend it thegither dollar for dollar, my wee lad."

"Sure as death! You'll come back to me?"

"Sure as death, I'll come back to you, Davie!" and Sandy thought it no shame to cry on his little brother's neck, and to look back, with a loving, hopeful smile at Davie's sad, wistful face, just as long as he could see it.

It was Davie's nature to believe and to trust. With a pitiful confidence and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother's promise. After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings after his work was over, and wonder "how Sandy and he had lost each other." For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered his loyal heart.

He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places, so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.

Then seven years after Sandy's departure the very house in which they had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a letter reaching him less and less likely.

Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were faithfully reproduced.

It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled. Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet through it ran one golden thread of romance.

In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his wife and child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for fortune in the great West. The simplicity of the elder two and the enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.

Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with a glorious possibility. Any night they might come home and find Uncle Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no end of them in some safe bank, besides.

But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and began to go sweethearting, more tangible hopes and dreams agitated all their hearts; for young Sandy Morrison opened a carpenter's shop in his own name, and began to talk of taking a wife and furnishing a home.

He did not take just the wife that pleased his father and mother. There was nothing, indeed, about Sallie Barker of which they could complain. She was bright and capable, but they _felt_ a want they were not able to analyze; the want was that pure unselfishness which was the ruling spirit of their own lives.

This want never could be supplied in Sallie's nature. She did right because it was her duty to do right, not because it gave her pleasure to do it. When they had been married three years the war broke out, and soon afterward Alexander Morrison was drafted for the army. Sallie, who was daily expecting her second child, refused all consolation; and, indeed, their case looked hard enough.

At first the possibility of a substitute had suggested itself; but a family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without hopelessly straitening both houses. Everyone knows that dreary silence which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an irremediable misfortune. Davie broke it in this case in a very unexpected manner.

"Let me go in your place, Sandy. I'd like to do it, my lad. Maybe I'd find your uncle. Who knows? What do you say, old wife? We've had more than twenty years together. It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now, isn't it?"

He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.

The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.

This was the break-up of Davie's life. His wife went to live with Sandy and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.

Few people could have taken these events as Davie did. He even affected to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.

In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost brother. He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed possible in its atmosphere. But reality and romance are wide enough apart.

Davie's military experience was a very dull and weary one. He grew poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for all his sacrifices in the thought that "at least he had spared poor Sandy."

Neither was his home-coming what he had pictured it in many a reverie. There was no wife to meet him--she had been three months in the grave when he got back to New York--and going to his daughter-in-law's home was not--well, it was not like going to his own house.

Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she was grateful to Davie, but she did not _love_ the old man.

He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless. He had grown very old with three years' exposure and hard duty. Other men could do twice the work he could, and do it better. He must step out from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as his failing strength permitted him to fill.

Sandy objected strongly to this at first. "He could work for both," he said, "and he thought father had deserved his rest."

But Davie shook his head--"he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn it now, just as he could. Any honest way was honorable enough." He was still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I am not going to write its history.

It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place--not pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass, when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.

It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks, threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom they once were very tender.

David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."

This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later, and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought which haunted his own--_would they commit him, then, to the care of public charities?_

"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll speak to Sandy myself about it--poor lad! It will come hard on him to say the first word."

The thought once realized began to take shape in his mind, and that night, contrary to his usual custom, he could not go to sleep. Sandy came in early, and the children went wearily off to bed. Then Sallie began to talk on the very subject which lay so heavy on his own heart, and he could tell from the tone of the conversation that it was one that had been discussed many times before.

"He only made bare expenses last week and there's a loss of seventy cents this week already. Oh, Sandy, Sandy! there is no use putting off what is sure to come. Little Davie had to do without a drink of coffee to-night, and _his_ bread, you know, comes off theirs at every meal. It is very hard on us all!"

"I don't think the children mind it, Sallie. Every one of them loves the old man--God bless him! He was a good father to me."

"I would love him, too, Sandy, if I did not see him eating my children's bread. And neither he nor they get enough. Sandy, do take him down to-morrow, and tell him as you go the strait we are in. He will be better off; he will get better food and every other comfort. You must do it, Sandy; I can bear this no longer."

"It's getting near Christmas, Sallie. Maybe he'll get New Year's presents enough to put things straight. Last year they were nearly eighteen dollars, you know."

"Don't you see that Jamie could get that just as well? Jamie can take the business and make something of it. Father is letting it get worse and worse every week. We should have one less to feed, and Jamie's earnings besides. Sandy, _it has got to be_! Do it while we can make something by the step."

"It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie. God will never forgive me if I take it," and David could hear that his son's voice trembled.

In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy's eyes, and his father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad's heart was yet so tender. And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a happy sleep.

In the morning he remembered all. He had not heard the end of the argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day and asked him to "go down the avenue a bit."

He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it. In the first place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets gave him a new sense of exhilaration. Sandy fell almost unconsciously into his humor. He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with his father.

Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of days long past crowded into both men's minds, and they ate and drank, and then wandered on almost happily. Davie knew very well where they were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the last moment. He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it.

As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent; his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and the smile with which he answered Davie's pleasant prattle was almost more pitiful than tears.

At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep. His words were sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he turned Davie quickly round, and said:

"We must go back now, father. I will not go another step this road--no, by heaven! though I die for it!"

"Just a little further, Sandy."

And Davie's thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very well understood.

"No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!"

Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been going.

Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and the trouble there was likely to be. But somehow it seemed a light thing to him. He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand, they climbed the dark tenement stair together.

Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside hastily, and come to meet them. She had been crying, too, and her very first words were, "Oh, father!' I am so glad!--so glad!"

She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for the little extras with which she celebrated his return at supper. He understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and come out conqueror.

The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie's heart there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the children. But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of coffee and a bit of bread and bacon.

Davie's eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them. So then he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and drank.

In a few minutes a sudden sharp cry escaped him. He put the paper in his pocket, and, hastily resuming his old army cloak and Scotch bonnet, went out without a word to anyone.

The truth was that he had read a personal notice which greatly disturbed him. It was to the effect that, "If David Morrison, who left Aberdeen in 18--, was still alive, and would apply to Messrs. Morgan & Black, Wall street, he would hear of something to his advantage."

His long-lost brother was the one thought in his heart. He was going now to hear something about Sandy.

"He said 'sure as death,' and he would mind that promise at the last hour, if he forgot it before; so, if he could not come, he'd doubtless send, and this will be his message. Poor Sandy! there was never a lad like him!"

When he reached Messrs. Morgan & Black's, he was allowed to stand unnoticed by the stove a few minutes, and during them his spirits sank to their usual placid level. At length some one said:

"Well, old man, what do _you_ want?"

"I am David Morrison, and I just came to see what _you_ wanted."

"Oh, you are David Morrison! Good! Go forward--I think you will find out, then, what we want."

He was not frightened, but the man's manner displeased him, and, without answering, he walked toward the door indicated, and quietly opened it.

An old gentleman was standing with his back to the door, looking into the fire, and one rather younger, was writing steadily away at a desk. The former never moved; the latter simply raised his head with an annoyed look, and motioned to Davie to close the door.

"I am David Morrison, sir."

"Oh, Davie! Davie! And the old blue bonnet, too! Oh, Davie! Davie, lad!"

As for Davie, he was quite overcome. With a cry of joy so keen that it was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor. When he became conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two physicians by his side, and Sandy's face was full of anguish and anxiety.

"He will do now, sir. It was only the effect of a severe shock on a system too impoverished to bear it. Give him a good meal and a glass of wine."

Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it what a confiding session these two hearts held! Davie told his sad history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices, and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy's girls and boys.

But the light in his brother's eyes, and the tender glow of admiration with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.

"However, I am o'erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy," said Davie, in conclusion, "since I have seen your face again, and you're just handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too."

Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander Morrison was still a very handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.

For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle to him. During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.

When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie, carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his brother. Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle equally hopeless and poor.

But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy. Some call of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was successful. He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm, and went into the oil business.

"And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie. Half of it is yours, and half mine. See! Fifteen thousand has been entered from time to time in your name. I told you, Davie, that when I came back we would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury."

It was a part of Davie's simple nature that he accepted it without any further protestation. Instinctively he felt that it was the highest compliment he could pay his brother. It was as if he said: "I firmly believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it." So Davie looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a schoolboy:

"And what will you do wi' yours, Sandy?"

"I am going to buy a farm in New Jersey, Davie. I was talking with Mr. Black about it this morning. It will cost twelve thousand dollars, but the gentleman says it will be worth double that in a very few years. I think that myself, Davie, for I went yesterday to take a good look at it. It is never well to trust to other folks' eyes, you know."

"Then, Sandy, I'll go shares wi' you. We'll buy the farm together and we'll live together--that is, if you would like it."

"What would I like better?"

"Maybe you have a wife, and then--"

"No, I have no wife, Davie. She died nearly thirty years ago. I have no one but you."

"And we will grow small fruits, and raise chickens and have the finest dairy in the State, Sandy."

"That is just my idea, Davie."

Thus they talked until the winter evening began to close in upon them, and then Davie recollected that his boy, Sandy, would be more than uneasy about him.

"I'll not ask you there to-night, brother; I want them all to myself to-night. 'Deed, I've been selfish enough to keep this good news from them so long."

So, with a hand-shake that said what no words could say, the brothers parted, and Davie made haste to catch the next up-town car. He thought they never had traveled so slowly; he was half inclined several times to get out and run home.

When he arrived there the little kitchen was dark, but there was a fire in the stove and wee Davie--his namesake--was sitting, half crying, before it.

The child lifted his little sorrowful face to his grandfather's, and tried to smile as he made room for him in the warmest place.

"What's the matter, Davie?"

"I have had a bad day, grandfather. I did not sell my papers, and Jack Dacey gave me a beating besides; and--and I really do think my toes are frozen off."

Then Davie pulled the lad on to his knee, and whispered

"Oh, my wee man, you shall sell no more papers. You shall have braw new clothes, and go to school every day of your life. Whist! yonder comes mammy."

Sallie came in with a worried look, which changed to one of reproach when she saw Davie.

"Oh, father, how could you stay abroad this way? Sandy is fair daft about you, and is gone to the police stations, and I don't know where--"

Then she stopped, for Davie had come toward her, and there was such a new, strange look on his face that it terrified her, and she could only say: "Father! father! what is it?"

"It is good news, Sallie. My brother Sandy is come, and he has just given me fifteen thousand dollars; and there is a ten-dollar bill, dear lass, for we'll have a grand supper to-night, please God."

By and by they heard poor Sandy's weary footsteps on the stair, and Sallie said:

"Not a word, children. Let grandfather tell your father."

Davie went to meet him, and, before he spoke, Sandy saw, as Sallie had seen, that his father's countenance was changed, and that something wonderful had happened.

"What is the matter, father?"

"Fifteen thousand dollars is the matter, my boy; and peace and comfort and plenty, and decent clothes and school for the children, and a happy home for us all in some nice country place."

When Sandy heard this he kissed his father, and then covering his face with his hands, sobbed out:

"Thank God! thank God!"

It was late that night before either the children or the elders could go to sleep. Davie told them first of the farm that Sandy and he were going to buy together, and then he said to his son:

"Now, my dear lad, what think you is best for Sallie and the children?"

"You say, father, that the village where you are going is likely to grow fast."

"It is sure to grow. Two lines of railroad will pass through it in a month."

"Then I would like to open a carpenter's shop there. There will soon be work enough; and we will rent some nice little cottage, and the children can go to school, and it will be a new life for us all. I have often dreamed of such a chance, but I never believed it would come true."

But the dream came more than true. In a few weeks Davie and his brother were settled in their new home, and in the adjoining village Alexander Morrison, junior, had opened a good carpenter and builder's shop, and had begun to do very well.

Not far from it was the coziest of old stone houses, and over it Sallie presided. It stood among great trees, and was surrounded by a fine fruit garden, and was prettily furnished throughout; besides which, and best of all, _it was their own_--a New Year's gift from the kindest of grandfathers and uncles. People now have got well used to seeing the Brothers Morrison.

They are rarely met apart. They go to market and to the city together. What they buy they buy in unison, and every bill of sale they give bears both their names. Sandy is the ruling spirit, but Davie never suspects, for Sandy invariably says to all propositions, "If my brother David agrees, I do," or, "If brother David is satisfied, I have no more to say," etc.

Some of the villagers have tried to persuade them that they must be lonely, but they know better than that. Old men love a great deal of quiet and of gentle meandering retrospection; and David and Sandy have each of them forty years' history to tell the other. Then they are both very fond of young Sandy and the children.

Sandy's projects and plans and building contracts are always well talked over at the farm before they are signed, and the children's lessons and holidays, and even their new clothes, interest the two old men almost as much as they do Sallie.

As for Sallie, you would scarcely know her. She is no longer cross with care and quarrelsome with hunger. I always did believe that prosperity was good for the human soul, and Sallie Morrison proves the theory. She has grown sweet tempered in its sunshine, is gentle and forbearing to her children, loving and grateful to her father-in-law, and her husband's heart trusts in her.

Therefore let all those fortunate ones who are in prosperity give cheerfully to those who ask of them. It will bring a ten-fold blessing on what remains, and the piece of silver sent out on its pleasant errand may happily touch the hand that shall bring the giver good fortune through all the years of life.

TOM DUFFAN'S DAUGHTER.

Tom Duffan's cabinet-pictures are charming bits of painting; but you would cease to wonder how he caught such delicate home touches if you saw the room he painted in; for Tom has a habit of turning his wife's parlor into a studio, and both parlor and pictures are the better for the habit.

One bright morning in the winter of 1872 he had got his easel into a comfortable light between the blazing fire and the window, and was busily painting. His cheery little wife--pretty enough in spite of her thirty-seven years--was reading the interesting items in the morning papers to him, and between them he sung softly to himself the favorite tenor song of his favorite opera. But the singing always stopped when the reading began; and so politics and personals, murders and music, dramas and divorces kept continually interrupting the musical despair of "Ah! che la morte ognora."

But even a morning paper is not universally interesting, and in the very middle of an elaborate criticism on tragedy and Edwin Booth, the parlor door partially opened, and a lovelier picture than ever Tom Duffan painted stood in the aperture--a piquant, brown-eyed girl, in a morning gown of scarlet opera flannel, and a perfect cloud of wavy black hair falling around her.

"Mamma, if anything on earth can interest you that is not in a newspaper, I should like to know whether crimps or curls are most becoming with my new seal-skin set."

"Ask papa."

"If I was a picture, of course papa would know; but seeing I am only a poor live girl, it does not interest him."

"Because, Kitty, you never will dress artistically."

"Because, papa, I must dress fashionably. It is not my fault if artists don't know the fashions. Can't I have mamma for about half an hour?"

"When she has finished this criticism of Edwin Booth. Come in, Kitty; it will do you good to hear it."

"Thank you, no, papa; I am going to Booth's myself to-night, and I prefer to do my own criticism." Then Kitty disappeared, Mrs. Duffan skipped a good deal of criticism, and Tom got back to his "Ah! che la morte ognora" much quicker than the column of printed matter warranted.

"Well, Kitty child, what do you want?"

"See here."

"Tickets for Booth's?"

"Parquette seats, middle aisle; I know them. Jack always does get just about the same numbers."

"Jack? You don't mean to say that Jack Warner sent them?"

Kitty nodded and laughed in a way that implied half a dozen different things.

"But I thought that you had positively refused him, Kitty?"

"Of course I did mamma--I told him in the nicest kind of way that we must only be dear friends, and so on."

"Then why did he send these tickets?"

"Why do moths fly round a candle? It is my opinion both moths and men enjoy burning."

"Well, Kitty, I don't pretend to understand this new-fashioned way of being 'off' and 'on' with a lover at the same time. Did you take me from papa simply to tell me this?"

"No; I thought perhaps you might like to devote a few moments to papa's daughter. Papa has no hair to crimp and no braids to make. Here are all the hair-pins ready, mamma, and I will tell you about Sarah Cooper's engagement and the ridiculous new dress she is getting."

It is to be supposed the bribe proved attractive enough, for Mrs. Duffan took in hand the long tresses, and Kitty rattled away about wedding dresses and traveling suits and bridal gifts with as much interest as if they were the genuine news of life, and newspaper intelligence a kind of grown-up fairy lore.

But anyone who saw the hair taken out of crimps would have said it was worth the trouble of putting it in; and the face was worth the hair, and the hair was worth the exquisite hat and the rich seal-skins and the tantalizing effects of glancing silk and beautiful colors. Depend upon it, Kitty Duffan was just as bright and bewitching a life-sized picture as anyone could desire to see; and Tom Duff an thought so, as she tripped up to the great chair in which he was smoking and planning subjects, for a "good-by" kiss.

"I declare, Kitty! Turn round, will you? Yes, I declare you are dressed in excellent taste. All the effects are good. I wouldn't have believed it."

"Complimentary, papa. But 'I told you so.' You just quit the antique, and take to studying _Harper's Bazar_ for effects; then your women will look a little more natural."

"Natural? Jehoshaphat! Go way, you little fraud!"

"I appeal to Jack. Jack, just look at the women in that picture of papa's, with the white sheets draped about them. What do they look like?"

"Frights, Miss Kitty."

"Of course they do. Now, papa."

"You two young barbarians!" shouted Tom, in a fit of laughter; for Jack and Kitty were out in the clear frosty air by this time, with the fresh wind at their backs, and their faces steadily set toward the busy bustle and light of Broadway. They had not gone far when Jack said, anxiously, "You haven't thought any better of your decision last Friday night, Kitty, I am afraid."

"Why, no, Jack. I don't see how I can, unless you could become an Indian Commissioner or a clerk of the Treasury, or something of that kind. You know I won't marry a literary man under any possible circumstances. I'm clear on that subject, Jack."

"I know all about farming, Kitty, if that would do."

"But I suppose if you were a farmer, we should have to live in the country. I am sure that would not do."

Jack did not see how the city and farm could be brought to terms; so he sighed, and was silent.

Kitty answered the sigh. "No use in bothering about me, Jack. You ought to be very glad I have been so honest. Some girls would have 'risked you, and in a week, you'd have been just as miserable!"

"You don't dislike me, Kitty?"

"Not at all. I think you are first-rate."

"It is my profession, then?"

"Exactly."

"Now, what has it ever done to offend you?"

"Nothing yet, and I don't mean it ever shall. You see, I know Will Hutton's wife: and what that woman endures! Its just dreadful."

"Now, Kitty!"

"It is Jack. Will reads all his fine articles to her, wakes her up at nights to listen to some new poem, rushes away from the dinner table to jot down what he calls 'an idea,' is always pointing out 'splendid passages' to her, and keeps her working just like a slave copying his manuscripts and cutting newspapers to pieces. Oh, it is just dreadful!"

"But she thoroughly enjoys it."

"Yes, that is such a shame. Will has quite spoiled her. Lucy used to be real nice, a jolly, stylish girl. Before she was married she was splendid company; now, you might just as well mope round with a book."

"Kitty, I'd promise upon my honor--at the altar, if you like--never to bother you with anything I write; never to say a word about my profession."

"No, no, sir! Then you would soon be finding some one else to bother, perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual 'friend.' What is the use of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the manger? I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were _mine_, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was."

Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed. He squeezed Kitty's hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.

"I'll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am quite sure I could make plenty of money for you."

"Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in calicos for love, people say she's mercenary. Well, then, I am mercenary. I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us they are."

"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"

"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every summer to see views."

"To see views?"

"Yes. I am sick to death of fine scenery and mountains, 'scarped and jagged and rifted,' and all other kinds. I've seen so many grand landscapes, I never want to see another. I want to stay at the Branch or the Springs, and have nice dresses and a hop every night. And you know papa _will_ go to some lonely place, where all my toilettes are thrown away, and where there is not a soul to speak to but famous men of one kind or another."

Jack couldn't help laughing; but they were now among the little crush that generally gathers in the vestibule of a theatre, and whatever he meant to say was cut in two by a downright hearty salutation from some third party.

"Why, Max, when did you get home?"

"To-day's steamer." Then there were introductions and a jingle of merry words and smiles that blended in Kitty's ears with the dreamy music, the rustle of dresses, and perfume of flowers, and the new-comer was gone.

But that three minutes' interview was a wonderful event to Kitty Duffan, though she did not yet realize it. The stranger had touched her as she had never been touched before. His magnetic voice called something into being that was altogether new to her; his keen, searching gray eyes claimed what she could neither understand nor withhold. She became suddenly silent and thoughtful; and Jack, who was learned in love lore, saw in a moment that Kitty had fallen in love with his friend Max Raymond.

It gave him a moment's bitter pang; but if Kitty was not for him, then he sincerely hoped Max might win her. Yet he could not have told whether he was most pleased or angry when he saw Max Raymond coolly negotiate a change of seats with the gentleman on Kitty's right hand, and take possession of Kitty's eyes and ears and heart. But there is a great deal of human nature in man, and Jack behaved, upon the whole, better than might have been expected.

For once Kitty did not do all the talking. Max talked, and she listened; Max gave opinions, and she indorsed them; Max decided, and she submitted. It was not Jack's Kitty at all. He was quite relieved when she turned round in her old piquant way and snubbed him.