Carmelita And Other Stories
Author: Sadlier, Anna Theresa
Date: 2016-08-13T05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short Stories
Description: Ebook prepared by crutledge@knology.net
Rights: Public Domain

TABLE of CONTENTS

CARMELITA.

THE CHILD OF THE TEMPLE.

THE JINGLINGS.

CHAPTER I—WHAT THE NEIGHBORS KNEW.

CHAPTER II—

CHAPTER III—

CHAPTER IV—

ENDNOTES

CARMELITA.

i.

It stood dark and solemn, that old house. Few remembered to have seen its shutters unfastened, or its great gloomy door swung ajar. The little patch of ground around it had been planted once in careful rows, with many an old-fashioned flower. Four o’clocks and peonies, tulips and dahlias, staring scarlet poppies, sweet Williams and carnations enough to make the air for half a mile around smell spicy. Now, in the summer time they were all in inextricable confusion, all striving, as it were, for a place, and getting entangled with the ribbon-grass, and straying into the lawn at one side, on the brick court-yard on the other. Ah! even the gloom that had fallen on the mansion could not penetrate to that one favored spot. It was on the sunny side, this court-yard, and its red bricks, no doubt, lured the genial sunshine to rest upon them, whilst nests of birds had been built in the gnarled tree that grew there. It had been straight and young once, and even now in the spring-time it was still gladdened by its hosts of budding leaves and feathered lodgers.

Upon the work of man, the house, time had set its seal and claimed it with that harsh irrevocable claim against which there is no appeal. It was undeniably old, its boards dim for want of paint, the tiles upon the roof broken, the windows loose-jointed, the blinds awry.

An enquirer would have been told that the house was tenanted by an old woman, who occupied one of the large grim rooms upstairs, from which she was never able to descend, and who was attended by another woman, more aged, but not so infirm as herself. The imagination of the young was forever invading this somewhat ghostly dwelling-place. Some even invested it with the additional interest of supernatural terrors. But their conjectures fell short of the reality. The papers upon the walls had been hung there at some long-forgotten period, the window-curtains, where there were any, playing idly in the summer breezes, or drearily shutting out wintry skies, were of a pattern of chintz, long since vanished from shelf or counter. The passages were long and bare, and they ran into out-of-the-way corners and suddenly found themselves confronted by needless stairs, and were bordered by futile cupboards, the doors of which were never so much as opened. Strange windows looked out of walls like staring eyes.

There was a perpetual hush in the place, as though the walls were listening for feet that never came. An impressionable person could scarce have escaped the idea that viewless feet must pass by night up those unused stairs, and that voices whispered to each other in sounds that never definitely reached human ears.

Into this waste, came, one clear May evening, a girl, nineteen years of age, warm with the life of a lovely Spanish American town, glowing with health, youth, beauty and animation. Into this emptiness came, in short, Carmelita.

She was more than beautiful in her traveling dress of sombre gray, with a bunch of red roses fastened near her throat. Her large, soft eyes beamed with a light that seemed to warm and brighten all that they came in contact with; her lips were smiling, as a happy child smiles, when it finds itself suddenly among flowers.

It is the sudden entrance from the warm sunlight that chills her, as she passes through the great door, which swings reluctantly open, the first time for more than twenty-five years, to admit her. It had closed upon her young mother, closed in wrath and bitterness, a quarter of a century ago. Since then no human foot had crossed that threshold. Even the minister who had come thither to read the burial service over Elder Johnson, had been admitted by the side-door. The Elder himself had been carried thence by that same side-door, to the grave that was waiting for him on the green hill-side.

Why had the door been unclosed today? Was it because the old woman above was urged by the same divine mystery of forgiveness, which had moved her to send for this girl, to throw open heart and door and take in the long banished past? Up the stairs, which creaked at every step, even under the light pressure that now for the first time touched them went Carmelita, up, and into the presence of her grandmother. The old woman from below led her there and would have lingered. A stern wave of the hand bade her go. Grand-parent and grandchild were left alone. The strange old figure upon the bed, shaded by its dingy curtains, looked out upon the lovely young presence that might have been spring personified. To her it was a spectre, back from the twenty-five years.

“You have come,” she said, “you have come at last.”

“Yes,” said Carmelita, “I have come, grandmamma.”

“Grandmamma!” repeated the old woman, suddenly covering her face with both hands, while the tears began to trickle through them, “grandmamma!”

To her mind, somewhat dulled by the silence of these long years, the word was a cruel shock. It was her own daughter who had gone away from her and would never, never come back. Carmelita paused a moment, out of respect for this grief, then passing hastily round to the side of the bed she kissed the yellow cheek and reverently touched the wrinkled hand.

Presently the old woman recovered herself.

“You’d better go,” she said; “let Hepzibah get your fixin’s and take them to the brown room, and give you something to eat.”

Carmelita would have lingered.

“What are you waiting for? You’d better go.”

“Grandmamma, is there not something you would like?”

Oh, the odd sound of that sweet foreign voice in that dingy room. It was like a breath from the South, coming after the cold nasal twang of the older woman.

“No, Hepzibah’ll see to that. Don’t you fret.”

Carmelita going down the broad staircase met Hepzibah.

“Grandmamma wishes you to take me to the brown room,” she said in her foreign sounding English. Hepzibah looked keenly at her.

“Your things are in there now. I guess you’d better eat something.”

“I am not hungry,” said Carmelita tremulously.

The thought of the last meal she had taken at home, that home that was so far off and was to be hers no longer, came upon her with a sudden rush of pain.

“Guess you’d better try,” said Hepzibah, observing the signs of emotion, but disregarding them. “There is some cold mutton, a bit of pumpkin-pie and a dish of stewed huckleberries down there.”

She jerked her thumb towards the kitchen.

“Oh, thank you,” said Carmelita.

“If you want to tidy up any, just you go along that hall, first door to the right, and then come back here and go down to the kitchen. If I ain’t there, you’ll find them things on the table.”

Carmelita passed along the passage not without a secret dread, for the light was waning, and it was full of shadows. “Oh, I am sure,” she said to herself, “that a great many people must have lived here once, and that they are all dead now. God give rest to the dead.”

And she opened the door of the brown room and went in. It was brown, indeed. The paint was dark brown, the strips of carpet aggressively dark brown, so were the bed-curtains and the window-curtains. For a moment Carmelita’s heart stood still. The very aspect of that great bed was terrifying, formidable in its solid mahogany, of which there was almost enough to built a modern house. And the looking-glass. Ah, it was as well, perhaps. It was like the convent. It was so high, that Carmelita had to rise on tip-toe to peep into it, and it was small and oval, and oh, such a reflection as it gave forth.

“Tomorrow, the windows will be open and the sun will come in,” said Carmelita, trying to cheer herself with the thought. She washed her hands, smoothed her hair and went down.

Oh, yes, this was a cheerful place, at least comparatively, this kitchen, not like the one at home, indeed, great and broad, with an open fire-place, an ornamental dresser, big windows and a savory smefl of cooking. But still it was large, though bare and prim in its arrangement, and broad windows let in the fading light, and there was a fire in the big black stove, its red warmth coming cheerily to the poor little Southerner’s heart. At least this kitchen was not suggestive of ghosts.

On a corner of the table stood the scrag of mutton, the hunk of pumpkin-pie and the huckleberries with a loaf of home-made bread. All her life Car melita had been accustomed to certain little delicacies in the matter of the serving of food, but on the other hand she had been taught to eat, uncomplainingly of whatever was set before her. And, at any rate, there was spotless cleanliness here.

Carmelita, therefore, blessed herself and began to eat. Presently she became aware that Hepzibah was staring at her, with a genuine, ill-concealed astonishment.

“See here,” said Hepzibah at last, her curiosity, which all these years had been smouldering for want of material, leaping into life. “Whatever made you do that just now?”,

“What?” asked Carmelita, half alarmed.

“Why that, what you done, when you began to eat.”

As Carmelita still seemed unconscious, the old woman attempted an imitation of the Sign of the Cross. Carmelita’s sense of the ridiculous overcoming all else, she burst into a merry peal of laughter, which was taken up and re-echoed through every nook and cranny of the old place. For just that moment she forgot home-sickness, weariness, the dreariness, almost fear, produced by her first impressions of the old house and its inmates. Her native lightheartedness had surmounted them all. Meanwhile the old woman looked on in stony silence, much amazed and no little offended by this untimely mirth.

“I forgot you was a papist,” she said at last, snappishly. “They does them sort of idolatrous things down to their meetin’ house. Elder Robinson, he says so, and I guess he knows.”

Poor Carmelita. Much of this harangue was wasted upon her, but it came to her with a sudden feeling of desolation, worse than the dark rooms above, worse than the dreary house, than the uncongenial companionship, the sense that she was in a land where the Sign of the Cross was unknown. She had left a country where warmer than the warm sunshine was the Catholic spirit that vivified the air, where the evening fell and the morning rose with the Angelus bell, where churches arose at every square and corner, where the laboring-man lifted his hat as he passed the church, and the working woman paused from her toil to kneel at the way-side shrine. Here—oh, the cold of it, the bitter, biting cold. She rose and went near the fire, while Hepzibah observed that she had barely tasted of the viands.

“I should not have laughed,” said Carmelita presently. “You must forgive me; I did not mean to be rude. But—”

“ ’Tain’t no matter,” said Hepzibah, shortly, “only I’d advise you to be more careful with some folks around here.”

“I will, indeed,” said Carmelita, “and as for what I was doing, why, I always make the Sign of the Cross before eating.”

“Why, do tell,” cried Hepzibah, regarding her, and holding the dish of huckleberries, which she was removing from the table, at a perilous angle, and overcome by curiosity, “perhaps you might as well let me see what it is anyhow.”

Carmelita repeated the action, saying the words clearly and distinctly.

“I always did think Papists was queer folk,” commented Hepzibah, “though I never did know but one, and he was demented. Now, what on airth do you do sech a thing as that for?”

“We make the form of the Cross to remind us that Christ died on the Cross, and we say the words to bring the Blessed Trinity to our remembrance.”

“Downright mummery,” muttered Hepzibah, “but I guess I must go now. I’ve got to give Mrs. Johnson a dish of gruel for her supper.”

“Oh, is that grandmamma? Can I do anything for her?”

“You’d better sit right still and not worry. If she wants you, she’ll let you know it.”

So Carmelita sat still and looked at the red embers as they peeped at her through the bars of the stove, while the shadows closed in about her, and she heard the old woman go shuffling upstairs and back and fro in the room above, slowly, heavily, regularly, like the pendulum of the old clock in the hall without.

“I would like to have said good-night to my grandmamma,” said Carmelita, when Hepzibah had returned to the kitchen.

“Well, it’s a right good thing you didn’t do it,” said Hepzibah. “I found her scarey and lookin’ into all the corners, as I never seen her before, and cryin’ out that Araminta had come back and was lookin’ at her. Not that you be anything like Araminta. You ain’t got her good looks. She had real pretty blue eyes and brown hair and a skin like cream. You’re well enough, but you’ve got something kinder outlandish about you, with them big black eyes and black skin, too.”

Carmelita listened, only half comprehending, as the old woman passed to and fro, at her work, talking the while in a careless monotone.

“Any way, she took you for Araminta, and it gave me a turn to see her settinJ up there and callin’ out kinder pitiful. And I kept thinkin’ of you settin’ down here in the spot Araminta she used to set and makin’ them idolatrous signs.”

It began to dawn upon Carmelita that Araminta was her mother. She had known her by her baptismal name, when she became a Catholic, of Mary, softened into Maria. But upon Hepzibah’s mind as upon that of the old woman above, had seized the image of another young girl, who used to find her chief solace by the kitchen fire and who had shown a degree of affection for this grim old woman, to which she had been otherwise a stranger.

“Yes, Araminta she set right there,” said Hep-zibah; “it was after the Spanish chap had come into the town. I reckon the Romish priest, he brought him here to look after the music at the mass-house. Well, Araminta, she sat there, and she never was one to talk much, but I seen she kep’ lookin’ out of the window, uneasy like, but I never know’d that she’d walk home from meetin’, lots of times, with the foreign chap—not that he went to her meetin’. He was that uffish he wouldn’t put his foot in it. Well, she sat there, and when it was dark and she couldn’t see out any, she asked me to light the candle, and then I see’d she been cryin’. I asked her if it was her head, or if she felt rheumatiz anywhere and she said, ‘Oh, no, Hepzibah, the pain is all here.’ She put her hand to her side, and then I wanted her real bad to take some boneset, because I folks says you git pleurisy jest that way. But she wouldn’t hear of it.

“ ‘Don’t be afraid, Hepzibah,’ she says, with a sickly smile, ‘I’m not gettin’ pleurisy. But something else might happen. Would you miss me, Hepzibah, were I to go away from here?’

“I thought she was clean takin’ leave of her five senses, and I says, ‘I’ll tell you that when you go; there’s not much danger.’

“After that she never said a word, jest gave a sigh, like, and afterwards I was kinder sorry that I hadn’t said I would miss her, because I did, often enough.” To Hepzibah’s astonishment, Carmelita, arising from her seat, threw her arms in warm southern fashion round the old woman’s neck. Imperfectly as she understood Hepzibah’s manner of speaking English, still the word picture had been very vivid to her mind. She could recall the old kitchen and her mother sitting there, young as she was then, silent and reserved, but very fair and sweet as Carmelita had known her. She could fancy her craving the sympathy, of which any demonstration was so studiously withheld, and yet the presence of which she had been conscious.

“You loved my mother,” said the girl, “you did miss her. You were kind to her. Oh, thank you.” Hepzibah slowly withdrew herself from the young girl’s embrace. She regarded her, a faint smile stealing over the grimness of her face like the firelight on the rough deal table. Then she said, with marked emphasis:

“You ain’t like Araminta, nohow.”

But from that moment she took the young Spaniard into her heart, to fill the place long since left vacant by the undemonstrative New England girl— by Araminta.

II.

From that month of May a revolution began in the old house. The neighbors began to see, with wonder and an uncontrollable curiosity, the figure of a young girl flitting about in the brick courtyard, or bending over the flower beds, or training the long neglected vines about the front door.

The front door itself was usually wide open now, so that all the sweetness of the spring might steal in and drive thence the musty past, with its shadows and its prejudices and its bitternesses. As if symbolically, the lilac tree, just bursting into luxuriant bloom, thrust itself obstrusively inwards. The warm south wind blew in and up the great stairway and into the very face of the old) clock, standing at its station in the hall.

Grandmamma’s room was daily adorned with a bunch of lilacs or other spring flowers, the chintz curtains during the day were drawn far back to let in as much sun as possible. New life seemed coming into the shrivelled figure on the bed. Perhaps it only seemed so because new curtains had been hung upon the bedside, of bright and cheerful coloring. But there was distinctly a gleam of hope, of pleased expectancy in the old eyes as they watched the door for the coming of a bright, young presence. How bright they grew as Carmelita entering knelt impulsively to kiss the wrinkled hand, or put an arm about the withered neck, whilst coaxing grandmamma to eat.

The brown room was relieved of its curtains and other gloomy appendages. A neat toilet table took the place of the cumbersome bureau and distorting mirror. Pretty trifles in fancy work gave touches of harmonious color to the apartment. Upon the walls were pictures of the Sacred Heart, of Our Lady of Lourdes, and a print which Carmelita highly prized of St. Simon Stock receiving the Scapular from the hands of the Blessed Mother. This had been given to Carmelita by her dead mother, and besides, said the young girl once to Hepzibah:

“It is my name-picture. I was born upon the feast of Our Lady of Carmel, and this is why I was called Carmelita, and why my mother always loved this picture.” All of which was Greek to Hepzibah, except the fact that Araminta despite her godly training, had grown to love “idolatrous images.”

The old woman’s astonishment, indeed, upon first seeing the room thus adorned, was more easily imagined than described.

“Sakes alive,” she found voice to gasp, “I wouldn’t for a good deal any of the folks ’round here got into this room. Why, Carmelita,” she always pronounced the “i” broad,—“whatever makes you go to hang up graven images, right here under your grandfather’s roof, him that was an elder of the church.”

“You call these pictures graven images,” said Carmelita with some anger, “why, do you not see that they are the countenances of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother.”

“Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven image,” began Hepzibah, in the sing-song voice of the Bethel Sunday-School, which forty odd years before she had attended.

But Carmelita put her little hand upon the woman’s mouth.

“Bah, my good Hepzibah,” she said playfully, “if we may not have the faces of those we love to remind us of them, then take away that portrait of my grandfather from the parlor below, and that other, oh naughty Hepzibah, which hangs in your own sleeping room.”

“Sech a child,” said Hepzibah, no little flustered by this allusion to the counterfeit presentiment of a half-legendary and long departed sweetheart, “I declare you’d most argue the birds off the bushes. But all the same—”

“When you see the faces of our Lord and our Blessed Lady here all the time,” said Carmelita, “you will grow to know and love them much better than you do. I want to put them wherever I can in this old house. It needs warmth. I wish you could put one in grandmamma’s room.”

“Don’t you do nothing of the sort,” cried Hep-zibah; "you’d most kill her if you did. It gave me a turn cornin’ up here in the dim light Sabbath evening, and I just home from setting right under the pulpit, where Parson Jenkins, he preached on the idolatry of the Papists.”

“He must be a very foolish, ignorant man,” said Carmelita, coolly; “but I suppose he cannot help it. I pity him.”

“You pity a minister of the Baptist Church,” cried Hepzibah, “and a righteous and God-fearing man?”

“I pity them all,” said Carmelita, “but we must not talk about religion. Only I do wish I could warm a little this cold house and this cold village.” With which enigmatical words, Carmelita went down to the brick courtyard, where she had had a little seat put up for herself in the sunniest corner, which was, however, shaded by the great tree, just overhead. There she sat, while the rooks cawed so loudly and the robins twittered so mirthfully that the little Spanish conzonetta she was singing was almost drowned.

Here she -was first seen by three persons, who were simultaneously approaching the house, Minister Jenkins, whose fame had already reached her by Hepzibah; the Catholic priest, Father Brady, pastor of a very poor and scattered flock, and Andrew Rutherford, the rich and handsome son of a neighboring property holder, who had but lately returned from abroad.

Of these three, who observed her keenly and closely, the priest was the only one who passed through the gate and addressed her. Minister Jenkins was eyeing her with the instinctive feeling of the war horse scenting the battle from afar, for despite Hepzibah’s caution in the many interviews which she had had with curious neighbors, and despite her desire to keep the disgraceful truth a secret, rumors concerning Carmelita’s religion had already got abroad. Andrew Rutherford took up his station in the shadow of a tree. He was not ashamed to stand thus concealed and observe the most delightful picture which, he said to himself, had ever .met his eyes in this grim New England village. And thus he saw and heard Carmelita’s interview with the priest. Minister Jenkins had likewise observed it from another vantage corner. Carmelita had arisen a little surprised, a little doubtful. After a quick glance, a'strange little cry of delight escaped her.

“Oh, Padre mio, forgive me, sir, but you are a priest?”

“Yes, my child,” said Father Brady, “and you are the young Spanish lady of whom I have heard.” “Oh, the joy of seeing a priest once more. Oh, Padre, you cannot guess what it has been. And the church, is it near?”

“A good two miles,” said the priest.

“I shall go there to-day.”

“You must not attempt to go alone,” said Father Brady. “It is far and some factories to be passed, where there are plenty of rough characters.”

“Flepzibah, perhaps, will go with me.”

“Not unless you have brought a talisman from the south to charm her,” said the priest, smiling, as a remembrance of certain passages between him and the old woman came to his recollection. “I go away from home to-morrow for a month, that is I have to visit outlying districts under my charge. When I come back I shall see what can be done.”

“Can I not drive there?” said Carmelita.

The priest shook his head.,

“It is not customary here to take out any vehicle on the Sunday.”

“Not even to go to church?” said Carmelita, wonderingly.

“Not even to go to church,” repeated the priest, with a twinkle in his eye, “so rigidly do our Puritan fellow townsmen keep, not their Sabbath of the Bible, but our Sunday of the Christian church. But I must leave you now, my child.”

“So soon,” said Carmelita, regretfully.

“I am on my way home from a sick call. But we shall be better acquainted soon, I hope.”

Carmelita, leaning over the paling, watched the priest, down the road, with a home-sick, heavy-hearted feeling, as if she had just parted from a dear and familiar friend, so that she did not in the least observe Andrew Rutherford, who came out from his place of concealment and encountered the minister, likewise emerging from a hiding-place. There was a quizzical smile upon the young man’s face, which was met by a glance of keen scrutiny from the other.

“I was looking at a very pretty picture,” Rutherford said frankly, as the two men went down the village street together.

“And did you ever see a greater bit of play-acting?” said the minister, an angry flush upon his cheek.

“You mean the meeting between that young girl and the old priest?” said Rutherford; “to me that was a most charming incident.”

“Indeed, Mr. Rutherford, indeed,” said the minister.

“Her natural delight,” continued Rutherford, “at seeing one associated in her mind with much that was dear and sacred, and here, in such bleakness, was so simply and prettily expressed.”

“You are enthusiastic, sir,” said the minister, dryly.

“It is but rarely that I find anything to excite enthusiasm in these surroundings,” said the young man, vexed at the other’s tone.

“Andrew Rutherford,” said the minister, “will you let me give you an honest piece of advice? You will be in a dangerous way, if ever you put foot inside of yonder gate.”

“I!” said Rutherford, with something of indignation, but the minister went on.

“Such a face is a peril to the village, it is a snare devised by the Prince of Evil himself.”

“Our ways part here,” said Rutherford, sternly, “I shall have to bid you good-day.”

The minister looked after him with darkening brow, and Carmelita, unconscious of the storm she had raised in that worthy gentleman’s breast, went in to help Hepzibah to peel some vegetables. She began at once coaxing the old woman to take her to church, but upon this point Hepzibah was not to be shaken. She forgave Carmelita her own oddities of belief, so long as they were kept secret, but the honor of the family had to be consulted, the memory of the green grave upon the hill wherein Elder Johnson had been laid to rest, sound to the last in prot-estant doctrine, had to be respected.

Carmelita should not go to the Romish meeting house, if she could prevent it, and so, for the time being, Hepzibah had her way.

III.

Meantime an event occurred which sent a flurry of excitement even into the palsied figure on the bed upstairs. Mrs. Rutherford, widow of Squire Rutherford, lately “the biggest man” in the place, came in a solemn old coach to ask after Mrs. Johnson’s health and to call upon Carmelita. With her was her son, Mr. Andrew Rutherford, handsome, erect and tall. Carmelita, in a pink print dress, was under the tree in the courtyard when they came. She was feeding a rook, which had become tame enough to hop up to her for crumbs.

This old lady, New Englander to the backbone as she was, was half charmed, half repelled by the graceful ease, the warm, impulsive courtesy, with which Carmelita received her. When Carmelita would have led them into the house, Andrew Rutherford, by a pleading look at his mother, induced her to second his eagerly expressed desire to remain where they were.

“It is warmer out in the sunshine,” said Carmelita, simply, and she made the fluttered Hepzibah bring a chair for the son, whilst she sat beside the mother on the wooden bench, and talked of the flower-beds, which she was trying to reduce to order, and of the grandmother, into whom she was striving to put new life, and of the old house, into which she was trying to infuse some warmth. Upon all this she dwelt lightly and gracefully, and, then, listened with a rare, fine courtesy and gentle deference for age, to the elder woman’s somewhat prolix accounts of village life and of her family affairs.

Andrew Rutherford was, meanwhile, left rather persistently out in the cold. But he was content to watch and listen. Besides, he so managed that before leaving he had arranged to call upon the following Saturday, without the awkwardness of purposeless intrusion, to bring a book. On this occasion they sat out of doors, as before, but he was amused to see that Carmelita, in accordance with her Spanish notions of propriety, had installed Hepzibah as duenna. His acquaintance with the young girl, however, progressed much more rapidly than at his former visit. Conversation flowed freely and easily. Carmelita’s manner was wholly free from stiffness or affectation, and he was surprised at the extent of her information upon a variety of subjects. He had always had a more or less clearly defined impression that girls in those southern countries were uneducated, or barely instructed in the rudiments of learning, with their catechism, at a convent.

Once, when Hepzibah had slipped away into the house, Carmelita began to tell of her bitter disappointment at being unable to go to church and her old servant’s persistent refusal to accompany her.

“I have no desire to seem intrusive in any way,” Andrew Rutherford observed, with some hesitation, ‘‘but if you would permit me to call for you on Sunday morning I should be only too happy to act as guide.”

Carmelita looked at him startled. Such an idea had never occurred to her. To walk two miles with this stranger. Mr. Rutherford read her sensations in her face as plainly as if she had expressed them.

“Under other circumstances,” he said quietly, “I should not have thought of offering my services, but you are anxious to attend church and I see no other way of so doing.”

“That is true,” said Carmelita, simply, “it would be better to do it than remain away from church, so that after all, if grandmamma does not object—”

Mr. Rutherford could scarcely repress a smile. In the primitive etiquette of that little town there was no reason whatever why a young man might not escort a young woman to or from church or any other public place. Mr. Rutherford knew very well that even to Mrs. Johnson’s somewhat dulled wits there would be only a triumph unspeakable in having the most eligible party of the place in attendance upon her grand-daughter.

“She might object for the same reason that Hep-zibah refused to show you the way,” said Mr. Rutherford, “but otherwise—”

He paused, it was not so easy to explain matters to this young Spanish girl, who sat listening with her little air of courteous attention.

“Our code of etiquette is very different from yours,” he said at last. “With us a young lady may freely accept such attentions from a gentleman. And though we are but recent acquaintances there has been a long standing friendship between our families.”

Perhaps he strained the truth a little, for the Rutherfords had always stood upon a higher social plane than the Johnsons, and the relations between them could scarcely have been called friendship.

“Thank you,” said Carmelita with a quiet flush of comprehension, “then I shall go with you, unless grandmamma forbids me to do so. But I had forgotten Father Brady is away, perhaps there will be no Mass.”

“A strange priest is to officiate on Sunday,” said Mr. Rutherford quickly.

“Ah, you know; have you inquired?” said Carmelita, in surprise.

“Oh, people say I am half a Catholic,” said Mr. Rutherford, with an embarassed laugh.

The truth was he had had the idea in his mind of escorting Carmelita to church ever since he had overheard her conversation with the priest, partly because he was sincerely glad to do her this service, and partly because of the pleasure he anticipated for himself in accompanying her.

“On Sunday morning at a quarter past nine I shall be here,” said he, rising to take his leave.

“I shall be ready, unless grandmamma objects,” said Carmelita.

“I shall come on the chance,” he said, quietly.

Carmelita returned his good-bye with a quaint little courtesy, far more fascinating to his fastidious taste than the somewhat boisterous good-fellowship of the girls amongst whom he had grown up, and he went away. Meanwhile Hepzibah was making the following reflections:

“It seems like as if he might be comin’ courtin’ here, though ’tain’t no ways likely that Squire Rutherford’s son would look at a papist, unless she’d turn with him.”

This last idea kept turning itself over and over in her mind, with ever new developments.

“Jest to think of her havin’ me set up there, and he comin’ to see her. That girl’s a simpleton. I guess I’ll set things straight one of those days. I’ll tell her he’s the richest young man in this town, and all the girls are ready to jump right down his throat.”

Carmelita had to go through a little scene with grandmamma, but Mr. Rutherford was right and Mammon was victorious.

“Your mother took up with papists and wandered into evil paths,” said the old woman, when the subject of church-going was first broached to her, “and she went away from here with her father’s anger and mine upon her. We closed the door upon her and she went away.”

Here her voice trembled a little.

“It was May-time, too, and she never came back,” (Carmelita’s tears began to fall at the pathos of the tone) “and we prayed right here together, the Elder and myself,” went on the old woman, more sternly, “to keep far from us all the children of the ‘Scarlet Woman,’ even though they might be our flesh and blood. And seems as if the prayer was answered for Araminta never came back.”

“I have come in her stead,” said the clear voice of Carmelita. “I have come as my mother, when dying, said I should do, to be a staff to your hand and a light to your eyes.”

“She said that,” said the old woman, in an awed voice, -while her thin, nerveless hands twisted themselves uneasily upon the coverlet. “From snares and pitfalls deliver us, good Lord.”

“Grandmamma,” said Carmelita, speaking with a deep earnestness which impressed the old woman in her own despite, “you will not forbid me to go to church on Sunday.”

“I would rather see you dead than worshipping in a mass-house,” said Mrs. Johnson, with sudden vehemence.

“I should be grieved, indeed, to disobey you,” said Carmelita, “but now that an opportunity has come for me to go to church I must avail myself of it.”

“What opportunity?” asked the old woman quickly.

“Mr. Rutherford has offered to show me the way.”

“Squire Rutherford’s son?”

“I suppose so, but perhaps you will object to my walking so far with a gentleman, if so you might tell Hepzibah.”

Carmelita did not at all understand the sudden brightness in the dull face, the gleam in, the faded eyes, the note of exultation in the quavering voice.

“He is very kind in offering to show me the way,” said Carmelita.

“It seems like as if you’ll have to go for this time,” said the old woman, “as Squire Rutherford’s son is coming to get you.”

“I must go if I possibly can,” said Carmelita, “because the church commands me to do so.”

“I haven’t no manner of objection to Squire Rutherford’s son walking with you. He’s a God fearing, upright young man, as folks say.”

“Well, don’t you mention the subject to me no more,” said Mrs. Johnson, thus compromising with her Puritan conscience. The truth was, the glory of having Squire Rutherford’s son walking through the town with her grand-daughter in the full light of the Sabbath morning was a triumph so splendid that she almost feared now that Carmelita might hesitate to go, and she quieted certain uneasy scruples that still lurked in her mind with the reflection: “Perhaps he’ll bring her round, if he’s set his mind to it. He’ll show her better than any of us the abominations of Rome. It would be settin’ up against Providence to stop her going with him.” Carmelita, pleased with her victory, though unaware of its cause, went down to find Hepzibah, who, although indulging in various horrified exclamations at the thought of Carmelita going to the Fapist meeting house, and that with her grandmamma’s consent, was nevertheless filled with delight, as her mistress had been at the prospect of Carmelita’s triumph.

“I don’t believe he ever walked to meetin’ with any girl before. He was always looked upon as so high and set up in his ways. And them foreigners has queer notions about religion and ain’t like us no how, and so I’ll tell the folks, if they say anything.”

Here she was interrupted by a burst of laughter from Carmelita, for the latter part of her soliloquy had been unconsciously uttered aloud.

On the Saturday afternoon preceding the memorable Sunday morning Hepzibah pursued Carmelita everywhere. A restless spirit seemed to have taken possession of her. Carmelita, busying herself about the house, threw open now a long disused shutter in some room which she had visited for the first time, or tucked back dull colored curtains, or opened unexpected doors. Hepzibah watched her in wonder and dismay. In the best parlor her despair took the form of words.

“I declare, Carmelita, if you ain’t goin’ to fade every square inch of carpet that’s on these floors, and them rep curtains, why you’re crushing them as if they was paper. And you’re lettin’ in a glare of sun on the best brocade chairs. It seems like as if you hadn’t no care for anything.”

“I want to warm the house, it’s so cold,” said Carmelita, as she had already said innumerable times since her arrival.

"Cold, indeed,” repeated Hepzibah in disgust, "but you don’t care nothin’ about the dust from the highway blowin’ right in here.”

"But the smell of the flowers and the songs of the birds and the lovely May air come in too,” said Carmelita, “and all the mould and rust of those long years go out. Those years when only the dead were here. Was it not so, Hepzibah?”

"Good Lord, no,” said Hepzibah, “I defy anyone to say that ever spook or sperrit of any sort was seen round here.”

"I didn’t mean ghosts,” said Carmelita, hopeless of making her meaning clear.

“I should rather hope not, but what are you going to wear to-morrow morn?”

“What am I going to wear?” repeated Carmelita, “why, I have not thought of it, but I suppose my gray dress and black hat.”

“On Sabbath morn and a bright day, as I reckon it’s going to be. Why, sakes alive, Mr. Rutherford, he’d be ashamed to walk by the Baptist meetin’ or the Episcopalian Church either, with a dowdy.”

Carmelita opened her eyes wide as she sat painfully upright in the Elder’s arm chair, which permitted no relaxations of the muscles.

“Why, you must put on your best clothes, Carmelita, that blue chiney silk you got, with spots on it, and that hat, with lots of feathers on it.”

“Dress myself like that,” said Carmelita, “to go to a poor church, where the congregation are working people. Why, Hepzibah, how could you think of such a thing?”

“Perhaps they ain’t just workin’ people,” said Hepzibah, with an attempt at diplomacy.

“You told me yourself they were the scum of the earth—all low people,” said Carmelita.

Hepzibah remembered very well. It was in a fruitless attempt to dissuade Carmelita from going.

“Well, supposin’, ain’t you got no respect for Squire Rutherford’s son?”

“Squire Rutherford’s son,” cried Carmelita, impatiently, “if I knew the way, or if you would come, he should not go with me at all.”

For a moment she was half tempted to include him in her vexation. But something in the thought of his manner and appearance checked her. She saw the absurdity of this chimera of Hepzibah’s brain, Mr. Rutherford, aghast, because she would not put on her finery for Baptists to stare at.

IV.

“Them two young critters looks elegant together,” said Hepzibah, gazing after Mr. Rutherford and Carmelita, at first, through the carefully closed blinds, which the Sabbatarian prejudices of the neighborhood required. Then, as her feeling of bursting pride and gratification in the honor which had come to the long obscure household of the Johnson’s overcame her, she rushed out, with slippered feet, gathering up her best alpaca gown as she went. She took her place in a corner overlooking the road, as it went winding on into the distance. She excused the levity of her own action to herself in the following wise:

“The Lord forgive me if I sin through curiosity, and that on the Sabbath, too, but it’s natural I should take a proper pride in the first young thing that’s bin here since Araminta went away. Yes, he’s just about a half a head taller. Looks as if they was made for one another. There’s Miss Barnes out now lookin’ after them and Miss Steele, too, and that gossipy Hyle girl. And Sam Mason, he’s a watchin’ of them, too.”

This last circumstance seemed to afford Hepzibah unqualified satisfaction, which manifested itself in an audible chuckle.

“And they’ve got to pass the Hewlett house, too. How them girls did run after Squire Rutherford’s son. ’Pears as if no one was stirrin’ down to Hewlett’s.

Here there was a note of intense anxiety and mortification in Hepzibah’s voice, and in her excitement she broke off and threw on to the ground an obstrusive branch of a tree above her head, at the same time that she mounted upon a rail of the fence.

“Oh, I reckon it’s all right. There’s the best bedroom window open and one, two, three heads lookin’ out. There’s a sight for you to see, proud, stuck-up critters that you are. Take a good look at Squire Rutherford’s son, takin’ the foreign girl to Church—and to the Papist meetin’, too.”

In her exultation Hepzibah felt as if this last circumstance was an enhancement of her triumph. She also forgot that she was standing on the somewhat slender rail of a fence, which had withstool the storms of a quarter of a century at least. She was reminded of the latter fact by suddenly finding herself in a kneeling position upon the ground. She arose, rubbing both knees energetically.

"Them plaguy fences! I don’t know what the elder was thinkin’ of anyway to build them of such thin planks. Mebbe that fail was a takin’ down of the carnal pride that’s in me this morn. But it’s not in human nature to see them Hewlett girls lookin’ out at such a sight as that and not to feel kinder set up.”

As Hepzibah turned to go into the house gloating in imagination over unlimited sight-seers and gossip mongers, who were that morning to be sated with the sight of Squire Rutherford’s son in attendance upon Carmelita, she suddenly found herself confronted by Minister Jenkins. He wore his Sabbath morning visage, and as he looked at Hepzibah, she felt that she had been detected.

“You are early abroad this Sabbath?” said the minister, dryly.

“Yes,” said Hepzibah, her withered face suffused with vivid crimson, “looks as if we might have a shower later on.”

“The Sabbath day’s the Lord’s day,” observed Mr. Jenkins, “and he’ll give us such weather as seems good to Him.”

“That’s every word true,” assented Hepzibah, painfully aware that the minister’s eyes, at first cast heavenward, were fastened upon a rent in her Sunday gown, caused by her unpremeditated descent from the fence.

“The Lord preserves the Elder’s widow wonderfully,” began Mr. Jenkins.

“Yes, He do, there’s no denyin’ it.”

“She’s had a sore trial sent her these latter days.”

“I don’t know as she’s had any trial, exceptin’ the loss of her health and the failin’ asleep in Christ of the Elder,” said Hepzibah, bridling. Trials were not the sort of things that redounded to the glory of the Johnson household.

“I mean in the advent of that Popish girl.”

“Oh,” said Hepzibah, casting about for a suitable reply. Then, with studied indifference.

“Carmelita, she’s out just now. Squire Rutherford’s son, he come to walk to meetin’ with her this morn.”

It was the knowledge of this very circumstance that had added so much asperity to the minister’s tone.

“To which meeting?” he asked.

“Well, not to the Baptist, exactly,” said Hepzibah, gaining time.

“No, not to the Baptist,” replied Mr. Jenkins, with energy!

“Well, Mr. Rutherford, folks says he favors the Episcopalians, as most rich men does, and——”

This was a sly bit of malice, as the minister well knew. It had been a sore thorn in his flesh that the Rutherfords had favored the Episcopalians.

“Deceit has come into this once honorable house with this stranger and the Papist,” said Mr. Jenkins, in a declamatory tone. “You would conceal the truth, Hepzibah Grimes, but it is known to the town that this girl is a Papist and has even now gone to worship at the Mass house.”

"Well, Squire Rutherford’s son he come to take her there,” said Hepzibah, defiantly.

“Now woe to you,” said the minister, shaking a solemn finger at the house, “if you bring thither instruments for the perversion of the people. If, instead of being, as once you were, the abode of godliness, you become a stone of offense and a rock of scandal.”

Nothing but Hepzibah’s respect for the divine, under whose pulpit she sat on Sunday evenings, prevented a violent outburst, when she heard the house which she revered, as though it were a living object, thus denounced.

“ ’Pears to me, Mr. Jenkins,” she began, but whether from prudential reasons, or because time was really pressing, the minister with scant courtesy and brief farewell, took his way down the road towards the meeting house. He had to encounter a succession of excited groups, all busy with the event of the morning. But poor Hepzibah’s exultation was considerably dampened by the minister’s denunciations, and she passed slowly and heavily indoors. No fire blazed upon the hearth, the cold dinner lay ready to hand in the pantry, and Hep-zibah had not even the solace of work. She had to sit all day Sunday idle in a rocking-chair, once she had read her chapter of the Bible and finished morning prayers. She held to going to meeting in the evening, but that was a long way off.

About noon Carmelita returned radiant, thanking Mr. Rutherford with a pretty courtesy, a trifle old-fashioned in northern eyes. It was with the utmost sincerity that the young man replied that the kindness was all upon her side and the pleasure upon his. Nor could he refrain from looking back at her as she stood a moment in the doonvay, a picture, despite the perfect simplicity of her costume. This very simplicity he had admired and appreciated, together with the delicacy of its motive, which he perfectly understood. She smiled as he raised his hat to her. He had been very kind.

Carmelita could not help bemoaning to Hepzibah the poverty of the little church and its appointments, nor dwelling a little upon the gorgeous cathedrals., monuments of ancestral piety, with which she had been familiar. But though Hepzibah lost not a word, she sat in studied silence, in her rocking-chair, her hands clasped in her lap, the very droop of her nose and upward angle of her chin expressive of sound resolution to hear nothing of the idolatrous worship of the Papists. At last she seized upon her Bible and began obtrusively reading a portion of the Psalms.

When Hepzibah went up that evening to bring her tea to the old woman above, the latter stopped her as she was passing out with the tray.

“Hepzibah!”

“Well, Mrs. Johnson.”

She turned round with the tray in her hand and they looked into each other’s faces, faces which each remembered fair, unwrinkled, young.

“Did she go?”

“She did.”

“With Squire Rutherford’s son?”

“Yes.”

Something like a gleam of light came into the dim, bleared eye of the face upon the bed. which the other eye saw and understood.

“The folks were lookin’ out of windows and doors all down the road,” said Hepzibah, “but Parson Jenkins, he was right down angry.”

“He hadn’t oughter. No one could help it. Did he come here?”

“He come to the gate and took on awful when he heard she was gone with Squire Rutherford’s son.” Therer was a pause. This was unpleasant news, but the old woman, long denied any gleam of gratification, was determined to look only at the bright side of the matter.

“Did Squire Rutherford’s son come in after meet-in’?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Carmelita, she bade him good-bye at the gate.”

“She did?”

“Yes, and he stood still and he looked at her till she got to the doorway, jest as if he couldn’t take his eyes off her.”

“He did? When’s he cornin’ again?”

“I don’t know. I asked Carmelita and she laughed outright and said, ‘What a funny question, how should I know?’ ”

“Does she like him any, do you suppose?”

“She talks to him as if he was the hired boy over to Simms’.”

“She does? Don’t seem to like him any?" said she with a touch of anxiety.

"Don’t suppose so. She oughter. He’s as handsome as a picter and powerful rich, and I guess he cares some for her.”

There was a silence, during which the two old women regarded each other. This was a case outside of their philosophy.

“Guess the weather’s going to change,” said the figure upon the bed. “I’ve got a touch of rheumatics.”

“Should you like some boneset?” suggested Hep-zibah.

“Guess not.”

Meanwhile Carmelita, alone in the twilight, having finished her beads, sat thinking over her morning's expedition. Altogether it had left a pleasant impression upon her mind. The weather had been exquisite. The winding road by which they had passed, now thickly lined with houses, now leading by the smoke and grimness of factories, and again running parallel with a little stream and reaching into the freshness and peace of the country, had been delightful. She had been unconscious of the varied groups of gossip-mongers whose whisperings and giggli'igs had been noted with concealed but bitter annoyance by her companion. But she had been fully alive to every blossom-covered tree and every meadow, bursting into green, even under this austere sky. And in the blue of that same sky she had intensely rejoiced.

Mr. Rutherford was naturally associated with all this in her remembrance of the pleasantest hours which had fallen to her lot since her arrival at K—. Various little incidents of the walk came to her, not disagreeably. Obstacles in the way of branches, stones or brambles which her companion had so deftly removed from her path, pleasant greetings which he had bestowed upon certain poor people whom they had passed, all of whom had evidently known and respected him before, little snatches of conversation which she could recall as one remembers the phrases of a song. At the church he had been so attentive, reverent even, during the service, and on the way home he had told her how much traveling abroad had removed his country-bred prejudices against the faith, and how he had made warm friends amongst the Catholic clergy. And he had appealed to her not to judge too hardly of the rigid antagonism to her faith which she would meet with around her.

“Think the best you can of us with that warm, charitable spirit of the South.”

The two anxious old women upstairs might have been comforted had they known how near in sympathy to Carmelita Andrew Rutherford had contrived to bring himself. It is true that the thought of him as a possible suitor had never entered her head. But he had crept into her mind as the only one who could understand her Catholic longings and aspirations, and perhaps also as one who in some distant future might himself come into the household of faith. A missionary spirit is latent in most women. Nothing more attracts them to a man than the hope of doing something for his spiritual welfare. If sometimes this proves an ignis fatuus it is at least a not ignoble one.

Taken altogether, that Sabbath day in grim New England had its own share of sweetness and light for the young Spaniard, and its twilight closing darkly in the shadows of the old house had a touch of peace and rest, a foreshadowing of happiness to come.

It would be difficult to put into words the precise means by which Carmelita, as the months went on, carried out her mission of warming, not only the old house at K—, but the village itself. She became, as it were, a rich and glowing exotic in its grayness and austerity. The angularities of her neighbors served to throw out the graceful curves of her own personality. Their reticence or their garrulity, equally unsympathetic and undemonstrative, gave a strange charm to her quick sympathy, her swift impulsiveness. The rustic freedom of the girls, usually in its own way self-respecting it is true, added beauty to her little reserves. Her dignity was a counterpoise to their somewhat free and easy good comradeship. Her beauty itself was of a kind new in that part of the world.

The children one and all knew her. Many a curly head had leaned sleepily upon her shoulder. Many a diminutive figure had climbed into her lap, They came to her with presents of flowers or berries, and they likewise came with their troubles, real or imaginary, with broken toys and cut fingers. They came when scolded at home, or punished at school. The brick courtyard often contained a score of them, so that the tame crow had to take refuge on the topmost branches of the tree to grumble and scold, being disturbed from his perch close to Carmelita. The robins twittered uneasily above, not venturing dose to the ground. Hepzibah was powerless, venting her wrath from the kitchen window, or pouring out ejaculations from the front door.

“Sakes alives, if she don’t beat all. She’s the most provokingest girl. Why, Carmelita, jest you look at them crumbs on the front stoop and leaves and branches strewed about everywhere. And as for Miss Johnson upstairs, you’re going to give her a right down splittin’ headache.”

“Oh, no, Hepzibah,” said Carmelita, stopping in a round game to argue this point. “Last Saturday when the children were here I went up to ask grandmamma if the noise disturbed her, and I found her laughing as I had not seen her laugh before. Then she told me that she woke from sleep and thought at first her own children were back again, Reuben and Jabez and Will and Araminta. I asked her if I should send the children away, but she said no, that it did her good to hear them about, that she was tired of silence.”

V.

Carmelita’s presence gave likewise a new aspect to religion in K—. She became the veritable good genius of the little church. She gathered together a choir, for which she herself played the melodeon, which instrument had been purchased in great part by herself and Mr. Rutherford. She adorned the altar for festivals and gave a new life to the confraternities. Her very presence at church seemed to infuse a tone of confidence into the poor people who hitherto had gathered, as it were, in secret. The roughest of the factory men grew to know and salute her as she passed. The girl operatives one and all loved and admired her. It became the fashion amongst them to imitate her, as far as they could, in everything. Those who were Catholics were proud now of their religion and eager to go to church. The Protestants began to speak with more respect of the Catholic church and Catholic practices. Books, too, were circulated as they never had been before. Many of them turned upon topics of which Protestants in K—had been heretofore profound ly ignorant. They suddenly found themselves reading, through curiosity, of course, explanations of devotion to saints and to the Blessed Virgin, and of the great bugbear Confession, and they marvelled to find these things so different from what they had supposed.

It was not that Carmelita made many conversions. But there was a gradual lightening of the atmosphere, a lifting of the Catholic church to something like its true place, as a power and influence, at least to be respected. There was nothing obtrusive in Carmelita’s methods, in fact she was unconscious of most of the work she did. Much of it was owing entirely to her example, her bright magnetic nature asserting itself amid the gloom and showing the Catholic life in its beauty and attractiveness. To the young people particularly there was something specially alluring in the idea of religion which did not take all the joy out of life. They saw clearly that Carmelita was deeply religious, and was yet as cheerful as a sunbeam and as fond as any of them of legitimate amusement.

It was clear to everyone, except Carmelita herself, that Andrew Rutherford found an attraction in the old house of the Johnson’s surpassing those of Boston, New York, or even the European cities.

In some of these he had hitherto spent the best portion of each year. But now the months passed and found him still at K—.

As the attraction grew upon him it puzzled him no little how he was to progress further than he had done. He was privileged, indeed, to go once, or if some fitting excuse offered, twice a week to the old house and sit with Carmelita, talking to her or reading to her, Hepzibah always hovering near, according to her young mistress’ instructions. He went regularly to the Catholic church on Sundays and sometimes he was rewarded by being permitted to walk home with Carmelita. Sometimes he assisted in the decoration of the church, or interested himself in charitable societies where Carmelita was the presiding spirit. But there was an aloofness about Carmelita which he could not understand. For all her frank cordiality, she was distinctly unapproachable.

Sometimes he thought, with a sinking of the heart, that she might mean to be a nun after all, then he reassured himself with the recollection that she had told him the cloister was not her vocation. Occasionally he ventured an offering of books or flowers. They were graciously and kindly received, but so unconsciously. Why could she not understand what all his delicate and obtrusive attentions were meant to convey?

"Carmelita, she’s the queerest girl,” said Hep-zibah, “she don’t seem to know that she’s got a beau at all. She makes me set there as if I was watchin’ them, and I know right well Squire Rutherford’s son, he wishes I was in Jericho.”

The second May after Carmelita’s coming was just breaking into blossom when Mrs. Johnson began perceptibly to fail. She had rallied wonderfully after Carmelita’s advent. In fact, she had so far recovered as to be able to sit in an arm chair at the window. It was a pretty sight to see her there, the picture of aged decrepitude, with Carmelita fresh and young ministering to her with so loving a devotedness. It was always a joy to Carmelita in the after years to know that those last six months of her grandmother’s life had been made comparatively speaking happy by her presence and her efforts.

Carmelita had slipped into the room a picture of the Sacred Heart and one of Our Lady. At first the grandmother had feebly protested, then she had seemed to take a certain pleasure in seeing them there and talked of them with a kind of affection. There had been a gradual softening of the old hatred and bitterness in the year that had elapsed. When the old woman began visibly to decline she liked to have Carmelita praying audibly beside her bed.

“It’s a comfort,” she would say, “a real comfort.”

Once she said:

“I wish I could believe as you do, child. But I can’t. Seems as if it’s too late. The Elder, he was a God-fearin’ man and he couldn’t abide Papists.” Carmelita begged her from time to time to see and converse with Father Brady. Once she actually brought him, and her grandmother seemed pleased. He remained for half an hour; on coming out he said to Carmelita:

“It’s of no use, dear child; we must only pray. Her mind has become enfeebled somewhat and it is too late for her to grasp new truths. But she seems to hold to those which have guided her life, with a sincerity which I trust our Lord will recognize.” Sometime after this visit the grandmother herself said to Carmelita:

“I see now I was wrong in many things. Priests ain’t like what I thought they were, nor Catholics either. Even the Elder, he was mistaken. But I can’t live my life over again, and I can’t believe new things.”

So they were fain to leave her at peace and let her old life wear itself out into the shadows. One evening Carmelita sat, as was her wont, beside the bed. She had just risen from her knees, where she had been saying the Rosary. The dusk had fallen, though the curtains were drawn back to let in the last rays of daylight. One star was glimmering uncertainly over the top of a poplar. Suddenly the grandmother spoke:

"What are you going to do, child, when I’m dead?"

"Oh, grandmamma dearest, don’t speak like that. Your death may be far off, after all.”

"It is not far off. I guess it’s nearer than you suppose.”

There was an awestruck solemnity in the tone and Carmelita’s tears began to fall upon the withered hand she held.

“Don’t you fret for me,” said the old woman, “I’ve had a long life here on earth and I have hope of another life to come. But what will you do?”

“I will go home to the South,” said Carmelita. “I promised my father I should do so.”

“Shall you?” said the old woman. “I had hoped different.”

Something in her tone struck Carmelita.

“I had hoped that mebbe you had grown to care some for Squire Rutherford’s son.”

Carmelita felt the swift blood rush to her face in the darkness.

“You see,” continued the old woman, “looks as if he’s fond enough of you, and if you could have liked him any, why you might have settled down in this old house, and he’s got a heap of money, folks say.”

Carmelita sat as if turned to stone. Why had all this never occurred to her before? This was the reason of his frequent visits, of his anxiety to walk home with her, to be with her as much as possible. Various little incidents came back to her in the light of this new idea, stray words he had dropped, oh how could she have been so blind. Perhaps, more than all, it surprised her to find that to the scheme which grandmamma proposed she herself found only one objection. To this she gave aulible voice with rather unnecessary energy.

“Grandmamma, perhaps this is all fancy upon your part. Mr. Rutherford may not desire to have me for his wife, but if he does it cannot be. He is not a Catholic.”

Grandmamma was silent for an instant. Then she said quietly:

“Folks say he’s going to turn.”

Carmelita, in her heart, was almost certain that such was the case. Mr. Rutherford had spoken to her of certain points upon which he was not yet fully convinced. She knew that he was studying under Father Brady’s direction and was besides in correspondence with other priests. So that she presently had an uncomfortable feeling that she had not been quite honest with her grandmother.

“Carmelita,” persisted the old woman, “if he was a Catholic, do you think you could care any for him?”

“Oh, grandmamma, do not ask me. I do not know. I cannot tell.”

Grandmamma’s mind was a little dulled, it is true, but she had not forgotten everything. The answer did not discourage her.

“Well, if he should be a Catholic and should say anything about marryin’, I want you to promise that you’ll try and take him.”

“Oh, grandmamma, think,” cried Carmelita, “he has never spoken of such a thing.”

“Hepzibah, she’s no fool,” cried the old woman, with some of her former querulousness, “and she says he’s just crazy about you, only you won’t give him any chance to say so. Oh, Carmelita, if this is so, do try to care some for him. I should hate to think of this old place being shut up or sold to strangers.”

Somehow Carmelita herself hated to think of the old place being closed or in hands of strangers, and she herself far away from all] her new interests and occupations. And yet this other idea was so new, so strange. Her grandmother’s voice sounded dreamily in her ears.

“Just think it over and if you can care any for him, you’ll be doin’ a wise thing.”

After that they sat in silence, the old woman contented now that she had unburdened her mind. But Carmelita’s thoughts were strangely confused and disordered. Her grandmother’s words had been suggestive of so many reflections. The perfume of newly opened flowers came floating through the open windows, but even the birds were silent, their twitterings all hushed in their nests amongst the new-budding leaves. Carmelita often recalled that evening afterwards. In almost every life there is some such hour, making an epoch in one’s history.

“Carmelita, child,” said the old woman, after a long silence, “forgive me all them things I said against Catholics. I knew no better till you came. The Lord he knows I’d be one if I could. But I can’t. It’s too late, and now you may go, I’ll sleep.” As Carmelita bent to kiss her in the growing darkness, the old woman muttered:

“Verily, have you been a staff to my hand and a light to my eyes.”

VI.

When Mr. Rutherford came next he observed a change in Carmelita. She was out in the court-yard, busy among the robins, welcoming back the rooks, scattering crumbs and bits of wool or wadding broadcast, the latter to be used in the lining of nests. Her manner struck him forcibly, at first he thought it augured sadly for his hopes. But presently he could scarcely tell why, he believed it to be rather hopeful than discouraging. She was perhaps more distant, less frankly glad to see him, less impulsive, and yet—she was no longer unconscious.

“Some one has enlightened her,” he thought with true instinct, “and now if I cannot win her, at least, I shall soon know the worst.”

On the occasion of that first visit, however, he took no apparent notice of her altered manner, and contented himself with telling her of his formal intention to become a Catholic. This so pleased and interested her that for a time she forgot her new shyness. .

“The idea has been a long time in my mind,” he said, “ but I must frankly own that your influence has had much to do with my present definite resolve.”

“It is God who has done it,” said Carmelita, blushing as she could not have done a week before.

“God sometimes chooses instruments,” said Andrew Rutherford, “and you have been largely instrumental in leading me towards the light.”

How lovely she looked he thought, as she leaned thoughtfully forward, looking upwards, as if towards the light of which he spoke. But of this he said no word.

“May I come again on Wednesday?” he asked, as he rose to go, “I have so much to say to you.”

“I—I am always glad to see you,” she said, curtseying in her quaint way, but with an embarrassment that sat strangely upon her.

But he came many more days before he made any formal declaration. He was afraid to lose the advantage he had gained. Thenceforth, however, he could intimate so much and feel that she understood. When at last the Rubicon had been passed, so quietly that he could scarce realize that she knew all, she said to him simply:

“Do you know that only for grandmamma I should never have dreamed of such a thing. It seems that Hepzibah had told her.”

“I knew that Hepzibah had long ago read my secret,” said Andrew Rutherford, laughing his most genial laugh, “though, indeed, I believe that every man, woman and child in the place, except yourself, knew it.”

The next day Mrs. Rutherford, the mother, came over to pay a stately visit. She took Carmelita in her arms and kissed her kindly, if a trifle coldly. In some respects the match was not particularly pleasing to her. But she never opposed her son in anything and in fact deferred greatly to his opinion on all subjects. She had a few minutes’ conversation with Mrs. Johnson, after which the engagement was looked upon as a settled thing and was duly announced to the neighborhood. All things considered the news was well received. Even the children in the streets said:

“Now Carmelita will never go away from here.”

It had been arranged that the wedding should take place in two months. But death waits for no man and scoffs at earthly plans. One warm, bright morning, Carmelita and Hepzibah were at work together in the kitchen, the former peeling fruit and the latter bustling about the stove. Hepzibah, for whom, just then, there was but one topic, dilated on Squire Rutherford’s son’s perfections, and Carmelita sat listening with a pretty, dreamy look on her face, half pleased, half amused at the old woman’s raptures. All at once Hepzibah remembered that “Miss Johnson hadn’t taken any broth.”

“You stay where you are, Carmelita,” she said, as the young girl made a movement to rise, “you got yout hands in the fruit and ’tain’t no use taking them out. I’ll carry it up.”

Carmelita heard her go up, as usual, open the door and cross the room. Then there was a sudden, sharp cry.

In a moment Carmelita was at the head of the stairs, where stood Hepzibah, with face white and drawn, and pinched lips.

“Don’t you go in there,” she said, sharply.

“Oh, Hepzibah, I must.”

Together they passed through the open door— strangely still that always quiet room. Carmelita had known what she was to see, from the moment she had heard the wailing cry above her. She fell upon her knees beside the stiffening figure. Hepzibah stood rigid, gazing in intense grief on the form in which for so many years her w'hole life had been centered. The one, old woman left behind was a more pathetic figure than the other upon the bed, peaceful in its rigidity, with a stream of the morning sunshine falling over it.

“Mrs. Johnson, she’s dead,” said Hepzibah to some neighbor who called to inquire for the sick woman. In the tone there was an intense pathos, though she said never a word more. To her those simple words meant the rending of a whole life’s ties.

Three months after, the wedding of Cermelita and Andrew Rutherford took place. The bridegroom made his first Communion upon the wedding morning. The young couple left K—immediately for a few months' trip to Europe.

So another May had slipped around, when Hepzibah stood waiting with uncontrollable impatience for the coming of Carmelita, this time with her husband. The front door was thrown wide as upon that other May eve. But the old house had taken on a new lease of life. Skilled workmen had been at work; paint had worked wonders.

Hepzibah, tired of waiting, had run into the kitchen to see if the kettle was boiling. She did not hear steps approaching. All at once she felt a pair of arms clasping her tightly round the neck. Then she knew that Carmelita had come back, to continue her mission of warming and brightening the old house. Henceforth it was to become a centre of Catholic life, spreading its influence for good afar.

Of this Hepzibah knew nothing. She only knew that Carmelita had come back and that they were sitting by the kitchen fire as on that first evening.

“You do so remind me to-night of Araminta,” said Hepzibah. Was it because her sight was failing, or because her memory, growing duller, blended past and present. “You’re powerful like her, only not so good lookin’, not but what you’ve got your own share of good looks, too, or Squire Rutherford’s son he’d never have married you.”

“Are you glad to have me home, Hepzibah?”

“Well, I guess so. It wasn’t very cheerful livin’ here alone.”

“I’ve come back never to go away again,” said Carmelita, laying her head on the old woman’s shoulder. For father and mother being dead in the South, and sisters and brothers married, she had no strong tie there.

“Well, I guess you’re here for good, if Squire Rutherford’s son’s got anything to say about it. Seems most as if Araminta had come back and the Elder and his wife gone on a pleasure trip.”

“God grant they have,” said Carmelita, seriously, “and I have come to take Araminta’s place forever.” Such was Carmelita’s second home-coming to the old house.

THE CHILD OF THE TEMPLE.

I.

Among the child-portraits of history, that of an engaging little prince of the Fleur-de-lis looks down from the canvas of the past with a naive grace and fascinates by a pathetic charm. Though the tints are sombre, like the colors of an old Rembrandt, time had mellowed and guided the shadows until they glow like unburnished gold. But it is with both the lights and shades of the picture that we have to do; to trace therein the characteristics of a merry, ingenuous boy playing in the sunlit gardens of Versailles, as well as of the hapless young king of loyal hearts, called the Child of the Temple.

A short time ago, at the Church of the Madeleine, Paris, a Solemn Mass was celebrated, by request of the Due d’Orleans, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the death of this little dauphin, who is also known as Louis XVII. of France.

Louis Charles, son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, was born March 27, 1785, and lived but to pass his tenth birthday. He bore the title of sovereign merely a short time, and reigned only within the thatched homes of La Vendee and the tents of an exiled nobility. A brave little knight, verily without reproach, his heritage was destined to be not the power and grandeur of the proud and illustrious monarchs of whom he was the heir but the penalty of their misgovernment. During the earliest years of his life, however, the lad was petted and caressed as the future hope of his country, despite the gathering clouds and fierce and sullen mutter-ings of the Revolution. There is still treasured a miniature of him which the queen-mother always wore. It represents a pleasing face, with large blue eyes that as they peer forth from the quaint locket, lose their pensive expression and almost twinkle with humor. His,hair was dark chestnut in color and fell in thick curls upon his shoulders.

Monsieur Hue, a gentleman of the court, says of him: “He possessed a frank and lovable nature. There was in his manner a certain distinction; while his sweet smile, his thoughtfulness for others, and his artless sallies won all hearts.” He was not a faultless little fellow though, and we are further informed that “he ill endured the rule of the women attendants who had charge of him, and objected strenuously to the custom established as to the hours of his rising or going to rest.” Nevertheless, his indocility always at once disappeared upon the approach of his mother.

Marie Antoinette was devotedly attached to her children, and counted those hours the happiest which she spent with them. Her authority, though gentle, was unquestioned. It was she who -taught little Louis (or Charles as he was oftener called) to read, making his task attractive by selecting interesting anecdotes of the noble men of ancient times, or stories of his ancestors.. On these occasions the dauphin had many original questions to ask, many ingenuous reflections to make. Afterward the Queen would play upon the piano or harp, or sing to him.

One evening sbe sang this plaintive lullaby:

“Sleep, my child! Thine eyelids close,
Thy cries do rend my soul.
Sleep, my child! Light are thy woes
To thy poor mother’s dole.”

The words ‘‘thy poor mother’s dole,” repeated with exquisite expression, touched the heart of the boy, who sat silent and motionless in his small armchair. His aunt, Madame Elizabeth, surprised to see him so quiet, cried laughingly: “My faith, there’s Charles asleep!” But, at once raising his head, he protested, exclaiming: “Ah, who could sleep when mamma is singing!”

His first tutor was the Abbe Devaux, who also instructed his sister, Marie Therese; but the King as well as the Queen continued to supervise the education of their children. The dauphin proved an apt scholar, and often excited amusement by his readiness in, repartee. One day while studying his lessons, he began to hiss; and upon being reproved by his mother, replied: “Mamma, I was saying my lesson so ill that I hissed myself.’’

Another time, in the garden of Bagatelle, he was about to dash through a hedge of rose-bushes. Monsieur Hue sprang forward and caught him, crying: "Monseigneur, those thorns will hurt your face.”

“Still,” laughed the child, turning round with an intrepid air, “thorny ways lead to glory.” Hearing of this answer, the Queen said: “My son, to imperil one’s life to save another’s may be called glory, but what you were going to do was simply heedlessness. Before you talk of glory, dear, read the histories of Du Guesclin, Bayard, Turenne, and many others, who have defended France and our crown at the price of their blood.” The tender rebuke impressed the child, and, throwing his arms about his mother’s neck, he cried impulsively: “Well, mamma, it shall be my glory to remember what you tell me and to love you.”

Louis had a garden-plot upon the terrace of Versailles, which he cultivated entirely himself. “But,” he would say, “I am only the farmer,—the produce is for mamma.” One day a, courtier, seeing him digging with such energy that the perspiration rolled down his cheeks, said: “Monseigneur, you are very simple to fatigue yourself thus. One of the gardeners would finish that work for you in a few minutes.”—“Perhaps so,” was the brief response. “But mamma would not like the flowers so well if they were taken care of by any one else.”

Every morning the affectionate little son would run to gather a bouquet, which he would place upon the Queen’s dressing-table. When stormy weather prevented him from going out for the flowers, he would exclaim, with vexation: “I am displeased with myself! Today I have not earned mamma’s first kiss.”

“Tomorrow will be your mother’s birthday,” said Louis XVI. to him on one occasion. “You must compose a pretty compliment to accompany your bouquet.”

“Papa,” he replied, after a few moments’ reflection, “I have an immortelle in my garden. It will be both my compliment and my gift. In presenting it I shall say: ‘May mamma resemble this flower!’ ”

His first premonition of the approaching sorrow's of his family was read in the gravity of his father’s countenance and the tears that often dimmed the eyes of his beautiful mamma. Having once abstractedly put some soucis [1] into his bouquet, he noticed them when about to present it, and cast them aside, saying: “Ah, mamma, you have already enough of those!”

A poor woman one day made her way to him as he was weeding his plot and entreated him to ask a favor for her. “Monseigneur,” said she, “if I were to obtain this request, I should be as happy as a queen.” The little prince, who had stooped to pick some china-asters, rose, and, looking at her very sadly, repeated: “ ‘Happy as a queen!’ I know a Queen who does nothing but weep.” The next day when she returned he greeted her joyfully, crying: “I have an answer for you. This is from mamma,” —drawing from his pocket a piece of gold wrapped in the petition duly endorsed. “And this is my present,” giving her a bunch of his choicest blossoms.

The companion of his sports was a frolicsome little dog named Moufflet, and together, alas! they sometimes got into mischief. The dauphin once roguishly carried off the flute of a page and hid it in a tree. Moufflet was with him; but when the search for the flute began, the spaniel did not, by so much as a wag of his tail, betray his playfellow. The Queen, however, decided to punish the culprit through his accomplice, as she persisted in considering poor Moufflet, who was accordingly shut up in. a dark cupboard where he began to whine piteously. “Mamina dear,” expostulated his young master, “it was not Moufflet who did wrong; it was I. Let me take his place.” The entreaty was granted; and, when released, Louis went of his own accord and restored the flute to its owner.

He and his sister were accustomed to put away a part of a certain sum of money, allowed for their amusements, to give in charity. The boy kept his savings in a small bronze coffer, or box. One day the King, who was not in the secret, found him counting crowns and arranging them in rows. “What! my son,” he said, “are you hoarding like the misers?” Little Louis colored and looked down; then, recovering himself, he rejoined: Yes, papa, I am a miser, but it is for the poor orphans. Ah, if you were to see them! They are truly to be pitied.” —“In that case,” said the father, with an affectionate embrace, “I will help you to fill your coffer.”

Soon came the terrible night when the royal family were forced to leave Versailles, and were escorted by the hooting Parisian mob to the Tuileries. The King and Queen still strove to appear calm before their children. Deprived now of his walks and rides,. the little prince was taught, for exercise, the military drill, dancing, and tennis. He was always high-spirited and manly. Once, after practicing the manual of arms, he was about to carry off his musket. “Monseigneur,” interposed the officer on duty, “as you are going out, surrender your musket.” The dauphin imperiously refused, however, and' upon being taken to task for this asperity, he replied: “If the gentleman had said, 'Give me your musket,’ that would have been very well; but ‘surrender’ it—■ never!”

In the garden of the Tuileries a small space was assigned to him as a flbwer-pot. This same angle of ground was afterwards given by Napoleon to his little son for the like purpose; later Charles X. bestowed it upon the young Duke of Bordeaux and Louis Philippe upon the Comte de Paris. When our Louis visited his garden, however, he was usually escorted by a detachment of the National Guard. If there were few he invited them to enter with him. One day when so great a number had accompanied him that they were obliged to remain outside, he said: “Excuse me, gentlemen, I am very sorry my garden is so small, since it deprives me of the pleasure of receiving you all.” He then hastened to offer flowers to whomsoever approached the fence.

II.

About this time was formed the Dauphin's Regiment—a battalion of little lads, many of whom belonged to wealthy families; others, however, were so poor that the prince often secretly relieved their wants. Their uniform was that of the French Guard in miniature, including the white gaiters and three-cornered hat. They frequently manoeuvred in presence of the prince, and finally their leader asked: “Monseigneur, will you be our colonel?”—-“Yes,” he answered, gladly, “I like my garden grenadiers [2] very much, but I’d rather be at the head of these living grenadiers.”—“Then good-bye to the flowers for your mamma,” suggested an officer in attendance.—“Oh, no!” he returned, “many of these young gentlemen have gardens also; they will love the Queen, after the example of their colonel, and mamma will have every day a whole regiment of bouquets.”

The Tiliputian corps was permitted to occupy ' three posts of honor: the Tuileries, and the headquarters of the Mayor of Paris and of the command- er-in-chief. Among the Revolutionists it received the nickname of “The Royal Bonbon.”

“They are fed with a spoon!” cried some.—“Out upon them, the little Maine Ducks!”f jeered others. The boy-battalion paraded with the troops, and had its diminutive sentry-box beside that of the National Guard. It demanded also to have its passwords and order of the day, but this was out of the question. Soon after, the tumults in the streets becoming too serious for children to witness, the force of the dauphin was disbanded.

Upon the night of the flight of the royal family to Varenne, the little prince was awakened and disguised in the frock and bonnet of a little girl. “What do you think all this means?” whispered his sister.—“I think,” responded he, “that we are going to play a comedy.” It is well known how the unhappy fugitives were recognized, apprehended, and brought back to Paris. “O brother,” exclaimed Marie Therese, as the affrighted children clung to each other, dismayed by the hopeless air of the King, the anguish of the Queen, the brutal faces and language of their captors,—“O brother, this is not a comedy, but a tragedy!”—“I saw that long ago,” said the young prince mournfully.

The sack of the Tuileries, the deposition of the King, and his imprisonment with his family in the tower of the Temple, followed. They were now so destitute that the dauphin owed the very garments he wore to the kindness of the wife of the English ambassador, who had sent him a suit of clothes belonging to her own little boy.

Despite their separation from all their friends, the insults heaped upon them, and the galling sudveil-lance of their guards, the royal captives bore themselves with Christian fortitude, seeking consolation in prayer, and occupying themselves with loving duties to one another. Louis XVI. gave his son lessons in French, Latin, history, and geography; and the young pupil liked especially to draw maps. Marie Therese was taught principally by her mother.

Daily, if the weather was fine, the family were allowed to go to the Temple garden for an hour, the King and Queen purchasing this recreation for their children’s sake at the price of much insolence to themselves. During these airings the prince played ball, quoits or other lively games. He was still sportive and gay, except when he saw tears in his mother’s eyes; and even then his sallies often brought a smile to her lips.

A small recess in the wall, made by the King, and in which he had secreted important papers, having been discovered, the guards were constantly on the lookout for similar hiding-places. One day at dinner the dauphin, in a spirit of mischief, could not resist a roguish jest at their expense. There happened to be a little cake on the table, which he very much wished for. “Look what a delicious cake, mamma!” he said. “I know of a cupboard where 1 would like to put it. It will be perfectly safe there, 1 assure you.” The jailers glanced significantly at one another, and then carefully scrutinized the walls of the apartment. “I do not see the cupboard, my dear,” answered the Queen.—“Mamma,” he replied, laughing merrily and pointing to his mouth, “here it is!”

The child was accustomed to repeat his morning and evening prayers at his mother’s side, when the guards were far enough away not to notice; otherwise he said them, to himself,—religious teaching and exercises being forbidden by the Revolutionists. He always said a prayer for the Princess de Lam-belle, remembered other friends also, and closed with the following invocation: “Almighty God, who created and redeemed me, whom I adore, preserve the life of my father and my family. Preserve us from all our enemies. Grant to Madame de Tour-zel [3] the strength of which she may stand in need to endure the ills she may suffer for us.”

The Queen and Madame Elizabeth often sat up far into the night repairing the wardrobe of the family; this being necessary because of its scantiness, —the King, like his son, having but one suit of clothes. The illustrious prisoners were not furnished with even a sufficient supply of linen.

With an affectionate thoughtfulness remarkable in a little lad but seven and a half years old, Louis invariably refrained from the mention of everything that might still furthen sadden his parents or awaken painful memories. Once when a man was putting some great locks on the door of the King’s room, the dauphin having taken up some of the tools, Louis XVI. proceeded to show him how to use them, and began to work at the door. “When you leave here sir,” observed the locksmith, “you will be able to say you worked on your own prison.”—“Yes,” was the quiet response; “but how and when am I to leave?” At these words the young prince burst into tears and threw himself into his father’s arms.

After the separation of the King from his family, the dauphin was withdrawn from the care of his mother; but he was permitted to remain with his father until the beginning of the mockery of a trial to which the latter was constrained to submit. The child \vas then sent back to the Queen for a brief interval.

On the eve of his execution Louis XVI. was granted a farewell interview with his wife, sister, and children. At its close the unhappy monarch, who, if he could not stem the torrent of the Revolution, knew how to meet his end with the majesty of a sovereign and a sublime Christian heroism, taking his son upon his knees, said to him: “My child, promise me you will never attempt to avenge my death.” And, making him raise his hand, added: “Swear that you will obey the last wish of your father.”

The next day, when the family were officially informed of the death of the King, and Marie Antoinette was prostrated with grief, little Louis Charles clung to her fondly, kissing her hands and bathing them with his tears. “Alas!” the afflicted mother exclaimed, aroused by his caresses, “these tears will never be dried.”

On the ist of July, at ten o’clock at night, six municipal officers intruded into the presence of the Queen, and roughly announced that, in accordance with a decree, they had come to take her son from her. The child was asleep, and a shawl was arranged about his bed to screen his face from the light. In vain his agonized mother begged that he might remain undisturbed until morning. The poor little prince awoke in terror and was requested to get up.

When he was dressed, his mother, silently invoking strength from Heaven, seated herself upon a chair, drew him to her, placed her hands upon his shoulders, and, now calm and collected in her grief, said to him:

“My child, we are about to part. Remember your duties when I am not with you to remind you of them. Never forget the Almighty who tries you, nor your mother who loves you. Be good, patient and gentle, and your father who is in heaven will bless you.”

Then she kissed him. The jailers took him from her with jeers and taunts, and he never saw again the devoted and beautiful mamma whom he so loved.

III.

Nominally placed in charge of a tutor, the dauphin, already recognized throughout Europe and in La Vendee as Louis XVII., was committed to the care of an ignorant cobbler named Simon. The wife of the latter, whom the child was obliged to obey also, was short, stout, and ugly.

Louis was given his father’s room. He remained in a corner for a long time, weeping bitterly, and during two days took no food except a crust of bread. “By what law am I separated from my mother?” he finally demanded. “Show me the law.” But Simon muttered fiercely: “Be silent, young Capet!” Then he would not speak at all. “Ha,” cried his master, “you are dumb? I will teach you the new ideas and to sing the ‘Carmagnole.’ ”

A few days later Simon made his pupil a present of a jew’s-harp, saying: “Your she-wolf of a mother and your aunt play on the harpsichord; you must accompany them on the jew’s-harp. What a jolly clatter you will make of it!” Feeling that an insult was intended by the gift, the boy threw it away, at which the cruel man beat him unmercifully. Such, indeed, became bis keeper’s brutal practice. “You may punish me if I am at fault,” protested the poor, helpless little fellow on one occasion; “but you must not beat me, sir. Do you hear?”—“I shall do as I please, you young animal!” shouted his tormentor.

Simon appealed to the Committee of Public Safe-tv as to what should be done with the prince. “Is he to be slain?”—“No.”—“Poisoned?”—“No.”— “Well, what, then?”—“Get rid of him,” was the laconic answer.

When the news of the success of the Austrian troops on the frontier reached Paris, Simon sprang upon the child, growling: “Cursed whelp! you are half Austrian. You deserve to be half killed.” Upon the defeat of the Republican army at Saumur he again visited his anger upon his victim, taking him by the hair and knocking him about most cruelly. Big tears rolled down the child’s cheeks, but not a cry escaped him. He did not wish his mother to know of the ill-treatment he received. His books were used to light Simon’s pipe, his maps and pencils thrown away. From this tutor he could learn only Revolutionary songs, the horrible oaths then in vogue, and all evil.

When it became necessary for him to have new clothes, Simon had made for him a little coat and trousers of red cloth, in the style of the “Carmagnole,” and a red cap, the badge of those who put his father to death. No amount of abuse could force him to put on the latter, however; and Simon’s wife at length bade her husband to “Let him alone,” guaranteeing that he would not be so obstinate another time. Occasionally she would thus take his part; but she, too, made of him a little slave. “He is a nice, amiable child,” she acknowledged to a person whose servant she had once been. “He cleans my shoes, and brings the foot-stove to my bedside in the morning.”

Simon’s office was, however, not only to break the spirit and destroy the physical strength of the boy, but also to corrupt his heart and moral nature. With this object the wretched child was plied with wine, which he greatly disliked. When he was stupefied'by it, his master’s control over him was complete.

Sometimes he was taken to walk on the platform of the tower. This platform was divided by a partition, and the princesses were occasionally permitted to take the air on the other side. After much patient waiting, Marie Antoinette once managed to obtain a glimpse of her idolized son through a crevice of the boards. But what a sight it was! He wore the “red cap” and followed his jailer with a hangdog look. Besides, Simon, happening to be in a rage, vented it in execrations against the prince. Not long afterward the Queen was removed to the Conciergerie.

The brutal cobbler even tried to teach the lad the scurrilous songs about his mamma sung in the streets; and upon his refusal to repeat them, threw an andiron at him. Despite all this cruelty, when the victories of the Vendeans began to cause Simon some uneasiness and he asked, “Capet, if they should rescue you what would you do to me?” the child answered, sweetly, “I should pardon you.”

Simon was relied upon to supply evidence to convict Marie Antoinette. Rendering his innocent little charge imbecile with liquor, and standing over him ready to fell him with a blow if he demurred, the wretch compelled him to answer the mayor and solicitor of the Commune as they wished, and to sign a paper to be used against his mother, not knowing what he did. His signature to another document inculpating his aunt was afterward obtained in the same manner. On the first occasion, Marie Therese was confronted with her brother. They were about to rush into each other’s arms, but were prevented from doing so. When the paper was read to the young girl, she exclaimed, indignantly: “It is an infamy!” The unhappy boy had no recollection of the occurrence, and never knew of the execution of the Queen.

Notwithstanding his misery, he still remembered his mother’s teachings, and would often, when he thought himself alone, join his hands and begin to say his prayers. Sometimes, too, while asleep he would get upon his knees and seem to be praying. One night Simon found him thus, and said to his wife: “Come and look at the little superstitious fool, praying in his sleep!” Then taking a pail of water, he dashed it over him. Louis awoke, and without a cry threw himself down in his bed, chilled and dripping with water. But Simon .caught and shook him violently, reiterating: “I’ll teach you, young villain, to be muttering your Pater Nosters, and getting up at night to pray like a monk.” And, seizing his own heavy shoe, he struck his hapless victim on the face. “What have I ever done that you should want to kill me?” sobbed the boy.

Yet even in these days the child made friends. A commissioner named Barelle tried to be kind to him in various small ways; and a good-natured turnkey named Monnier made him a present of several live canary birds. One of these was tamer than the rest; and the delighted little prince tied a bit of red ribbon to its leg, and played with his tiny feathered companion nearly the whole time. But, alas! when the inspecting commissioners saw his pet, one of them cried: “What! A bird with a decoration! An aristocrat! This can not be allowed.” Poor Louis was deprived of his cheery playfellow, and the affair was spoken of as the Conspiracy of the Canaries.

IV.

Finally the cobbler, being in as close confinement as his prisoner, found it intolerable, and resigned his charge. Thenceforth the boy was kept in solitary captivity, the door of his room being barred with iron and his food passed in through a wicket that was fastened at other times by a padlock. This dark cell was heated only by a stovepipe which passed through it, and his sole light came from a lamp hung outside the door.

Here he remained six months, with nothing to do, no human voice to listen to. He had to sweep his room himself, but soon grew too weak for the exertion. He was constantly guarded, though no one was permitted to speak to him. Every evening the municipal officers insisted upon his appearing at the wicket, to make sure he was there. Sometimes late at night, if he failed to answer, one would cry out, “Capet, where, are you?” Then the child, waking with a start, would rise all in a tremor, and reply in a sweet voice: “Here I am, citizen. What do you want of me?”—“To see you, that’s all. Go back to bed, you young villain!” Often this would happen several times during the night. At last the prince resolved neither to ask nor answer a question.

The weary months dragged by. He no longer attempted to make his bed, and was never given a change of sheets nor of clothing. He became so feeble that he could hardly lift the earthenware plate that held his food, or the jug of water placed on the shelf inside the wicket every day. He ceased to care for anything, and his room was infested with rats, mice, and all kinds of vermin. His enemies hoped, no doubt, that this suffering would end in idiocy or madness; but his mind was still too strong-to yield.

After the fall of Robespierre, a man named Laurent was appointed guardian of the royal children; and such was his report that the Committee of Public Safety came to see for themselves the condition of the little prince. As no sound issued from the child’s room, they supposed he was no more. The door was broken down, and they entered, to find him on his bed, more dead than alive indeed, and in a most horrible condition, caused by neglect and suffering, his eyes staring vacantly, and the expression of his face seemingly meaningless.

The insignificant orders given by the government for the improvement of his surroundings were made the most of by the kind-hearted Laurent. The boy was removed to another room, provided with clean linen and a bath, and a comfortable bed and new clothes were brought for him. He received these marks of consideration with astonishment, but it was not long before he expressed his gratitude. The name “Capet,” bestowed upon him by Simon, was also done away with and he was called Monsieur Charles, or simply Charles.

Laurent was obliged still to leave him in solitude, but he took every opportunity of relieving its loneliness, and got permission to take him occasionally to the top of the tower. The first time they availed of this concession, as they were going down again the child stopped on the third story before the room which had been Marie Antoinette’s, and, pressing Laurent’s arm, leaned against the wall and stood gazing sorrowfully at the door. He thought that it alone separated him from his mother. Another time, upon the tower, his guardian discovered him looking at some starved yellow flowers growing in the chinks of the stone-work. The little fellow gathered them and as he was going down dropped them at the door of his mother’s room. He still remained weak, inanimate, and almost speechless.

Laurent soon asked for a colleague and a gentle, mild man named Gomin was appointed through the influence of a political leader who was at heart a royalist. When the commissary on duty happened to be unusually good-natured, the guardians endeavored to obtain some trifling indulgence for the young prisoner. Thus Gomin succeeded in taking to him four little blooming plants. The sight of the blossoms produced a wonderful effect upon the prince.. He smelled them again and again, and at length timidly plucked one, at the same time giving Gomin a glance of tender gratitude, while the tears rolled down his cheeks. However, many days passed without his speaking a word to him; but one morning he said, in a very sweet manner: “It was you who gave me the flowers; I have not forgotten it.”

He was never allowed to see his sister. On one occasion they met accidentally, as one was being taken out and the other brought in from the tower; but they were not permitted to exchange a word.

Little Louis Charles suffered greatly from a swelling under the knee and another on his wrist, and from the ill health caused by long neglect. Sometimes Gomin took advantage of the commissary’s rare absences to play checkers with him; and, although the poor child had small skill, his companion always managed that he should win the game.

One evening as this kind guardian was sitting with him, the little captive, encouraged by his sympathy, rose and approached the door with a suppliant look, as if asking permission to go out. “That is not allowed, you know,” objected Gomin, gently. —“I wish to see her once more! Oh, do let me see her once more before I die!” implored the child. He meant his mother. Gomin dared not tell him she had been long dead, but he tried to lead him back. Finally the child threw himself upon his bed, and remained there almost senseless. “You know it is not my fault. I could not give you leave to go out, even if the door were unfastened; and I am sure you would not do so when it would cost me my life,” reasoned his guardian. The poor boy shook his head, but began to weep uncontrollably.

Laurent resigned his position, and was succeeded by Lasne. Gomin was thenceforth more occupied with the charge of Marie Therese. Lasne had been a soldier, and when on guard at the Tuileries had often seen the dauphin, whom he at once recognized. He, too, availed of every chance to brighten the child’s loneliness, and once, when playing dominoes with him, reminded him of a beautiful box of dominoes he received from his comrades when colonel of his youthful regiment.

The prince’s eyes gleamed with pleasure whenever Lasne descanted upon the excellent discipline of the famous boy-troop and declared that the colonel himself would have become a brave leader worthy of the command. “Did you ever see my sword?” the little fellow would proudly ask, raising his head. His guardian recollected having seen him with a sword by his side. “Ah! what has become of it?” Lasne thought it had been destroyed by the mob which sacked the palace; but it still exists, and is preserved in one of the museums of Paris. It has an agate handle, and a silver guard set with rubies.

On the battlements of the tower was a hollow made by the dripping of the rain for centuries. It was always filled with water, and here the sparrows used to come to drink. They became very tame, and the prince loved to watch them, calling them, “my birds.”

But the child grew weaker, and ere long the guardians wrote in their daily report to the government: “The little Capet is not well.”—“The little Capet is dangerously ill.”—“There are fears for his life.” The physician at length sent to him prescribed “freedom from restraint, and plenty of fresh air;” but this being denied, he could do almost nothing for him. Another doctor commanded the locks on the doors to be taken off, and the boy removed to a cheerful room, into which the sun shone. This act was harshly objected to by the commissary, but the doctor prevailed. The young patient could no longer rise from his bed. And yet no one was allowed to remain with the dying child for any length of time, and he was left unattended during the entire night.

One evening Gomin found him quietly weeping. “What can I do for you?” asked the compassionate guardian, tenderly. “Ah, I am always alone!” sobbed the child. “My dear mother is kept in the other tower.” He continued to grow worse, and a few days later Gomin said to him: “How unhappy I am to see you suffer so!”—“I shall not always suffer,” he responded patiently.

Gomin, who was a good and pious man, knelt by the bed and prayed earnestly. Louis raised his eyes to heaven and silently followed the prayer. After a time, seeing him calm and motionless, his guardian said: “I hope you are not suffering now?”—“Yes, I am,” he replied; “but much less, the music is so sweet.” Surprised, Gomin asked: “Where do you hear the music?”—“Above.”—“How long since?” —“Since you have been praying. Do you not hear it? Listen!” And the boy raised his hand and opened his large eyes lighted up with ecstacy. To please him, Gomin feigned to listen, although no mortal music was to be heard. After some moments the little lad started again, and exclaimed, with glistening eyes and in a transport of delight: “Among the voices I heard my mother’s!”

Lasne came up to relieve Gomin. The latter left the room, quite overcome, but not realizing that the end was so near. His colleague took his place by the bedside. The prince regarded him for some time with a dreamy look, and then asked: “Do you think my sister heard the music? How happy it would have made her!” Poor Lasne could not answer. The eager and penetrating glance of the child darted toward the window; then it rested upon the kind face bending over him, and he said: “There is one thing I have to tell you—” Lasne clasped his thin fingers—the head of the young prisoner fell upon the keeper’s breast—he was free at last. The heart of the little captive king had ceased to beat. And it was quarter-past two o’clock in the afternoon of the 8th of June, 1795. [4]

V.

Of the royal prisoners of the Temple there now remained only Marie Therese, or Madame Royale, as the daughter of Louis XVI. was called. Since the sister of the dauphin has been mentioned several times in the foregoing chapters it may be well to follow to a close the story of her captivity. Ignorant alike of the tragic end of her mother and aunt, and the fate of her brother, she still often asked especially for the latter. To these inquiries the vague answers returned were, naturally, not such as to reassure her. “Ah, well,” she said sadly one day: “If they will only make a good man of him; that is all I wish.”

The desolate young lady continued to occupy the apartments in the Temple tower which had formerly belonged to Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth.

Gomin thus tells of his first experiences as keeper of the prison: “The evening of my arrival Laurent took me to see the prisoners. I will not dwell upon what I felt wien he led me up the stairs impeded by so many wickets. When we reached the second floor and paused before an iron door he said: “There is the brother, it used to be the father’s room.’ After this inspection we ascended to the third story and, as before, found our way blocked by an iron door.”

In this room Madame Royale sat near the window busied with sewing or embroidery. Laurent presented his colleague, but she answered not a word. Nevertheless, Gomin was soon able to show his compassion for the misfortunes of the princess who was yet scarcely more than a child in years. By degrees he won her good graces and succeeded in rendering her many little services. On one occasion, eluding the vigilance of the civic commissioner, who was supposed always to accompany him upon his visits, he gave her a pencil and paper, begging her to write down what she needed most in the way of attire. Another time, when the commissioner had passed out and Gomin was following, she signalled him to linger and then quickly spoke a few words to him. In this way he learned that she had neither shoes nor stockings left. Laurent and he had not perceived it, because she had been careful to keep her feet hidden by the skirt of her gown.

The malice of the commissioners seemed actually on the lookout for ways of being unkind to her, however. Thus, they took from her even the flint and steel with the aid of which she procured for herself two things so precious to a captive, fire and light. One of her first requests of Gomin was for “matches.” Yet, despite her sorrows and privations, the health of the young girl had not been seriously affected by her long captivity, and her appearance was extremely pleasing. She was of a good height, her features, delicate in early childhood, had formed into beauty; her eyes were large, and her hair, formerly flaxen, had turned to a rich chestnut color. Though women, as well as men, then wore their locks short, she had kept her tresses long and gathered them in a knot at the back of the head; the attractiveness of her personality was enhanced by the charm of extreme youth, to which an air of impressive gravity was given by misfortune. Without the knowledge of her jailors, and in a place where for a time she had neither fire nor light, and was allowed scarcely any sleep, the poor girl yet managed to write in brief, her prison recollections in which although not knowing but she might be already condemned to death, she says nothing except what she cannot avoid noticing concerning the conduct of others, excuses or omits to mention insolence offered to herself, and if the indignation of her heart does sometimes rise higher than her will it is when the miseries of her mother or the sufferings of her brother are the subjects of her pen.

But the storm of the Revolution was passed and the reaction had come. Public manifestations in favor of Marie Therese began to have an influence upon the convention, and the rigor of her captivity was lessened in some slight degree. Now she'was allowed to go down into the garden. Ere long, Gomin ventured to bring her as a gift, a little dog. “He was only a mongrel,” the good man says dep-recatingly, “a red and very ugly spaniel; his name, too, was as plebian as his aspect, for he was called Coco.” But Coco’s gentle and affectionate nature jr made up for these outward defects, and his antics often distracted the thoughts of his mistress from her sadness, and rendered her more cheerful. He brightened the loneliness of her solitude in the tower, and delighted to follow her about the garden. Here, among the branches of a certain tree, the kind-hearted Gomin used frequently to hang apricots or peaches, so that the princess might have the pleasure of finding them. “That is a very nice tree,” she said to him smilingly, one day, “please compliment the gardener well for me upon its productiveness.” The pending negotiations with Austria for the release of Marie Therese still further lightened her imprisonment. It was next decreed that she should not longer be kept in complete solitude, and Madame Bocquet de Chantereine was appointed to be her companion. This lady was well educated, possessed some skill in drawing, and played on the harp. She had applied for the position out of sympathy for the daughter of Louis XVI., and now undertook the mournful task of acquainting her with the extent of her bereavement. All cruel uncertainty, fearful doubts and terrible suspicion were now to cease in the heart of the grief-stricken girl, who, until then had interrogated in vain every one whom she saw. At length she met with a sympathetic woman who, amid tears and sobs, told her the whole truth.

“Madame has lost both her parents.”

“And my brother?”

“You have no brother now.”

“And my aunt?”

“Your aunt is no more.”

“What. Elizabeth, too! What could they have to reproach her with!” Marie Therese knew now that she was alone in the world. She who had the courage to acquaint her with her isolation, felt the confidential intercourse of the captivity she shared to be a sacred tie. Mme. de Chantereine did everything in her power to make her attendance agreeable to the princess. She knew how to please by her conversation, to amuse with her talents, to touch the heart by her affection. But she was a person of lively sensibilities rather than of a firm character, and was treated by Marie Therese with the more consideration, because it was soon evident that the latter was stronger than her friend whose nerves suffered from the strain of prison life so that she had several attacks of illness.

Often, when Marie Therese and her companion took their daily walk in the garden, there was to be seen sporting near them a pretty mottled goat which relieved the loneliness of the enclosure by its gambols and caprices. It was a present from Madame de Chantereine.

Both Gornin and Lasne were fond of the graceful little creature, and it soon became the occasion of a good-natured rivalry between them. The goat was on very familiar terms with Gomin; it would come to him at call and evince its attachment to him in various ways; on the other hand it either pursued Gasne, or threatened to butt at him if he approached it. At first this amused him, but when he saw that Marie Therese observed the antipathy of the perverse animal he became vexed at it. Indeed, from this time he showed a ludicrous horror of the goat, and grew angry at all jests upon the subject.

As soon as the news spread that Marie Therese was permitted to go out to take the air, Monsieur Hue, the faithful attendant of the late king, hastened to hire a room in a house whose upper windows overlooked the garden. From this room he was able to see the young princess and be seen by her. To this garret he ascended daily to obtain a glimpse of the daughter of his master. Madame Hue went thither also, taking with her a lady to sing for the solace of the prisoner, she herself accompanying the music upon the harp. On the fifteenth of August, the sixteenth birthday [5] of the princess, the garret concert was finer than usual, and the latter, wishing to show her friends how sensible she was of the mark of interest bestowed upon her, remained a long time in the garden.

But the sweet strains of melody and the intelligence of her presence had attracted attention and all the windows of the neighborhood were soon thronged with people. Two days afterwards Monsieur Hue was privately warned by the government that although the homage he had paid to misfortune would be passed over, there must be no further demonstrations of any kind.

Since the arrival of Madame de Chantereine, Marie Therese had become, not more industrious than before, for she had never allowed herself to be idle, but her occupations were more varied. She was now in the habit of writing during the morning; in the afternoon she read, sewed and drew. About this time Gomin chronicles that: “She was given a new dress and seemed much pleased to leave off the old and only one, which she had been always mending up ever since the time of Robespierre.” A visit from her former governess, Madame de Tourzel, was another circumstance which shed a ray of sunshine upon the existence of Madame Royaie at this time. On hearing of the permission granted to this lady, the son of Madame de Mackau obtained the same concession for his mother (who had also instructed the princess) and handed her the permit as a happy surprise. “Oh, my son,” she cried, embracing him tenderly, "I am so overjoyed; and I owe it to you.” Without loss of time she repaired to the Temple. Madame Royaie being informed of her arrival, rushed to meet her, and was in her arms before she had crossed the courtyard. Madame de Mackau, who was very old, and whose health had been considerably impaired by a long imprisonment, strove to excuse herself for not having been able to get to the tower before the princess came down: “How so,” exclaimed Marie Therese, “how could I delay the pleasure of greeting you for a single second!”

“Well, well,” returned the aged lady with a smile, "Madame has certainly come down the steps much faster than I could have gone up them.”

Marie Therese led her venerable visitor to a seat at the end of the garden, but later, perhaps because their interview was disturbed by the presence of the keepers, she took her up to her own room. It was then that the young girl revealed herself to her old friend in her true character. Madame de Mackau had come to the tower hoping to give consolation to a child; she found a woman of fortitude. Nor had the heart of Marie Therese been embittered by the injustice done her, or the cruel fate of her family. “I am far from confounding those who deprived me of all I loved best in the world with the French nation at large,” she said to her guest. “I should be. delighted to leave my prison, but I should prefer the humblest little house in France to all the honors that elsewhere await a princess so unhappy as myself.” Now, occasionally, Madame de Tourzel and Madame de Mackau were admitted to dine with her. Unfortunately, however, this privilege was rescinded after a few weeks, owing to an alleged plot of the royalists to restore the monarchy and place her uncle upon the throne. More unfortunately still, the negotiations for her deliverance to the envoys of Austria in exchange for French prisoners, were delayed.

Madame de Tourzel related charming little incidents of the brief moments of contentment that had been allowed Marie Therese in the companionship of her friends during the interval of her short intercourse with them. “I could not refrain from asking ‘Madame’ how she had been able to bear up against so much misfortune,” she writes. Nothing could have been more touching than the reply of Marie Therese: “Without religion it would have been impossible for me to do so; that was my sole resource and provided me with the only comfort my heart was capable of receiving. I had preserved my Aunt Elizabeth’s religious books; I read them over, recalled the advice she had given me, and tried to follow her injunctions exactly. My aunt but too truly foresaw the trials I was destined to suffer; she accustomed me to wait upon myself so as to require no one’s assistance. She laid out my life so that every hour of it might be employed. The arrangement of my room, my devotions, reading, work, had each their separate time. She showed me how to sprinkle my room with water to cool and freshen the air, and required me to walk up and down as fast as possible for an hour every day to make up for the want of proper exercise.”

“We were moved to tears by these details so interesting on account of their coming from the lips of Madame herself. We admired the courage of Madame Elizabeth and her foresight, which extended to everything that could in any way help to lighten the imprisonment of her young niece.” Madame Elizabeth was indeed the comfort of her family during their trials; she sustained the courage of the King and of Marie Antoinette by her most devoted unselfishness and the example of an exalted piety.

Marie Therese had passed fifteen months in complete solitude, after her separation from her aunt. Apart from one or two books of devotion, she had nothing to read but La Harpe’s travels, which she knew almost by heart. She needed almost everything, yet asked nothing. To the inquiry if she had never been ill during this time she replied naively: “I was so little taken up with myself that I paid small attention to my health,” but she then told of a fainting fit into which she had fallen one day, adding some remark concerning the slight account she held of her life; it was impossible to listen to her Avithout being deeply affected. At last the Executive Directory decreed that measures be taken to expedite the exchange of the daughter of Louis XVI. for the French citizens before mentioned; that an officer of gendarmerie be appointed to accompany her as far as Basle, on her way to Austria, and that she might be allowed to name one or two ladies to go with her. Marie Therese wished to be accompanied by Madame de Mackau, Madame de Tourzel and Madame de Seront, who was lady-in-waiting to her aunt; but before her departure the first was stricken with a mortal illness; it was intimated that the second would not be welcome in Austria, and her daughter, Madame de Seront, could not be separated from her. Madame Royale then selected Madame de Soucy as a companion for the journey, and Gomin and Mon. Mechain, a captain of gendarmerie who had been highly spoken of to her, as her escort.

The princess was further requested to make any demands she desired with respect to an outfit for herself. The revolutionary government had long denied her even necessaries, now they wished to burden her with superfluities. But, while she expressed her thanks to the authorities in dignified terms, she restricted her selection to some few articles of linen and cotton stuffs and some shoes, of which she was in need.

She was urged to make out a more extensive list, and Lasne and Gomin reminded her that now she was free and about to repair to the court of Austria, she would require attire and ornaments suitable to her rank. But they spoke in vain: “Ah,” said she, “if I might have restored to me some articles belonging to my mother and myself, which were taken from us a few days after our arrival at the tower, that is all I would ask.” There was in the lower room of the tower a chest of drawers which had been sealed up for a long time. Gomin had once been told these drawers contained diamonds, jewels and rich stuffs belonging to the king’s family. He had kept the secret to himself, but he now thought the time had come to speak. Hoping this property might be now given to Marie Therese, he reported to the authorities the existence of the chest of drawers; he dared not do more. His innocent strategem succeeded in so far as that an order came to remove the seals and investigate the contents of the drawers. “They contained many things which Madame would have been greatly pleased to have, he says, “but M. Benezech, minister of the interior, who was kindly disposed towards her, had not the power to give them to her.” Benezech, nevertheless, strove to obtain that her departure should be attended with as much consideration as possible. He appealed to the vanity of the Directors, representing to them it was for the honor of the new government to prove to Europe not only that they did not follow in the track of the Reign of Terror, but also that they knew how to unite with a rigid performance of their duty the consideration due to the representative and daughter of those who had ruled the land for so many ages. He even ventured to propose that Marie Therese should traverse the country in a calash drawn by eight horses and accompanied by a certain state. It was decided, however, that she should travel incognito as far as the frontier, and there be furnished with a handsome equipage to convey her onward to Basle.

On the 16th of December, 1795, Benezech wrote in these terms to the keepers of the Temple. “I give you notice, citizens, that I shall come this evening at five o’clock for the purpose of seeing the prisoner; I beg you will let her know it beforehand, but I also wish to have some conversation with yourselves' before I visit the tower.” In the course of this interview every arrangement was made for her departure, which was fixed for the second day following at half past eleven in the evening. During the interval the young girl made her own simple preparations for the journey. Of her few possessions she set aside a portion to be given to persons employed about the prison; then she put on the dress she was accustomed to wear on festival days, and going into the garden, saluted the friends who had so often testified their sympathy with her from the windows of the neighboring houses.

At the appointed hour, on the evening of December iS, Benezech arrived at the Temple and was admitted according to a concerted signal. He thereupon handed Lasne a signed paper which testified that the keepers were duly discharged from the custody of Marie Therese. Lasne hastened to acquaint the princess, who now took an affectionate leave of Madame de Chantereine. The doors of the tower were thrown open; none of the people about the building were allowed to show themselves as Marie Therese passed, to bid her farewell. The sentry was under arms, but he had his orders, and the guard remained silent and rigid; only the officer came forward and saluted her; the outer gates of the courtyard were ajar, and the neighborhood apparently deserted. When the daughter of Louis XVI. found herself in the street she turned her head and fixed a long, sad look upon the Temple, while her eyes filled with tears. Three years and four months had gone by since its portals closed upon her family and herself, and now, of those dear ones, she alone went out from these gates to life and liberty. Of her departure, she wrote: “I left the Temple, without being seen by any one; the street was quite solitary, there being only Monsieur Gomin and the man in attendance on Monsieur Benezech. The latter gave me his arm, and we walked as far as the Rue Meslay. There we found his carriage, which I entered with him and M. Gomin. We made several turns about the streets and at last reached the boulevards in front of the opera house, where we found a traveling carriage with Mrae. de Soucy and M. Mechain, the officer of gendarmerie. I got in with M. Gomin.” Then Madame Royale thanked Benezech warmly for his kindness to her and the order to start was given. “Farewell, sir,” said her sweet voice once more and the berlin rolled away, while Benezech, pleased and affected by the good work he had just completed, re-entered his own coach; he looked at his watch—it was midnight.

An hour afterwards a second berlin followed the first; in it were M. Hue, Mme. de Soucy’s little boy, Meunier, Baron, and a servant maid. The little dog Coco had not started with his mistress; the fear of his frolicsome gambols and joyous bark at the time of her setting off in the middle of the night had caused him to be shut up. He was not forgotten, however, but found a place in the second carriage. Marie Therese traveled under the name of Sophie, but notwithstanding every precaution taken by her guard, the resemblance of the young princess to her father and mother betrayed her incognita more than once, and many compassionate glances were cast upon her in the course of her journey.

At the little town of Huningue she was joined by the occupants of the second carriage. The meeting with Monsieur Hue was affecting to both, as she had not seen him except from the Temple garden, since the days of his attendance upon her father. It was at Huningue that the grand coach and horses ordered by the Directory, were to have been placed at her disposal; but these were not accepted by the envoys of the Emperor, Francis I. of Austria, who had made it a point of honor to provide in a suitable manner for his cousin’s comfort and dignity during the remainder of the journey. Upon crossing the frontier Marie Therese said: “I leave France with much regret; I shall never cease to regard it as my country.”

The exchange was to take place at the country house of a Monsieur Reber, near Basle. She was, however, not required to be present at the formal proceedings. The representatives of Austria met her at the door of the house and conducted her to the salon. An elegant collation was prepared for her, but she took little and withdrew to a smaller salon. Monsier Hue asked permission to speak to her: “I have been directed by the minister of the interior,” said he, “to give Madame two trunks containing an outfit for her Royal Highness more in keeping with her position than the humble wardrobe she herself chose in the Temple; is it Madame’s wish that I should open them?” “No,” replied the princess, “give them to my conductors, M. M. Me-chain and Gomin, and beg them to thank M. Ben-ezech for me, but I cannot accept the offer.” That evening, bidding adieu to her French escort, she took her place in the carriage of state sent by the Emperor, and after some delay at Basle and Inrs-pruck reached Vienna on the 9th of January.

Austria accorded to Marie Therese the position of an arch-duchess. She was treated with much distinction at the brilliant imperial court, and a handsome establishment was provided for her. The Emperor greatly desired that she should marry his younger brother, the Arch-duke Charles, but predisposed in favor of the Due d’Angouleme by an early hope of her parents, she became the wife of the latter and shared his exile. Possessing much of the spirit and ardor of Marie Antoinette, she sustained the courage of her husband, returned with him to France in 1814, and exerted so great an influence over the troops at Bordeaux during “the hundred days” that Napoleon called her “the only man in the family.” Driven again from France with the Duke for a time, she found an asylum in Holyrood House, the dreary palace of the ill-fated Mary Stuart whose misfortunes she could so well compassionate. The shadow of the Temple tower seemed to fall athwart the sunshine of every day ol her life.

As for that gloomy pile, soon after the departure of Marie Therese, several persons gained admittance to the prison and with eager eyes sought out whatever traces of their sojourn might have been left there by its royal occupants. On the walls were no inscriptions in the handwriting of Louis XVI., the Queen or Madame Elizabeth; they, despite their trials, had still some faithful heart to sympathize with them. Madame Royale and her brother, on the contrary, condemned to perfect solitude, more than once sought comfort in confiding their thoughts to the grim prison walls. In the apartment of the princess was discovered, written in pencil, “Oh, my God, pardon those who have put to death my parents,” and a little above this line, “Oh, my father, watch over me from heaven above.” In the dauphin’s room was found a flower sketched on the wainscot near the corner where the stove had been; and further on the following words traced with a blunt pencil or bit of charcoal: “Maman je vous pr—” Was it “Mamma, I beg of you,” or “I present you”? Did the means or the power fail him to complete his sentence? Was he stayed by the brutal hand of Simon, or by the menacing summons of the guard? We shall never know. Yet, do not these simple and sweet mementoes express not only the fortitude and heroism of Marie Therese, but the innocence and patience as well as the sunny and affectionate nature of the noble though ill-fated little child of the Temple?

THE JINGLINGS.

CHAPTER I.
WHAT THE NEIGHBORS KNEW.

Mrs. Jingling was poor. Everybody in the village, except herself, admitted it. She knew it, but would not admit it to others. All Mapleton pitied her. There was not a man or woman in the village who would not tell you her circumstances, elaborating the recital with bits and scraps of information which Mrs. Jingling fondly hoped were yet and always to be hidden domestic secrets. The village gossips added much more than really existed, even in the cupboard where the family skeleton is kept. Talk-loving neighbors in small places are likely to do this. Everybody knows the comings and goings of everybody else.

Yes, everybody admitted that Mrs. Jingling wras in poor circumstances.

Lame old Tom McGruder allowed “she wer’ poor’n a church mouse, tho’ she do ’old ’er ’ead mortal ’igh, ’s if she wer’ better’n nother folk.”

For longer than grown up boys and girls could remember, Tom McGruder had rested in the shade of tavern porch in summer and in the “tap” by the fire in winter. Sundays and week days from early in the forenoon until the tavern keeper gave him a strong hint to go, at locking-up time. Why this occupation should give the knowledge of the affluence or poverty of a mouse ecclesiastical is not very clear. It was puzzling to many people. Villages, however, are not over critical, either of grammar or facts. So his verdict, given with an amount of apparent conviction, carried conviction to others.

Elderly Mrs. Furlong, nurse in general to everybody for miles around Mapleton, and in the village especially, although as kind a soul as ever breathed, and one who would part with her last loaf to any one in want, used to say:

“McGruder, although he be as lazy a man as ever lived, is right ’bout them Jinglings. They certainly do be poor, but laws sakes! they be that proud you’d think they was the ekals o’ the Graysons on the Hill. Lor’ a mussy, what airs some people do put on when they just ain’t got a penny to bless theirsel’s with.” Mrs. Jingling did not admit she was poor. She went only so far as to say she was in reduced circumstances. Now, as this may mean anything or nothing, is in fact only a relative term, outsiders would find it difficult to discover her actual degree of impecuniosity. A millionaire is in reduced circumstances when he loses a large enough amount of money to make him only a thousandaire—if one may be allowed to coin a word—yet he will manage very well to keep the wolf from the door, continue to send his daughter to the convent-school, and be able to pay his taxes.

The real facts of the case with the widow Jingling were, that she was indeed poor, very poor, but the pride of the respectability of other days still clung around her. She could not bring herself to admit to her gossipy neighbors the extent of her poverty.

She had seen better days, of course. There was a time when not one but three or four good black silk dresses filled her wardrobe; when her table linen and bed linen were as fine and as plentiful as Mrs. Judge Grayson’s on the Hill.

As long as her present black silk—alas! the last of them all—lasted, and she could appear at Mass on Sundays among the best, she did not drop the fiction that she was not poor, but only in reduced circumstances.

All Mapleton wondered how she lived. Since the death of her husband, so far as the gossips knew, she had no visible means of support. It was a mystery to the women especially; as all mysteries in small places are resented, there was not a woman in the place, and if but the truth were told, few men either, who had not his or her own theory how she subsisted at all; or how she found bread and butter for herself, one grown daughter and the little child born just after her father’s death. This little girl was subject to the greatest affliction that can fall to the lot of man. Little Isabel was a beautiful child, but she was born a deaf-mute.

There was pride in Mrs. Jingle—that pride of family born of other and more prosperous days. She made no confidants of the women of the village. This was a mortal offense. She could not bring herself to discuss her miseries and lay bare her secrets to be the tea-table talk of laborers’ wives, women kind at heart and motherly enough, but of coarse grain, and hard common lives. So Mrs. Jingle in her genteel poverty kept her troubles to herself.

How did she live? None but herself knew that those periodical visits to the metropolis on the street car—whose steel tracks stretch out to the villages around like an octopus, drawing everything to the city’s man—none knew that these visits were each time reducing her stock of household goods, her linens, the little fine silverware she possessed when her husband died—even her much-loved silk dresses. Heaven knows how little she received for one article after another. Heaven herself knew how few were the disposable articles left.

When they were all gone!—There was a blank. She dared not look into the future. Her present was sad enough.

It will naturally be asked, was not her daughter of any assistance to her? She had been a help, but was so no longer. This is how it all came about.

When Mrs. Jingling first came to Mapleton, eleven years ago, she brought with her a bright handsome boy of about twelve years of age. He was a charming little lad, with manly pretty face, sturdy figure and winning ways. He had not been in the village a month before he was the favorite and leader of all the boys.

Clarissa, the girl, was one of the family of four at that time. She was then a pale and delicate child of six. She could not keep pace with her brother’s romping, healthy disposition. They loved each other well: he in his boyish and somewhat boisterous way; she with the more maidenly modesty of a sister, but none the less sincerely, quite as deeply but not so effusively.

The husband of Mrs. Jingling had bought the little cottage and brought his family out to Maple-ton for a quieter life than the city afforded. He was engaged all day in his business in town. The mother and children were much alone. Village life was certainly healthier and much less expensive, besides being much less dangerous.

Mr. Jingling was a head salesman in a large department store. Often he would not come home to his wife for two or three days at a time when business was rushing and the hours were long. This gave the wife no uneasiness. He was much valued by the company and deserved their confidence. He hoped in time to build a nice comfortable house for his family in Mapleton, or in some other suburb before many years. In the meantime he purchased the little cottage which was soon a cosy nest. He furnished it comfortably, but was saving of every penny for his future enterprise.

Then came the catastrophe, oh! so common a one in our big world. Only one man crushed to death. Only one—subject for a short paragraph in the morning paper—and the world within an hour forgets it all. Not so with the family.

How did it happen? An open door in an elevator shaft. He, busy, with a bundle of goods in his arms, seeing the door open, concluded that the cage must be there waiting. Without thought he steps out into space. His mangled form was picked up at the bottom of the shaft.

Letters of condolence, sincere ones, came from the firm to the widow. The sincerity was attested by an accompanying cheque of five thousand dollars.

Then came the next misfortune. Little Isabel, was born without power of speech or hearing. One may be sure that this sum of money was eked out by the poor widow with now three children to feed, and made to go as far as possible. Large as it may seem in bulk, five thousand dollars will not last forever.

In the meantime Ralph, the boy, grew up, finished his schooling, and was taken into the store where his father met his death. For a time his small salary was a help to his mother. They seemed to be getting along well.

Ralph became sixteen years old. He had then been working in the department store for a year. One day, about the time our story opens, he told his mother that he thought he could do better if he went to New York. Of course he would send her regular remittances to keep the roof over her head, and ’Lissa’s and poor Bella’s—what did his mother take him for. Was he going to forget her? No: she should see. She might expect a letter, say every Tuesday morning, yes, every Tuesday.

She, poor woman, at last gave a tearful consent, not without sad forebodings. A few days later he kissed her a brave good-bye, while she clung to his shoulders—he was a big stalwart young fellow now —and even at the last minute begged of him to alter his determination.

He had been caught by the glamor and the rush of the ways of the larger city. He saw golden visions ahead of him. Had he searched his own heart he would have found that he was, also, rejoicing in the prospects of a larger liberty. Probably he was sincere in his promises. At this time he did not know his own weaknesses.

“Remember I am going to write every week. Just as soon as I can get a vacation I am coming home to see you all. Cheer up, mother. Don’t be so down-hearted. Write to me often ’Lissa. Take good care of poor Bella.”

So he went. For three months he wrote regularly, sending a small sum home in each letter. Then a week now and then was missed, but with apologies in the next letter, although the missing "week’s money did not come. After a time the letters with their encolsures became quite intermittent. They finally ceased altogether.

His mother bore it all in patience. She prayed for him, making excuses for his neglect as only a mother will. In the meanwhile her fund became smaller and smaller, till at last it was gone.

It was then in her distress that she began selling this bit and that of choice furniture, her table linen, silverware and finally one by one her cherished dresses.

Lissa, like the loyal girl she was, never openly blamed her brother for his neglect of his mother, but in her heart she could not excuse him. She once, by chance, learned from an acquaintance of Ralph, who had been in New York and had happened to run across him, the true state of affairs, which she had long suspected. Dissipation was sending him rapidly on a downward course. She kept this knowledge from her mother, but the secret was eating her own heart away.

She determined to do something. She secured a situation in the same department store where her father and brother had formerly been employed. They were kind to her, gave her light work, but with correspondingly light pay.

The city life was too strenuous for the delicate girl. The nervous strain of being in the same spot where her father met his awful death was too much for her sensitive nature. Bravely she continued at the work for several months. When the difficulty and hardship of winter travel to and from Mapleton was added to the many hours of standing on her feet in the store with a class of hard working but uncongenial girls around her, her health gave way.

One moring she was unable to arise from bed. Her mother was alarmed. She called in the village physician. He shook his head ominously. He knew it would be cruelty to order good, rich wines, rich juicy steaks and delicate fruits, but he knew they were necessary. What was he to do? A change of climate in order to avert threatened consumption was out of the question.

When our story opens Lissa had been an invalid for something like nine months, with little prospect of ever regaining her health.

Mrs. Jinglings cup of sorrow was full. She had more than usually falls to the lot of women.

CHAPTER II.
HARD STRAITS

“I do believe there goes Mrs. Jingling with a bundle under her arm, making for the street car. Strikes me she’s goin’ to her “uncle” every time she takes one o’ them bundles into town. I’m just goin’ to watch when she combs home to-night whether she brings it back with her.”

The speaker was the idler and loiterer at the village tavern—McGruder.

“Don’t you bother about the widow. It’s none of your business,” said the tavern keeper.

“I reckon I ain’t, yet people do be kind o’ curious about things, ’specially when folks are so high and mighty like.”

“I tell you it’s none of your business any way. You’re as bad as a woman.”

“Perhaps ’tain’t, but somehow I do be pertickler interested in that there family. It was one thing to see poor Jingling come lordin’ it over us natives. He was a rusher, he was. He had the money, too —leastways he was most liberal to me. But it’s another thing for them women folks o’ his to try an' keep up the style on nothin’ after he’s dead and gone.”

“Now look here, McGruder, you’re a fool. That’s straight. How do you or the likes of you know what money she has to live on. Ain’t the cottage neat an’ clean. Do she owe the butcher or the baker? I guess not. You just shut up about the Jinglings, I say.”

“All right, boss. No occasion t’ get mad about it. Guess I’ll go’n see ’bout gettin’ in some o’ them there taters, leastwise, if I can get the loan of a hoe. You ain’t got ne’er a hoe round here ye ain’t usin', hev ye. That’s what I come for, tho’ I do ’low most the mornin’s ’bout slipped away ’thout knowin’. How time do fly, to be sure.”

“You’ll find one in the stable. Mind and bring it back,” said the tavern keeper in a no very conciliatory manner to so regular a customer.

“I will that. I’ll bring it back by early candlelight t’-morrer.”

McGruder’s surmises about the bundle Mrs. Jingling carried to town were only too correct. That day she took the very last of her articles to raise a little money on them. What a pittance she received for them, too! Her heart was well nigh broken.

Poor patient gentlewoman! She had made and was making still an heroic struggle against misfortune. As she stepped off the car, with the few silver coins rattling in her pocket, she was met by the inquisitive McGruder.

“Bin to town, Miss Jingle?”

“Yes, on a—a little business.”

“Guess business is brisk over beyond,” pointing to the glow in the sky in the direction of the city. “Yes.”

“What kind o’ business are ye doin’, Mrs. Jingling? Perhaps I could lend ye a hand, somehow.” The fellow’s impertinent inquisitiveness almost appalled her.

“Thank you. You can be of no assistance to me whatever. Good-night.”

“Just what I thought,” he muttered to himself. “She brought no bundle back with her.” He went straight to Nurse Furlong’s cottage.

“Well! I do declare. You don’t say! Just what I thought! Come right in Mr. McGruder. And them people that stuck up! I calls it a downright shame for sich folks to hold their heads so high, so I do. One would think we wasn’t good enough to be walked on by the likes o’ her. Not as how I wouldn’t be willin’ to lend a helpin’ hand if I know’d there was real need in the family—get up some sort o’ quiltin’ bee, or s’prise party, or suthin’ o’ that way for ’em; but I do say the Lord’ll punish so much stuckupishness some day, you mark my solemn words if he don’t.”

There was not a toss-up of difference between the he-gossip and the she-gossip. It must not be supposed that either of them were really hardhearted, or would willfully and knowingly do Mrs. Jingling or any one else any positive harm. They had dropped into the habit so common in small communities of talking about their neighbors, of prying into the ins and outs of every family along the beautiful tree-lined streets of the village. With the indulgence granted the habit by these two it had for them become almost inveterate.

These two knew all that was going on in Maple-ton—the time the Jones girls rose in the morning and when they finished their milking,—how much a yard Mrs. Brown paid for her dress goods,—what time the Smithson boys came home last night, and where they had been,—and so on and so on ad infinitum.

Such characters exist in every village in the world. While in a large city you often do not know your next door neighbor, or the people of the same flat where you live, in every small community everything is known by everybody. Hence the mortal offense given by Mrs. Jingle in trying to keep her own affairs to herself.

This inquisitiveness, good or ill-natured as may be, was none the less painful to the sorely tried widow. She had come originally from old Kentucky. She was as sensitive and as high strung as are the beautiful horses which come from that state’s blue grass region, while she possessed that refinement usually found among the women of Kentucky. Being well educated, the loss of social companionship was keenly felt. It was positive suffering for her to be subjected to her neighbors’ inquisitorial remarks. There was an innate refinement in her which made it impossible for her to give confidences to minds which she knew would not and could not appreciate, much less sympathize. She therefore kept much to herself, finding solace in the company of her invalid daughter, Lissa.

At length the time came which she had so long dreaded when the pocketbook was actually empty. Everything had been pawned or sold that could be disposed of. It was the week before Christmas. She hoped against hope that she might hear from her scapegrace son before long. Her faith here was not very strong. She had recently, through some over-zealous friends heard some inkling of the course the boy was taking. The knowledge only added to her already large burden of sorrow.

She had at this time about half of a good-sized porker in the larder, a part of a sack of flour in the bin, and perhaps a dozen bushels of potatoes in the cellar between her and actual want. Would not McGruder and Furlong and that ilk have gloated over the discovery of this state of affairs.

Two days before Christmas poor sickly Bissa, lying on the lounge, which was drawn up quite close to the stove, said to her mother in a somewhat playful mood, albeit with more or less wistfulness: “Mamma dear, it’s just two days before Christmas. Do you know what I want Santa Claus to bring me?”

“Oh! you are too old to talk of Santa Claus any more. Mrs. Jingling said this in the faint, half-hope of changing her daughter’s thoughts from presents, so that she would be saved the misery of having to tell her that it would be impossible to gratify her wish even to the extent of a bow of bright colored ribbon, or a box of candies.

“But let’s make believe, mamma, just for this once. I know I’m too old to believe in a real Santa Claus any more, and all that, but let’s just make believe that I’m little again.”

What could the mother do but yield to the sick girl’s whim. The poor girl’s fancies could not be extravagant. She lay there on the lounge, pale and with that hectic flush which told of the ravages of disease.

“Very well, dear. We will suppose.”

“All right, mamma dear. Now I’m a little girl only as big as Bella, and she is to be my little fairy.” Lissa stroked the silent child’s hair as she spoke. The little one, by no means weak minded, as so many with her affliction are, responded with gentle caresses and a sound from her throat which to those not used to it resembles so distressingly the moan of one in pain. The mother and the daughter were used to it long ago. They knew it meant pleasure.

“Now I am going to ask Santa Claus for a Christmas gift,” continued Lissa. “Please, good Santa Claus send mamma lots of money, and send speech to poor Bella, and give me for Christmas some of those nice buns like Mrs. Judge Grayson makes. Isn’t mine a simple request, mamma? Do you think Santa Claus will answer that?”she asked laughingly.

Mrs. Jingling brightened. She thought the good St. Nicholas would. She knew she had not the material in the house to make those rich buns, for which Mrs. Grayson, her only real friend in Maple-ton, was so famous. Nor had she the skill. But she hoped that something would happen to enable her to fulfill her daughter’s wish and make her happy.

After Clarissa had gone to bed that night, the widow sat and pondered long. She reviewed her own condition at the present moment. Her prospects for the future were dark indeed.. How to be able soon to keep the wolf of hunger from the door was a heart-breaking question. Must she, a daughter of a judge in Kentucky, must she go out to earn a living? She was brave, but oh! the bitterness of that thought! She must put aside her pride—however justifiable it may be—and begin to consider the feasibility of doing some charing, or house-cleaning or other such work, in the neighborhood. She was sensible enough to know that work—manual labor —was not degrading, although it may be humiliating. Oh! if her husband—no, she would not think of that. The thought was maddening. She had promised her confessor to try to accept without grumbling whatever Providence had disposed for her.

If her boy—her only boy—would write, or come home! Oh! the pity of it, that he had drifted away to New York, away from home and mother and home influences. No matter that he sent her no money—she wanted it badly enough—but no matter, providing he would but write to let her know that his love for her was not altogether dead. Let him be fallen ever so low, there was mother-love, and mother-heart to forgive and redeem and never remember the past.

And Lissa—poor fading Lissa! How could she get some of those buns! Of course it was only a sick child’s—a very sick child’s fancy. She might never think of it again. Then again she might have set her heart on this one thing. Ah! if she were to go over to Mrs. Grayson’s and ask her for some! No, she could not bring herself to that. It would appear too much like begging. Not, she argued, if she told Mrs. Grayson that it was her sick child’s fancy to have some of her buns. That would not be begging. That would be complimentary; it would be keeping up Jhe equality she had always claimed with the Judge’s wife.

Yes, she would put on her only remaining respectable dress to-morrow and go over to Mrs. Grayson’s and ask her for some of her celebrated buns. Mrs. Jingle knew for a certainty that the Judge’s wife would not refuse. The difficulty was in the possible humiliation of having to ask for them as would a pauper, but come what may Lissa must not be disappointed on Christmas morning.

The next afternoon she put on her best dress. With her old time distinguished air she walked through the village streets over to Mrs. Judge Grayson’s house on the hill, leaving Lissa to take care of Bella and the cottage.

CHAPTER III.
THE SWEET CAKES.

The village of Mapleton was a scattering sort of old-fashioned place. In the summer it was a paradise of coolness by reason of the abundance of its large maple shade trees from which it took its name. The early village fathers had planted them generations ago. They were now full grown, making the sylvan charm of the village streets something to be remembered. Even in winter the delicate tracery of twig and bough against the grey sky was pleasing to see.

The place was old-fashioned. There were no electric lights, and but few oil lamps on the streets. The six-dollar-a-week young man of the city would call the place “pokey.” The piano-playing young lady whose fingers she imagined were formed for fugues and had not skill enough in them to make an apple dumpling if her life depended on it, declared the place was barely tolerable, when she imposed herself on her Aunt Betsy for a month or so in the summer. The old-timers of the place loved it, even for its conservative- non-progressiveness. Maple-ton had not moved forward in a hundred years. The inhabitants did not want any change. They loved every inch of its ground, its rickety village hall, with its cracked bell, its old-fashioned school house, its moss-grown steeple of the parish church—all were dear to every soul there. They wrere fortunate in that the metropolitan unrest had not entered there. They would have no change. They wanted no railway near them, nor did they court the settlement of factories. It was a rustic settlement, where cows roamed unmolested beneath the maple shade feeding at leisure on the rich grass that grew along the streets.

The majority of the inhabitants were retired farmers who had come in after life’s hard work was done to be nearer to their parish church and priest. The younger men had mostly married into such families. Nearly all the population were related. It was dangerous to pass any remarks on anyone, on a peculiar costume or strangely shaped bonnet. The person whom you addressed would very probably turn to you politely and say:

“Yes, do you think so! She is my mother,” or, “Indeed, that is my sister-in-law.”

When Mrs. Jingle was starting out on the afternoon of Christmas eve she saw at her door the butcher’s cart.

“Good-day, Mrs. Jingle. Want a nice steak today?” said the butcher.

“Not to-day, thank you,” she said bravely. But oh! how she did long for something to give strength to poor Lissa.

“A good steak will be just the thing for Christmas breakfast, Mrs. Jingle. I’ve got some nice cuts here.”

“No—thank you. I haven’t any change to-day,” said the poor woman, with a pain at her heart.

Poor respectability’s cry! “I haven’t an ychange to-day!” Doesn’t every tradesman know very well that it means, I haven’t any money to-day.”

“No matter about the money now, Mrs. Jingle,, your credit is good at our store; you know that.”

Here was a temptation. And Lissa wanting strengthening food so badly, too. As yet she had not gone into debt for one penny. She thought this was the only way to keep her gentility and respectability. It was an excellent plan.

“No, not to-day, thank you.”

“Very good, ma’am. Good day.”

The butcher drove on. The widow wended her way over the crunching snow, up to the house on the top of the hill.

Mr. Grayson was a retired farmer. He was always addressed as Judge, having served part of a term by appointment of the Governor, in early life. His book was human nature. He was philosopher and friend to everybody in the village. Kind hearted, yet remarkably shrewd, his advice was. much sought for. He had one failing, which, if it were a failing at all, arose from his own blunt honesty. He would never mince his words, would call a spade a spade, while in denouncing that which met his disapproval he was not without a power of invective which sometimes cut and wounded far more deeply than he knew.

The judge’s wife was as good an old soul as ever lived. Even the most loquacious of her woman neighbors could pick no holes in the garment of her reputation—not but what they had often tried, in true village fashion.

Childless now—in this sense, that her three sons had married and settled on farms of their own—she devoted her time to keeping her large house in spick and span order. Her best parlor furniture was bright with much rubbing and polishing, reminding one of a boy’s freshly washed face on a winter’s morning. It shone.

Her kitchen was her special realm and her pride. The tins and pewters on the old-fashioned dresser were like mirrors. Her excellence, however, extended farther than cleanliness. She was an excellent cook whose pastry was famous for miles around. Her skill with joints and game was proverbial. Others, less skillful, said she always had plenty “to do with,” but give them the same, and it would be very doubtful if they attained similar results.

“How do you do, Mrs. Jingling. I’m real glad to see you. What a stranger you are, to be sure,” said Judge Grayson, heartily, as he stood at the open front door to receive his visitor. “Come right in, and get warm. How’s all the folks? How’s Lissa this afternoon, and poor little Bella? Do you think the poor child will ever talk?”

Mrs. Jingling knew of old the Judge’s manner. He did not expect answers to all his questions. She seated herself before the fire and spread out her hands to warm them.

“Dear me, Delia, how thin you look,” continued the Judge. “Grievin’ for your husband yet, ain’t you? You’ll worrk yourself into the grave, if you don’t quit. What’s done’s done, and can’t be undone. I s’pose he left you pretty well off? Folk’s do say you got a pile of money from the store when “he died. Let me see; how long ago was that?”

“Nigh on twelve years ago,” said Mrs. Jingling, with a choke in her voice.

"There! there! don’t grieve, Delia. I didn’t mean to open old griefs. Wife says I’m alius making breaks. How’s that boy o’ yourn? Folk do say he never writes no more to you. Where is he?”

"In New York.”

“ ’Tain’t true, is it, that he don’t write?”

"I have not heard from him for a long time. I suppose he’s too busy,” she said, mother-like, though her heart told her differently.

“The rascal! What a scallawag to be too busy to write to his own mother. I’d wring his neck if I had him here, durned if I wouldn’t.”

This was not pleasant for Mrs. Jingling, although she could see the old farmer meant no harm by it.

“How is Eliza?” she asked, to escape the subject of his remarks.

“Why, bless my soul! if I didn’t forget to tell her you’re here. She’s in the kitchen—spends most of her time there, sure’s you live' Hi! ’Liza, hi! come right up. Here’s Delia—Mrs. Jingling come ter see ye,” he shouted downstairs.

“Dew tell!” Mrs. Jingling heard from below, “tell her to come right down to the kitchen. I can’t come up. My hands are full of dough. Come down, Delia.”

“Take off your bonnet and shawl first, Mrs. Jing^ ling,” said the Judge.

“No, thanks; I am not going to stay long. I am going over to the church to confession soon.” “Liza an’ I both went ’s mornin’. We got lots of time on our hands and it’s only right to go early if you can.

Mrs. Jingling, however, did not go to confession that afternoon by reason of the things that happened to her within the next few minutes.

Mrs. Grayson’s visitor found her up to her elbows in flour. Her hands were busy rolling dough with an old-fashioned rolling-pin. She had been cooking nearly all day.

“Why you dear old soul! How are you anyway? It seems an age, I do declare, since I have seen you. I call this real kind 'to come and see me. I can’t shake hands with you just directly, Delia, seein’ as how I got to finish this pastry.”

“It’s Christmas eve, you know, Delia, and the boys with their families are all a coming to dinner to-morrow after Mass. I expected to have my hands full anyhow, so I just baked an extra lot of cookies and them there buns for the children. The children ha’ never done eatin’ them buns whenever they comes to see their grandmother. They alius says that Granny’s buns is best.”

Mrs. Jingling looked around. On a side table were several large plum cakes, layer cakes, cookies, and a large dish, high piled with those breakfast buns, some of which Lissa on her sick couch had asked Santa Claus to send her. In the pantry the widow saw through the open door the trussed turkey, and a moderate sized roast of beef, skewered ready to be put in the oven for to-morrow’s feast. The place was savory with the smell of fresh baked bread. Everything spoke of plentiful abundance.

A pang shot through the widow’s heart when she remembered her own bare larder. It was accompanied with a feeling of bitterness at her own hard lot. Why had she come? It would be harder to bear after this. For a moment an angry feeling welled up, flushing her face.

“Why, Delia, I do declare, you are lookin’ better than I’ve seen you for months. The cold weather agrees with some folks—them as is well fed and clothed. My boys says they alius takes on flesh in the winter months. I’m real glad to see you lookin’ so right smart. Wait one minute, dear, an’ I’ll finish poundin’ this scow dough. Then I’ll put it in the oven and I’ll make you a nice cup of English tea.”

While the other was talking in her good-natured way a thought had come to Mrs. Jingling which sent all the blood from her face, leaving her as pale as a sheet.

Mrs. Grayson, looking up a second time from her hurrying work caught a glimpse of that face. She was startled.

“Why, Delia, what’s the matter! You look like a ghost! What is it?”

“A—a chill, I think. It is very cold outside— below zero.”

“Come right up to the range. You’re going to be sick, if you don’t take care. Here let that go,” and she pushed the dough aside and ran to the sink to wsah her hands.

She hurriedly made Mrs. Jingling a cup of English breakfast tea which brought back some of the color to her face. It did not, however, take away from her eyes a peculiar look which had never been there before. The Judge’s wife in her kindly offiiciousness did not notice this. What was it? A sudden suggestion—a temptation, perhaps! It made Mrs. Jingling feel that her very thoughts could be read by others. Yet the thought remained. She had formed a determination, born partly of her own desperate circumstances, partly by the sight of so much abundance of good things, of which she and her family had so little.

“Liza! Liza! do come upstairs!” shouted Judge Grayson at that minute, from the parlor, “here is someone here from Miss Joyce, the bonnet manu facturer, an' I can’t make head nor tail of his fandango message.”

‘‘Lor’ a mussy! just hear the man!” said Mrs. Grayson. “I do declare that some men are that stupid! It’s the milliner’s boy with a new bonnet for me—I expect Miss Joyce sent some message how it’s to be worn. Help yourself to them buns, Delia, I won’t be gone long. There’s the tea-pot brewing. The next cup’ll be stronger.”

She left the kitchen. As she did so that strange feeling in Mrs. Jingling became stronger. The poor lady looked around the room to see that no one else was there. She even went into the outer kitchen, or scullery as it is called in old-fashioned English, to be more sure.

Trembling from head to foot, she went to the side table where were stacked the abundance of breakfast buns, a couple of which poor Lissa had craved so much. Eliza would never know. Had she not told her to help herself. She rejected this sophism. She was in a high state of excitement. Almost desperate for her child’s sake on the one hand, and equally so on the other through her feeling of pride which rebelled at the thought of asking for some of the buns—it would look so like asking charity—she was scarcely herself for a few minutes. Then, had not the Judge remarked that she must have a tidy pile of money from the store owners after her husband’s death. They evidently thought her well-to-do. No, no, she could not beg; yet here was abundance of what she wanted.

“May the Lord forgive me, but—”

Mrs. Grayson returned laughing heartily at men’s stupidity in matters millinery in general and her husband’s in particular. She found Mrs. Jingling holding the tea-cup to her lips in the seat where she had left her near the range.

“Well, I do declare,” she said, in a surprised tone,' “if them breakfast buns ain’t been an’ gone an’ toppled all over the table.”

“I—I suppose I—”

“Never mind, Delia, I’ll fix ’em up again. Did you take another cup of tea? Well, give me your cup, I’ll pour you out another, good and strong now.”

“No, thanks, Liza, I must be going now.”

She was in feverish haste to be gone.

“Nonsense! child,” said the Judge’s wife. “You just sit still. There’s plenty of time to go to the church and get home before supper.”

“But, Liza—” began the widow.

“She’ll be all right, my dear. She’ll look after Bella. What do you want to hurry for. Don’t worry now.”

Mrs. Jingling did worry. She was determined to leave at once. Nothing could keep her. It was now dark and had begun to snow quite heavily.

“If you are determined to go, Delia, let the Judge hitch up the cutter and take you home.”

“No, no, no,” said the widow, in a fever of anxiety. ‘“It’s not necessary. I can walk well enough.”

“Well, good-bye, dear. Wait—let me get a paper bag out of the pantry. There!” she filled it with breakfast buns. “There! give them to Lissa with my love. I know she’s fond of them.”

When out in the street poor, distracted, tempted Widow Jingling was nearly fainting. What she had done had been useless after all. She was carrying home twelve breakfast buns.

She had stolen six.

CHAPTER IV.
THROUGH LISSA.

When Mrs. Judge Grayson closed the kitchen door on the retreating figure of the widow Jingling, she went to stack up her breakfast buns on the dish —a large meat dish—from which they had fallen.

“Strange!” she said when she had finished. “I thought I cooked more’n them.”

She wasn’t as particular about her grammar as she was about her pastry. She was puzzled, yet no thought of the real cause of the diminution occurred to her. If it had she would have scouted it.

“Delia Jingling acted very strange this afternoon,” she said to her husband as they were at supper.

“Poor critter! I guess she has her troubles like the rest of them,” said the Judge.

“It’s my opinion, Willum,” said his wife solemnly, “it’s my opinion that Delia’s about as poor as she can well be.”

“By gosh! you don’t say!” said "Willum” in a high state of excitement, as he brought his fist down on the table in a way to make the saucers ring, “durned if I ain’t put my foot into it again, then. I alius do, somehow.”

“How?” asked his wife.

“Why, I said, when she came, before she came to you in the kitchen, that I expected she yet had a tidy penny from the big store for her husband’s death.”

“Willum! how could you? That’s twelve years agone, an’ she with a sick girl nearly all the time. How could you.”

The Judge squirmed. The fact that he longed for someone to kick him “good and hard” showed what kind of a man he was, beneath the rough exterior.

“Say! I got a plan which—well, I’ll think on it.”

His wife, really less curios than most of her species, was content. She could afford to wait. She would know all in good time. Besides, she generally approved of his plans after due wifely opposition.

Clarissa, on Christmas morning, was delighted at seeing some of Mrs. Grayson’s buns on the table. Playfully she turned to her mother, saying:

“Oh! isn’t Santa Claus good! He’s almost as good as my mamma! Did Mrs. Grayson send them?”

“Yes, my child, she sent—some. She said she knew you were fond of them.”

The widow kissed her child, but there was no joy in her heart that day. Every sound startled her. In every noise she heard an accusation. It was her first theft. She, who prided herself on her gentility and descent,—how could she have done it! She asked herself this question constantly—yet—yet—oh! could she find no excuse for the deed. Her naturally upright nature found none—absolutely none. Long before she had reached home the night before her conscience was crying aloud.

Her early Christmas mass—of course Lissa could not go—was joyless for her. For the first time in many years, as many as she could remember, Christmas day passed without receiving Holy Communion. And oh! what cheerless feast day it was for the widow without that. She had not gone to confession the night before. There was no time to do so at the early mass. She felt unhappy and miserable. Thus, the Feast of Joy for her was a day of misery.

Three days after Christmas Clarissa took a turn for the worse. She rapidly lost strength. That evening the poor child sank into a kind of coma, which the frightened mother thought was approaching death.

Hurriedly throwing a shawl over her head—in such an extremity casting her pride to the winds— she ran to old Mrs. Furlong’s cottage not far away.

“Come, come quick, please. Lissa is dying.”

Now, the old nurse, although she had a tongue known to be long, and had been piqued for years with what she termed the Jingling uppishness, was sound at the core. To know her services were wanted was enough. She came instantly.

Her experience told her at once what was to be done. Assuring the frightened mother that there was no immediate danger, she set about applying restoratives. Soon Lissa revived. The next day she was brighter than she had been in weeks.

Mrs. Furlong had at length entered the guarded castle! You may be sure she kept her eyes open to learn all she could. When McGruder stopped at her gate that night after the tavern doors were closed against him, she had a delicious tid-bit for him, which she had rolled under her tongue for several hours.

“I got inside,” she said breathlessly, “and would you believe me, there’s hardly a bit of furniture left that’s worth having, or selling—just a lounge for poor Miss Lissa, a couple of wooden chairs and a table was every stick there was in the kitchen, except the stove and the wood-box. The poor critter, she do be that proud she won't let anyone know. I made a make believe and got down into the cellar and lawks sakes! there ain’t no coal nor wood neither there, nor more’n half a bushel o’ taters. I declare to goodness it’s a shame. Where are you goin’ Mc-Gruder. I ain’t told you all yet.”

“I allow it’s cold,” said the village gossip, “and while I’ve got cordwood in the back yard to spare I ain’t goin’ to let any one have a cold stove. Gun-night, Miss Furlong.” And he was off on an errand of charity as fast as he could hobble.

Gossiper, idler of time, waster of energy as he was, there was one warm spot in McGruder’s heart for known distress. All he had said about the Jinglings had been guesswork and surmise. Now he knew. He acted.

The consequence' of Mrs. Furlong’s visit was that others beside McGruder learned sooner or later of the destitution of the Jinglings. Finally it reached the ears of Judge Grayson.

“I’m going down to the Jinglings, ma,” he said on New Year’s day, to his wife.

“What for?” She knew very well what for. “Well, take down some cookies for Lissa.”

“I will that. Say?”

“What?”

"Can’t you put in the basket some nice quince preserves, too?”

"Why, yes. I never thought of that; to be sure.”

Judge Grayson walked down the hill with a good-sized basket on his arm. He thought it was mighty heavy for cookies and preserves.

"Come in, Judge,” said Mrs. Jingling, not without some qualms of conscience. She wondered what and how much the Judge knew.

"How’s Lissa, Delia? We heard she had a spell. Wife sends her some of her cookies, knowing as how the gal is fond of them. As she made me bring them I wouldn’t come ’thout them quinces, which I know Lissa likes so much. I seen her eat it afore to-day. It’s as good as marmalade any day’n the week.”

Part of the speech was not strictly true, but probably the Recording Angel will make some allowances.

When the retired farmer had taken off his wraps and overcoat, he did not know what to do or how to begin. He remembered with what facility he always '‘put his foot in it” whenever he had anything to say. He had something to say now. Consequently he became more than usually circumspect, and—awkward.

“Look here, Delia, ain’t I an’ the missus known ye for a good many years?”

“Yes, Judge, it must be near twenty-one years since I came here,” she answered meekly, with her heart palpitating.

“And did ye ever know me to do or say a mean thing?”

“Never.” She began to tremble. He would not talk like that unless he had found out everything. Surely retribution was about to follow for a moment of weakness.

“Well, then, what I am goin’ to say now I mean. I speak right out from the shoulder, don’t I? You’re pretty badly off, aren’t ye? Speak out, Delia. Don’t be afraid to say so to an old friend.”

Mrs. Jingling blushed and stammered something incoherently. She was on the point of confessing the theft of the six breakfast buns, and throwing herself on his mercy. Had he been less preoccupied in what he was going to say, he might, from her disjointed sentences, have gathered something to that effect. The thought that if Lissa would hear such a revelation it would kill her, checked her speech. Yet she felt she could bear the mental torture no longer.

“Since my boys all married off and settled on their own farms, the old woman (meaning his wife) gets that lonesome there’s no doin’ nothing with her.” Work for the Recording Angel again.

Mrs. Jingling looked up in sheer surprise. Eliza lonesome with that fine house and plenty of money! She felt inclined to laugh.

“It’s a gospel fact, sure’s I’m livin’. Now, Delia —wait now—just listen—I am come to see if we can’t make some sort o’ ’rangement for our mutual comfort, as they say in them story books.”

"Some arrangement! I do not understand you,. Judge, in the least,” said the widow.

Bless my heart! It’s simple enough, Delia. We’ve got a tre-mendous large house—much too' large for one old couple to keep agoin’, since Jim an’ Tom an’ tother lad got married, an’ flitted away to homes o’ their own. Now', what I want you and the children to do, and, mind ye, Eliza’s dead anxious ye shall, is to come up and keep the old woman an’ myself company. Ye can have the best front bedroom, an’ Lissa an’ Bella can have the next one back, and then there’ll be three good rooms to spare. If ye’ll come I’ll call it a real charity to the old woman, an’ I won’t say but what I’ll be mighty glad of it myself, too.”

Good, generous old Judge Grayson! A diamond in the rough, if you will, but a genuine diamond nevertheless! What is correctness of English to a delicacy like this? Who is not proud of such a man!

“That rascal of a Ra—” but the Judge checked himself. He had promised to be diplomatic, and he must take care. He despised Ralph Jingling, yet he was the son of the woman before him. He changed his sentence to the following:

“You see, Delia, this would be a good arrangement, because in your cottage you have no man about, and it ain’t like home unless there’s a man about, is it?”

Mrs. Jingling saw through it all. She appreciated the kindness. She had begun to realize the truth that the feeling of respectable independence is a poor substitute for an empty flour bin. There is much to be said in favor of a full potato sack in one scale, when there is nothing but family pride, be it ever so laudable, in the other pan.

“I am too old now, Judge, for service. I have never done such a thing in my life.”

“Tut! tut! you foolish woman! Who’s talking about going out to service? It’s a companion the old girl wants. She’s getting along in years and the house is lonely. Service! What nonsense you do be saying, Delia.”

“But, Judge, I couldn’t think of burdening you with Lissa and poor little Bella, and I could not leave them.”

“No you couldn’t, and for why? They must come. They won’t be no burden at all. We would be only too pleased to have ’em around the house. There! there! woman! what on earth are you cryin’ about. You’re just as bad as Eliza. She had a good blubber each time there was a weddin’ at home, an’ one of the boys left. Say! you own this cottage, don’t'you?”

“Yes.”

"That’s all right then. Anything on it?”

“Nothing, not a cent.”

“Good; then we’ll fix it up a bit and rent it. It ought to bring ten or twelve dollars a month.”

“Judge Grayson, your kindness to me and mine—”

“There! there! that’s all right. I’ll be round with the bob-sleighs by three o’clock this afternoon. I’ll get McGruder to bring up the things to-morrow. Good-bye, Delia. Good-bye, Lissa.”

He was off, in high glee. The Judge had gained his point. He was of that nature that he could not stand thanks, especially from a tearful woman.

After the Jinglings had been happily established at the Grayson’s about a month, the Judge one day suggested that Bella be sent to St. John’s deaf-mute institute for an education under the care of the Sisters. The mother shrank from the thought of parting with her stricken lamb, but what finally took place is another story.

Did Mrs. Jingling ever confess to the Judge’s wife the theft of the six breakfast buns, which had caused her so much grief and humiliation? Regard for strict veracity compels us to state that she never did. She could never bring herself to do so. She made up in other ways, especially by devotedness and kindness to the ageing couple.

When one day, about a year later, Mrs. Grayson had to lay down her kitchen sceptre (the rolling pin) and take to her bed with a bad attack of chills and fever, then it was that Mrs. Jingling’s gratitude had full scope. Night and day, with unwearied attention, she nursed her, until after a long, long struggle the doctor finally pronounced the patient out of danger.

Judge Grayson declares to this day to his sons that had it not been for Mrs. Jinglings care and excellent nursing “Your mother was a goner, sure.”

END.

ENDNOTES

Endnote 1: Marigolds. The word also means cares, anxieties.

Endnote 2: Pomegranate trees.

Endnote 3: The French Guard were called Ducks ot the Maine, because in the last war they had, during a retreat, crossed the river Maine by swimming.

Endnote 4: There have been several pretenders who personated Louis XVII., claiming that he was rescued by the royalists and tiie child who died in the Temple was not the dauphin, but another substituted in his place. Unfortunately, however, the account here given of the last days of the son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette is the true one.

Endnote 5: That is, the name or fete day. The date of her birth ivas Dec. 19th, 1778.