XXX. EDITH’S YES…

XXX. EDITH’S YES

In the opinion of their old friends in Boston, the Yorke family had lost something during their sojourn in the wilderness. It was not that they were less charming, less kind, less well-bred, but they were not so orthodox in religion. Mrs. Yorke, it is true, resumed her regular attendance at Dr. Stewart’s church; but her husband seldom accompanied her now, and, it was ascertained, absented himself with her permission.

“I would not have him go for my sake, when he does not wish to go for his own,” she remarked tranquilly.

The time had been when Mrs. Yorke would have been horrified at such a defection, and would have called in the doctors of the church to exhort the backslider. She was evidently growing lax in her religious principles.

Melicent always accompanied her mother, and had the true down-drawn, regulation countenance; but Clara was seldom seen in their pew, and boldly answered, when questioned on the subject, that she sometimes went to the Catholic churches to hear the music. “I go wherever I can hear Wilcox play the organ,” she said. “I never tire listening to him. Others play difficult music with dexterity, and you admire their skill; but he plays the same, and you forget that there is any skill in it. Such bewitching grace! Such laughter running up and down the keys! Such picturesque improvisations! He played last Sunday something that called up to me a scene in Seaton--that bit of meadow on East Street, Edith. There was some sort of musical groundwork, soft and monotonous, with little blossoming chords springing up everywhere, and over it all swam a lovely, meandering melody with the vox humana. When the bell rang, at the Sanctus, he caught the sound, and ran straight up into the stars, as though some waiting angel had flown audibly up to heaven to announce the time of the consecration. It is delightful to hear him. In his graver music, and his choruses, I do not so much distinguish him from others; but he is the only organist I know who gives an idea of the play of the little saints and cherubim in heaven, their dancing, their singing, their swift flights to the earth and back again, and all their exquisite loves, and pranks, and delights--their very worship like the worship of birds and flowers.”

Not a word about doctrines, about the iniquities of Rome, the superstition of Papists, the idolatry of the Mass!

What wonder if these good people, who considered it blasphemy to associate cherubic music with any more rapid motion than that of the semibreve and minim, should think Miss Clara Yorke in a dangerous way? It was hoped, however, that when Dr. Stewart and Melicent were married, his influence would recall her to a sense of duty.

The doctor did try, carefully, though, warned by his wife, and by some sharp, though tacit, rebuffs from Mr. Yorke and Edith. He spoke one day philosophically of the obnoxious Review, as though there were no question of truth, but merely of cleverness in handling certain subjects, and, in a careless à propos, offered Mr. Yorke the loan of certain volumes, which, he privately believed, would triumphantly controvert the controversialist. The doctor had not read any of these Catholic authorities.

“Thank you!” Mr. Yorke replied. He wished to be friendly, and really liked the doctor when he let theology alone. Besides, he was dining there, and could not be disagreeable.

After dinner, Melicent slipped out of the room a few minutes; and when her father went home, she said sweetly, “By the way, papa, I put up those books the doctor spoke of to you, if you like to take them now. They lie on the hall table.”

“Let them lie!” replied Mr. Yorke, with a glance and an emphasis which were not even doubtful.

He might permit Dr. Stewart to exhort him, but he would not be schooled by his own daughter.

There was but little to tell of the family for a while. Mr. Yorke employed a part of his time in attending to Carl’s and Edith’s pecuniary affairs, everything being entrusted to his management. Patrick was his assistant occasionally, and was also Edith’s coachman; for the only carriage they kept belonged to Edith.

Betsey was Mrs. Yorke’s special dependence. She was a sort of housekeeper, as well as nurse. When the lady was ill, no one else could lift, and serve, and watch as Betsey could; and when she was in low spirits, Betsey could scout her vapors very refreshingly, when the others increased them, perhaps, by indulgence. On all her little journeys, Betsey accompanied Mrs. Yorke. Her quaint, country ways were a constant source of amusement, her faithful affection and sturdy good sense a staff to lean on.

Mrs. Yorke had, at the last moment, concluded not to bring the young Pattens to Boston, but had secured them places with the family who had taken her house. “I do not approve of children being separated from their parents,” she had said, “and being placed in such different circumstances that their childish associations seem discordant to them. I know no situation more cruel than that where a child is ashamed of its parents’ poverty and ignorance. Besides, I think it my duty to rescue these poor Catholic girls.”

So Mary and Anne had been brought to Boston, and were now living in a blissful state of affectionate gratitude toward their employers, and rapture with their church.

In Seaton, Catholics were still in an almost Babylonish captivity. Their church had been burned a few weeks after the Yorkes left town; but toward spring they had a priest--not Father Rasle--who came once in two months, and said Mass for them in a private house. He was not molested.

Edith had not forgotten her friends there, and, among other gifts, had sent to Mrs. Patten a small library, chiefly of controversial books. So Boadicea was now investigating the Catholic religion. She examined it severely and critically, through a pair of round-eyed, horn-bowed spectacles, missing not a sentence, nor date, nor word of title-page in those volumes. She meant to show everybody that she was searching the subject in an exhaustive manner, and that the doctors of the church would have to exert themselves to the utmost, and bring all their learning and eloquence to bear, if they wished to convince her. But, underneath this vain pretence, her heart yearned to enter that fold where her lost little one had found refuge, and where she had seen such examples of Christian endurance and charity.

And so, with no event in the family save Melicent’s marriage, the winter and summer passed away, and another winter came. In that winter, Edith had news of an event for which she had been looking and longing ever since Carl went away. His letters had all been addressed to his mother, but in one of them, about Christmas-time, came a note for Edith. He was in Asia, and his letter was dated at Bangkok. He had been across Cambodia, from the Menam to the Mekong, as far as the country of the savage Stiens. “And here, in this wild place, my dear Edith,” he wrote, “I gave up, and was baptized. I had thought, while talking with Monsignor Miche, vicar-apostolic of the mission to Cambodia and Laos, that, as soon as I should reach Europe, I would enter the church. Indeed, while I heard this, an accomplished gentleman, tell of the persecution he had suffered when he was a simple missionary in Cochin-China, the imprisonment, the beating with rods which cut the flesh so that blood followed, the asking for and taking himself the blows intended for a companion too frail to bear more--a story, Edith, which carried my mind back to St. Paul, yet which was told with a boyish gaiety and simplicity--while I heard this, my impulse was to throw myself at his feet, and ask to be baptized by his consecrated hand. But, you know, enthusiasm does not often overcome me; and, since he did not urge me then, the good minute went. When, afterward, he exhorted me, I promised him that I would not long delay. But, when I reached the Stien country, over that miserable route of swamps, cataracts, and forests filled with wild beasts, and found another soldier of Christ living there, in that horrible solitude, sick, suffering, but undismayed, my Teutonic phlegm deserted me. The chief citizens of Father Guilloux’s republic are elephants, tigers, buffaloes, wild boars, the rhinoceros; and the most frequent and intimate visitors at his house of bamboos are scorpions, serpents, and centipedes. And yet, all the complaint this heroic man made was that he had but few converts. The savages are so joined to their idols, he said. Edith, tears ran down my face. My whole heart melted. ‘Father,’ I said, ‘here is a savage convert, if you will take him. I cannot stay one hour longer out of the church which gives birth to such children!’ And so I was baptized. And, my sweet girl, I thought then that, if the time should ever come when I should be so happy as to make Edith my wife, I should like to have the same saintly hands join us. I told Father Guilloux of you, and he sends you his blessing. You see I have heard all about Mr. Rowan.

“And now I turn my face homeward, though my route will not be very direct. Since I am here, where I shall probably never come again, I think it best to carry out my programme. But the intention of it is somewhat different; for I find that a Catholic does not need to travel abroad to find out how men should be taught and governed.

“I am sure that you pray for me constantly; and, believe me, your name has been as constantly uttered by me during the whole length of my wanderings, and is strung, Edith on Edith, like a daisy-chain, two-thirds round the world.”

It was thus Carl first told Edith his wishes; and, from the moment of that reading, she considered herself betrothed to him.

She carried her letter to her aunt, who already knew from her own letter that Carl had entered the church and, placing it open in her hand, knelt before her while she read it.

Mrs. Yorke took the hands that trembled in her lap, and gazed into the fair face uplifted to hers. Edith’s cheeks were like crimson roses, her beautiful eyes shone through tears, her lips were parted by the quickened little breaths that told of her quickened heart-beats.

“There is no mistake this time?” Mrs. Yorke asked, smiling. “You say yes with all your heart?”

“Aunt Amy,” Edith exclaimed, “I’m one yes from head to foot, and the gladdest yes that ever was spoken!”

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XXXI. CLARA’S CHAPTER

The second summer after their return to Boston, Clara went down to spend in Seaton with Hester; and, late in July, the ship Edith Yorke, Captain Cary, came sailing up Seaton River. The captain had made a prosperous voyage to India, and, having nothing else to do just now, had come down to Maine for a load of barrel-staves and boxes. To his mind, the fresh pine and ash made a pleasing contrast to his rich Eastern cargo.

Hester and her husband immediately made him at home with them. Their house was not so full but there was room for him, if he could live in the house with six boys.

“You can, perhaps, bear it better, since they are sure to be very fond of you,” Mrs. Hester said. For the boys had clustered about the sailor before he had been ten minutes with them.

Mrs. Cleaveland was wont to say that the masculine element in hers and her mother’s immediate descendants would be rather overpowering were its members not the salt of the earth.

“Poor little mamma was quite alarmed,” she said. “She protested that, if Melicent’s husband or mine called her mother, she would leave the country. So they are careful how they address her. Now, I am made of sterner stuff, and nothing else makes me so proud as to have all these boys call me mother.”

Hester’s boys presented rather an imposing array. There were Major Cleaveland’s eldest, Charles and Henry, college-students of twenty and twenty-two years of age, healthy, honest lads, not very clever, but full of energy and good sense. They were favorites at college, where the renaissance of muscle had destroyed the old empire of hollow chests and pale cheeks, and established as the watchword mens sana in corpore sano. Next to these was Eugene, now a slender youth of fifteen, cleverer than his brothers, but somewhat effeminate in character.

Then came Hester’s three boys, Philip, Carl, and Robert. The last, an infant a year old, had been named by Edith for her father, and he was, consequently, her dearest pet.

“And now my troubles begin all over again,” soliloquized Clara, as she prepared to meet the sailor. “Captain Cary’s sudden flight seemed to cut the Gordian knot; but his coming back makes the affair more double-and-twisted than ever.”

She went to meet him, however, with an air of pleasant ease which betrayed no sign of complicated emotions, and asked of his adventures, and told all that had chanced to them during his absence, in the most friendly manner.

Nor was the sailor less dignified, though the blush that overspread his face when she first appeared showed a momentary agitation.

But this highly proper and decorous demeanor did not last long. Before many days, Mrs. Cleaveland perceived that her boys were not the chief attraction which Captain Cary found in her house. It was plain that he was devoted, heart and soul, to Clara; and it was plain, also, that Clara was fully aware of that devotion, and made her sport of it, so Hester thought.

It was true, the young woman did take a very high hand with her colossal admirer. She snubbed him, ordered him about, made him dance attendance, fetch and carry, and, altogether, tyrannized over him outrageously. And he bore it all with the magnanimous patience of a great Newfoundland dog petting and bearing with the freaks of a captious child. But he grew sober and silent, and lost his smiles day by day.

Sometimes Clara’s mood changed, and there would be little flits of sunshine, momentary gleams of kindness and penitence; but her victim learned that he could not depend on the continuance of such friendliness.

One day she had treated him so much worse than usual that, instead of staying to bear her raillery, he left the room, and went out into the garden where the children were playing. Clara seated herself in the window presently, and watched him, saw him set little Bob-o’-Lincoln, as they called the baby, on his shoulder, so that the child could reach the branch of a tree, saw him gently restrain and persuade Philip from throwing stones at the birds, and talk to Carl and Philip, when they came to blows about something, till they kissed each other. And through it all she read in his face the indication of a heart sad and ill at ease.

A yellow-bird flew over the garden, and dropped a pretty feather down. “Oh! that is what Aunt Clara likes,” cried Philip, running to pick it up. “She puts ’em in her books for marks.”

He carried it to the sailor, who fastened it carefully in his button-hole, posy-wise. Even the children had perceived that what Aunt Clara liked was a matter of interest to their new friend.

A servant came out to call the children in to their early supper; and Captain Cary, catching sight of Clara in the window, went to her with the little feather in his hand. “Philip says you make book-marks of these,” he said, and offered it to her.

There was no sign of coldness or resentment, neither was there any of subservience. It was the patience and affection of a tender and generous heart, and the self-respect of one who is not humbled by the pettishness of another.

Clara dropped her eyes as she took the little offering. “Yes,” she said gently; “and see the passage I am going to mark with it.”

The book she held was Landor’s Imaginary Conversations, open at the dialogue between Æschines and Phocion.

The sailor bent his head and read: “Your generosity is more pathetic than pity or than pain;” and, looking up quickly into her face, to see what she meant, saw her eyes humid.

His face brightened a little, but he said nothing. He was like a traveller among the Alps, who knows that a breath may bring the avalanche upon him.

After a few weeks of this hide-and-seek, Hester was moved to expostulate with her sister, whose conduct had astonished her. For, however gay and reckless Clara might be in talk, exaggerating on one side when she saw people lean too much to the other, and often saying what she did not mean, taking for granted that she was too well known to have her jests taken for earnest--in spite of this liveliness and effervescence of spirits, she had never been guilty of the slightest frivolity in her intercourse with gentlemen. Mrs. Yorke had taught her daughters, or had cherished in them the pure feminine instinct, to treat with careful reserve any man who should show a marked preference for them, unless that preference was fully reciprocated. Hester, therefore, felt herself called on to admonish.

“I must say, Clara, I think you do wrong,” she said. “Any one can see that the captain sets his life by you, and you treat him cruelly.”

“Do you wish me to marry him?” Clara asked in a cold voice.

“Why, no!” exclaimed her sister. “You two are not at all suited to each other. But I would have you treat him kindly.”

“If I treat him kindly, he will think I like him,” Clara said quickly.

“Oh! I don’t mean very kindly, but with calm friendliness,” answered her preceptress.

“Calm friendliness!” repeated the culprit with emphasis. “Oh! the airs that these little married kittens put on! Hester, seat yourself there, and look me in the face, while I lecture you. Fold your hands, and attend to me. Now, allow me to remind you of two or three little facts. Firstly, I am two years older than you. Secondly, I am not a staid married woman with six boys, and I won’t try to act as if I were. Thirdly, you don’t know as much about this business as you think you do. Fourthly, women who have a great facility for being shocked on all occasions are, according to my observation, very likely to be shocking women. Fifthly, if you wish well to Captain Cary, you should wish to have him cease to care about me; and the surest way to attain that end is to treat him just as I am treating him. No man can long desire a vixen for a wife. Sixthly”--and sixthly, Clara began to cry.

Hester, who never could bear to be blamed, had been herself on the point of crying, but, seeing her sister’s tears, concluded not to.

“Why, what is the matter, Clara?” she asked in distress.

“The matter is that I am tired of being criticised,” answered her sister, wiping her eyes. “I am tired of having people tell me what I mean, instead of asking what I mean. I am tired of having people whom I know to be not so good as I am, set themselves up to be better.”

“I never meant to set myself up to be better than you, Clara,” Hester began pitifully. “I--”

“Bless me! Are you here still?” exclaimed Miss Yorke, with a laugh “I’d forgotten you. I was not talking to you at all, you little goose! The truth is, Hester, I am getting as nervous as a witch. You mustn’t bother me.”

Clara did seem to be nervous, and unlike herself.

Having failed in her attempt to admonish her sister, Mrs. Cleaveland took occasion soon after to comfort the sailor.

“You must not mind if Clara seems a little hard sometimes,” she said with gentle kindness. “She does not mean to hurt your feelings. It is only her way. I know she thinks very highly of you.”

“Oh! I understand her pretty well,” he replied gravely. “Clara has a good heart, and she never gives me a blow but she is sorry for it afterward. I don’t blame her. I suppose she sees that I rather took a liking to her”--he blushed up--“and that’s the way she makes me keep my distance. I understand Clara. She suits me.”

He said this with a certain stateliness. Not even Clara’s sister might blame her to him.

“Rather took a liking,” was Captain Cary’s way of expressing the fact that he had surrendered the whole of his honest, generous heart.

There were fires in the woods about Seaton that summer, and, August being very dry, they increased so as to be troublesome. From Major Cleaveland’s house, which stood on the hill-top west of the village, they could see smoke encircling nearly all the horizon by day; and by night flames were visible in every direction but the south, where the sea lay. The air was rank with smoke, cinders came on the wind when it rose, and vegetation turned sooty. Crops were spoiling, farm-houses were threatened, and large quantities of lumber were burned. People looked every day more anxiously for rain, prayers were offered in the churches for it, and still it did not come. The blue of the sky changed to brazen, the silver and gold of moonlight and sunlight became lurid, the springs began to dry up. Sometimes the day would darken with clouds, and they looked up hopefully, and watched to see the saving drops descend. But week followed week, and the refreshing messengers passed by on the other side. More than once, when the sun was in the west, it showed them through that canopy of smoke the dense black peaks and rolling volumes of the thunder-cloud, and at night they could see the beautiful lightning crinkling round the horizon, and hear the music of far-away thunder that came down with pelting rain on distant hills; but still their land was dry, their throats and eyes inflamed, and the fires crept nearer.

Major Cleaveland came home to tea one night with an anxious face. “They are afraid the fire will reach Arnold’s woods to-night,” he said; “and, if it does, Marvin’s house must go, and there is danger that some part of the town may burn. The wind is very high from the northwest.”

Mr. Marvin, Mrs. Yorke’s tenant, had purchased her house and land, and lived there, but the woods still bore their old name of Arnold’s woods.

Later in the evening, while they sat looking out at the baleful glow that grew every moment brighter in the northwest, Charles and Henry Cleaveland came up from the village with later news. Half the men in the town, they said, had gone out beyond Grandfather Yorke’s place to fight fire. The firemen were all there, and Mr. Marvin had his furniture packed ready to send away from the house at a moment’s warning.

“And those poor Pattens!” Clara asked anxiously. “Have they wit enough to save themselves? Has any one thought of them?”

The boys had heard no mention made of the Pattens. They supposed that, if the family had common sense, they had left their house by this time, for every one said that, unless there should be a shower with that wind, the fire was not two hours distant.

Captain Cary leaned from the window, and looked overhead. The only sign of sky was a cluster of stars in the zenith. All else was smoke. “This wind will bring a shower pretty near, at least, before the night is over,” he said. “It isn’t a wind out of a clear sky.”

“I must know about those poor creatures!” Clara exclaimed. “They are so shut in that they would not be able to see which way to go, if the fire should come upon them; and I am afraid no one will think of them. Charley, if you will have the buggy out, I will drive over to Mr. Marvin’s.”

“All right!” says Charley promptly.

Captain Cary had already risen. “I’ve been thinking that I’d go over and help the men a little,” he remarked, with a moderate air, as if he had been in the habit of fighting fire every day of his life for recreation.

“But you will have to change your clothes,” Clara said. “That linen will never do. Now, see which will be dressed first. I must take off this organdie, of course. Hester, take out your watch and count the minutes.”

She flew off merrily, her rose-colored cloud of skirts filling the doorway as she went through, and Captain Cary walked quietly after, one of his strides equal to three of her small steps. In ten minutes they were heard again, opening the doors of their rooms at the same moment, and Clara appeared in a plaided waterproof suit, and a sailor hat set jauntily over the rich black coils of her hair, and laughingly claimed the victory. “We opened our doors at the same instant,” she said; “but I stopped to button my gloves, and he has no gloves on. Never say again that a lady cannot dress as quickly as a gentleman.”

Captain Cary displayed a pair of thick boots, for which he had exchanged his summer shoes. “May I be allowed to see what you have on your feet?” he asked.

She put out a foot clad in the thinnest stocking, and a low kid slipper.

“I appeal!” said the sailor.

“And I give up!” she answered. “Now let me see if you are prepared to go into Gehenna. Are those clothes all wool?”

She made him turn round, tried with her own fingers the texture of his sleeve, ordered him to button his coat tightly at neck and wrists, so that no sparks could get in, and gave him a woollen scarf, which she commanded him to tie about his face at the proper time. Then they went out together, dropping their laughter at the door. For the wind blew in their faces a hard gale, and over the northwestern horizon glowed an angry aurora, and in the zenith still hung that cluster of stars.

They drove over to Mr. Marvin’s almost in silence. Carts partly filled with furniture stood at the avenue-gate, and trunks and packages had been set out on the steps, ready to be taken away. Two little children stood in the door, crying with fear, while a servant tried vainly to pacify them.

“Their mother told me to take them out to the village, to the Seaton House,” she said to Clara. “And they don’t want to go.”

Mrs. Marvin was up in the cupola, watching the progress of the fire.

Clara reassured the little ones, put them and the girl into the buggy with Charles Cleaveland, and sent them back home with him.

“But how are you to get back, Aunt Clara?” he asked.

“Oh! in the same way the people out here do,” she answered. “I shall not be alone. Drive along, Charley. The horse won’t bear this smoke much longer. He begins to dance now.”

As soon as they had gone, she started off through the woods. Captain Cary had already preceded her, thinking that she meant to await him at the house.

Down in the wood-path all was darkness, only a faint reflected light showing where the path lay; but the tree-tops shone as if with sunset, and the sky hung close, in a deep-red canopy. Now and then the light steps of some wild creature, driven from its forest home, flitted by, and its fleet shape was dimly seen for an instant. The voices of men were heard, and the sound of axes, not far away.

When she reached the opening where the Pattens’ house was built, the whole scene burst upon her sight. The open square of ten acres was as light as an illuminated drawing-room. Volumes of red smoke poured over it, dropping cinders, which men and boys ran about trampling out as soon as they fell. Some men were at work digging a trench along the furthest side of the opening, others felled trees, others dragged them away, and others sought for water, and threw it about the barrier they were making. They worked like tigers, for, scarcely two miles distant, the fire was leaping toward them like a courser, or like that flying flame that brought the news from Ilium to Mount Ida.

Clara’s eyes searched the space. “Do you know where the Pattens are?” she asked of some one who stood near, but without looking to see who it was.

“Here we be!” said a piteous voice in reply.

She turned her glance at that, and beheld Joe, with his children clustered about him, standing beside the path. A large bundle lay on the ground by them, containing their valuables, probably, and they were all looking back, with the light in their faces.

She asked him where his wife was.

“She’s there fighting fire among the men,” answered Joe, with an accusing gesture toward the workers. “I told her that it was my place to be there, but she sent me off. She thinks now that I and the children are down at the village; but I am going to stay to protect my wife. It shall never be said that I deserted her in the hour of danger.”

“Have you seen Captain Cary?” was the next question.

“That ’ere big sailor? Lor, yes! He’s been working like ten men. There he is, chopping down a tree.”

Miss Yorke drew her mantle over her head, as a protection against the cinders, and walked forward. The sky in front of her was like the mouth of a furnace from which a fiery blast is rushing, and the tree-trunks in the forest opposite showed a faint glimmer of light beyond them. Some of the workers were retreating at that last sign. The wind caught a burning branch, and bore it almost to her feet. The men stopped to trample it out, then ran. Not more than half their number remained.

“Good heavens!” she cried excitedly, “will he never start?”

As she spoke, a drop of water fell on her face. She looked up, and another and another fell.

On the very frontier of the battleground, midway between the woods that were on fire and those they tried to save, stood a tall maple, its arms outstretched, as if inviting the enemy. Captain Cary was cutting that tree down, swinging the axe rapidly in resounding strokes. A few courageous men still lingered near, working with renewed hope as they felt the scattering drops, and perceived that the wind began to lull. But they gave a cry of alarm, and fled also; for a fiery crest was suddenly lifted above the forest, and the enemy was upon them. No one was left but Captain Cary, and his work was not done. If there was a chance of checking the fire, it was in having that tree down.

It bent slightly under the heavy strokes that smote it, and, as it bent, a long, flickering tongue of flame shot across the space, and curled around its topmost tuft of foliage, and devoured it in a twinkling. Twigs, boughs, branches, all as dry as tinder, kindled instantly, and the whole tree, wrapped in flame, toppled over, and fell.

With a cry of terror, Clara Yorke lifted her face, that she might not see that man perish; and, looking upward, saw the redness vividly threaded with a blinding white light. Then there were a rattle and a rumble, and the rain came down in torrents.

“God be thanked!” said a deep voice near by.

There stood Captain Cary, panting, blackened, scorched, torn, wiping his face on his sleeve, and looking to see how much more effectually fire could be fought by the powers of heaven than by the powers of earth. The flames cowered down from the tree-tops under that tumultuous descent, the brands and cinders died out, hissing, and streams of water pursued the fire that fled along the ground.

“Providence arrived just in time,” observed one of the men who had gathered about him.

The sailor looked at him with a reproving glance. “Providence always does arrive in time,” he said reverently.

Here Mrs. Patten, looking like one of those witches we see in the play of Macbeth, not even lacking the long pole, made her appearance about as mysteriously as those witches do.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “since the hour of peril has gone past, and you must be fatigued by your exertions, I hope that you will take shelter from the rain in my poor mansion. You shall be welcome to such humble hospitality as I can offer you.”

They were nearly in darkness now, having only such light as came from the frequent flashes overhead.

The sailor thanked her politely. “I shall be glad if you can lend me a lantern,” he said; “for I want to get through to Mr. Marvin’s as soon as I can. Somebody is there waiting for me.”

Mrs. Patten led the way, and the others followed. In the semi-darkness, a smaller figure, which Captain Cary had not noticed before, came close to his side, and slipped a hand in his arm; and the “somebody” who should have been waiting for him at Mr. Marvin’s said quietly, “You see, I cannot walk very well without help, for I have lost one of my slippers.”

The sailor’s heart had not given such a jump when the burning tree fell and just missed him, as it gave at the sound of that voice.

“You here!” he exclaimed. “What did you come for?”

“To see the fire,” replied Miss Yorke.

“And you are barefoot?”

“Oh! no,” she said cheerfully. “I have a Lisle-thread stocking, what there is left of it, between my right foot and the sticks, and stones, and briers, and thistles, and--so forth.”

He groaned out, “Oh! you poor little dear!” and seemed on the point of saying something he was afraid to say, hesitated, almost stopped, then stammered, “I suppose it would be impudent to offer to carry you as far as the house, but I hate to have you walk that way.”

“Oh! thank you!” answered Miss Clara. “I could not think, though, of receiving so much assistance from any one but my husband, or the one who is to be my husband.”

The sailor swallowed a great sigh, and they walked on, Clara hobbling fearfully.

“I wish that he were here now, whoever he may be,” she said in a plaintive voice, after a minute. “For, really--”

Her escort said not a word.

In a few minutes they reached the log-house, where Joe and the children had already arrived; and, waiting only for the men to wash the soot from their faces and hands, and to find a shoe which Miss Yorke could keep on her foot, they set out again, with a lantern.

At Mr. Marvin’s they found Major Cleaveland’s carriage awaiting them, and in twenty minutes they were at home, without having spoken a word on the way.

But when they reached there, Clara looked anxiously at her companion. “Can’t I do anything for you?” she asked.

He thanked her gravely. No, he needed nothing. She had better see to herself.

She made a movement to leave the room, and did not go. She lingered, looking to see what was the matter with him. He was in a deplorable condition as to his clothing, his hair was singed, his hands and face blistering in places; but that did not seem to be the trouble. Neither was he angry. The deep thoughtfulness of his expression forbade that supposition.

She chose to say, though, “I hope you are not offended about anything.”

He seemed surprised, and recollected himself. “Why, no!” he answered. “Have I been cross? Excuse me! I was thinking of something.” He looked at her earnestly. “There is something I would like to know--not because I am curious, or want to interfere in any person’s private affairs, but because I think it might settle my mind to know. I’ll tell you what it is, and I hope you’ll believe that I don’t mean any offence, though it may sound impudent. You must know, Miss Clara”--his eyes dropped humbly--“that I took a liking to you at first. Of course I wasn’t such a fool as to expect anything from you; but what you said back there in the woods to-night showed me that I am a greater fool than I thought I could be. Do you want me to stop now?”

“No,” Clara answered gently. “I would like to hear what you have been thinking of, and to say anything I can to quiet your mind.”

“Well,” he went on, “I should feel better to know if you have any man in your eye that you like. It’s none of my business,” he added hastily, “but it might do me good to know the truth.”

Clara blushed to the forehead, but her laughing glance was raised to his face.

“Yes, Captain Cary,” she said, “I have a man in both my eyes whom I like and esteem.”

He was silent a moment. Perhaps his sunburnt face grew a shade paler.

“That’s all I want to know,” he said then. “I thank you for telling me; and I wish you every happiness that earth and heaven can give.”

He bowed, and took a step toward the door.

“Oh! you great stupid!” she cried out in a voice of ringing impatience, and with a laugh that seemed to be on the verge of crying.

The sailor turned at that, and drew himself up with proud indignation. For the first time his eyes flashed on her, and she saw how lofty he could be in self-assertion.

“Miss Yorke,” he said, “I’m but a rough man, not learned nor polite enough to be the husband of an accomplished lady like you; but I’m an honest man, and I won’t be scorned by any woman. My love may not be fit for your taking, but it’s too good for your mocking. I know what I am worth!”

“You do not!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know anything about it!”

He looked severely down upon her, but said nothing.

“I didn’t mean to mock you, nor treat you with any disrespect,” she said. “You misunderstand me, Captain Cary.”

His face softened. “I suppose I do,” he replied. “You have a laughing way, but I know you don’t mean any harm. Forget my rough talk, and forget all I have said to you to-night.”

He went toward the door again.

“I shall not forget it,” she said. “I shall never forget that one of the best of men liked me, yet was capable of deserting me because I would not offer myself to him.”

He looked round as if he thought she had lost her senses. “Why, Miss Clara, what do you mean?”

She clasped her hands, and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Did you ever,” she asked, addressing, apparently, a wreath of stucco faces there--“did you ever witness such obtuseness?”

He stared at her a moment, standing; then he sat down, and continued looking at her intently.

“And did you ever witness such inconsistency?” she continued, still to the stucco faces. “He pretends to like me, and in the same breath tells me that he won’t have me--as if I had asked him to!”

“Miss Clara!”

She glanced at him disdainfully, and returned to her communication with the ceiling. “I shall not, however, break my heart for him.”

Over the sailor’s weather-beaten face a soft, uncertain light was stealing, as you may sometimes see the morning light steal over the face of a rugged bluff, covering it with beauty.

“Clara,” he said--she had heard him speak to the little ones in that low voice--“do you mean to say that you will marry me?”

“Captain Cary,” she replied, with an expression of excellent candor and good sense, “how am I to marry a man who won’t ask me?”

Then Captain Cary asked her.

A week after that she was at home with her family; and the first day, after dinner was over, when they sat quietly alone, she told her story to her father and mother.

They could scarcely believe her in earnest, and fifteen minutes were taken up with exclamations and expressions of incredulity. Clara received it all with patience, and, at length, succeeded in convincing her parents that, with their consent, she meant to become Miss Clara Cary, “which will be the first alliteration I ever purposely committed,” she said.

It happens too frequently that persons of an original turn of mind are less understood by their familiar associates, and even by their own families, than by strangers, and that those to whom they naturally look for appreciation give it only when the example is set them from abroad.

With all their affection for her, Clara’s parents often mistook her, because they took for granted that they knew her perfectly, and, therefore, never paused to examine. The consciousness of this involuntary injustice on their part had increased her natural impatience, and made her disinclined to explain herself; and, with a perversity for which, they were half to blame, she sometimes said what they evidently expected her to say, rather than what she meant. It was not surprising, therefore, that the first reasons she gave for her choice were superficial ones.

She liked brave, manly men, she said; and Captain Cary would give her just that life of adventure which she would most delight in. With him, that pretty old myth of women looking to men for protection in danger would be realized.

“Why, papa,” she said, “when I go out with any of the nice young men I know, if a dog barks, or a cow shakes her head at us, my escort is more frightened than I am. I shall call the captain Jason, and myself Medea--with a difference. There will be no Creusa. We will go after the golden fleece, and bring it home to put under little mamma’s feet. We will gather something for you in every sea, and from under every sky,

‘As we sail, as we sail.’”

Mr. and Mrs. Yorke neglected to observe the one significant sentence: “There will be no Creusa.” They did not object to the sailor on account of his character or wealth, they said. They did not even object because they would be so much separated from their daughter, though that would be a grief to them; but they thought the two incongruous in tastes and habits, and feared that Clara was mistaking that for a serious and lasting affection which was only a temporary artistic enthusiasm for a unique specimen of mankind.

“I do not choose Captain Cary because he is rough, as you call it, but in spite of his roughness,” Clara said. “Our tastes are not as dissimilar as you imagine, though. He has great delicacy of feeling and perception, and he is as true a gentleman as I ever knew. I have always looked more to the spirit than the letter, and I can perceive and admire a good mind and heart in spite of some outward defects. I trust and believe in him entirely. If he is not honest, then no one is. He is magnanimous and truthful. I don’t care if he does not know Latin and Greek. One may know too much of them. He pretends to nothing, and he never appears ignorant. I’m not ashamed of him.”

“I did not know you were so much in earnest, Clara,” her father said, looking at her with a smile of approval. “If you are really satisfied with him, I have not a word to say against your marrying him. Only I thought you would prefer a person who was more literary and enthusiastic. Captain Cary is rather taciturn, and very sober.”

“But he can be roused,” Clara replied with animation; “and when he is, it is something lyric. You remember, papa, Villemain’s definition of the true ode, as distinguished from the conventional one: ‘L’émotion d’une âme ébranlée et frémissante comme les cordes d’une lyre.’ It is no little factious stir at every touch, and snapping at a blow, but ‘smitten and vibrating’ grandly on great occasions.”

Mrs. Yorke gave a little sigh of expiring opposition. “One of my chief objections,” she said, “was that it would look so bizarre. If you do not care for that, then it is nothing.”

“Mamma,” Clara replied, “you would be astonished to know how little thought I give to the opinions of the Rose-pinks and Priscillas and pasteboard highnesses.”

And so the matter was tacitly settled.

But later, when Mr. and Mrs. Yorke sat together in the falling twilight, Clara came in softly behind them, pushed a footstool between their chairs, and sat there, holding a hand of each.

“Papa, mamma,” she said, “I want you to be satisfied that I am doing nothing without thought, and that I have chosen wisely. I tell you truly, Captain Cary is the only Protestant gentleman I know whom I can marry, and would not be afraid to marry. Look how the world is going. See what a frightful change has come over Boston since we can remember. Why, I have heard stories of some of our old acquaintances, people whom we thought respectable, which have sickened me. Your other two daughters have married good men, whom they can trust; but they are old-fashioned men, old enough to be their wives’ fathers instead of husbands. But of that class of men from whom you would think I might properly choose, would you dare to have me choose? I would not dare. Marriage has no longer any sacredness, except among Catholics. Other men desert or divorce their wives for nothing, and do the most horrible things. I should think that one-half the Protestant married ladies would look on their husbands with terror and distrust; and I wonder how any girl dares to marry. The weddings I’ve seen lately, instead of seeming happy occasions to me, have seemed most sad and painful. I heard a lady say this summer that in fifty years, or less, there would be no marriage outside the Catholic Church.”

“Charles, it is but too true,” the mother said. “I am terrified when I think of what is so evidently coming. It was the thought of this which reconciled me to Carl’s being a Catholic.”

“I wish we were all Catholics!” Clara exclaimed. “Not that I know or think much of theology; but it is better to believe too much than too little, and they are on the safe side. If we were wrecked, and our ship going to pieces, we would be glad of any vessel to pick us up. We wouldn’t quarrel with the cut of her jib.”

Mr. Yorke smiled. “See how she already draws her illustrations from the sea!” he said, and passed over her wish. “Well, Amy, she has proved herself a sensible girl, has she not? and deserves that we not only consent, but applaud.”

The mother’s answer was a silent embrace.

If the thought of either parent glanced with a momentary longing toward that strong inviolate church, against which the fiercest powers of hell beat in vain, which seems now to loom an ark indeed, while the rising waves of sin are submerging all beside, they said nothing.

Of the shock Melicent felt on learning of this engagement, we do not speak. Edith received the news with delight.

Edith had also other sources of pleasure. She had good news from Seaton. Mass was said there now once a fortnight, without any disturbance; and Mrs. Patten, with all her family, had been baptized. After that fire, which had so nearly swept away their home, and had put their lives in peril, the poor woman hesitated no longer. She had vowed that night, in the midst of her terror, that, if her life was spared, she would ask to be admitted to the church the first time the priest came again; and she kept her vow. Edith carefully read the long letter written to her descriptive of the occasion, and, through all its absurdities, rejoiced to see the spirit of a sincere faith and obedience.

This baptism excited a good deal of comment in Seaton. It was said that Boadicea had taken a stick to her husband to assist his conversion, and that, at the beginning, poor Joe was no more a Catholic than Sganarelle the wood-cutter was a doctor; but, however that may have been, he certainly became afterward a most exemplary Catholic, as far as he went. And it is likely that He who sees through all outward forms, and scorns only the scorner, received these humble penitents with a welcome as fatherly as that accorded to any illustrious convert.

Through Father John, Edith had frequent news of her childhood’s friend, and all she heard was such as to fill her with contentment. He did not wish to hold direct communication with the world, but to pursue his studies with but two thoughts in his mind--a God to serve and adore, and a world full of sinners to save for God’s sake.

Mrs. Rowan-Williams, seeing that her son was not despised and cast down, but rather elevated higher, and being convinced that, in some way she could not comprehend, he was entirely satisfied and happy, took comfort. She could not, however, any longer attend on a church where his belief and profession might at any time be traduced, and gradually, from staying at home on Sundays, began to go to his church, to listen with curiosity, then with interest, then with growing admiration, and, at last, to feel happy and at home there.

And in the spring, Carl was coming home.

“Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet! Over the splendor and speed of thy feet.”

But not in idle wishing was the winter passed. There was work, lightened by joyful anticipations, work persevered in in spite of doubts and fears, and work dear and joyful for its own sake. And thus the spring was earned.

The snows melted, the robins returned, tiny green leaves appeared, and there came a day when they sat with their windows open. Every one who passed by looked smiling; no one was sad that day, it seemed, so delightful is the coming of spring. Up-stairs Clara went about from room to room, singing snatches from a hymn to joy. Mrs. Yorke and Edith, sewing and talking in the parlor below, smiled to each other as they heard her.

“Joy, thou spark of heavenly brightness, Daughter from Elysium! Hearts on fire, with steps of lightness, On thy holy ground we come. Thou canst bind all, each to other, Custom sternly rends apart, All mankind are friend and brother, When thy soft wing fans the heart.”

A letter had come from Clara’s Jason that morning. He was at Havana when he wrote, and about sailing for England. In the fall he would return to America, and then he and his lady were to sail in search of the golden fleece.

The aunt and niece spoke softly together of her hopes and their own, of their poor, of their friends, of the robins that twittered just outside the windows, of the rose-vines that were so forward, of the rainbows of crocuses in the yard, of the unexpected help they had received in some benevolent projects of their own.

“People are so much better than one thinks,” Edith said. “It is delightful how much goodness there is, and how kind almost any one will be if approached in the right way. I have great hopes of the world. There’s nothing like trying to be a saint one’s self. If we should all try, there wouldn’t be a sinner on earth. If I should try, perhaps some one else would, and then, may be, some other person would be excited to try, and so it would go on round the world. It seems to me that cheerfulness, and kindness, and a helping hand, and a looking at the bright side, and a determination to find a bright side, and, altogether, a persistent shining, is what is wanted. Light is good, and joy is good, and pain is good only because it may be the birth of delight. Great is gladness, if the Lord is behind it!”

“All mankind are friend and brother, When thy soft wing fans the heart,”

sang Clara, in the room above; then stopped, with a little outcry.

The two below glanced through the window, and saw a gentleman in the street, near their steps. He walked slowly, looking straight on, so that they saw his profile. They dropped their work, and gazed at him steadily. Mrs. Yorke put her hand to her heart, Edith held her breath, and two red, red roses bloomed in her cheeks. Up-stairs, Clara made not a sound.

This gentleman’s step was light and firm, his figure graceful and manly, his face sunburnt, and the bright spring sunshine found golden lights in his hair and long moustache.

At the step he paused, then turned and came up, rapidly now, taking off his hat, and looking eagerly, since he had ventured to look at all.

Clara came flying down the stairs, and reached the parlor-door, with her arms twined around the new-comer, leading him in triumph. Mrs. Yorke, without rising from her chair, stretched her hands out to her son.

“O Lord! let me never forget thee!” sighed Edith, waiting her turn. “Let me never forget thee!”

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XXXII. EXEUNT OMNES

It is spring again, and ten years have passed since that sunny April day when we saw Carl Yorke come home from his travels--ten years lacking a month, for it is early in March. The afternoon is as still as any afternoon can be in a city. Not a twig trembles on the bare trees, not a spray swings on the dry vines that drape all the balcony railing. The sky is of a uniform gray, and so thick that it seems to contain a deluge of snow. But the day is not a gloomy one. The shadow seems protecting and tender, as when the small birds are covered in the nest beneath the downy breast of the mother-bird.

Standing on the pavement in front of Mrs. Yorke’s drawing-room windows, one can catch glimpses of warmer color within, bright curtains and cushions, and the soft crimson glow that comes from an open fire.

A tall, broad-shouldered man comes to one of these windows, nearly filling it, and looks out at the sky. He has a long beard streaked with gray, and thick black hair streaked with gray is pushed back from his sober, sunburnt face. While he makes his observations on the weather, a slight figure of a woman comes to his side, drawing more closely about her a white Shetland shawl, and giving a dainty little shiver. She has a delicate face, and the hair that shows under the black lace scarf she wears is a bright bronze, mingled with silver.

“Then you do not think we shall have a great storm, Rudolf,” she says, with another shiver. Mrs. Amy Yorke likes warmth and warm colors, and only to see such a day chills her.

“No, dear!” (Captain Cary always calls his mother-in-law “dear,” being forbidden on his peril to call her mother). “This great parade of getting up a storm seldom amounts to much. When it’s going to storm, it storms, and doesn’t stop to threaten. We may have a little flurry, though, but it will be fair weather to-morrow.”

“I do not care on our account,” Mrs. Yorke says. “We are all very happy and comfortable, thank God! but I pity the poor.”

They retire, and presently another gentleman approaches the window, and looks out. At first glance, one might think that Mr. Yorke has not changed in ten years. The hair is scarcely more gray, the face scarcely more wrinkled. But the second glance detects a certain pallor of age, which has displaced the former bilious tint. A young woman, dressed in gay, outlandish-looking silk, comes to his side. A profusion of black curls are gathered back from her brunette face, and fastened with a garnet chain, and a band of large garnets, en cabochon, is clasped round her neck.

“Papa,” she says, “what do you see overhead?”

“Clouds,” replies Mr. Yorke.

She gives his arm a little squeeze. “Oh! but I don’t mean that.”

“What! you are playing Polonius to me?” asks Mr. Yorke. “Well, it is neither like a camel, nor a weasel, nor a whale; it is a tent.”

“Oh! papa!” cries Clara, “put on your spectacles, your second-sighted ones. You have no eyes at all. In that sky I see crops for the fields, billows of grass, heaps of leaves for the trees, foaming torrents for all the brook-channels, and no end of violets, dandelions, buttercups, and ‘other articles too numerous to mention.’”

Both turn their heads, with an affectionate smile, as Mr. Yorke’s youngest daughter takes his other arm, and leans against his shoulder.

Hester’s dress is black. Not a tinge of color nor an ornament breaks the sombre monotony of her costume. But a white ruche at the throat and wrists shows that her widow’s weeds have been long worn, and the smile on her lips, though plaintive, is not without a dawn of returning contentment. It is now three years since Hester took her children, and came back to live with her father and mother.

Why should we stand on the pavement? Open, sesame! We enter. The whole family are gathered, and it is a gala-time; for Captain Cary and his wife have just returned from their last voyage, and are going to settle down in a home with foundations more stable than green, wind-rolled waves; and, a greater event still, Carl and his wife have just arrived from a four-years’ sojourn abroad. The family are all very proud of Carl--not because he has represented his country at a foreign court, not even because he has done so with singular ability, but because he has been so truly just and honorable as to have offended prejudiced partisans on both sides, and won the applause of the few who believe that a man need not blush to be called a traitor to his party, so long as he is true to God.

“I am glad to see you with the minority, sir,” Mr. Yorke had said in welcoming him home; “and to see that you can stand there quietly, as well as firmly. I am tired of splutter.”

“I hope, sir,” Carl replied, smiling, “that you would not object to my being with the majority, if the majority were right.”

Mr. Yorke shrugged his shoulders, and made one of his favorite quotations: “Il y a à parier que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise, car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.”

But, though forced to resign his position, Carl is not without a vocation. He speaks and writes; and, such is the charm of his tongue and pen, persons most severely castigated by them listen and read with a sort of pleasure. If one must be dissected, there is surely a certain satisfaction in finding the hand skilful and the scalpel bright.

There is, indeed, danger that Carl might be too sharp, were it not for his wife. But Edith is his first reader, and often, through her influence, a sentence is softened, a sarcasm struck out.

“Love is stronger than hate,” she would say. “You have done only half the good you might do, if, in convincing a man’s reason, you at the same time inflame his will against you. You may make him hate a truth of which he was before ignorant.”

This is one of the couples which rests the heart to see in this world of discordant matches. Every taste and instinct is so in harmony that all the smaller business of life goes on without that jar which, in so many lives, makes a wrangle of pettinesses, and withdraws the attention from all that is noble. And, in higher characteristics, there is only that difference which enables each one to correct the mistakes of the other.

Edith Yorke, at thirty-one, has not yet lost, she probably never will lose, the simple earnestness of her childhood. It is the same bud blossomed, and so fresh and lovely is she, they call her the Rose of Yorke. She was much admired abroad. No other lady had combined so sweet a stateliness, and such wit, with incorruptible piety.

“I think,” she said, “that the reason why, while I kept my place in society, I never once yielded to any pernicious dissipation or extravagance, was because I was constantly afraid that I should.”

The evening shuts in, the curtains are drawn, and the room is in a glow. The wind has risen suddenly, and the snow is coming down, beating sharply with its tiny lances on the window-panes. But the family only feel more keenly the delight of being all together and at home.

“How cosy it is!” exclaims Clara, with a sigh of immense content, as she hears the doors and windows rattle. “One feels so comfortable in-doors when one knows that everybody out-doors is uncomfortable.”

Mrs. Yorke, seated in her own especial chair, with Captain Cary beside her, talks over housekeeping affairs with him, commends his wish to live in the suburbs instead of the city, and does not doubt that he will find fanning a delightful occupation.

Mrs. Yorke cannot now be made to acknowledge that she ever objected to the sailor as a son-in-law. “Why, what should we do without him?” she asks. “We should feel quite lost without this dear Hercules of ours.”

Somewhat withdrawn, at one side, Carl is talking to Hester about her boys. He advises her to send them to a private Catholic school, and she has almost consented. She will ultimately consent. Opposite them, Edith and Melicent talk together. Doctor Stewart is kept at home by a rheumatism, which will not allow him to brave March storms, and no one very much regrets his absence, least of all the doctor himself. His efforts to prevent the whole family from toppling over into Catholicism have not been agreeable to them nor to him, and in their intercourse they feel a constant restraint. But Melicent is highly pleased by the cordial interest with which Edith has inquired concerning all her husband’s symptoms, and, wishing to say something complimentary in return, observes, “I am charmed with your little girl. She will be a great belle some day.”

“God forbid!” Edith exclaimed involuntarily.

Melicent recollected herself. “Yes, to be sure, it is a position full of temptations. Still, she cannot help being admired.”

Edith’s face was very serious. “It is my dearest hope that my Eugénie may be a religious,” she said, with a soft suffusion of her eyes. “She would be such a lovely offering! Of course, I cannot tell what the will of God may be; but if it should be this, I shall be happy.”

“But how would Carl like it?” Melicent asked.

“When I first mentioned it to him, he recoiled,” was the answer. “But when he thought more of it, he became reconciled, and now he desires it as much as I do. We both feel that we would like to present unspotted to God that which is to us most sweet and precious. It may be the partial fondness of parents for their only child, but it seems to us that she is too beautiful for anything else.”

There was a chorus of children’s voices from the next room, where Betsey Bates and a French bonne were entertaining the little ones, and presently the door was opened, and a little boy came in, went to Mrs. Amy Yorke, and leaned on her lap. This child’s face told at once who he was. Brown, ruddy, black-eyed, with thick black hair which constantly fell over his forehead, gay and daring was this four-year-old sailor. He was ocean-born and ocean-bred, he had played with babes of all nations, chattered childish words in many a tongue, and was at home everywhere. His mother privately called him Captain Kidd; and his father had often sung to him the ballad of that wicked sailor, when they sat on deck as their ship cleaved the wave, and the fresh breeze sang in the rigging.

But, when night came on, there was one song that the child always asked for, and his mother always sang before he slept. Many a distant sea had heard that tender evening hymn to the Virgin, Ave Sanctissima, which the mother sang in a tremulous voice, mindful of home, and of the many dangers in her path. And, after a while, it became a tacit understanding, that, when at evening he saw the boy in his mother’s arms, with his blooming cheek laid close to hers, and their black locks flowing indistinguishably together, Captain Cary should come and stand, with bared head, beside the two, and listen as though to a prayer while the hymn was sung. Gradually his prejudices had worn away; and when he saw that mother and son, so dear to him, and so inseparable, he recognized the sacred and indissoluble union of the Divine Son with his Immaculate Mother. “Besides,” the sailor reasoned in his own mind, “there must be something more than commonly good in that religion which claims such devotion from Dick Rowan and Edith Yorke, and which my Clara thinks as good as any, and a little better.”

“I am glad that we are going to have a real home for the child, and make a citizen of him,” his father said, as the boy went slowly toward the door again. “Clara and I have been a little too easy with him, I am afraid.”

“It is odd,” Mrs. Yorke remarked, “that of my daughters, Hester, the softest, should be quite strict with her children, while Clara, whom I should have thought would need a warning not to be so, is almost too indulgent.”

“I could have told you that,” Captain Cary answered, glancing across the room to where his wife talked with her father. “Clara’s heart melts only too readily, I always knew. I never mistook her disposition. And, if she is literary, she can darn stockings the most neatly, and make a room look prettier, and get up the best little supper of any woman I know.”

Charlie Cary, loitering toward the door, had scarcely reached it, when it was pushed open, and--was it a human child, or a fairy, who entered, and flitted across the room into Edith Yorke’s arms? A little girl of five years, softly white and dainty, golden-haired and hazel-eyed, and so exquisite in shape that one examined her with delight. Her motions were full of a captivating grace, her voice silvery-fine. She was vowed to the Virgin, and wore only white and blue.

Charlie stopped inside the door to stare at her. He always did follow her about, and watch her, as though she were some strange, rare bird. He seldom volunteered to speak to her, and touched her with timid care, like something he feared to break.

Carl Yorke crossed the room, and leaned on the back of his wife’s chair. One could not see a more perfect group.

Edith bent over the child, her braids of shadowed gold touching the pure gold ringlets. “What does mamma’s little girl want?” she asked.

The child, smilingly aware that all eyes were upon her, but too much accustomed to love to be abashed by their gaze, lisped out her question: “Isn’t Philip, and Charlie, and all of ’em got guardian-angels?”

“Yes, my love!” answered Edith.

“There!” cried the child, with a glance of sparkling triumph at Charlie.

She ran to him, and put her white arms around his neck in a hug of congratulation, then, as light as air, whisked herself behind him.

“You’s got an angel, and he stands just so, and tells you what to do,” she said.

She stood on tiptoe, showing a pink and white face beside his, and two tiny hands on his shoulder. Then, with a bewitching laugh, she ended her pantomime, and ran back to her mother.

Charlie did not take it well. “I haven’t got any old angel,” he said doggedly. “My mother tells me where to go, and Ave Sanctissima takes care of us nights.”

A vivid red shot across Clara’s face as she drew the boy to her. “It is true, Charlie, and I will tell you all about it soon,” she said.

Should Edith’s child, should any other mother’s child, go guarded by angels, and upheld by a religious trust, and her son be like a heathen? All she had taught him had been such as pleased her fancy only. Sanctissima had been but a beautiful object to paint and sing, not a real being to whom honor was due. “I’ll have Father Rasle baptize this child before he is a week older!” she resolved.

Edith held out her hand to the boy, and looked at him with a beaming smile. “Come, darling, and tell me about Sanctissima,” she said.

“I’ve no objection,” Captain Cary said later that night, when his wife asked his permission to have their child baptized by a priest. “But you needn’t fret, Clara, at the boy’s speaking so. It is more natural that a little yellow-haired girl should take to religion, than that a great bouncing boy should.”

Father Rasle, it should be said, was at this time the pastor of a city church.

This little scene ended, “I am glad to see, Clara,” her father said, “that in what you write lately, you employ less pure color for your men and women, and use secondaries and tertiaries more. There is, of course, a vast difference between the good and bad; but in this life, whatever they may become in the next, all are human.”

“And yet,” she replied, “I am sometimes criticised for putting spots on the sun, and giving an amiable trait to my villain. The pretext for the criticism is that perfect examples and perfect warnings are wanted. I think, however, that the spots on the sun give most offence.

‘And if Jove err, who dare say Jove doth wrong?’”

“Nevertheless, stick to your tertiaries,” Mr. Yorke said, with a decided nod. “The lump of glass that, seeing a flaw in the diamond, went and smashed itself all to pieces, would have smashed itself to pieces if it had not seen the flaw in the diamond. It merely used that as a pretext for what it was predetermined to do. It is one thing to admire an ideal character, and another thing to imitate it; and many a lazy and insincere moralist would be delighted to have you paint all your good characters so extremely good that he could at once prove his piety by applauding, and his modesty by not striving to emulate. There are, of course, exceptions, dear souls who love to look at unadulterated goodness; but they are so charitable they will forgive you the spots on the sun, and so truthful they will not require you to be false in order to please them. My belief is that those persons do great good whose occasional missteps excite our courage to imitate the virtues by which they retrieve themselves. There are other stronger beings, who are outwardly without a fault; but they are exceptional, about in the proportion of salt to your porridge. Suppose that I were advised to go to the top of a high mountain. ‘I cannot go,’ I say. My mentor points to a man who stands on the summit. ‘Perhaps he was born there,’ I reply. ‘Not so!’ says mentor. ‘He climbed: see the steps!’ ‘But,’ I still object, ‘he must be so much stronger than I am. I should fall before I were half-way up.’ ‘He was as weak as or weaker than you,’ says my adviser; ‘and he fell after a dozen steps, and fell again and again; yet, there he is!’ Don’t you see that if anything would take me up the mountain-top, that would? No, Clara, I think that, in the long run, it’s best to tell the truth. There may be ignorant souls who will thrive for a while on pretence; but let them once find out that you have once pretended, no matter how good the motive, and, from their very ignorance, they will never be able to trust you again. If you want to be politic, honesty is the best policy.”

“If people wouldn’t classify one so!” sighed the young woman pathetically. “The science and order that are abroad appall me. You cannot say nor do the smallest thing, but instantly somebody pounces on you, and pins a label on your back before you can take breath. One would think that we were dried specimens. Say that you sometimes fancy your departed friends may hear you speak, you are without delay set down as a spiritist, a table-tipper, a planchette-roller, a spirit-seer, and everything that follows; say that you think Catholics, and even priests, have some little chance of being saved, presto! you are a Papist, you are a Jesuit, you are going to poison Protestants, you want the Pope to be president of the United States, you are going to muzzle the press, shut up the public schools, destroy the Bible, put an end to free speech, etc.; send Bridget to get your husband’s slippers, instead of going after them yourself, and oh! you woman’s-rights woman, you! How you are going to abuse your husband! How you are going to let him eat cold dinners, wear ragged stockings, and come to grief generally! Labelled you must be, if you put your nose above the earth. And how your dear friends like to pin on the little pieces of paper, and give you a pat at the same time, so that the pin shall prick! There’s Miss Minerva, who wants to pick me to pieces, and, at the same time, keep up a reputation for charity, goes round telling everybody, and me among them, that I am impressionable, using the word in a tone that makes it mean unprincipled, of no stability, frivolous, inconstant; and that, because I have eyes and a heart, I was delighted to find in a newspaper, not long ago, a little extract which I am going to send her: ‘A strong mind is more easily impressed than a weak one; you shall not as easily convince a fool that you are a philosopher, as a philosopher that you are a fool.’ Papa, I insist on being eclectic!”

“Take breath, my daughter, take breath!” said Mr. Yorke apprehensively.

Mrs. Clara took breath, and switched the last part of the conversation off the track. “A propos of colors!” she said. “You remember I always liked to find out the relations of things, and had the idea of a trinity in everything, before I heard of Delsarte. And, by the way, I do not think that the theory is original with him. It seems to me I have heard it before. You know how he does; groups everything in threes, the parts of which are co-existent, co-efficient, and co-necessary, and, as an instance, gives space, motion, and time, neither of which can be computed without the aid of the other two. See how I figure my Trinity with the three colors: the color which signifies the Father is blue, the contemplative color, the color of infinite space in which the creation floats, the intellectual color, the color of faith; the ensign of the Son is red, which is sacrifice and love; yellow is for the Holy Spirit, and is the illuminating color. It is also the color chosen by the Pope, who is the human voice of the Holy Spirit. United, these three form white, which is the seal of the Trinity. White is rest, peace, and bliss.”

“You are, then, a Catholic!” Mr. Yorke said, looking with keen eyes into his daughter’s face.

She blushed, and was embarrassed. “Æsthetically, papa!”

He dropped his eyes, and a slight frown settled on his forehead.

“Papa,” she said earnestly, “there is nothing else!”

He smiled, but said nothing.

“Would you be displeased if I should be one in earnest?” she asked.

“I should be glad!” her father replied, and rose abruptly to meet Melicent, who was going home.

The others withdrew, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Yorke with Edith and Carl. They gathered closely together before the fire, the parents sitting between their children, and, with hand clasped in hand, talked lovingly and seriously far into the night.

When they parted, all had shed tears, but they were not tears of sorrow.

“Good-night, my dear parents,” Edith said, embracing them. “You have made me happy for all my life, and yourselves happy for all eternity. I do not wonder that you find it hard to take such a step, and renounce before the world the religion which you have professed all your lives. You are not cowards; you have been willing to suffer that Catholics might have their rights; but, you know, ‘obedience is better than sacrifice.’”

“Perhaps it is a whim,” Mrs. Yorke said; “but I would like to be baptized by that dear young man I used to love so, Mr. Rowan.”

“Young man!” Carl said, smiling. “He and I are about the same age, and I am forty-three.”

“Forty-three!” echoed his mother in surprise. “And I am over sixty! Charles, we are entering on our service at the eleventh hour. We will not wait for Mr. Rowan. Let us not delay beyond to-morrow.”

“Good-night, children!” said Mr. Yorke. “Yes, Amy.”

The next day was Sunday, and Carl and Edith went to High Mass. Captain Cary’s “flurry” had passed with the night, and not a cloud was to be seen. Little heaps and drifts of snow hid under fences and trees, but the pavement was wind-swept. The sun shone joyously, and, not far from it, a waning moon dissolved in its light.

There was the dear old church again, and, just going in under the portal, Mrs. Rowan-Williams. She took holy water, and bowed before entering her pew. The same hands were on the organ-keys, the same soprano, bright as a sunbeam, broke through the cloud of bass and alto, the same slow wreath of white-robed boys curled silently, like incense, about the sanctuary, there were the same faces at the altar. It was like coming home again.

But, before the Veni Creator, who was this coming from the sacristy, palm to palm, draped in folds of spotless whiteness, and showing, even now, through his measured steps, a familiar swing and freedom? The chestnut hair, cut short, exposed the forehead, the face was slightly thin, but bright and healthy.

The glance this priest cast over the congregation, as he went toward the pulpit, was peculiar. It took in the number of his hearers, but you would say that he saw their souls, not their bodies. So many waiting souls to whom he was to carry a message. Self so completely annihilated that even humility was forgotten, he went on, wrapped in calm obedience, to speak the word that was given him.

The subject of the sermon was the uses of pain; the argument, that all real good comes through pain. The speaker’s voice was so clear and strong that it was heard without effort on his part or the listener’s, his tone was conversational, and his illustrations came naturally from his old sea-life.

Real confidence in God can be shown, he said, only when we are blind, and cannot see how our sufferings are to lead to any good end. Then trust is possible, is deserving, is saving. Then we learn quickly the lesson that God would teach us, and take a higher place. Our Master does not put back any soul. If it remain long in the region of trouble, it must be through its own stubbornness.

“We all suffer too much, because we afflict ourselves in trying to escape pain, when we cannot escape it. The chalice of this bitter sacrament is never empty, and never set aside. Friends and foes alike give it into our hands, our dearest and kindest press it to our lips, unaware, or in their own despite; the messenger of God presents it. It is useless to struggle, for we cannot escape; it is foolish to struggle; for in the bottom of that cup of bitterness is a heavenly draught of sweetness.

“Lessons are on every side, the whole creation preaches to us. Even the building of a ship is like the building of a saint. The pine and the oak grow in the forest, they grow in rain and sunshine, they swing their branches in the wind, and rock the birds to rest. What is their end? To grow, and then to decay, and feed the roots of succeeding trees with their crumbling remains. They grow only to decay, and wish no better, and know no better, and, if better come, it must come from some outside, wiser will.

“When the woodman appears, he is an object of terror, fancy, the Manichee would tell you. At the blows of the axe, the whole tree shivers, it trembles in every leaf, it falls with a groan. But its tortures are not ended. The saw, the plane, the shave, the auger, the adze, do each their work; and the mourning tree says, ‘I was made to be tormented. I am covered with ruin, and good shall no more come to me.’ Ah, then, how happy seem the far-away, peaceful woods! how dear the little nests that have been clipped off, and the intertwining branches of neighboring trees!

“But we are not like the tree. We know what hand lays us low, and clips off the unruly wishes, the foolish, twittering hopes.

“Look at the home of the iron! It lies in darkness and mystery underground, and hears the small streams trickle down or bubble up. It knows and wishes no better. The miner comes with his pick, the dark ore is dazzled with alien sunshine, is tortured by fire. In its agony it becomes more terrible than fire, and presses and glows to destroy. It replies with sparks to the blows of the hammer.

“Oh! for the cool dark, the whispering stream, the moveless rock and earth! Its pain is to no end but that it may suffer, and ruin has come.

“But we are not like the senseless iron. We know what Divine Miner digs us out of our abasement, shows us the light of truth, and moulds us into shape.

“At last the ship is built; its different elements are united into one harmonious being; and then it fancies that it understands all. It exults over the dull tree standing with its roots in earth, over the brutish ore buried in the darkness. It stands in its stocks, and grows in beauty, looks at the shining river that flows and sings for ever, and sees the children play, and the days go by.

“But the end is not yet. Some summer morning the workmen come to strike its props away. The tide comes up, and its song is the song of the siren; a crowd gathers to mock at its ruin. It was raised, then, only to be more cruelly cast down. One support after another is struck away, prop after prop falls. The ship shudders, it has learnt nothing from its lesson, it moans, it slips slowly, then rapidly, then it plunges--whither? Into annihilation? No! into its own proper element at last, into the bosom of the deep. The tides bear it up, the winds of heaven wing its course; at last it is of use.

“Take comfort, brethren, in your pain. He who permits it knows well how hard it is to bear. When you are nailed to your cross, the glorified flesh of the Man-God remembers its own agony. And, suffer not only trustingly, and with resignation, but suffer with courage. If you shrink and cover your eyes, you have hidden a ghost in your life. When a sorrow comes to you, look it in the face; and, by-and-by, the mask shall fall off, and you will see the face of an angel.”

We have given but a sketch. The words are dry, but the sermon was full of life.

When Carl and his wife walked homeward, Edith did not speak for a long time. Whenever her husband looked at her, she was gazing straight forward, and seemed absorbed in thought.

“Well, Edith,” he said at length, “what is it?”

She looked up into his face with those eyes so childlike still.

“I was wondering, Carl,” she said, “how I could ever have presumed to call him Dick!”

And so we leave our Edith, as we found her, wondering.

FRAGMENTS OF EARLY ENGLISH POEMS ON THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

To Catholics ... it is a joy and a solace to look back into past centuries, and remember that there were days when our poets drank of a purer fount than that of Castaly; and made it their pride to celebrate in their verse, not Dian nor Proserpine, but the Immaculate Queen of Heaven. Of Chaucer’s devotion to this theme, I have already spoken, but other poets before his time delighted in dedicating their verses to her who, as she inspired the most exquisite designs of the artist’s pencil, has also claimed not the least beautiful productions of the poet’s pen. Thus, one sings of her as ‘Dame Lyfe,’ and describes how

“As she came by the bankes, the boughs eche one, Lowked to the Ladye, and layd forth their branches, Blossoms and burgens (new shoots) breathed ful swete, Flowres bloomed in the path where forth she stepped, And the gras that was dry greened belive.”

Others, according to their quaint fashion, mixed up English and Latin rhymes in a style which, barbarous as it is, is certainly not deficient in harmony. One little poem, ascribed to a writer in the reign of Henry III., commences thus:

“Of all that is so fayr and bright, Velut maris stella; Brighter than the day is light, Parens et puella. I crie to The, Thou se to me, Levedy, preye the Sone for me, Tam pia, That Ich mote come to The, Maria.”

--Christian Schools and Scholars.

THE LEGENDS OF OISIN, BARD OF ERIN.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

VI.

OISIN’S GOOD CONFESSION.

Not seldom, crossed by bodings sad, In words though kind yet hard Spake Patrick to his guest, Oisin; For Patrick loved the Bard

In whose broad bosom, swathed with beard Like cliffs with ivy trailed, A Christian strove with a pagan soul, And neither quite prevailed.

Silent as shades the shadowing monks O’er cloistral courts might glide; But the War-Bard strode through the church itself Like hunter on mountain-side.

Yea, sometimes, while his beads he told, Fierce thoughts, a rebel breed, Burst up from the graves of his warriors dead, And he stormed at priest and Creed.

His end drew nigh. ’Twas after years Had proved stern warnings vain, When dying he lay on his wolf-skin bed, And murmured a warlike strain.

The Saint drew near: he gazed; then spake, “A fair child died one day: Four weeks had passed; yet, changeless still, Like a child asleep he lay.

“They could not hide him in the ground Though hand and heart were chill, For round his lips the smile avouched The soul was in him still.

“Then lo! a man of God came by And stood beside the bier, And spake, ‘A pagan house is this; And yet a saint lies here!

“‘God shaped this child his praise to sing To a blind and pagan race; And till that song is sung, in heaven He may not see God’s face.’

“Then thrice around that child he moved With circling censer-cloud, And touched with censer fire his tongue, And the dead child sang aloud.

“Oisin! like larks beside thy Lee, So loud he sang his hymn: And straight baptized he was, and died; And, dead, his face grew dim.

“So then, since Christ had caught to heaven The fair soul washed from sin, A little grave they dug, and laid The little saint therein.

“And ever as fell the night, that grave Shone like the Shepherds’ star, With happy beam that homeward drew The wanderer from afar.

“Oisin! thy Land is as that child! Thou call’st her dead--thy Land; For cold is Fionn, thy sire; and he, He was her strong right hand!

“And cold is Oscar now, thy son: Her mighty heart was he-- Oisin! let dead at last be dead; Let living, living be!

“Her great old Past is gone at last: Her heavenlier Future waits, Yet entrance never can she find Till Faith unbars the gates.

“Prince of thy country’s songful choir! Thou wert her golden Tongue! Sing thou her New Song--‘I believe!’ Give thou to God her Song!

Then suddenly that old man stood, And made his arms a cross: Within his heart a light that changed The earth to dust and dross:

And, pierced by beams from those two hands Of Jesus crucified, His Erin of two thousand years Held forth her hands, and died:

For all her sceptres by a Reed That hour were overborne; And all her crowns went down, that hour, Before the Crown of Thorn.

As shines the sun through snowy haze Oisin’s white head forth shone: “In God the Father I believe,” He sang, “and Mary’s Son:”

And, onward as the swan-chaunt swept Adown the Creed’s broad flood, In radiance waxed his face, as though He saw the face of God.

Then Patrick, with his wondering monks, Knelt down, and said, “Amen,” While slowly dropped a sun that ne’er Saw that white head again.

The rite complete, the old man sank, And turned him on his side: Next morning, as the Lauds began, “My Son,” he said, and died.

A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR.

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